Kinship in Thucydides: Intercommunal Ties and Historical Narrative 0199697779

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Kinship in Thucydides Intercommunal Ties and Historical Narrative

MARIA FRAGOULAKI

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries.

e Maria Fragoulaki 2013 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First published 2013 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available ISBN 978--0-19-969777-9 As printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CRO 4YY

Contents Abbreviations Note on Translations

ix xm

1. Introduction 1.1 A typology of intercommunal kinship 1.2 The cultural, ethical, and emotional dimension of kinship 1.3 The field of research: theoretical underpinnings and topics of investigation 1.4 Outline of the book

12 29

2. Preliminaries: Kinship Terminology in Thucydides

32

3. Korinth and Its Colonies: Charting xyngeneia 3.1 The introduction of the kinship theme in the History 3.1.1 The Archaeology (1. 1-19) 3.1.2 The Kerkyraika episode (1. 24-55) 3.1.3 The Kerkyraika debate (1. 32-43): The ethical and emotional language of xyngeneia in performance 3.2 Korinth and Syracuse 3.2.1 Hermokrates' speeches at Gela (4. 59-64) and Kamarina (6. 76-80)

58 59 59 64

4. Aiolian Kinship: xyngeneia and Relatedness in the Mytilene and the Plataia Episodes 4.1 The revolt of Mytilene (3. 2-6, 8-19, 3. 25-50) 4.2 The Plataian debate and the end of Plataia (3. 52-68) 5. Sparta's Kinship Ties 5.1 Sparta's ties of xyngeneia 5.1.1 Mainland Greece and the Aegean Herakleia Trachinia Kythera The Cyclades: Thera and Melos The Melian Dialogue (5. 85-113): dialogue form and kinship 5.1.2 The West Taras Lipara/Aiolian Islands Kyrene and Euesperides

1 3 11

82 88 96 100 110 119 140 141 141 141 151 159 162 180 180 183 186

Vlll

Contents

5.2 Sparta's ties of relatedness 5.2.1 Achaians Pellene and Skione 5.2.2 Ionians Amphipolis 5.2.3 Greeks of the West Epizephyrii Lokri

188 188 188 195 195 200 200

6. Athens' Kinship Ties 6.1 Athens' ties of xyngeneia 6.1.1 Ionianism and autochthony Ionianism Autochthony 6.1.2 Thucydides 2. 15: Narrative integration, date of composition, and Athenian identity 6.2 Athens' ties of relatedness 6.2.1 Achaians Zakynthos 6.2.2 Mixed realities of the mainland: Greeks and non-Greeks Thrace Molossians

261 262 270

7. Mixed Realities of the West: Greeks and Non-Greeks 7.1 Italy Etruscans Iapygians and Messapians 7.2 Sicily Sikels Eryx and Egesta

282 283 283 287 292 292 298

8. Conclusion

317

Appendices

321

I. Athens' Kleruchies, Kinship, and Thucydides II. Index of Cities in the History: Intercommunal xyngeneia in Thucydides and Herodotus

321

Bibliography Index Locorum General Index

373 401 425

209 210 210 212 220 228 249 249 251

344

Abbreviations AgoraXVI

AJP AP APP ASNP BA

BCH Bechtel HP BSA CAP CAH2

Chambers CID

CP

CQ CR

A. G. Woodhead, The Athenian Agora: Results of Excavations Conducted by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, xvi. Inscriptions: The Decrees (Princeton, 1997) American Journal of Philology Anthologia Palatina J. K. Davies, Athenian Propertied Families 600-300 BC (Oxford, 1971) Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Classe di Lettere e Filosofia R. J. A. Talbert (ed.), Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World; in collaboration with R. S. Bagnall et al. (Princeton, 2000) Bulletin de correspondance hellenique F. Bechtel, Die historischen Personennamen des Griechischen bis zur Kaiserzeit (Halle, 1917) Annual of the British School at Athens T. Kock, Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta, 3 vols. (Leipzig, 1880-8). Cambridge Ancient History, 2nd edn. (1961- ). Note esp. J. Boardman and N. G. L. Hammond (eds.), iii. pt. 3, The Expansion of the Greek World, Eighth to Sixth Centuries BC (Cambridge, 1982); D. M. Lewis, J. Boardman, J. K. Davies, and M. Ostwald (eds.), v. The Fifth Century BC (Cambridge, 1992); and D. M. Lewis, J. Boardman, S. Hornblower, and M. Ostwald (eds.), vi. The Fourth Century BC (Cambridge, 1994) M. Chambers (ed.), Hellenica Oxyrhynchia (Stuttgart, 1993) Corpus des inscriptions de Delphes. Note esp. F. Lefevre, Corpus des inscriptions de Delphes, iv. Documents amphictioniques, avec une note d'architecture par Didier Laroche et des notes d'onomastique par Olivier Masson (Paris, 2002) Classical Philology Classical Quarterly Classical Review

x

Abbreviations

S. Hornblower, A Commentary on Thucydides, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1991-2008) EGM R. L. Fowler, Early Greek Mythography, i. Text and Introduction (Oxford, 2000) Et. Gen. Etymologicum Genuinum vel Etymologicum Magnum Genuinum F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, 15 FGrH vols. (Leiden, 1923-58) R. Foerster, Libanii. Opera, 12 vols. (Leipzig, 1903-27) Foerster C. W. Fornara, Translated Documents, Archaic Times to Fornara the End of the Peloponnesian War, 2nd edn. (Cambridge, 1983) PPG F. W. A. Mullach, Fragmenta Philosophorum Graecorum, 3 vols. (Paris, 1867-83) P. M. Fraser, Greek Ethnic Terminology (Oxford, 2009) GET Grammatici Graeci, 4 vols. (1867-1910) GG A. S. F. Gow and D. L. Page, The Greek Anthology: Gow/Page The Garland of Philip, and Some Contemporary Epigrams, 2 vols. (London, 1968) Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies GRBS F. W. Walbank, A Historical Commentary on Polybius, HCP 3 vols. (Oxford, 1967-79) HCT A. W. Gomme, A. Andrewes, and K. J. Dover, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, 5 vols. (Oxford, 1945-81) Harvard Studies in Classical Philology HSCP How&Wells W.W. How and J. Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus, 2 vols. (Oxford 1912) M. H. Hansen and T. H. Nielsen (eds.), An Inventory of IACP Archaic and Classical Pole is (Oxford, 2004) Illinois Classical Studies ICS Inscriptions de Delos, 7 vols. (Paris, 1926-) ID M. L. West, Iambi et Elegi Graeci, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1971-2) IE Inscriptiones Graecae (Berlin, 1873-) IG C. B. Petrakos, Oi 'Emypa~ls 'TOV 'Qpw1Tov (Athens, IOrop. 1997) F. Hiller von Gaetringen, Die Inschriften von Priene IPriene (Berlin, 1906) Journal of Hellenic Studies JHS Kruger K. W. Kruger, Thoukydidou Syngraphe; mit erklarenden Anmerkungen. 4 vols. (Berlin, 1858--61) R. Osborne (ed.) The Athenian Empire, 4th edn. (London, Lactor 1 2000) CT

Abbreviations LGPN LIMC LSAG 2

LSJ9

LSS McKechnie/ Kern Massimilla

ML

M!W OCD 4 OJA Osborne PA PAPS PCG PCPhS PEG

Pf. PMG Pritchett RO Schachter SEG Syll.3

Xl

A Lexicon of Greek Personal Names, 5 vols. (Oxford, 1987- ) Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, 19 vols. (Zurich, 1981-) L. H. Jeffery, rev. A. W. Johnston, The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece, 2nd edn. (London, 1990) H. Liddell and R. Scott, revised by H. S. Jones, GreekEnglish Lexicon, 9th edn. (Oxford, 1940), with suppl. by P. G. W. Glare et al., 1996 F. Sokolowski, Lois sacrees: supplement (Paris, 1962) P. J. McKechnie and S. J. Kern, Hellenica Oxyrhynchia (Oxford, 1988) G. Massimilla, Callimaco. Aitia. Libri primo e secondo. Introduzione, testo critico, traduzione e commento (Pisa, 1996) R. Meiggs and D. Lewis, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions to the End of the Fifth Century BC, rev. edn. (Oxford, 1988) R. Merkelbach and M. L. West, Fragmenta Hesiodea (Oxford, 1967) S. Hornblower, A. J. S. Spawforth, and E. Eidinow (eds.), The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th edn. (Oxford, 2012) Oxford Journal ofArchaeology M. J. Osborne, Naturalization in Athens, 4 vols. (Brussels, 1981-3) J. Kirchner, Prosopographia Attica (Berlin, 1901-3) Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society R. Kassel and C. Austin, Poetae Comici Graeci, 8 vols. (Berlin, 1983-2001) Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society A. Bernabe, Poetarum epicorum Graecorum: testominia et fragmenta (Leipzig, 1987- ) R. Pfeiffer, Callimachus, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1949-53) D. L. Page, Poetae Melici Graeci (Oxford, 1962) W. K. Pritchett, The Greek State at War, 5 vols. (Berkeley, 1971-91) P. J. Rhodes and R. Osborne, Greek Historical Inscriptions, 404-323 BC (Oxford, 2003) A. Schachter, Cults of Boiotia, 4 vols. (London, 1981-94) Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum (Leiden, 1923- ) W. Dittenberger, Sylloge inscriptionum Graecarum, 4 vols., 3rd edn. (Leipzig, 1915-24)

XU

TAPA Tod

Walbank ZPE

Abbreviations Transactions of the American Philological Association M. N. Tod, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions (Oxford, 1946-8) M. B. Walbank, Athenian Proxenies of the Fifth-Century BC (Toronto, 1978) Zeitschrift fur Papyrologie und Epigraphik

Note on Translations For translations of ancient authors I have selected standard editions, often making adaptations of my own. For Thucydides, I relied on the translations of M. Hammond (Oxford World Classics), C. F. Smith (Loeb), and S. Hornblower (as in CT i-iii). For Herodotus, I consulted R. Waterfield (Oxford World Classics) and A. D. Godley (Loeb). In all other cases I tended to rely on Loeb translations. I use the Oxford Classical Text for citations of Thucydides (by H. S. Jones and J.E. Powell) and Herodotus (by C. Hude).

