Creating A Hellenistic World PDF

CREATING A HELLENISTIC WORLD
C REATING
A HELLENISTIC
WORLD
Editors
Andrew Erskine
and
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Contributors
Elizabeth Carney, Stephen Colvin, Andrew Erskine,
Robin Lane Fox, Richard Hunter, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones,
Alan B. Lloyd, Daniel Ogden, James I. Porter, Joseph Roisman,
Peter Schultz, Shane Wallace, Hans-Ulrich Wiemer,
Josef Wiesehöfer, Stephanie Winder
The Classical Press of Wales

First published in 2010 by
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Typeset, printed and bound in the UK by Gomer Press, Llandysul, Ceredigion, Wales
–––––––––––––––––
The Classical Press of Wales, an independent venture, was founded in 1993, initially to support the work
of classicists and ancient historians in Wales and their collaborators from further afield. More recently it has
published work initiated by scholars internationally. While retaining a special loyalty to Wales and the Celtic
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CONTENTS
Page
List of Contributors vii
Abbreviations xi
Introduction xiii
Andrew Erskine and Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
PART I
NEW WORLDS
1 The first Hellenistic man 1

Robin Lane Fox
2 The koine: A new language for a new world 31

Stephen Colvin
3 The letter of Aristeas 47

Richard Hunter
PART II
RULERS AND SUBJECTS
4 The Silver Shields, Eumenes, and their historian 61

Joseph Roisman
5 From satrapy to Hellenistic kingdom: the case of Egypt 83

Alan B. Lloyd
6 Frataraka rule in Seleucid Persis: a new appraisal 107

Josef Wiesehöfer
v
Contents
PART III
THE POLIS
7 Early Hellenistic Rhodes: the struggle for independence 123

and the dream of hegemony
Hans-Ulrich Wiemer
8 The significance of Plataia for Greek eleutheria in the 147
early Hellenistic period
Shane Wallace
Part IV
THE COURT
9 Between philosophy and the court: the life of Persaios 177
of Kition
Andrew Erskine
10 Being royal and female in the early Hellenistic period 195

Elizabeth Carney
11 How to marry a courtesan in the Macedonian courts 221

Daniel Ogden
12 A key to Berenike’s Lock? The Hathoric model of 247

queenship in early Ptolemaic Egypt
Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones and Stephanie Winder
Part V
CHANGING AESTHETICS
13 Against λεπτότης: rethinking Hellenistic aesthetics 271
James L. Porter
14 Style, continuity and the Hellenistic baroque 313

Peter Schultz
Index 345
vi
CONTRIBUTORS
Elizabeth Carney is Professor of History at Clemson University. She is

author of Women and Monarchy in Ancient Macedonia (2000), Olympias, Mother
of Alexander the Great (2006) and co-editor of Philip II and Alexander the Great:
Father and son, lives and afterlives (2010).
Stephen Colvin is Reader in Classics and Comparative Philology at

University College London. His main interests are Greek language, dialect
and literature; the koine and Mycenaean Greek; historical linguistics and
sociolinguistics. Major publications include Dialect in Aristophanes (1999),
The Greco-Roman East (2004), and A Historical Greek Reader (2007).
Andrew Erskine is Professor of Ancient History at the University of

Edinburgh. He is the author of The Hellenistic Stoa (1990), Troy between
Greece and Rome (2001) and Roman Imperialism (2010). He is the editor of
A Companion to the Hellenistic World (2003) and A Companion to Ancient
History (2009).
Richard Hunter is Regius Professor of Greek at the University of

Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity College. His research interests include
Hellenistic poetry and its reception in Rome, ancient literary criticism, and
the ancient novel. His most recent book is Critical Moments in Classical
Literature (2009), and many of his essays have been collected in On Coming
After: Studies in Post-Classical Greek literature and its reception (2008).
Robin Lane Fox is Reader in Ancient History at the University of Oxford

and Fellow of New College. His publications range widely over the ancient
world and include Alexander the Great (1973), Pagans and Christians (1986),
The Classical World: An epic history from Homer to Hadrian (2005) and Travelling
Heroes (2008).
Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones is Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of

Edinburgh with interests in the socio-cultural history of ancient Greece,
Persia and Egypt and in reception studies. He is the author of Aphrodite’s
Tortoise: The veiled woman of ancient Greece (2003) and Ctesias’ History of Persia
– Tales of the Orient (2009; with James Robson).
vii
Contributors
Alan B. Lloyd is Professor Emeritus in the Department of History and

Classics at Swansea University. He was a member of the Saqqara
Epigraphic Project in the 1970s and edited the Journal of Egyptian
Archaeology from 1979 to 1985. He was chairman of the Egypt Exploration
Society from 1994 to 2007 (now Vice-President) and is the author of
numerous publications on Egyptological and Classical subjects.
Daniel Ogden is Professor of Ancient History in the University of Exeter.

His publications include Polygamy, Prostitutes and Death (1999) and Alexander
the Great: Myth, genesis and sexuality (2010). He is the editor of The Hellenistic
World: New perspectives (2002) and co-editor of Philip II and Alexander the
Great: Father and son, lives and afterlives (2010).
James I. Porter is Professor of Classics at the University of California,

Irvine. He is the author of Nietzsche and the Philology of the Future (2000),
The Invention of Dionysus: An essay on the birth of tragedy (2000), and The Origins
of Aesthetic Thought in Ancient Greece: Matter, sensation, and experience (2010),
and editor, most recently, of Classical Pasts: The classical traditions of Greece and
Rome (2006).
Joseph Roisman is a professor of Classics at Colby College. His research

interests include Greek social and military history from the Classical Age
to early Hellenistic times. Among his recent publications are: with J. C.
Yardley, Ancient Greece from Homer to Alexander (2010) and as co-editor with
I. Worthington, A Companion to Ancient Macedonia (2010).
Peter Schultz is Olin J. Storvick Chair of Classical Studies at Concordia

College. He is the co-editor of Early Hellenistic Portraiture: Image, style, context
(2007), Aspects of Ancient Greek Cult: Ritual, context, iconography (2009), Structure,
Image, Ornament: Architectural sculpture in the Greek World (2009) and the author
of numerous articles on Athenian art, architectural and topography.
Shane Wallace is a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh. Currently

based at the British School at Athens, he is completing his thesis ‘The
Freedom of the Greeks in the Early Hellenistic Period, 336–262: A Study
in Ruler/City Relations’.
Hans-Ulrich Wiemer holds the chair of Ancient History at the University

of Erlangen-Nürnberg. His publications include Libanios und Julian (1995),
Rhodische Traditionen in der hellenistischen Historiographie (2001), Krieg,
viii
Creating a Hellenistic World
Handel und Piraterie. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des hellenistischen Rhodos

(2002), Alexander der Große (2005). He also edited Staatlichkeit und politisches
Handeln in der römischen Kaiserzeit (2006) and, with Hans Beck, Feiern und
Erinnern (2009).
Josef Wiesehöfer is Professor of Ancient History at the University of

Kiel. His main publications deal with the history of Pre-Islamic Iran and
the history of scholarship and include Friedrich Münzer (1982), Die ‘dunklen
Jahrhunderte’ der Persis (1994), Ancient Persia (3rd ed. 2004) and Iraniens, Grecs
et Romains (2005). He is editor of Das Partherreich und seine Zeugnisse (1998),
Theodor Mommsen (2005) and Eran ud Aneran (2006).
Stephanie Winder is a lecturer in Classics at the University of Edinburgh.

Her main areas of scholarly interest are Hellenistic poetry and ancient
literary theory.
ix
ABBREVIATIONS
Abbreviations for ancient texts follow OCD 3 for the most part or are easily
identifiable. For papyrological abbreviations such as P.Berol., P.Cair.Zen,
P.Herc see http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/papyrus/texts/clist.html.
AB C. Austin and G. Bastianini (eds), Posidippi Pellaei quae

supersunt omnia. Milan, 2002.
Agora The Athenian Agora, New Jersey, 1953–
AHB Ancient History Bulletin.
AJA American Journal of Archaeology.
AJP American Journal of Philology.
AncW The Ancient World.
APF Archiv für Papyrusforschung.
BCH Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique.
CAH 2 Cambridge Ancient History, 2nd edn, Cambridge, 1961–
CEG P. A. Hansen (ed.), Carmina Epigraphica Graeca, 2 vols,
Berlin and New York, 1983 and 1989.
CID Lefèvre, F., Corpus des Inscriptions de Delphes 4: Documents
amphictioniques, Paris, 2002.
CQ Classical Quarterly.
FD Fouilles de Delphes, Paris, 1902-
FGrH Jacoby, F., Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, 1923–
FHG Müller, C., Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, Paris,
1841–70.
G-P Gow, A. S. F. and Page, D. L., The Greek Anthology:
Hellenistic Epigrams, 2 vols, Cambridge, 1965.
GHI Rhodes, P. J. and Osborne, R., Greek Historical Inscriptions
404–323 BC, Oxford, 2003.
GRBS Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies.
HSCP Harvard Studies in Classical Philology.
I. Amyzon Robert, J. and L., Fouilles d’Amyzon en Carie I: Exploration,
histoire, monnaies et inscriptions, Paris, 1983.
I. Erythrai Engelmann, H. and Merkelbach, R., Die Inschriften von
Erythrai und Klazomenai,1972–73.
I. Milet Milet, Ergebnisse der Ausgrabung seit dem Jahren 1899, Berlin
1906–
I. Mylasa Blümel, W., Die Inschriften von Mylasa, 1987–88.
xi
Abbreviations
I.Rhamnous Petrakos, B., Ὁ ∆ήµος τὸν Ραµνοῦντος, 2 vols., Βιβλιοθήκη τῆς

ἐν Ἀθήναις Ἀρχαιολογικής Ἑταιρείας 181–2, Athens, 1999.
I.Stratonikeia Sahin, M. Ç., Die Inschriften von Stratonikeia, 1981–90.
IG Inscriptiones Graecae, 1873-
IK Inschriften griechischer Städte aus Kleinasien, Bonn, 1972–
ISE Moretti, L., Iscrizioni storiche ellenistiche, Florence, 1967–76.
JdI Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts.
JEA Journal of Egyptian Archaeology.
JHS Journal of Hellenic Studies.
LGPN Lexicon of Greek Personal Names, Oxford, 1987–
LSJ Liddell, H. G., Scott, R. and Jones, H. S., A Greek-English
Lexicon, Oxford, 9th edn, 1940.
Michel, RIG Michel, C., Recueil d’inscriptions grecques, Brussels, 1897–1900.
OCD 3 Hornblower, S. and Spawforth, A. The Oxford Classical
Dictionary, 3rd edn, Oxford, 1996.
OGIS Dittenberger, W., Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae, Leipzig,
1903–5.
PCPS Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society.
Pros. Ptol. VI Peremans, W. et al., 1968 Prosopographia Ptolemaica VI: La
cour, les relations internationales et les possessions extérieures, la vie
culturelle, Leuven, 1968.
RC Welles, C. B., Royal Correspondence in the Hellenistic Period,
New Haven, 1934.
RE A. Pauly, G. Wissowa, and W. Kroll, Realencyclopädie des
classischen Altertumswissenschaft, 1893–
REA Revue des études anciennes.
REG Revue des études grecques.
Schmitt, SdA Schmitt, H. H., Die Staatsverträge des Altertums 3: Die Verträge
der griechisch-römischen Welt von 338 bis 200 v. Chr., Munich,
1969.
SEG Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 1923–
SH Lloyd-Jones, H. and Parsons, P., Supplementum Hellenisticum.
Berlin and New York, 1983.
SSH Lloyd-Jones, H., Supplementum Supplementi Hellenistici. Berlin
and New York, 2005.
Syll.3 Dittenberger, W. Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum. 3rd edn,
Leipzig, 1915-24.
TAPA Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association.
TGrF Snell, B., Kannicht, R. and Radt, S., Tragicorum Graecorum
Fragmenta, Göttingen, 1971–85.
ZPE Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik.
xii
INTRODUCTION
Macedonian kings dominating the eastern Mediterranean, their prayers

recorded in Akkadian in Babylonia, their portraits sculpted in the manner
of pharaohs in Egypt, Greek communities along the Nile, a flourishing
Greek city at its head, Greek philosophy in furthest Bactria, a Macedonian
garrison in the Piraeus – and no Persian empire.1 All this would have struck
an Athenian in the mid fourth century as a bizarre fantasy but in the mid
third century it was reality. It is this world we study when we study the
Hellenistic age.
Alexander the Great’s overthrow of the Persian empire was fundamental
in enabling this transformation to take place but it was not, one suspects,
sufficient. Counterfactual history may be frowned upon but it can
sometimes be useful.2 What would have happened if, instead of dying in
323 BC, Alexander had lived long enough to ensure an heir and a stable
succession? Assuming that he had managed to rule this conquered territory
successfully, then it is likely that what would have emerged would have
been rather similar to the Persian empire that had preceded it but with the
addition of the Balkans. We might imagine some form of Greco-
Macedonian (and -Persian?) court at its centre, and perhaps a Persian style
satrapal system operating in its territories, but nonetheless wonder how
widely diffused Greco-Macedonian culture would have been through this
united Macedonian empire.
In other words, if Alexander had lived, there might have been no
Hellenistic world, at least not as we know it, and this book and books like
it would never have been written. But Alexander died and his empire
fragmented as leading figures of the Macedonian military struggled for
control. It is out of that fragmentation that the Hellenistic world was born.
Kings and kingdoms emerged, the Antigonids in Macedon, the Seleucids
in Asia, the Ptolemies in Egypt and failed dynasties such as that of
Lysimachos in Thrace and Asia Minor. But it is not the mere fact of these
kingdoms that is significant but what those kingdoms brought with them.
By their very multiplicity they needed a shared culture and that culture was
derived from the Greco-Macedonian homeland, reinforced and sustained
among other things by intermarriage and the needs of diplomacy.3 At the
centre of each was a king whose primary means of expressing power was
in Greek idioms; this had an impact within the kingdom itself but also
beyond it in the smaller non-Greek kingdoms and states that adopted
xiii
Introduction
similar modes of expression to their more powerful neighbours.4 So at the

international level it was Greco-Macedonian culture that was dominant
but within the kingdoms outside the Greek mainland there was much
cultural variety and the rulers took care to address the native population as
well as the Greeks and Macedonians. Nonetheless, when combined with
the Greek character of the centre of power, the presence of newly-founded
Greek cities and the introduction of Greek settlers such as those in the
Fayyum in Egypt meant that things Greek still had priority.
So, although it is tempting to see Alexander as the founder or creator of
the Hellenistic world, it may be more appropriate to see him as the catalyst;
his actions set this transformation of the eastern Mediterranean in motion.
An alternative candidate for the title of its creator might be someone
more recent, the German historian Johann Gustav Droysen, who was
responsible for coining the term ‘Hellenistic’. Without him it could
be argued there would be no Hellenistic world. For Droysen what
distinguished the Hellenistic age was the fusion of Greek and oriental
culture, although as Robin Lane Fox points out in the opening chapter of
this volume there are serious problems with this as a defining characteristic,
not least because there is evidence for fusion of this sort long before the
Hellenistic period. Fusion also suggests some form of equality of status
whereas in practice the conquered had to find ways of reaching an
accommodation with the conquerors.
That the Hellenistic world was the product of conquest and colonisation
is not something neglected by modern scholarship but at the same time it
is not to the fore as much as it might be. Perhaps this is in part because
these territories were not ruled from afar, for instance from Macedon or
Persepolis, but instead by kings who were present, ‘exiles from their ethnic
homeland’, as Graham Shipley puts it.5 But, although conquest and
occupation were fundamental, the Hellenistic world was not like the
Persian or the Roman empire because it was not a unity under the rule of
one man or one state. It is the fragmented character of power in parallel
with a coherence that comes from the acknowledgement of a common
Greco-Macedonian culture that helps to make the Hellenistic world
distinctive.
The aim of the present volume is to explore this emerging Hellenistic
world, its newness but also its oldness, whether real or imagined. It is
important to bear in mind its scale and variety and be wary of easy
generalisations. The two chapters on Persis and Egypt, by Josef Wiesehöfer
and Alan Lloyd respectively, offer case studies in Macedonian rule and give
a sense not only of this variety but also of the nature of the transformation,
all the more evident because both highlight the native reaction. The
xiv
fortunes of the two regions are in many ways reversed. Under the Persian
empire Persis was central while Egypt was a troublesome (but economically
important) land on the periphery of that empire, but now in the third
century Egypt is home to a powerful and rich kingdom and all that that
entails while Persis is reduced to being a relative backwater, a mere
secondary province of the Seleucid empire. In the old Greece, on the other
hand, the polis is learning to cope with this new environment, although
there it may be hard to let go of the past. As Shane Wallace demonstrates,
the Persian Wars are still a potent symbol on the Greek mainland long after
the disappearance of the Persian empire itself. Nor are old aspirations of
hegemony easily put aside as Hans-Ulrich Wiemer’s chapter on Rhodes
makes clear. Here there was the Colossus of Rhodes, a giant statue
celebrated in a short and recently discovered epigram by Posidippus. The
contrasting scales here, explored in James Porter’s chapter, are emblematic
not only of Hellenistic art and literature but also of the vast and complex
character of the Hellenistic world.
It is common and not unreasonable for scholars examining times of
transformation to talk of change and continuity,6 but these in themselves
can mislead. What might be seen as change in one place might be
continuity in another. From a Greek perspective we might pick out the
court as a new phenomenon, but from a Macedonian and eastern
perspective it may have been the polis that was the anomaly. The
Macedonian court would of course have been very different from its
Persian counterpart (although a Persian model for the fifth-century
Macedonian court must not be overlooked) but both took kingship for
granted. Several chapters explore various aspects of the court, its tensions
and pressures, the place of the intellectual (see Erskine) and in particular
the role of women (see Carney; Llewellyn-Jones and Winder; Ogden).
We may be able to name few women from Classical Greece, but the same
problem does not occur in the Hellenistic period, even if many of them are
called Cleopatra. Changes too can be observed that on investigation were
already under way; after all change does not come out of nowhere but
sometimes circumstances allow things to develop and flourish in ways that
would have been otherwise impossible. In other words continuity can be
an essential element of change. It is striking in these chapters how influential
Athens is on the Hellenistic world, culturally (see Hunter on Alexandria
and the letter of Aristeas), artistically (see Schultz on the Hellenistic
baroque), linguistically (see Colvin on the koine); in each case, however,
Athens’ legacy is transformed by contact with this new Macedonian world.
In some ways the end of the old world and the beginning of the new
are captured in the story of the demise of the Silver Shields, the veteran
xv
Introduction
soldiers of Alexander whose final years are recounted by Joseph Roisman.

These soldiers are presented as icons of a glorious Macedonian past but
they are the past and according to one tradition at least they were
deliberately done away with after swopping sides from Eumenes to
Antigonos. The new world had room for their myth but not for the men
themselves.
This volume originates in an informative, instructive, and enjoyable
international conference held at the University of Edinburgh early in 2006
on the theme of Creating a Hellenistic World, kindly sponsored by grants from
the British Academy and the University of Edinburgh Development Trust.
The conference coincided with the launch of a new postgraduate study
programme in the University’s School of History, Classics and Archaeology
entitled Hellenistic Court and Society. Since its inception, we are pleased to see
that the Hellenistic postgraduate programme has proved to be a major
player in the recruitment and training of postgraduates at masters and
doctorate levels, and the future of the study of the Hellenistic world at
Edinburgh looks bright. Forthcoming plans include a close association
with colleagues at the University of Waterloo, Canada, and their Waterloo
Institute for Hellenistic Studies (WIHS), and 2010 will see the launch of
Edinburgh’s sister-site, The Centre for the Study of the Hellenistic World
(CSHW), with more conferences and workshops planned thereafter.
The editors are grateful to all the participants of the 2006 conference,
most of whom (and more) are represented in this volume. We wish to
thank our conference co-organiser Dr Stephanie Winder for her input in
making the event such a success and we wish to acknowledge too the
support and encouragement of all our colleagues in Classics at Edinburgh.
The study of the history and culture of the Hellenistic world continues to
grow apace, and scholars and students alike are recognizing the wealth of
information to be mined from the diverse, disparate, sometimes frustrating,
but always rewarding source materials of the period. This book, it is hoped,
goes some way towards delineating the perimeters of that age by
attempting to define why and how the Hellenistic world came into being.
Andrew Erskine and Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

Edinburgh, December 2009
xvi
Notes
1 Prayers (on the cylinder of Antiochos I): Kuhrt and Sherwin-White 1991;
portraits: Stanwick 2002; Greek communities in Egypt: Rowlandson 2003, Fraser

1972; Bactria (the inscription of Klearchos from Ai Khanoum): Robert 1968, Yailenko
1990; garrison in Piraeus: Habicht 1997.
2 For some experiments in counterfactual history, Ferguson 1997.
3 For the common culture of the court, note Strootman’s 2007 dissertation, though
that did not exclude differences, see Carney this volume.

4 Ma 2003, 187–8.
5 Shipley 2000, 295. The extent of colonisation is vividly demonstrated by Getzl
Cohen’s volumes on Hellenistic settlements (Cohen1995 and 2006).

6 For example, Erskine 2003, Part III, Chamoux 2003, 255, Davies 1984, 290.
Bibliography
Chamoux, F.
2003 Hellenistic Civilization, Oxford (first published in French, 1981).
Cohen, G.
1995 The Hellenistic Settlements in Europe, the Islands, and Asia Minor, Berkeley.
2006 The Hellenistic Settlements in Syria, the Red Sea Basin, and North Africa, Berkeley.
Davies, J.
1984 ‘Cultural, social and economic features of the Hellenistic world’, CAH 2
7.1, 257–320.
Erskine, A. (ed.)
2003 A Companion to the Hellenistic World, Oxford.
Ferguson, N.
1997 Virtual History: Alternatives and counterfactuals, London.
Fraser, P. M
1972 Ptolemaic Alexandria, Oxford.
Habicht, C.
1997 Athens from Alexander to Actium, Boston.
Kuhrt, A. and Sherwin-White, S.
1991 ‘Aspects of Seleucid royal ideology: the cylinder of Antiochus I from
Borsippa’, JHS 111, 71–86.
Ma, J.
2003 ‘Kings’, in Erskine 2003, 177–95.
Robert, L.
1968 ‘De Delphes à l’Oxus: inscriptions grecques nouvelles de la Bactriane’,
Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 416–57 (reprinted
in L. Robert, Opera Minora Selecta 5, Amsterdam, 1989, 510–51).
Rowlandson, J.
2003 ‘Town and country in Ptolemaic Egypt’, in Erskine 2003, 249–63.
Shipley, G.
2000 The Greek World after Alexander 323–30 BC, London.
Stanwick, P.
2002 Portraits of the Ptolemies: Greek kings as Egyptian Pharaohs, Austin.
xvii
Introduction
Strootman, R.
2007 The Hellenistic Royal Court. Court culture, ceremonial and ideology in
Greece, Egypt and the Near East, 336–30 BCE, Dissertation, University
of Utrecht. (http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/dissertations/2007-0725-
201108/UUindex.html)
Yailenko, V.-P.
1990 ‘Les maximes delphiques d’Ai Khanoum et la formation de la doctrine du
dhamma d’Asoka, Dialogues d’Histoire Ancienne 16, 239–56.
xviii
PART I
NEW WORLDS
THE FIRST HELLENISTIC MAN
Robin Lane Fox
The ancients had no word for the Hellenistic Age. It is the famous coinage
of young Johann Gustav Droysen and is explained in the preface to his
History of the Successors which he published in 1836 at the age of 28. Just
as ‘Romanistik’ and ‘Germanistik’ had combined in early medieval Europe
and the ‘Romance’ languages had been born, so, Droysen believed, the
fusion of the Hellenistic and the Oriental produced the culture and koine-
language of a Hellenistic age after Alexander.1
The relation between Greek and non-Greek cultures in Asia is still
important in Hellenistic studies but it is no longer quite as Droysen
proposed. For Claire Préaux there was actually no new ‘mixed’ culture at
all.2 Instead there is a scholarly emphasis on bi-culturalism whereby
individuals might speak two languages, adopt two names (one Greek, one
non-Greek) and move between two different ways of life.3 It might seem
more reassuring to Droysen that Fergus Millar has argued that there was
one area close to his conception: the Phoenician cities in the Hellenistic
age. How far their non-Greek culture extended has now been questioned,
but even so, Millar poses problems for Droysen’s periodization.4
Hellenisation, he observes, began in these cities before Alexander, an
‘agreeable paradox’, and even more tellingly ‘we might well wonder why it
was in Rome and not in Phoenicia that there evolved, entirely without the
aid of a conquering Macedonian state, the only literary culture which really
was a fusion in Droysen’s sense.’
1
Robin Lane Fox
Droysen’s emphasis on a Hellenistic fusion has not succeeded in

defining the Greek world from 320–30 BC, but this idea belonged in a wider
framework of thought. He had heard Hegel in Berlin and his theory of
history assumed the recurring reconciliation of opposites which then led on
to a new historical phase. At first, he believed, Greece had been the ‘total
opposite’ of the Orient but after Alexander this old ‘antithesis’ was replaced
by a new ‘synthesis’, the mixing of the ‘hellenic-macedonian element’ with
the native life of other countries.5 Above all there had been a religious
mixing or Theokrasie in which the cults of different peoples were assimilated
beyond their local and national origins. There was also a widespread cult
of living mortal rulers. However, these opposites were only partially
reconciled and so they gave way to Christianity, which resolved the supra-
national mixing of cults and the God-man antithesis in a new way.
Unlike Hegel, Droysen thus saw the Hellenistic world, not the Roman
state and its civilization, as the preparation for the Christian age. Yet he
failed to publish any detailed study of the new Hellenistic culture whose
role he had diagnosed. The reasons for this failure, and the problem of the
‘Jewish question’ in them, have been brilliantly investigated by Momigliano.6
Meanwhile, at its starting point, Droysen’s periodization has continued to
be dissolved by local studies. On Droysen’s definition of the Hellenistic we
would already have a Hellenistic Cyprus in, say, the sixth century BC,
Hellenistic parts of Caria in the mid fourth century and a Hellenistic
Mediterranean wherever Greeks sited settlements from c. 760 BC onwards,
while (perhaps only for M. L. West) Homeric poetry and Homer himself
would be Hellenistic from the start.
Nonetheless, Droysen chose his starting-point for a clear, intelligible
reason: his interpretation of Alexander. Before his History of the Successors
he had published a remarkable study of Alexander, written with the
particular gifts of a historian in his early to mid-twenties. Alexander, he
believed, had wished for a political union of the peoples of East and West,
but the Successors had fragmented this vision and so they were the
‘antistrophe-’ to Alexander’s attempted synthesis. There was another
problem. Alexander had ‘fulfilled’ the anthropomorphism which
characterized ancient Greek religion. A man had become a god, but his
‘kingdom was of this world’, leaving scope for a new Christian phase of
history whose founder’s kingdom would be other-worldly.7 While these
antitheses awaited reconciliation in a new age, Alexander left one new
direction which did survive him: his intended fusion of Greek and Oriental
bore fruit in a ‘Hellenism which one can call the first-ever unity of the
world’. The unity, mixing and even Theokrasie of the Hellenistic age were
already Alexander’s ideals and actions, ‘le résultat des audaces créatrices
2
The first Hellenistic man
de son idéalisme dédaigneux de tout ménagement’ (‘the result of the

creative daring of his idealism which disregarded all caution’).8
I have quoted this conception of Alexander’s Hellenistic ideals in French
because it was in French that it promptly left a conspicuous, but neglected,
mark. Between 1880 and 1888, Droysen’s books on Hellenistic history
were translated into French. In 1890 Théodore Reinach’s excellent study
of Mithridates Eupator and his Pontic kingdom then promptly showed
their imprint. Around Reinach’s Mithridates the same ‘antagonism’ of East
and West was played out, though the West was now Rome, the conqueror,
not synthesizer. The synthesis, rather, had occurred in Mithridates’s own
kingdom, the seat, in Reinach’s view, of ‘un grand fait historique: l’union
féconde de deux grandes civilizations, le persisme et l’hellénisme, dans une
oeuvre commune d’éducation morale, union révée par Alexandre le Grand,
tardivement réalisée sur un théatre malheureusement trop restreint...’
(‘a great historic moment: the fertile union of two great civilizations, the
Persian and the Greek, in a common morality, a union envisaged by
Alexander, but only realized too late in a theatre which was unfortunately
too limited...’).9 Like Droysen, Théodore Reinach had further grounds for
emphasizing this sort of ‘union féconde’. Momigliano has pointed to the
presence of friends and mentors of Jewish origin, but converted to
Protestantism, in the young Droysen’s social circle and formation.
Théodore himself was Jewish, but was writing in Paris where he had
assimilated himself into French and classical culture after his family’s
departure from their home in Frankfurt. Like his brilliant brother Salomon,
Théodore also had a scholarly depth and an openness to the evidence of
coins and iconography. It was here that he detected the ‘union’ of which
Droysen’s Alexander had dreamed. A sudden flood of bronze coinages
was struck in the Cappadocian cities under Mithridates’s rule and showed
an imagery linked to Perseus, the ancestral hero of Greek-Persian kinship.
Reinach’s understanding of them still stands, although the imagery is
Greek, not a synthesis with anything truly Iranian.10
At the beginning and the end of the Hellenistic age, Droysen and
Theodore Reinach thus placed Alexander and his bold ambitions.
Nowadays this role for him is out of scholarly fashion. Tarn’s elaboration
of Alexander’s ‘dream’ has caused the notion to be widely mistrusted.11
Bosworth has even implied that the Alexandrias were a new barbarism
from the West. So much for the spread of ‘Hellenism’, while ‘killing’ was
the one thing at which Alexander excelled.12 There is a renewed problem
of placing him historically: is he the ‘last of the Achaemenids’ in Pierre
Briant’s fertile phrase,13 leading the worst of the ‘hooligans’ from Maria
Brosius’s Persian perspective,14 or a shooting-star, in many modern
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scholars’ view, who left a terrible problem of sources and Indian topography
to subsequent students and only the bad example of conquest and global
ambition to his effective and more orderly Successors?
I wish to reconnect the early Hellenistic world to Alexander its founder,
following Droysen’s example but not his definitions. I will then turn to
other constituents of the new age, its art, literature and philosophy where
Droysen’s ‘fusion’ is not a defining element. Instead I will consider where,
if at all, Alexander’s existence made an impact on them too. In conclusion
I will connect him to a particular view of ‘Hellenistic man’ and a particular
‘Hellenistic moment’.
II
If the fusion of Greek and non-Greek does not characterize the Hellenistic
age, what does? Warfare, we might think, but it varied over time: during the
Roman dominance, cities in Greece have even been credited with ceasing
to build or maintain walled defences after the 140s BC.15 Much depends, as
usual, on the social level which we study. One level is the land and those
who worked it, to whom the Hellenistic age certainly brought changes of
status, economic connections and new crops and technology.16 Another is
the world of Greek poleis whose numbers certainly mushroom in western
Asia in Alexander’s immediate wake. In this world of many more poleis we
can study their ‘network of peer contacts’.17 But this network existed under
yet another level, one which was universal, as never before in Greek
history: Greek-speaking kings and their courts, including queens,
concubines and daughters. I incline to Daniel Ogden’s simple point: kings
and courts are the really distinctive element in the Hellenistic age.18
There is, however, a problem: kings were not a constant element in its
first eighteen years. From June 323 until autumn 317 one king was a half-
wit, Philip’s son Philip III. From early autumn 323 until 310 the other king
was a child, Alexander’s son by Roxane, Alexander IV. In 319 the kings
were escorted out of Asia where they were never seen again. Then from
310 until 306 there was no king at all: the competing Successors hesitated.
In summer 306 Antigonos finally took the title, whereupon the other
competitors (including Ptolemy) quickly followed suit.19 Taking the title
meant wearing a diadem like Alexander. But why had they waited?
After Alexander IV’s death, one route to legitimacy, an attractive one,
was to marry Alexander’s sister Kleopatra. In consequence she was killed,
in 308/7.20 Without her, a king needed to be sure of a capable son, the heir
for a new dynasty. Ptolemy and Seleukos did not yet have one, but
4
Antigonos had the flamboyant Demetrios, and when he was proven by his
Cypriote victory at Salamis, it was the cue for his father’s proclamation.
A Successor king needed a dynastic successor before taking the plunge.
Locally, the competing Successors had already been addressed as ‘king’,
but they had not exploited the title publicly. We can now follow the process
in contemporary Babylonian documents thanks to the fundamental study
of T. Boiy.21 From 323 Philip Arrhidaios is called ‘king’ in Babylonian
scribes’ dating-formulae, as is young Alexander IV. Philip III even persists
as ‘king’ in 316 after his death. Then, in December 316/January 315 the
dating is by Antigonos, but only as ‘general’ (or apparently as ‘satrap’ on
two occasions). From 312/1 Alexander IV is the identifying king with
Seleukos now as ‘general’. From 305 onwards Seleukos is ‘king’. There are
two crucial points here. For Babylonians, Antigonos is never the king,
although Greek sources do talk of him being addressed as ‘lord of Asia’
after his victory over Eumenes in 316 BC.22 Meanwhile, both Philip III and
Alexander IV continue to date documents as ‘kings’ as if their regnal years
continued after their death.
The hiatus in kingship was therefore only apparent. Even in the four
years from 310 to 306, kings were assumed to be continuous; we can see
the same in Egypt where dating by Alexander IV continued long after his
death.23 This formal respect for kings characterized Greek and Macedonian
participants too, even in Asia from 319 onwards when the kings were far
away in Macedon. Even in 319–15 while the successor-armies fought each
other, the treasurers at Alexander’s treasuries in Asia guarded the royal
resources and did not plunder them.24 They would make them available
only to someone who had letters of permission from the kings. So, too,
those hardened Macedonian ‘athletes of war’, the Silver Shields, would
follow Eumenes, the Greek ‘pest from the Chersonese’, rather than the
Macedonian Seleukos, a commander with Alexander, because Eumenes,
but not Seleukos, had letters from the kings.25 The years from 323 to 306
were not years of anarchy, although the kings were weak, absent, or non-
existent.
What, though, did non-Greeks think of it? We have only one source
surviving in its own non-Greek words, subsumed, but somewhat neglected,
in the Old Testament Book of Daniel. In the second chapter, an anonymous
Jew gives us his impressions of the years after Alexander from 323 to
c. 301 BC.26 Updating an older prophecy about the previous kingdoms in
Asia, he presents Alexander’s reign (without naming him) as the age of
iron ‘which breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things’, followed by an age
in which ‘the kingdom shall be divided’, the age of the competing
Successors. In it, some of the ‘strength of the iron’ will persist, mixed,
5
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however, with weak ‘potter’s clay’. The components are grim, but even in
this symbolic view of the new age, kings and kingdoms predominate.
Some, at least, of Alexander’s all-conquering ‘iron’ persists in the divided
age. How important was Alexander’s example to the early Successors’ royal
style? Their uses of his name as their password, of his idealized image to
symbolize continuity on their coins, of his throne and attributes as a setting
for their meetings are well known.27 What about some of the specific items?
Alexander’s own weapons, sceptre and diadem were kept on one side
and did not follow Philip III and the child to Macedon.28 Instead what we
see is cult paid locally by Greek communities to Philip III and others after
him.29 Inarguably, it was Alexander and his prowess who had made this
sort of cult a widespread Greek reaction. There had been stirrings before,
and in Philip’s lifetime a cult at his Philippi is now almost certain,30 but
Alexander had the unique power, the prowess and the capacity for
benefaction to which ‘god-like honours’ were a response. Here his legacy
to the Hellenistic age was decisive. There was no ‘deification decree’ from
Alexander himself 31 and neither he nor the early Successors personally
imposed cult on their courtiers or subjects.32 Just as Alexander had been
receiving such honours here and there in the Greek world before his Exiles
Decree of summer 324, so we can see how Demetrios at Athens or Sikyon
and Ptolemy on Rhodes were honoured locally at a city’s own initiative.33
After Alexander, in return for a big benefaction, no less could be offered
to a Successor than had been offered to Alexander himself: his example
had established a new norm. As for divine ‘sonship’, we might query the
credibility of Alexander’s claims, but Seleukos deliberately emulated them
for a ‘Successor’ public, claiming that oracles of Apollo at Didyma had
vouched for his sonship of the god.34 The huge oracular temple at Didyma
is his acknowledgement in stone, our biggest visible survival from the early
Successors’ years.
Politically, human influence at a Hellenistic court depended on access to
the king. We see it already under Alexander, whether for his weapons-
officers or even (by letter) his sister.35 Under the early Successors there
were still no constitutions or obligatory council-meetings to bind the kings’
actions. A king dispensed decisions and judgements which overrode local
laws.36 Fergus Millar’s ideal type of a Roman emperor, dispensing justice
and responding to petitions, goes back in the Greek world to Philip,
Alexander and the first Successors. Epigraphically we see its role very well
in the endless rulings on the status of the tyrants’ descendants which were
inscribed at Eresos.37 Spanning Alexander and his early Successors the
questions and answers rolled on in the kings’ presence as if no wars were
going on meanwhile.
6
The one ‘constitutional’ innovation was simply the consequence of

Alexander dying young without an heir: the Macedonian soldiery had to
play a role, which later became more formalized, in the wholly irregular
circumstances of the succession in June 323.38 Otherwise, in the Successors’
entourages the old title of ‘Companions’ became the officially recognized
title of ‘Friends’. Among the successors there was the same royal response
to crisis, the extension of new ‘titles of distinction’ to a king’s supporters.
This response had been Alexander’s at Opis, and it was an old Macedonian
royal tactic, replayed by the Ptolemies in the crisis of the 190s.39
Even those who did not credit the so-called Royal Diaries would
remember Alexander as a stupendous hunter and drinker.40 In their
rivalries, therefore, Successors competed to be true lion kings and exploited
their hunting exploits as evidence of their prowess.41 As for the drinking,
Eumenes was known to have been drunk on campaign while even old
Polyperchon was alleged to dance while wearing a saffron cloak and
slippers.42 However would Alexander IV have danced, taught by his
mother Roxane, if he had lived on? Like Alexander and previous
Macedonian kings most of the Successors were polygamous but there was
one conspicuous difference in their sexual conduct. Although stories were
told of Demetrios’s fancy for boys in Athens (including a descendant of
demagogic Kleon), no Successor had a Hephaistion and nobody ordered
Greek cities to honour their male lover as a hero.43 Until Hadrian,
Alexander’s actions here were unique.
Alexander had also changed the discourse on luxury. Nobody applied
the old stereotype to him, that luxury caused a ruling power to go soft.
Alexander combined war, conquest and an unimagined level of splendour
in his gifts, festivals and banquets: splendid luxury then became part of the
image of a proper king, especially for the Ptolemies in Egypt.44 From
Athenian evidence, Susan Rotroff has pointed to a sharp decline in the
surviving numbers of pottery-kraters in the early Hellenistic age and has
linked it tentatively to a change from small symposiums to bigger civic
banquets given by rich individuals.45 In royal company the likelier cause
would be the widespread use of precious metal instead. Our best evidence
for the new splendour of the new rich is the Hippolochos letter describing
Karanos’s Macedonian banquet, which is far more instructive and visually
illuminating than anything yet known from early Hellenistic archaeology.46
War, as Michel Austin reminded us, was central to the Successors’
economies and the resources on which stupendous luxury depended.47
In warfare the early Successors were simply Alexander’s heirs, although
( in my view) he would have defeated all of them.48 The ships and siege-
towers became bigger, Alexander having shown the use of artillery on deck;
7
Chapter XX
elephants still fought, but now on both sides of a battle; one Indian
mahout, however, showed Greeks how spikes could be used against their
soft feet (Ptolemy then copied him).49 Bosworth has written bleakly of the
‘waste’ of forests in Alexander’s grand expedition: here too the early
Successors followed suit, felling big trees in the Lebanon and even some
huge cedars (up to 130 feet high) which still grew on Cyprus.50
In their battles, the basic line-up and tactics were still Alexander’s too.
Tarn, however, suggested that the battle of Antigonos and Eumenes at
Paraitakene in late 317 BC was something new, the first example of a battle
directed throughout by a general.51 Tarn’s role for Antigonos here is not
supported by Diodorus-Hieronymos, the only account of it, while at
Gabiene a few months later we see the two generals, ‘supercharged on
Alexander’ as Lendon well puts it, still charging into combat among the
first of their men.52 Under Alexander Ptolemy had killed a chieftain in
single combat: even Eumenes had wrestled and duelled with Neoptolemos:
prowess was in Alexander’s generals’ blood as Pyrrhos and his sons
exemplified, true followers of Alexander’s style.53 Quite apart from the
problem of dust-clouds there was no question of a general departing from
Alexander’s example and operating as a controller at a distance. Early
Hellenistic generalship was not yet the generalship which Polybius admired
many years later.54
Soldiers for these Hellenistic battles came increasingly from land-grants,
the kle-roi in Ptolemaic Egypt and the katoikiai or military colonies, especially
those in Seleucid Asia.55 Alexander had also, of course, founded poleis, not
‘six’ (as Fraser claims) but at least 16. His example was followed by his
Successors, especially outside Egypt. Curtius 7.10.15 (not discussed by
Fraser) refers to his 6 newly-founded ‘oppida’ on high hills in ‘Margania’
and although the point has been disputed, I agree with Bosworth that the
text should not be emended to Margiana, the Merv oasis. There may have
been an Alexandria there too, but the oasis has no such hills.56 After Grenet
and Rapin revisited some of the relevant territory on the Oxus’s further
bank, they suggested that Curtius’s topography is met precisely at one site:
Termez.57 Sir William Tarn would be gratified if his site for an Alexandria
had finally proved plausible, though not for the complex reasons which
he constructed for it. However, Termez’s excavator has vigorously rejected
the suggestion: we need to look elsewhere, in my view further to the east
along the Oxus’s ‘Sogdian’ bank.58 Meanwhile, Curtius’s precise topographic
details cannot simply be rejected: he even adds that the six ‘oppida’ there
‘nowadays’ forget their origins and serve those whom they once commanded.
He, or his source, did not believe that they quickly disappeared.
Besides founding new cities, Hellenistic kings had to control existing
8
ones within a framework of ‘freedom’ and ‘autonomy’. Already Alexander

communicated with Greek cities by his Successors’ favoured instrument,
the diagramma.59 However, his first general communication by letter (not
envoy) to the Greek cities has become obscured by modern scholars.
According to Plutarch he wrote to the Greek cities after Gaugamela telling
them ‘τὰς τυραννίδας πάσας καταλυθῆναι’ and to conduct their affairs
(πολιτεύειν) autonomously. In 1969 Hamilton insisted that the aorist
infinitive here is significant and that its meaning is merely that ‘the tyrannies
had been put down’.60 He has been widely followed but the resulting
communication then reads very oddly in context. Alexander’s letter
becomes an observation on past history (in 334–2 BC ), although the
context of Plutarch’s chapter after Gaugamela is one of new initiatives.
Did Alexander really need to remind the Greek cities of what had
(supposedly) been done, even while Agis’s revolt was looming? The answer
is that he ‘wrote’ ( ἔγραψε) in the sense of issuing an order and the two
infinitives express indirect commands, one after the other: first, ‘let all
tyrants be put down’ and then, after that action, in the present tense ‘go on
conducting your affairs autonomously’. What we have, then, is Alexander’s
Deposition of Tyranny order: it is in need of restoration to our books about
him. In 319/8 the diagramma of Polyperchon, deposing tyrants and
oligarchs in Greece, was not without Alexander’s precedent.61
Pierre Briant has traced the underlying Orientalism and ‘colonialist’
assumptions of various modern historians of Alexander: what, though,
about Alexander and the Successors themselves? 62 They came, after all,
from Philip’s Macedon where access to court-culture had already been used
to civilize and ‘tame’ a new generation. How would Asia strike them? There
was certainly (in Alexander’s view) much scope for improvement. We may
not agree with Droysen that the Persians had ‘sucked away’ the economic
strengths of their subject peoples ‘like vampires’ (vampirhaft): nonetheless,
since Cyrus’s ‘Cyrus the Furthest’, the Achaemenids had not founded a
single town.63 In India, as Alexander’s retained ‘prospector’ observed, the
Indians have great outcrops of salt and mines of gold and silver but they
are ‘very simple’ about what they possess.64 On the Persian Gulf, Alexander
planned to settle Phoenicians from the Levant because the place seemed
to be (or ‘would be’) prosperous. Likewise he was planning to put poleis
along the coast of Arabia. On the river Tigris he despised the katarraktai,
or weirs, which were believed, perhaps wrongly, to be the Persians’
installations against any ships which might invade up river.65 Briant has
argued that he misunderstood the purpose of these barriers, but
nonetheless Alexander’s reported attitude to them is revealing.66 He said
that such ‘sophismata’, devices, were not worthy of real conquerors and he
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proved it by cutting through them ‘without difficulty’. Months later, on

the Euphrates, he diverted the river and changed the canal system,
replacing at a stroke works which had been taking ‘10,000 Assyrian
labourers up to three months’.67
So, too, among the Successors: Egypt’s Fayyum was developed for the
first time, irrigated and given over to new farming.68 In north Syria
Seleukos’s new city-settlements and man-made harbours brought the
biggest change to the area since the Bronze Age.69 They are the Hellenistic
heirs to Alexander’s own spirit of development which existed even without
modern concepts of ‘development economics’.
Culturally, the main language of Alexander’s court and army was Greek.
Recruits from Asia were expected to learn it. In 331 Alexander had already
sent Darius’s mother, daughters and son to Susa and ordered them to be
given Greek lessons.70 Historically Alexander is the founding-father of
modern courses in ‘Greek from scratch’. In 327 he ordered 30,000 young
Iranians to be taught Greek, Greek grammata, even, according to Plutarch.71
He undertook to give a Greek upbringing to the children of his
Macedonian veterans’ mixed marriages.72 In Droysen’s terms there is no
doubt about the first known Hellenistic woman: she emerged from
Alexander’s Greek courses. Amastris, the niece of King Darius III, duly
learned Greek, was married briefly at Susa to the staunch Macedonian
Krateros, and when he left her, was sent off to marry the ruling tyrant of
Heraklea beside the Black Sea (two of their three children were given
Iranian-Greek names). Succeeding him as ruler after his death, she briefly
married Lysimachos; then she organized a new settlement, the coastal city
‘Amastris’, and issued coins with the legend ‘Amastris the Queen’ in
Greek.73
From King Diodotos’s Bactria to Magas’s Cyrene, the dominant
language of the Hellenistic courts was Greek too. In Egypt the Ptolemies
encouraged Greek teachers by granting them exemptions from the salt-
tax which was otherwise paid by all adults.74 Meanwhile, dozens of athletic
festivals, from the Persian Gulf to the Troad, brought Greeks and Greek
values importantly together.75 Already Alexander had shown the way,
holding athletic games and horse racing as far away as the Jaxartes and
Indus rivers.76 By his orders, entertainments in Asia were transformed.
When he took Tyre in 332 BC we now know from a victor’s inscription
that he held athletic games as a celebration.77 When he returned to the city
in spring 331 he held theatrical contests and used the Cypriote kings as
chore-goi.78 The scale and scope of his wedding-entertainments at Susa in 324
are the forerunners of the big royal Hellenistic festivals. The thousands of
actors and entertainers who gathered there mark the origins of the
10
formalized actor-companies who become so important in Hellenistic

cultural life.79
Was there any meeting of minds among all this circulating talent,
whereby Greeks attended to all that their non-Greek contemporaries
already knew? According to Porphyry (c. 280 AD), Kallisthenes arranged for
Babylonian records of eclipses to be sent back to Aristotle, all ‘31,000’
years of them, but they have left not a trace in his writings and the story is
hard to credit.80 However, one Indian wise man, whom the Macedonians
named ‘Kalanos’, did converse with his new associates from 326 BC
onwards.81 We may even have some neglected evidence of what he said: in
a Milesian inscription, a ‘parape-gma’, of the mid-80s BC, statements about
the relation between particular stars and the weather are attributed to
‘Kallaneus the Indian’.82 Publishing this rare text in 1904, Diels dismissed
the notion that these details really did derive from Alexander’s Kalanos as
‘a baroque idea’. For him they were pseudepigraphic, like the fictitious
letters which were composed in Kalanos’s name during the Hellenistic age.
But the factual statements in this inscription are quite different from such
fictions and Diels did not consider Arrian 7.3.4, evidence that Kalanos’s
‘wisdom’ (sophia) had particular ‘attendant-admirers’ at Alexander’s court.
It is highly likely that he did talk about the stars and seasons of his
homeland and that his knowledge found its way into an Alexander
historian and thence to texts on astronomy.
If so, talks with Kalanos are forerunners of the Greek interest in
the Egyptians’ calendar which is attested in Papyrus Hibeh 27. Writing
c. 300 BC, the author tells how he lived for five years in the Saite nome in
Egypt and learned from a ‘wise man’ who showed him all, ‘demonstrating
it in practice on a stone dial which in Greek is called a “gnomon”’. He then
gives the details of the calendar, evidently the one which was explained to
him. The text’s first editors took the text to be based on Eudoxos’s Greek
theory of astronomy and written by one of Eudoxos’s followers.83 But
patently the ‘wise man’, its source, is an Egyptian and is the source of the
calendar’s Egyptian dates and astronomical details and its use of Egyptian
unit-fractions to give the variations in the lengths of daylight. A Greek had
troubled to acquire non-Greek wisdom: he was not, surely, the only one.84
What about Droysen’s ‘mixed’ religion? Politically Alexander honoured
foreign gods in Egypt and in Babylon: he ordered ‘shrines there, and
especially the Tomb of Bel’, the great ziggurat, to be rebuilt after the
damage (allegedly) done to them by Xerxes. This Persian damage was not
a Greek fiction or a misunderstanding.85 When Seleukos I and Antiochos
then patronized Babylon’s temples, they were simply following in
Alexander’s footsteps: they were not replacing a previously abrasive
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Macedonian-style kingship with a new multi-cultural style.86 As Droysen

observed, Alexander’s entourage grew to include Iranian magi who
honoured their own gods.87 The result, however, was not a mixed religious
‘fusion’. As a polytheist Alexander honoured the gods of his various
subjects out of prudence, not ‘Theokrasie’.
In Greek opinion, the gods encountered in Asia were Greek gods in
varying forms. After Alexander, we find that settlers at Ai Khanoum had
a temple in the middle of their settlement whose plan is non-Greek
(probably Bactrian-Iranian) but whose cult-statue appears to have been a
huge Greek Zeus with a sceptre. For Greek speakers the god was Zeus,
worshipped in a new architectural form, but non-Greeks worshipped him
by placing inverted pots along the shrine’s perimeter wall, arguably
honouring him as Mithra, a chthonic deity.88 Here, as elsewhere, there was
no ‘fusion’: there were two separate traditions each worshipping in
their own way. In Egypt the major new cult was Serapis, but even here
the ‘Egyptian’ elements were formed by Greeks into a new Greek
‘Egyptianizing’ cult. It proved much more attractive to Greek-speakers
than to the Egyptians themselves.89
All across Asia Alexander and his officers continued to understand non-
Greek peoples, too, as more like themselves than they really were. The
Armenians were kinsmen of Jason, while Indian tribes were descended
from Herakles or Dionysos.90 Foreigners were thus related by kinship to
the Greeks’ own heroic ancestors. In southern Asia minor Alexander
encouraged these claims by his own benefactions. By favouring self-styled
‘kinsmen’ of old Argos, he caused others to claim this status, even after
his death.91 So far from contributing to Droysen’s new fusion of equals, he
caused non-Greek ‘others’ to compete to be seen as the ‘same’. In the late
second century BC even the people of Tyre convinced the people of Delphi
that they were their kith and kin, related by a synkrasis, a genuine ‘fusion’.92
Its logic has never been adequately explained, but it was based, I suggest,
on clues which were found in a classic Greek drama. In Euripides’s
Phoenician Women the chorus of well-born Tyrian girls are represented at
Delphi on their way to strife-torn Thebes. ‘May we be mothers’, they pray,
‘and may we have fair children...’.93 Claims to kinship had to rest on good
evidence: thanks to Euripides’s admired drama the Tyrians had the very
proof they wanted. The Delphians were directly descended from their own
noble ladies and so the Tyrians and the Delphians were justly ‘twinned’.
The Phoenician city where Droysen’s ‘mixed culture’ has been most
advocated ended by claiming to be the ancestor by marriage of the Greeks
at Delphi. But the fusion was not ascribed to Alexander: it was discovered
in the distant mythical Greek past.
12
III
Alexander’s warfare, personal style, hunting, drinking and city-founding

had all been exemplified by Philip, the other great founding king. In the
absence of Asian conquests it would, however, be excessive to credit Philip
with being the first Hellenistic king. Some of the Successors grew up with
Philip’s example, as had Alexander, but nonetheless they continued it only
because Alexander exemplified it all over Asia, whereas Philip had not.
The first Hellenistic kings then broke no ground which Alexander had not
already charted. They merely lost bits of his territory. Even so some of
them were thought to be aiming for conquest of ‘the whole lot’ (ta hola) or
‘all the world’ (in Antigonos’s mind in 306 BC).94 The ambition for ‘the
whole lot’, ta hola, in this big Alexander-sense of the term was still ascribed
by Polybius to kings of Macedon in the later third century BC.95
Around them, meanwhile, Greek literature, art and philosophy were
changing importantly. Here Alexander’s impact proved more indirect. We
have none of the poems which his retained poets wrote for him but they
seem most unlikely models for the next Hellenistic generation. It is more
plausible that its new poetry grew out of earlier fourth-century poets,
however ill-known they are to us. Certainly the big names at Alexandria
owed their main debt to the education and polis-culture in which they had
been formed before ever coming near a king.96 The mixing of genres, the
prominence of the mime and its themes, the realism, the mannerism: none
of these Hellenistic features owed a debt to Alexander any more than did
the new genre of pastoral. Conversely there was no particular interest by
the new Greek poets in the new non-Greek horizons which Alexander
opened up. As John Elliott has shown for English poets of the late
sixteenth and early seventeenth century, Hellenistic poets in Asia ignored
the ‘New World’, its scenery and cultures.97 After Alexander it impinged on
them only in ‘wonders’ which were sent West, whether jewelled cups or
rich ex-mercenaries: all sorts of things arrived, including the gold necklaces
and gold rhyton which Roxane gave as dedications to Athena on the
Athenians’ Acropolis.98 The comic poet Antiphanes evokes the arrival of
fruits of the citron-tree at Athens from ‘the king’ in Persia, surely
Alexander.99 We then meet similar new knowledge in Theophrastus’s
botany-works, also written at Athens, using the texts of authors who had
gone east with Alexander.100
In prose Alexander’s presence was much more influential. The political
fictions of his early Successors were Alexander-fictions, his alleged
‘Diaries’, his ‘Will’, a polemical list of guests at his fatal dinner-party,
perhaps another such text on cities which he was alleged to have
13
Chapter XX
founded.101 The existing genre of fictitious letters was greatly increased by

a flood of letters composed in his name. Elements of a long-lived fictitious
Romance about him also began early. Above all there was a reshaping of
the conquering heroes in Greek ethnographic prose-works, whether Egypt’s
Sesostris and Osiris, ‘eastern’ Dionysos or Herakles. Their legendary deeds
were enhanced by prose-authors to keep up with Alexander’s own, a
process which began early with Megasthenes and with Hekataios of Abdera
in Ptolemy I’s Egypt.102
As for Hellenistic art, we still need to know more about it, but some of
its obvious features had already been much publicized by Alexander’s own
taste.103 For Préaux the Hellenistic age ‘expresses itself in the baroque’: the
difficulty is to define what exactly is ‘baroque’ and when it begins.104
Alexander’s amazing funeral-cart combines Greek and non-Greek forms,
but it is not quite ‘baroque’, at least in its best modern reconstruction: in
sculpture, we must also do credit to Skopas, active before Alexander and
already inventor of the ‘nude of ecstasy’, in Andrew Stewart’s appraisal of
him.105 The ‘gigantism’ of Hellenistic art is nearer to being baroque and
here Alexander certainly set the standards with his vast funerary monument
for Hephaistion, even if he also refused a proposal to turn the cliff-face of
mount Athos into a huge memorial to himself.106 ‘Individualism’ was
evident not only in his own portraits and coin-types but also in the
widespread patronage of portraits by his officers, including such localized
players as Peukestas.107 ‘Hunting art’ was commissioned by Alexander
while in the near East in 332/1, as was big battle-painting, still visible in our
Alexander-mosaic.108 Emotional art appealed to him too, as we can see
from his choice of a painting of a dying captive lady, with a baby crawling
to her breast, fearing to find blood, not milk: he took this lost masterpiece
from the spoils at Thebes, and significantly it was a picture which appealed
to later Hellenistic taste.109 The often-cited theatricality of Hellenistic style
was also already evident in Alexander’s ‘Tent City’ for the Susa weddings.110
As for a pronounced Hellenistic sweetness and a decorative use of myth,
Aetion’s remarkable painting of the Wedding to Roxane in 327 had both
in abundance: it was even displayed, we are told, at Olympia.111
The grotesque and the ‘realistic’ were not in evidence around Alexander,
but there were more general changes, ultimately more important for
Hellenistic artists. Alexander vastly enriched all the courtiers and followers
who survived him: he thus marks the start of a Hellenistic age in which
rich art and preciously-worked objects were to be so much more widely
patronized than ever before.112 We meet them, even, in Alexandrian poetry,
especially in the epigrams on cleverly-worked gemstones in the recently-
published poems by Posidippus.113 Even more widely-seen were coin-types
14
of Alexander114 which set an enduring image of the idealized conqueror, as

their impact on the imagery of his Successors and the later Bactrian kings
exemplifies: his idealized features were still one of the coin-types there of
king Agathokles (c. 160 BC).115 Bosworth has tended to describe Alexander’s
Indian invasion as an immoral bloodbath, to be regretted but not admired,
but the image of Alexander wearing the elephant-scalp, symbol of his
Indian prowess, was one promptly continued on coins by Ptolemy, far
away in Egypt, and it was repeated, many years later, by Demetrios out in
Bactria when he invaded India too.116 Above all, Alexander represented a
new style of art for the individual man of power, riding and driving in
conquest, holding or wearing divine attributes, battling on a world-famous
horse. Importantly this art was court-art, made in a new era of ‘art and
power’ and approved by the artists’ subject himself. When Italian
Renaissance authors looked for antique stories about the good relations
between artists and patrons, stories about Alexander were, significantly,
the ones which they found most quotable.117
Apart from paying divine honours in their cities, or ridiculing them, did
thinking men react to him too? Cynicism had begun to exist before the
young Alexander proved himself and the response of the great Diogenes
was simply to tell Alexander to stand out of the sun. During and after his
reign, however, three new philosophies arose, the last three in Greek
antiquity. Did his example influence the new Epicureans, Stoics or
Sceptics?
None of them was a response to a vast and insecure new world, created
by Alexander, in which the social bonds of the polis had somehow broken
down. Bevan, Dodds, Festugière and others have written eloquently of this
supposed context, but a weakening of the polis and its social ties is no
longer a sustainable view of the matter.118 Perhaps we should look instead
to developments within philosophy itself, especially to the challenge of
Plato’s writings and the anarchy proposed by the Cynics (Diogenes died in
321). They, not Alexander, are the new developments which led to the new
word ‘cosmopolite-s’ or to aspects of Zeno’s ideal state. Curiously the
philosophy of Alexander’s own tutor Aristotle remained the least
influential. His school’s collections of constitutions had an impact on
Alexandrian literature and perhaps on the city’s laws,119 but Sandbach’s
study of his importance for the Stoics concludes only that ‘for the
generality of what may be called the intellectual public Aristotle was a
welcome target for scandal and his views largely unknown or unrepresented.
There is no proof that even philosophers recognized his greatness’.120
Like Aristotle, however, Hellenistic philosophers started to write and
publish letters of advice to kings.121 Because of their status and their
15
Robin Lane Fox
Macedonian contacts they acquired a new role: cities began to send

philosopher-ambassadors to kings and generals. The first philosopher-
ambassador is Xenokrates the Platonist, famous for his embassy to plead
for Athens in 322 BC.122 Such people knew the kings first hand, but even
so, their own texts on ethics did not address the obvious defects of
an Alexander. Discussion of Plato’s ‘emotional’ part of the soul ceased;
ethics were intellectualized, as if ‘reason’ could be trained to control
‘disturbance’;123 even the long-running debate about anger-management,
Alexander’s weakness, simply recommended its distraction by thinking of
something else or by taking good advice.124 The human impetuosity and
ferocity of an Alexander were not seriously addressed.
In Oswyn Murray’s view, ‘philosophers [after Alexander] were too
engaged with the real world to trouble much with cities of the
imagination...’. For ‘behind the uniform conventions of the Hellenistic
Greek city with its Delphic code and standard civic institutions...lies a huge
institutional programme designed by philosophers like Klearchos (whose
presence at Ai Khanoum is attested) which spread the Hellenic polis as a
standard form across the oikoumene’.125 Klearchos did bring Delphic
precepts to Ai Khanoum while Demetrios, a peripatetic pupil, may have
had some influence on Ptolemy’s library and the laws in Alexandria, but I
see no trace of Murray’s ‘huge programme’ in action.126 Philosophers were
not appointed to legislate for the new Hellenistic cities, as Protagoras was
said to have legislated back in the 440s for Periclean Thurii.127 Klearchos
was surely only a visitor, not a global moderator with an official
commission for the new cities in Asia. Plutarch, notoriously, wrote as if
Alexander had indeed realized Zeno’s ideal city for ‘all men’, but here
Murray’s penetrating critique is decisive: Zeno’s ideal city was a
‘community of the wise’ only.128 It was markedly deficient in institutional
forms, let alone in any elements of a ‘huge institutional programme’. It had
nothing in common with a typical Alexandria made up of Macedonian
veterans, Greeks and local volunteers under the aegis of a governor or
satrap.129 Alexander did not want a ‘kingdom of the wise’. His spin, as the
shrewd Eratosthenes realized, was a ‘kingdom of the best’, Greek and non-
Greek alike.130 The ‘best’ were to be chosen and ruled by himself.
One impact, however, was widely credited in antiquity: the birth of
serious scepticism. Pyrrho, its founder, is said to have travelled with
Alexander and seen so much which was so paradoxical that he concluded
that nothing can be known for certain.131 It is quite hard to derive the
sceptical programme from previous Greek philosophers and perhaps this
connection was more than anecdotal. If so Alexander did make an impact
on thinkers: significantly, it was inadvertent and negative.
16
IV
Our image of ‘Hellenistic man’ tends to be based on these philosophies

and to be visualized through the busts and portraits of philosophers which
the Hellenistic age widely popularized.132 For Walbank it was a ‘time
singularly free of obscurantism and censorship’; for Rostovtzeff, an age of
rational, commercially-talented bourgeoisies.133 But if we fasten on kings
and courts as the age’s distinctive feature, the ‘ideal type’ of a Hellenistic
man needs to be rather different: he is calculating but also impassioned,
combative but generous, guided by the gods but capable of a furious
ferocity, educated but fearless in hunting, given to planning, and city-
founding; in short, he is exemplified by Alexander the first ‘Hellenistic
man’. For Alexander should not be reduced to nothing but a killer. Part of
him looks forward to the kings who struggled to succeed him, but part of
him also looks back, to the type of the ‘curious, inquiring king’ whom
Matthew Christ has so aptly picked out in Herodotus’s histories.
Measurement, exploration and experiment, Christ shows, typify the
Herodotean ruler.134 They also typify Alexander, who measured Asia with
his bematists, explored at least three sides of the Ocean with a view to
conquest and was not above a disastrous experiment with Stephanos the
handsome singing-boy and the naphtha which was discovered near
Babylon.135
Curiosity and inquiry did not depend on a new humane ethic or a respect
for constitutional rule. In royal company the priorities were different.
J. G. A. Pocock has accustomed us to the idea of a defining ‘moment’ in
historical eras, in his case a Machiavellian one.136 My defining early
Hellenistic ‘moment’ falls in 316 BC when those hard-bitten veterans, the
elderly Silver Shields, betrayed their commander Eumenes in order to
preserve their baggage: they were then punished in turn by being sent off
to Arachosia with orders to be killed on special missions, a few of them at
a time. Our main source, Diodorus, remarks only that ‘sacrilegious acts of
necessity prove profitable to dynasts because of their authority, but
ordinary subjects find them generally the cause of great evil’.137 In the
Hellenistic age of kings there was now one rule for the powerful, one for
the ordinary man: the comment is peculiar to Diodorus and is highly likely
to be due to his source, the hardened old Hieronymos of Kardia, present
in 316 BC and himself an archetypal ‘Hellenistic man’.138 We have come far
from Herodotus, from the belief that the gods punish great wickedness,
and that they do so whatever the rank of its perpetrator; far, too, from the
moral, pious Xenophon and his ideals for members of his own class.139
Like Thucydides, Hieronymos seems to have excluded the gods as causes
17
Robin Lane Fox
of the events which he narrated,140 but unlike Thucydides heaccepted

through his own experience of kings and courts that ‘impious’, necessary
actions were often to a ruler’s profit. We are faced with a new
‘Machiavellian’ ethic, but it is one of which Philip and Alexander were the
first ‘Hellenistic’ exponents.
Acknowledgements
I am very grateful to Dr. J. L. Lightfoot, Dr. J. Ma, and Dr. Paolo Crivelli
for extremely helpful advice and expertise. This paper was composed in
early 2006 and then reorganized after the February Conference in
Edinburgh. I therefore wrote it without reference to the excellent Cambridge
Companion to the Hellenistic World, edited by Glenn R. Bugh (published in
2006) where A. B. Bosworth also writes on ‘Alexander the Great and the
Creation of the Hellenistic Age’ (pages 9–27). Our chosen themes and
approaches are very different (even down to the editions of Droysen we
cite), but I continue to disagree with some of Bosworth’s main points, that
after Alexander ‘nothing more was heard of world conquest’ ( his p. 11;
my n. 94), that like other foundations Alexandria-the-Furthest was seen as
a ‘sinister parasite’ (contrast Arr. 4.1.3–5 and even Curt. 7.7.1), that the
taking of the kings back to Macedon in 319 ‘marked the real beginning of
the new age’ (his p. 13) or that there is ‘no parallel to Alexander’s self-
conscious promotion of his own divinity’ (his pp. 20–1; with Plut., Demetr.
10–13). I hope that my readers, too, will engage and profit, as I do, from
the challenge of his views.
Notes
1 Droysen 1836, preface; Bichler 1983.
2 Préaux I 1978, 5–9; II 1978, 542ff., 562, 598–9; Préaux 1965, 129–39, a very
important paper.
3 Stephens 2003; Koenen 1973, 25–115; Sherwin-White 1983, 209–21; Thompson
2001, 301–22; Boiy 2005, 105–10.

4 Millar 1983, 55–71, esp. 68; P.-L. Gatier, 97–115.
5 Droysen I 1883, 696–7; Bravo 1968.
6 Momigliano, 1970, 139–53; 1977, 307–23.
7 Droysen 1925, 446, with 432–47.
8 Droysen I 1883, 696–8.
9 Reinach 1890, 249; Mayor 2009, 65–7 is excellent on Alexander as a source for
Mithridates’ image.
10 Robert 1976, 25–26.
11 Robert 1983, 117 sees Asandros, satrap of Karia under Philip III, as ‘exécuteur
de la volonté du défunt Alexandre pour une symbiose irano-grecque’. I doubt it.

He was intervening in a local dispute (could an Iranian be Artemis’s neokoros?)
18
and he had it submitted to the Delphic oracle which did, separately, endorse the
Iranian.
12 Bosworth 1988, 250 and 1996, 29–30.
13 Briant 1982, 318–30 and 1996, 896, but contrast Lane Fox 2007.
14 Brosius 2003, 183.
15 Camp 2000, 41–58.
16 Thompson 1999, 107–38.
17 Ma 2003, 24.
18 Ogden 2002, x–xi.
19 Diod. 20.53; Plut. Demetr. 17.2–18; Heidelberg. Epitom. FGrH 155 F 1; Just. Epit.
15.2.10; Nep. Eum. 13.2; Müller 1973, 79. Gruen 1985, 260 is corrected by Lehmann
1988, 1–17; I disagree with Hammond 1989, 261–70 who has Alexander IV killed
‘c.309’, but his death concealed by Kassander until 306.
20 Diod. 20.37.5.
21 Boiy 2002, 241–57.
22 Diod. 19.90.4; Parke 1985, 45; J. Hornblower 1981, 170 n. 276.
23 Mehl 1986, 139–47.
24 Diod. 18.60.2, 62.2, 63.4–6.
25 Plut. Eum. 16.4, 18.2, 13.3–4; Diod. 18.58.3–59.3.
26 Book of Daniel 2.31–45; Bickerman 1988, 23–6.
27 Plut. Eum. 6.10; Diod. 19.90.4; 18.60–61; 19.19.3–4; Plut. Pyrrh. 7–8.
28 Diod. 18.61.1; Borza 1987, 110–20 is quite unconvincing in claiming that they
ended up in Vergina Tomb II (actually Philip II’s Tomb).

29 I assume the royal festival on Samos, 321–319 BC, involved cult; Habicht
1957–8, 152.
30 SEG 38.658, with M. Hatzopoulos 1989, 435.
31 Lane Fox 1973, 439 and 545; Lane Fox 1986, 115; Flower 1997, 258–60.
32 Bickerman 1963, 71–85, still the decisive study: Lane Fox 1973, 322–3 and 439;
Arr. Anab. 4.10.5–11 is inconsistent with Arr. 4.12.3 (which emphasises the kiss, based
on the well-placed contemporary Chares) and is therefore later fiction.
33 Plut. Demetr. 10.4–12; Diod. 20.102.3; 20.100.3–4.
34 Just. Epit. 15.4.8; Parke 1985, 50–1 and n. 233.
35 Syll.3 312; Delrieux 2001, 160–89. Memnon FGrH 434 F 1 (4.1).
36 Bickerman 1938, 11; Fraser 1972, 114–5; Rhodes and Lewis 1997, 544.
37 Rhodes and Osborne 2003, no. 83; Koch 2001, 169–217 is the best discussion.
38 Lock 1977, 91–107; Hammond 1985, 156–60: Hammond and Walbank 1988,
129–31 and 253, in contrast to 217, 243, 337.

39 Arr. Anab. 7.11.5–7; Bickerman 1938, 40–5; Fraser 1972, 102–3.
40 Ephemerides 117 F 1–3; Plut. Alex. 17.9; 40.4–5.
41 Lund 1992, 6–8; Lane Fox 1996, 137–46; Wootton 2002, 265–74.
42 Diod. 19.24.5; Plut. Eum. 14.3–5; Athen. 4.155 C; compare Antiochos III, in
Aelian VH. 2.41 and Athen. 4.155 B.

43 Plut. Demetr. 24, esp. 24.6–12; Davies 1971, 319.
44 Passerini 1934, 35–6; Tondriau 1948, 49–54.
45 Rotroff 1996.
46 Athen. 4.128 A–130 D.
47 Austin 1986, 450–66.
19
Robin Lane Fox
48 Chaniotis 2005 says surprisingly little about this early phase or the excellent
evidence in Diod. 18–20.
49 Meiggs 1982, 137–40 and 165–9; Diod. 18.71.3 and 19.83.2.
50 Bosworth 1996, 30; Diod. 19.58.2–5 and Pliny HN 16.203, brilliantly illumined
by Meiggs 1982, 134–7 and 493 n. 61.

51 Tarn 1936, 34–6.
52 Devine 1985, 75–86; Lendon 2005, 149.
53 Arr. Anab. 4.24.4–5; Plut. Demetr. 7.4–12; Diod. 18.31; Plut. Pyrrh. 7.5–10 and
24.5; Just. Epit. 25.4.8–10.

54 Polyb. 10.3–7; 10.24.3–4; 10.32.9–11; 11.2.9–11.
55 Cohen 1978; Uebel 1968.
56 Fraser 1996, 201; Bosworth 1981, 23–9 and 1995, 108.
57 Grenet and Rapin 1998, 78–89.
58 Tarn 1940, 89–94; Fraser 1996, 154 and n. 97: ‘This seductive story...need not be
further considered’; Leriche 2002, 411–15.

59 Bickerman 1940, 25–35.
60 Plut. Alex. 34.2 with Hamilton 1969, 91; Flacelière and Chambry 1975, 75.
61 Diod. 18.55.4–56; Nawotka 2003, 15–41, on Alexander and Asia Minor.
62 Briant 2004, 9–70.
63 Droysen 1926, 438.
65 Arr. Anab. 7.19.5 (where the ‘ἄν’ is an editorial insertion).

64 Gorgos, ap. Strabo 15.1.30.
66 Arr. Anab. 7.20.2; 7.7.7; Briant 1999, 15.

67 Arr. Anab. 7.21.5–7; Boiy and Verhoeven 1998, 147–58.
68 Thompson 1999, 107–38; Orrieux 1980.
69 Seyrig 1970, 290–311; compare Le Rider 1965, 267 on Greeks’ use of the river-
system near Susa.

70 Diod. 17.62.1.
71 Plut. Alex. 47.3; Arr. Anab. 7.6.1; Curt. 8.5.
72 Arr. Anab. 7.12.2.
73 Wilcken 1894, 1750.
74 P.Hal. 1.260–5; Thompson 1994, 75.
75 Roueché and Sherwin-White 1985, 33, on the Greek games at Failaka.
76 Arr. Anab. 4.4.1; 5.3.6.
77 SEG 48.716B
78 Plut. Alex. 29.6.
79 Chares 125 F 4; Le Guen 2001, Rapin 1987: 253–7, a text of Greek iambics,
probably a lost Greek drama, on parchment at Ai Khanoum.

80 Simplicius, Comm. In Aristot. De Caelo II.12, ed. I. L. Heiberg, Comm. In Aristot.
Graeca VII, 1894, 506.11–15; Neugebauer 1975, 608, ‘obvious nonsense.’

81 Berve 1926, 187–8.
82 Diels and Rehm 1904, 1–20, esp. 16; Taub 2003, 23–4; Whitehead and
Blyth 2004, 44 and Philo, Quod Omnis Probus Liber Est, 96 for very different Kalanos-
fictions.
83 Grenfell and Hunt 1906, 139–57, esp. 143.
84 Neugebauer 1975, 599, 607–9, 706; compare the evidence in Rémondon 1964,
126–46.
20
85 Arr. Anab. 3.16.4, on which I certainly do not believe Kuhrt and Sherwin White
1987, 77.
86 Sherwin-White and Kuhrt 1993, 114–40, with a different emphasis to mine.
87 Droysen 1926, 445; Berve 1926, 296, nr. 597.
88 Grenet 1991, 147–151. Compare Robert 1983, 115–8, where Bagadates surely
saw Amyzon’s Artemis as the ‘Persian goddess’, Anahita.

89 Fraser 1972, 251–74, still the classic study; Huss 1994, 58–67.
90 Bernard 1997, 131–216; Bosworth 2003, 299–320.
91 Scheer 2003, 228–30; Lane Fox 2008, 236–9.
92 Curty 1993, 27–8; Pomtow 1917–8, I now find, did remark in passing ‘Man denke
an die Parodos der Phoenissae’, but neither he nor anyone else has ever followed up
this thought.
93 Eur. Phoen. 202–25, 280–7: Mastronarde 1994, 208–9 is thus confirmed by the
Tyrians’ own later reading of these verses; Eur. Phoen. 1060–1, for ‘fair children’.
94 Lehmann 1988, 14, on Köln Papyrus 1.25 where Antigonos is said to aim to
‘hege-sesthai [te-s oiko]umene-s hapase-s’ like Alexander, in 306 BC; Hornblower 1981, 167–71.
-
95 Polyb. 5.108; Walbank 2002, 127–36.
96 Fraser 1972, 553–6; 784–93.
97 Elliott 1970.
98 Men. Aspis 35; Lane Fox 1996, 166 nn. 183–4; Pliny, HN 37.70; Kuttner 2005,
147–8; D. Harris 1995, 140 and 179.

99 Antiphanes F 59 (Kassel-Austin): peaches are another possibility.
100 Fraser 1994, 167–92, esp. 177.
101 Bosworth 2000, 207–41; Fraser 1996, 41–46.
102 Diod. 1.53–8, updating Hdt. 2.102–10; Diod. 1.15–20, with Megasthenes 115
F 13.
103 Pollitt 1986; Fowler 1989; Robertson and Pollitt 1993, 67–103; see also Stewart
2006, 158–85.
104 Préaux II 1978, 682.
105 Diod. 18.26–28.2; Miller 1986, 401–12; Stewart 1977, 125.
106 Stewart 1993, 402–7, for sources.
107 Pliny HN 34.67.
108 Wootton 2002, 265–74.
109 Pliny HN 35.98; Strabo 8.381.
110 Chares 125 F 4.
111 Lucian, Herodotus or Aetion 4–7; Stewart 1993, 183–6 actually claims it was
‘exhibited for sale’ and was originally ‘by no means free of irony’, arguably showing
an ‘ambivalence’ in Alexander before a ‘sexually threatening female’ and perhaps
‘playing to resentment against Alexander’s increasing Orientalism’. I reject these
misreadings of Lucian and this charming picture.
112 Chamoux 2003, 373.
113 Kuttner 2005.
114 Bopearachchi and Flandrin 2005: spectacular, if it is not a fake. Unlike them I
would then date it to the Susa mint, 325/4 BC, fitting Lane Fox 1996, 87–108 almost
too neatly to be true. But a fake, I fear, it is.
115 Bopearachchi 1991, pl. 8.22 and Série 17 J.
116 Bosworth 1996, 28; Bopearachchi 1991, pl. 4. Série 1.
21
Robin Lane Fox
117 They most liked Pliny HN 35.85–6.
118 Bevan 1913; Dodds 1951, 242–3; Festugière 1968; contrast Chamoux 2003,
165–213; van Bremen 2003, 313–30.
119 Fraser 1972 vol. I, 310–16; 427; 445; 774–5.
120 Sandbach 1985, 56.
121 Diog. Laert. 4.14.1–2 (note the ‘To Hephaistion’, also); 5.27; 5.47; for
Speusippus as forerunner, 4.5 and Diog. Laert. 4.9; 4.8 is perhaps apocryphal: at 4.1,
I am tempted to correct the chronologically unlikely ‘Kassandrou’ to ‘Philippou’
and see Speusippos’s visit precisely in autumn 336; in general Sonnabend 1996, esp.
280–7.
122 Sonnabend 1996, esp. 280–7.
123 Festugière 1968, 27–37.
124 Cic. Tusc. Disp. 3.33; W. Harris 2001, 235–40, 362–72. By contrast, some of
Aristotle’s followers considered ‘iracundia’ to be good and useful: Cic. Tusc. Disp. 4.43.
125 Murray 2005, 203.
126 Robert 1968; Fraser 1972, 315, 321.
127 Heraclid. Pont. ap. Diog. Laert. 9.50.
128 Plut. Mor. 329 A–D; Diog. Laert. 7.33–4; Murray 2005, 210.
129 Arr. Anab. 4.4.1: ‘ethelontai ’, despite Bosworth 1995, 26.
130 Strabo 1.4.9; Plut. Alex. 27.11; Mor. 180 D.
131 Diog. Laert. 7.61.
132 Zanker 1995.
133 Walbank 1981, 220; Rostovtzeff 1941, 1115–26; 1304–7.
134 Christ 1994,167–202.
135 Fraser 1996, 78–86; Geus 2003, 232–46; Plut. Alex. 35.1–9; Bosworth 1993,
407–24; Romm 1989, 566–75 is more questionable.

