The Greek state at war - III, Religion [III] 0520037812

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THE © GREEK STATE AT WAR Part IIT W. Kendrick Pritchett

THE GREEK

STATE

AT WAR Part III

By W. Kendrick Pritchett Parts I and II of The Greek State at War received the American Philological Association Award of Merit. The unifying theme of Part III—religion—should appeal to students of religion in general, not only to those of Greek religion. Mixing catalogue and comment, Professor Pritchett discusses military epiphanies, oracles,

portents,

vows,

and

taxes.

A major

section describes the role of the military seers who accompanied Greek armies and the art of divination that they practiced. One chapter concerns war festivals and Greek calendars; another details the conventions governing the

dedication of arms worn or captured in warfare. Resisting the easy cynicism of modern rationalistic historians when writing of the responses of Greek commanders to religious phenomena in the ancient world, Professor Pritchett dem-

onstrates that they were profoundly committed to the religious practices and observances of their time: This volume forms part of acontinuing series in which the author is attempting, on the basis of diverse sources, to clarify the practice of warfare in the Greek city-state.

W. KENDRICK PRITCHETT is Professor of Greek, Emeritus, at the University of California, Berkeley.

THE GREEK STATE AT WAR Part III

Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2021 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation

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~The Greek State at War Part III: Religion

By W. KENDRICK PRITCHETT

UNIVERSITY BERKELEY

OF

CALIFORNIA

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University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England

Copyright © 1979 by The Regents of the University of California ISBN 0-520-03781-2 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: Printed in the United States of America

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75-312653

CONTENTS Religion and Greek Warfare .

Military Epiphanies . The Military Mantike . Miscellaneous Portents . War Festivals and the CHES.

. Military Vows

.

. Dedications of Armor . Captured Armor . . Military Oracles . The Epitheiasmos

- Cult Tax on Military Bae - Religion for Discipline. Index of Ancient Authors Gide Index of Inscriptions Cited

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CHAPTER

RELIGION

AND

I

GREEK

WARFARE

ONE OF THE MOST interesting of scholarly controversies had its inception in a statement by U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff in Aristoteles und Athen 2 (Berlin 1893) 85, about the battle of Marathon: “Artemis hat ihnen die kraft zu den

Bondpou.a

gegeben und erhalt zum

danke

das ziegenopfer.”1 Wilamowitz interpreted the Herodotean account as supporting his own view that belief in the goddess Artemis had given the Greeks sufficient strength to make the charge and he issued a stern reproof to scholars who minimized the religious factor in Greek warfare. The German military historian Hans Delbriick in a review article titled “Theologische Philologie,” published in the May 1904 Preussische Jahrbiicher (116) 209-240, of which he was the editor, singled out for severe criticism Wilamowitz’s treatment of religion in warfare. In so doing, he espoused the view for a study of military history which he called “Sachkritik” (“objective analysis’”).2 Delbriick believed that by his knowledge of warfare he could reconstruct ancient battles, tactics, numbers of combatants, etc., much better than classical scholars could

do. Mastery of the facts of modern military practice gave him, he believed, a basis for determining what was reliable and what unreliable in the great volume of ancient source material. As to Wilamowitz’s theory of the inspiration of Artemis at the battle of Marathon, Delbrick likened this to the acceptance by the Bonn pastor Johann Peter Lange of Daniel’s miracle in the lions’ den when the angel of the Lord shut the lions’ mouths (Daniel 7:22): “sind doch fast dieselben, mit denen Wilamowitz das Laufwunder von Marathon verteidigt. Die Gottin hat den Athenern die Kraft dazu gegeben und erhalt dafiir das Ziegenopfer—was will man mehr?” (p. 228). Lange had been Professor of Theology at Bonn when Delbriick was a student there. This attack of 1904 by Delbriick on Wilamowitz brought a strong response, not from Wilamowitz himself, but from the Greek military historian J. Kromayer. His article, titled ““Wahre und falsche Sachkritik,” appeared in Historische Zeitschrift 95 (1905) 1-28. Kromayer

quoted Delbriick’s comparison between Lange and Wilamowitz

and

1. Cf. Wilamowitz, op.cit. 1, 250 n.132: “Das geliibde des Kallimachos [der Artemis ein ziegenopfer zu bringen] und die dadurch

erzeugte feier hat dann, wie nattirlich,

die erzihlung von der schlacht mit einem solchen Bondpopety ausgestattet.” 2. For N. Whatley’s criticisms of Delbriick’s theory of Sachkritik, see JHS 84 (1964) 126-127.

[1]

2

Religion and Greek Warfare

continued, “So konstatiert Delbriick mit siegessicherem Griffe bei dem ersten Philologen unserer Zeit die Anschauung des alten Bonner Pastors. Was soll man da erst von den anderen verlangen?” (p. 3). The controversy was continued in Historische Zeitschrift 95 (1905) 514, and Preussische Jahrbiicher 121 (1905) 158-167. The two men remained unreconciled. In spite of Delbriick’s reputation as a military historian, his reconstructions of ancient battles are to be seen today as pieces of chimneycorner work paralleled only by that of Munro in the Cambridge Ancient History.? According to him, the entire Herodotean story of the Persian War was suspect. For example, in his study of the battle of Marathon in his Geschichte der Kriegskunst 1 (Berlin 1900) 41-59 (= 1? [Berlin 1920] 52-73), he concluded that the Persians were inferior in number to the Greeks, that the battle was not fought on the plain of Marathon proper, but deep in the Vrana valley, where the Greek phalanx could not have been surrounded by Persian cavalry, and that the Persians made the initial attack. But the subject raised by Wilamowitz,

and only briefly commented

on by him, remained

unin-

vestigated. At times in the history of warfare, the warrior believed that he “had a divine mission in spreading the new gospel,” as did the Arabs under Mohammed.? Again, in the Crusades, men-at-arms of Christendom were

inspired by a whole-hearted desire for a remission of sins. A reading of W. H. Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Mexico brings to light accounts of military epiphanies,

sacrifices (human,

however,

not ani-

mals) and superstitions among the Aztecs and their Spanish conquerors which are in excess of anything attributed to the Greeks two thousand years earlier. The coming of Spaniards into the country was predicted in advance by oracles. A significant recurring sentence in Wilamowitz’s Der Glaube der

3- The high praise given by F. J. Schmidt, K. Molinski, and S. Mette (Hans Delbriick: der Historiker und Politiker [Berlin 1928] 96) to Delbriick’s study of the evolution of tactics and his reconstruction of single battles was written with no indication that many of Delbriick’s reconstructions had at the time been disproved by Kromayer and his collaborators in the four-volume Antike Schlachtfelder in Griechenland. Quite apart from his theoretical position about warfare, Delbriick, writing in a country garrisoned by disciplined, salaried armed forces, had no conception of the social and religious fabric of the Greek city-state, and little understandin g of the mountainous topography and physical conditions of ancient phalanx warfare. 4. L. Montross, War Through the Ages (New York 1944) 122. 5. Ibid. 133.

Religion and Greek Warfare

3

Hellenen is “Die Gétter sind da.” Wilamowitz wrote with sympathetic understanding of the actual belief of the Greeks in their gods. In similar fashion, E.R. Dodds (The Greeks and the Irrational [Berkeley 1957| 117) stated: 2 I believe with Professor Latte that when Hesiod tells us how the Muses spoke to him on Helicon this is not allegory or poetic ornament, but an attempt to express a real experience in literary terms. Again, we may reasonably accept as historical Philippides’ vision of Pan before Marathon, which resulted in the establishment of a cult of Pan at Athens;? and perhaps also Pindar’s vision of the Mother of the Gods in the form of a stone statue, which is likewise said

to have occasioned the establishment of a cult, though the authority in this case is not contemporary. Portents, dreams, and oracles are features in the accounts of Greek historians, because such elements were factors in Greek life. These features, with their interpretation, counted for something, and that not

insignificant, in the actions of men and in the policy of states. Some writers, to be sure, had a personal penchant for such things and have given them what some moderns regard as an undue prominence in their narratives to the exclusion of more genuinely rational elements. It may be some compensation to us, however, that by these very peculiarities such writers more fully represent the popular mind of their age and people and so become, in a fresh application, historical in our

eyes. Many features of ancient religion are so alien to us that we tend to disregard our best sources, even when the evidence is overwhelming. Where the ancients assigned a religious motive to some military action,

modern discussion seeks political or military ones. To the Greeks, the sacrifice was the sacred experience par excellence: iepdv, tepebs, tepevery, etc.® Since the slaughter of animals for sacrifice ceased in the West un-

der the influence of Christianity, we are prone to pass over the fact that omens were taken from animals by manteis who regarded themselves as the official means of ascertaining the will of the gods. The electrical phenomenon which occasionally appeared on the masts and rigging of the Greek ships came to be regarded among the ancients as the outward manifestation of the physical presence of Kastor and Polydeukes, 6. Cf. vol. 1 (Berlin 1931) 17. H. J. Rose, The Roman Questions of Plutarch (Oxford 1924) 53, writes: “There are two fundamental, tacit assumptions made by the majority of Greek writers on religion. The first is that the gods are real, .. .”

4. Herodotos 6.105. Cf. Pindar’s vision of Alkmaion: P. 8. 56-60.

8. So W. Burkert, GRBS

7 (1966) 102.

4

Religion and Greek Warfare

in particular, but also of Demeter and Persephone.® This function was

described graphically as early as Alkaios (76D, 112P):

Come, mighty sons of Zeus and Leda, forsaking Pelops’ isle, appear... , O Kastor and Polydeukes, you who come over the broad earth and all the sea on your swift steeds, and lightly save men from chill death, leaping on the tops of the well-launched ships shining from afar as you run up the rigging, and bringing light to the black ship in the stress of night.

Plutarch (Timoleon 8) states that when Timoleon was on his voyage to Sicily in 344 B.c. “it was the goddesses who manifested the light from heaven, as taking part with them in the expeditions” (rds beds

ouvepanrouevas

Tijs orpateias tpopalvew &€ odpavod Td cé\as).1° Now

it is

generally inferred because of the similarity in the account in Diodoros that the two historians are making use of Timaios of Sicily; the history of the latter was replete with omens and portents. But that fact is not in itself a sufficient ground to reject the portent as unauthentic. If the common electrical phenomena took place on Timoleon’s voyage from Kerkyra we can be reasonably certain that they would have been interpreted as Plutarch describes. As Onasander (10.26) remarks of soldiers, “They are on the alert, every man, and they watch closely for omens of sight and of sound.” .

As a result of the researches of such scholars as Rohde, Dodds, et al., we have now come to realize that psychological states, which could be neither explained nor controlled, were attributed by the Greeks to

external psychic interferences. Such unaccountable modes of behavior as second-sight and panic, in which human will and reason are submerged, according to the belief of ancient popular religion were caused by a higher power."! The historian needs to be reminded that we are dealing with only one element of a widespread religious belief-pattern

which accepted epiphanies, portents,

and the concept of divine pos-

g. Pliny in his Natural History (2-37.101) says that when there were two lights sailors called them Kastor and Polydeukes and invoked them as gods. After his death in 304, Sant’ Ermo (= Saint Erasmus), whose name was corrupte d into St. Elmo, became the patron saint of Mediterranean sailors, who regarded “St. Elmo’s fire” as the

visible sign of his guardianship. Johannes Lydus (De Ostentis 5-6) describes similar incidents. Star-like luminosities were often seen on ships at sea, settling on the yardarms and emitting a sound like that made by birds flitting about. The same phenomenon appeared on spear-points. For a bibliogr aphy on St. Elmo’s fire, see R. G. M. Nisbet and M. Hubbard, Commentary on Horace: Odes 1 (Oxford 1970) 46-47. 10. Cf. Diodoros 16.66.4.

11. Cf. E. R. Dodds, Euripides Bacchae 2 (Oxfor d 1960) 109. Cf. J. W. Gregory, HSCP 81 (1971) 301: “Madness is imposed upon an individual from the exterior, visited upon him by a god either as punishment or as part of some divine plan.”

Religion and Greek Warfare

5

session—the incarnation of a god in human form. Just as psychological states, which could be neither explained nor controlled, were attributed by the Greeks to an external psychic interference, so in warfare

the infection of the particular terror which turns an army into a mob was

commonly

attributed

to gods, and, in particular,

after the fifth

century, to Pan. In the Bacchae (298-304), Euripides says of Dionysos, “This god too is a mantis, for there is no small prophecy inspired by Bacchic frenzy; for whenever the god in his full might enters the human frame, he makes his frantic votaries foretell the future. Likewise he shares in a certain portion of Ares’ province; for often, before ever

a weapon is touched, a panic seizes an army when it is marshalled in array; and this too is a frenzy sent by Dionysos.” The Korybantian worshipper in Plato’s Jon and the Bacchante in Euripides, conscious of divine possession, yield to the emotional

im-

pulse stirred in their responsive nature by the whirling dance,! the wild music of the flutes, and the intoxication

Modern

parallels have been adduced

Bacchants,

when

they saw

the earth

of the midnight hour.

for the hallucinations flowing with

milk,

of the

wine,

and

honey, and inhaled the fragrance of Syrian unguents (Plato Jon 534A; Euripides Bacchae 141ff.), or for their insensibility to the attack of fire and sword. “On their hair they carried fire and it burnt them not; but the villagers rushed to arms, furious at being pillaged by the Bacchanals. For though the iron-shod dart would draw no blood from them, they with the thyrsos which they hurled, caused many a wound and put their foes to utter rout, women

chasing men, by some god’s inter-

vention”: Euripides Bacchae 757-764. Polyainos (4.1) records the stratagem in which Argaios, a fourth-century Makedonian king, used women dressed as maenads to frighten an invading army. Greek art usually provided the maenad with a @vpoédoyxos, a thyrsos with an iron spear-

head.#8 The Platonic Sokrates asserted that poets compose their songs not by virtue of any wisdom or skill, but by a kind of natural inspiration,

akin to that of manteis and chresmodoi (Apology 22C; Ion 533E). It was in accordance with this habit of thought that Pindar, emphasizing his preference for inborn over acquired characteristics, spoke of all wisdom as inspired (Ol. 9.28; 11.10). Since it was the characteristic of 12. Aldous Huxley (Ends and Means [London 1937] 232, 235) writes of ritual dances in all societies as providing a “religious experience that seems more satisfying and convincing than any other... . It is with their muscles that they most easily obtain knowledge of the divine.” Quoted by Dodds (Bacchae 2 p. xiv). 13. F. G. von Papen, Der Thyrsos in der griech. und rém. Literatur und Kunst (Bonn diss. 1905) 44.

6

Religion and Greek Warfare

manteis as being the mouthpiece of the god, to utter what they did

not understand,

Plato concluded

that statesmen,

who,

though often

successful in their speeches and policies, were equally ignorant of the real meaning of their words, must be guided by divine inspiration (Meno 99C-D). So with the philosopher, his wisdom may be described

as enthusiasm (é6eos, évfedfew) in the fullest sense; for, though derided

by the masses as dotage, it is derived from constant association with the divine (Phaedrus 249D). In the present investigation, which is limited to the Greek military experience, one example of ancient warfare from an official contemporary document may serve to illustrate the validity of Wilamowitz’s

dictum,

“Die

Gétter sind da.”

The

document

in question

is a long

official decree, proposed by a priest of Zeus and passed by the boule and demos of the city of Stratonikeia in Asia Minor. The text of eight fragments is published with a full commentary by Roussel in BCH 55 (1931) 70-116. The inscription is dated to the invasion of Labienus in

40 B.C.,14 when Labienus,

failing to take Stratonikeia,

attacked Pana-

mara, a sanctuary with powerful walls belonging to Stratonikeia and situated south of the city. The text records how the sanctuary of Zeus

Panamaros,

obstinately assaulted, was defended

against all attacks by

the miraculous action of its divine protector. A large force of cavalry and footsoldiers had made a nocturnal irruption into the country with

abundant materials of war (wera wod\hs Xopyyias eis Tov TOEMOY HToLWAG= peévns). The god directed a lance of flame against the invader (¢\éya TodAny abrots éverivatey) with the result that they promptly retreated (ore — dvayxacbfvar taxéws aronnojoa avrovs). This first “miracle” of

Zeus which occurred at night disconcerted the enemy and they retired without engaging in battle. At daybreak, they took courage and re-

turned (dua TH Wueépa ToAUno dvr Tpocedbety).The progress of the action

is recounted in the inscription. The defenders shouted at the tops of

their voices péyav efvar Ala Ilavauapor, a cry both religious and warlike.

In the melée men were wounded and killed. The second “miracle” occurred when Zeus brought atmospheric conditions which terrified

the enemy. A storm was accompanied by continuous thunder and lightning (Bpovrds ovvexets kal aorpamds). A thick fog enveloped the enemy.15 14. See, for example, D. Magie, Roman Rule in Asia Minor (Princeton 1950) 1.431. 15. Cf. Josephus JA 2.308 (= Exodus 10:21): “Moses replied that this demand was inequitable, since they needed the cattle to offer sacrifice to God, and while time in consequence dragged on, dense darkness, withou t a particle of light, enveloped the

Egyptians—darkness so thick that their eyes were blinded by it

and their breath choked, and they either met with a miserab le end or lived in terror of being swallowed up by the fog” (Loeb tr.),

Religion and Greek Warfare

7

Some of them jumped outside of this fog as outside of a torrent (ot yey

abr&y €x Tis duixAns domep ex Tivos pebuaros exandavres).Many were killed

and wounded; others retreated from the sanctuary, leaving numerous bodies. Although the enemy had come with weapons of assault, these were rendered useless by the storm. Certain of the men spread out into

the neighboring mountains as if a prey to the furies and pursued by

the Erinyes (kateoréapnoapy is Ta Tapakeiueva dpn kabamep evuavets dvres Kal

dro 'Epwiwy twév éhavvduevor). The god preserved all of the defenders unharmed (judas 5€ duerppnoer 6 beds amnuavrous kal 4B\aBets). A third attack was made with reinforcements, and now the god’s power became very

evident. Cries were heard as if of a relieving force, though none ap-

peared, and a snarling as of dogs attacking the assailants (xuvdv br\ayyds eyelvero tous ).From some cause which is lost in a lacuna, the assailants

were hurled down from the walls. Throughout these events the lamps (of AbxXvor Tod Hod) in the temple were found to have remained burning. It is recalled in the decree that the god through oracles (d.a ray poifwy)

had guaranteed the inviolability of the sanctuary. These “miracles” of weather recorded on stone and officially authenticated by a decree correspond to accounts in literary sources.16 All

demonstrate the reality of a religious attitude which was widespread and shared by various peoples of antiquity. From this inscription, full of miraculous intervention, we may turn to the parallel of the deus ex machina in Greek drama to illustrate again the fact that in Greek popular belief, the power of divine intervention was an essential attribute of the gods. Archibald Cameron writes, “Divine intervention is not by any means a merely artificial method of solving a problem for which the dramatist has no solution; in popular belief the power to act so is an essential attribute of the gods and they do so act among men.”!7 Cameron cites the well-known lines of Euripides:18 16. C. M. Bowra (Greek Lyric Poetry [Oxford 1936] 194) believes that in Sappho’s Ode to Aphrodite, the poetess is describing an actual visionary experience, although others (see Cameron, HTR 32 [1939] 7) attribute the epiphany to the literary inspiration of the epic. Hesiod’s vision of the Muses on Helikon, which exercised an enormous influence on later literature, professes to be a record of his personal experience. 17. HTR 33 (1940) 124, citing the earlier study of E. Mueller, “De graecorum deorum partibus tragiciis,” RVV 8 Heft 3 (1910). For the epiphany of Athena in the course of the action of a play of Sophokles, see Oxyrhynchus Papyri 3151 (1976). 18. ‘The exodus of the Al., And., Ba., Hel., and (with variations) Med. In Euripides an epiphany is a favorite termination to a play, the god giving all the information necessary to satisfy the minds bewildered by the events just presented.

8

Religion and Greek Warfare ToAAal TOAAG kal Ta Tov 6° Towove’

wopphal Ta datmoviwy 6 déATTWS Kpatvovat Heok OoxnOevT’ obk éredEaOn, adoKnTwy Topov Nnipe Oeds. améBn TOE Taya.

The conception of the fulfillment (éredety) of the rapadogov or the advvatov by the gods as carrying conviction and as confirming the faith of men (od xp) amorely) is recognized in the following passage quoted by Cameron from a critic of a much later date:!9 Ody ard unxavis’ ert TOV DeaTpwr, nvika TL Tapadokoy

bmép Tas wap’ éxaTepa THS pevew H €E dprorepav Oeods ToV aunxavov. Kal TovTOV émel Yeods TapEeoTe TH Epyw,

EmiTedeiobar der kal wA€ov TicTEws, Avwhev weons TOD HeaTpov Oipas ... unxavay dvo pweTewpifoKal Howas eveharife TapevOds Gorep Vow hepovtas TapadnAovpEevov, ws ob Xp) amLaTElY Tots 6pwpevoLs, @ undev AdivaTov ExTedelr.

For the Greek spectator, the religious solution of events by the use of the deus ex machina

was not merely a literary device, but an im-

portant element in his conception of the way in which they really happened. We cannot hope to fathom the inner sentiment and beliefs of the average general or soldier of so distant a past; but, looking at the outward acts and ceremonies, as recorded in our sources, we may seek for

general observations about the religious atmosphere of the army. Religion was an intimate part of the whole political and social life of the people. The law-court and the market-place, the council-chamber and the town-hall were under the charge of certain deities. Important acts of state were accompanied by sacrifices; a religious oath was administered to magistrates, jurymen, and other officials. The admission of the youth into the ranks of citizens was a solemn religious ceremony, in which the epheboi swore in the names of gods whom they termed histores (witnesses) to defend the land. The Greek city was, as Wilamowitz says,2° unthinkable without the Greek gods.

Partly because of his inability to explain the workings of nature and partly because of his concept of the awesomeness of the spirits in nature, the Hellene adopted superstitions regarding nature and super19. Scholiast to Lucian (ed. H. Rabe [Leipzig 1906] p. 164). Cf. H. Lloyd-Jones, The Justice of Zeus (Berkeley 1971) 155, summarizing the work of A. Spira (Untersuchungen zum Deus ex machina bei Sophokles und Euripides [diss. Frankfurt 1960]),

“Lineally descended as they are from the divine epiphanies in epic and in early tragedy, those descents from the machine continue the Greek tradition of a divine participation in the affairs of men.” 20. Glaube der Hellenen g (Berlin 1932) 250.

Religion and Greek Warfare

o

natural powers which do not occupy a place within the body of state religion.*1 Roughly speaking,” superstition declines as the view of the universe becomes more scientific. Earthquakes, which were regarded as prodigia publica by the Romans, have over the centuries been attributed to the displeasure of the gods—a view popular in the New England states as late as the last half of the eighteenth century, and revived on

the Pacific coast after the earthquake of 1906 which destroyed San Francisco. In the last half of the eighteenth century, European writers

in treating the earthquake of November 1, 175%, at Lisbon, the utter desolation of the city being the source of the scene described by Voltaire in chapter V of Candide, were preoccupied with the religious aspect. One of the earlier authentic accounts, the Commentario latino of Antonio Pereira de Figueiredo, began by assuming that God had

decided to punish men in a single day for the sins of the ages. Many theologians offered the explanation of a supernatural control of such phenomena. One recited in detail the crimes that brought the wrath of god upon Lisbon. Many were the sermons delivered in and outside of Portugal touching upon this theme. A poem, which, if not written by Voltaire, was printed at his instigation, had the theme that Lisbon was much more truly religious than heretical London or immoral Paris. A Jansenist priest brought out in 1756 an enormous treatise, Reflexions sur le désastre de Lisbonne, in which he saw in the earth-

quake God’s righteous hand crushing the enemies of his faith. He noted with satisfaction that all seven houses of the Jesuits at Lisbon had been destroyed. Scientists attributed the earthquake to the moon, to the heat of the sun, and to the ignition of gases in the earth.” 21. Aristophanes makes a distinction between the religion of the Greeks and that of the barbarians, ‘“Chey worship Sun and Moon, we worship real gods such as Apollo and Hermes” (Pax 410); and it is true that, although Ge, Helios, Selene, and Anemoi were regarded as animate powers and worshipped as such, they exercised little influence over the moral and spiritual progress of the race and were never with conviction imagined as glorified men or women. It was otherwise with such names as Apollo, Hera, Athena, who became as real and individual as Themistokles

or Milti-

ades; and it is these humanized personalities that dominate the higher religion of Greece. 22. I say roughly speaking because in this age of advanced science and technology, many people believe in unidentified flying objects from interplanetary space. A recent Gallup poll reports that thirty-two million adults in America accept a theory of astrology as influencing their lives. A novel about exorcism sells millions of copies and is at the head of the bestseller list. Thousands of young people have turned to a host of pseudosciences and a variety of mysticisms and Oriental quietisms. Every civilization has its own fantasies. 23. The material for this paragraph is drawn from I. O. Wade, Voltaire and Candide (Princeton 1959) Part 2, Chap. 2.

10

Religion and Greek Warfare

I cite this well-documented eighteenth-century example because it requires a great imaginative effort to understand pre-Christian religious attitudes. As we shall see when we come to a study of earthquakes, most modern historians refuse to accept the accounts of armies being diverted from their objectives because of superstitions about natural phenomena, although the reports are found in all of the major Greek historians. As a practical method of exposition in this study, I have attempted to present a summary of the more striking religious phenomena in the military life of the ancient Greek. Many of the problems invite further research. I have previously studied the battlefield sacrifice, the marching paian, and the trophy erected on the battlefield, the latter a yexnrhpia

and essentially a religious ceremony attended by certain taboos. Here I have ventured

to collect examples

of epiphanies in warfare,

to ex-

amine the position of the military mantis who accompanied virtually all armies

and

then

to analyze

the mantic

art, and

to scrutinize

the practice of the dedications of military armor, including captured arms, in the various Greek shrines. Since festivals were a major part of the Greek corporate religion, examples of military ones have been studied in the context of the Greek festival calendar, about the nature

of which there are misunderstandings among our major authorities on Greek religion. The Greeks attempted to bridge the gap between knowledge and the supernatural by the use of oracles, which I have studied in so far as they apply to warfare. As in any investigation where the source material is fragmentary and not directly related to the subject of inquiry, there are themes where the evidence, though not extensive,

may

be of far broader

application;

so I have

devoted

brief chapters to several miscellaneous subjects. Since it is difficult to separate the military life from the political, I have not hesitated to draw upon parallels from the legal machinery of the state where they illustrate a similar religious consciousness. Decrees passed in the ekklesia are particularly pertinent, because they reveal the opinion of the majority of the people, codified in the boule and endorsed by the ekklesia, as in the case of the decree of Stratonikeia cited above. Just

as my topographical studies were undertaken to check the accuracy of Greek

historians,

so, on occasion,

I have

offered

observations

about

the possible historicity of the incidents recorded. One is apt unconsciously to fancy that an ancient historian wrote for men in the abstract, and not for men of given sentiments, prejudices, and beliefs.

a

CHAPTER

MILITARY

II

EPIPHANIES

‘THE GENERAL SUBJECT of epiphanies, or apparitions of deities, has been

treated in an admirable article by Pfister in RE Suppl. 4 (1924) s.v. Epiphanie 277-323 (with bibliography). Wachsmuth’s discussion in Der Kleine Pauly 5 (1975), Nachtrage, 1598-1601, is brief but has upto-date bibliography. A concise study of the meaning of the word was made by A. D. Nock (Gnomon 29 [1957] 229-230) in his review of the monograph ’Emddavea by E. Pax (Munich 1955). For other bibliography, see M. P. Nilsson, Geschichte der griechischen Religion 2? (Munich 1961) 225-229; and for military epiphanies, M. Launey, Recherches sur les armées hellénistiques (Paris 1950) 897-901. L. Robert (Etudes anatoliennes [Paris 1937] 459-462) drew attention to the frequency of epiphanies in Karia in Hellenistic times. C. Picard, following his article co! "Emidavels in Xénia, Hommage international a Université nationale de Gréce (Athens 1912) 67-84, studied in Ephése et Claros (Paris 1922) 362-384 the epithets applied to gods to whom epiphanies are attributed. Representations of ephiphanies of Dionysos, Apollo and Aphrodite on Athenian vases are listed in H. Metzger, Recherches sur Vimagerie athénienne (Paris 1965) 10. E. Kunze has shown that the earliest representations of Zeus from Olympia in the second millennium s.c. were bronze figurines of a warrior deity, a type which he labels as Zeus émidawdpevos: Bericht tiber die Ausgrabungen in Olympia 7 (1961) 138. Finally, the concept of man’s quest for visions and his belief in revelation is examined in a very learned paper by A. D. Nock, “A Vision of Mandulis Aion” HTR 27 (1934) 53-104. The subject of epiphanies was of such interest to the ancients that the historian Istros of the circle of Kallimachos is known to have written two works on epiphanies under the titles of “AwéAXwvos "Eribaverac and ‘HpakAéous "Emidaverar.2 The Souda lists the title epi ris rob Atos émidavelas for one of the works of Phylarchos, although the attribution 1. For epiphanies in Homer, it is perhaps sufficient for our purpose to refer to the chapter on “Homeric Anthropomorphism and Rationalism” in M. P. Nilsson’s History of Greek Religion 2 (Oxford 1949, English tr. by F. J. Fielden): “Anthropomorphism by investing the gods with human shape had shown the way. What best accorded with reality was to make a god intervene in the disguise of a human being. This became the normal fashion in which the gods are made to intervene,” etc.

2. So F. Jacoby, FGrHist 334 frg. 50-53. “What remains of Istros’s book is not sufficient to decide whether he was seriously interested in religion, collecting also these new instances, or whether he restricted himself to the learned discussion arising from,

or connected with, earlier érupavera.”’

[11]

12

Military Epiphanies

is doubtful.? Of greater interest is the work on epiphanies by the relatively unknown historian Syriskos of Chersonesos.* In a decree of the

boule and demos of Chersonesos dated in the third century B.c., the citizens voted a gold crown to Syriskos, son of Herakleidas, for reading

aloud his work on the Epiphanies of Parthenos (= Tauric Artemis),

which he had laboriously composed: émed1) Zupioxos ‘Hpaxdelda Tas éripavelas Tas Ilapbevov didordvws ypdwas aveyvw.> The tradition of the won-

ders of Parthenos must have been by such a sumptuous award. The Latyschev, Inscriptiones antiquae (Petropoli 1916) 344.6 Finally, we

lengthy and detailed to be celebrated inscription was published by V. V. orae septentrionalis Ponti Euxini 12 know, chiefly from references in the

Souda, of a work of Ailianos, a sophist of the second half of the second century of our era, with the title ep! Oelay évapye@v, in which he held

that appearances of the gods to individuals really took place.” Greek sanctuaries were focal points for accounts of divine appari-

tions.® “Tous les sanctuaires grecs, non pas seulement ceux des dieux-

guérisseurs, étaient des foyers de récits sur des apparitions divines, sujet que traitait aussi la littérature.”® Certain epiphanies motivated the foundations of cults.19 One of the most interesting results of the Danish excavations on the island of Rhodes was the discovery of the floor of an earlier Byzantine church which was composed of inscribed 3. See Kroymann, RE Suppl. 8 (1956) 475. F. Jacoby accepts the attribution: FGrHist 3b Suppl. vol. 1 p. 652. 4. There is no entry for Syriskos in either the RE or Der Kleine Pauly. V. F. Gajdukevic (Das Bosporanische Reich [Berlin 1971] 176) refers to two articles on him, one of these by Rostovtzeff, in Russian publications (non vidi). 5. The evidence of this inscription is an important, but neglected, link in the argument that historians composed for oral delivery: See Pritchett, Dionysius of Halicarnassus: On Thucydides (Berkeley 1975) 68 and 88. 6. SEG 4 (1929) 598. Cf. F. Jacoby, FGrHist 897. Unfortunately, we do not have Jacoby’s commentary. In addition to his work on the wonders of the Chersonesan goddess, Syriskos composed a history of the relations of Chersonesos to the Bosporos kingdom and a Ié)es (possibly a history of Herakleia and other cities on the southern coast of the Euxine Sea). 7- Sontheimer in Der Kleine Pauly 1 (1964) 172. Iamblic hos (De Mysteriis 2.4) gave detailed instructions how the different classes of superna tural beings are to be distinguished when they make their appearance. While Epikouros wanted to abolish almost the whole of popular belief about the gods, epiphanies were the one thing he left uncontroverted. Appearances of the gods, he held, really took place to individuals: see E. Bevan, Sibyls and Seers (London 1928) 74. 8. Cf. Diodoros 11.14:

of 58 Achgol rijs tov Oedv éxipavelas

Aumety rots perayeverrépos Boudopuevoe tpdrao v éornoay—.

g- C. Blinkenberg, Lindos 2.1 (Copenhage n 1941) 182. 10. See C. Picard, Ephése et Claros (Paris 1922) 363.

aOdvarov bréuynua Kara-

Military Epiphanies

13

slabs with the writing upwards. The inscription contains a historical inventory of the temple treasures which the Lindians voted in 99 B.c., on the motion of Hagesitimos. This Rhodian carried a decree in the local assembly that his son ‘Timachidas, a young Rhodian of archaeological tastes, should record on stone from “letters and official archives” (x ray émioroAay Kal TSv xpnuaticyav) a historical inventory of the tem-

ple treasuries, the first donor being the eponymous hero Lindos and the last whose name is preserved, though many lines are lost, being Philip V of Makedon. Appended to the enabling decree and the inventory under the title "Emdvecat were cases of divine appearances from the opening of the fifth century down to at least 305/4 B.c. Iwo of the epiphanies, having to do with warfare, will be discussed below.

Out of these letters and official minutes Timachidas no doubt found it easy to compile his work. Twenty-one authorities are cited, most of them unknown

chroniclers;

they seem

to be writers of local histories.

Plutarch in Lucullus 10.4 tells of the apparition of Athena to the inhabitants of Ilion in the Mithradatic wars and adds, ““The people of

Ilion used to show a stele which had on it certain decrees and inscriptions relating to this matter.” An inscription of Ephesos dated to a.p. 154/5 (E. L. Hicks, Ancient Greek Inscriptions in the British Museum 3 [Oxford 18g0] no. 482B = SIG* 867) complains of the neglect of the goddess Artemis, and decrees that by reparation, not only some, but all, of the days of the month Artemision shall become sacred to her. Proof of the former high esteem for Artemis is denoted in the text by a statement that altars and temples had been dedicated to her by Greeks and barbarians 61a rds im’ airis yevouévas evapyets éexrpavetas.+!

Reports of divine epiphanies in human shape are common enough in the Greek world and are documented by Pfister in his RE article.” Maximus of Tyre (9.7), for example, claims to have seen the Dioskourol, 11. As with émipdverat, so with the records of tauara, Oabpara and dperai. Pausanias

(2.27.3, 36.1) and Strabo (8.6.15.p.374) tell of the stelai recording the idwara of Asklepios in the sanctuaries at Epidauros, Kos, and Trikka in Thessaly. For collections of

aperal, see Oxy. Pap. no. 1382, and on Hellenistic “aretology,” R. Reitzenstein, Hellenistische Wundererzihlungen (Leipzig 1906) 10ff. On the general subject of the re-

cording of émpdverat, idpara, dperat, and Oabpara, see R. Herzog, “Die Wunderhei-

lungen von Epidauros” (Philologus Suppl. 22, Heft 3 [Leipzig 1931] 49-64. Of such

collections, Aristeides (Or. 45.29 p. 361K) says: tepal O7jxar BiGwv iepv damelpovs apiOuods

éxovow.

12. F. Jacoby (FGrHist 3b Suppl. vol. 1 p. 652) shows that the word ém@avera applies only to visible appearances, not mere manifestations of divine power. ‘The visions temple chronicle of Lindos cited above proves that the word was applied to see in dreams: For the epithet Epiphanes bestowed upon Hellenistic sovereigns, Nock, JHS 48 (1928) 38-41.

14

Military Epiphanies

Asklepios and Herakles. Indirect epiphanies, or appearances of deities in sleep, were the commonest form of revelations.!2 We are concern ed here only with epiphanies of gods and heroes reported in the historic al literature and in inscriptions for periods of warfare.!* The alleged intervention of deities in warfare through the medium of meteorological phenomena is treated in a later chapter.15 Before proceeding to specific cases of reported epiphanies, we may

discuss the unresolved problem of whether the Greeks thought that heroes at times accompanied armies in some iconic form or were invoked to be present in person. When Spartan kings went forth to battle, they were said to be accompanied by the heavenly twins, Kastor and Polydeukes. Herodotos (5-75), in referring to the Lakeda imonian rule for only one king to command at a time, adds that one of the Tyndaridai was left at home, although before that time both Kastor and Polydeukes went with the army (émikdvrot eirovro). J. G. Frazer (Golden Bough? 1 [New York 1935] 50) believes that the Dioskouroi “may have been thought to accompany the march of a Spartan army in a visible form.” To others Herodotos’ language points to something portable. How and Wells believe that it was the doxava,4 ® and A. B. 13. See A. D. Nock, Essays, ed. by Z. Stewart (Oxford 1972) 1.46. For the widespread belief that dreams were regarded as means by which gods could communicate with

men, see E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrationa l (Berkeley 1951) 102-111, 117-121. 14. For epiphanies of gods in Homeric battles, see E. Ehnmark, “Anthropomorphism and Miracle,” Uppsala Univ. Arssk. 1939:12, esp. pp. 45-47. L. Robert (Opera

minora selecta 1 [Amsterdam 1969] 602) notes that in inscriptions of Asia Minor, the word &dpyea is used for divine epiphanies. Wilamo witz (Der Glaube 1. 22) has rightly observed that the poetic form of divine epiphany presupposes a belief. As a religious phenomenon, epiphany existed before Homer: F. Matz, Gottererscheinung und Kultbild im minoischen Kreta (Wiesbaden 1958) esp. 291, 392. See also L. Weniger, ARW 22 (1923) 16ff. Probably indicative of the Greek attitude toward the presence of deities is the fact that in Greek, in contrast with the Roman,

vase paintings and

reliefs, the deity is regularly represented in person as receiving the offerings: see I. S, Ryberg, Rites of the State Religion in Roman Art (Rome 1955) 4-5. 15. For epiphanies in later centuries in world history, see J. G. Frazer’s note to Pausanias 10.23.29. 16. Images called dokana are described in Plutarch Mor. 478B: “They consisted

of two pieces of wood, side by side, and jointed together at the top.” Cf. the Souda s.v. Suggested representations of this symbol , shaped like a gateway, have been discussed by M. C. Waites, AJA 23 (1919) 1-18; A. B. Cook, Zeus 1 (Cambridge 1914) 766-767; C. Picard, REL 17 (1939) 383-390; L. Séchan-P, Lévéque, Les grandes divini tés de la Gréce (Paris 1966) 317; and B. C. Dietrich, The Origins of Greek Religi on (Berlin 1974) 188. M. P. Nilsson, Minoan-Myc enaean Religion 2 (Lund 1950) 541, said that the dokana is “the schematic tepres entation of the timber-frame of a house built of sundried bricks,” explaining that the Dioskouroi were the house gods of the Spartan

Military Epiphanies

15

Cook (Zeus 2 [Cambridge 1925] 436) suggests that they were sepulchral jars, frequently represented in ancient art (ibid. 1062—-1065).17 Similarly, according to Herodotos 8.64, the Athenians, before the battle of Salamis, sent a ship to Aigina “to fetch the Aiakidai.”18 Stein

and A. Hauvette (Hérodote [Paris 1894] 406 n. 3) argue that we have

here an invocation of the heroes to be present in person, an instance

of simple animism.!9 Other commentators believe that the object of the mission was to bring back actual idols (ava), or icons, of the sons of Aiakos. Cf. How-Wells ap. 8.64: “The idea clearly is that the coming of the image would ensure also the spiritual presence and aid of the heroes.” ‘These local heroes may be compared to Catholic saints in their regional character. Salamis was “the island of Ajax,” and Ajax was an Aiakid. The support of the local god of the battlefield was to be enlisted. After the battle had been won a trireme out of the spoil was dedicated to the hero Ajax as a thank-offering: Herodotos 8.121.2 Themistokles in the words of Herodotos (8.109) was fully persuaded that the Greeks owed their victory to the gods and heroes. As Xenophon (Cyn. 1.17) puts it, it was the heroes and their aid which made Greece unconquerable (6:4 rovrous of “EAnves éxparouv) in the fight against the

barbarians. E. Rohde is convinced that the actual physical participation of heroes in the decisive hour was confidently expected.*1 Immediately after the defeat of ‘Thebes and Chalkis by Athens about 506 B.c., ‘Thebes sought and obtained an alliance with Aigina.”” When harried by the Athenians, the Thebans sought aid from the Aiginetans kings. B. Sergent, RHR 193 (1978) 11-12, believes that the dokana were representations of serpents, symbolizing the Dioskouroi, carried by Spartan armies on campaigns. 17. ‘The difference in verbs in Herodotos’ language in 8.64 should be noted: ebfacba Tots Beotou kal érixadhécacba Tovs Aiaxidas cuppaxous.

18. Homer (I. 5.385) says that Otos and Ephialtes shut up Ares for thirteen months in a brazen pot whence he was released by Hermes. J. G. Frazer (CR 2 [1888] 222) believes that this story is reminiscent of a time when the Greeks “potted” their war-god and so carried him to battle, as the Jews took with them the Ark of God. At Sparta,

the statue of the war-god Enyalios was chained to prevent his running away, and at Athens Athena Nike had no wings lest she fly away: Pausanias 3.15.7. For the fettering of images to prevent the departure of the god represented, see Frazer on the passage

in Pausanias. 19. For a discussion of aspects of animism, see the long article of L. R. Farnell in J. Hastings’ Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics 9 (New York 1917) 221-227 (s.v. Nature). 20. Cf. the scholia vetera to Pindar Nem. 2.19: 61a tiufs Hyov of ’AOnvator tov Alavra ...kAlyny abt pera ravorAlas Koouetv. See L. Weniger, Archiv fiir ReligionswissenSchaft 22 (1923) 53.

21. Psyche (New York 1925, English trans. of eighth ed.) 137. 22. For a recent discussion of the date, see L. H. Jeffery, AJP 83 (1962) 45.

16

Military Epiphanies

who replied (Herodotos 5.80) that they were sending the Aiakidai in aid (émxoupiny rods Aiaxidas ovuméumev). As they proved unhelpful, the Thebans returned the Aiakidai (rods Alaxiéas amedlSocay).22 Most com-

mentators on this passage, including Macan, the Budé editor Legrand, Immerwahr,* and Jeffery, believe that the Thebans wished to borrow statues of the Aiakidai.*> There are two other episodes having to do with the transport of heroes, which have not been cited by the commentators on the Herodotean passages.26 Before the battle of the river Sagra (see below), Diodoros (8.32) and Justin (20.2-3) state that the Lakedaimonians agreed to give the Dioskouroi to the Lokrians as allies. Diodoros says that the Lokrians prepared a couch on their ship for the transport of the Dioskouroi from Sparta to Italy (éorpwoar rots Avocxépots kdivgy émt rijs vnds). Justin tells that they carried the gods with

them, adding that they placed cushions for them on the ship (pulvinaria tis in navi conponunt). Cicero, too (De Nat. Deorum 2.2.6), mentions the battle of the river Sagra in a context of recorded epiphanies which he clearly regarded as corporeal in nature.27 He writes, “The gods often manifest their power in bodily presence. For instance in the Latin war, at the critical battle of Lake Regillus between the dictator Aulus Postumius and Octavius Mamilius of Tusculum, Castor and Pol23. G. Grote (History 4.172 n. 1; 12-vol. ed. of 1899) comments, “In the expression of Herodotus, the Aeakid heroes are really sent from Aegina and really sent back by the Thebans.” 24. Form and Thought in Herodotus (Cleveland 1966) 211.

25. In the ensuing account (5.82) of the struggle between Athens and Aigina, Herodotos expressly uses the word aydé\uara in referring to the cult statues abducted by the Aiginetans. 26. In Polybios 7.9.2, the gods accompany the Punic army: dev ry ovorparevopévery.

Walbank notes that there was an altar and lepa oxnvn in a Punic camp. E. J. Bicker-

man (AJP 73 [1952] 7) believes that the gods were represented by emblems on the standards of the various nationalities and oaths were pronounced in the presence of these standards in order that the deities might hear the utterance.

27. The possession of the corporal remains of a hero secured the possession of the hero himself. In the year 476, enlightened Athens brought over the bones of Theseus from Skyros; not until they were buried in the Theseion was Theseus properly attached to Athens: Plutarch Kim. 8, Thes. 36; Pausanias 3-3-7. Sometimes only single parts of the body, for example the shoulder-blade of Pelops at Olympia, were buried: Pausanias 5.13. Cities often protected themselves against strangers, who might remove the treasured bones, by keeping the location of the grave a secret: E. Rohde, Psyche (English tr. of eighth ed., New York 1925) 122. For the secret expedition made by Odysseus and Diomedes to carry off the palladion, or sacred image of the war-goddess

of Troy, because its presence prevented the capture of the town, see M. P. Nilsson, Geschichte

der griechischen

Religion

12 (Munich

1955) 435-

Military Epiphanies

17

lux were seen fighting on horseback in our ranks” (Loeb tr.).?8 See the copious commentary of A. S. Pease (Ciceronis De Natura Deorum [Cambridge, Mass. 1958] 552-554) on this passage. In 345 /4, B.c. on the eve of Timoleon’s departure for Syrakuse, the priestesses of Demeter and Kore at Corinth were told by the goddess in a dream that they would sail with Timoleon on his voyage to their favorite island (cvp-

Treboerbat Tos epi Tov Tiwodtovra: Diodoros 16.66.4; Tas Geds Aeyobcas ws Trwodéovre wehdovor cuumActy eis DuxeAlav:

Plutarch

Timoleon

8). Ac-

cordingly, he equipped a sacred trireme and named it after the two goddesses. On the night voyage from Kerkyra to the Italian coast, this sacred trireme was seen illuminated by a blaze of light from heaven. Plutarch

says that the manteis

declared

that the apparition

(ddcua)

bore witness to the dreams of the priestesses and that the goddesses were taking part in the expedition (rds feds cvveharrouévas Ths oTparelas).

Again, the implication is corporeal presence, not merely the presence of a statue; and it is difficult to believe that Plutarch,

steeped in the

religious beliefs, would be mistaken in how the Greeks regarded the matter. It is an impressive fact that in conditions of warfare, military men would travel long distances—in the case of the trip from Epizephyrioi Lokroi to Sparta, some eight hundred miles round trip—to obtain the aid of heroes, whether in iconic or physical form. Herodotos (6.61) reports in the most matter-of-fact language an epiphany of Helen to a nurse at ‘Therapne; and although we can agree with Macan that this story “is not sober history,” the weight of the ancient testimonia supports the theory that actual physical participation by heroes in the hour of battle was sought by the Greeks themselves. Diodoros (5.79.4) says of Idomeneus and Meriones: rovrous ev obv as Howas émidavels TiuGoww ot Kpires duadepovtws, Obovres Kal Kata Tovs év Tots moAguots KiWdbvous érLKadob-

Kevot Bonfots (“These two the Kretans hold in special honor as revealed

heroes, offering up sacrifices to them and calling upon them to come to their aid in the perils of war’).?9 The problem is related to the “divine banquets’ common in Greek (theoxenion) and Roman (lectisternium) rituals, where the god reclines 28. Cf. Dion. Hal. Ant. 6.13.1-3, where the Dioskouroi aid in the battle and water their horses at a fountain near the temple of Vesta. Of warfare in the Hittite period (1800-1200 B.c.), A Goetze (“Warfare in Asia Minor,” Iraq 25 [1963] 129) writes, “A victory was credited to the gods who—as the texts say—marched in front of the king

and his army.” All depended on the gods’ help. 2g. Cf. F. Pfister, RVV 5:2 (1912) 512.

18

Military Epiphanies

on a xdivyn. R. M. Ogilvie (Commentary on Livy [Oxford 1965] 655) be-

lieves that images of the gods were always brought out. Apparently the god was represented in visible shape, but the form is debated: see, for example,

Bouché-Leclercq

in Daremberg-Saglio,

(1877) 1010; A. B. Cook, Zeus 2 (Cambridge

Dictionnaire

3

1925) 1170-1171. For the

Greek tradition about the participation of gods in cult meals, see J. P. Kane, “The Mithraic Cult Meal,” Mithraic Studies (ed. by J. R. Hin-

nells) 2 (Manchester 1975) 321-329. See also Wissowa in RE s.v. Lectisternium (1924) esp. 1109; E. Rhode, Psyche® (English trans. New York 1925) 109 and 140; Wachsmuth, Der Kleine Pauly 5 (1975) 733 (with bibliography). A. D. Nock, Essays 2 (Oxford 1972, ed. by Z. Stewart) 586, notes that the dead were invited to such feasts: they were not represented by statues. Gill (HTR 67 [1974] 117-137) discusses unburned offerings, termed trapezomata, assigned to the gods and placed

on special tables; he conjectures that the food was ultimately taken by authorized persons. Toepfler (RE s.v. Aianteia [1894] 927) cites the scholiast on Pindar N. 2.19, where Ajax was represented in full armor: Ore Oud TUuAs Hyov of ’AOnvator Tov Alavra, as uw) wovov Alayrida dvdr dmodetEar, GANA kal krAlynv abtG pera TavorAlas xataxoouetv; cf. L. Deubner, At-

tische Feste (Berlin 1932) 228. There is no suggestion in the account of any Greek battle that physical symbols of the gods were captured by a victorious enemy or indeed that they were protected in any special way. In collecting examples of military epiphanies in historical sources, I have assembled them chronologically according to the date of the engagement, followed by the geographical location. Excluded from the collection are cases where an historian infers from some extraordinary event in the course of a battle that “it must be a god’s doing.” Such examples include Xenophon’s account of Epameinondas’ engagement with the Spartans in 362 8.c. where he reports that only the vanguards of the two opposing armies were slain, since the deity had drawn some line (repieyéypamro yap, os €o.xe, bd Tod Oelov: Hell.

7.5.13).

Of such

a

nature is Herodotos’ account (9.65.2) that all of the Persian dead at the

battle of Plataiai had somehow fallen on profane ground outside the sanctuary.*” Examples of attributing military success to the gods in general terms, rather than to human agency, may be found in almost all writers. Excluded,

too, are all examples in the poetical literature,

30. H. R. Immerwahr (Form and Thought in Herodotus [Cleveland 1966] 295) comments as follows on this passage, ‘“This is the clearest indication that Herodotus himself thought of the local gods as participating in the battle.”

Military Epiphanies

19

although there are many parallels,?! one of the most interesting occuring in the pastoral romance of Daphnis and Chloe. In a war against Mytilene, the Methymnians carry away much booty including Chloe

herself. After celebrating a “festival of victory’

(éuvixvos éoprh), the

Methymnians believed that in the night they saw fires on the land about them and heard the clattering of oars of an approaching enemy fleet (2.25.3-4). ‘The cause of these and other phenomena, which Longus refers to as davracuara

and dxotcvara (2.26.5), is not known until

Pan appears to the strategos at mid-day in a dream and enjoins the restoration of Chloe and her herds and flocks. The passage is examined by C. Meillier, REG 88 (1975) 121-131, in the light of modern psychological theories of hallucinations.®?

Early Foundation Story. Olympia. Epiphany of the Elean Hero Sosipolis.2? Pausanias 6.20.3-5.54 “The story is told that when the Arkadians had invaded the land of Elis, and the Eleans were set in array against them, a woman

came

to

the Elean generals, holding a baby to her breast, who said that she was the mother of the child but that she gave him, because of dreams,

to

fight for the Eleans. The Elean officials believed that the woman was

to be trusted, and placed the child before the army naked. When the Arkadians advanced, the child turned at once into a snake. Thrown into disorder at the sight, the Arkadians turned and fled, and were

attacked by the Eleans, who won a very famous victory, and so called the god Sosipolis.” Pausanias explains that on the spot where the snake disappeared into the ground, the Eleans built a sanctuary to worship

31. In the Hymn to Apollo of Kallimachos we are introduced into the excitement is of a crowd in front of a temple, waiting for the epiphany of its god. To see Apollo

of not given unto all (7é\dwv ob mavrl paciverat, GAN’ 8 ris éc0és, line g). The cause

the king (Ptolemy III Euergetes) is identified with és waxerar maxdpeoowy, Eu Bache

paxovTo

that of the god (lines 26-27):

/ boris &p@ Baordfe, cal “Aroh\AwrL

PaXOLTO.

The object of the trieteric festival of Dionysos (repeated every second year), held in der so many places in Greece (cf. L. Weniger, Das Collegium der 16 Frauen und Dionysosdienst in Elis [Progr. 1883] 8), was to celebrate the epiphany of the god. 32. Similarly, the Homeric Hymn to Dionysos (7) consists of fifty-nine lines which tell the story of Dionysos’ epiphany, as an athletic and richly-clad youth, to Tyrr-

The henian pirates, who at the end of the poem are transformed into dolphins. 9 Antichthon James, W. A. by collected are story the of versions later numerous

(1975) 17-84-

33. Some regard Sosipolis (“savior of the city”) as the infant Zeus; but see Poet-

scher, Der Kleine Pauly 5 (1975) 285. 34. Cf. 6.25.4.

20

Military Epiphanies

Sosipolis, a native Elean deity, and his supposed mother Eileithyia. The joint temple of Sosipolis and Eileithyia has been identified on the slope of Mount Kronion immediately to the west of the row of treasuries, between the treasury of the Sikyonians and the Exedra of Herodes Atticus.*5 Date unknown. Tanagra. Epiphany of Hermes Promachos. Pausanias Q-22.2. “Hermes Promachos is said, on the occasion when an Eretrian fleet

put into Tanagra from Euboia, to have led the epheboi into battle; he himself,

armed

with a scraper (stleggis) like an ephebos,

was

chiefly

responsible for the rout of the Euboians.”’36 Sixth Century.*7 Tarentum. Epiphany of Local Heroes. Pausanias 10. 13.10. In the rich group of sculptured figures, which the Tarentines erected at Delphi out of gratitude for their victory over native tribes, the heroes ‘Taras and Phalanthos were represented by the side of the combatants. 558/7 B.c.°8 Athens. Stratagem of Alleged Epiphany of Athena. Herodotos 1.60; Aristotle Ath.Pol. 14.4; Kleidemos (ap. Athenaios 13.89. 609C = F. Jacoby, FGrHist 328 fr. 15); Polyainos 1.21. This stratagem is mentioned here because Beloch (Gr. Geschichte? 1.2.288) represents the incident as a “poetic variation” in the historical tradition of the battle of Pallene (Herodotos 1.62—63).°9 Herodotos tells a remarkable story of how Megakles brought Peisistratos back to Athens for his second tyranny. In what was afterwards the deme Paionia, the two found a damsel named

Phya, of remarkable

stature and

beauty. This woman they dressed up as Athena in a full suit of armor,

and placed in a chariot with Peisistratos at her side, instructing her on 35- Heroes frequently appeared in the form of snakes: see E. Rohde, Psyche (Eng-

lish trans. of eighth ed., New York 1925) 187 and n. 129. Plutarch (Kleom. 39) writes, of radatol pddtora T&v fHwv Tov Spdkovta Tors Hpwor ourm@kelmoay.

36. For Hermes as the principal deity of Tanagra, see Fiehn in RE s.v. Tanagra 2 (1932) 2159. For coin-types with the god holding in his right hand an object which may be a strigil, see J. G. Frazer, Pausanias’s Description of Greece (London 1897) 5.go: “This type may represent a statue of the fifth century B.c.” 37- For the approximate date, see Fabian in Der Kleine Pauly § (1975) 520, lines 5-6. 38. For the date and recent bibliography, see H. Berve, Die Tyrannis bei den Griechen (Munich 1967) 48-49 and 545- For Herodotos’ view of the story, see H. LloydJones, The Justice of Zeus (Berkeley 1971) 180 n.4x and 214(add.). 39. Beloch’s theory has been criticized by Adcock, CQ 18 (1924) 146.

Military Epiphanies

zl

how she was to maintain a suitable appearance. The chariot was then driven through the city with heralds going on before to announce that

Athena in person was bringing back Peisistratos to her akropolis. The Athenians

believed

that the woman

was

their tutelary goddess, wor-

shipped her, and admitted Peisistratos. As How-Wells note in their commentary on the Herodotean passage, Herodotos completely believes the story, although he cannot conceive of how the cleverest of the Greeks could have fallen into such a trap. In addition to HowWells, Grote, Curtius and Busolt (Gr. Geschichte? 2.321) accept the

story. F. E. Adcock (CQ 18 [1924] 176) states: “I would further argue that the account in Herodotus, with which the narrative in Ath.Pol. agrees, is in itself not improbable, and that there is no doubt that it

was the accepted version in Athens when Aristotle wrote.” 555-540 B.c.4° Battle of the River Sagra (South Italy).

1. Epiphany of the Dioskouroi. Diodoros 8.32; Strabo 6.1.10.261; Justin 20.2-3. The Lokrians sought the aid of Sparta to save it from Kroton. The Lakedaimonians replied that they would give to the Lok-

rians as allies the sons of Tyndareus. Diodoros relates that after the Lokrians had received favorable signs in a sacrifice, they accepted this aid, and after preparing a couch on their ship for the Dioskouroi (éorpwoav Tots Avockdpors KAivny ext Tijs ynos) they sailed back to Lokroi.*!

Justin says that they carried the gods with them, adding that they placed cushions for them on the ship (pulvinaria iis in navi conponunt).# In the course of the battle the Dioskouroi fought in their

ranks in scarlet cloaks riding on white horses, “nor were they visible longer than the battle lasted.” Strabo adds that the Lokrians in gratitude erected altars of the Dioskouroi on the spot. Dunbabin notes that a pair of akroteria in marble,*? representing the Dioskouroi dismount-

ing from their horses, the hooves of which are supported by ‘Tritons,

have been recovered from a Lokrian

temple of the fifth century. He

believes that when the Lokrians rebuilt the temple nearly a century

after the battle, “they again recorded in the most solemn and beautiful 40. For the date and other details of the battle, see T. J. Dunbabin,

The Western

this Greeks (Oxford 1948) 359-360. The cult of the Dioskouroi with reference to 182-193. (1960) episode is studied by R. Bloch, RPh 34 that 41. Wilamowitz (Der Glaube der Hellenen 2 [Berlin 1932] 350 n. 2) believes Timaios. with originated the story of the transportation of the Dioskouroi in 42. Cf. the conversation of the Dioskouroi at the close of Euripides’ Elektra, / particular, lines 1347ff.: v@ 6° émt mévrov Zukerov orovdy / s@aovre vedv mpwpas evadous. 61a 8’ aideplas cretxovre TAAKOs—.

43. The Western Greeks (Oxford 1949) 295 and 358.

ae

Military Epiphanies

way the arrival of the Dioskouroi over the sea for their deliverance.” 2. Epiphany of Ajax. Pausanias 3.19.12-13.44 In the same battle between the Lokrians and the Krotoniats in Italy, the Krotoniate general penetrated into the Lokrian line “at the point where he heard that Ajax was posted.” According to the mythographer Konon (Jacoby, FGrHist 26 frg. 1.18), of the first century B.c.,45 when the Lokrians marched to battle they left a clear space for Ajax in their line of battle. The shade of Ajax appeared and inflicted on Autoleon (Pausanias has the name as Leonymos) a wound from which he suffered severely; but he was afterwards sent by the Pythia to the island of Leuke to be healed by the hero who had dealt the blow.

About 490 B.c.6 Messenia. Epiphany of Dioskouroi. Pausanias 4.16.5. Pausanias recounts that the Messenian seer Theoklos bade Aristomenes, leader of the Messenians, not to pass a wild pear tree growing on the plain because the Dioskouroi were sitting in the tree. Aristomenes disobeyed with the result that he lost his shield, and the routed Lakedaimonian army was allowed to escape. Later (4.16.9) Aristomenes attempted to make an entrance into Sparta by night but was turned back by the appearance (¢4cyara) of Helen and the Dioskouroi.47 Polyainos (2.31.4) relates that Aristomenes and a friend were able to impose on the Spartans by appearing in their camp at night on white horses with piloi and golden stars. Pausanias (4.27.1) seems to record the same story save that the Spartans are just outside their walls and the time is after the mid-day meal.

490 B.c. Rhodes. Epiphany of Athena. C. Blinkenberg, Lindos II (Inscriptions) 1 (Copenhagen 1941) 182—18%.48 The first epiphany which is completely preserved on the stone containing the Chronicle of the Temple of Athena at Lindos has to do with a siege of Lindos by Dareios the Persian king in 490 B.c.4® After describing the beginning of the siege, the narrative continues:® “The 44. For other sources for this episode, see Hoefer RE s.v. Autoleon (1896) 2599-2600. 45. For the date, see von Geisau, Der Kleine Pauly 3 (1969) 294. 46. For the disputed date of the floruit of Aristomenes,

see Kiechle, Der Kleine

Pauly 1 (1964) 571, and G. Huxley, Early Sparta (London 1962) 89-93. Pausanias dates Aristomenes in the first Messenian war. On the sources of Pausanias, see L. Pearson, Historia 11 (1962) 417-418. 47. Cf. F. Chapouthier, Les Dioscures au service d’une déesse (Paris 1935) 132. 48. See also Jacoby, FGrHist r3eD. 49. For the Chronicle, see above 13. 50. I use the translation of G. C. Richards in J. U. Powell and E. A. Barber, New

Chapters in the History of Greek Literature 2 (Oxford 1929) 78-79.

Military Epiphanies

23

barbarians sat down and besieged them, until the Lindians, being hampered for want of water, were minded to surrender the city to the enemy. It was just then that the goddess stood over one of the magistrates in a dream, and bade him be of good cheer, for she would herself

intercede with her father for the water of which there was so pressing a need; he, after seeing the vision (ray dy idév), announced to the citizens the ordinance of Athena. On examination they found they had a supply for only five days, and accordingly asked for an armistice from the barbarians for no more than this space of time, saying that Athena had sent to her father for succour, and that, if it did not arrive within the prescribed time, they would surrender the city. Datis, the

admiral of Darius, at the moment

he heard the message, burst into

laughter,

great

but

the next

day, when

darkness

gathered

over

the

Akropolis, copious rain broke over its middle point, and in so strange a way the besieged obtained plenty of water, while the Persian army was in straits for it. The barbarian was dismayed at this apparition of the goddess (ri ras Geod trupdverav) .”” The narrative concludes with a statement to the effect that Datis made a covenant of friendship and offered dedications in the temple. These offerings are also mentioned in section XXXIII of the inventory.*! 490 B.c. Marathon. 1. Apparition of Pan.®? Herodotos 6.105; Pausanias 8.54.6; Souda s.v. ‘Inaias. ‘The herald, Philippides, told the Athenians that Pan appeared

to him on Mount Parthenion and complained that the Athenians took no thought of him.>* According to Pausanias, both the Athenians and the Tegeans told the story. 2. Apparition of a giant hoplite. Herodotos 6.117; Ailianos VH 7.38; Souda

s.vv.

‘Immias

and

Todtfndos;

Plutarch,

Mor.

g303C. Herodotos

writes, “A tall hoplite encountered him (Epizelos said), whose beard spread all over his shield; this apparition passed Epizelos by, but slew the man standing beside him.” Epizelos lost the sight of his eyes, al51. Beloch’s objections (Gr. Gesch. 2.22 [1916] 81-83) to the possibility of a siege of Rhodes by Datis were answered by Blinkenberg (op. cit. 194-198). A Momigliano (Alien Wisdom [Cambridge 1973] 98-99) compares the miracles of Datis to those which happened to the Visir Heliodoros at the temple in Jerusalem about 180 B.c., which were later collected and conflated by the source of II Maccabees. 52. According to an epigram in the Planudean Anthology assigned to Simonides (232 = 143 Diehl), Miltiades erected a statue to Pan. 53. For the worship of Pan at Athens before Marathon,

8 (1956) 954-955.

see Brommer,

RE

Suppl.

24

Military Epiphanies

though he was neither stabbed nor shot.*4 Ailianos says that Epizelos was depicted in the Stoa Poikile. The Souda and Plutarch give the name of the Athenian who lost his vision as Polyzelos. 3. Apparition of Theseus. Plutarch Theseus 35; Pausanias 1.15.3. Plutarch says that at the battle of Marathon not a few Athenians fancied they saw the phantom of Theseus, clad in armor, charging at their head against the Medes. Pausanias says that in the painting in the Stoa Poikile, ‘Theseus was represented rising out of the earth.

4. Apparition of the hero Echetlos. Pausanias 1.15.3 and 32.5 (sp. Fchetlaios). “In the battle there was present a man of rustic aspect and dress, who slaughtered many of the barbarians with a plough, and vanished after the fight. When the Athenians inquired of the god, the only answer he vouchsafed was to bid them honor the hero Echetlos.” Pausanias says that Echetlos was depicted in the painting in the Stoa Poikile; see E. Harrison, AJA 76 (1972) 367. For the cult of Echetlos, see M. Jameson, TAPA 82 (1951) 49-61.

480 B.c. Artemision. Epiphany of Boreas. Herodotos 7.189. This incident is included here because for Herodotos, Boreas had a physical character.5> The Athenians, on the bidding of an oracle,

prayed to Boreas who showed his friendly disposition to their cause by destroying the ships of the barbarians.*® After the war, the Athenians built a temple to Boreas on the banks of the Ilissos, while the

Delphians set up an altar to the winds and offered sacrifice to them.*” 54. For blindness following on a vision, see Acts 9:1-9. The import of the story of Isidas, son of Phoibidas, of Sparta, as told in Plutarch Agesilaos 34.6-8 and Polyainos

2.9 (370/69 B.c.), is that a warrior of unusual stature might be mistaken by the enemy for a god.

55- For the cult associations of Boreas, see Wernicke RE s.v. Boreas (1899) 720730; Boeker, Der Kleine Pauly 2 (1964) s.v. Boreas 930; and below chap. V. p. 205. In

one of the linear B tablets from Knossos, there is an entry, “for the priestess of the winds.” See J. Chadwick, The Mycenaean World (Cambridge 1976) 98. 56. Cf. Pausanias 8.27.14 and 8.36.4 (Megalopolis). “Boreas was to be the savior of Megalopolis, even as it had once done service to the whole of Greece, by dashing most of the ships of the Medes against the Sepiad rocks. For it blew a steady and furious hurricane, which broke down the engine of Agis and scattered it like chaff. Agis, who was prevented by Boreas from taking Megalopolis . . .” and “On the right of the road is a precinct sacred to Boreas, and the Megalopolitans offer sacrifices every year, and honor Boreas as much as any god, because he saved them from Agis and the Lakedaimonians.” 57- “Natives of the British Isles will be reminded of the Spanish Armada and the inscription on the medal struck to commemorate its dispersal: flavit et dissipati sunt”: C. Hignett, Xerxes’ Invasion of Greece (Oxford 1963) 175. The medal is said to be in the Ashmolean

Museum,

Oxford.

Military Epiphanies

25

480 B.c. Delphi. Epiphany of Phylakos and Autonoos. Herodotos 8.

38-39.

When the Persians attacked Delphi after the battle of Thermopylai, the two heroes Phylakos and Autonoos, in armor and larger than men, were seen pursuing and slaying the invaders. 480 B.c. Salamis. 1. Dikaios’ vision of dust cloud whence emanated the Iacchos-song of the mysteries. Herodotos 8.65. Cf. Plutarch Them. 15. 2. Vision of a woman,

who, in a voice audible

to the whole

Greek

fleet, urged them on to the attack after taunting them that they were backing water to beach their ships.5* Herodotos 8.84.2. 3. Epiphany of Kychreus as a serpent. Pausanias 1.36.1. “There is

also a sanctuary of Kychreus [on Salamis]. It is said that while the Athenians were engaged in the sea-fight with the Medes, a serpent appeared among the ships, and the god announced to the Athenians that this serpent was the hero Kychreus.’’59 4. Possible epiphany of Dioskouroi. Herodotos 8.122. Herodotos relates that the Aiginetans dedicated at Delphi three golden stars set on a mast of bronze, after they won the aristeia at Salamis. Several commentators, including Stein and Macan, who combine this statement

with evidence of the dedication of stars after the battle of Aigospotamoi, conjecture that the Aiginetans had been favored with the apparitions of the Dioskouroi and Apollo. A. B. Cook (Zeus 1 [Cambridge 1914] 760-775, esp. 761-762) has a lengthy section on the “epiphany” of the Dioskouroi as stars. His bibliography may be supplemented with that of A. S. Pease in his commentaries on Cicero, De Div. 1.75 and De Natura Deorum 2.6. Pease suggests that a propitious sign may have been seen by the Aiginetans in the form of the electrical phenomenon

known as St. Elmo’s Fire. Cf. W. H. D. Rouse, Greek

Votive

Offerings (Cambridge 1902) 135. A. Mommsen (Philologus 11 [1856] 706-714) believes that the propitious sign was the appearance of the morning and the evening star at the time of the summer solstice. Hero58. J. L. Myres (Herodotus [Oxford 1953] 280-282) fancies that a woman because of her “high staccato voice” was used by the Greeks to give the signal to attack. “The ‘phantom’ signaller was therefore no irresponsible peasant-woman, but under the direct control of the most responsible of Athenian generals.” 59. In later Athenian coinage commemorating the victory at Salamis, a serpent appears on the galley of Themistokles: J. P. Shear, Hesperia 5 (1936) 299. ““The temple snake, the Kuxpeléns é¢is kept at Eleusis, was undoubtedly

the Hero himself;

though acc. to the rationalizing account in Str. 393-4 it had merely been reared by Kychreus”: E. Rohde, Psyche (English transl. of eighth ed., New York 1925) 155 n. 129.

Military Epiphanies

26 dotos, our sole informant,

says nothing about the Dioskouroi;

nor do

we know that they were specially worshipped on Aigina. 467 B.c.6 Arkadia (Dipaia). Stratagem of the Epiphany of Dioskouroi. Polyainos 1.41.1; Frontinus 1.11.9. Archidamos inspired his soldiers with courage by convincing them that the Dioskouroi were assisting them. The stratagem was accom-

plished by secretly placing new suits of armor on an altar at night with the prints of two horses’ feet around them. He could then claim that Kastor and Polydeukes had visited the camp.

447 B.c. Koroneia. Epiphany of an Unnamed Demi-God. W. Peek, Griechische Vers-Inschriften 1 (Berlin 1955) no. 17. An inscription discovered in the Kerameikos has been conjectured

by W. Peek with some probability to be the war memorial to the men who fell in the battle of Koroneia in 447 B.c.! Their defeat and death is ascribed to supernatural intervention: “One of the half-gods came against you and wrought your undoing” (dAA4 71s buds Hurlewy Oelav [——]» avriacas {8\averv). Some hero appeared and helped the Boiotians. Here we are dealing with an officially commissioned epigram inscribed in monumental style on the base of a polyandrion. The defeat

of the Athenians under Tolmides is attributed to the misinterpretation of an oracle which had been given by the hero and had led them to expect victory.® Peek suggests that the hero was Trophonios, whose shrine was nearby; but C. M. Bowra argues for Orion, a national hero of the Boiotians.** A. Cameron, on the other hand, regards the poem

as a post eventum interpretation of defeat by a single individual couched in conventional religious language; but this idea does not take account of the official nature

of the polyandrion,

commissioned

by the demos. 424/3 B.c. Lekythos. Possible Epiphany of Athena. Thucydides 4.116. We can infer from the language of Thucydides that the Spartan Brasidas believed that Athena had intervened in the siege of Lekythos. The historian uses the clause voyuicas &\dw tii TpdTw 7} avOpwrelw THY Ew60, The date is that of Beloch, Gr. Geschichte2 2.2.189.

61. Kyparissis and Peek, Ath. Mitt. 57 (1932) 142-146 (with photographs). See also the interesting supplement of M. Gronewald, ZPE 17 (1975) 82-84. 62. Cf. A.W. Gomme, HCT 1 p. 339. 63. CQ 32 (1938) 83.

64. HTR 33 (1940) 97-130.

Military Epiphanies

27

ow yeveodat. The Athenian garrison on the headland of Lekythos in the Chalkidike attempted to defend itself against an approaching firemachine of Brasidas by mounting casks of water and large stones on a wooden scaffold. The accumulated weight became greater than the scaffolding would support, and it broke down with a prodigious noise. Many of the Athenians took to flight. Brasidas, relinquishing his firemachine, took the place by assault. He regarded the sudden rupture of the scaffolding as brought about by divine intervention, and presented the thirty minai, which he had promised as a reward to the first

man who broke in, to the goddess Athena. He moreover consecrated to

her the entire cape of Lekythos, demolishing the fort and private residences so that nothing remained except the temple. 405 B.c. Aigospotamoi. Possible Epiphany of Dioskouroi. Pausanias’ list (10.9.7) of the statues on the magnificent monument dedicated at Delphi by the Spartans from the spoils of the vanquished Athenians is headed by the Dioskouroi. Plutarch (Lys. 12.1) states that according to some persons, the Dioskouroi were seen shining like stars

on the steering paddles as Lysander’s ship sailed out to attack. In view of these passages, the authorities cited above (p. 25) on the alleged epiphany of the Dioskouroi at Salamis in 480 8.c. believe that some symbolic help was thought to have been received by Lysander at Aigospotamoi, whether the sign was in the form of an apparition or some meteorological phenomenon such as St. Elmo’s Fire or the morning and evening star. 403 B.c.® Aphytis (Chalkidike). Epiphany of Zeus Ammon. Pausanias 3.18.3; Plutarch Lys. 20.5-6. Pausanias says that Ammon appeared to Lysander when he was besieging Aphytis and told him to desist. Accordingly,

Lysander raised

the siege and bade the men of Aphytis offer a sacrifice to Ammon. Plutarch tells the same story, but adds, apparently on the authority of

Ephoros, that most people believe that Lysander simply used the vision as a pretext to visit the oracle of Zeus at Ammon in Libya.®* H. W. Parke (The Oracles of Zeus [Oxford 1967] 220) writes, ‘““The story might be disregarded as an unconvincing legend if it were not for the curious

material confirmation provided by the head of Zeus Ammon which appears on the coinage of Aphytis.” ‘The head of Zeus Ammon appears on the earliest coins of Aphytis, probably struck between 400 and 358 65. For the date, see Kahrstedt RE s.v. Lysandros (1927) 2805. 66. See H. W. Parke and D. E. W. Wormell, The Delphic Oracle 1 (1956) 204-205.

28

Military Epiphanies

B.c.: B. V. Head, Historia Numorum? (Oxford 1911) 209-210. Unfortunately, after offering this bit of evidence in support of the ancients’ belief in the reality of the epiphany, Parke proceeds to a series of hypothetical conjectures as to how the cult of Ammon could have otherwise reached such an out-of-the-way place as Aphytis. 371 B.c. Leuktra. 1. The stratagem of an epiphany of Herakles. Xenophon Hell. 6.4.7; Diodoros 15.53.4; Polyainos 2.3.8. Xenophon writes, “Messengers reported that the arms had disappeared from the Herakleion, indicating that Herakles had gone forth to the battle. Some, to be sure, say that all these things were but devices (rexvdcyuara) of the leaders.’’ According to both Diodoros and Polyainos, the story of the arms in the temple of Herakles was indeed a stratagem of Epameinondas..Diodoros relates that Epameinondas had the men coming from Thebes tell the story of the disappearance of the arms, adding that the heroes of old had taken them up to fight for the Boiotians. Polyainos says that because the troops of Epameinondas were dispirited and inferior in number,

the Theban

general refurbished

the old rusty arms,

making

them bright and gleaming, and his men on seeing them interpreted this as a sign that they were fighting under the auspices of Herakles. 2. Epiphany of the Messenian hero Aristomenes. Pausanias 4.32.4. Pausanias writes; “The Messenians have it that the dead Aristomenes was present at the battle of Leuktra, and they say that he helped the ‘Thebans, and was the chief cause of the disaster that befell the Lakedaimonians.” This story is told in connection with an account of the shield of Aristomenes which Pausanias had seen at Lebadeia.67 The oracle of Trophonios had told the Thebans to set up a trophy before the battle and deck it with the shield. Epameinondas had so ordered. About 370 B.c. Thessaly. Stratagem of Epiphany of Dioskouroi. Polyainos 6.1.3. Jason claimed Polydeukes

that he had received the assistance of Kastor and (rods Atockotpous pavepwrarous aitS yevéoOar) in the war and

he therefore demanded gold and silver table plate from his family and generals to celebrate a sacrifice to the two divinities. When

the service

of plate was in his possession, he used it to pay his men. 67. G. Huxley (Early Sparta [London 1962] 144 n. 620) believes that the story of the shield comes from Kallisthenes, who wrote about Lebadeia.

Military Epiphanies

29

338 B.c. Epiphany of Asklepios. The paean of Isyllos, inscribed on a stone at Epidauros (IG IV? 128,

lines 57-788), describes how Isyllos came as a sick boy from Bouspor os (?) to Epidauros “at a time when Philip was leading an army against Sparta to destroy the royal house.” He was met by Asklepios in flashing

armor

(cuvayrnoas avy brow

Aaumopevos Xpucéos).The deity told Isyl-

los to wait for his return: “In due time, I shall come to you when I have saved the Lakedaimonians, because they righteously observe the oracles of Phoibos which Lykourgos enjoined upon them.” Overjoyed by this epiphany, Isyllos told the people of Sparta that Asklepios had come to save them. After the event, the Lakedaimonians proclaimed Asklepios as their savior,“ and instituted the festival of Asklepios Soter. 305 B.c. Rhodos. Epiphany of Athena. C. Blinkenberg, Lindos 2 Inscriptions Tome 1 (Copenhagen 1941) 186-187, lines g—115. In the third epiphany listed on the stele from the temple of Athena at Lindos,” the goddess is said to have appeared to an ex-priest Kallikles during the siege of Rhodes by Demetrios Poliorketes, commanding an appeal for help to Ptolemy Soter.”! After receiving the same apparition for six nights, Kallikles told his dream to the bouleutai of

the city who dispatched one of the prytaneis to Ptolemy. Here the stone breaks off.72 At the time, Rhodes was allied with Ptolemy,’? who

sent in provisions and reinforcements.”4

303 B.c. Argos. Divine Intervention of Apollo. An inscription found in 1904 in a wall of the temenos of Apollo Pythaeus in Argos was published in 1908 by W. Vollgraff (BCH 32.236— 68. See also E. and L. Edelstein, Asklepius (Baltimore 1945) no. 295. 69. The event referred to is generally taken to be Philip’s attack on Sparta in 338 B.c. See, for example, Wilamowitz, Philologische Untersuchungen g (1886) 24, 31-35; C. Roebuck, CP 43 (1948) 86-87; F. W. Wallbank, Commentary on Polybius 2 (Oxford 1967) 166. 70. The first epiphany has been discussed above p. 22. The second (lines 60-93) has to do with the appearance of Athena in a dream to a priest after a suicide in the temple and concerns the procedure of purification of the sanctuary. 71. Pausanias (1.8.6) says that the Rhodians first gave Ptolemy I the title of Soter, and it is generally conjectured that this occurred after the siege of Rhodes in 304 B.c. See W. W. Tarn, Antigonos Gonatas (Oxford 1913) 438. 72. See Hiller von Gaertringen, RE Suppl. 5 (1931) 781, lines 19-28. 73. Diodoros 20.82.1, 74. 20.88.9, 94.3, 96.1. Cf. C. Torr, Rhodes (Cambridge 1885) 13-14.

Military Epiphanies

30

258) but incorrectely read. R. Herzog (Philologus 71 [1912] 1-23) corrected the text, the main part of which, in hexameters, is a mixture of

epic and epichoric dialects.” It prescribes that a festival was to be celebrated on the seventeenth day of every month after the time when Apollo by night drove

away

Pleistarchos

(€ of Ldeiorapxov vixtwp e&nrace

’Aré\\wy). Combining passages from Pausanias, Plutarch and Herodotos, Herzog argued that the allusion was to the Spartan king Pleistarchos, son of Leonidas, and that the miraculous rescue of Argos had occurred in the battle of Oinoa (between 462 and 459 B.c.).’° Since the inscription itself is of the late fourth century, Vollgraff (Le sanctuatre

d’ Apollon Pythéen a Argos [Paris 1956] 79-84), in returning to the subject,”7 accepts in essence Herzog’s text, but reaffirms his original position that Pleistarchos must be the brother of Cassander the Makedonian king,”8 and that the allusion in our text is to the deliverance of Argos by Demetrios in 303 8.c.7? Hiller von Gaertringen accepts Vollgraff’s view.®

279 B.c. War Against Gauls. Delphi. 1. Epiphany of Apollo. SIG* 398.1 This is a Koan decree of 278 B.c., one year after the event, providing for the dispatch from Kos of theoroi to Delphi to sacrifice to Apollo. The motivation formula of the decree

contains the following phrases which attest to a tradition representing

the personal intervention of Apollo in the battle at Delphi: (lines 1-6) érrevd7) Tov BapBapwv oTpatetay Tornoapevwy éeml Tos “ENXavas Kai éml TO lepov To & Aeddgots avayyéddeTar TOs wev EAMOvTaS El TO Lepdy Tiwplas TETELKXEY LTO Tod ceo} —— (lines 16-18) 7&u Bede xaprornpia amodidods Tas Te Emipavelas TAS veyernuévas tvexev...It is possible that the famous statue in the Vatican

known as the Apollo Belvedere represents the god in the act of repel75. For the dedication to Leto, see Wehrli, RE Suppl. 5 (1931) 561-562. 76. For the date, see K. J. Beloch (Gr. Geschichte? 2.2 [Strassburg 1916] 208-209),

who regarded Herzog’s hypothesis as plausible. Oinoa lies on the road from Mantineia to Argos. 77. C£. J. and L. Robert, REG 71 (1958) 243; and SEG 25 (1971) 366. 78. Pausanias 1.15.1; Diodoros 19.77. 49. Plutarch Demetr. 25; Diodoros 20.102-103;

Athenaios 10.415A. Vollgraff compares the enthusiasm with which Demetrios had earlier been received in Athens (Demetr. 23). 80. Historische griechische Epigramme (Bonn 1926) 85. 81. First published by R. Herzog, Comptes rendus Acad. Insc. 1904 p. 165. Translated by R. Flacelitre, Les Aitoliens a Delphes (Paris 1937) 105. W. W. Tarn (Antigonos Gonatas [Oxford 1913] 439-442) devotes an appendix to the decree.

Military Epiphanies

31

ling the Gauls by shaking the aegis at them: see J. G. Frazer, Pausanias’s Description of Greece 5 (London 1897) 345-346. Apollo’s intervention in the battle madé splendid material for the poets, and was promptly glorified by Kallimachos in his Hymn to Delos. 2. Apparitions of the heroes Hyperochos, Laodokos, Pyrrhos, and Phylakos. Pausanias 1.4.4; 10.23.3. Pausanias relates that in the course of the first day’s fighting, in addition to the thunder and lightning

sent by Apollo, the phantoms (¢4cuara) of these four heroes appeared to the Greeks. 3- Epiphanies of Apollo, Artemis and Athena. Diodoros 22.9.5; Jus-

tin 24.8.5-12; Souda s.v. éuol KeAnoea; Cicero De Div. 1.81. The account

having the most miraculous elements is that of Justin. Apollo was seen by the priests of the temples to leap down into his temple throug h the opening roof. Then a youth of extraordinary beauty was joined by two armed virgins (duas armatas virgines) in leading the Greeks into

the battle. The “white maidens” of the accounts in Diodoros, the Souda and Cicero are possibly Artemis and Athena;82 but Cicero seems

to refer the epithet “white” to the snowstorm which contributed to the overthrow of the Gauls. The snowstorm occurs in every ancient account of the battle. In a fragmentarily preserved decree of accep-

tance of the Soteria by Smyrna thirty-five years after the event,84 men-

tion is made in lines 4-5 of sacrifices offered to the god who had given

the victory (rod G08 rovjoavtos 76 vixnua), followed in line 6 by the phrase rijv émipdvaav rev bedv: Fouilles de Delphes I11.1.483.85 H. Pomtow has twice reminded us that the supernatural element in the literary tradition differs little from that in the epigraphical: “Damit fallen alle Behauptungen von Beloch und Ed. Meyer, dass die von Diodor und

Justin berichteten Wunder

viel spatere Erfindungen seien, in sich zu-

82. See J. G. Frazer, Pausanias 5.344-34%. Wilamowitz (Der Glaube der Hellenen 1 [Berlin 1931] 381) rejects the identification of the white maidens with Artemis and Athena. He identifies them as the Thriai. 83. For the comparison

between

snow-flakes

and maidens,

see A. S. Pease, M.

T.

Ciceronis De Divinatione (Darmstadt 1963 reprint) 242. 84. The date of the reorganized Aitolian festival depends on the dating of the

Athenian archon Polyeuktos (IG II2, 680), about which there is a vast literature. 85. On the development of the legends of the battle, see Segré, “La pit antica tradizione sull’ invasione gallica,” Historia 1 fasc. 4 (1927) 18-42; and R. Flaceliére, REA 35 (1933) 327 and Les Aitoliens a Delphes (Paris 1937) 111. Flacelitre suggests that the stories of the epiphanies of Artemis and Athena were added by the Aitolians in order to appropriate for themselves the glory of saving Delphi by attributing the work to their special divinities.

32

Military Epiphanies

sammen, die geschichtliche Uberlieferung wird durch die Inschriften voll bestatigt und stellt sich als ebenso alt heraus, wie die Geschehnisse selbst.”’86 2478/7 B.c. Kyzikos. Alleged Intervention of Herakles against the Gauls. M. Launey (REA 46 [1944] 217-236) argues that a relief from Kyzikos, depicting Herakles standing over a Galatian, represents the divine intervention of Herakles in aid of the Kyzikenes. The relief (see BCH 56 [1932] pl. 25) contains a dedicatory inscription to Herakles by the strategoi and is dated under the Hipparch Phoinix, who held office in

278/7, the year of the invasion.®” 2478/7 B.c. Themisonion.** Epiphany of Herakles, Apollo, and Hermes in Dreams. Pausanias 10.32.4—-5. These three gods are said to have revealed to the local magistrates in dreams a cave, thirty stades away, where the entire population of the

town was able to take refuge before the ravages of the Gauls. 278/47 B.c. Kelainai. Marsyas. Pausanias 10.30.9. Pausanias writes, the Phrygians “repelled the army of the Gauls by the aid of Marsyas, who defended them against the barbarians by the water from the river and by the music of his flute.”*° 24” B.c. Lysimacheia.® Alleged Epiphany of Pan.* W. W. Tarn in the CAH 7 (1928) 106, writes, “Antigonus, whether 86. Klio 14 (1914/5) 278. See also Philologus 71 (1912) 54: “Wir haben darum nicht den geringsten Grund, an der gleichzeitigen,—natiirlich in der Inschrift von Kos als nebensiichlich tibergangenen—Epiphanie seiner Begleiterinnen (comites) zu zweifeln.” Cf. Pfister, RE s.v. Soteria (1927) 1223: “Die Inschriften lehren uns, dass diese Tradition von der Epiphanie der Gétter unmittelbar nach den kriegerischen Ereignissen selbst aufkam.” 87. J. and L. Robert (REG 59/60 [1946/7] 347) believe that the thrust of the inscription was “pour demander sa protection avant le danger.” 88. For the location of this Phrygian town, see L. Robert, Villes d’Asie Mineure2 (Paris 1962) 112 n. 4 and 116, and Olshausen, Der Kleine Pauly 5 (1975) 677. For the coinage of the city, see B. V. Head, Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Phrygia in the British Museum (London 1906) civ and 418-420. Ramsay (AJA 3 [1887] 362-363) believes that the chief deity is to be identified with Herakles. 89. For this Phrygian river-god, see Ovid Met. 6.382-400; and von Geisau, Der Kleine Pauly 3 (1969) 1050.

go. The place of the battle between Antigonos Gonatas and the Gauls is known only from Diog. Laert. 2.17.141. The date of 277 B.c. has recently been defended by A. Piatkowski in Studii Clasice 2 (1960) 189-201 (in Roumanian). gi. J. Tambornino, “De Antiquorum Daemonismo,” RGVV 7.3 (1909) speculates

Military Epiphanies

33

by accident or design, was near the city; he met the Gauls, and by a ruse compelled them to fight with their backs to the sea; the god Pan spread his panic terror among them, and Antigonus cut them to pieces.” Similarly, M. Launey, REA 46 (1944) 226, says, “De la premié re victoire remportée sur les Barbares en bataille rangée, celle d’Anti gonos Gonatas 4 Lysimacheia en 27%, on fit une victoire du dieu Pan.” There is no mention of Pan in the literary sources cited either by Launey in his note to the sentence quoted above, or by Tarn in his more complete treatment of the battle in his Antigonos Gonatas (Oxford 1913) 165-166. The ruse used by Antigonos is described in Justin 25.2; and Pausanias (10.23.7) merely states parenthetically that panic fear was usually inspired by Pan.92 The head of Pan appears on tetradrachms issued by Antigonos Gonatas,®* and the story of the interventhat Pan was first credited with causing panic by reason of the sudden terror which

sometimes infects a herd of beasts. In addition to citing passages where Pan is said to

have induced various mental disorders, madness, epilepsy, etc., Tambornino quotes the following passage from the Souda (s.v. TlavxG deluare) : robro yiverat émt r&v orpa-

torébwv, yvixa aidvidior of re tamou kal of avOpwrror exrapaxdGor, undeucas airias mpopavelons.

The Souda goes on to say that the Rhodian general ‘Theodoros in his Hypomnemata said that it was best on such occasions to remain under arms and keep quiet.

92. ev 6¢ ri vuxri PoBos oguolv éuriare Iavixés. Frazer in his translation encloses the

statement in parentheses. The scholia to Theokritos 5.16 refer to Pan as the inspirer of panic terrors (lava detuara). Cf. Euripides Hipp. 141. See W. H. Roscher, Uber Selene und Verwandtes (Leipzig 1890) 157; and G. A. Gerhard, “Der Tod des grossen Pan,” SHAW 6 (1915) Abh. 5-52. 93. See CAH Plates vol. 3 (1930) p- 3 no. g; F. Studniczka, JDAT 38/39 (1923/24) 74-77; and F. M. Heichelheim, AJP 64 (1943) 332-333. See also A. B. Brett, Catalogue of Greek Coins (Boston 1955) 86: “at Lysimacheia in 277 B.c., won by aid of god Pan, who caused panic among enemy”; G. K. Jenkins, Ancient Greek Coins (London 1972) 221: “In this battle, it was said, panic had been spread among the Gauls by the god Pan...”

From

the commentary

of H. Gaebler, Die antiken Miinzen Nord-Griechen-

lands III.g. p. 186, one can trace back the dating of the coinage through Beloch, Gr. Geschichte? 4.1 (1925) 567 Anm. 1 to Usener Rh. Mus. 29 (1874) 25-48 (= KI. Schriften

3-382ff.), who, in republishing an epigram from Knidos (= C. T. Newton, A History

of Discoveries at Halicarnassus, Cnidus, and Branchidae 2.2 [London 1863] 747-749),

identified the Antigonos son of Epigonos of the epigram as Antigonos Gonatas and associated the coin bearing the head of Pan with the battle of Lysimacheia. The inscription which mentions the syrinx of Pan (line 10) seems to allude to the introduction of Hermes from Pheneos as the guardian of the temenos of Antigonos at Knidos (see Newton). Republished by J. Geffcken, Griechische Epigramme (Heidelberg 1916) no. 176 (= Kaibel no. 781), the editor’s copious bibliography shows that there is agreement that the epigram does not apply to Antigonos Gonatas (see, for example, Beloch [Klio 1 (1901) 291 n. 2: “Dagegen ist es ganz sicher, dass das bekannt von Usener behandelte Epigramm aus Knidos mit Gonatas nicht das geringste zu thun hat”] and Tarn [JHS go (1910) 214: “The theory which sees in the Antigonus of the epigram Antigonus Gonatas—a theory already rejected by Beloch and Dittenberger—

Military Epiphanies

34

scholar’s inference from

tion of Pan in the battle may be the modern this fact.

272 B.c. Argos. Epiphany of Demeter. Pausanias 1.13.8. Pausanias writes: “It is said that his (Pyrrhos’) death was caused by a blow from a tile thrown by a woman. The Argives however declare that it was not a woman who killed him but Demeter in the likeness of a woman. This is what the Argives themselves relate about his end, and Lyceas, the guide for the neighbourhood, has written a poem which confirms the story” (Loeb tr.).% In 2.21.4, Pausanias reports that the bones of Pyrrhos lie in the sanctuary of Demeter. Mid-third 8.10.8.

Century 3.c. Mantineia.

Epiphany

of Poseidon.

Pausanias

Pausanias writes: “But before they were aware, the Arkadians were

in their rear,

and

thus being surrounded

the Lakedaimonians

lost

most of their army, and among the fallen was King Agis, son of Eucannot be upheld’). As to the Gonatas coinage with head of Pan horned, Brommer’s

of the admirable article on Pan (RE Suppl. 8 [1956]) lists innumerable representations god on coins (cols. 966-967, 977-978, 986, 999, etc.), including those of Makedonian kings (col. 986: “Makedonien ist neu mit mehreren Miinzen vertreten”). The vast majority of these are taken to have a cult, rather than a military, origin, and Antigonos’ choice of this particular coin-type has been discussed by T. G. Rosenmeyer, The Green Cabinet (Berkeley 1969) 244-245. If we return to Usener’s original article, we find that the only literary evidence cited by him (p. 44) for an epiphany of Pan against the Gauls is the parenthesis in Pausanias 10.23.7, which says in the context of the battle at Delphi that panic is inspired by Pan. Antigonos’ contribution to this battle was only five hundred mercenaries under the command of Aristodemos: Pausanias 10.20.5. Finally, the cult association of Pan with the Makedonian dynasty seems established by the facts that when Zeuxis presented a painting to Archelaos, king of Makedonia 413-399 B.C., the subject was Pan (Pliny NH 35.36.63), and that the coins of early Makedonian kings carried the head of Pan (British Museum Coins: Macedonia [London 18479] 168; B. V. Head, Historia Numorum?2 [London 1911] 222). A bust of Pan appears on the coins of Pella (British Museum Coins: Macedonia, 13 and go). As Bickerman (REA 40 [1938] 376 n. 5) states the case, Pan was simply “le divin protecteur d’Antigonos

Gonatas,”

and, we may add, the national

deity of the Antigonids,

just as P, Lévéque (Problémes de la guerre en Gréce ancienne [Paris 1968] 278 n. 101) shows that “le theme de la Niké est particuli¢rement cher a Pyrrhos et a ses alliés qui nont cessé de la faire figurer sur leurs monnaies.” 94. The same story about the roof tile is reported in Strabo 8.6.18 and Plutarch Pyrrhos 34, but with no mention of Demeter. Earlier, Pyrrhos had sacrilegiously rifled a sanctuary of Persephone:

Dion. Hal. 20.9; Souidas s.v. Ibppos. For other sources on

the death of Pyrrhos (Plutarch Pyrrhos 34; Justin 35.5), see in particular P. Lévéque, Pyrrhos (Paris 1957) 622-630, who traces the account of Plutarch to Hieronymos of Kardia; cf. Kienast RE s.v. Pyrrhos 13 (1963) 161.

Military Epiphanies

35

damidas. The Mantineians averred that Poseidon himself was seen fighting on their side, and therefore they set up a trophy and dedicated it to him.” Pausanias continues with reflections on epiphanies in general, relating that Homer had told how gods were present at fights and carnage, that the Athenians tell in song how gods fought on their side at Marathon and Salamis, and that the Gauls had perished at the

hands of Apollo. He concludes, “Thus it follows that Poseidon had a hand in the victory of the Mantineians.” All modern historians agree that there are errors in Pausanias’ account of the battle; see Pritchett,

Topography 2 (1969) 61-62, and J. Hejnic, Rozpravy Ceskoslovenske Akademie Ved 71.17 (1961) 33-35. The particular passage in Pausanias is characterized by G. Fougéres (Mantinée et l’Arcadie orientale [Paris 1898] 591) as “un récit de pure fantaisie.” It would seem reasonable to infer that Pausanias’ story originated in a Mantineian logos which derived from an actual trophy set up near the sanctuary of Poseidon. Since there is no mention of Poseidon in the description of the battle proper (8.10.7), although this would be the most suitable occasion for his intervention, the reflection on the epiphany may be the embroidery

of Pausanias.

Third Century B.c. Chersonesos (in Crimea). Epiphany of Parthenos (= Tauric Artemis. V. V. Latyschev, Inscriptiones antiquae orae sep-

tentrionalis Ponti Euxini I? (Petropoli 1916) 343. A very fragmentary inscription of a decree moved by the same orator (Herakleidas son of Parmenon) as the decree honoring the historian Syriskos for his work on Epiphanies,® contains a motivation formula referring to an epiphany of Parthenos at a time when she saved the city from the greatest dangers (cwbels 6.’ abrav ee Tay peyiotur Kivdbvew ).%

The historical setting of the decree is discussed by Rostovtzeff in Klio 16 (1919/20) 205. 241 B.c. Pellene. Mistaken Epiphany of Artemis (= Plutarch) or Athena (= Polyainos). Plutarch Aratos 32; Polyainos 8.59." g5. See above p. 12.

96. Where the editor of the editio princeps (Jourgievitch, Act. Soc. Odess. 12 [1880] 1 [non vidi] is said to have restored émipavelas, Rostovtzeff (Klio 16 [1919/20] 205) substitutes the word Bonelas. In any case, as Rostovtzeff notes, an epiphany is meant. 97. J. G. Frazer (Pausanias’s Description of Greece 4 [London 1897] 187) infers from the passage of Polyainos, “It would appear to have been customary for the priestess of Athena at Pellene to attire herself on a certain day as the goddess, wearing her panoply and a helmet with a triple crest.”

36

Military Epiphanies In a battle between the Aitolians and Aratos, the Aitolians are said

to have fled the town when they saw a divine apparition of Artemis (or Athena). Plutarch records two accounts; (1) that the Aitolians saw a stately woman wearing a three-crested helmet, sitting in the sanctuary of Artemis, and mistook her for the goddess;

(2) the account

of the

Pellenians themselves, that the image of Artemis was being carried forth from her temple. Polyainos’ version is that the priestess of Athena in full armor came out of her temple and was mistaken for the goddess. Plutarch adds that Aratos in his Hypomnemata makes no mention of such a thing.®

201 B.C. (?) Knidos. Epiphany of Artemis Hyakinthotrophos. An unpublished inscription, the discovery of which was announced

in 1905,°° reportedly gives the response of Kos to a letter from Knidos announcing the foundation of a festival in favor of Artemis Hyakinthotrophos

after

her

epiphany,’

perhaps

during

the

unsuccessful

siege of Knidos by Philip in 201 B.c.1°! Numerous references to the inscription, which has been scheduled for publication in JG XII.4, have been collected by L. Robert (Hellenica 7 [1949] 115 n. 5). 167 B.c. Pergamon. Epiphany of Athena. In a battle recorded in M. Fraenkel, Die Inschriften von Pergamon 1 (Berlin 1890) no. 165, with an additional fragment published in Ath. Mitt. 27 (1902) go no. 74, Athena comes to the aid (’Adnvais . . . épxouerns és Bonfevav) of Eumenes II and his brother Attalos in their war against

the Galatians,103

144 B.c. Pergamon. Epiphany of Zeus Tropaios. M. Fraenkel, Die Inschriften von Pergamon 1 (Berlin 1890) no. 247.1% 98. See F. W. Walbank, Aratos of Sicyon (Cambridge

1933) 54.

99. R. Herzog, Ar. Anz. 20 (1905) 11.

100. See Pfister, RE Suppl. 4 (1924) 299. Cf. M. J. Mellink, Hyakinthos (Utrecht

1943) 48.

101. Polybios 16.11.1. For the text of Polybios, see F. W. Walbank, Commentar y on Polybius 2 (Oxford 1967) 512 (the Codex Urbinas has the subtitle wept ths Kvldov

modes).

102. Add now M. Launey, Recherches sur les armées hellénistiques 2 (Paris 1950) 899; and K. J. Rigsby, GRBS 16 (1975) 405.

103. For the date, see D. Magie, Roman Rule in Asia Minor

(Princeton 1950)

766-767. 104. Another Pergamene inscription (Fraenkel, no. 248), which contains a letter of Attalos III to Pergamon dated October 5» 135 B.C. (so C. B. Welles, Royal Correspon-

Military Epiphanies

37

This Hellenistic festival calendar prescribes a celebration on the eighteenth day of each month in commemoration of an Epiphany of

Zeus Tropaios

(dca rv yevouévnv brd tod Aids 70d Tporalou émipaverap ) 105

Fraenkel concluded that the institution of a monthly festival must be attributed to the apparition of Zeus Tropaios in some important victory. Subsequently, L. Robert, in publishing a new text for a dedicatory inscription to the same deity, found in Thrake at Bizye (modern Viza, situated seventy miles northwest of Constantinople),!°6 associated both inscriptions with the campaign of Attalos II against the Thrakian king Diegylis, brother-in-law of Prusias II, who, after overrunning the Greek cities in Thrake, was repulsed by troops under Attalos.1°7 Second Century B.c. Bargylia (Karia). Epiphany of Artemis Kindyas.10 L. Robert, Etudes anatoliennes (Paris 1937) 459-465. This decree, likewise passed by the demos of a city, in this case Bargylia in Karia, proposes

certain measures

to augment

the cult of

Artemis. It contains a motivation formula which has been reconstructed by L. Robert to give the following sense: éevé1) év tBu mouwr woAdGY Kal Meyahov Tepiotavrav kivdbvav ... 6 dhpuos dua Ti THs Oeds éripavelay Thy abto-

vouiay duecatce... The epiphany is clearly that of a deity who has saved the town from perils which menaced it. The date is the second century B.c., and Robert connected the mention of the dangers averted by the “epiphany” with the revolt of Aristonikos;!°° but D. Magie has questioned this since he finds no evidence for the extension of the war into Karia.1° For Artemis Kindyas on coins of Bargylia, see H. Seyrig, Rev. Num. 6 (1964) 7-8, who suggests a date for the coins after the victory of Seleukos over Lysimachos in 281 B.c.

dence in the Hellenistic Period [New Haven 1934] no. 67), prescribes that the god Zeus

Sabazios be installed in the temple of Athena Nikephoros because of his epiphanies (Sua ras é£ abrod yevouevas émipavelas) in many deeds and many dangers (éu oA)ais mpazeor kal €u roddots Kivdbyos mapacrarny Kal BonOov huiy yevouevor). 105. For the calendar of this inscription, see A. E. Samuel, Greek and Roman

Chronology (Munich 1972) 126. The inscription also specifies an annual celebration on the eighteenth day of Phratrios; see Fraenkel’s commentary p. 161. 106. E. Kalinka, Jahreshefte 23 (1926) Beibl. 119 no. 3. 107. See B. Niese, Geschichte der griechischen und makedonischen Staaten 3 (Gotha 1903) 360-361; D. Magie, Roman Rule in Asia Minor 2 (Princeton 1950) 779. 108. For the site of the sanctuary, see F. W. Walbank, Commentary on Polybius 2 (Oxford 1967) 514-515. 109. Robert is followed by G. E. Bean in The Princeton Encylopedia of Classical Sites (Princeton 1976) 143. 110. Roman Rule in Asia Minor 2 (Princeton 1950) 1039.

38

Military Epiphanies

108 B.c.11 Chersonesos (in Crimea). Epiphany of Parthenos.1!2 S7G3 709.11.23-26; V. V. Latyschev, Inscriptiones antiquae orae septentrionalis Ponti Euxini 1 (Petropoli 1885) 185.113 An honorary inscription of the Tauric Chersonesos awards a golden crown and the erection of a bronze statue in full armor on the akropolis to Diaphantos, general under Mithradates. In enumerating the military exploits of Diaphantos in the last decade of the second century, reference is made to a battle (lines 23-26) which, according to Strabo (7-3-17), pitted fifty thousand Rhoxolans under their king Tasios against six thousand hoplites. The inscription relates that Parthenos,

being present with Diophantos (cuuapodca Avopavra), foretold the outcome of the battle (rpoecduave trav wéAdovoar yivecbat mpaév) and engendered courage in all the army (roAuav éveroinge mavtl ré&u orparorébut).

According to the inscription, none of the barbarian infantry escaped and but few of the cavalry (lines 27-28).

Early First Century s.c. (?)!!4 Lagina (Karia). Epiphany of Hekate. A text of two fragments, originally published separately in BCH, has been reproduced by L. Robert in Etudes anatoliennes (Paris 1937) 462. Although fragmentary, the decree, passed by the boule and demos of the city, contains the words: d1ecw0n ék Tov Kuvdbvwv Kal éx Tod TEeptaTdvTos

avrov xatpod (line 8), and refers to the epiphany of the goddess Hekate:

Thy THs eds (Exarns) évdpyevay.115

73 8.c.116 Tlion. Epiphany of Athena. Plutarch, Lucullus 10.4. Plutarch tells of the apparition to the inhabitants of Ilion of Athena, who said that she had just come from assisting the Kyzikenoi against the efforts of Mithradates. He adds, ‘““The people of Ilion used to show

a stele which had on it certain decrees and inscriptions relating to the matter.” 111. For the date, see E. H. Minns, Scythians and Greeks (Cambridge 1913) 520. 112. “Parthenos” usually means Athena; but Minns (op. cit. 543 n. 8, with many references) takes it to mean Tauric Artemis. The priest of the Maiden was named in dating decrees. 113. Republished in Minns, op. cit. Appendix no. 18. 114. For various theories about the date, see A. Schober, Der Fries des Hekateions

von Lagina (Vienna 1933) 13 and 110 n. 10 ( = Mithradatic wars); D. Magie, Roman Rule in Asia Minor g (Princeton 1950) 998 and 1038 (= 81 B.c.); A. Laumonier, Les cultes indigénes en Carie (Paris 1958) 355115. For this reference to Hekate, see T. Kraus, Hekate (Heidelberg 1960) 45. 116. For the date, see D. Magie, Roman Rule in Asia Minor 1 (Princeto n 1950)

329-330.

Military Epiphanies

39

40 8.c. Stratonikeia. Epiphany of Zeus and Hekate. CIG 2715 ae—ebele Bas and W. H. Waddington, Voyage archéologique 3. no. 519.127 The decree refers to the salvation of the city “from many, great and

continuous dangers”

(é roANGy kal peydAwv kal ouvexav kwvdbvev cecdobat)

by Zeus and Hekate who “made conspicuous miracles” (émoujoavto mpo-

gavets vapyeias). The text, which is difficult to construe,!!8 has been re-

studied by L. Robert and referred to the Mithradatic War and the invasion of Labienus.19

40 B.c. Panamara. Roussel, BCH 55 (1931) 70-116. See above chap. I, 6-7.

This collection of forty-nine examples of military epiphanies!2°—the count includes multiple apparitions in some battles—allows us to offer some general conclusions. Our purpose has been in part to lay the foundation for a study in the following chapters of the more numerous incidents of alleged divine intervention through various prodigies. It would be a mistake to assume that all reports of hallucinations and prodigies are later embroidery. On the contrary, it is during periods of intense excitement such as occur in warfare that the mind, both individual and collective, is liable to believe anything extraordinary. One student of the psychology of hallucinations has written, “There are critical moments when the mind, group and individual, is especially liable to harbour hallucinations and to magnify the ordinary 117. See SEG 15 (1968) 654. 118. See M. N. Tod, Gnomon 28 (1956) 460. 119. L. Robert, Etudes anatoliennes (Paris 1937) 516-523. The actual date of the text is said to be the second or third century after Christ: Roussel, BCH pF (1931) 93 n. 5; L. Robert, op. cit. 521. For a photograph of a fragment of the inscription, see L. Robert, AJA 39 (1935) 334. For reference to the text, see D. Magie, Roman Rule in Asia Minor 2 (Princeton 1950) 996 and 1281; T. Kraus, Hekate (Heidelberg 1960) 45. 120. The collection includes only examples of military epiphanies. Such a case as SIG3 557, which resulted in the foundation of a pan-Hellenic festival at Magnesia-onthe-Meander after Artemis Leukophryene, Artemis of the White Brow, “appeared” to her priestess in 221/0 B.c. (see D. Magie, Roman Rule in Asia Minor [Princeton 1950] 941 n. 38) is of course excluded. The games are said to have been instituted in consequence of repeated epiphanies of Artemis, but we are not given any of the details about these appearances. One thinks of the analogy of such alleged appearances of the Virgin as led to the foundation of La Salette and Lourdes. K. J. Rigsby (GRBS 16 [1975] 403-409) has announced that he is preparing a corpus of grants of dovNia. Such grants of inviolability, which fall between 250 and 150 B.c., were made after public miracles which often occurred in times of military crisis, when deities intervened to save the cities. Such grants were made, he says, to about twenty cities.

Military Epiphanies

40

into something prodigious. Intense expectancy gives exaggerated proportions to every event which is extraordinary, and heightened anticipation leaps forward into supposititious realization.”1 Wallis cites a passage from E. Renan,

The Anti-Christ (Paris 1876) chap. 10, on the

religious fervor of the downtrodden Jews: “Prior to the revolt in Judaea which broke out in A.D. 66 this expectancy gave life and permanency to a host of terrifying rumours, which, in turn, fanned the fervour into

greater vagaries. Men dreamed only of signs and omens; the apocalyptic hue of Jewish fancy stained everything with a bloody halo. Comets, swords in the sky, battles in the clouds, light breaking forth of itself from the depth of the sanctuary, victims at the moment of sacrifice

bringing forth a monstrous progeny,—these were the tales told with horror from mouth to mouth. One day the vast brazen gates of the Temple had flown open of themselves and refused to close. At the Passover of A.D. 65, about 3 a.m., the Temple was for half an hour lighted as bright as day; some thought it was on fire. Again, at Pentecost, the priests heard a sound as of many persons in the interior, making hasty preparations as if for flight, and saying to one another, ‘Let us depart hence!’ ‘The great disturbance of mind was itself the best of signs that something extraordinary was about to happen.” Pindar’s remark, “I believe there is no marvel impossible if gods have wrought

thereto,”!?? is profoundly true. As an example from the sixteenth century, I quote from the historian of the great battle of Otumba between the Spaniards and the Indians of Mexico on July 7, 1520, W. H. Prescott (History of the Conquest of Mexico Book 5, chap. 2 [p. 77 of the 1892 edition]): “More than one grave historian refers the preservation of the Spaniards to the watchful care of their patron apostle, St. James, who, in these desperate conflicts,

was beheld careering on his milk-white steed at the head of the Christian squadrons, with his sword flashing lightning, while a lady robed

in white—supposed to be the Virgin—was distinctly seen by throwing dust in the eyes of the infidel! The fact is attested Spaniards and Mexicans. . .. The intervention of the celestial on these occasions is testified in the most unqualified manner

his side, both by chivalry by many

respectable authorities.”” In Book 5 chap. 4 (p. 108), Prescott refers to

the dedication of a church on the battle site to the Virgin under the title of Neustra Senora de los Remedios. Many of the epiphanies have been alluded to in the literature as 121, W. O. Wallis in J. Hastings’ Encyclopedia York 1919) 363. 122. P. 10.49.

of Religion and Ethics 10 (New

Military Epiphanies

4]

«tiots-legends, stories which came to be associated with architectural monuments

or with dedications;

a number of the epiphanies narrated

by Pausanias may be of this nature. At least, they involve incidents which were thought of as’possible. Such aetiological stories were associated in particular with heroes. Moreover, these heroes generally appeared in victory, not defeat. Other stories of epiphanies are dismissed as arising out of an oral tradition. Even so, they remain within the ambit of what was considered credible. The stratagem of the epiphany of Athena by Peisistratos and Megakles in 558 B.c. is a case in point. G. Busolt (Gr. Geschichte? 2.32 1) writes, “Aber es ist kaum zu

bezweifeln,

dass

die breite

Masse

des Volkes

damals

einer

solchen

Tauschung fahig war.” But the stratagem was believed by Herodotos, who had carefully sifted the traditions about the Peisistratidai and had possibly met the sons and certainly the grandsons of men who had seen the restoration; and there can be no doubt that it was the accepted version in Athens when Aristotle wrote and duly reported the incident. When

Pausanias

visited Argos,

he reported

(2.21.4)

that the Epirot

king Pyrrhos was interred in the sanctuary of Demeter after he unsuccessfully besieged the city in 272 B.c.¥23 The modern scholar can infer that Pyrrhos was slain by a woman—and all sources are agreed on this—, and that in retribution for a former violation of a sanctuary of Persephone he was interred in Demeter’s precinct (so Frazer). But this is not tantamount

to denying that the Argives, certainly those of Pausanias’

day and possibly those living at the time of the battle, were prepared to believe in a miracle. The tomb may conceivably have been marked by an inscription; and Pausanias states that he confirmed the story from Lykeas,!* the author of an Argolika in verse.!%5 1. Geographical distribution. Legends of epiphanies occur throughout the Greek world. Although reports of epiphanies were particularly 123, See above p. 34. 124. To be sure, F. Jacoby in his commentary on FGrHist 312 can find a propa-

gandistic motive for Pausanias’ story; but the propaganda to be effective had to contain credible elements. 125. W. W. Tarn (CAH 7 [1928] 215) makes out of Pausanias’ story a foundationlegend, writing, “On the spot where Pyrrhus fell the Argives raised a temple to the goddess Demeter,

who,

their legend said, had

taken a woman’s

form

to slay him.”

But Pausanias, after arriving in the middle of the Agora (2.21.4: kara uécov udduora Tis ayopas), describes a building of white marble which contained a relief depicting

the battle. He then adds that the bones of Pyrrhos lie elsewhere in the hieron of Demeter. The only hieron of this goddess otherwise mentioned is described in 2.22.1 as being of Pelasgian Demeter and of high antiquity.

