Violence and Politics

Violence and Politics:

Ideologies, Identities,
Representations

Edited by

Antonios Ampoutis,
Marios Dimitriadis,
Sakis Dimitriadis,
Theodora Konstantellou,
Maria Mamali
and Vangelis Sarafis
Violence and Politics: Ideologies, Identities, Representations

Edited by Antonios Ampoutis, Marios Dimitriadis, Sakis Dimitriadis,

Theodora Konstantellou, Maria Mamali and Vangelis Sarafis

Postgraduate Association of the Faculty of History and Archaeology,

University of Athens

Advisory Board: Sophia Aneziri, Costas Gaganakis,

Evanthis Hatzivassiliou, Katerina Konstantinidou
and Giorgos Pallis

This book first published 2018

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright © 2018 by Antonios Ampoutis, Marios Dimitriadis,

Sakis Dimitriadis, Theodora Konstantellou, Maria Mamali,
Vangelis Sarafis and contributors

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without
the prior permission of the copyright owner.

ISBN (10): 1-5275-1328-9

ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-1328-0
In memoriam of Nikos Birgalias
 CONTENTS

List of Figures and Tables .......................................................................... xi

Advisory Board ........................................................................................ xiii

Editorial Committee .................................................................................. xv

Contributors .............................................................................................. xvi

Acknowledgements ................................................................................ xxiii

Foreword ................................................................................................ xxiv

The Legacy of Nikos Birgalias: A Passion for History and People
Kostas Buraselis

Introduction ................................................................................................. 1
Antonios Ampoutis and Marios Dimitriadis

I. War and Violence: Theory and Practice

Chapter One ............................................................................................... 14

The Machiavellian Prince-Warrior: A Modern or an Archaic Style
of Sovereignty?
Alexandros Giselis

Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 29

Francisco de Vitoria’s Uptake of the Augustinian jus bellum iustum
Efthymios K. Katsoulis

Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 41

Negotiation and Capitulation during the Greek War of Independence:
The End of Violence?
Vallia Rapti
viii Contents

II. The Ancient Greek World

Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 54

The Past as a Guide to Political Practice: The Case of King Areus I
of Sparta
Manolis Pagkalos

Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 72

Triphylia: War and Politics
Gerasimos Trasanis

Chapter Six ................................................................................................ 98

In Search of the Landscapes of Violence: Sketching Part of Xenophon’s
and Alexander’s Great March through the Plains of Northern Iraq and
Establishing Wartime Topography through the Ancient Sources
Kleanthis Zouboulakis

III. Greece in the Twentieth Century

Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 118

The Pangalos Regime and the Republican Battalions, 1925–26
George Spentzos

Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 133

The Outbreak and Violent Repression of Greek Military Revolts
in the Middle East, 1943–44
Vasiliki Boura

Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 144

From Appeasement to Violence: The Case of the Sofoulis Government,
1947–49
Manolis Sarlamis

IV. The State and the Monopoly on Violence

Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 160

The “Right to keep and bear Arms” and “Right of Resistance”
of the British Subject: Conceptions of Violence “From Below”
in British Political Discourse in 1819
Antonios Ampoutis
 Violence and Politics: Ideologies, Identities, Representations ix

Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 176

Mid-Victorian Remedies for Greek Violence: The Dilessi Murders
Incident of 1870
Pandeleimon Hionidis

Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 192

Some Observations on the Violent Episodes against the Greek Orthodox
Population of Istanbul in 1821
Maria Arvaniti

Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 209

Violence and Power: Violence as a Governance Strategy in Ali Pasha’s
Territory
Maria Anemodoura

Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 221

Violence and Factional Conflict on the Island of Zante: The Assassination
of the Syndic Pietro Macrì (1740)
Nikos Kapodistrias

V. Gender and Violence

Chapter Fifteen ........................................................................................ 238

Notes on Sexual Violence during the Greek Civil War
Kostas Katsoudas

Chapter Sixteen ....................................................................................... 252

The Rape of Women in the Greek Prose of the Second World War,
German Occupation and Greek Civil War: A Stigmatic Representation
of Victimisation and Gender Difference
Theodora Kontogeorgi

Chapter Seventeen ................................................................................... 269

Violence and Female Radicalisation in the English Revolution:
Men’s Denunciatory Discourse and Practices
Charoula Moutsiou

