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Eurycles of Sparta1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

G. W. Bowersock
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Extract

The most notable personality in the history of Augustan Greece is the Spartan, C. Julius Eurycles. As a partisan of Octavian, he led the Spartan force against Antony at Actium, and his name reveals that his allegiance was rewarded with Roman citizenship. Eurycles enjoyed the friendship of Augustus, and abused it. The history of this man provides valuable evidence for Augustan policy toward cities and dynasts of the East. Yet most of the modern literature dealing with him is inconclusive. It will be impossible to say the final word about Eurycles, but a great deal of confusion can be cleared up. Moreover, a recently published palimpsest requires that a crucial piece of evidence be revised.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 51 , Issue 1-2 , November 1961 , pp. 112 - 118
Copyright
Copyright © G. W. Bowersock 1961. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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Footnotes

1

For criticism of various drafts of this paper I am deeply grateful to Professor Sir Ronald Syme, Professor F. W. Walbank, Mr. R. Meiggs and Mr. E. W. Gray. A much abbreviated version of this study was included in a paper read to the Oxford Branch of the Classical Association on 25th May, 1961.

References

2 Plut., Ant. 67.

3 The following contain the most important studies of Eurycles: Weil, R., Ath. Mitt. 6 (1881), 10 ff.Google Scholar; Kjellberg, E., Klio 17 (1921), 44 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kornemann, E., Neue Dokumente zum lakonischen Kaiserkult (Breslau, 1929) 13 ff.Google Scholar; Accame, S., Il Dominio Romano in Grecia dalla Guerra Acaica ad Augusto (Rome, 1946) 124 ff.Google Scholar; Chrimes, K. M. T. (MrsAtkinson, ), Ancient Sparta (Manchester, 1949) 169 ff.Google Scholar; Oliver, J. H., The Ruling Power (Philadelphia, 1953) 954 ff.Google Scholar Also notices in P-W: Niese, 6, 1330 f. (inaccurate); Groag, 10, 580; Ehrenberg, 2te. Reihe, 3, 1447. There are valuable remarks on Eurycles in the following reviews: Momigliano, A. (Chrimes), Rivista Storica Italiana 62 (1950), 283Google Scholar; Woodward, A. M. (Chrimes), Historia I (1950), 622Google Scholar, and JHS 73 (1953), 171; Gray (Oliver), E. W., JHS 75 (1955), 196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Each of these books and articles to be cited by its author's surname only. References will Strabo will be given by the letter S and the appropriate page number.

4 S 363.

5 S 366.

6 S 595 and 654 (Sulla), 569 (governor), 780 (Aelius Gallus), 291 (Segimundus), 627 (Tiberius).

7 Diod. 20, 32. Possibly Strabo is echoing the Hellenistic usage of ἐπιστάτης outside Egypt, as a special city governor in the service of a Hellenistic king: cf. Holleaux, M., BCH 17 (1893), 56CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Études d'Epig. et d'Hist. grecques 1, 413–7. Cf. also Walbank, F. W., Comm. on Polybius (Oxford, 1959) pp. 559 and 579.Google Scholar

8 Weil. Chrimes, 196, thought ἐπὶ Εὐρυκλέους meant that Eurycles was a high priest of Augustus. This theory is untenable: cf. Woodward's objections in Historia o.c. (note 3) and Momigliano (‘ipotesi senza base documentaria’).

9 S 325.

10 Sparta had given refuge to Livia and the young Tiberius after the Perusine War (Dio 54, 7, 2) and was in the clientela of the Claudii (Suet., Tib. 6, 2).

11 Dio 54, 7, 2 (Cythera); Paus. 4, 31, 1 (Thuria), and Paus. 3, 26, 7 (Cardamyle). This generosity may be due in part to a desire of the Emperor to compensate the Spartans for his liberation of the Laconian League from their control (Paus. 3, 21, 6). In S 363 Cythera is said to be the personal possession of Eurycles, but there is no difficulty, pace Chrimes, 173, in supposing that Augustus presented the island nominally to the Spartans and in fact to their overlord.

12 S 366.

13 Jos., BJ 1, 531, quoted below in footnote 27. Cf. Plut., Reg. et Imp. Apophtheg. 207 F.

14 Ehrenberg o.c. (n.3), col. 1447.

15 SIG 3 787/788, n. 2.

16 Kjellberg, p. 57, declared confidently, ‘Es ist nicht notwendig und durch nichts bezeugt, dass er schon früher (i.e. than Augustus' death) in die Verbannung hat gehen müssen.’

17 W. Kolbe apud IG v, 1, xvi.

18 Kornemann, p. 15.

19 The composition of Strabo's Geography is admirably examined in Anderson's, J. G. C. article in Anat. Studies pres. to Ramsay (Manchester, 1923), 1 ff.Google Scholar, revising Pais, E., Ancient Italy (Chicago, 1908), 379 ff.Google Scholar Cf. also below, footnote 26. The νεωστί is unhelpful, as Strabo applies it to incidents over a range of six decades: e.g. it is used of Caesar's refoundation of Corinth in 44 B.C. (S 379) and of Zeno's accession to the throne of Armenia in A.D. 18 (S 556).