42

Military Epiphanies

numerous in the Persian wars, the war against the Gauls, and in Karia

of the late Hellenistic period, the examples collected above show incidents which extend from Italy to Asia Minor and from Thessaly to Sparta. Just as the fact that the great number of datyara in Book VIII (Arkadia) of Pausanias may be taken to reflect the superstitious character of these mountainous people,!6 so, as M. Launey has noted,127 the remarkable number of divine interventions reported from Karia

confirms the mantic reputation of these people. Cicero (De Div. 1.93) says that the character of the country determined the kind of divination which its inhabitants adopted (ac mihi quidem videntur e locts quoque ipsis, qui a quibusque incolebantur, divinationum opportunttates esse ductae), and singles out the Karians, especially the ‘Telmessians,!28 for the cultivation of the soothsayers’ art. According to Chris-

tian writers, Telmessians practiced or even invented divination by dreams: Myres, JHS 14 (1894) 378 n. 1.129 But the geographical distribution of reports of epiphanies in periods of warfare alone attests a widespread belief in divine intervention among Greek world.1°°

the peoples of the

2. Distribution of sources. With the exception of Thucydides and Polybios, reports of epiphanies are recorded in all of the major Greek historians of whom we have a considerable literature. The silence of ‘Thucydides, except indirectly in the case of Brasidas (above pp. 26-27), is in accordance with his rejection of an element which he calls 76 wvOades and which he regards as inappropriate to history.1%4 As K. J. Dover states the case, “Thucydides himself was unconventional in theology, 126. Cf. Regenbogen, RE Suppl. 8 (1956) 1040. For Pausanias’ sources in Book VIII, see J. Hejnic, ““Pausanias the Perieget and the Archaic History of Arcadia,” Rozpravy Ceskoslovenské Akademie Ved, Rocnik 71, Sesit 17 (Praha 1961) 75-79. 127. Recherches sur les armées hellénistiques 2 (Paris 1950) 899.

128. A. S Pease (M. T. Ciceronis De Divinatione

[Darmstadt

1963 reprint] 257)

suggests that the play of Aristophanes entitled Telmesseis (Kock 528-541) may have

parodied the superstitions associated with its people. Telmessos was the home town of the oneirocritic mantis (Aristandros) who accompanied Alexander the Great. 129. A. L. Oppenheim (‘The Interpretation of Dreams in the Ancient Near East,” Trans. Amer. Philosophical Society 46.3 [1956] 239) has suggested that this remote region of southwestern Asia Minor may have acted as a passage-point for the diffusion of Asiatic divination methods from Hittite centers into Ionic Greece. 130. Cf. the discerning remarks of K. J. Dover, Greek Popular Morality (Berkeley

1974) 133-144. 131. Thucydides 1.21.4, 22.4. Cf. Lucian, How Walbank, Historia g (1960) 221.

to Write History 42, and F. W.

=a

Military Epiphanies

43

and may well have been an atheist.’#82 Polybios’ silence follows from his harsh protests against meretricious and emotional writing. As an historian he was little concerned with miracles; and he was not in any case writing for the common people.!* He had nothing good to say of historians who told of the wonders of Ekbatana,!* the miracles of Tasos,1*° fables about Phaethon,}%¢ or fantastic tales about Hannibal’s

crossing of the Alps,!87 to mention only a few. Dionysios of Halicarnassos expressly defends the reporting of such legends in the following words (2.68.1-2: Loeb tr.): “It is well worth relating in what manner the goddess manifested herself. . .188 For these things, however incredible they may be, have been believed by the Romans and their historians have related much about them. To be sure, the professors of the atheistic philosophies—if, indeed, their the-

ories deserve the name of philosophy,—who ridicule all the manifestations of the gods which have taken place among either the Greeks or barbarians

(drdcas rds émidavelas tov Oey Tas rap’ “EXAnow 4 BapBdapors

evouévas), will also laugh these reports to scorn and attribute them to human imposture, on the ground that none of the gods concern themselves in anything relating to mankind. Those, however, who do not

absolve the gods from the care of human affairs, but, after looking deeply into history, hold that they are favourable to the good and hostile to the wicked, will not regard even these manifestations (rds émiavelas ) as incredible.” Xenophon (Hell. 6.4.7), in relating the story of the disappearance of

the arms of Herakles which was interpreted by the Boiotians as a sign that Herakles was assisting them in the battle of Leuktra, adds, “Some, to be sure, say that all these things were but devices of the leaders.” Breitenbach characterizes this sentence as ““bemerkenswerte Skepsis bei X.!” and suggests that the account as found in Diodoros (15.53.4), being derived from Ephoros and in turn from some Boiotian source, was 132. Thucydides Book VII (Oxford 1965) 14. For the question of Thucydides’ belief in gods, see the well-reasoned comments

of H. Lloyd-Jones,

The Justice of Zeus

(Berkeley 1971) 144.

133. F. W. Walbank, Commentary on Polybius 1 (Oxford 1957) 12; Polybius (Berke-

ley 1972) 34. 134. 10.27.8. 135. 16.12.3

136. 2.16.13. 137. 3.48.8.

138. For enumeration of the various characteristics of a deity during an epiphany 1974) 252254.

see the list in N. J. Richardson, The Homeric Hymn to Demeter (Oxford

44

Military Epiphanies

known to Xenophon, and that the Athenian historian is here correcting Ephoros.1%9 It would seem, rather, that Xenophon accepts the story of the omens. In the same chapter (6.4.3), he writes, 76n yap, ws éouxe, 7d daiuoviov jyev with regard to a decision of the Lakedaimonian ekklesia,

and Xenophon’s acceptance of a belief in omens and the power of the gods to interfere in the actions of men in this life is well documented.1#

Pausanias records more epiphanies than any other writer. This is in accordance with his belief in the active interference of the gods in human affairs. He relates that the destruction of Sparta and Helike by earthquakes was due to the wrath of Poseidon at the violation of his sanctuaries;14! that the ruin and death of Mithradates had been brought to pass by Apollo, whose sacred island had been sacked;!” that the long misfortunes of the Messenians followed directly from the anger of the Dioskouroi,!#8

and

countless

other incidents

where

specific misdeeds

drew down on a malefactor the wrath of a justly offended deity. The records of inscriptions probably best illustrate the extent of popular belief in epiphanies of gods in battle. Within one year after the event, the demos of Kos, several hundred

miles removed

from the

scene, passed a decree which attests a tradition representing the personal appearance of Apollo in the battle against the Gauls at Delphi

in 279 B.c. The majority of those epiphanies in the above collection which date from the end of the third century 8.c. onwards derive from inscriptions which were erected shortly after the events they commemorate.

3- Epiphanies as stratagems. The belief in epiphanies was abused by generals who devised stratagems which suggested divine appearances.!4 These rexvacpuata t&v mpoecrykérwy,

to

use

the

phrase

of Xenophon

(Hell. 6.4.7), were intended to justify the general’s course of action (as in 403 B.C.) or to inspire the soldiers by convincing them that deities were assisting them (as in 467, 371, and ca. 370 B.c.). 139. RE s.v. Xenophon (1967) 1690, lines 42-50. 140. See J. K. Anderson, Xenophon (London 1974) 34-40. Cf. Pritchett, War 1 (Berkeley 1970) 115. R. Walzer, “Sulla religione di Senofonte,” Annali della scuola normale superiore di Pisa, Ser. 11,5 (1936) 17ff., emphasizes his religiosity in comparison with other writers. 141. 4.24.5; 7.24.6; 7.25.9.

142. 3.23.3-5. 143. 4.27.1-3. 144. In Lucian’s duced his votaries serpent. Alexander human head, which

Alexander the Pseudomantis 15, we are told how Alexander into believe that they saw the god Asklepios visibly present as a used a large tame serpent and had manufactured out of linen a he made appear to be the serpent’s head.

Military Epiphanies

45

We may conclude this chapter by referring to evidence which suggests that sudden emotional outbreaks in a Greek army resulted from superstitious

associations with extra-human

appearances.

Indeed,

W.

Schmid (RM 50 [1895] 310-311) concludes that the phenomenon was so common that Thucydides gives a rationalistic, as opposed to a normal supernatural,

explanation

of terror which is said to have fallen

upon armies in 4.125.1 (Makedonians in 423 B.c.) and 7.80.3 (Athenians at Syrakuse); and Schmid is followed by Steup in his commentary on the former passage. Ernest Harrison (CR 40 [1926] 7) objects that this is to see “a god under every stone,” and claims that the association of the god Pan with “panic fear” first occurs in Aineias Taktikos (27) in the fourth century.'# Wilamowitz (Der Glaube der Hellenen 1 [Berlin 1931] 248 n. 2) supposes that Pan acquired a power which belonged originally to Dionysos.!46 The power of generating sudden panic seems to have been associated in the fifth century with Phobos

(see chap. V,

p. 162), Dionysos and Pan, but after the fourth century was ascribed exclusively to Pan. In Euripides Bacchae 303-305, Dionysos injects fear into the army before a spear is touched:

orpardv yap & brhots dvTa Karl

takeow / poBos duerronoe rply Noyxns Oryetv. / pwavia bé Kal Todr’ éort Avovicov

mapa. Aischylos (Persae 353-355) says that some avenging spirit or daimon caused the beginning of the rout at Salamis: jpéev perv, @ déorowa, Tod Tavros Kaxod / havels dAdoTwp f Kaxds daluwy rofév. Diodoros (14.32.3)

refers to Iavxds SopyBds which struck the besiegers of Phyle in 401 B.c. Plutarch (Mor. 192C) says that as long as Epameinondas was general of the Thebans, otéérore Ilavixds OdpuBos everesey eis TO oTpaTomedov. 147

A stratagem illustrating the fact that soldiers believed that extra145. The Klearchos

title Iept rod Havxod

of Soloi, a historian

is attributed

reserved

(Athenaios

for future

treatment

9.389F)

to a work

of

in F. Jacoby FGrHist

3C.2.p. 957. For the cult association of Pan with the Makedonian dynasty, see above

PP amos 146. E. R. Dodds (Euripides Bacchae2 [Oxford 1960] 109) rejects this supposition. In Euripides Rhesos 34, Pan is associated with fear. The genuineness of the Rhesos has been stoutly defended by W. Ritchie, The Authenticity of the Rhesus of Euripides

(Cambridge 1964). K. Deichgraber (Hermes 70 [1935] 335) uses the Rhesos passage to argue against Wilamowitz’s position. When the young man in Aristophanes, Ecc. 1068-1073, sees the old hag “chock full of white lead” whom he mistakes for,an old woman

risen from the tomb, his exclamation & Ildve, is annotated by R. G. Ussher in

his edition of the play (Oxford 1973) as follows: ““The Panes, who never inspired wilder panic than does the present ghostly apparition.” In Polyainos (1.2), Pan, as the strategos of the god Dionysos, frightens the enemy by a stratagem. J. E. Sandys in his edition of the Bacchae (p. 146) notes that Pan was a constant attendant on Dionysos and in ancient sculpture appears as his shield-bearer. 147. For the war-god Phobos, see below chap. V pp. 162ff.

46

Military Epiphanies

human beings might appear in the battle occurs in the vuxrouaxta recorded in Herodotos 8.27. The Elean mantis Tellias whitened with chalk the arms and persons of five hundred picked Phokians who in the moonlight1#® were mistaken for ghosts by the Thessalian sentinels, who fled in fear.149 The Phokians won a glorious victory, and offered dedications at Delphi and Abai which were seen by Pausanias (10.1.8, 13.6). By the same token, a man who felt a sudden access of courage

might believe that a god had put in into him: Xenophon Hell. 7.2.21. M. Launey (Recherches sur les armées hellénistiques 2 [Paris 1950] 921) has summarized his position with these words: ‘‘C’est en effet chose admise par la pensée religieuse des Grecs qu'une escorte divine accompagne partout la marche d’une armée, et que les dieux interviennent dans sa vie.” 148. Polyainos (6.18) says that the moon was full. 149. L. Weniger (Archiv fiir Religionswissenschaft 9 [1906] 223-230) has studied the episode in detail. He deletes the word Tépas in 8.27 as a gloss and concludes that the Phokians were mistaken for men risen from the dead, comparing Artemidoros 2.3:

avdpt dé vocodyre AevKa Exery iuatia Odvarov rpoayopeber dia 76 TOds arobavévras éxéepecOar. >

‘

a.

ey \evKots ~

an

CHAPTER

THE

MILITARY

III

MANTIKE

GENERAL sTupiEs of the manteis and the mantic art include: Hopfner

RE s.v. pavrixh (1928) 1258-1288; Ziehen RE s.v. pdyris (1930) 13451355; Zintzen, Der Kleine Pauly 3 (1969) 968-976; and M. P. Nilsson, Geschichte der griechischen Religion? 1 (1955) 164-174, 2 (1961) 229231. W. R. Halliday (Greek Divination [London 1913] 54-98) has a chapter on the origin of the mantis in Greek society. Of the fourvolume

work

of A. Bouché-Leclercg,

Histoire

de la divination

dans

Pantiquité (Paris 1879-1882), the part most pertinent to this study is the opening section of Vol. 2, pp. 62-92 on “‘Devins de l’age historique.” Particularly useful has been P. Kett, Prosopographie der historischen

griechischen Manteis bis auf die Zeit Alexanders des Grossen (Nirnberg diss. 1966). Cicero in the De Divinatione 1.43.95 writes (Loeb tr.), “But who fails to observe that auspices and all other kinds of divination flourish best in the best regulated states? And what king or people has there ever been who did not employ divination? I do not mean in time of peace only, but much more even in time of war, when the strife and struggle for safety is hardest. Passing by our own countrymen, who do nothing in war without examining entrails and nothing in peace without taking the auspices, let us look at the practice of foreign nations. The Athenians, for instance, in every public assembly always had pres-

ent certain priestly diviners, whom they call manteis. The Spartans assigned an augur to their kings as a judicial adviser (sic),1 and they also enacted that an augur should be present in their Council of Elders, which is the name of their Senate.” In this study we are concerned only with divination of a military nature. I treat the subject under the following headings: . Relation between Strategos and Mantis . Military Manteis . Military Role of the Mantis Divination as a Means of Building Morale . Military Manteis at Athens, including the Eisiteteria

. Sparta, including the Diabateria . Financial Remuneration . Techne, including (a) Unfavorable Sacrifices, and (b) Animals

. The Battlefield Sacrifice

ew NW oo © OT Hom

(cfdy.a)

1. For the correct meaning of the word adsessor, see below p. 67.

[ 47 ]

48

The Military Mantike

1. Relation between Strategos and Mantis. Plato in the Laches 199A says that the law enjoins that the general shall give orders to the mantis and not the mantis to the general (4 ozparnyla... ob6€ TH wavTixf olerau dety Uanpereiy, AAA

apxew, ...

Kal 6 vouos olTw TAaTTEL, UI) TOY UdvTLY TOD

oTparnyod dpxew, adda Tov oTparnyor Tod wavTews). Earlier, in 19E, he has stated that the business of the mantis is to judge only the signs (7a onueta) of whether one is to meet with victory or defeat in war or

other contest (etre vixn etre irra f modeuov 7H Kal &dAns Twvds dywvias).2 In Aischylos’ Agamemnon, the playwright lays the responsibility for the sacrifice of Iphigeneia upon Agamemnon since he did not oppose—as he might have done—any judgment of his own to that of his seers (Ag. 186: parry otrwa Yeywr).? Hector, in Euripides Rhesos 63-69, describes how he yielded to his seers against his own sound military judgment. During the preparation of the Athenians before the advance of Xerxes, Themistokles had to persuade the people that his interpretation of the Delphic oracle about Salamis was to be preferred to that of the chresmologoi: Herodotos 7.143.4 Xenophon (Cyr. 1.6.2) represents the father of the elder Kyros as having his son taught the mantic art in order that he should know what the gods counselled and not be at the mercy of 2. For Plato’s view of the mantic

(1976) 29-30 (with references). ophie der Antike (Meisenheim 3. On the question of the daughter, see K. J. Dover, JHS

art, see H. Harter, Illinois Classical Studies

1

See also F. Pfeffer, Studien zur Mantik in der Philos1976). responsibility of Agamemnon in the sacrifice of his 93 (1973) 58-69.

4. F. Jacoby (Atthis [Oxford 1949] 268) writes about this incident, “The essential points are (1) that it is the xenowoddyor, not the exegetai, who have a role in the debate; (2) that they give their opinion, but others do the same, and the people decide against the professional interpreters.” Plutarch (Them. 13; cf. Arist. 9), on the authority of Phainias of Eresos, a pupil of Aristotle, relates that when

sacrifices

were being performed to get favorable omens for the beginning of the action at the battle of Salamis, three young prisoners of war were brought to Themistokles. After the mantis Euphrantides caught sight of them, he interpreted the omens (a great

flame from the sacrificial victims and a sneeze on the right) as requiring sacrifice of

the three prisoners to the god Dionysos. Themistokles was loath to concur, feeling that the words of the mantis were monstrous and shocking

(ds péya ri wdyrevua Kal Sever),

whereupon the soldiers dragged the prisoners to the altar and compelled the sacrifice. Later, as related by Diodoros (11.57), when Themistokles arrived at the Persian court, vengeance was demanded from the fugitive for the killing of the three brothers. Themistokles

was permitted to plead his case before a court of noble Persians, and,

after mastering the Persian language, proved his innocence. On the problem of human sacrifice, see Schwenn, RE s.v. Menschenopfer (1931) 948-956, esp. 951; and Fauth, Der Kleine Pauly 4 (1972) 309. W. Burkert, GRBS 7 (1966) 113, believes in the

historicity of the sacrifice at Salamis, but see A. R. Burn, Persia and the Greeks (Lon-

don 1962) 474-475.

The Military Mantike

49

seers (kal yu) émi wavreow eins), if they should wish to deceive him, or helpless if without one (ei wore dpa dvev pdvrews yévoio).Xenophon (Anab. 5.6.

29) declares that he himself was always present when omens were taken.5 In Aineias Taktikos, there is an instructive prescription to the effect that during a siege the mantis should be watched closely and not allowed to

sacrifice on his own account in the absence of the archon (undé Oiecbar Havriv idia avev Tod &pxovTos: 10.4). The implication is that the seer

might have a fatal influence on public opinion. Polybios (33.1'7.2) compares those who take the advice of manteis with men afflicted by chronic illness, and as F. W. Walbank (Commentary on Polybius 2 [Oxford 1967] 145) notes, he “rejected omens and superstitions,” in this respect diverging from the Stoics. But in his famous section on generalship (9.12-20), he insists that the strategos be acquainted with astronomy (9.19) in order to allay superstitious terror on the part of his men. Onasander in his Strategikos (10.25) insists that a general must

himself be able to read the omens intelligently (dpucrov wer yap Kal abrov éuTreipws emake reabat Sivacbat ra tepa), and that he should summon all

of his officers to inspect the victims “since the gods command them to fight.”

The situation is well analyzed by K. J. Dover: “The general must go to his experts, the seers, and when he has listened to their interpretation he must decide whether to trust them and act on their advice, risk-

ing disaster if they turn out to be mistaken, or to defy and overrule them, trusting in his own judgment and risking punishment from gods and men if the seers prove to have understood the divine intention correctly.’’7 2. Military Manteis. Military manteis, whether they were selected by the state or were personal companions of military leaders, occupied

a position of far greater respect and influence in Greek society than one would guess from the plays of Aristophanes,’ particularly the 5. On the other hand, Curtius (7.7.8) says that the seers examined the victims without the presence of Alexander. Polybios (7.12.1) reports that it was the custom (xara rdv 2.cudy)of Philip V to take the splagchna of the victim into his own hands. 6. Cf. Schol. to Demosthenes 21 Against Meidias 552.6 (Dindorf 9 p. 607): teporoudy 6€ kadovor Tov érorrebovra Tovs wavres, STE Plover, wh rob Te KaxovpyGou & rats Ovolas.

7- JOS 93 (1973) 64. 8. Cf. Pausanias 1.34.4: wavredw y’ obdels xpnopoddyos Fv, dyabol 5¢ dvelpara enyhoao8at Kal dvayvdvar mrjces dpvibav Kal orrdayxva lepelwy (“No one of the manteis was a

chresmologos; their skill lay in the interpretation of dreams, and in distinguishing the flights of birds and the inwards of victims”). W. R. Halliday (Greek Divination [London 1913] 95) may not be correct in saying that it was only in military matters that

50

The Military Mantike

Knights, with its brilliant parodies of prophecies produced in support of demagogues, though we may infer from Old Comedy that it was primarily the oracle-mongers who were derided in Athens.® Polybios (34.2.6) speaks of the precedence and honor enjoyed by manteis in the early period. Manteis were awarded citizenship and other high civic honors, and in the distribution of booty after the battle received special consideration. The record of the mantic family of the Iamidai from Olympia shows the high esteem and influence of the mantis in the fifth century. Pindar’s Ol. 6 tells the story of a wavris ancestor of a pavris. The ancestor of the victor Hagesias had taken part in the original colonization of Syrakuse. Hagesias had distinguished himself in Hiero’s campaigns, just as later manteis fought in battle. When Peisistratos marched on Athens from Marathon,

the mantis Amphilytos made medicine for

the manteis retained the prestige accorded them in early Greek society. L. Radermacher (‘Euripides und die Mantik,” RM 83 [1898] 497-510) has argued that in the Peloponnesian War, religious propaganda was used by the democrats more than by their opponents (p. 504) and that it was directed to the lower classes. All of this has to do with the ypyopoddyor. See R. Stahlin, “Das Motiv der Mantik im antiken Drama,”

Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten 12, Heft 1 (1912). G. Glotz, Histoire grecque 2.1 (Paris 1929) 426, too, comments on the marked distinction between Bavreas and xpynopoddyo..

g. Similarly, U. Kahrstedt (Griechische Staatsrecht

1 [Géttingen

1922] 52 n. 1)

adduces the passage in Herodotos 9.33 as evidence for his statement, “Ein pavris ist eben fiir den Spartaner ein Mensch zweiten Ranges.” In this passage, Herodotos relates that the Lakedaimonians had tried to bribe the mantis Teisamenos to be a leader in wars, jointly with their kings (movéecOar dua ‘Hpaxdedéwv rotor Bactdedor ye pova THY TodEuwy). In 9.35, Herodotos goes on to say that Teisamenos in his capacity as mantis won five great victories for the Spartans, dating from Plataiai to Tanagra (457 8B.c.), concluding that Teisamenos and his brother were the only foreigners ever given citizenship at Sparta (uodvor 6 6) ravrwr avOparwv éyevorTo ovro. Vraprinryor the rarity of grants of citizenship at this time, see Jacoby, Mnemosyne

moNtrat).On

13 (1947) 63. The Herodotean record is one reflecting great esteem. Elsewhere in the same work, Kahrstedt (p. 279) adduces the fact that a mantis (Xenophon Hell. 3.3.11) took part in the conspiracy of Kinadon in 397 B.c., which was made up of the hypomeiones (3.3.6), as evidence that the mantis was of a lower social order. This statement does not take account of the fact that the mantis in question was Teisamenos, apparently a grandson of the Herodotean

seer (see P. Kett, Prosopographie

p. 74,

no. 65). Xenophon names this Teisamenos as most influential (éruxarpimraros),and we may infer that he enjoyed a social position superior to that of the majority of the conspirators. It is not without parallel that persons in high positions take part in revolutions. Indeed, when Pausanias visited Sparta (3.12.8), he noted the tomb of this Elean family of manteis. If W. den Boer (Laconian Studies [1954] 288-300) is correct in his interpretation of Herodotos 9.85 (cf. Wallace, Phoenix 24 [1970] 99 n.11), Spartan priests who fell in battle were privileged with special burial.

The Military Mantike

Dy

his success.1° At Thermopylai, the mantis Megistias of Akarnania, descended from the legendary seer Melampous, on examining 7a ipa on the evening before the battle, predicted ‘‘the death which was to come on them at dawn.”!! The distinguished poet Simonides at his own expense later made the epitaph for his mantic friend, ‘“‘who, though well

aware of the fate coming upon him, would not desert the Spartan chief.” 2 Only Megistias received an individual stele of commemoration at Thermopylai.

Before setting out on his final expedition to Kypros,

Kimon had a dream which was interpreted by his mantis as prophesying his death. Plutarch (Kimon 18) refers to the mantis, Astyphilos of Poseidonia, as ovvfiOns TG Kivwv. The wealthy Nikias kept a mantis at

his house whom he consulted about both public and private affairs.1® The impressive fifth and fourth century inscriptions from the tombs of the family of Meidon of the Attic deme Myrrhinous have been published by E. I. Mastrokostas in Charisterion to A. K. Orlandos 3 (Athens 1966 )281-299 (= SEG 23.161). Kalliteles son of Meidoteles is called pavreos évtivo wdvtiv, coddv avépa, dixaov.

Mastrokostas deduces that the

family must have been a very wealthy one. A mantis conducted Xenophon from Ephesos to be introduced to Kyros.14 Xenophon refers to an Elean seer Basias by name (Anab. 7.8.10) and mentions Silenos of Ambrakia as having been Kyros’ mantis.!* When the army landed at Lampsakos,

Xenophon

found

Eukleides,

a mantis

of Phleious,

with

10. Herodotos 1.63. 11. Herodotos 7.219, 221.

12. 7.228.3. Simonides 83 (Diehl). Cf. the story of the mantis who attended the army of the Athenian Thrasyboulos against the Thirty Tyrants in 404 B.c. at Munychia. He bade them not to attack until one of their own number was either killed or wounded

(Xenophon

Hell.

2.4.18-19),

and

it would

follow

that they would

be vic-

torious. He predicted that he would be the one to die, and his saying proved true. Thrasyboulos waited for the enemy to attack, whereupon he gained a complete victory. The epigram for Megistias is republished as no. 5 in the collection of B. Lorenz, Thessalische Grabgedichte (Innsbruck 1976). 13. Plutarch Nikias 4. If the Loeb translation of Plutarch Nikias 13.1 érépous Exwv pavras 6 ’AdxiBiddns (“Alcibiades had other diviners in his private service”) is correct, Alkibiades also had private manteis, but the phrase used need mean no more than other manteis who supported his views. 14. Anab. 6.1.23

(6 wavris rpowéurwv adrov).

1s. Anab. 5.6.16; cf. 1.7.18. In addition to Basias and Silenos, Xenophon

names

Arexion of Parrhasia in Arkadia (Anab. 6.4.13; 6.5.2, 8) as 6 wavris Tv “EANjVw?, although there were others who remained anonymous (Anab. 5.5.3: of wayrets TOTES ; 5.7.35: TOV wdvrewy ovpBovdevdyrwv; etc.). Even the Theban Koiradatas, whom Xeno-

phon amusingly describes as an itinerant soldier afflicted with a desire to be general Was accompanied ),os (orparnyiev Kat émayyedddopev

(Anab. 7.1.37).

in his

wanderings

by a

mantis

52

The Military Mantike

whom he had been wont to consult and offer sacrifice at Athens (Anab. 7-8.1-4: olxor, bn, eidbe &yd dptv Obecbar Kal dAoxaureiy). In 357 B.c. it was the mantis of Dion, Miltas by name, who stood up and addressed

the soldiers, thereby allaying their fears: Plutarch Dion 24. Timoleon

of Corinth was accompanied by his intimate friend, the mantis Ortha-

goras, when he ascended Akrokorinthos to remonstrate with his brother Timophanes, who was then dispatched by the sword of the mantis.1¢ During the campaign of 328 s.c., Alexander listened to his seer Aristandros, when he would pay no heed to others (Plut. Alex. 52.1: kal Tv pev

dAhwv ob mpoclero rods hédyous), and at Gaugamela, the two passed the

night together before the battle in sacrifices (Alex. 31.9: oKNVAS weTA TOU pavTews ’Aprordvdpov dvérpiBev ) 17

airés mpd ris

An erroneous theory that the manteis of classical Greece did not

come from the chief city-states, but from less civilized places and even distant countries,!8 had its origin in W. R. Halliday, Greek Divination

(London 1913) 95, and has been taken up by many authorities in various forms (M. P. Nilsson, Greek Popular Religion [New York 1940] 127 and GGrR I? 791; A. S. Pease, Ciceronis De Divinatione [Darmstadt 1962 reprint of 1920 edition] 254; A. L. Oppenheim, Trans. Amer. Philosophical Society 46.3 [1956] 239; I. Loeffler, “Die Melampodie,” Bettrige zur klass. Philologie 7 [1963] 25).19 How-Wells (ap. Herodotos 1.62) write that “‘Acarnanian mountaineers were famous seers” possessing a second-sight comparable to that of Scotch highlanders. It is true 16. Plutarch, Timoleon

4; Nepos 20 Timoleon

1.

17. Aristandros of Telmessos had been the seer to Philip (Plutarch Alex. 2.5) and became Alexander’s mantis par excellence. He is well known from the pages of Arrian, Curtius and Plutarch:

see the many references

in P. Kett, Prosopographie

25-29; cf. C. A. Robinson Jr., AJP xo (1929) 195-197. In addition to Aristandros, we know by name Demophon (vatis = Curtius 9.4.27; reparooxéros — Diodoros 17.98.3), Peithagoras and the Lakedaimonian Kleomantis (Plutarch Alex. 50.5), who served in Alexander’s expedition into Asia. See H. Berve, Das Alexander reich auf prosopographischer Grundlage (Munich 1926) nos. 117, 264, 430 and 618. 18. The wandering life of the early manteis, like that of rhapsodes and natural philosophers, has been noted by H. Blimner, “Fahrendes Volk im Altertum,” SAW 1918 Abh. 6.25; and I. Léffler, “Die Melampodie,” Beitrage zur klassischen Philologie

7 (1963) 12. As early as Homer (Od. 17.382), we find the statement that the mantis is everywhere a welcome guest. 19. For the Roman world, Thulin (RE s.v. Haruspi ces [1912] 2437) has collected abundant evidence to prove that “Die Lehre selbst halte auch ein echt patrizisches Geprage.” Tacitus (Ann. 11.1 5) Says that among the Etruscans the art was propagated in aristocratic families: primoresque Etruriae sponte aut patrum Romanorum inpulsa retinuisse scientiam et in familias propagasse

The Military Mantike

53

that there were three famous families of seers from Olympia (Iamids, Telliadai and Klytiadai), that of the Iamids with Messenian, Spartan,

Arkadian, and Sicilian branches (see von Geisau in Der Kleine Pauly 2 [1967] 1309),29 and another family, primarily oneirocritical, from Telmessos in Karia; but manteis are known from Athens, Sparta, Cor-

inth, Delphi, Syrakuse, Thebes, and elsewhere, as in the map published by P. Kett, Prosopographie As to the grants of citizenship, we learn from the seer Teisamenos and his brother were the only

is graphically shown 83. Herodotos 9.35 that foreigners ever given

such an award at Sparta,”! a striking example of an exceptional honor.

The inscription JG II?, 17, from the year 394/3, records the award of Athenian citizenship to the military mantis Sthorys of Thasos. ‘The seer Amphitos of Akarnania, who met Peisistratos on his march from

Marathon (Herodotos 1.62.4), is referred to by Plato (Theag. 124D) as a native

(#uedards);

and

commentators

conclude

that he was

given

citizenship.” One clear indication of the prestige of military manteis is the relatively large number of statues dedicated to them. W. H. D. Rouse has noted that “this distinguished honour became cheap with Alexander;”25 but before the fourth century, as Rouse shows, the dedication

of human statues seems to have been restricted to really great men. Demosthenes (20 Against Leptines 70) says, ‘His contemporaries not 20. The Iamidai traced descent from Iamos, son of Apollo: Pindar Ol. 6. The manteis of Zeus at Olympia were drawn from this family and that of the Klytiadai. There

were

always

two,

one

from

each

family

(at least in the Roman

period

for

which we have epigraphical evidence) appointed for life, and the office was hereditary, children being adopted if necessary to continue the line. Some served for more than forty years: see L. Weniger, ARW 18 (1915) 60-64. Their method of procedure is described in the scholia vetera on Pindar Ol. 6.111: “There was an oracle at Olympia, founded by Iamos, who divined by means of burnt offerings, and this means of divination is still practiced by the Iamids; they take up the skins of the victim and place them on the fire and so divine. But some say they divined by cutting the skins, for they took and rent the hides of the victims and divined by observing whether the rents run straight or not.” F. Jacoby believes that frg. 193 of Philochoros (FGrHist

328) is about

divination

6va réy éurbpwy

in his work Iep? pavrixjs.

Cicero

(De Div. 1.41.92) says that the Iamids divined by haruspicy. See L. Weniger, ARW 18 (1915) 94; A. Bouché-Leclercq, Histoire de la divinition dans Vantiquité 2 (Paris 1880) 63. ” 21. See above n. g. It is to be noted that the two seers were enrolled as ‘‘Spartiates,

a term defining the highest status: see Westlake, CQ 71 (1977) 100 Nn. 30.

22. See Stein and How-Wells. 23. Greek Votive Offerings (Cambridge 1902) 137.

54

The Military Mantike

only granted him (Konon) immunity, but also set up his statue in bronze—the first man so honored since Harmodios and Aristogeiton.” The reference is to Konon’s service in the Corinthian War.24 Pausanias mentions five statues dedicated to manteis. On the akropolis at Athens, beside the temple of Athena, he saw (1.27.5) a statue (presumably not of bronze, if Demosthenes is correct) of ‘Theainetos

who was seer to the strategos Tolmides,®5 victor in several battles be-

ginning in 456/5 before his defeat and death at Koroneia in AAT B.C.76 The statue of the mantis Thrasyboulos, son of Lineas, one of the Tamids,’” set up at Olympia, is described in detail by Pausanias (6.2.4— 5). This mantis had prophesied victory to the Mantineians and, although a native of Elis, had himself taken part in a battle against the Lakedaimonians (8.10.5) under Agis IV (244-241 B.c.).28 On the statue of Thrasyboulos a spotted lizard is said to have been represented creeping toward his right shoulder with a dog lying beside him, cut in two with its liver exposed. Pausanias, who had a taste for religious ritual, says that men had always divined by means of kids, lambs and calves and infers from the statue that Thrasyboulos had instituted a mode of divination by dogs.2® A bronze statue to the mantis Agias was erected in the market-place at Sparta. “They say that the predictions which this Agias delivered to Lysander were the means of capturing the whole Athenian fleet at Aegospotami, all but ten galleys which escaped to 24. See Pritchett, War 2.128-129,.

25. This Theainetos is not listed in Kett’s Prosopographie. It is an odd coincidence

that the mantis of the Plataians in 428 B.c, was likewise named Theainetos and was the son of a Tolmides: Thucydides 3.20.1. 26. An elegiac poem, discovered in the Keramikos, has been identified by W. Peek

as the epigram for the fallen of Koroneia: Ath. Mitt. 57 (1932) 142-146 ( = Griechis-

chen Versinschriften 1.17). It has been studied by C. M. Bowra, CQ 32 (1938) 80-88. This epigram attributes the defeat to a demigod; and Gomme (HCT 1.339) has

drawn the conclusion that “Theainetos misinterpreted an oracle or an omen; but he was not repudiated.” This epigram is discussed at the conclusion of this chapter. 27. The history of two famous Elean families of soothsay ers is given by Weniger, Archiv fiir Religionswissenschaft 18 (1915) 53-115. Weniger (p. 75) believes that the Thrasyboulos who is said by Pausanias (6.14.9) to have dedicated a statue to Pyrrhos in the Altis is the mantis. Presumably, Thrasyb oulos had served Pyrrhos as a mantis. 28. For problems about this battle, see Pritchet t, War oro 2.

29. W. R. Halliday (Greek Divination [London 1913] 192) infers from this passage that divination from the entrails of a dog was a “foreign importation,” but M. P. Nilsson (GGrR 22 230 n. 1) argues that Pausanias has misunderstood the words

Siarerunuevous dStxa which

Nilsson

relates

to the rite of purification

of

an army as described in Curtius 10.9.11-12 and Livy 40.6, a rite studied in greater detail below, chap. 5. 196. Cf. O. Masson, Revue de Vhistoir e des Religions 137 (1950) 5-25.

The Military Mantike

55

Cyprus.”*°‘I'wo statues of manteis were seen by Pausanias at Delphi. Pausanias described the offerings of the Lakedaimonians from booty taken from the Athenians at the battle of Aigospotamoi close to the main entrance of the Sacred Way. The monument included a second statue of Agias who acted as mantis to Lysander (10.9.7). The other statue of a mantis at Delphi (Pausanias 10.18) was that of the soothsayer ‘Tellias of Elis, who had devised a stratagem for the Phokians in

a sixth-century battle with the Thessalians: Herodotos 8.27. He whitened the Phokian hoplites with gypsum, and in a nocturnal attack they were taken by the Thessalians to be ghosts (&\o ru répas). After the successful stratagem, the Phokians sent figures of their heroes to Delphi and Abai (Pausanias 10.13.6). Two other statues seen by Pausanias in the altis at Olympia commemorate seers, not for their mantic ability, but for their athletic prowess.*! The inscription on the statue of Eperastos, victor in the race in armor, states that he was a mantis of the family of Klytiadai (Pausanias 6.17.5-6): rap &’ iepoyAwoowv Kduriday yevos evxopat efvat wavtis, am’ icoewr

aiua Mehapzoddav.* The other statue was of Satyros, of the lamid family of manteis, commemorating his five victories at Nemea, two at Delphi, and two at Olympia.** The statue was by Silanion (ca. 328 B.c.: Pliny NH 34.51). This information, coupled with the fact that the mantis Agesias was commemorated by Pindar in Ol. 6 for his victory with the chariot in the games

(468 B.c.) and the statement

in Herodotos

9.33

that the mantis Teisamenos entered the pentathlon at Olympia, all bespeak a high aristocratic position for these seers.*4 Statues, victories in the great national games, monumental

sepulchres, all indicate that

some, at least, of the military seers represented the very blue-bloods of Greek aristocracy.*® According to G. Dumézil’s view of the tripartite division of early Indo-European societies, priests along with kings (the 30. Pausanias 3.11.5. Trans. of Frazer.

31. For the statues of aristocratic athletic victors, see the interesting articles of C. M. Bowra, AJP 59 (1938) 257-279, esp. 263, and H. W. Pleket, Arena 1 (1976) 49-

89: “aristocrats . .. had dominated the field in the archaic period (800-400 B.c.)” (p. 52). 32. The inscription is not earlier than the time of Alexander the Great: see W. Hyde, De Olympionicarum statuis a Pausania commemoratis (Halle 1903) 62. 33. Pausanias 6.4.5. 34. At Sparta, Pausanias (3.12.8) saw a tomb of the manteis who came from Elis. 35. In an inscription published by G. Daux, Hesperia 18 (1949) 58-72, which concerns the dispatch of a theoria from the island of Andros

to Delphi about 425 B.c.,

the title of mantis is named after that of the three archethearoi and before the archon and various religious officials.

56

The Military Mantike

judicial and magical aspects of social life) were always in the highest classification: RHR 131 (1946) 53-60; L’idéologie tripartie des IndoEuropéens (Brussels 1958); etc.?6 3- Military Role of the Mantis. In addition to his religious activities in warfare in matters of divination, the mantis sometimes played a strategic role, possibly resulting from his long experience in battles and his close association with strategoi. Alexander,

before

the battle

at Gaugamela, passed the night in front of his tent with his mantis Aristandros.37 Sometimes the strategic plan was that of the mantis. In the “Third Messenian War,” Pausanias (4.21.7-8, cf. 4.16.1) says that the mantis Hekas put forth the plan of resting and fighting by turns which the Lakedaimonians followed in their battle with the Messenians. On the Messenian side the seer Theoklos played a role second only to that of Aristomenes and died after fighting valiantly (4.21.1 1): Before the Persian invasion of Xerxes, Herodotos relates that the strat-

agem whereby the Phokians defeated the Thessalians was devised by the Elean mantis Tellias.3° Indeed, Pausanias says (10.1.8) that Tellias was appointed commander-in-chief “upon whom rested all the Phokians’ hopes to salvation” (6 5é xapav rots épxovaw exw Thy weylorny Mavtis jv 6 "Helos, cal és roy TeAdav Tots Bwxedor TNS owTNplas

anéxeryro at édzides ).°° In the winter of 428/77 B.c., the plan to attempt an escape from Plataiai with scaling ladders, when the city was besieged by the Peloponnesians and Boiotians, was advanced by the mantis Theainetos and one of the generals.4° After the death of Agis, the mantis Teisamenos was implicated in the conspiracy of Kinadon

at Sparta in 397 B.c.: Xenophon Hell. 3.3.11. The mantis Theokritos

figures prominently in the treatise of Plutarch De Genio Socratis (576D598F) as one of the companions of Pelopidas in the conspiracy whereby the Theban oligarchy was put down and the Lakedaimonians expelled from the Kadmeia in 379 B.c.; at xgxF he confirms from his findings that the time for decisive action has come. Theokritos is shown examining a liver on the Panagjurischte amphora, according to the interpretation of E. K. Borthwick (JHS 96 [1976] 148-151). . Possibly the best evidence for the participation of the mantis in actual fighting comes from an epigram for the mantis Kle(i)oboulos of 36. Cf. Polybios 34.2.6: uavres re kal lepookorobuevor Bactrels.

37. 38. 3940.

Plutarch Alex. 31.9; Curtius 4.13.15. 8.27.3. Cf. Pausanias 10.1.3-113 Polyainos 6.18.2. See J. A. O. Larsen, Greek Federal States (Oxford 1968) 46 n. 1. ‘Thucydides 3.20.1.

The Military Mantike

57

Acharnai, published by J. Papademetriou, Platon 9 (1957) 154-163.41 The stele, found near Menidi (Acharnai), contains a relief of an eagle,

in silhouette, carrying a long convoluted serpent in its talons.2 The epigram reads as follows:43" Taiko rat K\edBore Oavivra ce yata Kad [vrrer | aupotepov mavtiv Te ayabdv Kal dopt ualxnrhr],

dv mor’ ’Epexéws peyadnropos [éorepdrvace | Onuos aptoteboavra Kal’ ‘Edda [Kddos épécOar].

Not only did Kleoboulos achieve distinction as a soldier but he received the signal honor of being awarded the aristeion*t for his military prowess in a battle which the editor reasonably identifies as the Athenian naval victory over Cheilon the Lakedaimonian in 387 B.c.4® The evidence comes from Aischines 2 Legation 78.‘ In this event, the phrase dopi waxnrhy indicates that Kleoboulos was an epibates on one of the

triremes. The association of warlike prowess with mantic ability,*” as attributed to Amphiaraus in Aischylos Sept. 568 /9, persists throughout the literature: ékrov \éyoup’ av &vipa cwohpovertatov / adkny 7’ &piotov wavTuv "Audtapew Biav.48 41. Cf. J. and L. Robert, REG 71 (1958) 241; SEG 16 (1959) 193. 42. The relief is discussed (with photograph) by G. Daux, BCH 82 (1958) 364-366 (= SEG 16.193). 43. Since the readings at the end of lines 3 and 4 have been questioned by Daux, I print the three words in brackets. 44. Kleoboulos’ aristeion was omitted from the collection in Pritchett, War 2 chap. 14. Also omitted was that of Thallos and Glaukos (Plutarch Phokion 13), who served under Phokion in 349 B.c.

45. J. K. Davies, Athenian Propertied Families identifies Kleoboulos as a general in this battle. 46. A. N. Oikonomides,

Lexikon

koinonikon

(Oxford

epistemon

1971) 544, incorrectly

1 (1958) p. 471, suggests

that Aischines composed the epigram for his maternal uncle. 47. In Homer, Polydamas is renowned as an augur, but he is present only as a warrior and only incidentally interprets omens and advises Hector. Kalchas, of course, was present as a seer. 48. Even the personal names of manteis are suggestive of military activity. The three famous Elean families of the Iamidai, Klytiadai and Telliadai, included seers called Agelochos, Agesias, Agias, Hegesistratos (see the register of two of these families in L. Weniger, “Die Seher von Olympia,” ARW 18 [1915] 114-115); and there are others, such as Arexion, Archestratos, Hippomachos, and Stilbides. Presumably, these names

were

taken

as nicknames

in the course

of their practice;

or else fathers

in

mantic families gave such names to their sons. The latter seems more likely since we know of several families of manteis. One may compare the custom in Christian families of naming children after saints. The clear implication in Herodotos’ story (9.95) that the mantis Deiphonos had “unsurped” a mantic ancestry is that the talent of divination was hereditary. Less probable is the suggestion of H. R. Immerwahr (Form and

58

The Military Mantike

4. Divination as a Means of Building Morale. It has often been remarked that the divination of the manteis and the speeches of the generals were the two favorite means of building up morale in the Greek army, of encouraging the faint-hearted and of curbing ill-timed eagerness. But the problem, I believe, is far more subtle. It would be a mis-

take to regard the interpretation of omens as a mere form utilized by agnostic generals to inspire or restrain their superstitious soldiers. The mantis was expected by the exercise of his art to work success for his clients; and this art involved no little sagacity, evolved both from a knowledge of his techne and his long experience in military matters. Even such a military genius as Alexander consorted at times with his seers rather than with his military subordinates. The military mantis was not regarded as a charlatan or a specialist in quackery as the xXpnovoACyor sometimes were; he is respected rather as an instrument of

divine revelation. As Xenophon presents the case (Hipp. 9.9): obrou

(of

Geol) réavra icacr Kal rpoonuatvovow & av édwWor kal &y tepots Kal & olwvots kal ev dna Kal & dvelpaci.*? Whatever its origins, these rites of sacri-

fice served to encourage the spirit of discipline and of solidarity indispensable for the survival of the army. Xenophon again expresses the sentiment that good morale depended on the soldiers’ assurance that the generals acted in accordance with the sacrifices (Eq. Mag. 6.6): “TE the soldiers know the commander to be a master of tactics and able to put them in the way of getting the better of the enemy; and if besides, they are certain that he will never lead them against the enemy recklessly or without the gods’ approval or in defiance of the sacrifices, all these conditions increase the men’s readiness to obey their commandery°8

Onasander (10.26) insists that the hiera should be inspected by all of the officers who may then tell the soldiers to be of good cheer. “Soldiers are far more courageous when they believe they are facing dangers with the good will of the gods . . . an auspicious sacrifice encourages even those who have private misgivings.” Plutarch says that Dion knew ee eee ee eee Thought in Herodotos [Cleveland 1966] 295 n. 164) that such men were hired simply because of their names, although one might compare the Roman custom (Cicero De Div. 1.45.102; Pliny NH 28.22) of choosing men with auspicious names to lead in

various

functions.

Divine

patronage

seems

often

to have been

tradition: cf. Diomedes’ words in Homer II. 5. 115-118, 10. 285. 49. Cf. Memorab. 1.1.3.

based

on family

50. When Xenophon was offered the generalship of the Ten Thousand, he describes at some length (Anab, 6.1.21-23) a series of portents and sacrifices which influenced him in deciding the issue.

The Military Mantike

59

that an eclipse had a natural cause; but since the soldiers were greatly disturbed by such a phenomenon in 357 B.c. and were in need of encouragement

(éel dé rots orpatirais drarapaxbetaww tbe Tivds Tapnyopias ),

Dion’s mantis, Miltas of Thessaly, stood up in their midst and interpreted the eclipse as an omen of the extinction of the tyranny of Dionysios (Plutarch Dion 24). In the battle of Gaugamela (331 B.c.), after Alexander had encouraged the Greeks with a speech, his Karian mantis Aristandros, wearing a white mantle and a crown of gold, pointed out to the soldiers the flight of an eagle “straight towards the enemy,” a sight which is said to have greatly encouraged the beholders (Plutarch Alex. 33.2; Curtius 4.15.27). The only instructions given by Kyros to Xenophon before the battle of Kunaxa were to proclaim to everyone that all sacrifices were favorable (Anab. 1.8.15). Since the soldiers were controlled by a strong religious sentiment in their formal observance of the omens, the generals at times wished the

army

to see

ra iepeta.

For example,

Polyainos

(4.3.14) reports

that

“Alexander, after he had learned from the manteis that the hiera were

favorable, ordered the victims to be carried around and shown to the

soldiers in order that they might not depend on what they were toid, but on seeing with their eyes might have good hope concerning the ensuing danger.” When the Greeks were detained for some days at Kalpe in 400 B.c. because the sacrifices were not favorable and the army suspected Xenophon of a deliberate maneuver for the purpose of detention, Xenophon undertook to have nearly the entire army collect about

the place of sacrifice (Anab. 6.4.20: bero, kai oxeddv Tt raca ) oTpatia dud TO pede &rracw éxvkdobdvTo Tepl Ta tepd. Cf. 6.4.16). When the seer Demophon reported to Alexander, besieging the Mallians in 326/5 B.c., that

the portents revealed great danger to the king, Alexander scolded the seer for dampening the valor of his soldiers (as éuroditovre rHv apeTiy TOV aywviCoueve )+ and rejected the advice, with dire consequences to him-

self. We have at least one example where an unfavorable interpretation of the mantis was concealed from the troops by the hegemon for purposes of morale. Before the battle of Arginousai in 406 B.c., the manteis on both sides first forbade engagement

(kalaep dudorépors arayopevovTwy

Toy pavtewy ),°? but were overruled by the opposing commanders. Furthermore,

the mantis

on

the Lakedaimonian

side foretold

that the

nauarchos would die in the fight. After the decision was made to do battle, the sacrifices on the Athenian side were interpreted by the man51. Diodoros 17.98.4. 52. Diodoros 13.97.4.

60

The Military Mantike

tis as revealing victory (rév 6’ tepdv depdvTwv vixny ).52 However, when the Athenian strategos Thrasyboulos saw a vision in the night, the

mantis interpreted it to mean that seven of the generals would be slain. The strategoi then forbade any word going out to the soldiers about the dream; but they passed the news of the victory disclosed by the omens throughout the whole force. In the speech which Diodoros gives to the Spartan nauarchos, he likewise says that his mantis foretold

victory, and Diodoros adds that by these words the Lakedaimonians were made more eager for battle (apoduporépous yevéobar mpds tiv waxnv).°®

The oft-repeated story, which Polyainos (4.20) has ascribed to Attalos I of Pergamon, and Frontinus (Strat. 1.11.14 and 15) to Alexander and Eumenes, is that of a stratagem of the mantis to encourage morale. Soudinos, a Chaldean mantis, wrote with a dye the words “victory of the king” (Baovéws vixen) backwards on the palm of his.hand, pressed

the smooth side of the liver of the sacrificial animal on his hand, and then held the liver with the significant words inscribed on it to the gaze of the army, who regarded it as a sign sent by the gods.6 They charged with extraordinary vigor and defeated the Gauls. The entire twelfth chapter of Frontinus’ Strategemata I is devoted to incidents in which fear inspired in soldiers by adverse omens has been dispelled by the quick wit of the general.®7 They range in date from the time of Perikles to the first century before Christ. The omens include eclipses, earthquakes, thunderbolts, fall of a meteor, and such

lesser matters as the collapse of a general’s chair, a sneeze, stumbling, and the appearance of blood. In each case the general was able to allay misgivings among the soldiers by a favorable interpretation of the portent.

5. Military Manteis at Athens. Since there are differences in the Spartan and Athenian practices, they will be taken up separately. F. 53- 13-97-754- 13.97-755. 13.98.2.

56. A similar trick is told of Agesilaos in Egypt by Plutarch Mor. 214F. 57- Frontinus clearly had little faith in divination. All of his “stratagems” connected with omens are in the nature of strategoi juggling these to their advantage. He writes after his account of one (1.11.13): “This sort of stratagem is to be used not merely in cases where we deem those to whom we apply it simple-minded, but much more so when the ruse invented is such as might be thought to have been suggested by the gods” (Loeb). Polyainos’ view is much the same. In his total of about nine

hundred stratagems, he never utters a word of censure of strategoi who would pervert the sincerity of the manteis.

The Military Mantike

61

Jacoby writes about Athens, “We should like to know whether at least the commander-in-chief was allowed to choose his own mantis, or

whether the mantis was attached to the army by the Council or the Assembly.”’58 Aristotle (Ath. Pol. 54.6) mentions the election by lot of ten hieropoioi who watch for omens in cooperation with the manteis; but he does not refer to the military mantis. There is some epigraphical evidence which relates to the problem. In the Athenian casualty list of the tribe Erechtheis of ca. 460 B.c., the name of the pavris Telenikos is recorded in larger letters than the rest as having died in Egypt: IG 12, 929, lines 127-129. In an Athenian inscription which names the archon of 394/3 B.c., the mantis Sthorys (of Thasos) is awarded citizenship after exercising some prophetic skill

with regard to a naval battle:

JG IT2, 17, lines 26-29: [8]ru rpo [etre ........

Ta yevou leva Tepi THs vavuaxtas [wavrevodpevos éx rv ilepav Tov eio-TnTN plow

&[» mpoebvcev vel evoer].°9 Beloch (Gr. Geschichte? 3-2.452); Kirchner (ap. IG II, 17); A. Wilhelm

(Attische

Urkunde

5 =

Sitz. Ak.

Wien

220.5.88); and, more recently in great detail, M. J. Osborne (BSA 65 [1970] 151-174) are in agreement that the naval engagement must be Knidos. Since the mantis played a major role in the tep4 offered before any battle, the elovrnrjpia would seem to refer to these sacrifices.© In

this case Sthorys performed his sacrificial duties as a non-Athenian, attached to the staff of Konon. For his service he was granted Athenian citizenship and continued pay, the latter now

being provided by the

Athenian strategoi (lines 31-33):® rds 5é [or ]parnyos ros [&0]d5€ drodéva[¢] abrd [cerov pe]o06[v b]oourep répu[or]v epepe. Ina dedicatory inscription, dated to the end of the third century, a group of officials who honored the generals with whom they served includes these words: 6 éml rd iepd Tyr«epa [yns ——] (IG IL?, 2858, line 9). 58. FGrHist 3b Suppl. 2 p. 184. Later, Jacoby (Aithis [Oxford 1949] 23) wrote of the “role of the manteis appointed by the State, which is equally attested in the inscriptions, in history, and in Comedy.” 59. The meaning of wpodtev has been studied in detail by Ziehen in RM 59 (1904) 391-406,

who

concludes

that the verb

“‘to sacrifice

means

before”

(vorher

opfern); and this meaning has been confirmed by J. Casabona, Recherches sur le vocabulaire

des sacrifices

en

Grec

(Aix-en-Provence

1966)

103-108,

who

shows

that

Sacrifices before a combat of any sort were denoted by the verb zpoStev. The word

mpéropoy is now attested in the expression Obew mpdroya, referring to victims sacrificed before

the battle:

C. Austin,

“De

noveaux

fragments

de l’Erechthée

d’Euripide,”

Recherches de Papyrologie 4 (1967) 57 (line 83). 60. See, for example, Wilhelm (p. 92). By contrast, Osborne (p. 164) takes the elowrnrhpra to be sacrifices “that attended the entry into office of the generals for the year 394/3.” The problem will be discussed below. 61. Cf. Osborne op. cit. 168.

62

The Military Mantike Two Athenian catalogues of magistrates list a wavris Tov orpatnyav:

IG II, 1708, line 5; and W. Peek, Ath. Mitt. 67 (1942) 23, line 10. The inscriptions may be dated in the first half of the second century B.c. and prove that the partis of the generals was at the time an official of the Athenian state. Both seers have Athenian demotics. So far as the

epigraphical evidence goes, it would seem that there was at least one mantis officially designated to serve each annual board of strategoi. But it is quite clear that for all periods covered by this investigation, and indeed for all city-states, there were manteis

who were

closely as-

sociated with certain prominent leaders in various states. Some manteis seem to have served as advisers to such individuals on all matters re-

lating to religion, including those of a military nature when campaigning. The adjective cvvy6ns is several times used in our sources to denote this relationship. Hagesias,

a mantis of Syrakuse, was an active partisan

of Hieron and after the fall of the tyrannis (465 B.c.?) was put to death by the Syrakusans.” The Iamid Teisamenos served the Spartans from 479 to 457 B.c. (Herodotos 9.35: wevre ot pavtevouevos

ayGvas

Tos peyio-

tous).Theainetos was associated with Tolmides from 466/5, to 457 B.c.% Plutarch (Kimon 18) relates that Kimon was accompanied on his last expedition to Kypros with the Athenian fleet by Astyphilos of Poseidonia, a mantis and intimate acquaintance (uwavrixds av}p Kal ovvyOns),

who interpreted a dream of Kimon’s as signifying his death. Lampon, the most famous mantis of his time, frequently ridiculed by contem-

porary comedy,** was much utilized by Perikles and played a leading role in the favorite project of Perikles—the settlement of Thourioi in Italy, 443 B.c. Unfortunately, we do not know whether Lampon also accompanied him on his campaigns, for example in the Samian War. See, in particular, Plutarch, Perikles

6.2, Mor.

812d;

and F. Jacoby,

FGrHist 3b (Suppl.) 1 p. 257. Stilbides, who died in Sicily in 413 B.c. was an associate of Nikias who had set him free from most of his superstition (6 yap owns abtod Kai 76 TOAD Tis SecorSatpovlas adarpGv: Plutarch

Nikias 23 = Jacoby, FGrHist 328 [Philochorus] frg. 135). Whether Stilbides was the same mantis as the one who lived with Nikias in Athens (Nikias 4: pavtw exwv éml ris oixtas), we do not know. Xenophon in 399 B.c. was met at Lampsakos by the Phleiasian seer Eukleides, who said that he had been wont to offer sacrifices at home for him (Anab. 62. Pindar OI. 6 (with schol.). 63. Pausanias 1.27.5. 64. See P. Kett, Prosopographie 54-57; Kirchner PA 8966. 65. Lampon’s activities at Thourioi are treated with embellishments by V. Ehrenberg, AJP 69 (1948) 164-165,

Pr

The Military Mantike

63

7.8.4: domep otkor, en, eldev

eyd duty QveoGa). ‘The ‘Thasian Sthorys

served with Konon before he was granted Athenian citizenship.® The Thessalian mantis Miltas, who had been a member of Plato’s Academy,

served with Dion of Syrakuse from 357 to 354.87 As noted above, Aristandros, peritissimus vatum,® was one of Alexander’s

closest advisers,

as he had been to his father, and served throughout the wars in Asia Minor in many capacities. An Elean mantis Thrasyboulos served Pyrrhos, king of Epeiros.6® We conclude that at Athens and in other citystates the mantis was at times elected; at other times he was

the re-

ligious adviser and attendant of the hegemon. It may be noted that there is at least one case where there is no indication that a mantis was involved in the sacrifices. When Phokion in 349 B.C. was sent out from Athens to Euboia with a small force (éxav dtvauuwy ob modAny) against the tyrants who supported Philip, he was said to have performed his own o¢dya (d&ypr dv aires odaytaonrar). After the opposing forces were under arms, facing each other, Phokion delayed action either because the omens were bad (évoep@v), or, as Plu-

tarch suggests, because he used the sacrifice as a stratagem to induce his men to wait until the enemy drew nearer.” The enemy gained the ramparts before the Athenians burst out from their camp when the sacrifices turned favorable

(ré&v tepdv yevouévwr).

A. The eisiteteria.71 In connection with the study of the position of the manteis at Athens, the question arose (above p. 61 n. 60) as to what

is the meaning of the term eiournrjpa in certain Athenian documents,

particularly 7G II?, 17. A. S. Pease noted in his commentary on Cicero’s De Div. 1.31.65, “Beginnings of enterprises and especially the leaving of one’s own house were significant times for omens and signs.” In Hesiod Op. 737-741, the farmer is enjoined not to cross a river ‘“‘with your hands unwashed,” and before crossing a ford he must wash his hands and pray, just as the Greek peasant today will cross himself before he fords a stream. V. Ehrenberg (The People of Aristophanes? 66. IG II2, 17. 67. Plutarch Dion 22-27. 68. Curtius 4.2.14. 69. See above p. 54 n. 27.

70. Phokion 12-13. The historical setting of the battle of Tamynai has recently been studied by J. M. Carter (Historia 20 [1971] 418-421). 71. For the spelling elournrnpia, regularly found in inscriptions until later times, see Ernst Fraenkel,

Glotta

2 (1909) 31; Meisterhans-Schwyzer,

Grammatik

der attis-

chen Inschriften (Berlin 1900) 118 n. 14; and C. Pelekidis, Histoire de l’éphébie attique (Paris 1962) 217-218. Fraenkel notes that passages in Demosthenes, et al.,

should be emended accordingly.

64

The Military Mantike

[Oxford 1951] 257), from his study of Old Comedy, concludes, “Prayers and sacrifices mark the beginning of all important actions.’”’”? Again, G. Blecher (RVV 2 [1905] 217) writes, giving many references, “The ancients resorted to extispication particularly before crossing a river or joining battle, before starting on a journey or beginning a march or undertaking some dangerous project; further, before founding a city or laying out a camp, or on occasions on which the future caused them anxiety in any way.”7 I believe with Wilhelm”

that the reference to ra lepa ra elovrnt7pia

in the motivation-formula in the decree honoring the mantis Sthorys of Thasos (JG II?, 17) is to the sacrifices before the battle of Knidos: [6]ze mpo [etre ........ Ta yevou leva rept THs vavpaxlas [wavrevodpevos Ex TOV ilepGy r&v elowrnrnpiwv &[v @voev].7 Clearly, some prediction or forecast concerning a naval battle was made from the lepa elournrnpia which the mantis sacrificed. By contrast, in the numerous references to the

performance of sacrifices on entering office,”® the honorant is simply praised for the performance of the sacrifice (@vcev). Secondly, the sacred officials who attended to these inaugural one certain deity, never manteis.77

sacrifices were

fepe?s of

42. T. J. Dunbabin (BSA 46 [1951] 68-69) collects incidents in which a phiale is thrown into the sea on setting out for a journey or beginning some other important undertaking. There was a ceremony for sailors departing from Syrakuse which consisted of filling a clay cup with flowers and honey and spices and then throwing it into the sea when they lost sight of the shield on the temple of Athena. Dunbabin thinks that this may have been a method of divination. 73. Translation of W. R. Halliday, Greek Divination (London 1913) 195. 74. See above p. 61. Since the term elotrjpios may be applied to the word dAédyos (Souda), there is no reason to restrict its meaning to a festival day. 75. Text of Osborne, BSA 65 (1970) 157 (omitting dots). 76. The practice was widespread. Heliodoros in the Aithiopika (7.2.2) says that when Thyamis was called to the priesthood, he performed in public rds elournptous Ovolas.

77- A. D. Nock (Proceedings of the Amer. Philosophical Society 8 [1941/2] 475) says, “Unlike the priests of civic cults, they [the manteis] were professionals.” For the distinction between wdvres and iepe’s, which is found as early as Homer,

see A.

Bouché-Leclercq, Histoire de la divination dans Vantiquité 2 (Paris 1880) 5-6. Cf. Leaf and Bayfield ap. Homer II. 24.221: “Note that the Homeric tepebs as such seems to have had no functions of divination; he is essentially a sacrificer.” In the Laws (8.828B), Plato distinguishes as a matter of course between exegetai, hiereis, and manteis. Isokrates (2 To Nikokles 6) says that any man is thought qualified to be a priest, and Plato (Laws 759C-D) would require only that a priest should be a legitimate member of an unpolluted family and aged over sixty. Many priesthoods were

Sr

The Military Mantike

65

All magistrates before entering upon their duties were required to take an oath of investiture, and Greek oaths were attended with sacrifices. The following entry occurs in the Souda: jyépa coprijs, ev fi of ev Th 4pxh wavres Tpordcw, obrws éxaelTo. TaUTHY O€ THY NUEpayv TPwTNY TOd Erous "A@nvator vevouixact. Anuoobérns ty 7G rep! Tijs TapampeoBeias (19.190). ) BovdAn Ta eloirnpia vcev. cvvertidOnoay dé Kal TOV éxotvwynoay of oTpaTnyol Kal oxeEdov elretv ai dpxai wacar.78 In the Demosthenic passage, the orator says,

“In the same way, the boule sacrifices its eisiteteria (‘holds its service

of inauguration’: Loeb) and its social banquet; the strategoi unite in worship and libation, and so of all, or nearly all, of the public offices.”7

Similarly, the ephebic year, which differed in its terminal limits from the bouleutic year, was marked with eisiteteria and mention is frequently made of such sacrifices in the so-called ephebic inscriptions, e.g., JG IT?, 1011.5: of ébnBou of emt ’Apicrdpxov &pxovtos Obcavres Tats evyypagais ra elowrnTnpia ... wera TOD kepéws Tod re Anwov Kal Trav Xapirev.80 See also line 34; IG II2, 1042.3; 1043.8. There were also eourynrjpia

performed by the priest of Asklepios ([G I1?, 974.9), and by the priestess of the orgeones of the magna mater (IG II?, 1315.7), etc., for various organized groups.®! The priest who attended to the inaugural ceretenable only for a year—sure proof of amateur status. The ultimate authority in a question concerning 7a tepé is not a synod of priests, but the council and

the assem-

bly: Aristotle Ath. Pol. 43. The Greek priest was always the servant of a particular deity, and that at a particular shrine, and at no other. 78. Text of A. Adler, 1.9. p. 539. The statement in J. D. Mikalson, The Sacred and Civil Calendar of the Athenian Year (Princeton 1975) 15 (“It is noteworthy that no annual religious festival is attested to have occurred on the Noumenia or to have included it”) requires modification. 79. Cf. P. J. Rhodes, The Athenian Boule (Oxford 1972) 13: “The bouleutic year began with inaugural sacrifices, elowrnrfpia.’’

Sacrifices were,

of course,

held before

each meeting of the boule and of the ekklesia, and those too were called eournrjpia:

Ulpian on Demosth.

291 Meidias 114: eiowrhpra éyiyvero, weddobons elovévar ris Boudfs els

70 Bovdevrjpioy.See G. Busolt, Griechische Staatskunde 1 (Munich 1920) 518; and F. Jacoby, Atthis (Oxford 1949) 275-246. 80. The sacred official who regularly attended the inaugural sacrifices of the epheboi was the priest of the Demos and the Charites: IG I12, 1006.7; 1008.6; 1028.7; 1030.5; Hesperia 29 (1960) 228.%.

81. A. G. Woodhead

(Hesperia 29 [1960] 78) has published an Agora inscription

in which the hipparchoi were honored for performing inaugural sacrifices (elo.rnthpia)

to Poseidon Hippios. Since the hipparchoi entered office on Hekatombaion (I) 1 with other military officials, their inaugural festivities must have been distinct from those of the boule and strategoi on the akropolis. This affords mute testimony to the general ceremonial nature of the first day of the civil year. For a new text of the Agora inscription, see Threpsiades and Vanderpool, ADelt

18 (1963) Meletai

107.

66

The Military Mantike

monies of the boule was that of Zeus Soter:®? IG I1?, 689.20; 690.4.°° In all of the references to eisiteteria for inaugural ceremonies,

when-

ever mention is made of a sacred official in whatever capacity, it is never a mantis. The high honors bestowed on the mantis Sthorys, 82. In Prooem. 54 [Demosthenes] makes an official report on the execution of a com-

mission to perform certain sacrifices. As with the bouleutic eisiteteria, the list of deities begins with the names of Zeus Soter and Athena. 83. Observing that the priest of Zeus Soter attended to the inauguration of the boule, L. Deubner (Attische Feste [Berlin 1932] 175) has combined this fact with the evidence of Lysias 26 Scrutiny of Euandros 6, where references are made to sacrifices to this deity on what must have been the last day of the year, to conclude

that the “Neujahrsopfer” was actually held on Skirophorion (XII) ultimo. Mikalson (op. cit. 180) has questioned Deubner’s assignment of the Diisoteria to Skirophorion ultimo on the evidence of JG II2, 1496; but there remains the problem of the Lysias passage, from which we learn that on that day (1) some sacrifice was offered to Zeus

Soter; (2) the archon-designate for the oncoming year was to assist in the celebration of the sacrifice (cf. R. C. Jebb, Attic Orators 1 [London 1876] 237-8), and (3) the law forbade the dikasterion to sit: 4 yap avpiov iyépa pdvn Aor) rod éravTod éorw, ev dé tatty TO Aut 7G owripr Ovola yiyverat, Suxaorhpiov 5 rapa Tovs vdpuous ddbvarov mANpwOfvat.

We learn from the prescripts of Attic decrees that more meetings of the ekklesia are attested for Skirophorion ultimo than for any other day of the year. The procedure involved in the investiture of office for the archons was a lengthy one. They took their oath twice, swearing to consecrate a golden statue if they should accept presents (Aristotle Ath. Pol. 7.1, 55.5; Plato Phaedrus 235D; Plutarch Solon 25). The first time they swore standing on the “pledging-stone” (recently discovered by T. L. Shear Jr., Hesperia 40 [1971] 259-260) erected in the Agora before the royal stoa. Saxo Grammaticus, a Danish author of the thirteenth century, tells that the ancient Danes, in choosing a king, stood on stones “in order to foreshadow from the steadfastness of the stones that the deed would be lasting”: Bickerman, AJP 73 (1952) 4. The second time, in company with the strategoi and other magistrates, they took the oath on the akropolis before the image of the goddess and a table whereon were placed crowns of myrtle (Aristotle Ath. Pol. 55.5; Deinarchos Against Philokles 2; Lysias 9 Soldier 15). Thus invested, they offered to the gods the eisiteteria, which the Souda says took place on the first of the year (Hekatombaion I). Since the Greek day began at sunrise, it would be possible to reconcile the ancient evidence by suggesting that the initial

sacrifice to Zeus Soter was taken on Skirophorion (XII) ultimo, as Lysias says, but the eisiteteria completed on Hekatombaion (I) 1 on the akropolis. In any case, the ancient testimonia, if accepted as valid, indicate that (1) whereas the dikasterion was forbidden to meet on Skirophorion (XII) ultimo, the ekklesia frequently did; (2) an initial sacrifice to Zeus Soter was made on this same day as part of the first oath of investiture, and (3) the eisiteteria itself took place on Hekatombaion (eS Lesiseal mistake to assume that all days were completely “sacred” or completely “civil.” For example, the eisiteteria of the epheboi at the beginning of Boedromion in the sanctuary of Aglauros involved sacrifices and festivities, but these may have been pertinent only to the young men inducted into service and their families, and the day was not one in the official calendar of state cults. Reference to a sacrifice in our sources need not in itself be taken as evidence for state-wide festivities.

The Military Mantike

67

therefore, would seem to result from his successful predictions made before the battle of Knidos. 6. Sparta. Xenophon (Lac. 15.2) reports that Lykourgos “ordained that the king shall offer all public sacrifices on behalf of the state in virtue of his divine descent and he shall be the leader of the army wher-

ever the state sends it’ (orpariay

8rou

av

mwoAts

éxmréumn

nyetoBar).84

Again in 13.11, he says that on active service the king acts as priest in matters relating to the gods and as general in matters relating to men

(éml dpovpas # lepe? perv ra mpos Tods Oeods evar, oTparnyS 5€ Ta pds rods avOpawmous). In 13.4, the king’s staff is said to consist of Mavres, tatpoi, and avAnrai. A statement similar to the last occurs in Nikolaos Damasc.,

Morum mirab. Coll. 114.15 (= FGrHist go frg. 103z): ovverméurovrar 6é 7T@ Baoirel pavreas kal iarpol kal addnral. Cicero (De Div. 1.43.95) writes, Lacedaemonii regibus suis augurem (=pdvris) adsessorem dederunt. As A. S. Pease

adsessor

notes

(“counsellor”)

in his commentary

probably

on

represents

this passage,

the Greek

the word

épedpos

or

ovvedpos.®> It occurs here first in Latin and only here in Cicero. The

picture seems clear. In contrast to Athens, the king might offer the sacrifice, but he was assisted by a mantis, just as in the interpretation

of oracles each Spartan king was the keeper of the oracles but was as-

signed two TIé6uo. who served as messengers to Delphi and were made cognisant of all oracles (Herodotos 6.57; cf. Xenophon Lac. 15.5). Thus, in Xenophon Hell. 3.3.4, the mantis interpreted the signs (oi7w Mot onuaiverar) of the omens to Agesilaos.®6 In the case of the nauarchos 84. The

Spartan kings were, as Herakleidai,

his descendants,

and Zeus was

their

ancestor. Polybios (34.2.6) writes that Danaus and Atreus were manteis with powers of divination, and F. W. Walbank observes (Kokalos 20 [1974] 7), “The earliest (i.e. Homeric) kings were priests as well as judges and leaders of the army.” E. Benveniste,

Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-européennes (Paris 1967) 2.14, seems to have established that “le rex indo-européen est beaucoup plus religieux que politique... qu'il s’apparente bien plus 4 un prétre qu’a un souverain.” P. Briant. Antigone le Borgne (Paris 1973 = Annals littéraires de l'Université de Besancon 152) concludes (p. 326): “Notre conviction personnelle est qu'il en est ainsi du roi macédonien, et qu’aux yeux des Macédoniens, la notion de roi est liée indissolublement 2 la fonction

religieuse, plus qu’a sa fonction militaire.” Curtius (10.7.2) refers to the brother of Alexander as “sacrorum caerimoniarumque consors.” Arrian (7.28.1) speaks of Alexander as “‘most careful of religion”

(rod Oelov éxipedtoraros).

85. K. M. T. Chrimes, Ancient Sparta (Manchester 1949) 407, misunderstands the meaning of the word. See also above p. 47. 86. When Agesilaos in 396 B.c. attempted to sacrifice at Aulis on his way to Asia Minor,

he ordered

his own

mantis

éavrod udvrw: Plutarch Ages. 6.9).

to perform

the sacrifice (éXevoev drdptacbat Tov

68

The Military Mantike

of the Lakedaimonian

fleet, he, too, was

accompanied

by a mantis:

Diodoros 13.98.1. In at least one case where the sacrifices were unfavorable

(otd€ r&v tepdv yeyernuévwy),

the Spartan hegemon

made

the de-

cision to advance, with disastrous results: Xenophon Hell. 4.8.36 (389 B.c.). The implication is that the interpretation of the omens was made by someone other than the hegemon. The sacrifices performed by the Spartan king in time of war are thus described by Xenophon or whoever wrote the Constitution of the Lakedaimonians: “First of all the king and his staff®" sacrifice at home to Zeus Agetor;

and if the sacrificial

omens

are

favorable,

the fire-

bearer takes fire from the altar and leads the way to the frontier. Here again the king offers sacrifices to Zeus and Athena. Whenever the omens attending the sacrifices offered to these two deities are favorable, he crosses the frontier, and the fire taken from these sacrifices leads the way and is never quenched, and animals for sacrifice of all sorts follow.

Whenever the king sacrifices, he sets about the work in the morning while it is still dark as he wishes to secure god’s favor before (the enemy can do so)” (13.2). A. The diabateria, or sacrifice at the frontier, are attested only for

Lakedaimonian armies. The most detailed treatment of the subject is that of H. Popp, Die Einwirkung von Vorzeichen, Opfern und Festen auf die Kriegftihrung der Griechen im 5. und 4. Jahrundert v. Chr. (Erlangen diss. 1957) 42-46. Hesiod (Op. 737-738) warns that one is never to cross a river without praying; the abundant evidence for the cult of river-gods is collected in F. W. Hamdorf, Griechische Kultpersonification der vorhellenistischen Zeit (Mainz 1964) 12-16. Early examples of diabateria are known from Herodotos, although he does not

use the word. Kleomenes I, encouraged by a promise of the oracle that he should take Argos, led the Lakedaimonian troops to the banks of the Erasinos, the border river of Argive territory. Sacrifices were offered

to the river, but the omens were unfavorable. Kleomenes said that he honored the Erasinos for being true to its countrymen. Presently he withdrew to Thyrea and carried his troops by sea to Tiryns and Nauplia (6.76). Typical of nineteenth century rationalism is the theory formulated by R. W. Macan that “there were from six to eight thousand hoplites on the opposite bank” and that Herodotos has given us “in this passage an imperfect and distorted tradition of a brilliant and strategic combination, projected and carried out by Kleomenes, the demonstration of the Erasinos being a feint to draw the Argives from 87. Reading with Hasse of ody aird.

ae

The Military Mantike

69

the city.” See also below, page 79. Again in 9.36, before the battle of

Plataiai, Herodotos says that the sacrifices of Pausanias and the mantis

Tisamenes for crossing the Asopos The word 6éia8arjpia is found 5-55-33 5-116.1) and eight times in 4-7-23 5-1-333 5-3-145 5-4-3493 5.4.47; Barnpia

is found in Polyainos

were unfavorable. three times in Thucydides (5.54.9; Xenophon’s Hellenika (374595035 .75 6.5.12). In addition, the word birep-

1.10. There are also at least two refer-

ences in a Roman context: Dio 40.18.5 and Plutarch Lucullu s 24.8, both for crossing the Euphrates river. The examples in Thucyd ides are the most interesting because the three sacrifices were all unfavor able and the army in each case returned home. In the late summer of 419 B.c. the Argives had quarreled with Epidauros, a loyal member of the Peloponnesian League. This stirred the Lakedaimonians to action.

Under the command of King Agis, they marched out with all their forces (xavénuel) to Leuktra, one of the border towns of Lakonia on the

northwest, towards Mount Lykaion (Thucydides 5.54.1). But the sacri-

fice of the diaBarfip.a was found so unfavorable that Agis abando ned

his march and returned home. Since the Karneian

festival, a hiero-

menia to the Dorians,®9 was approaching, Agis waited until its expira-

tion and then marched out, this time to Karyai, but was again arrested and forced to return by unfavorable border-sacrifices (5-55-3). Finally, at the beginning of the winter the Epidaurians, after having their land ravaged, were reinforced

by a detachment

of three hundred

Lakedai-

monian hoplites under Agesippidas, sent by sea (5.56.1). In all of this Thucydides gives no intimation of a political or military motive for delay. In the first out-march, Agis advanced up the Eurotas valley toward the later Megalopolis, a route which had the advantage of disguising his ultimate goal (jde 6¢€ obdels drou crparetovor). In the second, he must have marched past Sellasia and modern Arakhova on the more direct road to Tegea and the Argolid. We can only follow Thucydides and conclude that powerful religious considerations must have brought about the withdrawals and ultimate disbanding of the entire Lakedaimonian military force. The acceptance by the men of physical exertion in a futile march of some eighteen kilometers from Sparta to 88. So in modern scholarship, the word d:aBarjpra

is often used in a general sense

and is not restricted to the sacrifice at one’s own border. Fauth (Der Kleine Pauly 4 [1972] 308) defines the diabateria as “Opfer beim Uberschreiten der Landesgrenze.” For the meaning of d:4Baors (a “crossing,” but not at a bridge), see L. Robert, Documents de V’Asie Mineure méridionale (Paris 1966) 45; but compare Thucydides 4.103.4. 89. “So diirfte auch hier bei Thuk. V 54 nur die Festzeit der Karneien gemeint sein, nicht etwa der ganze Monat”: H. Popp, Die Einwirkung 93 n. 62.

The Military Mantike

70

Karyai, as the crow flies, but many more through the mountains around

Arakhova, implies deep religious convictions.® The earlier march was longer but not so rugged.®! The third example reported by Thucydides (5.116.1) occurred early in the winter of 416 B.c. when the Lakedaimonians took the field against Argos; but having marched as far as the borders they found the sacrifices unfavorable; so they turned back and disbanded their

forces. The result was disastrous for members of an oligarchical party at Argos, who had been on the watch for the Lakedaimonian force and projected an uprising, or at least were suspected of doing so, and were seized and imprisoned. Later in the same winter, however,

the Lake-

daimonians apparently were more fortunate with their border sacrifices, entered Argive territory, and established the Argive fugitives at Orneai (6.7). Again, so far as we can judge the case, compliance with deep religious convictions outweighed political and military advantages.° The diabateria reported in Xenophon’s Hellenika were all performed by Agesilaos with the exception of one by Pausanias (3.5.7) and one by Agesipolis (4.7.2). They involve the following out-marches: Reference in Hell.

Destination

3-4-3

Euboia and Asia Minor

3-5-7

Boiotia via Tanagra

go. The acquiescence of the Greeks to the omen of a sneeze in Xenophon Anab 3.2.9 affords a parallel. gi. For the routes, see Loring, JHS 15 (1895) pl. 1 Loring’s article, “Some Ancient Routes in the Peloponnese” is the best yet produced on the subject of Greek routes. For the site of Karyai, see Loring p. 55; and E. Meyer, Der Kleine Pauly 3 (1969) 139. g2. G. Busolt in particular has questioned the Thucydidean record in Forschungen zur Gr. Geschichte 1 (Breslau 1880) 152-157; more briefly in Gr Geschichte 3.2 (Gotha 1904) 1234-1236; and in turn, has been sharply criticized by H Popp Einwirkung p. 44 n. 20. Busolt believes that Thucydides was given at Sparta “nur die amtliche Version” which was designed to conceal the vacillation in Spartan foreign policy at home. Busolt clearly agrees that the army marched out on each occasion. He posits that it was recalled by Spartan authorities, presumably on new information

about the movements of Alkibiades, to avoid an open breach with Athens. No motive is given by Busolt for the embellishment of the diabateria in the account: the army of course could have been recalled at any stage (see Pritchett, War 2.45ff.). For our purposes, it is sufficient to note that Thucydides and the Greek world were to believe that according to Spartan conventions of warfare, they abided by the results of divination at the border. I may add that there is no passage in Thucydides less likely to have been derived from an official Spartan version than 5.54 as the words joe dé obdels bro. crparebovow make clear.

The Military Mantike 407.2 51.33

71 Argos via Olympia Tegea, directed against Thebes, but aborted

53-14

Phleious

54-373 54.447

Boiotia via Tegea

6.5.12

Arkadia

7- Financial Remuneration. The rewards for successful divination by the military mantis were on occasion enorm ous. Kyros gave the huge sum of ten talents to his Ambrakiot mantis Silanos because he correctly predicted while sacrificing that the Persia n king would not fight within ten days.93 Mardonios is said by Herodotos to have hired the Elean seer Hegesistratos, of the mantic family of the Telliadai, for

no small wage

(9.38.1:

peurcbwpévos

ob oAtyou).°* On

the other hand,

Herodotos (9.95) notes with a tone of disapproval that the one mantis who accompanied the Greek fleet to Mykale at the invitation of the Corinthians, by name Deiphonos (‘“‘he who kills in battle ”: see P. Chantraine, Dictionnaire étymologique [Paris 1968] 271), worked for hire

throughout all Greece

(eehduBave éml rv ‘ENN45a épya).

In the sixth century, the Elean mantis Kallias of the family of the Tamidai was said to have assisted the Krotoniates in their war with Sybaris. Herodotos (5-45-2) relates that the Krotoniates “show many gifts of land in the country of Kroton that were set aside for Kallias of Elis—on which land Kallias’ posterity dwelt even to my time.” In a time of financial exigencies in Byzantion, the manteis were required to pay the third part of their gains for permission to exercise their art.®6 In 93. Xenophon Anab, 1.7.18; 5.6.18. 94. Hegesistratos counselled Mardonios that the sacrifices were favorable only for defense (9.37.1). Accordingly, for Herodotos, Mardonios’ attack on the Greeks at Plataiai in violation of the omens is an act of impiety: cf. H. R. Immerwahr, Form and Thought in Herodotus (Cleveland 1966) 292-293. Herodotos devotes chapter 37 to the story of the great hostility felt by the Spartans for Hegesistratos; but he does not explain its cause. Stein conjectures that Hegesistratos had acted as mantis for the Tegeans in a war with Sparta and had been sentenced to death on this charge. 95- Earlier, Kallias had been driven out of Sybaris by its tyrant because he could not get favorable sacrifices for their army to march out against Kroton (éretre of 7a ipa

ob mpoexcspee Xpnord Ovouery ext Kpérwva).

See Stein’s note on 5.44.2.

96. Aristotle, Oeconomica 2.2.3.1346b. B. A. von Groningen’s comment (Aristote, le second livre de V’économique [Leyden 1933] 59) on the remuneration of professional

soothsayers is, “Le public de l’antiquité ne différait pas de celui de nos jours et payait volontiers leurs services.” In the university city in which I live, the main street lead-

ing from the campus is lined with establishments which advertise clairvoyants, psychics, spiritualists, astrologists, tarot readers, psychedelic researchers, herbologists,

and neopagans; and all have the appearance of being very prosperous.

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72

an oration which is assigned to the period 393-390 B.c., Thrasyllos, a

wandering mantis (rAdvys udvtis),is said to have acquired much wealth (éreu51) 6’ odctay Te ToANY éxtHoaTo) and to have become the richest citizen on the island of Siphnos (m\otrTw wey abros mp&ros av Tov ToNTaV):

Isokrates 19 Aiginetikos 47.%" We learn from JG II?, 17 that at Athens the demos prescribed that

the pay of the mantis Sthorys of Thasos was to be provided by the generals,98 and from JG 1%, 39, a decree about Chalkis in 446/5 B.c., that the three bouleutai who assisted the mantis Hierokles®® were to be

chosen by the boule and that the money for the tepa pavrevra was to be

provided by the generals.°° Hierokles seems to have been rewarded on the conquest of Euboia in 445 8.c. by a grant of land at Oreos.1°4 The seer Teiresias in Euripides Phoinissai claims to have secured the victory for Athens over Eleusis and displays his reward, a golden crown,

the first fruit of the spoils: (856/7: Kal révde xpucoty oTepavoy, ws OpGs, éxw / \aBadv drapxds Toreuioy cKvAevaTor). According to the scholiast to Pax

1084,

the chresmologoi,

whom

Jacoby

here

takes

to be

the

manteis, had the privilege of dining in the prytaneion: of xpnopodoyor perelxov Tis év mputavelw oirjoews ;but this may simply be a deduction of

the scholiast from the award to Lampon. See Kirchner on SIG* 496 n. 4, and F. Jacoby FGrHist 3b Suppl. g p. 183 n. 17.1? The award was a special honor made to men of high standing such as generals, ambassadors, and the like.1%

97. Evidence about wandering seers has been collected by H. Bliimner, “Fahrendes Volk im Altertum,’ SBAW 1918.6 pp. 25-29, 51-5398. rds 6¢ orparnyos Tos WHd5e &rodovar abrar tov prcBdv (brackets omitted). FGrHist 3b 99. I follow Jacoby in interpreting the role of Hierokles as a mantis:

Suppl. 1 pp. 258-259. Jacoby maintains that the comic poets called the manteis some-

what contemptuously “oracle-mongers” (xpnoporsyor or XpnTHwLOOL). 100. pera ‘Tepoxdéous rpets dvdpas ods dv Ednrat 4 Bovdr) opav ab’r&v...ot orpatnyol...

70 apybpuor és radra rapexdvrwr. Cf. Jacoby FGrHist gb Suppl. 1 p. 259. 101. So W. R. Halliday, Greek Divination (London 1913) 97, comparing IG I?, 39 and Aristophanes Pax 1047. Earlier, R. Scholl (Hermes 22 [1887] 563 n. 4) arrived at the same conclusion. 102. Cf. J. H. Oliver, Athenian Expounders of the Sacred and Ancestral Laws (Baltimore 1950) 11-12. 103. The so-called prytaneion decree, JG I2 77, is thought to enjoin that a group

of officials whose selection had to be confirmed by Delphi was to have sitesis at public

expense. Jacoby (Atthis [Oxford 1949] 24-41) restores the exegetai (=the pythochrestoi), who were apparently appointed for life, and is followed by H. Bloch (AJP 474 [1953] 407-418). They believe that Lampon received the sitesis as a personal honor. M. Ostwald (AJP 72 [1951] 36-41) restores the manteis, and his view is endorsed by

S. G. Miller (The Prytaneion [Berkeley 1978] 140).

Tie

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73

8. Techne. A mantis exercised a Téxvn;1 he did not claim to operate

by divine inspiration.!°5 His chief domain was divination by sacrifice s, although, as we shall see in the next chapter, his functions extende d into ornithoscopy, the interpretation of dreams, and similar matters,196

A certain Polemainetos, a seer of the generation after Aischylos, bequeathed his books on divination

(@i@dous rds Tepl ris Lavrikhs) to his

friend Thrasyllos, who was thereby enabled self.” Autokleides (Athenaios 11.473b) was kon, which Plutarch (Nikias 23.9) probably ate source (Jacoby, Atthis 252 n. 72). Demos

to earn a good living himthe author of an Exegeticited from some intermediproduced a work with the

title Tepi @vorév, and Philochoros, author of at least twenty-seven books and a mantis himself, epitomized an earlier work with the title Iep!

tepGv (328 T 1: Jacoby). Throughout the campaigns of Alexander, a priestly journal of sacrifices with records of divinations was kept: In Part I, chap. 8 of these studies, it was pointed out that there were

two sacrifices before a battle: (1) ra tepd for divination purposes, which might be taken in camp before setting out, in the course of which the

omens had to be interpreted as favorable before the action could be begun; and (2) 74 o¢ayua, of a propitiatory nature,!°® performed immediately before the action began and sometimes even after the troops 104. See Aischylos Prom. passages

484, Sophokles

cited in the Thesaurus

OT

709, Herodotos

2.49, 83, and

s.v. wavruxés. Similarly, “astrology, when

the

introduced

into Greece, did not become a part of the Greek religion but an element of Greek science”: M. Jastrow, ‘“Hepatoscopy and Astrology,” Proceedings of the Amer. Philosophical Society 47 (1908) 670. In 4.67-69, Herodotos describes how Scythian manteis divine by rhabdomancy,

a method

of moving wands.

Eight hundred

years later, an-

other people of the Steppe used the same method (Ammianus Marcellinus 31.2.24), which has been noticed all over Asia (Marco Polo, ed. by H. Yule and H. Cordier [London 1903] 1 p. 242). Nor was it limited to Asia; for it is reported of the Germans (Tacitus Germania 10). In Ezekiel’s prophecy (21.21), the king of Babylon “shook the arrows to and fro” to discover which road to take. For possible representations of rhabdomancy, see C. F. Lehmann-Haupt, Klio 18 (1923) 371, who comments, “Zwar werde die Rabdomantie

bei den klassischen

Autoren

nicht als griechischer, sondern

nur als barbarischer Gebrauch erwahnt.” For the large bibliography on rhabdomancy, see A. S. Pease, Ciceronis De Divinatione (Darmstadt 1963 reprint) pp. 141 and 592 (add.). For the term pavrixh réxvn, see Heinemann, MH

105. There

are exceptions.

Herodotos

18 (1961) 109 n. 20.

(1.63.1) speaks of the chresmologos

Am-

philytos as being inspired (éOedfwv). 106. See F. Jacoby, Atthis (Oxford 1949) 47. 107. Isokrates 19 Aiginetikos 5-6, 4p. 108. See H. Berve, Das Alexanderreich auf prosopographischer Grundlage (Munich 1926) go. 109. But always involving a blood-sacrifice: J. Casabona, Recherches sur le vocabulaire des sacrifices en Grec (Aix-en-Provence 1966) 185.

The Military Manttke

74

had been committed. These two sacrifices will be discussed in turn. The form of divination ascribed by Cicero (De Div. 1.41.91) to the Elean mantic family of Iamids is extispicy, divination from inspection of entrails (= haruspices).!° A. Bouché-Leclercq, Histoire de la divination 4 (Paris 1882) 68, believes that six vital organs were used: spleen, stomach, kidneys, heart, lungs and liver. Of these the earliest to be used was the liver: M. Jastrow (“The Liver as the Seat of the Soul” in Studies in Honor of C. H. Toy [New York 1912] 159-161). The Ravennas scholiast on Aristophanes Vesp. 831 says: éxetvou yap mp&rov TO HTaAp émioxorodvra, elra oTAGyxva Kal Ta Nowra.1!! Plato (Tim. 71E) names the

liver as the organ of divination.1!2 In Greek military contexts, the organs used for divination in the sacrifices termed ra iepd are designated as either the liver or ord\éyxva.113 In Plutarch, Alex. 73, Arat.

43, Arrian Anab. 7.18.4, Pausanias 6.2.4, reference is expressly made to the liver (ré fap). In Polybios 7.12, the word used is crhayxva; but

since in this passage the organ is portable, the liver may have been the sole part removed. The literature on hepatoscopy centers around an Etruscan bronze model of a liver found near Piacenza in 1877 and published with illustrations by G. Korte in Rém. Mitt. 20 (1905) 348-377.114 It dates from 110. Cf. 1.10: extis enim omnes fere utuntur (“Nearly everybody employs entrails in divining”). According to M. P. Nilsson (Geschichte der Griechischen Religion 12 [Munich 1955] 167), extispicy was not adopted by the Greeks until after the Epic Age. Herodotos (2.57) believes that it originated in Egypt; but Egyptian sources are silent. It had been practiced in Babylonia much earlier. 111. According to Pliny NH 11.71, the heart was used for the first time in 274 B.c., while the lungs are not mentioned till we reach the days of Cicero (De Div. 1.39.85). 112. See, in particular, A. E. Taylor,

A Commentary

on Plato’s Timaeus

(Oxford

1928) 505. 113. In contrast to the @repa (= viscera, the stomach and intestines), the term omdayxva, like exta in Latin, is used of the more palatable internal organs of the body, such as heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, which in sacrifices were kept to be eaten at the beginning of a sacrificial feast (erAdyxv’ éracavro, Homer II. 1.464). In Euripides El. 835, they are called racrjpia. At Sparta, the king received certain parts of the beasts sacrificed: Xenophon Lac. 15.3.

114. K6rte’s sketch of a sheep’s liver on p. 353 was corrected on p. 1 of the following volume. For other illustrations, see C. O. Thulin, Die etruskische Disciplin (Géteburg 1906) 2, pl. 1-4; R. S. Conway, Ancient Italy and Modern Religion (New York 1933) 54-55. The

scene on a black-figured oinochoe

interpreted

by F. Lenormant

(Gazette archéologique 6 [1880] 209-211) as a mantis holding in his hand a liver (cf. J. G. Frazer, Pausanias 4 p. 5) was later taken to represent Herakles holding food: H. B. Walters, Catalogue of the Greek and Etruscan Vases in the British Museum 2 (1893) 244 (no. B 497); J. D. Beazley, Attic Black-Figured Vase-Painters (Oxford 1958) 377. Numerous vases representing orhayxvérrae (Pliny NH 34.81) are published by G. Rizza, ASAA 21/2 (1959/60) 321-345.

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the third century 8.c. and shows the gall-bladder,"5 the two main lobes of a sheep’s liver, and two prominent projections attached to the upper lobe, which is known in modern nomenclature as the lobus pyramidalis. These two appendices of the upper lobe are termed today, we are told, the processus pyramidalis and the processus papillaris. The former of these two appendices, known in Greek as the \ofés and in Latin as the caput, plays an especially important part in hepatoscopy, and according to its shape and peculiarities furnished good or bad omens. Kérte (pp. 370-371) believes that the Piacenza model was used for purposes of instruction. The intricacy of the organ is apparent.1!6 A full discussion of the parts of the liver is given in C. O. Thulin, Die etruskische Disciplin 2 (Goteburg 1906), who shows that the fissa, or stripes on the

surface, were considered very significant.117 According to its appearance, the stripes were termed familiaris or inimica. Despite the complexity of the art, in our Greek military passages, the one abnormality in the liver of a victim which is singled out for mention is the absence of the ods

(caput).148 Such a lack was a presage of disaster.1!9 Thus,

115. Ina sacrifice performed for Aratos, a liver is said to have had two gall-bladders enclosed in a single coil of fat, whereupon the mantis declared that Aratos would enter into friendship with what he most hated (Plutarch Aratos 43: Obovri 78 "Aparw bud xodas év Hrare pavivar wa miwedf weprexouévas). M. Jastrow (in Studies in the His-

tory of Religion Presented to C. H. Toy [New York 1912] 163) says that a double gall-bladder is “a phenomenon that is not infrequent in the case of diseased livers of sheep.” 116. Over all runs a set of Etruscan inscriptions which has created much discussion. M. Jastrow in his article on “Omen” in the eleventh edition of the Ency. Brit. compares hepatoscopy with modern phrenology. 117. Thulin is also the author of an excellent article on Haruspices in RE 7 (1912) 2431-2468.

118. Modern translations of this word are often incorrect, since the term refers, not to the main lobes, but only the appendix (caput) attached to the upper lobe. In Cicero’s De Div. 2.13.32, he says (Loeb tr.), “They view the head of the liver with the utmost care from every side. If, perchance,

the liver’s head should be wanting

they

regard it as the most unpropitious sign that could have happened” (caput iecoris ex omni parte diligentissime

considerant; si vero

id not est inventum,

nihil putant ac-

cidere potuisse tristius), This caput, or doBés, according to C. O. Thulin, Die etruskische Disciplin (Géteburg 1906) 2.32, is often reduced to a mere rudimentary trace. 119. The most famous account of the inspection of the liver in Greek drama is found in the messenger’s speech in Euripides’ Elektra. Before killing Aigisthos, Orestes helps him perform a sacrifice, from which it becomes clear that a murder is imminent. As Aigisthos takes the entrails of the calf from Orestes (826: tepa 6’ els xetpas AaBwy) to examine them, he discovers that the lobos of the liver is missing (827: NoBds wer ob rpoofv) and, secondly, that there are defects, not specified, in the

portal vein and the gall-bladder. His expression immediately reflects his dismay, and Orestes asks him what it is that is troubling him. “Stranger,” Aigisthos replies, “I

76

The Military Mantike

in 395 B.c. after Agesilaos marched northwards into Phrygia and his cavalry was defeated in a skirmish near Daskyleion, he offered sacrifices with a view to an advance. However, the liver of the victim was found to lack the lobos, so he turned and marched back to the sea (Xenophon Hell. 3.4.15: yevouévns 5€ rabrys ris immouaxias Ovopevw TO *"Aynowaw TH borepala éml mpoddm GdoBa yiyverat Ta lepa. ToOUTOU . . . PaverTos oTpepas émopebero eri Oddarrav).° In 388 B.c., Agesipolis headed an in-

vasion of the Argolid. Desiring to fortify a garrison post at the entrance to the Argive country, he offered sacrifice. When the liver of the victim was found to be lacking the lobos, he led his army away and disbanded it (Hell. 4.7.7: |’Aynotrodts] Bovdouevos Terxicar dpobprdy Tu. . . vero" Kal ehavn auTG Ta lepa GoBa... arjyaye TO oTpatrevua). Just before the death

of Kimon, when he had sacrificed to Dionysos, Plutarch reports that the mantis showed him the liver of the victim. This liver lacked a head, and we are led to infer that this was a portent of Kimon’s

im-

pending death (Plutarch Kimon 18: abrot.7@ Avovicw bboavtos ... raphy 6 Orns Erdeckvipevos aiT@ Tov AoBov obk ExovTa Kebadny!2! .. . értOovTo TeOvavar tov Kiuwva). When Pyrrhos, king of Epeiros, was campaigning in the

Peloponnesos in 273,17 it was foretold to him by his mantis that, in consequence of.a sacrifice where the lobos was not found, he was to lose one of his kinsmen (Plutarch Pyrrhos 30: 7G 6€ Tlippw mpoeipnro éx Tov lepav aoBwv yevouéevwv bird Tod wavTews amoBo\n Twos T&V avayKalwy).

Pyrrhos lost his son Ptolemaios in the ensuing engagement. Plutarch (Alex. 73.4) records the omen 76 jjrap jv &doBov being told to Alexander outside of Babylon by the mantis Pythagoras (vel Peithagoras) shortly before his death.¥8 Arrian (Anab. 7.18.4) records the same incident along with an earlier one which presaged the death of Hephaistion (7.18.2: él rod Hratos Tod lepelov 6 AoBds adavhs Wve

Even when an army was on campaign, some sort of altar was constructed for the sacrifice and the celebrant was garlanded (Xenophon Anab. 7.1.40: Ta tepeta eiorhxer rapa Tov Baydv kal Kouparddns éorepavapevos fear a trap has been set for me. I have a mortal enemy,

the son of Agamemnon,

and

he is at war with all my house.” Cf. Aischylos, PV 493-495, where it appears that the color of the organ was also a factor in divination. 120. Cf. Plutarch Ages. 9: rdy lepSv ad6Bwv davevtwv.

121. For the phrase rédv dofdr odk txovra xedadyy, see G. Blecher, “De extispicio capita tria” in RVV 2 (1gos) 196. This work was first published separately as dissertation. The RVV volume gives the earlier pagination in parentheses. 122. See Kienast in RE s.v. Pyrrhos 13 (1963) 159. 123. G. Blecher, RVV 2 (1905) 242, cites a German folk-belief that if the liver of a pig was found to be “turned over,” some member of the household would die. 124. See Wirth, Historia 13 (1964) 217, who says that the source was Aristoboulos.

The Military Mantike

i

ws Giawr).1> This suggests that at least some part of the elaborate Greek sacrificial ritual was observed.126 In Anab. 6.4.16 and 19, Xenophon puts the limitation of three (ébero eis Tpis) on the number of sacrifices that were made on two dif-

ferent occasions.!2” Although written of hepatoscopy in Babylonia and Assyria, the following passage might apply to Greek divination if we substitute the words mantis for baru and Greek for Babylonian and 128 Assyrian:

No two livers were ever exactly alike, and it will readily be seen how in the course of time the collections of signs with their interpretation would grow to huge proportions, and the opportunity thus given for the imagination and fancy of the divining priest—the baru or ‘inspector’ as he was called, to roam over a boundless territory. To the credit of the Babylonian and Assyrian priests be it said that so far as the evidence

goes, they applied

the elaborate

and complicated system devised by them logically and consistently. They did not hesitate to announce to the kings an unfavorable result of the examination of the signs. Grouping all the signs noted together, if the unfavorable signs predominated,

a second sheep was offered and the liver examined, and if this

diagnosis was also unfavorable, the omens were taken for a third time. The frequency with which in official reports to the kings unfavorable prognostications are set forth warrants the conclusion that the diviners were far removed from resorting to deception and to tricky devices. In Greek hepatoscopy, the number of important occasions on which the manteis reported the sacrifice as unfavorable, that is against the

plans put forth by the hegemon, is a testimony to the conscientious spirit in which the manteis must have carried out their tasks. The 125. Cf. Polyainos 1.27.2: Obew éml Tov Bwydv; and 8.43: 7 6é & dpe Tay rodeulwy Bapyorv mapavetoa.

126. The ritual performed at a Greek sacrifice is succinctly described by P. Stengel, Die Griechischen Kultusaltertiimer3 (Munich 1930) 108-114; discussed in detail by S. Eitrem in his monumental Opferritus und Voropfer der Griechen und Romer (Oslo 1914). W. Burkert, GRBS 7 (1966) 106-109, gives an excellent account in English. 127. Plutarch (Aemilius Paullus 17) says that at the battle of Pydna in 168 B.c. Aemilius did not receive favorable omens until the twenty-first victim. 128. M. Jastrow, Proceedings of the Amer. Philosophical Society 47 (1908) 651-652. Jastrow, with access to many

divination

tablets at the Museum

of the University of

Pennsylvania, purchased sheep livers and, by laying what he called the lobus caudatus upon the diagram, observed the different markings which were used for divination purposes. Jastrow summarized his findings on Babylonian divination in his Civilization of Babylonia and Assyria (Philadelphia 1915) 255-258. The subject had been discussed at greater length in his Die Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens 2 (Giessen 1912) 220-232.

78

The Military Mantike

mantis practices seer-craft, as a doctor practices medicine. In short, the

manteis regarded themselves as the official means of ascertaining the will and intention of the gods, quite apart from the exigencies of the tactical situation. A. Unfavorable sacrifices which halted military advance are well attested. In most cases the delay lasted for several days and was much against the desire of the general. I select examples from three different historians. At the battle of Plataiai in 479 B.c., Pausanias, Mardonios, and the Greeks in the Persian army, had each a separate mantis

for

divination. It happened that the seers on both sides delivered the same report of their respective sacrifices: favorable for resistance if attacked, unfavorable for beginning the battle. Hagesistratos, the mantis em-

ployed by Mardonios, had a deadly personal hatred against the Lakedaimonians and would have been delighted to see them worsted (Herodotos 9.37). After ten days, the impatience of Mardonios became uncontrollable, and he determined on a general battle forthwith (9-42). In a secret visit to the Athenians, Alexander, king of Makedon, apprised them that Mardonios, though eager for a battle long before,

could not by any effort obtain favorable omens. The language about

the sacrifice is noteworthy: \éyw 6é dy bre Mapéovig te kal TH orparif Ta opayla od divarar KkaTabimua yevéoOar' radar yap av euaxerbe (9.45.2). For

Herodotos’ use of o¢dyea and ipa, see War1

(1971) 112.

Later, when Pausanias with the right wing retired to a position near

the temple of Eleusinian Demeter, the Persians under Mardonios advanced

within

bowshot

of the enemy,

planted

on

the ground

their

long wicker shields, and formed a continuous breastwork from behind

which they poured upon the Greeks a shower of arrows. In spite of the

wounds

and distress thus inflicted, Pausanias persisted in the indis-

pensable duty of offering the battle sacrifice, and the offerings were for some time unfavorable, as interpreted by the seer Teisamenos (Herodotos

9.61: xal ob yap ode éyivero TA ohayia xXpnora),

so

that he

did not venture to give orders for close combat. Many here were wounded or slain in the ranks (9.72), among them the brave Kallikrates; until Pausanias invoked the intervention of Hera. Hardly had he pronounced the words than the omens changed and became favorable (9-62). In spite of the evidence for other Greek armies enduring hardships from their reluctance to move without favorable sacrifices, many scholars postulate that Pausanias was in some way manipulating the omens. The following quotations are but a sampling. M. P. Nilsson (Greek Popular Religion [New York 1940] 126): “In the battle at Plataea, Pausanias held his soldiers back, under the pretext that the signs

The Military Mantike

fhe)

were unfavorable, until the enemy could be attacked by the hoplites at a reasonable distance.” C. Hignett (Xerxes’ Invasion of Greece [Ox-

ford 1963] 336): “The moderns are probably right in their view that he (Pausanias) manipulated the omens so as to delay his charge until the enemy infantry were fully committed to a fight at close quarters.” A. R. Burn (Persia and the Greeks [London 1962] 538): ‘““We can believe that they [the Spartan generals] found sacrificing and taking omens a good way of keeping their men in hand.” G. B. Grundy (The Great Persian War [London 1901] 502): “It is probable that the attention which the Greek commander paid to sacrificial omens was due rather to their effect on the minds and courage of the common soldier than to any undue trust which he placed in them as indications of the tactical policy to be pursued.” H. Delbriick (History of the Art of War 1 [English tr. of W. J. Renfroe London 1975] 116): “Pausanias knew how to make use of prophets and priests. As long as the forward elements of the Persians were only shooting at the phalanx from a distance, probably to lure the Greeks into a premature attack, he had his men stand fast. Not until the mass of the Persians had come closer, onto the spot that he had chosen, did Pausanias raise his hands in prayer to the goddess, and the understanding priest immediately saw this and announced that the augury had become favorable, whereupon Pausanias gave the signal for the attack.” In 494 B.c., Kleomenes, encouraged by a promise of the oracle that he would take Argos, led the Lakedaimonian troops to the banks of the Erasinos,!29 the border river of the Argive territory, about

three

miles from the city of Argos: Herodotos 6.76. But the sacrifices were unfavorable

(kai od yap éxadduépee oiSauds StaBalve uw). So he led his

troops back to the maritime plain of Thyrea (modern Astros). Here he extorted some vessels from Aigina and Sikyon (6.92) and carried his troops by sea to Nauplia and Tiryns.1%° The Argives, having marched their forces down

to resist him, joined battle at Sepeia, near Tiryns,

four or five miles from Argos. There is nothing in Herodotos’ narrative to suggest that it had been prearranged to collect the ships at Thyrea. Moreover, Tiryns was as easily accessible to Argive troops as the Erasinos. Nonetheless, both Busolt (Gr. Gesch. 2? 562.4) and Walker (CAH 4.165—-166) reject the Herodotean account. Walker states, “On the pre-

129. That the waters of the Erasinos derived from Lake Stymphalos, as Herodotos says, has been proved beyond question: see my Topography 1 (Berkeley 1965) 122-123.

130. For proof that Tiryns was at this time much closer to the shoreline than today, see Kraft, Aschenbrenner and Rapp, Science 11 March 1977 pp. 941-947.

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The Military Mantike

text that the omens were unfavorable for the passage of the stream, he led his troops back again to Thyrea. . .. The fact that he had collected a fleet composed of Aeginetan and Sicyonian vessels which lay in readiness at Thyrea . .. proves conclusively that we are dealing with a carefully thought out plan of campaign, and that the advance to the Erasinus was a mere feint.” The words of A. R. Burn (Persia and the Greeks [London 1962] 229) are worthy of quotation. ‘““There has been too much in some modern books, especially perhaps books of the gen-

eration 1880-1920, of a tendency to suggest that all or most fifth-century generals used omens and sacrifices in the furtherance of pre-arranged policy and strategy, after the manner of a Julius Caesar. So, in this campaign, it is suggested that Kleomenes marched to the Erasinos to draw the Argives thither, intending all along to make his real invasion by sea... . That Kleomenes really gave his diviners instructions as to what verdict to find on the sacrifices is most improbable.” So also H. Popp (Die Einwirkung von Vorzeichen [Erlangen diss. 1957] 55 N. 55): “Schliesslich est nicht einzusehen, warum

Kleomenes

von vorneherein

eine schwierige Flottenaktion geplant haben sollte, wenn ihm doch zundchst der Landweg offen stand. Die Lakedaimonier haben ihre zahlreichen Einfalle nach Argos stets zu Lande unternommen; est ist ganz unwahrscheinlich, dass sie sich in so friiher Zeit (494 v. Chr.) ohne einen zwingenden Grund mit dem ganzen Heer auf die See begeben hatten.” The “Ten Thousand” were detained at Kalpe for three days without being able to march forth even in quest of provisions because the hiera were not favorable. Finally, Neon, less scrupulous than Xenophon, led out a body of two thousand for food. This body was surprised by native Bithynians under the Persian satrap Pharnabazos and defeated with a loss of five hundred

men,

a misfortune

which

Xeno-

phon regards as the natural retribution for contempt of the sacrificial warning (Anab. 6.4.13-2”). While the Greeks were still at Kalpe, Kleandros, the Lakedaimonian

harmost of Byzantion, arrived and was offered the command of the army, after he promised to conduct them back to Greece (6.6.3 1-36). The prospects of the army appeared thus greatly improved; Kleandros was more than eager to accept the command

(éreOiue

Hyeudv

yevécbar

abréy: 6.6.35), and exchanged personal tokens of friendship with Xenophon. But when Kleandros undertook sacrifices with a view to the journey (évero émi rf mopeia), the signs were so unpropitious for three successive days that he could not bring himself to brave such auguries. Accordingly, he told the generals that the gods plainly forbade him to

We

The Military Mantike

81

lead the army into Greece, and he therefore sailed back to Byzantion (6.6.35-36). In 399 8.c., we learn from Xenophon that Derkylidas, commander of the Lakedaimonian army, had mastered part of the district Aiolis and was eager to secure the remaining cities before the arrival of Phar-

nabazos (Hell. 3-1.17: €orrevde yap mply PapvaBafov BonOjoa &yxparis yevéo-

Oat maons rijs Alohidos). On arriving before Kebren, however, in spite of this necessity for haste, he was forced to remain inactive for four

days because the sacrifices were unpropitious (uéxpe terTapwv huepdv éxaprépet Ovduevos, uaa xarerds Pépwy). In the year 396 B.c., when Agesilaos

was campaigning in Phrygia, the sacrifices became unfavorable for fur-

ther advance

(dvouévy . . . émi mpoddw, adoBa yiyverar); so Agesilaos gave

orders to retreat towards the sea to Ephesos: Xenophon Hell. 3.4.15.134 In 392 B.c., Pasimelos and his philo-Lakonian party at Corinth seized control of Akrokorinthos, but when they came to offer sacrifice the omens were found so alarming as to drive them, on the instigation of the manteis, to evacuate their position and prepare for voluntary exile: Xenophon Hell 4.4.5. Thus, the seizure of Akrokorinthos was a futile act, because they could have gone into exile at any time. In 387 B.c., King Agesipolis formed the project of erecting a permanent fort on the Argive frontier, but abandoned it in consequence of unfavorable sacrifices (é¢dvn aitS ra iepd 4doBa): Xenophon Hell. Aes mNtethie

river Tanais (Don) in 328 B.c., Alexander repeatedly sacrificed with a view to crossing; but the omens were unfavorable. “Aristandros refused to declare otherwise than the sacrifices had portended, merely because Alexander desired a different report” Tapa Ta éx Tod Gelov onyawoyeva

(‘Apicravipos

6€ ok ébn

&dAa amodelEacbat, STL AANa Eder

aKodTaL

*AdeEavdpos: Arrian 4.4.3). Alexander’s anabasis came to an end at the Hyphasis (Beas) river in 326 B.c. Although he offered sacrifice with a view to crossing, the omens were unfavorable (#vopévy dé odk éyiyvero aiT@ Ta tepd :Arrian 5.28.4).

B. The animals used in Etruscan and Roman hepatoscopy were usually sheep. On the Greek side, A. Bouché-Leclercq!** and G. Blech131. Cf. Plutarch Agesilaos 9.3, and Diodoros 14.79.3. W. Judeich (Kleinasiatische Studien [Marburg 1892] 58) writes that Agesilaos used the sacrifice as a pretext, since the Greek cavalry had just been turned back in a skirmish at Daskyleion, near the Propontis. However, see H. Popp, Einwirkung 57 n. 62. 132. Cf. Pausanias 3.5.9. To judge from the language of the two writers Agesipolis was induced to leave Argos because of signs and sacrifices which he interpreted as marks of some displeasure on the part of the gods against his expedition. 133. Histoire de la divination 1 (Paris 1879) 171.

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The Military Mantike

er!*4 are in agreement that divination by entrails was limited to goats, sheep (or lambs) and calves.!85 From his study of the lexicographical evidence, J. Casabona (Recherches 37) concludes that the Bods was “le iepelov par excellence;” 186 but our concern here is only with the animals

taken by the Greeks on military campaigns for purposes of divination and propitiation. Xenophon in the Constitution of the Lakedaimonians (13.3) says that after the diabateria on the Lakonian frontier, the pyrphoros leads the way!87 and animals of every sort follow

([email protected] 6€ wavtota

érerar).

