Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T07:26:06.509Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Political Developments in Boeotia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

N. G. L. Hammond
N. G. L. Hammond
Affiliation:
Clare College, Cambridge
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In this article I try to give a precise meaning to the political terms which are used in the sources, and to use those terms for an understanding of political developments. I take these developments in their historical order, and at the end of each period I assess the value of the evidence. I finish with reflection on the contributory system and the hegemony of the Thebans.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , May 2000 , pp. 80 - 93
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Hdt. 6.108.2 πιεζεύμενοι ὑπò θηβαίων.

2 The verb τεεῖν means to ‘pay taxes’ and so ‘to subscribe to’ or ‘belong to’ the Boeotian association (see LSJ s.v. II.la and II.3) For taxes at a later date see HO 11.4 ray τ⋯ς εἱσφορ⋯ς ⋯ποιο⋯ντο.

3 I disagree with the opinion of Buck (BBL 18) that ‘Thucydides was confusing the League with Thebes’ and sometimes uses Thebes ‘as synonymous with the League’. He cited as an instance Θηβαῖοι Θεσπι⋯ν τεῖχος περιεῖλον βουλόμενοι μ⋯ν… with the comment: ‘what is really meant by Thucydides here is that the League, not just the citizens of Thebes, had long desired the demolition of the Thespian walls’. In my view Thucydides was an accurate writer and wrote with precision of meaning. Hansen (44) observed that ‘Thucydides did not care much about technical terms’; for instance at 1.96 Thucydides was using literal terms which only later were to become ‘technical’.

4 This passage is most important in considering the position of Thebes within the Boeotian association in the fourth century. For example, in 370 the Arcadians, Argives, and Eleans sent envoys to ‘the Thebans’ to seek an alliance and ‘the Boeotians immediately led out their army’ (Diod. 15.62.3–4). The approach was to Thebes as Hegemon, and the decision was that of the Boeotians. So too the Thessalians sent envoys to Thebes asking for help (Plut. Pel. 26.1), and subsequently ‘the Boeotians invaded Thessaly’ (Diod. 15.75.2). In 364 the Thessalian cities sent envoys to Thebes and the decision was taken to send 7,000 hoplites (Plut. Pel. 31.1–2), that is Boeotian hoplites, since Thebes alone did not have so many hoplites (see my History of Greece 663). The ancient sources did not always mention a preliminary approach to Thebes (e.g. Diod. 15.69.3 and 15.68.1). In his article ‘Alliance and hegemony in fourth-century Greece: the case of the Theban Hegemony’, Ancient World 5 (1982) 79–89, Buckler discussed the position of Thebes not within ‘the Boeotian Confederacy’ but within ‘the Boeotian-Peloponnesian alliance’.

5 After 379 ‘the Boeotians gathered together and made for themselves an alliance in common’ (Diod. 15.28.1 Bοιωτοί συνεστράφησαν κα⋯ κοιν⋯ν συμμαχίαν ποιησάμενοι). The Boeotian army consisted of the Thebans and ‘the rest of the allied force’ (Paus. 3.9.13).

6 I use the term ‘association’, because its derivation from ‘socius’ preserves the sense of ⋯ συμμαχία. In this article I avoid the terms ‘league’, ‘federation’, and ‘confederacy’, which have been used by Buck, Buckler, Hansen, and Roesch, because their connotations are so vague, and because they have no equivalent in the Greek text. Buckler (18) is mistaken in saying that ‘the sources usually describe this new government (i.e. in 379 onwards) as a koinori’. The expression occurred first in Diod. 16.85.1 under the year 338/337. Roesch (72) commented on the occurrence of TO τò κοινόν in Roman times.