20 Kougéas, S. B., Ἑλληνικά (Athens, 1928) 16Google Scholar = AE 1929, 99 = E-J. 102. Kornemann expounded this document but did not see its significance for Eurycles.

21 S 288.

22 Chrimes, 171: ‘gave in to necessity.’ Oliver, 956: ‘Caesar withdrew far enough so that the influence of Eurycles might be reduced to proportion.’ Oliver rejected Josephus.

23 Aly, W., De Strabonis codice rescripto cuius reliquiae in codicibus Vaticanis Vat. Gr. 2306 et 2061 A servatae sunt (Vatican City, 1956), p. 9Google Scholar = fol. 205, 1, 5–20.

24 ταραχή Koraës. φιλοτιμίαν R. Syme (an unpublished emendation proposed in a paper to the Oxford Philological Society in 1948).

25 Weil, 17–18: a coin, which belongs clearly to the series of Eurycles and Laco, bears the name Timaristos, called an ephor. The bearded head, characteristic of the Euryclid series, is named Lycurgus on the Timaristos piece. This coin, although belonging to the age of the early Euryclids, thus makes no mention of them but alludes instead to the Spartan constitution by the words ‘ephor’ and ‘Lycurgus’. Most probably, therefore, the coin falls between the régimes of Eurycles and Laco, and not surprisingly the hiatus will have been marked by a conspicuous reversion to constitutionalism.

26 The latest datable occurrence in Strabo, apart from passages evidently added in the later revision, is the inclusion of Amaseia in the Roman provincia (S 561), which happened in 3–2 B.C. With regard to certain other eastern places, Strabo's account reflects a state of things which ceased to exist in 2 B.C. On all this, see Anderson, o.c. (n. 19) 7–10. On the memory of Eurycles and the position of Laco in A.D. 15: AE 1929, 99 (II. 19–22 (Gytheum)). The slight difference in Laco's titles from his dead father's on that document may perhaps be attributed to the discretion by virtue of which he advanced so far.

27 Jos., BJ 1, 531: after his sojourns with Herod and Archelaus, διάρας δ᾿ εἰς τὴν Ἑλλάδα τοῖς ἐκ κακῶν κτηθεῖσιν εἰς ὅμοια (i.e. like the trouble Josephus says he caused in the Near East) κατεχρήσατο δὶς γοῦν ἐπὶ Καίσαρος κατηγορηθεὶς ἐπὶ τῷ στάσεως ἐμπλῆσαι τὴν ᾿Αχαῖαν καὶ περιδύειν τὰς πόλεις φυγαδεύεται. AJ 16, 310: also after his visits to Herod and Archelaus, Εὐρυκλῆς μὲν οὖν οὐδὲ ἐν τῇ Λακεδαίμονι παυσάμενος εἶναι μοχθηρὸς ἐπὶ πολλοῖς ἀδικήμασιν ἀπεστερήθη τῆς πατρίδος.

28 Oliver, 955, is surely right in correcting Miss Chrimes' mistranslation of these charges (Chrimes, 175). Josephus says that Eurycles was charged with fomenting civil discord throughout Achaea and stripping the cities (whatever exactly that may mean).

29 Jos., AJ 16, 301. Miss Chrimes' attempt to prove that Eurycles was not yet supreme in Sparta when he went to Judaea is unsuccessful. When Josephus says, γένος ἦν Λάκων, Εὐρυκλῆς τοὔνομα, πόθῳ χρημάτων εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν προσφθαρείς οὐ γὰρ ἀντεῖχεν ἔτι ἡ Ἔλλὰς αὐτοῦ τῇ πολυτελείᾳ (BJ 1, 513), he is referring to Eurycles' ill-omened arrival in the kingdom of Herod (βασιλείαν) not to a desire of Eurycles ‘to enrich himself in order to make himself king’ (Chrimes, 174). (I accept the difficilior lectio προσφθαρείς which Miss Chrimes prints but does not correctly translate.) Moreover, the following γάρ would lack point after Miss Chrimes' translation. See also Walbank, , CR 65 (1951), 100.Google Scholar

30 His two journeys as king: W. Otto, P-W Suppl. 2, table facing p. 160. On Herod's relations with Sparta, observe Jos., BJ I, 425. During one trip to Rome, Herod paused to be agonothete at the Olympic Games: BJ I, 427. On earlier relations between Jews and Spartans, including an alleged common ancestry: Jos., AJ 13, 164, with which cf. i Maccabees 12, 6–18.

31 Jos., BJ I, 531, quoted in footnote 27, says explicitly that Eurycles used the riches he had acquired in the Near East to foment discord in Achaea.

