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The New Dating of the Chremonidean War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

W. W. Tarn
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Extract

This war, in which Antigonus was faced by the triple alliance of Egypt, Athens, and Sparta with her allies, started with the decree moved by Chremonides in August–September of the year of the archon Peithidemos at Athens; the actual military operations began in the following spring. Peithidemos' year used to be put in 266/5; I gave my reasons in 1920 for putting it in 267/6, as had already been done by Professor A. C. Johnson. Recently Professor Dinsmoor has put Peithidemos in 270/69; the archon himself is a mere name and the tribe of his secretary unknown. Dinsmoor was trying to keep the tribal rotation undisturbed, and to effect this he shifted the archons Menekles and Nikias of Otryne (Nikias II) forward to 269/8 and 268/7; and as their years were war years he took these years to be part of the Chremonidean war and therefore put Peithidemos in 270/69. Subsequently Professor Ferguson followed Dinsmoor as to this; but he now puts Peithidemos in 267/6, for reasons different from mine, though he still retains Menekles and Nikias II in 269/8 and 268/7. Dinsmoor's proposal to antedate the beginning of the Chremonidean war by three years is so drastic that it needs careful examination; and before considering the archons in question I may briefly indicate some of the historical difficulties of the new view.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , 1934 , pp. 26 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1934

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References

1 IG 2 II, 686 + 687 add. = Ditt3. 434/5.

2 JHS. XL, 1920, p. 150Google Scholar.

3 Dinsmoor, W. B., The Archons of Athens in the Hellenistic Age, 1931Google Scholar.

4 Ferguson, W. S., Athenian Tribal Cycles in the Hellenistic Age, 1932CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4a In an article appearing in AJPh. for July 1934, the draft of which he kindly sent me to read. My own paper had already gone to press.

5 Meyer, E., Forschungen zur alten Geschichte, II pp. 510 sqq.Google Scholar; Tarn, , JHS. 1920, p. 150Google Scholar.

6 Pausanias III, 6, 4–6; Justin XXVI, 1, 7.

7 That he could not attack Antigonus on land because his men were Egyptians and sailors. What he would really have landed would have been his troops, the mercenaries on board. Roussel, P., La Grèce et l'Orient, 1928, p. 415Google Scholar, suggests that he had no troops. But if SEG. II, 161 really belongs to the Chremonidean War (Beloch, , Griech. Gesch. IV, ii, p. 503Google Scholar), Ptolemy must have played a larger, part in it than we know of.

8 Tarn, , Hellenistic Military and Naval Developments, pp. 43 sqq.Google Scholar

9 Trogus, , Prol. XXVIGoogle Scholar; Justin XXVI, 2, 1–7.

10 Op. cit. p. 74, n. 1.

11 Justin XXVI, 2, 11. Looking at Trogus' care over kings' names (Tarn, , JHS. 1909, p. 265Google Scholar), it cannot be supposed that Demetrius the Fair is meant.

12 Strabo VIII, 398; Paus. I, 1, 1; Steph. s.v. Πατρόκλου νῆσος.

13 Tarn, , JHS. LIII, 1933, p. 67Google Scholar, n. 90 (fully discussed).

14 Ib. pp. 66 sqq.

15 Dinsmoor, op. cit. p. 81. So also Ferguson, op. cit. p. 74.

16 Dinsmoor, p. 81.

17 Paus. III, 6, 5–6, περικαθημένου δὲ ᾿Αντιγόνου τἀς ᾿Αθἡνας … τοῖς δὲ ᾿Αθηναίοις ἀντίσχουσιν ἐπ μακρὁτατον. Correctly given by Kolbe, W., Die attischen Archonten, 1908, p. 39Google Scholar; Tarn, , Antigonos Gonatas, p. 306Google Scholar; Beloch, , Griech. Gesch. IV, ii, p. 503Google Scholar.

18 The Roman siege of Syracuse, which was partly a blockade, took two years, 214–12; but Phylarchus might have written before this.