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1 Introduction

If there is one section in Thucydides that contains the most varied and dense information about kinship between cities and ethnic groups, it is the catalogue of allies before the final decisive battle in the Great Harbour of Syracuse in 413. Yet this 'tour de force of variation', which 'uses ... almost every imaginable way of expressing colonial relationships'1 starts with a denial of kinship: Toao{SE yap €KaTEpoi ,

,

\ ,

bri EiKEA{av ,

\

~,

TE Ka; 7TEp; EiKEA{as, ••• €7T; Evpa~\

\

·~

\

\ i:

,

KOVaas E7TOl\Ef1/Y}Gav, ov KaTa OLKTJV Tt µ,a1111ov OVOE KaTa sLJYYEVELaV fl-ET

,

,,,,, , ,,,, • • , , " \ 'i: J..' " al\l\T}l\WV GTaVTES, a1111 ws EKaaTOLS TTJS 5VVTvxias TJ KaTa TO 5vµ,.,,Epov TJ ~t

'

,

,,

avayKTJ EGXEV.

2

(These were the nations who fought at Syracuse on either side, coming against Sicily or on behalf of Sicily, choosing sides not so much on grounds of moral principle or kinship, but either as contingent factors, or interest or necessity determined it.)

This is perhaps the most representative expression in the History of the in-spite-of-xyngeneia theme on the intercommunal level and certainly not the only such subversion we come across in Thucydides' account. 3 But a denial may be an emphatic affirmation, and a silence a loud presence, especially in a writer like Thucydides. It is not fortuitous that in this authorial statement kinship by descent (gvyylveia) is paired with justice (o{K1J) in the first group of this antithesis of concepts, where kinship is firmly rooted in the ethico-religious sphere.4 Moreover, as CT iii. 654. 7. 57. 1. 3 I use xyngeneia specifically for Thucydides' use of the term ([vyylvEta}, and syngeneia for the term in other contexts more generally. 4 It needs no elaboration that Zeus is related to justice and the giving of laws to men: e.g. Hom. lL 1. 238-9; Hes. Op. 238-9 (dike opposed to hybris and 'cruel deeds', ux€TAia lpya); 282-4 (dike opposed to perjury and lying that stains the perpetrator's generation); Aesch. Pr. 8-11. I

2

2

Introduction

dike shares both an abstract/ethical and a formal/ritual quality, when referring more specifically to a set of laws, rules, and institutions, by the same token xyngeneia has both an ethical/emotional and a ritual/ institutional dimension, since it refers to a formal and concrete tie that joins two parties. The contrast drawn in the catalogue of allies in Sicily shows that, although justice and kinship by descent were the expected and acknowledged criteria of alliances by Thucydides and his contemporaries in moments of crisis, such as this war among Greeks, the ethical, emotional, and practical orders of social normality are overturned at the expense of 'chance' (gvVTvx{a), 'expediency' (gvµcp€pov), and 'necessity' (dvayK'Y}), what Hesiod might have called axlTALa lpya. 5 The view about the 'natural' alliances between kin-cities is frequently encountered in fifth-century authors, and well beyond. In Plato, in the fourth century, we find the in-spite-of-xyngeneia theme bound up with the idea that the 'natural' space where alliances should be sought is that of the family on the interstate level, i.e. the founding-city of a colony. In the following passage the word olKELoL is used for kinsmen: )

)

A

.,

\\

\

A

()

A

~

1.J..

A

••• OUK ayvowv OTt 1TO/\/\aL TWV KaTOLKLU €LUWV oia.,,opoi Tais KaTOLKLaaaais 1TOAAaKLS EVLaL yEy6vaa{v TE Kat laovTaL • ••• Kaea1TEp 1Tats, El Ka{ 1TOTE ,

~ '.J.. .,. I " I ~I fl-E',\'/\EL oia.,,opos Eivai Tois YEVV'T}aaaiv, EV YE TTJ 1Tapovan 1Tawias , \ , f' \ ... , 'J., , ' A

A

'

a1Topiq. UTEPY€L TE KaL UTEPYETaL V1TO TWV YEVV'T}GaVTWV, KaL .,,Evywv a€L 1Tpos TOVS olKdovs, avayKafovs µ,6vovs EvpfoKEL avµ,µ,axovs·

(I am quite aware ... that many a foundation has quarrelled repeatedly with its founder-state, and will again ... any child is going to fall out with his parents sooner or later, but while he's young and can't help himself he loves them and they love him; he's for ever scampering back to his family and finding his only allies are his relatives.) 6

The analogy with the human family and the variety and complexities of the terminology of intercommunal kinship are central themes in this study, which benefits from modern anthropological work on kinship, sociology of emotions, and ethnicity, and is based on a close reading of Thucydides' text against a range of external sources. A new typology of intercommunal kinship relations is suggested that pays due and special attention to the ethical, emotional, and cultural dimensions of such ties, as these can be traced in and outside Thucydides. The pursuit of the kinship theme in the History proves an excellent laboratory where See previous note. Trans. T. J. Saunders. For the 'naturalness' of affection (storge) between mother-city and apoikia, see 1. 38. 3, with pp. 84-5. Pl. Laws 754b. Cf. Konstan 1997, for the relation between kinship and friendship (esp. 53ff.; stergein, pp. 102, 133-4). But see Ch. 2 for the conceptual difference between friendship (r/nMa) and xyngeneia (or alliance). 5

6

Introduction

3

both Thucydides' historical interpretations and the distinctive qualities of his authorial personality can be explored. Selective and astonishing exhaustiveness, alongside implicitness and understatement, or challenging absences are some of Thucydides' most distinctive narrative choices, along with his engagement with his literary and cultural context ('intertextuality' in literary criticism). Throughout the study special attention is paid to the intertextual relation between Thucydides and Herodotus. A recurrent theme of this intertextual 'dialogue' proves to be a striking complementarity between the two historical narratives in the amount and distribution of information on intercommunal xyngeneia (see Appendix II). Thucydides' intense engagement with Herodotus (the reverse process being always envisaged) and the overall handling of the kinship theme in his work is fundamental not only for our perception of kinship's role in ancient Greek society, but also of Thucydides' artistry and contribution to the historiographic genre.

1.1 A TYPOLOGY OF INTERCOMMUNAL KINSHIP Kinship has been a central preoccupation of anthropology and refers to the various ways in which individuals can be related to each other, with emphasis on the human family. This has been traditionally the space where such relationships are conceptualized and studied. Familial kinship is largely based on genealogical (or biological, at times conventionally referred to as 'true' or 'real') ties of descent (consanguineal; that is, based on blood) or marriage (affinal), but there are also other mechanisms and institutions of extended (or 'created', 'fictive', or 'metaphorical') kinship, which may ascribe kin status to an individual. One familiar case of created kinship between persons that are not related by nature but by law-a contractual arrangement-is adoption, and the following phrases from the preface to Modell's book with the indicative title Kinship with Strangers are also significant for the typology of intercommunal relationships I suggest in this study: 'The birthparents, adoptive parents, and adoptees I interviewed ... were critical, and selfconsciously so, about the terms of their relationships. They were also critical of the significance of "fictive" in being related. What is the content of a relationship that reflects or simulates a real relationship?' 7 Familial kinship does exist and play a role in the History, not only as a model for, but also as a factor that interacts with, the public sphere, 7

Modell 1994: p. x.

Introduction

4

which is Thucydides' main concern. 8 Domestic relations tend to emerge in his text mainly in connection with early periods of the Greek history, or with communities on the margins of Hellenism: for example, in the Archaeology the reference to the oikos of Atreus and the distribution of power according to kinship (Kara ro olKEiov);9 there are the intriguing yaµiKa (marital issues), reported as a reason for the enmity between the 'barbarian' Egestaians and the Greek Selinountines, an example of kinship between communities through intermarriage;10 and the role of marriage in the distribution and negotiation of power in the royal houses of Thrace and Macedon. 11 When it appears in closer connection with the Greek world, kinship among the members of the oikos is either integrated in the communal life of the Greek city, as in Pericles' Funeral Oration,12 or is an area where the disintegration of the diseased city can most acutely and poignantly be seen, as in the case of the plague or the stasis in Kerkyra. 13 A remarkably early trace of a sort of classconsciousness is the prohibition of social-class exogamy in Samos at a time of civic unrest. After the successful democratic coup of 412 on the island, the Samian democrats decided not to give their daughters in marriage to landed aristocracy (yEwµopoi) or to take wives from them. 14 However the kind of kinship that is most prominent and important in Thucydides, and on which this study concentrates, is to be found not in the private world of the human family or the various forms and degrees of interpersonal affiliations. It is a collective type of kinship between communities and ethnic groups. Yet the categories and codes of familial kinship provide useful conceptual analogies for the study of intercommunal kinship. Besides, as we saw above, such analogies have been drawn by the ancient Greeks themselves. Suffice it to remember that the phrase ETT oi'Kov, the standard expression used in the History and beyond for the return of an army or a fleet to their home-city, or the

For a study of the political and social spheres in Athens through the prism of familial kinship, see e.g. Littman 1990. Crane 1996 is fundamental for the study of the domestic sphere in Thucydides and Herodotus. Cf. 'kinship' in OCD' (S. Humphreys) for a genealogical take on kinship (mainly concentrating on descent groups) in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds, but with no reference to the distinctive use of the term xyngeneia for intercommunal kinship. 10 6. 6. 2. 9 I. 9. 2. 11 e.g. 2. 29. 1, 101. 5-6. 12 2. 34. 4, 44-6. 13 2. 52. 4; 3. 81. 5. 14 8. 21; cf. Andrewes in HCT v. 49: 'No other instance of such a ban within a single community is reported from the Classical period'. For a Hellenistic example of marital arrangements between the Karian cities of Latmos and Pidasa, stipulating a six-year prohibition of civic endogamy and the obligation to marry exclusively someone from the other community, as a measure of enforcing and ensuring the success of the sympoliteia between the two cities, see SEG 47. 1563, II. 21-5, with van Bremen 2003: 313-17. 8

Introduction

5

word metropolis itself are in fact dead metaphors. 15 The following statement by Aristotle is another example: 'for every household is under the royal rule of its eldest member, so that colonies (or "offshoots,,) from the household were so too, because of the kinship of its members' (1Taaa \ ' I R ,\ I • \ ~ R I ft \ • ' I ~ \ yap OLKta /"aai EVETaL V1TO TOV 1TpEa/"vTaTOV, WGTE Kai ai a1TOLKtaL, oia \