Chapter Eighteen ..................................................................................... 285

Ritual Interpersonal Violence during the Long 18th Century:
Representations of Duelling in English Broadside Ballads,
Class and Gender Dimensions
Stella Chatzopoulou
x Contents

Chapter Nineteen ..................................................................................... 302

Women, Family and State in Early Modern Venice:
Arcangela Tarabotti’s Perceptions of Violence
Maria-Konstantina Leontsini

VI. Political Strategies and Social Conflict

Chapter Twenty ....................................................................................... 320

Riots and Repression in Medieval Flanders: The Revolt of the Textile
Industry Artisans in 1280 and its Repression by the Merchant-Oligarchs
in the Case of Douai
Vassilis Nedos

Chapter Twenty One................................................................................ 334

Violence as a Means of Political Action of Spanish Anarchists in the First
Third of the 20th Century: The Case of Rural Spain
Dimitris Angelis-Dimakis

Chapter Twenty Two ............................................................................... 345

“And they struck terror into the exploiters and their lackeys.”
Violence in the Athens Coppersmiths’ Strike of 1933
Kostas Paloukis

Chapter Twenty Three ............................................................................. 365

“Bia” and “Cratus” in Sicilian Tyranny
Paolo Daniele Scirpo

Chapter Twenty Four ............................................................................... 380

Taming Constantinople: The First Years of Alexios I Komnenos’ Reign
João Vicente de Medeiros Publio Dias

Chapter Twenty Five ............................................................................... 395

“Ἡμῶν ἀεὶ τὴν εἰρήνην ἀσπαζομένων καὶ πρὸς τοὺς ὑπηκόους καὶ πρὸς
τοὺς βαρβάρους”: An Approach to the Byzantine “Just War” as Illustrated
in Cases from the Middle Byzantine Era
Marilia Lykaki

Chapter Twenty Six ................................................................................. 409

“All men must die.” Violence and Politics in the Early Years of Michael
VIII Palaeologos’ Reign: The Assassination of the Mouzalones Brothers
(1258)
Nafsika Vassilopoulou
 LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Figures
4.1 Silver tetradrachm of King Areus I
4.2 Silver obol of King Areus I
5.1 Map of Triphylia and adjacent areas
5.2 Plan of the Samikon citadel
5.3 Plan of the Platiana citadel
5.4 Plan of the Lepreon citadel
5.5 Hypothetical reconstruction of the Triphylian road system
5.6 Rough plan of the visual-territorial control in Samikon, Platiana
and Lepreon
5.7 Map of the attested visual links between the citadels and the other
settlements within Triphylian territory
5.8 Distances between the Peloponnesian cities
6.1 Map depicting the area between ancient Nineveh, the south side
of the Maqlub elevation and beyond the western side of the Great
Zab river (Zab el Ala) (after: Sushko, Gavgamela, 39)
6.2 Map depicting the general area between Arbela (present-day
Erbil) and Nineveh (after: Sushko, Gavgamela, 51)
23.1 Plan of the Olympieion in Polichne near Syracuse (after Mertens,
2006)
23.2 Plan of the Athenaeum [temple C] in Gela (after Heiden, 1998)
23.3 Plan of the Athenaeum in Ortygia, Syracuse (after Van
Compernolle, 1989)
23.4 Plan of the Athenaeum in Himera (after Van Compernolle, 1989)
23.5 Plan of the Olympieion in Akragas (after Van Compernolle,
1989)
23.6 Hypothetical reconstruction of Atlantes

Tables
21.1 Membership National Federation of Land Labourers (FNOA)
21.2 CNT Membership in Andalusia, 1918–19
21.3 Strikes in Andalusia, 1917–21
21.4 CNT membership in Andalusia, 1931–36
xii List of Figures and Tables

22.1 Allocation of labour force per size of business in Greece, 1917–

40
22.2 Size of workshops per labour force in the copper/bronze
metalworking industry, 1933
22.3 Allocation of labour force per size of workshop in the
copper/bronze metalworking industry, 1933
22.4 Labour force in the category A (41–70 workers) and B (12–40
workers) workshops
 ADVISORY BOARD

Sophia Aneziri is Assistant Professor of Ancient Greek History and

Epigraphy at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. She
completed her PhD at the University of Heidelberg (Die Vereine der
Dionysischen Techniten im Kontext der hellenistischen Gesellschaft
[Stuttgart: Steiner, 2003]). Her research interests concern social and
economic history, religion and the history of law in the Hellenistic and
Roman periods.