7 Seltman (54–7); Kraay preferred c. 525 in JHS 84 (1964), 80.

8 In HO 11.4 the peoples of the eleven divisions made financial contributions (εἱσφοράς).

9 Ibid.: each division was under order to provide 1,000 hoplites and 100 cavalrymen.

10 LSJ s.v. translates δυναστεία as ‘power, lordship, domination’, that is here ‘of a few men’. The version of S. Hornblower in his Commentary on Thucydides 1.457 ‘a small family clique’ imports the idea of ‘family’ which is not in the Greek words. He cites Aristotle, Politics 1292b7 and 1293a32 in which a hereditary system of close oligarchy is called a δυναστεία; but this is an instance and not a definition of δυναστεία. In the present case ‘the few men’ were ‘the Medizers’ of Herodotus, whose actions and thoughts were reported in the form of a narrative and a speech (9.86–7). In the course of the speech the leader of the few, Timegenides, claimed that they had acted ‘with the community’. Hornblower accepted the claim as a fact, and he preferred it to the statement of Thucydides, which occurs in the speech of the Thebans (3.62.3). However, Herodotus was not reporting an actual speech delivered in 479 b.c. He was putting in the form of a speech a self-justifying claim, such as is made by any junta. Thucydides knew the work of Herodotus. He took the opportunity to put in the mouth of the Thebans, speaking in 427 B.c., a much fuller justification of their behaviour under the junta in the Persian War (3.62.3–4); and that speech, in the Thucydidean manner, was keeping ‘as close as possible to the general sense of what was actually said’ (1.22.1). My conclusion is that it was the close oligarchy alone which Medized, and that they did so not with the agreement of the community.

11 Seltman (56), naming Haliartus, Aulis, Mycalessus, Coronea, and Pharae.

12 In CQ 34 (1940), 49 I argued that Thucydides made a special study of early Greek history before he began work on the Peloponnesian War.

13 Buck (HB 147) rejects the statement of Diodorus 11.83.1 that ‘Myronides became master of the cities of Boeotia except Thebes’. But Diodorus was justified. For whereas Myronides imposed ‘democracies’ elsewhere, the democracy at Thebes seems to have arisen spontaneously according to Aristotle, Pol. 1302b31.

14 Bruce (4 and 103) maintained that the constitution described in HO 11.2 as τότε began in 447/446 and was dissolved in 386, and that the Oxyrhynchus Historian composed his history perhaps as early as 374 and certainly before 346. In that case the present situation for the Oxyrhynchus Historian was that which commenced after 379/378. Whether he went on to describe that present situation is an open question. Buck, HB 154, attached less importance to the year 446 B.c. as the beginning of a new era in Boeotia.

15 That the property-bar for the franchise was drawn at the hoplite census was regarded as ‘not unreasonable’ by Bruce (104, 158); so also Beck (91 with n. 39). In X. H.G. 5.4.9 the following sentence begins with οἱ πολῖται. Light-armed troops evidently did not qualify.

16 In HO 11.3 the middle voice συνεβάλλοντο indicates that the Thebans provided ‘from themselves’; so too παρείχοντο and παρείχετο in 11.3 and 11.4. The significance of the middle voice was not appreciated by Bruce (105, 161) when he thought of two Boeotarchs being ‘sent from Plataea’. Roesch (96) seems to be of my opinion.

17 In the Homeric Catalogue twenty-nine places were named for the Boiotoi, more than for any other region (Il. 2.494–516). Diodorus 15.20.1 under 382/381 referred to Boeotia's πόλεων πλ⋯θος and 15.26.1 to the number of its men being greater than in any other Greek state (πλήθει τ⋯ν ⋯νδρ⋯ν). Here poleis means not city-states but independent communities. Arcadia too was remarkable for its large number of communities (Paus. 8.27.3–4). Both areas had summer pastures in nearby mountains and winter pastures in swampy ground which suited small communities of transhumant pastoralists. Evidence of such pastoralism by Boeotians is in Sophocles, OT 1134–9 and in HO 13.3. For the very numerous small communities in Epirus, see my article in ICS 16 (1991), 83–92. ‘The koina of Epirus and Macedonia’. Those who maintained that Boeotia had only some ten poleis have been convincingly refuted by Hansen (18ff).

