5.1.1 The Serpent Column at Delphi and the Zeus Statue at Olympia

The first examples are the dedications made by the victorious Greek poleis after the Persian Wars in 480/79: the Serpent Column at Delphi and the Zeus statue at Olympia.Footnote ⁸ These dedications celebrated warding off the invading Persian army and proudly proclaimed the role of the victors.Footnote ⁹ In light of the common tropes surrounding the recollections of the event, such behaviour would be unsurprising. The memory of the Greek victory over the Persians ensconced itself in the annals of Hellenic history and formed a reference point for the inhabitants of those poleis that had resisted the invaders. History was less kind to the Greeks caught on the wrong side of the divide, the medizers. Their reputation was tarnished in the eyes of their fellows because of their treacherous behaviour. One way of promulgating this view was through the trophies and monuments set up by the victors at Delphi, Olympia and, on a lesser scale, Isthmia or Nemea. Framing the conflict with the Persians as a seminal event and as a unified effort by patriotic Greeks determined to resist subjugation and a loss of freedom helped to delineate between them and the medizers, traitors to the Greek cause. The Boiotians – sans the Plataians and Thespians – and Athenians ended the war fighting on different sides of the conflict and, accordingly, found themselves on opposing sides of the commemorative spectrum (Chapter 2.3). Where better to advertise this divide than at the famous stomping ground of Apollo in Central Greece and frequented by Athenians, Boiotians and the whole Greek world alike?

This interpretation of the memory of the Persian Wars and its recollection, however, does not align with reality. The picture was substantially more complex. The Greek world was not divided into good and bad, and the story of many medizing poleis was more complicated than the sources allow for. Nor is it possible to speak of a common commemoration of these wars. David Yates demonstrated that the epichoric outlook of this seminal conflict dominated the Classical period, instead of a notion of a unified war.Footnote ¹⁰ That notion became dominant only during the fourth century when Panhellenic ideology permeated accounts of the Persian Wars.Footnote ¹¹ Philip and Alexander, the Macedonian kings, were the first sponsors of a homogenised version. Even after they established their rule over Greece, their version was repeatedly challenged. Poleis were more focused on propagating their version of the war, rather than believing in a shared Greek struggle against the Persians.Footnote ¹² This has repercussions for how we should view the Serpent Column and Zeus Statue. These were not the proud proclamations of a Hellenic League wishing to emphasise the divide among the Greeks, nor do they present a homogenised picture of their defeat of the Persians.

The history of the Serpent Column shows that quite clearly (see Figure 5.3). The initial inscription on the tripod base, according to sources such as Thucydides, did emphasise a communal effort and stressed the role of the Spartan king Pausanias as the leader of an alliance of ‘Greeks’ or ‘Hellenes’ defeating the Persians: ‘When the leader of the Greeks defeated the Persians / He, Pausanias, raised this monument, so Phoebus might be praised.’Footnote ¹³

Figure 5.3

Replica of Serpent Column at Delphi.

(Source: Didier Laroche, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Following Pausanias’ fall from grace, however, Thucydides mentions that the dedication’s inscription was immediately (εὐθὺς) altered. Instead of reading the Hellenes, the tripod now listed the poleis that had contributed to the defence of Greece, headed by the engraved statement that it was dedicated by ‘those who fought the war’ (το[ίδε τὸν] πόλεμον [ἐ]πολ[έ]μεον).Footnote ¹⁴ This enumeration aimed to demonstrate the contributions of each polis, thereby stressing the epichoric outlook of the monument. This was the result of pressure partially from the other poleis wishing to emphasise their role and partially from the Spartans wishing to cover up Pausanias’ hubristic claim after his fall from grace.Footnote ¹⁵

The list of victorious poleis emphasises defeating the Persians and the role of the Greek poleis that participated in that glorious victory. An almost similar list was partnered with the Zeus Statue at Olympia, as shown in Table 5.1.

Table 5.1Comparison of inscribed names on Serpent Column (Delphi) and Zeus Statue (Olympia)

Considering only a small fraction of Greek poleis committed to the defence of Greece, the lack of references to the medizing Greeks is striking. Not even the Persians are mentioned according to this restoration. The emphasis is on those poleis that had contributed to winning the war and the glory they shared. Some notable poleis are missing from the list, making their role in the war instantly recognisable as dubious at best. Argos, for instance, is nowhere to be found, a result of both their neutrality during the war and their inveterate rivalry with the Spartans. Others who did initially engage the Persians, such as the Thebans, are omitted.Footnote ¹⁶ Such omissions implicitly reveal those who had collaborated with the Persians. Yet they were not explicitly mentioned, nor were the medizers openly condemned.Footnote ¹⁷ Worse, there are some, like the Thespians, who are lacking from the Olympian list altogether. Since their polis was burned to the ground for its resistance to the Persians, its omission is perhaps the most noticeable.Footnote ¹⁸ Earlier commentators perceived the difference between the lists as sloppiness from a copyist or negligence by Pausanias.Footnote ¹⁹ But he is generally regarded as a careful and honest reporter with regard to monuments, especially when it comes to the Persian Wars. Moreover, the Greeks’ attention to detail in honorary inscriptions is well known.Footnote ²⁰ The answer to this conundrum probably lies elsewhere.

First, these dedications were not representative for the Persian Wars in toto, as argued by Michael Jung, Russell Meiggs and David Lewis.Footnote ²¹ Instead, they expressed the victories at Plataia and Salamis.Footnote ²² These grandiose gestures represented only a small portion of the conflict, not coincidentally those in which the Spartans played a prominent role. These monuments reflect their perspective, not a communal Greek one. The list is not a genuine reflection of all the participating poleis, nor a proper summary of all those poleis that joined the Hellenic forces at Salamis or Plataia.Footnote ²³ That discrepancy is best reflected in the omission of poleis like Croton or Seriphos that did contribute to both battles, but were left off the list.Footnote ²⁴

Similarly, the snub towards Thespiai and its later inclusion suggests some sort of lobbying to be written onto the list at Delphi occurred; arguably, the Serpent Column presented something of a ‘finalised list’. The Thespians possibly received backing from the Athenians, as the latter were instrumental in rebuilding the city after the war and appear to have supported Thespian efforts to establish their Panhellenic credentials on other occasions as well (Chapters 2.3, 3.2.1). That inclusion mattered, even in later times, becomes clear from the Plataian Debate in 427, recorded by Thucydides. During their trial before a Spartan jury, the Plataian place on the Serpent Column is evoked by its inhabitants as a reflection of virtue and proof of their excellence during the Persian Wars: ‘it will seem a terrible thing for the Lacedaimonians to destroy Plataia – for your fathers to inscribe the city on the tripod at Delphi for its excellence, but for you to erase its houses and all from all of Greece on account of the Thebans’.Footnote ²⁵

The Plataians are here speaking to the Spartans directly, but there are other clues that Spartan leadership determined places on the monuments. They replaced Pausanias’ epigram on the Serpent Column. While that does not exculpate other parties from having a role in, or sharing the same view of, these events, it hints that agency behind the dedication and edits lay with the Spartans above all.

The relatively limited scope of the Persian Wars on the monuments is shown by the Tenians’ inclusion, whose sole merit was the defection of one trireme during the Battle of Salamis. According to Herodotus, that was the reason for their inclusion on the Serpent Column.Footnote ²⁶ Their contribution pales in comparison to some other members of the Hellenic League and even those notorious turncoats, the Thebans (Chapter 2.3). Apparently, the Thebans had forfeited their right to be inserted on the list after their volte-face, although they had provided troops for the defence of Thermopylai and provided more help to the Greek cause than some of the poleis on the Serpent Column could claim.

It is tempting to view these dedications at Olympia and Delphi as reflections of Athenian hostility to the Thebans and those Boiotians that medized. The Athenians’ prominent position on the inscription, as well as the notable location of these dedications, implies this.Footnote ²⁷ Yet the focus on the Battles of Salamis and Plataia contradicts this notion. These battles occurred after the Thebans’ surrender to the Persians, rendering their previous help irrelevant. This explains their omission. It places the agency for this dedication with the Spartans, whose ambitions vis-à-vis the medizers differed. Sparta’s allies in the Peloponnese had not medized, and its nemesis, Argos, had played a dubious role. Implicating the medizers played into their hands, but does not necessarily reflect the Athenians’ disposition. Most of their recently joined allies in the Delian League had medized. Advertising a hostile attitude towards medizing on a Panhellenic stage seemed inadvisable or counterproductive (Chapters 2.3, 3.2.1).

That does not mean the Thebans and other medizers were openly forgiven for their sins, but there was little emphasis on the role of other Greeks in the fifth-century Athenian commemorative practices at Athens and the Panhellenic sanctuaries. That reluctance was not necessarily institutionalised to spare medizers for political expedience, but also was the by-product of commemorative practices. The Athenians focused their efforts on the commemoration of the Battle of Marathon, for which they could bask in the glory by themselves without having to share it with a welter of other poleis, particularly, the Spartans.Footnote ²⁸ The effort to monopolise leadership vis-à-vis the Spartans became stronger after 462/1 when the Thessalians and Argives took the place of the Spartans as allies.Footnote ²⁹ Both had a troubled role during the Persian Wars. The desire to emphasise the Battle of Marathon where no other Greeks besides the Plataians were present might therefore have had a political reason. Moving away from a focus on the wars of 480/79 and focusing on Marathon killed two birds with one stone: it allowed the Athenians to plausibly claim prominence in the leadership against the Persians, while conveniently leaving out the troublesome relationship some Greeks had with the memory of the later Persian invasion.

In most of these recollections, the Plataians’ share in the Battle of Marathon was forgotten, in both Athens and the Panhellenic shrines. It was more a matter of convenient amnesia than spite towards the Plataians.Footnote ³⁰ Similarly, the omission of the medizers in these recollections of the Battle of Marathon were an expedient result of the focus on a battle in which there were no mainland medizers. Athenian efforts at Panhellenic shrines were aimed at promulgating their righteous place as the leader of the Greek fight against the Persians, rather than stigmatising the Thebans and others.Footnote ³¹

The surviving monuments commemorating the events of 480/79, or 490 for the Athenians, understated the notion of medism. In addition, the Spartans were the agents behind these subtly implicating monuments, not the Athenians. These monuments thus cannot be viewed as Athenian condemnations of the Thebans or other medizing Boiotian poleis. Does that exculpate the Athenians from involvement or from holding similar stigmatising views as the Spartans? As far as our sources can indicate, it does not. Ultimately, the Spartans as leaders of the Hellenic League provided the impetus for the dedications remembering the Battles of Plataia and Salamis.Footnote ³² Moreover, the monuments’ implication of the medizers was subtle enough that it was not obviously related to any Atheno-Boiotian hostilities.Footnote ³³

Interestingly, the next seventy-five years witnessed little activity of a neighbourly nature at the Panhellenic shrines, despite the Apollo sanctuary at Delphi being transformed into what Michael Scott termed ‘a living memorial to Athenian supremacy’.Footnote ³⁴ The period in question witnessed enough hostility, even resulting in Athenian domination of their northern neighbours, yet that enmity was not translated into dedications at the Panhellenic sanctuaries. Only with the birth of a conflict that tore the Greek world apart in various factions, the Peloponnesian War, is the Atheno-Boiotian conflict attested in a Panhellenic sanctuary. It was the echoes of the Persian Wars and Athenian claims to supremacy that were contested by the victorious Spartans and their Boiotian allies.

5.1.2 Defeating the New Persians: The Aegospotami Monument

The Persian Wars were an era-defining event in Greek history, mostly because of their effects on the self-perception of many poleis, their history and that of their neighbours. The echoes of the Persian Wars rang loudest during the Peloponnesian War, which pitted large swaths of the Greek world against each other. These echoes reverberated the strongest in the ideological battleground. The Athenians had used the notion of Greek freedom (eleutheria) as a building block for the empire that emerged out of the vestiges of the Hellenic League. Yet the Spartans and their allies now flipped the narrative by employing that slogan against the Athenians. The idea of eleutheria became a unifying war cry for those Greeks who felt oppressed by the Athenians. In anti-Athenian eyes, they had overstepped the old threshold between Greek and barbarian and had started to act as the new Persians by enslaving their fellow Greeks, a hubristic act made worse by the fact that the Athenians were Greeks.Footnote ³⁵

The defeat of these oppressors was a cause for celebration in various places across Greece. In these celebrations the notion of eleutheria repeatedly found its way into the discourse. Xenophon writes about the end of the conflict, with a heavy dose of irony:Footnote ³⁶ ‘the Peloponnesians with great enthusiasm began to tear down the walls [of Athens] to the music of flute-girls, thinking that day was the beginning of freedom for Greece’.Footnote ³⁷

The reference to eleutheria reflects the attitude of the victors and their allies. In a similar fashion, the victors officially disbanded the Delian League by granting the Delians their independence. Their independence effectively ended the Athenians’ foundation for empire that had centred around Delos as the religious heart of an Ionian alliance forged to fight for Greek eleutheria.Footnote ³⁸

The Aegospotami monument at Delphi should be viewed in this context. The Battle of Aegospotami in 405 decided the Peloponnesian War in the Spartans’ favour.Footnote ³⁹ To commemorate the victory at Aegospotami, a magnificent monument was set up at Delphi at the left of the Sacred Way, right next to the Athenians’ Marathon monument near the entrance.Footnote ⁴⁰ This was a deliberate placement. The Marathon monument aimed to promulgate Athens’ claim to hegemony and was the first monument one encountered entering the Sacred Way. In front of the monument there were thirteen figures: Apollo, Athena, the general Militiades and ten Athenian heroes.Footnote ⁴¹ The Aegospotami memorial now blocked that view and outdid its competitor.Footnote ⁴² Its placement was aimed at ‘correcting’ the Athenian claim by diverting attention away from it at a prominent location within the Delphic sanctuary.

The Aegospotami memorial overshadowed its illustrious Athenian counterpart in every aspect. Thanks to its dimensions (18 metres long by 4.5 metres wide), it towered over its competitor. The possible addition of a stoa across from the statues would have amplified the competition between the Spartan monument and the Athenian Marathon monument.Footnote ⁴³ Its sculptural programme established a visual link between Aegospotami and the naval victory over the Persians at Salamis.Footnote ⁴⁴ In terms of statues, the thirty-eight to forty in the Aegospotami monument outdid those of the Marathon counterpart, which numbered only thirteen. The winning admiral, Lysander, was flanked by more gods and heroes than his Athenian opposite Militiades, emphasising the divine support the Spartans received. Lysander was accompanied by numerous statues of his allies, emphasising the broadness of the anti-Athenian alliance, like that of the Serpent Column.Footnote ⁴⁵ Whatever the Athenians had done for the freedom of the Greeks, the Spartans boasted to have done more by defeating the contemporary threat to Greek eleutheria.

What brings this monument into the scope of the current investigation is the inclusion of a Boiotian admiral among Lysander’s partners.Footnote ⁴⁶ Some Boiotians thus intended to propagate their contribution to the Athenians’ downfall, perhaps similar to how poleis vied to be included on the Serpent Column. The focus on one general, rather than a communal dedication, should not necessarily detract from that. Jean-François Bommelaer believes the placement of the Boiotian admiral is significant.Footnote ⁴⁷ The monument starts with the Boiotian statue sharing the limelight with a Spartan, and finishes with two statues of Spartans, emphasising the importance of Athens’ two most powerful enemies.

An interesting distinction between the Boiotian statue and the others is in the ethnics attached to the names. Whereas the other admirals are identified as members of a single polis, Erianthes or Arianthios, the Boiotian admiral, is referenced as being ‘of the Boiotians’.Footnote ⁴⁸ Was this admiral perceived as a representative of the entire koinon, by omitting his city ethnic, or did he follow established conventions? Did eschewing polis identities in this case reflect an increased centralisation of the koinon? At Delphi, there was a habit of Boiotians presenting themselves in this way to the outside world, but there were exceptions.Footnote ⁴⁹ It seems the reference to ‘the Boiotians’ reflects dedicatory conventions, rather than a representation of the koinon’s involvement in the monument.