I

)

16

TTJV avyyevnav •

In this study of kinship between communities, I discern two main categories, which are based on the models of familial kinship, as described above. The first (by analogy with consanguineal or affinal ties) comprises ties of kinship by intercommunal descent through colonization and/or simply racial affiliation, that is, membership in the same ethnic group (i.e. Dorians, Ionians, Aiolians, Achaians), and claims of shared mytho-historical genealogies. It must be pointed out that in this latter category both mythical and historical ancestral figures that are shared between communities may be equally effective in the construction of kinship claims. There is no need to expand here on the conceptual chasm between our own relation with, and use of, myth and that of the ancient Greeks, which has been adequately commented on. We may only remember Thucydides' own 'historical treatment' of the Trojan War, or Homer itself and myths of colonial origin as past history, despite (or rather, along with) his critical attitude to 'the poets' and oral tradition. 17 Genealogies themselves are successions of figures that bridge the most remote past with the most recent historical present. For example, the fifth-century Spartan king Leonidas was thought to be a descendant of Herakles and the same applies to the members of the Temenid royal house of Macedon. 18 The standard term by which this type of kinship by descent, transferred to the level of cities and communities, is signified in Thucydides, and, accordingly, in this study as well, is gvyylvna (xyngeneia) or gvyyev~S' (xyngenes). The second category comprises the various forms of kinship between cities and communities that do not involve descent (xyngeneia), and is termed 'relatedness' in this study, following anthropological models of kinship beyond biology. These forms of created kinship are based on a range of sociocultural and political mechanisms and institutions of the ancient Greek world: interstate links through interpersonal connections by means of ritualized friendship (xenia); intermarriage; proxenia;19 e.g. 1. 30. 2, 54. 1, 2. 31. 1, 3. 16. 2 etc. On 'dead metaphors', see Newmark 1988: 106ff. Arist. PoL 1252b20-2. Cf. Saunders 1995: 66; Newman 2000: 114. 17 e.g. 1. 10. 3-4; 2. 102. 2-6; 3. 104. Veyne 1988. 18 Hdt. 7. 204; 8. 137-9. 19 The diplomatic representation of a city A in a city B by a citizen of city B, who worked for the interests of city A in his community. Cf. Herman 1987; Gerolymatos 1986; Walbank. 15 16

6

Introduction

grant of citizenship (naturalization);20 shared cults, festivals and myths; the export and exchange of cultural products and forms. Athenian drama, for example, was an influential means of Athenian acculturation of areas on the margins of Hellenism, with which Athens pursued links very actively. In an explicit acknowledgement of the close connection of the notion of xyngeneia with nature, Thucydides puts in the mouth of his Syracusan speaker Hermokrates the phrase cpvaEL ~vyyeveL's ('kinsmen by nature') to refer, at least, to all the Dorians with whom the Kamarinaians were 'naturally' (that is, racially) related.21 What is particularly remarkable in this apparently redundant emphasis on nature as qualifier of xyngeneia is that it implicitly leaves room for an, at least hypothetical, category of OlaEL ~vyyeveL's ('kinsmen by nurture' or 'by law'), which offers an analogy in Greek for what I call 'relatedness'. Although xyngeneia in Thucydides and in Greek terminology of kinship more generally always refers to a relation by descent (nature), the oxymoron produced by an institutionally conditioned kinship ( OlaEL ~vyylveta) suggests that ties of intercommunal relatedness simulate ties of xyngeneia closely, and can be equally affective, binding, and exploitable to the latter. Relatedness was chosen as a particularly effective and subtle designation for this type of kinship, in theoretical and methodological terms, well-defined and supported by fascinating anthropological work in the recent decades on the exploration of the tensions and the often fine margins between nature and nurture in perceptions of kinship. Yet a statement by negation with respect to other rival candidate terms may also be useful in justification of 'relatedness'. Terms such as 'fictive' or 'metaphorical' kinship have been systematically avoided in this study as confusing. The reason why 'fictive' is not appropriate for my proposed schema of intercommunal kinship is that it legitimizes the contrast between 'real' and 'fictive' (i.e. 'non-real', 'fake') as a descriptive bipolarity of kinship by nature/descent (xyngeneia) and kinship by nurture (relatedness), respectively. This acceptance in turn affects in a misleading manner, and often imperceptibly, our evaluations about the reality of experience, deep-rootedness, and overall significance of intercommunal relatedness in ancient Greek society. As for 'metaphorical' kinship, it has been rejected as a confusing designation of non-xyngeneia ties on the intercommunal level, because all types of intercommunal ties (both those forged through membership of the same ethnos, colonization, and Osborne. 6. 79. 2; cf. HCT iv. 353 'the expression "those who are even more by nature your kinsmen" is curious'. 20 21

Introduction

7

shared genealogies, and those that are socioculturally constructed) are metaphorical in the first place, since they are all based on, and viewed through, the human family metaphor. Again the word metropolis ('mother-city'), a key-term in the kinship terminology of the xyngeneia category, conveys well the transference of familial models onto the intercommunal level. In addition to intercommunal ties based on colonization, membership in the same ethnic group and shared mythology, and the pronounced ethnic characteristics and antitheses, especially between Dorians and Ionians, Thucydides' account offers valuable material on a collective consciousness of Hellenism as an imagined community (pan-Hellenic kinship) and the long-term process through which it developed.22 This process is reflected in the Archaeology, where we hear about Hellen, the eponymous ancestor of all the Greeks, and the Trojan War as the first common undertaking of the peoples who would later be collectively designated as 'Hellenes'. Yet the rise of a collective ethnic name 'Hellenes' as opposed to a barbarian 'Other', Thucydides says, emerged much later and gradually.23 Non-Greek 'Otherness' also emerges from ethnographic notes on 'barbarian' habits and customs.24 This level of 'pan-Hellenic' kinship developed alongside local identities and patriotism, and was particularly effective in 'bridg[ing] and obscur[ing] the gap between the cultural and political unities and disunities in the Greek world'.25 Shared collective memory forged through the recent experience of the Persian Wars was a further factor of affinity among the Greeks of the classical period.26 In Thucydides the impact of the next big collective undertaking of the Greeks against the 'Other' after the Trojan War and the unifying effect of the common battle for freedom (oµaixµ{a, Thucydides' term 27 ) are powerfully depicted especially in rhetorical passages. Common historical and cultural symbols, such as cults, oaths, leaders, tombs of dead ancestors, are invoked as shared and revered ties of relatedness, of high emotional and ethical value, between cities that were not xyngeneis (that is, in the colonial or racial sense). The Persian Wars certainly feature as a turning point in the process towards Anderson 1991. 1. 3. 2, 3. Cf. J. Hall 2002: 125 ff. 24 e.g. Aitolians: 1. 5. 3, with 6. 1, 3. 94. 5; on the Thracians: 7. 29. 4, bloodthirstiness; 2. 97. 3 gift-giving. 25 L. Mitchell 2007: p. xix. 26 E. Hall 1989. J. Hall 1997: 47-8. L. Mitchell 2007. 27 1. 18. 3, 3. 58. 4; cf. 1. 18. 2 Koivfj TE d.?Twa&.µevo1 T6v f3&.pf3apov. Cf. Hdt. 7. 145. 2 (&µa1xµt71), 8. 144. 2, for the statement of a common Greek identity in the context of the Persian Wars. 22 23

8

Introduction

a common ethnic self among the Greeks in the History. The significance of the Olympic games as a pan-Hellenic venue, where internal dynamics between the ethnic groups of the Greeks were negotiated and colonial claims were contested and affirmed, also emerges powerfully from Thucydides' account. We see in these pan-Hellenic gatherings the experience of the Persian Wars informing rhetoric and shaping the roles and the stereotypes into which the two big cities in the History, Athens and Sparta, have been cast in the post-Persian War period, which had a decisive impact on interstate diplomacy and relations. Pan-Hellenic kinship applies in fact to the category of what can be termed anachronistically 'national' kinship, 28 which signifies the ties and feelings of solidarity and partnership among the members of a group/ community in a certain locality and at a certain historical moment. As we will see, the notion of locality, in geopolitical and cultural terms, has a special bearing on national kinship, which acquires special force and significance in conditions of external threat.29 An excellent example of national kinship is Hermokrates' pan-Sikeliot call at the peace conference at Gela, an early expression of nationalist discourse. 30 The Funeral Oration is one of the most accomplished rhetorical expressions of 'civic' kinship (a form of national kinship), which designates the feeling of belonging and the ties between the citizens of a city-state, and between the citizen and the city-state.31 In the History different types of kinship interact. In addition to being a call for unity and a strong statement of a common Sikeliot self, Hermokrates' speech at Gela, for example, also acknowledges the 'natural' divide between Dorians and Ionians. By the same token, stasis is a phenomenon that is related to, and affects, more than one type of kinship. As a disruption of civic kinship, it is a disease of the collective civic self. But it is also a disruption of familial kinship in its most atrocious expression, as is shown in the description of the stasis at Kerkyra. 32 Moreover, internal dissension is a political phenomenon that closely interacts with intercommunal xyngeneia, as a factor that either alienates a city from its colonial and racial xyngeneis, that is, its 28 The rise of nationalism as an ideology and movement is to be sought mainly in the later eighteenth-century Europe, according to most historians, and is particularly related to the emergence of the national state; see Smith 1986: 11 with n. 14; cf. this volume, p. 14. 29 Cf. IACP p. 49 on the term TTaTp{. 4. 19. 4. Xen. HelL 6. 3. 6, with CT ii. 175, 65; Kearns 1989: 201. 108 Pace Sammartano 2007: 222-4, whose interpretation underplays Thucydides' subtle engagement with myth. 109 1. 36. 1. 11 ° For ties of relatedness between Athens and Kerkyra, see pp. 79-80 (Phaiax); pp. 313-14 (Diotimos). 106 107