18 In HO 11.3 πρότερον μ⋯ν ⋯κείνοις συμπολιτευομ⋯νων the word ⋯κείνοις refers to the only personal precedent. The word συμπολιτεύω means to ‘live as fellow-citizens’ (LSJ s. v.), and the shared citizenship is indicated as ‘Plataean’ by the additional word ⋯κείνοις. Thus a citizen of Scaphae could call himself both ‘Scapheus’ and ‘Plataieus’. A similar sympolity had Thespian as the common citizenship (SEG 26.475 ‘the Thespians and those with them’, and HO 11.3 ‘Thespians with Eutresis and Thisbae’). The famous example in fourth-century Greece was in Chalcidice, where many poleis were induced to ‘live as fellow-citizens’ with a common citizenship as ‘Chalcideis’ (X. H.G. 5.2.12 συμπολιτεύειν, Tod, GHI 111); and the situation in Epirus was even more remarkable (see the preceding note). It is necessary to stress the meaning of the word. For it is often misunderstood. Buck, HB took it to mean ‘united with them’, and Hansen (28) wrote of Scaphae ‘being subdued by Plataea’. Roesch (33, n. 2) treated sympoliteia as synonymous with synoikia. So too did Buck, BBL 120, comparing the situation in Boeotia to that in Attica; but it is a false comparison since local councils were abolished in Attica (Thuc. 2.15.3) but continued in Boeotia (HO 11.2). ” This distinction seems not to have been commented on hitherto.

20 I keep the sense of σύν and τελ⋯ω in my translation ‘to contribute’ (as in Thuc. 2.15.2; so LSJ s.v. II.2); the compound has to be contrasted with ὑποτελεῖν and ὑποτελής, which have the sense of ‘subjection’ (as in Thuc 3.46.2, 5.111.4). The noun συντ⋯λεια sometimes means the members of a contributing group, just as συμμαχία. may stand for ‘the allies’ as in Tod, GHI 21 = ML 32. This is so in a dedication c. 300 B.c. in Macedonia to Mητρ⋯ θε⋯ν κα⋯ συντελείᾳ with figurines of the contributing deities (AEMTh 10A [1996], 44 with plate 1), and in the Roman period in an inscription recording the Thessalian ‘contribution’ συντ⋯λεια to the Macedonian koinon (L. Gounaropoulou and M. B. Hatzopoulos, ’Eπιγραφ⋯ς κάτά Mακεδονίας 1 (Athens, 1998), 188—9. A sacrifice and ‘services’ are similarly ‘contributed’ (Roesch, Etudes bèotiennes, 105; M. B. Hatzopoulos, Meletemata 22.2, no. 39, line 12). The two meanings were correctly given in 1977 by Vial (137) as contributions and ‘groupe de contribuables’, and with accompanying arguments by Beck (208–10) in 1997. However, McKechnie and Kern in their translation (83) in 1988 rendered the phrase ‘at that time subject to Thebes’. Hansen (23–4) in 1995 wrote of small states ‘being subsumed’ or ‘subordinated’ to a larger state (so also Buck, BBL 107). And Beck (208) wrote of the ‘syntelie-Herrschaft’. In his extensive study ‘The fate of Thespiae during the Theban Hegemony’, Athenaeum 64 (1986), 321–41, C. J. Tuplin held that ‘the implications of synteleia remain uncertain’ (324); that ‘Thespiae and Tanagra were (more or less) incorporated into the Theban State’ (322); and that they were ‘from some point(s) of view subsumed’ (339 endnote).

21 An advantage for a contributing small state was that it enjoyed the protection of a powerful state such as Thebes or Thespiae. It was this advantage which led the ‘allies’ of Athens to contribute ships or money (Thuc. 1.96.1). A similar system operated in Macedonia, where small communities ‘participated on equal terms’ with a larger state (M. B. Hatzopoulos, Meletemata 22.1 [Athens, 1996], 71).

22 Thucydides was explaining why there were men ‘from Orchomenus’ in Chaeronea. The contributory relationship evidently included soldiers. In 395 Chaeronea was no longer a contributing state (HO 11.3).

23 Thuc. 4.93.4 οἱ ξύμμοροι αὐτοῖς. The μόρα was a unit (like a battalion), and men of lesser states fought alongside Theban hoplites.

24 The Greek texts are βοιωταρχ⋯ν ⋯κ θηβ⋯ν and ⋯γεμονίας.

25 Thuc. 4.93.1 ἤδη γ⋯ρ κα⋯ τ⋯ς ⋯μ⋯ρας ⋯ε⋯ ἦν. Pagondas acted ‘in haste’. The battle was fought in daylight, and night fell in time for many Athenians to escape (νυκτòς ⋯πιλαβούσης).