Perhaps we can push the argument further. The Spartans were behind the dedication and oversaw possible additions, just as they did with the Serpent Column. Pausanias’ account supports Spartan agency. He mentions that the monument was paid for by the spoils from the battle of Aegospotami. Plutarch adjusts that view, stating that some of the individual pieces were dedicated by Lysander personally.Footnote ⁵⁰ A combination of their accounts is acceptable and provides an insight into the process behind this impressive dedication. Most of the monuments and statues would then have been built by the Spartans, with some of the statues paid for by Lysander and individual admirals.Footnote ⁵¹ Lysander was after all a prolific dedicator at Delphi and other sites such as Delos and the Athenian Akropolis.Footnote ⁵² The inclusion of the Boiotian admiral may then have been a personal investment to stress his own contributions in a battle against the Athenians, the new Persians, who wreaked so much havoc on Boiotia during the war. The admiral was made responsible for the proposed eradication of Athens after the Peloponnesian War and was part of a vehemently anti-Athenian clique in Thebes, making his personal involvement in the monument more likely.Footnote ⁵³

The inclusion of a Boiotian admiral on the monument was a firm statement, meant to demonstrate to the Greek world that the victory over the Athenians was not a singular Spartan achievement. Michael Scott views Erianthes’ inclusion as part of a Boiotian ‘renaissance’ in Apollo’s sanctuary at the end of the fifth century.Footnote ⁵⁴ The koinon’s renewed presence at the shrine constituted a deliberate attempt by the Spartans and their allies to expand their profile to reflect the new political reality: ‘from a living memorial to Athenian supremacy, it had become a memorial of her defeat’.Footnote ⁵⁵ There are two expressions of this change. One is a possible niche that replaced the older Boiotian treasury in the south-western corner of the sanctuary. Another is the dedication made by the Boiotians to Athena Tritogeneia, which was found east of the temple terrace, suggesting it could have been placed on the terrace, a premium location within the sanctuary.Footnote ⁵⁶

While the Aegospotami monument certainly fits in the trend of contesting Athenian claims and redesigning the Delphi sanctuary as a testimony to Spartan prowess, the other examples put forward by Scott are more problematic. The dedication to Athena Tritogeneia has been re-dated to the late sixth century, excluding it from a possible burgeoning Boiotian dedicatory programme.Footnote ⁵⁷ Doubts can similarly be raised over the activity in the south-western corner of the sanctuary. The older treasury was not necessarily the result of communal agency: the inscriptions were inscribed on the foundation blocks, rendering them less visible to the visitors and a less likely political statement. There are reservations about whether the building functioned as a treasury, making any possible connection dubious. Additionally, the placement of the niche dedication is uncertain, as it is unclear whether it replaced the older Boiotian building. These refutations cast doubt on the alleged competition with the Athenian treasury for the attention of the visitors, as Scott holds.Footnote ⁵⁸

Where does that leave the Aegospotami monument? In my opinion, it stands alone in the Boiotian commemorative landscape at Delphi. It undoubtedly celebrated the victory over the new common foe but did not form part of a deliberate Boiotian attempt to contest the Athenians throughout the Apollo sanctuary. Rather, the monument should be regarded in a similar vein to the Serpent Column, set up after the Persian Wars under Spartan aegis. The monument celebrates the breadth of the alliance that brought Athens to its knees. The Boiotian participation in the monument is restricted to one statue and could reflect personal ties and connections to Lysander, rather than the koinon’s insistence on its inclusion.

The Aegospotami monument was erected to express a Spartan victory over a common enemy as part of an allied effort. The inclusion of the Boiotians, if the koinon was behind it, could have been an attempt to accrue symbolic capital from the victory. The choice for a Panhellenic sanctuary probably reflects Spartan practices of proclaiming their hegemonial position to a broader Greek audience. The lack of any local Boiotian memorials suggests the battle was deemed less important for the expression of neighbourly rivalry, in contrast to other clashes, such as the battle of Delion (Chapter 5.2.6).

5.1.3 The Athenian Golden Shields at Delphi

The Aegospotami monument is not the last attestation of the Atheno-Boiotian rivalry at a Panhellenic shrine. That honour belongs to the golden shields dedicated on the architraves of the new Apollo temple in Delphi in 340/39. The running thread was the competing claims of hegemony and the memory of the Persian Wars. Unlike the Serpent Column and the Aegospotami monument, however, there appear to be more caveats with these golden shields. First, these shields were ostensibly a replacement of the original dedication after the Battle of Plataia in 479.Footnote ⁵⁹ On closer investigation, they were more likely a later alteration. Second, this dedication was made to recollect a past victory, rather than a recent one. This contrasts sharply with the examples above.

In 340/39 the orator Aeschines travelled to Delphi to act as the Athenian representative in the Delphic Amphictyony. The situation was precarious. Tensions were running high between members of the Amphictyony over various issues, including the use of sacred lands (Chapter 2.7).Footnote ⁶⁰ The Athenians certainly did not help matters by decorating the architraves of the new Apollo temple with golden shields. The objects themselves were hardly a matter of dispute. Decorating the refurbished temple after the calamitous earthquake in 373/2 was an unassuming action, as various monuments were re-erected in the wake of this natural disaster.Footnote ⁶¹ It was the accompanying inscription that caused the issue: ‘The Athenians took this from the Persians and Thebans (Ἀθηναῖοι ἀπὸ Μήδων καὶ Θηβαίων) when they were fighting against the Hellenes.’Footnote ⁶² According to Aeschines, these shields and the inscription were copies of the originals dedicated after the Battle of Plataia in 479 at the Apollo sanctuary. He mentions that the Boiotians were unimpressed by this ghost from wars past. Instead, they convinced the Amphictyony, through their Amphissan allies, to fine the Athenians fifty talents for the dedication of these shields since the new temple had not been properly consecrated yet.Footnote ⁶³

The Athenians arguably attempted to tarnish the Theban reputation by openly rekindling the memory of their medism, in contrast to earlier dedications commemorating the Persian Wars that only implied their role (Chapters 5.1.1, 5.2.3). This inscription conveniently leaves out any other medizers and instead juxtaposes the Thebans with the Persians. David Yates argues that the placement of the Thebans alongside the Persians in the dedicatory inscription implies the Thebans were not Greeks but barbarians, like the vanquished enemies from which these shields were taken.Footnote ⁶⁴ The onus for medism, therefore, was fully placed on the Thebans’ shoulders, as if other poleis had not taken part on the Persians’ side. This fits with the consistency bias Bernd Steinbock describes: poleis could be singled out or omitted in the recollection of the Athenians if that suited the situation.Footnote ⁶⁵

Aeschines presents the inscription as part of the original dedication from the 470s. Some scholars accept this testimony prima facie, believing the dedication remained unchanged since the Persian Wars or at least reflects that era’s sentiment.Footnote ⁶⁶ Yet an overview of (Athenian) memorials commemorating the Persian Wars reveals the omission therein of medizing Greeks, making it unlikely the Thebans would have been singled out originally. An uncritical acceptance of Aeschines’ testimony also ignores that the temple of Apollo was destroyed by an earthquake in 373. The time-lapse of some thirty years left ample time to change or alter the dedication and the message it was supposed to convey.Footnote ⁶⁷ The language employed by Aeschines implies a new dedication, rather than a re-dedication. He uses ἀνέϑεμεν’ (dedicate) rather than the expected ‘ἀποκατάστασις’ (restore) as a later source does concerning the re-dedication of these shields.Footnote ⁶⁸

This adjustment of dedications and reinvention of the Persian Wars meshes with contemporary practices. In the mid-fourth century the Athenians reinvented their relationships with other poleis through forging documents related to the Persian Wars.Footnote ⁶⁹ This was not necessarily done with foul intent. These documents offer insights into the public memory of the fourth century and how they acted as fourth-century perceptions of the fifth-century past. This probably rings truer in the case of orators and thus Aeschines and the shields. The most famous example of this practice is the Themistocles decree, but one could add the Oath of Plataia from Acharnai (Chapter 5.2.8).Footnote ⁷⁰ It fits with a Persian Wars–obsessed Athenian populace, which reached its peak around the mid-fourth century.Footnote ⁷¹

This development coincided with a time when Atheno-Boiotian relations reached a nadir, which allowed Theban medism to occupy a central place in Athenian discourse. The renewed Spartan-Athenian alliance against the Boiotians in 369 fomented this attitude. The rekindling of the ‘old alliance’ against a familiar foe created the ideal breeding ground for a more antagonistic attitude (Chapters 2.6, 3.1.3). At this time, the Thebans were framed as the prototypical traitor.Footnote ⁷² It was in their nature to betray justice and freedom, and to nestle themselves under the wings of a barbarian protector intent on enslaving Greece.

The alliance between the koinon and Philip accelerated this process. This conformed to the Athenian image of treacherous Thebans, as Philip became the new barbarian nemesis in the 350s, replacing the King of Persia. Demosthenes was particularly keen to envision the Macedonians as the new Persians.Footnote ⁷³ It was in the aftermath of the Third Sacred War (357–346) against combined Boiotian and Macedonian forces that the Athenians decided to rededicate the golden shields from Plataia.Footnote ⁷⁴

It came at a time when the koinon reached the peak of their Panhellenic prestige. They had just defended the Delphic Amphictyony against the sacrilegious Phocian trespassers, who were Athenian allies. The victory granted them the credentials to boost their profile as leaders of Greece, despite Philip’s larger role in finishing the war (Chapters 2.6, 2.7).Footnote ⁷⁵ The victory was celebrated in a lavish way at Delphi by dedicating a large statue of Herakles in a unique location along the Sacred Way that was destined to attract attention.Footnote ⁷⁶ The accompanying inscription unrepentantly described the occasion for its dedication: ‘The Boiotians dedicated this after the war which they fought against those who had defiled the sanctuary of Apollo Pythios.’Footnote ⁷⁷ The main perpetrators in this war were the Phocians, who were supported by the Athenians. The Boiotians probably inferred the Athenians through association with the defilers of the Apollo sanctuary, without explicitly mentioning them. The Athenians wished to override this narrative at the Apollo sanctuary by dedicating the golden shields. They were tarnished only through association but made no qualms about associating the Thebans with the enemy par excellence, the Persians, at a time when they celebrated their victory over other Greeks obtained with the help of another ‘barbarian’.

The Athenians demonstrated awareness of the right space and time for the dedication. By affronting the Boiotians at the Apollo temple in Delphi, the Athenians not only aimed to contradict their neighbours at a Panhellenic shrine, but at the same time reminded the Greek audience of their ‘dubious’ credentials at a place where various poleis strived for attention in the dedicatory landscape. Delphi was where the Boiotians articulated their dominant position in the Greek world through the erection of their treasury and other dedications to commemorate the victory at Leuktra (371).Footnote ⁷⁸ Perhaps the shields were dedicated shortly after the Third Sacred War, and the Athenians aimed to strike at the Boiotians’ ideological message of competent leadership. Alternatively, the shields could have been dedicated shortly before the indictment in spring 339 to form part of an Athenian attempt to advertise their credentials to lead a grand alliance against a new barbarian invasion, while at the same time downplaying the Boiotians’ standing among the Greeks. In both cases, the Athenians fully utilised the tainted past of the Boiotians to their advantage by reflecting upon their collaborations with a foreign invader on the grand stage of Greek interaction, Delphi, which had been the locus for advertising the localised and epichoric view of the Persian Wars.

The commemoration of the Persian Wars could be moulded (within limits) according to political expediency. This is demonstrated by the changes in emphasis in Athenian dedicatory practices vis-à-vis the Boiotians and their role during the Persian Wars. The return of a new barbarian threat in the form of Philip, a Boiotian ally, provided a perfect opportunity for the Athenians to boost their credentials as the leaders of Greece, just when the Boiotians were busy carving out their own legacy as the prostates of Greek eleutheria. The desire to wage this propagandistic war at Delphi had as much to do with the increased importance of the right Panhellenist credentials as it had with contemporary events, considering the long, bloody war that had been fought over the Apollo sanctuary.

5.1.4 Summary of Panhellenic Sanctuaries

The examples above demonstrate some key tenets of neighbourly commemorative practices at Panhellenic shrines. These threads can be summarised as follows. First, monuments dedicated to victories over the neighbours appear uncommon. Whenever the defeat of Boiotians or Athenians is recollected in a Panhellenic sanctuary, it concerns a collective effort, with the dedication afterwards made by the allied poleis. We observe this tendency in the Zeus statue at Olympia, the Serpent Column and the Aegospotami monument at Delphi. Another noticeable feature is the omission of the vanquished foe: it is through the pictorial aspects of the dedications that the other’s hegemonic claims are contested. The Aegospotami monument contests the Athenian Panhellenic credentials for leadership of the Greeks by literally overshadowing it, but it is only in the later fourth century an inscription accompanies it to emphasise the defeat of the Athenians in writing. Second, all dedications are somehow connected to the Persian Wars and the Panhellenic prestige derived from them. Participation on the ‘right’ side during this seminal conflict allowed the Athenians and Spartans to promulgate their leadership ambitions. It is these aspirations for leadership that are directly contested by the dedications after the Peloponnesian War or the Battle of Leuktra. Any monuments related to the Atheno-Boiotian relations at Panhellenic sanctuaries thus aimed to interact with the earlier dedicatory landscape and to promote a story that inaugurated a new dawn in Greece.

There is nevertheless an obvious lack of monuments detailing direct neighbourly relations. That discrepancy is all the more striking considering the willingness of both parties to dedicate at Panhellenic sanctuaries after defeating the Spartans. The Athenian stoa at Delphi, if John Walsh’s date for the monument (after 458) is correct, would be an impressive reminder of their victory over the Spartans (and their allies).Footnote ⁷⁹ Similarly, the koinon erected a treasury in the south-western corner of the sanctuary in Delphi to commemorate their victory over the Spartans at Leuktra for posterity.Footnote ⁸⁰ These expressions of dominance could have been the result of a desire to topple the previous hegemon and their presence in Delphi by forging a lasting memory in the sanctuary. In that case, the dearth of evidence for Atheno-Boiotian relations at Panhellenic sanctuaries can be the consequence of coincidence. Yet the evidence from local and civic spaces suggests otherwise: there we find the declarations of neighbourly rivalry in its clearest form and at its highest frequency.

5.2.1 A Friend among Peers: Alcmeonides and Hipparchos at the Ptoion

The earliest attestation of interregional interactions in the memorial landscape comes from the temple of Apollo Ptoios in Akraiphnia. The sanctuary was frequented by visitors from all over Greece. Many left impressive kouroi to commemorate their visit and to display piety towards the deity.Footnote ⁸⁷ The sanctuary was also known for a wealth of tripods (bases). The excavations of the sanctuary illuminated that the entry hall towards the innermost part of the shrine was flanked by numerous statues and tripods meant to impress visitors.Footnote ⁸⁸ Among these offerings two dedications are of particular interest for the current investigation. They demonstrate how Boiotian sanctuaries could be deployed for expressing neighbourly relations. In these cases the impetus came from befriended aristocrats, rather than poleis, but these dedications demonstrate how friendly interactions could be on show in the second half of the sixth century before hostilities commenced (Chapters 2.1, 3.1.1).

The first example is a dedication by a member of the Alcmeonid clan, Alcmeonides, dated to the mid-sixth century (see Figure 5.4):Footnote ⁸⁹

I am a fair gift for Phoibos son of Leto:

Alcmeonides, the son of Alcmeon,

Dedicated me after the victory of his swift mares

Which Knopiadas, the --, drove

When there was a festive gathering for Pallas

at Athens (ℎότ’ ν Ἀθάναις Παλ(λ)άδος πανέ̣[γυρις]).

(trans. A. Schachter)

Figure 5.4

Dedication of Alcmeonides at the Ptoion (IG I³ 1469).

(Courtesy Ministry of Culture and Sports. Archaeological Resources Fund. Archaeological Museum of Thebes; photo by author)

The text was inscribed on the capital of a column on which stood an unidentified object. The occasion was a victory in the Panathenaic games. Because of the family ties of the dedicant, scholars related this dedication to disputes in Athens. The Alcmeonids either hoped to garner political support in Boiotia against the Peisistratids or used it for propagandistic purposes to gain prominence, but Albert Schachter has convincingly showed this was not the case.Footnote ⁹⁰

The decision to dedicate at the Ptoion was motivated by the destruction of the Apollo temple in Delphi, with much of the inter-regional traffic directed towards other Apollo sanctuaries such as the one at Akraiphnia. The Ptoion in particular benefitted from that misfortune. This Boiotian sanctuary reached its apogee in Panhellenic attraction, receiving a large share of the redirected traffic from Delphi. Because of the symbolic capital of the Alcmeonid clan in Central Greece, particularly at Delphi, their desire to propagate their victories at another famous Apollo sanctuary is less surprising.Footnote ⁹¹

The Ptoion was a place where visitors from all over Greece performed cultic celebrations together. Alcmeonides was no exception. His dedication was meant to demonstrate his prowess in horse-racing to his peers and advertise his fame beyond the borders of Athens. It was here, among his fellows, that Alcmeonides’ glory shone brightest. The choice for Boiotia was a logical one. Cultivating good neighbourly relations was common among aristocrats.Footnote ⁹² For the Alcmeonids, the situation was no different. The right relations could prove fruitful in the future, and perhaps the early contours of their interaction with Boiotian peers in the Skourta Plain can be detected here (Chapters 3.2.1, 4.1.1). The name of the charioteer, Knopiadas, may be of interest. His origins were not necessarily Boiotian, as Schachter points out, but if the name does reflect such a provenance, his inclusion on the monument demonstrates the aristocratic friendship ties between the Alcmeonids and Boiotian families.Footnote ⁹³ The choice for the Apollo shrine was not just dictated by matters of convenience; the friendly relations the Alcmeonids enjoyed in the region helped to increase efforts to dedicate at the Ptoion. Alcmeonides chose a local sanctuary with Panhellenic appeal to cultivate these ties in obeyance to the norms of aristocratic competition.