Costas Gaganakis teaches Early Modern European History at the

National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He specialises in the
social and cultural history of early modern France, with an emphasis on
the French Wars of Religion. His latest publications are Θουκυδίδης ή
Ευσέβιος; Προτεσταντική ιστοριογραφία στη Γαλλία των θρησκευτικών
πολέμων (1560–1600) [Thucydides or Eusebius? Protestant historiography
in France during the Religious Wars, 1560-1600] (Athens: Polis, 2017)
and “Historia Sacra, Historia Humana: Calvinist debates on History,” in
The Oxford Handbook of Calvin and Calvinism, edited by Bruce Gordon
and Carl R. Trueman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

Evanthis Hatzivassiliou is Professor of Contemporary History at the

National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He is the author of NATO
and Western Perceptions of the Soviet Bloc: Alliance Analysis and
Reporting, 1951–69 (London: Routledge, 2014) and The NATO Committee
on the Challenges of Modern Society, 1969-1975: Transatlantic Relations,
the Cold War and the Environment (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan,
2017).

Katerina Konstantinidou is Assistant Professor of Modern Greek

History at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, with a
focus on early modern studies in Venetian-ruled Greek territories. Her
main research topics include epidemic diseases, welfare institutions,
Venetian justice as well as governmental practices in the Venetian
territories in Levant.

Giorgos Pallis is Assistant Professor of Byzantine and post-Byzantine

Archaeology and Art at the National and Kapodistrian University of
xiv Advisory Board

Athens, from where he holds an MA and PhD in Byzantine Archaeology.

His research interest focuses mainly on Byzantine sculpture and epigraphy
and issues of topography. His field experience includes excavations in
sites in Attica, Central Greece and the Cyclades. He has also served as a
supervisor of Byzantine antiquities at the Ministry of Culture. He is a
board member of the Christian Archaeological Society and the Society of
Cycladic Studies. He is also an active member the Greek Epigraphic
Society and the Greek Committee of Byzantine Studies.
 EDITORIAL COMMITTEE

Antonios Ampoutis studied History and Archaeology and European

History at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece,
gaining MPhil and PhD degrees. He specialises in the political and social
history of nineteenth-century Britain.

Marios Dimitriadis is a PhD candidate in European History at the

National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. He specialises in
the social and cultural history of England in the later Middle Ages.

Sakis Dimitriadis studied at the National and Kapodistrian University of

Athens, Greece, and the University of Sussex, UK. He has received his
MPhil and PhD degrees from the National and Kapodistrian University of
Athens, specialising in the social and political history of nineteenth-
century Greece

Theodora Konstantellou is a PhD candidate in Byzantine Art and

Archaeology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens,
Greece. She is the author of articles dealing with Medieval Naxos, and a
recipient of the Mary Jaharis Center Dissertation Grant.

Maria Mamali holds a BA and an MPhil from the National and

Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. She is currently pursuing a
PhD on the History of Venetian Crete.

Vangelis Sarafis graduated from the National and Kapodistrian

University of Athens, Greece, where he is currently a PhD candidate. In
2015, he received his Master’s degree in Early Modern Greek History. He
is the recipient of a doctoral scholarship from the Academy of Athens.
 CONTRIBUTORS

Antonios Ampoutis studied history and archaeology and European

history (MPhil) at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens,
from where he also received his PhD. From 2010–13, he was a Herakleitos
II scholar. He specialises in the political and social history of nineteenth-
century Britain.

Dimitris Angelis-Dimakis was born in 1985. He holds an undergraduate

and a master’s degree in European history (2009) from National and
Kapodistrian University of Athens. He is currently a PhD candidate on a
four-year scholarship at the Department of Contemporary History of the
Autonomous University of Madrid, under the (supervision of Prof Juan
Pan-Montojo González). The title of his thesis is “Rural politicisation and
agricultural associations in Spain and Greece, 1906-1940”. He has several
publications and he has presented papers in conferences and workshops.
He speaks Greek, Spanish, English and French.