26 Seltman (156 with plate xxxiii 1–6). Hansen (20–1) gives the recent evidence for the dating of these so-called ‘autonomous coinages’.

27 The passive voice is used because they were forced to synoecize through their fear of Athens.

28 Bruce (4–5) concluded that the HO was composed perhaps as early as 384 and certainly before ‘the conclusion of the Third Sacred War in 346’. Modern opinion accepts the second date, e.g. in OCD 766 and OCD 1089.

29 In them the Hegemon was named first (Thuc. 1.97.1; Tod, GHI 27 = M-L 36). For the Boeotian ‘alliance’, see Thuc. 2.2.4 ξυμμαχεῖν and Diod. 15.28.1 κ οιν⋯ν συμμαχίαν ποιησάμενοι.

30 Thebes was evidently acting as Hegemon in these cases.

31 The Boeotarchs were acting as officials of ‘the Boeotians’; for they were upholding τοὺς νόμους κα⋯ τ⋯ πάτρια Bοιωτ⋯ν according to Plutarch loc. cit.

32 Seltman (158) and Hansen (20–1).

33 The Loeb translation of συντελεῖν, ‘to submit to the hegemony of Thebes’, is incorrect. The terms for ‘submission’ to a hegemon are ἕπεσθαι (Plut. Pel. 24.3) and ⋯κολουθεῖν (as in X. H.G. 6.5.23 ⋯γεῖσθαι… ἠκολούθουν).

34 Thespias was ‘pillaged’ in 374/373 (Diod. 15.46.6; cf. Isoc. 6.27 and X. H.G. 6.3.5); for the expulsion see X. H.G. 6.3.1 and Diod. 15.51.3. The city provided a contingent of Thespians to the Boeotian army at Leuctra; but as he distrusted them Epaminondas let them go home before the battle (Paus. 9.13.8).

35 The Loeb translation of these passages takes συντ⋯λεια to mean ‘confederacy’ and makes ‘the confederacy subject to the Thebans’. So also Buck, BBL 102 ‘to set all Boeotia under the federation of the Thebans’, and further on pp. 107, 118. Vial (48) translates the passage as ‘ils rèduisaient la Bèotie tout entiére á n'être qu’ une ligue tributaire de Thébes’, and (64) ‘une ligue qui leur payait tribut’; and Roesch sometimes writes ‘ligue Thebaine’.The term ‘league’ is extremely vague; for there is little in common between the Boeotian League, the Peloponnesian League and the League of Nations. LSJ does not include ‘league’ as a meaning of συντ⋯λεια.

36 Beloch 3.1.156, n. 1 ‘Diod. XV 38 verwechselt diesen Frieden (in 374) mit dem drei Jahre später vor Leuktra abgeschlossenen Vertrage (Diod. XV 50).’ So also Vial (47, n. 1) ‘le rècit de la paix de 371 (50.4–51.1) est un doublet de celui de la paix de 375 (38.1–39.2)’; see also 64, n. 1. Buck (BBL 103) expresses this differently as ‘Diodorus is anticipating… what really happened in 371’. In The Craft of the Ancient Historian, ed. J. W. Eadie and J. Ober (New York, 1985), A. Andrewes tries to explain how Diodorus erred through misunderstanding two supposed passages of Ephorus. It is an interesting speculation; but Vial (x) maintains that Diodorus was using ‘au moins deux sources distinctes’ for Greek affairs in Book 15.

37 This is Buck's translation (BBL 105) of the text with the reading of F: Diod. 15.57.1 εἱς τ⋯ν τ⋯ν συμμάχων χώραν καταξανz as a parallel. If one takes χώραν literally as ‘territory’;, the meaning is much the same; for Minyan Orchomenus’ territory would cease to be Minyan and become Boeotian and so an integral part of Boeotia. Vial (146) preferred the reading of other MSS πόλιν. He then emended it to πολιτείαν and argued that the Orchomenians were given the political rights of the Boeotian association. I prefer the reading of F.

38 Opinions are divided on this matter. Buck (BBL 106) and Buckler (44) believe that the citizenship was given to all free adult males in Boeotia in imitation of Athenian democracy.