48

Kinship Terminology in Thucydides

to their 'proper' or 'natural' kinship {rwv awµarwv r~v ?T6Aiv ouK , \ \ , I -ow , allllOTpLOVVTES, all/l ES TTJV ~ vyyeveiav OLKELOVVTES .111 allllOTpLOS is the opposite notion of olKe'ios!-6w and it is often used in xyngeneia contexts, as in this passage. In the Kerkyraika, expressing their grievances against their mother-city Korinth, the Kerkyraians say that a colony honours its mother-city so long as it is well treated, but when it is wronged it is alienated (aOLKOVfLEV7J OE aAAorpLOVTaL). 112 Accordingly, the term a.\.\orpiw()efoav, used for Ionian Samas and the prospect of its alienation from Athens during the oligarchic coup of 411 Be, surely bears the emotional weight of the colonial bond. 113 Let us now return to olKe'ios, in order to look at passages where the word undoubtedly expresses the emotional closeness between xyngeneis on the intercommunal level. The phrase olKeios K{vovvos is employed in an authorial passage for the alarm of the Korinthians at the Athenian plans against Potidaia, which was a Korinthian apoikia. 114 Exactly the same notion appears in the formulation OUK aAAorptov OVTOS TOV Ktvovvov, where ouK d,\.\6rpios is the opposite of olKe'ios, this time in connection with a mythical xyngeneia between two Aiolian localities, Boiotia and Megara. 115 The conceptual distinction between the emotive olKe'ios and the factual gvyyev~s may also be perceived in Hermokrates' statement 'there is no disgrace in people giving way to other people who are close to them, whether Dorians to Dorians, or Chalkidians to t th e oth ers of th eir race ovoev yap aiaxpov OLKELOVS OLKELwv 71aaaa ai, 116 ~ L1wpiii riva L1wpiws ~ XaAKiola rwv gvyyevwv). The second part of the sentence (after the first disjunctive conjunction) clarifies and explains the first, and the polyptoton olKe{ovs olKe{wv describes the intimacy and warm feelings between xyngeneis (Dorians with Dorians and Chalkidians with their own stock, that is, Ionians), and not something less. Set against the background of a quarrel between xyngeneis, the phrase ra olKELa crops up in a gnomic statement of the Korinthians in the Kerkyraika, where it certainly stands for 'xyngeneia relations'. As will be ,

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3. 65. 3. 1. 34. 1. 113 8. 73. 4. See sect. 6.1 in this volume. 114 1. 60. 1 olK£iov Tov KlvSvvov 'ljyovµ£voi. Notice lrriT~8£to> a few lines below (1. 60. 2), another friendship word, used for the amiable feelings 'since ever' (al£{ 7TOT€) between the Korinthian Aristeus and the Potidaians: a case of interpersonal connections on a ground of intercommunal xyngeneia. On JmT~S€tot, cf. Konstan 1997: 63-4. 115 4. 72. 1, with pp. 106-7. 116 4. 64. 3; cf. CT ii. 67; pace Sammartano 2007: 224-5, who thinks that the use of olK£io> here refers to close and recently forged ties, such as these between (Dorian) Kamarina and (Ionian) Leontines. Ill

112

Kinship Terminology in Thucydides

49

discussed in the next chapter, this statement is part of the Korinthians' vehement rhetoric against the Kerkyraians, who are being accused by their mother-city of not valuing the xyngeneia relation. 'At these times any helper is considered a friend, even if he was an enemy before, and any contrary view, even from friends, is taken as hostility, when the immediate urge to win displaces relations among xyngeneis' (cp{,\ov TE \ r "' \ t ""' I , () \ 'I' ,\' I yap 1JYOVVTaL TOV vTTovpyovvTa, 1JV Kai TTPOTEpov EX pos T/1 1TO EJLLOV 'I\

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pose, on the one hand, friendships and enmities that are formed on the basis of immediate gain in the precarious conditions of the war, and, on the other, Ta olKELa, that is, the most intimate relations that are not 'of the here and now' (observe avT{Ka), which cannot be anything else here than relations between xyngeneis, such as Korinth and Kerkyra. OlKELoS is also to be found in the context of what we termed 'national' kinship, and more specifically the claims and attachment of a community to what they feel to be their land. We are told that the Spartans and King Agis considered the occupation of Pylos by the Athenians in . own auair cc • , ( , ,/..I \ II',\ 425 ct h eir OLKELOV a..,,LaL TO\ 1TEpL\ T1JV v ov ) •118 v: i.et t h e Messenians too, Thucydides notes a little before, had claims to this land and felt it as their own since ancient times (Mwa1Jv{ovs olKElovs oVTas , avT

vA.wv indicates the foreign invader, but it is set in the more unsettled landscape of early Greece. 131 GET 10: 'variations and ambiguities between the two terms occur at an early date'; 127

130

cf.GET31. 132 The dynamic nature of connections is well depicted in the composite ethnic identity of a Syracusan, as emerges from Hermokrates' speeches, see pp. 96-9. See Malkin's {2011) analysis from a network perspective, pp. 17-20 with Fig. 1.6.

52

Kinship Terminology in Thucydides

Examining the use of the two terms ethnos and genos in Herodotus, and to a lesser extent in Thucydides, C. P. Jones has shown that, although the terms are not used with consistency in either author, in general ethnos 'is such a group viewed as a geographical, political or cultural entity', while genos 'is such a group viewed as united by birth'. 133 This broad categorization is congruent with P. M. Fraser's more recent discussion of these terms, from a diachronic perspective and in a range of literary and epigraphic attestations. Fraser points out that 'in the Classical period, with the development of prose literature, {()vos comes especially to define racially unitary human groups', while yevos was a signifier of 'descent, as found in yev71 and the subdivisions of cf>parp{ai and so on within 7T6,\ns' .134 Yet although originally {()vos was mainly associated with race and region and yevos with the family unit within the city or tribe, 135 over time the two terms were occasionally conflated. 'The analysis of the two terms {()vos and yevos (and YEVEa) indicates that variations and ambiguities of usages between the two terms occur already at an early date.' 136 And, 'a clear distinction in significance between the two terms did not exist for Herodotus, Thucydides, and other Classical historians and similar writers, and [ ... ] the usage was very flexible' .137 Thucydides uses Wvos as a general signifier of the Greek ethnic groups (Kara {()1171 KaL EKaarov aarv, with every people and every city), 138 and he prefers this term more specifically for the Ionians and the Achaians. 139 {()vos is also used for non-Greek groups, such as the Macedonian tribes, the ethnically mixed communities of Akte in Chalkidike, or the original inhabitants of Sicily. 140 But the term employed for the Thracians of the Dian tribe who attacked Mykalessos is I

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yEvos rov L.1 taKov yEvovs ••• ro yEVos ro rwv I!:!! paKwv ••• o.rOVLKwrarov ), perhaps underscoring the genetic dimension in the murderous Jones 1996: 317. C. P. Jones makes a case for 'linguistic intention' as a more workable pattern to explain Herodotus' use of the terms, which he relates to the parameter of narrative time, but I leave this out, as not relevant to my focus. Cf. Mcinerney 2001. 134 GET4. 135 Fraser (GET 5) characteristically notes that the standard formula of civic identification is l1811vafos To yevos, and that l1811vafos To EBvos is never used. 136 GETIO. 137 GET31. 138 1. 122. 2; cf. 7ToAis - EBvos as divisions in the catalogue of allies of 431, 2. 9. 4 'the tribute paying cities in the various regional groups' (7Tavepws S1&.cf>opo1 1}aav, 60. 1, 66, 67. 5, 68-72 (speech), 119, 120-4 (speech), 126. 1. 52 5. 17. 2 (cf. 5. 22. 1), 25. 1, 27. 2. 53 5. 48. 2. 54 7. 18. 1, 19. 4, 8. 98. 2. 55 5. 115. 3; cf. CT iii. 252. 56 8. 9. 1, 32. 1.

66

Korinth and Its Colonies

Archidamian War on Korinth's position as a trading power rather than to a change of feelings. 57 If the Korinthians had to be the protagonists in the joint effort against Athens, then the extensive treatment of this clash between Korinth and Kerkyra is not accidental. It is here that the Athenians play a crucial role, taking the side of the Kerkyraians, in an episode where the kinship relation between mother- and daughter-city is the core around which this feud is constructed, and where feelings and mutual obligations between kinsmen are central.58 Korinth features in Thucydides' account as the Dorian city with the greatest number of apoikia~ and one which is preoccupied with its relationship with them more than any other city in the History. There are a number of passages where xyngeneia is either an underlying or an explicit motive behind the Korinthians' action and rhetoric, and their active pursuit of colonial claims and control over their colonies. We can think of the close political control of Korinth over Potidaia, its apoikia in the north, through the annual dispatch of the puzzling lmo11µ,wvpyo{; 59 the Korinthians' active role in the protection of Potidaia and revolt from Athens,60 considering the threat against its colony a family affair (oiKEtov Tov K{vovvov ~yovµ,Evoi);61 their zeal to support the initiative of their colony Ambrakia against the Akarnanians, and the prompt participation of Leukas and Anaktorion, sister-cities of Ambrakia;62 the Korinthian interference in the internal politics of Kerkyra by using a number of distinguished Kerkyraian hostages as a fifth column in the city of Kerkyra;63 their close relation and cooperation in military and diplomatic undertakings with their colonies Leukas and Ambrakia;64 their grievance against the Spartans, because they failed to restore to them their settlements Sollion and Anaktorion from the Athenians after