136 Pocock 1975.
137 Diod. 19.48.4.
138 Plut. Eum. 19.2–3 does not have Diodorus’s moral; Justin Epit. 14.4.9–14 has
Eumenes curse his traitors, which is also not in Diodorus; his 14.4.21, even so, has
none of Diodorus’s moral conclusion.
139 Parker 2004, 131–53.
140 Hornblower 1981, 35; Parker 2000, 299–314, observing that pre-battle sacrifices
and divination are conspicuously absent from Diod. 18–20: did Hieronymos, too,
omit them?
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29
2
THE KOINE: A NEW LANGUAGE FOR

A NEW WORLD
Stephen Colvin
1. The koine has traditionally proved a difficult notion to pin down. Partly
this is owing to the fact that the ancient sources are themselves confused,
and I shall argue that such confusion typically grows out of a linguistic
environment characterized by koine and diglossia. Modern studies suggest
that, in cultures which employ a koine based on a prestigious literary canon,
it is symptomatic of linguistic thought that it is focussed on the written
language to such a degree that the relationship (historical and synchronic)
between the spoken language(s) and the written language is ignored or
misunderstood. One of the reasons that Western scholarship has found it
difficult to unravel the linguistic culture of the postclassical world is
precisely the dysfunctional relationship with language that was inherited
from that world; a useful way to sidestep the lens through which we view
the linguistic landscape is to turn to modern linguistic studies of parallels
from other cultures. We shall look for a general model of how a koine
works in the context of prestigious literary and cultural heritage; for
although the Greek koine is often supposed to have been a feature of
verbal interaction, we have in fact very little evidence about the spoken
language in the postclassical Greek world. Modern studies may provide
typological parallels to help us fill the gaps.
2. The polysemy attaching to the term koine can be structured by shifting

the term from a purely linguistic domain to one where language, culture
and politics coincide. In general the uncertainty surrounding the term koine
has two sources. Firstly, the term was taken over by modern linguistics and
has been used in a variety of ways, none of which necessarily reflects the
social and historical conditions surrounding the ‘original’ koine. Secondly,
there has been little consistency in the way the term has been applied to the
linguistic situation of the ancient world.
For classicists the koine is the language associated with the new world
created in the eastern Mediterranean by the Macedonian hegemony, a
31
Stephen Colvin
world gradually taken over and reunited by the Roman state. The starting
point is arbitrarily, and not unreasonably, set at the end of the fourth
century BC when the Macedonian state overran the Greek world, first under
Philip II (died 336 BC) and then under Alexander. There are reasons to
believe that its linguistic forebear(s) had been crystallizing over the previous
two centuries,1 but since the koine is a political and ideological term as
much as a linguistic one, extending the term back in time would be
confusing and misleading. As the liturgical language of the Greek church
was more or less koine, and had a lasting and profound effect on the
history of the Greek language, it is far more difficult to assign a convenient
end-date; in practice texts later than Justinian (died AD 565) are rarely
quoted to illustrate koine (as opposed to Byzantine) Greek. We shall return
to this question at the end.
The term koine has passed into modern linguistics to mean a language
variety used over a wide area by speakers who engage in levelling (the
levelling out of regional peculiarities) for the sake of communicational
efficiency: a compromise across dialects, implying some degree of institutional
standardization. The word has been used to denote a variety of different
situations, but key overlapping features2 generally include the following:
i) a koine arises from related dialects (or closely related linguistic
varieties) rather than from languages which are wholly distinct from
each other
ii) levelling: it arises from several dialects, by a process in which local
peculiarities are ironed out
iii) it may be the result of the transportation of related varieties to new
proximity in a new geographical location, or it may be due to a new
social or political circumstance in an existing area
iv) it may become a literary or national standard; it may become nativized3
An implication of the above is that there are likely to be identifiable stages
in the evolution of a koine, each marked by salient characteristics which do
not necessarily pertain to the whole lifecycle of the phenomenon. In
general the notion of koine implies a lingua franca, though the two are not
exactly equivalent and should not be confused (a lingua franca does not
imply a koine).
If we consider the features listed above in the context of the Greek koine
it may lead to some useful distinctions between that situation and modern
usage of the term.
2.1 Firstly, the Greek koine was ‘common’ in the sense that it became a
national standard, where previously dialectal diversity had existed. It was
not common in the sense that the word seems often to have in a modern
32
The koine: A new language for a new world
context, namely formed from the dialects by a (roughly symmetrical)

process of levelling. Some scholars of the modern era have assumed
that it did in fact arise from the straightforward mixing (linguistic
accommodation) of Attic, Ionic, West Greek, Aeolic, and (theoretically)
Arcado-Cypriot. They echo a strain of thought in the ancient grammatical
tradition which asserted precisely this (minus Arcado-Cypriot, which is not
a group the ancients recognised): compare, for example, a remark recorded
in the scholia to Dionysius Thrax:
(a) Gr. Gr. I, 3. 469 (On the Koine):
Τινές φασιν ὅτι οὐκ ὀφείλει κοινὴ καλεῖσθαι, ἀλλὰ µικτή, εἴ περ ἡ κοινὴ ἀπὸ
τεσσάρων συνέστηκεν· οὐ γὰρ τὴν διὰ τεσσάρων φαρµάκων ἔµπλαστρον
κοινὴν καλοῦµεν, ἀλλὰ µικτήν. καὶ καλῶς ἔλεγον ταῦτα πρὸς τοὺς λέγοντας
τὴν κοινὴν συνίστασθαι ἐκ τῶν τεσσάρων, καὶ πρὸς τούτοις, ὅτι µήτηρ ἡ
κοινή· εἰ γάρ τις εἴποι ὅτι δωριστί, φαµὲν ὅτι τὸ κοινὸν αὐτοῦ, ἢ αἰολιστὶ
ὁµοίως, ἢ ἰαστί, ἢ ἀττικιστί.
Some say that if in fact the Common Dialect is composed of four elements
[sc. Attic, Ionic, Doric, Aeolic] it should not be called ‘common’, but ‘mixed’
– for we do not call a salve that is made of four drugs ‘common’, but ‘mixed’.
And this is a good argument against those who claim that the Common
Dialect arose from a combination of the four dialects; and they have another
good argument when they say that the Common Dialect is the mother
[sc. of the other dialects]. For if somebody uses the expression ‘in the Doric
dialect’, we say that this is equivalent to ‘in common Doric’, and the same
for ‘in Aeolic’, or ‘in Ionic’, or ‘in Attic’.4
The koine was, rather, an expanded and Ionicized form of Attic, which (at
least in its literary form) showed a small admixture of lexical items that
appear poetic from the perspective of classical Attic. This may be because
they were Ionic in origin, or simply because of the artificial nature of the
literary koine: later writers drew on the lexical resources of the classical
past, and this sometimes included the poets (especially epic).5 It is the case,
however, that the Greek koine developed in a context of closely related
dialects. To the extent that there was levelling, this ironed out some of the
specifically Attic peculiarities of inflection, which led to a simplified
declension’ in which the change ᾱ > η followed by quantitative metathesis

morphological system.6 An example of this is the replacement of the ‘Attic
led to forms such as λεώς, νεώς from λᾱός etc. The koine ‘reintroduced’
λαός from the non-Attic-Ionic dialects (and it was familiar from Homer).
The treatment of this in the later grammatical tradition lumps it together
with a separate phenomenon, the wavering over the adoption of the Attic
inflection of i-stem nouns in place of the non-ablauting pattern common
to the other dialects (including Ionic):
33
Stephen Colvin
(b) Hdn. (On the Declension of Nouns) Gr. Gr. III, 2. 704–5:
ἄξιόν ἐστι ζητῆσαι διὰ ποίαν αἰτίαν τὸ βοῦς βοός οὐ γίνεται κατ’ ἔκτασιν
Ἀττικὴν τοὺ ο εἰς τὸ ω. ἔστιν οὖν εἰπεῖν ὅτι τὰ ἐκτείνοντα τὸ ο εἰς τὸ ω ἐπὶ
τῶν καθαρευόντων καὶ τὸ παραλῆγον φωνῆεν εἰς ε µεταβάλλει οἷον ὄφις
ὄφιος ὄφεως, πόλις πόλιος πόλεως, ναός νεώς, λαός λεώς.
It is worth enquiring why bous [nom.] ~ boos [gen.] is not affected by the
Attic lengthening of o to o-. One can state that those cases which lengthen o
following a vowel to o- also change this penultimate vowel to e, as in ophis ~
ophios/opheo-s, polis ~ polios/poleo-s, na-os/neo-s, la-os/leo-s.
In the spoken language there can hardly have been any phonological
difference between ὄφιος and ὄφεως at this time. The distinction is
orthographic, and this is typical of the culture of the koine:
(c) (i) Hdn. (On Orthography) Gr. Gr. iii.2, 432:
ἔστι γὰρ ὄφις ὄφιος κοινῶς. οἱ ᾿Αττικοὶ οὖν ἔτρεψαν τὸ ι εἰς ε καὶ τὸ ο εἰς ω
καὶ ἐγένετο ὄφεως καὶ πόλεως.
...for in the common idiom it is ophis ~ ophios. Speakers of Attic changed

the i to e and the o to o- and there developed opheo-s and poleo-s.
(c) (ii) Hdn. (Partitiones, ‘Categories’) Boissonade 201:
ὄφις, ὄφεως ... ᾿Αττικὴ δέ ἐστιν ἡ κλίσις ἡ διὰ τοῦ ω µεγάλου· κλίνονται γὰρ
τοιαῦτα καὶ Ἰωνικῶς διὰ τοῦ ο µικροῦ· ὅµως ἡµεῖς τὴν Ἀττικὴν κλίσιν ἐν τῶι
καθόλου γράφειν εἰώθαµεν.
ophis ~ opheo-s ...the inflection with long o is the Attic one; such words are also
inflected in the Ionic manner with a short o. However, it is our normal
practice in writing to use the Attic inflection.
On the whole i-stem nouns (like all third-declension masc. and fem. nouns)
ended up in a merger with the a-stem declension in post-classical Greek,
but traces of an Atticizing inflection remain (πόλη ‘city’ can have a gen.
sing. πόλης or πόλεως in the modern language: the latter being less frequently
used, but felt to be more correct by speakers).7
In other cases the compromise between Attic and Ionic led to forms
which looked like dialect forms (West Greek, Aeolic): thus Attic πράττειν
and Ionic πρήσσειν ‘to do’ resulted in a hybrid πράσσειν, which was identical
to the West Greek form. There were, indeed, some borrowings from West
Greek in the koine: either for morphological reasons of the type noted
above, whereby the word λαός ‘people’ replaced an awkard Attic form λεώς
(Ion. λήος); or the unpredictable borrowings that all languages engage in. So,
for example, βουνός ‘hill, mountain’ entered mainstream Greek from the
West Greek dialects (it was already known to Herodotos).
The ancient tradition that the koine was a mixture of the old classical
dialects may have reflected ideas of identity in the new Hellenistic world.
34
The new Greek world was both mixed and centralized, as opposed to the
independent and chauvinistic states of the earlier period; the new Greek
language was supposed to mirror this shift in ethnic and political identity.
The view that the koine was a mixture may also have been an oblique
reflection of the diglossic continuum that must have existed across the
Greek-speaking world: spoken koine will have been a closer or further
approximation to the written standard, depending on the speaker’s social
status, level of education, and immediate communicational context, etc.
On the lower end of the continuum it will presumably have reflected the
historical speech habits of the locality, including (at least in the Hellenistic
period, and probably well beyond) dialect traits, as for example Strabo
8.1.2.33 writes on the Peloponnese:
(d) σχεδὸν δ’ἔτι καὶ νῦν κατὰ πολεῖς ἄλλοι ἄλλως διαλέγονται, δοκοῦσι δὲ
δωρίζειν ἅπαντες διὰ τὴν συµβᾶσαν ἐπικράτειαν.8
Even now people speak in different ways in the various cities, though they
all appear to speak in Doric (according to the prevailing opinion).
The synchronic picture will have been one of the koine emerging out of
various dialect soups towards a common panhellenic standard.9 Since the
Greek grammarians (and this seems often to be part of the culture of
diglossia) confused historical and synchronic relationships when they
thought about the five different types of Greek they recognized (Attic,
Ionic, Doric, Aeolic and koine), it is easy to see how it was legitimate, and
indeed appropriate, to conceive of the new panhellenic language as one
which contained ingredients from the whole of its classical heritage. There
is some evidence that early Attic attempts to ‘appropriate’ the koine (in
the sense of ‘panhellenic standard’) caused irritation in this context. The
geographer Herakleides of Crete records a passage from Poseidippos
(de urbibus Graeciae 3.7 = PCG 30) in which a character complains that the
Athenians criticize the way that other Greeks speak:
(e) ὅτι δὲ πᾶσα ἧν κατηριθµήµεθα Ἑλλάς ἐστι, µαρτυρεῖ ἡµῖν ὁ τῶν κωµωιδιῶν
ποιητὴς Ποσείδιππος, µεµφόµενος Ἀθηναίοις ὅτι τὴν αὑτῶν φωνὴν καὶ τὴν
πόλιν φασὶ τῆς Ἑλλάδος εἶναι, λέγων οὕτως·
Ἑλλάς µέν ἐστι µία, πόλεις δὲ πλείονες.
σὺ µὲν Ἀττικίζεις ἡνίκ’ ἂν φωνὴν λέγηις
αὑτοῦ τιν’, οἱ δ’ Ἕλληνες ἑλληνίζοµεν.
τί προσδιατρίβων συλλαβαῖς καὶ γράµµασιν
τὴν εὐτραπελίαν εἰς ἀηδίαν ἄγεις;
...the comic poet Poseidippos shows us that Greece comprises all the places
we have enumerated, criticizing the Athenians because they say that their
own dialect is Greek and their own city is Greece: ‘There is only one
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Stephen Colvin
Greece, but many cities. You speak Attic whenever you open your mouth,
and the rest of us Greeks speak Greek. Why make such a fuss over syllables
and sounds, turning your wit into unpleasantness?’
The ability of ancient grammarians to talk of the dialects as developments
of the koine (implied in passages (a) and (c) above, for example) and at the
same time to talk as though they were historically earlier is surprising to
modern linguistic sensibilities:10 but this flexible approach to historical
anteriority and genetic priority has parallels. Dante, in De vulgari eloquentia
(ca. 1303–5) undertakes investigation of where and how the Italian
‘illustrious vernacular’ (vulgare illustre) was to be identified. Dante sometimes
talks of the vulgare illustre as something which could be created out of the
vernacular Italian dialects (by a similar process of levelling and ‘purification’
that creates a koine):
(f ) Itaque, adepti quod querebamus, dicimus illustre, cardinale, aulicum et curiale vulgare
in Latio, quod omnis latie civitatis est et nullius esse videtur, et quo municipalia vulgaria
omnia Latinorum mensurantur et ponderantur et comparantur.
So we have found what we were seeking: we can define the illustrious,
cardinal, aulic, and curial vernacular in Italy as that which belongs to every
Italian city yet seems to belong to none, and against which the vernacular
of all the cities of the Italians can be measured, weighed, and compared.
(DVE 1.16, tr. Botterill)
At other times he talks of the illustre as prior to the dialects, a standard from
which they have declined (‘proto-Italian’ in the words of Mazzocco 1993:
138); in 1.10–11 he is explicit that the language of si had split from a single
language (unum ydioma) to many vernaculars (multa vulgaria). It is a paterfamilias
among the dialects (just as in (a) above the koine is the ‘mother’).
Research into language attitudes among speakers of modern Arabic gives
some insights into the origins of this uncertainty. Speakers of Arabic are
speakers of a modern Arabic vernacular, a range of which spread across the
Arab world, and which are not, unless contiguous, mutually intelligible at
the ‘lowest’ level. Insofar as educated speakers also know Modern Standard
Arabic (more or less a variety of the classical language) they believe this to
be their mother tongue. The vernacular has a low psychological awareness:
speakers may deny that they speak it, and may think of it (if at all) as a
casual or debased variety of the standard, rather than as a historical
descendant of that standard (the modern linguistic view). It is likely that a
similar linguistic culture prevailed in the world of the koine.11
2.2 In the modern world some of the koines that have been identified are
the result of the transportation of related languages to a new geographical
location: this was especially common in the context of slavery and
indentured labour in the new world. Others have grown out of a new social
36
or political circumstance in an existing area, for example as a result of the

rise of nation states encompassing multiple dialect varieties. The ancient
Greek koine flourished in both of these situations. It started in the ‘old’
Greek world, where its roots go back at least to Athenian intellectual
dominance following the Persian wars of 490–80 BC (and arguably much
earlier, given the influence of Ionic in archaic Greece as a result of the
Homeric text and the ‘Ionian enlightenment’). During the fifth century BC
Athens became the dominant cultural and political force in the Aegean;
the Athenian empire made Athens a hub of trade and military activity, with
a high degree of interaction between Athenians and their Ionian allies; there
is no doubt that the cosmopolitan character of the city left its mark on the
language of the working urban population. This variety may be dubbed
‘Piraeus Attic’ owing to its association with trade and the lowest class of
Athenian citizen, who served in the navy which made the city powerful.
The ‘Old Oligarch’ (ps-Xenophon, Ath. Pol. 2. 7–8) complains about this:
(g) διὰ τὴν ἀρχὴν τῆς θαλάττης πρῶτον µὲν τρόπους εὐωχιῶν ἐξηῦρον
ἐπιµισγόµενοι ἄλληι ἄλλοις...ἔπειτα φωνὴν πᾶσαν ἀκούοντες ἐξελέξαντο
τοῦτο µὲν ἐκ τῆς, τοῦτο δὲ ἐκ τῆς· καὶ οἱ µὲν Ἕλληνες ἰδίαι µᾶλλον καὶ φωνῆι
καὶ διαίτηι καὶ σχήµατι χρῶνται, Ἀθηναῖοι δὲ κεκραµένηι ἐξ ἁπάντων τῶν
Ἑλλήνων καὶ βαρβάρων.
By virtue of their naval power the Athenians have mingled with various
peoples and discovered all sorts of delicacies...further, hearing every kind of
language, they have taken something from each; Greeks on the whole prefer
to use their own language, way of life, and type of dress, but the Athenians
use a mixture from all the Greeks and barbarians.
Attic poetry and prose had always been heavily influenced by Ionic, and
there is evidence that in the second half of the fifth century the educated
élite started to adopt some Ionic idioms in speech. The new international
Attic was apparently adopted as the official language of the Macedonian
court in the fourth century BC, as the expansionist Macedonian kingdom
sought to position itself for a leading role in Greek affairs. Since it had
become the language of education and literary prose, it was a natural choice
as a pan-Hellenic medium of administration and lingua franca when most
of Greece fell under Macedonian control in the last decades of the century.
However, that is only half the story of the koine. As the Macedonians
expanded into former Persian territories in Anatolia, Egypt, the Levant
and the Near East the koine was exported as the medium of
communication at all levels. These new Macedonian subjects were not
(with the exception of coastal Anatolia) previously Greek speakers, and
the dynamics of the koine must have been very different in these regions.
There was greater potential for simplification and regularization of Greek
37
Stephen Colvin
morphology, since the language was spreading rapidly as a contact

language. There was no question here of a continuum between koine
Greek and the speaker’s own dialect: indeed, the concept of nativization of
the koine (say, on the part of speakers whose parents were mixed
Macedonian/Greek and local) is more straightforward in the ‘new’
territories, where local Greek substrate was not a complicating factor. We
predict, therefore, a relatively high degree of nativization in the ‘new’ Greek
world; while at the same time throughout the Hellenistic world the literary
koine became a ‘national’ written standard.
3. It is important to arrive at a definition of what we mean by the

Hellenistic koine in the present discussion: partly so that if others disagree
with our suggestions, they will at least be able to see clearly where they
disagree.
For the Hellenistic world what I think we need to decide first of all is
this: What kind of space do we want to locate the language in? Was it a
written language? A spoken one? Or an abstract entity? All of these have
been suggested by important scholars who have worked in the field.12 The
answers to these questions will affect our decisions concerning the
chronological extension of the koine: whether, for example, it is sensible
to suppose that the language of the third century BC has much significantly
in common with that of the fifth century AD. When we have reached some
conclusions about the definition of the koine proper, then we can ask to
what extent was koine a new thing? That is to say, was there koine (or
indeed koinai ) in the Greek world before 320 BC? The term koine, as we
have seen, has a range of meanings: to anticipate my answer I think that
there were important koinai before Alexander which were diachronically
essential for the constitution of the Hellenistic koine: but that the
Hellenistic koine was new, and of a different order from anything which
had preceded it.
3.1 The term koine has often been used to denote the whole of
postclassical Greek. This would include at least three varieties of the
language: i) the colloquial varieties spoken across the Greek world, ii) the
formal written Greek of prose authors, and iii) the informal language of
documentary papyri, etc. (In fact the first category, spoken Greek, is likely
to include many disparate regional and social varieties, to which we shall
return.)
Linguists are generally interested in the history of Greek, and a common
way of approaching koine Greek is to examine both literary and non-
literary documents, but especially the latter, for clues regarding the
development of the spoken language. But this approach does not specify
38
which spoken language is in question: it works on the assumption that

there was a spoken language which was the essence of Greek, and other
varieties can be explained in terms of it. So, for example, a prose author
writes in a language approximating to an earlier stage of the spoken
language, but it may show signs of interference from the writer’s own
idiom. The problems with this are firstly that the underlying model captures
few of the interesting features of the world of the koine, that is to say, the
linguistic culture of the Hellenistic world; and secondly that it may lead to
misleading conclusions about the development of Greek: for example, that
a certain feature was slowly dying from the spoken language between the
third century BC and the second century AD, while the truth is that the
feature was gone from the vernacular very shortly after the end of the
classical period.
It seems to me that the notion of koine Greek does have a useful role
to play in understanding the linguistic culture of the Hellenistic world: its
polysemy can be beaten back, and its various manifestations can be
organized and related by an adjustment to the underlying language model,
namely by supposing that the koine cannot be identified in any particular
written document, or in anything that emerged from the mouth of a Greek
speaker, formal or informal. It is an abstract concept (though not abstract
to the language users), which expresses the linguistic and cultural identity
of the speaker: that is to say, Hellenismos. In case this sounds rather vague,
the parallel I want to consider is modern Arabic Sprachbund, where speakers
across a wide area with many mutually unintelligible vernaculars, are united
linguistically and psychologically by the sense of being Arabic speakers,
and by a written superstructure which is Qur’ânic and classical Arabic. If
we look to Arabic for a model to understand the Greek koine13 we are
immediately tempted by a new working definition: on the analogy of
standard Arabic we can say that for our purposes the koine constitutes a
standard to which no spoken or written variety corresponds exactly. It is
a theoretical entity which reflects the feeling of speakers about their
linguistic identity: adherence to the ‘standard’ in this case is a positive
statement, not the result of coercion. Another parallel would be the
Latin/Romance continuum before the appearance of the national
languages from the fourteenth century: but since this, like the Greek koine,
is a linguistic world that has disappeared, it is more useful to start with
Arabic, where modern sociolinguistic studies offer a wealth of suggestive
parallels.
The koine, on this model, refers to a situation of stable diglossia. The
term diglossia was introduced into academic linguistic discourse (Ferguson
1959b) in an effort to describe a situation which is essentially alien to
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Stephen Colvin
Western thought about language: linguists have used the term ever since
while arguing about what it means and criticizing Ferguson’s first attempt
to apply it (to Arabic). It describes a linguistic culture which has a distinct
‘High’ form of the language, deriving ultimately from a canonical corpus:
in the case of Arabic, the consciousness of speakers that they are Arabic
speakers is the result of the canonization of the language of the Qur’ân as
‘Arabic’ tout simple, and (as in Greece) the subservience of grammatical
activity to textual exegesis. The ‘Low’ form of the language is the everyday
vernacular. Ferguson was criticised for failing to recognise a continuum of
speech styles between these two poles: nevertheless, diglossia is a useful
shorthand for referring to a specific type of linguistic culture.
The development of a sense in the Greek world that there existed a body
of canonical ‘texts’ by the end of the fourth century was a vital factor in the
subsequent history of Greek. It would be a mistake to suppose that the
koine spread solely because it was the Macedonian language of
administration, or because a new variety of Attic, which we may call
expanded or international Attic, had developed over the course of the fifth
and fourth centuries (this is the language that the Old Oligarch complains
of, perhaps around the year 425): without the underpinning of koine it
would have been just one more lingua franca that perished when the
conditions which gave rise to it changed. The panhellenic text par excellence
was of course Homer, and the Ionic flavour of the vulgate may indeed
have contributed to the international clout of Ionic (though it can hardly,
as some have suggested, be the main reason for the spread of the
Hellenistic koine). The use of the term koinai to describe poetic traditions
such as epic is well established. But the new canon, the one instrumental
in setting the stage for the Attic-based koine, was the body of literature
which emerged after the Persian wars in the context of Athenian political
and cultural pre-eminence; and in particular, the status of Ionicized Attic
as the language of formal prose (documentary or literary) and education.
This was the situation which, hand in hand with the Macedonian
adoption of the new Attic as a lingua franca, resulted in the peculiar
linguistic and cultural circumstance that we call the koine. The two factors
are intertwined: neither could have done it without the other. This is all by
way of preface to returning to the Arabic model. I think that we have little
prospect of retrieving the spoken vernaculars of the Hellenistic world, the
language corresponding to Ferguson’s Low variety, since speakers of the
Low variety do not read or write. I see no reason to believe that the old
dialects disappeared in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, nor indeed the
local languages such as Lycian. They certainly stopped being written; and,
as in the case of modern Arabic vernaculars, may very soon have become
40
more or less mutually unintelligible when spoken by people with no degree

of education or exposure to urban life (women, for example). Even if we
suppose that the new substandard vernacular did replace the old dialects,
it would very soon have split into radically different idioms across the
Greek world. However, Classicists (as opposed to linguists) are not
particularly interested in these Low varieties. What we want to know is
what the élite were speaking, and we assume that they at any rate had no
difficulty communicating with each other. I think this assumption is right,
and we can turn again to Arabic to consider some of the intermediate
registers that have been proposed, in the hope that they can inform our
speculation on the situation in the Hellenistic world.
Although a continuum has by its very nature an infinite number of levels,
some scholars working on Arabic have concluded that it is helpful to
identify two levels between the Classical language and the vernaculars
(which are the only two uncontroversial levels). Details and terminology are
disputed, but in general there is a recognised need to integrate an important
datum into the diglossic framework: namely, the fact that ‘educated Arabs
of most nationalities talk among themselves on most topics with little or
no linguistic embarrassment, simultaneously drawing as they do so on the
resources of the written language and of regional vernaculars’ (Mitchell
1980: 89). That is to say, while oral literary Arabic (OLA) is relatively rare,
and confined to the most formal of situations, there is a lower-level process
of stylistic modification which consists, essentially, of levelling or
classicizing. Levelling is the suppression of localisms, and classicizing
denotes recourse to the use of widely-understood features of the classical
language (the two overlap, of course). This idiom is now widely referred to
as Educated Spoken Arabic (ESA), the ‘middle’ speech of educated Arabs;
on Mitchell’s model this speech style avoids both ‘high-flown’ and (at the
opposite pole) ‘stigmatized’ variants; it contains within it a range of
possibilities that may be labelled formal or informal, careful or casual, etc.
It is worth noting that dialect convergence (sometimes called koineizing)
is not symmetrical: for example, it is reported that Egyptians rarely adopt
this strategy, since Egyptian Arabic is so widely understood (the result of
the concentration of the film industry and other popular media in Egypt).
Educated Spoken Arabic is built on a basically vernacular structure
(Meiseles 1980): nevertheless, the boundary between this and Oral Literary
Arabic is unstable. Distinguishing features include lexical differences,
including certain conventional indicators such as the affirmatives na‘am
(High) vs. ’aywa (Low); sentence structure (obviously connected with
morphology, which is in turn connected with phonology); and the use of
marked categories such as the dual. Greek parallels would not be hard to
41
Stephen Colvin
suggest, especially since phonological change must have rendered

ambiguous some important morphological categories (such as the dative
and even the accusative). For example, Brixhe (1987: 21) has pointed out
that in the vernacular of Termessos (Pisidia) in the third century AD
epigraphic data indicate that both ἡµεῖς and ὑµεῖς were [imis]. These sound
changes are likely to have occurred a good deal earlier in most spoken
varieties of Greek;14 presumably the vernacular had reorganized the
personal pronouns so that functional distinctions were maintained (compare
modern Greek εµείς εσείς). There remains the intriguing possibility that at
the highest end of formal communication in the koine period (‘Oral
Literary Greek’) some elements of a classicizing pronunciation were
adopted when this was necessary to maintain functional differences
(compare also the indicative and optative verbal endings λύει versus λύοι).
One could imagine this in declamation, for example.
Morpurgo Davies (1987) showed that the Greeks in the dialectal
diversity of the Classical period had the idea that they were speaking Greek.
They did not contrast ‘Greek’ with the dialects that they spoke, since the
dialects collectively constituted Greek. In the koine period to speak Greek
(ἑλληνίζειν) meant to have the requisite Greek education to be able to
participate in the new Greek world: to be able to read and write the formal
language without barbarismos or soloikismos. The formal language was now
contrasted with the (classical) dialects: this is interesting for two reasons.
Firstly, there is a new distinction between ‘Greek’ (the standard language)
and the dialects; and secondly, the grammarians do not contrast the
standard language with the vernaculars. The vernacular is not recognised:
it does not exist qua language, is not a proper object of study. The same is
true of the Arab world, and the mediaeval Latin world. The relationship
between the standard and the vernacular, which in linguistic terms would
be viewed as diachronic (the one is a later stage of the other), is conceived
in synchronic terms: all speakers view the standard as their mother tongue,
and to the extent that they think about the vernacular, it is viewed as a
corrupted, informal version of the former. In the Greek situation the
classical dialects are acceptable: not normative, but the proper object of
attention and with a limited function (for example, in certain forms of
literature).
Here it may be useful to consider the vexed question of the change from
Latin to Romance, where the link between linguistic consciousness and
written standard seems to have played a central role.15 To name a linguistic
variety is to make an ideological choice which is likely to have social or
political implications: Latin turned into Italian when speakers stopped
calling it Latin shortly after Dante established a new written standard.
42
Language naming seems always to have been intimately connected with

the creation of a written variety. Dante had called Latin Grammatica, and
Italian Latino:16 he ‘did not regard Latin as the origin of the popular
languages, but rather he apprehended it as a common way of writing,
unaffected by dialectal differences’ ( Janson 2002: 123). In the case of
Greek there was no renaming, and no widely accepted written standard
(or standards) until the modern era (that is to say, no written standard that
was free from the anxiety of classicism). In the modern era there is, of
course, a standard, though the quarrel between purism and the modern
language was settled relatively recently, and speakers are ambivalent about
the adjective in the term ‘modern Greek’.
To return to the chronological extension of the koine: although its roots
can be seen in the history of Athens after the Persian wars, and the
intellectual preeminence of Ionia before that, the linguistic culture of the
Hellenistic world is the result of a new social and political reality, and koine
reflects this. It is hard to specify the period at which the linguistic culture
had changed to such an extent that one has to recognize the end of this
koine: there is a sense in which it continued until the modern period. But
the movement known as Atticism may be a pointer: by this time the koine
has become stigmatized in a way that is alien to the early period, when
there was no sense that the common language was inferior to the Attic
dialect. The return to Attic seems to be indicative of a new set of
distinctions: perhaps between the leisured class who had time to master
the Attic dialect, and the rest of the Greek-speaking world; rather than
between the Greek-speaking world and the others.
Notes
1 See, e.g., López Eire 1993.
2 For which cf. Siegel 1985, 360.
3 i.e. it may become the first language for a group of speakers.
4 The argument seems to be that as ‘Doric’ is the genus of which the individual
Doric dialects are the species, so the koine bears the same relation to the four Greek
dialects (and cannot therefore be composed of or derived from them). This mirrors
the relation between panhellenic Greek identity and (for example) Athenian or Spartan
citizenship. My translation mostly follows that of Consani 1993, 35–6.
5 So also Dante (de Vulgari Eloquentia 2. 1. 1) argues that writers of prose most often
learn the koine (for him, the vulgare illustre) from poets.
6 Whether this is evidence that the koine had features in common with a creole is
difficult to say; arguments on this subject have perhaps not distinguished clearly
enough between the written and the vernacular language. Certainly the ancient
grammatical obsession with ‘analogy’ and ‘anomaly’ as forces in language starts to
look interesting in this regard.
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Stephen Colvin
7 Horrocks 1997, 219–20.
8 More evidence for the persistence of Doric at Dio Chrysostom (2nd cent. AD), Or.
1. 60.
9 So Consani 1993, 34–5: ‘...les dialectes anciens ont exercé, avant de disparaître
définitivement, une action complexe qui a produit des formes diversifiées de koiné
parlée.’
10 See also Consani 1993, 35–7.
11 The parallel between the Greek koine and modern Arabic has been drawn by
Ferguson 1959a, Versteegh 1986, Bubenik 1989, 10–17 and others.

12 ‘C’était pour eux [sc. les anciens] le dialecte employé par des prosateurs de
l’époque hellénistique ou impériale comme Polybe, Strabon ou Plutarque’ Meillet

(1929, 253); ‘La langue parlée, dans des circonstances exigeant un style surveillé, par
l’aristocratie des cités grecques ou hellénisées du début de notre ère est donc la seule
à mériter véritablement le nom de koiné,’ Brixhe 1987, 22; ‘En définitive, la seule
langue qui mérite réellement le nom de koiné est le registre supérieur de la langue
écrite’, Brixhe and Hodot 1993, 20, cf. also Brixhe 2010.
13 Suggested already by Versteegh 2002 and others.
14 Horrocks (1997, 105–7) tentatively following the reconstruction of Teodorsson
1978.
15 See the essays of Lloyd, Janson and Wright in Wright 1991b.
16 Though in De vulgari eloquentia the term grammatica refers to any literary language
(including classical Latin and Greek) whose rules have to be learned by instruction and
application: ‘non nisi per spatium temporis et studii assiduitatem regulamur et
doctrinamur in illa’, DVE 1.3.
Editions
Dante De vulgari eloquentia. Edited and translated by Steven Botterill, Cambridge
2005.
Boissonade J.F. Boissonade, Herodiani Partitiones, London 1819.
Gr. Gr. Grammatici Graeci. I,1: Dionysi Thracis Ars grammatica ed. G. Uhlig; I,3: Scholia
in Dioysii Thracis Artem grammaticam rec. A. Hilgard; II,1–3: Apollonii Dyscoli
quae supersunt rec. R. Schneider et G. Uhlig. III,1–2: Herodiani Technici reliquae
coll. A. Lentz; IV,1–2: Theodosii Alexandrini Canones, Georgii Choerobosci
Scholia, Sophronii Alexandrini Exerpta rec. A. Hilgard; Leipzig 1867–1910.
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1985 ‘Koines and koineization’, Language in Society 14, 357–78.
Versteegh, K.
1986 ‘Latinitas, Hellenismos, ‘Arabiyya’, Historiographica Linguistica 13, 425–48
[repr. in D. J. Taylor (ed.) The History of Linguistics in the Classical Period
(Amsterdam 1987), 251–74].
2002 ‘Alive or dead? The status of the standard language’, in J. N. Adams et al.
(eds) Bilingualism in Ancient Society (Oxford), 52–74.
Wright, R.
1991a ‘The conceptual distinction between Latin and Romance: invention or
evolution?’, in Wright 1991b, 103–13.
1991b (ed.) Latin and the Romance Languages in the Early Middle Ages, London,
103–13.
45
3
THE LETTER OF ARISTEAS
Richard Hunter
The so-called Letter of Aristeas (henceforth Ar )1 is not only one of the few
surviving pieces of extended literary prose from Ptolemaic Alexandria, but
its subject – the translation of the Hebrew sacred texts into Greek and,
more generally, the interaction of Greek and Hebrew traditions and culture
– places it very firmly at the centre of the ‘creation of a Hellenistic world’
and of how that world was imagined by those who actually lived in it.
In the form of a ‘letter’ addressed to one Philokrates, Ar narrates the
story of how, at the instigation of Demetrios of Phaleron, Ptolemy II
Philadelphos brought to Alexandria the best scholars from Jerusalem to
produce an authoritative Greek version of Hebrew scripture. Although
debate still rages, it is now generally assumed that Ar is the work of an
Alexandrian Jew with good knowledge of the workings of the Ptolemaic
administration and is to be dated to the second century BC; Ar thus
purports to offer an eyewitness account, by a Greek (rather than a Jewish)
courtier, of something which happened at least a century and a half before
the work was, as far as we can tell, actually written. It would, I think, be fair
to say that Ar does not enjoy a high reputation: Günther Zuntz, who shed
important light on Ar in two seminal studies, denies the author even
‘moderate imagination’ and castigates the ‘helplessness evidenced where
[the author] had no substantial tradition to follow’,2 though Erich Gruen’s
stomach is strong enough for him to call it ‘occasionally entertaining’ and
even to find something like humour lurking previously unnoticed.3 In her
recent study, Sylvie Honigman calls ‘close to unreadable for modern
readers’ the account of how Philadelphos posed ethical and political
questions to the Jewish scholars who had come to Alexandria to produce
the text for the Royal Library.4 Whether her explanation for this (‘changes
in literary taste’) is sufficient is at least open to question. Why Ar is not, for
most people, an easy read could actually be an interesting question to which
more attention might well be paid by those concerned with the history of
literary form and reading practices. Scholarship on Ar has, however,
perhaps not unreasonably been more concerned with issues of readership
47
Richard Hunter
and purpose, and of what we can actually learn from the work about the
history of the Ptolemaic Library and of the Alexandrian Jewish community.
Whether or not Ar is a ‘real letter’ is essentially a non-question, but the
ethical and quasi-private turn of this essay to Philokrates is something to
be considered in the context of the making of the Hellenistic world and the
particular quality of the writing and ideas it produced. Philokrates is chosen
as the addressee for a number of explicit reasons, but prominent among
these are his virtuous ‘love of learning’ (1–2, cf. 322), his concern for his
ψυχή (soul) (5), and the ‘impulse towards the καλόν (noble)’ (6) which he
shares with ‘Aristeas’. History, and reading history, are now directed
towards individual improvement. The prologue of Ar has often been
connected with certain trends in Hellenistic historiography, and we may
be reminded, in particular, of Polybius’ distinctions between types of
potential reader and of the reasons why one might read history; one can
read for pleasure or one can be, like Philokrates, φιλοµαθής (fond of
learning).5 Like Thucydides’ History, the programmatic chapters of which
Ar seems to echo,6 and indeed like Polybius’ Histories, Ar is written with
τὸ χρήσιµον (the useful) and τὸ ὠφέλιµον (the beneficial) in mind, but it is
now what is ‘useful’ for the improvement of the individual mind and soul
which is important. The encomium of paideia with which the prologue
concludes tells us much about the world which produced Ar, and it is a
world which is neither exclusively Greek nor exclusively Jewish: ‘neither
the charm of gold nor any other of the embellishments prized by the
vainglorious confers as great benefit as education and attention devoted to
culture’.7
Whether or not anything remotely like the events of the ‘Letter’ did
indeed happen under Philadelphos (or indeed under any Ptolemy) is a
matter of perhaps fiercer debate now than for a long time. It is easy enough
to point to elements of the narrative which seem ‘unhistorical’ – thus, for
example, there were very good reasons to include both Demetrios of
Phaleron and Philadelphos, the two figures most closely connected with
the legends of the Library, in the story of the translation, although most
scholars accept that Demetrios’ scholarly activity in Alexandria did not
outlive Ptolemy I Soter 8 – but the historicity of the basic structure of the
story remains a thornier problem. The linguistic and other arguments in
favour of the historicity of some translation of Hebrew books into Greek
in the first half of the third century are not to be lightly dismissed, and it
cannot at any rate be doubted that translations existed by the middle of
the second century. So too, the old view that, regardless of when the
Hebrew scriptures were first translated into Greek, Ar misrepresents the
procedure at least in presenting it as driven by the concerns of, and
48
The letter of Aristeas
conducted according to (a rather garbled version of ) the scholarly

protocols of, the royal Library, seems now less secure than it was; the
translation was in fact, so the argument went, the initiative of the
Alexandrian Jewish community. Broad consensus does, however, seem to
have been reached that the translation (or translations) were the work of
Jews resident in, and using the koine of, Egypt, rather than scholars
shipped in from Palestine. The question of the initiative for the translation
may, however, serve as a reminder of how easy it was for writers to
construct history in terms of royal policy (or, in the language of Ar and
Hellenistic administration, royal prohairesis or prothesis) rather than within the
framework of more messy social constructs. The practices of ancient
bureaucracy in which decisions were inscribed on stone or papyrus as
the personal decisions of kings will have helped this way of thinking
about how things happen; so perhaps too will the systems of judicial
administration prevalent in Ptolemaic Egypt. There is an important
question here about what kind of socio-political structure, what kind of
polis in fact, Ar creates and to what extent this has resonance, beyond the
work’s own narrow concerns, into the wider Hellenistic world. Finally, the
presentation of the interaction of Ptolemy and his courtiers and of the
king’s personal interest in the details of the Library’s holdings takes us in
different ways back towards the world of Herodotus and forwards (on the
now standard chronology) to the ‘historical novel’ of Chariton and others.
Students of Greek fiction have certainly paid too little attention to Ar.
Ar is an imaginative reconstruction of, inter alia, Alexandria and the
exercise of Alexandrian power in its heyday; it is often noted that the
observation in chapter 28, ‘these kings used to administer all their business
through decrees and with great precaution; nothing was done negligently
or casually’, not only apparently ruptures the fiction of the work but also
almost suggests a nostalgia for a time now lost. We can perhaps see here
something of the origins of the shaping of history which was to culminate
in Strabo’s Augustan myth of an Egypt which was well administered by
the first three Ptolemies, but was then ruined by a succession of kings given
to excessive τρυφή (luxury), only to be restored to its former well-
administered glory by Augustus who put an end to ‘drunken violence
against Egypt’ (17.1.11). For Strabo, Alexandria is ‘the greatest supermarket
(emporion) in the world’ (17.13), a place to which all the riches both of Egypt
and the rest of the world flow; so too, the import of cultures is central to
Ar ’s imagining of Alexandria, as perhaps of any such imagining.9
Alexandria as cosmopolis, as both the centre of the trade routes which cross
the world and as itself a whole kosmos within a polis, is fundamental
to standard ancient descriptions of the city,10 and is of course built into
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Richard Hunter
the city’s foundation legends (cf., e.g., Alexander Romance 1.32). Dio
Chrysostom’s famously double-edged encomium of the Alexandrians
makes them by implication the true mercantile heirs of Alexander who
control ‘the whole oikoumene- ’ – their trade reaches even to the Indian Sea
and ‘the most remote tribes’ (as did Alexander’s conquests); the world is
now a polis writ large: ‘[Alexandria] is like the agora of a single city which
gathers all men into the same space, shows them to each other, and – as far
as possible – makes them members of the same race (ὁµοφύλους)’ (Dio
32.36).11 It is perhaps not too anachronistic to see something very like this
rhetoric informing the emphasis in Ar on the intellectual, moral, and
religious ‘kinship’ of Greeks and Jews (even if Jewish culture always
remains one step ahead).
In Ar Demetrios is given the wherewithal ‘to bring together (συναγαγεῖν),
if possible, all the books in the world’ (9); this is the intellectual heritage of
Alexander, just as the city’s trade represented his mercantile heritage.
Demetrios is however represented, not unreasonably, as being particularly
concerned with books (such as the Jewish holy books) which ‘deserve’ a
place in the Library; intellectual collection can never be divorced from
selection and judgement.12 So too, the High Priest worries about the safe
return of the Jewish scholars because he knew ‘how the king in his love of
excellence regarded it as a very great gain, wherever he heard of a man
surpassing others in culture and intellect, to summon him to himself’ (124);
the High Priest had heard that the King believed that ‘by having about
himself just and prudent men he would have the greatest protection for
his kingdom, for friends frankly advise what is best’ (125). The gathering
of (the best) books and the gathering of wise men are thus parts of the
same project, in more ways than one. These elements of what we might call
‘the Alexandrian myth’, such as we have seen it in, say, Dio Chrysostom,
are in fact familiar from the earliest days. Callimachus’ Aitia, which gestures
both towards a potential claim to embody ‘all the rituals and stories of the
world’ and which demonstrates the inevitability of selection, is the key text
here, both in its overall shape and in particular episodes. We may note, on
the one hand, Pollis the Athenian’s transplantation of Athenian rituals
to Alexandria (fr. 178 Pfeiffer = 89 Massimilla),13 a passage in which
Alexandria, where the scene is all but certainly set, is again imagined as a
place where everyone and every culture sooner or later washes up and is
then preserved. On the other hand, we have the poet’s insistence (fr. 43
Pfeiffer = 50 Massimilla) that the Muses fill in a gap in his otherwise pretty
comprehensive knowledge of the foundation stories of the cities of Sicily:
συµπλήρωσις – the filling in of gaps – is also what drives Demetrios’
activities in the Library (cf. Ar 29). Much has been written recently about
50
how the Ptolemies’ claim to be the true heirs to Alexander, and to the
Greek heritage more generally, was bolstered not merely by their
possession of Alexander’s body (cf. Strabo 17.1.8) but also by their equally
displayed cultural patronage, most visible in the institutions of the Museum
and Library;14 the politics of Ptolemaic cultural activity are now firmly on
the scholarly agenda. Moreover, Ptolemy and his Library were not to be
restricted to Greek culture – they were, again like Alexander himself, both
discerning and potentially omnivorous.
Much has been written in recent years – some, but by no means all,
stimulated by Foucault – about the organisation of knowledge in historical
societies and hence about the library as an image of the state or kosmos
(Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose is the best known popularisation of
the idea); classification and categorisation are needed not just for library
books, but for the successful management of whole states. As for the
Ptolemaic Library, ‘there is something imperialist in the treatment of the
books themselves’, as Andrew Erskine put it.15 The possessions of the
Library, no less than Alexander’s body and Pollis’ Attic rituals, required
‘preservation’, or (in the words of Ar ) ‘royal care’, πρόνοια βασιλική (30).
Philadelphos’ concern for the repair of books ‘which had fallen into
disrepair’ (29) perhaps suggests that already here the Library is an image,
or microcosm, of the whole state, which flourishes under the king’s
benevolent eye. Aspects of the presentation of the monarchy in Ar may
indeed remind us of Theocritus’ ‘Encomium for Philadelphos’: numbers
and stock counts matter to Philadelphos (Ar 10, cf. Theocritus 17.82–4);16
those he watches over ‘go about their business in quiet’, as Theocritus puts
it (17.97), and he not only keeps safe the stock he inherited, but also adds
to it (Theocritus 17.104–5). Collection is, moreover, not necessarily an end
in itself: what is collected is to be used for the greater glory of the gods (or
of God) and of the people under Philadelphos’ control (Theocritus
17.106–11). As for Ptolemaic scholarship, the hallmark Alexandrian search
for authentic, original texts, whether on book-hunting expeditions or
through the arts of textual criticism, which is here extended to the
translation of the Hebrew scriptures, speaks to the centralisation of power;
not for Ptolemaic scholars of Greek literature the minefield of allegorical
interpretation which might allow the creation of meaning ‘at the point of
reception’ and hence offer space to a multiplicity of authoritative voices.
Although the modes of Jewish exegesis on display in Ar are very different,
here too the Jewish scholars produce an agreed translation, and there is a
very strong sense that the ‘reading and clarification of each passage’
(ἡ ἀνάγνωσις καὶ ἡ ἑκάστου διασάφησις, 305) led also to agreed ‘meaning’;
translation and interpretation cannot be separated. Just as no further
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Richard Hunter
change of any kind is to be permitted in the text (chapters 310–11), so

interpretation has (to some extent at least) been closed down, which is of
course very far from what actually happened in the history of the reception
and understanding of Jewish scripture.
Later traditions invented, or at least elaborated, a predecessor for
Ptolemy in this rôle: Peisistratos and/or his sons are said to have arranged
for the production of an authoritative text of Homer at Athens and for its
regular performance at the Panathenaia, and the tyrant is said to have been
the first to establish a ‘public library’ at Athens. The reliability or otherwise
of these accounts is not at issue here.17 If some at least of this is a
retrojection from later ages – and the very late story that Peisistratos
established a group of 72 grammatikoi to produce his text of Homer is
almost certainly influenced by the narrative of Ptolemy and the translation
of the Pentateuch18 – the parallelism may offer some comfort that we
are not completely on the wrong track in these interpretations of
representations of Ptolemaic cultural policy. Peisistratos is thus imagined
to have tried to ‘own’ (the genuine) Homer, who notoriously belonged to
no individual city, and to have placed his prize possession at the heart of
the principal display of Athenian identity and power, the Panathenaia; so,
in the Alexandrian myth, Ptolemy tried to own all of Greek culture, though
inevitably Homer, and the quest for the authentic text of the epics, took
pride of place.
At one level, Alexandria was consciously fashioned as ‘the new
Athens’,19 as in its turn Rome was to be fashioned as ‘the new Alexandria’.
How the Athenian paradigm of autochthony was transmuted in a city
where still potent historical memory denied the possibility of autochthony
cannot be pursued here, but the idea of Alexandria as ‘the new Athens’
already informs Callimachus’ description of Pollis’ displaced rituals (above
p. 000), as it seems clearly implied in Ar by the rôle of Demetrios of
Phaleron and the use, not just of Aristotelian traditions, but apparently
also of specific Aristotelian texts.20 The importance of Athenian institutions
as models for the Museum and Library is well recognised, but how self-
consciously that paradigm was elaborated is less clear. Thucydides makes
Pericles declare to the Athenians that ‘because of the size of [our] city
everything arrives here from the whole world, and we have no freer
enjoyment of our own splendid products than of those of other men’
(2.38.2). The parallel with the encomia of Alexandria which we considered
earlier may just be a rhetoric shared by all imperial cities, but it may also be
something more. It is the ‘funeral speech’ of the Thucydidean Pericles
which we also remember when reading the claim of Andron of Alexandria
(first century BC?), as reported by Athenaeus, that ‘the Alexandrians were
52
the people who had educated all the Greeks and the barbarians, when
general education (ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία) was disappearing because of the
continuous disturbances which occurred in the period of the successors
of Alexander’ (FGrHist 246 F1 = Athenaeus 4.184b-c); the words of the
Thucydidean Pericles, ‘In summary, I declare that our whole city is an
education (παίδευσις) for Greece...’ (2.41), had already been echoed more
than once by Isocrates.21 The text of Athenaeus perhaps leaves uncertain
whether Andron and others imagined two periods in which Alexandria
saved the paideia of the world – one under the early Ptolemies and the other
(paradoxically) dating from the reign of Ptolemy VIII, whose expulsions of
intellectuals fostered the growth of paideia all over the rest of the Greek
world – but the link between political peace and ‘culture’ (understood very
broadly) which underlies this historical narrative is one which we recognise
from early Ptolemaic rhetoric, such as (again) Theocritus’ Encomium of
Ptolemy Philadelphos, and one which was to be taken over by Octavian/
Augustus.
The question of what sort of imaginative reconstruction Ar represents
can hardly be divorced from questions of readership. Broadly speaking,
the debate has been a tussle between a Greek readership and a Jewish one.22
For those who favour the former, the point of Ar is to introduce Greeks
to Jewish culture and wisdom, both of which had won the admiration
of so cultured a monarch as Philadelphos. If, on the other hand, the
readership is primarily Jewish, the point will be to make clear that the Greek
Bible (or a particular version of it) carries the same authority as the Hebrew
scriptures themselves and that those who read only it, and not the Hebrew
original, will not be missing anything important. The story of the translation
and its subsequent public promulgation seems, on the one hand, to have
been modelled on the Exodus story of the origin of the Hebrew Law itself; 23
on the other hand, most scholars now also stress the influence of the
paradigm of Alexandrian Greek scholarship, and particularly scholarship
on Homer. In her recent study, Sylvie Honigman stresses that the authority
of the Greek Bible is commended in Ar in much the same way as
Aristarchus’ text of Homer seems to have become ‘canonical’ within a very
short time; both the Hebrew scriptures and the text of Homer are now
‘corrected’ (διηκριβωµένα, cf. Ar 31, 310) and hence authoritative. Whatever
we may think of this account of the dissemination of the Aristarchan
edition, on any showing Ar’s narrative of the process of translation does
seem to make (rather confused) use of the Alexandrian scholarly practice,
which was not of course a universal practice, of the comparison of different
texts in order to arrive at the best, most authentic version;24 the existing
Hebrew texts have not yet been submitted to such collation, or, in the
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Richard Hunter
courtly phrase of Demetrios (cf. above p. 000), ‘they have not received
royal attention’ (Ar 30). Here we might be tempted to think that Ar has
more than one audience in mind; Greek or Jewish paradigms can be
emphasised in accordance with the needs of different audiences.25 The
peculiar mixture of stemmatics and collective discussion, which is
represented by shutting the Jewish scholars up on an island to get on with
their business, looks to more than one set of exegetical practices.26
Similar conclusions may be drawn from the long episode of the sympotic
instruction of Ptolemy by the Jewish sages.27 The political questions posed
by the king put flesh on the idea of Ptolemy as god’s representative and
reflection here on earth, an idea which was (inter alia) very powerful in
Ptolemaic ideology 28 and in Hellenistic kingship theory more generally; ‘as
God benefits (εὖ ἐργάζεται) all men, so you, in imitation of Him, benefit
those under you’ (281, cf. 190) is as clear a statement as one could wish.
Some of what the sages advise the king hardly differs from, say, what
Pindar advises Hieron or the terms in which Theocritus praises Ptolemy,29
and no reader, Greek or Jewish, is going to find material for surprise here.
Some bits of the sages’ advice even sound like Greek gnomic wisdom:
µὴ πολλῶν ὀρέγου, ‘do not aim for [too] much’ (211), τῶν ἀνεφίκτων µὴ
ἐπιθύµει, ‘do not desire the unreachable’ (223). Philadelphos is, moreover,
certainly depicted as sympotikos, if not in quite the same way as in other
texts (cf. Theocritus 14.60–4); he is even depicted as a Plutarch before his
time – concerned with the appropriate conduct of symposia (286). Be that
as it may, the whole episode reveals a union of philosophical, religious and
political power which works to confirm both Philadelphos and the sages
in their respective, and mutually inter-connected, spheres. Other ways of
writing such a scene were certainly available. We may contrast Philostratus’
later account, written at a time when history provided more than one model
of a ‘bad king’, of a dinner of the Indian sages which was attended both by
Apollonius of Tyana and by the local Indian king, who used to consult the
sages on all matters.30 Philostratus depicts the king as someone who does
not know how to behave at symposia (he drinks too much, Life of Apollonius
3.30.1) and as someone who is too self-important to take advantage of the
presence of such wise men; Philadelphos, by contrast, is the model of an
enlightened king who constantly seeks self-improvement.
I have labelled Ar an ‘imaginative reconstruction’, and that would seem
to imply a view about how it was regarded by its first readers (whoever
they were). The status of Ar’s claims to truth has always been at the heart
of modern argument about the nature of the work. Sylvie Honigman argues
that Ar does indeed present a ‘true’ account, but that we have to
understand that truth, reasonably enough, within the conventions of
54
Hellenistic historiography and rhetoric. For what it is worth, my impression

is that there is a rather uneasy conjunction in Honigman’s book between
this perfectly proper emphasis on historiographical and rhetorical
convention and the idea (owed to Oswyn Murray) of Ar as a ‘charter myth’.
Be that as it may, what exactly is it that we are being asked to believe, and
what is supposed to be the nature of that ‘belief’? Is it just the basic story
of a translation conducted by the best Jewish scholars in the time of
Philadelphos? If it is true that Ar’s first readers were ‘highly educated
Alexandrian Jews’,31 then we might be loath to accept that they will have
regarded much of the work as ‘historically true’ in any meaningful sense.
Much modern discussion seems to credit the readers of Ar with very few
critical reading skills, and appeals to repeated characteristics of ‘Hellenistic
(or Alexandrian) Jewish literature’ only defer the problem;32 readers
understand ‘conventions’ as well as authors do. Appeals to ‘plausibility’ cut
both ways (and Chariton might (again) be a key text for comparison here).
The presentation of the dealings of Philadelphos and Demetrios is a
brilliant evocation of how civil servants work – if you want something done
you have to make the boss believe that it was his idea – but why should we,
or anyone, give this narrative any more credit than Chariton’s picture of the
dealings of the Great King of Persia with his chief eunuch? Appeals to the
practices of Hellenistic historiography do not allow us to evade the central
question: what sort of a narrative is this? Here is where the recent
outpouring of work on Greek and Latin narrative and fiction allows the
hope of future progress in the case of Ar also.
Ar begins and closes with what look like allusions to Thucydides and
Thucydidean ideals:33 the matter is ἀξιόλογον, ‘worthy of record’ (cf.
Thucydides 1.1.1) and the account will be σαφής (clear and true) and ‘useful’
(cf. Thucydides 1.22.3–4). It is hard not to think of Thucydides again when
the author tells Philokrates that (almost paradoxically) he will get more
‘pleasure’ from Ar than from the ‘books of the mythologoi ’ (322, cf.
Thucydides 1.21.1, 1.22.3–4). That the Thucydidean allusions are not
generally recognised may be attributed both to a sense that the author of
Ar had, in Oswyn Murray’s words, ‘little interest in classical Greek
literature’34 and to the fact that Thucydidean ideals had long since become
part of the fabric and common language of historiographical rhetoric and
thus to some extent divorced from their origins; we may again think of
Polybius. The claims to ‘truth’ which these Thucydidean allusions would
seem to reinforce are nowhere stronger than in the passage which closes
the account of the king’s questioning of the wise men at a series of
banquets:
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Richard Hunter
I suppose that everyone likely to get hold of this account will find it
incredible. But to falsify concerning matters extant in writing is not what
one should do; indeed, if I were to pass over any point, it would be an
impiety in a subject of this sort. But I describe (διασαφοῦµεν) the event
exactly as it happened (ὡς γέγονεν), solemnly acquitting myself of all error.
Accordingly I endeavoured to procure particulars of what transpired from
those persons who transcribe the proceedings (ἕκαστα τῶν γινοµένων) at
the king’s audiences and in his banquets, so impressed was I with the power
of [the sages’] discourse. For it is the custom, as you surely are aware, to
record in writing everything said and done from the moment the king begins
to give audience until he retires to bed – a good and useful practice. On the
day following, before audiences commence, the actions taken and the
remarks uttered on the previous day are read through and if any procedure
is incorrectly recorded it receives rectification (διόρθωσις). As I have said,
then, I obtained accurate information on all particulars from the archives,
and have recorded it in writing because I know how you cherish useful
learning. Letter of Aristeas 296–300
Here again we have a Thucydidean concern with offering a clear account
of ‘what actually happened’, together with a Thucydidean painstakingness
for finding this out; the language of detail, ἕκαστα τῶν γινοµένων, picks up a
language of historiography (and epic poetry) familiar from Aristotle
onwards.35 The appeal to written records offers a form of ‘authorising
fiction (‘Beglaubigungsapparat’)’, which however is ambiguous in its
implications.36 It is not, I hope, irreverent to be reminded of the scene
between Peisetairos and the oracle-monger in Aristophanes’ Birds (λαβὲ τὸ
βιβλίον...); ‘if you don’t believe me, go and consult the records’ is a challenge
which few readers are likely to take up. ‘I know that what I have written will
seem incredible’ may be a device for emphasising the truth of the account,37
an instance of protesting too much, or a rather cheeky piece of self-
knowingness. It is perhaps helpful to remember Lucian’s protestations in
the True Histories, particularly in his account of life on the moon: ‘I am
reluctant to tell you about the eyes [of the moon-people], lest someone
think that I am lying because the account seems incredible...anyone who
does not believe that this is a true account, will realise that I am speaking
the truth if ever he himself gets to the moon’ (1.25–6).
What in fact places Ar firmly in the mainstream of Greek Hellenistic
prose is its knowing anxiety about genre; it is a work filled with ‘effects of
the real’, one of which of course is the simple fact that it is structured as
an address to a single individual, and the history of its reception shows just
how convincing (and how distracting) those effects have been. Here, as
much as anywhere, it is a Hellenistic creation, as it also calls into creation
a Hellenistic world of the imagination.
56
Notes
This chapter is here reproduced much as it was delivered in Edinburgh; footnotes, on
what is a very thorny subject, have been kept to an absolute minimum. It will not need
to be stressed that I am completely unqualified to enter the debate on most of the
central issues concerning the Letter, particularly as they touch the history and practices
of Hellenistic Judaism. My purpose in allowing this paper to go further than the oral
presentation is rather to prompt classicists, particularly the large number currently
working on Hellenistic and later prose narratives, to pay it more attention than they
have hitherto.
1 There are accessible texts in Hadas 1951, Pelletier 1962, and Calabi 1995; English
translations are available in Hadas 1951 and Shutt 1985. The fullest study is now
Honigman 2003, but Calabi 1995 remains a valuable bibliographical resource, and cf.
also Fraser 1972, II 972–3 and Birnbaum 2004, 131–8. Fraser 1972, I 696–703 offers
a succinct introduction to the work and its problems (and see also ibid. II 970–2 on
the date of the work). A case for believing in the essential historicity of the narrative
of Ar has been stated by Collins 2000.
2 Zuntz 1959, 110, 125 [= 1972, 127, 142].
3 Gruen 1998, 218–21.
4 Honigman 2003, 18.
5 Cf. esp. Polybius 7.7.8; for discussion and bibliography cf. Hunter 1994, 1070–1.
6 Cf. below p. 000.
7 This and all subsequent translations are taken from Hadas 1951, modified where
appropriate
8 Cf., e.g., Honigman 2003, 88–90. The opposite case is fundamental to Collins
2000.
9 Selden 1998 is in part a stimulating discussion of this.
10 Achilles Tatius 5.1 is the most sustained display of these paradoxes.
11 For other aspects of this passage cf. Trapp 2004.
12 A similar phenomenon is the shifting distinction between the interest of the
Library and its scholars in all Greek books and their particular interest in those authors
who came eventually to form the lists of ‘the included’ (helpful summary in Easterling
1996).
13 For discussion and bibliography on this passage cf. Fantuzzi and Hunter 2004,
76–83; add now Dettori 2004, Kaesser 2005.

14 Cf., e.g., Erskine 1995, Too 1998, 115–26, Maehler 2004, Whitmarsh 2004,
122–30.
15 Erskine 1995, 45.
16 Cf. Hunter 2003, 158.
17 The testimonia are gathered by Platthy 1968, 97–108. For arguments on both
sides cf. Allen 1913, Merkelbach 1952, Davison 1955, Pfeiffer 1968, 6–8, Canfora
1987, 185–6.
18 The story would illustrate a kind of reverse of the pattern for which Honigman
2003 argues in the case of the Hebrew Bible. A rival account had Peisistratos gathering
together four wise men for this task.
19 Cf. Hunter 2003, 37.
20 Cf. Honigman 2003, 23–4 on the description of Jerusalem and Aristotle, Politics
Book 7.
57
Richard Hunter
21 On these texts cf., e.g., Pfeiffer 1968, 252–3, Whitmarsh 2001, 7–9.
22 Gruen 1998, 221 considers the matter now clearly decided in favour of a Jewish
readership: ‘those Gentiles who happened to read the work would not have found it
particularly edifying’.
23 Cf., e.g., Orlinsky 1989, 542–8.
24 Zuntz 1959 is fundamental here.
25 I am conscious that this observation is not too far from one modern view,
particularly associated with scholars such as Ludwig Koenen, Susan Stephens, and
Dan Selden, of how Egyptian motifs, or what are alleged to be such, resonate in
Alexandrian Greek poetry.
26 Honigman’s claim (2003, 46–7) that this collective enterprise would rather have
recalled the work of ‘Alexandrian grammarians’ seems at best doubtful; Greek scholars
notoriously worked alone and notoriously quarrelled with each other.
27 Cf. esp. Murray 1967.
28 Cf. Hunter 2003, 94–5.
29 With the stress on justice (193, 209, 212, 291 etc.) cf. Pythian 1.86; with the
importance of benefactions and the proper use of wealth (205, 226) cf. Pythian 1.91;
with the importance of truthfulness (206) cf. Pythian 1.87.
30 It is perhaps noteworthy that Murray 1967, 347 n. 3 compared Alexander’s
interview with the gymnosophists to the sympotic narrative of Ar.

31 Honigman 2003, 29.
32 Cf. Johnson 2004, xii–xiii on how such texts ‘persistently combine historical
verisimilitude with patent fiction without betraying the least awareness of contradiction
or absurdity’.
33 Here, in particular, I have benefited from, but unwisely disregarded, the proper
scepticism of the Edinburgh audience, particularly Robin Lane Fox.

34 Murray 1987, 22.
35 Cf. Hunter 2005, 159–62.
36 I hope that it does not need saying that the historical reality of the courtly practice
described in these chapters for the time of Philadelphos is not what is at issue here.
37 Cf. the phrases studied by Stinton 1976.
Bibliography
Allen, T. W.
1913 ‘Pisistratus and Homer’ CQ 7, 33–51.
Birnbaum, E
2004 ‘Portrayals of the wise and virtuous in Alexandrian Jewish works: Jews’
perceptions of themselves and others’, in W.V. Harris and G. Ruffini (eds)
Ancient Alexandria between Egypt and Greece, Leiden and Boston, 125–60.
Calabi, F.
1995 Lettera di Aristea a Filocrate, Milan.
Canfora, L.
1987 The Vanished Library, London.
Carleton Paget, J.
2004 ‘Jews and Christians in ancient Alexandria from the Ptolemies to Caracalla’,
in Hirst and Silk 2004, 143–66.
58
Collins, N. L.
2000 The Library in Alexandria and the Bible in Greek, Leiden.
Davison, J.A.
1955 ‘Peisistratus and Homer’, TAPA 86, 1–21.
Dettori, E.
2004 ‘Appunti sul “Banchetto di Pollis” (Call. fr. 178 Pf.)’, in R. Pretagostini and
E. Dettori (eds) La cultura ellenistica. L’opera letteraria e l’esegesi antica, Rome,
33–63.
Easterling, P.
1996 ‘Canon’, in S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth (eds) The Oxford Classical
Dictionary, 3rd edition, Oxford, 286.
Erskine, A.
1995 ‘Culture and power in Ptolemaic Egypt: the Museum and Library of
Alexandria’, Greece & Rome 42, 38–48.
Fantuzzi, M. and Hunter, R.
2004 Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry, Cambridge.
Fraser, P.M.
Gruen, E.S.
1998 Heritage and Hellenism, Berkeley.
Hadas, M.
1951 Aristeas to Philocrates (Letter of Aristeas), New York.
Hirst, A. and Silk, M. (eds)
2004 Alexandria, Real and Imagined, Aldershot, Hants.
Honigman, S.
2003 The Septuagint and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria, London.
Hunter, R.
1994 ‘History and historicity in the romance of Chariton’, in W. Haase and H.
Temporini (eds) Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II 34.2, Berlin and
New York, 1055–86 [= Hunter 2008, 737–74].
2003 Theocritus. Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus, Berkeley.
2005 ‘Generic consciousness in the Orphic Argonautica?’ in M. Paschalis (ed.)
Roman and Greek Imperial Epic, Rethymnon, 149–68 [= Hunter 2008,
681–99].
2008 On Coming After. Studies in Post-Classical Greek literature and its reception, Berlin
and New York.
Johnson, S. R.
2004 Historical Fictions and Hellenistic Jewish Identity, Berkeley.
Kaesser, C.
2005 ‘The poet and the “polis”: the Aetia as didactic poem’, in M. Horster and
C. Reitz (eds) Wissensvermittlung in dichterischer Gestalt, Stuttgart, 95–114.
Maehler, H.
2004 ‘Alexandria, the Mouseion, and cultural identity’, in Hirst and Silk 2004,
1–14.
Merkelbach, R.
1952 ‘Die pisistratische Redaktion der homerischen Gedichte’, Rheinisches
Museum 95, 23–37.
59
Richard Hunter
Murray, O.
1967 ‘Aristeas and Ptolemaic kingship’ Journal of Theological Studies 18, 337–71.
1987 ‘The Letter of Aristeas’ in B. Virgilio (ed.) Studi ellenistici II, Pisa, 15–29.
Orlinsky, H. M.
1989 ‘The Septuagint and its Hebrew text’, in W. D. Davies and L. Finkelstein
(eds) The Cambridge History of Judaism II, Cambridge, 534–62.
Pelletier, A.
1962 Lettre d’Aristée à Philocrate, Paris.
Pfeiffer, R.
1968 History of Classical Scholarship, Oxford.
Platthy, J.
1968 Sources on the Earliest Greek Libraries, Amsterdam.
Selden, D.
1998 ‘Alibis’ Classical Antiquity 17, 289–412.
Shutt, R. J. H.
1985 ‘Letter of Aristeas’, in J. H. Charlesworth (ed.) The Old Testament
Pseudepigrapha Vol. 2, London, 7–34.
Stinton, T. C. W.
1976 ‘“Si credere dignum est”: some expressions of disbelief in Euripides and
others’, PCPS 22, 60–89 [= Collected Papers on Greek Tragedy, Oxford 1990,
236–64].
Too, Y. L.
1998 The Idea of Ancient Literary Criticism, Oxford.
Trapp, M. B.
2004 ‘Images of Alexandria in the writings of the Second Sophistic’, in Hirst
and Silk 2004, 113–32.
Whitmarsh, T.
2001 Greek Literature and the Roman Empire, Oxford.
2004 Ancient Greek Literature, Cambridge.
Zuntz, G.
1959 ‘Aristeas studies II: Aristeas on the translation of the Torah’, Journal of
Semitic Studies 4, 109–26 [= Opuscula Selecta (Manchester 1972) 126–43].
60
PART II
RULERS AND SUBJECTS
THE SILVER SHIELDS, EUMENES,

AND THEIR HISTORIAN
Joseph Roisman
1. Introduction
The history of the events following Alexander’s death is in many respects
the history of the individual careers of his successors. This is the legacy of
our sources, which focus primarily on prominent men, as well as of the
scholars who are dependent on these sources. This chapter endeavours to
deal with the Macedonian masses rather than their elite in the post-
Alexander era. I have chosen the case of the Macedonian troops known as
the argyraspides, or Silver Shields, because, more than any other group, they
represented Macedonian identity, tradition, and military prowess for the
sources. The Silver Shields can also tell us much about the relationships
between the troops and their generals, and in particular about the
aspirations and expectations of the veterans of Alexander’s campaigns.1
Looking at the history of this period from the veterans’ perspective is
not an easy task. This is due to the historian of the era, Hieronymos of
Kardia, whose history is now lost but which has informed the best extant
sources on our subject, especially, Diodorus of Sicily, books 18–20, and
Plutarch’s biography of Eumenes. Hieronymos’ strengths and weaknesses
have been well analysed by a variety of scholars, and in particular by Jane
Hornblower in her book Hieronymus of Cardia. I wish here to highlight two
characteristics of his narrative, which have been paid too little attention, or
even ignored, and have an impact on my topic. One is Hieronymos’ elitist
approach to history. Like Thucydides, Hieronymos gathered information
from many informants, from simple soldiers to generals. But unlike his
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Joseph Roisman
predecessor, who often discusses politics and power from the politai’s point
of view, Hieronymos was much more interested in what powerful men
did, said, and thought. Like Thucydides, however, Hieronymos is fond of
distinguishing between alleged and real reasons, as he discerned them,
normally reflecting the actors’ self-interest. Yet in spite of the allure of his
utilitarian approach to actions and interactions, there is no guarantee that
his identification of people’s underlying aims is accurate, given that motives
are hard to decipher in any period.2
Hieronymos is also responsible for the sources’ favourable portrait of
Eumenes, the man with whom the Silver Shields were mostly associated.
Both men were born to Greek families from Kardia, and Hieronymos
served under Eumenes and may even have been his relative. The story of
Eumenes can be described here only briefly. He had served Alexander as
chief secretary and occasionally as a military commander; in fact, he was the
only Greek in Alexander’s army to command a Macedonian unit. After
Alexander’s death, he threw in his lot with Perdikkas, which proved a poor
choice. While in Asia Minor, Eumenes defeated the anti-Perdikkan general
Neoptolemaios in 320, and then, to everyone’s surprise, the respected and
popular Macedonian marshal, Krateros. The death of the latter in battle
allowed Eumenes’ enemies to pass a decree in the royal army assembly that
condemned Eumenes to death and held him responsible for the death of
Krateros and presumably other Macedonians. In early 319, Antigonos
Monophthalmos, who had been given the task of eliminating the Perdikkan
forces, defeated Eumenes in battle, besieged him in the city of Nora, and
then let him go, probably after making Eumenes beholden to him.
Eumenes managed to collect a force of about 2,500 men, made up mostly
of local recruits, and then accepted the offer of the regent Polyperchon
and the Macedonian kings to become their chief commander in Asia
against Antigonos.3
I shall discuss the history of the Silver Shields before they joined
Eumenes with equal brevity. Scholars have persuasively shown that
originally they had been Alexander’s hypaspists – elite units of the
Macedonian phalanx – and at that time probably already numbered 3,000
men. They were given the name Silver Shields no later than Alexander’s
Indian campaign. The Silver Shields played an active role in the riots against
Antipater when he arrived at Triparadeisos in 320 to become the regent of
the kingdom. Antipater sent them with their commander Antigenes, and
presumably Teutamos as well, to bring money from the treasury in Susa to
the sea. Their history from then until they met Eumenes in Kilikia in the
summer of 318 and became a dominant force in his army is uncertain. They
are nowhere attested, as is commonly assumed, to have served as the
62
The silver shields, Eumenes and their historian
guardians of the royal treasury at Kyinda in Kilikia (which was well fortified
in any case) before they were instructed by Polyperchon to join Eumenes.
It is unknown, however, what they were doing in Kilikia at that time. Perhaps
their commanders were waiting for the right opportunity or employer.
They certainly became attractive to many generals once Eumenes got them.4
2. The Silver Shields in battle

In his description of the opposing sides in the battle of Gabe-ne- in 317/6,
Diodorus describes the Silver Shields as the conquerors of the world under
Philip and Alexander and as irresistible due to their experience. He says
that their average age was seventy, with some even older, and that the
youngest of them was sixty. Plutarch gives a very similar description prior
to his account of the battle of Gabe- ne- , calling them ‘athletes of war,
undefeated and unfailing up to this time,’ thus suggesting a common
source, probably Hieronymos.5 Such elderly gentlemen would have been
promising candidates for the role of jurors in Aristophanes’ Wasps but
hardly useful in a force elsewhere described as ‘the spearhead of the entire
army,’ or as ‘the best of Philip’s and Alexander’s soldiers.’ 6 Most of the
Silver Shields must have been fit, adult warriors who could sustain the
physical demands of marching and hand-to-hand fighting. Probably the
old warriors constituted a minority among the 3,000 Silver Shields, but
they caught the attention of the sources, for whom they represented the
golden age of Philip’s and Alexander’s conquests anchored in military arete-
and experience.7
Something should be said about the Silver Shields’ aura of invincibility.
They justified this image in their performance under Eumenes, or more
accurately under their direct commanders, in the battles of Paraitakene- and
Gabe-ne- in Iran in 317, in which Eumenes and a coalition of eastern satraps
fighting in the name of the Macedonian throne clashed with Antigonos in
a showdown over Alexander’s Asian empire. Yet the Silver Shields’ record
of success was not unblemished, because they most likely fought with
Perdikkas against Ptolemy in Egypt in 320 and so shared in his failure to
capture the Fort of Camels there.8 Moreover, the experience of service
under Alexander was not a guarantee against defeat, as other Macedonian
veterans could testify. What distinguished the Silver Shields was their stable
leadership, their staying together for a relatively long time, and especially
the fact that they had not been tested in battle since Perdikkas’ Egyptian
campaign. In other words, by the time they met Eumenes in 318, they had
barely had the opportunity to display their qualities or suffer defeat and
tarnish their invincible reputation, as other veterans had.
It is also important to evaluate the Silver Shields’ contribution on the
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Joseph Roisman
battlefield. Judging by the way Eumenes planned his battles and their
ultimate results, the Silver Shields were neither capable of deciding or
winning a battle on their own nor expected to. From the time of Alexander,
it had been the cavalry that delivered the main blow to the enemy, and
Eumenes followed this battle plan. Prior to his meeting with the Silver
Shields, Eumenes relied chiefly on his cavalry both in defeat and victory,
and not because he trusted the loyalty of his infantry less. In the battle of
Orkynia in 319, which he had lost to Antigonos, Eumenes had 5,000
cavalry, as opposed to Antigonos’ 2,000, and 20,000 infantry, as opposed
to Antigonos’ 10,000. His infantrymen even included Macedonian veterans,
who fully supported him. Eumenes, however, pinned his hopes on the
cavalry, which deserted him during the battle.9 He continued to rely on
cavalry, as well as on elephants, after he had incorporated the Silver Shields
into his forces, probably because Antigonos enjoyed a significant numerical
advantage in infantry but less of an advantage in cavalry. This was especially
true of the battle of Paraitakene- , where Antigonos’ phalanx numbered
28,000 men, as opposed to Eumenes’ 17,000 (in addition to 18,000 light-
armed troops). The gap in cavalry was less pronounced: Antigonos had
8,500 horsemen and 65 elephants, as opposed to Eumenes’ 6,300
horsemen and 114 elephants (see below). Diodorus says that the right wing,
which Eumenes commanded, had the best of the cavalry, and that he
trusted these forces the most.10 Clearly, Eumenes’ expectations of his
phalanx, including the Silver Shields, were lower (Fig. 1).
At Paraitakene- , Eumenes’ phalanx won a convincing victory over
Antigonos’ phalanx, but his cavalry failed to destroy the opposing cavalry.
Nevertheless, Eumenes did not change his tactics. He continued to rely
on his cavalry and elephants to achieve victory, even though the sizes of
the opposing armies became more balanced. At the battle of Gabênê,
Antigonos’ phalanx had been reduced from 28,000 to 22,000, while
Eumenes presumably retained his phalanx of 17,000 and even increased his
light-armed force by about 1,700 men (totalling 36,700 troops). In cavalry,
Antigonos augmented his force from 8,500 to 9,000, as opposed to
Eumenes’ 6,000 (300 horsemen less than in Paraitakene-). The number of
their elephants remained unchanged. Yet neither general changed his plan
of deciding the battle with the cavalry, aided by the elephants. This is
especially telling in the case of Eumenes, because he had the best infantry
in the Macedonian world, who had proven their loyalty to him up to this
point. He also never led the Silver Shields into battle in person, but left it
to their commanders. Excellent as the Silver Shields were in fighting, and
as much as they caught the sources’ attention, neither they nor the entire
phalanx were supposed to decide the battle.11
64
Fig. 1. The Infantry in the Battle of Paraitakenê (winter 317/6).

