CREATING A HELLENISTIC WORLD
C REATING A HELLENISTIC WORLD Editors
Andrew Erskine and
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Contributors Elizabeth Carney, Stephen Colvin, Andrew Erskine, Robin Lane Fox, Richard Hunter, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, Alan B. Lloyd, Daniel Ogden, James I. Porter, Joseph Roisman, Peter Schultz, Shane Wallace, Hans-Ulrich Wiemer, Josef Wiesehöfer, Stephanie Winder
The Classical Press of Wales
First published in 2010 by The Classical Press of Wales 15 Rosehill Terrace, Swansea SA1 6JN Tel: +44 (0)1792 458397 Fax: +44 (0)1792 464067 www.classicalpressofwales.co.uk Distributor Oxbow Books, 10 Hythe Bridge Street, Oxford OX1 2EW Tel: +44 (0)1865 241249 Fax: +44 (0)1865 794449 Distributor in the United States of America The David Brown Book Co. PO Box 511, Oakville, CT 06779 Tel: +1 (860) 945–9329 Fax: +1 (860) 945–9468 © 2010 The authors 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, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. ISBN A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Typeset, printed and bound in the UK by Gomer Press, Llandysul, Ceredigion, Wales
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The Classical Press of Wales, an independent venture, was founded in 1993, initially to support the work of classicists and ancient historians in Wales and their collaborators from further afield. More recently it has published work initiated by scholars internationally. While retaining a special loyalty to Wales and the Celtic countries, the Press welcomes scholarly contributions from all parts of the world. The symbol of the Press is the Red Kite. This bird, once widespread in Britain, was reduced by 1905 to some five individuals confined to a small area known as ‘The Desert of Wales’ – the upper Tywi valley. Geneticists report that the stock was saved from terminal inbreeding by the arrival of one stray female bird from Germany. After much careful protection, the Red Kite now thrives – in Wales and beyond.
CONTENTS Page List of Contributors
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Abbreviations
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Introduction Andrew Erskine and Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
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PART I NEW WORLDS 1 The first Hellenistic man Robin Lane Fox
1
2 The koine: A new language for a new world Stephen Colvin
31
3 The letter of Aristeas Richard Hunter
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PART II RULERS AND SUBJECTS 4 The Silver Shields, Eumenes, and their historian Joseph Roisman
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5 From satrapy to Hellenistic kingdom: the case of Egypt Alan B. Lloyd
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6 Frataraka rule in Seleucid Persis: a new appraisal Josef Wiesehöfer
v
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Contents PART III THE POLIS 7 Early Hellenistic Rhodes: the struggle for independence and the dream of hegemony Hans-Ulrich Wiemer 8 The significance of Plataia for Greek eleutheria in the early Hellenistic period Shane Wallace
Part IV THE COURT 9 Between philosophy and the court: the life of Persaios of Kition Andrew Erskine
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147
177
10 Being royal and female in the early Hellenistic period Elizabeth Carney
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11 How to marry a courtesan in the Macedonian courts Daniel Ogden
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12 A key to Berenike’s Lock? The Hathoric model of queenship in early Ptolemaic Egypt Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones and Stephanie Winder
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Part V CHANGING AESTHETICS 13 Against λεπτότης: rethinking Hellenistic aesthetics James L. Porter 14 Style, continuity and the Hellenistic baroque Peter Schultz
Index
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313
345
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CONTRIBUTORS Elizabeth Carney is Professor of History at Clemson University. She is author of Women and Monarchy in Ancient Macedonia (2000), Olympias, Mother of Alexander the Great (2006) and co-editor of Philip II and Alexander the Great: Father and son, lives and afterlives (2010). Stephen Colvin is Reader in Classics and Comparative Philology at University College London. His main interests are Greek language, dialect and literature; the koine and Mycenaean Greek; historical linguistics and sociolinguistics. Major publications include Dialect in Aristophanes (1999), The Greco-Roman East (2004), and A Historical Greek Reader (2007). Andrew Erskine is Professor of Ancient History at the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of The Hellenistic Stoa (1990), Troy between Greece and Rome (2001) and Roman Imperialism (2010). He is the editor of A Companion to the Hellenistic World (2003) and A Companion to Ancient History (2009). Richard Hunter is Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity College. His research interests include Hellenistic poetry and its reception in Rome, ancient literary criticism, and the ancient novel. His most recent book is Critical Moments in Classical Literature (2009), and many of his essays have been collected in On Coming After: Studies in Post-Classical Greek literature and its reception (2008). Robin Lane Fox is Reader in Ancient History at the University of Oxford and Fellow of New College. His publications range widely over the ancient world and include Alexander the Great (1973), Pagans and Christians (1986), The Classical World: An epic history from Homer to Hadrian (2005) and Travelling Heroes (2008). Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones is Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Edinburgh with interests in the socio-cultural history of ancient Greece, Persia and Egypt and in reception studies. He is the author of Aphrodite’s Tortoise: The veiled woman of ancient Greece (2003) and Ctesias’ History of Persia – Tales of the Orient (2009; with James Robson).
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Contributors Alan B. Lloyd is Professor Emeritus in the Department of History and Classics at Swansea University. He was a member of the Saqqara Epigraphic Project in the 1970s and edited the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology from 1979 to 1985. He was chairman of the Egypt Exploration Society from 1994 to 2007 (now Vice-President) and is the author of numerous publications on Egyptological and Classical subjects. Daniel Ogden is Professor of Ancient History in the University of Exeter. His publications include Polygamy, Prostitutes and Death (1999) and Alexander the Great: Myth, genesis and sexuality (2010). He is the editor of The Hellenistic World: New perspectives (2002) and co-editor of Philip II and Alexander the Great: Father and son, lives and afterlives (2010). James I. Porter is Professor of Classics at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of Nietzsche and the Philology of the Future (2000), The Invention of Dionysus: An essay on the birth of tragedy (2000), and The Origins of Aesthetic Thought in Ancient Greece: Matter, sensation, and experience (2010), and editor, most recently, of Classical Pasts: The classical traditions of Greece and Rome (2006). Joseph Roisman is a professor of Classics at Colby College. His research interests include Greek social and military history from the Classical Age to early Hellenistic times. Among his recent publications are: with J. C. Yardley, Ancient Greece from Homer to Alexander (2010) and as co-editor with I. Worthington, A Companion to Ancient Macedonia (2010). Peter Schultz is Olin J. Storvick Chair of Classical Studies at Concordia College. He is the co-editor of Early Hellenistic Portraiture: Image, style, context (2007), Aspects of Ancient Greek Cult: Ritual, context, iconography (2009), Structure, Image, Ornament: Architectural sculpture in the Greek World (2009) and the author of numerous articles on Athenian art, architectural and topography. Shane Wallace is a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh. Currently based at the British School at Athens, he is completing his thesis ‘The Freedom of the Greeks in the Early Hellenistic Period, 336–262: A Study in Ruler/City Relations’.
Hans-Ulrich Wiemer holds the chair of Ancient History at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg. His publications include Libanios und Julian (1995), Rhodische Traditionen in der hellenistischen Historiographie (2001), Krieg,
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Creating a Hellenistic World Handel und Piraterie. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des hellenistischen Rhodos (2002), Alexander der Große (2005). He also edited Staatlichkeit und politisches Handeln in der römischen Kaiserzeit (2006) and, with Hans Beck, Feiern und Erinnern (2009). Josef Wiesehöfer is Professor of Ancient History at the University of Kiel. His main publications deal with the history of Pre-Islamic Iran and the history of scholarship and include Friedrich Münzer (1982), Die ‘dunklen Jahrhunderte’ der Persis (1994), Ancient Persia (3rd ed. 2004) and Iraniens, Grecs et Romains (2005). He is editor of Das Partherreich und seine Zeugnisse (1998), Theodor Mommsen (2005) and Eran ud Aneran (2006). Stephanie Winder is a lecturer in Classics at the University of Edinburgh. Her main areas of scholarly interest are Hellenistic poetry and ancient literary theory.
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ABBREVIATIONS Abbreviations for ancient texts follow OCD 3 for the most part or are easily identifiable. For papyrological abbreviations such as P.Berol., P.Cair.Zen, P.Herc see http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/papyrus/texts/clist.html. AB Agora AHB AJA AJP AncW APF BCH CAH 2 CEG CID CQ FD FGrH FHG G-P GHI GRBS HSCP I. Amyzon I. Erythrai I. Milet I. Mylasa
C. Austin and G. Bastianini (eds), Posidippi Pellaei quae supersunt omnia. Milan, 2002. The Athenian Agora, New Jersey, 1953– Ancient History Bulletin. American Journal of Archaeology. American Journal of Philology. The Ancient World. Archiv für Papyrusforschung. Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique. Cambridge Ancient History, 2nd edn, Cambridge, 1961– P. A. Hansen (ed.), Carmina Epigraphica Graeca, 2 vols, Berlin and New York, 1983 and 1989. Lefèvre, F., Corpus des Inscriptions de Delphes 4: Documents amphictioniques, Paris, 2002. Classical Quarterly. Fouilles de Delphes, Paris, 1902Jacoby, F., Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, 1923– Müller, C., Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, Paris, 1841–70. Gow, A. S. F. and Page, D. L., The Greek Anthology: Hellenistic Epigrams, 2 vols, Cambridge, 1965. Rhodes, P. J. and Osborne, R., Greek Historical Inscriptions 404–323 BC, Oxford, 2003. Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology. Robert, J. and L., Fouilles d’Amyzon en Carie I: Exploration, histoire, monnaies et inscriptions, Paris, 1983. Engelmann, H. and Merkelbach, R., Die Inschriften von Erythrai und Klazomenai,1972–73. Milet, Ergebnisse der Ausgrabung seit dem Jahren 1899, Berlin 1906– Blümel, W., Die Inschriften von Mylasa, 1987–88.
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Abbreviations I.Rhamnous I.Stratonikeia IG IK ISE JdI JEA JHS LGPN LSJ Michel, RIG OCD 3 OGIS PCPS Pros. Ptol. VI
RC RE REA REG Schmitt, SdA
SEG SH SSH Syll.3 TAPA TGrF ZPE
Petrakos, B., Ὁ ∆ήµος τὸν Ραµνοῦντος, 2 vols., Βιβλιοθήκη τῆς ἐν Ἀθήναις Ἀρχαιολογικής Ἑταιρείας 181–2, Athens, 1999. Sahin, M. Ç., Die Inschriften von Stratonikeia, 1981–90. Inscriptiones Graecae, 1873Inschriften griechischer Städte aus Kleinasien, Bonn, 1972– Moretti, L., Iscrizioni storiche ellenistiche, Florence, 1967–76. Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology. Journal of Hellenic Studies. Lexicon of Greek Personal Names, Oxford, 1987– Liddell, H. G., Scott, R. and Jones, H. S., A Greek-English Lexicon, Oxford, 9th edn, 1940. Michel, C., Recueil d’inscriptions grecques, Brussels, 1897–1900. Hornblower, S. and Spawforth, A. The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd edn, Oxford, 1996. Dittenberger, W., Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae, Leipzig, 1903–5. Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society. Peremans, W. et al., 1968 Prosopographia Ptolemaica VI: La cour, les relations internationales et les possessions extérieures, la vie culturelle, Leuven, 1968. Welles, C. B., Royal Correspondence in the Hellenistic Period, New Haven, 1934. A. Pauly, G. Wissowa, and W. Kroll, Realencyclopädie des classischen Altertumswissenschaft, 1893– Revue des études anciennes. Revue des études grecques. Schmitt, H. H., Die Staatsverträge des Altertums 3: Die Verträge der griechisch-römischen Welt von 338 bis 200 v. Chr., Munich, 1969. Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 1923– Lloyd-Jones, H. and Parsons, P., Supplementum Hellenisticum. Berlin and New York, 1983. Lloyd-Jones, H., Supplementum Supplementi Hellenistici. Berlin and New York, 2005. Dittenberger, W. Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum. 3rd edn, Leipzig, 1915-24. Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association. Snell, B., Kannicht, R. and Radt, S., Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, Göttingen, 1971–85. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik.
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INTRODUCTION Macedonian kings dominating the eastern Mediterranean, their prayers recorded in Akkadian in Babylonia, their portraits sculpted in the manner of pharaohs in Egypt, Greek communities along the Nile, a flourishing Greek city at its head, Greek philosophy in furthest Bactria, a Macedonian garrison in the Piraeus – and no Persian empire.1 All this would have struck an Athenian in the mid fourth century as a bizarre fantasy but in the mid third century it was reality. It is this world we study when we study the Hellenistic age. Alexander the Great’s overthrow of the Persian empire was fundamental in enabling this transformation to take place but it was not, one suspects, sufficient. Counterfactual history may be frowned upon but it can sometimes be useful.2 What would have happened if, instead of dying in 323 BC, Alexander had lived long enough to ensure an heir and a stable succession? Assuming that he had managed to rule this conquered territory successfully, then it is likely that what would have emerged would have been rather similar to the Persian empire that had preceded it but with the addition of the Balkans. We might imagine some form of GrecoMacedonian (and -Persian?) court at its centre, and perhaps a Persian style satrapal system operating in its territories, but nonetheless wonder how widely diffused Greco-Macedonian culture would have been through this united Macedonian empire. In other words, if Alexander had lived, there might have been no Hellenistic world, at least not as we know it, and this book and books like it would never have been written. But Alexander died and his empire fragmented as leading figures of the Macedonian military struggled for control. It is out of that fragmentation that the Hellenistic world was born. Kings and kingdoms emerged, the Antigonids in Macedon, the Seleucids in Asia, the Ptolemies in Egypt and failed dynasties such as that of Lysimachos in Thrace and Asia Minor. But it is not the mere fact of these kingdoms that is significant but what those kingdoms brought with them. By their very multiplicity they needed a shared culture and that culture was derived from the Greco-Macedonian homeland, reinforced and sustained among other things by intermarriage and the needs of diplomacy.3 At the centre of each was a king whose primary means of expressing power was in Greek idioms; this had an impact within the kingdom itself but also beyond it in the smaller non-Greek kingdoms and states that adopted
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Introduction similar modes of expression to their more powerful neighbours.4 So at the international level it was Greco-Macedonian culture that was dominant but within the kingdoms outside the Greek mainland there was much cultural variety and the rulers took care to address the native population as well as the Greeks and Macedonians. Nonetheless, when combined with the Greek character of the centre of power, the presence of newly-founded Greek cities and the introduction of Greek settlers such as those in the Fayyum in Egypt meant that things Greek still had priority. So, although it is tempting to see Alexander as the founder or creator of the Hellenistic world, it may be more appropriate to see him as the catalyst; his actions set this transformation of the eastern Mediterranean in motion. An alternative candidate for the title of its creator might be someone more recent, the German historian Johann Gustav Droysen, who was responsible for coining the term ‘Hellenistic’. Without him it could be argued there would be no Hellenistic world. For Droysen what distinguished the Hellenistic age was the fusion of Greek and oriental culture, although as Robin Lane Fox points out in the opening chapter of this volume there are serious problems with this as a defining characteristic, not least because there is evidence for fusion of this sort long before the Hellenistic period. Fusion also suggests some form of equality of status whereas in practice the conquered had to find ways of reaching an accommodation with the conquerors. That the Hellenistic world was the product of conquest and colonisation is not something neglected by modern scholarship but at the same time it is not to the fore as much as it might be. Perhaps this is in part because these territories were not ruled from afar, for instance from Macedon or Persepolis, but instead by kings who were present, ‘exiles from their ethnic homeland’, as Graham Shipley puts it.5 But, although conquest and occupation were fundamental, the Hellenistic world was not like the Persian or the Roman empire because it was not a unity under the rule of one man or one state. It is the fragmented character of power in parallel with a coherence that comes from the acknowledgement of a common Greco-Macedonian culture that helps to make the Hellenistic world distinctive. The aim of the present volume is to explore this emerging Hellenistic world, its newness but also its oldness, whether real or imagined. It is important to bear in mind its scale and variety and be wary of easy generalisations. The two chapters on Persis and Egypt, by Josef Wiesehöfer and Alan Lloyd respectively, offer case studies in Macedonian rule and give a sense not only of this variety but also of the nature of the transformation, all the more evident because both highlight the native reaction. The
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Creating a Hellenistic World fortunes of the two regions are in many ways reversed. Under the Persian empire Persis was central while Egypt was a troublesome (but economically important) land on the periphery of that empire, but now in the third century Egypt is home to a powerful and rich kingdom and all that that entails while Persis is reduced to being a relative backwater, a mere secondary province of the Seleucid empire. In the old Greece, on the other hand, the polis is learning to cope with this new environment, although there it may be hard to let go of the past. As Shane Wallace demonstrates, the Persian Wars are still a potent symbol on the Greek mainland long after the disappearance of the Persian empire itself. Nor are old aspirations of hegemony easily put aside as Hans-Ulrich Wiemer’s chapter on Rhodes makes clear. Here there was the Colossus of Rhodes, a giant statue celebrated in a short and recently discovered epigram by Posidippus. The contrasting scales here, explored in James Porter’s chapter, are emblematic not only of Hellenistic art and literature but also of the vast and complex character of the Hellenistic world. It is common and not unreasonable for scholars examining times of transformation to talk of change and continuity,6 but these in themselves can mislead. What might be seen as change in one place might be continuity in another. From a Greek perspective we might pick out the court as a new phenomenon, but from a Macedonian and eastern perspective it may have been the polis that was the anomaly. The Macedonian court would of course have been very different from its Persian counterpart (although a Persian model for the fifth-century Macedonian court must not be overlooked) but both took kingship for granted. Several chapters explore various aspects of the court, its tensions and pressures, the place of the intellectual (see Erskine) and in particular the role of women (see Carney; Llewellyn-Jones and Winder; Ogden). We may be able to name few women from Classical Greece, but the same problem does not occur in the Hellenistic period, even if many of them are called Cleopatra. Changes too can be observed that on investigation were already under way; after all change does not come out of nowhere but sometimes circumstances allow things to develop and flourish in ways that would have been otherwise impossible. In other words continuity can be an essential element of change. It is striking in these chapters how influential Athens is on the Hellenistic world, culturally (see Hunter on Alexandria and the letter of Aristeas), artistically (see Schultz on the Hellenistic baroque), linguistically (see Colvin on the koine); in each case, however, Athens’ legacy is transformed by contact with this new Macedonian world. In some ways the end of the old world and the beginning of the new are captured in the story of the demise of the Silver Shields, the veteran
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Introduction soldiers of Alexander whose final years are recounted by Joseph Roisman. These soldiers are presented as icons of a glorious Macedonian past but they are the past and according to one tradition at least they were deliberately done away with after swopping sides from Eumenes to Antigonos. The new world had room for their myth but not for the men themselves. This volume originates in an informative, instructive, and enjoyable international conference held at the University of Edinburgh early in 2006 on the theme of Creating a Hellenistic World, kindly sponsored by grants from the British Academy and the University of Edinburgh Development Trust. The conference coincided with the launch of a new postgraduate study programme in the University’s School of History, Classics and Archaeology entitled Hellenistic Court and Society. Since its inception, we are pleased to see that the Hellenistic postgraduate programme has proved to be a major player in the recruitment and training of postgraduates at masters and doctorate levels, and the future of the study of the Hellenistic world at Edinburgh looks bright. Forthcoming plans include a close association with colleagues at the University of Waterloo, Canada, and their Waterloo Institute for Hellenistic Studies (WIHS), and 2010 will see the launch of Edinburgh’s sister-site, The Centre for the Study of the Hellenistic World (CSHW), with more conferences and workshops planned thereafter. The editors are grateful to all the participants of the 2006 conference, most of whom (and more) are represented in this volume. We wish to thank our conference co-organiser Dr Stephanie Winder for her input in making the event such a success and we wish to acknowledge too the support and encouragement of all our colleagues in Classics at Edinburgh. The study of the history and culture of the Hellenistic world continues to grow apace, and scholars and students alike are recognizing the wealth of information to be mined from the diverse, disparate, sometimes frustrating, but always rewarding source materials of the period. This book, it is hoped, goes some way towards delineating the perimeters of that age by attempting to define why and how the Hellenistic world came into being. Andrew Erskine and Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones Edinburgh, December 2009
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Creating a Hellenistic World Notes 1 Prayers (on the cylinder of Antiochos I): Kuhrt and Sherwin-White 1991; portraits: Stanwick 2002; Greek communities in Egypt: Rowlandson 2003, Fraser 1972; Bactria (the inscription of Klearchos from Ai Khanoum): Robert 1968, Yailenko 1990; garrison in Piraeus: Habicht 1997. 2 For some experiments in counterfactual history, Ferguson 1997. 3 For the common culture of the court, note Strootman’s 2007 dissertation, though that did not exclude differences, see Carney this volume. 4 Ma 2003, 187–8. 5 Shipley 2000, 295. The extent of colonisation is vividly demonstrated by Getzl Cohen’s volumes on Hellenistic settlements (Cohen1995 and 2006). 6 For example, Erskine 2003, Part III, Chamoux 2003, 255, Davies 1984, 290.
Bibliography Chamoux, F. 2003 Hellenistic Civilization, Oxford (first published in French, 1981). Cohen, G. 1995 The Hellenistic Settlements in Europe, the Islands, and Asia Minor, Berkeley. 2006 The Hellenistic Settlements in Syria, the Red Sea Basin, and North Africa, Berkeley. Davies, J. 1984 ‘Cultural, social and economic features of the Hellenistic world’, CAH 2 7.1, 257–320. Erskine, A. (ed.) 2003 A Companion to the Hellenistic World, Oxford. Ferguson, N. 1997 Virtual History: Alternatives and counterfactuals, London. Fraser, P. M 1972 Ptolemaic Alexandria, Oxford. Habicht, C. 1997 Athens from Alexander to Actium, Boston. Kuhrt, A. and Sherwin-White, S. 1991 ‘Aspects of Seleucid royal ideology: the cylinder of Antiochus I from Borsippa’, JHS 111, 71–86. Ma, J. 2003 ‘Kings’, in Erskine 2003, 177–95. Robert, L. 1968 ‘De Delphes à l’Oxus: inscriptions grecques nouvelles de la Bactriane’, Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 416–57 (reprinted in L. Robert, Opera Minora Selecta 5, Amsterdam, 1989, 510–51). Rowlandson, J. 2003 ‘Town and country in Ptolemaic Egypt’, in Erskine 2003, 249–63. Shipley, G. 2000 The Greek World after Alexander 323–30 BC, London. Stanwick, P. 2002 Portraits of the Ptolemies: Greek kings as Egyptian Pharaohs, Austin.
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Introduction Strootman, R. 2007 The Hellenistic Royal Court. Court culture, ceremonial and ideology in Greece, Egypt and the Near East, 336–30 BCE, Dissertation, University of Utrecht. (http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/dissertations/2007-0725201108/UUindex.html) Yailenko, V.-P. 1990 ‘Les maximes delphiques d’Ai Khanoum et la formation de la doctrine du dhamma d’Asoka, Dialogues d’Histoire Ancienne 16, 239–56.
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PART I
NEW WORLDS
1 THE FIRST HELLENISTIC MAN Robin Lane Fox I The ancients had no word for the Hellenistic Age. It is the famous coinage of young Johann Gustav Droysen and is explained in the preface to his History of the Successors which he published in 1836 at the age of 28. Just as ‘Romanistik’ and ‘Germanistik’ had combined in early medieval Europe and the ‘Romance’ languages had been born, so, Droysen believed, the fusion of the Hellenistic and the Oriental produced the culture and koinelanguage of a Hellenistic age after Alexander.1 The relation between Greek and non-Greek cultures in Asia is still important in Hellenistic studies but it is no longer quite as Droysen proposed. For Claire Préaux there was actually no new ‘mixed’ culture at all.2 Instead there is a scholarly emphasis on bi-culturalism whereby individuals might speak two languages, adopt two names (one Greek, one non-Greek) and move between two different ways of life.3 It might seem more reassuring to Droysen that Fergus Millar has argued that there was one area close to his conception: the Phoenician cities in the Hellenistic age. How far their non-Greek culture extended has now been questioned, but even so, Millar poses problems for Droysen’s periodization.4 Hellenisation, he observes, began in these cities before Alexander, an ‘agreeable paradox’, and even more tellingly ‘we might well wonder why it was in Rome and not in Phoenicia that there evolved, entirely without the aid of a conquering Macedonian state, the only literary culture which really was a fusion in Droysen’s sense.’
1
Robin Lane Fox Droysen’s emphasis on a Hellenistic fusion has not succeeded in defining the Greek world from 320–30 BC, but this idea belonged in a wider framework of thought. He had heard Hegel in Berlin and his theory of history assumed the recurring reconciliation of opposites which then led on to a new historical phase. At first, he believed, Greece had been the ‘total opposite’ of the Orient but after Alexander this old ‘antithesis’ was replaced by a new ‘synthesis’, the mixing of the ‘hellenic-macedonian element’ with the native life of other countries.5 Above all there had been a religious mixing or Theokrasie in which the cults of different peoples were assimilated beyond their local and national origins. There was also a widespread cult of living mortal rulers. However, these opposites were only partially reconciled and so they gave way to Christianity, which resolved the supranational mixing of cults and the God-man antithesis in a new way. Unlike Hegel, Droysen thus saw the Hellenistic world, not the Roman state and its civilization, as the preparation for the Christian age. Yet he failed to publish any detailed study of the new Hellenistic culture whose role he had diagnosed. The reasons for this failure, and the problem of the ‘Jewish question’ in them, have been brilliantly investigated by Momigliano.6 Meanwhile, at its starting point, Droysen’s periodization has continued to be dissolved by local studies. On Droysen’s definition of the Hellenistic we would already have a Hellenistic Cyprus in, say, the sixth century BC, Hellenistic parts of Caria in the mid fourth century and a Hellenistic Mediterranean wherever Greeks sited settlements from c. 760 BC onwards, while (perhaps only for M. L. West) Homeric poetry and Homer himself would be Hellenistic from the start. Nonetheless, Droysen chose his starting-point for a clear, intelligible reason: his interpretation of Alexander. Before his History of the Successors he had published a remarkable study of Alexander, written with the particular gifts of a historian in his early to mid-twenties. Alexander, he believed, had wished for a political union of the peoples of East and West, but the Successors had fragmented this vision and so they were the ‘antistrophe-’ to Alexander’s attempted synthesis. There was another problem. Alexander had ‘fulfilled’ the anthropomorphism which characterized ancient Greek religion. A man had become a god, but his ‘kingdom was of this world’, leaving scope for a new Christian phase of history whose founder’s kingdom would be other-worldly.7 While these antitheses awaited reconciliation in a new age, Alexander left one new direction which did survive him: his intended fusion of Greek and Oriental bore fruit in a ‘Hellenism which one can call the first-ever unity of the world’. The unity, mixing and even Theokrasie of the Hellenistic age were already Alexander’s ideals and actions, ‘le résultat des audaces créatrices
2
The first Hellenistic man de son idéalisme dédaigneux de tout ménagement’ (‘the result of the creative daring of his idealism which disregarded all caution’).8 I have quoted this conception of Alexander’s Hellenistic ideals in French because it was in French that it promptly left a conspicuous, but neglected, mark. Between 1880 and 1888, Droysen’s books on Hellenistic history were translated into French. In 1890 Théodore Reinach’s excellent study of Mithridates Eupator and his Pontic kingdom then promptly showed their imprint. Around Reinach’s Mithridates the same ‘antagonism’ of East and West was played out, though the West was now Rome, the conqueror, not synthesizer. The synthesis, rather, had occurred in Mithridates’s own kingdom, the seat, in Reinach’s view, of ‘un grand fait historique: l’union féconde de deux grandes civilizations, le persisme et l’hellénisme, dans une oeuvre commune d’éducation morale, union révée par Alexandre le Grand, tardivement réalisée sur un théatre malheureusement trop restreint...’ (‘a great historic moment: the fertile union of two great civilizations, the Persian and the Greek, in a common morality, a union envisaged by Alexander, but only realized too late in a theatre which was unfortunately too limited...’).9 Like Droysen, Théodore Reinach had further grounds for emphasizing this sort of ‘union féconde’. Momigliano has pointed to the presence of friends and mentors of Jewish origin, but converted to Protestantism, in the young Droysen’s social circle and formation. Théodore himself was Jewish, but was writing in Paris where he had assimilated himself into French and classical culture after his family’s departure from their home in Frankfurt. Like his brilliant brother Salomon, Théodore also had a scholarly depth and an openness to the evidence of coins and iconography. It was here that he detected the ‘union’ of which Droysen’s Alexander had dreamed. A sudden flood of bronze coinages was struck in the Cappadocian cities under Mithridates’s rule and showed an imagery linked to Perseus, the ancestral hero of Greek-Persian kinship. Reinach’s understanding of them still stands, although the imagery is Greek, not a synthesis with anything truly Iranian.10 At the beginning and the end of the Hellenistic age, Droysen and Theodore Reinach thus placed Alexander and his bold ambitions. Nowadays this role for him is out of scholarly fashion. Tarn’s elaboration of Alexander’s ‘dream’ has caused the notion to be widely mistrusted.11 Bosworth has even implied that the Alexandrias were a new barbarism from the West. So much for the spread of ‘Hellenism’, while ‘killing’ was the one thing at which Alexander excelled.12 There is a renewed problem of placing him historically: is he the ‘last of the Achaemenids’ in Pierre Briant’s fertile phrase,13 leading the worst of the ‘hooligans’ from Maria Brosius’s Persian perspective,14 or a shooting-star, in many modern
3
Robin Lane Fox scholars’ view, who left a terrible problem of sources and Indian topography to subsequent students and only the bad example of conquest and global ambition to his effective and more orderly Successors? I wish to reconnect the early Hellenistic world to Alexander its founder, following Droysen’s example but not his definitions. I will then turn to other constituents of the new age, its art, literature and philosophy where Droysen’s ‘fusion’ is not a defining element. Instead I will consider where, if at all, Alexander’s existence made an impact on them too. In conclusion I will connect him to a particular view of ‘Hellenistic man’ and a particular ‘Hellenistic moment’.
II If the fusion of Greek and non-Greek does not characterize the Hellenistic age, what does? Warfare, we might think, but it varied over time: during the Roman dominance, cities in Greece have even been credited with ceasing to build or maintain walled defences after the 140s BC.15 Much depends, as usual, on the social level which we study. One level is the land and those who worked it, to whom the Hellenistic age certainly brought changes of status, economic connections and new crops and technology.16 Another is the world of Greek poleis whose numbers certainly mushroom in western Asia in Alexander’s immediate wake. In this world of many more poleis we can study their ‘network of peer contacts’.17 But this network existed under yet another level, one which was universal, as never before in Greek history: Greek-speaking kings and their courts, including queens, concubines and daughters. I incline to Daniel Ogden’s simple point: kings and courts are the really distinctive element in the Hellenistic age.18 There is, however, a problem: kings were not a constant element in its first eighteen years. From June 323 until autumn 317 one king was a halfwit, Philip’s son Philip III. From early autumn 323 until 310 the other king was a child, Alexander’s son by Roxane, Alexander IV. In 319 the kings were escorted out of Asia where they were never seen again. Then from 310 until 306 there was no king at all: the competing Successors hesitated. In summer 306 Antigonos finally took the title, whereupon the other competitors (including Ptolemy) quickly followed suit.19 Taking the title meant wearing a diadem like Alexander. But why had they waited? After Alexander IV’s death, one route to legitimacy, an attractive one, was to marry Alexander’s sister Kleopatra. In consequence she was killed, in 308/7.20 Without her, a king needed to be sure of a capable son, the heir for a new dynasty. Ptolemy and Seleukos did not yet have one, but
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The first Hellenistic man Antigonos had the flamboyant Demetrios, and when he was proven by his Cypriote victory at Salamis, it was the cue for his father’s proclamation. A Successor king needed a dynastic successor before taking the plunge. Locally, the competing Successors had already been addressed as ‘king’, but they had not exploited the title publicly. We can now follow the process in contemporary Babylonian documents thanks to the fundamental study of T. Boiy.21 From 323 Philip Arrhidaios is called ‘king’ in Babylonian scribes’ dating-formulae, as is young Alexander IV. Philip III even persists as ‘king’ in 316 after his death. Then, in December 316/January 315 the dating is by Antigonos, but only as ‘general’ (or apparently as ‘satrap’ on two occasions). From 312/1 Alexander IV is the identifying king with Seleukos now as ‘general’. From 305 onwards Seleukos is ‘king’. There are two crucial points here. For Babylonians, Antigonos is never the king, although Greek sources do talk of him being addressed as ‘lord of Asia’ after his victory over Eumenes in 316 BC.22 Meanwhile, both Philip III and Alexander IV continue to date documents as ‘kings’ as if their regnal years continued after their death. The hiatus in kingship was therefore only apparent. Even in the four years from 310 to 306, kings were assumed to be continuous; we can see the same in Egypt where dating by Alexander IV continued long after his death.23 This formal respect for kings characterized Greek and Macedonian participants too, even in Asia from 319 onwards when the kings were far away in Macedon. Even in 319–15 while the successor-armies fought each other, the treasurers at Alexander’s treasuries in Asia guarded the royal resources and did not plunder them.24 They would make them available only to someone who had letters of permission from the kings. So, too, those hardened Macedonian ‘athletes of war’, the Silver Shields, would follow Eumenes, the Greek ‘pest from the Chersonese’, rather than the Macedonian Seleukos, a commander with Alexander, because Eumenes, but not Seleukos, had letters from the kings.25 The years from 323 to 306 were not years of anarchy, although the kings were weak, absent, or nonexistent. What, though, did non-Greeks think of it? We have only one source surviving in its own non-Greek words, subsumed, but somewhat neglected, in the Old Testament Book of Daniel. In the second chapter, an anonymous Jew gives us his impressions of the years after Alexander from 323 to c. 301 BC.26 Updating an older prophecy about the previous kingdoms in Asia, he presents Alexander’s reign (without naming him) as the age of iron ‘which breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things’, followed by an age in which ‘the kingdom shall be divided’, the age of the competing Successors. In it, some of the ‘strength of the iron’ will persist, mixed,
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Robin Lane Fox however, with weak ‘potter’s clay’. The components are grim, but even in this symbolic view of the new age, kings and kingdoms predominate. Some, at least, of Alexander’s all-conquering ‘iron’ persists in the divided age. How important was Alexander’s example to the early Successors’ royal style? Their uses of his name as their password, of his idealized image to symbolize continuity on their coins, of his throne and attributes as a setting for their meetings are well known.27 What about some of the specific items? Alexander’s own weapons, sceptre and diadem were kept on one side and did not follow Philip III and the child to Macedon.28 Instead what we see is cult paid locally by Greek communities to Philip III and others after him.29 Inarguably, it was Alexander and his prowess who had made this sort of cult a widespread Greek reaction. There had been stirrings before, and in Philip’s lifetime a cult at his Philippi is now almost certain,30 but Alexander had the unique power, the prowess and the capacity for benefaction to which ‘god-like honours’ were a response. Here his legacy to the Hellenistic age was decisive. There was no ‘deification decree’ from Alexander himself 31 and neither he nor the early Successors personally imposed cult on their courtiers or subjects.32 Just as Alexander had been receiving such honours here and there in the Greek world before his Exiles Decree of summer 324, so we can see how Demetrios at Athens or Sikyon and Ptolemy on Rhodes were honoured locally at a city’s own initiative.33 After Alexander, in return for a big benefaction, no less could be offered to a Successor than had been offered to Alexander himself: his example had established a new norm. As for divine ‘sonship’, we might query the credibility of Alexander’s claims, but Seleukos deliberately emulated them for a ‘Successor’ public, claiming that oracles of Apollo at Didyma had vouched for his sonship of the god.34 The huge oracular temple at Didyma is his acknowledgement in stone, our biggest visible survival from the early Successors’ years. Politically, human influence at a Hellenistic court depended on access to the king. We see it already under Alexander, whether for his weaponsofficers or even (by letter) his sister.35 Under the early Successors there were still no constitutions or obligatory council-meetings to bind the kings’ actions. A king dispensed decisions and judgements which overrode local laws.36 Fergus Millar’s ideal type of a Roman emperor, dispensing justice and responding to petitions, goes back in the Greek world to Philip, Alexander and the first Successors. Epigraphically we see its role very well in the endless rulings on the status of the tyrants’ descendants which were inscribed at Eresos.37 Spanning Alexander and his early Successors the questions and answers rolled on in the kings’ presence as if no wars were going on meanwhile.
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The first Hellenistic man The one ‘constitutional’ innovation was simply the consequence of Alexander dying young without an heir: the Macedonian soldiery had to play a role, which later became more formalized, in the wholly irregular circumstances of the succession in June 323.38 Otherwise, in the Successors’ entourages the old title of ‘Companions’ became the officially recognized title of ‘Friends’. Among the successors there was the same royal response to crisis, the extension of new ‘titles of distinction’ to a king’s supporters. This response had been Alexander’s at Opis, and it was an old Macedonian royal tactic, replayed by the Ptolemies in the crisis of the 190s.39 Even those who did not credit the so-called Royal Diaries would remember Alexander as a stupendous hunter and drinker.40 In their rivalries, therefore, Successors competed to be true lion kings and exploited their hunting exploits as evidence of their prowess.41 As for the drinking, Eumenes was known to have been drunk on campaign while even old Polyperchon was alleged to dance while wearing a saffron cloak and slippers.42 However would Alexander IV have danced, taught by his mother Roxane, if he had lived on? Like Alexander and previous Macedonian kings most of the Successors were polygamous but there was one conspicuous difference in their sexual conduct. Although stories were told of Demetrios’s fancy for boys in Athens (including a descendant of demagogic Kleon), no Successor had a Hephaistion and nobody ordered Greek cities to honour their male lover as a hero.43 Until Hadrian, Alexander’s actions here were unique. Alexander had also changed the discourse on luxury. Nobody applied the old stereotype to him, that luxury caused a ruling power to go soft. Alexander combined war, conquest and an unimagined level of splendour in his gifts, festivals and banquets: splendid luxury then became part of the image of a proper king, especially for the Ptolemies in Egypt.44 From Athenian evidence, Susan Rotroff has pointed to a sharp decline in the surviving numbers of pottery-kraters in the early Hellenistic age and has linked it tentatively to a change from small symposiums to bigger civic banquets given by rich individuals.45 In royal company the likelier cause would be the widespread use of precious metal instead. Our best evidence for the new splendour of the new rich is the Hippolochos letter describing Karanos’s Macedonian banquet, which is far more instructive and visually illuminating than anything yet known from early Hellenistic archaeology.46 War, as Michel Austin reminded us, was central to the Successors’ economies and the resources on which stupendous luxury depended.47 In warfare the early Successors were simply Alexander’s heirs, although ( in my view) he would have defeated all of them.48 The ships and siegetowers became bigger, Alexander having shown the use of artillery on deck;
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Chapter XX elephants still fought, but now on both sides of a battle; one Indian mahout, however, showed Greeks how spikes could be used against their soft feet (Ptolemy then copied him).49 Bosworth has written bleakly of the ‘waste’ of forests in Alexander’s grand expedition: here too the early Successors followed suit, felling big trees in the Lebanon and even some huge cedars (up to 130 feet high) which still grew on Cyprus.50 In their battles, the basic line-up and tactics were still Alexander’s too. Tarn, however, suggested that the battle of Antigonos and Eumenes at Paraitakene in late 317 BC was something new, the first example of a battle directed throughout by a general.51 Tarn’s role for Antigonos here is not supported by Diodorus-Hieronymos, the only account of it, while at Gabiene a few months later we see the two generals, ‘supercharged on Alexander’ as Lendon well puts it, still charging into combat among the first of their men.52 Under Alexander Ptolemy had killed a chieftain in single combat: even Eumenes had wrestled and duelled with Neoptolemos: prowess was in Alexander’s generals’ blood as Pyrrhos and his sons exemplified, true followers of Alexander’s style.53 Quite apart from the problem of dust-clouds there was no question of a general departing from Alexander’s example and operating as a controller at a distance. Early Hellenistic generalship was not yet the generalship which Polybius admired many years later.54 Soldiers for these Hellenistic battles came increasingly from land-grants, the kle-roi in Ptolemaic Egypt and the katoikiai or military colonies, especially those in Seleucid Asia.55 Alexander had also, of course, founded poleis, not ‘six’ (as Fraser claims) but at least 16. His example was followed by his Successors, especially outside Egypt. Curtius 7.10.15 (not discussed by Fraser) refers to his 6 newly-founded ‘oppida’ on high hills in ‘Margania’ and although the point has been disputed, I agree with Bosworth that the text should not be emended to Margiana, the Merv oasis. There may have been an Alexandria there too, but the oasis has no such hills.56 After Grenet and Rapin revisited some of the relevant territory on the Oxus’s further bank, they suggested that Curtius’s topography is met precisely at one site: Termez.57 Sir William Tarn would be gratified if his site for an Alexandria had finally proved plausible, though not for the complex reasons which he constructed for it. However, Termez’s excavator has vigorously rejected the suggestion: we need to look elsewhere, in my view further to the east along the Oxus’s ‘Sogdian’ bank.58 Meanwhile, Curtius’s precise topographic details cannot simply be rejected: he even adds that the six ‘oppida’ there ‘nowadays’ forget their origins and serve those whom they once commanded. He, or his source, did not believe that they quickly disappeared. Besides founding new cities, Hellenistic kings had to control existing
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The first Hellenistic man ones within a framework of ‘freedom’ and ‘autonomy’. Already Alexander communicated with Greek cities by his Successors’ favoured instrument, the diagramma.59 However, his first general communication by letter (not envoy) to the Greek cities has become obscured by modern scholars. According to Plutarch he wrote to the Greek cities after Gaugamela telling them ‘τὰς τυραννίδας πάσας καταλυθῆναι’ and to conduct their affairs (πολιτεύειν) autonomously. In 1969 Hamilton insisted that the aorist infinitive here is significant and that its meaning is merely that ‘the tyrannies had been put down’.60 He has been widely followed but the resulting communication then reads very oddly in context. Alexander’s letter becomes an observation on past history (in 334–2 BC ), although the context of Plutarch’s chapter after Gaugamela is one of new initiatives. Did Alexander really need to remind the Greek cities of what had (supposedly) been done, even while Agis’s revolt was looming? The answer is that he ‘wrote’ ( ἔγραψε) in the sense of issuing an order and the two infinitives express indirect commands, one after the other: first, ‘let all tyrants be put down’ and then, after that action, in the present tense ‘go on conducting your affairs autonomously’. What we have, then, is Alexander’s Deposition of Tyranny order: it is in need of restoration to our books about him. In 319/8 the diagramma of Polyperchon, deposing tyrants and oligarchs in Greece, was not without Alexander’s precedent.61 Pierre Briant has traced the underlying Orientalism and ‘colonialist’ assumptions of various modern historians of Alexander: what, though, about Alexander and the Successors themselves? 62 They came, after all, from Philip’s Macedon where access to court-culture had already been used to civilize and ‘tame’ a new generation. How would Asia strike them? There was certainly (in Alexander’s view) much scope for improvement. We may not agree with Droysen that the Persians had ‘sucked away’ the economic strengths of their subject peoples ‘like vampires’ (vampirhaft): nonetheless, since Cyrus’s ‘Cyrus the Furthest’, the Achaemenids had not founded a single town.63 In India, as Alexander’s retained ‘prospector’ observed, the Indians have great outcrops of salt and mines of gold and silver but they are ‘very simple’ about what they possess.64 On the Persian Gulf, Alexander planned to settle Phoenicians from the Levant because the place seemed to be (or ‘would be’) prosperous. Likewise he was planning to put poleis along the coast of Arabia. On the river Tigris he despised the katarraktai, or weirs, which were believed, perhaps wrongly, to be the Persians’ installations against any ships which might invade up river.65 Briant has argued that he misunderstood the purpose of these barriers, but nonetheless Alexander’s reported attitude to them is revealing.66 He said that such ‘sophismata’, devices, were not worthy of real conquerors and he
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Robin Lane Fox proved it by cutting through them ‘without difficulty’. Months later, on the Euphrates, he diverted the river and changed the canal system, replacing at a stroke works which had been taking ‘10,000 Assyrian labourers up to three months’.67 So, too, among the Successors: Egypt’s Fayyum was developed for the first time, irrigated and given over to new farming.68 In north Syria Seleukos’s new city-settlements and man-made harbours brought the biggest change to the area since the Bronze Age.69 They are the Hellenistic heirs to Alexander’s own spirit of development which existed even without modern concepts of ‘development economics’. Culturally, the main language of Alexander’s court and army was Greek. Recruits from Asia were expected to learn it. In 331 Alexander had already sent Darius’s mother, daughters and son to Susa and ordered them to be given Greek lessons.70 Historically Alexander is the founding-father of modern courses in ‘Greek from scratch’. In 327 he ordered 30,000 young Iranians to be taught Greek, Greek grammata, even, according to Plutarch.71 He undertook to give a Greek upbringing to the children of his Macedonian veterans’ mixed marriages.72 In Droysen’s terms there is no doubt about the first known Hellenistic woman: she emerged from Alexander’s Greek courses. Amastris, the niece of King Darius III, duly learned Greek, was married briefly at Susa to the staunch Macedonian Krateros, and when he left her, was sent off to marry the ruling tyrant of Heraklea beside the Black Sea (two of their three children were given Iranian-Greek names). Succeeding him as ruler after his death, she briefly married Lysimachos; then she organized a new settlement, the coastal city ‘Amastris’, and issued coins with the legend ‘Amastris the Queen’ in Greek.73 From King Diodotos’s Bactria to Magas’s Cyrene, the dominant language of the Hellenistic courts was Greek too. In Egypt the Ptolemies encouraged Greek teachers by granting them exemptions from the salttax which was otherwise paid by all adults.74 Meanwhile, dozens of athletic festivals, from the Persian Gulf to the Troad, brought Greeks and Greek values importantly together.75 Already Alexander had shown the way, holding athletic games and horse racing as far away as the Jaxartes and Indus rivers.76 By his orders, entertainments in Asia were transformed. When he took Tyre in 332 BC we now know from a victor’s inscription that he held athletic games as a celebration.77 When he returned to the city in spring 331 he held theatrical contests and used the Cypriote kings as chore-goi.78 The scale and scope of his wedding-entertainments at Susa in 324 are the forerunners of the big royal Hellenistic festivals. The thousands of actors and entertainers who gathered there mark the origins of the
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The first Hellenistic man formalized actor-companies who become so important in Hellenistic cultural life.79 Was there any meeting of minds among all this circulating talent, whereby Greeks attended to all that their non-Greek contemporaries already knew? According to Porphyry (c. 280 AD), Kallisthenes arranged for Babylonian records of eclipses to be sent back to Aristotle, all ‘31,000’ years of them, but they have left not a trace in his writings and the story is hard to credit.80 However, one Indian wise man, whom the Macedonians named ‘Kalanos’, did converse with his new associates from 326 BC onwards.81 We may even have some neglected evidence of what he said: in a Milesian inscription, a ‘parape-gma’, of the mid-80s BC, statements about the relation between particular stars and the weather are attributed to ‘Kallaneus the Indian’.82 Publishing this rare text in 1904, Diels dismissed the notion that these details really did derive from Alexander’s Kalanos as ‘a baroque idea’. For him they were pseudepigraphic, like the fictitious letters which were composed in Kalanos’s name during the Hellenistic age. But the factual statements in this inscription are quite different from such fictions and Diels did not consider Arrian 7.3.4, evidence that Kalanos’s ‘wisdom’ (sophia) had particular ‘attendant-admirers’ at Alexander’s court. It is highly likely that he did talk about the stars and seasons of his homeland and that his knowledge found its way into an Alexander historian and thence to texts on astronomy. If so, talks with Kalanos are forerunners of the Greek interest in the Egyptians’ calendar which is attested in Papyrus Hibeh 27. Writing c. 300 BC, the author tells how he lived for five years in the Saite nome in Egypt and learned from a ‘wise man’ who showed him all, ‘demonstrating it in practice on a stone dial which in Greek is called a “gnomon”’. He then gives the details of the calendar, evidently the one which was explained to him. The text’s first editors took the text to be based on Eudoxos’s Greek theory of astronomy and written by one of Eudoxos’s followers.83 But patently the ‘wise man’, its source, is an Egyptian and is the source of the calendar’s Egyptian dates and astronomical details and its use of Egyptian unit-fractions to give the variations in the lengths of daylight. A Greek had troubled to acquire non-Greek wisdom: he was not, surely, the only one.84 What about Droysen’s ‘mixed’ religion? Politically Alexander honoured foreign gods in Egypt and in Babylon: he ordered ‘shrines there, and especially the Tomb of Bel’, the great ziggurat, to be rebuilt after the damage (allegedly) done to them by Xerxes. This Persian damage was not a Greek fiction or a misunderstanding.85 When Seleukos I and Antiochos then patronized Babylon’s temples, they were simply following in Alexander’s footsteps: they were not replacing a previously abrasive
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Robin Lane Fox Macedonian-style kingship with a new multi-cultural style.86 As Droysen observed, Alexander’s entourage grew to include Iranian magi who honoured their own gods.87 The result, however, was not a mixed religious ‘fusion’. As a polytheist Alexander honoured the gods of his various subjects out of prudence, not ‘Theokrasie’. In Greek opinion, the gods encountered in Asia were Greek gods in varying forms. After Alexander, we find that settlers at Ai Khanoum had a temple in the middle of their settlement whose plan is non-Greek (probably Bactrian-Iranian) but whose cult-statue appears to have been a huge Greek Zeus with a sceptre. For Greek speakers the god was Zeus, worshipped in a new architectural form, but non-Greeks worshipped him by placing inverted pots along the shrine’s perimeter wall, arguably honouring him as Mithra, a chthonic deity.88 Here, as elsewhere, there was no ‘fusion’: there were two separate traditions each worshipping in their own way. In Egypt the major new cult was Serapis, but even here the ‘Egyptian’ elements were formed by Greeks into a new Greek ‘Egyptianizing’ cult. It proved much more attractive to Greek-speakers than to the Egyptians themselves.89 All across Asia Alexander and his officers continued to understand nonGreek peoples, too, as more like themselves than they really were. The Armenians were kinsmen of Jason, while Indian tribes were descended from Herakles or Dionysos.90 Foreigners were thus related by kinship to the Greeks’ own heroic ancestors. In southern Asia minor Alexander encouraged these claims by his own benefactions. By favouring self-styled ‘kinsmen’ of old Argos, he caused others to claim this status, even after his death.91 So far from contributing to Droysen’s new fusion of equals, he caused non-Greek ‘others’ to compete to be seen as the ‘same’. In the late second century BC even the people of Tyre convinced the people of Delphi that they were their kith and kin, related by a synkrasis, a genuine ‘fusion’.92 Its logic has never been adequately explained, but it was based, I suggest, on clues which were found in a classic Greek drama. In Euripides’s Phoenician Women the chorus of well-born Tyrian girls are represented at Delphi on their way to strife-torn Thebes. ‘May we be mothers’, they pray, ‘and may we have fair children...’.93 Claims to kinship had to rest on good evidence: thanks to Euripides’s admired drama the Tyrians had the very proof they wanted. The Delphians were directly descended from their own noble ladies and so the Tyrians and the Delphians were justly ‘twinned’. The Phoenician city where Droysen’s ‘mixed culture’ has been most advocated ended by claiming to be the ancestor by marriage of the Greeks at Delphi. But the fusion was not ascribed to Alexander: it was discovered in the distant mythical Greek past.
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The first Hellenistic man III Alexander’s warfare, personal style, hunting, drinking and city-founding had all been exemplified by Philip, the other great founding king. In the absence of Asian conquests it would, however, be excessive to credit Philip with being the first Hellenistic king. Some of the Successors grew up with Philip’s example, as had Alexander, but nonetheless they continued it only because Alexander exemplified it all over Asia, whereas Philip had not. The first Hellenistic kings then broke no ground which Alexander had not already charted. They merely lost bits of his territory. Even so some of them were thought to be aiming for conquest of ‘the whole lot’ (ta hola) or ‘all the world’ (in Antigonos’s mind in 306 BC).94 The ambition for ‘the whole lot’, ta hola, in this big Alexander-sense of the term was still ascribed by Polybius to kings of Macedon in the later third century BC.95 Around them, meanwhile, Greek literature, art and philosophy were changing importantly. Here Alexander’s impact proved more indirect. We have none of the poems which his retained poets wrote for him but they seem most unlikely models for the next Hellenistic generation. It is more plausible that its new poetry grew out of earlier fourth-century poets, however ill-known they are to us. Certainly the big names at Alexandria owed their main debt to the education and polis-culture in which they had been formed before ever coming near a king.96 The mixing of genres, the prominence of the mime and its themes, the realism, the mannerism: none of these Hellenistic features owed a debt to Alexander any more than did the new genre of pastoral. Conversely there was no particular interest by the new Greek poets in the new non-Greek horizons which Alexander opened up. As John Elliott has shown for English poets of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, Hellenistic poets in Asia ignored the ‘New World’, its scenery and cultures.97 After Alexander it impinged on them only in ‘wonders’ which were sent West, whether jewelled cups or rich ex-mercenaries: all sorts of things arrived, including the gold necklaces and gold rhyton which Roxane gave as dedications to Athena on the Athenians’ Acropolis.98 The comic poet Antiphanes evokes the arrival of fruits of the citron-tree at Athens from ‘the king’ in Persia, surely Alexander.99 We then meet similar new knowledge in Theophrastus’s botany-works, also written at Athens, using the texts of authors who had gone east with Alexander.100 In prose Alexander’s presence was much more influential. The political fictions of his early Successors were Alexander-fictions, his alleged ‘Diaries’, his ‘Will’, a polemical list of guests at his fatal dinner-party, perhaps another such text on cities which he was alleged to have
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Chapter XX founded.101 The existing genre of fictitious letters was greatly increased by a flood of letters composed in his name. Elements of a long-lived fictitious Romance about him also began early. Above all there was a reshaping of the conquering heroes in Greek ethnographic prose-works, whether Egypt’s Sesostris and Osiris, ‘eastern’ Dionysos or Herakles. Their legendary deeds were enhanced by prose-authors to keep up with Alexander’s own, a process which began early with Megasthenes and with Hekataios of Abdera in Ptolemy I’s Egypt.102 As for Hellenistic art, we still need to know more about it, but some of its obvious features had already been much publicized by Alexander’s own taste.103 For Préaux the Hellenistic age ‘expresses itself in the baroque’: the difficulty is to define what exactly is ‘baroque’ and when it begins.104 Alexander’s amazing funeral-cart combines Greek and non-Greek forms, but it is not quite ‘baroque’, at least in its best modern reconstruction: in sculpture, we must also do credit to Skopas, active before Alexander and already inventor of the ‘nude of ecstasy’, in Andrew Stewart’s appraisal of him.105 The ‘gigantism’ of Hellenistic art is nearer to being baroque and here Alexander certainly set the standards with his vast funerary monument for Hephaistion, even if he also refused a proposal to turn the cliff-face of mount Athos into a huge memorial to himself.106 ‘Individualism’ was evident not only in his own portraits and coin-types but also in the widespread patronage of portraits by his officers, including such localized players as Peukestas.107 ‘Hunting art’ was commissioned by Alexander while in the near East in 332/1, as was big battle-painting, still visible in our Alexander-mosaic.108 Emotional art appealed to him too, as we can see from his choice of a painting of a dying captive lady, with a baby crawling to her breast, fearing to find blood, not milk: he took this lost masterpiece from the spoils at Thebes, and significantly it was a picture which appealed to later Hellenistic taste.109 The often-cited theatricality of Hellenistic style was also already evident in Alexander’s ‘Tent City’ for the Susa weddings.110 As for a pronounced Hellenistic sweetness and a decorative use of myth, Aetion’s remarkable painting of the Wedding to Roxane in 327 had both in abundance: it was even displayed, we are told, at Olympia.111 The grotesque and the ‘realistic’ were not in evidence around Alexander, but there were more general changes, ultimately more important for Hellenistic artists. Alexander vastly enriched all the courtiers and followers who survived him: he thus marks the start of a Hellenistic age in which rich art and preciously-worked objects were to be so much more widely patronized than ever before.112 We meet them, even, in Alexandrian poetry, especially in the epigrams on cleverly-worked gemstones in the recentlypublished poems by Posidippus.113 Even more widely-seen were coin-types
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The first Hellenistic man of Alexander114 which set an enduring image of the idealized conqueror, as their impact on the imagery of his Successors and the later Bactrian kings exemplifies: his idealized features were still one of the coin-types there of king Agathokles (c. 160 BC).115 Bosworth has tended to describe Alexander’s Indian invasion as an immoral bloodbath, to be regretted but not admired, but the image of Alexander wearing the elephant-scalp, symbol of his Indian prowess, was one promptly continued on coins by Ptolemy, far away in Egypt, and it was repeated, many years later, by Demetrios out in Bactria when he invaded India too.116 Above all, Alexander represented a new style of art for the individual man of power, riding and driving in conquest, holding or wearing divine attributes, battling on a world-famous horse. Importantly this art was court-art, made in a new era of ‘art and power’ and approved by the artists’ subject himself. When Italian Renaissance authors looked for antique stories about the good relations between artists and patrons, stories about Alexander were, significantly, the ones which they found most quotable.117 Apart from paying divine honours in their cities, or ridiculing them, did thinking men react to him too? Cynicism had begun to exist before the young Alexander proved himself and the response of the great Diogenes was simply to tell Alexander to stand out of the sun. During and after his reign, however, three new philosophies arose, the last three in Greek antiquity. Did his example influence the new Epicureans, Stoics or Sceptics? None of them was a response to a vast and insecure new world, created by Alexander, in which the social bonds of the polis had somehow broken down. Bevan, Dodds, Festugière and others have written eloquently of this supposed context, but a weakening of the polis and its social ties is no longer a sustainable view of the matter.118 Perhaps we should look instead to developments within philosophy itself, especially to the challenge of Plato’s writings and the anarchy proposed by the Cynics (Diogenes died in 321). They, not Alexander, are the new developments which led to the new word ‘cosmopolite-s’ or to aspects of Zeno’s ideal state. Curiously the philosophy of Alexander’s own tutor Aristotle remained the least influential. His school’s collections of constitutions had an impact on Alexandrian literature and perhaps on the city’s laws,119 but Sandbach’s study of his importance for the Stoics concludes only that ‘for the generality of what may be called the intellectual public Aristotle was a welcome target for scandal and his views largely unknown or unrepresented. There is no proof that even philosophers recognized his greatness’.120 Like Aristotle, however, Hellenistic philosophers started to write and publish letters of advice to kings.121 Because of their status and their
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Robin Lane Fox Macedonian contacts they acquired a new role: cities began to send philosopher-ambassadors to kings and generals. The first philosopherambassador is Xenokrates the Platonist, famous for his embassy to plead for Athens in 322 BC.122 Such people knew the kings first hand, but even so, their own texts on ethics did not address the obvious defects of an Alexander. Discussion of Plato’s ‘emotional’ part of the soul ceased; ethics were intellectualized, as if ‘reason’ could be trained to control ‘disturbance’;123 even the long-running debate about anger-management, Alexander’s weakness, simply recommended its distraction by thinking of something else or by taking good advice.124 The human impetuosity and ferocity of an Alexander were not seriously addressed. In Oswyn Murray’s view, ‘philosophers [after Alexander] were too engaged with the real world to trouble much with cities of the imagination...’. For ‘behind the uniform conventions of the Hellenistic Greek city with its Delphic code and standard civic institutions...lies a huge institutional programme designed by philosophers like Klearchos (whose presence at Ai Khanoum is attested) which spread the Hellenic polis as a standard form across the oikoumene’.125 Klearchos did bring Delphic precepts to Ai Khanoum while Demetrios, a peripatetic pupil, may have had some influence on Ptolemy’s library and the laws in Alexandria, but I see no trace of Murray’s ‘huge programme’ in action.126 Philosophers were not appointed to legislate for the new Hellenistic cities, as Protagoras was said to have legislated back in the 440s for Periclean Thurii.127 Klearchos was surely only a visitor, not a global moderator with an official commission for the new cities in Asia. Plutarch, notoriously, wrote as if Alexander had indeed realized Zeno’s ideal city for ‘all men’, but here Murray’s penetrating critique is decisive: Zeno’s ideal city was a ‘community of the wise’ only.128 It was markedly deficient in institutional forms, let alone in any elements of a ‘huge institutional programme’. It had nothing in common with a typical Alexandria made up of Macedonian veterans, Greeks and local volunteers under the aegis of a governor or satrap.129 Alexander did not want a ‘kingdom of the wise’. His spin, as the shrewd Eratosthenes realized, was a ‘kingdom of the best’, Greek and nonGreek alike.130 The ‘best’ were to be chosen and ruled by himself. One impact, however, was widely credited in antiquity: the birth of serious scepticism. Pyrrho, its founder, is said to have travelled with Alexander and seen so much which was so paradoxical that he concluded that nothing can be known for certain.131 It is quite hard to derive the sceptical programme from previous Greek philosophers and perhaps this connection was more than anecdotal. If so Alexander did make an impact on thinkers: significantly, it was inadvertent and negative.
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The first Hellenistic man IV Our image of ‘Hellenistic man’ tends to be based on these philosophies and to be visualized through the busts and portraits of philosophers which the Hellenistic age widely popularized.132 For Walbank it was a ‘time singularly free of obscurantism and censorship’; for Rostovtzeff, an age of rational, commercially-talented bourgeoisies.133 But if we fasten on kings and courts as the age’s distinctive feature, the ‘ideal type’ of a Hellenistic man needs to be rather different: he is calculating but also impassioned, combative but generous, guided by the gods but capable of a furious ferocity, educated but fearless in hunting, given to planning, and cityfounding; in short, he is exemplified by Alexander the first ‘Hellenistic man’. For Alexander should not be reduced to nothing but a killer. Part of him looks forward to the kings who struggled to succeed him, but part of him also looks back, to the type of the ‘curious, inquiring king’ whom Matthew Christ has so aptly picked out in Herodotus’s histories. Measurement, exploration and experiment, Christ shows, typify the Herodotean ruler.134 They also typify Alexander, who measured Asia with his bematists, explored at least three sides of the Ocean with a view to conquest and was not above a disastrous experiment with Stephanos the handsome singing-boy and the naphtha which was discovered near Babylon.135 Curiosity and inquiry did not depend on a new humane ethic or a respect for constitutional rule. In royal company the priorities were different. J. G. A. Pocock has accustomed us to the idea of a defining ‘moment’ in historical eras, in his case a Machiavellian one.136 My defining early Hellenistic ‘moment’ falls in 316 BC when those hard-bitten veterans, the elderly Silver Shields, betrayed their commander Eumenes in order to preserve their baggage: they were then punished in turn by being sent off to Arachosia with orders to be killed on special missions, a few of them at a time. Our main source, Diodorus, remarks only that ‘sacrilegious acts of necessity prove profitable to dynasts because of their authority, but ordinary subjects find them generally the cause of great evil’.137 In the Hellenistic age of kings there was now one rule for the powerful, one for the ordinary man: the comment is peculiar to Diodorus and is highly likely to be due to his source, the hardened old Hieronymos of Kardia, present in 316 BC and himself an archetypal ‘Hellenistic man’.138 We have come far from Herodotus, from the belief that the gods punish great wickedness, and that they do so whatever the rank of its perpetrator; far, too, from the moral, pious Xenophon and his ideals for members of his own class.139 Like Thucydides, Hieronymos seems to have excluded the gods as causes
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Robin Lane Fox of the events which he narrated,140 but unlike Thucydides heaccepted through his own experience of kings and courts that ‘impious’, necessary actions were often to a ruler’s profit. We are faced with a new ‘Machiavellian’ ethic, but it is one of which Philip and Alexander were the first ‘Hellenistic’ exponents. Acknowledgements I am very grateful to Dr. J. L. Lightfoot, Dr. J. Ma, and Dr. Paolo Crivelli for extremely helpful advice and expertise. This paper was composed in early 2006 and then reorganized after the February Conference in Edinburgh. I therefore wrote it without reference to the excellent Cambridge Companion to the Hellenistic World, edited by Glenn R. Bugh (published in 2006) where A. B. Bosworth also writes on ‘Alexander the Great and the Creation of the Hellenistic Age’ (pages 9–27). Our chosen themes and approaches are very different (even down to the editions of Droysen we cite), but I continue to disagree with some of Bosworth’s main points, that after Alexander ‘nothing more was heard of world conquest’ ( his p. 11; my n. 94), that like other foundations Alexandria-the-Furthest was seen as a ‘sinister parasite’ (contrast Arr. 4.1.3–5 and even Curt. 7.7.1), that the taking of the kings back to Macedon in 319 ‘marked the real beginning of the new age’ (his p. 13) or that there is ‘no parallel to Alexander’s selfconscious promotion of his own divinity’ (his pp. 20–1; with Plut., Demetr. 10–13). I hope that my readers, too, will engage and profit, as I do, from the challenge of his views.
Notes Droysen 1836, preface; Bichler 1983. 2 Préaux I 1978, 5–9; II 1978, 542ff., 562, 598–9; Préaux 1965, 129–39, a very important paper. 3 Stephens 2003; Koenen 1973, 25–115; Sherwin-White 1983, 209–21; Thompson 2001, 301–22; Boiy 2005, 105–10. 4 Millar 1983, 55–71, esp. 68; P.-L. Gatier, 97–115. 5 Droysen I 1883, 696–7; Bravo 1968. 6 Momigliano, 1970, 139–53; 1977, 307–23. 7 Droysen 1925, 446, with 432–47. 8 Droysen I 1883, 696–8. 9 Reinach 1890, 249; Mayor 2009, 65–7 is excellent on Alexander as a source for Mithridates’ image. 10 Robert 1976, 25–26. 11 Robert 1983, 117 sees Asandros, satrap of Karia under Philip III, as ‘exécuteur de la volonté du défunt Alexandre pour une symbiose irano-grecque’. I doubt it. He was intervening in a local dispute (could an Iranian be Artemis’s neokoros?) 1
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The first Hellenistic man and he had it submitted to the Delphic oracle which did, separately, endorse the Iranian. 12 Bosworth 1988, 250 and 1996, 29–30. 13 Briant 1982, 318–30 and 1996, 896, but contrast Lane Fox 2007. 14 Brosius 2003, 183. 15 Camp 2000, 41–58. 16 Thompson 1999, 107–38. 17 Ma 2003, 24. 18 Ogden 2002, x–xi. 19 Diod. 20.53; Plut. Demetr. 17.2–18; Heidelberg. Epitom. FGrH 155 F 1; Just. Epit. 15.2.10; Nep. Eum. 13.2; Müller 1973, 79. Gruen 1985, 260 is corrected by Lehmann 1988, 1–17; I disagree with Hammond 1989, 261–70 who has Alexander IV killed ‘c.309’, but his death concealed by Kassander until 306. 20 Diod. 20.37.5. 21 Boiy 2002, 241–57. 22 Diod. 19.90.4; Parke 1985, 45; J. Hornblower 1981, 170 n. 276. 23 Mehl 1986, 139–47. 24 Diod. 18.60.2, 62.2, 63.4–6. 25 Plut. Eum. 16.4, 18.2, 13.3–4; Diod. 18.58.3–59.3. 26 Book of Daniel 2.31–45; Bickerman 1988, 23–6. 27 Plut. Eum. 6.10; Diod. 19.90.4; 18.60–61; 19.19.3–4; Plut. Pyrrh. 7–8. 28 Diod. 18.61.1; Borza 1987, 110–20 is quite unconvincing in claiming that they ended up in Vergina Tomb II (actually Philip II’s Tomb). 29 I assume the royal festival on Samos, 321–319 BC, involved cult; Habicht 1957–8, 152. 30 SEG 38.658, with M. Hatzopoulos 1989, 435. 31 Lane Fox 1973, 439 and 545; Lane Fox 1986, 115; Flower 1997, 258–60. 32 Bickerman 1963, 71–85, still the decisive study: Lane Fox 1973, 322–3 and 439; Arr. Anab. 4.10.5–11 is inconsistent with Arr. 4.12.3 (which emphasises the kiss, based on the well-placed contemporary Chares) and is therefore later fiction. 33 Plut. Demetr. 10.4–12; Diod. 20.102.3; 20.100.3–4. 34 Just. Epit. 15.4.8; Parke 1985, 50–1 and n. 233. 35 Syll.3 312; Delrieux 2001, 160–89. Memnon FGrH 434 F 1 (4.1). 36 Bickerman 1938, 11; Fraser 1972, 114–5; Rhodes and Lewis 1997, 544. 37 Rhodes and Osborne 2003, no. 83; Koch 2001, 169–217 is the best discussion. 38 Lock 1977, 91–107; Hammond 1985, 156–60: Hammond and Walbank 1988, 129–31 and 253, in contrast to 217, 243, 337. 39 Arr. Anab. 7.11.5–7; Bickerman 1938, 40–5; Fraser 1972, 102–3. 40 Ephemerides 117 F 1–3; Plut. Alex. 17.9; 40.4–5. 41 Lund 1992, 6–8; Lane Fox 1996, 137–46; Wootton 2002, 265–74. 42 Diod. 19.24.5; Plut. Eum. 14.3–5; Athen. 4.155 C; compare Antiochos III, in Aelian VH. 2.41 and Athen. 4.155 B. 43 Plut. Demetr. 24, esp. 24.6–12; Davies 1971, 319. 44 Passerini 1934, 35–6; Tondriau 1948, 49–54. 45 Rotroff 1996. 46 Athen. 4.128 A–130 D. 47 Austin 1986, 450–66.
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Robin Lane Fox 48
Chaniotis 2005 says surprisingly little about this early phase or the excellent evidence in Diod. 18–20. 49 Meiggs 1982, 137–40 and 165–9; Diod. 18.71.3 and 19.83.2. 50 Bosworth 1996, 30; Diod. 19.58.2–5 and Pliny HN 16.203, brilliantly illumined by Meiggs 1982, 134–7 and 493 n. 61. 51 Tarn 1936, 34–6. 52 Devine 1985, 75–86; Lendon 2005, 149. 53 Arr. Anab. 4.24.4–5; Plut. Demetr. 7.4–12; Diod. 18.31; Plut. Pyrrh. 7.5–10 and 24.5; Just. Epit. 25.4.8–10. 54 Polyb. 10.3–7; 10.24.3–4; 10.32.9–11; 11.2.9–11. 55 Cohen 1978; Uebel 1968. 56 Fraser 1996, 201; Bosworth 1981, 23–9 and 1995, 108. 57 Grenet and Rapin 1998, 78–89. 58 Tarn 1940, 89–94; Fraser 1996, 154 and n. 97: ‘This seductive story...need not be further considered’; Leriche 2002, 411–15. 59 Bickerman 1940, 25–35. 60 Plut. Alex. 34.2 with Hamilton 1969, 91; Flacelière and Chambry 1975, 75. 61 Diod. 18.55.4–56; Nawotka 2003, 15–41, on Alexander and Asia Minor. 62 Briant 2004, 9–70. 63 Droysen 1926, 438. 64 Gorgos, ap. Strabo 15.1.30. 65 Arr. Anab. 7.19.5 (where the ‘ἄν’ is an editorial insertion). 66 Arr. Anab. 7.20.2; 7.7.7; Briant 1999, 15. 67 Arr. Anab. 7.21.5–7; Boiy and Verhoeven 1998, 147–58. 68 Thompson 1999, 107–38; Orrieux 1980. 69 Seyrig 1970, 290–311; compare Le Rider 1965, 267 on Greeks’ use of the riversystem near Susa. 70 Diod. 17.62.1. 71 Plut. Alex. 47.3; Arr. Anab. 7.6.1; Curt. 8.5. 72 Arr. Anab. 7.12.2. 73 Wilcken 1894, 1750. 74 P.Hal. 1.260–5; Thompson 1994, 75. 75 Roueché and Sherwin-White 1985, 33, on the Greek games at Failaka. 76 Arr. Anab. 4.4.1; 5.3.6. 77 SEG 48.716B 78 Plut. Alex. 29.6. 79 Chares 125 F 4; Le Guen 2001, Rapin 1987: 253–7, a text of Greek iambics, probably a lost Greek drama, on parchment at Ai Khanoum. 80 Simplicius, Comm. In Aristot. De Caelo II.12, ed. I. L. Heiberg, Comm. In Aristot. Graeca VII, 1894, 506.11–15; Neugebauer 1975, 608, ‘obvious nonsense.’ 81 Berve 1926, 187–8. 82 Diels and Rehm 1904, 1–20, esp. 16; Taub 2003, 23–4; Whitehead and Blyth 2004, 44 and Philo, Quod Omnis Probus Liber Est, 96 for very different Kalanosfictions. 83 Grenfell and Hunt 1906, 139–57, esp. 143. 84 Neugebauer 1975, 599, 607–9, 706; compare the evidence in Rémondon 1964, 126–46.
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The first Hellenistic man 85
Arr. Anab. 3.16.4, on which I certainly do not believe Kuhrt and Sherwin White 1987, 77. 86 Sherwin-White and Kuhrt 1993, 114–40, with a different emphasis to mine. 87 Droysen 1926, 445; Berve 1926, 296, nr. 597. 88 Grenet 1991, 147–151. Compare Robert 1983, 115–8, where Bagadates surely saw Amyzon’s Artemis as the ‘Persian goddess’, Anahita. 89 Fraser 1972, 251–74, still the classic study; Huss 1994, 58–67. 90 Bernard 1997, 131–216; Bosworth 2003, 299–320. 91 Scheer 2003, 228–30; Lane Fox 2008, 236–9. 92 Curty 1993, 27–8; Pomtow 1917–8, I now find, did remark in passing ‘Man denke an die Parodos der Phoenissae’, but neither he nor anyone else has ever followed up this thought. 93 Eur. Phoen. 202–25, 280–7: Mastronarde 1994, 208–9 is thus confirmed by the Tyrians’ own later reading of these verses; Eur. Phoen. 1060–1, for ‘fair children’. 94 Lehmann 1988, 14, on Köln Papyrus 1.25 where Antigonos is said to aim to ‘hege-sesthai [te-s oiko]umene-s hapase-s’ like Alexander, in 306 BC; Hornblower 1981, 167–71. 95 Polyb. 5.108; Walbank 2002, 127–36. 96 Fraser 1972, 553–6; 784–93. 97 Elliott 1970. 98 Men. Aspis 35; Lane Fox 1996, 166 nn. 183–4; Pliny, HN 37.70; Kuttner 2005, 147–8; D. Harris 1995, 140 and 179. 99 Antiphanes F 59 (Kassel-Austin): peaches are another possibility. 100 Fraser 1994, 167–92, esp. 177. 101 Bosworth 2000, 207–41; Fraser 1996, 41–46. 102 Diod. 1.53–8, updating Hdt. 2.102–10; Diod. 1.15–20, with Megasthenes 115 F 13. 103 Pollitt 1986; Fowler 1989; Robertson and Pollitt 1993, 67–103; see also Stewart 2006, 158–85. 104 Préaux II 1978, 682. 105 Diod. 18.26–28.2; Miller 1986, 401–12; Stewart 1977, 125. 106 Stewart 1993, 402–7, for sources. 107 Pliny HN 34.67. 108 Wootton 2002, 265–74. 109 Pliny HN 35.98; Strabo 8.381. 110 Chares 125 F 4. 111 Lucian, Herodotus or Aetion 4–7; Stewart 1993, 183–6 actually claims it was ‘exhibited for sale’ and was originally ‘by no means free of irony’, arguably showing an ‘ambivalence’ in Alexander before a ‘sexually threatening female’ and perhaps ‘playing to resentment against Alexander’s increasing Orientalism’. I reject these misreadings of Lucian and this charming picture. 112 Chamoux 2003, 373. 113 Kuttner 2005. 114 Bopearachchi and Flandrin 2005: spectacular, if it is not a fake. Unlike them I would then date it to the Susa mint, 325/4 BC, fitting Lane Fox 1996, 87–108 almost too neatly to be true. But a fake, I fear, it is. 115 Bopearachchi 1991, pl. 8.22 and Série 17 J. 116 Bosworth 1996, 28; Bopearachchi 1991, pl. 4. Série 1.
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Robin Lane Fox 117
They most liked Pliny HN 35.85–6. Bevan 1913; Dodds 1951, 242–3; Festugière 1968; contrast Chamoux 2003, 165–213; van Bremen 2003, 313–30. 119 Fraser 1972 vol. I, 310–16; 427; 445; 774–5. 120 Sandbach 1985, 56. 121 Diog. Laert. 4.14.1–2 (note the ‘To Hephaistion’, also); 5.27; 5.47; for Speusippus as forerunner, 4.5 and Diog. Laert. 4.9; 4.8 is perhaps apocryphal: at 4.1, I am tempted to correct the chronologically unlikely ‘Kassandrou’ to ‘Philippou’ and see Speusippos’s visit precisely in autumn 336; in general Sonnabend 1996, esp. 280–7. 122 Sonnabend 1996, esp. 280–7. 123 Festugière 1968, 27–37. 124 Cic. Tusc. Disp. 3.33; W. Harris 2001, 235–40, 362–72. By contrast, some of Aristotle’s followers considered ‘iracundia’ to be good and useful: Cic. Tusc. Disp. 4.43. 125 Murray 2005, 203. 126 Robert 1968; Fraser 1972, 315, 321. 127 Heraclid. Pont. ap. Diog. Laert. 9.50. 128 Plut. Mor. 329 A–D; Diog. Laert. 7.33–4; Murray 2005, 210. 129 Arr. Anab. 4.4.1: ‘ethelontai ’, despite Bosworth 1995, 26. 130 Strabo 1.4.9; Plut. Alex. 27.11; Mor. 180 D. 131 Diog. Laert. 7.61. 132 Zanker 1995. 133 Walbank 1981, 220; Rostovtzeff 1941, 1115–26; 1304–7. 134 Christ 1994,167–202. 135 Fraser 1996, 78–86; Geus 2003, 232–46; Plut. Alex. 35.1–9; Bosworth 1993, 407–24; Romm 1989, 566–75 is more questionable. 136 Pocock 1975. 137 Diod. 19.48.4. 138 Plut. Eum. 19.2–3 does not have Diodorus’s moral; Justin Epit. 14.4.9–14 has Eumenes curse his traitors, which is also not in Diodorus; his 14.4.21, even so, has none of Diodorus’s moral conclusion. 139 Parker 2004, 131–53. 140 Hornblower 1981, 35; Parker 2000, 299–314, observing that pre-battle sacrifices and divination are conspicuously absent from Diod. 18–20: did Hieronymos, too, omit them? 118
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Robin Lane Fox Camp, John McK. 2000 ‘Walls and the polis’, in P, Flansted-Jensen, T. H. Nielsen and L. Rubenstein (eds), Polis and Politics: Studies in ancient Greek history presented to Mogens Herman Hansen on his sixtieth birthday, Copenhagen, 41–58. Chamoux, F. 2003 Hellenistic Civilization, Oxford. Chaniotis, A. 2005 War in the Hellenistic World, Oxford. Christ, M. 1994 ‘Herodotean kings and historical inquiry’, California Studies in Classical Antiquity 13, 167–202. Cohen, G. M. 1978 The Seleucid Colonies: Studies in founding, administration and organization, Historia Einzelschriften 30, Wiesbaden. Curty, D. 1993 Les parentés légendaires entre cités grecques I, Geneva. Davies, J. K. 1971 Athenian Propertied Families, Oxford. Delrieux, F. 2001 ‘Iasos à la fin du IVème siècle’, REG 114, 160–89. Devine, A. M. 1985 ‘Diodorus’s account of the battle of Paraitacene’, AncW 12, 75–86. Diels, H. and Rehm, A. 1904 ‘Parapegmenfragmente aus Milet’, Sitzungsberichte der königlichen preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 3, 1–20. Dodds, E. R. 1951 The Greeks and the Irrational, Berkeley. Droysen, J.-G. 1836 Geschichte der Diadochen, Hamburg. 1883 Histoire de l’hellénisme I, trad. A. Bouché Leclerq, Paris. 1884 Histoire de l’hellénisme II, trad. A. Bouché Leclerq, Paris. 1925 Geschichte Alexanders des Grossen, Gotha and Stuttgart. Elliott, J. H. 1970 The Old World and the New, 1492–1650, Cambridge. Erskine, A. 2003 (ed) A Companion to the Hellenistic World, Oxford. Festugière, A. J. 1968 Épicure et ses dieux, Paris. Flacelière, R. and Chambry, E. 1975 Plutarque Vies: Tome IX, Paris. Flower, M. A. 1997 Theopompus of Chios: History and rhetoric in the Fourth Century BC, Oxford. Fowler, Barbara H. 1989 The Hellenistic Aesthetic, Bristol. Fraser, P. M. 1972 Ptolemaic Alexandria, Oxford.
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The first Hellenistic man ‘The world of Theophrastus’ in S. Hornblower (ed.) Greek Historiography, Oxford, 167–92. 1996 Cities of Alexander the Great, Oxford. Gatier, P.-L. 2003 ‘Évolutions culturelles dans les sociétés du Proche-Orient syrien à l’époque hellénistique’, in F. Prost (ed) L’Orient méditerranéen de la mort d’Alexandre aux campagnes de Pompée, Rennes, 97–115. Geus, K. 2003 ‘Space and geography’, in Erskine 2003, 232–46. Grenet, F. 1991 ‘Mithra au temple principal d’Ai Khanoum?’ in Histoire et cultes de l’Asie Centrale préislamique, Actes du colloque Internationale du C. N. R. S., 22–8 Novembre, 1988, Paris, 147–51. Grenet, F. and Rapin, C. 1998 ‘Alexander, Ai Khanum, Termez: remarks on the spring campaign of 328’, Bulletin of Asian Institute 12, 79–89. Grenfell, B. P. and Hunt, A. S. 1906 The Hibeh Papyri Part I, London. Gruen, E. 1985 ‘The coronation of the Diadochoi’, in J. W. Eadie and J. Ober (eds) The Craft of the Ancient Historian. Essays in honour of Chester G. Starr, New York, 253–72. Habicht, C. 1957–8 ‘Samische Volksbeschlüsse der hellenistischen Zeit’, Athenische Mitteilungen 72, 152–74. Hamilton, J. R. 1969 Plutarch. Alexander: A commentary, Oxford. Hammond, N. G. L. 1985 ‘Some Macedonian officers c. 336–309 BC’, JHS 105, 156–60. 1989 The Macedonian State, Oxford. Hammond, N. G. L. and Walbank, F. W. 1988 A History of Macedonia III: 336–167 BC, Oxford. Harris, D. 1995 The Treasures of the Parthenon and the Erechtheion, Oxford. Harris, W. V. 2001 Restraining Rage: The ideology of anger control in Classical Antiquity, Harvard, Massachusetts. Hatzopoulos, M. 1989 ‘Bulletin épigraphique: no. 473’, REG 102, 435. Hornblower, J. 1981 Hieronymus of Cardia, Oxford. Huss, W. 1994 Der Makedonische König und die Ägyptische Priester, Historia Einzelschriften 85, Stuttgart. Koenen, L. 1993 ‘The Ptolemaic king as a religious figure’, in A. W. Bulloch et al. (eds) Images and Ideologies: Self-Definition in the Hellenistic World, Berkeley, 25–115. 1994
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Robin Lane Fox Kuhrt, A. and Sherwin-White, S. 1987 ‘Xerxes’ destruction of Babylonian temples’ in H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg and A. Kuhrt (eds) Achaemenid History II: The Greek Sources, Leiden, 69–78. Kuttner, A. 2005 ‘Cabinet fit for a queen: the Λιθικά as Posidippus’s Gem Museum’ in K. Gutzwiller (ed.) The New Posidippus, Oxford, 141–63. Lane Fox, R. J. 1973 Alexander the Great, London. 1986 ‘Theopompus of Chios and the Greek World 411–322 BC’, in J. Boardman and C. E. Vaphopoulou-Richardson (eds) Chios: A Conference at the Homereion in Chios 1984, Oxford, 105–120. 1996a ‘Ancient hunting: from Homer to Polybius’ in G. Shipley and J. Salmon (eds) Human Landscapes in Classical Antiquity, London-New York, 119–53. 1996b ‘Theophrastus’s Characters and the Historian’, PCPS 42, 127–70. 1996c ‘Text and Image: Alexander the Great, Coins and Elephants’, Bulletin of Institute of Classical Studies 41, 87–109. 2007 ‘Alexander the Great: Last of the Achaemenids?’, in C. J. Tuplin (ed.) Persian Responses. Political and Cultural Interaction with(in) the Achaemenid Empire, Swansea, 267–311. 2008 Travelling Heroes, London. Le Guen, B. 2001 Les associations des technites dionysiaques à l’époque hellénistique, Nancy. Lehmann, G. A. 1988 ‘Das neue Kölner Historiker Fragment (P. Köln 247) und die Chroniké Syntaxis des Zenon von Rhodos (FGH 523)’, ZPE 72, 1–17. Lendon, J. E. 2005 Soldiers and Ghosts, Yale, New Haven. Leriche, P. 2002 ‘Termez, fondation d’Alexandre?’, Journal Asiatique 290, 411–15. Le Rider, G. 1965 Suse sous les Séleucides et les Parthes, Paris. Lock, R. A. 1977 ‘The Macedonian army assembly in the time of Alexander the Great’, Classical Philology 72, 91–107. Lund, H. S. 1992 Lysimachus: A study in early Hellenistic kingship, London. Ma, J. T. 2003 ‘Peer polity interaction in the Hellenistic Age’, Past and Present 180, 9–40. Mastronarde, D. (ed.) 1994 Euripides, Phoenissae, Cambridge. Mayor, A. 2009 The Poison King, Princeton and Oxford. Mehl, A. 1986 Seleukos Nikator und Sein Reich, Louvain. Meiggs, R. 1982 Trees and Timber in the Ancient Mediterranean World, Oxford.
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The first Hellenistic man Millar, F. G. B. 1983 ‘The Phoenician cities: a case-study of Hellenization’, PCPS 209, 55–71. Miller, S. G. 1986 ‘Alexander’s funeral cart’, Archaia Makedonia = Ancient Macedonia IV, 401–12. Momigliano, A. 1970 ‘J. G. Droysen between Greeks and Jews’, History and Theory 9, 139–53. 1977 Essays in Ancient and Modern Historiography, Oxford. Müller, O. 1973 Antigonos Monophthalmos und ‘Das Jahr der Könige’, Bonn. Murray, O. 2005 ‘Zeno and the art of polis maintenance’, in M. H. Hansen (ed.) The Imaginary Polis: Acts of the Copenhagen Polis Centre 7, Copenhagen, 202–21. Nawotka, K. 2003 ‘Freedom of Greek cities in Asia Minor in the age of Alexander the Great’, Klio 85, 15–41. Neugebauer, O. 1975 A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy Part Two, Berlin-New York. Ogden, D. 2002 ‘From Chaos to Cleopatra’, in D. Ogden (ed.) The Hellenistic World: New perspectives, London and Swansea, i–xv. Orrieux, C. 1983 Les papyrus de Zénon: L’horizon d’un Grec en Égypte au III e siècle avant J. C., Paris. Palagia, O. 2002 ‘Hephaistion’s pyre and the royal hunt of Alexander’ in E. Baynham and A. B. Bosworth (eds) Alexander the Great in fact and fiction, Oxford, 167–206. Parke, H. W. 1985 The Oracles of Apollo in Asia Minor, London. Parker, R. C. T. 2000 ‘Sacrifice and battle’, in H. van Wees (ed.) War and Violence in Ancient Greece, London and Swansea, 299–314. 2004 ‘One man’s piety: the religious dimension of the anabasis’ in R. Lane Fox (ed.) The Long March: Xenophon and the Ten Thousand, Yale, New Haven and London, 131–53. Passerini, A. 1934 ‘La tryphé nella storiografia ellenistica’, Studi Italiani di Filologia Classica, ns. 11, 35–50. Pocock, J. G. A. 1975 The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine political thought and the Atlantic Republican tradition, Princeton. Pollitt, J. J. 1986 Art in the Hellenistic Age, Cambridge. Pomtow, H. 1917–8 ‘Delphische Neufunde’, Klio 15, 27. Préaux, C. 1965 ‘Réflexions sur l’entité hellénistique’, Chronique d’Égypte 40, 129–39. 1978 Le Monde Hellénistique I et II, Paris.
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Robin Lane Fox Rapin, C. 1987 ‘Les textes littéraires grecs de la Trésorerie d’Ai Khanum’, BCH 111, 225–66. Reinach, T. 1890 Mithridate Eupator, Paris. Rémondon, R. 1964 ‘Problèmes du bilinguisme dans l’Égypte lagide (UPZ I 148)’, Chronique d’Égypte 39, 126–46. Rhodes P. J. and Osborne, R. G. (eds) 2003 Greek Historical Inscriptions 404–323 BC, Oxford. Robert, L. 1968 ‘De Delphes à l’Oxus: Inscriptions grecques nouvelles de la Bactriane’, Comptes-Rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 416–57. 1976 ‘Monnaies grecques de l’époque impériale: types monétaires d’Hypaipa de Lydie’, Revue Numismatique 18, 25–56. 1983 Fouilles d’Amyzon en Carie I, Paris. Robertson, M. and Pollitt, J. J. 1993 ‘What is ‘Hellenistic’ about Hellenistic art?’, in P. Green (ed.) Hellenistic History and Culture, Berkeley, 67–103. Romm, J. S. 1989 ‘Aristotle’s elephant and the myth of Alexander’s scientific patronage’, AJP 110, 566–75. Rostovtzeff, M. I. 1941 The Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World, Oxford. Rotroff, S. I. 1996 The Missing Krater and the Hellenistic Symposium: Drinking in the Age of Alexander the Great, Christchurch, N. Z. Roueché, C. and Sherwin-White, S. M. 1989 ‘The Greek inscriptions from Failaka’, Chiron 15, 1–39. Sandbach, F. H. 1985 Aristotle and the Stoics, Cambridge Philological Society Supplementary Volume 10, Cambridge. Scheer, T. 2003 ‘The past in the Hellenistic present’, in Erskine 2003, 216–32. Schmidt, E. 1941 ‘Die Griechen in Babylon und das Weiterleben ihrer Kultur’, Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts: Archäologischer Anzeiger LVI, 786–841. Seyrig, H. 1970 ‘Seleucus I et la fondation de la monarchie’, Syria 47, 290–311. Sherwin-White, S. M. 1983 ‘Aristeas Ardibelteios: some aspects of the use of double names in Seleucid Babylonia’, ZPE 50, 209–21. Sherwin-White, S. M. and Kuhrt, A. 1993 From Samarkand to Sardis: A new approach to the Seleucid Empire, London and Berkeley.
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The first Hellenistic man Sonnabend, H. 1995 Die Freundschaft der Gelehrten und die zwischenstaatliche Politik im klassischen und hellenistische Griechenland, Hildesheim. Stephens, S. A. 2003 Seeing Double: Intercultural Poetics in Ptolemaic Alexandria, Berkeley. Stewart, A. F. 1976 Skopas of Paros, New Jersey. 1993 Faces of Power: Alexander’s image and the Hellenistic world, Berkeley. Tarn, W. W. 1936 Hellenistic Military and Naval Developments, Cambridge. 1940 ‘Two notes on Seleucid history’, JHS 60, 89–94. Taub, L. 2003 Ancient Meteorology, London. Thompson, D. J. 1994 ‘Literacy and power in Ptolemaic Egypt’, in A. K. Bowman and G. Woolf (eds) Literacy and Power in the Ancient World, Cambridge, 67–83. 1999 ‘New and old in the Ptolemaic Fayum’, in A. J. Bowman and E. Rogan (eds) Agriculture in Egypt: From Pharaonic to modern times, Proceedings of the British Academy 96, Oxford 109–38. 2001 ‘Hellenistic Hellenes: the case of Ptolemaic Egypt’, in I. Malkin (ed.) Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 301–22. Tondriau, J. 1948 ‘La tryphé: philosophie royale ptolémaique’, REA 50, 49–54. Uebel, F. O. 1968 Die Kleruchen Ägyptens unter den ersten sechs Ptolemäern, Berlin. Van Bremen, R. 2003 ‘Family structures’, in Erskine 2003, 313–30. Walbank, F. W. 1981 The Hellenistic World, London. 2002 ‘Η ΤΩΝ ΟΛΩΝ ΕΛΠΙΣ and the Antigonids’, in his Polybius, Rome and the Hellenistic World, Cambridge, 127–36. Whitehead, D. and Blyth, P. H. 2004 Athenaeus Mechanicus, Historia Einzelschriften 182, Stuttgart. Wilcken, U. 1894 ‘Amastris’, in RE 1.2, 1750. Wootton, W. 2002 ‘Another Alexander Mosaic: Reconstructing the Hunt Mosaic from Palermo’, Journal of Roman Archaeology 15, 264–74. Zanker, P. 1995 The Mask of Socrates: The Image of the Intellectual in Antiquity, Berkeley.
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2 THE KOINE: A NEW LANGUAGE FOR A NEW WORLD Stephen Colvin 1. The koine has traditionally proved a difficult notion to pin down. Partly this is owing to the fact that the ancient sources are themselves confused, and I shall argue that such confusion typically grows out of a linguistic environment characterized by koine and diglossia. Modern studies suggest that, in cultures which employ a koine based on a prestigious literary canon, it is symptomatic of linguistic thought that it is focussed on the written language to such a degree that the relationship (historical and synchronic) between the spoken language(s) and the written language is ignored or misunderstood. One of the reasons that Western scholarship has found it difficult to unravel the linguistic culture of the postclassical world is precisely the dysfunctional relationship with language that was inherited from that world; a useful way to sidestep the lens through which we view the linguistic landscape is to turn to modern linguistic studies of parallels from other cultures. We shall look for a general model of how a koine works in the context of prestigious literary and cultural heritage; for although the Greek koine is often supposed to have been a feature of verbal interaction, we have in fact very little evidence about the spoken language in the postclassical Greek world. Modern studies may provide typological parallels to help us fill the gaps. 2. The polysemy attaching to the term koine can be structured by shifting the term from a purely linguistic domain to one where language, culture and politics coincide. In general the uncertainty surrounding the term koine has two sources. Firstly, the term was taken over by modern linguistics and has been used in a variety of ways, none of which necessarily reflects the social and historical conditions surrounding the ‘original’ koine. Secondly, there has been little consistency in the way the term has been applied to the linguistic situation of the ancient world. For classicists the koine is the language associated with the new world created in the eastern Mediterranean by the Macedonian hegemony, a
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Stephen Colvin world gradually taken over and reunited by the Roman state. The starting point is arbitrarily, and not unreasonably, set at the end of the fourth century BC when the Macedonian state overran the Greek world, first under Philip II (died 336 BC) and then under Alexander. There are reasons to believe that its linguistic forebear(s) had been crystallizing over the previous two centuries,1 but since the koine is a political and ideological term as much as a linguistic one, extending the term back in time would be confusing and misleading. As the liturgical language of the Greek church was more or less koine, and had a lasting and profound effect on the history of the Greek language, it is far more difficult to assign a convenient end-date; in practice texts later than Justinian (died AD 565) are rarely quoted to illustrate koine (as opposed to Byzantine) Greek. We shall return to this question at the end. The term koine has passed into modern linguistics to mean a language variety used over a wide area by speakers who engage in levelling (the levelling out of regional peculiarities) for the sake of communicational efficiency: a compromise across dialects, implying some degree of institutional standardization. The word has been used to denote a variety of different situations, but key overlapping features2 generally include the following: i) a koine arises from related dialects (or closely related linguistic varieties) rather than from languages which are wholly distinct from each other ii) levelling: it arises from several dialects, by a process in which local peculiarities are ironed out iii) it may be the result of the transportation of related varieties to new proximity in a new geographical location, or it may be due to a new social or political circumstance in an existing area iv) it may become a literary or national standard; it may become nativized3 An implication of the above is that there are likely to be identifiable stages in the evolution of a koine, each marked by salient characteristics which do not necessarily pertain to the whole lifecycle of the phenomenon. In general the notion of koine implies a lingua franca, though the two are not exactly equivalent and should not be confused (a lingua franca does not imply a koine). If we consider the features listed above in the context of the Greek koine it may lead to some useful distinctions between that situation and modern usage of the term. 2.1 Firstly, the Greek koine was ‘common’ in the sense that it became a national standard, where previously dialectal diversity had existed. It was not common in the sense that the word seems often to have in a modern
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The koine: A new language for a new world context, namely formed from the dialects by a (roughly symmetrical) process of levelling. Some scholars of the modern era have assumed that it did in fact arise from the straightforward mixing (linguistic accommodation) of Attic, Ionic, West Greek, Aeolic, and (theoretically) Arcado-Cypriot. They echo a strain of thought in the ancient grammatical tradition which asserted precisely this (minus Arcado-Cypriot, which is not a group the ancients recognised): compare, for example, a remark recorded in the scholia to Dionysius Thrax: (a) Gr. Gr. I, 3. 469 (On the Koine):
Τινές φασιν ὅτι οὐκ ὀφείλει κοινὴ καλεῖσθαι, ἀλλὰ µικτή, εἴ περ ἡ κοινὴ ἀπὸ τεσσάρων συνέστηκεν· οὐ γὰρ τὴν διὰ τεσσάρων φαρµάκων ἔµπλαστρον κοινὴν καλοῦµεν, ἀλλὰ µικτήν. καὶ καλῶς ἔλεγον ταῦτα πρὸς τοὺς λέγοντας τὴν κοινὴν συνίστασθαι ἐκ τῶν τεσσάρων, καὶ πρὸς τούτοις, ὅτι µήτηρ ἡ κοινή· εἰ γάρ τις εἴποι ὅτι δωριστί, φαµὲν ὅτι τὸ κοινὸν αὐτοῦ, ἢ αἰολιστὶ ὁµοίως, ἢ ἰαστί, ἢ ἀττικιστί.
Some say that if in fact the Common Dialect is composed of four elements [sc. Attic, Ionic, Doric, Aeolic] it should not be called ‘common’, but ‘mixed’ – for we do not call a salve that is made of four drugs ‘common’, but ‘mixed’. And this is a good argument against those who claim that the Common Dialect arose from a combination of the four dialects; and they have another good argument when they say that the Common Dialect is the mother [sc. of the other dialects]. For if somebody uses the expression ‘in the Doric dialect’, we say that this is equivalent to ‘in common Doric’, and the same for ‘in Aeolic’, or ‘in Ionic’, or ‘in Attic’.4
The koine was, rather, an expanded and Ionicized form of Attic, which (at least in its literary form) showed a small admixture of lexical items that appear poetic from the perspective of classical Attic. This may be because they were Ionic in origin, or simply because of the artificial nature of the literary koine: later writers drew on the lexical resources of the classical past, and this sometimes included the poets (especially epic).5 It is the case, however, that the Greek koine developed in a context of closely related dialects. To the extent that there was levelling, this ironed out some of the specifically Attic peculiarities of inflection, which led to a simplified morphological system.6 An example of this is the replacement of the ‘Attic declension’ in which the change ᾱ > η followed by quantitative metathesis led to forms such as λεώς, νεώς from λᾱός etc. The koine ‘reintroduced’ λαός from the non-Attic-Ionic dialects (and it was familiar from Homer). The treatment of this in the later grammatical tradition lumps it together with a separate phenomenon, the wavering over the adoption of the Attic inflection of i-stem nouns in place of the non-ablauting pattern common to the other dialects (including Ionic):
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Stephen Colvin (b) Hdn. (On the Declension of Nouns) Gr. Gr. III, 2. 704–5:
ἄξιόν ἐστι ζητῆσαι διὰ ποίαν αἰτίαν τὸ βοῦς βοός οὐ γίνεται κατ’ ἔκτασιν Ἀττικὴν τοὺ ο εἰς τὸ ω. ἔστιν οὖν εἰπεῖν ὅτι τὰ ἐκτείνοντα τὸ ο εἰς τὸ ω ἐπὶ τῶν καθαρευόντων καὶ τὸ παραλῆγον φωνῆεν εἰς ε µεταβάλλει οἷον ὄφις ὄφιος ὄφεως, πόλις πόλιος πόλεως, ναός νεώς, λαός λεώς.
It is worth enquiring why bous [nom.] ~ boos [gen.] is not affected by the Attic lengthening of o to o-. One can state that those cases which lengthen o following a vowel to o- also change this penultimate vowel to e, as in ophis ~ ophios/opheo-s, polis ~ polios/poleo-s, na-os/neo-s, la-os/leo-s.
In the spoken language there can hardly have been any phonological difference between ὄφιος and ὄφεως at this time. The distinction is orthographic, and this is typical of the culture of the koine: (c) (i) Hdn. (On Orthography) Gr. Gr. iii.2, 432:
ἔστι γὰρ ὄφις ὄφιος κοινῶς. οἱ ᾿Αττικοὶ οὖν ἔτρεψαν τὸ ι εἰς ε καὶ τὸ ο εἰς ω καὶ ἐγένετο ὄφεως καὶ πόλεως.
...for in the common idiom it is ophis ~ ophios. Speakers of Attic changed the i to e and the o to o- and there developed opheo-s and poleo-s. (c) (ii) Hdn. (Partitiones, ‘Categories’) Boissonade 201:
ὄφις, ὄφεως ... ᾿Αττικὴ δέ ἐστιν ἡ κλίσις ἡ διὰ τοῦ ω µεγάλου· κλίνονται γὰρ τοιαῦτα καὶ Ἰωνικῶς διὰ τοῦ ο µικροῦ· ὅµως ἡµεῖς τὴν Ἀττικὴν κλίσιν ἐν τῶι καθόλου γράφειν εἰώθαµεν.
ophis ~ opheo-s ...the inflection with long o is the Attic one; such words are also inflected in the Ionic manner with a short o. However, it is our normal practice in writing to use the Attic inflection.
On the whole i-stem nouns (like all third-declension masc. and fem. nouns) ended up in a merger with the a-stem declension in post-classical Greek, but traces of an Atticizing inflection remain (πόλη ‘city’ can have a gen. sing. πόλης or πόλεως in the modern language: the latter being less frequently used, but felt to be more correct by speakers).7 In other cases the compromise between Attic and Ionic led to forms which looked like dialect forms (West Greek, Aeolic): thus Attic πράττειν and Ionic πρήσσειν ‘to do’ resulted in a hybrid πράσσειν, which was identical to the West Greek form. There were, indeed, some borrowings from West Greek in the koine: either for morphological reasons of the type noted above, whereby the word λαός ‘people’ replaced an awkard Attic form λεώς (Ion. λήος); or the unpredictable borrowings that all languages engage in. So, for example, βουνός ‘hill, mountain’ entered mainstream Greek from the West Greek dialects (it was already known to Herodotos). The ancient tradition that the koine was a mixture of the old classical dialects may have reflected ideas of identity in the new Hellenistic world.
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The koine: A new language for a new world The new Greek world was both mixed and centralized, as opposed to the independent and chauvinistic states of the earlier period; the new Greek language was supposed to mirror this shift in ethnic and political identity. The view that the koine was a mixture may also have been an oblique reflection of the diglossic continuum that must have existed across the Greek-speaking world: spoken koine will have been a closer or further approximation to the written standard, depending on the speaker’s social status, level of education, and immediate communicational context, etc. On the lower end of the continuum it will presumably have reflected the historical speech habits of the locality, including (at least in the Hellenistic period, and probably well beyond) dialect traits, as for example Strabo 8.1.2.33 writes on the Peloponnese: (d) σχεδὸν δ’ἔτι καὶ νῦν κατὰ πολεῖς ἄλλοι ἄλλως διαλέγονται, δοκοῦσι δὲ δωρίζειν ἅπαντες διὰ τὴν συµβᾶσαν ἐπικράτειαν.8
Even now people speak in different ways in the various cities, though they all appear to speak in Doric (according to the prevailing opinion).