Cf. Talbert 1974: 52. The impression of a conscious authorial choice is intensified by the ring in the statement of the two aitiai: 1. 23. 6 and 1. 146, 'the strong closure at the end of book i'; Rood 1998a: 210. Yet the centrality of the kinship link, and its connection with feelings and necessity, escapes Rood's explanatory suggestion: Rood 1998: 210-13. For example, that 'Poteidaia is linked with Corcyra through the Corinthians' desire for revenge' (p. 213) does not do justice to the particular dynamics in this triangle of kin cities. 59 1. 56. 2; Graham 1964: 136-42; CT iii. 277: 'something that looks like Roman proconsuls'. 60 1. 57. 2, 58. 1, 60. 2 (.:4.ptaTd> ••• lloTetSatd.Tat> ale{ 7rOTE JmT~Seto>), 61. 3 (aihoi)> 1 TE cf>C\ov> 1), 119, 124. 1, 140. 3; cf. 5. 30. 2. See also Ch. 2 n. 102. 61 1. 60. 1. 62 2. 80. 3; 2. 81. 3. 63 1. 55. 1, with 3. 70. l; cf. 3. 72. 2. 64 2. 9. 3, 4. 42. 3, 6. 104. 1, 7. 7. 1, 25. 9, 58. 3 (t..>..' a1TpaKTOVS a7TE7TEµl/Jav. The OUK ••• a>..>..a structure makes the negation even more emphatic, whereas the sound-pattern of the second colon with the alliteration of 1T together with the predominance of the open vowel a gives a violent quality to the language, which stylistically enacts the insulting character of the Kerkyraian behaviour.72 This insult becomes even more dramatic seen against the successful supplications of the Homeric Odysseus to the royal oikos of the Phaiakians, and the kind hospitality the hero received there.73 The Phaiakians were famously the mythical ancestors of the Kerkyraians, a highly exploitable kinship claim, as we will soon see.74 In the Kerkyraika, the Epidamnians, after consulting the god of Delphi and securing his consent, hand their city over to Korinth, the city of their oikist and metropolis of second generation. Thucydides notes that the Korinthians accepted the plea, because it was just (KaTa TO otKawv) and out of their hatred (µfoEL, the first appearance of the word in the History) for the Kerkyraians who were not observant of the customary honours and privileges, especially on religious occasions, as their other apoikiai were.75 The Korinthians were also happy (aaµEvoi) to send the requested aid, and they undertook a two-phase resettlement of Epidamnos.76 In the first phase, they invited anyone who wished to go and settle the place (Tov fJov>..oµEvov ), and they also sent a garrison of Ambrakiots, Leukadians, and themselves. This is in fact a garrison of xyngeneis, and another instance in which Thucydides casually mentions 1. 24. 6. Seep. 37. '[S]uch language that has the capacity to create evocations of this life or these realities with a peculiar immediacy'; Silk 1995: 113. In the same context Silk speaks of actuality and vividness. For stylistic enactment in Thucydides, see CT iii. 36, 552-3. 73 Hom. Od. 6. 145-85, 7. 145-54. Gould 2001: 29-32, 65-6. Naiden 2006: 61-2, 322. 74 It is important not to miss that in Herodotus' story about the early feud between Korinth and Kerkyra, to which also Thucydides refers, as we saw, the ritual of supplication has a special significance as well; Hdt. 3. 48. 1-4. As Gould (2001: 37) points out, independently of the historical accuracy of the story, 'it is the way in which patterns of thought and behaviours are thrown into relief that makes it highly significant'. 75 1. 25. 1-4. Rusten (2011) reads the hatred against the Kerkyraians in the Epidamnos episode in the light of the rest of Thucydides, Herodotus, and Homer. 76 1. 26. 1-2. 71

72

Korinth and Its Colonies

69

Korinthian colonies for the first time holding back the colonial tie for later.77 Enraged by the intervention of their mother-city, the Kerkyraians attempted to restore some Epidamnian aristocrats, who had come to them and, pointing to the tombs of their common ancestors and calling upon kinship (Tacpovs TE a1TODELKVVVT€S KaL gvyylvELav), begged for restoration. 78 Using insulting language (KaT' E1T~pELav), the Kerkyraians were once more offensive towards their colonial offspring, and also ordered them to dismiss the settlers and the garrison sent by the Korinthians. The Epidamnians refused to comply and the Kerkyraians began to besiege the city.79 The Korinthians replied with the second and more official step for Epidamnos' resettlement. Thucydides' language is more official and technical this time: the venture is openly named a1TOLK{a and the verb used for the call is EK~pvaaov (by contrast to EKEAEvov for the previous wave of settlers 80 ), and the standard phrase E7TL Tll ian KaL oµ,o{s first mention.92 Herodotus goes only as far as saying that it was the Korinthians who had brought Deiphonos, a seer from Apollonia, to act as a diviner for the Greek fleet, before the battle of Mykale,93 and this detail is an oblique evocation of the kinship connection. From sources outside Thucydides we are able to observe the multiplicity of foundation traditions of the city, pointing to a non-purely Korinthian colonization of the place, and reflecting the complex historical realities of the colonization phenomenon itself. We hear of a common foundation from Korinth and Kerkyra,94 or of a small contingent of settlers led by someone called Gylax,95 or even of Kerkyra as the only metropolis.96 Although they are not earlier than Pseudo-Skymnos, these traditions can well reflect foundation stories, and analogous perceptions and tensions of much earlier times. Besides, the very position of the city on the Adriatic (€v -rcjJ 'Iov{q> KoAm/7 ) makes Kerkyra's participation in the foundation very plausible, along the lines of Epidamnos, which is in the vicinity. The case of multiple traditions applies to Leukas as well, a city whose colonial information in Thucydides is conclusive, albeit offered with delay: it was a colony of Korinth. 98 Herodotus, in the Salaminian catalogue, also flags the Leukadians as Dorians from Korinth (lOvos EOVT€S OVTOL LlwpLKOV Kop{vOov). 99 But from external sources we

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1. 56. 2 Kopiv8{wv a7TO{Kovs. Hdt. 9. 28. 3; cf. Hdt. 9. 31. 3 Kopiv8{ovs -re: Kal llo-rc:iSai~-ras. 91 Hdt. 6. 127. 2 (one of the suitors of Agariste). 92 1. 26. 2. 93 Hdt. 9. 95. 94 Ps.-Skymnos (second quarter of the second century BC) 439-40; Strabo 7. 5. 8. 95 Steph. Byz. 105. 21-2, 214. 9-10 (Gylakeia, an alternative name of Apollonia). Possible foundation date, c.600 BC. On the double connection of the city with Kerkyra and Korinth, see Graham 1964: 130-2. 96 Paus. 5. 22. 4. 97 Hdt. 9. 92. 2. 98 1. 30. 2. 99 Hdt. 8. 45. The Leukadians are mentioned in the same breath with the Ambrakiots, as in Thucydides (1. 26. 2, 27. 2), but prima facie no colonial qualification is offered for the latter; see Macan 1908 ad loc.; Bowie 2007 ad loc. 89 90

72

Korinth and Its Colonies

learn that Leukas had received a body of Kerkyraian settlers, probably at the time of Periander. 100 Plutarch also transmits the story that Themistokles arbitrated between Korinth and Kerkyra in an old dispute about Leukas by administering the island as a common colony of both cities, and deciding that the Korinthians should pay an indemnity of twenty talents to the Kerkyraians.1° 1 Thucydides might have this story in mind when he says that Themistokles was a benefactor of the Kerkyraians. 102 But he says no more about it, although, as we will see, the Athenian assembly in 433 could have been a very favourable context for the Kerkyraians to call upon such a precedent of good will on the part of the Athenians. It is therefore possible that Thucydides' clear-cut version about the colonial descent of Apollonia and Leukas from Korinth is linked with the role in which Korinth is consistently cast in his work: a rich place since early times and an early colonizer of the Greek world, who is determined to defend its role as a Dorian metropolis in the rapidly evolving power relations of the fifth century. 103 Consequently Korinth's fifth-century anti-Athenian politics and relentless pursuit of the war are closely related to its active defence of its early colonial leadership. This leadership was not a given. It has been noted that Thucydides' representation indicates that by 435 BC Korinth had asserted its control on, and sole claim of, these areas. 104 True, but we must not forget that the struggle for dominance in the north-western region against powerful Kerkyra was an ongoing and hard-fought process for Korinth. The brief episode of Anaktorion, another common foundation, which took place after the battle at Sybota shows this. As in the case of Epidamnos, Thucydides presents us with a complex web of colonial ties. We are told that Anaktorion was a common foundation of Korinth and Kerkyra, but the Korinthians, on their return home after Sybota, took it

Plutarch (Mor. 552e (On the Delays ofDivine Vengeance)) speaks of a wave of settlers under Periander, who could have introduced the Kerkyraian element, if the settling took place during the time he was in control ofKerkyra; cf. Graham 1964: 129. lOl Plut. Them. 24. 1; but see Plut. Timol. 15. 2 A€v1 Kat e?Jepyfrr1>; e.g. ML 70, ll. 7-8; Hdt. 8. 136. 1. 193 1. 32. 1, 33. 1, 2. 194 2. 40. 4. 195 a~lwcnv xaptTO> 1. 41. 1; 1. 43. 2 TO iaov av-ra1T6So-re; cf. the Plataians' av-ra1T6So-r€ xapiv, 3. 67. 6. The benefits the Korinthians refer to are (1) their support of Athens with their vote in the Samian revolt (1. 39. 5), and (2) the twenty ships they offered against Aigina (1. 41. 2). For a brief discussion of Thucydides' silence about more depyealai of the Korinthians attested in Herodotus, such as their role in saving Athenian democracy during Kleomenes' attack (Hdt. 5. 74-5) and their helpful attitude to Athens over Plataia (Hdt. 6. 108), see Raubitschek 1991: 23-5. 191

192

Korinth and Its Colonies

87

gvµ€pov 196 and acknowledge that in moments of crisis 197 friends are

sought among those who are the strongest, as the Kerkyraians point out. 198 The Korinthians state even more explicitly that those who previously were friends, now become enemies if they are obstacles to victory; and the enemies of the past are transformed into friends, if they can bring victory closer, since considerations of kinship (Ta olKEia: a clear case where the word signifies X)'ngeneia) are powerless in the face of the immediate urge to win. 199 This phrase looks forward to the analysis of the Kerkyraian stasis of 427 Be, where among the atrocities described is the violation of xyngeneia ties.200 It is also very much in line with the Athenian imperial discourse in the Melian Dialogue (see sect. 5.1.1 in this volume) and the similar statement of the Athenian/Ionian Euphemos, that for a tyrant or an imperial city nothing advantageous is inconsistent and that kinsmen are only those who are trustworthy (ovS' olKELov n µ~ 7TtaTov); 'in every case', he says, 'the circumstances determine enemy or friend'. 201 The key-term Kaip6s in the context of Euphemos' statement resonates with the same term in the Korinthian speech, depicting in the most powerful way the unscrupulous rhetoric of a city that strives for dominance and the shifting of moral values at critical moments. At the end of their speech, the Korinthians reiterate in a more conclusive tone the preponderance of practical considerations in wartime: 'this is one of those critical times when help is friendship and opposition is enmity, (Tov Kaipov €v \ vaEL gvyyEvEis is telling because in an almost imperceptible manner it implies that there are also kinsmen by position (8€aEi), although in fact gvyyEvEis in the History refers to a relationship always by nature (cf>vaEL). This is the closest we get in Thucydides' own words to the concept of relatedness, that is, a OlaEL gvyylvEia, a kind of oxymoron, which describes an intimate connection between communities not based on descent. This type of connection will broaden the scope of my investigation in the following chapters. Cf. 1. 114. 3. 6. 76. 3; cf. pp. 40-1. Hermokrates refers to the so-called Delian League, 1. 95. 1. 295 6. 77. 1. 296 6. 90. 2-4, 91. 3. 297 6. 5. 3. 298 6. 79. 3 ~" ~p.€t> ~va-rwp.€11 7rd.11-r€» 6. 80. 1 d.Bp6ov> ~VTa>; cf. 4. 64. 4 d.Bp6oi al€{ • •• dµvvot'ip.€8a; 6. 80. 2 KOLll~ll w€Atav. 299 6. 79. 2, 80. 2; cf. Gela 4. 60. 1 T~ 6a€L 7roAEµiov. 293