Source: Diod. 19.27–32
Eumenes’ Forces:
• Right wing, cavalry (from left): 800, 900, 300, 300, 100, 200, 300, (subtotal: 2,900),
40 elephants with light armed
• Center, Infantry (from left): 6,000 mercenaries, 5,000 Macedonian-trained mixed
troops, 3000 Silver Shields, 3,000 hypaspists, (subtotal: 17,000), 40 elephants with
light-armed
• Left wing, cavalry: 50, 50, 100, 950, 600, 600, 500, 500, (subtotal: 3,400), 45 elephants
with light armed
• Diodorus’ total: 35,000 infantry, 6,100 cavalry, 114 elephants
• Totals of individual units: 125 elephants; 6,300 cavalry, 17,000 infantry (with
probably 18,000 light-armed)
Antigonos’ Forces:
• Right wing, cavalry (from left): 500, 1,000, 500, 1,000, 300, 3 servile ilai (? 150), 3 ilai
(?150), 100, (subtotal: 3,400 cavalry + 6 ilai (? 300), 30 elephants with light armed
• Center, infantry (from left): 9,000 mercenaries, 3,000 Lykians and Pamphylians, 8,000
Macedonian-trained troops, 8,000 Macedonians (subtotal: 28,000), most other
elephants (30?)
• Left wing, cavalry: 1,000, 200 (emended no.), 1,000, 1,500, 400, 1 ilê, 800 (subtotal:
4,900+); few elephants
• Diodorus’ total: 28,000 infantry, 8,500 cavalry, 65 elephants
Totals of individual units: 28,000 infantry; cavalry: 8300 + 6 ilai; elephants: 30 +
unspecified number.
65
Joseph Roisman
The place of the Silver Shields in the lines of battles is of interest too. In
both battles, Eumenes put his elephants and light-armed troops in the
front, and, like Alexander, his cavalry on his wings, with the infantry at the
centre. Antigonos arranged his troops similarly. In both battles, the cavalry
fought cavalry and the infantry, infantry, fairly independently from one
another. Finally, in both battles, Eumenes’ phalanx soundly defeated
Antigonos’ phalanx, with credit given solely to the Silver Shields. Thus
Diodorus reports that at Paraitakene-, the opposing phalanxes fought each
other for a long time, with many falling on both sides, but no one could
face the Silver Shields, who excelled in daring and skill due to their long
service. Even though there were only 3,000 of them, they became the edge,
or spearhead (στὸµα) of the entire army. In this battle, Antigonos lost 3,700
infantrymen, as opposed to Eumenes’ 540. These accolades deserve
scrutiny.12
At Paraitakene- , Eumenes arranged the phalanx from right to left, as
follows. Next to his stronger right wing, which he commanded himself,
he put over 3,000 hypaspists. Next to them were over 3,000 Silver Shields.
Both groups were led by Teutamos and Antigenes, probably respectively.
Next to the Silver Shields, Eumenes placed an ethnically mixed force of
5,000 troops, who had Macedonian equipment, and he completed the
phalanx’s line with more than 6,000 mercenaries, who stood next to his
weaker left wing, which was composed of cavalry.13 Generals placed their
best troops where they expected the brunt of the battle to be, which was
traditionally on the right of the phalanx. This was where the hypaspists
stood, but not the Silver Shields. Indeed, Eumenes followed Alexander
here, who had positioned the hypaspists on the right of the phalanx and
next to the cavalry in all of his major battles. I agree with scholars who
regard Eumenes’ hypaspists as his own creation. The information we have
on the composition of his forces up to this battle excludes the identification
of them, or of most of them, with Macedonian veterans.14
To ascertain which of Antigonos’ infantry the Silver Shields and the
hypaspists faced, it is best to reconstruct the opposing phalanxes from the
hills on Eumenes’ left, which can serve as an anchor point. Eumenes
arranged his left wing, made up of 3,300 horsemen, starting from high
ground in the hills. The mercenaries, the Macedonian-equipped troops,
the Silver Shields, and the hypaspists were stationed next to them, from left
to right. Antigonos drew up his lines after observing Eumenes’ battle order.
This meant that the right end of his right wing paralleled the left corner of
Eumenes’ left wing and did not extend beyond it to outflank Eumenes on
the right, since the hills acted as a barrier. Antigonos’ right had about 3,600
cavalry, which only slightly overlapped Eumenes’ 3,300 horsemen. We can
66
assume, thus, that the opposing phalanxes, which were arranged next to
their respective cavalry, stretched to the left from roughly parallel starting
lines. As shown in Figure 1, this meant that the Silver Shields faced
Antigonos’ 8,000 Macedonian-equipped troops, and the hypaspists faced
the same troops and 3,000 Lykians and Pamphylians.15
This picture would not change significantly even if Eumenes had
thinned and stretched his infantry lines. This is because Antigonos
advanced with his right and told the rest of his troops to form an oblique
line with him.16 His movement, then, put the forces facing the Silver Shields
and the hypaspists farther away and to the right. Richard Billow’s
suggestion that Eumenes compensated for his numerical inferiority by
placing many light-armed troops between the heavy infantry units and so
lengthened his lines is unattractive. The only attested light-armed troops in
this battle order were those who were placed alongside the elephants, and
filling gaps between various heavy infantry units with light-armed troops
would have weakened his front considerably. Indeed, forming a close line
provided protection against a numerically superior phalanx.17
If the above reconstruction is correct, it appears that the hypaspists
occupied the most dangerous position in the phalanx because they were
exposed to an attack from Antigonos’ 9,000 mercenaries and probably
from additional troops who overextended Eumenes’ phalanx. It required
that they either hold off the line or attack a much more numerous enemy,
with the danger of being outflanked. It was to the hypaspists’ credit that
Eumenes trusted them with such an important and vulnerable position,
reflecting the principle of using one’s better troops in (relative) proximity
to the general and where the hardest fighting was expected.
The same principle emerges from Antigonos’ line, where the
Macedonians were placed on the right side of his phalanx. Brian Bosworth
has argued that Antigonos deliberately avoided setting Macedonians against
Macedonians, both fearing that they might not fight each other and
because they were too precious to waste. But Macedonians had fought
Macedonians on previous occasions, and, by all indications, Paraitakene-
was supposed to be a decisive battle rather than a time to be sparing or
overly cautious. Antigonos’ dispositions were guided by the rule of putting
one’s strong units against the weaker units of the opposition. I think that
with the hypaspists at their side, it was easy for the Silver Shields to lead the
attack and play the ‘spearhead’ of the phalanx. Yet their charge cannot
have been devastating, because, by Diodorus’ own account, the opposing
phalanxes fought each other ‘for a long time’ (ἐφ’ ἱκανὸν µὲν χρόνον). In any
case, Eumenes seemed to have relied on the hypaspists, no less than on
the Silver Shields, to overcome or to repulse, Antigonos’ phalanx. Clearly,
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Joseph Roisman
the hypaspists’ performance in this battle has not been properly

recognised.18
Equally ignored is the contribution of Eumenes’ mercenaries on his left.
We do not know at what point exactly the infantry fighting commenced,
but if Antigonos’ line advanced obliquely while Eumenes’ phalanx held,
or advanced in, a straight line, the first who saw battle or held the line were
the mercenaries, who had to fight Antigonos’ Macedonians. I suspect that
the reason for the silence about the hypaspists and the mercenaries is
Hieronymos’ focus on Eumenes and the Silver Shields.19
In the account of the battle of Gabênê, the sources go even further in
assigning sole credit for the victory over the entire enemy phalanx to the
Silver Shields. At Gabênê, Eumenes changed his position from right to
left to command this stronger wing, with the hypaspists following him to
the phalanx’s left. Yet they are completely ignored in the account of the
battle, and all eyes are on the Silver Shields. These 3,000 troops are said to
have killed 5,000 enemy troops and to have defeated a 22,000–strong
phalanx all by themselves.20
I do not wish to argue that the Silver Shields did not excel in fighting, but
rather that the sources, and most probably Hieronymos, unduly privilege
their contribution. There was more than one reason for this preferential
treatment. The Silver Shields became an icon of a glorious Macedonian
past of uninterrupted success in war and conquest. The Silver Shields
themselves were highly vociferous in demanding attention to their wishes,
reputation, and special status in camp. They also stood for the Macedonian
authority and legitimacy so important to their employer. Lastly, the sources
show practically no interest in troops that were not Macedonian. Asian
troops and mercenaries stood on the lowest rung in the social and military
hierarchy of the coalition army, and I suppose that the historian and his
readers cared little about their accomplishments.
3. Eumenes and the Silver Shields: first encounter

At the time the Silver Shields met Eumenes in the summer of 318,
however, they had yet to prove their worth to him. Why did they agree to
join his camp? Diodorus says that Antigenes and Teutamos, their
commanders, obeyed the letters of Polyperchon, written in the kings’
names, that instructed them to help this new commander of Asia, and that
the Silver Shields similarly met Eumenes with friendliness and great
enthusiasm.21 Communication in this period was often restricted to
members of the military elite, who were inclined to make decisions without
consulting the troops. Here, however, the Silver Shields were notified of
the royal request, though Diodorus does not explain why they and their
68
commanders decided to honour it. Scholars have suggested reasons

ranging from the Silver Shields’ reverence for and loyalty to Alexander and
his house to Eumenes’ military reputation, or Polyperchon’s earlier ties to
these veterans.22 I wish to note, however, that although the Macedonian
veterans in general tended to support the Argead house, it did not prevent
many of them, before or after, from fighting against those who represented
this house. I also see no reason why the Silver Shields would be uniquely,
or more, loyal to the kings than were their fellow veterans. Eumenes’
military reputation had a limited attraction, especially after it had been
tarnished by his recent defeat by Antigonos, while the veterans’ presumed
respect for Polyperchon was surely not an overwhelming consideration.
I suggest that what drew the Silver Shields initially to Eumenes were the
financial incentives or bribes that accompanied the royal offer to him.
Polyperchon instructed those in charge of the Kilikian treasury to give
Eumenes 500 talents for his expenses and a blank check for recruiting
mercenaries. It has been conjectured that the Kilikian treasury contained
close to 20,000 talents at that time. As the history of the events following
Alexander’s death shows, one of the cardinal factors that decided loyalty
to a general was his ability to provide for his troops and to safeguard their
possessions and families. Eumenes had the potential for answering these
expectations.23
The sources, however, stress Eumenes’ cautious attitude toward those
who welcomed him. We hear that he was concerned that, before long, he
would be rejected (even killed) by the Silver Shields and their commanders
on account of his Greek origin, their envy, personal ambitions, lack of
respect, and their having voted his death about two years earlier. Eumenes
first dealt with this problem by declining the money offered to him and by
denying any ambition to be a military commander. He followed this gambit
with his well-known ‘Alexander’s tent’ show. He reported on a dream he
had had in which Alexander was sitting on a throne in full royal regalia,
giving orders and exercising his monarchical rule. Eumenes suggested
putting up a tent with an empty golden throne and other symbols of
royalty, in which the commanders would offer sacrifices to Alexander and
deliberate. Once this had been done, Eumenes gained their goodwill with
his easygoing ways. He also took the money and assumed command.24
The story substantiated the topos of Eumenes’ cunning intelligence for
the sources, but intelligence directed how? In spite of the seemingly
universal opposition to his appointment, it appears that Eumenes’ main
concern, and the prime target of the Alexander séance, were not the
veterans but their commanders, Antigenes, Teutamos, and other officers.
Of course, the audience included the military masses, but, significantly,
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they were excluded from the tent. Only the commanders took orders from
‘Alexander,’ sacrificed and made proskynesis to him, and sat in council in
‘his’ tent. Eumenes would use the same device later in Susiana, with similar
actors and audience, when other generals challenged his command.
Diodorus says that he called daily meetings of this council there, as if in a
democratic city.25 But since there was no popular assembly to discuss
its motions, the council’s purpose was to reach a consensus of the
kind practised in an oligarchy. Indeed, a story in Plutarch about the
Macedonians in Asia clamouring for the ailing Eumenes, and only
Eumenes, to lead them into battle, suggests their dissatisfaction with the
solution provided by the Alexander’s tent device, and that it was designed
to regulate Eumenes’ relationship with the elite.26
The veterans seem also to have been little troubled by Eumenes’ non-
Macedonian origin. Scholars have demonstrated that Eumenes’ problems
with the troops had mostly to do with obtaining funds and provisions,
rather than his Greek ethnicity.27 The ones said to resent, or make an issue
of, his non-Macedonian status were, most frequently, Eumenes’ rivals and
enemies, not the Macedonian troops. Later, after his loss to Antigonos at
Gabe-ne-, some Macedonian Silver Shields called him a ‘plague from the
Chersonese’. But taking this often-quoted abuse out of context does not
prove their bias against his Greek birth. Those who called him this were
echoing the propaganda of his enemies and seeking to justify handing him
over to Antigonos. Eumenes’ origins did not deter the veterans from
strongly supporting him, at least until the catastrophic loss of their goods
and families overwhelmed their loyalty (see below).28
The same can be said concerning the Macedonian resentment of
Eumenes for using Macedonians to kill Krateros and other fellow-
Macedonians in battle. The Macedonian troops’ reluctance to fight each
other was, at best, highly selective, and I do not know of a single veteran
who is recorded to have left his general because of the commander’s
violations of Macedonian solidarity. Indeed, the ones who charged
Eumenes with having Macedonian blood on his hands were his enemies
among the Macedonian commanders, not the troops. It were also the
generals, rather than the troops, who insisted that the latter should follow
their own decrees and respect the authority and power of their own
assembly, as in the case of Eumenes’ condemnation. The veterans who
fought with Eumenes before or after his meeting with the Silver Shields
repeatedly chose to ignore offers to kill him or desert his camp.29
This is not to say that the Silver Shields did not require persuasion to join
Eumenes (which shows again that the kings’ letters or the veterans’ respect
for Alexander and his house were insufficient to ensure obedience). Justin,
70
who fails to mention the story of Alexander’s tent, reports that Eumenes
overcame their reluctance to accept any commander but Alexander by
flattering and begging them. He praised them for their far-reaching
conquests and for making Alexander look so great.30 Undoubtedly, the
veterans had a high opinion of themselves and appreciated those who
confirmed it for them. In fact, their respect for Alexander’s memory was
to a significant degree an exercise in self-admiration. But I cannot share
the elitist presumption informing this story that has Eumenes easily
bamboozling the veterans with flattery and supplication.
4. Eumenes and the Silver Shields: the final chapter

I shall now move from Eumenes’ first meeting with the Silver Shields
to his last. The friendliness and goodwill that characterised their first
encounter in the summer of 318 were replaced with bitterness and mutual
recriminations in the winter of 317/6. In the battle of Gabênê, Antigonos
and his cavalry defeated Eumenes and his cavalry, and even though the
Silver Shields spectacularly beat Antigonos’ infantry, they refused
Eumenes’ request to renew the battle, mainly because Antigonos had
captured their baggage train, which included all their possessions and their
families.31
The sources’ descriptions of this and the subsequent events are
dominated by the themes of Eumenes’ efforts to persuade his army to fight
and, especially, by the Silver Shields’ ugly betrayal of him. The accounts
differ in detail, but the following summary will perhaps not be too
controversial.
When Eumenes’ army regrouped after battle, the satraps, who had
fought alongside Eumenes, called for a retreat to their upper satrapies.
Eumenes, however, exhorted the army to renew the fighting in view of
their victory over Antigonos’ phalanx. He also deprecated the loss of the
baggage and called on them to retrieve it and even to capture Antigonos’
baggage by winning, rather than acknowledge defeat. The Silver Shields
refused to listen to either the satraps or Eumenes, however, and perhaps
blamed him for the predicament in which they found themselves. Headed
by their commander, Teutamos, they sent envoys to Antigonos, who
agreed to restore the baggage if they delivered Eumenes to him. Plutarch
and Justin report that before he was led in shackles to Antigonos, Eumenes
made a speech to the Silver Shields in which he chastised them for
shamefully surrendering their general, for violating their oaths of loyalty to
him, and for conceding defeat; he then asked them to allow him to kill
himself. The Macedonians rejected this request, hurled abuse and
countercharges at him, according to Plutarch, and took him to Antigonos,
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who put him under arrest. Antigonos first had some of Eumenes’ troops
executed, ordering Antigenes to be burned alive in a pit. Then, finally, after
consultations, he had Eumenes killed too. The Silver Shields got back their
baggage and joined Antigonos’ army. Later, however, Antigonos sent many
of them to serve with Sibyrtios, the satrap of Arachosia, and on various
garrison duties. According to Diodorus, he even instructed Sibyrtios to get
rid of them. Both Diodorus and other sources treat their new assignments
as retribution for their betrayal of Eumenes.32
I have omitted from this synopsis the many dramatic devices used by the
sources to highlight the despicable treachery of the Silver Shields.33 This
attitude dominates the ancient accounts and consequently much of the
scholarship. The way this story is told is also one of the most blatant
examples of an elitist approach to history.
Let us examine what happened. Eumenes’ cavalry and elephants had
been defeated. Although the Silver Shields had won a great victory over the
enemy phalanx, their loss of everything that was dear to them, namely,
their savings, their loved ones, and their other non-combatant dependents,
marginalized any other considerations such as the future of the Macedonian
empire or that of their general. The satraps proposed retreating east, which
meant leaving the baggage train behind in Antigonos’ hands and moving
farther away from it. Eumenes, whom the veterans probably held
responsible for their loss, called on them to fight Antigonos again, but he
was motivated by his own desperate need for victory, on which his
leadership depended, rather than by their plight. The history of the
Macedonian veterans shows a close relationship between their loyalty and
discipline, on the one hand, and the winning record of their general, on
the other. It also shows that set-piece battles were decided not by the
phalanx, however excellent, but by the cavalry – and there was no
guarantee that Eumenes would be able to call on the satraps’ cavalry in a
new battle. Moreover, the veterans were well aware that he had lost the
battle of Gabe- ne- even with the cavalry’s support. In any case, fighting
Antigonos again was in the interest of Eumenes and not that of the troops.
Eumenes’ fate probably ran a distant second to the Silver Shields’ concern
about their baggage, assuming they even gave it some thought. It is our
sources who focus on him.34
The Silver Shields offered Antigonos their services in exchange for their
baggage, Polyaenus tells us.35 In our sources, whenever troops act in their
own interests, rather than those of their generals, they are called mutinous,
undisciplined, and in this case, treacherous. Probably the most active
among the argyraspides were their commanders, because the Macedonian
veterans often depended on their leadership for initiative or
72
communication with outsiders. Antigenes, whose horrible later fate

suggests a strong enmity with Antigonos (perhaps because he had
frustrated Antigonos’ earlier attempt in Kilikia to draw the Silver Shields
away from Eumenes), was not involved in the negotiations. Teutamos,
however, was, thus showing that he was more attentive to the soldiers’
concerns, and more in touch with them, than Antigenes, who has generally
enjoyed a better press among both ancients and moderns. Eumenes
probably protested his surrender and some Silver Shields, with an uneasy
conscience and wishing to curry favour with Antigonos, might have
responded with countercharges. The rest of them, however, were glad to
get their property and families back, as well as a new employer.36
This is not the way the sources see it. Plutarch and Justin allow the
shackled Eumenes to take the high ground, topographically and morally,
and denounce the Silver Shields for breaking their oaths of loyalty and
betraying him. For these sources, and apparently for Diodorus too, the
troops who abandoned Eumenes should have been ashamed of themselves
for caring more about their possessions and safety than about victory –
that is, than about their general’s ambitions and career.37
What is puzzling about the Macedonian veterans is not that they chose
possessions over honour, but that the sources, and most probably
Hieronymos, present them in a somewhat paradoxical manner. On the one
hand, they privilege the veterans’ story and accomplishments and
repeatedly praise them as the embodiment of military excellence. They also
portray them as men who loved, admired, and were in need of Eumenes.
On the other hand, they depict them as perfidious and self-centred and
condemn them for sacrificing their commander to his enemy, leading
ultimately to his death. Why does their betrayal of Eumenes, whom
Hieronymos both liked and admired, not colour the way they were
portrayed prior to it? 38
One answer is to assume that Hieronymos was a straightforward
historian who praised or condemned people when they so deserved. Yet
his consistent, highly favourable depiction of Eumenes, on the one hand,
and very hostile portrayal of the satrap and Alexander’s former bodyguard
Peukestas, on the other, suggest that this historian was no stranger to bias
or even distortion.39 It may also be argued that one of the reasons that
Hieronymos highlighted the Macedonians’ military capability was to imply
that the veterans could have reversed the results of Gabe- ne- had they
listened to Eumenes. Yet our extant sources make it impossible to prove
the existence of such a carefully planned narrative or its likelihood. I think
that Hieronymos’ elitist attitudes may account for his inconsistent portrayal
of the Silver Shields. For him, what counted were the ambitions and actions
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of great generals and kings. Within this framework, the Silver Shields had
one major role to play, which justified his praises and giving them a
privileged status, namely, to fight for their general and serve his needs As
long as they fulfilled this function, they were given accolades and exclusive
credit for Alexander’s victories or those of Eumenes’ phalanx. But when
they looked after themselves rather than their commander, they became
petty-minded, selfish, even cowardly men, who traded victory and glory
for baggage.
Yet to what extent were the Macedonians responsible for Eumenes’
fate? Firstly, they were not the only ones who lost their baggage and wanted
it back. Nowhere is it said that Antigonos captured only the Macedonian
baggage, and, according to Polyaenus, Antigonos’ proclamation that he
would restore the soldiers’ possessions for free affected the satrap
Peukestas and his 10,000 Persians, who moved to his camp following the
Macedonians’ example.40 This is not to deny that the Silver Shields led the
movement over to Antigonos’ camp. After all, their possessions had been
accumulated since Alexander’s campaign, while others had less baggage or
no families at all (cf. Oros. 3.23.26). Yet it is clear that they did not have to
force their views on others. Eumenes’ arrest seems to have triggered no
protest, except for his own.
Secondly, there are indications in the sources that not all the
Macedonians were of one mind on this issue. According to Justin,
Eumenes tried to shame the Macedonians into fighting Antigonos again by
defining their loss as consisting merely of 2,000 women and a few children
and slaves.41 This implies that not all Silver Shields, about 3,000 in number,
had families, and hence a strong incentive to give Eumenes up. It is also
conceivable that not all the Macedonians cared to the same extent about
their possessions or dependants. Plutarch reports that before Eumenes
became Antigonos’ prisoner, some Macedonians lamented the loss of their
baggage, some told him not to lose heart, and some blamed other
commanders for the defeat. It is true that the biographer presents these
different reactions as a ploy to lull Eumenes into a false sense of security
so that they could capture him off guard. But if we ignore this attempt to
expose a hidden agenda, it could be that some of the veterans were surprised
by their comrades’ decision to give Eumenes up.42 Lastly, Diodorus says
that Antigonos sent the most troublesome Silver Shields away to Arachosia
– Polyaenus gives their number as 1,000 – and that they included those
who had betrayed Eumenes.43 This implies that not all of the Macedonians
were active in, or in agreement about, the surrender of Eumenes.
Thirdly, and more significant, there was no certainty that Eumenes
would be put to death. His pre-surrender warning to the Macedonians of
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this fate is included among the rhetorical pieces that comprise his address
to the troops in our sources, and even if authentic, it was not a premonition
but designed to deter them from surrendering him. His execution was
certainly an option, but it should be remembered that, although Antigonos
had in the past called upon the Macedonians to kill Eumenes, he refrained
from doing so now. It is not unlikely that in the Silver Shields’ negotiations
with Antigonos, the general promised not kill Eumenes, or did not
discount the possibility that he might be imprisoned (as he had done with
Alketas’ generals), or of his offering Eumenes a position in his army, or
even a generous release.44 The sources indeed report on Antigonos’
hesitations about what to do with the captured Eumenes, his friendship
for him, his protecting him from lynching when he was brought to his
camp, the conflicting opinions in his council about what should be done
with Eumenes, and of Eumenes himself raising the possibility not only of
his death but of his release. Indeed, it would have been a coup for
Antigonos to have Eumenes, the royally appointed chief general of Asia,
at his side. In the end, however, and like many other single rulers,
Antigonos yielded to fear and distrust as well as to the pressures of his
oligarchy, that is, his friends, and his troops. In short, the sources’
condemnation of the deadly treachery of the Silver Shields was an effect of
hindsight.45
Hindsight seems also to have been responsible for the moralistic
interpretation of the Silver Shields’ later assignments as a just punishment
for their betrayal of Eumenes, a view that probably goes back to
Hieronymos.46 This historian, who often looked for a ‘real’, that is,
utilitarian, reason beneath the pretext of another, was probably also
responsible for the claim that Antigonos aimed to destroy them by sending
them to Arachosia.
It has been sensibly argued that the Silver Shields were too valuable to
waste and speculated that the satrap of Arachosia might have used them
against Chandragupta, who was expanding his realm in the Indus basin at
the time. Indeed, why would this satrap have been willing to admit alleged
troublemakers into his province or to serve as executioner for Antigonos?
It is likely, however, that Antigonos sought to rid himself of the Silver
Shields because they had several reasons to be discontented. Some were
perhaps upset about the killing of Antigenes, and many about the loss of
the power and prestige they had enjoyed under Eumenes. Their Argead
sympathies and their cohesive, independent solidarity were disconcerting
too. They also included elderly soldiers. So Antigonos broke them up into
smaller units and sent them away, just as Antipater had done in 320 when
he sent them from Triparadeisos to fetch money from Susa.47
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It may be fitting by way of a conclusion to retell a memorable story that

is included in Diodorus’ account. A few months before Eumenes’ last
battle, Antigonos tried to induce the Silver Shields and the satraps to defect
to his side. The Macedonians declined, and Eumenes, who had not been
present at their deliberations, came to praise them and tell them the
following parable: A lion fell in love with a maiden and asked her father for
her hand. When the father expressed concern that the lion might lose its
temper and kill her, the lion yanked out his own claws and teeth. The father
then took a club and killed the lion. Eumenes explained that Antigonos
would keep his promises until he became the master of the army and then
execute their leaders. To plêthos approved and shouted ‘Right On’ (ὀρθῶς).48
This story well illustrates the elitist outlook discussed in this chapter. It
has the leader express himself in a speech and the troops exclaim approval.
The tale is also hardly flattering to the rank and file, because it tells them
that they are powerless and vulnerable without their general. The ostensible
moral is that Eumenes was right, because the Silver Shields lost their ‘claws
and teeth’ when they surrendered him.49 In fact, they saved themselves and
their families, but for Hieronymos and the historians who followed him,
this was both inconsequential and disgraceful.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, Andrew Erskine, Stephanie
Winder, and Douglas Cairns for inviting me to the Creating the Hellenistic
World conference and their most gracious hospitality. I am also grateful to
Mel Regnell from Colby College for her invaluable help with the
illustration. Lastly, I owe thanks to Brian Bosworth for his very useful
comments and clarifications. My different interpretation is no indication of
the excellence of his work.
Notes
1 This chapter is a product of a more extensive project on the history of Alexander’s
veterans. Due to space constraints, references to modern scholarship are often limited
to more recent publications. I have also adopted a thematic rather than chronological
approach. The chronology of the events under discussion is notoriously controversial.
I follow here Boiy’s 2007 attempt at a compromise between the so-called high and low
chronologies. All dates are BC.
2 Hieronymos’ sources: Rosen 1967; Hornblower 1981, 120–53. For his causation
and bias, see Roisman 2010a, cf. Brown 1947, 693; Hornblower 1981, esp. 152, 235.
Diodorus must have found Hieronymos’ account appealing, given his own interest in
great men, as well as in the theme of retribution, both of which Diodorus used to
educate his readers: cf. Sacks 1990, 23–36; Anson 2004, 12, 21. For our sources’ use
of Duris of Samos, see, e.g., Landucci Gatinoni 1997, 194–200; 2008, esp. XII–XXIV.
76
3 Hieronymos’ career: Hornblower 1981, 5–17, esp. p. 8. Eumenes under Alexander:
Heckel 1992, 346–7; his career after Alexander and up to his royal appointment:
Schäfer 2002, 53–122; Anson 2004, 51–145.
4 The Silver Shields’ origins and history: Anson 1981, 1988; Heckel 1982, 1992,
307–19. The Kilikian treasury: Simpson 1957; Bing 1973. Diodorus’ language and
timetable at 18.58.1–4 give little support to Bosworth’s suggestion (1992, 66–7) that
they moved to Kilikia only after receiving Polyperchon’s directive in 318, and see
Anson 2004, 144 n. 92. Diodorus on Polyperchon’s correspondence: 18.58.1–4.
Rosen’s (1967, 69–71) reconstruction of Polyperchon’s correspondence is too
speculative.
5 Diod. 19.41.1–2; Plut. Eumenes 16.6–7. Hieronymos as their sources: Bosworth
1992, 62; cf. Hornblower 1981, 193. Unless otherwise noted, all references to Plutarch
and Nepos are to their Eumenes.
6 Diod. 19.30.6; Plut. 18.2. Cf. Diod. 18.28.1: ‘invincible and because of their
excellence they spread much fear among the enemies.’

7 For the Silver Shields’ age, see Anson 1981, 199; Hornblower 1981, 193; Billows
1995, 18–19.
8 Diod. 18.33.5–34.5. Hammond 1994 [1978], 210, and Bosworth 2002, 81–4,
object for different reasons to their identification with Perdikkas’ hypaspists who
participated in this battle (Diod. 18.33.6, 34.2), but Bosworth agrees that Perdikkas
used them against Ptolemy, and see 2002, 87 n. 80. For the Egyptian campaign, see
Roisman 2010b.
9 Battle of Orkynia and the size of the armies: esp. Diod. 18.40.5–8; Engel 1971.
Billows (1990, 75–6) rightly adds Polyaen. 4.6.19 to the sources on this battle, but
Anson (2004, 129 n. 46) questions Polyaenus’ information. Eumenes’ choosing a plain
for a cavalry battle at Orkynia: Diod. 18.40.6. Eumenes and the veterans: Plut. 8.9–12.
10 Diod. 19.29.1.
11 The battle of Gabênê: Diod. 19.40.1–43.9, esp. 40.1–4. The data replicates
Diodorus’ totals of soldiers, but see below. See also Plut. 16.6–10; Polyaen. 4.6.13;
Devine 1985a; Bosworth 2002, 127–9, 142–57; Schäfer 2002, 155–64; Anson 2004,
184–8.
12 Diod. 19.30.5–6. For the expression ‘spearhead of the army’, see Hornblower
1981, 193; Bosworth 2002, 139 with n. 151. Losses: Diod. 19.31.5.
13 Diod. 19.27.2–6. See fig. 1, which focuses on the infantry in this battle. Diodorus’
totals of troops do not always tally with the figures he gives for the individual units.
I follow the latter.
14 Hypaspists in Alexander’s battles: Arr. Anab. 1.14.2 (Granikos); 2.8.3 (Issos);
3.11.9, 13.6 (Gaugamela); 5.13.4 (Hydaspes). Eumenes’ hypaspists: Anson 1988, 132;
Bosworth 2002, 83–4.
15 The battle lines: Diod. 19.27.1–29.1. The hills: Diod. 19.27.3; cf. Vezin 1907,
144. Antigonos’ observing Eumenes’ order: Diod. 19.29.1. Antigonos’ Macedonian-

equipped force might have included Macedonians (Anson 1980, 56), but such
designation suggests that they were in a minority. For other reconstructions of the
battle, see Devine 1985b, esp. 85, and Schäfer 2002, 149–54, esp. 151; Bosworth 2002,
127–41; Anson 2004, 176–81. Both Devine and Schäfer have Eumenes and Antigonos
place cavalry and elephants left of the high ground, presuming an unlikely attack by
Antigonos’ forces through the hills, and see Bosworth 2002, 132 n. 129.
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16 Diod. 19.29.7.
17 Billows 1990, 96–7. Light-armed troops’ position: Diod. 19.28.2, cf. 30.4.
Compare Alexander’s close formation against a numerically superior enemy in
Gaugamela. Kahnes and Kromayer (1931, 412–13) speculate that Eumenes mixed
the depth of his infantry to prevent outflanking, but this is nowhere attested.
18 Bosworth 2002, 134. In a private correspondence Bosworth has modified his
reconstruction of the battle and has tentatively placed the Silver Shields against
Antigonos’ Lykians and Pamphylians and mercenaries. My reconstruction would place
the Silver Shields against Antigonos’ Macedonian-style troops. Macedonians fought
Macedonians in Babylon in 323, as well as in Antigonos’ campaigns against the
Perdikkans in 319. A long infantry battle: Diod. 19.30.5.
19 On the elephants in Paraitakene-, see Kahnes and Kromayer 1931, 418 with n. 1,
but also Bosworth 2002, 138–9.

20 The phalanx at Gabe - ne- and the Silver Shields’ performance: Diod. 19.40.3,
41.1–3, 43.1; Plut. 16.6–8; and see Bosworth 2002, 154 with notes 199, 200.
21 Diod. 18.58.1, 59.3; cf. Plut. 13.1–5.
22 The Silver Shields’ royal reverence: Anson 1981, 119–20. Eumenes’ reputation
and ties to Polyperchon: Bosworth 2002, 100–1.

23 Macedonians fought representatives of the throne in 320 under Neoptolemaios,
Krateros and Antipater, and possibly Ptolemy, and in 319 under Eumenes, Alketas and
his fellow commanders. Polyperchon’s instruction: Diod. 18.58.1. 20,000 talents:
Simpson 1957. Loyalty to generals: Briant 1982, esp. 41–81; Anson 2004, 118.
24 Diod. 18.60.1–61.3; Plut. 13.5–8; Nepos 7.1–3; Polyaen. 4.8.2.
25 Diod. 19.15.1–4; for different interpretations of this ‘democracy’, see Briant 1982,
80n3 and Rzepka 2005, 138–39.

26 Plut. 14.4–11; cf. 16.1. Only commanders met and worshiped in the tent: Diod.
18.60.6–61.2; Plut. 13.7–8; Nepos 7; cf. Polyaen. 4.8.2. For views that Eumenes’
stratagem instituted a military cult for the veterans and the army, see e.g. Launey 1950,
945–7, followed by Picard 1954, 4–7. I cannot share Schäfer’s hypothesis (2002, esp.
21–37) that Eumenes aimed to create an imperial cult common to Macedonians,
Greeks, and barbarians, and see Bosworth’s (2005, 685–6) criticism of it.
27 Briant 1982, 50–81; Schäfer 2002, 125–6; Anson 2004, 232–58; cf. Hornblower
1981, 156–7.
28 Resenting Eumenes’ ethnicity: Diod. 18.60.1–3; 19.13.1–2; Plut. 8.1–3; Nepos
7.1, but see also Diod. 18.62.7, and cf. Plut. 3.1. Eumenes himself stressed his alien
origin when he deemed it useful to play the inferior: Diod. 18.60.3. Chersonesan
plague: Plut. 18.2; Anson 1980, 56.
29 Charging Eumenes with killing Krateros: Diod. 18.37.1–2, 62.1–2; 19.12.1–3;
Arr. Succ. 1.30; Plut. 8.11–4, 18.2; Nepos 5.1; App. Syr. 53; cf. Arr. Succ. 1.40. The
Macedonians ignoring the charges: Diod. 18.59.4; as well offers to kill or desert him:
Diod. 18.62.1–63.5; 19.12.1–3, 25.2–4; Plut. 8.11–12; Just. 14.1.9–14; Anson 1980,
55. Those who were tempted to desert Eumenes in the battle of Orkynia were not
Macedonians: Diod. 18.40.5–8; Anson 2004, 128. Following this defeat, however,
many left him: Diod. 18.41.1.
30 Just. 14.2.5–12.
31 For Gabênê, see n. 11 above.
32 Diod. 19.43.1–44.3; Plut. 17.1–19.3; Nepos 10.1–12.4; Just. 3.1–4.21; Polyaen.
78
4.6.13. The Silver Shields’ later assignment: Diod. 19.48.3–4; Plut. 19.3; Just. 14.4.14;
and see Polyaen. 4.6.15.
33 Esp. Plut. 17.1–18.2; Nepos 10.2, 11.5, 13.1; Just. 3.11, 14.4.1–16, and see also
Diod. 19.43.8–9, 48.4, Heidelberg Epitome 3. Plutarch, however, also criticizes Eumenes
for not dying nobly: Comp. Eum. et Sert. 2.4; cf. 18.7–9; Nepos 11.3–5; Bosworth 1992,
60–1.
34 The Silver Shields’ losses: Diod. 19.43.7; Plut. 18.2; Just. 14.3.3, 6–8, 10; Polyaen.
4.6.13; cf. Launey 1950: 785–90; Billows 1990, 102 n. 26; Anson 2004, 253–5. Troops’
loyalty and winning record: cf. Briant 1982: 53–61. Troops, baggage and loyalty: Parke
1933, 207; Loman 2005.
35 Polyaen. 4.6.13; Diod. 19.43.8; Plut. 17.1–2.
36 Antigenes’ foiling Antigonos’ attempt: Diod. 18.62.4–7. Teutamos’ image: Diod.
18.62.5; Vezin 1907, 122 (‘the worst agitator’); Bosworth 1992, 70; Heckel 1992,
315–16; Schäfer 2002, 125; cf. Hadley 2001, 14.
37 Plut. 17.5–18.1; Just. 14.4.1–14; cf. Diod. 19.43.9. Bosworth 1992, 63–4 identifies
a common source behind Eumenes’ speeches in Plutarch and Justin; cf. Simpson
1959, 375.
38 The Silver Shields’ image: see above. Their relationship with Eumenes: e.g., Diod.
19.24.5; Plut. 14.1–9, and n. 29 above. Eumenes and Hieronymos: e.g., Hornblower
1981, esp. 5–11, 196–211.
39 Hieronymos on Peukestas: Hornblower 1981, 151; Schäfer 2002, 156; Anson
2004, 9.
40 Polyaen. 4.6.13.
41 Just. 14.3.6.
42 Plut. 17.3; cf. Heckel 1992, 315.
43 Diod. 19.48.3–4; Polyaen. 4.6.15.
44 Eumenes’ warnings: Plut. 17.8–11; Just. 14.4.5–6. Antigonos’ seeking Eumenes’
death earlier: n. 29 above. His imprisonment of Alketas’ commanders: Diod. 18.45.3;

19.16.1.
45 Antigonos’ wavering (and distrust of Eumenes): Diod. 19.44.1–2; Plut. 18.3–6;
Nepos 10.3–11.2, 12.1–3; Jacoby 1913, 1541. Eumenes’ expecting death or release:
Plut. 18.4; Nepos 11.3. Brown (1947, 687) doubts Antigonos’ hesitations, and Billows
(1990, 104 n. 29) thinks that Hieronymos tried in this way to exonerate Antigonos of
Eumenes’ death. But both Diodorus 19.44.2 and Plut. 19.1 are clear about Antigonos’
responsibility for his death.
46 The Silver Shields’ assignments: See n. 32 above. Hieronymos as the source:
Engel 1972, 122; Hornblower 1981, 156, 192; Lane Fox in this volume.
47 Arachosia and Chandragupta: Schober 1981, 86, 93; Bosworth 2002, 164–5.
Antipater and the Silver Shields: Arr. Succ. 1.35, 38.

48 Diod. 19.25.1–7.
49 See Hornblower 1981, 156.
Bibliography
Anson, E. M.
1980 ‘Discrimination and Eumenes of Cardia’, AncW 3, 55–9.
1981 ‘Alexander’s Hypaspists and the Argyraspides’, Historia 30, 117–20.
79
Joseph Roisman
1988 ‘Hypaspists and Argyraspides after 323’, AHB 2, 131–3.

2004 Eumenes of Cardia: A Greek among Macedonians, Boston and Leiden.
Billows, R. A.
1990 Antigonus the One-eyed and the Creation of the Hellenistic State, Berkeley.
1995 Kings and Colonists: Aspects of Macedonian Imperialism, Leiden.
Bing, J. D.
1973 ‘A further note on Cyinda/Kundi’, Historia 22, 346–50.
Boiy, T
2007 Between High and Low: A chronology of the early Hellenistic age, Frankfurt am
Main.
Bosworth, A. B.
1992 ‘History and artifice in Plutarch’s Eumenes’, in P. A. Stadter (ed.) Plutarch and
the Historical Tradition, London, 56–89.
2002 The Legacy of Alexander: Politics, warfare, and propaganda under the Successors,
Oxford.
2005 ‘Review of C. Schäfer. 2002. Eumenes von Kardia und der Kampf um die Macht
im Alexanderreich. Frankfurt am Main’, Gnomon 77.8, 684–8.
Briant, P.
1982 Rois, tributs et paysans, Paris.
Brown, T. S.
1947 ‘Hieronymus of Cardia’, American Historical Review 52.4, 684–96.
Devine, A. M.
1985a ‘Diodorus’ account of the Battle of Gabiene’, AncW 12, 87–96.
1985b ‘Diodorus’ account of the Battle of Paraitacene (317 BC)’, AncW 12, 75–86.
Engel, R.
1971 ‘Anmerkungen zur Schlacht von Orkynia’, Museum Helveticum 28, 227–31.
1972 ‘Zum Geschichtsbild des Hieronymos von Kardia’, Athenaeum 50, 120–5.
Hadley, R. A.
2001 ‘A possible lost source for the career of Eumenes of Kardia’, Historia 50.1,
3–33.
Hammond, N. G. L.
1994 Collected Studies, vol. 3, Amsterdam.
Heckel, W.
1982 ‘The career of Antigenes’, Symbole Osloenses 57, 57–67.
1992 The Marshals of Alexander’s Empire, London and New York.
Hornblower, J.
Jacoby, F.
1913 ‘Hieronymos von Kardia’, RE 8, no. 10, 1540–60.
Kahnes, E., and Kromayer, J.
1931 ‘Drei Diadochenschlachten’, in J. Kromayer (ed.) Antike Schlachtfelder,
Bausteine zu einer antiken Kriegsgeschichte, 1903–31, Berlin, 4: 391–446.
Landucci Gatinoni, F.
1997 Duride di Samo, Rome.
2008 Diodoro Siculo, Biblioteca Storica Libro XVIII. Commento Storico, Milan.
Launey, M.
1949–50 Recherches sur les armées hellénistiques, 2 vols, Paris.
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Loman, P.
2005 ‘Mercenaries, their women, and colonisation’, Klio 87.2, 346–65.
Parke, H.W.
1933 Greek Mercenary Soldiers from the Earliest Times to the Battle of Ipsus, Chicago.
Picard, C.
1954 ‘Le trône vide d’Alexandre dans la cérémonie de Cyinda et le culte du trône
vide à travers le monde gréco-romain’, Cahiers Archéologiques 7, 1–17.
Roisman, J.
2010a ‘Hieronymus of Cardia: causation and bias from Alexander to his
Successors’, in E. Carney and D. Ogden (eds) Philip II and Alexander the
Great: Father and Son, Lives and Afterlives, Oxford.
2010b ‘Perdikkas’ invasion of Egypt’, in H. Hauben and A. Meeus (eds), The Age
of the Successors (323–276 BC ) (Studia hellenistica), Leuven.
Rosen, K.
1967 ‘Political documents in Hieronymus of Cardia’, Acta Classica 10, 41–94.
Rzepka, J.
2005 ‘Koine Ekklesia in Diodorus Siculus and the general assemblies of the
Macedonians’, Tyche, 20, 119–42.
Sacks, K. S.
1990 Diodorus Siculus and the First Century, Princeton.
Schäfer, C.
2002 Eumenes von Kardia und der Kampf um die Macht im Alexanderreich, Frankfurt am
Main.
Schober, L.
1981 Untersuchungen zur Geschicht Babyloniens und der Oberen Satrapien von 323–303
v. Chr, Frankfurt am Main.
Simpson, R. H.
1957 ‘A note on Cyinda’, Historia 6, 503–4.
1959 ‘Abbreviation in Hieronymus in Diodorus’. AJP 80, 370–9.
Vezin, A.
1907 Eumenes von Kardia: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Diadochenzeit, Münster.
81
5
FROM SATRAPY TO HELLENISTIC KINGDOM:

THE CASE OF EGYPT
Alan B. Lloyd
The purpose of this chapter is to track the process by which Egypt moved
from being a province of the Persian Empire to becoming one of the great
Successor kingdoms. This process was inevitably driven by several key
imperatives, above all by the attitudes and actions of the conquerors and
the reactions of the Egyptian population to their lords and masters.
I propose to define and evaluate the workings of these factors insofar as
the available evidence permits.
First, we need a brief historical synopsis: the reconquest of Egypt by
Artaxerxes III Ochus in 343/2 BC inaugurated the second period of Persian
domination in Egypt and brought to an end some sixty years of Egyptian
self-government.1 A good case can be made that Artaxerxes’ initial conquest
was short-lived and had to be repeated soon afterwards. I developed this
thesis some twenty years ago on the basis of an analysis of the fragments
of Ps-Manetho on the Thirty-first Dynasty (i.e. the second and last
Achaemenid dynasty in Egypt), arguing that this material allows us to locate
the successful, if brief, reign of the native king Khababash at the beginning
of the time-slot to which we assign these Persian rulers.2 Artaxerxes
regained control in 338, and the province remained under Persian rule for
the rest of his reign, through that of Arses, and for a short time under
Darius III Codomannus until Alexander occupied the country late in 332.
On Alexander’s death one of his senior generals and close associates
Ptolemy, son of Lagos,3 acquired the office of satrap of Egypt and its
associated territories. Technically, and nominally, Philip Arrhidaios and
Alexander’s posthumous son by Roxane, Alexander IV, functioned as
kings,4 but the conflict between the Successors to determine whether the
empire remained a unity or fragmented into its major geographical
subdivisions led after the Battle of Salamis in 306 to all the major players
declaring themselves kings. From 305 Ptolemy was Pharaoh to the
Egyptians and a Macedonian king to everyone else. This course of events
yields four major phases to consider: 1. The Second Persian Period; 2. The
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Alan B. Lloyd
reign of Alexander in Egypt; 3. The Satrapy of Ptolemy; and 4. The

establishment of the Ptolemaic kingdom.
1. The Second Persian Period

The second Persian domination of Egypt was short-lived and unstable.
It got off to a bad start which is vividly described by Diodorus of Sicily
(16.51.2–3):
Artaxerxes, after taking over all Egypt and demolishing the walls of the most
important cities, by plundering the shrines gathered a vast quantity of silver
and gold, and he carried off the inscribed records from the ancient temples,
which later on Bagoas returned to the Egyptian priests on the payment of
huge sums by way of ransom. Then when he had rewarded the Greeks who
had accompanied him on the campaign with lavish gifts, each according to
his deserts, he dismissed them to their native lands; and, having installed
Pherendates as satrap of Egypt, he returned with his army to Babylon,
bearing many possessions and spoils and having won great renown by his
successes.
It is extremely probable that this negative perspective on Artaxerxes is
reflected in the Satrap Stele to which I shall need to refer at a number of
points in this chapter; this text dates to Regnal Year 7 of Alexander IV but
is known as ‘The Satrap Stele’ because it was, in reality, set up by Ptolemy
when he was still officially functioning as the satrap of Egypt.5 The stele
reads:
Then His Majesty (i.e. Ptolemy) said to those who were beside him: ‘This
marshland, inform me (about it)!,’ so that they said before His Majesty: ‘The
northern marshland, whose name is The Land of Edjo, it formerly belonged
to the gods of Pe and Dep, before the enemy Xerxes (i.e. Artaxerxes)
revoked it.6 He did not make offerings from it to the gods of Pe and Dep.’
Horus the son of Isis, the son of Osiris, ruler of rulers, the ideal Upper
Egyptian King, the ideal Lower Egyptian King, the protector of his father,
the Lord of Pe, the foremost of the gods who came into existence
afterwards, after whom there is no king, expelled the enemy Xerxes from his
(Egyptian) palace together with his eldest son; thus it is perceived in Sais of
Neith today beside the God’s Mother.
Artaxerxes’ reputation remained consistently bad. Plutarch (De Iside 11
[355C]) describes him as the most ‘savage’ (o-mos), and most fearful of
Egyptian kings who killed many Egyptians and, in the end, even butchered
the Apis bull and feasted on the proceeds with his friends. We are told
that, as a result, he was known as ‘Knife’ in Egypt. Plutarch later adds
(31[363C]) that Ochus was the most hated of the Persian kings and was
identified with the donkey which was a Typhonic beast. Aelian (VH 10.28)
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From satrapy to Hellenistic kingdom: the case of Egypt
agrees on his treatment of the Apis bull and has a modified version of the
donkey issue in that he claims that it was divinised by Ochus to cause the
Egyptians as much distress as possible. Whether any of this is true is very
much an open question, but the probability must be that there is a certain
amount of assimilation of Artaxerxes to Cambyses, Egypt’s first Persian
conqueror.7 That, however, matters little, as far as we are concerned,
because it is the Egyptian image of the king and Egyptian attitudes towards
him that matter for our purposes.
Although the Second Persian Period lasted for some ten years, as yet we
have no hieroglyphic monumental texts surviving from the period, except
for Khababash. There is a lid made of faience bearing the name of Arses
in hieroglyphs, but it is not certain that the inscription is genuine,8 and the
one hieroglyphic reference to Darius III dates to the reign of Alexander.9
This contrasts strongly with Alexander’s reign in Egypt which lasted about
the same length of time as the Second Persian Period and is represented by
a number of hieroglyphic texts (see below). This situation is highly
significant. Hieroglyphic texts could be expected to relate to public works
which would be attributed to the ruling kings. Nothing of the sort is
reported for the second domination, and this absence of material must
reflect the precarious position of the country at this stage, a circumstance
created by a lethal cocktail of Persian disdain for things Egyptian and the
unremitting hostility of the Egyptians to their Persian masters. The
invasion of the Macedonian renegade Amyntas is symptomatic. After Issos
in 333 we find him arriving with a force of 3000 mercenaries in Egypt
intending to take the country over (Diod. 17.48). We are informed that the
Egyptians were always at odds with their governors, that Persian rule was
characterized by harshness, lack of respect for the temples, greed, and
arrogance, and that this situation made Amyntas’ task all the easier,
enabling him to get control of Pelusium and foment an Egyptian rebellion
whose supporters promptly started wiping out the Persian garrisons. These
successes did not last; for, although Amyntas defeated the Persians in battle
and drove them into Memphis, he was subsequently killed in a Persian
counterattack in the course of which his force was wiped out.
Whatever the end result of their activities, there is clear evidence that
the Persians tried to operate on the same basis as they had done in the
much longer first domination, i.e. a Persian macrostructure was overlaid on
the traditional Egyptian ways of running things, and Egyptians were used
as and when it suited. Only one certain high-ranking case is available in
the form of Somtutefnakht.10 A member of a distinguished family of
Herakleopolis Magna, he found himself involved in the Battle of Issos and
provides a clear parallel to the earlier dignitary Udjahorresnet who had
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achieved high rank in the late Saite Period and maintained that status under
Cambyses and Darius.11 Somtutefnakht will not have been unique. During
the First Persian Period Egyptian military assets were used on some scale,12
and, although the evidence for our period in general is minuscule, it is
probable that Egyptian forces were present at Issos: Sabaces, the satrap of
Egypt, was killed there (Arr. Anab. 2.11.8), and we are told by Curtius
(3.11.9–10) that he had a large army which must surely have consisted of
a significant contingent of Egyptian troops.
On the economic front the beginnings of an Egyptian-generated coinage
which we already find in the XXXth Dynasty were continued since we find
coins of Artaxerxes with his name in demotic. These issues, which derive
from Memphis, clearly take their lead from Athenian coinage, and they are
supplemented by other issues made in the name of satraps whose names
are inscribed on the verso in Aramaic.13 Overall there is enough evidence
to make it clear that the Persian intention in Egypt was to apply their
standard approach to imperial possessions, i.e. to accept the local system,
if it worked, and impose an Achaemenid macrosystem of government on
top whose major function was the economic exploitation of the province.14
2. The reign of Alexander the Great

Alexander got to Egypt in the second half of November 332. It was by
then under the control of Mazaces who surrendered the province without
a fight (Arr. Anab. 3.1.2; 3.22.1; Curtius, 4.7). The native population were
clearly more than happy to see the back of the Persians and acquiesced in
the change of masters without opposition. Alexander’s actions in Egypt
show points of similarity and difference to the Persian approach. Curtius
emphasizes (4.7.5) that he respected Egyptian traditions in his arrange-
ments, and Arrian (Anab. 3.1.4) makes the pointed comment that he
sacrificed to the Apis bull, evidently in contrast to the notorious contempt
allegedly shown to this sacred animal by Cambyses and Artaxerxes III.
Alexander’s arrangements for the governance of the satrapy were very
much in line with this conciliatory policy since he entrusted the civil
administration initially to two Egyptians called Doloaspis and Petisis who
were each to control half of the country, and, when Petisis declined the
honour, Doloaspis was placed in charge of the whole of Egypt. This
approach marked a considerable change from the Persian system; if
Alexander had followed that model, he would have placed a Greek or a
Macedonian in this position, as, indeed, he did with Libya which was placed
under Apollodoros. The old system of provincial administration based on
nomarchs was left in place to operate as it had done for centuries; it had
proved its worth, and Alexander wisely left well alone, not least, of course,
86
because his chief concern was to get on with the war with Persia. There
were, however, two areas where control was kept firmly out of Egyptian
hands: first, Greek and Macedonian garrisons were located in the key
strategic cities of Memphis and Pelusium – and certainly elsewhere, though
we are not told that – and the overall military control of the province was
located firmly in Greek and Macedonian hands; secondly, the taxation of
both Egypt and Libya was placed under the control of Kleomenes of
Naukratis, a measure which reflects a determination to extract the
maximum return for the ruling power and, therefore, mirrors a key aspect
of Achaemenid policy – the satrapies were there as part of the Great King’s
estate, and they were to be exploited as such15 – and Alexander is presented
as being very conscious of the wealth of Egypt and revenues which it
generated (Arr. Anab. 7.9.8). The Egyptians soon had good reason to rue
this appointment because Kleomenes soon showed himself every bit as
rapacious as his Persian predecessors and probably a greater racketeer than
any of them. As for Doloaspis, he soon disappeared from the scene, and
we are informed in several sources that the disreputable Kleomenes was
then appointed satrap.16
The foundation of Alexandria, a key event of Alexander’s reign in Egypt,
is described by Arrian (Anab. 3.1.5–2.2) and Plutarch (Alexander 26. 3–10)
in colourful and somewhat fanciful terms,17 but they both emphasize the
economic advantages of the site, and there can be little doubt that these
were a large part of Alexander’s motivation, particularly in the light of his
recent destruction of the great Phoenician emporium of Tyre which
created the perfect context for the diversion of the trade of the Eastern
Mediterranean to the new Egyptian site. However, the Egyptian name,
‘The Fortress of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt Merikaamon-
setepuenre, son of Re, Alexander’, emphasizes its military dimensions, at
least as they were perceived by the Egyptians at the end of the fourth
century.18 Both perspectives are clearly correct, as far as they go, but they
miss the most important aspect of the foundation, i.e. that Alexandria was
a city established on the west coast of the Delta and never perceived by
Greeks or their Roman successors as lying in Egypt proper.19 Its location
is an unequivocal pointer to the future: for Alexander and the Ptolemaic
rulers who followed him the focus of attention was to be the traditional
centres of Greek and Macedonian political and military activity in the
Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean. Alexandria pointed north and north-
west, and it was in those areas where they wished to make their mark
politically, culturally, and militarily.
As far as the Egyptians were concerned, this new and benign ruler was
accepted without compunction as the most recent tenant of the throne of
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Alan B. Lloyd
the Pharaohs. According to the Alexander Romance (1 34),20 Alexander was

crowned as Pharaoh at Memphis. Nothing is more likely, but the Romance
is a source of dubious historical reliability and does not provide a basis for
total confidence. It is, however, beyond dispute that he was treated by the
Egyptian elite as a Pharaoh in the fullest sense. A stele relating to the sacred
Buchis bulls of Hermonthis represents Alexander engaged in worshipping
the sacred animal,21 and there is a series of inscriptions referring to temple-
building activities during Alexander’s reign, for example:
a) Inscription over the door of a sanctuary built in his time in the festival temple of Tuthmose
III at Karnak:22
Life to the Horus, the valiant ruler who attacks foreign lands, the King of
Upper and Lower Egypt, Meryamun23 Setepuenre, the Son of Re, Lord of
Diadems, Alexandros.
b) Inscription inside this chamber:24
The renewal of a monument performed by the King of Upper and Lower
Egypt Meryamun Setepuenre, the son of Re, Lord of Diadems, Alexandros,
may he live forever, after he found it built under the Majesty of the Horus
Strong Bull Khaemwaset, the Lord of the Two Lands, Menkheperre, son of
Re, Tuthmose, beautiful (or uniter)25 of appearances, beloved of Amon-re,
lord of heaven, king of the gods, creator of that which exists...
c) Inscription of Alexander’s reign from sanctuary in the temple of Amenhotep III at Luxor :26
The renewal of a monument performed by the King of Upper and Lower
Egypt Meryamun Setepuenre, the son of Re, Lord of Diadems, Alexandros,
for his father Amon-re Lord of the Thrones of the Two Lands, Foremost
of Karnak, making the sanctuary anew from fine sandstone after it existed
from the time of the Majesty of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt
Nebmaatre, son of Re, Amenhotep, Ruler of Waset.
d) Inscription relating to the same monument (from the door):27
Amon-re, the Bull of his Mother, the Great God, Foremost of Karnak,
given all life, all stability and power, all health, gives life to the Horus,
Protector of Egypt, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Meryamun
Setepuenre, son of Re, Alexandros who renovated the monument for his
father Amon-re.
The first thing to do here is to define the context for these texts.28 It is
often said of these and related inscriptions that they record that ‘this or
that king built’ the structure in question, but such statements involve a
fundamental misunderstanding of the way that these operations were
carried out. All such texts need mean is that the building works were carried
out during Alexander’s reign, and he probably had no knowledge of them
88
and was probably not in any sense an initiator.29 The value of the texts lies
elsewhere. In the first place, it is highly significant that they exist at all since
they reflect the acceptance by at least a section of the priestly elite of
Alexander’s kingship in Egypt, a phenomenon which does not seem to be
paralleled at all during the Second Persian Period. Alexander is, therefore,
given a full royal titulary. There is, however, more to be said: they all appear
in some of the greatest temples in the land; the language and formulae are
in all respects traditional; the prenomen contains elements of that of
Ramesses II 30 and also echoes elements in names of recent Egyptian kings;
there is talk of involvement in restoration of shrines, a classic action of
Egyptian kings; this restoration brings Alexander into relationship with
two of the greatest Egyptian Pharaohs, Tuthmose III, the Napoleon of
Ancient Egypt, and Amenhotep III, the Louis XIV; it is the martial
prowess of the king which is particularly emphasized, but it should be
noted that Alexander is presented as an Egyptian king who attacks foreign
countries, not as a foreigner coming into Egypt, and by the same token he
is presented through his Horus name as ‘Protector of Egypt’, which again
presents him in a benign pose. Above all, these texts bear witness to a new
confidence in Egypt created by the presence of a new ruler with a
recognized commitment to things Egyptian, and, as always, that confidence
manifests itself in the resurgence of monumental building.
3. The Satrapy of Ptolemy, son of Lagos

Alexander was succeeded on his death in 323 by his half-brother Philip III
Arrhidaios who was later joined by Alexander’s posthumous son by
Roxane Alexander IV (II of Egypt), but the real power lay with the regent
Perdikkas. The years from 323 to 301 are marked by military conflict to
determine the fate of Alexander’s Empire. Would it remain a unity or
collapse into its constituent geographical parts? In the division of satrapies
which took place immediately after Alexander’s death Ptolemy received
Egypt, Libya, and part of Arabia with Kleomenes as his deputy, and these
arrangements were confirmed by the settlement of Triparadeisos in 320.
Philip Arrhidaios (323–17) appears in a number of hieroglyphic sources
as Pharaoh:
a) Dedicatory inscription of Philip at Hermopolis:31
Life to the Horus ‘Protector (?) of the Two Lands’, The Two Ladies ‘Ruler
of Foreign Lands’, The Horus of Gold Meriu (Beloved of Districts?), The
King of Upper and Lower Egypt Merykaamun32 Setepuenre,33 The Son of
Re, Lord of Diadems, Philippos, Beloved of Thoth, Lord of Hermopolis,
given life like Re.
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b) Inscription from Karnak relating to the work in his reign at Karnak:34

The renovation of the monument by the Good God Meryamun Setepuenre.
c) Inscription relating to the sanctuary built in his reign at Karnak:35
The Majesty of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Lord of the Two
Lands, Lord of Action, Meryamun Setepuenre, Son of Re of his body,
beloved of him, Philippos found the sanctuary of Amun fallen into ruin,
which was built in the time of the Majesty of the King of Upper and Lower
Egypt Menkheperre, son of Re of his body, beloved of him, Lord of
Diadems, Djehutymose. His Majesty built it anew of granite as an efficient
work of eternity, may he be granted all life, stability, power, all health and
joy like Re eternally.
The Horus, the Strong Bull, Merymaat, the King of Upper and Lower
Egypt Meryamun Setepuenre, Son of Re, Philippos. He made his memorial
for his father Amon-re, Lord of the Thrones of the Two Lands, Foremost
of Karnak.
The message emerging from these texts is very much of a piece with that
in the inscriptions of Alexander. Philip is given a full royal titulary elements
of which are shared with Alexander, suggesting continuity; it emphasizes
his role as a protector and his rule over foreign lands; he is associated with
the classic royal function of renovating Egyptian religious monuments, in
this case the major shrines of Karnak and Hermopolis; and he is also
associated with a great conqueror, i.e. Tuthmose III.
The Satrap Stele of Alexander IV (311 BC) also presents the other
putative Macedonian ruler as Pharaoh in the fullest sense of the term. It
manages to misspell his name consistently,36 but we get a full titulary, even
if the epithets are rather bland: they emphasize his youth and strength, his
relationship to the gods of Egypt, his position as the heir of Alexander,
and the extent of his rule. Intriguingly the first element of his prenomen is
identical with that of the XXVIth Dynasty Pharaoh Apries, a congruence
which could well be intentional.37
A particularly interesting feature of the Satrap Stele is the light it throws
on the position of Ptolemy at this stage or, at least, the Egyptian perception
of it. It is, to say the least, equivocal. Ptolemy is, in effect, the person in
power in Egypt, but he is formally subordinate to the two successors of
Alexander and carefully maintains that façade until 305 by which time other
Successor rulers had already declared themselves kings. This curious
position emerges strikingly in line 2 of the stele where we read: ‘His Majesty
(Alexander) is in the midst of the Asiatics, while a great prince is in Egypt,
whose name is Ptolemy.’ Subsequently he is also given the Persian title
‘satrap’, but there is considerable ambiguity in the text and an oscillation
between regarding him as the ‘great prince’ or as a king, an ambiguity which
90
was probably less embarrassing to the Egyptian composers of the text than
it would have been to Ptolemy at this stage. There are, however, numerous
pointers to the future in this document: Ptolemy is described using a string
of epithets of a traditional type in which particular emphasis is placed on
martial prowess, though, intriguingly, his youth is also to the fore; he is
said to have brought back images and other sacred objects from Asia and
restored them to the temples,38 i.e. again we have the king as restorer of the
right order; his residence is stated to be Alexandria, a fact which brings
with it a major shift in the centre-of-gravity of the kingdom; there are
references to victories in Syria and Nubia which are historical events,39 but
it is worth remembering that campaigning in these areas was part of the
traditional agenda of the Egyptian king; he shows piety to Egyptian
temples, particularly to those of Buto, to which he restored rights taken
away by the Persians; and he takes account of the ‘grandees of Lower
Egypt’ who are brought into the decision-making process.
4. The establishment of the Ptolemaic kingdom

In 305 Ptolemy assumed the title of king, following the lead of Antigonos
and Demetrios, and thereby marked the critical change in Egypt’s status
from that of a province of the Persian or Macedonian empires to that of
an independent kingdom. Nevertheless, this change did not affect the
orientation of its ruler, already adumbrated by Alexander, which remained
resolutely focused to the north and north-west of the country, and this
situation, alongside other trends which Ptolemy continued or established,
set the scene for the subsequent evolution of Ptolemaic kingship. Ptolemy’s
change of status did, however, create a problem: now that he and his
successors were kings, it was necessary to find an acceptable validation for
their position, an issue rendered more complex than for previous Egyptian
kings by the variety of constituencies which had to be addressed. Not only
did they have to take account of the Egyptians and Macedonians, but the
Macedonian acquisition of Egypt saw a large influx of Greeks as settlers in
the country.
The Egyptians were straightforward. For them the only possible
formulation of royal power was the Pharaonic office, and they simply
slotted Ptolemy I and his family into the Pharaonic position previously
occupied by Alexander the Great, Arrhidaios, and Alexander IV, but the
Ptolemies also became Macedonian kings and had to adopt and, if
necessary, adapt the Macedonian concept and practice of the kingly office
which had a number of systemic features not all of which were assets: the
Argead royal house to which Alexander belonged claimed descent from
Herakles and hence from Zeus, and it followed that these rulers had an
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inbuilt element of divinity. Not surprisingly, therefore, the right to rule was
in some measure conferred by blood, but this was not sufficient in itself
because no member of the royal bloodline could rule unless he had been
acclaimed king by the army. The Macedonian king, once appointed, had
three main functions: to command the army, to operate as a priest who
guaranteed the good will of the gods towards the kingdom, and to act as
judge.40 Another marked feature of the history of the Macedonian royal
house was the power wielded de facto by strong and ambitious women
which contributed not a little to endemic dynastic instability, and that
was aggravated by the practice of royal polygamy and promiscuous
relationships with concubines which inevitably generated multiple aspirants
and claimants to the throne.41 Ultimately, therefore, the critical factors in
determining who functioned as a Macedonian king were strength and
ability. The author of the Suda (s.v. Basileia (2)) aptly wrote of the harsh
realities of the Macedonian brand of kingship in the following terms:
It is neither descent nor legitimacy which gives monarchies to men, but the
ability to command an army and to handle affairs competently. Such was the
case with Philip and the Successors of Alexander.42
Not surprisingly, the translation of Ptolemy, son of Lagos, into a

Macedonian king brought with it into Egypt this Macedonian pattern of
behaviour whose operation within the history of the dynasty is all too easy
to detect.
Claiming kingship is one thing; gaining the assent of the ruled is quite
another matter, and the early Ptolemies clearly took the view that simply
assuming Argead ancestry was not an adequate legitimisation of the
Ptolemaic royal house in Macedonian eyes. This deficiency Ptolemy I set
about remedying with great skill. One strand in his strategy was almost
inevitably to try to establish a close association with Alexander, an issue
which he had already begun to address well before he claimed the kingship
by grabbing the body of Alexander when it was being transported from
Babylon to Macedon and interring it in Alexandria where it enjoyed
considerably more than talismanic value.43 With this as their starting point
the early Ptolemaic kings were able to develop yet another brand of
kingship rooted firmly in a Greek context, i.e. the ruler cult, which made
it possible to acquire the status of a living god and a cult to match. This was
made all the easier by the fact that the line between the human and divine
had always been pervious in the Greek world, and the vast power wielded
by Hellenistic captains and kings made it even easier to cross the boundary,
a process much helped by Hellenistic philosophical discussions of the
nature of kingship: e.g. the Neopythagorean Diotogenes could comment
92
without any qualms: ‘...majesty is a kind of imitation of a god, and can rouse
the wonder and awe of the multitude’.44 We can see the beginnings of this
process with Alexander’s demand for divine honours in 324 and even more
strikingly in the divine honours accorded to Antigonos Monophthalmos by
Skepsis in 31145 and those given by Athens to Antigonos and Demetrios
Poliorketes in 307 (Plut. Demetr. 10).46 We already find Ptolemy I being
accorded the epithet So-te-r, ‘Saviour’, a title applied to many Greek deities,
and Ptolemy II set the scene for the development of the classic Hellenistic
ruler cult when he consolidated the dynasty’s relationship with Alexander
by setting up a state cult of Alexander with an eponymous magistrate
practising Greek ritual. This was the first step in the development of the
Ptolemaic hiera oikia or ‘sacred household’, which eventually involved all
Ptolemaic rulers and their wives, living or dead.47 This body of concepts
even impacted on the Egyptian temples where we encounter the Ptolemies
as synnaoi theoi, ‘shrine-sharing deities’, a very Greek and most un-Egyptian
practice.48 This process brought with it the application to Ptolemaic kings
of further titles with religious overtones such as euergete-s, ‘benefactor’, and
epiphane-s, ‘manifest’. The upshot of this process was that the Ptolemies had
devised a validation for their power which was comprehensible and
acceptable to the Greek constituency within their empire, though we may
suspect that its claims were not infrequently met with the cynical
pragmatism attributed to the Spartans when they received Alexander’s
request to be treated as a god: ‘Since Alexander wishes to be a god, let him
be a god!’ (Ael. VH 2.19).
One novel feature of Ptolemaic kingship was the introduction by
Ptolemy II of full brother-sister marriage into the royal house. Though this
is frequently claimed to have an Egyptian origin, there seems to be no basis
for this assertion. However, there are precedents both in Greek and
Egyptian mythology, and they may well have served as prototypes for a
practice which fitted perfectly into the ethos of the ruler cult as well as
having the distinct political advantage of ensuring that a senior princess
could not marry someone else of dubious credentials and even more
dubious motivation, and in the murderous cut-and-thrust of Ptolemaic
dynastic politics that was no mean advantage. The practice could also serve
as a basis for claims that the royal blood was being kept pure.49
As indicated earlier, although the king was now based in Egypt, unlike
the Great King of Persia, the focus of royal attention lay firmly on
the traditional contexts of Greek and Macedonian activity, i.e. Greece,
the Balkans, the Aegean Sea and its coastal areas and the Eastern
Mediterranean, and the people the Ptolemies were concerned to impress
above all else were Macedonians and Greeks. To realise this aim three
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Alan B. Lloyd
things were necessary: an army, a fleet, and lamprotês, ‘splendour’. These, in

turn, required large resources, and that is where Egypt acquired cardinal
importance. It was the fabled wealth of the country that was going to make
all this possible, and efficient economic exploitation was very much a
guiding principle of Ptolemaic rule, though we must be careful to readjust
our perceptions of how exactly that worked. For it has only recently been
realized that we have been working with a distorted image of this system
which arose through privileging the evidence from the Fayum and that the
picture of a highly centralized and directed economy suggested by evidence
from that very untypical part of the country is greatly exaggerated. It is
now clear that the Ptolemaic approach was based on the eminently sensible
realization that the Egyptians had already devised the best way to run their
country and, where this was running with acceptable efficiency, they left
well alone.50 The critical requirement was that the economy should generate
the resources which the Ptolemies needed, and all options were on the
table to achieve that aim.
It was very much part of this pragmatic policy that the Ptolemies –
particularly the early members of the dynasty – took great care to keep the
Egyptian elite happy, though there has undoubtedly been a tendency to
underplay this issue in the literature. If this stratum was satisfied, the
chances were that the kingdom would function successfully and make its
full contribution to meeting the Ptolemaic agenda. The priests were key
figures here; the High Priests of Memphis enjoyed a particularly close
relationship with the Ptolemaic government,51 but the Ptolemies cast their
net much more widely amongst the ecclesiastical community. Not
surprisingly temple building became a major feature of Egyptian life under
the Ptolemies, and many of the finest and most spectacular surviving
temple structures belong to this period.52 This situation contrasts most
strikingly with that visible during the First Persian Period for which, despite
its length, there is surprisingly little evidence of large-scale architectural
work, and the Second Persian Period has nothing to offer – the Persians
were quite simply more interested in economic exploitation and paid little
more than lip-service to the cultural aspirations of their Egyptian subjects.
We should see the close relationship between the first two Ptolemies
and Manetho, a high priest from the Delta city of Sebennytos, in very much
the same light; he is only the best known and most visible exemplar of a
shrewd policy of identifying able ecclesiastics who could be mobilized to
serve the ends of the government. This stalwart was commissioned to write
a history of Egypt from its very beginnings down to the last native dynasty
to the greater glory of Egypt in general and that of the Ptolemaic kingdom
in particular. He is also alleged to have acted as an agent in the development
94
of the cult of the god Serapis.53 This syncretistic deity, invented probably
for, if not by, Ptolemy I, was intended to function as a god who would be
acceptable to both Egyptian and non-Egyptian alike, but he sadly proved
a complete failure as an integrating mechanism, despite his enormous and
increasing success amongst the Greek-speaking population.54
The priests were not the only segment of the elite – indeed, given the
inveterate pluralism of the upper echelons of Egyptian society priestly
office would often be only one of a series of functions which an individual
might discharge. Here again the Ptolemies trod very carefully. There is
evidence to suggest that the eldest son of Nectanebo II, the last native king
of Egypt, held high rank in the early Ptolemaic Period,55 and we find
Senenshepsu and Usermaatre featuring as high-ranking figures with court
functions in the very early Ptolemaic Period.56 Furthermore, Egyptians
seem to be operating as nomarchs (provincial governors) in the mid-third
century BC.57 Here, of course, we are confronted simply with individuals
revealed to us by a very randomly preserved data-set which may well be
giving us a very limited picture of a much more typical phenomenon than
we are inclined to credit. We should never forget the clear evidence of the
operation of great and ambitious elite families from the last years of
Egyptian independence nor of the Satrap Stele’s reference to ‘the grandees
of Lower Egypt’.58 These groups or power blocks would not have
disappeared and must have continued to be a focus of power, if only at a
local level. Dedicated pragmatists like Ptolemy I and II would not have
failed to recognize that and will have turned the phenomenon very much
to their advantage.
There is, however, one group of the erstwhile Egyptian elite which did
not enjoy great prominence in the early Ptolemaic period, the military.
Alexander is known to have made use of Egyptian sailors in India (Arr.
Anab. 6.1.6), but there is no reference to his using Egyptian soldiers at any
point. There is some evidence of the existence of native Egyptian generals
from the early Ptolemaic period, but, although the Machimoi (‘Warrior’)
class continues to function and appears in a subordinate role at the Battle
of Gaza in 312, it did not form part of the elite of the army under the
earliest Ptolemies and did not acquire that status until the reign of Ptolemy
IV who was compelled to train them to operate as members of a
Macedonian phalanx which they did with conspicuous success at the Battle
of Raphia in 217.59 This development, of course, reveals the reason for this
temporary eclipse: as long as it was still possible to acquire Macedonian
and Greek troops trained to fight in the Macedonian manner, it was easier
and more convenient to employ them. Once that supply began to dry up,
the Ptolemies had to look elsewhere, and members of the Machimoi were
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trained up to fight in this modern fashion with which they had previously
been quite unfamiliar.
At this point it will be clear that the economic and administrative
structure of the country had been well orchestrated to provide the
resource-base for the early Ptolemies’ political and military ambitions, and
it comes as no great surprise to find the historian Appian, a native of
Alexandria, writing (History of Rome, Preface 10):
The kings of my country alone had an army consisting of 200,000 foot,
40,000 horse, 300 war elephants, and 2000 armed chariots, and arms in
reserve for 300,000 soldiers more. This was their force for land service. For
naval service they 2000 barges propelled by poles, and other smaller craft,
1500 galleys ranging from hemiolia to pentêrês,60 and galley furniture for twice
as many ships, 800 vessels provided with cabins, gilded on stem and stern
for the pomp of war, with which the kings themselves were wont to go to
naval combats; and money in their treasuries to the amount of 740,000
Egyptian talents. Such was the state of preparedness for war shown by the
royal accounts as recorded and left by the king of Egypt second in
succession after Alexander [i.e Ptolemy II Philadelphos], who was the most
formidable of these rulers in his preparations.61
Even allowing for some exaggeration,62 we can take these figures as an
indication of the enormous success that the early rulers of the dynasty
enjoyed in building up the power and wealth of their kingdom. Apart from
military muscle, all of this could, and did, contribute to the generation of
that most desirable of acquisitions lamprotês, ‘splendour’; the navy, in
particular, with its emphasis on large and powerful polyremes could be
used as a means of projecting an image of inexhaustible might and riches,
but the Ptolemies went well beyond that and exploited many different
devices. Alexandria itself was a tool of political and, above all, dynastic
propaganda, and enormous sums were expended on the creation of a city
which had no rival in the Hellenistic world so that Strabo (17.1.8), who
visited Alexandria shortly after the Roman conquest, leaves us in no doubt
of its capacity to dazzle the visitor or of the motivation of its creators:
The city has magnificent public precincts and the royal palaces, which cover
a fourth or even a third of the entire city area. For just as each of the kings
would from love of splendour add some ornament to the public
monuments, so he would provide himself at his own expense with a
residence in addition to those already standing, so that now, to quote
Homer, ‘there is building after building’.
Other major features such as the Lighthouse, the Royal Tombs including
that of Alexander, the splendid and conspicuous temple of Serapis which
could be seen from far out to sea, the Library, and the Museum, can all be
96
regarded, apart from their utilitarian value, as further enhancements of the

city as a grand and incomparable visual spectacle.63 It could also function
as a theatre for dazzling state show pieces like the Great Procession of
Ptolemy II of 270 which broadcasts strident messages about royal power,
wealth, and aspirations as well as projecting sharply focused claims to royal
legitimacy and the antecedents of the dynasty.64 It goes even beyond that.
Whilst Greek attitudes to Egypt were nothing if not polyvalent, they show
enormous admiration for and fascination with the exotic and frequently
bizarre culture of Pharaonic Egypt. In the orchestration and contextual-
ization of the procession Ptolemy shows a determination to acquire that for
the dynasty by the careful injection of things Egyptian which can do
nothing but enhance the éclat of this great public show. In this, of course,
he exemplifies a recurrent Ptolemaic determination, most obviously in the
visual arts, to meld the mystery and exoticism of this millennial civilization
with his own Graeco-Macedonian culture to add a uniquely piquant
element of strangeness to the image of the royal house.65
5. Conclusions
At the beginning of this chapter I stated that I wanted to track the process
by which Egypt moved from being a satrapy of the Persian Empire to
become the kingdom of the Ptolemies, and that this would involve an
analysis of the attitudes and behaviour of the conquerors and the reactions
of their Egyptian subjects. The approach of the Persians admits of no
doubt. They were determined to bring a recalcitrant satrapy back under
control by any means necessary and were determined to extract the
maximum economic benefit from its resources. Whilst there is good
evidence of their use of locals for administrative purposes, it is clear that
their rule was harsh, arrogant, and repressive, and that they were
determined to teach the Egyptians a lesson which they would never forget
to ensure that they never left the Persian fold again. This policy backfired
on them in that it created such a degree of resentment that the province
remained unstable throughout the Second Persian Period and created a
climate of disaffection which made the conquest by Alexander nothing
more than a military promenade.
The reign of Alexander as Pharaoh and the satrapy of Ptolemy were very
much mediating phases in preparing Egypt for the Ptolemaic dynasty.
Alexander’s main concern was to deprive the Persians of the wealth and
military resources of Egypt and then to get on with the war as quickly as
possible. He, therefore, showed a marked respect for local traditions and
administrative practice and, in the main, followed Egyptian custom except
that the major military functions and supervision of taxation were kept
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firmly under Macedonian control. However, short though his time in

Egypt was, he was able to inaugurate a seismic shift in the kingdom
whereby Egypt came to locate itself in the wider Graeco-Macedonian
world rather than forming part of a great Asiatic empire, and this process
accelerates between 323 and 305. Ptolemy I consolidated these trends,
thereby making it once more an independent kingdom: he established
himself and his dynasty in the country on a permanent basis, and, like
Alexander, he showed sensitivity to the susceptibilities of the Egyptians
and used Egyptians where he could. He even attempted through the
development of the cult of Serapis to create a common religious bond,
though this was conspicuously unsuccessful. The issue of the validation
of Ptolemaic kingship was carefully addressed to meet the requirements
of all major constituencies, but none of this could alter the basic fact that
Egypt was to the Ptolemies the milch cow which supplied the resources
needed to meet their political and military ambitions.
As for the Egyptian population, at one level the issue of validation was
straightforward. Whatever the origins of the ruler, his position could only
be formulated for them in terms of the Pharaonic office. All rulers,
conquerors or otherwise, were conceptualised as divine kings according to
strict Egyptian royal dogma, and that is exactly what happened with all
those whom we have considered. However, outside official contexts, where
kings had to be treated formally as kings, attitudes could be very different.
The Persians of the Second Domination were heartily detested, and no
building operations were ever attributed to them, as far as we know.
Alexander and the Ptolemies, on the other hand, were much more
accommodating, and their respect for Egyptian tradition, well-calculated
solicitude for the elites, and no doubt their admiration for the ancient
culture of Egypt gained them an acceptance which made a fruitful
symbiosis possible. Ultimately this was to lead to an ever greater acceptance
of Egyptians into the higher levels of the court and the army which might
have achieved complete integration, had it not been for the very different
steer initiated by the Roman conquest which created a cultural environment
which was to lead gradually but ultimately to the destruction of Pharaonic
civilization itself.
Notes
1 For detailed discussions see Kienitz 1953, 99–111; Olmstead 1960, 437–41; Lloyd
1983, 287–8; 1992, 365; 1994b, 344–5; 2000, 390.

2 Kienitz 1953, 185–9; Lloyd 1988b, 159–60.
3 On the career of this most remarkable man see Turner 1984, 119–33; Ellis 1994;
Huss 2001, 90–249.
98
4 On the rather sad figure of Arrhidaios see Greenwalt 1984; he was murdered by
Alexander’s mother Olympias in 317 (Paus. 1.25). Alexander IV was murdered in 311
by Kassander, thus bringing an end to the legitimate Argead line (Diod. 19.105) and
clearing the way for his generals to develop their ambitions to the full
5 The Egyptian text will be found in Sethe 1904, 11–22; for an excellent modern
translation see R. K. Ritner, in Simpson 2003, 392–7.

6 On this identification see Ritner, op. cit. 395 n. 7.
7 For other Classical comments, some even more extreme, see Kienitz 1953, 108.
On the much discussed Cambyses tradition see Lloyd 1988a; 1994a.

8 See Kienitz 1953, 231.
9 See Curtis and Tallis 2005, 173 no. 267.
10 The text of the stele describing his career will be found in Sethe 1904, 1–6. It is
translated in Lichtheim 1980, 41–4.

11 See the discussion in Lloyd 1982.
12 Lloyd 1990, 223.
13 Vleeming 2001; Curtis and Tallis 2005, 200 (cf. 206 nos 370–2).
14 This point is well developed by A. R. Meadows, ‘The administration of the
Achaemenid empire’, in Curtis and Tallis 2005, 181–8.

15 These measures are described in detail by Arr. Anab. 3.5.
16 Arr. Anab 7.23.6; Ps-Aristotle Oeconomica. 2. 1352–3; Huss 2001.
17 Fraser 1972, vol. 1, 3–7; Austin 1981, 17–18.
18 The Egyptian name appears in the Satrap Stele l. 4.
19 Hence the standard descriptions of the place as Ἀλεξάνδρεια πρὸς Αἰγύπτῳ or
Alexandria ad Aegyptum, ‘Alexandria-by-Egypt’.

20 For the Greek version of this extraordinary text which was destined to a brilliant
career both in ancient and modern times see Kroll 1926. The Greek text is translated
by Stoneman 1991. The Armenian version is sometimes a valuable supplement to the
Greek and is translated by Wolohojian 1969.
21 See above, n. 9.
22 Sethe 1904, 6 no. 2.
23 The name occurs also in the form Merykaamun.
24 Sethe 1904, 7 no. 3; Barguet 1962, 194–5.
25 The reading of the sign before kheperu is problematic. Legrain read sm3(w)
(‘uniter’) and Lepsius nf r (‘beautiful’).

26 Sethe 1904, 7 no. 4.
27 Sethe 1904, 8 no. 5.
28 This list does not exhaust the monumental remains of Alexander in Egypt: see
the index in Porter, Moss et al. 1927–. For a full discussion and analysis see Abd el-
Raziq 1984 and Winter 2005.
29 On the question of such royal attributions see Lloyd 2007.
30 Mery Amun is used as an epithet in Ramesses II’s nomen and setepuenre as part of
his prenomen.
31 Sethe 1904, 9 no. 6.
32 A variant of the more normal Meryamun comparable to the variant in
Alexander’s prenomen as given in the Satrap Stele: see above, p. 000.

33 Some scholars, e.g. Barguet 1962, 137, read these two names or epithets in the
reverse order. There seems to be no sound epigraphic reason for this. We have to
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assume that Alexander and his half -brother used the same prenomen: cf. Quirke
1990, 75.
34 Sethe 1904, 9 no. 7.
35 Sethe 1904, 10 no. 8; Barguet 1962, 137.
36 It is written Ilksidrs, omitting the n.
37 Since Apries was a legitimate king deposed by a usurper, there may be a claim to
legitimacy lurking here. For Apries’ career see Lloyd 1988c, 169–82.
38 A recurrent motif in Ptolemaic texts: see Winnicki 1994.
39 See Hölbl 2001, 14–20; Ritner, in Simpson 2003, 393–4.
40 On Macedonian kingship and the state system see Granier 1931; Errington 1974;
Lock 1977; Greenwalt 1984; Adams 1986; Hatzopoulos 1987; Hammond 1989,
49–70, 382–95; Borza 1990, 231–52; Anson 1991; Ogden 1999, 3–40.
41 On these issues see the indispensable Ogden 1999.
42 See Austin 1981, 38.
43 See Fraser 1972, vol. 1, 222 ff; Stewart 1993; Erskine 2002. Note the prominence
of references to Alexander in the great procession of Ptolemy II (see below).

44 Gardner 1974, 68.
45 Austin 1981, 59–60.
46 Austin 1981, 62–4.
47 This process and its implementation is another important feature of Ptolemaic
kingship which shows itself clearly in the Great Procession. Through Alexander the
sacred family derived its ancestry from Zeus himself. The Zeus connection was also
asserted through the close association of the Ptolemaic royal family with Dionysos,
another son of the ubiquitous King of Gods and Men. In general see Koenen 1993;
Hölbl 2001, 77–123.
48 The Canopus Decree from the reign of Ptolemy III provides an excellent
example of the workings of this phenomenon: see Austin 1981, 366–8. On the nature
of Hellenistic kingship see Goodenough 1928; McEwan 1934; Schubart 1937;
Walbank 1984, 62–100; Davies 2002; Ma 2003; Chaniotis 2003.
49 Hölbl 2001, 36, 112. Carney’s discussion (1987) is still the most judicious.
50 See, in particular, Manning 2003.
51 Thompson 1988, 106–54, particularly 108, 110, 138–46.
52 For a key to Ptolemaic temple building see Wilkinson 2000, index, s.v. Ptolemy;
Shafer 2005, index, s.v. Ptolemaic and Roman periods, Ptolemy.

53 On Manetho see Fraser 1972, index, s.v. Manethon; Thissen in Helck and Otto
1972–, iii, 1180–1; Mosshammer 1979.

54 Much has been written on Serapis: see, e.g., Fraser 1972, vol. 1, 246–59;
Stambaugh 1972; Merkelbach 1995.

55 Huss 1994; Lloyd 2002, 119: cf. Baines 2004, 33–61.
56 Lloyd 2002, 123–31.
57 See references in n. 54. This view runs counter to canonical doctrine but is
beginning to take root.