The synchronic picture will have been one of the koine emerging out of various dialect soups towards a common panhellenic standard.9 Since the Greek grammarians (and this seems often to be part of the culture of diglossia) confused historical and synchronic relationships when they thought about the five different types of Greek they recognized (Attic, Ionic, Doric, Aeolic and koine), it is easy to see how it was legitimate, and indeed appropriate, to conceive of the new panhellenic language as one which contained ingredients from the whole of its classical heritage. There is some evidence that early Attic attempts to ‘appropriate’ the koine (in the sense of ‘panhellenic standard’) caused irritation in this context. The geographer Herakleides of Crete records a passage from Poseidippos (de urbibus Graeciae 3.7 = PCG 30) in which a character complains that the Athenians criticize the way that other Greeks speak: (e) ὅτι δὲ πᾶσα ἧν κατηριθµήµεθα Ἑλλάς ἐστι, µαρτυρεῖ ἡµῖν ὁ τῶν κωµωιδιῶν ποιητὴς Ποσείδιππος, µεµφόµενος Ἀθηναίοις ὅτι τὴν αὑτῶν φωνὴν καὶ τὴν πόλιν φασὶ τῆς Ἑλλάδος εἶναι, λέγων οὕτως· Ἑλλάς µέν ἐστι µία, πόλεις δὲ πλείονες. σὺ µὲν Ἀττικίζεις ἡνίκ’ ἂν φωνὴν λέγηις αὑτοῦ τιν’, οἱ δ’ Ἕλληνες ἑλληνίζοµεν. τί προσδιατρίβων συλλαβαῖς καὶ γράµµασιν τὴν εὐτραπελίαν εἰς ἀηδίαν ἄγεις;
...the comic poet Poseidippos shows us that Greece comprises all the places we have enumerated, criticizing the Athenians because they say that their own dialect is Greek and their own city is Greece: ‘There is only one
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Stephen Colvin Greece, but many cities. You speak Attic whenever you open your mouth, and the rest of us Greeks speak Greek. Why make such a fuss over syllables and sounds, turning your wit into unpleasantness?’ The ability of ancient grammarians to talk of the dialects as developments of the koine (implied in passages (a) and (c) above, for example) and at the same time to talk as though they were historically earlier is surprising to modern linguistic sensibilities:10 but this flexible approach to historical anteriority and genetic priority has parallels. Dante, in De vulgari eloquentia (ca. 1303–5) undertakes investigation of where and how the Italian ‘illustrious vernacular’ (vulgare illustre) was to be identified. Dante sometimes talks of the vulgare illustre as something which could be created out of the vernacular Italian dialects (by a similar process of levelling and ‘purification’ that creates a koine): (f ) Itaque, adepti quod querebamus, dicimus illustre, cardinale, aulicum et curiale vulgare in Latio, quod omnis latie civitatis est et nullius esse videtur, et quo municipalia vulgaria omnia Latinorum mensurantur et ponderantur et comparantur. So we have found what we were seeking: we can define the illustrious, cardinal, aulic, and curial vernacular in Italy as that which belongs to every Italian city yet seems to belong to none, and against which the vernacular of all the cities of the Italians can be measured, weighed, and compared. (DVE 1.16, tr. Botterill)
At other times he talks of the illustre as prior to the dialects, a standard from which they have declined (‘proto-Italian’ in the words of Mazzocco 1993: 138); in 1.10–11 he is explicit that the language of si had split from a single language (unum ydioma) to many vernaculars (multa vulgaria). It is a paterfamilias among the dialects (just as in (a) above the koine is the ‘mother’). Research into language attitudes among speakers of modern Arabic gives some insights into the origins of this uncertainty. Speakers of Arabic are speakers of a modern Arabic vernacular, a range of which spread across the Arab world, and which are not, unless contiguous, mutually intelligible at the ‘lowest’ level. Insofar as educated speakers also know Modern Standard Arabic (more or less a variety of the classical language) they believe this to be their mother tongue. The vernacular has a low psychological awareness: speakers may deny that they speak it, and may think of it (if at all) as a casual or debased variety of the standard, rather than as a historical descendant of that standard (the modern linguistic view). It is likely that a similar linguistic culture prevailed in the world of the koine.11 2.2 In the modern world some of the koines that have been identified are the result of the transportation of related languages to a new geographical location: this was especially common in the context of slavery and indentured labour in the new world. Others have grown out of a new social
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The koine: A new language for a new world or political circumstance in an existing area, for example as a result of the rise of nation states encompassing multiple dialect varieties. The ancient Greek koine flourished in both of these situations. It started in the ‘old’ Greek world, where its roots go back at least to Athenian intellectual dominance following the Persian wars of 490–80 BC (and arguably much earlier, given the influence of Ionic in archaic Greece as a result of the Homeric text and the ‘Ionian enlightenment’). During the fifth century BC Athens became the dominant cultural and political force in the Aegean; the Athenian empire made Athens a hub of trade and military activity, with a high degree of interaction between Athenians and their Ionian allies; there is no doubt that the cosmopolitan character of the city left its mark on the language of the working urban population. This variety may be dubbed ‘Piraeus Attic’ owing to its association with trade and the lowest class of Athenian citizen, who served in the navy which made the city powerful. The ‘Old Oligarch’ (ps-Xenophon, Ath. Pol. 2. 7–8) complains about this: (g) διὰ τὴν ἀρχὴν τῆς θαλάττης πρῶτον µὲν τρόπους εὐωχιῶν ἐξηῦρον ἐπιµισγόµενοι ἄλληι ἄλλοις...ἔπειτα φωνὴν πᾶσαν ἀκούοντες ἐξελέξαντο τοῦτο µὲν ἐκ τῆς, τοῦτο δὲ ἐκ τῆς· καὶ οἱ µὲν Ἕλληνες ἰδίαι µᾶλλον καὶ φωνῆι καὶ διαίτηι καὶ σχήµατι χρῶνται, Ἀθηναῖοι δὲ κεκραµένηι ἐξ ἁπάντων τῶν Ἑλλήνων καὶ βαρβάρων.
By virtue of their naval power the Athenians have mingled with various peoples and discovered all sorts of delicacies...further, hearing every kind of language, they have taken something from each; Greeks on the whole prefer to use their own language, way of life, and type of dress, but the Athenians use a mixture from all the Greeks and barbarians.
Attic poetry and prose had always been heavily influenced by Ionic, and there is evidence that in the second half of the fifth century the educated élite started to adopt some Ionic idioms in speech. The new international Attic was apparently adopted as the official language of the Macedonian court in the fourth century BC, as the expansionist Macedonian kingdom sought to position itself for a leading role in Greek affairs. Since it had become the language of education and literary prose, it was a natural choice as a pan-Hellenic medium of administration and lingua franca when most of Greece fell under Macedonian control in the last decades of the century. However, that is only half the story of the koine. As the Macedonians expanded into former Persian territories in Anatolia, Egypt, the Levant and the Near East the koine was exported as the medium of communication at all levels. These new Macedonian subjects were not (with the exception of coastal Anatolia) previously Greek speakers, and the dynamics of the koine must have been very different in these regions. There was greater potential for simplification and regularization of Greek
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Stephen Colvin morphology, since the language was spreading rapidly as a contact language. There was no question here of a continuum between koine Greek and the speaker’s own dialect: indeed, the concept of nativization of the koine (say, on the part of speakers whose parents were mixed Macedonian/Greek and local) is more straightforward in the ‘new’ territories, where local Greek substrate was not a complicating factor. We predict, therefore, a relatively high degree of nativization in the ‘new’ Greek world; while at the same time throughout the Hellenistic world the literary koine became a ‘national’ written standard. 3. It is important to arrive at a definition of what we mean by the Hellenistic koine in the present discussion: partly so that if others disagree with our suggestions, they will at least be able to see clearly where they disagree. For the Hellenistic world what I think we need to decide first of all is this: What kind of space do we want to locate the language in? Was it a written language? A spoken one? Or an abstract entity? All of these have been suggested by important scholars who have worked in the field.12 The answers to these questions will affect our decisions concerning the chronological extension of the koine: whether, for example, it is sensible to suppose that the language of the third century BC has much significantly in common with that of the fifth century AD. When we have reached some conclusions about the definition of the koine proper, then we can ask to what extent was koine a new thing? That is to say, was there koine (or indeed koinai ) in the Greek world before 320 BC? The term koine, as we have seen, has a range of meanings: to anticipate my answer I think that there were important koinai before Alexander which were diachronically essential for the constitution of the Hellenistic koine: but that the Hellenistic koine was new, and of a different order from anything which had preceded it. 3.1 The term koine has often been used to denote the whole of postclassical Greek. This would include at least three varieties of the language: i) the colloquial varieties spoken across the Greek world, ii) the formal written Greek of prose authors, and iii) the informal language of documentary papyri, etc. (In fact the first category, spoken Greek, is likely to include many disparate regional and social varieties, to which we shall return.) Linguists are generally interested in the history of Greek, and a common way of approaching koine Greek is to examine both literary and nonliterary documents, but especially the latter, for clues regarding the development of the spoken language. But this approach does not specify
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The koine: A new language for a new world which spoken language is in question: it works on the assumption that there was a spoken language which was the essence of Greek, and other varieties can be explained in terms of it. So, for example, a prose author writes in a language approximating to an earlier stage of the spoken language, but it may show signs of interference from the writer’s own idiom. The problems with this are firstly that the underlying model captures few of the interesting features of the world of the koine, that is to say, the linguistic culture of the Hellenistic world; and secondly that it may lead to misleading conclusions about the development of Greek: for example, that a certain feature was slowly dying from the spoken language between the third century BC and the second century AD, while the truth is that the feature was gone from the vernacular very shortly after the end of the classical period. It seems to me that the notion of koine Greek does have a useful role to play in understanding the linguistic culture of the Hellenistic world: its polysemy can be beaten back, and its various manifestations can be organized and related by an adjustment to the underlying language model, namely by supposing that the koine cannot be identified in any particular written document, or in anything that emerged from the mouth of a Greek speaker, formal or informal. It is an abstract concept (though not abstract to the language users), which expresses the linguistic and cultural identity of the speaker: that is to say, Hellenismos. In case this sounds rather vague, the parallel I want to consider is modern Arabic Sprachbund, where speakers across a wide area with many mutually unintelligible vernaculars, are united linguistically and psychologically by the sense of being Arabic speakers, and by a written superstructure which is Qur’ânic and classical Arabic. If we look to Arabic for a model to understand the Greek koine13 we are immediately tempted by a new working definition: on the analogy of standard Arabic we can say that for our purposes the koine constitutes a standard to which no spoken or written variety corresponds exactly. It is a theoretical entity which reflects the feeling of speakers about their linguistic identity: adherence to the ‘standard’ in this case is a positive statement, not the result of coercion. Another parallel would be the Latin/Romance continuum before the appearance of the national languages from the fourteenth century: but since this, like the Greek koine, is a linguistic world that has disappeared, it is more useful to start with Arabic, where modern sociolinguistic studies offer a wealth of suggestive parallels. The koine, on this model, refers to a situation of stable diglossia. The term diglossia was introduced into academic linguistic discourse (Ferguson 1959b) in an effort to describe a situation which is essentially alien to
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Stephen Colvin Western thought about language: linguists have used the term ever since while arguing about what it means and criticizing Ferguson’s first attempt to apply it (to Arabic). It describes a linguistic culture which has a distinct ‘High’ form of the language, deriving ultimately from a canonical corpus: in the case of Arabic, the consciousness of speakers that they are Arabic speakers is the result of the canonization of the language of the Qur’ân as ‘Arabic’ tout simple, and (as in Greece) the subservience of grammatical activity to textual exegesis. The ‘Low’ form of the language is the everyday vernacular. Ferguson was criticised for failing to recognise a continuum of speech styles between these two poles: nevertheless, diglossia is a useful shorthand for referring to a specific type of linguistic culture. The development of a sense in the Greek world that there existed a body of canonical ‘texts’ by the end of the fourth century was a vital factor in the subsequent history of Greek. It would be a mistake to suppose that the koine spread solely because it was the Macedonian language of administration, or because a new variety of Attic, which we may call expanded or international Attic, had developed over the course of the fifth and fourth centuries (this is the language that the Old Oligarch complains of, perhaps around the year 425): without the underpinning of koine it would have been just one more lingua franca that perished when the conditions which gave rise to it changed. The panhellenic text par excellence was of course Homer, and the Ionic flavour of the vulgate may indeed have contributed to the international clout of Ionic (though it can hardly, as some have suggested, be the main reason for the spread of the Hellenistic koine). The use of the term koinai to describe poetic traditions such as epic is well established. But the new canon, the one instrumental in setting the stage for the Attic-based koine, was the body of literature which emerged after the Persian wars in the context of Athenian political and cultural pre-eminence; and in particular, the status of Ionicized Attic as the language of formal prose (documentary or literary) and education. This was the situation which, hand in hand with the Macedonian adoption of the new Attic as a lingua franca, resulted in the peculiar linguistic and cultural circumstance that we call the koine. The two factors are intertwined: neither could have done it without the other. This is all by way of preface to returning to the Arabic model. I think that we have little prospect of retrieving the spoken vernaculars of the Hellenistic world, the language corresponding to Ferguson’s Low variety, since speakers of the Low variety do not read or write. I see no reason to believe that the old dialects disappeared in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, nor indeed the local languages such as Lycian. They certainly stopped being written; and, as in the case of modern Arabic vernaculars, may very soon have become
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The koine: A new language for a new world more or less mutually unintelligible when spoken by people with no degree of education or exposure to urban life (women, for example). Even if we suppose that the new substandard vernacular did replace the old dialects, it would very soon have split into radically different idioms across the Greek world. However, Classicists (as opposed to linguists) are not particularly interested in these Low varieties. What we want to know is what the élite were speaking, and we assume that they at any rate had no difficulty communicating with each other. I think this assumption is right, and we can turn again to Arabic to consider some of the intermediate registers that have been proposed, in the hope that they can inform our speculation on the situation in the Hellenistic world. Although a continuum has by its very nature an infinite number of levels, some scholars working on Arabic have concluded that it is helpful to identify two levels between the Classical language and the vernaculars (which are the only two uncontroversial levels). Details and terminology are disputed, but in general there is a recognised need to integrate an important datum into the diglossic framework: namely, the fact that ‘educated Arabs of most nationalities talk among themselves on most topics with little or no linguistic embarrassment, simultaneously drawing as they do so on the resources of the written language and of regional vernaculars’ (Mitchell 1980: 89). That is to say, while oral literary Arabic (OLA) is relatively rare, and confined to the most formal of situations, there is a lower-level process of stylistic modification which consists, essentially, of levelling or classicizing. Levelling is the suppression of localisms, and classicizing denotes recourse to the use of widely-understood features of the classical language (the two overlap, of course). This idiom is now widely referred to as Educated Spoken Arabic (ESA), the ‘middle’ speech of educated Arabs; on Mitchell’s model this speech style avoids both ‘high-flown’ and (at the opposite pole) ‘stigmatized’ variants; it contains within it a range of possibilities that may be labelled formal or informal, careful or casual, etc. It is worth noting that dialect convergence (sometimes called koineizing) is not symmetrical: for example, it is reported that Egyptians rarely adopt this strategy, since Egyptian Arabic is so widely understood (the result of the concentration of the film industry and other popular media in Egypt). Educated Spoken Arabic is built on a basically vernacular structure (Meiseles 1980): nevertheless, the boundary between this and Oral Literary Arabic is unstable. Distinguishing features include lexical differences, including certain conventional indicators such as the affirmatives na‘am (High) vs. ’aywa (Low); sentence structure (obviously connected with morphology, which is in turn connected with phonology); and the use of marked categories such as the dual. Greek parallels would not be hard to
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Stephen Colvin suggest, especially since phonological change must have rendered ambiguous some important morphological categories (such as the dative and even the accusative). For example, Brixhe (1987: 21) has pointed out that in the vernacular of Termessos (Pisidia) in the third century AD epigraphic data indicate that both ἡµεῖς and ὑµεῖς were [imis]. These sound changes are likely to have occurred a good deal earlier in most spoken varieties of Greek;14 presumably the vernacular had reorganized the personal pronouns so that functional distinctions were maintained (compare modern Greek εµείς εσείς). There remains the intriguing possibility that at the highest end of formal communication in the koine period (‘Oral Literary Greek’) some elements of a classicizing pronunciation were adopted when this was necessary to maintain functional differences (compare also the indicative and optative verbal endings λύει versus λύοι). One could imagine this in declamation, for example. Morpurgo Davies (1987) showed that the Greeks in the dialectal diversity of the Classical period had the idea that they were speaking Greek. They did not contrast ‘Greek’ with the dialects that they spoke, since the dialects collectively constituted Greek. In the koine period to speak Greek (ἑλληνίζειν) meant to have the requisite Greek education to be able to participate in the new Greek world: to be able to read and write the formal language without barbarismos or soloikismos. The formal language was now contrasted with the (classical) dialects: this is interesting for two reasons. Firstly, there is a new distinction between ‘Greek’ (the standard language) and the dialects; and secondly, the grammarians do not contrast the standard language with the vernaculars. The vernacular is not recognised: it does not exist qua language, is not a proper object of study. The same is true of the Arab world, and the mediaeval Latin world. The relationship between the standard and the vernacular, which in linguistic terms would be viewed as diachronic (the one is a later stage of the other), is conceived in synchronic terms: all speakers view the standard as their mother tongue, and to the extent that they think about the vernacular, it is viewed as a corrupted, informal version of the former. In the Greek situation the classical dialects are acceptable: not normative, but the proper object of attention and with a limited function (for example, in certain forms of literature). Here it may be useful to consider the vexed question of the change from Latin to Romance, where the link between linguistic consciousness and written standard seems to have played a central role.15 To name a linguistic variety is to make an ideological choice which is likely to have social or political implications: Latin turned into Italian when speakers stopped calling it Latin shortly after Dante established a new written standard.
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The koine: A new language for a new world Language naming seems always to have been intimately connected with the creation of a written variety. Dante had called Latin Grammatica, and Italian Latino:16 he ‘did not regard Latin as the origin of the popular languages, but rather he apprehended it as a common way of writing, unaffected by dialectal differences’ ( Janson 2002: 123). In the case of Greek there was no renaming, and no widely accepted written standard (or standards) until the modern era (that is to say, no written standard that was free from the anxiety of classicism). In the modern era there is, of course, a standard, though the quarrel between purism and the modern language was settled relatively recently, and speakers are ambivalent about the adjective in the term ‘modern Greek’. To return to the chronological extension of the koine: although its roots can be seen in the history of Athens after the Persian wars, and the intellectual preeminence of Ionia before that, the linguistic culture of the Hellenistic world is the result of a new social and political reality, and koine reflects this. It is hard to specify the period at which the linguistic culture had changed to such an extent that one has to recognize the end of this koine: there is a sense in which it continued until the modern period. But the movement known as Atticism may be a pointer: by this time the koine has become stigmatized in a way that is alien to the early period, when there was no sense that the common language was inferior to the Attic dialect. The return to Attic seems to be indicative of a new set of distinctions: perhaps between the leisured class who had time to master the Attic dialect, and the rest of the Greek-speaking world; rather than between the Greek-speaking world and the others.
Notes 1 See, e.g., López Eire 1993. 2 For which cf. Siegel 1985, 360. 3 i.e. it may become the first language for a group of speakers. 4 The argument seems to be that as ‘Doric’ is the genus of which the individual Doric dialects are the species, so the koine bears the same relation to the four Greek dialects (and cannot therefore be composed of or derived from them). This mirrors the relation between panhellenic Greek identity and (for example) Athenian or Spartan citizenship. My translation mostly follows that of Consani 1993, 35–6. 5 So also Dante (de Vulgari Eloquentia 2. 1. 1) argues that writers of prose most often learn the koine (for him, the vulgare illustre) from poets. 6 Whether this is evidence that the koine had features in common with a creole is difficult to say; arguments on this subject have perhaps not distinguished clearly enough between the written and the vernacular language. Certainly the ancient grammatical obsession with ‘analogy’ and ‘anomaly’ as forces in language starts to look interesting in this regard.
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Stephen Colvin 7
Horrocks 1997, 219–20. More evidence for the persistence of Doric at Dio Chrysostom (2nd cent. AD), Or. 1. 60. 9 So Consani 1993, 34–5: ‘...les dialectes anciens ont exercé, avant de disparaître définitivement, une action complexe qui a produit des formes diversifiées de koiné parlée.’ 10 See also Consani 1993, 35–7. 11 The parallel between the Greek koine and modern Arabic has been drawn by Ferguson 1959a, Versteegh 1986, Bubenik 1989, 10–17 and others. 12 ‘C’était pour eux [sc. les anciens] le dialecte employé par des prosateurs de l’époque hellénistique ou impériale comme Polybe, Strabon ou Plutarque’ Meillet (1929, 253); ‘La langue parlée, dans des circonstances exigeant un style surveillé, par l’aristocratie des cités grecques ou hellénisées du début de notre ère est donc la seule à mériter véritablement le nom de koiné,’ Brixhe 1987, 22; ‘En définitive, la seule langue qui mérite réellement le nom de koiné est le registre supérieur de la langue écrite’, Brixhe and Hodot 1993, 20, cf. also Brixhe 2010. 13 Suggested already by Versteegh 2002 and others. 14 Horrocks (1997, 105–7) tentatively following the reconstruction of Teodorsson 1978. 15 See the essays of Lloyd, Janson and Wright in Wright 1991b. 16 Though in De vulgari eloquentia the term grammatica refers to any literary language (including classical Latin and Greek) whose rules have to be learned by instruction and application: ‘non nisi per spatium temporis et studii assiduitatem regulamur et doctrinamur in illa’, DVE 1.3. 8
Editions Dante De vulgari eloquentia. Edited and translated by Steven Botterill, Cambridge 2005. Boissonade J.F. Boissonade, Herodiani Partitiones, London 1819. Gr. Gr. Grammatici Graeci. I,1: Dionysi Thracis Ars grammatica ed. G. Uhlig; I,3: Scholia in Dioysii Thracis Artem grammaticam rec. A. Hilgard; II,1–3: Apollonii Dyscoli quae supersunt rec. R. Schneider et G. Uhlig. III,1–2: Herodiani Technici reliquae coll. A. Lentz; IV,1–2: Theodosii Alexandrini Canones, Georgii Choerobosci Scholia, Sophronii Alexandrini Exerpta rec. A. Hilgard; Leipzig 1867–1910.
Bibliography Brixhe, C. 1987 Essai sur le grec anatolien au début de notre ère, 2nd edn, Nancy. 1993 (ed.) La koiné grecque antique: une langue introuvable? Nancy. 2010 ‘Linguistic diversity in Asia Minor during the Empire: Koine and nonGreek language’, in E. Bakker (ed.) A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language, Chichester. Brixhe, C. and Hodot, R. 1993 ‘A chacun sa koiné?’ in Brixhe 1993, 7–21
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The koine: A new language for a new world Bubenik, V. 1989 Hellenistic and Roman Greece as a Sociolinguistic Area, CILT 57, Amsterdam. Consani, C. 1993 ‘La koiné et les dialectes grecs dans la documentation linguistique et la réflexion métalinguistique des premiers siècles de notre ère’, in Brixhe 1993, 23–39. Ferguson, C. A. 1959a ‘The Arabic Koine’, Language 35, 616–30 [repr. in Structuralist Studies in Arabic Linguistics, Leiden 1997, 50–68]. 1959b ‘Diglossia’, Word 15, 325–40. Horrocks, G. 1997 Greek. A history of the language and its speakers, London. Janson, T. 1991 ‘Language change and metalinguistic change: Latin to Romance and other cases’, in Wright 1991b, 19–28. 2002 Speak. A short history of language. Oxford. Lloyd, P. M. 1991 ‘On the names of languages (and other things)’, in Wright 1991b, 9–18. López Eire, A. 1993 ‘De l’attique à la koiné’, in Brixhe 1993, 41–57. Mazzocco, A. 1993 Linguistic Theories in Dante and the Humanists. Leiden. Meillet, A. 1929 Aperçu d’une histoire de la langue grecque 3. Paris. Morpugo Davies, A. 1987 ‘The Greek notion of dialect’, Verbum 10, 7–28 [repr. in Tom Harrison (ed.) Greeks and Barbarians, London 2002, 153–171]. Siegel, J. 1985 ‘Koines and koineization’, Language in Society 14, 357–78. Versteegh, K. 1986 ‘Latinitas, Hellenismos, ‘Arabiyya’, Historiographica Linguistica 13, 425–48 [repr. in D. J. Taylor (ed.) The History of Linguistics in the Classical Period (Amsterdam 1987), 251–74]. 2002 ‘Alive or dead? The status of the standard language’, in J. N. Adams et al. (eds) Bilingualism in Ancient Society (Oxford), 52–74. Wright, R. 1991a ‘The conceptual distinction between Latin and Romance: invention or evolution?’, in Wright 1991b, 103–13. 1991b (ed.) Latin and the Romance Languages in the Early Middle Ages, London, 103–13.
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3 THE LETTER OF ARISTEAS Richard Hunter The so-called Letter of Aristeas (henceforth Ar )1 is not only one of the few surviving pieces of extended literary prose from Ptolemaic Alexandria, but its subject – the translation of the Hebrew sacred texts into Greek and, more generally, the interaction of Greek and Hebrew traditions and culture – places it very firmly at the centre of the ‘creation of a Hellenistic world’ and of how that world was imagined by those who actually lived in it. In the form of a ‘letter’ addressed to one Philokrates, Ar narrates the story of how, at the instigation of Demetrios of Phaleron, Ptolemy II Philadelphos brought to Alexandria the best scholars from Jerusalem to produce an authoritative Greek version of Hebrew scripture. Although debate still rages, it is now generally assumed that Ar is the work of an Alexandrian Jew with good knowledge of the workings of the Ptolemaic administration and is to be dated to the second century BC; Ar thus purports to offer an eyewitness account, by a Greek (rather than a Jewish) courtier, of something which happened at least a century and a half before the work was, as far as we can tell, actually written. It would, I think, be fair to say that Ar does not enjoy a high reputation: Günther Zuntz, who shed important light on Ar in two seminal studies, denies the author even ‘moderate imagination’ and castigates the ‘helplessness evidenced where [the author] had no substantial tradition to follow’,2 though Erich Gruen’s stomach is strong enough for him to call it ‘occasionally entertaining’ and even to find something like humour lurking previously unnoticed.3 In her recent study, Sylvie Honigman calls ‘close to unreadable for modern readers’ the account of how Philadelphos posed ethical and political questions to the Jewish scholars who had come to Alexandria to produce the text for the Royal Library.4 Whether her explanation for this (‘changes in literary taste’) is sufficient is at least open to question. Why Ar is not, for most people, an easy read could actually be an interesting question to which more attention might well be paid by those concerned with the history of literary form and reading practices. Scholarship on Ar has, however, perhaps not unreasonably been more concerned with issues of readership
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Richard Hunter and purpose, and of what we can actually learn from the work about the history of the Ptolemaic Library and of the Alexandrian Jewish community. Whether or not Ar is a ‘real letter’ is essentially a non-question, but the ethical and quasi-private turn of this essay to Philokrates is something to be considered in the context of the making of the Hellenistic world and the particular quality of the writing and ideas it produced. Philokrates is chosen as the addressee for a number of explicit reasons, but prominent among these are his virtuous ‘love of learning’ (1–2, cf. 322), his concern for his ψυχή (soul) (5), and the ‘impulse towards the καλόν (noble)’ (6) which he shares with ‘Aristeas’. History, and reading history, are now directed towards individual improvement. The prologue of Ar has often been connected with certain trends in Hellenistic historiography, and we may be reminded, in particular, of Polybius’ distinctions between types of potential reader and of the reasons why one might read history; one can read for pleasure or one can be, like Philokrates, φιλοµαθής (fond of learning).5 Like Thucydides’ History, the programmatic chapters of which Ar seems to echo,6 and indeed like Polybius’ Histories, Ar is written with τὸ χρήσιµον (the useful) and τὸ ὠφέλιµον (the beneficial) in mind, but it is now what is ‘useful’ for the improvement of the individual mind and soul which is important. The encomium of paideia with which the prologue concludes tells us much about the world which produced Ar, and it is a world which is neither exclusively Greek nor exclusively Jewish: ‘neither the charm of gold nor any other of the embellishments prized by the vainglorious confers as great benefit as education and attention devoted to culture’.7 Whether or not anything remotely like the events of the ‘Letter’ did indeed happen under Philadelphos (or indeed under any Ptolemy) is a matter of perhaps fiercer debate now than for a long time. It is easy enough to point to elements of the narrative which seem ‘unhistorical’ – thus, for example, there were very good reasons to include both Demetrios of Phaleron and Philadelphos, the two figures most closely connected with the legends of the Library, in the story of the translation, although most scholars accept that Demetrios’ scholarly activity in Alexandria did not outlive Ptolemy I Soter 8 – but the historicity of the basic structure of the story remains a thornier problem. The linguistic and other arguments in favour of the historicity of some translation of Hebrew books into Greek in the first half of the third century are not to be lightly dismissed, and it cannot at any rate be doubted that translations existed by the middle of the second century. So too, the old view that, regardless of when the Hebrew scriptures were first translated into Greek, Ar misrepresents the procedure at least in presenting it as driven by the concerns of, and
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The letter of Aristeas conducted according to (a rather garbled version of ) the scholarly protocols of, the royal Library, seems now less secure than it was; the translation was in fact, so the argument went, the initiative of the Alexandrian Jewish community. Broad consensus does, however, seem to have been reached that the translation (or translations) were the work of Jews resident in, and using the koine of, Egypt, rather than scholars shipped in from Palestine. The question of the initiative for the translation may, however, serve as a reminder of how easy it was for writers to construct history in terms of royal policy (or, in the language of Ar and Hellenistic administration, royal prohairesis or prothesis) rather than within the framework of more messy social constructs. The practices of ancient bureaucracy in which decisions were inscribed on stone or papyrus as the personal decisions of kings will have helped this way of thinking about how things happen; so perhaps too will the systems of judicial administration prevalent in Ptolemaic Egypt. There is an important question here about what kind of socio-political structure, what kind of polis in fact, Ar creates and to what extent this has resonance, beyond the work’s own narrow concerns, into the wider Hellenistic world. Finally, the presentation of the interaction of Ptolemy and his courtiers and of the king’s personal interest in the details of the Library’s holdings takes us in different ways back towards the world of Herodotus and forwards (on the now standard chronology) to the ‘historical novel’ of Chariton and others. Students of Greek fiction have certainly paid too little attention to Ar. Ar is an imaginative reconstruction of, inter alia, Alexandria and the exercise of Alexandrian power in its heyday; it is often noted that the observation in chapter 28, ‘these kings used to administer all their business through decrees and with great precaution; nothing was done negligently or casually’, not only apparently ruptures the fiction of the work but also almost suggests a nostalgia for a time now lost. We can perhaps see here something of the origins of the shaping of history which was to culminate in Strabo’s Augustan myth of an Egypt which was well administered by the first three Ptolemies, but was then ruined by a succession of kings given to excessive τρυφή (luxury), only to be restored to its former welladministered glory by Augustus who put an end to ‘drunken violence against Egypt’ (17.1.11). For Strabo, Alexandria is ‘the greatest supermarket (emporion) in the world’ (17.13), a place to which all the riches both of Egypt and the rest of the world flow; so too, the import of cultures is central to Ar ’s imagining of Alexandria, as perhaps of any such imagining.9 Alexandria as cosmopolis, as both the centre of the trade routes which cross the world and as itself a whole kosmos within a polis, is fundamental to standard ancient descriptions of the city,10 and is of course built into
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Richard Hunter the city’s foundation legends (cf., e.g., Alexander Romance 1.32). Dio Chrysostom’s famously double-edged encomium of the Alexandrians makes them by implication the true mercantile heirs of Alexander who control ‘the whole oikoumene- ’ – their trade reaches even to the Indian Sea and ‘the most remote tribes’ (as did Alexander’s conquests); the world is now a polis writ large: ‘[Alexandria] is like the agora of a single city which gathers all men into the same space, shows them to each other, and – as far as possible – makes them members of the same race (ὁµοφύλους)’ (Dio 32.36).11 It is perhaps not too anachronistic to see something very like this rhetoric informing the emphasis in Ar on the intellectual, moral, and religious ‘kinship’ of Greeks and Jews (even if Jewish culture always remains one step ahead). In Ar Demetrios is given the wherewithal ‘to bring together (συναγαγεῖν), if possible, all the books in the world’ (9); this is the intellectual heritage of Alexander, just as the city’s trade represented his mercantile heritage. Demetrios is however represented, not unreasonably, as being particularly concerned with books (such as the Jewish holy books) which ‘deserve’ a place in the Library; intellectual collection can never be divorced from selection and judgement.12 So too, the High Priest worries about the safe return of the Jewish scholars because he knew ‘how the king in his love of excellence regarded it as a very great gain, wherever he heard of a man surpassing others in culture and intellect, to summon him to himself’ (124); the High Priest had heard that the King believed that ‘by having about himself just and prudent men he would have the greatest protection for his kingdom, for friends frankly advise what is best’ (125). The gathering of (the best) books and the gathering of wise men are thus parts of the same project, in more ways than one. These elements of what we might call ‘the Alexandrian myth’, such as we have seen it in, say, Dio Chrysostom, are in fact familiar from the earliest days. Callimachus’ Aitia, which gestures both towards a potential claim to embody ‘all the rituals and stories of the world’ and which demonstrates the inevitability of selection, is the key text here, both in its overall shape and in particular episodes. We may note, on the one hand, Pollis the Athenian’s transplantation of Athenian rituals to Alexandria (fr. 178 Pfeiffer = 89 Massimilla),13 a passage in which Alexandria, where the scene is all but certainly set, is again imagined as a place where everyone and every culture sooner or later washes up and is then preserved. On the other hand, we have the poet’s insistence (fr. 43 Pfeiffer = 50 Massimilla) that the Muses fill in a gap in his otherwise pretty comprehensive knowledge of the foundation stories of the cities of Sicily: συµπλήρωσις – the filling in of gaps – is also what drives Demetrios’ activities in the Library (cf. Ar 29). Much has been written recently about
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The letter of Aristeas how the Ptolemies’ claim to be the true heirs to Alexander, and to the Greek heritage more generally, was bolstered not merely by their possession of Alexander’s body (cf. Strabo 17.1.8) but also by their equally displayed cultural patronage, most visible in the institutions of the Museum and Library;14 the politics of Ptolemaic cultural activity are now firmly on the scholarly agenda. Moreover, Ptolemy and his Library were not to be restricted to Greek culture – they were, again like Alexander himself, both discerning and potentially omnivorous. Much has been written in recent years – some, but by no means all, stimulated by Foucault – about the organisation of knowledge in historical societies and hence about the library as an image of the state or kosmos (Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose is the best known popularisation of the idea); classification and categorisation are needed not just for library books, but for the successful management of whole states. As for the Ptolemaic Library, ‘there is something imperialist in the treatment of the books themselves’, as Andrew Erskine put it.15 The possessions of the Library, no less than Alexander’s body and Pollis’ Attic rituals, required ‘preservation’, or (in the words of Ar ) ‘royal care’, πρόνοια βασιλική (30). Philadelphos’ concern for the repair of books ‘which had fallen into disrepair’ (29) perhaps suggests that already here the Library is an image, or microcosm, of the whole state, which flourishes under the king’s benevolent eye. Aspects of the presentation of the monarchy in Ar may indeed remind us of Theocritus’ ‘Encomium for Philadelphos’: numbers and stock counts matter to Philadelphos (Ar 10, cf. Theocritus 17.82–4);16 those he watches over ‘go about their business in quiet’, as Theocritus puts it (17.97), and he not only keeps safe the stock he inherited, but also adds to it (Theocritus 17.104–5). Collection is, moreover, not necessarily an end in itself: what is collected is to be used for the greater glory of the gods (or of God) and of the people under Philadelphos’ control (Theocritus 17.106–11). As for Ptolemaic scholarship, the hallmark Alexandrian search for authentic, original texts, whether on book-hunting expeditions or through the arts of textual criticism, which is here extended to the translation of the Hebrew scriptures, speaks to the centralisation of power; not for Ptolemaic scholars of Greek literature the minefield of allegorical interpretation which might allow the creation of meaning ‘at the point of reception’ and hence offer space to a multiplicity of authoritative voices. Although the modes of Jewish exegesis on display in Ar are very different, here too the Jewish scholars produce an agreed translation, and there is a very strong sense that the ‘reading and clarification of each passage’ (ἡ ἀνάγνωσις καὶ ἡ ἑκάστου διασάφησις, 305) led also to agreed ‘meaning’; translation and interpretation cannot be separated. Just as no further
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Richard Hunter change of any kind is to be permitted in the text (chapters 310–11), so interpretation has (to some extent at least) been closed down, which is of course very far from what actually happened in the history of the reception and understanding of Jewish scripture. Later traditions invented, or at least elaborated, a predecessor for Ptolemy in this rôle: Peisistratos and/or his sons are said to have arranged for the production of an authoritative text of Homer at Athens and for its regular performance at the Panathenaia, and the tyrant is said to have been the first to establish a ‘public library’ at Athens. The reliability or otherwise of these accounts is not at issue here.17 If some at least of this is a retrojection from later ages – and the very late story that Peisistratos established a group of 72 grammatikoi to produce his text of Homer is almost certainly influenced by the narrative of Ptolemy and the translation of the Pentateuch18 – the parallelism may offer some comfort that we are not completely on the wrong track in these interpretations of representations of Ptolemaic cultural policy. Peisistratos is thus imagined to have tried to ‘own’ (the genuine) Homer, who notoriously belonged to no individual city, and to have placed his prize possession at the heart of the principal display of Athenian identity and power, the Panathenaia; so, in the Alexandrian myth, Ptolemy tried to own all of Greek culture, though inevitably Homer, and the quest for the authentic text of the epics, took pride of place. At one level, Alexandria was consciously fashioned as ‘the new Athens’,19 as in its turn Rome was to be fashioned as ‘the new Alexandria’. How the Athenian paradigm of autochthony was transmuted in a city where still potent historical memory denied the possibility of autochthony cannot be pursued here, but the idea of Alexandria as ‘the new Athens’ already informs Callimachus’ description of Pollis’ displaced rituals (above p. 000), as it seems clearly implied in Ar by the rôle of Demetrios of Phaleron and the use, not just of Aristotelian traditions, but apparently also of specific Aristotelian texts.20 The importance of Athenian institutions as models for the Museum and Library is well recognised, but how selfconsciously that paradigm was elaborated is less clear. Thucydides makes Pericles declare to the Athenians that ‘because of the size of [our] city everything arrives here from the whole world, and we have no freer enjoyment of our own splendid products than of those of other men’ (2.38.2). The parallel with the encomia of Alexandria which we considered earlier may just be a rhetoric shared by all imperial cities, but it may also be something more. It is the ‘funeral speech’ of the Thucydidean Pericles which we also remember when reading the claim of Andron of Alexandria (first century BC?), as reported by Athenaeus, that ‘the Alexandrians were
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The letter of Aristeas the people who had educated all the Greeks and the barbarians, when general education (ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία) was disappearing because of the continuous disturbances which occurred in the period of the successors of Alexander’ (FGrHist 246 F1 = Athenaeus 4.184b-c); the words of the Thucydidean Pericles, ‘In summary, I declare that our whole city is an education (παίδευσις) for Greece...’ (2.41), had already been echoed more than once by Isocrates.21 The text of Athenaeus perhaps leaves uncertain whether Andron and others imagined two periods in which Alexandria saved the paideia of the world – one under the early Ptolemies and the other (paradoxically) dating from the reign of Ptolemy VIII, whose expulsions of intellectuals fostered the growth of paideia all over the rest of the Greek world – but the link between political peace and ‘culture’ (understood very broadly) which underlies this historical narrative is one which we recognise from early Ptolemaic rhetoric, such as (again) Theocritus’ Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphos, and one which was to be taken over by Octavian/ Augustus. The question of what sort of imaginative reconstruction Ar represents can hardly be divorced from questions of readership. Broadly speaking, the debate has been a tussle between a Greek readership and a Jewish one.22 For those who favour the former, the point of Ar is to introduce Greeks to Jewish culture and wisdom, both of which had won the admiration of so cultured a monarch as Philadelphos. If, on the other hand, the readership is primarily Jewish, the point will be to make clear that the Greek Bible (or a particular version of it) carries the same authority as the Hebrew scriptures themselves and that those who read only it, and not the Hebrew original, will not be missing anything important. The story of the translation and its subsequent public promulgation seems, on the one hand, to have been modelled on the Exodus story of the origin of the Hebrew Law itself; 23 on the other hand, most scholars now also stress the influence of the paradigm of Alexandrian Greek scholarship, and particularly scholarship on Homer. In her recent study, Sylvie Honigman stresses that the authority of the Greek Bible is commended in Ar in much the same way as Aristarchus’ text of Homer seems to have become ‘canonical’ within a very short time; both the Hebrew scriptures and the text of Homer are now ‘corrected’ (διηκριβωµένα, cf. Ar 31, 310) and hence authoritative. Whatever we may think of this account of the dissemination of the Aristarchan edition, on any showing Ar’s narrative of the process of translation does seem to make (rather confused) use of the Alexandrian scholarly practice, which was not of course a universal practice, of the comparison of different texts in order to arrive at the best, most authentic version;24 the existing Hebrew texts have not yet been submitted to such collation, or, in the
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Richard Hunter courtly phrase of Demetrios (cf. above p. 000), ‘they have not received royal attention’ (Ar 30). Here we might be tempted to think that Ar has more than one audience in mind; Greek or Jewish paradigms can be emphasised in accordance with the needs of different audiences.25 The peculiar mixture of stemmatics and collective discussion, which is represented by shutting the Jewish scholars up on an island to get on with their business, looks to more than one set of exegetical practices.26 Similar conclusions may be drawn from the long episode of the sympotic instruction of Ptolemy by the Jewish sages.27 The political questions posed by the king put flesh on the idea of Ptolemy as god’s representative and reflection here on earth, an idea which was (inter alia) very powerful in Ptolemaic ideology 28 and in Hellenistic kingship theory more generally; ‘as God benefits (εὖ ἐργάζεται) all men, so you, in imitation of Him, benefit those under you’ (281, cf. 190) is as clear a statement as one could wish. Some of what the sages advise the king hardly differs from, say, what Pindar advises Hieron or the terms in which Theocritus praises Ptolemy,29 and no reader, Greek or Jewish, is going to find material for surprise here. Some bits of the sages’ advice even sound like Greek gnomic wisdom: µὴ πολλῶν ὀρέγου, ‘do not aim for [too] much’ (211), τῶν ἀνεφίκτων µὴ ἐπιθύµει, ‘do not desire the unreachable’ (223). Philadelphos is, moreover, certainly depicted as sympotikos, if not in quite the same way as in other texts (cf. Theocritus 14.60–4); he is even depicted as a Plutarch before his time – concerned with the appropriate conduct of symposia (286). Be that as it may, the whole episode reveals a union of philosophical, religious and political power which works to confirm both Philadelphos and the sages in their respective, and mutually inter-connected, spheres. Other ways of writing such a scene were certainly available. We may contrast Philostratus’ later account, written at a time when history provided more than one model of a ‘bad king’, of a dinner of the Indian sages which was attended both by Apollonius of Tyana and by the local Indian king, who used to consult the sages on all matters.30 Philostratus depicts the king as someone who does not know how to behave at symposia (he drinks too much, Life of Apollonius 3.30.1) and as someone who is too self-important to take advantage of the presence of such wise men; Philadelphos, by contrast, is the model of an enlightened king who constantly seeks self-improvement. I have labelled Ar an ‘imaginative reconstruction’, and that would seem to imply a view about how it was regarded by its first readers (whoever they were). The status of Ar’s claims to truth has always been at the heart of modern argument about the nature of the work. Sylvie Honigman argues that Ar does indeed present a ‘true’ account, but that we have to understand that truth, reasonably enough, within the conventions of
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The letter of Aristeas Hellenistic historiography and rhetoric. For what it is worth, my impression is that there is a rather uneasy conjunction in Honigman’s book between this perfectly proper emphasis on historiographical and rhetorical convention and the idea (owed to Oswyn Murray) of Ar as a ‘charter myth’. Be that as it may, what exactly is it that we are being asked to believe, and what is supposed to be the nature of that ‘belief’? Is it just the basic story of a translation conducted by the best Jewish scholars in the time of Philadelphos? If it is true that Ar’s first readers were ‘highly educated Alexandrian Jews’,31 then we might be loath to accept that they will have regarded much of the work as ‘historically true’ in any meaningful sense. Much modern discussion seems to credit the readers of Ar with very few critical reading skills, and appeals to repeated characteristics of ‘Hellenistic (or Alexandrian) Jewish literature’ only defer the problem;32 readers understand ‘conventions’ as well as authors do. Appeals to ‘plausibility’ cut both ways (and Chariton might (again) be a key text for comparison here). The presentation of the dealings of Philadelphos and Demetrios is a brilliant evocation of how civil servants work – if you want something done you have to make the boss believe that it was his idea – but why should we, or anyone, give this narrative any more credit than Chariton’s picture of the dealings of the Great King of Persia with his chief eunuch? Appeals to the practices of Hellenistic historiography do not allow us to evade the central question: what sort of a narrative is this? Here is where the recent outpouring of work on Greek and Latin narrative and fiction allows the hope of future progress in the case of Ar also. Ar begins and closes with what look like allusions to Thucydides and Thucydidean ideals:33 the matter is ἀξιόλογον, ‘worthy of record’ (cf. Thucydides 1.1.1) and the account will be σαφής (clear and true) and ‘useful’ (cf. Thucydides 1.22.3–4). It is hard not to think of Thucydides again when the author tells Philokrates that (almost paradoxically) he will get more ‘pleasure’ from Ar than from the ‘books of the mythologoi ’ (322, cf. Thucydides 1.21.1, 1.22.3–4). That the Thucydidean allusions are not generally recognised may be attributed both to a sense that the author of Ar had, in Oswyn Murray’s words, ‘little interest in classical Greek literature’34 and to the fact that Thucydidean ideals had long since become part of the fabric and common language of historiographical rhetoric and thus to some extent divorced from their origins; we may again think of Polybius. The claims to ‘truth’ which these Thucydidean allusions would seem to reinforce are nowhere stronger than in the passage which closes the account of the king’s questioning of the wise men at a series of banquets:
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Richard Hunter I suppose that everyone likely to get hold of this account will find it incredible. But to falsify concerning matters extant in writing is not what one should do; indeed, if I were to pass over any point, it would be an impiety in a subject of this sort. But I describe (διασαφοῦµεν) the event exactly as it happened (ὡς γέγονεν), solemnly acquitting myself of all error. Accordingly I endeavoured to procure particulars of what transpired from those persons who transcribe the proceedings (ἕκαστα τῶν γινοµένων) at the king’s audiences and in his banquets, so impressed was I with the power of [the sages’] discourse. For it is the custom, as you surely are aware, to record in writing everything said and done from the moment the king begins to give audience until he retires to bed – a good and useful practice. On the day following, before audiences commence, the actions taken and the remarks uttered on the previous day are read through and if any procedure is incorrectly recorded it receives rectification (διόρθωσις). As I have said, then, I obtained accurate information on all particulars from the archives, and have recorded it in writing because I know how you cherish useful learning. Letter of Aristeas 296–300
Here again we have a Thucydidean concern with offering a clear account of ‘what actually happened’, together with a Thucydidean painstakingness for finding this out; the language of detail, ἕκαστα τῶν γινοµένων, picks up a language of historiography (and epic poetry) familiar from Aristotle onwards.35 The appeal to written records offers a form of ‘authorising fiction (‘Beglaubigungsapparat’)’, which however is ambiguous in its implications.36 It is not, I hope, irreverent to be reminded of the scene between Peisetairos and the oracle-monger in Aristophanes’ Birds (λαβὲ τὸ βιβλίον...); ‘if you don’t believe me, go and consult the records’ is a challenge which few readers are likely to take up. ‘I know that what I have written will seem incredible’ may be a device for emphasising the truth of the account,37 an instance of protesting too much, or a rather cheeky piece of selfknowingness. It is perhaps helpful to remember Lucian’s protestations in the True Histories, particularly in his account of life on the moon: ‘I am reluctant to tell you about the eyes [of the moon-people], lest someone think that I am lying because the account seems incredible...anyone who does not believe that this is a true account, will realise that I am speaking the truth if ever he himself gets to the moon’ (1.25–6). What in fact places Ar firmly in the mainstream of Greek Hellenistic prose is its knowing anxiety about genre; it is a work filled with ‘effects of the real’, one of which of course is the simple fact that it is structured as an address to a single individual, and the history of its reception shows just how convincing (and how distracting) those effects have been. Here, as much as anywhere, it is a Hellenistic creation, as it also calls into creation a Hellenistic world of the imagination.
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The letter of Aristeas Notes This chapter is here reproduced much as it was delivered in Edinburgh; footnotes, on what is a very thorny subject, have been kept to an absolute minimum. It will not need to be stressed that I am completely unqualified to enter the debate on most of the central issues concerning the Letter, particularly as they touch the history and practices of Hellenistic Judaism. My purpose in allowing this paper to go further than the oral presentation is rather to prompt classicists, particularly the large number currently working on Hellenistic and later prose narratives, to pay it more attention than they have hitherto. 1 There are accessible texts in Hadas 1951, Pelletier 1962, and Calabi 1995; English translations are available in Hadas 1951 and Shutt 1985. The fullest study is now Honigman 2003, but Calabi 1995 remains a valuable bibliographical resource, and cf. also Fraser 1972, II 972–3 and Birnbaum 2004, 131–8. Fraser 1972, I 696–703 offers a succinct introduction to the work and its problems (and see also ibid. II 970–2 on the date of the work). A case for believing in the essential historicity of the narrative of Ar has been stated by Collins 2000. 2 Zuntz 1959, 110, 125 [= 1972, 127, 142]. 3 Gruen 1998, 218–21. 4 Honigman 2003, 18. 5 Cf. esp. Polybius 7.7.8; for discussion and bibliography cf. Hunter 1994, 1070–1. 6 Cf. below p. 000. 7 This and all subsequent translations are taken from Hadas 1951, modified where appropriate 8 Cf., e.g., Honigman 2003, 88–90. The opposite case is fundamental to Collins 2000. 9 Selden 1998 is in part a stimulating discussion of this. 10 Achilles Tatius 5.1 is the most sustained display of these paradoxes. 11 For other aspects of this passage cf. Trapp 2004. 12 A similar phenomenon is the shifting distinction between the interest of the Library and its scholars in all Greek books and their particular interest in those authors who came eventually to form the lists of ‘the included’ (helpful summary in Easterling 1996). 13 For discussion and bibliography on this passage cf. Fantuzzi and Hunter 2004, 76–83; add now Dettori 2004, Kaesser 2005. 14 Cf., e.g., Erskine 1995, Too 1998, 115–26, Maehler 2004, Whitmarsh 2004, 122–30. 15 Erskine 1995, 45. 16 Cf. Hunter 2003, 158. 17 The testimonia are gathered by Platthy 1968, 97–108. For arguments on both sides cf. Allen 1913, Merkelbach 1952, Davison 1955, Pfeiffer 1968, 6–8, Canfora 1987, 185–6. 18 The story would illustrate a kind of reverse of the pattern for which Honigman 2003 argues in the case of the Hebrew Bible. A rival account had Peisistratos gathering together four wise men for this task. 19 Cf. Hunter 2003, 37. 20 Cf. Honigman 2003, 23–4 on the description of Jerusalem and Aristotle, Politics Book 7.
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Richard Hunter 21
On these texts cf., e.g., Pfeiffer 1968, 252–3, Whitmarsh 2001, 7–9. Gruen 1998, 221 considers the matter now clearly decided in favour of a Jewish readership: ‘those Gentiles who happened to read the work would not have found it particularly edifying’. 23 Cf., e.g., Orlinsky 1989, 542–8. 24 Zuntz 1959 is fundamental here. 25 I am conscious that this observation is not too far from one modern view, particularly associated with scholars such as Ludwig Koenen, Susan Stephens, and Dan Selden, of how Egyptian motifs, or what are alleged to be such, resonate in Alexandrian Greek poetry. 26 Honigman’s claim (2003, 46–7) that this collective enterprise would rather have recalled the work of ‘Alexandrian grammarians’ seems at best doubtful; Greek scholars notoriously worked alone and notoriously quarrelled with each other. 27 Cf. esp. Murray 1967. 28 Cf. Hunter 2003, 94–5. 29 With the stress on justice (193, 209, 212, 291 etc.) cf. Pythian 1.86; with the importance of benefactions and the proper use of wealth (205, 226) cf. Pythian 1.91; with the importance of truthfulness (206) cf. Pythian 1.87. 30 It is perhaps noteworthy that Murray 1967, 347 n. 3 compared Alexander’s interview with the gymnosophists to the sympotic narrative of Ar. 31 Honigman 2003, 29. 32 Cf. Johnson 2004, xii–xiii on how such texts ‘persistently combine historical verisimilitude with patent fiction without betraying the least awareness of contradiction or absurdity’. 33 Here, in particular, I have benefited from, but unwisely disregarded, the proper scepticism of the Edinburgh audience, particularly Robin Lane Fox. 34 Murray 1987, 22. 35 Cf. Hunter 2005, 159–62. 36 I hope that it does not need saying that the historical reality of the courtly practice described in these chapters for the time of Philadelphos is not what is at issue here. 37 Cf. the phrases studied by Stinton 1976. 22
Bibliography Allen, T. W. 1913 ‘Pisistratus and Homer’ CQ 7, 33–51. Birnbaum, E 2004 ‘Portrayals of the wise and virtuous in Alexandrian Jewish works: Jews’ perceptions of themselves and others’, in W.V. Harris and G. Ruffini (eds) Ancient Alexandria between Egypt and Greece, Leiden and Boston, 125–60. Calabi, F. 1995 Lettera di Aristea a Filocrate, Milan. Canfora, L. 1987 The Vanished Library, London. Carleton Paget, J. 2004 ‘Jews and Christians in ancient Alexandria from the Ptolemies to Caracalla’, in Hirst and Silk 2004, 143–66.
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The letter of Aristeas Collins, N. L. 2000 The Library in Alexandria and the Bible in Greek, Leiden. Davison, J.A. 1955 ‘Peisistratus and Homer’, TAPA 86, 1–21. Dettori, E. 2004 ‘Appunti sul “Banchetto di Pollis” (Call. fr. 178 Pf.)’, in R. Pretagostini and E. Dettori (eds) La cultura ellenistica. L’opera letteraria e l’esegesi antica, Rome, 33–63. Easterling, P. 1996 ‘Canon’, in S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth (eds) The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd edition, Oxford, 286. Erskine, A. 1995 ‘Culture and power in Ptolemaic Egypt: the Museum and Library of Alexandria’, Greece & Rome 42, 38–48. Fantuzzi, M. and Hunter, R. 2004 Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry, Cambridge. Fraser, P.M. 1972 Ptolemaic Alexandria, Oxford. Gruen, E.S. 1998 Heritage and Hellenism, Berkeley. Hadas, M. 1951 Aristeas to Philocrates (Letter of Aristeas), New York. Hirst, A. and Silk, M. (eds) 2004 Alexandria, Real and Imagined, Aldershot, Hants. Honigman, S. 2003 The Septuagint and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria, London. Hunter, R. 1994 ‘History and historicity in the romance of Chariton’, in W. Haase and H. Temporini (eds) Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II 34.2, Berlin and New York, 1055–86 [= Hunter 2008, 737–74]. 2003 Theocritus. Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus, Berkeley. 2005 ‘Generic consciousness in the Orphic Argonautica?’ in M. Paschalis (ed.) Roman and Greek Imperial Epic, Rethymnon, 149–68 [= Hunter 2008, 681–99]. 2008 On Coming After. Studies in Post-Classical Greek literature and its reception, Berlin and New York. Johnson, S. R. 2004 Historical Fictions and Hellenistic Jewish Identity, Berkeley. Kaesser, C. 2005 ‘The poet and the “polis”: the Aetia as didactic poem’, in M. Horster and C. Reitz (eds) Wissensvermittlung in dichterischer Gestalt, Stuttgart, 95–114. Maehler, H. 2004 ‘Alexandria, the Mouseion, and cultural identity’, in Hirst and Silk 2004, 1–14. Merkelbach, R. 1952 ‘Die pisistratische Redaktion der homerischen Gedichte’, Rheinisches Museum 95, 23–37.
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Richard Hunter Murray, O. 1967 ‘Aristeas and Ptolemaic kingship’ Journal of Theological Studies 18, 337–71. 1987 ‘The Letter of Aristeas’ in B. Virgilio (ed.) Studi ellenistici II, Pisa, 15–29. Orlinsky, H. M. 1989 ‘The Septuagint and its Hebrew text’, in W. D. Davies and L. Finkelstein (eds) The Cambridge History of Judaism II, Cambridge, 534–62. Pelletier, A. 1962 Lettre d’Aristée à Philocrate, Paris. Pfeiffer, R. 1968 History of Classical Scholarship, Oxford. Platthy, J. 1968 Sources on the Earliest Greek Libraries, Amsterdam. Selden, D. 1998 ‘Alibis’ Classical Antiquity 17, 289–412. Shutt, R. J. H. 1985 ‘Letter of Aristeas’, in J. H. Charlesworth (ed.) The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Vol. 2, London, 7–34. Stinton, T. C. W. 1976 ‘“Si credere dignum est”: some expressions of disbelief in Euripides and others’, PCPS 22, 60–89 [= Collected Papers on Greek Tragedy, Oxford 1990, 236–64]. Too, Y. L. 1998 The Idea of Ancient Literary Criticism, Oxford. Trapp, M. B. 2004 ‘Images of Alexandria in the writings of the Second Sophistic’, in Hirst and Silk 2004, 113–32. Whitmarsh, T. 2001 Greek Literature and the Roman Empire, Oxford. 2004 Ancient Greek Literature, Cambridge. Zuntz, G. 1959 ‘Aristeas studies II: Aristeas on the translation of the Torah’, Journal of Semitic Studies 4, 109–26 [= Opuscula Selecta (Manchester 1972) 126–43].
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PART II
RULERS AND SUBJECTS
4 THE SILVER SHIELDS, EUMENES, AND THEIR HISTORIAN Joseph Roisman 1. Introduction The history of the events following Alexander’s death is in many respects the history of the individual careers of his successors. This is the legacy of our sources, which focus primarily on prominent men, as well as of the scholars who are dependent on these sources. This chapter endeavours to deal with the Macedonian masses rather than their elite in the postAlexander era. I have chosen the case of the Macedonian troops known as the argyraspides, or Silver Shields, because, more than any other group, they represented Macedonian identity, tradition, and military prowess for the sources. The Silver Shields can also tell us much about the relationships between the troops and their generals, and in particular about the aspirations and expectations of the veterans of Alexander’s campaigns.1 Looking at the history of this period from the veterans’ perspective is not an easy task. This is due to the historian of the era, Hieronymos of Kardia, whose history is now lost but which has informed the best extant sources on our subject, especially, Diodorus of Sicily, books 18–20, and Plutarch’s biography of Eumenes. Hieronymos’ strengths and weaknesses have been well analysed by a variety of scholars, and in particular by Jane Hornblower in her book Hieronymus of Cardia. I wish here to highlight two characteristics of his narrative, which have been paid too little attention, or even ignored, and have an impact on my topic. One is Hieronymos’ elitist approach to history. Like Thucydides, Hieronymos gathered information from many informants, from simple soldiers to generals. But unlike his
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Joseph Roisman predecessor, who often discusses politics and power from the politai’s point of view, Hieronymos was much more interested in what powerful men did, said, and thought. Like Thucydides, however, Hieronymos is fond of distinguishing between alleged and real reasons, as he discerned them, normally reflecting the actors’ self-interest. Yet in spite of the allure of his utilitarian approach to actions and interactions, there is no guarantee that his identification of people’s underlying aims is accurate, given that motives are hard to decipher in any period.2 Hieronymos is also responsible for the sources’ favourable portrait of Eumenes, the man with whom the Silver Shields were mostly associated. Both men were born to Greek families from Kardia, and Hieronymos served under Eumenes and may even have been his relative. The story of Eumenes can be described here only briefly. He had served Alexander as chief secretary and occasionally as a military commander; in fact, he was the only Greek in Alexander’s army to command a Macedonian unit. After Alexander’s death, he threw in his lot with Perdikkas, which proved a poor choice. While in Asia Minor, Eumenes defeated the anti-Perdikkan general Neoptolemaios in 320, and then, to everyone’s surprise, the respected and popular Macedonian marshal, Krateros. The death of the latter in battle allowed Eumenes’ enemies to pass a decree in the royal army assembly that condemned Eumenes to death and held him responsible for the death of Krateros and presumably other Macedonians. In early 319, Antigonos Monophthalmos, who had been given the task of eliminating the Perdikkan forces, defeated Eumenes in battle, besieged him in the city of Nora, and then let him go, probably after making Eumenes beholden to him. Eumenes managed to collect a force of about 2,500 men, made up mostly of local recruits, and then accepted the offer of the regent Polyperchon and the Macedonian kings to become their chief commander in Asia against Antigonos.3 I shall discuss the history of the Silver Shields before they joined Eumenes with equal brevity. Scholars have persuasively shown that originally they had been Alexander’s hypaspists – elite units of the Macedonian phalanx – and at that time probably already numbered 3,000 men. They were given the name Silver Shields no later than Alexander’s Indian campaign. The Silver Shields played an active role in the riots against Antipater when he arrived at Triparadeisos in 320 to become the regent of the kingdom. Antipater sent them with their commander Antigenes, and presumably Teutamos as well, to bring money from the treasury in Susa to the sea. Their history from then until they met Eumenes in Kilikia in the summer of 318 and became a dominant force in his army is uncertain. They are nowhere attested, as is commonly assumed, to have served as the
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The silver shields, Eumenes and their historian guardians of the royal treasury at Kyinda in Kilikia (which was well fortified in any case) before they were instructed by Polyperchon to join Eumenes. It is unknown, however, what they were doing in Kilikia at that time. Perhaps their commanders were waiting for the right opportunity or employer. They certainly became attractive to many generals once Eumenes got them.4 2. The Silver Shields in battle In his description of the opposing sides in the battle of Gabe-ne- in 317/6, Diodorus describes the Silver Shields as the conquerors of the world under Philip and Alexander and as irresistible due to their experience. He says that their average age was seventy, with some even older, and that the youngest of them was sixty. Plutarch gives a very similar description prior to his account of the battle of Gabe- ne- , calling them ‘athletes of war, undefeated and unfailing up to this time,’ thus suggesting a common source, probably Hieronymos.5 Such elderly gentlemen would have been promising candidates for the role of jurors in Aristophanes’ Wasps but hardly useful in a force elsewhere described as ‘the spearhead of the entire army,’ or as ‘the best of Philip’s and Alexander’s soldiers.’ 6 Most of the Silver Shields must have been fit, adult warriors who could sustain the physical demands of marching and hand-to-hand fighting. Probably the old warriors constituted a minority among the 3,000 Silver Shields, but they caught the attention of the sources, for whom they represented the golden age of Philip’s and Alexander’s conquests anchored in military areteand experience.7 Something should be said about the Silver Shields’ aura of invincibility. They justified this image in their performance under Eumenes, or more accurately under their direct commanders, in the battles of Paraitakene- and Gabe-ne- in Iran in 317, in which Eumenes and a coalition of eastern satraps fighting in the name of the Macedonian throne clashed with Antigonos in a showdown over Alexander’s Asian empire. Yet the Silver Shields’ record of success was not unblemished, because they most likely fought with Perdikkas against Ptolemy in Egypt in 320 and so shared in his failure to capture the Fort of Camels there.8 Moreover, the experience of service under Alexander was not a guarantee against defeat, as other Macedonian veterans could testify. What distinguished the Silver Shields was their stable leadership, their staying together for a relatively long time, and especially the fact that they had not been tested in battle since Perdikkas’ Egyptian campaign. In other words, by the time they met Eumenes in 318, they had barely had the opportunity to display their qualities or suffer defeat and tarnish their invincible reputation, as other veterans had. It is also important to evaluate the Silver Shields’ contribution on the
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Joseph Roisman battlefield. Judging by the way Eumenes planned his battles and their ultimate results, the Silver Shields were neither capable of deciding or winning a battle on their own nor expected to. From the time of Alexander, it had been the cavalry that delivered the main blow to the enemy, and Eumenes followed this battle plan. Prior to his meeting with the Silver Shields, Eumenes relied chiefly on his cavalry both in defeat and victory, and not because he trusted the loyalty of his infantry less. In the battle of Orkynia in 319, which he had lost to Antigonos, Eumenes had 5,000 cavalry, as opposed to Antigonos’ 2,000, and 20,000 infantry, as opposed to Antigonos’ 10,000. His infantrymen even included Macedonian veterans, who fully supported him. Eumenes, however, pinned his hopes on the cavalry, which deserted him during the battle.9 He continued to rely on cavalry, as well as on elephants, after he had incorporated the Silver Shields into his forces, probably because Antigonos enjoyed a significant numerical advantage in infantry but less of an advantage in cavalry. This was especially true of the battle of Paraitakene- , where Antigonos’ phalanx numbered 28,000 men, as opposed to Eumenes’ 17,000 (in addition to 18,000 lightarmed troops). The gap in cavalry was less pronounced: Antigonos had 8,500 horsemen and 65 elephants, as opposed to Eumenes’ 6,300 horsemen and 114 elephants (see below). Diodorus says that the right wing, which Eumenes commanded, had the best of the cavalry, and that he trusted these forces the most.10 Clearly, Eumenes’ expectations of his phalanx, including the Silver Shields, were lower (Fig. 1). At Paraitakene- , Eumenes’ phalanx won a convincing victory over Antigonos’ phalanx, but his cavalry failed to destroy the opposing cavalry. Nevertheless, Eumenes did not change his tactics. He continued to rely on his cavalry and elephants to achieve victory, even though the sizes of the opposing armies became more balanced. At the battle of Gabênê, Antigonos’ phalanx had been reduced from 28,000 to 22,000, while Eumenes presumably retained his phalanx of 17,000 and even increased his light-armed force by about 1,700 men (totalling 36,700 troops). In cavalry, Antigonos augmented his force from 8,500 to 9,000, as opposed to Eumenes’ 6,000 (300 horsemen less than in Paraitakene-). The number of their elephants remained unchanged. Yet neither general changed his plan of deciding the battle with the cavalry, aided by the elephants. This is especially telling in the case of Eumenes, because he had the best infantry in the Macedonian world, who had proven their loyalty to him up to this point. He also never led the Silver Shields into battle in person, but left it to their commanders. Excellent as the Silver Shields were in fighting, and as much as they caught the sources’ attention, neither they nor the entire phalanx were supposed to decide the battle.11
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The silver shields, Eumenes and their historian
Fig. 1. The Infantry in the Battle of Paraitakenê (winter 317/6). Source: Diod. 19.27–32 Eumenes’ Forces: • Right wing, cavalry (from left): 800, 900, 300, 300, 100, 200, 300, (subtotal: 2,900), 40 elephants with light armed • Center, Infantry (from left): 6,000 mercenaries, 5,000 Macedonian-trained mixed troops, 3000 Silver Shields, 3,000 hypaspists, (subtotal: 17,000), 40 elephants with light-armed • Left wing, cavalry: 50, 50, 100, 950, 600, 600, 500, 500, (subtotal: 3,400), 45 elephants with light armed • Diodorus’ total: 35,000 infantry, 6,100 cavalry, 114 elephants • Totals of individual units: 125 elephants; 6,300 cavalry, 17,000 infantry (with probably 18,000 light-armed) Antigonos’ Forces: • Right wing, cavalry (from left): 500, 1,000, 500, 1,000, 300, 3 servile ilai (? 150), 3 ilai (?150), 100, (subtotal: 3,400 cavalry + 6 ilai (? 300), 30 elephants with light armed • Center, infantry (from left): 9,000 mercenaries, 3,000 Lykians and Pamphylians, 8,000 Macedonian-trained troops, 8,000 Macedonians (subtotal: 28,000), most other elephants (30?) • Left wing, cavalry: 1,000, 200 (emended no.), 1,000, 1,500, 400, 1 ilê, 800 (subtotal: 4,900+); few elephants • Diodorus’ total: 28,000 infantry, 8,500 cavalry, 65 elephants Totals of individual units: 28,000 infantry; cavalry: 8300 + 6 ilai; elephants: 30 + unspecified number.
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Joseph Roisman The place of the Silver Shields in the lines of battles is of interest too. In both battles, Eumenes put his elephants and light-armed troops in the front, and, like Alexander, his cavalry on his wings, with the infantry at the centre. Antigonos arranged his troops similarly. In both battles, the cavalry fought cavalry and the infantry, infantry, fairly independently from one another. Finally, in both battles, Eumenes’ phalanx soundly defeated Antigonos’ phalanx, with credit given solely to the Silver Shields. Thus Diodorus reports that at Paraitakene-, the opposing phalanxes fought each other for a long time, with many falling on both sides, but no one could face the Silver Shields, who excelled in daring and skill due to their long service. Even though there were only 3,000 of them, they became the edge, or spearhead (στὸµα) of the entire army. In this battle, Antigonos lost 3,700 infantrymen, as opposed to Eumenes’ 540. These accolades deserve scrutiny.12 At Paraitakene- , Eumenes arranged the phalanx from right to left, as follows. Next to his stronger right wing, which he commanded himself, he put over 3,000 hypaspists. Next to them were over 3,000 Silver Shields. Both groups were led by Teutamos and Antigenes, probably respectively. Next to the Silver Shields, Eumenes placed an ethnically mixed force of 5,000 troops, who had Macedonian equipment, and he completed the phalanx’s line with more than 6,000 mercenaries, who stood next to his weaker left wing, which was composed of cavalry.13 Generals placed their best troops where they expected the brunt of the battle to be, which was traditionally on the right of the phalanx. This was where the hypaspists stood, but not the Silver Shields. Indeed, Eumenes followed Alexander here, who had positioned the hypaspists on the right of the phalanx and next to the cavalry in all of his major battles. I agree with scholars who regard Eumenes’ hypaspists as his own creation. The information we have on the composition of his forces up to this battle excludes the identification of them, or of most of them, with Macedonian veterans.14 To ascertain which of Antigonos’ infantry the Silver Shields and the hypaspists faced, it is best to reconstruct the opposing phalanxes from the hills on Eumenes’ left, which can serve as an anchor point. Eumenes arranged his left wing, made up of 3,300 horsemen, starting from high ground in the hills. The mercenaries, the Macedonian-equipped troops, the Silver Shields, and the hypaspists were stationed next to them, from left to right. Antigonos drew up his lines after observing Eumenes’ battle order. This meant that the right end of his right wing paralleled the left corner of Eumenes’ left wing and did not extend beyond it to outflank Eumenes on the right, since the hills acted as a barrier. Antigonos’ right had about 3,600 cavalry, which only slightly overlapped Eumenes’ 3,300 horsemen. We can
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The silver shields, Eumenes and their historian assume, thus, that the opposing phalanxes, which were arranged next to their respective cavalry, stretched to the left from roughly parallel starting lines. As shown in Figure 1, this meant that the Silver Shields faced Antigonos’ 8,000 Macedonian-equipped troops, and the hypaspists faced the same troops and 3,000 Lykians and Pamphylians.15 This picture would not change significantly even if Eumenes had thinned and stretched his infantry lines. This is because Antigonos advanced with his right and told the rest of his troops to form an oblique line with him.16 His movement, then, put the forces facing the Silver Shields and the hypaspists farther away and to the right. Richard Billow’s suggestion that Eumenes compensated for his numerical inferiority by placing many light-armed troops between the heavy infantry units and so lengthened his lines is unattractive. The only attested light-armed troops in this battle order were those who were placed alongside the elephants, and filling gaps between various heavy infantry units with light-armed troops would have weakened his front considerably. Indeed, forming a close line provided protection against a numerically superior phalanx.17 If the above reconstruction is correct, it appears that the hypaspists occupied the most dangerous position in the phalanx because they were exposed to an attack from Antigonos’ 9,000 mercenaries and probably from additional troops who overextended Eumenes’ phalanx. It required that they either hold off the line or attack a much more numerous enemy, with the danger of being outflanked. It was to the hypaspists’ credit that Eumenes trusted them with such an important and vulnerable position, reflecting the principle of using one’s better troops in (relative) proximity to the general and where the hardest fighting was expected. The same principle emerges from Antigonos’ line, where the Macedonians were placed on the right side of his phalanx. Brian Bosworth has argued that Antigonos deliberately avoided setting Macedonians against Macedonians, both fearing that they might not fight each other and because they were too precious to waste. But Macedonians had fought Macedonians on previous occasions, and, by all indications, Paraitakenewas supposed to be a decisive battle rather than a time to be sparing or overly cautious. Antigonos’ dispositions were guided by the rule of putting one’s strong units against the weaker units of the opposition. I think that with the hypaspists at their side, it was easy for the Silver Shields to lead the attack and play the ‘spearhead’ of the phalanx. Yet their charge cannot have been devastating, because, by Diodorus’ own account, the opposing phalanxes fought each other ‘for a long time’ (ἐφ’ ἱκανὸν µὲν χρόνον). In any case, Eumenes seemed to have relied on the hypaspists, no less than on the Silver Shields, to overcome or to repulse, Antigonos’ phalanx. Clearly,
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Joseph Roisman the hypaspists’ performance in this battle has not been properly recognised.18 Equally ignored is the contribution of Eumenes’ mercenaries on his left. We do not know at what point exactly the infantry fighting commenced, but if Antigonos’ line advanced obliquely while Eumenes’ phalanx held, or advanced in, a straight line, the first who saw battle or held the line were the mercenaries, who had to fight Antigonos’ Macedonians. I suspect that the reason for the silence about the hypaspists and the mercenaries is Hieronymos’ focus on Eumenes and the Silver Shields.19 In the account of the battle of Gabênê, the sources go even further in assigning sole credit for the victory over the entire enemy phalanx to the Silver Shields. At Gabênê, Eumenes changed his position from right to left to command this stronger wing, with the hypaspists following him to the phalanx’s left. Yet they are completely ignored in the account of the battle, and all eyes are on the Silver Shields. These 3,000 troops are said to have killed 5,000 enemy troops and to have defeated a 22,000–strong phalanx all by themselves.20 I do not wish to argue that the Silver Shields did not excel in fighting, but rather that the sources, and most probably Hieronymos, unduly privilege their contribution. There was more than one reason for this preferential treatment. The Silver Shields became an icon of a glorious Macedonian past of uninterrupted success in war and conquest. The Silver Shields themselves were highly vociferous in demanding attention to their wishes, reputation, and special status in camp. They also stood for the Macedonian authority and legitimacy so important to their employer. Lastly, the sources show practically no interest in troops that were not Macedonian. Asian troops and mercenaries stood on the lowest rung in the social and military hierarchy of the coalition army, and I suppose that the historian and his readers cared little about their accomplishments. 3. Eumenes and the Silver Shields: first encounter At the time the Silver Shields met Eumenes in the summer of 318, however, they had yet to prove their worth to him. Why did they agree to join his camp? Diodorus says that Antigenes and Teutamos, their commanders, obeyed the letters of Polyperchon, written in the kings’ names, that instructed them to help this new commander of Asia, and that the Silver Shields similarly met Eumenes with friendliness and great enthusiasm.21 Communication in this period was often restricted to members of the military elite, who were inclined to make decisions without consulting the troops. Here, however, the Silver Shields were notified of the royal request, though Diodorus does not explain why they and their
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The silver shields, Eumenes and their historian commanders decided to honour it. Scholars have suggested reasons ranging from the Silver Shields’ reverence for and loyalty to Alexander and his house to Eumenes’ military reputation, or Polyperchon’s earlier ties to these veterans.22 I wish to note, however, that although the Macedonian veterans in general tended to support the Argead house, it did not prevent many of them, before or after, from fighting against those who represented this house. I also see no reason why the Silver Shields would be uniquely, or more, loyal to the kings than were their fellow veterans. Eumenes’ military reputation had a limited attraction, especially after it had been tarnished by his recent defeat by Antigonos, while the veterans’ presumed respect for Polyperchon was surely not an overwhelming consideration. I suggest that what drew the Silver Shields initially to Eumenes were the financial incentives or bribes that accompanied the royal offer to him. Polyperchon instructed those in charge of the Kilikian treasury to give Eumenes 500 talents for his expenses and a blank check for recruiting mercenaries. It has been conjectured that the Kilikian treasury contained close to 20,000 talents at that time. As the history of the events following Alexander’s death shows, one of the cardinal factors that decided loyalty to a general was his ability to provide for his troops and to safeguard their possessions and families. Eumenes had the potential for answering these expectations.23 The sources, however, stress Eumenes’ cautious attitude toward those who welcomed him. We hear that he was concerned that, before long, he would be rejected (even killed) by the Silver Shields and their commanders on account of his Greek origin, their envy, personal ambitions, lack of respect, and their having voted his death about two years earlier. Eumenes first dealt with this problem by declining the money offered to him and by denying any ambition to be a military commander. He followed this gambit with his well-known ‘Alexander’s tent’ show. He reported on a dream he had had in which Alexander was sitting on a throne in full royal regalia, giving orders and exercising his monarchical rule. Eumenes suggested putting up a tent with an empty golden throne and other symbols of royalty, in which the commanders would offer sacrifices to Alexander and deliberate. Once this had been done, Eumenes gained their goodwill with his easygoing ways. He also took the money and assumed command.24 The story substantiated the topos of Eumenes’ cunning intelligence for the sources, but intelligence directed how? In spite of the seemingly universal opposition to his appointment, it appears that Eumenes’ main concern, and the prime target of the Alexander séance, were not the veterans but their commanders, Antigenes, Teutamos, and other officers. Of course, the audience included the military masses, but, significantly,
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Joseph Roisman they were excluded from the tent. Only the commanders took orders from ‘Alexander,’ sacrificed and made proskynesis to him, and sat in council in ‘his’ tent. Eumenes would use the same device later in Susiana, with similar actors and audience, when other generals challenged his command. Diodorus says that he called daily meetings of this council there, as if in a democratic city.25 But since there was no popular assembly to discuss its motions, the council’s purpose was to reach a consensus of the kind practised in an oligarchy. Indeed, a story in Plutarch about the Macedonians in Asia clamouring for the ailing Eumenes, and only Eumenes, to lead them into battle, suggests their dissatisfaction with the solution provided by the Alexander’s tent device, and that it was designed to regulate Eumenes’ relationship with the elite.26 The veterans seem also to have been little troubled by Eumenes’ nonMacedonian origin. Scholars have demonstrated that Eumenes’ problems with the troops had mostly to do with obtaining funds and provisions, rather than his Greek ethnicity.27 The ones said to resent, or make an issue of, his non-Macedonian status were, most frequently, Eumenes’ rivals and enemies, not the Macedonian troops. Later, after his loss to Antigonos at Gabe-ne-, some Macedonian Silver Shields called him a ‘plague from the Chersonese’. But taking this often-quoted abuse out of context does not prove their bias against his Greek birth. Those who called him this were echoing the propaganda of his enemies and seeking to justify handing him over to Antigonos. Eumenes’ origins did not deter the veterans from strongly supporting him, at least until the catastrophic loss of their goods and families overwhelmed their loyalty (see below).28 The same can be said concerning the Macedonian resentment of Eumenes for using Macedonians to kill Krateros and other fellowMacedonians in battle. The Macedonian troops’ reluctance to fight each other was, at best, highly selective, and I do not know of a single veteran who is recorded to have left his general because of the commander’s violations of Macedonian solidarity. Indeed, the ones who charged Eumenes with having Macedonian blood on his hands were his enemies among the Macedonian commanders, not the troops. It were also the generals, rather than the troops, who insisted that the latter should follow their own decrees and respect the authority and power of their own assembly, as in the case of Eumenes’ condemnation. The veterans who fought with Eumenes before or after his meeting with the Silver Shields repeatedly chose to ignore offers to kill him or desert his camp.29 This is not to say that the Silver Shields did not require persuasion to join Eumenes (which shows again that the kings’ letters or the veterans’ respect for Alexander and his house were insufficient to ensure obedience). Justin,
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The silver shields, Eumenes and their historian who fails to mention the story of Alexander’s tent, reports that Eumenes overcame their reluctance to accept any commander but Alexander by flattering and begging them. He praised them for their far-reaching conquests and for making Alexander look so great.30 Undoubtedly, the veterans had a high opinion of themselves and appreciated those who confirmed it for them. In fact, their respect for Alexander’s memory was to a significant degree an exercise in self-admiration. But I cannot share the elitist presumption informing this story that has Eumenes easily bamboozling the veterans with flattery and supplication. 4. Eumenes and the Silver Shields: the final chapter I shall now move from Eumenes’ first meeting with the Silver Shields to his last. The friendliness and goodwill that characterised their first encounter in the summer of 318 were replaced with bitterness and mutual recriminations in the winter of 317/6. In the battle of Gabênê, Antigonos and his cavalry defeated Eumenes and his cavalry, and even though the Silver Shields spectacularly beat Antigonos’ infantry, they refused Eumenes’ request to renew the battle, mainly because Antigonos had captured their baggage train, which included all their possessions and their families.31 The sources’ descriptions of this and the subsequent events are dominated by the themes of Eumenes’ efforts to persuade his army to fight and, especially, by the Silver Shields’ ugly betrayal of him. The accounts differ in detail, but the following summary will perhaps not be too controversial. When Eumenes’ army regrouped after battle, the satraps, who had fought alongside Eumenes, called for a retreat to their upper satrapies. Eumenes, however, exhorted the army to renew the fighting in view of their victory over Antigonos’ phalanx. He also deprecated the loss of the baggage and called on them to retrieve it and even to capture Antigonos’ baggage by winning, rather than acknowledge defeat. The Silver Shields refused to listen to either the satraps or Eumenes, however, and perhaps blamed him for the predicament in which they found themselves. Headed by their commander, Teutamos, they sent envoys to Antigonos, who agreed to restore the baggage if they delivered Eumenes to him. Plutarch and Justin report that before he was led in shackles to Antigonos, Eumenes made a speech to the Silver Shields in which he chastised them for shamefully surrendering their general, for violating their oaths of loyalty to him, and for conceding defeat; he then asked them to allow him to kill himself. The Macedonians rejected this request, hurled abuse and countercharges at him, according to Plutarch, and took him to Antigonos,
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Joseph Roisman who put him under arrest. Antigonos first had some of Eumenes’ troops executed, ordering Antigenes to be burned alive in a pit. Then, finally, after consultations, he had Eumenes killed too. The Silver Shields got back their baggage and joined Antigonos’ army. Later, however, Antigonos sent many of them to serve with Sibyrtios, the satrap of Arachosia, and on various garrison duties. According to Diodorus, he even instructed Sibyrtios to get rid of them. Both Diodorus and other sources treat their new assignments as retribution for their betrayal of Eumenes.32 I have omitted from this synopsis the many dramatic devices used by the sources to highlight the despicable treachery of the Silver Shields.33 This attitude dominates the ancient accounts and consequently much of the scholarship. The way this story is told is also one of the most blatant examples of an elitist approach to history. Let us examine what happened. Eumenes’ cavalry and elephants had been defeated. Although the Silver Shields had won a great victory over the enemy phalanx, their loss of everything that was dear to them, namely, their savings, their loved ones, and their other non-combatant dependents, marginalized any other considerations such as the future of the Macedonian empire or that of their general. The satraps proposed retreating east, which meant leaving the baggage train behind in Antigonos’ hands and moving farther away from it. Eumenes, whom the veterans probably held responsible for their loss, called on them to fight Antigonos again, but he was motivated by his own desperate need for victory, on which his leadership depended, rather than by their plight. The history of the Macedonian veterans shows a close relationship between their loyalty and discipline, on the one hand, and the winning record of their general, on the other. It also shows that set-piece battles were decided not by the phalanx, however excellent, but by the cavalry – and there was no guarantee that Eumenes would be able to call on the satraps’ cavalry in a new battle. Moreover, the veterans were well aware that he had lost the battle of Gabe- ne- even with the cavalry’s support. In any case, fighting Antigonos again was in the interest of Eumenes and not that of the troops. Eumenes’ fate probably ran a distant second to the Silver Shields’ concern about their baggage, assuming they even gave it some thought. It is our sources who focus on him.34 The Silver Shields offered Antigonos their services in exchange for their baggage, Polyaenus tells us.35 In our sources, whenever troops act in their own interests, rather than those of their generals, they are called mutinous, undisciplined, and in this case, treacherous. Probably the most active among the argyraspides were their commanders, because the Macedonian veterans often depended on their leadership for initiative or
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The silver shields, Eumenes and their historian communication with outsiders. Antigenes, whose horrible later fate suggests a strong enmity with Antigonos (perhaps because he had frustrated Antigonos’ earlier attempt in Kilikia to draw the Silver Shields away from Eumenes), was not involved in the negotiations. Teutamos, however, was, thus showing that he was more attentive to the soldiers’ concerns, and more in touch with them, than Antigenes, who has generally enjoyed a better press among both ancients and moderns. Eumenes probably protested his surrender and some Silver Shields, with an uneasy conscience and wishing to curry favour with Antigonos, might have responded with countercharges. The rest of them, however, were glad to get their property and families back, as well as a new employer.36 This is not the way the sources see it. Plutarch and Justin allow the shackled Eumenes to take the high ground, topographically and morally, and denounce the Silver Shields for breaking their oaths of loyalty and betraying him. For these sources, and apparently for Diodorus too, the troops who abandoned Eumenes should have been ashamed of themselves for caring more about their possessions and safety than about victory – that is, than about their general’s ambitions and career.37 What is puzzling about the Macedonian veterans is not that they chose possessions over honour, but that the sources, and most probably Hieronymos, present them in a somewhat paradoxical manner. On the one hand, they privilege the veterans’ story and accomplishments and repeatedly praise them as the embodiment of military excellence. They also portray them as men who loved, admired, and were in need of Eumenes. On the other hand, they depict them as perfidious and self-centred and condemn them for sacrificing their commander to his enemy, leading ultimately to his death. Why does their betrayal of Eumenes, whom Hieronymos both liked and admired, not colour the way they were portrayed prior to it? 38 One answer is to assume that Hieronymos was a straightforward historian who praised or condemned people when they so deserved. Yet his consistent, highly favourable depiction of Eumenes, on the one hand, and very hostile portrayal of the satrap and Alexander’s former bodyguard Peukestas, on the other, suggest that this historian was no stranger to bias or even distortion.39 It may also be argued that one of the reasons that Hieronymos highlighted the Macedonians’ military capability was to imply that the veterans could have reversed the results of Gabe- ne- had they listened to Eumenes. Yet our extant sources make it impossible to prove the existence of such a carefully planned narrative or its likelihood. I think that Hieronymos’ elitist attitudes may account for his inconsistent portrayal of the Silver Shields. For him, what counted were the ambitions and actions
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Joseph Roisman of great generals and kings. Within this framework, the Silver Shields had one major role to play, which justified his praises and giving them a privileged status, namely, to fight for their general and serve his needs As long as they fulfilled this function, they were given accolades and exclusive credit for Alexander’s victories or those of Eumenes’ phalanx. But when they looked after themselves rather than their commander, they became petty-minded, selfish, even cowardly men, who traded victory and glory for baggage. Yet to what extent were the Macedonians responsible for Eumenes’ fate? Firstly, they were not the only ones who lost their baggage and wanted it back. Nowhere is it said that Antigonos captured only the Macedonian baggage, and, according to Polyaenus, Antigonos’ proclamation that he would restore the soldiers’ possessions for free affected the satrap Peukestas and his 10,000 Persians, who moved to his camp following the Macedonians’ example.40 This is not to deny that the Silver Shields led the movement over to Antigonos’ camp. After all, their possessions had been accumulated since Alexander’s campaign, while others had less baggage or no families at all (cf. Oros. 3.23.26). Yet it is clear that they did not have to force their views on others. Eumenes’ arrest seems to have triggered no protest, except for his own. Secondly, there are indications in the sources that not all the Macedonians were of one mind on this issue. According to Justin, Eumenes tried to shame the Macedonians into fighting Antigonos again by defining their loss as consisting merely of 2,000 women and a few children and slaves.41 This implies that not all Silver Shields, about 3,000 in number, had families, and hence a strong incentive to give Eumenes up. It is also conceivable that not all the Macedonians cared to the same extent about their possessions or dependants. Plutarch reports that before Eumenes became Antigonos’ prisoner, some Macedonians lamented the loss of their baggage, some told him not to lose heart, and some blamed other commanders for the defeat. It is true that the biographer presents these different reactions as a ploy to lull Eumenes into a false sense of security so that they could capture him off guard. But if we ignore this attempt to expose a hidden agenda, it could be that some of the veterans were surprised by their comrades’ decision to give Eumenes up.42 Lastly, Diodorus says that Antigonos sent the most troublesome Silver Shields away to Arachosia – Polyaenus gives their number as 1,000 – and that they included those who had betrayed Eumenes.43 This implies that not all of the Macedonians were active in, or in agreement about, the surrender of Eumenes. Thirdly, and more significant, there was no certainty that Eumenes would be put to death. His pre-surrender warning to the Macedonians of
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The silver shields, Eumenes and their historian this fate is included among the rhetorical pieces that comprise his address to the troops in our sources, and even if authentic, it was not a premonition but designed to deter them from surrendering him. His execution was certainly an option, but it should be remembered that, although Antigonos had in the past called upon the Macedonians to kill Eumenes, he refrained from doing so now. It is not unlikely that in the Silver Shields’ negotiations with Antigonos, the general promised not kill Eumenes, or did not discount the possibility that he might be imprisoned (as he had done with Alketas’ generals), or of his offering Eumenes a position in his army, or even a generous release.44 The sources indeed report on Antigonos’ hesitations about what to do with the captured Eumenes, his friendship for him, his protecting him from lynching when he was brought to his camp, the conflicting opinions in his council about what should be done with Eumenes, and of Eumenes himself raising the possibility not only of his death but of his release. Indeed, it would have been a coup for Antigonos to have Eumenes, the royally appointed chief general of Asia, at his side. In the end, however, and like many other single rulers, Antigonos yielded to fear and distrust as well as to the pressures of his oligarchy, that is, his friends, and his troops. In short, the sources’ condemnation of the deadly treachery of the Silver Shields was an effect of hindsight.45 Hindsight seems also to have been responsible for the moralistic interpretation of the Silver Shields’ later assignments as a just punishment for their betrayal of Eumenes, a view that probably goes back to Hieronymos.46 This historian, who often looked for a ‘real’, that is, utilitarian, reason beneath the pretext of another, was probably also responsible for the claim that Antigonos aimed to destroy them by sending them to Arachosia. It has been sensibly argued that the Silver Shields were too valuable to waste and speculated that the satrap of Arachosia might have used them against Chandragupta, who was expanding his realm in the Indus basin at the time. Indeed, why would this satrap have been willing to admit alleged troublemakers into his province or to serve as executioner for Antigonos? It is likely, however, that Antigonos sought to rid himself of the Silver Shields because they had several reasons to be discontented. Some were perhaps upset about the killing of Antigenes, and many about the loss of the power and prestige they had enjoyed under Eumenes. Their Argead sympathies and their cohesive, independent solidarity were disconcerting too. They also included elderly soldiers. So Antigonos broke them up into smaller units and sent them away, just as Antipater had done in 320 when he sent them from Triparadeisos to fetch money from Susa.47
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Joseph Roisman It may be fitting by way of a conclusion to retell a memorable story that is included in Diodorus’ account. A few months before Eumenes’ last battle, Antigonos tried to induce the Silver Shields and the satraps to defect to his side. The Macedonians declined, and Eumenes, who had not been present at their deliberations, came to praise them and tell them the following parable: A lion fell in love with a maiden and asked her father for her hand. When the father expressed concern that the lion might lose its temper and kill her, the lion yanked out his own claws and teeth. The father then took a club and killed the lion. Eumenes explained that Antigonos would keep his promises until he became the master of the army and then execute their leaders. To plêthos approved and shouted ‘Right On’ (ὀρθῶς).48 This story well illustrates the elitist outlook discussed in this chapter. It has the leader express himself in a speech and the troops exclaim approval. The tale is also hardly flattering to the rank and file, because it tells them that they are powerless and vulnerable without their general. The ostensible moral is that Eumenes was right, because the Silver Shields lost their ‘claws and teeth’ when they surrendered him.49 In fact, they saved themselves and their families, but for Hieronymos and the historians who followed him, this was both inconsequential and disgraceful. Acknowledgements I am grateful to Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, Andrew Erskine, Stephanie Winder, and Douglas Cairns for inviting me to the Creating the Hellenistic World conference and their most gracious hospitality. I am also grateful to Mel Regnell from Colby College for her invaluable help with the illustration. Lastly, I owe thanks to Brian Bosworth for his very useful comments and clarifications. My different interpretation is no indication of the excellence of his work. Notes 1 This chapter is a product of a more extensive project on the history of Alexander’s veterans. Due to space constraints, references to modern scholarship are often limited to more recent publications. I have also adopted a thematic rather than chronological approach. The chronology of the events under discussion is notoriously controversial. I follow here Boiy’s 2007 attempt at a compromise between the so-called high and low chronologies. All dates are BC. 2 Hieronymos’ sources: Rosen 1967; Hornblower 1981, 120–53. For his causation and bias, see Roisman 2010a, cf. Brown 1947, 693; Hornblower 1981, esp. 152, 235. Diodorus must have found Hieronymos’ account appealing, given his own interest in great men, as well as in the theme of retribution, both of which Diodorus used to educate his readers: cf. Sacks 1990, 23–36; Anson 2004, 12, 21. For our sources’ use of Duris of Samos, see, e.g., Landucci Gatinoni 1997, 194–200; 2008, esp. XII–XXIV.
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The silver shields, Eumenes and their historian 3
Hieronymos’ career: Hornblower 1981, 5–17, esp. p. 8. Eumenes under Alexander: Heckel 1992, 346–7; his career after Alexander and up to his royal appointment: Schäfer 2002, 53–122; Anson 2004, 51–145. 4 The Silver Shields’ origins and history: Anson 1981, 1988; Heckel 1982, 1992, 307–19. The Kilikian treasury: Simpson 1957; Bing 1973. Diodorus’ language and timetable at 18.58.1–4 give little support to Bosworth’s suggestion (1992, 66–7) that they moved to Kilikia only after receiving Polyperchon’s directive in 318, and see Anson 2004, 144 n. 92. Diodorus on Polyperchon’s correspondence: 18.58.1–4. Rosen’s (1967, 69–71) reconstruction of Polyperchon’s correspondence is too speculative. 5 Diod. 19.41.1–2; Plut. Eumenes 16.6–7. Hieronymos as their sources: Bosworth 1992, 62; cf. Hornblower 1981, 193. Unless otherwise noted, all references to Plutarch and Nepos are to their Eumenes. 6 Diod. 19.30.6; Plut. 18.2. Cf. Diod. 18.28.1: ‘invincible and because of their excellence they spread much fear among the enemies.’ 7 For the Silver Shields’ age, see Anson 1981, 199; Hornblower 1981, 193; Billows 1995, 18–19. 8 Diod. 18.33.5–34.5. Hammond 1994 [1978], 210, and Bosworth 2002, 81–4, object for different reasons to their identification with Perdikkas’ hypaspists who participated in this battle (Diod. 18.33.6, 34.2), but Bosworth agrees that Perdikkas used them against Ptolemy, and see 2002, 87 n. 80. For the Egyptian campaign, see Roisman 2010b. 9 Battle of Orkynia and the size of the armies: esp. Diod. 18.40.5–8; Engel 1971. Billows (1990, 75–6) rightly adds Polyaen. 4.6.19 to the sources on this battle, but Anson (2004, 129 n. 46) questions Polyaenus’ information. Eumenes’ choosing a plain for a cavalry battle at Orkynia: Diod. 18.40.6. Eumenes and the veterans: Plut. 8.9–12. 10 Diod. 19.29.1. 11 The battle of Gabênê: Diod. 19.40.1–43.9, esp. 40.1–4. The data replicates Diodorus’ totals of soldiers, but see below. See also Plut. 16.6–10; Polyaen. 4.6.13; Devine 1985a; Bosworth 2002, 127–9, 142–57; Schäfer 2002, 155–64; Anson 2004, 184–8. 12 Diod. 19.30.5–6. For the expression ‘spearhead of the army’, see Hornblower 1981, 193; Bosworth 2002, 139 with n. 151. Losses: Diod. 19.31.5. 13 Diod. 19.27.2–6. See fig. 1, which focuses on the infantry in this battle. Diodorus’ totals of troops do not always tally with the figures he gives for the individual units. I follow the latter. 14 Hypaspists in Alexander’s battles: Arr. Anab. 1.14.2 (Granikos); 2.8.3 (Issos); 3.11.9, 13.6 (Gaugamela); 5.13.4 (Hydaspes). Eumenes’ hypaspists: Anson 1988, 132; Bosworth 2002, 83–4. 15 The battle lines: Diod. 19.27.1–29.1. The hills: Diod. 19.27.3; cf. Vezin 1907, 144. Antigonos’ observing Eumenes’ order: Diod. 19.29.1. Antigonos’ Macedonianequipped force might have included Macedonians (Anson 1980, 56), but such designation suggests that they were in a minority. For other reconstructions of the battle, see Devine 1985b, esp. 85, and Schäfer 2002, 149–54, esp. 151; Bosworth 2002, 127–41; Anson 2004, 176–81. Both Devine and Schäfer have Eumenes and Antigonos place cavalry and elephants left of the high ground, presuming an unlikely attack by Antigonos’ forces through the hills, and see Bosworth 2002, 132 n. 129.
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Diod. 19.29.7. Billows 1990, 96–7. Light-armed troops’ position: Diod. 19.28.2, cf. 30.4. Compare Alexander’s close formation against a numerically superior enemy in Gaugamela. Kahnes and Kromayer (1931, 412–13) speculate that Eumenes mixed the depth of his infantry to prevent outflanking, but this is nowhere attested. 18 Bosworth 2002, 134. In a private correspondence Bosworth has modified his reconstruction of the battle and has tentatively placed the Silver Shields against Antigonos’ Lykians and Pamphylians and mercenaries. My reconstruction would place the Silver Shields against Antigonos’ Macedonian-style troops. Macedonians fought Macedonians in Babylon in 323, as well as in Antigonos’ campaigns against the Perdikkans in 319. A long infantry battle: Diod. 19.30.5. 19 On the elephants in Paraitakene-, see Kahnes and Kromayer 1931, 418 with n. 1, but also Bosworth 2002, 138–9. - ne- and the Silver Shields’ performance: Diod. 19.40.3, 20 The phalanx at Gabe 41.1–3, 43.1; Plut. 16.6–8; and see Bosworth 2002, 154 with notes 199, 200. 21 Diod. 18.58.1, 59.3; cf. Plut. 13.1–5. 22 The Silver Shields’ royal reverence: Anson 1981, 119–20. Eumenes’ reputation and ties to Polyperchon: Bosworth 2002, 100–1. 23 Macedonians fought representatives of the throne in 320 under Neoptolemaios, Krateros and Antipater, and possibly Ptolemy, and in 319 under Eumenes, Alketas and his fellow commanders. Polyperchon’s instruction: Diod. 18.58.1. 20,000 talents: Simpson 1957. Loyalty to generals: Briant 1982, esp. 41–81; Anson 2004, 118. 24 Diod. 18.60.1–61.3; Plut. 13.5–8; Nepos 7.1–3; Polyaen. 4.8.2. 25 Diod. 19.15.1–4; for different interpretations of this ‘democracy’, see Briant 1982, 80n3 and Rzepka 2005, 138–39. 26 Plut. 14.4–11; cf. 16.1. Only commanders met and worshiped in the tent: Diod. 18.60.6–61.2; Plut. 13.7–8; Nepos 7; cf. Polyaen. 4.8.2. For views that Eumenes’ stratagem instituted a military cult for the veterans and the army, see e.g. Launey 1950, 945–7, followed by Picard 1954, 4–7. I cannot share Schäfer’s hypothesis (2002, esp. 21–37) that Eumenes aimed to create an imperial cult common to Macedonians, Greeks, and barbarians, and see Bosworth’s (2005, 685–6) criticism of it. 27 Briant 1982, 50–81; Schäfer 2002, 125–6; Anson 2004, 232–58; cf. Hornblower 1981, 156–7. 28 Resenting Eumenes’ ethnicity: Diod. 18.60.1–3; 19.13.1–2; Plut. 8.1–3; Nepos 7.1, but see also Diod. 18.62.7, and cf. Plut. 3.1. Eumenes himself stressed his alien origin when he deemed it useful to play the inferior: Diod. 18.60.3. Chersonesan plague: Plut. 18.2; Anson 1980, 56. 29 Charging Eumenes with killing Krateros: Diod. 18.37.1–2, 62.1–2; 19.12.1–3; Arr. Succ. 1.30; Plut. 8.11–4, 18.2; Nepos 5.1; App. Syr. 53; cf. Arr. Succ. 1.40. The Macedonians ignoring the charges: Diod. 18.59.4; as well offers to kill or desert him: Diod. 18.62.1–63.5; 19.12.1–3, 25.2–4; Plut. 8.11–12; Just. 14.1.9–14; Anson 1980, 55. Those who were tempted to desert Eumenes in the battle of Orkynia were not Macedonians: Diod. 18.40.5–8; Anson 2004, 128. Following this defeat, however, many left him: Diod. 18.41.1. 30 Just. 14.2.5–12. 31 For Gabênê, see n. 11 above. 32 Diod. 19.43.1–44.3; Plut. 17.1–19.3; Nepos 10.1–12.4; Just. 3.1–4.21; Polyaen. 17
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The silver shields, Eumenes and their historian 4.6.13. The Silver Shields’ later assignment: Diod. 19.48.3–4; Plut. 19.3; Just. 14.4.14; and see Polyaen. 4.6.15. 33 Esp. Plut. 17.1–18.2; Nepos 10.2, 11.5, 13.1; Just. 3.11, 14.4.1–16, and see also Diod. 19.43.8–9, 48.4, Heidelberg Epitome 3. Plutarch, however, also criticizes Eumenes for not dying nobly: Comp. Eum. et Sert. 2.4; cf. 18.7–9; Nepos 11.3–5; Bosworth 1992, 60–1. 34 The Silver Shields’ losses: Diod. 19.43.7; Plut. 18.2; Just. 14.3.3, 6–8, 10; Polyaen. 4.6.13; cf. Launey 1950: 785–90; Billows 1990, 102 n. 26; Anson 2004, 253–5. Troops’ loyalty and winning record: cf. Briant 1982: 53–61. Troops, baggage and loyalty: Parke 1933, 207; Loman 2005. 35 Polyaen. 4.6.13; Diod. 19.43.8; Plut. 17.1–2. 36 Antigenes’ foiling Antigonos’ attempt: Diod. 18.62.4–7. Teutamos’ image: Diod. 18.62.5; Vezin 1907, 122 (‘the worst agitator’); Bosworth 1992, 70; Heckel 1992, 315–16; Schäfer 2002, 125; cf. Hadley 2001, 14. 37 Plut. 17.5–18.1; Just. 14.4.1–14; cf. Diod. 19.43.9. Bosworth 1992, 63–4 identifies a common source behind Eumenes’ speeches in Plutarch and Justin; cf. Simpson 1959, 375. 38 The Silver Shields’ image: see above. Their relationship with Eumenes: e.g., Diod. 19.24.5; Plut. 14.1–9, and n. 29 above. Eumenes and Hieronymos: e.g., Hornblower 1981, esp. 5–11, 196–211. 39 Hieronymos on Peukestas: Hornblower 1981, 151; Schäfer 2002, 156; Anson 2004, 9. 40 Polyaen. 4.6.13. 41 Just. 14.3.6. 42 Plut. 17.3; cf. Heckel 1992, 315. 43 Diod. 19.48.3–4; Polyaen. 4.6.15. 44 Eumenes’ warnings: Plut. 17.8–11; Just. 14.4.5–6. Antigonos’ seeking Eumenes’ death earlier: n. 29 above. His imprisonment of Alketas’ commanders: Diod. 18.45.3; 19.16.1. 45 Antigonos’ wavering (and distrust of Eumenes): Diod. 19.44.1–2; Plut. 18.3–6; Nepos 10.3–11.2, 12.1–3; Jacoby 1913, 1541. Eumenes’ expecting death or release: Plut. 18.4; Nepos 11.3. Brown (1947, 687) doubts Antigonos’ hesitations, and Billows (1990, 104 n. 29) thinks that Hieronymos tried in this way to exonerate Antigonos of Eumenes’ death. But both Diodorus 19.44.2 and Plut. 19.1 are clear about Antigonos’ responsibility for his death. 46 The Silver Shields’ assignments: See n. 32 above. Hieronymos as the source: Engel 1972, 122; Hornblower 1981, 156, 192; Lane Fox in this volume. 47 Arachosia and Chandragupta: Schober 1981, 86, 93; Bosworth 2002, 164–5. Antipater and the Silver Shields: Arr. Succ. 1.35, 38. 48 Diod. 19.25.1–7. 49 See Hornblower 1981, 156.
