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Themistokles and Ephialtes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

R. G. Lewis
R. G. Lewis
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
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Extract

On any view, the Aristotelian account of Athens' constitutional history between victory over the Persian invaders and Ephialtes' reforms of the Areopagus and indeed beyond must be regarded as factually grudging and difficult to follow. Worse, current orthodoxy1 convicts it of a major chronological blunder for assigning a part in those reforms, which it places securely and beyond doubt correctly in the archonship of Konon (462/1), to Themistokles, who had been ostracized from the city perhaps as early as 473/2 and in any case by 467/62.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , December 1997 , pp. 358 - 362
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1997

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References

1 Rhodes, P. J.,Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia (Oxford,1981),283–357 also pp. 482–6.1 readily accept Rhodes' notion of multiple sources for the Ath. Pol. at this juncture and others, but doubt if it correctly resolves this particular problem. I have found no later comment which specifically deals with it. Not available to me has been H. V. Schoeffer, Jahresber. Fortschr. cl. Ant. 73 (1895), 251, which appears to have adumbrated my own view without sufficient argument to command general assentGoogle Scholar

2 Hardly earlier than 473/2, and more probably after production of Aeschylus' Persae of 472 than before it, but not much later, if it was the Athenian forces besieging rebel Naxos which imperilled Themistokles'journey to Asia (Thuc. 1.137.2). This requires a date no later than 467. One MS reading of Plut. Them. 25.2 substitutes the siege of Thasos, which implies 465Google Scholar

3 The suggestion is offered, without much elaboration or conviction, by S. Hornblower, The Greek World, 479–323 B.C., 2nd edn (London, 1991), p. 37, and firmly rejected by F. J. Frost, Comm. on Plut. Them. (Princeton, 1980), p. 29. R. J. Lenardon, Historia 10 (1959), 23^8, esp. 47, citing C. A. Robinson, AJP 67 (1946), 263–6, countenances the view that Ath. Pol. has confused the reforms of 462/1 with those of 487/6, and hence associates Themistokles with Ephialtes. This is implausibleGoogle Scholar

4 Cic. Fam. 5.12.5Cuius studium in legendo non erectum Themistocli fuga redituque retinetur? which should refer to the clandestine burial of Themistokles' mortal remains in Attica (Thuc. 1.138.6; compare Cic. amic 42; Brut. 41ff.; Alt. 9.10.3). Contra P. N. Ure, JHS41 (1921),165–78. See also M. L. Lang. GRBS 8 (1967), 273; J. H. Schreiner, SO Suppl. 21(1968), 63–77; LCM 3 (1978), 213fGoogle Scholar

5 Summarized at 41.1–2. Compare the interim summary of ‘demogogues’ at 28.2, its continuation in 28.3 already offering comment on Kleophon in advance of covering the oligarchic coup of 411

6 This general principle is well perceived and expounded by J. J. Keaney HSCP 67 (1963), 115–46; further, AJP 90 (1969), 406–23, esp. 412–3: and see now also his The Composition of Aristotle's Athenaion Politeia: Observation and Explanation(Oxford, 1992)without, however, including the present case among his minutely sifted examplesGoogle Scholar

7 By archon-years, specified intervals, explicit conjunctions, or conjunctive phrases e.g. (23.1); (24.1; 26.1; 27.1; (25.2); (25.4)), and, elusively but importantly, careful and subtle use of tenses both in main verbs and participles. The digressions typically return to their starting-point in palpable ring-composition before resumption of the main theme with the next episode in the overall evolution of the democracy.