58 Satrap Stele, l.7; Ritner in Simpson 2003, 394.
59 Polyb. 5.107.1–3, Austin 1981, 371–2.
60 The hemiolia or ‘one-and-a-halfer’ was a relatively light, manoeuvrable, and very
fast type of vessel which served much the same purposes as frigates in the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries. Exactly how the oarage system was arranged has been much
100
debated (e.g. Casson 1958). There is not enough evidence for a definitive solution, but
I incline to the view that it had two rows of oars per side with one of those rows using
half the crew of the other. The pentêrês, or ‘five’, was the equivalent of the 74-gun ship
in the Napoleonic era, i.e. it was the main line-of-battle ship in Hellenistic navies. It
had two rows of oars with five men per box, i.e., if we take the box to consist of the
crew rowing a unit of two oars one above the other, they might have been arranged
with three oarsmen to the lower oar and two to the oar immediately above (or vice
versa). On both types of ship see Casson 1971, index, s.v.
61 The translation is mainly that of Horace White, but I have modified the
renderings of the technical names for warships which are quite incorrect.
62 On this topic see Bouché-Leclercq 1903–7, vol. 1, 237–43.
63 The starting point on the city is inevitably Fraser, 1972, but the bibliography on
Alexandria continues to grow, greatly encouraged by the recent spectacular results of

underwater archaeology: see, e.g., Goddio 1998, 2000, Goddio and Bernand, 2004,
Goddio and Clauss, 2006; Grimm 1998; Pfrommer 1999; Ray 2001.
64 See, for convenience, Austin 1981, 361–3 (excerpts), but Athenaeus’ description,
derived from Kallixeinos of Rhodes, should be read in its entirety. For a detailed
discussion see Rice, 1983.
65 Yet another conspicuous feature of the Great Procession of 270.
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1994 Ptolemy of Egypt, London.
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1998 Alexandria. Die erste Königstadt der hellenistischen Welt, Mainz am Rhein.
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2001 A History of the Ptolemaic Empire, London.
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1953 Die politische Geschichte Ägyptens vom 7. bis zum 4. Jahrhundert vor der Zeitwende,
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1937 ‘Das hellenistische Königsideal nach Inschriften und Papyri’, APF 12, 1–26.
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1926 Historia Alexandri Magni (Pseudo-Callisthenes), Berlin.
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6
FRATARAKA RULE IN EARLY SELEUCID PERSIS:

A NEW APPRAISAL
Josef Wiesehöfer
This chapter deals with the least documented period of ancient Fars
(Persis), which extends from the age of Alexander the Great until the
arrival of the Parthians in south-western Iran. We shall see that it is the
time when the former Achaemenid heartland has become a province under
the Seleucids and then the Parthians, with a short period of independence
in between. Apart from some short literary and epigraphic information
and archaeological remains,1 the pre-Sasanian coins of Fars are our most
important source of knowledge. Here, the names and titles of the sub-
Seleucid dynasts and sub-Parthian kings of Persis are mentioned. Their
respective reigns and relationship with their Macedonian and Arsacid
overlords should give us new insight into the history of south-western Iran
from the third century BC to the third century AD.
II
In his small but, as usual, extremely important essay on ‘Alien Wisdom’, the
late Arnaldo Momigliano dealt with, inter alia, the Greek view of the
Persians after Alexander, saying that, ‘if the Persians of old lingered on in
the imagination of Hellenistic man, the contemporary Persians were almost
forgotten’.2 With this statement, Momigliano undoubtedly referred
especially to Persis, the Persians’ original province, the cradle of the
Achaemenid Kings of Kings. In fact, if one added up Greek and Latin
literary and epigraphical testimonies referring to Fars and its history
between 280 and 140 BC – the Iranians themselves were relying on an oral
‘historical’ tradition – there would be only twelve references, mostly
comments made in passing or short impressions rather than coherent
accounts. It is, therefore, not surprising that for a long time Ancient
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Josef Wiesehöfer
Historians have paid little attention to this period of Iranian history. In

addition, certain scholars of the past decades may have had a preference for
Greco-Macedonian cultural achievements on Iranian soil. This does not
seem tangible in Fars. In my Habilitationsschrift, I attempted to shed light on
the ‘dark ages’ of Fars and ever since, I have tried to make further
progress.3 However, before trying to judge anew the history of south-
western Iran in pre-Sasanian times, we have to go back to the time of
Alexander’s arrival in Persis in the year 330 BC.
Achaemenid rule ended, at least in western Iran, with the burning of
Persepolis and the murder of Darius III. Alexander followed the Persian
example in Persis, just as he had done earlier in the western part of the
Persian Empire, and behaved like an Achaemenid. This is noticeable in his
argumentation, his adoration of the memory of Cyrus II, his honouring of
the dead adversary, Darius, his marriage policy, and so forth. The reason
for this behaviour was so that he could be recognised as a rival and, later,
as a legitimate heir to Darius III. The destruction of Xerxes’ palaces and
treasuries on the terrace of Persepolis – which can probably be explained
by Alexander’s unsuccessful attempt to enlist support from the inhabitants
of Persis at the beginning of his rule – did not result in his giving up these
efforts, nor did the later execution of the satrap Orxines who was seen as
a potential rival and adversary. The Persophile Peukestas turned out to be
the man who was, on the one hand, absolutely loyal to Alexander and who,
on the other, gave the inhabitants of Persis (or rather their nobility) the
feeling that everything would remain the way it had been. These
endeavours were successful with a large part of the nobility, because
Alexander and Peukestas apparently did not touch either the Achaemenid
system of local dependencies and local administration, or the basic ideas of
the Persian ideology of kingship. There is no other way to explain the fact
that nothing is heard about unrest in Persis after Peukestas’ appointment,
that the new satrap could levy troops there without difficulty, and that a
great number of nobles collaborated with Alexander.4 This support from
the nobles for their new Persophile Macedonian masters continued until
the second century BC, as will be shown later on. This does not mean that
there was no opposition at all against Macedonian rule in Fars – the
negative image of Alexander in the Zoroastrian part of the Iranian tradition
is proof of the hostile attitude of at least parts of the population;5 however,
for a long time, this attitude did not lead to unrest and revolts in Fars.
As far as religious policy is concerned, we can also find signs of
Alexander’s and Peukestas’ efforts to receive recognition in Persis. Here,
two historical episodes should be sufficient. Shortly before the defeat of the
diadoch Eumenes by Antigonos in 316 BC, Peukestas arranged a feast in
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Frataraka rule in early Seleucid Persis: A new appraisal
Persepolis. This was certainly to honour Eumenes, but also a demonstration

of his own powers.6 On or below the terrace, the participants in the
banquet were grouped according to their rank into four concentric circles
around the place of sacrifice. The outer ring was filled with the mercenaries
and the allies; the second ring consisted of the Macedonian Silver Shields
and those companions who had fought under Alexander; the third group
consisted of commanders of lower rank, friends and generals who were
unassigned and the cavalry. Finally, there was the inner circle with generals
and hipparchs and those Persians who were most highly honoured. It has
rightly been pointed out that the sacrificial ceremony and the seating order
were in accordance with Achaemenid custom. The hierarchy of the seating
order, which mirrors the proximity to and the distance from the (dead)
ruler, reminds us of the ‘protocol’ of the later Persepolitan tribute reliefs
and the Persian ‘ideology of the inferiority of the remote’.7
The second example concerns construction work at Persepolis, and
especially the five Greek inscriptions with the names of Zeus Megistos,
Athena Basileia, Apollo, Artemis and Helios. These were found in the
so-called frataraka-temple area below the terrace and probably date from
the time of Peukestas. The date seems plausible when we take into account
the fact that the style of writing corresponds to that of the ‘haute époque
hellénistique’ and that altars for the gods, Alexander and Philip, were placed
in the centre of the concentric circles at Peukestas’ banquet. There is also
much evidence in favour of a syncretistic use of the names of the gods:
Zeus Megistos instead of Ohrmezd, Apollo and Helios for Mithra, Artemis
and Queen Athena for Anahita.8
After Antigonos’ victory over Eumenes and a short period of Antigonid
rule, during the beginning of which Peukestas was removed against the
will of the local Persid nobility, Seleukos soon gained possession of Fars
after 312 BC.9 The territorial centre of his realm was Babylonia. There is a
scholarly dispute about when Seleucid supremacy over Persis ended and
when the successors of Alexander in the East lost this province.10 This
question is closely connected with the problem of the rule of the so-called
frataraka-, i.e. the dynasts who gained a (short) period of independence from
the Seleucids for their Persid subjects. At this point it should be mentioned
that other readings of this Iranian title in Aramaic writing can sometimes
be found – fratada-ra, fratakara, etc. – but these are not as plausible as
frataraka-.11 Since the middle of the 19th century, scholars have devoted their
attention to the coins of these dynasts and have regarded them as symbols
of their political legitimacy and as the most important testimonies of their
reign. Only one dynast, Oborzus-Wahbarz, is mentioned in Greek
literature (Polyaenus 7.40). But for a long time the numismatic tradition
109
Josef Wiesehöfer
was unable to guarantee an unequivocal date for the frataraka-. A new

situation arose during the 1970s when excavations of the preceding
decades gave a new impulse to the studies of ancient Iran. One thinks
of the excavations at Pasargadae, Persepolis and at other sites where
post-Achaemenid strata were exposed; in addition, there were also
archaeological surveys in Fars, which showed that Persis had remained a
fertile and densely populated region even after the rule of Alexander.12
Besides, successful attempts have been made to rediscover the archaeology
of the Hellenistic period on the other side of the Persian Gulf. Here, the
most important excavations are those on Failaka and Bahrain.
Thus, in the 1990s, it seemed promising for me to examine anew the
post-Achaemenid source material and available archaeological remains in
order to shed light upon the so-called ‘dark ages’ of Persis. This was a light
which certainly did not promise to become radiant, but which was
illuminating. According to my research, Persis remained relatively quiet for
more than a century after Alexander’s campaign.13 An exception was the
internal Seleucid Molon conflict in 220 BC. Some unrest is also mentioned
by Polyaenus 7.39, which can probably be dated to the rule of Seleukos I.
According to Polyaenus, a Macedonian commander by the name of Seiles
had instigated a massacre by his subordinate katoikoi of 3000 insurgent
Persians under the pretence that these Iranians should have been his allies
in his alleged fight against Seleukos. But this event seems to have remained
a single episode.
For a long time, and also recently, certain scholars – most of them
numismatists – have tried to date the beginning of the frataraka- coinage to
the period around 300 or 280 BC, and to associate the archaeologically
detectable partial destruction of the citadel of Pasargadae, the Tall-i Takht,
with a rebellion of the Persians under the frataraka Baydad.14 This thesis
seems disputable, as numismatic-typological observations indicate a
close connection between the coins of the frataraka- and those of the
second century sub-Parthian ‘kings’ of Persis.15 Furthermore, the literary,
epigraphical and archaeological evidence also speaks for a rather late date
of the frataraka- reign. For example, there is no indication whatsoever of a
third century loss or reclaiming of Persis by the Seleucids. If a successful
Persid revolt had occurred in the first half of the third century BC, Persis
ought to have lost its independence again before the Molon rebellion, for
which a Seleucid satrap of Fars, Alexander, is mentioned in the sources.16
Information about the founding of towns in south-western Iran by
Antiochos I,17 about the rebellion of Molon, about Persid katoikoi at Raphia
in 217 BC,18 and an inscription concerning Antiochos III’s remarkable stay
at Antioch-in-Persis in the year 205 BC19 all seem to indicate that Fars had
110
been loyal to the Seleucids in the third century BC. In addition, the
archaeological evidence in the Persian Gulf region, presented by Jean-
François Salles and others,20 leaves no doubt about a clear, continuous and
assured military and trading presence of the Seleucids in this region until
the end of the reign of Antiochos III. A loss of Persis would have certainly
threatened their presence and goals. One should also reflect about the
central and important neighbouring provinces of Persis in the west,
Babylonia and Elymais/Susiane, which had remained in the safe possession
of the Seleucids up to the end of Antiochos’ reign.21 Coin hoards from the
area surrounding Persepolis, which contained coins of Seleukos I and the
frataraka-, and which were used to prove a loss of Persis in the third century,
do not necessarily point to an immediate succession of the first frataraka to
the first Seleucid king.22
Apart from the close stylistic and iconographic link between the frataraka-
coins and those of their sub-Parthian ‘successors’, the theory of a rebellious
or even independent Persis in the second century makes sense with regard
to the literary evidence. Thus, Livy does not mention any units from Persis
in the army of Antiochos III at Magnesia.23 Even if this could be plausibly
explained by factors other than unrest in Fars, such an explanation is not
possible for the comment found in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History.24 Here,
the Seleucid Eparch Numenios is described as being attacked by Persians,
presumably after 175 BC,25 on land and on water at the Straits of Hurmuz.
Also, Justin’s report that Demetrios II had had to turn to south-west
Iranian troops for support when fighting the Parthian king Mithradates I
in 140 BC 26 seems to indicate that Persis was independent. Besides, one
should consider the fact that there were attempts to break away from the
centre in other Iranian regions of the Seleucid realm at the same time as
well. According to the excavations on Bahrain and Failaka, the period after
150 BC was the time when the Seleucid presence in the Persian Gulf region
grew weaker and became more endangered. The final loss of Babylonia,
Susiane and Characene was not until the reign of Antiochos VII when
Seleucid rule in that area came to an irrevocable end.
During my studies on ‘the dark ages of Persis’ 27 I came to the conclusion
that of the frataraka- who minted tetradrachms, most probably only two
were rebellious or independent dynasts.28 Only Wahbarz and Wadfradad I
tried to break away from the Seleucid Empire. A remark by Strabo, which
has often been overlooked, points to this. According to him, the
contemporary Persians were ruled by kings who were subordinates of other
kings. In earlier times these were the kings of Macedonia, and, in Strabo’s
own day, the Parthian kings.29 Iconographic details of the coins, and,
furthermore, the historical comments of Polyaenus and Strabo suggest that
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Josef Wiesehöfer
the first dynasts who minted coins, Ardakhshir and Wahbarz, did not rule
without the approval of the Seleucids, irrespective of the question of their
dating. The similarity of the images and certain symbols on the early
frataraka- coins to Achaemenid iconography has long been emphasised, and
it has been concluded that Baydad, who has until recently been considered
to be the first frataraka,30 must already have broken away from the
Seleucids. The images of ‘ruler on the throne’, or ‘ruler in devotional pose
in front of a fire altar’ on coins of Baydad (Figs 1 and 2) and his
predecessors were actually modelled after the so-called treasury-reliefs
from Persepolis and the funerary reliefs from Naqsh-i Rustam. Symbols,
such as the standard, the throne with arms, the sceptre and the pole are also
known from the Achaemenid period. Although such scenes and symbols
may indicate that the frataraka- saw themselves as custodians of the Persian
heritage of the Achaemenids, they are not necessarily signs of independent
Fig. 1. Baydad, Tetradrachma (Klose and Müseler 2008, type 2/2, plate 3)
Fig. 2. Baydad, Tetradrachma (Klose and Müseler 2008, type 2/3, plate 3)
112
rule. These royal symbols and the royal ductus are only similar to, not
identical with, those of the Achaemenids; Ardakhshir and Baydad hold the
Seleucid, not the Achaemenid sceptre. Their coins use the same weight
standard as Seleucid coins, and both rulers adopt the title frataraka, which
is known as that of Achaemenid sub-satraps in Egypt.31 As we will see,
even Wadfradad I, who was an independent frataraka, is not totally devoted
to the Achaemenids’ symbolism and claim to power.
What evidence is there to suggest that Persis did not become independent
until after the reign of Baydad? The coins of Wadfradad I show some new
details on the reverse. For the first time, the Khvarnah-symbol appears in a
similar way to that used by the Achaemenid kings.32 This is a well-known
symbol of charisma and power, which is still occasionally interpreted as
Auramazda.33 In addition, another coin-type of this dynast shows the
wreathing of the ruler by Nike (Fig. 3). This gesture clearly imitates Seleucid
coins, but also suggests the ruler’s independence and his desire to
commemorate this achievement. This is not the celebration of a simple
military victory.34
Apparently, the second dynast Wahbarz, whom Polyaenus calls
Oborzus, had already given the impetus to the throwing-off of Seleucid
rule. The second-century AD author reports35 that Oborzus, as commander
of 3000 katoikoi, had organised the assassination of those military settlers.
That he was still a Seleucid representative at the time of the uprising is
suggested by the fact that non-Iranian troops would hardly have been
under arms in an already independent Persis. Accordingly, Oborzus’ deed
was probably an attempt to gain total autonomy through the elimination
of those potential troublemakers. It is clear from Strabo’s comment,
quoted above, that no period of independent dynasts was known to him.
Fig. 3. Wadfradad, Drachma (Klose and Müseler 2008, type 2/23, reverse, plate 6)
113
Josef Wiesehöfer
We can therefore conclude that any period of political independence in

Persis can only have been quite short. If Wahbarz had attempted a revolt,
which might perhaps be connected with the destruction level at the end of
Pasargadae’s third settlement period,36 then Wadfradad I was the dynast
who proclaimed Persid independence by means of his coins. Wahbarz’s
rebellion, which might have come to an end during Antiochos III’s
Elymaean campaign in 187 BC,37 cannot have been successful, since his
successor Baydad – as is proved by his coins and the historical circumstances
– was again a loyal governor of the Seleucids. If they are are not fakes, then
the two previously-unknown coins that show Wahbarz-Oborzus killing a
kneeling Macedonian soldier (Fig. 4) would be proof of the rebellion and
a visual expression of Polyaenus 7.40.38 Wadfradad I, however, was probably
the man whom the Seleucid king Demetrios II asked for assistance against
the Parthian king Mithradates I in 140 BC.39 The immediate successor and
namesake of Wadfradad, who was the last to mint tetradrachms, presumably
already ruled his subjects on behalf of the Arsacids.
That Mithradates I left the dynasts in office with their right to mint coins
is an indication of a sub-Seleucid phase of frataraka- rule. One would assume
that the Parthians returned to the conditions in existence before Wadfradad
I rather than granting partial autonomy to the Persis dynasts together with
the right to mint coins as something completely new. This is all the more
likely as the Arsacids came under heavy pressure from Antiochos VII and
the Sacas between 140 and 129 BC.
The seat of the frataraka- in the second century BC was presumably
Persepolis and not yet Stakhr. In any case, there was intense building
activity on and below the terrace during their reigns. Artaxerxes III’s
staircase façade was moved from palace G to Palace H. To the west, a wall
Fig. 4. Wahbarz, Drachma (Klose and Müseler 2008, type 2/16a, reverse, plate 6)
114
was erected, and the crenulated architectural elements, which appear on

the frataraka- coins, were rebuilt. Below the terrace there was building
activity, as indicated by the find of reliefs of a frataraka and his spouse.40
Let us now turn our attention to the religious history of this era. About
150 years of undisputed Seleucid rule in Fars can only be explained by far-
sighted Macedonian politics and religious policy. This is indicated by the
fact that there is no proof of the Seleucid ruler cult in Iranian holy shrines.
But were the efforts of the frataraka- to gain independence religiously
motivated? Could Wahbarz and Wadfradad I have been the exponents of
a religious opposition to Hellenism in Fars, or were they perhaps even
priestly dynasts or magi themselves, or, as Samuel K. Eddy has suggested,
the initiators of an Iranian apocalyptic tradition, hostile to Alexander?41
In my opinion much can be said against those assumptions:42
a) As I have tried to show, the frataraka- Ardakhshir, Wahbarz and
Baydad were lords of Persis by order of the Seleucids. Wadfradad I was the
first dynast to become independent. From the second series of Baydad’s
coins onwards, and not only after the beginning of their period of
independence, the frataraka- are depicted in a devotional pose in front of a
fire altar. The Achaemenid winged man, who can be interpreted as the
embodiment of the Khvarnah of a famous royal precursor, appears for the
first time on Wadfradad’s coins. Since the winged man wears the
Achaemenid crenellated crown – the ruler himself wears a tiara – the
iconography of the coins, as has already been emphasised, reminds us of
the triad king/fire altar/winged man on Darius I’s tomb facade at Naqsh-
i Rustam. This is probably an expression of the new rulers’ claim to
legitimate succession to the Achaemenid kings in Persis.43
b) However, the coin imagery is predominantly political. The frataraka-
wear the so-called ‘royal’ tiara (on Baydad’s first series)44 or the tiara apagês
(“satrap’s tiara”),45 and not the tiara orthê (the ‘upright tiara’) of the
Achaemenid Great King or the tiara of the magi. The latter is related
according to Strabo to the satrap’s tiara.46 The frataraka- are depicted in an
Achaemenid fashion with royal insignia, but these are only partially genuinely
Achaemenid. The bow is different (doubly convex instead of arched once),
the sceptre is Seleucid. Thus, their royal symbols, their type of diadem, and
their title, indicate that the frataraka- saw themselves as stakeholders of an
Achaemenid tradition, but that they did not lay claims to the ideas of
universal kingship of the Great Kings. Here, I would like to draw attention
to the fact that the diadem tied at the back of the head, which is worn by
Baydad and his successors, was not reserved for the king alone in
Achaemenid times, but also worn by his syngeneis.47 It might be possible
that the frataraka- claimed that Achaemenid honorary title for themselves.
115
Josef Wiesehöfer
As for religious life in Persis during the early Hellenistic period,

contemporary burial practices show that early post-Achaemenid Persis was
not completely Zoroastrian. The burials of the ‘Persepolis Spring
Cemetery’, the cairn burials and the fact that most astodans and ossuaries
must be dated to the Sasanian period, point to a religiously mixed south-
western Iran under the frataraka-, just as under the Achaemenids.48
III
Thus, we can come to some conclusions. Although the frataraka- stressed

their close ties to the Achaemenids, and although they recognised the close
connection between Persid rule and divine choice and support – they were
not magi themselves – nevertheless they did not consider themselves to
be Achaemenids and Great Kings. They did not adopt this title, the
headgear of the Great King or other symbols of Persian royalty. With their
choice of the sub-Achaemenid ‘satrap’s tiara’ they did express their claim
to regional rule, first as subordinates of the Seleucids, later as independent
rulers, but they did not take over the Achaemenid claim to power outside
the borders of Persis. Thus, it is not surprising that their rule did not come
to an end in the Arsacid era. With their limited goals, the frataraka- were no
serious danger and no obstacle to the legitimacy of the Parthians who called
themselves ‘Great Kings’ and acted as rulers of an Empire which went
beyond the Iranian borders. Presumably, the Seleucids, for their part, had
not been afraid of their rule being threatened by these dynasts after long
periods of loyalty and peace in Persis.
The Persid and the contemporary Babylonian evidence proves that at
least the early Seleucid kings up to Antiochos III – in accord with their
Achaemenid predecessors – acted flexibly, wisely and successfully towards
their indigenous subjects, and respected and supported local traditions
and institutions.49 Therefore, the Greek ignorance of Persian affairs in
Hellenistic times noted by Momigliano should not be confused with the
actual policy of the Macedonians. On the contrary, the silence of the
sources might even reflect the success of this policy. It is not surprising
that the previously loyal autochthonous Persian elite did not feel
encouraged to break away from Seleucid rule until Antiochos III’s defeat
by the Romans (Wahbarz) and until the general weakness of that rule
became apparent after the death of Antiochos IV ( Wadfradad I).
116
Dynasts of Persis (2nd Century BC)
Date (Greek or Latin) Indigenous (Middle Genealogy Comment

Name Persian) Name
1 Beginning of Artaxares I Ardaxšı-r Sub-Seleucid
2nd Century BC dynast (Middle
Persian title:
frataraka)
2 1st half of 2nd Oborzus Wahbarz Sub-Seleucid
Century BC dynast – rebel
against Seleucids
3 1st half of 2nd Bagadates Bayda-d Sub-Seleucid
Century BC (Bades) dynast (Middle
Persian title:
frataraka)
4 Mid-2nd Autophradates I Wa-dfrada-d Independent
Century BC dynast of Persis
5 Ca. 140 BC Autophradates II Wa-dfrada-d Parthian ‘vassal
king’ (MLK’/ša-h)
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Dr. Dietrich Klose (Staatliche Münzsammlung
München) for providing me with images of the Frataraka coins mentioned
in the text.
Notes
1 See the excellent recent overview and commentary in Callieri 2007, especially pp.
115ff.
2 Momigliano 1975, 138.
3 Wiesehöfer 1994; 2001; 2004, 105–14; 2007.
4 The Achaemenid traits of Alexander’s ideology and actions were clearly brought
out by Briant 2002, 817–71; 2003; 2005; cf. Wiesehöfer 1994, 23–49.
5 Wiesehöfer 1995; forthcoming (a).
6 Diod. 19.22.2–3.
7 Wiesehöfer 1994, 53–4.
8 Wiesehöfer 1994, 72–3. Pictures of three of the inscriptions can be found in
Rougemont 1999, 6; Callieri 2007, 57.

9 Wiesehöfer 1994, 55f.
10 This is the main subject of Wiesehöfer 1994.
11 Wiesehöfer 1994, 105–8. For the debate on the interpretation of the coin legend
frataraka ı- baya-n cf. Callieri 2007, 128–30.
117
Josef Wiesehöfer
12 Wiesehöfer 1994, 63.
13 Wiesehöfer 1994, 57ff.
14 For the older literature, see Wiesehöfer 1994, 115–17. The most recent titles are
Müseler 2005/6; Klose and Müseler 2008; Hoover 2008; Curtis, forthcoming. Klose
and Müseler date the beginning of the frataraka-coinage to the early third century BC,
‘noch zu Lebzeiten oder unmittelbar nach dem Tod Seleukos’ I. Nikator’ (p. 15). For
the Tall-i Takht, cf. Callieri 2004.
15 Cf. Alram 1986, 162–86; see, however, Klose and Müseler 2008, 33, who postulate
a clear typological caesura between the first series of frataraka-coins (beginning to

middle/second half of the third century BC: Baydad, Ardakhshir, Wahbarz, Wadfradad I)
and the second one which is said to have started only a short while before
the Parthians’ suzerainty over Fars ( Wadfradad II, ‘Unknown King’, Darayan I,
Wadfradad III, Wadfradad IV (Alram: Wadfradad III, 2nd series)). Thus, they assume
a minting break at Persepolis of about 100 years. In my view, apart from the obvious
numismatic debate on the significance of typological criteria, both authors underestimate
the importance of the literary tradition and the general political situation.
16 Polyb. 5.40ff.
17 OGIS 233; Steph. Byz. s.v. Stasis.
18 Polyb. 5.79.3–8.
19 OGIS 231.
20 Salles 1987, 91–9; 1994 a and b; 1996, 260–2; Potts 1990, 92–7, 178f.
21 Sachs and Hunger 1989, no. -183 A ‘rev. 12–13’ (= p. 358f.).
22 Wiesehöfer 1994, 93–6, 115ff.
23 Livy 37.40–1.
24 Pliny, HN 6.152.
25 Shayegan, forthcoming, dates this episode to 164 BC.
26 Justin 36.1.4.
27 Wiesehöfer 1994, esp. 115–29.
28 In 1994, I postulated, like all other scholars, the following sequence of the first
dynasts: Baydad, Ardakhshir, Wahbarz, Wadfradad I. With the help of overstampings,

however, Hoover (2008) was able to prove that it should be Ardakhshir, Wahbarz,
Baydad, Wadfradad I.
29 Strabo 15.3.24.
30 Cf. note 28.
31 Wiesehöfer 1994, 106–8.
32 Wiesehöfer 1994, 110–12.
33 Alram 1986, 168f., pl. 17f., no. 533–43. For the man in the winged disc, cf.
Wiesehöfer 2003.
34 Alram 1986, 169, pl. 18, no. 544f.
35 Polyaen. 7.40.
36 Wiesehöfer 1994, 129.
37 Shayegan, forthcoming.
38 First coin: Alram 1987a, pl. 20.7; second coin: Bivar 1998, fig. 26b; see also Klose
and Müseler 2008, 36 and pl. 6, type 2/16a and b. However, some numismatists doubt
their authenticity (M. Alram, personal communication March 2006), and the new
sequence of Persid rulers which has Wahbarz’s successor Baydad as a sub-Seleucid
dynast does nothing to reduce those doubts.
118
39 If Shayegan’s dating of the Numenios-episode to 164 BC was right, this battle on
land and on water might illustrate either a second Persid attempt to break away from
the Seleucids or the beginnings of Wadfradad I’s independent rule. A third but less
convincing solution would be to connect it with the end of Wahbarz’s reign. This
would, however, imply an independent Persis in the late years of Antiochos III and
under Seleukos IV and Antiochos IV.
40 Wiesehöfer 1994, 68–78; see now Callieri 2007, passim.
41 Eddy 1961.
42 Wiesehöfer 1994, 129–36.
43 Cf. also Panaino 2003; Callieri 2007, 128–30.
44 Alram 1986, 165, pl. 17, no. 511–14.
45 Alram 1986, 165f., pl. 17f., no. 515ff.
46 Strabo 15.3.19.
47 For the syngeneis cf. Wiesehöfer, forthcoming (b).
48 Wiesehöfer 1994, 83f.
49 Wiesehöfer 1996.
Bibliography
Alram, M.
1986 Nomina Propria Iranica in Nummis (Iranisches Personennamenbuch IV),
Vienna.
1987a ‘Eine neue Drachme des Vahbarz (Oborzos) aus der Persis?’, Litterae
Numismaticae Vindobonenses 3, 147–55.
1987b ‘Die Vorbildwirkung der arsakidischen Münzprägung’, Litterae Numismaticae
Vindobonenses 3, 117–46.
Alram, M. and Gyselen, R.
2003 Sylloge Nummorum Sasanidarum Paris – Berlin – Wien, vol. I: Ardashir I – Shapur I,
Vienna.
Bivar, A. D. H.
1998 The Personalities of Mithra in Archaeology and Literature (Biennial Yarshater
Lecture Series, 1), New York.
Briant, P.
2002 From Cyrus to Alexander. A history of the Persian empire, Winona Lake.
2003 Darius dans l’ombre d’Alexandre, Paris.
2005 Alexandre le grand, 6th ed., Paris.
Callieri, P.
2004 ‘Again on the chronology of the Tall-e Takht at Pasargadae’, Parthica 6,
95–100.
2007 L’archéologie du Fars à l’époque hellénistique (Persika, 11), Paris.
Curtis, V. S.
forthcoming
‘Kings of Persis: bridging the gap between Achaemenid and Sasanian
Persia’, in J. Curtis et al. (eds), Proceedings of the Achaemenid Conference, London.
Eddy, S. K.
1961 The King is Dead. Studies in Near Eastern resistance to Hellenism (334–31 BC),
Lincoln.
119
Josef Wiesehöfer
Hoover, O. D.
2008 ‘Overstruck Seleucid coins’, in A. Houghton and C. Lorber, Seleucid Coins:
A comprehensive catalogue, vol. II/1, New York, 209–30.
Klose, D. O. A. and Müseler, W.
2008 Statthalter – Rebellen – Könige. Die Münzen aus Persepolis von Alexander dem
Großen zu den Sasaniden, Munich.
Momigliano, A.
1975 Alien Wisdom, Cambridge.
Müseler, W.
2005/6 ‘Die sogenannten dunklen Jahrhunderte der Persis. Anmerkungen zu
einem lange vernachlässigten Thema’, Jahrbuch für Numismatik und
Geldgeschichte 55/56, 75–103.
Panaino, A.
2003 ‘The ba a-n of the Fratarakas: Gods or “Divine” Kings?’, in C. G. Cereti,
M. Maggi and E. Provasi (eds) Religious Themes and Texts of Pre-Islamic Iran
and Central Asia. Studies in honour of Prof. Gherardo Gnoli on the occasion of his
65th birthday on 6th December 2002 (Beiträge zur Iranistik, 24), Wiesbaden,
265–88.
Potts, D. T.
1990 The Arabian Gulf in Antiquity, vol. 2, Oxford.
Rougemont, G.
1999 ‘Inscriptions grecques d’Iran’, in Empires perses d’Alexandre aux Sassanides
(Dossiers d’Archéologie, 243), Dijon, 6–7.
Sachs, A. J. and Hunger, H.
1989 Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia, vol. 2, Vienna.
Salles, J.-F.
1987 ‘The Arab-Persian Gulf under the Seleucids’, in A. Kuhrt and S. Sherwin-
White (eds) Hellenism in the East, London, 75–109.
1994a ‘Le Golfe arabo-persique entre Seleucides et Maurya’, Topoi 4.2, 597–610.
1994b ‘Fines Indiae, Ardh el-Hind: Recherches sur le devenir de la mer Erythrée’,
in E. Dabrowa (ed.), The Roman and Byzantine Army in the East, Kraków,
165–87.
1996 ‘Achaemenid and Hellenistic trade in the Indian Ocean’, in J. Reade (ed.),
The Indian Ocean in Antiquity, London, 251–67.
Shayegan, M. R.
forthcoming
Arsacids and Sasanians. Political ideology in Post-Hellenistic and Late Antique Persia
(Sasanidica, II), Los Angeles.
Wiesehöfer, J.
1994 Die ‘dunklen Jahrhunderte’ der Persis (Zetemata, 90), Munich.
1995 ‘Zum Nachleben von Achaimeniden und Alexander in Iran’, in H. Sancisi-
Weerdenburg, A. Kuhrt and M. C. Root (eds), Achaemenid History VIII:
Continuity and Change, Leiden, 389–97.
1996 ‘Discordia et Defectio – Dynamis kai Pithanourgia. Die frühen Seleukiden und
Iran’, in B. Funck (ed.) Hellenismus. Beiträge zur Erforschung von Akkulturation
und politischer Ordnung in den Staaten des hellenistischen Zeitalters, Tübingen,
29–56.
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2001 ‘Frataraka’, Encyclopaedia Iranica X, 195.

2003 ‘Tarkumuwa und das Farnah’, in W. Henkelman and A. Kuhrt (eds), A
Persian Perspective. Essays in Memory of Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg (Achaemenid
History, XIII), Leiden, 173–87.
2004 Ancient Persia, 3rd ed., London/New York.
2007 ‘Fars under Seleucid and Parthian Rule’, in V. S. Curtis and S. Stewart (eds),
The Age of the Parthians (The Idea of Iran, 2), London, 37–49.
forthcoming (a)
‘The ‘Accursed’ and the ‘Adventurer’: Alexander the Great in Iranian
tradition’, in Z. D. Zuwiyya (ed.), Alexander in the Middle Ages, Leiden.
forthcoming (b)
‘Das Diadem bei den Achaimeniden: Die schriftliche Überlieferung’, in
D. Salzmann (ed.), Das Diadem der hellenistischen Herrscher, Münster.
121
PART III
THE POLIS
EARLY HELLENISTIC RHODES:

THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE AND
THE DREAM OF HEGEMONY
Hans-Ulrich Wiemer
1. Introduction
Independence and hegemony were to the Greeks closely related. This
relationship was at once antithetical and complementary. For those who
were subject to others, the struggle for independence of course meant
throwing off the hegemony of those to whom they were subject. For those,
however, who were able to maintain their independence, hegemony was an
aim worth striving for. Freedom was conceived as being at its maximum
if it included domination over others. Liberty was a relative and dynamic
concept, and therefore hegemony seemed to be the perfect realisation of
what independence really meant: a state in which the citizen-body was in
full, unlimited control of the conditions of its own existence. If illustration
were needed, the history of Classical Athens would supply it in abundance,
both in the fifth century when for some decades it really was a hegemonic
power on a grand scale, and in the fourth when it was haunted by what
Ernst Badian has aptly called the ghost of empire.1
The Hellenistic Age by contrast is often seen as a time when city states
were no longer able to pursue hegemonic aims, and there is clearly much
to be said for this view. The decades following the death of Alexander saw
the emergence of new kingdoms that held sway over huge stretches of land
and controlled enormous resources. These new kingdoms could raise large
armies of professional soldiers that were far superior in both numbers and
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Hans-Ulrich Wiemer
skill to the troops that single city-states could muster and therefore attained
the status of super-powers dominating the structure and course of political
events.2 In these circumstances even powerful city-states that had up till
then played a leading role in Greek politics were forced drastically to reduce
the scale of their political ambitions. Athens was unable to rebuild
the glorious fleet it had lost in 322 and fell under the domination of
Macedon for much of the third century.3 Sparta, by now reduced to
Lakonia proper, was only a shadow of its former self, desperately trying to
reverse the losses of power and territory that it had suffered during the
fourth century.4
Rhodes would seem to be an exception in this new world of Greek city-
states that came to acquiesce in their subjection to superior powers, or at
least in no longer being able to play a leading role themselves.5 The island
of Rhodes formed the core of a state organized on the polis-model that is
assumed by many to have experienced a meteoric rise to economic
prosperity and political independence as soon as Alexander had died; this
interpretation sees Rhodes as continually striving for ‘the suppression of
piracy, the promotion of peace, and the preservation of a balance of power
among the great monarchies’, until the Rhodians had to yield their
independence under Roman pressure after the Third Macedonian War.6
These basic strategic objectives, so we are told, were determined by
mercantile interests that were of paramount importance to the Rhodian
state. If we leave aside the concept of a balance of powers which cannot
be translated into Greek and is, of course, more than slightly anachronistic
when applied to the Hellenistic world,7 most of the conceptual elements
contained in this rosy picture of a republic that consistently followed a
policy of promoting peace and fighting pirates can be traced back to
sources, both literary and epigraphic, that either are by their very nature
expressions of political ideology – this holds true for public inscriptions –
or can at least be shown to express a specifically Rhodian view of the
island’s role in Greek history and politics taken over from the sources they
were following – this, I believe, holds true for most of what Diodorus and
Polybius tell us about Rhodes.8 These programmatic statements should
therefore be taken for what they are worth: as political propaganda that as
such is quite interesting but cannot serve as a reliable guide to the aims and
principles of Rhodian policy. They have to be tested against the facts, as
our sources allow them to be reconstructed once we have freed ourselves
from the ‘mirage rhodien’.
In this chapter I intend to do two things: first, to look at how the
Rhodians managed to break free from foreign domination to which they
had been subject, with some short interruptions, throughout most of the
124
Early Hellenistic Rhodes: The struggle for independence and the dream of hegemony
fourth century, and, second, to examine what evidence there is for Rhodian
claims to political hegemony before the middle of the third century.
2. The struggle for independence

Rhodian history in the fourth century was one of internal strife and foreign
domination.9 The political unification of the island brought about by the
synoecism of the three old cities of Ialysos, Kameiros and Lindos had been
achieved with Spartan help and was originally intended to ward off
Athenian imperialism. This concentration of the island’s resources did not,
however, immediately result in giving the Rhodian state strength and
stability. In the 390s Rhodes was torn between pro-Spartan and pro-
Athenian factions until the democrats finally succeeded in ousting their
opponents and brought Rhodes into an alliance with Athens again. In the
Social War fought between 357 and 355 the Rhodians freed themselves
from Athenian hegemony only to come under the domination of the
Hecatomnid satraps of Karia. Ruled by an oligarchy that relied on
Hecatomnid garrisons, the Rhodians were unable to form a foreign policy
of their own and had no option but to follow wherever they were led. The
arrival of Alexander the Great did little to change this pattern: when the
Rhodians submitted to the king who had won the battle of Issos, they only
changed masters again. Thus while the oligarchy made way for a democracy
that was to remain stable for centuries to come, the garrisons under
Hecatomnid command were replaced by one answering to the orders of
Alexander.10
Only after Alexander’s death did the Rhodians take their first steps
towards independence, expelling their Macedonian guests soon after they
heard the news from Babylon.11 This was a bold decision to make since it
involved the risk of reprisals from whoever was to be ruler in Alexander’s
stead.12 Luckily for the Rhodians, Alexander’s marshals at court were
sharply divided and had more pressing concerns than tackling the
Rhodians. Because of the Lamian war that broke out in July 323,
Macedonian efforts at sea were at this time largely directed against Athens
and her fleet that threatened to cut off the sea-lanes between Macedon and
Asia Minor until it was decisively defeated near Amorgos in the summer
of 322.13 Furthermore, the satrap of Karia had been deposed at Babylon,
and his successor, Asandros, who does not seem to have had any roots in
the area, needed local support to have his authority recognized and was
therefore well advised not to antagonize the Rhodians;14 taking sides with
Antigonos and Antipater against Perdikkas and Eumenes in 321,15 he was
confirmed at the conference of Triparadeisos in winter 321/320, but
suffered defeat at the hands of the Perdikkans Alketas and Attalos in the
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Hans-Ulrich Wiemer
spring of 320. Before that, however, the Rhodians had repelled a large army
led by Attalos alone that was attacking – so Photius’ Epitome of Arrian’s
‘History of the Successors’ tells us – Knidos, Kaunos and Rhodes.16
These successes, remarkable as they are, did not protect the Rhodians
from falling under the hegemony of a stronger power again. The sources
are silent as to the Rhodians’ stance during the first two wars fought
between the diadochs of Alexander, but during the Third Diadoch War
(315–311) we find them standing firmly on the side of Antigonos. They not
only allowed Antigonos to build warships in Rhodian docks, thus enabling
him to strengthen considerably his naval power. In 312, after Antigonos
had in a brilliant campaign driven his enemies from Karia,17 they even
entered into a formal alliance with him and subsequently provided ships for
an expedition led to Greece by Antigonos’ nephew Polemaios.18 Any
claims to being neutral were thus waived; the Rhodians had chosen to take
sides for Antigonos and against Kassander, Lysimachos, and last but not
least, Ptolemy.
These events would be completely unknown to us if Hieronymos of
Kardia had not thought fit to report them in his ‘History of the Successors’
which is the main source used by Diodorus in book 18–20 of his universal
history.19 The Rhodian source which lies behind Diodorus’ account of the
siege of Rhodes by Demetrios had no interest in handing down to posterity
details that were detract from the view that the Rhodians had always had
a special relationship with Egypt and the Ptolemies. This view, still
fashionable with many modern historians, goes back to a tradition that
only developed after the Rhodians had, with help from Ptolemy and others,
been able to withstand the Great Siege led by Antigonos’ son Demetrios;
on Rhodes itself it was enshrined in public rituals of commemoration
instituted soon after the events,20 and it also found its way into the patriotic
historiography which Polybius justly, if not without personal bias, accused
of sacrificing objectivity to the aim of glorifying Rhodes.21
When the Rhodians early in 306 were faced with the demand to
contribute ships for Antigonos’ expedition against Ptolemy’s bases on
Cyprus they knew nothing of this supposed special relationship which in
political terms was simply non-existent. But why then, one might ask, did
they refrain from participating in the war against Ptolemy, unlike the
Athenians, for example, who contributed no less than 30 ships to the fleet
of their ‘saviour and liberator’ Demetrios? 22 Two explanations that might
at first sight seem attractive do on inspection turn out to be inadequate:
first, the supposed economic symbiosis of Rhodes with Egypt and, second,
the alleged Rhodian concern for a balance of power. Now economic
interests can hardly have been the decisive factor when the assembled
126
citizenry of Rhodes decided not to comply with Antigonos’ demand,

because commercial relations with the realm of Antigonos were for the
Rhodians just as close as those with Egypt; furthermore, a final victory
over Ptolemy even offered the prospect of an eastern Mediterranean
empire where trade would have found most favourable conditions.23 If the
Rhodians had given absolute priority to economic interests they might as
well have decided to join Antigonos. As for the balance of power, the
anachronistic nature of this concept has been noted above. Of course, the
Rhodians must have had political reasons for refraining from taking sides
in the war between Antigonos and Ptolemy, if their decisions were not
determined by commercial interests. But it seems unnecessary and
positively misleading to ascribe to the Rhodians concern for interests other
than their own independence. The Rhodians did not want to join
Antigonos against Ptolemy because the outcome of the war was
unforeseeable, because they stood to gain little by it, even if Antigonos
won, and because they did not want to cede control over their military to
a foreign power. That is, of course, what most Greek city-states wanted to
avoid, if only circumstances would have let them.
If the Rhodians felt strong enough to act accordingly, that does not,
however, imply that they thought a military conflict with Antigonos was
unavoidable. On the contrary, there are good reasons for believing that
the Rhodians were convinced that their disobedience to Antigonos would
go unpunished, as had their expelling of Alexander’s garrison. We happen
to know that the Rhodians were not alone in defying the wishes of
Antigonos, since the city of Byzantion had shortly before refrained from
participating in the Third Diadoch War, but nevertheless managed to keep
up friendly relations with him.24 The Rhodians were less lucky. Being
defeated in Egypt in the autumn of 306, Antigonos ordered his son
Demetrios to lay siege to the city of Rhodes, unless the Rhodians came
round to joining him against Ptolemy. When protracted negotiations led to
nothing, the siege began in the summer of 305 and lasted until the summer
of the next year, when Demetrios got orders to leave Rhodes in order to
fight Kassander on the Greek mainland.25
3. The dream of hegemony

When Demetrios left, the Rhodians had ample cause for rejoicing. They
had withstood a siege that might have resulted in the physical destruction
of their city, and prevented their island from being occupied by a foreign
garrison that would have ensured that in the future Rhodian decisions were
taken with due consideration of Antigonid wishes. They even got their
autonomy formally recognized by Antigonos in the treaty concluded at the
127
Hans-Ulrich Wiemer
end of the siege.26 But the Rhodians still were far from having reached
independence, since by virtue of this very treaty they became allies of
Antigonos again and even had to hand over to him 100 hostages selected
by Demetrios from among the political elite. Even if it were true, then,
that the obligation to give military help to Antigonos did not extend to
wars between Antigonos and Ptolemy, as the Rhodian tradition followed
by Diodorus maintains, the Rhodians’ freedom of action was still severely
restricted, as far as foreign affairs were concerned. If, however, the
restrictive clause reported by Diodorus did in fact only apply to wars of
aggression, as I am inclined to believe, the Rhodian hostages in Antigonid
hands clearly were a powerful argument, in case there should arise any
doubt as to who was the aggressor in a conflict between Antigonos and
Ptolemy.
We have no means of telling whether Rhodian troops really did
participate in the great battle of Ipsos which in 301 marked the end of
Antigonid power in Asia Minor. It is clear, however, that after this battle
Rhodian dependence on the Antigonids was a thing of the past. As the end
of the Great Siege in 304 had been due to political developments on the
Greek mainland in which the Rhodians had no part, so their final
breakthrough to full independence was in large measure the result of
military events that were out of their control, but worked to their
advantage.
No narrative account of Rhodian history has survived to continue where
the patriotic tale of the Great Siege told by Diodorus ends, and we have to
wait for Polybius to get once again something like a coherent picture of
events pertaining to the island. Accordingly, the 80 years or so of Rhodian
history between 304 and 220 are shrouded in an almost impenetrable
mystery. To be sure, there is one partial exception: Polybius’ famous
digression on the donations made by kings and cities after Rhodes had
been struck by an earthquake in 228 or 227.27 This account, however, does
not help very much when it comes to understanding the aims and means
of Rhodian policy in the period not covered by Polybius’ narrative, apart
from revealing the fact that in the last third of the third century the
Rhodians were courted by most of the great powers and not formally
bound to any of them. For the earlier part of the third century one has to
look at miscellaneous sources of a very heterogeneous nature, and to them
I shall now turn.
When the great siege ended, the island of Rhodes was thoroughly
devastated. Demetrios’ troops had been ravaging and plundering the
countryside for a whole year. The booty collected was sufficient for
Demetrios to make a generous donation to the gods that had watched over
128
the refoundation of Thebes.28 On the other hand, since Demetrios had

left behind the siege-engines that had failed his expectations so disastrously,
the Rhodians were able to raise the sum of 300 talents of silver from the
proceeds of selling them.29 There can be no doubt that Rhodian finances
recovered soon, since in 294, at the latest, work on the famous Colossus
began, which must have been an enormously expensive enterprise.30
Though precise figures on how much the Colossus cost are lacking, we
can at least form an idea of the scale of expenses involved. The author of
an imperial treatise on the Seven Wonders of World known as Philon tells
us that 500 talents of bronze and 300 talents of iron were consumed in
building the monument, and from Polybius we learn that Ptolemy III
donated 3000 talents of bronze for its repair after the earthquake of 228 or
227.31 Of course we do not know the precise equivalents of the measures
used by the two authors. But even assuming the lowest equation (1 talent
= 20.4 kg), Philon’s figures amount to more than ten tons of bronze and
six tons of iron, certainly a huge investment to make in a monument that
served no practical purpose.
Clearly the symbolic value of the Colossus was to the Rhodians
immense. In raising the issue of the Colossus’ political significance I do
not intend to enter into the perennial debate on what the Colossus looked
like, which in my opinion is bound to remain inconclusive unless perhaps
one day new evidence turns up.32 What I would like to stress here is quite
simply the sheer size of the Colossus that by far surpassed that of any
victory monument erected by a Greek city-state up until then. The
Colossus was, and was perceived to be, nothing short of gigantic.33
Athenaeus quotes from a play of the early Hellenistic poet Sopatros34 where
for comic effect the ‘huge bronze Colossus’ to be seen on Rhodes is
juxtaposed with the Alexandrian predilection for lentil-dishes (‘I could not,
looking upon the huge bronze Colossus, eat a loaf of lentil bread’).35 That
this impression was widely shared in early Ptolemaic Alexandria can now
be demonstrated from one of the epigrams by the poet Posidippus of Pella
that have only recently been deciphered.36 This epigram, composed in the
first decades after the Colossus had been completed, has reached us in
what seems to be a carefully structured book of poetry authored by
Posidippus alone;37 it comes near the end of a sequence of nine epigrams
on statues (ἀνδριαντοποιικά) centred on Lysippos as the culmination of a
development towards naturalism and precision in sculpture. The Colossus
is in this context singled out to demonstrate that the artistic achievement
of Chares, a disciple of Lysippos, was based on a clear understanding of the
importance of scale in sculpting statues that are larger than life:
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ἤθελον Ἠέλιον Ῥόδιοι π[εριµάκε]α θεῖναι
δὶς τόσον, ἀλλὰ Χάρης Λίνδιο[ς] ὡρίσατο
µηθένα τεχνίταν ἔτι µείζονα [τ]οῦδε κ[ο]λοσσὸν
θήσειν· εἰ δὲ Μύρων εἰς τετράπ[ηχ]υν ὅ[ρον]
σεµνὸς ἐκεῖνος ἀνῆκε, Χάρης πρῶ[τος µ]ετὰ τέχνα[ς]
ζῶιον ἐχαλκούργει γᾶς µεγ[έθει παρ]ισ[ῶ]ν.
‘The Rhodians wanted to make the [gigantic] Sun

Twice as big, but Chares of Lindos ensured
That no artisan would build a colossus higher than this one.
If Myron managed to reach the limit of four cubits
– he, that venerable fellow –, Chares was the first with art
to make a bronze figure [to match the magnitude] of the earth.’
Posidippus here praises Chares not so much for making the largest of all
statues as for knowing that there is a limit to the size of every work of art,
even to that of a colossus.38 Without Chares’ sense of proportions Rhodian
ostentation would have spoiled what was to become a unique work of art.
His epigram should, therefore, be read as a critical comment on Rhodian
megalomania that would have gratified readers who identified themselves
with the Ptolemaic court (where Lysippan art was highly esteemed) and
regarded Alexandria as the centre of the world in both politics and arts.39
This sort of criticism coming from a poet who was close to the court of
Ptolemy II 40 presupposes that in Ptolemaic Alexandria the Colossus was
not only acknowledged to be unsurpassable as a larger-than-life statue, but
also understood to be the visual expression of Rhodian aspirations to
greatness.
There is little doubt that this is exactly what the Rhodians wished to convey
by raising the Colossus. Unfortunately we still do not know exactly where
this statue of Helios was placed. Wolfram Hoepfner has recently re-argued
the case for placing the Colossus at the eastern end of the naval harbour
of Rhodes where today stands the fort of St. Nicholas.41 To this proposal,
Ursula Vedder has raised the objection that the Colossus would have been
dedicated in the sanctuary of Helios; according to her, the Colossus stood
on top of the acropolis where she locates the sanctuary of this god that
has still to be identified on the ground.42 In any case, from the magnitude
of the monument it seems clear that the Colossus was intended to serve as
a visual point-of-reference for everyone entering the city from abroad. The
statue of Helios rose to the staggering height of 70 cubits, which,
depending on the measure used, works out at 30 to 35 metres. It thus made
a powerful visual statement about the island’s status as an independent
player in Greek politics, serving as a symbol of its prosperity and might.
130
But the Rhodians were not content with thus staking a symbolic claim
to being a powerful and independent state. They also had an epigram
incised on or near the Colossus that gave a more specific interpretation of
how they understood their political role among the Greeks. This epigram,
transmitted in the ‘Palatine Anthology’ (6.171), the ‘Anthology of Planudes’
(6.1) and the ‘Suda’ (s. v. Κολοσσαεύς), has by some been considered to be
a purely literary exercise that was composed much later than the
completion of the Colossus, and I must confess once to have adhered to
this view myself.43 In the ‘Palatine Anthology’ it comes in a group of
miscellaneous epigrams on dedications (6.158–178) that follows an
unbroken sequence taken from the ‘Garland’ of Meleagros of Gadara, the
first comprehensive anthology of epigrams known to us. His collection
was published not long after 100 BCE and had a profound influence on the
transmission of Hellenistic epigrams, being excerpted around 900 CE for
the common source of both the ‘Palatine’ and the ‘Planudean Anthology’.44
Before stating the reasons why I have come round to joining those who
believe that our epigram originally served as dedicatory inscription for the
Colossus45 before it came to be included either in the ‘Garland’ of
Meleagros or some later collection, it will be convenient to give text and
translation:
Αὐτῷ σοὶ πρὸς Ὄλυµπον ἐµακύναντο κολοσσὸν
τόνδε Ῥόδου ναέται ∆ωρίδος, Ἀέλιε,
χάλκεον, ἁνίκα κῦµα κατευνάσαντες Ἐνυοῦς
ἔστεψαν πάτραν δυσµενέων ἐνάροις.
οὐ γὰρ ὑπὲρ πελάγους µόνον ἄνθεσαν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν γᾷ
ἁβρὸν ἀδουλώτου φέγγος ἐλευθερίας·
τοῖς γὰρ ἀφ’ Ἡρακλῆος ἀεξηθεῖσι γενέθλας
πάτριος ἐν πόντῳ κἠν χθονὶ κοιρανία.
‘To you, O Sun, did the people of Dorian Rhodes

raise high to the heavens this brazen colossus,
then, having laid to rest the wave of war,
they crowned their country with the spoils of their foes.
Dedicating it not only over the sea, but on the land, too,
they raised the splendid light of unenslaved freedom.
For to those who spring from the race of Herakles
a heritage both on land and sea is leadership.’ 46
The reasons for preferring the view that the epigram in fact is what it
purports to be – an epideictic piece of political propaganda composed for
public display on the Colossus it celebrates – are twofold. First, if the
epigram were a literary composition, one would expect the name of an
author to be attached to it. That it has been transmitted anonymously can
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Hans-Ulrich Wiemer
easily be explained if it was copied from the monument on which it was

inscribed without giving an indication of authorship. Literary epigrams, on
the other hand, were not published without naming their authors, and
anthologists like Meleagros or Philippos of Thessalonike recorded them
carefully.47 Of course it cannot be ruled out completely that the author’s
name somehow got lost, but that seems rather unlikely in view of the fact
that collecting literary epigrams for the purpose of arranging them as an
anthology began already in the late second century BCE (if not earlier) when
information on their authorship cannot have been very difficult to obtain.48
Second, there is an epigram by Alkaios of Messene that clearly echoes
our epigram in both form and substance, using similar language to ascribe
to Philip V just the lordship by land and sea as is being claimed for the
Rhodians in the one under discussion:
Μακύνου τείχη, Ζεῦ Ὀλύµπιε· πάντα Φιλίππῳ
ἀµβατά· χαλκείας κλεῖε πύλας µακάρων.
χθὼν µὲν δὴ καὶ πόντος ὑπὸ σκήπτροισι Φιλίππου
δέδµηται, λοιπὰ δ’ ἁ πρὸς Ὄλυµπον ὁδός.
‘Heighten your walls, Olympian Zeus; to Philip

everything is accessible. Shut the brazen gates of the gods.
Under Philip’s sceptre, earth and sea
lie vanquished: there remains the road to Olympos.49
Considering that Alkaios was a writer seriously engaged with contemporary

politics,50 it seems far-fetched to interpret his epigram as an exercise in
intertextuality designed to outdo a literary composition of uncertain
authorship. Read as a reply to the way the Rhodians presented themselves
as dedicants of the Colossus, however, Alkaios’ epigram fits perfectly into
the context of the war Philip led against the Rhodians from 201–197.51
If the dedicatory epigram for the Colossus is authentic,52 it constitutes
a priceless document of Rhodian self-representation in the early third
century that deserves to be looked at closely. That the Colossus is here
being praised as a skyscraping monument financed from the spoils of war
is perhaps too obvious to need stressing. It does not seem necessary either
to point to the fact that it depicts the Rhodians as valiant and victorious
descendants of Herakles. According to Rhodian tradition, the three old
cities were founded by the Homeric hero Tlapolemos, a son of Herakles.53
What does need emphasizing, however, is that the idea of freedom in this
epigram is inextricably bound up with the idea of political leadership or, to
use another word, with the idea of hegemony.54 The Rhodians have by
raising the Colossus established the splendid light of unenslaved freedom
– this proud declaration implies the claim actually to have reached what
132
all Greek city-states aspired to: independence from foreign domination.

But this happy state of freedom amounts in their own perception to a
position of leadership on both land and sea55 that raises them high above
the others and leaves no doubt about who is in command. Considering the
fact that we are reading a text that was in all probability commissioned and
approved by the Rhodian assembly one could hardly ask for a more telling
expression of the view that hegemony is the maximum realisation of
freedom, if only for the hegemon.
There are a few other pieces of evidence that tend, I believe, to
corroborate the view that the Rhodians began to dream of hegemony as
soon as they had shaken off the yoke of foreign domination. There was a
famous precedent for a sudden change like this: two centuries earlier, the
Athenians had quickly assumed a hegemonial role among the Aegean
Greeks once Xerxes’s army had been driven from Greece. It is in this
context that I would like to interpret the so-called Chariot of the Rhodians,
known from a Delphian decree for Rhodian judges who in 179 vainly tried
to arbitrate between Delphi and Amphissa.56 We know that this chariot
was gilded and can infer that it was driven by Helios who was often
represented as a charioteer. For maximum visibility, the quadriga was
placed on a massive pillar almost eight metres high that to this day still
carries the dedication by the Rhodian people to Pythian Apollo.57 To be
sure, opinions are divided as to when the pillar was erected: while the
dedicatory inscription has been dated to the first half of the third century
by that eminent specialist in Delphian epigraphy and chronology Georges
Daux,58 an investigation of the techniques used in building the pillar has led
to the conclusion that the monument was raised in the last quarter of the
fourth century.59 From a historical point of view, however, a date before the
Great Siege seems unlikely, since advertising Rhodian freedom and might
in a major Panhellenic sanctuary would have been pointless as long as their
independence had not been finally secured against Alexander’s successors.60
That Rhodian freedom and might is indeed the political message of the
monument seems evident not only from its being dedicated in the
Delphian sanctuary of Apollo but even more from its prominent position
inside this very sanctuary: the pillar carrying the chariot of Helios stood
just opposite the temple of Apollo and in close proximity to the famous
tripod commemorating the Greek victory over the Persians at Plataea
(Fig. 1). For this reason, the Delphian monument of the Rhodians makes
much better sense when it is connected with the great siege: having fought
off Demetrios, the Rhodians presented themselves to the Greek world at
large as an independent power able to defend Greek freedom against kings
who cultivated an image of being invincible.
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Hans-Ulrich Wiemer
Fig. 1. The Rhodian pillar in the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi seen from the east:
hypothetical reconstruction ( Jacquemin and Laroche 1986: 305, © EfA/D. Laroche).
134
A decree of Argos gives further support to the assumption that already

in the first half of the third century the Greek mainland was included in the
range of political commitments into which the Rhodians were prepared to
enter. This decree, passed sometime between 300 and 250, testifies to a
loan the Rhodians had in the past given to ‘the Argives and the other
Greeks’ as the phrase runs; the decree gives thanks to the Rhodians for
having granted the Argives further time for repayment after the original
deadline had run out.61 In the present state of the evidence it would be
futile to speculate on the precise circumstances in which this loan,
amounting to the sizeable sum of 100 talents, was granted; but given the
fact that it was given to what seems to be a coalition of states called ‘The
Greeks’ and was used for military purposes – repairing the city’s walls and
improving its cavalry – one can hardly doubt that it was prompted by one
of the large-scale wars of the late fourth or early third century in which
many states on the Greek mainland were actively or passively involved.
The impression one gets is that the Rhodians were extending their political
connections right across the Aegean, even though at this early date they
apparently refrained from sending troops or ships to a region so far from
their island.
4. Epilogue
If such were Rhodian pretensions in the first half of the third century,
reality lagged far behind their aspirations. The Rhodians were at this date
still preoccupied with establishing their hegemony in the immediate
neighbourhood of their island. Their possessions on the mainland opposite
Rhodes were for much of the third century confined to small habour towns
on the Karian Chersonesos proper; only when in about 240 by the grace
of Seleukos II they got hold of the city of Stratonikeia did they get access
to the interior of Karia.62 And it was not before the last quarter of the third
century that the small neighbouring islands of Telos and Nisyros became
part of the Rhodian state.63 Granted, Rhodian influence in the Cyclades
began slowly to rise when the Ptolemaic protectorate over the League of
the Islanders fell into abeyance after 250.64 But a new league of islanders
under Rhodian leadership only came into being some decades later, after
the Rhodians had in 201 decided to attack Philip V of Macedon, thus
starting what was to be become the Second Macedonian War of the Roman
Republic.65
It was in the brief period between the war of the Rhodians against
Philip V and the end of the Third Macedonian War waged by the Roman
Republic that the Rhodians came closest to realizing their long-held dream
of hegemony. From 200 to 168 they were in firm control over the Cyclades.
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Hans-Ulrich Wiemer
Like Athens in the fifth century they stationed garrisons on islands such as
Tenos that were formally allied to them and served as naval bases for the
Rhodian fleet.66 When the allied city of Keos was suspected of disloyalty
against the people of Rhodes, Kean representatives were summoned to
answer these charges before the Rhodian assembly.67
Rhodian imperialism reached its height after Antiochos III had been
defeated by the Romans with the help of the Rhodian navy.68 Not long
afterwards the Rhodians had the famous Nike erected as a victory
monument in the sanctuary of the Great Gods on Samothrace where in
close proximity to donations and dedications made by Ptolemaic and
Antigonid kings it was to proclaim the greatness and might of the Rhodian
republic.69 The Roman senate showed its gratitude to the Rhodians by
assigning them part of the territories ceded by Antiochos in the treaty of
Apameia,70 and the Rhodians immediately set out to organize Karia and
Lykia as parts of a Rhodian zone of hegemony.71
To be sure, the Rhodians promised liberty to the cities of Karia and
Lykia, but it was liberty granted on Rhodian terms. These terms were
negotiable, but they did not exclude Rhodian interference in internal affairs
or the imposition of tribute; if necessary, they were enforced by Rhodian
arms. This is not the place to retell the sombre story of how the Rhodians
tried by force to impose their rule on Lykian cities unwilling to submit to
foreign domination, and how this attempt finally failed, after many years of
guerrilla warfare had caused enormous losses to Rhodian finances and
devastated parts of Lykia.72 I must also refrain from analysing Rhodian
attempts at gaining a hegemonial position in Karia by striking treaties of
alliance with many cities on the coast and by stationing garrisons in some
others like Stratonikeia and Kaunos.73
That this vast hegemonial zone comprising the whole Aegean plus Karia
and Lykia soon proved to be a house of cards is hardly cause for surprise
to us. Rhodian resources might have been sufficient to control the small
city-states of the Cyclades, but they were clearly vastly overstretched when
it came to controlling dozens of cities in Southwest Asia Minor many of
which were quite sizeable and had a large inland territory. Because of this,
Rhodian hegemony in Karia and Lykia was from the start dependent on its
being seen to be supported by the will of Rome. When, therefore, the
senate withdrew its favour after the crushing defeat of Perseus that
Rhodian diplomacy had tried to prevent, Rhodian rule in these regions
broke down quickly.74 Fearing Roman reprisals, the Rhodians now dropped
all pretensions to neutrality and submissively asked to be accepted as allies
of Rome. It took four long years of humiliation before in 164 the Rhodians
finally were deemed worthy of becoming allies of Rome, albeit on unequal
136
terms.75 The dream of hegemony on a more than local scale was over now,
even if Rhodes continued to have allies of its own down into the first
century BC.76
Acknowledgements
I should like to thank Andrew Erskine for reading the manuscript and for
helpful suggestions to improve it in both form and substance. As this
chapter was completed in 2007 I have not been able to take full account of
the literature published since then.
Notes
1 Badian 1995.
2 As a political history of the Hellenistic world Will 1979/1982 remains unsurpassed;
in English there is now Errington 2008. For a recent synthesis on the hellenistic
monarchies see Virgilio 2003.
3 On early Hellenistic Athens see the magisterial treatment in Habicht 1995.
4 A recent account of Hellenistic Sparta by Paul Cartledge is to be found in
Cartledge and Spawforth 2002, 3–90 with notes at 235–51.

5 There exists no up-to-date account of the Rhodian state to supersede that of
Gelder 1900, 178–88. The institutions are briefly surveyed in Gabrielsen 1997, 24–31;
the political decision-making process is analyzed in Wiemer 2002a, 21–2; Wiemer
2002b, 581–2; Grieb 2008, 263–353 (to be used with caution). For Archaic and
Classical Rhodes see Nielsen and Gabrielsen 2004 (with ample bibliography) and for
a fanciful account of Rhodian grandeur before the synoikismos Kowalzig 2007, 224–66.
6 Berthold 1984, 58.
7 The belief that Rhodian policy was aimed at preserving a balance of power for the
Hellenistic world generally is shared, inter alios, by Schmitt 1957, 55 and by Ager 1991,
10. On the history of the modern concept see Fenske 1975, 959–96 and Anderson
1993, 149–203.
8 A detailed analysis of the literary tradition is to be found in Wiemer 2001
(summarized in Wiemer 2002b, 563–72).

9 On Rhodian history between the synoecism and Alexander’s arrival in Asia Minor
see Berthold 1984, 19–37 and Wiemer 2002a, 53–66.

10 Hecatomnid garrison: Dem. 15.15; Macedonian garrison: Curt. 4.8.12–13, Diod.
Sic. 18.8.1.
11 Diod. Sic. 18.8.1.
12 On the settlement reached in Babylon after Alexander’s death see now the
detailed treatment in Bosworth 2002, 29–63.

13 On operations at sea during the so-called Lamian war see, e.g., Engels 1993,
384–92.
14 On Karia in the late 320s see the detailed study by Varinlioglu et al. 1990. I accept
the low chronology defended – inter alios – by Bosworth 2002.

15 Arr. Succ. F 1.37 = FGrH 156 F 9.37; Arr. Succ. F 25.1–2 = FGrH 156 F 10.7;
Iust. 13.6.14; Diod. Sic. 18.39.6 (confirmation); Arr. Succ. F 1.41 = FGrH 156 F 11.42
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Hans-Ulrich Wiemer
(defeat). Several inscriptions show Asandros to have been in control of inner Karia by
319/8: I.Stratonikeia 501 (323/2); I.Amyzon 2 (321/20); I.Mylasa 21 (319/8?); SEG
33.872 (319/8?); I.Stratonikeia 503 (319/8). But that does not necessarily apply to the
coastal cities; the stephanephorate of Asandros in Miletos (I.Milet 122, col. II, line
101) dates from 314/3 or 313/2.
16 Arr. Succ. F 1.39 = FGrH 156 F 11.39 (on this see Wiemer 2002a, 68–71).
17 On this see Billows 1990, 116–21.
18 On this see Hauben 1977 and Wiemer 2002a, 71–7.
19 For Hieronymos as the main source of Diodorus in Book 18–20 see the
convincing analysis in Hornblower 1981, 18–75. That the account of the siege of
Rhodes is drawn from a Rhodian source, presumably Zenon, has been argued by
Wiemer 2001, 222–50.
20 Cult of Ptolemy I: Diod. Sic. 20.100.3–4; Gorgon FGrH 519 F 19 = Ath.
15.696F. A priesthood of Ptolemy I is attested as late as c. 200 BC: Segre 1941, 30,
lines 16–17. The best analysis is still to be found in Habicht 1970, 109–10, cf. 257–8.
21 Polyb. 16.14–20, esp. 14.1–10; 17.8–11. I have commented on these passages in
Wiemer 2001, 19–27.

22 On relations between Athens and Demetrios in the period 307–301 see Habicht
1995, 76–88. Athenian ships in the sea-battle of Salamis: Diod. Sic. 20.50.3. The battle
is analysed in Seibert 1972, 190–206.
23 Polyaenus (4.6.16) reports that during the siege Rhodian seafarers were present
in harbours all over the Levant. People from Syria, Phoenicia and Asia Minor form the
majority of foreigners that are attested on Rhodian inscriptions: Morelli 1956, 135–6;
Sacco 1980. From the ‘Testament of Alexander’ that was forged on Rhodes and
became part of the ‘Alexander Romance’ it is clear that the Rhodians imported as
much corn from Asia Minor as they did from Egypt: Hist. Alex. 3.33.8; Epit. Mett.
108; cf. RC 3, lines 80–5.
24 Byzantine refusal to assist Antigonos in the Third Diadoch War: Diod. Sic.
19.77.7. Honorary statues for Antigonos and Demetrios raised in Olympia by the
Byzantines between 305/301: Syll.3 349–351.
25 I have analysed the literary tradition on the siege in Wiemer 2001, 238–50 and
tried to reconstruct the events and their causes in Wiemer 2002a, 84–91.
26 Diod. Sic. 20.99.3.
27 Polyb. 5.88–90 with ample commentary by Walbank 1957, 616–22. On Polybius’
sources of information and the political message they were aiming to convey see
Wiemer 2001, 33–9.
28 Attested in a well-known inscription (Syll.3 337) commented on by Holleaux 1938
and by Bringmann and Steuben 1995, no. 83.

29 Plin. HN 34.43.
30 The date depends on whether one reads in the Codex Bambergensis of Plin. HN
34.43 the numeral LVI or LXVI.

31 Philon Mirab. 4.6; Polyb. 5.88.3.
32 Older reconstructions are briefly reviewed and a new one is suggested in
Hoepfner 2003. On the methodological problems involved see Vedder 2004.

33 A convenient collection of the textual sources on the Colossus known before
the Posidippus-papyrus was deciphered can be found in Hebert 1989, 16–45 Q

28–103, a thorough analysis in Vedder 2000.
138
34 Sopatros stemmed from Paphos on Cyprus, but seems to have migrated to
Alexandria; according to Ath. 2.71a–b his life extended from the reign of Alexander
the Great down to that of Ptolemy Philadelphos. The testimonia on his life and the
25 fragments from his works (all from Athenaeus) are conveniently assembled in
Kassel and Austin 2001, 275–87.
35 Sopatros’ lines on the Colossus appear in a speech that Athenaeus (4.158D)
puts into the mouth of the Cynic Kynoulkos: ἀλλ’ ὑµεῖς γε, ἔφη, οἱ ἀπὸ τῆς καλῆς
Ἀλεξανδρείας, ὦ Πλούταρχε, σύντροφοί ἐστε τῷ φακίνῳ βρώµατι καὶ πᾶσα ὑµῶν ἡ πόλις
πλήρης ἐστὶ φακίνων· ὧν καὶ Σώπατρος ὁ Φάκιος παρῳδὸς µέµνηται ἐν δράµατι Βακχίδι
λέγων οὕτως· ‘οὐκ ἂν δυναίµην εἰσορῶν χαλκήλατον |µέγαν κολοσσὸν φάκινον ἄρτον
ἐσθίειν.’ What exactly the character in Sopatros’ play was meaning to say by this is
unclear, and commentators have suggested widely differing interpretations. Of the
two interpretations proposed in Kaibel 1909, 192 (‘sententia aut “ego Alexandrinus
Rhodii vivere nequeo” aut “Rhodiis cum licet, Alexandrinis panibus non vescor”’)
and repeated by Kassel and Austin 2001, 276 (who refer to F 9 = Ath. 3.109E where
Rhodian bread is mentioned) the first seems to fit the context much better since
Kynoulkos describes lentil-dishes as an Alexandrian speciality (thus Fraser 1972, II 875
n. 16: ‘The sense might be: ‘I would not be able to eat my lentil bread if I went to live
on Rhodes’). Perhaps, however, something more specific is meant: that the Colossus
was so breathtaking a sight that looking upon it took away completely the Alexandrians’
otherwise insatiable appetite for lentil-bread.
36 I quote text and translation from Austin and Bastianini 2002, 90–1 no. 68. There
is a short commentary in the editio princeps by Bastianini and Gallazzi 2001, 194–6.
37 See the contributions assembled in Gutzwiller 2005 and also Porter, this volume,
who gives particular attention to questions of scale.

38 On this see Gutzwiller 2002, 56–7.
39 This is clear from the Posidippan epigram on a statue of Philitas of Kos that was
dedicated at the order of Ptolemy II: Austin and Bastianini 2002, 86–7 no. 63 with
Gutzwiller 2002, 46–8.
40 On this Fraser 1972, I 559–60 with II 796–7 n. 44–5 remains fundamental.
41 Hoepfner 2003, 53–64.
42 Vedder 2004, 1111–2. The complex of buildings located on the foot of the
acropolis where a series of honorary statues of priests of Helios and several other
inscriptions have been found (Kontorini 1989, 129–84) seems small to have served as
the sanctuary of the most important god of Rhodes: Hoepfner 2003, 43–9.
43 Theodor Bergk (1872) ascribed the epigram to Alkaios of Messene, Ulrich von
Wilamowitz-Moellendorff is reported by Beckby 1967/1968, I 691 (cf. IV 556) to

have thought it unsuitable for inscription on the Colossus, and Silvio Accame (1947,
95–9 believed that it was composed not long after 200 BC (cited with approval by
Wiemer 2001, 223).
44 On the sources of book VI of the Palatine Anthology see Waltz 1931, 3–26, Beckby
1967/1968, I 441–3 and Cameron 1993, 121–8. Gow and Page 1965 do not include
Anth. Pal. 6.171 among the anonymous epigrams they attribute to Meleagros’
‘Garland’, but Cameron 1993, 123 thinks that the whole group Anth. Pal. 6.158–178
comes ‘from Meleager, Philip, and Agathias combined’ which for Anth. Pal. 6.171 can
only mean Meleagros.
45 Thus, e. g., Hiller von Gaertringen 1931, 781 and Gow and Page 1965. II 588:
139
Hans-Ulrich Wiemer
‘This epigram was plainly inscribed on or near the statue, presumably soon after its
completion, and it may be assigned with some approval to the first quarter of the third
century BCE ’.
46 Anth. Pal. 6.171. My translation is based on that of William Paton in the Loeb
edition but with some alterations: In l. 3 I take χάλκεον to go with κολοσσὸν rather
than with κῦµα because there is a caesura after χάλκεον, and because there is no parallel
for expanding the Aeschylean metaphor ‘wave of war’ by adding the adjective ‘brazen’.
In l. 5 I prefer the Planudean reading ἄνθεσαν over the Palatine κάτθεσαν which in my
opinion must refer to an object αὐτόν which in this context it was unnecessary to
express.
47 According to the calculations of Gow 1958, 20–2 only 76 epigrams in Meleagros’
collection were unascribed. Anonymous epigrams form only a small fraction of the
total transmitted via the ‘Palatine’ and ‘Planudean’ Anthologies.
48 On earlier collections of epigrams and their limited scope see Cameron 1993,
5–13.
49 Anth. Pal. 9.518. Translation adapted from that of William Paton in the Loeb
edition.
50 Alkaios later turned against Philip (Anth. Pal. 9.519; 11.12) and praised Titus
Flamininus as liberator of Greece: Anth. Pal. 16.5; Plut. Flam. 9.2 (with Anth. Pal.
7.247). On the anonymous Anth. Pal. 16.6 see Walbank 1942.
51 Thus, rightly, Walbank 1942, 134–6.
52 The ‘Planudean Anthology’ (16.82) preserves a iambic two-liner describing
Chares as sculptor of the Colossus. Since it is already cited by Strabo 14.2.5, it may well
have stood on the Colossus as well (thus Gow and Page 1965, II 588–9), though the
first four words seem inappropriate for that purpose and may be a late intrusion into
the text replacing something like τόνδ’ Ἡλίου κολοσσόν (proposed by Cameron 1993,
294–5).
53 On his cult see Morelli 1959, 175–6; on his representation in Rhodian mythology
Wiemer 2001, 211–5. I deal with Tlapolemos as a symbol of Rhodian identity in

Wiemer, forthcoming (a).
54 This crucial point is also stressed by Gehrke 2003, 238.
55 On the meaning and history of this formula that can be traced back to the fifth
and fourth centuries see Momigliano 1942/1960.

56 FD 3.383 = Syll.3 614 = Ager 1996, no. 117, I, l. 34–6: ἀναγράψαι τὰµ µὲν
προξενίαν ἐν τὸ βουλεῖον κα[τὰ τὸν νόµον, τὸ δὲ ψάφισµα] ἐν τὰν βάσιν τοῦ χρυσέου
ἅρµατος τοῦ [ἀνατεθέντος τῶι θεῶι ὑπὸ] τοῦ δάµου τοῦ Ῥοδίων.
57 FD 3.378 = Syll.3 441: ὁ δᾶµος ὁ Ῥοδ[ί]ω[ν τῶι Ἀπόλλωνι τῶι Πυθί]ωι.
58 Daux 1943, 329–32.
59 Jacquemin and Laroche 1986, suggesting that the pillar was raised in
commemoration of the expulsion of Alexander’s garrison in 323. This suggestion,
however, does not account for the fact that at the time it was far from clear whether
the Rhodians would get through with their policy of independence. It had to be
defended first against Attalos and then against Antigonos before it was generally
respected.
60 In the same sense Rice 1993, 239–42.
61 The different possibilities are discussed in the editions of Luigi Moretti (ISE 40)
and Léopold Migeotte (1984: no. 19).
140
62 The date when the Rhodians got hold of Stratonikeia has to be inferred from
Poly. 30.31.6 and is highly disputed; I have defended my position in Wiemer 2002a,
182–4. The complicated question of when and how Rhodian possessions on the
mainland opposite their island developed is the subject of Wiemer, forthcoming (b).
Among recent contributions to the debate are Gabrielsen 2000, Debord 2003 and
Bremen 2004a and Bremen 2004b.
63 Evidence and discussion in Wiemer 2002a, 196.
64 More on this in Wiemer 2002a, 192–8.
65 On the war of the Rhodians against Philip V see Wiemer 2002a, 198–227. To the
evidence there cited can now be added a decree of Eretria that has only recently been
found and is reported to honour two Rhodians for having saved Eretrians who had
been taken captives, presumably when L. Quinctius Flamininus conquered the city in
198: Knoepfler 2005, 303–4.
66 For Rhodian presence on Tenos see the evidence discussed in Wiemer 2002a,
273–4.
67 Keos: SEG 14.544 with my remarks in Wiemer 2002a, 219.
68 For Rhodian involvement in the war against Antiochos III see my discussion
Wiemer 2002a, 235–51, though Knoepfler 2005, 285–308 has recently demonstrated
that the decrees of Karthaia in honour of three officials of a king Antiochos which
others, including myself, once believed to date from the reign of Antiochos III (SEG
48.1130) should rather be dated to the reign of Antiochos II and do not supply
evidence for Seleukid control of the island of Keos.
69 Pending the final publication of the Nike monument by Ira Mark (for a
preliminary report see Mark 1998), one has to have recourse to books like Knell 1995
whose general interpretation I share for the reasons given in Wiemer 2001, 127–8.
70 On the settlement of Apameia see my analysis in Wiemer 2001, 128–49; Wiemer
2002a, 250–1; 277–288.

71 On Rhodian domination in Lykia see Bresson 1999 and Wiemer 2002a, 260–71.
My interpretation would seem to be confirmed – at least in principle, I believe – by a

new inscription from the little town of Melanippion in Lykia, see Adak 2007.
72 In addition to the contributions cited in the preceding note see my analysis of the
literary sources in Wiemer 2001, 151–8.

73 On Rhodian domination in Karia see Reger 1999, Wiemer 2002a, 251–9 and
Bresson 2003 and Wiemer, forthcoming (b). Rhodian garrisons in Kaunos and
Stratonikeia are attested in Polyb. 30.21.3. The whole subject will have to considered
anew in the light of an honorary decree passed by an anonymous city in honour of a
Rhodian ἡγεµὼν κατὰ Καρίαν τόπων that has recently been found in Aphrodisias, for
which see Chaniotis, forthcoming.
74 My views on Rhodian policy during the Third Macedonian War are set out in
Wiemer 2002a, 298–317. For different views see, e.g. Gruen 1975, 58–81; Berthold
1984, 195–212; Gabrielsen 1993.
75 On the Rhodian Treaty with Rome see my discussion in Wiemer 2002a, 325–8.
76 Maiuri 1925, no. 18, l. 29–30: τῶν συµµάχων πάντων τῶν τασσοµένων ὑπὸ τὸν
δᾶµον.
141
Hans-Ulrich Wiemer
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8
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF PLATAIA FOR

GREEK ELEUTHERIA IN THE EARLY
HELLENISTIC PERIOD 1
Shane Wallace
Since the publication in 1973 of the honorary decree for Glaukon, son of
Eteokles, of Athens, much attention has been placed not only on Glaukon
himself but also on certain other features of the text, namely Plataia and the
cult of Zeus Eleutherios and Homonoia of the Greeks.2 Plataia even alone
resonated powerfully in Greek history, all the more so when combined
with the concepts of freedom (eleutheria) and unity (homonoia). Much debate
has focused on the origins of the cult of Homonoia of the Greeks. Two
main schools of thought have developed: those who place its origin in the
late fourth century in connection with Philip and Alexander and those who
place it in the 260s, in connection with the political programme of the
Chremonidean War.3 Both dates are possible, but I will argue for the
former. A second point of debate is the origin of the Eleutheria Games,
first attested in the early third century. Possibly originating in the fifth
century, they were most likely re-organised in the late fourth century,
perhaps under Alexander.4 My aim in this chapter is to look at Plataia and
the cult of Zeus Eleutherios and Homonoia of the Greeks ensemble, from
the re-foundation of Plataia in 337 until the Glaukon decree which is to be
dated c.262–245.5 In this way, the evidence may be treated both
chronologically and in unison and new insights can perhaps be offered into
the history and importance of both site and cult.
I shall focus on Plataia at three points in time. All offer ‘Panhellenic’
contexts, that is calls to Greek unity or freedom usually against a foreign
power, and will be instructive for understanding the importance and
function of Plataia at such times. Firstly, the years 337–335 and the
re-foundation of Plataia under Philip and Alexander. Here I shall argue
that Plataia’s connection with Alexander and his presence in Boiotia in
Boedromion 335 offers a prime context for the (re-)foundation of the
Eleutheria Games and, perhaps, the joint cult of Zeus Eleutherios and
Homonoia of the Greeks. Secondly, the Hellenic (Lamian) War of 323/2.6
147
Shane Wallace
I contend that due to Plataia’s pro-Macedonian position the Greek alliance

was unable to utilise her historical connections in the war for Greek
eleutheria. Thirdly, the Chremonidean War (c.268–262) and thereafter.
Plataia formed an integral part of the war’s ideology and we can see again
her renewed importance in this struggle for Greek eleutheria.
Throughout this chapter, my central argument will be that the dynamic
and malleable nature of the memory of the Persian Wars allowed their
historical tradition of unity, eleutheria, and the struggle against the barbarian
to be continually appropriated by both Macedon and Athens to enforce
their various hegemonies. Plataia was used by Macedon, specifically
Alexander, to enforce Macedonian leadership in Greece and ensure
support for the invasion of the Persian Empire. Her alliance with Macedon
prevented Hyperides during the Hellenic War from invoking Plataia’s
historical significance as a site closely connected with eleutheria. Later
however, both during and after the Chremonidean War, Plataia was called
upon again as a symbol of Greek eleutheria and unity against the barbarian,
now Macedon. At the same time, however, Plataia itself conditioned the
nature of these appropriations by providing an established ideological
framework, both ideologically in the ideas encapsulated within its role in
the Persian Wars and physically in the layout of the monuments
commemorating this, onto which subsequent Panhellenic struggles had to
conceptualise themselves.
1. Philip and Alexander, 337–335

The duality of Alexander’s position as patron of Plataia and destroyer of
Thebes is so frequently discussed that it is in danger of becoming an
academic topos. However, as is often the case, there is still something left
to be said. Here I concern myself with two points, both of which deserve
specific treatment. Firstly, the dogma passed by the League of Corinth in
late 335 decreeing Thebes’ destruction. Contemporary with the patronage
of Plataia, this dogma and its use by Alexander reveals much concerning his
Panhellenism and use of the memory of the Persian Wars. Secondly, the
important fact that Alexander was present in Boiotia and patronising
Plataia in Boedromion 335, close to the anniversary of the battle of Plataia.
The potential implications of this chronological point have yet to be
explored. I contend here that Alexander actively used the memory of the
Persian Wars, specifically as regards Thebes and Plataia, to enforce his
control, formalised through the League of Corinth, over Greece and Greek
historical memory. I will support the argument that the ideological context
established by Alexander and the League of Corinth in Boedromion 335
led to the foundation of the Eleutheria and possibly the joint cult of Zeus
148
The significance of Plataia for Greek eleutheria in the early Hellenistic period
Eleutherios and Homonoia of the Greeks. Plataia was, however, a site of

pre-existing ideological importance manifest through its history and
standing monuments, both of which influenced the nature of any
appropriation of Plataia’s historical significance.
After Chaeronea Philip punished Thebes by installing an oligarchy of
300 and garrisoning the Kadmeia.7 Plataia was to be re-founded and the
Delphic lists show that Plataia sent naopoioi from 337/6 onwards.8 During
the siege of Thebes in 335 Plataians fought alongside Alexander (Arr. Anab.
1.8.8). Following Thebes’ revolt and destruction in late 335 the synedrion
of the League of Corinth decided to re-build Plataia’s walls (Arr. Anab.
1.9.10) and it, along with other Boiotian cities, was awarded Theban land
(Diod. 18.11.3–4). Plutarch adds that Alexander, flush with victory after
Gaugamela, promised to rebuild Plataia and announced, at the Olympic
Games of 328, that this was in gratitude for its actions on behalf of Greek
freedom during the Persian Wars (Alex. 34.1–2, Arist. 11.9).9
These examples, limited though they are, reveal Plataia’s importance for
Philip and Alexander on two counts. Firstly, and more generally,
Macedonian support of Plataia went hand-in-hand with the punishment
of Thebes and marked a new pro-Macedonian balance of power in Boiotia
(Paus. 4.27.10, 9.1.8). Beyond Plataia, statues of Philip and Alexander at
Thespiae imply that both patronised the city; Philip possibly re-founding
it in 337 and Alexander donating Theban land in 335. Like Plataia,
Orchomenos had its walls rebuilt by dogma of the League synedrion. Anti-
Theban sentiment ran deep and Thespiae, Orchomenos, Plataia, and
Phokis fought with Alexander during the siege. Philip’s and Alexander’s
patronage of Plataia, and more generally the Boiotian cities, reversed the
traditional model of Thebes as tyrant of the Boiotian cities, most notably
Plataia, whom she destroyed in 373. A pro-Macedonian Boiotia kept
Thebes in check, ensured the loyalty of central Greece, and allowed access
to the Megarid and Peloponnese, as well as Attica. As proof of success,
the Boiotians later fought with Macedon in the Hellenic War.10
Secondly, and emphasising the individual significance of Plataia, both
Philip’s and Alexander’s punishment of Thebes and patronage of Plataia
marked an important ideological statement for Alexander’s Panhellenism
in the build-up to the forthcoming invasion of the Persian Empire.11 In
479 Thebes had ignominiously medised and it was at Plataia, on land
ostentatiously given to Athens and the Greeks, that Greece was victorious
and ensured its lasting freedom (Plut. Arist. 11.5–8).12 Since Philip’s and
Alexander’s Asian campaign was presented both as a war of revenge for
Persian sacrileges in 480/79 and a campaign for Greek eleutheria, the
punishment of Thebes and the patronage of Plataia formed central parts
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of the campaign’s ideological manifesto.13 That Alexander saw fit, as late

as 328, to acknowledge Plataia’s sacrifice in 479 shows that Plataia’s role in
the Persian Wars was a central part of the presentation of his entire
campaign.14 Thebes and Plataia were key to Alexander’s Panhellenic policy
and each should be analysed accordingly.
Following the siege, Thebes was charged before a council of allies. With
many members absent, such as Athens, the council consisted largely of
Boiotian troops.15 Nonetheless, its judgement was presented and received
as an official dogma of the League synedrion. As this has previously been
doubted its validity should be re-emphasised here.16 Diodorus says that
Alexander called together the synedroi and put the vote to the synedrion
(17.14.1). Since synedrion denotes the League Council we must assume that
it is to this that Diodorus refers.17 Justin reflects this: he says that judgement
was passed in consilio (11.3.8), thus picking up on consiliumque, which he
earlier used to denote the formalisation of the synedrion under Philip
(9.5.2).18 Athens commended Alexander’s punishment of Thebes’
νεωτερισµός (revolution), an act specifically outlawed by the League (Ps.
Demosth. 17.15; cf. Schmitt, SdA 466, l. 42–43), thus revealing that despite
her absence from the council Athens sought at this juncture to mollify
Alexander by ostensibly supporting his actions and commending Thebes’
destruction as League-authorised (Arr. Anab. 1.10.2–5). Furthermore,
Alexander demanded the prosecution of the Athenian generals and orators
in the synedrion, again emphasising its authority and activity at this time
(Aeschin. In Ctes. 161).19
Evidence from Alexander’s Asian campaign supports the view that this
makeshift synedrion at Thebes passed an official dogma. Diodorus says that
the synedroi passed a resolution ‘to raze the city, to sell the captives, to make
the Theban exiles outlaws (ἀγώγιµοι) from all Greece, and to allow no
Greek to offer shelter to a Theban.’ 20 Throughout the years 334–330,
Alexander consistently referred to a ‘dogma of the Greeks’ on medising. He
punished the Greek mercenaries who fought with the Persians at Granikos
according to the dogma of the Greeks;21 he considered prosecuting
Lampsakos for siding with the Persians;22 likewise Zeleia;23 trials on medism
(ἐπὶ βαρβαρισµῶι) were initiated on Chios;24 both there and at Eresos pro-
Persian fugitives were made outlaws (ἀγώγιµοι) and barred from League cities
according to the dogma of the Greeks;25 while finally Alexander threatened
the last of Darios’ Greek mercenaries with acting against the dogmata of the
Greeks.26 The only previous occasion when we know of a dogma being passed
by the synedrion regarding medism and designating exiles as ἀγώγιµοι is the
case of Thebes in late 335. Therefore, it is likely that the dogma at Thebes
authorised Alexander, as he-gemo-n, to charge enemies for medism.27
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It is vital to note, as Bosworth has done, that the dogma harked back
directly to the Persian Wars, building authority from them.28 Justin tells us
that during Thebes’ trial before the synedrion the Oath (ius) of Plataia was
repeated and its call for the destruction of Thebes was reiterated.29 The
Oath is known to us from three similar fourth-century accounts, two
literary and one epigraphic. Largely a fabrication of the fourth century, the
Oath does however contain a kernel of truth.30 Its call for the destruction
of Thebes expands on the Oath taken by the Hellenes in late 481 to punish
medisers, and the similar decision taken after the battle of Plataia to besiege
Thebes until it handed over its leaders for judgement in Corinth.31 Clearly,
the League dogma of 335 drew a connection with the earlier resolutions of
481–79 and paralleled the League of Corinth and the invasion of the
Persian Empire with their ancestral counterparts. However, by building
upon the traditions of the fourth-century Oath, the League sought
historical validity through anachronistic elements of the Persian Wars
tradition; elaborating historical circumstances around a text itself elaborated
around historical circumstances.32 Historical fact was not definitive, it never
is; rather it was the belief in what that historical tradition represented that
was authoritative.
In fact, it was essential, for other reasons, that Alexander and the League
enforce their authority over the memory of the Persian Wars and Greek
eleutheria. When Alexander arrived at Thebes he gave the Thebans a chance
to capitulate and rejoin the peace. They refused. Instead, they called him
tyrant, asserted that the Macedonian garrison denied their freedom, and
called upon the Greeks to ally with them and the Great King, the true
defender of Greek eleutheria, and rid Greece of its Macedonian oppressor.33
With ‘every syllable a calculated insult,’ this jabbed at the exposed nerve of
Alexander’s Panhellenic pretensions.34 It challenged his role as he-gemo-n and
undermined his propaganda by promoting the King’s Peace over the
League of Corinth.35 It was therefore apt that Alexander used the League
to punish Thebes. The reference to the Oath of Plataia authorised the
destruction via the historical precedent of the Persian Wars, while the use
of the League erased Thebes’ claims to be defending Greek eleutheria and
displayed again Alexander’s validity as he-gemo-n.
At all stages Alexander countered threats by employing the League to
define its (and his) authority as a continuation of the authority exercised by
the Greeks during the Persian Wars. Although some have appreciated the
importance of Alexander’s use of a League dogma in Asia, it has not been
adequately stressed that this dogma on medism was originally sanctioned
by the synedrion of the League of Corinth at the time of the destruction of
Thebes. This dogma, continually cited, formed a key component in the
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justification of Alexander’s entire Asian campaign. Furthermore, it sought

substantiation through a connection with the resolutions of the Greek
League of 481–479; present authority through historical precedent. It was
by adapting the memory of the Persian Wars that Alexander attempted to
ensure support for his ostensibly Panhellenic campaign. The destruction of
Thebes took place at the same time as the patronage of Plataia and both,
as appropriations of the history of the Persian Wars, were deliberately
juxtaposed: rewards for the defenders of eleutheria, punishment for its
enemies.
However, with the destruction of Thebes and patronage of Plataia
Alexander insulted not only Thebes, but also Athens and Sparta. Athens
was unable to defend either her ancestral or present allies, Plataia and
Thebes respectively. Her weakness was further emphasised through her
swift capitulation on news of Alexander’s victory and her commendation
of the League’s destruction of Thebes, thus validating Alexander’s actions
and ideology. Sparta had been the victor at Plataia in 479. She had,
however, collaborated with the Theban mediser in destroying anti-Persian
Plataia in 427 while openly denying her commitments to defend Plataia as
a site of Greek eleutheria (Thuc. 3.53-68). By re-founding Plataia and
condemning Theban medism, Alexander assumed in 335 the role that both
Athens and Sparta had failed to fill in the 420s.
But Alexander’s actions had further implications. Sparta remained aloof
from the League of Corinth and the Macedonian Common Peace, a
situation supported by Philip and Alexander. This meant that the threat
remained that Sparta might re-assert her traditional hegemony in the
Peloponnese, as indeed she attempted to do during the subsequent revolt
of Agis in 331. This threat unified the League by binding members together
through a common fear. However, Alexander was careful to exploit
Sparta’s absence from both the League and the new campaign for Greek
eleutheria from the barbarian. The 300 Persian panoplies sent to Athens
after the battle of Granikos as a dedication to Athena reflected the 300
Spartan dead at Thermopylae and contrasted Spartan defeat with the
victory of Alexander and the Greeks. Furthermore, the inscription that
accompanied the dedication drew attention to Sparta’s absence from the
current campaign; ‘Alexander, son of Philip, and the Greeks with the
exception of the Lacedaimonians dedicate these spoils taken from the
barbarians who live in Asia’ (Arr. Anab. 1.16.7; Plut. Alex. 16.8). Sparta was
the only power to have led an invasion of Asia, indirectly under the 10,000,
and later for eleutheria and autonomia under Derkylides and Agesilaos
(Xen. Hell. 3.1.16, 20–1, 4.5, Ages. 1.10). Alexander’s actions advertised
Macedonian superiority over Sparta, as well as Athens and Thebes, both in
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Asia and in Greece. Alexander assumed the mantle of defender of Greek

eleutheria, claimed by Sparta at Thermopylae and Plataia and expanded
through the Asian campaigns in the early fourth century.
A closer focus on Plataia, however, is now worthwhile. Under Philip
and Alexander she was re-founded, had her walls built, received Theban
land, and was generally patronised, owing in part to the importance of her
role within the Persian Wars. Can we push the evidence still further?
A penteteric Panhellenic festival for those who died at Plataia in 479,
the Eleutheria, existed at Plataia from at least the early third century. Our
earliest reference comes from Poseidippos of Kassandreia, active from
about 289 onwards.36 Some have argued that the Eleutheria Games were
of fifth-century origin, but there is no definite evidence for this.37 Since
the early third-century Eleutheria is clearly Panhellenic, its origin must lie
in the not-too-distant past. Let us take 280 as a terminus ante quem. Since
Plataia was a ruin from 427–386 and 373–337, her re-foundation in 337 is
a reasonable terminus post quem.38 The Glaukon decree of c.262–245 informs
us that the games were organised by τὸ κοινὸν συνέδριον τῶν Ἑλλήνων (the
common council of the Greeks) and that this body passed dogmata (l. 3,
25–6).39 Focusing on the terms synedrion and dogma, Roland Étienne and
Marcel Piérart suggested that the games were founded under Macedonian
authority by the synedrion of either the League of Philip and Alexander
(337–323) or of Demetrios Poliorketes (302–301), both of which passed
dogmata and called themselves τὸ κοινὸν συνέδριον τῶν Ἑλλήνων.40 Since the
Eleutheria expanded on the Persian Wars, Greek eleutheria, and Plataia’s
historical significance, we should look for a context for its (re-)foundation
between 337 and 280 that fits this programme. Philip and Alexander in
337–334 is most likely, and taking Étienne’s and Piérart’s argument one
step further I would like to propose a more exact date: Boedromion 335,
the same time as the destruction of Thebes.
Chronological considerations are of some significance here. The battle
of Plataia took place on the 3rd of Boedromion 479.41 Word of Alexander’s
destruction of Thebes reached Athens during the Great Mysteries, the 15th
to 23rd Boedromion.42 Since Alexander spent two to three days in camp
outside Thebes before the siege, which itself lasted one day, news of
Thebes’ destruction would have reached Athens about four to five days
after Alexander’s arrival (Arr. Anab. 1.7.7–11; Diod. 17.11.1). We can
therefore accurately place Alexander’s arrival at Thebes somewhere
between the 10th and the 19th of Boedromion, between one and two weeks
after the anniversary of the battle of Plataia. After the siege, Alexander
evidently spent some time in Boiotia, probably about one to two weeks:43
demanding Athens’ orators and generals and charging her for having
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accepted Theban exiles. Pseudo-Callisthenes places Alexander’s camp at