Whereas Alcmeonides chose to dedicate at the Ptoion partially out of necessity, the same cannot be said about the second example: a statue base dedicated by Hipparchos, one of Peisistratus’ sons. Based on its lettering, the dedication is dated to circa 520–514, with the terminus ante quem provided by Hipparchos’ death.Footnote ⁹⁴ In comparison to Alcmeonides’ offering, Hipparchos’ dedication was lapidary: ‘set up by Hipparchos son of Peisistratus’.

Most scholars ascribe a political motivation to Hipparchos’ dedication.Footnote ⁹⁵ In their view, the dedication reflects friendly co-existence between the Peisistratids and Thebans. Therefore, Hipparchos must have made the offering before 519, when friendly relations were severed because of the Plataian-Athenian alliance. Though I also view the dedication as politically motivated, I disagree on the date (Chapter 3.1.1). If the earlier inception date of hostilities can be ignored, we can follow Jean Ducat’s assessment to date the dedication to the end of Hipparchos’ life, based on his comparison of the letter forms on offerings at the Ptoion.Footnote ⁹⁶

If we take the venue into consideration, the contours of political motivations become clearer. At this time, the Ptoion had passed its zenith in Panhellenic popularity. Aristocratic agonistic values therefore do not sufficiently explain Hipparchos’ choice. His dedication, relatively subdued in size in comparison to all the life-sized kouroi and other elaborate gifts to the god, made for a less imposing statement if he meant to exhibit his wealth to a larger audience. Instead, the Ptoion was chosen because of its long-standing ties to the Peisistratid family – insofar as we can push the evidence of roof tiles at an earlier phase of the sanctuary and the role of itinerant craftsmen – and the interest of the Peisistratids to promote Apollo cults competing with the Delphic sanctuary.Footnote ⁹⁷ Coinciding with the sustained friendly relations between the Theban leadership and the Peisistratids was the Theban takeover of the Ptoion, transforming the sanctuary into an ideal locus for articulating a continued friendship.Footnote ⁹⁸ By dedicating at the Ptoion, Hipparchos demonstrated not only this relationship, but perhaps – and this is very conjectural – also his approval of the Theban attempts to build a common polity. If the original excavator, Léon Bizard, was correct in believing a statue of the goddess Athena graced the statue base, the message of Athenian approval for Boiotian political ethnogenesis under Theban aegis could have resonated more.Footnote ⁹⁹ It would have worked both ways: Athena Itonia was an important figure in Boiotian ethnogenesis, whereas the goddess could personify the Athenian interests at the same time. Shortly after Hipparchos’ dedication, we find the Thebans promulgating the notion of a common identity at the Ptoion.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ Representatives of other Boiotian communities visiting the shrine would be aware of the continued friendship between the Athenian tyrants and the Thebans and realise the southern neighbours might approve of Theban plans.

What can be plausibly said about the dedications by Alcmeonides and Hipparchos? A minimalist interpretation would hold that Athenian elites sought out Boiotian sanctuaries to forge good relations with their peers in the neighbouring region. The evidence can probably not be stretched much further. Alcmeonides’ dedication was instigated by the destruction of the Delphic temple to Apollo, re-directing much of the aristocratic traffic to the Ptoion. Hipparchos’ dedication reveals the continued friendship between the Peisistratids and the Thebans. It is more in line with other dedications detailing neighbourly relations at local sanctuaries, which were preferred over the Panhellenic sanctuaries in Delphi or elsewhere. In each case, the audience was the Boiotian elites and pilgrims frequenting the sanctuary, demonstrating that Athenian elites were aware of the Ptoion’s allure for reaching the largest regional or local audience. If Catherine Keesling’s hypothesis of the alignment of kouroi in the Ptoion is correct – with the statues being rearranged in the fourth century when the temple was rebuilt, similar to what occurred at the Heraion on Samos and at Didyma – the rehabilitation of archaic statues at the end of the fourth century could have led to a renewed interest in these Athenian dedications.Footnote ¹⁰¹

5.2.2 The Earliest Conflict: The Theban kioniskos and the Athenian quadriga from the Late Sixth Century

The overthrow of the Peisistratids in Athens inaugurated a re-organisation of loyalties and relations in Central Greece. Instead of the warm ties between the leading families in Thebes and Athens, there was a new democratic regime hoping to forge a common identity throughout Attica (Chapters 2.1, 2.2). Conflict came in the wake of the political shake-up. The first attestation of hostilities in the memorial landscape was after the attack in 507/6. It is unique among most examples, since the same event can be analysed from both perspectives. Previously, our sources were Athenocentric: Herodotus’ account and the quadriga dedicated by the Athenians on the Akropolis, financed by the ransom of the Boiotian and Chalkidian prisoners. The discovery of a kioniskos from Thebes changed that (see Figure 5.5).Footnote ¹⁰²

Figure 5.5

Kioniskos from Thebes detailing events of 507/6.

(Courtesy Ministry of Culture and Sports. Archaeological Resources Fund. Archaeological Museum of Thebes; photo by author)

This kioniskos was kept in a cist buried at the end of the fifth century in a suburb of Thebes, Pyri. The stone is broken off and, accordingly, the inscription is incomplete:

Part of the dedication’s inscription has been lost, but the remaining text refers to the capture of lands in the borderlands (Chapter 4.1.1). It is uncertain whether the Athenians were mentioned in the lost fragments of the stone. They may have been, but the origins of the opponents were probably subservient to the main purpose of the dedication, such as the ritual transfer of the territory to a god.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ Perhaps these areas, while contested, were not yet perceived as belonging to Athens, and their capture need not have invoked the neighbours’ name.

The omission can also be the result of putting a brave face on an abysmal defeat. Yet that betrays a distinct Athenian perspective. For the Boiotians the capture of these lands meant a measure of success. The recipient of the offering has been lost, but if it concerned the ritual transfer of territory, we may surmise the intended target was either a god or the Theban demos.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ The possibility of a ritual transfer of these lands is supported by the shape of the dedication. Only the base survives, but the shape of the column resembles other Boiotian dedications reflecting similar practices, where a kioniskos formed the base for a statuette or tripod. The prolific usage of tripods in the Boiotian landscape for the articulation of territorial gains suggests the latter is more likely.Footnote ¹⁰⁶

What more can be garnered from the kioniskos? The Boiotians or the Thebans were the likely dedicants. The ransomed prisoners demonstrating their gratitude towards their liberators is another possibility, but that makes the mention of captured territories rather irrelevant. The outcome of the quadripartite invasion warranted no grand celebrations, which is reflected in the minimal dimensions of the dedication.Footnote ¹⁰⁷ The term kioniskos deceives the reader, however, as only part of the monumental base has survived. The actual dedication would have been substantially bigger. Unfortunately, the archaeological context provides no further clues. If the find spot was indeed near the location of the dedication, the kioniskos was probably erected at an athletic/military complex outside Thebes on the road to Akraiphnia, making the likelihood of foreign visitors viewing the dedication limited, thus emphasising its local focus.

This monument put a positive spin on the failed campaign by stressing the help in releasing the prisoners and the lands captured.Footnote ¹⁰⁸ If it was displayed at a complex just outside Thebes, the intended audience was the inhabitants of the city and other Boiotians. This audience could have reinforced the need to emphasise the early successes of the campaign and the care taken for the prisoners. If the monument was of a more private character by the ransomed men, their message contested an Athenian narrative that viewed the campaign as a failure, by stressing early successes and demonstrating the god’s good fortunes that allowed for their release.

The dedicants seem to stress the centrality of the border towns and their capture while downplaying the identity of the opponents. The places captured – except Eleusis – were in the τά μεθόρία whose loyalties had not been (forcibly) confirmed by the Athenians or the Boiotians. While the Athenians as an ethnic group existed at this time, we can conjecture that for the dedicants, ‘the Athenians’ as such were not the unified enemy of the fifth or fourth centuries. Nor did they occupy these borderlands. The common Athenian identity probably arose around this time or in the aftermath of the battle. The towns of Oinoe and Phyle existed before they officially became Athenian and were probably identified by their topographical name by the Boiotians. From their perspective, the kioniskos records the capture of these towns, as if it concerned a neighbourly victory, similar to dedications at Olympia that reflect the internecine rivalries in the region in decades prior.Footnote ¹⁰⁹ Arguably, they viewed the new democratic regime in a similar mould to previous leadership as representing the interests of that group rather than an entire peninsula.Footnote ¹¹⁰ The wars of the late sixth century were framed as a conventional conflict, a dispute over borderlands that this time ended in defeat, but did not shape views on the Athenians for the foreseeable future. Nor did it mark the start of a perpetual neighbourly struggle. Reflecting that chronic insignificance are the modest dimensions of the dedication, its inconspicuous location and its resting place, exemplified by the burial of the kioniskos. No exact date for its destruction is known, which prevents further speculation.

Whereas the kioniskos emphasises restraint through its minimal size and standardised formulaic inscription, the Athenian dedication, paid from a tithe of the ransom for the Boiotian and Chalkidian prisoners, outshone its counterpart in all facets.Footnote ¹¹¹ It consisted of a life-sized bronze statue of a quadriga, perhaps with driver, on top of a three-metre base to support the monument.Footnote ¹¹² In addition, the base was adorned with a epigram commemorating the exploits of the Athenians:

The size and magnificence of the quadriga are a profuse testament to the Athenians’ confidence. The chains on the Mycenaean walls behind the dedication amplified the message. At the time, the dedication would have stood out because of its location north of the later Propylaia and at the entrance of the Akropolis proper, where the sanctuaries were located.Footnote ¹¹⁴ Any visitor to the holy rock would be confronted with a life-sized monument commemorating the Athenians’ heroic exploits. The magnitude of the victory was strengthened by the traces of epic poetry in the epigram accompanying the dedication.Footnote ¹¹⁵

With this dedication, the young democracy nestled the events of 507/6 into the Athenian collective memory. In the decades after, this space would be further transformed into a testimony of perseverance against foreign invasion.Footnote ¹¹⁶ At the same time, the monument formed part of an extensive refurbishment of the Akropolis’ sacred landscape, meant to celebrate the new democracy.Footnote ¹¹⁷ It etched the importance of the democracy and its benefits as opposed to the oligarchs and their foreign supporters into Athenian minds. The quadriga stood out as the first communal dedication on the Akropolis, emphasising the collective over the aristocratic, individual dedications.Footnote ¹¹⁸ The sculptural programme is another indication of democratic appropriation of oligarchic symbolism. Horses and chariots were typically associated with oligarchs, while quadrigas were reserved to commemorate aristocratic athletic victories. The Athenian dedication is the only local instance in which it was used to commemorate a military victory.Footnote ¹¹⁹ The memory of democratic virtues over oligarchy survived throughout the fifth century: Herodotus describes the dedication in terms of democracy’s benefits over oligarchies in warfare.Footnote ¹²⁰

If the dedication served to promulgate the virtues of the democracy, what does it say about the Athenians’ perception of the Boiotians? The Athenians identify them as a group acting in unison: the boast of defeating throngs of them in battle testifies to that.Footnote ¹²¹ The juxtaposition of Boiotians with the inhabitants of a polis (Chalkis) is remarkable, and the invocation of the ethnos is probably to emphasise the number of defeated enemies. Or it specified the foreignness of the defeated foe, differing from the Athenians, but that does not account for the invocation of the Chalkidians. Unlike the Theban dedication, the identity of the vanquished was not subsidiary, even if the monument was enmeshed in the encomium for the democracy. The quadriga and its connotations were not intrinsically democratic, and the victory monument appears to have been a military monument celebrating a victory over foes.Footnote ¹²²

The desire to underline the identity of the vanquished invaders did not express an established enmity, as this constitutes the first documented clash between the neighbours (Chapters 2.1, 3.1.1). The dispute of 507/6 was not the result of a cyclical experience, but the inception of hostilities. The contents of the epigram confirm this reading. The invocation of the Boiotians’ hubris in combination with the verb ἒσβεσαν (quenching) implies a sense of divine justice, validating the Athenian victory as a rightful course of fate.Footnote ¹²³ Hubris in the context of interstate war was perceived as an act of aggression that contravened the codes of war.Footnote ¹²⁴ The invasion was perceived as an unprovoked attack that broke the peaceful status quo. Perhaps the Boiotians had not officially announced their intentions to the Athenians, but they certainly did not withdraw from the war like the Peloponnesians. The location of the dedication, the Athenian Akropolis, ties into this notion. The intended audience was the Athenian citizenry. The quadriga acted as a memento of their resilience in the wake of foreign aggression. The association with Boiotian hostilities seems to be confirmed by the quadriga’s long absence from the Akropolis after its destruction during the Persian Wars.Footnote ¹²⁵

The events of 507/6 were perceived differently in both regions, as reflected in their dedications. The kioniskos in Thebes exudes understatement, fitting of a local border conflict without profound ramifications for the community and their identity. The quadriga in Athens glorified their victory over the neighbours and was part of the democracy’s proficiency over tyranny and oligarchy. The extravagance of the grandiose Athenian monument was more related to celebrating the benefits of the newly established democracy than to an inveterate dislike of the defeated foes. These were the useful pawns in an internal Athenian game of memorialising the virtues of the democracy and how it overcame the odds. That message would have shone even brighter if Nathan Arrington is right in arguing that the public burial of fallen Athenians had begun at this time, making the defenders of the democracy the first heroes to be so honoured as examples of courage for later generations to emulate.Footnote ¹²⁶

What unites both monuments is the importance attached to local civic or religious spaces for demonstrating the protagonists’ version of the story. In both cases, the preference for a local sanctuary indicates that the intended audiences were not the Greek world at large, but the inhabitants of Thebes and Athens, respectively. If the concern had been to promulgate a military victory over a neighbour as a statement of antagonistic prowess, the Athenians would have dedicated at a Panhellenic shrine, for instance, the Zeus sanctuary at Olympia, where the Thebans and other Boiotian communities had previously commemorated their military victories over neighbouring rivals.Footnote ¹²⁷ This is what the Athenians did after defeating the Persians at Marathon in 490 and after capturing Lemnos in 498; on both occasions, Olympia and local Athenian shrines were embellished by commemorations of the victory.Footnote ¹²⁸

5.2.3 An Inescapable Shadow? The Neighbourly Recollection of the Persian Wars in Athens and Thebes

The Persian Wars were a seminal event and their commemoration a localised affair. Shared dedications at Panhellenic sanctuaries do not alter that image. A salient feature of these dedications was the lack of naming the medizers. Their omission probably sufficed to evoke a memory of their collaboration. Explicit mentions of medizing behaviour were reproduced when the situation allowed it, but in the early period after the war the emphasis more often lay with defeating the quintessential other, rather than the role of other Greeks.

The memory of Boiotian medism was possibly kept alive in a stronger fashion in Plataia. The memory of the Greeks’ sacrifice was sustained by the inception of a small-scale Zeus Eleutheria festival, if it was established at this early stage.Footnote ¹²⁹ Other markers of the war remained intact in the Plataian landscape. Graves for the fallen around the town served as permanent testimonies.Footnote ¹³⁰ The theme of fraternal fighting formed the main thread of the Plataians’ conception of the Persian Wars, in both their speeches during the trial of 427 and the decorative scheme of the Athena Areia temple built in the 460s.Footnote ¹³¹ But these references reflect the Plataian view on the wars and not the Athenian attitudes of the first half of the fifth century.

