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The Foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

G. L. Cawkwell
Affiliation:
University College, Oxford

Extract

It is notorious that Xenophon omitted all notice of the foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy, and alluded to Athens' alliances in the 370s so sparingly that if the Hellenica was the only evidence for the period it would hardly be possible to infer the existence of the Confederacy. All that could be said would be that the raid of Sphodrias so embittered the Athenians (5. 4. 63) that they joined with the Thebans in resisting Sparta (5. 4. 34), rinding in the course of the war the allies who mysteriously appeared in the account of the Peace of 372/1 (6. 3. 19) and who probably included the Corcyraeans (5. 4. 66). By contrast, Diodorus (15. 28 and 29) was explicit, and the best modern account of the foundation, that of Accame, is rightly attentive./

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1973

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References

page 47 note 2 La lega ateniese (1943), which is the starting-point for all discussion, and towhich I am so heavily indebted that it would be pointless to keep referring to it in these notes.

page 47 note 3 29. 1–4 is concerned with the preparations for the Persian attack on Egypt, which happened in 374/3 (and. 15. 41 f.). It is presumed by Kienitz, Die politische Geschichte Ägyptens, p. 86, that the events described in 29. dot;1–4, viz. the recall of Chabrias from Egypt and the request for Iphicrates' services, belong in 380/179, but they could belong to 375.

page 48 note 1 Cf. Ath. Pol. 62. 2.

page 48 note 2 Cf. Burnett, A. P., ‘Thebes and the expansion of the Second Athenian Confederacy: I.G. ii2. 4.0 and I.G. ii2. 43’, Historia, xi (1962), i ff.Google Scholar

page 48 note 3 Or ‘on terms of equality in all respects’ (Burnett, art. cit., p. f2).

page 48 note 4 I here develop the suggestion of Accame, op. cit., p. 6g, rejected by Burnett.

page 49 note 1 Cf. my article on Epaminondas, C.Q. NS. xxii (1972), 259.

page 49 note 2 A satisfactory explanation of the curious number of seventeen persons involved in the oath-swearing (line i) has been offered by Buckler, J. in Historia, xx (1971), 507 f., viz. that there were representatives of the five allied states, the ten generals, and the two hipparchs (cf. G.H.I. 121, 11. 9 and to, and 122, II. 14–16).Google Scholar

page 49 note 3 Burnett (art. cit., p. 8) presumes that the Theopompus of line 7 was the well-known Theban of Plut. Pel. 8. 2, but the name was common at Athens and, since the inscription furnishes no notice of nationality for the five persons commended in lines 6–8 including a trierarch (who certainly was not a Theban), whereas it does designate the nationality of Antimachos and the Mytilenaean whose name is lost in 11. 10 f., the embassy was very probably, pace Burnett, Athenian.

page 49 note 4 The man who later held a trireme (LG. ii2. 1604, 1. 79).

page 49 note 5 Burnett (art. cit., p. 7) argues that ‘cannot be any other than the embassy which came seeking the treaty’, i.e. the Theban embassy which negotiated the Theban treaty recorded in the main body of the inscription. But, to me, such a description of an embassy from Thebes is wholly improbable. This is a very strange inscription in various ways, but one thing that seems reasonably clear is that the persons named in lines 6 and 7 are Athenian (cf. n. 3 above) and that they were the members of an Athenian embassy to the allies, which may or may not have concerned the accession of Thebes. Lines 12 are mysterious indeed, but it is hard to see how in line 13 can refer to anyone other than Antimachos of Chios and the Mytilenaean mentioned just before. So the stelae would appear somehow to concern them personally, and Accame's notion of honorific stelae may not be as wide of the mark as Burnett supposes.

page 50 note 1 It should be firmly stated that the contiguity of Diodorus' notices about the accession of Thebes and the decree of Aristotle in no way requires us to connect the events. A similar conjunction is made in 15. 27. 4 between the Athenian return home in winter 379/8 and the Theban attack on Thespiae ofwinter 378/7.

page 50 note 2 Hermes, lxiv (1929), 323 ff.Google Scholar

page 50 note 3 Op. cit., P. 45 n. 2.

page 50 note 4 As far as we know Methymna had been immune from cleruchies in the fifth century. Cf. Thuc. 3. 50. 2, 7. 57. 5.

page 51 note 1 The sailing season of 378 is therefore strongly suggested.

page 51 note 2 Cf. Accvne, op. cit., p. 31. Hammond, History of Greece, p. 485, puts the formation of the Confederacy in winter 378/7. Similarly Bengtson, Griechischt Geschichte 2, p. 266.