Plataia, and there is nothing inherently illogical in this (Alexander Romance
b.1–5).44 Plataia was friendly ground, the synedrion had just decreed that her
walls be re-built, and as he-gemo-n Alexander might have overseen their
commencement. Could the Eleutheria have been founded (even
commissioned) at this time? We do not know in what years the Eleutheria
fell but it most likely proceeded from the date of the battle of Plataia,
Boedromion 3rd 479. Taking place every four years, Boedromion 335 is
exactly 144 years (or 36 four year cycles) after the battle of Plataia and,
incidentally, the first possible occasion for the Eleutheria since Plataia’s
re-foundation in 337.
We do not know precisely on what days the Eleutheria took place but it
probably culminated with the anniversary of the battle on Boedromion 3rd.
Diodorus states as much (11.29.1) and Albert Schachter supported this in
his analysis of Boiotian cults.45 Plutarch also seems to support this, adding
that the Hellenic synedrion convened yearly at Plataia on the 3rd of
Boedromion when the Plataians sacrificed to Zeus Eleutherios (Plut. Arist.
19.7, 21.1).46 Noel Robertson’s analysis of the dialogos (Atheno-Spartan
debate over who should lead the procession at the festival) led him to
suggest a date in Metageitnion for the Eleutheria, probably late in the
month, but his conclusions are only secure for the late second century AD.47
Reconciling the evidence, a date could be possible of late Metageitnion
leading into Boedromion and culminating in the meeting of the synedrion
and the sacrifice to Zeus Eleutherios on Boedromion 3rd. Ultimate certainty
is unattainable, but a date for the Eleutheria close to Boedromion 3rd is
likely as it corresponds with both the synedrion meeting and the Plataian
sacrifices to Zeus Eleutherios.48
Admittedly, Alexander and the League’s actions within Boiotia are about
two weeks or so after Boedromion 3rd. However, W. K. Pritchett has
pointed out that the two dates given for the battle by Plutarch, Boedromion
3rd in the Athenian calendar and Panemos 27th in the Boiotian, could lead
to a difference of up to seven days in their respective festival calendars.49
Further, the Eleutheria need only have been instituted (or even
commissioned) in mid to late Boedromion 335, perhaps with some games,
before subsequently, from 331 onwards, being held earlier, on the
anniversary of the battle of Plataia.
If Boedromion 335 saw the origin of these commemorations, then the
importance of the third-century synedrion in organising the games (as seen
in the Glaukon decree) could reflect the role played by its fourth-century
counterpart. The synedrion was primarily made up of Boiotians who used it
to follow their own agendas: destroying Thebes; condemning her medism;
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rebuilding the walls of Plataia. The League may plausibly have taken the
opportunity to (re-)found a Panhellenic festival in honour of Plataia’s role
in the Persian Wars. Alternatively, the impetus may lie with Alexander,
who perhaps celebrated games after the destruction of Thebes, as he was
to do with great frequency in Asia, commemorating victory and success
(over Thebes?), celebrating new foundations (Plataia?), or acting as a
prelude to a new campaign (invasion of Asia?).50 As a closer analogy, the
Nemean Games returned to Corinth and gained renewed prominence
through Macedonian patronage in the 330s.51 Ultimately, whether founded
directly by either Alexander or the League – and both are possible – the
new invasion of the Persian Empire and the historical and contemporary
importance of Plataia and Thebes in Boedromion 335 offer an ideal
context for the (re-)foundation of the Eleutheria as a remembrance of the
Wars of 480/79 and Greek eleutheria.
The events of Boedromion 335 may also provide the impetus for the
addition of the cult of Homonoia of the Greeks to that of Zeus
Eleutherios. Attested first in the Glaukon decree of c.262–245, the joint
cult of Zeus Eleutherios and Homonoia of the Greeks has been the focus
of some debate.52 The worship of Zeus Eleutherios probably reflects both
Pausanias’ sacrifices in the Plataian agora and the altar consecrated outside
Plataia by the Hellenes in 479.53 Homonoia of the Greeks must have been
added later. Étienne and Piérart suggested the mid third century in
connection with the Chremonidean War. This is possible, but the evidence
for the concept of Homonoia of the Greeks at that time is slim.54 The same
is to be said for Dreyer’s proposal of the Celtic invasion of 279. West has
proposed a much more likely date of the late fourth century, probably in
connection with the new war against Persia.55 He connects Homonoia of
the Greeks with Gorgias, Lysias, and Isocrates, who consistently called for
homonoia between the Greeks leading to a new war against Persia (e.g. Isoc.
Phil. 16: τῆς τε τῶν Ἑλλήνων ὁµονοίας καὶ τῆς ἐπὶ τοὺς βαρβάρους στρατείας).56
West’s argument has not been widely accepted but due to the vast amount
of literary evidence supporting it I find it quite plausible. It was in the
fourth century that Homonoia first became personified,57 simultaneously
with its continuous invocation as an aspect of a united Greek campaign
against Persia. With this in mind, Homonoia of the Greeks was most likely
added to Zeus Eleutherios at a time when calls for a Greek campaign
against Persia were strong. The League of Corinth and the invasion of
Persia is the perfect context, encapsulating as it does the ideals of Hellenic
unity, eleutheria, and revenge against Persia.
If this was the case, and one admits that it is speculative, then the joint
cult of Zeus Eleutherios and Homonoia of the Greeks could have served
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a number of purposes. For Plataia, it asserted the city’s right to exist based
on its historical importance for eleutheria and the Persian Wars, something
already promoted by Alexander and the League; a cry for stability and
security in the wake of Plataia’s second re-foundation. For Alexander, the
cult asserted the two key components of his campaign: peace at home and
unity abroad.58 The joint cult gave to both these concepts ‘a solidity and
objectivity’ not previously possessed: Homonoia of the Greeks
personifying the civic and inter-polis stability sought by the League of
Corinth and Zeus Eleutherios personifying eleutheria, the war against Persia,
and the ideal of Hellenic unity that arose from both.59
It seems clear that during the 330s there was a tri-partite discourse taking
place around Plataia: Alexander, League synedrion, and the cult of Zeus
Eleutherios. As he-gemo-n of the League, Alexander stood behind the League-
sanctioned destruction of Thebes and patronage of Plataia. Nonetheless,
he remained careful to defer authority nominally to the League, showing
that the League played a key role in validating his actions through
Panhellenic authority and defining them via the precedent of the Persian
Wars and the Greek League of 481–479. The League itself, however, was
more than just a rubber stamp; it was an active partner in Alexander’s
ideology. Here it is important to remember the Boiotian make-up of the
synedrion in Boedromion 335, ensuring that local, including Plataian, voices
would have been heard. While the synedrion’s prosecution of Thebes and
patronage of Plataia did in part follow Alexander’s will, it was also a
manifestation of the inherent anti-Thebism of the synedrion at this time. As
evidence of the League’s active role, it continued to organise the Eleutheria
into the Imperial period. Again, the games reflected the will and
propaganda of both Alexander and the predominantly Boiotian synedrion.
Rather than a tool of the he-gemo-n, the synedrion was more a point of synergy,
working in unison with the he-gemo-n on a Panhellenic policy expanded from
the historical traditions of Plataia and the Persian Wars.
Of course, after her destruction by Thebes in 373, Plataia lay in ruins.
The recommencement of the worship of Zeus Eleutherios and the
sacrifices to the dead, as well as the rebuilding and patronage of Plataia in
337, emphasised a new beginning after Thebes’ previous crimes against
Plataia and against the very memory of the Persian Wars. By their
continued existence after the destruction of Plataia and the exile of its
citizens, monuments dating from the Persian Wars, such as the victory
trophy, and the tombs of the Greek dead, and perhaps the altar to Zeus
Eleutherios, underscored Plataia’s abiding significance for Greek eleutheria
and the memory of the Persian Wars. Vicariously, then, these monuments
testified to Thebes’ double destruction of Plataia, re-emphasised its
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medism during the Persian wars, and revealed it to be a continued enemy

of eleutheria. The very act of patronising Plataia marked a clear statement on
Theban violence and medism.
An interesting dynamic lies in the importance of these monuments in
developing, almost mythologising, Plataia’s Persian War history. In 335 the
central standing monuments appear to have been the altar, the trophy, and
the tombs.60 Although Th. Spyropoulos’ excavations have tentatively
identified the altar to Zeus Eleutherios, no trace of the other monuments
survives.61 Nonetheless, some comments can be made. These monuments
defined Plataia’s cultic landscape and established pre-determined
ideological limits into which later events and phenomena must be
integrated. So, just as new additions to the cultic landscape, be they
Homonoia of the Greeks or the Eleutheria, altered the ideology of this
landscape, so too did the landscape itself constrain the import of these new
additions. The pre-existing contexts of eleutheria, the Persian Wars, and the
struggle against the barbarian altered and defined any new additions, while
these additions appropriated the pre-existing ideological contexts in order
to enforce themselves. While Alexander could use Plataia to promote
Macedonian hegemony and leadership, he was limited by the contextualised
ideology of Greek eleutheria from a foreign barbarian. This context, though
flexible and manipulable, still prefigured and shaped the nature of the pro-
Macedonian exploitation of Plataia.
The geography of these monuments is also important in defining the
physical, as much as the ideological, manipulation of Plataia’s historical
context. So, the crowning event of the Eleutheria itself, the hoplite race,
took place between the trophy and altar, both dating from the day of
victory, with the victor being acclaimed ‘best of the Hellenes’.62 Upon its
(re-)foundation, the Eleutheria was integrated directly into a predetermined
ideological topography, from which it developed its own history and
significance while similarly influencing the meaning of that topography.
The patronage of Plataia by Alexander and the League, the foundation of
the Eleutheria, and possibly the cult of Homonoia of the Greeks, all
emphasised a very real Macedonian, or pro-Macedonian, appropriation of
the memory of the Persian Wars, one which was, however, structured and
conditioned by the very ideological topography it appropriated.
2. Plataia, Thebes, and the Hellenic War

The Hellenic War was Athens’ great Panhellenic statement against
Macedon. Hyperides’ Epitaphios preserves this sentiment, built upon the
memory of the battles and individuals of the Persian Wars. It is therefore
surprising that no mention is made of Plataia, particularly since Diodorus
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records Leosthenes’ victory there over pro-Macedonian forces. By

comparing the accounts of Diodorus and Hyperides, I will argue that
Hyperides deliberately avoided mention of Plataia and even ignored
Leosthenes’ victory there. Under Alexander, Plataia’s Persian War history
had been used to support Macedonian hegemony. When Hyperides sought
to promote Greek freedom from Macedon via a parallel with the Persian
Wars, he could not turn to the example of Plataia, because Athens now
found herself fighting for Greek eleutheria at Plataia against Plataians allied
with Macedon, the new barbarian threat.
In his account of the Hellenic War, Diodorus says that the Athenian
general Leosthenes employed mercenaries from Taenarum, moved to
Aitolia securing the alliance of the central Greeks, before advancing on
Thermopylae in autumn 323 in advance of Antipater’s arrival (18.9–11).
Athens dispatched citizen reinforcements to him, 5,000 foot and 500 horse,
as well as 2,000 mercenaries. However, the Boiotian cities, remembering
the benefactions they had received upon Thebes’ destruction, remained
hostile to Athens, who apparently intended to restore Thebes and her land.
With their pass through Boiotia blocked, Leosthenes joined forces with
the Athenian troops and defeated the Boiotians by Plataia in mid to late
autumn 323 (περὶ τὰς Πλαταιάς, 18.11.3–5). He erected a victory trophy and
returned to Thermopylae.63
Our contemporary source for events, Hyperides’ Epitaphios, delivered
over the Athenian dead in early 322, distorts events. Hyperides says that
Leosthenes left from Athens, defeated the Boiotians at Thebes and only
then advanced on Thermopylae (5.11–30).64 Interestingly, Plataia is not
mentioned and Hyperides transposes the battle to Thebes, whose razed
city, garrisoned acropolis, and enslaved populace spurred the Greeks to
victory (5.14–20, 7.2–17). Since the Epitaphios is suffused with references
to the Persian Wars, eleutheria, and Athenian leadership, its omission of the
Athenian victory at Plataia is surprising. Firstly, the audience would
undoubtedly have been aware of the true order of events. Secondly, the
Hellenic War itself was continually presented as a parallel to that of
480/79.65 Thirdly, Athens had frequently made use of Plataia’s historical
connections during the fourth century, most notably in the Oath of Plataia,
which had been quoted in the Ekklesia by Lycurgus only seven years
previously (Lycurg. Leoc. 80–82).66
Hyperides ignores Plataia, the site of the Greek victory over Persia, and
instead focuses on Thebes, the famous mediser, whom he describes as
Tragically annihilated from the face of the earth, that its citadel was
garrisoned by the Macedonians, and that the persons of its inhabitants were
in slavery, while others parcelled out the land among themselves.67
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The enemy in 479, Hyperides now makes Thebes the victim in 323 and
thus an inspiration to Greek eleutheria. In this scheme the enemy now
becomes those who fought with Macedon, those who ‘parcelled out the
land among themselves’, the likes of Plataia, Thespiae, and Orchomenos,
who had been given Theban land by Philip and Alexander, had fought
during the siege, and had prosecuted the Thebans in 335.
In 323/2 Plataia, the site of the triumph of Greek eleutheria in 479, lay in
the hands of those who fought against Greek eleutheria. Conversely, Thebes,
the enemy of eleutheria in 479, stood as an inspiration to it in 323/2. The
roles were reversed and Plataia in 323/2 echoed Thebes in 479: a Greek
state siding with the barbarian against Greek freedom. This was particularly
difficult for Hyperides to assimilate into his speech. Athens and Plataia
had a close relationship extending back as far as the battle of Marathon,
when both stood alone against Persia (Hdt. 6.108–13). Their present
conflict was too sensitive and complicated for a funeral oration, and so
Hyperides ignored Plataia because it stood against Athens and her fight
for Greek eleutheria. Indeed, he even went so far as to alter the events of the
war to transpose the Athenian victory from Plataia to Thebes, thus
removing entirely the embarrassment of Plataia’s ‘medism’ and Athens’
necessary conflict with her. Simply put, the connection Hyperides sought
to draw between the Hellenic and Persian Wars would not have admitted
the fact that Athens fought the Plataians, at Plataia, for eleutheria.68
This cuts to the heart of the problem. Athens led the Hellenic War with
great pomp on behalf of the freedom of the Greeks. Athens’ interpretation
of freedom, however, was not the same as that of other Greeks, rather it
was concerned primarily with ensuring her own best interests and
hegemony. Therefore, when the Boiotians (including Plataia) and
Euboeans fought against Athens, Hyperides damned them as ‘the first
opponents of Greek freedom’.69 From a Boiotian (specifically Plataian)
perspective, however, eleutheria was best served under a Macedonian
enforced status-quo, where Theban hegemony ceased to exist and the land
distributions of 335 remained in force.70 The Athenian goal of restoring
Thebes (alleged in Diodorus, 18.11.3–4) did not appeal to the likes of
Plataia, Thespiae, and Orchomenos, so recently patronised and re-founded
by Macedon. The role of Plataia in the Hellenic War is a stark reminder
that the meaning of eleutheria was firmly in the eye of the employer, and
what Athens termed ‘the freedom of the Greeks’ was not necessarily in
the best interests of Plataian, Boiotian, or Euboean eleutheria.
So, because of Plataia’s loyalty to Macedon in 335 and 323/2 her
historical significance for Greek eleutheria was lost to Athenian propaganda
during the Hellenic War. Plataia’s connection with the Persian Wars and
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Greek eleutheria had earlier been appropriated by both Philip and Alexander,
and this appears to have remained prominent for some time. It forced
Hyperides to ignore Plataia’s Persian War history and instead invert the
importance of Plataia and Thebes for Greek eleutheria. His silence helps
elucidate the key role Plataia played in developing the ideology of
Alexander’s new Persian War.71
3. Glaukon and the Third Century

With the Chremonidean War Athens again led a supposedly Panhellenic
campaign for Greek freedom from Macedon, once more based on the
precedent of the Persian Wars. Unlike the Hellenic War, however, Plataia
appears to have played a large role in developing and presenting this ethos,
as evidenced in the honorary decree of the Greek synedrion at Plataia for
Glaukon, son of Eteokles, of Athens. Something changed, and Plataia’s
new role is worth analysing. Accordingly, I will argue that by the mid-third-
century Plataia had regained anew her significance for Greek freedom due
to her presence on the Greek, rather than Macedonian, side before and
during the Chremonidean War. Plataia’s historical traditions of eleutheria
and Greek unity could again be asserted as a precedent for the current
struggle against Macedon. Plataia witnessed a process of appropriation and
re-appropriation by both Macedon and Greeks, and the cult of Zeus
Eleutherios and Homonoia of the Greeks, possibly founded under
Macedonian patronage in the late fourth century, may be a witness to this.
Finally, I will again emphasise how Plataia’s historical traditions and cultic
landscape influenced the nature of her significance for Greek eleutheria in
the mid-third century.
Found at Plataia in 1971, the Glaukon decree preserves a dogma of the
Common Council of the Greeks (τὸ κοινὸν συνέδριον τῶν Ἑλλήνων)
honouring Glaukon for his benefactions to the cult of Zeus Eleutherios
and Homonoia of the Greeks both before and after the Chremonidean
War. The decree is to be dated between 262–245, perhaps the later the
better.72 It praises Glaukon for his goodwill towards the Greeks while in
Athens and for the continuation of this policy when he later took up
position at the court of King Ptolemy (l. 5–14), shortly after the
Chremonidean War (Teles On Exile 23). He beautified the shrine,
contributed to the sacrifice to Zeus Eleutherios and Homonoia, and
patronised the Eleutheria (l. 15–24). He and his descendents are rewarded
with proedria at the games, while the stele is to be erected next to the altar
of Zeus Eleutherios and Homonoia, paid for from the temple’s finances
(l. 25–42).
Although passed some years after the Chremonidean War (268–262),
160
numerous features within the decree help us establish an ideological

context closely connected with it.73 The decree lays emphasis on Greek
eleutheria from the barbarian, with the games at Plataia (l. 34–5) specified as
being in honour ‘of the heroes who fought against the barbarians for the
liberty (eleutheria) of the Greeks’.74 This eleutheria is directly connected with
Greek homonoia through the dual cult of Zeus Eleutherios and Homonoia
of the Greeks. The decree is also defined by the Persian Wars: the battle
of Plataia, the Greek dead, and the altar and cult of Zeus Eleutherios all
create a context for Glaukon’s benefactions infused with a memory of the
Wars promoting specifically Plataia’s importance within the historical
tradition. All these features echo the ideological context of the
Chremonidean War, which, as we know from the Chremonides decree,
was presented as a struggle for Greek eleutheria dependent upon homonoia
between the Greek poleis (IG II2 686/7, l. 31–5). It was also paralleled
with the Persian Wars and Macedon was presented as the new barbarian
invader (l. 7–18).75
Glaukon himself supports this connection.76 As an Athenian ambassador,
he toured the Peloponnese in the run-up to the war looking to garner
support and was honoured with proxenia by an allied Orchomenos; he may
have been synedros to the Greek alliance in 268–262; he served as general of
the equipment (στρατηγὸς ἐπὶ τὴν παρασκευήν) in 266/5; and he was perhaps
honoured by Ptolemy Philadelphos with a statue at Olympia at this time.77
The Chremonidean War was fought under Ptolemaic auspices and with
large naval help, thus tying Ptolemy Philadelphos closely to the cause of
Greek freedom.78 Glaukon’s brother, Chremonides, proposed the decree
declaring war and both he and Glaukon fled in 262 to pursue high-profile
careers under the Ptolemies.79 Therefore, its thematic correspondences
with the Chremonides decree, as well as its references to Glaukon and
Ptolemy, place the Glaukon decree firmly in the ideological context of the
Chremonidean War.
That the honours for Glaukon were passed at Plataia adds a further
dimension to their meaning. Although we have no evidence for Plataia’s
role during the Chremonidean War, we can see from the benefactions of
prominent anti-Macedonian individuals like Glaukon (and there would
have been others) that Plataia and its historical tradition were of particular
importance to the anti-Macedonian movement at that time.80 Plataia
provided an ideological template, from which the new struggle for Greek
freedom could assume, vicariously, a series of pre-defined goals and values.
Since it post-dates the Chremonidean War, the decree also shows that,
even after this defeat, Plataia remained important for the continuing Greek
struggle against Macedon, again paralleled with the Persian Wars, and
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fought for Greek homonoia and eleutheria. A recently-published honorific

decree for Eudamos of Megalopolis, dated c. 251–245 by the editor
E. Stavrianopoulou, elucidates the post-war context. Stavrianopoulou
connects Eudamos with the Ekdemos/Ekdelos of the literary sources who
is recorded as having overthrown Aristodemos the Good, pro-Macedonian
tyrant of Megalopolis, around 251, a time when Antigonos’ power in
Greece was severely threatened. The decree records that his honours were
to be announced at the Eleutheria, again revealing the continued
importance of the games and Plataia as a centre for the Greek struggle for
freedom from Macedonian control and tyranny. With interest coming from
as far away as Egypt and Megalopolis, Plataia, the Eleutheria, and the
memory of the Persian Wars clearly remained ideologically important for
the struggle for Greek freedom beyond even the defeat in the Chremonidean
War. The site was a mid-third-century nexus for anti-Macedonianism.81
Plataia was also of significance as a physical space. It was there in 479
that Athens and Sparta stood side-by-side and guaranteed Greek freedom.
Not having allied at Chaeronea, during Agis’ Revolt, or the Hellenic War,
the Chremonidean War was the first time since 479 that both states stood
united in common cause. The parallel was not lost, rather it was proudly
emphasised within the Chremonides decree. Plataia served as a physical, as
well as ideological, link with the Atheno-Spartan alliance of the Persian
Wars.82 Homonoia of the Greeks offered a physical manifestation of this
new unity, while the Eleutheria integrated it into the historical landscape.
In the Glaukon decree the ago-n is said to have taken place ‘at the tomb of
the heroes (andres agathoi ) who fought against the barbarians for the liberty
of the Greeks.’ 83 Undoubtedly, the tombs of the Athenians and Spartans
formed an important part of this backdrop.84 This geography was, however,
constructed. Sometime between Herodotus writing in the mid-fifth-
century bc and Pausanias in the second century AD the number of tombs at
Plataia declined from many tombs of individual cities, to one Athenian,
one Spartan, and one Greek tomb.85 The physical landscape, as much as the
ideological, was altered. Although a slow process, this began early, as
suggested by Herodotus’ account of the cenotaphs raised in shame by cities
that missed the battle (9.85). The term andres agathoi, although used in the
Glaukon decree to describe the heroes of the Persian Wars, was a key part
of the Athenian civic ideal and may perhaps hint at some Athenian
influence over the cult, probably in the later fifth and early fourth centuries.
This would be expected since relations between Athens and Plataia were
then close and both cities had cults of Zeus Eleutherios.86 However, it is
only with the Chremonidean War in the mid-third century that we get a
concerted promotion of Atheno-Spartan unity, presenting Plataia as a site
162
of Spartan and Athenian importance first and Greek second.87 Glaukon’s

benefactions to the Eleutheria, and their mention within his honorary
decree, re-emphasise Plataia as the proto-typical site of Atheno-Spartan
unity and assume this historical significance for the third-century alliance.
In light of Plataia’s importance for Alexander and her loss to Greek
freedom during the Hellenic War, what we see within the Glaukon decree
is a re-appropriation of Plataia for Greek eleutheria. An example of this may
perhaps be seen in the cult of Homonoia of the Greeks. West argued that
the deification of Homonoia of the Greeks took place in the late fourth
century, probably in the context of the new invasion of the Persian
Empire.88 If this was the case then there was an interesting process of
appropriation and re-appropriation taking place at Plataia. With the
(possible) personification of Homonoia of the Greeks at Plataia in the 330s,
and its addition to the cult of Zeus Eleutherios, the ideal of Hellenic unity
leading to conquest of the barbarian was appropriated to the Macedonian-
led war in Asia and served to enforce the peace and leadership established
by the League of Corinth. The ideology of homonoia between the Greeks
leading to eleutheria from Macedon, as seen in the Chremonides decree,
builds on this context by inverting the dynamic. Whereas previously
Homonoia of the Greeks personified Greek peace under Macedonian
leadership in a new Persian War for Greek eleutheria, now Homonoia of
the Greeks defined the need for Greek unity in a common cause against
Macedon for Greek eleutheria.
Glaukon’s patronage of the joint cult of Zeus Eleutherios and Homonoia
of the Greeks could mark therefore an adaptation of the pro-Macedonian
additions to the cult of Zeus Eleutherios, a re-appropriation, conscious or
not, that signified renewed control over Greece’s historical authority.
The dynamics of appropriation could, potentially, be quite interesting.
If Homonoia of the Greeks was integrated with Zeus Eleutherios in the
later fourth century, then there was by the time of the Chremonidean War
a pre-existing cultic and ideological context at Plataia that promoted the
ideal of homonoia as an element of eleutheria, something itself inherently
connected with the Persian Wars. One wonders whether such a cult could
itself have had a formative influence on the development of the
Chremonidean War’s ideology of homonoia and eleutheria. At the very least,
a pre-existing cult at Plataia would have furthered the precept, long claimed
in fourth-century oratory, that homonoia between the Greeks was
necessary for Greek eleutheria.89 The connection of Homonoia with the
memory of the Persian Wars, as exemplified through Zeus Eleutherios,
would only have supported this by providing a successful example of the
precept in action.
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This ideological interaction would be all the more significant if the two
cult deities had been integrated in the late fourth century in a strongly pro-
Macedonian context. If so, then the use of the cult and associated ideology
against Macedon would reveal yet another dynamic in the significance of
Plataia and the Persian Wars for Greek eleutheria: the site, traditions, and
cult that had previously been used to enforce Macedonian hegemony over
Greece were now used to inspire Greek freedom from Macedon. What we
may be seeing at Plataia is an example in cult form of the dynamic fluidity
of both the concept of eleutheria and the memory of the Persian Wars,
exemplified in dual by the site of Plataia and the cult of Zeus Eleutherios.
If so, then this was possible because the Persian Wars themselves were an
adaptive tradition that could be used against a foreign power, be it Persia,
Macedon, or even the Gauls. As such, they allowed Macedon to enforce
her own hegemony over Greece by turning attention to Persia, just as they
allowed the Greeks to condemn Macedon, in both the Hellenic and
Chremonidean Wars.
4. Conclusion
The site of Plataia encapsulated the dynamic malleability of eleutheria and
the memory of the Persian Wars in a way that possibly no other site could.
Its topography was a constant visible reminder of the battle of 479. The
tombs displayed to the viewer the sacrifice of the Greek heroes. Tombs of
numerous states revealed the site’s Panhellenism (if somewhat back
projected, as Herodotus (9.85) informs us) while the individual tombs of
Athens and Sparta similarly revealed the prominence of these two states.
The victory trophy displayed the ultimate success of the Greek struggle
and the validity of the sacrifice. The altar to Zeus Eleutherios defined the
divinely sanctioned victory as a discovery of eleutheria, as stated in
Simonides’ dedicatory epigram (Plut. Arist. 19; cf. Anth. Pal. 6.50). The
Eleutheria honoured the heroes and in its events integrated the monuments
into a continual, penteteric, celebration of eleutheria.
Throughout the early Hellenistic period the history and site of Plataia
were used by both Macedonian and Greek to enforce hegemony and
inspire unity, be it for the invasion of the Persian Empire or the
Chremonidean War. I have argued for the continued and dynamic
significance of Plataia as a space intrinsically connected with the twin
concepts of eleutheria and the Persian Wars. Tossed between Macedon and
Greece, Plataia remained perpetually important because, through her
physical monuments and historical context, she personified both these
concepts in microcosm. Her utilisation by both Macedon and Greece was
possible because the Persian Wars, as historical memory, developed in part
164
as a conceptual prototype for understanding any war and its goals. So, the
Persian Wars and Greek eleutheria could be used to promote war against
the Persian, just as they could against Macedon or the Gauls; all with equal
validity, if not success.90
However, Plataia’s role within the Persian War tradition worked on other
levels. I have also argued that the site itself influenced the ways in which
people viewed and employed it by providing a pre-existing ideological
environment, both conceptual and topographical. While this helped
develop the aims and significance of later events, it also restricted the ways
in which these events could be understood by providing a pre-determined
context into which the later event must conceptualise itself. I have argued
that this can be seen not only in the ideological nature and import of the
fourth- and third-century additions to the cult of Zeus Eleutherios, but
also in the physical integration of the Homonoia cult to Zeus Eleutherios
(being as they were theoi sumbo-moi ) and the Eleutheria into the existing
monuments. In a wider sense this is indicative of the memory of the
Persian Wars: a conceptual touchstone displaying the continued vitality of
the Persian War tradition, but similarly acting as a conceptual straitjacket
constricting and inhibiting the understanding of eleutheria just as it defines
and promotes it.
Acknowledgements
My sincere thanks go to Andrew Erskine and Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones who,
as editors, have read this chapter and improved it throughout and, as
supervisors, have shown the same generous care with my entire PhD.
Joseph Roisman and Anton Powell kindly read drafts of this chapter and
offered many useful insights. Versions of this chapter were presented at the
2009 Classical Association Conference in Glasgow and in Queen’s
University Belfast. My research was funded by the AHRC. All opinions
and errors remain my own.
Notes
1 Throughout this chapter, ‘homonoia’ and ‘eleutheria’ refer to concepts, but ‘Homonoia’
and ‘the Eleutheria’ refer to the cult of Homonoia and the Eleutheria Games at Plataia.
Unless indicated, all dates are BC.
2 Spyropoulos 1973 (editio princeps); Jones 1974; Roesch 1974; Étienne and Piérart
1975 (edition, photograph, and French translation); West 1977; Pouilloux 1978;
Buraselis 1982; Étienne 1985; Erskine 1990, 90–5; Schachter 1994, 125–44;
Thériault 1996a, 101–30; 1996b, 137–42; Austin 2006, no. 61 (English translation);
Stavrianopoulou 2002, 134–8; Jung 2006, 298–343.
3 Late 4th century: West 1977; cf. Austin 2006, no. 61. Mid-3rd century: Étienne and
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Piérart 1975; Étienne 1985; Erskine 1990, 90-5; Stavrianopoulou 2002, 136–7;
Chaniotis 2005, 228–30; Jung 2006, 321–9. Fence-sitters: Thériault 1996a, 115; 1996b,
141–2. Dreyer (1999, 254–5) suggests that the incentive lay with the Celtic invasion
of 279 and Athens’ role in defending Thermopylae.
4 See section 1.
5 For a similar approach see Jung 2006 who explores the continuing significance of
Plataea (and Marathon) from the 5th century BC until the 4th century AD. For the dating
of the Glaukon Decree, see below n. 72.
6 On the evidence for the ‘Hellenic’ (epigraphic and late 4th century) rather than
‘Lamian’ War (literary and derivative), see Ashton 1984; Lehmann 1988, 143–4, 148–9.
7 Just. Epit. 9.4.7; Diod. 16.87.3, 17.8.3–7; Paus. 9.1.8, 6.5; Arr. Anab. 1.7.1; cf. Plut.
Reg. imp. apoph. 177d; Errington 1990, 85; Green 1970, 80; Lane Fox 1974, 86. Thebes
remained in control of the Boiotian League (Arr. Anab. 1.7.11; Brunt 1976, 35 n. 6).
8 Kirsten 1950, col. 2312.
9 Fredricksmeyer 2000, 137–8. The context of the Olympic Games is important.
Because the synedrion met at the Panhellenic games it would have been sitting when
Alexander’s letter was read out. Thus, Alexander’s announcement would have been
connected with the synedrion’s earlier promise to rebuild Plataia’s walls.
10 Thespiae: Dio Chrys. Or. 37.42; Plin. HN 34.66. Orchomenos: Arr. Anab. 1.9.10.
Allies at Thebes: Arr. Anab. 1.8.8; Diod. 17.13.5; Just. Epit. 11.3.8; Plut. Alex. 11.5.
Destruction of Plataia, Thespiae, and Orchomenos: Xen. Hell. 6.3.1; Isoc. Plat.; Diod.
15.46.6, 51.3, 57.1, 79.6; Paus. 9.14.2; Buckler 1980, 22, 182–4. Hellenic War: below
section 2.
11 Flower 2000, 96–7; Poddighe 2009, 107–9. Seibert (1998, 5–26) cautions against
using ideologically loaded terms like crusade (Kreuzzug), national war (Nationalkrieg),
panhellenic ( panhellenisch), and war of revenge (Rachekrieg) as they can precondition
one’s analysis of events.
12 P. Wallace 1982. Raaflaub (2004, 58–65) analyses the development of eleutheria
after the Persian Wars.

13 Both revenge and eleutheria were emphasised by Philip (Diod. 16.89.2, 91.2) and
repeated by Alexander ( Just. Epit. 11.5.6; Diod. 17.24.1), see Flower 2000; Poddighe
2009, 105. The revenge motif appears frequently: Arr. Anab. 2.14, 3.18; Just. Epit.
11.12.5–6; Polyb. 3.6; Anth. Pal. 6.344; cf. Isoc. Paneg. 155, 183, 185. So too
eleutheria/autonomia: GHI 86b; SEG XIX 698; cf. I.Erythrai 31; Diod. 17.24.1; Arr.
Anab. 1.18.1–2; Theopompos FGrH 115 fr. 253; Plut. Adv. Col. 1126d; cf. Isoc. Paneg.
181, Phil. 124, Panath. 103, Epist. 9; Archid. 8-10. Polybius (3.6; analysis in Seibert 1998,
27–58) distinguishes three phases leading to war: cause (Xenophon and Agesilaos’
campaigns), pretext (war of revenge), and beginning (Alexander’s invasion). Brosius
(2003) argues that the enmity leading to war between Macedon and Persia was ‘created’
by Philip to keep Persia out of Greek affairs.
14 Fredricksmeyer 2000, 138; Poddighe 2009, 116.
15 Arr. Anab. 1.9.9–10. 3; Plut. Alex. 11.5; Just. Epit. 11.3.8–11.
16 Brunt 1976, 39 n. 1; Bosworth 1980, 88; 1988, 195; Yardley and Heckel 1997, 94.
Others contend that it was a League meeting: Wilcken 1967, 73–5; Hamilton 1969,
30–1; Green 1970, 145–7; Schachermeyer 1973, 117; Hammond and Walbank 1988,
63–6.
17 GHI 76, l. 21, 82, l. 4, 84a, ll. 14–5; Aeschin. In Ctes. 161.
166
18 In error, Justin transposes authority from the synedrion to its he-gemo-n (11.4.9:
interdictum regis).
19 Although Athens defied both the dogma and Alexander’s authority as he-gemo-n by
accepting landless Thebans (Paus. 9.23.5) and refusing to hand over her generals and
orators (Arr. Anab. 1.10.4–6; Bosworth 1980, 92–6), she was careful to obtain, through
Demades, Alexander’s acquiescence in both these matters (Diod. 17.15).
20 Diod. 17.14.3: ἐψηφίσαντο τὴν µὲν πόλιν κατασκάψαι͵ τοὺς δ΄ αἰχµαλώτους ἀποδόσθαι͵
τοὺς δὲ φυγάδας τῶν Θηβαίων ἀγωγίµους ὑπάρχειν ἐξ ἁπάσης τῆς Ἑλλάδος καὶ µηδένα τῶν
Ἑλλήνων ὑποδέχεσθαι Θηβαῖον. Translation adapted from Welles (1963). Justin (Epit.
11.3.8–11) preserves a similar account but mentions Thebes’ present support of Persia.
Droysen (1952/3, 94 with n. 23) sees the terms of destruction as perhaps based on the
terms of earlier Leagues, like the Second Athenian League (IG II 2 43, l. 51–61).
21 Arr. Anab. 1.16.6: παρὰ τὰ κοινῇ δόξαντα τοῖς Ἕλλησιν.
22 Paus 6.18.2–4: Λαµψακηνῶν τὰ βασιλέως τοῦ Περσῶν φρονησάντων; cf. Val. Max.
7.3 ext. 4; Bosworth 1980, 107–8.

23 Arr. Anab. 1.17.2: Ζελείτας δὲ ἀφῆκε τῆς αἰτίας͵ ὅτι πρὸς βίαν ἔγνω συστρατεῦσαι
τοῖς βαρβάροις; cf. Bosworth 1980, 127–8. Michel RIG 530 may preserve reference to
a democratic revolution in Zeleia, which could have influenced Alexander’s decision.
The inscription dates c.334/3 (Rhodes with Lewis 1997, 421) and mentions the politai
capturing the acropolis. 531 deals with the sale of ‘the lands of the exiles’ (presumably
pro-Persian) and, along with 530, preserves the democratic enactment formula, ἔδοξεν
τῶι δήµωι.
24 GHI 84b.
25 Chios: GHI 84a, ll. 10–3: καὶ εἶναι ἀγωγίµους κατὰ τὸ δόγµα τὸ τῶν Ἑλλήνων ‘and
shall be liable to seizure in accordance with the resolution of the Greeks.’ Eresos:
GHI 83 §iv, ll. 25-8: καὶ | [ὧ]ν κατέγνω φυγὴν φε[υ|γ]έτωσαµ µέν, ἀγώγιµο[ι] | δὲ µὴ
ἔστωσαν ‘and those whom he (Alexander) condemned to exile shall be exiled but shall
not be liable to seizure.’
26 Arr. Anab. 3.23.8: παρὰ τὰ δόγµατα τῶν Ἑλλήνων; cf. 24.4–5 with Flower 2000, 117.
27 Cf. Poddighe 2009, 107–9.
28 Bosworth 1988, 189–90.
29 Just. Epit. 11.3.8–11; Yardley and Heckel 1997, 95–6.
30 Lycurg. Leoc. 81; Diod. 11.29.3; GHI 88; cf. Theopompos FGrH 115 fr. 153. On
the Oath’s authenticity see Habicht 1961; Kreutz 2001; GHI 88; Krentz 2007. Kernel
of Truth: Burn 1962, 512-15; Siewert 1972, 63–75; Barron 1988, 604. Theopompos
considered it an Athenian fabrication designed to dupe the rest of Greece, cf.
Shrimpton 1991, 80–2; Pownall 2008, 120–1.
31 Medisers: Hdt. 7.132, 138.1, 145, 148; cf. Diod. 11.3.2; Brunt 1953, 136–8, 142–3.
Thebes: Hdt. 9.86-8; cf. Diod. 11.33.4

32 GHI 88, p. 445.
33 Arr. Anab. 1.9.7; Diod. 17.9.5, 14.2; Plut. Alex. 11.7–8; Just. Epit. 11.3.9; cf. Din.
1.19–20.
34 Bosworth 1988, 195.
35 Welles 1963, 143 n. 1; Tenedos and Mytilene joined Memnon in 333 on the terms
of the King’s Peace (Arr. Anab. 2.1.1–4, 2.2–3).

36 Heraklides Kretikos 1.11 (Austin 2006, no. 101), quoting Poseidippos of
Kassandreia. The Glaukon decree (c.262–245) confirms that games were established
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by the mid 3rd century. For the Eleutheria, see Robert 1969; Pritchett 1979, 154–6,
178–83; Robertson 1986; Schachter 1994, 132–43; Boedeker 1998, 240–2; Chaniotis
2005, 228–30; Jung 2006, 331–40.
37 Vanderpool 1969; Amandry 1971, 612–26; Boedeker 1998, 240–2; cf. Jung 2006,
332–3 with n. 122.

38 For Plataians being unable to celebrate their festivals because of exile, see
Pausanias 9.13.4.
39 Étienne and Piérart 1975, 52–3.
40 Étienne and Piérart 1975, 68; Schachter 1994, 125-32; Stavrianopoulou 2002,
136 with n. 54. Dogmata: see above (Philip and Alexander); Schmitt, SdA 446, l. 79;
CID IV 11 (Demetrios). Synedrion: see above (Philip and Alexander); Schmitt, SdA 446
passim; CID IV 11; Agora XVI 122; Plut. Demetr. 25.3 (Demetrios). Robertson (1986,
94 n. 25) suggests that the Eleutheria was founded by Athens and the Boiotian League
sometime after 287. Jung (2006, 331–40) suggests the Hellenic War (below section 2).
41 Plut. Cam. 19, De glor. Ath. 349f; cf. Pritchett 1957, 277. Graindor (1922) proposed
that a scribal error is responsible for Plutarch’s date of Boedromion 4th in his Aristides
(19.7). Pritchett (1985, 178–9 n. 90) discusses the difficulties in determining an
accurate Julian date for the battle.
42 Arr. Anab. 1.10.2; Plut. Alex. 13.1; cf. Cam. 19.10; Bosworth 1980, 92; 1988, 33;
Yardley and Heckel 1997, 101–2.

43 He next appears at Dion for the Olympic Games (Arr. Anab. 11.1–2 with
Bosworth 1980, 96–97; Diod. 17.16). Although precise dates are difficult, the games
took place on the first days of the Macedonian month Dios, corresponding roughly
with the Attic month Pyanepsion. Alexander, therefore, spent the remainder of
Boedromion in Boiotia and on the march to Dion.
44 The Romance also says that Alexander avenged Plataia (ἤδη δὲ αὑτῷ ἐξεδίκησε
Πλαταίας).
45 Schachter 1994, 136, 141.
46 For an analysis of Plutarch’s account see Jung 2006, 271–81. Robertson (1986,
92–3) distinguishes two separate commemorations: the synedrion meeting and Plataian
sacrifice on Boedromion 3rd and the Plataian sacrifice to the Greek dead and Zeus
and Hermes Chthonios on Maimakterion 16th. These distinct events were conflated
by Pritchett (1979, 155–6, 178–9).
47 Robertson 1986, 88–93.
48 Incidental evidence suggests that this should be the case. Both Plutarch (Arist. 21.1)
and the Glaukon decree connect the Eleutheria with the synedrion and the sacrifice to
Zeus Eleutherios. In general, Hellenic synedria met during Panhellenic festivals (Philip
and Alexander: Curt. 4.5.11–12; Diod. 17.48.6; cf. Brunt 1976, 213 n. 2; Aeschin. In
Ctes. 254; Hammond and Griffith 1979, 634–5. Demetrios: Schmitt, SdA 446, l. 66–7,
72-3; CID IV 11; Plut. Demetr. 25.3). The meeting of the synedrion and the sacrifice to
Zeus Eleutherios would have marked the games’ climax (Pritchett 1979, 155–6).
49 Plut. Arist. 19 with n. 41 above; Pritchett 1957, 277.
50 I thank Prof. Erskine for bringing these parallels to my attention. Victories and
Successes: Arr. Anab. 2.5.8, 24.6, 3.6.1 (cf. Curt. 4.8.16), 16.9, 4.4.1, 5.8.3, 20.1, 6.28.3,
7.14.1; Indica 36.3, 42.6, 42.8; Diod. 17.46.6, 72.1; ISE 113; Curt. 3.7.2-5; Plut. Alex.
29.1, 67.4. New Foundations: Arr. Anab. 3.5.2, 5.20.1. Preludes: Arr. Anab. 1.11.1,
3.25.1, 5.8.3, 29.1–2; Indica 18.11–2, 21.2, 36.9; Diod. 17.16.3–4. See also, Arr. Anab.
168
1.18.2, 4.4.1, 7.14.10, 23.5; Plut. Alex. 4.5-6, 72.1; Curt. 6.2.1–5. Stavrianopoulou (2002,
136) places the impetus with Philip or Alexander.
51 Miller 1990, 22–3.
52 Bibliography in n. 2. The joint cult is unattested in literary sources. Plutarch,
however, mentions βωµοὶ παρὰ τοῖς θεοῖς (de Herod. malig. 43) even though the gods
share one altar in the Glaukon decree. Diodorus (11.29.2) and Aelius Aristeides
(13.148) speak of homonoia in connection with Zeus Eleutherios and Plataia, although
in the latter case this is probably a literary topos, see n. 56 below.
53 Thuc. 2.71.2; Plut. Arist. 19.7–20.4; Anth. Pal. 6.50 (Simonides’ dedicatory
epigram). Strabo 9.2.31 refers to the Greeks consecrating a temple ( ἱερόν). The
Glaukon decree reveals that a temple ( ἱερόν) to Zeus Eleutherios stood at Plataia by
the mid-3rd century, but was clearly distinct from the altar (βωµός). Schachter (1994,
125–32, 134–5) argues that the altar and cult of Zeus Eleutherios were founded under
Macedonian patronage in the late 4th century and that Pausanias’ sacrifice in 479 was
simply a one-off. Jung (2002, 265–7) feels that there is not enough evidence to decide
whether or not a formalised cult and altar were founded in 479. Cf. n. 62 below.
54 Above n. 3. The principal pieces of 3rd century evidence are the Chremonides
decree (IG II 2 686/7, l. 31-2: κοινῆς ὁµονοίας γενοµ|ένης τοῖς Ἕλλησι) and a fragment
of Alexis’ Hypobolimaios (Ath. 11.502b; Arnott 1996, 686-91; cf. West 1977, 315). One
could add the cult of Homonoia in Cilician Nagidos, a town with strong Ptolemaic
connections (SEG XXXIX 1426, l. 36–8; Habicht 2006, 253).
55 West 1977.
56 Gorgias: Philostr. VS 1.493; Plut. Con. prae. 144b–c. Lysias: 33.6; Dion. Hal. Lys.
28–29. Isocrates is incessant: Paneg. 3 (τε τοῦ πολέµου τοῦ πρὸς τοὺς βαρβάρους καὶ τῆς
ὁµονοίας τῆς πρὸς ἡµᾶς αὐτοὺς); Antid. 77 (τοὺς Ἕλληνας ἐπί τε τὴν τῶν βαρβάρων στρατείαν
παρακαλοῦντος καὶ περὶ τῆς πρὸς ἀλλήλους ὁµονοίας συµβουλεύοντος); Phil. 141; Panath.
13 (παρακαλούντων τοὺς Ἕλληνας ἐπί τε τὴν ὁµόνοιαν τὴν πρὸς ἀλλήλους καὶ τὴν
στρατείαν τὴν ἐπὶ τοὺς βαρβάρους), 42; Epist. 3.2 (εἰς ὁµόνοιαν καταστῆσαι τοὺς Ἕλληνας).
57 Evidence in Thériault 1996a. Roy (2008) now dates the Eleian inscription from
Olympia concerning homonoia to c.350 (Ϝαλείων | περὶ ὀµο|νοίαρ).

58 Bosworth 1988, 189–90.
59 Erskine 1990, 93 (on their mid-3rd century association). The League aided inter-
polis stability by outlawing the removal of the government in place at the time of a
polis’ entry to the League. Naturally, this was used to support pro-Macedonian regimes,
see [Dem.] 17 passim; Polyb. 18.14.3; Poddighe 2004; 2009, 113.
60 Altar: Simonides in Anth. Pal. 6.50; Plut. Arist. 19; Schachter 1994, 125–32, 134–5.
Trophy: Plato Menex. 245a; Isoc. Plat. 59; Eudoxos fr. 311 (Lasserre); Schachter 1994,
138–43. Tombs: Hdt. 9.85; Thuc. 3.58.4; Isoc. Plat. 60–61; Eudoxos fr. 311; Schachter
1994, 141–2; Flower and Marincola 2002, 254–6; Bremmer 2006.
61 Spyropoulos 1973.
62 Robert 1969; cf. 1948; Pritchett 1979, 182. If the altar was built in the late 4th
century, contemporary with the foundation of the Eleutheria and perhaps the cult of
Homonoia of the Greeks, as Schachter (1994, 125–32, 134–5) suggests, then the
integration of the games into the cultic landscape was both constructive and adaptive.
It constructed part of the landscape itself by consecrating an altar and dedicating a
Simonidean epigram; similarly it adapted the history by establishing both features
anachronistically within a Persian War topography.
169
Shane Wallace
63 Schmitt 1992, 76. Plutarch (Phoc. 23.4, 24.2–3) also mentions a battle against the
Boiotians. It would be fascinating to know how Leosthenes’ trophy integrated itself
into the Plataian landscape, particularly the Persian War monuments. Ma (2008), on
Chaeronea, is an excellent analysis of ideology through topography.
64 Although most scholars follow Diodorus’ account (Oikonomides 1982;
Worthington 1984; 1987; Schmitt 1992, 74–6), some favour Hyperides’ narrative
(Williams 1982, 40–1; Habicht 1997, 38). Hyperides is constantly trying to parallel
the Hellenic War with the Persian Wars. Therefore, his depiction of Leosthenes
leading Athenian troops from Athens, through Boiotia, and past Thermopylae,
though historically false, is designed to simulate the repulse of Mardonios’ troops
in 479.
65 S. Wallace, forthcoming section 1.
66 See n. 30.
67 Epit. 7.9–13: ‘Eώρων γὰ[ρ τὴν µὲν π]όλιν τῶν Θηβαίων οἰκτ[ρῶς ἠφα]νισµένην ἐξ
ἀνθρώπων͵ [τὴν δὲ ἀ]κρόπολιν αὐτῆς φρουρου[µένην] ὑπὸ τῶν Μακεδόνων͵ τὰ δὲ σώµατα

τῶν ἐνοικούντων ἐξηνδραποδισµένα͵ τὴν δὲ χώραν ἄλλους διανεµοµένους. Trans. J. O.
Burtt, Loeb Classical Library.
68 I thank Prof. Roisman for his comments here.
69 Epit. 5.14-20: τοὺς πρώτους ἀντιταξαµένους τῆι τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἐλευθερίαι. Trans.
Burtt. ‘First’, as in the first battle.

70 After his victory over the Greek forces at the battle of Krannon, Antipater
camped on Kadmeia, further reinforcing the image of Boiotian loyalty to Macedon

(Plut. Phoc. 26.3, 27.1).
71 Jung (2006, 331–40) argued that Athens reorganised the Eleutheria and
established the synedrion over it during the Hellenic War. Although there is no evidence
for this, it is not impossible. Jung does not mention it, but an allied synedrion was
based around Leosthenes and the army (IG II2 467; ISE 10 with Oliver 2009) and may
have been at Plataia in Autumn 323.
72 Étienne and Piérart 1975; Étienne 1985. Buraselis 1982, Stavrianopoulou 2002,
134–8, and Jung 2006, 302–6 plausibly argue for a date c.251–245, but an earlier one
cannot be discounted.
73 Jung 2006, 313–15. On the dating of the Chremonidean War see Osborne 2004;
Oliver 2007, 127–31. O’Neil 2008 provides a thorough overview of the evidence for
the Chremonidean War. One should add, however, the brief note of an unpublished
inscription from Rhamnous dating to 267/6 (Petrakos 2003 [2004], 15–16).
74 Τὸν | ἀγῶνα ὃν τιθέασιν οἱ Ἕλληνες ἐπὶ | τοῖς ἀνδράσιν τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς καὶ ἀγω|νισαµένοις
πρὸς τοὺς βαρβάρους | ὑπὲρ τῆς τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἐλευθερίας (l. 20–4). Trans. Austin 2006,
no. 63.
75 Editions: Syll.3 434/5; Schmitt, SdA 476. English translation: Austin 2006, no.
61. Analysis: Heinen 1972, 117-42. A copy of the alliance between Sparta and Ptolemy
Philadelphos has recently come to light during works on the island of Schoinoussa. We
await publication of this very important document. I thank Prof. Kostas Buraselis for
bringing this to my attention.
76 LGPN 2 s.v. Γλαυκών (12); Pros. Ptol. VI 14596; Habicht 1970, 32 n. 20; Pouilloux
1978.
77 Ambassador: ISE 53; IG II2 686/7, l. 24, 39. Synedros: Habicht 1997, 144. General:
SEG XXV 186. Statue: Syll.3 462 with Criscuolo 2003, 320–2. Buraselis (1982, 153–6;
170
SEG XXXII 415) identified the king as Ptolemy Euergetes and dated the statue
posthumously, cf. Pouilloux 1978, 379; Jung 2006, 303.
78 IG II2 686/7, l. 16–35. Commanded by Patroklos (Paus. 1.1.1, 3.6.4–6; I.Rhamnous
3, l. 23–7), Ptolemaic forces established military bases throughout Attica, sometimes

close to Athens. Oliver (2007, 138–59, esp. 153–8) and O’Neil (2008, 74–5) overview
the archaeological evidence.
79 Teles On Exile 23. Chremonides served as a naval captain in the defeat by
Rhodes, possibly in 258 (Polyaenus, Strat. 5.18; Huss 2001, 283), while Glaukon
became eponymous priest of Alexander and the brother and sister deities in 255/4
(P. Cairo Zenon II 59173; Ijsewijn 1961, 70-71 no. 31; Fraser 1972, 222). Their sister,
Pheidostrate, was priestess of Aglauros and is known from IG II2 3458–9, cf. Lambert
1999, 115 no. XX.
80 Jung 2006, 341–3. O’Neil (2008, 72–3) argues that the Glaukon decree shows
that Athens was active beyond her borders during the war.
81 Stavrianopoulou 2002; SEG LII 447; Jung 2006, 304-11, 315-19. The honours are
announced [ἐν τῶι] ἀγῶνι ὃν τίθενσι οἱ Ἕλλανες.

82 The Themistokles decree of Troizen may be of significance here (SEG XXII
274). Inscribed in the early to mid-third century, it purports to be a copy of the

mobilisation decree of Themistokles from 481/0. Its promotion of Atheno-Spartan
unity, eleutheria, and the Persian Wars may be influenced by the rhetoric of the
Chremonidean War, see Mattingly 1981. Robertson 1982 sees the focus on Athenian
naval power defending eleutheria as an analogy for the Ptolemaic fleet under Patroklos.
83 Above n. 74. Étienne and Piérart 1975, 54: ‘sur la tombe des héros morts en
combattant contra les barbares pour la liberté des Grecs.’ For the epitaphic sense of
ἐπὶ + dative, see Étienne and Piérart 1975, 55. A parallel appears in a late 2nd century
Athenian ἀγὼν ἐπιτάφιος hoplite race (IG II2 1006, l. 22).
84 All we know of the integration of the Eleutheria into the memorial topography
is that the hoplite race took place between the trophy, some 15 stades from the city, and
the altar of Zeus Eleutherios, which was apparently not far (Paus. 9.2.5: οὐ πόρρω δὲ
ἀπό) from the common tomb of the Greeks.
85 Hdt 9.85; Paus. 9.2.5; Schachter 1994, 141–2; Flower and Marincola 2002, 254–6;
Bremmer 2006. The nature of the sacrifices to the dead also changed (Schachter 1994,
126 n. 8).
86 I thank Dr. Julia Shear for raising this point with me. Heroes: Simonides in Diod.
11.11.6; Isoc. Paneg. 82; Eudoxos fr. 311; Marcus Antonios Polemon Declamationes
1.5–6; Plut. Arist. 18.2, 19.4–5, Cim. 13.2; cf. Them. 7.4. Civic Ideal: Loraux 1986,
99–118. In 427 Athens naturalised the surviving Plataians (Kapparis 1995).
87 The development was also conceptual. From at least the late 2nd century onwards,
a dialogos between Athens and Sparta alone decided which state was to lead the
procession at the Eleutheria (Robertson, 1986).
88 West 1977; above section 1.
89 Above n. 56.
90 Both Étienne (1985, 260) and Thériault (1996b, 141–2) argued that Macedon
could not have employed the ‘mythe platéen’ because it would have highlighted their
own absence in 479 (cf. Brosius 2003, 230) and was only later used by the Greeks in
the mid-3rd century. This, I hope to have shown, is to fundamentally constrain the
importance and malleability of the ‘mythe platéen.’
171
Shane Wallace
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176
PART IV
THE COURT
BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY AND THE COURT:

THE LIFE OF PERSAIOS OF KITION
Andrew Erskine
1. A Hellenistic man
Sometime in the 270s the Stoic philosopher Persaios of Kition headed
north from Athens to the Macedonian court at Pella.1 The same journey
had been made a hundred and thirty or so years previously by the Athenian
tragedian Euripides, who is reported to have spent time at the court of the
Macedonian king Archelaos.2 But whereas Euripides was leaving an
imperial city to travel to the margins of the Greek world, Persaios was
going to one of its centres of power. In Persaios’ day intellectuals were as
likely to be found at the royal courts as in the meeting places of the polis.
These courts and their kings were one of the distinctive features of the
Hellenistic age, perhaps even the distinctive feature as Robin Lane Fox
suggests in the opening chapter of this volume.
Nor did this escape contemporary thinkers. Philosophers in particular
took note of the changes that had taken place in the political landscape
and of the power that was now held by kings. As a result the early
Hellenistic period saw a glut of kingship treatises produced by the various
philosophical schools, usually entitled On Kingship (Περὶ βασιλείας) and all
now lost. Treatises are attributed to the Peripatetics Theophrastus and
Straton, to the Stoics Kleanthes, Persaios himself and Sphairos and to the
father of Epicureanism Epicurus. Their approaches may have been very
different but they all shared an awareness that this was a new and
significant phenomenon and one that needed to be addressed. While some
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speculated about the circumstances in which it would be appropriate for a

philosopher to join a king’s court, Epicurus advised that living with a king
was something best avoided. In this he seems to have disapproved of
intellectuals in general at contemporary Hellenistic courts, literary scholars
as well as philosophers; certainly he thought that royal symposia were the
place for military anecdotes rather than discussion of literary and poetic
problems.3
Modern scholarly attention usually focuses on the intellectual culture of
the Alexandrian court but in this chapter I want to turn to the Macedonian
court and explore it through the experience of one man, the philosopher
Persaios. He is an enigmatic figure in Hellenistic history and philosophy.
He was a witness to great men and transforming events, yet he himself is
hard to recover. In Athens he was a pupil of one of the most influential of
Hellenistic philosophers, Zeno of Kition, the founder of Stoicism. Later he
became part of the court of the Macedonian king Antigonos Gonatas and
so was able to experience Hellenistic monarchy from its centre. His
association with Antigonos brought him to the Peloponnese just as the
rise of federal states was challenging Macedonian hegemony on the Greek
mainland. Thus he was at (and possibly in charge of ) the Acrocorinth when
it was captured by a revitalised Achaian League under Aratos of Sikyon.
The third century could be studied through his life if we did but know
more about it.4
This, however, is the problem. Persaios is a man about whom nothing
ever seems to be certain. The sources do not even agree on his place of
origin or his status. He was, we are told, Persaios of Kition, son of
Demetrios, but such a respectable background was called into question
early on by those who said that he had been a slave. In one version he was
even said to have been presented by Antigonos to Zeno.5 His death too
was no clearer than his birth. He died, according to Pausanias, at the fall of
the Acrocorinth in 243, but, according to Plutarch in his life of Aratos, he
went on to teach philosophy and muse on his unsuccessful defence of the
citadel. Philodemus in what survives of his history of the Stoics records
elements of both versions, a heroic death in the face of overwhelming
numbers and a rather more ignominious flight.6 Without his role at the
Macedonian court we would know almost nothing about Persaios but with
that role we are not sure what we know. Persaios comes across as a character
in other people’s lives rather than the central character in his own. The real
Persaios may now be beyond reach but the stories themselves reveal
something of the situation of the philosopher at the court of a king.
The present chapter is an examination of the tension that this position
created. Stories repeatedly highlight the inconsistency between Persaios’
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Between philosophy and the court: The life of Persaios of Kition
choice of the court life and his adherence to Stoicism. He appears as a man
stranded uncomfortably between the two, a limbo status perhaps symbolised
in the story that he was a gift to Zeno from King Antigonos, a man who
thus owed his allegiance to both philosophy and the court. Yet the claim
put forward by the Epicurean Philodemus that Persaios chose a court life
in preference to a philosophic one is too stark;7 it is likely to be underpinned
by the Epicurean belief that the court and philosophy were fundamentally
incompatible. Persaios did the two things that we know Epicurus objected
to: he accompanied a king and he was a participant in royal symposia.
Persaios, however, was more complicated than this simplified picture
suggests. He was well aware of the challenge that the philosopher at court
faced and of his own difficulties in balancing these two modes of life. The
next two sections will consider each of these in turn, first Persaios as a
philosopher and then his place at the court of Antigonos. Finally, in Section
Four, I look at the tension between these roles for a man whom W. W.
Tarn described as wanting to be ‘all things to all men’.8
Persaios is in many ways a very Hellenistic man. He is leading a life that
it is shaped by the changes that Alexander and the successors have brought
about. It is striking how mobile he is, moving from his home in Cyprus,
studying in Athens, staying at the court in Macedon, being in the king’s
service in the Peloponnese. This is a life largely lived beyond the confines
of the polis, even if replacing them with the rather different limitations of
the court. Nor is this experience unique to him.
2. Persaios the philosopher

Persaios was taught his philosophy in Athens by Zeno. Here he would
have been among those gathered around Zeno in the Stoa Poikile or
Painted Stoa just off the agora in the heart of Athens. He would have
observed the curious contradiction in Zeno, at once a philosopher who
chose to address his adherents in a central and public location within the
city, yet at the same time one who was said to have discouraged bystanders
by asking them for money.9 The relationship between Zeno and Persaios
seems to have gone beyond that of teacher and student. Not only were
both, according to the most plausible tradition from Kition in Cyprus, but
both also shared a house together in Athens. Furthermore Persaios is
described as a friend (γνώριµος) and a pupil of whom he was especially
fond.10 Perhaps for this reason Persaios is associated with no other
philosophical teacher in contrast to some of his contemporaries who seem
to have experimented with different teachers.
Little survives of Persaios’ philosophical writings but what evidence
there is suggests a man who did the kind of things a philosopher should.
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A good number of works are ascribed to him. Among them is a work on

the Spartan constitution, an interest he shared with his Stoic contemporary
Sphairos of Borysthenes. About his seven books attacking Plato’s Laws
only the title and the number of books are known but this information
alone implies a substantial treatise. His kingship treatise has already been
noted above, although again nothing is known of it but the title, On
Kingship.11 Yet his strictly philosophical works were rarely cited in antiquity,
a neglect which was in marked contrast to the treatment afforded his racier
Symposium Memoirs, which I consider in greater detail in section 4 below.
An exception to this is his On the Gods, which appears to have offered some
form of rationalising anthropocentric view of the gods, one influenced by
the arguments of the fifth-century philosopher Prodikos of Keos. For such
a point of view Persaios was cited first by Philodemus in his On Piety and
subsequently by Cicero and Minucius Felix, most likely as a result of a
reading of Philodemus rather than any direct contact with Persaios’ original
text.12 This general silence about Persaios’ more philosophical writings
suggests that unlike, for example, his contemporary Ariston of Chios his
philosophy did not tend to be distinctive and instead he stayed quite close
to the views of his teacher.13
As a philosopher Persaios not only wrote, he also taught. Among his
pupils in Athens was said to have been Aratus of Soloi, the poet and author
of the Phaenomena, who would also spend time at the court of Antigonos.
A Macedonian connection may lie behind the Amphipolitan background
of another of his pupils, Hermagoras, about whom nothing is known
beyond his Suda entry. Hermagoras was serious enough about philosophy,
although the titles attributed to him might lead one to think that he was not
over-serious. They include an attack on the Academy entitled On Sophistry,
a Dog-hater (Μισοκύων), which presumably expressed his antagonism to the
Cynics, and a puzzlingly entitled work, Ἔκχυτον, to be translated perhaps as
Outpourings, which the Suda notes is concerned with egg-divining. Persaios
no doubt had other pupils, although like his works their names have not
survived with the exception of Antigonos Gonatas’ son Halkyoneus whom
he is reported to have tutored.14
Persaios comes across, therefore, as a credible if not especially
impressive philosopher, but one very much in the shadow of his teacher
Zeno. In Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of the Philosophers, in contrast to his
contemporaries, Ariston, Kleanthes, Herillos and Sphairos, all pupils of
Zeno, he does not merit a life of his own. Instead he and his publications
are subsumed into the ‘Life of Zeno’ where not even his suspected end on
the Acrocorinth can earn him one of Diogenes’ famous light verses on the
deaths of his subjects.15
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3. Persaios at court
Explanations for Persaios’ arrival at the Antigonid court are, as one might
expect, various. According to one account he was a substitute for Zeno
who had declined an invitation from Antigonos and so sent his pupil
instead, according to another he himself was invited directly.16 That he
should have chosen to spend time with Antigonos at all may have been a
consequence of Stoic thinking about political action. Chrysippos of Soloi,
the head of the Stoa later in the third century, in contrast to Epicurus is
known to have approved of the wise man advising a king and living with
him, and even accompanying him on campaign, although the best situation
would be for the wise man himself to be king. If he did live with a king,
then it would be preferable for the king to be one ‘who demonstrated a
good disposition and readiness to learn’.17 A qualification, however, is
necessary; the wise man was an ideal to be aspired to, a role model, and no
Stoic claimed to be such a person.18 But even without being wise men
Stoics could take part in the affairs of the state if it was appropriate, so
philosophical arguments could have been adduced to support Persaios’
presence at the Macedonian court. W. W. Tarn even goes so far as to
describe Persaios as Antigonos’ ‘philosophic director’, albeit a rather
unsatisfactory one.19 Nevertheless, Persaios was not the only person to
accept such invitations and its appeal may have derived not so much from
the opportunity of putting philosophy into practice as the allure of the
royal court.
Antigonid power and patronage brought many intellectuals and literary
figures to Macedon. Apart from Persaios philosophers included the cynic-
inspired Bion of Borysthenes and Menedemos of Eretria who had set up
his own school in his home town on Euboea before exile had forced him
to Macedon; to both men we will return later in this section. Of the several
Lives that survive of the poet Aratus the third lists a number of literary
figures who were present at the court of Antigonos. In addition to Aratus
himself whose Phaenomena was said to have been written at the request of
Antigonos, there were others, now relatively obscure, such as Alexander of
Pleuron, tragedian and poet, and Antagoras of Rhodes.20 Antagoras has
come down in tradition not only as the author of an epic Thebais but also
as the subject of a cooking anecdote, recorded, as might be expected, by
Athenaeus. When Antigonos finds Antagoras cooking conger eels he asks
him whether Homer would ever have written the Iliad celebrating
Agamemnon if he had spent all his time cooking conger eels. Antagoras
replied that Agamemnon would never have done his famous deeds if he
had spent his time nosing around to see who was cooking conger eels in
his camp.21 The story adds an extra dimension to our understanding of
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these writers and intellectuals at court. We can observe here, albeit in an

anecdote, a degree of informality and intimacy in the relationship between
king and poet but also something of the king’s aspirations in acting as
patron.
Studies of Hellenistic courts have carefully plotted all the different
grades, positions and titles and no doubt there were many permutations,
although at this early stage they had not reached the complexity of the late
Hellenistic period. What counted most, however, was proximity to the king
or, if that was not possible, proximity to someone close to the king. The
informal advisers who surrounded the king were known as his ‘friends’ or
‘philoi ’.22 It is not certain whether Persaios was part of this group, but
sources make clear that he was close to the king and an influential figure
at court; he is referred to as an hetairos of the king and several anecdotes
suggest a considerable degree of familiarity.23 His influence with the king
was observed by others. Timon of Phlios, author of the Silloi, three volumes
of verse making fun of a wide range of philosophers, attacked Ariston of
Chios, fairly or unfairly, for fawning round Persaios because he was so
impressed by the latter’s closeness to Antigonos.24 Moreover Persaios was
eventually to be entrusted with the Acrocorinth, a fortress crucial to the
maintenance of Macedonian power in the Peloponnese. The nature of his
position here is controversial. He is more likely to have been some form
of civilian governor than a military commander; indeed Plutarch refers to
him as archo-n, while both he and Polyaenus report that a certain Archelaos
was general at the fall of the Acrocorinth.25 Whatever Persaios’ exact status
here he was clearly important enough in the court to be given a position of
some authority. The appointment of the historian Hieronymos of Kardia
as governor of Boeotia by Antigonos’ father, Demetrios Poliorketes, might
seem comparable but Hieronymos did have a fair degree of military
experience.26
The presence of literary figures and intellectuals at court was a feature
not only of Macedon but also of the other Greek kingdoms of the
Hellenistic world.27 In Alexandria the Ptolemies made determined efforts
to attract scholars and writers and established the Museum and Library
as institutions that would give continuity and permanency to their
endeavours.28 Here the future head of the Peripatetic school, Straton of
Lampsakos, acted as tutor to the young Ptolemy II Philadelphos, and poets
such as Callimachus of Cyrene and Apollonius Rhodius flourished.29 Later
in the third century the Stoic Sphairos also spent time at the Ptolemaic
court, most probably two visits, the first under Ptolemy III Euergetes and
again under his successor.30 The Athenian comic poet Philippides was
numbered among the friends of Lysimachos and his standing with the king
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was such that he was able to secure many favours for his home city. The
relationship between the two men worked in both directions; in Athens
Philippides is known to have criticised the divine honours voted by the
city to Demetrios Poliorketes, the rival of Lysimachos. In 283/82 the
Athenians honoured Philippides with a bronze statue in the theatre, but as
the decree proposing the honours makes clear this decision was motivated
as much by his influence with the king as by any of his achievements as a
dramatist.31 Whether Persaios ever used his position in a similar way to
confer benefits on cities associated with himself, such as Kition or Athens,
is not known. There is, however, anecdotal evidence for a bronze statue of
Persaios erected somewhere during his lifetime, an honour which is most
likely to be a consequence of his connection with Antigonos.32
Whatever power and influence an individual might gain through their
proximity to the king, status in a Hellenistic court was fragile. Once in
Macedon Persaios was faced with and party to all the competition and
intrigues that have been features of so many courts, ancient and more
recent.33 The predicament of someone at a Hellenistic court is well captured
by Polybius, writing of Macedon under Philip V later in the third century:
So brief a space of time suffices to exalt and abase men all over the world
and especially those in the courts of kings, for those are in truth exactly like
counters on a reckoning board. For these at the will of the reckoner are now
worth a copper and now worth a talent, and courtiers at the nod of the king
are at one moment universally envied and at the next universally pitied.34
For intellectuals at court it was no different as each competed for the

attention and favour of the king, a pastime already well underway at the
court of Alexander where the philosopher Anaxarchos and the historian
Kallisthenes vied with one another.35 Few stood above this and to do so
was to win praise. It was a sign of the excellent character of Philippides
that he was free from the intrigue that was such a feature of court life, or
so at least reports Plutarch: ‘he caused no trouble and was not infected
with the meddlesomeness of the court’.36
In the Antigonid court three philosophers stand out for their rivalry and
bitchiness as they seek to promote themselves in the eyes of the king and
do down their opponents: Persaios of Kition, Bion of Borysthenes and
Menedemos of Eretria.37 A second Stoic, Philonides of Thebes, is said to
have accompanied Persaios to Macedon but very little is known of him
except that he too joined in the mutual character assassination. Both these
Stoics seem to have ganged up on Bion when he arrived at the Macedonian
court and made disparaging remarks to Antigonos about the newcomer’s
birth and background.38 Perhaps it was in response that Bion told a joke
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about the statue of Persaios mentioned above, a joke which is in fact our
only reason for believing that a statue of Persaios existed at all. Bion said
that he had seen a statue of Persaios inscribed ‘Περσαῖον Ζήνωνος Κιτιᾶ’,
most plausibly translated as ‘Persaios of Kition, pupil of Zeno’, but, joked
Bion, this was an engraver’s error and it should have read ‘Περσαῖον Ζήνωνος
οἰκετιᾶ’, ‘Persaios, slave of Zeno’.39 This joke may be the origin of the story
that Persaios had been a slave of Zeno, but whatever the origin of that
story it is apparent that both Persaios and Bion accused each other of low
birth. This enclosed world of gossip and philosophical malice might be a
suitable intellectual context for the anti-Cynic writings of Persaios’
Amphipolitan pupil Hermagoras, a text so vividly entitled Dog-hater,
another hit at Bion perhaps.40
More vicious appears to have been the conflict between Persaios and
another philosophical rival at the court, Menedemos of Eretria, in which
Persaios went to even greater lengths to protect his position. Damning was
Menedemos’ subsequent verdict on Persaios, delivered, as so often was
the case, at a Macedonian drinking party and providing confirmation of
Epicurus’ belief that it was best to keep intellectuals away from such places.
Of Persaios he said, ‘Philosopher he may well be, but he is the worst of
men who live or have ever lived’. The root of this quarrel is to be found in
the two men’s relations with Antigonos. When it looked as if Antigonos
was prepared to restore democracy for the Eretrians as a favour to
Menedemos, Persaios interceded with the king and prevented it.41 Whatever
the truth of the story, it rests on a perception of Persaios as a man of great
influence with the king who was prepared to assert himself in the face of
others he perceived to be his rivals. This in-fighting was a product of a
court culture in which the rewards in terms of wealth and influence were
immense.42 The quantity of alcohol drunk at the Macedonian court probably
did not help to calm tempers either.43
4. Between philosophy and the court

Wealth and reputation may have been integral elements of court life, keenly
fought over by the participants, and accusations of low birth may have
offered a satisfactory way of demeaning others in front of the court and
more particularly in front of the king. But in Stoic theory none of these
things, wealth, reputation, birth, good looks or even life itself, were of
significance. Only the morally good contributed to happiness (εὐδαιµονία),
everything else was treated as having no bearing on it, a category that Stoics
called ‘the indifferents’ (τὰ ἀδιάφορα). Wealth, fame, health and so on may
have been useful but they had no value in themselves.44 The Stoic wise
man, knowing all this and living his life accordingly, would have been a
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rather detached figure in a Hellenistic court, but he is essentially a

philosophical construct, unlikely to be found in reality.45 Persaios may have
been a philosopher but he was no wise man and his life comes to represent
the tension between the temptations of the court, such as wealth, influence
and sex on the one hand, and philosophy and a rather more ascetic and
restrained way of living on the other. Persaios falls halfway between the
two, adequately fitted neither for the court nor the philosophic life, and
the stories that circulated about him reflected this.
Tales of court life are full of jokes played and told, wisecracks and
repartees, which may be more a consequence of a public appetite for such
stories than any predilection on the part of kings and their associates.
Nonetheless, there is an illuminating story about Persaios, told in brief by
Diogenes Laertius and with extensive rhetorical flourishes by the late
Roman philosopher and orator Themistius. In order to test Persaios’ Stoic
beliefs Antigonos Gonatas played an elaborate joke on the philosopher.
He arranged for messengers to arrive at the court and to report among
other things that Persaios’ estates had been devastated by the enemy.
Themistius in his version places these events in Cyprus and includes the
enslavement of Persaios’ wife and murder of his son, thus making the
whole ruse that much more complex and emotionally charged. It is
Persaios’ reaction that is important. According to Diogenes Laertius, his
face revealed his dismay and Antigonos, his point proved, asked ‘do you see
that wealth is not something indifferent?’ The rhetorical Themistius opts
for a more dramatic rendering of the impact on Persaios, ‘Zeno was gone,
Kleanthes gone’.46 The testing of philosophers in this way was not
uncommon, at least in this anecdotal form. Ptolemy IV Philopator,
challenging Stoic ideas on knowledge and sense perception, sought to
confuse Sphairos with some artificial pomegranates made of wax; again
this is in a court context but this time it is the Ptolemaic court. Persaios
himself pulled a similar trick on his colleague Ariston by using a pair of
identical twins, one to deposit some money with Ariston, the other to
reclaim it.47 Sopater of Paphos in his play the Galatians took this testing of
Stoics to a satirical extreme by threatening to smoke three over a fire to see
if any of them complained of the roasting they were getting.48 Antigonos’
practical joke on Persaios, however, seems different to these examples
because it is not merely a Stoic theory that is called into question but
Persaios himself. He becomes a man caught between a philosophical ideal
and the reality of his life as a member of the court. The estates, supposedly
devastated, may well be part of the rewards of royal service.
In contrast to the manners and practices of the court the life of Zeno is
one of asceticism and restraint. His needs were simple. This was not a life
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of banquets, drinking and sexual abandon. His self-indulgence was limited

to satisfying his liking for figs and lying in the sun.49 He was accustomed,
according to Diogenes Laertius, to eating small loaves and honey with wine
of good bouquet.50 In sexual matters he rarely used young boys and only
occasionally prostitutes, and that was just to show that he had no hostility
to women.51 Diogenes points up the contrast with Persaios by following
this immediately with a story about how Persaios brought a young flute
girl home while he was still living with Zeno in Athens. When Persaios
introduced the girl to him, Zeno hurriedly led her back to him. A similar
story is reported to have been told by the third-century BC biographer
Antigonos of Karystos in his life of Zeno. On this occasion Persaios buys
a flute-girl at a drinking party but is reluctant to bring her home because he
lives with Zeno, but as soon as Zeno realizes the situation he drags the girl
into the house and shuts her in a room with Persaios.52 Again the theme
recurs of Zeno’s restraint and Persaios’ lack of it, but this time there is a
sense of Persaios as a man caught between two ways of living, something
that would be accentuated at the Macedonian court.
This image of Zeno may be in part due to Persaios himself. He wrote a
volume that went under several titles, notably Symposium Memoirs (Συµποτικὰ
ὑποµνήµατα) and Symposium Dialogues (Συµποτικοὶ διὰλογοι). This proved to be
the most cited of his works, largely because it suited Athenaeus’ purpose
so well and consequently extracts, sometimes substantial, appear in his
Deipnosophists (Sophists at Dinner). Nonetheless the nature of this work is not
well understood. It was, writes Athenaeus, based on the memoirs
(ἀποµνηµονευµάτα) of Zeno and Stiplo, one of Zeno’s teachers, but in what
way is not at all clear and the fragments suggest that Persaios’ experiences
at the court of Antigonos Gonatas also helped shape it.53
Few of the attested citations of the Symposium Memoirs refer to Zeno,
although it is likely that surviving evidence for Zeno may come from it
without explicit attribution, perhaps some of the descriptions of his life-
style that were mentioned above. Certainly Persaios did record in the
Symposium Memoirs that Zeno usually refused invitations to dinner, an
observation which fits well with such a picture. Yet, in spite of his frugal
and ascetic way of living, our sources preserve a surprising number of
anecdotes about Zeno concerning food and drink; this is especially
surprising for a man who tended to avoid social functions where food was
likely to play a major part.54 Thus, for instance, he knees a rude guest at a
drinking party; he criticises a glutton; on one occasion he snatches back a
fish that a glutton has taken; and he relaxes when drinking just as the bitter
lupin becomes sweet when steeped in water.55 These stories occur not only
in Athenaeus whose subject-matter revolves around drinking and dining
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but also in other writers such as Diogenes Laertius. The most likely
explanation for the proliferation of such anecdotes is that they originate
from the one work that is known to discuss both symposia and Zeno, the
Symposium Memoirs of Persaios.56 In this context Zeno comes across as a
man who, unlike his fellow-guests, is not led astray by the attractions of the
drinking party, although he is quite prepared to point out to his
companions their deficiencies, for example their rudeness and their
gluttony. Nor is he one to get drunk. In all this his response is very different
from the Arcadian embassy to Antigonos reported in the Symposium
Memoirs. The combination of alcohol and scantily-clad Thessalian dancing-
girls caused the ambassadors to lose all sense of decorum.57
The evidence for the Symposium Memoirs suggests that Persaios himself
was sensitive to the dilemma that court life placed him in, at once attracted
by its temptations while conscious that philosophy should be leading him
in a different direction. This would be all the more likely if Persaios created
an image of Zeno in contrast to the life led by those who surrounded
Antigonos. Persaios’ awareness of this tension is evident in a story he
himself told of a drunken philosopher. The context is a drinking party at
the Macedonian court in which an unnamed philosopher was a participant.
When a flute girl sought to sit beside the philosopher, he resolutely refused
to let her do so, but as more alcohol was consumed so his philosophical
resolution gave way. When the flute girl was put up for auction, the
philosopher, by this stage fairly drunk, began bidding vigorously, only to
lose out in the end because of what he considered to be an incompetent
auctioneer. The result was a drunken brawl over a flute girl he had himself
earlier snubbed when he was sober. Athenaeus suggests, surely wrongly,
that this philosopher may have been Persaios himself; it is more likely that
Persaios is here engaging in the familiar bitchiness of the court.58 His
listeners would know the name of the unfortunate philosopher and at any
reading of Persaios’ work would get a good laugh at his expense.
Nevertheless, although the drunken philosopher probably was not
Persaios, the story reveals Persaios’ perception of the problems of court-
life. Essentially it was an environment in which it was all too easy for
philosophical convictions to be swept away. The contrast with the
disciplined and abstemious Zeno could not be clearer. Was it Persaios who
was responsible for the story of Zeno slipping inconspicuously away from
one of Antigonos Gonatas’ rowdy parties in Athens? 59
In the end Persaios comes across as a man who could neither keep a
grip on his philosophical convictions nor on Antigonos’ prized fortress on
the Acrocorinth. His own perspective on his situation is hard to recover in
the light of the loss of his writings. As we have seen, only fragments remain.
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Nonetheless, the references and allusions to his Symposium Memoirs give us

a sense of his own attempt to place himself in relation to Antigonos and
Zeno, the two men who embody the competing elements in Persaios’ life,
the court and philosophy, a very Hellenistic dilemma.
Acknowledgements
This chapter began as a paper presented at a very stimulating conference
on Hellenism in Cyprus in 2005, organised by Ioannis Taifakos, and a
shorter version is due to appear in the proceedings; it was also given at a
Hellenistic workshop in Edinburgh. Shane Wallace read a draft of the
chapter and I am very grateful to him for his comments.
Notes
1 Jacoby 1902, 368–9 for arguments on the date, suggesting a range of 276 to 270.
2 Hammond and Griffith 1979, 149, Borza 1990, 168, 172–3, though note Scullion
2003’s scepticism. Scullion may be right that Euripides did not die in Macedon but it
is very likely that he visited it; certainly stories that placed him there were already
current at the time of Aristotle (Pol. 1311b30–4).
3 On kingship treatises, Murray 2007 and Bertelli 2002; for Epicurus, see Plut. Mor.
1095c and 1127a together with Murray 2007, 18–19.