19 Paus. III, 6, 5, περικαθηένου.

20 Tarn, , CAH. VII, pp. 705–6Google Scholar.

21 IG 2. II, 687, line 16: ὄ τε βασιλεὐς Πτολεμαῖος ἀκολοίθως τεἴ τῶν προγόνων καὶ τεἴ τῆς ἀδελφῆς προαιρἑσει.

22 Gnomon, 1932, p. 449Google Scholar, reviewing Dinsmoor.

23 Kolbe, W., however, Gött. Nachrichten, 1933, pp. 481, 489Google Scholar, still prefers 287/6 for Diokles.

24 Class. Phil. IX, 1914, p. 248Google Scholar.

25 The inscriptions relating to the Hermodorus family are conveniently set out by Ferguson, op. cit. pp. 104–5. Dinsmoor (p. 84) puts the last appearance of Hermodorus in Polyeuktos' year, IG 2. II, 681, which he calls 249/8; it is, I think, really 255/4 (so Flacelière and Ferguson). Ferguson puts his last appearance in Philoneos' year, IG 2. II, 766, which he provisionally makes 241/0, though (p. 103) he regards this date as entirely uncertain (256/5 Dinsmoor, 268/7 Kolbe, , Gött. Nachr. 1933 p. 511Google Scholar).—See now Kolbe's explanation of Hermodorus, ib. p. 505, and Kirchner's note thereon, p. 512. Kolbe's article only reached me just as mine was going to press.

26 IG 2. II, 2086 l. 115 and 2097; see Kirchner, , Gnomon, 1932, p. 453Google Scholar, and Dinsmoor, p. 94.

27 Tarn, , JHS. 1933, p. 66Google Scholar.

28 Kolbe, op. cit. p. 506, also points out that this decree means that Menekles and Nikias II must be shifted back, but his dates for them are 282/1 and 281/0.

29 Usener, , Epicurea 133Google Scholar, εἴθ᾿[ὔ]στερον[τοὺς ἐχθίσ]τους κατα[λ]ύει[ν]Μακε[δόνας]. See Tarn, , JHS. 1920, p. 146Google Scholar.

30 Opinion has been divided on the point. For the most recent writers see note 36. Whether the war of 280–79 between Athens and Antigonus has any connexion with the wax of 280–79 between Ptolemy II and Antiochus I must be left open.

31 IG 2. II, 657 = Ditt3. 374, l. 35.

32 Cuneiform evidence (see Kolbe, , Syrische Beiträg, pp. 12–14Google Scholar), conjoined with Milet, I, no. 123, l. 37, shews that Seleucus died between 30 Nov. 281 and 1 Nisan (in March) 280; this fixes Corupedion to 281, not 282.

33 Justin XXIV, I, 2, says omnes ferme Graeciae, civitates; which must include Athens, though some have doubted this.

34 He is first heard of at the Dardanelles in spring 279; but there is no sign of his presence in Greece in the campaigning season of 280.

35 ᾿Εφ᾿ ὐγιείαι καὶ σωτη[ρίαι τῆς βο] υλῆς καὶτοῦ.

36 Beloch once believed in Athens' recovery of Piraeus in 280 (IV, i, p. 249), but subsequently abandoned this date (IV, ii, p. 454). Of recent writers, Segre, M., Annuario del R. Liceo Dante Alighieri di Bressanone, 1928/1929, p. 9Google Scholar, thinks that Athens probably recovered it between 280 and 277; Ferguson, op. cit. p. 72, following Segre, has specified 280/79, though he attributes Menekles and Nikias II to the Chremonidean war; Berve, H., Griech. Geschichte, II, 1933 p. 238Google Scholar makes it 280. On the other hand, both Dinsmoor and Cary, M., A History of the Greek World from 323 to 146 B.C., 1932Google Scholar, believe that there was no war between Athens and Antigonus in 280; and Corradi, G., Studi Ellenistici, 1929, p. 124Google Scholar, only gives it with a query.

37 Contributi alla storia ateniese della guerra lamiaca alla guerra Chremonidea, in Beloch, Studi di storia antica, II, p. 33, n. 3.Google Scholar; RivFil. LV, 1927, p. 495Google Scholar. He is followed by Corradi, op. cit. p. 106, n. 2; Cary, op. cit., also believes this.