32 Jos., BJ 1, 536–7.

33 The chronology is discussed by W. Otto, P-W Suppl. 2 s.v. Herodes.

34 Plut., Reg. et Imp. Apophtheg. 207 F. The reference in that anecdote to the seventh book of Thucydides is obscure but fortunately irrelevant to this discussion. Miss Chrimes, 179, rightly noted the nature of the opposition to Eurycles.

35 Cf. Box, H., JRS XXI (1931), 202.Google Scholar

36 Plut., Ant. 67. Eurycles' son and grandson were to be ranked by Tacitus among the primores Achaeorum (Ann.. 6, 18).

37 Cythera as a pirate base: Polyb. 4, 6; cf. above, footnote 11.

38 S 366; Paus. 3, 21, 6. The most natural time for Augustus' liberation of the Laconian cities was soon after Actium. The attempt of A. Gitti to interpret τυραννουμένης τῆς Σπάρτης in S 366 as a reference to Eurycles, instead of Nabis, is not convincing: ‘La Condizione delle Città della Laconia e l'Opera di Augusto,’ Atti del V Congresso Nazionale di Studi Romani 2 (1940), 389 ff.

39 Asopus (JG v, 1, 970); Gytheum (AE 1929, 99, ll. 19–20, alluding to cult). For these cities as league members: Paus. 3, 21, 7. S 343 and 363 call Gytheum τὸ τῆς Σπάρτης ἐπίνειον.

40 AE 1929, 99, 1. 20. Examples of the interchange of ἔθνος for κοινόν: s.v. κοινόν in P-W Suppl. 4, 919–920.

41 See above, footnote 25.

42 C. Julius Argolicus, son of Laco, was the husband of Pompeia Macrina (Tac., Ann. 6, 18). Macrina's father was an illustris eques (ibid.), identified in PIR, P 473 as the younger Pompeius Macer (cf. Anth. Pal. 7, 219, and 9, 28). Her brother was Q. Pompeius Macer, praetor in A.D. 13 (Tac., Ann. 1, 72; 6, 18; ILS 9349). According to Tacitus, her great-grandfather was Theophanes of Mytilene (Tac., Ann. 6, 18). Theophanes' son, therefore Macrina's alleged grandfather, will have had the same name and the same equestrian rank as her father (S 618, reading Μάκρον for Μᾶρκον, as is customary): he served under Augustus as librarian (Suet., Jul. 56, 7) and procurator of Asia (S 618). But Professor Syme, in his Tacitus (Oxford, 1958) 748–9, argues that Tacitus has erred in the number of generations between Theophanes and the praetor of A.D. 15; Strabo (618) says that Theophanes left a son [sic], whom Augustus at one time made procurator of Asia and who is now (καὶ νῦν) one of the chief friends of Tiberius. Accordingly, this passage will be one of those added by Strabo in his later revision, and Theophanes' son will be the praetor's father.

43 Weil 14, no. 7. And coins in an unpublished hoard mentioned by Miss Chrimes, 184–5, footnote 4.

44 Weil 14, nos. 5 and 6.

45 Tac., Ann. 6, 18.

46 JRS XXI (1931), 205, on Ti. Claudius Brasidas.

47 AJA 30 (1926), 390 = Corinth VIII, 2, no. 67.

48 AE 1929, 99, l. 21 (Gytheum), gives no filiation for Laco, presumably because his father's name appears in l. 19 in a parallel context. Two of Laco's sons, Cratinus (IG v, 2, 541) and Spartiaticus (AJA 30 [1926], 393 = Corinth VIII, 2, no. 68), are each called ‘son of Laco’, and his daughter, Julia Pantimia (IG v, 2, 542), is called ‘daughter of Laco’. But a son who was himself called Laco after his father would only need the simple C. f.

49 AJA 30 (1926), 393 = Corinth VIII, 2, no. 68.

50 IG v, 1, 94, 1. 11; v, 1, 265. The name Heraclanus does not imply Roman citizenship, as Miss Chrimes thought (461, n. 3): cf. Kolbe ad IG v, 1, 94. On provincials adopting Roman names without the franchise, see Dittenberger apud Box, , JRS XXI (1931), 200Google Scholar, and Badian, , Foreign Clientelae (Oxford, 1958), 256–7.Google Scholar

51 SIG 3 786.

52 IG v, 1, 210, 1. 16 (Agesinicus); v, 1, 610, 1. 2 (Leonidas). Miss Chrimes, 204, singled out Agesinicus to be a brother of the great Eurycles and ignored Leonidas altogether.

53 SIG 3 748, l. 7.

54 IG v, 1, 267. Miss Chrimes, 204, has a different view.

55 IG v, 1, 29, 1. 17.

56 Argolicus: Tac., Ann. 6, 18. For other children, see above, footnote 48.

57 IG v, 1, 280, l. 5. I accept Miss Chrimes' date for the substitute patronomos on p. 191, footnote 2. This date upsets Kolbe's stemma in IG v, 1, p. 307.

58 PIR, I 199. Cf. SIG 3 841 (after Antinoüs' death).

59 See above, footnote 42.