page 51 note 3 Another case of a similar sort is Xenophon's account of the Grand Alliance of 395. For the formal notice of foundation we have to rely on Diodorus (14. 82). Xenophon's account of the preliminaries to the battle of Nemea (4. 2. 10–13 and 18) shows the Synedrion of the Alliance in operation. Cf. Accame, Ricerche intorno alla guerra corinzia, pp- 53 ff.

page 52 note 1 For . cf. Isoc. 4. 162 (of Hecatomnus of Caria). It is not found in any other fourth-century work, and appears solely to represent a Persian official. Cf. Bekker, Anecd. 253 .

page 52 note 2 No one could dream from the literary references to the events of 387/6 that the King was in some way involved in the oaths. The Chios decree (G.H.I. 118, 1. I1) shows that he was, and it emerges from the account of the abortive peace of 367 (Xen. 7. 39 f.) that there was question of . PaatAkc Kowa' Optcot, though it is not clear whether the Persian who was present was to receive them. Was the King similarly represented in 387/6 in Sparta?

page 52 note 3 Isocrates (8. 16) called in 355 for a return to the treaty that was made with the King and the Spartans. The reference is either to the King's Peace or to one of the first two renewals. He does not specify which; presumably the clauses which he cites were common to all three. They include the withdrawal of garrisons, which, as a clause in 386, may have conditioned the form of Xenophon's comment on Corinth (5. 34) .

page 52 note 4 Cf. F. Hampl, Die griechischen Staatsverträge, pp. 14 ff.

page 53 note 1 Denied by Hampi, op. cit., pp. i 5 ff. But it is inconceivable that the Peace did not provide for action against those who did not keep peace. Cf. Momigliano, R.F. xii (5934), 483 f.

page 53 note 2 Athens had no more than too ships in the 370s. Cf. Polybius 2. 62. 6, Xen. 5. 4. 60, Diod. 15. 34. 5, and Koehler, Att. Mitt. vi 881), 28 ff. (on I.G. ii2. 1604).

page 53 note 3 The peace terms offered in the abortive peace of 392/I permitted Athens (Andoc. 3. 14). I am suggesting that the King's Peace denied Athens these rights. For the status and significance of her treaties with Chios and Methymna, seep. 56. Athens contemplated alliance with Olynthus at first, when Olynthus was thought to be facing only the Macedonian king, who had not joined in the King's Peace (cf. Aristides, Panathenaicus 172, which mentions Seuthes and Dionysius, but not Amyntas). But once it was no longer merely a matter of supporting Olynthus against an outsider, as the Ephoran version would have it (Diod. 15. 19), but Sparta and the Peloponnesian League had decided to prevent Olynthus infringing the autonomy of the surrounding Greek states, as the Acanthians had claimed(Xen. 5. 2. i s IT.), Athens had no more to do with Olynthus.

Thebes was more stubborn and adhered to her original view of the troubles in the north, and a proclamation was made, presumably by Ismenias, that no Theban should join Phoebidas' expedition against Olynthus (Xen. 5. 2. 27). So Phoebidas had good grounds for intervening though not for remaining in the Cadmea. Leontiades arrested Ismenias, (§ 30), and Ismenias was tried by a large court of Spartans and Peloponnesian allies (§ 35). But the case of Thebes is not relevant to the proposed view of the King's Peace, since the whole affair is to be understood within the framework of the Peloponnesian League, which was Sparta's prime instrument for dealing with breaches of the King's Peace. Hence Isocrates ( r4. 29) claimed that the Thebans might have joined the Spartans in an attack on Athens, i.e. as part of the Peloponnesian League. Whether Sparta could have required states not in the league to act against those infringing the King's Peace is unsure. The Thebans in 379/8 expected . (Diod. 15. 25. 4), but they may have been thinking merely of the league (cf. Diod. 15. 31. 2 for its extent in 378).

page 54 note 1 Diodorus speaks of 20,000 hoplites, an incredible number for Athens. (Cf. Polybius 2. 62. 6.) Either the figure is corrupt or Diodorus has exaggerated, a thing of which he is suspect elsewhere, or these figures were for the of the Confederacy. (Cf. Justin 9. 5 for similarly large figures for the League of Corinth.)

