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Medism in Athens 508–480 B.c.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

James Holladay
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Extract

There is some ancient evidence, and much more modern conjecture, about the existence of Medizers in Athens during the period 508–480 B.c. The present article attempts to take further the clarification of the term Medism which was begun by A. W. Gomme, and to suggest that there has been too uncritical an acceptance of the label in many, if not most, of the cases to which it has been applied.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , October 1978 , pp. 174 - 191
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1978

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References

NOTES

1. More Essays in Greek History and Literature (Oxford, 1962), pp. 19–28.Google Scholar

2. Robinson, C. A., AJP 60 (1939), 232–7Google Scholar, Macgregor, M. F., HSCPh Supp. 1 (1940), 71–95Google Scholar, Walker, E. M. in CAH, Vol. 4, pp. 157–8Google Scholar, Wade-Gery, H. T., ABSA 37 (1936–1937), 263 ffGoogle Scholar. and, more recently, Forrest, W. G., CQ 10 (1960), 232 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. and Davies, J. K., Athenian Propertied Families (Oxford, 1971), p. 375.Google Scholar

After the completion of this article there appeared in Historia 26 (1977), 129–47Google Scholar an article by Peter Karavites which touches on some of the problems. His view that Hipparchus and the Alcmaeonids were ostracized for contemporary political reasons rather than past Medism coincides with the view taken in this article but in other matters concerning political groups a somewhat different view has been taken here.

3. Forrest, , op. cit. 234Google Scholar, raises the question whether the Alcmaeonids should be regarded as the leaders of the democrats in the period after Cleisthenes. They were clearly not the only leaders and they may have been somewhat disillusioned by this development, but it is unlikely that they could have openly renounced Cleisthenes' work and yet remained politically prominent and active.

4. Forrest, W. G., The Emergence of Greek Democracy (London, 1966), pp. 199–200.Google Scholar

5. The dating of Meritt, B. in Hesperia 8 (1939), 59CrossRefGoogle Scholar has now been abandoned: cf. Lewis, D. M. in CR 12 (1962), 201Google Scholar and Jeffery, A., The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece (Oxford, 1961), pp. 75 and 78.Google Scholar

6. Forrest in CQ 10 (1960), 235–6Google Scholar suggests that Themistocles abetted Phrynichus' choice of subject to stoke up anti-Persian feeling. This seems very probable, but it does not show that Medism was widespread, merely that feeling against Persia over Miletus would be cooling with the passage of time.

7. Kallixenos Aristonymou was fancied, but after the large new discovery of ostraka in the Kerameikos C. Daux favours Kailias son of Kratias from Alopeke, who is dubbed ‘Mede’ on several sherds: cf. BCH 92 (1968), 732.Google Scholar

8. A fact revealed to us by the fragment of the archon list published by Meritt in the article cited in n. 5.

9. Davies, , op. cit., p. 381.Google Scholar

10. Davies, , op. cit., p. 308Google Scholar. ‘After 430 the family descended into comparative obscurity for over a century.’

11. Kleidemos, FGH 323 F 15Google Scholar makes Hippias' wife the daughter of Charmus. On this Davies, (op. cit., p. 450)Google Scholar observes: ‘a desire to associate the first victim of the ostracism as closely as possible with the last tyrant may account for Kleidemos' version’.

12. Hignett, S. C., A History of the Athenian Constitution (Oxford, 1952), p. 162Google Scholar. Dover, K. J. in Gomme, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, Vol. 4, p. 324Google Scholar, suggests that the law passed when the tyrants were expelled (Hdt. 5.65) must have outlawed ‘for ever the surviving Peisistratids and their issue and everyone who might be found to be a descendant (even an illegitimate descendant) of those members of the family who were already dead’. But it is difficult to see how a son of Hippias' daughter could escape so wide a definition.

13. Davies, , op. cit., p. 451.Google Scholar

14. Aristoteles und Athen (Berlin, 1893), pp. 113 ff.Google Scholar

15. Op. cit. (in n. 1), p. 23.

16. Cf. Hesperia 29 (1960), 200, line 45.Google Scholar