Hellenistic Constructs: Essays in Culture, History, and Historiography [Reprint 2019 ed.] 9780520918337

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HELLENISTIC

CULTURE AND

SOCIETY

General Editors: Anthony W. Bulloch, Erich S. Gruen, A. A. Long, and Andrew F. Stewart

I.

Alexander to Actium: T h e Historical Evolution of the Hellenistic A g e , by Peter Green

II.

Hellenism in the East: T h e Interaction of Greek and N o n - G r e e k Civilizations from Syria to Central Asia after Alexander, edited by Amélie Kuhrt and Susan Sherwin- White

III.

T h e Question of "Eclecticism": Studies in Later G r e e k Philosophy,

IV

Antigonus the O n e - E y e d and the Creation of the Hellenistic State,

edited by J. M. Dillon and A. A. Long by Richard A. Billows V

A History of M a c e d o n i a , by R. Malcolm Errington, translated by Catherine Errington

VI.

Attic Letter-Cutters of 229 to 86 B.C., by Stephen V Tracy

VII.

T h e Vanished Library: A Wonder of the Ancient World, by Luciano Canfora

VIII. IX. X.

Hellenistic Philosophy of M i n d , by Julia Annas Hellenistic Culture and History, edited by Peter Green T h e Best of the Argonauts: T h e Redefinition of the Epic H e r o in Book 1 of Apollonius' Argonautica, by James J. Clauss

XI.

Faces of Power: Alexander's Image and Hellenistic Politics, by Andrew Stewart

XII.

Images and Ideologies: Self-Definition in the Hellenistic World, edited by A. W. Bulloch, E. S. Gruen, A. A. Long, and A. Stewart

XIII.

From Samarkand to Sardis: A N e w A p p r o a c h to the Seleucid Empire,

XIV

Regionalism and C h a n g e in the E c o n o m y of Independent Delos,

by Susan Sherwin-White and Amélie Kuhrt 314-167 B.c., by Gary Reger XV

H e g e m o n y to Empire: T h e Development of the R o m a n Imperium in the East from 148 to 62 B.C., by Robert Kallet-Marx

XVI. XVII.

M o r a l Vision in the Histories of Polybius, by Arthur M. Eckstein T h e Hellenistic Settlements in Europe, the Islands, and Asia M i n o r , by Getzel M. Cohen

XVIII.

Interstate Arbitrations in the Greek World, 337-90 B.C., by Sheila L. Ager

XIX.

Theocritus's U r b a n Mimes: Mobility, Gender, and Patronage, by Joan B. Burton

XX.

A t h e n i a n D e m o c r a c y in Transition: Attic Letter-Cutters of 340 to 290 B.C., by Stephen V Tracy

XXI.

Pseudo-Hecataeus, " O n the Jews": Legitimizing the Jewish Diaspora, by Bezalel Bar-Kochva

XXII.

Asylia: Territorial Inviolability in the Hellenistic World, by Kent J. Rigsby

XXIII.

The Cynics: The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and Its Legacy, edited by R. Bracht Branham and Marie- Odile Goulet-Caze

XXIV

The Politics of Plunder: Aitolians and Their Koinon in the Early Hellenistic Era, 279-217 B.C., by Joseph B. Scholten The Argonautika, by Apollonios Rhodios, translated, with introduction, commentary, and glossary by Peter Green Hellenistic Constructs: Essays in Culture, History, and Historiography, edited by Paul Cartledge, Peter Garnsey, and Erich Gruen

XXV XXVI.

Hellenistic Constructs

Hellenistic Constructs Essays in Culture, History, and Historiography

EDITED BY

Paul Cartledge, Peter Garnsey, and Erich Gruen

U N I V E R S I T Y O F C A L I F O R N I A PRESS Berkeley Los Angeles London

University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England © 1997 by The Regents of the University of California

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hellenistic constructs : essays in culture, history, and historiography / edited by Paul Cartledge, Peter Garnsey, and Erich Gruen. p. cm. — (Hellenistic culture and society ; v. 26) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-520-20676-2 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Hellenism. 2. Greece—Civilization. 3. Mediterranean Region— Civilization. I. Cartledge, Paul. II. Garnsey, Peter. III. Gruen, Erich S. IV Series : Hellenistic culture and society ; 26. DF77.H5463 1997 938-DC21 97-7317 CIP Printed in the United States of America 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

CONTENTS

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

/

vii

Introduction Paul Cartledge

/

I

i. T h e Heroic Past in a Hellenistic Present Susan E. Alcock

/

20

2. " T h e s e fragments have I shored against my ruins": Apollonios R h o d i o s and the Social Revalidation of M y t h for a N e w A g e Peter Green

/

35

3. Fact and Fiction: Jewish Legends in a Hellenistic C o n t e x t Erich S. Gruen

/

72

4. Hellenistic History in a N e a r Eastern Perspective: T h e B o o k o f Daniel Fergus Millar

/

8g

5. T h e Hellenistic World and R o m a n Political Patronage Jean-Louis Ferrary

/

105

6. Athens between R o m e and the Kings: 229/8 to 129 B.C. H. Mattingly

/

120

7. Poseidonios and Athenion: A Study in Hellenistic Historiography Klaus Bringmann

/

145

8. T h e Middle Stoics and Slavery Peter Garnsey

/

9. Physis and Nomos: Polybius, the Romans, and C a t o the Elder A. M. Eckstein

/

175

10. T h e C o u r t Society of the Hellenistic A g e Gabriel Herman

/

igg

11. Decolonizing Ptolemaic Egypt Roger S. Bagnall

225

I

12. T h e Infrastructure of Splendour: Census and Taxes in Ptolemaic Egypt Dorothy J. Thompson PUBLICATIONS

/

242

OF F. W. W A L B A N K

GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

/

305

/

/ 281

259

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

T h e origins of this present collection lie in a seminar series held in C a m b r i d g e during the Lent T e r m 1993 under the direction of Paul Cartledge, Peter Garnsey, and Dorothy J. T h o m p s o n . N o t all those w h o wished to offer a paper were in the event able to present it in Cambridge. We are happy to include several of those contributions here and regret that w e were unable to accommodate all offers of papers. T h a t so m a n y did wish to contribute to the seminar was largely because it was dedicated to Frank Walbank, then approaching his eighty-fifth birthday and still astonishingly productive at the highest scholarly level (see Publications of F. W. Walbank, kindly prepared by Dorothy Thompson). We are delighted to repeat that dedication here. Besides the contributors and other participants in the C a m b r i d g e seminar, the editors wish to thank w a r m l y the officers of the University of California Press, especially M a r y L a m p r e c h , the Press's anonymous referees, and Judy G a u g h a n and Peter Wyetzner for their compilation o f the volume's bibliography. May 1997 Paul Cartledge, Peter Garnsey, Erich S. Gruen

Ull

Introduction Paul Cartledge

I. H E L L E N I S T I C

STUDIES

TODAY

Hellenistic studies are burgeoning today as perhaps never before. Publishers' series are dedicated specifically to their furtherance on both sides of the Atlantic, and since July 1995 the active reappraisal and radical revaluation of Hellenistic visual art have been complemented and enhanced by what the British Museum claims to be the first permanent Hellenistic gallery anywhere. Consequently, a full-scale review of the "state of the question" in Hellenistic studies today, or rather of the many diverse and highly complex questions at issue, would be not merely inappropriate in a volume such as the present collection of essays but beyond any ordinary mortal's capacity. Fortunately, the Hellenistic entity, period, age or world has not lacked for essays at overall characterization, with plentiful reference to the latest scholarship.' But what has principally eased my introductory task is a

For many suggestions and corrections I am most grateful above all to my co-editors, and also to Ricardo Martinez Lacy, Seth Schwartz, Dorothy Thompson, and Frank Walbank. T h e responsibility for the remaining errors of omission and commission is mine alone. 1. P. Green (ed.), Hellenistic History and Culture (Berkeley, 1993) 5-11 suggests reasons for "the contemporary renaissance in Hellenistic studies" (io), which now even have their own dedicated "small lexicon": H. H. Schmitt and E. Vogt (eds.), Kleines Lexikon des Hellenismus, 2nd ed. (Wiesbaden, 1993). Earlier surveys include J. B. Bury et al., The Hellenistic Age (Cambridge, 1923); P. Jouguet, L'impérialisme macédonien et l'hellénisation de l'Orient (Paris, 1937; repr. 1972 with add. bibl. 1937-1971); W. W. Tarn and G. T. Griffith, Hellenistic Civilisation, 3rd ed. (London, 1952); E. Badian, "The Hellenistic World," in H. Lloyd-Jones (éd.), The Greeks (Harmondsworth, 1965) ch. 10; C . Préaux, "Réflexions sur l'entité hellénistique," ChrEg 40 (1965) 129-39; A- H. M.Jones, " T h e Hellenistic Period," PastPres 27 (1964) 3-22; V Ehrenberg, " T h e Hellenistic A g e " (1964) repr. in Man, State and

1

2

P.

CARTLEDGE

characteristically wide-ranging, fair and incisive a c c o u n t o f some " n e w trends a n d directions" in Hellenistic studies by Frank W a l b a n k , a scholar (as well as a gentleman) w h o has towered over this field for m o r e than half a c e n t u r y a n d has himself written probably the best concise survey of it. 2 H o w e v e r precisely it is defined in time and space, the Hellenistic portion of G r e e k (or G r a e c o - M a c e d o n i a n , G r a e c o - R o m a n , G r a e c o - O r i e n t a l ) history has surely suffered f r o m the outset from its u n h a p p y title. 3 In ancient G r e e k hellenizein m e a n t originally to speak G r e e k , and subsequently to behave like a G r e e k in other than linguistic ways too; but Greek-speakers were Hellenes, not Hellenufe, a n d in English at any rate the suffix "-istic" conjures u p a notion o f pale or failed imitation, Greek-ish, Greek-like, not the real p u k k a thing. It is no coincidence, perhaps, that two o f the most interesting o f m o d ern English historical fictions a b o u t ancient G r e e c e with Hellenistic settings are countercultural novels o f political s u b v e r s i o n — N a o m i Mitchison's The Corn King and the Spring Queen (1933) and William Golding's posthumous (and unfinished) The Double Tongue (1995). T h e inventor o f the Hellenistic age or w o r l d — i n the ancient G r e e k sense o f its protos heuretes, the m a n later generations o f scholars have c o m e to see as its "onlie b e g e t t e r " — i s J o h a n n - G u s t a v Droysen, w h o in 1836 labelled or rather baptised his creation as "Hellenismus," Greek-ism.

(English " H e l l e n i s m , "

Greek-ness, w o u l d not be a correct translation o f Droysen's G e r m a n . ) For h i m , this was a world-historical e p o c h o f the first significance, not only and not so m u c h in its o w n right but thanks chiefly to its missionary role o f evangelical preparation for the predestined d a w n o f Christianity.

Without

the G r a e c o - O r i e n t a l cultural fusion ("Verschmelzung") o f "Hellenismus," D r o y s e n p r e a c h e d , the seed o f the Christian gospel w o u l d have fallen on barren ground.

In the happy event, it fell rather into a fertile seedbed

of hellenizing J u d a i s m watered by the universal fountain o f R o m e ' s global empire. H a d Paul not b e e n a hellenized R o m a n citizen, a n d h a d there not b e e n suitably hellenized Jews both in Palestine and in the Jewish diaspora,

Deity: Essays in Ancient History (London, 1974) 64-106; R . Bichler, "Hellenismus": Geschichte und Problematik eines Epochenbegriffs (Darmstadt, 1983); S. Sherwin-White, " T h e Hellenistic World," History Today (December 1983) 45-48; L. C a n f o r a , Ellenismo (Rome, 1987); H.-J. Gehrke, Geschichte des Hellenismus (Munich, 1990); P. C a b a n e s , Le monde hellénistique de la mort d'Alexandre à la Paix d'Apamée (Paris, 1995); C . Vial, Les Grecs de la Paix d'Apamêe à la bataille d'Actium (Paris, 1995). See also n. 7. 2. F. W. Walbank, " T h e Hellenistic World: new trends and directions," Scripta Classica Israelica 11 (1991/92) 90-113; Walbank, The Hellenistic World, 2 n d e d . (Glasgow, 1992); note also his " R e c e n t work in Hellenistic history," Dialogos 3 (1996) n i - 1 9 . 3. C f . S. A l c o c k , "Breaking up the Hellenistic World: survey and society," in I. Morris (ed.), Classical Greece: Ancient Histories and Modern Archaeologies (Cambridge, 1994) 171-90.

Introduction

3

Christianity would have been doomed to remain, and probably soon wither and die, as a tiny, parochial Jewish sect. T h a t the new religion spread and flourished as it did, "universally," was made possible, according to the Droysen version, only by the prior and surely divinely planned establishment of "Hellenismus," the Hellenistic world and its receptively fecund culture. 4 Droysen's Hellenism, therefore, was without doubt an overwhelmingly good thing. However, in the eyes of most subsequent classical scholarship on the ancient Greeks, suffused as it soon became with an often uncritical adulation of Greek glory, it appeared almost entirely the reverse. T h e imaginary Greece that came to exercise its "tyranny" over Europe and America in the nineteenth and early twentieth century was not Droysen's "Hellenismus" but what had come to be called in basically art-historical terms "Classical Greece." This comprised the golden century and a half from the defeats of the invading Persians in Greece (490, 480-79 B.C.E.) to the defeat of the invaded Persian empire by Greeks under Alexander the Great (d. 323). This was the Greece of Pericles and Demosthenes, Herodotus and Thucydides, the great tragedians and Aristophanes, of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, and of the Parthenon at Athens and Pheidias' chryselephantine statue of Zeus at Olympia. By comparison, so it was generally believed, the Hellenistic age could not but be construed and viewed as a decline, if not a catastrophe, of which the conquest of the Greek world by Rome was the perfecdy apt symbol and expression. 5 Despite and to a certain degree because of Droysen, this negative image has never quite been redressed, let alone expunged. It can, indeed, be questioned whether it is correct to speak of a self-contained Hellenistic age, epoch or period. 6 Even if the term is allowed, the Hellenistic entity still tends to be something of a stepchild, a Cinderella, in ancient Graeco-Roman historical studies. This is parüy due to the dearth of ancient narrative sources that might give it a single, strong and coherent story line, partly thanks to the intrinsic difficulty of mastering the huge diversity of original written and non-written materials, and partly, as mentioned above, because of its

4. A . D. M o m i g l i a n o , " G e n e s i storica e f u n z i o n e attuale del c o n c e t t o di E l l e n i s m o " (1935) repr. in Contributo alla storia degli studi classici (Rome, 1955) 165-94; "J- G . D r o y s e n b e t w e e n G r e e k s a n d J e w s " (1970) repr. in G. B o w e r s o c k a n d T.J. C o r n e l l (eds.), Studies on Modern Scholarship (Berkeley, 1994) 147-61; cf. P r é a u x , " R é f l e x i o n s " 138; B. Bravo, Philologie, histoire, philosophie de l'histoire (Wroclaw, W a r s a w and C r a c o w , 1968); H . T r e v o r Roper, "Jacob B u r c k h a r d t , " ProcBritAc 70 (1984) 359-78, at 376-77; J. R . M a r t i n e z Lacy, Dos aproximaciones a la historiografía de la antigüedad clasica ( M e x i c o City, 1994) 65-80. 5. For p o w e r f u l reflections on the m o d e r n historiography a n d ideology o f "Classical G r e e c e , " see Morris, "Archaeologies of G r e e c e , " in M o r r i s (ed.), Classical Greece, 8 - 4 7 . 6. Bichler, " H e l l e n i s m u s C a n f o r a , Ellenismo.

4

P.

CARTLEDGE

seemingly unerasable cultural defects. This does not mean that it has failed to attract great, indeed some of the greatest, historical scholarship—far from it. In our century the names of Bickerman, Momigliano, Préaux, Robert, Rostovtzeff, Walbank and Edouard Will spring readily enough to mind. But whenever the attempt to do something more like justice to "Hellenism" begins to gather collective weight and seems to be tipping the balance from mere recuperation into positive approval, as it has in the eighties and nineties, it is noticeable how quickly it excites a powerful opposite reaction. Thus, whereas Walbank in his recent review of scholarship could speak of "many Greek cities" developing "a flourishing social and intellectual life" in the Hellenistic era and finding "new avenues to self-definition," admittedly within the "limitations which the existence of monarchies imposed," Peter Green's massive survey was simultaneously painting an anti-Panglossian picture in which almost everything was for the worst in the worst of all possible worlds. 7 T h e present introduction, like the volume as a whole, will aim to hold the balance with a steady and impartial hand. W h a t it will not aim to do is present an artificially tidied-up version of an in fact ever more messy scholarly arena, and what it cannot hope to do is in any sense "cover the field": students of Hellenistic philosophy and Hellenistic society (or rather societies), in particular, may well feel that they or their subject-areas are being somewhat unfairly shortchanged, whereas those unenthralled by matters economic may possibly feel the opposite. T h e tide of academic culture-warring in its various guises and battlegrounds —especially the discourses or rhetorics of Orientalism and multiculturalism, and the disputed validity of the (or a) Western literary c a n o n — has washed fitfully over the shores of Greek and Hellenistic studies.8 In response to the claim that the ancient Greeks were the original Orientalist sinners, uninterested in, contemptuous of or baffled by "alien wisdom," scholars including some Hellenistic specialists have countered that Ptolemaic Egypt and Seleucid Syria were precisely multicultural societies. 9 Both claim and counter-claim would seem to lack solid grounding, not least because

7. W a l b a n k , " N e w trends" 95.

P. G r e e n , From Alexander to Actium:

The Historical

Evolution of the Hellenistic Age (Berkeley, 1990, corr. repr. 1993); rev. b y D. Potter, 2.6 (1991) 3 5 7 - 6 3 , with reply b y G r e e n , BMCR

6.4 (1995) 3 6 3 - 6 4 .

BMCR

G r e e n ' s generally

d o w n b e a t position has b e e n vigorously endorsed by V D . H a n s o n , The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization ( N e w York, 1995) e.g. 414. 8. E. Said, Culture and Imperialism ( H a r m o n d s w o r t h , 1993); Orientalism, n e w ed. with " A f t e r w o r d " ( H a r m o n d s w o r t h , 1995); M . Bernai, Black Athena: The Afro-Asiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, 2 vols, (of 4) to date ( L o n d o n , 1987-1991). See also BAGNALL, below. 9. M o m i g l i a n o , Alien

Wisdom: The Limits of Hellenization

J o h n s o n (ed.), Life in a Multi-Cultural

( C a m b r i d g e , 1975); J. H .