page 54 note 2 For gates of cities cf. Winter, F. E., Greek Fortifications (1971), Chapters 8 and ro.Google Scholar

page 54 note 3 The cities of Ionia had been without walls under the Lydians, save for Miletus which they could not capture (Hdt. r. 141.4 and 22). Harpagus, in reducing Ionia, confronted by the difficulties of laying siege to the well-fortified Phocaea, professed that he would be content with the destruction of one (Hdt. 1. 164. r)—a compromise with the normal practice, shown in Darius' treatment of Babylon (Hdt. 3. 159 ). The right explanation, to my mind (pace Brunt in Ancient Society and Institutions, p. 92 n. 54), of the fact that the cities of Ionia were without walls in the Archidamian War (Thuc. 3. 33. 2, etc.) was given by Wade-Gery, Essays in Greek History, p. 219, viz. that one of the clauses of the Peace of Callias had required it. Yet the Persians could be content with the destruction of gates alone. The writer of Isaiah 45: I, 2 foresees that the coming of the Persians will mean the destruction of gates—‘… I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut … I will break in pieces the gates of brass and cut in sunder the bars of iron.’

page 55 note 1 F.G.H. 70 T 11.

page 55 note 2 Xen. 5. 4. 25.

page 56 note 1 If we allow for the trial of Sphodrias a period of two to three weeks, he can well have made his attempt at about the date of the Dionysia when the plans to have a synedrion and even (G.H.I. 122, 1. 17) were perhaps being advanced.

page 56 note 2 should be taken with both parts of the sentence.

page 56 note 3 Isocrates' celebrated phrase, (14. 28), refers probably not to alliances with Athens, but to their not joining the Peloponnesian League as Thebes did (cf. Paus. 9. 13. I, Plut. Pel.4); the following words of Isocrates strongly suggest this, and the Chios decree shows that Chios did not exactly in 386, and the Methymna) decree shows that, if Isocrates was listing Athens' allies before the Liberation of Thebes, there was at least one other name for him to list. The real question about this mention of Chians, Mytilenaeans, and Byzantians is why there are so few names. Presumably these are the main allies of Athens in the Corinthian War that did not join the extended Peloponnesian League (for which cf. Diod. 15. 31. 2), but they are all naval powers and Sparta did not, after the King's Peace, want a navy.

page 56 note 4 It is worth remarking that the archon-ship of Nausinicus is prominent in the history of the eisphora in the fourth century (cf. Dem. 22. 44) not because money was first needed for the Confederacy in 378/7, but because the law governing (cf. Dem. 24. 20 ff.) meant that the new situation of 379/8 could only be provided for in the first prytany of 378/7.

page 56 note 5 15. 25. I .

page 57 note 1 Cf. Oration 38, p. 486, 11. 3f.

page 57 note 2 The most notable champion of Diodorus' account has been Judeich, W., Rh. Mus. lxxvi (1921)Google Scholar, i74 f. Grote's rejection of Diodorus (History of Greece, viii. 86 n. 3 in the edition of 1888) was followed by E. v. Stern, Gesch. der spartan. u. theban. Heg., p. 59 n. 1, Ed. Meyer, G.d.A. v. 375f., K. J. Beloch, G.G. iii2. p. 145, and, more recently, by Burnett, A. P., Historia, xi (1962), 15 f. Miss Burnett's reasons for preferring to stick to Xenophon are all unsound. (a) ‘The rapid sequence of events at Thebes, between the first uprising and the defeat of the Spartan garrison, leaves no time for the sending and receiving of embassies.’ But, the garrison was driven by starvation into surrender after it had despaired of help from Sparta (Diod. 15. 27. 1 f.), and this suggests, a long enough interval for appeals to Athens. (b) The Athenians ‘are said to have stood ready to march out to Boeotia , at a time of the year when such a thing was unthinkable.’ Cleombrotus marched out. Why should it be unthinkable for Athens? (c)‘The general whom Diodorus names as sent with the Athenian forces is Demophon, which seems to have been the name of the man chosen with Chabrias for the command against Agesilaus in the summer of 378 (see Schol. ad Aristides, Panath. 173, where Vater read for ).’ That is, the scholiast must be made to agree with the theory. (d) ‘The force Demophon is said to have led out in midwinter is almost exactly that reported later as the army sent to Boeotia after the acquittal of Sphodrias.’ So was the force sent to Thermopylae in 352 (Diod. 16. 37. 3). 5,000 seems to be the regular figure for an expeditionary force. (e) ‘The Athenians are said to want to secure Theban support in their own struggle with Sparta (Diod. 15. 26. i) although in December 379 the chief fact of Athenian foreign policy was the Spartan truce.’ If two generals were prepared to act in the conspiracy, they may have expected the not to disapprove. Cf. the Athenian response to the Spartan order in 382 (Plut. Pel. 6). Miss Burnett concludes that ‘in the presence of contradictory testimony from Xenophon’ Diodorus is discredited. But Xenophon does not contradict. He merely omits, and all inferences based on his omissions are weak.Google Scholar

page 57 note 3 Xenophon does not plainly distinguish the peltasts of Cleombrotus from those of Chabrias, but it is clear enough that the peltasts who killed those guarding the route to Plataea belonged to Cleombrotus' army.