4 H. von Arnim collects the testimonia and fragments of Persaios in Stoicorum
Veterum Fragmenta (= SVF; 4 vols., Leipzig, 1905–24), vol. 1, nos. 435–62. This
contains much of the material cited in this chapter, but some updating is needed,
especially in the light of Dorandi 1994, which gives the text of Philodemus’ history of
the Stoics (P.Herc. 1018 = Philod. Stoa here) together with a translation and
commentary. The fragments of his more historical works are also collected by Jacoby,
FGrH 584. Among the more recent examinations of Persaios and aspects of his career
are Bollansee 2000 (with full bibliography), Scholz 1998, 318–25, 368–70, Sonnabend
1996, 243–7, Dorandi 1994, 10–13, Steinmetz 1994, 555–7, Erskine 1990, 80–3.
5 Diogenes Laertius (= D. L.) 7.36 (SVF I.435), Aul. Gell. NA 2.18.8 (SVF I.438),
Athen. 4.162d-e (SVF I.452), Philod. Stoa 12 with Dorandi’s commentary. Stories of
a servile origin may have stemmed from a cutting witticism of Bion of Borysthenes,
see section 3 below and Dorandi 1994, 11–12. The suggestion that Persaios was given
to Antigonos would evaporate if the text of D. L. 7.36 were amended, see Bollansee
2000, 17 n. 4 with 27–8 and Susemihl 1891, 69 n. 263.
6 Paus. 2.8.4, 7.8.3, Plut. Arat. 18–23, Polyaen. Strat. 6.5 (SVF I.442–4), Philod. Stoa
15; the competing traditions are lucidly analysed by Bollansee 2000. Somehow the
idea that Persaios committed suicide after the loss of the Acrocorinth has crept into
some of the standard modern reference works (e.g. OCD 3, sv Persaeus, and CAH 2
7.1, 69, 229, 251); as Bollansee 2000, 20, n. 13, points out, there is no ancient authority
for this.
7 Philod. Stoa, 13.
8 Tarn 1913, 232.
9 D. L. 7.14.
188
10 D. L. 7.6 (SVF I.439), 7.36 (SVF I.435), Philod. Stoa 12 (Dorandi). ‘γνώριµος’ can
also mean ‘pupil’ (cf. LSJ), but its use in opposition to ‘οἰκέτης’ at D. L. 7.36 suggests
that something more along the lines of ‘friend’ is intended.
11 Bibliographical list at D. L. 7.36 (SVF I. 435), cf. 7.178 (SVF I.620) for Sphairos.
12 Philod. On Piety 9, Cic. Nat. D. 1.38, Min. Fel. 21.3 (collected together as SVF
I.448), on which Henrichs 1974, Algra 2003, esp. 158–9, Dyck 2003, 110; Persaios’
argument may even have been addressed obliquely by Lucretius (5.13–21), see
Harrison 1990; note also the citation of his work on the Spartan constitution, Athen.
4.140e-f (SVF I.454).
13 On Ariston, see Ioppolo 1980.
14 Aratus of Soloi: Vita Arati 20 (ed. J. Martin) (SVF I.440); Hermagoras: Suda sv
Ἑρµαγόρας (SVF I.462); Halkyoneus: D. L. 7.36 (SVF I.435); on the latter, see
Ogden, this volume, section 6.
15 For Persaios and other pupils of Zeno, D. L. 7.36–8.
16 D. L. 7.6–9, Vita Arati 20 (Martin) (SVF I.439–440).
17 On Stoic views on political participation, Erskine 1990: 64–70; Stobaeus, Ecl.
2.109.10–110.8 (SVF III.686), 2.111.3–9 (SVF III.690), Plut. De Stoicorum repugnantiis

1043b–c (SVF III.691).
18 Cf. Chrysippos in Plut. De Stoicorum repugnantiis 1048e (SVF III.668); Brouwer
2002 argues in detail against the idea that any Stoic with the possible exception of
Ariston considered himself to be a wise man.
19 Tarn 1913, 232.
20 Vita Arati 15 (Martin), Weber 1995.
21 Athen. 8.340f.
22 For studies of particular Hellenistic courts and their titles, note on the Antigonid:
Le Bohec 1987; on the Ptolemaic: Mooren 1975 and 1976; on the Seleucid: Bikerman
1938, 31–50 and Capdetrey 2007, 278–80, 384–8; and with a focus on Asia Minor
rather than a particular monarch, Savalli-Lestrade 1998 (largely Seleucid and Attalid).
For Hellenistic court society in general see Herman 1997, Weber 1997 (with extensive
bibliography) and at greater length the 2007 doctoral dissertation of Rolf Strootman,
which is now the fullest account of the subject (a revised version is in preparation).
23 Hetairos: Athen. 6.251c.
24 Athen. 6.251c
25 Plut. Arat. 18, 23, Polyaen. 6.5; Tarn 1913, 374 n. 15, preferring a civilian role
subordinate to the military, Gabbert 1997, 36 and O’Neil 2003, 513 putting him in
overall charge while Bollansee 2000, 17–18, who provides full references and
bibliography, writes of ‘sharing responsibility’.
26 Paus. 1.9.8, Plut. Dem. 39.4, O’Neil 2003, 512, Billows 1990, 390–2, Hornblower
1981.
27 The material is surveyed in Strootman 2010.
28 Erskine 1995.
29 Straton: D. L. 5.58; on literary patronage: Fraser 1972, vol. 1, esp. 305–36,
Stephens 2010.
30 D. L. 7.177, 185; Erskine 1990, 97–9.
31 Plut. Dem. 12, Syll.3 374. Paschides 2008 treats the whole subject of such Friends
as intermediaries between cities and kings with pp. 116–25 on Philippides.

32 Athen. 4.162d–e, see further below.
189
Andrew Erskine
33 Cf., with differing approaches, Elias 1983 [1969]’s influential treatment, focussing
on the court of Louis XIV, and Duindam 2003, esp 249–54, treating both Versailles
and the Habsburg court in Vienna.
34 Polyb. 5.26.12–13 (trans. Paton); on the intrigues and dangers of Hellenistic court
life, Herman 1997, Weber 1998–9.

35 Borza 1981.
36 Plut. Dem. 12.8.
37 Bion: Kindstrand 1976; Menedemos: Knoepfler 1991.
38 D. L. 4.46–7.
39 Athen. 4.162d–e, on which Kindstrand 1976, 289–90, rejecting C. B. Gulick’s
Loeb translation. Kindstrand collects examples to show that the genitive could be
used to indicate a master-pupil relationship, but the anecdote is still puzzling as any
such inscription would seem to be most readily interpreted by an observer unfamiliar
with Persaios as meaning ‘Persaios, son of Zeno’.
40 See above n. 14.
41 D. L. 2.143–4; Menedemos’ comment may well be deliberately echoing Antisthenes
on Socrates’ wife, Xanthippe, Xen. Symp. 2.10, so Tarn 1913, 233, n. 38. For Menedemos’
earlier political activity in Eritris, see Haake 2007, 177–81.
42 Herman 1997, 216–18.
43 Murray 1996.
44 Cf. D. L. 7.104–7; for a review of Stoic ethics, Schofield 2003.
45 See n. 18 above.
46 D. L. 7.36 (SVF I.435), Themistius Or. 32.358 (SVF I.449).
47 Sphairos: D. L. 7.177 (SVF 1.625, the story is told with wax birds instead of
pomegranates in Athen. 8.354e, SVF I.624); Ariston: D. L. 7.162.

48 Athen. 4.160e–f (Sopater Frag. 6), Gutzwiller 2007: 123–4.
49 D. L. 7.1.
50 D. L. 7.13.
51 D. L. 7.13. This same point, but with a very different tone, is made at Athen.
13.563d–e, where Antigonos of Karystos is cited as a source; both appear as fragments

33A and 33B in Dorandi’s Budé collection of the fragments of Antigonos (Dorandi
1999). The negative tone is likely, however, to be a consequence of the scathing verses
of Hermeias of Kourion quoted shortly before rather than a reflection of Antigonos
himself; on Hermeias, see Bing 2010.
52 D. L. 7.13, Athen. 13.607e, together as Antigonos of Karystos, frags 34A and
34B (Dorandi).
53 For citations of the Symposium Memoirs, Athen. 4.162b–c, 13.607a–e, D. L. 7.1
(= SVF I.451–3); recent scholarship on Athenaeus has stressed that his method of
citation is far more artful than previously realised so, however valuable he is, he needs
to be approached carefully, Gorman 2007, Pelling 2000.
54 Dinner invitations: D. L. 7.1 (SVF I.453), Philod. Stoa 3 (Dorandi); frugality:
D. L. 7.27 (SVF I.5).

55 Knees guest: D. L. 7.17; gluttons: D. L. 7.19, Athen. 8.345c, 5.186d, cf. Athen.
8.344a for a similar story told of Bion of Borysthenes, suggesting it circulated at the
Macedonian court; lupins: Athen. 2.55f, D. L. 7.26, Galen, de anim. mor. 3, Eustathius
on Hom. Od. 21.293, p. 1910.42 (collected together at SVF I.285).
56 Argued in greater detail in Erskine 1990, 80–2.
190
57Athen. 13.607c–d (SVF I.451).
58Athen. 13.607d–e (SVF I.451); Athenaeus unconvincingly quotes a passage of
Antigonos of Karystos (frag. 34A Dorandi) in support of his suggestion, cf. the
remarks of Jacoby (Persaios FGrHist 584 F4). Cf. Erskine 1990, 81.
59 D. L. 7.13, cf. Athen. 13.603d-e, together as Antigonos of Karystos, frags 35A
and 35B (Dorandi).
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194
10
BEING ROYAL AND FEMALE IN THE

EARLY HELLENISTIC PERIOD
Elizabeth D. Carney
The role of women in early Hellenistic dynasties, despite the similarities

generated by the Macedonian past shared by all the ruling families, differed
considerably from family to family and from generation to generation.
These differences were reflected in the distinctive dynastic images of each
family. This chapter attempts to trace the historical evolution of the
position of royal women from the late Argead to the early Hellenistic
period while addressing the factors that contributed to similarities in role
as well as those that led to considerable difference.
Justin described how Olympias, mother of Alexander, confronted death
at the hands of her assassins:
She did not run from the sword or from wounds, nor did she scream like a
woman. She faced death the way brave men do, upholding the glorious
reputation of her ancient lineage; you could recognize Alexander even in
his mother’s death.1
Plutarch put into the mouth of Kleopatra VII’s loyal servant the
pronouncement that her self-inflicted death ‘was good and suitable for the
descendant of so many kings.’ 2 According to Plutarch,3 Octavian, though
irked because he had been cheated of the chance to parade her in his
triumph, nonetheless admired her eugeneia (nobility of birth, both literally
and figuratively) and allowed her a regal burial. These two death scenes, one
from the beginning and one from the end of the Hellenistic period,
exemplify how royal women encapsulated the qualities of their clans, those
of birth and of marriage, in a way that royal males could not. At least at
times, women could symbolize their dynasties.4
To some degree, common Hellenistic practices relating to royal women
did emerge because women moved from one dynasty to another and
because royal women in each royal oikos played a role in cult and patronage
at the great international shrines. This continuing cross contamination of
Hellenistic dynasties tended to generate additional similarities over time.
195
Elizabeth D. Carney
One should not simply assume, however, that each kingdom treated royal
women in the same way;5 even when a practice developed in one dynasty
begins to be implemented by another, it is important to notice the date
and motivation for borrowing the practice of another ruling family.
Many scholars would give primacy to one explanation for these
similarities: the similar nature of Hellenistic monarchy in general, across
all dynasties. While I would not want to deny that the institution had many
shared features in each dynasty, I am less inclined than some to stress
them.6 Analysis of ‘Hellenistic Monarchy’ tends to scant change over time
(though the late third or early second century seems, if unstated, the basis
for generalization) and consequently to de-emphasize the development of
these features.7 In terms of Macedonian history, the assumption (implicit
or explicit) that if the Macedonians ever did something, they always did it,
has limited our understanding of the evolution of their political system.8
Discussions of ‘Hellenistic monarchy’ necessarily entail making many
exceptions for the Ptolemies in some areas and for the Antigonids in
others. The Seleucids (along with the smaller dynasties that eventually
appeared in Asia Minor) therefore become the de facto norm. One must
question this presumed norm, particularly because the Antigonids were
both the first of the ruling families to develop many practices that would
be accepted by other Hellenistic dynasties and the last of the great dynasties
to establish secure regional roots.
Over-generalization about the role of women in Hellenistic monarchy
is particularly dubious because, as we shall see, situations and events could
so dramatically affect a position much less clearly defined than that of male
rulers. Nonetheless, although several general discussions of women and
Hellenistic monarchy exist,9 presently there are no lengthy general studies
of the role of women in each dynasty.10 Moreover, in my view, there should
be no dynastic studies until more research has appeared about individual
women and groups of women. When generalizations appear before
particulars, we risk imposing our expectations on the evidence. Circumstance
– most notably the absence of an adult male ruler – could change the
situation of women in a royal dynasty quickly.
Although this chapter will discuss commonalities at some length, its
focus will be on change and on the continuing singularities of the role of
women in each ruling family and on the first two generations of Hellenistic
monarchy (roughly 323–250 BC). In this period these dynasties developed
a public presentation and, to some degree, established a pattern for royal
women in their families.
Let me begin with commonalities, many of which have to do with a
shared past. The role of royal women in Homer affected women in the
196
Being royal and female in the early Hellenistic period
Argead dynasty as well as the ruling families of the Hellenistic period.11

The public presentation of women in the Hecatomnid dynasty influenced
the later Argeads and, directly and indirectly, the Hellenistic ruling
families.12 To a lesser degree, at least for the Asia Minor dynasties, the role
of women in Persian monarchy affected subsequent behavior and, of
course, the role of women in pharaonic monarchy had considerable effect
on Ptolemaic.13
The role of women in the later stages of Argead monarchy, unsurprisingly,
had the greatest impact on the position of royal women in the subsequent
era. Philip II’s crafting of a royal and dynastic image was critical to the
development of Hellenistic monarchy. During his lifetime, Argead women
achieved new prominence, some of it the result of chance events but much
of it a consequence of his policies: in the Argead era, no office for royal
women developed, but they did play an increasingly public role in the
dynasty.14 They had, in effect, become part of the ‘dynastic idea’ and could,
by their actions, strengthen or weaken the royal clan.15 After his father’s
death, Philip’s mother Eurydike successfully functioned as a succession
advocate for her sons,16 primarily by participating in and manipulating the
networks of philia and xenia that dominated Greek elites and the diplomatic
world. Her daughter-in-law Olympias and her granddaughter Kleopatra
would also function within these networks.17 For instance, a cluster of
Molossian philoi either accompanied Olympias to the court of Philip II or
joined her subsequently.18 Clearly, this was the beginning of the situation
that developed at Hellenistic courts, where the philoi of royal women were
critical to their position.19
A series of monuments and dedications by or for Philip’s mother
Eurydike appeared during his reign, probably partially inspired and
supported by him. These monuments commemorated and advertised
Eurydike’s piety, patronage of Greek education and of citizen women, and
her wealth and thereby dealt with Eurydike’s (and thus her sons’)
controversial reputation, itself almost certainly the product of intra-
dynastic rivalry. Her dedications, like those of other royal women in later
periods, were both typically female but also publicity for herself and her
clan.20 Just as Eurydike’s supposed lack of kleos could have damaged the
ability of her son to rule, so the assertion that she had it advantaged him.21
Eurydike’s monuments and dedications offer the earliest sign of the
tendency of royal women to be understood as peculiarly responsible for the
female part of the population and as symbolic of domesticity.22
As this series indicates, Philip included royal women in the dynastic
image he was shaping. Eurydike’s image was also one of the five (in
addition to Philip’s own image, those of his father and son Alexander and
197
Elizabeth D. Carney
of Olympias, mother of Alexander) that once stood in the Philippeion, a

prominent and luxurious monument erected by Philip after his great
victory at Chaeroneia, within the sacred area of Olympia, the most
prominent of the Panhellenic sanctuaries. Philip used the Philippeion to
define the main line of the dynasty in the immediate past, present and
future and he chose to make his mother and the mother of his heir part of
this presentation. In various ways the Philippeion and the images it housed
alluded to the divine ancestry and divine qualities of the Argead clan,
including the women. Philip generated a symbol of dynastic stability and
continuity at the very time that the stability and continuity of the dynasty
was at issue. The images of the women were there because they formed a
part of dynastic power, however indirectly. Many Hellenistic rulers would
construct dynastic statue groups on this model, some (not all) including
royal women and typically portraying an image of dynastic unity and
continuity, one often at odds with reality.23
In addition to physical monuments, Philip invented some monumental
acts and ceremonies that Hellenistic kings would imitate. He employed
a series of marriage alliances to create, reinforce and symbolize the
centralization and expansion of his realm. The grand scale of his polygamy
constituted an important if controversial part of the royal image, a
statement in itself about his wealth and power and willingness to flout
southern Greek practice. Many of the Successors copied Philip’s polygamy,
though the practice later became less common.24 He turned the marriage
of his daughter Kleopatra into a public event that served a number of
purposes, many of them similar to those of the Philippeion: it advanced an
image of dynastic harmony that was not always apparent in real life; advertised
the wealth and culture of the ruler and clan to an international audience;
and alluded to the god-like qualities of the ruler and perhaps to those of his
family as well. Here too Hellenistic rulers followed in his footsteps.25
To a lesser but still considerable degree, Alexander’s use of royal women
also influenced subsequent rulers and dynasties. His marriages, like those
of his father, helped to generate an image of monarchy, in this case of a
half-Asian monarchy. His studied good treatment of the Persian royal
women was part of his claim to be the legitimate successor of Darius; he
used them to generate the appearance of continuity,26 a notion several of
the Successors entertained about Alexander’s full sister Kleopatra.27 During
Alexander’s reign, Olympias made dedications, almost certainly part of the
plunder consequent on her son’s victories, at Olympia,28 the first – so far
as we know – of many Macedonian royal women to do so, advertising the
wealth, piety, and military success of her family. Olympias and her daughter
Kleopatra also engaged in grain patronage in times of scarcity.29 Such
198
euergetism, like that of Eurydike, had a political and diplomatic aspect. As

with many subsequent similar acts by Hellenistic royal women, it is difficult
to determine whether the women acted on their own or as agents of
Alexander or both and to what degree they had independent control of
their wealth.30
Alexander allowed his mother and sister to become power brokers and
intercessors who could use the uncertainty of others about how directly
their actions were approved by Alexander to build their own power base.
During his reign, royal women began to have courtiers and agents, a
practice that would expand and solidify in the subsequent period.31
If Alexander actually planned to deify his mother after her death, then
this plan could certainly have been the prototype for cults for deified royal
women. Her role (whether Alexander’s invention or Olympias’ or both)
in claims of his divine parentage would also be a model for the later
dynasties.32 Late in Alexander’s reign, Harpalos, Alexander’s treasurer,
supposedly established a posthumous private cult for his favorite hetaira
and, in his treatment of her and another courtesan, blurred the line between
their status and that of royal women. Though a controversial and erratic
figure, his distinctive treatment of these women may have influenced early
Hellenistic rulers.33
It is difficult to assess the impact on the position of subsequent royal
women of the post-Alexander careers of Olympias, Kleopatra, full sister of
Alexander, Kynnane his half-sister, and Adea Eurydike, her daughter and
wife of Philip Arrhidaeus. In a time of scarcity of adult male Argeads, as
the dynasty was dying, these women acted aggressively and independently.
Not coincidentally, they all met violent ends. Royal women of much later
generations could have found some inspiration in them. Male rulers,
however, may have seen their lives as cautionary tales. Perdikkas’ faction
killed Cynnane because of her ambitions and Antipater had confrontations
at various times with Olympias, her daughter Kleopatra, Kynnane, and
Adea Eurydike.34 These confrontations and deaths, however, were
primarily the result of vicious factional infighting 35 and only secondarily, at
most, the consequence of abstract hostility to political action by women.36
In effect, the new dynasties killed off the old one. As their elimination of
Alexander’s two sons confirms, the Successors demonstrated no long term
attachment to the survival of the Argead house. Though interested in
connecting their new dynasties to the old, they generally preferred fictional
ties to dead male Argeads over marriage to living Argead women.37
Certainly, the first two generations of royal women in the Hellenistic period
produced no such independent actors as the later Argead women.
Despite the ephemeral character of their prominence and power, these
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late Argead women did establish a precedent that some Hellenistic

dynasties did follow. Argead women, though not usually participating in
combat (Kynnane is the only clear exception), developed a military aspect.
Some women commanded small bodies of troops or exercised administrative
control over them. Adea Eurydike often addressed the army. Certainly she,
like her rival Olympias, was present on campaigns.38 This indirect, somewhat
symbolic military role for royal women would continue. An epigram of
Posidippus39 includes an image of Arsinoe II with spear and shield;40
Arsinoe III was present at the battle of Raphia.41 Phila and at least one
Seleucid woman acted as disciplinarians or patrons to soldiers and their
families.42
Since the initial Hellenistic dynasties were all founded by members of the
Macedonian elite, it is distinctly possible that the Successors and later rulers
were influenced not only by Argead precedents, but also by the role of
women in the Macedonian elite. There has been little discussion of this
possibility for the very good reason that we know so little about what those
habits were. The burials of elite female Macedonians imply a conventional
Hellenic understanding of the female role: no weapons or armor but
extensive displays of jewelry. Literary evidence, however scant, is more
suggestive. Marriage alliances were clearly bread and butter politics to
members of the elite. A web of blood and marriage ties united and divided
them. An individual might ignore these ties in favor of self-interest or
preservation but they were, nonetheless, the basis of political power. This
is most obvious in the elite marriages made just after Chaeroneia and
immediately after Alexander’s death.43 The dynastic marriages of the
Hellenistic period more clearly resemble those of the Macedonian elite
than they do the marriages of Argead monarchs because Hellenistic
monarchies existed as part of a collective of similar monarchies and
generally married within the collective whereas the Argeads had no obvious
peers and tended to arrange marriages with families of more disparate
origin and less clearly equal status.44
Although it is possible that these aristocratic women were usually merely
passive tools in these alliances, we know that royal women sometimes acted
and were expected to act as representatives of their birth family to the
family into which they had married.45 Plutarch’s offhand reference46 to the
involvement of Philip II’s last wife Kleopatra, after her marriage, in the
vicious blood feud between her birth clan and that of Pausanias, the future
assassin of Philip, indicates that elite women in Macedonia continued to act
in support of and in concert with their original families.
We underestimate the degree to which women in the Hellenic world
continued to identify with the families of their birth.47 They were, in effect,
200
only lent to another family. Phila, for instance, a daughter of Antipater,

having first married an aristocrat named Balakros, married Krateros, and
then Demetrios Poliorketes, all at her father’s behest and in service of her
father’s policies.48 The nearly universal identification of women by
patronymics should tell us more than it seems to have done. In the
Hellenistic era, also, royal women sometimes came home to reconnect to
the dynasty of their origin. Their dedications – always with patronymics
but not always with the name of their spouses – and actions imply at least
as much advertisement of their family of birth as the family of marriage.49
A wide range of practices relating to royal women emerged during the
period of the Successors as they turned from the need to validate their
personal rule to the wish to justify rule by their descendants. These Hellenistic
innovations relating to royal women did not begin to become cross-dynastic
practice until the first of the Successors began to employ a royal title in
306.50 However, well before any of the Successors took a royal title, many
of them performed king-like actions reminiscent of Philip and Alexander.
It is in the context of these quasi-royal acts and policies that we know of
two cases in which the women of their dynasties were involved in practices
that would soon become common to what were about to become royal
dynasties. In each case, practices relating to women imitate those connected
to men.
Comparatively soon after the death of Alexander, the Successors began
to imitate the eponymous city-foundations of Philip and Alexander.
Naming cities after women in a dynasty was an innovation, probably the
invention of Kassander about 316.51 In naming his foundation after his
wife Thessalonike, the daughter of Philip II, Kassander advantaged himself
for reasons peculiar to his situation as the husband of an Argead and ruler
of Macedonia. For reasons we shall discuss, after 301, his distinctive act
became a sort of Hellenistic norm.
Philip and Alexander had flirted with claiming divine status; some
scholars believe that both received cult in their lifetimes. Certainly each
was the subject of posthumous cult. Here too, the Successors emulated
them. Antigonos and his son Demetrios Poliorketes may have received
cult worship as early as 31152 and certainly cults had been established for
them in Athens by 307. Phila, wife of Demetrios Poliorketes, seems to
have had both a private and a public cult at Athens around 307.53 Phila
received worship as ‘Phila Aphrodite.’ In roughly the same time period,
the Athenians and Thebans established cults for two of Demetrios’
mistresses, also associating them with Aphrodite. After this, many royal
women and royal hetairai, in other dynasties, were also paired with
Aphrodite in public and private cult.54
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The critical event in the evolution of the role of Hellenistic royal women
is the appearance of a female title, basilissa. Argead women had not
employed a title; they appeared in inscriptions with a patronymic alone.
This circumstance is unsurprising, granted that Argead kings before
Alexander had not themselves utilized a title; even Alexander did not do so
on all occasions. Antigonos and his son, Demetrios Poliorketes, were the
first of the Successors to employ a title (and wear a diadem), a step they
took in 306, several years after the death of the last Argead king, in the
context of a great military victory. The earliest evidence for the use of a
female title again involves Phila, wife of Demetrios Poliorketes, and dates
to about 305. Thus the appearance of the female title was apparently
directly related to the adoption of the male title and indeed may have
happened at the same time.55
Parallelism between the development of male and female titles is,
however, limited. As we have seen, the male title had late Argead
precedents but the female title did not. We know that basileus means ‘male
ruler,’ but the meaning of basilissa is unclear, ambiguous. It is best translated
as ‘royal woman’ because the term can refer to a royal wife, a royal
daughter, a female regent, and to a female king. Instead of defining any
sort of office or position, basilissa related to royal status, acquired by birth
or marriage or both.56 The timing of its first use implies that it too was a
legitimizing device, a tool in the establishment of dynastic power. It may
convey the sense that men and women of a ruling family shared similar
qualities, although not to the same degree. Conceivably the appearance of
a female title may also reflect the temporary importance royal and elite
women acquired as the Argead dynasty was disappearing and the new
dynasties forming. The title institutionalized the public role of royal women
to a greater degree than previously, but left the nature of that role undefined
and extremely variable across dynasties and even individual reigns. Thus
while the usage of basilissa became the rule in all the dynasties, its functional
significance, at least within the kingdoms, may have differed dramatically
from one monarchy to another, from one period to another.
Soon after titles began to be applied to royal women, the precedents
established by Thessalonike and Phila began to be followed by many other
women. After 301, about the same time the dynasties of the Successors
began to intermarry, many cities were named after dynastic women. Clearly
the agenda was dynastic legitimacy, the elevation of the wives and mothers
of kings, with implications about the king’s and the dynasty’s superhuman
nature.57 Similarly, cults connecting royal wives and mistresses now become
common.
One should, however, be cautious about assuming extensive similarity
202
here cross-dynastically. The nature of Aphrodite cults varied tremendously

and is only beginning to get the attention it deserves. Many royal women
were connected to Aphrodite but the meaning of the connection may have
varied considerably with the cult and the dynasty.58 That royal courtesans
as well as royal wives were paired with Aphrodite suggests that these cults
had a fundamentally sexual aspect, that they were cults to women who had
sex with men considered divine, women who might bear divine children.
The general pattern of Greek myth is that one needs two divine parents to
achieve divine status. Cult worship generally indicates recognition of the
power of those who receive it; this implies that royal women and
courtesans, because of their relationships with royal males, were
understood to have access, thus influence and the ability to intercede.59
Like the female title, female cult seems to suggest the need to understand
power as both male and female, though hardly equally divided.
The last significant innovation began to appear as the era of the
Successors ended and their sons began to replace them. Although many of
the Successors had imitated the polygamy of Argead rulers, rulers
increasingly exercised circumspection about it. Its practice declined but
did not disappear in the Hellenistic period.60 The appearance of a female
title may have contributed to this phenomenon. Perhaps not coincidentally,
a greater degree of endogamy appeared in the marriages of several
dynasties. The consequence of this gradual development was that fewer
women in a given kingdom were considered royal but that their status and
position was somewhat more secure than previously.
More generally, though royal women, as in the Argead era, had both
private and public roles, as each monarchy evolved, their roles became
both more public and more institutionalized than previously, though still
hard to categorize.61 Whereas Olympias and her contemporaries had
influence and access, Hellenistic royal women, though still not officials –
that is to say they had no clear job description and their tasks and activities
varied – increasingly had officially recognized tasks and activities. The
initial need to legitimize the new dynasties and the continuing need to stress
whatever was the current official version of dynastic succession helps to
explain this development. In addition, royal women (sometimes both royal
wives or mothers and royal daughters) were now regularly part of the
public presentation of the monarchy, sometimes in ways that stressed the
king’s relationship to his wife.62 Hellenistic rulers, expanding on the
precedents of Philip II, staged their monarchy in ways meant to connect
their subjects to them, to generate dynastic loyalty, often by appearing to
involve them in their family lives.63
But let me turn from discussion of common traits to consideration of
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the distinctive role of women in each dynasty, beginning with the

Antigonids. The degree of influence that Argead tradition had on
Antigonid practice was comparatively modest because Antipatrid rule and
a period of chaos intervened between the end of one dynasty and the
establishment of the other in the rule of Macedonia. Monarchy was
reconstituted in Macedonia, much altered.64 Tradition did influence
Antigonid practice in two respects: the refusal to establish a royal cult
within Macedonia itself 65 and the assertion of Heraklid ancestry.66 Argead
monarchy, however, had been understood as the rule of the royal clan and
the public presentation of the monarchy involved many members
including, at least in times of scarcity of adult males, women. Antigonid
monarchy was much more focused on the rule of a given individual,
involved a narrow public presentation of the monarchy, and limited the
role of royal women,67 possibly partly by defining it to a greater degree than
before.68 The dynastic monument of the Antigonids at Delos, the Progonoi,
exemplifies the change; judging by the surviving cuttings in the statue
bases, the statues depicted only male rulers.69 The muting of royal polygamy
contributed to this narrow image of monarchy. Instead of a plethora of
heirs, there tended to be only one and so no need for royal mothers to act
as succession advocates.
The Argead era had been one in which the difference between
Macedonian elite culture and that of southern Greece was comparatively
marked and Macedonians self-identified as having a distinctive culture, but
the degree of difference between Macedonia and southern Greece declined
dramatically in the course of the second half of the fourth century and even
more in the third century. Thus, the limited, more conventionally Hellenic
role of women in Hellenistic Macedonia related to increasing urbanization
and acculturation to institutions that had once characterized only central
and southern Greece. In terms of royal women, this meant that Antigonid
rulers presented themselves as though monogamous and royal women
performed acts of conventional piety and patronage but apparently did not
involve themselves in political action.
If our information base remains the same for Antigonid women, there
may not be much more to say about them. Literary evidence about the
Antigonids, even the males, is poor and so far very few inscriptions of
relevance to royal women, especially in Macedonia proper, have been
found. The appearance of new inscriptions is, however, extremely likely.
Moreover, the announcement of the discovery of an eight-chambered
tomb at Pella with multiple female burials (though probably aristocratic
not royal) reminds us that discovery of burials of Antigonid women is still
possible.
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The Seleucids were different. Two Seleucid women, previously married

to Antigonid rulers, played a much greater role in public events when they
returned to their home dynasty.70 Here, women’s involvement in the public
presentation of dynastic power increased over time.71 The Seleucids named
many cities after women, partly because the Seleucids were major
colonizers but also because several different royal women were
commemorated in this fashion.72 The Seleucids generated an image of
dynastic solidarity, one that centered on the current royal couple and the
heir (formulaic references may include all three).73 Instead of a long line of
male rulers, there was the image of the current nuclear family, artificially
narrowed to illustrate the succession plan. Seleucid wives had the ability to
represent their husbands.74 Just as stories about Alexander have Olympias
impregnated by a god, so too do stories about Seleukos and his mother
Laodike. In both cases the stress is on the founding mother and the
supposed divine father.75 Seleukos, unlike, so far we know, the other
Successors, retained his Asian wife after the death of Alexander; his heir
Antiochos was her son and thus the Seleucids, all descendants of Apamea,
were partly Persian. Though they did not practice brother-sister marriage
as regularly as the Ptolemies, the Seleucids seem to have practiced such
marriages at times, possibly influenced by Hecatomnid and Achaemenid
practice as well as Ptolemaic modes. They adopted brother-sister
nomenclature for royal married pairs, whether or not the biological
relationship existed.76
Starting with Seleukos’ son Antiochos I, Seleucid kings usually made
their chosen heirs co-kings, typically well before the death of the senior
king. This practice, obviously intended to guarantee both a smooth
succession as well as an extension of personal rule over the vast areas they
controlled, did not always generate stability.77 Though the Seleucids seem
to have been only occasionally polygamous, royal mothers did often act as
succession advocates, but usually by preferring one of her own sons.
Especially in the later stages of the dynasty, Ptolemaic brides often proved
to be power brokers, conveyers of legitimacy.78 Seleucid royal wives
sometimes acted as intercessors for groups or individuals with their
husbands.79 Though Seleucid women were involved in the great events of
the dynasty, they were considerably less likely to acquire a separate political
base than Ptolemaic women.
Clearly the largest role played by women in Hellenistic monarchy was
that of the women of the Ptolemaic dynasty. In my view, research on
Ptolemaic women holds the greatest potential, primarily because of the
amount of material available in both Greek and Egyptian sources. We have
only begun to tap into the rich interplay between Hellenic and Egyptian
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public presentation. For Ptolemaic Egypt there is a particularly great need

for case-by-case studies of royal women. Currently, we have a lot of work
on Arsinoe II and Kleopatra VII but too little about all the women in
between.80
In all three families, the founding father began to develop a dynastic
image but his heir was its main architect. In the case of the Ptolemies,
however, Ptolemy Soter himself made a critical decision, one that proved
a significant factor in the evolution of female royal power in Egypt. This
decision is epitomized by the fact that we speak not only of Seleucids,
Antigonids, and Attalids but also of Ptolemies. Soter decided to break with
tradition and name two sons after himself and none after his father. In all
monarchies, one tends to think, ‘The king is dead, long live the king.’ Any
monarchy implies the notion that the king never dies but simply is
differently embodied. The Ptolemies made this explicit, possibly in
connection to the pharaonic notion that the king is continually reborn.81
Certainly the nomenclature of Ptolemaic rulers meant that this was a
dynasty, from the start, turned in on itself, in a kind of endless circle of
dynastic power. If the king was always the king, always Ptolemy, then what
of his consort? I would suggest that, in terms of the dynasty as a whole, this
distinctive nomenclature encouraged the institutionalization of close kin
marriages. Not all were sibling marriages, but most were.82 Sisters,
especially full sisters, are as close as one can come to female versions of
kings, mirror images but for gender.83 The appearance of Sheila Ager’s
recent article on such Ptolemaic marriages84 has raised the level of analysis
of sibling marriage dramatically. Nonetheless, despite the richness of her
discussion and scholarship, much remains to be done, particularly in terms
of political aspects of the issue. Indeed, as I once suggested,85 the topic
surely merits book-length treatment.
Not only was Ptolemy II the first Ptolemaic ruler to marry his own sister
(Arsinoe II) but he was also really the founder of the dynastic cult and
inventor of many other aspects of dynastic self-presentation. The tendency
of Ptolemaic monarchy to turn in on itself, to intensify itself, already seen
in the reign of Ptolemy I increases in the reign of Ptolemy II. He created
the first paired dynastic images: a paired cult of his parents (Theoi So-teres
c. 282) and later of himself and Arsinoe (Theoi Philadelphoi c. 272?), the two
pairs visibly linked in coins on which both pairs appeared.86
To some degree, Ptolemy II’s sibling marriage functioned as the
opposite of the polygamous marriages of his father, Ptolemy I. This initial
brother-sister marriage, like the earlier ill-starred marriage of the half
siblings Arsinoe and Ptolemy Keraunos, had its roots in the experiences of
Ptolemy Soter’s children: the extended competition between his children
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by Eurydike, daughter of Antipater, and those by Berenike.87 The

uncertainty of that period generated anxiety and desire for security that
affected his children by both wives. Even after Ptolemy II was made
co-ruler with his father in 285 and had clearly won the battle for the
succession, his early experience may have continued to affect his
personality and world view. Just as Alexander appeared to trust his full
sister Kleopatra to a greater degree than his half sisters, so Ptolemy may
have trusted his sister Arsinoe more than others at court. Arsinoe had every
reason to feel the same.88 During her marriage to Lysimachos,89 her struggle
with Lysimachos’ son Agathokles and his wife, Lysandra, daughter of
Eurydike, in effect revisited the succession competition of their mothers.
Arsinoe’s success in this struggle was ephemeral. Her marriage to Keraunos
may have been an attempt, in part, to reverse this pattern of strife between
Soter’s two sets of children, to end the contest.90 If so, Keraunos’ betrayal
of the marriage would have reinstituted Arsinoe’s sense that only those on
her side of the dynasty could be trusted. Courts were dangerous places but,
for a few generations, siblings looked like the safest people to marry.91
For generations, scholarship on Arsinoe, and to some degree her
brother, remained hostile, primarily because of reaction against their sibling
marriage and the supposed power it signified for Arsinoe.92 Moreover, the
negative impact of this first sibling marriage has been much inflated.93 In
fact, the evidence for upset in Ptolemy’s own day is modest: two passages
in Plutarch and one in Athenaeus.94 The first Plutarch passage happens in
the context of a discussion of the virtues of keeping one’s mouth shut (in
an essay on the education of children). Plutarch refers to Sotades’ obscene
joke about the marriage, commenting that he suffered in a prison a long
time for making other men laugh by his untimely chatter. The second
passage is part of a conversation set in Athens on the theme of well-timed
remarks. The conversants immediately think of an example of their theme:
the rhapsode who attended Ptolemy’s wedding to his sister and began his
recitation with a quotation from the Iliad, ‘Then Zeus called to Hera, his
sister and wife.’ 95 Plutarch comments that Ptolemy’s action was considered
athemis (unlawful) and allokotos (unusual, strange in a bad way).96 The
Athenaeus passage describes Sotades as a specialist in sodomy jokes.
Athenaeus refers to Sotades’ ‘tactless frankness’ (akairon parre-sian), gives
several examples, notes that he attacked other princes, and editorializes
that he got what he deserved (death). Sotades’ famous remark may not
have been seriously intended, cannot be directly connected to his
death, and certainly does not demonstrate that he spoke for some
general group. Both Plutarch and Athenaeus clearly disapprove of his
remarks.97
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This is not to say that the marriage occasioned no hostility but rather
that it was not a major issue.98 Doubtless Greeks in Egypt and elsewhere
found the idea of sibling marriage nasty, whatever the Egyptian view.
Clearly Ptolemy’s courtiers acted in various ways to create a positive Greek
public image for the marriage, suggesting that the king felt there was a need
for such action.99 Hellenistic royalty, however, indulged in all sorts of nasty
actions condemned in the behavior of ordinary people. Their subjects not
only put up with their bad acts, but must, to some degree, have come to
expect them. Indeed, up to a point, extreme behavior may have seemed...
well, kingly. Unlike Ager,100 I doubt that sophrosyne- had much to do with
either Macedonian or Hellenistic monarchy.101 Indeed, the dynastic image
of the Ptolemies in effect stressed excess in terms of truphe- (luxury), with
its implicit connection to benefaction, and Arsinoe II epitomized this
image.102
Once invented, apart from other benefits of the marriage often
discussed103 (most importantly, replication of the behavior of gods, Zeus
and Hera, Osiris and Isis), it made possible those interlocking epithets,
cults, and images so characteristic of the dynasty. It is not so much that
incest was the ‘dynastic signature’ of the Ptolemies, but rather it was
incestuousness. The literal and figurative incest of the dynasty gave a
prominence to royal women that tended to empower them and helped to
generate the developing pattern of female co-rule. Pairing in cult and in
marriage led ultimately to pairing in rule.104
Let me conclude by offering some general observations for those
examining the role of women in all these monarchies. We should not
underestimate the agency of women in marriage alliances: the presumption
that they were always or usually genetic tokens needs to be questioned. We
need to recognize them as dynastic go-betweens with enduring ties to the
oikos of their birth. Similarly, we have scanted royal women’s role in
diplomacy via euergetism. Here we have not only underestimated female
agency but we also need more focus on why rulers felt it necessary to
encourage euergetism by their wives and daughters. In all these
considerations, while avoiding the kind of wishful thinking that had
Arsinoe II determining the domestic and foreign policy of Egypt or
instigating the First Syrian War,105 we also need to steer clear of the kind
of thinking which exaggerates the significance of the paucity of evidence
about royal women and their acts or which denies that the influence
Arsinoe demonstrably possessed was a kind of power.106
208
Notes
1 14.6.11.
2 Ant. 85.4.
3 Ant. 86.4.
4 For varying interpretations of this phenomenon, see Carney 2000a, 37 and Mirón-
Pérez 2000.
5 For instance, a formal proclamation, after her wedding, that she had the title
basilissa is attested for Laodike, daughter of Mithridates and wife of Antiochos III
(Polyb. 5.43.4). Savalli-Lestrade assumes (2003, 62) that such a proclamation was
common practice, but we do not know that it was, without exception. Justin (24.2.9–
3.3) describes what appears to be a similar situation for the ill-fated marriage of
Arsinoe to Ptolemy Keraunos, but his testimony is possibly anachronistic and, even
if it is correct, could reflect the odd and special circumstance of this particular
marriage. One could, of course, hypothesize that what began as exceptional behavior
became tradition, but I am not aware of Antigonid evidence for the practice.
6 This view is increasingly common. For instance, Erskine 2003 includes separate
chapters on each dynasty and then Ma’s discussion, significantly titled, ‘Kings’ rather
than ‘Kingship’ or ‘Hellenistic Monarchy.’ Indeed, Ma (2003, 179) stresses the ‘diverse
nature of Hellenistic kingship,’ explicitly rejecting many old generalizations. The
diversity he discusses, however, relates primarily to ethnicity and culture, less to
variation from one generation to another or differing dynastic images.
7 Walbank 1984 is a classic example, although he does concede some change over
time (1984, 65) by noting that the monarchies grew more similar as time passed.
8 Hammond’s scholarship (exemplified by Hammond 2000), despite its clear merits,
suffers from this presumption. One consequence of the tendency to assume that a
practice is old and traditional is that there tends to be no discussion of when and why
it was first implemented. I do not mean to deny that considerable continuity existed
in Macedonian government over centuries but rather to note that, particularly in a
society that experienced such dramatic change in the second half of the fourth century
and the early third, the absence of any significant change in governmental practice is
extremely unlikely. See further Carney 2000a, 199–202.
9 See Savalli-Lestrade 1994; Roy 1998; Savalli-Lestrade 2003. Pomeroy 1984, 3–40
contains some general material but focuses on the Ptolemies. Similarly, Carney 2000a,
203–33 addresses the emerging role of royal women in the Hellenistic period, but
centers on Macedonia.
10 Carney 2000a, 179–202 does contain a discussion of the role of women in the
Antigonid dynasty, but the discussion is part of analysis of the role of women in
Macedonian monarchy over several dynasties and many centuries. Le Bohec 1993 also
deals with the women of both the later Argead and the Antigonid dynasties. As a
consequence, both discussions are less focused on the distinctive role of women in this
specific dynasty, although each addresses the issue. Hazzard 2000 does deal with
Ptolemaic royal women, but its treatment, scholarship, and information are so narrowly
conceived as to make it largely irrelevant.
11 For Homeric influence on Argead women in general, see Carney 2000a, 13–14;
for Olympias in particular, see Carney 2006, 17–18. Foster 2006 discusses the
influence of Homeric women on the image of Arsinoe II.
12 See Carney 2005 for discussion and references.
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13 On women in Persian monarchy, see Brosius 1996. For possible Persian
influence on Argead monarchy, see Carney 1993. See Robins 1993, 21–55 for a
discussion of the role of women in pharaonic monarchy and Quaegebeur 1978 for
pharaonic influence on Ptolemaic royal women.
14 Here I differ in part from Pomeroy 1984, 11 (followed by O’Neil 1999, 2) who
concludes that ‘...queenship was not a public office and therefore cannot be defined
except as a private role.’ Queenship was not an office, but royal women certainly acted
in public events and Philip and Alexander, at least, involved them in the public
presentation of the monarchy. I have argued that, in the Argead period, office-holding
was not generally the way in which power was understood and allotted in Macedonia.
See further Carney 1995.
15 Savalli-Lestrade 2003, 66–7, speaking about the Hellenistic period; in fact, this
phenomenon is clearly present by the second half of the fourth century.

16 Aeschin. 2.26–8.
17 On Eurydike’s career, see Carney 2000a, 40–46; on the role of Argead women in
philia and xenia, see Carney 2006, 50–2.

18 See Carney 2006, 29–30.
19 Savalli-Lestrade 2003, 63–4. Herman 1997, 207–8 argues that xenia networks
were how new philoi were recruited.

20 Kron 1996, 181–2 so characterizes the euergetism of Hellenistic royal women but
does not discuss pre-Hellenistic precedents.

21 See discussion and references in Carney 2006, 90–1. See Carney 2000a, 46, n. 34
for reference to and discussion of an inscription in which Eurydike is offering to

citizen women.
22 Schmitt 1991, 84; Savalli-Lestrade 2003, 70–1 makes this point for Hellenistic
royal women, but it appears in Argead times and, judging by Phila’s career, before the
Successors had taken royal titles. Both Eurydike’s Eukleia cult and the dedication on
behalf of women citizens suggest this role of the royal wife-cum-mother as protector
and sponsor of women, as did many of the cults in which a woman was somehow
identified with Aphrodite (see below).
23 See Schultz 2007 and 2009 and Carney 2007 for discussion, analysis and
references on the Philippeion and its influence. See Kosmetatou 2004a for discussion
and references on the imagery of family groups more generally. Schmitt 1991, 78–9
points to Hellenistic stress on family unity, continuity over generations, often at odds
with reality. See Palagia 2010 for an argument that the Eurydike in the Philippeion
was Philip’s last wife, not his mother.
24 On Philip’s marriage alliances (his own and those he arranged for other family
members) and his polygamy, that of the Successors, and its subsequent decline, see
below and Carney 2000a, 52–79, 228–32. See also Ogden 1999, 3–214.
25 Carney 2000a, 203–07.
26 Carney 2000a, 93–7.
27 Diod. 20.37.3–6.
28 Syll.3 252N, 5–8, with n. 3.
29 SEG IX.2; Lycurg. Leoc 26.
30 See discussion and references in Carney 2006, 50–2.
31 On Olympias’ role in Macedonia, Molossia and the Greek peninsula during
Alexander’s absence, see Blackwell 1999, 81–132; Carney 2006, 49–59. Kleopatra
210
as intercessor: see FGrH 434, F 4.37. Kleopatra and courtiers: Paus. 1.44.6; Diod.
20.37.5.
32 See discussion in Carney 2006, 101–3. Only Curtius (9.6.26; 10.5.30) reports that
Alexander planned a posthumous cult for her. Plutarch (Alex. 3.2) preserves reports
both that Olympias did originate Alexander’s claim to be the son of a god and that she
did not.
33 The evidence for Harpalos and the courtesans is a fragment of Theopompos and
another of the comic playwright Philemon, both preserved in Athenaeus (13.586c,

595a-e). For discussion of these intriguing fragments, see Carney 1991, 158; 2000a:
217–18 and Müller 2006, who suggests that Harpalos was a kind of precursor of
Hellenistic rulers in terms of his self-representation. Further on Harpalos, see Ogden
(this volume).
34 For Olympias, see Carney 2006. For Kynnane, Adea Eurydike, and Kleopatra, see
Carney 2000a, 69–70, 129–31; 132–7; 75–6, 89–90, 123–8. Olympias killed Adea
Eurydike but the others died at the hands of male Successors.
35 Perdikkas, for instance, was interested in marriage to Kleopatra, despite her fairly
independent career; his faction killed off her half-sister because she was a threat, not
because she was a woman. Similarly, Antipater’s confrontations with Olympias and the
others derived from what had become a feud between his clan and the Aeakids (in the
case of Olympias and Kleopatra) and from his determination to control political
events (Kynnane) and Philip Arrhidaios (Adea Eurydike).
36 Our sources preserve two famous ‘quotations’ about the rule of women whose
authenticity some historians have accepted without question and read uncritically (e.g.
O’Neil 1999), even if one accepts them as genuine accounts of what was said. Plutarch
(Alex. 68.3) claims that Olympias and her daughter raised a faction against Antipater
and that they divided rule between them, with Olympias taking Molossia and Kleopatra
Macedonia. Alexander, supposedly commenting with comparative indifference on
these events, comments that his mother has made the better choice because the
Macedonians will not tolerate being ruled by a woman. The passage clearly reflects
gender bias, but whether it reflect the bias of Plutarch’s era, or a Greek or Macedonian
bias contemporary with Alexander is uncertain. The historicity of the entire passage
is debatable, though likely to contain some truth (see Carney 2006, 53 for further
discussion and references). In the unlikely event that Antipater’s supposed death-bed
warning (Diod. 19.11.5) that the Macedonians should never allow a woman to be first
in the kingdom is historical (see Carney 2006, 78–9), it is clearly a partisan statement
directed at Olympias, his enemy, reflecting his belief that he, not she, was ‘first’.
Antipater’s willingness to take his own daughter’s advice (see below) suggests that he
did not so much oppose female political action as the political action of his female
enemies.
37 Although many of the Successors considered marriage to Alexander’s sister, in
the end none of them married her and all of Alexander’s sisters were murdered,
including Thessalonike, the widow of Kassander. See further Carney 1988b.
38 See Carney 2004 for references and discussion.
39 AB 36.
40 See discussion in Stephens 2004,163–76. Stephens 2004,168 wonders if the image
may refer to a specific armed cult statue of Arsinoe. On the military role of royal
Macedonian women see Carney 2004 and Stephens 2005, 240–1.
211
Elizabeth D. Carney
41 Polyb. 5.83.3.
42 For Phila see Diod. 19.59.4. See Sherwin-White and Kuhrt 1993, 26–7 for
references and discussion of a 299 BC inscription from Miletos that honors Apamea
for her ‘goodwill and support’ to Milesians campaigning with King Seleukos. The
Milesians in question were apparently mercenaries who took part in Seleukos’
conquest of Bactria-Sogdiana (c. 307–05), Apamea’s homeland. Nourse 2002, 252
suggests that Stratonike, wife of Seleukos and later Antiochos I, was important
because of continuing Antigonid loyalty, particularly to Stratonike’s mother Phila,
among Greek mercenaries and Macedonian soldiers in his territory. Also (2002,
258–9; see below) she sees Stratonike’s diplomatic negotiation as part of military
involvement.
43 After Chaeroneia: Philip married Kleopatra, ward of Attalos; Attalos married a
daughter of Parmenio as did Koinos. It is likely that other marriages happened then
too. After Alexander’s death, Perdikkas married a daughter of Antipater, as did
Krateros and Ptolemy. Kleopatra tried to marry first Leonnatos and then Perdikkas
and Kynnane tried to arrange her daughter’s marriage to Philip Arrhidaios (see Heckel
2006 passim for references).
44 While, for instance, Philip’s marriage to the daughter of a Molossian king is
relatively similar to royal Hellenistic marriage alliances, his marriages to Phila or to

Kleopatra, members of his own elite, and to Meda, a Thracian king, are not.
45 See Carney 2000a, 19–23 for a discussion of royal marriage alliances.
46 Alex. 10.4.
47 Klapisch-Zuber 2002, 103–04 describes a similar situation for women in early
th
15 century Florentine merchant families. She refers to the ‘floating status’ of women
who frequently returned to the household of their birth, sometimes after an absence
of thirty years or more, and who were never seen as ‘full-fledged members of the
lineage’ of marriage. I owe this reference to Peter Schultz.
48 On the career of Phila, see Wehrli 1964; Carney 2000a, 165–9.
49 This is a complicated issue since we often do not know the date of an inscription
or the current marital status of the woman referred to. Stratonike, however, daughter
of Phila and Demetrios Poliorketes and wife (at different times) of both Seleukos I and
Antiochos I, seems to be an example of a married dedicator continuing to focus on
the interests of her birth family, though not necessarily to the exclusion of the interests
of her spouses’ dynasty. See further Carney 2000a, 171–2, 226–8.
50 See Gruen 1985 for discussion of the date at which each Successor began to
employ a royal title.

51 Dating city foundations is never easy, but most scholars believe that Kassander
founded Thessaloniki soon after he took control of Macedonia. See Carney 1988,
135–9.
52 Walbank 1984, 91 argues that an eponymous festival honoring them and dating
to 311 probably involved divine honors.

53 Savalli-Lestrade 2003, 68 stresses the importance of philoi in the divinization of
royal women; certainly this is the case with Phila.

54 See Carney 2000b for discussion and references; it is likely but not certain that
the cults of Demetrius’ mistresses were slightly later in date; for Demetrios’ mistresses,
see Ogden (this volume). Wheatley 2003, 33 suggests that, at least in Athens, Demetrius
treated Lamia, his favorite hetaira like a royal woman; he cites the parallel of Harpalos’
212
similar actions (see above). Kosmetatou 2004b argues that a hetaira of Ptolemy II’s
(Bilistiche) was, in effect, a substitute queen after the death of Arsinoe Philadelphos.
See Ogden 2008 for a different view.
55 For references and discussion, see Carney 2000a, 225–8. It is possible, though
hardly certain, that wearing a diadem was connected to the acquisition of the title
basilissa. See further Carney 2000a, 232–3.
56 Though Savalli-Lestrade 1994, 417–18 and others assume that only in the
Ptolemaic dynasty (direct evidence; see below) did basilissa refer to unmarried king’s
daughters, a number of scholars, including myself, believe that some other dynasties,
possibly all, did so as well (see references in Carney 2000a, 326, n. 122). The problem
is the lack of clear evidence, granted the problem noted above with dating and
inscriptions dealing with royal women. See Carney 2000a, 226–7, especially ns.
123–5. I also disagree with the view that repudiation meant automatic loss of title.
57 See Carney 2000a, 207–9 for the possibility that eponymous women may have
received cult as honorary oikists.

58 Savalli-Lestrade 1994: 426 sees a relationship between the connection of royal
women to Aphrodite and the unification of the private role of king’s wife with the
public one as patron of her subjects.
59 See Savalli-Lestrade 1994, 423ff. who points out that this involves not only the
basilissa’s personal influence and access with and to the king, but also that of her
courtiers.
60 Carney 2000a, 228–32. Ogden 1999, 67–214 sees a greater incidence of
continuation of the practice. Savalli-Lestrade 2003, 62 and Roy 1998, 118, on the other
hand, believe that the practice was entirely abandoned.
61 Savalli-Lestrade 2003, 61 describes their situation as ‘semi-private, semi public’
and rightly (2003, 65–6) notes how ‘ambivalent’ a royal wife’s status remained.
62 Roy 1998, 117–19 argues that the image of the king’s masculinity was defined by
that of his queen. This is an interesting suggestion, but does not seem as applicable to
Antigonid rulers, at least not on the basis of extant sources.
63 Schmitt 1991. Schmitt stresses (1991, 85) the paradoxical need to make the royal
family seem both distant and near, like and different from ordinary people, and the
ways in which dynasties used their private lives (as represented) to increase their
power.
64 See Carney 2000a, 179–80 for references to general treatments of the Antigonid
era. The interpretation of changes in Macedonian monarchy is my own and would

not be accepted by all scholars.
65 Walbank 1984, 65 considers this a minor difference, a mere ‘nuance.’ I do not
agree.
66 Edson 1934.
67 Carney 2000a, 181, 197–202 contra Hatzopoulos 1990, 144–7, followed by Le
Bohec 1993, 229–45, who cite the inscriptions discussed below as evidence that the
role of women was not more limited.
68 Hatzopoulos 1990, 144–5 (see also Le Bohec 1993, 244–5) discusses two
inscriptions from the reign of Antigonos Gonatas. One is new, from Kassandreia,
and honors a man who apparently is a go-between for Phila (Savalli-Lestrade 2003, 430
wonders if this courtier had followed Phila from her Seleucid homeland) and the city
in matters public and private. The other inscription, from Veroea, is a manumission
213
Elizabeth D. Carney
that mentions the king and queen conjointly and some others as guarantors of the
person’s freedom. As noted, Hatzopoulos and Le Bohec do not interpret these
inscriptions as I do. See further Carney 2000a, 197–202.
69 Edson 1934, 218, who also notes that progonoi usually refers only to male
ancestors, followed by Carney 2000b, 26, n. 27 contra Le Bohec 1993, 239. See further
discussion and references in Carney 2007.
70 The women were Stratonike, daughter of Antiochos I and wife of Demetrios II
(see Carney 2000a, 184–7) and Laodike, daughter of Seleukos IV and wife of Perseus
(see Carney 2000a, 195–7).
71 See Meyer 1992–1993. She notes (1992–1993, 107) that no representation of
female members of the dynasty survives from the 3rd century, but some do for the
second.
72 Nourse 2002, 228.
73 Nourse 2002, 230, e.g. a slave freed ‘on behalf’ of Antiochos I, Stratonike, and
their children.
74 Nourse 2002: 228. As Sherwin-White and Kuhrt 1993, 128 point out queens
could communicate with cities independently, like governors.

75 Schmitt 1991, 84–5 discusses the importance of royal legends in terms of dynastic
loyalty and involvement of subjects in monarchy.

76 Nourse 2002, 234 dates this custom as early as Antiochos I (contra Ogden); there
is clearer evidence (Nourse 2002, 236) for Antiochos III.

77 Sherwin-White 1993, 24, 27 and Nourse generally consider this practice helpful
whereas Ogden 1999, 117 terms it ‘disastrous’.

78 Ogden 1999, 117.
79 See Nourse 2002, 258–9 for references to an inscription in which Stratonike
c. 287 received ambassadors from Troizen and Halikarnassos as part of negotiation

to recover ships and men fighting on behalf of Demetrios Poliorketes that were
captured by Seleukos.
80 See Llewellyn-Jones and Winder, this volume, for a discussion of the much-
neglected Berenike II.

81 Like Ager 2005, 17, I would agree that it is no longer wise to dismiss the interest
of even early Ptolemies in matters Egyptian.

82 Ager 2005, 16 stresses that not all marriages were sibling marriages.
83 Ager 2005, 18 observes that the practice meant that the Ptolemaic king came
‘close to “cloning” himself.’

84 Ager 2005.
85 Carney 1987, 420.
86 See brief overview and references in Hölbl 2001, 94–5.
87 Heckel 1989, 34–6; Carney 1994, 123–4. Sherwin-White and Kuhrt 1993, 23
point out that Seleukos made his heir co-king a full decade before Ptolemy I. Hazzard
2000, 46, n. 92 comments that Ptolemy I treated both sides of the family fairly evenly
until at least 298.
88 Ager 2005, 15–16 points out that modern studies link incest to family strife and
suggests that some of the same psychological forces that created murder within family
may have created incest within the family.
89 On Arsinoe’s career before her return to Egypt, see Lund 1992 passim and Carney
1994.
214
90 Hazzard 2000, 84 sees it as Keraunos’ way of sealing a pact with Ptolemy II.
91 Hazzard 2000, 85 implies this when he notes that both had been involved in fear
and in murder.
92 On the peculiarities of scholarly tradition about Arsinoe, see Carney 1987,
420–8; Müller 2005.

93 For instance, Burstein 1982, 211; Hazzard 2000, 39 and passim. See contra Fraser
1972, 117–18; Carney 1987, 428–9. See also Weber 1998/1999, 162–5. Ager 2005, 27.
94 Ager 2005, 27 characterizes the evidence as sparse. Plut. Mor. 11A, 736 E-F;
Athen. 620f–21a. The second century AD author, Pausanias (1.7.1) begins a list of
Ptolemy II’s crimes with the sibling marriage and then mentions his murders of
Argaeus and his brother. Hazzard 2000, 88 concludes that this order means that
Pausanias considered the marriage the king’s worst action. Hazzard also believes
(2000, 40) that, since ‘no one had any motive to denigrate the king after his death,
these late authors probably preserved or built on hostile tradition dating from
Ptolemy’s own reign.’ Obviously, Pausanias’ views could be his own and reflect the
values of the Second Sophistic, not those of any source. Moreover, any enemy of the
Ptolemies in the Hellenistic period had reason to portray brother-sister marriage in a
negative way.
95 18.356.
96 Hazzard 2000, 39 sees this as evidence that the marriage was condemned in
Athens. Plutarch’s passive verb could refer to opinion in Ptolemy II’s day or could be
more general but is not obviously related to Athens. The conversation is set in Athens
but not the reference.
97 Carney 1987, 428; Ager 2005, 27 are skeptical about the seriousness of his remark.
Weber 1998/99, 162–5 doubts that Sotades’ death can be directly connected to the
sibling marriage, on chronological grounds among other factors, and suggests that
Sotades’ death probably related to a number of incidents. (See also Fraser 1972,
117–18.) Weber denies that there is evidence Sotades spoke for a larger group. He
points out (1998/99; 173) that artists killed by kings were all ‘notorious grousers,’
mavericks, not voices of people.
98 Ager 2005, 26, while noting the association between sexual license and tyranny
in Graeco-Roman tradition, also observes that ancients were less bothered specifically
by incest as opposed to sexual license in general.
99 Kosmetatou 2004b, 24 concludes that the ‘court spin doctors’ thought that
something needed to be done and cites as examples not only Theocritus (Id. 17.128–30)
but also statues of the royal siblings erected by Kallikrates at Olympia, facing the
temples of the divine sibling spouses, Zeus and Hera.
100 Ager 2005, 2, 23.
101 See, however Ager 2005, 21–2 for incest as statement of power and relationship
between incest and deification.

102 On Ptolemies and luxury, see Ager 2005, 23–7 and Müller 2005, 43. Müller 2005,
43 notes that she is the first Ptolemaic queen to be shown with the double cornucopia,
a symbol of abundance and luxury.
103 See Ager 2005 for discussion; she rightly concludes (2005, 16) that causation is
complex and not limited to a single factor and notes that the reasons for the initiation
of the practice are not necessarily the reasons for the continuation.
104 As we have noted, it is certain that Ptolemaic daughters had the title basilissa
215
Elizabeth D. Carney
even if unmarried and that the practice had begun in the lifetime of Ptolemy I’s
unmarried daughter Philotera (OGIS 35). This suggests that even early on, the
Ptolemies understood the women of their dynasty as sharing in some aspects of
monarchy. Savalli-Lestrade 2003, 62 points out that only this dynasty (with one
exception) refers to royal couples as basileis.
105 See Burstein 1982, 204–5 for references; Macurdy 1932, 118–21 is typical.
Burstein’s article, though not convincing in all respects, functioned as a healthy

corrective to these over-readings of the evidence, many of them based on sexual
stereotypes about political women.
106 As Hazzard 2000, 82 himself notes, he goes much further than Burstein’s
minimalist approach and insists that there is no evidence that she was powerful or
popular, that this is just a mistaken point of view based on taking propaganda seriously.
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1984 ‘Monarchies and monarchic ideas,’ CAH 2 7.1, 62–100.
1996 ‘Two Hellenistic processions: a matter of self-definition,’ Scripta Classica
Israelica 15, 119–30.
219
Elizabeth D. Carney
Weber, G.
1998/99 ‘Hellenistic rulers and their poets: silencing dangerous critics?’ Ancient
Society 29, 147–74.
1997 ‘Interaktion, Repräsentation und Herrschaft. Der Königshof im
Hellenismus’, in A. Winterling (ed.) Zwischen ‘Haus’ und ‘Staat’, Antike Höfe
im Vergleich, Historische Zeitschrift 23, Munich, 27–71.
Wehrli, C.
1964 ‘Phila, fille d’Antipater et épouse de Démétrius, roi des Macédoniens’,
Historia 13, 140–6.
220
11
HOW TO MARRY A COURTESAN IN THE

MACEDONIAN COURTS
Daniel Ogden
The orator Isaeus presents us with a manifest absurdity when he talks of

infatuated young men attempting to marry courtesans.1 The attempt is
the indicator of the degree of infatuation, for it was impossible and
inconceivable that an Athenian citizen man should marry a courtesan. And
similarly, when Menander’s Demeas speaks with bitter irony about having
been keeping, unawares, a ‘married courtesan’, his son Moschion is
appropriately baffled by the paradoxical remark.2 But in Macedon they did
things differently – in the royal palaces of the Argeads and Antigonids, at
any rate. Our literary traditions for the sundry generations of these royal
families ostensibly present us with some half-dozen marriages between
kings and courtesans. What are we to make of them? There were no legal
issues here, of course. Macedonian kings, whether the absolute-ruler
Argeads or the perhaps slightly more constitutional Antigonids,3 could
marry just whom they wanted, and that too irrespective of however many
concurrent wives they had already stacked up in their γυναικωνῖτις (women’s
quarters). But no single explanation will easily account for all the traditions,
and we will have to turn to a variety of rather different explanations to
make sense of them all.4
1. The Argeads before Alexander

References to courtesans of any kind in the Argead family prior to
Alexander are relatively few and far between. An apparent reference to
courtesans at the court of Perdikkas III (reigned 365–359) may be quickly
dismissed. We may accept, with MSS C and E of Athenaeus, that
Euphraios selected the king’s associates (ἑταιρίαν) as opposed to his
courtesan (ἑταίραν) for him, the claim of MS A.5
This leaves us with two rather comparable groups of data bearing upon
the courts of Perdikkas II and Philip II. As to Philip II (ruled 359–336),
Athenaeus, quoting Ptolemy of Megalopolis, Plutarch and Justin, asserts
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directly the courtesan status of Philinna of Larissa, by whom the king

fathered Philip Arrhidaios:
In listing the mistresses (ἐρωµένας) of kings in his Histories of Philopator
Ptolemy son of Agesarchos says: ‘Philinna the dancing girl (ὀρχηστρίς),
mistress of the Philip who exalted Macedonia, from whom he sired
Arrhidaios, who became king after Alexander.’
Athenaeus 577f–578a, incorporating Ptolemy of Megalopolis FGrH 161 F4
For Plutarch Philinna was ‘without repute and common’, ἀδόξου καὶ κοινῆς,
and her son illegitimate.6 For Justin she was a Larissan dancing-girl
(saltatrix) and a Larissan whore (scortum).7 But a careful and deservedly
famous fragment of Satyros, explicitly devoted to the marriages of Philip,
which is also preserved by Athenaeus, makes it clear that Philinna was a
wife amongst wives. Satyros, or Athenaeus commenting on the implications
thereof, also suggests that this marriage, like Philip’s others, had a
diplomatic purpose, and this obliges us to assume that Philinna was a scion
of Larissa’s ruling Aleuads.8 The courtesan-characterisation of Philinna is
accordingly best understood, opprobrious as it is in Plutarch and Justin at
any rate, as generated in the contexts of succession competitions between
Philip’s polygamously-held wives and their respective children. They result
from the propaganda of rival aspirant wings of the kings’ families. We can
point to obvious culprits: Olympias and her son Alexander. Alexander’s
direct competition with this lad is twice graphically documented in
Plutarch’s Life of Alexander. Olympias supposedly poisoned Arrhidaios to
turn him into the idiot he was subsequently reputed to be.9 And Alexander
was panicked when he perceived that Arrhidaios might gain some
advantage for the succession in marrying the daughter of the satrap
Pixodaros, and branded him a bastard, νόθος.10 Olympias’ hatred of
Arrhidaios, furthermore, endured long after Alexander’s death, until she
finally had him killed in 317, whilst at the same time forcing his wife Adea-
Eurydike to hang herself with her own girdle.11
The Philinna case offers us a ready model for the interpretation of the
vaguer data bearing upon Perdikkas II (ruled 454–413). Plato, Aelian and
a scholiast to Aristides seemingly allude to different aspects of a single
tradition. This (to combine the information) held that Archelaos was the
bastard son of Perdikkas by a slavewoman owned by Perdikkas’ brother
Alketas, and that she was called Simiche.12 Simiche is a typical name for
slavewomen in New Comedy, for what that is worth, if not actually for
courtesans. The finger points similarly at Archelaos’ rivals for the
succession, Perdikkas’ wife Kleopatra and her family. She was the mother
of a son to Perdikkas called (probably) Aeropos, whom Archelaos took
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the precaution of murdering, either by strangling him or by dropping him

down a well.13 Although we may think it probable or at any rate possible
that Archelaos’ mother, whether going by the name of Simiche or
something else, was a married woman, none of our sources actually asserts
that she was married to Perdikkas, and so we can not include her in the
central frame of this investigation. But her case is of interest insofar as it
seems to be compatible with the model conjectured for Philinna.
2. Alexander the Great

As we pass on to the reign of Alexander the Great (ruled 336–323), we
must grapple with the peculiar variety of mythology to which his
achievements gave rise. His tradition attributes three named courtesans to
him14 (to pass over the 360 concubines he inherited from Darius15 and
vague references to flute girls at symposia).16 Already in the work of
Kleitarchos (published ca. 310 BC), Alexander was associated with Thais:
And was it not the case that Alexander the Great kept Thais, the Athenian
courtesan, by his side? Kleitarchos says of her that she was the cause of the
burning of the Persepolis palace. This Thais, after the death of Alexander,
also (καί) married Ptolemy, the first one to rule Egypt, and she bore him
Leontiskos and Lagos, and a daughter Eirene, whom Eunostos, king of Soli
in Cyprus, married.
Athenaeus 576de, incorporating Kleitarchos FGrH 137 F11
Other sources speak of her burning Persepolis in her desire to avenge her
native Athens and to humiliate Persia with a woman’s hand, after
remarking that the palace’s luxuries had compensated her for the hardships
of the baggage train.17 Athenaeus (or perhaps still Kleitarchos?) is emphatic
that Thais married Ptolemy, but does his imply that she had previously
been married to Alexander? It is possible that Thais’ inclusion in the
traditions relating to the campaign court was retrospective. Were Ptolemy
or those writing in his favour attempting to forge an indirect familial link
to Alexander for him through her?18 If so, then an intimation that
Alexander had himself married her might have been considered helpful.
There is no suggestion of marriage in connection with the two further
courtesans associated with Alexander by the tradition. According to
Theophrastus Kallixeina, a Thessalian courtesan, was introduced to the
adolescent Alexander by Philip and Olympias in order to cure him of or
divert him from his condition as a gynnis (eunuch):
Hieronymos in his Letters tells that Theophrastus said that Alexander was
not well predisposed towards sex. Accordingly, Olympias actually sent the
outstandingly beautiful Thessalian courtesan Kallixeina to bed with him,
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Daniel Ogden
and Philip abetted her in this, for they were wary lest/taking precautions
lest he might/should be a gynnis. Olympias frequently begged her to have sex
with Alexander.
Athenaeus Deipnosophistae 435a, incorporating Hieronymos of Rhodes F38
Wehrli and Theophrastus F578 Fortenbaugh
The deployment of the relatively obscure term gynnis seems to have saluted
Alexander’s supposed effeminacy, his venture into the world of eunuchs,
his Persianising and his Dionysiac associations.19 Credible or otherwise, it
is noteworthy that this tale too was developed very soon after Alexander’s
death, with Theophrastus writing in the late fourth century or very early
third.20 If the tale does have anything of value to offer us for the subject of
marriage in association with courtesans at the Macedonian court, this may
lie in its assumed premise: the pressure upon kings to secure heirs. Aelian
tells that the artist Apelles, a highly romanticised figure,21 ‘loved the
concubine (παλλακή) of Alexander, whose name was Pankaste, and she was
Larissan by birth. They say that she was the first woman Alexander had
sex with.’ 22 Pankaste looks rather like a doublet of Kallixeina: both hail
from Thessaly; both have a courtesan-like designation; and both are,
ostensibly, the first woman with whom Alexander has sex.23 (It may be
noteworthy that we have already now encountered the term ‘Thessalian’
three times, in connection with Philinna, Kallixeina and Pankaste. Despite
the highly, albeit variously, fictive nature of the data bearing upon the three
women, we may wonder whether there was in fact some sort of historical
tradition of Thessalian courtesans in the Argead court.)
The nature of Alexander’s first tangible relationship, that with Barsine,
daughter of Artabazus, which endured four or five years from 332 before
producing a son, Herakles, remains obscure to us. Plutarch seems not to
have regarded it as a marriage: he employs the curious word ἅψασθαι of
Alexander’s acquisition of Barsine, and asserts that before marrying
(sc. Roxane) Alexander knew no other woman than Barsine.24 But Barsine,
married or otherwise, is nowhere represented as a courtesan in the source
tradition, and so for this reason falls outside the framework of our
investigation.25
3. Harpalos
Before we pass on to the Antigonid dynasty, it will be worthwhile to
consider the traditions relating to Alexander’s rogue treasurer Harpalos,
who to some extent seems to have projected himself as a king.26 The rich
extant Athens-based traditions relating to his Attic courtesans Pythionike
and Glykera and his lavish treatment of them appear to anticipate many
aspects of the Athens-based traditions relating to Demetrios Poliorketes
224
and the later Antigonids. Our knowledge of these traditions depends

primarily upon a string of passages in Athenaeus, who quotes relevant texts
from Timokles, Amphis, Theopompus (Letter to Alexander), Kleitarchos,
Python, Dikaiarchos, Philemon, Alexis and Klearchos. But important
information is preserved also by Diodorus, Plutarch and Pausanias.27 These
sources, complex as they are, seem to reflect a fairly coherent tradition
(except in the matter of the quality of Pythionike’s tomb) and so it will be
helpful to summarise the information they offer us, in a logical order.
Alexander had left Harpalos in charge of his treasury before leaving for
his Indian campaign. Confident that he would not return, Harpalos
appropriated the money for himself and devoted it to an extravagantly
decadent lifestyle, focusing on hetairas and fish.28 He summoned one of
Athens’ most distinguished hetairas of the day, Pythionike, to his Babylonian
‘court’. He fell in love with her, married her and fathered a daughter by
her. He had people address her as βασίλισσα (queen) and he bestowed royal
gifts upon her. But she died in Babylon, and Harpalos gave her a splendid
funeral and erected a memorial for her or a sanctuary in which she was
worshipped as Pythionike Aphrodite. He also erected a magnificent
memorial for her in Attica, on the Sacred Way en route to Eleusis.
According to the fragmentary satyr-play Agen at any rate, Persian or
Chaldaean Magi (perhaps played by the satyrs) offered to call up the ghost
of Pythionike for the despairing Harpalos at an ἄορνος, a ‘birdless’ entrance
to the underworld, an ‘Avernus’, conveniently close to her temple.29 He
then summoned another great hetaira from Athens, Glykera, whom he
established with him in the royal palace at Tarsos. There he made his
courtiers perform προσκύνησις (obeisance) to her, address her as βασίλισσα
(queen), and offer crowns to her. In Rhossos he set up a group of three
bronze statues featuring himself, Alexander and Glykera. Glykera gave him
corn that he supplied to Athens, and thus paved the way for his eventual
flight there.30
The bulk of this tradition, the content of the Agen apart, is taken seriously
by Alexander scholars, and written directly into the historical record.31
But the tradition is itself an extravagant one. The two women may appear
to be doublets of each other: both are supposedly distinguished Athenian
hetairai, both are summoned by Harpalos to Asia, and both are installed in
his palace and treated as queens. And so too the two monuments to
Pythionike may appear to be doublets of each other. But is it actually
possible to deflate the tradition?
The strongest fixed point appears to be Pythionike’s pentelic-marble
memorial on the Sacred Way, which, despite Plutarch’s disgruntlement,
initially impressed Dikaiarchos and was still able to impress Pausanias in the
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Daniel Ogden
second century AD. Indeed, its foundations survive still.32 When was it
actually built? During Harpalos’ brief residence in Athens, shortly before
his death? Or did he already build it at long distance when still in Asia,
through the agency of Charikles, and was it therefore part of his campaign
to soften up Athens in advance of seeking refuge there? 33 It is conceivable
that this extravagant memorial could have generated – for its audience in
Athens – the notion that Harpalos had also built a tomb or a temple (or
both) for Pythionike in Babylon. This notion is found in Theopompos
who is at this point writing from an Athenocentric perspective,34 and in
the Agen. There the concise description of Pythionike’s temple in its
proximity to the underworld entrance of the ἄορνος is intriguing, given
Dikaiarchos’ association of Pythionike’s tomb with Eleusis, and that too in
a work On the descent into Trophonios’ cave, another underworld hole.35 The
implication of this correspondence, if it is significant, is that the Agen was
not produced for Alexander and his troops (let alone written by the king)
at some Dionysia on some unidentifiable Hydaspes,36 but rather written
for an Athenian audience, as one might normally expect a satyr play to
have been. The preserved scraps of it would certainly suit an Athenian
audience, discussing as they do Harpalos’ grain supplies to that very city,
and his citizenship there. We may choose to believe, with Sutton, that the
soubriquet applied to Harpalos, Pallides, declares him to be a ‘son of
Athene’.37 The play’s words of scene-establishment are reminiscent, for us,
of the prologue of Menander’s Dyskolos.38 Its themes carry more than a
whiff of the Old-Comic stock-in-trade: the great man’s hetaira as the cause
of city-rocking mischief (cf. the Aspasia of Aristophanes’ Acharnians) and
evocation of the dead (cf. Socrates and Chairephon in Aristophanes’
Birds).39 The request for news from Attica in an oriental setting reminds us
of Aeschylus’ Persians in its entirety. The opening of Sophocles’ Electra is
parodied at lies 2–3 of the fragment.40 And the notion of a desperately
bereaved lover calling up the ghost of their lost beloved would resonate
strongly for an audience familiar with Euripides’ Protesilaus or Alcestis.41 All
this surely suggests that the play was written for an Athenian audience, not
for the Macedonian Herresversammlung and assorted rabble. Whilst querying
the pedigree of this text, we may also note the curious coincidence between
Pythionike’s name and that of its supposed, but quite mysterious,
alternative author, Python; Pythionike is herself actually named Pythonike
by Diodorus and Plutarch.42 Both Theopompos and the Agen-author may,
therefore, be writing on the basis of Athenian fantasies spun around the
relationship between Harpalos and Pythionike, and have little to tell us of
what actually passed between them.
The one detail, fantastic as it is, that gives pause for thought in the
226
Pythionike traditions is her cult of Pythionike Aphrodite. This is because

Athenaeus, recycling Demochares and Polemon, tells that the Athenians
and the Thebans attempted to flatter Demetrios Poliorketes by setting up
temples to his courtesans as Aphrodite Lamia (both cities) and Aphrodite
Leaina (Athens only), seemingly in life.43 The Athenians are likely to have
done this prior to 302.44 And Ptolemy Philadelphos’ courtesan Bilistiche
was subsequently to be worshipped in a similar guise, seemingly at the
instigation rather of her king, as Plutarch tells us:
Was not Bilistiche, by Zeus, a barbarian female bought in the agora, she for
whom the Alexandrians kept shrines and temples, on which the king, because
of his love, inscribed the words ‘of Aphrodite Bilistiche’?
Plutarch Moralia 753ef (Eroticus)
The cult can only be dated by the terminus ante of Philadelphos’ death:
i.e., it must have been instituted prior to 246 BC.45 While this may in itself
make a cult of Pythionike Aphrodite more plausible, it could be that
Philadelphos and the Athenian rumour-mongers alike drew on traditions
of courtesan-Aphrodites that are now lost to us.
The notion of marriage is explicitly associated only with Pythionike (by
Pausanias), whereas the notion of treatment as queen, which might or
might not be thought also to entail marriage, or the projection of marriage,
is predominantly associated rather with Glykera (by Theopompos).
However, the Philemon fragment does imply that Pythionike also received
queenly treatment: ‘You will be queen (βασίλισσα) of Babylon, if this is what
happens. You know about Pythionike and Harpalos.’ Whereas the
Athenians can have had little idea about life at court with Harpalos and
Pythionike, they may have imagined that they had some idea about his life
with Glykera: she was initially installed closer to home, at Tarsos, rather
than Babylon. It is possible, just, that the reference to her supplying Athens
with grain on Harpalos’ behalf grew out of some sort of continuing
relationship between the courtesan and the city. And it may be that
Harpalos brought her back to Athens with him during his brief and
unfortunate sojourn there. So it remains doubtful whether we can take the
suggestion that Harpalos married Glykera seriously. And whether he did so
or not, the notion is clearly used by Theopompos as an indicator of excess
on Harpalos’ part.
4. Demetrios Poliorketes
And so to the Antigonids. There is little to say of Antigonos I
Monophthalmos. The only courtesan we find associated with him in
amatory mode is Deomo, the courtesan of his son Demetrios Poliorketes;
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of her more anon. According to Herakleides Lembos, as recycled by

