The Double City of Megalopolis

J. B. Bury

doi:10.2307/623713

The Double City of Megalopolis

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013

J. B. Bury

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§ 1. It is less easy to forgive Xenophon for telling us so little about the foundation of Megalopolis than for telling us nothing at all about the foundation of Messene. We would give much to know the details of the building of the city on the slopes of Ithome and the synoecism of Messenia; but Megalopolis, in its double character of a federate city and a federal capital, presented such complicated problems that the silence of those who could have best told us how those problems were solved is more aggravating than many of such silences to the curiosity of posterity. In this paper I propose to deal with one problem which seems never to have been quite realised.

Type: Research Article
Information: The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 18 , November 1898 , pp. 15 - 22

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/623713 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1898

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^{page 15 note 1} Excavations at Megalopolis, 1890–1891 (J.H.S. Supp. i., 1892), p. 114. Measuring the circuit myself on Mr. Loring's plan, I made it out to be nearly 20 stades longer. Having puzzled over this discrepancy, I discovered that he has accidentally given a wrong scale for the stades (in which 5 stades correspond to about 750 yards). For comparison it may be mentioned that the circuit of Thebes was 43 stades, that of Corinth (not including Aero-Corinth) 40, that of straggling unwalled Sparta 48.

^{page 16 note 1} Op. cit. p. 109.

^{page 16 note 2} Polybius, 5, 93. Cp. below §13.

^{page 16 note 3} Mr.Woodhouse, (Excavations, p. 3Google Scholar) uses the figures of Diodorus, and arrives at ‘a population of perhaps 65,000’ (both freemen and slaves); Beloch, (die Bevölkerung der griechisch-römischen Welt, p. 127Google Scholar) calculates 60,000 from the same data; both assume that Of course, in any case, the data and the inference refer to the population of the town along with the district ( Diodor. 18, 70), and not the town alone. I doubt much whether we can implicitly trust the figures of Diodorus.

^{page 16 note 4} Dittenberger, , Syll. n. 167Google Scholar.

^{page 16 note 5} This has been recognised by Dittenberger, ib. p. 661.

^{page 16 note 6} The limits are fixed by the presence of Mantinean, Orchomenian, and Heraean demiurgi. The decree must have been prior to the secession of Mantinea, and posterior to the accession of Heraea and Orchomenos. One of the reasons for assigning the later date was the Attic dialect of the inscription. It seems to me that this objection is answered by the inscriptions of Antiochos on the fronts of the seatbacks in the Megalopolitan theatre.

^{page 16 note 7} There are only five Tegeates, and we may infer that their town had declined in numbers. Beloch (loc. cit. ) is wrong in his statement that Megalopolis sent as many delegates ‘as Mantinea and Tegea together.’

^{page 16 note 8} See below § 10.

^{page 16 note 9} Epaminondas often gets the credit for Megalopolis—without any evidence, I think, except the flourish of Pausanias, who says he might rightly be called the oecist of Megalopolis. The fact that be was the actual oecist of Messene, combined with the support which he gave to the organisation of the Arcadian League, might easily set afloat the idea that he was responsible for Megalopolis too. With our present evidence we are bound, in my opinion, to give the credit of the idea to the Arcadian leaders who were active in organising the federal state. The sending of Pammenes from Thebes to protect the building of the city proves nothing. See Paus. 8, 27, 2.

^{page 17 note 1} Pausanias cites Cnidus and Mytilene; 8, 30, 2. Dirce flowing through Thebes is another instance, but the case is somewhat different. There is no doubt that Dirce was originally outside the walls; the western extension of the city across the stream was comparatively late.

^{page 18 note 1} Pausanias, 8, 30, 4.

^{page 18 note 2} It is remarkable that no traces of an ancient bridge have been found, and it may be questioned whether Megalopolis ever had a stone bridge. A wooden bridge seems the most probable hypothesis.

^{page 20 note 1} The calculation depends on the plans of Messrs. Fougères and Loring.

^{page 20 note 2} If Mantinea be treated as an ellipse, the area (πab), calculated from M. Fougères' statement of the lengths of the major and minor axes, would give 1,136,630 metres. The fact that the ellipse is not perfect, being extremely blunted at one side, accounts for the difference in the results. My colleague, Mr. W. E. Thrift, kindly helped me in these calculations.

^{page 20 note 3} If Polybius had known these measurements he might have used them for further illustration of the geometrical truth which he insists upon, that the relative sizes of two cities do not cor respond to their circuits. The circuit of the wall of the southern town is a little less than 2½ miles, that of the northern a little more than 3 miles. The entire circumference of the northern town is about 4 miles. The circumference of Mantinea is somewhat more than 2½ miles (3,942 metres = 21 stades, 180 feet); see Fougères, , ‘Fouilles de Mantinée,’ B.C.H. 1890, pp. 68–70Google Scholar.

^{page 20 note 4} 19,700: Schultz, R. W. in Excav. p. 41Google Scholar.

^{page 20 note 5} 6. 3. 9.

^{page 21 note 1} Cp. Demosth. Mcg. §§ 30, 31, 32, &c.

^{page 21 note 2} Hyperid., Dem. xvi. ed. Blass, where the critical words are unfortunately missing. The internal history of Arcadia is obscure after the battle of Mantinea. We find the Federal Assembly active in B.C. 347 and 344, hearing the pleadings of Aeschines and Demosthenes (Dem., F.L. §§ 10, 11Google Scholar, De Cor. § 79). In the war of Agis and Antipater, B.C. 330, Megalopolis supported the Macedonian, and had almost all Arcadia against her (Aesch., Ctes. § 165Google Scholar). Did Megalopolis at this crisis pretend to represent the League, and did her opponents meet for federal purposes at some other centre?

^{page 21 note 3} Excav. pp. 123, 124.

^{page 21 note 4} For the proposal to reduce the girth of the city after its capture by Cleomenes in B.C. 222, see Polybius, 5. 93. The disaster is distinctly ascribed to the size and emptiness of the place. But there is no hint in Polybius that its population had decreased since the fourth century. The pillage by Cleomenes reduced the inhabitants to poverty (§ 2, ). One would have thought that it might have been feasible to build a new southern wall to the northern town, along the bank of the river, and pull down the fortifications of the southern town, thus leaving the theatre outside the walls. Before the time of Strabo (8, 8, 1) the Great City was ‘a great wilderness. Cp. Pausanias, 8, 33, 1.