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Lysander and Libys

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Irad Malkin
Irad Malkin
Affiliation:
Tel Aviv University
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Extract

To convince the Spartans of his suggested reform of the kingship, Lysander tried to get the sanction of the oracle of Zeus Ammon at the oasis of Siwa in Libya, and even attempted to bribe the priests there. The priests reported him to the Spartans. Only after his death, upon the discovery of a speech he had ordered concerning the reform, was the full scale of his plans revealed.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , December 1990 , pp. 541 - 545
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1990

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References

1 Ephorus, F. Jacoby, FGrHist 70 F 206 = Plut. Lys. 25; Nepos, Lys. 3.2–4; Diod. 14.13.5–8.

2 Ephorus, F. Jacoby, FGrHist 70 F 207 = Plut. Lys. 30; Plut. Ages. 20.3; Apophthegmata Laconica 212c, 229f. For discussions of chronology and credibility seeSmith, R. E., ‘Lysander and the Spartan Empire’, CP 43 (1948), 148–9Google Scholar; Parke, H. W., The Oracles of Zeus (Oxford, 1967), pp. 219–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hamilton, C. D., Sparta's Bitter Victories (Cornell, 1979), pp. 89–94Google Scholar; Bommelaer, J. F., Lysandre de Sparte (Paris, 1981), pp. 134–8Google Scholar.

3 Hdt. 6.66.

4 Diod. 14.13.4; Plut. Lys. 20.6–9. F. Jacoby, FGrHist 70 F 206; F 207.5.

6 See above, n. 1; other sources: Plut. Alc. 149b; Paus. 3.18.3; Cic. de Div. 1.96. See for discussion and some further referencesClassen, C. J., ‘The Libyan God Ammon in Greece before 331 B.C.’, Historia 8 (1959), 352Google Scholar with n. 22; Parke, pp. 209–11.

6 Plut. Lys. 25. See Hdt. 5.42.2 with 4.178–9.Malkin, I., Religion and Colonization in Ancient Greece (Leiden, 1987), pp. 78–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cf. Niese, B., Hermes 42 (1907), 450–7Google Scholar, esp. pp. 454ff.; Rohrbach, H. H., Kolonie und Orakel (Diss. Heidelberg, 1960), pp. 111–12Google Scholar; von Stauffenberg, A. Schenk, ‘Dorieus’, Historia 9 (1960), 181–215Google Scholar, esp. p. 185.

7 Hdt. 4.177–8. The role of Ammon in the context of Greek ideas concerning the colonial chain Sparta-Thera-Cyrene is discussed in a forthcoming book by this author.

8 Xen. Hell. 2.4.28.

9 Plut. Agis 6.3; cf. IG v.1.210: Libys, son of Eubalkes, a member of the cult of Poseidon at Tainaron.

10 RE xiii. col. 202.

11 Diod. 14.13.5–6.

12 Poralla, P., Prosopographie der Lakedaimonier, (Rome, [1913] 1966)Google Scholar, s.v. ‘Aristokritos’:‘… sein Geschlecht war mit dem Konigshause von Kyrene eng befreundet’; similarly, Fraser, P. M. and Matthews, E., A Lexicon ofGreek Personal Namesi (Oxford, 1987)Google Scholar, s.v. ‘Libys’. H. Volkman in Der kleine Pauly s.v., follows Obst (above, n. 10). See Hamilton, p. 92; Bommelaer, pp. 36; 133; ‘le roi’ in p. 133 is ambiguous, but his statement in p. 35 ‘un Cyrénéen’clarifies his positiion. Herman, G., Ritualized Friendship and the Greek City (Cambridge, 1987), p. 21Google Scholar: ‘ruler of Cyrene’. I understand from personal communication that this is to be corrected in the reprinting of the book. Cf. Kagan, D., The Fall of the Athenian Empire (Cornell, 1987), p. 298Google Scholar. More to the point is Busolt, G., Griechische Geschichte, iii.2 (Gotha, 1904), p. 1570nGoogle Scholar: ‘Gastfreundschaft mit einem Libyerfürsten’; cf. Parke, p. 210: ‘[Libys] king of the Ammonians’; Hornblower, S., The Greek World 479–323 BC (London and New York, 1983), p. 190Google Scholar is less committed, but not wrong: ‘family ties with Africa’.

13 I am grateful to Ms. Iris Sapir for first drawing my attention to this straightforward reading of Diodorus.

14 2.32.1.

15 Fraser/Matthews, s.v.; Hdt. 4.154.1. I owe thanks to G. Herman for pointing out this possibility.

16 Parke, p. 205.

17 Lloyd, A. B., Herodotus Book ll (Leiden, 1976)Google Scholar, ad 2.32.1.

18 Plut. Alex. 27.5. Cf. Eratosthenes ap. Strabo 49–50 with Classen's article cited above, n. 4.

19 Herman, p. 21. He may have been black: Hdt. 2.42.4. Cf. Paus. 6.13.7; 18.1.

20 S. Gsell, Hérodote (Alger, 1915; reprinted: ‘L'Erma’(Rome, 1971), Studia Historica, 85), pp. 62–4; Lloyd, pp. 61–8.

21 Plut. Lys. 20; Paus. 3.18.3.

22 Plut. Lys. 25. That Lysander's foreign policy, in spite of personal eclipse, was apparently kept up by Sparta to some degree matters little for the way things may have seemed from Siwa where a revolutionary Lysander was consulting the oracle. Hence the distinction, in terms of Siwa, between ‘Lysandrian’ and ‘Spartan’policies seems justified.

23 Bresciani, E., ‘The Persian Control of Egypt’, The Cambridge History of Iran ii (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 522ffGoogle Scholar.

24 Kraeling, E. G., The Brooklyn Museum Aramaic Papyri (New Haven, 1953), pp. 9–13Google Scholar; nos. 10, 11, 12. Cf. Bresciani, p. 512.

25 Diod. 14.79.4.

26 The original reading of ‘Achoris’ by Steindorf, G. (see Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 69 (1933), 19–21)CrossRefGoogle Scholar which has been revised to ‘Amasis’ (see Fakhry, A., Siwa Oasis (Cairo, 1944), pp. 90ffGoogle Scholar.; cf. Parke, p. 197), is now supported by a more secure dating of the building where it was found: Stucchi, S., Architettura Cirenaica (Rome, 1975), pp. 568Google Scholar; 571. Cf. Bisi, A. M., ‘Origine e diffusione del culto cirenaico di Zeus Ammon’, Cyrenaicain Antiquity, eds. Barker, G., Lloyd, J. and Reynolds, J. (BAR International Series 236, 1985), p. 308Google Scholar.

27 Cf. Hornblower, p. 190 who draws an analogy between the rebels in Egypt, Dionysos in Sicily and Cyrus in Anatolia.

28 Cartledge, P., Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta (London, 1987), pp. 28–9Google Scholar; cf. p. 81 ‘a minor north African ruler’.