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Joseph Roisman 1988 ‘Hypaspists and Argyraspides after 323’, AHB 2, 131–3. 2004 Eumenes of Cardia: A Greek among Macedonians, Boston and Leiden. Billows, R. A. 1990 Antigonus the One-eyed and the Creation of the Hellenistic State, Berkeley. 1995 Kings and Colonists: Aspects of Macedonian Imperialism, Leiden. Bing, J. D. 1973 ‘A further note on Cyinda/Kundi’, Historia 22, 346–50. Boiy, T 2007 Between High and Low: A chronology of the early Hellenistic age, Frankfurt am Main. Bosworth, A. B. 1992 ‘History and artifice in Plutarch’s Eumenes’, in P. A. Stadter (ed.) Plutarch and the Historical Tradition, London, 56–89. 2002 The Legacy of Alexander: Politics, warfare, and propaganda under the Successors, Oxford. 2005 ‘Review of C. Schäfer. 2002. Eumenes von Kardia und der Kampf um die Macht im Alexanderreich. Frankfurt am Main’, Gnomon 77.8, 684–8. Briant, P. 1982 Rois, tributs et paysans, Paris. Brown, T. S. 1947 ‘Hieronymus of Cardia’, American Historical Review 52.4, 684–96. Devine, A. M. 1985a ‘Diodorus’ account of the Battle of Gabiene’, AncW 12, 87–96. 1985b ‘Diodorus’ account of the Battle of Paraitacene (317 BC)’, AncW 12, 75–86. Engel, R. 1971 ‘Anmerkungen zur Schlacht von Orkynia’, Museum Helveticum 28, 227–31. 1972 ‘Zum Geschichtsbild des Hieronymos von Kardia’, Athenaeum 50, 120–5. Hadley, R. A. 2001 ‘A possible lost source for the career of Eumenes of Kardia’, Historia 50.1, 3–33. Hammond, N. G. L. 1994 Collected Studies, vol. 3, Amsterdam. Heckel, W. 1982 ‘The career of Antigenes’, Symbole Osloenses 57, 57–67. 1992 The Marshals of Alexander’s Empire, London and New York. Hornblower, J. 1981 Hieronymus of Cardia, Oxford. Jacoby, F. 1913 ‘Hieronymos von Kardia’, RE 8, no. 10, 1540–60. Kahnes, E., and Kromayer, J. 1931 ‘Drei Diadochenschlachten’, in J. Kromayer (ed.) Antike Schlachtfelder, Bausteine zu einer antiken Kriegsgeschichte, 1903–31, Berlin, 4: 391–446. Landucci Gatinoni, F. 1997 Duride di Samo, Rome. 2008 Diodoro Siculo, Biblioteca Storica Libro XVIII. Commento Storico, Milan. Launey, M. 1949–50 Recherches sur les armées hellénistiques, 2 vols, Paris.
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The silver shields, Eumenes and their historian Loman, P. 2005 ‘Mercenaries, their women, and colonisation’, Klio 87.2, 346–65. Parke, H.W. 1933 Greek Mercenary Soldiers from the Earliest Times to the Battle of Ipsus, Chicago. Picard, C. 1954 ‘Le trône vide d’Alexandre dans la cérémonie de Cyinda et le culte du trône vide à travers le monde gréco-romain’, Cahiers Archéologiques 7, 1–17. Roisman, J. 2010a ‘Hieronymus of Cardia: causation and bias from Alexander to his Successors’, in E. Carney and D. Ogden (eds) Philip II and Alexander the Great: Father and Son, Lives and Afterlives, Oxford. 2010b ‘Perdikkas’ invasion of Egypt’, in H. Hauben and A. Meeus (eds), The Age of the Successors (323–276 BC ) (Studia hellenistica), Leuven. Rosen, K. 1967 ‘Political documents in Hieronymus of Cardia’, Acta Classica 10, 41–94. Rzepka, J. 2005 ‘Koine Ekklesia in Diodorus Siculus and the general assemblies of the Macedonians’, Tyche, 20, 119–42. Sacks, K. S. 1990 Diodorus Siculus and the First Century, Princeton. Schäfer, C. 2002 Eumenes von Kardia und der Kampf um die Macht im Alexanderreich, Frankfurt am Main. Schober, L. 1981 Untersuchungen zur Geschicht Babyloniens und der Oberen Satrapien von 323–303 v. Chr, Frankfurt am Main. Simpson, R. H. 1957 ‘A note on Cyinda’, Historia 6, 503–4. 1959 ‘Abbreviation in Hieronymus in Diodorus’. AJP 80, 370–9. Vezin, A. 1907 Eumenes von Kardia: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Diadochenzeit, Münster.
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5 FROM SATRAPY TO HELLENISTIC KINGDOM: THE CASE OF EGYPT Alan B. Lloyd The purpose of this chapter is to track the process by which Egypt moved from being a province of the Persian Empire to becoming one of the great Successor kingdoms. This process was inevitably driven by several key imperatives, above all by the attitudes and actions of the conquerors and the reactions of the Egyptian population to their lords and masters. I propose to define and evaluate the workings of these factors insofar as the available evidence permits. First, we need a brief historical synopsis: the reconquest of Egypt by Artaxerxes III Ochus in 343/2 BC inaugurated the second period of Persian domination in Egypt and brought to an end some sixty years of Egyptian self-government.1 A good case can be made that Artaxerxes’ initial conquest was short-lived and had to be repeated soon afterwards. I developed this thesis some twenty years ago on the basis of an analysis of the fragments of Ps-Manetho on the Thirty-first Dynasty (i.e. the second and last Achaemenid dynasty in Egypt), arguing that this material allows us to locate the successful, if brief, reign of the native king Khababash at the beginning of the time-slot to which we assign these Persian rulers.2 Artaxerxes regained control in 338, and the province remained under Persian rule for the rest of his reign, through that of Arses, and for a short time under Darius III Codomannus until Alexander occupied the country late in 332. On Alexander’s death one of his senior generals and close associates Ptolemy, son of Lagos,3 acquired the office of satrap of Egypt and its associated territories. Technically, and nominally, Philip Arrhidaios and Alexander’s posthumous son by Roxane, Alexander IV, functioned as kings,4 but the conflict between the Successors to determine whether the empire remained a unity or fragmented into its major geographical subdivisions led after the Battle of Salamis in 306 to all the major players declaring themselves kings. From 305 Ptolemy was Pharaoh to the Egyptians and a Macedonian king to everyone else. This course of events yields four major phases to consider: 1. The Second Persian Period; 2. The
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Alan B. Lloyd reign of Alexander in Egypt; 3. The Satrapy of Ptolemy; and 4. The establishment of the Ptolemaic kingdom. 1. The Second Persian Period The second Persian domination of Egypt was short-lived and unstable. It got off to a bad start which is vividly described by Diodorus of Sicily (16.51.2–3): Artaxerxes, after taking over all Egypt and demolishing the walls of the most important cities, by plundering the shrines gathered a vast quantity of silver and gold, and he carried off the inscribed records from the ancient temples, which later on Bagoas returned to the Egyptian priests on the payment of huge sums by way of ransom. Then when he had rewarded the Greeks who had accompanied him on the campaign with lavish gifts, each according to his deserts, he dismissed them to their native lands; and, having installed Pherendates as satrap of Egypt, he returned with his army to Babylon, bearing many possessions and spoils and having won great renown by his successes.
It is extremely probable that this negative perspective on Artaxerxes is reflected in the Satrap Stele to which I shall need to refer at a number of points in this chapter; this text dates to Regnal Year 7 of Alexander IV but is known as ‘The Satrap Stele’ because it was, in reality, set up by Ptolemy when he was still officially functioning as the satrap of Egypt.5 The stele reads: Then His Majesty (i.e. Ptolemy) said to those who were beside him: ‘This marshland, inform me (about it)!,’ so that they said before His Majesty: ‘The northern marshland, whose name is The Land of Edjo, it formerly belonged to the gods of Pe and Dep, before the enemy Xerxes (i.e. Artaxerxes) revoked it.6 He did not make offerings from it to the gods of Pe and Dep.’ Horus the son of Isis, the son of Osiris, ruler of rulers, the ideal Upper Egyptian King, the ideal Lower Egyptian King, the protector of his father, the Lord of Pe, the foremost of the gods who came into existence afterwards, after whom there is no king, expelled the enemy Xerxes from his (Egyptian) palace together with his eldest son; thus it is perceived in Sais of Neith today beside the God’s Mother.
Artaxerxes’ reputation remained consistently bad. Plutarch (De Iside 11 [355C]) describes him as the most ‘savage’ (o-mos), and most fearful of Egyptian kings who killed many Egyptians and, in the end, even butchered the Apis bull and feasted on the proceeds with his friends. We are told that, as a result, he was known as ‘Knife’ in Egypt. Plutarch later adds (31[363C]) that Ochus was the most hated of the Persian kings and was identified with the donkey which was a Typhonic beast. Aelian (VH 10.28)
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From satrapy to Hellenistic kingdom: the case of Egypt agrees on his treatment of the Apis bull and has a modified version of the donkey issue in that he claims that it was divinised by Ochus to cause the Egyptians as much distress as possible. Whether any of this is true is very much an open question, but the probability must be that there is a certain amount of assimilation of Artaxerxes to Cambyses, Egypt’s first Persian conqueror.7 That, however, matters little, as far as we are concerned, because it is the Egyptian image of the king and Egyptian attitudes towards him that matter for our purposes. Although the Second Persian Period lasted for some ten years, as yet we have no hieroglyphic monumental texts surviving from the period, except for Khababash. There is a lid made of faience bearing the name of Arses in hieroglyphs, but it is not certain that the inscription is genuine,8 and the one hieroglyphic reference to Darius III dates to the reign of Alexander.9 This contrasts strongly with Alexander’s reign in Egypt which lasted about the same length of time as the Second Persian Period and is represented by a number of hieroglyphic texts (see below). This situation is highly significant. Hieroglyphic texts could be expected to relate to public works which would be attributed to the ruling kings. Nothing of the sort is reported for the second domination, and this absence of material must reflect the precarious position of the country at this stage, a circumstance created by a lethal cocktail of Persian disdain for things Egyptian and the unremitting hostility of the Egyptians to their Persian masters. The invasion of the Macedonian renegade Amyntas is symptomatic. After Issos in 333 we find him arriving with a force of 3000 mercenaries in Egypt intending to take the country over (Diod. 17.48). We are informed that the Egyptians were always at odds with their governors, that Persian rule was characterized by harshness, lack of respect for the temples, greed, and arrogance, and that this situation made Amyntas’ task all the easier, enabling him to get control of Pelusium and foment an Egyptian rebellion whose supporters promptly started wiping out the Persian garrisons. These successes did not last; for, although Amyntas defeated the Persians in battle and drove them into Memphis, he was subsequently killed in a Persian counterattack in the course of which his force was wiped out. Whatever the end result of their activities, there is clear evidence that the Persians tried to operate on the same basis as they had done in the much longer first domination, i.e. a Persian macrostructure was overlaid on the traditional Egyptian ways of running things, and Egyptians were used as and when it suited. Only one certain high-ranking case is available in the form of Somtutefnakht.10 A member of a distinguished family of Herakleopolis Magna, he found himself involved in the Battle of Issos and provides a clear parallel to the earlier dignitary Udjahorresnet who had
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Alan B. Lloyd achieved high rank in the late Saite Period and maintained that status under Cambyses and Darius.11 Somtutefnakht will not have been unique. During the First Persian Period Egyptian military assets were used on some scale,12 and, although the evidence for our period in general is minuscule, it is probable that Egyptian forces were present at Issos: Sabaces, the satrap of Egypt, was killed there (Arr. Anab. 2.11.8), and we are told by Curtius (3.11.9–10) that he had a large army which must surely have consisted of a significant contingent of Egyptian troops. On the economic front the beginnings of an Egyptian-generated coinage which we already find in the XXXth Dynasty were continued since we find coins of Artaxerxes with his name in demotic. These issues, which derive from Memphis, clearly take their lead from Athenian coinage, and they are supplemented by other issues made in the name of satraps whose names are inscribed on the verso in Aramaic.13 Overall there is enough evidence to make it clear that the Persian intention in Egypt was to apply their standard approach to imperial possessions, i.e. to accept the local system, if it worked, and impose an Achaemenid macrosystem of government on top whose major function was the economic exploitation of the province.14 2. The reign of Alexander the Great Alexander got to Egypt in the second half of November 332. It was by then under the control of Mazaces who surrendered the province without a fight (Arr. Anab. 3.1.2; 3.22.1; Curtius, 4.7). The native population were clearly more than happy to see the back of the Persians and acquiesced in the change of masters without opposition. Alexander’s actions in Egypt show points of similarity and difference to the Persian approach. Curtius emphasizes (4.7.5) that he respected Egyptian traditions in his arrangements, and Arrian (Anab. 3.1.4) makes the pointed comment that he sacrificed to the Apis bull, evidently in contrast to the notorious contempt allegedly shown to this sacred animal by Cambyses and Artaxerxes III. Alexander’s arrangements for the governance of the satrapy were very much in line with this conciliatory policy since he entrusted the civil administration initially to two Egyptians called Doloaspis and Petisis who were each to control half of the country, and, when Petisis declined the honour, Doloaspis was placed in charge of the whole of Egypt. This approach marked a considerable change from the Persian system; if Alexander had followed that model, he would have placed a Greek or a Macedonian in this position, as, indeed, he did with Libya which was placed under Apollodoros. The old system of provincial administration based on nomarchs was left in place to operate as it had done for centuries; it had proved its worth, and Alexander wisely left well alone, not least, of course,
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From satrapy to Hellenistic kingdom: the case of Egypt because his chief concern was to get on with the war with Persia. There were, however, two areas where control was kept firmly out of Egyptian hands: first, Greek and Macedonian garrisons were located in the key strategic cities of Memphis and Pelusium – and certainly elsewhere, though we are not told that – and the overall military control of the province was located firmly in Greek and Macedonian hands; secondly, the taxation of both Egypt and Libya was placed under the control of Kleomenes of Naukratis, a measure which reflects a determination to extract the maximum return for the ruling power and, therefore, mirrors a key aspect of Achaemenid policy – the satrapies were there as part of the Great King’s estate, and they were to be exploited as such15 – and Alexander is presented as being very conscious of the wealth of Egypt and revenues which it generated (Arr. Anab. 7.9.8). The Egyptians soon had good reason to rue this appointment because Kleomenes soon showed himself every bit as rapacious as his Persian predecessors and probably a greater racketeer than any of them. As for Doloaspis, he soon disappeared from the scene, and we are informed in several sources that the disreputable Kleomenes was then appointed satrap.16 The foundation of Alexandria, a key event of Alexander’s reign in Egypt, is described by Arrian (Anab. 3.1.5–2.2) and Plutarch (Alexander 26. 3–10) in colourful and somewhat fanciful terms,17 but they both emphasize the economic advantages of the site, and there can be little doubt that these were a large part of Alexander’s motivation, particularly in the light of his recent destruction of the great Phoenician emporium of Tyre which created the perfect context for the diversion of the trade of the Eastern Mediterranean to the new Egyptian site. However, the Egyptian name, ‘The Fortress of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt Merikaamonsetepuenre, son of Re, Alexander’, emphasizes its military dimensions, at least as they were perceived by the Egyptians at the end of the fourth century.18 Both perspectives are clearly correct, as far as they go, but they miss the most important aspect of the foundation, i.e. that Alexandria was a city established on the west coast of the Delta and never perceived by Greeks or their Roman successors as lying in Egypt proper.19 Its location is an unequivocal pointer to the future: for Alexander and the Ptolemaic rulers who followed him the focus of attention was to be the traditional centres of Greek and Macedonian political and military activity in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean. Alexandria pointed north and northwest, and it was in those areas where they wished to make their mark politically, culturally, and militarily. As far as the Egyptians were concerned, this new and benign ruler was accepted without compunction as the most recent tenant of the throne of
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Alan B. Lloyd the Pharaohs. According to the Alexander Romance (1 34),20 Alexander was crowned as Pharaoh at Memphis. Nothing is more likely, but the Romance is a source of dubious historical reliability and does not provide a basis for total confidence. It is, however, beyond dispute that he was treated by the Egyptian elite as a Pharaoh in the fullest sense. A stele relating to the sacred Buchis bulls of Hermonthis represents Alexander engaged in worshipping the sacred animal,21 and there is a series of inscriptions referring to templebuilding activities during Alexander’s reign, for example: a) Inscription over the door of a sanctuary built in his time in the festival temple of Tuthmose III at Karnak:22 Life to the Horus, the valiant ruler who attacks foreign lands, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Meryamun23 Setepuenre, the Son of Re, Lord of Diadems, Alexandros. b) Inscription inside this chamber:24 The renewal of a monument performed by the King of Upper and Lower Egypt Meryamun Setepuenre, the son of Re, Lord of Diadems, Alexandros, may he live forever, after he found it built under the Majesty of the Horus Strong Bull Khaemwaset, the Lord of the Two Lands, Menkheperre, son of Re, Tuthmose, beautiful (or uniter)25 of appearances, beloved of Amon-re, lord of heaven, king of the gods, creator of that which exists... c) Inscription of Alexander’s reign from sanctuary in the temple of Amenhotep III at Luxor :26 The renewal of a monument performed by the King of Upper and Lower Egypt Meryamun Setepuenre, the son of Re, Lord of Diadems, Alexandros, for his father Amon-re Lord of the Thrones of the Two Lands, Foremost of Karnak, making the sanctuary anew from fine sandstone after it existed from the time of the Majesty of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt Nebmaatre, son of Re, Amenhotep, Ruler of Waset. d) Inscription relating to the same monument (from the door):27 Amon-re, the Bull of his Mother, the Great God, Foremost of Karnak, given all life, all stability and power, all health, gives life to the Horus, Protector of Egypt, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Meryamun Setepuenre, son of Re, Alexandros who renovated the monument for his father Amon-re.
The first thing to do here is to define the context for these texts.28 It is often said of these and related inscriptions that they record that ‘this or that king built’ the structure in question, but such statements involve a fundamental misunderstanding of the way that these operations were carried out. All such texts need mean is that the building works were carried out during Alexander’s reign, and he probably had no knowledge of them
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From satrapy to Hellenistic kingdom: the case of Egypt and was probably not in any sense an initiator.29 The value of the texts lies elsewhere. In the first place, it is highly significant that they exist at all since they reflect the acceptance by at least a section of the priestly elite of Alexander’s kingship in Egypt, a phenomenon which does not seem to be paralleled at all during the Second Persian Period. Alexander is, therefore, given a full royal titulary. There is, however, more to be said: they all appear in some of the greatest temples in the land; the language and formulae are in all respects traditional; the prenomen contains elements of that of Ramesses II 30 and also echoes elements in names of recent Egyptian kings; there is talk of involvement in restoration of shrines, a classic action of Egyptian kings; this restoration brings Alexander into relationship with two of the greatest Egyptian Pharaohs, Tuthmose III, the Napoleon of Ancient Egypt, and Amenhotep III, the Louis XIV; it is the martial prowess of the king which is particularly emphasized, but it should be noted that Alexander is presented as an Egyptian king who attacks foreign countries, not as a foreigner coming into Egypt, and by the same token he is presented through his Horus name as ‘Protector of Egypt’, which again presents him in a benign pose. Above all, these texts bear witness to a new confidence in Egypt created by the presence of a new ruler with a recognized commitment to things Egyptian, and, as always, that confidence manifests itself in the resurgence of monumental building. 3. The Satrapy of Ptolemy, son of Lagos Alexander was succeeded on his death in 323 by his half-brother Philip III Arrhidaios who was later joined by Alexander’s posthumous son by Roxane Alexander IV (II of Egypt), but the real power lay with the regent Perdikkas. The years from 323 to 301 are marked by military conflict to determine the fate of Alexander’s Empire. Would it remain a unity or collapse into its constituent geographical parts? In the division of satrapies which took place immediately after Alexander’s death Ptolemy received Egypt, Libya, and part of Arabia with Kleomenes as his deputy, and these arrangements were confirmed by the settlement of Triparadeisos in 320. Philip Arrhidaios (323–17) appears in a number of hieroglyphic sources as Pharaoh: a) Dedicatory inscription of Philip at Hermopolis:31 Life to the Horus ‘Protector (?) of the Two Lands’, The Two Ladies ‘Ruler of Foreign Lands’, The Horus of Gold Meriu (Beloved of Districts?), The King of Upper and Lower Egypt Merykaamun32 Setepuenre,33 The Son of Re, Lord of Diadems, Philippos, Beloved of Thoth, Lord of Hermopolis, given life like Re.
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Alan B. Lloyd b) Inscription from Karnak relating to the work in his reign at Karnak:34 The renovation of the monument by the Good God Meryamun Setepuenre. c) Inscription relating to the sanctuary built in his reign at Karnak:35 The Majesty of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Lord of the Two Lands, Lord of Action, Meryamun Setepuenre, Son of Re of his body, beloved of him, Philippos found the sanctuary of Amun fallen into ruin, which was built in the time of the Majesty of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt Menkheperre, son of Re of his body, beloved of him, Lord of Diadems, Djehutymose. His Majesty built it anew of granite as an efficient work of eternity, may he be granted all life, stability, power, all health and joy like Re eternally. The Horus, the Strong Bull, Merymaat, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt Meryamun Setepuenre, Son of Re, Philippos. He made his memorial for his father Amon-re, Lord of the Thrones of the Two Lands, Foremost of Karnak.
The message emerging from these texts is very much of a piece with that in the inscriptions of Alexander. Philip is given a full royal titulary elements of which are shared with Alexander, suggesting continuity; it emphasizes his role as a protector and his rule over foreign lands; he is associated with the classic royal function of renovating Egyptian religious monuments, in this case the major shrines of Karnak and Hermopolis; and he is also associated with a great conqueror, i.e. Tuthmose III. The Satrap Stele of Alexander IV (311 BC) also presents the other putative Macedonian ruler as Pharaoh in the fullest sense of the term. It manages to misspell his name consistently,36 but we get a full titulary, even if the epithets are rather bland: they emphasize his youth and strength, his relationship to the gods of Egypt, his position as the heir of Alexander, and the extent of his rule. Intriguingly the first element of his prenomen is identical with that of the XXVIth Dynasty Pharaoh Apries, a congruence which could well be intentional.37 A particularly interesting feature of the Satrap Stele is the light it throws on the position of Ptolemy at this stage or, at least, the Egyptian perception of it. It is, to say the least, equivocal. Ptolemy is, in effect, the person in power in Egypt, but he is formally subordinate to the two successors of Alexander and carefully maintains that façade until 305 by which time other Successor rulers had already declared themselves kings. This curious position emerges strikingly in line 2 of the stele where we read: ‘His Majesty (Alexander) is in the midst of the Asiatics, while a great prince is in Egypt, whose name is Ptolemy.’ Subsequently he is also given the Persian title ‘satrap’, but there is considerable ambiguity in the text and an oscillation between regarding him as the ‘great prince’ or as a king, an ambiguity which
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From satrapy to Hellenistic kingdom: the case of Egypt was probably less embarrassing to the Egyptian composers of the text than it would have been to Ptolemy at this stage. There are, however, numerous pointers to the future in this document: Ptolemy is described using a string of epithets of a traditional type in which particular emphasis is placed on martial prowess, though, intriguingly, his youth is also to the fore; he is said to have brought back images and other sacred objects from Asia and restored them to the temples,38 i.e. again we have the king as restorer of the right order; his residence is stated to be Alexandria, a fact which brings with it a major shift in the centre-of-gravity of the kingdom; there are references to victories in Syria and Nubia which are historical events,39 but it is worth remembering that campaigning in these areas was part of the traditional agenda of the Egyptian king; he shows piety to Egyptian temples, particularly to those of Buto, to which he restored rights taken away by the Persians; and he takes account of the ‘grandees of Lower Egypt’ who are brought into the decision-making process. 4. The establishment of the Ptolemaic kingdom In 305 Ptolemy assumed the title of king, following the lead of Antigonos and Demetrios, and thereby marked the critical change in Egypt’s status from that of a province of the Persian or Macedonian empires to that of an independent kingdom. Nevertheless, this change did not affect the orientation of its ruler, already adumbrated by Alexander, which remained resolutely focused to the north and north-west of the country, and this situation, alongside other trends which Ptolemy continued or established, set the scene for the subsequent evolution of Ptolemaic kingship. Ptolemy’s change of status did, however, create a problem: now that he and his successors were kings, it was necessary to find an acceptable validation for their position, an issue rendered more complex than for previous Egyptian kings by the variety of constituencies which had to be addressed. Not only did they have to take account of the Egyptians and Macedonians, but the Macedonian acquisition of Egypt saw a large influx of Greeks as settlers in the country. The Egyptians were straightforward. For them the only possible formulation of royal power was the Pharaonic office, and they simply slotted Ptolemy I and his family into the Pharaonic position previously occupied by Alexander the Great, Arrhidaios, and Alexander IV, but the Ptolemies also became Macedonian kings and had to adopt and, if necessary, adapt the Macedonian concept and practice of the kingly office which had a number of systemic features not all of which were assets: the Argead royal house to which Alexander belonged claimed descent from Herakles and hence from Zeus, and it followed that these rulers had an
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Alan B. Lloyd inbuilt element of divinity. Not surprisingly, therefore, the right to rule was in some measure conferred by blood, but this was not sufficient in itself because no member of the royal bloodline could rule unless he had been acclaimed king by the army. The Macedonian king, once appointed, had three main functions: to command the army, to operate as a priest who guaranteed the good will of the gods towards the kingdom, and to act as judge.40 Another marked feature of the history of the Macedonian royal house was the power wielded de facto by strong and ambitious women which contributed not a little to endemic dynastic instability, and that was aggravated by the practice of royal polygamy and promiscuous relationships with concubines which inevitably generated multiple aspirants and claimants to the throne.41 Ultimately, therefore, the critical factors in determining who functioned as a Macedonian king were strength and ability. The author of the Suda (s.v. Basileia (2)) aptly wrote of the harsh realities of the Macedonian brand of kingship in the following terms: It is neither descent nor legitimacy which gives monarchies to men, but the ability to command an army and to handle affairs competently. Such was the case with Philip and the Successors of Alexander.42
Not surprisingly, the translation of Ptolemy, son of Lagos, into a Macedonian king brought with it into Egypt this Macedonian pattern of behaviour whose operation within the history of the dynasty is all too easy to detect. Claiming kingship is one thing; gaining the assent of the ruled is quite another matter, and the early Ptolemies clearly took the view that simply assuming Argead ancestry was not an adequate legitimisation of the Ptolemaic royal house in Macedonian eyes. This deficiency Ptolemy I set about remedying with great skill. One strand in his strategy was almost inevitably to try to establish a close association with Alexander, an issue which he had already begun to address well before he claimed the kingship by grabbing the body of Alexander when it was being transported from Babylon to Macedon and interring it in Alexandria where it enjoyed considerably more than talismanic value.43 With this as their starting point the early Ptolemaic kings were able to develop yet another brand of kingship rooted firmly in a Greek context, i.e. the ruler cult, which made it possible to acquire the status of a living god and a cult to match. This was made all the easier by the fact that the line between the human and divine had always been pervious in the Greek world, and the vast power wielded by Hellenistic captains and kings made it even easier to cross the boundary, a process much helped by Hellenistic philosophical discussions of the nature of kingship: e.g. the Neopythagorean Diotogenes could comment
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From satrapy to Hellenistic kingdom: the case of Egypt without any qualms: ‘...majesty is a kind of imitation of a god, and can rouse the wonder and awe of the multitude’.44 We can see the beginnings of this process with Alexander’s demand for divine honours in 324 and even more strikingly in the divine honours accorded to Antigonos Monophthalmos by Skepsis in 31145 and those given by Athens to Antigonos and Demetrios Poliorketes in 307 (Plut. Demetr. 10).46 We already find Ptolemy I being accorded the epithet So-te-r, ‘Saviour’, a title applied to many Greek deities, and Ptolemy II set the scene for the development of the classic Hellenistic ruler cult when he consolidated the dynasty’s relationship with Alexander by setting up a state cult of Alexander with an eponymous magistrate practising Greek ritual. This was the first step in the development of the Ptolemaic hiera oikia or ‘sacred household’, which eventually involved all Ptolemaic rulers and their wives, living or dead.47 This body of concepts even impacted on the Egyptian temples where we encounter the Ptolemies as synnaoi theoi, ‘shrine-sharing deities’, a very Greek and most un-Egyptian practice.48 This process brought with it the application to Ptolemaic kings of further titles with religious overtones such as euergete-s, ‘benefactor’, and epiphane-s, ‘manifest’. The upshot of this process was that the Ptolemies had devised a validation for their power which was comprehensible and acceptable to the Greek constituency within their empire, though we may suspect that its claims were not infrequently met with the cynical pragmatism attributed to the Spartans when they received Alexander’s request to be treated as a god: ‘Since Alexander wishes to be a god, let him be a god!’ (Ael. VH 2.19). One novel feature of Ptolemaic kingship was the introduction by Ptolemy II of full brother-sister marriage into the royal house. Though this is frequently claimed to have an Egyptian origin, there seems to be no basis for this assertion. However, there are precedents both in Greek and Egyptian mythology, and they may well have served as prototypes for a practice which fitted perfectly into the ethos of the ruler cult as well as having the distinct political advantage of ensuring that a senior princess could not marry someone else of dubious credentials and even more dubious motivation, and in the murderous cut-and-thrust of Ptolemaic dynastic politics that was no mean advantage. The practice could also serve as a basis for claims that the royal blood was being kept pure.49 As indicated earlier, although the king was now based in Egypt, unlike the Great King of Persia, the focus of royal attention lay firmly on the traditional contexts of Greek and Macedonian activity, i.e. Greece, the Balkans, the Aegean Sea and its coastal areas and the Eastern Mediterranean, and the people the Ptolemies were concerned to impress above all else were Macedonians and Greeks. To realise this aim three
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Alan B. Lloyd things were necessary: an army, a fleet, and lamprotês, ‘splendour’. These, in turn, required large resources, and that is where Egypt acquired cardinal importance. It was the fabled wealth of the country that was going to make all this possible, and efficient economic exploitation was very much a guiding principle of Ptolemaic rule, though we must be careful to readjust our perceptions of how exactly that worked. For it has only recently been realized that we have been working with a distorted image of this system which arose through privileging the evidence from the Fayum and that the picture of a highly centralized and directed economy suggested by evidence from that very untypical part of the country is greatly exaggerated. It is now clear that the Ptolemaic approach was based on the eminently sensible realization that the Egyptians had already devised the best way to run their country and, where this was running with acceptable efficiency, they left well alone.50 The critical requirement was that the economy should generate the resources which the Ptolemies needed, and all options were on the table to achieve that aim. It was very much part of this pragmatic policy that the Ptolemies – particularly the early members of the dynasty – took great care to keep the Egyptian elite happy, though there has undoubtedly been a tendency to underplay this issue in the literature. If this stratum was satisfied, the chances were that the kingdom would function successfully and make its full contribution to meeting the Ptolemaic agenda. The priests were key figures here; the High Priests of Memphis enjoyed a particularly close relationship with the Ptolemaic government,51 but the Ptolemies cast their net much more widely amongst the ecclesiastical community. Not surprisingly temple building became a major feature of Egyptian life under the Ptolemies, and many of the finest and most spectacular surviving temple structures belong to this period.52 This situation contrasts most strikingly with that visible during the First Persian Period for which, despite its length, there is surprisingly little evidence of large-scale architectural work, and the Second Persian Period has nothing to offer – the Persians were quite simply more interested in economic exploitation and paid little more than lip-service to the cultural aspirations of their Egyptian subjects. We should see the close relationship between the first two Ptolemies and Manetho, a high priest from the Delta city of Sebennytos, in very much the same light; he is only the best known and most visible exemplar of a shrewd policy of identifying able ecclesiastics who could be mobilized to serve the ends of the government. This stalwart was commissioned to write a history of Egypt from its very beginnings down to the last native dynasty to the greater glory of Egypt in general and that of the Ptolemaic kingdom in particular. He is also alleged to have acted as an agent in the development
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From satrapy to Hellenistic kingdom: the case of Egypt of the cult of the god Serapis.53 This syncretistic deity, invented probably for, if not by, Ptolemy I, was intended to function as a god who would be acceptable to both Egyptian and non-Egyptian alike, but he sadly proved a complete failure as an integrating mechanism, despite his enormous and increasing success amongst the Greek-speaking population.54 The priests were not the only segment of the elite – indeed, given the inveterate pluralism of the upper echelons of Egyptian society priestly office would often be only one of a series of functions which an individual might discharge. Here again the Ptolemies trod very carefully. There is evidence to suggest that the eldest son of Nectanebo II, the last native king of Egypt, held high rank in the early Ptolemaic Period,55 and we find Senenshepsu and Usermaatre featuring as high-ranking figures with court functions in the very early Ptolemaic Period.56 Furthermore, Egyptians seem to be operating as nomarchs (provincial governors) in the mid-third century BC.57 Here, of course, we are confronted simply with individuals revealed to us by a very randomly preserved data-set which may well be giving us a very limited picture of a much more typical phenomenon than we are inclined to credit. We should never forget the clear evidence of the operation of great and ambitious elite families from the last years of Egyptian independence nor of the Satrap Stele’s reference to ‘the grandees of Lower Egypt’.58 These groups or power blocks would not have disappeared and must have continued to be a focus of power, if only at a local level. Dedicated pragmatists like Ptolemy I and II would not have failed to recognize that and will have turned the phenomenon very much to their advantage. There is, however, one group of the erstwhile Egyptian elite which did not enjoy great prominence in the early Ptolemaic period, the military. Alexander is known to have made use of Egyptian sailors in India (Arr. Anab. 6.1.6), but there is no reference to his using Egyptian soldiers at any point. There is some evidence of the existence of native Egyptian generals from the early Ptolemaic period, but, although the Machimoi (‘Warrior’) class continues to function and appears in a subordinate role at the Battle of Gaza in 312, it did not form part of the elite of the army under the earliest Ptolemies and did not acquire that status until the reign of Ptolemy IV who was compelled to train them to operate as members of a Macedonian phalanx which they did with conspicuous success at the Battle of Raphia in 217.59 This development, of course, reveals the reason for this temporary eclipse: as long as it was still possible to acquire Macedonian and Greek troops trained to fight in the Macedonian manner, it was easier and more convenient to employ them. Once that supply began to dry up, the Ptolemies had to look elsewhere, and members of the Machimoi were
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Alan B. Lloyd trained up to fight in this modern fashion with which they had previously been quite unfamiliar. At this point it will be clear that the economic and administrative structure of the country had been well orchestrated to provide the resource-base for the early Ptolemies’ political and military ambitions, and it comes as no great surprise to find the historian Appian, a native of Alexandria, writing (History of Rome, Preface 10): The kings of my country alone had an army consisting of 200,000 foot, 40,000 horse, 300 war elephants, and 2000 armed chariots, and arms in reserve for 300,000 soldiers more. This was their force for land service. For naval service they 2000 barges propelled by poles, and other smaller craft, 1500 galleys ranging from hemiolia to pentêrês,60 and galley furniture for twice as many ships, 800 vessels provided with cabins, gilded on stem and stern for the pomp of war, with which the kings themselves were wont to go to naval combats; and money in their treasuries to the amount of 740,000 Egyptian talents. Such was the state of preparedness for war shown by the royal accounts as recorded and left by the king of Egypt second in succession after Alexander [i.e Ptolemy II Philadelphos], who was the most formidable of these rulers in his preparations.61
Even allowing for some exaggeration,62 we can take these figures as an indication of the enormous success that the early rulers of the dynasty enjoyed in building up the power and wealth of their kingdom. Apart from military muscle, all of this could, and did, contribute to the generation of that most desirable of acquisitions lamprotês, ‘splendour’; the navy, in particular, with its emphasis on large and powerful polyremes could be used as a means of projecting an image of inexhaustible might and riches, but the Ptolemies went well beyond that and exploited many different devices. Alexandria itself was a tool of political and, above all, dynastic propaganda, and enormous sums were expended on the creation of a city which had no rival in the Hellenistic world so that Strabo (17.1.8), who visited Alexandria shortly after the Roman conquest, leaves us in no doubt of its capacity to dazzle the visitor or of the motivation of its creators: The city has magnificent public precincts and the royal palaces, which cover a fourth or even a third of the entire city area. For just as each of the kings would from love of splendour add some ornament to the public monuments, so he would provide himself at his own expense with a residence in addition to those already standing, so that now, to quote Homer, ‘there is building after building’.
Other major features such as the Lighthouse, the Royal Tombs including that of Alexander, the splendid and conspicuous temple of Serapis which could be seen from far out to sea, the Library, and the Museum, can all be
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From satrapy to Hellenistic kingdom: the case of Egypt regarded, apart from their utilitarian value, as further enhancements of the city as a grand and incomparable visual spectacle.63 It could also function as a theatre for dazzling state show pieces like the Great Procession of Ptolemy II of 270 which broadcasts strident messages about royal power, wealth, and aspirations as well as projecting sharply focused claims to royal legitimacy and the antecedents of the dynasty.64 It goes even beyond that. Whilst Greek attitudes to Egypt were nothing if not polyvalent, they show enormous admiration for and fascination with the exotic and frequently bizarre culture of Pharaonic Egypt. In the orchestration and contextualization of the procession Ptolemy shows a determination to acquire that for the dynasty by the careful injection of things Egyptian which can do nothing but enhance the éclat of this great public show. In this, of course, he exemplifies a recurrent Ptolemaic determination, most obviously in the visual arts, to meld the mystery and exoticism of this millennial civilization with his own Graeco-Macedonian culture to add a uniquely piquant element of strangeness to the image of the royal house.65 5. Conclusions At the beginning of this chapter I stated that I wanted to track the process by which Egypt moved from being a satrapy of the Persian Empire to become the kingdom of the Ptolemies, and that this would involve an analysis of the attitudes and behaviour of the conquerors and the reactions of their Egyptian subjects. The approach of the Persians admits of no doubt. They were determined to bring a recalcitrant satrapy back under control by any means necessary and were determined to extract the maximum economic benefit from its resources. Whilst there is good evidence of their use of locals for administrative purposes, it is clear that their rule was harsh, arrogant, and repressive, and that they were determined to teach the Egyptians a lesson which they would never forget to ensure that they never left the Persian fold again. This policy backfired on them in that it created such a degree of resentment that the province remained unstable throughout the Second Persian Period and created a climate of disaffection which made the conquest by Alexander nothing more than a military promenade. The reign of Alexander as Pharaoh and the satrapy of Ptolemy were very much mediating phases in preparing Egypt for the Ptolemaic dynasty. Alexander’s main concern was to deprive the Persians of the wealth and military resources of Egypt and then to get on with the war as quickly as possible. He, therefore, showed a marked respect for local traditions and administrative practice and, in the main, followed Egyptian custom except that the major military functions and supervision of taxation were kept
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Alan B. Lloyd firmly under Macedonian control. However, short though his time in Egypt was, he was able to inaugurate a seismic shift in the kingdom whereby Egypt came to locate itself in the wider Graeco-Macedonian world rather than forming part of a great Asiatic empire, and this process accelerates between 323 and 305. Ptolemy I consolidated these trends, thereby making it once more an independent kingdom: he established himself and his dynasty in the country on a permanent basis, and, like Alexander, he showed sensitivity to the susceptibilities of the Egyptians and used Egyptians where he could. He even attempted through the development of the cult of Serapis to create a common religious bond, though this was conspicuously unsuccessful. The issue of the validation of Ptolemaic kingship was carefully addressed to meet the requirements of all major constituencies, but none of this could alter the basic fact that Egypt was to the Ptolemies the milch cow which supplied the resources needed to meet their political and military ambitions. As for the Egyptian population, at one level the issue of validation was straightforward. Whatever the origins of the ruler, his position could only be formulated for them in terms of the Pharaonic office. All rulers, conquerors or otherwise, were conceptualised as divine kings according to strict Egyptian royal dogma, and that is exactly what happened with all those whom we have considered. However, outside official contexts, where kings had to be treated formally as kings, attitudes could be very different. The Persians of the Second Domination were heartily detested, and no building operations were ever attributed to them, as far as we know. Alexander and the Ptolemies, on the other hand, were much more accommodating, and their respect for Egyptian tradition, well-calculated solicitude for the elites, and no doubt their admiration for the ancient culture of Egypt gained them an acceptance which made a fruitful symbiosis possible. Ultimately this was to lead to an ever greater acceptance of Egyptians into the higher levels of the court and the army which might have achieved complete integration, had it not been for the very different steer initiated by the Roman conquest which created a cultural environment which was to lead gradually but ultimately to the destruction of Pharaonic civilization itself. Notes 1 For detailed discussions see Kienitz 1953, 99–111; Olmstead 1960, 437–41; Lloyd 1983, 287–8; 1992, 365; 1994b, 344–5; 2000, 390. 2 Kienitz 1953, 185–9; Lloyd 1988b, 159–60. 3 On the career of this most remarkable man see Turner 1984, 119–33; Ellis 1994; Huss 2001, 90–249.
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From satrapy to Hellenistic kingdom: the case of Egypt 4
On the rather sad figure of Arrhidaios see Greenwalt 1984; he was murdered by Alexander’s mother Olympias in 317 (Paus. 1.25). Alexander IV was murdered in 311 by Kassander, thus bringing an end to the legitimate Argead line (Diod. 19.105) and clearing the way for his generals to develop their ambitions to the full 5 The Egyptian text will be found in Sethe 1904, 11–22; for an excellent modern translation see R. K. Ritner, in Simpson 2003, 392–7. 6 On this identification see Ritner, op. cit. 395 n. 7. 7 For other Classical comments, some even more extreme, see Kienitz 1953, 108. On the much discussed Cambyses tradition see Lloyd 1988a; 1994a. 8 See Kienitz 1953, 231. 9 See Curtis and Tallis 2005, 173 no. 267. 10 The text of the stele describing his career will be found in Sethe 1904, 1–6. It is translated in Lichtheim 1980, 41–4. 11 See the discussion in Lloyd 1982. 12 Lloyd 1990, 223. 13 Vleeming 2001; Curtis and Tallis 2005, 200 (cf. 206 nos 370–2). 14 This point is well developed by A. R. Meadows, ‘The administration of the Achaemenid empire’, in Curtis and Tallis 2005, 181–8. 15 These measures are described in detail by Arr. Anab. 3.5. 16 Arr. Anab 7.23.6; Ps-Aristotle Oeconomica. 2. 1352–3; Huss 2001. 17 Fraser 1972, vol. 1, 3–7; Austin 1981, 17–18. 18 The Egyptian name appears in the Satrap Stele l. 4. 19 Hence the standard descriptions of the place as Ἀλεξάνδρεια πρὸς Αἰγύπτῳ or Alexandria ad Aegyptum, ‘Alexandria-by-Egypt’. 20 For the Greek version of this extraordinary text which was destined to a brilliant career both in ancient and modern times see Kroll 1926. The Greek text is translated by Stoneman 1991. The Armenian version is sometimes a valuable supplement to the Greek and is translated by Wolohojian 1969. 21 See above, n. 9. 22 Sethe 1904, 6 no. 2. 23 The name occurs also in the form Merykaamun. 24 Sethe 1904, 7 no. 3; Barguet 1962, 194–5. 25 The reading of the sign before kheperu is problematic. Legrain read sm3(w) (‘uniter’) and Lepsius nf r (‘beautiful’). 26 Sethe 1904, 7 no. 4. 27 Sethe 1904, 8 no. 5. 28 This list does not exhaust the monumental remains of Alexander in Egypt: see the index in Porter, Moss et al. 1927–. For a full discussion and analysis see Abd elRaziq 1984 and Winter 2005. 29 On the question of such royal attributions see Lloyd 2007. 30 Mery Amun is used as an epithet in Ramesses II’s nomen and setepuenre as part of his prenomen. 31 Sethe 1904, 9 no. 6. 32 A variant of the more normal Meryamun comparable to the variant in Alexander’s prenomen as given in the Satrap Stele: see above, p. 000. 33 Some scholars, e.g. Barguet 1962, 137, read these two names or epithets in the reverse order. There seems to be no sound epigraphic reason for this. We have to
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Alan B. Lloyd assume that Alexander and his half -brother used the same prenomen: cf. Quirke 1990, 75. 34 Sethe 1904, 9 no. 7. 35 Sethe 1904, 10 no. 8; Barguet 1962, 137. 36 It is written Ilksidrs, omitting the n. 37 Since Apries was a legitimate king deposed by a usurper, there may be a claim to legitimacy lurking here. For Apries’ career see Lloyd 1988c, 169–82. 38 A recurrent motif in Ptolemaic texts: see Winnicki 1994. 39 See Hölbl 2001, 14–20; Ritner, in Simpson 2003, 393–4. 40 On Macedonian kingship and the state system see Granier 1931; Errington 1974; Lock 1977; Greenwalt 1984; Adams 1986; Hatzopoulos 1987; Hammond 1989, 49–70, 382–95; Borza 1990, 231–52; Anson 1991; Ogden 1999, 3–40. 41 On these issues see the indispensable Ogden 1999. 42 See Austin 1981, 38. 43 See Fraser 1972, vol. 1, 222 ff; Stewart 1993; Erskine 2002. Note the prominence of references to Alexander in the great procession of Ptolemy II (see below). 44 Gardner 1974, 68. 45 Austin 1981, 59–60. 46 Austin 1981, 62–4. 47 This process and its implementation is another important feature of Ptolemaic kingship which shows itself clearly in the Great Procession. Through Alexander the sacred family derived its ancestry from Zeus himself. The Zeus connection was also asserted through the close association of the Ptolemaic royal family with Dionysos, another son of the ubiquitous King of Gods and Men. In general see Koenen 1993; Hölbl 2001, 77–123. 48 The Canopus Decree from the reign of Ptolemy III provides an excellent example of the workings of this phenomenon: see Austin 1981, 366–8. On the nature of Hellenistic kingship see Goodenough 1928; McEwan 1934; Schubart 1937; Walbank 1984, 62–100; Davies 2002; Ma 2003; Chaniotis 2003. 49 Hölbl 2001, 36, 112. Carney’s discussion (1987) is still the most judicious. 50 See, in particular, Manning 2003. 51 Thompson 1988, 106–54, particularly 108, 110, 138–46. 52 For a key to Ptolemaic temple building see Wilkinson 2000, index, s.v. Ptolemy; Shafer 2005, index, s.v. Ptolemaic and Roman periods, Ptolemy. 53 On Manetho see Fraser 1972, index, s.v. Manethon; Thissen in Helck and Otto 1972–, iii, 1180–1; Mosshammer 1979. 54 Much has been written on Serapis: see, e.g., Fraser 1972, vol. 1, 246–59; Stambaugh 1972; Merkelbach 1995. 55 Huss 1994; Lloyd 2002, 119: cf. Baines 2004, 33–61. 56 Lloyd 2002, 123–31. 57 See references in n. 54. This view runs counter to canonical doctrine but is beginning to take root. 58 Satrap Stele, l.7; Ritner in Simpson 2003, 394. 59 Polyb. 5.107.1–3, Austin 1981, 371–2. 60 The hemiolia or ‘one-and-a-halfer’ was a relatively light, manoeuvrable, and very fast type of vessel which served much the same purposes as frigates in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Exactly how the oarage system was arranged has been much
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From satrapy to Hellenistic kingdom: the case of Egypt debated (e.g. Casson 1958). There is not enough evidence for a definitive solution, but I incline to the view that it had two rows of oars per side with one of those rows using half the crew of the other. The pentêrês, or ‘five’, was the equivalent of the 74-gun ship in the Napoleonic era, i.e. it was the main line-of-battle ship in Hellenistic navies. It had two rows of oars with five men per box, i.e., if we take the box to consist of the crew rowing a unit of two oars one above the other, they might have been arranged with three oarsmen to the lower oar and two to the oar immediately above (or vice versa). On both types of ship see Casson 1971, index, s.v. 61 The translation is mainly that of Horace White, but I have modified the renderings of the technical names for warships which are quite incorrect. 62 On this topic see Bouché-Leclercq 1903–7, vol. 1, 237–43. 63 The starting point on the city is inevitably Fraser, 1972, but the bibliography on Alexandria continues to grow, greatly encouraged by the recent spectacular results of underwater archaeology: see, e.g., Goddio 1998, 2000, Goddio and Bernand, 2004, Goddio and Clauss, 2006; Grimm 1998; Pfrommer 1999; Ray 2001. 64 See, for convenience, Austin 1981, 361–3 (excerpts), but Athenaeus’ description, derived from Kallixeinos of Rhodes, should be read in its entirety. For a detailed discussion see Rice, 1983. 65 Yet another conspicuous feature of the Great Procession of 270.
Bibliography Abd el-Raziq, M. 1984 Die Darstellungen und Texte des Sanktuars Alexanders des Großen im Tempel von Luxor, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Abteilung Kairo, Archäologische Veröffentlichungen 16, Mainz am Rhein. Adams, W. L. 1986 ‘Macedonian kingship and the rights of petition’, Ancient Macedonia 4, 43–52. Anson, E. M. 1991 ‘The evolution of the Macedonian army assembly’, Historia 40, 230–47. Austin, M. M. 1981 The Hellenistic World from Alexander to the Roman Conquest. A selection of ancient sources in translation, Cambridge. Baines, J. 1996 ‘On the composition and inscription of the Vatican statue of Udjahorresne’, in P. der Manuelian (ed.) Studies in Honor of William Kelly Simpson, I, Boston, 183–92. 2004 ‘Egyptian élite self-presentation in the context of Ptolemaic rule’, in W. V. Harris and G. Ruffini (eds) Ancient Alexandria between Egypt and Greece, Leiden and Boston, 33–61. Barguet, P. 1962 Le temple d’Amon-Rê à Karnak. Essai d’exégèse (Recherches d’archéologie, de philologie et d’histoire 21), Cairo. Borza, E. N. 1990 In the Shadow of Olympus. The Emergence of Macedon, Princeton. Bouché-Leclercq, A. 1903–7 Histoire des Lagides, Paris.
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Alan B. Lloyd Carney, E. 1983 ‘Regicide in Macedonia’, Parola del Passato 38, 260–72. 1987 ‘The reappearance of royal sibling marriage in Ptolemaic Egypt’, Parola del Passato 237, 420–39. Casson, L. 1958 ‘Hemiolia and Triemiolia’, JHS 78, 14–18. 1971 Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World, Princeton. Chaniotis, A. 2003 ‘The divinity of Hellenistic rulers’, in Erskine 2003, 431–45. Curtis, J., and N. Tallis. 2005 Forgotten Empire. The World of Ancient Persia, London. Davies, J. K. 2002 ‘The interpenetration of Hellenistic sovereignties’, in D. Ogden (ed.) The Hellenistic World. New Perspectives, London, 1–21. Ellis, W. M. 1994 Ptolemy of Egypt, London. Errington, R. M. 1974 ‘Macedonian “Royal Style” and its Historical Significance’, JHS 94, 20–37. Erskine, A. 2002 ‘Life after death: Alexandria and the body of Alexander’, Greece & Rome 49, 163–79. 2003 (ed.) A Companion to the Hellenistic World, Oxford and Malden, Mass. Fraser, P. M. 1972 Ptolemaic Alexandria, 3 vols, Oxford. Gardner, J. F. 1974 Leadership and the Cult of the Personality, London and Toronto. Goddio, F. 1998 Alexandria: The submerged royal quarters, London. 2000 Cleopatra’s Palace, London. Goddio F. and Bernand, A. 2004 Sunken Egypt: Alexandria, London. Goddio F. and Clauss, M. 2006 Egypt’s Sunken Treasures, Munich and London. Goodenough, E. 1928 ‘The political philosophy of Hellenistic kingship’, Yale Classical Studies 1, 55–102. Granier, F. 1931 Die makedonische Heeresversammlung, Munich. Greenwalt, W.S. 1984 ‘The search for Arrhidaios’, AncW 10, 69–77. 1989 ‘Polygamy and succession in Argead Macedonia’, Arethusa 22.1, 19–45. Grimm, G. 1998 Alexandria. Die erste Königstadt der hellenistischen Welt, Mainz am Rhein. Hammond, N. G. L. 1989 The Macedonian State. The origins, institutions and history, Oxford. Hatzopoulos, M. B. 1987 ‘Succession and regency in Classical Macedonia, Ancient Macedonia 4, 279–92.
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From satrapy to Hellenistic kingdom: the case of Egypt Hazzard, R. A. 2000 Imagination of a Monarchy: Studies in Ptolemaic propaganda (Phoenix Suppl. 37), Toronto. Helck, W., and Otto, E. 1972– Lexikon der Ägyptologie, 7 vols, Wiesbaden. Hölbl, G. 2001 A History of the Ptolemaic Empire, London. Huss, W. 1994 ‘Das Haus des Nektanebis und das Haus des Ptolemaios’, Ancient Society 25, 111–17. 2001 Ägypten in hellenistischer Zeit 332–30 v.Chr., Munich. Kienitz, F.K. 1953 Die politische Geschichte Ägyptens vom 7. bis zum 4. Jahrhundert vor der Zeitwende, Berlin. Kloft, H. 1937 ‘Das hellenistische Königsideal nach Inschriften und Papyri’, APF 12, 1–26. Koenen, L. 1993 ‘The Ptolemaic king as a religious figure’, in A. Bulloch et al. (eds) Images and Ideologies. Self-definition in the Hellenistic world, Berkeley, 22–115. Kroll, W. 1926 Historia Alexandri Magni (Pseudo-Callisthenes), Berlin. Leahy, M. A. 1988 ‘The earliest dated monument of Amasis and the end of the reign of Amasis’, JEA 74, 183–99. Lichtheim, M. 1980 Ancient Egyptian Literature. III: The Late Period. Berkeley. Lloyd, A B. 1982 ‘The Inscription of Udjahorresnet: A collaborator’s testament’, JEA 68, 166–80. 1983 ‘Egypt 664–323’, in B. Trigger et al., Ancient Egypt: A social history, Cambridge, 279–348, 359–364, 412–27. 1988a ‘Herodotus on Cambyses. Some thoughts on recent work’, in A. Kuhrt and H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg (eds) Achaemenid History. III. Method and Theory (Proceedings of the London 1985 Achaemenid History Workshop), Leiden, 55–66. 1988b ‘Manetho and the Thirty-first Dynasty’, in J. Baines et al. (eds) Pyramid Studies and other Essays presented to I. E. S. Edwards (EES Occasional Publications 7), London, 154–60. 1988c Herodotus Book II, Commentary 99–182, Leiden. 1990 ‘Herodotus on Egyptians and Libyans’ in O. Reverdin and B. Grange (eds) Hérodote et les peuples non grecs (Entretiens sur l’antiquité classique 35), Geneva, 215–53. 1992 ‘Egypt, History of (Dyn. 27–31)’, in D. N. Freedman (ed.) The Anchor Bible Dictionary, II. New York, 364–7. 1994a ‘Cambyses in late tradition’, in M. A. Leahy et al. (eds) The Unbroken Reed. Studies in the culture and heritage of ancient Egypt in Honour of A.F. Shore, London, 195–204.
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Alan B. Lloyd 1994b ‘Egypt, 404–332 BC ’, in CAH 2 VI, 337–60. 2000 ‘The Late Period (664–332 BC )’, in I. Shaw (ed.) The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, Oxford, 369–94. 2002 ‘The Egyptian elite in the early Ptolemaic period. Some hieroglyphic evidence’, in D. Ogden (ed.) The Hellenistic World. New Perspectives, London and Swansea, 117–36. 2007 ‘Darius I in Egypt: Suez and Hibis’, in C. Tuplin (ed.) Persian Responses. Political and cultural interaction with(in) the Achaemenid empire, London, 99–115. Lock, R. 1977 ‘The Macedonian army assembly in the time of Alexander the Great’, Classical Philology 72, 91–107. Ma, J. 2003 ‘Kings’, in Erskine 2003, 177–95. Manning, J. 2003 Land and Power in Ptolemaic Egypt, Cambridge. McEwan, J.F. 1934 The Oriental Origin of Hellenistic Kingship, Chicago. Merkelbach, R. 1995 Isis regina – Zeus Sarapis. Die griechisch-aegyptische Religion nach den Quellen dargestellt, Stuttgart and Leipzig. Mosshammer, A. 1979 The Chronicle of Eusebius and Greek Chronographic Tradition, Lewisburg. Ogden, D. 1999 Polygamy, Prostitutes and Death. The Hellenistic dynasties, London and Swansea. Olmstead, A. T. E. 1960 History of the Persian Empire (Reprint of 1948 edn), Chicago. Porter, B., Moss, R. L. et al. 1927– Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs, and Paintings, 8 vols, Oxford. Pfrommer, M. 1999 Alexandria. Im Schatten der Pyramiden, Mainz am Rhein. Préaux, C. 1978 Le monde hellénistique: la Grèce et l’Orient de la mort d ’Alexandre à la conquête romaine de la Grèce (323–146 av. J.-C.), 2 vols, Paris. Quirke, S. 1990 Who were the Pharaohs? A history of their names with a list of cartouches, London. Ray, J. D. 1988 ‘Egypt 525–404 BC ’, in CAH 2 IV, 254–86. 2001 ‘Alexandria’, in S. Walker and P. Higgs (eds) Cleopatra of Egypt from History to Myth, 2001. Rice, E. E. 1983 The Grand Procession of Ptolemy Philadelphus, Oxford. Schubart, W. 1937 ‘Das hellenistisches Königsideal nach Inschriften und Papyri’, APF 12, 1–16. Sethe, K. 1904 Hieroglyphische Urkunden der griechisch-römischen Zeit. I. Historisch-biographische
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From satrapy to Hellenistic kingdom: the case of Egypt Urkunden aus den Zeiten der makedonischen Könige und der beiden ersten Ptolemäer, Urkunden II, 1, Leipzig. Shafer, B. (ed.) 2005 Temples of Ancient Egypt, London. Simpson, W.K. 2003 The Literature of Ancient Egypt. An anthology of stories, instructions, stelae, autobiographies, and poetry, 3rd edn, New Haven and London. Stambaugh, J. E. 1972 Sarapis under the Early Ptolemies, Leiden. Stewart, A. 1993 Faces of Power: Alexander’s image and Hellenistic politics, Berkeley. Stoneman, R. 1991 The Greek Alexander Romance, Harmondsworth. Thompson, D.J. 1988 Memphis under the Ptolemies, Princeton. Tresson, P. 1931 ‘La stèle de Naples’, Bulletin de l’institut français d’archéologie orientale 30, 369–91. Turner, E. 1984 ‘Ptolemaic Egypt, in CAH 2 VII.1, 118–74. Vleeming, S. P. 2001 Some Coins of Artaxerxes and other Short Texts in the Demotic Script (Studia Demotica 5), Leuven. Walbank, F. W. 1992 The Hellenistic World, rev. edn, London. 1984 ‘Monarchies and monarchic ideas’, in CAH 2 VII.1, 62–100. Wilkinson, R. H. 2000 The Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt, New York. Winnicki, J. K. 1994 ‘Carrying off and bringing home the statues of the gods. On an aspect of the religious policy of the Ptolemies towards the Egyptians’, The Journal of Juristic Papyrology 24, 149–90. Winter, E. 2005 ‘Alexander der Große als Pharao in ägyptischen Tempeln’, in H. Beck, P. C. Bol and M. Bückling (eds) Ägypten, Griechenland, Rom. Abwehr und Berührung, Freiburg, 204–15. Wolohojian, A. M. 1969 The Romance of Alexander the Great, New York.
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6 FRATARAKA RULE IN EARLY SELEUCID PERSIS: A NEW APPRAISAL Josef Wiesehöfer I This chapter deals with the least documented period of ancient Fars (Persis), which extends from the age of Alexander the Great until the arrival of the Parthians in south-western Iran. We shall see that it is the time when the former Achaemenid heartland has become a province under the Seleucids and then the Parthians, with a short period of independence in between. Apart from some short literary and epigraphic information and archaeological remains,1 the pre-Sasanian coins of Fars are our most important source of knowledge. Here, the names and titles of the subSeleucid dynasts and sub-Parthian kings of Persis are mentioned. Their respective reigns and relationship with their Macedonian and Arsacid overlords should give us new insight into the history of south-western Iran from the third century BC to the third century AD.
II In his small but, as usual, extremely important essay on ‘Alien Wisdom’, the late Arnaldo Momigliano dealt with, inter alia, the Greek view of the Persians after Alexander, saying that, ‘if the Persians of old lingered on in the imagination of Hellenistic man, the contemporary Persians were almost forgotten’.2 With this statement, Momigliano undoubtedly referred especially to Persis, the Persians’ original province, the cradle of the Achaemenid Kings of Kings. In fact, if one added up Greek and Latin literary and epigraphical testimonies referring to Fars and its history between 280 and 140 BC – the Iranians themselves were relying on an oral ‘historical’ tradition – there would be only twelve references, mostly comments made in passing or short impressions rather than coherent accounts. It is, therefore, not surprising that for a long time Ancient
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Josef Wiesehöfer Historians have paid little attention to this period of Iranian history. In addition, certain scholars of the past decades may have had a preference for Greco-Macedonian cultural achievements on Iranian soil. This does not seem tangible in Fars. In my Habilitationsschrift, I attempted to shed light on the ‘dark ages’ of Fars and ever since, I have tried to make further progress.3 However, before trying to judge anew the history of southwestern Iran in pre-Sasanian times, we have to go back to the time of Alexander’s arrival in Persis in the year 330 BC. Achaemenid rule ended, at least in western Iran, with the burning of Persepolis and the murder of Darius III. Alexander followed the Persian example in Persis, just as he had done earlier in the western part of the Persian Empire, and behaved like an Achaemenid. This is noticeable in his argumentation, his adoration of the memory of Cyrus II, his honouring of the dead adversary, Darius, his marriage policy, and so forth. The reason for this behaviour was so that he could be recognised as a rival and, later, as a legitimate heir to Darius III. The destruction of Xerxes’ palaces and treasuries on the terrace of Persepolis – which can probably be explained by Alexander’s unsuccessful attempt to enlist support from the inhabitants of Persis at the beginning of his rule – did not result in his giving up these efforts, nor did the later execution of the satrap Orxines who was seen as a potential rival and adversary. The Persophile Peukestas turned out to be the man who was, on the one hand, absolutely loyal to Alexander and who, on the other, gave the inhabitants of Persis (or rather their nobility) the feeling that everything would remain the way it had been. These endeavours were successful with a large part of the nobility, because Alexander and Peukestas apparently did not touch either the Achaemenid system of local dependencies and local administration, or the basic ideas of the Persian ideology of kingship. There is no other way to explain the fact that nothing is heard about unrest in Persis after Peukestas’ appointment, that the new satrap could levy troops there without difficulty, and that a great number of nobles collaborated with Alexander.4 This support from the nobles for their new Persophile Macedonian masters continued until the second century BC, as will be shown later on. This does not mean that there was no opposition at all against Macedonian rule in Fars – the negative image of Alexander in the Zoroastrian part of the Iranian tradition is proof of the hostile attitude of at least parts of the population;5 however, for a long time, this attitude did not lead to unrest and revolts in Fars. As far as religious policy is concerned, we can also find signs of Alexander’s and Peukestas’ efforts to receive recognition in Persis. Here, two historical episodes should be sufficient. Shortly before the defeat of the diadoch Eumenes by Antigonos in 316 BC, Peukestas arranged a feast in
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Frataraka rule in early Seleucid Persis: A new appraisal Persepolis. This was certainly to honour Eumenes, but also a demonstration of his own powers.6 On or below the terrace, the participants in the banquet were grouped according to their rank into four concentric circles around the place of sacrifice. The outer ring was filled with the mercenaries and the allies; the second ring consisted of the Macedonian Silver Shields and those companions who had fought under Alexander; the third group consisted of commanders of lower rank, friends and generals who were unassigned and the cavalry. Finally, there was the inner circle with generals and hipparchs and those Persians who were most highly honoured. It has rightly been pointed out that the sacrificial ceremony and the seating order were in accordance with Achaemenid custom. The hierarchy of the seating order, which mirrors the proximity to and the distance from the (dead) ruler, reminds us of the ‘protocol’ of the later Persepolitan tribute reliefs and the Persian ‘ideology of the inferiority of the remote’.7 The second example concerns construction work at Persepolis, and especially the five Greek inscriptions with the names of Zeus Megistos, Athena Basileia, Apollo, Artemis and Helios. These were found in the so-called frataraka-temple area below the terrace and probably date from the time of Peukestas. The date seems plausible when we take into account the fact that the style of writing corresponds to that of the ‘haute époque hellénistique’ and that altars for the gods, Alexander and Philip, were placed in the centre of the concentric circles at Peukestas’ banquet. There is also much evidence in favour of a syncretistic use of the names of the gods: Zeus Megistos instead of Ohrmezd, Apollo and Helios for Mithra, Artemis and Queen Athena for Anahita.8 After Antigonos’ victory over Eumenes and a short period of Antigonid rule, during the beginning of which Peukestas was removed against the will of the local Persid nobility, Seleukos soon gained possession of Fars after 312 BC.9 The territorial centre of his realm was Babylonia. There is a scholarly dispute about when Seleucid supremacy over Persis ended and when the successors of Alexander in the East lost this province.10 This question is closely connected with the problem of the rule of the so-called frataraka-, i.e. the dynasts who gained a (short) period of independence from the Seleucids for their Persid subjects. At this point it should be mentioned that other readings of this Iranian title in Aramaic writing can sometimes be found – fratada-ra, fratakara, etc. – but these are not as plausible as frataraka-.11 Since the middle of the 19th century, scholars have devoted their attention to the coins of these dynasts and have regarded them as symbols of their political legitimacy and as the most important testimonies of their reign. Only one dynast, Oborzus-Wahbarz, is mentioned in Greek literature (Polyaenus 7.40). But for a long time the numismatic tradition
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Josef Wiesehöfer was unable to guarantee an unequivocal date for the frataraka-. A new situation arose during the 1970s when excavations of the preceding decades gave a new impulse to the studies of ancient Iran. One thinks of the excavations at Pasargadae, Persepolis and at other sites where post-Achaemenid strata were exposed; in addition, there were also archaeological surveys in Fars, which showed that Persis had remained a fertile and densely populated region even after the rule of Alexander.12 Besides, successful attempts have been made to rediscover the archaeology of the Hellenistic period on the other side of the Persian Gulf. Here, the most important excavations are those on Failaka and Bahrain. Thus, in the 1990s, it seemed promising for me to examine anew the post-Achaemenid source material and available archaeological remains in order to shed light upon the so-called ‘dark ages’ of Persis. This was a light which certainly did not promise to become radiant, but which was illuminating. According to my research, Persis remained relatively quiet for more than a century after Alexander’s campaign.13 An exception was the internal Seleucid Molon conflict in 220 BC. Some unrest is also mentioned by Polyaenus 7.39, which can probably be dated to the rule of Seleukos I. According to Polyaenus, a Macedonian commander by the name of Seiles had instigated a massacre by his subordinate katoikoi of 3000 insurgent Persians under the pretence that these Iranians should have been his allies in his alleged fight against Seleukos. But this event seems to have remained a single episode. For a long time, and also recently, certain scholars – most of them numismatists – have tried to date the beginning of the frataraka- coinage to the period around 300 or 280 BC, and to associate the archaeologically detectable partial destruction of the citadel of Pasargadae, the Tall-i Takht, with a rebellion of the Persians under the frataraka Baydad.14 This thesis seems disputable, as numismatic-typological observations indicate a close connection between the coins of the frataraka- and those of the second century sub-Parthian ‘kings’ of Persis.15 Furthermore, the literary, epigraphical and archaeological evidence also speaks for a rather late date of the frataraka- reign. For example, there is no indication whatsoever of a third century loss or reclaiming of Persis by the Seleucids. If a successful Persid revolt had occurred in the first half of the third century BC, Persis ought to have lost its independence again before the Molon rebellion, for which a Seleucid satrap of Fars, Alexander, is mentioned in the sources.16 Information about the founding of towns in south-western Iran by Antiochos I,17 about the rebellion of Molon, about Persid katoikoi at Raphia in 217 BC,18 and an inscription concerning Antiochos III’s remarkable stay at Antioch-in-Persis in the year 205 BC19 all seem to indicate that Fars had
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Frataraka rule in early Seleucid Persis: A new appraisal been loyal to the Seleucids in the third century BC. In addition, the archaeological evidence in the Persian Gulf region, presented by JeanFrançois Salles and others,20 leaves no doubt about a clear, continuous and assured military and trading presence of the Seleucids in this region until the end of the reign of Antiochos III. A loss of Persis would have certainly threatened their presence and goals. One should also reflect about the central and important neighbouring provinces of Persis in the west, Babylonia and Elymais/Susiane, which had remained in the safe possession of the Seleucids up to the end of Antiochos’ reign.21 Coin hoards from the area surrounding Persepolis, which contained coins of Seleukos I and the frataraka-, and which were used to prove a loss of Persis in the third century, do not necessarily point to an immediate succession of the first frataraka to the first Seleucid king.22 Apart from the close stylistic and iconographic link between the fratarakacoins and those of their sub-Parthian ‘successors’, the theory of a rebellious or even independent Persis in the second century makes sense with regard to the literary evidence. Thus, Livy does not mention any units from Persis in the army of Antiochos III at Magnesia.23 Even if this could be plausibly explained by factors other than unrest in Fars, such an explanation is not possible for the comment found in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History.24 Here, the Seleucid Eparch Numenios is described as being attacked by Persians, presumably after 175 BC,25 on land and on water at the Straits of Hurmuz. Also, Justin’s report that Demetrios II had had to turn to south-west Iranian troops for support when fighting the Parthian king Mithradates I in 140 BC 26 seems to indicate that Persis was independent. Besides, one should consider the fact that there were attempts to break away from the centre in other Iranian regions of the Seleucid realm at the same time as well. According to the excavations on Bahrain and Failaka, the period after 150 BC was the time when the Seleucid presence in the Persian Gulf region grew weaker and became more endangered. The final loss of Babylonia, Susiane and Characene was not until the reign of Antiochos VII when Seleucid rule in that area came to an irrevocable end. During my studies on ‘the dark ages of Persis’ 27 I came to the conclusion that of the frataraka- who minted tetradrachms, most probably only two were rebellious or independent dynasts.28 Only Wahbarz and Wadfradad I tried to break away from the Seleucid Empire. A remark by Strabo, which has often been overlooked, points to this. According to him, the contemporary Persians were ruled by kings who were subordinates of other kings. In earlier times these were the kings of Macedonia, and, in Strabo’s own day, the Parthian kings.29 Iconographic details of the coins, and, furthermore, the historical comments of Polyaenus and Strabo suggest that
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Josef Wiesehöfer the first dynasts who minted coins, Ardakhshir and Wahbarz, did not rule without the approval of the Seleucids, irrespective of the question of their dating. The similarity of the images and certain symbols on the early frataraka- coins to Achaemenid iconography has long been emphasised, and it has been concluded that Baydad, who has until recently been considered to be the first frataraka,30 must already have broken away from the Seleucids. The images of ‘ruler on the throne’, or ‘ruler in devotional pose in front of a fire altar’ on coins of Baydad (Figs 1 and 2) and his predecessors were actually modelled after the so-called treasury-reliefs from Persepolis and the funerary reliefs from Naqsh-i Rustam. Symbols, such as the standard, the throne with arms, the sceptre and the pole are also known from the Achaemenid period. Although such scenes and symbols may indicate that the frataraka- saw themselves as custodians of the Persian heritage of the Achaemenids, they are not necessarily signs of independent
Fig. 1. Baydad, Tetradrachma (Klose and Müseler 2008, type 2/2, plate 3)
Fig. 2. Baydad, Tetradrachma (Klose and Müseler 2008, type 2/3, plate 3)
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Frataraka rule in early Seleucid Persis: A new appraisal rule. These royal symbols and the royal ductus are only similar to, not identical with, those of the Achaemenids; Ardakhshir and Baydad hold the Seleucid, not the Achaemenid sceptre. Their coins use the same weight standard as Seleucid coins, and both rulers adopt the title frataraka, which is known as that of Achaemenid sub-satraps in Egypt.31 As we will see, even Wadfradad I, who was an independent frataraka, is not totally devoted to the Achaemenids’ symbolism and claim to power. What evidence is there to suggest that Persis did not become independent until after the reign of Baydad? The coins of Wadfradad I show some new details on the reverse. For the first time, the Khvarnah-symbol appears in a similar way to that used by the Achaemenid kings.32 This is a well-known symbol of charisma and power, which is still occasionally interpreted as Auramazda.33 In addition, another coin-type of this dynast shows the wreathing of the ruler by Nike (Fig. 3). This gesture clearly imitates Seleucid coins, but also suggests the ruler’s independence and his desire to commemorate this achievement. This is not the celebration of a simple military victory.34 Apparently, the second dynast Wahbarz, whom Polyaenus calls Oborzus, had already given the impetus to the throwing-off of Seleucid rule. The second-century AD author reports35 that Oborzus, as commander of 3000 katoikoi, had organised the assassination of those military settlers. That he was still a Seleucid representative at the time of the uprising is suggested by the fact that non-Iranian troops would hardly have been under arms in an already independent Persis. Accordingly, Oborzus’ deed was probably an attempt to gain total autonomy through the elimination of those potential troublemakers. It is clear from Strabo’s comment, quoted above, that no period of independent dynasts was known to him.
Fig. 3. Wadfradad, Drachma (Klose and Müseler 2008, type 2/23, reverse, plate 6)
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Josef Wiesehöfer We can therefore conclude that any period of political independence in Persis can only have been quite short. If Wahbarz had attempted a revolt, which might perhaps be connected with the destruction level at the end of Pasargadae’s third settlement period,36 then Wadfradad I was the dynast who proclaimed Persid independence by means of his coins. Wahbarz’s rebellion, which might have come to an end during Antiochos III’s Elymaean campaign in 187 BC,37 cannot have been successful, since his successor Baydad – as is proved by his coins and the historical circumstances – was again a loyal governor of the Seleucids. If they are are not fakes, then the two previously-unknown coins that show Wahbarz-Oborzus killing a kneeling Macedonian soldier (Fig. 4) would be proof of the rebellion and a visual expression of Polyaenus 7.40.38 Wadfradad I, however, was probably the man whom the Seleucid king Demetrios II asked for assistance against the Parthian king Mithradates I in 140 BC.39 The immediate successor and namesake of Wadfradad, who was the last to mint tetradrachms, presumably already ruled his subjects on behalf of the Arsacids. That Mithradates I left the dynasts in office with their right to mint coins is an indication of a sub-Seleucid phase of frataraka- rule. One would assume that the Parthians returned to the conditions in existence before Wadfradad I rather than granting partial autonomy to the Persis dynasts together with the right to mint coins as something completely new. This is all the more likely as the Arsacids came under heavy pressure from Antiochos VII and the Sacas between 140 and 129 BC. The seat of the frataraka- in the second century BC was presumably Persepolis and not yet Stakhr. In any case, there was intense building activity on and below the terrace during their reigns. Artaxerxes III’s staircase façade was moved from palace G to Palace H. To the west, a wall
Fig. 4. Wahbarz, Drachma (Klose and Müseler 2008, type 2/16a, reverse, plate 6)
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Frataraka rule in early Seleucid Persis: A new appraisal was erected, and the crenulated architectural elements, which appear on the frataraka- coins, were rebuilt. Below the terrace there was building activity, as indicated by the find of reliefs of a frataraka and his spouse.40 Let us now turn our attention to the religious history of this era. About 150 years of undisputed Seleucid rule in Fars can only be explained by farsighted Macedonian politics and religious policy. This is indicated by the fact that there is no proof of the Seleucid ruler cult in Iranian holy shrines. But were the efforts of the frataraka- to gain independence religiously motivated? Could Wahbarz and Wadfradad I have been the exponents of a religious opposition to Hellenism in Fars, or were they perhaps even priestly dynasts or magi themselves, or, as Samuel K. Eddy has suggested, the initiators of an Iranian apocalyptic tradition, hostile to Alexander?41 In my opinion much can be said against those assumptions:42 a) As I have tried to show, the frataraka- Ardakhshir, Wahbarz and Baydad were lords of Persis by order of the Seleucids. Wadfradad I was the first dynast to become independent. From the second series of Baydad’s coins onwards, and not only after the beginning of their period of independence, the frataraka- are depicted in a devotional pose in front of a fire altar. The Achaemenid winged man, who can be interpreted as the embodiment of the Khvarnah of a famous royal precursor, appears for the first time on Wadfradad’s coins. Since the winged man wears the Achaemenid crenellated crown – the ruler himself wears a tiara – the iconography of the coins, as has already been emphasised, reminds us of the triad king/fire altar/winged man on Darius I’s tomb facade at Naqshi Rustam. This is probably an expression of the new rulers’ claim to legitimate succession to the Achaemenid kings in Persis.43 b) However, the coin imagery is predominantly political. The fratarakawear the so-called ‘royal’ tiara (on Baydad’s first series)44 or the tiara apagês (“satrap’s tiara”),45 and not the tiara orthê (the ‘upright tiara’) of the Achaemenid Great King or the tiara of the magi. The latter is related according to Strabo to the satrap’s tiara.46 The frataraka- are depicted in an Achaemenid fashion with royal insignia, but these are only partially genuinely Achaemenid. The bow is different (doubly convex instead of arched once), the sceptre is Seleucid. Thus, their royal symbols, their type of diadem, and their title, indicate that the frataraka- saw themselves as stakeholders of an Achaemenid tradition, but that they did not lay claims to the ideas of universal kingship of the Great Kings. Here, I would like to draw attention to the fact that the diadem tied at the back of the head, which is worn by Baydad and his successors, was not reserved for the king alone in Achaemenid times, but also worn by his syngeneis.47 It might be possible that the frataraka- claimed that Achaemenid honorary title for themselves.
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Josef Wiesehöfer As for religious life in Persis during the early Hellenistic period, contemporary burial practices show that early post-Achaemenid Persis was not completely Zoroastrian. The burials of the ‘Persepolis Spring Cemetery’, the cairn burials and the fact that most astodans and ossuaries must be dated to the Sasanian period, point to a religiously mixed southwestern Iran under the frataraka-, just as under the Achaemenids.48
III Thus, we can come to some conclusions. Although the frataraka- stressed their close ties to the Achaemenids, and although they recognised the close connection between Persid rule and divine choice and support – they were not magi themselves – nevertheless they did not consider themselves to be Achaemenids and Great Kings. They did not adopt this title, the headgear of the Great King or other symbols of Persian royalty. With their choice of the sub-Achaemenid ‘satrap’s tiara’ they did express their claim to regional rule, first as subordinates of the Seleucids, later as independent rulers, but they did not take over the Achaemenid claim to power outside the borders of Persis. Thus, it is not surprising that their rule did not come to an end in the Arsacid era. With their limited goals, the frataraka- were no serious danger and no obstacle to the legitimacy of the Parthians who called themselves ‘Great Kings’ and acted as rulers of an Empire which went beyond the Iranian borders. Presumably, the Seleucids, for their part, had not been afraid of their rule being threatened by these dynasts after long periods of loyalty and peace in Persis. The Persid and the contemporary Babylonian evidence proves that at least the early Seleucid kings up to Antiochos III – in accord with their Achaemenid predecessors – acted flexibly, wisely and successfully towards their indigenous subjects, and respected and supported local traditions and institutions.49 Therefore, the Greek ignorance of Persian affairs in Hellenistic times noted by Momigliano should not be confused with the actual policy of the Macedonians. On the contrary, the silence of the sources might even reflect the success of this policy. It is not surprising that the previously loyal autochthonous Persian elite did not feel encouraged to break away from Seleucid rule until Antiochos III’s defeat by the Romans (Wahbarz) and until the general weakness of that rule became apparent after the death of Antiochos IV ( Wadfradad I).
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Frataraka rule in early Seleucid Persis: A new appraisal Dynasts of Persis (2nd Century BC) Date
(Greek or Latin) Name
1 Beginning of Artaxares I 2nd Century BC
Indigenous (Middle Genealogy Comment Persian) Name Ardaxšı-r Sub-Seleucid dynast (Middle Persian title: frataraka)
2 1st half of 2nd Oborzus Century BC
Wahbarz
Sub-Seleucid dynast – rebel against Seleucids
3 1st half of 2nd Bagadates Century BC (Bades)
Bayda-d
Sub-Seleucid dynast (Middle Persian title: frataraka)
4 Mid-2nd Century BC
Autophradates I Wa-dfrada-d
Independent dynast of Persis
5 Ca. 140 BC
Autophradates II Wa-dfrada-d
Parthian ‘vassal king’ (MLK’/ša-h)
Acknowledgements I would like to thank Dr. Dietrich Klose (Staatliche Münzsammlung München) for providing me with images of the Frataraka coins mentioned in the text.
Notes 1 See the excellent recent overview and commentary in Callieri 2007, especially pp. 115ff. 2 Momigliano 1975, 138. 3 Wiesehöfer 1994; 2001; 2004, 105–14; 2007. 4 The Achaemenid traits of Alexander’s ideology and actions were clearly brought out by Briant 2002, 817–71; 2003; 2005; cf. Wiesehöfer 1994, 23–49. 5 Wiesehöfer 1995; forthcoming (a). 6 Diod. 19.22.2–3. 7 Wiesehöfer 1994, 53–4. 8 Wiesehöfer 1994, 72–3. Pictures of three of the inscriptions can be found in Rougemont 1999, 6; Callieri 2007, 57. 9 Wiesehöfer 1994, 55f. 10 This is the main subject of Wiesehöfer 1994. 11 Wiesehöfer 1994, 105–8. For the debate on the interpretation of the coin legend frataraka ı- baya-n cf. Callieri 2007, 128–30.
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Josef Wiesehöfer 12
Wiesehöfer 1994, 63. Wiesehöfer 1994, 57ff. 14 For the older literature, see Wiesehöfer 1994, 115–17. The most recent titles are Müseler 2005/6; Klose and Müseler 2008; Hoover 2008; Curtis, forthcoming. Klose and Müseler date the beginning of the frataraka-coinage to the early third century BC, ‘noch zu Lebzeiten oder unmittelbar nach dem Tod Seleukos’ I. Nikator’ (p. 15). For the Tall-i Takht, cf. Callieri 2004. 15 Cf. Alram 1986, 162–86; see, however, Klose and Müseler 2008, 33, who postulate a clear typological caesura between the first series of frataraka-coins (beginning to middle/second half of the third century BC: Baydad, Ardakhshir, Wahbarz, Wadfradad I) and the second one which is said to have started only a short while before the Parthians’ suzerainty over Fars ( Wadfradad II, ‘Unknown King’, Darayan I, Wadfradad III, Wadfradad IV (Alram: Wadfradad III, 2nd series)). Thus, they assume a minting break at Persepolis of about 100 years. In my view, apart from the obvious numismatic debate on the significance of typological criteria, both authors underestimate the importance of the literary tradition and the general political situation. 16 Polyb. 5.40ff. 17 OGIS 233; Steph. Byz. s.v. Stasis. 18 Polyb. 5.79.3–8. 19 OGIS 231. 20 Salles 1987, 91–9; 1994 a and b; 1996, 260–2; Potts 1990, 92–7, 178f. 21 Sachs and Hunger 1989, no. -183 A ‘rev. 12–13’ (= p. 358f.). 22 Wiesehöfer 1994, 93–6, 115ff. 23 Livy 37.40–1. 24 Pliny, HN 6.152. 25 Shayegan, forthcoming, dates this episode to 164 BC. 26 Justin 36.1.4. 27 Wiesehöfer 1994, esp. 115–29. 28 In 1994, I postulated, like all other scholars, the following sequence of the first dynasts: Baydad, Ardakhshir, Wahbarz, Wadfradad I. With the help of overstampings, however, Hoover (2008) was able to prove that it should be Ardakhshir, Wahbarz, Baydad, Wadfradad I. 29 Strabo 15.3.24. 30 Cf. note 28. 31 Wiesehöfer 1994, 106–8. 32 Wiesehöfer 1994, 110–12. 33 Alram 1986, 168f., pl. 17f., no. 533–43. For the man in the winged disc, cf. Wiesehöfer 2003. 34 Alram 1986, 169, pl. 18, no. 544f. 35 Polyaen. 7.40. 36 Wiesehöfer 1994, 129. 37 Shayegan, forthcoming. 38 First coin: Alram 1987a, pl. 20.7; second coin: Bivar 1998, fig. 26b; see also Klose and Müseler 2008, 36 and pl. 6, type 2/16a and b. However, some numismatists doubt their authenticity (M. Alram, personal communication March 2006), and the new sequence of Persid rulers which has Wahbarz’s successor Baydad as a sub-Seleucid dynast does nothing to reduce those doubts. 13
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Frataraka rule in early Seleucid Persis: A new appraisal 39
If Shayegan’s dating of the Numenios-episode to 164 BC was right, this battle on land and on water might illustrate either a second Persid attempt to break away from the Seleucids or the beginnings of Wadfradad I’s independent rule. A third but less convincing solution would be to connect it with the end of Wahbarz’s reign. This would, however, imply an independent Persis in the late years of Antiochos III and under Seleukos IV and Antiochos IV. 40 Wiesehöfer 1994, 68–78; see now Callieri 2007, passim. 41 Eddy 1961. 42 Wiesehöfer 1994, 129–36. 43 Cf. also Panaino 2003; Callieri 2007, 128–30. 44 Alram 1986, 165, pl. 17, no. 511–14. 45 Alram 1986, 165f., pl. 17f., no. 515ff. 46 Strabo 15.3.19. 47 For the syngeneis cf. Wiesehöfer, forthcoming (b). 48 Wiesehöfer 1994, 83f. 49 Wiesehöfer 1996.
Bibliography Alram, M. 1986 Nomina Propria Iranica in Nummis (Iranisches Personennamenbuch IV), Vienna. 1987a ‘Eine neue Drachme des Vahbarz (Oborzos) aus der Persis?’, Litterae Numismaticae Vindobonenses 3, 147–55. 1987b ‘Die Vorbildwirkung der arsakidischen Münzprägung’, Litterae Numismaticae Vindobonenses 3, 117–46. Alram, M. and Gyselen, R. 2003 Sylloge Nummorum Sasanidarum Paris – Berlin – Wien, vol. I: Ardashir I – Shapur I, Vienna. Bivar, A. D. H. 1998 The Personalities of Mithra in Archaeology and Literature (Biennial Yarshater Lecture Series, 1), New York. Briant, P. 2002 From Cyrus to Alexander. A history of the Persian empire, Winona Lake. 2003 Darius dans l’ombre d’Alexandre, Paris. 2005 Alexandre le grand, 6th ed., Paris. Callieri, P. 2004 ‘Again on the chronology of the Tall-e Takht at Pasargadae’, Parthica 6, 95–100. 2007 L’archéologie du Fars à l’époque hellénistique (Persika, 11), Paris. Curtis, V. S. forthcoming ‘Kings of Persis: bridging the gap between Achaemenid and Sasanian Persia’, in J. Curtis et al. (eds), Proceedings of the Achaemenid Conference, London. Eddy, S. K. 1961 The King is Dead. Studies in Near Eastern resistance to Hellenism (334–31 BC), Lincoln.
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Josef Wiesehöfer Hoover, O. D. 2008 ‘Overstruck Seleucid coins’, in A. Houghton and C. Lorber, Seleucid Coins: A comprehensive catalogue, vol. II/1, New York, 209–30. Klose, D. O. A. and Müseler, W. 2008 Statthalter – Rebellen – Könige. Die Münzen aus Persepolis von Alexander dem Großen zu den Sasaniden, Munich. Momigliano, A. 1975 Alien Wisdom, Cambridge. Müseler, W. 2005/6 ‘Die sogenannten dunklen Jahrhunderte der Persis. Anmerkungen zu einem lange vernachlässigten Thema’, Jahrbuch für Numismatik und Geldgeschichte 55/56, 75–103. Panaino, A. 2003 ‘The ba a-n of the Fratarakas: Gods or “Divine” Kings?’, in C. G. Cereti, M. Maggi and E. Provasi (eds) Religious Themes and Texts of Pre-Islamic Iran and Central Asia. Studies in honour of Prof. Gherardo Gnoli on the occasion of his 65th birthday on 6th December 2002 (Beiträge zur Iranistik, 24), Wiesbaden, 265–88. Potts, D. T. 1990 The Arabian Gulf in Antiquity, vol. 2, Oxford. Rougemont, G. 1999 ‘Inscriptions grecques d’Iran’, in Empires perses d’Alexandre aux Sassanides (Dossiers d’Archéologie, 243), Dijon, 6–7. Sachs, A. J. and Hunger, H. 1989 Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia, vol. 2, Vienna. Salles, J.-F. 1987 ‘The Arab-Persian Gulf under the Seleucids’, in A. Kuhrt and S. SherwinWhite (eds) Hellenism in the East, London, 75–109. 1994a ‘Le Golfe arabo-persique entre Seleucides et Maurya’, Topoi 4.2, 597–610. 1994b ‘Fines Indiae, Ardh el-Hind: Recherches sur le devenir de la mer Erythrée’, in E. Dabrowa (ed.), The Roman and Byzantine Army in the East, Kraków, 165–87. 1996 ‘Achaemenid and Hellenistic trade in the Indian Ocean’, in J. Reade (ed.), The Indian Ocean in Antiquity, London, 251–67. Shayegan, M. R. forthcoming Arsacids and Sasanians. Political ideology in Post-Hellenistic and Late Antique Persia (Sasanidica, II), Los Angeles. Wiesehöfer, J. 1994 Die ‘dunklen Jahrhunderte’ der Persis (Zetemata, 90), Munich. 1995 ‘Zum Nachleben von Achaimeniden und Alexander in Iran’, in H. SancisiWeerdenburg, A. Kuhrt and M. C. Root (eds), Achaemenid History VIII: Continuity and Change, Leiden, 389–97. 1996 ‘Discordia et Defectio – Dynamis kai Pithanourgia. Die frühen Seleukiden und Iran’, in B. Funck (ed.) Hellenismus. Beiträge zur Erforschung von Akkulturation und politischer Ordnung in den Staaten des hellenistischen Zeitalters, Tübingen, 29–56.
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Frataraka rule in early Seleucid Persis: A new appraisal ‘Frataraka’, Encyclopaedia Iranica X, 195. ‘Tarkumuwa und das Farnah’, in W. Henkelman and A. Kuhrt (eds), A Persian Perspective. Essays in Memory of Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg (Achaemenid History, XIII), Leiden, 173–87. 2004 Ancient Persia, 3rd ed., London/New York. 2007 ‘Fars under Seleucid and Parthian Rule’, in V. S. Curtis and S. Stewart (eds), The Age of the Parthians (The Idea of Iran, 2), London, 37–49. forthcoming (a) ‘The ‘Accursed’ and the ‘Adventurer’: Alexander the Great in Iranian tradition’, in Z. D. Zuwiyya (ed.), Alexander in the Middle Ages, Leiden. forthcoming (b) ‘Das Diadem bei den Achaimeniden: Die schriftliche Überlieferung’, in D. Salzmann (ed.), Das Diadem der hellenistischen Herrscher, Münster. 2001 2003
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PART III
THE POLIS
7 EARLY HELLENISTIC RHODES: THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE AND THE DREAM OF HEGEMONY Hans-Ulrich Wiemer 1. Introduction Independence and hegemony were to the Greeks closely related. This relationship was at once antithetical and complementary. For those who were subject to others, the struggle for independence of course meant throwing off the hegemony of those to whom they were subject. For those, however, who were able to maintain their independence, hegemony was an aim worth striving for. Freedom was conceived as being at its maximum if it included domination over others. Liberty was a relative and dynamic concept, and therefore hegemony seemed to be the perfect realisation of what independence really meant: a state in which the citizen-body was in full, unlimited control of the conditions of its own existence. If illustration were needed, the history of Classical Athens would supply it in abundance, both in the fifth century when for some decades it really was a hegemonic power on a grand scale, and in the fourth when it was haunted by what Ernst Badian has aptly called the ghost of empire.1 The Hellenistic Age by contrast is often seen as a time when city states were no longer able to pursue hegemonic aims, and there is clearly much to be said for this view. The decades following the death of Alexander saw the emergence of new kingdoms that held sway over huge stretches of land and controlled enormous resources. These new kingdoms could raise large armies of professional soldiers that were far superior in both numbers and
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Hans-Ulrich Wiemer skill to the troops that single city-states could muster and therefore attained the status of super-powers dominating the structure and course of political events.2 In these circumstances even powerful city-states that had up till then played a leading role in Greek politics were forced drastically to reduce the scale of their political ambitions. Athens was unable to rebuild the glorious fleet it had lost in 322 and fell under the domination of Macedon for much of the third century.3 Sparta, by now reduced to Lakonia proper, was only a shadow of its former self, desperately trying to reverse the losses of power and territory that it had suffered during the fourth century.4 Rhodes would seem to be an exception in this new world of Greek citystates that came to acquiesce in their subjection to superior powers, or at least in no longer being able to play a leading role themselves.5 The island of Rhodes formed the core of a state organized on the polis-model that is assumed by many to have experienced a meteoric rise to economic prosperity and political independence as soon as Alexander had died; this interpretation sees Rhodes as continually striving for ‘the suppression of piracy, the promotion of peace, and the preservation of a balance of power among the great monarchies’, until the Rhodians had to yield their independence under Roman pressure after the Third Macedonian War.6 These basic strategic objectives, so we are told, were determined by mercantile interests that were of paramount importance to the Rhodian state. If we leave aside the concept of a balance of powers which cannot be translated into Greek and is, of course, more than slightly anachronistic when applied to the Hellenistic world,7 most of the conceptual elements contained in this rosy picture of a republic that consistently followed a policy of promoting peace and fighting pirates can be traced back to sources, both literary and epigraphic, that either are by their very nature expressions of political ideology – this holds true for public inscriptions – or can at least be shown to express a specifically Rhodian view of the island’s role in Greek history and politics taken over from the sources they were following – this, I believe, holds true for most of what Diodorus and Polybius tell us about Rhodes.8 These programmatic statements should therefore be taken for what they are worth: as political propaganda that as such is quite interesting but cannot serve as a reliable guide to the aims and principles of Rhodian policy. They have to be tested against the facts, as our sources allow them to be reconstructed once we have freed ourselves from the ‘mirage rhodien’. In this chapter I intend to do two things: first, to look at how the Rhodians managed to break free from foreign domination to which they had been subject, with some short interruptions, throughout most of the
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Early Hellenistic Rhodes: The struggle for independence and the dream of hegemony fourth century, and, second, to examine what evidence there is for Rhodian claims to political hegemony before the middle of the third century. 2. The struggle for independence Rhodian history in the fourth century was one of internal strife and foreign domination.9 The political unification of the island brought about by the synoecism of the three old cities of Ialysos, Kameiros and Lindos had been achieved with Spartan help and was originally intended to ward off Athenian imperialism. This concentration of the island’s resources did not, however, immediately result in giving the Rhodian state strength and stability. In the 390s Rhodes was torn between pro-Spartan and proAthenian factions until the democrats finally succeeded in ousting their opponents and brought Rhodes into an alliance with Athens again. In the Social War fought between 357 and 355 the Rhodians freed themselves from Athenian hegemony only to come under the domination of the Hecatomnid satraps of Karia. Ruled by an oligarchy that relied on Hecatomnid garrisons, the Rhodians were unable to form a foreign policy of their own and had no option but to follow wherever they were led. The arrival of Alexander the Great did little to change this pattern: when the Rhodians submitted to the king who had won the battle of Issos, they only changed masters again. Thus while the oligarchy made way for a democracy that was to remain stable for centuries to come, the garrisons under Hecatomnid command were replaced by one answering to the orders of Alexander.10 Only after Alexander’s death did the Rhodians take their first steps towards independence, expelling their Macedonian guests soon after they heard the news from Babylon.11 This was a bold decision to make since it involved the risk of reprisals from whoever was to be ruler in Alexander’s stead.12 Luckily for the Rhodians, Alexander’s marshals at court were sharply divided and had more pressing concerns than tackling the Rhodians. Because of the Lamian war that broke out in July 323, Macedonian efforts at sea were at this time largely directed against Athens and her fleet that threatened to cut off the sea-lanes between Macedon and Asia Minor until it was decisively defeated near Amorgos in the summer of 322.13 Furthermore, the satrap of Karia had been deposed at Babylon, and his successor, Asandros, who does not seem to have had any roots in the area, needed local support to have his authority recognized and was therefore well advised not to antagonize the Rhodians;14 taking sides with Antigonos and Antipater against Perdikkas and Eumenes in 321,15 he was confirmed at the conference of Triparadeisos in winter 321/320, but suffered defeat at the hands of the Perdikkans Alketas and Attalos in the
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Hans-Ulrich Wiemer spring of 320. Before that, however, the Rhodians had repelled a large army led by Attalos alone that was attacking – so Photius’ Epitome of Arrian’s ‘History of the Successors’ tells us – Knidos, Kaunos and Rhodes.16 These successes, remarkable as they are, did not protect the Rhodians from falling under the hegemony of a stronger power again. The sources are silent as to the Rhodians’ stance during the first two wars fought between the diadochs of Alexander, but during the Third Diadoch War (315–311) we find them standing firmly on the side of Antigonos. They not only allowed Antigonos to build warships in Rhodian docks, thus enabling him to strengthen considerably his naval power. In 312, after Antigonos had in a brilliant campaign driven his enemies from Karia,17 they even entered into a formal alliance with him and subsequently provided ships for an expedition led to Greece by Antigonos’ nephew Polemaios.18 Any claims to being neutral were thus waived; the Rhodians had chosen to take sides for Antigonos and against Kassander, Lysimachos, and last but not least, Ptolemy. These events would be completely unknown to us if Hieronymos of Kardia had not thought fit to report them in his ‘History of the Successors’ which is the main source used by Diodorus in book 18–20 of his universal history.19 The Rhodian source which lies behind Diodorus’ account of the siege of Rhodes by Demetrios had no interest in handing down to posterity details that were detract from the view that the Rhodians had always had a special relationship with Egypt and the Ptolemies. This view, still fashionable with many modern historians, goes back to a tradition that only developed after the Rhodians had, with help from Ptolemy and others, been able to withstand the Great Siege led by Antigonos’ son Demetrios; on Rhodes itself it was enshrined in public rituals of commemoration instituted soon after the events,20 and it also found its way into the patriotic historiography which Polybius justly, if not without personal bias, accused of sacrificing objectivity to the aim of glorifying Rhodes.21 When the Rhodians early in 306 were faced with the demand to contribute ships for Antigonos’ expedition against Ptolemy’s bases on Cyprus they knew nothing of this supposed special relationship which in political terms was simply non-existent. But why then, one might ask, did they refrain from participating in the war against Ptolemy, unlike the Athenians, for example, who contributed no less than 30 ships to the fleet of their ‘saviour and liberator’ Demetrios? 22 Two explanations that might at first sight seem attractive do on inspection turn out to be inadequate: first, the supposed economic symbiosis of Rhodes with Egypt and, second, the alleged Rhodian concern for a balance of power. Now economic interests can hardly have been the decisive factor when the assembled
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Early Hellenistic Rhodes: The struggle for independence and the dream of hegemony citizenry of Rhodes decided not to comply with Antigonos’ demand, because commercial relations with the realm of Antigonos were for the Rhodians just as close as those with Egypt; furthermore, a final victory over Ptolemy even offered the prospect of an eastern Mediterranean empire where trade would have found most favourable conditions.23 If the Rhodians had given absolute priority to economic interests they might as well have decided to join Antigonos. As for the balance of power, the anachronistic nature of this concept has been noted above. Of course, the Rhodians must have had political reasons for refraining from taking sides in the war between Antigonos and Ptolemy, if their decisions were not determined by commercial interests. But it seems unnecessary and positively misleading to ascribe to the Rhodians concern for interests other than their own independence. The Rhodians did not want to join Antigonos against Ptolemy because the outcome of the war was unforeseeable, because they stood to gain little by it, even if Antigonos won, and because they did not want to cede control over their military to a foreign power. That is, of course, what most Greek city-states wanted to avoid, if only circumstances would have let them. If the Rhodians felt strong enough to act accordingly, that does not, however, imply that they thought a military conflict with Antigonos was unavoidable. On the contrary, there are good reasons for believing that the Rhodians were convinced that their disobedience to Antigonos would go unpunished, as had their expelling of Alexander’s garrison. We happen to know that the Rhodians were not alone in defying the wishes of Antigonos, since the city of Byzantion had shortly before refrained from participating in the Third Diadoch War, but nevertheless managed to keep up friendly relations with him.24 The Rhodians were less lucky. Being defeated in Egypt in the autumn of 306, Antigonos ordered his son Demetrios to lay siege to the city of Rhodes, unless the Rhodians came round to joining him against Ptolemy. When protracted negotiations led to nothing, the siege began in the summer of 305 and lasted until the summer of the next year, when Demetrios got orders to leave Rhodes in order to fight Kassander on the Greek mainland.25 3. The dream of hegemony When Demetrios left, the Rhodians had ample cause for rejoicing. They had withstood a siege that might have resulted in the physical destruction of their city, and prevented their island from being occupied by a foreign garrison that would have ensured that in the future Rhodian decisions were taken with due consideration of Antigonid wishes. They even got their autonomy formally recognized by Antigonos in the treaty concluded at the
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Hans-Ulrich Wiemer end of the siege.26 But the Rhodians still were far from having reached independence, since by virtue of this very treaty they became allies of Antigonos again and even had to hand over to him 100 hostages selected by Demetrios from among the political elite. Even if it were true, then, that the obligation to give military help to Antigonos did not extend to wars between Antigonos and Ptolemy, as the Rhodian tradition followed by Diodorus maintains, the Rhodians’ freedom of action was still severely restricted, as far as foreign affairs were concerned. If, however, the restrictive clause reported by Diodorus did in fact only apply to wars of aggression, as I am inclined to believe, the Rhodian hostages in Antigonid hands clearly were a powerful argument, in case there should arise any doubt as to who was the aggressor in a conflict between Antigonos and Ptolemy. We have no means of telling whether Rhodian troops really did participate in the great battle of Ipsos which in 301 marked the end of Antigonid power in Asia Minor. It is clear, however, that after this battle Rhodian dependence on the Antigonids was a thing of the past. As the end of the Great Siege in 304 had been due to political developments on the Greek mainland in which the Rhodians had no part, so their final breakthrough to full independence was in large measure the result of military events that were out of their control, but worked to their advantage. No narrative account of Rhodian history has survived to continue where the patriotic tale of the Great Siege told by Diodorus ends, and we have to wait for Polybius to get once again something like a coherent picture of events pertaining to the island. Accordingly, the 80 years or so of Rhodian history between 304 and 220 are shrouded in an almost impenetrable mystery. To be sure, there is one partial exception: Polybius’ famous digression on the donations made by kings and cities after Rhodes had been struck by an earthquake in 228 or 227.27 This account, however, does not help very much when it comes to understanding the aims and means of Rhodian policy in the period not covered by Polybius’ narrative, apart from revealing the fact that in the last third of the third century the Rhodians were courted by most of the great powers and not formally bound to any of them. For the earlier part of the third century one has to look at miscellaneous sources of a very heterogeneous nature, and to them I shall now turn. When the great siege ended, the island of Rhodes was thoroughly devastated. Demetrios’ troops had been ravaging and plundering the countryside for a whole year. The booty collected was sufficient for Demetrios to make a generous donation to the gods that had watched over
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Early Hellenistic Rhodes: The struggle for independence and the dream of hegemony the refoundation of Thebes.28 On the other hand, since Demetrios had left behind the siege-engines that had failed his expectations so disastrously, the Rhodians were able to raise the sum of 300 talents of silver from the proceeds of selling them.29 There can be no doubt that Rhodian finances recovered soon, since in 294, at the latest, work on the famous Colossus began, which must have been an enormously expensive enterprise.30 Though precise figures on how much the Colossus cost are lacking, we can at least form an idea of the scale of expenses involved. The author of an imperial treatise on the Seven Wonders of World known as Philon tells us that 500 talents of bronze and 300 talents of iron were consumed in building the monument, and from Polybius we learn that Ptolemy III donated 3000 talents of bronze for its repair after the earthquake of 228 or 227.31 Of course we do not know the precise equivalents of the measures used by the two authors. But even assuming the lowest equation (1 talent = 20.4 kg), Philon’s figures amount to more than ten tons of bronze and six tons of iron, certainly a huge investment to make in a monument that served no practical purpose. Clearly the symbolic value of the Colossus was to the Rhodians immense. In raising the issue of the Colossus’ political significance I do not intend to enter into the perennial debate on what the Colossus looked like, which in my opinion is bound to remain inconclusive unless perhaps one day new evidence turns up.32 What I would like to stress here is quite simply the sheer size of the Colossus that by far surpassed that of any victory monument erected by a Greek city-state up until then. The Colossus was, and was perceived to be, nothing short of gigantic.33 Athenaeus quotes from a play of the early Hellenistic poet Sopatros34 where for comic effect the ‘huge bronze Colossus’ to be seen on Rhodes is juxtaposed with the Alexandrian predilection for lentil-dishes (‘I could not, looking upon the huge bronze Colossus, eat a loaf of lentil bread’).35 That this impression was widely shared in early Ptolemaic Alexandria can now be demonstrated from one of the epigrams by the poet Posidippus of Pella that have only recently been deciphered.36 This epigram, composed in the first decades after the Colossus had been completed, has reached us in what seems to be a carefully structured book of poetry authored by Posidippus alone;37 it comes near the end of a sequence of nine epigrams on statues (ἀνδριαντοποιικά) centred on Lysippos as the culmination of a development towards naturalism and precision in sculpture. The Colossus is in this context singled out to demonstrate that the artistic achievement of Chares, a disciple of Lysippos, was based on a clear understanding of the importance of scale in sculpting statues that are larger than life:
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Hans-Ulrich Wiemer ἤθελον Ἠέλιον Ῥόδιοι π[εριµάκε]α θεῖναι δὶς τόσον, ἀλλὰ Χάρης Λίνδιο[ς] ὡρίσατο µηθένα τεχνίταν ἔτι µείζονα [τ]οῦδε κ[ο]λοσσὸν θήσειν· εἰ δὲ Μύρων εἰς τετράπ[ηχ]υν ὅ[ρον] σεµνὸς ἐκεῖνος ἀνῆκε, Χάρης πρῶ[τος µ]ετὰ τέχνα[ς] ζῶιον ἐχαλκούργει γᾶς µεγ[έθει παρ]ισ[ῶ]ν.