Maria Anemodoura was born in 1963 in Piraeus. She studied political

science and public administration at the Law School of the National and
Kapodistrian University of Athens. She is also a graduate of the
Department of History and Archaeology. She is a PhD candidate in the
same department and is preparing a doctoral thesis on “Political, social and
economic structures in the period of Ali Pasha Tepelenli: from eastern
despotism to modernity”. As part of her studies, she has participated in
many conferences and seminars.

Maria Arvaniti studied history at the Department of History and

Archaeology of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens,
where she also obtained an MA degree in 2013 in the field of modern and
contemporary Greek history. She is currently pursuing a PhD at the same
university, working on the Greek Orthodox population of Istanbul during
the 1820s and 1830s. She held a Melina Mercouri Foundation scholarship
from 2014 to 2016. She has worked in research programmes for the
transliteration and recording of Greek and Ottoman Turkish primary
sources. She speaks English, French and Turkish.
 Violence and Politics: Ideologies, Identities, Representations xvii

Vasiliki Βoura was born in 1986. She graduated from the Department of
History and Archaeology in the National and Kapodistrian University of
Athens and holds a master’s degree in modern and contemporary Greek
history from the same university on the subject of “The international status
of the Greek exiled governments, 1941–44)”. She is currently a PhD
candidate in the same department, working on the subject of “The Greek
political bourgeois forces during the occupation, 1941–44”.

Stella Chatzopoulou gained her master’s degree in early modern history

at the University of Sheffield. She is currently a PhD candidate in
European history at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.
At present, her research interests focus on the long history of English
broadside ballads (1600–1850), exploring the representation of gender
identities as manifested in occupations and interpersonal relations. More
broadly, her fields of interest are cultural, social, and gender history in
early modern Europe.

João Vicente de Medeiros Publio Dias holds a bachelor’s and licentiate

(2002/2007) and master’s in history (research focus “Culture and Power”,
2008/2010, from the Federal University of Paraná. He has an interest as
well as research experience in the political, cultural and military history
and historiography of the Byzantine empire and Near Eastern Middle
Ages. He has held academic presentations in Brazil, France, Germany,
Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia, as well as published his work in renowned
publications on his field. He is currently a PhD candidate in Byzantine
Studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and was financed by
Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst. His thesis, entitled “The Political
Opposition to Alexios I Komnenos (1081–1118)”, aims to identify the
composition and aspirations of the oppositional groups that acted against
Alexios Komnenos, understand the role of the emperor’s relatives in the
opposition, and analyse the imperial reaction to the expressions of
opposition.

Alexandros Giselis holds a degree in history and archaeology from the

National University of Athens, where he was awarded an MPhil and a PhD
in European history. His doctorate and his subsequent research focus on
Renaissance political and military theory in the framework of the state-
building process in the sixteenth century. He speaks English, French,
German and Latin.
xviii Contributors

Pandeleimon Hionidis studied history and archaeology and modern

European history (MPhil) at the National and Kapodistrian University of
Athens and, funded by the Greek State Scholarship Foundation, received a
PhD degree in 2002 from the London School of Economics (University of
London). He currently teaches the “General History of Europe” course for
the Hellenic Open University. He has published a number of articles on
nineteenth-century British and Greek history.

Nikos Kapodistrias is a PhD candidate in history at the National and

Kapodistrian University of Athens. His thesis examines the function of
criminal justice and noble ideology in the Ionian Islands in the late
Venetian period. From 2013 to 2016, he was a research fellow at the
Hellenic Institute for Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Studies of Venice
(2013-2016).

Kostas Katsoudas is currently pursuing a PhD in political science and

history at Panteion University, Athens. He is a graduate of the Department
of Communication and Mass Media of the same university, while he also
holds an MA in comparative history from the Autonomous University of
Barcelona. His main research interest is Greek anticommunism during the
early postwar years.

Efthymios K. Katsoulis was born and raised in Athens. He is a graduate

in Greek philology (2005) with a specialisation in classical Greek and
Roman studies. He holds a master’s in ethical philosophy (2011) and is a
PhD candidate of political philosophy in Spanish language and literature in
the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He has thought at
secondary level for a number of years and as a copy-editor/proof-reader in
newspapers. He is now an external partner of the Faculty of Spanish
Language and History of the National and Kapodistrian University of
Athens. He has published articles in academic journals in the field of
philosophy and Spanish culture. His research fields include the history of
ideas, political philosophy and theology, ethics, Spanish culture and the
history of the Renaissance.