In Athens medizers were overlooked until later in the fifth century. This omission is remarkable, considering the plethora of monuments related to the Persian Wars.Footnote ¹³² Yet altruistic amnesia is not to blame. The Athenians made the battle of Marathon in 490 the primary focus of their monumental recollections of the struggle against the Persians.Footnote ¹³³ This battle had the advantage that the fruits of victory did not need to be shared with competitors, such as the Spartans. The lack of competitors allowed the Athenians to augment their credentials for leading the Greek alliance against the Persians without having to stigmatise medizing Greeks. Ionians and islanders may have fought in this battle on the Persian side, but they were not mainland Greeks, nor had they made ‘a voluntary decision’ to join the Persians. This convenient forgetfulness permitted medizers to be integrated into the Athenian nexus of influence without having to sacrifice any prestige by hammering on about the Battles of Plataia or Salamis. That does not mean there was never room for employing the accusation of medism when necessary, but this was done only when it was politically expedient. That appears to not have been the case for the Athenians in the years following the Persian invasion of 480/79.

Nevertheless, one could postulate the Thebans and other Boiotians were an easy scapegoat for accusations of medism, due to the rivalrous relationship. That seems to be contradicted by the overall demeanour of the Athenian sources of the time. Aeschylus’ play Eleusinians narrates the burial of the Seven against Thebes. Although the play is lost, its outline can be reconstructed through Plutarch’s remarks. He juxtaposes Aeschylus’ version of the myth with Euripides’ more hostile version in Suppliants.Footnote ¹³⁴ Plutarch mentions this peaceful agreement is a Theban version of the myth. The Eleusinians formed the Argive view of the event, whereas the Septem is a Theban one.Footnote ¹³⁵ According to Plutarch, the main difference is Theseus’ recovery of the bodies of the fallen. Aeschylus opted for a diplomatic solution. His version has been interpreted as promoting an Athenian-Theban rapprochement because it puts the Thebans in a more favourable light, compared with other bellicose versions of the myth.Footnote ¹³⁶ Some 140 years later, Isocrates would do the same in his Panathenaicus, contradicting the claims he made in his Panegyricus forty years prior.Footnote ¹³⁷ Despite these similarities, Bernd Steinbock rejects this possibility because ‘in light of the political circumstances, it was not his [Aeschylus’] intention to spare Thebes’ honour or to promote an Athenian-Theban rapprochement’.Footnote ¹³⁸ But that hinges on viewing the 470s as a period of neighbourly hostility, which is a tenuous assertion (Chapter 2.3). Thebes could arguably be singled out for abuse, but the lack of any accusations in Athenian discourse diminishes that likelihood. There was no need to attack the Thebans just after the war, even in the local discourse, since this had repercussions for the stability of the Delian League (Chapters 2.3, 3.2.1). These considerations would have stymied accusations of medism.

This finds some confirmation in Aeschyus’ Persai from 472. Steeped in Panhellenic themes like freedom and Persian hubris, the play mentions no medizers, despite referring to the Battle of Salamis where so many Ionians participated on the Persian side.Footnote ¹³⁹ The play is set in Persia, making it easier to disentangle the fuzzy lines of loyalty in the Persian Wars and omitting any medizing action. The struggle between Greeks and Persians is nevertheless an emblematic piece of the play. In Persian eyes, as perceived through Aeschylus, the Greeks were more of a homogenous group, contrasting with their own epichoric outlook. It is framed as a battle between the Greeks and the Persian Empire, without any Greeks mentioned by name. Differentiating between medizers and ‘patriots’ would have been less problematic, since the initial audience was Athenian. The lack of any great alterations to the play for a possible performance in Sicily early on, and the (re)performance in Athens during the latter stages of the fifth century, demonstrates that artistic integrity was respected, but omission of medism was deemed acceptable as well.Footnote ¹⁴⁰

The play was a historical tragedy and thus avoids the need for a strict observation of a mythological standard version. This allowed for plentiful discussion of dubious behaviour in the Persai.Footnote ¹⁴¹ Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes from 467 is a good example. Geoff Bakewell recently argued that the play is not a city lament per se, but rather avoids awakening memories of the destruction of Athens in 480. Instead, the play revolves around Thebes’ narrow escape, in part due to its impressive fortifications, through ‘the wisdom of its commander and valor of its men’.Footnote ¹⁴² The key here is that while Thebes came out of the Persian Wars relatively unscathed, personified by the unsacked city in the play, the piece ultimately views the events through an Athenian lens. Aeschylus follows the Athenian tendency to paint vices and virtues onto the mythological map that was Thebes, but there exists no explicit condemnation of Theban medism throughout the Seven against Thebes.Footnote ¹⁴³ In fact, while Eteocles failed as a king, according to Lowell Edmunds, he succeeded as a military leader.Footnote ¹⁴⁴ Viewed from that perspective, Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes may have offered a more nuanced evaluation of Theban conduct during the Persian Wars. This came at a time of increasing Theban rehabilitation in the Greek world and the transformation in Athenian thinking about the Persian Wars as a legendary conflict, rather than a recent trauma.Footnote ¹⁴⁵

Not until renewed conflict occurred in the later fifth century – best expressed in Herodotus’ irate account – were the Boiotians, and the Thebans in particular, singled out for condemnation (Chapter 2.4). It becomes more pronounced during the Peloponnesian War. Euripides’ Bacchai, from the final years of the Peloponnesian War, dismisses any Theban claims to autochthony. Instead, autochthony becomes an Athenian prerogative, whereas the intervention of the Persian King to support the Spartans and Boiotians at the end of the Peloponnesian War is hinted at by stressing Cadmus’ eastern connection.Footnote ¹⁴⁶ Yet even during heightening tensions there were exceptions. The first memories Athenian commanders recollected when engaging in battle with them was not the Persian Wars, but the conflicts of the 450s, as Hippocrates’ speech on the eve of battle of Delion in 424 shows: ‘Advance to meet them then like citizens of a country in which you all glory as the first in Hellas, and like sons of the fathers who beat them at Oinophyta with Myronides and thus gained possession of Boiotia.’Footnote ¹⁴⁷

Though Hippocrates was interrupted by the approach of the Boiotian army, there is no reason to assume he would have followed with an invocation of Plataia or the Persian Wars.Footnote ¹⁴⁸ Medism is evoked by the Plataians only during their trial in 427, which reflects their epichoric outlook more than it does the Athenian perspective.Footnote ¹⁴⁹ Most of the reluctance to avoid open condemnations of medizers stems from the Athenian desire to focus on Marathon and the glory garnered from it, which allowed the omission of medizers; this behaviour was therefore more the result of conscious choices rather than a deliberate attempt to avoid hurting the northern neighbours’ feelings. Eschewing medism was nevertheless practical and fitted in with the reconciliatory tone the Athenians struck in the first half of the fifth century, when there was a need to reintegrate and rehabilitate various medizers into their midst.

Nor does it seem to have been an unbearable presence in Thebes itself. Young Theban athletes participated in the Panhellenic games in the decade after the war, even winning events on several occasions. Thus we find Pindar with his Panhellenic fame composing epinician poetry for various Theban young athletes, as well as other Boiotians. Pindar had few qualms about praising Theban youths whose families had certainly medized. Perhaps their youthfulness exculpated them, like Dexileos in Athens was exculpated from his forbears’ sins.Footnote ¹⁵⁰ Nor does his provenance prevent him from being rhapsodic about an Athenian victor.Footnote ¹⁵¹ Part of that stems from Pindar’s renown, but if medism was encumbering the entire Theban community, as Herodotus makes it out to be, then the athletes’ swift integration into the Panhellenic community is remarkable. Pindar never lost sight of his local horizon, nor did he feel shame in his origins.Footnote ¹⁵² Samuel Gartland recently argued that Thebes was simply too interwoven into the fabric of ‘Greekness’ for it to be ignored or castigated, as reflected in Pindar’s Panhellenic fame as a Theban.Footnote ¹⁵³

This does not diminish the fact that Theban society had to come to terms with recent events. Staunch medizers had been executed or had fled into exile, but a majority of the ruling classes continued to participate in civic life, for instance, Asopodorus, leader of the Theban cavalry at the Battle of Plataia, whose son Herodotus was praised by Pindar in Isthmian 1 (pre-458). Lines 34–8 recount how Asopodorus suffered shipwreck and ended up ashore at Orchomenos, undoubtedly as a result of his choices.Footnote ¹⁵⁴ A discussion about what happened was imperative to commence the healing process. The first contours of that attitude appear in Isthmian 8, for Kleandros of Aigina, composed around 477. It celebrates a victor from a city that had mythological ties to Thebes, yet fought the Persian War on the Hellenic League’s side. In his composition, Pindar lifts the veil a little, uncovering ‘a mingled feeling of sorrow for the role of Thebes in the Persian Wars and of joy at the liberation of Greece’, as Hans Beck puts it.Footnote ¹⁵⁵ The poem relates how ‘from above our heads some god has turned aside that stone of Tantalus, an unbearable weight for Hellas. Now the terror has gone by’.Footnote ¹⁵⁶ Pindar praises the healing powers of freedom that had corrected the crooked way of life.Footnote ¹⁵⁷ As Beck notes, there are various other inferences of pain and toil that air a sense of disappointment with recent Theban politics. Isthmian 8 therefore seems to be a first attempt by the Thebans to assess what happened during the war and what their story of the event was.Footnote ¹⁵⁸

This appears to be reflected in Pindar’s Isthmian 4. The poet sings the praises of Melissos of Thebes, member of a prominent Theban family.Footnote ¹⁵⁹ Their hearth had been robbed of four members in a single day, possibly a reference to the Battle of Plataia where the Thebans fought on the Persian side: ‘Yet in a single day / severe snow-storm of war / deprived the blessed house of four men.’Footnote ¹⁶⁰

Pindar’s evasiveness in referring to the battle could be viewed as a discreet effort to avoid recollecting a dishonourable past. Elsewhere, however, Pindar glosses over a battle in an even vaguer fashion:

If the memory of the battle encumbered the family, we may wonder why Pindar did not pass over the incident in silence. To simply term the poet’s vagueness as a badge of shame over the Battle of Plataia is in my opinion not the solution to understanding the poem.

Nor can we be sure where it was performed. It may have been at a public event, where the victor was honoured by the polis and showered with blessings and gifts.Footnote ¹⁶² One such event was proposed by Eveline Krummen: the Herakleia festival, where it would attract a non-Theban crowd, perhaps explaining why the battle was only vaguely referred to.Footnote ¹⁶³ At the same time, numerous epinician poems were performed at private symposia.Footnote ¹⁶⁴ Chris Carey doubts whether Isthmian 4 was performed at a civic festival and goes further by stating that ‘the absence of mention of civic space in most victory odes strongly suggests that state involvement was intermittent at most and that most celebrations took place at a private house’.Footnote ¹⁶⁵ If that was the case, it was less shameful to explicitly mention Plataia, as Melissos’ family was not the only family involved with the Persians. In my opinion, there was likely no need to mention the battle in question: the death of four family members in one battle hardly requires specification, since the options would be limited. If it was Plataia, there was no need to conjure up the loss of family members who fell in a battle leading to the siege of the city. That siege was probably what burdened the Theban families the most.Footnote ¹⁶⁶ The death of four members suggests they formed part of the Theban hoplite class, not the cavalry, as they escaped from the battle relatively unscathed.Footnote ¹⁶⁷ The loss of these men, more than anything, played a role in Pindar’s odes, but only subtly hints at participating ‘on the wrong side of the divide’, rather than open admittance or exculpation for the community’s sins.

In other poems Pindar obliquely aims to rehabilitate the reputation of Thebes by reminding his audiences of its indelible place in Greek history. This was shown by André Hurst, who compared the references to Thebes in the Pindaric oeuvre before and after the Persian Wars.Footnote ¹⁶⁸ One example is Pindar’s Olympian 10, where he writes about Augias’ defeat by Herakles: ‘A fight with a stronger man is impossible to push away,’ suggesting collaboration was unavoidable as the Persian military might was too potent to resist.Footnote ¹⁶⁹ Pindar’s works suggest the varied experiences of the Thebans in the war: from possibly confronting the Persians to ending with subjugation and collaboration through force.

This ambivalent attitude is reflected in the memorial landscape of Thebes.Footnote ¹⁷⁰ Nikolaos Papazarkadas published a funerary stele from Thebes that possibly illuminates the town’s relationship with its Persian War past. The original stele (Text A) was inscribed in the first half of the fifth century – though a late sixth-century date cannot be excluded – and was re-inscribed in the Ionian script during the 360s (Text B).Footnote ¹⁷¹ The text runs as follows:

Unfortunately, the surface of the stone is heavily worn, making it hard to reconstruct anything more than already (impressively) done by Papazarkadas. The epigram is in honour of two fallen friends or brothers and beautifully details how they fell in defence of the fatherland (‘…[θ]αμένεν…πατρίδος πέρι Θέβας’), quite possibly during the defence of the city against the Hellenic League, or earlier on the fields of Plataia, while another contemporary possibility would be Thermopylai.Footnote ¹⁷³ The inscription on the stone does not allow for more precision, but Papazarkadas carefully suggested the epigram was part of a public ritual or games in Thebes for the fallen in the war. It was set up in Theban territory and at first may have been invisible to outsiders, or did not aim at a wider audience. At least it refers to the Thebans’ self-image, who may have regarded the shroud of medism less burdensome than assumed by scholars.Footnote ¹⁷⁴ What its effects were on a wider audience thus remains to be seen. In light of the Pindaric works and the wider Panhellenic commemoration, we can at least speculate that the Thebans, and perhaps other Boiotians, were not the target of widespread stigmatisation by the Athenians.

If these men indeed fought against the Hellenic League, either at Plataia or at Thebes, the honours granted by the polis demonstrate that the epichoric view saw these men as protectors of the native land, despite their medism. If it was Thermopylai, the epigram testifies to the local outlook that the Thebans did participate in the defence of Greece and deserved more merit from other Greek poleis, which in light of the Serpent Column would not be unsurprising. But even if the epigram was a private monument, this does not diminish its importance for reconstructing the Thebans’ own view of the wars. Dying in the defence of one’s land was an honourable act, and from the examples mentioned above the Thebans seemed (less) unrepentant in bringing their views of the war across within their own midst. What their story was outside of Thebes is harder to retrace. Nevertheless, each polis had its own story to tell of this period, and Thebes was no exception. Only when faced with Plataian accusations hurled at them during the trial of 427 do the Thebans offer some form of excuse for the actions during the Persian Wars.Footnote ¹⁷⁵ Again, this concerned an internecine affair and was done in front of the Spartan jury, at a time when the credentials in the Persian Wars became increasingly important.Footnote ¹⁷⁶

Shortly after the Persian Wars, there appears to have been little overt mutual hostility within the memorial landscape in both Athens or Thebes. Even in local civic and sacred spaces, the need to castigate each other appears limited. That aligns with the overall outlook of both polities at this time: the Athenians were hoping to integrate a large group of medizers into their empire; the Thebans survived the war and prospered relatively quickly afterwards with hopes of regaining its local and regional prominence accordingly. The one exception was Plataia, where hostile emotions continued to rage on, as vividly expressed in the construction of the Athena Areia temple that depicted the Persian Wars as an internecine conflict, spurred on by their continued rivalry with their Theban neighbours.Footnote ¹⁷⁷

5.2.4 A Familiar Foe? Oinophyta and Its Recollection

The re-dedication of the late sixth-century quadriga after the Athenian victory at Oinophyta (458) is illustrative in three ways: first, the reuse of a familiar monument to re-evaluate a previous engagement and reignite a rivalry; second, because it vindicates the lack of Athenian concern for medizers in the context of the 450s; and third, it reveals the importance of the ‘local’ over the Panhellenic in recollecting neighbourly interactions.Footnote ¹⁷⁸

The monument perished in the flames on the Akropolis in 480, and the charred iron chains on the Mycenaean wall were the only memento to remind the Athenians of the statue that once adorned the entrance. To mesh the ‘new’ quadriga with the right context, the original epigram was rearranged. This new version was the one seen by Herodotus and Pausanias:Footnote ¹⁷⁹

The rearrangement of the epigram was probably the result of a change in the dedication base and the detachment of the quadriga from the chains. In the original dedication, the first words were about the chains attached to the Akropolis wall. The discontinuity between the chains and the quadriga meant the words required rearranging.Footnote ¹⁸¹ Working in tandem with that suggestion is Keesling’s proposal to view the changes in the epigram as a deliberate action to make the quadriga more identifiable to visitors of the Akropolis.Footnote ¹⁸² It helped readers pick out the key words to identify this important dedication, now that it was no longer connected to the chains. What does this mean for our interpretation of the monument?