page 58 note 1 Miss Burnett does not discuss how Chabrias came to be where he was.

page 58 note 2 Loc. cit. (cf. Meyer, G.d.A. v. 376).

page 58 note 3 Diodorus (x5. 28. 5) remarked that Agesilaus prepared for war in 378, expecting that ‘the Boeotian War’ would last a long time, . This does not, pace Burnett, art. cit., p. 15, show that therewas an alliance between Thebes and the Second Athenian Confederacy when war broke out in 378. The clause can have a conditional force. It is also to be noted that Isocrates 54. 29 does not say that Thebes made an alliance with Athens.

page 58 note 4 This is the main reason for not accepting literally Diodorus' notice (is. 28. 1) about the creation of a ‘Boeotian’ in early 378.

page 59 note 1 The case for such a clause is not strong, but it is worth making. The return of the exiles to Corinth in 387/6 seems in Xenophon (5. I. 34) to be part of the implementation of the peace (cf. the opening words of § 33), and in the Agesilaus (2. 21) he speaks as if compelling Corinth and Thebes to take back their exiles was part of the peace— i.e. he did not make peace until the Corinthians and the Thebans accepted a clause about exiles. The return of the -Phliasian exiles might seem to belie this (Xen. 5. 2. 8). Although their return did not necessarily come after the settlement at Mantinea, it seems preferable to narrow the interval between their return and their complaining at Sparta (Xen. 5. 3. t o f.) that the Spartan terms (Xen. 5. 2. to) were not being fully obeyed, i.e. to place their return not long before the Acanthian appeal of 382 (Xen. 5. 2. i I) and shorten the period of their dissatisfaction as much as possible. If they were restored in accordance with a clause of the King's Peace, why the delay? They knew their rights. Why did they not appeal earlier? Further, the manner in which Xenophon describes their appeal to Sparta (5. 2. 8) suggests that they could not base their appeal on the King's Peace. What need was there to convince the Spartans that they were worth restoring, if they could appeal to the Peace? However, Xenophon may here, after his fashion, be concerning himself with only part of the case; he has no words to explain how theephors decided that the exiles had been exiled (§ 9); they may have been exiled as in the Phliasian view, for some act of violence and murder which was held to exclude them from benefiting under the Peace. So the case of Phlius may be misleading. Nor does the case of Xenophon himself cause difficulty. It is commonly stated that he was recalled in 369, but there is no evidence for that or that he was not free to return to Athens in 386—he never did return (Diog. Laert. 2. 56) and the decree alluded to by Istros (F.G.H. 334 F 32) may indicate nothing more than the sympathy between him and Eubulus. Again, if men were exiled after the Peace (LG. ii2. 33, 37), whether for real or pretended breaches of the Peace, that argues nothing about whether there was a clause about recall in the Peace itself. It may be added that, if there were such a clause in 387/6, it may well have been repeated in renewals of the Peace. The long exile of Theopompus of Chios (F.G.H. 115 T 2) is not relevant. For all we know he could have been exiled in the 360s when Chios had to choose between Sparta and Thebes.

To sum up, the hypothesis of a clause about recall of exiles in 387/6 does not seem clearly false. There may have been a longish history behind the clause of the League of Corinth of Dem. 17. 15.

page 59 note 2 Hence perhaps the severity of the penalties. (Xen. 5. I. 34) under the Peace deserved death, despite the fact that, by going out shortly after , the Athenians might seem to have approved of assisting the Liberation.

page 60 note 1 A difficulty remains. In the decree of Aristotle of 377 lines 12–14 were erased, but enough remains of line 54 to show that probably there was an allusion to the Great King. Accame (La lega, PP. 49–52) sup plemented the lines in such a way as to make them profess an intention to maintain the King's Peace, and, if he were correct, the view that Athens denounced the Peace after the acquittal of Sphodrias could not stand. However, as his description of the traces makes clear and examination of the stone and of squeezes confirms, his readings are far from secure. In particular the seventh letter of is not legible, and the upright stroke immediately preceding may well have been a p. So the line may have read , and the clause have been concerned not to assert an intention to maintain the Peace, but to condemn Sparta for acting on behalf of the King under the treaty in a manner improper to the hegemonic power. With the peace of 375 and the new arrangements for shared hegemony such a clause would have seemed out of date, and since the stele was to remain after 375 the place where the names of new members were to be inscribed, the clause was erased. Cf. Accame, ibid., p. 150 for a similar suggestion. (It may be added that the traces of line 12 are far too uncertain to permit secure supplement, and it would be better if editors would cease reproducing Accame's text.)