Theodora Kontogeorgi studied history and archaeology at the National

and Kapodistrian University of Athens (UoA), where she received a
scholarship from the State Scholarships Foundation. She obtained an MA
in modern Greek literature from the Department of Philology of the same
university. The title of her thesis was “Stigmatic Representations in
Modern Greek Literature: Women outside the rules in the Greek Prose of
the Second World War, German Occupation and Greek Civil War”. She is
 Violence and Politics: Ideologies, Identities, Representations xix

a PhD candidate of the same department, in the field of literary theory. Her
research focuses on narratology and cultural criticism, especially on issues
of representation, ideology and identity and their poetics, in modern and
postmodern Greek literature. She has presented papers in conferences and
workshops and teaches literature, Greek language and history in high
school.

Maria-Konstantina (Maritina) Leontsini was born in Athens in 1990.

She is a PhD candidate in early modern European history at the National
and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Her PhD is currently being funded
by the State Scholarships Foundation (IKY). He thesis looks at Italian
women writers in seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In 2014, she
received her MA in early modern history from the University of Sheffield.
Her thesis was entitled “The Woman Question in Early Modern Venice: A
Case Study of Lucrezia Marinella. She received her BA in history in 2012
from the Department of History and Archaeology, National and
Kapodistrian University of Athens. Her main academic interests are early
modern European history, early modern Italian history, gender studies and
intellectual history.

Marilia Lykaki holds a PhD in Byzantine history/Histoire, texte et

documents jointly awarded by the National and Kapodistrian University of
Athens (UoA) and the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris), where she
completed her master’s. During her postgraduate studies, she received
distinguished grants. She has professional experience as an early stage
researcher in several projects of the UoA and National Hellenic Research
Foundation and as an academic teaching personnel in the field of
Byzantine history. In addition, she has participated in local and
international conferences and has publications in Greek, English and
French. Among others, her research interests concern the middle
Byzantine era, the international relations of Byzantium and the ideology of
war.

Charoula Moutsiou is a PhD candidate in European history at the

National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. At present, her research
area is radicalism in the English Revolution of the mid-seventeenth
century, with special reference to women’s radical discourse and activity.
She is a scholarship holder from Foundation for Education and European
Culture (IPEP).
xx Contributors

Vassilis Nedos is a PhD candidate of European medieval history at the

Faculty of History and Archaeology of the National and Kapodistrian
University of Athens. His research interests include social, economic and
political history, mainly focused on northeastern France and Flanders
during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

Manolis Pagkalos is a PhD candidate in the School of Archaeology and

Ancient History of the University of Leicester. His research interests
revolve around memory and the use of the past in the Hellenistic period
while exploring notions of identity, politics and culture in the ancient
world. He is also fascinated by the study of ancient numismatics. He holds
a degree in history and archaeology from the National and Kapodistrian
University of Athens and an MA in the classical Mediterranean, with a
focus in early Hellenistic Sparta, from the University of Leicester. His
research is supported by the Greek Archaeological Committee (UK).

Kostas Paloukis is a research assistant of Thessaloniki Port Authority. He

completed his undergraduate studies, MSc and PhD thesis at the
Department of History and Archaeology of the University of Crete,
Rethymno. He has also received a State Scholarships Foundation
fellowship. His research interests include the study of labour movements,
the history of communist parties in Greece, especially Archeiomarxist
currents, and lately the history of Thessaloniki port.

Vallia Rapti studied history at the Ionian University, Corfu, where in

2010 she concluded her MA programme in history and documentation in
modern subjects. In 2014 she enrolled as a PhD candidate in the
Department of History and Archaeology of the National and Kapodistrian
University of Athens. Since 2009, she has been an associate in various
projects regarding the early modern period in Greece at the Institute of
Historical Research/National Hellenic Research Foundation (IHR/NHRF)
and Academy of Athens.