If the quadriga was re-dedicated in 458, some Athenians must have made a deliberate connection between that victory and the exploits of the late sixth century, and proposed to visibly recreate that memory by re-erecting the quadriga.Footnote ¹⁸³ Although the rearrangement of the epigram was partially due to the changes in the dedicatory landscape, the emphasis on the Boiotians means the original dedication was associated with the victory of the young democracy in the minds of some Athenians.Footnote ¹⁸⁴

The similarities between the two battles perhaps do not end there. If my reconstruction of events prior to Oinophyta is correct – of a friendly Boiotia before their volte-face prior to the battle – it would add another layer to the commemoration. Just as before, the Athenians came out victorious from a precarious situation, since they had suffered a (disputed) defeat at Tanagra against the Spartans only two months prior (Chapters 2.4, 3.2.3). The Boiotians’ change in alignment rendered the previous ties between the neighbours obsolete, and their insolence in betraying the Athenians at a moment of weakness – after the Battle of Tanagra – was rightfully deserving of divine punishment. The re-dedication of the quadriga was in that sense a divine vindication of the Athenian victory.

But perhaps the similarities between the situations of 507/6 and 458 goes further than a recurrence of dyadic conflict. Anthony Raubitschek identified another similarity: the combination of internal enemies of the democracy colluding with external threats.Footnote ¹⁸⁵ According to Thucydides, the Spartans plotted with Athenian oligarchs to overthrow the democracy.Footnote ¹⁸⁶ The element of the democracy overcoming both internal and external enemies is seconded by Herodotus. In his encomium of the origins of the Athenian democracy, written at the height of Athenian-Boiotian hostility, he frames the quadriga as a testimony to the benefits of democracy, not as an antagonistic monument to Boiotian insolence.Footnote ¹⁸⁷ Interestingly, Herodotus regards the monument he saw as the original dedication. While it could be a matter of semantics, his observation strengthens the case for associating the quadriga with the democracy’s early history rather than a memory of Boiotian hubris, despite the changes in the epigram.

Moreover, the ramifications of this victory went much further this time. Whereas the events of 507/6 preserved the democracy, the Battle of Oinophyta resulted in Athenian control over Boiotia. Hence, the victory was commemorated as a grandiose achievement by future generations and was invoked by the general Hippocrates before the Battle of Delion in 424 as an example to emulate.Footnote ¹⁸⁸ Diodorus reveres the victory as unsurpassed by any other, even those monumental wins at Marathon or Plataia. These concerned battles against barbarians with the help of allies, whereas at Oinophyta the Athenians single-handedly overcame the bravest warriors of Greece.Footnote ¹⁸⁹ Diodorus undoubtedly retrojects attitudes of Boiotian military prowess after Leuktra, but his ascription of importance to this battle within the context of Atheno-Boiotian relations and Athenian military exploits is striking.

Again, the internal and external consequences of the event were celebrated in a local setting. The re-dedication of the quadriga testifies to the potency of such evocative memorials and shows a shift in the commemorative practice. Previously, the victory’s internal aspects were emphasised – democracy over oligarchy – but now the identity of the defeated was emphasised. This rearrangement implies the perception of the Boiotians had changed: they were now seen as a rivalrous neighbour. Yet the emphasis on the Boiotians should not cloud the fact that the quadriga was meant to celebrate an Athenian victory and aimed to strengthen the bonds among the citizenry, recovering from a possible oligarchic coup supported by external enemies. That the quadriga remained on show for centuries is a further testimony to the victory’s place in Athenian lore and its continued relevance.Footnote ¹⁹⁰

In my opinion, this continued focus on the similarities between the battles of 507/6 and 458 demonstrates that the main memory of Boiotian antagonism in Athenian minds in the first half of the fifth century – and perhaps even thereafter – was not the Persian Wars but the original conflict at the dawn of democracy. Only when Panhellenic prestige and glory were at stake – for instance, during the Peloponnesian War or the Theban hegemony – did the memory of the Persian Wars re-emerge.

Conversely, the Battle of Oinophyta was steeped in tragedy for the Boiotians. The short-lived revival of pro-Spartan rule made way for Athenian domination, robbing the poleis of their autonomia (Chapters 2.4, 3.2.3). The battle was framed as a defence of the fatherland, akin to the Persian Wars. In Pindar’s Isthmian 7 for Strepsiades of Thebes, Strepsiades’ uncle and namesake is referred to. This uncle presumably perished at Oinophyta, as one who ‘defends his dear country from the hailstorm of blood’ for which he received the utmost respect and glory from his fellow citizens.Footnote ¹⁹¹

A Thespian epitaph conveys a similar message.Footnote ¹⁹² Dated to the mid-fourth century, the epitaph is inscribed with the names of members of a single family who fell in battles fought in Boiotia in the course of half a century. These battles read as a summary of pivotal battles in the region’s history: Oinophyta (ἐν Οἰνοφύτοις) (l. 2); Delion, identified as Oropos (ἐν Ὠρωποῖ) (ll. 3–4); and Koroneia (Κορωνείη) (l. 5). It is tempting to view this epitaph as emphasising the family’s contributions to the koinon when it reached the zenith of its power, perhaps relating how the family staunchly supported pro-unionist policies. A more minimalist interpretation views it as a testimony to the struggle of the Boiotian people to keep invaders from their doors, since every battle concerned an invasion of their soil by an attacker intent on conquering them.

This recollection may have occurred on a public level as well, if the Thespians erected a public memorial in honour of the fallen at Oinophyta. A white limestone column of c. ninety centimetres high, with a flat surface cut and polished in the centre of the column, was found. On this flat surface are inscribed the names of sixteen men. Atop this list it is clarified that these Thespian men died in battle, suggesting the column formed part of a polyandreion.Footnote ¹⁹³ Based on the letters, the monument should be dated to the fifth century. Considering the magnificent polyandreion consecrated by the Thespians after Delion, that battle can reasonably be excluded (Chapter 5.2.6). This leaves us with Plataia (479), Koroneia (446) and Oinophyta. If the monument is dated to 458, it is the first attestation of a Thespian public memorial for the war dead. Although future finds may alter the picture, that possible inception date underlines the importance of the Battle of Oinophyta for Boiotian history. These men were then immortalised as heroes for the polis, who gave their life to defend Boiotia’s soil against the Athenian attackers.Footnote ¹⁹⁴ These memorials equally impacted the Boiotian perception of the Athenians. Locals and patriots alike could point to the sacrifices made by these men, a reference point for their heroic struggle to preserve their freedom against the neighbours.

The Athenians chose to harken back to the past by re-dedicating the quadriga that was permeated with democratic ideology and commemorated the first victory of the democracy over the Boiotians. For the Boiotians, the loss at Oinophyta was the start of a tradition of commemorating the dyadic relationship with their neighbour in a more antagonistic way, laying the foundations for the commemoration of their struggle for freedom against abrasive neighbours, eloquently alluded to by Pagondas in his speech before the Battle of Delion in 424 (Chapter 5.2.6). The construction of a polyandreion in Thespiai testifies to the intention to commemorate that fatal loss against the Athenians. In both cases, the local was the locus for commemorating these events. It demonstrates the Persian Wars were not a deterministic memory for recollecting the neighbourly relationship at this time. Rather, the Athenians’ and Boiotian’s local rivalry set the tone, which was reflected in the desire to dedicate in local civic and sacred spaces.Footnote ¹⁹⁵

5.2.5 A New Dawn for Boiotia: The Battle of Koroneia

Oinophyta inaugurated a singular period of neighbourly history, but the sun quickly set upon it. Twelve years after Oinophyta, a group of exiles from Boiotia, Euboia and Locris endeavoured to overthrow Athenian rule and succeeded in that plot by ambushing an Athenian army near Koroneia in 446 (Chapter 2.4).Footnote ¹⁹⁶ Fortune smiled on Boiotia, now free of foreign occupation. The return of the koinon inaugurated a new dawn for the region, carrying with it the memory of subjugation. It was certainly celebrated as such.

Near the battle site of Koroneia stood the famous temple of Athena Itonia, a focal point for the articulation of the Boiotian ethnos through its foundational aition closely linked to the arrival of the Boiotoi from Thessaly (see Figure 5.6).Footnote ¹⁹⁷ According to Plutarch, who describes the later battle of Koroneia of 395, the victorious rebels in 446 dedicated the trophy in front of this sanctuary.Footnote ¹⁹⁸ Trophies were habitually placed at the battle site itself; hence, the battle must have taken place near the temple.Footnote ¹⁹⁹ That the marker apparently stood for fifty years and perhaps even longer for Plutarch to describe it in his Life of Agesilaos suggests the initial trophy was immortalised in a more permanent form after the event. Considering the perishable material of trophies, this was a permanent marker of victory, rather than a tropaion. The conflation of these forms of commemoration in the imperial era explains why Plutarch uses the term, which would be remarkable since the original trophy would have hardly survived for half a century.Footnote ²⁰⁰ Setting it further apart is its unique place in Boiotian history as only one of three monuments marking military battles that were erected on the site of battle. On account of the symbolic significance of both the sanctuary and the victory, and the way the victory was framed afterwards by the Boiotians, the erection of a permanent trophy is plausible.Footnote ²⁰¹ One can surmise that the initial perishable trophy, set up by the victorious insurgents, was made permanent afterwards by the leaders of the koinon to celebrate one of the seminal events in Boiotian history in a display of historical appropriation.

Figure 5.6

View from Koroneia Akropolis towards Petra, likely home to the Athena Itonia sanctuary.

(Photo by P. Grigsby)

Koroneia solidified the koinon’s cohesion after the Athenians exploited its fragility. One example of this attitude comes from the Plataian trial in 427. After the Plataians made a case for themselves by referring to the Theban medism during the Persian Wars, the Thebans retorted by juxtaposing their behaviour with the Plataians’ attikismos, which led to the enslavement of Boiotia and other Greeks. Thanks to the Thebans – a grand exaggeration considering their limited involvement at Koroneia – the Boiotians regained their liberty from the Athenian oppressors.Footnote ²⁰² Three years later (424), before the Battle of Delion, the Theban boiotarch Pagondas invokes a similar sentiment when encouraging his fellows to engage the Athenians in battle. The general reminds them how the victory at Koroneia had granted Boiotia great security from Athenian intermingling after a period of internal discord.Footnote ²⁰³ If prominent Thebans could evoke such memories a generation later, the desire to immortalise the victory in the form of a permanent marker at a religiously important communal site is understandable.

Odes formed another layer of the celebrations. The Daphnephorikon by Pindar speaks of victories celebrated by the famous family of Aioladas, which furnished the boiotarch Pagondas. The victories of swift-footed horses, as Pindar proclaims, commemorates the recent victory over the Athenians, in which the family could have played a role. Similarly, there might be an allusion to the victory over the Athenians in Pythian 8 in honour of Aristomenes of Aegina, dating from 446. The Aeginetans were mythologically entwined with the Thebans, and there is a reference to Porphyrion, king of the Attic deme of Athmonon, who is struck dead by an arrow from Apollo’s bow.Footnote ²⁰⁴ If these are subtle references to the recent Boiotian victory, Pindar certainly struck a local chord to celebrate the new freedom from foreign rule in any way that he could.

To solidify this new-found freedom, ‘the local elites from both sides of Lake Kopais’ came together to establish a novel koinon.Footnote ²⁰⁵ It was imperative to create a new structure that could unite the different factions and poleis within Boiotia to prevent a renewed foreign exploitation of stasis. One successful way to convey social cohesion and bind various communities together was through ritual action. And what better way than to utilise the cult at the site of victory, which was already woven into the mythological fabric of the Boiotians?

We know from later sources that the Itonia was home to a festival called the Pamboiotia. As the name suggests, this festival celebrated the cohesion of Boiotia. A pan-Boiotian appeal is certain from the third century onwards, when the Itonia became a federal sanctuary and the festival is epigraphically attested.Footnote ²⁰⁶ The lack of concrete evidence for an earlier inception makes it difficult to accept a common festival at the site prior to the third century.

There are, however, snippets of information that point in that direction. From the fragments of Pindar’s Daphnephorikon, performed sometime between 445 and 440, a celebration involving a wider Boiotian audience may be inferred. The occasion for the creation of the poem was the Theban Daphnephoria, a festival in which a boy from a prominent family was elected priest of Apollo Ismenios for a year.Footnote ²⁰⁷ In this case it concerned Agasikles, from the prominent family of Aioladas.Footnote ²⁰⁸ The poem runs as follows:

As Emily Mackil notes, the poem post-dates the battle at Koroneia but appears to refer to older practices and provides no information on specific cultic innovations.Footnote ²¹⁰ Other aspects of the poem suggest an integration of these games into the fabric of the koinon. The Theban honourees are respected by their neighbours (ἀμφικτιόνεσσιν) for their hospitality towards them as proxenos (προξενίαισι). In one of his odes, Pindar refers to the good standing of the Theban victor Melissos among his neighbours, which reflects both Agasikles’ and Melissos’ families representing the interests of neighbouring communities in Thebes.Footnote ²¹¹ These terms show the importance of well-maintained relations with the neighbouring elites for one’s standing in Thebes or, in other words, the pan-Boiotian credentials of a person. Leslie Kurke went a step further by claiming these amphiktiones could refer to those people participating in the same cult, rather than geographical neighbours.Footnote ²¹²

If Kurke is right, the cult of Athena Itonia had achieved pan-Boiotian fame, or at least expanded its appeal shortly after the Battle of Koroneia. The cult’s followers constituted a religious network of like-minded Boiotians, responsible for the re-emergence of the koinon. These games were vital for maintaining the ties between those of a ‘pan-Boiotian’ persuasion, as revealed by their proud proclamations of importance after the battle.Footnote ²¹³ Sometime after the battle the goddess received a new bronze cult statue, made by the sculptor Agorakritos.Footnote ²¹⁴ Combined with the erection of a permanent trophy, these efforts illustrate the importance of the Itonion as a sanctuary for the koinon.

We might go a step further. The Pamboiotia may have been celebrated in the first half of the fifth century. Prior to the Daphnephorikon, Pindar mentioned ‘the games of the Boiotians’ in his Olympian ode dedicated to Diagoras of Rhodes: ‘The bronze in Argos came to know him, as did the works of art in Arcadia and Thebes, and the duly ordered games of the Boiotians and Pellana; and Aegina knew him victorious six times.’Footnote ²¹⁵

On account of Diagoras’ origin, these Boiotian games had attained widespread fame by the time of the poem’s delivery in 464. Given the later fame of the Pamboiotia, Stephanie Larson identified these Boiotian games as the Pamboiotia.Footnote ²¹⁶ Yet the later festival excluded non-Boiotian participants.Footnote ²¹⁷ On first glance, Larson’s identification seems wrong, but there is one option to solve this conundrum. Perhaps the festival was ‘transformed’ into a closed Boiotian affair after the Battle of Koroneia, explaining the emphasis on the intra-Boiotian connections prominently on display in Pindar’s Daphnephorikon.Footnote ²¹⁸ If this reconstruction is correct, the change served to strengthen the cohesion of the koinon by excluding other groups and offers a fresh insight into the changes of the sacred landscape after Koroneia and the victory’s commemoration. This narrowing of the cult’s audience served to promulgate the koinon’s cohesion through the exclusion of foreigners and the transformation of the Itonia cult site into the place for the celebration of the koinon’s military prowess. For the Boiotians, the battle was a defining moment in their history, as reflected in the changed ritual practices and the erection of an enduring monument at the sanctuary of Athena Itonia. The koinon thereby created a new tradition of united resistance against foreign invasion and inaugurated changes to an existent cult to mirror that unity.Footnote ²¹⁹

The battle also marked a turning point in the Athenian perception of their Boiotian neighbours. It was the first significant loss after a string of military successes against them. The earliest reference to the battle after Thucydides is in Xenophon’s Memorabilia, dating to the 360s.Footnote ²²⁰ In the dialogue, Socrates converses with Pericles and refers to the differences between the Athenians and Boiotians, including the developments in the neighbourly dynamics. Pericles invokes the loss at Lebadeia – by which he means Koroneia – as a defining moment in the neighbourly relationship. Instead of a submissive, weak neighbour, the Athenians were confronted with an assertive koinon, planning to invade Attica rather than retreat into the confines of their own lands.Footnote ²²¹

One salient aspect of this recollection is the way in which the Battle at Koroneia is referred to. Socrates describes the disaster as sustained by ‘Tolmides and the Thousand’.Footnote ²²² This juxtaposition suggests the Battle of Koroneia found its way into lore. The fateful ending of Tolmides and his men was recollected by the Athenians, possibly through the statue of the general on the Akropolis, as well as the polyandreion for the victims.Footnote ²²³ The general’s statue may have been erected in the fourth century. In that period, Athenian interest in the Pentacontaetia and its generals grew.Footnote ²²⁴ Xenophon was writing at a time of heightened neighbourly tensions, and the fact that he calls into memory the Battle of Koroneia seems to confirm the lasting image of defeat it had incurred on the Athenian mind-set.