8 Badian, E.,Antichthon 6(1971), 11–13.Google Scholar

9 The term is somewhat ambiguous, but whether here it means ‘leader’ or champion', or both, need not in the 470s imply hostile confrontation with the Areopagus, which after all had revived its influence by gaining general approval of its recent conduct of affairs, we are told. For this term used in this period of champions of the whole populace against tyrants, see H. Schaefer, Supplbd. 9 (1962), 1293–366; V. Ehrenberg, Historia 1 (1950), 529 and n.Google Scholar

10 Diodorus puts it in 460/59; Ath. Pol., probably better, in 462/1(26.2).Google Scholar

11 23.5:; 24.1: ; 24.3:

12 Cf. 24.3: (imperf.) = ‘A resultant tendency was developing which ended in more than 20,000 getting a livelihood from tribute, revenues and the allies’ (namely, from tribute, customs-dues, and cleruchies).

13 25.3… (again, imperf.) (present participle, be it noted) (aorist) P. N. Ure (op. cit., n. 4) took ‘seventeen years after the Persian war’ to provide the date (462/1) for the action of the verb inedfTo, the archonship of Konon which makes insoluble difficulties for any attempt to solve the conundrum by positing collaboration between Ephialtes and Themistokles in the 470s. The verb, however, is patently an inceptive aorist, and the action follows in two stages …(with, we later learn, the involvement of Themistokles).. (in 462).

14 25.2.

15 Persistent accusations of the Areopagites (25.4 (again, imperf.)cf. 25.2 ) until they finally (pi., since both had been involved, even though it was Ephialtes who competed the task)

16 As related by Ath. Pol., the item is anecdotal and heavy compression has doubtless greatly impaired its lucidity, but there is no reason (least of all its omission by Plutarch!) to doubt the essential point that under threat of political extinction Themistokles joined with Ephialtes, whether or not he had contrived to put the latter under a similar threat. On the threat to Themistokles Ath. Pol. 25.3 is extremely vague, but should provide the motivation for his strategem, and therefore the date before his later actual condemnation in exile, when further ‘evidence’ became available. It should, however, be reflected in Plut. Them. 23.3a reference to and in Diod. 11.54.5 dated, however accurately or not, in 471 (cf. 55.8:)

17 25.1 …

18 Generally presumed to be the content of the lacuna before in 25.4 by far the best solution to the textual problem. See Rhodes ad loc.

19 Compare (e.g.) 23.1, 25.1, 28.1 (after a leap forward to 409/8 B.C. at 27.5!), 29.1, 34.1

20 27.5 The trial of Anytos apparently in 409/8 B.C.: cf Diod. xiii.64.5–7 and Rhodes, Comm. on Ath. Pol. p. 343 ad loc.Google Scholar

21 Above, n. 5.

22 There is an unmistakeable dislike of extreme democracy, demagogues, and demagogy, and detectable prejudice against populist politics in general, but some merit is allowed to Perikles andbefore him to Ephialtes 25.1– as well as Aristides and Themistokles as Kimon, surprisingly, is excluded from the narrative of the 470s and 460s, first appearing at 26.1 as ‘fairly young and a late-comer to city-life’ probably to avoid complicating the exposition still further, with his entry delayed to help to explain the rise of Perikles and his jury-law (27.3–4). At 28.2 he more correctly appears as the eimopwv in counterbalance to Ephialtes though all the opposed political pairings of leading personalities in this chapter look equally artificial and oversimplified. For present purposes there is no need to discuss the possibility of mutiple sources of differing political tendency e.g. Kleidemos and Androtion though the suggestion has often enough been made and is by no means implausible. On the other hand, there is no support for it in 41.2:

23 In particular, there is no significance in its apparent omission by Plutarch, who had access to a text of the Ath. Pol. (or at least to extracts from it) but whose methods and memory could be extremely selective, and who in any case tended to restrict himself to material germane to his own favoured themes. Nepos follows Thucydides, who hardly concerned himself with the history of the Athenian constitution of the mid-fifth century. The notice in the Hypothesis to Isocr. Areopag., on the face of it reporting a variant story from a different edition of the Ath. Pol, should be dismissed as the work of a mediocre student on an off-day.

24 Hence both the singular verb Hence both the singular verb