Manolis Sarlamis was born in 1985. He graduated from the Department

of History and Archaeology in the National and Kapodistrian University of
Athens, where he also received a master’s in modern and contemporary
Greek history and is researching a PhD candidate on the subject of “The
political centre in Greece, 1952-1961”. He is also a graduate of the
National School of Public Administration and works in the Greek public
sector.
 Violence and Politics: Ideologies, Identities, Representations xxi

Paolo Daniele Scirpo was born in Syracuse in 1976. In 2000, he

graduated in classical philology (archaeological stream) at the University
of Catania (Italy). In 2012, he received his PhD in classical archaeology
from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (UoA) and is a
postdoc researcher in classical archaeology at same university. In 2014, he
obtained a tourist guide license from the Greek tourism ministry and began
working at the Italian Archaeological School of Athens. His research
interests are Greek Sicily and the relations between colonies and the
mother country. His publications in academic journals include a collection
of archaeological essays on Sicily (Triskeles, Athens, 2005) and the Greek
translation of Ernesto De Miro’s book L’arte greca in Sicilia (Athens,
2015).

George Spentzos was born in Athens in 1979. He graduated from the

Department of History and Archaeology of the National and Kapodistrian
University of Athens, from where he obtained his master’s degree in
modern and contemporary Greek history. His PhD, which he is conducting
at the same department, is entitled “The Question of Security in Greece,
1923–1926”. He has been awarded the Antonios Papadakis fellowship for
his doctoral studies.

Gerasimos Trasanis was born and lives in Athens. He received his BA in

archaeology and art history in 2010 from the National and Kapodistrian
University of Athens (UoA). He received his MA from the University of
Nottingham in 2014 for his dissertation “Fortification and Defence
Systems in Classical and Hellenistic Elis, Greece: The case of Triphylia
(Samikon, Platiana, Lepreon)”. He has participated in numerous excavation
projects carried out by the UoA on the islands of Kos, Tinos, Andros and
Kythira. In recent years, he has been working as trench supervisor at rescue
excavations within a Public Power Corporation project at Ptolemaida lignite
mines conducted by the Kozani Ephorate of Antiquities.

Nafsika Vassilopoulou was born in Athens in 1983. She holds a PhD in

Byzantine history from the National and Kapodistrian University of
Athens, where she also completed her undergraduate and postgraduate
studies. Her research interests are focused on the late Byzantine period,
diplomacy, war, identity issues, religious conflict and relations between
the West and the Ottomans. She has taught as a postdoctoral fellow at the
University of Crete and was a research associate in major research
programmes, including the DARIAH-GR digital humanities project. She
has several publications and participated in various international
conferences. Besides Greek, she speaks English, German and Italian.
xxii Contributors

Kleanthis Zouboulakis is a PhD candidate in ancient history at the

National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (UoA) with a
specialisation in Hellenistic and Roman History. He received his MA from
the same university. The title of his thesis is “Felix Syria Nube: Combined
Development of Family Relations and State Policy in the time of
Antiochus III”. He has worked in various research projects of the UoA and
has been a research assistant at the Danish Institute at Athens. He
participated in the first Greek archaeological mission to Mesopotamia,
conducted by the UoA in April 2011 in the northern Kurdistan Region in
Iraq, part of which involved a preliminary topographical survey
concerning the location of the Gaugamela battlefield.
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This volume was a collective effort. We are deeply indebted to all those
who made this publication, the Proceedings of the Third Colloquium of the
Postgraduate Association of the Faculty of History and Archaeology,
possible. Special thanks are due to the heads of the Faculty of History and
Archaeology of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens,
Professor Anastasia Papadia-Lala and Professor Panos Valavanis, who
offered invaluable support and encouragement during the whole process of
the publication. We would also like to thank the academic staff of our
faculty. In particular, we would like to express our gratitude to the
members of the advisory board – Professor Evanthis Hatzivassiliou,
Associate Professor Costas Gaganakis, Assistant Professor Sophia Aneziri,
Assistant Professor Girgios Pallis and Assistant Professor Katerina
Konstantinidou – for their contribution at all the critical stages of the
publication. The editing of the articles is due to the systematic and detailed
work of Dr Damian Mac Con Uladh, whom we warmly thank.

The Editorial Committee:

Antonios Ampoutis, PhD, European History

Marios Dimitriadis, PhD Candidate, European History
Sakis Dimitriadis, PhD, Modern Greek History
Dora Konstantellou, PhD Candidate, Byzantine Archaeology
Maria Mamali, PhD Candidate, Early Modern Greek History
Vangelis Sarafis, PhD Candidate, Early Modern Greek History

Athens, April 2018

 FOREWORD

THE LEGACY OF NIKOS BIRGALIAS:

A PASSION FOR HISTORY AND PEOPLE

It undoubtedly comes as a bitter realisation that we exactly appreciate the

value of a person only when he/she is no longer among us. The legacy of
Nikos Birgalias is one of love and passion for people and history. Both of
these legacies are reflected in the work of his students, who had the
opportunity to be taught and guided by him. It is their and our duty to
expand and promote his fields of expertise and his academic research, with
the moral attitude and the professional ethics that he exhibited towards his
colleagues and his academic projects.