Society: Egypt from Cambyses to Constantine and Be-

5

Introduction

" H e l l e n i s m " a n d " h e l l e n i z a t i o n " (by w h i c h m a y b e m e a n t t h e a d o p t i o n

or

a d a p t a t i o n o f G r e e k n a m e s , w o r d s a n d institutions, but also the r e c e p t i o n o f G r e e k political ideas, lifestyle a n d literary, artistic a n d a r c h i t e c t u r a l i d e a s a n d practices) are themselves contested terms. H e n c e , the "fusion" of D r o y s e n , w i t h its u n s c h o l a r l y i m p l i c a t i o n o f r a c e , is n o w r i g h t l y s e e n t o b e q u i t e inappropriate.10 O n the other h a n d , the notion of an ancient society treating m e m b e r s o f v e r y d i f f e r e n t c u l t u r e s t o l e r a n t l y o n p r i n c i p l e n o less b l a t a n t l y bears the hallmark of our c o n t e m p o r a r y t i m e s — o r wishes. The

scholarly

issue w o u l d

now

seem

r a t h e r to t u r n

on whether

the

essentially a n d e n d u r i n g l y s e p a r a t e G r e e k , S y r i a n , E g y p t i a n a n d so forth cultural communities

ever co-existed on a footing of anything

remotely

resembling equality." Talk of a Greek "colonial" mentality and of "cultural a n d r e l i g i o u s apartheid"

in E g y p t w o u l d suggest they did not.12

I n so far

a s c u l t u r a l " h e g e m o n y " is a u s a b l e h i s t o r i o g r a p h i c a l c o n c e p t , t h a t w o u l d a p p e a r to h a v e r e m a i n e d f i r m l y in G r e e k hands.13

A more than ordinarily

t e l l i n g t e s t c a s e , b o t h b e c a u s e it h a r k s b a c k t o D r o y s e n ' s o r i g i n a l c o n c e p t i o n a n d b e c a u s e it i n v o l v e s r e l i g i o n a t its c o r e , is t h e e n c o u n t e r o f G r e e k s Jews.14

Momigliano's

contention

that despite their h a v i n g "so m u c h

and in

jyond (Chicago, 1992); K . Galinsky, Classical and Modern Interactions: Postmodern Architecture, Multiculturalism, Decline, and Other Issues (Austin, 1992); cf. E.J. Bickerman, Institutions des Séleucides (Paris, 1938); A . K u h r t and S. Sherwin-White, Hellenism in the East (London, 1987); Sherwin-White and Kuhrt, From Samarkhand to Sardis (London and Berkeley, 1993); and now for the pre-Hellenistic background K u h r t , The Ancient Near East £.3000-330 BC, 2 vols. (London and N e w York, 1995). 10. M . Hadas, Hellenistic Culture, Fusion and Diffusion (New York and London, 1959) unacceptably follows and extends Droysen's notion of "fusion"; contra P. Fraser, CR n.s. 11 (1961) 145-48. T h e racial dimension is still palpable in C . Schneider, Kulturgeschichte des Hellenismus, 2 vols. (Munich, 1967-1969): see contra O . Murray, CR n.s. 19 (1969) 69-72. 11. R . S. Bagnall, " G r e e k s and Egyptians: ethnicity, status and culture," in Cleopatra's Egypt: Age of the Ptolemies (Brooklyn Mus. Exhibition, 1988) 21-26; B. Virgilio (ed.), Studi Ellenistici, 3 vols. (Pisa, 1984, 1987, 1990) 1987: 107-89. 12. " C o l o n i a l mentality": Ed. Will, "Pour une 'anthropologie coloniale' du monde hellénistique," i n j . W. Eadie a n d j . O b e r (eds.), The Craft of the Ancient Historian. Fest. C. G. Starr (Lanham, 1985) 273-301. "Apartheid": Walbank, " N e w trends," 102; cf. N. Lewis, Greeks in Ptolemaic Egypt: Case Studies in the Social History of the Hellenistic World (New York, 1986) 135; A . E. Samuel, From Athens to Alexandria: Hellenism and Social Goals in Ptolemaic Egypt (Louvain, 1983), and The Shifting Sands of History: Interpretations of Ptolemaic Egypt (Lanham and L o n d o n , 1989). 13. G . Shipley, "Distance, D e v e l o p m e n t , Decline?

World-systems analysis and the

'Hellenistic' world," in P. Bilde et al. (eds.), Centre and Periphery in the Hellenistic World (Aarhus, 1994) 271-84, at 282. 14. V Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilisation and the Jews (Philadelphia, 1959); M . Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism (London, 1974); Jews, Greeks and Barbarians: Aspects of the Hellenization

6

P.

C A R T L E D G E

common, Greeks and Jews do not seem to have spoken to each other'" 0 may need to be modified only a little. But that little is deeply significant. Even the Maccabees, the supreme symbol ofJewish repudiation of the Greek Other, fought their Graeco-Macedonian would-be overlords with Hellenistic rather than traditional Jewish military, diplomatic and institutional instruments. 16 In another sense of culture—the "high" culture of the literary and visual arts, and of the multiplying fields of intellectual endeavour—the Hellenistic era has long been recognised as one of exceptional fertility, if not always of comparably desirable quality. In literary criticism and "hard" science, for example, Hellenistic scholars unquestionably set the agenda and the tone for future ages, including arguably our own. 17 But the question whether Hellenistic imaginative literature, historiography, and visual arts were as "good" as their Classical predecessors in all or most branches has often been answered negatively. Current perspectives and perceptions, however, would suggest that a far more positive appraisal is under way here, as in other areas. 18 T h e rehabilitation of Polybius by Walbank, for example, stands as a conspicuous monument and beacon of modern scholarship. 19 Another

of Judaism in the Pre-Christian Period (London, 1980); Momigliano, Alien Wisdom, 74-122; " G r e e k Culture and the Jews," in M . I. Finley (ed.), The Greek Legacy: A New Appraisal (Oxford, 1981) 325-46; On Pagans, Jews and Christians (Middletown, C o n n . , 1987); Essays on Ancient and Modern Judaism (Chicago, 1994); L. H . Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World: Attitudes and Interactions from Alexander to Justinian (Princeton, 1993). 15. M o m i g l i a n o , Alien Wisdom, 81. 16. Feldman, Jew and Gentile', cf. T. R a j a k , " T h e Jews under H a s m o n e a n rule,"

CAH

I X , 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1994), 274-309, at 280-87 ( " T h e emergence of Judaea as a Hellenistic state"). See also GRUEN, MILLAR, below. 17. P. M . Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1972); A . W. Erskine, " C u l t u r e and power in Ptolemaic Egypt: T h e M u s e u m and the Library of A l e x a n d r i a , "

G&R

42 (1995) 38-48; J. Sirinelli, Les enfants d'Alexandre: La littérature et la pensée grecques, 334 av. J.-C.—519

ap.J.-C.

(Paris, 1993).

18. See e.g. W. R . Connor, "Historical writing in the fourth century B.C. and in the Hellenistic period," in P. Easterling and B. M . W. K n o x (eds.), Cambridge History of Classical Literature I. Greek Literature (Cambridge, 1985) 458-71; S. Goldhill, " T h e naive and knowing eye: ecphrasis and the culture of viewing in the Hellenistic world," in S. Goldhill and R . O s b o r n e (eds.), Art and Text in Ancient Greek Culture (Cambridge, 1994) 197—223; D. H a h m , "Polybius' applied political theory," in A . Laks and M . Schofield (eds.), Justice and Generosity: Studies in Hellenistic Social and Political Philosophy (Cambridge, 1995) 7-47; N. H i m m e l m a n n , "Realistic art in A l e x a n d r i a , " ProcBritAc 67 (1981) 193-207; J.J. Polliti, Art in the Hellenistic Age (Cambridge, 1986); C . M . Robertson, " W h a t is 'Hellenistic' about Hellenistic art?" in G r e e n (ed.) (n. 1) 67-103; R . R . R . Smith, Hellenistic Sculpture (London and N e w York, 1991). 19. Walbank, A Historical Commentary on Polybius, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1957, 1967, 1979); Polybius (Berkeley, 1972); "Polybius between G r e e c e and R o m e " (1974) repr. in Selected

Introduction

7

instance of significant, if far more controversial, reappraisal is the positive role in practical politics that has been assigned to certain philosophers, contradicting the widespread notion of philosophical withdrawal in face of the new large, distant and impersonal Hellenistic political structures. 20 N o less noteworthy in its own way is the extraordinary popular success of cheap translations of Epicurus' Letter to Menoeceus (one and a half million copies sold in a pocket Italian version within the first six months of its publication in 1993), which might seem to suggest that at any rate Epicureanism's upward mobility of esteem is not confined to the academic classes. 21 H o w precisely the separate "national" communities of the Hellenistic world defined themselves as such has also been a matter for growing scholarly concern, again under the compulsion of our own fraught times. 22 Instead of race, it now tends to be ethnicity that occupies centre stage in the language of modern scholarship, although this relatively newfangled concept is in danger of seeming hardly less vacuous or ambiguous. A myth of common origin, and attachment to a defined territory, would appear to be two of the primary and constant criteria of ethnicity, with language coming a close third. But two Ptolemaic papyri well illustrate the problems of applying ethnic self-definition in practice: first, in the well known Zenon archive, a probably Arab camel driver complains that he has not been paid because he is a barbarian and "does not know how to hellenizein," that is, behave like a Greek; in another text, a Greek complains no less bitterly that he is being treated unfairly because he is not a Macedonian. To complicate still further this Greek-Macedonian confusion, we might note that in the eyes of Ptolemaic officialdom a J e w could be accounted a "Hellene." 2 3 On the other side of the ledger, however, should be placed the homogenizing tendency of Ptolemaic (and Seleucid) military recruitment. What made and kept the Hellenistic kingdoms unitary monarchies were their armies, and in both Egypt and Syria these were significantly "polyethnic"

Papers: Studies in Greek and Roman History and Historiography (Cambridge, 1985) 280-97; CFA. M. Eckstein, Moral Vision in the Histories ofPoly bius (Berkeley, 1994); and ECKSTEIN, below. 20. A. W. Erskine, The Hellenistic Stoa: Political Thought and Action (London, 1990). But see J. Annas, The Morality of Happiness (New York, 1993) esp. ch. 13 ("Justice"). 21. Positive reappraisals of Hellenistic philosophies include M. Schofield, The Stoic Idea of the City (Cambridge, 1991); Annas, Morality, M. Nussbaum, The Therapy ofDesire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Princeton, 1994); and Laks and Schofield (eds.), Justice and Generosity. 22. A. W. Bulloch et al. (eds.), Images and Ideologies: SelfDefinition in the Hellenistic World (Berkeley, 1993); Green (ed.), Hellenistic History and Culture. 23. Both texts are cited by Walbank, Hellenistic World, 115. Jews as "Hellenes": see THOMPSON, p. 247, below.

8

P.

CARTLEDGE

in composition. 2 4 A rather different source of ethnic confusion was that in the sight of both Greeks a n d Macedonians, a n d a fortiori, one presumes, of what W. W. T a r n called "culture-Greeks," the Romans were essentially "barbarians." Yet the latter not only became firmly established as the political lords a n d masters of the Greek world from the later third century B.C.E. onwards, but they did so in significant measure by means of proclaiming themselves to be adepts and devotees of Greek culture. It was only a matter of time, presumably, before " R o m a n s " came to be constituted as a third term, between "Greeks" and "barbarians." 2 5 Hellenistic politics, in the sense of the political events a n d processes that occurred within and between the new Hellenistic territorial and dynastic monarchies, are exceptionally confused and likely to remain confusing, despite the masterly syntheses of Will. 26 This is largely, though not entirely, a source problem. For many scholars, however, the key question has been not so much how a n d why such political relations were conducted, but whether or not the quintessentially Greek institution of the polis survived the establishment of the monarchies as a meaningful, lived reality in any shape or form. H e n c e the scholarly issue of Hellenistic politics has often been taken to be that of the crisis, decline a n d / o r continuity of the polis as such, together with its associated civic identities. 27 T h e standard answer given until quite recentiy was negative. T h o s e w h o followed Aristotle in valuing uniquely highly the supposed autonomy a n d independence of the ideally free, sovereign and self-governing Greek citizenstate, and especially those w h o (unlike Aristotle) esteemed greatly its experim e n t in direct, participatory democracy, could not but deplore what they

24. M. M. Austin, "The Age of Kings from Alexander to the Roman conquest," in R. Browning (ed.), The Greek World (London and New York, 1985) 185-200, at 199; "Hellenistic kings, war and the economy," CQ n.s. 36 (1986) 450—66; cf. M. Launey, Recherches sur les armées hellénistiques, 2 vols. (Paris, 1949-1950, repr. with add. 1987); B. S. Strauss, "From Ethnicity to Status: Polyethnic armies and the making of the Hellenistic kingdoms" (forthcoming). 25. J.-L. Ferrary, Philhellénisme et impérialisme: Aspects idéologiques de la conquête romaine du monde hellénistique (Rome, 1988); R. Browning, "Greeks and Others: From Antiquity to the Renaissance," in his History, Language and Literacy in the Byzantine World (Northampton, 1989) ch. 2. 26. Ed. Will, Histoire politique du monde hellénistique, 2 vols., 2nd ed. (Nancy, 1979—1982); cf. Will, "Le monde hellénistique," in Will, Cl. Mossé and P. Goukowsky, Le monde grec et l'Orient II. Le IVe siècle et l'époque hellénistique (Paris, 1975). Problems of chronography: e.g. MATTINGLY, below.

27. See e.g. Cl. Mossé, "La crise de la 'polis' et la fin de la civilisation grecque," in Will et al., Monde grec II. 187-244; M. Wôrrle and P. Zanker (eds.), Stadtbild und Biirgerbild im Hellenismus (Munich, 1995).

Introduction

9

saw as the loss of political independence and vitality in the cities caused by direct monarchical intervention or by interference at the kings' behest, of which they took the suppression of democracy at Athens by Macedon to be the paradigmatic instance. T h e Romans on this view merely carried on where they had forced the Graeco-Macedonian kings to leave off, suppressing external independence and finally extinguishing such etiolated simulacra of democracy as still struggled feebly to persist.28 Against this once standard position—still cherished in some powerful quarters—there has been counterposed a far more optimistic interpretation.29 Granted, the rise of Hellenistic monarchy and its ex post facto ideological justifications did undoubtedly affect the quality of political life in the old Greek cities.30 But the outcome, on this alternative view, was by no means altogether negative. Citizens continued to act politically, even indeed democratically in some cases, well into the second century B.C.E. It was, moreover, a healthy sense of political self-identity that lay behind and helped to inspire political resistance to Rome. So far, in fact, was the Greek city from either dying on its feet or being murdered by external agencies that the polis of Hellenic type provided the model towards which indigenous towns within the Graeco-Macedonian hegemonial orbit tended to evolve spontaneously. 31 T h e jury on that particular case is still out, partly because much of the evidence for the revised picture consists of official epigraphy that may not be

28. See e.g. G. E. M . de Ste. Croix, The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World: From the Archaic Age to the Arab Conquests (London and Ithaca, 1981, corr. impr. 1983); Green, Alexander to Actium; S. Alcock, Graecia Capta: The Landscapes of Roman Greece (Cambridge, 1993)29. See esp. P. Gauthier, Les cités grecques et leurs bienfaiteurs (Paris, 1985); "Les cités hellénistiques," in M . H. Hansen (ed.), The Ancient Greek City-State (Copenhagen, 1993) 211-31; A . Giovannini, "Greek cities and Greek commonwealth," in Bulloch et al., Images, 265-86; E. S. Gruen, " T h e Polis in the Hellenistic World," in R. M . Rosen and J. Farrell (eds.), NOMODEIKTES. Fest. M. Ostwald (Ann Arbor, 1993) 339-54; F. Millar, " T h e Greek city in the Roman period," in Hansen (ed.), City-State, 232-60; P. Zanker, "Brüche im Bürgerbild? Zur bürgerlichen Selbstdarstellungen in den hellenistischen Städten," in Wörrle and Zanker, Stadtbild, 251-63; Die Maske des Sokrates: Das Bild des Intellektuellen in der antiken Kunst (Munich, 1995). 30. V Ehrenberg, The Greek State, 2nd ed. (London, 1969) Part II; Chr. Habicht, Gottmenschentum und griechische Städte, 2nd ed. (Munich, 1970); Walbank, "Monarchies and Monarchie Ideas," in C 4 i / V I I . i , 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1984) 62-100; "Könige als Götter: Überlegungen zum Herrscherkult von Alexander bis Augustus," Chiron 17 (1987) 365-82; K . Bringmann, " T h e K i n g as Benefactor," in Bulloch et al., Images, 7-24; A . E Stewart, Faces of Power: Alexander's Image and H clients tic Politics (Berkeley, 1993); cf. S. Price, Ritualsand Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge, 1984). 31. Ed. Will, "Poleis hellénistiques: Deux notes," EchCl n.s. 7 (1988) 329-52, at 349.

10

P.

C A R T L E D G E

telling anything like the whole truth. It is, besides, considerably offset by both literary a n d archaeological testimony. T h e r e is, first, the persistent literary evidence of serious internal civil strife (stasis) b e t w e e n rich and p o o r citizens, not least in " o l d " G r e e c e , with the p o o r d e m a n d i n g ever m o r e insistently redistribution o f land a n d cancellation of debts. T h e s e are the t i m e - h o n o u r e d slogans of oppressed peasantry, v o i c e d by Greeks since the seventh century, but the e c o n o m i c oppression seems to have b e e n c o m p o u n d e d in Hellenistic times by a g r o w i n g sense o f political powerlessness. 32 Archaeologically, the evidence provided thus far by intensive field-survey consistently suggests a rather sudden a n d sharp decline o f rural setdement a n d activity after about 250

B.C.E.;

in particular, the available data for the fate o f rural G r e e k

sanctuary sites in the Hellenistic (and R o m a n ) period w o u l d a p p e a r to point to " a m a j o r upheaval in the religious landscape, and thus to a radical restructuring o f local allegiances a n d indeed emotions." 3 3 E v e n the

fiercest

advocates of continuing Hellenistic political vitality should c o n c e d e at least that the nature o f politics was b e i n g redefined in a c c o r d a n c e with a new, m o r e sociocultural than political, c o n c e p t i o n of citizenship.