Pausanias (9.13.4) reports as follows: ‘“The Lakedaimonian kings were accompanied on their expeditions by sheep, to serve as sacrifices to the gods and to give fair omens before battle. The flocks were led on the march by she-goats, called katoiades by the herdsmen.” Pausanias elsewhere says that divination by means of young goats.and lambs and calves had been practiced from a remote period (6.2.5: wavrix7 dé 7 wer dv’ éorw dvOpwrors ),

épidwy kal apvdv te xal wooxwv éx wadaod dfn KatecTacd

and Athenaios (9.380a) confirms that young goats were frequently used (érépous ropicacbar 5b’ épidous AvdyKacas’ TO yap Hrap altGv ToANAKLS TKOTOUHevwv etc.).188 In the army of the “Ten Thousand,” the usual victims

were sheep. When the army was detained at Kalpe for many days because the hiera were not favorable, Xenophon says that the supply of sheep became exhausted, so he bought wagon-bullocks and proceeded to sacrifice (Anab. 6.4.22: rpoBata pev ovkére Hv, Bods O€ bd auaéns mprapevor

évovro). Compare 6.4.25, where the wagon-bullock is also substituted, this time in a propitiatory offering (c¢ayiacdpuevos). Later, when Xenophon returned from his unsuccessful assault on the tower of Asidates,

he brought with him two hundred slaves and sheep, enough for sacrificial purposes (Anab. 7.8.19: mpdBara dcov Oipara).°9 At Ophrynion, 134. RVV 2 (1905) 199.

135. Apollonios of ‘Tyana (Philostratos Vit. Apol. 8.7.15) did not favor the use for extispicy of quick-tempered animals, such as cocks, swine, and bulls: @ev 4 réxv} +++ Xtwatpas pev Kal dpvas érawel oparrew, aexrpbovas

ered) edf0n Ta (Ga Kal ob réppw avarcOhTwv,

6& Kal ods kal rabpous, érerd%) Ovpoedy radra, odk dkot rv

éauriis daropphrwr.

136. The “Ten Thousand” sacrificed oxen as thank-offerings when they reached the sea (Anab. 4.8.25). T. Wachter (“Reinheitsvorschriften im griechischen Kult,” RVYV g [1910] 76-102) gives a convenient list of animals classified as to whether they were “clean” or “unclean” in various Greek cults. 137- Cf. P. Stengel, Die griechischen Kultusaltertiimer’ (Munich 1920) 98. For the pyrphoros, see also F, Schwenn, ARW 21 (1922) 58-62. 138. Cf. C. O. Thulin, Die etruskische Disciplin (Géteburg 1906) 2.18. 139. In 6.5.1, Xenophon gives sacrificial victims equal prominence to food and wine, when supplies were transported from Herakleia for the starving army.

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83

Xenophon sacrificed little pigs from which he obtained favorable omens; but this was a personal sacrifice to Zeus Meilich ios (7.8.5).140 9. The Battlefield Sacrifice (cpayia) 141 This sacrifice, always denoted by the plural form c¢dyia, with the verb in the middle (or passive), was studied in an earlier chapter of these studies. Propit iatory in nature, it was offered just as the phalanx started to advance . Twice Xenophon couples the word eis with the verb of moveme nt: Hell.

3-4-23 (odayracdueros obv ri padrayya etfs nye) and 4.4.30 (chayiacd-

Mevot 6€ etfs Exapouv). When the Greeks, after their painful march over the Karduchian mountains, reached the banks of the Kentrites, the

enemy on the opposite side shot arrows and discharged slings at them. Under these conditions, the sphagia were performed and pronounced favorable; all the soldiers shouted the paian and proceeded into the river (Anab. 4.3.18-20). At the battle of Plataiai in 479 B.c., as discussed above

p- 78, the main

body of Persians

under

Mardonios

advanced

against the Lakedaimonians drawn up before the temple of Eleusinian Demeter. The Persians formed a continuous breastwork of their wicker shields from behind which they poured upon the Greeks a shower of arrows: Herodotos 9.61. In spite of the wounds and distress, Pausanias

did not close in combat because the offerings were unfavorable (al ov yap ode éyivero TA ohdya xpnora) 142 Many were wounded or slain in

the ranks (9.72). At length Pausanias raised his eyes to the Heraion of

Plataiai and invoked the intervention of the goddess. Immediately after his prayer, the omens changed. Clearly, the method of taking omens from the sphagia was entirely different from the complicated procedure involved in extispicy.18

140. In 6.1.31, Xenophon told the army at Sinope, after he had been offered the generalship, that the gods had given him such signs in his sacrifices that even one without professional knowledge could perceive that he must withhold himself from accepting sole command (kai por of Oeot obtws ev trois lepots éojunvar Sore kal tOuarny av yravar bre THs wovapxlas d&réxecOal pe deZ). 141. Sacrifices other than the one on the field of battle were also termed odéyia.

Thus, the sacrifice at the crossing of a river was sphagia. Xenophon, Anab. 4.3.18-19: érpayrasovro els Tov rorapudv.. . érel 6¢ Kaha Hv TA ohayia... Aischylos

Sept. 378-379:

aépov 5’ *lopnvov obk && repay / 6 wdvris: ob yap opdyra ylyverar kadd. On the other hand, the verb @vouae is used with ra dcaBarqpa: Xenophon Hell. 4.7.2 (rd dvaBarhpa

Ovopévy éyévero). Cf. P. Stengel, Hermes

31 (1896) 638; and Pritchett,

War

1 (1971)

113. Casabona (Recherches 184) regards the diabateria as a sphagia. 142. Cf. Plutarch Arist. 18.1: “while the mantis slew victim after victim” (é\\a Tod padvrews ér’ Gddors iepeta). 143. Pace J. Szymanski, Sacrificia graecorum in bellis militaria (Marburg diss. 1908) 89: “Ergo lepd et oddyia differunt non divinandi ratione sed sacrificiorum ipsorum vi atque sensu.”

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The Military Mantike

The animal used for this propitiatory sacrifice, at least by the Lakedaimonians, was always the young she-goat, called by the name Xiwarpa (“that which has seen one winter, yearling’’).1# Xenophon

of in

Pol. Lak. 13.8 says that a she-goat is sacrificed when the enemy are near enough to see (éravydp épwvrav 15n TOY moeuiow xipatpa opayratnrat). The same idea is found in Plutarch Lyk. 22: #6n 6€ ovvrerayuerns Tis Padayyos

aiTav kal Tay woheuiwy mapovTwv, 6 Bacirels dua THY Te Xiwarpay EogayiaferTo. Again, in Hell. 4.2.20, when the armies were not so much asa stade apart,

the Lakedaimonians sacrificed a she-goat to Artemis Agrotera,/# as was their custom (otxére 6€ crddioy arexdovtwv, chayracdpevor of Aakedatpovior TH "Ayporépa, aomep vouiterat, THY xiwapay, TyodvTo El Tols évavrious).146 K.

W. Krueger (ap. Xenophon Anab. 1.8.15) believes that the prophecy was made on the basis of the movement of the sacrificial animal. P. Stengel, ‘“Prophezeiung aus den ofdyia,” Hermes 31 (1891) 478-480, associates the sphagia with empyromancy,'*” largely on the basis of Euripides Phoin. 1255-1258 (and the scholia thereto).4® But the verb used in this passage is ofafw (‘‘to cut the throat’), and J. Casabona, Recherches sur le vocabulaire des sacrifices en Grec (Aix-en-Provence 1966), has shown that o¢éfw was a general term (pp. 159-166) and that 144. Richter in his lengthy 1972 article on Ziege in the RE has nothing to say on the subject. Goats were a common offering to Artemis: Agamemnon 2 (Oxford 1950) 133. 145. See F. Schwenn, ARW 21 (1922) 62-67.

see E. Fraenkel, Aeschylus

146. Cf. the song to Agrotera in Aristophanes, Lys. 1262-1272. 147. We are told in the schol. to Pindar Ol. 6.7 that the most usual form of divination by the Elean family of Iamids was empyromancy; this family provided many military seers. Homer

mentions

O@vocxédor in Il. 24.221, who

may

have

divined

from

flames. Aischylos (Pr. 498) has ¢\oywrd onuara. Cf. Teiresias’ account in Sophokles Ant. 1005-8, where Jebb comments, “It was a bad sign, if the fire was smothered in smoke, or played feebly around the flesh without consuming it.” Cf. also Aischylos

Th. 25 supés dixa (“without divination from fire”) and Euripides Suppl. 155 wavres 0° éxndes eurbpwy 7’ eldes PAdya. Other references in Euripides are collected in C. Col-

lard’s commentary (Euripides Supplices [Groningen 1975]) on this line. See Stengel RE sv. turvpa (1905) 2543-2544, whose article must be used, however, with the reservations noted above. 148. P. Stengel devoted four articles to the question of ofa yia (Hermes 21 [1886]

307-312, 25 [1890] 321-324, 31 [1896] 478-480, and 34 [1899] 642-643); but his study of the battle cfayra

seems

to be vitiated by his conclusion

that the learned

scholia

on Phoin. 1255 were applicable to the battlefield operation. The tail of the victim was put inside the bladder, the mouth of which was tied with wool; the direction of its bursting and the contortions of the tail were to be interpreted in terms of victory or defeat. Another omen might be drawn from the direction in which the liquid spurted when the gall-bladder burst after being inflated by the heat. The scholiast evidently preserves an old tradition, but there is nothing that suggests that such omens from burnt offerings were the sphagia of classical battles.

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85

the middle voice of c¢ayidtw is almost always used to accompany the

term oddyia (pp. 18off.).149 G. Blecher (RVV 2 [1905] 174 n. 4) concludes, “Quo autem modo per odtyia facta sit divinatio, expressis ver-

bis a veteribus non explicatur.”

The scholiast to Euripides Phoin. 174, as a gloss on the word c¢ay.a,

Says,

at ploes Trav aluarav mpocdirels elowy éml ris yijs.150 Furthermore,

it

is quite clear that divination by the flow of the blood was common in antiquity: see Seneca, Oed. 345~3%0; Lucan, Bel. C. 1.615; Pliny, Paneg. Trat. 5; Strabo 7-2.3.294 (é d€ Tod mpoxeouévov atuaros els Tov KpaTynpa wav-

Telav Twa érovotyto); Diodoros 5-31.3 (& THs ToD alwaros pucéws Td UéAXOV voovor). The cognate form cdayetov is defined by Hesychios as a place in which the blood of the sacrificial victim is caught: ogayetov' mpdoBaror, Oipa, 7 & @ 76 Trev lepelwy bmodéxeTar aiua, Toros. In Xenophon Anab. 4.3.18, we read xal of wév wdvres éopayrdtovto els rov motapov, where the

translation “the manteis were offering sacrifices to the river” (cf. Loeb)

does not accord with Xenophon’s usual practice of using the dative with opayiavouar (cf. 4.2.20; 4.5.4, etc.). Again, in Herodotos 7.133 (és rov ot Mayor éxaddepéovto opdfovres trrous Nevkods),the és Tov goes with oddfortes, slaughtering so that the blood flowed into the river.1®! In the difficult lines of Euripides’ Phoin. 173-174 (6 partis “Audtapaos, &

déorow’, bbe / ohayia 5’ &y’ ait&, vhs didalwaror foal) the meaning seems to be “the victims, outpourings for earth of welcome blood.” A. C. Pearson in his commentary writes, “The genitive vfs implies that

the ceremony of purification, in which the central point of the ritual is the pouring of the blood on the earth, operates as an appropriation of the victim to the chthonic deities,” comparing El. 514. The intention is to avoid evil by offering to infernal divinities the blood of a victim in place of that of the prospective combatants. This motive, Pearson suggests, appears in two passages of Plutarch: in Them. 13.2 the mantis is said to have urged Themistokles before Salamis to sac-

rifice three Persian prisoners apyorf Avoviow; and in Pelop. 21, where before the battle of Leuktra Pelopidas was warned to sacrifice a fair

maiden and among the arguments of those who disagreed with this instruction it was urged daipovas xaipovras avOparwv aiware kal dovw muaTeve pev tows eat aBEATEPOV, 6vTwY 5é TOLOUTwY apEANTEOY WS advVaTwY. ‘TO

149. Cf. J. Harrison,

Prolegomena

to the Study of Greek

Religion’

(Cambridge

1922) 6g: “In the case of the oddaya the active is very rarely in use, and naturally, for the sacrifice of o@ayia has in it no element of thanksgiving.” 150. Cf. Euripides El. 514. 151. Macan interprets the sentence to mean that the horses were thrown alive into the river.

86

The Military Mantike

these two passages may be added the lines from Hesiod’s Theogony (431-433) in which the dread underworld goddess Hekate appears as a vuxndopos: 152 nO’ Omor’ és TOAEUOY POLonvopa OwpnocwvTat avépes, €v0a fed Taparyiverat ois x’ CéAnot viknv mpoppovews omacar Kal KDdos dpéeae.

In 6.69.2, ‘Thucydides says, érera 5¢ uavres te ohdyia mpobtpepov Ta vourfopeva Kal cadmvyKtal Ebvodov émwrpuvoy Tots omAirats, of 6’ éxwpouwv. The

term mpovdepov suggests that the victims were brought forward to the Meraixuwov to be immolated.'*8 Jane Harrison (Prolegomena to the S tudy

of Greek Religion’ [Cambridge 1922] 65) has an interesting passage: “The normal and most frequent use of oddy.a was, as in the case of évayiouol in general,

for purification

by placation.

In stress of great

emergency, of pestilence, of famine, and throughout historical times at the moment

before a battle,

cdayia were

regularly offered.

They

seem to have been carried round or through the person or object purified.” This is illustrated in Polybios 4.21.9 in the instance of a general purification: oddyia repujveyKay rijs Te TOAEwS KUKAW Kal THS xopas Téons.°4 So in the purification preliminary to a meeting of the ekklesia at Athens, the blood of a pig was sprinkled: éredapy 76 xabdpovov reprevex7, Ais-

chines 1 Against Timarchos 23. Aristophanes parodies this by substitut-

ing a weasel Eccl. 128, 6 TeptaTiapxos,

Tepipepew xpn Thy yadhv. Analogy

suggests that the sphagia might be carried across the battlefield; indeed

the scholiast to Thucydides 6.69.2 remarks, éurpoobev ris orparias éoghayLafovro. It might appear from Euripides Herakl. 822 that the cddyov was a surrogate—an animal in substitution for the human victim of earlier times. The omen taken from the first victim of the opayra might not be

favorable. This inference may be drawn from Xenophon Anab 6.5.8, where the author goes out of his way to comment that the omens from the first victim proved favorable (6 "Apnélwy 6 pavtis Tov ‘EAAHvwr odayidGeral, Kal eyévero éml Tod mpwrov Kaha Ta oPayta). At the time of this sacrifice, the two armies were stationary, separated by a distance of fifteen stades (about two miles). 152. Cf. S. Eitrem, “Mantis und o¢éya,” Sym. ation with ghosts and with magic rites is frequently De Natura Deorum 3.46. According to Sophron in is ‘chthonic and president of the beings below.” 153. Cf. Euripides Herakl. 672-3: #8n yap ws

Osl. 18 (1938) 27. Hekate’s associattested: see A. S. Pease ap. Cicero scholia to Theocritos 2.12, Hekate és Epyov Stora

orparés; / Kat 5}

TapHKkrar opPayra Takewy Exds.

154. Cf. Athenaios 14.626F: xadapudv ris rédews Ths X@pas araon.

éxovhoavro opayia meprayorres KbKAw

The Military Mantike

87

In chapter 8 of War, Part II, I stressed the ritualistic nature of the

Greek battle, emphasizing the lack of an element of surprise when Opposing armies were encamped on the same plain near each other. The sphagia were not performed until the phalanxes were in position. Casabona has proved from his study of odéy.a and cognate words that only a blood-sacrifice was involved. The sacrifice was not a burnt offering, nor was the sacred animal carved for a meal. The victim was not even necessarily skinned. It is clear from the passages cited above from Strabo and Diodoros that omens

were

taken from blood; but we learn no details. Blecher

(RVV 2 [1906] 175) cites one parallel from the Himalayas, “They [the priests] officiate at marriage, when a cock is put into the bridegroom’s hands, and a hen into those of the bride, the Phedangbo [priest] then cuts off the birds’ heads, when the blood is caught on a plantain leaf and runs into pools from which omens are drawn.” The Ravennas scholiast to Aristophanes Lys. 203- says that these lines are a parody of the @vocxéor. Lysistrata, as the attendant pours from the wine-jar, prays to Persuasion that the sphagia be favorable, whereupon Kalonike responds, ebxpwy ye Oatua xamorutite

Kadas

(“The color is good and it

gushes out propitiously’”’). Omens were presumably taken from the color of the blood and the manner of coagulation. The Greek phalanx battle began with the ritual of the sphagia after the two opposing armies were in position, followed as they advanced

by the singing of the battle paian, that is, a “hymn to avert evils,” 155

and it ended with the ritual of the erection of the battlefield trophy.

The last was the vixnripia, a thank-offering to a god, set up at the point

where the flight began. So overwhelming was the religious compulsion, coupled possibly with some feeling of prestige, that in 412/1 B.c., after

a naval battle off Syme, the entire Lakedaimonian fleet rowed more than eighty kilometers in wintry seas to carry out the ceremony of the erection of a trophy commemorating their victory over the Athenians.1°6 As to the battle sphagia, a propitiatory offering to infernal 155. This interpretation of the battle paian is given not infrequently in Greek scholia.

See Pritchett,

War

1.106, where

the reference

for the phrase éml rots devots

édeEnrhprov should be corrected to read Athenaios 15.701D. To the bibliography, add H. Sjévall, Zeus im aligriechischen Haushult (Lund 1931) go. 156. ‘Thucydides 8.42.5. Cf. Pritchett, War 2.273. To the bibliography there cited on the subject of the trophy, add now: H. Beister, “Ein thebanisches Tropaion bereits

vor Beginn der Schlacht bei Leuktra,” Chiron 3 (1973) 63-84. In my discussion of the inviolability of the trophy (pp. 258-259), the interesting parallel of the Rhodian law against sacrilege, protecting material honor, might have been cited. Thus it was a sacrilege to erase a word on an inscribed stele, to steal a spear or a shield or a horse’s

88

The Military Mantike

deities, the sacrifice seems to have been limited to the pitched battle, termed rapdragis or é« mapackevijis uaxn. There was no time for sacrifices on the Athenian side in the battle of Amphipolis; and Thucy-

dides expressly states that it was not a mapdaraéts (5.11.2).157 In the battle near the Olympieion at Syrakuse in 415 B.c., the light-armed troops on both sides engaged, without preliminary sacrifices, in skirmishes in which the advantage went now to one side, now to the other. It was only after the skirmishing that the manteis on both sides performed the customary sphagia (lit. “brought forth the victims”) and the trumpets sounded for both phalanxes to charge® (Thucydides 6.69.2: émeTa 6€ wavres TE OMAYLA TpovdEepoy TA vouLfoueva Kal GadmlyKTal Evodoy érwtpuvoy Tols émNirats, of 6’ éxwpoy).©® The sphagia are to be associ-

ated with those drawn battles studied in War, Part II, chap. 7 (“The Challenge to Battle’) which were more or less prearranged, or to use Polybios’ phrase, waxat é& duoddyov. bit from a statue; for such sacrilege a man was liable to torture or to death. Portrait

statues were protected if the formula “‘to the gods” was added to the inscription on the base. See Dio Chrysostom 31.81-86. 157. Brasidas was seen sacrificing within the city-walls at the temple of Athena, but this sacrifice is designated by the verb Obouar: Thucydides 5.10.2. 158. As was noted in War 2.153 n. 26, the scholia to Euripides Phoin. 13747 state that the trumpet was unknown until after the Trojan War, and that in earlier times the signal for the fight was given by casting a lighted torch into the space separating the combatants. See F. Schwenn, ARW 21 (1922) 58. This testimony is in part confirmed by the fact that the trumpet is only mentioned by Homer in similes (R. C. Jebb on Sophokles Ajax 17). J. G. Frazer (Golden Bough 123 [London 1915] 498), in the index under the entry of “torches,” refers to numerous examples of lighted torches used in early societies for the expulsion of demons and evil spirits. The rite was one of purification and exorcism. F, M. Cornford (Thucydides Mythistoricus [London 1907] 196) illustrates an Apulian crater of the fourth century, more recently studied by C. Anti, Archeologia Classica 4 (1952) 23-45, on which Apate is depicted, he believes, as “in the act of throwing a burning torch between the combatants.” Cf.

Lykophron Alex. 1295: €xOpas 5& xupadv fipav jmrelpors Surdats.

L. R. Farnell

(Cults of

the Greek States 5 [Oxford 1909] 404) associates the rite with war-magic, “the con-

secration of the enemy to the nether world.” 159. Marchant notes (71.1) that Thucydides describes this battle in detail, including elements common to all Greek battles. As to the long delay of five days before the battle of Olpai in 426 B.c., recounted by Thucydides (3.107-108), G. Grote in his History, chap. 50, has the following comment, “If Herodotus had been our historian, he would probably have ascribed the delay to unfavorable sacrifices (which may probably have been the case), and would have given us interesting anecdotes respecting the prophets on both sides; but the more positive and practical genius of Thucydides merely acquaints us that on the sixth day both armies put themselves in order of battle.”

The Military Mantike

89

Since in a Greek battle the two armies did not normally advance

without favorable omens

on both sides,1®° as, for example, we are ex-

pressly told occurred in Diodoros 15.8%.1,6! the question arises as to the reaction of the defeated army vis-a-vis their mantis.162 The Athenian epigram after the defeat of Tolmides at Koroneia in 447 B.C. suggests an answer.'*? An unnamed demigod had given the Athenians an oracle which was interpreted as favorable; but it turned out to mean exactly the opposite and to involve their defeat. The demigod had

spoken of a ‘“‘prey hard for enemies to subdue” (Stopaxov dypav éxOpols).

The Athenians interpreted this to mean that they would be a hard prey for the Boiotians; but the results showed that the Boiotians were

dtopaxo. for the Athenians. The oracle left obscure who the hunters would be. In the second line of the epigram, the ascription of the de-

feat is made to a divine power:

Yuxads datpoviws aéoar’ eu moreuw

(“By

divine power, you lost your lives in war’”).!6¢ As Gomme notes,!6 neither the strategos Tolmides nor the mantis (or, more properly, the xXpnouoroyos) was repudiated for his failure. The god performed what was unexpected (déAmrus, line 1). Indeed, the epigram concludes, “For

all men for ever he made the accomplishment of oracles trustworthy and to be reckoned on” (Bowra). There is no mention of a failure in exegesis. C. M. Bowra cites the parallel of Euripides’ couplet on the

Athenians who died at Syrakuse (Plutarch Nik. 17):16 olde Zupaxoctous OKTW vixas éxparynoav oe

¢

2

\

,

2

t

avdpes, 67’ Hv Ta Oedp EE toov audorépors.

160. There is one example of a general, in this case a Roman one, who learned that the manteis had forbidden the opposing army to fight and took advantage of this fact to win a complete victory. Caesar, when engaging the Germans, discovered that they were ordered not to advance before the new moon, and availed himself of an advantageous time for engaging: Polyainos 8.23.4. Cf. Caesar BG Strat. 2.1.16; Plutarch Caesar 19. 161. of wer wdvres

mpopawopuerny.

chayracdpevor

Similarly,

Tap’ dudorépos

at Arginousai,

the iega

dredalvovro

on

both

1.50; Frontinus

rhv vikny brs TOY Oey

sides

indicated

victory:

Diodoros 13.97.7-98.1. 162, Pausanias (2.21.3) records an Argive story that the Kretan mantis Epimenides was put to death by the Lakedaimonians because he did not prophesy good luck to them

163. 21.123. 164. 165. 166.

(é:é71 odiow oix atova euavrebero); but compare

3.11.11

and 3.12.11.

W. Peek, Griechische Vers-Inschriften 1 (Berlin 1955) no. 17; SEG 10.410, For the attribution of the epigram to Koroneia see Bradeen, CQ 63 (1969) 145. I have changed the text from Attic spelling to Ionic. HCT 1 p. 339. CQ 32 (1938) 86.

90 The

The Military Mantike implication

is that when

the gods turned

against Athens,

she

lost.187 The peripety in the Koroneia epigram involves not the deceit of the god, but Greek popular belief that miraculous divine intervention comes dé\rrws,16 a major difference in emphasis.1% 167. See the section on ““The Gods as Cause” in Homer in A. and Responsibility (Oxford 1965) 11. The gods influenced the cause of defeat, but their dicta never constituted a justification part of mortals. 168. See A. Cameron, HTR 33 (1940) 120-121. 169. C. M. Bowra in the CQ article cites many examples of

W. H. Adkins, Merit battle and were the

for cowardice on the

the admission of defeat coupled with its ascription to the act of a divine power. Cf. also lines 9-10 of

the Chaironeia epigram and the discussion of H. Wankel, ZPE 21 (1976) 111-115.

CHAPTER

MISCELLANEOUS

IV

PORTENTS

AT THE OPENING of the Memorabilia (1.3.3), Xenophon speaks of Sok-

rates as a believer in the mantic art which, he says, uses oiwvol, djuat, cipBoro and évcia.1 In the preceding chapter, the focus was on sac-

rifices. The military manteis, however, also interpreted portents of various sorts. These have been studied for the Roman side in the Leipzig dissertation of L. Wiilker (Die geschichiliche Entwicklung des

Prodigienswesens bei den Rémern [1903]), who devotes many pages to listing hundreds of references to prodigies,” ranging from earthquakes to misbirths, and in the Pennsylvania dissertation of F. B. Krauss (An Interpretation of the Omens, Portents, and Prodigies Recorded by Livy, Tacitus, and Suetonius [Philadelphia 1930]). For the importance of prodigies at Rome, see L. P. Wilkinson, The Roman Experience (New York 1974) 19-22. For the Greeks, the work of K. Steinhauser (Der

Prodigienglaube und das Prodigienwesen der Griechen [Tiibingen diss. 1911]) 1s more selective. The first chapter of H. Popp’s Die Einwirkung von Vorzeichen, Opfern und Festen auf die Kriegfiihrung der Griechen im 5. und 4. Jahrhundert v. Chr. (Erlangen diss. 1957) is very comprehensive for the three subjects treated—eclipses, earthquakes and augury. The purpose of this chapter is to continue the study of the role of the manteis in warfare by presenting various types of omens. The collection has been extended to include incidents of any particular omen, regardless of whether the mantis is mentioned as making the interpretation. In almost every group at least one mantis is specifically referred to as offering the exegesis, and it may be inferred that they were active on other occasions. 1. The

Aischylean

Prometheus

(484ff.)

distinguishes

rpérovs roddobs partiKfs :

dreams, kAndévas re SvcKpitous .. . évodlous re cvuddovs, flights of birds, etc. Aristophanes (Av. 719-721) in referring to the mantic art, lists gpvis, hun, mrappos, EbpBoros, pwvh,

Geparwy, dvos. 2. A distinction is ofien made between prodigies termed onpeta and those called répara, The onueta are taken to be prodigies of a meteorological nature (ra é peredpos ovvorépeva), the répara those which appear on the ground (ra éml rijs ys rapa dbow

gawoueva); cf. R. Bloch, Les prodiges dans l’antiquité classique (Paris 1963) 15. However, Herodotos (7.57) calls répara the animal misbirths of a hare by a mare and an hermaphrodite by a mule, whereas a monstrous lamb born to a sheep is termed onuetov by Plutarch (Alex. 57.4), just as in English the words omen and portent are often used synonymously. In Theophrastos HP 2.3.1-2, onueta and répara refer to the

same portents of spontaneous changes in the character of trees. In this collection, accordingly, no distinction has been made.

[91]

Miscellaneous Portents

92

The military portents are presented under the following headings: 1. Dreams 6. Teratology 2. Augury 4, Sneezes 3. Eclipses 8. Inanimate Nature 4. Earthquakes g. Divination by Images 5. Other Meteorological Phenomena A. Lightning and Thunder B. Meteorites C. Snowstorms D. Wind E. Tidal Waves

10. Cledonomancy and @nun 11. Omens from Names 12. Miscellaneous

1. DREAMS

Pausanias (1.34.4), in stating that the mantis is master of an expository and formal, not an oracular or inspirational, art, adds that the manteis

were good at explaining dreams as well as interpreting the flights of birds and entrails of victims

(a&ya6ol 6¢ évelpata éényjnoacbat Kal drayvaevar

extwots dpvidwr Kal omrdayxva tepetwr).

My purpose in this section is to collect examples of dreams which were reported in military contexts, particularly if they were interpreted

by manteis.

The subject of the divination of dreams has been treated by A. Bouché-Leclercq, Histoire de la divination dans lantiquité 1 (1879) 2'74-329.° For examples of dreams, a basic study is that of B. Biichsenschiitz, Traum

und Traumdeutung

im Alterthume

(Berlin 1868). The

Greek attitude to the dream experience has been studied by E. R. Dodds in The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley 1951) 102-134. Dodds continued his study of oneirology in his 1971 article on “Supernatural Phenomena

in Classical Antiquity,” republished in The An-

cient Concept of Progress (Oxford 1973) 156—-210.* It is sufficient here 3. According to Cicero De Div. 1.43.96, “the Spartan rulers (i.e. the ephors), not content with their deliberations when awake, used to sleep in a shrine of Pasiphae” in Thalamai in order to dream there. Cf. Plutarch Kleomenes 7 and Pausanias 3.26.1. This procedure of incubation, which differed from ordinary dream divination (see A. S. Pease on the Cicero passage), is not mentioned in U. Kahrstedt, Sparta und seine Symmachie (Gottingen 1922), but is referred to by 8. Wide, Lakonische Kulie (Leipzig 1893) 246-250; G. Gilbert, The Constitutional Antiquities of Sparta and Athens (Engl. tr. London 1895) 59; and Fauth, Der Kleine Pauly 4 (1972) 541. For a list of numerous dream-oracles in antiquity, see E. Rohde, Psyche8 (Engl. tr. New York 1925) 133. 4. G. Devereux (Dreams in Greek Tragedy [Berkeley 1976]), a professor of ethnopsychiatry, with acknowledgements to many eminent classicists, has recently pub-

ae

Miscellaneous Portents

93

to point out that the exegesis of the dream usual ly required the services of a trained interpreter. The earliest known Greek dream-book, that of Antiphon, dates from the fifth or fourth centu ry B.c.° F. Jacoby says

that it is “not improbable” that Philochoro s in his Hept pavrixfs discussed dreams.* Elsewhere he writes, “Books about dreams and interpretations of dreams are remarkably numerous as early as the fourth

century B.c.: physicians, philosophers, and diviners write from very different points of view Tlep! évpurviwy (Arist otle, Straton), Iepi rijs xa’ Urvov pavrixhs (Aristotle), Iept dveipwv.””7 We still have the Ontrocritica

in five books of Artemidoros (second century a.p.).8 For later writers, see Latte, Gnomon 5 (1925) 474; and Kenner RE s.v. Oneiros (1939)

448-459.° As Dodds notes, the “science” of the oneirocrits rested largely

lished what he terms an “ethno-psychoanalytical study” of dreams in Greek tragedy in which he tests the psychological plausibility of such dreams from a modern clinical standpoint. This book is ably reviewed by B. Knox (“Clyte mnestra on the Couch”) in the Times Literary Supplement of December 10, 1976. See also the Tiibingen dissertation (1969) of R. Lennig, Traum und Sinnestiuschung bei Aischylos, Sophokles, Euripides. Two articles devoted to Greek dreams were publish ed by A. Brelich (293301) and C. A. Meier (303-319) in The Dream and Human Societies, ed. by G. E. von Grunebaum (Los Angeles 1966). 5. Diog. Laert. 2.46. Generally overlooked

is a possible work

on dreams

which

would be earlier than Antiphon. In Anab. 7.8.1, Xenophon says that he was met at Lampsakos by the mantis Eukleides son of Kleagoras: K\eayépo v vids rod ra évolxia ep

Avxelw yeypadéros. For the reading évoixva of the better manuscripts, a reading which

is impossible, the deteriores have évtra. Wilamowitz’s defense of the latter reading

(see Kleine Schriften 4 [Berlin 1962] 202: from a 1919 Hermes article [pp. 65-66]) is

supported by Hopfner (RE s.v. Traumdeutung [1937] 2237), and is adopted in the Budé edition of Masqueray and in the 1972 Teubner edition of Hude-Peters. Wilamo-

witz believes that Kleagoras was an évepoxpirns who in the Lykeion had written “The Dreams,” a rivaé such as the mvéxcoy dvetpoxpitixéy Mentione d in Plutarch Arist. 27.

Professional inheritance was common in mantic families. Krtiger and Kiihner, on the other hand, believe that the title of Kleagoras’ work was ’Evirva é Avxelw. Some editors (including that of the Oxford text) adopt Borneman n’s emendation of evroixva (“wall-paintings”). 6. FGrHist gb Suppl. 1.550. 7. Ibid. 261. 8. Recently translated into English by R. J. White (Park Ridge, New Jersey 1975).

See also the translations

in N. Lewis,

The

Interpretation

of Dreams

and

Portents

(Toronto 1976). A delightful appraisal of Artemidoros has been published by R. Pack, ““Artemidorus and his Waking World,” TAPA 86 (1955) 280-290. H. Bender contributes an essay on “Prognose und Symbol bei Artemidor im Lichte der modernen Traumpsychologie” in M. Kaiser, Artemidor von Daldis (Basel 1965) 355-369. g. See also Zintzen, Der Kleine Pauly s. v. Traumdeutung (1975) 931: “Die ant. Traumlehre fasste den Traum nicht nur wie die Psychoan alyse als einen Vorgang psych. Zusammenhiange auf, sondern sah darin auch Zeichen kosmischer Vorginge, die als beeinflussende Faktoren der ganzen Lebensumstande verstanden wurden.”

Miscellaneous Portents

94

on a gradual accumulation of alleged cases which were copied from one textbook into the next. This empirical case law was supplemented by some genuine understanding of the nature of dream symbolism. Such books necessarily depend on the assumption (which Freud was to share) that dream symbols have in general a standard meaning common to members of a given society. The oneirocrits qualified this assumption by allowing symbols to have different meanings for members of different professions or persons in different situations. For a dream of being struck by lightning, Artemidoros admits fifteen different interpretations.1° Most of the dreams in Greek historical sources were of the “message” type and did not fall into the domain of the mantis. The god by means of a message-dream conveyed his purpose, invariably to the hegemon of the army.!! The curious dream incident narrated by Herodotos (7.1217) may be adduced here.” Xerxes was told in a dream which recurred on successive nights to invade Greece and thus—this was the plan of the deity—bring about his own defeat.1* In Herodotos’ story, the Greek concept of “objectivity” of the dream has led to the extreme of having the dream-figure appear even to the king’s councillor, Artabanos, whom

he had sleep on the royal throne

in order

to test the

genuineness of the dream.’4 Aischylos has Prometheus speak the following words (442ff.): “Many ways, too, of divination I arranged for men: first I taught them what sort of dreams were destined to prove realities . . .’ In other words, the faculty of recognizing dreams as “meaningful,” as containing divine messages, was as important as that of interpreting the contents. By implication, we are dealing with a

culture that was highly conscious of the contents of dreams. Furthermore, in the army only the dream experience of the hegemon was important. Artemidoros (Onirocritica 1.2) writes, ““These men [kings, magistrates,

nobles] have reflected about public affairs and

are

able

to receive a vision about them, not as private citizens to whom only small matters have been entrusted, but as masters and as men who are concerned with certain affairs for the sake of the common good . . It 10. 2.9. In Plutarch’s Quaestiones Convivales 8 (Mor. 734C-736B), lengthy discussion on “Why we trust our dreams least in winter.”

there

is a

11. In contrast to the liad (but not the Odyssey), Greek tragedies mention women

nearly exclusively as receivers of dream-messages: W.S. Messer, The Dream in Homer and Greek Tragedy (New York 1918) 98. 12. Herodotos (7.12) says that his source was the Persians (as Aéyerar bd Iepoéwy). 13. Other message dreams in Herodotos are recounted in 2.139; 2.141; 3.149; and possibly 6.118. 14. Also quoted by A. L. Oppenheim, Trans. Amer, Philos. Society 46 (1956) 208.

Miscellaneous Portents

95

is impossible for an unimportant man to receive a vision of great affairs beyond his capacity,” etc. Macrobius (Comm. in Somn. Scip. 1.3. 14) reports the contention of dream inter preters, “Dreams concerning the welfare of the state are not to be considered significant unless military or civil officers dream them, or unless many plebeians have the same dream.” In other words, only the dream of the hegemon was important in the army. By contrast to the message-dream was the “symb ol” dream, which was enigmatic, often requiring the services of mante is and capable of various interpretations.!5 Thus Plutarch (Alex. 2) relate s that the mantis Aristandros was reported to have interpreted a dream of Philip of Makedon that he was putting a seal with the figure of a lion upon his wife’s womb. The other manteis advised Philip to put a closer watch upon his marriage relations. Aristandros concluded that Olymp ias was pregnant— since no seal is put upon what is empty—with a son, whose nature would be lion-like. The message-dream in Herod otos, referred to in the preceding paragraph, required no mantis to inter pret it. On the

other hand, after Xerxes

resolved

on the expedition,

he received

an-

other vision in his sleep (7-19): he was crowned with an olive bough, the shoots of which spread over the whole earth while his crown vanished from his head. This symbol-dream required the exegesis of his manteis (= Méyou ) to the effect that all men should be his slaves.16 Some symbol-dreams were common and could be inter preted by the dreamer. The Oidipal dream in Herodotos 6.107, where Hippias dreamed that he had intercourse with his mother and inter preted this to mean that he would return to Athens,!7 is found throughout classical literature. Oidipal dreams are the subject of a section of the Onirocritica of Artemidoros (1.79). On the night before Caesar cross ed the Rubicon, he had such a dream.18 Jocasta tells Oidipous in Sopho kles OT 981-982 that in dreams many men have had intercours with e their mothers.!9 15. It has been observed that in the Old Testament,

perienced

by the “gentiles”:

to his own

and not in “dark speeches” (Numbers

“symbolic” dreams are ex-

people the Lord speaks in message-dreams

12.8). See, for example, Oppenheim

in G. E.

von Grunebaum, The Dream and Human Societies (Los Angeles 1966) 349. 16. Other dreams in Herodotos which required the exegesis of Magoi or oneiro-

poloi (the two words are used synonymously in 1.107-8) occur in 1.107; 1.108; and

5-56.

17. The omen of the sneeze later made Hippias revise the interpret ation. 18. Plutarch Caesar 32.6.

19. Cf. Pausanias 4.26.3; E. R. Dodds, 1951) 47, 61-62.

The Greek and the Irrational (Berkeley

Miscellaneous Portents

96

Two of the Greek historians, Thucydides and Polybios, banish dreams from their works. Polybios (33.21.2) writes, “So I shall be told I entirely waste my time in speaking of this matter, unless indeed I wish to record dreams and take into serious consideration the visions of a man with his eyes open” (Loeb tr.) (el uh rus Kal ypddew evbrvia Bovderar Kal Oewpetv éypnyoporos évimva). By contrast, there are forty-five dreams

related in some detail in Plutarch’s Lives. The commonest type is the symbolic.2° In his De Defectu Oraculorum 431-433, Plutarch’s brother Lamprias, the major spokesman in the dialogue, discusses at some length his belief that dreaming is the highest form of divination.21 A separate monograph has recently been published on the dreams in Herodotos: P. Frisch, “Die Traume bei Herodot,” Bevirdge zur klassis-

chen Philologie 27 (1968). Frisch groups the seventeen dreams under

five categories of dreams of fate, death, warning, reassurance and birth.

Frisch’s bibliography may be supplemented by that of F. E. Brenk, Latomus 34 (1975) 336 n. 1.

Before 480 B.c. Sousa. Herodotos 7.12-19. These dreams of Xerxes and Artabanos, while not strictly military, are mentioned here because they resulted in Xerxes’ determination to make war.22 A tall and stately man (uéyas kal everd4s*°) stood over Xerxes and peremptorily commanded him to persist in the expedition against Greece. In spite of the dream, Xerxes was still unpersuaded. On following night, the same figure reappeared to him, repeating

previous command

in language of terrific menace.

the the

Xerxes then rea-

soned that if it was the will of the god that the expedition be executed,

the vision would appear again; the third night he substituted his uncle

20. See F. E. Brenk, ““The Dreams of Plutarch’s Lives,” Latomus 34 (1975) 336-349The author believes (p. 346) that Plutarch manipulated dreams for biographical

purposes. 21. Plutarch writes that Sulla in the dedication of his memoirs to Lucullus told him that nothing could be so much relied upon as what was revealed in dreams: Luc. 23.6; Sulla 6.6. Plutarch’s death was forecast by a dream in which Hermes was escorting him to heaven:

Artemidoros

4.72, and compare

Ziegler, RE s. v. Plutarchos

2 (1951) 641 lines 37-44.

22. These dreams are studied in H. Klees, “Die Eigenart des griechischen Glaubens an Orakel und Seher,” Tiibingen Beitriige zur Altertumswissenschaft 43 (1964) 56-58. He concludes that the coloring is Persian, not Greek, and believes that Herodotos is

reporting objectively. 23. The formula is also found in J. B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts (Princeton 1950) 82; A. Schott, Des Gilgamesch-epos (Stuttgart reprint 1963), 48. The woman

who came to Sokrates in a dream was kad7 kal eberdns: Plato Crito 44A.

Miscellaneous Portents

97

upon the royal throne. Artabanos expected to be able to prove that the dream deserved no credence. As soon as he fell asleep, the very same

figure showed

itself to. him

repeating

the mandate,

and

assuming

a threatening attitude. Artabanos was led to alter his advice and to accept the predetermined will of the gods. It is thus that Herodotos represents the final decision about the great exped ition of Xerxes. Stein dismisses these dreams as “Homeric.” Macan (ap. 7.12) says,

“Hdt.’s formula

[cs Aeyerar bad Hepoéwv] may be no more than a liter-

ary device, and the dream his own inven tion;” and again (ap. 7.18), “Dreams, apparitions, and the supernatur al are a part of Hdt.’s stock

in trade.” If the phrase s Neyerar bard Mepotwy is a literary device, much the same could be said of all Herodotos’ storie s derived from oral

sources. Dreams and seers were part of the Persian way of life, as well

as the Greek. Such religious motivation is not to be regarded as a literary device of Herodotos’, but as common to Herod otos with his con-

temporaries, Persians as well as Greeks, thoug h in formulation stimu-

lated among the Greeks by their epic poetry (compare this dream with that of Agamemnon in Homer JI. 2.6). The story of the dream had its

rise, as Herodotos tells us, in Persian sources; it is a consolation for their national vanity, but it is colored by the Greek historian.24 G. Germain, “‘Le songe de Xerxés et le rite Babylonien du substitut royal,”

REG banos ritual. them.

69 (1956) 303-313, shows that the rite of substitution with Artadressed in royal costume follows not Greek, but Babylonian Herodotos was faithful to his sources without understand ing P. Frisch concludes his monograph on the dreams of Herod otos

with the statement (p. 71), “Man kommt nicht umhin, in den Traumen

Originalberichte von Herodots Informanten zu sehen.” Cf. his page 15.25 Herodotos clearly believed that world events were determined by a Persian monarch’s dream, and that he had a trustworthy account of

what the dream had been. The modern historian may look farther for the real motive of the invasion, which had been a proclaimed project on the mind of Dareios before his death;26 but Herodotos surrounded 24. Herodotos has Kyros say, “I am a man for whom show me beforehand all that is coming”

the gods take thought, and

(éued Oeol khdovrar Kat Mou Tavra mpodeckvbovet

Ta émipepsueva 1.209), words which were in keeping with the character of Kyros as Herodotos believed it to be (cf. A.W. Gomme HCT 1,144-145).

25. E. Meyer (Forschungen zur alten Geschichte 2 [Halle 1899] 213-232) recognizes a documentary original in the account of the Persian expedition under Xerxes extending from the massing of the army to its arrival in Therme, but believes that Herodotos made additions from his own knowledge. 26. Xerxes mustered his army to go against Egypt: Herodotos 7.5.

Miscellaneous Portents

98

himself with religious conceptions. The informants from whom he collected his facts were imbued with sentiments similar to his own.”7 There can be no doubt that priests, the ministers of temples and oracles, the interpreting guides around holy places, were his chief sources.28 The religious interpretation of historical phenomena is not peculiar to Herodotos,

but belongs to him in common

with his

informants and his age generally. The incubation-dream of Sethos in 2.141, apparently related to Herodotos in the temple of Hephaistos, has been compared to Second Kings 19. J. H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt 3 (Chicago 1906) cites no. 582 of the nineteenth dynasty. A. L. Oppenheim, Trans. Amer. Philos. Society 46.3 (1956) 188, quotes this dream together with several similar incidents. Marked parallels for the Herodotean dreams from Near Eastern and Egyptian sources may be found in chap. 6, pages 47-60, of P. Frisch’s monograph.

400 B.c. Kentrites River. Xenophon Anab. 4.3.8. While the Greeks were encamped on the left bank of the river with Tiribazos on the opposite bank opposing their passage and the Kardouchians assembling on the hills in the rear, Xenophon in the night had a dream—the first which he has told us since his inconclusive one 27. For the relation between Greek historiography and Persia, see A. Momigliano, Alien Wisdom (Cambridge 1973) 123-150.. K. Reinhardt’s claim (‘“Herodots Persergeschichten,”

Vermichtnis

der Antike2

[Géttingen

1966]

133-174)

that

Herodotos

in his capacity as a poetic historian picked up legendary tales and altered them to carry Greek moral values overlooks the fact that many similar examples of oneiromancy and other forms of divination were recorded by the Persians. See the article of L. H. Gray on Persian divination in J. Hastings’ Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics 5 (New York 1912) 819-820. Diogenes Laert. (Proem. 6) says that the Magi practised the mantic art and prophecy. See also E. Benveniste, The Persian Religion (Paris 1929) 22-49. 28. Momigliano (History 43 [1958] 2) writes, “Curiously enough we are in a better position to judge him as an historian of the East than as historian of the Persian Wars. In the last century Orientalists have scrutinized Herodotus with the help of archaeology and with the knowledge of languages that he could not understand. They have ascertained that he described truthfully what he saw and reported honestly what he heard.” In addition to the temples in Egypt and that of Herakles at Tyre and the Kabeiron in Samothrake (2.51), as well as Greek shrines at Delphi (1.20, etc.), Dodona (2.52), Thebes (5.59), Tegea (1.66), Paros (6.134), and Achaia Phthiotis (7.197), Herodotos visited the temple of Zeus Belos (otherwise Bel-Marduk) at Babylon (1.181). The treatise of Plutarch, ““The Oracle at Delphi,” Mor. 394D-409D, affords an instructive description of the multifarious narrative given by the guides at Delphi respecting eminent persons and events of Greek history. If we substitute Herodotos for Plutarch’s “foreign visitor,’ we may in imagination reconstruct an Herodotean tour.

Miscellaneous Portents

99

on the night after the seizure of the generals?®—but on this occasion of augury unequivocally good. He dreamed that he was bound in chains, but that the chains on a sudden dropped off spontaneously and he could take steps as long as he pleased (d:aBalvew éadcov éBovAero). He interpreted draGaivey asa good omen

for “crossing’’ the river,®° and told

Cheirisophos at daybreak that he had good hopes of preservation. When two young Greeks ran up with the auspicious news that they had accidentally found a ford a half mile up the river, Xenophon offered libations (4.3.13) to those gods who had revealed both the dream to himself and the unexpected ford to the youths.*! 371 B.c. Leuktra. Plutarch Pelop. 21-22, Mor. 774D; Pausanias 9.13.5— 6; Xenophon Hell. 6.4.7; Diodoros 15.54. Plutarch relates that the Theban Pelopidas in a dream saw Skedasos, father of two females who had earlier been ravished by two Lakedaimonians and buried at Leuktra, who directed him to offer on this tomb

a “blond virgin”

(apGévov tavOiv) to the deceased females. Pelopidas

and his friends were greatly perplexed about the fulfillment of this command. Many of them urged that it was necessary for some maiden to dedicate herself as a victim for the safety of the country; others denounced the idea as inadmissible. In the midst of the debate, a mare, with a chestnut filly, galloped up, and stopped not far off; upon which

the mantis Theokritos exclaimed, ‘““Here comes the victim required; let us not wait for any virgin, but use the one which the god offers.” The filly was caught and offered as a sacrifice on the tomb; everyone was in high spirits from the conviction that the mandate of the gods had been executed. This incident is studied in detail by Pfister in RE s.v. Skedasos (1927) 465-468. 345/4 B.c. Corinth. Plutarch Timoleon 8.1-2 and 5-8; Diodoros 16. 66.3-5. Before Timoleon sailed for Syrakuse with his small army of volun-

teers, the priestesses of Kore at Corinth learned from the goddess in a dream that she was about to sail with Timoleon for Sicily, her own favorite island. Accordingly, he caused a new trireme to be fitted out, sacred to the two goddesses who were about to accompany him. Later, 29. Anab. 3.1.11. 30. Cf. below n. 33. For linguistic dreams, see Artemidoros, Onirocritica 3.38 and 4.80. 31. In Symp. 4.33, Xenophon says that if you have a good dream, you sacrifice to the gods who avert disasters.

100

Miscellaneous Portents

after leaving Kerkyra, when the squadron struck across on a night voyage to the Italian coast, the trireme was seen illuminated by a blaze of light from heaven. ‘The manteis declared that Demeter and Kore were taking part in the expedition. Thus the voyage was rendered one of hopefulness to the army. R. J. A. Talbert has acutely observed that archaeological evidence from Heloros and Morgantina show that sanctuaries of Demeter and Kore reached their most developed form in the third quarter of the fourth century.*? 333 B.C. Before the Kilikian Gates. Curtius 3.3.2-3; Plutarch Alex. 18. Dareios dreamed that the Makedonian phalanx was one fire and that Alexander, attired in a robe which Dareios used to wear, waited upon

him and then passed into the temple of Belos. The seers interpreted this in a way to please Dareios. So writes Plutarch. In Curtius, Dareios’

vision differs slightly (Alexander is on horseback), and the seers give varying interpretations. Only the favorable omens were made public. Plutarch gives his own view (ds éouxey) of the omen in the light of the result of the campaign: the exploits of the Makedonians brilliant and Alexander would be master of Asia.

would

be

332 B.c. Tyre. Arrian 2.18.1. Alexander’s dream of Herakles. Alexander won over his men to an attack on Tyre by reciting an omen from a dream. Herakles stretched

out to him his right hand and conducted him into the city (roy 6é “Hpaxdéa defvodcbar re aitov kal dvdvyew és rhv rdw).

The

mantis

Aris-

tandros interpreted the dream to mean that Tyre would be taken, but with much toil; for toil was the mark of Herakles’ labors.

332 B.c. Tyre. Plutarch Alex. 24.8-9; Artemidoros Onirocritica 4.24. While Alexander was besieging Tyre, he dreamed that he saw a satyr who mocked him at a distance and eluded his grasp until, after much coaxing and chasing, he was captured by Alexander (so Plutarch).

Artemidoros gives a version in which the satyr dances on Alexander’s shield. Both sources agree that the manteis, by dividing the word “satyros” into “sa” and “tyros” (‘Tyre is yours”),® said to Alexander, “Tyre is to be thine” (ad yernoerar Tbpos).34 32. Timoleon and the Revival of Greek Sicily (Cambridge 1974) 152-153. 33. Another dream involving a play on words occurs in Plutarch Them. 30.2 (Leontokephalon). 34. R. J. White, The Interpretation of Dreams (Park Ridge, New Jersey 1975) 223-224, writes: ‘Freud

considered

this dream

the nicest example of a dream

inter-

Miscellaneous Portents

101

328 B.c. Maracanda. Plutarch Alex. 50.4—52.1. Alexander’s dream of Kleitos dressed in black robes, Two days before the banquet at which Kleitos was slain by Alexander, he saw a vision (dys) in his sleep: Kleitos sitting with the sons of Parmenion in black robes, all dead. Here the interpretation of the omen is after the event. The mantis Aristandros reassured the remorseful Alexander

that the dream meant that Kleitos’ death had long ago been decreed

by fate

(ds 6) rddac Kabeuapuevay TovTuv). 2, AUGURY

W. R. Halliday (Greek Divination [London 191 3] 248) notes that the bird-lore of the Etruscan seers may be compared in complexity with their science of extispication. The typical Homeric method of foretelling the future is by the motions and cries of omen-birds (oiwvot).3 The omen-bird is generally an eagle (see Ameis on II. 10.2 34).°6 Hesiod’s happy man, according to the closing lines of Works and Days (826828), is one who can divine by birds. In some manuscripts the title ’OpviOouavreia

follows these lines; but no fragments are preserved, and

according to the scholia of Proklos (p. 368 Gaisforth) this poem was athetized by Apollonios of Rhodes.37 pretation which had been handed

down from ancient times. Freud, citing Alfred

Robitsek, noted that oriental dream books based most of their interpretations of dream elements upon a similarity of sounds and a resemblance between words, and

that punning played an enormous role in the ancient civilizations of the East. More importantly, Freud also used this dream to illustrate Ferenczi’s contention that dreams are so closely bound to linguistic expression that every tongue has its own dream-language.” 35- Strictly speaking, gpy.s means a bird in general, and otwvés an omen-bird, or a bird of prey (E. Benveniste, Indo-European Language and Society [Coral Gables 1973] 216; but the distinction is often blurred, and oiwvds comes to mean an omen in general. In Latin avis and ales are similarly used. 36. Other important passages relating to augury in Homer are JI. 8.247; 10.274; 12.201; 12.239; 24.315, and Od. 2.146; 15.531; 20.242. The art of augury is little developed in Homer, Bird-signs encourage or discourage a resolution already taken, but they never determine or prevent any enterprise as they did in later times. The omens from birds come casually, and are not sought for as by a Roman. See W. Leaf ap. II. 12.239. J. Pollard, in his chapter “Omens and Augury” (Birds in Greek Life and Myth [London 1977] 122), says, ““Homer’s omens are dramatic and contrived.” On the eagle in augury, see D. W. Thompson, A Glossary of Greek Birds (London 1936) 4-8; and H. D. Broadhead’s note on Aischylos Persae 205-6. 37. According to Philochoros (FGrHist 328 frg. 214), a certain Boeo prophesied at Delphi, and Jacoby believes that she was the authoress of a work entitled ’Opryoparreta

See also J. U. Powell, Collectanea Alexandrina (Oxford 1925) 23-24. Hesiod’s authorship of lines 826-828 is now defended by M. L. West, Hesiod Works and Days (Oxford 1978) 364.

102

Miscellaneous Portents

The importance of divination in post-Homeric times is proved by the use of the word oiwvds for all sorts of signs, by the claim of Prometheus in Aischylos Prom. 488ff.,28 and by the often quoted passage in the parabasis of Aristophanes’ Aves 716ff.29 The omen of two eagles seizing a hare inspired Aischylos with a noble passage in the chorus of his Agamemnon (110-120) and got the expedition underway (see the Commentary of E. Fraenkel). It also supplied the design for the most splendid of the coins of Akragas: B. V. Head, Historia Numorum? (Oxford 1911) 106. See the illustrations in C. M. Kraay, Greek

Coins

(London 1966) pls. 60-65. In Kallimachos Hymn 5, the “Bath of Pallas,” the speaker reports of the mantis in a cult-celebration: “He shall know the birds—which is of good omen (aiovs) among all the countless birds that fly and what birds are of ill-omened flight” (123-124, trans. of A. W. Mair).“° Of particular interest for the practice of augury is a fragment,

unfortunately

small,

from

a sacred

law

code

of Ephesos,

dating from the period of the Persian wars.*! The inscription is one of only three blocks from what was evidently an extensive wall-inscription, cut stoichedon in columns of twenty-one letters, with three inter-

puncts between words. The columns are separated by vertical lines. One fragment of five lines deals with the administering of oaths for a witness before dicasts. It was first published by Heberdey in Jahres-

hefte 2 (1899) Beibl. 48-50. The two larger fragments have been combined in F. Sokolowski’s Lois sacrées de Asie Mineure (Paris 1955) 38. Prometheus relates his services to mankind: “The flight of crook-taloned birds I distinguished clearly—which by nature are auspicious, which sinister—their various modes

of life, their mutual

feuds and loves, and

their consortings,”

etc. (trans. of

H. W. Smyth). 39. Cf. J. R. T. Pollard,

“The

Birds

of Aristophanes—a

Source

Book

for Old

Beliefs,’ AJP 69 (1948) 354: ‘““Hence there is no reason to suppose that the poet was exaggerating when he states that almost any event in the life of an ordinary Athenian citizen was liable to be construed as being ominous, to be hailed as a ‘bird’.” In the Aves, Aristophanes proposes that men exchange the Olympian gods for the birds, since the latter are the real source of divination and augury. Men will be able to consult these wévres Modo (724) where they like and at all seasons of the year. 40. Plutarch (Mor. 415D) says, ‘““We cherish the belief that the god, in giving signs to us, makes use of the calls of herons, wrens, and ravens.” In Cicero De Nat. Deorum 2.160, the augurs are said to consider the expression of the divine will the reason for

the existence of certain birds. On the inquiry, raised by Karneades and echoed by Panaitios, whether the gods directly controlled the flight and songs of prophetic birds, see the passages cited by A. S. Pease ap. Cicero De Div. 1.6.12. Birds were regarded as the messengers of deities by Porphyry De Abst. 3.5.3. 41. So L. H. Jeffery, The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece (Oxford 1961) 339 and 344. All other epigraphists, including Keil, date it in the sixth century. It seems to be

the earliest Ephesian inscription.

Miscellaneous Portents

103

pp. 84-86 no. 30.42 The block dealing with augury appears in Dittenberger, SIG? 1167. This SIG text of Hiller, with the omissio n of brack-

ets and interpuncts, is as follows:

—— €Y pev detins és thy apioTephy TETOMEVOS, HM wey aroKpi et, deElds, fy dé Erdper Thy EVWVULOY TTEpvya, KaY erape Kay amtoxpvw er, Que a 5 evwvupos’ f ey b€ THs dpioTepysa és TH detuyy meTouevos, ju pev Os amoxpiwer, evwvupos, qv dé THy SeEvhy TTEpvya émapas, deEvds —. a

t

>

\

\

nN

6

he.

~

2

i

\

2

\

\

,

fp

Ua

BD)

\

>

»

t

b

3

The meaning it settles out of whether it rises flying from left

seems to be: “If the bird is flying from right to left, if sight, it is lucky; but if it lift up the left wing, then or settles out of sight, it is unlucky. But if the bird is to right, should it settle out of sight in a straight line,

it is unlucky; but if raising the right wing, lucky .. .”48 The sentiment of these rules, Wilamowitz says, is ‘‘schwer lich griechisch.”’44 F, Jacoby writes, “I regard this inscription as the dedicati on of an oiwvocxémos.’45 This statement, written before Sokolowski’s combination of the fragments, is invalid because these rules for the inter-

pretation of signs from birds are part of a sacred law-code. The auspices were taken for some official purpose. Since one fragment has to do with

the taking of an oath before dikastai by the use of a boar (éubvyra Kampor Tov Zijva éypapruper ) 4° the augury text must presumably relate to the

ritual of taking omens for some official body.47 At Athens, the mother42. The

editio

princeps

of

the

smallest

fragment,

which

contains

the

word

&é]xvpa, is J. Keil, Forschungen in Ephesos 4.3 (Vienna 1951) p. 281 no. 25b (pl. 65). 43. See E. L. Hicks, The Collection of Ancient Greek Inscriptions in the British Museum 3 (Oxford 1896), no. 678. For the intransitive use of the verbs, see Hiller’s notes. The translation of E. S. Roberts (Introduction to Greek Epigraphy 1 [Cambridge 1887] 173) is quite incorrect. See also Herbillon, Musée Belge 28 (1924) 181-185. 44. Der Glaube der Hellenen 1 (Berlin 1931) 148. 45. FGrHist 3b (Suppl.) 2, p. 261 n. 6. For the epitaph of an Arab oionoskopos found at Thasos, see L. Robert, Hellenika 2 (Paris 1946) 43-50, and T. Fahd, La divination Arabe (Leiden 1966) 106 and 499. 46. Cf. the section on “Richtereid” in Ziebarth, RE s. v. Eid (1905) 2080ff. Elsewhere (Pausanias 3.20.9, 4.15.8, and 5.24.9), we read of oaths taken on the pieces of a boar. So in trials before the court of the Areopagos at Athens, the accuser took an oath standing on pieces of animals, including the boar (Demosthenes 23 Against Aristokrates 68). Another way of taking an oath was to pass between the pieces of a boar. When Agamemnon was about to lead the Greeks to Troy, the seer Kalchas brought the body of a boar into the market-place, and divided it into parts, between which each warrior passed swearing enmity to Priam. See J. G. Frazer ap. Pausanias 3.20.9. For Zeus in relation to the boar and oaths, see A. B. Cook. Zeus 2.727 and 3.1148. 47. F. Jacoby’s discussion (Atthis [Oxford 1949] 179-180) of the content of these

early “wall-inscriptions” requires modification. See also F. W. Walbank ap. Polybios

Miscellaneous Portents

104

execity of Ephesos, such omens would have been interpreted by the eénynSuocnyeta’ yévoito ei , dixaornpia ra 6€ (aviorato 8.24 Pollux getai. See s ) ral 8’ éxadodvro of ra Tepl T&v StoonueGv Kal Ta TV GAdAwY tepav diddcKovre ). s eEnyoupevo doonmray kal Gv

tep mepl (6 é&nyn77s s.v. s and Hesychio

Jacoby (Atthis 47) is incorrect in saying that the “exegetai were not concerned with divination . . . from bird’s flights” but he is correct in distinguishing (p. 275 1. 271) dwocnpiar occurring in Athens when ofhcial bodies were in session (the province of the exegetai) and those in the field (the province of manteis).48 The exegetai were responsible for the supervision of rituals laid down

in the sacred law, which,

as we

learn from the Ephesos fragment, included dvocnpia .42 On the evidence

of a passage in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, which may date from the early sixth century B.c., P. Amandry deduced that the science of

ornithoscopia,

prediction by observing

the flight and

cries of birds,

was practised at Delphi.® On the akropolis of Thebes there was an

ee 5.33.4. I find it difficult to accept Jacoby’s thesis that the book of Philochoros,

PhiloTept wayrixfs, “raised divination to a science,” and that mantic works prior to

choros were only “secret books, family possessions of the prophets and their heirs”:

FGrHist 3b Suppl. 1 p. 356.

48. We may infer from a statement in Hippokrates that the flight of birds was particularly difficult to interpret. In speaking of differences of opinion among physicians, he states (Acut. 2. p. 30 [K]), “Laymen are likely to object that their art

resembles the mantic art; for manteis too think that the same bird, which they hold

to be a happy omen on the left, is an unlucky one when on the right, while other

manteis maintain the opposite.” In the text of the inscribed (about goo B.c.) stone egg (of a lark), the left is equivalent to favorable: G. Manganaro, “Un ovetto magico di pietra,” Rendiconti Accad. Lincei 19 (1964) 24-30 and pl. 1. 49. J. H. Oliver in his book The Athenian Expounders of the Sacred and Ancestral Law (Baltimore 1950) denies the existence of exegetai at Athens before 403 B.C., when he believes the institution was imported from South Italy (cf. AJP 75 [1954] 164), a highly unlikely theory, as has been shown by F. Jacoby and H. Bloch (AJP 74 [1953] 407-418, and HSCP 62 [1957] 37-59). For the interruption of legal and political meetings by diocnula, see J. H. Lipsius, Das attische Recht 3 (Leipzig 1915) 928. At Syrakuse in 355 B.c., the ekklesia to elect new generals was postponed for fifteen successive

days because

of the dioonular: Plutarch

Dion

38.1. At Athens

we

learn from Aristotle Ath. Pol. 44.4 that the election of generals could not be held

until after the sixth prytany when there were favorable omens (ebonula). In the year of Symmachos in the second century B.c. (JG II2, 892), the eusemia involved the approval of the Delphic oracle (cf. B. D. Meritt, Klio 52 [1970] 277-282), and the election was delayed until the tenth prytany. We may infer from Aristophanes Nub. 581-586 (and schol.) that, when the ekklesia was desirous of electing Kleon as strategos, the election was deferred because of thunder, lightning, and an eclipse. Religious sanction was required for public meetings, and each city-state must have had its set of rules. 50. La mantique Apollinienne a4 Delphes (Paris 1950) 57-59.

Miscellaneous Portents

105

olwvooxomeiov, apparently of high antiquity because it was called after Teiresias (Pausanias g.16.1) and is mentioned in Sophok les Ant. 999 and Euripides Ba. 347.51 At Athens there was a similar observatory at the temple of Skiradian Athena: Hesychios s.v. 2x (e)ipdu arris, and

Photius s.v. Dkipov.52

In this context of early divination, reference may be made to a generally overlooked clause in the first constitution of the Peloponnesian League.** In the congress at Corinth in 421 B.c. the Lakedaimonian envoy, in reproaching the Corinthians for stirring up dissen sion among the old confederates, preserves a few words of the original consti tution of the League:®4 “It was the sworn and fundamental maxim of the confederacy that the decision of the majority should be binding on all, except in such cases as there should be some hindrance on the part of

gods or heroes” (iy uh ru Oedv 4 Hpdeoy koAvua 7). The clause quoted in

Greek has all the appearance of a direct quotation from the oaths.5 5 Larsen says that it is difficult to know what the phrase from the original

constitution means. It seems plausible, however, to infer that the “hin-

drance” of gods or heroes in the context of the sixth century B.c. refers to some

form

of divine

manifestation,

and,

whatever

the

portents

might be, they would presumably be interpreted by some official body of seers. Examples of augury in a military context are listed below in chronological order. 480 B.c. Salamis. Plutarch Themistokles 12. Plutarch says that an owl was seen to fly from the right, while Themi-

stokles was haranguing his forces, and alight in the rigging of his ship. The omen boosted the morale of the Athenians, since the owl was as-

sociated with Athena;** and they prepared most eagerly to do battle.

51. See P. Stengel, Die griechischen Kultusalterttimer3 (Munich 1920) 58. On the Roman side, see Dionysios Hal. 1.86. For a possible oiwvocxoreiov at Ephesos, see J. Herbillon, Musée Belge 28 (1924) 184; and for one at Pergamon, T. Wiegand, APAW 1932 p. 38 no. 21. See also L. Robert, Hellenika 2 (Paris 1946) 45. 52. For the location of the temple, see J. G. Frazer ap. Pausanias 1.1.4 and 1.36.4; and van der Loeff, Mnemosyne 44 (1916) 101-112. 53. For the date, see J. A. O. Larsen, CP 247 (1932) 136-150. 54. Thucydides 5.30.1.

55- Cf. Larsen, CP 28 (1933) 260. Bengtson does not seem to treat the matter in the Staatsvertrdge. For an explanation of the proviso in the treaty, see also G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (London 1972) 118-120. 56. Cf. Aristophanes Vespae 1086 and scholia. See K. Marot, Die Anfdnge der griechischen Literatur (Budapest 1960) 205 n. 145.

106

Miscellaneous Portents

401 B.c. Ephesos. Xenophon Anab. 6.1.23. As Xenophon and his mantis were setting out from Ephesos to join the army of Kyros at Sardis, a sitting eagle screamed upon his rieht:?* The mantis told Xenophon that the omen was important and that it did not apply to a single individual. It portended both glory and suffering. He explained that other birds are most apt to attack the eagle when it is sitting. The omen did not betoken gain, for the eagle gets its food while on the wing. This example of divination is unusual because the mantis explains in large measure the details for his augury. Traditional rules distinguished a sitting bird from one on the wing.°®

400 B.c. Kalpe. Xenophon Anab. 6.5.2. While the sacrifice é’ @£5w, which ultimately turned out favorable,

was nearing the end, the mantis Arexion of Parrhasia caught sight of an eagle (6p4 alerév aicwov 6 uavris) and bade Xenophon set out with the army. The adjective aicws, derived from Aioa, destiny, fate, when used of omens, means auspicious: Homer J/. 24.376; Pindar N. 9.18; Aischylos Ag. 104; Sophokles OT 52; etc. The nature of the omen in Xenophon is not otherwise indicated except that it was taken from

the flight of the eagle. 400 B.c. Kalpe. Xenophon Anab. 6.5.21. When Xenophon addressed the soldiers before setting out to attack the Bithynians and the troops of Pharnabazos, he announced that the sacrificial omens and the bird-omens were auspicious (aiovo.). The

Greeks won a complete victory. 357 B.c. Zakynthos. Plutarch Dion 24 (from ‘Theopompos). An eagle is said to have seized a spear from one of Dion’s soldiers, carried it aloft, and then let it drop into the sea. The manteis made the interpretation that, since the eagle is the servant of Zeus and the spear an emblem of power, Zeus desired the utter dissolution of the

tyranny of Dionysios of Syrakuse.°® 57. In Xenophon’s historical fiction, the Kyropaideia, Kyros takes an auspicious omen from the eagle, as follows (2.4.19): “An eagle flying up from the east caught

sight of the hare as it ran and swooping down struck it, seized it, and carried it up, then bore it away to a hill not far off and disposed of his prey at his pleasure” (trans. of W. Miller. The word Miller translates as “from the east” is atovs, ‘““auspicious’). Kyros was delighted and did homage to Zeus. 58. See J. Herbillon, “Une lecon de discipline augurale,” Musée Belge 28 (1942) 181-182. 59. Cf. Plutarch Mor. 307A, where an eagle is said to have carried the spear of

Miscellaneous Portents

107

340 B.c. Sicily. Plutarch Timoleon 26. While the army of Timoleon was advancing toward the Krimisos river, the manteis, on observing two eagles, one of them carrying a snake in its talons, pointed them out to the soldiers, who regarded them as auspicious and did homage to the gods. See also below p. 129. This omen may be associated with the reverse design of an eagle and serpent found on coins of Herbessos and Morgantina just at this time: B. V. Hill, Historia Numorum? (Oxford 1911) 143 and 157. 334 B.c. Halikarnassos. Arrian 1.25.6-8. While Alexander was taking a siesta during the siege of Halikarnassos, a swallow circled over his head chattering noisily and perched first on the bed and then on his head, awakening him. ‘The mantis Aristandros interpreted this to mean the treachery of some friend, and that

the treachery would come to light. ““The swallow is a domestic bird, friendly to man, and a greater chatterer than any other bird.”

332 B.c. Gaza. Arrian 2.26.4-27; Curtius 4.6.12. A carnivorous bird dropped a stone on Alexander’s head, while he

was sacrificing a victim. Aristandros interpreted the omen as portending the capture of the city, but added, ‘‘For today you must guard your-

self.” Alexander disobeyed the seer’s words and was severely wounded. Curtius speaks of a raven and a clod of dirt.

331 B.c. Gaugamela. Curtius 4.15.27; Plutarch Alex. 33. The mantis Aristandros often pointed out a bird to the soldiers, as they were about to join battle, as a sure omen

immense eagerness and before were in terror.” the Great [1960] 46 n. Olynthos is responsible

of victory. “As a result,

confidence roused to battle those who shortly L. Pearson (The Lost Histories of Alexander 117) believes that the historian Kallisthenes of for this episode, introducing it into his narra-

tive in order to flatter Alexander, the ‘“‘son of Zeus.”

310 B.c. Near Karthage. Diodoros 20.11.3. As the soldiers of Agathokles were discouraged because of the large

number of Karthaginians, he tried to hearten them by a device for which he must have made deliberate provision beforehand. In various parts of the camp, he let fly a number of owls, which perched upon the

Amphiaraus up to a height and let it drop at a spot where Amphiaraus was swallowed up the next day.

108

Miscellaneous Portents

shields and helmets of the soldiers. These birds, the favorite of Ath-

ena,® were supposed to promise victory; the minds of the soldiers are reported to have been much reassured by the sight, since the deity was

foretelling victory. 3. ECLIPSES

Boll presents in chronological order of Julian dates a table of all eclipses reported in the ancient world: RE s.v. Finsternisse (1909) 23522364. T. H. Martin’s article in RA g (1864) 170-199, containing references

to ancient

discussions

of the phenomenon,

is still serviceable.

Van der Waerden in Der Kleine Pauly 2 (1967) 552-554, gives a survey of scientific theory.*! The section on “Himmelserscheinungen” in H. Popp, Die Einwirkung von Vorzeichen, Opfern und Festen auf die Kriegftihrung der Griechen im 5. und 4. Jahrhundert v. Chr. (Erlangen diss. 1957) 18-29, reviews most of the incidents discussed below.®? In the collection of Boll, nine eclipses relate to periods of warfare.

28 May 585 B.c. Herodotos 1.74.2; Pliny NH 2.53. Warfare between Alyattes of Lydia and Kyaxares of Media was terminated when “‘the day suddenly became night” (rijv juepav tEarivys vixra yevéoOat). Herodotos adds the vague statement that Thales had predicted

“loss of daylight within the year” in which the eclipse occurred.® 60. See above p. 105. 61. See also C. Préaux, “La lune dans la pensée grecque,” Acad. de Belgique Mém.

Cl. des lett. 71.4 (1973) 158-178. A. Demandt, “Verformungstendenzen in der Uberlieferung antiker Sonnen- und Mondfinsternisse,” 44WM 1970.7.469, in an attempt to prove arbitrary synchronizations of eclipses with historical events, claims that there are two hundred false reports of eclipses in ancient literature. 62. Four passages in Homer (Jl. 16.567; 17.268ff.; 17.367, and Od. 20.356) are understood by some commentators to refer to eclipses, although they are not mentioned as such. See, for example, Usener RM 55 (1900) 286-287. Archilochos (fr. 74 Diehl) mentions a total eclipse of the sun which is generally thought to be that of 6 April 648, although other dates have been suggested. The chronological problem is discussed by F. Jacoby, “The Date of Archilochos,” CQ 35 (1941) 97-98. 63. O. Neugebauer (The Exact Sciences in Antiquity2 [Providence 1957] 142-143)

has shown that Babylonian science was not advanced enough to make such a prediction on the basis of any scientific system (Fotheringham). Cf. A. E. Samuel, Greek and Roman Chronology (Munich 1972) 22 n. 4; and C. Préaux, op. cit. [supra n. 61] 158-162 (with bibliography on subject). As to the position of Thales in the history of philosophy, H. Cherniss (Aristotle’s Criticism of Presocratic Philosophy [Baltimore 1935] 375) has written

these revealing words:

“Of the details of Thales’ system—if

indeed he had one—it is impossible to say anything. Aristotle admits that his knowl-

edge of Thales is restricted to two or three traditional stories; these he interprets so

as to fit Thales into his own interpretation of the Ionians. Specific evidence for or

Miscellaneous Portents

109

2 October 480 B.c. Herodotos 9.10. On the occasion of Pausanias’ assumption of the command, Herodotos mentions that his father Kleombrotos, while at the Isthmus offer-

ing “‘sacrifice to go against the Persians,”® was led to march back home with his army, which had been occupied in building a wall at the Isthmus (cf. 8.71), because of an eclipse of the sun.® It is so much in keeping with the early Greek regard for omens for a Spartan hegemon, while in the midst of a sacrifice for divination (“kurz nach Mittag”: Boll), to interpret the eclipse as an ominous sign, that it is difficult to follow the numerous scholars who regard the story as some sort of excuse for retreat.® Stein’s conjecture that the sacrifice had something to do with a plan to harass the Persian retreat from Salamis certainly has probability in its favor. Kleombrotos would have proceeded north by a much-used military way identified today as Hammond’s road of the towers. 27 August 413 B.c. Thucydides 7.50.4; Plutarch Nikias 22; Diodoros 13.12.6; Pliny NH 2.54. This is the most famous eclipse in antiquity, as it played such an important role in the history of the Athenian people. The Athenian army was preparing its departure from Syrakuse when the moon was eclipsed. The manteis prescribed that they should wait twenty-seven against the details we have none; and the only honest course is to make the history of Greek philosophy proper begin with Anaximander.” 64. The phrase @vopévy of éri 7S Ilépon has been misunderstood by some, for example, Godley in the Loeb translation (‘‘sacrifice for victory over the Persian”). The sacrifice was not a thank-offering for Salamis. The ip& were for purposes of divination to see whether Kleombrotos should go against the Persians. Cf. Herodotos 1.66: éxpnotnpiagovro

éni racy

7H ’Apxadwv xwpn; Xenophon

Anab.

6.4.9: éx’ eddm Cbero

Hevodov; Arrian Anab. 4.4.3: Qvowév 6 éxl rH SraBace, etc. 65. Herodotos (7.37.2) records another eclipse of the sun, apparently total, alleged to have been seen by the Persians at Sardis in the spring of the same year, when they

were about to begin their march to Greece. This alleged eclipse does not accord with the calculations of modern astronomers: see How-Wells 2.144-145, who believe that the error consists in the transference of an eclipse seen at Susa in 481 B.C. to Sardis in 480. Cf. Boll, 2354-2355.

The wayo

of the Persians interpreted the omen

as favorable to the expedition. Demandt [supra n. 61] 504, cites this as one of the examples where an eclipse has been arbitrarily synchronized with an historical event. 66. See, for example, How-Wells (2 p. 290): ““The eclipse only justified a timidity in keeping with the situation and with the orders no doubt given to Cleombrotus”; Glotz-Cohen (Histoire grecque 2.81): “Sur terre, Cléombrotos, chef des Péloponésiens, prétexte des présages défavorables pour ne pas bouger, jusqu’a ce que l’armée de Xerxés soit loin au Nord; puis il profite d’une éclipse de soleil pour licencier une partie de ses troupes.” Cf. E. Meyer (Geschichte des Altertums 44.1.373).

110

Miscellaneous Portents

days,®’ and Nikias refused to discuss the question further. Two noteworthy points for this investigation are: (1) Thucydides’ statement that “the mass of the Athenians was greatly moved and called upon the generals to remain” (7.50.4). Most of the army, which comprised members of the upper property classes, gave a theological explanation

to the phenomenon. Nikias was obeyed without hesitation. (2) The interpretation of the omen was later a matter of dispute. Manteis were not always in agreement.® F. Jacoby aptly comments,

‘““We need not

doubt that the exegesis of Nikias’ diviners was ardently discussed in the Athens of Lampon.’”® Philochoros (Jacoby, FGrHist 328 fr. 135), himself a professional mantis, regarded as the reason for the Athenian

catastrophe the untimely death of Stilbides which deprived the strategos Nikias of his wavris éurerpos.”? Philochoros declares that the omen of the

eclipse was plainly favorable for a fleeing army.”! In addition, Autokleides in his Exegetikon (Jacoby, FGrHist 353 fr. 7) says that the period of incubation should have been only three days,72 not thrice nine days (Thucydides 7.50.4). Plutarch, using Philochoros,’? and Diodoros both attribute to Nikias personally, not to the manteis, the insistence

on a delay of twenty-seven days.” The decision was that of Nikias in both cases; but he was given wrong information by his manteis. Thucydides’ criticism of Nikias is that he should have paid less attention to his manteis and the superstitious fears of his men.

13 July 364 B.c. Diodoros 15.80.2; Plutarch Pelopidas 91. As Pelopidas was about to leave Thebes with an army of seven thousand men preparing to march into Thessaly against the despot Alexander, a total eclipse of the sun took place (cvvéBn rov Atov éxdurety). The manteis declared the city’s “sun” had been eclipsed,”* and inter-

67. For the significance of this number, see chap. V. n. 178. 68. See above p. 104 n. 48. 69. FGrHist IIb Suppl. 1, 507-508.

70. Stilbides is not mentioned by Thucydides, and is not listed as an Athenian in Kirchner’s PA. He is referred to in Plutarch Nikias 23 (= Philochoros) as a ovvfOns of Nikias. See also Aristophanes Pax 1029, with scholia. 71. See Jacoby, ap. fr. 135, pp. 507-508; and Atthis (Oxford 1949) 252. To men planning escape, or any other operation requiring silence and secrecy, an eclipse of the moon, as hiding light and producing darkness, was, he affirmed, an encouraging

sign.

72. Diodoros (13.12.5) also refers to ras elO.cpévas rpets huepas.

73. Nikias 23. 74. Cf. Gomme, HCT 4 (Oxford 1970) 428.

75- For the connection of the sun and leadership, see A. S. Pease, ap. Cicero De Div 1.22.45 (p. 172).

Miscellaneous Portents

sal

preted it as a sign concerning a conspicuous man (arpds dvdpa Naumpov é

otpavod yeyovévat onuetov). The seers forbade the march

(oire TOv wdvTewy

éwvrow )and the rest of the citizens shared their disapproval (7év &\dwy

TuLTpoPvpoupevwy rodirwy). The result was that the citizen force was with-

held, and Pelopidas set off with three hundred volunteer cavalrymen who were xenoi.”6 In the subsequent battle of Kynoskephalai, Pelopidas

was killed. Characteristically, K. J. Beloch (Gr. Geschichte 3?.1.199 n. 2)

disavows the religious element: “Es ist klar, dass die Sache damit nur beschénigt werden woll. Die Boeoter wollten eben uberhaupt nicht ins

Feld ziehen.” H. D. Westlake (Thessaly [London 1935] 148 n. 1) suggests an economic motive: “It is conceivable that the Boeotians in view of their expensive naval plans may have had misgivings about the cost of this army.”

9 August 357 B.c. Plutarch Dion 24, Nikias 23; Quintilian 1.10.48. When Dion mustered a force at Zakynthos to strike across the sea at Dionysios, the despot of Syrakuse, the moon was eclipsed on the evening of a sacrifice before departure. But Dion had studied astronomy,’? and Miltas, the mantis of the expedition, had received instruction in

the Academy (Plutarch Dion 22.6). The soldiers were greatly disturbed by the sign from the gods; but Miltas stood up and assured them that

they had mistaken its import. By the eclipse of the moon, the gods inti-

mated that something brilliant was to be darkened over, namely, the despotism of Dionysios of Syrakuse (cnyaivew yap 7d dayudviov xray Twos Tay viv eripaviv’ emipavéorepoy é undev elvar ris Avovvclov tuparviéos).

Plutarch also reports that Miltas witnessed a swarm of bees upon the stern of the transports, a portent of short-lived success; but he suppressed it from the soldiers. J. H. Thiel (Mededeelingen der Nederlandsche Akademie van Wetenschappen, Nieuwe Reeks, Deel 4 Afdeeling Letterkunde, 1941, 135-170) deduces from the fact that Plutarch says that the rising of Arcturus (25.5), computed for Thiel (p. 160) as occurring

on

September

21 /22, took

place

thirteen

days after

their

departure from Zakynthos (25.2), that Dion’s army delayed sailing until September 8, a full month after the eclipse of August 9. He believes, therefore, that the soldiers through fear of the omen of the eclipse, did

indeed delay departure, just as Nikias’ army in Sicily had been delayed. Plutarch is judged to have portrayed Dion as an enlightened man in contrast with the superstitious Nikias. ‘Thiel’s conclusions are accepted by H. Popp, Einwirkung 28-29, and P. Kett, Prosopographie 61. 76. Cf. N. G. L. Hammond, A History of Greece (Oxford 1959) os.

77. In Nikias 23, Plutarch contrasts Nikias’ panic at a lunar behavior of Dion who “had learned astronomy from Plato.”

eclipse with

the

112

Miscellaneous Portents

There may possibly be another horn to the dilemma. The unusual report by Plutarch of the rising of Arcturus occurs in the description of a dramatic storm off the coast of Sicily. In Euktemon’s parapegma— and others must have been similar—the appearance of Arcturus (on September 14) was attended by a storm at sea (xeov card Oddaccay): see BCH 85 (1961) 33. The embroidery in Plutarch’s story may be in the addition of Arcturus;

and, indeed, the description of the

onyeta

in 24.5 reads like a fairy tale. However, the information in 24.5 is taken from ‘Theopompos, whereas the source for the remainder was Timonides (Jacoby, FGrHist 561), who accompanied Dion to Sicily: W. H. Porter, Plutarch: Life of Dion (Dublin 1952) xx—xxii. 20 September 331 B.c. Arrian 3.7.6; Curtius 4.10.1; Plutarch Alex. 31; Pliny NH 2.180. After Alexander

had

crossed

the Euphrates

and

Tigris rivers, he

rested for two days. During the night an eclipse of the moon occurred, nearly total. Curtius says that the consternation in the army bordered on mutiny. Alexander assembled his officers (Curtius) to hear a declaration from his own mantis Aristandros (Arrian) and from Egyptian seers (Curtius). They proclaimed that Helios favored the Greeks and Selene the Persians; hence the eclipse portended victory to the Makedonians. The soldiers were restored to confidence before the battle of Gaugamela.

15 August 310 B.c. Diodoros 20.5.5; Justin 22.6.1-%; Frontinus Strat. 1.12.9. After Agathokles of Syrakuse invaded Africa, a total eclipse of the sun occurred.” Agathokles’ soldiers believed that the prodigy portended misfortune for them (vouicavtes xal 7d Oelov abrots tpoonualve 76 dvoxepés), but Agathokles heartened the bewildered troops by saying

that if the eclipse had happened before the expedition set out, he would have thought it a portent unfavorable to their departure; but since it took place after sailing, it foretold misfortune for the enemy. He added, “The eclipses of the heavenly bodies always presage a change in the present state of things.” 1 September 218 B.C. Polybios 5.78.79 While Attalos, king of Pergamon, was campaigning through Mysia with the Gaulish tribe of the Aigosagai, an eclipse of the moon took 78. Schoch (Sirius 59 [1926] 248-250) calculates the course of the eclipse. 79. The date is that accepted by Walbank in his Commentary on this passage.

Boll gives 20 March 219; but with other possibilities.

Miscellaneous Portents

113

place. These Thrakian Gauls took the event as an evil omen (cnpyewgapevot TO yeyoves) and refused to advance. In his perplexity, Attalos de-

cided to take them back to the Hellespont and to form a military set'

tlement for them.

21 June 168 B.c. Polybios 29.16.1; Livy 44.37-9; Plutarch Aemilius Paullus 17.3-6. The total eclipse of the moon on the night before the battle of Pydna was, according to a story in Livy, calculated ahead of time by the tribune Sulpicius Gallus;®° so produced no effect upon the Roman army which was thus forewarned.®! Plutarch says that Aemilius understood the natural causes of eclipses, but continued

to make

sacrifices until

with the twenty-first victim the sign appeared that indicated victory if the Romans stood on the defensive. On the other hand, the Makedonians took the eclipse as a dire portent (ut triste prodigium) foretelling the downfall of the kingdom (so also Polybios). There was uproar in the Makedonian camp until~the moon emerged (clamor ululatusque in castris Macedonum fuit, donec luna in suam lucem emersit).®2 4. EARTHQUAKES

The basic article for earthquakes in antiquity is that of W. Capelle inv CaSuppiadgs.v. Erdbebenforschung (1924) 344-374. Capelle lists earthquakes reported in the classical literature between 600 8.c. and 80. So Miinzer, RE

s.v. Sulpicius 66

(1931) 809; and Winkler,

Der Kleine

Pauly

5 (1975) 425. Sulpicius is taken to have given a natural explanation of the phenome-

non. Boll (col. 2345 line 23) refers to the prediction as “spatere Ausschmiickung.” The subject is also studied in T, H. Martin’s article referred to in the opening paragraph

of this section. The tradition of Plutarch and Polybios does not mention the prediction. Although Sulpicius was the author of a technical treatise on astronomy, S. I. Oost (CP 48 [1953] 217-227), who has studied the matter in detail, concludes that Livy altered an explanation into a prediction. But historians of mathematics inform me that Ptolemy in the second century A.D. could have predicted an eclipse within limits. The matter in the second century B.C. is one of relative accuracy. Even as late as Copernicus prediction of the exact time was not possible. Pliny (VH 25.2.5.10) says that scientists can compute to the day and the hour the occurrence of an eclipse. Sulpicius, as an astronomer, could have predicted approximately when the eclipse would occur, and could have picked the right time. K. von Fritz has noted the attempts of Philippos of Opus to calculate eclipses in the late fourth century B.C.: RE s. v. Philippos 42 (1938) 2351-2358. 81. See also Cicero Rep.

1.14.22-15.23, De Senect.

14.49-50

(“How

much

joy he

took in telling us, long in advance, of eclipses of the sun and moon”); Val. Max. 8.11.1; Frontinus Strat. 1.12.8.

82. The date of the eclipse has been discussed recently by Raepsaet-Charlier (Historia 23 [1974] 290) and P. Marchetti (BCH 100 [1976] 420).

Miscellaneous Portents

114

A.D. 600 according to geographical distribution.8* The kinds of earthquakes are described by K. W. Ringshausen, Poseidonios-AsklepiodotSeneca und ihre Anschauungen tiber Erdbeben und Vulkane (Munich diss. 1929) 19-30. On ancient theories about the causes of earthquakes, see S. Sudhaus, Aetna (Leipzig 1898) 51-80. A. B. Cook, Zeus 3.1 (Cambridge 1940) 1-29, in his chapter “Zeus and the Earthquakes,” writes of the association of earthquakes with Poseidon and Zeus, and presents much information about seismic activity in Greece in modern times. The yearly average is at least 27%. L. Robert (BCH 102 [1978] 395-408) has collected examples of the word sezsmos in inscriptions.

The most appalling of all Greek earthquakes, which in 375 8.c. destroyed the towns of Helike and Bura in Achaia, together with a large part of their population, resulted, in the opinion of many Greeks, from the wrath of Poseidon after the people of Helike had impiously maltreated envoys from their colonists in Ionia in the very sanctuary of Poseidon.

The

Platonic philosopher,

Herakleides

of Pontus,

did not

hesitate to attribute it to the wrath of Poseidon (frg. 26: Wehrli).®* Diodoros (15.49.4), too, refers to the wrath of Poseidon. Pausanias (7. 25.1) says “The fate of Helike is one among many warnings that the wrath of the god who protects suppliants is not to be averted.” In the second century after Christ, an inscription of Tralles in Karia records a Pythian oracle delivered to the priest Kleitosthenes directing that atonement be made to Poseidon and Zeus after the city was visited by an earthquake attributed to the wrath of Zeus because of the neglect of Poseidon.®* As late as the fourth century, the rhetor Libanios (1.91) said of earthquakes: éddxer yap jutv 6 beds peyadous Tafeot peya onuaivey. 83. See also

Capelle’s

earlier

article,

“Erdbeben

im Altertum,’

Neue

Jahrb.

11

(1908) 603-633. 84. The earliest extant description of an earthquake (Homer II. 1.528ff.) attributes the phenomenon to the action of Zeus who nods his head and thereby makes Mount Olympos tremble. Greeks of the classical period attributed earthquakes to Poseidon. 85. See Boyancé, REA 36 (1934) 334. F. Wehrli (Die Schule des Aristoteles 7 [Basel 1953[) lists ancient writers, including Aristotle, who offered various scientific theories. 86. Havette-Besnault and Dubois, BCH 5 (1881) 340-342. For an earthquake at Tralles ca. 20 B.c., see D. M. Magie, Roman Rule in Asia Minor (Princeton 1950) 469 and 1331. At Rome, earthquakes were regarded as prodigia publica, that is, of national significance, and always received the attention of authorities. Pliny (NH 2.86.200) goes so far as to say that Rome never felt a shock that was not a harbinger of an event of consequence. Early in 193 B.C. so many earthquakes were reported that the Senate could not be summoned because the consuls were occupied full-time

with expiations. As late as the time of the emperor Claudius an earthquake was always followed by the appointment of a holiday for the performance of sacred rites: Florus Hist. 1.19.

i.

Miscellaneous Portents

115

Sixth Century B.c. Herodotos 5.85. In describing the ancient feud between Aigina and Athens (5.8288),°7 Herodotos relatesan Athenian story that the Athenians sent a trireme to get statues of Damia and Auxesia, which had been carved out of olive wood from Athenian trees (5.82). The images had been made by the Epidaurians in response to the Delphic oracle,®8 but had been stolen by the Aiginetans. As the Athenians were dragging the statues away, an earthquake accompanied by a thunderstorm overtook them (dua rh Bpovrh cecopuor émvyevéobar). The crew were so stunned by

the phenomenon that they slew each other for enemies (zra@évras 6€ robro KTeively GdAndovs Ge Todeuious) and only one man

survived to return to

Athens. The Aiginetan account of the same episode was that a battle took place between the Athenians and a combined force of Argives and Aiginetans, at which time the earthquake occurred (5.86.4). In this instance, the Athenian

account provides the supernatural

touch.

490 B.c. Herodotos 6.98.2—3. After the departure of Datis from Delos for Eretria in the summer of 490 B.c., there was an earthquake in Delos. Herodotos explains that this portent was sent as an omen of the ills that were to come. 479 B.c. Herodotos 8.64. Following the statement that Eurybiades made the decision to stay at Salamis to fight, Herodotos goes on to report that an earthquake occurred and the Greeks resolved to pray to the gods and to summon the Aiakidai. The earthquake served only to remind the Greeks to

seek divine assistance.®9 426 B.c. Thucydides 3.89.1; Diodoros 12.59.1. Severe earthquakes, experienced in Attika, Euboia and Boiotia, deterred the Lakedaimonians from invading Attika. Agis, king of Sparta,

had already reached the Isthmus for that purpose; but the repeated earthquakes

were

looked

upon

as an

unfavorable

portent,

and

the

87. How-Wells (ap. 5.86.4) date this war to “circ. 590-70 B.C.” 88. H. W. Parke and D. E. W. Wormell, The Delphic Oracle 1 (Oxford 1956) 345-346, date the instance to the latter half of the seventh century. 89. In 7.129.4, Herodotos blends Poseidon and earthquakes in a geological theory about the rock formation at the Vale of Tempe. In 4.28.3, he says that an earth-

quake is considered a répas by the Scythians; and in 6.98.1, an earthquake at Delos is regarded by him as a portent of the ills that were to come in the Persian wars (roiro pév xov répas avOphroer TSv peddovTwy EcecOar KaKay Epauve 6 Oeds ).

116

Miscellaneous Portents

scheme was abandoned. A. W. Gomme (HCT

2 [Oxford 1956] 390) ex-

presses doubts about Thucydides’ accuracy in giving a religious motive: “We must not attribute all these failures to superstition, still less the

postponement of a meeting of the ekklesia because of earthquake (V.45. 4); earthquakes can be destructive.” F. E. Adcock (CAH 5.226-227) writes, “The ephors took advantage of an earthquake which hindered the invasion of Attica to open negotiations for peace.” Both K. J. Beloch (Gr. Geschichte? 9.1.323: “Im Frihjahr 426 unterblieb der gewohnte Einfall in Attika .. . Ein Erdbeben gab den Vorwand”) and G. de Sanctis (Storia dei Greci 9* 276) hypothesize that Sparta was making peace overtures and hence refrained from invasion, using the earthquake as an excuse.® Of all of this, there is not the slightest intimation in Thucydides or Diodoros (Ephoros).

420 B.c. Thucydides 5.45.4; Plutarch Nikias 10. After the ekklesia at Athens had met to hear Lakedaimonian envoys press the Athenians not to abandon their alliance, Alkibiades denounced Spartan designs and called for an alliance with Argos which would have been concluded forthwith if an earthquake had not oc-

curred.

‘The assembly

adjourned,

following religious scruples,

and

Nikias was given time to offer counter-recommendations.%!

420 B.c. Thucydides 5.50.5. The Argives sent an embassy to Corinth to prevail upon the Corinthians to desert the Lakedaimonians, who also sent envoys. Although the discussions were protracted, no resolution was adopted (otdev érpax0n) because an earthquake occurred; so they dispersed severally to their homes (cercpyod yevouévov beAVOnoay Exacror éx’ olkov). go. A. B. West (CP 19 [1924] 204) cites Beloch for Sparta being war-weary and making a peace offer, but does not refer to the aborted invasion.

but

91. Gomme’s comment is that the incident of the earthquake was of no importance;

have

Thucydides’

language

prevailed.

Cf. Plutarch

(zpiv ru émixvpwOfvar) Nik.

indicates

that

Alkibiades

would

10: 6 Mev Sjuos evOds copunto... moretoOar ouppaxous.

Andrewes adds that a tremor might be a precursor to a serious earthquake, implying an immediate,

realistic

cause

for adjournment.

However,

see Plutarch:

cecuos

TLS

dia wécou yerouevos kal dvadboas tiv éxxAnolay. The jest that a drop of rain will put a

stop to the sitting of the ekklesia occurs in Aristophanes Ach. 171. Compare also Pollux 8.124 for meetings of the law-courts: évlcraro 8 ra dtkacrjpta el yévorto d10-

onuia: éinynral 6’ éxadodvro of ra rept r&v dioonmar Kal ra TOV &ddwv iepBv diddcxorres.

See also Demosthenes 43 Against Makartatos 66: the demos sent to Delphi to ask the Pythia epi rod onuelov rod & 7h otpav@ yevoueépou.

Miscellaneous Portents

LILY

414 B.c. Thucydides 6.95.1. The Lakedaimonians organized an expedition against Argos. They advanced,

however,

by_ way of Kleonai, which

means

that they went

northward through Arkadia to Phleious, their ally (5.83.3 and 6.10.3), intending to work southwards. The distance from Sparta to Kleonai is more than ninety miles as the crow flies. An earthquake occurred when they reached Kleonai; so they retired to Sparta (cecpod dé yevouevov amexwpnoav). One would be at a loss to attribute this withdrawal to

anything but the religiosity of the Lakedaimonians, because they returned to Argos within the same summer and ravaged much of the land: Thucydides 6.1051.

413/2 B.c. ‘Thucydides 8.6.5. The Lakedaimonians concluded a treaty with Chios and Erythrai, engaging to send a fleet of forty ships to their aid. Ten of these triremes, already prepared in port, were directed to sail to Chios under the nauarchos Melanchridas. Thucydides explains that Alkibiades, and even more the Chian envoys, insisted on the necessity of prompt action for fear that the Athenians should detect the intrigue (émevyouerwy Trav Xlwy amoaretAat Tas vads kal bedvdT wy wu) of ’AOnvator Ta Tpaccopueva alcbwvTat).

However, an earthquake intervened and apparently was construed as a sign of divine displeasure, so that the Lakedaimonians did not persist in sending either the same commander or the same ships. Chalki-

deus was named to supersede Melanchridas, while five new ships were ordered to be equipped in Lakonia.®? These ships did not sail until spring (8.11.3) after the defeat and death of Alkamenes at Peiraion, a harbor on the frontier of Corinth and Epidauros. 400 8.c.°3 Xenophon Hell. 3.3.24; Diodoros 14.17; Pausanias King Agis of Sparta marched out with an army to invade ing it from the north where it joined Achaia. Hardly had the frontier river Larissos and begun his ravages, when an

3.8.4. Elis, enterhe crossed earthquake

occurred (ceouds émvyiyverar). The event acted so strongly on the religious susceptibilities of Agis (6 6’ “Ayes Gefov nynodmuevos éfeNQv mad ex Tis x@pas Siadfixe TO orpdrevya) that he not only withdrew from El-

eian territory, but disbanded his army. The retreat gave so much additional courage to the Eleians that they tried to establish alliances with

92. Cf. 8.8.2. 93. The date is that of N. G. L. Hammond, History of Greece (Oxford 1959) 450.

Diodoros (14.17) gives too early a date and substitutes Pausanias for Agis.

118

Miscellaneous Portents

cities alienated from Sparta. Agis returned the following year; so that the earthquake had the effect of delaying the war for one year. Again, the historical embroidery in Beloch (Gr. Geschichte? 3.1.17) consists of the fact that it was

characteristic

of Agis, as deduced

from

Hell.

3-2.27,°4 to avoid bloodshed; so he used the earthquake as an excuse. E. Meyer (Theopomps Hellenika [Halle 1909] 115 n. 1) offers the following explanation for Agis using “dem Vorwande eines Erdbebens”: “Dieser Weg fiihrte ihn ins Kernland der Feinde, wo er heftige Kampfe zu erwarten hatte; und denen ist er bekanntlich immer aus dem Wege gegangen, nicht aus Feigheit, sondern aus zutreffenden politischen Erwagungen.” If Agis did not know when he set out that he was marching into “(das) Kernland der Feinde,” he was a remarkably stupid general. 388 (?) B.c. Xenophon Hell. 4.7.4-5; Pausanias 3.5.8. When the Lakedaimonians under Agesipolis had invaded Argos by way of Nemea, it happened that on the first evening after he had crossed the border, an earthquake occurred, or, to translate the Greek

phrase, “The god (Poseidon) shook” (éceey 6 66s). The personal companions of Agesipolis immediately began to sing the paian in honor of Poseidon, the general impression among the soldiers being that Agesipolis would give orders for quitting the territory, as Agis had done in the invasion of Elis a few years before. However, Agesipolis replied that if the earthquake had occurred before he crossed the frontier, he

would have considered it a prohibition;

but since it came

crossing, he looked upon it as encouragement

to go forward.

after his Perhaps

he was fortified by recent oracles (4.7.2). Later, when a thunderbolt

fell into his camp (mire: xepavvos els 76 oTpatomedov), even he had had enough of it and beat a retreat. Pausanias reports the same earthquake,

then makes the generalization that the Lakedaimonians more than any other Greeks—in this respect like the Athenians—were frightened by

dvoonuiar from heaven (kxatror Aaxedarpovlors Madtora ‘EAAnvear—aocatrws 6é kal ’A@nvatous—deiya ai dvoonuetar mapelxovto ).

347/6 B.c. Diodoros 16.6.8. When the Phokians under the command of Phalaikos despoiled the sacred precinct at Delphi to maintain their mercenary force, they were reduced to digging for an unauthenticated treasure supposed, accord-

ing to a verse in the Iliad, to lie concealed beneath the stone floor of 94. See, however, Diodoros 14.17.10 for an explanation of why the city was spared.

Miscellaneous Portents

119

the temple of Apollo. Their search was arrested, Diodoros violent earthquakes (cevcpol weyddo).

says, by

5. OTHER METEOROLOGICAL DIVINATION A. Lightning and Thunder Examples of omens drawn from thunder and lightning are much less frequent in Greek authors than in Roman ones. It was the Etruscans who developed an elaborate system of interpreting such omens: see A. Bouché-Leclercq, Histoire de la divination dans Vantiquité 1 (Paris 1879) 198-204; and C. O. Thulin, Die etruskische Disciplin 1 (Goteborg 1906). Lightning was considered a prodigium indicative of the wrath of heaven. In order that the divine anger might be averted, the

Etruscans instituted various rites. As to thunder, they divided the sky into sixteen parts to observe from what quarter it came and in what quarter it rolled away. Thunder on the left was considered the best of omens,

provided it occurred in front of, rather than behind,

the ob-

server. When Dionysios Hal. (2.5.2—-5) explains the significance of lightning passing from left to right, he expressly refers to Roman divination as inherited from the Etruscans.°* In Homer, lightning seen on the right is regarded as a favorable omen granted by Zeus (Il. 2.353; 9. 236); and Pindar similarly interpreted a peal of thunder on the right (Pyth. 4.23; cf. Ol. 10.79).9” Herodotos (7.10) refers to the thunderbolt (xepavvés) as sent by the god.°%* The examples listed below are drawn exclusively from warfare. In two cases, a mantis is expressly said to have interpreted the omen. 95. In Livy alone there is mention of twenty-nine cases of ancient temples being struck by lightning: see F. Luterbacher, Prodigienglaube und Prodigienstil der Romer (Progr. Burgdorf 1880) 13 n. 36. The religious significance may be seen from Livy 27.25.8-10. When Alexander was at Sardis, he interpreted the position of a thunderstorm as divine intimation of where he should build a temple to Zeus: Arrian Anab. Tole 96. For astrological thunder calendars, see E. S. McCartney, CW 25 (1952) 187-189. The same author’s article, “Classical Weather Lore of Thunder and Lightning” spans several issues of CW 2 (1932), from page 183 to 216. 97- In the Cyr. (1.6.1), when Kyros set out upon his expedition, Xenophon writes: “Tt is said to have thundered and lightened with happy auspices (atovo.) for him; and when this manifestation had been made, they proceeded, without taking any further

auspices, in the conviction

that no one would

make

void

the signs of the

supreme god.” Again, in Cyr. 7.1.3, the clap of thunder on Kyros’ right (Gpovr? de&4) was regarded

as an auspicious omen,

as the army

moved

forward

Apologia (12), Xenophon has Sokrates refer to thunderclaps of omens (péytorov oiwniorhpiov);cf. Mem. 4.3.14. 98. For the connection

60 (1905) 1-30.

of Zeus and the thunderbolt,

for battle. In his

(8poyrai) as the greatest

see especially Usener, RM

120

Miscellaneous Portents

ca. 549 B.c. Nineveh. Xenophon Anab. 3.4.12. When the Ten Thousand marched up the Tigris river, they arrived at a deserted city called Mespila, which was part of the ruins of the

once colossal Nineveh. Xenophon reports that Medea, the wife of Astyages, the last king of Media, took refuge here when the Medes were deprived of their empire by the Persians (549 B.c.). He then adds, “To this city also the king of the Persians laid siege, but he was unable to capture it by the length of siege or by storm; Zeus, however, terrified the inhabitants with thunder, and thus the city was taken.” ca. 490 B.c.* Eira (Messenia). Pausanias says that the god derclaps and lightning which the lightning was on the right

Pausanias 4.21.7. caused rain to descend with loud thundazzled the eyes of the Messenians. As of the Lakedaimonians, their seer Hekas

declared the sign of good omen (drédawev “Exas 6 pdvtis ds aiovov ein Td onuetov).All of this put courage into the Lakedaimonians, who carried

out the plan devised by the mantis for the defeat of the Messenians. 480 B.c. Delphi. Herodotos 8.37. Thunderbolts (xepavvol),109 and the fall of two ‘“‘peaks” from Mount

Parnassos. ‘The rocks, Herodotos says (8.39), were to be seen in his day. When a column of Xerxes’ army advanced on Delphi to plunder the temple, the attack was said to have been repulsed by a handful of Del-

phians with supernatural aid. Most commentators regard the story as a Delphic temple-legend. For various theories, see C. Hignett, Xerxes’ Invasion of Greece (Oxford 1963) 447. 415 B.c. Syrakuse. ‘Thucydides 6.70.1. In the battle near the Olympieion, the Athenians and Syrakusans continued to fight hand to hand without result until there happened to intervene a violent rain storm with thunder

and lightning, which

contributed, Thucydides says, to the fear of those who were fighting for the first time, whereas to the more practiced hoplites it seemed a mere phenomenon of the season. The Syrakusans were astonished by 99. The date is that of F. Kiechle, Messenische Studien (Erlangen diss. 1959) 72f., 86f. L. Pearson (Historia 11 [1962] 397-426) rejects this entire war of Aristomenes as an invention. For bibliography, see G. Huxley, Early Sparta (London 1962) 89 and 144. 100. According to Macan, the word kepavyo, (Lat. fulmina), found only here in Herodotos,

means

the strictly material

thunderbolt

in contrast

to oreporal

(Lat.

fulgura), flashes of lightning, and Bpoyrat (tonitrus), thunderclaps. Actually, Herodotos never uses orepory, a poetic word, but dorpar7.

Miscellaneous Portents

AI

the way the Athenians continued to fight in spite of the omens. At length the Syrakusan army was broken. 413 B.C. Syrakuse. Thucydides 7.79.3. In their retreat from Syrakuse, the Athenians encountered a rain storm with thunderclaps. They construed these as portents of their destruction (ém 7G ogerépw 6\pw). This reaction contrasts strongly with that two years earlier when the Athenians had continued the battle unmoved near the great harbor during a similar thunderstorm. The interpretation of the phenomena depended on the predisposed temper of the army, cheerful or gloomy.

391 B.C. (?) Stymphalos. Strabo 8.8.4.389. When Iphikrates in his incursions over Arkadia besieged Stymphalos, he tried to block up the katavothra with a large quantity of sponges, but desisted as a result of a dioonuta, a word applied especially to thun-

der and lightning.

388 B.c. Argos. Xenophon Hell. 4.7.7; Pausanias 3.5.9. When Agesipolis had carried his ravages even to the gates of the city of Argos, he was at last driven to retreat by the terror of a thunderbolt (xepavvds)

in his camp,

which

killed several persons.!!

‘The project

which he had formed of creating a fort on the Argive frontier was abandoned

in consequence

of unfavorable

sacrifices,!°2

and

he

dis-

banded his army. It seems clear from the language of the two writers that they looked upon the thunderbolt as a mark of some displeasure on the part of the gods against the expedition. 369 B.c. (?) Mount Oneion. Polyainos 2.3.4; Plutarch Mor. 193A. When Epameinondas made an expedition into the Peloponnesos, he found the enemy encamped at Mount Oneion. Thunder (Bpovr)) occurred, and fear seized his soldiers ($d8os aipe? rods orparwras). The

mantis declared against engagement;

but Epameinondas said that it

was the time for action since the thunder had caused confusion in the ranks of the enemy. As a result of this turn which Epameinondas gave to an apparently inauspicious phenomenon, the Thebans advanced to the attack with confidence. 101. The striking of a man by lightning was often considered ominous. See the examples cited by A. S. Pease, Cicero De Divinatione (1963 reprint of 1920/23 ed.)

p- 109. 102. See above chap. III p. 76.

Miscellaneous Portents

122

368/47 B.c. Arkadia. Xenophon Hell. 7.1.31. After Archidamos had drawn up his army to meet the Arkadians and Argives, and the general’s speech was concluded, from a clear sky there came lightning and thunderclaps (aorparal kal Bpovrat) as favorable omens (aicvor). 19% It is clear from the position of the adverb in the fol-

lowing phrase xal mpds 7G de xépare that the omen was auspicious because it was

on the right-hand

side.’ As a result of the omen,

the

soldiers rushed with such fierceness to the charge that they routed the enemy in what was known as the “tearless’’ battle. ca. 361 B.c. Stryme (Thrake). Demosthenes 50 Against Polykles 23. The speaker of the oration says that while the ships of the Athenians were riding at anchor off the harbor of Stryme on the southern coast of Thrake, rain and thunder fell upon them; “therefore you may imagine, men of the jury, what despondency fell upon the troops.”

340 B.C. Sicily. Plutarch Timoleon 28.1; Diodoros 16.80.1. During the great battle at the river Krimisos, peals of thunder crashed down, and flashes of lightning darted forth, upon the combatants. The accompanying rain, wind, and hail smote the Kartha-

ginians in the face and dazzled their eyes, and so completed their discomfiture. C. T. Seltman notes that it was after this battle that a fresh series of Syrakusan coins was issued with heads of Zeus Eleutherios. Moreover,

a set of bronze

coins all with the same

god’s head bore a

1° thunderbolt, “possibly a reference to the great victory.” B. Meteorite!6 4op, B.c. Aigospotamoi. Plutarch Lys. 12. Plutarch writes, “Some say that the falling of the stone was a portent of this disaster; for according to the common

belief, a stone of vast size

103 For other examples of lightning in clear weather

and a discussion of the

phenomenon, see E. 8. McCartney, CW 25 (1932) 189.

104. In Plutarch Mor. 594E a flash of lightning on the right, in this case not followed by thunder, is taken as a sign portending safety and glory (kal 7d onpetov é5dxer KaAOv pds doPaderay Kal ddEav).

105. Greek Coins? (London 1955) 193. 106. In Homer JI. 4.76-77, the meteor is the \ayumpov répas of Zeus. In Cyr. 4.2.15,

Xenophon has a light from heaven ($s é rod obpayod) shine upon the army with the result that the soldiers were filled with awe, but given courage to meet the enemy. Before the battle of Leuktra, a comet was seen in the heavens: Diodoros 15.50.2. ‘The exegetes Philochoros (FGrHist 328 frg. 67) says, after describing the portent of a dog going up on the akropolis: “In the heavens in broad daylight with the sun shining

Miscellaneous Portents

123

had fallen from heaven at Aegospotami, and it is shown to this day by the dwellers in the Chersonese, who hold it in reverence” (Loeb trans.).’°7 Plutarch then describes a theory of Anaxagoras about heayenly bodies. . No

other author mentions the stone as a portent for the battle, and

it is surprising that Plutarch would introduce the incident into his life of Lysander. Actually, the meteorite had fallen about the year 467 B.C. according to the Parian Marble and Pliny NH 2.149,1°9 and after an interval of over sixty years could hardly have been regarded as an omen adverse to the Athenians in 405 B.c. The inclusion of the episode reveals more about the methods of Plutarch than the frame of mind of the Athenians prior to the engagement. ca. 375-362 B.c. Frontinus Strat. 1.12.6. In his section on dispelling the fears inspired in soldiers by adverse omens, Frontinus writes as follows: “Epaminondas, when a meteor fell

from the sky by night and struck terror to the hearts of those who

and the sky blue, a bright star was visible for some time. And we, when questioned

about the meaning of the portent and supernatural sign, said that both prophesied the return of exiles . . . and it came to pass that the interpretation was fulfilled.” The date is 306/5 (Jacoby) or 292 B.c. (W. S. Ferguson, Hellenistic Athens [London 1911] 141). The interesting fact is that the Athenian exegetai were called upon to interpret the two omens. Jacoby writes, “The star does not suggest a comet,” but he does not say what else it could be. According to Plutarch Agis 11, it was a rule of the Spartan constitution that every eighth year, the ephors should choose a clear and moonless night and sitting down observe the sky in silence. If during this vigil they saw a shooting star, they inferred that the king had sinned against the deity, and they suspended him from his functions until the Delphic or Olympic oracle reinstated him. The Spartan king Leonidas was actually deposed around 242 8.c. on various charges, among which the allegation that the ominous sign had been seen in the sky took a prominent place. See U. Kahrstedt, Sparta und seine Symmachie (Gottingen 1922) 125-126. It is clear that the early Sparans who had incorporated such a portent into their law-code must have regarded the meteor as a very threatening omen. For the dread of the meteor among primitive peoples, see J. G. Frazer, Golden Bough 48 (London 1912) 56-68. Pliny (NH 2.93-94) asserts that a certain temple in Rome was the only place in the world where a comet had become an object of worship. The common people believed that the comet represented the soul of Julius Caesar accepted among the spirits of the immortal gods; see $. Weinstock, Divus Julius (Oxford 1971) 370ff. 107. For numerous references in antiquity to this stone, see Hirschfeld in RE s.v. Aigos potamos (1894) 977; and T. Heath, Aristarchus of Samos (Oxford 1913) 246. 108. JG XII.5.1. no. 444A: dd’ od éy Alyos rorapots 6 AlOos erece. 109. See W. K. C. Guthrie, History of Greek Philosophy 2 (Cambridge 1965) 302-303. A. B. Cook, Zeus 3.1 (Cambridge 1940) 885, dates the fall of the meteor in 405 B.C.