Personally, I must underline how much I miss his presence and how much
I cherish his responsible behaviour in matters of academic life, in which he
acted valiantly and bravely, giving his very best. In this volume, I
undertook to present a review of his academic work. In order to do that, I
shall highlight the milestones in his career, the outcome of his successful
research, which was cut short by his premature end.

In his academic work, Nikos Birgalias started and remained a “Spartan”.

He was active in a challenging academic field of global interest, in which
Greek scholars were until then a respectable minority. In his PhD thesis,
entitled “L’Odyssée de l’éducation spartiate” and supervised by Prof
Claude Mossé (Paris VIII, 1993; Athens, 1999), Birgalias examined the
complicated, fascinating and controversial subject of ancient Sparta’s
educational system, based on primary sources and on developments in
modern European thought.

His first systematic contribution and critical approach to the world (and
the myth) of ancient Sparta was followed by a plethora of scholarly
articles. Birgalias was also the organiser of an international conference
entitled “The Contribution of Ancient Sparta in Political Thought and
Practice” (September 2002), in which many prominent international
scholars participated. It is important to note that this successful
 Violence and Politics: Ideologies, Identities, Representations xxv

conference, which took place in Sparta, not only returned the scholarly
debate on ancient Sparta to its historical birthplace but revealed the
perspectives of modern Greece as a centre for such remarkable efforts. As
its academic organiser, Birgalias was a true pillar of Sosipolis, the
International Institute of Ancient Hellenic History. Birgalias established
and organised the institute with great zeal, with the assistance of the
Prefecture of Ιleia and especially his partner and coorganiser of all his
projects, his wife, Natassa Florou.

His research interests, though, went beyond Sparta. Birgalias was

interested in the Greek polis during the archaic and classical period. In his
second book, entitled Από την κοινωνική στην πολιτική πλειονοψηφία: Το
στάδιο της ισονομίας (From the social to the political majority: isonomia)
(Athens, 2009), he examined the transition to more complete democratic
forms in the ancient Greek world, using data from numerous ancient Greek
cities. This work was based on a penetrating analysis of primary sources
of the cities under examination. The result was to show how persistent,
gradual, multilateral and diversified this movement to democratic
institutions in ancient Greek world was.

Another project of his, which we had discussed with enthusiasm was the
analysis of forms of popular assemblies in ancient Greek cities. Birgalias
started methodically to examine the presence, function and importance of
popular assemblies from the phase of Homeric society. The outcome was
the publication of his last book entitled Πόλη και πολιτικοί θεσμοί στον
Όμηρο (Polis and political institutions in Homer) (Athens, 2014).

One year earlier, the Proceedings of the Second International Conference

of Sosipolis were published, entitled War–Peace and Panhellenic Games.
The conference, which had been held at Pyrgos and Olympia a few years
before and organised under the auspices of the Institute already mentioned,
revealed once more Birgalias’ international standing and connections.

It is important to note that all these accomplishments were carried out in a

short time and in a difficult local context, which often restricts those who
attempt to thrive academically.

I reiterate that the legacy of Nikos Birgalias is alive among us, and it is our
duty, especially of the younger generation, to preserve and continue it. His
enthusiasm, his passion for academia and people, and his memorable smile
(a diffusion valve for him and us) will remain a source of both inspiration
xxvi Foreword

and encouragement. The image of Nikos as a significant scholar and a

very gentle man will warm our hearts and minds.