T h e general

upwards revaluation of the status of w o m e n , or at any rate o f free G r e e k citizen w o m e n in the cities, w o u l d tend to corroborate the inference o f a c o r r e s p o n d i n g devaluation o f the civic-political status o f their relatively disempowered menfolk. 3 4 O n the other h a n d , the creation or further d e v e l o p m e n t o f the suprapolis entities that w e call " l e a g u e s " is sufficient to disprove the notion that G r e e k political ingenuity was exhausted in the Hellenistic period. W h e t h e r or not these leagues were true federal states, those o f A c h a e a and A e t o l i a above all certainly proved to be practical alternatives to the single polis as p o w e r units, d u r i n g a period that saw the f o r m e r great powers of the Classical period, A t h e n s a n d Sparta, r e d u c e d internationally to near nullity. 35

32. W. W. T a r n , " T h e social question in the third century," in Bury et al. (n. 1), 108-40; A . Fuks, "Patterns and types of social-economic revolution in G r e e c e from the fourth to the second centuries B.C.," Ancient Society 5 (1974) 51-81, repr. as Social Conflict in Ancient Greece (Jerusalem and Leiden, 1984) ch. 2; Préaux, Monde hellénistique, 528; J. R . Martinez Lacy, Rebeliones populares en la Grecia helenística (Mexico City, 1995). 33. A l c o c k , " M i n d i n g the gap in Hellenistic and R o m a n G r e e c e , " in S. E. A l c o c k and R . G. O s b o r n e (eds.), Placing the Gods: Sanctuaries and Sacred Space in Ancient Greece (Oxford, '994) 247-61, at 261. 34. O . Murray, "Forms of sociality," in J.-P. Vernant (ed.), The Greeks (Chicago, 1995) 218-53, at 244-45; c f- S. Pomeroy, Women in Hellenistic Egypt, 2nd ed. (Detroit, 1990); P. Schmitt Pantel, La cité au banquet: Histoire des repas publics dans les cités grecques (Rome, 1992). 35. Walbank, "Were there G r e e k federal states?" Scripta Classica Israelita 3 (1976/77) 2 7 51, repr. in Selected Papers, 20-37; Historical Commentary on Polybius III (Oxford, 1979) 406-14.

Introduction

11

For most individual Hellenistic poleis, therefore, the great game of international politics consisted essentially in diplomacy, all the more tricky in that it could not usually be backed by any credible threat of force. T h e concept of neutrality or non-alignment, dimly adumbrated in the Classical era, became understandably more popular, if no less hard to achieve. 36 The one Greek city to cut anything like a stylishly independent dash on the international scene for any length of time was Rhodes, but this revealingly was no traditional polis: the unified city was the product of a relatively very recent (408 B . C . E . ) sunoikismos, and its democracy (or "democracy") was underpinned by a significantly polyethnic social and economic infrastructure. 37 If we shift our gaze from politics to economics, we find the Russian émigré Mikhail I. Rostovtzeff still casting a long shadow. For sheer breadth and depth of empirical knowledge his work is unlikely to be equalled let alone surpassed. However, its theoretical, or more precisely ideological, structure is far more vulnerable to criticism, above all on grounds of anachronism but also for its Orientalism. 38 Rostovtzeff understood the Hellenistic world as a single, interdependent economic system characterized by sustained economic growth that was driven above all by long-distance interregional trade conducted by agents of a rising urban bourgeoisie. All four main elements of that picture—system, growth, trade, bourgeoisie—have come under intense and often successful attack. A recent summarizing article offers a convenient handle on the principal issues.39 Using Immanuel Wallerstein's "world-systems" model of the early-modern and modern economy as a means of "posing new questions about social, political and economic structures" in the Hellenistic world, Shipley plausibly doubts the existence of anything approaching a single economic system, let alone a world system, in the Hellenistic

Athens: Chr. Habicht, Athen in Hellenistischer Zeit, 2nd ed. (Munich, 1994); MATTINGLY, below. Sparta: P. Cartledge and A. Spawforth, Hellenistic and Roman Sparta: A Tale of Two Cities (London and New York, 1989). 36. R. A. Bauslaugh, The Concept ofNeutrality in Classical Greece (Berkeley, 1991). 37. Besides Will (n. 26) see P. M. Fraser, Rhodian Funerary Monuments (Oxford, 1977). 38. M. I. Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1941/1953); cf. C . B . Welles, "Michael I. Rostovtzeff," in Fest. A. P. Usher (Tübingen, 1956); J . Andreau, "Introduction" to Histoire économique et sociale du monde hellénistique (Paris, 1989); M. A. Wes, Michael Rostovtzeff, Historian in Exile: Russian Roots in an American Context (Stuttgart, 1990); J . R. Martinez Lacy, Dos aproximaciones (n. 4), 149-60; Momigliano, Studies on Modern Scholarship, 32-43. 39. Shipley, "Distance" (n. 13); cf. J . K . Davies, "Cultural, social and economic features of the Hellenistic world," CAH VII.1, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1984) 257-320.

12

P. C A R T L E D G E

epoch.40

A s f o r g r o w t h , a tricky e n o u g h c o n c e p t to p i n d o w n e v e n in

m o d e r n e c o n o m i c s , its a p p l i c a b i l i t y to a n y preindustrial e c o n o m i c o r d e r is yet m o r e d o u b t f u l . S o far as a n y s u p p o s e d c e n t r a l m a n a g e m e n t o f g r o w t h is c o n c e r n e d , S h i p l e y p r o p e r l y distinguishes b e t w e e n the kings' u n d o u b t e d c o n c e r n to m a x i m i z e r e v e n u e s via t a x a t i o n (royal m o n o p o l i e s , crops, etc.) a n d the rationality o f m a n a g e d e c o n o m i c m a x i m i z a t i o n per se w i t h w h i c h t h e y h a v e s o m e t i m e s b e e n c r e d i t e d . T h e latter he c o n s i d e r s to h a v e b e e n non-existent: " T h e k i n g w a s a b o v e all a m i l i t a r y a n d religious leader, n o t an economic bureaucrat."41 In a n y case, e v e n if there really w a s g r o w t h , d e v e l o p m e n t or p r o g r e s s — w h o m d i d it benefit? A l t h o u g h R o s t o v t z e f f identified the Hellenistic p e r i o d as o n e c h a r a c t e r i z e d largely b y e c o n o m i c prosperity, i n v o l v i n g p r o g r e s s in p r o d u c t i o n , active c o m m e r c e a n d a c c u m u l a t i o n o f capital, he w a s p e r f e c t l y w e l l a w a r e that such overall p r o s p e r i t y c o u l d g o h a n d in h a n d w i t h a n u n s a t i s f a c t o r y lot for the w o r k i n g classes (about w h o m , admittedly, h e f o u n d relatively little to say).

E c o n o m i c g r o w t h o r prosperity, in o t h e r w o r d s ,

m u s t n o t be v i e w e d o n l y f r o m the p e r s p e c t i v e o f the politically d o m i n a n t p a r t n e r s in a n y relationship.

R o b e r t Sallares, f o r e x a m p l e , has p o s t u l a t e d

a p r o b a b l e s o c i o - e c o n o m i c crisis o f o v e r p o p u l a t i o n d u r i n g the third century, e x p l i c a b l e in b i o l o g i c a l - d e m o g r a p h i c t e r m s , that w o u l d h a v e differentially a f f e c t e d the p o o r a n d m a r g i n a l farmers. 4 2 In the p e r i p h e r a l P e l o p o n n e s e , the m a t e r i a l e v i d e n c e o f intensive a r c h a e o l o g i c a l

field-survey

s e e m s to c o n f i r m

o b j e c t i v e l y the l i t e r a r y e v i d e n c e strongly s u g g e s t i n g that o w n e r s h i p o f l a n d h a d b e c o m e polarized.43

In the A e g e a n , too, the g a p b e t w e e n the r i c h

a n d the n o n - r i c h d e m o n s t r a b l y w i d e n e d , l e a d i n g h e r e as e l s e w h e r e to the i n c r e a s e d p r e v a l e n c e o f e c o n o m i c a l l y m o t i v a t e d stasis a n d r e v o l u t i o n n o t i c e d a b o v e . O u t s i d e the old G r e e k city areas, u n f r e e d o m in the s h a p e o f s e r f d o m i n c r e a s e d , or at a n y rate persisted to a n e x t e n t p r o b a b l y u n d e r e s t i m a t e d e v e n b y d e Ste. C r o i x . 4 4

40. See now G. Reger, Regionalism and Change in the Economy of Independent Delos, 314-167 B.C. (Berkeley, 1994). 41. Samuel, From Athens to Alexandria (n. 12) has likewise emphasised the persistence of traditional economic outlooks and practices. 42. R. Sallares, The Ecology of the Ancient Greek World (London, 1991). 43. Alcock, Graecia Capta; M . H . J a m e s o n , C . N . Runnels and T j . van Andel, A Greek Countryside: The Southern Argolidfrom Prehistory to the Present Day (Stanford, 1994) 394. 44. Ste. Croix, Class Struggle, 155-57;

H. Kreissig, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft im

Seleukidenreich (Berlin/Ost, 1978); Geschichte des Hellenismus (Berlin/Ost, 1984); "Weiteres zum Hellenismus," Klio 67 (1985) 603-607; D. Rathbone, " T h e ancient economy in Graeco-Roman Egypt," in L. Criscuolo and G. Geraci (eds.), Egitto e storia antica dall' ellenismo all' età araba (Bologna, 1989) 159-76.

Introduction

13

Thirdly, trade. Rostovtzeff stood somewhere between the "primitivist" Karl Bücher and the "modernist" Eduard Meyer on the issues of the nature of "the ancient economy" and the role of markets therein, though appreciably nearer to the latter.45 Following Immanuel Wallerstein, Shipley fruitfully steers the argument away from the rather sterile modernist/primitivist debate to the issue of "distance-related effects": how far were surpluses diverted from peripheral to core areas? to what degree did centralised power affect the growth or decline of subject territories? was regional economic specialisation promoted, enforced or inhibited from the political centres? His balanced conclusion is that although royal politico-military power could still determine economic success, the monarchies at most accelerated existing changes, for example regional economic interdependence, whereas other significant changes, such as the rise in the status and cosmopolitanism of traders, occurred independently of royal initiative or intervention. 46 Fourthly, new urban amenities certainly were developed. Indeed, Hellenistic Alexandria (the subject or setting of some of C . P. Cavafy's finest poems) and Antioch were among the first truly urban centres of the ancient Greek world, and their amenities might profit indigenous populations as well as Greeks and Macedonians. But, despite Rostovtzeff, there was probably no new urban "bourgeoisie"—this seems to be just an urban myth. It may be more helpful to speak of a growing urban "middle class," but Rostovtzeffs assumption that they were the people chiefly responsible for the hellenization (and later romanization) of the Hellenistic world—what became the eastern, predominantly hellenophone half of the Roman Empire—was the fruit more of wishful ideology than empirical analysis. T h e "dawn" of Rome's empire and "the coming of R o m e " to the Greek East have, not unnaturally, excited a huge scholarly literature, whether the process of conquest has been seen primarily in political or in cultural terms, or as a mixture of the two elements. 47 Some of the most interesting contributions to this research have focussed on non-Greek, politico-cultural resistance to Hellenism, and on Greek politico-cultural resistance to Rome. 48

45. M . I. Finley (ed.), The Bücher-Meyer Controversy (New York, 1979); S. Meikle, " M o d ernism, economics, and the ancient economy," PCPS n.s. 41 (1995) 174-91. 46. See also Fraser, Rhodian Funerary Monuments. 47. Badian, Foreign Clientelae (264.-70 B.C.) (Oxford, 1958); R . M . Errington, The Dawn of Empire: Rome's Rise to World Power (London, 1971); E. S. G r u e n , The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome, 2 vols. (Berkeley, 1984, repr. in 1 vol. 1986); Ferrary, Philhellénisme (n. 25); Cartledge and Spawforth, Hellenistic and Roman Sparta, chs. 5 - 6 ; CI. Nicolet, Rome et la conquête du monde méditerranéen II. Genèse d'un empire, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1991). 48. S. K . Eddy, The King is Dead: Studies in Near Eastern Resistance to Hellenism (Lincoln, 1961); J. Deininger, Der politische Widerstand gegen Rom in Griechenland (Berlin, 1971).

14

P. C A R T L E D G E

T h e problem posed to the conquered Greeks, Macedonians and "cultureGreeks" by the "barbarian" status of their Roman conquerors has already been glanced at; here, it may be worth dwelling briefly on the question of Roman motives and techniques of conquest. 49 At one level, clearly, war and imperialism had a positive feedback effect on other sub-systems of Roman society, politics and culture. But whether the Romans' extraItalian empire was sought and gained for primarily economic reasons, as opposed to being subsequently exploited for massive economic advantage but sought—if sought at all—for primarily political reasons, is still moot. 50 N o less controversial is the good or bad faith of certain elite Romans in their professions of "philhellenism," the most famous—or notorious—case being T. Quinctius Flamininus' open declaration of Greek freedom and i n d e p e n d e n c e in 196 B.C.E.51

A new reading of the Philodemos Papyrus (col. 72) from Herculaneum seems to show the late-second-century Stoic Panaitios, or a pupil of his, being described or rather hailed as Rhodes' "new" or "second founder," because through his friendship with Rome he "allowed [his] native city to recover freedom." 5 2 This rather remarkable testimony to the apparently effectual participation of Hellenistic philosophers in international diplomacy, if that is what it is, must be set, however, against the very clear thrust of Roman policy towards internal Greek city politics. W h e n their Greek subjects interpreted freedom too literally or liberally as meaning the freedom of the poor masses to have the sort of democratic constitution they wished, then the Roman panjandrums consistently felt constrained to curtail it in the name of good domestic order and international stability, not to mention the interests of their allies in the Greek upper classes.53 T h e Romans, like other peoples and polities of the Hellenistic world, were adept at inventing pedigrees and traditions so as to legitimate their present self-perceptions

49. R o m a n s ' imperialism: W. V Harris, War and Imperialism in Republican Rome (Oxford, 1979, repr. with new preface 1984); Harris (ed.), The Imperialism of Mid-Republican Rome (Rome, 1984); G r u e n , Hellenistic World. 50. Harris, War, argues for conscious seeking, G r u e n , Hellenistic World, equally firmly against. 51. Badian, Titus Quinctius Flamininus: Philhellenism and Realpolitik (Cincinnati, 1970). 52. FERRARY, below, p. 119 n. 57. 53. Walbank, " T h e causes of G r e e k decline," JHS

64 (1944) 10-20, at 14; J. Toulou-

makos, Der Einfluss Roms auf die Staatsform der griechischen Stadtstaaten des Festlandes und der Inseln im ersten und zweiten Jhdt. v. Chr. (Göttingen, 1967); J. Briscoe, " R o m e and the class struggle in the G r e e k states, 200-146 B.C." (1967) repr. in M . I. Finley (ed.), Studies in Ancient Society (London, 1974) 53-73; R- Bernhardt, Polis und römische Herrschaft in der späten Republik (749-31 v. Chr.) (Berlin and N e w York, 1985).

Introduction

a n d self-constructions;

15

i n d e e d , t h e y w e r e e v e n p r e p a r e d to flirt w i t h a

c e r t a i n G r e e k ancestry. 5 4 B u t w h e n it c a m e to m u n d a n e dealings w i t h their G r e e k subjects, p r a g m a t i s m n o t s e n t i m e n t w a s the o r d e r o f the day:

"If

y o u w a n t to u n d e r s t a n d G r e e c e u n d e r the R o m a n s , " as M o m i g l i a n o o n c e e p i g r a m m a t i c a l l y p u t it, " r e a d P o l y b i u s a n d w h a t e v e r y o u m a y b e l i e v e to b e Posidonius; if y o u w a n t to u n d e r s t a n d R o m e r u l i n g G r e e c e , r e a d Plautus, C a t o — a n d Mommsen."55

II. I N T R O D U C T I O N

T O THIS

VOLUME

T h e p r e s e n t v o l u m e o p e n s w i t h a s e q u e n c e o f f o u r essays c o n c e r n e d in o n e w a y o r a n o t h e r w i t h the c o n n e c t e d t h e m e s o f Hellenistic self-definition t h r o u g h the m a n i p u l a t i o n o f l e g e n d a n d fable, the i n v e n t i o n o f tradition a n d creative m y t h o p o e i a .

ALCOCK'S a r c h a e o l o g i c a l l y b a s e d essay r e t u r n s

to the G r e e k f o u n t a i n h e a d a n d e x p l o r e s the Hellenistic c o n c e r n f o r l i n k i n g the p r e s e n t to the past as e x p r e s s e d religiously in the w o r s h i p o f H o m e r i c heroes. 5 6

S u c h relatively small-scale cults, scattered across the O l d G r e e k

p o r t i o n s o f the Hellenistic w o r l d f r o m S a m o t h r a c e to I t h a c a , m i g h t h a v e s e r v e d o n e or m o r e f u n c t i o n s , i n c l u d i n g those o f elite l e g i t i m a t i o n , s y m b o l i c p r o t e c t i o n or the fostering o f a sense o f c o m m u n a l identity. T h e d y n a m i c e x p l a n a t i o n she o f f e r s for the cults' p r e v a l e n c e in the Hellenistic e r a is the G r e e k s ' self-conscious y e a r n i n g for a suitably e p i c a n d p a n h e l l e n i c p e d i g r e e , e i t h e r real or Active, a y e a r n i n g b o r n o f the threat to the i n d e p e n d e n t life o f their small cities. T o Peter GREEN, w e l l k n o w n as a c o n s p i c u o u s l y u n s e n t i m e n t a l critic a n d lively translator (in m o r e t h a n o n c e sense) o f a n c i e n t G r e e k a n d R o m a n cultural p r o d u c t i o n s f o r m o d e r n g e n e r a l a u d i e n c e s , is o w e d o n e o f the latest attempts at a n overall i n t e r p r e t a t i o n o f the Hellenistic age.