294

4 Aiolian Kinship: xyngeneia and Relatedness in the Mytilene and the Plataia Episodes

In the Plataian debate the Boiotian Thebans accuse their kinsmen the Plataians of having participated together with the Athenians in the enslavement of (Dorian) Aigina. 1 We know from external sources that, according to mythical tradition, the nymphs Thebes, Aigina, Kerkyra (and possibly Plataia) were sisters, daughters of the river-god Asopos.2 Asopos features only once in Thucydides in the opening episode of the Plataian drama, and in the war itself, as a natural obstacle to the night invasion of the Thebans against Plataia, formed of the rain and consequently the river's flooding. At the same time we are told of the distance that separates the two cities: a7TEXEL 8€ ~ ll)ufraia Twv I I 3 aTaoLOVS E,_,oOfL1JKOVTa ••• 0< yap .c:J.GW7TOS 7TOTaµ,os Eppv11 µ,Eyas. The river Asopos was the boundary between the two cities and most importantly a boundary set by the Athenians themselves in the late sixth century when they helped the Plataians in their clash with Thebes, as we know from a famous episode in Herodotus.4 Herodotus' text underlies Thucydides' single but solemn mention of Asopos as a significant natural boundary with respect not only to this important Boiotian episode, but also to the culminating moment of the Persian Wars, the battle of Plataia, where the river's religious significance comes through ~I

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3. 64. 3. On Thebes and Aigina: 3. 64. 3. Cf. Hdt. 5. 80. 2 J6nwv ayxiaTlwv; Pi. I. 8. 17-18 (twins); Bacchyl. 9. 54-5, with Hornblower 2004: 118-19 and 208-9. S. Larson 2007: 81-3. On this mythical tradition, which seems to originate from the Korinthian epic of Eumelus, see Bowra 1953: 54-65 (first pub. 1938). Plataia must have been a local addition to the original list of the daughters of Asopos abducted by the gods: 654 PMG (Korinna fr. 1): Campbell 1992: 28-31, with Bowra 1953: 54-65. Cf. J. Larson 2001: 140-2. Oeroe, a stream flowing through the battlefield of Plataia, was locally regarded as an Asopid (Hdt. 9. 51. 2), with Bowra 1953: 54-65. 3 2. 5. 2. 4 Hdt. 6. 108. 6. See pp. 134-5. I

2

ws

Aiolian Kinship: xyngeneia and Relatedness

101

powerfully.5 Could the myth-based kinship link between Thebes and Aigina underlie the Theban indictment against the Plataians? It is undeniable that such links going back into mythology offered the ethical and emotional platform for political and military claims and played a significant role in the way Thucydides' audience understood and interpreted the History. This chapter concentrates on two Aiolian areas, Lesbos and Plataia, and more specifically on the description of the first revolt of Mytilene against the Athenians in 428/7 and the tragic fate of Plataia in 427. The interlacing of the two episodes in book 3 has been noticed in scholarship,6 together with the prominence of the factor of stasis in them, and both episodes have been seen against the emblematic account of the stasis in Kerkyra, the other big episode of book 3.7 In relation to the mythical link between the Asopids Thebes, Aigina, and Kerkyra connecting the three episodes in the narrative, Hornblower aptly notices: 'It is impossible to say whether or how far Thucydides intended or was aware of this.'8 At the same time the Plataiika present some striking analogies with the Kerkyraika in their detailed treatment of the xyngeneia theme and their place in the narrative.9 The Kerkyraika, a clash between a metropolis and its apoikia, opens the preliminaries of the war and, challengingly, receives the most thorough analysis as the first apparent cause of the war, with the theme of xyngeneia having a central role. Accordingly, the Plataiika, a local affair again between two kin cities treated at length, features as the first episode of the narrative of the war proper. 10 In what follows I will discuss the revolt of Mytilene and the Plataian episode from the perspectives of xyngeneia and relatedness between the parties involved. I will focus, on the one hand, on the fierce tensions between the Aiolian kinsmen and the ethical and emotional language of xyngeneia which repeats itself historically and narratologically after the Kerkyraika. On the other hand, I will also turn my attention to the strong ties of relatedness that linked these Aiolian regions with other Greeks Hdt. 9. 31. 1, 36, 38. 1, 40, 51. 2, 59. 1. Connor 1984: 91-5; Felling 2000: 70; Morrison 2006b: 263-4, with n. 29. 7 3. 82-3. Price 2001: 289. Dewald 2005: 102-4. 8 Hornblower 2011b: 132. 9 On the programmatic character of the Kerkyraika and the underplaying of other E> T6 cfiav€p6v AEyoµha> alT{a>, see Ch. 3. On the Plataian episode: Felling 2000: 68-9: 'it is hopeless to expect a simple answer "why" Thucydides should give Plataia such prominence'. Cf. Rusten 1989: 97. Morrison 2006a: 44, 47, for similarities 'in terms of its situation and choices' between Plataia and Kerkyra, and for the reader's task to make connections. 10 2. 2-6; cf. CTi. 236-7; Price 2001: 288-9. 5

6

102

Aiolian Kinship: xyngeneia and Relatedness

and determined their complex alliances. As will be shown, there was a strong nexus of non-colonial relatedness between the Aiolian and the Dorian ethne (and especially the Spartans among the latter), while some Aiolian communities, such as Methymna in Lesbos and Plataia in Boiotia, were faithfully attached to Athens. Plataia's relationship with Athens in particular constitutes an exceptional case of non-colonial/ racial kinship connection, where both parties are shown to feel, behave and speak as if they were xyngeneis. A rich literary context attests to the Dorian-Aiolian connection. In a fragment of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women (or Ehoiai), Aiolos and Daros are represented as brothers, sons of Hellen. 11 With the help of a more recently discovered fragment that is thought to belong to the Catalogue's genealogy, published in 1981, we are able to supplement the relations between these ancestral figures of the Greek ethne. There, Xouthos {brother of Aiolos and Daros in fr. 9) is the father of Ion and Achaios. Thus, in the reconstructed stemma, based on both fragments, Daros and Aiolos are uncles of Ion and Achaios. This genealogical schema points to a stronger affinity between Dorians and Aiolians on the one hand and Ionians and Achaians on the other, which is also congruent with Thucydides' representation. 12 Staying with genealogic poetry and Boiotian pedigree more specifically, in another fragment from the Hesiodic Ehoiai a link is suggested between Poseidon (remember Dorian Potidaia, Korinth's apoikia) and Boiotos (Boiw-r6s), the constitutive figure of the Boiotian community. 13 In the Boiotian poetess Korinna the connection between Poseidon and Boiotos is made explicitly as one between father and son. 14 Korinna's use of local Boiotian tradition implies some antiquity for at least the genealogical material of her poetry, but, given the obstacle of the poetess's date (ranging from the fifth to the third century Be), the next safe early source is fifth-century Hellanikos of Lesbos, who also makes Boiotos son of Poseidon and Arne. 15 Arne is mentioned as daughter of Aiolos in

11 Hesiod fr. 9 M/W. Apoll. BibL 1. 7. 3. The Catalogue was composed at around 580 BC, possibly by an Aiolid poet (Fowler 1998), but reflects oral tradition of the seventh century BC and possibly earlier times. 12 Hesiod fr. lOa 20-4 M/W. M. West 1985: 35-6, 57-9. J. Hall 1997: 42-4. The higher status conferred upon the pair Aiolos-Doros over Ion-Achaios is unsurprisingly not reflected in Thucydides, as the mytho-political dynamics of the fifth century and Athens' role in them were surely much different. Cf. Fowler 1998: 9. 13 Hesiod fr. 219 M/W (referring to Onchestos). S. Larson 2007: 18. 14 658 PMG (Korinna fr. 5). 15 Hellanikos FGrH 4 F 51 (=EGMHellanicus Lesbius 51).

Aiolian Kinship: xyngeneia and Relatedness

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Diodorus, 16 so Boiotos' parentage reflects well the link between the Dorian and the Aiolian elements in Boiotian genealogy.1 7 In the Homeric Hymn to Herakles, the Dorian hero par excellence is born in Thebes, and, as Parke and Wormell suggest, he could have been 'originally a deity worshipped by the inhabitants of Boeotia and various other northern tribes'.1 8 In Plutarch's Agesilaoswe hear of the intriguing and very rare name Em5.pTwv, who was commander of opxoµEV{,ovTes, the group of the oligarch exiles from Boiotian Orchomenos, who had a leading role in the liberation of Boiotia from the Athenians in the battle of Koroneia (446 Bc). 19 The name of this man may be connected to the myth of the Spartoi (the sown men who sprang from the dragon's teeth out of the Theban soil).20 But it may also point to the name of Sparta itself, being the result of a family connection between Boiotia and Sparta, perhaps a xenia. Naming one's child after a guest-friend was a common practice of the Greeks, 21 with a typical example being the name of Alcibiades himself, which was a Spartan one, on account of the hereditary xenia ties, as Thucydides says.22 As we will see in the Plataian debate, one of the two Plataian speakers bore the name 'Lakon' and was a Spartan proxenos.23 Lastly, according to a fragment of Hellanikos, Tenedos, the Aiolian island in the north-east Aegean, which fought on the side of the Athenians at Syracuse, was colonized by the Spartans.24