Professor Kostas Buraselis

Vice Rector for Academic Affairs and International Relations
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens1

*
I would like to thank Dr Maria Anagnostou, who continues the debates on
Ancient Sparta based on Nikos Birgalias’ work, for her help in completing titles,
details and photographic material. I would also like to thank Marios Dimitriadis
and Antonios Ampoutis for their translation of the above text.
 CHAPTER SIX

IN SEARCH OF THE LANDSCAPES

OF VIOLENCE:
SKETCHING PART OF XENOPHON’S
AND ALEXANDER’S GREAT MARCH THROUGH
THE PLAINS OF NORTHERN IRAQ
AND ESTABLISHING WARTIME TOPOGRAPHY
THROUGH THE ANCIENT SOURCES

KLEANTHIS ZOUBOULAKIS

In April 2011, the Department of History and Archaeology of the

University of Athens conducted its first mission to northern Mesopotamia.
Besides two excavation projects,1 one part of this mission concerned the
Greek aspects of the history of this wider area in ancient times. More
specifically, preliminary work was initiated on the historical documentation
of certain pivotal historical events that took place in the wider area of
modern Erbil, which is the capital of the Iraqi governorate of Arbil.

This article deals with the topography of two major political and military
events of Greek interest that occurred in the wider area. The March of the
Ten Thousand, as it is conventionally known, in 401–400 BC and the
Battle of Arbela or Gaugamela in 331 BC, after which Alexander the Great
essentially abolished the Achaemenid empire. The aim is to elucidate the
main topographical problems by reexamining the groundwork of the
current scholarly communis opinio using preliminary onsite research and
denoting common topographic denominators. This research has led to a
rereading of some crucial details from the secondary sources. The

1
See Kopanias, Beuger and Fox, “Tell Nader”; Kopanias et al., “Tel Baqtra
Project.”
 In Search of the Landscapes of Violence 99

conclusions of this reexamination deserve to be considered in a future

historical synthesis aiming at a full reconstruction of these two historical
events.

The citadel of Erbil: its territory and the communication

with the west
The modern city of Erbil – Arbailu in Assyrian inscriptions,2 Arbaira in
Persian inscriptions,3 Arbel in Aramaic documents,4 Ἄρβηλα or Arbela in
Greek and Latin sources5 – was always connected to a wider territory and
has influenced the western side of the Great Zab river, the Lycus of the
ancient writers. Although the main body of testimonies regarding these
connections extend from the first century BC until the fourth century AD,6
there are, however, vague, indications that even during the Achaemenid
period it was the centre of a wider territory that extended beyond the Zab
and was somehow involved with the administration of the wider area
around the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh.7 From the so-called
Nabonidus Chronicle, we learn that Cyrus II in 547/546 BC crossed the

2
Luckenbill, Records, s.v. “Arbela.”
3
Kent, Old Persian, 30.
4
Taylor, Arshama Letters, vol. 2, Texts, Translations, and Glossary, 40.
5
Greek sources: Diod., 17.1., 53.4., 61.3., 62.1., 64.1; Ael., V.H., 3.23; Alex.
Rhet., Fig., 35.24; Anonymi Chronicon Oxyrynchi, FGrH, 255 F1.7; FGrH, 124
F.14a (Calisthenes); D.H., Amm.12.23; Lib., Or,.18.260; Lucianus, D.Mort., 25.3,
Rh.Pr., 5.5; Polyaen., 4.3.6, 3.17, 3.27; Zos., 1.4.3; Marmor Parium FGrH F.106;
IG XVI.1296. Latin sources: Amp., 16.2; Curt., 4.9.9, 16.9, 5.1.2, 6.1.21, 9.2.23;
Fron., Str., 2.3.19; Plin., Nat., 6.16.41(Arbelitis); Tac., Ann., 12.13.
6
The latest overview of Adiabene, part of which was Arbela and its territory, and
its formation during the Hellenistic and Parthian periods, is Marciak, “Adiabene,”
who has collected all the relevant testimonies. At that time, the relatively small
area of Arbela, defined by the two modern Zabs (the ancient Lycus and Kaprus
rivers), belonging administratively to the Achaemenid satrapy of Babylonia, as
Strabo reports, expanded beyond the Lycus and Tigris rivers.
7
Herzfeld, Empire, 304–8, where the satrapies of Babylonia and Athura (Assyria),
where the territory beyond the Great Zab belongs, are discussed together during
the reign of Darius I. It is marked as an indication of their close connection.
Jacobs, Satrapienverwaltung, 151–52, who accepts that Strabo’s information could
apply to the Achaemenid period and Arbeletis belongs to Babylonia. Briant, From
Cyrus to Alexander, 719, who stresses the fact of how little detail we have about
the subdistricts of Babylonia during the time of the Achaemenids.