T h i s is n o t

e x a c d y the m o s t u p b e a t o f interpretations, since for h i m the Hellenistic a g e b y a n d large m e a n s the pessimistic story o f three c e n t u r i e s o f h a s t e n i n g decline. 5 7 B u t in the p r e s e n t v o l u m e G r e e n a p p r o a c h e s the Hellenistic w o r l d o n its o w n t e r m s , t h r o u g h its m y t h - m a k i n g , a n d b y w a y o f o n e o f the m o s t self-conscious o f its literary fictions, the Argonautica o f A p o l l o n i u s o f R h o d e s

54. E.J. Bickerman, "Origines Gentium" CP 47 (1952) 65-81; E. Rawson, The Spartan Tradition in European Thought (Oxford, 1969, repr. 1991); cf. E.J. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger (eds.), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, 1983). 55. Momigliano, Alien Wisdom, 49; cf. Gruen, Studies in Greek Culture and Roman Policy (Leiden, 1990). O n Posidonius, see also BRINGMANN and GARNSEY, below. 56. See more generally Alcock, "Minding the gap" (n. 33) 258. 57. See above, n. 7.

16

P. C A R T L E D G E

(who produced most of his work at the cultural epicentre of Alexandria). W h a t strikes Green about Apollonius, and his perhaps close contemporary Dionysios Skytobrachion ofMytilene, is the continuity of Greek mythopoeic tradition that their work embodies, rather than any significant changes that he would have expected them to introduce in this otherwise (as he sees it) comprehensively and distinctively altered Hellenistic era. T h e next two essays explore Jewish-Hellenic interactions, again within a mythopoeic framework. T h e coming of Hellenism must have seemed a threat to a society as self-consciously separate and as acutely aware of its peculiar role and mission as ancient Israelite society apparently was. O n e way of dealing with this threat was to turn the tables on one's adversaries, as GRUEN shows in an essay that explains how certain Jewish intellectuals had absorbed enough of Hellenic culture to be able to assimilate it to Judaism rather than themselves becoming hellenized by their contact with the Greek genre of literary fable. This Jewish cultural reception of Hellenism is to be compared, and contrasted, with that practised by the contemporary Romans. 58 MILLAR, for his part, pursues the theme of Jewish-Greek interaction in a different direction, by way of one of Elias Bickerman's "four strange books of the Bible," namely Daniel. 59 T h e early part of his essay explores the Jewish response to a succession of foreign empires through a broad range of sources, including Daniel (conventionally dated to the 160s B.C.E.). T h e conclusion stresses, against other scholarly opinion, that the various sections of Daniel are in fact structurally integrated, and emphasises the Maccabean crisis as a motive for recounting the sequence of empires. More research along the lines Millar adumbrates would clearly be welcome. T h e two following essays in different ways concern the coming of Rome to the Greek world and the Greeks' responses to it, pragmatic, ideological or both. In his earlier major book FERRARY had argued that "philhellenism" was both a genuine Roman stance towards aspects of Greek high culture and a weapon of ideological warfare wielded by the Roman governing class as a means of enabling the subaltern Greeks to come to terms with their subordination to the Roman barbarian. Here, he advances on a rather narrower front, considering the effect of personal patronage by influential Romans on the affairs of Greek states in the Hellenistic period. H e rightly dissents from the thesis of Ernst Badian that the Roman institution of clientela constituted an alien intrusion into a world that operated internationally

58. G r u e n , Studies', Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome (Ithaca and L o n d o n ,

I992)59. B i c k e r m a n , Four Strange Books of the Bible: Jonah, Daniel, Koheleth, Esther (New York,

1984)-

Introduction

17

on quite other lines, and he stresses instead the practical interrelationship b e t w e e n clientela and the G r e e k socio-political institution o f proxenia.60 It is w o r t h a d d i n g that the relationship had also, a n d perhaps no less important, symbolic ramifications.

Ferrary's essay closes neatly with Polybius, a b o u t

w h o m m u c h m o r e anon. MATTINGLY patiently collects the testimonia on A t h e n i a n relations with Hellenistic monarchies and with R o m e , mainly in the second century B.C.E.61 T h e vast bulk o f the evidence consists o f honorific decrees, either for A t h e n i ans w h o advocated their city's cause in foreign capitals or for m o n a r c h s a n d their immediate entourage. B e h i n d their c a l m and i m m o b i l e surface there no d o u b t lies a sometimes quite frantic d i p l o m a c y a i m e d presumably at conciliating as m a n y relevantly p o w e r f u l foreigners as possible at the same time. But v e r y f e w o f the decrees, unfortunately, indicate the precise character o f the services for w h i c h the individuals were h o n o u r e d . R a t h e r than epigraphy, the p r i m a r y source material and objective of study in the next three historiographical essays are the two leading figures of Hellenistic history writing, Polybius and Posidonius. Reversing their chronological order, w e print next BRINGMANN'S acute analysis o f two questions conc e r n i n g Posidonius, in themselves relatively m i n o r a n d quite i n d e p e n d e n t but c o n n e c t e d by h i m in such a w a y as to illuminate the larger and m o r e interesting issues o f the Syrian G r e e k author's ideas o f historical causality and historiographical propriety. T h e thesis proposed is that the Stoic Posidonius, in order to flesh out his portrayal of A t h e n i o n as a p a r a d i g m of the false philosopher turned arch-tyrant, constructively c o n t a m i n a t e d his colourful a c c o u n t o f A t h e n i o n ' s brief tyranny at A t h e n s in 88 B.C.E., the terminal date o f his history, with material b e l o n g i n g originally to the later tyranny o f Aristion (87 B.C.E.). GARNSEY takes a different a n d unusual app r o a c h to Posidonius the philosophic historian, by r e e x a m i n i n g an alleged " f r a g m e n t " o f his w o r k about a particular g r o u p o f unfree Hellenistic people (the M a r i a n d y n o i o f G r e e k H e r a c l e i a on the Black Sea) in the light of the M i d d l e Stoa's scantily a t t e s t e d — a n d , in G a r n s e y ' s view, little d e v e l o p e d — attitude to slavery in general. Conclusions are m o s d y negative, but, in so far as G a r n s e y c a n firmly detach Posidonius thereby f r o m any possible implication with Aristotelian natural slavery doctrine, none the less valuable for that. 62

60. Badian, Foreign Clienteles. 61. See also Chr. Habicht, Athen in Hellenistischer £eit, 140-230, s.v. "Politik"; S. V Tracy, Attic Letter Cutters of 2 2 9 - 8 6 B.C. (Princeton, 1990). 62. See also P. Garnsey, Ideas of Slavery from Aristotle to Augustine ( C a m b r i d g e , 1996) 146-50.

18

P. C A R T L E D G E

With E C K S T E I N ' S essay we come head-on to Polybius, who serves also as prime source for the essay immediately following. Polybius characterized his history as "pragmatic" or transactional. By this linguistic device and in numerous other ways he plainly sought to represent his historiography as marking a return in essentials to the sort of history practised in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E. by Thucydides and the Oxyrhynchus Historian, and thus a decisive break with the dominant trends of Hellenistic historical writing encapsulated (so he claimed) in Timaeus and "tragic" history.63 Polybius' rhetoric, when combined with the modern political-scientific approach to foreign relations known variously as realism or neo-realism, has encouraged the view that Polybius strove, successfully, to eliminate from his history any strong moral standpoint. Eckstein's project, both in his recent book and rather differently here, is to restore Polybius' moral judgmentalism to what he considers its proper, that is a central, place. 64 Condemnations of self-indulgence, greed and cowardice are not on this estimation mere grace notes but essential vehicles of Polybius' historical understanding and explanation. Furthermore, by pointing out that Polybius liberally imputed vices to the Romans as well as to the Greeks and Macedonians, Eckstein effectively counters the widespread notion that Polybius regarded the Romans as by nature a fundamentally superior people. H E R M A N ' S essay also draws heavily on Polybius, but to different effect: like the immediately succeeding essay, it is above all a venture in comparative history and historiography. For Herman's aim is to develop a theory of the workings of Hellenistic court society by applying retrospectively a version of that formulated by Norbert Elias in relation to the court of Louis XIV. Thus, although Polybius' strong republican bias against Hellenistic courts and courtiers has doubtless obscured more than somewhat their standard structures and routine functions and activities, Herman nevertheless sees plotting, intrigue and bickering among courtiers, and relentless rivalry between them and the king, as very much the Hellenistic courtly norm. 65 Herman provides also a new account of the networks of associations between elite members of Greek communities and the men at court that help to explain both the

63. Walbank, Polybius, passim; cf. Connor, "Historical writing" (n. 18). 64. Eckstein, Moral Vision. 65. Compare the following generalisation prompted by analysis of a more recent "court": " T h e rule of a court conceals a political anarchy in which jealous feudatories, with their private armies and reservations of public resources, are secretly bargaining, and may openly fight, for the reversion or preservation of p o w e r " — H . Trevor-Roper, The Last Days of Hitler, 7th ed. (London, 1995) 209.

Introduction

19

international outreach of these court societies and the modes of recruitment into their circles.66 B A G N A L L ' S comparativism is of a different kind, consisting in an attempt to expose the limitations of a "colonial" model for the understanding of Ptolemaic Egypt. Under this broad rubric Bagnall provocatively treats the work not only of Edward Said but also of Edouard Will as presenting interpretative paradigms that are to be avoided. Bagnall's essay, though primarily an exercise in negative criticism, does also allude to the improved understanding to be derived from consulting imaginative literature produced by the victims of what he considers a hierarchical—not necessarily "colonial"—system of domination. Finally, we return to political economy with T H O M P S O N ' S essay on Ptolemaic fiscality as represented in a variety of papyrus materials including not yet published tax registers; this draws both on her own previous influential work and on collaborative work in progress on the nuts and bolts of Ptolemaic administration. 67 The central questions addressed concern the bureaucracy's character and efficiency, but rarely if ever, as Thompson duly underlines, does the evidence available or likely to become available provide clear-cut and decisive answers. What, for example, accounts for the progressive lowering of the tax rate and extension of exemptions? Loopholes in tax collection there undoubtedly were, as in all systems, but how far and by whom, typically, were they exploited in Ptolemaic Egypt? Any future work in this area will have to start from the basis and database established by Thompson and her collaborators. But it seems only fitting to end this introduction on an interrogative note.

66. See also H e r m a n , " T h e 'friends' of the early Hellenistic rulers: servants or officials?"

Talanta 1 2 / 1 3 (1980/81) 103-49; Ritualised Friendship and the Greek City (Cambridge,

I987)67. D . J . Thompson, Memphis under the Ptolemies (Princeton, 1988).

ONE

The Heroic Past in a Hellenistic Present Susan E. Alcock

In the early 1970s, an enigma was discovered at the Sanctuary of the Great Gods (the Megaloi Theoi) on Samothrace. Built within a retaining wall, near structures identified as ritual dining rooms, was what appeared to be the stomion, or entrance, of a Bronze Age tholos tomb, complete with rough polygonal "Cyclopean" masonry, a huge fieldstone lintel and a relieving triangle formed by two porous sandstone blocks (Figure 1). Yet this Samothracian tholos is doubly false: first because no tomb lies within (the passageway ends after some two meters) and again because it is not of Bronze Age date. The "tholos" belongs instead to the Hellenistic era, constructed when the retaining wall was built around the end of the third or beginning of the second century B.C.1 "Enigma" was the designation given to this monument by the Samothracian investigators, and it has indeed remained more or less a hapax among ancient architectural oddities; certainly no other Hellenistic constructions appear directly to emulate Mycenaean tholoi. Concentrating only on its formal characteristics, however, may not be the most fruitful way to consider this pseudo-tholos. Instead, the monument can be challenged for what it appears to represent, becoming a springboard for

This essay is dedicated to Frank W. Walbank, a Hellenistic hero if ever there was one. It first appeared in Echos du monde classique/Classical Views 38, n.s. 13 (1994) 221-34. I thank the editors of that journal for kindly allowing me to reprint the piece (with some minor revisions) here, as well as the editors of this volume for inviting me to do so. 1. J . R. McCredie, "Recent investigations in Samothrace, 1965-74," in U. Jantzen, ed., Neue Forschungen in Griechischen Heiligtümern (Tübingen, 1976) 91-102, esp. 98—99; J . R. McCredie, "A Samothracian enigma," Hesperia 43 (1974) 454-59; S. G. Cole, Megaloi Theoi: The Cult of the Great Gods at Samothrace (Leiden, 1984) 8; H. Ehrhardt, Samothrake: Heiligtümer in ihrer Landschaft und Geschichte als ^eugen antiken Geistlebens (Stuttgart, 1985) 183-87, figs. 48-49.

20

Figure I. Sanctuary of the Great Gods, Samothrace. Retaining wall (elevation and plan) with pseudo-tholos in right corner (Courtesy of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens)

22

S. A L C O C K

questioning Hellenistic concern with the age of heroes or, to put it another way, for exploring the heroic past in a Hellenistic present. A Hellenistic concern for linking the present to the past has already been observed in other spheres of behavior, notably in the form of cult at Bronze Age tholos tombs. This phenomenon has been identified, with varying degrees of certainty, in several parts of the Greek mainland and on Crete. 2 The precise identity of the recipients of such cult has been much debated, particularly in relation to similar practices in earlier, Geometric and Archaic times. While likely, it is impossible to be certain that this postclassical attention was dedicated to figures who would have been explicitly recognized and venerated as "heroes," and the term "hero" in itself poses a complex problem of definition. Most fundamentally, however, such rituals manifest a desire to invoke powerful elements drawn from the past at a time in the history of the Greek city which, if not the period of crisis and disintegration that was once envisioned, was surely still a time of stress and transformation. 3 Taking a cue from post-classical tomb cult, a tentative pattern could be proposed: the representation in material culture of Hellenistic veneration for an antique and yet still compelling past. This paper will attempt to unfold that perceived pattern still further by examining the Hellenistic fate of cults attested to a specific group of heroes—named epic heroes, Homeric heroes—and to other figures linked to the Heroic Age. What will be monitored in the individual cases considered are what developments and what transformations, if any, took place in cults of this sort during Hellenistic times.4 This type of period-oriented investigation runs counter to many traditional approaches to Greek religious practice which tend, based on a

2. Cult at Bronze Age tombs, after an initial florescence in the Geometric period, reappears in the fourth century B.C. and after; see S. E. Alcock, "Tomb cult and the post-classical polis," AJA 95 (1991) 447-67. 3. For recent discussion of the Geometric cult and the definition of the term "hero," see for example: I. Morris, "Tomb cult and the 'Greek Renaissance': the past in the present in the 8th century B . C . , " Antiquity 62 (1988) 750-61; J . Whitley, "Tomb cult and hero cult: the uses of the past in Archaic Greece," in N. Spencer, ed., Time, Tradition and Society in Greek Archaeology: Bridging the "Great Divide" (London, 1995) 4 3 - 6 3 ; C . Antonaccio, " T h e archaeology of ancestors," in C . Dougherty and L. Kurke, eds., Cultural Poetics in Archaic Greece (Cambridge, 1993) 46-70, and An Archaeology of Ancestors: Tomb Cult and Hero Cult in Early Greece (Lanham, Maryland, 1995); E. Kearns, The Heroes of Attica (London, 1989) i-94. It should be noted that, with the exception of Achilles at Troy, this analysis focuses on mainland Greece and the islands (the territory of " O l d Greece") and does not consider the issue of heroic cult in the Hellenistic kingdoms beyond.

T h e Heroic Past

23

somewhat haphazard mixture of literary references, to stress its synchronic nature. Such static reconstructions are now being challenged with the help of archaeological data, and in this context these data will be employed where possible. T h e available archaeological evidence is, admittedly, often less than impeccable; many of the investigations involved were of early date and problematic design. Yet in by far the majority of instances, it is only with archaeological help that variations in either the practice, or the intensity, of cult can be measured over time. While the following review does not deal comprehensively with all epic or heroic age cults in Hellenistic Greece, it does for the most part cover the ones for which we have some degree of archaeological evidence. We can begin the review with Agamemnon, "lord of men." Agamemnon was worshipped at the Agamemnoneion, excavated by the British School at Athens in their Mycenae campaigns of the earlier part of the twentieth century. The cult of Agamemnon was apparently not linked with the supposed site of his tomb; Pausanias (2.16.6) reports his grave within the citadel, while the shrine in question lies about one kilometer outside the settlement's walls. T h e location of the Agamemnoneion was nonetheless tied to that community by its proximity to a Mycenaean causeway, a recognizably Cyclopean structure on the road to Prosymna. Cult activity began at this site in the eighth century B.C. (the period of Geometric tomb cult); in the Archaic period an enclosure was built and cult continued "well into Hellenistic times." 5 Finds indicate drinking and feasting in honor of the dedicatee, together with what Cook called "embarrassingly appropriate" louteria. As for the Hellenistic period proper, excavations revealed a renewal of the sanctuary; published details are few, but it is clear that the temenos was remodelled with features such as a green schist pavement and a new roof for the enclosure. At this time inscriptions on ceramic offerings also clearly identify the recipient of worship as Agamemnon, an attribution that cannot be definitively made for the previous centuries of worship and indeed is frequently doubted. 6

5. J. M . Cook, " T h e cult of A g a m e m n o n at Mycenae," in Geras Antoniou Keramopoullou (Athens, 1953) 1 1 2 - 1 4 ; J. M . Cook, "Mycenae 1939-52: the A g a m e m n o n e i o n , " BSA 48

(1953) 30-68, esp. 32-33, 62-65 a n d %• 6; R. Hagg, "Gifts to the heroes in Geometric and

Archaic Greece," in T. Linders and G. C. Nordquist, eds., Gifts to the Gods (Uppsala, 1987) 93"99> e s P- 96-986. Several scholars have queried the early date of the epic hero's worship at this locale, arguing for an originally female dedicatee: F. de Polignac, La naissance de la cite grecque (Paris, 1984) 130-31; Antonaccio (n. 3) 67 n. 36; C. M o r g a n and T. Whitelaw, "Pots and politics: ceramic evidence for the rise of the Argive state," AJA 95 (1991)

88-90.

24

S. ALCOCK M y c e n a e h a d been destroyed by Argos in the fifth century B.C.; this rebuild-

ing of the A g a m e m n o n e i o n is generally assumed to have been contemporaneous with its reoccupation as an Argive home in the third/second century B.C. T h e reestablishment of the site was short-lived, enduring only a century or so.7 Despite the short life of the home, however, further observations can be made about the possible interaction of the new Argive inhabitants with M y c e n a e ' s ancient monuments.