In sum, the effects of the battle were mostly psychological for the Athenians. The battle was remembered as the first sign of growing Boiotian assertiveness towards them, and perhaps sowed the seeds for their eventual dominance, if Xenophon’s account is anything to go by. The Boiotians, however, revelled in the glory. Although the victory was the accomplishment of a small group of men, it was appropriated by the koinon shortly after. Changes at the Athena Itonia temple, and possibly its cult, helped to cement the new-found liberty of the Boiotians. The erection of a permanent victory marker placed the Battle of Koroneia in select company and was the first of its kind, firmly fixing the battle’s place in Boiotian lore as a reference point, especially in relation to the Athenians.

The koinon focused their efforts on reproducing lasting mementos to the reclamation of liberty vis-à-vis the hated oppressor. It fostered a notion of pride and cohesion, which would find its culmination in a battle fought out during the Peloponnesian War that truly propelled the Boiotians to ‘stardom’. Again the local was preferred to the Panhellenic arena to propagate the victory.Footnote ²²⁵ It was a salient decision, considering the Persian War overtones permeating the ideological battleground of the Peloponnesian War.

5.2.6 A Most Momentous Victory: The Battle of Delion

The Battle of Delion (424) was fought between the Athenians and Boiotians. The latter were victorious and the battle proved a turning point in the first decade of the Peloponnesian War. It provided a boost to the Boiotians’ self-image and a severe blow to the Athenian morale, as reflected in their commemorative practices.

In contrast to the foundational victory of Koroneia (446), the Battle at Delion had a more ‘official’ character. Unlike the guerrilla tactics of a small band of men at Koroneia, Delion involved the entire army of the koinon and was fought against the full weight of the Athenian army. The unified effort signified the cohesion of the koinon by repelling an invasion of a foreign foe that so cleverly exploited the region’s divided loyalties during the 450s. The importance of a unified front against Athenian aggression was certainly not lost on the boiotarch Pagondas, as reflected in his pre-battle speech. He evokes the memory of Koroneia, the battle that granted the Boiotians great security by expelling the Athenians, ‘at a time when our quarrels had allowed them [the Athenians] to occupy the country.’Footnote ²²⁶ He describes the neighbours as foreign (ἀλλόφυλον) invaders of Boiotian soil, creating a semantic link between the Athenians and Persians, thereby portraying the Boiotians as defenders of eleutheria.Footnote ²²⁷ These were recurring themes throughout the Peloponnesian War. Eleutheria, with its echoes of the Persian Wars era, formed one of the rallying cries of the anti-Athenian alliance and was often paired with the demonization of the Athenians as the new Persians, intent on enslaving the Greeks.Footnote ²²⁸

If Diodorus is to be believed, the centrality of this victory to Boiotian identity was reflected in its aftermath. The battle’s booty – a significant cache considering the number of Athenian deaths – was used to embellish Thebes. The most impressive embellishment was the construction of a grand stoa in the Theban agora, afterwards decorated with bronze statues.Footnote ²²⁹ Although the stoa is unattested archaeologically, the decision to construct a large public building at the heart of the city reflects the importance of the victory. The stoa would have dominated the civic landscape, and the attachment of bronze statues amplified its presence. The central place, combined with the lavish dedications and the size of the memorial, ensured that the Thebans would constantly be reminded of the koinon’s victory at Delion over the Athenian neighbours whenever they visited the agora. Other sanctuaries and stoas in the agora were embellished with the bronze from the Athenians’ armour, transforming the entire city centre into a great testimony of the victory over the Athenian neighbours.Footnote ²³⁰ While these endeavours all focused on Thebes and its civic centre, the pièce de résistance was the inauguration of the Delia festival, to be celebrated at the Apollo shrine in Delion.Footnote ²³¹

Diodorus’ aetiological explanation runs into one problem: there is no (epigraphic) attestation of the celebration of the cult before the second century. The earliest evidence is an inscription found in modern Dilesi, detailing the organisation and payment for the festival.Footnote ²³² There are traces of an earlier cult at Delion. A large Doric temple was constructed, dated to the second half of the fifth century.Footnote ²³³ Little can be said about the period between the construction of the temple and the battle in 424. In his account of the battle, Thucydides describes a temple and sacred spring, together with a ruined stoa. He adds the Athenians erected wooden towers in places where no part of the temple buildings was left standing. It is tempting to connect this decrepit state to prolonged disuse, but the earthquakes of 426 may have been the culprit. The lack of repairs within the two years after these earthquakes suggests the sanctuary received little attention, although the threat of invasion – for instance, Nicias’ campaigns in the Oropia – could have been a reason (Chapters 2.4, 4.3).Footnote ²³⁴

This dearth of attention can perhaps be related to the cult’s connection to the Apollo cult from Delos.Footnote ²³⁵ The links between these two cults was long established. If the Doric temple at Delion is dated to 475–450, its construction would correspond with the re-dedication of an Apollo statue from Delos in 470, as described by Herodotus. This formed an intricate connection between the Athenians and Boiotians, possibly involving the latter’s integration into the Delian League (Chapter 3.5).Footnote ²³⁶ Could it be the cult at Delion became increasingly associated with the Delian League, and its popularity wanted after the Battle of Koroneia (446)? We can at least be certain a cult for Apollo existed at Delion prior to 424. So how are we to interpret Diodorus’ reference to the inauguration of a new festival?

There are two options. Either there was a festival for Apollo at Delion, which was changed by the koinon after the battle in 424 to suit political propaganda, or a new festival was inaugurated to celebrate the victory.Footnote ²³⁷ Judging from Diodorus’ language (ἐνεστήσαντο), the latter seems more likely. A new cultic foundation would certainly have augmented the message of victory the koinon wanted to emit. Could we venture further, and ascribe a pan-Boiotian character to the festivities, similar to the situation in the second century?Footnote ²³⁸

Considering the importance of the victory for Boiotian cohesion in the face of Athenian aggression, the idea might not seem too far-fetched. A comparison with the Basileia festival, established after the victory at Leuktra in 371, is useful. This new pan-Boiotian festival ‘fully captured the spirit of victory and unity under the aegis of Thebes’ and quickly grew into a symbol of Boiotian power and prestige.Footnote ²³⁹ Could something similar have occurred after Delion? This victory demonstrated the military might of the koinon against an opponent that had repeatedly beat them and was the strongest power at the time. Defeating the Athenians, the koinon’s greatest (contemporary) enemy, was a grand accomplishment. What better way to celebrate this unity than to establish a festival that involved all the Boiotian poleis?

That message would be amplified by the Delia’s juxtaposition with that other famous Delia festival, celebrated in Delos. The Apollo cult in Delos was the religious epicentre of the Athenian alliance, even after the Delian League’s treasure moved to Athens.Footnote ²⁴⁰ Establishing a new festival at Delion was an especially significant propagandistic tool in light of the Athenians’ recent actions on Delos. In 426 they had invested considerable resources to purify the island.Footnote ²⁴¹ It was a conspicuous move, meant to demonstrate they were in charge of the Delian League, which was set up in the name of eleutheria of the Greeks and the liberation of Greeks under Persian rule in Asia Minor.Footnote ²⁴² The establishment of a rival Delia festival at Delion was therefore a conscious move to broadcast the victory’s impact beyond Boiotia’s borders. It undermined the Athenian claim to hegemony, especially considering the context of the propagandistic war over eleutheria during the Peloponnesian War. What’s interesting is that the koinon employed local venues for the dissemination of that message, rather than a Panhellenic sanctuary.

The reverberations of the battle were also felt in other Boiotian cities. The Tanagraians erected a monument to the fallen, and insofar as evidence allows, it was a singular polyandreion, underlining the impact of the battle on their society.Footnote ²⁴³ Inscribed on the local black stone with the epichoric dialect and script, it consists of four columns with the names of the fallen inscribed without patronymics. No heading remains, making the dating more tenuous, but the ascription to Delion has been generally accepted.Footnote ²⁴⁴ It is possible the deceased were honoured as heroes in the polis, considering there is a small hollow at the head of the inscribed stone, where libations may have been poured in.Footnote ²⁴⁵ Janett Schröder, however, argued that the hole in the stone was meant to insert a statue or to act as the base for one.Footnote ²⁴⁶ This would explain the flat block on which the list is inscribed. If the fallen were part of some form of hero cult, it is a testimony to the continued importance of the battle in the local discourse, especially because the battle occurred in Tanagraian territory.Footnote ²⁴⁷ Alternatively, if a statue adorned the casualty list, this separated it from other monuments or grave markers in the cemetery.

In Thespiai a magnificent polyandreion was constructed. In this case more can be said about the battle’s impact on the city and its citizens. The Thespians lost the largest contingent of all Boiotian poleis. The extent of the losses is reflected in the monument set up for the fallen.Footnote ²⁴⁸ Excavations in the 1880s CE showed the monument consisted of a large wall of steles bearing the names of the deceased.Footnote ²⁴⁹ Behind it was a large burial mound, the polyandreion, and the entire monument was crowned by the statue of a lion, guarding the fallen. The Thespian polyandreion deviated from ‘common practice’ by burying the (cremated) bodies at home, rather than on the battlefield itself. This feature is more familiar from Athens and the practice could stem from there.Footnote ²⁵⁰

Whether it was a deliberate departure from practice is hard to determine. An earlier casualty list was found in Thespiai that suggests a return of the bodies from the battlefield was an established local norm.Footnote ²⁵¹ The men in the Delion polyandreion were buried about a kilometre east of Thespiai, beside the road leading to Thebes. Its placement along a main axis of the region significantly enlarged its exposure to visitors. It differed from the other cemeteries in Thespiai, which were commonly smaller and family-oriented, as findings from the survey suggest.Footnote ²⁵² The polyandreion was thus a grand testimony to the sacrifice of these men for the polis, and for Boiotia as a whole.

Perhaps one could push the monument’s resonance a bit further. The motif of the lion as a guardian statue of the deceased or fallen warriors has been used since the seventh century, and the Thespian polyandreion forms no exception to that practice.Footnote ²⁵³ Judging from the size and monumentality of the burial in comparison to other polyandreia in Thespiai, the Battle of Delion profoundly impacted Thespian society and was remembered as a pivotal point in its history. Combining this monumentality with the propagandistic aspects of the Peloponnesian War – the struggle for eleutheria and the depiction of the Athenians as the new Persians and foreign invaders in Boiotian discourse – could it be possible the lion was a reflection of its illustrious predecessor at Thermopylai?Footnote ²⁵⁴

The lion memorial of Thermopylai was set up by the Delphic Amphictyony for the Peloponnesian warriors who fell there, which was a snub towards the 700 Thespian casualties.Footnote ²⁵⁵ Could this lion for Delion purposely harken back to that great sacrifice and place the Battle of Delion on par with the Battle at Thermopylai?Footnote ²⁵⁶ Other polyandreia in Thespiai were not of the same scale, as can be gleaned from the size of the casualty lists.Footnote ²⁵⁷ Nor were the ornaments of similar monumental grandeur. This difference could be due to chance, with no other sites preserved for posterity. Another argument against this connection is that the men at Thermopylai were buried on site without the large enclosure and the casualty lists.

Yet the sculptural link with Thermopylai is hard to ignore. Another lion statue has been unearthed in Thespiai, but this was much smaller and presumably not related to a polyandreion or a mass grave, serving instead as a marker for an individual grave.Footnote ²⁵⁸ More commonly, these lions were markers for individual graves, but were not dedicated to the memory of entire groups, as is the case here and at Thermopylai. There are no traces of similar monumental polyandreia adorned by a lion statue in Thespiai. Nor are there in Boiotia, save for the infamous Chaironeia lion.Footnote ²⁵⁹ Its construction for the fallen of Delion could therefore have been an intentional demonstration to put the sacrifices by these Thespians on par with the sacrifices of their predecessors at Thermopylai, adding to the grandeur of their achievements: a victory over the new oppressor of the Greeks, the Athenians.

The care and attention with which these casualty lists were inscribed, the sculpting of the lion and the construction of the enclosure suggests some time elapsed before the polyandreion was erected.Footnote ²⁶⁰ It must have occurred sometime after the battle, as the retrieval of the bodies and the funeral ceremony would not have left enough time for the completion of the monument. The careful consideration demonstrates that Thespian leadership wished to elevate the commemoration of the battle to a higher, Panhellenic level. By placing the fallen on a pedestal and through allusion to the rallying cry of the koinon – the Athenians were the new Persians – the Thespians could cater to the message the anti-Athenian alliance wished to convey after the Battle of Delion.Footnote ²⁶¹

Taken together with the festivities at Delion and the embellishments in Thebes, the polyandreion at Thespiai offers an insight into the Boiotian psyche and their perception of the Athenians after the victory of 424. All these festivities and dedications served to promulgate the image of Boiotian unity in the face of foreign aggression. In this case this threat came from the Athenians, branded as the oppressors of the Greeks during the Peloponnesian War. This propaganda rang especially true for the Boiotians. Having endured a decade of Athenian dominion, they viscerally experienced that role. These local recollections of the battle were meant to strengthen regional cohesion, placing the exploits of these men on the same quasi-heroic level as those who fought the Persian Wars, in turn transforming the greatest Boiotian military victory into an achievement equivalent to the defence of Thermopylai. In this case, however, the Boiotians were solely responsible for defeating the common foe and celebrated it as such by ignoring Panhellenic shrines, instead preferring to celebrate these feats locally. The celebrations were thus aimed at boosting local pride, rather than an aspiration towards dominance in Greek politics.

Whereas the Battle of Delion constituted a source of pride and heroic admiration in Boiotia, the Athenians regarded this loss as a national trauma that left deep imprints. In accordance with tradition, the men were buried in a polyandreion. The sheer size of its casualty lists distinguished it from other polyandreia.Footnote ²⁶² That notion of severe loss and admiration for the struggle is conveyed by the epigram inscribed on the casualty lists:

The epigram does not hide the destruction of Athenian lives, but paints a vivid, almost horrifying picture. The unusual length of the epigram would draw viewers to it. They would read of an unforeseen battle, perhaps hinting at the course the campaign of 424 took as the invasion went awry.Footnote ²⁶⁴ The haunting scenes described in the epigram paint a gruesome death for these men. But the battle’s outcome is somewhat softened by the invocation of divine intervention, offering solace to mourners about the fate of the fallen. It casts the opponent as a worthy and redoubtable foe: the demigod. Far from undermining the Boiotians’ achievements, they benefitted from divine assistance, granting a remarkable aura to their victory and the Athenian defeat, portraying it as an epic struggle that was impossible to win.Footnote ²⁶⁵ The oracles mentioned could have been the pre-battle sacrifices and omens, as Pritchett argued, and perhaps an oracle had warned of the disastrous outcome of the battle.Footnote ²⁶⁶ Could the reference to godly strive be a subtle reference to the most egregious aspect of the Battle at Delion, the dispute over the retrieval of the bodies after the fighting had finished?

The unedifying image of rotting bodies on the battlefield, contrary to the ‘conventions of the Greeks’, continued to haunt the Athenian imaginaire in the following decades.Footnote ²⁶⁷ Euripides, in his Suppliants, transformed the more convivial Aeschylean version of the burial in the Eleusinians into a hostile affair that portrayed the Thebans as pernicious violators of Greek norms by denying the fallen heroes a proper burial. Despite the possibility of different versions of the epic circulating, the tenor of contemporary events could have been distinguishable in Euripides’ version.Footnote ²⁶⁸ There is a possible hint of the dubious and cowardly behaviour of prominent Athenian people in Aristophanes’ Clouds, performed a few months after the battle.Footnote ²⁶⁹ The outcome of the battle distinctively altered the perception of the neighbours in the Athenian mind. On stage, the Thebans became devious violators of customs. Politically, the Boiotians were again regarded as equal to the Athenians in battle. They were no longer easy prey for exploitation, but neighbours worthy of consideration, unwilling to bow down to the Athenian will.Footnote ²⁷⁰

For both sides the Battle of Delion (424) was a turning point. For the Boiotians the victory was shaped around notions of internal cohesion and stability in the face of external pressure, with the invaders portrayed in a similar light as the barbarous Persian armies. In Athens the loss left a profound impact on society, not least of all in their perception of the neighbours. Supported by divine favour, the relationship between the neighbours was permanently changed. Far from the riven koinon ‘holm oaks’ of the 450s, the Boiotians were now capable of independently withstanding the full force of the Athenians.