16 Diod. 4. 67. 3-6. See p. 185, for the Boiotian connection of the Aiolian islands in the Tyrrhrenian Sea (3. 88), settled by Dorian Knidos, a Spartan apoikia. But see M. West 1985: 102-3 (and 60-3} for dissociating Arne from the daughters of Aiolos in Hesiod's Ehoiai and including her in the family of the Boiotian river-god Asopos. With S. Larson 2007: 41-2. 17 For all this, see S. Larson 2007: 18-22, also discussing Melanippe as another possible Aiolian mother of Boiotos, based on a fragment of Asios, the sixth (or fifth) century BC poet of hexameter genealogies from Samos F 2 PEG (apud Strabo 6. 1. 15). 18 Hom. Hymn. Her. 1-3; Od. 11. 266-8. Parke and Wormell 1956: i. 342. Cf. Fuqua 1980: 12 n. 31. Stafford 2012: 182-4. Cf. Pi. I. 4. 63-4, for the Tomb of the Alkaidai, the sons of Herakles and Megara, at Thebes, for which Pindar is the only source; Hornblower and Morgan 2007a: 35 n. 135. 19 Plut. Ages. 19. 2. Koroneia: 1. 113. 2-4. 20 Apoll. 3. 4. 1 (one of the most famous autochthony myths). See D. Shipley 1997: 237: '[f]ive Spartoi were reputed ancestors of the Theban aristocracy, including Epameinondas.' Bechtel HP 594 (Pflanzenname; simply derives from a7rd.pTos}. 21 Herman 1987: 19. 22 8. 6. 3. Cf. the diagram in Herman 1987: 19. 23 3. 52. 5. CT ii. 136. IACP pp. 98-102. 24 7. 57. 5. In Thucydides, Tenedos is firmly loyal to Athens: 3. 2. 3, 28. 2. See below, p. 121. Hellanikos FGrH 4 F 32. Cf. Pi. N. 11. 33-7 (a joint Dorian-Aiolian venture: Peisandros from Sparta and Orestes from Amyklai, who leads an army of Aiolians, settle in Tenedos). Hornblower 2004: 143. Cf. Egan 1983; Hornblower on Lyk. Alex. 1374-7 (forthcoming), for Sparta and Orestes colonizing the Aiolid (NW Asia Minor).

104

Aiolian Kinship: xyngeneia and Relatedness

Under the summer of 425 Thucydides records the Athenian campaign against Korinth. In a remarkable authorial statement in this section of narrative we are presented with the ancient and at the same time complex ties between the Aiolians and the Dorians. In ancient times, Thucydides says, the Dorians settled themselves on the Solygeian hill and from there they fought against the Korinthians in the city, who were Aiolians: Jwpi~s TO mf,\ai i8pvfUVTes Tots lv TfJ 7T6AeL Kopiv(Jtois E7TOAEfWVV ova iv Alo,\evaiv.25 The fact that this is the first appearance of the ethnic name Alo,\~s in the work makes the passage even more remarkable and intriguing. Thucydides tags as 'Korinthians' the Aiolian inhabitants of the city with whose resistance the Dorians were met when they came to occupy Korinth. The Dorian/Korinthian identity of fifth-century Korinth is in fact the result of the ethnic merge of the Dorian newcomers and the earlier Aiolian element in the city. Thus, this passage is a reminder of two themes that are introduced and interrelated in the significant section of the Archaeology:26 the Dorians coming into the Peloponnese from outside, and their ancient and close connection with the Aiolians.27 Furthermore, Thucydides did not take pains to qualify the ethnic Kopiv8{ois here, as he does, for example, in the Archaeology for the Boiotians. A comparison between this and a passage from the catalogue of allies in book 7, where Thucydides unpacks the ethnics 'Aiginetans' and 'Hestiaians', is worth drawing: AlywijTaL, oi A"iyivav ELXOV, "' ,, q;r TOTE KUL' ETL .c..anai71s OL EV E v'/3 oig. q;r .c..anaiav OLKOVVTES (where Alyiv~TaL refers to the Athenians who then occupied Aegina and 'Eanai~s to the Athenian klerurchs in Hestiaia). In the Archaeology, Boiotia and the Peloponnese are found side by side, as two fertile areas of Greece (the other being Thessaly), which had to change inhabitants frequently. 28 The mobility of populations is soon I

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4. 42. 2. Cf. Pi. 0. 13.14, calling the Korinthians 'children of Aletes', the Dorian founding figure of Korinth (Race 1997: 190 n. 2. But Gildersleeve 1885: 230, 'Aletes was a Herakleid king of Corinth'). Aletes was in the fifth generation after Herakles, but according to other versions his foundation of Korinth is not related to the Return of the Herakleidai, J. Salmon 1984: 38-9. Malkin 1994: 180. The Herakleidan and Dorian genealogies were distinct, but also associated since early times: Malkin 1994: 38-40; J. Hall 1997: 56-65. 26 1. 12. 3, cf. 1. 9. 2. 27 8. 98. 2 oi Kop{v(hoL J8€AovT71S6v, 7rpornrapaKaMaavT€Ktaav , an d

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1. 12. 3. For the Dorians/Herakleidai distinction, see n. 25.

30

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31 Hesiod fr. 218 M/W (Catalogue of Women). S. Larson 2007: 61-4. I understand the deposed group (lK7Tl7TTovT€> 1. 12. 2) to be Thessalians; cf. S. Larson 2007: 58 'Who exactly are these lK7Tl7TTOVT€>?' 32 S. Larson 2007: 26-9. e.g. Athamas the king of the Minyans and founder of Orchomenos (Hellanikos FGrH 4 F 126) was a son of Aiolos, Hesiod frs. 68, 69, and 70. 1-7M/W.

Aiolian Kinship: xyngeneia and Relatedness

106

Sparta and Thessaly are joined through their common descent from Herakles.33 The non-indigenous nature of the Boiotians comes up again in the narrative of the Delion campaign, in a famous passage about the Greek law regulating the control of sanctuaries. The Archaeology passage about Boiotian migration into Boiotia (then known as Kadmeis 34 ) underlies the Athenian reminder to the Boiotians that they came from outside and made the sanctuaries of Boiotia their own: 'Indeed the Boiotians themselves, and most others who had driven out the original inhabitants of the land they now occupied, had once invaded sanctuaries belonging to others and now regarded them as their own' (Kat yap Boiw-rovs Kat \

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Prima facie the words olKEios and d,\,\6-rpws designate possession in this context {cf. KEK-rijafJai). But as it is the possession ofland that is at stake and since both are key terms of the kinship vocabulary, the Athenian statement evokes the ties of the people with the land they inhabit, and is an oblique statement of the Athenian autochthony in a piece of Athenian rhetoric, quite different from that of the Funeral Oration {see Ch. 6). It is, I suggest, an intentional contrast between the Athenians' own claim of autochthony, in which they took so much pride, and the Boiotians' as E7T~AVOES, that is, newcomers to the land. In an authorial passage a few chapters prior to the above episode, Thucydides uses the phrase ws ovK d,\,\o-rp{ov ov-ros -rov Kivovvov to describe the concern of the Boiotians for the threat posed to the Dorian Megarians by the Athenian attack in 424: 'At dawn the Boiotians appeared. Even before they were summoned by Brasidas, they had intended to relieve Megara; for the danger was close to home [lit. 'not foreign to them'].' As has been shown, the zeal of the Boiotians and the emotional tone of the phrase becomes more intelligible when related to the mythical xyngeneia between Dorian Megara and Aiolian Boiotia: Megareus, the eponymous founder of Megara, came from Boiotian Onchestos.36 Unmistakable allusions to the underlying kinship link are also Thucydides' statements 33 Pi. P. 10. 1-3. Fowler (1998: 11) on Hdt. 1. 56. 2-3 'the ultimate homeland of the Dorians .•. was Thessaly'. For the Aleuadai, the ruling clan of Thessaly, as descended from Herakles via Thessalos, his son, see Patterson 2010: 86-8. Stamatopoulou 2007. 34 1. 12. 3. 35 4. 98. 3. Parker 1983: 162 and n. 102. 36 4. 72. 1. Hellanikos FGrH 4 F 78. With CT ii. 240 and 67-8, where an analogy is drawn with Hdt. 6. 21. 2 olK~La KaK&., 'said of Athenian feelings about the fall of their daughter city Miletos'. Hornblower 2011b: 131-2. Cf. a uvyylvHa decree between Akraiphia in Boiotia and Megara, second half of the second century AD, in Curty 1995 no. 11, l. 2 7Tp6s -r~v M£yaplwv 7TOALv1 oOuav uvyy£vij.

Aiolian Kinship: xyngeneia and Relatedness

107

about the common front in word (BotwTot 8€ Kat MEyap~s TO avTo ' ' • ' r ) an d action . (B OLWTOVS ' Kal' M EyapEaS ' ( TO' yap ' aVTO ' ' /\EYOVTES 71avxa. 104 3. 10. 2-4, 6. 105 3. 9. 2 Jv Tfi i:lp~vr1 TLµwµi:voL (m' aihwv; 3. 10. 6. 106 3. 39. 2, 5, 46. 5. On the use of the verbs nµw and fli:pa1Ti:6w as indexes of 'a special relationship', see T. Quinn 1981: 31-2. 100 102

Aiolian Kinship: xyngeneia and Relatedness

117

assembly to recall the harsh decision of the first assembly to put to death all the Mytilenaians of adult age and enslave their women and children. 107 This is nowhere detected in the rhetoric either of the 'most violent' Kleon or the moderate, but also in some ways 'deceitful' (and 'deceptive') Diodotos. 108 Nevertheless, in sources outside Thucydides Lesbos' close relation with the life and history of Ionia is much more pronounced. Herodotus' description of the geography, climate, and organization of life in Aiolis and Lesbos and the neighbouring Ionia leaves no doubt about the close interrelation of these areas. 109 And in his account of the Ionian revolt, Lesbos is implicitly treated as an area with Ionian characteristics. In the battle of Lade we find the Lesbians fighting close to the Samians, and behaving like the rest of the Ionians. 110 Later on in the Histories, Lesbos is bracketed with two Ionian islands, Samas and Chios, constituting an honorific group, which contributed decisively to the Greek victory at Mykale, in a passage that confirms the decisive importance of the Persian Wars for the 'Ionianization' of Lesbos in the Greek imaginaire of intercommunal relatedness. 111 A similar joint mention of Lesbos, Chios, and Samas is found in Aristotle's Athenaion Politeia, where we read that since the early days of the Delian League these three islands received the same respectful treatment by the Athenians. 112 It is only a few lines prior to this passage that we find the description of the solemn ritual of the foundation of the Delian League between the Athenians and the Ionians, where we can legitimately infer that the Aiolian Lesbians are included. 113 The Ionian island of Chios demonstrates another case where the mixed ethnic realities of the area are attested. There is inscriptional evidence about Aiolisms in the Chian dialect, and mythological tradition points to a coexistence of the Aiolian and the Ionian element

107 3. 36. 4 Kal -rfi vau.pa{q. µe-ravota TL> eMlv> ~v aihot> Kal ava.\oytaµO> wµov TO Pov.\evµa Kal µtya lyvwa8ai. 108 Manuwald 2009. 109 Hdt. 1. 149. 2; cf. Hdt. 1. 141. 1; 1. 151. 3. Cf. the Second Sophistic tradition about the orphic oracle on the island of Lesbos, which was consulted not only by the Lesbians, but also by all the Aiolians and their neighbours (7rpoaotKot) the Ionians: Flav. Philostr. Soph. Her. 703-4. 110 Hdt. 6. 14. 3; cf. 6. 8. Ill Hdt. 9. 106. 4. 112 Arist. Ath. Pol. 24. 2. 113 Arist. Ath. PoL 23. 5; cf. Rhodes 1981 ad loc., who rightly criticizes Hammond {1967b: 50) for seeing in this passage a reference strictly to the Ionian League.