38 Paus. I, 26, 3. Segre, op. cit. p. 6, suggests that Pausanias' ultimate source must have been a decree, perhaps coining through Polemon. Certainly the natural reading of this passage in Pausanias is that he had himself seen decrees at Athens in honour of Olympiodorus.

39 Gr. Gesch. IV, ii, pp. 454, 607Google Scholar.

40 Line 32, τοὺς ἠδικηκὁτας τἀς πὁλεις (wrong-doing); l. 15, τοὺς καταλύειν ἑπιχειροῦντας τούς τε νόμους καἰ τἀς πατρίους ἑκἀστοις πολιτείας (the usual phrase for tyranny). That these plurals mean Antigonus is not in doubt.

41 Line 32, τοὐς παρεσπονδηκὁτας τἀς πόλεις.

42 P. Herc. 339 col. V (text given in Philol. LXXI, p. 226Google Scholar): ἀπ(οτ)ρἑψαντος (αὑτὀν) τοῦ μ(ία)ν λαμβάνειν (τ)ἡν βασιλείαν καὶ μετἀ τὴν Λυσιμἁχου τελευ(τὴν παρέ)χ(οντ՚) αἱ σπονδ(α)ἰ <τῷ> Γονατᾷ καἰ (Λακὀ)νων κρατἠσας τῆς Mακε(δο)νίας ἐκπίπτει πά(λιν εἰς τὴν) Άσίην κ.τ.λ.— Λακὀνων has been a crux. It has naturally nothing to do with Sparta; the meaning is that Gonatas, coming from the Dardanelles region, conquered (part of) Macedonia, naturally the eastern part,—this invasion is also mentioned in Memnon 14—and was then thrown out again and retired to Asia. (Johnson's suggestion Μακ‹εδ›όνων made sense, but is not required.) Now the word can be detected at least twice again in the literature we have: Eusebius says (with a wrong date) that Gonatas conquered ‘the Lacedaemonians,’ which is absolutely impossible (see my note 21 in Antigonos Gonatas, p. 121); and Stephanus says that an Alexandria (no. 3 of his list) was founded by Alexander, seventeen years before Alexandria in Egypt (the date of course is wrong), in Thrace πρὸς τῇ Λακεδαιμονίᾳ—but Thrace did not adjoin Lacedaemonia. It seems to follow that there must have been a district called Λακονία in eastern Macedonia towards Thrace, and that Philodemus has correctly preserved the ethnic, ΛακονίαΛάκονες which is right in form for a people in or about Macedonia, cf. Kίκονες, Μύγδονες, Βíστονες, Πελαγόνες, Παίονες, Μακδόνες ; but the two names fell into disuse —perhaps there were always alternatives—and, where they occurred, they tended to be confused with the well-known Λάκωνες and Λακωνία, so that in late writers like Eusebius and Stephanus they became Lacedaemones and Lacedaemonia. It is a pity that Strabo's account of Macedonia is in fragments.

43 De Pace II.

44 I formerly supposed, following Johnson, that the σπονδαί of Philodemus meant the cardinal treaty between Antigonus and Antiochus, which I therefore placed in 279 (JHS. 1920, p. 149Google Scholar; CAH. VII, p. 100); but there was always the difficulty that Memnon 18 made the war between them last χρόνον συχόν, a considerable time, and I should have paid attention to the plural form συχόνδαί and the word παρέχοντο. These, combined with Chremonides' decree, render my former view untenable; and as Chremonides' phrase is παρεσπονδηκότας τὰς πόλεις (plural again), one may suppose that there were other cities besides Athens which regarded some action of Antigonus as a breach of their treaties with him. The Philodemus fragment therefore does not prove that the treaty between Antigonus and Antiochus was 279; I express no opinion here on its date, as I am not considering their war (the latest study is by Segre, , Athenaeum, VIII, 1930, p. 488Google Scholar). But I still think that Aratus' hymn Spondophoroi celebrated Antigonus' treaty with Antiochus, for Aratus could hardly have managed to glorify Antigonus over the σπονδαί of 279; unless we like to suppose that Aratus wrote that hymn, not for Antigonus, but at Athens before he went to Pella.