The remainder of the Peloponnesian War witnessed few direct neighbourly conflicts that could be celebrated or mourned. The Aegospotami monument, as explained above, reflected Spartan ambitions to thwart Athenian claims for hegemony. The end of the conflict inaugurated a rapprochement between the neighbours (Chapters 2.5, 3.2.2), proving that dualistic views of the neighbour co-existed and flourished throughout the Classical period, as the next example demonstrates.

5.2.7 Herakles Resurgent? Theban Help for the Athenian Democrats after the Peloponnesian War

After the successful return of Thrasybulus and his followers from Thebes and the re-establishment of the democracy, they dedicated statues of Athena and Herakles at the Theban Herakleion (Chapters 2.5, 3.2.2) (see Figure 5.7).Footnote ²⁷¹ Pausanias recounts seeing the statue himself during his visit to Thebes:

Figure 5.7

Map of modern Thebes with ancient sites marked.

(Source: Google Earth 2022, accessed 28 October 2022. Map created by author)

The adjacent placement of the patron deities Athena and Herakles in the Herakleion embodied the recent Atheno-Theban collaboration. Similar invocations of polis’ deities and their personification atop decrees or treaties reflect friendly relations between polities.Footnote ²⁷³ The dedicants chose a familiar topos with roots in the mythological past. Herakles was accompanied by Athena on numerous occasions during his labours. Combined with the sculptural programme of the Herakleion – the pediments of the sanctuary covered the Herculean deeds – the dedication and shrine together formed a mental stimulus for recollecting the long-standing close (mythological) relationship between the neighbours.Footnote ²⁷⁴ The subtle reference to the mythological exploits of the two deities suggests recent events were not a novelty but rather a natural extension of an enduring friendly co-existence.

In addition to the sculptural programme of the Herakleion, the decision to dedicate at this particular sanctuary was dictated by its location and intended audience. Recent excavations locate the sanctuary just outside of the Elektra gate and on the road to Athens.Footnote ²⁷⁵ The temple formed the religious core of Theban military power, reflected in its possible role as the venue for displaying interstate treaties that embodied Theban political power and military might.Footnote ²⁷⁶ It is therefore tempting to imagine the Theban decree for the protection of the Athenian fugitives being erected here, which would strengthen the statues’ message by visually linking the dedication to the same decrees that had guaranteed the Athenians’ safety and ensured that future Athenian visitors to Thebes would be reminded of the support their ancestors received.Footnote ²⁷⁷

The dedication of these statues thus served a double purpose. First, the visitors to the sanctuary would be reminded of the Athenian gratitude for the Theban support in their hour of need. Second, the statues added to the Theban prestige by acknowledging their role in the restoration of the democracy. They indirectly allude to the standing of the Thebans in the Greek world. The Athenian leadership chose the Herakleion because of its location and the mythological connections between Herakles and Athena, but it equally appealed to Theban military power, embodied in their guarantee to act as a safe haven for the Athenian refugees.

Thrasybulus’ dedication acknowledged Herakles’ centrality in Theban lore. Later sources speak of a discussion in the Theban assembly where the decision to support the refugee democrats was partially inspired by the polis’ self-image, based on the worthy precedents set by the hero’s exploits (Chapter 3.4.1).Footnote ²⁷⁸ The dedicants understood how to express their gratitude by directly linking their statues to the same deity their hosts invoked to guarantee the safety of the refugees. These statues were embedded in the local culture, and the dedication demonstrates Thrasybulus’ appreciation of the local topography and history.

The statues’ size – colossal, in Pausanias’ words – suggests they dominated the sacred landscape of the Herakleion.Footnote ²⁷⁹ The word ‘κολοσσός’ rarely occurs in our extant sources, so the statues must have been sizeable for Pausanias to employ such terms.Footnote ²⁸⁰ The statues of Athena and Herakles stood out, even at a popular sanctuary like the Herakleion where numerous pots, statuettes and other offerings would have cluttered around the altar.Footnote ²⁸¹ The Pentelic marble identified the Athenian provenance to visitors. The statues were arguably meant to overshadow other dedications at the shrine, perhaps reflecting the gratitude and debt the Athenians owed to the Thebans for helping realise the return of the democracy. Their commanding presence in the Herakleion served as a perpetual recollection of Theban-Athenian synergy, a positive reinforcement of their efforts to overthrow a Spartan-backed tyranny.

The permanence of this memory takes on added potency by considering when Pausanias viewed this statue. Thebes was destroyed in 335 after revolting against Alexander. In its wake the city was burnt to the ground, save for Pindar’s house and sanctuaries.Footnote ²⁸² The statues plausibly survived this upheaval, but it demonstrates that the memory of Atheno-Theban collaboration survived even the worst of calamities. The Athenian help in rebuilding the city would have provided an impetus for re-creating the dedication.Footnote ²⁸³ Or, if it did survive, it remained a testimony to the long-standing relationship.

In Thebes, there was thus a literary and a sculptural tradition that kept this memory of collaboration alive. Pausanias must have obtained his information through local historians in whose works the epichoric perspective on the collaboration survived. The Athenians contributed to this survival by dedicating an impressive monument that aimed to stir Theban, Boiotian and Athenian audiences alike when visiting the Herakleion. The embeddedness of the statues in the local culture and historiography ensured its survival until Pausanias’ time.

The memory of this cooperative exploit remained extant in Athenian local spheres as well. Here, the fabric of commemoration focused more on the heroic exploits of the exiled democrats. The victory at Phyle was perceived as a defining moment in Athenian history, on par with the daring exploits of the Marathonomachoi or the heroics for eleutheria at Salamis. In his Against Ctesiphon, Aeschines places these events on the same level as examples to be emulated by the current generation.Footnote ²⁸⁴ Thrasybulus’ return from exile became so ingrained in Athenian social memory that the overthrow of the Thirty could be referred to by colloquial remarks such as ‘returning from Phyle’ or ‘leading the demos back from Phyle’ by orators such as Lysias, Andocides, Aeschines and Demosthenes.Footnote ²⁸⁵ The proverbial phrase also found its way into comedy, with Aristophanes alluding to it in his Ploutos from 388.Footnote ²⁸⁶

Helping to establish and perpetuate these memories for the citizens were physical mementos located in the Athenian civic and sacred spaces, acting as constant reminders of the works undertaken by Thrasybulus and his compatriots. One example comes from Aeschines. He mentions an honorary decree and epigram set up to commemorate the exploits of these heroes.Footnote ²⁸⁷ This fits with the tendency to hold up decrees of bygone eras as a paradigm of the moral standards offered by previous generations and how these should be maintained by the newer generations.Footnote ²⁸⁸ The orator’s account suggests that these two texts were inscribed on the same stone, which appears to be confirmed by the fragments of a decree that enumerates the names of the participants in the capture of Phyle.Footnote ²⁸⁹ The decision to engrave this decision and immortalise it demonstrates the relevance of these helpers for the Athenians.Footnote ²⁹⁰ New studies of the stones showed only a select group of heroes was chosen, who were subsequently honoured with rewards and a statue to commemorate their exploits. The stone with the epigrams served as a base for a possible statue of a personification of democracy or the Athenian demos.Footnote ²⁹¹ Other ways of keeping the memory of Phyle alive were annual festivals, sacrifices and the erection of victory trophies, if Plutarch’s account is valid.Footnote ²⁹² Plutarch describes how the memory of Thrasybulus was on Theban minds in 379 when Theban exiles wished to return to their native city to topple the Spartan junta. Pelopidas implored his fellows to follow Thrasybulus’ example in boldness to liberate Thebes.Footnote ²⁹³

The focus on the Athenian democrats’ exploits did not impinge on the memory of Theban help. One possible stimulus for recollecting the help was a decree in the Athenian Agora. The decree awards citizenship to the xenoi at Phyle in recognition of their sacrifice and support for the democracy. The recipients may have included Thebans and Boiotians.Footnote ²⁹⁴ The decree stipulates that these xenoi were to be distributed among the ten tribes of Athens, where they could act as living reminders of the help provided to the Athenians. Even those supporters who joined the cause after Phyle were rewarded, albeit with honours other than citizenship. The decree helped to anchor the commemoration of Theban and Boiotian help in the minds of the Athenians and was probably a memento that orators could refer to when dealing with the memory of this event. It also helped these recipients that their rights were ensured, as it allowed them to point it out to other citizens or during trials.Footnote ²⁹⁵

The memorials proved their worth in subsequent years, when an unnamed Theban ambassador referred to the memory of the help for the Athenian exiles to procure an alliance with the Athenians at a time when war with the Spartans was inevitable. Despite the trepidations of some of his countrymen, Thrasybulus replied to the ambassador that the Athenians would aid their neighbours – and eclipse their help of 403 – by agreeing to an alliance and defending their country from Spartan aggression (Chapter 3.2.2).Footnote ²⁹⁶ Similarly, the presence of Theban exiles in Athens after the Spartan takeover of the Cadmeia in 382 buttressed the memory of their common exploits against the Spartan aggressor, as evidenced by the comments of an Athenian client of Lysias acting on behalf of his Theban guest-friend. In the trial, he recollects the help he received from his guest-friends and suggests the Athenians should do the same for the Thebans (Chapters 2.5, 3.2.3, 3.3).Footnote ²⁹⁷ The appearance of these references in court suggests the neighbour’s help was not suppressed. In this case it concerned a private relationship between two xenoi, but the award of public benefits tellingly reveals a grander investment of the entire polis in the exiles’ well-being.

The memory was still present in the later fourth century. Dinarchus evoked the Theban help during the Harpalus affair in 323 in his Against Demosthenes.Footnote ²⁹⁸ Recent events, like the alliance against Philip in 338 and Thebes’ destruction in 335, must have rekindled the memory of this previous collaboration (Chapters 2.7, 3.3, 3.4.4). He recounts how Demosthenes’ behaviour warrants no praise as his involvement led to the destruction of Cadmus’ city. Within that context Dinarchus recounts the Theban help in 403 and reminds his audience that the decree to help them had been read aloud on numerous occasions:

This acts as a moral standard from bygone eras that needed to be maintained, in which decrees played a vital role in forming a socially shared memory.Footnote ³⁰⁰ At various stages after the original Theban support, the Athenians recollected their neighbours’ help in overthrowing the Spartan-installed tyranny in 403. That becomes clear from Pausanias’ account of the Athenian demosion sema. He visits the tomb of Thrasybulus, the sight of which inspired Pausanias to anoint him ‘the greatest of all famous Athenians’:

Several aspects stand out about Pausanias’ account. First, the decision to bury Thrasybulus in the demosion sema – the public cemetery – reflects the desire of the Athenians to commemorate the overthrow of the Thirty not as the action of a factional leader but as a victory of democracy over oligarchy.Footnote ³⁰² Second, that Pausanias writes about Thrasybulus so many centuries after shows the indelible mark left by the leader on Athenian social memory. The overthrow of the Thirty was arguably his greatest exploit, so for Pausanias to refer to this achievement is unsurprising. More pertinent to the current investigation is that Thrasybulus’ return is linked to his stay in Thebes. The city acts as the base for his actions, linking the Theban help to a physical place in the landscape, demonstrating that the recollection of their support had not vanished from Athenian memory. Undoubtedly, this was due in large part to the mementos and testimonies that could be found in local Theban and Athenian civic and sacred spaces.

5.2.8 Once a Traitor, always a Traitor: Remembering Medism in the Mid-Fourth Century

Friendly collaborations dominated the memorial and political landscape of the first decades of the fourth century, but the relationship between the Athenians and the Boiotians soured in subsequent decades. The Athenian-Spartan alliance in 369 at the expense of the Thebans (Chapter 3.1.3) allowed an old familiar trope to re-emerge: medism. A spike previously occurred during the Peloponnesian War, triggered by the animosity between the neighbours and the influx of Plataian refugees, which explains the renewed circulation of anti-Theban traditions.Footnote ³⁰³

Most of these vituperations remained in the realm of words, however, with little changes in the commemorative practices.Footnote ³⁰⁴ The invocations of the Persian Wars by the Spartan envoys in 369 appear to have been ineffective with the Athenian audience, perhaps reflecting that Theban medism was less en vogue in Athenian discourse at the time (Chapter 3.1.3).Footnote ³⁰⁵ One could point to Isocrates’ Plataicus of 373, but judging from the relative lack of impact on Athenian decision-making one may wonder how persuasive his references to medism were. That it was written from a Plataian perspective, in which Theban medism played an essential role, mitigates its representative value for Athenian discourse further.

That changed in 369. The rekindling of the ‘Auld alliance’ against a common foe created the ideal breeding ground for a more antagonistic attitude towards the Thebans and Boiotians. Perhaps it even triggered a general obsession with the Persian Wars.Footnote ³⁰⁶ The ghost of medism re-emerged from the Athenian minds and found its way into the memorial landscape of the city and its countryside. This resurrection was not only a result of political shifts, but equally the response to the Boiotians’ claim for hegemonial status, a prerogative previously reserved for the Athenians and Spartans.

This absorption with the Persian Wars had ramifications for the Atheno-Boiotian relations as the Boiotians were increasingly framed as the prototypical traitors.Footnote ³⁰⁷ It was in their nature to betray justice and freedom and they preferred to nestle themselves under the wings of a barbarian protector intent on enslaving Greece. That image was ‘confirmed’ by their collaboration with Philip, a contemporary ‘barbarian’ nemesis of Athens. Demosthenes, in particular, was keen to envision the Macedonians as the new Persians, and it is during the Third Sacred War that we find growing evidence of Athenian dedicatory practices intent on memorialising the Boiotians as medizers.Footnote ³⁰⁸

This attitude is first exhibited in the famous inscription from Acharnai, detailing the ephebic oath and the ‘Oath of Plataia’ (see Figure 5.8).Footnote ³⁰⁹ Tentatively dated to 350–325, it concerns a decree moved by Dio, priest of Ares in Acharnai. The ephebic oath deals with the defence of the countryside against invasion, especially pertinent among growing fears of a pending invasion of Attica. The Oath of Plataia is a supposedly historical oath taken by the Greek forces just before the Battle of Plataia (479). Its historicity is a highly controversial issue.Footnote ³¹⁰ Whether there is a historical kernel of truth in the Oath is of secondary importance here. What matters is the apparent discrepancy between the earlier Athenian reluctance to identify medizers in their memorials commemorating the Persian Wars, and the stele in Acharnai: ‘And when I have been victorious fighting against the barbarians, I shall (totally destroy) and dedicate a tenth of the city of the Thebans, and I shall not raze Athens or Sparta or Plataia or any of the other cities that were allied.’Footnote ³¹¹

Figure 5.8

Fourth-century stele containing the Oath of Plataia and the Ephebic Oath from Acharnai.

(Reproduced with the kind permission of the École française d’Athènes)

The message reflects the contemporary situation. It evokes the Spartans and Plataians, as they could claim to have fought on the ‘good side’, unlike the medizing Thebans, who are singled out for punishment.Footnote ³¹² In the context of renewed tensions and the imminent threat of an invasion of Attica, and all the destruction this would cause, the need to remember the heroic struggles of the Persian Wars and the role played by the Thebans would have become pertinent again. The place of the stele is equally important. As Danielle Kellogg pointed out, the entwinement of these two oaths evokes the memory of the hinterland’s destruction during the Persian Wars, for which the Boiotians and their barbarian allies were responsible.Footnote ³¹³ In this local setting the erection of this stele perpetuated the image of a treacherous Thebes.

Athenians could take it a step further and even ignore any Theban contribution to the defence of Greece. This was in contrast to earlier recollections, when even Herodotus could not deny their help at Thermopylai. The passing of veterans and other contemporary witnesses, combined with the lack of memorials at the battle site commemorating Theban (and Thespian) contributions, further exacerbated the matter.Footnote ³¹⁴ Little remained – in Athens at least – to counter the narrative that increasingly gained traction: that the Boiotians were arch-medizers and had always been treacherous towards Greece and its interests.

