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Pisistratus' settlement on the Thermaic Gulf: a connection with the Eretrian colonization*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Didier Viviers
Affiliation:
rue Lambert Vandervelde 10, B–1170 Bruxelles

Extract

Aristotle relates that during his second exile Pisistratus joined with others in the colonization of Rhaccelus on the Thermaic Gulf: πρῶτον μὲν συνῷκισε περὶ τὸν Θερμαῖον κόλπον χωρίον ὅ καλεῖται Ῥαίκηλος. The context of this foundation is very obscure. J. W. Cole nevertheless proposed to consider this enterprise as ‘a combined Peisistratus-Eretria settlement’: this is a very attractive hypothesis which I should like to explore, adding some further considerations.

Type
Notes
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1987

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References

1 Arist. Ath. Pol. xv 2. See also Rhodes, P. J., A commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia (Oxford 1981) 207–8Google Scholar.

2 Cole, J. W., ‘Peisistratus on the Strymon’, G&R xxii (1975) 42–4Google Scholar.

3 Hdt. i. 61.

5 Hdt. i 64.

6 I do not believe that πάλιν, in Arist. loc. cit. (ἐλθών [Pisistratus] εỉς Έρέτριαν ἐνδεκἁτῳ πάλιν ἔτει …), means that Pisistratus returned to Eretria. This adverb only specifies the interval of time.

7 Hdt. i 61: Ίππίεω δέ γμώμῃ νικἡσαντος ἀνακτᾶσθαι ὀπίσω τὴν τυραννίδα, ἐνθαῦτα ἤγειρον δωτίνας ἐκ τῶν πολίων αἴτινες σφι προαιδέατό κού τι.

8 Arist. loc. cil.

9 About the importance of these private means from the Strymon, see also Hdt. i 64.

10 We do not know how Pisistratus exploited the mines of Mt. Pangaeus which were probably at the hands of the Edonians. Cole (n. 2} 43–4 supposes that the tyrant used diplomacy and secured privileges in exchange for ‘a promise to expand the worship of Dionysus at Athens’. But it is more conceivable that he obtained, for a consideration, a kind of concession from the Thracians for the working of the mines (cf. Thucydides' well known case: Thuc. iv 105.1; Perdrizet, P., ‘Scaptèsylè’, Klio x [1910] 21)Google Scholar.

11 Hdt. i 62; Arist. loc. cit.

12 Cf. Auberson, P., ‘A propos d'un puits public à Erétrie’, BCH ic (1975) 789–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Arist. loc. cit.

14 See e.g. LSJ s.v.; De Wever, J. and Van Compernolle, R., ‘La valeur des termes de “colonisation” chez Thucydide’, AC xxxvi (1967) 504–10Google Scholar and recently Casevitz, M., Le vocabulaire de la colonisation en grec ancien (Paris 1985) 204Google Scholar.

15 We know that Eretria founded at least two colonies in Chalcidice, Mende (cf. e.g. Thuc. iv 123.1) and Dicaea (cf. ATL i 266–7).

16 Arist. loc. cit.

17 Edson, Ch., ‘Notes on the Thracian “Phoros’’, CPU xlii (1947) 8991;Google ScholarHammond, N. G. L., A history of Macedonia i (Oxford 1972) 186Google Scholar.

18 Edson loc. cit.

19 Lyc. Alex. 1236–8.

20 Arist. loc. cit. has χωρίον, which does not necessarily mean a town (cf. LSJ s.v.). Edson loc. cit. and Hammond loc. cit. considered Rhaecelus as the name of both a city and a region; Cole (n. 2) 42 affirmed without demonstration that it was only the name of a particular place.

21 There is no evidence for the identification of Rhaecelus with the modern Kalamaria proposed by Casson, S., Macedonia, Thrace and lllyria (Oxford 1926) 82–3Google Scholar.

22 St. Byz. s.v. ‘̔Ράκηλος’ wrote: πόλις Μακεδονίας, but, as Edson (n. 10) 91 noted, Stephanus clearly derives from the scholia on Lycophron, and his evidence consequently derives from the same misunderstanding.

23 Cole (n. 2) 43.

24 Edson (n. 10) 91.

25 ATL i 266 7.

26 IG iv2 1.94 lb. 11. It is of course an itinerary, and we can only infer that Dicaea was situated on the road from Aenaea, the harbour, to Potidaea: not necessarily south of Aenaea but probably east of it, as we shall see.

27 Plin, . HN iv 10 (17) 36Google Scholar.

28 In fact, the manuscripts, most corrupt in this passage, read †Palinandrea†, but this name is absolutely unknown; ATL i 482 rightly proposed the correction: Palleti <ensis Isthmus et Cass> andrea. Cassandrea was the name of Potidaea from the Hellenistic period.

29 Hdt. vii 123.

30 Cf. ATL i 483.

31 Cf. ATL i 176.

32 Hdt. i. 61.

33 Cf. Graham, A. J., The colonial expansion of Greece, CAH 2 iii 3 (1982) 115Google Scholar.

34 Bakhuizen, S. C., Chalcis-in-Euboea, iron and Chalcidians abroad (Leiden 1976) 24Google Scholar.

35 Zahrnt, M., Olynth und die Chalkidier (München 1971) 30Google Scholar n. 73.

36 I hope to discuss elsewhere the chronology of Pisistratus' tyrannies and exiles.