A t three of the nine Bronze A g e tholoi

at M y c e n a e (Epano Phournos, T o m b of Aegisthus, T o m b of Clytemnestra), finds of associated later pottery at least raise the possibility of some f o r m of post-classical cult, although the evidence is admittedly poor. 8 It is also worth noting that the Hellenistic theater constructed in the home was built across the dromos of the T o m b of Clytemnestra. T h a t juxtaposition was long thought to be a meaningless association, on the assumption that later builders were unaware of the tomb's presence.

Subsequent obser-

vation has shown, however, that seats of the theater actually rest directiy upon the wall blocks of the dromos. 9

O u r interpretations of such spatial

annexation of monuments m a y require revising, to credit Greeks of the historical period with greater sensitivity to past h u m a n landscapes, and with a greater interest in forging physical linkages between old and new elements. 1 0 Bonds between Heroic and Hellenistic M y c e n a e can be taken a step further.

M i c h a e l Jameson recentiy raised some provocative points about

the relationship of Argos and M y c e n a e , or rather of Argos and M y c e n a e ' s legendary repute.

H e noted, for example, the appropriation by Argos of

M y c e n a e ' s other "local hero," Perseus.

Perseus appears on Argive coins;

in the R o m a n period his honors were voted to Argive benefactors.

From

epigraphic evidence, Jameson also observed that, although under Argive

7. On the Hellenistic settlement: C . A . Boethius, "Excavations at Mycenae XI. Hellenistic Mycenae," BSA 25 (1921-1923) 409-28; J. A. Dengate, "Coins from the Mycenae excavations, 1939-62," BSA 69 (1974) 95-102. 8. A.J. B. Wace, "Excavations at Mycenae IX: the tholos tombs," BSA 25 (1921-1923) 292-316, 357-76; A.J. B. Wace, M. S. F. Hood and J. M. Cook, "Mycenae, 1939-52: the Epano Phournos tholos tomb," BSA 48 (1953) 69-83, esp. 81, 83; Alcock (n. 2) 464 for references. 9. C. Antonaccio, "The Archaeology of Early Greek 'Hero Cult,'" (Ph.D. Diss. Princeton, 1987) 62-65; H. Thompson, "The tomb of Clytemnestra revisited," in K. DeVries, ed., From Athens to Gordion: The Papers of a Memorial Symposium for Rodney S. Young (Philadelphia, 1980) 3-9, esp. 7-9; Boethius (n. 7) 418. 10. C. Antonaccio, "Placing the past: the Bronze Age in the cultic topography of Early Greece" (pp. 79-104) and the other papers in S. E. Alcock and R. Osborne, eds., Placing the Gods: Sanctuaries and Sacred Space in Ancient Greece (Oxford, 1994).

T h e Heroic Past

25

control, M y c e n a e a p p e a r e d to possess special rights, notably in retaining an i n d e p e n d e n t e p h e b e i a , an unusual privilege for a kome: . . . can it be that Argos encouraged those of its citizens w h o lived off the land of the former M y c e n a e a n territory to revive old cults and traditions for the sake of their prestige and aura of antiquity, even as they undertook the rebuilding of the Agamemnoneion?11

T u r n i n g f r o m the Hellenistic treatment o f A g a m e m n o n , o f Perseus and o f strong-walled M y c e n a e itself, the second case to consider is that o f wily Odysseus and the Polis C a v e on Ithaka.

Finds f r o m the cave span the

p e r i o d from the B r o n z e A g e to the R o m a n era, but exactly w h o received cult at any particular time remains a confused matter: A t h e n a a n d H e r a are attested in the seventh c e n t u r y B.C., masks o f A r t e m i s are present, a n d a third-century B.C. votive to the N y m p h s was also found. T h e first dedication to Odysseus p r o p e r belongs no earlier than the Hellenistic period, w h e n his n a m e c a n b e reconstructed on a female mask o f a style dating to the second/first century b.c. It is not impossible that Odysseus was w o r s h i p p e d in the cave before then, u n r e c o r d e d but sharing the sacred space with other deities.

O n the other h a n d , to j u d g e f r o m present evidence at least, the

possibility c a n n o t be ruled out that Odysseus b e g a n to receive worship at the Polis C a v e only at some point d u r i n g the Hellenistic period. 1 2

W h a t can

be said with c o n f i d e n c e is that excavation recovered noteworthy amounts o f Hellenistic pottery (moldmade bowls, West Slope ware) a n d female masks, a c o m m o n votive at this time and, at least in that one case, a type associated with the hero. E v e n m o r e significant is the sanctuary's reorganization w i t h the erection o f a temenos wall, dated not earlier than 300 B.C.

Games

o f the O d y s s e i a are k n o w n to have been celebrated on Ithaka, possibly in c o n n e c t i o n with this cult place.

T h e s e contests, again, are first certainly

attested in the Hellenistic age; the festival appears to have been o f some c o n s e q u e n c e , with cities as far afield as M a g n e s i a b e i n g invited in 206

B.C.13

11. M . H . J a m e s o n , "Perseus, the hero o f M y k e n a i , " in R . H a g g and G . C . Nordquist, eds., Celebrations of Death and Divinity in the Bronze Age Argolid (Stockholm, 1990) 213-22, at p. 222. Honors, e.g. IG 4.606; ephebeia, IG 4.497 (ca. 195

B.C.);

cf. Pausanias 2.21.6-7.

12. See n. 6 on the possible late arrival of A g a m e m n o n as a cult figure at the A g a m e m n o n e i o n . Similar arguments have been m a d e about Menelaus and the Lakonian M e n e l a i o n , where the first dedications are to H e l e n only: H . W. Catling, "Excavations at the Menelaion, Sparta, 1973-76," Archaeological Reports (1976-1977) 24-42; H . W . Catling and H . C a v a n a g h , " T w o inscribed bronzes from the Menelaion, Sparta," Kadmos 15 (1976) 1 45^57-

13. T. Hadzisteliou Price, " H e r o cult in the 'Age of H o m e r ' and earlier," in G . W. Bowersock, W. Burkert and M . C . J . Putnam, eds., Arktouros: Hellenic Studies Presented to

26

S. ALCOCK

Whenever epic hero cults are discussed, three instances immediately spring to mind: the Agamemnoneion, the Polis Cave and the Menelaion, the shrine of Menelaus and Helen in Lakonia. Yet the Menelaion does not appear to follow all the developments observed in the first two cases. Cult activity at the site of Therapne began in the eighth century B.C., continuing at least well into the Hellenistic period and possibly running even later. T h e latest major renewal of the shrine building itself, however, dated to the fifth century B.C., although inscribed tiles do suggest some third- and first-century B.C. work on associated site structures (possibly a storeroom or house for shrine personnel). Following the site's most recent excavator, Hector Catling, it can be stated that the post-classical history of the shrine remains poorly understood and—at this point at any rate—the Menelaion can contribute little secure information to the present investigation. 14 Another more ambiguous case is that of the tomb of Achilles in the Troad—archaeologically ambiguous, it should be said, for there is no doubt but that the site believed to be his grave was recognized and honored in Hellenistic times. Alexander, as Plutarch tells us, went to Ilium where: . . . he sacrificed to Athena and poured libations to the heroes. Furthermore the gravestone of Achilles he anointed with oil, ran a race by it with his companions, naked, as is the custom, and then crowned it with garlands, pronouncing the hero happy in having, while he lived, a faithful friend, and after death, a great herald of his f a m e . . . {Alexander 15.4-5)

Alexander's fascination with the works of Homer is celebrated, of course, as was his claim to genealogical descent from the most famous of epic heroes. But Alexander was hardly unique in his obsession about "where Homer

Bernard M. W. Knox on the Occasion of his 6$th Birthday (Berlin, 1979) 221-22; S. Benton, "A votive offering to Odysseus," Antiquity 10 (1936) 350; S. Benton, "Excavations in Ithaca, III. T h e cave at Pôlis, I," BSA 35 (1934 1935) 45-73, esp. 54-55; S. Benton, "Excavations in Ithaca, III. T h e cave at Polis, II," BSA 39 (1938-1939) 1-51, esp. 31-38, 43-45. It has been suggested that, after the sanctuary's refurbishment, some of its dedicatory tripods had been arranged "to give it an image consistent with that of the cave of Odysseus in Odyssey 13.13-14 and 363-71"; see François de Polignac, "Mediation, competition and sovereignty: the evolution of rural sanctuaries in Geometric Greece," in S. E. Alcock and R. Osborne, eds., Placing the Gods: Sanctuaries and Sacred Space in Ancient Greece (Oxford, 1994) 11 n. 23. 14. H. W. Catling, Archaeological Reports (1975-1976) 14-15; Catling (n. 12) 41-42; P. Cartledge, Sparta and Lakonia. A Regional History 00-362 B.C. (London, 1979) 121; Catling and Cavanagh (n. 12); A.J.B. Wace, M . S . Thompson and J.P. Droop, "Laconia I. Excavations at Sparta, 1909: T h e Menelaion," BSA 15 (1908-1909) 108-57, es P- n 3> P. Cartledge and A. Spawforth, Hellenistic and Roman Sparta: A Tale of Two Cities (London, i9 8 9) '95-

The Heroic Past

27

happened." Hellenistic scholars agonized, much as their successors would, over recalcitrant Homeric geography: as Cook noted, "The ancients too had their 'False Troy' heresy, their problem of the 'Springs of Scamander,' their 'No Space for the Battlefield' quandary .. .'" 5 Today the site of Besik Tepe is often, if far from universally, thought to be the tomb of Achilles hallowed in ancient times. From Schliemann and Dorpfeld's work at this mound came a small quantity of fourth/third-century B.C. pottery. The paucity of this material allowed it to be readily dismissed as extraneous to the site itself (which is, of course, a prehistoric tell), clearly an easier explanation than having to envisage later additions to the mound or imagining that "such a tumulus would have been thrown up in Hellenistic times.'" 6 In light of developments at other epic cult places, however, perhaps such a scenario is not as implausible as would once have been thought; there may have been some incentive for the site's reorganization in the Hellenistic period. T h e nature of the archaeological evidence allows nothing more definite to be said but, through textual evidence at any rate, signs of Hellenistic veneration at the tombs of heroes appear in the plain of windy Troy itself. In Boeotian Thebes, Hector provides another instance of Hellenistic hero cult based more on texts than archaeology. An oracle urged the Thebans to worship Hector if they wished the city to prosper, and we are told that the bones of Hector were transferred from Ophryneion in the Troad to Thebes. All the extant literary evidence for the cult dates to the Hellenistic era, probably the early third century B.C. or at the very earliest the end of the fourth century. Farnell noted, and others have agreed, that the tradition does indeed appear to belong to this "late" period, with Schachter suggesting that the transfer might be connected with the rebuilding of Thebes by Kassandros and with the possible consolation offered by one sacked city

15. J . M . Cook, The Troad (Oxford, 1973) 186-88, quote at 188; J . M . Cook, " T h e topography of the plain of Troy," in L. Foxhall and J . K . Davies, eds., The Trojan War: Its Historicity and Context (Bristol, 1984) 163-72; cf. W. Leaf, Troy: A Study in Homeric Geography (London, 1912). For Hellenistic and Roman visitors to Troy, see C . C . Vermeule III, "Neon Ilion and Ilium Novum: Kings, soldiers, citizens and tourists at Classical Troy," in J . B. Carter and S. P. Morris, eds., The Ages of Homer (Austin, 1995) 467-82. 16. Cook (n. 15) 173—74, quote at 174. Another possible case of restoration at this tumulus, however, is suggested by Cook who notes that the present cone at Besik Tepe could have been added by Caracalla to match the tumulus of Festus, the emperor's favorite: Cook ("The topography," n. 15) 171 n. 2. For other perspectives on cults of Achilles: J . Hooker, "The cults of Achilles," RhM 131 (1988) 1-7; G. Hedreen, " T h e cult of Achilles in the Euxine," Hesperia 60 (1991) 3 1 3 - 3 0 .

28

S. ALCOCK

to another. 17

Pausanias (9.18.5) reports that Hector's tomb was "near the

spring of Oidipous," but no archaeological evidence can yet be brought to bear on this T h e b a n cult. Literary testimony for its inception, nonetheless, appears well anchored in the Hellenistic age. 18 Hector, representing the losing side in the Trojan struggle, is the last of the specifically H o m e r i c heroes to be discussed here. Yet other figures drawn from the heroic age, or associated with that particular past, can also usefully be considered. In Boeotian O r c h o m e n o s , for example, stands the Treasury of Minyas, a Bronze A g e tholos tomb. T h e structure has apparently been visible throughout the ages, Pausanias declaring it " a wonder second to n o n e " (9.38.2). T h e tomb was first explored archaeologically by Schliemann, w h o discovered a deep stratum of ash and burned material, possibly consonant with ritual sacrifices. In the center of the circular tholos space were found the remains of a substantial marble statue base, together with marble statue fragments. Schliemann dated these internal improvements to the " M a c e d o n i a n " era, arguing the tomb had been turned at that time into some form of sanctuary complex. T h e identity and range of cult recipients remain unclear. From the Hellenistic period appears an inscription to H e r a Teleia; in R o m a n times the tomb seems to have b e c o m e a focus for the imperial cult. 19 Perhaps there was no heroic presence at all here, although, as the Polis C a v e and m a n y other sanctuaries suggest, heroes and deities could closely co-exist. 20 A s for which hero might have been honored here in Hellenistic times, the benefit of the doubt (with cautious use of Pausanias' second-century A.D. identification) must go to Minyas, the legendary founder of O r c h o m e n o s and, incidentally, an important figure in various heroic genealogies. 2 1

17. L. R . Farnell, Greek Hero Cults and Ideas of Immortality (Oxford, 1921) 328-29; A . Schachter, Cults of Boeotia 1. Acheloos to Hera (London, 1981) 233-34, which collects the ancient testimonia. 18. S. S y m e o n o g l o u ,

The Topography of Thebes from the Bronze Age to Modern Times

(Princeton, 1985) 193-94; " T h e b a i (Boiotien)," in Paulys Real-Encyclopadie 5A.1514-15 (Stuttgart, 1934). 19. H . Schliemann, "Exploration of the Boeotian O r c h o m e n o s , " JHS 2 (1881) 122-63, esp. 137-39; A . K . Orlandos, "Ergasiai en toi tholotoi taphoi O r c h o m e n o u , " AD 1 (1915) 51-53; J. G . Frazer, Pausanias' Description of Greece, vol. 5 (London, 1898) 189. 20. E. Kearns, " B e t w e e n god and man: status and function of heroes and their sanctuaries," in A . Schachter and J. Bingen, eds., Le sanctuaire grec (Geneva, 1992) 65-99, esp- 77-9321. " M i n y a s " in Paulys Real-Encyclopadie 15.2014-18 (Stuttgart, 1932); cf. Homer, Iliad 2.511.

Paul Wallace has suggested that the tomb b e c a m e the repository of Hesiod's

bones, but his arguments have not b e e n generally accepted: P. W. Wallace, " T h e t o m b of Hesiod and the Treasury of Minyas at O r k h o m e n o s , " in J. M . Fossey and H . Giroux,

The Heroic Past

29

In light of the foregoing review, we can now return to the "Samothracian enigma" with which we began. T h e Hellenistic period, as is well known, proved a growth time for the cult of the Great Gods. At the Samothracian sanctuary, a number of Hellenistic structures use rough polygonal masonry in a kind of "Cyclopean'Mooking style, a phenomenon which is in itself of some interest. 22 But the pseudo-tholos goes well beyond such low-level suggestive quotations in its emulation of a Bronze Age, and potentially heroic, tomb. This "Mycenaeanizing" entrance has been most specifically associated with Eetion, son of Elektra and Zeus and founder of the island's mysteries; his brother Dardanos left Samothrace to become the ancestor of Trojan kings. It has been suggested by McCredie that the monument served as the cenotaph of Eetion, who was vaporized by a thunderbolt from Zeus and thus did not require a proper tomb. 23 If such an association, which is certainly plausible, is also correct, then we find here an overt Hellenistic correlation of hero cult with Mycenaean burial forms. At this point one might with some justice protest that there need be no correlation between epic tomb types and those tholoi venerated in postclassical tomb cult and in some of the contexts reviewed here (e.g. Orchomenos, Samothrace). Homeric heroes, of course, are cremated and buried in tumuli {Iliad 10.415; 11.166, 371; 23. 256; 24.349, 799)- And it is striking that cases of unambiguous epic hero cult (the Agamemnoneion, the Polis cave, the Menelaion) are not focused upon tholos tombs, or indeed upon any obvious kind of monumental grave at all. Does that rule out, however, the possibility that heroic significance was attached to certain tombs (now known to date to the Bronze Age) by individuals in later historical periods? I believe that would call for too narrow an interpretation, failing to allow for later mental associations, connections drawn between certain places named in epic (a Mycenae, an Orchomenos) and still-visible structures of perceived antiquity and power, characterized not least by the seemingly superhuman workmanship of Cyclopean masonry.

eds., Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Boeotian Antiquities (Amsterdam, 1985) 165-71; cf. Frazer (n. 19) 189. 22. McCredie ("Samothracian," n. 1) 457; A. Conze et al., Untersuchungen aufSamothrake (Vienna, 1875) pl. VII; H. Seyrig, "Sur l'antiquité des remparts de Samothrace," BCH 51 ('927) 3 5 3 - 6 8 ; es P- 366-67. 23. McCredie ("Samothracian," n. 1) 458-59; ("Recent," n. 1) 98-99; Cole (n. 1) 3-4; W. Burkert, "Concordia Discors: the literary and the archaeological evidence on the sanctuary of Samothrace," in N. Marinatos and R. Hàgg, eds., Greek Sanctuaries: Mew Approaches (London, 1993) 178-91, esp. 185-86. By Hellenistic times, the Theban story of Harmonia and Kadmos had been woven into this tale, with Harmonia being Elektra's third child; she wed Kadmos on Samothrace.