Demosthenes, in his Second Philippic (344/3), decries the Boiotians’ past deeds. While his main purpose is to conceptualise the looming conflict with Philip as another Persian War, the orator creates a link to the past by reminding his audience of past Boiotian behaviour:

Demosthenes frames the Thebans as archetypal traitors, unable to look beyond their local horizon and own interests, to the detriment of the Greeks en masse. The accusation resonated more since the Thebans were reinforcing their Panhellenic credentials at the time. I would contend it was not necessarily an indictment of the Thebans as medizers. It is their epichoric perspective, their ‘own (ἰδίᾳ) interests’, that sets them apart from the Athenians, a strong condemnation of the recent claims to Panhellenic prestige. They essentially aimed only at promoting Boiotian interests, rather than serving all of the Greeks.

Another example comes from Apollodorus (c. 340). He goes a step further, mixing up various elements of the Persian Wars by claiming the Plataians were the only Boiotians who fought with Leonidas:

Maybe the influx of Plataians after the town’s destruction by the Thebans helped to foment such an attitude (Chapter 4.1.3). Other, less negative views of the Boiotians continued to exist in Athens. The negative narrative was dominant, but others were not dormant. Memory is a multifocal experience and polis ideology could not trump everything. The contemporary political situation, however, fostered a different version of the Persian Wars to weaken the koinon’s prestige and reinforce the Athenian-Spartan axis.

These efforts to stigmatise the Boiotians did not come about in isolation. In an effort to bolster their Panhellenic appeal, the koinon made various dedications at Delphi, such as the Theban treasury and a statue of Herakles after the Third Sacred War (Chapter 5.1.3).Footnote ³¹⁷ In addition to these offerings the Boiotians revived, expanded and rebuilt older temples in their city.Footnote ³¹⁸ A statue of Epameinondas, accompanied by an epigram seen by Pausanias, elaborated his deeds for the greater good of Hellas.Footnote ³¹⁹ Another statue, ostensibly for Pelopidas and which perhaps stood alongside the statue of Epameinondas, was set up in Thebes with the following words:

These monuments give the impression of a confident Thebes that proclaims its rightful place as leaders of Hellas. That message was strengthened by the adoption of the Ionic script in the 360s, following Nikolaos Papazarkadas, transforming the local, introspect perspective of Boiotia into a beacon of Panhellenic prestige.Footnote ³²¹ It is in light of that later remark and the motivations behind the adaptation of the Ionic script that I would hesitantly ascribe the Theban epigram from the Persian Wars to the Battle of Thermopylai, based on the date of its re-inscription.Footnote ³²²

The phrase ‘fallen for the native land of Thebes’ (θανέμεν … πατρίδος πέρι Θείβα[ς]) could also apply to the defence of Thermopylai. It was after the defeat of the forces at the Hot Gates that the Thebans went over to the Persian side, but the appearance of a troop of Thebans defending the pass was a shimmer of support for the Hellenic League and testifies to the conflicting loyalties in the polis.

Herodotus’ account – despite its flaws concerning the Theban commitment to the defence of the pass – does not contradict this.Footnote ³²⁴ He concedes some Thebans perished before the Persian King accepted their surrender, meaning that these would have been buried by the survivors, who could have recognised the bodies of their fallen brethren.Footnote ³²⁵ The fourth century witnessed the rise of Boiotian epichoric historians writing works that reflected the local perspective on these events.Footnote ³²⁶ The retelling of exploits at Thermopylai could have meshed nicely with the re-inscription of the epigram. Invoking the Theban contributions to the defence of Thermopylai, a battle that became increasingly ingrained into the common Greek imaginaire in the fourth century, served to promote the Theban perspective. At a time of increasing appeals to Panhellenic prestige, it countered the increasingly narrow narrative of the Persian Wars that was propagated by the Athenians and, in the case of Thermopylai, the Spartans.Footnote ³²⁷

We therefore witness an increased concern with the Persian Wars around the mid-fourth century in both the Athenian and Boiotian spheres. For the first time there is a ‘propagandistic battle’ raging in both the local and the Panhellenic spheres, as evidenced by the dedications vying for attention in Delphi (Chapter 5.1.3). This could be related to the Sacred War and the control over the Delphi sanctuary. Yet the purpose in both cases differed. The koinon used Delphi to advertise their credentials for leading the Greeks, but without evoking the Persian Wars. Instead, they preferred to appropriate an earlier epigram and the local sepulchral spaces to locate their Persian War credentials. These efforts were aimed at a local audience, but tied into a broader scheme of Panhellenic credentials. The Athenians employed their vault of Persian War memories to challenge the Boiotians head-on at Delphi through the golden shields from Plataia. This dedication, however, flowed from their increasing emphasis on medizers in the commemoration of the conflict, with a special place reserved for the Thebans. Their recollections of the Persian Wars still focused on the Athenian audience, as can be perceived from the speeches preserved in the orators or the Oath of Plataia found in Acharnai. That the latter was attached to the Ephebic Oath reinforces the epichoric importance of the monument. What we perceive here is a convergence of a Panhellenic theme – Theban medism – but employed at a local level to buttress inimical feelings, adding a layer of hostility atop the political climate in which the neighbours once again opposed each other.

That situation quickly changed, as the tides of fortune swept the Athenians into the hands of the Boiotians in an alliance against the new great threat: Philip of Macedon. The fateful outcome of that clash is the next and final example of the local commemorative practices, which repeats a confluence of Panhellenic and epichoric views. In this situation – the Panhellenic sanctuaries were controlled by the Macedonian king – the choice may have been less voluntary than in earlier times.

5.2.9 The Embers of Freedom: Chaironeia and the Struggle against Macedon

The effects of contemporary history on the neighbourly commemorative practices is best reflected in the lead-up to and aftermath of the battle of Chaironeia (338). Thirty years of hostilities and friction were reinterpreted in a last-minute attempt to form a united front against Philip. Yet flexibility of memory proved futile against Macedonian spears, and the Boiotian-Athenian-led coalition found its demise on the fields of Chaironeia (Chapters 2.7, 3.4.4).

In the lead-up to the formation of the anti-Macedonian pact we can detect positive changes in the Athenian commemorative sphere vis-à-vis the Boiotians. Isocrates is perhaps the best example. In his Panegyricus (380) he employed the antagonistic version of the Seven against Thebes myth, claiming the Thebans refused the burial of their fallen enemies in breach of nomos and were forced to surrender the bodies only after an Athenian attack on their city.Footnote ³²⁸ In his Panathenaicus (339) Isocrates adheres to the version in Aeschylus’ Eleusinians, which offers a diplomatic solution to the conflict. The orator openly admits that people would notice his difference in tone, demonstrating that the perception of the neighbours could be altered to fit the political climate.Footnote ³²⁹

The perception of recent Boiotian behaviour could be altered too. The war against the Macedonians was steeped in the ideological tradition of the Persian Wars. The struggle with the new barbarian was already a topical discourse in Athens, where Demosthenes frequently referred to the king as the new Persian tyrant, and framed the oncoming war in similar tones. His premonition, expounded in the On the Symmories (353), that the Boiotians would happily erase the shame of their medism if the opportunity arose, came true in 339.Footnote ³³⁰ Instead of the archetypical traitors to the cause, the Boiotians now became champions of freedom, standing up for the cherished independence of the Greeks against the barbarous tyrant from the north.

The commemorative traditions following the battle show this transformation. Demosthenes in his speech On the Crown (c. 330) refers to the burials of the fallen at Chaironeia and places them in a long list of feats of Athenian heroism and military valour against foreign oppressions by placing them alongside those who fought at Marathon and Salamis:

Demosthenes here reframes the loss at Chaironeia as a victory and puts the exploits against the Macedonians on par with the legendary endeavours against the Persians. The outcome of the battle is less important. The key message was that these men had sacrificed their lives to protect the freedom of the Greeks against foreign oppression and had obtained the greatest honour by emulating their heroic ancestors.

It is a sentiment echoed in Demosthenes’ Funeral Oration, delivered after the burial of the fallen.Footnote ³³² Here he aimed to grab some form of victory from the clutches of defeat.Footnote ³³³ The orator places the exploits at Chaironeia in a long line of heroic Athenian efforts against foreign invaders, starting with the expulsion of the Amazons from Greece right down to the Persian Wars, reflecting the master narrative of the Funeral Oration.Footnote ³³⁴ Like their predecessors, the Athenians at Chaironeia fought for Greek freedom (eleutheria) and dignity (axioma).Footnote ³³⁵ Demosthenes even claims these men carried with them the ‘freedom of the whole Greek world’.Footnote ³³⁶ Their demise meant Greek eleutheria was buried with them. Demosthenes only refers to the Boiotians in a negative way by blaming their generals for the loss but exculpates the regular troops who thereby share in the arete of their Athenian brethren though the association with such a heroic exploit.Footnote ³³⁷ He here follows the established norms of the Funeral Oration, where the idea of Athens was idealised and where no ambivalent or negative imagery could be distributed to the listeners.Footnote ³³⁸

There is one caveat. Based on the manuscripts of the text, Max Pohlenz argued that two versions of Demosthenes’ Funeral Oration were circulated.Footnote ³³⁹ One version puts the onus on Boiotian leadership, which sent these brave men to their graves. If not for faulty generals, Philip would have been defeated and the fallen celebrated for their defence of freedom, rather than mired in misery over the last stand. Another version omits the blame altogether. The omission is rather striking, because it concerns a major aspect of Demosthenes’ oration. It invites the question, why did two different versions survive?

According to Pohlenz, the answer is relatively straightforward. The first version, including the diatribe against the Boiotian generals, was the oration initially delivered at Athens. Demosthenes’ farewell to the fallen took place shortly after the battle of Chaironeia, or no later than 337. It was meant for an Athenian audience only. Hence the orator was free to solely blame the generals, while exculpating the fallen Boiotians and Athenians. In that manner he honoured the fallen and simultaneously diverted blame from his own policy by insinuating that the battle would have been won had it been led by the Athenians. Demosthenes’ words were less indicative of a dislike of the Boiotians, but were a way of boosting Athenian morale and underlining their prowess in war. The second version was released after the destruction of Thebes in 335 and tailored to a Panhellenic, rather than an exclusively Athenian crowd. In the wake of Alexander’s wrath, it would have been imprudent for Demosthenes to revile Boiotian leadership. What was presented instead was a version acceptable to a larger audience, one that underlined the bravery of these fallen men, but without the accusation towards the generals. Pohlenz argues this was a reworking done by Demosthenes himself.Footnote ³⁴⁰

The omission of Boiotian culpability for the failed endeavour reinforces the notion that the Athenian attitude towards the Thebans had changed, even if the generals were initially blamed. The destruction of the city transformed Thebes into a lamentable ally in the eyes of the Athenians in particular.

The epigram set up for the Athenian war dead after the battle could confirm this picture. There has been considerable debate about its contents. Various epigrams for the war dead of Chaironeia have survived in the literary tradition, most notably in the Palatine Anthology and Demosthenes’ On the Crown.Footnote ³⁴¹ The epigram recorded in the Anthology appears to have found its way into the epigraphic record, as an inscribed marble fragment containing parts of the first two lines has been found, but its archaeological context remains unclarified.Footnote ³⁴² An in-depth discussion of the incongruencies between the two epigrams would venture too far for current purposes. What unites them is the reference to Greek eleutheria defended by the valorous Athenian men who gave their lives for it. In Demosthenes, it is stated: ‘Here lie the brave, who for their country’s right … fought and fell that Greece might still be free, nor crouch beneath the yoke of slavery.’Footnote ³⁴³ In the Palatine Anthology and IG II² 5226 the men fell ‘striving to save the sacred land of Greece, we died on the famed plains of the Boiotians’ (ὡς ἰεραν σώιζειν πειρώμενοι Ἐλλάδα χώραν][Βοιωτῶν κλεινοῖς θνήισκομεν ἐν δαπέδοις]). The Boiotian sacrifices must have been appreciated and framed similarly by the Athenians, especially as it was their willingness to engage the Macedonians in Boiotia that prevented the invasion. The positive evaluation of Boiotia suggests its inhabitants received a fair share of positive publicity in Athens. By referring to it in an official capacity, the Athenians challenged the self-created narrative of treacherous Boiotians. In contemporary Athens, the neighbours could finally be revered for their heroic sacrifices for the preservation of Greece, which helped to wipe out their badge of medism in their minds.

That message is echoed more strongly in later Atheno-Macedonian conflicts. Hypereides, in his Funeral Oration for the war dead of the Hellenic War of 323, couches Thebes in the role of defender of Greek liberty against foreign oppression, exemplified by its ultimate sacrifice: its destruction at the hands of Alexander after they had revolted against Macedonian rule.Footnote ³⁴⁴ The orator even ignores Plataia as a topos for Greek freedom, since the Plataians were now fighting on the Macedonians’ side. The roles were thus reversed. The Thebans were the exemplary Greeks who had paid an incomparable price for their commitment to freedom, a role they shared with the Athenians, who were now doing the same. The Plataians, on the other hand, treacherously fought alongside the Macedonians.Footnote ³⁴⁵ Through the Battle at Chaironeia in 338 and their subsequent struggle against Macedonian rule, the image of the Thebans in Athens morphed from the archetypical traitors to the Greek cause into the great ally that fought alongside the champions of Greek liberty against foreign tyrants.

That is also the message promulgated by the famous war memorial set up in Chaironeia for the fallen Boiotians (see Figure 5.9). The initial monument consisted of the cremated war dead, covered by a mound. One significant change came in 316 or later, as John Ma argued, with the addition of the monumental stone lion gracing the burial mound.Footnote ³⁴⁶ The new date he offers for the lion statue is not just a matter of chronology. It adds a new layer of interpretation to its placement and the way it interacts with other monuments, the local topography and history. The lion’s placement was a direct reference to the renowned final resting place of Leonidas and his men at Thermopylai, thereby placing the sacrifice of the Thebans at Chaironeia on par with that illustrious battle from the Persian Wars of 480–479. If the peribolos and lion statue were placed on top of the burial mound after the re-foundation of Thebes in 316, it strengthens the message the memorial was supposed to convey. The most glorious (recent) deed of the Thebans was performed at Chaironeia, when they made a final stand for Greek freedom, thus erasing the former taints of medism that hung over the city’s head.

Figure 5.9

Lion of Chaironeia.

(Photo by author)

The grandiose monument indirectly reflects upon the neighbourly cooperation. The commemoration of the Battle of Chaironeia could reinforce the connotations of their common struggle against foreign tyrants wishing to subdue the freedom of the Greeks. As Ma notes, the absence of any epigram or casualty list made the lion the perfect memorial for a complex contemporary context. Boiotians of different persuasions could view it from their own perspective, while those wishing to emphasise the sacrifices made for Greek freedom could embrace the connotations to Thermopylai and the Persian Wars and place the neighbourly collaboration in that same illustrious line of heroic deeds.Footnote ³⁴⁷ In light of Athenian efforts in re-establishing Thebes in 316 and the rededication of statues that commemorated their past, that memory would be continually reinforced in the local memorial landscape of Boiotia.

5.2.10 Summary of Local Commemorative Practices

In contrast to the Panhellenic sanctuaries, there is a wealth of material from the local civic and sacred spaces detailing the views of the Athenians, Thebans and other Boiotians of one another. In most cases, these concern recollections of conflict. The uneven picture is partially the result of the characteristics of human nature and its chroniclers. Peaceful collaboration and friendship were simply less interesting to record. Conflict is intimately tied to the stories communities tell of their past to reinforce the common identity. Much of this historical memory relies on stories of war. To foster the cohesion of their respective communities, the Athenians and Boiotians depended on these stories of conflict, as they signified struggle or perseverance. Such tales were more conducive to the creation of a common identity and strengthening of internal bonds than stories of peaceful co-existence. At the same time, the co-existence of monuments and testimonies to bad and good times in Atheno-Boiotian relations embodies the duality of human experience. It is impossible to inculcate an entire population to believe only one aspect. The choice for the local was therefore a logical one. These spaces would be frequented by inhabitants of the respective communities, who were the intended audiences of these messages. Both inimical and friendly communications had to reach them. They were the ones who fostered images of themselves and the neighbours that were fuelled by, or founded on, the ideas and meanings captured by these monuments.

That leaves one more particular example: the Amphiareion in Oropos.Footnote ³⁴⁸ This sanctuary was located in a contested territory between the two neighbours. It allows for a diachronic investigation of the ways the Boiotians and Athenians promulgated their dominance over this region, knowing the audience was not limited to their own population, since the sanctuary attracted visitors from across the border. Most of the clientele originated from the immediate vicinity, meaning Attica, Boiotia and Euboia.Footnote ³⁴⁹ The sanctuary is the perfect case study to reflect on the ways the shrine functioned as a mirror of neighbourly relations and how these were expressed at a locus where the audience encompassed both regions.