‘The Rhodians wanted to make the [gigantic] Sun Twice as big, but Chares of Lindos ensured That no artisan would build a colossus higher than this one. If Myron managed to reach the limit of four cubits – he, that venerable fellow –, Chares was the first with art to make a bronze figure [to match the magnitude] of the earth.’
Posidippus here praises Chares not so much for making the largest of all statues as for knowing that there is a limit to the size of every work of art, even to that of a colossus.38 Without Chares’ sense of proportions Rhodian ostentation would have spoiled what was to become a unique work of art. His epigram should, therefore, be read as a critical comment on Rhodian megalomania that would have gratified readers who identified themselves with the Ptolemaic court (where Lysippan art was highly esteemed) and regarded Alexandria as the centre of the world in both politics and arts.39 This sort of criticism coming from a poet who was close to the court of Ptolemy II 40 presupposes that in Ptolemaic Alexandria the Colossus was not only acknowledged to be unsurpassable as a larger-than-life statue, but also understood to be the visual expression of Rhodian aspirations to greatness. There is little doubt that this is exactly what the Rhodians wished to convey by raising the Colossus. Unfortunately we still do not know exactly where this statue of Helios was placed. Wolfram Hoepfner has recently re-argued the case for placing the Colossus at the eastern end of the naval harbour of Rhodes where today stands the fort of St. Nicholas.41 To this proposal, Ursula Vedder has raised the objection that the Colossus would have been dedicated in the sanctuary of Helios; according to her, the Colossus stood on top of the acropolis where she locates the sanctuary of this god that has still to be identified on the ground.42 In any case, from the magnitude of the monument it seems clear that the Colossus was intended to serve as a visual point-of-reference for everyone entering the city from abroad. The statue of Helios rose to the staggering height of 70 cubits, which, depending on the measure used, works out at 30 to 35 metres. It thus made a powerful visual statement about the island’s status as an independent player in Greek politics, serving as a symbol of its prosperity and might.
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Early Hellenistic Rhodes: The struggle for independence and the dream of hegemony But the Rhodians were not content with thus staking a symbolic claim to being a powerful and independent state. They also had an epigram incised on or near the Colossus that gave a more specific interpretation of how they understood their political role among the Greeks. This epigram, transmitted in the ‘Palatine Anthology’ (6.171), the ‘Anthology of Planudes’ (6.1) and the ‘Suda’ (s. v. Κολοσσαεύς), has by some been considered to be a purely literary exercise that was composed much later than the completion of the Colossus, and I must confess once to have adhered to this view myself.43 In the ‘Palatine Anthology’ it comes in a group of miscellaneous epigrams on dedications (6.158–178) that follows an unbroken sequence taken from the ‘Garland’ of Meleagros of Gadara, the first comprehensive anthology of epigrams known to us. His collection was published not long after 100 BCE and had a profound influence on the transmission of Hellenistic epigrams, being excerpted around 900 CE for the common source of both the ‘Palatine’ and the ‘Planudean Anthology’.44 Before stating the reasons why I have come round to joining those who believe that our epigram originally served as dedicatory inscription for the Colossus45 before it came to be included either in the ‘Garland’ of Meleagros or some later collection, it will be convenient to give text and translation: Αὐτῷ σοὶ πρὸς Ὄλυµπον ἐµακύναντο κολοσσὸν τόνδε Ῥόδου ναέται ∆ωρίδος, Ἀέλιε, χάλκεον, ἁνίκα κῦµα κατευνάσαντες Ἐνυοῦς ἔστεψαν πάτραν δυσµενέων ἐνάροις. οὐ γὰρ ὑπὲρ πελάγους µόνον ἄνθεσαν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν γᾷ ἁβρὸν ἀδουλώτου φέγγος ἐλευθερίας· τοῖς γὰρ ἀφ’ Ἡρακλῆος ἀεξηθεῖσι γενέθλας πάτριος ἐν πόντῳ κἠν χθονὶ κοιρανία.
‘To you, O Sun, did the people of Dorian Rhodes raise high to the heavens this brazen colossus, then, having laid to rest the wave of war, they crowned their country with the spoils of their foes. Dedicating it not only over the sea, but on the land, too, they raised the splendid light of unenslaved freedom. For to those who spring from the race of Herakles a heritage both on land and sea is leadership.’ 46
The reasons for preferring the view that the epigram in fact is what it purports to be – an epideictic piece of political propaganda composed for public display on the Colossus it celebrates – are twofold. First, if the epigram were a literary composition, one would expect the name of an author to be attached to it. That it has been transmitted anonymously can
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Hans-Ulrich Wiemer easily be explained if it was copied from the monument on which it was inscribed without giving an indication of authorship. Literary epigrams, on the other hand, were not published without naming their authors, and anthologists like Meleagros or Philippos of Thessalonike recorded them carefully.47 Of course it cannot be ruled out completely that the author’s name somehow got lost, but that seems rather unlikely in view of the fact that collecting literary epigrams for the purpose of arranging them as an anthology began already in the late second century BCE (if not earlier) when information on their authorship cannot have been very difficult to obtain.48 Second, there is an epigram by Alkaios of Messene that clearly echoes our epigram in both form and substance, using similar language to ascribe to Philip V just the lordship by land and sea as is being claimed for the Rhodians in the one under discussion: Μακύνου τείχη, Ζεῦ Ὀλύµπιε· πάντα Φιλίππῳ ἀµβατά· χαλκείας κλεῖε πύλας µακάρων. χθὼν µὲν δὴ καὶ πόντος ὑπὸ σκήπτροισι Φιλίππου δέδµηται, λοιπὰ δ’ ἁ πρὸς Ὄλυµπον ὁδός.
‘Heighten your walls, Olympian Zeus; to Philip everything is accessible. Shut the brazen gates of the gods. Under Philip’s sceptre, earth and sea lie vanquished: there remains the road to Olympos.49
Considering that Alkaios was a writer seriously engaged with contemporary politics,50 it seems far-fetched to interpret his epigram as an exercise in intertextuality designed to outdo a literary composition of uncertain authorship. Read as a reply to the way the Rhodians presented themselves as dedicants of the Colossus, however, Alkaios’ epigram fits perfectly into the context of the war Philip led against the Rhodians from 201–197.51 If the dedicatory epigram for the Colossus is authentic,52 it constitutes a priceless document of Rhodian self-representation in the early third century that deserves to be looked at closely. That the Colossus is here being praised as a skyscraping monument financed from the spoils of war is perhaps too obvious to need stressing. It does not seem necessary either to point to the fact that it depicts the Rhodians as valiant and victorious descendants of Herakles. According to Rhodian tradition, the three old cities were founded by the Homeric hero Tlapolemos, a son of Herakles.53 What does need emphasizing, however, is that the idea of freedom in this epigram is inextricably bound up with the idea of political leadership or, to use another word, with the idea of hegemony.54 The Rhodians have by raising the Colossus established the splendid light of unenslaved freedom – this proud declaration implies the claim actually to have reached what
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Early Hellenistic Rhodes: The struggle for independence and the dream of hegemony all Greek city-states aspired to: independence from foreign domination. But this happy state of freedom amounts in their own perception to a position of leadership on both land and sea55 that raises them high above the others and leaves no doubt about who is in command. Considering the fact that we are reading a text that was in all probability commissioned and approved by the Rhodian assembly one could hardly ask for a more telling expression of the view that hegemony is the maximum realisation of freedom, if only for the hegemon. There are a few other pieces of evidence that tend, I believe, to corroborate the view that the Rhodians began to dream of hegemony as soon as they had shaken off the yoke of foreign domination. There was a famous precedent for a sudden change like this: two centuries earlier, the Athenians had quickly assumed a hegemonial role among the Aegean Greeks once Xerxes’s army had been driven from Greece. It is in this context that I would like to interpret the so-called Chariot of the Rhodians, known from a Delphian decree for Rhodian judges who in 179 vainly tried to arbitrate between Delphi and Amphissa.56 We know that this chariot was gilded and can infer that it was driven by Helios who was often represented as a charioteer. For maximum visibility, the quadriga was placed on a massive pillar almost eight metres high that to this day still carries the dedication by the Rhodian people to Pythian Apollo.57 To be sure, opinions are divided as to when the pillar was erected: while the dedicatory inscription has been dated to the first half of the third century by that eminent specialist in Delphian epigraphy and chronology Georges Daux,58 an investigation of the techniques used in building the pillar has led to the conclusion that the monument was raised in the last quarter of the fourth century.59 From a historical point of view, however, a date before the Great Siege seems unlikely, since advertising Rhodian freedom and might in a major Panhellenic sanctuary would have been pointless as long as their independence had not been finally secured against Alexander’s successors.60 That Rhodian freedom and might is indeed the political message of the monument seems evident not only from its being dedicated in the Delphian sanctuary of Apollo but even more from its prominent position inside this very sanctuary: the pillar carrying the chariot of Helios stood just opposite the temple of Apollo and in close proximity to the famous tripod commemorating the Greek victory over the Persians at Plataea (Fig. 1). For this reason, the Delphian monument of the Rhodians makes much better sense when it is connected with the great siege: having fought off Demetrios, the Rhodians presented themselves to the Greek world at large as an independent power able to defend Greek freedom against kings who cultivated an image of being invincible.
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Fig. 1. The Rhodian pillar in the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi seen from the east: hypothetical reconstruction ( Jacquemin and Laroche 1986: 305, © EfA/D. Laroche).
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Early Hellenistic Rhodes: The struggle for independence and the dream of hegemony A decree of Argos gives further support to the assumption that already in the first half of the third century the Greek mainland was included in the range of political commitments into which the Rhodians were prepared to enter. This decree, passed sometime between 300 and 250, testifies to a loan the Rhodians had in the past given to ‘the Argives and the other Greeks’ as the phrase runs; the decree gives thanks to the Rhodians for having granted the Argives further time for repayment after the original deadline had run out.61 In the present state of the evidence it would be futile to speculate on the precise circumstances in which this loan, amounting to the sizeable sum of 100 talents, was granted; but given the fact that it was given to what seems to be a coalition of states called ‘The Greeks’ and was used for military purposes – repairing the city’s walls and improving its cavalry – one can hardly doubt that it was prompted by one of the large-scale wars of the late fourth or early third century in which many states on the Greek mainland were actively or passively involved. The impression one gets is that the Rhodians were extending their political connections right across the Aegean, even though at this early date they apparently refrained from sending troops or ships to a region so far from their island. 4. Epilogue If such were Rhodian pretensions in the first half of the third century, reality lagged far behind their aspirations. The Rhodians were at this date still preoccupied with establishing their hegemony in the immediate neighbourhood of their island. Their possessions on the mainland opposite Rhodes were for much of the third century confined to small habour towns on the Karian Chersonesos proper; only when in about 240 by the grace of Seleukos II they got hold of the city of Stratonikeia did they get access to the interior of Karia.62 And it was not before the last quarter of the third century that the small neighbouring islands of Telos and Nisyros became part of the Rhodian state.63 Granted, Rhodian influence in the Cyclades began slowly to rise when the Ptolemaic protectorate over the League of the Islanders fell into abeyance after 250.64 But a new league of islanders under Rhodian leadership only came into being some decades later, after the Rhodians had in 201 decided to attack Philip V of Macedon, thus starting what was to be become the Second Macedonian War of the Roman Republic.65 It was in the brief period between the war of the Rhodians against Philip V and the end of the Third Macedonian War waged by the Roman Republic that the Rhodians came closest to realizing their long-held dream of hegemony. From 200 to 168 they were in firm control over the Cyclades.
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Hans-Ulrich Wiemer Like Athens in the fifth century they stationed garrisons on islands such as Tenos that were formally allied to them and served as naval bases for the Rhodian fleet.66 When the allied city of Keos was suspected of disloyalty against the people of Rhodes, Kean representatives were summoned to answer these charges before the Rhodian assembly.67 Rhodian imperialism reached its height after Antiochos III had been defeated by the Romans with the help of the Rhodian navy.68 Not long afterwards the Rhodians had the famous Nike erected as a victory monument in the sanctuary of the Great Gods on Samothrace where in close proximity to donations and dedications made by Ptolemaic and Antigonid kings it was to proclaim the greatness and might of the Rhodian republic.69 The Roman senate showed its gratitude to the Rhodians by assigning them part of the territories ceded by Antiochos in the treaty of Apameia,70 and the Rhodians immediately set out to organize Karia and Lykia as parts of a Rhodian zone of hegemony.71 To be sure, the Rhodians promised liberty to the cities of Karia and Lykia, but it was liberty granted on Rhodian terms. These terms were negotiable, but they did not exclude Rhodian interference in internal affairs or the imposition of tribute; if necessary, they were enforced by Rhodian arms. This is not the place to retell the sombre story of how the Rhodians tried by force to impose their rule on Lykian cities unwilling to submit to foreign domination, and how this attempt finally failed, after many years of guerrilla warfare had caused enormous losses to Rhodian finances and devastated parts of Lykia.72 I must also refrain from analysing Rhodian attempts at gaining a hegemonial position in Karia by striking treaties of alliance with many cities on the coast and by stationing garrisons in some others like Stratonikeia and Kaunos.73 That this vast hegemonial zone comprising the whole Aegean plus Karia and Lykia soon proved to be a house of cards is hardly cause for surprise to us. Rhodian resources might have been sufficient to control the small city-states of the Cyclades, but they were clearly vastly overstretched when it came to controlling dozens of cities in Southwest Asia Minor many of which were quite sizeable and had a large inland territory. Because of this, Rhodian hegemony in Karia and Lykia was from the start dependent on its being seen to be supported by the will of Rome. When, therefore, the senate withdrew its favour after the crushing defeat of Perseus that Rhodian diplomacy had tried to prevent, Rhodian rule in these regions broke down quickly.74 Fearing Roman reprisals, the Rhodians now dropped all pretensions to neutrality and submissively asked to be accepted as allies of Rome. It took four long years of humiliation before in 164 the Rhodians finally were deemed worthy of becoming allies of Rome, albeit on unequal
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Early Hellenistic Rhodes: The struggle for independence and the dream of hegemony terms.75 The dream of hegemony on a more than local scale was over now, even if Rhodes continued to have allies of its own down into the first century BC.76 Acknowledgements I should like to thank Andrew Erskine for reading the manuscript and for helpful suggestions to improve it in both form and substance. As this chapter was completed in 2007 I have not been able to take full account of the literature published since then.
Notes 1 Badian 1995. 2 As a political history of the Hellenistic world Will 1979/1982 remains unsurpassed; in English there is now Errington 2008. For a recent synthesis on the hellenistic monarchies see Virgilio 2003. 3 On early Hellenistic Athens see the magisterial treatment in Habicht 1995. 4 A recent account of Hellenistic Sparta by Paul Cartledge is to be found in Cartledge and Spawforth 2002, 3–90 with notes at 235–51. 5 There exists no up-to-date account of the Rhodian state to supersede that of Gelder 1900, 178–88. The institutions are briefly surveyed in Gabrielsen 1997, 24–31; the political decision-making process is analyzed in Wiemer 2002a, 21–2; Wiemer 2002b, 581–2; Grieb 2008, 263–353 (to be used with caution). For Archaic and Classical Rhodes see Nielsen and Gabrielsen 2004 (with ample bibliography) and for a fanciful account of Rhodian grandeur before the synoikismos Kowalzig 2007, 224–66. 6 Berthold 1984, 58. 7 The belief that Rhodian policy was aimed at preserving a balance of power for the Hellenistic world generally is shared, inter alios, by Schmitt 1957, 55 and by Ager 1991, 10. On the history of the modern concept see Fenske 1975, 959–96 and Anderson 1993, 149–203. 8 A detailed analysis of the literary tradition is to be found in Wiemer 2001 (summarized in Wiemer 2002b, 563–72). 9 On Rhodian history between the synoecism and Alexander’s arrival in Asia Minor see Berthold 1984, 19–37 and Wiemer 2002a, 53–66. 10 Hecatomnid garrison: Dem. 15.15; Macedonian garrison: Curt. 4.8.12–13, Diod. Sic. 18.8.1. 11 Diod. Sic. 18.8.1. 12 On the settlement reached in Babylon after Alexander’s death see now the detailed treatment in Bosworth 2002, 29–63. 13 On operations at sea during the so-called Lamian war see, e.g., Engels 1993, 384–92. 14 On Karia in the late 320s see the detailed study by Varinlioglu et al. 1990. I accept the low chronology defended – inter alios – by Bosworth 2002. 15 Arr. Succ. F 1.37 = FGrH 156 F 9.37; Arr. Succ. F 25.1–2 = FGrH 156 F 10.7; Iust. 13.6.14; Diod. Sic. 18.39.6 (confirmation); Arr. Succ. F 1.41 = FGrH 156 F 11.42
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Hans-Ulrich Wiemer (defeat). Several inscriptions show Asandros to have been in control of inner Karia by 319/8: I.Stratonikeia 501 (323/2); I.Amyzon 2 (321/20); I.Mylasa 21 (319/8?); SEG 33.872 (319/8?); I.Stratonikeia 503 (319/8). But that does not necessarily apply to the coastal cities; the stephanephorate of Asandros in Miletos (I.Milet 122, col. II, line 101) dates from 314/3 or 313/2. 16 Arr. Succ. F 1.39 = FGrH 156 F 11.39 (on this see Wiemer 2002a, 68–71). 17 On this see Billows 1990, 116–21. 18 On this see Hauben 1977 and Wiemer 2002a, 71–7. 19 For Hieronymos as the main source of Diodorus in Book 18–20 see the convincing analysis in Hornblower 1981, 18–75. That the account of the siege of Rhodes is drawn from a Rhodian source, presumably Zenon, has been argued by Wiemer 2001, 222–50. 20 Cult of Ptolemy I: Diod. Sic. 20.100.3–4; Gorgon FGrH 519 F 19 = Ath. 15.696F. A priesthood of Ptolemy I is attested as late as c. 200 BC: Segre 1941, 30, lines 16–17. The best analysis is still to be found in Habicht 1970, 109–10, cf. 257–8. 21 Polyb. 16.14–20, esp. 14.1–10; 17.8–11. I have commented on these passages in Wiemer 2001, 19–27. 22 On relations between Athens and Demetrios in the period 307–301 see Habicht 1995, 76–88. Athenian ships in the sea-battle of Salamis: Diod. Sic. 20.50.3. The battle is analysed in Seibert 1972, 190–206. 23 Polyaenus (4.6.16) reports that during the siege Rhodian seafarers were present in harbours all over the Levant. People from Syria, Phoenicia and Asia Minor form the majority of foreigners that are attested on Rhodian inscriptions: Morelli 1956, 135–6; Sacco 1980. From the ‘Testament of Alexander’ that was forged on Rhodes and became part of the ‘Alexander Romance’ it is clear that the Rhodians imported as much corn from Asia Minor as they did from Egypt: Hist. Alex. 3.33.8; Epit. Mett. 108; cf. RC 3, lines 80–5. 24 Byzantine refusal to assist Antigonos in the Third Diadoch War: Diod. Sic. 19.77.7. Honorary statues for Antigonos and Demetrios raised in Olympia by the Byzantines between 305/301: Syll.3 349–351. 25 I have analysed the literary tradition on the siege in Wiemer 2001, 238–50 and tried to reconstruct the events and their causes in Wiemer 2002a, 84–91. 26 Diod. Sic. 20.99.3. 27 Polyb. 5.88–90 with ample commentary by Walbank 1957, 616–22. On Polybius’ sources of information and the political message they were aiming to convey see Wiemer 2001, 33–9. 28 Attested in a well-known inscription (Syll.3 337) commented on by Holleaux 1938 and by Bringmann and Steuben 1995, no. 83. 29 Plin. HN 34.43. 30 The date depends on whether one reads in the Codex Bambergensis of Plin. HN 34.43 the numeral LVI or LXVI. 31 Philon Mirab. 4.6; Polyb. 5.88.3. 32 Older reconstructions are briefly reviewed and a new one is suggested in Hoepfner 2003. On the methodological problems involved see Vedder 2004. 33 A convenient collection of the textual sources on the Colossus known before the Posidippus-papyrus was deciphered can be found in Hebert 1989, 16–45 Q 28–103, a thorough analysis in Vedder 2000.
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Early Hellenistic Rhodes: The struggle for independence and the dream of hegemony 34
Sopatros stemmed from Paphos on Cyprus, but seems to have migrated to Alexandria; according to Ath. 2.71a–b his life extended from the reign of Alexander the Great down to that of Ptolemy Philadelphos. The testimonia on his life and the 25 fragments from his works (all from Athenaeus) are conveniently assembled in Kassel and Austin 2001, 275–87. 35 Sopatros’ lines on the Colossus appear in a speech that Athenaeus (4.158D) puts into the mouth of the Cynic Kynoulkos: ἀλλ’ ὑµεῖς γε, ἔφη, οἱ ἀπὸ τῆς καλῆς
Ἀλεξανδρείας, ὦ Πλούταρχε, σύντροφοί ἐστε τῷ φακίνῳ βρώµατι καὶ πᾶσα ὑµῶν ἡ πόλις πλήρης ἐστὶ φακίνων· ὧν καὶ Σώπατρος ὁ Φάκιος παρῳδὸς µέµνηται ἐν δράµατι Βακχίδι λέγων οὕτως· ‘οὐκ ἂν δυναίµην εἰσορῶν χαλκήλατον |µέγαν κολοσσὸν φάκινον ἄρτον ἐσθίειν.’ What exactly the character in Sopatros’ play was meaning to say by this is
unclear, and commentators have suggested widely differing interpretations. Of the two interpretations proposed in Kaibel 1909, 192 (‘sententia aut “ego Alexandrinus Rhodii vivere nequeo” aut “Rhodiis cum licet, Alexandrinis panibus non vescor”’) and repeated by Kassel and Austin 2001, 276 (who refer to F 9 = Ath. 3.109E where Rhodian bread is mentioned) the first seems to fit the context much better since Kynoulkos describes lentil-dishes as an Alexandrian speciality (thus Fraser 1972, II 875 n. 16: ‘The sense might be: ‘I would not be able to eat my lentil bread if I went to live on Rhodes’). Perhaps, however, something more specific is meant: that the Colossus was so breathtaking a sight that looking upon it took away completely the Alexandrians’ otherwise insatiable appetite for lentil-bread. 36 I quote text and translation from Austin and Bastianini 2002, 90–1 no. 68. There is a short commentary in the editio princeps by Bastianini and Gallazzi 2001, 194–6. 37 See the contributions assembled in Gutzwiller 2005 and also Porter, this volume, who gives particular attention to questions of scale. 38 On this see Gutzwiller 2002, 56–7. 39 This is clear from the Posidippan epigram on a statue of Philitas of Kos that was dedicated at the order of Ptolemy II: Austin and Bastianini 2002, 86–7 no. 63 with Gutzwiller 2002, 46–8. 40 On this Fraser 1972, I 559–60 with II 796–7 n. 44–5 remains fundamental. 41 Hoepfner 2003, 53–64. 42 Vedder 2004, 1111–2. The complex of buildings located on the foot of the acropolis where a series of honorary statues of priests of Helios and several other inscriptions have been found (Kontorini 1989, 129–84) seems small to have served as the sanctuary of the most important god of Rhodes: Hoepfner 2003, 43–9. 43 Theodor Bergk (1872) ascribed the epigram to Alkaios of Messene, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff is reported by Beckby 1967/1968, I 691 (cf. IV 556) to have thought it unsuitable for inscription on the Colossus, and Silvio Accame (1947, 95–9 believed that it was composed not long after 200 BC (cited with approval by Wiemer 2001, 223). 44 On the sources of book VI of the Palatine Anthology see Waltz 1931, 3–26, Beckby 1967/1968, I 441–3 and Cameron 1993, 121–8. Gow and Page 1965 do not include Anth. Pal. 6.171 among the anonymous epigrams they attribute to Meleagros’ ‘Garland’, but Cameron 1993, 123 thinks that the whole group Anth. Pal. 6.158–178 comes ‘from Meleager, Philip, and Agathias combined’ which for Anth. Pal. 6.171 can only mean Meleagros. 45 Thus, e. g., Hiller von Gaertringen 1931, 781 and Gow and Page 1965. II 588:
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Hans-Ulrich Wiemer ‘This epigram was plainly inscribed on or near the statue, presumably soon after its completion, and it may be assigned with some approval to the first quarter of the third century BCE ’. 46 Anth. Pal. 6.171. My translation is based on that of William Paton in the Loeb edition but with some alterations: In l. 3 I take χάλκεον to go with κολοσσὸν rather than with κῦµα because there is a caesura after χάλκεον, and because there is no parallel for expanding the Aeschylean metaphor ‘wave of war’ by adding the adjective ‘brazen’. In l. 5 I prefer the Planudean reading ἄνθεσαν over the Palatine κάτθεσαν which in my opinion must refer to an object αὐτόν which in this context it was unnecessary to express. 47 According to the calculations of Gow 1958, 20–2 only 76 epigrams in Meleagros’ collection were unascribed. Anonymous epigrams form only a small fraction of the total transmitted via the ‘Palatine’ and ‘Planudean’ Anthologies. 48 On earlier collections of epigrams and their limited scope see Cameron 1993, 5–13. 49 Anth. Pal. 9.518. Translation adapted from that of William Paton in the Loeb edition. 50 Alkaios later turned against Philip (Anth. Pal. 9.519; 11.12) and praised Titus Flamininus as liberator of Greece: Anth. Pal. 16.5; Plut. Flam. 9.2 (with Anth. Pal. 7.247). On the anonymous Anth. Pal. 16.6 see Walbank 1942. 51 Thus, rightly, Walbank 1942, 134–6. 52 The ‘Planudean Anthology’ (16.82) preserves a iambic two-liner describing Chares as sculptor of the Colossus. Since it is already cited by Strabo 14.2.5, it may well have stood on the Colossus as well (thus Gow and Page 1965, II 588–9), though the first four words seem inappropriate for that purpose and may be a late intrusion into the text replacing something like τόνδ’ Ἡλίου κολοσσόν (proposed by Cameron 1993, 294–5). 53 On his cult see Morelli 1959, 175–6; on his representation in Rhodian mythology Wiemer 2001, 211–5. I deal with Tlapolemos as a symbol of Rhodian identity in Wiemer, forthcoming (a). 54 This crucial point is also stressed by Gehrke 2003, 238. 55 On the meaning and history of this formula that can be traced back to the fifth and fourth centuries see Momigliano 1942/1960. 56 FD 3.383 = Syll.3 614 = Ager 1996, no. 117, I, l. 34–6: ἀναγράψαι τὰµ µὲν προξενίαν ἐν τὸ βουλεῖον κα[τὰ τὸν νόµον, τὸ δὲ ψάφισµα] ἐν τὰν βάσιν τοῦ χρυσέου ἅρµατος τοῦ [ἀνατεθέντος τῶι θεῶι ὑπὸ] τοῦ δάµου τοῦ Ῥοδίων. 57 FD 3.378 = Syll.3 441: ὁ δᾶµος ὁ Ῥοδ[ί]ω[ν τῶι Ἀπόλλωνι τῶι Πυθί]ωι. 58
Daux 1943, 329–32. Jacquemin and Laroche 1986, suggesting that the pillar was raised in commemoration of the expulsion of Alexander’s garrison in 323. This suggestion, however, does not account for the fact that at the time it was far from clear whether the Rhodians would get through with their policy of independence. It had to be defended first against Attalos and then against Antigonos before it was generally respected. 60 In the same sense Rice 1993, 239–42. 61 The different possibilities are discussed in the editions of Luigi Moretti (ISE 40) and Léopold Migeotte (1984: no. 19). 59
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The date when the Rhodians got hold of Stratonikeia has to be inferred from Poly. 30.31.6 and is highly disputed; I have defended my position in Wiemer 2002a, 182–4. The complicated question of when and how Rhodian possessions on the mainland opposite their island developed is the subject of Wiemer, forthcoming (b). Among recent contributions to the debate are Gabrielsen 2000, Debord 2003 and Bremen 2004a and Bremen 2004b. 63 Evidence and discussion in Wiemer 2002a, 196. 64 More on this in Wiemer 2002a, 192–8. 65 On the war of the Rhodians against Philip V see Wiemer 2002a, 198–227. To the evidence there cited can now be added a decree of Eretria that has only recently been found and is reported to honour two Rhodians for having saved Eretrians who had been taken captives, presumably when L. Quinctius Flamininus conquered the city in 198: Knoepfler 2005, 303–4. 66 For Rhodian presence on Tenos see the evidence discussed in Wiemer 2002a, 273–4. 67 Keos: SEG 14.544 with my remarks in Wiemer 2002a, 219. 68 For Rhodian involvement in the war against Antiochos III see my discussion Wiemer 2002a, 235–51, though Knoepfler 2005, 285–308 has recently demonstrated that the decrees of Karthaia in honour of three officials of a king Antiochos which others, including myself, once believed to date from the reign of Antiochos III (SEG 48.1130) should rather be dated to the reign of Antiochos II and do not supply evidence for Seleukid control of the island of Keos. 69 Pending the final publication of the Nike monument by Ira Mark (for a preliminary report see Mark 1998), one has to have recourse to books like Knell 1995 whose general interpretation I share for the reasons given in Wiemer 2001, 127–8. 70 On the settlement of Apameia see my analysis in Wiemer 2001, 128–49; Wiemer 2002a, 250–1; 277–288. 71 On Rhodian domination in Lykia see Bresson 1999 and Wiemer 2002a, 260–71. My interpretation would seem to be confirmed – at least in principle, I believe – by a new inscription from the little town of Melanippion in Lykia, see Adak 2007. 72 In addition to the contributions cited in the preceding note see my analysis of the literary sources in Wiemer 2001, 151–8. 73 On Rhodian domination in Karia see Reger 1999, Wiemer 2002a, 251–9 and Bresson 2003 and Wiemer, forthcoming (b). Rhodian garrisons in Kaunos and Stratonikeia are attested in Polyb. 30.21.3. The whole subject will have to considered anew in the light of an honorary decree passed by an anonymous city in honour of a Rhodian ἡγεµὼν κατὰ Καρίαν τόπων that has recently been found in Aphrodisias, for which see Chaniotis, forthcoming. 74 My views on Rhodian policy during the Third Macedonian War are set out in Wiemer 2002a, 298–317. For different views see, e.g. Gruen 1975, 58–81; Berthold 1984, 195–212; Gabrielsen 1993. 75 On the Rhodian Treaty with Rome see my discussion in Wiemer 2002a, 325–8. 76 Maiuri 1925, no. 18, l. 29–30: τῶν συµµάχων πάντων τῶν τασσοµένων ὑπὸ τὸν δᾶµον.
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Hans-Ulrich Wiemer Bibliography Accame, S. 1947 ‘Alceo di Messene, Filippo V e Roma’, Rivista Italiana di Filologia Classica n. s. 25, 94–105. Adak, M. 2007 ‘Die rhodische Herrschaft in Lykien und die rechtliche Stellung der Städte Xanthos, Phaselis und Melanippion’, Historia 56, 251–79. Ager, S. L. 1991 ‘Rhodes: The rise and fall of a neutral diplomat’, Historia 40, 10–41. 1996 Interstate Arbitrations in the Greek World, 337–90 BC, Berkeley. Anderson, M. S. 1993 The Rise of Modern Diplomacy 1450–1919, London and New York. Austin, C. and Bastianini, G. 2002 Posidippi Pellaei quae supersunt omnia ediderunt, Milan. Badian, E. 1995 ‘The ghost of empire. Reflections on Athenian foreign policy in the fourth century BC ’, in W. Eder (ed.) Die athenische Demokratie im 4. Jahrhundert v. Chr. Vollendung oder Verfall einer Verfassungsform, Stuttgart, 81–106. Bastianini, G. and Gallazzi, C. 2001 Posidippo di Pella. Epigrammi (P.Mil.Vogl. VIII 309). Edizione a cura di G. B. e C. G. con la collaborazione di C. Austin, Milan. Beckby, H. 1967/68 Anthologia Graeca. Griechisch und Deutsch, 2nd edn, 4 Vols., Munich. Bergk, T. 1873 ‘Ein Epigramm des Alkaios v. Messene’, Philologus 32, 678–81. Berthold, R. M. 1984 Rhodes in the Hellenistic Age, Ithaca and London. Billows, R. A. 1990 Antigonos the One-Eyed and the Creation of the Hellenistic State, Berkeley. Boiy, T. 2007 Between High and Low. A chronology of the early Hellenistic period, Berlin. Bosworth, A. B. 2002 The Legacy of Alexander: Politics, warfare, and propaganda under the Successors. Oxford. Bremen, R. van 2004a ‘Laodikeia in Karia’, Chiron 34, 367–99. 2004b ‘Leon the son of Chrysaor and the religious identity of Stratonikeia in Caria’, in S. Colvin (ed.) The Greco-Roman East. Politics, culture and society, Yale Classical Studies 31, Cambridge, 207–44. Bresson, A. 1999 ‘Rhodes and Lycia in Hellenistic times’, in V. Gabrielsen et al. (eds) Hellenistic Rhodes: Politics, culture, and society, Aarhus, 98–131. 2003 ‘Les intérêts rhodiens en Carie à l’époque hellénistique jusqu’en 167 av.J.-C.’ in F. Prost (ed.) L’Orient méditerranéen de la mort d’Alexandre aux campagnes de Pompée. Cités et royaumes à l’époque hellénistique, Rennes, 169–92. Bringmann, K. and Steuben, H. von 1995 Schenkungen hellenistischer Herrscher an griechische Städte und Heiligtümer, Teil I:
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Early Hellenistic Rhodes: The struggle for independence and the dream of hegemony Zeugnisse und Kommentare. Bearbeitet von W. Ameling, K. Bringmann, B. Schmidt-Dounas, Berlin. Cameron, Alan 1993 The Greek Anthology from Meleager to Planudes, Oxford. Chaniotis, A. forthcoming ‘New evidence from Aphrodisias concerning the Rhodian occupation of Karia and the early history of Aphrodisias’, in R. van Bremen and J.-M. Carbon (eds) Hellenistic Caria, Bordeaux. Debord, P. 2003 ‘Cité grecque – village carien’, Studi ellenistici 15, 115–80. Debord, P. and Varinlioglu, E. 2001 Les hautes terres de Carie, Ausonius Publications. Mémoires 4, Bordeaux. Cartledge, P. and Spawforth, A. 2001 Hellenistic and Roman Sparta: A tale of two cities, 2nd edn, London. Daux, G. 1943 Fouilles de Delphes, Tome III, Fascicule 3: Inscriptions depuis le Trésor des Athéniens jusqu’aux bases de Gélon, Paris. Engels, J. 1993 Studien zur politischen Biographie des Hypereides. Athen in der Epoche der Lykurgischen Reformen und des makedonischen Universalreiches, 2nd ed., Munich. Errington, R. M. 2008 A History of the Hellenistic World 323–30 BC, Malden, Mass. Fenske, H. 1975 ‘Gleichgewicht, Balance’ in O. Brunner et al. (eds) Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe. Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, Vol. II, Stuttgart. Fraser, P. M. 1972 Ptolemaic Alexandria, 3 Vols., Oxford. Gabrielsen, V. 1993 ‘Rhodes and Rome after the Third Macedonian War’, in P. Bilde et al. (eds) Centre and Periphery in the Hellenistic World, Aarhus, 133–61. 1997 The Naval Aristocracy of Hellenistic Rhodes, Aarhus. 2000 ‘The Rhodian Peraea in the third and second centuries BC’, Classica et Mediaevalia 51, 129–84. Gelder, H. van 1900 Geschichte der alten Rhodier, The Hague. Gehrke, H.-J. 2003 ‘Bürgerliches Selbstverständnis und Polisidentität im Hellenismus’, in K.-J. Hölkeskamp et al (eds) Sinn (in) der Antike. Orientierungssysteme, Leitbilder und Wertkonzepte im Altertum, Mainz am Rhein, 225–54. Gow, A. S. F. 1958 The Greek Anthology. Sources and ascriptions, London. Gow, A. S. F. and Page, D. L. 1965 The Greek Anthology. Hellenistic epigrams, 2 Vols, Cambridge. Grieb, V. 2008 Hellenistische Demokratie. Politische Organisation und Struktur in den freien griechischen Poleis nach Alexander dem Großen, Stuttgart.
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Hans-Ulrich Wiemer Gruen, E. S. 1975 ‘Rome and Rhodes in the second century BC: a historiographical Inquiry’, CQ 25, 58–81. Gutzwiller, K. 2002 ‘Posidippus on statuary’, in G. Bastianini and A. Casanova (eds), Il papiro di Posidippo un anno dopo, Studi e testi di papirologia n. s. 4, Florence, 41–60. 2005 The New Posidippus. A Hellenistic poetry book, Oxford. Habicht, C. 1970 Gottmenschentum und griechische Städte, 2nd edn, Munich. 1995 Athen. Die Geschichte der Stadt in hellenistischer Zeit, Munich. Hauben, H. 1977 ‘Rhodes, Alexander, and the Diadochi from 333/332 to 304 BC ’, Historia 26, 307–39. Hebert, B 1989 Schriftquellen zur hellenistischen Kunst. Plastik, Malerei und Kunsthandwerk der Griechen vom vierten bis zum zweiten Jahrhundert, Graz. Hiller von Gaertringen, F. von 1931 ‘Rhodos’, in: RE Suppl. V, 731–840. Hoepfner, W. 2003 Der Koloß von Rhodos und die Bauten des Helios. Neue Forschungen zu einem der sieben Weltwunder, Mainz. Holleaux, M. 1938 ‘Sur une inscription de Thèbes’, in idem, Études d’épigraphie et d’histoire grecques, Vol. I, Paris, 1–40. Hornblower, J. 1981 Hieronymus of Cardia, Oxford. Jacquemin, A. and Laroche, D. 1986. ‘Le char d’or consacré par le peuple rhodien’, BCH 110, 285–307. Kaibel, G. 1909 Comicorum Graecorum fragmenta, Vol. I, 1: Doriensium comoedia, mimi, phlyaces, Berlin. Kassel, R. and Austin, C. 2001 Poetae Comici Graeci, Vol. I: Comoedia Dorica, Mimi. Phlyaces, Berlin and New York. Knell, H. 1995 Die Nike von Samothrake. Typus, Form, Bedeutung und Wirkungsgeschichte eines rhodischen Sieges-Anathems im Kabirenheiligtum von Samothrake, Darmstadt. Knoepfler, D. 2005 ‘La prétendue domination d’Antiochos III sur Kéôs: à propos de deux décrets récemment publiés (SEG 48,1130)’, Chiron 35, 285–308. Kontorini, V. 1989 Ἀνέκδοτες ἐπίγραφες Ῥόδου II. Inscriptions inédites de Rhodes II. Athens. Kowalzig, B. 2007 Singing for the Gods: Performances of myth and ritual in Archaic and Classical Greece, Oxford. Maiuri, A. 1925 Nuova silloge epigrafica di Rodi e Cos, Florence.
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Early Hellenistic Rhodes: The struggle for independence and the dream of hegemony Mark, I. S. 1998. ‘The Victory of Samothrace’, in O. Panagia and W. Coulson (eds) Regional Schools in Hellenistic Sculpture, Oxford, 157–65. Migeotte, L. 1984 L’emprunt publique dans les cités grecques, Québec and Paris. Momigliano, A. 1960 ‘Terra marique’, in idem, Secondo contributo alla storia degli studi classici e del mondo antico, Rome, 431–46 (reprinted from Journal of Roman Studies 32, 1942, 53–64). Morelli, D. 1956 ‘Gli stranieri in Rodi’, Studi Classici ed Orientali 5, 126–90. 1959 I culti in Rodi, Studi Classici ed Orientali 8, Pisa. Nielsen, T. H. and Gabrielsen, V. 2004 ‘Rhodos’, in M. H. Hansen and T. H. Nielsen (eds) An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis, Oxford, 1196–210. Reger, G. 1999 ‘The relations between Rhodes and Caria from 246 to 167 BC ’, in V. Gabrielsen et al. (eds) Hellenistic Rhodes: Politics, culture, and society, Aarhus, 76–97. Rice, E. E. 1993 ‘The Glorious Dead: Commemoration of the fallen and portrayal of victory in the late classical and the hellenistic world’, in J. Rich and G. Shipley (eds) War and Society in the Greek World, London, 224–57. Sacco, G. 1980 ‘Su alcuni etnici di stranieri in Rodi’, Rendiconti dell’Accademia dei Lincei 35, 517–28. Schmitt, H. H. 1957 Rom und Rhodos, Munich. Segre, M. 1941 ‘Il culto rodio di Alessandro e dei Tolomei’, Bulletin de la Société Archéologique d’Alexandrie 34, 29–39. Seibert, J. 1972 Untersuchungen zur Geschichte Ptolemaios’ I, Munich. Varinlioglu, E. et al. 1990 ‘Une inscription de Pladasa de Carie’, Revue des Études Anciennes 92, 59–78. Vedder, U. 2000 ‘Der Koloß von Rhodos – Mythos und Wirklichkeit eines Weltwunders’, Nürnberger Blätter zur Archäologie 16, 23–40. 2004 ‘Review of W. Hoepfner, Der Koloß von Rhodos und die Bauten des Helios’, Göttinger Forum für die Altertumswissenschaft 7, 1103–13. Virgilio, B. 2003 Lancia, diadema e porpora. Il re e la regalità ellenistica, 2nd edn, Pisa. Walbank, F. W. 1942 ‘Alcaeus of Messene, Philip V, and Rome’, CQ 36, 134–45. 1957 A Historical Commentary on Polybius, Vol. I, Oxford. Waltz, P. 1931 Anthologie Palatine. Texte établi et traduit, Tome III: Livre VI, Paris.
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Hans-Ulrich Wiemer Wiemer, H.-U. 2001 Rhodische Traditionen in der hellenistischen Historiographie, Frankfurt am Main. 2002a Krieg, Handel und Piraterie. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des hellenistischen Rhodos, Berlin. 2002b ‘Ökonomie und Politik im hellenistischen Rhodos’, Historische Zeitschrift 275, 561–91. forthcoming (a) ‘Zenon of Rhodes and the Rhodian view of history, in B. Gibson and T. Harrison (eds) Polybius and his World: Essays in honour of F. W. Walbank, Oxford. forthcoming (b) ‘Development and structure of the Rhodian Peraia: evidence and models’, in R. van Bremen and J.-M. Carbon (eds) Hellenistic Caria, Bordeaux. Will, É. 1979/1982 Histoire politique du monde hellénistique, 2nd edn, 2 Vols., Nancy.
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8 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF PLATAIA FOR GREEK ELEUTHERIA IN THE EARLY HELLENISTIC PERIOD 1 Shane Wallace Since the publication in 1973 of the honorary decree for Glaukon, son of Eteokles, of Athens, much attention has been placed not only on Glaukon himself but also on certain other features of the text, namely Plataia and the cult of Zeus Eleutherios and Homonoia of the Greeks.2 Plataia even alone resonated powerfully in Greek history, all the more so when combined with the concepts of freedom (eleutheria) and unity (homonoia). Much debate has focused on the origins of the cult of Homonoia of the Greeks. Two main schools of thought have developed: those who place its origin in the late fourth century in connection with Philip and Alexander and those who place it in the 260s, in connection with the political programme of the Chremonidean War.3 Both dates are possible, but I will argue for the former. A second point of debate is the origin of the Eleutheria Games, first attested in the early third century. Possibly originating in the fifth century, they were most likely re-organised in the late fourth century, perhaps under Alexander.4 My aim in this chapter is to look at Plataia and the cult of Zeus Eleutherios and Homonoia of the Greeks ensemble, from the re-foundation of Plataia in 337 until the Glaukon decree which is to be dated c.262–245.5 In this way, the evidence may be treated both chronologically and in unison and new insights can perhaps be offered into the history and importance of both site and cult. I shall focus on Plataia at three points in time. All offer ‘Panhellenic’ contexts, that is calls to Greek unity or freedom usually against a foreign power, and will be instructive for understanding the importance and function of Plataia at such times. Firstly, the years 337–335 and the re-foundation of Plataia under Philip and Alexander. Here I shall argue that Plataia’s connection with Alexander and his presence in Boiotia in Boedromion 335 offers a prime context for the (re-)foundation of the Eleutheria Games and, perhaps, the joint cult of Zeus Eleutherios and Homonoia of the Greeks. Secondly, the Hellenic (Lamian) War of 323/2.6
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Shane Wallace I contend that due to Plataia’s pro-Macedonian position the Greek alliance was unable to utilise her historical connections in the war for Greek eleutheria. Thirdly, the Chremonidean War (c.268–262) and thereafter. Plataia formed an integral part of the war’s ideology and we can see again her renewed importance in this struggle for Greek eleutheria. Throughout this chapter, my central argument will be that the dynamic and malleable nature of the memory of the Persian Wars allowed their historical tradition of unity, eleutheria, and the struggle against the barbarian to be continually appropriated by both Macedon and Athens to enforce their various hegemonies. Plataia was used by Macedon, specifically Alexander, to enforce Macedonian leadership in Greece and ensure support for the invasion of the Persian Empire. Her alliance with Macedon prevented Hyperides during the Hellenic War from invoking Plataia’s historical significance as a site closely connected with eleutheria. Later however, both during and after the Chremonidean War, Plataia was called upon again as a symbol of Greek eleutheria and unity against the barbarian, now Macedon. At the same time, however, Plataia itself conditioned the nature of these appropriations by providing an established ideological framework, both ideologically in the ideas encapsulated within its role in the Persian Wars and physically in the layout of the monuments commemorating this, onto which subsequent Panhellenic struggles had to conceptualise themselves. 1. Philip and Alexander, 337–335 The duality of Alexander’s position as patron of Plataia and destroyer of Thebes is so frequently discussed that it is in danger of becoming an academic topos. However, as is often the case, there is still something left to be said. Here I concern myself with two points, both of which deserve specific treatment. Firstly, the dogma passed by the League of Corinth in late 335 decreeing Thebes’ destruction. Contemporary with the patronage of Plataia, this dogma and its use by Alexander reveals much concerning his Panhellenism and use of the memory of the Persian Wars. Secondly, the important fact that Alexander was present in Boiotia and patronising Plataia in Boedromion 335, close to the anniversary of the battle of Plataia. The potential implications of this chronological point have yet to be explored. I contend here that Alexander actively used the memory of the Persian Wars, specifically as regards Thebes and Plataia, to enforce his control, formalised through the League of Corinth, over Greece and Greek historical memory. I will support the argument that the ideological context established by Alexander and the League of Corinth in Boedromion 335 led to the foundation of the Eleutheria and possibly the joint cult of Zeus
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The significance of Plataia for Greek eleutheria in the early Hellenistic period Eleutherios and Homonoia of the Greeks. Plataia was, however, a site of pre-existing ideological importance manifest through its history and standing monuments, both of which influenced the nature of any appropriation of Plataia’s historical significance. After Chaeronea Philip punished Thebes by installing an oligarchy of 300 and garrisoning the Kadmeia.7 Plataia was to be re-founded and the Delphic lists show that Plataia sent naopoioi from 337/6 onwards.8 During the siege of Thebes in 335 Plataians fought alongside Alexander (Arr. Anab. 1.8.8). Following Thebes’ revolt and destruction in late 335 the synedrion of the League of Corinth decided to re-build Plataia’s walls (Arr. Anab. 1.9.10) and it, along with other Boiotian cities, was awarded Theban land (Diod. 18.11.3–4). Plutarch adds that Alexander, flush with victory after Gaugamela, promised to rebuild Plataia and announced, at the Olympic Games of 328, that this was in gratitude for its actions on behalf of Greek freedom during the Persian Wars (Alex. 34.1–2, Arist. 11.9).9 These examples, limited though they are, reveal Plataia’s importance for Philip and Alexander on two counts. Firstly, and more generally, Macedonian support of Plataia went hand-in-hand with the punishment of Thebes and marked a new pro-Macedonian balance of power in Boiotia (Paus. 4.27.10, 9.1.8). Beyond Plataia, statues of Philip and Alexander at Thespiae imply that both patronised the city; Philip possibly re-founding it in 337 and Alexander donating Theban land in 335. Like Plataia, Orchomenos had its walls rebuilt by dogma of the League synedrion. AntiTheban sentiment ran deep and Thespiae, Orchomenos, Plataia, and Phokis fought with Alexander during the siege. Philip’s and Alexander’s patronage of Plataia, and more generally the Boiotian cities, reversed the traditional model of Thebes as tyrant of the Boiotian cities, most notably Plataia, whom she destroyed in 373. A pro-Macedonian Boiotia kept Thebes in check, ensured the loyalty of central Greece, and allowed access to the Megarid and Peloponnese, as well as Attica. As proof of success, the Boiotians later fought with Macedon in the Hellenic War.10 Secondly, and emphasising the individual significance of Plataia, both Philip’s and Alexander’s punishment of Thebes and patronage of Plataia marked an important ideological statement for Alexander’s Panhellenism in the build-up to the forthcoming invasion of the Persian Empire.11 In 479 Thebes had ignominiously medised and it was at Plataia, on land ostentatiously given to Athens and the Greeks, that Greece was victorious and ensured its lasting freedom (Plut. Arist. 11.5–8).12 Since Philip’s and Alexander’s Asian campaign was presented both as a war of revenge for Persian sacrileges in 480/79 and a campaign for Greek eleutheria, the punishment of Thebes and the patronage of Plataia formed central parts
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Shane Wallace of the campaign’s ideological manifesto.13 That Alexander saw fit, as late as 328, to acknowledge Plataia’s sacrifice in 479 shows that Plataia’s role in the Persian Wars was a central part of the presentation of his entire campaign.14 Thebes and Plataia were key to Alexander’s Panhellenic policy and each should be analysed accordingly. Following the siege, Thebes was charged before a council of allies. With many members absent, such as Athens, the council consisted largely of Boiotian troops.15 Nonetheless, its judgement was presented and received as an official dogma of the League synedrion. As this has previously been doubted its validity should be re-emphasised here.16 Diodorus says that Alexander called together the synedroi and put the vote to the synedrion (17.14.1). Since synedrion denotes the League Council we must assume that it is to this that Diodorus refers.17 Justin reflects this: he says that judgement was passed in consilio (11.3.8), thus picking up on consiliumque, which he earlier used to denote the formalisation of the synedrion under Philip (9.5.2).18 Athens commended Alexander’s punishment of Thebes’ νεωτερισµός (revolution), an act specifically outlawed by the League (Ps. Demosth. 17.15; cf. Schmitt, SdA 466, l. 42–43), thus revealing that despite her absence from the council Athens sought at this juncture to mollify Alexander by ostensibly supporting his actions and commending Thebes’ destruction as League-authorised (Arr. Anab. 1.10.2–5). Furthermore, Alexander demanded the prosecution of the Athenian generals and orators in the synedrion, again emphasising its authority and activity at this time (Aeschin. In Ctes. 161).19 Evidence from Alexander’s Asian campaign supports the view that this makeshift synedrion at Thebes passed an official dogma. Diodorus says that the synedroi passed a resolution ‘to raze the city, to sell the captives, to make the Theban exiles outlaws (ἀγώγιµοι) from all Greece, and to allow no Greek to offer shelter to a Theban.’ 20 Throughout the years 334–330, Alexander consistently referred to a ‘dogma of the Greeks’ on medising. He punished the Greek mercenaries who fought with the Persians at Granikos according to the dogma of the Greeks;21 he considered prosecuting Lampsakos for siding with the Persians;22 likewise Zeleia;23 trials on medism (ἐπὶ βαρβαρισµῶι) were initiated on Chios;24 both there and at Eresos proPersian fugitives were made outlaws (ἀγώγιµοι) and barred from League cities according to the dogma of the Greeks;25 while finally Alexander threatened the last of Darios’ Greek mercenaries with acting against the dogmata of the Greeks.26 The only previous occasion when we know of a dogma being passed by the synedrion regarding medism and designating exiles as ἀγώγιµοι is the case of Thebes in late 335. Therefore, it is likely that the dogma at Thebes authorised Alexander, as he-gemo-n, to charge enemies for medism.27
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The significance of Plataia for Greek eleutheria in the early Hellenistic period It is vital to note, as Bosworth has done, that the dogma harked back directly to the Persian Wars, building authority from them.28 Justin tells us that during Thebes’ trial before the synedrion the Oath (ius) of Plataia was repeated and its call for the destruction of Thebes was reiterated.29 The Oath is known to us from three similar fourth-century accounts, two literary and one epigraphic. Largely a fabrication of the fourth century, the Oath does however contain a kernel of truth.30 Its call for the destruction of Thebes expands on the Oath taken by the Hellenes in late 481 to punish medisers, and the similar decision taken after the battle of Plataia to besiege Thebes until it handed over its leaders for judgement in Corinth.31 Clearly, the League dogma of 335 drew a connection with the earlier resolutions of 481–79 and paralleled the League of Corinth and the invasion of the Persian Empire with their ancestral counterparts. However, by building upon the traditions of the fourth-century Oath, the League sought historical validity through anachronistic elements of the Persian Wars tradition; elaborating historical circumstances around a text itself elaborated around historical circumstances.32 Historical fact was not definitive, it never is; rather it was the belief in what that historical tradition represented that was authoritative. In fact, it was essential, for other reasons, that Alexander and the League enforce their authority over the memory of the Persian Wars and Greek eleutheria. When Alexander arrived at Thebes he gave the Thebans a chance to capitulate and rejoin the peace. They refused. Instead, they called him tyrant, asserted that the Macedonian garrison denied their freedom, and called upon the Greeks to ally with them and the Great King, the true defender of Greek eleutheria, and rid Greece of its Macedonian oppressor.33 With ‘every syllable a calculated insult,’ this jabbed at the exposed nerve of Alexander’s Panhellenic pretensions.34 It challenged his role as he-gemo-n and undermined his propaganda by promoting the King’s Peace over the League of Corinth.35 It was therefore apt that Alexander used the League to punish Thebes. The reference to the Oath of Plataia authorised the destruction via the historical precedent of the Persian Wars, while the use of the League erased Thebes’ claims to be defending Greek eleutheria and displayed again Alexander’s validity as he-gemo-n. At all stages Alexander countered threats by employing the League to define its (and his) authority as a continuation of the authority exercised by the Greeks during the Persian Wars. Although some have appreciated the importance of Alexander’s use of a League dogma in Asia, it has not been adequately stressed that this dogma on medism was originally sanctioned by the synedrion of the League of Corinth at the time of the destruction of Thebes. This dogma, continually cited, formed a key component in the
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Shane Wallace justification of Alexander’s entire Asian campaign. Furthermore, it sought substantiation through a connection with the resolutions of the Greek League of 481–479; present authority through historical precedent. It was by adapting the memory of the Persian Wars that Alexander attempted to ensure support for his ostensibly Panhellenic campaign. The destruction of Thebes took place at the same time as the patronage of Plataia and both, as appropriations of the history of the Persian Wars, were deliberately juxtaposed: rewards for the defenders of eleutheria, punishment for its enemies. However, with the destruction of Thebes and patronage of Plataia Alexander insulted not only Thebes, but also Athens and Sparta. Athens was unable to defend either her ancestral or present allies, Plataia and Thebes respectively. Her weakness was further emphasised through her swift capitulation on news of Alexander’s victory and her commendation of the League’s destruction of Thebes, thus validating Alexander’s actions and ideology. Sparta had been the victor at Plataia in 479. She had, however, collaborated with the Theban mediser in destroying anti-Persian Plataia in 427 while openly denying her commitments to defend Plataia as a site of Greek eleutheria (Thuc. 3.53-68). By re-founding Plataia and condemning Theban medism, Alexander assumed in 335 the role that both Athens and Sparta had failed to fill in the 420s. But Alexander’s actions had further implications. Sparta remained aloof from the League of Corinth and the Macedonian Common Peace, a situation supported by Philip and Alexander. This meant that the threat remained that Sparta might re-assert her traditional hegemony in the Peloponnese, as indeed she attempted to do during the subsequent revolt of Agis in 331. This threat unified the League by binding members together through a common fear. However, Alexander was careful to exploit Sparta’s absence from both the League and the new campaign for Greek eleutheria from the barbarian. The 300 Persian panoplies sent to Athens after the battle of Granikos as a dedication to Athena reflected the 300 Spartan dead at Thermopylae and contrasted Spartan defeat with the victory of Alexander and the Greeks. Furthermore, the inscription that accompanied the dedication drew attention to Sparta’s absence from the current campaign; ‘Alexander, son of Philip, and the Greeks with the exception of the Lacedaimonians dedicate these spoils taken from the barbarians who live in Asia’ (Arr. Anab. 1.16.7; Plut. Alex. 16.8). Sparta was the only power to have led an invasion of Asia, indirectly under the 10,000, and later for eleutheria and autonomia under Derkylides and Agesilaos (Xen. Hell. 3.1.16, 20–1, 4.5, Ages. 1.10). Alexander’s actions advertised Macedonian superiority over Sparta, as well as Athens and Thebes, both in
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The significance of Plataia for Greek eleutheria in the early Hellenistic period Asia and in Greece. Alexander assumed the mantle of defender of Greek eleutheria, claimed by Sparta at Thermopylae and Plataia and expanded through the Asian campaigns in the early fourth century. A closer focus on Plataia, however, is now worthwhile. Under Philip and Alexander she was re-founded, had her walls built, received Theban land, and was generally patronised, owing in part to the importance of her role within the Persian Wars. Can we push the evidence still further? A penteteric Panhellenic festival for those who died at Plataia in 479, the Eleutheria, existed at Plataia from at least the early third century. Our earliest reference comes from Poseidippos of Kassandreia, active from about 289 onwards.36 Some have argued that the Eleutheria Games were of fifth-century origin, but there is no definite evidence for this.37 Since the early third-century Eleutheria is clearly Panhellenic, its origin must lie in the not-too-distant past. Let us take 280 as a terminus ante quem. Since Plataia was a ruin from 427–386 and 373–337, her re-foundation in 337 is a reasonable terminus post quem.38 The Glaukon decree of c.262–245 informs us that the games were organised by τὸ κοινὸν συνέδριον τῶν Ἑλλήνων (the common council of the Greeks) and that this body passed dogmata (l. 3, 25–6).39 Focusing on the terms synedrion and dogma, Roland Étienne and Marcel Piérart suggested that the games were founded under Macedonian authority by the synedrion of either the League of Philip and Alexander (337–323) or of Demetrios Poliorketes (302–301), both of which passed dogmata and called themselves τὸ κοινὸν συνέδριον τῶν Ἑλλήνων.40 Since the Eleutheria expanded on the Persian Wars, Greek eleutheria, and Plataia’s historical significance, we should look for a context for its (re-)foundation between 337 and 280 that fits this programme. Philip and Alexander in 337–334 is most likely, and taking Étienne’s and Piérart’s argument one step further I would like to propose a more exact date: Boedromion 335, the same time as the destruction of Thebes. Chronological considerations are of some significance here. The battle of Plataia took place on the 3rd of Boedromion 479.41 Word of Alexander’s destruction of Thebes reached Athens during the Great Mysteries, the 15th to 23rd Boedromion.42 Since Alexander spent two to three days in camp outside Thebes before the siege, which itself lasted one day, news of Thebes’ destruction would have reached Athens about four to five days after Alexander’s arrival (Arr. Anab. 1.7.7–11; Diod. 17.11.1). We can therefore accurately place Alexander’s arrival at Thebes somewhere between the 10th and the 19th of Boedromion, between one and two weeks after the anniversary of the battle of Plataia. After the siege, Alexander evidently spent some time in Boiotia, probably about one to two weeks:43 demanding Athens’ orators and generals and charging her for having
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Shane Wallace accepted Theban exiles. Pseudo-Callisthenes places Alexander’s camp at Plataia, and there is nothing inherently illogical in this (Alexander Romance b.1–5).44 Plataia was friendly ground, the synedrion had just decreed that her walls be re-built, and as he-gemo-n Alexander might have overseen their commencement. Could the Eleutheria have been founded (even commissioned) at this time? We do not know in what years the Eleutheria fell but it most likely proceeded from the date of the battle of Plataia, Boedromion 3rd 479. Taking place every four years, Boedromion 335 is exactly 144 years (or 36 four year cycles) after the battle of Plataia and, incidentally, the first possible occasion for the Eleutheria since Plataia’s re-foundation in 337. We do not know precisely on what days the Eleutheria took place but it probably culminated with the anniversary of the battle on Boedromion 3rd. Diodorus states as much (11.29.1) and Albert Schachter supported this in his analysis of Boiotian cults.45 Plutarch also seems to support this, adding that the Hellenic synedrion convened yearly at Plataia on the 3rd of Boedromion when the Plataians sacrificed to Zeus Eleutherios (Plut. Arist. 19.7, 21.1).46 Noel Robertson’s analysis of the dialogos (Atheno-Spartan debate over who should lead the procession at the festival) led him to suggest a date in Metageitnion for the Eleutheria, probably late in the month, but his conclusions are only secure for the late second century AD.47 Reconciling the evidence, a date could be possible of late Metageitnion leading into Boedromion and culminating in the meeting of the synedrion and the sacrifice to Zeus Eleutherios on Boedromion 3rd. Ultimate certainty is unattainable, but a date for the Eleutheria close to Boedromion 3rd is likely as it corresponds with both the synedrion meeting and the Plataian sacrifices to Zeus Eleutherios.48 Admittedly, Alexander and the League’s actions within Boiotia are about two weeks or so after Boedromion 3rd. However, W. K. Pritchett has pointed out that the two dates given for the battle by Plutarch, Boedromion 3rd in the Athenian calendar and Panemos 27th in the Boiotian, could lead to a difference of up to seven days in their respective festival calendars.49 Further, the Eleutheria need only have been instituted (or even commissioned) in mid to late Boedromion 335, perhaps with some games, before subsequently, from 331 onwards, being held earlier, on the anniversary of the battle of Plataia. If Boedromion 335 saw the origin of these commemorations, then the importance of the third-century synedrion in organising the games (as seen in the Glaukon decree) could reflect the role played by its fourth-century counterpart. The synedrion was primarily made up of Boiotians who used it to follow their own agendas: destroying Thebes; condemning her medism;
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The significance of Plataia for Greek eleutheria in the early Hellenistic period rebuilding the walls of Plataia. The League may plausibly have taken the opportunity to (re-)found a Panhellenic festival in honour of Plataia’s role in the Persian Wars. Alternatively, the impetus may lie with Alexander, who perhaps celebrated games after the destruction of Thebes, as he was to do with great frequency in Asia, commemorating victory and success (over Thebes?), celebrating new foundations (Plataia?), or acting as a prelude to a new campaign (invasion of Asia?).50 As a closer analogy, the Nemean Games returned to Corinth and gained renewed prominence through Macedonian patronage in the 330s.51 Ultimately, whether founded directly by either Alexander or the League – and both are possible – the new invasion of the Persian Empire and the historical and contemporary importance of Plataia and Thebes in Boedromion 335 offer an ideal context for the (re-)foundation of the Eleutheria as a remembrance of the Wars of 480/79 and Greek eleutheria. The events of Boedromion 335 may also provide the impetus for the addition of the cult of Homonoia of the Greeks to that of Zeus Eleutherios. Attested first in the Glaukon decree of c.262–245, the joint cult of Zeus Eleutherios and Homonoia of the Greeks has been the focus of some debate.52 The worship of Zeus Eleutherios probably reflects both Pausanias’ sacrifices in the Plataian agora and the altar consecrated outside Plataia by the Hellenes in 479.53 Homonoia of the Greeks must have been added later. Étienne and Piérart suggested the mid third century in connection with the Chremonidean War. This is possible, but the evidence for the concept of Homonoia of the Greeks at that time is slim.54 The same is to be said for Dreyer’s proposal of the Celtic invasion of 279. West has proposed a much more likely date of the late fourth century, probably in connection with the new war against Persia.55 He connects Homonoia of the Greeks with Gorgias, Lysias, and Isocrates, who consistently called for homonoia between the Greeks leading to a new war against Persia (e.g. Isoc. Phil. 16: τῆς τε τῶν Ἑλλήνων ὁµονοίας καὶ τῆς ἐπὶ τοὺς βαρβάρους στρατείας).56 West’s argument has not been widely accepted but due to the vast amount of literary evidence supporting it I find it quite plausible. It was in the fourth century that Homonoia first became personified,57 simultaneously with its continuous invocation as an aspect of a united Greek campaign against Persia. With this in mind, Homonoia of the Greeks was most likely added to Zeus Eleutherios at a time when calls for a Greek campaign against Persia were strong. The League of Corinth and the invasion of Persia is the perfect context, encapsulating as it does the ideals of Hellenic unity, eleutheria, and revenge against Persia. If this was the case, and one admits that it is speculative, then the joint cult of Zeus Eleutherios and Homonoia of the Greeks could have served
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Shane Wallace a number of purposes. For Plataia, it asserted the city’s right to exist based on its historical importance for eleutheria and the Persian Wars, something already promoted by Alexander and the League; a cry for stability and security in the wake of Plataia’s second re-foundation. For Alexander, the cult asserted the two key components of his campaign: peace at home and unity abroad.58 The joint cult gave to both these concepts ‘a solidity and objectivity’ not previously possessed: Homonoia of the Greeks personifying the civic and inter-polis stability sought by the League of Corinth and Zeus Eleutherios personifying eleutheria, the war against Persia, and the ideal of Hellenic unity that arose from both.59 It seems clear that during the 330s there was a tri-partite discourse taking place around Plataia: Alexander, League synedrion, and the cult of Zeus Eleutherios. As he-gemo-n of the League, Alexander stood behind the Leaguesanctioned destruction of Thebes and patronage of Plataia. Nonetheless, he remained careful to defer authority nominally to the League, showing that the League played a key role in validating his actions through Panhellenic authority and defining them via the precedent of the Persian Wars and the Greek League of 481–479. The League itself, however, was more than just a rubber stamp; it was an active partner in Alexander’s ideology. Here it is important to remember the Boiotian make-up of the synedrion in Boedromion 335, ensuring that local, including Plataian, voices would have been heard. While the synedrion’s prosecution of Thebes and patronage of Plataia did in part follow Alexander’s will, it was also a manifestation of the inherent anti-Thebism of the synedrion at this time. As evidence of the League’s active role, it continued to organise the Eleutheria into the Imperial period. Again, the games reflected the will and propaganda of both Alexander and the predominantly Boiotian synedrion. Rather than a tool of the he-gemo-n, the synedrion was more a point of synergy, working in unison with the he-gemo-n on a Panhellenic policy expanded from the historical traditions of Plataia and the Persian Wars. Of course, after her destruction by Thebes in 373, Plataia lay in ruins. The recommencement of the worship of Zeus Eleutherios and the sacrifices to the dead, as well as the rebuilding and patronage of Plataia in 337, emphasised a new beginning after Thebes’ previous crimes against Plataia and against the very memory of the Persian Wars. By their continued existence after the destruction of Plataia and the exile of its citizens, monuments dating from the Persian Wars, such as the victory trophy, and the tombs of the Greek dead, and perhaps the altar to Zeus Eleutherios, underscored Plataia’s abiding significance for Greek eleutheria and the memory of the Persian Wars. Vicariously, then, these monuments testified to Thebes’ double destruction of Plataia, re-emphasised its
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The significance of Plataia for Greek eleutheria in the early Hellenistic period medism during the Persian wars, and revealed it to be a continued enemy of eleutheria. The very act of patronising Plataia marked a clear statement on Theban violence and medism. An interesting dynamic lies in the importance of these monuments in developing, almost mythologising, Plataia’s Persian War history. In 335 the central standing monuments appear to have been the altar, the trophy, and the tombs.60 Although Th. Spyropoulos’ excavations have tentatively identified the altar to Zeus Eleutherios, no trace of the other monuments survives.61 Nonetheless, some comments can be made. These monuments defined Plataia’s cultic landscape and established pre-determined ideological limits into which later events and phenomena must be integrated. So, just as new additions to the cultic landscape, be they Homonoia of the Greeks or the Eleutheria, altered the ideology of this landscape, so too did the landscape itself constrain the import of these new additions. The pre-existing contexts of eleutheria, the Persian Wars, and the struggle against the barbarian altered and defined any new additions, while these additions appropriated the pre-existing ideological contexts in order to enforce themselves. While Alexander could use Plataia to promote Macedonian hegemony and leadership, he was limited by the contextualised ideology of Greek eleutheria from a foreign barbarian. This context, though flexible and manipulable, still prefigured and shaped the nature of the proMacedonian exploitation of Plataia. The geography of these monuments is also important in defining the physical, as much as the ideological, manipulation of Plataia’s historical context. So, the crowning event of the Eleutheria itself, the hoplite race, took place between the trophy and altar, both dating from the day of victory, with the victor being acclaimed ‘best of the Hellenes’.62 Upon its (re-)foundation, the Eleutheria was integrated directly into a predetermined ideological topography, from which it developed its own history and significance while similarly influencing the meaning of that topography. The patronage of Plataia by Alexander and the League, the foundation of the Eleutheria, and possibly the cult of Homonoia of the Greeks, all emphasised a very real Macedonian, or pro-Macedonian, appropriation of the memory of the Persian Wars, one which was, however, structured and conditioned by the very ideological topography it appropriated. 2. Plataia, Thebes, and the Hellenic War The Hellenic War was Athens’ great Panhellenic statement against Macedon. Hyperides’ Epitaphios preserves this sentiment, built upon the memory of the battles and individuals of the Persian Wars. It is therefore surprising that no mention is made of Plataia, particularly since Diodorus
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Shane Wallace records Leosthenes’ victory there over pro-Macedonian forces. By comparing the accounts of Diodorus and Hyperides, I will argue that Hyperides deliberately avoided mention of Plataia and even ignored Leosthenes’ victory there. Under Alexander, Plataia’s Persian War history had been used to support Macedonian hegemony. When Hyperides sought to promote Greek freedom from Macedon via a parallel with the Persian Wars, he could not turn to the example of Plataia, because Athens now found herself fighting for Greek eleutheria at Plataia against Plataians allied with Macedon, the new barbarian threat. In his account of the Hellenic War, Diodorus says that the Athenian general Leosthenes employed mercenaries from Taenarum, moved to Aitolia securing the alliance of the central Greeks, before advancing on Thermopylae in autumn 323 in advance of Antipater’s arrival (18.9–11). Athens dispatched citizen reinforcements to him, 5,000 foot and 500 horse, as well as 2,000 mercenaries. However, the Boiotian cities, remembering the benefactions they had received upon Thebes’ destruction, remained hostile to Athens, who apparently intended to restore Thebes and her land. With their pass through Boiotia blocked, Leosthenes joined forces with the Athenian troops and defeated the Boiotians by Plataia in mid to late autumn 323 (περὶ τὰς Πλαταιάς, 18.11.3–5). He erected a victory trophy and returned to Thermopylae.63 Our contemporary source for events, Hyperides’ Epitaphios, delivered over the Athenian dead in early 322, distorts events. Hyperides says that Leosthenes left from Athens, defeated the Boiotians at Thebes and only then advanced on Thermopylae (5.11–30).64 Interestingly, Plataia is not mentioned and Hyperides transposes the battle to Thebes, whose razed city, garrisoned acropolis, and enslaved populace spurred the Greeks to victory (5.14–20, 7.2–17). Since the Epitaphios is suffused with references to the Persian Wars, eleutheria, and Athenian leadership, its omission of the Athenian victory at Plataia is surprising. Firstly, the audience would undoubtedly have been aware of the true order of events. Secondly, the Hellenic War itself was continually presented as a parallel to that of 480/79.65 Thirdly, Athens had frequently made use of Plataia’s historical connections during the fourth century, most notably in the Oath of Plataia, which had been quoted in the Ekklesia by Lycurgus only seven years previously (Lycurg. Leoc. 80–82).66 Hyperides ignores Plataia, the site of the Greek victory over Persia, and instead focuses on Thebes, the famous mediser, whom he describes as Tragically annihilated from the face of the earth, that its citadel was garrisoned by the Macedonians, and that the persons of its inhabitants were in slavery, while others parcelled out the land among themselves.67
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The significance of Plataia for Greek eleutheria in the early Hellenistic period The enemy in 479, Hyperides now makes Thebes the victim in 323 and thus an inspiration to Greek eleutheria. In this scheme the enemy now becomes those who fought with Macedon, those who ‘parcelled out the land among themselves’, the likes of Plataia, Thespiae, and Orchomenos, who had been given Theban land by Philip and Alexander, had fought during the siege, and had prosecuted the Thebans in 335. In 323/2 Plataia, the site of the triumph of Greek eleutheria in 479, lay in the hands of those who fought against Greek eleutheria. Conversely, Thebes, the enemy of eleutheria in 479, stood as an inspiration to it in 323/2. The roles were reversed and Plataia in 323/2 echoed Thebes in 479: a Greek state siding with the barbarian against Greek freedom. This was particularly difficult for Hyperides to assimilate into his speech. Athens and Plataia had a close relationship extending back as far as the battle of Marathon, when both stood alone against Persia (Hdt. 6.108–13). Their present conflict was too sensitive and complicated for a funeral oration, and so Hyperides ignored Plataia because it stood against Athens and her fight for Greek eleutheria. Indeed, he even went so far as to alter the events of the war to transpose the Athenian victory from Plataia to Thebes, thus removing entirely the embarrassment of Plataia’s ‘medism’ and Athens’ necessary conflict with her. Simply put, the connection Hyperides sought to draw between the Hellenic and Persian Wars would not have admitted the fact that Athens fought the Plataians, at Plataia, for eleutheria.68 This cuts to the heart of the problem. Athens led the Hellenic War with great pomp on behalf of the freedom of the Greeks. Athens’ interpretation of freedom, however, was not the same as that of other Greeks, rather it was concerned primarily with ensuring her own best interests and hegemony. Therefore, when the Boiotians (including Plataia) and Euboeans fought against Athens, Hyperides damned them as ‘the first opponents of Greek freedom’.69 From a Boiotian (specifically Plataian) perspective, however, eleutheria was best served under a Macedonian enforced status-quo, where Theban hegemony ceased to exist and the land distributions of 335 remained in force.70 The Athenian goal of restoring Thebes (alleged in Diodorus, 18.11.3–4) did not appeal to the likes of Plataia, Thespiae, and Orchomenos, so recently patronised and re-founded by Macedon. The role of Plataia in the Hellenic War is a stark reminder that the meaning of eleutheria was firmly in the eye of the employer, and what Athens termed ‘the freedom of the Greeks’ was not necessarily in the best interests of Plataian, Boiotian, or Euboean eleutheria. So, because of Plataia’s loyalty to Macedon in 335 and 323/2 her historical significance for Greek eleutheria was lost to Athenian propaganda during the Hellenic War. Plataia’s connection with the Persian Wars and
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Shane Wallace Greek eleutheria had earlier been appropriated by both Philip and Alexander, and this appears to have remained prominent for some time. It forced Hyperides to ignore Plataia’s Persian War history and instead invert the importance of Plataia and Thebes for Greek eleutheria. His silence helps elucidate the key role Plataia played in developing the ideology of Alexander’s new Persian War.71 3. Glaukon and the Third Century With the Chremonidean War Athens again led a supposedly Panhellenic campaign for Greek freedom from Macedon, once more based on the precedent of the Persian Wars. Unlike the Hellenic War, however, Plataia appears to have played a large role in developing and presenting this ethos, as evidenced in the honorary decree of the Greek synedrion at Plataia for Glaukon, son of Eteokles, of Athens. Something changed, and Plataia’s new role is worth analysing. Accordingly, I will argue that by the mid-thirdcentury Plataia had regained anew her significance for Greek freedom due to her presence on the Greek, rather than Macedonian, side before and during the Chremonidean War. Plataia’s historical traditions of eleutheria and Greek unity could again be asserted as a precedent for the current struggle against Macedon. Plataia witnessed a process of appropriation and re-appropriation by both Macedon and Greeks, and the cult of Zeus Eleutherios and Homonoia of the Greeks, possibly founded under Macedonian patronage in the late fourth century, may be a witness to this. Finally, I will again emphasise how Plataia’s historical traditions and cultic landscape influenced the nature of her significance for Greek eleutheria in the mid-third century. Found at Plataia in 1971, the Glaukon decree preserves a dogma of the Common Council of the Greeks (τὸ κοινὸν συνέδριον τῶν Ἑλλήνων) honouring Glaukon for his benefactions to the cult of Zeus Eleutherios and Homonoia of the Greeks both before and after the Chremonidean War. The decree is to be dated between 262–245, perhaps the later the better.72 It praises Glaukon for his goodwill towards the Greeks while in Athens and for the continuation of this policy when he later took up position at the court of King Ptolemy (l. 5–14), shortly after the Chremonidean War (Teles On Exile 23). He beautified the shrine, contributed to the sacrifice to Zeus Eleutherios and Homonoia, and patronised the Eleutheria (l. 15–24). He and his descendents are rewarded with proedria at the games, while the stele is to be erected next to the altar of Zeus Eleutherios and Homonoia, paid for from the temple’s finances (l. 25–42). Although passed some years after the Chremonidean War (268–262),
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The significance of Plataia for Greek eleutheria in the early Hellenistic period numerous features within the decree help us establish an ideological context closely connected with it.73 The decree lays emphasis on Greek eleutheria from the barbarian, with the games at Plataia (l. 34–5) specified as being in honour ‘of the heroes who fought against the barbarians for the liberty (eleutheria) of the Greeks’.74 This eleutheria is directly connected with Greek homonoia through the dual cult of Zeus Eleutherios and Homonoia of the Greeks. The decree is also defined by the Persian Wars: the battle of Plataia, the Greek dead, and the altar and cult of Zeus Eleutherios all create a context for Glaukon’s benefactions infused with a memory of the Wars promoting specifically Plataia’s importance within the historical tradition. All these features echo the ideological context of the Chremonidean War, which, as we know from the Chremonides decree, was presented as a struggle for Greek eleutheria dependent upon homonoia between the Greek poleis (IG II2 686/7, l. 31–5). It was also paralleled with the Persian Wars and Macedon was presented as the new barbarian invader (l. 7–18).75 Glaukon himself supports this connection.76 As an Athenian ambassador, he toured the Peloponnese in the run-up to the war looking to garner support and was honoured with proxenia by an allied Orchomenos; he may have been synedros to the Greek alliance in 268–262; he served as general of the equipment (στρατηγὸς ἐπὶ τὴν παρασκευήν) in 266/5; and he was perhaps honoured by Ptolemy Philadelphos with a statue at Olympia at this time.77 The Chremonidean War was fought under Ptolemaic auspices and with large naval help, thus tying Ptolemy Philadelphos closely to the cause of Greek freedom.78 Glaukon’s brother, Chremonides, proposed the decree declaring war and both he and Glaukon fled in 262 to pursue high-profile careers under the Ptolemies.79 Therefore, its thematic correspondences with the Chremonides decree, as well as its references to Glaukon and Ptolemy, place the Glaukon decree firmly in the ideological context of the Chremonidean War. That the honours for Glaukon were passed at Plataia adds a further dimension to their meaning. Although we have no evidence for Plataia’s role during the Chremonidean War, we can see from the benefactions of prominent anti-Macedonian individuals like Glaukon (and there would have been others) that Plataia and its historical tradition were of particular importance to the anti-Macedonian movement at that time.80 Plataia provided an ideological template, from which the new struggle for Greek freedom could assume, vicariously, a series of pre-defined goals and values. Since it post-dates the Chremonidean War, the decree also shows that, even after this defeat, Plataia remained important for the continuing Greek struggle against Macedon, again paralleled with the Persian Wars, and
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Shane Wallace fought for Greek homonoia and eleutheria. A recently-published honorific decree for Eudamos of Megalopolis, dated c. 251–245 by the editor E. Stavrianopoulou, elucidates the post-war context. Stavrianopoulou connects Eudamos with the Ekdemos/Ekdelos of the literary sources who is recorded as having overthrown Aristodemos the Good, pro-Macedonian tyrant of Megalopolis, around 251, a time when Antigonos’ power in Greece was severely threatened. The decree records that his honours were to be announced at the Eleutheria, again revealing the continued importance of the games and Plataia as a centre for the Greek struggle for freedom from Macedonian control and tyranny. With interest coming from as far away as Egypt and Megalopolis, Plataia, the Eleutheria, and the memory of the Persian Wars clearly remained ideologically important for the struggle for Greek freedom beyond even the defeat in the Chremonidean War. The site was a mid-third-century nexus for anti-Macedonianism.81 Plataia was also of significance as a physical space. It was there in 479 that Athens and Sparta stood side-by-side and guaranteed Greek freedom. Not having allied at Chaeronea, during Agis’ Revolt, or the Hellenic War, the Chremonidean War was the first time since 479 that both states stood united in common cause. The parallel was not lost, rather it was proudly emphasised within the Chremonides decree. Plataia served as a physical, as well as ideological, link with the Atheno-Spartan alliance of the Persian Wars.82 Homonoia of the Greeks offered a physical manifestation of this new unity, while the Eleutheria integrated it into the historical landscape. In the Glaukon decree the ago-n is said to have taken place ‘at the tomb of the heroes (andres agathoi ) who fought against the barbarians for the liberty of the Greeks.’ 83 Undoubtedly, the tombs of the Athenians and Spartans formed an important part of this backdrop.84 This geography was, however, constructed. Sometime between Herodotus writing in the mid-fifthcentury bc and Pausanias in the second century AD the number of tombs at Plataia declined from many tombs of individual cities, to one Athenian, one Spartan, and one Greek tomb.85 The physical landscape, as much as the ideological, was altered. Although a slow process, this began early, as suggested by Herodotus’ account of the cenotaphs raised in shame by cities that missed the battle (9.85). The term andres agathoi, although used in the Glaukon decree to describe the heroes of the Persian Wars, was a key part of the Athenian civic ideal and may perhaps hint at some Athenian influence over the cult, probably in the later fifth and early fourth centuries. This would be expected since relations between Athens and Plataia were then close and both cities had cults of Zeus Eleutherios.86 However, it is only with the Chremonidean War in the mid-third century that we get a concerted promotion of Atheno-Spartan unity, presenting Plataia as a site
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The significance of Plataia for Greek eleutheria in the early Hellenistic period of Spartan and Athenian importance first and Greek second.87 Glaukon’s benefactions to the Eleutheria, and their mention within his honorary decree, re-emphasise Plataia as the proto-typical site of Atheno-Spartan unity and assume this historical significance for the third-century alliance. In light of Plataia’s importance for Alexander and her loss to Greek freedom during the Hellenic War, what we see within the Glaukon decree is a re-appropriation of Plataia for Greek eleutheria. An example of this may perhaps be seen in the cult of Homonoia of the Greeks. West argued that the deification of Homonoia of the Greeks took place in the late fourth century, probably in the context of the new invasion of the Persian Empire.88 If this was the case then there was an interesting process of appropriation and re-appropriation taking place at Plataia. With the (possible) personification of Homonoia of the Greeks at Plataia in the 330s, and its addition to the cult of Zeus Eleutherios, the ideal of Hellenic unity leading to conquest of the barbarian was appropriated to the Macedonianled war in Asia and served to enforce the peace and leadership established by the League of Corinth. The ideology of homonoia between the Greeks leading to eleutheria from Macedon, as seen in the Chremonides decree, builds on this context by inverting the dynamic. Whereas previously Homonoia of the Greeks personified Greek peace under Macedonian leadership in a new Persian War for Greek eleutheria, now Homonoia of the Greeks defined the need for Greek unity in a common cause against Macedon for Greek eleutheria. Glaukon’s patronage of the joint cult of Zeus Eleutherios and Homonoia of the Greeks could mark therefore an adaptation of the pro-Macedonian additions to the cult of Zeus Eleutherios, a re-appropriation, conscious or not, that signified renewed control over Greece’s historical authority. The dynamics of appropriation could, potentially, be quite interesting. If Homonoia of the Greeks was integrated with Zeus Eleutherios in the later fourth century, then there was by the time of the Chremonidean War a pre-existing cultic and ideological context at Plataia that promoted the ideal of homonoia as an element of eleutheria, something itself inherently connected with the Persian Wars. One wonders whether such a cult could itself have had a formative influence on the development of the Chremonidean War’s ideology of homonoia and eleutheria. At the very least, a pre-existing cult at Plataia would have furthered the precept, long claimed in fourth-century oratory, that homonoia between the Greeks was necessary for Greek eleutheria.89 The connection of Homonoia with the memory of the Persian Wars, as exemplified through Zeus Eleutherios, would only have supported this by providing a successful example of the precept in action.
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Shane Wallace This ideological interaction would be all the more significant if the two cult deities had been integrated in the late fourth century in a strongly proMacedonian context. If so, then the use of the cult and associated ideology against Macedon would reveal yet another dynamic in the significance of Plataia and the Persian Wars for Greek eleutheria: the site, traditions, and cult that had previously been used to enforce Macedonian hegemony over Greece were now used to inspire Greek freedom from Macedon. What we may be seeing at Plataia is an example in cult form of the dynamic fluidity of both the concept of eleutheria and the memory of the Persian Wars, exemplified in dual by the site of Plataia and the cult of Zeus Eleutherios. If so, then this was possible because the Persian Wars themselves were an adaptive tradition that could be used against a foreign power, be it Persia, Macedon, or even the Gauls. As such, they allowed Macedon to enforce her own hegemony over Greece by turning attention to Persia, just as they allowed the Greeks to condemn Macedon, in both the Hellenic and Chremonidean Wars. 4. Conclusion The site of Plataia encapsulated the dynamic malleability of eleutheria and the memory of the Persian Wars in a way that possibly no other site could. Its topography was a constant visible reminder of the battle of 479. The tombs displayed to the viewer the sacrifice of the Greek heroes. Tombs of numerous states revealed the site’s Panhellenism (if somewhat back projected, as Herodotus (9.85) informs us) while the individual tombs of Athens and Sparta similarly revealed the prominence of these two states. The victory trophy displayed the ultimate success of the Greek struggle and the validity of the sacrifice. The altar to Zeus Eleutherios defined the divinely sanctioned victory as a discovery of eleutheria, as stated in Simonides’ dedicatory epigram (Plut. Arist. 19; cf. Anth. Pal. 6.50). The Eleutheria honoured the heroes and in its events integrated the monuments into a continual, penteteric, celebration of eleutheria. Throughout the early Hellenistic period the history and site of Plataia were used by both Macedonian and Greek to enforce hegemony and inspire unity, be it for the invasion of the Persian Empire or the Chremonidean War. I have argued for the continued and dynamic significance of Plataia as a space intrinsically connected with the twin concepts of eleutheria and the Persian Wars. Tossed between Macedon and Greece, Plataia remained perpetually important because, through her physical monuments and historical context, she personified both these concepts in microcosm. Her utilisation by both Macedon and Greece was possible because the Persian Wars, as historical memory, developed in part
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The significance of Plataia for Greek eleutheria in the early Hellenistic period as a conceptual prototype for understanding any war and its goals. So, the Persian Wars and Greek eleutheria could be used to promote war against the Persian, just as they could against Macedon or the Gauls; all with equal validity, if not success.90 However, Plataia’s role within the Persian War tradition worked on other levels. I have also argued that the site itself influenced the ways in which people viewed and employed it by providing a pre-existing ideological environment, both conceptual and topographical. While this helped develop the aims and significance of later events, it also restricted the ways in which these events could be understood by providing a pre-determined context into which the later event must conceptualise itself. I have argued that this can be seen not only in the ideological nature and import of the fourth- and third-century additions to the cult of Zeus Eleutherios, but also in the physical integration of the Homonoia cult to Zeus Eleutherios (being as they were theoi sumbo-moi ) and the Eleutheria into the existing monuments. In a wider sense this is indicative of the memory of the Persian Wars: a conceptual touchstone displaying the continued vitality of the Persian War tradition, but similarly acting as a conceptual straitjacket constricting and inhibiting the understanding of eleutheria just as it defines and promotes it. Acknowledgements My sincere thanks go to Andrew Erskine and Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones who, as editors, have read this chapter and improved it throughout and, as supervisors, have shown the same generous care with my entire PhD. Joseph Roisman and Anton Powell kindly read drafts of this chapter and offered many useful insights. Versions of this chapter were presented at the 2009 Classical Association Conference in Glasgow and in Queen’s University Belfast. My research was funded by the AHRC. All opinions and errors remain my own.
Notes 1 Throughout this chapter, ‘homonoia’ and ‘eleutheria’ refer to concepts, but ‘Homonoia’ and ‘the Eleutheria’ refer to the cult of Homonoia and the Eleutheria Games at Plataia. Unless indicated, all dates are BC. 2 Spyropoulos 1973 (editio princeps); Jones 1974; Roesch 1974; Étienne and Piérart 1975 (edition, photograph, and French translation); West 1977; Pouilloux 1978; Buraselis 1982; Étienne 1985; Erskine 1990, 90–5; Schachter 1994, 125–44; Thériault 1996a, 101–30; 1996b, 137–42; Austin 2006, no. 61 (English translation); Stavrianopoulou 2002, 134–8; Jung 2006, 298–343. 3 Late 4th century: West 1977; cf. Austin 2006, no. 61. Mid-3rd century: Étienne and
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Shane Wallace Piérart 1975; Étienne 1985; Erskine 1990, 90-5; Stavrianopoulou 2002, 136–7; Chaniotis 2005, 228–30; Jung 2006, 321–9. Fence-sitters: Thériault 1996a, 115; 1996b, 141–2. Dreyer (1999, 254–5) suggests that the incentive lay with the Celtic invasion of 279 and Athens’ role in defending Thermopylae. 4 See section 1. 5 For a similar approach see Jung 2006 who explores the continuing significance of Plataea (and Marathon) from the 5th century BC until the 4th century AD. For the dating of the Glaukon Decree, see below n. 72. 6 On the evidence for the ‘Hellenic’ (epigraphic and late 4th century) rather than ‘Lamian’ War (literary and derivative), see Ashton 1984; Lehmann 1988, 143–4, 148–9. 7 Just. Epit. 9.4.7; Diod. 16.87.3, 17.8.3–7; Paus. 9.1.8, 6.5; Arr. Anab. 1.7.1; cf. Plut. Reg. imp. apoph. 177d; Errington 1990, 85; Green 1970, 80; Lane Fox 1974, 86. Thebes remained in control of the Boiotian League (Arr. Anab. 1.7.11; Brunt 1976, 35 n. 6). 8 Kirsten 1950, col. 2312. 9 Fredricksmeyer 2000, 137–8. The context of the Olympic Games is important. Because the synedrion met at the Panhellenic games it would have been sitting when Alexander’s letter was read out. Thus, Alexander’s announcement would have been connected with the synedrion’s earlier promise to rebuild Plataia’s walls. 10 Thespiae: Dio Chrys. Or. 37.42; Plin. HN 34.66. Orchomenos: Arr. Anab. 1.9.10. Allies at Thebes: Arr. Anab. 1.8.8; Diod. 17.13.5; Just. Epit. 11.3.8; Plut. Alex. 11.5. Destruction of Plataia, Thespiae, and Orchomenos: Xen. Hell. 6.3.1; Isoc. Plat.; Diod. 15.46.6, 51.3, 57.1, 79.6; Paus. 9.14.2; Buckler 1980, 22, 182–4. Hellenic War: below section 2. 11 Flower 2000, 96–7; Poddighe 2009, 107–9. Seibert (1998, 5–26) cautions against using ideologically loaded terms like crusade (Kreuzzug), national war (Nationalkrieg), panhellenic ( panhellenisch), and war of revenge (Rachekrieg) as they can precondition one’s analysis of events. 12 P. Wallace 1982. Raaflaub (2004, 58–65) analyses the development of eleutheria after the Persian Wars. 13 Both revenge and eleutheria were emphasised by Philip (Diod. 16.89.2, 91.2) and repeated by Alexander ( Just. Epit. 11.5.6; Diod. 17.24.1), see Flower 2000; Poddighe 2009, 105. The revenge motif appears frequently: Arr. Anab. 2.14, 3.18; Just. Epit. 11.12.5–6; Polyb. 3.6; Anth. Pal. 6.344; cf. Isoc. Paneg. 155, 183, 185. So too eleutheria/autonomia: GHI 86b; SEG XIX 698; cf. I.Erythrai 31; Diod. 17.24.1; Arr. Anab. 1.18.1–2; Theopompos FGrH 115 fr. 253; Plut. Adv. Col. 1126d; cf. Isoc. Paneg. 181, Phil. 124, Panath. 103, Epist. 9; Archid. 8-10. Polybius (3.6; analysis in Seibert 1998, 27–58) distinguishes three phases leading to war: cause (Xenophon and Agesilaos’ campaigns), pretext (war of revenge), and beginning (Alexander’s invasion). Brosius (2003) argues that the enmity leading to war between Macedon and Persia was ‘created’ by Philip to keep Persia out of Greek affairs. 14 Fredricksmeyer 2000, 138; Poddighe 2009, 116. 15 Arr. Anab. 1.9.9–10. 3; Plut. Alex. 11.5; Just. Epit. 11.3.8–11. 16 Brunt 1976, 39 n. 1; Bosworth 1980, 88; 1988, 195; Yardley and Heckel 1997, 94. Others contend that it was a League meeting: Wilcken 1967, 73–5; Hamilton 1969, 30–1; Green 1970, 145–7; Schachermeyer 1973, 117; Hammond and Walbank 1988, 63–6. 17 GHI 76, l. 21, 82, l. 4, 84a, ll. 14–5; Aeschin. In Ctes. 161.
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The significance of Plataia for Greek eleutheria in the early Hellenistic period In error, Justin transposes authority from the synedrion to its he-gemo-n (11.4.9: interdictum regis). 19 Although Athens defied both the dogma and Alexander’s authority as he-gemo-n by accepting landless Thebans (Paus. 9.23.5) and refusing to hand over her generals and orators (Arr. Anab. 1.10.4–6; Bosworth 1980, 92–6), she was careful to obtain, through Demades, Alexander’s acquiescence in both these matters (Diod. 17.15). 20 Diod. 17.14.3: ἐψηφίσαντο τὴν µὲν πόλιν κατασκάψαι͵ τοὺς δ΄ αἰχµαλώτους ἀποδόσθαι͵ 18
τοὺς δὲ φυγάδας τῶν Θηβαίων ἀγωγίµους ὑπάρχειν ἐξ ἁπάσης τῆς Ἑλλάδος καὶ µηδένα τῶν Ἑλλήνων ὑποδέχεσθαι Θηβαῖον. Translation adapted from Welles (1963). Justin (Epit.
11.3.8–11) preserves a similar account but mentions Thebes’ present support of Persia. Droysen (1952/3, 94 with n. 23) sees the terms of destruction as perhaps based on the terms of earlier Leagues, like the Second Athenian League (IG II 2 43, l. 51–61). 21 Arr. Anab. 1.16.6: παρὰ τὰ κοινῇ δόξαντα τοῖς Ἕλλησιν. 22 Paus 6.18.2–4: Λαµψακηνῶν τὰ βασιλέως τοῦ Περσῶν φρονησάντων; cf. Val. Max. 7.3 ext. 4; Bosworth 1980, 107–8. 23 Arr. Anab. 1.17.2: Ζελείτας δὲ ἀφῆκε τῆς αἰτίας͵ ὅτι πρὸς βίαν ἔγνω συστρατεῦσαι τοῖς βαρβάροις; cf. Bosworth 1980, 127–8. Michel RIG 530 may preserve reference to a democratic revolution in Zeleia, which could have influenced Alexander’s decision. The inscription dates c.334/3 (Rhodes with Lewis 1997, 421) and mentions the politai capturing the acropolis. 531 deals with the sale of ‘the lands of the exiles’ (presumably pro-Persian) and, along with 530, preserves the democratic enactment formula, ἔδοξεν τῶι δήµωι. 24 GHI 84b. 25 Chios: GHI 84a, ll. 10–3: καὶ εἶναι ἀγωγίµους κατὰ τὸ δόγµα τὸ τῶν Ἑλλήνων ‘and shall be liable to seizure in accordance with the resolution of the Greeks.’ Eresos: GHI 83 §iv, ll. 25-8: καὶ | [ὧ]ν κατέγνω φυγὴν φε[υ|γ]έτωσαµ µέν, ἀγώγιµο[ι] | δὲ µὴ ἔστωσαν ‘and those whom he (Alexander) condemned to exile shall be exiled but shall not be liable to seizure.’ 26 Arr. Anab. 3.23.8: παρὰ τὰ δόγµατα τῶν Ἑλλήνων; cf. 24.4–5 with Flower 2000, 117. 27 Cf. Poddighe 2009, 107–9. 28 Bosworth 1988, 189–90. 29 Just. Epit. 11.3.8–11; Yardley and Heckel 1997, 95–6. 30 Lycurg. Leoc. 81; Diod. 11.29.3; GHI 88; cf. Theopompos FGrH 115 fr. 153. On the Oath’s authenticity see Habicht 1961; Kreutz 2001; GHI 88; Krentz 2007. Kernel of Truth: Burn 1962, 512-15; Siewert 1972, 63–75; Barron 1988, 604. Theopompos considered it an Athenian fabrication designed to dupe the rest of Greece, cf. Shrimpton 1991, 80–2; Pownall 2008, 120–1. 31 Medisers: Hdt. 7.132, 138.1, 145, 148; cf. Diod. 11.3.2; Brunt 1953, 136–8, 142–3. Thebes: Hdt. 9.86-8; cf. Diod. 11.33.4 32 GHI 88, p. 445. 33 Arr. Anab. 1.9.7; Diod. 17.9.5, 14.2; Plut. Alex. 11.7–8; Just. Epit. 11.3.9; cf. Din. 1.19–20. 34 Bosworth 1988, 195. 35 Welles 1963, 143 n. 1; Tenedos and Mytilene joined Memnon in 333 on the terms of the King’s Peace (Arr. Anab. 2.1.1–4, 2.2–3). 36 Heraklides Kretikos 1.11 (Austin 2006, no. 101), quoting Poseidippos of Kassandreia. The Glaukon decree (c.262–245) confirms that games were established
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Shane Wallace by the mid 3rd century. For the Eleutheria, see Robert 1969; Pritchett 1979, 154–6, 178–83; Robertson 1986; Schachter 1994, 132–43; Boedeker 1998, 240–2; Chaniotis 2005, 228–30; Jung 2006, 331–40. 37 Vanderpool 1969; Amandry 1971, 612–26; Boedeker 1998, 240–2; cf. Jung 2006, 332–3 with n. 122. 38 For Plataians being unable to celebrate their festivals because of exile, see Pausanias 9.13.4. 39 Étienne and Piérart 1975, 52–3. 40 Étienne and Piérart 1975, 68; Schachter 1994, 125-32; Stavrianopoulou 2002, 136 with n. 54. Dogmata: see above (Philip and Alexander); Schmitt, SdA 446, l. 79; CID IV 11 (Demetrios). Synedrion: see above (Philip and Alexander); Schmitt, SdA 446 passim; CID IV 11; Agora XVI 122; Plut. Demetr. 25.3 (Demetrios). Robertson (1986, 94 n. 25) suggests that the Eleutheria was founded by Athens and the Boiotian League sometime after 287. Jung (2006, 331–40) suggests the Hellenic War (below section 2). 41 Plut. Cam. 19, De glor. Ath. 349f; cf. Pritchett 1957, 277. Graindor (1922) proposed that a scribal error is responsible for Plutarch’s date of Boedromion 4th in his Aristides (19.7). Pritchett (1985, 178–9 n. 90) discusses the difficulties in determining an accurate Julian date for the battle. 42 Arr. Anab. 1.10.2; Plut. Alex. 13.1; cf. Cam. 19.10; Bosworth 1980, 92; 1988, 33; Yardley and Heckel 1997, 101–2. 43 He next appears at Dion for the Olympic Games (Arr. Anab. 11.1–2 with Bosworth 1980, 96–97; Diod. 17.16). Although precise dates are difficult, the games took place on the first days of the Macedonian month Dios, corresponding roughly with the Attic month Pyanepsion. Alexander, therefore, spent the remainder of Boedromion in Boiotia and on the march to Dion. 44 The Romance also says that Alexander avenged Plataia (ἤδη δὲ αὑτῷ ἐξεδίκησε Πλαταίας). 45 Schachter 1994, 136, 141. 46 For an analysis of Plutarch’s account see Jung 2006, 271–81. Robertson (1986, 92–3) distinguishes two separate commemorations: the synedrion meeting and Plataian sacrifice on Boedromion 3rd and the Plataian sacrifice to the Greek dead and Zeus and Hermes Chthonios on Maimakterion 16th. These distinct events were conflated by Pritchett (1979, 155–6, 178–9). 47 Robertson 1986, 88–93. 48 Incidental evidence suggests that this should be the case. Both Plutarch (Arist. 21.1) and the Glaukon decree connect the Eleutheria with the synedrion and the sacrifice to Zeus Eleutherios. In general, Hellenic synedria met during Panhellenic festivals (Philip and Alexander: Curt. 4.5.11–12; Diod. 17.48.6; cf. Brunt 1976, 213 n. 2; Aeschin. In Ctes. 254; Hammond and Griffith 1979, 634–5. Demetrios: Schmitt, SdA 446, l. 66–7, 72-3; CID IV 11; Plut. Demetr. 25.3). The meeting of the synedrion and the sacrifice to Zeus Eleutherios would have marked the games’ climax (Pritchett 1979, 155–6). 49 Plut. Arist. 19 with n. 41 above; Pritchett 1957, 277. 50 I thank Prof. Erskine for bringing these parallels to my attention. Victories and Successes: Arr. Anab. 2.5.8, 24.6, 3.6.1 (cf. Curt. 4.8.16), 16.9, 4.4.1, 5.8.3, 20.1, 6.28.3, 7.14.1; Indica 36.3, 42.6, 42.8; Diod. 17.46.6, 72.1; ISE 113; Curt. 3.7.2-5; Plut. Alex. 29.1, 67.4. New Foundations: Arr. Anab. 3.5.2, 5.20.1. Preludes: Arr. Anab. 1.11.1, 3.25.1, 5.8.3, 29.1–2; Indica 18.11–2, 21.2, 36.9; Diod. 17.16.3–4. See also, Arr. Anab.