Athenaeus, Antigonos had fallen in love with her, to the extent that he
executed Demetrios’ associate Oxythemis for torturing her female
attendants to death.46 This tale as presented is anachronistic, because
Oxythemis survived the death of Monophthalmos.47 Its theme belongs
with a small but distinct group of anecdotes Plutarch scatters through his
Life of Demetrios which focus upon Antigonos, his sons and their courtesans.
First, Antigonos jokingly (but to us somewhat obscurely) compares a kiss
given him by Demetrios to a kiss the latter might have given to Lamia, with
whom he was famously having an affair.48 Secondly, Antigonos visits his
supposedly sick son Demetrios, only to bump into his ‘fever’ as she leaves
his bed.49 And, thirdly, Antigonos has his younger son Philip moved out of
the supposedly ‘narrow’ quarters he has found him to be sharing with three
courtesans (γυναῖκας).50 The common theme in these three tales as
presented by Plutarch is one of mild, indulgent censure on Antigonos’ part.
Demetrios I Poliorketes himself rivals Ptolemy Philadelphos in the
extravagance and number of his associations with courtesans.51 He is
associated with at least ten different names (although some of the attached
anecdotes overlap), including:52 Antikyra,53 Chrysis,54 Demo,55 Melitta,56
Mania,57 Gnathaina,58 Leaina,59 and Myrrhine.60 But the most prominent
by far of the courtesans associated with him, and the single hellenistic royal
courtesan to whom the greatest amount of extant source material is
devoted is Lamia, to whose cults as Aphrodite Lamia we have already
referred.61 We owe the bulk of the material on Demetrios’ courtesans in the
last instance to Plutarch’s biography and to Athenaeus’ collection of material
on courtesans, and in the first instance to such sources as the Athenian
comic poets, Lynkeus of Samos, Machon’s Chreiai (which engagingly portray
king and witty courtesans interacting in the context of Athenian-smart-set
dinner parties) and Ptolemy of Megalopolis’ Histories of Philopator.62
Of all these women it is Lamia that is of interest for the current
investigation. Courtesan and flutegirl, she was an Athenian citizen, the
daughter of one Kleanor. She took up with Demetrios after she was
captured amongst the booty at the battle of (Cyprian) Salamis in 306.63 The
surviving anecdotes about her are heavily Atheno-centric,64 and none of
them can easily be put in a historical context subsequent to Demetrios’ last
departure from Athens in spring 302.65 This pattern of evidence may
indicate that, despite their meeting at Salamis, the relationship was based
in Athens and fizzled out after Demetrios’ final departure. Or it may just
be a function of the Athens-centred nature of the sources upon which we
depend for Lamia, just as we do for Harpalos’ Pythionike and Glykera. In
this case Lamia may well have remained by Demetrios’ side after 302.
228
There are two suggestions in the source material of a marriage of some

sort between Demetrios and Lamia. In Polygamy, Prostitutes and Death I made
a case that Demetrios may have performed a ‘sacred marriage’ with Lamia
on the Acropolis. The case was as follows. Plutarch tells that the Athenians
assigned Demetrios the back room of the Parthenon to live in and adds
that it was said that Athena received (ὑποδέχεσθαι) him there and gave him
hospitality, although he did not behave properly before the virgin, but led
a life of debauchery with courtesans Chrysis, Demo and Antikyra,
citizenwomen and free-born boys. He quotes the comic poet Philippides
as saying that Demetrios turned the Acropolis into a brothel, and took his
courtesans in to meet the virgin goddess.66 This story works well enough
in its own terms as a means of celebrating Demetrios’ sexual excess and
impiety. Clement of Alexandria, however, has a much more specific tale to
tell, and one which could not easily have been extrapolated from Plutarch’s
more general account. He tells that the Athenians had planned for
Demetrios to marry Athena, but he rejected her on the basis that he could
not marry her statue (which one?). But Demetrios then went up onto the
Acropolis with Lamia and had sex with her in Athena’s ‘bridal chamber’
(παστός), and in so doing displayed the sexual positions of the young
courtesan to the old virgin.67 Behind this tale of a casual act of sacrilegious
debauchery may lurk a ceremonial and sacred act. Demetrios perhaps did
accomplish his `marriage’ with Athena, with Lamia taking on the role of the
goddess symbolically. In introducing Lamia to the goddess, she would
temporarily have come to embody her. This would have been a kind of
‘sacred marriage’ (ἱερὸς γάµος), a common Greek fertility rite in which one
partner comes to embody a deity during a ceremonial sexual congress.68
We may point to a potential precedent earlier in Athenian history. In 552
the returning tyrant Peisistratos had been escorted to the Acropolis in a
chariot by a statuesque Athenian girl, Phye, dressed as and pretending to
be Athena, and this has been interpreted as a ceremonial sacred marriage
by Boardman and Connor.69 Perhaps the joke purportedly made by
Lysimachos and relayed by Phylarchos about Lamia being a whore playing
a tragic part relates to this particular job of impersonation.70 Pat Wheatley
baulks at this theory: ‘the hypothesis is ingenious, but perhaps needs to be
viewed more closely in the historical context, as it discounts the darker side
of the king’s personality, and also his predilection for theatrical gestures.’ 71
I plead guilty to the former (surely not a killer blow, even so), but not to
the latter, because so far as I am concerned a sacred marriage would have
been the most theatrical of gestures. However, I am more hesitant than I
was to extend the sacred marriage claim strongly beyond the level of
representation: whatever Demetrios did do on the Acropolis, it was, I
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would contend, thought about in terms of sacred marriage, or a parody

thereof. And whether a sacred marriage would have entailed an actual
marriage, I know not.
It could be that we are explicitly told that Demetrios married Lamia in
one or more sources. Favorinus, as quoted by Diogenes Laertius, tells that
Demetrios ‘lived with his girlfriend Lamia, who was both a citizenwoman
and well born’ (ἀστῇ καὶ εὐγενεῖ συνῴκει Λαµίᾳ τῇ ἐρωµένῃ).72 συνοικεῖν, whilst
literally meaning ‘live with’, takes on the specific technical meaning of ‘live
with in a state of sanctioned marriage’ in Attic legal discourse.73 Could it
carry such a meaning here? It could do: much depends on whether the
phrase ἀστῇ καὶ εὐγενεῖ, ‘both a citizenwoman and well born’, is taken as
corroborative of the concept ‘marriage’ or adversative to the concept of
cohabitation.
A text of potentially great significance that I missed when compiling
Polygamy, Prostitutes and Death was a fragment of Demetrios of Phaleron,
F39 Wehrli: Λοίµια· ὄνοµα κύριον, γέγονεν δὲ ἡ γυνὴ ∆ηµητρίου τοῦ Φαλήρεως:
‘Loimia, a proper name; she became the wife of Demetrios of Phaleron’.
This text is seemingly full of confusion but also seemingly easy to
disentangle – to a certain extent, at any rate. It seems inevitable that there
lurks here an assertion about Lamia, the courtesan of Demetrios
Poliorketes. The confusion between the two contemporary Demetrii, the
Besieger and the Phalerian, is common in what Wheatley winningly terms
the ‘peripheral’ sources.74 But we may ponder about the significance of
Lamia becoming Λοίµια: is this just due to a meaningless error of
transmission, or does it reflect an abusive or jocular reformulation of her
name? Clearly the reformulation, if intentional, salutes λοιµός, ‘pestilence’.
The adjective λοίµιος, ‘pestilential’, of which the reformulated name
constitutes the regular feminine form, is in fact attested in later Greek, via
Macrobius, as an epithet of Apollo.75 The joke would seem quite an
appropriate one for a courtesan; as we have just seen, another, nameless,
courtesan in the Antigonid tradition was likened to a ‘fever’.76 But whether
the fragment is talking about our Lamia or a distinct Loimia, and about
Demetrios Poliorketes or Demetrios of Phaleron, it seemingly asserts that
the one was the wife of the other. Wheatley’s rendering, ‘she became the
woman of Demetrios of Phaleron’, seems to me to to sidestep the familiar
significance of the familiar idiom of γυνή when associated with an individual
male, as here. But, on the assumption that this text was (once) trying to
tell us that Lamia became the wife of Demetrios Poliorketes, what are we
to make of the claim? If the form of her name owes its origin to a joke, then
the claim that Demetrios married her may also have in origin been a comic
over-representation. Nonetheless, it seems that it probably was the case
230
that some element of the traditions relating to Demetrios Poliorketes and

Lamia did speak of a marriage between them.
Whether or not Demetrios regarded himself as married to Lamia, he
guaranteed her a certain status within his household(s) by rearing a
daughter from her, Phila, who curiously bore the name of the first of his
wives and who may have had a temple dedicated to her (as had her
mother), by Adeimantos of Lampsakos.77 Lamia would not have been the
first courtesan to bear a reared child to a hellenistic king: Thais had borne
Ptolemy Soter three children at the beginning of his reign, as we have seen,
though apparently after marriage. A case has been made that Ptolemy
Philadelphos’ courtesan Bilistiche bore him a semi-recognised child, one
‘Ptolemy called son of Andromachos’, and this has persuaded many
scholars, although not the current writer.78 It is also clear that Lamia’s
exceptional status as a consort and mother was to constitute an important
precedent for the next three Antigonid kings.
If Lucian’s frustratingly allusive reference to an Antigonos committing
adultery (moicheuonta) with the wife ( gynaika) of his son does indeed refer
to Monophthalmos,79 if the son in question is Demetrios, and if the tale is
to be taken as a refraction of Herakleides Lembos’ tale that Monophthalmos
fell in love with Demetrios’ courtesan Demo – a lot of ifs – then we may
have an indication that Demetrios married another of his courtesans.80
We know nothing more of Demo, but her name, ‘Public One’, is a good
one for a courtesan.
To the extent that queenship may be thought to have entailed marriage
(cf. above on Harpalos), we should also note here the claims of Nicolaus
of Damascus, obscurely recycled by Athenaeus, that Demetrios gave
Myrrhine a share of his royalty.81
6. Middle Antigonids
We are told that Antigonos Gonatas displayed Thessalian (NB) girls
dancing only in loin-cloths (διαζώστραι) at his court.82 But only one named
courtesan, however, is associated with him, and that too vestigially, but the
association is an important one in the context of the other dynastic
arrangements under consideration, for all that the tradition makes no
mention of marriage. Athenaeus quotes a list of royal courtesans from
Ptolemy of Megalopolis in which the name of Demo is attached to
Gonatas (hence all of the first three Antigonids are apparently associated
with a courtesan of this name),83 with the bald fact that she bore him his
son Halkyoneus,84 and it is in this that her significance lies. For, until
Gonatas was at least 43, and he himself was a young adult, Halkyoneus
remained his only son, and he was clearly being groomed as a crown prince.
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Daniel Ogden
In 272 he was holding high command, and defended Argos against

Pyrrhos. This was just four years after the earliest possible date for
Antigonos’ marriage to Phila, the mother of his eventual heir Demetrios II
Aitolikos, and so it is clear that Halkyoneus was already adult by the time
of Demetrios II’s birth. We also know that the Stoic Persaios was his tutor.
Tarn guesses that he died fighting against Areus’ Spartans at Corinth in
264, since, had he been alive in 262, he and not Demetrios would have
commanded the army invading Ephesus, as Demetrios was only 13 at the
time. After Halkyoneus’ death Antigonos instituted and endowed a yearly
festival at Athens in honour of his birthday. The festival was placed under
the charge of the philosopher Hieronymos of Rhodes, who had possibly
been a friend of Halkyoneus.85 There is nothing about the context of the
Ptolemy of Megalopolis fragment to suggest that Demo’s representation as
a courtesan derives from the context of a succession dispute, although
there could theoretically have been one between Demo and Halkyoneus on
the one hand and Antigonos’ wife Phila and her son, the subsequent
Demetrios II, on the other. While the name Demo, ‘Public one’, seems
entirely appropriate to a courtesan – all too appropriate, some may think,
the name Halkyoneus certainly does not look dynastic.
Had Halkyoneus lived, would he have succeeded Antigonos? His
premature death left this question importantly unresolved. As Lamia’s
status under Demetrios Poliorketes had doubtless helped to boost that of
Demo and Halkyoneus under Antigonos, so Halkyoneus’ status under
Antigonos was to boost a courtesan’s son all the way to the throne in the
next generation.
Our understanding of Demetrios II Aitolikos’ relationship with his
courtesan Chryseis has long been complicated by the groundless but
popular scholarly conjecture that she is, somehow, to be identified with
Demetrios’ wife Phthia of Epiros, whom he married at some point prior
to 246 BC.86 The impulse for this identification comes from a preconception-
heavy concern that Demetrios’ son and heir, Philip V, whom the sources
without exception (Porphyry, Syncellus and Etymologicum magnum) assert
to have been born from the courtesan Chryseis, should rather have been
born of a suitably prestigious wife.87 Porphyry is worth quoting:
He took a woman from his prisoners of war to wife, whom he called
Chryseis. He had his son Philip [V ] from this wife. I say that this man, who
first waged war with the Romans, was the cause of troubles for the
Macedonians. Anyway Philip, who was left an orphan, was taken care of
under the guardianship of a man from the royal family, who was nick-named
Phouskos [i.e. Antigonos III Doson]. When they saw that Phouskos was
behaving justly in his guardianship, they made him king, and they also
232
betrothed Chryseis to him. He did not rear the children that were born to
him from Chryseis, so that he might preserve the kingship for Philip without
treachery. And indeed he delivered Philip to the kingship, and himself died.
Porphyry FGrH 260 F3.13–14 = Eusebius Chronicles i 237–8 Schöne88
Porphyry and Syncellus say that Chryseis was a Thessalian war-captive
(αἰχµάλωτος). The name Chryseis well suits a woman that is a war-captive
and a concubine: the famous Chryseis of the Iliad was such.89 This
consideration of course suggests that the name of Chryseis was only given
to the woman after her capture. Porphyry may be conscious of the Iliad
parallel, for he makes Chryseis’ child Philip V the ‘cause of troubles’ for the
Macedonians, as one may argue that Chryseis had been for the Greeks at
Troy.90 Chryseis was also a common name for hetairai (cf. Chrysis, the
courtesan of Demetrios Poliorketes).91 Despite all this Porphyry explicitly
says that Demetrios married Chryseis. The union must have commenced
before 238, when Philip V was born.92 An indication that Philip had a
mother of at any rate disputable marital status may be found in Polybius’
description of Philip as Demetrios II’s ‘natural’ (κατὰ φύσιν) son, which
could be read in implicit contrast to ‘legitimate’ (κατὰ νόµον). However, the
phrase is more easily read in implicit contrast to ‘adoptive’ (κατὰ θέσιν), for
Philip was after all the adoptive son of Antigonos III Doson.93
It is difficult to interpret the data on Chryseis. Are we to see her as
another Lamia, a practicing courtesan captured in war and either invited or
compelled to take up with her captor? Or are we to see Demetrios as
effectively contracting a marriage alliance with Thessalian nobility ‘in the
context of war’ as Satyros presents Philip II’s marriage to Philinna of
Larissa to have been? In which case, Chryseis’ representation as a courtesan
is likely to owe its origin to competition within the royal family, the most
obvious candidate being Phthia and her circle, although she is not known
to have produced any rival children of her own. But the tone of Porphyry’s
narrative does not invite this line of thought: there is no atmosphere of
invective or moral reproach about it. So perhaps it is best to take
Porphyry’s account at face value. If we are to suppose that the name
Chryseis was acquired by the woman within her new Macedonian context,
then it seems that, whatever her original status in life, she was being openly
projected as a courtesan by the throne.
Since Demetrios is not known to have had any other children, the
succession of Philip, so far as he himself will have been concerned, will
have been his only serious option. But the boy’s actual succession marks
the logical conclusion of a process traceable from Demetrios I onwards.
Demetrios permitted his courtesan Lamia to rear a child, admittedly a
relatively unthreatening girl, but the child was nonetheless given a name
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Daniel Ogden
most honorific within the family. His son Antigonos II not only reared a
son from his hetaira Demo but bestowed public honour upon him and was
apparently grooming him for the sucession, or at least as a candidate for the
succession. This question was left unresolved by the boy’s early death. But
now in the generation of Antigonos’ son, Demetrios II, we appear to see
the son of a courtesan, or of a woman ostensibly presented as a courtesan,
completing the journey to the throne. And this was done, we may note,
with the blessing of the Macedonian establishment which organised a most
scrupulous regency for him.
Antigonos III Doson too, as is even more emphatically clear from
Porphyry (and other sources),94 married Chryseis in turn. In so doing he
was continuing an old Macedonian practice of legitimating his rule by
taking on one of his predecessor’s wives.
7. The end of the Antigonids

The evidence for the unions and children of Philip V (221–179) is difficult.
It seems that, as we approach the end of the Antigonid dynasty, we return
to the point at which we began with the Argeads, and tendentious
accusations of hetaira-status cast between rival wives, their children and
blood relatives. The clash in question was between the camps of Philip’s
half-brother sons Perseus and Demetrios, closely documented by Polybius
and Livy, which culminated in Philip’s execution of Demetrios.95 Livy
presents us twice with the notion that Perseus was the son of a paelex
(concubine). But for all that he generally writes in support of Rome’s choice
for the succession to Philip, Demetrios, formerly a hostage in Rome where
he had gone native, Livy does make it clear that the notion was a
tendentious and contentious one. On both occasions the notion is
associated with those arguing against the succession of Perseus.96 Although
no source says it explicitly, it seems likely that Perseus was in fact, or was
presented as, the son of the noble Argive Polykrateia, whom Philip had
stolen from the younger Aratos and taken to wife in 213.97 The strongest
indications that this was so are provided by the date of Perseus’ birth,
which must have been very soon after 213, and by Plutarch’s apparent
refraction of another Demetrian attempt to destabilise Perseus’ claim to
succeed. This is the tale that Philip’s (unnamed) wife passed off as her own
the child of an Argive sowing-woman, Gnathainion.98 This tale at least
serves to show that Perseus did officially pass for the child of a wife of
Philip, and to supply the Argive connection. It remains unclear whether
the figure of ‘Gnathainion’, whose name recalls that of Demetrios
Poliorketes’ hetaira Gnathaina (and that Gnathaina was actually attributed
with a daughter or granddaughter named Gnathainion),99 was supposed to
234
be some sort of lady-in-waiting to Polykrateia, or a prejudicial representation

of Polykrateia herself.
The notion that Perseus kept hetairai depends on material generated by
the Andriskos affair, the affair of the supposed pretender who briefly
revived the Antigonid cause and ruled Macedon 149–8. Our sources
dispute the nature of the relationship Andriskos supposedly claimed with
the later Antigonids. Polybius, for instance, asserts that the claim was the
impossible one that he was the late-born son of Philip V whom Perseus
adopted, also called Philip.100 But others, such as Diodorus and Livy, tell
that the claim was the more theoretically defensible one that he was
Perseus’ son by an unnamed concubine.101 There is certainly no claim here
that Perseus married the supposed concubine in question: rather, it is
integral to the dynamics of the story that Andriskos’ connection to Perseus
should have been obscure. Diodorus does also, however, give us a named
concubine (παλλακίς) of Perseus in connection with Andriskos, Kallippa.
She it was who succoured Andriskos at the beginning of his quest. Now the
wife of Athenaios of Pergamon, she fitted him out with journey money,
royal dress, a diadem, and two slaves of the appropriate sort.102 We can say
nothing more of her. There is, accordingly, no indication of a marriage to
Perseus, alleged or otherwise, although she was evidently held worthy to
marry no less than a prince of Pergamon. There may of course lurk behind
Diodorus’ tale the notion that Kallippa was herself the very concubine of
Perseus that Andriskos claimed as his mother.103
Conclusion
In general, claims that Macedonian kings married courtesans can be
attributed to several broad origins:
• The competitive discourse generated by succession disputes between
sons of rival wives: so Perdikkas II’s Simiche (probably), Philip II’s
Philinna and Philip V’s Polykrateia/Gnathainion.
• Contemporary or retrospective moralising attempts to attribute the kings
with immoderate behaviour: Harpalos’ (Pythionike and) Glykera,
Demetrios I’s Lamia (perhaps).
• The propaganda of those who sought to enhance their own position
through a suitably obscure connection to a king: Alexander’s Thais,
Perseus’ courtesan, supposedly the mother of Andriskos, possibly to be
identified with Kallippa.
• And, indeed, although moderns may find the notion quaint, the historical
fact of such marriages between kings and courtesans: Demetrios I’s
Lamia, perhaps; Demetrios II’s and Antigonos III’s Chryseis (and cf.
Ptolemy I’s Thais).
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Daniel Ogden
The case of Lamia perhaps satisfies two categories: she may have married
Demetrios at least in the context of a ‘sacred marriage’, but she may also
have been avidly seized upon by the tradition as a mechanism for
illustrating Demetrios’ immoderate behaviour.
As a rider to our study, let us briefly consider what we know of the
ethnicities of the courtesans associated with the Macedonian kings.
Demetrios Poliorketes’ Myrrhine is said to have been Samian,104 and
Philip V’s Polykrateia/Gnathaina, if relevant here, which is doubtful, we
have seen to have been Argive. All the other courtesans associated with
the Macedonian kings, where any ethnicity is attributed to them, are
Thessalian or Attic: Thessalian are Philip II’s Philinna, Alexander’s
Kallixeina and Thais, Antigonos Gonatas’ unnamed courtesans and
Demetrios II’s and Antigonos Doson’s Chryseis. Attic are: Harpalos’
Pythionike and Glykera, Demetrios Poliorketes’ Lamia, Leaina and Mania.
We have seen that in the cases of Harpalos and Demetrios Poliorketes the
source-tradition is heavily Athenocentric, and this may well account for
apparent prominence of Attic courtesans in the biographies of these men.
This perhaps makes the Thessalian ethnicity attributed to the rest all the
more significant, and we may tentatively suggest that the Macedonian kings
had a tendency to favour courtesans from the land to their south.
Notes
1 Isaeus 3.17.
2 Menander Samia 129–36; cf. Ogden 1996, 102 and 161.
3 For the notion that the Antigonids behaved in a more ‘constitutional’ fashion
than the Argeads before them, see Carney 2001a, 179–233.

4 The methodological difficulties in studying courtesans and their traditions in the
context of the Argead and Hellenistic courts are considerable: Ogden 1999, 215–29.
This is not the place to rehearse them, and so, whilst bearing them in mind, I will
plunge in medias res. On the role of women in Hellenistic monarchies, see also Carney,
this volume.
5 Athen. 11.508e.
6 Plut. Alex. 10 and 77.
7 Justin 9.8.2 and 13.2.11.
8 Satyros F21 Kumaniecki at Athen. 13.557b-e; cf. Beloch 1912–27:iii.2, 69, Berve
1926 no. 781 n.4, Prestianni Giallombardo 1976/7 esp. 91, Hammond and Griffith
1979, 225, Heckel 1981, 51, Greenwalt 1984, 69–72, Tronson 1984, Ogden 1999, 17–
20, Carney 2001a, 61–2 and Heckel 2006 s.v. Philine. Bosworth 1971a, 128 gives some
credence to these sources in defining Arrhidaios as ‘possibly illegitimate’. Hammond
1983, 90–3 and 1994, 198 n. 3 implausibly argues that the origin of the abusive
representation of Philinna lay in the democratic opposition in Larissa, and was relayed
by Kleitarchos.
9 Plut. Alex. 77; cf. Ogden 1999, 25–6. For discussion of Arrhidaios’ condition, see
236
Greenwalt 1984, 72–6, Green 1990, 6 (epilepsy) Heckel 1992, 144–5, Carney 1992, 172
and 2001b (mental retardation). See also Ogden 2007b.
10 Plut. Alex. 10; cf. Arr. Anab. 1.23.8 and Strabo C675. See Badian 1963, 245–6,
Hamilton 1969 ad loc., Heckel 1981, 57, Hatzopoulos 1982, Greenwalt 1984, 76,
French and Dixon 1986a and 1986b, Bosworth 1988, 21–2, O’Brien 1992, 31–3 and
Hammond 1994, 174. Alexander and Olympias themselves suffered similar
‘bastardising’ treatment at the hands of Philip’s final wife Kleopatra and her family,
in the form of her uncle (?) Attalos, as we learn from Satyros F21 Kumaniecki and
Plut. Alex. 9; cf. Ogden 1999, 20–5.
11 Diodorus 19.11.1–7, Justin 14.5.8–10 and Aelian Varia historia 13.36; cf. Carney
1987a, 59, 1987b, 500, 1991, 19–20, 1993b and 2001a, 136–7, Green 1990, 19–20 and
Ogden 1999, 25–6.
12 Plato Gorg. 471a-d (son of slavewoman), Ael. VH 12.43 (son of slavewoman
Simiche) and Aristides 46.120.2 with Scholiast (son of Perdikkas by slavewoman). For
discussion see Dodds 1959, 241–2, Hammond and Griffith 1979, 133–7, Borza 1990,
161–2, Ogden 1999, 7–8 and Carney 2001a, 17.
13 Plato Gorg. 471a-d and Scholiast Aristides 45.55 and 46.120, with Ogden 1999,
7–8.
14 Cf. Ogden 1999, 42 and Reames-Zimmerman 1999, 89–90.
15 Curtius 6.6.8 and Justin 12.3.10.
16 Athen. 12.539a (incorporating Polykleitos of Larissa FGrH 128 F1) and Curtius
6.2.5.
17 Athen. 13.576de (including Kleitarchos FGrH 137 F11), Plut. Alex. 38, Diod.
17.72 and Curtius 5.7.2–11; cf. Berve 1926 no. 359, Peremans and Van’t Dack
1950–81 no. 14723, Ogden 1999 index s.v. and 2008, McClure 2003, 157–8 and Heckel
2006 s.v. Thais.
18 There is no mention of Thais’ involvement in the burning of the palace at Arr.
Anab. 3.18.11. If her role in it had been a historical one, then it is possible that Ptolemy
himself passed over it in silence in the history of which Arrian made so much use.
Tarn 1948, ii, 47–8, 82–3 and 324 argues that Alexander had no relationship with
Thais.
19 See Ogden 2007a.
20 Athen. 10.435a, incorporating Hieronymos of Rhodes F38 Wehrli and
Theophrastus F578 Fortenbaugh.

21 Cf. Lucian Herodotus or Aetion.
22 Ael. VH 12.34; cf. Reames-Zimmerman 1999, 89 (where the reference is given
incorrectly as 7.34).
23 We find a version of this same story also at Pliny HN 35.86, where the
concubine’s name is given rather as Campaspe. Here we are not explicitly told that
Campaspe was Alexander’s first love, but we are told that she was his favourite. In an
act of magnanimity, Alexander handed her over to Apelles.
24 Plut. Alex. 21.4 = Aristobulus FGrH 139 F11; cf. also Diod. 20.20.2, Curtius
10.6.10–12 and Plut. Eum. 1. Further relevant sources at Berve 1926 nos. 152 and 206
and Heckel 2006 s.v. ‘Artabazus’ and ‘Barsine’. Brosius 1996, 78 regards the union as
a marriage, but the overwhelming tendency of scholarship denies this: Brunt 1975,
33, Tarn 1948, ii 336, Greenwalt 1984, 70 and 1989, 22, Bosworth 1988, 64, Green
1990, 6–7 and 28, Heckel 1992, 146 and 203, O’Brien 1992, 58–9, Carney 1993a, 319
237
Daniel Ogden
and 2001, 101–5 and 149–50, Ellis 1994, 25 and Whitehorne 1994, 71. I expressed
ambivalence at Ogden 1999, 4–3.
25 There is no suggestion either of courtesan status or of marriage in the context of
the rather similar series of ostentatiously fictionalised traditions of transitory

encounters between Alexander and queens who come to him for stud services. Thus
Thal(l)estris, the Amazon queen, supposedly presented herself to Alexander, in the
words of Diod. 17.77.1–3, ‘for the sake of child-making’, παιδοποιίας ἕνεκεν. It would
be perverse in this context to read the term παιδοποιία in the sense in which its cognate
παιδοποιεῖσθαι is sometimes found in Athenian legal discourse, that of ‘siring legitimate
children’, for which see [Dem.] 59.17 and 122, with Ogden 1996, 80, 102, 227. For
Thallestris see also Plut. Alex. 46 incorporating, inter alia, Kleitarchos FGrH 137 F16,
Ptolemy FGrH 138 F28 and Aristobulus FGrH 139 F21, Curtius 6.5.24–32, Justin
12.3.5–7. According to Justin, Cleophis or Cleophylis, the queen of Indian Beira
(which Arrian calls Bazira), ransomed her captured citadel by sleeping with the king
and going on to bear a son she named ‘Alexander.’ For queens in similar roles in the
Alexander tradition, cf. Cleophis ( Justin 12.7.9–11 [scortum regium, but the context does
not suggest that the queen was Alexander’s hetaira in any meaningful sense], Orosius
3.19.1 [concubitu regnum redemit], and Curtius 8.10.35), Ada of Alinda (Arrian Anabasis
1.23.8) and Candace, the Ethiopian queen expressing a desire for sons like Alexander
([Callisthenes] Alexander Romance 3.18).
26 Parts of this section and the following one run congruently with Ogden 2009.
27 Athen. 13.567f (incorporating Timokles Orestautokleides F27 K-A and Amphis
F23 K-A), 13.586c–d (incorporating Theopompos Chian Letter, FGrH 115 F254a,
Kleitarchos FGrH 137 F30 and Python Agen TGrF 91 F1), 13.594d–96b (incorporating
Poseidonios FGrH 87 F14, Dikaiarchos On the Descent into Trophonius’ cave F21 Wehrli,
Theopompos Letter to Alexander, FGH 115 F253 and Chian Letter, FGrH 115 F254b,
Philemon Babylonian F15 K-A, Alexis Lyciscus F143 K-A, and again Python Agen TGrF
91 F1), and 605d (incorporating Klearchos F23 Wehrli), Diod. 17.108.5–6, Paus.
1.37.5 and Plut. Phoc. 22. For Pythionike see Berve 1926 no. 676 (Πυθιονίκη), Heckel
1992, 218–20 and 2006 s.v. Pythionike, Davidson 1997, 106–7, Ogden 1999 and 2001
indices s.v., Carney 2001a, 217–18, McClure 2003 esp. 137–8, 144–8, 153. For the
Agen, see Snell 1964, 99–138 (with earlier references), Lloyd-Jones 1966, Sutton 1980a
and 1980b, 75–81, Jaschinski 1981, 23–44 (esp. 36–9), Worthington 1986 and Flower
1997, 258–62. For Glykera see Berve 1926 no. 231 (Γλυκέρα), McClure 2003 index s.v.
‘Glycera, hetaera and eromene of Harpalus’ (but beware that many of the entries here
misleadingly direct one to other Glyceras than Harpalos’, including that of Menander’s
Perikeiromene) and Heckel 2006 s.v. Glycera. For Harpalos more generally see Berve
1926 no. 143 (Harpalos), Badian 1961, Jaschinski 1981, Bosworth 1988 esp. 149–50,
212, 215–20, and Heckel 1992, 213–27 and 2006 s.v. Harpalus.
28 Note that Pythionike is strongly associated with fish at Athen. 9.338ef
(incorporating Antiphanes Halieuomene F27 K-A, dated by K-A ad loc. to ‘shortly after
345’) and 339d (incorporating Timokles Ikarioi F16 K-A). In the latter Pythionike’s
lovers are compared to fish. Cf. Davidson 1997, 10.
29 Snell 1964, 106–8 argues that the magi would have been played by the satyrs on
the ground that the satyr chorus is the only plural entity in a satyr play. Perhaps, but
there is no certainty from the fragment that the magi appeared on stage. He also notes,
interestingly, that satyrs would suit the role of necromancers of Pythionike well,
238
because of their traditional role in bringing females out of the ground (although he
oddly fails to mention Pandora in this connection, for whom see Ogden 1998, 218).
30 It is not clear at which point he was given citizenship by the city. For the
significance here of βασίλισσα, see Carney 1991, 8 and her chapter in this volume.
31 E.g. Heckel 1992, 218–20, Flower 1997 esp. 89, 258–62 (taking Theopompos’
Letter to Alexander as a genuine document of ca. 324), McClure 2003, 144–8.

32 See Scholl 1994, 254–61, with a picture of the miserable remains and a
reconstruction at 259; cf. Travlos 1988, 177 and 181.

33 The supposition of Bosworth 1988, 216.
34 The unquestioned notion that Theopompos’ letter (or the quote therefrom) is a
genuine historical document, as opposed to something written up after the event,

seems naïve, but it flourishes: Snell 1964, 119–24, Sutton 1980b, 79, Flower 1994,
258–62
35 Albeit rather closer to Athens than to Eleusis as such, as indicated by the
convenient map at Travlos 1988, 181.

36 For the difficulties of locating this supposed performance in time and place, see
Snell 1964, 112–17, Sutton 1980b, 78–81, Bosworth 1988, 149–50 and Heckel 1992,
219–20 n.31 and 2006 s.v. Python [1]. Most accept without question that the play was
indeed written and performed for Alexander’s men in Asia: e.g. Snell 1964, 100, Sutton
1980b, 77, Flower 1994, 260.
37 So Sutton 1980a. Pall-ides of course plays on Har-pal-os. I am less immediately
convinced by attempts to derive the name from φαλλός, as Snell 1964, 104 n.9, with
earlier literature.
38 As noted by Sutton 1980b, 77. For the likelihood that the Agen fragments derive
from its prologue, see Snell 1964, 105.

39 Aristoph. Ach. 524–37 and Birds 1553–63; for the latter, cf. Ogden 2001, 97–8.
The ostensibly Old-Comic, Aristophanic tone is noted by Snell 1964, 137 and Sutton
1980b, 76 and 81.
40 Parodying Soph. El. 7–8; cf. Snell 1964, 105.
41 On these plays, see Ogden 2001, 186–7.
42 Cf. Heckel 1992, 218. We know nothing else of Python’s supposed involvement
with Alexander: Berve 1924 no. 688 (Πύθων).For the practice of drawing hetaira names
from festivals and games, see McClure 2003, 62.
43 Athen. 6.252f–253b, incorporating Demochares FGrH 75 F3 and Polemon F13
Preller; cf. Reinsberg 1993, 161. For Lamia’s own supposed celebration of the
Aphrodisia festival, cf. Alciphron 4.16.
44 Cf. Wheatley 2003, 34.
45 See Ogden 2008.
46 Athen. 13.578ab incorporating Herakleides Lembos FHG iii 168.
47 Athen. 14.614f, incorporating Phylarchos FGrH 81 F12 (where his name is given
as Oxythemidas); cf. Ogden 1999, 173.

48 Plut. Demetr. 10.
51 See Ogden 1999, 221–3. For the courtesans of Ptolemy Philadelphos, see
Cameron 1990 (with care) and now Kosmetatou 2004 and Ogden 2008, with further
bibliography.
239
Daniel Ogden
52 There is also a reference to an unnamed courtesan at Plut. Demetr. 19. For
Demetrios and his courtesans in general, see Ogden 1999, 215–72 passim.
55 Plut. Demetr. 24, Athen. 13.578ab (including Ptolemy of Megalopolis FGrH
161 F4 and Herakleides Lembos FHG iii 168 F4), and Lucian Icaromenippus
15. 27.
56 Athen. 13.578a-579d (including Ptolemy of Megalopolis FGrH 161 F4, Machon
F14–15 Gow and quoting Diphilos [not K-A]).

57 Plut. Demetr. 24 and 27, Athen. 13.578a-579d (including Ptolemy of Megalopolis
FGrH 161 F4, Machon F14–15 Gow and quoting Diphilos [not K-A]).
58 Alciphron 4.16.2 (upon which the connection to Demetrios depends), Athen.
9.384f (incorporating Philippides Ananeousa F5 K-A), 13.558ab (incorporating

Aristodemus and Anaxilas Neottis F22 K-A), 13.567f (incorporating Timokles
Orestautocleides F27 K-A and Amphis Kouris 23 K-A), 13.577d and 578e–585b
(incorporating Machon F16–18, Diphilos T8 K-A and quoting Aristophanes of
Byzantium, Lynkeus of Samos and Aristodemos).
59 Athen. 6.252f–253b (incorporating Demochares FGrH 75 F1 and Polemon F13
Preller) and 13.577d–f (incorporating Machon F12 Gow and Ptolemy of Megalopolis
FGrH 161 F4).
60 Athen. 13.593a (incorporating Nicolaus of Damascus FGrH 90 F90).
61 Sources: Plut. Demetr. 10, 16, 19 and 23–7 (incorporating Philippides F25 K-A
and adespota F698 K-A and quoting Lynkeus of Samos and Demochares of
Soli), Athen. 3.101e (quoting Lynkeus), 4.128b (quoting Lynkeus), 6.252f–253b
(incorporating Demochares FGH 75 F1 and Polemon F13 Preller), 13.577c–f
(incorporating Polemon F45–6 Preller and Machon F12–13 Gow) and 14.614ef
(incorporating Phylarchos FGrH 81 F12), Clem. Protr. 4.48, Alciphron 4.16 and 17,
Ael. VH 12.17 and 13.8–9, D. L. 5.76 (incorporating Favorinus of Arelate F37
Mensching = FHG iii 578 F8), Demetrios of Phaleron F39 Wehrli = Diogenianus
Choeroboscus Orthographia at Cramer Anecdota Graeca Oxoniensia ii p. 239. See Ogden
1999 esp. 173–7, 219–68 passim, McClure 2003 index s.v. ‘Lamia’ and especially
Wheatley 2003, a most meticulous study.
62 See Ogden 1999, 223–5.
63 I had assumed it to be Plutarch’s implication that Lamia had been Ptolemy’s
courtesan until Salamis, Ogden 1999, 241–2 and 275; Wheatley 2003, 31 n.11
scrupulously maintains that Plutarch does not explicitly declare this.
64 Note the prominence of Athens in all the Lamia material at Plut. Demetr. 23–7;
Machon’s Chreiai (even if written in Alexandria: Gow 1965, 5) focus on the smart-set
dinner parties of early Hellenistic Athens, and at these Lamia is a witty guest alongside
other courtesans; Athenian references also at Athen. 14.614ef (incorporating
Phylarchos FGrH 81 F12), Athen. 6.252f–253b (incorporating Demochares FGrH
75 F3) and Alciphron 4.16, Clem. Protr. 4.48. Lamia is also associated with the cities
of Sikyon/Demetrias (Athen. 13.577c–f, incorporating Polemon F45–6 Preller),
Thebes (Athen. 6.252f–253b, incorporating Polemon F13 Preller) and, perhaps, with
Thessaly (Plut. Demetr. 27). As to the last, Plutarch asserts that the memorable soap
tale he prefers to set in Athens was also told of Thessaly. Was this in fact the tale’s
usual home, with Plutarch transferring it to Athens for the sake of coherence? Or did
240
the tale rather become associated with Thessaly because so many of the royal
Macedonian courtesans – actual or alleged – hailed from Thessaly?
65 As helpfully and perceptively concluded by Wheatley 2003, 34.
66 Plut. Demetr. 24 and 26 (incorporating Philippides F25 K-A).
67 Clem. Protr. 4.48.
68 Burkert 1985, 132–4.
69 Hdt. 1.60 and Ath. Pol. 14, with Gernet 1953, 52, Berve 1967, 545, Boardman
1972, and Connor 1987, 42–3. Phye did then marry, not Peisistratos himself, but his
son Hipparchos: Athen. 13.609cd (incorporating Kleidemos FGrH 323 F15).
70 Athen. 14.614ef (incorporating Phylarchos FGrH 81 F12) and Plut. Demetr. 25.
71 Wheatley 2003, 36 n. 42.
72 D. L. 5.76 (incorporating Favorinus of Arelate F37 Mensching = FHG iii
578 F8).
73 Thus [Dem.] 59.16 and Isaeus 6.64–5; cf. Ogden 1996, 79–81, 83, 141.
74 See, for example, Diogenes Laertius 5.76 (incorporating Favorinus of Arelate
F37 Mensching = FHG iii 578 F8); cf. Ogden 1999, 232 and Wheatley 2003, 31 n. 9,
with further examples of this sort of confusion.
75 Macrobius Saturnalia 1.17.15.
76 Plut. Demetr. 19. Let us not forget that Lamia’s own name in its original form
may easily be read as a reference to the child-devouring monster of that name; cf.
Ogden 1999, 249 and Wheatley 2003, 30–1 (offering ‘Vampire’).
77 Athen. 6.255c and 13.577c; cf. Geyer 1925, 547 and Wehrli 1964, 141–2.
78 The person is mentioned at P.Haunienses 6 lines 1–13. The case was first framed
by Buraselis 1982, 124–41; for the case against, Ogden 2008.

79 Tarn 1913, 248 n. 92 was confident, without warrant, that the tale referred to
Gonatas. But an unqualified ‘Antigonos’ ought to refer by default to Monophthalmos.

80 Lucian Icaromenippus 15; cf. Athen. 13.578ab (incorporating Ptolemy of
Megalopolis FGrH 161 F4 and Herakleides Lembos FHG iii 168 F4).
81 Athen. 13.593a (incorporating Nicolaus of Damascus FGrH 90 F90).
82 Athen. 13.607c–f (incorporating Persaios of Kition Sympotika hypomnemata, SVF
I.451), see further Erskine, this volume.

83 Cf. Ogden 1999, 242 and 257–8.
84 Athen. 13.578a, incorporating Ptolemy of Megalopolis FGrH 161 F4.
85 Plut. Pyrrh. 34, SVF I p. 441, Diogenes Laertius 4.41–2; cf. Tarn 1913, 335–6
and Ferguson 1911, 232–3, 248, 301, Macurdy 1932, 70 and Dow and Edson 1937,
162, Gabbert 1997, 15, Ogden 1999, 178–9 and 232–3 and Carney 2001a, 181–2.
86 Justin 28.1.1–4. The best discussion of Phthia and Chryseis, and of the question
as to whether the two should be identified, is that of Dow and Edson 1937; cf. also
Seibert 1967, 38–9, Will 1979–82, i 360, le Bohec 1981, 35–6 and 1993, 143–9, Ogden
1999, 179–82, Carney 2001a, 190–3; pace Tarn 1924 and 1940, Fine 1934, Walbank
1940, 9, Hammond 1967, 601 and Green 1990, 252 and 795 n. 26, all of whom believe
that Phthia was the mother of Philip V.
87 Tarn 1940, 491 (with reference to Tarn 1909, 265–6) and le Bohec 1981, 39–40
and 44 argue unpersuasively that Justin identifies Philip V’s mother, and that he
identifies her as Phthia. The basis for this is the contention that Justin picks up his
18.1.1–4 reference to Phthia with a reference at 28.3.9, an entire two chapters later, to
the ‘mother’ (matre) of Philip V as a soubriquet.
241
Daniel Ogden
88 Cf. Syncellus 535.19 Dindorf and Etymologicum Magnum s.v. ∆ώσων. For discussion
of some of the difficulties with the Porphyry passage, see Dow and Edson 1937,
150–2 and 161, le Bohec 1981, 36–9 and 1993, 37 and 147 and Ogden 1999, 180.
89 Hom. Il. 1.111, etc.
90 At Hom. Il. 1.113–5 Agamemnon contrasts his war-captive concubine Chryseis
with a wedded wife; cf. Dow and Edson 1937, 154–6; see also Beloch 1912–27, iv.2
138, Tarn 1940, 494–8 and Seibert 1967, 38–9.
91 Cf. Dow and Edson 1937, 153–4 for parallels. Chrysis: Plutarch Demetrius 24.
92 Polyb. 4.5.3, with Walbank 1957–79 ad loc.; cf. Will 1979–82, i 360 and le Bohec
1981, 42.
93 Polyb. 4.2.5, with Walbank 1957–79 ad loc.; cf. Tarn 1924, 21.
94 Porphyry FGrH 260 F3.14, in the German translation of the Armenian offered
by Jacoby: machten ihn zum könig und trauten ihm als gattin ‘die güldene’. und jener tat die söhne,
die <ihm> geboren wurden aus der ‘güldenen’. Nicht ernähren, damit er die herrschaft ohne untreu
dem Philippos aufbewahrte... Etymologicum Magnum s.v. ∆ώσων: ἔγηµε Χρυσηΐδα τὴν µητέρα
Φιλίππου. Plutarch Aemilius Paulus 8: συνοικίσαντες αὐτῷ τὴν µητέρα τοῦ Φιλίππου. Cf.
Syncellus 535.19 Dindorf = 340.23–4 Φίλιππος υἱὸς ∆ηµητρίου...ἐκ Χρυσηΐδος τῆς
αἰχµαλώτου.
95 Livy 40.5–16, 40.20–4 and 40.54–7, Polyb. 23.10–11, Plut. Aem. 8.6–7, Arat. 54.7
and Demetr. 3, Diod. 29.25 and Justin 32.2–3 and Zonaras 9.22.
96 Livy 39.53 and 40.9.2. For further suggestions that Perseus’ birth was inferior to
that of Demetrios, see Polyb. 23.7, Diod. 29.25, Livy 41.23.10 and Ael. VH 12.43.
97 Plut. Arat. 49.2 and 51.2 and Cleom. 16.5, Livy 27.31.3 (supplying the name
Polykrateia), 32.21 and 32.24 and Ael. VH 12.42; cf. Beloch 1901 and 1912–27, iv.2
139–41, Macurdy 1932, 72–3, Dow and Edson 1937, 130, Edson 1935, 191–6,
Walbank 1940, 78, 241, 246–7, Meloni 1953, 10–15, Seibert 1967, 39, Gruen 1974, Will
1979–82, ii 255, Adams 1982, 243–4 and Ogden 1999, 183–7, Carney 2001a, 193–4.
98 Plut. Aem. 8.7 and Arat. 54.3; the allegation that Perseus was supposititious is
referred to also at Livy 40.9.2, and the allegation that his mother was Argive but ἄδοξος
at Ael. VH 12.43.
99 Athen. 13.581a–582c (incorporating Machon F17 Gow), 583e and 585a (quoting
Lynkeus of Samos); cf. Gow 1965, 7–10, Ogden 1999, 220, 227 n.28, and McClure
2003 index s.vv. Gnathaena and Gnathaenion.
100 Polyb. 36.10.3–4; cf. Livy 42.53 (unfortunately corrupt) for Philip, son of
Philip V.
101 Diod. 32.15, Livy Epitome 49, Paus. 7.13.1, Porphyry FGrH 260 F3.19 =
Eusebius Chronicles i 239–40 Schöne.

102 Diod. 32.15.
103 Cf. Ogden 1999, 187–92, Carney 2001a.
104 Athen. 13.593a, incorporating Nicolaus of Damascus FGrH 90 F90.
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246
12
A KEY TO BERENIKE’S LOCK?

THE HATHORIC MODEL OF QUEENSHIP
IN EARLY PTOLEMAIC EGYPT
1. Another key to Berenike’s Lock

The starting point for the present study is a very small one: a lock of hair,
specifically, the lock of Berenike II, dedicated to Aphrodite in connection
with the safety of her husband, Ptolemy III Euergetes, in the Third Syrian
War (246–241 BC). The theme of this study, however, is bigger: it explores
Ptolemaic queenship and the construction of the female royal image in
literature and visual culture in the formative period for the ideology of
Greco-Egyptian monarchy. Ptolemy I Soter was necessarily concerned
with amassing and securing land; his son, Ptolemy II Philadelphos,
instituted a socio-cultural and religious framework for the dynasty. Their
goals and priorities were clear; but what was the role, or place, or
orientation of Ptolemy III Euergetes’ reign in this dynastic progression?
This examination approaches that question by focusing not on the image
of the king, but on that of his wife, Berenike, whose situation, in many
ways, like that of her husband also, epitomises the problems of a classic
‘third child’ scenario.1
2. Berenike in Cyrene
This investigation has its roots in a well-known piece of poetry, the wryly
imaginative biography of Berenike’s lock of hair by Callimachus, the Coma
Berenices. The methodological approach adopted here, however, is concerned
with the historical Berenike’s biography and is essentially grounded in
historical questions about Ptolemaic self-perception and self-promotion. It
is necessary, therefore, to clarify the early events of the queen’s life, prior
to the period of the lock’s adventures, since they play a formative role in
her subsequent career management. Taking into account the events in the
young Berenike’s life which led up to the Egyptian marriage, a picture
emerges of a desperately unstable family relationship (or dynamic) which,
in turn, produced tensions at court and, as a consequence, a conflicted
247
foreign policy for Cyrene as a whole. From the shaky chronology, it is

possible to extract a coherent narrative, and it is one that suggests that
Berenike’s position as future queen of Egypt could have appeared
exceptionally perilous to her at the time of her marriage to Ptolemy III.2
According to the most commonly accepted account of the period, that
provided by Justin (and despite its obvious pitfalls), Magas of Cyrene
betrothed his daughter Berenike to prince Ptolemy, the recognized heir of
Ptolemy II Philadelphos towards the end of his life (d. 250 BC) and did so
from the political necessity of realigning Cyrene under Ptolemaic rule.3
Certainly this makes sense in the bigger light of Philadelphos’ foreign policy
whereby throughout the late 250s BC he was actively using his children to
form marriage alliances with neighbouring kings. The most notable
occasion, and of relevance here, was in 253 BC when his daughter Berenike
Syra made the trip from Alexandria to Antioch to wed Antiochos II and
Ptolemy II provided a dowry so vast that it gained for her the showy title
Phernophoros, ‘dowry bringer’.4
The evident gap in time between the betrothal of Berenike to Ptolemy
Euergetes (late 250s BC) and her eventual marriage into the Egyptian royal
house in 246 BC is problematic. It is usually explained by recourse to Justin’s
juicy story involving the sexual shenanigans of Berenike’s mother, Apame,
who pursued her own foreign policy and bid for power by inviting the pro-
Seleucid Macedonian Prince, Demetrios the Fair, to marry Berenike and
thereby effectively cancelling the betrothal to Ptolemy Euergetes and
reasserting a bid for Cyrenaica’s independence. For her part, the precocious
Berenike, aged (it can only be presumed) just 13 or 14, is credited with
taking the initiative by having Demetrios murdered (while in the bed of
Apame), and consequently reconfirming her alliance with Egypt and
reactivating the former betrothal arrangement.5
The Demetrios affair is not the only indication in the sources that
powerful factions in Cyrene continued to resist the prospect of Egyptian
rule and Berenike’s pursuit of her father’s plan. She was impeded in
exercising her independent power when, (probably c. 249 BC ) a ‘republican’
party managed to gain the upper hand in Cyrene.6 Their hold on Cyrene
was short-lived, however, when Ptolemy II sent his eldest son to restore
order in the country and effectively make Cyrene into an Egyptian
protectorate. Crown Prince Ptolemy appears to have stayed in Cyrenaica
for almost five years, perhaps as a viceroy or regent for Ptolemy II, before
heading back to Alexandria when news reached him of the impending
death of his father (246 BC).
The fact that Ptolemy did not marry his cousin Berenike during this
period is difficult to understand. Berenike was, after all, certainly of
248
A key to Berenike’s lock?
Fig. 1. Gold octdrachmon of a youthful Berenike II with a veil and diademed

cornucopia (courtesy of Classical Numismatics Group, www.cngcoins.com).
marriageable age and, as Cyrene’s heiress, a desirable commodity.7 For her

part, Berenike gives the strongest indication that her vision of becoming
queen of Egypt via marriage and of uniting the two kingdoms remained
active policy during this period. Indeed, her ambition is given striking
emphasis by the possibility, following Tarn’s reading of the evidence, that
she minted coins in Cyrene on which she chose to depict herself as an
eligible queen, very youthful, wide-eyed, and unveiled.8 Her elegant coinage
bears the superscription of ‘Queen Berenike and King Ptolemy’, a tag by
which Berenike decisively staked her claim as the First Lady of Egypt
(Fig. 1). The message that the coins gave out to Egypt and Cyrene was
clear: the young queen advertised her desire to continue the policies of
Magas and Philadelphos by marrying the Egyptian heir. To prince Ptolemy
the coins must have read like love letters.
The events between Berenike’s original betrothal and eventual marriage
are crucial for understanding how she may have later reacted, as queen of
Egypt, on both a personal and a political level. A detailed account of
Cyrenian internal politics during this period is not yet accessible but what
emerges is Berenike’s unbending will to marry into the Ptolemaic family
and reunite the two kingdoms.
Given this, what did the disturbingly long gap between her betrothal
and eventual marriage mean for the young princess who discovered herself
fighting her own mother on one side and astute politicians on another,
whilst determined to realise her own vision of her future? On her early
coin portraits, Berenike, despite her pretensions of greatness and her pro-
Egyptian aspirations, is revealed as actually in an uncomfortable state of
limbo. She is, on the coins and in real life, parthenos – and is destined to
remain so until her progress to nymphe- and gyne- is confirmed through
249
marriage. The parthenos state was perilous for any normal girl, but it was
especially so when the girl happened to be the ruler of a nation which was
also in a similar state of limbo.
The political turmoil of Cyrenaica highlights Berenike’s single-minded
policy, but it cannot account for the length of time she remained unwed.
The glaring question, then, is why didn’t prince Ptolemy come to his
betrothed’s rescue, marry her and release her from her parthenos state, fulfil
his father’s wishes, and secure Egypt’s hold over North Africa? The answer
would appear to lie in an emerging Ptolemaic royal practice whereby a king
took a wife only upon his accession to the throne, that is to say, in this
case, not until Ptolemy Philadelphos was dead. In the late nineteenth
century, Mahaffy perceptively observed that, ‘it was not the practice of
Ptolemaic crown princes to get married before they ascended the throne...
though the reigning Ptolemies marry as soon as possible’.9 It should be
emphasized, however, that this is not a Pharaonic tradition per se, but an
innovation enthusiastically practised by every Ptolemy, with the exception
of the rulers of the last generation of the royal house. For instance, while
Ptolemy Philadelphos did have a wife, Arsinoe I (the mother of all his
known children), he repudiated her in favour of his own sister, Arsinoe II,
whom he married, in imitation of a incompletely understood Pharaonic
tradition,10 around 276 BC, approximately seven years after becoming king.
Ogden suggests that Arsinoe I was not so much repudiated as ‘retired’.11
If this is so, and the demotic evidence for this is good, argues Ogden,
Philadelphos’ decision to marry his own sister was used to create a new
authorized line of heirs; effectively, his reign might be said to start afresh
with his marriage to Arsinoe II. Ptolemy III did indeed honour the
betrothal and follow his father’s practice by marrying as soon as he had
taken the double crown (246 BC).
3. Queen Berenike II of Egypt

Ptolemaic policy based on Philadelphos’ precedent can account for the
delay in Berenike’s marriage but we wonder how much reassurance during
the long engagement she could have derived from a single precedent. In
fact, the same policy points to a much more dangerous and ongoing threat.
White has argued that, drawing on Philadelphos’ example, there was an
expectation at court that the new king, Ptolemy III, would likewise marry
his blood sister.12 Carney similarly draws attention to the fact that the full
brother-sister relationship offered the safest or most trustworthy bond in
the permeable politicking of the royal house.13 At the time of his accession
in 246 BC, Ptolemy III’s only sister, Berenike Syra, had already been sent to
Syria to marry Antiochos II (in 253 BC) and he honoured his promise to
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marry his cousin Berenike. Nonetheless, the pressure on Ptolemy III to

marry his sister might have been great, and Berenike’s status, both when
betrothed and in her new role as Egypt’s queen, remained tentative.
Philadelphos had already rejected one wife in order to marry a sister and
in doing so had changed the face of Ptolemaic religious and cultural
practice. According to Hazzard’s interpretation of events, Ptolemy III was
keen to promote a public image of his deep affection for his sister who
played a key role in royal propaganda before and during the Third Syrian
War.14 Ptolemy even, arguably, struck gold and silver coins with her image,
in imitation of Philadelphos’ similar coinage for Arsinoe II. In comparison,
Berenike’s position was negligible, and she must have felt it acutely.
The threat posed by Berenike Syra to Berenike’s hold on Ptolemy III
and the Egyptian throne was intensified very soon after their marriage
in January 246 BC. Just a few months later, Berenike Syra’s husband,
Antiochos II, suddenly died – poisoned, perhaps, by his rejected wife
Laodike II. Not only was Ptolemy’s sister free to marry him, and thereby
continue the important socio-religious policy invented by their father, but
weighing the geographic, military and financial benefits of allying himself
to either Cyrene or the Seleucid Empire, the young king might well prefer
the large and wealthy lands of Asia. Berenike Syra Phernophoros could earn
her title once more and on an even grander scale. When Berenike Syra’s call
came for her brother to aid her in her plan to rule Asia in the name of her
infant son, Ptolemy immediately gathered his forces and advanced towards
Syria, leaving his new bride, and possibly their joint future, behind him.
The resulting Third Syrian, or Laodikean, War saw a heavy Egyptian
presence in Syria. There are many uncertainties as to the events of the war
and the reliability of the sources, but the balance of opinion suggests that
before Ptolemy reached Antioch, Berenike Syra and her son had already
been killed on the orders of Laodike.15 This does not necessarily change
Ptolemy’s imperialist policy towards Syria, merely the mode of claiming it
– from bridegroom to avenger.
What concerns this investigation is queen Berenike’s perception of, and
response to, these events. As Ptolemy III embarked on his Syrian
campaign, Berenike vowed that she would dedicate (or dedicated there and
then) a lock of her hair, to all the gods in exchange for his safe return.16 The
exact timing of the dedication is not important here, but the place of the
dedication is: Berenike chose the temple of her dead and deified mother-
in-law Arsinoe II on Cape Zephyrion, a cult site for the late queen’s
worship as Aphrodite. The act of dedication was, no doubt, accompanied
by the kind of pompe- (procession) in which the Ptolemies so lavishly
indulged. Famously, around these events, the poet Callimachus constructed
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a poetic narrative wherein following its dedication, the lock mysteriously

vanished until the astronomer Conon once again found it in the form of a
constellation of stars. Several scholars have argued for the poem’s function
as a legitimizing tool for the new dynastic couple, and Gutzwiller claims
that it was designed specifically to serve Berenike’s own propaganda
policy.17 It is generally acknowledged that an early version of this poem
probably circulated independently and was later incorporated into the
closing of Book Four of the Aitia.18 If this is so, then the socio-cultural,
and even political, implications of the poem resonated deeply enough
within the poet for him to revisit the work in the last years of his
creative life.
What could have been so significant about this single act to cause both
poet and queen to lavish such attention upon it? The act of dedicating the
lock of hair and accompanying ritual fanfare, as well the poem’s wide
cultural advertisement had, for Berenike, a double bonus. It assimilated
her closely to the growing cult of Ptolemaic queenship, since she offered
the lock in the temple of Arsinoe (called in the poem µητρός, line 45), and
established in the most public manner possible a private passion shared
between the king and queen. The need for such a public declaration, and
recognition, may have seemed particularly urgent given the way in which
Ptolemy had abandoned her to aid his sister and potential wife shortly after
the wedding. As she did in Cyrene when her status was under threat, so, in
Egypt, Berenike again made adroit use of public imagery to reassert and
emphasise a bond with Ptolemy and his dynasty, a bond which was, in
reality, far more permeable than those images suggest.
This is a strategy she continues to employ during the difficult years of her
husband’s absence. Shortly after Ptolemy’s departure to Syria, Berenike
sought to consolidate her queenship with the issue of new coin types,
minted in Alexandria, showing the youthful queen’s highly idealized facial
features and representing her wearing a veil (Fig. 2). A single cornucopia
and royal diadem is also used, imitating, but not duplicating Arsinoe II,
who is regularly shown wearing a veil and with a double cornucopia.19
This indicates that Berenike is keen to mould herself as a descendent of,
and heir to, Arsinoe II, but not to claim any of Arsinoe’s remarkable
privileges or honours. A series of marble and faience heads of the queen,
showing her distinctive chubbiness, probably date to this part of the reign
too.20 The marked corpulence of the queen’s image is an Egyptian tradition
readily adopted by the Ptolemies as a signifier of power. This is a further
example of what Carney has discussed as a tendency to find ways to
emphasise the stability and continuity of a dynasty at the precise time when
that continuity is most threatened.21
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Fig. 2. Gold octdrachmon of a mature Berenike II with a veil and diademed

cornucopia and the wreathed caps of Castor and Pollux (courtesy of Classical
Numismatics Group, www.cngcoins.com).
Further evidence of Berenike’s concern regarding the status of her

marriage and her use of image to consolidate and control its public
perception occurs early on in the course of the Third Syrian War when she
departed from Egypt and sailed to Syria to rendezvous with the king. This
important voyage is often overlooked in the scholarship, due to the
understandably muddled readings of the often tattered Gurob Papyrus,
our chief source for the early stages of the war.22 This document is written
in the first person as King Ptolemy narrates, in summary form, the course
of the war. The section relevant here describes the king’s arrival at Antioch
(in 246 BC), now under Egyptian control, to a rapturous welcome from the
locals. He then talks about meeting his ‘sister’ in the Antioch palace:
Nothing pleased us so much as the enthusiasm [they showed]. Then
since...the offerings which were ready...and of private individuals, we poured
libations, and now / that the sun was setting we immediately went in to see
(our) sister, and after this we turned to practical business.
Here the confusion begins. It is often assumed that Berenike Syra and her
child had already been murdered by Laodike at this point. In order to
explain the reference to ‘sister’ in the Gurob papyrus, historians have
argued, following the testimony of Justin (or the even more bizarre account
of Polyaenus)23 that Ptolemy either found his sister still alive in Antioch
(and that she met her death while in Egyptian safe-hands somehow later)
or that he covered up her death in order to perpetuate the fiction that the
war was being waged in her defence.24
There is a more logical and economical solution to this problem: that the
‘sister’ mentioned in the Gurob papyrus is the other Berenike, the wife and
not the blood sister, following the standard Pharaonic terminology adopted
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by the Ptolemies whereby ‘sister’ is used to denote ‘wife’ or ‘queen’. This

important interpretation was first suggested by Bevan and is still the most
cogent account, although it remains largely ignored or rejected in
scholarship.25 This reading also makes better sense of a possible earlier
mention of the word ‘sister’ in the particularly fragmentary section of the
text of Col. II 1–4 – a reference to five ships commanded by the Egyptian
officers Pythagoras and Aristocles sent by the ‘sister’ to transport money
from Cilicia to Seleucia to aid Ptolemy’s war effort. It is more logical to
see queen Berenike’s hand in this than Berenike Syra’s, not least because
queen Berenike was ideally placed in Alexandria to control the navy.
Following Bevan then, it is easy to picture Berenike making the short trip
from Alexandria to Egyptian-controlled Antioch to greet her victorious
husband. Such a visit, with accompanying pomp no doubt, was the perfect
opportunity to enact her vision of public and private queenship as well as
to check on Ptolemy’s fidelity to their joint political future. The journey
seems to have been worth it for, with her return to Egypt, and Ptolemy’s
brief leave of absence from the battlefield in 243/2 BC, the royal couple
declared themselves Theoi Euergetai in the cult of Alexander.26 For Berenike,
this meant the surest confirmation that she had achieved both the public
and, more importantly, private recognition as undisputed wife and queen
of Ptolemy III. Her future was assured.
4. The royal image of Berenike II

It is clear that early on in Berenike’s career she had to calculate and
construct a coherent political image of herself to effect her goals. To see
how the queen’s personal propaganda worked, it is important to take a step
back to see if the early image is dispensed with after the immediate crisis
has past, or whether it is maintained and developed.
Scholars have assumed that since Ptolemy III had no known mistresses
or concubines then his marital relationship with Berenike was a good one;
certainly, in the public eye he promoted her status to both Greek and
Egyptian subjects.27 It is reasonable to assume that the queen herself took
an active role in her own self promotion, continuing her successful strategy
of public image creation thus far. She had much to live up to: the cult of
Arsinoe II, and the former queen’s uninhibited exploitation of self-image,
was the dominant force in the Ptolemaic ideology of queenship. Berenike,
in fact, succeeded in adopting, adapting and advancing the imagery of the
queen throughout her reign.
Studies of Berenikean imagery have explored how the queen essentially
copied Arsinoe II’s successful propaganda policy, in which Ptolemaic
queens embody Aphrodite (or sometimes Demeter) for Greek eyes and
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Isis for Egyptian ones.28 But this does an injustice to (and certainly
underplays) Berenike’s acumen and individuality in developing an image
that draws on, yet stands apart from, that of Arsinoe II. It is Callimachus’
poem, the Coma Berenices, which points the way to understanding Berenike’s
innovations. In her study of the romantic dynamics of this poem, Gutzwiller
has convincingly advanced the notion that while all three early Ptolemaic
queens either promote or benefit from an identification with Aphrodite,
the reasons for doing so are varied:
while the Soteres had emphasized the legitimacy of children born to loving
spouses and the Philadelphoi had emphasized the bond of affection
between siblings, the third dynastic couple chose to stress the passionate
attraction of the young bride and groom.29
This vision is not confined to Ptolemy’s and Berenike’s honeymoon period,

but is endorsed throughout the reign, and, more importantly, was one
designed to function in both Greek and Egyptian terms. In fact, the
individuality of Berenike emerges clearly only when the Egyptian aspect
of her self-promotion is understood.
Scholars of Ptolemaic queenship routinely connect royal women with
Isis as the Egyptian counterpart of Aphrodite.30 There is, without a doubt,
a vital interaction between queens and this most important goddess, who
is seen as divine mother, lover and mourner. That Arsinoe II, in particular,
managed to exploit these connections in spectacular and monumental
manner is well known. In fact, if Berenike II wanted both to exploit this
resource and carve her own niche in the Ptolemaic pantheon she had to
forge an identity close enough to, yet far enough from, Arsinoe II. This
was no easy task given Arsinoe’s expertise in cross-cultural propaganda
and the fact that even Ptolemy III continued to promote his step-mother’s
cultic and cultural importance.31 Berenike could draw on the Aphrodite-Isis
vision of queenship, but needed to nurture an individual aspect too. She
found the key to the problem in the trials of her formative years as a queen,
and from the post-Syrian War period onwards: she promoted the use of the
Hathoric model of queenship and advanced a self-assimilation with the
goddess Hathor. Selden’s groundbreaking work on Egyptian imagery in
Callimachus’ work acknowledges an element of Hathoric imagery employed
in the Coma Berenices, albeit within an Isidic model.32 It is possible to go
further and see that what the poem is drawing upon at those moments, is
Berenike’s own use of the Hathor image – and, more importantly, Hathor
separate from Isis – as a tool throughout her political career in Egypt.
Moreover, her use of Hathor works best as an Egyptian model, and it is in
this form that Berenike’s innovative vision of Ptolemaic queenship is located.
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5. Hathor
Of the many goddesses in the Egyptian pantheon, Hathor is one of the
most easily recognizable, and yet mysterious, of deities.33 Hathor existed for
the entire history of Egyptian culture as a powerful and influential goddess.
She is the daughter of Re, the sun god, and is often seen as the eye of the
god. As the great cosmic goddess she is ‘the mother of her father’ and ‘the
daughter of her son’.34 She is one goddess and many goddesses, and was
representative of all goddesses. Thus, she can be Hathor-Isis, Hathor-Mut,
Hathor-Nekhbet, and so on. Iconographically, the goddess is usually
represented as a beautiful woman, or as a cow-headed woman, or in purely
bovine form, wearing a headdress of the sun-disk surmounted between
two elongated cow-horns. In Egyptian, she is called Hwt-Hr, which is
usually translated as ‘House of Horus’, referring to the elder Horus. In
hieroglyphs, her name is represented as a large enclosure with a falcon
within. From this, it is to be surmised that Hathor is seen as the great sky
itself, holding Horus within her womb, which is poetically referred
to as ‘house’. In this form, Hathor is both a solar sky-goddess and a
personification of the night-time sky too. Selden has stressed the Ptolemies’
close affiliation with Horus, who represents the living king.35 In fact, in the
temple of Philae the identification is made categorically: ‘The king of Upper
and Lower Egypt, Ptolemy – He is Horus.’ 36 Hathor, therefore, is the
protectress of the living king.
But she is more, as a hymn from Denderah makes plain:
The One, the sister without equal,
The most beautiful of all,
She resembles the rising morning star,
At the beginning of a happy year.
Shining bright, fair of skin,
Lovely the look of her eyes,
Sweet the speech of her lips...
True lapis-lazuli her hair,
Her arms surpassing gold...37
Hathor is a supremely sexual goddess and, as not only the protectress of

Horus, but also his wife, brings him joy through her beauty, her love and
her nurturing.38 In this aspect, her image as the cow suckling pharaoh,
giving him life, is important too.
Hathor is also the goddess most closely connected to the divine
queenship; in fact, she is fundamentally representative of royal women.
As Robins and Troy have demonstrated, from the Middle Kingdom
onwards, but increasingly from the Eighteenth Dynasty, queens wear a
headdress of straight falcon plumes, representing the eyes of Re and as
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such, symbols of Hathor.39 The goddess herself is sometimes shown

wearing a pair of curved ostrich feathers; in linguistic terms the falcon
plumes and ostrich feathers are both called šwty – and a link between the
plumes of the queen and goddess is thereby presumed. From the
Eighteenth Dynasty onwards, queens begin to wear Hathor’s cow horns
and sun disk in conjunction with the falcon feathers, just as Hathor
frequently combined them with ostrich plumes. Finally, Hathor is often
shown seated with the king on his throne, occupying the place usually
reserved for the queen who is shunted to the rear of the scene and cast in
the role of Ma’at. In other words, Hathor stands in for the queen herself.
In Ptolemaic times, although it is true that Hathor could be assimilated
into the important figure of Isis, the goddess never lost her right to exist
as an independent deity; a fact demonstrated by the numerous temples and
shrines erected in her name throughout the period. Hathor, therefore,
offered an ideal niche for Berenike in as much as she could represent a
continuation of the identification with Isis but also occupy a unique place
in Greco-Egyptian culture.
6. Berenike-Hathor
There is in fact abundant evidence, as yet unnoticed, for Berenike’s
identification with Hathor. The queen’s titles alone demonstrate this aptly.
Berenike’s titulary is found at Philae, Dakka, Edfu, Karnak and in the
famous Canopic Decree; it is elaborate if somewhat repetitive. The fullest
and most dramatic titulature is found on the base of a now-missing statue
in Cairo. It reads:
The Female Horus, daughter of the ruler, made [out] of the ruler, ornament
of Khnum, she who ascends up to the sublime and beautiful Goddesses, the
heiress of the two lands, the female Wazir, daughter of Thoth, Great of Power,
Protectress of the miserable which are given to her, the mistress [i.e. Two
Ladies] of all lands [lit. the rekhty-people], Her bravery and her strength is
that of Neith, mistress of Sais, her excellence is that of Bastet, Mut, and
Hathor in her beauty of the w3hy [Festival]-forecourt. Mistress of the Two
Lands, Berenike, sister-wife of the son of Re, Ptolemy, the Beneficent Gods.40
Here, the identification with Hathor as a distinct entity is promoted, even
though she is linked to other goddesses too. In an inscription from Philae,
however, Berenike is likened to Hathor alone, ‘in her great love’.41 It is
important to realize that these titles which directly connect Berenike to
Hathor are not made for any other Ptolemaic queen – even though the
Philae title was later appropriated for Arsinoe III. It is particularly
surprising, given the repetitive nature of royal female titles, that even in
Arsinoe II’s rich panoply of titulature, there are no Hathoric connections.
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Fig. 3. Ptolemy III and Berenike II (first couple facing left on the left hand side),
followed by Thoth, Seshat, Ptolemy II, Arsinoe II, Ptolemy I and Berenike I face a
procession of gods. Carved relief from the lunette of the Kom el-Hisn Stela, containing
the Canopic Decree. Redrawn from Bianchi 1989 by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones.
Iconography stresses the relationship too: the carved relief on the Kom
el-Hisn Stela (Fig. 3), which heads the Canopic Decree of 238 BC, shows
Ptolemy III and Berenike II in the company of a number of gods, including
the first two generations of the royal dynasty.42 The king stands opposite
the personification of the third Egyptian nome, whose principal deity was
Hathor, while Berenike balances the composition and stands behind her
husband in exactly the same place occupied by Hathor in the opposite line-
up. It should also be noted that Berenike is the only queen to wear the šwty
plumes, horns and sun disk of Hathor.
In 237 BC, Ptolemy III began the construction of the temple of Horus
at Edfu. A relief in Chapel 9 (Fig. 4) shows him offering to Horus, Hathor
Fig. 4. Ptolemy IV (or possibly VI) offers to a line of gods and deified monarchs:
Horus, Hathor, Harpokrates, Ptolemy I, Berenike I, Ptolemy II, Arsinoe II; Ptolemy
III and Berenike II bring up the rear of the procession. Edfu temple, chapel 9.
Redrawn from Baum 2007 by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones.
258
and Harpokrates (the youthful aspect of Horus), together with his royal
forebears and images of himself and his queen, and once more shows
Berenike in the Hathor headdress. While the relief carvings on the chapels
surrounding the naos of Horus date predominantly to the reign of Ptolemy
IV, nonetheless his divine parents figure prominently on the decorative
scheme. Ptolemy III and Berenike II are depicted in the sanctuary,
passageways, the hall of offerings, the west staircase, and the hypostyle.
They are particularly honoured by being depicted in the pronaos and on the
east face of the naos itself.43
Images of Berenike on Ptolemy’s most notable freestanding structure,
the Euergetes Gate at Karnak, also show her wearing the headdress of
Hathor (Fig. 5; Fig. 6). In one scene (Fig. 7), Berenike offers lotus garlands,
while Ptolemy gives nu jars, to a seated Khonsu accompanied by Het Heret,
an aspect of Hathor specifically referring to her role as a sky or astral
goddess associated with fertility and bounty. Married women would go to
the temples of Het Heret for fertility rites that would hopefully lead to a
successful pregnancy. Hathor receives particular honours on the Euergetes
Gate, appearing more times than any other goddess and frequently bearing
Fig. 5. Ptolemy III and Berenike II receive their royal titles and symbols of perpetual
rule, all carefully recorded by the god Khonsu. The pharaoh wears the double crown
while the queen wears the distinctive Hathor headdress of sun disk, horns, and plumes.
Relief from the Euergetes Gate, temple of Karnak. Photograph: Lloyd Llewellyn-
Jones.
259
Fig. 7. Ptolemy gives nu jars and Berenike II offers lotus garlands to the god Khonsu,
accompanied behind the throne by Het Heret, a fertility aspect of Hathor. Relief from
the Euergetes Gate, temple of Karnak. Photograph: Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones.
Fig. 6. Berenike II (face mutilated probably in the early Christian period) wears the
distinctive crown of the goddess Hathor. Detail of a relief from the Euergetes Gate,
temple of Karnak. Photograph: Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones.
260
the epithet (wrt) Hrt-ib bnbn ‘(great one) who resides at the benben’. Her role
is that of consort of the god, a fact which again makes her connection to
Berenike important. Even in the early years of Ptolemy IV’s reign, Berenike
continues to be linked with Hathor. An opaque red and turquoise glass
foundation plaque has been found in the Hathor temple at Cusae, written
in cursive hieroglyphs and Greek uncials.44 Here Ptolemy IV records cult
honours given to his royal parents as well as to ‘Hathor who is in Heaven’.
It is clear that in the Egyptian cultural vocabulary, throughout the reign of
Ptolemy III and beyond, Berenike is assimilated to the royal fertility
goddess Hathor. But can this Hathoric imagery translate into the Greek
cultural sphere? It is useful to remember that there is no specific Greek
equivalent for Hathor. Since the Hathoric element is so important to
Berenike’s Egyptian-style self-promotion, and since it is the one aspect
which is unique to her amongst the Ptolemaic women, it is reasonable to
conclude that it was within an Egyptian frame of reference that she found
her image first, and then attempted to construct it into a Greek framework,
and not vice versa.
Thus, as Lady of Byblos,45 Hathor was seen by her Egyptian adorants as
the mistress of their empire in Asia, an image which Berenike herself would
have been keen to appropriate, especially as she made the sea voyage north
by ship to join her husband in his reclamation of Antioch and other
Seleucid territories. Was she not Hathor journeying to her Horus, in the
mode of the annual Festival of the Beautiful Embrace, celebrated at Edfu?
This important ritual was a spectacular celebration of the god’s love for
his goddess when Hathor was taken by ship from her temple at Denderah
down the Nile to reside with him for two weeks at his home in Edfu.46 For
his part, Horus came part way up the Nile to greet his consort and escort
her back to his temple. The citizens of Edfu and devotees of Hathor who
travelled from far afield to commemorate the great reunion celebrated with
feasting and music, but there was another purpose to the ritual: on the
second day of the feast there was a change of emphasis as statues of the
two gods were carried across the desert to the site of Behdet, the sacred
burial ground of the primeval gods of Edfu. Here priests enacted a
prophylactic ritual in which wax hippopotami and fish, inscribed with the
names of the king’s enemies, were symbolically destroyed.47 So the purpose
of the Festival was two-fold: to celebrate the sexual reunion of the gods and
therefore stimulate Egypt’s fertility, and the power of that sexual union
manifested in crushing and dissolving the nation’s enemies.
Ptolemy’s building of the Edfu temple can be viewed partly as a
commemoration of that important event when Berenike travelled to Syria
for a reunion with her husband at the moment was Ptolemy was engaged
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in the annihilation of his Seleucid enemies. That is not to say, of course,

that Berenike sailed to Syria with the thought that she was Hathor going to
meet her Horus, but only in hindsight and in the light of her evolving
relationship with the Hathoric model of queenship, did the Euergetes
couple mine the potential of associating themselves with a Festive ritual of
national importance for the populace of Upper Egypt.
7. Hathor’s Hair and Berenike’s Lock

One of the most distinctive features about the cult and worship of Hathor,
is the remarkable emphasis placed on the goddess’ hair.48 Not only does
she wear a wide variety of hairstyles and wigs, including a distinctive form
of bouffant hairstyle ending in two spiral locks over the shoulders, but
even her titles refer to her hair: Hathor is ‘she of the beautiful hair’ and
‘Lady of the Lock’. Hymns praise her hair as being ‘finer than linen’ and
‘blacker than night, raisins and figs’.49 Even her priestesses display abundant
hair, often supplemented with a three-strand plait woven into their wigs.
In Egyptian tradition, hair, wigs and hairstyling is flaunted as
unambiguously sensual; ‘Come put on your wig and let us spend a happy
hour’ says one woman to her beloved.50 For a goddess of sexuality and
sensuality, the perfumed locks of Hathor are key to her character and so
central is hair to Hathor’s power that Egyptian mythology imagines the
loss of a lock of her hair as cosmically catastrophic, or as Selden sees it, a
disaster bound up in the conflict of Horus and Seth: ‘My heart is for
you...like the heart of Horus for his eye, ...[of ] Seth for his testicles, ...as
Hathor for her lock of hair’, reads one Ramesside papyrus.51
Berenike’s portraiture, in Greco-Egyptian style, shows her in wigs or
hairstyles of ringlets and curls, as opposed to the tiny kiss curls of her
Greek imagery.52 This in itself is not unusual, since other Ptolemaic queens
adopt similar coiffures (but not in any specific Isidic role), but what is
important about the Egyptian ringlets of the Berenike portraits is their
connection to Callimachus’ poem. The lock dedicated in the Coma Berenices
is described first as a βόστρυχος ( line 8), that is, a tight ringlet or spiral of
hair: it is an Egyptian lock. At this important moment in her reign, and like
much else in her later propaganda, Berenike promotes the Egyptian image
first. The Greek hairstyles of the Ptolemaic royal women tend to be simple
affairs, the hair merely softly pulled back to the nape of the neck in a simple
chignon; moreover, the heads of the queens are usually veiled. The display
of hair is not a Greek preoccupation and it has been argued that the veiling
of the head and hair is de rigueur for respectable women throughout the
Hellenistic period.53 If Berenike wanted to create a memorable and
individual public impression and promote her self-image, then it is likely
262
that she brought the Egyptian elements to the forefront, cutting off a long
spiral of hair which would have framed her face and offering that as her
dedication.
8. The appeal of Hathor

Given Berenike’s tenuous hold on the affections and political vision of her
husband at the beginning of his reign, it is clear that the young queen
needed to find a way to promote herself quickly and unambiguously. The
Aphrodite/Isis image had nothing left to offer on its own – having been
so fully utilized by Arsinoe II – and Berenike turned instead towards a
Hathoric image. Moreover, the choice of Hathor was based not just on
her availability as a separate entity in the pantheon, for it was Hathor, rather
than Isis, who was the supreme goddess of sexual love in the Egyptian
pantheon. Isis represents wifely devotion, the mourning widow and the
mother. When the relationship between Isis and Osiris stresses sexual
desirability it is that of the husband rather than the wife, and the sexual
beauty and fertile power of Osiris is lyricised. Hathor, however, rejoices in
her own beauty and in the knowledge that she is the one sexually desired
by her husband. In Callimachus’ poem, the lock’s separation from Berenike
works as an analogue for Ptolemy’s separation from and desire for the
queen. In the surviving fragment (110.Pf.), the lock relates his journey away
from Berenike, he laments pitiably being apart from the queen and speaks
longingly of his desire to experience the sensual pleasures of being with
the queen. While the poem relates an event which might seem to
commemorate Berenike’s desire for her absent husband’s return, the
emphasis throughout is actually on the physical desire felt for Berenike;
Horus desiring Hathor.
The closest Greek counterpart for this aspect of Hathor is, of course,
Aphrodite, but Hathor provides the Ptolemaic queen with even more: an
intimate connection with divine queenship which any Greek model would
entirely lack. Hathor offers Berenike a key into unlocking the codes of
Pharaonic queenship, for Hathor is the lover of the King but also his divine
protectress. She is the gatekeeper to the kingship, and acts as his alter ego,
the feminine prototype. In the Greek pantheon, the sexually active, one
might almost say voracious goddesses, like Aphrodite, are marginalised
from access to power; the virgin goddesses are allowed to take the more
masculine roles and play the power games. In the Egyptian pantheon, fully
sexualized goddesses are de facto powerful; their sexuality does not
marginalise them. In fact, in Hathor’s case, her sexual relationship with
Horus, that is to say the king, defines her. For Berenike, Hathor (and only
Hathor) offers a legitimacy which even Aphrodite cannot guarantee.
263
Macurdy and, more recently, Hazzard have seen Berenike as occupying a

subordinate role to her husband but this is to misunderstand Berenike’s
image by viewing it in purely Greek mode without its Egyptian framework.54
She is not passive and subservient but a supportive counterpart. Together
they are Euergetai and as such were endowed with numerous Greek and
Egyptian public honours. In effect, she played the perfect Hathor to his
Horus, a role lyrically evoked in one New Kingdom Hymn to Hathor:
The beauty of your face
Glitters when you rise,
Oh come in peace.
One is drunk
At your beautiful face
Oh golden Hathor.55
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to the Carnegie trust of Scotland for their support
in providing funding for a research trip to Egypt to study primary artefacts
in Alexandria, Cairo, and Luxor. The authors are also grateful to Andrew
Erskine for his patience and perseverance.
This chapter is dedicated to the memory of our Egyptian friend and
brother Eltaher Marey – known to all as Refaat – who died unexpectedly
and before his time in 2009.
Notes
1 Throughout, Berenike II, the wife and queen of Ptolemy III Euergetes, is referred
to simply as ‘Berenike’; Euergetes’ sister, confusingly (but typically of the Hellenistic

dynasties) also called Berenike, we will call ‘Berenike Syra’, after her Seleucid-Syrian
connection.
2 An outline biography for Berenike (usually coupled with that of Ptolemy III) is
provided by Bevan 1927, 74–5, 194–216; Macurdy 1932, 130–6; Ogden 1999, 80–1,
127–32 and Hölbl 2001, 45–51, 105.
3 Justin 26.3.2. See also Hölbl 2001, 45.
4 See Porphyry FGrH 260 F43 (= Jerome In Danielum 11.6a). This text suggests
that Ptolemy II used military aggression to constrain Antiochos II to marry Berenike

Syra. Sherwin-White and Kuhrt 1993, 126 regard the marriage to Berenike Syra as a
deliberate component of Seleucid foreign policy willingly negotiated by Antiochos.
In either case, it would have been stipulated by Ptolemy II that Antiochos’ heir would
be a child born by the Egyptian princess and not by his repudiated wife, Laodike. See
further Seibert 1967, 80.
5 Justin 26.3.3–6; Catul. 66. 25–8. The reference to this event in Catullus’ version
of Callimachus’ poem does not survive in the Greek original. It must be conceded
that the political situation in Cyrene throughout this period is difficult to track, and that
any reconstruction is necessarily highly speculative; for the problems of the period
264
see Laronde 1987, 380–1. Whatever the reality of the situation in Cyrene, the focus
here is on the emergence of Berenike as a political contender in the post-Megas period.
6 Plu. Phil. 1.4; Polyb. 10.22.3. Two legislative reformers, Ekdelos and Demophanes,
reportedly took over the direction of the country to preserve the ‘freedom of Cyrene’.
7 Occasional attempts have been made to argue away this problematic gap in time
by placing the marriage at a date closer to 249 BC (see Criscuolo 2003) but there is
almost no evidence for this.
8 Tarn 1913, 449–51.
9 Mahaffy 1895, 491.
10 The Egyptian use of the word ‘sister’ (snt) to denote several of a range of females
with close family ties, including wife, still poses problems for determining the kinship,
if any, between a Pharaoh and his wife and may well have misled the Ptolemies into
believing that brother-sister marriage was a Pharaonic tradition. For an excellent
overview of the royal practice, with full citations and bibliography see Ager 2005 and
2006.
11 Ogden 1999, 73–80.
12 White 1898, 254–5. She sees the expectation that the Egyptian heir will marry a
sister as so compelling that a betrothal to Berenike would, in effect, avoid marking

Euergetes as a favoured heir, and assigns changes in the formulae used for him in
public documents to his fluctuating status with regard to this marriage and his possible
succession.
13 See Carney, this volume.
14 Hazzard 2000, 115.
15 Justin, 27,1; Polyaenus 8.50. For the chronology of these events connected with
the outbreak of the Third Syrian War see West 1985, Hauben 1990, Odgen 1999,
80–1, 127–32 and Hölbl 2001, 48.
16 Callimachus, fr.110 Pf., Hyginus, Astron, 2.24; Schol.Arat. 146.
17 Gutzwiller 1992, 361. See also Gelzer 1982, 13–30; Hauben 1983, 120; Köenen
1993, Selden 1998, Stephens 2003.