Aiolian Kinship: xyngeneia and Relatedness

118

on the island. 114 Some areas of Chios were surely colonized by Aiolians, such as BoA.iaa6s (BoMaKos in Thucydides), on the basis of Stephanos' of Byzantium entry. 115 It is worth pausing at a detail in Thucydides concerning Chios' internal politics. Chios, which attracts a lot of attention in book 8, was 'the largest of the allied cities in Ionia', 116 but with an oligarchic regime, 117 and inclined to revolt from the Athenians well before the so-called Ionian War (413-404). 118 In 412/11 the island was also weakened by defeats in several battles, we are told, but Thucydides concentrates more on its internal problems typical of stasis > ( EV

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and on a specific episode: the Spartan Pedaritos accused the pro-Athenian leader on Chios, Tydeus, son of Ion, of 'atticizing' (€7T' aTTLKiaµ or locality (II,.\aTaiijs OE Kal avnKpvs BoLWTOL BoLwTois). 133 > > Th e ph rase II,.\ aTaL'Y}S ••• µovoL ELKOTWS KaTa TO EX OS eµaxovTO reflects not only the rupture of Aiolian xyngeneia between Plataia and the rest of the Boiotians, but also Plataia's close and unique relationship to Athens. Plataia's alliance with, and attachment to, Athens was felt not as a transgression of the 'natural' ties of xyngeneia, but as something natural itself, based on a replacement of the Aiolian/Boiotian xyngeneia with another kinship connection with Athens, which closely resembled the xyngeneia model in all respects. A comparison with Methymna and Tenedos in the catalogue, immediately before the Plataians, is telling. These cities, Thucydides says, fought against their founders (Tois KTLaaai), the Boiotians, on account of necessity or constraint (KaT' dvayK'Y}v), since they were Athenian subjects. 134 The contrast between these two motives, KaT' dvayKYJV and KaTa lxOos, implies that in the latter case the Plataians fought on the side of the Athenians because of their hatred towards the Boiotians and their long-standing and intimate connection with Athens. Both have been made more than clear up to this point in the narrative. ,

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As in the Kerkyraika debate, which took place in Athens between the representatives of the two Dorian kin cities, the Korinthians and the Kerkyraians, in this Aiolian family feud as well, a third party, in this case the Spartans, assumed the role of arbitrators/judges. At the opening of the Plataian debate, this 'travesty of legal forms,, 135 the short question which the Plataians are asked by the Spartan judges is whether they had done any good service to the Spartans and their allies in the present war. 136 This question, given in indirect speech, sets the tone and shows 132

133 134

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see CTiii. 663-4. 3. 52. 4.

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122

Aiolian Kinship: xyngeneia and Relatedness

that the scales are tipped in favour of the Thebans. After this, as in the Kerkyraika, we hear only the voice of the two kin parties. In their answer to the Spartan question, the Plataians express their hatred of the Thebans in a culminating manner at the end of their speech by using the superlative lxOiaTos. 137 But it is in the Theban rhetoric that hatred is most often and acutely expressed. After the Plataian answer to the Spartan question, the Thebans came forward because, as Thucydides points out, they feared that the Plataian speech might make the Spartans 'give in somewhat'. 138 The Theban speech is passionate and indignant, as stated. A stylistic indication of their passionate address is the fact that in the middle of their speech, they even turn and directly address the Plataians. 139 This betrays loss of temper, but also proves that 'the trial is a formality which merely palliates and accommodates Spartan unscrupulousness and Theban hatred'. 140 It is a violation of 'the rules of the courtroom' and of the possibility of a fair trial, since the Thebans directly pronounce accusations, and interfere with the role of the Spartans, who are supposed to be the judges. In the Theban speech, hatred {µfoos) is ascribed to the Plataians as motive for their unlawful behaviour. 141 One of the accusations is that the Plataians have helped the Athenians to enslave Aigina (gvyKaTE8ovAova8E ••• Aiyiv~Tas). 142 This alludes to the mythical bond between the Asopids Thebes and Aigina, as mentioned at the very beginning of this chapter. If we take into account the epichoric Boiotian tradition which conferred the status of an Asopid daughter on Plataia as well {see first para. of this chapter with n. 2), then the accusation of the Thebans against Plataia, their apoikia and fellow Asopid, acquires special gravity. The colonial tie between Thebes and Plataia is revealed early in the Theban speech, which is constructed around the theme of xyngeneia. The Thebans stress their role as colonizers of Plataia and all Boiotia ( ~µwv KnaavTwv llAaTatav 143 ), severely criticizing the Plataians for being unduly irreverent and recalcitrant towards their metropolis. Like the Theban herald in the opening episode of the night attack against Plataia, 144 the Thebans remind the Plataians of their binding obligation

138 3. 60. 139 3. 63-6 (direct address to the Plataians). 3. 59. 2, 4. Macleod 1983: 233. Rhodes (1994: 224} notes the change of address in the Theban speech with no further comment. 141 3. 67. 5. Cf. the similar use of the word µfoo> in the Kerkyraika, 1. 25. 3. 142 3. 64. 3. 143 3. 61. 2. 144 2. 2. 4. 137 140

Aiolian Kinship: xyngeneia and Relatedness

123

towards the Boiotian ancestral practices (7Tcfrpia) and the senior role of their mother-city. 145 The actual word tvyyevEia crops up a little later in the Theban speech, where they defend their night attack against Plataia as a reunion with kinsmen and a restitution of the just and natural > >\ \ >\ \ J ( KaL\ TWV awµa-rwv TT)V 7TOl\LV OVK • ord er 0 f t h mgs al\l\OTpLOVVTES al\/\ €s -r~v tvyyevnav oiKEwvv-rEs). 146 The Thebans also insist that the Plataians are unjust (~OLK~Ka-rE) and that they deserve due punishment (dtiwnpo{ €a-rE mfo71s ~71µ,las). 147 The leading role of senior kinsmen, the rhetoric of justice and injustice, 148 the juxtaposition of justice with expediency (O{KaLOv-tvµcpepov ), 149 along with the themes of d,.\..\o-rplwais and oiKElwais towards kinsmen, recall the language of the Dorian Korinthians and their grievances against their colonists the Kerkyraians. 150 As part of their violent rhetoric the Thebans throw the insulting word a-rnKiaµ6s against the Plataians, accusing them of betraying their Boiotian kinsmen for the sake of the Athenians. 151 In fact this is an accusation of having betrayed, and become alienated (d,.\,.\6-rpwi) from their Boiotian 'family' and identity. Four years later, the Thespians, another city of Boiotia, would be accused of 'atticizing' by the Thebans on account of their pro-Athenian sympathies (€mKaMaav-rEs a-rnKiaµ6v). Their 'punishment' would be the demolition of their city wall, which, as Thucydides says, the Thebans had always wanted to do (ffov..\6µ,Evoi µev Kal aiE{). 152 The strong and long-standing links of Thespiai with Athens are confirmed later in the narrative, when, under 414, we are told that the Thespian democrats who survived the unsuccessful coup of the people (o Bwmwv o~µos), A

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182 186

130

Aiolian Kinship: xyngeneia and Relatedness

with freedom and more claims to it than the rest of the Greeks, and that it was the Spartans and Pausanias who liberated Greece from the Persians. 190 Pausanias features as liberator of Greece for the first time in book 2, in the Plataian plea to the Spartan king Archidamos, in the siege of Plataia by the Peloponnesians in the summer of 429 Bc, 191 where the Plataians also call the Thebans 'most hateful' (lxBtaTwv) for the first time. 192 In this short, but highly moral and emotional speech all the topoi of panHellenic kinship and discourse are found, which will recur amplified in the Plataian debate: the sanctuaries of the gods in the Plataian agora (especially Zeus Eleutherios ); the oaths taken at the battle of Plataia in 479 and the gods invoked; the Lakedaimonian ancestors and their bravery. 193 The Spartan king Archidamos also makes repeated appeals to the unifying force of this battle and the reciprocal obligations emanating from it. 194 Pausanias' role in the battle for liberation stands out in the Plataian speech in the Plataian debate as well: 7TapEyEvoµE0a vµ,'iv TE KUL IIavaav{. 8€ovs TOVS oµ.of3wµ.fovs ••• iKlTai yiyvoµ.£8a; 59. 4. 203 3. 58. 4. Cf. Diod. 11. 33. 3; Plut. Arist. 21. 2 €vayl,£iv (referring to the annual funeral offerings). On the interpretation of this tomb cult and the New Simonides as a piece of memory, see Boedeker 1998. 204 Plut. Arist. 21. 1. For the possibility of fifth-century proto-Eleutheria, see Boedeker 1998: 241; 2001: 151-3; L. Mitchell 2007: 79. But C. P. Jones {2010: 27) prefers a late fourth-century date for the institution of the festival. 205 Boedeker {2001: 149, 153) speaks of'immortalization' and '(implicit) heroization of contemporaries en masse'. C. P. Jones {2010: 7-8) endorses a more sceptical view as to whether the poem can be taken as evidence of such heroization. 206 rn