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The significance of Plataia for Greek eleutheria in the early Hellenistic period 1.18.2, 4.4.1, 7.14.10, 23.5; Plut. Alex. 4.5-6, 72.1; Curt. 6.2.1–5. Stavrianopoulou (2002, 136) places the impetus with Philip or Alexander. 51 Miller 1990, 22–3. 52 Bibliography in n. 2. The joint cult is unattested in literary sources. Plutarch, however, mentions βωµοὶ παρὰ τοῖς θεοῖς (de Herod. malig. 43) even though the gods share one altar in the Glaukon decree. Diodorus (11.29.2) and Aelius Aristeides (13.148) speak of homonoia in connection with Zeus Eleutherios and Plataia, although in the latter case this is probably a literary topos, see n. 56 below. 53 Thuc. 2.71.2; Plut. Arist. 19.7–20.4; Anth. Pal. 6.50 (Simonides’ dedicatory epigram). Strabo 9.2.31 refers to the Greeks consecrating a temple ( ἱερόν). The Glaukon decree reveals that a temple ( ἱερόν) to Zeus Eleutherios stood at Plataia by the mid-3rd century, but was clearly distinct from the altar (βωµός). Schachter (1994, 125–32, 134–5) argues that the altar and cult of Zeus Eleutherios were founded under Macedonian patronage in the late 4th century and that Pausanias’ sacrifice in 479 was simply a one-off. Jung (2002, 265–7) feels that there is not enough evidence to decide whether or not a formalised cult and altar were founded in 479. Cf. n. 62 below. 54 Above n. 3. The principal pieces of 3rd century evidence are the Chremonides decree (IG II 2 686/7, l. 31-2: κοινῆς ὁµονοίας γενοµ|ένης τοῖς Ἕλλησι) and a fragment of Alexis’ Hypobolimaios (Ath. 11.502b; Arnott 1996, 686-91; cf. West 1977, 315). One could add the cult of Homonoia in Cilician Nagidos, a town with strong Ptolemaic connections (SEG XXXIX 1426, l. 36–8; Habicht 2006, 253). 55 West 1977. 56 Gorgias: Philostr. VS 1.493; Plut. Con. prae. 144b–c. Lysias: 33.6; Dion. Hal. Lys. 28–29. Isocrates is incessant: Paneg. 3 (τε τοῦ πολέµου τοῦ πρὸς τοὺς βαρβάρους καὶ τῆς ὁµονοίας τῆς πρὸς ἡµᾶς αὐτοὺς); Antid. 77 (τοὺς Ἕλληνας ἐπί τε τὴν τῶν βαρβάρων στρατείαν παρακαλοῦντος καὶ περὶ τῆς πρὸς ἀλλήλους ὁµονοίας συµβουλεύοντος); Phil. 141; Panath. 13 (παρακαλούντων τοὺς Ἕλληνας ἐπί τε τὴν ὁµόνοιαν τὴν πρὸς ἀλλήλους καὶ τὴν στρατείαν τὴν ἐπὶ τοὺς βαρβάρους), 42; Epist. 3.2 (εἰς ὁµόνοιαν καταστῆσαι τοὺς Ἕλληνας). 57 Evidence in Thériault 1996a. Roy (2008) now dates the Eleian inscription from Olympia concerning homonoia to c.350 (Ϝαλείων | περὶ ὀµο|νοίαρ). 58 Bosworth 1988, 189–90. 59 Erskine 1990, 93 (on their mid-3rd century association). The League aided interpolis stability by outlawing the removal of the government in place at the time of a polis’ entry to the League. Naturally, this was used to support pro-Macedonian regimes, see [Dem.] 17 passim; Polyb. 18.14.3; Poddighe 2004; 2009, 113. 60 Altar: Simonides in Anth. Pal. 6.50; Plut. Arist. 19; Schachter 1994, 125–32, 134–5. Trophy: Plato Menex. 245a; Isoc. Plat. 59; Eudoxos fr. 311 (Lasserre); Schachter 1994, 138–43. Tombs: Hdt. 9.85; Thuc. 3.58.4; Isoc. Plat. 60–61; Eudoxos fr. 311; Schachter 1994, 141–2; Flower and Marincola 2002, 254–6; Bremmer 2006. 61 Spyropoulos 1973. 62 Robert 1969; cf. 1948; Pritchett 1979, 182. If the altar was built in the late 4th century, contemporary with the foundation of the Eleutheria and perhaps the cult of Homonoia of the Greeks, as Schachter (1994, 125–32, 134–5) suggests, then the integration of the games into the cultic landscape was both constructive and adaptive. It constructed part of the landscape itself by consecrating an altar and dedicating a Simonidean epigram; similarly it adapted the history by establishing both features anachronistically within a Persian War topography.
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Schmitt 1992, 76. Plutarch (Phoc. 23.4, 24.2–3) also mentions a battle against the Boiotians. It would be fascinating to know how Leosthenes’ trophy integrated itself into the Plataian landscape, particularly the Persian War monuments. Ma (2008), on Chaeronea, is an excellent analysis of ideology through topography. 64 Although most scholars follow Diodorus’ account (Oikonomides 1982; Worthington 1984; 1987; Schmitt 1992, 74–6), some favour Hyperides’ narrative (Williams 1982, 40–1; Habicht 1997, 38). Hyperides is constantly trying to parallel the Hellenic War with the Persian Wars. Therefore, his depiction of Leosthenes leading Athenian troops from Athens, through Boiotia, and past Thermopylae, though historically false, is designed to simulate the repulse of Mardonios’ troops in 479. 65 S. Wallace, forthcoming section 1. 66 See n. 30. 67 Epit. 7.9–13: ‘Eώρων γὰ[ρ τὴν µὲν π]όλιν τῶν Θηβαίων οἰκτ[ρῶς ἠφα]νισµένην ἐξ
ἀνθρώπων͵ [τὴν δὲ ἀ]κρόπολιν αὐτῆς φρουρου[µένην] ὑπὸ τῶν Μακεδόνων͵ τὰ δὲ σώµατα τῶν ἐνοικούντων ἐξηνδραποδισµένα͵ τὴν δὲ χώραν ἄλλους διανεµοµένους. Trans. J. O.
Burtt, Loeb Classical Library. 68 I thank Prof. Roisman for his comments here. 69 Epit. 5.14-20: τοὺς πρώτους ἀντιταξαµένους τῆι τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἐλευθερίαι. Trans. Burtt. ‘First’, as in the first battle. 70 After his victory over the Greek forces at the battle of Krannon, Antipater camped on Kadmeia, further reinforcing the image of Boiotian loyalty to Macedon (Plut. Phoc. 26.3, 27.1). 71 Jung (2006, 331–40) argued that Athens reorganised the Eleutheria and established the synedrion over it during the Hellenic War. Although there is no evidence for this, it is not impossible. Jung does not mention it, but an allied synedrion was based around Leosthenes and the army (IG II2 467; ISE 10 with Oliver 2009) and may have been at Plataia in Autumn 323. 72 Étienne and Piérart 1975; Étienne 1985. Buraselis 1982, Stavrianopoulou 2002, 134–8, and Jung 2006, 302–6 plausibly argue for a date c.251–245, but an earlier one cannot be discounted. 73 Jung 2006, 313–15. On the dating of the Chremonidean War see Osborne 2004; Oliver 2007, 127–31. O’Neil 2008 provides a thorough overview of the evidence for the Chremonidean War. One should add, however, the brief note of an unpublished inscription from Rhamnous dating to 267/6 (Petrakos 2003 [2004], 15–16). 74 Τὸν | ἀγῶνα ὃν τιθέασιν οἱ Ἕλληνες ἐπὶ | τοῖς ἀνδράσιν τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς καὶ ἀγω|νισαµένοις πρὸς τοὺς βαρβάρους | ὑπὲρ τῆς τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἐλευθερίας (l. 20–4). Trans. Austin 2006,
no. 63. 75 Editions: Syll.3 434/5; Schmitt, SdA 476. English translation: Austin 2006, no. 61. Analysis: Heinen 1972, 117-42. A copy of the alliance between Sparta and Ptolemy Philadelphos has recently come to light during works on the island of Schoinoussa. We await publication of this very important document. I thank Prof. Kostas Buraselis for bringing this to my attention. 76 LGPN 2 s.v. Γλαυκών (12); Pros. Ptol. VI 14596; Habicht 1970, 32 n. 20; Pouilloux 1978. 77 Ambassador: ISE 53; IG II2 686/7, l. 24, 39. Synedros: Habicht 1997, 144. General: SEG XXV 186. Statue: Syll.3 462 with Criscuolo 2003, 320–2. Buraselis (1982, 153–6;
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The significance of Plataia for Greek eleutheria in the early Hellenistic period SEG XXXII 415) identified the king as Ptolemy Euergetes and dated the statue posthumously, cf. Pouilloux 1978, 379; Jung 2006, 303. 78 IG II2 686/7, l. 16–35. Commanded by Patroklos (Paus. 1.1.1, 3.6.4–6; I.Rhamnous 3, l. 23–7), Ptolemaic forces established military bases throughout Attica, sometimes close to Athens. Oliver (2007, 138–59, esp. 153–8) and O’Neil (2008, 74–5) overview the archaeological evidence. 79 Teles On Exile 23. Chremonides served as a naval captain in the defeat by Rhodes, possibly in 258 (Polyaenus, Strat. 5.18; Huss 2001, 283), while Glaukon became eponymous priest of Alexander and the brother and sister deities in 255/4 (P. Cairo Zenon II 59173; Ijsewijn 1961, 70-71 no. 31; Fraser 1972, 222). Their sister, Pheidostrate, was priestess of Aglauros and is known from IG II2 3458–9, cf. Lambert 1999, 115 no. XX. 80 Jung 2006, 341–3. O’Neil (2008, 72–3) argues that the Glaukon decree shows that Athens was active beyond her borders during the war. 81 Stavrianopoulou 2002; SEG LII 447; Jung 2006, 304-11, 315-19. The honours are announced [ἐν τῶι] ἀγῶνι ὃν τίθενσι οἱ Ἕλλανες. 82 The Themistokles decree of Troizen may be of significance here (SEG XXII 274). Inscribed in the early to mid-third century, it purports to be a copy of the mobilisation decree of Themistokles from 481/0. Its promotion of Atheno-Spartan unity, eleutheria, and the Persian Wars may be influenced by the rhetoric of the Chremonidean War, see Mattingly 1981. Robertson 1982 sees the focus on Athenian naval power defending eleutheria as an analogy for the Ptolemaic fleet under Patroklos. 83 Above n. 74. Étienne and Piérart 1975, 54: ‘sur la tombe des héros morts en combattant contra les barbares pour la liberté des Grecs.’ For the epitaphic sense of ἐπὶ + dative, see Étienne and Piérart 1975, 55. A parallel appears in a late 2nd century Athenian ἀγὼν ἐπιτάφιος hoplite race (IG II2 1006, l. 22). 84 All we know of the integration of the Eleutheria into the memorial topography is that the hoplite race took place between the trophy, some 15 stades from the city, and the altar of Zeus Eleutherios, which was apparently not far (Paus. 9.2.5: οὐ πόρρω δὲ ἀπό) from the common tomb of the Greeks. 85 Hdt 9.85; Paus. 9.2.5; Schachter 1994, 141–2; Flower and Marincola 2002, 254–6; Bremmer 2006. The nature of the sacrifices to the dead also changed (Schachter 1994, 126 n. 8). 86 I thank Dr. Julia Shear for raising this point with me. Heroes: Simonides in Diod. 11.11.6; Isoc. Paneg. 82; Eudoxos fr. 311; Marcus Antonios Polemon Declamationes 1.5–6; Plut. Arist. 18.2, 19.4–5, Cim. 13.2; cf. Them. 7.4. Civic Ideal: Loraux 1986, 99–118. In 427 Athens naturalised the surviving Plataians (Kapparis 1995). 87 The development was also conceptual. From at least the late 2nd century onwards, a dialogos between Athens and Sparta alone decided which state was to lead the procession at the Eleutheria (Robertson, 1986). 88 West 1977; above section 1. 89 Above n. 56. 90 Both Étienne (1985, 260) and Thériault (1996b, 141–2) argued that Macedon could not have employed the ‘mythe platéen’ because it would have highlighted their own absence in 479 (cf. Brosius 2003, 230) and was only later used by the Greeks in the mid-3rd century. This, I hope to have shown, is to fundamentally constrain the importance and malleability of the ‘mythe platéen.’
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Shane Wallace Bibliography Amandry, P. 1971 ‘Collection Paul Canellopoulos (I)’, BCH 95, 585–626. Arnott, W. G. 1996 Alexis: The Fragments. A commentary, Cambridge. Ashton, N. G. 1984 ‘The Lamian war-stat magni nominis umbra’, JHS 104, 152–7. Austin, M. M. 2006 The Hellenistic World from Alexander to the Roman Conquest. A selection of ancient sources in translation, 2nd ed., Cambridge. Barron, J. P. 1988 ‘The liberation of Greece’, in CAH 2 IV, 592–622. Boedeker, D. 1998 ‘The new Simonides and heroization at Plataia’, in N. Fisher and H. van Wees (eds) Archaic Greece: New approaches and new evidence, Swansea, 231–49. Bosworth, A. B. 1980 A Historical Commentary on Arrian’s History of Alexander, vol. 1, Oxford. 1988 Conquest and Empire: The reign of Alexander the Great, Cambridge. Bremmer, J. 2006 ‘The rise of the hero cult and the new Simonides’, ZPE 158, 15–26. Brosius, M. 2003 ‘Why Persia became the enemy of Macedon’, in W. Henkelman and A. Kuhrt (eds) A Persian Perspective. Essays in memory of Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg, Achaemenid History XIII, Leiden. Brunt, P. A. 1953 ‘The Hellenic League against Persia’, Historia 2, 135–63. 1976 Arrian, Loeb Classical Library, vol. 1, London. Buckler, J. 1980 The Theban Hegemony, 371–362 BC, Harvard. Buraselis, K. 1982 ‘Γλαύκων Ἐτεοκλέους Ἀθηναῖος Μετηλλαχὼς’, Ἀρχ. Ἐφ. 121, 136–59. Burn, A. R. 1962 Persia and the Greeks: The defence of the West, c.546–478 BC, London. Chaniotis, A. 2005 War in the Hellenistic World. The ancient world at war, Oxford. Criscuolo, L. 2003 ‘Agoni e politica alla corte di Alessandria. Riflessioni su alcuni epigrammi di Posidippo’, Chiron 33, 311–33. Dreyer, B. 1999 Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des spätklassischen Athen (322–ca. 230 v. Chr.), Historia Einzelschriften 137, Stuttgart. Droysen, J. G. 1952–53 Geschichte des Hellenismus, Edited by E. Bayer, 3 vols., Tübingen. Errington, M. 1990 A History of Macedonia, translated by C. Errington, Berkeley.
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The significance of Plataia for Greek eleutheria in the early Hellenistic period Erskine, A. 1990 The Hellenistic Stoa: Political thought and action, London. Étienne, R. 1985 ‘Le Koinon des Hellènes à Platées et Glaucon, fils d’Étéoclès’, in P. Roesch, and G. Argoud (eds) La Béotia antique, Actes de Colloque International, 16–20 May 1983, Paris, 259–63. Étienne, R. and Piérart, M. 1975 ‘Un décret du koinon des Hellènes à Platées en l’honneur de Glaucon, fils d’Étéoclès, d’Athènes’, BCH 99, 51–75. Flower, M. 2000 ‘Alexander the Great and panhellenism’, in A. B. Bosworth & E. J. Baynham (eds) Alexander the Great in Fact and Fiction, Oxford, 96–135. Flower, M. and Marincola, J. 2002 Herodotus Histories Book IX, Cambridge. Fraser, P. 1972 Ptolemaic Alexandria, 3 vols., Oxford. Fredricksmeyer, E. 2000 ‘Alexander and the kingship of Asia’, in A. B. Bosworth and E. J. Baynham (eds) Alexander the Great in Fact and Fiction, Oxford, 136–66. Graindor, P. 1922 ‘Chronologie des archontes athéniennes’, Memoires Acad. Royal Belgique 8, 169–71. Green, P. 1970 Alexander the Great, London. Habicht, C. 1961 ‘Falsche Urkunden zur Geschichte Athens im Zeitalter der Perserkriege’, Hermes 89, 1–35. 1970 Gottmenschentum und griechische Städte 2, Munich. 1997 Athens from Alexander to Anthony, translated by D. L. Schneider, Harvard. 2006 ‘A Hellenistic inscription from Arsinoe in Cilicia’, in C. Habicht, Hellenistic Monarchies: Collected papers, Michigan, 243–74. Hamilton, J. R. 1969 Plutarch’s Alexander: A commentary, Oxford. Hammond, N. G. L. and Griffith, G. T. 1979 A History of Macedonia, vol. 2, Oxford. Hammond, N. G. L. and Walbank, F. W. 1988 A History of Macedonia, vol. 3, Oxford. Heinen, H. 1972 Untersuchungen zur hellenistischen Geschichte des 3. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. Zur Geschichte der Zeit des Ptolemaios Keraunos und zum Chremonideischen Kriege, Historia Einzelschriften 20, Wiesbaden. Huss, W. 2001 Äegypten in hellenistischer Zeit 332–30 BC, Munich. Ijsewijn, J. 1961 De sacerdotibus sacerditiisque Alexandri Magni et Lagidarum eponymis, Brussels. Jones, C. P. 1974 ‘A note on the decree for Glaucon son of Eteocles’, ZPE 15, 179.
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Shane Wallace Jung, M. 2006 Marathon und Plataiai. Zwei Perserschlachten als “lieux de mémoire” im antiken Griechenland, Göttingen. Kapparis, K. 1995 ‘The Athenian decree for the naturalisation of the Plataeans’, GRBS 36, 359–78. Kirsten, E. 1950 ‘Plataiai’, RE 20, cols. 2255–2332. Krentz, P. M. 2007 ‘The oath of Marathon, not Plataia?’, Hesperia 76, 731–42. Kreutz, N. 2001 ‘Der Eid von Plataeae und der frühklassische Tempelbau’, Thetis 8, 57–67. Lambert, S. D. 1999 ‘IG II2 2345, Thiasoi of Herakles and the Salaminioi’, ZPE 125, 93–130. Lane Fox, R. 1974 Alexander the Great, London. Lehmann, G. A. 1988 ‘Der ‘lamische Krieg’ und die ‘Freiheit der Hellenen’: Uberlegungen zur hieronymianischen Tradition.’ ZPE 73, 121–49. Loraux, N. 1986 The Invention of Athens. The funeral oration in the classical city, translated by A. Sheridan, Harvard. Ma, J. 2008 ‘Chaironea 338: topographies of commemoration’, JHS 128, 72–91. Mattingly, H. B. 1981 ‘The Themistokles decree from Troezen: transmission and status’, in G. S. Shrimpton and D. J. McCargar (eds) Classical Contributions. Studies in honour of Malcolm Francis McGregor, New York, 79–87. Miller, S. G. 1990 (ed.) Nemea: A Guide to the Site and Museum, Berkeley. O’Neil, J. L. 2008 ‘A re-examination of the Chremonidean war’, in P. McKechnie and P. Guillaume (eds) Ptolemy II Philadelphus and his World, Mnemosyne Supplement 300, Leiden, 65–89. Oikonomides, A. N. 1982 ‘Athens and the Phokians at the outbreak of the Lamian war’, AncW 5, 123–8. Oliver, G. J. 2003 ‘(Re-)locating Athenian decrees in the Agora: IG II2 448’, in D. Jordan and J. Traill (eds) Lettered Attica. A day of Attic epigraphy, Athens. 2007 War, Food, and Politics in Early Hellenistic Athens, Oxford. 2009 ‘Honours for a public slave at Athens (IG II2 502 + Ag. I 1947; 302/1 BC)’, in A. A. Themos and N. Papazarkadas (eds) Ἀττικαὶ Ἐπιγραφαί. Μελέτες πρὸς τιµὴν τοῦ Christian Habicht, Athens, 111–24. Osborne, M. J. 2004 ‘The archons of IG II2 1273’, in A. P. Matthaiou (ed.) Ἀττικαὶ Ἐπιγραφαί, Πρακτικά Συµποσίου εἰς Μνήµην Adolf Wilhelm, Athens, 199–211.
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The significance of Plataia for Greek eleutheria in the early Hellenistic period Petrakos, B. 2003 [2004] ‘Anaskaphes: Rhamnous’, Ἔργον 50, 13–16. Poddighe, E. 2004 ‘Una possibile identificazione del paidotriba di Sicione: Ps. Dem. XVII, 16’, Quaderni di Storia 59, 183–96. 2009 ‘Alexander and the Greeks: the Corinthian League’, in W. Heckel and L. Tritle (eds) Alexander the Great. A new history, London, 99–120. Pouilloux, J. 1978 ‘Glaucon, fils de Étéoclès d’Athènes’, in J. Bingen, G. Cambier and G. Nachtergael (eds) Le monde grec. pensée, littérature, histoire documents: hommages à Claire Préaux, Paris, 376–82. Pownall, F. 2008 ‘Theopompos and the public documentation of Athens’, in C. Cooper (ed.) Epigraphy and the Greek Historian, Toronto, 119–28. Pritchett, W. K. 1957 ‘Calendars of Athens again’, BCH 81, 269–301. 1979 The Greek State at War III: Religion, Berkeley. 1985 The Greek State at War IV, Berkeley. Raaflaub, K. A. 2004 The Discovery of Freedom in Ancient Greece 2, translated by R. Franciscono, Chicago. Rhodes, P. J., with Lewis, D. M. 1997 The Decrees of the Greek States, Oxford. Robert, L. 1948 ‘Un athlète milésien’, Hellenica 6, 117–25. 1969 ‘Recherches épigraphiques’, Opera Minora Selecta 2, Amsterdam, 758–67. Robertson, N. 1982 ‘The decree of Themistocles in its contemporary setting’, Phoenix 36, 1–44. 1986 ‘A point of precedence at Plataia: the dispute between Athens and Sparta over leading the procession’, Hesperia 55, 88–102. Roesch, P. 1974 ‘Note sur le décret des Hellènes en l’honneur de Glaucon’, ZPE 15, 180–2. Rosen, K. 1967 ‘Political documents in Hieronymus of Cardia (323–302 BC)’, Acta Classica 10, 41–94. Roy, J. 2008 ‘Homonoia in Inschriften von Olympia 260: the problem of dating Concord in Elis’, ZPE 167, 67–72. Schachermeyer, F. 1973 Alexander der Große: das problem seiner Persönlichkeit und seines Wirkens, Sitzungberichte der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, phil.hist. Klasse 285, Austria. Schachter A. 1994 Cults of Boiotia, Vol. 3: Potnia to Zeus, Institute of Classical Studies Bulletin Supplement 38.3, London. Schmitt, O. 1992 Der Lamische Krieg, diss. University of Bonn.
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Shane Wallace Seibert, J. 1998 ‘“Panhellenischer” Kreuzzug, Nationalkrieg, Rachefeldzug oder makedonischer Eroberungskrieg? Überlegungen zu den Ursachen des Krieges gegen Persien’, in W. Will (ed.) Alexander der Grosse, eine Welteroberung. Vorträge des Internationalen Bonner Alexanderkolloquiums, Bonn, 5–58. Shrimpton, G. S. 1991 Theopompus the Historian, Buffalo. Siewert, P. 1972 Der Eid von Plataiai, Vestigia 16, Munich. Spyropoulos, T. 1973 ‘Εἰδήσεις ἐκ Βοιωτίας’, Ἀρχαιολογικὰ ἀνάλεκτα ἐξ Ἀθηνῶν 6, 375–7. Stavrianopoulou, E. 2002 ‘Die Familienexedra von Eudamos und Lydiadas in Megalopolis’, Tekmeria 7, 116–56. Thériault, G. 1996a Le culte d’Homonoia dans les cités grecques, Lyon-Quebec. 1996b ‘L’apparition du culte d’Homonoia’, Les Études Classiques 64, 127–50. Vanderpool, E. 1969 ‘Three prize vases’, Archaiologikon Deltion 24, 1–5. Walbank, M. B. 2002 ‘Notes on Attic decrees’, ZPE 139, 61–5. Wallace, P. W. 1982 ‘The final battle at Plataia’, Studies in Attic Epigraphy, History and Topography Presented to Eugene Vanderpool, Hesperia Supplement 19, 183–92. Wallace, S. forthcoming ‘History and hindsight. The importance of Euphron of Sikyon for the Athenian democracy in 318/7’, in H. Hauben and A. Meeus (eds), The Age of the Successors (323–276 BC ), Leuven. Welles, C. B. 1963 Diodorus Siculus, Loeb Classical Library, vol. 8, London. West, W. C. 1977 ‘Hellenic homonoia and the new decree from Plataea’, GRBS 18, 307–19. Wilcken, U. 1967 Alexander the Great, translated by G. C. Richards, New York. Williams, J. M. 1982 Athens without Democracy: The oligarchy of Phocion and the tyranny of Demetrius of Phalerum, 322–307, diss. Yale University. Worthington, I. 1984 ‘IG II 2 370 and the date of the Athenian alliance with Aetolia’, ZPE 57, 139–44. 1987 ‘The early career of Leosthenes and IG II 2 1631’, Historia 36, 489–91. Yardley, J. C. and Heckel, W. 1997 Justin: Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus I: Books 11–12, Alexander the Great, Oxford.
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PART IV
THE COURT
9 BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY AND THE COURT: THE LIFE OF PERSAIOS OF KITION Andrew Erskine 1. A Hellenistic man Sometime in the 270s the Stoic philosopher Persaios of Kition headed north from Athens to the Macedonian court at Pella.1 The same journey had been made a hundred and thirty or so years previously by the Athenian tragedian Euripides, who is reported to have spent time at the court of the Macedonian king Archelaos.2 But whereas Euripides was leaving an imperial city to travel to the margins of the Greek world, Persaios was going to one of its centres of power. In Persaios’ day intellectuals were as likely to be found at the royal courts as in the meeting places of the polis. These courts and their kings were one of the distinctive features of the Hellenistic age, perhaps even the distinctive feature as Robin Lane Fox suggests in the opening chapter of this volume. Nor did this escape contemporary thinkers. Philosophers in particular took note of the changes that had taken place in the political landscape and of the power that was now held by kings. As a result the early Hellenistic period saw a glut of kingship treatises produced by the various philosophical schools, usually entitled On Kingship (Περὶ βασιλείας) and all now lost. Treatises are attributed to the Peripatetics Theophrastus and Straton, to the Stoics Kleanthes, Persaios himself and Sphairos and to the father of Epicureanism Epicurus. Their approaches may have been very different but they all shared an awareness that this was a new and significant phenomenon and one that needed to be addressed. While some
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Andrew Erskine speculated about the circumstances in which it would be appropriate for a philosopher to join a king’s court, Epicurus advised that living with a king was something best avoided. In this he seems to have disapproved of intellectuals in general at contemporary Hellenistic courts, literary scholars as well as philosophers; certainly he thought that royal symposia were the place for military anecdotes rather than discussion of literary and poetic problems.3 Modern scholarly attention usually focuses on the intellectual culture of the Alexandrian court but in this chapter I want to turn to the Macedonian court and explore it through the experience of one man, the philosopher Persaios. He is an enigmatic figure in Hellenistic history and philosophy. He was a witness to great men and transforming events, yet he himself is hard to recover. In Athens he was a pupil of one of the most influential of Hellenistic philosophers, Zeno of Kition, the founder of Stoicism. Later he became part of the court of the Macedonian king Antigonos Gonatas and so was able to experience Hellenistic monarchy from its centre. His association with Antigonos brought him to the Peloponnese just as the rise of federal states was challenging Macedonian hegemony on the Greek mainland. Thus he was at (and possibly in charge of ) the Acrocorinth when it was captured by a revitalised Achaian League under Aratos of Sikyon. The third century could be studied through his life if we did but know more about it.4 This, however, is the problem. Persaios is a man about whom nothing ever seems to be certain. The sources do not even agree on his place of origin or his status. He was, we are told, Persaios of Kition, son of Demetrios, but such a respectable background was called into question early on by those who said that he had been a slave. In one version he was even said to have been presented by Antigonos to Zeno.5 His death too was no clearer than his birth. He died, according to Pausanias, at the fall of the Acrocorinth in 243, but, according to Plutarch in his life of Aratos, he went on to teach philosophy and muse on his unsuccessful defence of the citadel. Philodemus in what survives of his history of the Stoics records elements of both versions, a heroic death in the face of overwhelming numbers and a rather more ignominious flight.6 Without his role at the Macedonian court we would know almost nothing about Persaios but with that role we are not sure what we know. Persaios comes across as a character in other people’s lives rather than the central character in his own. The real Persaios may now be beyond reach but the stories themselves reveal something of the situation of the philosopher at the court of a king. The present chapter is an examination of the tension that this position created. Stories repeatedly highlight the inconsistency between Persaios’
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Between philosophy and the court: The life of Persaios of Kition choice of the court life and his adherence to Stoicism. He appears as a man stranded uncomfortably between the two, a limbo status perhaps symbolised in the story that he was a gift to Zeno from King Antigonos, a man who thus owed his allegiance to both philosophy and the court. Yet the claim put forward by the Epicurean Philodemus that Persaios chose a court life in preference to a philosophic one is too stark;7 it is likely to be underpinned by the Epicurean belief that the court and philosophy were fundamentally incompatible. Persaios did the two things that we know Epicurus objected to: he accompanied a king and he was a participant in royal symposia. Persaios, however, was more complicated than this simplified picture suggests. He was well aware of the challenge that the philosopher at court faced and of his own difficulties in balancing these two modes of life. The next two sections will consider each of these in turn, first Persaios as a philosopher and then his place at the court of Antigonos. Finally, in Section Four, I look at the tension between these roles for a man whom W. W. Tarn described as wanting to be ‘all things to all men’.8 Persaios is in many ways a very Hellenistic man. He is leading a life that it is shaped by the changes that Alexander and the successors have brought about. It is striking how mobile he is, moving from his home in Cyprus, studying in Athens, staying at the court in Macedon, being in the king’s service in the Peloponnese. This is a life largely lived beyond the confines of the polis, even if replacing them with the rather different limitations of the court. Nor is this experience unique to him. 2. Persaios the philosopher Persaios was taught his philosophy in Athens by Zeno. Here he would have been among those gathered around Zeno in the Stoa Poikile or Painted Stoa just off the agora in the heart of Athens. He would have observed the curious contradiction in Zeno, at once a philosopher who chose to address his adherents in a central and public location within the city, yet at the same time one who was said to have discouraged bystanders by asking them for money.9 The relationship between Zeno and Persaios seems to have gone beyond that of teacher and student. Not only were both, according to the most plausible tradition from Kition in Cyprus, but both also shared a house together in Athens. Furthermore Persaios is described as a friend (γνώριµος) and a pupil of whom he was especially fond.10 Perhaps for this reason Persaios is associated with no other philosophical teacher in contrast to some of his contemporaries who seem to have experimented with different teachers. Little survives of Persaios’ philosophical writings but what evidence there is suggests a man who did the kind of things a philosopher should.
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Andrew Erskine A good number of works are ascribed to him. Among them is a work on the Spartan constitution, an interest he shared with his Stoic contemporary Sphairos of Borysthenes. About his seven books attacking Plato’s Laws only the title and the number of books are known but this information alone implies a substantial treatise. His kingship treatise has already been noted above, although again nothing is known of it but the title, On Kingship.11 Yet his strictly philosophical works were rarely cited in antiquity, a neglect which was in marked contrast to the treatment afforded his racier Symposium Memoirs, which I consider in greater detail in section 4 below. An exception to this is his On the Gods, which appears to have offered some form of rationalising anthropocentric view of the gods, one influenced by the arguments of the fifth-century philosopher Prodikos of Keos. For such a point of view Persaios was cited first by Philodemus in his On Piety and subsequently by Cicero and Minucius Felix, most likely as a result of a reading of Philodemus rather than any direct contact with Persaios’ original text.12 This general silence about Persaios’ more philosophical writings suggests that unlike, for example, his contemporary Ariston of Chios his philosophy did not tend to be distinctive and instead he stayed quite close to the views of his teacher.13 As a philosopher Persaios not only wrote, he also taught. Among his pupils in Athens was said to have been Aratus of Soloi, the poet and author of the Phaenomena, who would also spend time at the court of Antigonos. A Macedonian connection may lie behind the Amphipolitan background of another of his pupils, Hermagoras, about whom nothing is known beyond his Suda entry. Hermagoras was serious enough about philosophy, although the titles attributed to him might lead one to think that he was not over-serious. They include an attack on the Academy entitled On Sophistry, a Dog-hater (Μισοκύων), which presumably expressed his antagonism to the Cynics, and a puzzlingly entitled work, Ἔκχυτον, to be translated perhaps as Outpourings, which the Suda notes is concerned with egg-divining. Persaios no doubt had other pupils, although like his works their names have not survived with the exception of Antigonos Gonatas’ son Halkyoneus whom he is reported to have tutored.14 Persaios comes across, therefore, as a credible if not especially impressive philosopher, but one very much in the shadow of his teacher Zeno. In Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of the Philosophers, in contrast to his contemporaries, Ariston, Kleanthes, Herillos and Sphairos, all pupils of Zeno, he does not merit a life of his own. Instead he and his publications are subsumed into the ‘Life of Zeno’ where not even his suspected end on the Acrocorinth can earn him one of Diogenes’ famous light verses on the deaths of his subjects.15
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Between philosophy and the court: The life of Persaios of Kition 3. Persaios at court Explanations for Persaios’ arrival at the Antigonid court are, as one might expect, various. According to one account he was a substitute for Zeno who had declined an invitation from Antigonos and so sent his pupil instead, according to another he himself was invited directly.16 That he should have chosen to spend time with Antigonos at all may have been a consequence of Stoic thinking about political action. Chrysippos of Soloi, the head of the Stoa later in the third century, in contrast to Epicurus is known to have approved of the wise man advising a king and living with him, and even accompanying him on campaign, although the best situation would be for the wise man himself to be king. If he did live with a king, then it would be preferable for the king to be one ‘who demonstrated a good disposition and readiness to learn’.17 A qualification, however, is necessary; the wise man was an ideal to be aspired to, a role model, and no Stoic claimed to be such a person.18 But even without being wise men Stoics could take part in the affairs of the state if it was appropriate, so philosophical arguments could have been adduced to support Persaios’ presence at the Macedonian court. W. W. Tarn even goes so far as to describe Persaios as Antigonos’ ‘philosophic director’, albeit a rather unsatisfactory one.19 Nevertheless, Persaios was not the only person to accept such invitations and its appeal may have derived not so much from the opportunity of putting philosophy into practice as the allure of the royal court. Antigonid power and patronage brought many intellectuals and literary figures to Macedon. Apart from Persaios philosophers included the cynicinspired Bion of Borysthenes and Menedemos of Eretria who had set up his own school in his home town on Euboea before exile had forced him to Macedon; to both men we will return later in this section. Of the several Lives that survive of the poet Aratus the third lists a number of literary figures who were present at the court of Antigonos. In addition to Aratus himself whose Phaenomena was said to have been written at the request of Antigonos, there were others, now relatively obscure, such as Alexander of Pleuron, tragedian and poet, and Antagoras of Rhodes.20 Antagoras has come down in tradition not only as the author of an epic Thebais but also as the subject of a cooking anecdote, recorded, as might be expected, by Athenaeus. When Antigonos finds Antagoras cooking conger eels he asks him whether Homer would ever have written the Iliad celebrating Agamemnon if he had spent all his time cooking conger eels. Antagoras replied that Agamemnon would never have done his famous deeds if he had spent his time nosing around to see who was cooking conger eels in his camp.21 The story adds an extra dimension to our understanding of
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Andrew Erskine these writers and intellectuals at court. We can observe here, albeit in an anecdote, a degree of informality and intimacy in the relationship between king and poet but also something of the king’s aspirations in acting as patron. Studies of Hellenistic courts have carefully plotted all the different grades, positions and titles and no doubt there were many permutations, although at this early stage they had not reached the complexity of the late Hellenistic period. What counted most, however, was proximity to the king or, if that was not possible, proximity to someone close to the king. The informal advisers who surrounded the king were known as his ‘friends’ or ‘philoi ’.22 It is not certain whether Persaios was part of this group, but sources make clear that he was close to the king and an influential figure at court; he is referred to as an hetairos of the king and several anecdotes suggest a considerable degree of familiarity.23 His influence with the king was observed by others. Timon of Phlios, author of the Silloi, three volumes of verse making fun of a wide range of philosophers, attacked Ariston of Chios, fairly or unfairly, for fawning round Persaios because he was so impressed by the latter’s closeness to Antigonos.24 Moreover Persaios was eventually to be entrusted with the Acrocorinth, a fortress crucial to the maintenance of Macedonian power in the Peloponnese. The nature of his position here is controversial. He is more likely to have been some form of civilian governor than a military commander; indeed Plutarch refers to him as archo-n, while both he and Polyaenus report that a certain Archelaos was general at the fall of the Acrocorinth.25 Whatever Persaios’ exact status here he was clearly important enough in the court to be given a position of some authority. The appointment of the historian Hieronymos of Kardia as governor of Boeotia by Antigonos’ father, Demetrios Poliorketes, might seem comparable but Hieronymos did have a fair degree of military experience.26 The presence of literary figures and intellectuals at court was a feature not only of Macedon but also of the other Greek kingdoms of the Hellenistic world.27 In Alexandria the Ptolemies made determined efforts to attract scholars and writers and established the Museum and Library as institutions that would give continuity and permanency to their endeavours.28 Here the future head of the Peripatetic school, Straton of Lampsakos, acted as tutor to the young Ptolemy II Philadelphos, and poets such as Callimachus of Cyrene and Apollonius Rhodius flourished.29 Later in the third century the Stoic Sphairos also spent time at the Ptolemaic court, most probably two visits, the first under Ptolemy III Euergetes and again under his successor.30 The Athenian comic poet Philippides was numbered among the friends of Lysimachos and his standing with the king
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Between philosophy and the court: The life of Persaios of Kition was such that he was able to secure many favours for his home city. The relationship between the two men worked in both directions; in Athens Philippides is known to have criticised the divine honours voted by the city to Demetrios Poliorketes, the rival of Lysimachos. In 283/82 the Athenians honoured Philippides with a bronze statue in the theatre, but as the decree proposing the honours makes clear this decision was motivated as much by his influence with the king as by any of his achievements as a dramatist.31 Whether Persaios ever used his position in a similar way to confer benefits on cities associated with himself, such as Kition or Athens, is not known. There is, however, anecdotal evidence for a bronze statue of Persaios erected somewhere during his lifetime, an honour which is most likely to be a consequence of his connection with Antigonos.32 Whatever power and influence an individual might gain through their proximity to the king, status in a Hellenistic court was fragile. Once in Macedon Persaios was faced with and party to all the competition and intrigues that have been features of so many courts, ancient and more recent.33 The predicament of someone at a Hellenistic court is well captured by Polybius, writing of Macedon under Philip V later in the third century: So brief a space of time suffices to exalt and abase men all over the world and especially those in the courts of kings, for those are in truth exactly like counters on a reckoning board. For these at the will of the reckoner are now worth a copper and now worth a talent, and courtiers at the nod of the king are at one moment universally envied and at the next universally pitied.34
For intellectuals at court it was no different as each competed for the attention and favour of the king, a pastime already well underway at the court of Alexander where the philosopher Anaxarchos and the historian Kallisthenes vied with one another.35 Few stood above this and to do so was to win praise. It was a sign of the excellent character of Philippides that he was free from the intrigue that was such a feature of court life, or so at least reports Plutarch: ‘he caused no trouble and was not infected with the meddlesomeness of the court’.36 In the Antigonid court three philosophers stand out for their rivalry and bitchiness as they seek to promote themselves in the eyes of the king and do down their opponents: Persaios of Kition, Bion of Borysthenes and Menedemos of Eretria.37 A second Stoic, Philonides of Thebes, is said to have accompanied Persaios to Macedon but very little is known of him except that he too joined in the mutual character assassination. Both these Stoics seem to have ganged up on Bion when he arrived at the Macedonian court and made disparaging remarks to Antigonos about the newcomer’s birth and background.38 Perhaps it was in response that Bion told a joke
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Andrew Erskine about the statue of Persaios mentioned above, a joke which is in fact our only reason for believing that a statue of Persaios existed at all. Bion said that he had seen a statue of Persaios inscribed ‘Περσαῖον Ζήνωνος Κιτιᾶ’, most plausibly translated as ‘Persaios of Kition, pupil of Zeno’, but, joked Bion, this was an engraver’s error and it should have read ‘Περσαῖον Ζήνωνος οἰκετιᾶ’, ‘Persaios, slave of Zeno’.39 This joke may be the origin of the story that Persaios had been a slave of Zeno, but whatever the origin of that story it is apparent that both Persaios and Bion accused each other of low birth. This enclosed world of gossip and philosophical malice might be a suitable intellectual context for the anti-Cynic writings of Persaios’ Amphipolitan pupil Hermagoras, a text so vividly entitled Dog-hater, another hit at Bion perhaps.40 More vicious appears to have been the conflict between Persaios and another philosophical rival at the court, Menedemos of Eretria, in which Persaios went to even greater lengths to protect his position. Damning was Menedemos’ subsequent verdict on Persaios, delivered, as so often was the case, at a Macedonian drinking party and providing confirmation of Epicurus’ belief that it was best to keep intellectuals away from such places. Of Persaios he said, ‘Philosopher he may well be, but he is the worst of men who live or have ever lived’. The root of this quarrel is to be found in the two men’s relations with Antigonos. When it looked as if Antigonos was prepared to restore democracy for the Eretrians as a favour to Menedemos, Persaios interceded with the king and prevented it.41 Whatever the truth of the story, it rests on a perception of Persaios as a man of great influence with the king who was prepared to assert himself in the face of others he perceived to be his rivals. This in-fighting was a product of a court culture in which the rewards in terms of wealth and influence were immense.42 The quantity of alcohol drunk at the Macedonian court probably did not help to calm tempers either.43 4. Between philosophy and the court Wealth and reputation may have been integral elements of court life, keenly fought over by the participants, and accusations of low birth may have offered a satisfactory way of demeaning others in front of the court and more particularly in front of the king. But in Stoic theory none of these things, wealth, reputation, birth, good looks or even life itself, were of significance. Only the morally good contributed to happiness (εὐδαιµονία), everything else was treated as having no bearing on it, a category that Stoics called ‘the indifferents’ (τὰ ἀδιάφορα). Wealth, fame, health and so on may have been useful but they had no value in themselves.44 The Stoic wise man, knowing all this and living his life accordingly, would have been a
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Between philosophy and the court: The life of Persaios of Kition rather detached figure in a Hellenistic court, but he is essentially a philosophical construct, unlikely to be found in reality.45 Persaios may have been a philosopher but he was no wise man and his life comes to represent the tension between the temptations of the court, such as wealth, influence and sex on the one hand, and philosophy and a rather more ascetic and restrained way of living on the other. Persaios falls halfway between the two, adequately fitted neither for the court nor the philosophic life, and the stories that circulated about him reflected this. Tales of court life are full of jokes played and told, wisecracks and repartees, which may be more a consequence of a public appetite for such stories than any predilection on the part of kings and their associates. Nonetheless, there is an illuminating story about Persaios, told in brief by Diogenes Laertius and with extensive rhetorical flourishes by the late Roman philosopher and orator Themistius. In order to test Persaios’ Stoic beliefs Antigonos Gonatas played an elaborate joke on the philosopher. He arranged for messengers to arrive at the court and to report among other things that Persaios’ estates had been devastated by the enemy. Themistius in his version places these events in Cyprus and includes the enslavement of Persaios’ wife and murder of his son, thus making the whole ruse that much more complex and emotionally charged. It is Persaios’ reaction that is important. According to Diogenes Laertius, his face revealed his dismay and Antigonos, his point proved, asked ‘do you see that wealth is not something indifferent?’ The rhetorical Themistius opts for a more dramatic rendering of the impact on Persaios, ‘Zeno was gone, Kleanthes gone’.46 The testing of philosophers in this way was not uncommon, at least in this anecdotal form. Ptolemy IV Philopator, challenging Stoic ideas on knowledge and sense perception, sought to confuse Sphairos with some artificial pomegranates made of wax; again this is in a court context but this time it is the Ptolemaic court. Persaios himself pulled a similar trick on his colleague Ariston by using a pair of identical twins, one to deposit some money with Ariston, the other to reclaim it.47 Sopater of Paphos in his play the Galatians took this testing of Stoics to a satirical extreme by threatening to smoke three over a fire to see if any of them complained of the roasting they were getting.48 Antigonos’ practical joke on Persaios, however, seems different to these examples because it is not merely a Stoic theory that is called into question but Persaios himself. He becomes a man caught between a philosophical ideal and the reality of his life as a member of the court. The estates, supposedly devastated, may well be part of the rewards of royal service. In contrast to the manners and practices of the court the life of Zeno is one of asceticism and restraint. His needs were simple. This was not a life
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Andrew Erskine of banquets, drinking and sexual abandon. His self-indulgence was limited to satisfying his liking for figs and lying in the sun.49 He was accustomed, according to Diogenes Laertius, to eating small loaves and honey with wine of good bouquet.50 In sexual matters he rarely used young boys and only occasionally prostitutes, and that was just to show that he had no hostility to women.51 Diogenes points up the contrast with Persaios by following this immediately with a story about how Persaios brought a young flute girl home while he was still living with Zeno in Athens. When Persaios introduced the girl to him, Zeno hurriedly led her back to him. A similar story is reported to have been told by the third-century BC biographer Antigonos of Karystos in his life of Zeno. On this occasion Persaios buys a flute-girl at a drinking party but is reluctant to bring her home because he lives with Zeno, but as soon as Zeno realizes the situation he drags the girl into the house and shuts her in a room with Persaios.52 Again the theme recurs of Zeno’s restraint and Persaios’ lack of it, but this time there is a sense of Persaios as a man caught between two ways of living, something that would be accentuated at the Macedonian court. This image of Zeno may be in part due to Persaios himself. He wrote a volume that went under several titles, notably Symposium Memoirs (Συµποτικὰ ὑποµνήµατα) and Symposium Dialogues (Συµποτικοὶ διὰλογοι). This proved to be the most cited of his works, largely because it suited Athenaeus’ purpose so well and consequently extracts, sometimes substantial, appear in his Deipnosophists (Sophists at Dinner). Nonetheless the nature of this work is not well understood. It was, writes Athenaeus, based on the memoirs (ἀποµνηµονευµάτα) of Zeno and Stiplo, one of Zeno’s teachers, but in what way is not at all clear and the fragments suggest that Persaios’ experiences at the court of Antigonos Gonatas also helped shape it.53 Few of the attested citations of the Symposium Memoirs refer to Zeno, although it is likely that surviving evidence for Zeno may come from it without explicit attribution, perhaps some of the descriptions of his lifestyle that were mentioned above. Certainly Persaios did record in the Symposium Memoirs that Zeno usually refused invitations to dinner, an observation which fits well with such a picture. Yet, in spite of his frugal and ascetic way of living, our sources preserve a surprising number of anecdotes about Zeno concerning food and drink; this is especially surprising for a man who tended to avoid social functions where food was likely to play a major part.54 Thus, for instance, he knees a rude guest at a drinking party; he criticises a glutton; on one occasion he snatches back a fish that a glutton has taken; and he relaxes when drinking just as the bitter lupin becomes sweet when steeped in water.55 These stories occur not only in Athenaeus whose subject-matter revolves around drinking and dining
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Between philosophy and the court: The life of Persaios of Kition but also in other writers such as Diogenes Laertius. The most likely explanation for the proliferation of such anecdotes is that they originate from the one work that is known to discuss both symposia and Zeno, the Symposium Memoirs of Persaios.56 In this context Zeno comes across as a man who, unlike his fellow-guests, is not led astray by the attractions of the drinking party, although he is quite prepared to point out to his companions their deficiencies, for example their rudeness and their gluttony. Nor is he one to get drunk. In all this his response is very different from the Arcadian embassy to Antigonos reported in the Symposium Memoirs. The combination of alcohol and scantily-clad Thessalian dancinggirls caused the ambassadors to lose all sense of decorum.57 The evidence for the Symposium Memoirs suggests that Persaios himself was sensitive to the dilemma that court life placed him in, at once attracted by its temptations while conscious that philosophy should be leading him in a different direction. This would be all the more likely if Persaios created an image of Zeno in contrast to the life led by those who surrounded Antigonos. Persaios’ awareness of this tension is evident in a story he himself told of a drunken philosopher. The context is a drinking party at the Macedonian court in which an unnamed philosopher was a participant. When a flute girl sought to sit beside the philosopher, he resolutely refused to let her do so, but as more alcohol was consumed so his philosophical resolution gave way. When the flute girl was put up for auction, the philosopher, by this stage fairly drunk, began bidding vigorously, only to lose out in the end because of what he considered to be an incompetent auctioneer. The result was a drunken brawl over a flute girl he had himself earlier snubbed when he was sober. Athenaeus suggests, surely wrongly, that this philosopher may have been Persaios himself; it is more likely that Persaios is here engaging in the familiar bitchiness of the court.58 His listeners would know the name of the unfortunate philosopher and at any reading of Persaios’ work would get a good laugh at his expense. Nevertheless, although the drunken philosopher probably was not Persaios, the story reveals Persaios’ perception of the problems of courtlife. Essentially it was an environment in which it was all too easy for philosophical convictions to be swept away. The contrast with the disciplined and abstemious Zeno could not be clearer. Was it Persaios who was responsible for the story of Zeno slipping inconspicuously away from one of Antigonos Gonatas’ rowdy parties in Athens? 59 In the end Persaios comes across as a man who could neither keep a grip on his philosophical convictions nor on Antigonos’ prized fortress on the Acrocorinth. His own perspective on his situation is hard to recover in the light of the loss of his writings. As we have seen, only fragments remain.
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Andrew Erskine Nonetheless, the references and allusions to his Symposium Memoirs give us a sense of his own attempt to place himself in relation to Antigonos and Zeno, the two men who embody the competing elements in Persaios’ life, the court and philosophy, a very Hellenistic dilemma. Acknowledgements This chapter began as a paper presented at a very stimulating conference on Hellenism in Cyprus in 2005, organised by Ioannis Taifakos, and a shorter version is due to appear in the proceedings; it was also given at a Hellenistic workshop in Edinburgh. Shane Wallace read a draft of the chapter and I am very grateful to him for his comments. Notes 1 Jacoby 1902, 368–9 for arguments on the date, suggesting a range of 276 to 270. 2 Hammond and Griffith 1979, 149, Borza 1990, 168, 172–3, though note Scullion 2003’s scepticism. Scullion may be right that Euripides did not die in Macedon but it is very likely that he visited it; certainly stories that placed him there were already current at the time of Aristotle (Pol. 1311b30–4). 3 On kingship treatises, Murray 2007 and Bertelli 2002; for Epicurus, see Plut. Mor. 1095c and 1127a together with Murray 2007, 18–19. 4 H. von Arnim collects the testimonia and fragments of Persaios in Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta (= SVF; 4 vols., Leipzig, 1905–24), vol. 1, nos. 435–62. This contains much of the material cited in this chapter, but some updating is needed, especially in the light of Dorandi 1994, which gives the text of Philodemus’ history of the Stoics (P.Herc. 1018 = Philod. Stoa here) together with a translation and commentary. The fragments of his more historical works are also collected by Jacoby, FGrH 584. Among the more recent examinations of Persaios and aspects of his career are Bollansee 2000 (with full bibliography), Scholz 1998, 318–25, 368–70, Sonnabend 1996, 243–7, Dorandi 1994, 10–13, Steinmetz 1994, 555–7, Erskine 1990, 80–3. 5 Diogenes Laertius (= D. L.) 7.36 (SVF I.435), Aul. Gell. NA 2.18.8 (SVF I.438), Athen. 4.162d-e (SVF I.452), Philod. Stoa 12 with Dorandi’s commentary. Stories of a servile origin may have stemmed from a cutting witticism of Bion of Borysthenes, see section 3 below and Dorandi 1994, 11–12. The suggestion that Persaios was given to Antigonos would evaporate if the text of D. L. 7.36 were amended, see Bollansee 2000, 17 n. 4 with 27–8 and Susemihl 1891, 69 n. 263. 6 Paus. 2.8.4, 7.8.3, Plut. Arat. 18–23, Polyaen. Strat. 6.5 (SVF I.442–4), Philod. Stoa 15; the competing traditions are lucidly analysed by Bollansee 2000. Somehow the idea that Persaios committed suicide after the loss of the Acrocorinth has crept into some of the standard modern reference works (e.g. OCD 3, sv Persaeus, and CAH 2 7.1, 69, 229, 251); as Bollansee 2000, 20, n. 13, points out, there is no ancient authority for this. 7 Philod. Stoa, 13. 8 Tarn 1913, 232. 9 D. L. 7.14.
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Between philosophy and the court: The life of Persaios of Kition D. L. 7.6 (SVF I.439), 7.36 (SVF I.435), Philod. Stoa 12 (Dorandi). ‘γνώριµος’ can also mean ‘pupil’ (cf. LSJ), but its use in opposition to ‘οἰκέτης’ at D. L. 7.36 suggests that something more along the lines of ‘friend’ is intended. 11 Bibliographical list at D. L. 7.36 (SVF I. 435), cf. 7.178 (SVF I.620) for Sphairos. 12 Philod. On Piety 9, Cic. Nat. D. 1.38, Min. Fel. 21.3 (collected together as SVF I.448), on which Henrichs 1974, Algra 2003, esp. 158–9, Dyck 2003, 110; Persaios’ argument may even have been addressed obliquely by Lucretius (5.13–21), see Harrison 1990; note also the citation of his work on the Spartan constitution, Athen. 4.140e-f (SVF I.454). 13 On Ariston, see Ioppolo 1980. 14 Aratus of Soloi: Vita Arati 20 (ed. J. Martin) (SVF I.440); Hermagoras: Suda sv Ἑρµαγόρας (SVF I.462); Halkyoneus: D. L. 7.36 (SVF I.435); on the latter, see Ogden, this volume, section 6. 15 For Persaios and other pupils of Zeno, D. L. 7.36–8. 16 D. L. 7.6–9, Vita Arati 20 (Martin) (SVF I.439–440). 17 On Stoic views on political participation, Erskine 1990: 64–70; Stobaeus, Ecl. 2.109.10–110.8 (SVF III.686), 2.111.3–9 (SVF III.690), Plut. De Stoicorum repugnantiis 1043b–c (SVF III.691). 18 Cf. Chrysippos in Plut. De Stoicorum repugnantiis 1048e (SVF III.668); Brouwer 2002 argues in detail against the idea that any Stoic with the possible exception of Ariston considered himself to be a wise man. 19 Tarn 1913, 232. 20 Vita Arati 15 (Martin), Weber 1995. 21 Athen. 8.340f. 22 For studies of particular Hellenistic courts and their titles, note on the Antigonid: Le Bohec 1987; on the Ptolemaic: Mooren 1975 and 1976; on the Seleucid: Bikerman 1938, 31–50 and Capdetrey 2007, 278–80, 384–8; and with a focus on Asia Minor rather than a particular monarch, Savalli-Lestrade 1998 (largely Seleucid and Attalid). For Hellenistic court society in general see Herman 1997, Weber 1997 (with extensive bibliography) and at greater length the 2007 doctoral dissertation of Rolf Strootman, which is now the fullest account of the subject (a revised version is in preparation). 23 Hetairos: Athen. 6.251c. 24 Athen. 6.251c 25 Plut. Arat. 18, 23, Polyaen. 6.5; Tarn 1913, 374 n. 15, preferring a civilian role subordinate to the military, Gabbert 1997, 36 and O’Neil 2003, 513 putting him in overall charge while Bollansee 2000, 17–18, who provides full references and bibliography, writes of ‘sharing responsibility’. 26 Paus. 1.9.8, Plut. Dem. 39.4, O’Neil 2003, 512, Billows 1990, 390–2, Hornblower 1981. 27 The material is surveyed in Strootman 2010. 28 Erskine 1995. 29 Straton: D. L. 5.58; on literary patronage: Fraser 1972, vol. 1, esp. 305–36, Stephens 2010. 30 D. L. 7.177, 185; Erskine 1990, 97–9. 31 Plut. Dem. 12, Syll.3 374. Paschides 2008 treats the whole subject of such Friends as intermediaries between cities and kings with pp. 116–25 on Philippides. 32 Athen. 4.162d–e, see further below. 10
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Cf., with differing approaches, Elias 1983 [1969]’s influential treatment, focussing on the court of Louis XIV, and Duindam 2003, esp 249–54, treating both Versailles and the Habsburg court in Vienna. 34 Polyb. 5.26.12–13 (trans. Paton); on the intrigues and dangers of Hellenistic court life, Herman 1997, Weber 1998–9. 35 Borza 1981. 36 Plut. Dem. 12.8. 37 Bion: Kindstrand 1976; Menedemos: Knoepfler 1991. 38 D. L. 4.46–7. 39 Athen. 4.162d–e, on which Kindstrand 1976, 289–90, rejecting C. B. Gulick’s Loeb translation. Kindstrand collects examples to show that the genitive could be used to indicate a master-pupil relationship, but the anecdote is still puzzling as any such inscription would seem to be most readily interpreted by an observer unfamiliar with Persaios as meaning ‘Persaios, son of Zeno’. 40 See above n. 14. 41 D. L. 2.143–4; Menedemos’ comment may well be deliberately echoing Antisthenes on Socrates’ wife, Xanthippe, Xen. Symp. 2.10, so Tarn 1913, 233, n. 38. For Menedemos’ earlier political activity in Eritris, see Haake 2007, 177–81. 42 Herman 1997, 216–18. 43 Murray 1996. 44 Cf. D. L. 7.104–7; for a review of Stoic ethics, Schofield 2003. 45 See n. 18 above. 46 D. L. 7.36 (SVF I.435), Themistius Or. 32.358 (SVF I.449). 47 Sphairos: D. L. 7.177 (SVF 1.625, the story is told with wax birds instead of pomegranates in Athen. 8.354e, SVF I.624); Ariston: D. L. 7.162. 48 Athen. 4.160e–f (Sopater Frag. 6), Gutzwiller 2007: 123–4. 49 D. L. 7.1. 50 D. L. 7.13. 51 D. L. 7.13. This same point, but with a very different tone, is made at Athen. 13.563d–e, where Antigonos of Karystos is cited as a source; both appear as fragments 33A and 33B in Dorandi’s Budé collection of the fragments of Antigonos (Dorandi 1999). The negative tone is likely, however, to be a consequence of the scathing verses of Hermeias of Kourion quoted shortly before rather than a reflection of Antigonos himself; on Hermeias, see Bing 2010. 52 D. L. 7.13, Athen. 13.607e, together as Antigonos of Karystos, frags 34A and 34B (Dorandi). 53 For citations of the Symposium Memoirs, Athen. 4.162b–c, 13.607a–e, D. L. 7.1 (= SVF I.451–3); recent scholarship on Athenaeus has stressed that his method of citation is far more artful than previously realised so, however valuable he is, he needs to be approached carefully, Gorman 2007, Pelling 2000. 54 Dinner invitations: D. L. 7.1 (SVF I.453), Philod. Stoa 3 (Dorandi); frugality: D. L. 7.27 (SVF I.5). 55 Knees guest: D. L. 7.17; gluttons: D. L. 7.19, Athen. 8.345c, 5.186d, cf. Athen. 8.344a for a similar story told of Bion of Borysthenes, suggesting it circulated at the Macedonian court; lupins: Athen. 2.55f, D. L. 7.26, Galen, de anim. mor. 3, Eustathius on Hom. Od. 21.293, p. 1910.42 (collected together at SVF I.285). 56 Argued in greater detail in Erskine 1990, 80–2.
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Between philosophy and the court: The life of Persaios of Kition 57
Athen. 13.607c–d (SVF I.451). Athen. 13.607d–e (SVF I.451); Athenaeus unconvincingly quotes a passage of Antigonos of Karystos (frag. 34A Dorandi) in support of his suggestion, cf. the remarks of Jacoby (Persaios FGrHist 584 F4). Cf. Erskine 1990, 81. 59 D. L. 7.13, cf. Athen. 13.603d-e, together as Antigonos of Karystos, frags 35A and 35B (Dorandi). 58
Bibliography Algra, K. 2003 ‘Stoic theology’, in B. Inwood (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics, Cambridge, 153–79. Bertelli, L. 2002 ‘Peri Basileias: I trattati sulla regalità dal IV secolo A.c. agli apocrifi pitagorici’, in P. Bettiolo and G. Filorama (eds) Il dio mortale. Teologie politiche tra antico e contemporaneo, Brescia, 17–61. Bikerman, E. 1938 Institutions des Séleucides, Paris Billows, R. 1990 Antigonos the One-Eyed and the Creation of the Hellenistic State, Berkeley. Bing, P. 2010 ‘Hermeias of Kourion (Athenaios 13.563d–e = Powell, Coll. Alex. p. 237)’, in S. L. Ager and R. A. Faber (eds) Belonging and Isolation in the Hellenistic World, Toronto. Bollansee, J. 2000 ‘Persaios of Kition, or the failure of the wise man as general’, in L. Mooren (ed.) Politics, Administration and Society in the Hellenistic and Roman World, Leuven, 15–28. Borza, E. 1981 ‘Anaxarchus and Callisthenes: academic intrigue at Alexander’s Court”, in H. J. Dell (ed.) Ancient Macedonian Studies in Honour of Charles F. Edson, Thessaloniki, 73–86. 1990 In the Shadow of Olympus: The emergence of Macedon, Princeton. Brouwer, R. 2002 ‘Sagehood and the Stoics’, in D. Sedley (ed.), Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 23, 181–224. Capdetrey, L. 2007 Le pouvoir séleucide: territoire, administration, finances d’un royaume hellénistique (312–129 avant J-C), Rennes. Dorandi, T. 1994 Filodemo: Storia dei Filosofi: La Stoà da Zenone a Panezio (PHerc. 1018), Leiden. 1999 Antigone de Caryste: fragments, Paris. Duindam, J. 2003 Vienna and Versailles: The courts of Europe’s dynastic rivals, 1550–1780, Cambridge. Dyck, A. 2003 Cicero: De Natura Deorum, Cambridge.
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Andrew Erskine Elias, N. 1983 The Court Society, Oxford (first published as Die höfische Gesellschaft, Neuwied and Berlin 1969). Erskine, A. 1990 The Hellenistic Stoa: Political thought and action, London. 1995 ‘Culture and power in Ptolemaic Egypt: the Museum and Library of Alexandria’, Greece & Rome 42, 38–48. Fraser, P. M. 1972 Ptolemaic Alexandria, 3 vols, Oxford. Gabbert, J. J. 1997 Antigonus II Gonatas: a political biography, London. Gorman, R. and V. 2007 ‘The tryphe of the Sybarites: a historiographical problem in Athenaeus’, JHS 127, 38–60 Gutzwiller, K. 2007 A Guide to Hellenistic Literature, Oxford. Haake, M. 2007 Der Philosoph in der Stadt: Untersuchungen zur öffentlichen Rede über Philosophen und Philosophie in den hellenistischen Poleis, Munich. Hammond, N. G. L. and Griffith, G. T. 1979 A History of Macedonia, Vol. 2, Oxford. Harrison, S. J. 1990 ‘Lucretius, Euripides and the philosophers, De Rerum Natura 5.13–21’, CQ 40, 195–8. Henrichs, A. 1974 ‘Die Kritik der stoischen Theologie im PHerc. 1428’, Cronache Ercolanesi 4, 5–32. Herman, G. 1997 ‘The court society of the Hellenistic Age’, in P. Cartledge, P. Garnsey and E. Gruen (eds) Hellenistic Constructs: Essays in culture, history and historiography, Berkeley, 199–224. Hornblower, J. 1981 Hieronymus of Cardia, Oxford. Ioppolo, A.-M. 1980 Aristone di Chio e lo stoicismo antico, Naples. Jacoby, F. 1902 Apollodors Chronik: eine Sammlung der Fragmente, Philologische Untersuchungen 16, Berlin. Kindstrand, J. F. 1976 Bion of Borysthenes: A collection of the fragments with introduction and commentary, Uppsala. Knoepfler, D. 1991 La vie de Ménédème d’Éretrie de Diogène Laërce, Basel. Le Bohec, S. 1987 ‘L’entourage royal à la cour des Antigonides’, in E. Lévy (ed.) Le système palatial en orient, en Grèce et à Rome, Strasbourg, 314–26.
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Between philosophy and the court: The life of Persaios of Kition Mooren, L. 1975 The Aulic Titulature in Ptolemaic Egypt, Brussels. 1976 La hiérarchie de cour ptolémaique, Leuven. Murray, O. 1996 ‘Hellenistic royal symposia’, in P. Bilde et al. (eds) Aspects of Hellenistic Kingship, Aarhus, 15–27. 2007 ‘Philosophy and monarchy in the Hellenistic world’, in T. Rajak et al. (eds), Jewish Perspectives on Hellenistic Rulers, Berkeley, 13–28. O’Neil, J. L. 2003 ‘The ethnic origins of the friends of the Antigonid kings of Macedon’, CQ 53, 510–22. Paschides, P. 2008 Between City and King: Prosopographical studies on the intermediaries between the cities of the Greek mainland and the Aegean and the royal courts in the Hellenistic period (322–190 BC), Meletemata 59, Athens. Pelling, C. 2000 ‘Fun with fragments: Athenaeus and the Historians’, in D. Braund and J. Wilkins (eds) Athenaeus and his World: Reading Greek culture in the Roman Empire, Exeter, 171–90. Savalli-Lestrade, I. 1998 Les philoi royaux dans l’Asie hellénistique, Geneva. Schofield, M. 2003 ‘Stoic ethics’, in B. Inwood (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics, Cambridge, 233–56. Scholz, P. 1998 Der Philosoph und die Politik. Die Ausbildung der philosophischen Lebensform und die Entwicklung des Verhältnisses von Philosophie und Politik im 4. und 3. Jh. v. Chr., Stuttgart. Scullion, S. 2003 ‘Euripides and Macedon, or the silence of the Frogs’, CQ 53, 389–400. Sonnabend, H. 1996 Die Freundschaften der Gelehrten und die zwischenstaatliche Politik im klassischen und hellenistischen Griechenland, Hildesheim. Steinmetz, P. 1994 ‘Die Stoa’, in H. Flashar (ed.) Gundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie. Die Philosophie der Antike 4: Die hellenistische Philosophie, Basel. 495–716. Stephens, S. 2010 ‘Ptolemaic Alexandria’, in J. J. Clauss and M. Cuypers (ed.) A Companion to Hellenistic Literature, Oxford, 46–61. Strootman, R. 2007 The Hellenistic royal court. Court culture, ceremonial and ideology in Greece, Egypt and the Near East, 336–30 BCE, Dissertation, University of Utrecht (http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/dissertations/2007–0725– 201108/UUindex.html) 2010 ‘Literature and the kings’, in J. J. Clauss and M. Cuypers (ed.) A Companion to Hellenistic Literature, Oxford, 30–45.
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Andrew Erskine Susemihl, F. 1891 Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur in der Alexandrinerzeit, vol. 1, Leipzig. Tarn, W. W. 1913 Antigonos Gonatas, Oxford. Weber, G. 1995 ‘Herrscher, Hof und Dichter. Aspekte der Legitimierung und Repräsentation hellenistischer Könige am Beispiel der ersten drei Antigoniden’, Historia 44, 283–316. 1997 ‘Interaktion, Repräsentation und Herrschaft. Der Königshof im Hellenismus’, A. Winterling (ed.) Zwischen ‘Haus’ und ‘Staat’: antike Höfe im Vergleich, Munich, 27–72. 1998–9 ‘The Hellenistic rulers and their poets. Silencing dangerous critics?’, Ancient Society 29, 147–74.
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10 BEING ROYAL AND FEMALE IN THE EARLY HELLENISTIC PERIOD Elizabeth D. Carney The role of women in early Hellenistic dynasties, despite the similarities generated by the Macedonian past shared by all the ruling families, differed considerably from family to family and from generation to generation. These differences were reflected in the distinctive dynastic images of each family. This chapter attempts to trace the historical evolution of the position of royal women from the late Argead to the early Hellenistic period while addressing the factors that contributed to similarities in role as well as those that led to considerable difference. Justin described how Olympias, mother of Alexander, confronted death at the hands of her assassins: She did not run from the sword or from wounds, nor did she scream like a woman. She faced death the way brave men do, upholding the glorious reputation of her ancient lineage; you could recognize Alexander even in his mother’s death.1
Plutarch put into the mouth of Kleopatra VII’s loyal servant the pronouncement that her self-inflicted death ‘was good and suitable for the descendant of so many kings.’ 2 According to Plutarch,3 Octavian, though irked because he had been cheated of the chance to parade her in his triumph, nonetheless admired her eugeneia (nobility of birth, both literally and figuratively) and allowed her a regal burial. These two death scenes, one from the beginning and one from the end of the Hellenistic period, exemplify how royal women encapsulated the qualities of their clans, those of birth and of marriage, in a way that royal males could not. At least at times, women could symbolize their dynasties.4 To some degree, common Hellenistic practices relating to royal women did emerge because women moved from one dynasty to another and because royal women in each royal oikos played a role in cult and patronage at the great international shrines. This continuing cross contamination of Hellenistic dynasties tended to generate additional similarities over time.
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Elizabeth D. Carney One should not simply assume, however, that each kingdom treated royal women in the same way;5 even when a practice developed in one dynasty begins to be implemented by another, it is important to notice the date and motivation for borrowing the practice of another ruling family. Many scholars would give primacy to one explanation for these similarities: the similar nature of Hellenistic monarchy in general, across all dynasties. While I would not want to deny that the institution had many shared features in each dynasty, I am less inclined than some to stress them.6 Analysis of ‘Hellenistic Monarchy’ tends to scant change over time (though the late third or early second century seems, if unstated, the basis for generalization) and consequently to de-emphasize the development of these features.7 In terms of Macedonian history, the assumption (implicit or explicit) that if the Macedonians ever did something, they always did it, has limited our understanding of the evolution of their political system.8 Discussions of ‘Hellenistic monarchy’ necessarily entail making many exceptions for the Ptolemies in some areas and for the Antigonids in others. The Seleucids (along with the smaller dynasties that eventually appeared in Asia Minor) therefore become the de facto norm. One must question this presumed norm, particularly because the Antigonids were both the first of the ruling families to develop many practices that would be accepted by other Hellenistic dynasties and the last of the great dynasties to establish secure regional roots. Over-generalization about the role of women in Hellenistic monarchy is particularly dubious because, as we shall see, situations and events could so dramatically affect a position much less clearly defined than that of male rulers. Nonetheless, although several general discussions of women and Hellenistic monarchy exist,9 presently there are no lengthy general studies of the role of women in each dynasty.10 Moreover, in my view, there should be no dynastic studies until more research has appeared about individual women and groups of women. When generalizations appear before particulars, we risk imposing our expectations on the evidence. Circumstance – most notably the absence of an adult male ruler – could change the situation of women in a royal dynasty quickly. Although this chapter will discuss commonalities at some length, its focus will be on change and on the continuing singularities of the role of women in each ruling family and on the first two generations of Hellenistic monarchy (roughly 323–250 BC). In this period these dynasties developed a public presentation and, to some degree, established a pattern for royal women in their families. Let me begin with commonalities, many of which have to do with a shared past. The role of royal women in Homer affected women in the
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Being royal and female in the early Hellenistic period Argead dynasty as well as the ruling families of the Hellenistic period.11 The public presentation of women in the Hecatomnid dynasty influenced the later Argeads and, directly and indirectly, the Hellenistic ruling families.12 To a lesser degree, at least for the Asia Minor dynasties, the role of women in Persian monarchy affected subsequent behavior and, of course, the role of women in pharaonic monarchy had considerable effect on Ptolemaic.13 The role of women in the later stages of Argead monarchy, unsurprisingly, had the greatest impact on the position of royal women in the subsequent era. Philip II’s crafting of a royal and dynastic image was critical to the development of Hellenistic monarchy. During his lifetime, Argead women achieved new prominence, some of it the result of chance events but much of it a consequence of his policies: in the Argead era, no office for royal women developed, but they did play an increasingly public role in the dynasty.14 They had, in effect, become part of the ‘dynastic idea’ and could, by their actions, strengthen or weaken the royal clan.15 After his father’s death, Philip’s mother Eurydike successfully functioned as a succession advocate for her sons,16 primarily by participating in and manipulating the networks of philia and xenia that dominated Greek elites and the diplomatic world. Her daughter-in-law Olympias and her granddaughter Kleopatra would also function within these networks.17 For instance, a cluster of Molossian philoi either accompanied Olympias to the court of Philip II or joined her subsequently.18 Clearly, this was the beginning of the situation that developed at Hellenistic courts, where the philoi of royal women were critical to their position.19 A series of monuments and dedications by or for Philip’s mother Eurydike appeared during his reign, probably partially inspired and supported by him. These monuments commemorated and advertised Eurydike’s piety, patronage of Greek education and of citizen women, and her wealth and thereby dealt with Eurydike’s (and thus her sons’) controversial reputation, itself almost certainly the product of intradynastic rivalry. Her dedications, like those of other royal women in later periods, were both typically female but also publicity for herself and her clan.20 Just as Eurydike’s supposed lack of kleos could have damaged the ability of her son to rule, so the assertion that she had it advantaged him.21 Eurydike’s monuments and dedications offer the earliest sign of the tendency of royal women to be understood as peculiarly responsible for the female part of the population and as symbolic of domesticity.22 As this series indicates, Philip included royal women in the dynastic image he was shaping. Eurydike’s image was also one of the five (in addition to Philip’s own image, those of his father and son Alexander and
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Elizabeth D. Carney of Olympias, mother of Alexander) that once stood in the Philippeion, a prominent and luxurious monument erected by Philip after his great victory at Chaeroneia, within the sacred area of Olympia, the most prominent of the Panhellenic sanctuaries. Philip used the Philippeion to define the main line of the dynasty in the immediate past, present and future and he chose to make his mother and the mother of his heir part of this presentation. In various ways the Philippeion and the images it housed alluded to the divine ancestry and divine qualities of the Argead clan, including the women. Philip generated a symbol of dynastic stability and continuity at the very time that the stability and continuity of the dynasty was at issue. The images of the women were there because they formed a part of dynastic power, however indirectly. Many Hellenistic rulers would construct dynastic statue groups on this model, some (not all) including royal women and typically portraying an image of dynastic unity and continuity, one often at odds with reality.23 In addition to physical monuments, Philip invented some monumental acts and ceremonies that Hellenistic kings would imitate. He employed a series of marriage alliances to create, reinforce and symbolize the centralization and expansion of his realm. The grand scale of his polygamy constituted an important if controversial part of the royal image, a statement in itself about his wealth and power and willingness to flout southern Greek practice. Many of the Successors copied Philip’s polygamy, though the practice later became less common.24 He turned the marriage of his daughter Kleopatra into a public event that served a number of purposes, many of them similar to those of the Philippeion: it advanced an image of dynastic harmony that was not always apparent in real life; advertised the wealth and culture of the ruler and clan to an international audience; and alluded to the god-like qualities of the ruler and perhaps to those of his family as well. Here too Hellenistic rulers followed in his footsteps.25 To a lesser but still considerable degree, Alexander’s use of royal women also influenced subsequent rulers and dynasties. His marriages, like those of his father, helped to generate an image of monarchy, in this case of a half-Asian monarchy. His studied good treatment of the Persian royal women was part of his claim to be the legitimate successor of Darius; he used them to generate the appearance of continuity,26 a notion several of the Successors entertained about Alexander’s full sister Kleopatra.27 During Alexander’s reign, Olympias made dedications, almost certainly part of the plunder consequent on her son’s victories, at Olympia,28 the first – so far as we know – of many Macedonian royal women to do so, advertising the wealth, piety, and military success of her family. Olympias and her daughter Kleopatra also engaged in grain patronage in times of scarcity.29 Such
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Being royal and female in the early Hellenistic period euergetism, like that of Eurydike, had a political and diplomatic aspect. As with many subsequent similar acts by Hellenistic royal women, it is difficult to determine whether the women acted on their own or as agents of Alexander or both and to what degree they had independent control of their wealth.30 Alexander allowed his mother and sister to become power brokers and intercessors who could use the uncertainty of others about how directly their actions were approved by Alexander to build their own power base. During his reign, royal women began to have courtiers and agents, a practice that would expand and solidify in the subsequent period.31 If Alexander actually planned to deify his mother after her death, then this plan could certainly have been the prototype for cults for deified royal women. Her role (whether Alexander’s invention or Olympias’ or both) in claims of his divine parentage would also be a model for the later dynasties.32 Late in Alexander’s reign, Harpalos, Alexander’s treasurer, supposedly established a posthumous private cult for his favorite hetaira and, in his treatment of her and another courtesan, blurred the line between their status and that of royal women. Though a controversial and erratic figure, his distinctive treatment of these women may have influenced early Hellenistic rulers.33 It is difficult to assess the impact on the position of subsequent royal women of the post-Alexander careers of Olympias, Kleopatra, full sister of Alexander, Kynnane his half-sister, and Adea Eurydike, her daughter and wife of Philip Arrhidaeus. In a time of scarcity of adult male Argeads, as the dynasty was dying, these women acted aggressively and independently. Not coincidentally, they all met violent ends. Royal women of much later generations could have found some inspiration in them. Male rulers, however, may have seen their lives as cautionary tales. Perdikkas’ faction killed Cynnane because of her ambitions and Antipater had confrontations at various times with Olympias, her daughter Kleopatra, Kynnane, and Adea Eurydike.34 These confrontations and deaths, however, were primarily the result of vicious factional infighting 35 and only secondarily, at most, the consequence of abstract hostility to political action by women.36 In effect, the new dynasties killed off the old one. As their elimination of Alexander’s two sons confirms, the Successors demonstrated no long term attachment to the survival of the Argead house. Though interested in connecting their new dynasties to the old, they generally preferred fictional ties to dead male Argeads over marriage to living Argead women.37 Certainly, the first two generations of royal women in the Hellenistic period produced no such independent actors as the later Argead women. Despite the ephemeral character of their prominence and power, these
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Elizabeth D. Carney late Argead women did establish a precedent that some Hellenistic dynasties did follow. Argead women, though not usually participating in combat (Kynnane is the only clear exception), developed a military aspect. Some women commanded small bodies of troops or exercised administrative control over them. Adea Eurydike often addressed the army. Certainly she, like her rival Olympias, was present on campaigns.38 This indirect, somewhat symbolic military role for royal women would continue. An epigram of Posidippus39 includes an image of Arsinoe II with spear and shield;40 Arsinoe III was present at the battle of Raphia.41 Phila and at least one Seleucid woman acted as disciplinarians or patrons to soldiers and their families.42 Since the initial Hellenistic dynasties were all founded by members of the Macedonian elite, it is distinctly possible that the Successors and later rulers were influenced not only by Argead precedents, but also by the role of women in the Macedonian elite. There has been little discussion of this possibility for the very good reason that we know so little about what those habits were. The burials of elite female Macedonians imply a conventional Hellenic understanding of the female role: no weapons or armor but extensive displays of jewelry. Literary evidence, however scant, is more suggestive. Marriage alliances were clearly bread and butter politics to members of the elite. A web of blood and marriage ties united and divided them. An individual might ignore these ties in favor of self-interest or preservation but they were, nonetheless, the basis of political power. This is most obvious in the elite marriages made just after Chaeroneia and immediately after Alexander’s death.43 The dynastic marriages of the Hellenistic period more clearly resemble those of the Macedonian elite than they do the marriages of Argead monarchs because Hellenistic monarchies existed as part of a collective of similar monarchies and generally married within the collective whereas the Argeads had no obvious peers and tended to arrange marriages with families of more disparate origin and less clearly equal status.44 Although it is possible that these aristocratic women were usually merely passive tools in these alliances, we know that royal women sometimes acted and were expected to act as representatives of their birth family to the family into which they had married.45 Plutarch’s offhand reference46 to the involvement of Philip II’s last wife Kleopatra, after her marriage, in the vicious blood feud between her birth clan and that of Pausanias, the future assassin of Philip, indicates that elite women in Macedonia continued to act in support of and in concert with their original families. We underestimate the degree to which women in the Hellenic world continued to identify with the families of their birth.47 They were, in effect,
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Being royal and female in the early Hellenistic period only lent to another family. Phila, for instance, a daughter of Antipater, having first married an aristocrat named Balakros, married Krateros, and then Demetrios Poliorketes, all at her father’s behest and in service of her father’s policies.48 The nearly universal identification of women by patronymics should tell us more than it seems to have done. In the Hellenistic era, also, royal women sometimes came home to reconnect to the dynasty of their origin. Their dedications – always with patronymics but not always with the name of their spouses – and actions imply at least as much advertisement of their family of birth as the family of marriage.49 A wide range of practices relating to royal women emerged during the period of the Successors as they turned from the need to validate their personal rule to the wish to justify rule by their descendants. These Hellenistic innovations relating to royal women did not begin to become cross-dynastic practice until the first of the Successors began to employ a royal title in 306.50 However, well before any of the Successors took a royal title, many of them performed king-like actions reminiscent of Philip and Alexander. It is in the context of these quasi-royal acts and policies that we know of two cases in which the women of their dynasties were involved in practices that would soon become common to what were about to become royal dynasties. In each case, practices relating to women imitate those connected to men. Comparatively soon after the death of Alexander, the Successors began to imitate the eponymous city-foundations of Philip and Alexander. Naming cities after women in a dynasty was an innovation, probably the invention of Kassander about 316.51 In naming his foundation after his wife Thessalonike, the daughter of Philip II, Kassander advantaged himself for reasons peculiar to his situation as the husband of an Argead and ruler of Macedonia. For reasons we shall discuss, after 301, his distinctive act became a sort of Hellenistic norm. Philip and Alexander had flirted with claiming divine status; some scholars believe that both received cult in their lifetimes. Certainly each was the subject of posthumous cult. Here too, the Successors emulated them. Antigonos and his son Demetrios Poliorketes may have received cult worship as early as 31152 and certainly cults had been established for them in Athens by 307. Phila, wife of Demetrios Poliorketes, seems to have had both a private and a public cult at Athens around 307.53 Phila received worship as ‘Phila Aphrodite.’ In roughly the same time period, the Athenians and Thebans established cults for two of Demetrios’ mistresses, also associating them with Aphrodite. After this, many royal women and royal hetairai, in other dynasties, were also paired with Aphrodite in public and private cult.54
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Elizabeth D. Carney The critical event in the evolution of the role of Hellenistic royal women is the appearance of a female title, basilissa. Argead women had not employed a title; they appeared in inscriptions with a patronymic alone. This circumstance is unsurprising, granted that Argead kings before Alexander had not themselves utilized a title; even Alexander did not do so on all occasions. Antigonos and his son, Demetrios Poliorketes, were the first of the Successors to employ a title (and wear a diadem), a step they took in 306, several years after the death of the last Argead king, in the context of a great military victory. The earliest evidence for the use of a female title again involves Phila, wife of Demetrios Poliorketes, and dates to about 305. Thus the appearance of the female title was apparently directly related to the adoption of the male title and indeed may have happened at the same time.55 Parallelism between the development of male and female titles is, however, limited. As we have seen, the male title had late Argead precedents but the female title did not. We know that basileus means ‘male ruler,’ but the meaning of basilissa is unclear, ambiguous. It is best translated as ‘royal woman’ because the term can refer to a royal wife, a royal daughter, a female regent, and to a female king. Instead of defining any sort of office or position, basilissa related to royal status, acquired by birth or marriage or both.56 The timing of its first use implies that it too was a legitimizing device, a tool in the establishment of dynastic power. It may convey the sense that men and women of a ruling family shared similar qualities, although not to the same degree. Conceivably the appearance of a female title may also reflect the temporary importance royal and elite women acquired as the Argead dynasty was disappearing and the new dynasties forming. The title institutionalized the public role of royal women to a greater degree than previously, but left the nature of that role undefined and extremely variable across dynasties and even individual reigns. Thus while the usage of basilissa became the rule in all the dynasties, its functional significance, at least within the kingdoms, may have differed dramatically from one monarchy to another, from one period to another. Soon after titles began to be applied to royal women, the precedents established by Thessalonike and Phila began to be followed by many other women. After 301, about the same time the dynasties of the Successors began to intermarry, many cities were named after dynastic women. Clearly the agenda was dynastic legitimacy, the elevation of the wives and mothers of kings, with implications about the king’s and the dynasty’s superhuman nature.57 Similarly, cults connecting royal wives and mistresses now become common. One should, however, be cautious about assuming extensive similarity
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Being royal and female in the early Hellenistic period here cross-dynastically. The nature of Aphrodite cults varied tremendously and is only beginning to get the attention it deserves. Many royal women were connected to Aphrodite but the meaning of the connection may have varied considerably with the cult and the dynasty.58 That royal courtesans as well as royal wives were paired with Aphrodite suggests that these cults had a fundamentally sexual aspect, that they were cults to women who had sex with men considered divine, women who might bear divine children. The general pattern of Greek myth is that one needs two divine parents to achieve divine status. Cult worship generally indicates recognition of the power of those who receive it; this implies that royal women and courtesans, because of their relationships with royal males, were understood to have access, thus influence and the ability to intercede.59 Like the female title, female cult seems to suggest the need to understand power as both male and female, though hardly equally divided. The last significant innovation began to appear as the era of the Successors ended and their sons began to replace them. Although many of the Successors had imitated the polygamy of Argead rulers, rulers increasingly exercised circumspection about it. Its practice declined but did not disappear in the Hellenistic period.60 The appearance of a female title may have contributed to this phenomenon. Perhaps not coincidentally, a greater degree of endogamy appeared in the marriages of several dynasties. The consequence of this gradual development was that fewer women in a given kingdom were considered royal but that their status and position was somewhat more secure than previously. More generally, though royal women, as in the Argead era, had both private and public roles, as each monarchy evolved, their roles became both more public and more institutionalized than previously, though still hard to categorize.61 Whereas Olympias and her contemporaries had influence and access, Hellenistic royal women, though still not officials – that is to say they had no clear job description and their tasks and activities varied – increasingly had officially recognized tasks and activities. The initial need to legitimize the new dynasties and the continuing need to stress whatever was the current official version of dynastic succession helps to explain this development. In addition, royal women (sometimes both royal wives or mothers and royal daughters) were now regularly part of the public presentation of the monarchy, sometimes in ways that stressed the king’s relationship to his wife.62 Hellenistic rulers, expanding on the precedents of Philip II, staged their monarchy in ways meant to connect their subjects to them, to generate dynastic loyalty, often by appearing to involve them in their family lives.63 But let me turn from discussion of common traits to consideration of
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Elizabeth D. Carney the distinctive role of women in each dynasty, beginning with the Antigonids. The degree of influence that Argead tradition had on Antigonid practice was comparatively modest because Antipatrid rule and a period of chaos intervened between the end of one dynasty and the establishment of the other in the rule of Macedonia. Monarchy was reconstituted in Macedonia, much altered.64 Tradition did influence Antigonid practice in two respects: the refusal to establish a royal cult within Macedonia itself 65 and the assertion of Heraklid ancestry.66 Argead monarchy, however, had been understood as the rule of the royal clan and the public presentation of the monarchy involved many members including, at least in times of scarcity of adult males, women. Antigonid monarchy was much more focused on the rule of a given individual, involved a narrow public presentation of the monarchy, and limited the role of royal women,67 possibly partly by defining it to a greater degree than before.68 The dynastic monument of the Antigonids at Delos, the Progonoi, exemplifies the change; judging by the surviving cuttings in the statue bases, the statues depicted only male rulers.69 The muting of royal polygamy contributed to this narrow image of monarchy. Instead of a plethora of heirs, there tended to be only one and so no need for royal mothers to act as succession advocates. The Argead era had been one in which the difference between Macedonian elite culture and that of southern Greece was comparatively marked and Macedonians self-identified as having a distinctive culture, but the degree of difference between Macedonia and southern Greece declined dramatically in the course of the second half of the fourth century and even more in the third century. Thus, the limited, more conventionally Hellenic role of women in Hellenistic Macedonia related to increasing urbanization and acculturation to institutions that had once characterized only central and southern Greece. In terms of royal women, this meant that Antigonid rulers presented themselves as though monogamous and royal women performed acts of conventional piety and patronage but apparently did not involve themselves in political action. If our information base remains the same for Antigonid women, there may not be much more to say about them. Literary evidence about the Antigonids, even the males, is poor and so far very few inscriptions of relevance to royal women, especially in Macedonia proper, have been found. The appearance of new inscriptions is, however, extremely likely. Moreover, the announcement of the discovery of an eight-chambered tomb at Pella with multiple female burials (though probably aristocratic not royal) reminds us that discovery of burials of Antigonid women is still possible.
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Being royal and female in the early Hellenistic period The Seleucids were different. Two Seleucid women, previously married to Antigonid rulers, played a much greater role in public events when they returned to their home dynasty.70 Here, women’s involvement in the public presentation of dynastic power increased over time.71 The Seleucids named many cities after women, partly because the Seleucids were major colonizers but also because several different royal women were commemorated in this fashion.72 The Seleucids generated an image of dynastic solidarity, one that centered on the current royal couple and the heir (formulaic references may include all three).73 Instead of a long line of male rulers, there was the image of the current nuclear family, artificially narrowed to illustrate the succession plan. Seleucid wives had the ability to represent their husbands.74 Just as stories about Alexander have Olympias impregnated by a god, so too do stories about Seleukos and his mother Laodike. In both cases the stress is on the founding mother and the supposed divine father.75 Seleukos, unlike, so far we know, the other Successors, retained his Asian wife after the death of Alexander; his heir Antiochos was her son and thus the Seleucids, all descendants of Apamea, were partly Persian. Though they did not practice brother-sister marriage as regularly as the Ptolemies, the Seleucids seem to have practiced such marriages at times, possibly influenced by Hecatomnid and Achaemenid practice as well as Ptolemaic modes. They adopted brother-sister nomenclature for royal married pairs, whether or not the biological relationship existed.76 Starting with Seleukos’ son Antiochos I, Seleucid kings usually made their chosen heirs co-kings, typically well before the death of the senior king. This practice, obviously intended to guarantee both a smooth succession as well as an extension of personal rule over the vast areas they controlled, did not always generate stability.77 Though the Seleucids seem to have been only occasionally polygamous, royal mothers did often act as succession advocates, but usually by preferring one of her own sons. Especially in the later stages of the dynasty, Ptolemaic brides often proved to be power brokers, conveyers of legitimacy.78 Seleucid royal wives sometimes acted as intercessors for groups or individuals with their husbands.79 Though Seleucid women were involved in the great events of the dynasty, they were considerably less likely to acquire a separate political base than Ptolemaic women. Clearly the largest role played by women in Hellenistic monarchy was that of the women of the Ptolemaic dynasty. In my view, research on Ptolemaic women holds the greatest potential, primarily because of the amount of material available in both Greek and Egyptian sources. We have only begun to tap into the rich interplay between Hellenic and Egyptian
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Elizabeth D. Carney public presentation. For Ptolemaic Egypt there is a particularly great need for case-by-case studies of royal women. Currently, we have a lot of work on Arsinoe II and Kleopatra VII but too little about all the women in between.80 In all three families, the founding father began to develop a dynastic image but his heir was its main architect. In the case of the Ptolemies, however, Ptolemy Soter himself made a critical decision, one that proved a significant factor in the evolution of female royal power in Egypt. This decision is epitomized by the fact that we speak not only of Seleucids, Antigonids, and Attalids but also of Ptolemies. Soter decided to break with tradition and name two sons after himself and none after his father. In all monarchies, one tends to think, ‘The king is dead, long live the king.’ Any monarchy implies the notion that the king never dies but simply is differently embodied. The Ptolemies made this explicit, possibly in connection to the pharaonic notion that the king is continually reborn.81 Certainly the nomenclature of Ptolemaic rulers meant that this was a dynasty, from the start, turned in on itself, in a kind of endless circle of dynastic power. If the king was always the king, always Ptolemy, then what of his consort? I would suggest that, in terms of the dynasty as a whole, this distinctive nomenclature encouraged the institutionalization of close kin marriages. Not all were sibling marriages, but most were.82 Sisters, especially full sisters, are as close as one can come to female versions of kings, mirror images but for gender.83 The appearance of Sheila Ager’s recent article on such Ptolemaic marriages84 has raised the level of analysis of sibling marriage dramatically. Nonetheless, despite the richness of her discussion and scholarship, much remains to be done, particularly in terms of political aspects of the issue. Indeed, as I once suggested,85 the topic surely merits book-length treatment. Not only was Ptolemy II the first Ptolemaic ruler to marry his own sister (Arsinoe II) but he was also really the founder of the dynastic cult and inventor of many other aspects of dynastic self-presentation. The tendency of Ptolemaic monarchy to turn in on itself, to intensify itself, already seen in the reign of Ptolemy I increases in the reign of Ptolemy II. He created the first paired dynastic images: a paired cult of his parents (Theoi So-teres c. 282) and later of himself and Arsinoe (Theoi Philadelphoi c. 272?), the two pairs visibly linked in coins on which both pairs appeared.86 To some degree, Ptolemy II’s sibling marriage functioned as the opposite of the polygamous marriages of his father, Ptolemy I. This initial brother-sister marriage, like the earlier ill-starred marriage of the half siblings Arsinoe and Ptolemy Keraunos, had its roots in the experiences of Ptolemy Soter’s children: the extended competition between his children
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Being royal and female in the early Hellenistic period by Eurydike, daughter of Antipater, and those by Berenike.87 The uncertainty of that period generated anxiety and desire for security that affected his children by both wives. Even after Ptolemy II was made co-ruler with his father in 285 and had clearly won the battle for the succession, his early experience may have continued to affect his personality and world view. Just as Alexander appeared to trust his full sister Kleopatra to a greater degree than his half sisters, so Ptolemy may have trusted his sister Arsinoe more than others at court. Arsinoe had every reason to feel the same.88 During her marriage to Lysimachos,89 her struggle with Lysimachos’ son Agathokles and his wife, Lysandra, daughter of Eurydike, in effect revisited the succession competition of their mothers. Arsinoe’s success in this struggle was ephemeral. Her marriage to Keraunos may have been an attempt, in part, to reverse this pattern of strife between Soter’s two sets of children, to end the contest.90 If so, Keraunos’ betrayal of the marriage would have reinstituted Arsinoe’s sense that only those on her side of the dynasty could be trusted. Courts were dangerous places but, for a few generations, siblings looked like the safest people to marry.91 For generations, scholarship on Arsinoe, and to some degree her brother, remained hostile, primarily because of reaction against their sibling marriage and the supposed power it signified for Arsinoe.92 Moreover, the negative impact of this first sibling marriage has been much inflated.93 In fact, the evidence for upset in Ptolemy’s own day is modest: two passages in Plutarch and one in Athenaeus.94 The first Plutarch passage happens in the context of a discussion of the virtues of keeping one’s mouth shut (in an essay on the education of children). Plutarch refers to Sotades’ obscene joke about the marriage, commenting that he suffered in a prison a long time for making other men laugh by his untimely chatter. The second passage is part of a conversation set in Athens on the theme of well-timed remarks. The conversants immediately think of an example of their theme: the rhapsode who attended Ptolemy’s wedding to his sister and began his recitation with a quotation from the Iliad, ‘Then Zeus called to Hera, his sister and wife.’ 95 Plutarch comments that Ptolemy’s action was considered athemis (unlawful) and allokotos (unusual, strange in a bad way).96 The Athenaeus passage describes Sotades as a specialist in sodomy jokes. Athenaeus refers to Sotades’ ‘tactless frankness’ (akairon parre-sian), gives several examples, notes that he attacked other princes, and editorializes that he got what he deserved (death). Sotades’ famous remark may not have been seriously intended, cannot be directly connected to his death, and certainly does not demonstrate that he spoke for some general group. Both Plutarch and Athenaeus clearly disapprove of his remarks.97
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Elizabeth D. Carney This is not to say that the marriage occasioned no hostility but rather that it was not a major issue.98 Doubtless Greeks in Egypt and elsewhere found the idea of sibling marriage nasty, whatever the Egyptian view. Clearly Ptolemy’s courtiers acted in various ways to create a positive Greek public image for the marriage, suggesting that the king felt there was a need for such action.99 Hellenistic royalty, however, indulged in all sorts of nasty actions condemned in the behavior of ordinary people. Their subjects not only put up with their bad acts, but must, to some degree, have come to expect them. Indeed, up to a point, extreme behavior may have seemed... well, kingly. Unlike Ager,100 I doubt that sophrosyne- had much to do with either Macedonian or Hellenistic monarchy.101 Indeed, the dynastic image of the Ptolemies in effect stressed excess in terms of truphe- (luxury), with its implicit connection to benefaction, and Arsinoe II epitomized this image.102 Once invented, apart from other benefits of the marriage often discussed103 (most importantly, replication of the behavior of gods, Zeus and Hera, Osiris and Isis), it made possible those interlocking epithets, cults, and images so characteristic of the dynasty. It is not so much that incest was the ‘dynastic signature’ of the Ptolemies, but rather it was incestuousness. The literal and figurative incest of the dynasty gave a prominence to royal women that tended to empower them and helped to generate the developing pattern of female co-rule. Pairing in cult and in marriage led ultimately to pairing in rule.104 Let me conclude by offering some general observations for those examining the role of women in all these monarchies. We should not underestimate the agency of women in marriage alliances: the presumption that they were always or usually genetic tokens needs to be questioned. We need to recognize them as dynastic go-betweens with enduring ties to the oikos of their birth. Similarly, we have scanted royal women’s role in diplomacy via euergetism. Here we have not only underestimated female agency but we also need more focus on why rulers felt it necessary to encourage euergetism by their wives and daughters. In all these considerations, while avoiding the kind of wishful thinking that had Arsinoe II determining the domestic and foreign policy of Egypt or instigating the First Syrian War,105 we also need to steer clear of the kind of thinking which exaggerates the significance of the paucity of evidence about royal women and their acts or which denies that the influence Arsinoe demonstrably possessed was a kind of power.106
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Being royal and female in the early Hellenistic period Notes 1 14.6.11. 2 Ant. 85.4. 3 Ant. 86.4. 4 For varying interpretations of this phenomenon, see Carney 2000a, 37 and MirónPérez 2000. 5 For instance, a formal proclamation, after her wedding, that she had the title basilissa is attested for Laodike, daughter of Mithridates and wife of Antiochos III (Polyb. 5.43.4). Savalli-Lestrade assumes (2003, 62) that such a proclamation was common practice, but we do not know that it was, without exception. Justin (24.2.9– 3.3) describes what appears to be a similar situation for the ill-fated marriage of Arsinoe to Ptolemy Keraunos, but his testimony is possibly anachronistic and, even if it is correct, could reflect the odd and special circumstance of this particular marriage. One could, of course, hypothesize that what began as exceptional behavior became tradition, but I am not aware of Antigonid evidence for the practice. 6 This view is increasingly common. For instance, Erskine 2003 includes separate chapters on each dynasty and then Ma’s discussion, significantly titled, ‘Kings’ rather than ‘Kingship’ or ‘Hellenistic Monarchy.’ Indeed, Ma (2003, 179) stresses the ‘diverse nature of Hellenistic kingship,’ explicitly rejecting many old generalizations. The diversity he discusses, however, relates primarily to ethnicity and culture, less to variation from one generation to another or differing dynastic images. 7 Walbank 1984 is a classic example, although he does concede some change over time (1984, 65) by noting that the monarchies grew more similar as time passed. 8 Hammond’s scholarship (exemplified by Hammond 2000), despite its clear merits, suffers from this presumption. One consequence of the tendency to assume that a practice is old and traditional is that there tends to be no discussion of when and why it was first implemented. I do not mean to deny that considerable continuity existed in Macedonian government over centuries but rather to note that, particularly in a society that experienced such dramatic change in the second half of the fourth century and the early third, the absence of any significant change in governmental practice is extremely unlikely. See further Carney 2000a, 199–202. 9 See Savalli-Lestrade 1994; Roy 1998; Savalli-Lestrade 2003. Pomeroy 1984, 3–40 contains some general material but focuses on the Ptolemies. Similarly, Carney 2000a, 203–33 addresses the emerging role of royal women in the Hellenistic period, but centers on Macedonia. 10 Carney 2000a, 179–202 does contain a discussion of the role of women in the Antigonid dynasty, but the discussion is part of analysis of the role of women in Macedonian monarchy over several dynasties and many centuries. Le Bohec 1993 also deals with the women of both the later Argead and the Antigonid dynasties. As a consequence, both discussions are less focused on the distinctive role of women in this specific dynasty, although each addresses the issue. Hazzard 2000 does deal with Ptolemaic royal women, but its treatment, scholarship, and information are so narrowly conceived as to make it largely irrelevant. 11 For Homeric influence on Argead women in general, see Carney 2000a, 13–14; for Olympias in particular, see Carney 2006, 17–18. Foster 2006 discusses the influence of Homeric women on the image of Arsinoe II. 12 See Carney 2005 for discussion and references.
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On women in Persian monarchy, see Brosius 1996. For possible Persian influence on Argead monarchy, see Carney 1993. See Robins 1993, 21–55 for a discussion of the role of women in pharaonic monarchy and Quaegebeur 1978 for pharaonic influence on Ptolemaic royal women. 14 Here I differ in part from Pomeroy 1984, 11 (followed by O’Neil 1999, 2) who concludes that ‘...queenship was not a public office and therefore cannot be defined except as a private role.’ Queenship was not an office, but royal women certainly acted in public events and Philip and Alexander, at least, involved them in the public presentation of the monarchy. I have argued that, in the Argead period, office-holding was not generally the way in which power was understood and allotted in Macedonia. See further Carney 1995. 15 Savalli-Lestrade 2003, 66–7, speaking about the Hellenistic period; in fact, this phenomenon is clearly present by the second half of the fourth century. 16 Aeschin. 2.26–8. 17 On Eurydike’s career, see Carney 2000a, 40–46; on the role of Argead women in philia and xenia, see Carney 2006, 50–2. 18 See Carney 2006, 29–30. 19 Savalli-Lestrade 2003, 63–4. Herman 1997, 207–8 argues that xenia networks were how new philoi were recruited. 20 Kron 1996, 181–2 so characterizes the euergetism of Hellenistic royal women but does not discuss pre-Hellenistic precedents. 21 See discussion and references in Carney 2006, 90–1. See Carney 2000a, 46, n. 34 for reference to and discussion of an inscription in which Eurydike is offering to citizen women. 22 Schmitt 1991, 84; Savalli-Lestrade 2003, 70–1 makes this point for Hellenistic royal women, but it appears in Argead times and, judging by Phila’s career, before the Successors had taken royal titles. Both Eurydike’s Eukleia cult and the dedication on behalf of women citizens suggest this role of the royal wife-cum-mother as protector and sponsor of women, as did many of the cults in which a woman was somehow identified with Aphrodite (see below). 23 See Schultz 2007 and 2009 and Carney 2007 for discussion, analysis and references on the Philippeion and its influence. See Kosmetatou 2004a for discussion and references on the imagery of family groups more generally. Schmitt 1991, 78–9 points to Hellenistic stress on family unity, continuity over generations, often at odds with reality. See Palagia 2010 for an argument that the Eurydike in the Philippeion was Philip’s last wife, not his mother. 24 On Philip’s marriage alliances (his own and those he arranged for other family members) and his polygamy, that of the Successors, and its subsequent decline, see below and Carney 2000a, 52–79, 228–32. See also Ogden 1999, 3–214. 25 Carney 2000a, 203–07. 26 Carney 2000a, 93–7. 27 Diod. 20.37.3–6. 28 Syll.3 252N, 5–8, with n. 3. 29 SEG IX.2; Lycurg. Leoc 26. 30 See discussion and references in Carney 2006, 50–2. 31 On Olympias’ role in Macedonia, Molossia and the Greek peninsula during Alexander’s absence, see Blackwell 1999, 81–132; Carney 2006, 49–59. Kleopatra
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Being royal and female in the early Hellenistic period as intercessor: see FGrH 434, F 4.37. Kleopatra and courtiers: Paus. 1.44.6; Diod. 20.37.5. 32 See discussion in Carney 2006, 101–3. Only Curtius (9.6.26; 10.5.30) reports that Alexander planned a posthumous cult for her. Plutarch (Alex. 3.2) preserves reports both that Olympias did originate Alexander’s claim to be the son of a god and that she did not. 33 The evidence for Harpalos and the courtesans is a fragment of Theopompos and another of the comic playwright Philemon, both preserved in Athenaeus (13.586c, 595a-e). For discussion of these intriguing fragments, see Carney 1991, 158; 2000a: 217–18 and Müller 2006, who suggests that Harpalos was a kind of precursor of Hellenistic rulers in terms of his self-representation. Further on Harpalos, see Ogden (this volume). 34 For Olympias, see Carney 2006. For Kynnane, Adea Eurydike, and Kleopatra, see Carney 2000a, 69–70, 129–31; 132–7; 75–6, 89–90, 123–8. Olympias killed Adea Eurydike but the others died at the hands of male Successors. 35 Perdikkas, for instance, was interested in marriage to Kleopatra, despite her fairly independent career; his faction killed off her half-sister because she was a threat, not because she was a woman. Similarly, Antipater’s confrontations with Olympias and the others derived from what had become a feud between his clan and the Aeakids (in the case of Olympias and Kleopatra) and from his determination to control political events (Kynnane) and Philip Arrhidaios (Adea Eurydike). 36 Our sources preserve two famous ‘quotations’ about the rule of women whose authenticity some historians have accepted without question and read uncritically (e.g. O’Neil 1999), even if one accepts them as genuine accounts of what was said. Plutarch (Alex. 68.3) claims that Olympias and her daughter raised a faction against Antipater and that they divided rule between them, with Olympias taking Molossia and Kleopatra Macedonia. Alexander, supposedly commenting with comparative indifference on these events, comments that his mother has made the better choice because the Macedonians will not tolerate being ruled by a woman. The passage clearly reflects gender bias, but whether it reflect the bias of Plutarch’s era, or a Greek or Macedonian bias contemporary with Alexander is uncertain. The historicity of the entire passage is debatable, though likely to contain some truth (see Carney 2006, 53 for further discussion and references). In the unlikely event that Antipater’s supposed death-bed warning (Diod. 19.11.5) that the Macedonians should never allow a woman to be first in the kingdom is historical (see Carney 2006, 78–9), it is clearly a partisan statement directed at Olympias, his enemy, reflecting his belief that he, not she, was ‘first’. Antipater’s willingness to take his own daughter’s advice (see below) suggests that he did not so much oppose female political action as the political action of his female enemies. 37 Although many of the Successors considered marriage to Alexander’s sister, in the end none of them married her and all of Alexander’s sisters were murdered, including Thessalonike, the widow of Kassander. See further Carney 1988b. 38 See Carney 2004 for references and discussion. 39 AB 36. 40 See discussion in Stephens 2004,163–76. Stephens 2004,168 wonders if the image may refer to a specific armed cult statue of Arsinoe. On the military role of royal Macedonian women see Carney 2004 and Stephens 2005, 240–1.