124

Miscellaneous Portents

noticed it, exclaimed: ‘It is a light sent us from the powers above.’ ” (Loeb trans.). C. Snowstorm 404 B.c. Mounichia. Xenophon Heil. 2.4.14. In his very animated exhortation to his soldiers before engaging the forces of the Thirty, Thrasyboulos used the occurrence of a very heavy snowstorm (2.4.3) as an omen that the gods were now manifestly fighting on their side: “In fair weather, they send a storm when it is to our

advantage.”

D. Wind 379 B.c. Mount Kithairon. Xenophon Hell. 5.4.17. While Kleombrotos was leading the Lakedaimonian army homeward from Thebes, an extraordinary wind (aveuos é&alovos) beset them as they

were crossing a mountain ridge from Kreusis to Aigosthena. Xenophon reports that some augured that the wind was a sign foreshadowing what

was going to happen

(oiwvifovrd tives onuaivery Tpd Tv peAdOvrwv). The

words rév peAdbvTwy are taken by all commentators to refer to the battle of Leuktra in 371 B.c. (6.4.2-15). The interpretation, then, was made post eventum. For the wind as a god, see chap. V, pp. 204-206. 334 B.c. Lykia. Arrian Anab. 1.26. While the main army of Alexander marched from Phaselis to Perga along a road made by the Thrakians, Alexander and his immediate followers took a coastal route which was practicable only with north winds blowing. Arrian reports, ‘“There had been heavy southerlies, but a north wind had set in—this by divine interposition, as Alexander and his staff (i.e. the manteis) interpreted it—and made the passage easy and swift.”

E. Tidal Wave 480/79 B.c. Poteidaia. Herodotos 8. 129. The Persian general Artabazos, on his return from escorting Xerxes to the Hellespont after the defeat at Salamis, undertook the reduction of towns which had revolted from the Persians. He succeeded with Olynthos, but at Poteidaia he met with stubborn resistance. After a siege of three months, a considerable body of his troops attempted to pass at low tide across the isthmus to get to the side towards Pallene. The troops were struck by a tidal wave and many were drowned. Arta-

bazos was forced to renounce the enterprise. Herodotos dwells on the

Miscellaneous Portenis

125

episode as illustrating the wrath of Poseidon, whose image in front of the city had been profaned by the Persia ns. The coins of Poteidaia carry an image of Poseidon which was perha ps taken from this very statue: B. V. Head, Historia Numorum (Oxfo rd 1911) 212. After 143/2 B.c. Poseidonios (F. Jacoby, FGrHist 87 frg. 29 = Athenaios

8.333C).

Poseidonios writes: “Tryphon’s army was marching along the coast after their victory in the battle, when suddenly a wave from the ocean lifted itself to an extraordinary height and dashed upon the shore, engulfing all the men and drowning them beneath the waters. And when the wave receded it left behind a huge pile of fishes among the dead bodies. The followers of Sarpedon [general of Demetrios II Nicator], hearing of the disaster, came up and gloated over the bodies of their enemies, while they also carried away an abundance of fish and offered sacrifice to Poseidon Tropaios near the suburbs of the Clty 1t0 6. TERATOLOGICAL

BirTHS

A. S. Pease in his commentary on Cicero De Div. 1.93 (1963 reprint edition pp. 262-263) devotes two columns to bibliography on unusual or teratological births, largely on the Roman side. For animal misbirths of a portentous character,!!1 I note only the following which have to do with military campaigns. 480 B.c. Hellespont. Herodotos 4.57. After recounting the transit of Xerxes’ army from Asia into Europe, Herodotos dwells with peculiar emphasis on two great portents (répara) which he says were easy of interpretation. First, a mare gave birth toa hare. The meaning was that Xerxes was to march his army to Hellas with great pomp but was to come back fleeing for his life. In the second, a mule was born with female organs.1!2 Later at Salamis (8.88.3), Xerxes 110. For the occasion, see Strabo 16.2.26.758; and Willrich RE s.v. Demetrios 41 (1901) 2800. Strabo (1.3-4.49-50) explains the phenomenon as a change (exallaxis) in the levels of the seabeds. 111. One of the more famous examples of the interpretation of such portents is that made by the mantis Lampon of Athens when he was shown by Perikles the head of a one-horned ram, which Lampon said meant that the power of Athens would devolve upon a single man: Plutarch Perikles 6. 112. For numerous reports of the birth of hermaphrodites in Roman sources, see C. O. Thulin, Die etruskische Disciplin 3 (Goteborg 1909) 118-121. The regular expiation of such prodigies was to remove them from sight by throwing them into the sea (p. 120). For a great beard appearing upon a priestess, see Herodotos 1.175.

126

Miscellaneous Portents

finds that his men are women and his women men. The first portent was a physical impossibility; but, as Macan notes, Herodotos seemingly regarded it as the more authentic of the two.

357 B.c. Zakynthos. Plutarch Dion 24 (from Theopompos). On the authority of Theopompos, Plutarch reports that, when Dion

mustered a force at Zakynthos to sail for Syrakuse, pigs were littered which were perfect in other parts but had no ears. The manteis of Dion declared that this was a sign of revolution, since the citizens of

Syrakuse would no longer listen to the commands of the tyrant Dionysios. 327 B.c. Oxus River. Plutarch Alex. 57.4. A sheep weaned a lamb which had upon its head what looked like a tiara in form and color, with testicles on either side of it. Alexander was filled with loathing at the portent (onuefoy) and feared that it

meant that after his death his power might devolve upon an impotent man.

7. SNEEZE The belief in the ominous power of a sneeze is as old as Homer and widespread among all primitive peoples.'? The mantis Philochoros of Athens says that this species of divination derived from Demeter: Jacoby, FGrHist 328 frg. 192. The validity of divination from sneezes is defended by Plutarch Mor. 581-582. A. S. Pease (“The Omen of Sneezing,” CP 6 [1911] 429-433) attempts to show that its ominous nature

is due to a belief that the sneeze is the revelation of a demonic power resident in the sneezer.114 C. H. Toy believes that fear of a sneeze originated in the feeling of danger that a hurtful spirit might enter the sneezer’s body or that his soul might depart. 480 B.c. Plutarch Them. 13. When Themistokles was sacrificing before the battle of Salamis, “a sneeze gave forth its omen on the right”

(awrappos éx deéav éofunve). The

113. See Od. 17.541; Hom. Hymn 4.297. 114. Pease gives a bibliography of some twenty-five treatises on the subject of the sneeze in his edition of Cicero, De Div., note on 2.40.84. 115. Introduction to the History of Religions (Boston 1913) 416. In the sneezing of a child restored to life by Elisha (Second Kings 4.35), it is thought that the soul itself was returning.

Miscellaneous Portents

127

mantis congratulated Themistokles on the favorable portent by clasping his hand.116 401 B.c. When them to soldiers

Xenophon Anab. 3.2.8-9. Xenophon addressed the army on his first appearance before protest against the treachery of the Persians and to assure the that by resistance there was good hope of the favor of the gods

and of ultimate preservation

eiol_owrnpias),

(ody rots beots 1o\dal nutv Kal Kadal édrides

one of the soldiers happened to sneeze as he pronounced

this last word.117 Immediately the whole army made the rpookivyots (of OTpATLOTaL TavTEs UG Spuh mpoceKivnoay Tov Hedy) .118 By his rhetorical skill

Xenophon dexterously turned the incident to profit and persuaded the soldiers to begin a retreat.

375 B.c. Polyainos 3.10.2; Frontinus Strat. 1.12.11. When Timotheos was about to contend against the Kerkyraians in a naval battle, one of the men was seized with a fit of sneezing (arappos éyévero). The sailors refused to embark (Polyainos) and the pilot started

to give the order to retreat (Frontinus),""° whereupon Timotheos with composure said that it was not strange if one out of a number of men had a chill. 8. INANIMATE

NATURE

Theophrastos (HP 2.3.1) says that the manteis call portents (onueta) spontaneous changes in the character of trees and of their fruit. Un116. For the sneeze on The left-hand sneeze was Cynic retorted to a very head with a single blow:

the right as unlucky: see superstitious “And I will

a favorable omen, see Pease, CP 6 (1911) 432. (1) Diogenes Laert. 6.48, where Diogenes the

antagonist who had threatened to break his make you shudder by sneezing on your left”

(éye 6€ ye, ele, mrapav 2 dporepSv Tpeuew ce rovfow); and (2) Plutarch Mor. 581B,

where it is asserted that Sokrates took as an unfavorable omen a sneeze from the left.

These examples and others are cited by W. A. Oldfather, “The Sneeze and Breathing of Love,” Classical Studies Presented to E. Capps (Princeton 1936) 268-281. 117. It was customary to salute a sneezer with such words as Zed c&aov: Pease, CP 6 (1911) 436. This custom has come down to modern times. Boccaccio in II Sabbatino says that if you marry, you will at all events have somebody to say “Dio te aiuti!” when you sneeze. 118. There is undoubted parody of the superstition in Aristophanes Eq. 638-640: Tadra ppovrivorvri you / éx deklas drérapde kararbywv

dv. / Kaye mpocékvoa

—.

For

a

study of mpocktynors see J. P. A. Gould, JHS 93 (1973) 75. 119. Here the omen is unfavorable. The circumstance of the sneeze determined the nature of the omen, and, as Pease points out, the interpretations are very compli-

cated. The importance of the time of day, especially at the beginnings of enterprises, is clearly shown by Aristotle Probl. 33.11. Perhaps in the present instance the unfavorable omen was in repeated sneezing; see Pease, CP 6 (191 1) 441-442.

128

Miscellaneous Portenis

favorable portents are changes from acid to sweet and from cultivated to wild fruit. Pliny (VH 17.243) informs us that the work of Alexander’s mantis Aristandros was full of examples of the portentous behavior of trees in Greece. 480 B.c. Athens. Herodotos After the burning of the xes, the Athenian exiles in sacrifice among the ruins. near the Erechtheion, the

8.55; Pausanias 1.27.2. temple on the akropolis of Athens by Xerhis suite received orders to go up and offer They discovered that the sacred olive tree special gift of the goddess Athena, though

burned to the ground by the recent flames, had already thrown out a

fresh shoot one cubit long. When returns to the Greek commanders on learning of the burning of the portent of the speedy resurrection to them.!°

Herodotos in the next chapter (8.56) at Salamis, he says that the soldiers akropolis, raised sail for flight. The of conquered Athens was not known

479 B.C. Salamis. Herodotos 8.65. A cloud of dust, as if from celebrants of the Eleusis festival, is re-

garded as a portent of Persian defeat. The Athenian exile Dikaios plays the part of exegete and interprets the omen to the Spartan Demaratos.™1 401 B.c. Euphrates River. Xenophon Anab. 1.4.18. Kyros’ army crossed the river, which had never before been possible

on foot at Thapsakos, without being wetted above the breast. Xenophon says that the low water level was brought about by divine intervention

(#etov). For the same “omen,” see Tacitus Hist. 4.26; and Kal-

listhenes (FGrHist 124 frg. 31).1% 375 B.c. Zakynthos. Plutarch Dion 24 (from Theopompos). The sea water which washed the base of the akropolis became sweet and potable for a whole day. Dion’s manteis interpreted this to indicate for the Syrakusans a change from grievous times to comfortable circumstances. 120. For a recent treatment of the chronology of the events, see R. Sealey, CSCA

5 (1972) 183-194. 121. P. Trautwein (Hermes 25, [1890] 527-566) develops the hypothesis that Dikaios left memoirs from which Herodotos drew freely. See, however, F. Jacoby, Atthis (Oxford 1949) 391 n. 6. 122. The latter passage, where it is said that the sea paid homage to Alexander, is discussed by J. R. Hamilton, Plutarch: Alexander (Oxford 1969) 44.

Miscellaneous Portents

129

340 B.c. Sicily. Plutarch Timoleon 26; Mor. 676D (= Timaios [FGrHist

566 frg. 118]); Diodoros 16.79.3—4; Polyainos 5.12.1. As Timoleon

with his army, on their march

from Syrakuse to the

Punic zone, approached the river Krimisos, they ascended a hill from which they expected to see the full multitude of the enemy. They were met on the ascent by a train of mules, bearing loads of wild celery to

be used for fodder. To the soldiers the omen seemed an evil one (zovnpév onuetoy ). Celery was the herb with which men crowned the monuments

of the dead. Plutarch refers to a proverb which spoke of one who was sick unto death as one who would soon need his celery. Timoleon ordered a halt and harangued his men. The crown of victory, he told them, had come into their hands of its own accord before the battle. The plant the sight of which troubled them was the one wrapped around the heads of the victors in the Isthmian games. He took a hand-

ful of the herb and twined a wreath for his own brow; the officers and

the whole army did likewise. At the same moment, the manteis pointed out two eagles in the sky. One bore in his claws a struggling serpent; see above, p. 107. The army marched on with the crowns of celery on

their heads, deeming that the gods had promised them victory. All ac-

counts are in substantial agreement: the historian Timaios of Tauromenion was the common source for the story.

334 B.c. Xanthos (Lykia). Plutarch Alex. 17.4. When Alexander arrived near the city of Xanthos, a spring overflowed and cast forth a bronze tablet bearing the prints of ancient letters, in which it was made

known

that the Persian empire would one

day be destroyed. The incident was interpreted to Alexander to mean the destruction of the Persian empire. Similar omens Aristotle Mir. 57; Achilles Tat. 8.11; Pliny NH 2.228.

are recorded in

328 B.c. Oxus River. Plutarch Alex. 57.5-9; Arrian 4.15.7-8.123 Near Alexander’s

tent, a spring of oil came

up from

the ground,

when the soldiers were digging for water. The mantis Aristandros said that the spring of oil was a sign of labors to come, but that it portended final victory (Arrian). Plutarch gives the same interpretation, but says

that the prediction was made by the pdvres (plural). He explains the interpretation, “Oil was given to men by the divine as an aid to toil.” Alexander wrote to Antipater that this was one of the greatest omens vouchsafed to him from the divine: Plutarch 57.8. K. Kaerst (Philologus 51 [1892] 606) rejects the genuineness of the episode since it occurs 123. Cf. Curtius 7.10.14, who, however, mentions only a spring of water.

130

Miscellaneous Portents

in the letters of Alexander, which he regards as spurious. Digging for oil near the Oxus river is well attested by Strabo 11.518. Athenaios (2.42F) mentions that Alexander wrote about the discovery of oil in Asia. The association of the incident with the seer Aristandros makes it probable that it was found in the ‘‘Priesterjournal’’4 of the expedition, and there is as much reason to accept its historicity as that of other less authenticated incidents which are not questioned by historians.’ g. DIvINATION BY IMAGES The locus classicus for a description of divination by the sacred image is Lucian’s De Dea Syria 36-37, which, although written in a

tone of mockery, portrays the god at Hieropolis in Syria as giving responses without employing the medium of priest or prophet.!?6 When the god wishes to give an oracle it stirs on its pedestal and sweats until the priests take it up; it then drives its bearers in all directions. At length the high priests put a question and the image drives those who are carrying it either forward (an affirmative answer) or back (negative). The priests reached a high degree of skill and ingenuity.” The idea of deity residing in statues and consequent reaction on the part of images is partly the basis of various ancient tales of statues sweating, weeping, etc.28 See Cicero De Div. 1.74; 1.98. The modern explanation of the sweating of statues of metal, stone, and ivory is that this is con-

densation of moisture, and this is hinted at in Cicero De Div. 2.58. For the sweating of blood, see J. S. P. Tatlock, CP g (1914) 442-447. The often-reported falling of statues suggests seismic disturbances. For example, the case in Procopius 3.7.10 is clearly due to an earthquake. See A. S. Pease ap. Cicero De Div. 1.74. 392 B.c. Corinth. Xenophon Hell. 4.4.5.129 During the Corinthian war, Pasimelos and his philo-Lakonian party seized the Akrokorinthos but were frightened by menacing omens, one 124. See H. Berve, Das Alexanderreich (Munich 1926) 90. 125. Cf. J. R. Hamilton, PACA 4 (1961) 16.

126. See W. R. Halliday, Greek Divination (London 1918) 222-226. Cf. G. Anderson, “Studies in Lucian’s Comic Fiction,” Mnemosyne Suppl. 43 (1976) 68-82. 127. The validity of signs given by images of deities is defended by Plutarch Coriolanus 38. 128. For

the

ominous

character

of

the

phenomenon,

cf.

Lydus

De

Ostentis

p- 16 (Wachsmuth):

87ay yer yap idpody 4 Saxpbew Sox &yaduara h eixéves, 7) 6Tay Kap.vos 9 lives repireppvypuévos éxhappy ordces Eududlous &rehe?. For examples among the Romans,

see F. G. Krauss,

An

Interpretation

of the

Omens,

Recorded by Livy, Tacitus, and Suetonius (Philadelphia 129. Cf. Diodoros 14.86.

Portents,

and

1930) 176-179.

Prodigies

Miscellaneous Portents

131

of which Xenophon reports as a capital falling from a column, although there was neither earthquake nor wind. The manteis advised them to evacuate the post, which they did, and many of them actually went into exile.

345/4 B.c. Delphi. Plutarch Timoleon 8. Before setting out for Sicily, Timoleon travelled to Delphi to consult the god about the expedition, and while he was actually in the temple, a fillet with interwined wreaths and symbols of victory fell from one of the statues upon his head, so that he appeared to be crowned by the god. This portent, says Plutarch, resulted in Timoleon’s decision to make the expedition. 344 B.c. Adranon (Sicily). Plutarch Timoleon 12.130 When Timoleon with inferior numbers approached Adranon

about forty miles inland from: Tauromenion,

the town of he found

the

forces of Hiketas encamped outside the walls. Plutarch says that the people of Adranon threw open their gates and joined Timoleon after the sacred portals of the temple of their god Adranos spontaneously burst open and his image was seen with profuse perspiration on the face. Such portents contributed hardly less than the ensuing victory to exalt the glory of Timoleon. 334 B.c. Leibethra. Plutarch Alex. 14; Arrian 1.11.2. When Alexander set out upon his expedition, the wooden

image

(savov) of Orpheus at Leibethra in Makedonia sweated profusely.131

Most people feared the sign; but the mantis Aristandros bade Alexander be of good cheer for it signified that it would be much toil to writers to sing of Alexander and his exploits. 10. CLEDONOMANCY AND ®juy Plutarch (Phokion 28) writes: ““Of old the mystic shapes and voices were vouchsafed to them [the Athenians] in the midst of their most glorious successes, and brought consternation and affright upon their enemies.” Jacoby (FGrHist 328 frg. 192) identifies one fragment of Philochoros which has to do with é djuns warreta. Cicero De Div. 1.101 discusses voices heard in battles, particularly that of Faunus, fa-

130. Cf. Diodoros 16.68.9. 131. See Ziegler RE s.v. Orpheus (1939) 1231 lines 1-7.

132

Miscellaneous Portents

ther of Latinus.!52 Divination by cledonomancy is studied by A. BouchéLeclercq, Histoire de la divination dans lVantiquité 1 (Paris 1879) 160, W. R. Halliday, Greek Divination (London 1913) 229-234; J. J. Peradotto, ‘““Cledonomancy in the Oresteia,” AJP (1969) It may be that the image or the god in person speaks, or that a

154—and 1-21. mys-

terious voice is heard whose source no one knows, or that news arrives

with a speed which defies the conditions imposed by space and time.1*8 Lucretius (4.580-594) explains the physical origins of some cases as echoes. Others believe that such “voices” result from the sound of wind either in the open or in the branches of trees, of the creaking and rubbing together of limbs of trees, etc. See A. S. Pease ap. Cicero De Div. 1.45-101. The divine will might be known by means of the casual words of a mortal (Ande, “a chance voice’). Of this we have a noteworthy example in Od. 20.98ff. Odysseus, about to take vengeance on the wooers,

prays for divine encouragement; followed

by a few words

a thunder-clap answers him, and is

from a tired maid-servant,

who

curses

the

wooers for keeping her up all night to grind grain for the feasts. Later ritual developed and systematized this method at the oracular shrine of Hermes Agoraios in Pharai: Pausanias 7.22.2-3 and Frazer’s note. The consultant whispered his question into the god’s ear, then stopped his own

ears, went

out, and, when

he got beyond

the market-place,

listened for chance words from passers-by. These were construed into an answer. ‘This form of divination was popular at all periods. It seems to have had the great advantage that one could either accept or disregard an omen of this kind. A similar idea is the peculiar occurrence which the Greeks called géqun, Homer

dudyn or édcca,

the rumor

which,

coming

from

no one

knows who, spreads through a crowd. This the Greeks always recognized as heaven-sent. ‘'wo passages in Aischines are especially valuable in illustrating the ancient idea of ¢jun—a divine voice, or vocal goddess, generally considered as informing a crowd of persons at once, or moving them all by one and the same unanimous feeling,—the vox dei passing into the vox populi. The first passage from 1 Against Timarchos 127-128 (Loeb transl., with substitution of ‘pheme’ for “Common Report”) reads: 132. Pausanias (9.11.7) mentions divination by voices as common at the altar of Apollo Spodios at Thebes and adds that such divination was used by the people of Smyrna more than by any other Greeks, 133. Aischines 2 On the Embassy

145, says: dhun pev eri, bray 7d AROS TOV ToALTOV abrouaror éx undeusds rpopdcews AEyy TW’ ds yeyernuevyny mpakw.

ae

Miscellaneous Portents

133

In the case of the life and conduct of men, a pheme which is unerring does of itself spread abroad throughout the city; it causes the private deed to become matter of public knowledge, and many a time it even prophesies what is about to be. So manifest and so far from being fabricated is this statement

of mine, that you will find that both our city and our forefathers

dedicated

an altar to pheme, as one of the greatest gods; and you will find that Homer again and again in the Iliad says, of a thing that has not yet come to pass, “Pheme came to the host;” and again you will find Euripides declaring that this god is able not only to make known the living, revealing their true characters, but the dead as well, when he says, “Pheme shows forth the good man

even though he be in the bowels of the earth;” and Hesiod expressl y represents her as a goddess, speaking in words that are very plain to those who are

willing to understand,

for he says, “But pheme

tongues of many men do utter. She also is divine.”

dies never,

the voice

that

Again, in 2 On the Embassy 145, Aischines says: “It is a case of pheme

when the mass of the people, on their own impulse and for no reason

that they can give, say that a certain event has taken place: >= To pheme we offer public sacrifice, as to a god.” The "Occa of Homer is essentially the same idea as pheme: Iliad 2.93, peTa 6€ odiow "Oooa Seder

érpbvova’ iévar, Avds &yyedos; Od. 1.282, axobons éx Ards, } Te wddcora péper KA€os the idea of a distinct human speaker); Oka Kata wroAuw otxero TAVTN MYnoTHpwY

Cf. the scholia to Od. 2.35.

jv ris Tou elanor Bpor&v, } "Oocapy avOpwrooe ("Ocoa is opposed to Od. 24.413, "Oooa 6’ dp’ &yvedos oTUEpOY Bdvarov Kal Kip’ évérovca.

The more numerous examples of panic terror which at times ran through the ancient armies or assembled multitudes, and which were supposed

to be produced by Pan or by Phobos, have been discussed

above.'*4 The most instructive incident of this phenomenon is probably the one related about Alexander in 331 B.c.: Polyainos 4.3.26 and

Curtius 4.12.16. A panic fear

(avixév) seized his rear guard and ran

through the army, as he was attempting to reach the Tigris before Dareios. Alexander ordered his soldiers to halt, the first rank immedi-

ately to throw down their arms at their feet, and the next to do the same. When this order was observed through the whole army, the men came to their senses and recovered alike their armor and their courage. For the epiphanies of Pan, see above, II.45.

480 B.c. Delphi. Herodotos 8.37. When a column of Xerxes’ army advanced on Delphi to plunder the temple, among other portents there was heard a shout and a cry of 134. II.32-33, 45 and n. 72 (Pan) and V.162 (Phobos).

134

Miscellaneous Portents

triumph from the temple of Athena Pronaia, which struck panic into the ranks of the Persians. 480 B.c. Salamis. Herodotos 8.65. Dikaios, the Athenian

exile, heard a pheme which he fancied was

the loud multitudinous chant which was wont to accompany in ordinary times the processional march from Athens to Eleusis. He would have revealed the omen to Xerxes had not Demaratos deterred him from so doing. But Dikaios as well as Herodotos construed it as evidence that the goddesses themselves were passing over from Eleusis to help the Athenians at Salamis. 479 B.c. Mykale. Herodotos 9.100; Diodoros 11.35; Polyainos 1.33. @nun of victory at Plataiai accompanied by the ocular sign of a herald’s wand (knpvuxjoyv). This famous example of “vertical telepathy,”

for which there are parallels from all ages,'*> is discussed by E. R. Dodds,

“Supernormal

Phenomena

in Classical

Antiquity,”

The

An-

cient Concept of Progress (Oxford 1973) 173. Ephoros (Diodoros 11.35. 1-3) tried to rationalize the story by assuming that the circulation of the rumor was due to Leotychidas. In Herodotos’ belief, “‘pheme”’ is plainly supernatural; as she apparently was to the Athenians who dedi-

cated to her an altar to commemorate news of a victory of Kimon’s at Eurymedon (ca. 466 B.c.), received at Athens the day the battle was fought: Aischines 1 Against Timarchos 128, with scholia. Aischines calls her 6eds peyiorn. Pausanias (1.17.1) attests the existence of the al-

tar.18° The messenger’s wand apparently confirmed that Pheme had arrived in person.'8’ The result of the “rumor” that Plataiai had been won, Herodotos says, was to give the Greeks courage. In the quotation

from Xenophon given at the opening of this chapter, he states that the mantis divined from phemai, but we know nothing else about the

practice.

135. In 1976, a professor of psychology at the University of California offered a course to twenty-five students, drawn from 1,500 applicants, to conduct experiments in extrasensory perception, the results of which, he reported, showed that the studenis demonstrated “extremely successful” development of their ESP abilities. 136. For other shrines of Pheme,

see W. R. Halliday,

Greek Divination

(London

1913) 234; and F. Jacoby, FGrHist 3b Suppl. 1 Text p. 557. 137. Cf. IG XIV.1120: dhuy ebayyédw. See Wilamowitz, Der Glaube der Hellenen 1

(Berlin 1926) 17-18; O. Kern, Die Religion Voigt, RE s.v. Pheme (1938) 1954-1955.

der Griechen

3 (Berlin 1938) 79-80;

Miscellaneous Portents

135 11. OMENS

FRomM

NAMES

In De Divinatione 1.46.103-104, Cicero discus ses with several examples the widespread~practice of drawing omens from names. He states that when starting on an expedition, or when reviewing the army or taking the census, it was the rule to choose men with names of good omen to lead off. The first soldier enlisted must have a lucky name. The literature on the subject is collected by A. S. Pease on the Cicero passage and by E. Riess in RE s.v. Omen (1939) 376-3 78. Even at the dawn of Greek literature, names were said to exercise a contro lling influence on one’s fate, as in the case of Odysseus (Homer Od. 19.407—409) and Aineias (Hymn to Aph. 198). ‘The best illustration of the Greek feeling is seen in Aischylos’ comments on the name Helen (Ag. 681-689). 479 B.c. Delos. Herodotos 9.91. When the Greek fleet under Leotychidas the Lakedaimonia n had advanced as far as Delos, but was afraid to undertake any offensive operations against the Persians at Samos, three Samians came to assure him that their countrymen were ready to revolt. In spite of emphatic appeals, Leotychidas was deaf to the entreaty. While not yet thorough-

ly determined, he happened to ask the Samian speaker what was his name. ‘To which the latter replied, “Hegesistratos” (“army-leader’”). “I accept Hegesistratos as an omen” (oiwyds), said Leotychidas. Pledges were at once exchanged, and the fleet set off, further encouraged by favorable sacrifices by the mantis Deiphonos. 415 B.c. Athens. Plutarch Nikias 1.

Plutarch reports that the historian Timaios wrote that it was a bad

omen for the Athenians that Nikias, whose name was derived from Vic-

tory, declined at first to head the expedition to Sicily.

401 B.c. Kounaxa. Xenophon Anab. 1.8.16. Before the battle, when Kyros heard the watchword being passed along, he asked Xenophon with some surprise what it was. Xenophon replied that it was “Zeus the Preserver and Victory.” “I accept it,” replied Kyros; “let that be the word.”188 138. For the classical belief in the force of the acceptance of omens, see W. R. Halliday, Greek Divination (London 1913) 46-53. The act of acceptance made the omen irrevocable. Conversely, one might refuse the omen. See, in particular, Herodotos 1.63; A. Bouché-Leclercq, Histoire de la divination dans Vantiquité 4 (Paris 1882) 137 n. 1; A. D. Nock, Proceedings of the Amer. Philosophical Society 85 (1941/2) 477; E. Fraenkel on Aischylos Agam. 1653 (Oxford 1962); and J. J. Peradotto, AJP

go (1969) 3-4.

Miscellaneous Portenis

136 12. MISCELLANEOUS

There is a number of omens which do not fall readily into any of the above classifications. They are listed below in chronological order. Portent of arms. 480 B.c. Delphi. Herodotos 8.37. Sacred arms which no man might touch without sacrilege were seen outside the temple of Athena Pronaia. Herodotos speaks of this as a répas. The presumption seems to be that Athena had transported them from within the temple.'® Burning of a temple.'#

396 B.c. Corinth. Pausanias 3.9.2. When Agesilaos set out for Asia Minor, Pausanias says that Corinth and Athens for differing reasons refused to send contingents. The refusal is not mentioned by Xenophon (Hell. 3.5.5). Pausanias gives the Corinthian reason as follows: “Now the Corinthians were most eager

to take part in the expedition to Asia, but considering it a bad omen that their temple of Zeus surnamed Olympian had been suddenly burnt down,

they reluctantly remained

behind”

(Loeb

tr.). Typical

of the

modern historian’s explanation of this refusal is that of H. Berve, Gr. Geschichte 2? (Freiburg 1952) 73: ““Furcht von einer weiteren Starkung der lakedaimonischen Ubermacht.” There is no other indication of tension at the time between Sparta and Corinth. We do not of course know Pausanias’ source. The explanation in itself is as plausible as similar refusals on religious grounds to campaign on the part of Sparta. The response of the manteis and the people of Corinth to this catastrophe may well have been as Pausanias represents it. Of this much I think we can be sure: if there was division among the Corinthians as to what response to give to the Spartan request, the opponents of the expedition would have used the incident to play upon the superstitions of the citizenry and thereby to win the day.

Opening of doors of temple. 371 B.c. Leuktra. Xenophon Hell. 6.4.7; Cicero De Div. 1.34.74. Xenophon reports that all the doors of the temples of Thebes were opening of themselves, and that the priestesses said that the gods re139. Cf. a similar omen

at Leuktra,

above, chap. II, 28.

140. For a similar interpretation by manteis of the burning of the temple at Ephesos, see Plutarch Alex. 3.

Miscellaneous Portents

137

vealed victory. Cicero says that this omen was told by the historian Kallisthenes of Olynthos.

Omen of a spoken warning. 371 B.c. ‘Thebes. Diodoros 15.52.34. As Epameinondas was leading the Boiotians from Thebes, he was met by a blind herald, who, seeking recovery of runaway slaves, cried a warning not to take them from Thebes. Diodoros calls this an un-

favorable omen

(dvaxepés onyetov).Since the Thebans had recently been

slaves to Sparta, the proclamation portended their destruction if they were led forth from the city.141 Epameinondas replied to the omen by observing that “one only omen is best, to fight for the land that is ours,” 142 Ribbon on tombstone.

371 B.c. Thebes. Diodoros 15.52.5. After reporting the preceding omen, Diodoros says that a second omen appeared to Epameinondas, more unfavorable than the first. As the grammateus advanced with a spear and a ribbon attached to ita breeze tore the ribbon from the spear and wrapped it around a gravestone marking the tomb of the Lakedaimonians. The older people protested against the departure of the army, against the patent opposition of the gods; but Epameinondas,

trained in philosophy (meguAoao-

énxes),did not deign to offer a reply. Frontinus (Strat. 1.12.5) refers to the same episode, but the spear is that of Epameinondas and the Theban replies, “Do not be concerned, comrades! Destruction is foretold for the Spartans. Tombs are not decorated except for funerals.” Crowing of cocks. 371 B.c. Lebadeia. Cicero De Div. 1.34.74.148 Before the battle of Leuktra, while honors were being paid to Tro-

phonios, the cocks in the neighborhood began to crow vigorously and did not leave off. The Boiotian manteis declared that the victory belonged to the Thebans, because it was the habit of cocks to crow when victorious and to keep silent when conquered. 141. See the note of C. L. Sherman in the Loeb edition. 142. Homer II. 12.243. 143. Cf. Pausanias 4.32.5.

138

Miscellaneous Portents

Swarm of bees. 357 B.c. Zakynthos. Plutarch Dion 24.4 (from Timonides?!).

Bees settled in swarms upon the sterns of Dion’s ships before his departure for Syrakuse. The mantis Miltas told Dion privately that this was a portent that his undertakings would thrive at the outset, but after a short season of flowering would wither away.14 Consecrated sheep. 328 B.c. Sogdiana. Plutarch Alex. 50.4-5. Three consecrated sheep which were to be sacrificed followed Kleitos. The manteis Aristandros and Kleomenes interpreted the omen as unfavorable for Kleitos, who was shortly afterward slain by Alexander.

Cf. Cicero De Div. 1.118: Animals escaping from sacrifice apparently represent the unwillingness of the divine power to furnish good omens.1!46

Fighting of birds. 323 B.c. Babylon. Plutarch Alex. 73.2. The series of omens which came to Alexander before his death includes the fighting of ravens with some falling dead at his feet. The fighting of birds had been regarded as a sign of disaster as early as Homer Od. 2.150ff. See Aischylos PV 492 and Sophokles Ant. 999-1004. Lion.

323 B.c. Babylon. Plutarch Alex. 73.4. A lion was attacked by a tame ass and kicked to death. This unfavorable omen occurred shortly before the death of Alexander. Some general observations may be made about (1) the role of the mantis, (2) the authority of the hegemon, and (3) the historicity of the portentous incidents. 1. Role of mantis. ‘The military mantis was a jack-of-all-trades in the field of divination. In all of the major categories of prodigies listed 144. So W. H. Porter, Plutarch’s Dion (Dublin 1952) 76. 145. For the abundant literature on the ominous significance of bees, see A. S. Pease’s edition of Cicero’s De Divinatione pp. 220 and 597. For references to our passage, see Schrot, Der Kleine Pauly 1 (1964) s.v. Biene 899, line 58. On the significance of bees seen in dreams, see Artemidoros Onirocritica 2.22. 146. Similarly, if a rapacious bird seized the flesh of a sacrificial victim, this was

regarded as an unfavorable sign for the sacrifice: Pausanias 5.14.1.

-Miscellaneous Portents

139

above, the mantis is specifically referred to in at least one incident in

each group as offering an interpretation, with the exception of earthquakes, which, although generally regarded as portentous, were of such an obvious nature as to require no exegesis. From the condensed accounts which have come down to us, we may presume that the seer divined in most cases. The military mantis was an interpreter of signs and portents, of dreams, of the internal organs of victims sacrificed, of the flight of birds, in short of all events out of normal order. In a few cases, we see that these might admit of multiple meanings between which the general must choose. 2. The final decision of the general. As noted in chapter III, the final decision after the mantis had interpreted the omen rested with the general. What course the army was to pursue depended on the judgment of the hegemon. Timoleon, for example, manages by his presence of mind to explain the portent of the celery (above, p. 129), which his soldiers regarded as ominous, in a favorable way BovAduevos .. . aitovs amad\déar THs decordatuovias. 147 A somewhat similar story is told of Marcellus, who was afraid that a certain happening would cause a panic amongst his soldiers é« devordacuovias. 48 At the other extreme one

may come to depend upon superstition, as Plutarch says happened to Alexander. There was nothing so insignificant or ordinary that he did not interpret it as a portent. His whole palace was filled with sacrificers, purifiers and soothsayers. This is as much as to show a contempt of the divine,

dev 5’ aifis 1) derovdaruovia, 49 and it becomes a parody of

true piety. Many recent studies of Alexander have tried to show him as a soldier, administrator, and politician, by eliminating what is termed

the “mythology” of the sources. If the historian’s task is to project his mind back to the times he is describing, I doubt that any “picture” of Alexander which ignores his superstitions can explain this complex man. As W. H. D. Rouse comments, he “was Greek of the Greeks in his

religious practices.”’ 15° In the case of the diaBarjpia, the Spartan king was compelled by law

to act in concordance with the sacrifice; but otherwise, I am not aware 147. Plutarch Tim. 26. 148. Plutarch Marcellus 6. There are many studies of the word detotdatporla, including two monographs: P. J. Koets, Acovdarpoviaa (Purmerend 1929), and H. A. Moellering, Plutarch on Superstition (Boston 1962). 149. Alex. 75. Even so, in selecting a route to lead the army into Persia, Alexander rejected divination by the manteis as untimely and sought the advice of prisoners who were familiar with the terrain: Curtius 5.4.1. 150. Greek Votive Offerings (Cambridge 1902) 108.

140

Miscellaneous Portents

of a law of any city-state which regulated the conduct of the strategos vis-a-vis the various portents. In the most celebrated case of all, that of

Nikias in Syrakuse, the Athenians seem to have widely disputed the validity of the interpretation made by the hegemon, which resulted in such a disaster; and we know that Philochoros, a famous mantis, be-

lieved that Nikias’ interpretation was in error. legislation to control or to instruct hegemones in praisal of portents.451 The mantis uttered his hegemon made the final decision and no general because of his observance or non-observance of a

But no state passed the field in their apprognostication, the was ever impeached portent.

3. Historicity of the Portentous Incident. Many modern critics regard various selected portents as fictitious embellishments inserted into their accounts by ancient writers for literary purposes. Just as students of Greek oracular responses believe that some ancient writers made a practice of illustrating their narratives with picturesque and dramatic tales which hinge on oracles, so many stories of portents are attributed to the writer’s invention or to a fiction produced by some source at a period after the event. W. H. Porter in his edition of Plutarch’s Dion (Dublin 1952) believes (p. 76) that the portents recorded in chap. 54.5-7 derive from Theopompos and are of the fairy-tale order, whereas those

described elsewhere in the Life were recorded by the historian Timonides of Leukas (FGrHist 561), a member of the Academy and himself a

participant in Dion’s campaign of 357 B.c. The latest biographer of Timoleon correctly develops the idea that whereas Plutarch wanted to portray Timoleon as the agent of the gods and therefore reports the appearance of omens at critical points, Diodoros is more sparing of omens and represents Timoleon as ‘“‘a man, not an instrument of the

gods.”2 Both apparently derived much of their material, directly or indirectly, from the Sicilian Timaios of whom Polybios complained that he made Timoleon greater than the most conspicuous gods (uetf{w moet Teuoéovra rav émipaverrarwv Hedv: 12.23.4), and that his history was full of dreams, prodigies and incredible tales (éurviwy kal tepdtav Kal piOwy amBavywv: 12.24.5). Yet both Plutarch (8.1-2g and 5-8) and Diodoros (16.66.3-5) say that Demeter and Kore accompanied Timoleon on his expedition from Corinth, and Diodoros reports some of the omens (16.66.3-5, 79.4). L. Pearson develops the theory that omens such as 151. Two hegemones might react differently to the same portent, as in the case of Agis and Agesipolis with regard to an earthquake; see above p. 118. 152. R. J. A. Talbert, Timoleon and the Revival of Greek Sicily (Cambridge 1974) 18, 28.

Miscellaneous Portents

14]

thunder and lightning, flight of eagles, etc., appealing to the romantic vanity of Alexander, were inserted into his history by Kallisthenes of Olynthos for the purpose of flattering his patron.? R. Schubert prefers to make Kleitarchos responsible.154 There is one anecdote related by Plutarch which we can be sure is

fictitious, and which, indeed, Plutarch narrated in a tone of disbelief, “At any rate, this tale is told in the schools of philosophy” (vatra peév obv év Tals cxodais Neyerar TOV gtdoobgpwv). Plutarch associates an eclipse

of the sun with the naval expedition against Epidauros of 430 B.c. (Thucydides 2.56.1-2) and has Perikles allay the fears of his pilot;15° whereas the eclipse nearest in time occurred on 3 August 431 (Thucydides 2.28) just after the expatriation of the Aiginetans.15° The same story is told in Valerius Maximus (8.11. Ext. 1), with the whole city of Athens panic-stricken at the eclipse,157 whereupon Perikles “processit in medium et quae a praeceptore suo Anaxagora pertinentia ad solis et lunae cursum acceperat disseruit nec ulterius trepidare cives suos vano metu passus est.” Usually, however, we do not have the scientific evidence to impugn the anecdotal material. There are at least three considerations which may assist in evaluating the historicity of any given portentous incident: (A) the nature of the portent in the context of the general religious background of the age; (B) the religious disposition and character of the hegemon in question, as deduced

from other evidence;

and (C) the credibility in

matters of religious motivation of the historian who narrates the portent.

A. Religious attitude of Greeks toward portents. As to the known role played by portents which manifested the will of the gods, the fourvolume work of A. Bouché-Leclercq assembles examples from all areas of Greek life, of which the military plays only one part. There is overwhelming evidence that portents played an important role in all walks of life in the ancient world, as will be recognized by any reader of 153. The Lost Histories of Alexander the Great (London 1960) 38, 46, etc. 154. Beitrdge zur Kritik der Alexanderhistoriker (Leipzig 1922) 7. 155- In fairness to Plutarch, it may be noted that chaps. 33-35 give the activity of Perikles during the first two years of the Peloponnesian War in language which is on the whole an admirable biographical condensation of Thucydides, but he embellishes his narrative with a citation from the comic poet Hermippos and the anecdote told “in the schools of philosophy.” For the philosophical schools, see, for example, M. L. Clarke, Rhetoric at Rome (London 1966) 113. 156. See Boll, RE s.v. Finsternisse 2355 line 15. Cf. Busolt, Gr. Gesch. 3.2 (Gotha 1904) 934 n. 4, and Dover, Talanta 7 (1975) 33157. See also Cicero De Rep. 1.16.25.

142

Cicero’s De Divinatione

Miscellaneous Portents

and, more particularly, of A. S. Pease’s com-

mentary on that work. In the belief that the gods avail themselves of natural forces to display their displeasure and to attest their good will, happenings in nature that lacked an obvious or a scientific explanation were immediately set down as sure signs from heaven. It is quite clear that the ancient focussed upon the possible religious significance of natural phenomena, whereas we focus upon the purely physical phenomena. For the elucidation of these divine messages, given in various forms, an extensive art of divination was employed. Three illustrations,

not commonly cited, may be taken from religious rituals observed by public officials of Sparta and Athens. a. As noted above, p. gg, on the evidence of Cicero and Plutarch, the five Spartan ephors, the highest officials of the state, when deliberating on a matter, were accustomed to sleep in the sanctuary of Pasiphaé for the purpose of receiving revelations in dreams. b. In classical times a heavenly sign determined whether the Athenians were to send offerings to Apollo at Delphi. The mission of a theoria, the Pythaid, was to offer a hekatomb and first-fruits to Apollo Pythios. For three days and nights, in three consecutive months every year, the pythaistai watched to see whether Zeus would hurl lightning over Harma,* a ridge of Mount Parnes near Phyle, their observatory being the hearth of Zeus Astrapaios on the wall between the Olympieion and Pythion.9 In Hellenistic times, the theoria involved the stag-

ing of musical and dramatic performances at Delphi as an act of homage to Apollo. Granted that the theoria was not sent frequently, because the phrase érav 6’ “Apyaros dorpdyy was a proverbial equivalent of “rarely,” nonetheless the omen of lightning at a particular point determined whether the most enlightened city-state in the Greek world was to incur the expense and effort of sending an impressive procession of boy pythaists, ephebes, basket-bearers, horsemen, technitai of Dionysos, animals, and others, through Oinoé (whether on the north-

west frontier or near Marathon is disputed) and Thebes to Delphi to hold sacrifices and other ceremonies. The eminent orators Lykourgos and Demades were among the members of one Pythaid: SIG® 296.160 158. In RE s.v. Harma 4 (1912), Kolbe says it isa rock on Mount Parnassos, whereas it is on Mount Parnes, and gives the name today as Ilavayia, whereas it is Hayand, Moreover, no ancient source says that the Pythaistai went through Harma, as Kolbe has it.

159- Strabo 9.2.11.404. For ancient references, see A. Boethius, Die Pythais (Uppsala

diss. 1918). 160. In this context we may note that the most eminent botanist of the Greek

world, Theophrastos, who in his Historia Plantarum

is often under the necessity of

ei.

Miscellaneous Portents

143

c. The third example, overlooked by most writers on dreams,161 can

be pieced together from Hypereides 4 In Defense of Euxenippos, an oration dated about 330 8.c.18 In paragraph 14, the speaker says,

6 Ojuos mpoctratey Kigevinmy rpitre ait &yxataxAWqvar els 7d lepov, obTos d€ kounbels evbridy dyowy idety, 6 7B Onuw amayyetva (“The demos ordered

Euxenippos with two others to lie down in the temple, and he says that he went to sleep and saw a dream which he reported to the demos’). The background of the oration is that after Chaironeia in 338 B.C., Philip had restored Oropos to the Athenians. The unconsecrated land belonging to the town outside of the temenos of the Amphiareion was divided among the ten Attic phylai. But suspicion arose that a certain mountain, assigned to the tribes Hippothontis and Akamantis, was real-

ly sacred to the god Amphiaraos. Accordingly, the state enjoined three citizens, including Euxenippos, to sleep in the god’s temple at Oropos in the hope that the truth would be revealed to them. After carrying out this duty, Euxenippos reported that he had had a dream, which, it appears, was in favor of the two tribes. It is true that Euxenippos

was impeached apparently on the charge that he had been bribed by the two tribes to report the dream in their favor. But the essential fact is that the Athenians in popular assembly adopted the procedure of incubation to learn the will of the god about the mountain allotted to Akamantis and Hippothontis. Assemblies and law courts, as well as armies, viewed meteorological signs with alarm and on their occurrence were apt to drop the business in hand. This after all was natural enough. In civil or military crises, when

a superstitious public would

be on

the look-out

for omens,

a

sudden deluge of rain might act as a deterrent, and a growl of thunder be taken to portend something sinister. The Ravennas scholiast to Aristophanes Acharnenses 171 says, ‘““The Athenians were careful to mark any signs derived from the sky and when such a sign occurred opposing his scientific interpretation of curious incidents in the plant world to the religious interpretation of them which he found current (see the interesting references to manteis in 2.3.1-2, 4.16.3; De Causis Plantarum 5.3.1, 5.4.4), was still bound by the

old faith. In commenting on the story of the willow tree at Philippi and the old plane tree at Antandros having been blown down by a high wind and afterwards resuming their erect posture, he admits that there may be something extra-natural in the case: ada yap ratra pev tows Ew pvarkijs airias tor

(De Causis Plantarum

5.4.7).

161. The incident is not mentioned, for example, in Dodds’ two studies relating to incubation. 162. Euxenippos was a member of the deme Lamptrai of the tribe Erechtheis: see J. K. Davies, Athenian Propertied Families (Oxford 1971) no. 5886. He was charged with being pro-Makedonian.

144

Miscellaneous Portents

they would break up the meetings of the ekklesia if they were on the point of executing [lacuna] or anything else.” Pollux (8.124) explains that the signs were interpreted by exegetai: énynral 6’ éxadodvro of Ta Tepl Ta Sioonuedy kal ra Tov GdAwy lepdv diddcxovTes. When a sign oc-

curred, the public assembly at once broke up and the law courts ceased to sit (Pollux: dvioraro dé 7a dtxaorhpia, et yévorro Svoonueta).Thus, in 420

B.c., the Athenians were on the point of making an alliance with the Argives and their confederates. “But,” says Thucydides (5.45), “before the final vote was taken an earthquake happened, and the assembly was adjourned.” Aristophanes in the Ecclesiazusae (791-793) mentions as reasons for not carrying a decree (tr. of Rodgers): ““Why, if perchance an earthquake came, or lightning fell, or a cat crossed the street, they'll soon cease bringing in, you blockhead you!” The chorus of the Nubes (577f.) takes credit for saving the Athenians: “For though we benefit the state most of all the gods, to us alone you do not offer sacrifices or pour libations, who watch over you. For if some rash expedition is afoot, then we thunder or drizzle. Again, when you were bent on choos-

ing as your strategos that Paphlagonian tanner, we contracted our brows, and made a dreadful noise overhead.” Postponement of public business is reported in a passage in the Acharnenses (171) where Dikaiopolis waxes indignant with the Thrakians: “I warn you not to hold the assembly about the Thrakians’ pay. I tell you there’s a portent come; I felt a drop of rain.” Hereupon the herald terminates the meeting: ““Thrakians begone, come back in two days’ time. The assembly is dissolved.” In a papyrus fragment of Eupolis (110 B: Edmonds), a

demagogue is alleged to have threatened “to imprison the generals because at Mantineia they would not allow the attack when the god thundered.”

See also above, n. 4Q.

Meteorological omens afforded fair sport to the comedians, but to the majority of the people they were no laughing matter. “Whenever, as armies come together for battle,” says Dio Chrysostom (Or. 38.18 Loeb), “there suddenly appears an omen from heaven or there occurs a quaking of the earth, immediately the men wheel about and withdraw from one another, believing the gods do not wish them to fight.”

The suddenness or unexpectedness of the sign appears to have been an

essential feature; cf. schol. to Aristophanes Ach. 171: dtoonuia d€ eat 6 Tapa Karpov xeuwv. If foreseen, it might be robbed of its terrors, as in

the anecdote told by Polyainos (1.32.2): “Shortly before a battle, Leo-

nidas, observing storm-clouds collecting, said to his officers that they must not be surprised if it thundered and lightened, for this was bound

to happen at the rising of Sirius. So, when numerous

portents oc-

im.

Miscellaneous Portents

145

curred, Leonidas’ men thus forewarned advanced confide ntly to battle,

whereas the enemy were cowed by the menace of the element s and defeated.”’ Chapter 27 of Book VI of Herodotos is significant as an illustration of the popular theology of the age which Herodotos represents. Under

“signs”

(onuia) he records such disasters as the collapse of the roof of

a school which resulted in the death of a hundred and twenty boys. “Ever is some warning given by heaven, when great ills threaten a city

or a nation”

(durée 6€ Kws Tpoonpaivery, ere av wen peyara Kaka H woAL 7}

evel EvecOar). In Antiphon 5 On the Murder of Herodes 81,18 dated by

Jebb to about 417/6 B.c., the defendant says that besides all the other proofs, the innocence of the prisoner is indicated by the absence of signs of divine anger: “In cases of this nature the indications furnished

by heaven (rots a6 rév beév onuelovs) must also have no small influenc e on your verdict.” 164 The speaker explains that all sacrifices in which he

has taken part have been favorable. Aischines (3 Against Ktesiphon 131) alleges that Demosthenes had asserted that the reason why Philip did not advance against Athens after Chaironeia was that the omens

were not favorable (od kaha ra iepd). Again, Aischines (3 Against Ktesiphon 130) asserts that when the portent (cnuetov) of the death of certain celebrants of the Eleusinian mysteries occurred during the Amphissian War, the mantis Ameiniades advised sending messengers to Delphi to inquire of the god; but the embassy was opposed by Demosthenes. The scholia on the passage explain that the portent consisted of the seizure by a shark of the celebrants as they were taking the sacred bath in the sea at Eleusis. Quite apart from the portents which affected the army of the Ten Thousand and which have been included in the collection above, Xenophon records many incidents where portents and sacrifices assisted him in arriving at what were essential personal decisions. The passage in Anab. 6.1.21-32 constitutes a series of portents, including dreams, augury, and divination by sacrifices, which led him to refuse the offer of sole generalship of the army after he had been nominated by the assembled army. Cheirisophos was elected to this office only after Xeno163. For the Greek attitude toward the gods as revealed in the Attic orators, see the valuable and exhaustive discussion by H. Meuss in Neue Jahrbiicher fiir Philologie und Paedagogik 139 (1889) 445-476, 801-815. These articles are subtitled “Beitrage zur griechischen Volksreligion.” See also K. J. Dover, Greek Popular Morality (Berkeley 1974) 136. 164. Trans. of Maidment. His succinct comment on this line is, “The average Athenian of the time was far from being a rationalist.”

146

Miscellaneous Portents

phon had acquainted the soldiers with the fact that the gods had peremptorily forbidden him to accept it. Later, Xenophon took measures to sail away by himself from Herakleia and quit the army altogether, which he would have done had he not been restrained by sacrifices (Anab. 6.2.15). The decision to leave Seuthes was on the direction of the god Zeus Basileus, after he had taken divination from two victims as to whether to remain or to go (7.6.44). In his engagements with the Persian Asiadetes (7.8.5, 10, 20, 22), he repeatedly offers sac-

rifices with his seer Basias of Elis. Xenophon continues the account of sacrifices in the fictitious Kyropaideia (1.5.6; 3.2.4; 3.3.22; etc.). Through all of his writing, he manifests a belief that sacrifice not only indicates the tenor of events, but, according as it is rendered to the right god and at the right season, determines his will, and therefore the course of

events, for dispensations favorable or unfavorable. B. The Piety of Individual Generals. It was in keeping with the piety of Nikias who is described in Thucydides as much given to divination (7.50.4) and in Plutarch as continuing to sacrifice and divine until the moment of actual conflict arrived

(évé re xal dteuavrebero . . . ews éxjOov

abrots of moAguor: Nikias 24.1) that he should heed the advice of his manteis and obey their interpretations without hesitation.1® So there are clues that some hegemones were highly pious and inclined to “accept” signs and omens at every turn. Augustus has been called the “dream emperor” because of his implicit faith in the significance and validity of dreams, and because

of the great number

of such visions

which he himself had and his friends had about him.16* Timoleon, before he embarked on the war in Sicily, set out from Corinth to consult the oracle at Delphi as to whether he should make the expedition, and later dedicated part of his spoils from the battle of the Krimisos to Pythian Apollo.®” Because of his trust in the deity, he at no time kept a body-guard: Plutarch Timoleon 16.5. In his home, he built a shrine of Automatia.1® In 388 B.c., Agesipolis, according to Xenophon

Hell. 4.7.2-3, made a long trek to both Olympia and Delphi to consult oracles before entering the territory of Argos by way of Nemea. Xenophon applied to the Delphian oracle, although he had in truth made up his mind beforehand, and literally obeyed the oracle’s reply by making the prescribed sacrifices before departing for Ephesos and 165. See also below XII.331.

166. Krauss (op. cit. above n. 128) 146. 167. See War 2.94.

168. Plutarch Tim. 36. For the cult of Automatia, see Wernicke in RE s.v. Automatia (1896) 2605.

ee

Miscellaneous Portents

147

Sardis. That these hegemones would observe the portents attribut ed to them in the literature would seem to be more likely truth than fiction. Alexander surrounded himself with manteis, four of whom (Aristandros, Demophon, Kleomantis and Peithagoras) we know by name,

and with

Méyo.

and. Chaldean

priests, and it is the opinion of the

closest student of the Alexandrian literature of this century that there was a “Priesterjournal” of his expedition.1® The portrait in Plutarch’s Life is that of the most superstitious of ancient generals. Before writing off the stories of portents as late Hellenistic ornamentation, the modern critic should at least account for the presence and activities of a large number of manteis accompanying the expedition. C. The credibility of the historians. It may be said that some historians had a folklorish tendency and preserved unreflectingly what they were told about various past incidents involving omens. The credibility of the portentous incident stands in inverse ratio to the historian’s belief in the miraculous. Thus, F. G. Krauss writes of the two principal Roman historians, “Both Livy and Tacitus comment

sufficiently upon the portents and prodigies which they record, to make it quite clear that they are merely recording them and are in no wise in sympathy with the superstitious notions which they entail.”17° It is undoubtedly true that such writers as Timaios and Euhemeros were distinguished above all others for the copious and indiscriminate way in which they collected and repeated legends, oracles and portents. There

were historians who

were not concerned

about

the real facts,

but about the elaboration of the style, and this care for style led to sensationalism.*! The early Atthidographer Kleidemos (FGrHist 323), according to F. Jacoby (ap. frg. 10), reported many omens, especially those observed at Delphi, and many presume that they were as fictitious as oracular responses which derive from the same source. We must be content with the best guesses which we can make. In Herodotos, faith and criticism commingle (“mélange de scepticisme et de foi”: A. Hauvette, Hérodote [Paris 1894] 35); and he prays

that he may not on that account incur the displeasure of gods or heroes (2.54.3: mepl wev tobrwy Trooadra july eimodor Kal Tapa Tv Oey Kal Tapa Tov npawy evpévera ein). Experience had taught him that the destinies of men are influenced by a supernatural power. The gods exist, and they in-

tervene decisively in the affairs alike of individuals and of nations. 169. H. Berve, Das Alexanderreich 1 (Munich 1926) go. 170. Op. cit. (above n. 128) 29. 171. See B. L. Ullman, “History and Tragedy,” TAPA

73 (1942) 40-44.

148

Miscellaneous Portents

The religious attitude of an age which recognized disasters as the inflictions

of an

angry

god, nurtured

concepts

and

emotions

which

harbor prodigies and find in them a wealth of mystic meaning. Herodotos, whose work is rich in prodigies, clearly believed in these signs.

As H. Lloyd-Jones (The Justice of Zeus [Berkeley 1971] 59) states, “He interpreted history in terms of the outlook upon human life common to educated persons of his place and time. His work is pervaded by all the characteristic features of the archaic Greek

outlook.”

His belief

was engendered by ignorance of natural laws. We may be reminded that, even

in the case of animal

monstrosities

which

he records,

his

contemporary Empedokles evolved a theory that the various parts of animals had a separate existence and because of their vagarious juxta-

position in some cases united to form monstra such as man-headed oxen. In modern times we are acquainted with the influences, either external

or internal,

which,

operating

upon

the growing

fetus,

can

produce hideous and oddly constructed creatures.1”? The historicity of the incidents of portents cited in Thucydides can

hardly be doubted. Nowhere does he manifest any personal belief in miracles or prodigies;!” so there is no reason to believe that he would insert them into his narrative as rhetorical decoration. When in 6.70.1, he refers to lightning and rain as arousing fear in the fighters, he adds his own personal explanation that the storm was due to the season of the year (7a wey yryvoueva Kal Spa erovs Tepaivecbat doxetv). The thunder-

claps and rain of 7.79.3 were likewise due to the season (ofa Tod érous mpés heTorwpov 75n dvros dire? yiyveoOar). In 2.28 he makes an empirical state-

ment about solar eclipses. When an eclipse of the sun occurs (7.50.4),

he explains that this happens when the moon

is full. Twice when

panic strikes an army and it is thrown into confusion without appar-

ent cause, instead of saying that Pan sent confusion he gives a natural explanation (4.125.1: dep gidel weyada orpatomeda doadas éxrdAHyrvoba; 7.80.3: olov dire? kal maou oTpatorédots, wddcora dé Tots Meytoro.s, PoBor kat deiuara eyyiyverbar, dAdws Te Kal ey vuxtl Te Kal dud wodeuias etc.).1% If the

reaction of other Greek armies to similar portents is any guide, we may infer that many soldiers on these occasions attributed the phenomena to divine agencies. When, therefore, Thucydides does give a religious motive for the withdrawal of a Spartan army, scholars such 172. See Krauss (op. cit. above n. 128) 119. 173. Antyllos is quoted by Markellinos (22) as saying that Thucydides Geos jpéua voputcbn.

174. Cf. W. Schmid, RM 50 (1895) 310-311. Gomme’s position (HCT 3.613) seems to be unjustified.

scepticism about Schmid’s

Se

Miscellaneous Portents

149

as Adcock, Beloch, De Sanctis and Gomme (above p. 116) relax the canons of historical credibility in matching their own ratiocinations against the investigative powers of a contemporary who made inquiries concerning matters recent and verifiable. They refuse to believe, for example, that a Spartan hegemon could be deterred by an earthquake, although the response to this portent accords with the religiosity of the Lakedaimonians in general and of Agis in particular. In the one paragraph which A. Andrewes devotes to divination in his admirable The Greeks (London 1967) 245, he writes about Xenophon: “Modern critics are apt to treat the report of unfavorable omens as the device of a commander who had quite other reasons for not wanting to proceed. Sometimes

they may have been a device, but the nar-

rative of the devout Xenophon gives the clear impression that, for him at least, the inspection of these sacrifices was a serious and objective matter—Xenophon had commanded troops himself, and must have known if cheating were habitual.” Probably the passage which best reflects the position of Xenophon about prodigies and the mantic art occurs at the close of the Hipparchikos: “If any reader is surprised at my frequent repetition that we must proceed ‘with the aid of the gods,’ let him be assured that his surprise will diminish if he falls often into danger, and if he considers that in time of war enemies often form de-

signs on one another but seldom know the state of things among the party against whom their designs are formed. Therefore there is nothing other that can give counsel in such a case but the gods. They know all things and give signs to whomever they please by sacrifices, omens, voices and dreams. And it is probable that the gods will be more willing to counsel those who not only ask them what they are to do in the hour of need but also serve the gods as far as they can in time of success.” In the Apologia 12, he asks, ““Will anyone dispute either that thunder utters its ‘voice’ or that it is an omen of the greatest moment?” And in the Kyropaideia (1.6.1), Xenophon says about Kyros, after he set out from his home in company with his father upon his expedition and they had received a favorable omen, “When this manifestation had been made, they proceeded, without taking any further auspices, in the conviction that no one would make void the signs of the supreme god.’’175 "The pious element in his mind governed his selection of details and accounts for his continual introduction of references to the gods in his exposition of military matters. His theological principles saved him from the necessity of investigating the relations of cause and 175. The Basel dissertation of F. Schnyder, Die Religiositit Xenophons (1953) exists only on microfilm and is not available to me. It is not listed in Marouzeau.

150

Miscellaneous Portents

effect; but there is no serious ground for assuming any wilful distortion of historical truth about the portents which he reports. Xenophon’s saving grace was that he was writing contemporary history and had abundant sources of information, including his friend Agesilaos, to draw upon, and did not need to trust to his own constructive powers. Polybios treats portents in a tone of sarcasm. Indeed, he is the only one of the Greek historians who suggests that prodigies should be exploited for rational ends.176 In a lengthy passage exposing his attitude towards

pious fictions, he writes, “In cases indeed

where

such state-

ments contribute to maintain a feeling of piety to the gods among the common people (76 r\j0s) we must excuse certain writers for reporting marvels and tales of the kind, but we should not tolerate what goes too far’ (16.12.9). He devotes a lengthy section (6.56.7-12) to praise of the Roman use of superstition (Sevcvdaiyovia), in which he approves the concept that religious beliefs should be exploited to control the common people.!”” He supports (10.2.9-13) a view that Lykourgos did not draw up his constitution under the influence of superstition and solely prompted by an oracle, nor Scipio win an empire for Rome by following the suggestion of dreams and omens, but that these notables exploited popular beliefs about divine assistance as a cloak for rationally based plans. He (12.24) criticizes Timaios for his attitude towards dreams,

prodigies,

and fabulous

stories.178 When,

therefore,

Polybios

reports the effect of an eclipse in the time of Perseus upon the Makedonians (29.16) or thrice mentions “the panic which sometimes overtakes armies” as falling upon a military force (€urimre mavixoy mapatAnGiov Tots yuyvouevors emt Tv TES tKGY oTpaToTewv: 5:110.1; cf. 5.96 and 20.6),

we can be reasonably certain that he is offering what he regarded as a rational cause. A. D. Nock, in his article “Religious Attitude of the Greeks,” Proc.

Amer. Phil. Society 85 (1942) 472-482, focussed on the religious beliefs 176. This same view was later expressed by Diodoros 34/35.2.47. See below, chap. XII, p. 329. 177. For this rationalistic concept of the use of superstition, see Walbank’s note

ad loc. 178. Examples of dreams in Timaios are those of Gelon (Jacoby, FGrHist 566, frg. g5), of a woman of Himera (frg. 29); of prodigies, the river which bleached the hair (frg. 46) and the cicadas of Rhegion (frg. 43); of fabulous stories, those of the Argonauts and Herakles (frgs. 84-90). See P. Pédech in his commentary on Book 12 (1961) of Polybios (Budé) p. 119. For Polybios’ reproach of other historians who introduced portents and too much of the marvellous into their histories, see 2.58.12, 59.3 (Phylarchos); 7.7.1 (Hieronymos); 16.12.9 (Theopompos); and 15.34.1 (writers of the history of Agathokles).

Miscellaneous Portents

151

of Plutarch whom he regarded as the author best typifying the personal attitude of the Greek about religion. It will suffice to quote one paragraph (pp. 476-477): “Belief in these things [oracles and divinat ion] was deeply rooted; and yet the normative tradition of Greek thought did not involve a constant unqualified awe before a mysterium tremendum. Plutarch had the strongest conviction of the reality of godhead, a profound attachment to those many Greek and Egyptian myths and rites in which he found this reality enshrined, a detached attitude

on details, and a repugnance for such popular practices as seemed to him superstitions. So he says of stories of the miraculous behavior of images (Camill. 6.6) ‘One cannot lightly despise these tales. Yet human weakness makes it dangerous to believe greatly or to disbelieve excessively in such things’: that is, let us steer

a middle course between su-

perstition and contempt of the divine. This is Plutarch’s personal and

Academic attitude; but it corresponds to the older norm of conduct.” 179

The groups of portents which may be looked upon as most suspicious are those which accumulated around the battle of Leuktra and the Celtic attack on Delphi by Brennos and his followers.18° The stress of the times always heightened the interest in prodigies. Thus, during the Peloponnesian War, according to Thucydides (1.23), there were earthquakes unparalleled in their extent and fury, and eclipses of the sun more numerous than are recorded for any former age. In the presence of events that shatter one’s everyday habits, the mind is especially liable to magnify the ordinary into something prodigious.1*1 For dreams 179. Cf. Alexander 475: “While it is a dire thing to be incredulous towards indications of the divine will and to have contempt for them, superstition is likewise a dire

thing, which, after the manner of water ever seeking the lower levels, filled with folly the Alexander who now became a prey to his fears” (Loeb). Plutarch’s religious beliefs have now been studied by F. E. Brenk. “In Mist Apparelled,” Mnemosyne

Suppl. 48 (1977).

180. One eminent European scholar who spent the winter of 1976/7 at Delphi when there were severe snowstorms wrote to me that he had come to believe in the portentous incidents of 279 B.c. We, living today in comfortably heated houses, tend to forget how close the ancients were to the forces of nature and how real were the

rigors of life. 181. See above Chap. II, p. 39. The number of prodigies reported is in direct proportion to the belief accorded them by the credulous. Livy (27.37.2) offers the general observation that one prodigy serves to stimulate the announcement of several others (sub unius prodigii, ut fit, mentionem alia quoque nutiata), and when once an incident has aroused superstitious ideas in the minds of a group, these minds will not merely be all the readier to accept further reports but will themselves generate prodigies (29.14.2: impleverat ea res superstitionum animos, pronique et ad nuntianda et ad credenda prodigia erant. Eo plura vulgabantur).

152

and omens

Miscellaneous Portents

before

the battle of Leuktra

alone,

see Cicero De Div.

1.34.74; 2.25.54; 2.31.67; Plutarch Mor. 397F; 774D; Agesilaos 28; Pelopidas 20-21; Pausanias 9.13.3; Xenophon Hell. 6.4.7; Diodoros 15-53-4. Several of the passages contain clusters of omens.1®? E. R. Dodds (The Ancient Concept of Progress [Oxford 1973]) treats Greek ritualistic practices and such matters as extra-sensory perception in a chapter entitled “The Religion of the Ordinary Man in Classical Greece.” The title is misleading, if we attempt to restrict what the modern regards as superstitious beliefs to the “‘common” man. The armies of the Greek city-state, at least until the middle

of the fourth

century, comprised cavalry and hoplites who came from the higher social classes. We are told that those Athenian prisoners at Syrakuse who knew by heart considerable portions of the dramas of Euripides won the affection of their masters.1** More illuminating, perhaps, is the line (1114) in the Frogs of Aristophanes, in which the chorus, in-

citing the rival poets to bring their wares to the test, assures them that they need have no fear that the audience would be unable to follow and appreciate them (as apparently had been the case at the first performance of the play); for they are now all men who have seen the world in the course of their military service, and each of them has his own copy of the play in hand and can understand the points.18* As V. Ehrenberg says, the passage “‘gives proof at least of some general intellectual standard.”18° When in 368/7 B.c. Pelopidas of Thebes had been detained as prisoner by Alexander of Pherai, the Theban army which was sent to rescue him had been enabled to effect a retreat only 182. Epameinondas, who was a student of philosophy, is said by Diodoros (15.53.4) to have spread stories of supernatural signs at Thebes and Lebadeia pointing to victory in order to combat unfavorable omens before Leuktra (15.52.4). Plutarch in his lost Epameinondas certainly discussed these omens: Agesilaos 28.6; cf. Mor. 192E-F. Elsewhere, Plutarch (Demosthenes 20) says that before Chaironeia Demosthenes told the people “not to pay heed to oracles or give ear to prophecy” and reminded the Thebans of Epameinondas who had followed the dictates of reason. 183. Plutarch Nikias 29. 184. éorparevpévar yap clot, BiBAlov 7’ exwv Exacros pavOdver Ta Skid.

I quote from F.

G. Kenyon, Books and Readers in Ancient Greece and Rome2 (Oxford 1951) 23. Cf. R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship (Oxford 1968) 28 n. 6: “From the whole context of the often discussed lines 1109-18 it is obvious to me that Aristophanes meant to say there is no danger of éuaia, of inexperience, or ignorance on the side of the Athenian audience; the theatre-goers are military servicemen and enlightened (cogot) ‘readers of books, able to understand the right points’.” For “widespread literacy,” see E. G. Turner, Athenian Books in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries 8.c. (London 1952) 10. 185. The People of Aristophanes? (Oxford 1951) 287.

er

Miscellaneous Portents

153

by the genius of Epameinondas, who was then serving as a private hoplite and was called upon by the soldiers to take command.186 Exgenerals served as hoplites when their age-group was called. Accordingly, it is fair to say that the armies which tried to influence their strategoi in the observance of portents represented a cross-section of

the educated

male

citizenry, and, conversely,

that their beliefs shed

some light on the religious climate of the time. It would be a mistake to regard an acceptance of portents as characteristic only of the uneducated and superstitious. We may conclude this chapter with a well-reasoned quotati on from M. Launey, Recherches sur les armées hellénistiques 2 (Paris 1950) 920: “Dans la Gréce primitive, la guerre est un acte religieux. La vie propre d’une armée, notamment d’une armée en campag ne, s’accompagne d’actes religieux: avant le départ, pendant la marche, avant le combat, aprés la victoire, on accomplit des sacrifices divinatoires, pro-

pitiatoires, d’actions de graces.”

186. Diodoros 15.71.6. On the subject of the false distinction often made between the upper and lower classes in matters of religion, see G. W. Bowersock , Fondation Hardt. Entretiens 19 (1973) 179-180.

CHAPTER V

WAR

FESTIVALS

AND

THE

CALENDAR

MUCcH OF THE LIFE of the ancient Greek world is lost to us if we do not understand that festivals and games with their mixture of piety, patriotism and merrymaking, holy day and holiday alike, were central facts of ancient corporate religion.! Thus, the festivals and rites of war

shed some light on Greek military life. Indeed, Plato, speaking of religious and civic festivals, says (Laws 7.803E), “A man must spend his life playing at certain pastimes—sacrificing, singing, and dancing—so as to win the favor of the gods and be able to repel the enemy in battle.” Later (8.829B-C) he prescribes that once each month the entire city is to engage in military exercises for a period of one day or more, with sacrifices and games; and there are to be other such field days for the individual tribes. Religious festivals are divinely ordained, he says, not so much as respite from toil, but as opportunities for the citizens to correct their ways by associating with the gods in song and dance (yevouevas év Tats éoprats wera Gedy:

2.653D).

Although the contests were useful as forms of military training and the prizes were sometimes ostensibly of a military nature (shields at Argos and Akraiphia), the gymnastic games of the military festivals differed little from those of traditional festivals.2 For example, in the

Eleutheria at Plataiai, which we can be sure was “military” in origin, the running events predominate, as we should expect from a passage in Pausanias (9.2.4) where it is noted that the runners receive the greatest rewards. In JG VII.1666, the list of Plataian victors is recorded for the gymnastic contests (pankration, dolichos, stadion). ‘The classes are

matdes, ayeveiot, dvdpes. A trmos contest is mentioned in another inscription: JG IV.1136. An interesting light is thrown on the armed race at the Eleutheria by a passage in Philostratos (Gym. 8.24). He tells us

that the competition was most severe, owing partly to the length of the 1. See A. D. Nock, Gnomon 10 (1934) 295. In the view of the Greeks, an excellent performance of any kind was a fit honor for a deity; cf. Plato Republic 5.468E—460B. 2. For various war dances during festivals, see War Part II chap. 11. The pyrrhic dance, which was a common ornament of civic festivals (see L. Séchan, La danse grecque antique [Paris 1930] 97), is described by Plato (Laws 7.815A), “It imitates the eluding of blows and missiles of all sorts, by head movements and swervings and jumpings up and crouchings; and also motions of an opposite sort connected with attack, such motions as imitate the shooting of bows, the hurling of javelins, and the delivering of all kinds of blows.” Athenaios (14.628F) quotes a verse of Sokrates: ““They who honor the gods best with dances are best in war.’ The front-rank men in Thessaly were called rpoopxnorfpes, “front-dancers’:

[ 154]

Lucian

The Dance

14.

War Festivals and the Calendar

155

course, partly to the full equipment of armor worn, and partly to the rule that any competitor, who, having won the race, entered again and failed, was subject to the death penalty. The ceremonies and sacrifices which accompanie d the gymnastic games of the Eleutheria featured the commemorat ion of the victory. The ceremonies celebrating the battle of Plataiai began at dawn and are described by Plutarch. Since they constitute our most detailed lit€rary account of a military festival, his description is repeated here (Aristetdes 21; trans. of Perrin): “They celebrate a proces sion. This is led forth at break of day by a trumpeter sounding the signal for battle; waggons follow filled with myrtle-wreaths, then comes a black bull, then free-born youths carrying libations of wine and milk in amphorae, and jars of oil and myrrh (no slave may put hand to any part of that

ministration,

because

the men

thus honored

died for freedom);

and

following all, the chief magistrate of Plataea, who may not at other

times touch iron or put on any other raiment than white, at this time is robed in a purple tunic, carries on high a water-jar from the city’s archive chamber, and proceeds, sword in hand, through the midst of

the city to the graves; there he takes water from the sacred spring,

washes off with his own hands the gravestones, and anoints them with

myrrh; then he slaughters the bull at the funeral pyre, and, with pray-

ers to Zeus and Hermes Terrestrial, summons

the brave men who died

for Hellas to come to the banquet and its copious draughts of blood; next he mixes a mixer of wine, drinks, and then pours a libation from it, saying these words: ‘I drink to the men who died for the freedom of the Hellenes’.” The fact should be underscored that these festivals were often termed ayaves and were primarily musical, dramatic and gymnastic;* they are 3. We may be reminded that playing games was as natural to Greeks when they happened to be together as the playing of cards for modern passengers on shipboard (or elsewhere!). Weddings, for example, were sometimes accompanied by contests of various sorts as in the famous story of Kleisthenes: Herodotos 6.128ff. We need only glance at Homer to find examples of Greeks amusing themselves with athletic contests when they had nothing in particular to occupy themselves. Iliad 2.773: “And the folk along the seashore sported with quoits and with casting of javelins and archery.” Od 4.625: “The wooers meantime were before the palace of Odysseus, taking their pleasure in casting of weights and spears on a levelled place.” A well-known example is found in Xenophon Anab. 4.8.25, where the Ten Thousand, after arriving safely at Trapezous, perform their vows (below chap. 6 p. 233), and then proceed to hold an informal dyav yuywxés presided over by one of their number. Such agones had nothing to do with hero-cults, and lend little support to the theories of such scholars as Ridgeway who deduce all agones from the supposed performance at the tombs of

War Festivals and the Calendar

156

not to be compared to more modern “Army Days” when the military might of a nation, including tanks, missiles, and other weapons of war,

are paraded through congested streets. The sacrifice was no doubt the original central feature of the agon, and the day of the chief sacrifice remained the great day of the festival. Sacrifices were made not only by the hieropoioi or agonothetai, but also by the representatives (theoroi)

sent from friendly states to attend the festival. In the first part of this chapter, the Greek calendar is examined to see how far it reflects the procedure of war. We shall find little evidence to support what the more anthropologically-minded classicists term the “rythme sacral” (J. Bayet) of war. Inherent difficulties in the regulation of a luni-solar calendar will be discussed, focussing on the Athe-

nian festival calendar. These difficulties can best be illustrated by examining Athenian festivals commemorating ancient battles. Most of our information comes from Athens and in particular from books by Philochoros and Plutarch, who devoted much space to the subject of religious institutions.

Their writings, especially their

Tepi

4)wep@v,* were no doubt too technical to interest the general reader and

at the same time too specialized to make good school books. Plutarch alludes to his own work only in passing, but several of the fragments of the two authors are preserved by Proklos. In this investigation, the collection of testimonia in A. Tresp, “Die Fragmente der griechischen Kultschriftsteller,’” RVV

15.1 (1914), has been useful.

The war festivals and the calendar are studied under the following headings: 1. Military Calendric Festivals, with a treatment of Ares, Eirene and

5. The Evangelia 6. Soteria

Phobos 2. The Greek Festival Calendar . Athenian Niketeria oo 4. Sacrifices after the Battle

7. Lustration of the Army 8. Miscellaneous War Festivals g. Apophrades Days

heroes of rites commemorative of their exploits while alive. Given an assemblage of Greeks under practically any circumstances, it would be almost inevitable that games of some kind would be started. It may be noted that the date of the inauguration of a festival can only rarely be determined from epigraphical sources. The earliest catalogue of victors for the Great Panathenaia, for example, is dated about 190 B.c.: IG II?, 2313. 4. The fragments of Philochoros’ three works with which we are concerned are collected by F. Jacoby, FGrHist 3b (Suppl.) no. 328, as follows: Ilept @vo.éy, frgs. 80-82; Tlepi éopr&v, frgs. 83-84; Iepl jyepav, frgs. 85-88.

a

War Festivals and the Calendar 1.

MiLirary

157 CALENDRIC

FESTIVALS

H. Le Bonniec in the opening page of his article “Aspects religie ux de la guerre 4 Rome,” (in J.-P. Brisson, Problémes de la guerre a Rome [Paris 1969] 101) states, “Le calendrier refléte avec une grande netteté ces habitudes archaiques; les rites ont continué A étre accomplis pendan t des siécles, alors qu’ils ne correspondaient plus a la réalité.”5 In the same vein, W. Warde Fowler (The Religious Experience of the Roman

People [London 1911] 9%) observes, “From these indications in the calendar . . . we see quite plainly that we are dealing with the religion of a state which for half the year is liable to be engaged in war.” With a few exceptions such as the Makedonian Xandika, which will be discussed below, students of the Greek calendar find few festivals corresponding to the Equirria, Tubilustrium, Equus October, Armilustrium, the festivals of the Salii, etc., in the Roman calendar.6 The Athe-

nian calendar, for example, is not a symbolic copy of the procedure of war,” as has been claimed for the Roman one.8 In the concluding chapter of his Festivals of the Athenians (Ithaca 1977), H. W. Parke finds (p. 187) that the Athenian calendar was dominated by rites which pro5. See also G. Dumézil, Fétes romaines

d’été et d’automne

(Paris 1975). On

the

important question as to how the Romans celebrated such festivals as the Equus October on October 15 or the Armilustrium on October 19 in the extended period when the calendar year was running months ahead of the solar year, I find no discussion in Le Bonniec or in A. K. Michels’ recent book on the Roman calendar. At the time of Caesar’s reform, a year of 445 days was required to bring the calendar into line: Censorinus De Die Nat. 20.8. By our reckoning, such “October”

be celebrated in June and 6. One exception may Travaux et Mémoires 21 series of festivals held to the summer;

festivals would

July. be noted. H. Jeanmaire, “Couroi et Courétes,” Lille Univ.: (1938) 134, 379-383, believes that there was originally a celebrate the return of young men from the campaign of

in particular

at Athens,

the Apatouria

in the month

of Pyanopsion.

Although he is followed by P. Vidal-Naquet, PCPS 194 (1968) 51, the theory rests chiefly on the fact that locks of hair of young men were consecrated to the gods on the third day (Koupe&zis) as a sign of the successful attainment of manhood. Granted that Kodpo. or Kovpfres originally meant members of a warrior-class, who may safely

be presumed to have had procedures of initiation such as exist among many peoples,

the Apatouria, like our Christmas, was the occasion of family reunions in the phratriai,

and compares in no way, for example, with the armilustrium at Rome. See also A.

Andrewes, “Phratries in Homer,” Hermes 89 (1961) 136-137, 140. The ancient evidence may be found in L. Deubner, Aitische Feste (Berlin 1932) 234. 7- Cf. H. J. Rose, A Handbook of Greek Mythology (London 1928) 15%, “War was

not a subject on which Greek fancy dwelt with much complacency, although the Greeks of the classical epoch were brave and skilful fighters.” 8. See the comments of F. Jacoby (Atthis [Oxford 1949] 6s) on the basic differences between the Greek and Roman calendars.

War Festivals and the Calendar

158

moted fertility or acknowledged the gifts of the harvest. More than half of these rites are classed in origin as patronal festivals (pp. 184-5) on days which legends had made the birthdays of deities. Round these days accumulated such amplifications as the cavalry exercises (Anthippasia) to Zeus at the Olympieia on Mounichion 19, and the torch-race in honor of Pan, the origin of which is recorded in Herodotos (6.105—106).2 In contrast with Rome, the Olympian Ares (= Mars) is hardly represented.

M. P. Nilsson

comments,

“Ares hat viele Mythen,

aber

sehr wenige Kulte.”1° Nilsson records only two festivals to Ares in Greece, one forbidden to women at Geronthrai (Pausanias 3.22.6) and one devoted to Ares Gynaikothoinas at Tegea celebrated by women.1! L. R. Farnell comments,

“The

accounts of Laconian

worship do not

suggest any prominence of the war-god in state-religion.”” In F. So(Hesperia 18 [1949] 349) suggests, however, fifth century and doubts that it was ever the of end the by lapsed had that this race of great importance. 10. Geschichte der griechischen Religion 12 (Munich 1955) 517. F. Vian (in J. P. Vernant, Problémes de la guerre en Gréce ancienne [Paris 1968] 55) explains that Ares represents a primitive and barbaric concept of war which gave way in the course of the Mycenaean period to a new, more chivalrous concept. Ares fares but poorly at the hands of the poets from Homer on down. In the Iliad he is wounded by a mortal and overthrown by Athena; Sophokles (OT 215) actually calls him “the god unhonored among gods,” and the aid of other deities is implored against him, not as the war-god of an adversary, but as representing the evils of war and pestilence. For g. See Parke, op. cit. 172-173. Corbett

the Thrakian

associations

of Ares,

see

Wilamowitz,

Der

Glaube

der Hellenen

\

(Berlin 1932) 321-324. A curious myth about Ares is that he was bound in a pot for thirteen months by the Aloadai (Iliad 5.385ff.). Similar stories of the binding of

malevolent

spirits are known

to folklore;

in Revelations

20.2, Satan

is bound

for a

thousand years. G. E. Bean and T. B. Mitford (Denkschriften der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 85 [1956] 21-23) publish an inscription of the first century B.c. containing an oracular response in hexameters to the people of Syedra

in Kilikia, who had been harassed by pirates, to the effect that they are to set up on their akropolis a statue of Ares held in iron chains by Hermes, “for so will Ares become for you a bringer of peace, driving the hostile mob far from your land.” ‘This inscription has been given a full-scale restudy by L. Robert (Documents de l’Asie Mineure méridionale [Paris 1966] 91-100), who discusses in detail the iconography of the neutralization of Ares, common on coins of Syedra and two other cities, as well as the cult of Ares in Asia Minor. For ‘Gefesselte Gétter’, see R. Merkelbach, Antaios

12 (1971) 549-565. For interesting comments on. why the Greeks refrained from honoring Ares, see Vollgraff, BCH 58 (1934) 154-156. 11. For the cult of Ares in Attika, see Stoll in Roscher, Lexicon 1.484. Apparently

Ares does not occur in Linear B, and it is suggested by B. C. Dietrich (Death, Fate and the Gods [London 1965] 137 n. 7) that his cult was due to epic influence.

12. Cults of the Greek States 5 (Oxford 1909) 403.

War Festivals and the Calendar

159

kolowski’s Lois sacrées des cités Srecques: Suppl ément (Paris 1962) and Lois sacrées des cités grecques (Paris 1969), there is only one reference to Ares, an inscription from Crete of the second centu ry B.c. (no. 112 of the former publication)."® There was, however, a temple of Ares in the Athenian agora noted by Pausanias (1.8.4). The foundation is Roman, and W. B. Dinsmoor (Hesperia 9 [1940] 49-50) associated the

temple and its cult with Ares, Augustus

and Caius

Caesar.

But

the

temple proper is dated by Dinsmoor on architectura l grounds to 440436 B.c. H. A. Thompson (AJA 66 [1962] 200) and J. Travlos (Pictorial Dictionary of Athens [London 1971] 104) have advan ced the theory that the “temple of Ares with its altar was moved from Achar nai, where there was a special cult of Ares;”4 but the discussion of the temple by I. T. Hill is much more cautious.4® The evidence, prima rily epi-

graphical, for this cult at Acharnai, is published by L. Robert, Etudes

épigraphiques et philologiques (Paris 1938) 292-316. The earliest document concerning it is an inscription from the second half of the fourth century B.c. calling for the construction of altars to Ares and Athena Areia. Robert writes (p. 295), “Le cult est introduit par un oracle, sans doute de Delphes; cet oracle a été rendu et il est cité sous la forme la

plus ordinaire.”16Later in the fourth century, the priest of Ares and

13. The evidence for the cult of Ares is not large. Restricting the search to architectural monuments mentioned primarily in Pausanias, I find the following (references are to Pausanias unless otherwise noted): Argos (wooden image in double temple of Ares and Aphrodite: 2.25.1; Lucian Amor. 30); Geronthrai (temple: 3.22.6-7); Hermione (temple: 2.35.9); Lykosoura (altar: 8.37.12); Megalopolis (altar: 8.32.3); Mount Kresion (temple: 8.44.7); Olympia (image: 5.15.6); Patrai (image: 7-21.10); Sparta (altar?: Plutarch Mor. 238F); Tegea (image: 8.48.4); Thebes (fountain: 9-10.5); Therapne (temple: 3.19.7); and Troizen (temple: 2.32.9). In addition, there was a cult at Hyettos (IG VII. 2808) and Koroneia (7G VII.2871; Arnold, JHS 54 [1934] 206-207). On Crete, there were temples of Ares at Biannos and Knossos: R. F. Willetts, Cretan Culis and Festivals (New York 1962) 286. For the cult of Ares in Arkadia, see W. Immerwahr, Die Kulte und Mythen Arkadiens (Leipzig 1891) 162-166.

For a geographical register of cults, see L. R. Farnell, The

Cults of Greek States x

(Oxford 1909) 408-414. For Ares in oaths, see R. Merkelbach, ZPE g (1972) 281. A treaty between Knossos and Tylissos about 450 B.C. (H. Bengtson, Staatsvertrége no. 147) provided that the spoils of war should be dedicated to Ares. 14. See also H. A. Thompson and R. E. Wycherley, The Agora of Athens (Princeton 1972) 164-165. Efforts to associate the sculpture from the temple with Ares (P. N. Boulter, Hesperia 22 [1953] 145) have thus far yielded few results. 15. The Ancient City of Athens (London 1953) 71-72. 16. The formula is also studied by A. Wilhelm, Neue Bettrdge 3 (1913) 22-24. Greek temples usually had altars; but the construction of an altar does not necessarily

imply an earlier temple.

War Festivals and the Calendar

160

Athena Areia set up in his sanctuary the oath of the ephebes,”” and the

alleged oath sworn by the Athenians when they were about to fight the barbarians. There is no evidence for a temple of Ares at Acharnai.”* The name of Ares is not found among the various deities whose money is recorded in two loans made by the Other Gods to the state in 423/2 g.c. Although the stone gives the names of twenty-five deities accepted into official cults, there are a few gaps. The omission of Ares from the original list would virtually rule out any theory of a large cult with a great temple. Possibly of greater significance is the omission of the name from the lengthy list of “Other Gods” compiled from all epigraphical sources by T. Linders, The Treasurers of the Other Gods in Athens and their Functions (Meisenheim 1975) 79-80. Nilsson notes the infrequency of ex-votos and dedications to Ares.”° There was no 17. Acharnai must have been a center of pro-military politics. Sce Pindar N. 2.16 CAxépvar 6& radraldarov ebdvopes); Aristophanes Acharnians; and Thucydides 2.20.4. Also found at Menidi is a bas-relief portraying a figure apparently of Ares: Milchhéfer, Ath. Mitt. 13 (1888) 337 no. 499. Cf. K. J. Dover, Thucydides Book VII (Oxford 1965) 57: “Few

demes

(the Acharnians

are a notable

exception)

were

felt to have

martial traditions of their own.”

18. It is said that Solon built a temple to Enyalios, who is often closely associated with Ares (Nilsson, Geschichte der griechischen Religion? 1.519; Vollgraff, BCH 58 [1934] 151-156; Chamoux, BCH 82 [1958] 581) after taking Salamis: Plutarch Solon 9-7 (xdnolov 5é Tod "EvvaNiov 76 tepdv éorw idevoapévov Dddrwvos). I. M. Linforth (Solon

the Athenian [Berkeley 1919] 45) paraphrases the sentence as signifying, “Solon dedicated a precinct.” The shrine may be referred to in JG II, 1035.35; G. R. Culley,

Hesperia 46 (1977) 286. L. Robert (Etudes epigraphiques [Paris 1938] 305 n. 2) comments apropos of the oath of the ephebes: “Il est certain qu’ Enyalios et Ares sont ici deux divinités distinctes.”

Pausanias

(1.8.4) mentions

a statue

(4ya\ua)

of Ares

in the temple in the Agora, the work of Alkamenes, who made many statues at Athens (Pliny NH 36.16); a statue of course does not necessarily imply a contemporary temple. For the statue, see W-H.

Schuchhardt,

“Alkamenes,”

Archdologische

Gesell-

schaft, Berlin. Winckelmannsprogramm 126 (1977) 33-37. For the meaning of iepév, see A. Pelletier, Recherches de Papyrologie 4 (1967) 180-184. 19. Geschichte der griechischen Religion2 1 (Munich 1955) 518. Cf. M. Launey, Recherches sur les armées hellénistiques 2 (Paris 1950) 927-928, who cites 1G XII.3.103. W. H. D. Rouse, Greek Votive Offerings (Cambridge 1902) 95, comments, “It would seem that he [Ares] alone should be prayed to by this side or that, yet the truth is far otherwise.” D. W. Bradeen (The Athenian Agora: 17 Funerary Monuments [1974] p- 238) offers the unlikely restoration of the name Ares in his no. 375, a monument referring to horsemen who died at Tanagra. In all of the examples of military epiphanies, there is no case of the appearance of Ares. The battle paian belongs specially to Apollo. E. Vanderpool (AJA 63 [1959] 280 = SEG 19.37) publishes a schoolboy’s slate of the fifth century with the names

alphabetical order. Although

much

of three deities, including that of Ares, in

has been written on Ares by those steeped in

mythology, where systematization and rationalization can produce almost any results,

War Festivals and the Calendar

161

Athenian festival with which Ares was associated. This contrasts with the situation in Rome, where, next to Jupiter, Mars was the chief god, with festivals in March and October.

Eirene. In a discussion of the god of war, it may be noted that Eirene

(Peace) was not deified or given a cult at Athens until 375/4 B.c., ata time when the Athenians desperately needed peace and prosperity.?° The

famous

statue

of Firene

carrying

Ploutos

(Wealth),

made

by

Kephisodotos (Pausanias 9.16.2), which stood in the Agora (1.8.2), was made soon after the conclusion of peace between Athens and Sparta in 375/4 B.c., for Isokrates (15 Antidosis 110) tells us that from that day the Athenians annually offered sacrifices to Peace as to the deity who had done more for the city than any other; and Nepos (13 Timotheos 2) says that the Athenians then for the first time erected an altar to Peace at the public expense and spread a festal couch for the goddess. Sacrifices to Peace are mentioned in JG II? 1496.94 (334/3 B.c.) and

127 (332/1 8.C.). Both sacrifices, offered in the month Hekatombaion, were made by the generals, and the sums (874 and 713 drachmai) of the hide-moneys were large. We infer that great numbers of oxen must have been slain.?4 The scholiast to Aristophanes Pax 1019 says that sacrifices were offered to Peace on the festival of the synoikia, which was held on Hekatombaion

(I) 16, a date commemorating the consoli-

dation by Theseus of the independent Attic communities into the one Athenian state. Problems relating to this cult are ably discussed by F. Jacoby, FGrHist 3b (Suppl.) 1 pp. 523-526. This completely supersedes the treatment by L. Deubner, Attische Feste (Berlin 1932) 38, but is not mentioned by F. W. Hamdorf (Griechische Kultpersonifikation der vorhellenistischen Zeit [Mainz 1964] 54) who confuses the peace of 375/4 B.c. with that of 371 B.c. we have no study which collects and analyzes the references to Ares and Enyalios in literature and inscriptions and representations in art. Among the gods on the frieze of the treasury of Knidos at Delphi, Ares has a place, but at the very end, grouped with

no

one,

“in

bescheidener,

gedriickter

Haltung,

wie

er auf

der

Francoisvase

erscheint”: G. Karo, Ath. Mitt. 34(1909) 170. For an attempt to explain the Greek attitude toward Ares, see C. T. Seltman The Twelve Olympians (London 1952) 107. Herodotos (7.76) speaks of Ares as an oracular god, apparently in Pisidia. 20. Polemos,

the personification

of war,

apparently

had

no

cult:

Herzog-Hauser

in RE s.v. Polemos (1952) 138-1359.

21. A. W. Gomme and F. H. Sandbach (Menander [Oxford 1973] 651) estimate that on one occasion there were as many as two hundred members of the Eleusinian deme eligible to share the sacrifice of one ox. A large number of citizens must have partaken of the sacrificial meat at the festival of Eirene.

War Festivals and the Calendar

162 Phobos.

Although

we

know

of no festivals to Phobos,

this god is

known exclusively as a god of war and in Sparta his temple was closed in time of peace. Three authors who have written on the cult of Phobos are in agreement that he was a real god in Greek belief, not a mere abstraction or personification of fear, and was worshipped in deity form: L. Deubner, Ath. Mitt. 27 (1902) 253-264; Weizsacker in Roscher’s Lexikon s.v. Phobos (1908); and Bernert in RE s.v. Phobos (1941) 309317.22 In Homer JI. 13.299 and Hesiod Theogony 934, he appears as son of Ares,2? and brother of Aetuos.

According

to Aristarchos,

¢oSos

in Homer always means “panic flight” and not “panic fear,” the latter a meaning which ultimately became dominant.’4 In Aischylos Septem 42, the Seven swear by Ares, Enyo and Phobos. He signifies not Fear, but # pera déovs dvy?. In the fifth century, the Selinountians attributed

a victory primarily to Zeus, but Phobos (with the article) is also named: SIG? 1122 (= IG XIV.268). Ares is not named at all. Before the battle of Gaugamela, Plutarch (Alexander 31) reports that Alexander passed the night in front of his tent with the mantis Aristandros celebrating sacred rites and sacrificing to Phobos. The cult of Phobos was important at Sparta,2> where

there was a temple which,

Plutarch

says, was

usually closed, in other words in times of peace.® The Spartans believed that Phobos was the supporter of their constitution (ry woAtTelav uddtora ouvéexecbar Po8w vouitovres).27 Pausanias (3.14.9 and 3.20.2) re-

fers to a sacrifice of a puppy to Enyalios by the epheboi at Sparta in a 22. For Phobos

as a real deity, see also B. C. Dietrich, Death, Fate and the Gods

(London 1965) 341-343. The articles of Deubner and Weizsacker contain illustrations showing that Phobos was often represented on shields and similar objects, a practice

which possibly originated with the magic intention of inspiring terror in the enemy. For the cult of Phobos, see also F. W. Hamdorf, Griechische Kultpersonifikation der vorhellenistischen Zeit (Mainz 1964) 66 and 120. Hamdorf, however, regards Phobos only as a daimon. Cf. M. L. West, Hesiod Theogony (Oxford 1966) 33. H. Usener (Gétternamen’ [Frankfurt 1948] 364-375) argues that abstractions began as daimones, and only became abstractions at a later stage. 23. Hesiod: “Kythereia bore to Ares the shield-piercer Phobos and Deimos, terrible gods who drive in disorder the phalanxes of men in numbing war, with the help of Ares, sacker of towns.”

24. LSJ notes that there Ammonius (ed. Valckenaer,

is a probable exception in Il. 9.2. The grammarian p. 39) makes the following distinction between déos

and éBos: déos wey yap éore rodvxpdrios Kaxod brdvora: PoBos St 7) waparixa mrTdnots.

For

a treatment of words of fear in early Greek (Homer to Pindar), see S. Jaekel, Archiv fiir Begriffsgeschichte 16 (1972) 141-165. 25. See S. Wide, Lakonische Kulte (Leipzig 1893) 275-276. 26. Kleomenes 8-9. See Bernert, 311.

27. Plutarch Kleomenes 9.1.

War Festivals and the Calendar

163

precinct called Go.Batov. It has been conjectured that the word is an error for oBetov;28 but all manuscripts of Pausanias have the same

spelling, as for Phoibos or Phoibe. Similarly, Radermacher (RM 58 [1903] 215-216) believes that one should read &48ov instead of PoiBou in a passage of Plutarch (Mor. 343E) referring to an apparition. For attempts to explain why Phobos was worshipped at Sparta, see P. H. Epps, “Fear in Spartan Character,” CP 28 (1933) 12-29; and H. Michell, Sparta (Cambridge

1964) 270-273.

In Herodotos, the panic is sent by a divine agency: 7.10. €, ou Beds oBov euBadde. Other instances are 4.203.3 (rotor 6 Tlépanot ovdevds waxopeévov PoBos everece, “although none attacked them, panic fell upon the Persians and they fled”); 7-43.2 (vuxrds pdBos és 76 orparbredov evérece, “the army was seized with panic in the night’), 8.38 (@6Bos rotor BapBapoce

éverenrixee, “‘the foreigners were struck with panic” and fled). There are two passages in Thucydides which may reflect the same superstition among the soldiery: 4.125.1, ei@is doBnOévres, dep piel pE-

yaha orparéreda dcades éxrdnyrvvcbat (“just as large armies are wont to do, to be struck with blind panic without visible cause”’), 7.80.3, otov girel Kai maou orpatorédos, uddAora 6é Tots peyloros, PoBor kal detuata éyyiyveobar (“just as in all armies and especially in the largest, panic and

terror are apt to arise”).2®° In the fourth century, the panic fear of armies comes to be associated with Pan; see above chap. II, p. 45. 2.

‘THE GREEK

FESTIVAL

CALENDAR

The Greek calendars contained dates of festivals and days of months sacred to gods. Whereas at Rome the official pontifical chronicle be-

came a first-rate historical source, the Greek calendars simply settled the festivals and sacrifices of the state on certain days of the month. We do not learn from them, as we do from the Roman, the dates of the foundations of sanctuaries, of eclipses, of triumphs, and the like.®° Moreover, at Athens the course of the calendar was regulated not by

priests or pontifices, but by the archon, who could be directed by a

28. F. Diimmber in S. Wide, Lakonische Kulte 276. Cf. F. W. Hamdorf, Griechische

Kultpersonifikation (Mainz 1964) 120. For the possible corruption of ®é8e into PolBaxr, see R. D. Dawe, PCPAS 198 (1972) 29-30. 29. Many examples in Thucydides of ¢é680s used simply as a psychological term are collected in W. E. Thompson, Historia 20 (1971) 144-149.

30. In the later Roman calendar, even the birthdays of emperors were recorded: see A. D. Nock, “The Roman Army and the Roman Religious Year,” HThR 45

(1952) 187-252 [reprinted Stewart, 736-790].

in vol. 2 (Oxford

1972) of Nock’s Essays, edited by Z.

164

War Festivals and the Calendar

decree of the demos when to make intercalation.*! Intercalation decides the course of a lunisolar calendar (years of 354 + 1 or 384 + 1 days). When Dinsmoor published his Archons of Athens in the Hellenistic Age (Cambridge, Mass. 1931), he found (p. 420) that his new year dates in the period 432 to go B.c. ranged over 50 days. In other words, the first day of the new year (Hekatombaion [I] 1) might fall on a new moon date between June 13 and August 2. This means that by Dinsmoor’s calendar the festival of the Genesia on Boedromion (III) 5 (64 days after the beginning of the year) might occur as early as August 16 or as late as October 5. With abundant new epigraphical material, the researches of the Agora epigraphists have increased the range to over 60 days, since the archon-tables, based on Ferguson’s rule of the tribal cycles of Athenian secretaries, show years beginning on the first new moon before the solstice and the first or second after. Indeed, there is one stretch in the fifth century where the 1971 table of B. D. Meritt shows a sequence of eight ordinary years within nine (414/3-406/5 B.c.) and four intercalary years within five (419/8-415/4 B.c.). New Year’s Day might occur anytime between June 16 and August 28.°" ‘The span here is of 74 days. One may observe that reputable students of Greek religion pursue their researches without any recognition of the actual difficulties about the Athenian calendar. H. W. Parke begins his opening chapter with the statement,

“The

first month

of the Attic year, called

Hekatom-

baion, began about midsummer with the new moon before the summer 31. IG I2, 76: phva 6& éuBaddrav ‘“ExarouBadva tov véov dpxovra.

The

parapegmata

of astronomers such as Meton and Euktemon were of an entirely different order. They were

primarily

astronomical,

based

upon

the

solar

year,

and

contained

such

in-

formation as the signs of the zodiac, the rising and setting of important stars, and the probable weather; see BCH 8» (1961) 32-37 for an English translation of Euktemon’s parapegma. If the Greek festival calendar had been solar, there would have been relatively little need for such parapegmata. Only one fragment from a Fasti of the Athenian calendar has been identified: see Pritchett and van der Waerden, BCH 85 (1961) 40. 32. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 115 (1971) 114. My own dissent from Meritt’s calendar of this period has been published in BCH 101 (1977) 7-42 and Historia 26 (1977) 306. The major problem is the relation of Hekatombaion (I) 1 to the summer solstice; see Pritchett, The Choiseul Marble (Berkeley 1970) 39-73. The application of the term “natural” calendar (P. J. Rhodes, The Athenian Boule

[Oxford 1972]228) to that of the archon is unfounded. No one has yet given any clue their festivals 39 (1976) 350. The more we know about the festival calendar, the less we understand it. But by any reckoning, the absence of an accepted solar calendar made for considerable diversity. as to how citizens on Mount Parnes or in the Mesogaia conducted according to the calendar to be deduced from the table in Phoenix

War Festivals and-the Calendar

165

solstice.”*8 No Athenian chronologist would endorse this statement; obviously the author is completely in the dark about a basic problem relating to his subject. An author of a “Studies in Greek Religion” produces such equations as the following: “The Anthesteria began on the eleventh of Anthesterion (the twenty-seventh of February).”34 Similarly, Jane Harrison wrote about the Diasia: “It was celebrated on the eighth day of the last decade of the month Anthesterion—i.e. about

the 14th of March. The diasia was a Spring festival and therein as will

be shown

later lies its true significance.’’>

More

importantly,

E. R.

Dodds, in a chapter entitled “The Religion of the Ordinary Man in Classical Greece,” which has as its thesis the “stubborn conservatism”

of the Greeks about ritual and which finds a pattern of “endless recurrence” in the Greek religious calendar, “unchanging through the generations of men,” offers such observations as, “There (in Attika) the anxiety of seedtime had its outlet in the linked festivals of the Skira in late June and the Thesmophoria in late October.”% By Meritt’s calendar of the period of the Peloponnesian

War,

the Skira on

Skirophorion (XII) 12 fell as early as May 29 and as late as August 10. Clearly,

the “ritual

ploughing,”

as Parke

terms

it,?7 would

have

no

correlation with the actual ploughing of the peasants. By Deubner’s theory that the Skira was a “fertility ritual, whereby offerings of piglets were thrown into the earth at the Skira and recovered four months later to be used in making a fertilizing magic,”** this unsavory mixture

of decayed flesh and pigs’ bones when sprinkled with seed in the fields on Pyanopsion (IV) 10, the date of the Thesmophoria, would in many years have failed in its purpose to promote fertility of the crops, since the span of the Thesmophoria was, again calculating by Meritt’s table,

from September 12 to December 5. A. D. Nock in his review of Deubner’s Attische Feste uses Meritt’s Julian dates for one year (415 B.C.) in an attempt to determine the approximate date of Athenian festivals, particularly that of the Adonis.®9

E. Des Places writes of the Diasia,

“Elles se célébrent le 23 Anthestérion (début d’octobre),”4° which is erroneous on several counts. P. Vidal-Naquet claims that the third day 33- Festivals of the Athenians (Ithaca 1977) 29. 34. G. N. Belknap, Univ. of Oregon Publication &.1 (1935) 47 Nn. 14.

35- Prolegomena The Ancient Op. cit. 158. So Parke, op.

36. 3738. 39.

Gnomon

to the Study of Greek Religion (Cambridge

Concept of Progress (Oxford 1973) 146. Parke’s chapter has the title “Skiraphorion”! cit. 159-160. 10 (1934) 289-295.

40. La religion grecque (Paris 1969) 88.

1903) 14.

166

War Festivals and the Calendar

of the Apatouria at Athens was “held to celebrate the return of the young men from the campaigns of the summer.’’#! Since this three-day festival fell in Pyanopsion (IV) after the fifteenth, the young soldiers would be returning home, by Meritt’s reckoning, anywhere from September 29 to December 11. D. W. Bradeen, a student of the epigraphical material, objects to Jacoby’s thesis that public burials were celebrated as part of the Genesia on Boedromion

(III) 5, as follows:

““To

have placed a ceremony for the dead of a campaigning year as early as September seems hardly possible.”“ By Meritt’s calendar, the Genesia

might fall as early as August 19 or as late as October 31. Bradeen’s line of reasoning could be used to eliminate any agricultural festival for the Athenians. Indeed, it is fair to say that scholars in the field of Greek religion and festivals have almost without exception ignored a very active area of research which is central to their studies,** although over the past forty-five years elaborate archon-tables have been presented showing the sequence

of ordinary and intercalary years, correlated

to

Julian dates. It is incumbent on any student of Greek religion who supports a theory of agricultural rituals at the time of festivals to justify his theory in accordance with the dates on which the festivals were celebrated. By the calendar of the Agora epigraphists, so-called agricultural festivals in the fifth century B.c. were falling as much as two to three months

out of season, and rituals, if performed, would have

been devoid of their original significance. No student of Greek religion has ever attempted to reconcile his ritualistic theories with the various interpretations of the Athenian calendar; and, on the other hand, at least one school of Athenian chronology, strong in America and England, has completely ignored the implications of its calendric results

for the rituals of Athenian festivals. Modern research in these two fields has proceeded as if in two vacuums. For the fourth and following centuries,

there is much

information

from the dates usually given in the prescripts of Athenian decrees, beginning in the second half of the fourth century. Unfortunately, a sequence of ordinary and intercalary years in the Athenian calendar cannot be established until some reliable archon table is determined. The most recent one reflects a long-continuing effort to locate archons according to the Metonic cycle,#4 whereas virtually every reputable 41. PCPS 194 (1968) 51. 42. CQ 63 (1969) 155. There are, however, other objections to Jacoby’s thesis. 43. Cf. H. W. Parke, Festivals of the Athenians (Ithaca 1977) 24: “We need not

concern ourselves with the problems of intercalation, but take instead the typical twelve months of the Attic year and their associated festivals.” 44. B. D. Meritt, Historia 26 (1977) 160-191.

War Festivals and the Calendar student

of chronology,

including

167 Neugebauer,

Bickerman,

Samuels,

et al., has long rejected such a theory, for which no ancient evidence has ever been produced.*5 More importantly, there is no discussion of the principles whereby Meritt determines whether a year is intercalary or ordinary.46 Whereas there had been genera l agreement that the character of a year was determined by computatio ns comparing the possibilities for years of twelve and thirteen month s and choosing the one which resulted in fewer irregularities in the distri bution of months and prytanies, Meritt at times gives the character of the year according to greater irregularities.47 His designation of Athen ian years as O* or I* becomes virtually meaningless. In addition, Meritt posits two festival calendars, operating simultaneously one month apart;*8 so that when an intercalary month is known for a certain archo nship that year can be interpreted as ordinary and belonging to the other festival year. As long as the Agora excavators persist in presenting their new material in such fashion, it is unmanageable, and the conservative student

of Greek religion will have to bide his time.

It may be noted that in contrast with the late fifth, fourth and third centuries, beginning with the so-called New Style coinage in the sec-

ond century, intercalation in the Athenian calendar becomes far more regular, and in general agricultural festivals may now be said to accord with the seasons.’ Fertility rites fall in the proper seasonal and agricultural context. Since much of our information about the ritual

45. Even though Meritt at times positions archons according to his Metonic cycle, two successive cycles (pp. 174-177) in the middle of the third century show the following character of years: “Cycle 10” (261/0-243/2 Bc.) OOIO OIOLOIOOOIOIOO!I “Cycle 11” (242/1-224/3 Bc.) OLOILOOLOOOLIOLOIOIOO Out of nineteen years, fourteen do not correspond. Assuming that the year 261/o began with the new moon on or about July 17, the following years would begin with new moons ranging from June 22 to August 7, a span of forty-six days. 46. See Pritchett, Choiseul Marble (Berkeley 1970) 80. 47. See Pritchett, Phoenix 30 (1976) 349-380. 48. See Choiseul Marble 86-89; Phoenix 30 (1976) 352-356.

49. See Pritchett, Phoenix 30 (1976) 351. This may account for the fact that Plutarch more often than any other author equates the names of months in the calendars of different city-states; for example, Athenian Hekatombaion and Metageitnion — Boiotian Hippodromios and Panemos: Camillus 19. For the dating by Aristotle and other writers of phenomena in the animal and plant worlds according to Athenian months, see Choiseul Marble (Berkeley 1970) 39-41. S. Follet, Athénes au Ile et au IIe siécle (Paris 1976) 366, believes that in Roman times the Athenians adopted an octaeteris, but admits that there are anomalies. Why the Athenians at this late date

would adopt an octaeteris, when more correct cycles were known circles, is not at all clear.

in astronomical

War Festivals and the Calendar

168 festivals is derived

of Greek

from

late writers—Pausanias,

Plutarch,

Hesychios, the Souda, the scholia to various authors—it may be that in

the evolution of cult some features were deliberately added in these later times, and these late additions are reflected in writers of the

period. We have seen in the preceding chapters that many

Roman

serious historians attribute to the superstitious currents of the third and second centuries B.c. modifications in the accounts of historical events. The third century may have been as innovative as the Minoan-

Mycenean

age in creating or modifying religious rites, particularly

since there is so much common ground in religious practices.®° Certainly, some of the rites of the Athenian epheboi were late additions.

3. ATHENIAN NIKETERIA®? Proklos (ap. Plato Tim. 53D [p. 173-9: Diehl]) says that the Athenians

observed

a victory

festival

(vxnrjpia)

on

the anniversary

of

Athena’s defeat of Poseidon for possession of Attika. According to Plutarch the commemorative day was Boedromion 2. Polybios refers in passing to the propensity of the Athenians for passing decrees 50. One illustration. We are twice told by Plutarch (Mor. 489B and 741B) that the Athenians omitted Boedromion 2 from their calendar because the day was the anniversary of the contest between Poseidon and Athena for possession of Attika (see J. G. Frazer’s note on Apollodoros 3.4.1 [Loeb ed., vol. 2, pp. 78-79]). Now Boedromion 2 is attested as a date in epigraphical sources: Pritchett, Choiseul Marble (Berkeley 1970) 10 line 43. Rather than assume that Plutarch is referring to the calendar of an early period, we may conjecture that the practice had been introduced in later times and accept Plutarch’s explicit statements, written in the present tense. A. Mommsen

(Feste der Stadt Athen

[Leipzig 1898] 171 n. 4) notes that Boedromion

2 was “ein

Tag des Haders und Zanks,” and suggests that it came to be omitted for that reason. This solution seems entirely consonant with what we know about the Greek fear of unlucky days. — J. Shear (Hesperia 5 [1936] 297 fig. 8) publishes a number of Athenian imperial coins depicting the contest between the two deities. Philostratos (V. Soph. 2.558) states that the day in which the daughter of Herodes Attikos died was taken out of the year. 51. Nike is prominent in poetry and art, particularly in association with Athens,

starting in the fifth century. As an independent personality, she seems to have been quite unknown to Homer; she appears first in Hesiod (Theogony 383ff.) and never receives any noteworthy cult. She is most prominent as the bestower of agonistic victory, but was often used as a symbol of victory in war as in Aristophanes Eq. 586ff. See E. E. Sikes, CR g (1895) 280-283; and L. W. Daly, Studies Presented to D. M. Robinson 2 (Saint Louis 1953) 1124-1128. Her role as a goddess is discussed at length by Bernert in RE s.v. Nike 2 (1936) 285-307. The best collection of testimonia is that of F. W. Hamdorf, Griechische Kultpersonifikation der vorhellenistischen Zeit (Mainz

1964) 58-62 and 112-116. See also O. Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie (Munich 1906) 1084 n. 6.