45 Tarn, Antigonos Gonatas, App. VI.

46 Wilamowitz, however, believed in the fleet: Antigonos von Karystos, p. 257.

47 P. Herc. 1418, col. XXXa (XXIIIa). See Vogliano, A., RivFil. LIV, 1926, p. 322Google Scholar, and LV, 1927, p. 501; J. Beloch, ib. LIV, p. 331; G. de Sanctis, ib. LV, p. 491; M. Segre, op. cit. of 1928/9.

48 Beloch wrote on the assumption that Antigonus only lost Piraeus in 274–2; this assumption is negatived by Chremonides accusing Antigonus of breaking a σπονδή, the only σπονδή known being hat of 279.

49 The Philodemus fragment cited n. 42.

50 RivFil. LIV. p. 334Google Scholar; Gr. Gesch. IV, ii, p. 453Google Scholar.

51 See also de Sanctis, , RivFil. LV, p. 498Google Scholar.

52 IG 2. II, 1282 = Ditt3. 1105.

53 Ferguson, however, op. cit. p. 73, thinks it was approximately this year.

54 Plut., Mor. 851 DGoogle Scholar.

55 Diog., Laert. II, 127Google Scholar.

56 Beloch shewed (IV, ii, p. 464) from Delphic evidence that Menedemus was in disfavour at Eretria in 273 but not in 274; his actual exile can therefore have been any time before Pyrrhus' death.

57 τοῦ ἐπὶ τοῦ Πειραιῶς; probably good third-century evidence. Wilamowitz, in Antigonos von Karystos, and Beloch, IV, ii, p. 607, thought he was not yet governor, but only being called by a title he acquired later. Can any case of the sort be cited? I do not think one ever has been.

58 πολλὰ λέγοντος περὶ τῆς ἁλὡσεως τῆς Ἐρετρίας. How such scholars as Ferguson (Hellenistic Athens, p. 165), Beloch (IV, ii, p. 607), and de Sanctis (RivFil. LV, p. 495Google Scholar) can have taken these simple words to mean that Hierocles tried to secure Menedemus' help for a (forthcoming) attack upon Eretria is to me an insoluble puzzle.

59 Justin XXV, 4, 4.

60 CAH. VII, p. 706.

61 284/3 blank; 283/2 Ourios; 282/1 Kimon I; 281/0 Gorgias; 280/79 [Apel]laios.

62 Communicated by Crönert to Kirchner; see Gnomon, 1932. 452Google Scholar.

63 Kolbe, (Hermes LXVIII, 1933, p. 440Google Scholar, and Gött. Nachr. 1933, p. 493Google Scholar) would restore Polyeuktos to the seventies of this cycle, accompanied by the four archons attached to him by the Salamis inscription. It means that this cycle is thoroughly in the melting-pot again.

64 Sortition was Ferguson's illuminating discovery; Athenian Tribal Cycles, p. 48, and passim.

65 Ferguson, ib. pp. 54, 64.

66 JHS. 1920, p. 158Google Scholar.

67 Op. cit. pp. 76–7, based on SEG. III, 89 ( = IG 2. II, 477 with Wilhelm's restorations). Lines 15–16 now read εἰς τὴν ἀνανέω]σιν τῆς φιλἱ[ας καὶ εἰρήνης πρὀς βασιλ]έα Ἀντίγο[νον]. The critical word, ἀνανέωσιν, is quite certain, and suffices to prove Ferguson's point. But I venture to doubt καὶ εἰρήνης; strictly speaking, if two Powers have been at war, ‘peace’ must precede ‘the restoration of friendship,’ and before the date of this inscription Athens had surrendered unconditionally and so already had ‘peace.’ I would prefer to read καὶ εὐνοίας.

68 CAH. VII, p. 709, ‘The war of Eumenes.’