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Polyb. 5.83.3. For Phila see Diod. 19.59.4. See Sherwin-White and Kuhrt 1993, 26–7 for references and discussion of a 299 BC inscription from Miletos that honors Apamea for her ‘goodwill and support’ to Milesians campaigning with King Seleukos. The Milesians in question were apparently mercenaries who took part in Seleukos’ conquest of Bactria-Sogdiana (c. 307–05), Apamea’s homeland. Nourse 2002, 252 suggests that Stratonike, wife of Seleukos and later Antiochos I, was important because of continuing Antigonid loyalty, particularly to Stratonike’s mother Phila, among Greek mercenaries and Macedonian soldiers in his territory. Also (2002, 258–9; see below) she sees Stratonike’s diplomatic negotiation as part of military involvement. 43 After Chaeroneia: Philip married Kleopatra, ward of Attalos; Attalos married a daughter of Parmenio as did Koinos. It is likely that other marriages happened then too. After Alexander’s death, Perdikkas married a daughter of Antipater, as did Krateros and Ptolemy. Kleopatra tried to marry first Leonnatos and then Perdikkas and Kynnane tried to arrange her daughter’s marriage to Philip Arrhidaios (see Heckel 2006 passim for references). 44 While, for instance, Philip’s marriage to the daughter of a Molossian king is relatively similar to royal Hellenistic marriage alliances, his marriages to Phila or to Kleopatra, members of his own elite, and to Meda, a Thracian king, are not. 45 See Carney 2000a, 19–23 for a discussion of royal marriage alliances. 46 Alex. 10.4. 47 Klapisch-Zuber 2002, 103–04 describes a similar situation for women in early th 15 century Florentine merchant families. She refers to the ‘floating status’ of women who frequently returned to the household of their birth, sometimes after an absence of thirty years or more, and who were never seen as ‘full-fledged members of the lineage’ of marriage. I owe this reference to Peter Schultz. 48 On the career of Phila, see Wehrli 1964; Carney 2000a, 165–9. 49 This is a complicated issue since we often do not know the date of an inscription or the current marital status of the woman referred to. Stratonike, however, daughter of Phila and Demetrios Poliorketes and wife (at different times) of both Seleukos I and Antiochos I, seems to be an example of a married dedicator continuing to focus on the interests of her birth family, though not necessarily to the exclusion of the interests of her spouses’ dynasty. See further Carney 2000a, 171–2, 226–8. 50 See Gruen 1985 for discussion of the date at which each Successor began to employ a royal title. 51 Dating city foundations is never easy, but most scholars believe that Kassander founded Thessaloniki soon after he took control of Macedonia. See Carney 1988, 135–9. 52 Walbank 1984, 91 argues that an eponymous festival honoring them and dating to 311 probably involved divine honors. 53 Savalli-Lestrade 2003, 68 stresses the importance of philoi in the divinization of royal women; certainly this is the case with Phila. 54 See Carney 2000b for discussion and references; it is likely but not certain that the cults of Demetrius’ mistresses were slightly later in date; for Demetrios’ mistresses, see Ogden (this volume). Wheatley 2003, 33 suggests that, at least in Athens, Demetrius treated Lamia, his favorite hetaira like a royal woman; he cites the parallel of Harpalos’ 42
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Being royal and female in the early Hellenistic period similar actions (see above). Kosmetatou 2004b argues that a hetaira of Ptolemy II’s (Bilistiche) was, in effect, a substitute queen after the death of Arsinoe Philadelphos. See Ogden 2008 for a different view. 55 For references and discussion, see Carney 2000a, 225–8. It is possible, though hardly certain, that wearing a diadem was connected to the acquisition of the title basilissa. See further Carney 2000a, 232–3. 56 Though Savalli-Lestrade 1994, 417–18 and others assume that only in the Ptolemaic dynasty (direct evidence; see below) did basilissa refer to unmarried king’s daughters, a number of scholars, including myself, believe that some other dynasties, possibly all, did so as well (see references in Carney 2000a, 326, n. 122). The problem is the lack of clear evidence, granted the problem noted above with dating and inscriptions dealing with royal women. See Carney 2000a, 226–7, especially ns. 123–5. I also disagree with the view that repudiation meant automatic loss of title. 57 See Carney 2000a, 207–9 for the possibility that eponymous women may have received cult as honorary oikists. 58 Savalli-Lestrade 1994: 426 sees a relationship between the connection of royal women to Aphrodite and the unification of the private role of king’s wife with the public one as patron of her subjects. 59 See Savalli-Lestrade 1994, 423ff. who points out that this involves not only the basilissa’s personal influence and access with and to the king, but also that of her courtiers. 60 Carney 2000a, 228–32. Ogden 1999, 67–214 sees a greater incidence of continuation of the practice. Savalli-Lestrade 2003, 62 and Roy 1998, 118, on the other hand, believe that the practice was entirely abandoned. 61 Savalli-Lestrade 2003, 61 describes their situation as ‘semi-private, semi public’ and rightly (2003, 65–6) notes how ‘ambivalent’ a royal wife’s status remained. 62 Roy 1998, 117–19 argues that the image of the king’s masculinity was defined by that of his queen. This is an interesting suggestion, but does not seem as applicable to Antigonid rulers, at least not on the basis of extant sources. 63 Schmitt 1991. Schmitt stresses (1991, 85) the paradoxical need to make the royal family seem both distant and near, like and different from ordinary people, and the ways in which dynasties used their private lives (as represented) to increase their power. 64 See Carney 2000a, 179–80 for references to general treatments of the Antigonid era. The interpretation of changes in Macedonian monarchy is my own and would not be accepted by all scholars. 65 Walbank 1984, 65 considers this a minor difference, a mere ‘nuance.’ I do not agree. 66 Edson 1934. 67 Carney 2000a, 181, 197–202 contra Hatzopoulos 1990, 144–7, followed by Le Bohec 1993, 229–45, who cite the inscriptions discussed below as evidence that the role of women was not more limited. 68 Hatzopoulos 1990, 144–5 (see also Le Bohec 1993, 244–5) discusses two inscriptions from the reign of Antigonos Gonatas. One is new, from Kassandreia, and honors a man who apparently is a go-between for Phila (Savalli-Lestrade 2003, 430 wonders if this courtier had followed Phila from her Seleucid homeland) and the city in matters public and private. The other inscription, from Veroea, is a manumission
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Elizabeth D. Carney that mentions the king and queen conjointly and some others as guarantors of the person’s freedom. As noted, Hatzopoulos and Le Bohec do not interpret these inscriptions as I do. See further Carney 2000a, 197–202. 69 Edson 1934, 218, who also notes that progonoi usually refers only to male ancestors, followed by Carney 2000b, 26, n. 27 contra Le Bohec 1993, 239. See further discussion and references in Carney 2007. 70 The women were Stratonike, daughter of Antiochos I and wife of Demetrios II (see Carney 2000a, 184–7) and Laodike, daughter of Seleukos IV and wife of Perseus (see Carney 2000a, 195–7). 71 See Meyer 1992–1993. She notes (1992–1993, 107) that no representation of female members of the dynasty survives from the 3rd century, but some do for the second. 72 Nourse 2002, 228. 73 Nourse 2002, 230, e.g. a slave freed ‘on behalf’ of Antiochos I, Stratonike, and their children. 74 Nourse 2002: 228. As Sherwin-White and Kuhrt 1993, 128 point out queens could communicate with cities independently, like governors. 75 Schmitt 1991, 84–5 discusses the importance of royal legends in terms of dynastic loyalty and involvement of subjects in monarchy. 76 Nourse 2002, 234 dates this custom as early as Antiochos I (contra Ogden); there is clearer evidence (Nourse 2002, 236) for Antiochos III. 77 Sherwin-White 1993, 24, 27 and Nourse generally consider this practice helpful whereas Ogden 1999, 117 terms it ‘disastrous’. 78 Ogden 1999, 117. 79 See Nourse 2002, 258–9 for references to an inscription in which Stratonike c. 287 received ambassadors from Troizen and Halikarnassos as part of negotiation to recover ships and men fighting on behalf of Demetrios Poliorketes that were captured by Seleukos. 80 See Llewellyn-Jones and Winder, this volume, for a discussion of the muchneglected Berenike II. 81 Like Ager 2005, 17, I would agree that it is no longer wise to dismiss the interest of even early Ptolemies in matters Egyptian. 82 Ager 2005, 16 stresses that not all marriages were sibling marriages. 83 Ager 2005, 18 observes that the practice meant that the Ptolemaic king came ‘close to “cloning” himself.’ 84 Ager 2005. 85 Carney 1987, 420. 86 See brief overview and references in Hölbl 2001, 94–5. 87 Heckel 1989, 34–6; Carney 1994, 123–4. Sherwin-White and Kuhrt 1993, 23 point out that Seleukos made his heir co-king a full decade before Ptolemy I. Hazzard 2000, 46, n. 92 comments that Ptolemy I treated both sides of the family fairly evenly until at least 298. 88 Ager 2005, 15–16 points out that modern studies link incest to family strife and suggests that some of the same psychological forces that created murder within family may have created incest within the family. 89 On Arsinoe’s career before her return to Egypt, see Lund 1992 passim and Carney 1994.
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Hazzard 2000, 84 sees it as Keraunos’ way of sealing a pact with Ptolemy II. Hazzard 2000, 85 implies this when he notes that both had been involved in fear and in murder. 92 On the peculiarities of scholarly tradition about Arsinoe, see Carney 1987, 420–8; Müller 2005. 93 For instance, Burstein 1982, 211; Hazzard 2000, 39 and passim. See contra Fraser 1972, 117–18; Carney 1987, 428–9. See also Weber 1998/1999, 162–5. Ager 2005, 27. 94 Ager 2005, 27 characterizes the evidence as sparse. Plut. Mor. 11A, 736 E-F; Athen. 620f–21a. The second century AD author, Pausanias (1.7.1) begins a list of Ptolemy II’s crimes with the sibling marriage and then mentions his murders of Argaeus and his brother. Hazzard 2000, 88 concludes that this order means that Pausanias considered the marriage the king’s worst action. Hazzard also believes (2000, 40) that, since ‘no one had any motive to denigrate the king after his death, these late authors probably preserved or built on hostile tradition dating from Ptolemy’s own reign.’ Obviously, Pausanias’ views could be his own and reflect the values of the Second Sophistic, not those of any source. Moreover, any enemy of the Ptolemies in the Hellenistic period had reason to portray brother-sister marriage in a negative way. 95 18.356. 96 Hazzard 2000, 39 sees this as evidence that the marriage was condemned in Athens. Plutarch’s passive verb could refer to opinion in Ptolemy II’s day or could be more general but is not obviously related to Athens. The conversation is set in Athens but not the reference. 97 Carney 1987, 428; Ager 2005, 27 are skeptical about the seriousness of his remark. Weber 1998/99, 162–5 doubts that Sotades’ death can be directly connected to the sibling marriage, on chronological grounds among other factors, and suggests that Sotades’ death probably related to a number of incidents. (See also Fraser 1972, 117–18.) Weber denies that there is evidence Sotades spoke for a larger group. He points out (1998/99; 173) that artists killed by kings were all ‘notorious grousers,’ mavericks, not voices of people. 98 Ager 2005, 26, while noting the association between sexual license and tyranny in Graeco-Roman tradition, also observes that ancients were less bothered specifically by incest as opposed to sexual license in general. 99 Kosmetatou 2004b, 24 concludes that the ‘court spin doctors’ thought that something needed to be done and cites as examples not only Theocritus (Id. 17.128–30) but also statues of the royal siblings erected by Kallikrates at Olympia, facing the temples of the divine sibling spouses, Zeus and Hera. 100 Ager 2005, 2, 23. 101 See, however Ager 2005, 21–2 for incest as statement of power and relationship between incest and deification. 102 On Ptolemies and luxury, see Ager 2005, 23–7 and Müller 2005, 43. Müller 2005, 43 notes that she is the first Ptolemaic queen to be shown with the double cornucopia, a symbol of abundance and luxury. 103 See Ager 2005 for discussion; she rightly concludes (2005, 16) that causation is complex and not limited to a single factor and notes that the reasons for the initiation of the practice are not necessarily the reasons for the continuation. 104 As we have noted, it is certain that Ptolemaic daughters had the title basilissa 91
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Elizabeth D. Carney even if unmarried and that the practice had begun in the lifetime of Ptolemy I’s unmarried daughter Philotera (OGIS 35). This suggests that even early on, the Ptolemies understood the women of their dynasty as sharing in some aspects of monarchy. Savalli-Lestrade 2003, 62 points out that only this dynasty (with one exception) refers to royal couples as basileis. 105 See Burstein 1982, 204–5 for references; Macurdy 1932, 118–21 is typical. Burstein’s article, though not convincing in all respects, functioned as a healthy corrective to these over-readings of the evidence, many of them based on sexual stereotypes about political women. 106 As Hazzard 2000, 82 himself notes, he goes much further than Burstein’s minimalist approach and insists that there is no evidence that she was powerful or popular, that this is just a mistaken point of view based on taking propaganda seriously.
Bibliography Acosta-Hughes, B., Kosmetatou, E. and Baumbach, M. 2004 (eds) Labored in Papyrus Leaves: Perspectives on an Epigram collection attributed to Posidippus (P. Mil. Vogl. VIII 309), Washington DC. Ager, S. L. 2005 ‘Familiarity breeds: incest and the Ptolemaic dynasty,’ JHS 125, 1–34. Bielman Sánchez, A. 2003 ‘Régner au féminine. Réflexions sur les reines attalides et séleucides’, in F. Prost (ed.) L’Orient mediterranéen de la mort d’Alexandre aux campagnes de Pompée: cités et royaumes à l’ époque hellénistique, Rennes, 41–64. Le Bohec-Bouhet, S. 2006 ‘Réflexions sur la place de la femme dans la Macédoine antique’, in SuimierSorbets, M. B. Hatzopoulos and Y. Morizot (eds) Rois, cités, necropoles: institutions, rites et monuments en macédoine, Meletemata 45, Athens, 187–98. Bringmann, K. 1997 ‘Die Rolle der Königinnen, Prinzen under Vermittler’, Actes du Xe Congrès International d’Épigraphie grecque et latine, Nîmes, 4–9 octobre 1992, Paris, 169–73. Brosius, M. 1996 Women in Ancient Persia (559–331 BC), Oxford. Burstein, S. M. 1982 ‘Arsinoe II Philadelphos: a revisionist view,’ in W. L. Adams and E. N. Borza (eds) Philip II, Alexander the Great and the Macedonian Heritage, Washington D.C., 197–212. Carney, E. D. 1987 ‘The reappearance of royal sibling marriage in Ptolemaic Egypt,’ Parola del Passato 237, 420–39. 1988a ‘Eponymous women: royal women and city names,’ AHB 2.6, 134–42. 1988b ‘The sisters of Alexander the Great: royal relicts,’ Historia 37: 385–404. 1991 ‘‘‘What’s in a name?” The emergence of a title for royal women in the Hellenistic period’ in S. B. Pomeroy (ed.) Women’s History and Ancient History, Chapel Hill, 154–72. 1993 ‘Foreign influence and the changing role of royal women in Macedonia,’ Ancient Macedonia 5,1, 313–23.
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Being royal and female in the early Hellenistic period ‘Arsinoe before she was Philadelphus,’ AHB 8.4, 123–31. ‘Women and Basileia: legitimacy and female political action in Macedonia,’ Classical Journal 90.4, 367–91. 2000a Women and Monarchy in Macedonia, Norman, Oklahoma. 2000b ‘The initiation of cult for royal Macedonian women,’ Classical Philology 95, 21–43. 2004 ‘Women and military leadership in Macedonia,’ AncW 35, 184–95. 2005 ‘Women and dunasteia in Caria,’ AJP 126, 65–91. 2006 Olympias, Mother of Alexander the Great, London and New York. 2007 ‘The Philippeum, women, and the formation of a dynastic image’ in W. Heckel, L. Tritle, and P. Wheatley (eds) Alexander’s Empire: Formulation to decay, Claremont, CA, 27–70. Edson, C. F. 1934 ‘The Antigonids, Heracles, and Beroea,’ HSCP 45, 213–35. Erskine, A. 2003 (ed.) A Companion to the Hellenistic World, Oxford. Fantuzzi, M. 2005 ‘Posidippus at court: the contribution of the Hippika of P. Mil. Vogl. VIIII 309 to the ideology of Ptolemaic kingship’, in Gutzwiller 2005: 249–68. Foster, J. A. 2006 ‘Arsinoe II as epic queen: encomiastic allusion in Theocritus, Idyll 15,’ TAPA 136, 133–48. Fraser, P. M. 1972 Ptolemaic Alexandria. Vol. I. Oxford. Gruen, E. S. 1985 ‘The coronation of the Diadochoi’, in J. W. Eadie and J. Ober (eds) Craft of the Ancient Historian: Essays in honor of Chester G. Starr, Lanham, Maryland, 553–71. Gutzwiller, K. 2005 (ed.) The New Posidippus: a Hellenistic poetry book, Oxford. Hammond, N. G. L. 2000 ‘The continuity of Macedonian institutions and the Macedonian kingdoms of the Hellenistic era,’ Historia 49, 141–60. Hauben, H. 1983 ‘Arsinoé II et la politique extérieure lagide’ in E. Van ’t Dack, P. van Dessen, and W. van Gucht (eds) Egypt and the Hellenistic World, Louvain, 97–127. Hazzard, R. A. 2000 Imagination of a Monarchy: Studies in Ptolemaic propaganda, Toronto. Herman, G. 1997 ‘The court society of the Hellenistic age’ in P. Cartledge, P. Garnsey, and E. Gruen (eds) Hellenistic Constructs: Essays in culture, history, and historiography, Berkeley, 199–224. Höbl, G. 2001 A History of the Ptolemaic Empire, London and New York. Huss, W. 2001 Ägypten in hellenistischer Zeit 332–30 V. Chr., Munich. 1994 1995
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Elizabeth D. Carney Klapisch-Zuber, C. 2002 ‘‘Kin, friends, and neighbors’: the urban territory of a merchant family in 1400’, in P. Findlen (ed.) The Italian Renaissance: The essential readings, Oxford, 97–123. Kosmetatou, E. 2004a ‘Constructing legitimacy: the Ptolemaic Familiengruppe as a means of selfdefinition in Posidippus’ Hippika’ in Acosta-Hughes et al. 2004, 225–46. 2004b ‘Bilistiche and the quasi-institutional status of the Ptolemaic royal mistress,’ APF 50, 18–36. Kron, U. 1996 ‘Priesthoods, dedications and euergetism. What part did religion play in the political and social status of Greek women?’, in P. Hellström and B. Alroth (eds) Religion and Power in the Ancient Greek World, Proceedings of the Uppsala Symposium, Uppsala, 139–82. Lund, H. 1992 Lysimachus: A study in early Hellenistic kingship, London and New York. Ma, J. 2003 ‘Kings’, in Erskine 2003, 177–95. Macurdy, G. H. 1932 Hellenistic Queens, Baltimore. Meyer, M. 1992/1993 ‘Mutter, Ehefrau und Herrscherin. Darstellungen der Königin auf Seleukidischen Münzen,’ Hephaistos 11–12, 107–32. Mirón-Pérez, M. D. 1997 ‘Olimpia, Euridice y el origen del culto en la Grecia helenistica,’ Florentia Iliberritana 9, 215–35. 2000 ‘Transmitters and representatives of power: royal women in ancient Macedonia,’ Ancient Society 30, 35–52. Müller, S. 2005 ‘Die Geschwisterehe Arsinoës II und Ptolemaios II im Spiegel der Forschung von 1895 bis 1932: Ein Verstoss gegen das normative Paarmodell,’ Ariadne 48, 41–9. 2006 ‘Alexander, Harpalos und die Ehren für Pythionike und Glykera: Überlegungen zu den Repräsentationsformen des Schatzmeisters in Babylon und Tarsos,’ in V. Lica (ed.), Studia in honorem G. Wirth octogenario, Galati, 71–106. Nourse, K. 2002 Women and the Early Development of Royal Power in the Hellenistic East, Unpublished Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Ogden, D. 1999 Polygamy, Prostitutes and Death. The Hellenistic dynasties, London and Swansea. 2008 ‘Bilistiche and the prominence of courtesans in the Ptolemaic tradition’, in P. McKechnie and P. Guillaume (eds) Ptolemy Philadelphus and His World, Leiden, 353–85. O’Neil, J. L. 1999 ‘Olympias: “The Macedonians will never let themselves be ruled by a woman”’, Prudentia 31.1, 1–14.
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‘The creation of the new dynasties after the death of Alexander the Great’, Prudentia 32.2, 118–37.
Palagia, O. 2010 ‘Philip’s Eurydice in the Philippeum at Olympia’, in E. Carney and D. Ogden (eds) Philip II and Alexander the Great: Father and son, lives and afterlives, New York. Pomeroy, S. B. 1984 Women in Hellenistic Egypt from Alexander to Cleopatra, New York. Quaegebeur, J. 1978 ‘Reines ptolémaïques et traditions égyptiennes,’ in H. von Maehler and V. M. Strocka (eds) Das ptolemäische Ägypten, Mainz, 245–62. Robins, G. 1993 Women in Ancient Egypt, London. Roy, J. 1998 ‘The masculinity of the Hellenistic king,’ in L. Foxhall and J. Salmon (eds) When Men were Men: Masculinity, power and identity in classical antiquity, London and New York, 11–35. Savalli-Lestrade, I. 1994 ‘Il ruolo pubblico delle regine ellenistiche’ in S. Allessandrì, Historie. Studie offerti dagli Allievi Giuseppe Nenci in occasione del suo settantesimo compleanno. 415–32. 2003 ‘La place des reines à la cour et dans le royaume à l’époque hellénistique,’ Les femmes antiques entre sphère privée et sphère publiques: actes du diplôme d’études avancées, Universités de Lausanne et Neuchâtel, Bern, 59–76. Schmitt, H. H. 1989 ‘Zur Inszenierung des Privatslebens des Hellenistischen Herrschers,’ in J. Seibert (ed.) Hellenistische Studien. Gedenkschrift für H. Bengston, Münchener Arbeiten zur Alten Geschichte 5, Munich, 77–86. Schultz, P. 2007 ‘Leochares’ Argead portraits in the Philippeion,’ in R. von den Hoff and P. Schultz (eds) Early Hellenistic Portraiture: image, style, context, Cambridge, 205–33. 2009 ‘Divine images and royal ideology in the Philippeion at Olympia,’ in J. Jensen, G. Hinge, P. Schultz and B. Wickkiser (eds) Aspects of Ancient Greek Cult: Ritual, context, iconography, Aarhus Studies in Mediterranean Antiquity 8. Aarhus, 123–92. Sherwin-White, S. and Kuhrt, A. 1993 From Samarkhand to Sardis: A new approach to the Seleucid Empire, Berkeley. Stephens, S. 2004 ‘For you, Arsinoe,’ in Acosta-Hughes et al. 2004, 161–76. Thompson, D. J. 2005 ‘Posidippus, poet of the Ptolemies,’ in Gutzwiller 2005, 269–86. Walbank F. W. 1984 ‘Monarchies and monarchic ideas,’ CAH 2 7.1, 62–100. 1996 ‘Two Hellenistic processions: a matter of self-definition,’ Scripta Classica Israelica 15, 119–30.
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Elizabeth D. Carney Weber, G. 1998/99 ‘Hellenistic rulers and their poets: silencing dangerous critics?’ Ancient Society 29, 147–74. 1997 ‘Interaktion, Repräsentation und Herrschaft. Der Königshof im Hellenismus’, in A. Winterling (ed.) Zwischen ‘Haus’ und ‘Staat’, Antike Höfe im Vergleich, Historische Zeitschrift 23, Munich, 27–71. Wehrli, C. 1964 ‘Phila, fille d’Antipater et épouse de Démétrius, roi des Macédoniens’, Historia 13, 140–6.
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11 HOW TO MARRY A COURTESAN IN THE MACEDONIAN COURTS Daniel Ogden The orator Isaeus presents us with a manifest absurdity when he talks of infatuated young men attempting to marry courtesans.1 The attempt is the indicator of the degree of infatuation, for it was impossible and inconceivable that an Athenian citizen man should marry a courtesan. And similarly, when Menander’s Demeas speaks with bitter irony about having been keeping, unawares, a ‘married courtesan’, his son Moschion is appropriately baffled by the paradoxical remark.2 But in Macedon they did things differently – in the royal palaces of the Argeads and Antigonids, at any rate. Our literary traditions for the sundry generations of these royal families ostensibly present us with some half-dozen marriages between kings and courtesans. What are we to make of them? There were no legal issues here, of course. Macedonian kings, whether the absolute-ruler Argeads or the perhaps slightly more constitutional Antigonids,3 could marry just whom they wanted, and that too irrespective of however many concurrent wives they had already stacked up in their γυναικωνῖτις (women’s quarters). But no single explanation will easily account for all the traditions, and we will have to turn to a variety of rather different explanations to make sense of them all.4 1. The Argeads before Alexander References to courtesans of any kind in the Argead family prior to Alexander are relatively few and far between. An apparent reference to courtesans at the court of Perdikkas III (reigned 365–359) may be quickly dismissed. We may accept, with MSS C and E of Athenaeus, that Euphraios selected the king’s associates (ἑταιρίαν) as opposed to his courtesan (ἑταίραν) for him, the claim of MS A.5 This leaves us with two rather comparable groups of data bearing upon the courts of Perdikkas II and Philip II. As to Philip II (ruled 359–336), Athenaeus, quoting Ptolemy of Megalopolis, Plutarch and Justin, asserts
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Daniel Ogden directly the courtesan status of Philinna of Larissa, by whom the king fathered Philip Arrhidaios: In listing the mistresses (ἐρωµένας) of kings in his Histories of Philopator Ptolemy son of Agesarchos says: ‘Philinna the dancing girl (ὀρχηστρίς), mistress of the Philip who exalted Macedonia, from whom he sired Arrhidaios, who became king after Alexander.’ Athenaeus 577f–578a, incorporating Ptolemy of Megalopolis FGrH 161 F4
For Plutarch Philinna was ‘without repute and common’, ἀδόξου καὶ κοινῆς, and her son illegitimate.6 For Justin she was a Larissan dancing-girl (saltatrix) and a Larissan whore (scortum).7 But a careful and deservedly famous fragment of Satyros, explicitly devoted to the marriages of Philip, which is also preserved by Athenaeus, makes it clear that Philinna was a wife amongst wives. Satyros, or Athenaeus commenting on the implications thereof, also suggests that this marriage, like Philip’s others, had a diplomatic purpose, and this obliges us to assume that Philinna was a scion of Larissa’s ruling Aleuads.8 The courtesan-characterisation of Philinna is accordingly best understood, opprobrious as it is in Plutarch and Justin at any rate, as generated in the contexts of succession competitions between Philip’s polygamously-held wives and their respective children. They result from the propaganda of rival aspirant wings of the kings’ families. We can point to obvious culprits: Olympias and her son Alexander. Alexander’s direct competition with this lad is twice graphically documented in Plutarch’s Life of Alexander. Olympias supposedly poisoned Arrhidaios to turn him into the idiot he was subsequently reputed to be.9 And Alexander was panicked when he perceived that Arrhidaios might gain some advantage for the succession in marrying the daughter of the satrap Pixodaros, and branded him a bastard, νόθος.10 Olympias’ hatred of Arrhidaios, furthermore, endured long after Alexander’s death, until she finally had him killed in 317, whilst at the same time forcing his wife AdeaEurydike to hang herself with her own girdle.11 The Philinna case offers us a ready model for the interpretation of the vaguer data bearing upon Perdikkas II (ruled 454–413). Plato, Aelian and a scholiast to Aristides seemingly allude to different aspects of a single tradition. This (to combine the information) held that Archelaos was the bastard son of Perdikkas by a slavewoman owned by Perdikkas’ brother Alketas, and that she was called Simiche.12 Simiche is a typical name for slavewomen in New Comedy, for what that is worth, if not actually for courtesans. The finger points similarly at Archelaos’ rivals for the succession, Perdikkas’ wife Kleopatra and her family. She was the mother of a son to Perdikkas called (probably) Aeropos, whom Archelaos took
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How to marry a courtesan in the Macedonian courts the precaution of murdering, either by strangling him or by dropping him down a well.13 Although we may think it probable or at any rate possible that Archelaos’ mother, whether going by the name of Simiche or something else, was a married woman, none of our sources actually asserts that she was married to Perdikkas, and so we can not include her in the central frame of this investigation. But her case is of interest insofar as it seems to be compatible with the model conjectured for Philinna. 2. Alexander the Great As we pass on to the reign of Alexander the Great (ruled 336–323), we must grapple with the peculiar variety of mythology to which his achievements gave rise. His tradition attributes three named courtesans to him14 (to pass over the 360 concubines he inherited from Darius15 and vague references to flute girls at symposia).16 Already in the work of Kleitarchos (published ca. 310 BC), Alexander was associated with Thais: And was it not the case that Alexander the Great kept Thais, the Athenian courtesan, by his side? Kleitarchos says of her that she was the cause of the burning of the Persepolis palace. This Thais, after the death of Alexander, also (καί) married Ptolemy, the first one to rule Egypt, and she bore him Leontiskos and Lagos, and a daughter Eirene, whom Eunostos, king of Soli in Cyprus, married. Athenaeus 576de, incorporating Kleitarchos FGrH 137 F11
Other sources speak of her burning Persepolis in her desire to avenge her native Athens and to humiliate Persia with a woman’s hand, after remarking that the palace’s luxuries had compensated her for the hardships of the baggage train.17 Athenaeus (or perhaps still Kleitarchos?) is emphatic that Thais married Ptolemy, but does his imply that she had previously been married to Alexander? It is possible that Thais’ inclusion in the traditions relating to the campaign court was retrospective. Were Ptolemy or those writing in his favour attempting to forge an indirect familial link to Alexander for him through her?18 If so, then an intimation that Alexander had himself married her might have been considered helpful. There is no suggestion of marriage in connection with the two further courtesans associated with Alexander by the tradition. According to Theophrastus Kallixeina, a Thessalian courtesan, was introduced to the adolescent Alexander by Philip and Olympias in order to cure him of or divert him from his condition as a gynnis (eunuch): Hieronymos in his Letters tells that Theophrastus said that Alexander was not well predisposed towards sex. Accordingly, Olympias actually sent the outstandingly beautiful Thessalian courtesan Kallixeina to bed with him,
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Daniel Ogden and Philip abetted her in this, for they were wary lest/taking precautions lest he might/should be a gynnis. Olympias frequently begged her to have sex with Alexander. Athenaeus Deipnosophistae 435a, incorporating Hieronymos of Rhodes F38 Wehrli and Theophrastus F578 Fortenbaugh
The deployment of the relatively obscure term gynnis seems to have saluted Alexander’s supposed effeminacy, his venture into the world of eunuchs, his Persianising and his Dionysiac associations.19 Credible or otherwise, it is noteworthy that this tale too was developed very soon after Alexander’s death, with Theophrastus writing in the late fourth century or very early third.20 If the tale does have anything of value to offer us for the subject of marriage in association with courtesans at the Macedonian court, this may lie in its assumed premise: the pressure upon kings to secure heirs. Aelian tells that the artist Apelles, a highly romanticised figure,21 ‘loved the concubine (παλλακή) of Alexander, whose name was Pankaste, and she was Larissan by birth. They say that she was the first woman Alexander had sex with.’ 22 Pankaste looks rather like a doublet of Kallixeina: both hail from Thessaly; both have a courtesan-like designation; and both are, ostensibly, the first woman with whom Alexander has sex.23 (It may be noteworthy that we have already now encountered the term ‘Thessalian’ three times, in connection with Philinna, Kallixeina and Pankaste. Despite the highly, albeit variously, fictive nature of the data bearing upon the three women, we may wonder whether there was in fact some sort of historical tradition of Thessalian courtesans in the Argead court.) The nature of Alexander’s first tangible relationship, that with Barsine, daughter of Artabazus, which endured four or five years from 332 before producing a son, Herakles, remains obscure to us. Plutarch seems not to have regarded it as a marriage: he employs the curious word ἅψασθαι of Alexander’s acquisition of Barsine, and asserts that before marrying (sc. Roxane) Alexander knew no other woman than Barsine.24 But Barsine, married or otherwise, is nowhere represented as a courtesan in the source tradition, and so for this reason falls outside the framework of our investigation.25 3. Harpalos Before we pass on to the Antigonid dynasty, it will be worthwhile to consider the traditions relating to Alexander’s rogue treasurer Harpalos, who to some extent seems to have projected himself as a king.26 The rich extant Athens-based traditions relating to his Attic courtesans Pythionike and Glykera and his lavish treatment of them appear to anticipate many aspects of the Athens-based traditions relating to Demetrios Poliorketes
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How to marry a courtesan in the Macedonian courts and the later Antigonids. Our knowledge of these traditions depends primarily upon a string of passages in Athenaeus, who quotes relevant texts from Timokles, Amphis, Theopompus (Letter to Alexander), Kleitarchos, Python, Dikaiarchos, Philemon, Alexis and Klearchos. But important information is preserved also by Diodorus, Plutarch and Pausanias.27 These sources, complex as they are, seem to reflect a fairly coherent tradition (except in the matter of the quality of Pythionike’s tomb) and so it will be helpful to summarise the information they offer us, in a logical order. Alexander had left Harpalos in charge of his treasury before leaving for his Indian campaign. Confident that he would not return, Harpalos appropriated the money for himself and devoted it to an extravagantly decadent lifestyle, focusing on hetairas and fish.28 He summoned one of Athens’ most distinguished hetairas of the day, Pythionike, to his Babylonian ‘court’. He fell in love with her, married her and fathered a daughter by her. He had people address her as βασίλισσα (queen) and he bestowed royal gifts upon her. But she died in Babylon, and Harpalos gave her a splendid funeral and erected a memorial for her or a sanctuary in which she was worshipped as Pythionike Aphrodite. He also erected a magnificent memorial for her in Attica, on the Sacred Way en route to Eleusis. According to the fragmentary satyr-play Agen at any rate, Persian or Chaldaean Magi (perhaps played by the satyrs) offered to call up the ghost of Pythionike for the despairing Harpalos at an ἄορνος, a ‘birdless’ entrance to the underworld, an ‘Avernus’, conveniently close to her temple.29 He then summoned another great hetaira from Athens, Glykera, whom he established with him in the royal palace at Tarsos. There he made his courtiers perform προσκύνησις (obeisance) to her, address her as βασίλισσα (queen), and offer crowns to her. In Rhossos he set up a group of three bronze statues featuring himself, Alexander and Glykera. Glykera gave him corn that he supplied to Athens, and thus paved the way for his eventual flight there.30 The bulk of this tradition, the content of the Agen apart, is taken seriously by Alexander scholars, and written directly into the historical record.31 But the tradition is itself an extravagant one. The two women may appear to be doublets of each other: both are supposedly distinguished Athenian hetairai, both are summoned by Harpalos to Asia, and both are installed in his palace and treated as queens. And so too the two monuments to Pythionike may appear to be doublets of each other. But is it actually possible to deflate the tradition? The strongest fixed point appears to be Pythionike’s pentelic-marble memorial on the Sacred Way, which, despite Plutarch’s disgruntlement, initially impressed Dikaiarchos and was still able to impress Pausanias in the
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Daniel Ogden second century AD. Indeed, its foundations survive still.32 When was it actually built? During Harpalos’ brief residence in Athens, shortly before his death? Or did he already build it at long distance when still in Asia, through the agency of Charikles, and was it therefore part of his campaign to soften up Athens in advance of seeking refuge there? 33 It is conceivable that this extravagant memorial could have generated – for its audience in Athens – the notion that Harpalos had also built a tomb or a temple (or both) for Pythionike in Babylon. This notion is found in Theopompos who is at this point writing from an Athenocentric perspective,34 and in the Agen. There the concise description of Pythionike’s temple in its proximity to the underworld entrance of the ἄορνος is intriguing, given Dikaiarchos’ association of Pythionike’s tomb with Eleusis, and that too in a work On the descent into Trophonios’ cave, another underworld hole.35 The implication of this correspondence, if it is significant, is that the Agen was not produced for Alexander and his troops (let alone written by the king) at some Dionysia on some unidentifiable Hydaspes,36 but rather written for an Athenian audience, as one might normally expect a satyr play to have been. The preserved scraps of it would certainly suit an Athenian audience, discussing as they do Harpalos’ grain supplies to that very city, and his citizenship there. We may choose to believe, with Sutton, that the soubriquet applied to Harpalos, Pallides, declares him to be a ‘son of Athene’.37 The play’s words of scene-establishment are reminiscent, for us, of the prologue of Menander’s Dyskolos.38 Its themes carry more than a whiff of the Old-Comic stock-in-trade: the great man’s hetaira as the cause of city-rocking mischief (cf. the Aspasia of Aristophanes’ Acharnians) and evocation of the dead (cf. Socrates and Chairephon in Aristophanes’ Birds).39 The request for news from Attica in an oriental setting reminds us of Aeschylus’ Persians in its entirety. The opening of Sophocles’ Electra is parodied at lies 2–3 of the fragment.40 And the notion of a desperately bereaved lover calling up the ghost of their lost beloved would resonate strongly for an audience familiar with Euripides’ Protesilaus or Alcestis.41 All this surely suggests that the play was written for an Athenian audience, not for the Macedonian Herresversammlung and assorted rabble. Whilst querying the pedigree of this text, we may also note the curious coincidence between Pythionike’s name and that of its supposed, but quite mysterious, alternative author, Python; Pythionike is herself actually named Pythonike by Diodorus and Plutarch.42 Both Theopompos and the Agen-author may, therefore, be writing on the basis of Athenian fantasies spun around the relationship between Harpalos and Pythionike, and have little to tell us of what actually passed between them. The one detail, fantastic as it is, that gives pause for thought in the
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How to marry a courtesan in the Macedonian courts Pythionike traditions is her cult of Pythionike Aphrodite. This is because Athenaeus, recycling Demochares and Polemon, tells that the Athenians and the Thebans attempted to flatter Demetrios Poliorketes by setting up temples to his courtesans as Aphrodite Lamia (both cities) and Aphrodite Leaina (Athens only), seemingly in life.43 The Athenians are likely to have done this prior to 302.44 And Ptolemy Philadelphos’ courtesan Bilistiche was subsequently to be worshipped in a similar guise, seemingly at the instigation rather of her king, as Plutarch tells us: Was not Bilistiche, by Zeus, a barbarian female bought in the agora, she for whom the Alexandrians kept shrines and temples, on which the king, because of his love, inscribed the words ‘of Aphrodite Bilistiche’? Plutarch Moralia 753ef (Eroticus)
The cult can only be dated by the terminus ante of Philadelphos’ death: i.e., it must have been instituted prior to 246 BC.45 While this may in itself make a cult of Pythionike Aphrodite more plausible, it could be that Philadelphos and the Athenian rumour-mongers alike drew on traditions of courtesan-Aphrodites that are now lost to us. The notion of marriage is explicitly associated only with Pythionike (by Pausanias), whereas the notion of treatment as queen, which might or might not be thought also to entail marriage, or the projection of marriage, is predominantly associated rather with Glykera (by Theopompos). However, the Philemon fragment does imply that Pythionike also received queenly treatment: ‘You will be queen (βασίλισσα) of Babylon, if this is what happens. You know about Pythionike and Harpalos.’ Whereas the Athenians can have had little idea about life at court with Harpalos and Pythionike, they may have imagined that they had some idea about his life with Glykera: she was initially installed closer to home, at Tarsos, rather than Babylon. It is possible, just, that the reference to her supplying Athens with grain on Harpalos’ behalf grew out of some sort of continuing relationship between the courtesan and the city. And it may be that Harpalos brought her back to Athens with him during his brief and unfortunate sojourn there. So it remains doubtful whether we can take the suggestion that Harpalos married Glykera seriously. And whether he did so or not, the notion is clearly used by Theopompos as an indicator of excess on Harpalos’ part. 4. Demetrios Poliorketes And so to the Antigonids. There is little to say of Antigonos I Monophthalmos. The only courtesan we find associated with him in amatory mode is Deomo, the courtesan of his son Demetrios Poliorketes;
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Daniel Ogden of her more anon. According to Herakleides Lembos, as recycled by Athenaeus, Antigonos had fallen in love with her, to the extent that he executed Demetrios’ associate Oxythemis for torturing her female attendants to death.46 This tale as presented is anachronistic, because Oxythemis survived the death of Monophthalmos.47 Its theme belongs with a small but distinct group of anecdotes Plutarch scatters through his Life of Demetrios which focus upon Antigonos, his sons and their courtesans. First, Antigonos jokingly (but to us somewhat obscurely) compares a kiss given him by Demetrios to a kiss the latter might have given to Lamia, with whom he was famously having an affair.48 Secondly, Antigonos visits his supposedly sick son Demetrios, only to bump into his ‘fever’ as she leaves his bed.49 And, thirdly, Antigonos has his younger son Philip moved out of the supposedly ‘narrow’ quarters he has found him to be sharing with three courtesans (γυναῖκας).50 The common theme in these three tales as presented by Plutarch is one of mild, indulgent censure on Antigonos’ part. Demetrios I Poliorketes himself rivals Ptolemy Philadelphos in the extravagance and number of his associations with courtesans.51 He is associated with at least ten different names (although some of the attached anecdotes overlap), including:52 Antikyra,53 Chrysis,54 Demo,55 Melitta,56 Mania,57 Gnathaina,58 Leaina,59 and Myrrhine.60 But the most prominent by far of the courtesans associated with him, and the single hellenistic royal courtesan to whom the greatest amount of extant source material is devoted is Lamia, to whose cults as Aphrodite Lamia we have already referred.61 We owe the bulk of the material on Demetrios’ courtesans in the last instance to Plutarch’s biography and to Athenaeus’ collection of material on courtesans, and in the first instance to such sources as the Athenian comic poets, Lynkeus of Samos, Machon’s Chreiai (which engagingly portray king and witty courtesans interacting in the context of Athenian-smart-set dinner parties) and Ptolemy of Megalopolis’ Histories of Philopator.62 Of all these women it is Lamia that is of interest for the current investigation. Courtesan and flutegirl, she was an Athenian citizen, the daughter of one Kleanor. She took up with Demetrios after she was captured amongst the booty at the battle of (Cyprian) Salamis in 306.63 The surviving anecdotes about her are heavily Atheno-centric,64 and none of them can easily be put in a historical context subsequent to Demetrios’ last departure from Athens in spring 302.65 This pattern of evidence may indicate that, despite their meeting at Salamis, the relationship was based in Athens and fizzled out after Demetrios’ final departure. Or it may just be a function of the Athens-centred nature of the sources upon which we depend for Lamia, just as we do for Harpalos’ Pythionike and Glykera. In this case Lamia may well have remained by Demetrios’ side after 302.
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How to marry a courtesan in the Macedonian courts There are two suggestions in the source material of a marriage of some sort between Demetrios and Lamia. In Polygamy, Prostitutes and Death I made a case that Demetrios may have performed a ‘sacred marriage’ with Lamia on the Acropolis. The case was as follows. Plutarch tells that the Athenians assigned Demetrios the back room of the Parthenon to live in and adds that it was said that Athena received (ὑποδέχεσθαι) him there and gave him hospitality, although he did not behave properly before the virgin, but led a life of debauchery with courtesans Chrysis, Demo and Antikyra, citizenwomen and free-born boys. He quotes the comic poet Philippides as saying that Demetrios turned the Acropolis into a brothel, and took his courtesans in to meet the virgin goddess.66 This story works well enough in its own terms as a means of celebrating Demetrios’ sexual excess and impiety. Clement of Alexandria, however, has a much more specific tale to tell, and one which could not easily have been extrapolated from Plutarch’s more general account. He tells that the Athenians had planned for Demetrios to marry Athena, but he rejected her on the basis that he could not marry her statue (which one?). But Demetrios then went up onto the Acropolis with Lamia and had sex with her in Athena’s ‘bridal chamber’ (παστός), and in so doing displayed the sexual positions of the young courtesan to the old virgin.67 Behind this tale of a casual act of sacrilegious debauchery may lurk a ceremonial and sacred act. Demetrios perhaps did accomplish his `marriage’ with Athena, with Lamia taking on the role of the goddess symbolically. In introducing Lamia to the goddess, she would temporarily have come to embody her. This would have been a kind of ‘sacred marriage’ (ἱερὸς γάµος), a common Greek fertility rite in which one partner comes to embody a deity during a ceremonial sexual congress.68 We may point to a potential precedent earlier in Athenian history. In 552 the returning tyrant Peisistratos had been escorted to the Acropolis in a chariot by a statuesque Athenian girl, Phye, dressed as and pretending to be Athena, and this has been interpreted as a ceremonial sacred marriage by Boardman and Connor.69 Perhaps the joke purportedly made by Lysimachos and relayed by Phylarchos about Lamia being a whore playing a tragic part relates to this particular job of impersonation.70 Pat Wheatley baulks at this theory: ‘the hypothesis is ingenious, but perhaps needs to be viewed more closely in the historical context, as it discounts the darker side of the king’s personality, and also his predilection for theatrical gestures.’ 71 I plead guilty to the former (surely not a killer blow, even so), but not to the latter, because so far as I am concerned a sacred marriage would have been the most theatrical of gestures. However, I am more hesitant than I was to extend the sacred marriage claim strongly beyond the level of representation: whatever Demetrios did do on the Acropolis, it was, I
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Daniel Ogden would contend, thought about in terms of sacred marriage, or a parody thereof. And whether a sacred marriage would have entailed an actual marriage, I know not. It could be that we are explicitly told that Demetrios married Lamia in one or more sources. Favorinus, as quoted by Diogenes Laertius, tells that Demetrios ‘lived with his girlfriend Lamia, who was both a citizenwoman and well born’ (ἀστῇ καὶ εὐγενεῖ συνῴκει Λαµίᾳ τῇ ἐρωµένῃ).72 συνοικεῖν, whilst literally meaning ‘live with’, takes on the specific technical meaning of ‘live with in a state of sanctioned marriage’ in Attic legal discourse.73 Could it carry such a meaning here? It could do: much depends on whether the phrase ἀστῇ καὶ εὐγενεῖ, ‘both a citizenwoman and well born’, is taken as corroborative of the concept ‘marriage’ or adversative to the concept of cohabitation. A text of potentially great significance that I missed when compiling Polygamy, Prostitutes and Death was a fragment of Demetrios of Phaleron, F39 Wehrli: Λοίµια· ὄνοµα κύριον, γέγονεν δὲ ἡ γυνὴ ∆ηµητρίου τοῦ Φαλήρεως: ‘Loimia, a proper name; she became the wife of Demetrios of Phaleron’. This text is seemingly full of confusion but also seemingly easy to disentangle – to a certain extent, at any rate. It seems inevitable that there lurks here an assertion about Lamia, the courtesan of Demetrios Poliorketes. The confusion between the two contemporary Demetrii, the Besieger and the Phalerian, is common in what Wheatley winningly terms the ‘peripheral’ sources.74 But we may ponder about the significance of Lamia becoming Λοίµια: is this just due to a meaningless error of transmission, or does it reflect an abusive or jocular reformulation of her name? Clearly the reformulation, if intentional, salutes λοιµός, ‘pestilence’. The adjective λοίµιος, ‘pestilential’, of which the reformulated name constitutes the regular feminine form, is in fact attested in later Greek, via Macrobius, as an epithet of Apollo.75 The joke would seem quite an appropriate one for a courtesan; as we have just seen, another, nameless, courtesan in the Antigonid tradition was likened to a ‘fever’.76 But whether the fragment is talking about our Lamia or a distinct Loimia, and about Demetrios Poliorketes or Demetrios of Phaleron, it seemingly asserts that the one was the wife of the other. Wheatley’s rendering, ‘she became the woman of Demetrios of Phaleron’, seems to me to to sidestep the familiar significance of the familiar idiom of γυνή when associated with an individual male, as here. But, on the assumption that this text was (once) trying to tell us that Lamia became the wife of Demetrios Poliorketes, what are we to make of the claim? If the form of her name owes its origin to a joke, then the claim that Demetrios married her may also have in origin been a comic over-representation. Nonetheless, it seems that it probably was the case
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How to marry a courtesan in the Macedonian courts that some element of the traditions relating to Demetrios Poliorketes and Lamia did speak of a marriage between them. Whether or not Demetrios regarded himself as married to Lamia, he guaranteed her a certain status within his household(s) by rearing a daughter from her, Phila, who curiously bore the name of the first of his wives and who may have had a temple dedicated to her (as had her mother), by Adeimantos of Lampsakos.77 Lamia would not have been the first courtesan to bear a reared child to a hellenistic king: Thais had borne Ptolemy Soter three children at the beginning of his reign, as we have seen, though apparently after marriage. A case has been made that Ptolemy Philadelphos’ courtesan Bilistiche bore him a semi-recognised child, one ‘Ptolemy called son of Andromachos’, and this has persuaded many scholars, although not the current writer.78 It is also clear that Lamia’s exceptional status as a consort and mother was to constitute an important precedent for the next three Antigonid kings. If Lucian’s frustratingly allusive reference to an Antigonos committing adultery (moicheuonta) with the wife ( gynaika) of his son does indeed refer to Monophthalmos,79 if the son in question is Demetrios, and if the tale is to be taken as a refraction of Herakleides Lembos’ tale that Monophthalmos fell in love with Demetrios’ courtesan Demo – a lot of ifs – then we may have an indication that Demetrios married another of his courtesans.80 We know nothing more of Demo, but her name, ‘Public One’, is a good one for a courtesan. To the extent that queenship may be thought to have entailed marriage (cf. above on Harpalos), we should also note here the claims of Nicolaus of Damascus, obscurely recycled by Athenaeus, that Demetrios gave Myrrhine a share of his royalty.81 6. Middle Antigonids We are told that Antigonos Gonatas displayed Thessalian (NB) girls dancing only in loin-cloths (διαζώστραι) at his court.82 But only one named courtesan, however, is associated with him, and that too vestigially, but the association is an important one in the context of the other dynastic arrangements under consideration, for all that the tradition makes no mention of marriage. Athenaeus quotes a list of royal courtesans from Ptolemy of Megalopolis in which the name of Demo is attached to Gonatas (hence all of the first three Antigonids are apparently associated with a courtesan of this name),83 with the bald fact that she bore him his son Halkyoneus,84 and it is in this that her significance lies. For, until Gonatas was at least 43, and he himself was a young adult, Halkyoneus remained his only son, and he was clearly being groomed as a crown prince.
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Daniel Ogden In 272 he was holding high command, and defended Argos against Pyrrhos. This was just four years after the earliest possible date for Antigonos’ marriage to Phila, the mother of his eventual heir Demetrios II Aitolikos, and so it is clear that Halkyoneus was already adult by the time of Demetrios II’s birth. We also know that the Stoic Persaios was his tutor. Tarn guesses that he died fighting against Areus’ Spartans at Corinth in 264, since, had he been alive in 262, he and not Demetrios would have commanded the army invading Ephesus, as Demetrios was only 13 at the time. After Halkyoneus’ death Antigonos instituted and endowed a yearly festival at Athens in honour of his birthday. The festival was placed under the charge of the philosopher Hieronymos of Rhodes, who had possibly been a friend of Halkyoneus.85 There is nothing about the context of the Ptolemy of Megalopolis fragment to suggest that Demo’s representation as a courtesan derives from the context of a succession dispute, although there could theoretically have been one between Demo and Halkyoneus on the one hand and Antigonos’ wife Phila and her son, the subsequent Demetrios II, on the other. While the name Demo, ‘Public one’, seems entirely appropriate to a courtesan – all too appropriate, some may think, the name Halkyoneus certainly does not look dynastic. Had Halkyoneus lived, would he have succeeded Antigonos? His premature death left this question importantly unresolved. As Lamia’s status under Demetrios Poliorketes had doubtless helped to boost that of Demo and Halkyoneus under Antigonos, so Halkyoneus’ status under Antigonos was to boost a courtesan’s son all the way to the throne in the next generation. Our understanding of Demetrios II Aitolikos’ relationship with his courtesan Chryseis has long been complicated by the groundless but popular scholarly conjecture that she is, somehow, to be identified with Demetrios’ wife Phthia of Epiros, whom he married at some point prior to 246 BC.86 The impulse for this identification comes from a preconceptionheavy concern that Demetrios’ son and heir, Philip V, whom the sources without exception (Porphyry, Syncellus and Etymologicum magnum) assert to have been born from the courtesan Chryseis, should rather have been born of a suitably prestigious wife.87 Porphyry is worth quoting: He took a woman from his prisoners of war to wife, whom he called Chryseis. He had his son Philip [V ] from this wife. I say that this man, who first waged war with the Romans, was the cause of troubles for the Macedonians. Anyway Philip, who was left an orphan, was taken care of under the guardianship of a man from the royal family, who was nick-named Phouskos [i.e. Antigonos III Doson]. When they saw that Phouskos was behaving justly in his guardianship, they made him king, and they also
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How to marry a courtesan in the Macedonian courts betrothed Chryseis to him. He did not rear the children that were born to him from Chryseis, so that he might preserve the kingship for Philip without treachery. And indeed he delivered Philip to the kingship, and himself died. Porphyry FGrH 260 F3.13–14 = Eusebius Chronicles i 237–8 Schöne88
Porphyry and Syncellus say that Chryseis was a Thessalian war-captive (αἰχµάλωτος). The name Chryseis well suits a woman that is a war-captive and a concubine: the famous Chryseis of the Iliad was such.89 This consideration of course suggests that the name of Chryseis was only given to the woman after her capture. Porphyry may be conscious of the Iliad parallel, for he makes Chryseis’ child Philip V the ‘cause of troubles’ for the Macedonians, as one may argue that Chryseis had been for the Greeks at Troy.90 Chryseis was also a common name for hetairai (cf. Chrysis, the courtesan of Demetrios Poliorketes).91 Despite all this Porphyry explicitly says that Demetrios married Chryseis. The union must have commenced before 238, when Philip V was born.92 An indication that Philip had a mother of at any rate disputable marital status may be found in Polybius’ description of Philip as Demetrios II’s ‘natural’ (κατὰ φύσιν) son, which could be read in implicit contrast to ‘legitimate’ (κατὰ νόµον). However, the phrase is more easily read in implicit contrast to ‘adoptive’ (κατὰ θέσιν), for Philip was after all the adoptive son of Antigonos III Doson.93 It is difficult to interpret the data on Chryseis. Are we to see her as another Lamia, a practicing courtesan captured in war and either invited or compelled to take up with her captor? Or are we to see Demetrios as effectively contracting a marriage alliance with Thessalian nobility ‘in the context of war’ as Satyros presents Philip II’s marriage to Philinna of Larissa to have been? In which case, Chryseis’ representation as a courtesan is likely to owe its origin to competition within the royal family, the most obvious candidate being Phthia and her circle, although she is not known to have produced any rival children of her own. But the tone of Porphyry’s narrative does not invite this line of thought: there is no atmosphere of invective or moral reproach about it. So perhaps it is best to take Porphyry’s account at face value. If we are to suppose that the name Chryseis was acquired by the woman within her new Macedonian context, then it seems that, whatever her original status in life, she was being openly projected as a courtesan by the throne. Since Demetrios is not known to have had any other children, the succession of Philip, so far as he himself will have been concerned, will have been his only serious option. But the boy’s actual succession marks the logical conclusion of a process traceable from Demetrios I onwards. Demetrios permitted his courtesan Lamia to rear a child, admittedly a relatively unthreatening girl, but the child was nonetheless given a name
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Daniel Ogden most honorific within the family. His son Antigonos II not only reared a son from his hetaira Demo but bestowed public honour upon him and was apparently grooming him for the sucession, or at least as a candidate for the succession. This question was left unresolved by the boy’s early death. But now in the generation of Antigonos’ son, Demetrios II, we appear to see the son of a courtesan, or of a woman ostensibly presented as a courtesan, completing the journey to the throne. And this was done, we may note, with the blessing of the Macedonian establishment which organised a most scrupulous regency for him. Antigonos III Doson too, as is even more emphatically clear from Porphyry (and other sources),94 married Chryseis in turn. In so doing he was continuing an old Macedonian practice of legitimating his rule by taking on one of his predecessor’s wives. 7. The end of the Antigonids The evidence for the unions and children of Philip V (221–179) is difficult. It seems that, as we approach the end of the Antigonid dynasty, we return to the point at which we began with the Argeads, and tendentious accusations of hetaira-status cast between rival wives, their children and blood relatives. The clash in question was between the camps of Philip’s half-brother sons Perseus and Demetrios, closely documented by Polybius and Livy, which culminated in Philip’s execution of Demetrios.95 Livy presents us twice with the notion that Perseus was the son of a paelex (concubine). But for all that he generally writes in support of Rome’s choice for the succession to Philip, Demetrios, formerly a hostage in Rome where he had gone native, Livy does make it clear that the notion was a tendentious and contentious one. On both occasions the notion is associated with those arguing against the succession of Perseus.96 Although no source says it explicitly, it seems likely that Perseus was in fact, or was presented as, the son of the noble Argive Polykrateia, whom Philip had stolen from the younger Aratos and taken to wife in 213.97 The strongest indications that this was so are provided by the date of Perseus’ birth, which must have been very soon after 213, and by Plutarch’s apparent refraction of another Demetrian attempt to destabilise Perseus’ claim to succeed. This is the tale that Philip’s (unnamed) wife passed off as her own the child of an Argive sowing-woman, Gnathainion.98 This tale at least serves to show that Perseus did officially pass for the child of a wife of Philip, and to supply the Argive connection. It remains unclear whether the figure of ‘Gnathainion’, whose name recalls that of Demetrios Poliorketes’ hetaira Gnathaina (and that Gnathaina was actually attributed with a daughter or granddaughter named Gnathainion),99 was supposed to
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How to marry a courtesan in the Macedonian courts be some sort of lady-in-waiting to Polykrateia, or a prejudicial representation of Polykrateia herself. The notion that Perseus kept hetairai depends on material generated by the Andriskos affair, the affair of the supposed pretender who briefly revived the Antigonid cause and ruled Macedon 149–8. Our sources dispute the nature of the relationship Andriskos supposedly claimed with the later Antigonids. Polybius, for instance, asserts that the claim was the impossible one that he was the late-born son of Philip V whom Perseus adopted, also called Philip.100 But others, such as Diodorus and Livy, tell that the claim was the more theoretically defensible one that he was Perseus’ son by an unnamed concubine.101 There is certainly no claim here that Perseus married the supposed concubine in question: rather, it is integral to the dynamics of the story that Andriskos’ connection to Perseus should have been obscure. Diodorus does also, however, give us a named concubine (παλλακίς) of Perseus in connection with Andriskos, Kallippa. She it was who succoured Andriskos at the beginning of his quest. Now the wife of Athenaios of Pergamon, she fitted him out with journey money, royal dress, a diadem, and two slaves of the appropriate sort.102 We can say nothing more of her. There is, accordingly, no indication of a marriage to Perseus, alleged or otherwise, although she was evidently held worthy to marry no less than a prince of Pergamon. There may of course lurk behind Diodorus’ tale the notion that Kallippa was herself the very concubine of Perseus that Andriskos claimed as his mother.103 Conclusion In general, claims that Macedonian kings married courtesans can be attributed to several broad origins: • The competitive discourse generated by succession disputes between sons of rival wives: so Perdikkas II’s Simiche (probably), Philip II’s Philinna and Philip V’s Polykrateia/Gnathainion. • Contemporary or retrospective moralising attempts to attribute the kings with immoderate behaviour: Harpalos’ (Pythionike and) Glykera, Demetrios I’s Lamia (perhaps). • The propaganda of those who sought to enhance their own position through a suitably obscure connection to a king: Alexander’s Thais, Perseus’ courtesan, supposedly the mother of Andriskos, possibly to be identified with Kallippa. • And, indeed, although moderns may find the notion quaint, the historical fact of such marriages between kings and courtesans: Demetrios I’s Lamia, perhaps; Demetrios II’s and Antigonos III’s Chryseis (and cf. Ptolemy I’s Thais).
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Daniel Ogden The case of Lamia perhaps satisfies two categories: she may have married Demetrios at least in the context of a ‘sacred marriage’, but she may also have been avidly seized upon by the tradition as a mechanism for illustrating Demetrios’ immoderate behaviour. As a rider to our study, let us briefly consider what we know of the ethnicities of the courtesans associated with the Macedonian kings. Demetrios Poliorketes’ Myrrhine is said to have been Samian,104 and Philip V’s Polykrateia/Gnathaina, if relevant here, which is doubtful, we have seen to have been Argive. All the other courtesans associated with the Macedonian kings, where any ethnicity is attributed to them, are Thessalian or Attic: Thessalian are Philip II’s Philinna, Alexander’s Kallixeina and Thais, Antigonos Gonatas’ unnamed courtesans and Demetrios II’s and Antigonos Doson’s Chryseis. Attic are: Harpalos’ Pythionike and Glykera, Demetrios Poliorketes’ Lamia, Leaina and Mania. We have seen that in the cases of Harpalos and Demetrios Poliorketes the source-tradition is heavily Athenocentric, and this may well account for apparent prominence of Attic courtesans in the biographies of these men. This perhaps makes the Thessalian ethnicity attributed to the rest all the more significant, and we may tentatively suggest that the Macedonian kings had a tendency to favour courtesans from the land to their south. Notes 1 Isaeus 3.17. 2 Menander Samia 129–36; cf. Ogden 1996, 102 and 161. 3 For the notion that the Antigonids behaved in a more ‘constitutional’ fashion than the Argeads before them, see Carney 2001a, 179–233. 4 The methodological difficulties in studying courtesans and their traditions in the context of the Argead and Hellenistic courts are considerable: Ogden 1999, 215–29. This is not the place to rehearse them, and so, whilst bearing them in mind, I will plunge in medias res. On the role of women in Hellenistic monarchies, see also Carney, this volume. 5 Athen. 11.508e. 6 Plut. Alex. 10 and 77. 7 Justin 9.8.2 and 13.2.11. 8 Satyros F21 Kumaniecki at Athen. 13.557b-e; cf. Beloch 1912–27:iii.2, 69, Berve 1926 no. 781 n.4, Prestianni Giallombardo 1976/7 esp. 91, Hammond and Griffith 1979, 225, Heckel 1981, 51, Greenwalt 1984, 69–72, Tronson 1984, Ogden 1999, 17– 20, Carney 2001a, 61–2 and Heckel 2006 s.v. Philine. Bosworth 1971a, 128 gives some credence to these sources in defining Arrhidaios as ‘possibly illegitimate’. Hammond 1983, 90–3 and 1994, 198 n. 3 implausibly argues that the origin of the abusive representation of Philinna lay in the democratic opposition in Larissa, and was relayed by Kleitarchos. 9 Plut. Alex. 77; cf. Ogden 1999, 25–6. For discussion of Arrhidaios’ condition, see
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How to marry a courtesan in the Macedonian courts Greenwalt 1984, 72–6, Green 1990, 6 (epilepsy) Heckel 1992, 144–5, Carney 1992, 172 and 2001b (mental retardation). See also Ogden 2007b. 10 Plut. Alex. 10; cf. Arr. Anab. 1.23.8 and Strabo C675. See Badian 1963, 245–6, Hamilton 1969 ad loc., Heckel 1981, 57, Hatzopoulos 1982, Greenwalt 1984, 76, French and Dixon 1986a and 1986b, Bosworth 1988, 21–2, O’Brien 1992, 31–3 and Hammond 1994, 174. Alexander and Olympias themselves suffered similar ‘bastardising’ treatment at the hands of Philip’s final wife Kleopatra and her family, in the form of her uncle (?) Attalos, as we learn from Satyros F21 Kumaniecki and Plut. Alex. 9; cf. Ogden 1999, 20–5. 11 Diodorus 19.11.1–7, Justin 14.5.8–10 and Aelian Varia historia 13.36; cf. Carney 1987a, 59, 1987b, 500, 1991, 19–20, 1993b and 2001a, 136–7, Green 1990, 19–20 and Ogden 1999, 25–6. 12 Plato Gorg. 471a-d (son of slavewoman), Ael. VH 12.43 (son of slavewoman Simiche) and Aristides 46.120.2 with Scholiast (son of Perdikkas by slavewoman). For discussion see Dodds 1959, 241–2, Hammond and Griffith 1979, 133–7, Borza 1990, 161–2, Ogden 1999, 7–8 and Carney 2001a, 17. 13 Plato Gorg. 471a-d and Scholiast Aristides 45.55 and 46.120, with Ogden 1999, 7–8. 14 Cf. Ogden 1999, 42 and Reames-Zimmerman 1999, 89–90. 15 Curtius 6.6.8 and Justin 12.3.10. 16 Athen. 12.539a (incorporating Polykleitos of Larissa FGrH 128 F1) and Curtius 6.2.5. 17 Athen. 13.576de (including Kleitarchos FGrH 137 F11), Plut. Alex. 38, Diod. 17.72 and Curtius 5.7.2–11; cf. Berve 1926 no. 359, Peremans and Van’t Dack 1950–81 no. 14723, Ogden 1999 index s.v. and 2008, McClure 2003, 157–8 and Heckel 2006 s.v. Thais. 18 There is no mention of Thais’ involvement in the burning of the palace at Arr. Anab. 3.18.11. If her role in it had been a historical one, then it is possible that Ptolemy himself passed over it in silence in the history of which Arrian made so much use. Tarn 1948, ii, 47–8, 82–3 and 324 argues that Alexander had no relationship with Thais. 19 See Ogden 2007a. 20 Athen. 10.435a, incorporating Hieronymos of Rhodes F38 Wehrli and Theophrastus F578 Fortenbaugh. 21 Cf. Lucian Herodotus or Aetion. 22 Ael. VH 12.34; cf. Reames-Zimmerman 1999, 89 (where the reference is given incorrectly as 7.34). 23 We find a version of this same story also at Pliny HN 35.86, where the concubine’s name is given rather as Campaspe. Here we are not explicitly told that Campaspe was Alexander’s first love, but we are told that she was his favourite. In an act of magnanimity, Alexander handed her over to Apelles. 24 Plut. Alex. 21.4 = Aristobulus FGrH 139 F11; cf. also Diod. 20.20.2, Curtius 10.6.10–12 and Plut. Eum. 1. Further relevant sources at Berve 1926 nos. 152 and 206 and Heckel 2006 s.v. ‘Artabazus’ and ‘Barsine’. Brosius 1996, 78 regards the union as a marriage, but the overwhelming tendency of scholarship denies this: Brunt 1975, 33, Tarn 1948, ii 336, Greenwalt 1984, 70 and 1989, 22, Bosworth 1988, 64, Green 1990, 6–7 and 28, Heckel 1992, 146 and 203, O’Brien 1992, 58–9, Carney 1993a, 319
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Daniel Ogden and 2001, 101–5 and 149–50, Ellis 1994, 25 and Whitehorne 1994, 71. I expressed ambivalence at Ogden 1999, 4–3. 25 There is no suggestion either of courtesan status or of marriage in the context of the rather similar series of ostentatiously fictionalised traditions of transitory encounters between Alexander and queens who come to him for stud services. Thus Thal(l)estris, the Amazon queen, supposedly presented herself to Alexander, in the words of Diod. 17.77.1–3, ‘for the sake of child-making’, παιδοποιίας ἕνεκεν. It would be perverse in this context to read the term παιδοποιία in the sense in which its cognate παιδοποιεῖσθαι is sometimes found in Athenian legal discourse, that of ‘siring legitimate children’, for which see [Dem.] 59.17 and 122, with Ogden 1996, 80, 102, 227. For Thallestris see also Plut. Alex. 46 incorporating, inter alia, Kleitarchos FGrH 137 F16, Ptolemy FGrH 138 F28 and Aristobulus FGrH 139 F21, Curtius 6.5.24–32, Justin 12.3.5–7. According to Justin, Cleophis or Cleophylis, the queen of Indian Beira (which Arrian calls Bazira), ransomed her captured citadel by sleeping with the king and going on to bear a son she named ‘Alexander.’ For queens in similar roles in the Alexander tradition, cf. Cleophis ( Justin 12.7.9–11 [scortum regium, but the context does not suggest that the queen was Alexander’s hetaira in any meaningful sense], Orosius 3.19.1 [concubitu regnum redemit], and Curtius 8.10.35), Ada of Alinda (Arrian Anabasis 1.23.8) and Candace, the Ethiopian queen expressing a desire for sons like Alexander ([Callisthenes] Alexander Romance 3.18). 26 Parts of this section and the following one run congruently with Ogden 2009. 27 Athen. 13.567f (incorporating Timokles Orestautokleides F27 K-A and Amphis F23 K-A), 13.586c–d (incorporating Theopompos Chian Letter, FGrH 115 F254a, Kleitarchos FGrH 137 F30 and Python Agen TGrF 91 F1), 13.594d–96b (incorporating Poseidonios FGrH 87 F14, Dikaiarchos On the Descent into Trophonius’ cave F21 Wehrli, Theopompos Letter to Alexander, FGH 115 F253 and Chian Letter, FGrH 115 F254b, Philemon Babylonian F15 K-A, Alexis Lyciscus F143 K-A, and again Python Agen TGrF 91 F1), and 605d (incorporating Klearchos F23 Wehrli), Diod. 17.108.5–6, Paus. 1.37.5 and Plut. Phoc. 22. For Pythionike see Berve 1926 no. 676 (Πυθιονίκη), Heckel 1992, 218–20 and 2006 s.v. Pythionike, Davidson 1997, 106–7, Ogden 1999 and 2001 indices s.v., Carney 2001a, 217–18, McClure 2003 esp. 137–8, 144–8, 153. For the Agen, see Snell 1964, 99–138 (with earlier references), Lloyd-Jones 1966, Sutton 1980a and 1980b, 75–81, Jaschinski 1981, 23–44 (esp. 36–9), Worthington 1986 and Flower 1997, 258–62. For Glykera see Berve 1926 no. 231 (Γλυκέρα), McClure 2003 index s.v. ‘Glycera, hetaera and eromene of Harpalus’ (but beware that many of the entries here misleadingly direct one to other Glyceras than Harpalos’, including that of Menander’s Perikeiromene) and Heckel 2006 s.v. Glycera. For Harpalos more generally see Berve 1926 no. 143 (Harpalos), Badian 1961, Jaschinski 1981, Bosworth 1988 esp. 149–50, 212, 215–20, and Heckel 1992, 213–27 and 2006 s.v. Harpalus. 28 Note that Pythionike is strongly associated with fish at Athen. 9.338ef (incorporating Antiphanes Halieuomene F27 K-A, dated by K-A ad loc. to ‘shortly after 345’) and 339d (incorporating Timokles Ikarioi F16 K-A). In the latter Pythionike’s lovers are compared to fish. Cf. Davidson 1997, 10. 29 Snell 1964, 106–8 argues that the magi would have been played by the satyrs on the ground that the satyr chorus is the only plural entity in a satyr play. Perhaps, but there is no certainty from the fragment that the magi appeared on stage. He also notes, interestingly, that satyrs would suit the role of necromancers of Pythionike well,
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How to marry a courtesan in the Macedonian courts because of their traditional role in bringing females out of the ground (although he oddly fails to mention Pandora in this connection, for whom see Ogden 1998, 218). 30 It is not clear at which point he was given citizenship by the city. For the significance here of βασίλισσα, see Carney 1991, 8 and her chapter in this volume. 31 E.g. Heckel 1992, 218–20, Flower 1997 esp. 89, 258–62 (taking Theopompos’ Letter to Alexander as a genuine document of ca. 324), McClure 2003, 144–8. 32 See Scholl 1994, 254–61, with a picture of the miserable remains and a reconstruction at 259; cf. Travlos 1988, 177 and 181. 33 The supposition of Bosworth 1988, 216. 34 The unquestioned notion that Theopompos’ letter (or the quote therefrom) is a genuine historical document, as opposed to something written up after the event, seems naïve, but it flourishes: Snell 1964, 119–24, Sutton 1980b, 79, Flower 1994, 258–62 35 Albeit rather closer to Athens than to Eleusis as such, as indicated by the convenient map at Travlos 1988, 181. 36 For the difficulties of locating this supposed performance in time and place, see Snell 1964, 112–17, Sutton 1980b, 78–81, Bosworth 1988, 149–50 and Heckel 1992, 219–20 n.31 and 2006 s.v. Python [1]. Most accept without question that the play was indeed written and performed for Alexander’s men in Asia: e.g. Snell 1964, 100, Sutton 1980b, 77, Flower 1994, 260. 37 So Sutton 1980a. Pall-ides of course plays on Har-pal-os. I am less immediately convinced by attempts to derive the name from φαλλός, as Snell 1964, 104 n.9, with earlier literature. 38 As noted by Sutton 1980b, 77. For the likelihood that the Agen fragments derive from its prologue, see Snell 1964, 105. 39 Aristoph. Ach. 524–37 and Birds 1553–63; for the latter, cf. Ogden 2001, 97–8. The ostensibly Old-Comic, Aristophanic tone is noted by Snell 1964, 137 and Sutton 1980b, 76 and 81. 40 Parodying Soph. El. 7–8; cf. Snell 1964, 105. 41 On these plays, see Ogden 2001, 186–7. 42 Cf. Heckel 1992, 218. We know nothing else of Python’s supposed involvement with Alexander: Berve 1924 no. 688 (Πύθων).For the practice of drawing hetaira names from festivals and games, see McClure 2003, 62. 43 Athen. 6.252f–253b, incorporating Demochares FGrH 75 F3 and Polemon F13 Preller; cf. Reinsberg 1993, 161. For Lamia’s own supposed celebration of the Aphrodisia festival, cf. Alciphron 4.16. 44 Cf. Wheatley 2003, 34. 45 See Ogden 2008. 46 Athen. 13.578ab incorporating Herakleides Lembos FHG iii 168. 47 Athen. 14.614f, incorporating Phylarchos FGrH 81 F12 (where his name is given as Oxythemidas); cf. Ogden 1999, 173. 48 Plut. Demetr. 10. 49 Plut. Demetr. 19. 50 Plut. Demetr. 23. 51 See Ogden 1999, 221–3. For the courtesans of Ptolemy Philadelphos, see Cameron 1990 (with care) and now Kosmetatou 2004 and Ogden 2008, with further bibliography.
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Daniel Ogden 52
There is also a reference to an unnamed courtesan at Plut. Demetr. 19. For Demetrios and his courtesans in general, see Ogden 1999, 215–72 passim. 53 Plut. Demetr. 24. 54 Plut. Demetr. 24. 55 Plut. Demetr. 24, Athen. 13.578ab (including Ptolemy of Megalopolis FGrH 161 F4 and Herakleides Lembos FHG iii 168 F4), and Lucian Icaromenippus 15. 27. 56 Athen. 13.578a-579d (including Ptolemy of Megalopolis FGrH 161 F4, Machon F14–15 Gow and quoting Diphilos [not K-A]). 57 Plut. Demetr. 24 and 27, Athen. 13.578a-579d (including Ptolemy of Megalopolis FGrH 161 F4, Machon F14–15 Gow and quoting Diphilos [not K-A]). 58 Alciphron 4.16.2 (upon which the connection to Demetrios depends), Athen. 9.384f (incorporating Philippides Ananeousa F5 K-A), 13.558ab (incorporating Aristodemus and Anaxilas Neottis F22 K-A), 13.567f (incorporating Timokles Orestautocleides F27 K-A and Amphis Kouris 23 K-A), 13.577d and 578e–585b (incorporating Machon F16–18, Diphilos T8 K-A and quoting Aristophanes of Byzantium, Lynkeus of Samos and Aristodemos). 59 Athen. 6.252f–253b (incorporating Demochares FGrH 75 F1 and Polemon F13 Preller) and 13.577d–f (incorporating Machon F12 Gow and Ptolemy of Megalopolis FGrH 161 F4). 60 Athen. 13.593a (incorporating Nicolaus of Damascus FGrH 90 F90). 61 Sources: Plut. Demetr. 10, 16, 19 and 23–7 (incorporating Philippides F25 K-A and adespota F698 K-A and quoting Lynkeus of Samos and Demochares of Soli), Athen. 3.101e (quoting Lynkeus), 4.128b (quoting Lynkeus), 6.252f–253b (incorporating Demochares FGH 75 F1 and Polemon F13 Preller), 13.577c–f (incorporating Polemon F45–6 Preller and Machon F12–13 Gow) and 14.614ef (incorporating Phylarchos FGrH 81 F12), Clem. Protr. 4.48, Alciphron 4.16 and 17, Ael. VH 12.17 and 13.8–9, D. L. 5.76 (incorporating Favorinus of Arelate F37 Mensching = FHG iii 578 F8), Demetrios of Phaleron F39 Wehrli = Diogenianus Choeroboscus Orthographia at Cramer Anecdota Graeca Oxoniensia ii p. 239. See Ogden 1999 esp. 173–7, 219–68 passim, McClure 2003 index s.v. ‘Lamia’ and especially Wheatley 2003, a most meticulous study. 62 See Ogden 1999, 223–5. 63 I had assumed it to be Plutarch’s implication that Lamia had been Ptolemy’s courtesan until Salamis, Ogden 1999, 241–2 and 275; Wheatley 2003, 31 n.11 scrupulously maintains that Plutarch does not explicitly declare this. 64 Note the prominence of Athens in all the Lamia material at Plut. Demetr. 23–7; Machon’s Chreiai (even if written in Alexandria: Gow 1965, 5) focus on the smart-set dinner parties of early Hellenistic Athens, and at these Lamia is a witty guest alongside other courtesans; Athenian references also at Athen. 14.614ef (incorporating Phylarchos FGrH 81 F12), Athen. 6.252f–253b (incorporating Demochares FGrH 75 F3) and Alciphron 4.16, Clem. Protr. 4.48. Lamia is also associated with the cities of Sikyon/Demetrias (Athen. 13.577c–f, incorporating Polemon F45–6 Preller), Thebes (Athen. 6.252f–253b, incorporating Polemon F13 Preller) and, perhaps, with Thessaly (Plut. Demetr. 27). As to the last, Plutarch asserts that the memorable soap tale he prefers to set in Athens was also told of Thessaly. Was this in fact the tale’s usual home, with Plutarch transferring it to Athens for the sake of coherence? Or did
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How to marry a courtesan in the Macedonian courts the tale rather become associated with Thessaly because so many of the royal Macedonian courtesans – actual or alleged – hailed from Thessaly? 65 As helpfully and perceptively concluded by Wheatley 2003, 34. 66 Plut. Demetr. 24 and 26 (incorporating Philippides F25 K-A). 67 Clem. Protr. 4.48. 68 Burkert 1985, 132–4. 69 Hdt. 1.60 and Ath. Pol. 14, with Gernet 1953, 52, Berve 1967, 545, Boardman 1972, and Connor 1987, 42–3. Phye did then marry, not Peisistratos himself, but his son Hipparchos: Athen. 13.609cd (incorporating Kleidemos FGrH 323 F15). 70 Athen. 14.614ef (incorporating Phylarchos FGrH 81 F12) and Plut. Demetr. 25. 71 Wheatley 2003, 36 n. 42. 72 D. L. 5.76 (incorporating Favorinus of Arelate F37 Mensching = FHG iii 578 F8). 73 Thus [Dem.] 59.16 and Isaeus 6.64–5; cf. Ogden 1996, 79–81, 83, 141. 74 See, for example, Diogenes Laertius 5.76 (incorporating Favorinus of Arelate F37 Mensching = FHG iii 578 F8); cf. Ogden 1999, 232 and Wheatley 2003, 31 n. 9, with further examples of this sort of confusion. 75 Macrobius Saturnalia 1.17.15. 76 Plut. Demetr. 19. Let us not forget that Lamia’s own name in its original form may easily be read as a reference to the child-devouring monster of that name; cf. Ogden 1999, 249 and Wheatley 2003, 30–1 (offering ‘Vampire’). 77 Athen. 6.255c and 13.577c; cf. Geyer 1925, 547 and Wehrli 1964, 141–2. 78 The person is mentioned at P.Haunienses 6 lines 1–13. The case was first framed by Buraselis 1982, 124–41; for the case against, Ogden 2008. 79 Tarn 1913, 248 n. 92 was confident, without warrant, that the tale referred to Gonatas. But an unqualified ‘Antigonos’ ought to refer by default to Monophthalmos. 80 Lucian Icaromenippus 15; cf. Athen. 13.578ab (incorporating Ptolemy of Megalopolis FGrH 161 F4 and Herakleides Lembos FHG iii 168 F4). 81 Athen. 13.593a (incorporating Nicolaus of Damascus FGrH 90 F90). 82 Athen. 13.607c–f (incorporating Persaios of Kition Sympotika hypomnemata, SVF I.451), see further Erskine, this volume. 83 Cf. Ogden 1999, 242 and 257–8. 84 Athen. 13.578a, incorporating Ptolemy of Megalopolis FGrH 161 F4. 85 Plut. Pyrrh. 34, SVF I p. 441, Diogenes Laertius 4.41–2; cf. Tarn 1913, 335–6 and Ferguson 1911, 232–3, 248, 301, Macurdy 1932, 70 and Dow and Edson 1937, 162, Gabbert 1997, 15, Ogden 1999, 178–9 and 232–3 and Carney 2001a, 181–2. 86 Justin 28.1.1–4. The best discussion of Phthia and Chryseis, and of the question as to whether the two should be identified, is that of Dow and Edson 1937; cf. also Seibert 1967, 38–9, Will 1979–82, i 360, le Bohec 1981, 35–6 and 1993, 143–9, Ogden 1999, 179–82, Carney 2001a, 190–3; pace Tarn 1924 and 1940, Fine 1934, Walbank 1940, 9, Hammond 1967, 601 and Green 1990, 252 and 795 n. 26, all of whom believe that Phthia was the mother of Philip V. 87 Tarn 1940, 491 (with reference to Tarn 1909, 265–6) and le Bohec 1981, 39–40 and 44 argue unpersuasively that Justin identifies Philip V’s mother, and that he identifies her as Phthia. The basis for this is the contention that Justin picks up his 18.1.1–4 reference to Phthia with a reference at 28.3.9, an entire two chapters later, to the ‘mother’ (matre) of Philip V as a soubriquet.
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Daniel Ogden Cf. Syncellus 535.19 Dindorf and Etymologicum Magnum s.v. ∆ώσων. For discussion of some of the difficulties with the Porphyry passage, see Dow and Edson 1937, 150–2 and 161, le Bohec 1981, 36–9 and 1993, 37 and 147 and Ogden 1999, 180. 89 Hom. Il. 1.111, etc. 90 At Hom. Il. 1.113–5 Agamemnon contrasts his war-captive concubine Chryseis with a wedded wife; cf. Dow and Edson 1937, 154–6; see also Beloch 1912–27, iv.2 138, Tarn 1940, 494–8 and Seibert 1967, 38–9. 91 Cf. Dow and Edson 1937, 153–4 for parallels. Chrysis: Plutarch Demetrius 24. 92 Polyb. 4.5.3, with Walbank 1957–79 ad loc.; cf. Will 1979–82, i 360 and le Bohec 1981, 42. 93 Polyb. 4.2.5, with Walbank 1957–79 ad loc.; cf. Tarn 1924, 21. 94 Porphyry FGrH 260 F3.14, in the German translation of the Armenian offered by Jacoby: machten ihn zum könig und trauten ihm als gattin ‘die güldene’. und jener tat die söhne, die geboren wurden aus der ‘güldenen’. Nicht ernähren, damit er die herrschaft ohne untreu dem Philippos aufbewahrte... Etymologicum Magnum s.v. ∆ώσων: ἔγηµε Χρυσηΐδα τὴν µητέρα Φιλίππου. Plutarch Aemilius Paulus 8: συνοικίσαντες αὐτῷ τὴν µητέρα τοῦ Φιλίππου. Cf. Syncellus 535.19 Dindorf = 340.23–4 Φίλιππος υἱὸς ∆ηµητρίου...ἐκ Χρυσηΐδος τῆς 88
αἰχµαλώτου.
95 Livy 40.5–16, 40.20–4 and 40.54–7, Polyb. 23.10–11, Plut. Aem. 8.6–7, Arat. 54.7 and Demetr. 3, Diod. 29.25 and Justin 32.2–3 and Zonaras 9.22. 96 Livy 39.53 and 40.9.2. For further suggestions that Perseus’ birth was inferior to that of Demetrios, see Polyb. 23.7, Diod. 29.25, Livy 41.23.10 and Ael. VH 12.43. 97 Plut. Arat. 49.2 and 51.2 and Cleom. 16.5, Livy 27.31.3 (supplying the name Polykrateia), 32.21 and 32.24 and Ael. VH 12.42; cf. Beloch 1901 and 1912–27, iv.2 139–41, Macurdy 1932, 72–3, Dow and Edson 1937, 130, Edson 1935, 191–6, Walbank 1940, 78, 241, 246–7, Meloni 1953, 10–15, Seibert 1967, 39, Gruen 1974, Will 1979–82, ii 255, Adams 1982, 243–4 and Ogden 1999, 183–7, Carney 2001a, 193–4. 98 Plut. Aem. 8.7 and Arat. 54.3; the allegation that Perseus was supposititious is referred to also at Livy 40.9.2, and the allegation that his mother was Argive but ἄδοξος at Ael. VH 12.43. 99 Athen. 13.581a–582c (incorporating Machon F17 Gow), 583e and 585a (quoting Lynkeus of Samos); cf. Gow 1965, 7–10, Ogden 1999, 220, 227 n.28, and McClure 2003 index s.vv. Gnathaena and Gnathaenion. 100 Polyb. 36.10.3–4; cf. Livy 42.53 (unfortunately corrupt) for Philip, son of Philip V. 101 Diod. 32.15, Livy Epitome 49, Paus. 7.13.1, Porphyry FGrH 260 F3.19 = Eusebius Chronicles i 239–40 Schöne. 102 Diod. 32.15. 103 Cf. Ogden 1999, 187–92, Carney 2001a. 104 Athen. 13.593a, incorporating Nicolaus of Damascus FGrH 90 F90.
Bibliography Adams, W. L. 1982 ‘Perseus and the Third Macedonian War’, in W. L. Adams and E. N. Borza (eds) Philip II, Alexander the Great and the Macedonian Heritage, Washington, 237–56
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How to marry a courtesan in the Macedonian courts Badian, E. 1961 ‘Harpalus’, JHS 81, 16–43. 1963 ‘The death of Philip II’, Phoenix 17, 244–50. Beloch, K.J. 1901 ‘La Madre di Perseo’, Rivista Storica dell’Antichità ns 6.1, 1–8. 1912–27Griechische Geschichte, 2nd ed., 4 vols., 8 parts, Strassburg, Berlin and Leipzig. Berve, H. 1926 Das Alexanderreich auf prosopographischer Grundlage, 2 vols., (catalogue in vol. 2), Munich. 1967 Die Tyrannis bei den Griechen, Munich. Boardman, J. 1972 ‘Herakles, Peisistratos and sons’ Revue Archéologique, 57–72. Borza, E. N. 1990 In the Shadow of Olympus: The emergence of Macedon, Princeton. Bosworth, A. B. 1971a ‘The death of Alexander the Great: rumour and propaganda’, CQ 21, 112–36. 1988 Conquest and Empire: The reign of Alexander the Great, Cambridge. Brosius, M. 1996 Women in Ancient Persia, Oxford. Brunt, P. A. 1975 ‘Alexander, Barsine and Heracles’, Rivista di filologia e di istruzione classica 103, 22–35. Buraselis, K. 1982 Das hellenistische Makedonien und die Ägais, Munich. Burkert, W. 1985 Greek Religion. Archaic and Classical, Oxford (first published in German, Stuttgart 1977). Cameron, A. 1990 ‘Two mistresses of Ptolemy Philadelphus’ GRBS 31, 287–311. Carney, E. 1987a ‘Olympias’, Ancient Society 18, 35–62. 1987b ‘The career of Adea-Eurydice’, Historia 36, 496–502. 1991 ‘ “What’s in a name?” The emergence of a title for royal women in the Hellenistic period’, in S. B. Pomeroy (ed.) Women’s History and Ancient History, Chapel Hill, 154–72. 1992 ‘The politics of polygamy’, Historia 41, 169–89. 1993a ‘Foreign influence and the changing role of royal Macedonian women’, Ancient Macedonia 5, 313–23. 1993b ‘Olympias and the image of the royal virago’, Phoenix 47, 29–56. 2001a Women and Monarchy in Macedonia, Norman. 2001b ‘The trouble with Philip Arrhidaeus’, AHB 15.2, 63–89. Connor, W. R. 1987 ‘Tribes, festivals and processions; civic ceremonial and political manipulation in archaic Greece’, JHS 107, 40–50. Davidson, J. N. 1997 Courtesans and Fishcakes: The consuming passions in Classical Athens, London.
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Daniel Ogden Dodds, E. R. 1959 Plato Gorgias edited with an introduction and commentary, Oxford. Dow, S., and Edson, C. F. 1937 ‘Chryseis’, HSCP 48, 127–80. Edson, C. F. 1935 ‘Perseus and Demetrius’, HSCP 46, 191–202. Ellis, W. M. 1994 Ptolemy of Egypt, London. Ferguson, W. S. 1911 Hellenistic Athens, Oxford. Fine, J. V. A. 1934 ‘The mother of Philip V of Macedon’, CQ 28, 99–104. Flower, M. A. 1997 Theopompus of Chios, Oxford. French, V. and Dixon, P. 1986a ‘The Pixodaros affair: another view’, AncW 13, 73–86. 1986b ‘The source traditions for the Pixodaros affair’, AncW 14, 25–40. Gabbert, J. J. 1997 Antigonus Gonatas. A political biography, London. Gernet, L. 1953 ‘Mariages des tyrans’, in Eventail de l’histoire vivante, Homage à L. Febvre ii, Paris, 41–53. Reprinted in L. Gernet, Anthropologie de la Grèce antique, Paris 1968, 344–59. Geyer, F. 1925 ‘Lamia 5’, RE xii, 546–7. Gow, A. S. F. 1965 Machon, Cambridge. Green, P. 1990 Alexander to Actium: The Hellenistic age, London. Greenwalt, W. S. 1984 ‘The search for Arrhidaeus’, AncW 10, 69–77. 1989 ‘Polygamy and succession in Argead Macedonia’, Arethusa 22.1, 19–45. Gruen, E. 1974 ‘The last years of Philip V’, GRBS 15, 21–46. Hamilton, J. R. 1969 Plutarch, Alexander: A commentary, Oxford. Hammond, N. G. L. 1967 Epirus, Oxford. 1983 Three Historians of Alexander the Great: The so-called vulgate authors, Diodorus, Justin and Curtius, Cambridge. 1994 Philip of Macedon, Baltimore. Hammond, N. G. L. and Griffith, G. T. 1979 A History of Macedon, vol. II, Oxford. Hatzopoulos, M. B. 1982 ‘A reconsideration of the Pixodarus affair’, Studies in the History of Art 10, Washington DC, 59–66.
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How to marry a courtesan in the Macedonian courts Heckel, W. 1981b ‘Philip and Olympias 337/6 BC ’, in G. S. Shrimpton et al. (eds) Classical Contributions. Studies in honour of M. F. McGregor, Locust Valley, NY, 251–7. 1992 The Marshals of Alexander’s Empire, London. 2006 Who’s Who in the Age of Alexander the Great, Oxford. Jaschinksi, S. 1981 Alexander und Griechenland unter dem Eindruck der Flucht des Harpalos, Bonn. Kosmetatou, E. 2004 ‘Bilistiche and the quasi-institutional status of Ptolemaic royal mistress’, AfP 50, 18–36. le Bohec, S. 1981 ‘Phthia, mère de Philippe V: examen critique des sources’, REG 94, 34–46. 1993 Antigone Dosone roi de Macédoine, Nancy. Lloyd-Jones, H. 1966 Review of Snell 1964, Gnomon 38, 12–17. McClure, L. K. 2003 Courtesans at Table. Gender and Greek literary culture in Athenaeus, London. Macurdy, G. H. 1932 Hellenistic Queens, Baltimore. Meloni, P. 1953 Perseo e la fine della monarchia Macedone, Rome. O’Brien, J. M. 1992 Alexander the Great: The invisible enemy, London. Ogden, D. 1996 Greek Bastardy in the Classical and Hellenistic Periods, Oxford. 1998 ‘What was in Pandora’s box?’ in N. Fisher and H. Van Wees (eds) Archaic Greece. New approaches and new evidence, London and Swansea, 213–30. 1999 Prostitutes, Polygamy and Death: The Hellenistic dynasties, London and Swansea. 2001 Greek and Roman Necromancy, Princeton. 2007a ‘Two studies in the reception and representation of Alexander’s sexuality’, in W. Heckel, L. Tritle and P. Wheatley (eds) Alexander’s Empire: Formulation to decay. Claremont, CA, 75–108. 2007b ‘A war of witches at the court of Philip II?’, Ancient Macedonia 7, 357–69. 2008 ‘Bilistiche and the prominence of courtesans in the Ptolemaic tradition’, in P. McKechnie and P. Guillaume (eds) Ptolemy Philadelphus and His World, Leiden, 353–85. 2009 ‘Courtesans and the sacred in the early Hellenistic courts’ in T. S. Scheer and M. Lindner (eds) Tempelprostitution im Altertum. Fakten und Fiktionen, Oikumene 6, Berlin, 344–76. Peremans, W. and Van’t Dack, E. 1950–81 Prosopographia Ptolemaica, 9 vols., Louvain. Prestianni Giallombardo, A.-M. 1976/7 ‘Diritto matrimoniale, ereditario e dinastico nella Macedonia di Filippo II’, Rivista Storica dell’Antichità 6–7, 81–110. Reames-Zimmermann, J. 1999 ‘An atypical affair? Alexander the Great, Hephaistion Amyntoros and the nature of their relationship’, AHB 13, 81–96.
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Daniel Ogden Reinsberg, C. 1993 Ehe, Hetärentum und Knabenliebe im antiken Griechenland, Munich. Scholl, A. 1994 ‘Πολυτάλαντα µνηµεῖα. Zur literarischen und monumentale Überlieferung aufwendiger Grabmäler im spätklassischen Athen’, Jahrbuch des deutschen archäologischen Instituts 109, 239–71. Seibert, J. 1967 Historische Beitrage zu den dynastischen Verbindungen in hellenistischer Zeit, Historia Einzelschriften 10, Wiesbaden. Snell, B. 1964 Scenes from Greek Drama, Berkeley. Sutton, D. F. 1980a ‘Harpalus as Pallides’, Rheinisches Museum 123, 96. 1980b The Greek Satyr-Play, Meisenheim am Glan. Tarn, W. W. 1909 ‘The battles of Andros and Cos’, JHS 29, 264–85. 1913 Antigonos Gonatas, Oxford. 1924 ‘Philip V and Phthia’, CQ 18, 17–23. 1940 ‘Phthia-Chryseis’, HSCP supplement vol. 1, Ferguson, W.S., hon. 483–501. 1948 Alexander the Great, 2 vols, Cambridge. Travlos, J. 1988 Bildlexikon zur Topographie des antiken Attika, Tübingen. Tronson, A. 1984 ‘Satyrus, the Peripatetic and the marriages of Philip II’, JHS 104, 116–26. Walbank, F. W. 1940 Philip V of Macedon, Cambridge. 1957–79 A Historical Commentary on Polybius, 3 vols, Oxford. Wehrli, C. 1964 ‘Phila, fille d’Antipater et épouse de Demetrius, roi des Macédoniens’ Historia 13, 140–6. Wheatley, P. 2003 ‘Lamia and the Besieger: an Athenian hetaera and a Macedonian king’, in O. Palagia and S. V. Tracy (eds) The Macedonians in Athens 322–229 BC, Oxford, 30–6. Whitehorne, J. 1994 Cleopatras, London. Will, E. 1979–82 Histoire politique du monde hellénistique. 2nd ed., 2 vols, Nancy. Worthington, I. 1986 ‘The chronology of the Harpalus affair’, Symbolae Osloenses 61, 63–76.
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12 A KEY TO BERENIKE’S LOCK? THE HATHORIC MODEL OF QUEENSHIP IN EARLY PTOLEMAIC EGYPT Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones and Stephanie Winder 1. Another key to Berenike’s Lock The starting point for the present study is a very small one: a lock of hair, specifically, the lock of Berenike II, dedicated to Aphrodite in connection with the safety of her husband, Ptolemy III Euergetes, in the Third Syrian War (246–241 BC). The theme of this study, however, is bigger: it explores Ptolemaic queenship and the construction of the female royal image in literature and visual culture in the formative period for the ideology of Greco-Egyptian monarchy. Ptolemy I Soter was necessarily concerned with amassing and securing land; his son, Ptolemy II Philadelphos, instituted a socio-cultural and religious framework for the dynasty. Their goals and priorities were clear; but what was the role, or place, or orientation of Ptolemy III Euergetes’ reign in this dynastic progression? This examination approaches that question by focusing not on the image of the king, but on that of his wife, Berenike, whose situation, in many ways, like that of her husband also, epitomises the problems of a classic ‘third child’ scenario.1 2. Berenike in Cyrene This investigation has its roots in a well-known piece of poetry, the wryly imaginative biography of Berenike’s lock of hair by Callimachus, the Coma Berenices. The methodological approach adopted here, however, is concerned with the historical Berenike’s biography and is essentially grounded in historical questions about Ptolemaic self-perception and self-promotion. It is necessary, therefore, to clarify the early events of the queen’s life, prior to the period of the lock’s adventures, since they play a formative role in her subsequent career management. Taking into account the events in the young Berenike’s life which led up to the Egyptian marriage, a picture emerges of a desperately unstable family relationship (or dynamic) which, in turn, produced tensions at court and, as a consequence, a conflicted
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Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones and Stephanie Winder foreign policy for Cyrene as a whole. From the shaky chronology, it is possible to extract a coherent narrative, and it is one that suggests that Berenike’s position as future queen of Egypt could have appeared exceptionally perilous to her at the time of her marriage to Ptolemy III.2 According to the most commonly accepted account of the period, that provided by Justin (and despite its obvious pitfalls), Magas of Cyrene betrothed his daughter Berenike to prince Ptolemy, the recognized heir of Ptolemy II Philadelphos towards the end of his life (d. 250 BC) and did so from the political necessity of realigning Cyrene under Ptolemaic rule.3 Certainly this makes sense in the bigger light of Philadelphos’ foreign policy whereby throughout the late 250s BC he was actively using his children to form marriage alliances with neighbouring kings. The most notable occasion, and of relevance here, was in 253 BC when his daughter Berenike Syra made the trip from Alexandria to Antioch to wed Antiochos II and Ptolemy II provided a dowry so vast that it gained for her the showy title Phernophoros, ‘dowry bringer’.4 The evident gap in time between the betrothal of Berenike to Ptolemy Euergetes (late 250s BC) and her eventual marriage into the Egyptian royal house in 246 BC is problematic. It is usually explained by recourse to Justin’s juicy story involving the sexual shenanigans of Berenike’s mother, Apame, who pursued her own foreign policy and bid for power by inviting the proSeleucid Macedonian Prince, Demetrios the Fair, to marry Berenike and thereby effectively cancelling the betrothal to Ptolemy Euergetes and reasserting a bid for Cyrenaica’s independence. For her part, the precocious Berenike, aged (it can only be presumed) just 13 or 14, is credited with taking the initiative by having Demetrios murdered (while in the bed of Apame), and consequently reconfirming her alliance with Egypt and reactivating the former betrothal arrangement.5 The Demetrios affair is not the only indication in the sources that powerful factions in Cyrene continued to resist the prospect of Egyptian rule and Berenike’s pursuit of her father’s plan. She was impeded in exercising her independent power when, (probably c. 249 BC ) a ‘republican’ party managed to gain the upper hand in Cyrene.6 Their hold on Cyrene was short-lived, however, when Ptolemy II sent his eldest son to restore order in the country and effectively make Cyrene into an Egyptian protectorate. Crown Prince Ptolemy appears to have stayed in Cyrenaica for almost five years, perhaps as a viceroy or regent for Ptolemy II, before heading back to Alexandria when news reached him of the impending death of his father (246 BC). The fact that Ptolemy did not marry his cousin Berenike during this period is difficult to understand. Berenike was, after all, certainly of
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A key to Berenike’s lock?