5g. See note 50. Since Proklos was using Philochoros, he would reflect early practice.

War Festivals and the Calendar

169

and proclamations in their adulation of all the kings of the Hellenistic

period:

(’A@nvatou) eis révras rods Baovdels éEexéxuvto, kal wadcora Tobrwr

els IroXeuatov, kal ray yévos dméuevov Wydiopatuv Kal knpvywarov

(5-106.8).

Various festivals and rites were instituted at Athens to celebrate the victories of her patrons, as the city became the recipient of honors from the Ptolemies in particular, but also from other dynasts. As to how Athens commemorated many of her own major military victorie s, we have little information. We are told, for example, that after Sphakt eria the Athenians set up a great bronze Nike on the akropolis to comme mo-

rate the event, just as golden Nikai

celebrated

other Athenian

tri-

umphs of the fifth and fourth centuries.54 But apart from the inclusi on of Sphakteria in the list in Plutarch Mor. 349 of military victories

meriting memorial

sacrifices, we have no information

about

the date

or the nature of the commemoration. Much of our information about Athenian military festivals comes

from Plutarch, who discussed the subject in his lost treatise [ep jyepav (Camillus 19).°> To commemorate the victory of an Athenian force,

which alone of the allies at Mantineia in 362 B.c. defeated the troops opposed to them, Plutarch simply says (Mor. 350A) that Skirophorion

(XII) 12 was made “more sacred” (rHv 6€ dwoexdrnv Tod Dkpoopirdvos tepwTépay erroinoey 6 Mavtiveaxds dyav). This day already marked the celebration of the Skira, a festival which had its roots deep in the tradi-

tions of Athens. According to H. W. Parke,** the festival included an athletic contest, as well as mystic rites at the Thesmophorion and a procession, three of the most typical rituals by which the Athenians worshipped their gods, and the ceremonies concerned both Athena Skiras and Demeter.” In spite of the voluminous literature on the Skira, modern scholarship has offered little enlightenment as to how the day was made “more sacred.”*8 By comparing entries in Philochoros, Plutarch, Photios and Proklos, F, Jacoby has shown

that the

arrangement of material was distinctly different in works titled Iepi juepGv

from

that in books

Ilep! éoprév

or

Teo! pyvav.

The

former

“show us one side of the contents only, that which we may compre53- Pausanias 4.36.6.

54. D. B. Thompson, Hesperia 13 (1944) 176-177, 191. 55. See Ziegler, RE s.v. Plutarchos 2 (1951) 850-851. Plutarch is thought to have derived material from Philochoros: A. Tresp, RVV 15.1 (1914) 10; and above p- 110. 56. Op. cit. 160. 57- The Skira is discussed at great length in relation to the great Salaminioi inscription of 363/2 B.c. from the Agora (Ferguson, Hesperia 7 [1938] 1-74) by Jacoby, FGrHist 328 frgs. 14-16 (Text and Notes).

58. For L. Deubner’s sole reference, see Attische Feste (Berlin 1932) 235.

War Festivals and the Calendar

170

hensively call the sacred side: the note on each day states to what god the day is sacred, or in what its sacred significance consists, why it is sacred, and what is due to the god on that day in the way of sacred observances.”’®® Jacoby concludes that the Iepi jyepav shows the “significance of each day for actions to be undertaken by men, the differ-

ence of favorable and unfavorable days.” Citing this same chapter of Plutarch, Jacoby claims, “Plutarch expressly speaks of favourable and

unfavourable days . . . in about the same manner as, for instance, in Prussian history the 18th is spoken of (Oct. 18th battle of Leipsic; June

18th Waterloo

and Belle-Alliance;

April

18th storming

of the

Diippel trenches; Aug. 18th battle of Gravelotte etc.).”® Presumably, Plutarch assembled under the entry “13” Athenian events having to do with the character of the day,* and when he speaks of the battle of Mantineia in 362 B.c. making the day “‘more sacred” (i-e. more favorable [eduevjs]), this statement implies nothing about any religious rites or ceremonies commemorating the battle.® 59. FGrHist 328 frgs. 85-88 (Text, p. 367).

6o. Op. cit. Notes p. 272 n. 17. Cf. Nock, op. cit. (above n. 30) 740, “the supposed luck of a day counted for much more than its character in priestly calendars.” Both Eupolis (174K) and Menander (Leukadia frg. 315) say that a lucky day was called a “white day.” In the Life of Aristophanes (27.10 Dibner), we are informed that Aristophanes, who brought out plays through others, was ridiculed as being “born on the fourth of the month.” There was a proverb that one so born must work for others. Zenobios (Prov.) explains that this is said because of Herakles, who was born on the fourth of the month: cf. W. Schmid, RVV 7:1 (1908) 113. There was also a proverb that the sixth day was lucky: érn jjyépa: ext r&v ayalGv tuepSv- & ratty yap pvbeberar Tods Oeods verixnxévar rovs Tiyavras (E. L. von Leutsch and F. G. Schneidewin,

Paroemiographi 1 p. 401). Ailianos (VH 2.25) says with special reference to Artemis: Thy ekrnv Tod pnvos TOD OapynArGvos ToAAGy Kal ayabGv airiay yeveoBar Aéyovow ob povory tots ’A@nvaiors &d\Ad Kal &AXots roAXots.

61. Thus Plutarch concludes that the Karthaginians regarded with fear the ggnd because it brought the greatest of their misfortunes. So Lucian (Pseudologistes 13.172) states that different peoples treated days differently. He explains that defeat in battle on a given day established that day as unlucky. The virtues of the number five are extolled by Plutarch (Mor. 388-391 and 429D-430A). J. D. Mikalson (The Sacred

and Civil Calendar of the Athenian Year [Princeton 1975] 183) observes that there are ten days for which no meetings of the Athenian ekklesia are attested—‘‘a number far too great to be solely the result of chance.” I note that these days include the 1st (new moon), 7th (first quarter) and 15th (dichomenia). The sacred nature of lunar days is discussed by C. Préaux, Mémoires de la Cl. des Lettres de l’Acad. Roy. de Belgique, 2€ série, 61.4 (1973) 86-87. See also the important collection of material in A. Tresp, “Die Fragmente der griechischen Kultschriftsteller,’ RVV 15.1 (1914) 48-85. 62. For treatment

by modern

historians

Topography 2 (Berkeley 1969) 63 n. 120.

of the date of the battle, see Pritchett,

War Festivals and the Calendar

171

Plutarch (Phokion 6) says that on the sixteenth day of Boedromion (III) “Chabrias provided the Athenians with an oivoxénua every year.” In Mor. 349F, he explains that on Boedromion (III) 16 the epinikia for the naval victory of Chabrias off Naxos in 376 B.c. was celebrated with

libations of wine: éry 6’ él déca rod Lijvos oivoxoetrat THs XaBpiov rept Ndgtov

émuvixia vavpaxias. Blass (Hermes

147 [1882]

156) discusses

the meaning

of the word oivoxénua in the context of a papyrus fragment of a lexi-

con to Demosthenes’ Against Aristokrates. He shows that the conspicuously wealthy Chabrias (cf. J. K. Davies, Athenian Propertied Families [Oxford 1971] 561) provided that the epimeletai of the Eleusinian mysteries furnish wine to the Athenians annually on the day called “Adaéde pborar (“To the sea, Mystai”’). See also H. Diels and W. Schubart, Berliner Klassikertexte 1 (Berlin 1904) p. 80 (= P. Berol.

5008B). It seems safe to infer that if Chabrias had not made the donation of wine, the anniversary of the battle would not have been com-

memorated in any special way. In 394 B.c. Konon had offered a hekatomb at which he feasted all Athens after the battle off Knidos

(Athenaios 1.3D), but this event was not repeated. Festivals were

initiated, however,

to commemorate

major military

victories. Plutarch, possibly on the authority of Philistios (according to Perrin), describes how the day on which the final capture of Nikias and the Athenian army was accomplished came to be celebrated as an annual festival, under the title of the Asinaria, on the twenty-sixth day

of the Syrakusan month Karneios (Nikias 28; trans. of Perrin): “At the general assembly of the Syracusans and their allies, Eurycles, the popular leader, brought in a motion, first, that the day on which they had taken Nicias be made a holy day, with sacrifices and abstention from labour, and that the festival be called Asinaria, from the river Asinarus

(the day was the twenty-sixth of the month Carneius, which the Athenians call Metageitnion).” On the other hand, the fact that the Greeks might celebrate a festival to commemorate a birthday appears from Nepos 20 Timoleon 5.1, where we are told that all Sicily observed the birthday of Timoleon as a public festival. For the general practice of celebrating festivals on birthdays, see W. Schmidt, “Geburtstag im Altertum,” RVV 7 (1908), Heft 1. 63. At Rome,

the dies Alliensis, July 18, became

an unlucky

day in the Roman

calendar because it marked the defeat of the Roman army by the Gauls in 390 B.c. (Livy 6.1.11). After the assassination of Julius Caesar, a decree was passed stating that the Ides of March should be called parricidium, henceforth to be observed as an unlucky day (Suetonius, Julius Caesar 88); cf. S. Weinstock, Divus Julius (Oxford

1971) 398.

42

War Festivals and the Calendar

For Athens, we are chiefly dependent upon one passage in Plutarch’s On the Glory of Athens. In maintaining the position that Athenian

achievements in practical affairs were greater than those in literature, he lists (Mor. 349D-E) the military victories which have garlanded the city with all manner of spoils and trophies, concluding with the statement, “These are the things which the city celebrates in her festivals, for these she sacrifices to the gods, not for the dramatic victories

of

Aeschylus and Sophocles’ (trans. of Perrin). The list includes Marathon, Salamis, Eurymedon, Sphakteria, Konon at Knidos, ‘Thrasyboulos’ return from Phyle, and the victories of Alkibiades after the failure

in Sicily. Plutarch follows this list (Mor. 349F) by assigning dates to certain victories: (1) Marathon on Boedromion (III) 6; (2) Naxos on Boedromion 16 (an olvoxdynua); (3) Thrasyboulos’ return from Phyle on Boedromion 12; (4) Plataiai on Boedromion 3; (5) Salamis on Mounichion (X) 16; and (6) Mantineia on Skirophorion (XII) 12. Neither list is in chronological order; and Badian and Buckler, be-

lieving that the two occurrences of the name Salamis in the two lists represent two different occasions, have presented the case for the Salamis of the second list, as well as the Salamis of Lysander 15.1, being

a naval victory of Kimon’s fleet off Kypros,® which Plutarch elsewhere (Kimon 18.6) dismisses with a single clause. In his “Festkalender”

in the Attische

Feste

(following p. 267), L.

Deubner assigned festival dates commemorating five Athenian battles: Plataiai = Boedromion 3; Marathon = Boedromion 6; Naxos = Boedromion 16; Salamis = Mounichion 16; Mantineia = Skirophorion 12.

Naxos and Mantineia have been discussed above. Efforts of modern scholars to arrive at precise Julian dates for the battles of Marathon and Salamis have resulted in an enormous bibliography, involving epigraphical,

numismatic,

and

literary sources,

much

of which

lies

outside the scope of this investigation. Four of Deubner’s dates fall on days otherwise attested for major festivals, and this fact has resulted in a major debate as to whether the festival dates represent the true dates of the battles.® 64. RM 118 (1975) 226-239. 65. Kimon died during the expedition: Thucydides 1.112.4. 66. Pfister (RE s.v. Soteria [1927] 1229 line 36) believes that after divine honors were bestowed in 183 B.c. on Philopoimen by Megaloplis, the celebration, including games called Soteria, took place “am Festtag des Zeus Soter.” The evidence comes from a mutilated inscription (IG V. 2.432 = SIG2.289 — SIG3.624) which has been restored

to read BlovOurety rau duépar rar Aclds Zwrfipos. Cf. Diodoros

sanias 8.30.10.

Moreover,

in the case

of SIG3.791,

an

inscription

29.18 and Pau-

from

Delos es-

War Festivals and the Calendar

173

The festivals commemorating three battles of the Persian wars will be discussed seriatim. Podlecki (Historia 17 [1968] 259) notes that there is no evidence for any yearly rites at Thermopylai. For rites to Boreas after Artemision, see below, Pp- 205.

Marathon. ‘The annual sacrifice of thanksgiving for victory at Marathon was made to Artemis Agrotera on Boedromion (III) 6: Plutarch Mor. 862A: riv mpos "Aypas tour... Hv méumovow €re viv Th &xtn (MSS: exaTn) XaptoThpra Tis vixns éopracovres (“The procession to Agrai which

they still celebrate on the sixth as a festival of thanksgiving for their victory”); Mor. 86gB-C (Loeb trans.): “They say that the Athenians promised Artemis Agrotera that they would sacrifice a goat to her for every barbarian killed; and then, after the battle, when

the immense

number of the dead became apparent, they passed a resolution asking the goddess to release them from their vow on condition that they sacrificed five hundred goats every year;’®7 Aristotle Ath. Pol. 58.1: 6 dé ToAeuapxos Over ev Ovoias Thy Te Apréwidu TH Ayporépa xal 7S ’Evvadlw. The

point which Plutarch is making in the first passage is that Herodotos (6.106.3) is maligning the Lakedaimonians by having them wait until the full moon

to march

out, since they saw the dead unburied when

they reached the battlefield. This view, I believe, was a reasonable position for Plutarch since in his day, and for some centuries earlier (see above p. 168), the calendars of Greek city-states were more or less tablishing

a Soteria

festival

in Kyzikos,

it was

the oracle

of Delian

Apollo which

regulated the procedures: see Homolle, BCH 4 (1880) 47%. When the Ionian League voted honors to Eumenes II (OGIS 763.51-56), one day of the Pan-Ionian festival was

set aside to be a day in his honor. When

a new festival of Eirene (Peace) was in-

troduced at Athens in 375/4 B.c. (see above p. 161) to commemorate a short-lived peace between Athens and Sparta, it was not put on a separate day but was combined with the Synoikia, although the synoecism was not an epjyn. G. L. Cawkwell, “Notes

on the Peace of 375/4,” Historia 12 (1963) 90 n. 56, queries whether the peace may not have been celebrated on Hekatombaion (1) 16, because that was the day on which the peace was made. R. Sealey (A History of the Greek City States [Berkeley 1976] 414-422) argues that according to which source we adopt the peace may have occurred either in mid-summer of 375 B.c. or late in the year 375/4 B.c. We can only observe that the entire history of the origins of Greek festivals shows a remarkable tendency to combine rites even of different deities into single festivals, as in the case of the Anthesteria and the Skira. 67. This story appears, with slight variations, in Xenophon’s Anab. 3.2.12; sch. to Aristophanes Knights 660; and Ailianos

VH 2.25. The version of Ailianos is interest-

ing because the manuscripts read ‘““Thargelion,” an error in giving the name of the month for which there are well-attested parallels in the prescripts of Athenian decrees. Hammond assumes a similar error in Plutarch for the date of the battle of Salamis: JHS 76 (1956) 43 n. 1.

174

War Festivals and the Calendar

regular.® But for the time of the Persian wars, the text of Herodotos

(u1 ob wAhpeos édvTos Tod KbkAov) implies a grossly disordered calendar.*® The matter has been well presented by W. P. Wallace, JHS 74 (1954)

35 n. 24, with reference to Jacoby (JHS 64 [1944] 62). It is necessary to add that historians such as Busolt and Beloch tacitly assume that the Athenian year 480-79 B.c. began on the first new moon after the solstice, which is a possibility; but it is far from proved, or provable. The

interdiction against a Spartan outmarch before the full moon (Part I, chap. IX, pp. 116-119) and their arrival in Attika on the third day (inclusive count) pera tiv ravoéhnvoy (Herodotos 6.120) establishes that the battle was fought shortly after the full moon, but we do not know the month. Allowing for the disarray of ancient calendars, it would none-

theless have been a striking coincidence if the battle had occurred on the one day (6) sacred to Artemis, i.e. Boedromion (III) 6.7? Supporters of the “patronal” theory of festivals note that this day had already been established for the feast of Artemis Agrotera: see, most recently, H. W. Parke, Festivals of the Athenians (Ithaca 1977) 54-55. The festival of Artemis Agrotera was still celebrated many centuries later. ‘The evidence of ephebic inscriptions shows that shortly after the

sacrifice of entry into office (elovrnrhpia) the ephebes conducted a procession under arms (érourevoay The “Apréucde rie “Ayporépa év bors )to the

sanctuary of the goddess at Agrai,”! which has been located on the Ilissos near the Panathenaic stadium.” In two successive years (IG II? 68. When L. Pearson in his commentary on the Loeb passage writes, “Plutarch appears to believe that the Spartans are talking in terms of the Athenian month Boedromion instead of their month Carneius,” he misunderstands Plutarch, who was thinking only of a lunar month in which the 14/15 would be the day of the full moon: ov dé peradépes THY ravaéAnvov els apxIv unvos & Scxounvlas.

In Mor.

861F

Plu-

tarch protests against the assumption that the full moon could fall on a day other than the middle of the month, whereas the calendric evidence to be deduced from Aristeides 19.8 makes it clear that he thought such irregularity entirely possible. 6g. See, most recently, Pritchett, War I (Berkeley 1971) 118. If any doubts remain, the table of Meritt’s embolimoi days in Phoenix go (1976) 350, should settle the matter. 70. The moon on the “Victory coinage” is thought by some to afford a clue to the date; but C. M. Kraay, Archaic and Classical Greek Coins (London 1977) 62, claims that the moon

was added “as a reference to the nocturnal

character of the owl,” a

solution which will satisfy few. 71. IG II, 1006 lines 8-9, 58; 1008 line 7; 1011 line 7; 1028 line 8; 1029 line 6; 1030 lines 5-6; 1040 lines 5-6. See C. Pelekidis, Histoire de Véphébie attique (Paris 1962) 219. Cf. J. Shear, Hesperia 5 (1936) 298. 72. See J. Travlos, Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Athens (London 1971) 112 and 340. F. Jacoby (JHS 64 [1944] 62 n. 121) mistakenly believed that the procession paraded to Marathon.

War Festivals and the Calendar

175

1006 lines 26-27, 69-70), the kosmetes also conducted the ephebes to the polyandreion at Marathon where they deposited a crown and offered sacrifices “‘to those who had died in behalf of freedom.”7? The date of the celebration at the polyandreion is not known, but it could hardly have coincided with the festival of Artemis Agrotera in the years in question. One might expect the celebration on the battlefield to commemorate the anniversary of the battle. Salamis. ‘The ephebic inscriptions of the late Hellenistic and imperial periods refer to sacrifices to Zeus Tropaios at the site of the trophy on Kynosoura on the island of Salamis.74 The epheboi rowed to the town of Salamis and sacrificed to Aias. They were honored by the Salaminians,” and, then, having set sail for the trophy,’ they sacrificed

to Zeus T'ropaios. The

GutdkAa

sacrifice was sometimes

accompanied

by an

mAolwy.77 The regatta was part of the Aianteia.78 Scholars have

generally assumed that the occasion was the commemorative date of the naval battle of 480 B.c., although the ephebic Inscriptions give no 73- Graindor (Musée belge 26 [1922] 165-228) in a long study of the Attic ephebia in the imperial period has shown that many festivals may have been held annually, but the intervals for others are not known. He believes (p. 174) that the deciding factor was probably financial. The expense involved, which was great, was met sometimes by one or more of the ephebes of the year. In one case, one and the same ephebe is known to have acted as agonothetes for five different festivals (p. 171). We know from Pausanias 1.14.5 that a temple of Eukleia was constructed presumably on the north slope of the akropolis out of the spoils from Marathon, but little is known about the cult: See W. Gauer, Istanbuler Mitt. 2 (1968) 70. 74. The site has been securely located: E. Vanderpool, Hesperia 35 (1966) 102-103 n. 20; P. W. Wallace, AJA 73 (1969) 299-302; R. Stefanini, CSCA 10 (1977) 160. 75. Unfortunately, the three preserved decrees of the Salaminians (Hesperia 24 [1955] 228ff. lines 129-142; JG II2, 1008.75-88; 1011.53-63) are not dated according to the month. 78. IG II?, 1008.17; 112, 1028.27; II2, 1030.23; Hesperia 15 (1946) 207.22; 16 (1947) 171.23. The Salamis polyandreion was on the same promontory: IG II2, 1035.33. 77. IG II?, 1006.29. For a Spartan victor at the Aianteia, see IG V. 1.657. The

great splendor of the festival is brought out by K. Meinhold, De rebus Salaminiis (G6ttingen diss. 1879) 30ff. 78. Under the empire, the regatta was replaced by a naval combat: P. Graindor, Athénes de Tibére 4 Trajan (Cairo 1931) 69 and 92; JG I12, 1996.9. There were four festivals involving nautical games by the ephebes: Mounichia, Aianteia (Salamis), Diisoteria (Peiraieus), a festival of Great Gods (Peiraieus). In addition, a regatta was held off Sounion (Lysias 21 Defense on a Charge of Taking Bribes 5), probably in honor of Poseidon (Pausanias 2.35.1), to whom a temple on the cape was dedicated. The occasion may have been a quadrennial festival (Herodotos 6.87). The subject of Greek boat-races is treated by P. Gardner, JHS 2 (1881) 90-97, 315-317; 11 (1890) 146-150. They were part of many festivals, including the Panathenaia. For the ephebic races, see his page 316.

176

War Festivals and the Calendar

dates. But both Mommsen (Feste 463) and Graindor (Musée Belge 26 [1922] 217) believe that the ceremony at the trophy took place on Mounichion 16 or 17.79 They deduce this from the order of events in the ephebic documents. Thus, in JG II?, 1011.16, the trip to Salamis follows the ceremony at Artemis Mounichia: zepvérdevoay dé kat eis Movvixtav év Tats tepals vavaiy, duotws dé érAevoay kal eis Dahaptva Kal émorncavTo

éui\av T&yv tAoiwv. But as more

documents

have come

to light, con-

clusions drawn from the order of events listed in the ephebic documents seem less convincing;®® and C. Pelekidis (Histoire de l'éphébie attique [Paris 1962] 247) concludes, ““L’hypothése (of Mounichion 17), si vraisemblable qu’elle soit, ne peut étre actuellement démontrée.” As to the festivals, Percy Gardner (p. 316) has summarized the activities as follows: The Aianteia, celebrated at Salamis in honour of Ajax who was said to have borne aid to the Athenians at the battle of Salamis. On the occasion of this festival it would seem that the Ephebi went over to Salamis, and there had boat-races among themselves and foot-races against the youths of Salamis. The Munychia, in which Artemis was thanked for her assistance in the same great battle. At this time the Ephebi entered sacred vessels in the Peiraeus and raced round the Peiraean peninsula to the temple of Artemis in Munychia where they sacrificed.

J. Threpsiades has located the sanctuary of Artemis Mounichia on the hill of the Castella near the modern harbor of Tourkolimano: PAAH 10935 159-195. The ’Apréuidos axrm of the famous oracle of Bakis quoted in Herodotos 8.77 is now held to refer to Mounychia: Roux, BCH 08 (1974) 69.8! ‘The temple of Artemis is known from Pausanias 1.1.4. Since the battle of Salamis in 480 B.c. took place shortly before the solar eclipse of October 2,8 and Aischylos’ account of the battle requires darkness, not moonlight, modern scholars have generally concluded that Plutarch was wrong in placing Salamis at the full moon in a month chronologically unlikely®? (Mor. 349F): tv éxrnv él déxa Tod 79. Cf. J. Toepffer, RE s.v. Aianteia (1894) 927; J. Shear, Hesperia 5 (1936) 299. Graindor on his page 173 presents the festivals in what he regards as their chronological sequence. 80. Thus

in JG II2, 1006.29-30, the order is Mounichia,

Diisoteria, Aianteia.

81. Roux’s lengthy treatment of the battle of Salamis is an admirable study which supersedes all others. 8g. Herodotos 9.10.3. 83. Although we know nothing about the Athenian calendar in the period of the Persian wars, it would be unsound to assume on the basis of this one date alone that the calendar was so far awry that Month X was falling in September.

War Festivals and the Calendar Movmnxidvos

’Apréude Kabiepwoav,

177 & f Tots "EAAnot rep! Dadaytva

vindow

eréhappev 1) Oeds ravcédnvos 84 Badian and Buckler (RM 118 [1975] 226—239), however, have presented a strong argument for assuming that Plutarch was referring to a less well-known battle, which Thucydides (1.112.4) earlier characterized as srép Zaraptvos rhs vy Kimpw, the exact date and details of which are otherwise unknown. Since the visit of the ephebes to the trophy on Salamis and the sacrifices to Zeus Tropaios were on the day of the Aianteia, I find no difficulty in regarding this as a “commemorative,” rather than an “anniversary” date. The same would be true of the Mounichia. The Athenians honored

two deities, as well as Zeus Tropaios, whom

they as-

sociated with the battle, on their festive days.85 As to the two passages (Mor. 349F; Lysander 15.1) in Plutarch, there is no clue that he is referring to any battle other than Salamis of 480 B.c. It is a fair rule to take a sensible author to mean what his audience must have understood him to mean. Plutarch himself was so poorly informed about the battle of ca. 450 B.c. that he has Kimon alive at the time. Furthermore, I doubt that Plutarch would have used the phrase wep! Zadayuivos to cite the later battle, whereas it accords well with the island of Salamis. That there was a vuxrovavuaxia with two hundred ships on the Athe-

nian side alone seems doubtful, and I believe that such a night battle, very exceptional in Greek warfare, would have been reflected in the later literature.® Finally, L. R. Farnell (Cults of the Greek States 2 [Oxford 1896] 457-461) argues that the worship of Artemis as a lunar deity was a late development and quotes with approval Mommsen’s assessment of the Plutarch passage as “absurd.” Farnell finds this “misconception about the goddess” rife in later literature. For Artemis with a torch in art, see M. P. Nilsson, Geschichte der griechischen Religion? 1

(Munich 1955) 495. J. D. Beazley (Attic Black-Figure Vase Painters [Oxford 1956] 724; Paralipomena [Oxford 1971] 531) cites no examples, and, even so, Farnell (459) argues that the torch was applied “to the huntress who roams the woods by night.” In a discussion of the date of the battle of Theseus and the Amazons (Plutarch Theseus 27.2: text possibly corrupt), Jacoby (FGrHist 328 frag. 13 [Text p. 281]) writes, 84. For the context of the passage, see above p. 173. For the date of the battle, see

now K. Sacks, CQ 70 (1976) 232-233 (September 28). This accords with Plutarch’s date for the battle in Camillus 19.6: epi ras eixddas, “round (i.e. in) the twenties.” The plural form was used for “the waning days of the moon”: Pritchett, Phoenix 30 (1976) 346. Cf. Et. Magn. 131. 15. 85. This was also the conclusion of Pelekidis (op. cit. above n. 71) 247. 86. For Greek night battles, see chap. 8 of Greek State at War 2 (Berkeley 1974) 155-176.

War Festivals and the Calendar

178

“Apparently Plutarch merely determined the date of the Amazon battle by the Boedromion festival.”8’He may have done the same with Salamis. Plutarch’s association of Artemis with the full moon does not seem to fit either 480 or 450 B.c.

Battle of Plataiat. 1. Plataiai. According to Plutarch there were four different celebrations at Plataiai and its environs commemorating the battle of 479 B.c.: 1) an annual sacrifice to Zeus Eleutherios on the anniversary of the battle, Panemos 27 (= Boedromion [III] 4); 2) annual funeral offerings by probouloi and theoroi of Hellas on Maimakterion (= Alalkomenios) 16; 3) festival games of deliverance every fourth year—the famous Eleutheria

(dyeo@ar 6é mevraernpixdy ayava T&v

’Edevdepiwy); 4) a celebration by the Athenian tribe of Aiantis on the slopes of Mount Kithairon. In his life of Aristeides (19-21), Plutarch provides us with the following account.

Shortly after the battle-of Plataiai, a council

Hellenes (20.2: Bovdevouévwy Tav ‘ENAHvwy)

of the

consulted the oracle at Del-

phi in regard to appropriate thanksgiving sacrifice. They received the response that they should erect an altar to Zeus Eleutherios, extinguish

all the fires throughout the land, inasmuch as they had been defiled by the barbarians, and rekindle them with pure fire taken from the com-

mon hearth at Delphi. The archontes of the Hellenes at once set about quenching the fires, as they were bidden, and a Plataian by the name of Euchidas volunteered to fetch the new fire as quickly as possible. First purifying and besprinkling his body and crowning himself with laurel, he ran the distance to Delphi and back of a thousand stades, or about

111 miles, within the space of one day. (The distance between

Plataiai and Delphi in a straight line measures about 46 miles.) Upon

fulfilling his commission, Euchidas dropped dead at the feet of his countrymen and was buried by them in the sanctuary of Artemis Eukleia, a verse commemorating his deed being inscribed above him. Plutarch informs us that down to his day, there was an annual meeting

of the Hellenic synedrion (19.8) and a sacrifice by the Plataians to Zeus Eleutherios

on

the anniversary of the battle, which

fell on the

fourth of the month Boedromion (III), according to the reckoning of the Athenians, or the twenty-seventh of Panemos in the Boiotian calendar.® He adds that the discrepancy between the two calendars need 87. See also above p. 172 and below p. 185. 88. Plutarch obviously considered that the battle of 479 was fought in early Boedromion according to the Athenian calendar. Elsewhere, he gives the date as

War Festivals and the Calendar

179

cause no surprise.®® ‘That such discrepancy occurred in the fifth century is proved by some passages in Thucydides; and the evidence of Aristophanes (Nubes 607-626) shows that the Athenian calendar was at times out of step with the moon.% At a subsequent general assembly of the Hellenes, a decree was proposed by Aristeides and passed, to the effect that each year probouloi and theoroi of the Greek states should assemble at Plataiai and that in every fourth year games should be celebrated, to be known as the Eleutheria (21.1). There follows a detailed description of the rites then inaugurated and annually performed over the graves of those who had fallen in the battle. This ceremony occurred later in the year on

the sixteenth

course

of Maimakterion

of these rites, prayers were

(V), or of Alalkomenios.

In the

offered to Zeus and to Hermes

Chthonios. Plutarch lived not far away at Chaironeia, and from his de-

tailed account may be presumed to have attended the festival.°! If we accept Plutarch, the celebration of the funeral offerings and of the festival games of deliverance were clearly not observed on the anniversary of the battle. Why the sixteenth of Maimakterion (= Alalkomenios) was selected, we are not told; but one might infer from the

reference to Maimakterion that the Plataians in Plutarch’s day were using the Athenian calendar.” Boedromion 3 (Camillus 19.5; Mor. 349F). P. Graindor (Chronologie [below n. 96] 169) believes that the text of the Aristeides passage is in error, “ou un copiste, au lieu de 7 rpiry, aura luverpadi, sous Vinfluence de rerpad: POivovros qui suit.” For a somewhat similar error by a stonemason, see Meritt, Hesperia 5 (1936) 425.

89. Cf. A. Boethius, Der argivische Kalender (Uppsala 1922) 46-48. go. We know nothing about the relation of either the Athenian or the Plataian month to the moon; see Pritchett, “Julian Dates and Greek Calendars,” CP 42 (1947) 235-243; BCH 81 (1957) 277-279; Ancient Athenian Calendars on Stone (Berkeley 1963) 344-345. Events in the campaign of 479 cannot be dated with any precision from the evidence contained in Herodotos. Herodotos 9.3 and 7 are the key passages for the approximate time of the battle, but these are inconclusive. The best discussion is that of C. Hignett, Xerxes’ Invasion of Greece (Oxford 1963) 453-457. Proposed dates range from “about the beginning of August” (Busolt Gr. Geschichte 22 726 n.) to September 26 (W. B. Dinsmoor, The Athenian Archon List [New York 1929] 206); but Dinsmoor’s chronological methods will not bear analysis: see Pritchett, CP 42

(1947) 235-243; BCH 81 (1957) 284-290. g1. As the author of a treatise Iepi r&v & Waraats Aardadwy, Plutarch was familiar with Plataian cults: see Ziegler, RE s.v. Plutarchos 2 (1951) 851. 92. Badian and Buckler (RM 118 [1975] 238-239), who argue against the existence

“of festivals without actual relation to the date of the event commemorated” (p. 230), mark

both

the Boedromion

and

the Maimakterion

festivals with asterisks,

indicating that they regard them as “established to commemorate

thereby

the battles that

180

War Festivals and the Calendar

Pausanias (9.2.5—-6), who flourished in the reigns of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, seventy-five to a hundred years later than Plutarch, mentions an altar and cult-image of Zeus Eleutherios, both of which were of white marble, situated not far from the tombs of the fallen warriors, which in turn were near the entrance to the city. He

speaks also of the pentaeteric games called Eleutheria as being celebrated even down to his own day. Concerning this altar we have the further information that when it was erected, the Athenians and Lake-

daimonians caused to be inscribed upon it an epigram of Simonides of Keos which he had composed for the occasion. Of the epigram two versions are extant (AP 6.50 and Plutarch Mor. 873B and Aristeides 19); the second verse, however, is omitted in Plutarch’s version. Strabo (9.2.31) mentions the dedication by the Greeks of a hieron to Zeus Eleutherios and their appointment of the Eleutheria, which he designates specifically as a stephanites agon.®8 ‘That the hieron referred to by Strabo must have been a temenos without a temple building may be inferred from the fact that neither Pausanias nor any other authority speaks of a temple; cf. Linforth’s interpretation of the word hieron in note 18 above. The synedrion which met annually on the anniversary of the battle (Plutarch Aristeides 19.8) had the right of decreeing honorary statues to men who had deserved well of Greece. Such statues, we learn from

inscriptions ([G VII.2509; SIG? 835A), were decreed to the emperor were fought on that day.” The battle of Plataiai could not have been fought on both Boedromion (III) 4 and Maimakterion (V) 16 of the Athenian calendar or both Panemos (IX) 27 and Alalkomenios (XII) 16 of the Boiotian one. Moreover, we know that after their defeat of the Persians at Plataiai and of the Gauls at Delphi the Greeks celebrated stephanitai agones on dates which were not the anniversary of those battles. T. Klee (Zur Geschichte der gymnischen Agone an griechischen Festen [Leipzig 1918] 64) thinks that one of the celebrations at Plataiai was the occasion of a minor local solemnity. G. Grote (History chap. 42) is of the opinion that the later date marked the annual decoration of the tombs, and that the earlier was the anniversary of the battle. In reporting the so-called Oath of Plataiai, Diodoros (11.29.1) says that the Greeks vowed

before the battle that they would

unite, if victorious, in

celebrating a festival of liberty on that day. The well-known problem of the “double date” in Aristeides 19.8 is discussed by A. E. Samuel, Greek and Roman Chronology (Munich 1972) 68 (with partial bibliography). C. Habicht, Zetemata 142 (1970) 148 and 156, has collected evidence indicating that Hellenistic festivals were celebrated on the birthday of various sovereigns. The Persians also celebrated the birthday of their king: Herodotos 9.110.2; Plato Alkib. 121C. 93. L. Robert (Hellenica 1 [Limoges 1940] 116-118) discusses the word oredavirat, showing that it is restricted to the more celebrated festivals.

War Festivals and the Calendar

181

Hadrian and to the father of Herodes Atticus; the former statue was set up at Delphi. In Athenian ephebic inscriptions of the imperial period,®** money is distributed to the ephebes on the occasion of a dtadoyos at Plataiai.®% P. Graindor associates this custom with the an-

nual commemorative festival of Maimakterion (V) 16.% The “Eleutheria’” is mentioned in many inscriptions:®”

JG II? 3158;

3162.1-2 (Athens); JG IV? 629.5 (Epidauros); JG V.1.656 and 657 (Sparta); JG VII 49.11 (Megara); 1711 (Plataiai); 1856.5 (Thespiai); IG XII.1.78 (Rhodes); Dittenberger, S7G* 1064.11 (Halikarnassos); L. Moretti, Iscrizioni agonistische greche (Rome 1953) 59 (Miletos). The text of this last inscription is translated by H. A. Harris, Greek Ath-

letes and Athletics (London 1964) 126-1247. See the important note of L. Robert, REA 31 (1929) 15. Great crowds seem to have assembled to witness the Eleutheria; for Dikaiarchos, or the writer who goes by that name (K. W. L. Miller, FGH 2 [Paris 1878] p. 257 para. 11), quotes a fragment of the comic poet Poseidippos to the effect that Plataiai, ordi94. In one ephebic text describing the solemnities at Plataiai, the inscription refers to the dedication of an tédpia: kal vépla dveren Tots del Ecopevors ep7Bors (IG II2, 2086.38).

This hydria, Graindor believes (Chronologie 170), was no ordinary vase, but one such as Plutarch says the archon of Plataiai used to wash the stelai of the dead (Aristeides 21): dpayevds re Vdplav ard Tod ypayparoduAaktov ... dmoAber re Tas oTHAas. Cf. Graindor, BCH 39 (1915) 388 n. 1. Plutarch records many taboos at this festival. For example,

the archon at Plataiai might not touch iron, but during the festival he was allowed to carry a sword wherewith to sacrifice a bull. For ritual interdictions at the Eleutheria, see T. Wachter, “Reinheitsvorschriften im griechischen Kult,’ RVV 9 (1910) 18, 116 and 125. 95. IG I12, 2086.33; 2089.16; 2113.143; 2130.39. Graindor (Musée belge 26 [1923] 219-220) believes that the term éuddoyos designates the recital of a dialogue, or funeral elegy, in the fashion of Plato’s Menexenos. J. H. Oliver (Historia 26 [1977] 91) suggests that it was “a dialogue like that of JG II? 2788 or a reenactment of a dramatic interchange culminating in the alleged oath of the Hellenes before the battle.”

96. P. Graindor’s reasons for associating the ephebes with the annual festival are presented in detail in “Chronologie des archontes athéniennes,’ Mémoires Acad. Royal Belgique, end série, 8 (1922) 169-171. They are accepted by Kirchner ap. JG II2, 2086, commentary on line 33. 97. Cf. also Schol. Pindar Ol. 7.154, and Eustathios on Il. 2.504. According to Strabo (9.412), the games were dedicated to Zeus Eleutherios. The Plataians seem to have dated public documents by the year of the priest of this god (JG VII.1667). As with

other

festivals and

games,

most

of our

sources

are late. Etienne

and Pierart,

BCH 99 (1975) 67-68, conjecture that the quadrennial festival was not founded until 338 B.c. with the restoration of the walls of Plataiai by Alexander. The foundation of the festival is mentioned in connection with the victory of 479 in Plutarch Aristeides 21; Diodoros 11.29.1-2; Strabo 9.2.31.412; and Pausanias 9.2.6.

182

War Festivals and the Calendar

narily as deserted as the seashore,®* became a real city at the time of the Eleutheria.% The race in armor at the Eleutheria, the starting-point of which was

the trophy set up on the battlefield, is described at length by Philostratos. This authority (Gymn. 7-8) believes that the race was introduced into sport to symbolize that the truce of the gods was over and that weapons were once more needed. The race at Plataiai was outstanding for several reasons:

first, because of the length of the course;

secondly, because the armor completely covered the athlete, reaching to his feet; thirdly, because it commemorated the overthrow of the Medes; and lastly and especially, because of the law regarding the race which had been established by Plataiai. Any contestant who had once been crowned by the Plataians, if he competed again, had to give hostages for his life; for if he lost the contest he was condemned to death.

L. Robert (REA 31 [1929] 13-20) studies the term &pucros ‘EAMfvwr bestowed upon the winner of the armed race at Plataiai; see also Fondation Hardt, Entretiens 14 (1967) 184-190.

Plutarch (Aristeides 11.4-5, 19.6; Mor. 628F) and Pausanias (9.3.9) are our authorities for an Athenian commemoration of the battle of Plataiai,

at a cave

situated on

the slope of Mount

Kithairon

about

fifteen stades below the summit and facing the summer sunsets. Both authors speak of an oracle as having existed there in early times; and Plutarch adds that many of the inhabitants of the region became possessed and were known as vuypornrrot, “caught by nymphs.” The cult was that of the viudar odpayirides and the name of their cavern oppayio.ov.

The derivation of these words has given rise to much conjecture: see Turk in RE s.v. Sphragitides (1929) 1759; Hofer in Roscher, Lex. s.v. Sphragitides 1408-1409; H. Frisk, Griechisches Etymologisches Worterbuch 2 (Heidelberg 1970) 833. These sphragitic nymphs were among the divinities to whom the Greeks were ordered by Delphi to pray and sacrifice before the battle. All the Athenians who had perished in the battle were said by Plutarch to be of the tribe Aiantis, as they were holding the prytany at the time and distinguished themselves preeminently. The Aiantid tribe, therefore, was accustomed to sacrifice an epinikion on the mountain, presumably at the grotto of the nymphs, the expenses being defrayed by the Athenian state. Kleidemos is cited

98. J. M. Edmonds, The Fragments of Attic Comedy 3 (Leiden 1961) 240-242, wrongly emends dxr4 to apyh “fallow”; see Miiller’s critical commentary. 99. When the Thebans razed the city to the ground (Thucydides 3.68), they built a large inn beside the temple of Hera, probably, as Frazer suggests (Pausanias’ Description of Greece 5 p. 17), to accommodate the visitors at the games.

War Festivals and the Calendar

183

by Plutarch as his authority for the record. The evidence is collected and discussed by F. Jacoby, FGrHist 329 frg. 22, and 3B suppl. 1, pp. 82-83 and 2, p. 76. I know of no attempt to locate the cave. The summit of the mountain is now used for a radar installation and is out of bounds. It would be interesting to see whether some natural feature of the locale might have dictated the epithet—a boulder or some other

obstruction, which would explain the word odpayiéiov, if derived from oppayis, “seal.” T find no discussion of this victory sacrifice in Momm-

sen or Deubner. 2. Athens. It is an impressive fact that no festival at Athens for the commemoration of the battle is cited in any source, literary or epigraphical,’°! including the large number of ephebic and dedicatory inscriptions, where one could expect to find some reference, if such a festival

had occurred. Herodotos (9.85) says that the dead were buried at Plataiai, and apparently the commemorative

ceremonies took place at the

battle-site. A.Mommsen (Feste der Stadt Athen [Leipzig 1898] 171), who is generally more reliable than Deubner on calendric matters, notes that Boedromion, with the celebration for Marathon, the Genesia, and the Eleusinian mysteries, was in any case a month full of

festivals.

Funeral games. At Athens funeral games were held in the Academy to commemorate the men slain in war who were buried in the neighboring Kerameikos, and sacrifices were offered to Artemis and Enyalios at a pit: the games were superintended by the polemarch.! We are told by the Souda that the sons of ‘Themistokles were victors in these games.'°3 The participation of ephebes in the games is well attested: C. Pelekidis, Histoire de Véphébie attique (Paris 1962) 235-236. The date of this festival is not known,'4 although F. Jacoby has unconvincingly argued (JHS 64 [1944] 37-66) that the Epitaphia is to be ioo. F. G. Ballantine, “Some Phases of the Cults of the Nymphs,” HSCP 15 (1904) 44-119, Observes that appellations of nymphs are normally derived from words denoting water or watery places. 101. ‘That is, apart from the statement in Plutarch Mor. 340F, referring to Boe-

dromion 3 as the date of the battle. For testimonia relating to the cult of Zeus Eleutherios at Athens, see R. E. Wycherley, The Athenian Agora 3 Testimonia (Princeton 1957) 25-30. 102. Aristotle Ath. Pol. 88.1; Philostratos Vit. Soph. 2.30; Heliodoros Aethiopica 1.17; Plato Menex. 249B; Lysias 2 Funeral Oration 80.

103. S.V. QeuroroKdéovs matées.

104. See Pelekidis p. 216. Pelekidis believes that the fact that the polemarch presided over the sacrifices indicates an early institution of the festival.

184

War Festivals and the Calendar

identified with the Genesia on Boedromion (III) 5.1% Thucydides (2.34.7) simply says that it occurred é7ére fvpBaln airots, and certainly implies that it was a special festival, not part of a general one for all the dead. For games termed Epitaphia at Rhodes, see Jacopi, Clara Rhodos

2

(1932-40) 193-194; and Carratelli, ASAA 30-32 (1955) 267-269. This Epitaphia is coupled with a Dioskoureia and hence is presumed to have consisted primarily of funeral games for the dead who had fallen in naval warfare.!°6 For a similar festival at Thasos, see J. Pouilloux,

Recherches sur Vhistoire et les cultes de Thasos 1 (Paris 1954) no. 141 (pp. 371-380). The text is reprinted in F. Sokolowski, Lois sacrées des cités grecques. Supplément (Paris 1962) no. 64. We may conclude this section, in which attention has been devoted to dates of battles, by noting that, while it is clear that as at Syrakuse

a festival might be instituted upon the vote of the demos to celebrate the anniversary of a great victory, there is nothing discordant with what we know of ancient state religion in believing that a festival of the god who was responsible for the victory might be regarded as an appropriate time for rites which were ebxapiorfpia. Statues and temples were erected to deities as thank-offerings for their protection. The function of the god was above all to give victory to his own people, and

his priest presided over such rites as commemorated it. As we shall see below (p. 195), the chief festival commemorating a victory at Delphi in the winter of 279 B.c. took place in the summer. One may speculate that the time chosen may have had to do with the cult of Zeus Soter, the principal deity honored.!°7 Our fragmentary knowledge affords no clues. Of course, other factors may have entered in.

We do have one very revealing example which shows how Plutarch attempted to establish a date for a battle. Herodotos (6.76—-80) relates how the Lakedaimonians under Kleomenes were defeated by the Argives about 500 B.c. after an obscure oracle which expounded the victory of the female over the male. Later tradition, which fits the oracle

admirably, gives an Argive version of how Telesilla, the poetess, armed the women and drove back Kleomenes from the defenseless town. Plutarch (Mor. 245E) adds another detail by giving a date for the battle: “Some say that the battle took place on the seventh day of the month 105. See 106. For see Golden 107. See

Gomme HCT 2 (Oxford 1956) 94-101. J. G. Frazer’s theory of the funerary origin of Greek athletic festivals, Bough 43 (New York 1935) 92-105. H6fer in Roscher’s Lexicon 4.1266.

a

War Festivals and the Calendar

185

which is now known as the fourth month,!8 but anciently was called Hermaios among the Argives; others say that it was on the first day of that month, on the anniversary of which they celebrate even to this

day the ‘Festival of Wantonness’ (74 ‘{Bpicrixa ), at which they clothe the women in men’s shirts and cloaks, and the men in women’s robes

and veils.” The exchange of garments is a widespread religious custom. How (ap. Herodotos 6.77.2) and J. G. Frazer (ap. Pausanias 3-20.17) be-

lieve that the story of Telesilla, not mentioned

by Herodotos,

was a

later invention to explain the Festival of Wantonness at the time of the new moon. But Plutarch goes one step further and is prepared to speculate that the date of the festival may represent the anniversary of the battle. In this search for information

about military festivals, I have dis-

covered only occasional evidence suggesting that an army in the field performed any of the sacrifices or other rituals prescribed for stated days in the calendar.1°° There are two possible exceptions. Xenophon (Anab.

1.2.10) relates that Xenias, chief of the Arkadian

mercenaries,

took advantage of a stop of three days at Peltai to celebrate the Lykaia, for which strigils of gold were awarded as prizes to the victor." It has been argued that he was commemorating the anniversary of the national Arkadian festival.44! On the other hand, T. Klee maintains that

this is too literal an interpretation of the passage & ais Zevias 6 “Apkds Ta Avxata vce kal ayava enxe.12 According to Arrian (4.8.1 and 9.5), Alexander observed an annual sacrifice while on campaign on the occasion of the Makedonian festival of Dionysos. Whereas Augustus created a military calendar of religious observances for the Romans in their camps,"!* the armies of Greek city-states 108. Both Charneux (BCH 81 [1957] 198) and A. E. Samuel (Greek and Roman Chronology [Munich 1972] 90) believe that the fourth month of Plutarch refers to a year beginning in mid-summer. 109. In the Lakedaimonian army, the privilege was accorded hoplites of the deme of Amyklai always to go home to observe the rites of the Hyakinthia even when on actual service. That this group was not very numerous can be deduced from Xenophon (Hell. 4.5.11-14), where we learn that the Spartan polemarch had to dispatch hoplites and cavalry to protect the Amyklaians until they were out of danger from the enemy at Corinth. The main army made no effort to withdraw because of the festival. 110. The prizes in Pindar’s time were bronze implements: N. 10.48

(xadxés);

Ol.

7:153111. W. Immerwahr, Die Kulte und Mythen Arkadiens (Leipzig 1891) 20. 112. Zur Geschichte der gymnischen Agone an griechischen Festen (Leipzig 1918) 67. The army would presumably have arrived in Peltai in late April; but the date of the Lykaia, which was an agon stephanites, is not known. 113. A. D. Nock, Essays 2.743. :

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War Festivals and the Calendar

were made up of men who did not live throughout the year in camp, but were levied for particular emergencies. There was no standing army and no institutionalized religious life. The army as a group on an expedition did not observe the festive days of the soldiers’ native cities. In a practical way, festivals involved sacrifices, meant a supply of animals and, presumably, of wine.

and

sacrifices

4. SACRIFICE AFTER THE BATTLE

Xenophon in the Kyropaideia (4.1.2) has Kyros address his troops in the following words: “Persians, first of all I praise the gods with all my soul; and so I believe do all of you; for we have not only won a victory, but our lives have been spared. We ought, therefore, to render to the gods thank-offerings of whatsoever we have” (rovrawy uév obv xp) XaptoThpia cv av Exwpev Tots Oeots amoredeiy). He concludes this same speech:

“Go to dinner, as men beloved of god; pour libations to the gods, and raise the paian-song.”’ The sacrifice which attended the erection of the victor’s battlefield trophy was termed émvixia. After Philip had defeated the Athenians and Boiotians at Chaironeia in 338/17 3B.c., Diodoros (16.86.6) says, “After the battle Philip erected a trophy, yielded the dead for burial,

and performed the victory-sacrifices to the gods” (éruwixia rots Beots eve). The sacrifice and the erection of the trophy are coupled in Xenophon’s Anabasis after the Greeks seized a pass occupied by the Chalybes (4.6.27): OQboavres kal Tpdmavoy ornodpevor. There can be little doubt that

the rpdraoy raised after the battle was viewed as a thank-offering to the god to whom it was dedicated. The singing of the paian was also performed at the trophy."4 J. W. Hewitt finds no trace of a victory-sacrifice in Homer and believes that its association with the raising of the trophy was a “‘comparatively late development in Greek religion.”15 Of the ninety-six examples of #iw listed in E. Powell’s lexicon to Herodotos, none refer to a sacrifice after a battle. It is true of course that Herodotos does not mention a battlefield trophy, although I have argued that the practice was as old as Homer.'46 J. Rudhardt

(Notions fondamentales

de la

pensée religieuse et actes constitutifs du culte dans la Gréce classique [Geneva 1958] 266) notes that the active voice of Ow, never the middle QWeoGat, is used with 74 émwixa and ra evayyeva and concludes his study 114. Xenophon Hell, 7.2.15; A. Fairbanks, “A Study of the Greek Paean,” Cornell Studies in Cl. Phil. 12 (1900) 61. 115. “The Thank 116. War 2.249.

Offering among

the Greeks,’

TAPA

43 (1912) 108.

War Festivals and the Calendar

187

with the following observation about the victory-sacrifice: “Il ne peut €tre alors ni mantique ni propitiatoire, c’est un geste de reconna issance,

une action de grace, un XaptoTHpiov.””

The following examples, taken in part from T. Szymanski’s chapter Sacrificia post pugnam patrata (in Sacrificia Graecorum in bellis milttaria [Marburg diss. 1908] 63~71), contain references to the post-ba ttle sacrifice. 1. Polyainos 7.43; Zenob. 4.37; Strabo 9.2.4 (= Ephoros frg. 119 [Jacoby FGrfist no. 70]): In the migratory period, the Boiotians defeated the

Thrakians near Koroneia, after which they concluded a truce and cele-

brated an érwixa to Athena Itonia (7h ’AOnva TH Irwvla Obovres éexpratov

emvixta). At night while intent on the ceremony and engaged in the entertainment, they were attacked by the Thrakians who claimed that the truce which they had ratified applied only to the day-time. 2. Thucydides 4.116: In 424/3 3.c., Brasidas captured the citadel on an outlying cape called Lekythos in the Chalkidike. Thucydides does not mention a sacrifice, but he reports that Brasidas attributed his success to the divine intervention of the goddess Athena whose temple was on the cape. He consecrated to her the entire cape, not only demolishing the defences, but also dismantling the private residences which it contained, so that nothing remained except the temple.

3. Thucydides 7.73.2; Plutarch Nikias 26.1; Diodoros 11.18.3; Polyainos 1.43.2; Frontinus 2.9.7: In 413, after the Syrakusans had defeated the Athenians in the last naval battle in the great harbor at Syrakuse, the Athenians made preparations to begin their retreat in the darkness of that very night. In consequence of the recent victory, still further magnified by the circumstance that the day was sacred to Herakles, the Syrakusans were celebrating the émuwixa amidst much feasting and intoxication

(Zvupakdc.or Oboarres émwvixia bd

peOns averatovto:

Polyainos).

Hermokrates had to resort to a stratagem to delay the departure of the Athenians for that night. 4. Polyainos 6.1.3: ca. 370 B.c. Jason of Pherai, after a military success, resorted to the stratagem of raising money for his mercenaries by “borrowing” a complete service of gold and silver table-ware to celebrate an emwixia to Kastor and Polydeukes who had assisted him in the war. 5. Diodoros 16.55.1: After the capture of Olynthos in 348/7 8.c., Philip celebrated in honor of the gods an Olympian festival at Dion, in com-

War Festivals and the Calendar

188

memoration of his victory, and offered magnificent sacrifices, and organized many splendid contests.1” 6. In Arrian’s Anabasis, the author reports the following five examples of victory-sacrifices by Alexander: a. Arrian Anab. 1.4.5; After crossing the Ister and razing the city of the Getai, Alexander

sacrificed

to Zeus

Soter,

Herakles,

and

the

river-god for permitting the passage. b. Anab. 2.24.6: After the fall of Tyre in 332 8.c., he sacrificed to Herakles, and held a procession with his entire army in the god’s honor, followed by games in the Herakleion. c. Anab. 4.30.4: After Alexander

captured a mountain,

called by the

Greeks Aornos, on which many Indians had taken refuge, he proceeded to sacrifice. Curtius (8.11.24) adds that “he made the show of a great triumph by sacrifices and worship of the gods. Altars to Athena Nike were set up on the rock.” d. Anab. x.20.1: After the defeat of Poros in 326 B.c., Alexander offered to the gods the “customary victory-sacrifices” (rd vomfdpeva ércvikca.) and held gymnastic and equestrian games on the bank of the Hydaspes where he first crossed with his army. e. Anab. 8.29.1. When Alexander in India decided to turn back, he ordered twelve altars to be erected “as thank-offerings to the gods who had brought him so far victorious as memorials of his labors” (xaptorhpia Tots Oeots Tols és Toodvde ayayovou

abrov pikGvra Kal uynpeca

rav abrod mévwv). When the altars were prepared, “he sacrificed upon

them according to custom, and held gymnastic and equestrian contests” (Gbe 6} én’ abrév ws vouos kal &yGva move yupviKoy TE Kal iaaKor).

7. Diodoros 20.63.1: In 307 3.c., after Agathokles had defeated the Karthaginians he sacrificed to the gods and gave lavish entertainments (Ove Tots Oeots kal Aaumrpas drodoxas Tav Piwy eroteiTo).

8. IG II?, 657 lines 43-45: In 283 B.c., after the Mouseion hill had been liberated from the Makedonians, the Athenians praised the comic poet Philippides of Kephale for having instituted to Demeter and Kore an émideros ayav as an trournua ris ToD Shuov [éAevdepias].

g. Plutarch Pyrrhos 22: In 278/47 B.c., after Pyrrhos had stormed the fortress of Eryx, he sacrificed to Herakles in magnificent fashion and furnished spectacles of all sorts of games (éuge 7G Oe peyahorpemas Kal Beas ayavav Tavrodatay Twapecxe). 117. For the celebration of the games at Dion, see Demosthenes 19 De Falsa Legatione 192; and D. M. Robinson, TAPA (1934) 117.

War Festivals and the Calendar

189

10, Plutarch Sulla 19: After Sulla’s victory at Chaironeia in 86 B.c., he celebrated the epinikia in the nearby town of Thebes (rabrns 6¢ ra erwixia THs maxns yey & O7nBas), where he prepared a stage near the fountain of Oidipous and invited judges of the contests from Greek cities other than Thebes. 11. Sparta. Plutarch Agesilaos 33, Marcellus 22, Mor. 238F: After returning home from a victory, according as it was won by open force or

a stratagem, a cock or an ox was sacrificed as a vukntnpov to Ares.

In the Roman period, festivals termed epinikia were celebrated at

fixed intervals, the best attested of which at Athens occurred after the victory over the Parthians in A.D. 165. See S. Follet, Athénes au IIe et

au III* siécle (Paris 1976) 325; and L. Robert, RPh (= Opera minora 2.1 140-1141).

x6 (1930) 40-41

5. THE EVANGELIA

In Homer there is no sacrifice for good _news.18 The bringer of good tidings is rewarded with a piece of meat, and this reward is called evayyeNoy in Od. 14.152 and 156. In Aischylos Ag. 587-594, the beaconmessage of the taking of Ilion results in a sacrifi ce by Klytemnestra which is repeated in the various households of the town. The best documented example of the evayyé\a is not of a military nature . It involved rather the reaction of Athens to the news of the death of Philip in 336

B.c. The Athenian public, in particular Demost henes,!!9 felt great joy at an event which seemed to open to them fresh chances of freedom,

and a motion for a sacrifice of thanksgiving, in spite of Phokio n’s Opposition,’° was readily adopted. Aischines says that this thank-offeri ng

was made by the boule: 3 Against Ktesiphon 160 (és airiay edayyedtwy Ovoias tHv Bovddv katéoTnoev), and the scholia add that later Alexander

sent a message, ‘* ’ANé~avdpos TG yey Snud xalpew, rH 6€ BovrAj oddév.”” The rite is parodied in Aristophanes Eq. 643-656 (dvdpes, 715n por Soxet / émi ovpdopats ayabatow elonyyeduévats / ebayyédca Obey éxarov Bots rf 6d); cf. 1320 (riv’ éxwv dhunv ayabiy Kes ép’ Tw Knodmer ayuds ;). The re-

ward to the bringer of good news was in Athens a crown or garlan d: see Aristophanes Eq. 647 and PI. 764.121 In Sparta, meat from the mess seems to have been the prize: Plutarch Mor. 347D. L. Robert has published (BCH 60 [1936] 187) a lengthy note in which 118, See J. W. Hewitt, TAPA 43 (1912) 109. 119. See Plutarch Demosthenes 22 and Mor. 184A. 120. Plutarch Phokion 16: @iXlamov 6& arobavevros ebayyédta Obew tov Shor obx ela.

121. Similarly, the messenger of good tidings seems to have worn Xenophon Hell, 1.6.36; 6.4.19; Aelius Aristides Panath. 285, (Dind.).

a wreath:

War Festivals and the Calendar

190

he has collected examples of evayyé\a

in Hellenistic and imperial in-

scriptions.!22 For example, the people of Skepsis in 311 B.C. voted (Dittenberger, OGIS

6B) to celebrate

the evangelia on receipt of a letter

from Antigonos Monophthalmos on conclusion of a peace (Diodoros 19.105) which led to the recognition of the freedom of the Hellenes: Odcar 6€é kal ebayyedta TH wodw él Tols bm’ “AvTyovov adecTadpevots. Again,

when Gaius Julius Caesar assumed the toga virilis in 5 B.c., a decree of Sardis (W. H. Buckler and D. M. Robinson, Sardis [Leyden 1932] no. 8 lines 14-15) prescribed ‘“‘on the day when the city received the good news and when the decree was adopted, on that day wreaths be worn and sumptuous sacrifices be offered to the gods.” Often, however, the good tidings were of a military conquest, and since sacrifices to the gods were regularly performed, the following military examples have been noted. 1. Xenophon Hell. 1.6.36-37; Polyainos 1.44: The news of the Lakedaimonian defeat at Arginousai in 406 B.c. was speedily conveyed to Eteonikos at Mytilene. As soon as he heard it, he desired the crew of the signal-boat to say nothing to anyone, but to go again out of the

harbor and then return with shouts of triumph, crying out that Kallikratidas had gained the victory and destroyed all the Athenian ships. All suspicion of the truth was thus kept from Konon and the besieged of Mytilene. Eteonikos himself, affecting to believe the news, offered the sacrifice of the evangelia. He was thus enabled to depart immediately thereafter without the least obstruction from Konon.

g. Xenophon Hell. 4.3.14; Plutarch Ages. 17; Polyainos 2.1.3: After the fatal presage of the solar eclipse of 14 August 394 B.c., a messenger brought news to Agesilaos in the neighborhood of Chaironeia on the Boiotian border of the naval defeat off Knidos with the death of Peisander,

brother-in-law

of Agesilaos.

The

Spartan

king foresaw

that,

when known, the news would spread dismay and dejection among his soldiers. Accordingly, he resolved, being now within a day’s march of his enemies at Koroneia, to hasten on a battle without making known

the bad news. Proclaiming that tidings had been received of a sea-fight having taken place, in which the Lakedaimonians had been victorious,

he offered the sacrifice of the evangelia and sent around portions of the victims. Thus encouraged, his soldiers advanced toward Koroneia. 122. Add J. and L. Robert, REG 68 (1955) 215, 78 (1965) 148; L. Robert in J. des Gagniers, Laodicée du Lycos (Québec 1969) 273-275; and L. Robert, RPh 51 (1977) 8 n. 5. For the connotation of the word first in secular and later in religious texts, see A. D. Nock, Essays 1 (Cambridge 1972, ed. Z. Stewart) 81.

War Festivals and the Calendar

191

3. Isokrates 7 Areopagitikos 10: When the Athen ian Chares, serving with Artabazos, a satrap then in revolt against the Persian king, defeated the Persians in 36 /5 B.c.,1°3 the news of the victory resulted in the sacrifice of the

ebayyé\a

at Athens. Isokrates also refers to a sec-

ond celebration of the evangelia, the occasion of which is not known. 4. Plutarch Phokion 23.6: The brilliant military successes of Leosthenes in conquering the Boiotians in battle and driving Antipater into Lamia in 323/e B.c. in a war opposed by Phokion and his partisans resulted in continuous festivals of sacrifices of glad tidings at Athens

(ére kal dace THY wey modw édaidos Meyadns yevoue rny éoprdvey ebayyeua ovvexGs kal Ove Tots Oeots . . Ee

5. SEG

1.362: This Samian inscription of about 306 B.c. mentio ns a

festival Anunrpieva ért rots evayyeXlos,

which its first editor, M. Schede

(Ath. Mitt. 44 [1919] 19), interprets as being in honor of Demetrios as a result of the news of his victory at Salamis in Kypros in 306 B.c. 6. W. S. Ferguson, Hesperia 17 (1948) 112-136: This Agora inscription contains a fragmentary decree of the tribe Akamantis. Edited by Ferguson, with some readings and restorations of B. D. Meritt, it drew from J. and L. Robert (REG 62 [1949] 109-113) an entirely differen t text, as well as their famous critique of Athenian Agora epigraphy.!%4 Although the other Agora inscriptions which were published in the same fascicle of Hesperia were republished by A. G. Woodhead in SEG 12 (1955), all mention of this important document was omitted from this and subsequent volumes of SEG until the final publication of the series in 1971 (SEG 25.141). As a “memorial of the victories which had been

announced in the prytany of Akamantis” (bréuynpa tev [ebnuepioy tov einyyehuevev] emi rijs ’Axaparris [os mputavelas|), sacrifices were to be offered to Athena Nike, Athena Polias, and to the Soteres, Antigon os

and Demetrios. The occasion was the announcement of the victories of Demetrios Poliorketes in the Peloponnese in the spring of 302 B.c.125 The sacrifices were to be repeated annually in the month of Elaphebolion. The news of the victory arrived in Athens while the tribe Akamantis was in prytany. 123. See Pritchett, War 2.79.

124. Cf. M.N. Tod, JHS 72 (1952) 27-28. 125. “Nous concluons donc que c’est en Elaphébolion (mars-avril 302) que arrivées 4 Athénes les nouvelles des victoires de Démétrios dans le Péloponnése, que la tribe Akamantide était prytane” (J. and L. Robert, p- 113). Ferguson associated the document with the discharge of Athenian soldiers by a special cession of the ruler.

sont alors

had con-

War Festivals and the Calendar

192

7. Dittenberger, SIG? 352: The Ephesians pass a vote of congratulation upon hearing of the military successes of Demetrios Poliorketes (cuvnobfvar eri rors eényyeduevors ayabots Tod Bacthews Kal TOU oTpaTelpaTos kal orepavndopely "Eqecious .. . Odoar dé kal evayyedia THe *Apréutdc). Not

only the citizens, but all residents of Ephesos are to join in the rejoicings. The Essenes were instructed to offer the sacrifices of the evangelia to Artemis. E. L. Hicks thought that the news was of the victory of Demetrios in the sea-fight off Kypros in 306 B.c.;6 but Droysen, followed by Dittenberger and Hiller, refers the inscription to advantages gained by Demetrios over Lysimachos in 302 B.c. (Diodoros 20.111.3). 8. L. Robert, BCH 60 (1936) 184-189: On the occasion of the news of some military success in the First Syrian War by Ptolemy Philadelphos,!2” the people of Siphnos celebrated a festival with the sacrifice of the evayyéAta.

g. IG XII Suppl. 168: This decree, which provides for an evangelia festival (line 5) on the island of Ios, was thought by Hiller to have been passed after the news of the victory of Demetrios Poliorketes at Salamis in 306 B.c. However, C. Habicht (Gottmenschentum und griechische Stddte [= Zetemata 142, 1970] 65-73) argues convincingly that the festival commemorates the victory of Antigonos Gonatas off Kos about 256 B.C.

10. IG II? 1224.15: The context of the phrase ciayyediwy vata, is lost, but the document itself, a decree of Myrina, alludes to the liberation of Lemnos from the yoke of Makedon, presumably in 166 B.c., and the reestablishment of Athenian authority over the island.

11. A. G. Gossage (BSA 40 [1975] 118), in a study of inscriptions relating to Boiotian festivals, collects documents from Oropos ([G VII. 417.68; AE 1925/6 30 no. 142) which mention a etayyéhia rhs ‘Papaiwy vikns. The victory is also referred to in JG VII.413.47—-49. Gossage be-

lieves that the event so described is Sulla’s victory over the troops of Mithradates in Boiotia. 6. SOTERIA Sacrifices and festivals known

as Zwrhpra

became

common

in Hel-

lenistic times when thanks were given to deities and princes for deliverance from some extraordinary danger, sometimes of a military 126. Ancient Greek Inscriptions in the British Museum 3 (Oxford 1890) 91. 197. See Holleaux, BCH 29 (1908) 326.

War Festivals and the Calendar nature.

The

earliest mention

193 of this custom

is in Herodotos

1.118,

where a sacrifice is made for the safety of a child. The earliest inscription which mentions such a sacrifice is Dittenberger, OGIS 4 (= IG XII.2.645), where Thersippos, one of the retired officers of the Makedonian army,128 is honored upon his return about 320 B.c. by his native

island of Nesos: 6 dayos 6 Naciwrap... cabvertos aitw éoradavaddpnoe v apepats Tpts Kal ebayyédva Kal owrhpia eOvoe Kal Tavayupw ovvayaye daporéAn v.

In the Hellenistic period, cults of Geo cwrfpes were instituted by cities, ostensibly by their own act, as separate communities, as well as federal festivals by kings themselves. The first cult of the latter sort we

know of is that instituted for the first Ptolemy, as Oeds cwrhp, after his

death (283 B.c.), by his son Ptolemy II. We learn of this Ptolemaeia from a decree of the confederation of the Cyclades: SIG? 390 =IG XII.7.506. This federal féte of the Ptolemaeia is mentioned in several places: see G. M. Sifakis, Studies in the History of Hellenistic Drama (London 1967) 15-18; and Volkmann in Der Kleine Pauly 4 (1972) 1216-1217. Earlier, separate communities instituted festivals and games in honor of various Hellenistic kings. In 307, Athens exhausted all forms of adoration in regard to Antigonos and Demetrios Poliorketes. ‘They were addressed as Geo! owrnpes, and with the cult of the saviours

went games with dramatic and musical contests, a procession and a sacrifice. Ferguson (Hellenistic Athens [London 191 1] 126) suggests that this Demetrieia was abolished in 289/8 B.c. and reestablished in 240 B.C. For the actual celebration of the Demetrieia at Athens, we have both literary (Athenaios 12.536A) and inscriptional (SIG? 485 += IG II?, 1299) evidence. When a city was liberated the citizens out of eratitude voted an altar, a statue, a sacrifice, an agon, a stephanephoria, and

a festival. This happened in honor of Antigonos as early as 311/10 B.C. at Skepsis: J. Munro, “A Letter from Antigonos to Skepsis, 311 B.c.,” JHS 19 (1899) 335 = OGIS 6. Worship, of course, had already been offered earlier to the living Alexander. But the precedence of such cults of living rulers may have originated in the custom of paying honors to the founder of a city as a hero. In a real sense, the kings established or reestablished the autonomy of cities which then honored them. The numerous cults of Antigonos and Demetrios Poliorketes were largely motivated by their policy of “the freedom of the Greeks.” Diodoros (20.102.3) writes about Sikyon when in 303 B.c. Demetrios persuaded the people to move to a more defensible site: “They changed 128. See M. Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World 1 (Oxford 1941) 151.

194

War Festivals and the Calendar

the name of their city to Demetrias and voted to grant him sacrifices, festivals, and annual games, and to render to him the other honors as a

founder (as xricy).” Cicero (De Re Pub. 1.7.12) says, “There is no other act in which human virtue approaches more closely the divinity of the gods than that of founding new cities or of preserving those already founded.” J. Kaerst, Geschichte des Hellenismus? 2 (Berlin 1926) 314, in speaking of the Athenian decree which gave honors to Antigonos and Demetrios as soteres, says: ‘““Er besagt . . . dass die Athener eine

neue Begriindung ihres Staates aus den befreienden und errettenden Handen der beiden Herrscher empfingen. Kénnte noch tber den griechischen Ursprung dieser Bezeichnung als Soteren irgendein Zweifel obwalten, so wiirde er durch die Tatsache ausgescholossen werden, dass

die Einrichtung der beiden neuen Phylen Antigonis und Demetrias die Herrscher in ausgesprochene Parallele zu den altheimischen eponymen Heroen des athenischen Staates stellte.”” A ruler-cult, however, is

essentially a political and not a religious phenomenon, as Habicht has shown. A Soter brings soteria, ‘deliverance,’ and this soteria can be of

very different kinds, from disease, oppression, etc., as well as from foreign foes. Pfister (RE s.v. Soteria [1927] 1222.64-67) believes that the Eleutheria festivals were the prototype of the Hellenistic Soteria. Unfortunately, his list of festivals includes only those designated as Dwripia, whereas many of the festivals, although honoring 6eol cwrfpes, were named after the kings: ’Avriyéveia, “Arradeva, Anuntplea, Eiuévera, IroAeudera, Dedevkeca. “These festivals are studied in detail by C. Habicht,

“Gottmenschentum und griechische Stadte,” Zetemata 142 (1970). In Pfister’s list, the following examples have a military origin. 1. The citizens of Priene ca. 2947 B.c. instituted an annual Soteria in the month Metageitnion (XII) on the occasion of the overthrow of the tyrant Hieron (Pausanias 7.2.10): Hiller v. Gaertringen, Inschriften von Priene (Berlin 1906) no. 11.129 2. The victory festival of the Soteria was instituted by the Amphiktyons of Delphi soon after the overthrow of the Gauls in 279 B.c.!° P. Rous129. For the struggle of the democrats against Hieron and the help given to the former by Ephesos with great financial difficulty, see Priene no. 37 and Dittenberger,

SIG3 363. 130. Some have thought that the annual celebration was made part of the Pythia. So M. Rostovtzeff,

Social

and

Economic

History

of the Hellenistic

World

1941) 197, 219. Cf. W. S. Ferguson, AJP 55 (1934) 325: ‘““The natural

(Oxford

time of the

founding of the Amphictyonic Soteria was the Pythia of 278 8.c.” But Pfister (1228 lines 11-13), citing Beloch (Gr. Gesch.2 4.2.492), claims that both Amphictyonic

War Festivals and the Calendar

195

sel (REA 26 [1924] 97-111) claimed that there were two Soterias,!*1 one an annual Amphiktyonic féte and a second “Penteteric’” festival established by the Aitolians at the time of the archonship of Polyeuktos at Athens. R. Flaceliére (Les Aitoliens 4 Delphes [Paris 1937]) has collected the evidence relating to the history of Delphi and showed that, while

Greece was suffering from wars and devastation,

made Delphi their intellectual propaganda. At the time of the by special embassies the whole documents relating to seven of

the Aitolians

capital and a center for panhellenic remodelling of the Soteria, they invited of the Greek world, and epigraphical the invitations are preserved. The cre-

ation of the dyav rév Zwrnpiwy for Apollo Pythios and Zeus Soter made as a brouvnua Tis vikns tis yevoueyns mpds To’s BapBdpovs Tovs oTpatebaavtas él TO iepov TOU ’AmOAAWVOS TO KoLVOY TV “EAAHVWY Kal él “EdAnvas. The invitations met with a rather cool reception; but

was émTos the

Soteria nonetheless came to be celebrated as a great agon stephanites. The date of the Aitolian foundation and of the archon Polyeuktos has given rise to an enormous literature,!*? the most recent item of which

festivals were held in the same month Boukatios (II). See also Nachtergael, Historia 25 (1976) 73-74. Inscriptions frequently mention Pfister vras

&

1227, lines 44-46), but the formula 7B

yupwKG

ayGv.

3.2 no. 48.45 and 49.39;

tv

and

re WvOlwv

7d Wt@a cal Zwrhpra (see the list in

ray 6¢ avaydpevow tobrwy rorjjoa Tos apxocat Swryplwy

occurs

in F. de D. 3.4.1 no. 52.11-12,

in Fouilles de Delphes

the text reads:

ray

dvayépevow romoacbar ... ev Tat dyGu THv Uv0lwv, duotws 6¢ kal & rd. 6yu TGv Dwrnplov,

clearly indicating separate festivals at the time. to the Amphictyonic Soteria: “la proximité des graces en l’honneur d’Apollon demandaient que tes professionels qui avaient commencé depuis

Flaceli¢re (p. 122) notes with regard Pythia et les cérémonies d’actions de l’on assurat le concours de ces artisquelque temps 4 se grouper en as-

sociations.” To judge from Nachtergael’s survey of opinions on the subject, both the Amphictyonic

and the Aitolian Soteria were observed in the summer

and, therefore,

could not have been held on the anniversary date of the battle with Brennos in 279 B.c. See, however, the following note. 131. There is also one reference to an

éyav ry xemepiwv Dwryplwy

at Delphi in

the post-Aitolian period, about 130 B.c. (Dittenberger, SIG3 690), which T. Klee, Zur Geschichte der gymnischen Agone an griechischen Festen (Leipzig 1918) 69, and Pfister, RE s.v. Soteria (1927) 1228, conjecture was celebrated on the anniversary day of the battle with the Gauls, which occurred in the winter (see Fouilles de Delphes

3.2 no.

138). But

there

was

a winter

celebration

of the Nemean

festival,

mentioned only by Pausanias (2.15.3 and 6.16.4). See also A. Boethius, Der argivische Kalender (Uppsala 1922) 6-7, 38-39. The winter Soteria at Delphi was clearly musical, whereas

the Nemean

one was athletic. We need additional light on the institu-

tion of winter festivals. The view that the Delphic winter festival commemorated the anniversary of the battle has been strongly criticized by G. M. Sifakis, Studies in the History of Hellenistic Drama (London 1967) 70. 132. W. B. Dinsmoor devoted pages 109-140 of his Athenian Archon List (New

196

War Festivals and the Calendar

is G. Nachtergael, “L’archonte Athénien Polyeuctos et la périodicité des Sotéria Etoliennes,” Historia 25 (1976) 62-78. 3. Plutarch (Aratos 53) records that annual sacrifices, called Soteria, were instituted after the death of Aratos about 213 B.c. at Sikyon on the fifth day of the month Daisios, which he equates with the Athenian Anthesterion (VIII), the day on which Aratos freed the city from its tyranny (rip rédw arnddake Tihs Tupavvidos juépa TéEuTTy Aatoiou pnvés). In addition to state Zwrjpia, sacrifices were often made by soldiers to “saviour gods.” A list of thirty-two gods, heroes, or personifications

having the epithet of Zwrjp, to whom sacrifices were made in the Greek world, is collected by Héfer in W. H. Roscher, Lexicon 4 s.v. Soter (1913) 1248-1272.183 M. Launey (Recherches sur les armées hellénistiques 2 [Paris 1950] 914-919) has selected and studied a number of these (with additions) to illustrate the fact that soldiers frequently sacrificed to these deities for their safety: “Dans cette vie pleine d’adventures, de périls et d’incertitudes qui est celle du soldat d’occasion ou de métier, ou sa liberté, son intégrité physique, sa vie méme sont constam-

ment menacces, la priére et la gratitude des militaires vont de préférence aux divinités qui les sauvent du danger; on est frappé du nombre de dédicaces de soldats qui sont adressées 4 des dieux cwrfpes.” His list

is not repeated here. 7. THE RITE OF PURIFICATION OF THE ARMY In the Roman army, a lustratio exercitus was often performed when the army was in the field to remove a superstitious dread which sometimes attacked it.1%* There was also a lustration of the Roman fleet: Livy 36.42; Appian Bell. civ. 5.96.5 Trajan, after crossing the Danube, an operation dangerous not only from the technical point of view but also in the eyes of a superstitious army, proceeded to a lustration of York 1939) to the problem. For a summary of the evidence, see G. M. Sifakis, Studies in the History of Hellenistic Drama (London 1967) 63-71, 136-137. 133. The sense and range of the word soter are discussed by A. D. Nock, Essays 2 (Oxford 1972, ed. by Z. Stewart) 720-735. Cf. also his Vol. 1 pp. 78ff. 134. See, in particular, Bouché-Leclercq in Daremberg-Saglio, Dictionnaire s.v. Lustration (1877) 1405-1432, which is the most detailed article on the subject. Cf. M. P. Nilsson, Griechische Feste (Leipzig 1906) 404-406; Eisenhut in Der Kleine Pauly 3 (1969) 789-791 (for recent bibliography on the Roman side). 135. For the rites of lustration in the Roman army, see, for example, H. Le Bonniec, “Aspects religieux de guerre 4 Rome” in J.-P. Brisson, Problémes de la guerre 4 Rome (Paris 1969) 102 and 106; and Y. Garlan, La guerre dans Vantiquité (Paris 1972) 25-26. See also A. D. Nock, HThR 45 (1952) 193 with bibliography in Nn. 14.

War Festivals and the Calendar

197

the army. A relief on the Column of Trajan represents the victims being conducted to the sacrifice.136 Among

the Greeks, there was no rule, such as prevailed with strin-

gency among the Hebrews or still more among some Indian tribes of North America, requiring the purification of an army returning from battle.18” ‘There are, however,

occasional

references

in Greek

to the

purification of an army in the field. The origin and diversity of the rite has recently been studied in connection with a Hittite text by O. Masson: “A propos d’un ritual hittite pour la lustration d’une armée: Le rite de purification par le passage entre les deux parties d’une victime,” Revue de histoire des religions 1347 (1950) 5—-25.1°8 In the Hittite example, the victim is a human.!°9 Masson notes, in addition to ancient cases, examples from eighteenth-century Siberia, among Arabs of the nineteenth century, and from China. He concludes, “‘Nous ne pouvons

donc retrouver que des maillons épars d’une coutume qui semble appartenir au répertoire magico-religieux d’un assez grand nombre de peuples.”’ 14 There are in ancient writers four general statements about the Greek rite of purification. Plutarch (Mor. ggo0D) says, “In Boiotia the ceremony

of public purification

(Snyocia xafapyds) is to pass between

the

parts of a dog which has been cut in twain.”14! Livy (40.6) describes 136. See W. Froehner, La colonne Trajane (Paris 1872-74) pls. 34-36; K. Lehmann-

Hartleben, Die Trajanssdule (Berlin 1926) pls. 7-8, 26 and pp. 24-39; and A. S. Pease, Ciceronis De Divinatione (Darmstadt 1963 reprint) 226. 137. See L. R. Farnell, Hastings’ Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics 10 (New York 1919) s.v. Purification 484. Cf. J. G. Frazer, Golden Bough 63 (New York 1935) 251. 138. J. G. Frazer (Folklore in the Old Testament I [London 1918] 391-408 = abridged ed. [New York 1923] pp. 161-164) cites numerous examples of the purification ceremony which consisted of the passage between severed pieces of animals. Somehow the subject was thought to be thereby purified or delivered from malign influences. For a similar ritual in the taking of oaths, see Frazer ap. Pausanias 3.20.9. 139. A. Goetze, “Warfare in Asia Minor,” Iraq 25 (1963) 129, writes of the Hittite army in the period 1800-1200 B.c.: “The army had to march through a ‘gate’ erected from stocks of wood and between the two halves of a sacrificed prisoner. One believed that the contamination which had made the army unfit to conquer the enemy could not pass such an obstacle and was thus left behind.” He states that this is the only occasion at which human sacrifice was still practised. 140. By contrast, Bouché-Leclercq (op. cit. [above n. 134] 1428 n. 2) hypothesized that the Makedonians acquired the rite from the Boiotians when Philip conquered Thebes. 141. Cf. H. Scholz, Der Hund in der griechisch-rémischen Magie und Religion (Berlin diss. 1937) 16-17. One may compare the elaborate rites involving the sacrifice of a pig made by the initiates on the second day of the Eleusinian mysteries. ‘““The

198

War Festivals and the Calendar

the rite in greater detail under his entry for the year 182 B.c., as taken from Polybios: “It so happened that the time for purifying the army had come, for which there is a ritual of this sort: the fore part of a dog

is cut off and placed on the right side of the road, the hind part, with the entrails on the left; between the parts of the victim, thus divided,

the troops are marched. At the head of the column are carried the arms and standards of all the kings from the earliest beginnings of Macedonia, then

the present king, accompanied

by his children,

follows,

next is the royal cohort and the bodyguard, and the rest, the rank and file of the Macedonians brings up the rear. .. . It was the custom when the ceremony of purification was finished to manoeuvre the army and dividing it into battle-lines to clash in a sham battle” (Loeb trans.).1 In addition, Hesychios (s.v. ZavOxd) has the entry: éop77 Maxeddvwv FavStKod wnvos } ZavOcxod ayouern, éort 6€ xabdporov Tv orparevpatwvr,'* and the Souda (s.v. évayifwr = Polybios 23.10.17): évayifovowy oby 7 ZavOG oi MaKeddves Kal Kabappyov Tovodot ody tamots wrd\tcpEevors, Where the emendation Zavouxd yunvi has been suggested. In addition, there is an important Gortynian law, dated in the first

part of the fourth century B.c., taken by earlier editors to prescribe purgatory rites for a pestilence, which M. Guarducci (Inscriptiones Creticae 4 [Rome 1950] no. 146) has shown includes rites of purification (lines 1-5) for the lustration of a fleet prior to departure: émiBacias KaBapots émwvatwy. 144

The Makedonian rite has been studied in detail by F. Hellmann, “Zur Lustration des Makedonischen Heeres,” ARW 29 (1931) 202-203; F. Granier, Die makedonische Heeresversammlung (Munich 1931) 2224; and S. Eitrem, “A Purificatory Rite and some Allied Rites de Pasblood of the pig was considered a very potent agent of purification with the power to absorb the impure spirit inhabiting human beings’: G. Mylonas, Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries (Princeton 1961) 249. A similar rite of purification was made by epheboi at Sparta before their joust at Platanistai: Pausanias 3.14.9. Each company of youths sacrificed a puppy to Enyalios. 142. H. Ehelolf (Sitz Berl. Ak. Wissen., Ph.-Hist. Klasse, 1925, 269-272) discusses a Hittite cuneiform text which prescribes the ritual of a sham battle between armed forces. This too seems to involve human sacrifice. Ehelolf’s Hittite text was not noticed by Masson (above p. 197). The record of many early combat myths is collected in J. Fontenrose, Python (Berkeley 1959) chap. 15. 143. For the spelling Xandikos, see H. Usener, ARW 7 (1904) 302 n. 2. 144. Guarducci draws attention to two Asiatic inscriptions of similar purport from the time of Hadrian: IGRRP 3.756, and Pace, Ann. Scuola Atene 6/7 (1923/4) 417. Cf. J. and L. Robert, REG 59 (1946/7) 345-346. Lines 6-9 of the Gortynian law pertain to sacrifices on Mount Ida attended by the playing of trumpets. Crete is traditionally a treasure-house of early Greek rituals.

War Festivals and the Calendar

199

sage,” Symbolae Osloenses 2¢ (1947) 36-53. There is agreement that the Makedonian rite took place annually in the month Xandiko s (March) in honor of the hero Xanthos.!45 Nilsson (Griechische Feste

[Leipzig 1906] 405) had earlier suggested that the rite originated in

human

sacrifices preceding military campaigns. 1/46

The following seven incidents have been mentioned in the literature as relating to the rite of military purification.

1. Apollodoros (3.13.7) records what may be an example of this rite from Greek mythology. After Peleus had laid waste the town of Iolkos

145. See Radke, RE s.v. Xanthos 15 (1967) 1352-1353; and Sontheimer s.v. Xanthikos 1334. H. Usener (ARW 7 [1904] 303-313 = Kl. Schriften 4-439 ff.) compares the Makedonian rite in the month Xandikos with the famous tale of the duel of the Boiotian Xanthos and the Athenian Melanthos, in which etymologists connected the Apatouria in the Athenian month Pyanopsion with the apate of Melanthos, which the scholiast on Plato Symp. 208 (= Jacoby FGrHist 4 frg. 125; 3292 fre. 23) derives

from Hellanikos. Cf. J.-P. Vernant, Problémes de la guerre en Gréce ancienne (Paris 1968) 14; and Mythe et société en gréce anciénne (Paris 1974) 36. L. R. Farnell (Culis of the Greek States 5 [Oxford 1909] 234-236), who accepts Usener’s interpretation, relates the Attic story to the origin of tragedy. So also M. P. Nilsson, Neue Jahrb. fiir Kl. Alt. 1911 609-696. Usener interprets the story of the duel as an hieratic legend about the conflict between Fair Man

—

Spring, New Year, and Black Man

= Winter,

Old Year. Farnell presupposes “an old Thrako-Greek mummers’ play in which a divine figure in a black goat-skin kills another divine figure who is the fair or bright god.” He holds that the play was a “vegetation-masque” performed in the winter and was carried through Greece by the Minyans, reached Athens via Eleutherai, and became the parent of Greek tragedy. To these interpretations W. R. Halliday has raised objections, and claims that there is no serious evidence in their support: “Xanthos-Melanthos and the Origin of Tragedy,” CR 40 (1926) 179-181; The Greek Questions of Plutarch (Oxford 1928) 77. Cf. H. W. Parke, Festivals of the Athenians (Ithaca 1977) go. Halliday says that both the Attic and Boiotian tales were a “purely secular traditional legend to which no esoteric meaning need be attached.” H. Jeanmaire (“Couroi et Courétes,” Trav. et Mém. de V’Univ. de Lille 21 [1939] 382-383) sees in the duel a ritual joust, by which a candidate to the throne obtained mastery over territory. On the other hand, P. Vidal-Naquet has used the myth as a corner-stone for his study of primitive rituals associated with the period of transition from puberty to manhood by which the epheboi were received into the phratry after consecrating their shorn hair on the third day of the Apatouria: “The Black Hunter and the Origin of the Athenian Ephebeia,” PCPS 194 (1968) 49-64. Finally, in an overlooked passage, F. Jacoby (Atthis [Oxford 1949] 145) says that he is “certain” that the Atthides used the Melanthos story not only as the “aition” for the Apatouria, but as the motivation “of the change of dynasty, the disappearance from history of the Erechtheids and Theseids.” Clearly, this one myth can be interpreted in many different ways. On the theory of the Eniautos-Daimon, see now the well-chosen comments of G. F. Else, Illinois Classical Studies 2 (1977) 70-71. 146. See also W. Burkert, “Homo Necans,” RGVV 32 (1972) 65.

War Festivals and the Calendar

200

in Thessaly, he slaughtered Astydamia, the wife of Akastos, and, dividing her body in pieces (SueAdv pednddv), marched between the pieces into the city.'47 2. §. Eitrem believes that the cruel and bizarre act attributed to Xerxes in Herodotos 7.39-40 reflects a purification rite.14* Indeed, he had been anticipated in this respect by Seneca (De ira 3.16.4), who in giving a somewhat different version of the story," refers to it as an expiatory sacrifice: hac victima lustravit exercitum. When the army was setting forth from Sardis to proceed to the Hellespont in 480 B.c., Xerxes directed that the army march out between the two parts of a human

victim, the eldest of the sons of the Lydian Pythios, who had

irritated Xerxes by asking for the release of his eldest son from service. Eitrem notes that Herodotos alleges that an eclipse of the sun had just occurred and Pythios had been affrighted by the portent from heaven (ro & Tod obpavod dd4oua). Xerxes

ordered

a general

lustration

of his

troops.1°° 3. A fragment of Sophokles, as preserved in Harpokration, speaks of a kabapr}s orpatod. Hartung thinks that the phrase is part of an appeal

for a prophet who shall be competent to save the army from the plague: see A. C. Pearson, Fragments of Sophocles 1 (Cambridge 1917) 26-27, frag. 34.

4. Xenophon in a speech to the army of the Ten Thousand at Kotyora protested against recent disorders and outrages including the mutiny at Kerasos. The army voted that the ringleaders should be punished and that trial should be held for any other wrong committed since the death of Kyros. At the instance of Xenophon and the manteis, it was then voted that a suitable religious ceremony should be performed to purify the army (Anab. 5.7.35: mapatvobyros 6€ Zevod@rtos kal TOv wavTewy ovpGovrevovrav, Cooker xa0fpar TO oTpaTevpa, Kal eyévero Kafapyds).

147. See J. G. Frazer’s note on this passage in the Loeb Classical Library. 148. “Beitrige zur griechischen Religionsgeschichte 2” in Videnskabs-Selskabet Skrifter, Hist. Fil. K1.1917.2 (Oslo 1919) 9. 149. So also Pliny NH 24.10.47.

150. Eitrem’s interpretation runs counter to the usual explanation of Xerxes’ act as a simple manifestation of Oriental cruelty without magical or religious significance. The real difficulty in the Herodotean story, of which Eitrem was not aware, is that the alleged eclipse does not accord with the calculations of modern astronomers: see above chap. IV p. 109. Moreover, Herodotos seems to assume that the act was one of revenge, as in the case of Dareios’ vengeance in 4.84.

War Festivals and the Calendar

201

5. F. Granier,*! following Nilsson,1®2 believes that the sham-battle, described in Plutarch Alexander 31 on the authority of Eratosthenes,1*8

is to be explained as part of the rite of purification, a sacrifice or enchantment (“Opfer oder Zauber”) for the good fortunes of war. This took place in 331 B.c. prior to the battle of Gaugamela. The camp followers divided themselves into two bands and set over them generals whom they named Alexander and Dareios. They fought with fists and sticks. When Alexander heard of this, he ordered the leaders to fight in single combat with the entire army as spectators. Xenophon describes a sham battle in Kyropaidia 2.3.17-20, which must have been an adaptation of something that he had seen or tried himself,154 without the

slightest suggestion that it was part of a purification rite. There is no reason to infer that every sham-battle was part of a purification rite. 6. In 323 B.c., after the death of Alexander,

Perdikkas and Meleager

reached a compromise about the succession to the kingship. A ritual purification of the phalanx for its mutiny is then described by Curtius (10.9.11) as follows (Loeb trans.):155 “It was decided to purify the army after the native fashion, and the past discord seemed to furnish a rea-

sonable cause for this. The kings of the Macedonians had been accustomed to purify the soldiers in the following manner: having disembowelled a dog in the furthest part of the plain into which they were going to lead the army, they throw the flesh on both sides; within that

space all the soldiers stand under arms, on one side the cavalry, on the other the phalanx.”°¢ Curtius then continues his account by relating that while the whole army was thus assembled under pretence of a lustration, King Arrhidaios, at the instigation of Perdikkas,

suddenly

demanded the surrender and punishment of all the leaders in the late disorders. ‘The infantry was taken by surprise and unable to offer any resistance;

three hundred

of the alleged mutineers

were

singled out

and instantly executed. Meleager took refuge in a temple where he was put to death.157 151. Die makedonische Heeresversammlung 152. Griechische Feste (Leipzig 1906) 406.

(Munich

1931) 23.

153. Jacoby FGrHist 241 frg. 29. Cf. Usener, ARW 7 (1904) 301. 154. Cf. J. K. Anderson, Military Theory and Practice in the Age of Xenophon (Berkeley 1970) 92.

155. Cf. Justin 13.4.7: lustratio castrorum. 156. For ancient rites involving a dog, see E. E. Burriss, CP 30 (1935) 31-42; and above p. 197. For divinities who were associated with dogs, see C. H. Greenewalt Jr., Ritual Dinners in Early Historic Sardis (Berkeley 1978) 41 n. 4. 157. For the historical setting, see Badian, HSCP 72 (1967) 202; Errington, JHS go (1970) 56-57; and Lock, CP 72 (1977) 105.

202

War Festivals and the Calendar

7. In his account of the events of the year 182 B.c., Livy (40.6) records that when the time had come for purifying the Makedonian army, the troops marched in ceremonial fashion between the two halves of a sacrificial dog; this over,

a tournament was held, in which the two sec-

tions of the army were led by Perseus and Demetrios. ‘The tournament was rapidly converted into something like a real battle in which the forces of Perseus were worsted.15® We may conclude that the Greeks observed a purification ceremony in the field after a serious military disorder such as a mutiny. The passage from Xenophon’s Anabasis where he simply tells his reader éyévero kafapuos without

describing

the rite in any way,

indicates

that

the

reader was expected to be familiar with the ceremony. In Boiotia, Makedonia and Crete, the military rite may have been an annual one, conducted in the spring. On the other hand, the Lakedaimonians

de-

veloped their ritual of the diabateria for marching beyond their borders, and the Athenians

had eisiteteric rites conducted

by a mantis.

There is no evidence for Greek purification rites at the end of a campaign. 8. MiscELLANEOUS

War

FESTIVALS!9

The subject of ritual battles in Greek cults is discussed by M. P. Nilsson, Griechische Feste von religidser Bedeutung (Leipzig 1906) 402-408, 413-417. Here we collect a group of miscellaneous festivals

which are said to have had their origin in warfare or to be more or less 158. For the historical context,

see F. W. Walbank,

Philip

V of Macedon

(Cam-

bridge 1940) 246-247. 159. Various scholars have sought evidence in Greek myths for “rites of passage” or “rites probatoires” imposed on young men at the time of their admission into military classes. Much

of this material

is collected incidentally in F. Vian, La guerre des

Géants (Paris 1952), a book which also supports the theory of G. Dumézil that at one time all Indo-European societies possessed the three classes of priests, warriors and farmers known to us from India. Many patriotic festivals emphasize martial vigor, and the theories that the Athenian Panathenaia constitute a commemoration of the gods over the giants—rites d’adolescence in honor of Athena (La guerre pp. 246-247)—; that Pausanias’ account of the myth of Hopladamos (8.32.5; 36.2-3) suggests the

celebration of a ritual of combat at Methydrion

in Arkadia

(pp. 238-246), etc.—

require reconstruction of myths, the evaluation of which lie outside the scope of

this book. We may safely conclude that in the historical agones were attached to festivals, as were the Eleutheria at because the Gy&ves were felt to be appropriate methods of human power, whether Olympian or chthonian, or any man flattery considered as more than mortal.

period at any rate, if Plataiai, it was merely celebrating any superwhom superstition or

War Festivals and the Calendar

203

military in nature. They are presented in alphabetical order of the names of the festivals or of the deity honored. No real treatment of hero-cults has been attempted. I only note that the Greeks granted heroic honors to ancestors and to certain distinguished individuals after death; in this there was nothing inconsistent with the principles of polytheism. In historical times, the personage to whom a new society owed its origins or its prosperity was advanced to the rank of a mythical chieftain. Thus we find the cult of Miltiades established in the Thrakian Chersonese;

and in the same neighborhood

at Amphipolis,

where

a festival had been founded in honor of the Athenian Hagnon as oixtorys, the citizens afterwards transferred their veneration to the Spartan Brasidas by consecrating his tomb and investing him with annual honors of games and sacrifices (Thucydides 5.11). According to the historian Douris (FGrHist 76 frg. 71), the Samians in 404 B.c. established a Lysandreia for the Spartan Lysander. When Dion entered Syrakuse in 357 B.c., he was received as a god, with sacrifices, libations,

and prayers

(Plutarch Dion

“tent of Alexander”

29; Diodoros

16.11.3). Eumenes

had a

in his camp, with a throne before which the offi-

cers offered a sacrifice as to a present god (Diodoros 18.60—61; Plutarch Eumenes 13; Polyainos 4.8.2). Athens conferred heroic honors after his death upon Diogenes, who had commanded

the Makedonian

gar-

rison in the Peiraieus; the Diogeneia (229 B.c.) became a permanent recurring festival: Plutarch Aratos 34.6; Pausanias 2.8.6; JG I1?, 834.13,

1028.24, 1039.56, 3474. Services of all sorts, usually political, were recognized. Harmodios and Aristogeiton received honors at Athens (Pollux 8.91). Kleomedes of Astypalaia and Oibotas of Dyme were canonized as Olympic victors (Pausanias 6.9.6—8; 7.17.14); Bias of Priene for his wisdom (Diogenes Laert. 1.88); and Philippos of Kroton for his

beauty (Herodotos 5.47). The philosophical schools were organized as religious societies (@iaco.) and honored their founders as heroes (Wilamowitz, Antigonos von Karystos [Berlin 1881] 263). Honors were freely accorded to literary celebrities: Sophokles, who had welcomed Asklepios in his home,

was

worshipped

as a hero under

the title of

Dexion, “the Entertainer” (Etym. Mag. 256). The reason for canonization, however,

cords the Agesilaos that they him one. paigning

is often difficult to ascertain. Plutarch

(Mor. 210D) re-

story of the apotheosis offered by the people of Thasos to while he was still alive, and his sarcastic refusal to the effect begin by making themselves gods if they felt equal to making Presumably the incident occurred while Agesilaos was camin Asia Minor. For partial bibliography on the subject, see

204

War Festivals and the Calendar

von Geisau in Der Kleine Pauly 2 (1967) s.v. Heroenkult 1105; cf. C. Habicht,

“Gottmenschentum

und

griechische

Stadte”’,

Zetemata

14?

(1970) 1-10.

1. Areia. Geronthrai (Lakonia). Pausanias (3.22.6) states, “Every year they hold a festival in honor of Ares at which women are forbidden to enter the grove.” 2. Areia. Tegea. Pausanias (8.48.5) says that at Tegea there was a carved image of Ares Gynaikothoinas (“of the women’s sacrificial feast’). He explains the name as derived from an historical incident. When the Lakedaimonians attacked Tegea, the Tegean women put on hoplite armor, and by their sudden appearance in the rear of the enemy caused their overthrow. ‘““The women offered to Ares ra émvixca on their own account without the men, and gave to the men no share in the meat of the victim. For this reason Ares got his surname.’1°

3. Athenaia. Sparta. Polybios 4.35. sion of all men capable of bearing account of a seditious attack on the rites of sacrifice to the goddess. The 222, and 65p.

This festival comprised a procesarms. Polybios mentions it in his ephors who were performing the festival is mentioned in JG V.213,

4. Basileia.1*1 Lebadeia. According to Diodoros (15.53.4), Epameinondas arranged before the battle of Leuktra in 371 B.c. that a reply be brought from the oracle of Trophonios declaring that victory would come to the Boiotians in commemoration of which they were to institute an ayav orepavirns to Zeus Basileus. Diodoros adds that the festi-

val was still celebrated at Lebadeia. The games are mentioned in several inscriptions, mostly of the fourth century B.c.: IG VII.552, 1711,

2487, 2532, 3091, 4247. 5. Boreasmoi.162 There is a group of three festivals, termed Boreasmoi 160. For a similar story concerning the Argive heroine Telesilla and the cult of Tuvarxdv "Apns in Argos, see Pausanias 2.20.8, and above, p- 184. For the origin of the ritual, see L. R. Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States 5 (Oxford 1909) 405-406;

and M. P. Nilsson, Griechische Feste (Leipzig 1906) 407-408. 161. Schol. Pindar Ol. 7.153. 162. The abundant testimonia about “Wind-gods” are collected in F. W. Hamdorf, Griechische Kultpersonifikation der vorhellenistischen Zeit (Mainz 1964) 89-90; see also R. Hampe, “Kult der Winde in Athen und Kreta,” Sitzungsber. der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften 1967 Abh. 1. In Mycenaean times, there was a priestess of the winds at Knossos: M. Ventris and J. Chadwick, Documents in Mycenaean Greek® (Cambridge 1973) 305. Among the names on the early rock-cut inscriptions at ‘Thera is that of Boreaios (IG XI1.3.357). ,

War Festivals and the Calendar

205

(see Hesychios s.v.), which had their origins in warfare and were celebrated in honor of Boreas (North Wind).1% a. Herodotos (7.189) seems to think that a festival was instituted at Athens during the Persian war, when the Athenians, being commanded

by an oracle

to invoke

their yauBpds émixovpos, prayed

to

Boreas. The fleet of Xerxes was soon afterwards destroyed in part by a north (or northeast) wind at the “Ovens” near Cape Sepias, and the grateful Athenians, Herodotos says, erected to his honor a temple on the banks of the Ilissos river.‘ The festival, however,

does

not seem ever to have had any great renown, for Plato (Phaedrus 229) represents Phaedrus as unacquainted even with the site of the altar. Particulars of this festival are not known, except that it was

celebrated with banquets (Hesychios). For the incident of the wind, see also Frost, Greece and Rome 15 (1968) 180. b. Pausanias (8.36.6) mentions a festival celebrated with annual sacrifices at Megalopolis in honor of Boreas, who was thought to have

been their deliverer from the Lakedaimonians under Agis. c. Ailianos (VH 12.61) says that the Thourians offered an annual sacrifice to Boreas, because he had destroyed the fleet with which Diony-

sios of Syrakuse attacked them; and adds the curious remark that a decree was passed which bestowed upon him the right of citizenship and assigned to him a house and a piece of land. This was apparently their way of adopting the worship of Boreas.’ In addition to these three festivals of Boreas, Herodotos (7.178) reports a memorial service to the winds (4veuor) for the victory at Artemision, which the Delphians celebrated down to his day. As the Greek 163. The best treatment of meteorological worships and animism among the Greeks is that of L. R. Farnell in Hastings’ Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics g (New York 1917) 221-222. K. J. Dover, Greek Popular Morality (Berkeley 1974) 130 n. 16, has a well-chosen comment on the culture which regards the wind asa deity. For the cult of Boreas, see Rapp in Roscher, Lexicon 1.814. Xenophon (Anabasis 4.5.3) reports that the Ten Thousand, when they were passing through a plain covered with deep snow and in the face of a north wind intolerably chilling and piercing, stopped and offered sacrifices to Boreas, upon which the violence of the wind abated conspicuously to the evident consciousness of all. 164. Cf. Pausanias 1.19.5 and 8.27.14. For the prominence of Boreas in Simonides’ poem,

“‘Sea-battle

off Artemision,”

see,

for example,

Podlecki,

H istoria

17 (1968)

1931) 262-266. For Boreas on an Attic vase, see J. D. Beazley, Der Panmaler (Berlin 11. W. Agard (CJ 61 [1965/6] 241-246) says that Boreas became a favorite subject

among Athenian vase painters. 16%. A statue of Boreas was used as the akroterion of the temple of the Athenians (the so-called second temple of Apollo) at Delos, inaugurated in 417 B.c.: F. Courby, Exploration archéologique de Délos 12 (Paris 1931) 240.

206

War Festivals and the Calendar

navy proceeded to Artemision, the Delphians consulted Apollo. “An

oracle was delivered to them to pray to the winds, for these would be

great allies to Hellas.” The Delphians reported this message to “those Hellenes who wanted to be free,” thereby earning “everlasting grati-

tude.”’ After the battle, the Delphians dedicated an altar to the winds

at Thuié, presumably some place near Delphi (Macan), and supplicated them with sacrifices which continued until the time of Herodotos. For this episode, see Podlecki, Historia 17 (1968) 262-266. 6. Delia in Boiotia. Diodoros 12.70.53; Schol. Pindar Ol. 7.154. Diodoros reports that after the battle of 424 B.c., “The Thebans from the proceeds of the booty not only constructed the great stoa in their agora but

also embellished it with bronze statues. . . .; furthermore,

it was with

this money they instituted the festival called Delia.” We know only the name and origin of the festival. Because of the great quantity of

booty, it is probable that at one time this Tavnyupis was one of great splendor, but it is not mentioned in inscriptions and hence finds no place in Gossage’s list of Boiotian festivals in BSA 70 (1975) 115ff.

7- Dioskoureia. Sparta. The festival of the Dioskouroi was celebrat ed by military dances: Plato Laws 7-796B and Pausanias 4.27.12. It is mentioned in an inscription of the second century B.c. JG V.559), and again in the third century A.p. (IG V.60g). Nilsson thinks the festival only an occasional one, connected with the worship of the Dioskouroi

as helpers in times of warfare.16° To judge from Plato, a sword dance

was one feature. Pausanias represents the festival as being held in the camp (éml orpatorédov), and a story in Polyainos (2.31.4) suggests that it was held outside the walls of Sparta. G. R. Morrow (Plato’s Cretan City [Princeton 1960] 18 and 360) believes that the armed dance was introduced in imitation of the Cretan Kouretes.

8. Elaphebolia. Hyampolis. Plutarch (Mor. 244B-D) is our chief source for this festival in honor of Artemis, commemorating the victory of the Phokians over the Thessalians shortly before the Persian Wars. It was still celebrated in Plutarch’s day. The battle is descri bed in Herodotos 8.27.3; Pausanias 10.1.8; Polyainos 6.18. The Phokia ns were led by the mantis Tellias of Elis. g- Eleutheria. Larisa. This festival, frequently mentio ned in inscriptions, seems to have been instituted in 196 B.c. on the occasion of the freeing of the country by Flamininus (Plutarch Titus Flam. 10). The festival was dedicated to Zeus Eleutherios and was panhel lenic in char166. Feste 420.

Le

War Festivals and the Calendar

acter. Victors came 167 islands.

207

from most of the Greek world, including the

10. Eleutheria. Syrakuse. Diodoros (11.72.2) relates that after the overthrow of the tyranny of Thrasyboulos (466 8.c.), the ekklesia voted to celebrate annually the festival of Eleutheria on the day on which the tyrant’s power had been broken. On that day four hundred and fifty bulls were to be slaughtered to provide an offering for the gods and a feast for their thankful worshippers. It was for the better celebration of this more than fourfold hecatomb that the Hieron of a later day, king rather than tyrant, reared that mighty altar (Diodoros 16.83.2) whose remains still speak for themselves among the wonders of Syrakuse. 11. Enyalios. Reenactment of capture of Salamis. According to Plutarch Solon 9.6, there was a ceremony re-enacting the capture of Salamis by Solon with the assistance of Peisistratos. A ship would approach the island, then its crew would make an attack with shouts and cries, and

finally one man in armor would leap out with a cry of triumph. F. Jacoby refers to this as ‘the annual ceremony re-enacting the capture of Salamis.”16° E. Peterson (Jahrbuch 32 [1917] 137-154) believes that this ceremony is depicted on a red-figured cylix by the potter Hieron which was found at Vulci. According to his interpretation, a group of

Athenians runs forth gesticulating; at their head is one man in armor who has reached the cliff Skiradion and is mounting it. Peterson believes that this figure may represent Peisistratos. L. Deubner (Attische Feste [Berlin 1932]) republishes the vase as pl. 24, and, accepting Peterson’s interpretation, identifies the festival as an otherwise unattested Enyalios (pp. 218-219).'® J. D. Beazley (Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters 22 [Oxford 1963] 816-817), however, lists the cup under the Telephos painter with the brief comment, “Unexplained subject: search party for Tithonos?” Our knowledge of the festival rests on the passage in Plutarch.

12. Hekatomphonia. In Messenia to Zeus Ithomatas. Pausanias 4.19.3; Polyainos 2.31.2; Plutarch Romulus 25; Mor. 159E, 660F. Pausanias 167. IG 1X.2.525, 526, 528, 529, etc. See R. S. Robinson in Classical Studies Presented to B. E. Perry (Urbana 1969) 264-265. 168. FGrHist 328 Text p. 209. The capture of Salamis is discussed by I. M. Linforth, Solon the Athenian (Berkeley 1919) 249-265; W. S. Ferguson, Hesperia 7 (1938) 17. Cf. E. Meyer, Der Kleine Pauly s.v. Salamis (1972) 1505. 169. H. W. Parke in his Festivals of the Athenians (Ithaca 1977) ignores the problem.

208

War Festivals and the Calendar

says (Loeb trans.): “Aristomenes made the sacrifice called Offering for the hundred slain to Zeus of Ithome. This was an old-established custom, all Messenians making it who had slain their hundred enemies. Aristomenes first offered it after the battle at the Boar’s Tomb, his sec-

ond offering was occasioned by the slaughter of the Corinthians in the night. It is said that he made a third offering as the result of his later raids.”170 13. Hekatomphonia. In Crete to Ares. Stephanos s.v. Bievvos. See A. Schaefer, Philologus 23 (1866) 562-564, A. B. Cook, Zeus 1 (Cambridge 1914) 623, and R. F. Willetts,

Cretan

Cults and Festivals (New York

1962) 286. 14. Hekatomphonia. In Lemnos and Athens to Ares. According to Diophantos the Lakedaimonian (= K. Miiller FHG 4 p- 397) in his De sacris deorum, a ritual commemorating any patriot’s feat of slaying one hundred enemies was observed in both places. In Lemnos a human offering was made.171 15. Leonidaia. Sparta. Pausanias 3.14.1 is our chief literary authority for an agon in honor of Leonidas (Thermopylai) and Pausanias (Plataiai). This festival is well attested in inscriptions:

see Ziehen, RE s.v.

Sparta (1929) 1515.

16. Moleia. Arkadia. The festival is known only from schol. Apollonios Rhodios 1.164: &yerat Madea éopt?) Tapa ’"Apkaow, éretd7 Avxodpyos Noxhoas Kara THY waxnv etrev ’EpevOadiwva’ u@dos 6¢ 4) udxn.172 The etymology of

H&dos = waxn is accepted by H. Frisch, Griechisches etymologisches Worterbuch 2 (Heidelberg 1970) 282. The festival commemorated the mythical duel between Areithoos and the Arkadian Lykourgos, and F. Vian believes that it constituted a ritual combat (hoplomachy).178

17. Nikephoria. Pergamon. SIG? 629.24; C. B. Welles, Royal Correspondence in the Hellenistic Period (New Haven 1934) 197-202. M. Segre, in an article published posthumously by L. Robert (Hellenica 5 [1948] 102-128), “L’institution des Nikephoria de Pergame,” believes 170. Unger (Philologus 25 [1868] 1-12) thinks that the Hekatomphonia was confused in the literary tradition with a Hekatombaia. He bases this conclusion in part

on a passage in Clement Alex. (3.42.2) which has Aristomenes slaying three hundred persons and then making an offering. 171. See L. R. Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States » (Oxford 1909) 405. 172. See M., P. Nilsson, Griechische Feste 468-469. 173. La guerre des Géants (Paris 1952) 2909, 242-243; and in J.-P. Vernant,

Problémes de la guerre en Gréce ancienne (Paris 1968) 63.

War Festivals and the Calendar that the festival commemorated

209 the battle of Chios in 201 B.c. He con-

cludes that the periodicity of the festival was changed in 181 B.c.!7%4 g. APOPHRADES Days Following this discussion of war festivals, I believe that a clearer understanding of the Greek festival calendar can be obtained by observing the Athenian

practice

with

regard

to

dmoppddes

juépar.

Jacoby

(FGrHist 328 Notes frg. 189/90 [p. 447]) states, ““We are in need of an Athenian calendar marking also the dro¢pédes jyépar; in other respects, too, it must be fuller than Deubner’s ‘Festkalendar.’ ”

In his L’astrologie grecque

(Paris 1899) 459, A. Bouché-Leclercq

states, ““La superstition des jours favorables (atov.) et défavorables (amogppades), née de croyances fétichistes et animistes, est de tous les

pays et de tous les temps.’’!” A significant contribution to the study of amoppades yuépac

was made by W. H. Roscher in the course of his three

lengthy articles on seven- and nine-day intervals of time among the Greeks.178 Collecting evidence on the similarity of Babylonians,!’” Greeks and Romans in distinguishing between the sidereal (“Lichtmonat”’) month of about 2714 days!” and the synodic month of about 291, he noted that superstitions arose about the period of two or three days, or more properly nights, of darkness, which were termed by the Romans

interlunium or intermenstruum,

and by the Greeks

xpiys.”?