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S. A L C O C K

T h e antiquarian interests and historicizing tendencies of the Hellenistic age, to be further discussed below, would have contributed strongly to such associations. T h e epic tradition was a potent force, but one not incapable of modification. We could, for example, note another variation: H o m e r has Achilles a n d Patroclus buried in a single tomb, yet in antiquity two distinct graves were often identified and venerated separately. 24 Divergence from epic "truth" may remain a problem, but it is not sufficient to disengage the link between Bronze Age tombs and Hellenistic heroic affections. It seems fair to summarize this review by saying that, in the Hellenistic age, cults of heroes (and other heroic characters) witness a resurgence of interest, expressed in certain cases through some form of monumentalization (attested at the A g a m e m n o n e i o n , Polis Cave, Treasury of Minyas, a n d Samothrace). Literary evidence, too, offers instances of Hellenistic heroic veneration (Hector, Achilles). These cults are not necessarily new, in fact few appear to originate in Hellenistic times; but some intensification of cult practice in this epoch seems to have taken place. W h e n combined with the practice of post-classical t o m b cult, the tentative theme with which this p a p e r b e g a n — t h e power of the heroic past in a Hellenistic present—is much reinforced, a n d now requires explication. In accounting for post-classical t o m b cult, while acknowledging the polyvalence of ritual in general a n d the ambiguity and flexibility of the concept of the hero in particular, 25 I suggested that one of the more powerful forces behind renewed activity at Bronze Age tombs was the need for élite legitimization within the life of the Greek city. Aristocratic families, it has often been remarked, took on greater responsibility within Hellenistic civic affairs, especially in their role as benefactors (euergetai). While current revisionist views argue for the continued vitality of cities at this time, it would nonetheless be going too far to deny completely the existence of new structural tensions. O n e stress point, certainly, must have been the role of these wealthy benefactors in relation to civic ideology. M a n y changes can be identified in what might be called the symbolic atmosphere of the Hellenistic city: the resumption, and acceptance, of m o n u m e n t a l burial; commemorative c o m m u n a l celebrations designed to m o u r n the prominent and benevolent dead; the very application of the t e r m "hero" to those recently deceased

24. Arrian 1.12.1; Plutarch, Alexander 15.4-5; Strabo 13.1.32; cf. C o o k (7road, n. 15) 160. 25. O n the polyvalence of ritual: C . Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (New York, 1992). Geometric tomb cult, for example, has accumulated a wide range of explanatory baggage, yet much recent scholarship on the subject accepts this diversity; Morris (n. 3); J . Whitley, " E a r l y states and hero cults: a reappraisal," JHS

108 (1988) 1 7 3 - 8 2 .

T h e Heroic Past

31

or even still living. Tomb cult can be linked to a general appropriation of "civic memory" by civic élites as yet another way to achieve prominence, and to perpetuate a new social order.26 The new attentions paid in Hellenistic times to the cults reviewed here would fit well within this general explanatory framework. The family trees of aristocratic clans were, after all, carefully cultivated to take firm root in heroic soil. Fictive genealogies were not new in the Hellenistic period, but in this age such claims could be more openly expressed, more publicly asserted. An additional consideration is the fact that the very degree of investment needed to improve and formalize these cult spaces suggests the involvement of more prosperous interests. Elite priorities, the determination to control collective memory and to annex the power thus provided, seem a convincing way to account—in part—for the patterns observed. O n the other hand, the extent to which more community-oriented goals might be served by such cults can be considered, in this returning to the more traditional notion of the hero as a force for group solidarity and cohesion. The use of Mycenae's various heroes and monuments by Argos could be held up as an example of a community consciously employing antiquities and antique traditions for the sake of civic prestige.27 Thebes annexing the bones of Hector, perhaps at a particularly traumatic time in its history, may represent another more communally-based impetus to cult. Given the complexity of ritual practice, neither of these possibilities—élite manipulation or communal concern—is mutually exclusive. The objection might be raised that all the foregoing arguments take for granted, and merely presuppose, the power of the heroic past. In some senses, that might be secure enough ground to defend: Homer and his heroes were always challenging and commanding presences. Yet if the aim in this paper is to achieve some kind of historical and dynamic perspective, then it must be asked why, for the Hellenistic age specifically, the heroic age proved such a magnetic force. A start could be made by examining the once-popular notion of the influence of epic, the spread of which, after all, was once the predominant explanation for Geometric cult at Bronze Age

26. L. Robert, Etudes anatoliennes. Recherches sur les inscriptions grecques de l'Asie Mineure (Amsterdam, 1970) 45-49; A l c o c k (n. 2) 456-58. I a m greatly indebted to Pauline Schmitt Pantel's work on this subject; e.g. " L e festin dans la fête de la cité grecque hellénistique," in La fête, pratique et discours (Paris, 1981) 85-95. 27. Inscribed tiles indicate that the Hellenistic enclosure at the A g a m e m n o n e i o n was public in character: C o o k ( " M y c e n a e 1939-52," n. 5) 33 and n. 2, 66.

T h e Argive

annexation of the panhellenic N e m e a n G a m e s is another aspect of the city's symbolic expansion: S. G. Miller, Nemea: A Guide to the Site and the Museum (Berkeley, 1990) 20, 23-24, 57-

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tombs. 28 More recent interpretations of Geometric activity, however, prefer accounts more rooted in social conditions of the time, as I have likewise proposed for similar cults in the post-classical era. Yet just how disconnected is the reading of epic from social and political development? Ian Morris has argued that the use and abuse of Homer was an implicit factor in the turmoil surrounding the rise of thepolis. 29 What about the potential disorder of its later transformations? Readings of Homer do not, of course, remain static over the centuries, as each age engages with its own questions and priorities. 30 In the Hellenistic period, Homer became the subject of much philosophical, scientific and antiquarian debate, as seen in the controversies over Homeric topography. Most interpretative work so far on the "Hellenistic H o m e r " has operated at this erudite level—for example, research on Aristarchus and the Alexandrian Mouseion. While it might seem difficult to move from that level of discourse to what are, after all, small-scale shrines on the Greek mainland, the influence of Homer, and his evocation of the heroic age, nevertheless emerge as a pervasive element in Hellenistic society.31 So what additional pressures, what particular expectations, might have been placed upon readings of the poet at this time? T w o suggestions can be put forward: first, a reliance upon Homer's universal appeal and his unquestionable authority, and second, a dependence upon his presentation of the heroic past and its lineages. T h e cults discussed in this paper were indeed relatively small-scale, yet it would be a mistake, for that reason, to remove them completely from wider trends within the Hellenistic world, not least the changing scale of Hellenistic society. M a n y scholars have noted various political responses growing out of the increasing interaction of great and small powers at this time (e.g. the growing permeability of polls boundaries, acts of sympoliteia, or development of federal leagues). In the religious sphere, the popularity of "universal" deities, gods perceived to transcend former political and even

28. Farnell (n. 17) 340-42; J . N . Coldstream, " H e r o cults in the age of Homer," J HS 96 (1976) 8-17. This explanation was employed by C o o k for the development of the Agamemnoneion ("Cult," n. 5) 33 and by Benton at the Polis cave ("Pölis, I," n. 13) 56. 29. I. Morris, " T h e use and abuse of Homer," ClAnt 5 (1986) 81-138. 30. R. Lamberton, "Introduction" and the other essays in R . Lamberton and J.J. Keaney, eds., Homer's Ancient Readers (Princeton, 1992), vii-xxiv; I. Morris and B. Powell, eds., A New Companion to Homer (Leiden, New York, and K ö l n , 1997). 31. K . M c N a m e e , "Aristarchus and 'Everyman's' Homer," GRBS 22 (1981) 247-55. For a recent innovative study of the place of H o m e r and the heroic past in fourth century Macedonian culture, see A . Cohen, "Alexander and Achilles—Macedonians and 'Mycenaeans,' " i n j . B. Carter and S. P. Morris, eds., The Ages of Homer (Austin, 1995) 483"5°5-

The Heroic Past

33

cosmological boundaries, has also been long observed (e.g. Isis, Asklepios, or the Great G o d s on Samothrace). W h a t has this to do with H o m e r i c heroes? G i v e n Hellenistic political conditions, locally generated claims to territory and prestige were now not purely internal affairs; externally powerful states were often involved.

Low-key cults, of geographically restricted interest,

held little appeal and exerted litde influence over the distant authorities w h o could now dictate the political landscape. But a shrine to Odysseus, a cult of A g a m e m n o n : these were names with which to conjure, with H o m e r (the poet) a solid bulwark in the background. Even the R o m a n s knew their Homer, and that would b e c o m e no small matter. Epic heroes, it has often been said, are panhellenic heroes, and that b e c a m e a special distinction in the expanded world view of the Hellenistic age.

T h i s is by no means to

suggest that local hero cults went defunct at this time, any more than that the traditional civic gods were suddenly neglected. But in the competitive atmosphere o f the Hellenistic world, a claim to heroic associations b e c a m e one ritual means by which to articulate local histories and local strengths to outside authorities. M y second suggestion revolves around the ability of H o m e r and o f the heroic age to offer a sense o f origin and identity. Underlying this need, indeed behind all this rather tangled w e b of motivations, is the issue of Hellenistic historicism. Louis Robert, a m o n g others, has spoken of the yearning on the part of Hellenistic communities for a history, either real or "invented." T h e s e were times that saw collective history b e c o m e a matter for study, collation, and recording.

Stress was laid upon recovering and celebrating origin

myths and legends, on establishing pedigrees running back into the mists of time. 32 In part, this self-consciousness appears a product of the threat to the independent life o f small cities, a threat rooted in Hellenistic times which grew apace under the R o m a n empire. T h e right to privilege, the very right to existence, increasingly had to be d e m a n d e d upon historic grounds. Yet this search transcended matters of mercenary self-protection. A s Paul Veyne put it, etiology "spoke from a need for political identity." Ancestries and origins, invoked through myth and ritual, could be used to claim kinship with other cities, to establish status, and to secure identity.

Heroes were especially

instrumental in this process, for they above all possessed a comprehensible genealogy, capable of yielding plausible chronologies and webs of interrelationships. Hellenistic scholars charted the generations, measuring with what Veyne termed "the thread of time" the distance between heroes and

32. See, for example, L. Robert, "Une épigramme satirique d'Automédon et Athènes au début de l'empire," REG 94 (1981) 338-61. On civic genealogies, G. Rogers, The Sacred Identity of Ephesos: Foundation Myths of a Roman City (London, 1991).

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S. A L C O C K

the present day.33 Genealogy provided that longed-for sense of local history and identity, and the heroic age anchored that thread of time. Elite legitimation, civic prestige, symbolic protection, a sense of communal identity: all of these may go some way to explaining the appeal of a Hellenistic heroic past. In the end, it is worth raising the more general question: "which past?" It has long been recognized, for example, that Pausanias and other voices of the Second Sophistic to some extent evade the recent past, the history of Greece under Roman domination. In countless other contexts, there are numerous equally revealing episodes of histories accepted and histories rejected. 34 If it is accepted that the Greeks of the Hellenistic age felt some special kinship, had some special need of the heroic age, then the Samothracian pseudo-tholos becomes somewhat less enigmatic—and so, more importantly, does the Hellenistic period.

33. P. Veyne, Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths? An Essay on the Constitutive Imagination. Translated by Paula Wissing (Chicago, 1988) 76-78. 34. E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, 1983). O n R o m a n Greece: E. L. Bowie, "Greeks and their past in the Second Sophistic," in M . I. Finley, ed., Studies in Ancient Society (London, 1974) 166-209; C . Habicht, Pausanias' Guide to Ancient Greece (Berkeley, 1985) 104 n. 34; S. E. Alcock, Graecia Capta: The Landscapes of Roman Greece (Cambridge, 1993) 28-29. See a ' s o Cartledge and Spawforth (n. 14) 190-211.

TWO

"These fragments have I shored against my ruins": Apollonios Rhodios and the Social Revalidation of Myth for a New Age Peter Green These mythes or current stories, the spontaneous and earliest growth of the Grecian mind, constituted at the same time the entire intellectual stock of the age to which they belonged. They are the common root of all those different ramifications into which the mental activity of the Greeks subsequently diverged; containing, as it were, the preface and germ of the positive history and philosophy, the dogmatic theology and the professed romance, which we shall hereafter trace each in its separate development. They furnished aliment to the curiosity, and solution to the vague doubts and aspirations, of the age; they explained the origin of those customs and standing peculiarities with which men were familiar; they impressed moral lessons, awakened patriotic sympathies, and exhibited in detail the shadowy, but anxious, presentiments of the vulgar as to the agency of the gods; moreover they satisfied that craving for adventure and appetite for the marvellous, which has in modern times become the province of fiction proper. G . G R O T E , A HISTORY

OF GREECE ( l 8 8 8 E D . ) , V O L . I, 3 O 9

S o m e years ago, w h e n c o m p o s i n g a c h a p t e r on A p o l l o n i o s f o r m y g e n e r a l survey of the Hellenistic e r a , I p o s e d the f o l l o w i n g question ( G r e e n 1 9 9 0 214): " H o w , asked the Psalmist, shall w e sing the L o r d ' s song in a strange land? A n d how, in their luxurious enclave or ghetto, w e r e these E g y p t i a n (or C y r e naic) G r e e k s to m a i n t a i n the m a t r i x of sustaining m y t h that g r e w u p a m i d w a r r i n g M y c e n a e a n b a r o n i e s in central G r e e c e a n d the P e l o p o n n e s e ? "

If

I would like to acknowledge here the very great help I have had from the editors of this volume, in particular Erich Gruen and Paul Cartledge, whose ingenious suggestions for restructuring an originally unwieldy and ill-proportioned essay were matched only by the patience with which they waited for my revisions. It goes without saying that I remain responsible for the many defects which (I am uneasily aware) still remain, perhaps inevitably, in my treatment of a topic by its very nature as elusive as Proteus himself. 35

36

P. GREEN

I a m rash e n o u g h to a t t e m p t a solution now, it is in large m e a s u r e thanks to F r a n k W a l b a n k ' s w o r k : he, a b o v e a n y o t h e r historian, has s h o w n m e o v e r the y e a r s h o w s c r u p u l o u s s c h o l a r s h i p a n d i m a g i n a t i v e insight c a n c o m b i n e to i r r a d i a t e e v e n the m o s t r e c a l c i t r a n t p r o b l e m s . In particular, w h i l e p u r s u i n g m y o w n researches for the p r e s e n t paper, I h a v e always h a d in m i n d Frank's l a p i d a r y essay o n " H i s t o r y a n d T r a g e d y . ' "

H i s p e r c e p t i o n o f the early a n d

f u n d a m e n t a l link b e t w e e n the t w o is o n l y o n e o f the m a n y insights it has g i v e n m e : if t h e r e is a n y m e r i t in w h a t follows h e r e , let that stand as a tribute to his i n s p i r i n g e x a m p l e . A l m o s t the o n l y u n d e b a t e d a s p e c t o f G r e e k m y t h is its e x t r a o r d i n a r i l y l o n g - e n d u r i n g significance. W h e n the H o m e r i c epics w e r e first c o n c e i v e d , Jason's ship Argo w a s a l r e a d y koccti u e X o u o a , 2 a f a m i l i a r p u b l i c topic, 3 a n d Nilsson's c o r r e l a t i o n o f the m a j o r cycles o f m y t h w i t h k n o w n M y c e n a e a n sites (a t h e o r y that has w i t h s t o o d m u c h criticism 4 ) took the k e r n e l at least o f this m a t e r i a l b a c k into the A e g e a n B r o n z e A g e . B u t it w a s n o t o n l y o f g r e a t antiquity: it s e e m e d indestructible. Hellenistic A l e x a n d r i a m a d e a n i n d u s t r y out o f it.

Graecia capta f o u n d R o m e e q u a l l y r e c e p t i v e : T i b e r i u s ' obsessive

p a s s i o n for the a r c a n a o f m y t h o l o g y w a s notorious. 5

R e v e a l i n g , too: the

questions w i t h w h i c h h e tried to floor the g r a m m a r i a n s ( " W h o w a s H e c u b a ' s m o t h e r ? W h a t n a m e d i d A c h i l l e s g o u n d e r w h e n disguised as a girl? W h a t songs d i d the Sirens sing?")

all tacitly a s s u m e the possibility o f eliciting a

t r u t h f u l answer, i.e. c o n c e d e the f u n d a m e n t a l historicity o f m y t h . M y p r i m e interest is, b r o a d l y speaking, historical. W h a t d i d the G r e e k s t h e m s e l v e s v a l u e a b o u t m y t h ? H o w m u c h , a n d in w h a t way, d i d those v a l u e s c h a n g e b e t w e e n M y c e n a e a n a n d G r e c o - R o m a n times?