Fig. 1. Gold octdrachmon of a youthful Berenike II with a veil and diademed cornucopia (courtesy of Classical Numismatics Group, www.cngcoins.com).
marriageable age and, as Cyrene’s heiress, a desirable commodity.7 For her part, Berenike gives the strongest indication that her vision of becoming queen of Egypt via marriage and of uniting the two kingdoms remained active policy during this period. Indeed, her ambition is given striking emphasis by the possibility, following Tarn’s reading of the evidence, that she minted coins in Cyrene on which she chose to depict herself as an eligible queen, very youthful, wide-eyed, and unveiled.8 Her elegant coinage bears the superscription of ‘Queen Berenike and King Ptolemy’, a tag by which Berenike decisively staked her claim as the First Lady of Egypt (Fig. 1). The message that the coins gave out to Egypt and Cyrene was clear: the young queen advertised her desire to continue the policies of Magas and Philadelphos by marrying the Egyptian heir. To prince Ptolemy the coins must have read like love letters. The events between Berenike’s original betrothal and eventual marriage are crucial for understanding how she may have later reacted, as queen of Egypt, on both a personal and a political level. A detailed account of Cyrenian internal politics during this period is not yet accessible but what emerges is Berenike’s unbending will to marry into the Ptolemaic family and reunite the two kingdoms. Given this, what did the disturbingly long gap between her betrothal and eventual marriage mean for the young princess who discovered herself fighting her own mother on one side and astute politicians on another, whilst determined to realise her own vision of her future? On her early coin portraits, Berenike, despite her pretensions of greatness and her proEgyptian aspirations, is revealed as actually in an uncomfortable state of limbo. She is, on the coins and in real life, parthenos – and is destined to remain so until her progress to nymphe- and gyne- is confirmed through
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Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones and Stephanie Winder marriage. The parthenos state was perilous for any normal girl, but it was especially so when the girl happened to be the ruler of a nation which was also in a similar state of limbo. The political turmoil of Cyrenaica highlights Berenike’s single-minded policy, but it cannot account for the length of time she remained unwed. The glaring question, then, is why didn’t prince Ptolemy come to his betrothed’s rescue, marry her and release her from her parthenos state, fulfil his father’s wishes, and secure Egypt’s hold over North Africa? The answer would appear to lie in an emerging Ptolemaic royal practice whereby a king took a wife only upon his accession to the throne, that is to say, in this case, not until Ptolemy Philadelphos was dead. In the late nineteenth century, Mahaffy perceptively observed that, ‘it was not the practice of Ptolemaic crown princes to get married before they ascended the throne... though the reigning Ptolemies marry as soon as possible’.9 It should be emphasized, however, that this is not a Pharaonic tradition per se, but an innovation enthusiastically practised by every Ptolemy, with the exception of the rulers of the last generation of the royal house. For instance, while Ptolemy Philadelphos did have a wife, Arsinoe I (the mother of all his known children), he repudiated her in favour of his own sister, Arsinoe II, whom he married, in imitation of a incompletely understood Pharaonic tradition,10 around 276 BC, approximately seven years after becoming king. Ogden suggests that Arsinoe I was not so much repudiated as ‘retired’.11 If this is so, and the demotic evidence for this is good, argues Ogden, Philadelphos’ decision to marry his own sister was used to create a new authorized line of heirs; effectively, his reign might be said to start afresh with his marriage to Arsinoe II. Ptolemy III did indeed honour the betrothal and follow his father’s practice by marrying as soon as he had taken the double crown (246 BC). 3. Queen Berenike II of Egypt Ptolemaic policy based on Philadelphos’ precedent can account for the delay in Berenike’s marriage but we wonder how much reassurance during the long engagement she could have derived from a single precedent. In fact, the same policy points to a much more dangerous and ongoing threat. White has argued that, drawing on Philadelphos’ example, there was an expectation at court that the new king, Ptolemy III, would likewise marry his blood sister.12 Carney similarly draws attention to the fact that the full brother-sister relationship offered the safest or most trustworthy bond in the permeable politicking of the royal house.13 At the time of his accession in 246 BC, Ptolemy III’s only sister, Berenike Syra, had already been sent to Syria to marry Antiochos II (in 253 BC) and he honoured his promise to
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A key to Berenike’s lock? marry his cousin Berenike. Nonetheless, the pressure on Ptolemy III to marry his sister might have been great, and Berenike’s status, both when betrothed and in her new role as Egypt’s queen, remained tentative. Philadelphos had already rejected one wife in order to marry a sister and in doing so had changed the face of Ptolemaic religious and cultural practice. According to Hazzard’s interpretation of events, Ptolemy III was keen to promote a public image of his deep affection for his sister who played a key role in royal propaganda before and during the Third Syrian War.14 Ptolemy even, arguably, struck gold and silver coins with her image, in imitation of Philadelphos’ similar coinage for Arsinoe II. In comparison, Berenike’s position was negligible, and she must have felt it acutely. The threat posed by Berenike Syra to Berenike’s hold on Ptolemy III and the Egyptian throne was intensified very soon after their marriage in January 246 BC. Just a few months later, Berenike Syra’s husband, Antiochos II, suddenly died – poisoned, perhaps, by his rejected wife Laodike II. Not only was Ptolemy’s sister free to marry him, and thereby continue the important socio-religious policy invented by their father, but weighing the geographic, military and financial benefits of allying himself to either Cyrene or the Seleucid Empire, the young king might well prefer the large and wealthy lands of Asia. Berenike Syra Phernophoros could earn her title once more and on an even grander scale. When Berenike Syra’s call came for her brother to aid her in her plan to rule Asia in the name of her infant son, Ptolemy immediately gathered his forces and advanced towards Syria, leaving his new bride, and possibly their joint future, behind him. The resulting Third Syrian, or Laodikean, War saw a heavy Egyptian presence in Syria. There are many uncertainties as to the events of the war and the reliability of the sources, but the balance of opinion suggests that before Ptolemy reached Antioch, Berenike Syra and her son had already been killed on the orders of Laodike.15 This does not necessarily change Ptolemy’s imperialist policy towards Syria, merely the mode of claiming it – from bridegroom to avenger. What concerns this investigation is queen Berenike’s perception of, and response to, these events. As Ptolemy III embarked on his Syrian campaign, Berenike vowed that she would dedicate (or dedicated there and then) a lock of her hair, to all the gods in exchange for his safe return.16 The exact timing of the dedication is not important here, but the place of the dedication is: Berenike chose the temple of her dead and deified motherin-law Arsinoe II on Cape Zephyrion, a cult site for the late queen’s worship as Aphrodite. The act of dedication was, no doubt, accompanied by the kind of pompe- (procession) in which the Ptolemies so lavishly indulged. Famously, around these events, the poet Callimachus constructed
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Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones and Stephanie Winder a poetic narrative wherein following its dedication, the lock mysteriously vanished until the astronomer Conon once again found it in the form of a constellation of stars. Several scholars have argued for the poem’s function as a legitimizing tool for the new dynastic couple, and Gutzwiller claims that it was designed specifically to serve Berenike’s own propaganda policy.17 It is generally acknowledged that an early version of this poem probably circulated independently and was later incorporated into the closing of Book Four of the Aitia.18 If this is so, then the socio-cultural, and even political, implications of the poem resonated deeply enough within the poet for him to revisit the work in the last years of his creative life. What could have been so significant about this single act to cause both poet and queen to lavish such attention upon it? The act of dedicating the lock of hair and accompanying ritual fanfare, as well the poem’s wide cultural advertisement had, for Berenike, a double bonus. It assimilated her closely to the growing cult of Ptolemaic queenship, since she offered the lock in the temple of Arsinoe (called in the poem µητρός, line 45), and established in the most public manner possible a private passion shared between the king and queen. The need for such a public declaration, and recognition, may have seemed particularly urgent given the way in which Ptolemy had abandoned her to aid his sister and potential wife shortly after the wedding. As she did in Cyrene when her status was under threat, so, in Egypt, Berenike again made adroit use of public imagery to reassert and emphasise a bond with Ptolemy and his dynasty, a bond which was, in reality, far more permeable than those images suggest. This is a strategy she continues to employ during the difficult years of her husband’s absence. Shortly after Ptolemy’s departure to Syria, Berenike sought to consolidate her queenship with the issue of new coin types, minted in Alexandria, showing the youthful queen’s highly idealized facial features and representing her wearing a veil (Fig. 2). A single cornucopia and royal diadem is also used, imitating, but not duplicating Arsinoe II, who is regularly shown wearing a veil and with a double cornucopia.19 This indicates that Berenike is keen to mould herself as a descendent of, and heir to, Arsinoe II, but not to claim any of Arsinoe’s remarkable privileges or honours. A series of marble and faience heads of the queen, showing her distinctive chubbiness, probably date to this part of the reign too.20 The marked corpulence of the queen’s image is an Egyptian tradition readily adopted by the Ptolemies as a signifier of power. This is a further example of what Carney has discussed as a tendency to find ways to emphasise the stability and continuity of a dynasty at the precise time when that continuity is most threatened.21
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A key to Berenike’s lock?
Fig. 2. Gold octdrachmon of a mature Berenike II with a veil and diademed cornucopia and the wreathed caps of Castor and Pollux (courtesy of Classical Numismatics Group, www.cngcoins.com).
Further evidence of Berenike’s concern regarding the status of her marriage and her use of image to consolidate and control its public perception occurs early on in the course of the Third Syrian War when she departed from Egypt and sailed to Syria to rendezvous with the king. This important voyage is often overlooked in the scholarship, due to the understandably muddled readings of the often tattered Gurob Papyrus, our chief source for the early stages of the war.22 This document is written in the first person as King Ptolemy narrates, in summary form, the course of the war. The section relevant here describes the king’s arrival at Antioch (in 246 BC), now under Egyptian control, to a rapturous welcome from the locals. He then talks about meeting his ‘sister’ in the Antioch palace: Nothing pleased us so much as the enthusiasm [they showed]. Then since...the offerings which were ready...and of private individuals, we poured libations, and now / that the sun was setting we immediately went in to see (our) sister, and after this we turned to practical business.
Here the confusion begins. It is often assumed that Berenike Syra and her child had already been murdered by Laodike at this point. In order to explain the reference to ‘sister’ in the Gurob papyrus, historians have argued, following the testimony of Justin (or the even more bizarre account of Polyaenus)23 that Ptolemy either found his sister still alive in Antioch (and that she met her death while in Egyptian safe-hands somehow later) or that he covered up her death in order to perpetuate the fiction that the war was being waged in her defence.24 There is a more logical and economical solution to this problem: that the ‘sister’ mentioned in the Gurob papyrus is the other Berenike, the wife and not the blood sister, following the standard Pharaonic terminology adopted
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Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones and Stephanie Winder by the Ptolemies whereby ‘sister’ is used to denote ‘wife’ or ‘queen’. This important interpretation was first suggested by Bevan and is still the most cogent account, although it remains largely ignored or rejected in scholarship.25 This reading also makes better sense of a possible earlier mention of the word ‘sister’ in the particularly fragmentary section of the text of Col. II 1–4 – a reference to five ships commanded by the Egyptian officers Pythagoras and Aristocles sent by the ‘sister’ to transport money from Cilicia to Seleucia to aid Ptolemy’s war effort. It is more logical to see queen Berenike’s hand in this than Berenike Syra’s, not least because queen Berenike was ideally placed in Alexandria to control the navy. Following Bevan then, it is easy to picture Berenike making the short trip from Alexandria to Egyptian-controlled Antioch to greet her victorious husband. Such a visit, with accompanying pomp no doubt, was the perfect opportunity to enact her vision of public and private queenship as well as to check on Ptolemy’s fidelity to their joint political future. The journey seems to have been worth it for, with her return to Egypt, and Ptolemy’s brief leave of absence from the battlefield in 243/2 BC, the royal couple declared themselves Theoi Euergetai in the cult of Alexander.26 For Berenike, this meant the surest confirmation that she had achieved both the public and, more importantly, private recognition as undisputed wife and queen of Ptolemy III. Her future was assured. 4. The royal image of Berenike II It is clear that early on in Berenike’s career she had to calculate and construct a coherent political image of herself to effect her goals. To see how the queen’s personal propaganda worked, it is important to take a step back to see if the early image is dispensed with after the immediate crisis has past, or whether it is maintained and developed. Scholars have assumed that since Ptolemy III had no known mistresses or concubines then his marital relationship with Berenike was a good one; certainly, in the public eye he promoted her status to both Greek and Egyptian subjects.27 It is reasonable to assume that the queen herself took an active role in her own self promotion, continuing her successful strategy of public image creation thus far. She had much to live up to: the cult of Arsinoe II, and the former queen’s uninhibited exploitation of self-image, was the dominant force in the Ptolemaic ideology of queenship. Berenike, in fact, succeeded in adopting, adapting and advancing the imagery of the queen throughout her reign. Studies of Berenikean imagery have explored how the queen essentially copied Arsinoe II’s successful propaganda policy, in which Ptolemaic queens embody Aphrodite (or sometimes Demeter) for Greek eyes and
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A key to Berenike’s lock? Isis for Egyptian ones.28 But this does an injustice to (and certainly underplays) Berenike’s acumen and individuality in developing an image that draws on, yet stands apart from, that of Arsinoe II. It is Callimachus’ poem, the Coma Berenices, which points the way to understanding Berenike’s innovations. In her study of the romantic dynamics of this poem, Gutzwiller has convincingly advanced the notion that while all three early Ptolemaic queens either promote or benefit from an identification with Aphrodite, the reasons for doing so are varied: while the Soteres had emphasized the legitimacy of children born to loving spouses and the Philadelphoi had emphasized the bond of affection between siblings, the third dynastic couple chose to stress the passionate attraction of the young bride and groom.29
This vision is not confined to Ptolemy’s and Berenike’s honeymoon period, but is endorsed throughout the reign, and, more importantly, was one designed to function in both Greek and Egyptian terms. In fact, the individuality of Berenike emerges clearly only when the Egyptian aspect of her self-promotion is understood. Scholars of Ptolemaic queenship routinely connect royal women with Isis as the Egyptian counterpart of Aphrodite.30 There is, without a doubt, a vital interaction between queens and this most important goddess, who is seen as divine mother, lover and mourner. That Arsinoe II, in particular, managed to exploit these connections in spectacular and monumental manner is well known. In fact, if Berenike II wanted both to exploit this resource and carve her own niche in the Ptolemaic pantheon she had to forge an identity close enough to, yet far enough from, Arsinoe II. This was no easy task given Arsinoe’s expertise in cross-cultural propaganda and the fact that even Ptolemy III continued to promote his step-mother’s cultic and cultural importance.31 Berenike could draw on the Aphrodite-Isis vision of queenship, but needed to nurture an individual aspect too. She found the key to the problem in the trials of her formative years as a queen, and from the post-Syrian War period onwards: she promoted the use of the Hathoric model of queenship and advanced a self-assimilation with the goddess Hathor. Selden’s groundbreaking work on Egyptian imagery in Callimachus’ work acknowledges an element of Hathoric imagery employed in the Coma Berenices, albeit within an Isidic model.32 It is possible to go further and see that what the poem is drawing upon at those moments, is Berenike’s own use of the Hathor image – and, more importantly, Hathor separate from Isis – as a tool throughout her political career in Egypt. Moreover, her use of Hathor works best as an Egyptian model, and it is in this form that Berenike’s innovative vision of Ptolemaic queenship is located.
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Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones and Stephanie Winder 5. Hathor Of the many goddesses in the Egyptian pantheon, Hathor is one of the most easily recognizable, and yet mysterious, of deities.33 Hathor existed for the entire history of Egyptian culture as a powerful and influential goddess. She is the daughter of Re, the sun god, and is often seen as the eye of the god. As the great cosmic goddess she is ‘the mother of her father’ and ‘the daughter of her son’.34 She is one goddess and many goddesses, and was representative of all goddesses. Thus, she can be Hathor-Isis, Hathor-Mut, Hathor-Nekhbet, and so on. Iconographically, the goddess is usually represented as a beautiful woman, or as a cow-headed woman, or in purely bovine form, wearing a headdress of the sun-disk surmounted between two elongated cow-horns. In Egyptian, she is called Hwt-Hr, which is usually translated as ‘House of Horus’, referring to the elder Horus. In hieroglyphs, her name is represented as a large enclosure with a falcon within. From this, it is to be surmised that Hathor is seen as the great sky itself, holding Horus within her womb, which is poetically referred to as ‘house’. In this form, Hathor is both a solar sky-goddess and a personification of the night-time sky too. Selden has stressed the Ptolemies’ close affiliation with Horus, who represents the living king.35 In fact, in the temple of Philae the identification is made categorically: ‘The king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Ptolemy – He is Horus.’ 36 Hathor, therefore, is the protectress of the living king. But she is more, as a hymn from Denderah makes plain: The One, the sister without equal, The most beautiful of all, She resembles the rising morning star, At the beginning of a happy year. Shining bright, fair of skin, Lovely the look of her eyes, Sweet the speech of her lips... True lapis-lazuli her hair, Her arms surpassing gold...37
Hathor is a supremely sexual goddess and, as not only the protectress of Horus, but also his wife, brings him joy through her beauty, her love and her nurturing.38 In this aspect, her image as the cow suckling pharaoh, giving him life, is important too. Hathor is also the goddess most closely connected to the divine queenship; in fact, she is fundamentally representative of royal women. As Robins and Troy have demonstrated, from the Middle Kingdom onwards, but increasingly from the Eighteenth Dynasty, queens wear a headdress of straight falcon plumes, representing the eyes of Re and as
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A key to Berenike’s lock? such, symbols of Hathor.39 The goddess herself is sometimes shown wearing a pair of curved ostrich feathers; in linguistic terms the falcon plumes and ostrich feathers are both called šwty – and a link between the plumes of the queen and goddess is thereby presumed. From the Eighteenth Dynasty onwards, queens begin to wear Hathor’s cow horns and sun disk in conjunction with the falcon feathers, just as Hathor frequently combined them with ostrich plumes. Finally, Hathor is often shown seated with the king on his throne, occupying the place usually reserved for the queen who is shunted to the rear of the scene and cast in the role of Ma’at. In other words, Hathor stands in for the queen herself. In Ptolemaic times, although it is true that Hathor could be assimilated into the important figure of Isis, the goddess never lost her right to exist as an independent deity; a fact demonstrated by the numerous temples and shrines erected in her name throughout the period. Hathor, therefore, offered an ideal niche for Berenike in as much as she could represent a continuation of the identification with Isis but also occupy a unique place in Greco-Egyptian culture. 6. Berenike-Hathor There is in fact abundant evidence, as yet unnoticed, for Berenike’s identification with Hathor. The queen’s titles alone demonstrate this aptly. Berenike’s titulary is found at Philae, Dakka, Edfu, Karnak and in the famous Canopic Decree; it is elaborate if somewhat repetitive. The fullest and most dramatic titulature is found on the base of a now-missing statue in Cairo. It reads: The Female Horus, daughter of the ruler, made [out] of the ruler, ornament of Khnum, she who ascends up to the sublime and beautiful Goddesses, the heiress of the two lands, the female Wazir, daughter of Thoth, Great of Power, Protectress of the miserable which are given to her, the mistress [i.e. Two Ladies] of all lands [lit. the rekhty-people], Her bravery and her strength is that of Neith, mistress of Sais, her excellence is that of Bastet, Mut, and Hathor in her beauty of the w3hy [Festival]-forecourt. Mistress of the Two Lands, Berenike, sister-wife of the son of Re, Ptolemy, the Beneficent Gods.40
Here, the identification with Hathor as a distinct entity is promoted, even though she is linked to other goddesses too. In an inscription from Philae, however, Berenike is likened to Hathor alone, ‘in her great love’.41 It is important to realize that these titles which directly connect Berenike to Hathor are not made for any other Ptolemaic queen – even though the Philae title was later appropriated for Arsinoe III. It is particularly surprising, given the repetitive nature of royal female titles, that even in Arsinoe II’s rich panoply of titulature, there are no Hathoric connections.
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Fig. 3. Ptolemy III and Berenike II (first couple facing left on the left hand side), followed by Thoth, Seshat, Ptolemy II, Arsinoe II, Ptolemy I and Berenike I face a procession of gods. Carved relief from the lunette of the Kom el-Hisn Stela, containing the Canopic Decree. Redrawn from Bianchi 1989 by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones.
Iconography stresses the relationship too: the carved relief on the Kom el-Hisn Stela (Fig. 3), which heads the Canopic Decree of 238 BC, shows Ptolemy III and Berenike II in the company of a number of gods, including the first two generations of the royal dynasty.42 The king stands opposite the personification of the third Egyptian nome, whose principal deity was Hathor, while Berenike balances the composition and stands behind her husband in exactly the same place occupied by Hathor in the opposite lineup. It should also be noted that Berenike is the only queen to wear the šwty plumes, horns and sun disk of Hathor. In 237 BC, Ptolemy III began the construction of the temple of Horus at Edfu. A relief in Chapel 9 (Fig. 4) shows him offering to Horus, Hathor
Fig. 4. Ptolemy IV (or possibly VI) offers to a line of gods and deified monarchs: Horus, Hathor, Harpokrates, Ptolemy I, Berenike I, Ptolemy II, Arsinoe II; Ptolemy III and Berenike II bring up the rear of the procession. Edfu temple, chapel 9. Redrawn from Baum 2007 by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones.
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A key to Berenike’s lock? and Harpokrates (the youthful aspect of Horus), together with his royal forebears and images of himself and his queen, and once more shows Berenike in the Hathor headdress. While the relief carvings on the chapels surrounding the naos of Horus date predominantly to the reign of Ptolemy IV, nonetheless his divine parents figure prominently on the decorative scheme. Ptolemy III and Berenike II are depicted in the sanctuary, passageways, the hall of offerings, the west staircase, and the hypostyle. They are particularly honoured by being depicted in the pronaos and on the east face of the naos itself.43 Images of Berenike on Ptolemy’s most notable freestanding structure, the Euergetes Gate at Karnak, also show her wearing the headdress of Hathor (Fig. 5; Fig. 6). In one scene (Fig. 7), Berenike offers lotus garlands, while Ptolemy gives nu jars, to a seated Khonsu accompanied by Het Heret, an aspect of Hathor specifically referring to her role as a sky or astral goddess associated with fertility and bounty. Married women would go to the temples of Het Heret for fertility rites that would hopefully lead to a successful pregnancy. Hathor receives particular honours on the Euergetes Gate, appearing more times than any other goddess and frequently bearing
Fig. 5. Ptolemy III and Berenike II receive their royal titles and symbols of perpetual rule, all carefully recorded by the god Khonsu. The pharaoh wears the double crown while the queen wears the distinctive Hathor headdress of sun disk, horns, and plumes. Relief from the Euergetes Gate, temple of Karnak. Photograph: Lloyd LlewellynJones.
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Fig. 7. Ptolemy gives nu jars and Berenike II offers lotus garlands to the god Khonsu, accompanied behind the throne by Het Heret, a fertility aspect of Hathor. Relief from the Euergetes Gate, temple of Karnak. Photograph: Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones.
Fig. 6. Berenike II (face mutilated probably in the early Christian period) wears the distinctive crown of the goddess Hathor. Detail of a relief from the Euergetes Gate, temple of Karnak. Photograph: Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones.
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A key to Berenike’s lock? the epithet (wrt) Hrt-ib bnbn ‘(great one) who resides at the benben’. Her role is that of consort of the god, a fact which again makes her connection to Berenike important. Even in the early years of Ptolemy IV’s reign, Berenike continues to be linked with Hathor. An opaque red and turquoise glass foundation plaque has been found in the Hathor temple at Cusae, written in cursive hieroglyphs and Greek uncials.44 Here Ptolemy IV records cult honours given to his royal parents as well as to ‘Hathor who is in Heaven’. It is clear that in the Egyptian cultural vocabulary, throughout the reign of Ptolemy III and beyond, Berenike is assimilated to the royal fertility goddess Hathor. But can this Hathoric imagery translate into the Greek cultural sphere? It is useful to remember that there is no specific Greek equivalent for Hathor. Since the Hathoric element is so important to Berenike’s Egyptian-style self-promotion, and since it is the one aspect which is unique to her amongst the Ptolemaic women, it is reasonable to conclude that it was within an Egyptian frame of reference that she found her image first, and then attempted to construct it into a Greek framework, and not vice versa. Thus, as Lady of Byblos,45 Hathor was seen by her Egyptian adorants as the mistress of their empire in Asia, an image which Berenike herself would have been keen to appropriate, especially as she made the sea voyage north by ship to join her husband in his reclamation of Antioch and other Seleucid territories. Was she not Hathor journeying to her Horus, in the mode of the annual Festival of the Beautiful Embrace, celebrated at Edfu? This important ritual was a spectacular celebration of the god’s love for his goddess when Hathor was taken by ship from her temple at Denderah down the Nile to reside with him for two weeks at his home in Edfu.46 For his part, Horus came part way up the Nile to greet his consort and escort her back to his temple. The citizens of Edfu and devotees of Hathor who travelled from far afield to commemorate the great reunion celebrated with feasting and music, but there was another purpose to the ritual: on the second day of the feast there was a change of emphasis as statues of the two gods were carried across the desert to the site of Behdet, the sacred burial ground of the primeval gods of Edfu. Here priests enacted a prophylactic ritual in which wax hippopotami and fish, inscribed with the names of the king’s enemies, were symbolically destroyed.47 So the purpose of the Festival was two-fold: to celebrate the sexual reunion of the gods and therefore stimulate Egypt’s fertility, and the power of that sexual union manifested in crushing and dissolving the nation’s enemies. Ptolemy’s building of the Edfu temple can be viewed partly as a commemoration of that important event when Berenike travelled to Syria for a reunion with her husband at the moment was Ptolemy was engaged
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Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones and Stephanie Winder in the annihilation of his Seleucid enemies. That is not to say, of course, that Berenike sailed to Syria with the thought that she was Hathor going to meet her Horus, but only in hindsight and in the light of her evolving relationship with the Hathoric model of queenship, did the Euergetes couple mine the potential of associating themselves with a Festive ritual of national importance for the populace of Upper Egypt. 7. Hathor’s Hair and Berenike’s Lock One of the most distinctive features about the cult and worship of Hathor, is the remarkable emphasis placed on the goddess’ hair.48 Not only does she wear a wide variety of hairstyles and wigs, including a distinctive form of bouffant hairstyle ending in two spiral locks over the shoulders, but even her titles refer to her hair: Hathor is ‘she of the beautiful hair’ and ‘Lady of the Lock’. Hymns praise her hair as being ‘finer than linen’ and ‘blacker than night, raisins and figs’.49 Even her priestesses display abundant hair, often supplemented with a three-strand plait woven into their wigs. In Egyptian tradition, hair, wigs and hairstyling is flaunted as unambiguously sensual; ‘Come put on your wig and let us spend a happy hour’ says one woman to her beloved.50 For a goddess of sexuality and sensuality, the perfumed locks of Hathor are key to her character and so central is hair to Hathor’s power that Egyptian mythology imagines the loss of a lock of her hair as cosmically catastrophic, or as Selden sees it, a disaster bound up in the conflict of Horus and Seth: ‘My heart is for you...like the heart of Horus for his eye, ...[of ] Seth for his testicles, ...as Hathor for her lock of hair’, reads one Ramesside papyrus.51 Berenike’s portraiture, in Greco-Egyptian style, shows her in wigs or hairstyles of ringlets and curls, as opposed to the tiny kiss curls of her Greek imagery.52 This in itself is not unusual, since other Ptolemaic queens adopt similar coiffures (but not in any specific Isidic role), but what is important about the Egyptian ringlets of the Berenike portraits is their connection to Callimachus’ poem. The lock dedicated in the Coma Berenices is described first as a βόστρυχος ( line 8), that is, a tight ringlet or spiral of hair: it is an Egyptian lock. At this important moment in her reign, and like much else in her later propaganda, Berenike promotes the Egyptian image first. The Greek hairstyles of the Ptolemaic royal women tend to be simple affairs, the hair merely softly pulled back to the nape of the neck in a simple chignon; moreover, the heads of the queens are usually veiled. The display of hair is not a Greek preoccupation and it has been argued that the veiling of the head and hair is de rigueur for respectable women throughout the Hellenistic period.53 If Berenike wanted to create a memorable and individual public impression and promote her self-image, then it is likely
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A key to Berenike’s lock? that she brought the Egyptian elements to the forefront, cutting off a long spiral of hair which would have framed her face and offering that as her dedication. 8. The appeal of Hathor Given Berenike’s tenuous hold on the affections and political vision of her husband at the beginning of his reign, it is clear that the young queen needed to find a way to promote herself quickly and unambiguously. The Aphrodite/Isis image had nothing left to offer on its own – having been so fully utilized by Arsinoe II – and Berenike turned instead towards a Hathoric image. Moreover, the choice of Hathor was based not just on her availability as a separate entity in the pantheon, for it was Hathor, rather than Isis, who was the supreme goddess of sexual love in the Egyptian pantheon. Isis represents wifely devotion, the mourning widow and the mother. When the relationship between Isis and Osiris stresses sexual desirability it is that of the husband rather than the wife, and the sexual beauty and fertile power of Osiris is lyricised. Hathor, however, rejoices in her own beauty and in the knowledge that she is the one sexually desired by her husband. In Callimachus’ poem, the lock’s separation from Berenike works as an analogue for Ptolemy’s separation from and desire for the queen. In the surviving fragment (110.Pf.), the lock relates his journey away from Berenike, he laments pitiably being apart from the queen and speaks longingly of his desire to experience the sensual pleasures of being with the queen. While the poem relates an event which might seem to commemorate Berenike’s desire for her absent husband’s return, the emphasis throughout is actually on the physical desire felt for Berenike; Horus desiring Hathor. The closest Greek counterpart for this aspect of Hathor is, of course, Aphrodite, but Hathor provides the Ptolemaic queen with even more: an intimate connection with divine queenship which any Greek model would entirely lack. Hathor offers Berenike a key into unlocking the codes of Pharaonic queenship, for Hathor is the lover of the King but also his divine protectress. She is the gatekeeper to the kingship, and acts as his alter ego, the feminine prototype. In the Greek pantheon, the sexually active, one might almost say voracious goddesses, like Aphrodite, are marginalised from access to power; the virgin goddesses are allowed to take the more masculine roles and play the power games. In the Egyptian pantheon, fully sexualized goddesses are de facto powerful; their sexuality does not marginalise them. In fact, in Hathor’s case, her sexual relationship with Horus, that is to say the king, defines her. For Berenike, Hathor (and only Hathor) offers a legitimacy which even Aphrodite cannot guarantee.
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Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones and Stephanie Winder Macurdy and, more recently, Hazzard have seen Berenike as occupying a subordinate role to her husband but this is to misunderstand Berenike’s image by viewing it in purely Greek mode without its Egyptian framework.54 She is not passive and subservient but a supportive counterpart. Together they are Euergetai and as such were endowed with numerous Greek and Egyptian public honours. In effect, she played the perfect Hathor to his Horus, a role lyrically evoked in one New Kingdom Hymn to Hathor: The beauty of your face Glitters when you rise, Oh come in peace. One is drunk At your beautiful face Oh golden Hathor.55
Acknowledgements The authors are grateful to the Carnegie trust of Scotland for their support in providing funding for a research trip to Egypt to study primary artefacts in Alexandria, Cairo, and Luxor. The authors are also grateful to Andrew Erskine for his patience and perseverance. This chapter is dedicated to the memory of our Egyptian friend and brother Eltaher Marey – known to all as Refaat – who died unexpectedly and before his time in 2009. Notes 1 Throughout, Berenike II, the wife and queen of Ptolemy III Euergetes, is referred to simply as ‘Berenike’; Euergetes’ sister, confusingly (but typically of the Hellenistic dynasties) also called Berenike, we will call ‘Berenike Syra’, after her Seleucid-Syrian connection. 2 An outline biography for Berenike (usually coupled with that of Ptolemy III) is provided by Bevan 1927, 74–5, 194–216; Macurdy 1932, 130–6; Ogden 1999, 80–1, 127–32 and Hölbl 2001, 45–51, 105. 3 Justin 26.3.2. See also Hölbl 2001, 45. 4 See Porphyry FGrH 260 F43 (= Jerome In Danielum 11.6a). This text suggests that Ptolemy II used military aggression to constrain Antiochos II to marry Berenike Syra. Sherwin-White and Kuhrt 1993, 126 regard the marriage to Berenike Syra as a deliberate component of Seleucid foreign policy willingly negotiated by Antiochos. In either case, it would have been stipulated by Ptolemy II that Antiochos’ heir would be a child born by the Egyptian princess and not by his repudiated wife, Laodike. See further Seibert 1967, 80. 5 Justin 26.3.3–6; Catul. 66. 25–8. The reference to this event in Catullus’ version of Callimachus’ poem does not survive in the Greek original. It must be conceded that the political situation in Cyrene throughout this period is difficult to track, and that any reconstruction is necessarily highly speculative; for the problems of the period
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A key to Berenike’s lock? see Laronde 1987, 380–1. Whatever the reality of the situation in Cyrene, the focus here is on the emergence of Berenike as a political contender in the post-Megas period. 6 Plu. Phil. 1.4; Polyb. 10.22.3. Two legislative reformers, Ekdelos and Demophanes, reportedly took over the direction of the country to preserve the ‘freedom of Cyrene’. 7 Occasional attempts have been made to argue away this problematic gap in time by placing the marriage at a date closer to 249 BC (see Criscuolo 2003) but there is almost no evidence for this. 8 Tarn 1913, 449–51. 9 Mahaffy 1895, 491. 10 The Egyptian use of the word ‘sister’ (snt) to denote several of a range of females with close family ties, including wife, still poses problems for determining the kinship, if any, between a Pharaoh and his wife and may well have misled the Ptolemies into believing that brother-sister marriage was a Pharaonic tradition. For an excellent overview of the royal practice, with full citations and bibliography see Ager 2005 and 2006. 11 Ogden 1999, 73–80. 12 White 1898, 254–5. She sees the expectation that the Egyptian heir will marry a sister as so compelling that a betrothal to Berenike would, in effect, avoid marking Euergetes as a favoured heir, and assigns changes in the formulae used for him in public documents to his fluctuating status with regard to this marriage and his possible succession. 13 See Carney, this volume. 14 Hazzard 2000, 115. 15 Justin, 27,1; Polyaenus 8.50. For the chronology of these events connected with the outbreak of the Third Syrian War see West 1985, Hauben 1990, Odgen 1999, 80–1, 127–32 and Hölbl 2001, 48. 16 Callimachus, fr.110 Pf., Hyginus, Astron, 2.24; Schol.Arat. 146. 17 Gutzwiller 1992, 361. See also Gelzer 1982, 13–30; Hauben 1983, 120; Köenen 1993, Selden 1998, Stephens 2003. 18 See Gutzwiller 1992 and Köenen 1993. 89–113. 19 See Davis and Kraay 1973, pl. 25, 28. 20 See Bianchi 1988, 172–4; Walker and Higgs 2001, 46, 49; Ashton 2003, 82. 21 See Carney, this volume. 22 FGrH 160; trans. Austin 1981, 364. 23 Justin 27.1, Polyaenus 8.50. 24 See Ogden 1999, 129–31. 25 Bevan 1902, 201–2 26 See Köenen 1993, 52–3. For the dating of the cult, see Bingen 2007, 38–9, n. 21. 27 On Euergetes sharing honours with Berenike, see Hazzard 2000, 112–13. 28 See especially Thompson 1973. 29 Gutzwiller 1992, 368. Significant, also, is Gutzwiller’s emphasis on the poem’s representation of a female perspective and that, although it serves dynastic purposes, the depiction ‘is predicated upon the queen’s own interests and experiences as a woman’ (384). 30 The bibliography on the use of both Isis and Aphrodite by Hellenistic queens, and Arsinoe II in particular is extensive, but see especially Witt 1971, Thompson 1973, Heyob 1975, Pomeroy 1984, 28–40, Carney 1991, 219–24 Gutzwiller, 1992.
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Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones and Stephanie Winder 31
See Hazzard 2000, 115. Selden 1998, 326–51. 33 For a general discussion of the nature of the goddess, see Lesko 1999, 81–129. For more specific aspects of the goddess, see Allam 1963, Pinch 1993, Roberts 1995. For a detailed discussion of the multiple manifestations of Egyptian gods, see especially Hornung 1982. 34 On these titles and others, see Troy 1986, 53–72. 35 Selden 1998 passim. Selden’s excellent collection of Egyptian texts has much relevance for the Ptolemies’ crosscultural ideological programme. They are eloquent testimony to the wide range of Egyptian cultural narratives upon which Callimachus and the Ptolemies drew. 36 See Selden 1998, 387. 37 Roberts 1995, 16. 38 On the sexual aspect of Hathor see Antelme and Rossini 1999. 39 Troy 1986, 53–72, 126–30; Robins 1993, 23–5. For the goddess’s crowns and headgear, and their relationship to the human queen, see Green 1992. 40 Cairo CG 22186 41 Bernard 1969, I 116. 42 Bianchi 1989, 52. 43 For a thorough examination of the iconography and religious interpretation of the Edfu reliefs, see Baum 2007. 44 Cairo MS 204 (unpublished). 45 For Hathor’s connection to Byblos, see Lesko 1999, 97–9. 46 For a full discussion of this important festival and bibliography, see Watterson 1998. 47 On the ritual see Baum 2007, with figs. 61–9. 48 For hair and wigs in Egyptian culture, see especially Fletcher 1994, Fletcher 1995, Robins 1999, Fletcher 2005. 49 See Selden 1998, 346, Posener 1986, 111–17. 50 See Tale of the Two Brothers, P. D’Orbiney = P. Brit.Mus.10183; Lichtheim 1976, 205. See further Hollis 2008, 94–7. 51 Selden 1998, 346–7. 52 Bianchi 1988, 172–4; Walker and Higgs 2001, 46, 49. 53 Llewellyn-Jones 2003, 121–54. 54 Macurdy 1932, 231 and Hazzard 2000, 110–15. 55 From Thebes (TT.130). See Roberts 1995, 9 and Scheil 1894, 549. 32
Bibliography Ager, S. 2005 ‘Familiarity breeds: incest and the Ptolemaic dynasty’, JHS 125, 1–34. 2006 ‘The power of excess: royal incest and the Ptolemaic dynasty’, Anthropologica: the Journal of the Canadian Anthropology Society 48, 165–86. Allam, S. 1963 Beiträge zum Hathorkultbis zum Ende des Mittlern Reich, Berlin. Antelme, R. S. and Rossini, S. 1999 Sacred Sexuality in Ancient Egypt, Rochester.
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A key to Berenike’s lock? Ashton, S-A. 2003 The Last Queens of Egypt, Harlow. Austin, M. 1981 The Hellenistic World from Alexander to the Roman Conquest, Cambridge. Baum, N. 2007 Le Temple d’Edfou. A la découverte du Grand Siège de Rê-Harakhty, Paris. Bernard, A. 1969 Les inscriptions grecques de Philae, 2 vols, Paris. Bevan, E. R. 1902 The House of Seleucus, 2 vols, London. 1927 The House of Ptolemy. A History of Egypt under the Ptolemaic Dynasty, London. Bianchi, R. S. 1988 Cleopatra’s Egypt. The age of the Ptolemies, Brooklyn. Bingen J. 2007 Hellenistic Egypt: Monarchy, society, economy, culture, Berkeley. Carney, E. D. 1991 ‘What’s in a name? The emergence of a title for royal women in the Hellenistic period’, in S. B. Pomeroy (ed.) Women’s History and Ancient History, Chapel Hill, 154–72. 1992 ‘The politics of polygyny’, Historia 41, 169–89. 2000 Women and monarchy in Macedonia, Norman. Criscuolo, L. 2003 ‘Agoni e politica alia corte di Alessandria. Riflessioni su alcuni epigrammi di Posidippo’, Chiron 33, 311–33. Davis, N. and Kraay, C. M. 1973 The Hellenistic Kingdoms. Portrait coins and history, London. Fletcher, J. 1994 ‘A tale of wigs, hair and lice’, Egyptian Archaeology 5, 31–3. 1995 Ancient Egyptian hair: A study in style, form and function, unpublished PhD thesis, Manchester University. 2005 ‘The decorated body in ancient Egypt: Hairstyles, cosmetics and tattoos’, in L. Cleland, M. Harlow and L. Llewellyn-Jones (eds) The Clothed Body in the Ancient World, Oxford, 3–13. Gelzer, T. 1982 ‘Kallimachos und das Zeremoniell des Ptolemaischen Konigshauses’, in J. Stagl (ed.) Aspekte der Kultursoziologie. Aufsatze M. Rassem, Berlin, 13–30. Green, L. 1992 ‘Queen as goddess. The religious role of royal women in the late Eighteenth Dynasty’, in Amarna Letters. Essays on ancient Egypt, vol.2., 28–41. Gutzwiller, K. 1992 ‘Callimachus’ Lock of Berenice: fantasy, romance, and propaganda’, AJP 113, 359–85. Hauben, H. 1983 ‘Arsinoe II et la politique extérieure de l’Egypte’, in E. Van’t Dack et al. (eds) Egypt and the Hellenistic World, Louvain, 99–127. 1990 ‘L’expédition de Ptolemée III en Orient et la sédition domestique de 235 av. J.-C.’, APF 36, 29–37.
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Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones and Stephanie Winder Hazzard, R. A. 2000 Imagination of a Monarchy. Studies in Ptolemaic propaganda, Toronto. Heyob, S. K. 1975 The Cult of Isis among Women in the Greco-Roman World, Leiden. Hölbl, G. 2000 A History of the Ptolemaic Empire, London. Hollis, S. T. 2008 The Ancient Egyptian Tale of Two Brothers, 2nd edn, Oakville. Hornung, H. 1982 Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt. The One and the Many, Ithaca. Köenen, L. 1993 ‘The Ptolemaic king as a religious figure’, in A. W. Bulloch et al. (eds) Images and Ideologies: Self-definition in the Hellenistic World, Berkeley, 25–115. Laronde, A. 1987 Cyrène et la Libye hellénistique, Paris Lesko, B. S. 1999 The Great Goddesses of Egypt, Norman Lichtheim, M. 1976 Ancient Egyptian Literature: Volume III. The Late Period, Berkeley Llewellyn-Jones, L. 2003 Aphrodite’s Tortoise: The veiled woman of ancient Greece, Swansea. Macurdy, G. H. 1932 Hellenistic Queens, Baltimore. Mahaffy, J. P. 1895 The Empire of the Ptolemies, New York. Marinone, N. 1984 Berenike, da Callimaco a Catullo, Bologna. Ogden, D. 1999 Polygamy, Prostitutes and Death. The Hellenistic dynasties, London and Swansea. Pinch, G. 1993 Votive Offerings to Hathor, Oxford. Pomeroy, S. B. 1984 Women in Hellenistic Egypt, Detroit. Posener, G. 1986 ‘La légende de la tresse d’Hathor’, in L. H. Lesko (ed.) Egyptological Studies in Honor of Richard A. Parker, Hanover, 11–17. Roberts. A. 1995 Hathor Rising, Trowbridge. Robins, G. 1993 Women in Ancient Egypt, London. 1999 ‘Hair and the construction of identity in ancient Egypt c. 1480–1350 BC’, Journal of the American Research Centre in Egypt 36, 55–69. Rowlandson, J. 1988 Women and Society in Greek and Roman Egypt. A sourcebook, Cambridge. Scheil, V. 1894 ‘Tombeaux thébains’, Mémoires de la Mission archéologique française du Caire 11, 541–656.
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A key to Berenike’s lock? Seibert, J. 1967 Historische Beiträge zu den dynastischen Verbindungen in hellenistischer Zeit, Historia Einzelschriften 10, Wiesbaden. Selden, D. 1998 ‘Alibis’, Classical Antiquity 17, 289–420. Sherwin-White S. and Kuhrt, A. 1993 From Samarkhand to Sardis: A New Approach to the Seleucid Empire, Berkeley. Stephens, S. 2003 Seeing Double: Intercultural poetics in Ptolemaic Alexandria, Berkeley. Tarn, W. W. 1913 Antigonas Gonatas, Oxford Thompson, D. B 1973 Ptolemaic Oinochoai and Portraits in Faience: Aspects of the ruler cult, Oxford. Troy, L. 1986 Patterns of Queenship in Ancient Egyptian Myth and History, Uppsala. Walker, S. and Higgs, P. (eds) 2001 Cleopatra of Egypt. From history to myth, London. Watterson, B. 1998 The House of Horus at Edfu: Ritual in an Egyptian Temple, Stroud. West, S. 1985 ‘Venus Observed? A note on Callimachus, Fr. 10’, CQ 35, 61–6. White, R. E. 1898 ‘Women in Ptolemaic Egypt’, JHS 18, 238–66. Witt, R. E. 1971 Isis in the Graeco-Roman World, London
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PART V
CHANGING AESTHETICS
13 AGAINST ΛΕΠΤΟΤΗΣ : RETHINKING HELLENISTIC AESTHETICS James L. Porter 1. Object theory, or, thinking in things: aesthetics and materialism In this chapter, I will be presenting a small part of a larger project on the origins and evolution of ancient aesthetic inquiry.1 The accent throughout the first two parts of this larger project falls on sensualism and materialism, as opposed to the formalism and idealism that were enshrined by Plato and Aristotle and through whose lens most subsequent views of ancient art and aesthetics have typically been filtered, including our own today. Because all these -isms are somewhat unwieldy terms, and because the project takes in as much ground as it does, a brief word of explanation is probably in order. Contemporary perspectives on ancient art and aesthetics are dominated by those that attained canonical status in the fourth century BCE with Plato and Aristotle and then were enshrined in subsequent millennia, first at Alexandria and later during the Italian Renaissance. These perspectives – not simply on aesthetics, but also governing the very way the disciplines of classics are conceived and carried out – are dominated, in other words, by two mutually reinforcing views: formalism, which may provisionally be defined as any attention to the purity or ideality of form, structure, or design (principles which are thought to organize matter or material); and a kind of Platonism, which for present purposes may be defined as a repudiation of the senses. A closer examination of the history of aesthetic thought and inquiry from its first traces down to the postclassical era would reveal that Plato and Aristotle essentially hijacked the critical tradition,
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James L. Porter which was multi-stranded and far more attentive to the material dimensions of art and art’s experiences than has previously been acknowledged. One aim of my general approach, then, is corrective. ‘Aesthetics’ as a term and in its root meanings points us to the sensuous experience of art. The advantage of adopting a sensualist and non-formalist approach is that it can help us see how the various realms of ancient art were unified through the commonalities of experience (and not only vocabularies) which those arts can be shown to have shared.There will be more to say about such commonalities below. So much for the headier concepts. My particular aim in the present chapter is to begin rethinking the Hellenistic world of aesthetics, in part by aligning it with the root meaning of the term aisthe-sis (sensation, perception, feeling) and in part by putting some pressure on what has been taken to be the period’s hallmark concept, at least in poetry and poetics: leptote-s – provisionally, ‘refinement’. Hellenistic poetry, I wish to suggest, is frequently object-oriented, even object-obsessed: it is drawn to things in the material world, even if at times those things exist only, or ambiguously, in the mind’s eye. Aesthetic materialism is a natural consequence of such a focus. Given that this is so, if the Hellenistic poets sought to declare their generational difference from their classical predecessors, a question to ask is whether they did so by asserting a new kind of literary aesthetics, one we might call materialist (though of a particular cast), taking our cue from such objectoriented poetry as we find in Posidippus, but also in Callimachus and elsewhere, notably in their neoteric Roman offspring. I believe they did. But if this is right, then the presumed centrality of leptote-s to Hellenistic aesthetics will have to have to undergo some closer scrutiny. Accordingly, towards the end of this chapter I will attempt a brief but more general recharacterization of Hellenistic literary aesthetics in a way that takes advantage of this first redescription, only now in a slightly more heterodox manner, by moving away from the exclusive aesthetics of leptotes, or the conjunction of the refined with the poetics of the detail and the small-scale, which is the usual way of classifying this material – though I have to confess that the logic of leptote-s is becoming less and less obvious to me the more I ponder it.2 Consequently, my approach will mark a revision in the current critical ideology, which unthinkingly, even cheerfully, labels Hellenistic poetry miniaturist, pointillist, and precious, with very few exceptions (Gerhard Lohse and Gregory Hutchinson stand out as the contrarians). But a further bit of background will first be needed in order to establish the tradition in which the Hellenistic aesthetic, revised as I wish to see it, deserves to be framed. One of the more intriguing crossovers among the realms of art in
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antiquity takes place between the language of poetry and the language of physical objects, large and small alike. Two kinds of issue come into view here: questions about the thing-like quality of language (its capacity to mimic material objects, to take on material features, or simply to have a share in appearances); and questions about size and scale (bigness, as in monuments, and smallness, as in epigrams, cups, gems, and the like). Consider the case of poetry and monumental architecture. These enjoy a close, but still not closely enough examined, relationship in ancient thought. Poets and literary critics frequently describe literary works as a kind of monument, and architects repay the complement by describing, whether through words or stone, what is in essence a kind of visual poetry. We might call this the la parole et le marbre theme, following Jesper Svenbro’s seminal and still unsurpassed work of the same title, though his book has spawned a small industry of scholarship on the theme, one sub-genre of which is known as ecphrastic ‘speaking objects’, or oggetti parlanti.3 These connections highlight what Svenbro calls ‘the “materiality” of the poetic word’. One way of putting this epigraphic tradition is to say that it conceived of texts as objects inscribed with writing rather than as writing inscribed on objects. Another way of characterizing this tradition is to say that it was interested in how monuments sound. The most obvious extension of the thematics of song and stone after the archaic and classical periods in Greek literature is to be found in the Hellenistic epigram, which consciously harks back to the earlier epigraphic tradition and aestheticizes it anew. As Peter Bing has observed about this genre, ‘the boundaries between stone and scroll are quite permeable, and migration across them is easy’, so much so that the distinction between inscription and quasi-inscription (or pseudo-inscription), that is, between real and fictional occasion, is impossible to determine.4 Of course, that boundary was already breached as early as the quasi-inscriptions that are found in Homer in statements of the form, ‘Somebody will say someday, “So-and-so once fought here and died”,’ sometimes using the overt formulas of τόδε σῆµα (‘this grave marker’), and sometimes not.5 But the Hellenistic epigrams are a genre unto themselves, free-floating, and very like actual burial inscriptions. Real or not, the premise of the literary epigram is one of a physicality and immediacy that is being revived whenever the poem is being re-experienced by a reader. In presenting themselves as inscriptions on monuments, Hellenistic literary epigrams do not merely evoke materiality: they embody it – inscribe it – in their very substance. Hellenistic poets were fond of exploiting these ambiguities. In doing so, they were playing with the materialities of poetry.
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James L. Porter But this was not the only way in which materiality flourished in Hellenistic poetics, and if anything the recrudescence of the inscriptional epigram is but a symptom of a larger tendency. In order to bring out this larger trend and the object-oriented character of Hellenistic aesthetics, its intense capacity to ‘think through things’, I want to turn now to another, broader way in which materiality made itself felt in Hellenistic poetry, a fact that, happily, is slowly dawning on contemporary scholarship – finally, after a hiatus of several millennia, ever since the Hellenistic era itself. For, coming into fashion among Hellenistic literary critics of today is – willynilly – an aesthetics of things or objects, what we might call a newfound aesthetic materialism, which I believe is peculiarly well suited to Hellenistic poetic production. There are good and obvious reasons for this refocusing of attention, the most recent being the discovery and subsequent publication in 2001 of the poetry book attributed with reasonable certainty to Posidippus of Pella, the Macedonian epigrammatist and contemporary of Callimachus. It is astonishing to see the terms aesthetics, objects, and occasionally materiality and material, cropping up with such frequency in Kathryn Gutzwiller’s recent collection on Posidippus.6 Within that collection, isolated pages and even whole chapters deal with inter-arts questions quite intensely across a wide range of art forms, from literature to sculpture to gem collections. And then there is the 2003 article by G. O. Hutchinson, inspired by the same ancient Posidippan collection, entitled, ‘The Catullan corpus, Greek epigram, and the poetry of objects,’ in addition to other items in a slowly growing bibliography.7 This new turn bodes well for interdisciplinary studies in Hellenistic studies, which continue to remain underexploited, inexplicably for a field so rich in potential, given the then flourishing fields of literature, philosophy, art, urban design, religion, and sciences of the age – all the more so since these fields were still in ways pre-disciplinary, or emergently disciplinary: they fruitfully intersected with one another. Aesthetics would surely be one way of producing something like a unified field theory for the Hellenistic era. But, as I said, my interest here is in detailing a particular tendency of Hellenistic aesthetics: its materialist urges. The table of contents of Posidippus’ work tells us almost all we need to know about the object-oriented nature of the criticism it has elicited: I. Stones(?) (λιθι]κά); II. Omens; III. Dedications (ἀναθεµατικά); IV. [Epitaphs (ἐπιτύµβια)]; V. The Making of Statues (ἀνδριαντοποιικά); VI. Equestrian Poems; VII. Shipwrecks; VIII. Cures; IX. Turns (Characters?).8 Prior to this discovery it would have been hard to imagine an entire set of poems devoted to kinds of stones, even if treatises on stones and minerals are known to have existed at least since Theophrastus’ On Stones.9 One
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might have thought one would have to wait until the middle of the twentieth century before one could hit upon a literary fascination with such simple objects, as in Francis Ponge’s collection Le parti pris des choses (Siding with Things [1941]), which has its fair share of sensuous accounts of stones and pebbles. Consider one poem from that collection, ‘The Pebble’, which begins: It isn’t easy to define a pebble. If you’re satisfied with a simple description you can start out by saying that it’s a form or state of stone halfway between rocks and gravel. But this already implies a concept of stone that must be validated. So don’t blame me for going back even further than the flood.10
Of course, Ponge’s prose-poem is hardly concerned with the mere simplicity of pebbles, and neither is Posidippus’ Lithika, an example of which is AB 15 (20 G-P):11 It was not a river resounding on its banks, but the head of a bearded snake that once held this gem, thickly streaked with white. And the chariot on it was engraved by the sharp eye of Lynceus, like the mark on a nail: the chariot is seen incised but on the surface you could not notice any protrusions. And that’s why the work causes such a great marvel: how did the pupils of the engraver’s eyes not suffer as he gazed so intently.12
ιοὐ ποταµ ὸς κελάδων ἐπὶ χείλεσιν, ἀλλὰ δράκοντος εἶχέ ποτ’ εὐπώγων τόνδε λίθον κεφαλὴ πυκνὰ φαληριόωντα· τὸ δὲ γλυφὲν ἅρµα κατ’ αὐτ ο ῦ τοῦθ’ ὑπὸ Λυγκείου βλέµµατος ἐγλύφετο ψεύδεϊ χειρὸς ὅµοιον· ἀποπλασθὲν γὰρ ὁρᾶται ἅρµα, κατὰ πλάτεος δ’ οὐκ ἂν ἴδοις προβόλους· ἧι καὶ θαῦµα πέλει µόχθου µέγα, πῶς ὁ λιθουργὸς τὰς ἀτενιζούσας οὐκ ἐµόγησε κόρας.
5
We will revisit this poem later on. For now, I simply want to get back to my original point about the critical turns I mentioned, the turns to both aesthetics and a newfound materialism. Thinking in things, the rediscovery of matter and experience, and the aesthetic turn, are all long overdue within classical studies, and I believe they can help to illuminate neglected aspects of ancient ways of thinking about art and poetry. Of course, if we go this route we will have to ignore the usual suspects, such as Plato and Aristotle, who are decidedly formalist and not materialist in their leanings, and who have colored (if not altogether distorted) all subsequent perspectives on the ancient attainments. But then, what could be more characteristically Hellenistic than this inversion of the classical canon?
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James L. Porter My goals in this chapter are two. First, I hope to take a few tentative steps towards synthesizing a view of Hellenistic materialism in art and aesthetics, focusing for the most part on poetry and poetics. Towards the end of this chapter, I will attempt a brief but more general recharacterization of Hellenistic literary aesthetics by moving away from the exclusive aesthetics of leptote-s. Such a move will mark a revision of the current ideology, which almost unthinkingly labels Hellenistic poetry miniaturist, pointillist, and precious. Just when this tendency first came into currency would be a problem worth investigating. But we can be certain of one thing: it is of relatively recent date. One possibility points to 1960 and 1964, the dates of Walter Wimmel’s Kallimachos in Rom and of Wendell Clausen’s essay, ‘Callimachus and Latin poetry,’ respectively.13 Another is the insertion of the phrase αἱ κατὰ λεπτόν into the reading of the papyrus preserving Callimachus’ prologue to the Aitia (fr. 1.11 Pfeiffer), which appeared to make leptote-s the explicit programmatic core of Callimachus’ great self-reflexive work from his ripest years. The reading was shockingly invalidated by Bastianini in 1996, as it will be again in Lehnus’ forthcoming edition of Callimachus, which reads α. ἱ...αλ(αι) [ (Lehnus speculates that the line may in fact have contrasted two kinds of largeness, i.e., reading αἱ µεγάλαι).14 The source of the error was a creative supplement by Rostagni from 1928. Rostagni never laid eyes on the papyrus, but he found the conjecture aesthetically attractive, and his solution won immediate acceptance.15 Wilamowitz and his pupils, especially Reitzenstein and later Pfeiffer, and Couat in France, doubtless paved the way, very likely on the coat-tails of eighteenth-century views (especially those of C. G. Heyne), which in turn were filtering later Roman but not necessarily Hellenistic views about the Callimachean aesthetic.16 As it turns out, a more reliable guide to Hellenistic aesthetics may be found in that period’s greatest historian, J. G. Droysen, who coined the term Hellenismus in connection with the Alexandrian empire in all its vastness. Unfortunately, Droysen is not remembered for the implicit aesthetics of his history, though he ought to be, even if he did not have much to offer in the way of explicit commentary on the aesthetic production of the age. We will want to come back to him below. My point of departure will instead be another branch of Hellenistic aesthetic materialism, namely the best attested but also the most radical exponents of Hellenistic literary criticism, the euphonist critics known somewhat mysteriously from Philodemus as οἱ ὀνοµαζόµενοι κριτικοί, ‘those who are called “critics”.’ 17 I say mysteriously, because that is how they are introduced at one point, and there is a question whether they called themselves kritikoi or not (that is, whether Philodemus dubbed them with
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this label as a convenience) – and if so, why they did so, and in any case what the etiquette means. But also, there is the very strange fact that we know about them in this capacity only from Philodemus. Why this should be so is unclear. Euphonism – the exclusive attention to the sound patterns of texts at the expense of their meaning – lives on in critics of the Roman era (Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Longinus both know this approach, as do Cicero, Quintilian, Plutarch, and others), and it is also a staple of much mainstream criticism after Aristotle.18 What is more, the theory and practice of euphonism have a heritage that reaches back into the earlier musical tradition, then into the classical era with its strong oral component and (what is less well documented) its own tradition of poetic sunthesis, and finally back to Pindar and Lasos.19 This long tradition, stretching across prose and poetic authors and grouped around the imagery of monuments, whether sculptural or architectural (ancient critics think of poems or paragraphs as sound sculptures or as exhibiting a verbal architecture), is a tradition that exploits the ambiguities of ‘la parole et le marbre,’ or what may also be referred to as ‘sublime monuments’. I might add that monuments need not be whole or complete in order to evoke sublimity. And though I know of no one who has noted this before, we can be quite certain that the Hellenistic euphonists were aware of this continuity, which I believe they advertised through the metaphors, analogies, and images in which the theory is couched and through which significant aspects of that theory are conveyed. (One of the later preserved mentions, and utilizations, of Lasos in fact comes from a Philodemean context).20 Let me venture a first thesis, which I won’t argue for now: in this tradition of criticism, euphony stands not for the proposition that all poetry is reducible to the way it sounds, as it is commonly imagined to do, but rather for the fact that poetry cannot be grasped unless it is appreciated as it is sensed and experienced, which is to say, as a felt phenomenon. ‘Euphony’ – εὐφωνία – stands for a kind of sensualism in art. In a way, the euphonists merely crystallize a tendency of all Greek literature, its aesthetic capacities as heard, whenever it is spoken or read aloud, which is almost always was. And though the language of the euphonists is philosophically tinged, it refuses to slot into ready-made schools and labels, despite the widespread myth that they were Stoics.21 2. Sound sculpture A restored text from Philodemus’ On Poems (square brackets indicating restorations) will serve as a good entrée to the later euphonists’ theory, as it happens to act like a billboard for their views:
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James L. Porter The composition [alone, being ἰδίαν,] is the object of elaboration; and it stands as [engraved] in [stone] (ὡς | ἐν. [στήλ]ηι µέ[ν]ει) for all the kritikoi that ‘euphony, which appears on the surface [of the composition] (τὴν µὲν | [ἐπιφαι]ν.οµένην [ε]ὐφωνί|αν), is to be considered idion (i.e. specific to a poem or its audition), while the meanings and phrases (sc., the diction) must be considered ‘external’ (ἐκτός, i.e. to the poetic art) and common (or: universal: κοινά)’; but this notion is obviously naïve, as my previous comments show.22
The language is indeed idiosyncratic. Let’s try to translate it back into plain English. What Philodemus is saying, or rather restating, is nothing less than the significant core of the euphonist poetic program. The value of poetry for these critics lies not in what poetry means but in the way it sounds – its ‘musicality’: they are euphonists, but with a vengeance. Poems on this way of thinking are aggregates of sound – whence their favored term, sunthesis, which has to be taken literally: it stands for a sunthesis of the stoicheia, the elements or letter-sounds that make up, like building blocks, the sullabai (syllables) of the lexeis or words (or, at times, rhythmical ‘times’ or ‘durations’, chronoi). Poems so conceived are indeed no more than soundeffects arising (in their own striking terms) ‘epiphenomenally’ or ‘on the surface’ of poetic compositions,23 thanks to the technical artistry (the technê or exergasia) of the poet, while the sounds are themselves ephemeral and, logically, specific to each audition (or reading): that is what is meant by being idion. In this way, these critics, unconventional by any standard, arrive at a theory about what might be called the absolutism of the poetic particular. A poem’s specificity, which is elusively of the moment and punctual, is grounded in its material coordinates: this sound here. Now, at stake in the present passage is nothing less than the value of the idion, which displaces the semantic aspects of poems (meaning, moral effects, but also a poem’s generic classification): these are sacrificed to the poem’s material surfaces and to the way these appear to an auditor (whence ἐπιφαινοµένη), which is to say, to their acoustic appearance (their sound). The sole preoccupation of poets, according to these euphonist critics, lies, accordingly, in what is idion to their poetic productions, not in what is common to all other poems or what can be found ‘outside’ their art – whence the phrase we find elsewhere in their teachings, ἔξω τῆς τέχνης.24 This is their aesthetic matter – their kath’ hauto, as they put it, in a conscious inversion of Aristotle, who located the poetic essence in the poetic form: the euphonists locate poetic essence in matter (this is their καθ’ αὑτό) and in sensation and appearance (αἴσθησις).25 Poetic idia, on this materialist and phenomenalist view, are deeply a part of the poetic ‘matter,’ the true ὕλη:26
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they are phenomena peculiar to their embedded context in a poem analyzed as a collection of sounds. In the sample from Posidippus quoted above, these would include a range of effects, from word-order to the role of pitches and accents to rhythms and meters, none of which would occur ‘naturally’ in Greek prose, nor would they occur identically – that is, as a koinon – in any other poem either (except through quotation or plagiarism). The various meanings that the sounds can be said to express (or can be said to reduce to) could, however, be found in any number of settings, from mineralogical handbooks to art catalogues to the simple gushing of a naïve onlooker, as the last verse implies: ‘How did its sculptor not blur his eyesight on the job!’ 27 Hence, meaning is not idion: it is not rooted in the particular contingencies of this matter here at this moment of audition. It is common (koinon). In an immediately preceding column from Philodemus, the idion is claimed to reside not in the production of likenesses (for these are common, koinon, just by virtue of being ‘alike’, e.g., to painters and sculptors), but rather in the actual carving in metal and stone, which is specific to an instance of a given art (here, plastic art).28 The opponent committed a fallacy, Philodemus claims: because, as I said, he adduced crafts that are different but have their goal in common. For just as it is not the peculiar function (idion)29 of the ring engraver to make a likeness – for this is common to the sculptor and painter – but [to make a likeness] in iron and gem stones through engraving (διὰ τῆς ἐγ[γ]λυφῆς), though the good does not lie in this [sc., in the engraving qua engraving] but in making a similarity, which is common to all, in like manner it is claimed that the poet [wants] his peculiar function (idion) [to lie] in the composition (sunthesis) [sc., of the sounds],30 but hunts out the good in the common sphere, in meaning and diction – a good which this says does simply no [moral] benefit or harm at all, just as he concluded from his examples, but not the opposite; therefore, poets ( he claims) derive what is common from others [and make it their own (idion) their by adding their own suntheseis].31
The analogies in this text make the same point as in its sequel, only now in a graphic way: if you fashion an image of a chariot in a gemstone and then reproduce the same image in bronze or paint, you will have produced something in common, a koinon; but what you will have lost in the translation is precisely the idion, the specific effect of the materiality of the likeness in this or that medium.32 For the same reason, the most obvious thing that gets lost in translation from one language to another is the sound of the original. The euphonists are making just this point. Only, they are doing so in an especially emphatic way. For the truly radical thrust of their
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James L. Porter program is encapsulated in another text of Philodemus: ‘Good poets excel and they alone endure (διαµένουσιν) on no other account than the sounds’, by which is meant ‘the sounds isolated in themselves’ (οἱ ἦχοι αὐτοί) apart from their meanings, ‘the sound that appears on the surface of the composition’ (ἡ ἐπιφαινοµένη φωνὴ ἡ τῇ συνθέσει).33 This axiom, as it is usually understood, is taken to be a horrific inversion of all the hallowed values of classical poetics, at least as we grasp these today. I’ve recently tried to show how the euphonist critics have to be understood as in fact sustaining the ideology of classicism by appealing to the irrational mainsprings of the habitus that underlie it, which is to say, the sources of ‘feeling classical.’ 34 Nevertheless, there is something truly odd about the claim that poets excel and endure on account of their sounds alone, and this will turn out to provide a further key to understanding the euphonists’ rationale. It will also give us a way of linking them up to their Hellenistic contemporaries, in addition to connecting them to the lyric and epigrammatic traditions of the archaic and early classical periods. Let us begin by observing the stark paradox that underlies the euphonist program, though it is one that is all too easily overlooked. The source of poetic pleasure and of poetic excellence, on the euphonist theory, is at the same time of a punctual nature: individual specimens of euphonic sound, which offer the greatest evidence of sound’s capture (‘this sound here’), are also the most fleeting and evanescent imaginable – they vanish as soon as they are uttered. And yet, the euphonist critics are staking poetic endurance on this very same feature: poets διαµένουσιν (endure) thanks to no other cause than their epiphanic presence in the ear. The Thucydidean canon of a κτῆµα ἐς αἰεί – of what should be ‘a possession [composed] for all time, rather than a declamation composed (ξύγκειται) for the moment of hearing (ἐς τὸ παραχρῆµα ἀκούειν)’ 35 – is here being turned on its head, as are all (to us) customary literary values, until we pause to realize how central to the transmission and reception of ancient poetry the act of audition was. The euphonists are doubtless representing this centrality and giving it an aesthetic purchase, but not without pointing out the paradoxes that are, as it were, written into the very substance of that negotiated process. For one thing, the act of audition, to remain vital, has to be renewed at every moment, and with the fullest possible force. Secondly, a poem’s ticket of validity expires as soon as its performance is over. Sound decays, and then vanishes, only to leave an immaterial trace in the memory and the mind. Canonicity is a delicate, fragile thing; it lasts no longer than a breath, and yet it lasts, optimally, forever. How can poems, read aloud, achieve this effect of eternality?
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The verb διαµένουσιν above has an echo in the passage quoted earlier, which I doubt is accidental: ‘and it stands as [engraved] in [stone] (ὡς ἐν. [στήλ]ηι µέ[ν]ε.ι) for all the kritikoi.’ The opinions of the euphonists stand as if written on stone (if the conjecture is right). Did they initiate, or at least suggest, the metaphor themselves? Even if they did not, and Philodemus was merely mocking them with the image, there would still be more to say about their possible connection to the epigraphical tradition. A kind of verbal architecture is in play here on either possibility, whereby composition is felt to create sublime (verbal) monuments. Thus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus can describe how builders pay ‘close attention to the following three questions’: what materials (ὑλήν) will be put together (συντίθησι);36 ‘next how each of the materials should be fitted ’ (πῶς τῶν ἁρµοζοµένων ἕκαστον ἑδράσαι), whether ‘stones, timber, tiling, or all the rest ’; ‘and thirdly, if anything is seated badly (εἴ τι δύσεδρόν ἐστιν), how that very piece can be pared down and trimmed and made to fit well (εὔεδρον ποιῆσαι).’ And so ‘those who are going to put the parts of speech together effectively (εὖ συνθήσειν τὰ τοῦ λόγου µόρια) should proceed in a similar way.’ 37 The author of On Style, probably Hellenistic in date,38 likewise develops the same analogies: The members (τὰ κῶλα) in a periodic style may, in fact, be compared to the stones (τοῖς λίθοις) which support (ἀντερείδουσι) and hold together (συνέχουσι) a vaulted roof (τὰς περιφερεῖς στέγας). The members of the disconnected style resemble stones which are simply flung carelessly together (διερριµµένοις λίθοις) and not built into a structure (οὐ συγκειµένοις). Consequently the older style of writing has something of the sharp, clean lines (περιεξεσµένον ἔχει τι καὶ εὐσταλές) of early statues (τὰ ἀρχαῖα ἀγάλµατα), where the skill was thought to lie in their succinctness and severe simplicity. The style of later writers is like the sculpture (τοῖς ἔργοις) of Pheidias, since it already exhibits in some degree the union of elevation and finish (ἔχουσά τι καὶ µεγαλεῖον καὶ ἀκριβές ἅµα).39
And finally, the radical euphonists from the Hellenistic era contribute to this tradition in their own way, as a passage from the second book of Philodemus’ On Poems illustrates (the view reported is that of a certain Pausimachos, who is otherwise unknown): For just as a kind of glue (κόλλα τις) or a bolt (γόµφος.) or some such thing is used for joining wooden things (π[ρὸ]ς. τὴν τῶν ξυλίν[ω]ν σύν[θ]εσιν), so is the soundless element of language [viz., the consonant or mute, τὸ ἄφωνον], when it is aptly employed, used for binding the diction (πρὸς τὴν τῆς λεξέως σύµπηξιν) [...] Indeed, just as in solid bodies the compact (τὸ εὐπαγές) comes about when the whole body (τ.ὸ. ὅλον σῶµα) has all its parts arranged well, viz., when they are in agreement with the lengths and with the massive constituents (τοῖς ὄγκοις) and are symmetrical...40
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James L. Porter These two facets – material and sound – are closely connected, and they add more evidence of the kinds of connections between objects, stones, matter, and voice that we have been tracing so far. What is more, the tradition is an ancient one, reaching back at least to the archaic lyric poets. One such poet, possibly Simonides or Pindar, could write, ‘I sculpt a measure ([µέ]τρον δ.(ια)γλύφω)’.41 (A precise parallel is to be found later in Aristophanes Thesm. 986: τόρευε πᾶσαν ᾠδήν, ‘Drill [or ‘emboss’] all [parts] of your ode.’)42 And Pindar had famously boasted, ‘A gold foundation has been wrought for holy songs. | Come, let us now construct an elaborate | adornment that speaks words (κεκρότηται χρυσέα κρηπὶς ἱεραῖσιν ἀοιδαῖς· | εἶα τειχίζωµεν ἤδη ποικίλον | κόσµον αὐδάεντα λόγων)’.43 The final tag is an allusion to the tradition of oggetti parlanti, or speaking objects. As a rubric, it is not a bad way to account for the entire phenomenon of ecphrastic things, whether poems or stones, early and late.44 Euphony is what happens to language when it is reduced to an object that is then made to speak – or better yet, to sing. That the euphonists were attuned to the materialities of inscription is plain from their use of the engraver analogy, which serves their views well. It brings out the felt specificities of poetry. One has to imagine the phonic equivalent of a cut or scrape, unique to a given chiseled stone, and proper to its delectation as such. Such is the materialist aesthetic purveyed by the euphonist critics. Roland Barthes’ theory of the ‘grain of the voice’ is a contemporary version of the same sensibility.45 Recent thinking on sculptural aesthetics in the postclassical period suggests that this kind of attending to sensuous detail – to material, tactile contingency, including facture (a term that takes in quality of artistry, workmanship, finish, and surface attributes all at once; in Greek: ἀπεργασία) – was one of the distinctive features of the early ‘Hellenistic Baroque’, if not of the Hellenistic aesthetic as a whole.46 If so, then the euphonists are at the very least entitled to an equally ‘baroque’ theory of aesthetic contemplation. 3. Posidippus revisited Before moving on, we need to glance back briefly at Posidippus. The connection between Posidippus AB 15 and the Philodemean text about carving and gems has been noticed by Marco Fantuzzi, who is right to develop the observation by Elizabeth Asmis that the Philodemean text reflects ‘the practice of Hellenistic poets.’ 47 This is an important point (and one could adduce other epigrams, such as AB 5, which contains an even closer verbal echo: ἔγλυψε; the terms γλύφω and γλύµµα appear elsewhere in the same collection).48 Plainly, the euphonist critics were not working in a total vacuum. What both Fantuzzi and Asmis see here is a convergence
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around the aesthetics of the refined detail (leptote-s), of self-conscious reflection upon artistry that is focused intently on a small and indeed a minute scale. In Asmis’s words, ‘the poet is viewed primarily as someone who does fine, exquisite work, not as someone who presents grand, monumental subjects. [This is the poetry of the] “slender Muse”.’49 One might add another significant feature of gemstones: their uniquely individuated character: each is an idion.50 And though there is admittedly something miniaturist and pointillist about the euphonist theory of sound, I want to suggest that commonplaces of Hellenistic poetics and aesthetics like these get things only half right. But also, if we take this line, if the euphonists do supply us with a representative insight into Hellenistic literary aesthetics, then that aesthetics will have a very different look and feel from the way it is traditionally viewed. Consider the Lithika of Posidippus once again. My question is, to what extent do these epigrams reflect a poetics of the small-scale, of the λεπτός, and a rejection of the monumental, the epic, and the grand? I believe the problem with the usual view of Hellenistic aesthetics lies in its onesidedness, and my suggestion will be that all of what is asserted about this aesthetics is correct, but only half-so: the other half of the picture needs to be brought back into view to complete the picture. In the case of the Lithika, this could be shown by appealing to any number of factors, which I will have to run through quickly. Let’s start with v. 7 of the Posidippus poem we began from, the ‘great marvel’ (θαῦµα µέγα) caused by this little piece of workmanship on the stone, whatever kind of gemstone it may be (it is usually called a sandstone by commentators in English, but its properties more properly match those of a white moonstone, both here and in Pliny HN 37.134–5, draconitis sive dracontias).51 Plainly, the poem leaves us with an impression of magnitude, and not, or not only, of diminutiveness. Or rather, we should say that the stone object creates an impression of magnitude for all its smallness of scale. Aesthetically, it is the contrast of the two scales that is significant. Now consider the rest of the stones. They follow the same pattern. Individually small and precious objects (at least some of them), they simultaneously involve large-scale themes, while their dimensions swell as the poems progress (especially from AB 16 to the end of the book). They come from the far-flung corners or limits of the inhabited – and explicitly Ptolemaic – oikoumenê, and are as it were vomited forth from the bowels of the earth or from rugged geographies. They come from India (‘Indian Hydaspes’), Persia, Nabataea, Arabia (‘rolling yellow [rubble] from the Arabian [mountains]’).52 And they come from these exotic places with force and violence: ‘an Arabian stream rolls [a stone] along to the shore /
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James L. Porter of the sea, as it constantly tears it (αἰεὶ σπῶν) from the mountains, / a lump in vast quantities’; ‘do [not ] calculate] how many waves have [cast] out [this] great [rock] far from the raging sea ([µὴ] λόγισαι µεγάλην τ.[αύτη]ν. λᾶαν) ... Polyphemos could not have lifted it.’ 53 One stone is nearly propelled by ‘a gigantic hurricane,’ another ‘uprooted (ἀνερρίζωσεν) by Mysian Olympos.’ 54 Moreover, the stones sport immodest physical and aesthetic features to match their provenance. They are frequently described according to their bulk and mass (ὄγκος [‘bulk’] appears thrice, possibly four times; βῶλος [‘mass’] and πάχος [‘thickness’], once each) or with dimensional terms such as πλατύς [‘wide’] and [τρίσ]πιθαµον περίµετρον [‘three spans in circumference’]), or else through reference to their hollow inner surfaces (κύτος, γλύµµα). While the stones are occasionally colossal, many of their features are cosmic. ‘An engraved chariot is spread out to the length of a span... It defeats the rubies of India / when put to the test, with radiant beams of equal strength... And this too is a marvel (τέρας).’ 55 ‘A light spreads over the whole surface (ὀγκους), ...[a beguiling] marvel (θαῦµα), ...as it reaches for the beautiful sun.’ 56 ‘Bellerophon crashed into the...plain / while his colt went up into the deep-blue sky’, and so the stone that depicts the colt is said to be ‘aetherial’ (αἰθερίωι τῶιδε λίθωι).57 There is nothing leptos here. Quite the contrary. Indeed, as Kathryn Gutzwiller puts it well, ‘the result...is a thematizing of nothing less than the physical nature of the universe’ in all its parts.58 But when she goes on to claim that all this is executed in the name of ‘a new aesthetic of the small-scale and realistic’ in the end, I can no longer understand this judgment except as a reflex of contemporary criticism. Hellenistic poetry must be leptos – not only refined, but small and pretty, never grand and sublime.59 I disagree. One could say, for instance, that Posidippus is invoking ogkos (massiveness, tumescence, grandeur) as a foil to his own aesthetic of elegance and miniaturization.60 The obvious counter-argument would be to say that he is smuggling in the qualities of the magnificent and the grand on the back of the small and the diminutive in order to have his cake and eat it too. But this won’t do either. It’s not a matter of creating foils or smuggling things in. It may be that the frequent evocations of the largescale have the effect of bringing bigness to mind despite the apparent focus on the small, with the result that Hellenistic poetry nevertheless produces an effect of the big for all its apparent obsessive focus on the minute. But even this formulation misses what is distinctive about this play with scale that we have begun to notice. AB 15 is again our best guide: what Posidippus is after is not an exclusivity of effects, not this effect and then that one, which would be a way of adding or juxtaposing two different aesthetics in a series, nor is he seeking to collapse these effects into one in
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the end, namely that of the small. What he is seeking to produce is the astonishing, indeed paradoxical, contrast of the two combined into a single, organized aesthetic of contrastive opposites – the ‘great marvel’ (θαῦµα µέγα) caused by this little piece of workmanship on the snakestone. We are being asked to view them together. It is their combined effect that is the true source of astonishment and wonder in this poem and in his entire collection. And leptos in the sense of small, polished, and refined simply fails to capture this complex interplay.61 The poems are literally structured by contrastive opposites, whereby the large and the small coincide in the description of each single object, whether in the form of jewelry evoking heavenly bodies (a bracelet ‘shining like the moon,’ AB 4; a shell that ‘flashes as it reaches for the beautiful sun,’ AB 13) or else surface attributes that are shown to be playing with their own appearances or with their own depths, as in AB 11, which concerns a Persian shell: In its engraved cavity it has Agla[ia’s] shapeliness [resembling topaz]. The mass ( ὄγκος) [now] spreads [out to view by means] of the wax which keeps [the light] over the hollow engraving (γλύµµα). (AB 11; trans. C. Austin)
Ogkos, a key term in the Lithika, is an importantly ambivalent term: it denotes bulk, but bulk of any dimension. (Ancient atoms are called ogkoi.)62 Elsewhere, Austin astutely chooses to render ogkos with surface (not given in LSJ), and the rendering captures something that mass lacks: it picks out the perceptual or, more broadly, aesthetic dimension of Posidippus’ poems on stones. For the stones are surface screens on which aesthetic effects appear and disappear, fleetingly, and then reappear. This play of appearances is a play of material surfaces. It occurs on and within the massy outer and inner dimensions of the poet’s chosen objects, which is to say their ogkoi, which are both large and small, aesthetically speaking. The net effect of this interplay is one of thauma, or marvel, as AB 13 illustrates again: This stone is [deceptive] (κ.[ερδα]λ.έη): when it is anointed, [a light] spreads over the whole surface (ὅλους ὄγκους), [a beguiling] marvel (θαῦ[µ’ ἀπάτη]ς.). But when [the surface] (ὄ.[γκων]) is dry, all at once an [engraved] Persian [lion] flashes as it reaches for the beautiful sun. (AB 13; trans. C. Austin)
Viewed in this light, Posidippus’ genre of writing is a form of paradoxography, a genre that Callimachus either inaugurated or redefined.63 In fact, Posidippus is working somewhat within the genre of conventional
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James L. Porter paradoxography, though I want to expand the meaning of that term now and then apply it more generally to Hellenistic poetic production, insofar as one can generalize at all over the diverse output of this period. 4. Size matters: contrastive scales in Hellenistic poetry In order to grasp this expanded notion of paradoxography, we will first need to examine the logic of size and scale. The sense of wonder that little objects can generate comes about in different ways. A gemstone engraved with cosmic images is one. A miracle of technical precision is another. Here’s a third, which I’ll simply call scale of perspective. Small objects are calculated attention-grabbers: they demand to be viewed from up close. So we comply: we stoop down, hunch over, put on or remove our spectacles, as the case may warrant, and we gaze with our undivided attention, on cue. But as we do so, what happens? Something remarkable: as the background recedes and the object intrudes upon our field of vision, the object also grows in a way that is disproportionate to its actual size; it becomes magnified, it fills our visual field, and at the limit it assumes colossal proportions. What was once tiny is now gigantic, even grand. It is a sublime object. And now all of our aesthetic descriptors have to change accordingly. And they do. The euphonists were submerged in such aural details, to the point of inviting an intense spatialization and magnification of sound, as above, where Dionysius of Halicarnassus inspects sounds like a tourist strolling about a temple precinct amid columns of sound. But there is yet another aspect of the logic of the detail that we need to consider. Read even recent conventional accounts of the Hellenistic poets and you will hear such phrases as ‘vast knowledge’, ‘Ptolemaic interest in the wider Greek world’, ‘boundless curiosity’, ‘at the sublime moment’, ‘colossal’, ‘monstrous’, ‘completely wild’, ‘extravagant’, ‘work of grandeur and the grandiose’, and so on.64 I could go on, but I won’t, because there is a more interesting and still stronger reason why this last point about scale ought to be self-evident. It lies in the nature of scale itself. Any detail implies a selection. Any part implies a totality from which it was drawn: context looms in every background, tacitly, often glaringly. The miniature cannot be understood as small unless it stands in a contrast to something colossal. A poet who dwells in the small-scale invites us to entertain both ideas in our minds simultaneously, and, as we’ve begun to see, frequently invites us to confuse our points of orientation, hoping that we will forget whether the object before us stands at one end of the scale or the other. The Alexandrians, I am quite certain, recognized this fact, and they actually cultivated this logic of scale and its effects. Cultural dictates furnish added incentives. A poet writes epigrams – frequently to be displayed on
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monuments.65 Fine ware decorates gigantosymposia.66 Scholar-poets revel in details culled from across the face of the newly expanding and ever more exoticized oikoumenê, collaborating in the imperial project of collection, gaudy display, the procession of objects, and spectacle.67 They revel in details culled from their massive card catalogues ( pinakes), which serve the same imperious project at the level of knowledge: control over local detail, local knowledge, local traditions and antiquities, the minutiae of which all verify the reach of the knowing subject, thus participating in what Rebecca Flemming has called ‘empires of knowledge’ and Susan Stephens has called ‘geopoetics’.68 J. G. Droysen’s umbrella term for this, a century and a half ago, was Hellenismus. Droysen unabashedly associated Hellenism (which is to say, the Hellenistic era) with gigantism, one instance being Deinokrates’ colossal plan (Riesenplan) to fashion a statue of Alexander from Mt. Athos.69 Lesky takes this a step further and speaks of ‘the divergence of powerful contradictions’, ‘antinomies’, and ‘antipodes’ in his description of the ‘general characteristics’ of the age (which he called ‘megalomaniacal’).70 But let’s go on with our own account of the logic of contrastive scales. Lemmata, quotations used as a basis for textual commentary and the prime matter of the grammatikos, could be assimilated to the Hellenistic aesthetic of the detail, if they haven’t been already. But as their name implies, lemmata are mere extracts of a whole.71 And as anyone who has ploughed through Erbse’s Homeric scholia to the Iliad in five heavy volumes knows, in their collective totality scholia both represent and are a mountain of learning, as massive as anything transmitted from antiquity. Or consider hapax legomena. Typically taken as proof of learned and choice elegance on the part of the poets who deploy them, they are in fact proof of a monstrous display of knowledge: to recognize the solitary occurrence of a word one has to have first scanned an entire corpus. And the recognition, incidentally, is a game played by poets and readers alike. Could leptote-s be a collective and collusive ruse, a cover for a different sort of enterprise? If so, there is no further reason for us to be taken in too.72 In fact, I am coming to be convinced that the term leptote-s has no more singular meaning or internal coherence than (say) the avant-garde label ‘form’ had among the modern Russian Formalists, the formalists in art criticism (such as Clement Greenberg), or the New Critics, for whom form meant sensuous material: in all these cases, form is being asked to stand in for quite different, and often incompatible, things.73 A later parallel might be ‘cool’, as in cool jazz, which is likewise more associative than denotative (and could often be hot).74 Leptote-s, I suspect, played a similar, underdetermined, and contradictory function among the Hellenistic literary avant-garde.
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James L. Porter The Hellenistic aesthetic is not one of simple refinement and smallness of scale. It produces sharply contrastive effects. At issue here is a dynamic of extremes, not a choice between them. An excellent graphic equivalent, and a likely forerunner of the Hellenistic aesthetic, is the Herakles Epitrapezios by Lysippos, which is doubly apt, if it indeed existed in two versions. The first was a miniature statuette of the gigantic Herakles in a seated, feasting position, intended for Alexander the Great as a table ornament (Fig. 1), displaying the mythic hero as the ultimate consumer in miniature. The second, discovered only in 1960 at Alba Fucens, was a colossal temple dedication, possibly dwarfing even the imaginary Herakles figure himself (Fig. 2).75 The sculptor was playing with ambiguities of scale. The first version compressed the colossal hero into a diminutive scale, the second was its doublet – or was it the other way round? Epitrapezios in Greek puns on both possibilities (‘on’ or ‘at the table’). The ambiguities are delicious. As J. J. Pollitt puts it well, ‘Was Herakles, and by analogy a ruler who saw himself as Herakles, a small figure, in the sense that he began as a mere man, who did great things? Or was he a great figure who did trivial things? Does he belong in a temple or at a table?’ 76 A further irony, as we know from Statius (Silv. 4.6), is that the table on which the statuette was placed would have been laden with rich foods and exotic ornaments (laetis numen venerabile mensis, v. 60), itself being one such ornament ( gestamina mensae, 45).77 Statius must be alluding to Callimachus’ Aitia prologue: ‘The Telchines in their caves under Mount Ida could not have produced such a jeu d’esprit out of a tiny mass of metal’ (47–9; trans. K. Coleman; cf. Call. Aet. fr. 1.1: ...]ι µοι Τελχῖνες ἐπιτρύζουσιν ἀ οιδῇ).78 Just as Statius points to the contrastive scales at work in Vindex’s (and originally Alexander’s, or so Vindex would have us believe) statuette of the god ( parvusque videri sentirique ingens, ‘small in appearance and mighty in impression, ...though his measure stands miraculously within a foot’ [37–39; trans. Coleman]), so does Martial’s poem on the same figure (9.43.44) play on the same confusions of scale: ‘Lysippum [codd.: Λύσιππου edd. olim] lego, Phidiae putavi,’ ‘I read the name of Lysippus, but I thought it was the work of Phidias.’ 79 Look at the noble head of any of the best surviving miniatures, or even at the full length of any of the miniatures from the proper angle, and your eye, too, will be cheated into believing it is gazing upon a colossus.80 Richard Hunter points to a similar ambiguity about Callimachus: ‘Aristotle [in the Metaphysics] traces a progression from wondering enquiries about small matters to the ‘larger’ subjects of astronomy. To which category would Callimachus’ enquiry [in one of his Aitia] fall?’ 81 The same questions can be posed about the epigrams of Posidippus, who not by chance was a great connoisseur of Lysippan sculpture, as his newly discovered
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Fig. 1. Miniature bronze statuette of Herakles, seated against a rock with a wine cup in one hand and his characteristic club in the other. Found near Pompeii. Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli. Inv. 2828. H: 0.75 m. Photo courtesy of the Soprintendenza speziali per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Pompei.
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Fig. 2. Colossal marble statue of Herakles, seated and holding a wine cup and his club. Found at Alba Fucens. Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Chieti. Inv. 6029. H: 2.40 m. Photo courtesy of the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell’ Abruzzo – Chieti.
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poetry book amply confirms.82 And the very same questions can be shown to apply to the dynamics of the Hellenistic verse form. Tremendous grandeur was felt at the lowest levels of the sentence, the clause, the individual metron and the individual stoicheion of sound, which could produce sublime rapture in the mind of a euphonist critic, and, presumably, a poet as well. The grandeur is an effect of magnification. It occurs whenever one inspects the material of poetry from up close and that material suddenly fills, and overfills, one’s field of vision – or soundscape (things ‘appear greater and more beautiful.’).83 Any object is perhaps capable of provoking such sensations. Matter viewed in its brute materiality is particularly apt to do this, and the Hellenistic artists and beholders were particularly prone to look for such effects at the level of the material detail.84 In his researches into Homer, Krates somehow managed to discover the incongruity of two infinities brought into collision: the miniature of the shield of Achilles and the universe it reached out to embrace; the paradox of a Hephaestus now creating the cosmos, now falling more or less victim to it (as he is thrown down from Olympos onto Lemnos in an experiment in physics). The two infinities, already figured by text and cosmos, could converge dramatically in a single verse: ‘Homer measured (ἐµέτρησε) the spherical shape of the cosmos (τὸ σφαιρικὸν τοῦ κόσµου σχῆµα) for us through a single line (δι’ ἑνὸς στίχου),’ namely Iliad 8.16 (a description of Eris, or Strife): ‘as far (τόσσον) beneath the house of Hades as from (ὅσον) earth the sky (ouranos) lies.’85 Longinus would label this verse and its effect sublime (probably in Krates’ wake).86 Somewhat earlier in the same tradition, there is Aratus, who famously wove a double acrostic into his Phaenomena with the word λεπτή 87 and is known from Strabo to have written a collection, τὰ κατὰ λεπτόν (nothing else is known about this work beyond its title).88 The Phaenomena, Hesiodic in manner, is devoted to the signs in the heavens and, as Hutchinson rightly notes, is remarkable for its ‘general grandeur’ – a fact that remains a source of ongoing puzzlement to upholders of Hellenistic leptotês.89 His poem, a mere eleven-hundred-fifty-some lines long (but still longer than either the Theogony or the Works and Days), was correctly praised as an ἔργον µέγα by Leonidas of Tarentum (Anth. Pal. 9.25 = 101 G-P): the praise alludes to the content and not only to the form of Aratus’ poem, which frequently invokes visual grandeur (ta megala: καλός τε µέγας τε, a Homericism, is one of Aratus’ stock formulas).90 In the same poem, Leonidas also praises Aratus for his refined intellect, as did others, including Callimachus (Anth. Pal. 9.507 = 56 G-P).91 I would simply add that it is the contrastive urge for grandeur arising from and amidst refinement that stamps Aratus’ poem and marks it as specifically Hellenistic; and it
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James L. Porter was this very feature of contrasting scales that his contemporaries were registering (even if Longinus found him singularly unimpressive; Subl. 10.6). Much the same could be said of Theocritus’ Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphos (Id. 17), a mere 137 lines long, and yet brimming over with imperial pretensions and hyperbole, as in the political portion of the poem: Within [Egypt] are built three hundred cities, and three thousand, and another ten thousand three times over, and three twice, and after them thrice nine: over all of these is lordly Ptolemy king. He takes slices of Phoenicia and Arabia and Syria and Libya and the dark-skinned Ethiopians; all the Pamphylians and the warriors of Cilicia he commands, and the Lycians and the Carians, who delight in war, and the islands of the Cyclades, for his are the finest ships sailing the ocean. All the sea and the land and the crashing rivers [of the world] are subject to Ptolemy... (82–92; trans. R. Hunter)92
Towards the end of the tradition, or else reflecting it now in a Roman form, are the extraordinary but little studied Tabulae Iliacae, twenty-two marble tablets dating from around the late first century BC to the early first century AD, mostly depicting scenes from Homer or the Epic Cycle,93 all diminutive in scale, all luxury objects, all sporting Alexandrian erudition or pseudo-erudition, and all displaying more information than the eye can readily absorb.94 One tablet, the so-called Tabula Iliaca Capitolina, manages to pack all twenty-four books of the Iliad, in epitomized form, around a central image of the fall of Troy, in addition to depicting other cyclical epics besides. The texts are microscopic (‘easily legible with a magnifying glass’)95 and, in their zeal for totality, obsessed with a gigantism that competes with their physical form. One clue to the works’ aesthetic principles is their inscribed signatures. Six of the works are proudly attributed, not to a certain ‘Theodoros’, as has been universally assumed in the past, but rather to a certain ‘Theodorean’ kind of artistry, as in the following tags: 2NY: [ Ἰλι]ὰς ῾Οµήρου Θεοδώρηος ἡ{ι} τέχνη 96 5O: [ἀσπὶς] ᾿Αχίλλειος Θεοδώρηος ἡ τ[έχνη]
The formulas seem calculated to emphasize the contrast between the two parts of the expressions, assuming they add up to whole expressions. The problem does not lie in the visual presentation of the letters alone. Some of the tags appear in ‘magic square’ patterns which all but defy decryption. In other cases, they appear in a straightforward linear sequence, but lacking verbs and other particles which might guide the reader through the sense. Theoretically, the expressions could also be taken as subject labels, as if naming the contents of the respective works like titles or headings,
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followed by authorial attributions, and that is roughly how they have been understood in the past. But on a different reading, their gist arguably comes down to this: The Iliad is Homer’s, but the art is all Theodorean. The shield is Achillean, but the art is all Theodorean.97
The contrast is not merely one of genre (epic poetry versus ecphrastic objects), but also one of scale: Homer’s epic may be sprawling and grandiose, but the Theodorean art of miniaturization is even greater... The unusual and persistent use of the adjective ‘Theodorean’ in place of the proper name98 prompts a speculation, one that I have never seen ventured until now: are we having to do not with the name of the artist or artists who produced the tablets, but with an allusion, that is, with a style? If so, the one (and probably only) artist who fills the bill is none other than Theodoros of Samos, the famed Greek architect and miniaturist from the sixth century known to Posidippus (as discussed earlier) and to Pliny (HN 34.83), among others, and mentioned above in connection with his hallmark style.99 The reference in ‘Theodorean’, in other words, could be a learned allusion by a self-effacing Hellenistic artist or series of artists,100 and one that is all the more layered, given that the Iliad is itself toying with scale. Concerning itself with a mere 50-odd days of a ten-year-long war, the vast epic both compresses and distends time, while whoever produced the tablets, invoking the Theodorean style, signaled this telescoping by way of an (epic) reductionism of their own on a scale hitherto unseen in the visual arts, and all but illegibly so – a ‘great marvel’ indeed, though very much in the literary tradition of Metrodoros, Aratus, and Krates.101 As unique as this particular contrast in scales may be, with its juxtaposition of learned visual and verbal allusions, it does nevertheless serve as a signature element of Hellenistic aesthetics. But this element or gesture is hardly contained by the qualifier leptos, as that term is understood today. The tablets are, in contrast, rather baroque, a term that should be understood not pejoratively but generously – both in the sense that has been conferred on the formally complex and daring works from Pergamon and elsewhere,102 and in the sense that was been assigned to the early modern German Trauerspiel by Walter Benjamin, according to which ‘the baroque signifier displays a dialectical structure in which sound and script “confront each other in a tense polarity”, forcing a division within discourse that impels the gaze into its very depths’.103 Consider a further example of Hellenistic contrastive scales. Recently, Gyburg Radke has argued that a salient feature of Hellenistic poetry lay in its resort to myths of childhood, which (she claims) were intentionally
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James L. Porter sought out by poets so as to mark their own literary modernity as against the ancient, canonical past. One consequence of this gesture, according to Radke, was that gods were frequently presented as infants, but from the contrasting perspective of their later maturity and potency.104 Teasing out this insight, we arrive at the following curious mental picture: even as immature specimens of themselves, these divine infants were larger than life, endowed with extraordinary gifts and powers, and capable of unchildlike feats. They embodied, in other words, contradictions in terms, and above all of scale. Consider the way Callimachus depicts Zeus in his hymn to this god (Hymn 1.55–7): Beautifully did you grow and were nurtured, heavenly Zeus, swiftly did you grow up, and rapidly did the first down come to your cheeks. But even as a child did you devise all your plans full-grown. καλὰ µὲν ἠέξευ, καλὰ δ’ ἔτραφες, οὐράνιε Ζεῦ, ὀξὺ δ’ ἀνήβησας, ταχινοὶ δέ τοι ἦλθον ἴουλοι. ἀλλ’ ἔτι παιδνὸς ἐὼν ἐφράσσαο πάντα τέλεια·
These verses by Callimachus encapsulate the contradictions just named simply by compressing the distance between youth and age and by nonetheless stressing the vast extremes that did, and did not, lay between them. So, for example, Zeus was a cosmic ruler from the beginning, ‘even’ as a child, while all his plans were complete, teleia, from the beginning. He is the embodiment of a paradox.105 Finally, there are the paradoxes of euphony itself, one of which we have touched on already – namely, sound’s fragile ephemerality, which is the source of its everlasting powers. Callimachus’ cicada-like ‘slender verses’ which feed off divine dewy air refer to this quasi-material quality of sound, while the pretensions to immortality that this λιγὺς ἦχος enables are, on the contrary, as grand as one could ever hope for.106 This temporal paradox repeats another, that of the immateriality of sound’s materiality, which was hinted at above: euphony manifests itself (ἐπιφαίνεται) on the combination (σύνθεσις) of the individual sounds (φωναί). But just when does sound cease to be a matter of matter? And how material is the sound of euphony? The question exercised the grammarians to no end, and it is also built into the paradoxes of euphonic criticism.107 The problem here is that sound is both material and phenomenal, matter and appearance, hard and soft, empirically grounded and an illusory synthesis (as a phantasia in the mind of the auditor).108 Sound is also a matter of tiny particles (stoicheia) that are capable of the most sublime grandeur:109 again, the Hellenistic aesthetic of sharply contrastive scales is at play here. And I am sure much of the same
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could be found in other art forms, as I have already suggested with my mention of the Hellenistic Baroque. Finally, it is crucial to note that attention to detail is not an automatic confirmation of an aesthetic of the detail. Aristotle makes a memorable point in his Poetics, though it is one that his Hellenistic successors would ultimately reject: Beauty consists in amplitude as well as in order (ἐν µεγέθει καὶ τάξει), which is why a very small (πάµµικρον) creature could not be beautiful, since our view (ἡ θεωρία) loses all distinctness (συγχεῖται) when it comes near to taking no perceptible time, and an enormously ample one (παµµέγεθες) could not be beautiful either, since our view of it is not simultaneous, so that we lose the sense of its unity and wholeness as we look it over; imagine, for instance, an animal a thousand miles long! 110
While Aristotle is arguing for a compromise between conflicting scales, his argument inadvertently sheds light on another point that can be made for him. For just as an overwhelming mass of size can defeat aesthetic perception (as Longinus knows well, though he would argue this gives rise to another perception – the sublime), so too details can actually help to reinforce the greatest possible quantity of an aesthetic perception. Details, in other words, can collaborate with large magnitudes of perception; they do not have to negate them. Think again of any large, indeed any immense object. Now think of the details that decorate it. It is these that draw the eye to the object and cause it to linger there, even in cases when the eye might otherwise risk being overwhelmed by the same object. ( Trajan’s column is a good case in point, but only one of many available). To summarize and to conclude, then: The exponents of Hellenistic culture had an urge for leptote-s, but they also knew the opposite urge: an urge for grandeur, for the spectacular, for cosmic aspiration (Eratosthenes, Aratus, Krates); whence too the urge, elsewhere visible, for the peculiar, the monstrous, and the baroque;111 for systems, collections, libraries, largescale unities (Euclid, Eristratus, Aristarchos of Samos and Aristarchos of Samothrace both); for empire, for Ptolemaic Egypt, Macedonia, Greek classical heritage, and the rest. What is remarkable in this period is not that they held both urges, but the way we find both urges inextricably combined – which makes of the Hellenistic poets, critics, and writers paradoxographers in the truest sense of the word.112
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James L. Porter Notes 1 Porter 2010b; id. (forthcoming); id. (in progress). 2 Though see also Lohse 1973. 3 See Day 1989; Scodel 1992; Steiner 1993; Carson 1999. 4 Bing 1998, 34. 5 The epitaphic character of such statements was recognized already in antiquity (e.g., [Plut.] Vit. Hom. 135; schol. T Il. 6.459–60). On this phenomenon, see most recently Scodel 1992. 6 Gutzwiller (ed.) 2005. See also Männlein-Robert 2007, ch. 4; and Prioux 2007. 7 Hutchinson 2008, ch. 5; ibid., 104. Cf. Gutzwiller 2002a on ‘art objects’ and ibid., pp. 94–5 on ‘aesthetic objects.’ Even Callimachus was interested in material remains: Fantuzzi and Hunter 2004, 46. See further the essays collected in Rouveret et al. 2006, some of which draw on Posidippus. 8 From Nisetich’s translation of the poems in Gutzwiller (ed.) 2005, 17–41. The tenth title is lost. 9 See Bing 2005, 143 at n. 4; Gutzwiller 2005, 301–2. The elegiac poet Zenothemis and the mineralogist Sotakos (late 4th-early 3rd C. BC ) also wrote treatises on precious stones, as Pliny and others record. Zenothemis may have penned his treatise in the form of an elegiac didactic poem. 10 ‘The Pebble’ (‘Le Galet’), in Ponge 1994, 91. 11 On the other hand, the fascination with pebbles and their aesthetic properties is as old as human time itself. See the ongoing excavations into the Bronze Age patterned pebble beds in East Devon directed by archaeologist C. Tilley (http://www.pebblebedsproject.org.uk/poetics-of-pebbles.html). See further Tilley 2004. 12 Posidipp. AB 15 (trans. C. Austin); AB refers to the edition of Austin and Bastianini (2002). 13 Wimmel 1960; Clausen 1964; see Schiesaro 1998 on both. 14 Call. Aet. fr. 1.11–12 Lehnus (forthcoming): τοῖν δὲ δυοῖν Μίµνερµος ὅτι γλυκύς α ἱ αλ(αι) [ ...] ἡ µεγάλη δ᾿ οὐκ ἐδίδαξε γυνή
schol. P.Lit.Lond. 181, 11–12 ἐδίδαξαν αἰ α. τ. α. (sscr. ..τ. α. [Bell] vel µ..α. [Hunt]) | οὐκ ἐδίδ(αξεν) ἡ µεγάλ(η) edd. (Milne, re vera) Bell, Hunt: ἐδίδαξαν αἱ µεγάλ(αι) (sscr. µ. ε.γ. α. [Lobelms, Huntms]) disp. Bellms praeeunte fort. Huntms, αἱ ‘µετὰ µεγάλ(ην) disp. Bastianini, αἱ ἁ[π] (αί) αἱ µεγάλαι [µέν (vel τοι) (sscr. µετα[φ(ορά)]) Luppe α[ἱ κατὰ λεπτόν Rostagni 1928 e schol. Lond. α. ἱ ‹γ᾿› ἁπαλαί [τοι (vel [µέν) / / [Κώϊαι] Sier (Κώϊαι Puelma)
ἀραιαί
νήνιες]
suppl. Luppe,
α. ἱ ‹µὲν›
I am grateful to Luigi Lehnus for allowing me to print the text and apparatus to these lines from his forthcoming edition of Callimachus, and for the following comment: ‘Certainly αἱ κατὰ λεπτόν was not in the scholion, and should be accordingly removed from Callimachus, disappointing though this is (one could re-introduce it, as a mere conjecture, only by speculating that the scholion did not reflect the text). My personal opinion is that [Idris] Bell was right in his first reading ἐδίδαξαν αἱ µεγάλ(αι), and that αἱ µεγάλαι [µέν (or τοι [both have been suggested by W. Luppe]) is very possibly what
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Callimachus wrote. Bastianini [i.e., Bastianini 1996] has independently though partially confirmed Bell!’ (Lehnus, per litt.) See next note. 15 Rostagni 1956, 269–70 (reprinting the earlier article); Bastianini 1996; see Benedetto 1990 and Lehnus 2006 for detailed histories of the conjectures. 16 Wilamowitz-Moellendorff 1943 [1882]; id. 1924; Reitzenstein 1970 [1893]; id. 1931; Couat 1882; Pfeiffer 1955. For the same point, see Cameron 1995, 327, who, however, ultimately rejects it. On C. G. Heyne’s association of Hellenistic poetry with the genus tenue, a genre incapable of grandeur, and its roots in Roman antiquity, see Kassel 1987, 11–12 and esp. Heyne 1785 [1763], e.g., 80 (tenue et subtile, ...nihil in iis celsum, generosum et sublime, nulla audacia, etc.), 81 (neque nobili argumento, nec magnis sententiis, etc., following ps.-Longinus’ condemnations of the Alexandrians), 92, 93 n. (λεπτότης), 94, 96, etc. 17 Phld. De mus. 4 col. 22.25–26 Neubecker = col. 136.25–26 Delattre. See Porter 1995. I find it increasingly unlikely that Philodemus should have awarded them this label ( pace Delattre 2007, 2: 434, who misconstrues my article on this point), and I doubt that ὀνοµαζόµενοι, as opposed to καλούµενοι, can bear the pejorative meaning of ‘so-called’ in this context. 18 A case in point is Plut. Mor. 30D, where three kinds of literary attention are named: ‘in the reading of poetry one person culls the flowers of the story, another rivets his attention upon the beauty of the diction and the arrangement of the words (ὁ δ’ ἐµφύεται τῷ κάλλει καὶ τῇ κατασκευῇ τῶν ὀνοµάτων), ...but as for those who are concerned with what is said as being useful for character (and it is to these that our present discourse directed)...’ 19 Porter 2001; id. 2010, ch. 5. 20 P. Herc. 994 col. 37.9–13; see Porter 2007, 15 at n. 86. 21 E.g., Fantuzzi and Hunter 2004, 451; contra, Atherton 1989; Porter 1989, 150–1 n. 8. See, e.g., Dion. Hal. Comp. 4: ‘When I decided to write a treatise on this subject [the σύνθεσις-doctrine], I tried to discover whether my predecessors had said anything about it, especially the philosophers from the Stoa, since I knew that these men paid considerable attention to the subject of language: one must give them their due. But nowhere did I see any contribution, great or small, to the subject of my choice, by any author of repute’ (trans. Usher). The Stoics took not a rhetorical (and a fortiori, aesthetic), but only a dialectical view of language: Chrysippos’ writings are said to be οὐ ῥητορικὴν θεωρίαν ἐχούσας ἀλλὰ διαλεκτικήν (Dion. Hal., ibid., 22.13 U.–R.). 22 [σιν µόνην ἰδίαν] | ἐργάζεσ[θαι, καὶ τὸ ‘τὴν µὲν | [ἐπιφαι]νοµένην [ε]ὐφωνί|αν ἴδιον . [εἶ]ν.αι, τὰ δὲ νοή|µατα καὶ τὰς λέξεις ἐκτὸς | εἶναι καὶ κοινὰ συνάγεσ|θαι δεῖ[ν,’ πα]ρὰ πᾶσι µὲν ὡς | ἐν. [στήλ]ηι µέ[ν]ε. ι τοῖς κρι|τικοῖ[ς], βλεποµένην δ’ ἔ|χει τὴ[ν ε]ὐηθί[α]ν ἐκ τῶν | εἰρηµένων (P. Herc. 1676 col. 6.1–11; text after Janko 2000, 125 n. 1). 23 Cf. the same expression: τὴν ἐπιφαινοµένην | [α]ὐ[τῆι] [sc., τῆι συνθέσει] φωνὴν
(Phld. De poem. 5 col. 24.31 Mangoni). On epiphenomenalism, see Caston 1997. 24 Phld. De poem. 1 cols. 132.27–133.1 Janko. 25 Arist. Poet. 25.1460b15–16: the art must be judged καθ’ αὑτήν; cf. ibid., 4.1449a8–9: αὐτὸ καθ’ αὑτὸ κρῖναι, not πρὸς τὰ θέατρα; ibid. 7.1451a6–7: whatever is πρὸς τοὺς ἀγῶνας καὶ τὴν αἴσθησιν οὐ τῆς τέχνης ἐστίν; Phld. De poem. 5 col. 25.30: the ‘poem qua poem’ (τὸ πόηµα καθὸ πόηµα) is privileged; ibid., P. Herc. 1676 col. 7.7–17 N = col. 18 Sbordone 1976, refuting the euphonist claim that ‘the composition in and of itself produces psuchagôgia’ through the sound that the composition yields): ‘α[ὐ]τὴν
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James L. Porter ψυ[χα]γωγ[ε]ῖν σύνθεσιν κ[αθ’ α]ὑτήν, ἕτερο[ν] οὐδὲν ε[ἰσφ]εροµέν[η]ν ἀγαθόν’, [ἀ]πίθανόν ἐστι. The resemblance in terminologies is striking and can hardly be haphazard.