174. There was also a Nikephoria at Aigina: JG IV.1, line 41 (2nd century B.c.). Frankel believes that the Aiginetan festival was in imitation of the one at Pergamon, where Athena was worshipped as Nexydédpos, and a temple and grove were dedicated to her by Eumenes II (Strabo 13.624; Livy 32.33-34). From Pergamon the festival had been carried to Aigina; so it probably commemorated some success of Eumenes. 175. On the general subject, see Jungbauer’s article on “Ungliickstage” in H. Bachtold-Staubli, Handwérterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens 8 (1936/7) 1427-1440. 176. Abhandlungen der koniglich séichsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften 21.4 (1903); 24.1 (1904) and 6 (1906). Roscher’s articles contain a great deal of information about Greek cults which has been neglected, probably because his ingenious theories concerning the mystic significance of seven- and nine-day periods in

Greek life have not found general acceptance. 177. I have elsewhere pointed out with van der Waerden (BCH 85 [1961] 45) the remarkable similarity in the treatment of the zodiacal year by Euktemon to Babylonian lists. It is important to emphasize that this influence, if such it is, took place long before the apogee of astrology in the Greek world. 178. Thus

the zreplodos ceAjvns was 27 days (rpis évvéa fuépas) : Plutarch Nikias 23;

Thucydides 7.50. 179. Various superstitions about the moon are given in Plutarch’s Quaestiones Conviviales 3.10. Greek nurses, for example (Mor. 658E), took special pains never to show their young charges to the moon. One is reminded of the well-known fancy attributing lunacy to the rays of the moon, sufficiently illustrated in two passages

210

War Festivals and the Calendar

This period between months, the two or three nights when the light of the moon was extinguished, gave rise to apotropaic rites. Roscher noted the entry on arogpades in the Etymologicum Magnum (131.13): amoppades éXeyov of ’Arrixol Tas amnyopevpeévas juepas, ds baeAduGavov xelpous elvar T&V &AAwv" as 67) Kal érerxddas Kadodor POivovtos Tod unvds, TeTpada, TpiTnv, devTEpav. 7 Tas Huepas & ais Tas horas dixas édikafov' 61a Td olovy amopparrecbat

TO THS gehnvns Pas év avtais, and the similar definition in the Etymologicum Gudianum: arogpades’ ob rws tuépar mpoonyopikGs Kadovpevar, as Kal érerkadas Kadovor, pOivovTos Tod unvds TeTpdda, TpiTny, devrépav, ev ais Kal Tas govixas €dixafov dixas 6a Td lov droppatrecbar TO THs geAHVNS Has & [adrats]. Roscher commented on the final clause in these passages as follows: “So erklaren sich zugleich die drei letzen Tage des athenischen Monats, die den Unterirdischen heilig und daher amodpdées waren... , woll deshalb weil das Mondlicht an ihnen erloschen schien.’’ 18 Later, quoting the following passage from Hipparchos in Galen’s Tepi xpictLov nuep&y [g p. go7 Kiihn], ovdk del per eis 6 xpdvos éoriv & & halverar cadds 1 oehnvn. Tovmimay dé TpEis huepas Tas wept cbvodov [A] ddparos yiverat TENEWS, ev ais obrw Ta, rap’ uty dddovodv ixavh, Roscher observed, ‘““Gemeint sind die amoppades (aromoumiuor, doéAnvor, mTpooéAnvor, avOpwmeo) juépar, deren Namen das Etym. M. 191, 13ff. 5:4 76 oloy amopparrecbar 7d THS cEAHVTS

oes év avrais erklaren moéchte, und deren in jedem Monat bald ’ (2) bald y’ (3) bald ¢' (7) gezihlt wurden.” 18! The reason Roscher inae aa ae cc eke ee in the New Testament (Matthew 4:24; 17:15), where epilepsy is said to be caused by

the moon. The Greek verb used is ceAnvagouar, Early peoples recognized the influence of the moon on tides; and W. H. Roscher has discussed the Greek belief that

lunar changes cause menstruation, since monthly periodicity belongs to women and moon alike: Lexicon s.v. Mondgottin 3149ff. As recently as 1900 there were beliefs current that the three days before the new moon are especially unlucky and apt to be attended by storms and winds: Hanzen, “The Origin and Value of Weather Lore,” Journal of American Folklore 13 (1900) 191-198. For the Thessalian magical trick of bringing the moon down from the sky, see D. E. Hill, RRM 116 (1973) 221-238. 180. Abhandlungen 21.4 pp. 6-7. 181. Abhandlungen 24.6.199-200. P. Chantraine comments on the etymology of drodpas (La formation des noms en grec ancien [Paris 1933] 351) as “etymologie obscure;” and H. Frisch (Griechisches etymologisches Wérterbuch 1 [Heidelberg 1970] 125) refers to Chantraine. R. Stromberg, Greek Prefix Studies (Gothenberg 1946) 39, writes in part as follows: “Hitherto it [apophras] has baffled all attempts at interpretation: for example, its second member has been thought to belong to ¢pqv; cf. Chantraine p. 351. It is apparent that the word cannot be a direct derivative from

émoppatev,

that is a drat dey.

in Damascius Il. apxév

III and further-

more has the sense of ‘explain’. Equally incorrect and unnecessary would it be to Suppose a new unrecorded sense in érogpétevr, ‘negare,’ which has probably never

been in existence.” Nonetheless, Stromberg attempts to connect the word with ppater,

and refers to a definition of Hesychios which is not apposite. But it is apparently only

War Festivals and the Calendar

2 1M

cludes a count of seven days is partly because of the following definition in Hesychios s.v. amogppades: jyépar era ows dvouatouevar, év ais evayifover Tots vexpots.. . } amaryopevouevar mpos Tas mpdées.1®2 But it is pos-

sible, as Roscher notes,™8 that érra4 (={') is an error of a copyist for y’ (3)-184 On the other hand, if the number is correct, Hesychios must be referring to seven days in the official Athenian calendar of statecults quite apart from the days (or nights of darkness) when individuals took measures to drive away the presence of apotropaic deities. In a year of six full and six hollow months, the acéAynvo. nights would total thirty, but rites on these nights are not part of the state calendar. The seven, which are also d&mpaxro:,

would include the Pompaia, Diasia,1®

Chytroi, and Plynteria, which will be discussed below. If all three days of the Anthesteria, not merely that of the Chytroi, were apotropaic, as by folk etymology that the word came to be associated with arogparrecfa, although with regard to ¢@parrw (ppax—), E. Schwyzer, Gr. Gram. 1.713, notes, “oft ist der

urspriingliche Konsonant nur durch die Etymologie festzustellen; teilweise wechselte die Konsonantenstufe schon im Indogermanischen.” He notes that the Cretan form is g¢pdddw. sheer,”

With dmoppas, cf. droopat, “broken off, abrupt,’ and drorunt, “cut off, dm&pvé, “layer of the vine, canal.” Homer has ézoppwé, “broken off, abrupt.”

182. For the meaning of évayifev,

see J. Harrison, Prolegomena

to the Study of

Greek Religion (Cambridge 1903) 53-63; J. Casabona, Recherches sur le vocabulaire des sacrifices en grec (Aix-en-Provence 1966) 204-210; W. Burkert, Homo Necans (Berlin 1972) 17 n. 41. The rite enagisma regularly has to do with the placation of ghosts. Nock has shown that the ritual was performed in the evening, and the victims were black and of the male sex. The flesh was burned and only partially shared with the celebrants. 183. Roscher, however, understands the days as being successive. 184. The emendation to 8’ is ruled out because all lists in the lexicographers,

scholia, etc. which refer to Greek months regularly do so in terms of ones of thirty days. See Pritchett, Athenian Calendars on Stone (Berkeley 1963) 328; and C. Préaux,

La lune dans la pensée grecque (Bruxelles 1973) 71 n. 1. Early poems called ‘Hyéoae and “horoscopes” reckoned with thirty-day months:

S. Weinstock, JHS 69 (1949) 57-

This fact is not understood by B. D. Meritt (Mnemosyne 30 [1977] 220-221), who cites a passage from Pollux (8.117) about the meeting of the Areiopagos at Athens on three days of the month,

including the day called deutera phthinontos. Unknown

to

Meritt is the rule that this court met only on moonless nights, and hence in a hollow month one of the three days (i.e., the deutera phthinontos) would be omitted when there were only two moonless nights, as Roscher recognized, Rather than constituting the strongest argument that the day deutera phthinontos was never omitted, as

Meritt claims, the passage is evidence for its omission, if only we understand

the

popular convention of lexicographers and scholiasts of referring exclusively to thirtyday months and recognize the well-attested rule about the meeting of the Areiopagos. For the common practice of using 30-day months, see T. Heath, Aristarchus of Samos (Oxford 1913) 246.

185. For apotropaic rites to Melichios, see, most recently, G. Zuntz, Persephone (Oxford 1971) 101-103.

212

War Festivals and the Calendar

some scholars believe,1** then we know six of the seven days. ‘The likely candidate for the seventh would be the Nesteia, as may be deduced

from two passages in Plutarch. In Mor. 417C, he writes (Loeb tr.), “As for festivals and sacrifices, which may be compared with ill-omened and gloomy days (ijuépas aroppdadas kai oxvOpwrds), in which eating of raw

flesh, rending of victims,

occur the

and beating of breasts,

and

again in many places scurrilous language at the shrines, and ‘Frenzy and shouting of throngs in excitement with tumultuous tossing of heads in the air,’ I should say that these acts are not performed for any good, but are soothing and appeasing rites for the averting of evil spirits.” 187 In Demosthenes

30, Plutarch

in turn uses

the superlative

form of the adjective oxv0pwrés to characterize the Nesteia on the middle day of the Thesmophoria: ry cxvOpwrordrny Tar Oecpodopiwy hepa. For the “gloomy” rites on this day, see Ziehen, RE s.v. Nesteia 2 (1936)

105—-106.188 We are told by Aristophanes (Thesm. 78) that the boule and dikasteria did not meet. W. Schultz (Zettrechnung und Weltordnung [Leipzig 1924]) has ex186. So J. E. Harrison, Prolegomena 1903) 32 and 49. However,

L. R. Farnell

to the Study of Greek Religion (Cambridge (Cults of the Greek

State 5 [Oxford

1909]

215ff.) is probably right in holding that the ritual for the third day, the Chytroi, was originally an independent ceremony of ghost-riddance which fell so near the Dionysiac celebration as to become attached to the latter as a mournful finale. In such case, the Genesia might be considered another candidate, although Jacoby (JHS 38 [1944] 66) argues that one must make a distinction between a “day” of the dead, when

spirits are active and return

to the earth, and a “festival” of the dead when

the living visit the tombs of the dead to offer sacrifices and libations. Jacoby collects the testimonia for the Genesia on pp. 74-75. 187. These “unlucky and black” days are discussed by E. R. Dodds (Euripides Bacchae2 [Oxford 1960] xvii) in connection with his detailed treatment of the word épodayla and the Dionysiac winter dance: “It appears that those who practice a comparable rite in our time experience in it a mixture of supreme exaltation and supreme repulsion: it is at once holy and horrible, fulfilment and uncleanness, a sacrament and a pollution—the same violent conflict of emotional attitudes that runs all through the Bacchae and lies at the root of all religion of the Dionysiac type.” Dodds (p. xxii) believes that such orgiastic rites were originally part of the Lenaea festival (from \jva, “wild women”), which lost its original character at any rate in Attika. In describing the customs of the Turks during his visit in Greece, F. C, H. Pouqueville (Voyage dans la Gréce 4 [Paris 1820] 386) wrote: “Chacun a ses talismans; l’année se compose de jours blancs, et de jours noirs ou apophrades. Le mardi est fatal 4 ceux qui commencent un voyage, parce qu’il renferme une mauvaise heure qu’on ne connait pas; enfin lislamite a ses nuits saintes.” 188. The date of the festival as given by Plutarch contains an obvious error in the numeral: Deubner, Attische Feste (Berlin 1932) 52 n. 2; Ziehen 104, etc. B, B. Rogers, in his edition of Aristophanes’ play (p. xv), believes that Plutarch used the date of the festival at Kalauria.

War Festivals and the Calendar

213

panded on Roscher’s research, showing that Sanskrit literature unmistakably reflects beliefs similar to those of the Greeks about the three dark nights of the moon (p. 31). He also refers (p. 62) to passages in the Geoponica (ed. Beckh), where in the collection of agricultural excerpts there are references to superstitions or taboos among

farmers

about the dcéAnvor or mpooéAnvo. nights. See 1.13.2; §.10.3; 7.6.5 (Sotion) and 1.6.2 (Diophanes). In the light of Iranian myths, he offers (pp. 62 and 168) an explanation of dvépmreor (aroppases) jyepar: “der ‘Mond’

(d.h. der Schwarze) die Menschen herab regne.”1*°He also collects (pp. 65-68) testimonia for interlunium and intermenstruum days (nights) among the Romans.'%° In addition to defining apophrades hemerai as ‘“‘days in which one offers sacrifices to the dead,” Hesychios elsewhere uses the word twice. “carrying away evil,” “averting llistaaecSmeaue He defines droréummor, dmoppades uépar; and the phrase avOpwretous juepas he explains as ras dmoppadas. ‘Pdéd.01.19t The former definition, equating apopompimoi with

apophrades, assumes importance because of a passage in Isokrates 5 To Philip 114, which makes it clear that apopompai are rites performed to drive away the evil presence of deities set over misfortunes and punishments,!® the so-called apotropaic deities, including Hekate and the Erinyes.% ‘The matter has been studied by A. D. Nock,

HTR

37 (1944) 170-173. 189. Schultz ' mination

maintains

and hence

that in myth

of primeval

the xpooédnvo

nights were

a time of ger-

antiquity. He refers to mpocédnvor "Apkades and the

concept of airéx8wv. His ideas are developed at length in Memnon 4 (1910) 70-72. See Hippys (Jacoby FGrHist 554) frg. 7, and references cited by R. Pfeiffer, ap. Kallimachos frg. 191.56. For the Arkadians as proselenoi, see also G. Fougéres, Mantinée

(Paris 1898) 197 n. 3. 190. Schultz believes that the original calendar of Indo-European peoples was a lunar one and that the idea of a solar calendar came later. His position is discussed critically by M. P. Nilsson, Hessissche Blatter fiir Volkskunde 23 (1924) 140-143. 191. LSJ note the Hesychios reference, but attempt no translation of dv8pwmetos. 192. The testimonia for daromopmaio Oeot are collected by F. Jacoby, FGrHist 244 (Apollodoros) Komm. frg. 93. For the propitiation of Hekate as queen of the world of darkness, see H. Scholz, Der Hund in der griechisch-rémischen Magie und Religion (Berlin diss. 1937) 40-43. 193. A striking example of purification is the record in Plutarch (Mor. 814B) of the horror which was excited in Athens in 370 B.c. by the news of a civil massacre sacrifice in Argos: such tidings polluted their own air and they ordered an expiatory Select Papyri in the ekklesia. From the fragments of a mime of Sophron (D. L. Page, 3 [Loeb ed. 1960] 328-331 [with bibliography]; cf. G. Kaibel, CGF 154), a Syrakusan designed to writer of the fifth century B.c., one can piece together the private rites by troubled is house A Hekate. by inflicted distress from liberate a group of persons

214

War Festivals and the Calendar

Roscher finds a similar superstition about the last days of the month

in Vedic and Manichaean sources,!% as well as among the Gauls. I reproduce his text of a passage in Palchos’ Ilep! xarapyav retaining his

comments in square brackets: mpés 6€ rodAjv aodddreav dudrdrrov kal rds MaXivas rijs ZeAnvys kaa of Taddor purdrrovow" és obv Ko’ [27] rhs LeAnvns

ews y' Hucov tuep&v [irou ¢’ Huov] abrar kadodyrar padtvacr [= nefasti, amo-

dpades|. & rabrats rats muepars ovdev del mparrev’ amd bé y' Hucov Ths LeAnvns Ews va’ kadodvrat ALdodvat [= d. fasti]. & ratrais ravra bef rparre. F.

Cumont had noted that

padtvac

corresponded to Latin malignae (=

nefasti). Roscher associates the word with méXas, dark. There was a similar lunar superstition among the Germans: non esse fas Germanos superare, si ante novam lunam proelio contendissent (Caesar BG 1.50).

A passage in E. Rohde’s Psyche (8th ed. trans. by W. Hillis, New York 1925) 196 n. 88, puts the matter succinctly: “The last three days of the month are at Athens sacred to the inhabitants of the lower world and therefore dmodpddes: EM 131, 13f.; E. Gud. 70.3ff.; cf. Lys. fr. 53. On

these days banquets were prepared, at the crossroads,

etc., for Hekate

(acc. to Ath. 325A), for Hekate xal rots érorporato.s (Plu., Symp. 7,6,p.

709A). The souls of the dead were then not forgotten. Sch. Pl., Lg. vii, 800D, dmodpddes tuepar év als rots KATOLXOMEVOLS XOds Emipepovaw.” 195 -

Other days besides the last three of the month might involve apotropaic rites and therefore became apophrades; and Plutarch (Alkibiades 34) expressly informs us that the day of the Plynteria (Festival of Washing) was apophras, a day which had magical aspects in that foul powers were supposed to be abroad and the sanctuaries of the city were kept shut while the Praxiergidai performed the secret ceremony Hekate who is capable of sending horrible phantoms and other manifestations of her power. The inhabitants call upon a woman skilled in such things to “lay” the hauntings. They must take salt in their hands, a measure of protectio n against malevolent spirits, and laurel about their ears (an apotropaic measure because such openings to the body might give access to the demon). Bitumen was used to fumigate the house, because strong smells are a common means of dispelling noxious spirits. All doors are opened, letting the moonlight in, and the family sit in silence around the expert. She kills a young dog and in a formal prayer tells the goddess that she has had her due feast and must now be gone. A statue or a small shrine of Apollo often stood outside a house, keeping off invisible foes. Apollo and Herakles had a good reputation for this aversion, hence

their common

title alexikakos,

‘‘averter

of evil.” For a

study of Herakles as averter of evil, see F. T. van Straten, BABesch 49 (1974) 181-182. 194. See Abhandlungen 21.4 [Do Fie, WE 195. A passage in Demosthenes (54 Against Konon 39) makes it clear that only

rough characters, in addition to the very poor, would eat the meals set out for Hekate; to do so was contrary to good custom, and might be credited with unpleasant results (Petronius 134). There is nothing here to suggest the rituals of state-cult.

War Festivals and the Calendar

215

of cleansing the image of the goddess at the sea amid great solemnity.1% Grim ceremonies were performed on the Diasia, a great festival of a propitiatory nature carried on outside the city: see Stengel’s article on Diasia in the RE. The Chytroi on the third day of the Anthesteria was reckoned an unlucky day, and various precautions, such as the closing of sanctuaries, were taken in order that spirits might not be allowed

free access to holy places: see H. W. Parke, Festivals of the Athenians

(Ithaca 1977) 116. Many paintings on vases, squat oinochoai called choes, illustrate how the Athenians protected themselves and their houses from the malignant spirits by apotropaic charms: G. van Hoorn,

Choes and Anthesteria (London 1951) 19; and compare Roussel, REA 36 (1934) 177-179. “It was a day of gloom, a mapa

or arodpds juépa, on

which ghosts were abroad, and cathartic measures (such as the chewing of buckthorn and the smearing of houses with pitch) were taken as a precaution

against them”:

Festivals of Athens?

A. W.

(Oxford

Pickard-Cambridge,

The

Dramatic

1968) 14.197 See Hesychius s.v.

papal

nuepar: Tov ’AvOecTypidvos pnvos, &v ais Tas Wuxas TOV KaTorxoméevay ayrévar éddxovv. Photios (s.v. uiapa juépa) has the same text but adds that the

citizens smeared their doorposts with sticky pitch, which would naturally impede the ghost, just as the thorns of the branches of buckthorn at the entrances of their houses were a mechanical means of keeping 196. Alkibiades returned from exile in 408 B.c. (Plutarch Alkibiades 34) on the day of the Plynteria, which was papd, when the vestments of Athena were solemnly washed, “the air being temporarily dangerous when contagion was being expelled” (Farnell in Hastings’ Encyclopedia 10.485). The sanctuaries were fenced off (Pollux 8.141); “man lebt an diesem Tag ohne die Gotter” (Burkert, Hermes 94 [1966] 12n.). From Artemidoros Oniroc. 2.33, we may infer that such rites were necessitated by sin (juaprnxevar) which pollutes the temples and the images, although the ceremony may have been originally part of a fetish-ritual, in which the fetish-object is washed

as though it were a living person. There was similar washing of the statue of Hera at Samos (Athenaios 15.672D); and Plutarch (Mor. 301A) relates that the statue of the Tanagrian hero Eunostos washed itself in the sea because a woman had entered his temenos. 197. Nock (HThR 37 [1944] 148) wryly observes, ““The Greeks were not dominated by any fear of ghosts. Nor were they free of it.” Farnell has the following to say about the ‘Feast of Pots’ on the last day of the Anthesteria (Hastings’ Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics 6 [1914] 405): “The ghosts are invited to spend the day with the household

that holds them

in affection,

they are offered pots of porridge,

and

then at sunset are requested to depart. Prayers are proffered in their behalf to the powers of death, but not directly to the ghosts themselves; no cult is offered them as to superior beings endowed with supernatural power over the lives of individuals and States.” The subject is well discussed by A. C. Pearson in his article on “Greek Demons and Spirits” in J. Hastings, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics 4 (New York 1912) 590-594.

216

War Festivals and the Calendar

out evil spirits. See also Eustathios, I]. 24.526 (aroppas), and Ogle, AJP 32 (1911) 255.19 A different concept of jjyépar dmoppddes (dromoumipor or doéAnvor) than the one here presented, deriving from Roscher, has been offered

in a recent article in the American Journal of Philology 96 (1975) 1927.1% The author believes that such days were “days of cult inactivity,” that Plutarch,?” priest at Delphi and author of a epi juepav, has confused Roman and Greek concepts,?*! and that the passages cited above from the Etymologicum Magnum and Etymologicum Gudianum are

erroneous as they stand. Furthermore, he regards it as “inconceivable that the major day of the Panathenaia (Hekatombaion 28) and the day of the Theogamia (Gamelion 27)” were apophrades. Rather, the last three days of the month became dmogpades, in Mikalson’s opinion, only if the Areopagos tried a murder case.?°2 198. The question of whether Xées covers the whole festival is much debated. Cf. L. R. Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States 5 (Oxford 1909) 214-224, and F. Jacoby,

FGrHist 3b (Suppl.) 2 (Notes) 270, with Burkert, RGVV 32 (1972) 242. In my opinion, the Athenians inherited a superstition that the entire month was one of ghostly taboo just as the early Babylonians believed that dangerous spirits were abroad in

Shebat,

also roughly February

(see below

p. 218). See also Plutarch

Mor.

282D.

In the Photios passage & rots Xovaiv ’AvOeornpidvos pyvds, ev & Soxodow ai Wuxal tov TedeuTnoavTMY dvievar, Payry twhev ewac&vro xal witty ras Obpas éxptov, the é& refers

to the month, not the festival. In turn, Farnell’s conjecture that a primeval ghostceremony called Xérpo. was grafted on to the Anthesterion, an aboriginal festival of the Ionic

people,

seems

attractive.

Similarly,

the annual

Athenian

festival

of the

Panathenaia falls on a day, the night hours of which already possessed the ghostly taboos of the dark period of the moon. In all of this it is important to distinguish state cult from private superstitions. Jacoby (p. 274) insists that festivals (if that is the right word) of the month were earlier in their origin than those of the year. 199. By J. D. Mikalson. 200. For what Plutarch (Alexander 14.4) calls apophrades days at Delphi, see the discussion, with bibliography, by P. Amandry, La mantique apollinienne a Delphes (Paris 1950) 82-83. Cf. J. Pouilloux, BCH 98 (1974) 164. 201. Any confusion on the part of Plutarch seems highly unlikely. Indeed, Ziegler (RE s.v. Plutarchos 2 [1951] 851) believes that in addition to the Tlepl tpepv

Plutarch wrote a treatise on the Roman dies nefasti. 202.

Actually, it seems

that this feature was a late addition

to the superstitions,

because R. J. Bonner-G. Smith (The Administration of Justice 1 [Chicago 1930] 53; 2

[1938] 192ff.) argue that the whole idea of pollution by homicide is secondary and artificially grafted onto court procedure. “The notion that homicide involved pollution was not known in the Homeric age.” Nowhere in the Homeric poems is there

any hint of purification from

the stain of bloodshed,

which

in later Attic law was

prescribed even for the accidental slaying of a slave. Tlepolemos, who committed the sin of shedding kindred blood, has merely to flee from the wrath of his kinsman (Iliad 2.661-666); the suppliant who has fled from his home for having killed a man

ae

War Festivals and the Calendar

alii,

As a contribution towards a solution of this calendric problem, I discuss in turn the following matters: (1) the unit of time which constituted the Greek day; (2) the example of other menologies which have to do with lucky and unlucky days; (g) the position of Proklos on the

problem of lucky days; (4) the nature of démpaxro. days; (5) the nature of kata bedy days; (6) other calendric interdictions of a lunar origin. 1. The day as a unit of time. The Greek ‘“‘day” probably began at sunrise. This was the belief of F. Bilfinger who, in his monograph Der biirgerliche Tag (Stuttgart 1888) collected various types of evidence and drew the conclusion that the full day was reckoned from morning to morning. Bilfinger’s position was criticized by Unger in Philologus 51 (1891) 14-45, 212-230, who stresses the evidence which derives from Varro.2% In Choiseul Marble (Berkeley 1970) 71-72, I pointed out that Varro was positively wrong about two other calendars and questioned his statement about the Athenian one. I am impressed by three facts: (1) For Geminos (6.1) the day was the time from sunrise to sunrise. Geminos states that the word jépa is used in two ways, first, for what we would call daylight from sunrise to sunset, and, secondly, *pépa eyerar xpdvos 6 ad’ HAlov dvaToAfs wéexpts HAtov ators avatodjs. There is

no ambiguity here. (2) Pollux (1.68—70) in enumerating the parts of the full day begins with sepiopfpov, dphios, proceeds through pecobons nuepas, detAns to vuxros apxn and ends with pecovons vuxros, wepl adext prove

@éas. (3) The day for Hesiod clearly began with sunrise.?°° Solon’s designation of the last day of the Athenian month as &7 «al véa is explained by Plutarch (Solon 25) in terms of a day with morning epoch: see Choiseul Marble 72-73.2°6 Some misconception about the beginning of the ‘day’ has resulted from the tacit assumption made by most stu-

dents of ancient lunar calendars

that peoples who determined

the

is at once admitted by Telemachos at the moment of a religious service (Od. 3.222-281). For the lack of evidence about Athenian homicide law before the fifth century, see D. M. MacDowell, Athenian Homicide Law (Manchester 1963) 7. For

the doctrine of pollution, see G. M. Calhoun, The Growth of Criminal Law in Ancient Greece (Berkeley 1927) 26-30. For a different view about early pollution, however, see H. Lloyd-Jones, The Justice of Zeus (Berkeley 1971) chap. III. 203. Bilfinger’s position is misinterpreted by C. Préaux, Académie royale de Belgique, Mémoire 61.4 (1973) 83-84 n. 5. 204. See Gellius, Noct. Att. 3.9.2. Cf. Pliny NH 2.79.188. 20%. See T. A. Sinclair, Hesiod’s Works and Days (London 1932) 81. 206. The day of the Egyptians also began in the morning, with the month beginning on the morning of the moon’s invisibility. See A. E. Samuel, Ptolemaic Chronology (Munich 1962) 37-41.

218

War Festivals and the Calendar

months by the day of invisibility must have begun the “day” with sunrise, whereas those who used the evening of visibility of the new crescent began with sunset. The evidence of Plutarch makes it clear that there was a third possibility. The significance of the probability that the Greek day was measured from sunrise to sunrise is to underscore the fact that the Athenians might observe a state festival such as that of the Panathenaia on a day the evening hours of which were given over by the more superstitious to private apotropaic rites. g. Babylonian practice about lucky days. Before looking at the Greek evidence,

we may briefly examine

Babylonian

and Semitic practices.

There is no study similar to that of A. L. Oppenheim on dreams in which Greek and Babylonian customs are compared. But S. Langdon, in publishing the Schweich lecture of the British Academy, titled Babylonian Menologies and the Semitic Calendars (London 1935), has placed in our hands almost complete texts which give details of religious and civil rules imposed upon all Babylonians and Assyrians for every day in the year, many of which continue in the Jewish calen-

dar to this day. He notes that rest days may be either lucky or unlucky (p. 147). A septem principle was introduced into the lunar month based on rest days 7, 14, 19, 21, 28 (p. 73). During the nights of the darkness of the moon

at the end of the month, water was poured for

the souls of the dead (p. 156). The month equates with Gamelion (the marrying-month) but demons were particularly dangerous (p. inherited this same belief, and throughout

Shebat which Langdon was lucky for marriages 41). “Jewish mythology the history of Judaism,

Shebat has always been a time when devils, demons, and all evil spirits

are at large.” Langdon is able to reconstruct a tenth-century B.c. menology (pp. 73-82), or almanac, in which each day is characterized as lucky, unlucky, or sinister, with detailed instructions about sacrifices permitted or forbidden, and additional regulations about food, wash-

ing, etc. There were days on which neither the sick could be cured nor a man in difficulty consult a prophet.2°7 None might travel. Several days were “lucky and sinister.” A good many are marked “half of the day is lucky” (p. 54). Just as half of a day might be lucky and haif unlucky, so rituals and sacrifices at night are often made to different deities than those by day. 207. The crowning offense of Jesus in the eyes of the Pharisees was the healing of the man with a palsied hand on the Sabbath: “And they watched him whether he would heal on the Sabbath day that they might accuse him.”

War Festivals and the Calendar

219

I quote Langdon’s text for the rules of four days of Nisan, the first month of the year. Day 4. Festival of Nabu; half the day lucky. One may not go out into the street, nor go to judgement or a seer. King makes offerings to Marduk, Zarpanit, Nabu, Tashmet.

Day 8. Festival of Nabu. Lucky. The shepherd of peoples shall prepare for sacrifices by night. Offerings to Nabu and Tashmet. Day 19. Day of wrath of Gula. Sinister. Difficult for the sick. Physicians may not practice, and the seer speak not. Unsuited for doing anything desirable. Prayer and weeping shall the assembly institute. Because of Gula one shall not sweep his house, nor wash his feet, nor complete the construction of his house. King makes offering to Orion. Day 29. Day of the ravishment of the Moon-god. Sinister. Lucky. Difficult for the sick. Physicians may not practice and the seer may utter no word. Unsuited for work. One may not go out into the road. Timing of mourning of Sin and Shamash. One may not pray for himself, but shall pray to Sin and Shamash. King makes offerings to Anu, Nergal, and Nana. One may not go out

of the gate.

On page 84, Langdon comments, “Services to the gods of hell mark the two days before the eclipse of the moon. During the whole of the 29th and goth, while the moon

remained

invisible, none

could travel

by road or go out of his gate. . . The menology for Tebit 29 has, “The king shall not go out of the gate; he will meet with witchcraft in the wind of the street’.”?°® On page 108, Langdon publishes a seventh-

century Assyrian text which directs particular attention to the period of eclipse (darkness of the moon).?°? The question of borrowing does not occur within the narrow limits of our inquiry. It is enough to note that the superstitions about the dcéAnvor juepac belong to early world-wide

custom.

All early peoples

had their lunar superstitions. The sociological study of H. Webster, “Rest Days,” The University Studies of the University of Nebraska 11 (1911) 1-158, can be recommended for its rich collection of taboos having to do with the phases of the moon. Thus, the Polynesians call the 28th day “ghost,” the 29th “ended” and the goth “lost in the depths 208. Langdon (p. 106) finds close connections between the Babylonian, Greek and Syrian rites for the dead at a time corresponding to the fifth of Boedromion (the Genesia, or feast of ancestors). These rites have survived in the Christian calendar as

All Souls’ Day. For additional evidence about the Babylonian calendar, see R. Labat,

Un calendrier Babylonien des travaux des signes et des mois (Paris 1965). 209. The same text prescribes, “For the army to take up a march, it is unlucky in the evening watch, lucky in the middle watch, and unlucky in the morning watch.”

220

War Festivals and the Calendar

of Hades.” The whole concept of unluckiness permeates archaic societies, and ceremonies of ghost-riddance are common.

3. Hesiod and Proklos. Hesiod gives two instances of days being partly lucky and partly unlucky. Part of the day eivas of the mid-month is unfavorable: Op. 810-813. So also the twenty-fourth (Op. 821), which is best at dawn, but worse toward afternoon.2!° The Greek magical papyri usually have a twofold division éwev and 6deidys: see F. G. Kenyon, Greek Papyri in the British Museum 1 (London 1893) no. 121. In Egypt, every day was divided into three parts, each being marked lucky or unlucky. See T. A. Sinclair ap. Hesiod Op. 810 for bibliography. For “severed” or “divided” days (particularly for Rome where parts of days were

free for functions

and

parts free for judicial business),

see

S.

Kitrem, Symbolae Osloensis 25 (1947) 46-53. Proklos, in a passage (sch. to Hesiod Op. 765-768) which is thought to derive from Plutarch’s [epi jjpepv,2"1 explains that days were treated differently by different people and that even parts of days were desig-

nated as favorable or unfavorable for actions to be undertaken by men: at epi Tis T&y Tuepav exoyfs kal amwexhoyhs mapatvécers Exovor pe TAS apxas ek TY TapaTnonoewy. adda 6€ Tap’ &Adows éxpdrycay, érel kal Tap’ ’Opde Aeyorrat tives avTay dvaxpicers kal év rots “A@nvalwy matpio.s diwplabnoav, at bev ayabai tives, ai 6€ PadAat, péeoar Oé Tives efvat. Kal obx bras Huepas pdvov dmehaBov Ties edatplay exe mpds KaTapxXds Tier Tpdtewy KTr.212 Orpheus had written certain injunctions about good and bad days, and the

Athenians had their own peculiar rules on the subject. The scholion goes on to speak about the mornings belonging to the gods and the afternoons to the heroes and about the relations of certain plants and animals to the sun and the moon. Proklos (sch. to Op. 814) explains Hesiod’s verse about the opening of wine jars on the rpucewas day because this was when the moon was becoming invisible (ris ceAjvns dpxouévns amoKxplbrrecbar [i.e. amoppartecGac]), and one was deprived of its warmth in contrast with full-moon

days when wine is to be set aside. An early forerunner of unfavorable days may occur on Knossos tablet V280, where several days have the entry o-u-ki te-mi, which is interpreted as ovxi Oéus:

H. Rose in A. J. B. Wace and F. H. Stubbings, A

210. For other examples, see C. A. Lobeck, Aglaophamus 1 (1829) 412 n. Plutarch (Cam. 19.2) apparently held that the nature of each day was the same. 211. See Tresp, RVV 15 (1914) 106. 212. See also the scholia on 770, 780, and, in particular, 810.

War Festivals and the Calendar

221

Companion to Homer (London 1962) 475; and M. Ventris and J. Chadwick, Documents in Mycenaean Greek? (Cambridge 1973) 311.218 Ventris and Chadwick question whether the meaning may not be that the ceremony is to take place only in circumstances ascertained to be favorable. It accords with what evidence we can assemble to believe that the Athenians could celebrate a state festival in the daytime and that same evening private individuals observe the nocturnal rites of making monthly offerings to the images of Hekate at cross-roads. It was particularly on the last day of every month that nocturnal offerings were made to her at cross-roads by rich people in order to get rid of evil influences and to render her favorable. These were called or “suppers of Hekate,’’ and included cakes set round

‘Exdrns 6etrva with candles,

fish, eggs, garlic, and dogs.?!4 ‘These offerings of food, meant

to be

prophylactic, were often consumed by wayfarers. ‘This resembles other

rites of riddance at cross-roads.?!5 If one seeks a translation for these forbidden days (or nights), called aroppades

Or ytapat,

I would follow Farnell in adopting “‘tabooed.”?16

In the Hesiodic system, he (Op. 804) puts a special taboo on the fifth day of the month; it is the only one in his list which is wholly unlucky, a day when it would seem to be best to do nothing, at least outside the house; for on this day the Erinyes are-wandering about. So a Babylonian text published by Langdon contains the dogma that on the fifth day of Nisan “he who fears Marduk and Zarpanit shall not go out to work.” But the Babylonian rule of abstinence is based on fear of offending the high god, whereas with the Hellene there is no moral com-

mandment about keeping the day holy. His reluctance to do certain things rested on a more primitive sentiment. It was unlucky for Alkibiades that he should return to the Peiraieus when the Plynteria was 213. On their page 476, however, a quite different interpretation is offered. 214. For the date and offerings, see schol. to Aristophanes Plutus 544 and 594; Athenaios 7.325A, and references in Heckenbach, RE s.v. Hekate (1912) 2780-2781. Cf. T. Kraus,

Hekate

(Heidelberg

1960) 88, and, in particular,

A. Laumonier,

Les

cultes indigénes en Carie (Paris 1958) 393. Theopompos, as quoted by Porphyry (De Abstin. 2.16 — Jacoby FGrHist 115 frg. 344), says that the pious Klearchos of Methydrion wreathed and cleaned the image of Hekate at every new moon. Probably the

best discussion of Hekate’s suppers is that of K. F. Smith in Hastings’ Encyclopedia 6.565-567. 215. See McCulloch in Hastings’ Encylopedia of Religion and Ethics 4.332-333Christianity replaced the images at cross-roads by crucifixes and ikons. 216. Cults 5.215216.

War Festivals and the Calendar

222 going on;

for this was

a cathartic

ceremony

and

evil influence

was

abroad. Nor, as Xenophon says,”!” would anyone venture to engage in serious work. But such days were not necessarily ones of gloom. ‘The day of the Xées was a time of merry drinking and yet apophras in the eyes of some scholars; so we may best understand the term by translating it “tabooed.” 4. Days émpaxrot. The scholiast on Lucian’s Timon 43, commenting on the word Diasia, says: ‘““The day is apophras . . . there were among the Greeks certain days which brought with them complete idleness (arpagiav) and cessation of business (a4pyiay) were called apophrades. On these days no one would accost anyone and friends would have no dealings with each other, and even sanctuaries were not used. These times were so accounted on the analogy of the month of February, when it was also the custom to sacrifice to those below, and all that

month was dedicated to the dead and accompanied by gloom, everything going on in an unusual fashion, just as the Athenians celebrated the Diasia in gloom.”?!8 To the scholiast the Diasia in Anthesterion is but one element of a month given over to the dead.?!® S. Kyriades, following O. Wilke,2° has developed the idea that not only the last three days, but the intercalary months, were apophrades.””! He cites G. Jungle Jee Nl a, 218. According to Jane Harrison, Prolegomena

to the Study of Greek Religion

(Cambridge 1903) 47-s0.

219. Plato (Laws. 8.828CD) proposed to segregate the chthonic rites from the worship of the Olympians and put them in the twelfth month apart—a month sacred to Pluto. 220. Mannus 10 (1918) 143.

221. Geras A. Keramopoullou (Athens 1954) 551-566, esp. 560-562. Kyriakides cites several articles not available to me, including one by N. G. Polites on apophras. H. Webster, “Rest Days” (University Studies of the University of Nebraska 11 [1911] 149-150), has shown that Mayas and Egyptians, at far removed quarters of the globe, called intercalary days “superfluous, useless,” and performed no civic business. These days were consecrated to no duty. The intercalary month, mentioned in the Rig Veda, bears a distinctly unfavorable character, being regarded as unfit for any religious undertaking (Webster, 88 n. 19). Cf. W. R. Dawson on the Egyptian calendar (JEA 12 [1926] 263): “The Epagomenal Days . . . were all bad days, and were fraught with such manifold dangers that special incantations were devised for protection on those days, and upon them no work was to be done.” In Greece, we have no sacred

calendar for any intercalary month, although meetings of the ekklesia were held on intercalary days and in intercalary months. Part of the problem is the fact that there was no fixed intercalary month. See my Choiseul Marble 63. — W. R. Paton and E. L. Hicks (The Inscriptions of Cos [Oxford 1891] 333-334) suggest that one partic-

War Festivals and the Calendar

223

bauer, “Das Schaltjahr ist Volksglauben, wie alles vom Normalen und Geregelten Abweichendes, ungliicksbringend;”222 and F. K. Ginzel, with reference to epagomenai days in Egypt, writes: ““Merkwiirdig ist, dass die 5 Erganzungstage tiberall eine unheilvolle, ungunstige Bedeutung haben.” An inscription from Ephesos (SIG* 867) prescribes that all the days of the month Artemision shall be public holidays and the entire month be dedicated absolutely to Artemis. According to O. Gruppe,

Griechische

Mythologie

und Religionsgeschichte

2 (Munich

1906) 1295 n. 2, Kallinikos in his De vita S. Hypatii 129 (96) (Bonn 1895) (non vidi) says that during the fifty-day period of the dmodpdses nuéoat Which ushered in the xddaos ris uvoepas ’Apréusdos (= Bendis?)

in Bithynia, it was forbidden to travel. It would be unreasonable to assume that all economic life was suspended for an entire month,?4 just as “‘it is not easy to imagine an enlightened citizen of the Athens of the fifth century s.c., an Aeschylus, a Pericles, chewing buckthorn from early dawn to keep off the ghosts of his ancestors.”225 I suspect that part of the answer is to be found in a group of inscriptions having to do with éxexerpiar days,?26 as brought ular sacrifice to Zeus Machaneus took place at Kos only in the intercalary month, but they admit that the theory is not proved. 222. In H. Bachtold-Staubli, Handwoérterbuch des deutschen Aberglauben 4 (Berlin 1935) 996. Cf. W. M. Watt, Muhammad at Medina (Oxford 1956) 300: “The Qur’an implies that intercalation was in some respect a human activity infringing

God’s law, and contrasts the fixity of the latter with variability of the human device.” 223. Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie 1 (Leipzig 1906) 69. 224. Xenophon (Hell, 1.4.12) says that the day of the Plynteria, which Plutarch says was apophras, was one “of no serious business” (spépa obdevds orovdatov Epyov). 225. J. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (Cambridge 1903) 40. 226. As is well known from the entries for écexeypia in the Thesaurus and in LSJ, the word, when applied to a day or a period of time, was used in two senses, (1) for a “holiday” in the local city-state, which is the meaning here; and (2) for ‘armistice, truce” during the period of a sacred festival. Examples of the latter use were studied briefly in my War 1, 121-126. See now the complete testimonia by F. J. F. Nieto, Los acuerdos belicos en la antiqua Graecia 1 (Santiago 1975) 150-162. Apparently only those cities where a formal proclamation had been made were bound by the ekecheiria. Thus, the scholiast to Thucydides 4.117 defines ekecheiria as dpodoyia, “agreement,” and that between specific states. The sacred truce for the Greater

Eleusinia lasted for approximately fifty-five days (JG I? 6), and the existence of the ekecheiria did not, of course, mean that military operations in general were suspended. Obviously, no great concourse of pilgrims could possibly assemble in a country like Greece, divided into small city-states, unless some sanction protected the pilgrims from military activity by hostile states through whose territories they might be passing or in which the agon might be held. We know few details and

224

War Festivals and the Calendar

together by L. Robert in Etudes anatoliennes (Paris 1937) 177-179. One contains the interdiction: 7) xpivérwoay dé unde of Ervyvmpoves &v Tals Huépats Tavrats unde of eicaywyets—. So in the new Thasian law regulating

the calendar, published by F. Salviat, BCH 82 (1958) 193-267 (= Sokolowski LS Supplément no. 69), the interdictions are about the legal processes of oes and araywyn. At Athens on the interlunia of the month, the only legal trials allowed were murder cases (ras juépas & ais

Tas govixas dixas) and these were apotropaic in nature:?7 Pollux 8.117, "Apetos Tayos ... Kad’ exacTov 6€ uiva TpLdv huep&y edikafov ée@eEns, TeTAPTN

POivovros, tpitn,

devrépa.?*8 It is important to recognize the distinction

between the Areiopagos and the dikasteries. When the author of the Constitution of the Athenians speaks of the number of festival days at Athens, he says that these days were exempt from court sessions (3.8): mpos O€ TovUToLs olecBar Xp) Kal éoptdas aye xphvar “AOnvatovs, ev ats ovx otdv Te OuKagev. Kal d&yovow pev éopras durAactovs 7} of &\Aot. Pseudo-Xenophon

Ath. Pol. 3.8, explicitly refers to the cancellation of legal business on days of festivals: otecOac xpi) Kal éopras &yew xpyvar “AOnvalovs év ais obx oldy Te duxafev. It is the requirements of litigation which were ignored

during official state-festivals. H. Frisch estimates as sixty the number

those chiefly from violations of the truce. We note, 1) the Akarnanian

ambassador

at

Sparta, speaking of the violation of the Pamboiotia by the Aitolians (Polybios 9.34.11), says that to attack the assembled pilgrims was impiety of the worst sort, savagery fit only for Gauls or Scythians. The athletes in particular were sacred: Plutarch Aratos 28. 2) The second hypothesis (3) to Demosthenes 19 De falsa legatione says that Philip Il of Makedon found it worth his while to make restitution and apology to Phrynon of Athens after the latter was attacked on his way to Olympia by some of Philip’s soldiers. An attack on pilgrims was an act of brigandage. However, no such immunity applied at other times, to judge from Aristophanes’ reference to the Boiotian control over the Athens to Delphi road (Aves 188-189;

€f0’ dorep

tyets,

Av tevar

Bovropeda / Mv0a5e, Bowrods dlodov airotuea). The belief that the territory of Elis was sacred (Strabo 8.3.33.358 and Polybios 4.73.10) is now explained as part of an anti-Spartan tradition which arose in the fourth century: see Walbank on the Polybios passage. 227. There is abundant evidence that these trials were conducted in the open air: Aristotle Ath. Pol. 57.4 (iai@pur), Antiphon 5 Herodes 11 (& bralpdq); Pollux 8.118. Lucian (Hermotimos 64) adds the important detail that these cases were tried in the darkness of the night (& vuxri cal oxdrw ducdfovow). For the “three judging days” of the Areiopagos, see also B. C. Dietrich, Death, Fate and the Gods

(London

1965) 110-111. 228. In somewhat similar fashion, Varro (6.30) defines Roman dies nefasti as days

when no legal action can be taken. Hicks (GIBM no. 482, P- 145) renders as “‘justitium,” days free from legal business.

éxexeupia

War Festivals and the Calendar

225

of days when the dikasteries did not meet.2° This number is about half that which the American laborer takes off, but not greatly different from what it was in America before the rise of trade unions. The occurrence of these daysat Athens at irregular intervals, and grouped together around a few major festivals, must have caused more interference with the routine of daily life. The Athenian boule did not

meet on days which were agéoiyo. (Aristotle, Ath. Pol. A319) ,¢osaaterm which is not synonymous with drodpades and J. D. Mikalson has shown that the boule did indeed meet on the 27th and 2goth.23! We know from Demosthenes 24 Against Timokrates 26 that the boule did not meet on

Hekatombaion (I) 12, the day of the Kronia, a festival which had no apothropaic rites, and hence was not apophras.?32 M. P. Nilsson has

argued in several publications that the calendar came to Greece from Asia, and he has stressed the fact that Apollo and Hekate are the only deities closely connected with the calendar and the superstitions about days of the month; and both deities, he says, originated in Asia Mi229. Frisch, The Constitution of the Athenians (Copenhagen 1942) 226. Cf. F. K. Ginzel, Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie 2 (Leipzig 1911) 360 n. 1. 230. Cf. Harpokration s.v. xvpla éckdyola, and Aristeides 1.p.344 (S. Jebb): kal qv E. A. Gardner (in Whibley, ComTa ypdmpara aredidocay. pey adéorpos, ws pacar,

panion to Greek Studies+ [Cambridge 1931] 406) believes that no fewer than seventy days of the year were set aside at Athens for festivals of various sorts. Beside Perikles’ boast in Thucydides 2.38, see Plato Alk. 2.148E, and the comments of the traveler quoted by J. G. Frazer, Pausanias 1 p. xliii. 231. Sacred and Civil Calendar of the Athenian Year (Princeton 1975) 193. These

dates, of course, were See the next section.

kar’ &pxovra

dates in any given year, not necessarily xara Océ.

232. It is to be noted, however, that in 353 B.c. the politician Timokrates arranged for a meeting of the ekklesia on that day. E. Kalinka (Die pseudoxenophontische Athenaion Politeia [Leipzig 1913] 264) long ago pointed out that the language of

Ath. 3.2 (4776... dvvarév) means that on occasions public debate might take place on a state holiday. A. K. Michels (The Calendar of the Roman Republic [Princeton 1967] 46) writes, “I know

of no evidence

that meetings of the comitia curiata were

in any way limited by the character of the days.” I believe that the same could be said of the Athenian ekklesia. J. D. Mikalson

(The Sacred and Civil Calendar of the

Athenian Year [Princeton 1975] 187) publishes a table showing ten meetings of the ekklesia on days of state festivals. A passage in Aischines 3 Against Ktesiphon 66-67, as well as Demosthenes

24 Against Timokrates

26, makes it clear that the ekklesia met

on festival days; but the implication is that this was exceptional. Meetings of the ekklesia were regulated by the prytany calendar, and there is no reason to believe that the subject was discussed by Philochoros in the context of lucky and unlucky days. In some cases such as during the Dionysia, the prytaneis took advantage of the fact that the city was full of citizens to summon the ekklesia.

War Festivals and the Calendar

226

nor.2%3 See, for example, Primitive Time-Reckoning (Lund 1920) 368.7% On the nights of invisibility of the moon, the interlunary interval, there were certain nocturnal rites to Hekate and the apotropaic deities for riddance of terrors from the underworld. The functions of the @eol dmorpomato are discussed by J. W. Hewitt, HSCP 19 (1908) 109-110. Such nocturnal rites of aversion did not interfere with the performances of the Panathenaia at Athens on Hekatombaion 28. Indeed, such rites did not justify the designation of a day as éop77.° But as we have seen above, other days such as that of the Choes, “in which,”

says Photios,2°° “they believed that the spirits of the dead rose up again,” came to be termed apophrades because of their association with apotropaic rites; and these days took on additional interdictions. The

particular interdictions probably varied. Theophrastos’ characterization of the “boorish” man (Char. 4.15) proves that, although public

affairs were suspended on new moon day (noumenia), the most sacred of days, the markets were open for business and this holiday was in 233. In the field of origins, there is little agreement.

[1978] 1-18) suggests Les cultes indigénes tion that Hekate was Hekate (Heidelberg

B. C. Dietrich

(RAM

121

(with bibliography) a Cypriot origin for Apollo. A. Laumonier, en Carie (Paris 1958) 413-425, is a strong advocate of the posioriginally a moon goddess. The subject is debated by T. Kraus, 1960) 19 (with bibliography). Cf. W. Berg, Numen 21 (1974)

128-140. For the Karian

origin and cult of Hekate,

see B. C. Dietrich, Death, Fate

and the Gods (London 196s) 341-343. If the triple-formed Hekate in art, about which so many books have been written, had its origin in Attika, as Kraus

believes (Paus-

anias 2.30.2), the simplest explanation, which is not offered, would be to regard the

representation as applying to Hekate of the crossroads and the three écéAnvou nights. She carries a torch (moon), saucepan or phiale (food) and an oinochoe (libations). The

chief rites for Hekate

in Attika were

performed

on

the three nights of the

darkness of the moon, and what more likely iconography to symbolize these rites than the form used? Krause (p. 106), after considering various theories, can only conclude that this form of Hekate was derived merely from the notion of her “gerade in ihrer Rolle als Schiitzerin vor Tiir und Tor.” For more recent discussion

of the statue of Hekate, see W-H. Schuchhardt, “Alkamenes,” Archdologische Gesellschaft, Berlin. Winckelmannsprogramm No. 126 (1977) 24-30 and. 59 (bibliography). For triple-bodied Hekates from other regions, see C. H. Greenewalt Jr., Ritual Dinners in Early Historic Sardis (Berkeley 1978) 44 n. 15. For Hekate Trioditis, see in particular Usener in RM 58 (1903) 167-168 and 338-939, and the articles on “CrossRoads” by MacCulloch and Wiinsch in Hastings’ Encyclopaedia. 234. See also Geschichte der griechischen Religion 12 (Munich 195) 561. Hekate holds an especially honorable position in Hesiod (Theogony 404-452). M. L. West (Hesiod Theogony [Oxford 1966] 277) notes, “She was always a goddess of private rather than public cult.” 235. Whether

Philochoros

and

Plutarch

wrote

rites private in character, has not been established. 236. S.V. mLapa tuépa.

of state

cult

only, or

included

War Festivals and the Calendar

227

fact a great day for marketing: W. H. Roscher, “Die Beziehungen des Pfaus zur Neumondfeier und Theophr. character. 4,1 5,” Philologus 57 (1898) 213-219.757 In Quaestiones Romanae 2x (Mor. 269E), Plutarch, answering the question, Why do they (Romans) consider the day which follows the kalends, ides, or nones as ill-suited for travel or leaving home? applies the word apophrades to such days, obviously translating the Latin nefasti.2°8 When one examines the various superstitions about “unlucky,”

“‘ill-omened,”

“prohibited,”

days in Webster’s

study, one

sees that the prohibitions might take many forms, the most common being the avoidance of travel and of legal business. The terms used allow us only to recognize that such days were characterized by taboos. Days called arpaxro. marked some abstinence from work, but not necessarily for all people. 5. The nature of xara Ody days. The strangest phenomenon in Athenion time reckoning is the series of dual dates given in terms of lunar, or festival, months. A table of nineteen such dates in which a day kata

theon is equated with a day kat’archonta is published in Choiseul Marble (Berkeley 1970) 31. Neugebauer’s recognition of dates card Oedv in the astronomical literature as being “according to the moon,” or true lunar dates, gave rise to the theory that dates kata theon designate accurate lunar dates and dates kat’archonta constitute an arbitrary modification of the kata theon calendar.?*® That the phrases kata theon

and kata selenen (“according to the moon’’) are synonymous has now been demonstrated.”*° In addition, there are attested examples of embolimoi days, for example éxrn per’ eixddas dydde EuBoriuwr, so that

we know that the archon marked off the sequence of days in this particular month (Hekatombaion) as 24, 24, 24°, 244, 24°, 24°, 247, 248, 249.41 But it is the suppression of dates to compensate for embolimoi 237. For the impossible ei ofpepov 6 dyer (all MSS.) vovynviay &ye, Roscher supports the emendation eé ojpepov 6 ray voupnviay aye, “if today the peacock celebrates

the noumenia.” The peacocks which were kept in a private zoo could be seen only on the noumenia:

Antiphon frg. B 12 (Maidment); Athenaios 9.397D. For the noumenia,

see also Mikalson, HThR 65, (1972) 261-279.

238. This passage, which has been ignored in recent studies, is clear evidence that the words nefasti and apophrades were roughly equivalent. On Roman dies nefasti, the legis actiones were

forbidden.

The

senate met, contiones were

held, courts were

open except for the legis actiones, markets were busy. 239. Pritchett-Neugebauer, Calendars of Athens (Cambridge, Mass. 1947) 16-17. 240. See Pritchett, Phoenix 30 (1976) 344-345.

241. Hesperia 32 (1963) 17. See the table of such dates in Ancient Athenian Calendars on Stone (Berkeley 1963) 341. Cf. Phoenix 30 (1976) 341, and CSCA 9g (1976) 185-188.

228

War Festivals and the Calendar

days which poses a real problem, for each archon’s year was limited to 354 + 1 days (ordinary) or 384 + 1 (intercalary), and he must perforce leave office on Skirophorion (XII) ultimo. The surprising feature is that dates were not immediately suppressed. The archon might wait several weeks to count successive days as Month 15, 17, 19, and even resume the intercalation of additional days before the calendar was brought into accord.24 Indeed, dates were frequently suppressed, particularly in Skirophorion (XII). The question arises, when

did peasants chew

their buckthorn

and

perform the apotropaic rites to Hekate? My conjecture would be that official state festivals were observed according to the kat’archonta, or festival, calendar, but that the dcéAnvo. nights (days) with their superstitious taboos, not a part of the state cult, which arose out of a primi-

tive lunar calendar, were observed kata theon (‘according to the moon”). In any case, it is clear that the Athenians lived according to two calendars which used lunar terminology (‘““waxing” and “waning”’) and felt the need at times to distinguish days in such calendars in their official documents. The method adopted served in part to set apart the time for festivals of official state-cult in any particular archon’s year from the time for rites which were observed according to the phases of the moon. I would guess, too, that the Areiopagos met according to

the kata theon calendar. 6. Other lunar superstitions. In connection with lunar influences on the calendar, A. Bouché-Leclercq has studied the theory of xarapxat (electiones), “forecasts of undertakings.”44 He notes among the Germans such superstitions as those reported in Caesar (BG 1.50): non esse fas Germanos superare, si ante novam lunam proelio contendissent;

and Tacitus (Germ. 11): Certis diebus, cum aut incohatur luna aut impletur; nam agendis rebus hoc auspicatissimum initium credunt. Zenobios (3.79) says, évros €Bdduns: amretpnro “APnvnow orpariay eEdyewv Tpo Tis TOD unvos €Bdduns. ‘This notice, which is found also in Hesychios and the Souda, was discussed in Part I pp. 116-121, in conjunction with a similar interdiction among the Spartans at the time of the battle of Marathon. W. H. Roscher has collected abundant evidence to show

that the septem principle of dividing the period of the normal visibility of the moon, twenty-eight days, into four parts was widespread in 242. Sch. to Demosthenes 21 Against Meidias

114 = BCH 1 (18747) 16: elourfpra:

Bucia brép ris Bovdijs ywopern elorobons eis 7d BovdevThprov TH vovunvia Tod ‘ExarouBarevos Envos.

243. For one example, see CSCA 9g (1976) 187. 244. L’astrologie grecque (Paris 1899) chap. 13.

War Festivals and the Calendar

229

the ancient world, and has discussed the Athenian interdiction on his p5622 In addition to the Spartan and Athenian interdictions, it was considered unlucky in Makedonia for the army to take the field in the month of Daisios: Plutarch Alex. 16. This unlucky feature of the month Alexander circumvented at the battle of the Granikos by calling this month an intercalary Artemisios. 245. “Die Enneadischen und hebdomadischen Fristen und Wochen der altesten Griechen,” Abhandlungen der kéniglich sichischen Gesellschaft der Wissenscha ften

21:4 (1903). Cf. Eitrem, RE s.v. Hebdome

(1912) 2579.35-37-

CHAPTER VI

MILITARY

VOWS

TuE vow is the proposal of a bargain that the recipient of the favor requested shall make suitable recompense. ‘The fulfillment of a contingent vow is often pledged by an oath. In the Greek concept, a definite offering must be promised as a return for the favor to be granted. One

said, “Deliver

me

from

and

the danger,

I vow

to sacrifice’

so

much.! Characteristic of the Greek attitude about the contractual nature of the dedication is the line quoted in Plato’s Republic (3.390E)

which the Souda (s.v. d&pa) attributes to Hesiod (fr. 272): “Gifts move the gods and gifts persuade dread kings’

(pa Geods meifer, dp’ aldoious

Bacidjas). So Medea in Euripides (line 964) says, weifev d&pa Kal Oeovs Aoyos. In an early akropolis dedication ([G I?, 625: A. E. Raubitschek, Dedications from the Athenian Akropolis [Cambridge, Mass. 1949] no.

218) Menandros makes his dedication in fulfillment of a vow to please the goddess and asks that his wealth, given to him by Athena, may be

preserved by her: mor’ amapxev Tevde Mévavdpo[s — avebexer| ebxodey Tehéoas, sor xapiv avr [L6L66s,| Alywteds, huids Aeuerpio, hot [ob rov 6dBor | cote, Aros Oiryatep, Tovde xap[icapeve (?)|

So the prayer to Athena in JG I?, 471 (Raubitschek no. 64) states: he 3’ attots Tpddpova Ouuov éxor. Similar sentiment occurs in JG I?, 650 (Raubitschek no. 40): dyadp’ avebexev Kérios, hdr xaipooa didoies Go avabevar, and I?, 686 (Raubitschek no. 190): xapuv dyridido.

Eisenhut’s article “Votum” in RE Suppl. 14 (1974) 964-973, treats, with slight bibliography, only the Roman custom. The two most serviceable articles are in Daremberg-Saglio,

Dictionnaire,

“Donarium”

by Homolle (1892) and “‘Votum” by Toutain (1918).? ‘There is much material in W. H. D. Rouse, Greek Votive Offerings (Cambridge 1902);

but Rouse does not expressly discuss the subject of the vow. In Roman religion, the vota publica were very common and with characteristic 1. W. Headlam on Aischylos Ag. 924. Legend tells how Polyneikes and his Argive allies set up statues of Ares and Aphrodite before their disastrous expedition: Pausanias 2.25.1. As a rule, this kind of faith did not appeal to the Greek: he waited to let the god fulfil his part of the bargain first. 2. In RE 5.1531 line 22 (1905), for donaria a notation is given, “s. Weihgeschenke.” This entry was never published. In RE gA1 (1961) 924 line 58, for “votum” one was referred to Suppl.-Band 9g. Such an entry does appear in Suppl. 14, but it does not treat the Greek side.

[ 230J

Military Vows

231

formalism a regular contract was at times drawn up between the State and the deity concerned. The most remarkable of all was the ver sacrum, the custom in times of great danger to vow to the deity the sacrifice of everything born in the next spring, if the calamity under which they were laboring should be removed. In two attested historical instances, after the battle of Lake Trasimene and at the close of the

Second

Punic

War,

the vow

was

confined

to domestic

animals.

See

chapter g of W. W. Fowler, Religious Experience of the Roman People (London 1911).

In the first part of this chapter are collected examples, military in nature, of cases in which the Greeks offered vows public ly on behalf of the whole community or army. Instances of vows includ ed in treaties are also incorporated. With Greek private vows, studied in the second part of the chapter, an attempt is made to select the few obviou sly military examples from the records of numerous vows emplo yed by individuals at various critical moments of life. Plato tells us (Laws 10. 909E-910A) that it is customary for those in peril or distres s to vow sacrifices and promise the founding of shrines to gods and daimon es and children of gods. The frequency of such vows is noted in Pal. Anthology g.7,2 an epigram which does not misrepresent the ancien t cus-

tom, as attested in the Platonic passage. Times of war, especia lly when the existence of the State was imperiled by hostile attack, often gave occasion for vows to be made in public on behalf of all. Thus, in Homer J]. 6.274ff., Hektor bade his mother Hekabe promise the sac-

rifice to Athena of twelve heifers if she would have pity upon the city of Troy, and, when about to fight with Ajax, he vowed to dedicate the

spoil in Athena’s temple at Troy (7.82). The Homeric poems have many examples of the vow: Iliad 6.240ff.; 10.289ff.; 23.14; Od. 11.20 ff.; 13.355ff.; 17.50ff.; and others. The vow which Aischylos has Eteokles pronounce in the Septem (271-279) is a veritable compact: “May the gods fight on our side. Now first hear my vow ... To the guardian gods of our country I make my vow that if all go well and the city be preserved, they shall stain with blood of sheep the hearths of the gods and offer trophies.” In Sophokles Trachiniai 238ff., Herakles, before the capture of Oichalia, vowed the dedication to Zeus of altars and the tribute of fruitful ground,‘ Plato

(Phaedo 58B) relates that the Athenians vowed to Apollo (7 of ’AréAdwve ebfavro)that if they were freed from the horrible tribute of human lives exacted by Minos the Cretan king, they would every year dispatch

3. Cf. A. S. F. Gow and D. L. Page, The Garland of Philip 2 (Cambridge 1968) 466. 4. See J. C. Kamerbeek’s note on the word edxrata in his edition of the play.

Military Vows

232

a sacred embassy to Delos.® Justin (20.3.1) tells the story that in the war between Kroton and Lokroi which ended in the battle of Sagra (ca. 555 B.c.), the people of Kroton consulted the Delphic oracle and were told that the enemy must first be beaten with vows before he was defeated in battle (Responsum prius votis hostes quam armis vincendos). So they vowed a tithe of the spoils to Apollo. The men of Lokroi exceeded this vow by promising a ninth and were rewarded with a victory. The moral of the story was that success could be won by vows (.. . votis vincerentur). In historical times the most famous of such public acts of intercession was the vow of the Athenians made before the battle of Marathon offering to sacrifice to Artemis a number of she-goats equal to that of the enemy who might be killed in the impending fight. The vow was made by either Miltiades (Ailianos VH 2.25) or the polemarch Kallimachos (sch. to Aristophanes Eq. 660). The Athenians, as Xenophon

(Anab. 3.2.12) was later to explain, could not find enough she-goats. The vow was therefore commuted into a yearly sacrifice of five hundred, and this continued to be done a century later in Xenophon’s day when the original total of Persian dead, no less than 6,400 (Hero-

dotos 6.117), had long been passed. This vow is parodied in Aristophanes

(Eq.

660-663),

where

the

Sausage-Seller

proposes

to

sacrifice,

though for one year only, double the number of she-goats which were offered year by year to Artemis as a thank-offering for the low price of anchovies. Herodotos (¥7.132.2) mentions another vow made by the patriotic Greeks that they would, if victorious, take a tithe for the god at Delphi from all Greeks who submitted to Persia unless they had done so under compulsion.* The oath is quoted in connection with a list of states in northern and central Greece which gave earth and water to Xerxes. Herodotos does not clearly mark either time or place of the oath.? The earliest occasion is thought to be at the meeting of the probouloi at the Isthmos in 481 (Herodotos 7.145), and the latest is judged to be before the fighting at Thermopylai. There is no evidence as to how 5. Cf. Plutarch Theseus 23; Aristotle Ath. Pol. 56; Bacchylides 16 (17) .1 with Jebb’s notes. 6. Cf. Diodoros 11.3.3. 7. However, H. R. Immerwahr, Form and Thought in Herodotos (Cleveland 1966) 134 n. 164, suggests that the passage is in its proper chronological context. 8. See Brunt, Historia 2 (1953) 136. Cf. How

and Wells on 7.132.2; A. Hauvette,

Heérodote (Paris 1894) 328; L. Robert, Etudes épigraphiques et philologiques (Paris 1938) 311; C. Hignett, Xerxes’ Invasion of Greece (Oxford 1963) 460-461..The socalled “Oath of Plataiai’”’ was a pledge or oath of friendship to fight together, not a

Military Vows

233

this vow was ever carried out. How-Wells suggest that the Medizers “could shelter themselves under the P©ovisio py avayxacberres.”” Earlier,

Herodotos, discussing the motive which impelled Kyros to place Kroisos and fourteen Lydian youths on a pyre for sacrifice, suggests that Kyros

may have so acted in fulfillment of a vow

(ebxv émuredéoar bedwy).

The explanation of an inscription (SJG* 1122) found at Selinous and dated to the middle of the fifth century, seems to be that the Selinountians, relying upon previous successes, vowed

a dedication

to

certain deities in the event of victory in some impending war.® Afterward, ¢udlas yevouévas, when peace had come, it was resolved to keep the promise, and a dedication valued at sixty talents was set up in the temple of Apollo. The inscription was given a full-scale study by W. M. Calder,

“The

Inscription

from

Temple

G at Selinus,’

GRBS

Mono-

graph 4 (1963). Diodoros, in describing the thanksgivings due to Zeus, Apollo, and the Erinyes, after the Athenian victory at Arginousai in 406 B.c., refers

to vows for victory made before the battle in language that bespeaks a common practice (13.102.2): rds brép rijs vixns ebxds... 73 Al TO Dwrfpe kai ’“AmoAhwre kal Tals ceuvais Oeats dmddote Tov’Tos yap evédpevor Tods ToNEplous KaTevaupaxnoaper.

During the time of despair which succeeded immediately on the massacre of their generals by Tissaphernes, the Ten Thousand

on the

motion of Xenophon vowed to Zeus Soter that they would sacrifice thank-offerings for deliverance as soon as they reached a friendly land (ebEacbar 7B beS ToiTw Dice cwrhpia drov dy TpBrov els didlay aduxcouefa).1

Every man in the assembly raised his hand in approval of the proposition. Thereupon they made the vow and struck up the paian (é rotrov nvéavto kal éeraravicay).

We receive the impression that other vows were made during the remainder of the march, for, when the army reached

the sea at the Greek maritime city of Trapezous, they discharged the promises which they had made to Zeus, as well as to Herakles and to other gods according as they had vowed (ro?s &Ados Oeots & niEavro).’ military vow as understood in this chapter; it is in no sense a contingent promise to the gods. Since the publication by L. Robert of a marble stele found at Menidi, it has been the subject of manifold studies, with the vast majority of scholars holding that it is a fabrication. P. Siewert, Der Eid von Plataiai [= Vestigia 16, Munich 1972] argues for its authenticity, unsuccessfully in my judgment. g. Cf. E. S. Roberts, Introduction to Greek Epigraphy 1 (Cambridge 1887) 144; E. L. Hicks and G. F. Hill, Manual of Greek Historical Inscriptions (Oxford 1901) 52; W. H. D. Rouse, GVO

126.

1o. Cf. Meiggs-Lewis, SGHI no. 38. 11. Anab. 3.2.9. 12. Anab. 4.8.25.

234

Military Vows

They offered a sufficient number of oxen (ixavol Bes) at their mountain

camp overlooking the sea. As part of the festival, they instituted athletic contests. The hides of the oxen were offered as prizes in the games. A large marble base engraved in stoichedon style, found at Elateia in Phokis, carries a dedication in verse which states that the city had erected in consequence of a vow

(4 wé\us ebéauevn) statues of the savior

demigods: IG IX.1.130. The inscription dates from the fourth century. The editor of the editio princeps (P. Paris, BCH 10 [1886] 367-370) suggests that the original dedication belonged to an earlier age, and that the monument had been restored. He associates the original dedication with an affray (Pausanias 10.1.11) in which the mantis Tellias struck terror into the adversaries of the Phokians by means of a coat of whitewash. It seems more likely that the inscription is contemporary with one of the numerous invasions into Phokis in the fourth century (Xenophon, Hellie.5 4,5. 2.99

s0-ie, 2109.

02 eal Ane ee

eee

A Hellenistic epigram of Hegesippos, probably of the third century B.c., refers to the dedication to Herakles of the tepov érAdv

of Arche-

stratos. If the adjective is regarded as an attribute, Archestratos ‘‘may have vowed the dedication long before the object actually reached the temple, perhaps conditionally on the god protecting him.”14 From a rhetorical passage in the first Letter of [Demosthenes] (16), one may infer that before entering upon a campaign, it was customary to vow to the gods a share in the spoils as a reward for their assistance. The writer concludes his letter with a stirring epilogue, exhorting the Athenians to go forth to battle asking all the gods for victory with vows: KAT TOV ViKNTNpiov aTacw avrots evEdpevor, 1

Although we do not know the procedure in making the military vow, there are epigraphical documents which shed light on the public vow in general, the most significant of which are two decrees of the Athenian demos from the year 362/1 B.c.: IG IL’, 112 and 114 (= M.N. Tod,

GHI 2, nos. 144 and 146). These texts tell us that in the course of de-

liberation preceding the vote on the decrees, solemn vows were pro13. Cf. W. H. D. Rouse, GVO 129. 14. AP 6.178. I quote the interpretation of A. S. F. Gow and D. L. Page, Hellenistic

Epigrams 2 (Cambridge 1965) 300, who regard the piece of military gear as a shield. P, Waltz in the Bude edition (Paris 1931) thinks that it was a spear. Lorimer (BSA 42 [1947] 76 n. 2) maintains that the word éx\ov

was habitually used of the shield,

and this view is supported by A. Snodgrass, Early Greek Armour and Weapons (Edinburgh 1964) 186. 15. For the use of xara in oath formulas,

huc quoque

dictio

ebxecOa card vixnrnplwr,

see the Thesaurus

Rogare

deos

col. 1012:

victoriam

cum

“Pertinet

voto,

cum sponsione sacrorum et praemiorum ab ipsis victoria potitis offerendorum.”

h.e.

Military Vows

235

nounced by the public herald.16 In 7G I1?, 112, the instruction to take the vow, made at the moment when the Athenians had decided to con-

clude the alliance, is as follows: “Let the herald vow to Olympian Zeus,

Pallas Athena,

Demeter,

Kore, the Twelve

Gods, and the Erinyes a

sacrifice and a procession if the decision about the alliance brings benefits and everything turns out to the people’s wishes.” The commentary of P. Foucart, RA 33 (1898) 316-317, is worth repeating: “C’est l’engagement pris avec certains dieux désignés, s’ils accordent la faveur qu’on leur demande, de leur donner en échange telle ou telle chose. Dans le cas présent, ce que le peuple demande 4 Zeus Olympien, a Athéna Polias, etc., c’est que l’alliance tourne a Vavantage des Athéniens,

édy ovveveiyxnt. Ce qu'il promet, en cas de succés, et il s’y engage par la voix du héraut, c’est d’offrir 4 ces mémes divinités un sacrifice et d’envoyer a leurs temples une procession, roujcecOar, au futur, dépendant de evxec0ar. TeNovpevwy ToiTwy est au présent, par rapport au moment a venir ou on aura a acquitter le voeu prononcé. Alors, mais alors seulement,

le peuple réglera tout le détail: le nombre et la nature des victimes, ceux qui composeront la procession, ceux qui formeront le choeur qui chantera le zpocéévov. Pour le moment, le héraut ne fait que promettre en principe un sacrifice et une procession; a l’assemblée d’en déterminer plus tard Ja nature.” In JG II?, 114, a similar vow is ordered upon the dispatch of a body of cleruchs to Poteidaia in 362/1 B.c.: “The herald will vow a procession and a sacrifice to the Twelve Gods, the Erinyes, and Herakles, if the decision to send cleruchs to Poteidaia turns out well for the Athenians.” Earlier, the herald formula occurs in JG II2,

30 (386/5 B.c.), a fragmentary inscription relating to Lemnos.!7 Similar formulae are found in treaties made by Rhodes with Hierapytna and Olous, both dated about 200 B.c. In the former,!* the vow is pronounced by the priests and the hierothytai. It is addressed to Helios, the goddess Rhodos, and to all the other gods and goddesses, the archagetai and the heroes, who protect the city and territory of the Rhodians. If the decision about the alliance brings benefits to the two cities a 16. Similarly, the herald was the official who recited the prayer and curse at the beginning of meetings of the boule and assembly: Deinarchos 2 Against Aristogeiton 16, Lykourgos Leokr. 21. The prayer and curse are parodied in Aristophanes Thesmophoriazusaé 295-311, 331-339, 347-351. See P. J. Rhodes, The Athenian Boule (Oxford 1972) 36-37.

17. Kirchner characterizes the situation as follows: “Statutwm esse videtur de venditione vel locatione bonorum quorundam publicatorum in insula Lemno sitorum.” 18. M. Guarducci, Inscriptiones Creticae 3 (Rome 1942) III.3.A, lines 1-7 = H. H. Schmitt, Die Staatsvertrége des Altertums 3 (Munich 1969) no. 551.

236

Military Vows

sacrifice and a procession are promised. At Rhodes,

as at Athens,

the

specific ceremonies are to be determined later by the demos. In the Olous document, published by Orlandos in Kretika Chronitka 15 (1963) 230-234,19 the oath (line 14) is likewise pronounced by the priests, but the vow is addressed first to Zeus.”° To close the chronological series of these epigraphical examples of vows, I cite an inscription of Moesia dated in a.p. 199 (GRRP 1 no. 1498) which states that a temple and altar had been consecrated by the small village of Burnusus in accordance with their vow after obtaining from the god the favor which they had asked: émiruxav rapa Tov Geod dv evEaTo.

The nature of the rite is clear. As soon as the god had granted to the state the solicited favor, but only then, in recompense

for this favor,

the state consecrated to the deity the promised ex-voto. In accordance with the subtle spirit of the Greeks, in the case of vows

rashly made in times of military stress which could sometimes not be fulfilled without

undue

hardship,

some

accommodation

was

found.

Pausanias (10.18.5) records a distinct example of a war dedication in the form of a bronze sacrificial model (Loeb trans.): ““The men of Orneae in Argolis, when hard pressed in war by the Sicyonians, vowed (ebEavro) to Apollo that, if they should drive the host of the Sicyonians out of their native land, they would organise a daily procession in his honour at Delphi, and sacrifice victims of a certain kind and of a certain number. Well, they conquered the Sicyonians in battle. But find-

ing the daily fulfilment of their vow a great expense and a still greater trouble, they devised the trick (od¢.cpa edpicxovow) of dedicating to the god bronze figures representing a sacrifice and a procession.” A similar accommodation is recounted by Justin (21.3) with regard to Italiot Lokroi. The Lokrians, being harassed in war by Leophron the tyrant of Rhegion, had vowed, if they were victorious, to prostitute

their maidens on the festive day of Aphrodite. After neglecting to carry out their promise, they were unsuccessful in another war with the inland Lucanians. Dionysios the Younger called them to an assembly and advised them to send their wives and daughters, as richly dressed as possible, to the temple of Aphrodite; out of whom, a hundred, chosen by lot, should fulfill the public vow

(voto publico fun-

gantur), and, for religion’s sake, offer themselves for prostitution dur19. Cf. Schmitt, Staatsvertrdge 3, no. 552. 20. In a very fragmentary inscription from Kaunos

(G. E. Bean, JHS 73 [1953]

28-29), in a context of sacrifices and processions, the word

text is too fragmentary to yield any connected phrase.

ebxouévors

occurs;

but the

Military Vows

237

ing the space of one month, the men previously taking an oath not to touch any one of them. When the women had assembled in the temple in their most expensive dresses, Dionysios sent in his soldiers and made the ornaments of the maidens a spoil for himself. Ritual prostitution apparently remained in force for several decades. H. Prueckner, Die lokrischen Tonsreliefs (Mainz 1968), connected the iconography of the famous Lokroi pinakes (470-400 8.c.) with this votum to Aphrodite. F. R. Walton (Oxford Classical Dictionary? [Oxford 1970] 890) com-

ments on the vow as follows: “The unfulfilled vow of the citizens of Locri Epizephyrii to prostitute their virgins (Just. Epit. 21.3), unique in Greek annals, was a desperate measure to secure divine aid in war.”2! Private

Vows. In Homer,

Peleus vowed

that if Achilles came

back

safe from Troy, he would dedicate a lock of his son’s hair, together with rich sacrifices, to the river-god Spercheios (II. 23.144 ff.).22 Hector, about to meet Ajax in single combat, promised that in the event of his

success he would dedicate the spoils in the-temple of Apollo (JI. 7.82ff.). Kypselos of Corinth, according to [Aristotle] Oec. 2.2.1346A, vowed to Zeus

(evéauevos 7G Aut) that if he succeeded in his attempt to become

master of Corinth he the citizens. Kypselos upon the Corinthians cessive years. Kypselos

would dedicate to the deity all the property of evaded the extremity of the hardship imposed by exacting a tithe of their goods for ten sucused the money to procure a golden Zeus which

he sent to Delphi.2? On

the other hand,

Moxos

the Lydian, after he

had freed his countrymen from the tyranny of Meles, ordered them to hand over a tithe of their possessions to the gods, in accordance

with

his vow (ka0a niéaro).24 In the Kynegetikos (6.13), Xenophon prescribes that after the huntsman arrives at the hunting ground with his hounds for the start of the chase, he should register a vow

to Apollo and Ar-

temis Agrotera to give them a share of the spoil (evédyevov 7 ’ArrO\Awr kal TH ’“Apréeuwde 7H “Ayporépa peradodvat tis Onpas). In characterizing the

Spartan Agesilaos (11.2), Xenophon

says that he was accustomed

to

21. Zenobius (4.29) explains the proverb OerradGy oégicua as deriving from the (unfulfilled) vow of the Thessalians to Apollo Kataibasios to sacrifice a human hekatomb if relieved of the plague. There are other explanations of the origin of the proverb: see schol. on Euripides Phoin. 1402.

22. As long as the owner is exposed to a special peril, the hair remains uncut; but when he has safely passed through the crisis, a lock is rendered in thanksgiving to the protecting

power

(xéduys drapxal):

Aischylos

Choephoroi

1427, Bacchae 493, Helen 1093; Pausanias 1.37.2. 23. Pausanias 5.2.3, and Frazer’s note.

24. Nikolaos of Damaskos (F. Jacoby, FGrHist go) frg. 16.

6; Euripides

Orestes

96,

238

Military Vows

offer more sacrifices than he vowed Sturz takes e’xouar to mean vovere.

(mdclova Over }.. . nixero), where

Many preserved inscriptions which were attached to votive offerings bear as a label the statement that the dedication is in consequence of

a vow. A copious number of these are dedications by those who had successfully competed in the ordeal of the great games.” Still more are connected with the ordinary incidents of family life. Of the dedications published in A. E. Raubitschek’s Dedications from the Athenian Akropolis (Cambridge, Mass. 1949), twenty-seven contain some form of the present or aorist participle of exouar,

and

three the noun ebxwA7. In no case is a military connection suggested.” However, many scholars believe that one inscription (IG I2, 609) inscribed on an Ionic marble column bearing a statue of Nike or Iris, although not containing any form of the verb e’xouat, was dedicated in

response to a vow. The first two verses seem to record a dedication made by Kallimachos of Aphidna, who, as polemarch, died in the bat-

tle of Marathon in 490 B.c. (Herodotos 6.109 and 114). Meiggs-Lewis (GHI no.

18) conclude,

“The

dedication

was vowed

by Kallimachos

before the battle and made on his behalf after his death.’’27 often carried out by another than the one who made it.28

A vow was

The largest collection of examples of the words eix4 and xapiorhp.ov in inscriptions is that of H. Beer, ’Arapx? und verwandte Ausdriicke

in griechischen Weihinschriften (Wiirzburg diss. 1914) 75-118 and 118-131 (xapuorjpiov).29 The word 25. See Rouse,

GVO

the Olympic crown

yxapiorfpwov

140ff. For example, Xenophon

in 464 B.c., vowed

(edx7)

becomes very com-

of Corinth,

a competitor for

that, if successful, he would

consecrate 100 iepddovdor for the service of the temple of Aphrodite in that city: Pindar frg. 122. Cf. G. Norwood, Pindar (Berkeley 1945) 20. 26. Possibly the most interesting is no. 218, quoted above p. 230. where the dedication is made as a result of success in some business venture, and the dedicant takes

the opportunity, while fulfilling his vow, of asking Athena to preserve his wealth. 27. E. B. Harrison (GRBS 12 [1971] 20) argues that the dedication contains a statement of victory in the Panathenaic games followed by an award of aristeia to Kallimachos.

It is clear, however,

that Herodotos

awarded

no formal aristeion for Mara-

thon: Pritchett, Greek State at War 2 (Berkeley 1974) 284 n. 28. Much in the new interpretation hinges on the meaning of ayév in the inscription. Ellsworth (CP 69 [1974] 258-264) has recently shown that the original meaning was “assembly with games,” but Aischylos several times (Pers. 405, Ag. 1377, Cho. 584, 729, Eum. 914)

uses the word in the sense of “battle, certamen,”

in the epigram. The prominence of the word associating the epigram with Marathon. 28. See W. H. D. Rouse, GVO 320.

29. H. Schmitt,

“Veteres

philosophi

a meaning which

zoduapxos seems

quomodo

iudicaverint

4 (1908) 53, classifies ebxat according to ebx7) Onuroupyixy, KaSaprixh

to me

it may have decisive for

de precibus,”,

RVV

and {worods. Voll-

Military Vows

239

mon in later times, but, like evx}, 1s only commo n

after the Alexan-

drian period, and chiefly in the Roman age. Beer lists no examples which are specifically military. One relief from Thessa ly was dedicated

in fulfillment of a vow

(ebdpuevos) by a certain Ergias on behalf of his

brother, a prisoner of war. Placed obliquely in the relief is a winged thunderbolt flying downward from right to left.2° One may infer from an ex-voto to Zeus Soter by a group of Thessalian tagoi that Pharsalos had been saved from some perils.* According to a fragme ntary inscription preserved in the epistyle of a vatoxos (M. Fraenkel, Die Inschriften von Pergamon 1 [Berlin 1880] no. 165, with the addition of Ath. Mitt. 27 [1902] 90 no. 74), the dedicant, who is taken by Fraenk el to be a “Corpsfithrer,” set up images of King Eumenes and his brothe r Attalos who were victorious in a battle against the Galatians in 167 B.c., in fulfillment

of a vow

(éxpo [Oiniov edédpevlos Nadbpwr).

Private

dedica-

tions, however, were certainly made by military men, and these will be

collected in the next chapter; but there is no clue as to whether these

were ex-votos.32

graft (BCH 58 [1934] 138-156), in publishing an early bronze plaque found at Argos, marking the private dedication to Enyalios of a helmet and a lance, shows that the word 4p4 was also used to signify an ex voto. SEG 11.327 and Jeffery, LSAG 156 prefer

another interpretation, but see BCH 83 (1959) 742. 30. IG IX.2.1211. See Wace, JHS 26 (1906) 150 (illustration), 31. IG IX.2.237.

32. One may observe that even in so careful a work of scholarship as W. H. D.

Rouse’s GVO, the term ex-voto is often used as a synonym for the word “dedication”

when there is no explicit evidence for a vow having been made beforehand.

CHAPTER

DEDICATIONS

VII

OF ARMOR

Iv Is NATURAL for those who believe that the gods meddle in all human

affairs to dedicate parts of that which they enjoy. Whether this is due to fear or to gratitude is not always clear;! but the practice is widespread.? In no country was the custom more invariably observed than in Greece, where at the great shrines so large was the number of offerings that many of the states had @ycavpol, in which were preserved the almost innumerable votive objects dedicated to the gods.? Among the Greeks, the offering (avé0nua) was variously termed amapxn, axpofiva and dexarn; and the act of dedication was called

avarieva..t It is difficult to separate the terms, since the dexarn was only

a special form of the amapxy. So axpofivioy (usually in the plural) means the “top of the heap,” the dives being cwpol r&v mupay Kal Kpioav;> but the phrases axpofivioy Aapvpav and axpobivioy é mo\guov are common in inscriptions for war dedications.® The tithe is not mentioned in Homer; and the earliest records of this custom come with the inscriptions, although legendary tithing is spoken of early. The Pelasgians are said

to have offered the tithe at Delphi,’ as did the Hyperboreans at Delos.®

An epic poem, the Europia, quoted by Clement tions the dedication of tithes at Delphi.® 1. In some

cases

the anathema

might

be a kind

men-

of Alexandria,

of punishment.

At Athens,

the

archons, on entering upon office, had to take an oath that if they violated any of the laws, they would dedicate in the temple at Delphi a golden statue the size of the dedicant (avépidyta xpvoodv toopérpnrov): Plato Phaedrus 235D; Plutarch Solon 25; Pollux 8.85; the Souda s.v. Xpvo# Eixwv. At Olympia, anyone who broke the rules of

the game had to pay a fine, which was used to purchase a bronze statue of Zeus; these Zanes, as they were called, stood in a row

2. See the rich collection

of anthropological

near the treasuries: Pausanias 5.21. und material in H. Beer, “Awapx7

verwandte Ausdriicke in griechischen Weihinschriften

(Wiirzburg diss. 1914) 18ff.

3. Hesychios defines Oncavpés as, eis dyahuatwr Kal xpnuaTwv 7} lepGv ardbeow Oikos. 4. Homer uses dpypara (Od. 14.446) and adpxecOa, arapxeoPar Or katapxeoar (1.

19.254;

Od.

3.445;

14.422, 428). The

form

[a&ap]lyyara

occurs

in one

early Attic

metrical inscription: A. F. Raubitschek, Dedications from the Athenian

Akropolis

(Cambridge, Mass. 1949) no. 284.

5. Hesychios and the Souda. 6. See Pausanias 5.27.12. Cf. Beer, op. cit. 55; and E. Kunze, Deutsches Archaeolo-

gisches Institut, VIII. Bericht tiber die Ausgrabungen in Olympia (1967) 88. 7. Dionysios of Hal. 1.18; Stephanos s.v. "ABopuytves. 8. Herodotos

4.33-34;

Kallimachos

Delos

278. For “der heilige Zehnt”

of many

peoples, among them Jews, see Beer, op. cit. 67ff. The decimal numeration is thought to have something to do with this choice. g. Strom. 1.349 (Sylburg).

[ 240]

Dedications of Armor

241

In commenting on the very simple anthropomorphic concept of the Greek deity which suggested the votive offering,—namely, that a god needs a house to live in, and furniture, and even food which is provided by libation and sacrifices,!°—Rouse observed that a portion of any wealth must be given to the god, the best part of the find, and the

worshipper may enjoy the rest. He continues, “So the warrior dedicates

a part of his spoil, the tradesman

Firstfruits of work

or farmer

a part of his profits.’11

(épywy, réxvys) are mentioned, and the dedication

of these is recognized by Isaios (5 On the Estate of Dikaiogenes 42) as of regular occurrence. The craftsman dedicates his first work or “mas-

terpiece.”’ Lykinos states this of himself: Avxivos avedncey thr ’AOnvaa rd mp&rov ipyacaro; and a pot found on the akropolis of Athens is named

a “first fruit of work.”18 Fishermen

dedicate the first tunny of the

catch to Poseidon,!* and literary men might dedicate their books, as Herakleitos did at Ephesos.’* But the question arises, To what extent did the warrior, whether the military captain or the soldier, offer thanks for his deliverance, beyond a sacrifice at the altar?

In the year 352 B.c., when Demosthenes delivered the oration against Timokrates,

there was a law at Athens

that ten per cent of the booty

was due to Athena and two per cent to the Other Gods (24.120:

rds

dexaras Ths Geod Kai Tas wevTnkooTas Tv dhdwy HeGv).16 A merchant ship had been captured off the coast of Egypt; and, as Egypt was in revolt from Persia, with which Athens at the time was on friendly terms, the gods were entitled to their share of the enemy’s property. This was sacred money (éep4) which belonged to the treasuries of the gods. Proceeds from selling the booty resulted in prestigious works of art, statues and monuments,

for the greater glory of the god and his in-

10. The gods enjoyed even the smell of the smoke of the offering, as men enjoyed it by eating: Iliad 1.66, 8.549, 24.70. Thus in the Bible, when Yahweh smelled the sweet savor of the sacrifice offered by Noah. He immediately decided never to send another flood (Genesis 8:21). Examples of the ascending smoke into which the victim was sublimated and which went up to Yahweh are collected by R. K. Yerkes, Sacrifice in Greek and Roman Religions and Early Judaism (New York 1952) 126-130 (with notes). 11. Greek Votive Offerings (Cambridge 1902) 350. Cf. page 116, “The soldier ought to have given part of his spoil, if he had won any.” 12. J. de Witte, BCH 2 (1878) 547: ““Lycinos a consacré 4 Athéné le premier ouvrage qu'il a fait.” 13. IG I2, 730. 14. Athenaios 7.297D. 15. Diogenes Laert. 9.6.

16. Cf. 24.136. At the time there were two distinct boards of tamiai: see W. S. Ferguson, Treasurers of Athena (Cambridge, Mass. 1932) 129.

Dedications of Armor

242

trepid worshippers. A much later writer referred to the sword of Mardonios and the shields of the Lakedaimonians from Pylos as more revered dedications to the gods than the Propylaia and the Olympieion.17 Demosthenes grouped the spoils taken from the Persians as equal monuments of pride to the Propylaia and the Parthenon."* These public dedications have been discussed in chapters II—V of Part I of this series. More recently, W. Gauer (‘“Weihgeschenke aus den Perserkriegen,” Istanbuler Mitteilungen 2 [1968]) has devoted a monograph to the monuments dedicated from the spoils of the Persian wars. In this chapter, we examine what might be termed private, or individual, dedications, which may be studied under two headings, those made by the ordinary soldier, and those made by leading hegemones,

strategoi or basileis, as the case may be. One collection has been made by M. Launey (Recherches sur les armées hellénistiques 2 [Paris 1950] go1-914) for the Hellenistic period; but Launey does not distinguish between public and private offerings. The following chapter will be devoted to an examination of the conventions about dedications of captured armor. It is important to bear in mind in considering the dedications of military armor that the Greek warrior went into battle with the most expensive arms he could afford. So shields are characterized as érixpvoor, éxixadxor, and devxai. Sokrates is reported by Xeno-

phon (Mem. 3.10.14) as criticizing the extravagant taste that preferred armor decorated with silver and gold reliefs to that which merely fitted the body properly: évvor pévror Tovs roukidous Kal Tovs EmtxXpvoous Pwpakas paArAov wvodvrat. GANG pHv, en, Et ye dud TaVTa wr) ApudTTOVTAaS wvodYTAL, KAKO euovye Soxodar mouxiNoy Te Kai értxpvoov wvetobar. Ailianos (VH 3.24) says that Xenophon, like other yevvaior, was accustomed to wear émda kaha

in battle. Xenophon wore an Argive shield, an Attic cuirass, and a Boiotian helmet, while riding a horse from Epidauros. In the Anabasis

(3.2.7), Xenophon says that he was arrayed in his finest armor: éoradpeévos éml oAeuov ws édbvaTo K4dNLoTa. From the end of the seventh century, we have the evidence of the aristocratic Alkaios, who, in a fragment pre-

served in Athenaios (14.627A-B = frg. Z34, Lobel-Page), describes a house full of the items of the panoply in which he and his friends were 17. Dio Chrysostom 2.36, Sceptics from Pausanias (1.27.1) onwards have doubted that the Athenians would have received Mardonios’ sword; but the explicit testi-

mony of Dio and Demosthenes 24 Against Timokrates 129 removes any doubt. For the Spartan convention about captured arms, see below p. 292. Mardonios’ sword is generally identified with the

&xwwdaxns xpvods

Athena starting in 434/3 B.c. (IG I2, 276.8). 18. 22 Against Androtion 13.

which appears in the inventories of

Dedications of Armor

243

presumably going to fight. He lists bronze helmets with horse-hair plumes, shining bronze greaves, linen corselets, hollow shields, Chalkidian swords, and belts and tunics.

At the outset, we cami gain a general idea of the articles exhibited in an ancient temple from the official inventory, preserved on stone, of the one temple of Athena at Lindos. We may then review a list of pieces of armor found in sanctuaries for which the claim was made that they belonged to heroes, principally of the Trojan War. These lists will serve to show that there was a continuous tradition of the dedication of military articles. Lindos was situated near the middle of the east coast of the island of Rhodes. It was the parent state of Gela, Phaselis and Soloi, and these

three cities all sent dedications. The early temple of Athena Lindia and part of its contents were destroyed by fire about 350 B.c., for with the year 330 B.c. begins the list of offerings which were still extant in the later temple in gg B.c. when the catalogue was compiled and inscribed on a marble stele erected in the precinct. Each of the forty-two items is in a separate section, and after each item the compiler cited

the sources from which he drew his information. ‘The text with commentary has been published by C. Blinkenberg, Lindos: II Inscriptions, Vol.

1 (Copenhagen

1941) no. 2 B, pp. 162—170.19

The first offerings are all of the mythic period. Lindos, the eponymous hero, dedicated a bowl, and so did the Rhodian tribe Telcheines. Kadmos dedicated a bronze lebes and Minos a silver drinking vessel,

while Herakles offered two shields. As to military objects, the heroes who returned from the Trojan War were lavish in offerings, the axpobivia Tay éx Tpoias. There were

nine ships of Tlapolemos,

chief of

the three Rhodian villages (J/. 2.653-670), and each dedicated a panoply. The helmet of Alexandros was dedicated by Menelaus. The quiver of Pandaros was the gift of Teukros, and a silver quiver (see II. 2.59) that of Meriones. From the beginning of historical times comes an interesting list of very varied objects.

A famous old krater

(éxwéa) set upon a new stand

was offered; the inscription on the lip refers to earlier events, while that on the stand commemorates the dedicator, otherwise unknown.

The Lindians who colonized Kyrene (Herodotos 4.159) sent an object (undesignated) made of lotus wood on which Herakles, accompanied by Athena, was represented as strangling a lion, an extremely common

subject in archaic art. Amphinomos and his sons dedicated a wooden cow and calf after their ship had been saved. Kleoboulos (first part of 19. For section D of the stone, see above pp. 12-13.

244

Dedications of Armor

sixth century) offered eight shields as well as a gold crown for the cultstatue of Athena after his conquest of the Lydians.”° Blinkenberg observes that the number eight was convenient for attaching to the two facades of a tetrastyle temple.”4 Phaselis, founded by the Lindians, sent

helmets and drepana, the latter called by Herodotos (7.92) a weapon of the Lykians. Gela, also founded by Lindos, and Phalaris, tyrant of

Akragas 571-555 B.c., dedicated large kraters, that of the tyrant bearing an ancient inscription attributing the work to Daidalos. Deinomenes, father of Gelon who was the tyrant of Gela in 491 and of Syrakuse in 485, contributed an acrolithic Gorgon of cypress wood with a stone face, a technique practiced particularly in Sicily. Akragas dedicated a Palladion, the extremities of which (face, hands and feet) were

of ivory. Pausanias (6.19.10) mentions another Sicilian work executed in the same technique. This votive statue was said to be from the “spoils from Minoa.”’ Amasis, king of Egypt, dedicated a linen corselet, each thread of which had 360 strands (the number of days in the Egyptian year), two golden images and ten bowls. The compiler adds that there were two inscriptions on the image; one stated “Amasis, the far-famed king of Egypt was the bestower;” on the other was an inscription “‘in what the Egyptians call sacred writing,” that is, in hieroglyphics.

The

corselet

is mentioned twice by Herodotos (2.183; 3.47), by Ailianos On Animals g.17, and by Pliny NH 19.2.12, the last named citing a traveller who about A.p. 60 visited Lindos and stated that there he touched the corselet, which by that time was reduced under the hands of inquisitive

generations to the merest rags. Numerous dedications of Artaphernes, Dareios’ general, are followed by gold-plated phialai, sent by Soloi from the spoils of war after the conquest of two tribes. Lindos, after an otherwise unknown conquest of Crete, dedicated gold ornaments for the cult-image from the

spoils of war. Among the dedications preserved in the later temple were skulls of oxen as records of a sacrifice made by Alexander the Great after the battle of Gaugamela in 331 B.c.22 The skulls with commemorative in20. Kleoboulos rebuilt the temple early in the sixth century and set up a new statue to the goddess: Diogenes Laertios 1.89. 21. Lindos 1.1 (Berlin 1931) 14. Homolle (Daremberg-Saglio, Dictionnaire s.v. Donarium 379 n. 193) refers to a theory that the peristyle of the Greek temple was

originally designed for the exposition of offerings. 22. Blinkenberg notes that the immolation did not take place on the akropolis. Athena Lindia was worshipped ‘with flameless sacrifices.” Fire, it would seem, was made ready and the victim was slain on an altar in a grove on the akropolis, but the fire was not set to the altar: Pindar Ol. 7.49; Diodoros 5.56.

Dedications of Armor

245

scriptions were fixed on the walls of the sanctuary. King Ptolemy 1 and Pyrrhos, king of Epeiros, made similar dedications of skulls. In addition, Pyrrhos dedicated his armor, possibly after a victory in 274

B.c. over Antigonos and his Gallic mercenaries (Paus. 1.13.2-3; Plutarch Pyrr. 26). The dedications of Pyrrhos were offered “in accordance with the oracle of Dodona.” King Hiero (269-215 B.c.) dedicated the “arms which he had used” (érha ois airos éxpetro); but the occasion is not specified. Finally, Philip V about 211 B.c. after vanquishing his enemies, who are restored as Dardanians and Maedi, the spoils ten each of shields, sarissas, and helmets.

dedicated

from

Of the forty-four items originally listed in the inventory, the text of only seven is lost. ‘The relative completeness of the list affords an illustration of the type of objects exhibited in a rather small temple on the periphery of the Greek world. We may note a practice which will continue to plague us as we attempt to determine the nature of the uninscribed dedication. The victor, whether for motives of piety, selfesteem, or political propaganda, might dedicate his own equipment, as Hiero did, or that taken from the enemy, as Philip did. By the time

of the compilation of the list in 99 B.c., temples had become the museums of the ancient world. We note in the Lindian record a number of items from the warriors of the Trojan War. Legends about these warriors of the Epic had become so popular that many shrines had acquired objects which allowed the custodians of such places to discourse to an admiring crowd of sightseers about the treasures which enriched the sanctuary. ‘The same Mucianus who touched the corselet of Amasis in Lindos related that, when he was governor of Lykia, he read in a Lykian temple a letter written home from the front by Homer’s Sarpedon (Pliny NH 13.27.88). Just as devout medieval pilgrims contemplated with uncritical faith relics of early Christians, so the Greeks believed that many objects in their temples had been dedicated by heroes. The following list, restricted to military articles, records relics mentioned by ancient writers:23 it serves to show how common military votive objects were in the sanctuaries. 23. The list is compiled in part from the copious list of heroic dedicated articles published by F. Pfister, RVV 5 (1909) 331-339. Pfister (p. 148 and n. 511) makes the interesting observation that the lack of relics of Aineias in Latium led to the conjecture, in the course of the development of the legend, that he had been translated at death. Later, Pfister (WKPh 31 [1914] 475-478) published chapter 8 of Ampelius’ Liber memorialis which lists a long series of wonders in the temple of Apollo at

Sikyon.

246

Dedications of Armor

Military Articles Hero

Deity

Place

Source

Shields

Aineias Danaos (Abas) Diomedes Euphorbos

Samothrake Hera

Argos

Athena Hera Apollo

Argos Heraion Miletos

Mykenai Menelaos

Odysseus

Athena Athena

‘Timomachos

Iapygia Odysseia (Spain) Amyklai

Vergil Aen. 3.287 Serv. Aen. 3.286; Hyg. Fab. 170.273; IG VII.49.12 Kallim. 5 Ath. 35 Paus. 2.17.3 Diog. L. 8.5 Jamb. Vit. Pythag. 63; Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. 26, 27, 45 Lykophr. 850 Strabo 3.157 Aristotle fr. 532

Swords

Memnon

Asklepios

Pelops

Nikomedeia Treasury of Sikyon: Olympia

Paus. 3.3.8 Paus. 6.19.6

Spears Achilleus Meleagros Odysseus

Athena Apollo

Phaselis

Magna

Engyion

Sikyon

Paus. 3.3.8 Paus. 2.7.8 Plut. Marcell. 20

Mater Helmets

Meriones Odysseus

Magna Mater Magna Mater

Engyion Engyion

Plut. Marcell. 20 Plut. Marcell. 20

Ships and Ship-Gear Agamemnon Aineias Argonauts

Artemis Poseidon

Geraistos Rome Corinth

Prokop. 8.22.27—29 Prokop. 7.22.7-16 Apollod. 1.9.27; Diod. 4.53; Dio Chrys. 37.107

ae

Dedications of Armor Theseus

—

Odysseus (beaks) Midas (anchor) Argonauts (anchor) Argonauts (anchor) Diomedes (ballaststone) Kadmos (timber)

Athena

247 Athens? _

Zeus

Odysseia

Plato, Phaedo 58A-B; Plut. Thes. 23 Strabo 3.157

Ankyra

Paus. 1.4.5

Kolchis

Arrian Peripl. g

Kyzikos

Ap. Rhod. 1.955; Plin. HN 36.99

Arpi

Lykoph. 615; ‘Timaios 566.63; Lykos 570.3 (Jacoby)

Thebes

Paus. 9.16.3

* See B. Jordan, The Athenian Navy (Berkeley 1972) 160-161. Parenthetically, only three of the articles were related to cult. The shield of Diomedes played a role in the cult of Athena.*4 At the Argive Heraion,

the presentation of the shield of Danaos was venerated

festival called domis & "Apye.2® During

the Hyakinthia

in a

at Amyklai,

the shield of Timomachos was carried in procession.?6 Articles used in early cults were probably older than relics displayed in later temples.” The objects collected in ancient temples—the lyre of Orpheus, the bed of Hippodameia in Olympia (Pausanias 5.20.1), the sandal of Helen, etc.—were as varied and as curious as the relics in many old churches today. Pausanias is quite definite about many of these relics. About the sceptre of Agamemnon, for example, he says (9.40.11) (Loeb tr.): “Of the gods, the people of Chaeroneia honour most the sceptre which Homer says (//. 2.101) Hephaestus made for Zeus, Hermes re24. See Pfister, op. cit. 153 n. 556. 25. So Pfister 337. The evidence for the festival has been collected by I. C. Ringwood, Agonistic Features of Local Greek Festivals (Columbia diss. 1927) 67-68. She believes that shields were given for victories as typical products of Argos, just as cloaks

were

the

prize

at

Pellene.

See,

more

recently,

P. A.

Bernardini,

Stadion

2 (1976) 213-217. I. Ringwood Arnold (AJA 41 [1937] 436-440) concludes that this festival was also called Hekatombaia and Heraia; she suggests that the shield was a war fetish in the cult of the local goddess.

26. Pfister 337-338. 27. Nock (JRS 47 [1957] 120-121) notes that in the two first centuries of our era the cult of old heroes was intensified by the archaism which marked the Greek world.

248

Dedications of Armor

ceived from Zeus and gave to Pelops, Pelops left to Atreus, Atreus to Thyestes, and Agamemnon had from Thyestes. This sceptre, then, they worship,

calling it Spear. That

there is something

peculiarly divine

about this sceptre is most clearly seen by the fame it brings to the Chaeroneans. They say that it was discovered on the border of their own country and of Panopeus in Phocis, that with it the Phocians discovered gold, and that they were glad themselves to get the sceptre in-

stead of the gold. I am of the opinion that it was brought to Phocis by Agamemnon’s daughter Electra. It has no public temple made for it, but its priest keeps the sceptre for one year in a house. Sacrifices are

offered to it every day, and by its side stands a table full of meats and cakes of all sorts. Poets have sung, and the tradition of men has followed them, that Hephaestus made many works of art, but none is authentic except only the sceptre of Agamemnon.” Pausanias, who re-

cords the majority of the items in our compilation, was “a man made of common stuff and cast in a common mold.’’?® His religious opinions were probably not very different from those of his contemporaries. To return to the chronicle of the Lindian

temple, rich in relics of

Trojan and later warriors, we may note in particular that oracles might give instruction about the dedication of spoils (line 96: kara xpnopor; line 106: karé parreiay; line 116: xara rH & Awdwvas paytelav) and that

there was a practice for eminent hegemones to dedicate the armor which they wore in major battles (lines 114, 122: da

ots atrés éxpetro).

Common soldiers. In describing models of shields and other weapons found in a sacred context,

Rouse,

writing in 1902, notes,

apparently

with surprise, very few examples of used weapons.29 And even some of the bronze lance-heads and shields which Rouse (p. 101 n. 5) took to be dedications

from

spoils were

made,

in the opinion of their original

editor, not for use but for votive offerings.®° Since the Greek hoplite normally supplied his weapons at his own expense, it might seem that only the most pious would wish to dedicate their armor. Moreover, the tithe was taken from the booty and set aside for the god; so the deity had received his part before any distribution was made. For example, the tithe of spoils won by Xenophon’s army of Greeks was allotted to Apollo and Ephesian Artemis,*! each general taking a portion for each god into his care. Faced with a hazardous voyage, Xenophon left part of the money behind, charging the sacristan of Artemis in the event of 28. 29. go. 31.

J. G. Frazer, Pausanias’s Description of Greece 1 (London 1897) p. xlix. Greek Votive Offerings 116. Frothingham, AJA 4 (1888) 435-436. Anabasis 5.3.

Dedications of Armor

249

his death to dedicate “whatsoever thing he thought would be pleasing to the goddess.”” Xenophon dedicated Apollo’s portion in the treasury of the Athenians at Delphi, inscribing on the object concerned the name of Proxenos along with his own. With the share for Artemis, he later purchased a plot of ground at Skyllous upon which he built a temple which was as like as possible to the Ephesian one, and there held annual feasts.®? In this case, the choice of what was pleasing to the deity was left up to each general. The tithe-proceeds constituted the collective anathema of the entire army, by which each soldier had paid his debt to the deity. Any additional individual dedication presumably would be a mark of unusual piety.** Rouse (p. 111) writes, “Less commonly heard of is another custom, by which the victor dedicates the arms which helped him win the victory; or the old warrior no longer fit for the fight, his outworn weapons of war. The thought seems to us so natural, and is indeed so frequently exemplified in later days, that we are surprised at first in meeting with so little evidence before the days of Alexander the Great.”*4 Just as the convalescent patient who owed his cure to Asklepios dedicated a model of the limb or part of his body which had required medical treatment, and the shipwrecked mariner hung up a picture of his escape from drowning in the temple of Poseidon, and the individual, in gen-

eral, found occasions and motives for dedications in the critical incidents of his life, so the articles which from long association had been endeared to the owner, such as garments or the implements of his trade,

were often finally consecrated in temples as relics worthy to be consigned to the sure custody of the gods. That it was conventional to dedicate old arms we learn from one of the stratagems of Polyainos (3.8), wherein we are told that, just before Archinos made himself tyrant of Argos (266-263 B.c.), the Argives ordered that new arms (érAa) should be supplied to the citizens at public expense. According to the Argive decree the old ones were to be dedicated to the gods

(... dvafjowv rols Oeots’ kal yap otrws ny Tols ’Ap-

32. A pious person of Ithaka, emulous of Xenophon, dedicated a like precinct in his native island, with the same inscription as that used by Xenophon in Anabasis 5-3-13: IG IX.1.654 (second century after Christ), The text is copied to the letter. 33. Service in a foreign mercenary army might be of a different order. Soldiers from Thespiai who saw service in Asia dedicated a tripod on their return home: D. L. Page, Epigrammata Graeca (Oxford 1975) line 5881 = J. Geffcken, Griechische Epigramme (Heidelberg 1916) no. 158. 34. According to Pliny (NH 35.3.12), Appius Claudius was the first to dedicate shields in Rome as a private person. This statement implies that public dedications were earlier.

250

Dedications of Armor

ryelots SeSoypévov

Instead, Archinos used the old armor to supply metics

and strangers and thereby seized the tyranny. On the same principle, the shield of Leokritos, who was the first to mount

the wall and the

first to leap into the Mouseion at Athens, and fell gloriously, when Olympiodoros drove out the Makedonian garrison in 288 B.c., was inscribed with his name and exploit, and dedicated to Zeus Eleutherios: Pausanias 1.26.2. So also the shield of Kydias the Athenian who distinguished himself and was slain in the repulse of the Gauls from Delphi in 279 B.c. was dedicated in the same stoa of Zeus at Athens: Pausanias 10.21.5. Our study of the practice of a warrior dedicating the dha ois atbros éxpeiro (vel éxpfiro) may be continued by examining examples in the literature, beginning with epigrams, and extended to a study of mili-

tary articles made of bronze and terracotta. Anacreon (107 Bergk; 12 Page) composed an epigram on the shield which had protected its owner Python from injury in battle and was suspended in the temenos of Athena. Of the epigrams of Simonides preserved in the Anth. Pal., Bergk accepted as genuine two which are dedications of warriors: 6.2 (143 Bergk; 19 Page) and 6.52 (144 Bergk; 61 Page). The latter is specified as the offering of a stratiotes: ava@nyua 7@ Au rapa orpatimrtov. ‘The first was a bow used in the Persian war,®° the second an ashen spear (uedia) sacred to Zeus Panomphaios. Of the

lance it was said that the point was old, worn by long brandishing in battle

(auxva kpadatvoueva Satw év modeuy).

Among weapons. grams in armor or

the Hellenistic epigrams occurs a group of dedications of Seven of the ten examples belong to a cluster of eleven epiBook VI which comprise offerings either of the dedicant’s of spoils of war. They are presented in the following table.

With the possible exception of Mnasalkes 3, these are judged to be “genuinely dedicatory epigrams;”*6 see, for example, the commentary 35. For archers in the Athenian army at Plataiai, see Herodotos 9.22 and 6o. 36. Omitted

are epigrams which

are mere

poetical exercises.

Thallos,

a Milesian

Greek who obtained Roman citizenship, composed an epigram in which nine persons each give a different part of the soldier’s equipment. The proper names are an odd. lot; five are specially or generically appropriate to the offerings; see A. F. S. Gow and D. L. Page, The Garland of Philip 2 (Cambridge 1968) 410, In AP 6.85 and 86, entire suits of arms are dedicated. Waltz in the Budé edition (p. 172) believes that the former is a parody of the one following, giving single syllables for whole words, with the comic note emphasized by the dedication being offered to Timotheos. Less likely is Paton’s suggestion in the Loeb edition that the epigrammatist is making fun of the speech of the Goths.

Dedications of Armor

Reference in Gow-Page* —————

251

No. of Pal. Anth.

Weapon Dedicated

ee

Name of Dedicant eee

Deity eee

ee

Antipater 3 Anyte 1 Dioskorides 15 Hegesippos 1

6.159 6.123 6.126 6.124

2

6.178

Shield

Archestratos

Herakles

Mnasalkes

3 4 5 6

6.9 6.125 6.128 6.264

Bow & quiver Shield Shield Shield

Promachos Kleitos Alexander Alexander

Apollo Not designated Artemis Apollo

Nikias

1

6.122

Spear

Menios

Athena

2

6.127

Shield

Epixenos

Artemis

~ War-trumpet Spear Shield Shield

Pherenikos Echekratidas Hyllos of Krete Timanor

Athena Athena Not designated Athena

2A. S. F. Gow and D. L. Page, The Greek Anthology: Hellenistic Epigrams, 2 vols. (Cambridge 1965). on Mnasalkes 5. Moreover, there is nothing in the context to suggest that the dedicants were other than private citizens or common warriors. Even the two Alexanders are taken by Gow and Page to be bearers of a very common name, not to be identified with Alexander the Great. Other epigrams in the same book of the Anthology are for huntsmen, ploughmen, and various artisans of a lowly order. One notices that there is some indication in several of these texts that the armor is worn with use or with years. It seems to accord with the Greek way of thought to dedicate the tools of one’s trade after there is no longer use for them. The carpenter, retiring from business, offers to Pallas Athena his plane, auger and footrule.37 The goldsmith, gone blind with age, gives to Hermes the file, tongs and blowpipe of his

calling.?* When old age has robbed a woman of her beauty, she offers a bronze mirror, girdle and other articles.39 So Lucian’s Timon, when

he finds gold and accepts the offers of Plutus, immediately exclaims, “O my spade and beloved leather jacket, it is now well to dedicate you to Pan.”* ‘The story of Kimon and his bridle points in the same direction. When the Athenians were hurrying out of the city in 480 B.c. to take refuge on Salamis,

‘““Kimon

was

the first to act, and with a gay

mien led a procession of his companions through the Kerameikos up to the akropolis to dedicate there the horse’s bridle which he carried in his hand, signifying thus that what the city needed then was not 37- AP 6.103, 204, 205. 38. AP 6.92, 95.