What

factors—

1. Originally published in Historia 9 (i960) 216-34, and reprinted as ch. xv (22441) of Selected Papers: Studies in Greek and Roman History and Historiography (Cambridge, 1985)2. Horn. Od. 12.70. T h e debate as to whether the epithet should be treated as one word or two goes back to Aristarchus' day: see Drager 14 and n. 7 for a conspectus of scholarship. 3. Schol. ad loc. [Dind. II 535.6f.]: sniQexov xf) !92> '93. ' 9 4 Cornelius Scipio Africanus, P., 108, 179— 80 Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus, L., 108 Cornelius Scipio Asina, Cn., 186 Cornelius Sulla, L., 120, 146, 148 Cornelius Tacitus, 78 Cossutius, 126 countryside, decline in, 10 court society, 18-ig, 198-224; Antigonid, Seleucid, and Ptolemaic structures converge, 207-8; a r m y as source of power in, 2 1 4 - 1 5 , 2 1 5 - 1 6 ; concept, 204-5; contacts outside, 18-19, 2 0 0 201, 213, 223; courtiers' entourages, 216-17; definition, 202-6; display, 205, 2 1 7 - 1 8 , 242, 257; ethnic make-up, 208, 223; etiquette, 203-4, 219, 222, 223-24; European, early m o d e r n , 2 0 1 - 2 , 203-6; groups within, 2 1 3 14, 2 1 5 - 1 6 ; intermediary between king a n d subjects, 200—201; king's role and strategies, 200—201, 2 1 2 - 1 3 , 2 1 5 - 1 6 , 217; military/administrative division, 2 1 5 - 1 6 , 217; philoi, 213, 2 1 4 15; Polybius and, 205, 211, 218, 2 2 0 21, 223; power relations, 200, 2 0 1 - 2 , 206, 2 1 4 - 1 8 , 221; Ptolemaic hierarchy, 2I n 3 35> R o m a n impact, 221; rules and norms, 203-4, 219, 2 2 1 - 2 2 , 2 2 3 24; specialization of functions, 205, 2 1 3 - 1 4 ; xenia and, 208-10 Crete, 78, 130, 132, 1 7 1 ^ 3

309

C r i n o n (Macedonian courtier), 216, 219, 222 "Cyclopean"-style masonry, Hellenistic, 20, 29 Cynics, 66 Cynoscephalae, battle of, 181 Cyprus, 131 C y r e n a e a n War, 154 Cyrene, foundation of, 54 Cyrus I, the Great of Persia, 91-92, 99, 100, 101, 103 Cyrus the Younger, 204, 208 Damophilus (Sicilian Greek), 163, 164, 173 Daniel, book of, 16, 89-104; absence of cultural strife between Jews and Greeks, 73; and Alexander the Great, 79, 91, 101, 103; on Antiochus Epiphanes, 90, 95, 97, 103; on Cyrus, 103; Greek translations, 96; H e b r e w and Aramaic in, 96; and Josephus, 96, 97; J u d g e m e n t Day, 102-3; a r | d Maccabees, 9 5, 103; narrative structure, 98-102; Polybius and, go, 104; prophecies and pseudo-prophecies, 95> 97» 98-102; and Purim, 94-95; Q u m r a n texts, 95-96; resurrection of virtuous, 102, 103; "Son of M a n " motif, 95, 100, 103; on succession of N e a r Eastern empires in relation to Jews, 16, 89-94, 98-102, 1 0 3 - 4 Daphnai, Antiochus IV's pageant at, 126 debts, calls for cancellation of, 10 decline, Hellenistic era as age of, 3, 4, 15 Delos: Apellikon's expedition, 149-50; Aristion and temple treasure, 146, 149-50; Athens' acquisition, 129, 133, 140, 141, 146; foreigners honoured at, 123, 127-28, 132, 139, 140; foreign kings' dedications at, 127, 136; proxenoi, 108; R o m e and, 136, 141, 142, 143, 146 Delphi, ii2n32, 122; proxenoi, 108, 110, 125-26 Demetrius of Phaleron, 81, 90, 2 4 3 ^ Demetrius Poliorcetes, 68

310

INDEX

Demetrius of Rhenaia, 141 Demetrius I of Syria, 124, 127, 139 Demetrius II of Syria, 127-28, 129, 133 democracy, 8 - 9 , 206 deracination, 6 2 - 6 3 Dikaiarchos (writer), 44 Dikaiarchos son of Philonides of Laodikeia, 1 2 5 - 2 6 Diodorus of Pergamum, 136 Diodorus Siculus, 37; on slavery, 162, 163, 164-65, 172, 173 Diogenes of Babylon, 126 Diogenes of Sinope, 57 Dionysios son of Boethos, 139 Dionysios Skytobrachion, Argonautai, 16, 37. 46, 59-62, 63 Dionysus, artists of, 139, 247 Dioskourides, gymnasiarch, 140 Diotogenes, 218 Diphilus, 87 diplomacy, 11, 17. See also embassies display, 205, 2 1 7 - 1 8 , 242, 257 Domitius Ahenobarbus, Cn., 107, m n 2 7 Doson. See Antigonos III Doson Douris (vase-painter), 50 Droysen, Johann-Gustav, 2 - 3 , 5 Drusus the Elder, m n 2 7 Ecclesiasticus (Wisdom of Ben Sira), 73, 96 economics, n -13; colonial model, 2 2 9 30, 237-40 Eetion; cult at Samothrace, 29 Egypt- 19» 2 2 5 - 5 7 ; alphabetization, 254; army, 7 - 8 , 178, 235-36, 251; and Athens, 120, 129-33, '39> bureaucracy, 254-55; census, 19, 242, 2 4 3 45, 256-57; collaboration with foreign regime, 236; colonial model, 19, 2 2 5 41; court society, 204, 2 ^ 3 5 , 214; education, 247; ethnicity, 7 - 8 ; fiscality, 19, 242-57; Greek regard for civilization, 39, 230; "Hellenes," non-Greek, 7> 230, 247, 248; Jews, 7, 82, 84, 85, 247; land, control of, 235-36, 244; language use, 247; local separatism, 236; monetarization, 233-34, 249; multiculturalism, 4, 5; nomenclature,

2

5 ' i 2 57; "Persians," 247, 248; petitions to king, 233-34; police, 248; population and occupations, 247, 248, 252, 254-56, 257; resistance, 235, 236, 237-38; R o m a n economic exploitation, 231; syntaxeis, 248; Syrian wars, 89, 90, 102, 122, 126, 130, 257; taxation, 19, 233-34, 242-43, 245-57; tax revolts, 236. See also Fayum; papyri; Ptolemies; Z e n o n archive Eirenaios of Alexandria, 130 Elaia, 112 Elis, 178, 218 élites, local: hero cults and legitimation, 15, 3 0 - 3 1 , 34; links with courts, 1 8 19, 200-201, 213, 223 embassies: Athenian philosophical, to R o m e (155), 141-42, 195; R o m a n to Asia Minor (150/149), 193 enktesis, right of, 122 Ennius, 176 Eos and Tithonos, 48 ephebates, 25, 73 Ephesus, i n n 2 7 , 112 Epicharmus, 87 Epictetus, 160 Epicurus, Letters to Menoeceus, 7 Epigenes (Seleucid courtier), 215 Epikles Acharneus, 143 équités as patrons, 112 Esdras (text), 92 Esther, book of, 92, 93-94, 96 ethnicity, 7 - 8 Etruscans, 48, 50 Euandros, 134 Euboulos of M a r a t h o n , 142 eucharistia, 115, 117 euergetai, euergesia, 105, n o , 112, 115, 117, 130 Euhemerism, 44-45, 68 Eumelos of Corinth, 43, 4gn46, 54 Eumenes II of Pergamum: and Athens, 132, 134, 136, 137, 138; and Pharnakes of Pontus, 124, 138; and Rome, 136, 137, 138; and Seleucids, 123-24, 125, 135 Euphemos, 54

INDEX Euripides, 70, 87; Medeia, 56, 57, 60-61 Europe, early modern courts of, 201-2, 203-6 Eusebius, 38, 76, 841136, 85, 86 Evander, 196 expenditure, conspicuous, 205, 217-18 Ezra, book of, 92 Fabius Maximus Aemilianus, Q., 193 farming, wealth from, 196 Fayum (Arsinoite nome), Egypt, 225-26, 237"3 8 - 243. 247, 252, 254-56 fides, 115, 117 field-survey, 10 Flaminius. See Quinctius Flaminius Fleece, Golden, 60, 70. See also Argonauts foedus aequum, 116, 117 folk-tale motifs in myth, 37, 45, 46-47, 521158 foreign relations. See international relations freedom, Greek, 14, 114 friendship networks, 213. See also philoi; xenia funerals, aristocratic Roman, 188, 190 Gabae, 205 games, 25, 247 genealogies, 14-15, 31, 40, 43; Active, 3 1 , 74-78 geographical knowledge, 41-42, 46, 5 2 54, 70 Geometric Age, 3 1 - 3 2 gods: in myth, 40-41, 68-70; "universal," 32-33 governors, Roman provincial, 108-9, 110-12 Gracchus. .SeeSempronius Gracchus Great Gods. See under Samothrace Green Revolution, Malaysia, 238, 241 Gulussa, king of Numidia, 140 gymnasia, 73, 74, 129, 132, 133, 247 Haliartos, 140 Halicarnassus, m n 2 7 Hannibal, 189-90

311

Harpies, 47, 49, 51 Hasmonaean dynasty, 82 Hawk and Nightingale, fable of, 42 Hecataeus of Abdera, 75 Hecataeus of Miletus, 47 Hector, tomb of, Boeotian Thebes, 2 7 28, 30, 31 Hekataios. See Hecataeus Hellanikos of Lesbos, 56 Hellenes, non-Greeks as, 7, 230, 247 Helots, 165, i67ni4 Hera, cults of, 25, 28 Herakleia Pontica, Mariandyni of, 17, 166-72, 173 Herakleitos Poseidippou, 143 Herakles, 57; and Abraham, 76-77; in Argonaut myth, 52, 60, 61, 64-66 Herculaneum, Philodemos Papyrus, 14 Hermeias (Seleucid courtier), 204, 205, 211, 214-15, 217, 220-21 Hermes, identified with Moses, 85 Herodoros, 57, 60-61 Herodotus, 39, 42n24, 45, 60; on Ocean, 42, 47, 7° heroes, cult of epic and heroic age, 15, 20-34, 38; and civic prestige, 31, 33, 34; and communal identity, 15, 3 3 34; and élite legitimation, 15, 3 0 - 3 1 , 34; Homeric, 23-28; rationale, 30-34; symbolic protection, 15, 3 2 - 3 3 , 34 Hesiod, 42, 47, 54, 86, 87 Hesione, 61 Hesperides, 52, 65 Hieron of Aigeira, 142 High Priests, Jewish, 73, 74, 75-76, 7879, 81, 82 Hikesios of Ephesus, 135 historicism and myth, 33-34, 38, 45, 53, 58, 59 historiography: Cato the Censor, 194; Jewish, 89-94, 94-104; Polybius' attitude, 18, 145-58, 194; Posidonius' approach, 17, 145, 154-58 Homer: Apollonios' use, 66, 67; and Argonaut myth, 36, 47; Circe's location, 53-54; cult of heroes, 23-28; Hellenistic readings, 32, 86

INDEX

312

honours, traditional Hellenic, 106; see also euergetai; proxemy Hostilius Mancinus, A . , i8in25

Josephus, 76, 80, 83-84, 91, 93; and Daniel, 96, 97; legends on Jewish descent, 75-76, 77 Judgement, D a y of, 102-3

Hydreia, 130

Judith, b o o k of, 92, 93 imaginative literature, colonial, 19, 231,

Junius Silanus, M . (governor of Asia), n o

238-41 imperial cult at O r c h o m e n o s , 28

Kallikrates (Achaian leader), 117-18, 142

individual, moral responsibility of, 42-43

Kalliphanes son of Kalliphanes Phyla-

Indonesia, 231, 239-41 innovation, sixth-century intellectual, 37,

sios, 135-36 Kalliphron (archon 58/57), I48n8 K a l y m n o s , 124

52 international relations: interaction of large and small powers, 32-33; realist

K a r n e a d e s , 126, 139, 1 6 3 ^ Kassandros' rebuilding of T h e b e s , 27

approach, 18. See also under individual

K a s t o r (Egyptian minister), 129

states

Kephisodoros (Athenian statesman), 130

Ionian intellectual revolution, 37, 52

kings, 198-99; conspicuous expenditure, 205, 217-18; contacts outside court,

Ioudaismos, 72, 73 Isis, cult of, 33

18-19, 200-201, 213; court as sphere

Isocrates, 38, 56-57

of influence, 200; economic role, 12;

Ithaka, 25

emergence from political instability, 206; importance of proximity to,

Jaddus (Jewish High Priest), 78-79

205, 216, 220, 222; and overpowerful

Jason (Argonaut): in Apollonios, 41, 49,

subjects, 213, 215-16; and polis, 8—9;

50, 52, 69, 70; Dionysios Skytobra-

sources of power, 115-16; strategies

chion on, 60; Pindar on, 55-56; vi-

for survival, 212-13, 215-16, 219,

sual representations, archaic version, 48>

49"5°. 5'j

52

222 Kings, b o o k of, 91

Jason (Jewish High Priest), 73, 74

K l e o m e n e s . See C l e o m e n e s

Jerusalem, 73, 74, 78-79, 81, 82, 91

K l e o p a t r a , wife of Demetrius II and

Jews: Alexandrian, 82, 85; Captivity, 9 1 -

Antiochus V I I , 128

92; cultural reception of Hellenism,

Koile Syria, 122, 126, 130

2, 5 - 6 , 16, 72-88; Egyptian, 7, 82, 84,

Kolchis. See Colchis

85, 247; as "Hellenes," 7, 247; histo-

K o t y s (Thracian king), 106-7

riography, response to succession of

Krokodilopolis, 244

empires, 16, 89-104; kinship associ-

Kypselos, Chest of, 49-50, 54

ations with Greeks, putative, 74-78,

Kyzikos, 135

88; novels, 92-94; power relations with Greeks, 79, 83, 87-88; romances

Laelius, C . , 143

on encounters with Hellenistic rulers,

Lakonia, 26, 29

78-84, 88; tales tracing Hellenic cul-

Lampsakos, 124

ture to Jewish influence, 84-87, 88;

land: colonial model of control, 2 3 5 -

Temple, 92, 101, 102, 103; unity be-

36; ownership, and polarization of

tween Palestinian and Diaspora, 82,

wealth, 10, 12; taxation, 244

83. See also High Priests and individual scriptural books Jonathan ( M a c c a b a e a n leader), 75, 76

Laodike, daughter of Seleukos IV, 125, 139 Laodike, queen of Syria, 123

INDEX Laodike, sister of Pharnakes of Pontus, 138 leagues of cities, 10, 32. See also Achaia; Aitolia Leander of Cyrene, 154 legalism, Greek, 116, 117-18 legal proceedings, Roman patrons and, 106-8 Lemnos: Argonauts on, 54-55, 60, 66; Athens and, 136, 140, 143 Leon son of Kichesias of Aixone, 123 Leontius (Macedonian general), 211, 216-17, 219, 220 Leontopolis, 82 Libya, Jewish connection with, 76, 77 Licinius Lucullus, L. (c. 117-56), 154 Licinius Murena, L., 108-9, H 7 Linus (fictitious poet), 87 literary criticism, 6 Livius, M., 186 Livy, 114, 176 logos and muthos, 41, 42, 44-45, 68 looting, wartime, 177, 180, 185-86 Louis X I V of France, court of, 18, 201, 202, 212 Lucretius, 45 Lucullus. See Licinius Lucullus Lycortas, 116, 118 Lykia, Rhodian dependency in, 125, 136 Lysias, tyrant of Tarsos, 150 Lysimacheia, 129 Maccabees, 6, 16, 102, 103 1 Maccabees, 73, 75-76, 90-91, 95 2 Maccabees, 72, 73, 74, 84, 94 3 Maccabees, 80-81, 82, 83, 95 4 Maccabees, 95 Macedon: and Aitolia, 120-21, 133; and Athens, 9, 68, 120-22, 129, 133, 134, 135, 140; ethnic identity, 7; Polybius on armies, 177, 181-82, 184, 191; Roman patrons, 106. See also Philip V Macedonian War, Second, 180-81 Macedonian War, Third, 181, i88n4i, 192* '94 magnates, native, 1 1 3 ^ 4 Magnesia, battle of, 181

313

Magnesia, Thessaly, 25, 165 Magnesia ad Sipylum, i n n 2 7 Malaysia, 238, 241 Malleolus, L., 186 Marcellus. See Claudius Marcellus Märchen, 37, 45, 46-47, 5 2 ^ 8 Marcus Aurelius, emperor, 160 Mariandyni, 17, 166-72, 173 Marius, C., death, 151-52, 154 Marmor Partum, 38, 59 Maronea, 117 Marxist-influenced scholars, 226, 227, 241 masks, female votive, 25 Massinissa, king of Numidia, 140 Mastanabal, king of Numidia, 140 "Mattathias, Testament of," 95 Medeia: Apollonios' portrayal, 63, 69; Dionysios Skytobrachion on, 61-62; Eumelos creates Corinthian ancestry for, 43, 54; immortal in original myth, 48, 55; Pindar reduces role, 55-56; visual representations, 48, 49-50, 5 1 52, 56 Medeios (Athenian Archon eponymos), '47 Medeios (son of above), I48n8 Megaleas (Macedonian courtier), 211, 216, 219, 222 Megara, 43M8 Melancomas of Ephesus, 210 Menalcidas (general of Achaian League), 142 Menander, 87 Menandros of Pergamum, 134 Menekrates (Rhodian honoured at Kalymnos), 124 Menelaion, Lakonia, 26, 29 Menippos (of Colophon), 107 Menochares (Syrian minister), 127 mercenaries, 132, 177, I90n47, 198, 204 Mesambria, H2n32 Messalla Potitus (procos. 21-19), m n 2 7 Metellus. See Caecilius Metellus Methana (Arsinoe), 130 Methymna, 117 middle class, urban, 13

314

INDEX

M i m n e r m o s , 53 M i n o s myth, 47 Minyas, Treasury of, O r c h o m e n o s , 28, 29, 3 ° "miracle, Greek," 37, 52 mirrors, Etruscan, 48 M i t h r a d a t e s of P e r g a m u m , 118 M i t h r a d a t e s I V of Pontus, 138 M i t h r a d a t e s V Euergetes of Pontus, 138, 139-40 M i t h r a d a t e s VI of Pontus, 139, 144, 146, 149, 166 M n a s a g o r a s of Alexandria Troas, 132 M n o a n s of Crete, I7in23 m o d e r n i s t / p r i m i t i v i s t debate, 13 M o l o n (Syrian pretender), 177, 214, 217 monarchies. See kings m o n o t h e i s m , 86, 87 Mopsuesta, 205 morality: a n d myth, 39-40, 42-43, 46, 52; Polybius a n d , 18, 191-92, 198, 223 Moses, 84-85, 86 Mousaios, 85 multiculturalism, 4, 5 M u m m i u s , Sp., 132, 143, 144 Musonius Rufus, C., 160 M y c e n a e : A g a m e m n o n e i o n , 23-25, 29, 30; Argive reoccupation, 24, 25, 31 Mylasa, n o M y r i n a , 143 myth 1 5 - 1 6 , 3 5 - 7 1 ; a n d colonization, 46, 53; development in attitudes to, 37, 45-71; educational a n d didactic function, 39-40; e m p o w e r m e n t by, 40, 43, 46; as e n t e r t a i n m e n t , 40, 46; functions, 39-40; genealogies validated by, 40, 43; a n d geographical knowledge, 4 1 - 2 , 46, 52-54, 70; gods in, 4 0 - 4 1 , 68-70; historicity, belief in

. 33-34. 3 8 . 45» 53) 58, 59; a n d logos, 41, 42, 44-45, 68; long-enduring significance, 36; a n d morality, 39-40, 42-43, 46, 52; on origins, 3 3 - 3 4 , 40, 46; paradeigmata, 39-40; preservation of great deeds, 39, 45-6; p r o p a g a n d a use, 46; rationalization, 44-5, 46, 5 9 60, 63, 71; a n d religion, 40-41, 46,