I suspect it points to a conscious hearkening back to Aristotle. But it could just point to a high level of awareness of philosophical language in its aesthetic uses on the part of the euphonist critics, perhaps as such language was found in Peripatetic circles (though no intermediary texts after Aristotle’s writings spring to mind). There may be a further reminiscence (and inversion) in ἔξω τῆς τέχνης of Aristotle’s key idiom in the Poetics, ἔξω τοῦ µύθου (‘outside the plot’). 26 My designation. ὕλη is reserved by the euphonists for its customary, presumably Peripatetically derived usage, standing for plot, subject matter (hupothesis), and all that goes with this (meaning, lexeis, etc.). See Phld. De poem. 1 col. 74.8 Janko; P. Herc. 1081 col. 9.24; col. 13; P. Herc. 1676 col. 4.5–9 N = col. 15 Sbordone. 27 Trans. Nisetich (slightly adapted) in Gutzwiller (ed.) 2005, 20. 28 P. Herc. 1676 col. 5. 29 This is a different sense of idion than the one just discussed. 30 Cf. two columns prior: ‘according to the sunthesis of the rhythms and the diction’ (P. Herc. 1676 col. 3.1–3 N = col. 14 Sbordone); and the subsequent column, which was quoted just above.
δ..ιότι, καθάπερ ε.[ἶ]|πον, δια]φερούσα[ς µὲν τέ]|χνας, ἐν δὲ τῶ‹ι› κοινῶι τὸ|τέ[λο]ς ἐχούσας παρατέθη|κ.εν.. ὡ[ς] γὰρ [δ]ακτυλιογλύ|φ[ο]ς ἴδ.ιον ἔχων οὐ τὸ ποι|εῖν ὅµο[ι]ον – κοινὸν γὰρ ἦν| καὶ πλ.[ά]σ.του καὶ ζωγ. ρ[ά|φου – |[τὸ δ’] ἐν σιδήρω‹ι› καὶ λι|θαρίωι διὰ τῆς ἐγ[γ]λυφῆς,| τἀγ[αθὸ]ν. οὐκ ἐν τούτωι κεί[µε]νον, ἀλλ] ἐν τῶι ποι|εῖν ὅ.µ.[ο]ιον, ὃ πάντ.ω.ν κοι|νὸν, ἔχει, παραπλησί|ως ἀξιοῦτα[ι] καὶ [ὁ] ποητὴς | τὸ µὲ[ν ἴδι]ον ἐν [τῆι συ]ν|θέσει β[ούλε]σθαι, τὸ δ’ ἀγα|θὸν δι[αν]οία[ι καὶ] λέ[ξει] κοι|νῶ[ς] θηρεύειν, ὅ φησιν οὗ|τος ἁπλῶς µηδὲ ἓν ὠφε|λεῖν ἢ βλάπτειν, ὥσπερ ἐκ τῶν παρατεθέντων| συνῆχε[ν, ἀ]λλ’ οὐ τοὐν|αντίον· [τὸ] τοίνυν τοὺς πο.ητὰς τὸ [κοιν]ὸν† παρ’ ἑτέ|ρων λα.βόντας (P. Herc. 1676 col. 5.3–28 N 31
= col. 16 Sbordone (rev. and trans. Asmis 1995, 160–61; trans. adapted; final supplement mine, based on the subsequent column). 32 By the way, we shouldn’t be thrown off track by Philodemus, who seems to have introduced a second sense of idion into the discussion, viz., that of proper function, which is not part of the euphonists’ vocabulary (idion, for them, means, practically, ‘original’ to the artist and his product), though it is found in, say, Aristotle. Philodemus is taking a quality of the object, or the artist’s contribution to the object, and making it into a function of the artist. But while we’re at it, we might as well notice how the euphonists’ point is rather different from Aristotle’s, for instance when he states (Poet. 13.1452b33) that the idion of the poet is to mimeisthai (imitate or represent). For Aristotle, there is no real hint that the imitation is colored by the particularity of the medium, whereas for the euphonists the imitation is made distinctive by the medium in which it is made – indeed, its aesthetic value seems to lie not in imitation per se, but in this distinctive, material difference. 33 οἱ ἀγαθοὶ ποηταὶ παρ’ οὐδὲν ἄλλο πρωτεύουσίν τε καὶ µόνοι διαµένουσιν ἢ παρὰ τοὺς ἤχους (Phld. De poem. 1, col. 83.11–14 Janko); cf. ibid., col. 84.7, 84.12, 89.11–12: αὐτὸς ὁ ἦχος; ἡ ἐπιφαινοµένη φωνή ἡ τῇ συνθέσει (De poem. 5, col. 23.38 Mangoni). 34
Porter 2006. Thuc. 1.22.4:
ὠφέλιµα κρίνειν αὐτὰ ἀρκούντως ἕξει. κτῆµά τε ἐς αἰεὶ µᾶλλον ἢ ἀγώνισµα ἐς τὸ παραχρῆµα ἀκούειν ξύγκειται. Cf. Subl. 7.3, which echoes the passage: true sublimity does not ‘endure only for the moment of hearing (µέχρι µόνης τῆς ἀκοῆς 35
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σῳζόµενον)’; on the contrary, it ‘makes a strong and ineffaceable [viz., lasting] impression on the memory (ἰσχυρὰ δὲ ἡ µνήµη καὶ δυσεξάλειπτος).’ 36 This kind of language is ancient. Cf. Arist. EN 10.4.1174a23: ἡ τῶν λίθων σύνθεσις. 37 Dion. Hal. Comp. 6 (28.5–16 U.-R.). 38 Chiron 2001, esp. 15–33. 39 Demetr. Eloc. 13–14; trans. Roberts and Innes, adapted.
ὥσπερ κόλλα τις ἢ γόµφος ἢ εἴ τι τοιοῦτο π[ρὸ]ς τὴν τῶν ξυλίν[ω]ν σύν[θ]εσιν, οὕτως ἔχει κα[ὶ τ]ὸ ἄφωνον πρὸς τὴν τῆς λέξεως σύµπηξιν εὐκαίρως λαµβανόµενον. ...οἷον γοῦν ἐπὶ τῶν σωµάτων τὸ εὐπαγὲς .γείνετ[αι] ὅταν τ.ὸ. ὅλον σῶµα ὑφ’ αὑτὸ . εὖ . . δι.[α]κείµενα . τὰ µέρη ἔ.χη<ι>, τοῖς τε µήκεσι καὶ τοῖς ὄγκοις ὁµολογο[ύ]µενά τ.ε. κα.ὶ σύµµετρα ὄντα, κτλ. (Phld. 40
P. Herc. 994 col. 34.4–11 and 18–25; text after Janko 2000, 299 n. 8 and Sbordone). 41 Simonides(?) or Pindar(?) ap. P. Berol. 9571v col. 2.55 Schubart. 42 Austin and Olson 2004 suggest (ad loc.) ‘make elaborate’ for τόρευε (and refer the expression to the accompanying dance rather than to the song) but recognize that the metaphor is drawn from metal-work (toreutike-). 43 Pind. fr. 194 Maehler-Snell; trans. Race. 44 Longinus writes about ‘the choice of correct and magnificent words,’ a feature that needs to be ‘cultivated intensely’: ‘it makes grandeur, beauty (κάλλος), old-world charm (εὐπίνεαν), weight, force, strength, and a kind of lustre bloom upon our words as upon beautiful statues; it gives things life (ψυχήν) and makes them speak (φωνητικήν)’ (Subl. 30.1; trans. Russell). 45 Barthes 1975, 66–7; and Barthes 1977. 46 Stewart 1993; id. 2006, 171–2 (‘often regarded as the most characteristic and even the most important artistic innovation of the Hellenistic period’); for a re-thinking of Hellenistic baroque, see Schulz, this volume. 47 Fantuzzi and Hunter 2004, 453–4; more generally, van Groningen 1953. 48 ἔγλυψε, AB 7.4; γλυφθέν, AB 8.4; ἔγλυφε, ΑΒ 14.2; γλύ[µµα, ΑΒ 11.6; 12.6; γλύµµατι, ΑΒ 11.3. 49 Asmis 1995, 162. 50 See Petrain 2005, 335. 51 Thanks to Jeffrey Feland for suggesting the moonstone. 52 AB 1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 7; 10; 11; 13; 16.It can hardly be a coincidence that the Lithika is framed by two prominent geographical and ideological markers. The first two words of the first poem in the collection are Ἰνδος ῾Υδάσπης.[ . Alexander famously conquered the inhabitants of the region around the Hydaspes river (present-day Jhelum river in Pakistan) in 326 BC before returning to Alexandria (see Strab. 15.1.25, etc., Plut. Alex. 344B, Arr. Anab. 5.3.6.; 5.9.1; 5.14.5; etc.) He was thereby establishing his dominion at the conventional outer limits of the Greek oikoumenê (Arist. Mete. 2.5.362b27–30). And the final two verses of AB 20, which also happen to close the Lithika, make explicit the geopolitical pretensions of the book, if not of the entire collection, and their nominal patron: ‘Now, Lord of Geraestus, along with the islands, keep free from earthquakes Ptolemy’s land and shores’. 53 AB 16; 19. Cf. Callimachus on the cost of Pheidias’ huge statue of Zeus at Olympos: it is [ο]ὐ [λ]ογιστόν, ‘incalculable’, ironizing the surplus of measurements of this vast object strewn throughout poem (Callim. Ia. 6). Cf. also Callim. fr. 25.1–2 on the sheer quantity of Herakles’ deeds (πολλάκι πολλὰ καµών), albeit with no detectable sense of irony, just as there is none here in Posidippus.
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AB 20; 17. AB 8. 56 AB 13 57 AB 14. 58 Gutzwiller 2005, 302; cf. ibid., 303. 59 Ibid., 314. Similarly, and more recently, id. 2007, 29–43 (the standard view of ‘the slender style’). 60 The epigram on the colossus of the sun by the Rhodian sculptor Chares (AB 68), ‘as big as the earth’, is compared with Myron’s largest production, which ‘reach[ed] the limit of four cubits’, but the latter is still a life-scale production, not a miniature; for the epigram and its Rhodian context, see Wiemer, this volume, section 3. Modern commentators attempt to present this comparison as biased in favor of Myron (e.g., Kosmetatou 2004, 203), but there is no evidence for this in the poem or in the book that contains it that I can see. Invoking its predecessor (AB 67), a poem about a miniature sculpture by the archaic sculptor Theodoros, only reinforces my point about contrastive opposites. The choice of an archaic sculptor, incidentally, is interesting by itself: it shows (a) that the practice of miniaturization had precedents (cf. the allegory of Homer by Metrodoros of Lampsakos [DK 61A2–4]); and (b) that to draw a periodizing line using this criterion alone is to draw a line in the sand, whereas playful, contrastive uses of the conceit might give us a better purchase on the later period, if we only knew more about the earlier instances. See the ironies of the Ischia Cup from the eighth century BC (CEG 1.454) as read by Bing 1998, 33 n. 38, following Hansen 1976: diminutive in size (10.3 cm. = 4“ in height x 15.1 cm. = 6“ in diameter at the mouth), it projects itself ‘as the huge, gold-decorated chalice of Nestor’ from Il. 11 ‘which only that great hero can lift with ease’ and in abbreviated, epigrammatic form at that. In other words, the playful contrasts of scale appears to be an old game indeed, albeit possibly a rarer one (or a simply less well attested one?). For further considerations on Posidippus’ use of Theodoros, see also Gutzwiller 2002b, 55–60, to which we can add another, namely its learned imitation of contemporary historical handbooks, and hence its mimicking the larger imperial project of Ptolemaic encyclopedism and all-encompassing knowledge (here, in miniature). On Theodoros and his contemporary Kallikrates (Pliny HN 36.43), and the genre of sculptural miniatures generally, see Bartman 1992, 170 and passim; also, below. 61 My use of ‘contrastive scales’ is differently conceived from the usual idea of a ‘large-small dynamics’ in Hellenistic poetry, which is typically put in the service of ‘the power of the small’ (Onians 1979, 128) or ‘the aesthetics of [the] miniature’ (Stephens 2004a, 75–6) or ‘the conceit of the small’ (Bartman 1992, ch. 6). 62 One is reminded of Democritus’ epistemological injunction to search ἐπὶ λεπτότερον for true causes (DK B11). Was Democritus (or his reception) somehow a precursor to the Hellenistic aesthetic? If so, he will not have been this on the current understanding of the Hellenistic λεπτός, but only on a materialist and sensualist understanding of this aesthetic, one that would incorporate contrastive scales (differently, Reitzenstein 1931, 27–9). 63 See Callim. frr. 407–11 Pf.; Bing 2005, 134–35; Krevans 2005, 89–92. See further Susemihl 1891, 1. 463–91. Prioux 2007, 110 and 123 notes the compatibility of two opposing styles in Posidippus, semnote-s and leptote-s, but stages a (rather speculatively assumed) polemic between Callimachus and Posidippus around 55
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this licensing of opposite styles, whereby Callimachus appears as an upholder of leptote-s pure and simple. 64 Fantuzzi and Hunter 2004, 43, 50; Acosta-Hughes and Stephens 2002, 249 (‘sublime moment’); Kuttner 2005, 149 (‘colossal’, ‘monstrous’); cf. 162 (‘colossal’); Hutchinson 1988, 61 (‘completely wild’, ‘extravagant’), 83 (‘grandeur’, ‘grandiose’). 65 Posidippus was known in antiquity as epigrammatopoios, a maker of epigrams, presumably also of monuments. Cf. IG IX, 12 1:17.24, from Thermon in central Greece, dating from 263/2 BC (Πο[σ]ειδίππωι τῶι ἐπιγραµµατοποιῶι Πελλαίωι), and the gloss by Weinreich 1918, 439, who first published it, in terms of ‘dedicatory’ or monumental epigrams ‘on stone.’ Cf. P. Petr. II 49a = SH 961, an epithalamium of Arsinoe attributed to Posidippus; Posidipp. 11 G-P (= PFirmin-Didot ), a literary epigram commemorating the lighthouse of Pharos and its statue of Zeus So-te-r; and the Milan papyrus, epigrams 19, 20, and 24, which are either cultic, dedicatory, or celebratory. See further Bing 2009. 66 See Bergquist 1990, 53; Bing 2005, 138. 67 See Kuttner 2005 on luxury collections and displays generally, and especially on gem encyclopedias, all of which the Lithika mimics. Ben Acosta-Hughes suggests ( privatim) a parallel with Fabergé eggs, which ‘work’ aesthetically as delicate miniatures (the majority standing at around 4 high) and as literal thaumata (each contains a surprise within), and also as emblems of imperial taste: gaudy and over-elaborate, they not only imply but also advertise the enormous scale of wealth, outlay, consumption, and display that sustains them. 68 Flemming 2003; Stephens 2004b, 170–3. Nicely summarized in Fantuzzi and Hunter 2004, 50, where this tendency is contextualized as ‘part of the great systematization of knowledge which so characterizes the Hellenistic and Roman periods’. See now also Fuqua 2007, which I discovered only at copy-editing stage, but which I welcome as confirming my point about the ideological and political thrust of the Lithika. 69 Droysen 1998 [1836–43], passim, but, e.g., 3: 20: ‘[Alexandrian] scholarship, too, did its part to help Greece develop well beyond its local boundaries into a universal power that encompassed the world as a whole’. Droysen’s work is a study in gigantism on all levels. See further id. 1833, 236 (‘the great division of the world [by Alexander] into East and West’; 546 (Deinokrates [even if Alexander rejected the plan in the end]), 567–8 (Alexander’s portentous entry into the colossal city [Riesenstadt ] of Babylon); id. 1998 [1836–43], 3:11: postclassical political entities tend towards ‘larger, increasingly more comprehensive universalities (Allgemeinheiten)’; 3: 169–70: the ‘elegance [and] sheer abundance of life’ that underlay Hellenistic art and culture, which Droysen characterizes as being ‘secure in its foundations, casting its gaze far and wide’, ‘majestic, capacious, rich, multifarious’, and so on (ibid. and 3:413–14); Ptolemy Philadelphos assembled at his court ‘every art, every science – the former to lend dignity to the luxury that he loved, the latter...to lend it substance and value’; ‘never before was life more delicately adorned, more brilliantly savored or more finely blandished than in this court’ (3:169). On the other hand, poetry for Droysen was apparently exempt from gigantism (id. 1833, 546–7). Bravo may be right that Droysen had little understanding or knowledge of Hellenistic poetry, but neither did Droysen seek to cover poetry in his study of political formations (3:413). However see Bernhardy 1836, 371: ‘A vigorous impulse for massive reading and writing, polymathy
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James L. Porter and polygraphy, were the levers of the world founded by Alexander’ (also quoted in Droysen’s review of Bernhardy in Droysen 1893–94, 2:70, and then again in the 1843 preface to Geschichte des Hellenismus, where the statement is claimed to have been one of the mainsprings of Droysen’s own historical researches on the period [id. 1998 [1836–43], 3: x]). Heyne 1785 [1763], esp. 79–80 and 98–134, is a predecessor of Droysen. On Droysen, see further Porter 2009, 9–11; and on Hellenistic gigantism, see further Préaux 1978, 329; Bugh 2006; Stewart 2006 (on truphe-, the colossal, and the baroque). 70 Lesky 1971, 784–6, followed up nicely, if narrowly (with reference to Callimachus only), by Lohse 1973. This is not to deny predecessors, or even certain continuities (Aristophanes’ Frogs is a case in point (Reitzenstein 1931), as is the aesthetics of the stoicheion (Porter 2010b). Nevertheless, one can still affirm that the Hellenistic poets and critics latch onto the motif of contrastive scales with a new and distinctive energy. 71 See Hutchinson 2008, ch. 3, id. 2006, esp. 10667: ‘Different scales of form quickly begin to interact. The Hellenistic period...both pondered the large issues of structure which the Homeric poems exemplified and investigated the Homeric text in extremely close detail’. 72 See G. O. Hutchinson’s well-taken but little-heeded point (Hutchinson 1988, 83–4: ‘This simple opposition [of the grand and the small] obscures the importance in his work of grandeur and the grandiose, and the complexity and variety with which they are exploited’; also 76–7; and all of the first chapter on Callimachus). 73 E.g., Shklovsky 1962 [1923], id. 1965 [1917]; Greenberg 1986–93 [1940]; Ransom 1941. 74 Cf. Lohse 1973, esp. 41, rightly noting how the leptos-motif is ‘consciously vague’ and self-‘obscuring’. 75 See Visscher 1962. 76 Pollitt 1999, 194. Cf. Stewart 1990, 1: 292–3. Cf. Feuerbach 1855, 259–60: ‘small to behold, the picture was felt to be large’; ‘so powerful a deception of art was contained in the smallest amount of space’; ‘the narrow vessel of a little image filled with infinite content’, etc. These comments are all echoing Statius (ibid.), who is in turn echoing, it seems, the language (or rhetoric) of Posidippus, or else that of Hellenistic paradoxography: ‘So great is the deception of that tiny form. What precision of touch, what enterprise in the skilled artist, at the same time to fashion by his pains a table ornament and to revolve in his mind a great colossus!’ (tam magna breui mendacia formae. / quis modus, quanta experientia docti / artificis, curis pariter gestamina mensae / fingere et ingentis animo versare colossos!; 44–6; trans. Coleman; emphasis added). 77 Cf. Bartman 1992, 150. 78 The allusion is also noticed by Newlands 2002, 78. 79 For the readings, see Schneider 2001, 700–1. Cf. Sen. Ep. 53.11: ‘At mehercules magni artificis est clusisse totum in exiguo’ (thanks to Gregory Hutchinson for this parallel). 80 These are conveniently reproduced in Bartman 1992. 81 Viz., in Callimachus’ treatment of the conduct of the Cretan Theodaisia at Haliartos in Boeotia in fr. 43.84–7 Pf.; Fantuzzi and Hunter 2004, 60. Further examples would include the Lock of Berenices (fr. 110.1; 110.93–4 Pf.); the ektheo-sis of Arsinoe (fr. 228 Pf.; cf. esp. 12: µέγας γαµέτας and 15: λεπτὸν ὕδωρ, etc.); small epigrams on big tragedies (P. Petrie II, 49b = SSH 985; see Hutchinson 2008, 5–6) and colossal statues (such as the archaic cult image of Apollo on Delos, fr. 114 Pf.; see
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Pfeiffer 1952, 22–3); ‘the unwoundable Nemean Lion...parodied by Molorcus’ problem in dealing with the mice’ (Hutchinson 2008, 50, on SH 259 = fr. 177 Pf.). And the list goes on. 82 AB 62, 65, 70; Kosmetatou 2004; Stewart 2005; Prioux 2007, 123. 83 Pausimachus(?) ap. Phld. De poem. 1 col. 43.9–12 Janko: ‘When Homer’s verses are read out (ἀναγινώϲ|[κητ]α. .ι). they all appear greater and more beautiful (πάντα µ[ε]ίζω | [καὶ κα]λ. λίω φ[αίνε]ται).’ Cf. Subl. 17.2: ‘[And so,] emotional and sublime features seem closer to the mind’s eye, both because of a certain natural kinship and because of their brilliance (περιλαµπθεῖσα).’ 84 Two modern works that excel in the aesthetics and poetics of the detail and plays of scale are Stewart 1993 and Schor 1987. Cf. also Clark 1999 (a reference I owe to Alex Purves). 85 [Heracl.] Quaest. Hom. 36.4; cf. 46.7, 47.1–6. 86 Subl. 9.4. 87 Jacques 1960. Because Aratus seems to have been the first to make the term programmatic, while Callimachus later adopted it, we should perhaps speak of Aratean, rather than Callimachean, leptote-s. See Cameron 1995, 321–8. 88 Strab. 10.5.3. 89 Gutzwiller 2007, 98. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff 1924, 1: 200: ‘[The Phaenomena] remains a παχὺ γράµµα καὶ οὐ τορόν [“a fat and inelegant writing” (Callim. 398 Pf., originally with reference to Antimachus’ Lyde)] just the same, and Callimachus will not have failed to recognize this’. And nonetheless, Aratus’ poem met with unparalleled success upon its arrival in Alexandria (ibid.). See below. 90 καλός τε µέγας τε (Arat. 1.43; 1.244; 1.397 = Il. 21.108 = Od. 6.276, all final); καλοὶ καὶ µεγάλοι (Arat.1.210); pace van Groningen 1953, 253–6. See Hutchinson 1988, 217 for the general point. If word-counts mean anything at all, µεγ- words appear fortyfour times in the Phainomena (not negated), while the formula καλός τε µέγας τε appears three times and καλοὶ καὶ µεγάλοι appears once. λεπτ- words appear only four times. There are words for ‘small’, but see id. 1988, ch. 5 on the ‘general grandeur’ of the poem. Leonidas may have been fond of such contrasts. Cf. Leon. Anth. Pal. 9.51 = 21 G-P, which begins: εἰ καὶ µικρὸς ἰδεῖν καὶ ἐπ’ οὔδενος... and ends, τοῦτ’ δ’ ἐφ’ ἡµῖν / τὠλίγον ὤρθωσεν σᾶµα πολυστροφίης. 91 Leon. Anth. Pal. 9.25; Callim. Ep. 29; Strab. 10.5.3; Ptolemaeus [Philadelphus] (= Page, FGE p. 84.4 = Vit. Arat. p. 79.314 Maass). 92 Cf. Call. H. 4.168–70, likewise in praise of Philadelphos, and likewise on a grand, hyperbolic scale. 93 The one intruder is Stesichoros’ Sack of Troy. 94 See now Valenzuela Montenegro 2004, and the fine, close analysis in Squire forthcoming (2010). 95 Horsfall 1979, 33, though Michael Squire assures me that this is an overstatement, as the texts are barely legible even with the aid of a magnifying glass – but what ancient would have possessed such a device? (The evidence is controversial. The possibility is affirmed in Forbes 1955, 190–91, but emphatically denied by Plantzos 1997). See further Bienkowski 1891, 202: ‘scritti con lettere piccolissime quasi invisibili all’ occhio nudo.’ 96 Cf. 3C: Ἰλιὰς ῾Ο[µήρου] Θεοδώρηος ἡ{ι} τέχνη; 4N: ἀσπὶς ᾿Αχιλλῆος Θεοδώρηος καθ’ Ὅµηρον.
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Achillean, presumably because the object is itself shaped in the form of a shield and is reminiscent, in its ecphrastic character, of the ecphrasis in Homer from which it is derived. Cf. the bolder programmatic statement from another tablet (1A), in the light of which this and the remaining tablets can be seen at the very least to complete Homer and to give him his full measure: ‘learn the Theodorean art so that, by grasping the order of Homer [whether this is Homer’s own narrative or the same as reassembled on the tablets], you may have the [full] measure of all wisdom’ ([τέχνην τὴν Θεοδ]ώρηον µάθε τάξιν ῾Οµήρου / ὄφρα δαεὶς πάσης µέτρον ἔχῃς σοφίας). There are difficulties, to be sure. The layout is a problem on any reading. And the meaning of τέχνη is disputed: is it art (viz., artistry) or individual artwork? See Sadurska 1964, 39 and Kazansky 1997, 57 who opt for the first choice; contrast Horsfall 1979 and Valenzuela Montenegro 2004, 355, who opt for the second. The scholastic connotation of “handbook”, vel sim. is unlikely; see Horsfall 1979, 27; 31; “epitome” seems equally unlikely (pace Horsfall, ibid.). An intriguing parallel which could be brought into play here is Callim. fr. 196.1 Pf.: [Ἀλ]εῖος ὁ Ζε[ύς], ἁ τέχνα δὲ Φειδία.) But even if one were to follow the view that the expressions on the tablets stand for titles and signatures, and if one were to take τέχνη in the sense of ‘artwork’, the same meaning as I am proposing here could result: ‘Homer’s Iliad: an artwork à la Theodoros’. Thanks to Gregory Hutchinson for helpful skeptical challenges on this point. 98 Cf. Sadurska 1964, 9: ‘Cette façon de signer, étrange et exceptionelle...’; and ibid., p. 10 (cf. p. 39 and passim), noting how in the tablet inscriptions the noun τέχνη is always qualified by the adjective Θεοδώρηος. Further, the puzzlement of Kazansky 1997, 57. What follows is an attempt at an explanation. 99 See n. 60 above. Theodoros was, to be sure, much more than a miniaturist, but he was fondly remembered for this quality in later times. The archaizing character of the Capitoline inscription (n. 96 above) has been observed by Valenzuela Montenegro 2004, 352 and by Squire forthcoming (2010), 000, n. 36. The single best parallel, however, is Stesichoros S 89.7–8, from The Sack of Troy: δαεὶς σεµν[ᾶς ᾿Αθάνας] | µ.έ.τ[ρα] τε καὶ σοφίαν του[ ; see Lehnus 1972, 54–5, who discovered the parallel, though an echo with a papyrus fragment from Eudoxos of Knidos is undeniable (Pack2: 369; see Bua 1971, 19–20; Horsfall 1979, 31) , as is a hitherto unnoticed parallel, an inscription dating from ca. 450–425 BC (CEG 82.3 = IG I3 1506): [ἄκ]ρως µὲν σοφίας µέτρο[ν ἐπι]στάµενος. (Cf. also AEMÖ 4 [1880] 59, I; 4th c.) However, see also Thgn. 876: µέτρον ἔχων σοφίης. For a use of µέτρον similar to that translated in n. 97 above, viz., as taken in an agonistic and metapoetical sense, whereby Homeric poetics is again the rival, see Hes. Op. 648–9: ‘I shall show you the measures (µέτρα) of the much-roaring sea (πολυφλοίσβοιο θαλάσσης), I who have no expertise (σεσοφισµένος) at all in seafaring or boats’ (trans. Most), with Rosen 1990. The phraseology appears to be wholly formulaic and archaic or classical, indeed. 100 See Valenzuela Montenegro 2004, 298–304, arguing for multiple hands and signatories, against the assumption of a singular artist (held by Sadurska 1964, 10–15, among others). If this is right, then my thesis that ‘Theodorean’ picks out a style (modeled on the archaic artist) and not a single contemporary artist or his works ought to have even greater plausibility. The dating is likewise thought to be various (but harder to pin down). Two further considerations should be borne in mind. First, Theodoros of Samos was remembered the way he remembered himself, as the
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quintessential artist and technician of contrasting scales. In the account of his miniature chariot by Pliny, we learn that Theodoros cast himself in a (probably lifesize) bronze statue (ipse se ex aere fudit) holding the marvelous miniature object in his hand: ‘Besides its remarkable celebrity as a likeness, [the statue] is famous for its very minute workmanship ( praeter similitudinis mirabilem famam magne suptilitate celebratur)’. Already, in other words, we are confronted with a contrast of scales, one that Pliny’s language mirrors (magne suptilitate). ‘The right hand holds a file, and three fingers of the left hand originally held a little model of a chariot and four, but this has been taken away to Palestrina as a marvel of smallness’ (HN, 34.83; trans. Rackham). So the allusion to the technite-s Theodoros, or rather to the Theodorean techne-, seems absolutely warranted. Secondly, a further precedent is found once again in Posidippus, who in his own account of the same chariot resorts to the adjectival form of the artist’s proper name: ‘...of the chariot, observe from up close / how great is the labor of the Theodorean hand (τῆς Θεοδωρείης χειρὸς ὅσος κάµατος)’ (AB 67). Was Theodoros’ work already identified with a style in the time of Posidippus? Or did Posidippus’ use of the adjective simply form an ingredient in the chain of coincidences that led to the identification of the style of the tablets with Theodoros’ miniaturizing labors some six centuries earlier? (But note again the contrast, ‘great labor / diminutive scale.’) Finally, was the act of producing the tablets a typically Hellenistic act, aesthetically speaking, or did it signal a harking back to an earlier aesthetic style? Surely, the attempt at a ‘reduced Homer’ is a gesture typical of a later, postclassical age, though there are some earlier anticipations: the Cup of Nestor, Pigres EGF 65 (480 BCE), Metrodoros of Lampsakos, etc. Most likely, what is needed is an expansion of our view of the Hellenistic aesthetic to make provision for such continuities, rather than ruptures, with the past. My suggestion about the allusions to Theodoros of Samos in ‘the Theodorean art’ named in the Roman tablets has already been adopted and developed in Squire, forthcoming,an excellent introduction to these ancient curiosities. 101 One of the tablets (8E) is exercised by this very question, still aflame from the Alexandrian era. It begins, ‘...by Zenodotos,’ possibly referring to a study he may have composed on the number of days in the Iliad. See Valenzuela Montenegro 2004, 204– 206 for the text and a translation. 102 See n. 46 above (where, however, the emphasis has usually been on emotional rather than formal contorsion). 103 Eagleton 1998, 195. 104 E.g., Radke 2007, 213. 105 See the extended discussion in Radke 2007, 212–18. Radke, in keeping with her literary-historical thesis, tends to emphasize the historical evolutions that are built into these retellings of myth. I am drawing attention to the simultaneity of factors and their shock value. To be sure, the divine childhood motif is borrowed from the Homeric hymns, and is found elsewhere as well (see Grant 1929). But as both Grant and Radke (and also Onians 1979, 126–8) observe, its use in the Hellenistic period is both widespread and insistent, and hence arguably a literary and art-historical signature. 106 Callim. Aet. fr. 1fr. 1.29–30 Pf.; cf. Aet. fr. 43.16–17 Pf. See Acosta-Hughes and Stephens 2002 for an analysis of the sound dynamics of the poem, which is anticipated by Reitzenstein 1931 (a neglected aspect of his argument); Krevans 1993; Ambühl 1995, on Callimachus’ adoption of the slender and sweet sounding style (the λιγὺς
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James L. Porter ἦχος) of the cicada over against the swollen noisy style (the ὄγκος) of the braying ass (Callim. Aet. fr. 1.29–32; ; 31: ὀγκήσαιτο; see Hopkinson 1988, 96, ad loc., on the pun). Further, Pendergraft 1995 on Aratus, who argues (in the wake of van Groningen 1953, 255) that leptos stands, in fact, for ‘pleasing aural qualities’. Clearly, there is more work to be done on Callimachus’ poetics of sound. 107 See Porter 2010a. 108 Dion. Hal. Comp. 22 (110.8–9 U. R.): ἐῶντα τὴν ἀκρόασιν ἑνὸς κώλου συνεχοῦς λαβεῖν φαντασίαν; cf. Aristox., Harm. 8: κατὰ τὴν τῆς αἰσθήσεως φαντασίαν. 109 See Porter 2010b. 110 Arist. Poet. 7.1450b34–51a6; trans. Hubbard, adapted. 111 The Hellenistic epigrammatic tradition ranges over everything from volcanic eruptions to destructive floods to magnets to stranded monsters (Wick 2000 (ms.), citing Anth. Pal. 6.222–3, 7.76, 7.299, 9.424, 9.568, 12.152). 112 Thanks to the participants at the original conference in Edinburgh as well as to Ben Acosta-Hughes, Gregory Hutchinson, Luigi Lehnus, Maria Pantelia, Thomas Rosenmeyer†, Michael Squire, and Andrew Stewart for invaluable comments on earlier versions of this chapter. Thanks especially to the organizers of the conference for their kind invitation to take part, which gave me the stimulus to think hard about a new topic, and to Andrew Erskine and Anton Powell for helpful editorial queries. A more developed version was later presented at UCLA and then at the Free University of Berlin, where I received further helpful feedback. Finally, without a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2005–06, I would not have had the opportunity or leisure to undertake this project at all.
Bibliography Acosta-Hughes, B., and Stephens, S. A. 2002 ‘Rereading Callimachus’ Aetia Fragment 1’, CP 97, 238–55. Ambühl, A. 1995 ‘Callimachus and the Arcadian asses: the Aitia Prologue and a lemma in the London Scholion’, ZPE 105, 209–13. Asmis, E. 1995 ‘Philodemus on censorship, moral utility, and formalism in poetry’, in D. Obbink (ed.) Philodemus and Poetry: Poetic theory and practice in Lucretius, Philodemus, and Horace, New York, 148–77. Atherton, C. 1989 ‘Hand over fist: the failure of Stoic rhetoric’, CQ 38, 392–427. Austin, C. and Bastianini, G. (eds) 2002 Posidippi Pellaei quae supersunt omnia. Milan, 2002. Austin, C. and Olson, D 2004 Aristophanes. Thesmophoriazusae, Oxford. Barthes, R. 1975 The Pleasure of the Text, translated by R. Miller, New York. 1977 ‘The Grain of the voice’, in R. Barthes, Image, Music, Text. (ed. S. Heath). New York. 179–89. Bartman, E. 1992 Ancient Sculptural Copies in Miniature, Leiden, New York, and Cologne.
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Bastianini, G. 1996 ‘κατὰ λεπτόν in Callimaco (fr. 1.11 Pfeiffer)’, in F. Adorno and M. Serena Funghi (eds) ῾Οδοὶ διζήσιος. Le vie della ricerca: Studi in onore di Francesco Adorno, Florence, 69–80. Benedetto, G. 1990 ‘Una congettura di Augusto Rostagni (Call. fr. 1.11 Pf.)’, Quaderno di storia 32, 115–37. Bergquist, B. 1990 ‘Sympotic space: a functional aspect of Greek dining rooms’, in O. Murray (ed.) Sympotica: A symposium on the symposion, Oxford, 37–65. Bernhardy, G. 1836 Grundriss der griechischen Literatur, mit einem vergleichenden Überblick der römischen 2 vols. in 3, Halle. Bienkowski, P. 1891 ‘Lo Scudo di Achille’, Mitteilungen des Kaiserlich Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts, Roemische Abtheilung 6, 183–207. Bing, P. 1998 ‘Between literature and the monuments’, in A. Harder, et al. (eds) Genre in Hellenistic Poetry, Groningen, 21–45. 2005 ‘The politics and poetics of geography in the Milan Posidippus, Section One: On Stones (AB 1–20)’, in Gutzwiller (ed.) 2005, 119–40. 2009 ‘Reimagining Posidippus’, in P. Bing, The Scroll and the Marble: Studies in reading and reception in Hellenistic poetry, Ann Arbor,177–93. Bua, M. T. 1971 I giuochi alfabetici delle tavole iliache, Atti della Accademia nazionale dei Lincei. Memorie, Classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche. ser. 8, v. 16, fasc. 1 Rome. Bugh, G. R. 2006 ‘Hellenistic military developments’, in idem (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to the Hellenistic World, Cambridge, 265–94. Cameron, A. 1995 Callimachus and his Critics, Princeton. Carson, A. 1999 Economy of the Unlost: Reading Simonides of Keos with Paul Celan, Princeton. Caston, V. 1997 ‘Epiphenomenalisms, ancient and modern’, The Philosophical Review 106, 309–63. Chiron, P. 2001 Un rhéteur méconnu: Démétrios (Ps.-Démétrios de Phalére). Essai sur les mutations de la théorie du style à l’époque hellénistique, Paris. Clark, T. J. 1999 ‘Pollock’s smallness’, in K. Varnedoe and P. Karmel (eds) Jackson Pollock: New approaches, New York, 15–31. Clausen, W. V. 1964 ‘Callimachus and Latin poetry’, GRBS 5, 181–96. Coleman, K. M. (ed.) 1988 Statius: Silvae IV. Oxford.
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James L. Porter Couat, A. H. 1882 La poésie alexandrine sous les trois premiers Ptolémées (324–222 av. J. C.), Paris. Day, J. W. 1989 ‘Rituals in stone: early Greek grave epigrams and monuments’, JHS 109, 16–28. Delattre, D. (ed.) 2007 Philodème de Gadara: Sur la musique. Livre IV, 2 vols., Paris. Droysen, J. G. 1833 Geschichte Alexanders des Grossen, Hamburg. 1893–94 Kleine Schriften zur alten Geschichte. Edited by E. Hübner, 2 vols., Leipzig. 1998 [1836–43] Geschichte des Hellenismus. Edited by E. Bayer. Introduction by H.-J. Gehrke, 3 vols., Darmstadt. Eagleton, T. 1998 ‘Walter Benjamin: towards a revolutionary criticism (1981)’, in T. Eagleton, The Eagleton Reader, ed. by S. Regan, Oxford, 194–211. Fantuzzi, M. and R. Hunter 2004 Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry, Cambridge. Feuerbach, A. 1855 Der vaticanische Apollo: Eine Reihe archäologisch-ästhetischer Betrachtungen, 2nd ed., Stuttgart and Augsburg. (1st ed. 1833, Nürnberg: Campe.) Flemming, R. 2003 ‘Empires of knowledge: medicine and health in the Hellenistic world’, in A. Erskine (ed.), A Companion to the Hellenistic World, Oxford, 449–63. Forbes, R. J. 1955 Studies in Ancient Technology, vol. 5. Leiden. Fuqua, C. 2007 ‘Two aspects of the Lithika’, Classical Philology 102: 281–91. Grant, M. A. 1929 ‘The childhood of the gods’, The Classical Journal 24, 585–93. Greenberg, C. 1986–93 [1940] ‘Towards a newer Laocoon’, in id., The Collected Essays and Criticism. Translated by C. Greenberg, 4 vols., Chicago. 1: 23–38. (First published in The Partisan Review, vol. 7, no. 4 [1940] 296–310.) Gutzwiller, K. 2002a ‘Art’s echo: the tradition of Hellenistic ecphrastic epigram’, in M. A. Harder, et al. (eds) Hellenistic Epigrams, Leuven, Belgium and Sterling, Va., 85–112. 2002b ‘Posidippus on statuary’, in G. Bastianini and A. Casanova (eds) Il papiro di Posidippo un anno dopo: Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi, Firenze 13–14 giugno 2002, Florence, 41–60. 2005 ‘The literariness of the Milan Papyrus, or “What difference a book?’’’, in Gutzwiller (ed.) 2005, 287–319. 2007 A Guide to Hellenistic Literature, Malden, MA. Gutzwiller, K. (ed.) 2005 The New Posidippus: A Hellenistic poetry book, New York. Hansen, P. A. 1976 ‘Pithecusan humour: the interpretation of Nestor’s Cup reconsidered’, Glotta 54, 25–43.
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Heyne, C. G. 1785 [1763] ‘Disputantur nonnulla de Genio Saeculi Ptolemaeorum’, in id., Opvscvla academica collecta et animadversionibvs locvpletata. 6 vols., Göttingen, 1: 76–134. Hopkinson, N. 1988 A Hellenistic Anthology, Cambridge. Horsfall, N. 1979 ‘Stesichorus at Bovillae?’ JHS 99, 26–48. Hutchinson, G. 1988 Hellenistic Poetry, Oxford. 2006 ‘Hellenistic epic and Homeric form’, in M. J. Clarke et al. (eds) Epic Interactions: Perspectives on Homer, Virgil, and the epic tradition. Presented to Jasper Griffin by former pupils, Oxford, 105–29. 2008 Talking Books: Readings in Hellenistic and Roman books of poetry, Oxford. Jacques, J.-M. 1960 ‘Sur un acrostiche d’Aratos’, Révue des études anciennes 62, 48–60. Janko, R. 2000 Philodemus: On Poems. Oxford. Kassel, R. 1987 Die Abgrenzung des Hellenismus in der griechischen Literaturgeschichte, Berlin and New York. Kazansky, N. N. 1997 Principles of the Reconstruction of a Fragmentary Text (New Stesichorean Papyri). Saint-Petersburg: Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Linguistic Studies, Institute of Foreign Languages. Kosmetatou, E. 2004 ‘Vision and visibility: art historical theory paints a portrait of new leadership in Posidippus’ Andriantopoiika’, in B. Acosta-Hughes et al. (eds) Labored in Papyrus Leaves: Perspectives on an epigram collection attributed to Posidippus (P.Mil.Vogl. VIII 309), Washington, D.C. and Cambridge, MA, 187–211. Krevans, N. 1993 ‘Fighting against Antimachus: the ‘Lyde’ and the ‘Aetia’ reconsidered’, in M. A. Harder et al. (eds) Callimachus, Groningen, 149–60. Kuttner, A. 2005 ‘Cabinet fit for a queen: the Λιθικά as Posidippus’ Gem Museum’, in Gutzwiller (ed.) 2005, 141–63. Lehnus, L. 1972 ‘Note stesicoree (Pap. Oxy. 2506 e 2619)’, Studi classici e orientali 21, 52–5. 2006 ‘Prima e dopo αἱ κατὰ λεπτόν’, in G. Bastianini and A. Casanova, eds Callimaco cent’anni di papiri: Atti del convegno internazionale di studi, Firenze, 9–10 giugno 2005, Florence, 133–47. Lesky, A. 1971 Geschichte der griechischen Literatur, 3rd ed., Berne and Munich. Lohse, G. 1973 ‘Die Aitien Prolog des Kallimachos als Reproduktion von Wirklichkeit’, Antike und Abendland 19, 20–43.
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Radke, G. 2007 Die Kindheit des Mythos: die Erfindung der Literaturgeschichte in der Antike, Munich.. Ransom, J. C. 1941 ‘Wanted: an ontological critic’, in id., The New Criticism. Norfolk, CT. 279– 336. Reitzenstein, E. 1931 ‘Zur Stiltheorie des Kallimachos’, in E. Fraenkel and H. Fränkel (eds) Festschrift Richard Reitzenstein zum 2. April 1931, Leipzig and Berlin, 23–69. Reitzenstein, R. 1970 [1893 Epigramm und Skolion: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der alexandrinischen Dichtung, Hildesheim. Rosen, R. M. 1990 ‘Poetry and sailing in Hesiod’s Works and Days,’ Classical Antiquity 9, 99–113. Rostagni, A. 1956 Scritti Minori II, 1: Hellenica-Hellenistica, Turin. Rouveret, A., Dubel, S. et al. 2006 Couleurs et matières dans l’antiquité: Textes, techniques et pratiques, Paris. Sadurska, A. 1964 Les tables iliaques, Warsaw. Sbordone, F. 1976 (ed.) Ricerche sui papiri ercolanesi, vol. 2, Naples. Schiesaro, A. 1998 ‘Latin literature and Greece’, Dialogos 5, 144–9. Schneider, W. J. 2001 ‘Phidiae Putavi: Martial und der Hercules Epitrapezios des Novius Vindex’, Mnemosyne 54, 697–720. Schor, N. 1987 Reading in Detail: Aesthetics and the feminine, New York. Scodel, R. 1992 ‘Inscription, absence and memory: epic and early epitaph’, Studi italiani di filologia classica 10, 57–76. Shklovsky, V. 1962 [1923] ‘Form and material in art’, in P. Blake and M. Hayward (eds) Dissonant Voices in Soviet Literature, [New York], 20–8. 1965 [1917] ‘Art as technique’, in L. T. Lemon and M. J. Reis (eds) Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays, Lincoln, Nebraska, 3–24. Squire, M. forthcoming (2010) ‘Visualising epic on the Tabulae Iliacae’, in H. Lovatt and C. Vout (eds) Visualising Epic, Cambridge. forthcoming ‘Texts on the table: the Tabulae Iliacae in their Hellenistic literary context’, JHS. Steiner, D. 1993 ‘Pindar’s “Oggetti Parlanti”’, HSCP 95, 159–80. Stephens, S. 2004a ‘Posidippus’s Poetry Book: where Macedon meets Egypt’, in W. V. Harris
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James L. Porter and G. Ruffini (eds) Ancient Alexandria between Egypt and Greece, Leiden and Boston, 64–86. 2004b ‘For you, Arsinoe...’, in B. Acosta-Hughes et al. (eds) Labored in Papyrus Leaves: Perspectives on an epigram collection attributed to Posidippus (P. Mil. Vogl. VIII 309), Washington, D.C. and Cambridge, MA, 161–76. Stewart, A. 1990 Greek Sculpture: An exploration, 2 vols. New Haven. 1993 ‘Narration and allusion in the Hellenistic baroque’, in P. J. Holliday (ed.), Narrative and Event in Ancient Art, Cambridge, 130–74. 2005 ‘Posidippos and the truth in sculpture’, in Gutzwiller (ed.) 2005, 183–205. 2006 ‘Hellenistic art: two dozen innovations’, in G. R. Bugh (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Hellenistic World, Cambridge, 158–85. Stewart, S. 1993 On Longing: Narratives of the miniature, the gigantic, the souvenir, the collection, Durham, (1st ed. 1984, Baltimore). Susemihl, F. 1891 Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur in der Alexandrinerzeit, 2 vols., Leipzig. Tilley, C. 2004 The Materiality of Stone: Explorations in landscape phenomenology, Oxford and New York. Valenzuela Montenegro, N. 2004 Die Tabulae Iliacae: Mythos und Geschichte im Spiegel einer Gruppe frühkaiserzeitlicher Miniaturreliefs, Berlin. van Groningen, B. A. 1953 La poèsie verbale grecque: Essai de mise au point, Mededelingen der Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afd. Letterkunde n.s. 26, no. 4 Amsterdam. Visscher, F. de. 1962 Héraclès Epitrapezios, Paris. Weinreich, O. 1918 ‘Die Heimat des Epigrammatikers Poseidippos’, Hermes 53, 434–9. Wick, C. 2000 (ms.). ‘ “The Best of Nature”: Naturphänomene und Naturkatastrophen in hellenistischen Epigrammen’, Paper read at Fifth Groningen Workshop, ‘Hellenistic Epigrams,’ 30 August–1 September, 2000. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. von 1924 Hellenistische Dichtung in der Zeit des Kallimachos, 2 vols., Berlin. 1943 [1882] (ed.) Callimachus, Hymni editio in usum academicum iuxta quartam Wilamowitzianam iterata, Florence. (1st ed. 1882) Wimmel, W. 1960 Kallimachos in Rom: Die Nachfolge seines apologetischen Dichtens in der Augusteerzeit, Wiesbaden.
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14 STYLE, CONTINUITY AND THE HELLENISTIC BAROQUE Peter Schultz The sculpture of the Hellenistic period, specifically ‘Hellenistic baroque’ sculpture, is often characterized as a revolutionary break with previous sculptural traditions.1 I would like to reexamine this idea over the course of this chapter. My argument will not be that the conventional characterization of the Hellenistic baroque as ‘revolutionary’ is incorrect. This would be silly. It is obvious that something quite exciting and different is happening in the third- and second-century manifestations of the style. Rather, my argument will be that the familiar characterizations of the Hellenistic baroque as ‘new’ or ‘innovative’ or ‘revolutionary’ have obscured another important and well-known art historical reality. Namely, that several underlying aspects of the Hellenistic baroque are rooted in a stylistic tradition that extends directly back to the sculpture of the fifth century BC, specifically to the sculpture of fifth- and fourth-century Athens. In general terms, there is little doubt that this kind of stylistic continuity exists.2 The discourse that surrounds it, however, is varied. Take, for example, Martin Robertson’s important discussion of the so-called Terme Ruler: The Hellenistic Ruler, exemplary Hellenistic figure though he be, can be traced back in a smooth sequence to Classical sources. Portraiture we have already considered in this sense; the exaggerated musculature is exaggerated on the basic pattern laid down by Polykleitos [in the fifth century]; and the spiral composition, whatever the actual date of the statue, derives directly from the innovations of the pupils of Lysippos at the beginning of the third century – innovations already hinted at in the work of Lysippos himself, whose own style developed out of the Polykleitan tradition [in the fourth century]. I see nothing in this statue which needed a change in the world to bring it about... Are we really making a mistake in trying to draw a sharp line in art at the beginning of the Hellenistic Age? 3
Now, compare Robertson’s query with an important remark recently made by Andrew Stewart:
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Peter Schultz Greek art did change profoundly under Alexander, and the invigorating combination of an audacious, opinionated and uniquely successful young king and a set of supremely talented artists certainly had much to do with it. So the fact that some of the period’s innovations had important classical antecedents is essentially irrelevant. Antecedents can help us to measure and contextualize innovations, but they can neither explain them nor exhaust their meaning.4
Of course, neither scholar ever adopts a rigid or polemic stance about the significance of stylistic continuity or evolution in the Hellenistic period.5 Even so, their remarks do exemplify two well-established interpretive positions. The first acknowledges the existence of stylistic precedents for certain characteristics of Hellenistic art and then suggests there might be something amiss with our chronological or interpretive categories. The second acknowledges the existence of stylistic precedents for certain characteristics of Hellenistic art and then suggests that we focus on the period’s innovations. Both positions have much to offer. For the purposes of this brief chapter, however, I will avoid any kind of ‘debate’ between the two. I choose this line for two reasons. First, since it can be shown that both perspectives provide useful bases for reading Hellenistic visual culture, arguments about which position is ‘more correct’ inevitably become contests of subjective emphases and thus unhelpful for our present project.6 Second, I am unsure whether either position frames the problem of stylistic precedents for Hellenistic sculpture in a way that is useful for starting a discussion regarding possible connections between stylistic continuity and meaning. In other words, identifying theoretical and stylistic precedents is important, but pointing at them, questioning them or using them to challenge traditional style periodizations – as important as these projects are – may not allow us to begin asking what this stylistic continuity may have meant for the creators, audiences and communities of the Hellenistic age.7 And it is this last issue that seems to deserve some further attention. Indeed, since the Hellenistic baroque is often seen as a key aesthetic achievement of the Hellenistic period, discussing some possible connections between ‘origins’ of the style and the style’s significance seems like an appropriate subject for a book that explores the creation of the Hellenistic world. With this goal in mind, I will try to accomplish two objectives in this chapter. First, I will try to show that some underlying stylistic and conceptual components of the Hellenistic baroque were ‘invented’ in Athens during the late fifth and early fourth centuries BC. Second, I will
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Style, continuity and the Hellenistic baroque try (briefly) to suggest one possible option as to what this continuity might mean for us and for Hellenistic viewers with the hopes that these suggestions might fuel further discussion. To develop this schema, I have divided this chapter into two sections. In Part One – ‘Style and continuity’ – I will document some structural and conceptual continuities that exist between ‘classical’ sculpture created ca. 450–350 BC and ‘baroque’ sculpture created ca. 250–150 BC. In Part Two – ‘Style and meaning’ – I will very briefly propose a hypothesis (a possibility, really) as to how and why these continuities may have been significant to the sculptors, patrons and communities who produced, commissioned and appreciated ‘baroque’ sculpture during the Hellenistic period. 1. Style and continuity Students of Greek sculpture have been using detailed stylistic analyses to support a variety of interpretive arguments for centuries.8 For example, stylistic analyses have been, and continue to be, used as standard diagnostic tools for determining a sculpture’s date. If, it is assumed, the style of Greek sculpture evolved consistently over time – an assumption often called into question in the Hellenistic period – then stylistic variation can be used as a chronological indicator.9 Stylistic analyses also have been used by students of Greek sculpture to track patterns of contact and influence between geographical regions. Since the sculptors of different cities often produced sculpture of different styles, the argument goes, these variations can be interpreted as evidence for the existence of regional schools (especially in the Hellenistic period) and for various levels of artistic contact between poleis.10 Stylistic analysis has also been the basis for the identification of individual sculptors. Here, style has been used to reconstruct the oeuvres of Greek masters, most often those Classical and Hellenistic stars mentioned in Greek and Roman literary sources. If we believe that these sculptors were distinct individuals with unique artistic personalities, it is understood, then the physical remains of their work, or copies of their work, should reflect the touch of their particular hands.11 More important for our discussion of the Hellenistic baroque, however, is the interpretive tradition that posits sculptural style as a material correlate of a socially situated Zeitgeist: a Zeitstil. In analyses of this type, the sculpture of ancient Greece is considered a cultural and social product and is interpreted insofar as it embodies, reveals or conforms to norms already considered ‘present’ in the literatures, religions and philosophies of the period whence it came. Since, it is suggested, the style of a piece is inseparable from its cultural and social context, stylistic analysis can support interpretive arguments about any number of preoccupations,
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Peter Schultz issues or agendas that may have permeated a particular moment of Greek society.12 There are two points to keep in mind here. First: One key aspect of understanding a cultural or aesthetic phenomenon like the Hellenistic baroque is a keen appreciation of the underlying cultural tradition from which the phenomenon comes as well as an appreciation of how that underlying tradition was viewed in the particular historical moment under consideration. This point has been made clear by Susan Alcock and Tanja Scheer, among others, in different contexts; it is also a fundamental basis of ‘traditional’ art history.13 As a species, we build our identities on versions of the past and incorporate these versions, consciously or not, into our present reality. A particular style will thus necessarily reflect not just its particular ‘age’ but will also reflect how the style itself developed before and during the period in question. A style will also reflect how its own development was understood and appreciated by the relevant communities in which the style was used or within which the style manifested. And style will itself be a medium through which these various intersections can be studied and understood. Second, and more importantly: Interpretive arguments that connect culture and style can be problematic. Especially when we are looking at style itself as evidence for cultural change or continuity or when we are looking to understand what stylistic change or continuity may have meant to ancient people of a particular historical moment. One of the most troublesome problems here is the often subjective nature of our stylistic comparisons – specifically, the choice of objects that are compared – that can often lead to forgone (rhetorical) conclusions. Here, Robin Osborne’s recent discussion of the formal differences between two famous late Archaic images – the Attic kouros, Aristodikos, and Myron’s famous diskobolos – is fundamental, especially Osborne’s insistence that choosing these two emblematic pieces of sculpture and interpreting their stylistic differences as evidence for cultural revolution in late sixth- and early fifth-century Athens constitute political and rhetorical acts.14 This is important. Because Osborne could have easily picked the same famous images and, with a different rhetorical stance, argued convincingly and correctly as to their status as evidence of cultural and conceptual continuity. Indeed, since the potential for both change and continuity is always simultaneously present within any given historical moment or any cultural system, and since the potential for our recognizing both change and continuity is equally present, discussions of particular changes or continuities should probably be seen for what they are: the results of our own interpretive decisions.
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Style, continuity and the Hellenistic baroque This is one of our greatest challenges when we confront the idea of the Hellenistic baroque as a stylistic and conceptual ‘system’ and when we tackle the idea of what a ‘baroque stylistic tradition’ might have meant in the Hellenistic age. When we consider revolutionary personalities like Alexander and his successors, when we see the Hellenistic world dramatically born in what seems like mere moments, when the Greek world itself seems (at first glance, at least) to have been changed utterly, it becomes all to easy to assume that the visual arts automatically and simultaneously reflected and responded to these new realities. But is this necessarily the case? On one level, I think that it is. But on another, I would like to resist this initial response and spend some time discussing the importance of the stylistic and conceptual continuities that lie beneath the changing forms of this transitional age. For this reason, I have obviously chosen to compare objects that I think exemplify these continuities for the purpose of this chapter. But other choices could have been made and with them other arguments. In choosing the specific objects that follow as my foci, I have tried to observe a few functional conditions. The first and most obvious is that I have tried to confine my discussions to sculpture for which we have reasonably secure dates. The second is that I have tried to compare sculptures that belong to the same basic type. Finally, though stylistically different, I have tried to keep in mind that these objects are all conceptually similar. This similarity resides in the fact that these sculptures have come to represent (for us) some of the most significant formal developments or possibilities of their respective periods. Now whether or not this type of statement will ever be a ‘true’ description of the sculpture in question – whether our opinion finds parallel in antiquity and how we can begin to speculate on such a possibility – is one of the oldest and most complex problems in the study of ancient culture.15 For our purposes here, it is sufficient to acknowledge the basic contingency of our statements, to confess that many reasons for stylistic change might be suggested (intended audiences, different media, different patrons, etc.), to admit that just because we find what we are looking for does not mean that we are not looking for the truth and to hope that this satisfies. The Hellenistic baroque is one of most recognizable styles available to sculptors during the third and second centuries BC.16 While there may be some concern about using a term originally invented to describe the art of the seventeenth century AD, for us this is a non-issue. In formal and stylistic terms, the conventional terminology is viable.17 There is little disagreement about the style’s formal and conceptual characteristics.
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Peter Schultz From a conceptual point of view, Hellenistic sculptors working in the baroque mode attempted to evoke a dynamic sense of movement, to stir potent feelings of powerful (usually hyperbolic) emotion and to place the action of their players within powerful theatrical and dramatic narrative frames. For the baroque sculptor, poetic and rhetorical principles such as auxe-sis (amplification), dialogia (repetition), megaloprepia (grandeur), deino-sis (intensity), ekple-xis (shock) and enargeia (vividness) were both aesthetic goals and the means by which these goals were achieved.18 In order to accomplish this range of spectacular effects, Hellenistic sculptors working in the baroque mode consistently deployed three wellknown and interrelated formal strategies. First, Hellenistic sculptors consistently distorted and amplified baroque anatomies for extravagant impact (Figs. 1–3). Second, Hellenistic sculptors consistently alter and embellish baroque draperies and surface textures to create fluctuating impressions of dramatic torsion, extravagant space, grand motion and sharp contrasts (Figs. 4–7). And third, Hellenistic sculptors consistently exaggerate baroque physiognomies to unlock the intense, theatrical depths of pathos (Figs. 8–11). Always, these three formal characteristics interconnect. Always these formal traits are unified by a pervasive sense of vivid exaggeration and dramatic flux that is generated and reflected both by individual sculpted figures and by the larger sculptural narratives that they constitute. It is with good reason that our most respected scholars of Hellenistic art have suggested that the principal agenda of the sculptors working in the Baroque mode was psychago-gia – the swaying of the soul.19 All of this is known. And there is no doubt that the sculptors of third and second centuries elevated the baroque mode to a new level of grandeur and scale. But there also seems little reason to believe that the basic aesthetic goals that I have described above were ‘invented’ in the Hellenistic age. Let us look to form and style first and examine these three spheres in turn, beginning with baroque anatomies. The figure of Zeus from the east frieze of the Pergamon altar (Fig. 1) provides the classic starting point for exploring the exaggeration and amplification of the baroque body.20 Striding powerfully to his right, fist upraised, the god-king cuts a swath of carnage through his gigantic opponents. Even without his head, Zeus makes for a powerful figure. Indeed, his physical might and mythic persona are here indistinguishable. This idea is communicated both by his dramatic, lunging pose – his lightning, added in bronze, would have followed the raking line of his right arm, torso and left leg – and by the swirling drapery which frames his hyperbolically muscled torso. Both rushing pose and falling drapery suggest a divine epiphany, a grand vision in which Zeus’ status, appearance and
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Fig. 1. Torso of Zeus from the Great Altar at Pergamon. A view of Zeus’s torso from the east side of the gigantomachy frieze of the Great Altar at Pergamon, Pergamonmuseum, Berlin. Marble, ca. 180–150 BC. Photo: Author.
being are formally merged and re-presented.21 Indeed, the god’s slashing stance across the frieze is the formal device by which the sculptors of the frieze sensually evoke a sort of divine metaphysic: Zeus is a personified thunderbolt – the ïdea of divine power incarnate. This same action prompts the falling mantle and subsequent revelation of his super-human anatomy. And Zeus’ exaggerated body is indeed worth special attention. Each muscle group has been identified and inflated beyond the boundaries of anatomical reality.22 His pectorals ( pectoralis major) are huge, as are his abdominals (rectus abdominis). His ribs are not evident, since they have been obscured by multiple bands of inflated front-laterals (seratus interor). There is a real concern with testing the limits of the male form. Again, this concern with the physical seems to extend to the metaphysical. In addition to recalling the Stoic Kleanthes’ third-century Hymn to Zeus (ll. 6–7) – ‘So will I praise thee, ever singing of thy might, by whom the whole wide firmament is swayed!’ – the god’s torso also reminds us of Theocritus’ baroque warriorking Amykos (Id. 22. 48–51) whose ‘huge chest and broad back swelled
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Peter Schultz like the iron flesh of a hammered statue’ and whose ‘muscles jutted out like rounded boulders, polished smooth by the whirling onrush of a winter torrent’. Considered within this poetic context, Zeus’ torso becomes a sensual manifestation of the god’s divine power. 23 Zeus’ baroque anatomy suggests the colossal, the corporeal and the cosmic – all made manifest in stone. Now, stand the Pergamene Zeus next to the image of Poseidon from the west pediment of the Parthenon carved 437–432 BC at the height of the Periclean building project (Figs. 2–3). The comparison is well-known.24 Like the Pergamene Zeus, the west pediment Poseidon lunges dramatically sideways, this time to his left. From Carrey’s drawing, we know that Poseidon, like Zeus, held his weapon, the trident, in his upraised fist. Racing with Athena for the patronage of Athens, the sea god is a powerful and dynamic competitor captured in midst of dramatic action, a player in a spectacular, theatrical scene.25 While the pose and gesture of the two gods are very close, it is Poseidon’s over-emphatic musculature (seen particularly well from the side, Fig. 3) that makes the comparison compelling. Like the Zeus from Pergamon, each muscle group has been identified and expanded past the limits of the norm. Poseidon’s pectorals are very large and very pronounced, as are his abdominals. His ribs are evident and are paired with multiple bands of inflated front-laterals. While a hint of classical restraint might be detected here (although I wonder how much of that has to do with the fragmentary condition of the piece), there remains an intense emphasis on inflating the expressive range of the male torso. Again, this concern with the body extends to the spirit. Kleanthes and Theocritus’ verses could apply nicely to the west pediment Poseidon, but there is no need to look into the Hellenistic period. Pseudo-Arion, writing his Hymn to Poseidon at the beginning of the fourth century, is just as evocative of a baroque sensibility ‘Highest of the gods, marine Poseidon of the golden trident, earth-holder bulging with might!’ Can there be a better lyric description of Poseidon’s mighty frame? Considered within this poetic context, Poseidon’s torso, like that of Zeus, becomes the physical embodiment or manifestation of the god’s own kind of swelling, tidal force. Again, like our Hellenistic Zeus, his baroque anatomy suggests the colossal, the corporeal and the cosmic.26 When we see these images together, it seems clear that something connects them. While there are formal differences, to be sure – the undercutting of Zeus’ anatomy is more emphatic than that of Poseidon, for example – when we look at the two torsos side by side it becomes rather hard to tell which is the ‘real’ baroque at all. In this sense, it is easy to see why Immo Beyer once argued that the Poseidon torso was, in fact, a
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Figs 2–3. Torso of Poseidon the Parthenon. The fragmentary torso of a central figure of the Parthenon’s west pediment, Athens. Parthenon West Pediment British Museum ‘M.’. Preserved ht. 83 cm, Pentelic marble, ca. 438–432 BC, perhaps the work of Pheidias and his circle, although much controversy remains. Acr. Mus. 885 + 959 (front chest and abdomen) and BM London M (arms and back). Photo: Author.
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Peter Schultz Hadrianic replacement modeled after the Hellenistic baroque! 27 And consider Adolf Borbein’s thoughts on the two pieces: The great influence of High Classical art was based not only on its ‘utopian’ content and its art historical duality (it is simultaneously a pinnacle and a new starting point), but also, and critically, on its phenomenal formal standards. The original works we possess – and here we refer to the Parthenon sculptures – are far removed from anemic ideality and cold perfection. Instead, they are marked by a powerful presence, a sparkling life, and a richness of detail. Emotions appear subdued but not repressed and the ideal manifests as a tangible, physical reality. The commonly noted balance between aesthetic freedom and restraint (Gebundenheit) has moved slightly towards freedom in the late classical period; in the same way, the balance between naturalism and stylization has shifted towards naturalism. The powerful body of Poseidon from the west pediment of the Parthenon, for example, is easily comparable to Hellenistic works such as the gods and giants from the great frieze of the Pergamon altar in terms of its immediate sensual charisma. These formal concerns, which directly address the senses, help to overcome the emotional distance between the spectator and the classical work itself and, ultimately, to set in motion a process of understanding or appropriation.28
This kind of language makes perfect sense when applied to both Classical and Hellenistic masterpieces. Both torsos are marked by a powerful, physical presence. Both torsos rely on intense, sensual form as the means by which their energy and power is communicated. And both torsos seek to directly engage the viewer, to pull him into a dynamic, theatrical narrative in which some cosmic struggle (ago-n) is represented. In this sense, then, Poseidon’s body – and perhaps the Parthenon’s entire ‘baroque’ system – seems to anticipate the Pergamene baroque by centuries, at least when it comes to the dramatic exaggeration of human anatomy. Of course, this does not mean that the anatomies of the two gods are indistinguishable. Hardly. Rather, this comparison suggests that a similar kind of aesthetic concern may have operated in the creation of both Classical and Hellenistic masterpieces, a concern that might be worth dwelling upon. When we consider baroque draperies carved during the Hellenistic period, a similar kind of formal continuity seems to exist. As noted above, Hellenistic sculptors are especially well known for their creation of elaborate drapery and surface textures in cloth that, in turn, generate fluctuating impressions of extravagant space, torsion, motion and chiaroscuro. Of course, by far the most famous example manifesting these sculptural ideas is the Nike of Samothrace (Fig. 4).29 While the problems of her date, authorship and historical context are notorious, the Samothracian Victory stands at the apex of the baroque mode in virtually every way. The Nike
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Fig. 4. The Nike of Samothrace. A victory dedication set in the Sanctuary of the Great Gods, Samothrace. Restored ht. 3.28 m (including wings), Parian marble, ca. 200 BC (although much debate remains on this point). The work has been attributed to a Rhodian workshop (with much controversy). Louvre MA 2369. Photo: Author.
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Peter Schultz was originally fashioned from several pieces of Parian marble (a fact that allowed some dramatic liberties to be taken with her drapery) and was recovered in multiple fragments. Her dress is complicated and seems to be made up of two overlapping garments – a heavy himation and a sleeveless chiton – that are shown folded and refolded multiple times. The arrangement and position of these garments is controversial, primarily because of the wind-swept environment that they indicate.30 Nevertheless, the complexity, doubling and overlapping of her dress added to the richness and complexity of her garments and thus allowed her sculptor the freedom to explore and expand the formal possibilities of her drapery. Alighting on her ship, waves crashing beneath its prow, Nike embodies everything that we have come to expect from the baroque mode. While there always remains a sense of underlying, bodily mass in her form, the Nike’s sculptor has worked hard to cut his drapery loose from all real restraint. On the one hand – especially at her stomach and breasts – Nike’s drapery cradles, clutches and clings to her powerful and highly provocative body, both describing and obscuring the sensual flesh beneath.31 On the other hand – at her legs and hips – Nike’s drapery seems to have been released from its task of outlining the human figure and is allowed to become raw, expressive form in its own right. The energetic, the momentary, the ephemeral – all these traditional aspects of nike- are captured here. The subtle, light incisions that run over her drapery further this effect. The small, concentric furls of drapery that sweep over her proper left hip and then rise away from her body proper at her pubis have almost nothing to do with the rational fall of wind-swept cloth (indeed, should not the gusts Nike rides have carried this fluttering filigree in the opposite direction?) but everything to do with a baroque illusion of force and dynamism, torsion and energy. There is no doubt that the drapery of the Nike of Samothrace stands at the zenith of the Hellenistic baroque, especially when it comes to her drapery. And once again, as we saw with the Pergamene Zeus, the conceptual concerns that governed her style and form seem to have some important precedents in the fifth and early fourth centuries BC that speak to a long standing interest in a baroque aesthetic. Sometime around 380 BC, the citizens of the small Peloponnesian city of Epidauros launched a program of monumentalization at the nearby healing sanctuary of Asklepios. Whether in response to the Athenian plague or other political factors, Epidaurian Asklepios had acquired an international reputation during the last quarter of the fifth century.32 This change in status was accompanied by a demand for sumptuous material votives and thus attracted a number of important sculptors from Athens and elsewhere to work on the expensive Pentelic elements of Asklepios’ new cult building.33
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Fig. 5–6. Nike from the Temple of Asklepios at Epidauros. An akroteria from the eastern pediment of the temple of Asklepios at Epidauros, Athens. Restored height ca. 1.7 m, Pentelic marble, ca. 380 BC. This figure may be the work of Timotheos; his contract is recorded on IG IV2 102A lines 88 – 90. National Archaeological Museum, Athens 162. Photo: Courtesy Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Athens; Gösta Hellner, negs. 1974/1161 & 1170. All rights reserved.
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Peter Schultz Several of the temple’s akroteria, made by the workshops of Theo – (IG IV 2 102 BI ll. 95–96; the rest of the sculptors name does not survive) and Timotheos (IG IV 2 102 BI ll. 88–90) respectively, are particularly complex and seem to reflect a concern with a baroque aesthetic.34 A major fragment of a Nike, probably carved by Timotheos, from the northeastern corner of the temple’s roof provides important material evidence (Figs. 5–6) and helps to establish a concern with baroque effects at the very beginning of the fourth century BC.35 A rarely seen view from below reveals how the figure was conceived as a dynamic spiral of transparent drapery holding the slender torso of a Nike at its center (Fig. 6). Radiating from the proper right side of her torso, the curl of her mantle is characterized by and understood as a series of spiraling, concentric arabesques. While appropriately impressive from below, as all akroteria were, the dramatic effect of the sculptor’s skill is particularly impressive in front of the figure (Fig. 5). Here the arced edge of the Nike’s mantle merges with, or emerges from, the unpinned peplos below her left armpit. Cupping and emphasizing her left breast, this mannerist fold curls up past the torso and then billows outwards in a blossom of windswept drapery let loose by the figure’s upraised right arm.36 Under the Peloponnesian sun, the sense of shadow, energy and movement created by this dynamic furl of drapery would have been potent. The subtle, light incisions that run over her drapery expand this effect. While these supple drapery effects are stunning (made all the more so by the fact that the preserved fragment, was carved from a single piece of Pentelic marble) the notion of a solid human figure as the conceptual and physical center of the composition is never lost. A series of parallel folds that rhythmically duplicates the opening on the right side of the Nike’s peplos twist forward around her slender right side and serve to anchor the vortex of drapery on a figural axis that is itself set in torsion. The sculptor’s final tour de force came in the upper stretches of the mantle which were slung high between the Nike’s outstretched wings. When vividly painted with an array of brilliant colors, this mantle would have provided a stunning theatrical backdrop for the entire figural composition.37 The aesthetic effects at which Timotheos aims with his Nike seem quite ‘baroque’ in nature. While a certain amount of classical restraint is evident in the figure, the underlying structure, the deeper aesthetic project seems very much the same. A similar thing can, and has, been said for the famous Nike of Paionios erected ca. 420 BC.38 The sculptor cuts his drapery loose from all practical concerns and treats his marble fabric as pure form that almost seems to exist in its own right and for its own sake. (It is almost as if Timotheos’ drapery creates its own formal reality. Indeed, how can we
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Fig. 7. ‘Iris’ from the west pediment of the Parthenon. A fragmentary torso from the Parthenon’s west pediment, Athens. Parthenon West Pediment British Museum “N.” Preserved ht. 1.35 m, Pentelic marble, ca. 438–432 BC, perhaps the work of Pheidias and his circle, although much controversy remains. Photo: Author.
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Peter Schultz observe this sculptor’s obsession with undercutting and believe Carpenter when he writes: ‘Classical drapery, being strictly functional to the bodily form it reveals, does not employ such cavernous penetrations of the solid block – if only because there was no need to do so’? 39 Hardly! A sculptor like Timotheos is a baroque virtuoso!) These effects would have been made more noticeable when the pieces were painted and set in the open air where the transparent, powerful arabesques of Timotheos’ marble would have created deep pockets of void and shadow and the billowing mantle of his Nike would have served as a theatrical background against which this potent carving took place. Of course, the sculptors of the temple of Asklepios were also looking backward, once more to the sculpture of the Parthenon. For example, figure N from the Parthenon’s west pediment (Fig. 7) displays very similar visual characteristics and offers, perhaps, the first real example of a baroque aesthetic as exemplified through drapery.40 Figure N – almost certainly Iris – wears a sleeveless chiton with a short kolpos pinched beneath a shining belt of bronze. She was winged, as two large cuttings in her back indicate, and rushes to her right. Her drapery is quite complex. In a manner similar to that seen on the eastern pediment’s Aphrodite, the sculptor of our Iris seems obsessed with the expressive potential of cloth. While Iris’ sculptor does keep his drapery close to the figure – although we cannot be sure how ‘restrained’ he was in this respect considering the damaged condition of the torso – he more than makes up for this moderation by the wild surface textures that he brings into play. (It is also important to remember that large masses of free standing marble – marble that was drastically separated from the core of the sculpted figure – were quite possible for the Parthenon sculptors, witness the mantle of Hebe on the Parthenon’s east pediment, for example.) Each fold of Iris’ garment is itself sculpted, cut and re-inscribed becoming, in a way, an exaggerated caricature of cloth’s movement and energy. Stewart captures Iris’ sense of drama, energy and passion when he writes about the Parthenon’s east and west pediments as compositions: ...whereas the Olympia Master had relied upon posture and gesture to indicate the character or e-thos of his subjects, these sculptors [of the Parthenon] now pressed anatomy and drapery into doing so as well. Choosing expressive effect over stylistic consistency (so much for one of classicism’s supposedly key components!), they both engaged the spectator more closely and laid the groundwork for later masterpieces... Once more Protagoras would have approved, for tapping into the spectator’s feelings – into his own subjectivity – was crucial to getting the cosmic implications of the scenes across.41
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Style, continuity and the Hellenistic baroque This kind of interpretive language could easily apply to the Nike of Samothrace or the Nike akroteria from Epidauros. All three pieces – separated by centuries – display a deep interest in the expressive possibilities of drapery, in the use of cloth to represent and explore dynamic torsion and chiaroscuro and all three pieces seek to directly engage the viewer, to pull him into a dynamic, theatrical narrative in which some titanic event is represented. And it is the sculpture of the Parthenon that seems to provides a formal and stylistic launching point for the baroque as a mode, at least when it comes to the creation of rich, sculpted draperies and surface textures which provide powerful impressions of extravagant space, motion and chiaroscuro. Finally, the continuities of form and style that we have seen in baroque anatomies and draperies continue through baroque physiognomies, the third of the formal strategies noted above. For example, when we line up Alkyoneus from the Pergamon altar (Fig. 8), a warrior from the pediment of the temple of Athena Alea at Tegea (Fig. 9–10) and a centaur from the southern metopes of the Parthenon (Fig. 11) it becomes clear that some kind of formal and conceptual connection exists between them.
Fig. 8. Alkyoneus from the Great Altar at Pergamon. A view of the suffering Alkyoneus from the east frieze of the gigantomachy of the Great Altar at Pergamon, Pergamonmuseum, Berlin. Marble, ca. 180–150 BC. Photo: Author.
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Figs 9–10. Head of a warrior from Tegea. A fragmentary head from the pedimental sculpture of the temple of Athena Alea at Tegea. Preserved ht. 32.6 cm, marble, ca. 350–340 BC. This figure may be the work of Skopas or his workshop, although much controversy remains. National Archaeological Museum, Athens 180. Photo: Author.
Fig. 11. Face of a centaur from the Parthenon’s south metopes. A detail of a centaur’s face from the south metope 2 of the Parthenon, Athens. South Parthenon Metopes British Museum 2. Preserved ht. of metope ca. 1.37, Pentelic marble, 447–442 BC, perhaps the work of Pheidias and his circle, although much controversy remains. Photo: Katherine Schwab © 2006.
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Style, continuity and the Hellenistic baroque Eyes are over-wide, deeply undercut with their outer corners consistently pulled down for expressive effect. Brows are always deeply and emphatically furrowed. Mouths are consistently open; the drill is employed for all. In addition to these features of physiognomy, another consistent trope is the bent neck with either the hair or beard being pulled. Of course, in each case we are dealing with a victim, so there is a certain amount of emotional content that is easy to confuse with emotive form. But look closely at the upper eyelids of our centaur and compare them to those of Alkyoneus from Pergamon. Clearly there are some differences of technique, but the basic effect and the basic conceptual goal – the dramatic, pathetic, upward gaze of sorrow – is quite similar and is produced on a comparable underlying formal structure.42 And, once again, it is the sculpture of the Parthenon that seems to provide a formal and stylistic launching point for baroque physiognomies. Clearly, these three interconnected formal strategies used by Hellenistic sculptors working in the baroque mode had some important precedents in the sculpture of the fifth and fourth centuries BC. The distortion and expansion of baroque anatomy for extravagant impact, the alteration and embellishment of baroque draperies and surface textures to create fluctuating impressions of extravagant space, motion and chiaroscuro and the exaggeration of baroque physiognomies to unlock the theatrical depths of the emotional psyche were all stylistic options available in the Classical period. And they were options that manifest themselves most powerfully on the Parthenon. But what might this stylistic continuity – these examples of a ‘baroque tradition’ – mean for us? How might it enhance or expand our understanding of the ‘Hellenistic baroque’? And, perhaps, most importantly, can we speculate as to what this tradition might have meant for Hellenistic viewers? These questions bring us to our Part Two. 2. Style and meaning When we acknowledge that the baroque mode, in sculpture, was invented in fifth-century Greece (with an important nexus at Athens) and that the tradition lived through the fourth century and beyond, one important possible interpretive response comes immediately to mind. This possibility hardly exhausts the potential for discussion as to the baroque mode’s significance. I touch on it briefly here with the hope that it might prompt further discussion on the possible connections that might exist between stylistic continuity and culturally situated meaning. Much more, it seems, could be said. One important way in which our understanding of the ‘baroque tradition’ is useful is that it helps us to meaningfully position the Hellenistic
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Peter Schultz baroque within several well-known discussions that connect power, authority and various forms of ‘classicism’.43 To wit: there can be little question that the ‘Golden Age’ of Classical Athens captured the imagination of Hellenistic poets and artists.44 Indeed, the idea that the ‘baroque mode’ was itself a kind of ‘classical form’ seems beyond dispute, especially when we consider the examples noted above.45If we are willing to allow for the fact that the artists of the Hellenistic age were aware of these early baroque examples, of this ‘baroque tradition’ – a conceit that hardly requires much imagination when we consider how closely Athena and Pergamon were connected in the second century, to give only the most obvious example – then the baroque mode becomes more than the means by which dramatic, sculptural scenes were produced: it also becomes one possible means by which cultural authority might be expressed.46 It also seems plausible to suggest that by laying claim to established baroque modes, Hellenistic patrons and sculptors also lay (at least) implicit claim to aspects of the cultural canon that formed the apex of the ‘classical’ vision of fifth-century Athens: the memory of Pericles, his circle and their titanic building program, a building program that was both ‘classical’ and ‘baroque’ in both form and scale. In the same way that Augustus and his sculptors made use of the fifth-century doryphoros for the Primaporta type and in a way similar to how the designers of, say, Washington D.C. made use of Classical architectural form, so the kings and generals of the Hellenistic age may have used the Hellenistic baroque to suit their particular dramatic purposes and to suggest, engage and (even) appropriate the ‘classical’ cultural legacy from which the tradition came. Indeed, recent work on the ‘Little Barbarians’ dedicated on the Athenian Acropolis by Attalos I argues for something like this kind of understanding of this important set of baroque masterpieces.47 To be sure, the baroque is still a ‘genre style’, and as such was used for very particular types of subject matter, but it also was a style that had been tested for centuries within the context of theatrical scenes of conflict and strife, the Parthenon pediments most famously.48 This kind of symbolic, stylistic retrospection and the denotative weight it carries has been discussed in the context of neo-Classicism and ‘archaistic’ sculpture of the Hellenistic age; perhaps we could see the baroque in a similar light?49 Stewart has recently noted: ‘Clearly, by the mid-Hellenistic period [the baroque] was certainly the classic (i.e., exemplary, canonical, or definitive) way to render pathos. But compared with, for example, Alkamenes’ Prokne, it is hardly classic in the more accepted and restrictive sense of manifesting the standard classical virtues of unity, balance and moderation – of
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Style, continuity and the Hellenistic baroque maintaining a façade of classical decorum’.50 Perhaps, when we consider the examples given above in Part One, we might allow both ‘baroque’ and ‘classical’ modes to exist together as two connected, retrospective traditions that both self-consciously elevated and sought to control the ‘classical’ past in visual terms?51 If we could, indeed, allow ourselves this possibility, then the Baroque mode could stand not only as a powerful vehicle by which human pathos might be dramatically represented, but as a stylistic vehicle for all manner of political and ideological programs within the Hellenistic world. Acknowledgements I am grateful to the Department of Classics at the University of Cincinnati for a Tytus Summer Fellowship and to Concordia College for a generous grant from the Hendrickson Fine Arts Endowment; both of these awards facilitated the initial research of this chapter in the summer of 2006. This paper was written in the Carl B. Ylvisaker Library at Concordia College in 2008 and 2009; I am happy to thank Erika Rux, Amy Soma and Leah Anderson for their generous (and patient!) assistance during the course of its composition. It is also a pleasure to thank the following friends and colleagues who have discussed various aspects of this project with me: George Connell, Kathryn Gutzwiller, Craig Hardiman, Eddie Schmoll, Kris Seaman and Olin Storvick. I am especially grateful to Andrew Stewart for his frank criticisms of the argument and much helpful advice. Andrew Erskine’s endurance regarding my completion of this text is testament to the definition of patience. All mistakes are mine.
Notes 1 For stylistic innovation in Hellenistic sculpture and the ‘Hellenistic baroque’ see, for example: Krahmer 1924, 138–40; Bieber 1961, 3–6; Stewart 1979, 137–9; Pollitt 1986, 1–16; Smith 1993, 18; Stewart 2006, 158–9; Schultz and von den Hoff 2007, 1–9. Some (see, for example, Havelock 1981, 113 and Carpenter 1960, 208–9) would see the ‘invention’ of the baroque as a late third- or second-century phenomenon. 2 For stylistic continuity in Hellenistic sculpture and the ‘Hellenistic baroque’ see, for example: Schuchhardt 1959; Brown 1973; Stewart 1979, 5, 9, 11; Ridgway 1990, 3–12; Robertson 1993, 84–101; Ridgway 1999, 7–8, 40–2; von den Hoff 2003 and Bergemann 2007. 3 Robertson 1993, 84–5. 4 Stewart 2006, 158. 5 See, for example, Robertson 1981, 194–7 or Stewart 1993. 6 See, for example, Robertson 1993, 90–1; Fullerton 1998b; Donohue 2005; Osborne 2007 and Schultz 2007a on this particular issue of style, rhetoric and ‘innovation’.
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Indeed, most discussions of the Hellenistic baroque revolve around the definition of a set of stylistico-formal characteristics and the debate about when and where these characteristics can be observed in the archaeological record of the Hellenistic period. See, for example, Krahmer 1923/24; Thiersch 1931, 364–7; Alscher 1957, 162–4; Laurenzi 1965; Merker 1973, 11–14; Stewart 1979, 9–25; Pollitt 1986, 113–18; Andreae 1988, 114–34; Osada 1993; Kunze 1996; Moreno 1994, 127–46, 359–413, 605–46; Pollitt 2000; Ridgway 2000a, 39–42. Pful 1930 is an important early step away from this tradition. Stewart (1993; 2005 and 2006) and G. Zanker (2004) provide the powerful and fundamental exceptions in English. 8 Style is here defined as the distinct combination of physical and formal characteristics – scale, mass, shape, color, line and texture – evident in a given set of objects and as the conceptual frame that these physical and formal characteristics mediate. In general terms, the arguments that sustain the use of stylistic analysis as a tool for investigating social and cultural meaning were first formulated by Winckelmann and then refined by Arnold Houser (1951), Meyer Schapiro (1953) and Ludger Alscher (1956; 1957). For the importance of style specifically in archaeological theory and practice, see Shanks and Tilley 1992, 137–71, and Hodder and Hutson 2003, 59–65, both with bibliographies. For socio-stylistic analysis of material culture, see Borbein 1973, Barnard 2001, 115–42; 168–93, Hölscher 2002, Elsner 2003 and now Bol 2004, all with bibliographies. Recent case studies by Shanks and Tilley 1992, 172–240, Neer 2002 and Olson 2002, 137–62, have reestablished the significance of this traditional type of analysis for contextual archaeologists and art historians. 9 Recent case studies in which the model is applied to Greek sculpture: Harrison 1988, Brouskari 1999, 16–52, Touloupa 2002, 68–76 and Bol 2004 among innumerable others. General critique of the ‘normative model’: Shanks and Tilley 1992, 138–9. Specific critique of the model: Ridgway, e.g. 1997, 364–6, and 2004, 539–56, 627–39, Keesling 2003, 36–62 and Schultz 2003b and 2004a. 10 Recent case studies in which the model is applied to Greek sculpture: Palagia and Coulson 1998 with comprehensive bibliographies. General critique of the ‘regional interaction’ model: Shanks and Tilley 1992, 140–1. Specific critiques of the model applied to Greek sculpture: Jockey 1998, Mattusch 1998, Ridgway 1997, 241–2 and Pollitt 2000. 11 Classic case studies of the model applied to Greek sculpture: Kjellberg 1926, Carpenter 1929 and Schuchhardt 1930. Recent examples of the same: Brouskari 1999, 57–71, Symeonoglou 2004 and Harrison 2005. Personal styles in Greek sculpture: Pollitt and Palagia 1996 with comprehensive bibliographies. General critique of the ‘motor habit variation model’: Shanks and Tilley 1992, 141. Specific critique of the model applied to Greek sculpture: Carpenter 1960 and Ridgway, e.g. 1981, 5–8, 159– 91; 1997, 237–320. 12 Early case studies of the model applied to Greek sculpture include Krahmer 1923/24, Pfuhl 1930, Buschor 1947 and 1971 and Alscher 1956 and 1957. Recent examples of the same with various refinements in theory and practice: Pollitt 1972 and 1986, Whitley 1991, Neer 2002, Hölscher 2002, von den Hoff 2007 among many others. 13 Alcock 2002; Scheer 1993; 2005. See also Stewart 2004, 220–6, and, now, Erll and Nünning 2008. 14 Osborne 2007, 3. 15 Which does not mean that it should be neglected; Jean Rudhardt’s famous remark regarding ancient Greek religion – ‘La difficulté principale de l’étude des religions me
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Style, continuity and the Hellenistic baroque paraît être celle de la compréhension d’autrui’ (Rudhardt 1981, 10) – can apply with equal force to the study of ancient Greek art. 16 Bieber 1955, 125–35; Pollitt 1986, 111–126; Fowler 1989, 32–43; Stewart 1990, 205–18; Smith 1993, 99–126; Stewart 1993; de Grummond and Ridgway 2000; Stewart 2003; Stewart 2005; Stewart 2006, 171–2 with bibliography. 17 Pollitt 1986, 111. 18 Stewart 1993; 2005. 19 Stewart 1990, 207; Stewart 2006, 171–2. There is little disagreement on this point. But this fact itself provokes a question: Can the kind of conceptual and formal ekphrasis that I have just given represent the meaning of the baroque tradition for us? Here our answer should probably be both ‘yes’ and ‘no’. On one hand, there is no doubt that the meaning of the Hellenistic baroque is connected to the aforementioned conceptual interests and to the formal devices through which Hellenistic sculptors made these interests manifest. On the other hand, we should probably acknowledge that the baroque’s significance as a culturally situated phenomenon depends upon more than a description of its constituent narrative concerns and its underlying formal components. There is no doubt, for example, that space, setting, religious context, the omnipresent power-games of patrons all contributed to the meaning of any given sculptural object. It is equally clear that when these individual works of art are brought together and when the subsequent ‘baroque canon’ is considered, all of these factors (and probably more) would need to be considered if some kind of complex expression of the ‘style’s meaning’ were to be recreated. And even if all this was accomplished, this type of culturally based reconstruction of potential meanings cannot explain why Hellenistic sculptors chose the style that we call the ‘baroque’ as opposed to something else without beginning to assess the origins of the style and the nature of the baroque tradition. Much work remains to be done. 20 Amberger-Lahrmann 1996. 21 Himmelman 1998, 103–38. 22 Amberger-Lahrmann 1996. 23 Ridgway 1990, 6, considers such parallels between art and literature to be ‘intellectual fabrications and extrapolations that may find little or no counterpart in reality’ and that there is no reason to believe that ‘the conceptions of a small elite of poets and their patrons found visual expression in the plastic arts’. G. Zanker 2004 and Stewart 2005 have dismantled this model. Tanner 2006, 141–204, provides a broad perspective on the underlying structures of the dispute. 24 See, for example, Carpenter 1960, 200, Robertson 1981, 195–7, and 1993, 86, Borbein 2002, 14–15. West pediment Poseidon ‘M’: Acropolis Museum 885 + 959 (front chest and abdomen) and BM London M (arms and back). The fundamental discussions of the piece are given by Brommer 1963, 42–3, and Palagia 1998, 47 with nn. 123–38. Periclean building program: Hurwit 2004 and Lapatin 2007 both with bibliographies. 25 For the moment and possible significance of the pose: Schultz 2007c. 26 I have suggested elsewhere (Schultz 2004b) that Poseidon was shown wearing a bronze cuirass in this scene and that his inflated anatomy might be a response to that particular iconographic move. 27 Beyer 1988, 298 n. 13. 28 Borbein 2002, 14–15: ‘Die große Wirkung der hochklassischen Kunst beruhte
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Peter Schultz aber nicht nur auf ihrem “utopischen” Gehalt und auf ihrem kunstgeschichtlichen Doppelgesicht (sie ist Höhepunkt und Neuansatz zugleich), sondern entscheidend auch auf ihrem überragenden formalen Niveau. Die Werke, die wir im Original besitzen – und erneut sei hier auf die Parthenon-Skulpturen verwiesen –, sind von blutleerer Idealität und kalter Perfektion weit entfernt. Sie zeichnen sich vielmehr aus durch kraftvolle Präsenz, sprühende Lebendigkeit, Reichtum im Detail. Affekte scheinen gebändigt, doch nicht unterdrückt, Ideales greifbare Realität zu sein. Das oft bemerkte Gleichgewicht zwischen Freiheit und Gebundenheit hat sich im Verlauf der Hochklassik offenbar leicht zu Freiheit hin verschoben, ebenso das Gleichgewicht zwischen Naturalismus und Stilisierung zum Naturalismus hin. Der gerwaltige Torso des Poseidon (abb. 7) aus dem Westgiebel des Parthenon z. B. wird an unmittelbar sinnlicher Ausstrahlung von vergleichbaren hellenistischen Werken wie den Göttern und Giganten am Großen Fries des Pergamonaltars (abb. 8) nicht übertroffen. Die die Sinne ansprechende Form trägt aber entscheidend dazu bei, die Barriere der Fremdheit zwischen dem Betrachter oder Interpreten und dem klassischen Werk zu überwinden und schließlich einen Proveß des Verstehens oder des Sich-Aneignens in Gang zu setzen’. See also Stewart 2008, 140–2, on the emotional effect of the Parthenon pediments. 29 The Nike of Samothrace: Bieber 1961, 125–6 with earlier bibliography; Stewart 1993; Knell 1995; Hamiaux 1998, 27–32; Ridgway 2000a, 150–9; Stewart 2005. Michel Ellenberger’s (2000) compilation of poetry and descriptions of the baroque masterpiece is a delight and worth tracking down. 30 Hamiaux 1998, 27; Ridgway 2000a, 155. 31 Of course, Nike as a type has been highly eroticized since the middle of the fifth century, another conceptual continuity worth noting. See Stewart 1997, 148–9; Ridgway 2000a, 154, and now Munn 2009. 32 Contextual evolution of the sanctuary’s development: Wickkiser 2003 and Riethmüller 2005. Architectural evolution of sanctuary’s development: Burford 1969; Gruben 2001, 143–53, and Riethmüller 2005 with bibliography. 33 Athenian sculptors and Epidauros: Burford 1969, 155 and 202 (Table 10); Yalouris 1992; Smith 1993; Ridgway 1997, 41 and 366; Feyel 1998; Rolley 1999, 203–8; Levendi 2003, 101–2, and Schultz 2007a, 165–72. Sculptural and stylistic context of the decorative program: Brown 1973, 5–15; Yalouris 1992: 82–3; and Schultz 2007, 165–79. 34 IG IV2 102 AI-BI, a famous inscription excavated at the site, records the expenses involved in these artists’ work and provides a contemporary picture of their various sculptural assignments. Translation and commentary: Roux 1961, 84–130, and Burford 1969. Interpretation and context: Feyel 1998 and Schultz 2007a. 35 Style: Yalouris 1992, 67–74. Social context: Schultz 2007a. 36 The sensuality of the specific pose and the connection of Nike to Aphrodite: Gulaki 1981, 89–90; Picon 1993 and Levendi 2003, 99. 37 Painting of ancient architectural sculpture: Tiberios et al. 2002 and Brinkmann 2004 with bibliography. 38 Stewart 1990, 89–92. 39 Carpenter 1960, 202. 40 West pediment Poseidon ‘N’: BM London M (arms and back). The fundamental discussions of the piece are given by Brommer 1954 and Palagia 1998, 48–9 with ns. 155–64. For the Periclean building program see n. 24 above.
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Style, continuity and the Hellenistic baroque 41
Stewart 2008, 140. As a brief aside, this discussion of baroque physiognomies and their presence in Greek sculpture from the later fifth century BC and onwards prompts a look beyond architectural adornment to free-standing portraits. Here again, clear formal continuities are manifest between ‘baroque portraiture’ of the Hellenistic period and its ‘classical’ forerunners in the fifth and fourth century (Stewart 1979, 9–12, remains fundamental on this point). Pollitt 1986, 63–6, and Bergemann 2007 both provide analyses of the art historical context. Take the most famous of all Hellenistic portraits, the eiko-n (portrait) of Antisthenes attributed to the Athenian sculptor Phyromachos (Antisthenes: Stewart 1979, 9–10; P. Zanker 1995, 175–7; Ridgway 2000, 285–6 with n. 48; Stewart 2004, 215–6. Ridgway 2000, 285–6, rejects the connection between the famous statue base of Antisthenes’ portrait in Ostia signed by Phyromachos and the Roman copies of the philosopher’s portrait. See von den Hoff 1994, 135–50, for a nuanced reading of the evidence). This image – with its tortured brow and deep set eyes, its thick expressive hair and cascading beard – has long been seen as one of the most powerful baroque images of the late third or early second century. But the basic type, indeed all the specific formal devices that Phyromachos employs – the heavy, dramatic undercutting of the eyes, the deep, exaggerated separation of hair locks, the heavily muscled and expressive forehead – are not new. A similar structure shows up in the fourth-century Euripides Rieti type recently studied by Hans Isler and, to lesser extent, in Athenian grave reliefs of the middle fourth century such as the famous old man from the Ilissos stele, Athens National Museum 4675 (Isler 1999; Bergemann 2007, 35–6). That these fourth-century images have long been conclusively connected to fifth-century images of centaurs, specifically the centaurs on the south metopes of the Parthenon (Fig. 11), also seems quite significant (Schweitzer 1963, 115–67. See also Fittschen 1988; Himmelman 2001, 66; Bergeman 2007, 34; Von den Hoff 2007, 52). What Phyromachos brings to the baroque portrait is a fresh intensity of purpose and a dramatic amplification of preexisting formal patterns. The underlying aesthetic agenda that governed his sculptural art, however, seems to have set in late fifth and fourth century in Athens. Stewart seems to have been quite right when he remarked ‘that “baroque” tendencies of a sort were already present in Attic sculpture long before Phyromachos was born or turned his hand to portraiture’ ( Stewart 1979, 11). 43 Zerner 1988; Hodder and Hutson 2003, 67 and 82 with bibliographies. 44 Most 2005 with comprehensive bibliography. 45 Stewart 2005, 128–35 and 139. 46 See, for example, Stewart 2004. 47 Stewart 2004, 220–26. 48 ‘Genre styles’: Stewart 1993; 2005; Hölscher 2002; 2009, 57–8. 49 Stylistic retrospection: Fullerton 1990; 1998a; 1998b; 2003. 50 Stewart 2005, 139–40. 51 Perhaps we might usefully expand on Stewart’s notion that ‘By adopting [baroque conventions a] sculpture offers a reprocessed image of its classical past that is filtered though the lens of the baroque and tuned to a visually and historically sensitized audience’ (2005, 128). Here, both ‘baroque’ and ‘classical’ modes represent stylistic choices that are, in essence, variations on a theme, bound together, dependant upon one another, yet distinct. 42
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Peter Schultz Bibliography Alcock, S. 1997 ‘The heroic past in a Hellenistic present’, in P. Cartledge, P. Garnsey and E. Gruen (eds) Hellenistic Constructs. Essays in culture, history and historiography, Berkeley, 20–34. 2002 Archaeologies of the Greek Past. Landscape, monuments, memories, Cambridge. Alscher, L. 1956 Griechische Plastik 3: Nachklassik und Vorhellenismus, Berlin. 1957 Griechische Plastik 4: Hellenismus, Berlin. Amberger-Lahrmann, M. 1996 Anatomie und Physiognomie in der hellenistischen Plastik. Dargestellt am Pergamonaltar, Stuttgart. Andreae, B. 1988 Laokoon und die Gründung Roms, Mainz. Barnard, M. 2001 Approaches to Understanding Visual Culture, New York. Bergemann, J. 2007 ‘Attic grave reliefs and portrait sculpture in fourth-century Athens’, in Schultz and von den Hoff 2007, 34–48. Beyer, I. 1988 ‘Das nordliche Tympanonpferd der Zweigespanne des Parthenonostgiebels’, Bathron, Beiträge zur Architektur und verwandte Künsten für H. Drerup, Saarbrücken. Bieber, M. 1961 The Sculpture of the Hellenistic Age, New York. Bol, P. (ed.) 2004 Geschichte der antiken Bildhauerkunst 2, Mainz. Borbein, A. 1973 ‘Die griechische Statue des 4. Jhs. v. Chr’, JdI 88, 43–212. 2002 ‘Klassische Kunst’, in P.-K. Schuster and W. Jacob (eds) Die griechische Klassik. Idee oder Wirklichkeit, Mainz, 9–25. Brinkmann, V. and Wünsche, R. 2004 Bunte Götter. Die Farbigkeit antiker Skulptur. Eine Ausstellung der Staatlichen Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek München in Zusammenarbeit mit der Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek Kopenhagen und den Vatikanischen Museen, Rom, Munich. Brommer, F. 1954 ‘Zur Iris des Parthenon-Westgiebels’, in Neue Beiträge zur klassischen Altertumswissenschaft. Festschrift B. Schweitzer, Stuttgart, 181–4. 1963 Die Skulpturen der Parthenon-Giebel, Mainz. Brouskari, M. 1999 To thorakio tou naou tis Athinas Nikis, Archaiologike Ephemeris Supplement 137, Athens. Brown, B. 1973 Anticlassicism in Greek Sculpture of the Fourth Century BC, New York. Burford, A. 1969 The Greek Temple Builders at Epidauros, Toronto.
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