39. AP 6.1 and 210. 40. Timon 42.

252 horsemen

Dedications of Armor but mariners

and seamen.’’4!

When

its work

is done,

the

tool of the trade is dedicated. Turning from Simonides and the Hellenistic epigrams, we are told by Apollodoros (1.9.27) that Jason dedicated the Argo on his return to Poseidon at the Isthmos. According to Kallimachos (Artemis 228 and scholia), Agamemnon dedicated the pedalia of his ship to Samian Hera at Cape Chesion. An alien Hegelochos dedicated to Athena a statue on the Athenian akropolis as thanks for success in war, presumably the Persian invasion.** The dedication seems to have been made in honor of his son, who must have seen military service. Pausanias (10.18.1) saw at Delphi a statue of a horse dedicated by an otherwise unknown

adds

that

Kallias had ‘“‘privately acquired his money from the Persian war’

(idie

Tepitoncdmevos

Athenian

amd

Kallias,

son of Lysimachides.

Tod mpos Iépoas

wodguov

He

xpnuata). There is, there-

fore, no reason to follow Rouse in his suggestion that Kallias was a warrior who had captured a horse.4* A limestone plaque from Mykenai, dated before 468 B.c., records the dedication by five hieromnemones of their shields, helmets and javelins;* the editor suggests that they were collectively dedicating their old armor. From Theopompos we learn that Asopichos, the favorite (éowpevos )of Epameinondas, dedicated in the stoa at Delphi a shield on which was pictured the trophy of Leuktra.*é In his study of early bronze weapons, E. Kunze notes that private dedications are rare.47 Summarizing his investigation of metal finds from Greek sanctuaries, A. M. Snodgrass (The Dark Age of Greece [Edinburgh 1971] 277-281) observes that the practice of burial with 41. Plutarch Kimon 5. 42. In the same

spirit, Paulus Silentiarius, in the sixth century of our era, makes

his Lysimachos dedicate shield, spear and cuirass to Ares, when he is too old to fight (AP 6.81); and his Nikagoras dedicates the battered remnants of a shield to Zeus (AP 6.84). 43. IG I?, 530 = A. E. Raubitschek, Dedications from the Athenian Akropolis (Cambridge, Mass. 1949) no. 121. 44. So

Rouse,

GVO

106.

For

the

acquisition

of wealth

from

“underground”

sources during the Persian wars, see J. K. Davies, Athenian Propertied Families (Oxford 1971) 260. 45. Mitsos, Hesperia 15 (1946) 115-119; L. H. Jeffery, The Local Scripts of Archaic

Greece (Oxford 1961) 173. 46. Athenaios 13.605A. For the stoa, see P. Amandry, Fouilles de Delphes 2:8 (1953) 120 n. 1. 47. Deutsches Archaeologisches Institut, VIII Bericht iiber die Ausgrabungen in Olympia (1967) 107. For a recent discussion of early hoplite armor (with good bibliography), see P. Cartledge, JHS 97 (1977) 12-15.

Dedications of Armor arms,

though never

253 universal in Greece, dies out with abruptness

at

the end of the Geometric period except in some remote regions. This change, he believes, may be connected with the rise in the custom of making personal dedications of arms in the sanctuaries of the gods. While completeness is attempted here and in the following chapter for inscribed military artifacts with names of the dedicant, this cannot be done in the case of bronze articles, which have been found in almost

every excavation in Greece. For example, under the heading “Cult of the Heroized Dead,” the excavators of the Athenian Agora (Thompson-

Wycherley, Agora: 14 [Princeton 1972] 119-121) report the finding in a small pit west of the Panathenaic way of bronze arrowheads, fragments of a bronze shield and of a terracotta shield. The pit dates from the seventh century. Numerous iron lance-heads have been found in the Herakleion at Orchomenos;** and Rouse notes scattered pieces of armor from other shrines, including a spear-head dedicated to Apollo which was found in Boiotia.4® There are, of course, many bronze articles of war,—shields, spear-butts, helmets and swords,—which have been found in ancient sanctuaries and are exhibited in the museums

of Greece;*® but, without an inscription, it cannot usually be determined whether a given piece represents a personal dedication or comes

from the spoils of war. Sometimes the “‘type’’ affords a clue; Kunze, for example, has been able to identify “barbarian” helmets found at Olympia as part of the Persian booty.®! But the identity of the city which made the dedications remains unknown. An early archaic helmet (ca. 600 B.c.), now in Baltimore, is inscribed with the name Krataimenes in retrograde Achaian letterforms and is

presumed

to have been dedicated

at Olympia.*?

On

the island of

Leukas, Euphraias dedicated a miniature bronze helmet to Athena in the sixth century.*? From the precinct of Persephone at Lokroi come two helmets, one dedicated by Phrasiades, the other by Xenaides.*4

48. De Ridder, BCH 19 (1895) 208. 49. GVO 110. 50. A. Johnson (444 g [1976] 87-89) has republished four spear-butts from the

akropolis of Athens on which he has deciphered the inscription de[pociay], dated presumably about 500 B.c. In the fourth-century inventories of the Chalkotheke, an entry of two hundred and fifty orvpdka is found: IG I1?, 1424a(add.).384, and 1425.387 (see add.). 51. Olympiabericht 7 (1961) 129-137. 52. J. H. Young, AJA 69 (1965) 179. 53. Preuner, Ath. Mitt. 27 (1902) 363. 54. Jeffery, op. cit. 285.

254

Dedications of Armor

One spear-head, or spear-butt,>> purchased from a European dealer in

1880, bears the inscription @eddopos avébexe Bactde?.5° The editor assumes

that it was from Olympia. The basileus was Zeus. This spear-butt is clearly an offering from a private individual. In addition to the dedication of Theodoros, there is an inscribed greave from Lykaion: —edié as dvé[Bexe Aud «Jat ’APdvar (IG V.2.551). A helmet of the Corinthian type from Olympia records the dedication to Olympian Zeus by Deinandros: Acivavépos rét Al ’Odvrriow.57 Three helmets from Sparta were inscribed (6 deiva) dvéBexe roe ’ApvKAalor,>8 clearly private dedications. Of

unknown provenance is a thin bronze plaque which is thought to have formed a label nailed up beside a suit of arms: “Eurystratidas, son of -.., the Lakedaimonian, dedicated these arms; do thou always render grace.”°°The plaque is dated in the sixth century and may represent the dedication of someone’s armor on ceasing to be of military age.® A helmet which is judged to have seen years of service before it was dedicated at Olympia around 500 B.c. has the inscription 7é Avds éul.6! A Corinthian helmet with the inscription Avds ’OAvw7io probably represents a similar dedication.® E. Kunze (‘‘Archaische Schildbande,” Olympische Forschungen 2 [1950]) has devoted a special study to decorated bronze strips from the 55- For the distinction, see G. M. A. Richter, AJA 43 (1939) 194-196. Most of the spear-butts,

which

are four-sided,

were

called

spear-heads

in the earlier literature.

In Greek vase paintings, the spear-head is leaf-shaped. I know of no speculation as to why the spear-butt was inscribed. Possibly the spears were suspended in the temple in an upright position with the butt end nearest the eye and therefore best suited

to bear the inscription. 56. W. Greenwell, JHS 2 (1881) 77: Three of the four faces of the spear-butt are illustrated in his plate 11. The theta is cartwheel, and the script is possibly of the time of the Persian wars. Cf. Roehl, IGA 564. 57. E. Kunze, VIII Bericht 107. 58. SEG 11.690-691. Cf. L. H. Jeffery LSAG 190.

59. P. Friedlander and H. Hoffleit, Epigrammata (Berkeley 1948) no. 36A; Jeffery, LSAG 191.

60. Another bronze plate, used as the head of a list of names (P. Friedlander, Epigrammata [Berkeley 1948] no. 23) bears the inscription: Toide ard Aalas ray dexarav dvéOnxav ’APGvar. Jeffery (LSAG 136) suggests that this was nailed beside some spoils of war consecrated in one of the three sanctuaries of Athena at Megara. In this event, we would expect to have the word oxdya. 61. Jeffery, op. cit. 223. For weapons with a similar inscription, see E. Kunze, Olympiabericht 8.83-88. One greave has the text dxpodivia 73 Aus 73 *Odvurio, which proves that it was not a private dedication, but from the spoils. See also M. Comstock and C. C. Vermeule, Greek, Roman and Etruscan Bronzes in the Museum Arts Boston (1971) 408 no. 583. 62. E. Kukahn, Der griechischen Helm (Marburg 1939) no. 34a, p. 66.

of Fine

Dedications of Armor armbands

of shields found at Olympia,

255 Delphi and Orchomenos,

in

particular. The strips belonged to shields placed as votive offerings, and at Olympia they were suspended on the south wall of the archaic stadium. ‘This finding provides a terminus ante quem of 460 B.c. On stylistic grounds, some are dated in the later seventh century. The majority are uninscribed. The inscribed strips are dated by Jeffrey (LSAG 168 no. 10) to ca. 600-525. The names (Kunze, pp. 212-213), unfortunately, are those of heroes and give no clue to the identity of the dedicants, with the exception of one published in 1967 by Kunze with the text “AptoroBords pw’ & [vebexe ?].68

Turning from bronze articles of war to terracotta figurines, we have the detailed study of A. N. Stillwell, Corinth 15:2 (Princeton 1952). Presenting an inventory of shields or fragments from Corinth, Stillwell also shields from other Greek sites (pp. 216-231). The shields come

The Potter’s Quarters thirty-nine complete catalogues terracotta vast majority of these

from shrines, and she believes it safe to assume

that all

were intended as votives. Only the early ones come from graves. By the early seventh century, the votive shield becomes very popular. This chronology accords with that reached independently by Snodgrass (above, p. 253). From the excavations at Perachora, J. K. Brock lists small fragments from only four “votive shields.”& In the Catalogue of Terracottas in the British Museum (London 1954), published by R. A. Higgins, there is only one model of a shield (no. 797) among the 1553 objects. A shield is portrayed with a horse and rider in three cases (nos. 301, goo, 1301). Number 617 portrays a Greek and Asiatic fighting, and no. go1 is a warship. There are fifteen figurines (nos. 575-580; 901; 1042-1048) catalogued as warriors. Higgins (p. 8) notes about votive figurines, ‘“When the sanctuary became too full, they were removed by the priests and placed either in store-houses or in trenches dug outside, usually class by class. It was a deposit of this latter kind which was discovered by Newton at Halicarnassus. Sometimes on removal from the sanctuary they were deliberately broken, so that they could not be stolen or used again.” The most extensive list of weapons appears in the Athenian and Delian treasure-lists, and my intent is to examine these in turn as 63. Olympiabericht 8.108. M. Jost, “Statuettes de bronze archaiques provenant de Lykosoura,” BCH 99 (1975) 355-360, assembles a list of bronze statuettes of hoplites

which are today housed in various museums. Many lead figurines of hoplite soldiers were found

in the Orthia deposit at Sparta; see R. M. Dawkins, ed., Artemis

(London 1929) 167, 274.

64. H. Payne and J. T. Dunbabin, Perachora 2 (Oxford 1962) 268.

Orthia

256

Dedications of Armor

thoroughly as can be done without benefit of indexes. Indeed, so large is the number of weapons mentioned in the Athenian lists that so eminent an authority as W. S. Ferguson concluded that the opisthodomos was a “main arsenal” of the Athenian state.®

A word about prominent features of inventories in general is in order. JG I1?, 1514,°° dated in the middle of the fourth century, is a list made up almost wholly of articles of clothing dedicated in various

years by the women of Athens to Artemis Brauronia. ‘There is considerable information as to how such a collection of cast-off raiment, which

reminds the reader, says A. Michaelis (Der Parthenon [Leipzig 1870] 308), of nothing so much as a ‘““Trédelbude,” came to be catalogued as the dvafjyara to Artemis. The bride before marriage dedicated her girdle to Artemis: the Souda s.v. Avoifwvos yuvy... al yap mapbevor, pédAovoat mpos wléw Epxecbar, averifecay Tas Taphevikas abtdv Cwvas TH ’Apreuoc. After childbirth, women dedicated garments to Artemis: schol. to Kallimachos Zeus 77: rixrouévwv Tv Bpehdv dveribecay Ta iuatia TH ’ApTéeucde.

As Miss Linders comments,

“The majority of the dedicated clothes,

not being new, were normal pieces of dress dedicated after having been

used in daily life.” 67 Some articles of children’s clothing are ase mentioned in the inventories.

Regarding articles of military equipment in the inventories of Athena and the other gods at Athens, unfortunately fragmentary, interpre-

tation is complicated.*® When Rouse wrote his Greek Votive Offerings (Cambridge 1902), he seemed secure in his conclusion that inventoried 65. Treasurers of Athena (Cambridge, Mass. 1932) 131. 66. IG II2, 1514, now associated with II2, 1523, has been studied by T. Linders, “Studies in the Treasure Records of Artemis Brauronia,” Skrifter U igivna av Svenska

Institutet i Athen, Series in 4°, 19 (1972). As with all of the inventories, we are greatly in need of a study which would identify the articles item by item. 67. Op. cit. 13. 68. It may be recalled that Polemon filled four books with a description of the votive offerings on the akropolis (Strabo 9.396; Athenaios 11.472B, 13.587C), as well as another book on those in Lakedaimon (Athenaios 13.574C). Menetor also wrote a book on votive offerings (Athenaios 13.574C). The fact is often overlooked that such antiquarians as Philochoros and Polemon, whose indefatigable diligence earned him

the title of Stelokopas, took the trouble to transcribe and publish collections of epigrams, gathered from the ample stores of Athens, Delphi, and other celebrated cities. Such dedicated objects were distinguished by inscriptions, sometimes graven on their bases or written on labels. In the epigrams of the Anthology, we find many examples of humble dedications which must derive from such sources. Some few, too, are preserved by Pausanias, whose account of the donaria at Olympia is the more precious, as its accuracy has been so strikingly confirmed.

Dedications of Armor

2b

objects were private dedications. But we now know that in 353/2 B.c., the sacred treasurers were entrusted to inventory articles in the Chalkotheke;® and the Chalkotheke is thought to have been both a storehouse of metal votives and an arsenal of the Athenians.7° Moreover, some spoils of war were kept in the Chalkotheke, as well as in the temples, [kuva? xa]Axai cai domdeta 6[p0d (?) &]1d r&v rodeulaw émvyeypappeva.7

A. M. Woodward seems to have established that from 385/4 B.c. onwards the tamiai of Athena were responsible for the contents of the Chalkotheke.” In addition, W. S. Ferguson believed that the Opisthodomos,

the western part of the cella of the old temple of Athena,”

was also used as an arsenal.74 Finally, Woodward states that shields were “dedicated after a celebration of the Great Panathenaea” (p. 403) and that some shields were for use in the procession (p. 401 [do7ides emixadkor tourcxat|). ‘The source of any metal article of war which is itemized

in the inventories,

accordingly,

might have

been

(1) spoils

of war, or (2) private dedications, (3) the weapons of the arsenal; or, 69. JG 12, 120. For the date, see E. Schweigert, Hesperia 7 (1938) 281-289. Schweigert (p. 286) notes that in making annual inventories of the Chalkotheke, % oTnAn ALBivn Eurrpoobev THs XadkoOjxns,

now

identified

as JG II2, 120, was

to be used

as the model of all successive inventories to ensure that no objects disappeared which existed at the time when the stele was set up. In a normal armory, one would expect that military gear was constantly being dispersed as it was needed in warfare. Yet, when a new 1440.46ff), we

éferacyds of the Chalkotheke was made a little after 350/49 8.c. (IG II, have, so far as can

be tested, exactly the same

items,

including

the

shields, as in JG I12, 120.

70. See Doérpfeld, Ath. Mitt. 14 (1889) 310; W. Judeich, Topographie von Athen? (Munich 1931) 245. At Delos, the Chalkotheke, which did not, however, serve as an

arsenal, was the opisthodomos of the temple of Apollo: R. Vallois, L’architecture hellénique et hellénistique 4 Délos 1 (Paris 1944) 56-57. 71. Tréheux’s text of lines 14-15 of a new fragment of JG II2, 1438: Annales de VEst: Mémoire 19 (1958) 142-143. 72. HSCP, Suppl. vol. 1 (1940) 400. 73. J. Travlos, Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Athens (London 1971) 143. 74. Treasurers of Athena (Cambridge, Mass. 1932) 131. In spite of all the information we have about the storage of military gear in Athens in the fourth century, H. A. Thompson and R. E. Wycherley, The Athenian Agora 14 The Agora of Athens

(Princeton 1972) 80-81, identify a large structure beside the so-called temple of Hephaistos in the Athenian Agora as an “‘arsenal?”. In all of the epigraphical records, there is not one bit of evidence to support this identification. The area was, however, one of bronzeworkers and ironworkers. There were many long closed halls which were used for storage of various sorts in ancient agoras: see J. J. Coulton, The Achitectural Development of the Greek Stoa (Oxford 1976) 11. For example, there presumably was a building for storage of grain in the city of Athens. For another

identification of the structure, see now E. Harrison,

AJA 81 (1977) 421-426.

Dedications of Armor

258

(4) they might be for use in the Panathenaia or for other purposes of cult.75 A new study of this material is much to be desired. In the review of the resources of Athens which Thucydides puts into the mouth of Perikles, we hear of the déva@jyuara on the akropolis (2.13.4): xwpls 6€ xpuciov dojuov Kal apyupiou ev Te avabjyuaow idtots Kat 6npoolos Kal dca oxebn Tepi Te Tas TouTAs Kal Tos AyGvas Kal oxdrAa Mndixa...

Stones containing the inventories of the treasurers of Athena present an almost complete series from 434 B.c. down to the last desperate days of the war in 40 B.c. There is no suggestion in these fifth-century inventories of any item from the arsenal. The inventories relate to the three parts of the Parthenon in which treasures were stored. Using one of the best preserved of the records for the Parthenon proper (/G I? 280: 422/1 B.c.), we find these entries fdouaxarpar MII, fidn T, @apaxes ATI, domides érionuor Tl, domides érixadxor AAAI, xpavn xadxa III. In the

literature dating back to Boeckh, I find no suggestion about the origin ‘of these military articles. Most of the above entries are restored in the list of epeteia of the year 434/3 B.c. (IG 1%, 276).7° One may conjecture that the shields denoted as éxicnyou (offerings “with an inscription on

them”: LSJ s.v. érionuos) were individual dedications on which the donor inscribed a brief dedicatory text;77 but spoils of war also bore

inscriptions. After 386/5 B.c. the treasurers of Athena as a distinct collegium is-

sued one inventory per year.’ In it the articles were listed irrespective of their place of origin and place of deposit. Subsequently this vagueness was lessened somewhat by a specification of place of deposit and by separation into groups, as outlined by Ferguson, Treasurers 111112. There is no lack of articles of warfare. In the inventory for the Chalkotheke in 362/1 B.c. (IG II?, 120, lines 33-34), there is one entry for 956 brazen shields of various sorts, and this entry is thought to be repeated in 350 B.c. ([G IL?, 1440.46-47): aomides émixadhkor ravrodaral FHHHHEI].

Although these shields were stored in the armory, it is not

clear why the number remains constant (at least as restored by Kirch75. E. S. Roberts and E. A. Gardiner, Introduction bridge 1905) 258, make

the general statement,

“We

to Greek Epigraphy may suppose

2 (Cam-

(the weapons)

to

have been used in the various contests at the Panathenaea.” There are occasional examples of a gilded shield consecrated in honor of an individual: L. Robert, RPh

55 (1929) 156. 76. ‘The epeteia are items taken in during the administrative year. 77. However, see below pp. 261-262. 78. See Ferguson, pp. 141-142.

Dedications of Armor

209

ner and others) during a period when Athens was militarily active and might be presumed to be furnishing gear to ephebes,” mercenaries and the thetes when they served as hoplites.®° Pasion is said (Demosthenes 45 Against Stephanos 85) to have made a gift of one thousand shields to the state, probably during the Corinthian war,*! just as Lykourgos later donated many pieces of armor (Plutarch Mor. 852B), and Charidemos and Diotimos bestowed gratuitously eight hundred shields on the neaniskoi (Demosthenes 18 On the Crown 116), if we can rely on the psephismata inserted into the text of the oration. Seven hundred and seventy-eight of Pasion’s shields are inventoried as being on the akropolis in 369/8 B.c. IG II?, 1424a[add.], lines 128-129 and 139140). We do not know the disposition of two hundred twenty-two of his shields, or why seven hundred and seventy-eight were still preserved more than twenty years after the donation. The inventory of 79. At Athens in the time of Aristotle, the young hoplite, on completing his training, was presented with shield and spear: Ath. Pol. 42.4. When this practice was introduced, we do not know. Plato (Menexenos 249A) refers to a panoply given to the war orphans. J. Pouilloux (Etudes thasiennes 3 [Paris 1954] 371) has published

an important inscription which prescribes in detail that the orphans of the victims of war should be equipped by the polemarch when they became of age with greaves, cuirass, sword, helmet,

shield and lance. The

text continues

that the value of these

shall not be less than three minas (= 300 drachmai). For a similar example of giving a panoply at Rhodes, see Diodoros 20.84.3 (305 B.c.). In terms of actual earning power, the sum of three hundred drachmai was a large one. M. I. Finley (in J.-P. Vernant, Problémes de la guerre en Gréce ancienne [Paris 1968] 149) suggests that at Sparta the state provided the panoply. There were occasions, at least in Asia, when an army was re-equipped after battle: Xenophon Agesilaos 1.26; Diodoros 17.39.3 and 64.2. In 335/4 B.c. the Athenians at the instigation of Demosthenes made a free

gift of weapons

to Thebes

in order that the Thebans

might equip all of their

citizens who lacked heavy armor: Diodoros 17.8.5 (dyolws 6& kal apds "APnvatovs wept ovuppaxtas érpécBevoyv kal rapa Anpoobevous drwy rAO0s ev Swpeats AaBovTes Tovs avdm)ovus

Kabwr\ifov). For equipment provided to the soldiers of a garrison of mercenaries at Kyrbissos, see L. and J. Robert, Journal des Savants 1976 219-222.

80. Similarly, in JG 112, 1424a(add.).134, the number of xvnuides in the Chalkotheke is given as 626; in 7G II?, 1424.340, as 620. Karo (Daremberg-Saglio s.v. Ocrea 145) states that greaves were practically out of fashion in the late fifth century. They are thought to have been rendered obsolete by the elongation of the breastplate. A. M. Snodgrass (Arms and Armour of the Greeks [London 19647] 110) writes, ““The metal

greave also appears to fade out of the picture at this time” (401 B.c.); but J. K. Anderson (Military Theory and Practice [Berkeley 1970] 24) is much more cautious about the conclusion to be drawn from vases. In the Hellenistic inscription published by M. Feyel in Revue Arch. 1938 II 29-68, greaves are included in the hoplite equipment. See also the Thasian inscription mentioned in note 79. 81. For the domdornyetov of Pasion, see Demosthenes 36 For Phormion 4.

260

Dedications of Armor

368/47 B.c. (IG IL2, 1425.397) refers to domides Aaxwyixal FH

(six hun-

dred).®? These shields also appear in JG II?, 1496.17.83

The collection to which Ferguson specifically refers when he says that the akropolis was the arsenal of Athens is that of 318 cases of arrows in the Opisthodomos and eight and one-half in the Hekatompedon. The

two collections

occur

in the inventory

for the same

year,

369/8 B.c. In JG I1?, 1424a(add.).121-122, the entry reads:*4 owpaxot Tokevyparwy HHFAAAATIII érerelo AA.

The tamiai of the year 369/8 B.c. had received from their predecessors of 370/69 B.c. 290 cases, and, in turn, during their year in office, took in enough arrows or bolts to require twenty cases for storage. ‘These were housed in the Opisthodomos. Under the heading é& rod MapGevavos occurs the following entry (lines 344-345):®° owpaxot VIII Kat nucowpaxcov TOLEVLATOV CATPOY AXpnTWV.

.

82. The reading in the Corpus (Xf) was corrected by A. M. Woodward, Hesperia 25 (1956) 89 n. 2. | 83. The shields brought by the victors from Sphakteria in 425 B.c. were dedicated in the Stoa Poikile (Pausanias 1.15.4), as Woodward notes. A geographical designation usually gives the source or design of a manufactured object, as “Chian” or “Milesian” beds. The most detailed collection of objects according to provenance is that of W. Déonna, La vie privée des Déliens (Paris 1948) 167-184. So the ‘‘Argive” shield was the regular Greek hoplite shield. The design was originally produced at Argos: A. M. Snodgrass, Arms and Armour of the Greeks (London 1967) 54. Cf. Cartledge, JHS 97 (1977) 21. In the entry worjpra Kadxidixa &pyvpa in IG 12, 280 (422/1 B.C.), the reference seems to be to the produce of the mines in the hills of Chalkis, which also gave the name to a make of swords; cf. Aristophanes Eq. 237. Aigeus’ sword is an Alényrov Gop:

Kallimachos Hekala 236; cf. frg. 701 and Pfeiffer’s commentary. Steph-

anos of Byzantion says that the word oré6a in Alkaios is called Chalkidian da 7d xXadkoupyeta mprov & abrois (Xadxdebor) dPOjvar; cf. Plutarch Mor. 434A. By contrast, a few lines below in the same document, the entry éy AéoBov

described spoils taken from Lesbos, which was conquered recurring item

domis éy AéoBo érionuos.

The word BapBapixés

"IAdvpixov xadxobv

in 428 B.c.; cf. also the is used

for articles of

foreign design: E, W. Marsden, Greek and Roman Artillery (Oxford 1969) 68. There are domides ’Axaixal- (IG II, 1414.29) and domides Aaxwrixal (112, 1425.397) and wé\rae Maxedovuxal (II?, 1487.96-97). As noted above (p. 242), Ailianos (VH 3.24) says that

Xenophon, like other yevvato., was accustomed to wear éz\a xad& in battle. Xenophon wore an Argive shield, an Attic cuirass, and a Boiotian helmet, while riding a horse

from Epidauros. There is an interesting section in Athenaios 1.27D-28F in which the author lists the special products of each city. The shield of Argos and the chariot of Thebes were pre-eminent. 84. Here, as elsewhere, I omit brackets and dots below letters, since many

often recur. 85. For the meaning of the heading, see Kirchner ap. IG II2, 1425.

entries

Dedications of Armor

261

Many articles in the inventories are described as rotten, rusted, or in some way unusable. For cases of arrows in other inventories, see 1G Il?, 1412.28; 1414.19; and 1429.8.86 E. W. Marsden states that these arrows were for arrow-firing catapults.87 Other pieces of armor include zéry IG I, 280.84; IL, 1473.9), ddpu (iG II’, 1414.8), dopérvov (IG II, 1489.29), Owpat (which sometimes, however, is not a piece of armor, but a part of the body) (JG I, 280.82; IT2, 1388.19),

Kpdvos

UG

14, 246.16;

I12, 1463.9;

1471.57-58),

waxarpa

(/G I1?, 1388.46; 1489.36-38), xvnuis (IG II?, 1425.340; 1461.17), and mavorrhia (IG II, 1473.6).88 These are but samplings, and we await a more detailed study of these inventories. To isolate the dedications of war in these inventories, except when

they are specifically designated, is virtually impossible.®® Such an entry as Kpavn apoBdiva rpia obx byip (IG IT2, 1471.57) would seem to apply to used military equipment. The oft-repeated item of 51 domlées érionuor,

especially since it occurs throughout the fifth-century inventories UG I?, 276.14 etc.), could hardly be anything but personal dedications or inscribed spoils of war, if LSJ are correct in defining the word érionyot as “having an inscription upon them.” In JG II?, 1425.272-274, the

86. The abundant discoveries of arrowheads in Greek sanctuaries is discussed by A. M. Snodgrass, Arms and Armour of the Greeks (London 1967) 81-84. 87. Greek and Roman Artillery (Oxford 1969) 65, 72, 74, 78. Marsden (p. 66) Suggests that a crown which is mentioned in JG II2 103 (= Tod, GHT 133.27), of 368 B.c., as having been previously awarded to Dionysios I of Syrakuse, was prompted by a “gift of non-torsion

catapults and boxes of bolts.” But bolts are mentioned

in the

much earlier inventories of JG II2, 1412 and 1414, The Athenian use of catapultbolts must, therefore, precede Marsden’s date of 369 8.c.; and by 370 B.c. Athens had a large arsenal of composite bows. Marsden (p. 57) also suggests that the catapults é€ ’Eperpias, inventoried in the curatores navales (IG 12, 1627.329; 1628.511 etc.) of the Peiraieus, were

From

spoils of war, brought back by Phokion

similar use of prepositional

from

Eretria in 340 B.C.

phrases in other inventories,

I judge that this

conclusion is correct. 88. The closest thing to an index of the objects is found in A. Michaelis, Der Parthenon (Leipzig 1871) 296ff. This is helpful for the fifth century, but of little assistance for the fourth. 89. The fact that a large number of a particular article was inventoried together is no reason for assuming that the objects were not votive offerings. The curators of the Brauronion, for example, list 119 genuine and an uncertain number of miniature mirrors: JG II2, 1522.30. In the Chalkotheke were stored eighteen mirrors: JG II2, 1469.92-97; cf. 1464.25. All of these were clearly votive offerings. go. I suspect, however, that sometimes the meaning of the adjective érlonuo. is “having blazons.” In IG Il2, 1424a (add.).275, the entry reads domldwy érlonua (Il,

which could hardly mean the inscriptions on shields. The blazon might be inscribed, as that of Polyneikes in Aischylos Septem 643ff. and 654. Cf. Euripides Phoinissai 1107 and 1125, and A. M. Snodgrass, Arms and Armour of the Greeks (London 1967)

Dedications of Armor

262

entry reads domides émionuor AAAIII, rovrav l oft] yeypaupevar, whereas in 1424a(add.).338-339, what Kirchner takes to be the same articles are inventoried as domldes émlonuoc AAAIII, robrwy rpets yeypayméevar. In either case, some of these shields are inscribed.® In his improved text

has identified the votive

of IG IL2, 1455.31 (341/0 B.c.), Woodward

offerings of xynuides,°? although the subject of the verb dvéyxe is lost.%

The singular number establishes that it was a private dedication. The location in the temple may afford some clue to the character of the dedication. After the reference in JG II, 1424a(add.) and 1425 to the boule’s gold crown of 375/4 B.c., the following entry occurs (lines 371— 372, 324-326, respectively): Epouaxarpa XaAKh mpos THL mapacTad. — kidy dbo mpos TH Tapacrade. Swords prominently displayed “on the doorpost,

pilaster,” of the Ancient Temple must have been especially memorable dedications.% In the inventory of 341/0 B.c. ([G II, 1455), shields are

54 and 96. In addition to designations by nationality, shields in the treasure-lists are termed émixpuaor, érixadxor, érlonuor, deta, and Nevxal (IG 12, 1424a[add.].138). The entry xpvoloy Aevxdy occurs several times in the Delian accounts and is taken to be gold with an alloy of silver: cf. Schulhof, BCH 32 (1908) 12. On the other hand, the

term Aebkaoms

is applied to Trojans (Homer JI. 22.294), Karians (Xenophon Hell.

3.2.15), Makedonians (Plutarch Kleom. 23; Livy 44.41.2), and Argives (Aischylos Septem 8g, Sophokles Ant. 106, Euripides Ph. 1099). The fact that armor was ornate should not be taken as evidence that the article was not worn. See above p. 242. Presumably, the hoplite equipped himself with expensive arms in anticipation that he might some day dedicate the émAa ols abrés éxpetro in his favorite shrine, although to be sure he must have wanted to impress friend and foe alike with his equipment. g1. The participle might be thought to refer to the original catalogue from which the inventory was made, but the verb

dvaypadw

was used for this purpose, as in the

new fragment of JG II2, 1438: Tréheux, Annales de l’Est, Mémoire No. 19 (1958) 143, lines 13-16. On the other hand, émypa¢w is used in the same document (line 5)

for “inscribed” objects. In the Brauronian items with the label dveriypados or &ypados:

inventories, there is a large number of see T. Linders, Studies

12-13, and, in

greater detail, Tréheux, Annales de l’Est, Mémoire No. 29 (1965) 65-67. 92. See, however, above p. 259. 93. HSCP Suppl. vol. 1 (1940)

402.

Probably

offerings

were

marked

with

the

names of the dedicant and of the archon in office. Twice (IG II2, 1476,13-17; 1477.2024) the remark is made, “The tamiai have inscribed neither the archon under whom the votives were dedicated nor the dedicant.” 94. The meaning of rapacrds, however, is disputed. See J. J. E. Hondius, Novae Inscriptiones Atticae (Leiden 1925) 60; T. Linders, Studies in the Treasure Records of Artemis Brauronia (1972) 57 and 72 n. 33. Cf. Euripides And. 1021. There are two terracotta bas-reliefs in the Louvre which show how shields and weapons were suspended between columns from the architrave. A painting from Pompeii shows shields attached to the columns of a circular edifice: see the illustrations in DarembergSaglio, Dictionnaire

Dictionnaire

s.v. clipeus

1259.

In Chipiez’s

article

on

capitolium

in the

(p. gog. figs. 1146 and 1147), he illustrates from coins the facade of a

Dedications of Armor

263

listed as being hung in the inter-columnar spaces; these shields were overlaid with gold.% A Xenotimos, son of Karkinos, of the deme Thorikos, is mentioned

as dedicating part of his cavalry trapping to Artemis, probabl y to Artemis as dyporépa the war-goddess. Such trappings were often very costly ornaments. The entry appears first in 398 /7 IG IL’, 1388, line 74) and 1s several times repeated (II2, 1400.62; 1451.28; 1455.25-27; and 1459.

1-2). The earliest entry reads: rade év 78 ’Oriabodduw ex Tis x.BoT6 THs Bpavpwvdbev’ trmixds kexpbgados, éxnvia, Zevoriuos Kapxivo avebnxev. The xexpvgados is part of the head-stall of a bridle,°* and éxAvia part of a horse’s

bit. The dedicant, a knight, was the son of a general mentioned by Thucydides (2.23). As with the Athenian inventories, the Delian accounts list many offerings of a military nature. Moreover, we can be sure that, in contrast with the Athenian

records, almost all of the inventoried articles

are votive offerings.°” The archaeological record reveals that very few military objects have been excavated on the island; but this may be explained in part by the interdiction in scattered comments by several authors against war and burials.° Herodotos (1.64) relates that Peisistratos purified Delos according to the bidding of oracles by removing the dead that were buried in ground within sight of the temple. According to Thucydides (3.104), it was forbidden either to die or to give birth on Delos; and Strabo (10.5.5,.486) adds that it was unlawful even to keep a dog there (ovx ekeori 5€ ob6é xbva év Afro tpepev).In Kallimachos’

Hymn to Delos (275-277) we have an interdiction against war:

temple with objects suspended on chains between the columns. H. A. ‘Thompson and R. E. Wycherley (The Agora of Athens [Princeton 1972] 92 n. 50) write with regard to the Stoa Poikile, “A hole in one of the interior column drums suggests that some of the shields may have hung on the columns.” M. F. Courby (Fouilles de Delphes 2.2 [1927] p. 19 fig. 18) shows the metope of a fourth-century temple which preserves the trace of an oval shield. 95. See A. M. Woodward, HSCP Suppl. vol. 1 (1940) 402. g6. Xenophon £q. 6.8. g7- There was a Chalkotheke on Delos (JG XI.2.199.B line 74), but it was not used as an armory. According to Vallois, this Chalkotheke was not a distinct edifice, but

the opisthodomos of the temple of Apollo which of the amphyctionic period. At Delphi there was g. By the middle of the second century B.c., the Stoa of the Roman: JG II2, 957.9; 958.28; 963.6. g8. On the neutrality of Delos, see W. Kolbe, response on pages 29-31. See also W. Déonna, La Ti

was given this name before the end an érAoSqxn: SIG3 253 frag. T line Athenians had a hoplotheke in the JHS 50 (1930) 20-29, with Tarn’s vie privée des Déliens (Paris 1948)

Dedications of Armor

264

T@ Kal vnodwy ayuwrarny é£ere Kelvou KAntn, “AToANwvos KovpoTpogos’ ov6é a” "Evvw otd’ ’Aténs ot6’ txmou értaTrelBovowv “Apnos.

“Wherefore from that day thou are famed as the most holy of islands, nurse of Apollo’s youth. On thee treads not Enyo nor Hades nor the horses of Ares.” Pausanias (3.23.3-4) comments that the island was unfortified and condemns the impiety of Menophanes, general of Mithradates, in invading the island. It was expressly forbidden to introduce arms of war (é7Aa mo\guta) into the temple of Zeus Kynthios.°? W. Déonna, Exploration

archéologique de Délos 18 (Paris 1938) 208, notes the fact that “Les armes découvertes 4 Délos sont peu nombreuses et de minime importance.”’ But the inventories list scores of dedicated military articles. Since there are no indexes to the volumes of Delian inscriptions,’ I list articles from a few of the minor buildings with a reference to

large collections of shields. The

dedications

in the neorion,

or Monument

of the Bulls,1°!

are

found, according to Diirrbach and Roussel, in only two fragmentary pieces: Inscr. de Délos 1403.Bb.1.39-51 and 1412.b (a small fragment). In addition to the model of a ship (line 46) and statues of Apollo, Poseidon, and Athena (lines 50-51), various types of shields and cuirasses were hung in the prodromos. In an edifice called the Graphe was hung an offering of Antiochos, a long shield (@upedv brapyupov ).1°? In a structure called ofxos 6 rpos T&t éxxAnotacrypiwr, 1°? for which there is one complete inventory (Inscr. de Délos 1417.A.1.8-33), there are offerings of Ptolemy, son of Lysimachos and Arsinoe: O@upedv immuxoy extxpucov éxovra eyxavua and yiréva pecddevxov. A circular bronze shield (do7ida xakkqv) of an otherwise unknown Amphikles of Athens was stored in a box. A footsoldier’s long shield (6vpedy meftxoy) of Timaratos of Rhodes was also in a box. The dedication of Theoxenos of Leontion, 99. Inscr. de Délos no. 2529. 100. The article (“Les fouilles de Délos’) by T. Homolle in Monuments Grecs 47 (1878) 25-63, may still be recommended as an excellent survey of the general content of the inventories. 101. For the identification of this edifice containing the sacred ship, see B. Bruneau and J. Ducat, Guide de Délos (Paris 1965) 91. Cf. below pp. 283-284. 102. The inventory of the Graphe is found in JG XI.2.203.B.100-101 and Inscr. de Délos 298.A.123. The shield is mentioned only in the later publication, so was presumably dedicated after 270 B.c, 103. Oikoi are defined by Bruneau and Ducat (Guide 77 n. 3) as follows: “a Délos, les Oikoi sont des batiments sacrés appartenant aux sanctuaires, mais qui ne servaient pas de lieux de culte.”

Dedications of Armor

265

possibly father of Kallikrates, leader of the Roman faction in Achaia in 180 B.c.,14 was a cavalryman’s long shield (6vpedv trmixdv txovra éyxavpa). The inscription on the next shield (line 22) could not be read (ri ervypagdiy odk Fv ouvidetv). Menelaos of Epeiros dedicated a foot-

soldier's shield. In that part of the inventory of 156 /5 B.c. which the articles in the gymnasium, there are listed ten bronze shields 143), sixty shields overlaid with gold (line 149), and twenty set in (wepixpuoos) (lines 150-151).1°° The inventory of 2479 B.c. lists an

gives (line gold iron

helmet plated with silver (repixedadaia ovdnpa Tepinpyupwuern )dedicated

by a certain Leonidas,!° possibly the nauarchos of Ptolemy I (Diodoros 20.10). In the prodromos of the great temple of Apollo in 2479 B.c.,!°7 was a cavalry sword (udxatpa tam), dedicated by Thymoidas, and the scabbard of a sword (xodedv uaxaipas immxjs), dedicated by Timeas.1°8 Durrbach, citing examples of error of iota for nu, identifies Thymo(i)das as the Thymondas, son of the Rhodian Mentor, who served as a

general with Dareios (Arrian Anab. 2.9.1 and 2.13.2) and fought at Issos.1°° In the accounts of 250 B.c., the entry reads xoded dio éepayriva, TO pev Tipéov, 7d dé Ovuddov.449 Both King Perseus and his brother Demetrios dedicated to Apollo objects described as oréfavos xpucods émi

x@vov,111 which Homolle takes to mean gold crowns encircling a helmet.'!2 In the inventory of the cella of the temple of Apollo as given

in JG XI.2.287.B.47—75, (from the middle of the third century B.c.), following a group of small shields made of onyx (domidioxas dvvxivas) and preceding three fly-swatters (uvocdBas), is listed (1. 71) a purely ornamental gold-embroidered quiver: ¢apérpa jpakdewrix XpvootoikiATos T6ov éxovoa kai Tavidioy xpucoby éd’ ots émvypagdy. The cella was clearly re-

served for articles of precious metals. ‘The list of pieces of armor in W.

Déonna, Exploration archéologique de Délos 18 (Paris 1938) 206-207,

104. So Dittenberger S/G2 no. 588 n. 38. 105. BCH 54 (1930) 98 = Inscr. de Délos 1417.A.1.

106. JG XI.2.161.B.77. 107. For the periods of construction of the three temples of Apollo on Delos, see W. Déonna, La vie privée des Déliens (Paris 1948) 137-138. 108. IG XI.2.161.B.99.

109. See Schwahn in RE s.v. Thymondas (1936) 716-717. Cf. P. Roussel, Délos colonie athénienne (Paris 1916) 400. 110. JG X1.2.287.B.46. 1i1. Inscr. de Délos 442.B.56 and 75-76; cf. 396.B.32. 112. BCH 6 (1882) 130. Cf. AP 9.322, and A. S. F. Gow and D. L. Page, Hellenistic Epigrams 2 (Cambridge 1965) 335. Dtiirrbach believes that the konos is here a base of a conical form.

Dedications of Armor

266

which is far from complete, includes bows, of both the Cretan and the

Skythian types, quivers, arrows, spears, greaves.'!* A selection of naval dedications in the sanctuaries of Delos has been

listed separately by Déonna, op. cit. 197-203. Frequently mentioned is the silver model of a trireme given by Seleukos.1* Of the axpooroda, or prow-ornaments, which were kept in chests, there is particular men-

tion of those which commemorated

two naval victories of the Athe-

nians, one near Naxos in 346 B.c., which established the supremacy of the Athenians in the Cyclades,!> the other near Leukas, perhaps in 374

or 373 B.c.1!6 These were consecrated in the temple of the Seven Statues, which is also called the temple of the Athenians.” Beaks (€uBoror) are not uncommon. There was an éuBodos xadxots in the oikos of the Andrians,1!8 in addition to a ves éuBoros.119 In the temple of the Delians

in the year 364 B.c. there were three rprnpwv uBoro.° ‘The entry rndaAva kai &yxupa madaia is inventoried as being in an edifice called the temple

éy Niow.12t The pedalia were the steering oars. The props to keep a boat on shore upright are inventoried as being in the oikos of the Andrians in 179 B.c.: épelopata otdnpa (Inscr. de Délos 442.B.171). A xeip

ovdnpa, grappling iron,!8 occurs in JG XI1.2.161.B.129 (279 B.c.). Déonna believes that the article is the handle of a vase, since it is listed with vases. But there were vast numbers of vases in all edifices. Our article was stored in the Chalkotheke along with an éxivn orpatwortixh.?4 The 113. Of the monuments listed by Déonna (p. 207) as representing armor or scenes of combat, possibly the most interesting is a small relief in bronze having a quiver with the legend, ‘““These arrows

saved us from

starving”

(ratra yap mewhy towoev Huas);

one thinks of Philoktetes at Lemnos.

114. For references, see his page 197 n. 2. An earlier dedication at Delphi was a trireme of gold and silver two cubits long which Kyros had given to Lysander in honor of Aigospotamoi: Plutarch Lysander 18. 115. See Beloch, Griech. Geschichte 32 1.153 and 2.234. 116. Inscr. de Délos 1443B.11.49-51; 1446.21-24; and 1449.d.12-14.

117. See F. Courby, Exploration archéologique de Délos 12 (Paris 1931) 226. It may be noted that dedications of non-Athenians were housed in this sanctuary. Conversely, a votive of an Athenian might be placed in an edifice other than that of the

temple of the Athenians. The ’A@nvalwy vews was inaugurated by Nikias in 417, but after 315 B.c. was called 6 veds ob ra Extra ayadyuara. 118. Inscr. de Délos 320.B.69. 119. Inscr. de Délos 298.A.180; 442.B.167. 120. BCH 10 (1886) 466 line 138. See also JG II2, 1648.8. 121. Inser. de Délos 320.B.75.

122. See, in particular, C. Torr, Ancient Ships (1964 Chicago reprint edition) 75. 123. So Homolle, BCH 15, (1891) 162. 124. The éxlvy orpariwrikn, which is taken by LSJ (s.v. éxwéa) to be a kind of vase, must be some part of the cavalry ‘bit’ used to excite the horse. The word means “hedgehog.” See Déonna 207.

Dedications of Armor

267

size of an article is not a factor, since there were puxpat and peyarae Tpamefat, kAtvar, etc. in the accounts; cf. JG I12, 1639.11, 1640.32.

A number of anchors were dedicated. The following items are thrice inventoried as being on the portico of the Sanctuary of the gods of Samothrake:!25

ayxvpa tvAivn biBoXos (“two-pointed anchor of wood’); ayxupav Evdlyny Tod pwodtPdou dmroxexouperny (“anchor of wood with its lead cut off”’);126 and ayxvpay oidnpav evredf (“complete iron anchor’”).!27 In addition, the items cxvrdd\voy eBérwov adrvow exov ordnpav and rplawav évTeAn medexvov kal am’ ayxbpas adhpiov Klpxov éxov are explained by F. Chapouthier, Exploration archéologique de Délos 16: “Le Sanctuaire

des dieux de Samothrace” (Paris 1935) 88-go as follows: “A l’extremité de la haste, un anneau de fer (xipxos) servait au passage du cable. Jinterpréte le baton d’ebéne pourvu d’une chaine de fer comme le jas transversal qui permet au crochet de mordre.” The “complete trident” is taken by Déonna to be a harpoon used in fishing.1 An entry which appears first under the heading of the Chalkotheke and later that of the oikos of the Andrians reads as follows:129 a&kyuwv" avxupa ovdnpa Kai diBos podvBdods .1°° The combined weight was one talent, 26 minas. The word dkuwr, like several of our terms, is missing from the glossaries of Morrison-Williams and Casson; W. Déonna de-

fines it as “enclume,”’18! a meaning it often bears.'*? In another entry, the

text

reads dxyova cdnpodv, vBodov Haprovpyods xadxodv.83

Akmon

seems originally to have meant “meteoric stone, thunderbolt;”1*4+ but in Apollodoros of Damaskos, Poliorketika 161.4, it has the meaning “head of a battering ram.” Whether it is some weight which was put into the stock of the anchor, or part of a battering-ram, is not clear; but the word cannot bear the meaning “‘anvil” in this context. The entry dvxbpas otdnpas dvd TH play Nidoy obk éxovcay is inventoried 125. Inscr. de Délos 1403.Bb.11.3-6; 1412.a.27-28; and 1417.A.1.165-167. 126. The entry also occurs in Inscr. de Délos 1403.Bb.11.6. Most anchors were made of a combination of wood and some heavier substance, either lead or stone: see L. Casson, Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (Princeton 1971) 253. 127. Omitted in 1403 and 1412. 128. Exploration arch. de Délos 18.200. 129. On the transfer of votive offerings from one temple to another, see W.

Déonna, La vie privée des Déliens (Paris 1948) 154. 130. BCH 6 (1882) 47; Inscr. de Délos 372.B.37; 421.173 430-5; 442.B.168; 443.Bb.92; and 444.B.8. Cf. 439.b.13. 131. Explor. arch. de Délos 18 p. 221. 132. For its uses in the sense of a “weight,” see J. and L. Robert, REG 73 (1960) 137. Cf. REG 77 (1964) 201. 133. IG XI.2.203.B.g9. 134. So LSJ. For the possible Egyptian origin of the word (‘‘eagle”), see D’Arcy Thompson, Studies Presented to F. L. Griffith (Oxford 1932) 249-250.

268

Dedications of Armor

in the oikos of the Andrians in Inscr. de Délos 298.A.180; 300.B.29; 313.1.16; and a similar entry dvxvpa o1dnpa NOov otk Exovoa is found in

BCH 6 (1882) 130; Inscr. de Délos 372.B.40 (Chalkotheke); 430.6 (Oikos of Andrians); 442.B.171; 443.Bb.95; 444-B.11; 457-21; and 461.Bb.5. The question arises as to the possible occasion for the dedication of naval. articles. In Kallimachos

Aitia 4 fragment

109 (Pfeiffer), when

the Argonauts debark at Kyzikos, they exchange their old anchor for a new one and dedicate the former to Athena: ... QWoNTELY TOV AiPov WOE @ ExpdvTo ayKipa, ATE éhadpotrepov bvTa—rTovTov 6° baorepov KabtepwOnvar “A@nva—erepov ye pny BapvTepoyv avadaPety.

Marinatos (BCH 57 [1933] 211) notes what he regards as similar dedications of stones (eivai) from the Minoan period. F. Moll has collected examples of anchors inscribed with the names of deities: "A¢podire o6fov-

oa, Lebs “Yraros, Zels Kaovos cofwv.18> F. Chapouthier suggests that the anchors symbolize a successful return to port after a hazardous voyage.186 He publishes two marble bases with dedicatory inscriptions to the Samothrakian gods which he believes symbolize such safe returns. On

the other hand,

the prow-ornaments,

beaks,

and

battering ram

probably commemorate victories in naval warfare.187 It is only by contrast with the quantity of jewellery, crowns, vases, and chests or coffers of every class that the number of military articles may seem slight to anyone who inspects the inventories. Apollo’s temple alone seems to have had some thousands of phialai.18° But the military dedications are numerous enough to include virtually every article of land and naval warfare, and they range in size from a horse’s bit and cheekpieces (rapayvadides) to a complete anchor and a ship 135. Arch. Anz. 44 (1929) 267-268. Cf. Hondius on SEG 11 no. 18. See also the anchors published by Braemer and Marcadé in BCH 77 (1953) 139-154. An anchor

believed to have been dedicated by a sailor was found in a temple at Kition on Kypros, which is dated by the excavators before 1000 B.c.: Nicolaou, AJA 81 (1977) 524. 136. Exploration archéologique de Délos 16 (Paris 1935) 88. 137. For

boat

models

in terracotta,

see A. N. Stillwell,

Corinth

15.2

(Princeton

1952) 196.

138. From the modern viewpoint, the most prized possession was a “three-cornered case containing works of Alkaios”

(@4xnv tplywvou éxovoay BiBAla ’Adxalov):

Inscr. de

Délos 1409.Ba.11.39. It was kept in the oikos of the Andrians. In the Chalkotheke in

the same year (line 113) was a small bronze stele on which was inscribed a decree of proxenia awarded by the Delians to Pnytagoras, King of Salamis on Kypros: orndtépiov xarxody Exov mpokevlay Ivurayépar Baordet Dadrapwiwv.

Dedications of Armor

269

which Pausanias says was a “nine.” The name of the dedicant is rarely given, and we do not know whether the victor is dedicating the arms which helped him win the victory; or the old warrior, no longer fit for the fight, his outworn weapons. Clusters of dedicated weapons might be candidates

for captured

armor,

as will be discussed

in the next

chapter; but this is not certain, As we have seen above (p. 242), the ancient Greek prided himself on expensive arms; and whether he dedi-

cated these arms after victory or they were taken from his corpse as spoils cannot be determined. There are ample precedents for both practices. Dedications more numerous

of Hegemones.

Dedications

by leaders of armies

are

than private dedications. Indeed, some of the articles

of military equipment discussed in the preceding section may have been dedicated by hegemones, since the inscribed names are not otherwise attested.1°° Not only did city-states show their gratitude to the gods by major offerings, but military leaders commemorated

their vic-

tories in the same fashion. Sometimes, any distinction is hard to main-

tain. It may be said that Hieron dedicates helmets from Kyme (474 B.C), but it is as ruler of Syrakuse, and indeed in conjunction with the

Syrakusans, that he does so: hudpov 6 Aevopévos kal tol Lvpaxdcror.!49 A few years earlier, when Gelon made his thank-offering at Delphi for his victory at Himera in 480 B.c., only the tyrant’s name appears.!4! When we are told that ‘““Thrasyboulos and the Athenians” (Pausanias g.11.6) dedicated colossal figures of Athena and Herakles in the Herakleion at Thebes, we can assume that the offering was a public one. Moreover, in the fifth century at least, the right to set up individual

commemorative

monuments

may have been regulated by statute.1#

139. For example, the victory of Argos over Corinth about 500 B.c. is well attested from the collection of inscribed bronzes at Olympia, but is not recorded in the literature. 140. For the text of one helmet, see Meiggs-Lewis SGHI no. 29. The authors ignore the suggestion that the 485: P. Friedlander and other helmet from the (1960) 721; SEG 23.253.

inscription is prose going over into a hexameter, like JG 12, H. B. Hoffleit, Epigrammata (Berkeley 1948) 4 and 161. Ansame dedication was found in the Alpheios river: BCH 84 A third helmet has only the name of Deinandros without

mention of the Syrakusans: Olympiabericht 8.107-108. 141. H. Berve suggests that Gelon is purposely representing himself as a private citizen without title: D. M. Robinson Studies 2 (St. Louis 1953) 547. 142. When Pausanias (10.11.6) mistakenly tells us that the Stoa of the Athenians at Delphi was erected with the produce of Greek spoils taken by the Athenians in the Peloponnesian War, he apparently based this fact on an inscription which enumerated

the peoples from whom an

inference

the spoils (axpo8ivua) were taken. He continues by making

that Phormion

was

responsible

for the victories

(kai wor paiverar 7d

Dedications of Armor

270

For example, Kimon, after his victory at Eion on the Strymon (476 B.c.?), was allowed to dedicate three metrically inscribed stone Herms,'* but he was expressly prohibited from inscribing his name: Aischines 3 Against Ktesiphon 183 and Plutarch Kimon 7. Plutarch adds that his contemporaries held this to be a surpassing honor (riuqs brepBodn). One may recall the remarkable instance in which, when Pausanias, king of the Lakedaimonians, inscribed a distich upon the tripod at Delphi

with his own name, the Greeks were incensed. Thucydides says that the act was an 4éixnua,!44 and the Lakedaimonians chiselled the verses off.145 From the Souda, we learn that Iphikrates was the first to use his name in the dedication of \ddupa:!46 “Idixparns ... ds mp&ros & Tots hagipos TO érlypappa éroinoe euvnuevov TOU oTpaTNyov, mpoTEpoy porns Tis TOAEWS ETLY pahomerys. Herodotos mentions that Nekos, king of Egypt, dedicated to Apollo

at Miletos the garments in which he won his victories,'4” and that Amasis later dedicated a fine linen corselet in the sanctuary of Athena at Lindos.!48 Pausanias (1.21.7) says, “Linen corselets may be seen dedicated in various sanctuaries,’ and Frazer in his commentary on this

passage lists several examples.1*9 Pausanias twice states that he saw suspended in the shrine of Trophonios at Lebadeia the shield of Aristomenes the Messenian. In the

Third Messenian War (500-490 B.c.!©°), Aristomenes had lost his shield in a victory he gained over the Spartans. On recovering it, he dedicated it to Trophonios,

and Pausanias

later described

the blazon

on it.151

érlypaupa és Bopylwva rov ’Acwrixov éxew Kal és Tod Popylwvos Ta Epya). If Phormion’s

name had appeared on the dedication, there would have been no occasion for Pausanias to write kal you dalverat. Frazer (p. 284) is incorrect in stating that the “inscription mentioned the name of Phormio.” 143. For the Stoa of the Herms, see J. J. Coulton, The Architectural Development of the Greek Stoa (Oxford 1976) 4o. 144. 1.132.3. 145. Cf. [Demosthenes] 59 Against Neaira 97. Plutarch Mor. 873C; Souda s.v. Tlavoavlas; AP 6.197. 146. For the related

problem

of the erection

of honorary

statues

at Athens,

see

H. A. Thompson and R. E. Wycherly, The Athenian Agora 14 (Princeton 1972) 158159. 147. 2.159 (= 608 B.C.: Hall, CAH 3.297). 148. 2.182.

149. See also the notes to J. K. Anderson, Military Theory and Practice (Berkeley 1970) 22-23. Nepos (Iphikrates 1) says that Iphikrates armed his light infantry with linen corselets. 150. See Kiechle, Der Kleine Pauly 1 (1964) 571.

151. 4.16.7; 9.39.14.

Dedications of Armor

2/1

Simonides celebrates a spear which “had grown old by long brandishing in battle” and was dedicated to Panomphaios Zeus.12 The text does not specify that the consecration was made in a temple; but this seems probable. Rouse regards a bronze spear-butt found at Olympia and inscribed Lexvér[or] or Dexvovi [wy] as a similar dedication,1® but it seems more probable that Dittenberger and Purgold are correct in identifying it as an article from the spoils (‘“Beutestiick’’).154 Miltiades dedicated a Corinthian helmet at Olympia with an inscription in Attic script: MiAriddes dvebexey ror Al. Kunze suggests that Miltiades, who was a strategos at Marathon in 490 B.c., made the dedication of his helmet after the battle. From the fourth century, a few more are attested. A barbarian, possibly an Illyrian, dedicated his helmet at Olympia in a script which Dittenberger and Purgold take to be fourth century.1%6 Iphikrates dedicated a shield overlaid with gold (érixpvcos) which is itemized in two late fourth-century inventories (IG II?, 1487.39-40; 1489.5-6). It was deposited in the Old Temple on the Athenian akropolis. Alexander the Great seems to have shed his arms frequently. On visiting ‘Troy, he left his armor in the temple of Athena and took in its place some of the dedicated armor attributed to the Trojan war.157 In Arkadian Gortys, he dedicated a cuirass and spear, which Pausanias saw.1°8 Alexander the son of Polyperchon dedicated his panoplia to Athena in 318 B.c.? Pausanias (2.21.4) says that after Pyrrhos was killed in the streets of Argos in 272, his shield was hung up in the temple of Demeter

over the door. In the first century of our era, Antiphilos of Byzantion composed an epigram on a spear of Alexander, dedicated to Artemis.1© In the Roman

age, Flamininus,

after his defeat of Philip in 197 B.c.,

dedicated at Delphi inscribed silver shields and his own thyreos (ao7idas apyupas Kai Tov eavtod Oupedv): Plutarch Flamininus

12. This passage is

152. Anth. Pal. 6.52 (= 144 Bergk). Cf. above p. 250. 153. GVO

112.

154. Die Inschriften von Olympia (Berlin 1896) no. 245. Cf. L. H. Jeffery, Local Scripts of Archaic Greece (Oxford 1961) 141 and pl. 23 (ca. 500-475 B.c.). Jeffery reads the nominative case and suggests that the occasion was the battle of Sepeia in which the Sikyonians assisted the Lakedaimonians. 155. Olympiabericht 5 (1956) 74. 156. Inschriften von Olympia (Berlin 1896) 695. 157. Arrian 1.11.7; Diodoros 17.18. TE OemOcodeles 159. IG II, 1473.7-9. Cf. Diodoros 18.65. 160. AP 6.97. See also A. S. F, Gow and D. L. Page, The Garland of Philip 2 (Cambridge 1968) 130. Such relics of the past aroused great interest.

Dedications of Armor

212

interesting because of the distinction drawn between the shield used in a battle and purely decorative shields of precious metal. Mithradates Eupator had a large frame, Appian states (Bell. Mithr. 12.16.1 12), as is shown by his armor, which he sent to Nemea and to Delphi. So far in our investigation, our concern has been with articles of

warfare. But the Delian inventories afford an opportunity to survey other objects dedicated by prominent hegemones and princes of state. Such objects were generally of much greater value than the military gear. Our survey goes down to 314 B.c., the year of Delian independence, after which multiple dedications by single princes of state be-

come increasingly common.

The one object of legendary origin was

the necklace of Eriphyle, the wife of Amphiaraos, whom

she betrayed

for the sake of the necklace of Harmonia.!®! The necklace was said to be the work of Hephaistos himself. But the sanctuary at Delphi also pretended to possess it.16? The inventories called it xécpos!® or dpyos;164 of gold, it was placed on a scarlet cloth: 8puos (Kdcpos) xpvaots eri howvixudtov "Epupbdns.16° It was kept in the temple of Artemis.1%&

The Persian admiral Datis consecrated a golden necklace:

orperov

xXpucoby mpds Tau Toixwr, Adridos avabqua .1°7 Homolle (BCH 15 [1891] 140)

believes that in reality the offering was that of Batesis, son of Babis, and that the hieropoioi either by error or by a piece of trickery advantageous to the sanctuary had substituted for an obscure name that of the more

illustrious Persian.16

The

pious Nikias

of Athens,

who

conducted a theoria to Delos in 417 B.c. and dedicated a famous palm

tree of bronze at the inauguration of the temple of the Athenians,169 also contributed a gold crown: orédavov xpvoody Nuxiov avadeua.t79 The

Lakedaimonian Lysander celebrated his victory over the Athenians in 404 B.C. with three gold crowns having different types of leaves.” ‘I'wo 161. Rapp in Roscher, Lexicon s.v. Eriphyle 1336. 162. Apollodoros 3.7.7 and Frazer’s note in the Loeb edition; Ephoros ap. Athenaios 6.232E. 163. Inscr. de Délos 443.Bb.124; etc. 164. IG XI.2.161.B.42; Inscr. de Délos 298.170; etc. 165. W. Déonna, La vie privée des Déliens 159 (with references for the interpreta-

tion). The translation in LSJ s.v. dowidvoy (“ornament in shape of palm”) is erroneous and has no mythological significance. 166. The weights of all objects mentioned in this section are given in the accounts, but are not reproduced here. 167. BCH 6 (1882) 152 = IG X1.2.161.B.95-96 (279 B.c.). 168.

Cf. W. Déonna, Exploration arch. de Délos 18.301 n. 4.

169. Plutarch Nikias 3. 170. Inscr. de Délos 442.B.1747 (179 B.C.). 171. Homolle, BCH 6 (1882) 153.

Dedications of Armor

273

were housed in the temple of Apollo: orédavos dumédov xpucots, Avodvépou Aaxedatpoviov ava8nua,!”? and arédavos dadvns xpuacois, Avodvépou avadnua.173

The third gold crown of myrtle in the temple of Artemis was more

elaborate: pddov kal orépavos xpuca Avoavipov, 6K} ody Tat Eira &Y Bt 7d podov Kai ody Tarvidiors Kat Alvan . . 174 We know from the Athenian ac-

counts that Lysander had also dedicated a gold crown at Athens in the

Hekatompedon, which is mentioned in four, or possibly five, accounts: aTepavos Xpuvods Badd6, dv Aboavipos ’Apioroxpiro Aaxedatpdrios avebnne (IG

II?, 1385.19-20; 1388.30-31; 1400.14-15; 1407.31-32; and possibly 1435-2). Ferguson believes that this crown was melted down in 374 {3 B.c. and put into a Nike.! Plutarch speaks of many offerings consecrated by Lysander at Delphi.176 Another Spartan, the nauarchos Pharax, dedicated a golden crown in the temple of Apollo.177 The Boiotian Epameinondas, whose name

appears in one inventory as ’Auewwvdas (IG XI.2.161.B.46),178 dedicated a gold crown with leaves of daphne:

créavos xpvaots dagvns 6 rap’ ’Ape-

vavia amehbav (cf. TG X1.2.164.A.95; 189:4; 199.B.64). The meaning of the word aze\§wy is not known; Hiller suggested to Diirrbach that the object was lost (“desideraturne? periitne? [Hiller]’); but Diirrbach asks, why, in that case, was it inventoried? Two gold crowns were dedi-

cated by “IamAxos, 99,179 The

name

king of Karthage: JG XI.2.161.B.55, and 91; 199.B.

of Alexander

does not appear in the inventories,'® but

his general Krateros dedicated in the temple of Artemis a golden crown: oTépavos xpvaois dapvns, Kpartepod avabnua ——

IG XI.2.161.B.59-60),

as

well as a phiale (BCH 29 [1905] 451 line 37).18! In addition, two who saw service with Alexander

dedicated

crowns.

Peukestes offered two

(UG XI.2.161.B.53 and 83) and Kleitos one (161.B.58). Likewise in the 172. IG XJ.2.161.B.91/2 (279 B.C.). 173. IG X1.2.161.B.92. 174. IG XI.2.203.B.81 (270 B.c.). Cf. 219.B.11; Inscr. de Délos 296.B.24

(crépavos

Muppivns). 175. Treasurers of Athena (Cambridge, Mass. 1931) 137. 176. Lysander 18.

177. BCH 6 (1882) 153. 178. See Homolle, BCH 15 (1891) 134-135. 179. Cf. Homolle, BCH 15 (1891) 136. Durrbach’s name is spelled with or without an umlaut. It seems clear from Demosthenes 13 On the Syntaxis 14 and Isokrates 20 Against Lochites 6 that the death penalty was prescribed by law for the theft of anything consecrated to a deity. 180. A statue base carrying the name of Alexander cannot be earlier than 250 B.c.: C. Michalowski, Exploration arch. de Délos 13 (Paris 1932) 6 n. 5. 181. Cf. 7G XI.2.137.15—-16.

Dedications of Armor

274

temple of Artemis were two gold crowns of Philokles, king of Sidon (IG XI.2.161.B.56 and 60) and one in the pronaos of the temple of Apollo (JG XI.2.161.B.86). The first of the three, however, is labelled as xopela, thank-offerings for a choral victory.1®? In the temple of Apollo, Androkles, king of Amathous

on Kypros, who participated in the

siege of Tyre in 332 8.c., dedicated a gold crown with myrtle leaves: IG X1.2.135.39-41; 161.B.93.!8? Likewise in the temple of Apollo, Nikokreon, king of Salamis, contributed one crown (JG XI.2.161.B.g0). With Antigonos I, who died in 301 B.c., and his son Demetrios Polior-

ketes (sole ruler from 301 to 283), the influence of the Makedonian princes at Delos became great. Stoas (of Antigonos and of Philip) were built, and festivals (Stratonikeia, Antogoneia, Ptolemaia, Philadelpheia, Philetaireia, Attaleia) were instituted.18+ ‘The Seleukids of Syria brought their contributions; one inventory alone devotes seven lines to

the contributions of Syrians, including those of Heliodoros, minister of the Syrian king Seleukos IV: Inscr. de Délos 444.Bb.71-77. Not only crowns and vases, but jewellery of the finest craftsmanship were catalogued, of which possibly the most interesting object was the bracelet for the leg worn by Demetrios Poliorketes: see Macurdy, AJA 36 (1932) 27-28. Royal marriages are judged to have been the occasions-of the most valuable gifts; and temples are on the way to becoming museums of art. The literature and the epigraphical evidence have combined to give us many examples of the convention of the warrior dedicating the brda ois altos éxpeiro. The

important

element

in these gifts is not so

much their dedication, as the fact that they were acts of thanksgiving from devotees who gave suitable offerings to express their gratitude. Equipment of all sorts was offered to the gods, largely as thanks for victory in battle, or at least for survival. Much of our information comes from major centers; but just as Demosthenes dedicated the captured armor of the Ambrakiots

Lykomides dedicated sanctuary,'®6 so many of blessings conferred J. Rudhardt writes,

in 427 in shrines throughout Attika,!8> and

the name-devices of a captured ship in a local warriors must have expressed their appreciation by offering their own armor in local shrines. “Les auteurs insistent sur ce point: les dva0juara

182. See Hiller, JG XII.5.2. Testimonia no. 1312. 183. See Diirrbach, BCH 29 (1905) 447. 184. For a complete

list of festivals at Delos, see P. Bruneau,

culis de Délos (Paris 1970) 670-671. 185. Thucydides 3.113-114; see below chap. 8.286. 186. See below chap. 8.

Recherches

sur les

Dedications of Armor

215

conservent le souvenir des hauts faits accomplis par les hommes

rév

epywv 7 uvyun,'®? et de leur vertu, rijs abr&v aperfs.188 L’offrand n’est pas

anonyme.”189 We do have two entries in the inventories of the tamiai of Athena which suggest that at the time an offering was made, the normal procedure was to register the names of the archon and of the dedicant.1 And at the time of the paradosis, the epeteia were given a separate listing. But in the inventories themselves, the indication of the dedicant’s name for military articles is the exception rather than the rule, and many objects are designated as “uninscribed.” Here the Brauronian inventories come to our aid.1% Just as religious practice required the woman to dedicate her used garments and other articles to Artemis, so in the same spirit of piety the warrior offered his arms,

but in his case to any shrine of his choosing. The record of the dedication was ignored, and for practical purposes the offering was anonymous. So far as we can judge, the dedicant simply expressed his thanks

to the god who had directed his military life.

Procedure. As to the ritual pattern in making a dedication we know very little. The Ravennas scholia to Aristophanes Plutus 1197 states that “it was customary when statues were set up for pots of boiled peas to be carried in procession by women gorgeously dressed.” These pots of cooked vegetables were then offered to the deity in question. Pausanias (10.14.5—6) relates that Themistokles brought a personal offering from the Persian spoils to Pythian Apollo.’ The oracle bade him remove it from the sacred precinct: “Pray do not place the beautiful decoration

of spoils from the Persian within the temple, but send it

back home as quickly as possible.” ‘The noun used for spoils is oxida, “arms stripped off a slain enemy.’’1°° Pausanias expresses surprise at this reply, and suggests various explanations given for the Pythia’s re187. Demosthenes 22 Against Androtion 6. 188. Isaios 5 Dikaiogenes 41-42. 189. Notions fondamentales de la pensée religieuse ... (Geneva 1958) 216. Rudhardt’s epigraphical examples are taken entirely from dedicatory monuments, none from the inventories. 190. IG II2, 1476.13-17; 1477.20-24: “the tamiai have inscribed neither the archon under whom the votives were dedicated nor the dedicant.”’ In both cases the articles are gold crowns and of considerable value. Cf. above p. 262 n. 93. 191. In the Brauronian garments, however, the dedicant regularly embroidered her name on the article. Cf. also above p. 256. 192. See H. W.

1956)

177. Cf. W.

Parke

and

D. E. W.

H. D. Rouse

Delphes 2:8 (1953) p. 107 N. 5193. See Pritchett, War 1. 55.

GVO

Wormell,

The

105. However,

Delphic

Oracle

see P. Amandry,

1

(Oxford

Fouilles

de

276

Dedications of Armor

sponse, none of which seem adequate. Pausanias adds that Themistokles

was the only person at whose hands the god refused to accept the spoils of the Medes. ‘The episode does suggest that some surveillance was exercised, at least in the international shrines, in accepting donations.

On the Roman side, Cicero’s oration De Domo Sua 48.127ff. draws a sharp distinction between the words consecratio and dedicatio; and Pottier (Dictionnaire s.v. consecratio 1450) has compared the lex consecrationis, and the lex dedicationis. The dedicatio was usually a religious act; the consecratio involved more judicial procedures and was

usually a prologue to the former. Pottier notes that this distinction was not made in Greece. No Greek author, he states (s.v. dedicatio 41), de-

scribes the procedure which accompanied the dedication. The inven-

tories contain many objects characterized as uninscribed (anepigraphos or agraphos), and, as we have seen, more

often than not the name

of

the dedicant is not given. If labels were attached to the article, they were ignored. In publishing a new fragment of an Athenian inventory (UG II, 1438), E. Schweigert (Hesperia 7 [1938] 286) showed that the model used by the tamiai for the inventory was the stele known to us as IG II?, 120, whereon no source of any object is given. It would seem that many individuals showed their gratitude to the gods by anonymous anathemata. ‘The gift was simply a token of thanks for some favor bestowed. On the other hand, when the aim was personal honor or political propaganda, the dedicant’s name and the source of captured

spoils was indicated. ‘The motive of philotimia, the desire to make a good showing before men, in liberalities to the gods and their temples,

permeates Greek life.

Se

CHAPTER

CAPTURED

VIII

ARMOR

IN THIS CHAPTER it is proposed to study the conventions governing the disposal of enemy weapons of war. Under conditions of warfare, in which each hoplite normally provided his own armor—and that as expensively fashioned as he could afford,—one might expect that, after the battle was over, the victorious warriors would strip from the dead any panoplies, or parts thereof, that were superior.? As noted in War

1.55, the lexicographers draw a clear distinction between \dadvpa and oxvAa: Aadupa’ Ta ek TEV ToAEULWY Ere CHvTwWY Nap Bavouera. Ta bé THY TOVEWD-

Twv air&v, oxdAa. And oxdda is used as synonymous with captive dra, although there are exceptions to this usage. Latin observes the same

distinction between praeda and spolia. It is with the oxida of war, then, that this chapter is concerned.® There are numerous allusions in Homer to the custom of despoiling the dead. The ordinary formula is rebxea droddca or tebxe’ arnipa, but évapa replaces rebyea and the verbs ééevapifey and ovddy occur: II. 4.465 (d¢pa Taxiora Tebxen ovAnoEE); 5.164 (ererta dé Tebxe’ oda); 53435 (amd Kuta Tebxea SdoaL); :842 (eevapitev); 6.28 (rebxe’ eobAa); 7.78 (rebxea

avAnoas); 7.146 (rebxea 5’ ekevdpife). See also 4.532; 5.621; 6.480; etc. Nestor (Il. 6.67—71) exhorts the Argives: “Let no man abide behind in eager desire for évapa... Let us slay the men; thereafter in peace shall you strip the armor from the corpses that lie dead over the plain.” Andromache (JI. 6.148) signalizes as meritorious on the part of Achilles his burying Eétion in his armor. Hector (Jl. 7.83) vows that if he slay Ajax he will despoil him of his armor and hang it in the temple of Apollo in Hion.

Odysseus,

being out of reach of the temples of his

native land, hangs the bloody armor of Dolon upon the stern of his ship until he can make a sacred offering to Athena Leitis (1. 10.460 and 570). According to Pausanias (2.17.3), Menelaos upon his return dedicated the shield of Euphorbos in the Argive Heraion, where Pythagoras, who claimed that the soul of the hero breathed in him, 1. See the passage from Xenophon cited above, p. 242. 2. The bodies of the dead were usually given up for burial under truce. Although there were many taboos among the Greeks about touching a corpse, the dead in warfare seem to have been an exception: Wachter, RVV

g (1910) 73.

3. Vogel has a useful article on booty from the Roman viewpoint in RE s.v. Praeda (1952). See also the supplementary comments of F. W. Walbank, Commentary on Polybius 2 (Oxford 1967) 217. Kahrstedt’s brief article on the Greek side, RE s.v. Laphyron (1924), is often misleading; see Pritchett, War. 1.83. I know of no article devoted to the word oxida.

[ 277]

278

Captured Armor

proved his claim by recognizing the arms he had borne.‘ According to Herodotos (5.95), the shield of Alkaios was captured by the Athenians (about 600 B.c.) and hung up in the temple of Athena at Sigeion. Alkaios later composed a poem wherein he related his misfortunes to his friend Melanippos (Strabo 13.1.38.600 = frg. 32 [Bergk], 49[D], 184 [Page]). References to the practice of dedicating arms in the temples are found in early poetry. Aischylos (Septem 278) speaks of the panoplies (here termed écOjyara), pierced with the spear-point (doupimAnxé’),® as

hung in temples. In the herald’s speech in Ag. 579, the boast is made of the Argives that “These are the spoils, which, to the gods throughout

Hellas, they nailed upon their temples as a (tr. of Fraenkel). Fraenkel in his commentary idea seems to be that parts of the booty will dividual partners in the campaign in all the Greek world.”

When

Ajax enters from

glory like those of old” on the line writes: ‘““The be dedicated by the inchief sanctuaries of the

the tent, carrying the blood-

stained thong with which he has been scourging the cattle, he greets Athena with the words, ‘I will crown thy shrine with trophies of pure gold for this prize” (kai ce rayxpicos &ya oralw Aadbpors THaode THS aypas

xapw): Sophokles Ajax 92. Euripides in the Phoinissai (1474/5) says that shields were stripped from the Argive corpses and sent within the battlements of Thebes: of 6’ aomidas ovAGvtes “Apyeluv vexpav / oxvdebpar’

elow Terxewy eréurrouer. In the Troiades (576) Hekabe inquires about the Phrygian battle-gear which shall deck the shrines of Phthia (.. . oxiAdovs Ppvyav dopiOnpators, oiow “AxiAdews mats POwras crepe vaods ard Tpoias; ).

For other evidence from tragedy showing that captured arms were suspended on the walls of temples, see Euripides Andr. 1123 (xpeuaord Tebxn Tacodhwy Kabapracas), Bacch. 1214, Herakl. 695.

The investigation into captured armor is complicated by the fact that the Greeks sometimes took the gains from the sale of booty and made dedications in the form of shields of precious metal, and these

dedications must be distinguished from captured arms. The most famous case is the example reported in Aischines 3 Against Ktesiphon 116, in which we are told that a resolution was proposed

against the

Athenians that they be fined fifty talents because they had affixed Xpvods aonidas to the new temple of Apollo before the temple had been 4. Diogenes Laertius Pausanias passage.

8.1.4; Horace

Odes

1.28.11;

etc. See Frazer’s

note

5. Some editors read dovpidngé’, “captured by the spear,” or dovpirnx6’,

by the spear.”

on

the

‘fastened

Captured Armor

279

consecrated and had inscribed them, “The Athenians, from the Medes

and Thebans when they fought against the Greeks.” The shields of gold which the Athenians had caused to be re-hung were made from the booty of Plataiai. The golden shield which the Peloponnesian league dedicated at Olympia represented the tithe from the spoils of the Athenians and their allies at Tanagra about 458 B.c.* The script of the original dedication is in the Corinthian alphabet, and L. H. Jeffery suggests that the shield was made at Corinth, which was preeminent in metalwork.’ The shield, set as akroterion above the pediment of the

Treasury of the Megarians at Olympia, which is dated about 510 B.c., was made from the spoils of a war against Corinth: Pausanias 6.19.13.° Moreover, with regard to the materiel of war, a distinction must be drawn between the enemy’s naval and land equipment. The fourthcentury record of the curators of the Attic dockyards leaves no doubt but that captured triremes and ships’ gear were in service. The records begin with the year 377/6 B.c., when a new board of ten naval commissioners was instituted to take charge of naval preparations. According to Kirchner’s text of JG II?, 1607 (373/2 B.c.), the first words of the inventory,

after the statement

of the paradosis,

are

r&v

aixuadwrwr,

the construe of which is not clear. The complete inventory is clearly not of captured ships.® In any case, there are references to six triremes

taken by Chabrias at the battle off Naxos in 376 B.c. The word used in the inventories to designate captured equipment is aixuddwros, which follows the name

of the ship: Neueds aixuddwros r&v werd XaBpiov;

IG

II2, 1606 lines 78 (name is lost) and 82; 1607, line 114 (’Aper7), 125 (Eipwarn), 145 (name is lost). References

to commissioned

ships taken

by Timotheos off Alyzia in Akarnania include: JG II”, 1606.12, 25, 29, 69 (Tevesis), 74, 84 (EvmAoa); 1607.20, 138 (Ei\eifva). These re-

christened ships had been sailed long distances to be used in the Athenian navy. In later lists the names of these ships recur, but the practice of giving the source is unfortunately discontinued." In JG I1?, 1629.145, (325/4 B.C.), a Tptaxdvropos is labelled as “captured.” Rigging from cap_tured ships is referred to in JG II?, 1607.44; 1610.23; 1613.268-283. Using the definitions of J. S. Morrison and R. T. Williams, Greek 6. Pausanias 5.10.4. 7. LSAG 129 n. 4. 8. For the date, see Jeffery, LSAG

135.

g. I have not seen the stone.

10. B. Jordan, The Athenian Navy (Berkeley 1975) 69, takes IG IJ?, 1606 as a list of captured ships; but this is a slip.

280

Captured Armor

Oared Ships (Cambridge 1968), the items include hair curtains or awnings (pararruma) for the protection of oarsmen;1! shrouds (ankoina),” ropes (hyperai),!8 and devices for tightening the swifters or “undergirds” (tonoi).4 Clearly, the Athenian navy had commissioned for active service ships and ships’ gear taken in naval warfare. In two of the late fourth-century inventories of Athena and the Other

Gods,

ships’ gear classified under

the heading

cxein xpeuaora,

“hanging gear,” is inventoried. In the naval lists, the ships’ gear is divided into two categories,

“wooden”

and “hanging,”

the latter in-

cluding the sails, anchors, and ropes. Most of the naval equipment at this time was inventoried in the tabulae curatorum navalium (IG II?, 1604-1632). Gear was stored in the great naval arsenal of the skeuotheke at the harbor Kantharos, built by the architect Philon starting in 347/6 B.c.16 But the two sacred inventories show that some swifters, sails, ropes, screens, and anchors were stored on the akropolis, presumably in the Chalkotheke,!” several miles away from the Peiraieus. From a passing remark in Morrison and Williams (op. cit., 296 line 3) it is clear that the authors regard this akropolis gear as dedications. From IG I1?, 1627.46-125 (335/4 B.c.), however, we learn that gear was placed in reserve for one hundred ships and stored on the akropolis. But this gear was in the charge of the epimeletai ton neorion, whereas the gear of [G II?, 1471 and 1479 was kept by the sacred tamiai. B. Jordan, The Athenian Navy (Berkeley 1975) 178 n. 107, reasonably suggests, in his survey of the history of the naukraroi, that the tamiai of Athena had inherited custodianship of the gear of the sacred triremes. In any case,’

we can hardly regard these sails, ropes and other hanging gear as dedications from the spoils of naval warfare. We may add that students of the akropolis rarely convey any idea of the enormous amount of militory equipment, from catapult machines to boat sails, which was stored

there. 11. Page 302.

12. Pp. 300-301. See also L. Casson, Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (Princeton 1971) 261-262. Gs 15 SxoYoy, 14. 296-299. JG II2, 1613, line 280 might be restored as [brotw]ula]rwv rdvor if the reading of a tau is a possible substitute for Kirchner’s iota. The roof of the

Odeion at Athens was made from the masts and timbers of Persian ships: Plutarch Perikles 13. 15. 7G II?, 1471B and 1470B.

16. See J. S. Morrison and R. T. Williams, Greek Oared Ships (Cambridge 1968) 188-189. Cf. K. Jeppesen, Paradeigmata (Aarhus University 1958) 69. 17. So Kirchner ap. IG II, 1471.

Captured Armor

281

We may now pass in review the chief instances of the dedication of naval spoils.1* The beak, or ram (Boos), became the regular token of the captured galley.!9 In an early war waged between Athens and Megara for the possession of Salamis, which must have taken place before Solon reconquered the island, the Megarians commemorated one victory by placing the bronze beak of a prize ship in the Olympieion at Megara. Pausanias (1.40.5) says, “In the temple itself is dedicated a bronze ram (yadxody tuBodov) of a ship. This ship they say that

they captured off Salamis in a naval action with the Athenians.” We learn from Herodotos (3.59) that the Aiginetans overcame some colonists of Samos settled at Kydonia in Crete in a sea-fight and made slaves of them. ‘Moreover, they cut off the ships’ prows, which were boars’ heads

(kampious éxovcéwv Tas mpwpas), and hung them up in the

temple of Athena in Aigina.”?° Plutarch records (Themistokles that the Athenian trierarch Lykomides, who won

15.3)

the aristeion in the

first engagement at Artemision,”! dedicated the figure-heads or namedevices (rapdaonua) of a Persian ship to Apollo Daphnephoros at Phyle, his native deme in Attika.22 An epigram of Simonides (AP 6.215 = Simonides 134 [B], 13 [Page]) told of the dedication of shields (hopla) to Leto at Delphi by the sailors (vadra:) of Diodoros, who is said by Plutarch to have been a trierarch of the Corinthians in the battle of Salamis.?? The shields are said to have been won from the Medes. After Salamis, the Greeks in common dedicated three Phoenician triremes, one at the Isthmus which Herodotos saw, one at Sounion, and

one to Ajax at Salamis.*4 The stylobate of the Athenian

Stoa at Delphi carries the much-

discussed dedicatory inscription: ’A@nvator aveBecav riv orody Kal Ta bra kal Taxpwrnpia éddvtes THY ToAeuiwv. When Pausanias (10.11.6) visited

Delphi he mistakenly associated the stoa with Phormion’s victories in 18. In a naval battle off Naupaktos in 429 B.c., the Athenians gave back under truce the wrecked ships which had belonged to the Peloponnesians: ‘Thucycides 2.92.4. 19. For vase representations of the embolos, see the list in P. Amandry, Fouilles de

Delphes 2:8 (1953) 115 n. 4.

20. Plutarch Perikles 26 says that Samian vessels were called Zayava. They had beaks turned up like swines’ snouts. 21. Herodotos 8.112. Plutarch places the engagement at Salamis. In the distribution of booty after Plataiai, Herodotos (9.81) refers to those who had won the aristeia after mention of the dekate to the gods. 22. For the parasemon, see L. Casson, Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (Princeton 1971) 344. 23. Mor. 870F. 24. Herodotos 8.121.

Captured Armor

282

429 B.c.25 He also refers to the dedications in the stoa: mAoiwy ra axpa Koounuara kal domldes xadxat. The

from ships, which

Morrison

&kpa Kkooujpata must be the axpwrypia

and Williams

(op. cit., 133-135)

have

shown were “the stern or bow ornament, which served, like a modern flag, to identify the ship’s origin, and the loss of which was a mark of defeat and dishonour.”’26Granted that it would have been appropriate in 429 B.c. for the Athenians

to dedicate

such

armor

at Delphi,

the

original arms which were dedicated at the time of the erection of the building must still have been in place. Whether Pausanias was enough of an antiquarian to detect the origin of the armor

is debatable.

In

any case, P. Amandry argues that the émAa of the dedicatory inscription are cables from Xerxes’ bridge over the Hellespont and the akro-

teria came from the ships which were destroyed at Mykale.?” The strength of Amandry’s position is that it accords with Herodotos 9.121: Tabra 6€ Tornoavres ameéw)eov és THY ‘EN\G6a, TA TE GANA XpHUaTa ayovTes Kal 6) Kal Ta bra TOV yehpewy ws avabhnoovTes és Ta ipa. The subject of this sentence is of ’[email protected] The érda were the great cables of the

bridge described in 7.36. They must have been fetched from Kardia where they had been deposited by Oiobazos: 9.115. Their new destination is not given; but the temples of Athens were in ruins: Thucydides

1.89.3. The objections to this idea by Meiggs-Lewis are ill-founded.”® After Eurymedon, the southern wall of the akropolis was constructed

out of the booty.°° Nepos (Cimon g) adds the detail that Kimon adorned this wall from the spoils of war (His ex manubiis arx Athenarum, qua ad meridiem vergit, est ornata). If Nepos is correct, and if he is using

the word manubiae in its common

meaning—and Rouse assumes that

he is*!—the Athenians must have secured the beaks or the ensigns of captured ships to the Kimonian wall; but Nepos is not a very reliable source. 25. See below p. 283. 26. For the word akroterion, see also D, B. Thompson, Hesperia 13 (1944) 201-205. 27. BCH 70 (1946) 1-8; Fouilles de Delphes 2:8 (Paris 1953) 39, 104-121. It may be

recalled that the Athenians hung up on the akropolis the chains of the Boiotian and Chalkidian prisoners whom they had defeated about 506 B.c.: Herodotos 5.77. The chains 28. 29. dating latter

signified the capture and ransom of prisoners. See Legrand’s translation in the Budé. SGHI no. 25. Others assume that the éz\a were from one of several victories from 506 to 479 B.c. See M. N. Tod, GHIJ2, no. 18, and Rouse (GVO 106). The suggests that the arms are from the great naval battle off Aigina ca. 460 B.C.

(Thucydides Athenians.

1.105.2), when

30. Plutarch Kimon 13. 31. GVO 106.

the Aiginetans and their allies were

defeated by the

Captured Armor

283

Passing on to the Peloponnesian War, we know, on the authority of Thucydides (2.84.4), that, after Phormio’s victory in the Gulf of Corinth, the Athenians dedicated a ship to Poseidon at Rhion not far from the battle-scene.®2 As discussed above, Pausanias (10.11.6) says that the shields and akroteria in the Stoa of the Athenians at Delphi were from

sea-fights with the Peloponnesians at this time. In the same year, in a naval battle off Naupaktos,

for which

both sides set up trophies, the

Peloponnesians also dedicated a captured ship on the Achaian Rhion by the side of the trophy: Thucydides 2.92.5. In 404 B.c., when Lysander returned in triumph to Sparta (Xenophon Hell. 2.3.8; cf. Plutarch Lys. 16; Diodoros 13.106), he brought with him every trireme out of the harbor of Peiraieus, except twelve left to the Athenians as a concession, and the prow-ornaments (dxpwrjpia) of all the ships captured

at Aigospotamoi and elsewhere. Athenaios, after giving a long description of Hieron’s ship the Syrakosia, compares with it, or rather declines to compare with it, the ship,

later dedicated to Apollo by Antigonos Gonatas, in which he defeated the admirals of Ptolemy off Leukolla in Kos about 262 B.c. (5.209E): mapéAuTov 6° exav THv ’Avtvyévou tepay Tpinpn, f evixnoe Tods IIToAewalov oTpaTyyous wept AeixoAXay Tis Kqas, ered) kal TS ’ATOAAwVE abriy aveOnxer.2? "The

passage is badly mutilated, and G. Kaibel in the Teubner, and C. B. Gulick in the Loeb, texts follow Meineke in emending é7eé) kal to drov 67 xal.*4 For a time it was thought that Antigonos’ ship was placed in the so-called Monument of the Bulls at Delos, an edifice which is

formed by a six-column prodromos, a long gallery flanked by benches, and a sort of cella reached through a bay formed by two supports, the

pilasters of which were decorated with bull protomai. W. W. ‘Tarn argued that Antigonos Gonatas had dedicated his flagship at Delos.*® 32. For a temple of Poseidon here, see Strabo 8.2.3.335. Because of the large size of the dowel-holes

on

the bases published

by Raubitschek,

Dedications

no.

172, W.

Gauer, “Weihgeschenke aus den Perserkriegen,” Istanbuler Mitt. 2 (1978) 71-73, conjectures that a ship was dedicated on the akropolis of Athens after Salamis or after the naval campaign of 478 B.c. The literary sources offer no support for such a theory. 33. The subject of the sentence is Masourios of 196A, not Moschion, as Tarn has it. The third century B.c. was distinguished by a series of experiments in the building of large warships. See Appendix g to chapter 6 in L. Casson’s Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (Princeton 1971). 34. Also, some editors read Aeixod\av rhs Kbrpov for Aebcoddav ris K@as (see Oberhummer in RE s.v. Leukolla 3 [1925] 2277), but Plutarch Mor. 545B shows that Kas is not a mistake. 3%. JHS 30 (1910) 202-221. The entire article is a remarkable piece of historical embroidery, which

Tarn

later retracted, although it is endorsed by L. Casson, Ships

and Seamanship in the Ancient World

(Princeton 1971) 139 Nn. 14.

284

Captured Armor

But the excavators established that the building was constructed at the end of the fourth century, or the beginning of the third.** According to Marcadé, the sculpture is to be dated 320-310 B.c.37 Tarn modified his views and suggested that the votive ship was the flagship of Demetrios’ fleet which came into the possession of Ptolemy I in 289 B.c. The dedication of the enemy’s flagship is thought to symbolize the acquisition of the command of the sea.38 Since Pausanias (1.29.1) refers to 70 ev Andy mdotov, and the prows of ships are common on coins (for ex-

ample, B. V. Head, Historia Numorum? [Oxford 1911] 229: Demetrios Poliorketes) and were used in dedicatory stone monuments (the Victory of Samothrake;

the vase of

a monument

in the form

of a prow

from Thasos [BCH 74 (1950) 348 fig. 65]; etc.), we may conclude that the ship of Antigonos Gonatas was dedicated at Kos and that earlier at the end of the fourth century a votive offering in the form of a ship was made to Apollo at Delos on an occasion not yet identified.®® R. Vallois reasonably attributed the monument to Demetrios Poliorketes, who made other dedications at Delos.*° By his victory over the Ptolemaic fleet at Salamis (306 B.c.) Demetrios in effect established the Antigonid dynasty and was subsequently highly honored at Delos.41 The decree (IG XI.4.1036) referring to the celebration of the Antigoneia and the Demetrieia

is preserved,

the latter being instituted

for the

first time. The stele was to be set up “beside the altar of the kings” (rapa Tov Bw[uov rdv Bactdéw |v) ,42 and this implies an adoration of con-

temporary kings, as Antigonos I and his son were from 307 to 301 B.c. 36. See the summary in P. Bruneau, Recherches sur les cults de Délos (Paris 1970) 554-557. See also P. Bruneau and J. Ducat, Guide de Délos (Paris 1966) 90-91. 37- BCH 75 (1951) 66, 88-89. Cf. Salviat, BCH 87 (1963) 489-492. 38. Tarn, BCH 46 (1922) 473-476. After Actium, Augustus dedicated ten ships in the precinct of Aktian Apollo: Strabo 7.325. 39. The definitive publication of the “Monument des Taureaux” has been assigned to C, Llinas: BCH 87 (1963) 491 n. 7. 40. L’architecture hellénique et hellénistique 4 Délos 1 (Paris 1944) 35-36, 423. This view is endorsed by C. Picard, Journal des Savants 1946, 117. The difficulty with associating Demetrios’ flagship at Salamis with the Delian dedication is that Diodoros (20.52.1) says that the flagship was a “seven,” whereas Pausanias (1.29.1) has the Delian

ship as a “nine.”

However,

both statements

have been questioned.

Bruneau

(Recherches sur les cults de Délos 57) continues to attempt to associate the monument with Antigonos, 41. H. Thiersch, in particular, has been a strong advocate of the 306 B.c. date. See the summary of his publications by C. Picard, REG 46 (1933) 130-131. Cf. W. Déonna, La vie privée des Déliens (Paris 1948) 122. 42. For the restoration, see P. Bruneau, Recherches sur les cultes de Délos (Paris

1970) 565-567.

Captured Armor

285

There are at least two votive dedications of ship models.** Plutarch (Lysander 18.2) says that in the treasury of the Akanthians at Delphi there was a trireme two cubits long, made of gold and ivory, which Kyros sent Lysander as a niketerion after the latter’s victory over the Athenians at Aigospotamoi in 405 B.c. In the Delian inventories, there are several references to a silver trireme with a weight of 1544 dr. dedicated in the temple of Apollo by Seleukos I. Mention of it occurs first in the accounts of 279 B.c. (IG XI.2.161.B.78-79) and is repeated almost a score of times. The accounts also record the dedication of a tetreres, having a weight of 1700 dr., by the same king (Inscriptions de Délos 1432.Ab.11.55-56);44 but the two models are believed by Durrbach to be one and the same.* In concluding this section on naval dedications, it would seem that

there was no religious scruple against refitting captured ships or using the rigging, and conventions did not require that captured naval equipment be set aside as votive offerings. However, dedications were made of insignia and rams and even of whole ships. One suspects that these offerings are more in the nature of self-glorification on the part of a victorious state or hegemon,

that pride has swallowed

up piety,

and that the dedicated article has become a monument of naval success often set up for purposes of propaganda. Turning from naval to land warfare,** we note that Herodotos (8.27) says that, when the Phokians were victorious over the Thessalians, they dedicated the shields from the four thousand dead, half at Abai and half at Delphi: ore rerpaxioxilwy Kpathoar vexpior Kal domlowy Paxéas, rov ras pev hurctas és "“ABas aviecay rads dé és Aehdpots.47 After Plataiai, the

Athenians dedicated on the akropolis the corselet of Masistios and the

43. H. Seyrig (Syria 28 [1951] 101-123) has published an inscribed bronze ship in the Beirut Museum which was dedicated to Zeus in A.p. 232. Models of ships are studied by L. Basch, L’Antiquité classique 37 (1968) 136-171, with useful bibliography on representations of ships on coins and vases. See also the list of models compiled by the same author in The Mariners’ Mirror 52 (1966) 115. His most recent discussion of models appears in JHS 97 (1977) 1-10.

44. W. W. Tarn (JHS 29 [1909] 282 n. 103) theorizes that the occasion of both dedications was the marriage of Seleukos with Stratonike, daughter of Demetrios (Plutarch Demetrios 31), in 299/8 B.c. 48. F. Durrbach believes that the two models are identical, since the ‘‘tetreres’”’ is

never mentioned in accounts earlier than the Athenian period. The “tetreres” is always listed “with cords of bronze,” which would account for the difference of weight. See the commentary to Inscriptions de Délos 442.B.31. 46. For a list of dedications

from

booty, see F. Ziemann,

De anathematis

: (Diss. K6nigsberg 1885) 9-26. 47. For other dedications by the Phokians, see Pausanias 10.1.10, 13.6—7.

graecis

286

Captured Armor

sword of Mardonios.*® After the Syrakusans defeated the Karthaginians in 480 B.c., their offerings to Zeus at Olympia included three linen corselets.*9 But the most interesting account of the disposal of captured armor is that which Thucydides (3.113-114) described as taking place at the close of Demosthenes’ campaign in Amphilochia in the winter of 426/5 B.c. After a complete victory at Idomene, the Akarnanians carried off the panoplies of the dead to Amphilochian they were visited by a herald, coming from fled after the battle of Olpai. He came with permission to bury the dead who had fallen

Argos. On the next day, the Ambrakiots who had the customary request for in that pursuit, being un-

aware of the destruction of their force at Idomene. On the other hand, the Akarnanians, whose minds were full of the more recent victory at Idomene, supposed that the herald referred to men slain in that en-

gagement. ‘he numerous panoplies just acquired at Idomene lay piled up in the camp;

and the herald, on seeing them, was struck with sur-

prise at the size of the heap, so much exceeding the number of those who were missing from the Olpai detachment. An Akarnanian asked the reason of the herald’s surprise and inquired how many of his comrades were missing. “About two hundred,” the herald replied: “Yet these arms are clearly not those of two hundred, but of more than a thousand men.” ““Then they are not the arms of my comrades.” ‘Nay,

but they are; if it was you who fought yesterday at Idomene.” “We fought with no one yesterday: it was the day before yesterday, on the retreat.” “O, we fought yesterday with men who were coming to your aid from Ambrakia.” The unfortunate herald thus learned that the reinforcement from his city had been cut to pieces, and he hurried away, forgetting his errand. Thus far the narrative illustrates the fact

that immediately after the battle, the victors stripped the dead of their

panoplies, leaving the bodies on the field of battle.

Thucydides goes on to describe the distribution of the spoil (oxtra).5° One third was apportioned

to the Athenians;

the remainder

was dis-

48. Pausanias 1.27.1; Demosthenes 24 Against Timokrates 129. Numerous dedications from the booty of the Persian wars have been itemized in F. Ziemann, De anathematis graecis (Kénigsberg diss, 1885) 13-16. They included temples, treasuries, altars, statues and articles of precious metals. Indeed, so impressive were these offerings that writers have failed to inform us about the captured arms, although we know from Herodotos 9.83 that the bodies were stripped. 49. Pausanias 6.19.7. 50. For Thucydides’ use of the word cxd\a see Vol. 1.55. From the “booty” of the campaign, the Athenians set up on the akropolis a bronze statue of Athena Nike, which had to be repaired later: JG II2, 403.

Captured Armor

287

tributed among the Akarnanian cities. But three hundred panoplies were set apart as a personal gift to Demosthenes because he was their leader,

and

clearly popular

as well

as successful.

These

panoplies,

Thucydides states, are now to be seen in Attic shrines (ra dé viv avaxelbeva ev Tots ’Arrixols tepots Anuoobéver &EnpéOnoav Tpraxdcrat mavorAiat). The

spoils given to the Athenians were lost in transit. The story illustrates how successful Demosthenes had been in planning and directing a campaign in which the Ambrakiots suffered the greatest loss sustained by one Greek state within a few days throughout the war. Thucydides refuses to give the casualty figures reported to him because they were incredible in proportion to the population (3.113.6). By Greek convention, all of the panoplies were destined for sacred shrines; but it was Demosthenes, and not the Athenian demos, who had the voice about

where the three hundred were to go.*! Although the Athenian spoils from Amphilochia were lost, the same was not true of the spoils from

Mytilene in 428/7 B.c.; for the Agora excavations have recovered a spear-butt dedicated by the Athenians to the Dioskouroi from the campaign on Lesbos: J. M. Camp, Hesperia 47 (1978) 192-195. Items of captured armor were transported long distances to be set up in the shrines of the victorious state, apparently to diverse deities and heroes. Bronze shields taken from the Lakedaimonians captured at Sphakteria in 425 B.c. were dedicated at Athens in the Stoa Poikile.®? Dio Chrysostom mentions these shields as being among the glories of Athens.°3 One of them has been found. It bears an inscription written by means of punch holes, ““The Athenians, from the Lakedaimonians from

Pylos.” A hole in one of the column drums of this stoa suggests that shields were hung on the columns.*4 Pausanias informs us that in his day these shields had been smeared with pitch to preserve them from the injurious effects of time and rust. After the battle of Delion in 424 B.c., the Thebans nailed the bronze armor from the Athenian spoils to their temples and stoas (rods 6€ vaods kal Tas xara THY ayopay oTods Tots brAos &k Tv oKLAWY ToocnAwhEtar KaTaxadkGoar: Diodoros 12.70.5).°° Pau-

sanias (1.15.4) says that bronze shields from the Skionians and their 51. For other gifts to victorious hegemones, see Vol. 1.84. 52. Pausanias 1.15.4. eh, Ovi alex

54. H. A. Thompson and R. E. Wycherley, The Agora of Athens (Princeton 1972) 92-93. This particular shield found its way into a cistern by 300 B.c.: Shear, Hesperia

6 (1937) 34755. The money from the \ddupa festival at Delion.

was used to build a great stoa and to endow a

288

Captured Armor

allies were dedicated in the Athenian Stoa Poikile. In 421, Skione had

been taken by the Athenians after a siege in which some allies had succeeded in breaking through the Athenian lines and reinforcing the garrison: Thucydides 4.120 and 131; 5.32. They shared the fate of their friends, and their shields graced the Stoa Poikile. After Leuktra in 371 B.c., the Thebans hung up in the temple of Demeter at Thebes the bronze shields which belonged to the Lakedaimonian officers who fell in battle: Pausanias 9.16.5. In the great battle of Krimisos (343 B.c.), the victors are said to have picked up one thousand breast-plates and not less than ten thousand shields.®° Two complete days were consumed in stripping the dead; Diodoros

says that the armor

was dedi-

cated later in the temple at Syrakuse and some pieces were distributed among the allies. But the finest of the captured arms (7a xdAdora T&v aixuartarwv

omrdwy),°’ Timoleon

sent to decorate

the Corinthian

tem-

ples and the temple of Poseidon at the Isthmos. Plutarch comments on the ornamental shields and costly breast-plates. Those who stripped the bodies took very little account of bronze and iron, so abundant were silver and gold. Later, Mamerkos, tyrant of Katana, who made common cause with Karthage, slew a body of Timoleon’s mercenaries

and in dedicating their shields composed the following epigram: Ta0d’ doTpEeLoypadels Kal xpuceAehavTnAEKTpoUS domldas domolots ethouev edredEor. *8

Alexander the Great, after the battle of the river Granikos (334 B.c.) sent to Athens three hundred panoplies (Plutarch says shields) with the inscription “Alexander, the son of Philip, and all the Greeks except the Lakedaimonians, from the barbaroi who dwell in Asia.’’59 Some of

the shields were hung on the architrave of the Parthenon. With Alexander, Greece comes in contact with East and West, yet the practice of dedicating captured armor continues. Demetrios Poliorketes dedicated certain shields at Delphi, but we do not know the

specific occasion: Plutarch Demetrios

13. In 30% B.c. after the victory

of Salamis, Demetrios

twelve hundred

sent to Athens

panoplies from

the spoils: Plutarch Dem. 17. Shields of the Gauls, after their repulse in 280 B.c., were

dedicated

by the Aitolians

on the architrave

at the

back and left side of the temple of Apollo at Delphi; but these were of 56. Diodoros 16.80.6. 57. Plutarch Timoleon 29.5.

58. Plutarch Timoleon 31: “These bucklers, purple-painted, decked with ivory, gold and amber, we captured with our simple little shields’ (Perrin). 59. Arrian 1.16.7; Plutarch Alexander 16.17.

Captured Armor

289

gold, and Pausanias adds that the Gallic shields resembled

the wicker

ones of the Persians: Pausanias 10.19.4. An inscription from Kos (278 B.C.) refers to the sanctuary at Delphi after it was saved from the Gauls as adorned with shields from those who had made war upon the shrine: SIG?

398.7

(70 dé iepdy . . . émixexoopfobar

tots bad Toy ETLOT PATEVT APT OV

émhous).After Pyrrhos defeated Antigonos at the head of a mixed force of Gauls and Makedonians in 279 B.c., he offered the arms of the Gauls to Athena Itonia at her temple between Pherai and Larissa;® the Makedonian arms he dedicated at Dodona to Zeus. Pausanias (1.13.28) records the two inscriptions which accompanied the dedication of the oxdha.°! Elsewhere, Pausanias (1.4.6) says that the Pergamenians have oxtha taken from the Gauls. Frazer on the passage suggests that these spoils were placed in the niches in the back walls of two large stoas on the akropolis of that city.6 We learn also from Pausanias (5.10.5) that after the sack of Corinth

in 146 B.c.,. Mummius,

the Roman

general,

dedicated one hundred and twenty gilt shields on the outside of the frieze running around the temple of Zeus at Olympia. Frazer (3 p- 496) notes that twenty-one shields were attached, not to the architrave, but

to the metopes, as appears from the dowel holes and other marks on the metopes.® Each shield seems to have measured 1.05 m. in diameter. Finally, when Sulla and his army took away many Athenian treasures, the one group of objects which Pausanias explicitly mentions (10.21.6) consists of the shields in the Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios. Turning from these attested examples in the historical literature of the dedication of captured armor, we may note that Olympia and other sites yield a number of inscribed bronze articles of warfare wherein it is indicated by the text that they were spoils taken from the enemy. In the table below are collected examples of helmets, greaves, shields, panoplies and spear-butts; the references to L. H. Jeffery, The Local

Scripts of Archaic Greece (Oxford 1961) are abbreviated as LSAG, and 60. Pausanias (10.1.10) says that the name of Athena Itonia was the watchword invoked by Thessalians in battle. 61. The epigram on the spoils dedicated to Athena Itonia is assigned to Leonidas of Tarentum (AP 6.130). A. S. F. Gow and D. L. Page (Hellenistic Epigrams 2 [Cambridge 1965] p. 392, no. 95) find the ascription improbable, although it was accepted by Wilamowitz. 62. For problems relating to the inscriptions commemorating Pergamene victories over the Gauls, see D. Magie, Roman Rule in Asia Minor 2 (Princeton 1950) 734-735, 740-741. Attalos in 241 B.c. (?) decisively defeated the Gauls on the upper Kaikos and drove them back from the coast. He then took the title of king and his victory was widely celebrated in Pergamene art and in dedications (M. Fraenkel, Die Inschriften von Pergamon 1 [Berlin 1890] nos. goff.). 63. Cf. A. Mallwitz, Olympia und seine Bauten (Munich 1972) 220.

290

Captured Armor

to E. Kunze’s publications in the Deutsches Archdologisches Institut: Bericht iiber die Ausgrabungen in Olympia as Olympia.

Inscribed Helmets

Source Olympia Olympia (2) (2) Olympia Athens Olympia Olympia Olympia Olympia

Dedicant

Booty from

Date

Orchomenos Argos? Argos Athens Athens Athens Rhegion Rhegion Rhegion

Koroneia Corinth Corinth Lemnos Lemnos Persians Gela Lokroi Lokroi Lokroi Mylai Phleious

550-525? ca. 500 ca. 500 500-495° 500-495° 490-480 ca. 500 early 5th early 5th 487-481 487-481 ca. 475

Olympia

Messenia

Olympia (2)

Messenia

Olympia?

Unknown

a Papagiannopoulos-Palaios, Polemon 6 447/6 B.c., but see C. J. Dull, CP 72 (1977) b Kunze (Olympiaber. 2 (Jahrb. 53.1938] 76-77) has determined that the Corinthian

Reference LSAG 93 LSAG 162 Olympia 8.91—93 LSAG 300 LSAG 300 Olympia 7.187 Olympia 8.100 Olympia 8.102 Olympia 8.102-103 Olympia 8.104-105 Olympia 8.105—106 LSAG 146 n. 1

(1956/7) 3-6, assigns the dedication to 308. 68 and Olympiaber. 3 [Jahrb. 56.1941] armor dedicated by the Argives was sus-

pended from the wall of the archaic stadium. ¢So Kunze, Festschrift ftir Carl Weickert d Only the cheekpiece of the helmet.

(1955) 18-19.

Inscribed Greaves?

Source

Dedicant

Bootyfrom

Date

Olympia Olympia Olympia (2)

‘Thebes Zankle Rhegion

Hyettos Rhegion —Lokroi

6th cent. 500-490 early 5th

Olympia? Olympia Olympia Olympia

Sikyon Kleonai Argos Messenia

? Orneai® Corinth Lokroi

early 5th early 5th ca. 500 487-481

a Probably parts of panoplies. b Or cuirass (Kunze). ¢ As restored by Snodgrass, Gnomon 40 (1968) 388.

Reference Olympia 8.98 LSAG 243 #LSAG 245n.2 Olympia 8.102 Olympia 8.96 Olympia 8.95—-96 Olympia 8.91-93 Olympia 8.103

a=

Captured Armor

291 Inscribed Shields

Source

Dedicant

Olympia Psophis Olympia ‘Tanagra Olympia (6) Argos

(2) Argos Olympia Olympia? Athens

Zankle Syrakuse Athens

Spoils from be ? Corinth

Corinth Rhegion Akragas Lakedaimonians

Date

Reference

6th cent. 525-500 ca.500 ca.500 500-490 445 425

Olympia 8.97 LSAG 3 LSAG 162

Olympia 8.93 LSAG 243 LSAG 267 Arch. Eph. 1937: 1, 140

a The shield is specified as \dgupa.

Inscribed Spear-Butts Source Olympia Olympia Messenia Arkadia

Olympia (3) Athens

Dedicant

Spoilsfrom

.

Date

Reference

Unknown Methana Methan[a?] Not designated? Taras Athens

Sikyon Lakedaimon Athens ? Heraia

500-475 500-475 500-474. 500-480

LSAG LSAG LSAG LSAG

Thourioi Lesbos

443-433 428/7

LSAG 282 Hesperia 47.192

141 147 203 210

aG. M. A. Richter (AJA 43 [1939] 198-200) suggests that the object was part of the booty when Kleitor defeated Heraia around 500 B.c. b These spear-butts are designated as oxtda,

Inscribed Panoplies

Source Olympia

Objects Trophy?

Dedicant

Spoils from

Date

Reference

Lokroi, Medma

Kroton

525-500

LSAG 286

ca.500

LSAG 162

& Hipponion

Olympia

Helmets (2)

Corinth

Olympia

and Argos shields (6) Greaveand Zankle

Rhegion 500-490

shield a Two fragments from a trophy for some otherwise unattested victory.

LSAG 243

292

Captured Armor

The principle of the dedication of armor captured in land warfare seems clear, confirming the distinction made by the lexicographers between oxdAa and Addupa. Before the dead were given back under truce after the battle,®* the corpses were stripped of armor. Distribution of

the arms was then made to all victorious states and even to allies. The arms were dedicated in various sanctuaries of the state, and some were

often sent to the international shrines. Since there were fifteen thousand suits of armor in Thermon in 218 B.c.,® we may imagine that the accumulation of captured armor in large city-states was enormous. Most must have adopted the solution of Demosthenes in 426/5 B.c.% He distributed 150 suits of armor among the shrines of Attika, which, with demes totalling about one hundred and fifty, did not lack for sacred places. But there is one noteworthy exception to this practice— Sparta. We have noted above that out of the laphyra of battle the Lakedaimonians might convert the booty into gold shields and offer these to the deity; but there has been no example of Spartan dedication

of the spoils (cxd\a).

In one of the apophthegmata of Kleomenes, the son of Anaxandridas, related in Plutarch (Mor. 224B), it is said that “When somebody inquired of him why Spartans do not dedicate to the gods the skyla taken from their enemies, he said, ‘because they are taken from cowards’ ”’ (rvvOavopueévov 6€ Tivos abrod dua Ti Drapriarat Tors Oeots obk dvarWéact Ta and Tov Todeuiwy oda, STL, Eby, amd SeeA@v éorr). Similarly in the

apophthegmata of Leotychidas, Plutarch (Mor. 224F) writes, “When someone inquired why they did not dedicate to the gods the arms taken from the enemy, he said that property wrested from its owners owing to cowardice is not good either for the young men to see or to dedicate to the gods” (ruavoyévou 5€ Twos bua TL Ta amd TSv ToNEuiw@y bra, ToOls BEots obk avatiéaow, épn bre Ta did THY SeALay TOV KeKTnuEvwy Onpabevta ovTE Tovs

véous dpav kahov ode Tots Geots avariévar). Ailianos (VH 6.6) expressly affirms that the Lakonian was not allowed to despoil the enemy (éru ov« efnv dvdpl Adxwre ob6€ oxvAeDoa Tov mod€eutov )67

There may be something of a parallel in the conduct of the British 64. For examples of trécrovdos, see F. J. F. Nieto, Los acuerdos belicos en la antigua Graecia 1 (Santiago 1975) 89. For the convention of returning corpses, see R. Lonis, “Les usages de la guerre entre grecs et barbares” (Annales litiéraires de l’Uni-

versité de Besancon 104 [1969] 56-62). 65. See below p. 204.