67-70; a n d self-definition, 43; social mutation a n d , 37-45; systematization, 43; a n d territorial claims, 40, 43; variants, 43-44; visual evidence, 4 8 52. See also allegorization Mytilene, 118 N e b u c h a d n e z z a r , king of Babylon, 99 N e h e m i a h , book of, 92 Nero. See Claudius N e r o Netherlands, 231, 239-41 neutrality, political, 11 N e w C a r t h a g e , sack of, 185 Nicagoras o f M e s s e n e , 209, 211 Niceratos of Alexandria, 125M3, ' 3 1 Nicocrates of C y r e n e , 154 Nicolaus of Damascus, 152 Nicolaus the Peripatetic, 166 N i c o m a c h u s of Rhodes, 210 N i c o m e d e s II of Bithynia, 140 Nisibis (Antiocheia Mygdonis), 128 nomos a n d physis, Polybius on, 175-98 non-alignment, political, 11 novels: Jewish historical, 92-94; m o d e r n , 2, 19. 231, 238-41 numerals, Greek, 254 Nysa, q u e e n of C a p p a d o c i a , 139 Nysa, q u e e n of Pontus, 111, 123, 138 oaths, 185-86, 189, 190 O c e a n , stream of, 42, 47, 53, 70 Octavius, C n . (cos. 165), 127, 143 Octavius, C n . (cos. 128), 143-44 Odysseus, 25; Polybius a n d , 193, 196-97 officium, 115, 117 Oinophilos (Athenian A r c h o n Basileus), 147 O l y m p i a , 135 O l y m p i c G a m e s , 61 O l y m p i o d o r o s (Rhodian proxenos at Athens), 130 Oniads, 84 Onias, Jewish H i g h Priest, 75-76 Oppius, Q., 109 oratory, 39, 195 O r c h o m e n o s , Boeotia; Treasury of Minyas, 28, 29, 30

INDEX Orientalism, 2, 4, 11 "origins, age of," 38, 39 origins, sense of, 33—34, 40, 46 Orophernes (Cappadocian pretender),

315

Pella, 204 Peloponnese, land ownership, 12 Penestai, 165, i67ni4, i7in23 Pentateuch, 8 1 - 8 3 ,

'39 Oropos, 141-42 Orpheus, 85, 86, 87 ostraka, Egyptian, 245 Oxyrhynchus Historian, 18

Pergamum: and Athens, 121, 131, 132, 1 3 3 - 3 7 ; Great Altar, 67; Jews claim connection, 77-78; palace, 204; patronage, 118; war against Pontus, 124. See also individual rulers Peripatos, 150

palaces, 204-5 Palaiphatos, 45 Panaetius of Rhodes, 14, 1191^57, 132, 160, 1 6 1 - 6 2 , 172 Panathenaia, 127, 131, 136 panhellenism, 61, 62 papyri, 14, 242-43, 253. See also cartonnage; Zenon archive paradeigmata, mythical, 39-40 Parian Marble, 38, 59 past, 37-38, 39, 40, 45-46; linking with

peripheral and core areas, 13 Perrhaebians, 165 Perseus (mythical figure), 24-25 Perseus, king of Macedon, 121, 125, 1 8 2 -

present, 15, 22, 24 Patroclus, tomb of, 30 patronage, 1 6 - 1 7 , 105—ig; by équités, 112; of free cities, 106-8, iog; by governors, 1 1 0 - 1 2 ; Greek adoption of term patron, 105-6, n o , 115; Greek cities and Roman patrons, 1 0 5 - 1 3 ; as habit of mind 1 1 5 - 1 6 ; hereditary, 106, 1 1 1 12; inequality of obligations, 1 1 6 - 1 7 ; key to interpretation of Roman policy in Hellenistic world, 105, 1 1 3 - 1 9 ; legalism in, 116, 1 1 7 - 1 8 ; and legal proceedings, 106-8, 111; as model or metaphor of Roman power, 1 1 3 - 1 5 ; by native magnates, 11 3 ^ 4 ; personal patron/client relationships as affecting political issues, 1 1 8 - 1 9 ; a s Philosophy of society, 1 1 5 - 1 6 ; Principate and, 113; proxeny lacks commitment of, 109-10, 112; Senate as imposing?, 106, 107, 112 Paul, Saint, 2 Pausanias, 23, 28, 118 Pausimachos son of Philostratos, 135 pedigrees. See genealogies Pednelissus, 209

83 Persian empire, Jewish writings on, 90, 91-92, 100, 101, 103 "Persians" in Egypt, 247, 248 Peru, 2 3 3 - 3 4 Pessinos, 136 petitions to kings, 2 3 3 - 3 4 Phaineas (Aitolian), 115 Pharnakes of Pontus, 123, 124, 1 3 7 - 3 8 phauloi (Stoic inferiors), 169-70, 172, 173 Pherecydes, 4 8 ^ 2 Philadelphia, Egypt, 252 Philemon, 87 Philetairos, brother of Eumenes of Pergamum, 135, 136 philhellenism, Roman, 14, 16 Philip V of Macedon: and Apelles, 205, 2 1 1 , 212, 215, 216, 2 1 8 - 2 0 , 222; and Athens, 121, 133, 134; Polybius' criticism, 182-83 Philippides (comic poet), 68 Philo of Alexandria, 161, 173-74 Philodemos Papyrus, 14 philoi (ruler's inner circle), 213, 2 1 4 - 1 5 Philon (head of Academy), I48n8 Philonides of Laodikeia on the sea, 125; sons of, 125-26 Philopoemen, 116, 118, 178, 195 philosophy: Jews on Greek monotheistic, 86; Peripatos, 150; political significance, 7, 14, 133, 134, 137, 139, 141-42. See also Stoics and individual philosophers

316

INDEX

Philotes of Kyzikos, 135 Phineus, myth of, 47, 51, 61, 69 Phocaea, R o m a n looting of, 180, 185 physis (nature): Polybius rejects as reason for R o m a n success, 175-76, 179-81, 182, 184, 185, 188, 197-98; resistant to change, 191 Pillars of Hercules, 53 Pindar, 39; Fourth Pythian, on Argonauts, 37, 46, 47, 53, 54-56, 64 Plataia, battle of, 4 2 M 4 Plato, 86, 150, 173; Laws, 165, i67ni4; and myth, 38, 41, 58; Republic, 170-71; on slavery, 165, I7in2i; on soul, 155, Plautus, 15 Pliny, 42 Plutarch, 26, 1 5 1 - 5 2 , 154 Polemaios of Colophon, 107 police, Egyptian, 248 polis, 8—11, 13; "crisis," 8—11, 32; hero cults and identity, 15, 31, 33-34; and monarchies, 8 - 9 ; and myth, 42-43, 52; and rise of Rome, 14; threat to small, 33. See also cities Polis Cave, Ithaka, 25, 29, 30 politics, 8-11; and economy, 229-30; philosophers and, 7, 14, 141-42. See also p r o p a g a n d a Polybius, 6, 15, 18, 89-90, 175-98; and Achaean exiles in Italy, 193; and Aemilii Paulli, 193-94; a n d Athenian settlement, 144; on Callicrates' embassy to Rome, 1 1 7 - 1 8 ; and Cato, 192-98; on constitutions, 187, 1 9 4 95; and court society, 205, 211, 218, 2 2 0 - 2 1 , 223; and Daniel, 90, 104; fides/pistis distinction, 115; extension of work to 146 B.C., 89-90; on H a n nibalic Wars, 189-90; historiographical concepts, 89-90; on M a c e d o n i a n armies, 181-82, 184, 191; moral viewpoint, 18, 1 9 1 - 2 , 198, 223; on oaths, 185-86, 189, 190; and Odysseus, 193, 196—97; patronage m e t a p h o r for Rom a n power, 114; Posidonius as successor of, 162; on R o m a n success,

18, 89-90, 175-98; on sack of N e w Carthage, 185; and Scipio Aemilianus, 118, 192, 193, 194; on unsoldierly qualities, 176-78, 179-80 Polyhistor, Alexander, 76, 77, 8 4 ^ 6 Pompeius, Sex. (patron in Thasos), mn27 Pomponius Bassus, T., 109 Pontus; and Athens, 137-39, ' 4 ° ! '44> 146, 149. See also individual kings Popilius Laenas, C., 90, 102, 126 population, postulated over-, 12 Porcius Cato, M., the Censor, 15, 106, 192-98 Porphyry, 94-95, 97 Posidonius, 15, 145-58, 159-74; Athenion episode, 17, 145-58; on Chians deported to Colchis, 162, 165-66, 173; and Cicero, 162-63; concept of historical causality, 17, 145, 1 54-58; on Golden Age, 170, 173; History as ending in 88 B.C., 145, 151-54; as intermediate source, 162—65, I 7°> o n Mariandyni, 162, 166-72, 173; on Sicilian slave revolt, 158, 162, 163-64, 173; on soul, 169, 171; philosophical tenets, 154-55; a n ( 3 Polybius, 162; psychology, 155, 157, 158 Postumius Albinus, A., 186, 193 pottery, 25, 48, 56 power: centralization, 13; corruption by, 191; at court, 2 0 1 - 2 , 206, 221; Jews and Hellenistic monarchs', 79, 83, 87-88; patronage as m e t a p h o r of R o m a n , 1 1 3 - 1 5 ; unequal relations, and colonial model, 241 Priene, 112 primitivist/modernist debate, 13 Proculus, 114 Prodikos, 44-45 p r o p a g a n d a , myth used as, 46, 54, 61 proxeny, 17, 105, 122, 130. See also under Athens; Delphi; Rhodes Prusias II of Bithynia, 124, 140 Prytanis of Karystos, 120 Ptolemaia, Athenian, 120, 129, 132, 139 Ptolemaios (governor of Cyprus), 131

INDEX Ptolemaios son of Ptolemaios (courtier), i3!-32 Ptolemais (Athenian tribe), 120, 129 Ptolemies: and Athens, 129-33; court society, 204, 2i3n35, 214; and Jews, 80-82, 83, 84, 101-2; longevity of kingdom, 232 Ptolemy I Soter, 101, 243 Ptolemy II Philadelphus, 133, 242, 243, 247, 257; and Jews, 81-83, 96; and Skytobrachion, 61, 62 Ptolemy III Euergetes, 102, 122, 129, 133, 244 Ptolemy I V Philopator: court, 209, 212, 214, 215-16, 217; diplomacy, 121, 210; and Jews, 80-81, 102 Ptolemy V Epiphanes, 102, 130, 131 Ptolemy V I Philometor, 85-86, 127, 130, 1 3 ! - 3 2 , 133 Ptolemy V I I I Physcon, 80, 133, 153 Ptolemy I X Soter (Lathyros), 133, 153 Ptolemy X Alexander, 153-54 publicani, 107 Pulcher. See Claudius Pulcher Purim, 93, 94 Pydna, battle of, 126, 135-36, 140 Pythagoras, 86, 87 Pythais (festival), 139 Quinctius Flamininus, T. (cos. 198), 14, 108, H4n38, 181 Qumran texts, 93, 95-96 racism, 230 Raphia, battle of, 80, 102 rationalism: soul's capacity for, 155; tension between traditional beliefs and, 68;

rationalization of myth, 44-5, 46, 59-60, 63> 71 realism and neo-realism, 18 religion: colonial model, 230; and myth, 40-41, 46, 67-70; tension with rationalism, 68; "universal" deities, 3 2 - 3 3 repetundis trials, 107, 111 resistance: cultural, 13. See also under colonial model

317

resurrection of virtuous, 102, 103 Rhegion, 108 Rhenaioi, 141 Rhodes: and Antiochus III, 124; diplomatic mediation, 121, 124; independence, 11; Lykian dependency, 125, 136; Panaitios and politics, 14; and Pontus, 138; proxenoi, 108-9, I I 2 > u 7> and Rome, 114, 117, 125, 136 Roma, cults of Goddess, 117, 142 romances, Jewish, 78-84, 84-85, 88 Rome: aristocratic way of life, 186-90, 191-92, 195; army, 176-86; census, 256; and colonial model, 231; constitution, 187, 194-95; definition and self-definition, 8, 14-15; and democracy, 9; embassies, 143, 193; Evander and origins of, 196; foreign relations {see under relevant states); and Greek hero cults, 33; and Greek myths, 36; and Greeks, 13-15, 16-17, 221; longevity of empire, 232; and polis, 14; and power, 1 1 3 - 1 5 , 191; Republic, 206; treaties, 116, 117. See also patronage; Polybius (on Roman success); Senate Salamis, Cyprus, 131 Salamis, Greece, 43n28 Samos, 107, m n 2 7 Samothrace; sanctuary of Great Gods, 20, 21, 22, 29, 30, 33, 34 Sardis, 205, 209 scholarship: Hellenistic, 6, 27, 8 1 - 8 3 , 132, 133, 247; modern, 1 - 1 5 (see also colonial model and individual scholars) Scipio Aemilianus. See Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Scipio Africanus. See Cornelius Scipio Africanus Scipio Asiaticus. See Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus Scipio Asima. See Cornelius Scipio Asima Seleucia Pieria, 122 Seleucia on the Tigris, 205 Seleucids. See Syria and individual kings

318

INDEX

Seleucus II of Syria, 138 Seleucus IV Philopator of Syria, 102, 124 Seleucus (gymnasiarch of Marathon), 139 self-definition, 7, 14-15, 43, 61 Selge, 209 Sempronius Gracchus, Ti. (cos. II 152), i86n39 Sempronius Longus, Ti., 186 Senate, Roman, 141, 191; and patronage, 106-8, 112, 114 Seneca. See Annaeus Seneca Septuagint, 82, 83, 86, 92 serfdom, 12 Shedrach, Mesach and Abednego, 99 Sicily: slave revolts, 158, 162, 163, 164, 173. See also Syracuse Sigeion, Troad, 60, 61 Sikyon, 141 silver; Egyptian exchange, 234 Simon (Jewish High Priest), 75 Simonides, 48n42 Sinope, 138 sixth-century intellectual revolution, 37, 52 Skyros, 140 Skytobrachion. See under Dionysios slavery, 17, 159-74; chattel, 171, 172; on Chios, 165-66, 173; humane treatment, 164-65, 173; literary motifs of rascally and virtuous, 160; Mariandyni, 17, 166-72, 173; moral, 159, 160, 161, 163, 164-65, 174; natural, 17, 159, 160, 161, 167, 168-69, '73> 230; Sicilian revolts, 158, 162, 163, 164, 173 Smyrna, 124 Soloi, Cilicia, 122 Solymoi, 78 Sophocles, 37, 57, 60-61, 87 Sosibius (Ptolemaic courtier), 209-10, 211, 214, 215, 216 soul, 169, 171 Spain, Roman wars in, 179—80, 185, 192 Sparta, 10, 117-18, 177; Helots, 165, i67ni4; Jews allege kinship, 74—76, 77

stasis, 10, 12 Stoicism: Cicero and, 161; dearth of ev-

idence on, 160-61, 172; and gymnasium of Athens, 132; and myth, 40, 58-59, 66; phauloi (inferiors), 169-70, 172, 173; and slavery, 17, 159-74; soul, 169, 171 Strabo, 1 1 5 - 1 6 , 146, 171; on myths, 4oni6, 52, 53, 60 Stratoniceia, m n 2 7 Stratonike, princess of Cappadocia, •39

Suidas, 152-53, 154 Sulla. See Cornelius Sulla Sulpicius Galba, C., n o Sulpicius Galus, C., i86n3g Susa, 205 Symplegades. See Clashing Rocks sympoliteia, 32 Syracuse, 177, 191, 195 Syria: army, 7-8, 177, 178; and Athens, 122-29, '32, 135; court society, 201, 204, 205; ethnicity, 7-8; multiculturalism, 4. See also Egypt (Syrian wars); Seleucids; and individual rulers tabulae patronatus, 109 Tacitus. See Cornelius Tacitus Talos, myth of, 5 1 - 5 2 , 63 Tarsus, 150 Tauric Chersonese, 60 Taurion (Macedonian commander), 215, 216 taxation, 12, 198; farming of, 107, 251. See also under Egypt Temple, Jewish, 92, 101, 102, 103 Teos, 106-7 Terentius Varro, L., 108-9 Thasos, m n 2 7 Thearidas, brother of Polybius, 141 Thebes, Boeotia, 27-28, 31 Theodotion, 96, 98, 101 Theodotos (governor of Koile Syria), 210, 214 Theophanes ofMytilene, 118 Theophilos son of Theophilos Halaieus, 136 Theophilos son of Theophilos of Pergamum, 134-35

INDEX Theopompus, Histories, 165 Thera, 54, 130 Therapne, Lakonia, 26 Thermum, 219 Theseus myth, 47 Thessaly, 121, 165, 1671114, 17H123 tholos tombs: Bronze Age, 22, 24, 28, 31-32; Hellenistic imitations, 20, 21, 22, 29, 34 Thraseas son of Aetos from Aspendos, 129-30 Thucydides, 18, 43n25, 45 Tiberius, emperor, 36 Timaeus, 18 Timarchos, of Cypriot Salamis, 1 2 5 ^ 3 , •3 1 time, creative and mythic, 66-67 Tithonos and Eos, 48 Tobiads, tales of, 83-84 Tobit, book of, 92-93 tomb cult, post-classical, 20-34 trade, 13, 41, 140; Egyptian tax, 245, 251 Trasimene, battle of Lake, 180 Troad; tomb of Achilles, 26-27, 30 Tullius Cicero, M.: De officiis, 161-62; De Re Publica III, 162-63; Paradoxa

319

Stoicorum Y 174; on patronage, m - 1 2 , 113-14; on slavery, 161, 162, 174 Valerius Flaccus, L. (procos. 62), m n 2 7 Varro. See Terentius Varro visual representations of myth, 48-52, 56 votive offerings, 25 Walbank, Frank, vii, 4, 6, 36, 120; publications, 259-79 Wandering Rocks, 47, 67 wealth: courtiers', 217-18; differences in, 10, 12; from farming, 196. See also display women, revaluation of status, 10 xenia, 208-10, 223n46 Xenoetas (Seleucid general), 177, 180, 217 Xenophanes, 58, 68 Xenophon; Anabasis, 204 Zeno of Citium, 160-61, 171 Zenon archive, 7, 225-26, 237-38, 240 zero, Greek lack of symbol for, 254 Zeus, 44, 69 Zoilos (Egyptian courtier), 131

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