39 I translate δημοτικός as ‘populist’, in contrast to δημοκρατικός being ‘democratic’. The Loeb translation ‘popular form of government’ leads towards an imitation of Athenian democracy. Buck (BBL 79) argued that the gathering of the people in an assembly at dawn when the Cadmea was still held by the Spartans (Plut. Pel. 12.4 συν⋯θροιστο εἱς τ⋯ν ἱκκλησίαν ⋯ δ⋯μος) showed the commitment of the Thebans to an Athenian type of democracy; and Roesch (101 with n. 2) supposed that it was an assembly of all the Boeotians. In fact it was not a formal assembly of citizens but a summoning of anyone in Thebes willing to take arms against the Spartans, as in Diod. 15.25.2.

40 They were published and discussed by Roesch in REG 97 (1984), 45–60.

41 This passage is translated in the Loeb edition as ‘when the common council of the Boeotians convened’. There is evidently confusion with the oligarchic councils of the earlier period (HO 11.1).

42 Seltraan (159 with plate xxxiii 12). Hansen (20, 63 Additional Note) has shown that the so-called ‘magistrate coins’ were issued first c 390 or perhaps even earlier. Roesch (102–3) suggested that the names on these coins were all those of Theban Boeotarchs, but there is no evidence in favour of his view.

43 According to Diod. 15.72.2 under the year 368/367 Epaminondas was accused of treason and was removed from office as Boeotarch by TO τò πλ⋯θος, i.e. by the Assembly of the Boeotians.

44 As Walbank, F. W. states in his Commentary on Polybius 1 (Oxford, 1957 and 1970), 726Google Scholar, ‘Polybius is thinking of contemporary Thebes.’ But Buckler (30), having attributed the destruction of Orchomenus to a decision not of the Thebans but of the Boeotian assembly on his p. 182, transferred the statement of Polybius from the Thebans to ‘the Boeotian Confederacy’. Buckler and Buck (BBL 106) thought that Polybius was referring to the Boeotian association or/and the Theban state as a radical democracy. But Polybius was commenting not on the constitutions but on the tendency of any assembly to behave in the manner of ‘a mob’. No ancient source draws a parallel between the Boeotian democracy and the Athenian democracy.

45 The aorist tense of the participle is to be contrasted with the present tense of Diod. 15.50.4 ἱπò μίαν ἄγοντες συντ⋯λειαν. The aorist tense is correctly translated in the Loeb edition: ‘they (the Thebans), adhering to their own design, had brought all Boeotia into one synteleia’; but it is misrepresented by Vial (88) ‘ils ètaiènt decides á maintenir la Bèotie tout entiére unifièe en une ligue tributaire’. Buckler (297, n. 47) ‘hesitated to accept Diodorus’ testimony’, but without discussing Diodorus’ source. The texts of the Teubner, Bude, and Loeb editions read ⋯γαγόντες the first two mention a variant reading ἄγοντες, which is adopted by Beck (209). However, Beck has the same belief as I do that the ‘syntelie-Gebiet’ of Thebes eventually became co-extensive with the Boeotian association.

46 Thebes was renowned for its gymnasia. In Phoenissae 368, produced c. 410, Euripides had Polynices recall his upbringing in the γυμνάσια.

47 Buckler (73) held that ‘Thebes was not formally accorded the position of hegemon’. There were in fact two levels of hegemony: that of ‘the Boeotians’, whom their allies ‘followed’ (X. H.G. 6.5.23 ἠκολούθουν) and that of ‘the Thebans’, whom the Boeotians followed. When hegemony at both levels was operating, the Thebans led the way for both groups into Lacedaemonian territory (Plut. Pel. 24.2 Epaminondas ⋯γούμενος). The hegemony, however, was not automatic. ‘The Argives, Eleans and Arcadians in their own assemblies were contending in rivalry with the Thebans for the hegemony’, in action ‘they followed the Theban generals’ (ibid. 24.4). The ancient sources were concerned less than Buckler with ‘formalities’. It is the same with his contention that the joint forces did not have a formal council. For when it came to action, there was such a council: in 370 the various leaders sat in council (Diod. 15.62.5) and decided to split their forces into four parts for the invasion of Laconia (Diod. 15.63.4). Buckler did not refer to these two passages.

48 In the same way Pagondas had overruled the other Boeotarchs at Delium in 424.