66. See above p. 286.

67. Menander (Sent. 239 [Jaekel] says, éx9pod rap’ dvdpds ovdéy errr xphoipov. Sophokles Ajax 664-665:

CE.

a\d’ gar’ ad7nOhs 4 Bporav mapoiula / éx0pdv &dwpa dpa Kod

évqoua. Whatever one gets from an enemy is “no good.”

Captured Armor

205

at the battle of Waterloo in 1815. We are told that there was a taboo against taking the personal possessions of the enemy dead, resulting from the English concept of honor. See J. Keegan, The Face of Battle (New York 1976) 191-192, who believes that the English concept of honor derived from game-playing. So the Spartans must have developed rules of honor in the matter of their comportment on the battlefield. Pausanias (3.11.3), writing in the middle of the second century after Christ, tells us that the Stoa Persike was the most impressive building in the Spartan agora. It was built from the booty taken in the Persian war. We learn from Pausanias and from Vitruvius (1.1.6) that statues of Persians, represented in their native costume, played an important part in the decoration of the building; but there is no mention of any

articles which would qualify as cxd\a, such as adorned the stoas of other nationals. The Spartans displayed a captured Athenian ship at the Achaian Rhion,® and they joined with other Greeks in dedicating three ships from Salamis, but I find no evidence which contradicts the statements of Plutarch and Ailianos,” and, as we have seen, there

is an impressive quantity of evidence about the dedications of skyla in the Greek national shrines and local sanctuaries. Edifice. Captured armor was dedicated in temples, in stoas, and in various structures within a sacred precinct. In publishing the remains of an archaic stoa on Samothrake, K. Lehmann writes, “The purpose

of this building, it is natural to assume, was always the same. It was built for the storage and exhibition of votive gifts and fragments of such dedications have been found beneath

its later floor.” Lehmann

named his stoa the “Hall of Votive Gifts.”7! Although we do not know the origin of some

Greek stoas,” it is certain that their columns

and

facades were adorned with captured arms, just as were those of the temple. P. Amandry states “Des dépouilles ramassées sur le champ de bataille,

la part consacrée

comme

ex-voto

ou

simplement

exposée

a

V’admiration des concitoyens des vainquers était généralement accrochée 4 une muraille ou aux parois d’un édifice quelconque, civil ou sacré.”78More recently, J. J. Coulton, The Architectural Development 68. ‘Thucydides 2.92.5. 69. Herodotos 8.121.

40. The shield dedicated by the Spartans at Olympia from the booty of Tanagra was a golden one, and the inscription refers to it as a dexadry: Pausanias 5.10.4. 41. Hesperia 22 (1953) 6. Lehmann found pieces of armor and a fragment of a spear: Samothrace 4:1 (New York 1962) 93. For another, and probably more correct, theory about the nature of this structure, see G. Roux, BCH Supplément 1 (1973) 55442. See P. Amandry, Fouilles de Delphes 2:8 (1953) 112 n. 1. 73. Op. cit. 111.

Captured Armor

294

of the Greek Stoa (Oxford 1976), has traced the history of the stoa, and demonstrated its multifarious use for exhibits of all sorts, the spoils of

war being only one (pp. 12-13). That the Greeks made a distinction between the captured armor dedicated in the temples and the large quantities of arms often housed in the stoas appears from a passage in Polybios (5.8.9-9.1), an author who was mindful of the véua of warfare. When Philip marched on Thermon in 218 z.c., he found the stoas full of suits of armor (é7\a)

to the number of fifteen thousand.” His soldiers exchanged some of the armor for their own and destroyed the rest (rév érAwy

Tov & Tals

oToals dvakepevwr TA wey ToAUTEAH KaOaLpodvTes Gmexourfer, TLva 6’ baHANaTOP, Ta 6€ Aourd cvvabpoloavres Op evéBadov. Fv 5 Tadra Trew THY pvplwy Kal

mevraxicxtdlwv). Polybios adds that up to now Philip had acted according to the rules of war

(kara rods rod roh{uov vouous). But when

the

Makedonians go on to violate the rules which secured the inviolability of temples,”> Polybios criticizes them strongly.” 44. The large number of shields may be explained by the fact that Thermon was not a city at all, but a federal center for the Aitolian league, and would presumably be the recipient of dedicated objects from the entire membership. ; 47. There are many references in inscriptions and literature to the inviolability of the iepév. Possibly the most interesting are the restrictions found in the Testament of Epikteta, a large inscription from Thera written in eight columns of 288 lines, regulating the creation of a cult and the construction of a temple of the Muses in memory of a son whom she had lost. The temple and the sacred precinct in which stood the sepulchral shrines (heroa) in memory of her husband and sons are to be looked after by trustees of the endowment, who are described as the “society of Kinsfolk.” These trustees are to take care that the mouseion and precinct are never sold or mortgaged; no buildings are to be erected on the sacred ground, except a portico; and nothing is to be removed. Minute provisions are given for the time and nature of sacrifices, and for the accounts and archives of the trust: JG XII.3.330 (ca. 210-195

B.C.)

(lines 41-55): mh éxérw 6é eEovolay pnfels unre drroddcGar 7d Movoeiov whe

7d TEuevos TOV Hpwiwy pynbé TaV ayadwaTav TOv &Y Tt Movoelar unde rv & rac rewever THV Hod ynOev pyre karabepev unre SradrAGEacGar unre €EadroTpr@oar TdT wnOevt unde Tapevpéoe pndemrae nde evorxodopjoar ev rat Teuever pundev .. . unde xphobar 76 Movoetov pnOevt .. . unde eEeveyxar Tv & Tat Movoeiar dvTwy pyndev. For current bibliography, see Bellen

in Der Kleine Pauly s.v. Epikteta (1967) 312-313. A law of Ialysos (IG XII.1.677) declares what animals and objects it is not permitted to introduce into the hieron and temenos of the goddess Alektrona. No person is to enter the temenos wearing sandals or with any article made of hog’s leather. See also Demosthenes 18 De Corona 145-154; 24 Against Timokrates 11; ‘Thucydides 4.118; Pausanias 1.25.7; Livy 29.18. For the taboo upon iron (cldnpov ob Kabhxa els 7 tepdv eicedOely: Ps. Kallisth. 17.13 [p. 113 Kroll]), see A. S. Pease, ap. Vergil’s Aeneid 4.513 (add.). For rules about gold, see J. G. Frazer, Golden Bough 33 (New York 1935) 226-227. It seems probable that at the entrance to every sacred precinct a notice was set up declaring through what act or through contact with what animals or things persons

Captured Armor

295

Another occasion when the battle-spoils hanging in the porticos was put to practical use is mentioned by Xenophon (Hell. 5.4.8) and Plutarch (Mor. 598B; cf. Pelopidas 12). In the course of the successful overthrow of the philo-Lakonian party at Thebes in 276 B.C tile) Lneban Phyllidas succeeded in liberating the one hundred and fifty political prisoners who had been jailed by Leontiadas. As soon as the prisoners were released, they were speedily armed with weapons which they took down from the stoa (Xenophon: kal rovtous pév trax tev & THs oToas

dthwv Kabedovres tAtcay).

Plutarch adds the curious detail that there

were at that moment in Thebes many trumpeters who had come to contend for the prize at the approaching festival of the Herakleia. Hipposthenidas engaged these men to blow their trumpets in different parts of the city, and thus everywhere to excite the citizens to arms. The crowds that formed found armor in the stoas which were full of weapons of all kinds (rots 6é rére dxAors TOV cuncTrapévwy Stra Taperxov ai Te oroal, Apes oboat TavTodarav Nadipwv ...) .77 became Rhodes

impure, and so debarred from access to the hieron. One from Lindos on (F. Sokolowski, Lois sacrées des cités grecques [Paris 1969] no. 139) begins

with the declaration that the highest state of purity is to have a healthy mind, free from guilt, in a healthy body. Then 76. On

the other hand,

the whole

follows an index ciborum prohibitorum. North

Stoa at Priene

was called holy

(iepa),

presumably because there was a sanctuary in it: Hiller von Gaertringen, Inschriften von Priene (Berlin 1906) 113, lines 59 and 121; 114.40. 77- E. K. Borthwick (JHS 96 [1976] 148-151) suggests that the siege-scene on the

amphora of Panagjurischte (JHS 94 [1974] pls. 4-6) refers to an episode in this liberation. The most interesting figure on the vase is the liver-examining mantis.

CHAPTER

MILITARY

IX

ORACLES?

Cicero (De Div. 1.43.95) says that in matters of grave concern (de rebus maioribus), the Lakedaimonians always consulted the oracle at Delphi or Dodona, or that of Zeus Ammon in Libya, and that the Athenians always consulted Delphi in public matters (1.54.122: ad quem etiam Athenienses publice de maioribus rebus semper rettulerunt). Compare Nepos (Lys. 3.1), Lacedaemonii omnia ad oracula referre consuerant; and Pausanias (3.4.4), of wev és TO XpnoTHpLop ot Aaxedatpovior Td ev Aeddots,

domep kal Ta &ANa €idbeoav.2 Among the priestly functions of the two kings at Sparta was the customary selection of two men, called Ilv6co, to act as intermediaries in their dealings with Delphi, and to take charge of the oracles received.? These became mess-mates (cboxnvot)

of the king.t In Athens as early as the Peisistratids, oracles had been deposited on the akropolis (Herodotos 5.g0),> and there is thought to be mention of a similar collection at Argos (Euripides frg. 627 [Nauck”]); see H. W. Parke and D. E. W. Wormell, The Delphic Oracle 2 (Oxford 1956) xii. At Thebes, oracles were jealously guarded by the royal house, if we accept as evidence Pausanias’ version (9.26.3) of the Oidipous 1. For bibliography Kleine Pauly s.v. Orakel oracle will presumably subject. For a list of

on oracles, see the six columns of references by Fauth in Der (1972) 323-328. A more complete bibliography for the Delphic appear in Professor J. Fontenrose’s forthcoming book on that

about one hundred

and fifty “‘political” oracles, see A. K.

Karademetriou, Oi Chresmoi tou manteiou ton Delphon (Thessaloniki 1972) 43. The

volume of G. Roux, Delphes, son oracle et ses diewx (Paris 1976), first published in German (Munich 1971), the latter edition not noted in Marouzeau, did not come to my attention until after the completion of this chapter. Although written for the general reader, it is a useful survey of the subject. 2. Before 448 B.c., the Spartans had the right of zpouarreia at Delphi, but they were replaced briefly in that year by the Athenians: Plutarch Perikles 21.2; IG 12, 26. For the right of first consultation, see Latte, RE Suppl. 9 (1962) s.v. Promanteia 1237-1239, with bibliography, to which add P. Amandry, La mantique apollinienne a Delphes (Paris 1950) 113-114. 3. Herodotos 6.57. Cf. the Souda s.v. Hol6to.: récoapes &vdpes aiperol mapa Adxwot, dbo xa’ éxacrov Baorhéa, cboo.ro; and K. J. Dover, ‘““Thucydides,” GR Survey No. 7

(1973) 30: “Oracular responses received by Sparta were carefully guarded.”

4. Xenophon Lak. 15.5. See U. Kahrstedt, Griechisches Staatretcht 1 (Gottingen 1922) 249-250; and Ziegler, RE s.v. Pythioi (1963) 550-552. 5. This statement seems to be denied by F. Jacoby, Atthis (Oxford 1949) 206. However, see How-Wells,

Appendix

XVI.344. For the av9éxpnaro, three in number,

at

Athens, see F. Jacoby, op. cit. 31ff., who believes that they were only experts and interpreters of oracles: the officials who were sent to Delphi to apply for oracles were termed Georpéro..

[ 296]

Military Oracles

297

story. This attitude toward state oracles is explained, according to W. R. Halliday,® by the emphasis in Greek superstition on the potential power conditional on the knowledge of the omen or oracle. It was only on capturing the akropolis that the Lakedaimonians learned the contents of oracles which were of evil import for Athens’ future.7 It is probable that all city-states kept such precious collections of oracles as pertained to them. The problem of the authenticity of Delphic oracles is treated by M. P. Nilsson in a masterly article (Historia 7 [1958] 237-250), in which he reviews research on the subject.® He believes (p. 246) that Herodotos, for example, used official collections.® However, cities and tyrants cer-

tainly kept secret collections.!° As for the oracles delivered to the Athenians before the battle of Salamis, they must have been discussed publicly in the Athenian assembly, and Herodotos may well have conversed 6. Chap. IV, “Acceptance of Omens,”

in Greek Divination

(London

1913). Cf.

above, chap. IV n. 138. 47. Herodotos 5.90.

8. Nilson rightly points out that the falsifications presuppose the existence of authentic oracles. The works of Defradas and Crahay also drew the sharp criticism of P. Amandry,

“Oracles,

littérature

et politique,’

REA

61 (1959) 400-413.

Even

Apollo’s most deadly enemies never doubted that the responses emenated from a supernatural source. g. Strabo (9.3.4.419) refers to the great number of recorded oracles at Delphi (76 rd7O0s THv ioropovpevwv xpnouav). For a list of ancient collections of oracles, see Hiller von Gaertringen, RE s.v. Delphoi (1901) 2521. According to the schol. to Hesiod Theog. 17 and the schol. to Pindar Ol. 2.70, Mnaseas of Patrai or Patara (see Laqueur in RE s.v. Mnaseas 6 [1932] 2250), of the third century B.c., wrote a Acrdixv

xpnopev ovvayewyn.

Chrysippos wrote a book on oracles in which, says Cicero

(De Div. 1.3.6; 1.19.37; 1.20.39), he collected innumerable responses, “all with ample authority and testimony” (nec ullum sine locuplete auctore atque teste); and there were probably other case-books in the Stoic School. The lack of written records at oracular sanctuaries, however, has been maintained by many scholars, including R. Crahay, La littérature oraculaire chez Hérodote (Paris 1956) 11-12. A chest, termed

tbyaorpov, is frequently referred to in Delphian inscriptions. R. Flacelitre (Greek Oracles [Engl. tr. London 1965] 52-53) believes that this chest contained the answers of the oracles: “Theoretically, the zygastron at Delphi would have made it possible to test the truth

of the oracles.”

It seems,

rather,

that the chest preserved

public

archives, in particular the financial records of the temple: see M. G. Colin, Fouilles de Delphes 3.2 (Paris 1909-13) p. 237. To my knowledge, the only “oracle” found among the inscriptions at Delphi is that published by G. Daux and J. Bousquet, Rev. Arch. 20 (1942/3) 22-24. This inscription was cut in the mid-second century B.c. in connection with the revival of the cult of Dionysos under the influence of the Attalids. The oracle alludes to the legend that Agamemnon on his first expedition missed his way to Troy and landed by mistake in Teuthrania where he encountered Telephos, who is apparently referred to in the oracle. 10. See Nock, Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc. 85 (1942) 477 [= Essays 2.542].

Military Oracles

298

with persons who had heard the discussion. That within less than one generation after the event these oracles would have been forged and then accepted as genuine by Herodotos seems highly unlikely. Later Greek historians followed the practice of Herodotos and chose to diversify their narratives with verse quotations from the Pythia. In general, it may be said that if the issue did not correspond to the oracle, the modern scholar accepts the oracle as genuine. Moreover, the more tortuous the phraseology, the more special allusions the modern schol-

ar is able to read into the oracle. It was not for nothing that Apollo was nicknamed Loxias, the Ambiguous

One. Moreover,

the Greeks always

delighted in such mental gymnastics. Since the oracles were prominent in the political combats of the fifth century—much more so than myths —there is hardly one which has not been judged by some scholar as a post eventum forgery. The line between the supposedly divine and the obviously human element in divination was not clear; but few save professed Cynics and Epicureans denied the former. How great was the belief in oracles is discussed by M. P. Nilsson in his Cults, Myths, Oracles, and Politics in Ancient Greece (Lund 1951) 136-142.!! Certainly the oracle at Delphi had immense influence,”? the more so as most gods had either no oracles or none of any importance. Hence we find Apollo consulted, for exam-

ple, on a question affecting the worship of Demeter at Eleusis. However, F. Jacoby (Atthis [Oxford 1949] 265-266) has protested against what he terms the “particularly offensive” belief of Nilsson that the oracle pursued a policy of its own;!* and Jacoby regards the “influence of the Delphic oracle on the life of the Athenian state” as largely imagina11. Cf. M. P. Nilsson

(D. M. Robinson Studies 2 [St. Louis 1953] 744): “We do not

believe in oracles as the ancients did. But, after all, time has changed only the forms, and, as the Athenians believed in the oracles attributed to Bakis or Musaeus, some

people nowadays believe in the oracles proffered by the modern prophets, Marx and Lenin.” 12. P. Amandry (La mantique 160 n. 2) has counted 57 Delphic oracles in Herodotos, 37 in Diodoros, 64 in Plutarch, 57 in Pausanias, 13 in Athenaios, 39 in the Anthology, and 12 in the Souda.

13. Even so, before the time of Herodotos, the Athenians themselves said that the Alkmaionids had secured by bribery the oracular command to Sparta to expel Hippias from Athens (Herodotos 5.63 and go); and it was common belief that Kleomenes was responsible for the Pythia’s position that his rival Demaratos was illegitimate (6.66). According to Plutarch Lysander 20, Lysander attempted to bribe the oracle of Ammon in Libya, hoping to obtain its support for certain revolutionary measures that he was contemplating; but the god sent emissaries to accuse him before the Spartans,

ge

Military Oracles

299

tion.1* A certain vagueness and ambiguity in all foretellings of the future protected the god from the disagreeable possibility of being called a false prophet. Moreover, Apollo seems to have acted as a useful infor-

mation bureau. 2 The oracular shrines are scarcely mentioned in Homer. One instance occurs of a private consultation at Dodona:

Od. 14.3273 cf. 19.296; and

reference is made to its priestly tribe, the Zeddoi or ‘EAXoi, in II. 16.223.1° Achilles mentions the wealth of the shrine at Delphi (JI. 9.404), and there are references to Pytho in Il. 2.519; Od. 8.80—-82,'6 11.581. But no important oracles are mentioned as emanating from either. Agamemnon,

for example, does not appear to have consulted anyone

but the seer Kalchas with regard to the Trojan war. As noted above, the typical Homeric method of foretelling the future was by the actions and cries of omen-birds, or by portents. From a study of the epigraphical evidence, G. Daux, Athenian Studies Presented to W. S. Ferguson (Cambridge, Mass. 1940) 46-48, has shown that there were normal relations between Athens and Delphi in 431-421 B.c.,!7 although ‘Thucydides mentions Athenian consultation only twice (3.104.1 and 5.32.1), in both cases about the purification of Delos:

see Schmid-Stahlin,

Geschichte

der griechischen

Literatur

1.5 (1948) 115 n. 7. The opening sentence of the Athenian-Spartan truce of 423 B.c. (4.119.1) guarantees undisturbed access to the shrine. The important point is that Delphi was giving oracles to both sides. Such statements as that of W. G. Forrest (CR 72 [1958] 68): “While it is possible for Delphi to be neutral in any war, neutrality must mean advice to neither, not advice to both,” are pertinent only if we assume

that Delphi was a power in Hellenic politics. Conversely, the fact that Delphi gave oracular responses to, and received dedications from, both

sides suggests that her role remained religious. We are dealing, then, primarily with a religious phenomenon.

The

14. So Amandry (Rev. Phil. 30 [1956] 281) rejects Defradas’ picture (Thémes de la propagande delphique [Paris 1954]) of a Delphic priesthood “ambitieux et avisé,” “impérialiste et usurpateur.”

15. Jebb devotes an appendix to this tribe in his edition of Sophokles’ Trachiniat. See also H. W. Parke’s chapter 2, “The Oak and the Selloi,” in his The Oracles of Zeus (Oxford 1967) 20-33. 16. The oracle given to Agamemnon at Delphi was mistakenly taken by a scholiast to refer to a prophecy by the oracle that Agamemnon’s army would destroy Troy. See W. B. Stanford’s note on this passage. 17. The

floruit of the oracular

Politics in Ancient Persian wars.

shrines, says Nilsson

(Cults, Myths,

Oracles, and

Greece [Lund 1951] 124), was in the period shortly before the

300

Military Oracles

Greeks believed that Apollo from time to time made known his father’s foreknowledge to such mortals as chose to consult him after due purification and sacrifice, employing as his medium

the Pythia, who, pos-

sessed much as a shaman is possessed,!® spoke not her own words but those of the god. Herakleitos (frg. 93 [D.-K.]) remarked that “the god of Delphi neither declares the truth nor conceals it, but points to it”: the Pythia supplied pointers which had to be interpreted. How much of all this the prophetai and “Holy Ones’ believed, we cannot say: no

one ever published his confessions or revelations. Certainly the oracle had immense influence, especially in religious matters. In fact, so great was the prestige of the Delphic oracle that cities as well as private individuals may have been tempted either to modify an authentic oracle or to produce a forgery. Pausanias 3.18.2 says that the shrine of Ammon was consulted more frequently by the Lakedaimonians than by the rest of the Greeks. ‘That it was regularly consulted by the Athenians is established by the fact that there was a sacred trireme called the “Ammon’s” (Aristotle Ath. Pol. 61.7), and by passages in Aristophanes Aves 619 and 716 and in Plato Laws 5.738C, which group together Delphi, Dodona and Ammon. 18. For the evidence, see Amandry, La mantique 135-139. Plato (Phaedrus 244A-B)

couples the Pythia with the priestesses at Dodona as examples of persons who possess the divine gift of prophecy but can exercise it only in the state of inspired ecstasy (uavetoa.), and adds that there are instances too familiar to need mention. See E. R.

Dodds, The Ancient Concept of Progress the view to which

(Oxford 1973) 197: “It remains to accept

all analogy points, that the entranced

woman

was a vocal auto-

matist, what we now call by the question-begging term ‘medium’.” C. R. Whittaker, “The Delphic Oracle. Belief and Behaviour in Ancient Greece — and Africa,” HTR 58 (1965) 21-47, offers parallel examples from the field of modern comparative sociology. Prophets received their revelations under abnormal conditions of consciousness in states of ecstasy, trance or dream. For a history of various attitudes about the validity of knowledge obtained in the form of revelations, see V. MacDermot, The Cult of the Seer in the Ancient Middle East (Hist. Monogr. 21. London. Welcome Inst. of the History of Medicine, 1971). For the decline of poetic inspiration and the use of prose, rather than poetry, for expression throughout the Hellenistic world — a phenomenon noted in Plutarch Mor. 406 — see MacDermot, 13 ff. — G. W. Elderkin (Hesperia 10 [1941] 125-132) believes that the so-called temple of the sacred spring at Corinth was an oracular one and that wine was mixed with the spring of water to induce “mantic potency.” See, however, Amandry, 138. — For the attitude of the Greeks about ecstasy, see the discussions of E, E. Sikes, The Greek View of Poetry (London 1931) index s.v. Ecstasy; cf. W. R. Inge in J. Hastings’ Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics 5 (New York 1912) 157-159. For a theory of divine “‘breaths” as a source for prophetic inspiration, see W. D. Smith, TAPA 96 (1965) 413-425. The concept of divine ‘‘possession” prevailed extensively in the early stages of religious

history, and has been treated for Greece by A. C. Pearson in Hastings’ Encyclopaedia 10 (1919) 127-130.

Military Oracles

301

The Athenian strategoi in 333 3.c. performed a sacrifice to Ammon,?® who by that time had a temple in Attika.2° J. E. Sandys in his commentary on the Aristotelian passage says, “It seems probable that the oracle was originally consulted by Athens in connexion with military undertakings, and this custom may account, not only for the sacrifice offered by the strategoi, but also for the connexion in which the vessel is mentioned in this chapter, at the close of the military officers of Athens.”24 A great deal of attention has been focussed in recent years on the personnel of the Delphic oracle and the method of consultation. Herodotos, and indeed all of our sources, was interested in the matter, not the method of consultation, and naturally, therefore, in material that

was exciting and important in its own right. A. D. Nock (op. cit. [above n. 10] 474 n. 13) reminds us that in considering the history of the oracle, we must not forget the small number of people involved: one to three women acting in turn as Pythia, two prophetai, five Hosioi. P. Amandry claims that in all records of responses, the Pythia utters the response as quoted.” But in Amandry’s mind, this solution only raises additional 19. IG II?, 1496.96-97. H. W. Parke (The Oracles of Zeus [Oxford 1967] 219) advances the theory that these sacrifices were for the dedication of the ship Ammonis (or Ammonias) on an occasion when the Salaminia was re-christened the Ammonis. But we know that the practice of sending a ship to the sanctuary of Zeus Ammon goes back to at least 363/2 B.c. (A. M. Woodward’s text of JG II2, 1642: BSA 57 [1962] 8); and the Salaminia was in service in 324/3 B.c.: JG I12, 1631.119 and 1632.103. The subject of the Athenian sacred ships is well discussed by B. Jordan, The Athenian Navy (Berkeley 1975) 153-183, particularly p. 163. 20. Foucart, REG 6 (1893) 6. 21. For Athenian connections with Ammon, see S. Dow, HTR 30 (1937) 184fE.; and A. M. Woodward, “Athens and the Oracle of Ammon,’ BSA 57 (1962) 5-13. 22. According to A. E. Taylor (A Commentary

on Plato’s Timaeus [Oxford 1928]

514), ‘““Timaeus would call the Pythia pavris, but would give only the name zpo¢gijrat to the Aedd&v dprorfs who, according to Euripides, Jon 415-416, communicated

oracles to the visitors.” In the Jon passage Xouthos god’s interpreter (rpodnreve.)?”, as proxenos

to which

Ion, who

says, “Now

the

who is to be the

had earlier referred

to himself

(335), replies, “Outside I am; inside others are in charge, Delphic nobles,

who sit near the tripod.” Amandry (La mantique 120 n. 2) claims that Plato and Euripides call the Pythia zpoffris; but in both passages, the masculine gender is used. H. W. Parke and D. E. W. Wormell (Delphic Oracle 1 [Oxford 1956] 33) give their opinion as follows: “The Prophet or chief priest asked the enquirer’s question, which he had already received in a verbal or written form, and the Pythia’s answer would vary in its degree of coherence and intelligibility. When it had been given, the prophet would reduce it to some form.” The matter is much debated. It may be added that just as students of Athenian finance have erred seriously in failing to realize that the chief type of financial record inscribed on stone was limited to borrowings from the gods (see T. Linders, The Treasurers of the Other Gods in Athens and their Functions [Meisenheim 1975] 9), so some scholars have made the

302

Military Oracles

problems to which we have no answers: “Les questions étaient-elles posées oralement or par écrit? La Pythie répondait-elle immédiatement aux questions, ou bien un certain délai s’écoulait-il entre la remise des questions et la réponse? Les consultants étaient-ils admis en présence de la Pythie pendant toute la durée des opérations ou seulement pour entendre l’énoncé de la réponse?’’?* Furthermore,

much

of our infor-

mation comes from Plutarch’s De Pythiae Oraculis, and Plutarch was sure that great changes had occurred before his time. Plutarch holds the view that in earlier days, men of poetic gifts used to sit around the oracle and to supply metrical vehicles for the prophetic utterances. According to Nock (op. cit. [above n. 10] 474 n. 12 = Essays 2.537), this also seems to have been the view of Ephoros. Such subjects are much debated and will continue to be. Nock notes that at Klaros and Didyma hexameters were used, and the answers

preserved indicate

deliberate

thought. Any theory of conscious fraud must center on the possibility of editing by a male staff. But though religious faith can be very trusting, it would hardly have survived large-scale fraud for centuries. Different types of divination were used. In BCH 63 (1939) 184, P. Amandry published a very important inscription from Delphi of the first part of the fourth century B.c., a treaty between Delphi and Skiathos, that proves that it was possible to arrange for a consultation “‘by two beans” (ém! dpuxrw), that is, by lot;24 and it may reasonably be as-

sumed that it was the Pythia herself who was responsible for drawing the lot. The text (lines 15-18) refers to the fee (pelanos) that had to be paid before the oracle could be consulted: “If any presents himself for a consultation by two beans, the fee for a state question shall be one mistaken assumption that, because oracles recorded in inscriptions relate chiefly to cult foundations and sacrifices, this epigraphical evidence reflects the complete activity of the oracle. The argument that the epigraphical oracles can be used as criteria to establish what oracles were genuine and what fictitious is an erroneous one. 23. La mantique apollinienne (Paris 1950) 122-123. 24. A. Bouché-Leclercq (Histoire de la divination dans lVantiquité 2 [Paris 1880] 196) long ago deduced on the evidence of vase paintings that the Pythia used this method

of divination

by stones.

He inferred,

however,

that the use was limited

to

determining the order of inquirers. See also L. R. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States 4 (Oxford 1907) 191. The method is world-wide; it must have existed in Greece from

time immemorial; see the long note of J. G. Frazer on Pausanias 7.25.10. Cicero (De Div. 1.34.76) tells of the early employment of a similar method at Dodona. The @piat were the eponymous nymphs of the @p.al (“divining pebbles’): see Weniger in Roscher Lexicon 5 (1922) 866-871; and Wilamowitz, Der Glaube Hellenen 1 (1931)

379-381. Hesychios says, Opval: ai rpSrac wavres. The antiquity of the method is probably attested by the word dvaupety — “decide” of oracles, which C. A. Lobeck (Aglaophamus 2 [Kénigsberg 1829] 814) explains as sortes tollere.

Military Oracles

303

Aiginetan stater.” Amandry draws a distinction between “consultation by beans”

and ‘consultation

in the adyton.”25 At Dodona,

the con-

sultant was allowed no direct communication with the god. Questions were written down and given to the priestess, who returned the answers in writing.?6 Questions and answers alike were inscribed on thin lead tablets, quantities of which have been discovered on the site.27 Of even greater interest to the modern historian is the procedure of the consulting state, which we know made a great effort to see that the

reply was delivered intact to the ruling legislative body. Thus, in JG II?, 204 (SIG g04), the Athenians in their ekklesia decreed that three theopropoi should be elected by the demos, one from the boule and two from the citizenry, who would go to Delphi and inquire of the

oracle (lines 42ff.; brackets omitted): éNéc@ar dé 6 dijpos tpels dvbpas, eva Mev éx THs BovAfs,

dvo d€ && *"AOnvalay amavTov, oitives eis AeXgovs adixduevor

Tov Oeov érepnoovra. The alternative uses of a piece of land called iepa opyas were written out on identical pieces of tin, which were placed in

a hydria. This was shaken, after which the first piece to be drawn out was placed in a golden hydria and the other in a silver one. The epistates of the prytaneis sealed these with the public seal, and any other Athenian citizen might come forward and add his seal. Apollo was simply asked whether the instructions in the gold hydria or those in the silver should be followed. On the return of the theopropoi with the two urns, the response of the oracle was to be read to the demos: avayrucintw

Ta. Squat h Te pavrela Kal Ta ek TOV

KaTTITépwr

YpdppaTa.

In this particular case regarding the cultivation of the tepa dpyas, only

a simple answer was needed. In the far more important matter of peace or war, it seems reasonable to assume that at least equal precautions would be taken by the Athenian ekklesia to see that the will of the god would be communicated to the assembly without delay. At Sparta, the Pythioi were required to accompany the king, and they took charge of the oracle. Herodotos (7.142) says that the Athenian theopropoi wrote down the Salamis oracle before leaving Delphi. At the close of Xenophon’s Poroi (6.2), he prescribes that if the state 25. Parke and Wormell cleromancy,

(DO 1.18) call the discovery of the giving of oracles by

the casting of lots, “‘one of the most

times at Delphi.” 26. R. C. Jebb comments Dodona,

(Sophocles

sensational

Trachiniae

discoveries

p. 206) about

of recent

the oracle at

“it is always the oak itself which is described as uttering the oracle, though

its language requires to be interpreted by the mpogyrides’’ (Jebb’s italics); and, again (p. 205), “As to the mode of delivering the oracle’s response, Sophocles assumes that

the practice at Dodona was the same which prevailed at Delphi and elsewhere.” 27. See D. M. Nicol, Greece and Rome 27 (1958) 128-143.

304

Military Oracles

decides to go forward with his scheme, it should send to Dodona and Delphi and inquire of the oracles whether the design would be favorable for the state both now and in days to come. Xenophon uses the ritual formula: ¢ AGov kal &uewov etn dv rH WOM. A Hellenistic inscrip-

tion from Kaunos, published by G. E. Bean (JHS 74 [1954] 85-87), records the response of Gryneian Apollo to the question of the demos of the Kaunians as to what gods they should propitiate to obtain fruitful harvests. Lloyd-Jones (JHS 75 [1955] 155) notes that the response of the god was in two hexameters. If a state consulted an oracle when it incurred a bad season for crops, it is hardly likely that they would fail to inquire, for example, while undergoing a siege in warfare, if the

opportunity afforded. Consultation of the oracles in times of crisis appears to have been part of Greek society. Indeed, when the people of the Kilikian coastal city of Syedra were harassed by pirates, they sought the advice of an oracle. The oracular response, recorded on stone in

hexameters (G. E. Bean and T. B. Mitford, Denkschrifiten der Osterreichische Akademie der Wissen. 8», [1965] 21-23), bids the Syedrans to set up on their akropolis a statue of Ares held in iron bonds by Hermes and in suppliant posture before Dike (see above, chap. V n.

10). However the Syedrans must themselves take a hand in the fighting. In the De E apud Delphos (Mor. 386C), Plutarch lists the ordinary questions which were put to the Delphic oracle in his day: e& yapjcovew, el ovpdéper mA€Lv, et yewpyetv, el drodnuetv 28 But at the head of the list,

he puts the question ei vuxjcovoww. As we shall see in the collection of testimonia on military matters below, this question recurs repeatedly in a variety of forms; the answer to it inevitably involved the oracle in military and political matters. It would be perverse to argue that Plutarch was misinformed. Before the Greek city-state went to war, it consulted the oracle to see if it would be victorious.”® ‘The effect on morale would presumably be enormous. When the Argives received what they interpreted as an adverse oracle before the battle of Sepeia in 404 B.c., it spread fear among them (rotor ‘Apyelovor PdBov rapeixe).*° So with regard to the consultation of the oracle at Dodona, the Boiotians are said to have made inquiry about an impending war, and the 28. Cf. Mor. 29. In Mor. the desolation to the oracle

408C: el yayunréov, ei rAevoréor, eb Saveroréor. 398D, Plutarch says that oracles have witnesses to testify for them in of cities and the overthrow of hegemonies. In Mor. 403B, he alludes given to the Athenians when they sought advice about the Sicilian

campaign. We can only speculate about the oracle to restore the Delians to Delos reported in Thucydides 5. 32.1 (421 B.c.), but it may have resulted from an Athenian inquiry about their recent military misfortunes. There is nothing to suggest that the oracle was related to ritual or cult. 30. Herodotos 6.77.2.

Military Oracles

305

priestess replied that they would be victorious if they committed an

act of impiety (airots dceBioacww). Whereupon one of them caught up

the priestess Myrtila and threw her into a cauldron of hot water.3! Henceforth, the oracle refused to respond to the Boiotians.% The following oracles which have to do with warfare have been selected chiefly from the collections of H. W. Parke-D. E. W. Wormell,

The Delphic Oracle 2 (Oxford 1956), and of H. W. Parke, The Oracles of Zeus: Dodona, Olympia, Ammon (Oxford 1967). The references by number are to volume 2 of the Parke-Wormell publication. We shall see that consultation was primarily in some form of the question et vunoovo.w before going to war. The other occasion for consultation was in the course of a long siege. It need hardly be said that the literary form of the oracle is one thing, the reality of the consultation another. In the collection, examples of oracles which are almost universally judged to be parts of legends are included. At the least, they show what the Greeks told about their own oracles and what they were prepared to believe. Moreover, the point in all thése cases is that the oracle was consulted before going to war. Thus, the devout Xenophon in the

dialogue which he attributes to Kroisos and Kyros in the Kyropaideia (7.2.9ff.) thinks that it is blasphemous that Kroisos should make trial of the god,*4 but he gives no indication of doubting that such inquiries

were indeed made. Legend. Sparta. Lykourgos Against Leokrates 84. P-W no. 215 (many sources). The Peloponnesians decided to march against Athens, but sent first

to Delphi to inquire if they were going to take the city (ei Ajpovrar Tas *A@nvas). ‘The answer was that they would take the city so long as they did not kill Kodros. Cheered at this simple precaution, they invaded Attika, but the oracle was secretly disclosed to Kodros, legendary king of Athens, who nobly determined to assure the safety of his city and

contrived to be killed by the Lakedaimonians. Shocked at the fulfilment of the prophecy, they retired from Attika. Parke-Wormell believe that the legend arose comparatively late.** The significant feature is the wide circulation, and presumably acceptance, of a story that the oracle gave pronouncements on matters of warfare. g1. See H. W. Parke, The Oracles of Zeus (Oxford 1967) 71-72.

32. See J. Pley, REs.v. Myrtila (1933) 1151. 33. Cf. Amandry, REA 61 (1959) 412. 34. This is the opinion, too, of E. R. Dodds, (Oxford 1973) 166, on the basis of 7.2.17. 35. DO 1.297.

The Ancient

Concept of Progress

Military Oracles

306

Legend. Athens. Lykourgos Against Leokrates 98-99. P-W no. 195. When Eumolpos and the Thrakians were about to invade Attika, Erechtheus went to Delphi and asked the god by what means he could assure a victory over the enemy (4pwra Tov Gedy Ti Tovey ay viKny AaBor rapa

rav roheuiwv). The legend in its various forms has been studied by C. Austin in his publication of the papyrological fragments of Euripides’ Erechtheus (“De nouveaux fragments de l’Erechthée d’Euripide,” Recherches de Papyrologie 4 [1967] 11-68, esp. 16). Again, we see the acceptance of a legend that the oracle gave pronouncements on matters of warfare. 659 B.c.°6 Phigaleia. Pausanias 8.39.3—4. P-W no. 30. After being expelled from their city by the Lakedaimonians, the Phigaleians inquired of the Pythia about their return (brép xabddov).

The Pythia said that she did not see any return for them if they tried by themselves; but if they added to their side one hundred picked men from Oresthasion, the latter would die in the battle, but through them

the Phigaleians would secure their return. The prophecy was fulfilled. Parke-Wormell

regard the reported version as in general correct, al-

though the date may be too early.®” ca. 590 B.c. Amphictyons. Aischines 3 Against Ktesiphon 107-112; Diodoros 9.16; Pausanias 10.37.6; Souda s.v. Zd\wy; Polyainos 3.5. P-W no. 18. According to Aischines (3.107), the Amphictyons sought the advice

of the oracle after the Kirrhaians had committed sacrilege against Delphi. The oracle enjoined punishment upon the offenders and called upon the Amphictyons to dedicate the land of Kirrha to Apollo. The three-line oracle which is found in the text of Aischines does not accord with the context and seems to have been inserted from Diodoros or Pausanias. The inserted oracle accords with the story in the later authors, according to which only after the siege of Kirrha had been prolonged and the league’s contingents were beginning to dwindle away was the oracle consulted. The reply was to prophesy that Kirrha would not fall until the sea reached the edge of the Delphic sanctuary. ‘The solution was to extend the territory down to the sea, and the city was taken.*8 36. The date is according to the number of the Olympiad given in Pausanias. A History of Sparta (London 1968) 71.

37. See, however, W. G. Forrest, 38. See Parke-Wormell, DO

1, p. 106.

Military Oracles

307

ca. 580 B.c. Sparta. Herodotos 1.66; Diodoros 9.36.2; AP 14.76; Pausanias 3.3.5; 8.47.2. P-W no. 31. Herodotos tells us that the two Spartan kings Leon and Hegesikles contemplated the conquest of all of Arkadia and sent to Delphi to inquire about the enterprise. The priestess dismissed their wishes as extravagant,

but encouraged

them,

through

the usual equivocations

of

language, to try their fortune against Tegea. Heartened by the favorable construction which they put upon the oracle, the Lakedaimonians

marched against Tegea with such entire confidence of success as to carry with them chains for the purpose of binding their expected prisoners. But the result was defeat. They were repulsed with loss, and the

prisoners whom they left behind, bound in the very chains which they had brought, were put to servile labor on the plain of Tegea—the words

of the oracle being thus literally fulfilled, although in a sense different from that in which the Lakedaimonians had first understood them. In Herodotos’ day the chains themselves were suspended from the temple of Athena Alea in Tegea. Pausanias (8.47.2), too, saw the chains, except such as had been destroyed by rust, in the second century after Christ. Parke-Wormell (DO 1 p. 94) regard the oracle as authentic. ca. 560 B.c. Sparta. Herodotos 1.67—-68. P-W nos. 32-33.

The Delphic oracle, in reply to a question from the Spartans—which of the gods they ought to propitiate in order to become victorious— enjoined them to find and carry to Sparta the bones of Orestes, son of Agamemnon. After a vain search, they applied to the oracle for more specific directions, and were told that the son of Agamemnon was buried at Tegea in a place “where two blasts were blowing under powerful constraint,

where

there was

stroke

and counter-stroke,

and de-

struction upon destruction.” These mysterious words were elucidated by a lucky accident. During a truce with Tegea, a youth Lichas visited Tegea, and entered the forge of a blacksmith, who mentioned that in sinking a well he had discovered a coffin containing a body seven cubits long. Lichas deduced that the relic could be nothing less than the corpse of Orestes when he reflected how accurately the indications of the oracle were verified; for the two bellows of the blacksmith corresponded to the two blasts, the hammer and anvil to the stroke and

counter-stroke, and the forged weapons to destruction. On instructions from Sparta, Lichas leased the property and carried off the bones of the venerated

hero, nephew

and successor

of Menelaos.

the Spartans were victorious over the ‘Tegeans.

Henceforth,

308

Military Oracles

ca. 550 B.c. Dolonkoi. Herodotos 6.34. P-W no. 60. The Dolonkoi, living in the ‘Thrakian Chersonese, were hard pressed by their neighbors, and sent their kings to Delphi to advise them about

the war. The Pythia’s reply was that they should persuade to found a colony among them the man who was the first to offer them hospitality after they left the temple. This proved to be Miltiades the elder, who,

after inquiring from Delphi whether he should go, accepted the proposals and led a colony of Athenians to the Chersonese. 546 B.c. Kroisos. Herodotos 1.53.1; Aristotle Rh. 1407a 38. P-W no. 53. The Lydian envoys, who conveyed gifts to Delphi, were instructed to ask whether Kroisos should undertake an expedition against the Persians (ei orparebnrat én Tlépoas). The answer was remarkable for circumspection: Kroisos was told that, if he invaded Persia, he would sub-

vert a mighty monarchy. Kroisos interpreted this declaration as an unqualified promise of success. Parke-Wormell collect many sarcastic allusions to ambiguities in later antiquity.%? ca. 530 B.c. Arkesilaos III of Kyrene. Herodotos 4.163. P-W no. 7o. After he was driven out of his native city, Arkesilaos mustered a large army with Samian aid under promise of redistribution of land. While the army was being mustered, he thought it proper to go to Delphi and consult the oracle. Success in the undertaking was promised to him; but moderation was enjoined on pain of losing his life, and the Battiad race was declared by the god to be destined to rule at Kyrene for eight generations. After his initial success, Arkesilaos abandoned the mildness enjoined upon him and was slain. The last Battiad was deposed about 460 B.c. The oracle is judged a post eventum specimen of the way in which a prophecy is made up by ante-dating later knowledge, as well as serving the present purpose of deterring the partisans of the dethroned family from endeavoring to reinstate them.” Pindar knew nothing of the oracle when he sang the glory of the Battiads in Pythian 4 and » in the 460s. Before 511 B.c. Sparta. Herodotos 5.63. Herodotos’ story of the bribery of the oracle by the Alkmeonidai is included here because the Pythia was to prompt the Lakedaimonians, 39. The Lydian oracles have been studied in particular by H. Klees, “Eigenart des griechischen Glaubens an Orakel und Seher,” Tiibingen Beitr. 43 (1965), who argues that Kroisos’ dealings with Delphi must have a historical foundation. See the review of W. G. Forrest, Gnomon 38 (1966) 628-629. 40. F. Chamoux, Cyrene sous la monarchie des Battiades (Paris 1953) 144-155.

Military Oracles

309

whenever they came to consult the oracle, to liberate Athens from the Peisistratids.4t In the eyes of the Spartans, the Pythia was taking the initiative, and oracles must have been given to that effect. Accordingly,

the Lakedaimonians sent first Anchimolios with an army to drive out the tyrant Hippias, and later king Kleomenes.*? Parke-Wormell (1.147) say of Herodotos’ account, “It is rather naive in that it supposes that the Spartans could be induced by persistent pressure from Delphi to adopt a course of action without other motive.” On the contrary, there was no more powerful pressure than that from the god. ca. 500 B.c. Phokians. Pausanias 10.1.4. P-W no. 68. At the beginning of a war with the Thessalians, the Phokians asked how they could escape the approaching danger. ‘The Pythia responded, “I will match a mortal and an immortal to fight, and I will give victory to both, but more indeed to the mortal.” This utterance Pausanias ex-

plains by the circumstance that in the final battle the Thessalians took as their watchword the name of Athena, the Phokians the name of their eponymous hero, Phokos. The Phokians were ultimately vic-

torious and dedicated great booty at Delphi. ca. 494 B.c. Argos. Herodotos 6.18-19.2, 77.2; AP 14.89 and go; Pausanias 2.20.9. P-W no. 84. The Argives, threatened by the Spartan attack which culminated in the battle of Sepeia, consulted the oracle at Delphi wep! owrnpins ris 16Avos Tis oderépys; yet the answer given concerns Miletos as much as Ar-

gos, although Miletos had not sent to inquire at Delphi. It may be that the Milesians had asked Argos for help, and Argos had agreed to consult Delphi. Aristagoras of Miletos had certainly sought aid in Greece before the fall of his city, and had been rebuffed at Sparta and may have turned to Sparta’s rival. The oracle is so obscure that both HowWells (ap. 6.77) and Parke-Wormell (1.158159) believe that it is genuine. The translation of Parke-Wormell is as follows: “But when the female having conquered the male shall have driven him out and have won glory among the Argives, then many of the Argive women will be made to tear their cheeks in mourning. Thus on a time one will say even of the men who will come after, ‘a dread snake of triple coil has perished subdued by the spear!’ And then indeed,

Miletus,

deviser of wicked

deeds, you will become a feast

41. Cf. above n. 13.

42. For a discussion of the tradition about Parke-Wormell, DO 1.146-147.

the oracles to king Kleomenes,

see

310

Military Oracles

and bright gifts to many, and your wives will wash the feet of many long-haired men, and others at Didyma will care for our temple.”

As for the Argive portion of the oracle, Herodotos believed that it applied to the battle of Sepeia, but does not point out any special appropriateness. ‘The general references to Argive women mourning could be taken of an Argive defeat.4* Herodotos simply says that the oracle spread fear among the Argives. Later Argive tradition appears to have found a more precise fulfilment in the story that Kleomenes was repulsed from the city by women under the leadership of ‘Telesilla.*4 This tradition is studied in detail by F. Jacoby, FGrHist 310 (Sokrates of Argos) frg. 6 (text and notes), who attempts to disentangle the Delphic, Argive, and Lakonian threads in the story.

ca. 494 B.c. Kleomenes of Sparta. Herodotos 6.76 and 82. P-W no. 86. Herodotos says that when Kleomenes, king of Sparta, was consulting

the Pythia at Delphi, an oracle was given to him that he would take Argos. Not to be overlooked is the fact that he must have been accompanied by a Pythios. Presumably the oracle was given immediately before Kleomenes’ invasion of Argos. The text is not given. After the battle of Sepeia near Tiryns, it was thought that Kleomenes could have taken and destroyed the city of Argos, and he was called to account by

the ephors when he returned to Sparta. He explained that he had discovered too late that a grove itself was called Argos and he saw that he had unwittingly fulfilled the oracle when he had destroyed the Argives therein, and so could not presume

on the oracle further. The Argives

had retreated into the grove and perished when Kleomenes set it on fire. No modern historian questions Herodotos’ statement that Kleomenes was denounced to the ephors for having failed to capture Argos, and his defense was accepted by the Spartiates (6.82.2). However, because of the homonymic equivocation, which incidentally is so commonly attributed to oracles, the modern scholar is loath to accept Herodotos’ story. A. R. Burn, who

has treated

the battle in the greatest detail,

writes that Kleomenes’ answer was a mere excuse: “One may surmise that he reflected that the plain of Argos was in any case going to carry 43. Luria, Klio 26 (1933) 214 suggests that 4 0j\ea rév &poeva vuKkhoaca represents a proverbial idea for topsy-turvy conditions. 44. For the basic conflict in our sources, see Forrest, CQ 54 (1960) 221.

45. Jacoby disputes the 494 date for both the oracle and the battle. Gf. Wickert Der Kleine Pauly sv. Kleomenes 3 (1969). P. A. Stadter, Plutarch’s Historical Methods (Cambridge, Mass. 1965) 45-53, also analyzes the various elements in the story.

Military Oracles

311

a large population, and since Sparta had not the men to colonize it, an old and now broken city would be less trouble to Sparta than a new Argos colonized from round about. (He may even have told the Ephors so; but the tradition is more interested in omens and prophecies than in such things.)’46 How-Wells (ap. 6.80) conjecture that Kleomenes was “reluctant”

to face great loss of life in storming the wall, and was

conscious “of the Spartan lack of skill in siege operations.” Grundy (Thucydides 1 [Oxford 1911] 223; JHS 28 [1909] 85) evolves a theory that Sparta was unwilling to destroy Argos because a strong Argos “frightened the other cities of the Akte to take refuge under the wing of Sparta.” Clearly, Kleomenes’ explanation was satisfactory to the Spartans; and Herodotos says that he knows that it was used by the Spartan king (reve 8’ Gr: 6:82.1). It was certainly consonant

with the religious su-

perstitions of the Spartans about prophecies. The theories that Sparta was thinking in terms of colonization or weighing considerations of a balance of power leave unexplained the matter of why the invasion took place in the first place, and reflect the modern’s inability to recapture the religious background of the time. 480 B.c. Athens. Herodotos 7.140-144. P-W nos. 94 and gp.

The two oracles given to Athens before the battle of Salamis are among the most interesting recorded. The two ambassadors to Delphi were so crushed by the pronouncement of disaster in the first oracle that they dared not carry it back to Athens.47 The second oracle was a mitigation of the first, and left some hope of escape. ‘The obscurity of the meaning,

in particular the reference

to the “wooden

wall,” pro-

voked many different interpretations. Some proferred the opinion that the akropolis would be spared, for it had earlier been surrounded by a

fence (nxés). A few trusted in this interpretation and remained there. The important feature is that Themistokles had to persuade the people to accept his own interpretation of the oracle.** In Aristophanes’ 46. Persia and the Greeks (Oxford 1962) 231. 47. Cf. How-Wells ap. 7.140.1: “The authenticity of the first oracle is proved by the fact that no one would later have invented gloomy predictions and advice falsified by the event, as well as by adaptation

in Aesch. Pers. 83f.” A. R. Hands

(JHS

85 [1965] 56-61) discusses the date of the oracles. See also A. R. Burn’s comment (Persia and the Greeks [New York 1962] 357-358) on the last line of the second oracle. Herodotos’ strongest profession of faith in oracles is to be found in 8.477.

48. The difficulties in the general position of R. Crahay the Herodotean oracles were fabricated for propagandistic ular city or political group, and in the particular view that the Salamis oracle, have been outlined by L. Pearson, AJP

(above ns. 8 and g) that purposes of some particThemistokles fabricated 79 (1958) 306-311.

312

Military Oracles

Eq. 1040, the Paphlagon utilizes for his own purpose this response recorded by Herodotos. 480 B.c. Delphi. Herodotos 7.178. P-W no. 96. As the Greek infantry proceeded to Thermopylai and the navy to Artemision, the Delphians consulted Apollo. An oracle was delivered to them to “pray to the winds” (dvéuoror ebxeo8ar), for these would be

potent allies of Hellas. The Delphians sent word of the oracle to “those Hellenes who wanted to be free,” thereby earning everlasting gratitude. After the battle of Artemision, they dedicated an altar to the winds. In Herodotos’ view, not only did the oracle not medize, but it

collaborated with other gods in the war and helped to win the victory. See H. R. Immerwahr,

1966) 236.

Form

and

Thought

in Herodotos

(Cleveland

.

449 B.c. Kimon. Plutarch Kimon

18.

During the siege of Kition on Kypros, Kimon sent men to the oracle

of Ammon to get an answer from the god to some secret question. Plutarch says that no one knows what they were sent to ask. The god bade the inquirers depart, saying that Kimon was already with him; indeed, Kimon had died in the meantime.

and,

435 B.c. Epidamnos. Thucydides 1.25.1. P-W no. 136. The democracy at Epidamnos, having been refused aid from their mother-city Kerkyra and finding themselves harassed by their exiled oligarchs and Illyrians, thought

of applying for aid to Corinth,

the

mother-city of Kerkyra itself. Their first step was to send envoys to the Delphic god to inquire ei rapadotev Kopivfiows tiv rod. When

the oracle

gave an unqualified sanction, they proceeded to Corinth with their mission, tendering Epidamnos to the Corinthians as to its oikistes,* and not failing to insist on the divine sanction just obtained. The Corinthians organized an expedition which rescued the city for the moment.

432/1 B.c. Sparta. Thucydides 1.118.3, 123.1; 2.54.4; Souda s.v. &«Anrov. P-W no. 137. After voting in assembly that the truce had been broken (Thucydides 1.87.6), the Lakedaimonians sent to Delphi to inquire of the oracle whether it would be beneficial to them to undertake the war (ei roA«euodow

dpewov éotar

[1.118]; ef xp

modeuety

49. See Gomme ap. Thucydides 1.24.2.

[2-54]). The

answer

brought

Military Oracles

313

back was that if they did their best they would be victorious, and that the god would help them, invoked or uninvoked.™ This is a clear example of a case where the Pythian Apollo was consulted on a major question of policy, which had no connection with cult or ritual. 431 B.c. Athens. Thucydides 2.17. When, in accordance with the plan put forward by Perikles, the Athenians abandoned their farms to the Lakedaimonian invaders and took refuge behind the long walls, they occupied an area enclosing the west side of the akropolis called Pelargikon.®! There was in existence, Thucydides says, a Pythian oracle which said, ‘““The Pelargikon unoccupied is better.” The Athenians, however, were obliged to settle there, and this undoubtedly caused concern among devout believers, for ‘Thucydides notes, ‘“The oracle, as it seems to me, was fulfilled in a way

quite contrary to what was expected, for it was not on account of the unlawful occupation of the place that the city was visited by misfortunes, but it was on account of the war that there was the necessity of its occupation,

and the oracle, although it did not mention

the war,

yet foresaw that the place would never be occupied for any good.” Gomme comments, “Thucydides rejects the common superstition that the oracle was foretelling this war (conveniently without naming it); but he seems to have accepted the view that the oracle could, to some degree, know the future.’>?

415, B.c. Athens. Plutarch Mor. 403B; Nikias 13.6. P-W no. 166. When the Athenians consulted the Pythia concerning the expedition to Sicily, they received a response to “bring the priestess of Athena from Erythrai.” They carried out the injunction by fetching the woman, who was named Hesychia. But the oracle was also susceptible of a second interpretation; for “to bring Hesychia” might also mean “‘to keep quiet” (jovxiay ayew). Hence Plutarch suggests that the oracle was advising the Athenians to refrain from making the expedition.** 50. Cf. H. R. Immerwahr, Gnomon 31 (1959) 206: “This must be an authentic inquiry showing that Delphi was indeed questioned about ‘political’ affairs, such as the conduct of war. It must also be a historical fact that an answer was given: hence Delphi did at times predict the future. The answer itself, however, as Thucydides states, was a matter of tradition, presumably because it belonged to the recipient and

was not kept on record in the shrine.” 51. See J. Travlos, Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Athens (London 1971) 52. 52. HCT 2 (Oxford 1956) 65-66. 53. Maximus of Tyre (11.6) has the story that Alkibiades consulted the oracle about the conquest of Sicily, presumably about the same time: Parke-Wormell no. 167.

Military Oracles

314

41x B.c. Athens. Pausanias 8.11.12; Dio Chrys. 17.17; cf. Plutarch Nikias 13. Athens sought the approval of the oracle at Dodona for the Sicilian expedition. The oracle told the Athenians to attach Sicily to the city (Dio) or, in another

version,

to settle Sicily with

inhabitants

(Pau-

sanias). Instead of the island of Sicily, Zeus is said to have meant a moderate-sized ridge near Athens which had the same name. Parke believes in the fact of consultation and a later legend of equivocation.™ 404 B.c. Sparta. Schol. Aristeides 5.187D, 6.254B. P-W no. 171. After the battle of Aigospotamoi,

341; Ailianos

VH

4.6; Athenaios

the Lakedaimonians

inquired of

Delphi whether to destroy Athens and were warned by the oracle, “disturb not the common Kuvely).

hearth of Hellas” (rv Kowhy éoriay THs “EAAGOos we}

396 B.c. Agesilaos of Sparta. Plutarch Mor. 191B and 209A. Before setting out for Asia, Agesilaos consulted the oracle of Zeus at Dodona, and when the god bade him go, he reported the answer to

the ephors. They told him to go to Delphi and ask the same question. Apollo concurred with his father, and Agesilaos began the campaign. He later dedicated his considerable proceeds from the campaign to Delphi. Since a somewhat similar story is related of Agesipolis, and that by Xenophon, it is generally assumed that Plutarch, as an inferior

source, has by mistake transferred to Agesilaos the oracles of Agesipolis.®> But there are pronounced differences in the two accounts,

and

it seems highly unlikely that Sparta would have undertaken such a major invasion without the usual question (e vuxjcovow) to the oracles.

387 B.c. Agesipolis of Sparta. Xenophon Hell. 4.7.2; Aristotle Rhet. 2.23.1398b. P-W no. 175. After the Lakedaimonians resolved on an expedition against Argos, King Agesipolis advanced as far as Phleious, but he himself turned aside to consult the oracle at Olympia. The Argives had sent heralds pleading a sacred truce, and though it is implied that this claim was a fraud, so strong were the religious scruples of the Spartan king that he could not resolve to disregard the heralds. Agesipolis went to Olym54. Oracles of Zeus 136-137. According to the Souda (4.357.12 [Adler]), Archidamos, son of Agesilaos, was warned by an oracle to beware of Sicily; so he avoided the island of Sicily, but fell in battle at Sicily, “the three-legged hill” in Attika, which is thought to be a small rocky hill south of the Ilissos, 55- See P. Amandry, La mantique 158 n. 1; Parke-Wormell, DO 2 p. 75.

Military Oracles

315

pia and put the question to the oracle whether he might with piety refuse to acknowledge the holy truce (érypara rév Ody el datws dv Exor abr by Oexouevy Tas orovdas T&v ’Apyewy). The oracle with dexterity in-

formed him that he might decline a truce demanded unjustly. Nevertheless, Agesipolis went directly to Delphi and asked Apollo if his Opinion was the same as that of Zeus. ‘““Most decidedly the same,” replied the god. With such double warranty, Agesipolis returned and informed the Argive heralds that the gods authorized his disobedience to their summons, and he marched into Argive territory. The expedition yielded no fruit but the plunder.** It is an impressive fact for the modern scholar seeking to recover the religious convictions of the Greek soldiers that the entire Lakedaimonian army could be detained for several days in neutral territory, provisioning itself as best it could, while it awaited the decisions of Zeus and his son. ? Athenians. Plato Alkibiades II.148D-149C.*" In this dialogue, Sokrates is given a digression on the oracle of Zeus Ammon in which he says that after the Spartans had been victorious by land and sea, the Athenians decided to inquire of Ammon why the gods granted victory to the Lakedaimonians rather than to the Athenians, who had adorned the temples of the gods with the costliest dec-

orations. The prophet’s answer was that the god preferred the pious speech of the Spartans to all the costly offerings of the other Greeks. 371 B.c. Thebans. Pausanias 4.32.5. P-W no. 253. The

Thebans

say that when

the battle of Leuktra

was imminent,

they sent to various oracles, the responses of four of which were recorded in addition to one from Trophonios at Lebadeia which told the Thebans to take into battle the shield of Aristomenes, the hero of the Second Messenian War, which was preserved as a dedication in his

shrine. After the victory, the Thebans replaced the shield. Some scholars see a reference to this episode in the epigram published as JG VII. 2462 (= M.N. Tod, GHI 2 no. 130).** 371 B.c. Thebans. Xenophon Hell. 6.4.7. Xenophon

reports

that before

the battle of Leuktra,

the Thebans

“were encouraged by the oracle which was reported—that the Lake56. See Chap. III, p. 81. 57. For the possible authenticity of the dialogue, see P. Shorey, What Plato Said

(Chicago 1933) 419.

58. H.W. Parke and D. E. W. Wormell, DO 1 (Oxford 1956) 218: “These facts are put beyond question by a contemporary inscription recording the event.”

316

Military Oracles

daimonians were destined to be defeated at the spot where stood the monument of the virgins who are said to have killed themselves because they had been violated by certain Lakedaimonians.” The source of the oracle is not given. 371 B.c. Spartans. Cicero De Divinatione 1.34.76 and 2.32.69 (= Jacoby FGrHist 124 [Kallisthenes] frg. 22). Cicero reports as follows: “But the most significant warning received by the Spartans [before Leuktra] was this: they sent to consult the oracle of Jupiter at Dodona as to the chances of victory (de victoria). After their messengers had duly set up the vessel in which were the lots, an ape, kept by the king of Molossia for his amusement, disarranged the lots and everything else used in consulting the oracle, and scattered them in all directions. Then, so we are told, the priestess who

had charge of the oracle said that the Spartans must think of safety and not of victory.’’59 367 B.c. Sparta. Diodoros 15.72.3; cf. Plutarch Agesilaos 33. After their loss at Leuktra,

the Lakedaimonians

consulted Dodona

about their prospect of military success. They were told that the war would be “tearless.”” The fulfilment of this prophecy was seen when Archidamos,

returning

from

an

expedition

into

Arkadia,

inflicted

heavy losses on a large force of Arkadians and Argives near Midea. Ten thousand men, if we are to believe Diodoros, were slain, without

the loss of a single Lakedaimonian. Xenophon (Hell. 7.1.32) records the military success and the fact that no Spartans were killed, but makes no mention of the oracle. Hence, Parke deduces that the association of

the oracle with the battle was a later development.® Diodoros is thought to be following Ephoros. The impressive fact about the account in Diodoros is that he relates it in a single sentence, without embellishments:

rpoe?rov 8’ abrots at Awdwvides tperar didre ToAEuos OvTos Aa-

Kedatmoviots ddaKpus éoTat.

344 B.c. ‘Timoleon of Corinth. Plutarch Timoleon g. Before Timoleon sailed for Sicily, he journeyed to Delphi and sacrificed to the god. Not only did he receive an encouraging answer, but while he was actually in the temple, a fillet with intertwined wreaths

and figures of Nike fell from one of the statues upon his head. Timo-

leon later offered dedications of victory (xapiorhpia) at Delphi.* 59. See Amandry, Revue Belge 47 (1969) 908. 60. Oracles of Zeus 138. 61. See Pritchett, War 2.96.

Military Oracles

317

336/5 B.c. Philip II of Makedon. Diodoros 16.91.2. P-W no. 266. Before departing on a campaign, Philip asked the Pythia whether he would conquer the king-of the Persians

(ei xparjoe

rod Baciiews

Tov

Ilepodv). Philip accepted (éedéxero) the oracle as foretelling that the Persian would be slaughtered like a sacrificial victim;®2 but he was

assassinated before he could lead a Panhellenic expedition against Persia. 334 B.c. Alexander. Plutarch Alex. 14; Diodoros 17.93.4. P-W no. 270. Alexander, wishing to consult the Pythia on his expedition against Persia, arrived at Delphi on one of the days inauspicious for enquiry. When the Pythia refused to answer him, he began to drag her to the temple. Whereupon the Pythia exclaimed, “You are invincible,” and Alexander, accepting this utterance as prophecy, said that he had no need of another.

331/0 B.c. Alexander. Arrian 3.3; Diodoros 17.51; Plutach Alexander 27; Curtius 4.7.12—-15. Alexander marched through the sandy Libyan desert to consult the oracle of Zeus Ammon at the oasis of Siwa. The priest addressed him as the son of a god. In reply to his query as to whether he would rule the whole earth, he was assured that his career would

be one of un-

interrupted victory until he was taken away to the gods. His friends also consulted the oracle and received the answer that the rendering of divine honors to him would be acceptable to Zeus. Alexander also consulted the oracles at Erythrai in Ionia and at Branchidai near Miletos.® 279 B.c. Delphians. Diodoros etc. P-W no. 329.

22.9.5; Cicero De Divinatione

1.37.81;

When the sanctuary was threatened by attack, the Delphians consulted the god on the question of the removal of the treasures, the children and the women to neighboring cities (e 7a xphyara kai Ta TeKva kal Tas yuvatkas amoKoulowow éx ToD wavTelov mpds Tas OXUPWTaTAS TOP TAN-

clov rodewv). They received the assurance that the god would protect his own, and the sacred treasures must be left in place.

189 (or 367) B.c. Achaians. Pausanias 10.18.2-3. Pausanias, describing a dedication made after the capture of the Aitolian town of Phana, says that when the Achaians were unable to 62. “The

bull has been garlanded, the end is come,

63. Strabo 17.814.

the sacrifice is at hand.”

318

Military Oracles

take the city during a siege, they sent envoys to Delphi and were told in effect to look to the water supply. By accident the Achaians discovered that the besieged got their water from a spring just outside the walls. ‘They filled up the spring, and the town capitulated. W. J. Woodhouse (Aetolia [Oxford 1891] 141-144) has identified the site of the town and suggests the date as 367 or 189 B.c., preferring the latter. He is followed by Schober in RE Suppl. 5 (1931) 108. Parke and Wormell, DO 2.78, prefer the earlier date because of the style of the response. The major oracles did not extinguish the race of divins libres. The craze for knowledge of the future, which is well attested for the period of the Peloponnesian War, produced a demand for oracles which was liberally met by the circulation of prophecies (xpynopol) attributed to various ancient sages, such as Musaios, Bakis, Orpheus, e¢ al., of

whom Aristophanes makes such delightful sport in the Equites and

elsewhere. Oracles sprang up like mushrooms, and chresmologoi plied a lively trade. Even so, as with the oracles from the oracular shrines,

it is well to be reminded that we are dealing with a religious phe-

nomenon. I. M. Linforth (Arts of Orpheus [Berkeley 1941] 73-74), in offering a solution to the problem of why Plato found a place for the

Xpnouwdot

in his educational

system, writes, “The

public religion of

cults and festivals was not thought of as an instrument of instruction;

but the teletai and chresmodiae, being concerned with the individual, his relation to the gods, and his own destiny, took the place of that

aspect of religion in the modern world. The fact that they involved the use of books gave them something more in the way of doctrinal substance than was to be found in state cults. Whether they had any direct moral influence or not, they would be effective in molding the lives of those who participated in them and believed in their importance.” The services of the chresmologoi were available for all who felt in need of them. The circumstance that in anxious times of warfare there would be much consideration given to oracles and their hidden meanings finds its way more than once even into the narrative of Thucydides. Three passages have often been quoted: “When now the foremost states of Hellas were rushing into war with each other,” he says (2.8.2), “all Hellas was in a state of high excitement, and many were the prophec ies (Adyia) recited and many those which chresmologoi chanted both among those who were about to go to war and in the Hellenic cities 64. Cf. Plutarch Mor. 387B: kal wdvris perv 6 Beds MavTiky 5€ TExvn Tepi TS pEAXAOV &x TOV TAporTay 7 wapwxnuevev.

Military Oracles

319

at large.” And, again, in describing the first invasion of Attika by the Peloponnesian army and the subsequent confinement within the walls of Athens of a great crowd of people who demanded that the army should make a sortie and fight in open country—the very opposite of Perikles’ plan,—Thucydides relates (2.21.3), “the people split up into hostile groups, some supporting the sortie, others opposing it. Meanwhile, the chresmologoi were chanting oracles of every import (xpnopo-

Aoyot Te 750v Xpnopuods wayrolous),according as each man was disposed to hear them.”® Finally, after the defeat in Sicily, he remarks (8.1.1), ““The

Athenians were enraged at the chresmologoi and manteis and whoever at that time by the practice of divination had led them to the hope that they would conquer Sicily.’”” One may compare the words of Demophon in Euripides’ Herakleidai 398-405: “All my plans are carefully laid; the city is under arms, the victims stand ready to be slain to every god whose

due that is. My seers have filled the town with sacrifices to turn the foe to flight and keep our country safe. All. those who chant prophetic words have I assembled and have examined ancient oracles, both public and secret, as means to save this city.” Herodotos (8.96) mentions an oracle of Bakis concerning the battle of Salamis. In the De Pythiae Oraculis, following discussion of soothsayers of the type of Bakis and the Sibyl, Plutarch (Mor. 399B) refers in general terms to predictions of victory for generals and of destruction for cities. It is quite clear that in war-time

especially, the practice of consult-

ing oracles was extremely popular. The

chresmologoi

seem

to have

been collectors and expounders of old oracles, genuine or fictitious. If we can believe Aristophanes, these soothsayers liked to emphasize that their words corresponded with some of Apollo’s oracles,®* and often

they pretended that their utterances were of Delphic origin.” The more puzzling and mysterious the sayings were, the better. It was then easy to interpret them in the most appropriate way.®* Such ominous lines as #£e Awpraxds méAeuos Kal Notwds Gu’ abrG,®® with its no less terri-

fying variant \iuds, were in everyone’s mouth at the time of the plague in Athens.

Jacoby (FGrHist 3.b [Suppl.] 2 p. 186) observes, “It may be assumed 65. For the distinction

between

Adya

and xpnopol, see R. A. Neil, The Knights

of Aristophanes (Cambridge 1901) 22 (line 120). oracle just delivered. 66. Eq. 220. 67. Eq. 1015, 1047, 1072, 1092. 68. Eq. 202, 1041. 69. Thucydides 2.54.

The word ddyoy

never refers to an

320

Military Oracles

that collections of oracles belonged so to speak among the tools of the official (and unofficial) manteis, and that the State paid attention to these oracles. ‘This was evidently owing to the fact that the State put a particular confidence in some manteis for reasons no longer recognizeable to us; there certainly were many more manteis in Athens in the

fifth century than the three or four whose names we know from inscriptions, comic

poets,

and

historians.””°

Jacoby

takes

exception

to the

term “‘oracle-mongers” as a translation of “chresmologoi.” In circulation were collections of oracles attributed to old poets and legendary manteis: Xpynoyuoi of Hesiod (Pausanias 9.31.5); Orpheus (schol. to Euripides Alkestis 968; Clem. Alex. Strom. 1 p. 400); Eukles of Kypros (Pausanias 10.12.11); Musaios (Herodotos 7.6, 8.96, 9.43; Sophokles frg. 1116 [Pearson]; Pausanias 10.12.11; Plato Protagoras 316;7! Philostratos Heroic. 2.19); Lykos (Pausanias 4.20.4,10.12.11); Laios (Herodotos 5.43). Most of all one hears of the oracles of Bakis (Herodotos 8.20, 77, 96; 9.43; Aristophanes Eq. 123 and 1003; Pax 1070 [cf. Theopompos (Jacoby, FGrHist 115 frg. 77)] and 1119; Aves 962-970; Pausanias 4.27.4, 10.12.11, 32.11). Pausanias (10.12.11) claims that he had read the Xpycpuoi of Eukles, Musaios and Bakis. In 4.27.4, he says that Bakis told in what manner the Messenian town of Eira would be captured (668 B.c.) and adds, “This too is one of his oracles: “The men

of Messene overcome by the thunder’s roll and spouting rain’.” Other oracles seem to us equally childish. Immediately before his victory at the deme

Pallene, Peisistratos was encouraged by an oracle from

the

chresmologos Amphilytos. The oracle in hexameter measure stated: “The net is cast, and the toils are spread out; the tunny-fish shall come shoaling in the moonlit night.” Herodotos (1.63) says that Peisistraos “accepted” the oracle and led his army against the enemy. Herodotos (8.96) also quotes the line: “Also the Kolian women shall roast their barley with oar-blades,” an oracle which was taken to apply to the shipwrecks after Salamis. Pausanias quotes two oracles, one of the Sibyl, the other of Musaios, in 10.9.11, both of which, he says, were used by 70. We know the names of the following chresmologoi: Amphilytos of Akarnania (Herodotos 1.62), Antichares of Eleon (Herodotos 5.43), Diopeithes (Xenophon Hell. 3-3-2; Plutarch Ages. 3, Lysander 22; Pausanias 3.8.9); Hierokles of Oreos (schol. to Aristophanes Pax 1046); Iophon (Pausanias 1.34.4), Lampon (schol. to Aristophanes Nubes 332, Pax 1084, Aves 521); Lysistratos of Athens (Herodotos 8.96); Stilbides (schol, to Aristophanes Pax 1031); and, finally, the celebrated Onomakritos, editor of the oracles of Musaios (Herodotos 7.6). 71. See Nilsson, HTR 28 (1935) 192. 72. For bibliography on Bakis, including references to collections of his oracles, see A. S, Pease on Cicero’s De Divinatione 1.18.34.

Military Oracles

321

the Athenians after the battle of Aigospotamoi to prove that they had been betrayed by their generals, bribed, so the interpretation went, with money by Lysander. After Epameinondas successfully invaded Lakonia

in 369 B.c., he decided

to complete

the humiliation

of the

Lakedaimonians by reestablishing Messene. He was most strongly drawn to this enterprise by the oracle of Bakis: “And then Sparta’s bright flower shall perish, and Messene shall again be inhabited for evermore.””? In some way which we do not understand, these oracles provided a powerful means of influencing public opinion.”4 Jacoby (FGrHist 3.b [Suppl.] 2 Notes p. 185) says, ‘‘Xpnouoddyos is he

who

déye. xpnopots,

not he who

ényeirar xpnouobs.””

This statement

must be modified only to the extent of substituting dde for déye,7 for the chresmologoi chanted from their written scrolls:7° see the Thucydidean passages.7” We clearly need a study of the chresmologoi: Nilsson and others devote little space to them. Oracles constitute a fruitful field for theories and controversies. But for our limited purpose of the study of military oracles, it is enough to assert that the Greeks had a genuine belief in the prophetic power of their oracles, that the oracular shrines were consulted before going to

war, and that oracles were a significant part of the religious system, an institution which attempted to bridge the gap between knowledge and the supernatural. Their use reflects man’s efforts to know and in part to control the unknown forces of fate which lay in wait for him. Just as a general consulted a mantis before crossing a river or entering the enemy's country, so the Greek city-state wanted the god’s endorsement, and the individual wished to hear a chanted oracle which he could accept as a portent of success, before entering into war. 73. Pausanias 4.27.4. 74. In my judgment, the best treatment of the chresmologoi is by R. Flaceliére, Greek Oracles (English trans. London 1965) 60-72, although I think that he, following Nilsson, greatly exaggerates the element of political intrique. 75. xpnopol are regularly spoken of as sung or chanted metrically, éy éreou cal wérpors & dors (Plutarch Mor. 4028). Cf. Aristophanes Eq. 61: dda 5 xpnopots. For Aristophanes’ parody of this particular type of doggerel, see K. J. Dover, Aristophanic

Comedy (Berkeley 1972) 76. “6. To judge from Ameipsias, frg. 10, xpyouol were sometimes forged. 44. The word yavrs is a more general term; the mantis often had collections of oracles in his private possession.

CHAPTER

THE

X

EPITHEIASMOS

Tu romans had an elaborate machinery for declaring war in accordance with the traditional rites of the ius fetiale. These rites are described (with bibliography) by R. M. Ogilvie in his commentary on Livy 1.32 (Oxford 1965).! The passage comparable to Livy 1.32 among Greek authors is Polybios 13.3,2 where, however, in describing the ancient principles of warfare (dpxata aipeots wept Ta moNeutka),Polybios, as

is his wont, omits religious matters. The Roman

procedure, termed

testatio, in which the pater patratus swore by the gods that his cause

was a just one, stating “de istis rebus in patria maiores natu consulemus, quo facto tus nostrum

adipiscamur,”

may have its Greek

counterpart

in the émbecacuds (“appeal to the gods”) of Thucydides 2.74—75.? Before Archidamos began the siege of Plataiai, he attempted to exonerate the Lakedaimonians from all obligations to respect the sanctity of the place by addressing the gods of Plataiai: “Archidamos, the king, first made a protestation to gods and heroes of the country, saying thus: “You gods and heroes, who protect the land of Plataiai, be witnesses that we did

no wrong in the beginning, but only after these people had first broken their oath did we come against this land, where our fathers, invoking

you in their prayers, conquered the Persians and which you made a place of good omen for the warfare of the Hellenes; nor in our actions

now shall we be acting aggressively. We have made a number of reasonable proposals, but these have not been accepted. Grant us, therefore, your aid and see to it that the punishment for what has been done wrong may fall on those who were the first to do evil, and that we may be successful in our aim, which is a just revenge.’ Having made

this protestation (ériedcas) to the gods, he made ready his army for war.” 4 In the Kyropaideia (3.3.21), the conduct of Kyros as soon as he had crossed the border into Assyria is described by Xenophon as follows: “As soon as he had crossed the boundary, there again he made pro-

1. Cf. Dionysios

Hal.

2.72;

and

Walbank,

“Roman

Declaration

of War

in the

Third and Second Centuries,’ CP 44 (1949) 15-19. 2. As Walbank says, the dpxato. in this passage are particularly the Greeks. 3. The pater patratus, after he crosses the border of the enemy, pronounces the formula, “Hear, Jupiter, and Janus Quirinus, and hear all heavenly gods, and gods

of earth and of the lower world; I call you to witness that this people is unjust” (Livy 1.32.10). 4. For another invocation to the gods of a threatened country, see Thucydides 4.87.

[ 322]

The Epitheiasmos

323

pitiatory offerings to Ge with libations and sought with sacrifices to win the favor of the gods and heroes that dwelt in Assyria” (Oeovs Ouciats Kal Hpwas ’Acouplas oixhropas nopevifero). Onasander

(Strat. 4.1-3:

Loeb tr.) writes, “It should be evident to all that one fights on the side of justice. For then the gods also, kindly disposed, become comrades in arms

to the soldiers, and men

are more

eager to take their stand

against the foe. For with the knowledge that they are not fighting an aggressive but defensive war, with consciences free from evil designs, they contribute a courage that is complete; while those who believe an

unjust war is displeasing to heaven, because of this very opinion enter the war with fear. ... The general should call heaven to witness that he is entering upon war without offence.” Onasander then explains that divine powers must be propitiated before battle. Elsewhere (10.26), he says that “soldiers are far more courageous when they believe they are facing dangers with the good will of the gods.” Although it is impossible to unravel from Polybios’ brief statement the precise procedures involved in an invasion, and our other sources are silent, his words rods rodéuous . . . rpobd\eyor Kal Tas waxas... Kal Tovs

Torovs refer in general terms to something corresponding to the fetial procedure, in which some effort must have been made to propitiate the gods of the invaded land and to give spiritual justification to the troops of the invading force. We need a study on the pretensions to justice in Greek warfare. Citizens, when they go to war, must be made to feel that their cause is just. By the time of the Peloponnesian war and thereafter, we can see the need for a just cause. ‘The god’s support, as revealed through omens and prophecies, is good prima facie evidence to be sure, but something more was needed. 5. G. Dumézil, “Remarques sur le ‘ius fetiale’,’” REL 34 (1956) 93-111, gives IndoEuropean parallels for the procedure.

CHAPTER

CULT

TAX

ON

XI

MILITARY

PAY

‘THERE COULD BE no better evidence of the close tie of soldiers to Greek cults than two inscriptions which prescribe a tax on military pay. Both are dated by editors to the great age of Greek achievement, that

is, in the period of the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War. Both are decrees of the demos of their respective states, which means

that the

male population made up in great part of men subject to military service imposed a tax for religious purposes upon themselves. IG 12, 79, records an Athenian subsidy to the cult of Apollo. The source of this grant was a yearly tax of two drachmai on the hippeis, one on the hoplites, and three obols on the archers, who are divided

into two groups, astoi (i.e. thetes) and xenoi (foreigners):

[——xarafadrev

dé To]s himméas S[idplaxulolv, [rlos [5 horXiras dpaxpev| Kal rds toxodras Tos Te Gor [ds Kal TOs xaévos Tplés 6Bodds 76 ert[avT]6 ard 7d [hoporoyeuEvo p06]. Both citizens and foreigners of the Athenian land forces were to

pay the tax. The money was collected from the citizens by the demarchs and from the archers by the toxarchs.! If a man did not pay his tax voluntarily, the tamiai deducted the amount from his wages. The money was turned over to two members of the boule who served as treasurers of Apollo.? Apollo’s association with archery is well attested: see Wernicke in RE s.v. Apollon (1896) 17. In Homer, his martial char- , acter was expressed by the epithet xpvadopos, “armed with sword of gold.”” Sophokles (OT 469) refers to him in these fiery words: évor)os yap éx’ abrov érevOpwmoxer wupl Kal orepotais 6 Atds yeveras. In Attika,

he

had the cult-appellative Bonépéuos (“The rescuer, the one who runs to a cry for aid”). After Arginousai, the Athenians gave thanks to Apollo for victory: Diodoros 13.103.2. The Souda (s.v. Ilasévas) says that after the battle the ancients sang a paian to Apollo. The paian shout, which was the signal for battle, seems to have been explained in the

Athenian legend as an invocation to Apollo: Macrobius 1.17.18, hanc vocem, id est te Ilavay, confirmasse fertur oraculum Delphicum Atheniensibus petentibus opem dei adversus Amazonas Theseo regnante. Namque inituros bellum iussit his ipsis verbis semet ipsum auxiliatorem invocare hortarique. Apollo was of course not primarily a war1. Meritt’s interpretation of the document (‘Greek Historical Studies,” University of Cincinnati Classical Studies 1 (1967) 123-124) has been corrected by B. Jordan, The Athenian Navy (Berkeley 1975) 206-208. 2. Cf. P. J. Rhodes, The Athenian Boule (Oxford 1972) 95.

[ 324]

Cult Tax on Military Pay

325

god;* but in matters of warfare every Greek deity, like every medieval

saint, might be called upon to give help. The second decree comes from Lindos and has been published in greatest detail by S. Accame, Clara Rhodos g (1938) 211-229; the most recent text is that of F. Sokolowski, Lois sacrées des cités grecques: Supplément (Paris 1962) no. 85. The decree provides that whoever shall depart from Lindos on a military expedition shall pay to Enyalios, the god of war, one-sixtieth of his wages (dots omitted): 7a. "E[pva]dian o[t xa] orpate[bw]vrar é Alvdo [A] S[a]uloc]iar # idtar [kara]O[éulev ray é&a [koor]av [76] prods. The conventional interpretation of the sentence is, I believe, incorrect. M. Launey, following Accame’s

lates, “quiconque dapyooiar 7 iétac

quittera

Lindos

(donc mobilisé

pour

une

suggestion,

expedition

par la cité ou mercenaire),

trans-

militaire, versera

a

Enyalios le 60e de la solde.”* Rather, the distinction between dayocig and idig is the conventional one, “at public expense or at private expense.” In Part II, pp. 110-112 of these studies, I collected examples of citizens defraying their own expenses: é Tv idiwv, @edovral, Tas dias daravas Tas oTpaTevoapevwy, TGV oTpaTEvomerw THY idtay, etc. See also Part

I, p. 27.° There is no reference in the Lindian document to mercenaries. The text goes on to say that the assessment was to be collected by the general and paid to the priest: éomparey 6¢ tov orparaydy

To apyipuor

kal mapovdouev 76x apy. Then follows a very difficult sentence which Accame transcribes as follows (dots omitted): 76 6é [ord|v76 ard AwHvT [wr] aldrot] idurar wa[pd]c[d]d[vTw] rae tapqr.6 Accame identified the form

Awwvray as the present participle of \&, a verb which is equivalent in meaning to éé\w. The meaning seems to be that whereas the soldiers who serve at public expense are to have the assessment deducted from their pay by the general who then turns it over to the priest, those who serve voluntarily are to pay to the priest direct a sum equivalent to the one-sixtieth. Volunteers and those who serve for pay are both com3. See L. R. Farnell, Cults of Greek States 4 (Oxford 1907) 175. 4. Recherches sur les armées hellénistiques 2 (Paris 1950) 930.

5. The subject of voluntary military service is a factor overlooked by many who speculate about Greek military finance. The modern concept that the early hoplite served his city-state only for pay is unsupported by evidence. At Rome, too, payments in the fifth century were intended only as subsidies in an emergency to enable men, whose private means were not adequate, to perform military service: Livy 4.69.11 (406 B.C.), 5.7.12-13 (403). Cf. R. O. Fink, Roman Military Records on Papyrus (1971) 7.

6. Cf. J. and L. Robert, REG 59/60 (1946/7) 339: “mot mal assuré et d’interprétation difficile.” In addition to the examples cited by LSJ under }6, see Euripides frg. 629 (Nauck).

326

Cult Tax on Military Pay

mitted to paying the assessment, although strictly speaking the volunteers received no wages. Sokolowski proposes a different text, but one expressly rejected by Accame, who was working from the stone. Instead of ard AwwvTwr, he proposes dé Nady, a dialectial form of \diov; and he cites obvious examples where tithes were paid from booty. By measuring 0.055 m. from the top of the photograph published by Accame (p. 213 pl. a), and 0.035 m. from the left border, one sees that the critical letter appears to be an

omega, shaped like the following letter, not an alpha. The decree goes on to enjoin that in the month Artamition the sacrifice of a wild boar, a dog and a young goat be made in honor of Enyalios. ‘The boule is to organize a procession which will include the number of hoplites as established by that body. An ofxos is to be constructed to Enyalios. Any negligence on the part of the generals constitutes an act of impiety to the god. A similar charge of impiety would apply to those who serve at their own expense

(éc00 idiar orpatebwyrat).

In both of these instances of taxation for purposes of military cult, we seem to have the regularization of a common

tion of one.’ Both taxes were levied upon military cults.’ But “tax” is probably the semblies comprising the male population, voted a contribution for the maintenance

practice, not the founda-

the entire army to support wrong word. In public ascitizens of military age had of the cult of deities who

might be expected to protect armies in warfare, Apollo in the case of

Athens, Enyalios of Lindos. The failure to pay the fee was construed as an act of impiety. 7. See M. Launey, op. cit. (above n. 4) 930. 8. For taxes in support of public cults, see Schlaifer, HSCP

51

(1940) 233-241.

CHAPTER XII

RELIGION

FOR

DISCIPLINE

MACHIAVELLI, who was well acquainted with Livy and Roman history, stressed throughout his writings the importance of religion as an aid to army discipline. I quote pertinent passages. The Discourses on the First Decade of Livy, written in 1513-1517, 3-33: “Ihe Roman practice was that their armies should gain this confidence [to win battles] from religion. For this reason, with auguries and auspices they chose Consuls, carried on the conscription, marched away with the army, and came to battle. So without doing some of these things, a good and wise general would never undertake any action, reckoning that he could lose easily if his soldiers did not learn first that the gods were on their side; and if any Consul or other general of theirs had fought contrary to the auspices, they would have punished him, as they punished Claudius Pulcher” (p. 503).4 The preface to the Art of War, published in 1521: ‘And if for every other order of men in cities and kingdoms every diligence should be used to keep them faithful, peaceful, and full of the fear of God, in the

army it should be redoubled. . . . In whom ought there to be more fear of God than in a man who every day, being exposed to countless perils,

has great need for his aid? This necessity, well considered both by those who give laws to empires and by those who are put in charge of military training, would bring it about that the life of soldiers would be praised by other men and with great zeal followed and imitated”

(p- 567). The Art of War, Book 4: “Also very powerful in keeping the ancient soldiers well disposed were religion and the oath sworn when they were taken into service, because in all their transgressions they were threatened not alone with the ills they could fear from men but with those they could expect from God. This condition, mingled with other religious customs, many times made every sort of undertaking easy for the ancient generals, and always will make them so, where religion is feared and observed. Sertorius availed himself of this, pretending that he spoke with a deer which, on the part of God, promised him victory. Sulla said that he spoke with an image that he took from the temple of Apollo. Many have said that in a dream they have seen God, exhorting them to fight. In the time of our fathers, Charles VII, King of France, in the war that he made against the English, said that he took counsel 1. The pagination in this and the following quotations is that of A. Gilbert, Machiavelli (3 vols., Durham 1965).

[ 327]

Religion for Discipline

328

with a girl sent by God, who was called everywhere the Maid of France, and this was the cause of his victory” (pp. 661-662). The Art of War, Book 6: “Because to control armed men

the fear

neither of the laws nor of men is enough, the ancients added to them the authority of God; and therefore with great ceremonies they had their soldiers swear to observe military discipline, in order that if they acted against it, they would have to fear not merely the laws and men but God; and they used every device to give them strong religious feeling” (p. 691). Among the Greek historians, the concept of using popular religion and superstition for purposes of military discipline and morale does not seem to appear before Polybios. I quote three passages in Paton’s translation. 6.56.11-12:

“As every multitude is fickle, full of lawless desires, un-

reasoned passion, and violent anger, the multitude must be held in by invisible terrors and suchlike pageantry. For this reason I think, not that the ancients acted rashly and at haphazard in introducing among the people notions concerning the gods and beliefs in the terrors of hell, but that the moderns are most rash and foolish in banishing such beliefs.” 10.2.10-12: “Since both of them [Lycurgus and Scipio] saw that most men neither readily accept anything unfamiliar to them, nor venture on great risks without the hope of divine help, Lycurgus made his own scheme more acceptable and more easily believed in by invoking the oracles of the Pythia in support of projects due to himself, while Scipio

similarly made the men under his command more sanguine and more ready to face perilous enterprises by instilling into them the belief that his projects were divinely inspired.” 16.12.9: “In cases indeed where such statements [as statues casting no shadows] contribute to maintain a feeling of piety to the gods among the common people we must excuse certain writers for reporting marvels and tales of the kind, but we should not tolerate what goes too far.” This somewhat cynical philosophy of Polybios is summarized by von Fritz as follows: “It is good that the common crowd should believe in the gods and in divine punishment, and the wise man therefore will consider religion one of the chief supporters of the state, even though he is not a believer himself. This is his opinion where he deals with the question ex officio, so to speak, and on a purely theoretical level.” Indeed, Polybios often shows a spontaneous indignation over viola2. The Theory of the Mixed

Constitution in Antiquity (New York 1954) 58.

Religion for Discipline

329

tions of sacred objects, which is hardly in agreement with his theoretical convictions. The plundering of the property of a temple (4.18.9) and the destruction of Dodona (4.67) by the Aitolians are denounced as impious acts in a tone of moral indignation. At the theoretical level, Polybios thinks in terms of power relations, but this rationalism is alloyed with traditional notions of honor and piety. F. W. Walbank (ap. Polybios 6.56.11) detects the same political view of religion in Diodoros 34/35.2.47: “As for the usual strokes of ill fortune, even though some persons may be convinced that Providence (rd Oe?ov) has no concern with anything of the sort, yet surely it is to the interest of society that the fear of the gods should be deeply embedded in the hearts of the people. For those who act honestly because they are themselves virtuous are but few, and the great mass of humanity abstain from evil-doing only because of the penalties of the law and the restriction that comes from the gods.” This rationalistic view of religion is attributed to Epikouros by Plutarch (Mor. 1104B); and the

concept is at least as early as Isokrates Busiris 24-25. But this down-toearth, almost atheistic exploitation of the masses which would make religion a deliberate imperative and deo.dayovia an instrument for mass discipline, has been only rarely noted in this investigation. One clear case is that of Epameinondas before the battle of Leuktra in 371 B.c. Our sources are in agreement that the Theban general raised the spirit of his troops by a stratagem of deceit to show that Herakles was assisting them.? Other examples include the feigning of an epiphany of the Dioskouroi

(above pp. 22 and 26), and the stratagem of Aga-

thokles in 310 B.c. to release a number of owls as a portent of victory (above p. 107). In the case of the dream of Thrasyboulos at Arginousai in 406 B.c., the omen was withheld from the soldiers (above p. 60). Diodoros 11.3% (Ephoros; cf. Polyainos 1.33) completely rationalizes the story of the pheme at the battle of Mykale (Herodotos 9.100), by assuming that the circulation of the rumor was due to Leotychidas, a

trick which inspired the remarkable confidence shown by the Greeks. The attempts of modern historians to rationalize the story, which appealed to Herodotos’ religious feeling, are not much better than that of Ephoros. A somewhat similar case is the fraud of Agesilaos in 394 B.c., which helped to win the battle of Koroneia (Xenophon Hell. 4.3.10-14), when he announced the defeat of the Lakedaimonian fleet off Knidos to his army as a victory; but in this case he had received actual dispatches. 3. See above chap. II, p. 28. Elsewhere, we are told that Epameinondas was most strongly influenced by the oracles of Bakis: Pausanias 4.27.4.

330

Religion for Discipline

As theorized in War Part 2, 187, the Greek attitude about the vouma of warfare is oftentimes ambivalent. As to the concept of deceit, E.

Heza, ‘Ruse de guerre—Trait caractéristique d’une tactique nouvelle dans l’oeuvre de Thucydide,” Eos 62 (1974) 227-244, has recently collected examples of drarn in the Peloponnesian war, finding a change in the social structure and following P. Vidal-Naquet in attributing this change in part to the institutions of the ephebeia and the krypteia in which young men “vivaient d’une vie contraire a celle de l’hoplite.”* But as early as Homer, the hero who could win by déxos was particularly glorified. F. M. Cornford (Thucydides Mythistoricus [London 1907] chap. 11) has collected examples of érary in statecraft. In the sacrifice of victory which was performed at Sparta on the return of the army, Plutarch states that the general who gained a victory by deceit and persuasion sacrificed an ox (to Ares: Mor. 238F), while he who won by pitched battle gave only a cock. An exploit accomplished by the former method was deemed more illustrious than one achieved by valor (Marcellus 22: Ober yap vy Drapryn tov amootpaTHywvr 6 pev bv? aaxarns } qwebovs 6 BovAerar Starpakdmevos Body, 6 b€ uaxns aAeKTplova. Kaimep yap évTes ToAEutKwraTor pelfova Kal MaAAov avOpwrw TpeTovTay HyoovTO THY da Noyou Kal ouvécews mpd 7 TH werd Bias Kal avdpeias).§

There is clearly need for further investigation of the concept of amarn in Greek society;’ but one certainty is that in the hoplite battle on the open plain, the paxac é& duoddyou, the Greeks continued to carry. on scrupulously the tradition of religious rites for beginning and ending pitched battles. The problem is not so much how to account for examples of 4rérac in warfare, but to explain why ruses and deceptions were not used when military advantages could have been gained. In evaluation of cases of religious deceit practised on one’s own troops, the fact is not to be overlooked that many of the strategoi, to judge from what evidence is available, were the most pious of men, and they believed that deities were indicating their wishes through the agency of omens, portents and divination, and were presumably incapable of such imposture.® Rarely mentioned in the character sketches 4. Page 229. Cf. P. Vidal-Naquet, “Le chasseur noir et l’origine de l’éphébie athénienne,” Annales ESC 1968, 964. 5. See War 2.178. 6. For the sacrifice of the cock, cf. Ages. 33, and Kallimachos Epig. 5. 7- For studies of apate at both the divine and the human levels, see H. R. Immerwahr, Form and Thought in Herodotus (Cleveland 1966) 248; and J. de Romilly, JHS 93 (1973) 160-162. Most of the military examples come from accounts of sieges. 8. Cf. above, chap. IV, p. 146.

Religion for Discipline

331

of the Athenian strategos Nikias is the fact that in 417 B.c., he conducted at his own expense a lavish festal embassy to Delos for the inauguration of the so-called second temple of Apollo. This temple has been characterized by F. Courby as follows: “Ce petit temple est de la lignée du Parthénon:

joyau d’art dorique, il représente un peu, dans

cette architecture austére, ce qu’est pour nous, dans l’ordre ionique, le temple d’Athéna Niké.” The date of the temple is established by Courby,® the services at the inauguration are described at length by Plutarch." Nikias crossed from Rheneia to Delos in procession on a wooden bridge which he had brought with him. Strategos in both 418/7 and 417/6 B.c. (PA 10808), he interrupted his military duties to make the long voyage to Delos, which today requires many hours by island steamer. When Thucydides (7.86.5) paid his brief but celebrated tribute to Nikias

(d.a rv wacav és dperiy vevoutouevny éitjdevow),

the

word dper7 may denote the uprightness shown by Nikias as a religious and moral leader in the state. After his success in bringing about the capture of the town and fort of Lekythos (Thucydides 4.116), Brasidas, a unique figure among Spartan leaders, believed that the goddess Athena had intervened in the siege (vouicas 4\Aw tui TpdTH 7 avOpwrely

tiv édwow yevécbar), and he honored her accordingly." In their dark days, the Athenians remained truer to their old religion than did Rome in her time of terror. The rage of the people at the mutilation of the Hermai, at the supposed insult to the Eleusinian

mysteries, at the neglect of the dead after the battle of Arginousai, are episodes in which the people as a whole demonstrate a passionate attachment to their holy mysteries, to their quaint phallic Hermes-images on which the life of the state depended, to the duties of the tendance

of the dead. For the fourth century, it is well to remind ourselves that the political or forensic orator is a truer witness to the average popular belief than the poet or the philosopher. It is not a question of the personal faith of the individual orator, but of the religious temper of the

audience, which is attested by many striking passages in the speeches.” g. Exploration archéologique de Délos 12 (Paris 1931) 220-225; and J. Ducat, Guide de Délos (Paris 1965) 82-84.

cf. P. Bruneau

10. Nikias 3.5-8. Plutarch refers to Nikias’ outlays at Delos as beorperfj prdroTinpara.,

whereas modern historians, ever avoiding any religious motivation on the part of Greek leaders, interpret them as for political purposes. B. Perrin (Plutarch’s Nicias and Alcibiades [New York 1912] 36) suggests that Plutarch is following Theophrastos. 11. See above, chap. II, pp. 26-27. 12. See, in particular, K. J. Dover, Greek Popular Morality (Berkeley 1974) 133-

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INDEX

OF ANCIENT

AcuHILLEs TatTius

8.11 sans eerie sies inretsas chenous eared

AILIANOS SAO Sy mere es eet erate cee ere VAS ODL in ice ara reatn oie: 170, 173, CAO VN seattecs Aieaa a AR ra 242, AO Merrett cists fete nee COM ene one nee ene tes PR Oita seversneha freer ensrare ane ett LOVO Lee toe ace ies tae eke

129

ALKAIOS

205

Bre 7 OAc tadatcrstaie staleereah slsieess eG

AISCHINES EOL COTO Sirarvue crane Seite sate WMO Sak Boob DOE 132, DEH GIS LES RT Olyere cs eerste ome, TAR oo ewe 132, QUNtest pion) OO—Oi/e ms eters ee oi MOVE 1816 5 oo obeo bose PLOU secrete ts ste ESO em eles oyetrckce eee EGOS teas.c\evviremaucss tates LOS rae see sre cverccrenee

86 134 57 133 255 306 278 145 189 270

AIsCHYLOS PAGL OA eds tee ees Sam are rae eee ees 106 LTO 20 eee nee eh uae 102 LOGS eo nee vie tion soem ree 48 erLe cue Rett ENR ME ate eeete Bit 278 DOHO Jetemerecs tees lenre coreiecs 189 eee o\6 recon can manae 135

230 238 135 237 238 238 238 3II 101 45 238 94

73, QI

UNS io. nino OD AO DNehd DO Caen MOP oocaor699 590665590 2100800 MIMO Roo co5hdv0s0do00qc9a0 SOUT PBs accgococoedoouoapossor TKS 2 Gil BAD SA SSE As SR

DOH 27 Orne see mice ee Sone D7O einehe ned biareisee wien eo ae CULEVn A OaSe Gan ee Dae Reheat woaameanod eons G O49 Re ees eaters eeu eee ew OBA otc eens cues ee eens

314 292 23

49

MMe os oa omko SaDoAD DECe FOS

CITED

AIscHYLOs—Continued role ia tasrcin i teariece a tee tera eere 262

244 232 260

AINEAIS M OSA treater oteis ern ee etnereae

Q2LiG ey Metres crete te yee se 3 IW Dcec NRC ENO REO arto CRRA TORO Re ait ctu Sis tne sees (HOE Sted B Bese cetnich Rae RED AT AOAC Fey hectebanocphic cos anenciic cok Or TBO aaa sess issete isle ene Steal srs one EAI LA teemeetet Mes teretetera Ms, sf2 Pers GOS sty etrsie tote eee seals (orn 2Oh— DOO martin meme etsear « BRS GHR as nie ialeceebnens cies ote NOR otc mgood ob OSS 5.0 PO ODS IPR OMB 56 ox6b 8H CROAT HMB OOBODSS

AUTHORS

102 138 76 84 162

231 278 83 57 261 261

4

AMEIPSIAS

Ge Ms

onoo ce bnodacarane eon 6o 321

GEOLOAd caters where udas ss eek se oat

73

NMMONIUS 67,reeveiece «Patent cleat ePetel 162 ANACREON Ere ESOF cre cern eae

coker et estas ace 250

ANTHOLOGIA PAL. GETES arti bae rerepesetersie tenceen toneranor suchen, « 251 OSD eeve aeere) oons oes cxeaelo sone our ware ereles 250

IQ cteenstrs crave chaser onnsteane. emer oe iclens BsOs wise ateaansratetes tess aissda Caarayeroebae SAGPICA ck Oaite ort omemotae tas 250, O:G Tere meee sera ere eee oeVites, nid Sichonoes osc Acc Re mea OAR TE SEGA. 8,cy55e Ox OER S eee C eR OLSON ee eeecss eee ee COIs a 00 1 Sue edan poke Cabos S GLO cca tce sseitee; ue cncutine Peers eeeore OHey luis dan. cb wotoebeerome seit Ain GHEE. ots on vide ota dugoromman ate GENO Ree cir < misine sinus heres O52 Cree taeinchanci ys scterctn see CHUM n o odu Ss ouddoGdo bobaauaieES 8 Plaha Hata cee pox ae ear e Gil 26 Mee teenete pea oa case ore (SBI 3 dead, oct GO tO O ACO ners ERD OST28 Sree tron acs oes Mee Tehelaters SIMO a.cnO punio SeMOpIa GAoroUNA 6 top GLUBOME. temederusisictere se alee nes GLiVS ae pettel soca et o acs. 234, GEE 7 aie een Seftotote ailscrete iatoMerseeone OWTeV a5 a.5h. 5 bao

251 180 271 252 252 250 250 251 251 271 251 251 251 251 251 Q51 251 251 289 251 251 270

OomsMDI 251

O:2Oh ere cay erkieo a we nes os 251 Ge TO cere cis crests saree ceesie seals 251 OHHNie: 3 o.tho Od 0 Li COO ee ean 281

Index of Ancient Authors Cited

334 AN THOLOGIA—Continued Gi264 aves Soca tragsreene eucvumtegecrakecey O27 Micolsuseneteqeeve mete ere auetenr ont

ARISTOPHANES—Continued

251 231

i922 Aree renssenederetar erenusuasretersye casneies 265 LATO. Gi cits. een tate remit easier 307 LAOQi. s arctaena heseea are es vatehase pcm 309

{WB eYornG 6 dio.a ba Stina GommonmS Oui 309 ANTIPHON RECORD Wkuaseoonnboconc nvoood 244, lise cpt otseenetnteerst: 145 LaypMeT Mac go pingcdpo Goud C000 U6 227 APOLLODOROS

TOP ling on bok aparoogoboaes 246, 252 Cis eg yGeeeta.o moc ahocro cumad 168

ByEy en ence

eer

Sina:

272

Gt i hy fra plodcetarmice oxoacin. cbs eunalo- gO Dd

199

APOoLLoporos Dam. Polior kal O1-A cereale 12 ae

267

Apo.ionios RHOop. Dal OA Grameaencsceous pvc cree cceresens ieks 208 Telefsteic ieee eC Rae, SHIDO 0460.5 247 APPIAN

660>069 ee totes seater 232 WOR nonosscoosdsidoueo stone 320 LOWE crstrraestensiels orecveene eect 319 VOAO Merete Senctectterstemtereune SII—312 MOAT crereyofeuehencione oye.steleiertere sinners 319 MMijoosconodaveocGedne seo 66s 319 TOF 2rotererarctereenceetsera eons erate kac 319 POO QT racists cregs/tel hee.rere 319 PRDOMarersre susiets Sauces wicket rarepers 189 LyS4203-205 weet erie eter 87 oon oaxoaseuddese

84

ENG DeS.8 9 Or tene. ane cusiaetor enor teen BSTTicvecate ate ctajovet stonciehcra encased BOTHOO seewioyserencteasl ostoni anes Sey AOPI, ano odonomoasoesés PARPAT Ons eseles| Sor iaeists eelasec LOTO seoNelaseea cre ta sya EO20).Asteuicte sus aces rotate TOS] doe vyacsiasig sdetn ecules tye ene LOAOn yor ciatesscte ciate Meena oy ae oe Pan Onn Oo Bowen Sat T.O/7Orsjcus,eucpoyavousnesetcy vote tem tee VOSAct cies aieneneie sie yarn weiens 72, WYO) stantreveee see eusne, seemsue rarer

TAS

320 144 104 179 9 161 110 320 320 72 320 320 320

BUSA

221

A Aleta catesoyatoie arvctreissete tages reeee

272

ARCHILOCHOS

OA ce otateyertversscie Om Hom Om 51, Oi PEO. cocoganocarcoeeac CE BPooougn coum cgouTe CEiOee os nacnagboae ear 5I, OitWioccosscpoosnecoaanee QWLiGecognnsonocosouedueD GIG) conposodnsonasaonnor Dex GYIGioosocbonoboncGbcc BAU AYys so sonensnookeds

49

200 58 145 106 83 146 109 51 80

Ovi connessenssasb oot 59, OPakO\.coongodarosos0e0nNes (GIP Ona poco on unas 9085 aGC cdo pononO> OYA canoouoe

77 fil 59 82

PETG Fat eigie nin vininles ones 3

5I

82 GWA \nocnooooonoUbouooon 82 Qusniicoossocccccondcabouee GD! 51, 106 (HeAscoconoccsaGHdD OuGHele acc nonesnessoon[s 51, 86 GipAllocvccceuuceowooncoos 106 eee eee 80 6.6.31-36..-2-2--81 6.6.35-36. 20. e eee eee eee ose own sinet ecto cis 46 GLivAOnGe er sete 146 4hamrcdanenas WO. 93 mer vewees estes? WOolinses

350

Index of Ancient Authors Cited

XENOPHON—Continued WBepiter hala d nooo cmeoalh o 52 UBER eats arse Sah 5 BAI 6 63 USP ENC ota Bost onaAes 83, 146 Ti Ocl Ocmnctscaen ont eee 51, 146 FEGoTOscannsy gertemeate te ee 82

98.20 octane ee 146 TEPC ROI ate aa ian olats Aro 146 Alli: POSS .8 inc sau serine MOA 224 Osea ty PORE STC Vln, Soe 6ond 15 GETS) air rery eee ee eR 237

Cyr 0.35.Od ateeshal senoPeke 1.0. Veen

1 OS Oi

yee

146

eeCape ee 119, 149

rieh cee cee ee

2585/2 Oeet een ee ee AUN aso cogobouunonecds COE a 06 tsdic OO OeMoe Oo 00 Op 5 CRBICPlo-c 0 Genes a gine Auld sao 8 BEd aio gs oon deoo oona be Ue Ai WD cs fay ysis) cuca dds Reo aR APISWale rier ROE toed onto 6.0 Fisk excccpet uedoneen crete pre Meares EBON O Honore is aay ama ce PEELS oars Coes PAS Gos toe

48

201 106 146 322 146 186 122 119g 305 263

GO laainra ake Orem urrenttca Sa ce 58, 149 IEG, MAGE (Os ooccbsoccaccboocee 5 JEAN, TAA ooh 6bS 86605 ono 222222 MOB Oi nce ey hac eae 189 1033 0-317 apne ae ra ee a 190 PUG Maen retin Pro ERE ERE cooley ante 283

PIU ce qr ooe ORG G6 506 ook wok 124. 2A al GalO)Wet reser ae eee oe eae 51 al tetGe imi Deyo te Od orcad cle are e 81 REN Sep ocmo eee O obs s ob ood ua S 262 CEES cach tee cae Siocon ceo eo 118 BRS Beeler etcuateisnsugtr sssc10's, aane 320 EpowketvsguegooddSosocousuavoac 67 BES Oar re cheiee cree et eee a 50 SePUiioonoan ob OMo OM wObSSH nds A 50, 56 BiB 24 tees busiaaciercie eee 117 Gwikelc ot oa cote obeadeobbodo ous 69, 70 Mie Subse ola oS a.omeod aoe bods 46, 81 BoAse9sscmeieversres eis avesseen eiaha cats ae 83 ERGs od owe Ae SUSE OBEGS bat Gon 234 Ehupbjos ododoavoamessesanaode cos 136 ShoMoosec ono ds ouswoed oodles « 69, 70 UGE eros Oy OI OTD Ow ming Ole yoo 84 ADS siOcaUA Seteaseorye icra: eee Te 329 Lie When Solio Leo D Sibaae MNO CRAG ota» 190 Che BO ODO tha AUrOE Ou a4 Boor 81, 130 Anh LakAnceweret rece serrate tee 185

XENOPHON—Continued a7 2MeN aoe feat ore 69, 70, 71, 83, 314 Aa]ezQiresvetetet etek onthe oat rae ner 146 Ae Teh eccistarstonsts aot Soke ana 118 A/a ]ieteniay hencrsvcrcns anette ree 76, 81, 121

View h Lr ning Warc MM Abr arent aera bt 6 EOeee mnoodsdocoodonooonude Ga 69, 71

Geen gn pap eeckonds soa ohbon Foe 234 Fyn atrd atetevecsriepe lors 1s 9rSeactete eee 69, 71 etyclea 6 Nee Otc gta RE Aa om: 295 GwNGorsobdos onou aatonoocenels 124 e427 cue cocaine tenbacterin eee 69, 71 el iom ction odo oO mmaoG G80 60 69, 71 Get. aaa reatveiceee Oiaber pancetta 234, CCH EA AEA Gas SuN BG AA Baca Ree 234, ONSET yi eteeheatones tceetchome noveten ek 234. OF OER ee ee eee 234 O41 A tea ee lee ee eee 124. LSS oe REP auntie OTS fn ars oe 44 Cayenne eee een 28, 43, 44, 99,

136, 152, 315

OPE UE ee ee eee 234. OUAS TO rorettitle tener Pn ee 189 BHO GeARE OMAGH AS Atte ee alee ee 234. CHRD EL REO Ba RA SRO nen Ae 234. GLE NTO Sener ponee ete ee ee eee 69, 71

(RiaCRO AMOR Oho b Boe Aerie hoe 122 GIRMBIETS Oi cic IO tr CERO Ofre' oS nic 316 Ti S2uLD chepeeen Mele en neteeon rT eae 186 [CER ES HOO AES 85 & GA GOS Gres ce 46 Php O'S wht iB.ASS Sd HOGG AS nid Alec 83 HPS Mo Oo opines aa GoM aan hao 6 18 PE Loa CHO ere hits StsAce, aie atmae Aad 68 LES cIeon Coe A .5.On OR eT 82 LiQes/sayaey

eterstone harchceSONNECRE

67

LG.G ae nytt steneeh eae mee oer 84 RES! 850.60 th OSG, Slo OLD! 6 67 VB se wcatats ostatcrntue sens tiene 67 Ee ican eH Aaa aoe dah x 74, Wey enetertccs whaiohe pene rete 67, 296

lemme stg 5h an ter ee

ee

eee

58

Usd:Qaweereis crema cts ere tte gI GSO hen romnore miosieeromntotale's 242 ASQELAcustereae eatete ce ea eee 119 Dorey 0:2 ee eee eee 303 RSALDI Meat a rural rhein)la 99 ZENOBIOS RyAVE ance NRCG

otscaret ener nonce 228 4-20 Rese Mercisiecters easiness ee 237

INDEX

OF INSCRIPTIONS

Ann. Scuola Atene 6/7. 417........ GE SGN, HOPI Se BGos050000005¢ LOS7a tael4Oen secaee Os WARS MOY, G%, oo ooo aoddesno0 Athenian Agora 17. 238...........

198 192 201 62 160

INGE WOO, QREARS.00dcacqagous 29 HOBa YPOURUO an caasooon 6-7,39 WORE BEVERME)s oaccasodo00% 192 LOS Om TOA sents ite me wert 302 WOR WG AGioccosccscoows 224 Bengtson, Staatsvertrage 147....... 159

Hhlsaeee ee

235

Lb Pionwenos 236 Blinkenberg, Lindos no. 2.. 12-13, 22-

23, 29, 243-245, 248

Buckler-Robinson, Sardis no. 8....

190

Charisterion eis A.K. Orlandon

FOOT DOO see ene Clara Rhodos 1938. Corpus Inscriptionum QTE ees cele ceils

oe ie eee sea 5I 211-229....... 329 Graecarum cae cc uecere 6 She 39

Dittmer sexes O.GSi nee ee Sawer 190, FOS steers. letous S17G.235Conor cries SLG 52 OA mero etek PING 6.5 6.gasDSic SOO mre aaveyaarers OP eecneeeg enn

193 193 173 265 303 263 142 192

SOR hrs ntere ete:

194

Cela agtncd Sous

193

BOGig amuses: 30, 289 Boba owen 193 A OO Soseker cnetaictes 72

Rsv Maomanice nee O2 Areas csv