18 See Gutzwiller 1992 and Köenen 1993. 89–113.
19 See Davis and Kraay 1973, pl. 25, 28.
20 See Bianchi 1988, 172–4; Walker and Higgs 2001, 46, 49; Ashton 2003, 82.
21 See Carney, this volume.
22 FGrH 160; trans. Austin 1981, 364.
23 Justin 27.1, Polyaenus 8.50.
24 See Ogden 1999, 129–31.
25 Bevan 1902, 201–2
26 See Köenen 1993, 52–3. For the dating of the cult, see Bingen 2007, 38–9, n. 21.
27 On Euergetes sharing honours with Berenike, see Hazzard 2000, 112–13.
28 See especially Thompson 1973.
29 Gutzwiller 1992, 368. Significant, also, is Gutzwiller’s emphasis on the poem’s
representation of a female perspective and that, although it serves dynastic purposes,

the depiction ‘is predicated upon the queen’s own interests and experiences as a
woman’ (384).
30 The bibliography on the use of both Isis and Aphrodite by Hellenistic queens,
and Arsinoe II in particular is extensive, but see especially Witt 1971, Thompson 1973,
Heyob 1975, Pomeroy 1984, 28–40, Carney 1991, 219–24 Gutzwiller, 1992.
265
31 See Hazzard 2000, 115.
32 Selden 1998, 326–51.
33 For a general discussion of the nature of the goddess, see Lesko 1999, 81–129.
For more specific aspects of the goddess, see Allam 1963, Pinch 1993, Roberts 1995.
For a detailed discussion of the multiple manifestations of Egyptian gods, see
especially Hornung 1982.
34 On these titles and others, see Troy 1986, 53–72.
35 Selden 1998 passim. Selden’s excellent collection of Egyptian texts has much
relevance for the Ptolemies’ crosscultural ideological programme. They are eloquent
testimony to the wide range of Egyptian cultural narratives upon which Callimachus
and the Ptolemies drew.
36 See Selden 1998, 387.
37 Roberts 1995, 16.
38 On the sexual aspect of Hathor see Antelme and Rossini 1999.
39 Troy 1986, 53–72, 126–30; Robins 1993, 23–5. For the goddess’s crowns and
headgear, and their relationship to the human queen, see Green 1992.
40 Cairo CG 22186
41 Bernard 1969, I 116.
42 Bianchi 1989, 52.
43 For a thorough examination of the iconography and religious interpretation of
the Edfu reliefs, see Baum 2007.

44 Cairo MS 204 (unpublished).
45 For Hathor’s connection to Byblos, see Lesko 1999, 97–9.
46 For a full discussion of this important festival and bibliography, see Watterson
1998.
47 On the ritual see Baum 2007, with figs. 61–9.
48 For hair and wigs in Egyptian culture, see especially Fletcher 1994, Fletcher 1995,
Robins 1999, Fletcher 2005.

49 See Selden 1998, 346, Posener 1986, 111–17.
50 See Tale of the Two Brothers, P. D’Orbiney = P. Brit.Mus.10183; Lichtheim 1976,
205. See further Hollis 2008, 94–7.

51 Selden 1998, 346–7.
52 Bianchi 1988, 172–4; Walker and Higgs 2001, 46, 49.
53 Llewellyn-Jones 2003, 121–54.
54 Macurdy 1932, 231 and Hazzard 2000, 110–15.
55 From Thebes (TT.130). See Roberts 1995, 9 and Scheil 1894, 549.
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1963 Beiträge zum Hathorkultbis zum Ende des Mittlern Reich, Berlin.
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1999 Sacred Sexuality in Ancient Egypt, Rochester.
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2003 The Last Queens of Egypt, Harlow.
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2007 Le Temple d’Edfou. A la découverte du Grand Siège de Rê-Harakhty, Paris.
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1902 The House of Seleucus, 2 vols, London.
1927 The House of Ptolemy. A History of Egypt under the Ptolemaic Dynasty, London.
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1988 Cleopatra’s Egypt. The age of the Ptolemies, Brooklyn.
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2007 Hellenistic Egypt: Monarchy, society, economy, culture, Berkeley.
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1991 ‘What’s in a name? The emergence of a title for royal women in the
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1992 ‘The politics of polygyny’, Historia 41, 169–89.
2000 Women and monarchy in Macedonia, Norman.
Criscuolo, L.
2003 ‘Agoni e politica alia corte di Alessandria. Riflessioni su alcuni epigrammi
di Posidippo’, Chiron 33, 311–33.
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1973 The Hellenistic Kingdoms. Portrait coins and history, London.
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1994 ‘A tale of wigs, hair and lice’, Egyptian Archaeology 5, 31–3.
1995 Ancient Egyptian hair: A study in style, form and function, unpublished
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1982 ‘Kallimachos und das Zeremoniell des Ptolemaischen Konigshauses’, in
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1992 ‘Queen as goddess. The religious role of royal women in the late Eighteenth
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1992 ‘Callimachus’ Lock of Berenice: fantasy, romance, and propaganda’, AJP 113,
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1983 ‘Arsinoe II et la politique extérieure de l’Egypte’, in E. Van’t Dack et al.
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2000 Imagination of a Monarchy. Studies in Ptolemaic propaganda, Toronto.
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1975 The Cult of Isis among Women in the Greco-Roman World, Leiden.
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2000 A History of the Ptolemaic Empire, London.
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2008 The Ancient Egyptian Tale of Two Brothers, 2nd edn, Oakville.
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1982 Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt. The One and the Many, Ithaca.
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1993 ‘The Ptolemaic king as a religious figure’, in A. W. Bulloch et al. (eds) Images
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1895 The Empire of the Ptolemies, New York.
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1967 Historische Beiträge zu den dynastischen Verbindungen in hellenistischer Zeit, Historia
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1998 ‘Alibis’, Classical Antiquity 17, 289–420.
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1993 From Samarkhand to Sardis: A New Approach to the Seleucid Empire, Berkeley.
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2003 Seeing Double: Intercultural poetics in Ptolemaic Alexandria, Berkeley.
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1913 Antigonas Gonatas, Oxford
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1973 Ptolemaic Oinochoai and Portraits in Faience: Aspects of the ruler cult, Oxford.
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1986 Patterns of Queenship in Ancient Egyptian Myth and History, Uppsala.
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1971 Isis in the Graeco-Roman World, London
269
PART V
CHANGING AESTHETICS
13
AGAINST ΛΕΠΤΟΤΗΣ :
RETHINKING HELLENISTIC AESTHETICS
James L. Porter
1. Object theory, or, thinking in things: aesthetics and materialism

In this chapter, I will be presenting a small part of a larger project on the
origins and evolution of ancient aesthetic inquiry.1 The accent throughout
the first two parts of this larger project falls on sensualism and materialism,
as opposed to the formalism and idealism that were enshrined by Plato
and Aristotle and through whose lens most subsequent views of ancient art
and aesthetics have typically been filtered, including our own today.
Because all these -isms are somewhat unwieldy terms, and because the
project takes in as much ground as it does, a brief word of explanation is
probably in order.
Contemporary perspectives on ancient art and aesthetics are dominated
by those that attained canonical status in the fourth century BCE with Plato
and Aristotle and then were enshrined in subsequent millennia, first at
Alexandria and later during the Italian Renaissance. These perspectives –
not simply on aesthetics, but also governing the very way the disciplines of
classics are conceived and carried out – are dominated, in other words, by
two mutually reinforcing views: formalism, which may provisionally be
defined as any attention to the purity or ideality of form, structure, or
design (principles which are thought to organize matter or material); and
a kind of Platonism, which for present purposes may be defined as a
repudiation of the senses. A closer examination of the history of aesthetic
thought and inquiry from its first traces down to the postclassical era would
reveal that Plato and Aristotle essentially hijacked the critical tradition,
271
James L. Porter
which was multi-stranded and far more attentive to the material dimensions
of art and art’s experiences than has previously been acknowledged. One
aim of my general approach, then, is corrective. ‘Aesthetics’ as a term and
in its root meanings points us to the sensuous experience of art. The
advantage of adopting a sensualist and non-formalist approach is that it
can help us see how the various realms of ancient art were unified through
the commonalities of experience (and not only vocabularies) which those
arts can be shown to have shared.There will be more to say about such
commonalities below.
So much for the headier concepts. My particular aim in the present
chapter is to begin rethinking the Hellenistic world of aesthetics, in part by
aligning it with the root meaning of the term aisthe-sis (sensation, perception,
feeling) and in part by putting some pressure on what has been taken to be
the period’s hallmark concept, at least in poetry and poetics: leptote-s –
provisionally, ‘refinement’. Hellenistic poetry, I wish to suggest, is frequently
object-oriented, even object-obsessed: it is drawn to things in the material
world, even if at times those things exist only, or ambiguously, in the mind’s
eye. Aesthetic materialism is a natural consequence of such a focus. Given
that this is so, if the Hellenistic poets sought to declare their generational
difference from their classical predecessors, a question to ask is whether
they did so by asserting a new kind of literary aesthetics, one we might call
materialist (though of a particular cast), taking our cue from such object-
oriented poetry as we find in Posidippus, but also in Callimachus and
elsewhere, notably in their neoteric Roman offspring. I believe they did.
But if this is right, then the presumed centrality of leptote-s to Hellenistic
aesthetics will have to have to undergo some closer scrutiny.
Accordingly, towards the end of this chapter I will attempt a brief but
more general recharacterization of Hellenistic literary aesthetics in a way
that takes advantage of this first redescription, only now in a slightly more
heterodox manner, by moving away from the exclusive aesthetics of leptote-
s, or the conjunction of the refined with the poetics of the detail and the
small-scale, which is the usual way of classifying this material – though I
have to confess that the logic of leptote-s is becoming less and less obvious
to me the more I ponder it.2 Consequently, my approach will mark a
revision in the current critical ideology, which unthinkingly, even
cheerfully, labels Hellenistic poetry miniaturist, pointillist, and precious,
with very few exceptions (Gerhard Lohse and Gregory Hutchinson stand
out as the contrarians). But a further bit of background will first be needed
in order to establish the tradition in which the Hellenistic aesthetic, revised
as I wish to see it, deserves to be framed.
One of the more intriguing crossovers among the realms of art in
272
Against λεπτότης: Rethinking Hellenistic aesthetics
antiquity takes place between the language of poetry and the language of
physical objects, large and small alike. Two kinds of issue come into view
here: questions about the thing-like quality of language (its capacity to
mimic material objects, to take on material features, or simply to have a
share in appearances); and questions about size and scale (bigness, as in
monuments, and smallness, as in epigrams, cups, gems, and the like).
Consider the case of poetry and monumental architecture. These enjoy a
close, but still not closely enough examined, relationship in ancient
thought. Poets and literary critics frequently describe literary works as a
kind of monument, and architects repay the complement by describing,
whether through words or stone, what is in essence a kind of visual poetry.
We might call this the la parole et le marbre theme, following Jesper Svenbro’s
seminal and still unsurpassed work of the same title, though his book has
spawned a small industry of scholarship on the theme, one sub-genre of
which is known as ecphrastic ‘speaking objects’, or oggetti parlanti.3 These
connections highlight what Svenbro calls ‘the “materiality” of the poetic
word’. One way of putting this epigraphic tradition is to say that it
conceived of texts as objects inscribed with writing rather than as writing inscribed
on objects. Another way of characterizing this tradition is to say that it was
interested in how monuments sound.
The most obvious extension of the thematics of song and stone after the
archaic and classical periods in Greek literature is to be found in the
Hellenistic epigram, which consciously harks back to the earlier epigraphic
tradition and aestheticizes it anew. As Peter Bing has observed about this
genre, ‘the boundaries between stone and scroll are quite permeable, and
migration across them is easy’, so much so that the distinction between
inscription and quasi-inscription (or pseudo-inscription), that is, between
real and fictional occasion, is impossible to determine.4 Of course, that
boundary was already breached as early as the quasi-inscriptions that are
found in Homer in statements of the form, ‘Somebody will say someday,
“So-and-so once fought here and died”,’ sometimes using the overt
formulas of τόδε σῆµα (‘this grave marker’), and sometimes not.5
But the Hellenistic epigrams are a genre unto themselves, free-floating,
and very like actual burial inscriptions. Real or not, the premise
of the literary epigram is one of a physicality and immediacy that is being
revived whenever the poem is being re-experienced by a reader. In
presenting themselves as inscriptions on monuments, Hellenistic literary
epigrams do not merely evoke materiality: they embody it – inscribe it –
in their very substance. Hellenistic poets were fond of exploiting
these ambiguities. In doing so, they were playing with the materialities of
poetry.
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James L. Porter
But this was not the only way in which materiality flourished in
Hellenistic poetics, and if anything the recrudescence of the inscriptional
epigram is but a symptom of a larger tendency. In order to bring out this
larger trend and the object-oriented character of Hellenistic aesthetics, its
intense capacity to ‘think through things’, I want to turn now to another,
broader way in which materiality made itself felt in Hellenistic poetry, a
fact that, happily, is slowly dawning on contemporary scholarship – finally,
after a hiatus of several millennia, ever since the Hellenistic era itself. For,
coming into fashion among Hellenistic literary critics of today is – willy-
nilly – an aesthetics of things or objects, what we might call a newfound
aesthetic materialism, which I believe is peculiarly well suited to Hellenistic
poetic production.
There are good and obvious reasons for this refocusing of attention, the
most recent being the discovery and subsequent publication in 2001 of the
poetry book attributed with reasonable certainty to Posidippus of Pella,
the Macedonian epigrammatist and contemporary of Callimachus. It is
astonishing to see the terms aesthetics, objects, and occasionally materiality and
material, cropping up with such frequency in Kathryn Gutzwiller’s recent
collection on Posidippus.6 Within that collection, isolated pages and even
whole chapters deal with inter-arts questions quite intensely across a wide
range of art forms, from literature to sculpture to gem collections. And
then there is the 2003 article by G. O. Hutchinson, inspired by the same
ancient Posidippan collection, entitled, ‘The Catullan corpus, Greek
epigram, and the poetry of objects,’ in addition to other items in a slowly
growing bibliography.7 This new turn bodes well for interdisciplinary
studies in Hellenistic studies, which continue to remain underexploited,
inexplicably for a field so rich in potential, given the then flourishing fields
of literature, philosophy, art, urban design, religion, and sciences of the age
– all the more so since these fields were still in ways pre-disciplinary, or
emergently disciplinary: they fruitfully intersected with one another.
Aesthetics would surely be one way of producing something like a unified
field theory for the Hellenistic era. But, as I said, my interest here is in
detailing a particular tendency of Hellenistic aesthetics: its materialist urges.
The table of contents of Posidippus’ work tells us almost all we need to
know about the object-oriented nature of the criticism it has elicited:
I. Stones(?) (λιθι]κά); II. Omens; III. Dedications (ἀναθεµατικά); IV.
[Epitaphs (ἐπιτύµβια)]; V. The Making of Statues (ἀνδριαντοποιικά); VI.
Equestrian Poems; VII. Shipwrecks; VIII. Cures; IX. Turns (Characters?).8
Prior to this discovery it would have been hard to imagine an entire set of
poems devoted to kinds of stones, even if treatises on stones and minerals
are known to have existed at least since Theophrastus’ On Stones.9 One
274
might have thought one would have to wait until the middle of the
twentieth century before one could hit upon a literary fascination with such
simple objects, as in Francis Ponge’s collection Le parti pris des choses (Siding
with Things [1941]), which has its fair share of sensuous accounts of stones
and pebbles. Consider one poem from that collection, ‘The Pebble’, which
begins:
It isn’t easy to define a pebble.
If you’re satisfied with a simple description you can start out by saying that
it’s a form or state of stone halfway between rocks and gravel.
But this already implies a concept of stone that must be validated. So don’t
blame me for going back even further than the flood.10
Of course, Ponge’s prose-poem is hardly concerned with the mere
simplicity of pebbles, and neither is Posidippus’ Lithika, an example of
which is AB 15 (20 G-P):11
It was not a river resounding on its banks, but the head
of a bearded snake that once held this gem,
thickly streaked with white. And the chariot on it
was engraved by the sharp eye of Lynceus,
like the mark on a nail: the chariot is seen incised
but on the surface you could not notice any protrusions.
And that’s why the work causes such a great marvel: how did the pupils
of the engraver’s eyes not suffer as he gazed so intently.12
ιοὐ ποταµ ὸς κελάδων ἐπὶ χείλεσιν, ἀλλὰ δράκοντος
εἶχέ ποτ’ εὐπώγων τόνδε λίθον κεφαλὴ
πυκνὰ φαληριόωντα· τὸ δὲ γλυφὲν ἅρµα κατ’ αὐτ ο ῦ
τοῦθ’ ὑπὸ Λυγκείου βλέµµατος ἐγλύφετο
ψεύδεϊ χειρὸς ὅµοιον· ἀποπλασθὲν γὰρ ὁρᾶται 5
ἅρµα, κατὰ πλάτεος δ’ οὐκ ἂν ἴδοις προβόλους·
ἧι καὶ θαῦµα πέλει µόχθου µέγα, πῶς ὁ λιθουργὸς
τὰς ἀτενιζούσας οὐκ ἐµόγησε κόρας.
We will revisit this poem later on. For now, I simply want to get back to
my original point about the critical turns I mentioned, the turns to both
aesthetics and a newfound materialism. Thinking in things, the rediscovery
of matter and experience, and the aesthetic turn, are all long overdue within
classical studies, and I believe they can help to illuminate neglected aspects
of ancient ways of thinking about art and poetry. Of course, if we go this
route we will have to ignore the usual suspects, such as Plato and Aristotle,
who are decidedly formalist and not materialist in their leanings, and who
have colored (if not altogether distorted) all subsequent perspectives on the
ancient attainments. But then, what could be more characteristically
Hellenistic than this inversion of the classical canon?
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My goals in this chapter are two. First, I hope to take a few tentative
steps towards synthesizing a view of Hellenistic materialism in art and
aesthetics, focusing for the most part on poetry and poetics. Towards the
end of this chapter, I will attempt a brief but more general re-
characterization of Hellenistic literary aesthetics by moving away from the
exclusive aesthetics of leptote-s. Such a move will mark a revision of the
current ideology, which almost unthinkingly labels Hellenistic poetry
miniaturist, pointillist, and precious. Just when this tendency first came
into currency would be a problem worth investigating. But we can be
certain of one thing: it is of relatively recent date. One possibility points to
1960 and 1964, the dates of Walter Wimmel’s Kallimachos in Rom and of
Wendell Clausen’s essay, ‘Callimachus and Latin poetry,’ respectively.13
Another is the insertion of the phrase αἱ κατὰ λεπτόν into the reading of the
papyrus preserving Callimachus’ prologue to the Aitia (fr. 1.11 Pfeiffer),
which appeared to make leptote-s the explicit programmatic core of
Callimachus’ great self-reflexive work from his ripest years. The reading
was shockingly invalidated by Bastianini in 1996, as it will be again in
Lehnus’ forthcoming edition of Callimachus, which reads α. ἱ...αλ(αι) [
(Lehnus speculates that the line may in fact have contrasted two kinds of
largeness, i.e., reading αἱ µεγάλαι).14 The source of the error was a creative
supplement by Rostagni from 1928. Rostagni never laid eyes on the
papyrus, but he found the conjecture aesthetically attractive, and his
solution won immediate acceptance.15 Wilamowitz and his pupils,
especially Reitzenstein and later Pfeiffer, and Couat in France, doubtless
paved the way, very likely on the coat-tails of eighteenth-century views
(especially those of C. G. Heyne), which in turn were filtering later Roman
but not necessarily Hellenistic views about the Callimachean aesthetic.16
As it turns out, a more reliable guide to Hellenistic aesthetics may be found
in that period’s greatest historian, J. G. Droysen, who coined the term
Hellenismus in connection with the Alexandrian empire in all its vastness.
Unfortunately, Droysen is not remembered for the implicit aesthetics of his
history, though he ought to be, even if he did not have much to offer in the
way of explicit commentary on the aesthetic production of the age. We
will want to come back to him below.
My point of departure will instead be another branch of Hellenistic
aesthetic materialism, namely the best attested but also the most radical
exponents of Hellenistic literary criticism, the euphonist critics known
somewhat mysteriously from Philodemus as οἱ ὀνοµαζόµενοι κριτικοί, ‘those
who are called “critics”.’ 17 I say mysteriously, because that is how they are
introduced at one point, and there is a question whether they called
themselves kritikoi or not (that is, whether Philodemus dubbed them with
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this label as a convenience) – and if so, why they did so, and in any case
what the etiquette means. But also, there is the very strange fact that we
know about them in this capacity only from Philodemus.
Why this should be so is unclear. Euphonism – the exclusive attention
to the sound patterns of texts at the expense of their meaning – lives on in
critics of the Roman era (Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Longinus both
know this approach, as do Cicero, Quintilian, Plutarch, and others), and it
is also a staple of much mainstream criticism after Aristotle.18 What is more,
the theory and practice of euphonism have a heritage that reaches back
into the earlier musical tradition, then into the classical era with its strong
oral component and (what is less well documented) its own tradition of
poetic sunthesis, and finally back to Pindar and Lasos.19 This long tradition,
stretching across prose and poetic authors and grouped around the imagery
of monuments, whether sculptural or architectural (ancient critics think of
poems or paragraphs as sound sculptures or as exhibiting a verbal
architecture), is a tradition that exploits the ambiguities of ‘la parole et le
marbre,’ or what may also be referred to as ‘sublime monuments’. I might
add that monuments need not be whole or complete in order to evoke
sublimity. And though I know of no one who has noted this before, we can
be quite certain that the Hellenistic euphonists were aware of this
continuity, which I believe they advertised through the metaphors,
analogies, and images in which the theory is couched and through which
significant aspects of that theory are conveyed. (One of the later preserved
mentions, and utilizations, of Lasos in fact comes from a Philodemean
context).20
Let me venture a first thesis, which I won’t argue for now: in this
tradition of criticism, euphony stands not for the proposition that all poetry
is reducible to the way it sounds, as it is commonly imagined to do, but
rather for the fact that poetry cannot be grasped unless it is appreciated as
it is sensed and experienced, which is to say, as a felt phenomenon. ‘Euphony’ –
εὐφωνία – stands for a kind of sensualism in art. In a way, the euphonists
merely crystallize a tendency of all Greek literature, its aesthetic capacities
as heard, whenever it is spoken or read aloud, which is almost always was.
And though the language of the euphonists is philosophically tinged, it
refuses to slot into ready-made schools and labels, despite the widespread
myth that they were Stoics.21
2. Sound sculpture
A restored text from Philodemus’ On Poems (square brackets indicating
restorations) will serve as a good entrée to the later euphonists’ theory, as it
happens to act like a billboard for their views:
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The composition [alone, being ἰδίαν,] is the object of elaboration; and it

stands as [engraved] in [stone] (ὡς | ἐν. [στήλ]ηι µέ[ν]ει) for all the kritikoi
that ‘euphony, which appears on the surface [of the composition] (τὴν µὲν
| [ἐπιφαι]ν.οµένην [ε]ὐφωνί|αν), is to be considered idion (i.e. specific to a
poem or its audition), while the meanings and phrases (sc., the diction) must
be considered ‘external’ (ἐκτός, i.e. to the poetic art) and common (or:
universal: κοινά)’; but this notion is obviously naïve, as my previous
comments show.22
The language is indeed idiosyncratic. Let’s try to translate it back into plain
English.
What Philodemus is saying, or rather restating, is nothing less than the
significant core of the euphonist poetic program. The value of poetry for
these critics lies not in what poetry means but in the way it sounds – its
‘musicality’: they are euphonists, but with a vengeance. Poems on this way
of thinking are aggregates of sound – whence their favored term, sunthesis,
which has to be taken literally: it stands for a sunthesis of the stoicheia, the
elements or letter-sounds that make up, like building blocks, the sullabai
(syllables) of the lexeis or words (or, at times, rhythmical ‘times’ or
‘durations’, chronoi). Poems so conceived are indeed no more than sound-
effects arising (in their own striking terms) ‘epiphenomenally’ or ‘on the
surface’ of poetic compositions,23 thanks to the technical artistry (the technê
or exergasia) of the poet, while the sounds are themselves ephemeral and,
logically, specific to each audition (or reading): that is what is meant by
being idion. In this way, these critics, unconventional by any standard, arrive
at a theory about what might be called the absolutism of the poetic particular.
A poem’s specificity, which is elusively of the moment and punctual, is
grounded in its material coordinates: this sound here.
Now, at stake in the present passage is nothing less than the value of
the idion, which displaces the semantic aspects of poems (meaning, moral
effects, but also a poem’s generic classification): these are sacrificed to the
poem’s material surfaces and to the way these appear to an auditor (whence
ἐπιφαινοµένη), which is to say, to their acoustic appearance (their sound).
The sole preoccupation of poets, according to these euphonist critics, lies,
accordingly, in what is idion to their poetic productions, not in what is
common to all other poems or what can be found ‘outside’ their art –
whence the phrase we find elsewhere in their teachings, ἔξω τῆς τέχνης.24
This is their aesthetic matter – their kath’ hauto, as they put it, in a conscious
inversion of Aristotle, who located the poetic essence in the poetic form:
the euphonists locate poetic essence in matter (this is their καθ’ αὑτό) and in
sensation and appearance (αἴσθησις).25 Poetic idia, on this materialist and
phenomenalist view, are deeply a part of the poetic ‘matter,’ the true ὕλη:26
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they are phenomena peculiar to their embedded context in a poem
analyzed as a collection of sounds. In the sample from Posidippus quoted
above, these would include a range of effects, from word-order to the role
of pitches and accents to rhythms and meters, none of which would occur
‘naturally’ in Greek prose, nor would they occur identically – that is, as a
koinon – in any other poem either (except through quotation or plagiarism).
The various meanings that the sounds can be said to express (or can be said
to reduce to) could, however, be found in any number of settings, from
mineralogical handbooks to art catalogues to the simple gushing of a naïve
onlooker, as the last verse implies: ‘How did its sculptor not blur his
eyesight on the job!’ 27 Hence, meaning is not idion: it is not rooted in the
particular contingencies of this matter here at this moment of audition.
It is common (koinon).
In an immediately preceding column from Philodemus, the idion is
claimed to reside not in the production of likenesses (for these are
common, koinon, just by virtue of being ‘alike’, e.g., to painters and
sculptors), but rather in the actual carving in metal and stone, which is
specific to an instance of a given art (here, plastic art).28 The opponent
committed a fallacy, Philodemus claims:
because, as I said, he adduced crafts that are different but have their goal in
common. For just as it is not the peculiar function (idion)29 of the ring
engraver to make a likeness – for this is common to the sculptor and painter
– but [to make a likeness] in iron and gem stones through engraving (διὰ τῆς
ἐγ[γ]λυφῆς), though the good does not lie in this [sc., in the engraving qua
engraving] but in making a similarity, which is common to all, in like manner
it is claimed that the poet [wants] his peculiar function (idion) [to lie] in the
composition (sunthesis) [sc., of the sounds],30 but hunts out the good in the
common sphere, in meaning and diction – a good which this <critic> says
does simply no [moral] benefit or harm at all, just as he concluded from his
examples, but not the opposite; therefore, poets ( he claims) derive what is
common from others [and make it their own (idion) their by adding their
own suntheseis].31
The analogies in this text make the same point as in its sequel, only now in
a graphic way: if you fashion an image of a chariot in a gemstone and then
reproduce the same image in bronze or paint, you will have produced
something in common, a koinon; but what you will have lost in the
translation is precisely the idion, the specific effect of the materiality of the
likeness in this or that medium.32 For the same reason, the most obvious
thing that gets lost in translation from one language to another is the sound
of the original. The euphonists are making just this point. Only, they are
doing so in an especially emphatic way. For the truly radical thrust of their
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program is encapsulated in another text of Philodemus: ‘Good poets excel

and they alone endure (διαµένουσιν) on no other account than the sounds’,
by which is meant ‘the sounds isolated in themselves’ (οἱ ἦχοι αὐτοί) apart
from their meanings, ‘the sound that appears on the surface of the
composition’ (ἡ ἐπιφαινοµένη φωνὴ ἡ τῇ συνθέσει).33
This axiom, as it is usually understood, is taken to be a horrific inversion
of all the hallowed values of classical poetics, at least as we grasp these
today. I’ve recently tried to show how the euphonist critics have to be
understood as in fact sustaining the ideology of classicism by appealing to
the irrational mainsprings of the habitus that underlie it, which is to say, the
sources of ‘feeling classical.’ 34 Nevertheless, there is something truly
odd about the claim that poets excel and endure on account of their
sounds alone, and this will turn out to provide a further key to
understanding the euphonists’ rationale. It will also give us a way of linking
them up to their Hellenistic contemporaries, in addition to connecting
them to the lyric and epigrammatic traditions of the archaic and early
classical periods.
Let us begin by observing the stark paradox that underlies the euphonist
program, though it is one that is all too easily overlooked. The source of
poetic pleasure and of poetic excellence, on the euphonist theory, is at the
same time of a punctual nature: individual specimens of euphonic sound,
which offer the greatest evidence of sound’s capture (‘this sound here’), are
also the most fleeting and evanescent imaginable – they vanish as soon as
they are uttered. And yet, the euphonist critics are staking poetic endurance
on this very same feature: poets διαµένουσιν (endure) thanks to no other
cause than their epiphanic presence in the ear. The Thucydidean canon of
a κτῆµα ἐς αἰεί – of what should be ‘a possession [composed] for all time,
rather than a declamation composed (ξύγκειται) for the moment of hearing
(ἐς τὸ παραχρῆµα ἀκούειν)’ 35 – is here being turned on its head, as are all
(to us) customary literary values, until we pause to realize how central to the
transmission and reception of ancient poetry the act of audition was. The
euphonists are doubtless representing this centrality and giving it an
aesthetic purchase, but not without pointing out the paradoxes that are, as
it were, written into the very substance of that negotiated process. For one
thing, the act of audition, to remain vital, has to be renewed at every
moment, and with the fullest possible force. Secondly, a poem’s ticket of
validity expires as soon as its performance is over. Sound decays, and then
vanishes, only to leave an immaterial trace in the memory and the mind.
Canonicity is a delicate, fragile thing; it lasts no longer than a breath, and
yet it lasts, optimally, forever. How can poems, read aloud, achieve this
effect of eternality?
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The verb διαµένουσιν above has an echo in the passage quoted earlier,
which I doubt is accidental: ‘and it stands as [engraved] in [stone] (ὡς ἐν.
[στήλ]ηι µέ[ν]ε.ι) for all the kritikoi.’ The opinions of the euphonists stand as
if written on stone (if the conjecture is right). Did they initiate, or at least
suggest, the metaphor themselves? Even if they did not, and Philodemus
was merely mocking them with the image, there would still be more to say
about their possible connection to the epigraphical tradition. A kind
of verbal architecture is in play here on either possibility, whereby
composition is felt to create sublime (verbal) monuments. Thus, Dionysius
of Halicarnassus can describe how builders pay ‘close attention to
the following three questions’: what materials (ὑλήν) will be put together
(συντίθησι);36 ‘next how each of the materials should be fitted ’ (πῶς τῶν
ἁρµοζοµένων ἕκαστον ἑδράσαι), whether ‘stones, timber, tiling, or all the rest ’; ‘and
thirdly, if anything is seated badly (εἴ τι δύσεδρόν ἐστιν), how that very piece
can be pared down and trimmed and made to fit well (εὔεδρον ποιῆσαι).’ And
so ‘those who are going to put the parts of speech together effectively (εὖ
συνθήσειν τὰ τοῦ λόγου µόρια) should proceed in a similar way.’ 37 The author
of On Style, probably Hellenistic in date,38 likewise develops the same
analogies:
The members (τὰ κῶλα) in a periodic style may, in fact, be compared to the
stones (τοῖς λίθοις) which support (ἀντερείδουσι) and hold together
(συνέχουσι) a vaulted roof (τὰς περιφερεῖς στέγας). The members of the
disconnected style resemble stones which are simply flung carelessly together
(διερριµµένοις λίθοις) and not built into a structure (οὐ συγκειµένοις).
Consequently the older style of writing has something of the sharp, clean
lines (περιεξεσµένον ἔχει τι καὶ εὐσταλές) of early statues (τὰ ἀρχαῖα
ἀγάλµατα), where the skill was thought to lie in their succinctness and severe
simplicity. The style of later writers is like the sculpture (τοῖς ἔργοις) of
Pheidias, since it already exhibits in some degree the union of elevation and
finish (ἔχουσά τι καὶ µεγαλεῖον καὶ ἀκριβές ἅµα).39
And finally, the radical euphonists from the Hellenistic era contribute to
this tradition in their own way, as a passage from the second book of
Philodemus’ On Poems illustrates (the view reported is that of a certain
Pausimachos, who is otherwise unknown):
For just as a kind of glue (κόλλα τις) or a bolt (γόµφος.) or some such thing
is used for joining wooden things (π[ρὸ]ς. τὴν τῶν ξυλίν[ω]ν σύν[θ]εσιν), so
is the soundless element of language [viz., the consonant or mute, τὸ
ἄφωνον], when it is aptly employed, used for binding the diction (πρὸς τὴν
τῆς λεξέως σύµπηξιν) [...] Indeed, just as in solid bodies the compact (τὸ
εὐπαγές) comes about when the whole body (τ.ὸ. ὅλον σῶµα) has all its parts
arranged well, viz., when they are in agreement with the lengths and with the
massive constituents (τοῖς ὄγκοις) and are symmetrical...40
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These two facets – material and sound – are closely connected, and they
add more evidence of the kinds of connections between objects, stones,
matter, and voice that we have been tracing so far. What is more, the
tradition is an ancient one, reaching back at least to the archaic lyric poets.
One such poet, possibly Simonides or Pindar, could write, ‘I sculpt a
measure ([µέ]τρον δ.(ια)γλύφω)’.41 (A precise parallel is to be found later in
Aristophanes Thesm. 986: τόρευε πᾶσαν ᾠδήν, ‘Drill [or ‘emboss’] all [parts]
of your ode.’)42 And Pindar had famously boasted, ‘A gold foundation has
been wrought for holy songs. | Come, let us now construct an elaborate |
adornment that speaks words (κεκρότηται χρυσέα κρηπὶς ἱεραῖσιν ἀοιδαῖς· | εἶα
τειχίζωµεν ἤδη ποικίλον | κόσµον αὐδάεντα λόγων)’.43 The final tag is an allusion
to the tradition of oggetti parlanti, or speaking objects. As a rubric, it is not
a bad way to account for the entire phenomenon of ecphrastic things,
whether poems or stones, early and late.44 Euphony is what happens to
language when it is reduced to an object that is then made to speak – or
better yet, to sing.
That the euphonists were attuned to the materialities of inscription is
plain from their use of the engraver analogy, which serves their views well.
It brings out the felt specificities of poetry. One has to imagine the phonic
equivalent of a cut or scrape, unique to a given chiseled stone, and proper
to its delectation as such. Such is the materialist aesthetic purveyed by the
euphonist critics. Roland Barthes’ theory of the ‘grain of the voice’ is a
contemporary version of the same sensibility.45 Recent thinking on
sculptural aesthetics in the postclassical period suggests that this kind of
attending to sensuous detail – to material, tactile contingency, including
facture (a term that takes in quality of artistry, workmanship, finish, and
surface attributes all at once; in Greek: ἀπεργασία) – was one of the
distinctive features of the early ‘Hellenistic Baroque’, if not of the
Hellenistic aesthetic as a whole.46 If so, then the euphonists are at the very
least entitled to an equally ‘baroque’ theory of aesthetic contemplation.
3. Posidippus revisited
Before moving on, we need to glance back briefly at Posidippus. The
connection between Posidippus AB 15 and the Philodemean text about
carving and gems has been noticed by Marco Fantuzzi, who is right to
develop the observation by Elizabeth Asmis that the Philodemean text
reflects ‘the practice of Hellenistic poets.’ 47 This is an important point (and
one could adduce other epigrams, such as AB 5, which contains an even
closer verbal echo: ἔγλυψε; the terms γλύφω and γλύµµα appear elsewhere in
the same collection).48 Plainly, the euphonist critics were not working in a
total vacuum. What both Fantuzzi and Asmis see here is a convergence
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around the aesthetics of the refined detail (leptote-s), of self-conscious
reflection upon artistry that is focused intently on a small and indeed a
minute scale. In Asmis’s words, ‘the poet is viewed primarily as someone
who does fine, exquisite work, not as someone who presents grand,
monumental subjects. [This is the poetry of the] “slender Muse”.’49 One
might add another significant feature of gemstones: their uniquely
individuated character: each is an idion.50 And though there is admittedly
something miniaturist and pointillist about the euphonist theory of sound,
I want to suggest that commonplaces of Hellenistic poetics and aesthetics
like these get things only half right. But also, if we take this line, if the
euphonists do supply us with a representative insight into Hellenistic literary
aesthetics, then that aesthetics will have a very different look and feel from
the way it is traditionally viewed.
Consider the Lithika of Posidippus once again. My question is, to what
extent do these epigrams reflect a poetics of the small-scale, of the λεπτός,
and a rejection of the monumental, the epic, and the grand? I believe the
problem with the usual view of Hellenistic aesthetics lies in its one-
sidedness, and my suggestion will be that all of what is asserted about this
aesthetics is correct, but only half-so: the other half of the picture needs to
be brought back into view to complete the picture. In the case of the
Lithika, this could be shown by appealing to any number of factors, which
I will have to run through quickly. Let’s start with v. 7 of the Posidippus
poem we began from, the ‘great marvel’ (θαῦµα µέγα) caused by this little
piece of workmanship on the stone, whatever kind of gemstone it may be
(it is usually called a sandstone by commentators in English, but its
properties more properly match those of a white moonstone, both here
and in Pliny HN 37.134–5, draconitis sive dracontias).51 Plainly, the poem
leaves us with an impression of magnitude, and not, or not only, of
diminutiveness. Or rather, we should say that the stone object creates an
impression of magnitude for all its smallness of scale. Aesthetically, it is
the contrast of the two scales that is significant.
Now consider the rest of the stones. They follow the same pattern.
Individually small and precious objects (at least some of them), they
simultaneously involve large-scale themes, while their dimensions swell as
the poems progress (especially from AB 16 to the end of the book). They
come from the far-flung corners or limits of the inhabited – and explicitly
Ptolemaic – oikoumenê, and are as it were vomited forth from the bowels of
the earth or from rugged geographies. They come from India (‘Indian
Hydaspes’), Persia, Nabataea, Arabia (‘rolling yellow [rubble] from the
Arabian [mountains]’).52 And they come from these exotic places with
force and violence: ‘an Arabian stream rolls [a stone] along to the shore /
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of the sea, as it constantly tears it (αἰεὶ σπῶν) from the mountains, / a lump in vast
quantities’; ‘do [not ] calculate] how many waves have [cast] out [this] great
[rock] far from the raging sea ([µὴ] λόγισαι µεγάλην τ.[αύτη]ν. λᾶαν) ... Polyphemos
could not have lifted it.’ 53 One stone is nearly propelled by ‘a gigantic hurricane,’
another ‘uprooted (ἀνερρίζωσεν) by Mysian Olympos.’ 54 Moreover, the
stones sport immodest physical and aesthetic features to match their
provenance. They are frequently described according to their bulk and
mass (ὄγκος [‘bulk’] appears thrice, possibly four times; βῶλος [‘mass’] and
πάχος [‘thickness’], once each) or with dimensional terms such as πλατύς
[‘wide’] and [τρίσ]πιθαµον περίµετρον [‘three spans in circumference’]), or
else through reference to their hollow inner surfaces (κύτος, γλύµµα). While
the stones are occasionally colossal, many of their features are cosmic. ‘An
engraved chariot is spread out to the length of a span... It defeats the rubies of
India / when put to the test, with radiant beams of equal strength... And
this too is a marvel (τέρας).’ 55 ‘A light spreads over the whole surface
(ὀγκους), ...[a beguiling] marvel (θαῦµα), ...as it reaches for the beautiful
sun.’ 56 ‘Bellerophon crashed into the...plain / while his colt went up into
the deep-blue sky’, and so the stone that depicts the colt is said to be
‘aetherial’ (αἰθερίωι τῶιδε λίθωι).57 There is nothing leptos here. Quite the
contrary. Indeed, as Kathryn Gutzwiller puts it well, ‘the result...is a
thematizing of nothing less than the physical nature of the universe’ in all
its parts.58 But when she goes on to claim that all this is executed in the
name of ‘a new aesthetic of the small-scale and realistic’ in the end, I can
no longer understand this judgment except as a reflex of contemporary
criticism. Hellenistic poetry must be leptos – not only refined, but small and
pretty, never grand and sublime.59
I disagree. One could say, for instance, that Posidippus is invoking ogkos
(massiveness, tumescence, grandeur) as a foil to his own aesthetic of
elegance and miniaturization.60 The obvious counter-argument would be
to say that he is smuggling in the qualities of the magnificent and the grand
on the back of the small and the diminutive in order to have his cake and
eat it too. But this won’t do either. It’s not a matter of creating foils or
smuggling things in. It may be that the frequent evocations of the large-
scale have the effect of bringing bigness to mind despite the apparent focus
on the small, with the result that Hellenistic poetry nevertheless produces
an effect of the big for all its apparent obsessive focus on the minute.
But even this formulation misses what is distinctive about this play with
scale that we have begun to notice. AB 15 is again our best guide: what
Posidippus is after is not an exclusivity of effects, not this effect and then
that one, which would be a way of adding or juxtaposing two different
aesthetics in a series, nor is he seeking to collapse these effects into one in
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the end, namely that of the small. What he is seeking to produce is the
astonishing, indeed paradoxical, contrast of the two combined into a single,
organized aesthetic of contrastive opposites – the ‘great marvel’ (θαῦµα µέγα)
caused by this little piece of workmanship on the snakestone. We are being
asked to view them together. It is their combined effect that is the true
source of astonishment and wonder in this poem and in his entire
collection. And leptos in the sense of small, polished, and refined simply
fails to capture this complex interplay.61
The poems are literally structured by contrastive opposites, whereby the
large and the small coincide in the description of each single object,
whether in the form of jewelry evoking heavenly bodies (a bracelet ‘shining
like the moon,’ AB 4; a shell that ‘flashes as it reaches for the beautiful
sun,’ AB 13) or else surface attributes that are shown to be playing with
their own appearances or with their own depths, as in AB 11, which
concerns a Persian shell:
In its engraved cavity it has
Agla[ia’s] shapeliness [resembling topaz].
The mass ( ὄγκος) [now] spreads [out to view by means] of the wax
which keeps [the light] over the hollow engraving (γλύµµα).
(AB 11; trans. C. Austin)
Ogkos, a key term in the Lithika, is an importantly ambivalent term: it
denotes bulk, but bulk of any dimension. (Ancient atoms are called ogkoi.)62
Elsewhere, Austin astutely chooses to render ogkos with surface (not given
in LSJ), and the rendering captures something that mass lacks: it picks out
the perceptual or, more broadly, aesthetic dimension of Posidippus’ poems
on stones. For the stones are surface screens on which aesthetic effects
appear and disappear, fleetingly, and then reappear. This play of
appearances is a play of material surfaces. It occurs on and within the massy
outer and inner dimensions of the poet’s chosen objects, which is to say
their ogkoi, which are both large and small, aesthetically speaking. The net
effect of this interplay is one of thauma, or marvel, as AB 13 illustrates again:
This stone is [deceptive] (κ.[ερδα]λ.έη): when it is anointed,
[a light] spreads over the whole surface (ὅλους ὄγκους), [a beguiling]
marvel (θαῦ[µ’ ἀπάτη]ς.).
But when [the surface] (ὄ.[γκων]) is dry, all at once an [engraved] Persian [lion]
flashes as it reaches for the beautiful sun.
(AB 13; trans. C. Austin)
Viewed in this light, Posidippus’ genre of writing is a form of paradox-
ography, a genre that Callimachus either inaugurated or redefined.63 In fact,
Posidippus is working somewhat within the genre of conventional
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paradoxography, though I want to expand the meaning of that term now

and then apply it more generally to Hellenistic poetic production, insofar
as one can generalize at all over the diverse output of this period.
4. Size matters: contrastive scales in Hellenistic poetry

In order to grasp this expanded notion of paradoxography, we will first
need to examine the logic of size and scale. The sense of wonder that little
objects can generate comes about in different ways. A gemstone engraved
with cosmic images is one. A miracle of technical precision is another.
Here’s a third, which I’ll simply call scale of perspective. Small objects are
calculated attention-grabbers: they demand to be viewed from up close.
So we comply: we stoop down, hunch over, put on or remove our
spectacles, as the case may warrant, and we gaze with our undivided
attention, on cue. But as we do so, what happens? Something remarkable:
as the background recedes and the object intrudes upon our field of vision,
the object also grows in a way that is disproportionate to its actual size; it
becomes magnified, it fills our visual field, and at the limit it assumes
colossal proportions. What was once tiny is now gigantic, even grand. It is
a sublime object. And now all of our aesthetic descriptors have to change
accordingly. And they do. The euphonists were submerged in such aural
details, to the point of inviting an intense spatialization and magnification
of sound, as above, where Dionysius of Halicarnassus inspects sounds like
a tourist strolling about a temple precinct amid columns of sound. But there
is yet another aspect of the logic of the detail that we need to consider.
Read even recent conventional accounts of the Hellenistic poets and
you will hear such phrases as ‘vast knowledge’, ‘Ptolemaic interest in the
wider Greek world’, ‘boundless curiosity’, ‘at the sublime moment’,
‘colossal’, ‘monstrous’, ‘completely wild’, ‘extravagant’, ‘work of grandeur
and the grandiose’, and so on.64 I could go on, but I won’t, because there
is a more interesting and still stronger reason why this last point about scale
ought to be self-evident. It lies in the nature of scale itself. Any detail
implies a selection. Any part implies a totality from which it was drawn:
context looms in every background, tacitly, often glaringly. The miniature
cannot be understood as small unless it stands in a contrast to something
colossal. A poet who dwells in the small-scale invites us to entertain both
ideas in our minds simultaneously, and, as we’ve begun to see, frequently
invites us to confuse our points of orientation, hoping that we will forget
whether the object before us stands at one end of the scale or the other.
The Alexandrians, I am quite certain, recognized this fact, and they actually
cultivated this logic of scale and its effects. Cultural dictates furnish added
incentives. A poet writes epigrams – frequently to be displayed on
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monuments.65 Fine ware decorates gigantosymposia.66 Scholar-poets revel in
details culled from across the face of the newly expanding and ever more
exoticized oikoumenê, collaborating in the imperial project of collection,
gaudy display, the procession of objects, and spectacle.67 They revel in
details culled from their massive card catalogues ( pinakes), which serve the
same imperious project at the level of knowledge: control over local detail,
local knowledge, local traditions and antiquities, the minutiae of which all
verify the reach of the knowing subject, thus participating in what Rebecca
Flemming has called ‘empires of knowledge’ and Susan Stephens has called
‘geopoetics’.68 J. G. Droysen’s umbrella term for this, a century and a half
ago, was Hellenismus. Droysen unabashedly associated Hellenism (which is
to say, the Hellenistic era) with gigantism, one instance being Deinokrates’
colossal plan (Riesenplan) to fashion a statue of Alexander from Mt. Athos.69
Lesky takes this a step further and speaks of ‘the divergence of powerful
contradictions’, ‘antinomies’, and ‘antipodes’ in his description of the
‘general characteristics’ of the age (which he called ‘megalomaniacal’).70
But let’s go on with our own account of the logic of contrastive scales.
Lemmata, quotations used as a basis for textual commentary and the
prime matter of the grammatikos, could be assimilated to the Hellenistic
aesthetic of the detail, if they haven’t been already. But as their name
implies, lemmata are mere extracts of a whole.71 And as anyone who has
ploughed through Erbse’s Homeric scholia to the Iliad in five heavy
volumes knows, in their collective totality scholia both represent and are a
mountain of learning, as massive as anything transmitted from antiquity.
Or consider hapax legomena. Typically taken as proof of learned and choice
elegance on the part of the poets who deploy them, they are in fact proof
of a monstrous display of knowledge: to recognize the solitary occurrence
of a word one has to have first scanned an entire corpus. And the
recognition, incidentally, is a game played by poets and readers alike. Could
leptote-s be a collective and collusive ruse, a cover for a different sort of
enterprise? If so, there is no further reason for us to be taken in too.72 In
fact, I am coming to be convinced that the term leptote-s has no more
singular meaning or internal coherence than (say) the avant-garde label
‘form’ had among the modern Russian Formalists, the formalists in art
criticism (such as Clement Greenberg), or the New Critics, for whom form
meant sensuous material: in all these cases, form is being asked to stand in
for quite different, and often incompatible, things.73 A later parallel might
be ‘cool’, as in cool jazz, which is likewise more associative than denotative
(and could often be hot).74 Leptote-s, I suspect, played a similar, under-
determined, and contradictory function among the Hellenistic literary
avant-garde.
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The Hellenistic aesthetic is not one of simple refinement and smallness

of scale. It produces sharply contrastive effects. At issue here is a dynamic
of extremes, not a choice between them. An excellent graphic equivalent,
and a likely forerunner of the Hellenistic aesthetic, is the Herakles
Epitrapezios by Lysippos, which is doubly apt, if it indeed existed in two
versions. The first was a miniature statuette of the gigantic Herakles in a
seated, feasting position, intended for Alexander the Great as a table
ornament (Fig. 1), displaying the mythic hero as the ultimate consumer in
miniature. The second, discovered only in 1960 at Alba Fucens, was a
colossal temple dedication, possibly dwarfing even the imaginary Herakles
figure himself (Fig. 2).75 The sculptor was playing with ambiguities of scale.
The first version compressed the colossal hero into a diminutive scale, the
second was its doublet – or was it the other way round? Epitrapezios in
Greek puns on both possibilities (‘on’ or ‘at the table’). The ambiguities are
delicious. As J. J. Pollitt puts it well, ‘Was Herakles, and by analogy a ruler
who saw himself as Herakles, a small figure, in the sense that he began as
a mere man, who did great things? Or was he a great figure who did trivial
things? Does he belong in a temple or at a table?’ 76 A further irony, as we
know from Statius (Silv. 4.6), is that the table on which the statuette was
placed would have been laden with rich foods and exotic ornaments (laetis
numen venerabile mensis, v. 60), itself being one such ornament ( gestamina
mensae, 45).77 Statius must be alluding to Callimachus’ Aitia prologue: ‘The
Telchines in their caves under Mount Ida could not have produced such a jeu
d’esprit out of a tiny mass of metal’ (47–9; trans. K. Coleman; cf. Call. Aet.
fr. 1.1: ...]ι µοι Τελχῖνες ἐπιτρύζουσιν ἀ οιδῇ).78 Just as Statius points to the
contrastive scales at work in Vindex’s (and originally Alexander’s, or so
Vindex would have us believe) statuette of the god ( parvusque videri sentirique
ingens, ‘small in appearance and mighty in impression, ...though his measure
stands miraculously within a foot’ [37–39; trans. Coleman]), so does
Martial’s poem on the same figure (9.43.44) play on the same confusions
of scale: ‘Lysippum [codd.: Λύσιππου edd. olim] lego, Phidiae putavi,’ ‘I read the
name of Lysippus, but I thought it was the work of Phidias.’ 79 Look at the
noble head of any of the best surviving miniatures, or even at the full length
of any of the miniatures from the proper angle, and your eye, too, will be
cheated into believing it is gazing upon a colossus.80
Richard Hunter points to a similar ambiguity about Callimachus:
‘Aristotle [in the Metaphysics] traces a progression from wondering enquiries
about small matters to the ‘larger’ subjects of astronomy. To which
category would Callimachus’ enquiry [in one of his Aitia] fall?’ 81 The same
questions can be posed about the epigrams of Posidippus, who not by
chance was a great connoisseur of Lysippan sculpture, as his newly discovered
288
Fig. 1. Miniature bronze statuette of Herakles, seated against a rock with a wine cup
in one hand and his characteristic club in the other. Found near Pompeii.
Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli. Inv. 2828. H: 0.75 m. Photo courtesy of
the Soprintendenza speziali per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Pompei.
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Fig. 2. Colossal marble statue of Herakles, seated and holding a wine cup and his club.
Found at Alba Fucens. Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Chieti. Inv. 6029. H: 2.40 m.
Photo courtesy of the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell’ Abruzzo – Chieti.
290
poetry book amply confirms.82 And the very same questions can be shown
to apply to the dynamics of the Hellenistic verse form. Tremendous
grandeur was felt at the lowest levels of the sentence, the clause, the
individual metron and the individual stoicheion of sound, which could produce
sublime rapture in the mind of a euphonist critic, and, presumably, a poet
as well. The grandeur is an effect of magnification. It occurs whenever one
inspects the material of poetry from up close and that material suddenly
fills, and overfills, one’s field of vision – or soundscape (things ‘appear
greater and more beautiful.’).83
Any object is perhaps capable of provoking such sensations. Matter
viewed in its brute materiality is particularly apt to do this, and the
Hellenistic artists and beholders were particularly prone to look for such
effects at the level of the material detail.84 In his researches into Homer,
Krates somehow managed to discover the incongruity of two infinities
brought into collision: the miniature of the shield of Achilles and the
universe it reached out to embrace; the paradox of a Hephaestus now
creating the cosmos, now falling more or less victim to it (as he is thrown
down from Olympos onto Lemnos in an experiment in physics). The two
infinities, already figured by text and cosmos, could converge dramatically
in a single verse: ‘Homer measured (ἐµέτρησε) the spherical shape of the
cosmos (τὸ σφαιρικὸν τοῦ κόσµου σχῆµα) for us through a single line (δι’ ἑνὸς
στίχου),’ namely Iliad 8.16 (a description of Eris, or Strife): ‘as far (τόσσον)
beneath the house of Hades as from (ὅσον) earth the sky (ouranos) lies.’85
Longinus would label this verse and its effect sublime (probably in Krates’
wake).86 Somewhat earlier in the same tradition, there is Aratus, who
famously wove a double acrostic into his Phaenomena with the word λεπτή 87
and is known from Strabo to have written a collection, τὰ κατὰ λεπτόν
(nothing else is known about this work beyond its title).88 The Phaenomena,
Hesiodic in manner, is devoted to the signs in the heavens and, as
Hutchinson rightly notes, is remarkable for its ‘general grandeur’ – a fact
that remains a source of ongoing puzzlement to upholders of Hellenistic
leptotês.89 His poem, a mere eleven-hundred-fifty-some lines long (but still
longer than either the Theogony or the Works and Days), was correctly praised
as an ἔργον µέγα by Leonidas of Tarentum (Anth. Pal. 9.25 = 101 G-P): the
praise alludes to the content and not only to the form of Aratus’ poem,
which frequently invokes visual grandeur (ta megala: καλός τε µέγας τε, a
Homericism, is one of Aratus’ stock formulas).90 In the same poem,
Leonidas also praises Aratus for his refined intellect, as did others,
including Callimachus (Anth. Pal. 9.507 = 56 G-P).91 I would simply add
that it is the contrastive urge for grandeur arising from and amidst refinement
that stamps Aratus’ poem and marks it as specifically Hellenistic; and it
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was this very feature of contrasting scales that his contemporaries were
registering (even if Longinus found him singularly unimpressive; Subl. 10.6).
Much the same could be said of Theocritus’ Encomium of Ptolemy
Philadelphos (Id. 17), a mere 137 lines long, and yet brimming over with
imperial pretensions and hyperbole, as in the political portion of the poem:
Within [Egypt] are built three hundred cities, and three thousand, and
another ten thousand three times over, and three twice, and after them
thrice nine: over all of these is lordly Ptolemy king. He takes slices of
Phoenicia and Arabia and Syria and Libya and the dark-skinned Ethiopians;
all the Pamphylians and the warriors of Cilicia he commands, and the
Lycians and the Carians, who delight in war, and the islands of the Cyclades,
for his are the finest ships sailing the ocean. All the sea and the land and the
crashing rivers [of the world] are subject to Ptolemy... (82–92; trans.
R. Hunter)92
Towards the end of the tradition, or else reflecting it now in a Roman form,
are the extraordinary but little studied Tabulae Iliacae, twenty-two marble
tablets dating from around the late first century BC to the early first
century AD, mostly depicting scenes from Homer or the Epic Cycle,93 all
diminutive in scale, all luxury objects, all sporting Alexandrian erudition
or pseudo-erudition, and all displaying more information than the eye can
readily absorb.94 One tablet, the so-called Tabula Iliaca Capitolina, manages
to pack all twenty-four books of the Iliad, in epitomized form, around a
central image of the fall of Troy, in addition to depicting other cyclical
epics besides. The texts are microscopic (‘easily legible with a magnifying
glass’)95 and, in their zeal for totality, obsessed with a gigantism that
competes with their physical form. One clue to the works’ aesthetic
principles is their inscribed signatures. Six of the works are proudly
attributed, not to a certain ‘Theodoros’, as has been universally assumed in
the past, but rather to a certain ‘Theodorean’ kind of artistry, as in the
following tags:
2NY: [ Ἰλι]ὰς ῾Οµήρου Θεοδώρηος ἡ{ι} τέχνη 96
5O: [ἀσπὶς] ᾿Αχίλλειος Θεοδώρηος ἡ τ[έχνη]
The formulas seem calculated to emphasize the contrast between the two
parts of the expressions, assuming they add up to whole expressions. The
problem does not lie in the visual presentation of the letters alone. Some
of the tags appear in ‘magic square’ patterns which all but defy decryption.
In other cases, they appear in a straightforward linear sequence, but lacking
verbs and other particles which might guide the reader through the sense.
Theoretically, the expressions could also be taken as subject labels, as if
naming the contents of the respective works like titles or headings,
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followed by authorial attributions, and that is roughly how they have been
understood in the past. But on a different reading, their gist arguably comes
down to this:
The Iliad is Homer’s, but the art is all Theodorean.
The shield is Achillean, but the art is all Theodorean.97
The contrast is not merely one of genre (epic poetry versus ecphrastic
objects), but also one of scale: Homer’s epic may be sprawling and
grandiose, but the Theodorean art of miniaturization is even greater...
The unusual and persistent use of the adjective ‘Theodorean’ in place of
the proper name98 prompts a speculation, one that I have never seen
ventured until now: are we having to do not with the name of the artist or
artists who produced the tablets, but with an allusion, that is, with a style?
If so, the one (and probably only) artist who fills the bill is none other than
Theodoros of Samos, the famed Greek architect and miniaturist from the
sixth century known to Posidippus (as discussed earlier) and to Pliny (HN
34.83), among others, and mentioned above in connection with his
hallmark style.99 The reference in ‘Theodorean’, in other words, could be
a learned allusion by a self-effacing Hellenistic artist or series of artists,100
and one that is all the more layered, given that the Iliad is itself toying with
scale. Concerning itself with a mere 50-odd days of a ten-year-long war, the
vast epic both compresses and distends time, while whoever produced the
tablets, invoking the Theodorean style, signaled this telescoping by way of
an (epic) reductionism of their own on a scale hitherto unseen in the visual
arts, and all but illegibly so – a ‘great marvel’ indeed, though very much in
the literary tradition of Metrodoros, Aratus, and Krates.101 As unique as
this particular contrast in scales may be, with its juxtaposition of learned
visual and verbal allusions, it does nevertheless serve as a signature element
of Hellenistic aesthetics. But this element or gesture is hardly contained by
the qualifier leptos, as that term is understood today. The tablets are, in
contrast, rather baroque, a term that should be understood not pejoratively
but generously – both in the sense that has been conferred on the formally
complex and daring works from Pergamon and elsewhere,102 and in the
sense that was been assigned to the early modern German Trauerspiel by
Walter Benjamin, according to which ‘the baroque signifier displays a
dialectical structure in which sound and script “confront each other in a
tense polarity”, forcing a division within discourse that impels the gaze
into its very depths’.103
Consider a further example of Hellenistic contrastive scales. Recently,
Gyburg Radke has argued that a salient feature of Hellenistic poetry lay in
its resort to myths of childhood, which (she claims) were intentionally
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sought out by poets so as to mark their own literary modernity as against

the ancient, canonical past. One consequence of this gesture, according to
Radke, was that gods were frequently presented as infants, but from the
contrasting perspective of their later maturity and potency.104 Teasing out
this insight, we arrive at the following curious mental picture: even as
immature specimens of themselves, these divine infants were larger than
life, endowed with extraordinary gifts and powers, and capable of
unchildlike feats. They embodied, in other words, contradictions in terms,
and above all of scale. Consider the way Callimachus depicts Zeus in his
hymn to this god (Hymn 1.55–7):
Beautifully did you grow and were nurtured, heavenly Zeus,
swiftly did you grow up, and rapidly did the first down come to your
cheeks.
But even as a child did you devise all your plans full-grown.
καλὰ µὲν ἠέξευ, καλὰ δ’ ἔτραφες, οὐράνιε Ζεῦ,
ὀξὺ δ’ ἀνήβησας, ταχινοὶ δέ τοι ἦλθον ἴουλοι.
ἀλλ’ ἔτι παιδνὸς ἐὼν ἐφράσσαο πάντα τέλεια·
These verses by Callimachus encapsulate the contradictions just named

simply by compressing the distance between youth and age and by
nonetheless stressing the vast extremes that did, and did not, lay between
them. So, for example, Zeus was a cosmic ruler from the beginning, ‘even’
as a child, while all his plans were complete, teleia, from the beginning. He
is the embodiment of a paradox.105
Finally, there are the paradoxes of euphony itself, one of which we have
touched on already – namely, sound’s fragile ephemerality, which is the
source of its everlasting powers. Callimachus’ cicada-like ‘slender verses’
which feed off divine dewy air refer to this quasi-material quality of sound,
while the pretensions to immortality that this λιγὺς ἦχος enables are, on the
contrary, as grand as one could ever hope for.106 This temporal paradox
repeats another, that of the immateriality of sound’s materiality, which was
hinted at above: euphony manifests itself (ἐπιφαίνεται) on the combination
(σύνθεσις) of the individual sounds (φωναί). But just when does sound cease
to be a matter of matter? And how material is the sound of euphony?
The question exercised the grammarians to no end, and it is also built
into the paradoxes of euphonic criticism.107 The problem here is that sound
is both material and phenomenal, matter and appearance, hard and soft,
empirically grounded and an illusory synthesis (as a phantasia in the mind
of the auditor).108 Sound is also a matter of tiny particles (stoicheia) that are
capable of the most sublime grandeur:109 again, the Hellenistic aesthetic of
sharply contrastive scales is at play here. And I am sure much of the same
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could be found in other art forms, as I have already suggested with my
mention of the Hellenistic Baroque. Finally, it is crucial to note that
attention to detail is not an automatic confirmation of an aesthetic of the
detail. Aristotle makes a memorable point in his Poetics, though it is one
that his Hellenistic successors would ultimately reject:
Beauty consists in amplitude as well as in order (ἐν µεγέθει καὶ τάξει), which
is why a very small (πάµµικρον) creature could not be beautiful, since our
view (ἡ θεωρία) loses all distinctness (συγχεῖται) when it comes near to taking
no perceptible time, and an enormously ample one (παµµέγεθες) could not
be beautiful either, since our view of it is not simultaneous, so that we lose
the sense of its unity and wholeness as we look it over; imagine, for instance,
an animal a thousand miles long! 110
While Aristotle is arguing for a compromise between conflicting scales, his
argument inadvertently sheds light on another point that can be made
for him. For just as an overwhelming mass of size can defeat aesthetic
perception (as Longinus knows well, though he would argue this gives rise
to another perception – the sublime), so too details can actually help to
reinforce the greatest possible quantity of an aesthetic perception. Details,
in other words, can collaborate with large magnitudes of perception; they do
not have to negate them. Think again of any large, indeed any immense
object. Now think of the details that decorate it. It is these that draw the
eye to the object and cause it to linger there, even in cases when the eye
might otherwise risk being overwhelmed by the same object. ( Trajan’s
column is a good case in point, but only one of many available).
To summarize and to conclude, then: The exponents of Hellenistic
culture had an urge for leptote-s, but they also knew the opposite urge: an
urge for grandeur, for the spectacular, for cosmic aspiration (Eratosthenes,
Aratus, Krates); whence too the urge, elsewhere visible, for the peculiar, the
monstrous, and the baroque;111 for systems, collections, libraries, large-
scale unities (Euclid, Eristratus, Aristarchos of Samos and Aristarchos of
Samothrace both); for empire, for Ptolemaic Egypt, Macedonia, Greek
classical heritage, and the rest. What is remarkable in this period is not
that they held both urges, but the way we find both urges inextricably
combined – which makes of the Hellenistic poets, critics, and writers
paradoxographers in the truest sense of the word.112
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Notes
1 Porter 2010b; id. (forthcoming); id. (in progress).
2 Though see also Lohse 1973.
3 See Day 1989; Scodel 1992; Steiner 1993; Carson 1999.
4 Bing 1998, 34.
5 The epitaphic character of such statements was recognized already in antiquity
(e.g., [Plut.] Vit. Hom. 135; schol. T Il. 6.459–60). On this phenomenon, see most
recently Scodel 1992.
6 Gutzwiller (ed.) 2005. See also Männlein-Robert 2007, ch. 4; and Prioux 2007.
7 Hutchinson 2008, ch. 5; ibid., 104. Cf. Gutzwiller 2002a on ‘art objects’ and ibid.,
pp. 94–5 on ‘aesthetic objects.’ Even Callimachus was interested in material remains:
Fantuzzi and Hunter 2004, 46. See further the essays collected in Rouveret et al. 2006,
some of which draw on Posidippus.
8 From Nisetich’s translation of the poems in Gutzwiller (ed.) 2005, 17–41. The
tenth title is lost.

9 See Bing 2005, 143 at n. 4; Gutzwiller 2005, 301–2. The elegiac poet Zenothemis
and the mineralogist Sotakos (late 4th-early 3rd C. BC ) also wrote treatises on precious
stones, as Pliny and others record. Zenothemis may have penned his treatise in the
form of an elegiac didactic poem.
10 ‘The Pebble’ (‘Le Galet’), in Ponge 1994, 91.
11 On the other hand, the fascination with pebbles and their aesthetic properties
is as old as human time itself. See the ongoing excavations into the Bronze Age
patterned pebble beds in East Devon directed by archaeologist C. Tilley
(http://www.pebblebedsproject.org.uk/poetics-of-pebbles.html). See further Tilley
2004.
12 Posidipp. AB 15 (trans. C. Austin); AB refers to the edition of Austin and
Bastianini (2002).
13 Wimmel 1960; Clausen 1964; see Schiesaro 1998 on both.
14 Call. Aet. fr. 1.11–12 Lehnus (forthcoming):
τοῖν δὲ δυοῖν Μίµνερµος ὅτι γλυκύς α ἱ αλ(αι) [

...] ἡ µεγάλη δ᾿ οὐκ ἐδίδαξε γυνή
schol. P.Lit.Lond. 181, 11–12 ἐδίδαξαν αἰ α. τ. α. (sscr. ..τ. α. [Bell] vel µ..α. [Hunt]) |
οὐκ ἐδίδ(αξεν) ἡ µεγάλ(η) edd. (Milne, re vera) Bell, Hunt: ἐδίδαξαν αἱ µεγάλ(αι)
(sscr. µ. ε.γ. α. [Lobelms, Huntms]) disp. Bellms praeeunte fort. Huntms, αἱ ‘µετὰ
µεγάλ(ην) disp. Bastianini, αἱ ἁ[π] (αί) αἱ µεγάλαι [µέν (vel τοι) (sscr. µετα[φ(ορά)])
Luppe α[ἱ κατὰ λεπτόν Rostagni 1928
e schol. Lond. α. ἱ ‹γ᾿› ἁπαλαί [τοι (vel [µέν) / νήνιες] suppl. Luppe, α. ἱ ‹µὲν›
ἀραιαί / [Κώϊαι] Sier (Κώϊαι Puelma)
I am grateful to Luigi Lehnus for allowing me to print the text and apparatus to these
lines from his forthcoming edition of Callimachus, and for the following comment:
‘Certainly αἱ κατὰ λεπτόν was not in the scholion, and should be accordingly removed
from Callimachus, disappointing though this is (one could re-introduce it, as a mere
conjecture, only by speculating that the scholion did not reflect the text). My personal
opinion is that [Idris] Bell was right in his first reading ἐδίδαξαν αἱ µεγάλ(αι), and that
αἱ µεγάλαι [µέν (or τοι [both have been suggested by W. Luppe]) is very possibly what
296
Callimachus wrote. Bastianini [i.e., Bastianini 1996] has independently though partially
confirmed Bell!’ (Lehnus, per litt.) See next note.
15 Rostagni 1956, 269–70 (reprinting the earlier article); Bastianini 1996; see
Benedetto 1990 and Lehnus 2006 for detailed histories of the conjectures.
16 Wilamowitz-Moellendorff 1943 [1882]; id. 1924; Reitzenstein 1970 [1893]; id.
1931; Couat 1882; Pfeiffer 1955. For the same point, see Cameron 1995, 327, who,
however, ultimately rejects it. On C. G. Heyne’s association of Hellenistic poetry with
the genus tenue, a genre incapable of grandeur, and its roots in Roman antiquity, see
Kassel 1987, 11–12 and esp. Heyne 1785 [1763], e.g., 80 (tenue et subtile, ...nihil in iis
celsum, generosum et sublime, nulla audacia, etc.), 81 (neque nobili argumento, nec magnis sententiis,
etc., following ps.-Longinus’ condemnations of the Alexandrians), 92, 93 n. (λεπτότης),
94, 96, etc.
17 Phld. De mus. 4 col. 22.25–26 Neubecker = col. 136.25–26 Delattre. See Porter
1995. I find it increasingly unlikely that Philodemus should have awarded them this
label ( pace Delattre 2007, 2: 434, who misconstrues my article on this point), and I
doubt that ὀνοµαζόµενοι, as opposed to καλούµενοι, can bear the pejorative meaning
of ‘so-called’ in this context.
18 A case in point is Plut. Mor. 30D, where three kinds of literary attention are
named: ‘in the reading of poetry one person culls the flowers of the story, another
rivets his attention upon the beauty of the diction and the arrangement of the words
(ὁ δ’ ἐµφύεται τῷ κάλλει καὶ τῇ κατασκευῇ τῶν ὀνοµάτων), ...but as for those who are
concerned with what is said as being useful for character (and it is to these that our
present discourse directed)...’
19 Porter 2001; id. 2010, ch. 5.
20 P. Herc. 994 col. 37.9–13; see Porter 2007, 15 at n. 86.
21 E.g., Fantuzzi and Hunter 2004, 451; contra, Atherton 1989; Porter 1989,
150–1 n. 8. See, e.g., Dion. Hal. Comp. 4: ‘When I decided to write a treatise on this
subject [the σύνθεσις-doctrine], I tried to discover whether my predecessors had said
anything about it, especially the philosophers from the Stoa, since I knew that these men paid
considerable attention to the subject of language: one must give them their due. But
nowhere did I see any contribution, great or small, to the subject of my choice, by any author of repute’
(trans. Usher). The Stoics took not a rhetorical (and a fortiori, aesthetic), but only a
dialectical view of language: Chrysippos’ writings are said to be οὐ ῥητορικὴν θεωρίαν
ἐχούσας ἀλλὰ διαλεκτικήν (Dion. Hal., ibid., 22.13 U.–R.).
22 [σιν µόνην ἰδίαν] | ἐργάζεσ[θαι, καὶ τὸ ‘τὴν µὲν | [ἐπιφαι]νοµένην [ε]ὐφωνί|αν ἴδιον
.
[εἶ]ν.αι, τὰ δὲ νοή|µατα καὶ τὰς λέξεις ἐκτὸς | εἶναι καὶ κοινὰ συνάγεσ|θαι δεῖ[ν,’ πα]ρὰ πᾶσι
µὲν ὡς | ἐν. [στήλ]ηι µέ[ν]ε. ι τοῖς κρι|τικοῖ[ς], βλεποµένην δ’ ἔ|χει τὴ[ν ε]ὐηθί[α]ν ἐκ τῶν |
εἰρηµένων (P. Herc. 1676 col. 6.1–11; text after Janko 2000, 125 n. 1).
23 Cf. the same expression: τὴν ἐπιφαινοµένην | [α]ὐ[τῆι] [sc., τῆι συνθέσει] φωνὴν
(Phld. De poem. 5 col. 24.31 Mangoni). On epiphenomenalism, see Caston 1997.

24 Phld. De poem. 1 cols. 132.27–133.1 Janko.
25 Arist. Poet. 25.1460b15–16: the art must be judged καθ’ αὑτήν; cf. ibid., 4.1449a8–9:
αὐτὸ καθ’ αὑτὸ κρῖναι, not πρὸς τὰ θέατρα; ibid. 7.1451a6–7: whatever is πρὸς τοὺς
ἀγῶνας καὶ τὴν αἴσθησιν οὐ τῆς τέχνης ἐστίν; Phld. De poem. 5 col. 25.30: the ‘poem qua
poem’ (τὸ πόηµα καθὸ πόηµα) is privileged; ibid., P. Herc. 1676 col. 7.7–17 N = col. 18
Sbordone 1976, refuting the euphonist claim that ‘the composition in and of itself
produces psuchagôgia’ through the sound that the composition yields): ‘α[ὐ]τὴν
297
James L. Porter
ψυ[χα]γωγ[ε]ῖν σύνθεσιν κ[αθ’ α]ὑτήν, ἕτερο[ν] οὐδὲν ε[ἰσφ]εροµέν[η]ν ἀγαθόν’, [ἀ]πίθανόν
ἐστι. The resemblance in terminologies is striking and can hardly be haphazard.
I suspect it points to a conscious hearkening back to Aristotle. But it could just point
to a high level of awareness of philosophical language in its aesthetic uses on the part
of the euphonist critics, perhaps as such language was found in Peripatetic circles
(though no intermediary texts after Aristotle’s writings spring to mind). There may be
a further reminiscence (and inversion) in ἔξω τῆς τέχνης of Aristotle’s key idiom in the
Poetics, ἔξω τοῦ µύθου (‘outside the plot’).
26 My designation. ὕλη is reserved by the euphonists for its customary, presumably
Peripatetically derived usage, standing for plot, subject matter (hupothesis), and all that
goes with this (meaning, lexeis, etc.). See Phld. De poem. 1 col. 74.8 Janko; P. Herc. 1081
col. 9.24; col. 13; P. Herc. 1676 col. 4.5–9 N = col. 15 Sbordone.
27 Trans. Nisetich (slightly adapted) in Gutzwiller (ed.) 2005, 20.
28 P. Herc. 1676 col. 5.
29 This is a different sense of idion than the one just discussed.
30 Cf. two columns prior: ‘according to the sunthesis of the rhythms and the diction’
(P. Herc. 1676 col. 3.1–3 N = col. 14 Sbordone); and the subsequent column, which
was quoted just above.
31 δ..ιότι, καθάπερ ε.[ἶ]|πον, δια]φερούσα[ς µὲν τέ]|χνας, ἐν δὲ τῶ‹ι› κοινῶι τὸ|τέ[λο]ς
ἐχούσας παρατέθη|κ.εν.. ὡ[ς] γὰρ [δ]ακτυλιογλύ|φ[ο]ς ἴδ.ιον ἔχων οὐ τὸ ποι|εῖν ὅµο[ι]ον –
κοινὸν γὰρ ἦν| καὶ πλ.[ά]σ.του καὶ ζωγ. ρ[ά|φου – |[τὸ δ’] ἐν σιδήρω‹ι› καὶ λι|θαρίωι διὰ τῆς
ἐγ[γ]λυφῆς,| τἀγ[αθὸ]ν. οὐκ ἐν τούτωι κεί[µε]νον, ἀλλ] ἐν τῶι ποι|εῖν ὅ.µ.[ο]ιον, ὃ πάντ.ω.ν
κοι|νὸν, ἔχει, παραπλησί|ως ἀξιοῦτα[ι] καὶ [ὁ] ποητὴς | τὸ µὲ[ν ἴδι]ον ἐν [τῆι συ]ν|θέσει
β[ούλε]σθαι, τὸ δ’ ἀγα|θὸν δι[αν]οία[ι καὶ] λέ[ξει] κοι|νῶ[ς] θηρεύειν, ὅ φησιν οὗ|τος ἁπλῶς
µηδὲ ἓν ὠφε|λεῖν ἢ βλάπτειν, ὥσπερ ἐκ τῶν παρατεθέντων| συνῆχε[ν, ἀ]λλ’ οὐ τοὐν|αντίον·
[τὸ] τοίνυν τοὺς πο.ητὰς τὸ [κοιν]ὸν† παρ’ ἑτέ|ρων λα.βόντας (P. Herc. 1676 col. 5.3–28 N
= col. 16 Sbordone (rev. and trans. Asmis 1995, 160–61; trans. adapted; final
supplement mine, based on the subsequent column).
32 By the way, we shouldn’t be thrown off track by Philodemus, who seems to have
introduced a second sense of idion into the discussion, viz., that of proper function,
which is not part of the euphonists’ vocabulary (idion, for them, means, practically,
‘original’ to the artist and his product), though it is found in, say, Aristotle. Philodemus
is taking a quality of the object, or the artist’s contribution to the object, and making
it into a function of the artist. But while we’re at it, we might as well notice how the
euphonists’ point is rather different from Aristotle’s, for instance when he states (Poet.
13.1452b33) that the idion of the poet is to mimeisthai (imitate or represent). For
Aristotle, there is no real hint that the imitation is colored by the particularity of the
medium, whereas for the euphonists the imitation is made distinctive by the medium
in which it is made – indeed, its aesthetic value seems to lie not in imitation per se, but
in this distinctive, material difference.
33 οἱ ἀγαθοὶ ποηταὶ παρ’ οὐδὲν ἄλλο πρωτεύουσίν τε καὶ µόνοι διαµένουσιν ἢ παρὰ τοὺς
ἤχους (Phld. De poem. 1, col. 83.11–14 Janko); cf. ibid., col. 84.7, 84.12, 89.11–12: αὐτὸς
ὁ ἦχος; ἡ ἐπιφαινοµένη φωνή ἡ τῇ συνθέσει (De poem. 5, col. 23.38 Mangoni).
34 Porter 2006.
35 ὠφέλιµα κρίνειν αὐτὰ ἀρκούντως ἕξει. κτῆµά τε ἐς αἰεὶ µᾶλλον ἢ
Thuc. 1.22.4:
ἀγώνισµα ἐς τὸ παραχρῆµα ἀκούειν ξύγκειται. Cf. Subl. 7.3, which echoes the passage: true
sublimity does not ‘endure only for the moment of hearing (µέχρι µόνης τῆς ἀκοῆς
298
σῳζόµενον)’; on the contrary, it ‘makes a strong and ineffaceable [viz., lasting]
impression on the memory (ἰσχυρὰ δὲ ἡ µνήµη καὶ δυσεξάλειπτος).’
36 This kind of language is ancient. Cf. Arist. EN 10.4.1174a23: ἡ τῶν λίθων σύνθεσις.
37 Dion. Hal. Comp. 6 (28.5–16 U.-R.).
38 Chiron 2001, esp. 15–33.
39 Demetr. Eloc. 13–14; trans. Roberts and Innes, adapted.
40 ὥσπερ κόλλα τις ἢ γόµφος ἢ εἴ τι τοιοῦτο π[ρὸ]ς τὴν τῶν ξυλίν[ω]ν σύν[θ]εσιν, οὕτως
ἔχει κα[ὶ τ]ὸ ἄφωνον πρὸς τὴν τῆς λέξεως σύµπηξιν εὐκαίρως λαµβανόµενον. ...οἷον γοῦν ἐπὶ
τῶν σωµάτων τὸ εὐπαγὲς .γείνετ[αι] ὅταν τ.ὸ. ὅλον σῶµα ὑφ’ αὑτὸ . εὖ
. . δι.[α]κείµενα
. τὰ µέρη
ἔ.χη<ι>, τοῖς τε µήκεσι καὶ τοῖς ὄγκοις ὁµολογο[ύ]µενά τ.ε. κα.ὶ σύµµετρα ὄντα, κτλ. (Phld.
P. Herc. 994 col. 34.4–11 and 18–25; text after Janko 2000, 299 n. 8 and Sbordone).
41 Simonides(?) or Pindar(?) ap. P. Berol. 9571v col. 2.55 Schubart.
42 Austin and Olson 2004 suggest (ad loc.) ‘make elaborate’ for τόρευε (and refer the
expression to the accompanying dance rather than to the song) but recognize that the
metaphor is drawn from metal-work (toreutike-).
43 Pind. fr. 194 Maehler-Snell; trans. Race.
44 Longinus writes about ‘the choice of correct and magnificent words,’ a feature
that needs to be ‘cultivated intensely’: ‘it makes grandeur, beauty (κάλλος), old-world
charm (εὐπίνεαν), weight, force, strength, and a kind of lustre bloom upon our words
as upon beautiful statues; it gives things life (ψυχήν) and makes them speak (φωνητικήν)’
(Subl. 30.1; trans. Russell).
45 Barthes 1975, 66–7; and Barthes 1977.
46 Stewart 1993; id. 2006, 171–2 (‘often regarded as the most characteristic and
even the most important artistic innovation of the Hellenistic period’); for a
re-thinking of Hellenistic baroque, see Schulz, this volume.
47 Fantuzzi and Hunter 2004, 453–4; more generally, van Groningen 1953.
48 ἔγλυψε, AB 7.4; γλυφθέν, AB 8.4; ἔγλυφε, ΑΒ 14.2; γλύ[µµα, ΑΒ 11.6; 12.6; γλύµµατι,
ΑΒ 11.3.
49 Asmis 1995, 162.
50 See Petrain 2005, 335.
51 Thanks to Jeffrey Feland for suggesting the moonstone.
52 AB 1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 7; 10; 11; 13; 16.It can hardly be a coincidence that the Lithika is
framed by two prominent geographical and ideological markers. The first two words
of the first poem in the collection are Ἰνδος ῾Υδάσπης.[ . Alexander famously conquered
the inhabitants of the region around the Hydaspes river (present-day Jhelum river in
Pakistan) in 326 BC before returning to Alexandria (see Strab. 15.1.25, etc., Plut. Alex.
344B, Arr. Anab. 5.3.6.; 5.9.1; 5.14.5; etc.) He was thereby establishing his dominion
at the conventional outer limits of the Greek oikoumenê (Arist. Mete. 2.5.362b27–30).
And the final two verses of AB 20, which also happen to close the Lithika, make
explicit the geopolitical pretensions of the book, if not of the entire collection, and
their nominal patron: ‘Now, Lord of Geraestus, along with the islands, keep free from
earthquakes Ptolemy’s land and shores’.
53 AB 16; 19. Cf. Callimachus on the cost of Pheidias’ huge statue of Zeus at
Olympos: it is [ο]ὐ [λ]ογιστόν, ‘incalculable’, ironizing the surplus of measurements of

this vast object strewn throughout poem (Callim. Ia. 6). Cf. also Callim. fr. 25.1–2 on
the sheer quantity of Herakles’ deeds (πολλάκι πολλὰ καµών), albeit with no detectable
sense of irony, just as there is none here in Posidippus.
299
James L. Porter
54 AB 20; 17.
55 AB 8.
56 AB 13
57 AB 14.
58 Gutzwiller 2005, 302; cf. ibid., 303.
59 Ibid., 314. Similarly, and more recently, id. 2007, 29–43 (the standard view of
‘the slender style’).

60 The epigram on the colossus of the sun by the Rhodian sculptor Chares (AB 68),
‘as big as the earth’, is compared with Myron’s largest production, which ‘reach[ed] the
limit of four cubits’, but the latter is still a life-scale production, not a miniature; for
the epigram and its Rhodian context, see Wiemer, this volume, section 3. Modern
commentators attempt to present this comparison as biased in favor of Myron (e.g.,
Kosmetatou 2004, 203), but there is no evidence for this in the poem or in the book
that contains it that I can see. Invoking its predecessor (AB 67), a poem about a
miniature sculpture by the archaic sculptor Theodoros, only reinforces my point about
contrastive opposites. The choice of an archaic sculptor, incidentally, is interesting by
itself: it shows (a) that the practice of miniaturization had precedents (cf. the allegory
of Homer by Metrodoros of Lampsakos [DK 61A2–4]); and (b) that to draw a
periodizing line using this criterion alone is to draw a line in the sand, whereas playful,
contrastive uses of the conceit might give us a better purchase on the later period, if
we only knew more about the earlier instances. See the ironies of the Ischia Cup from
the eighth century BC (CEG 1.454) as read by Bing 1998, 33 n. 38, following Hansen
1976: diminutive in size (10.3 cm. = 4“ in height x 15.1 cm. = 6“ in diameter at the
mouth), it projects itself ‘as the huge, gold-decorated chalice of Nestor’ from Il. 11
‘which only that great hero can lift with ease’ and in abbreviated, epigrammatic form
at that. In other words, the playful contrasts of scale appears to be an old game indeed,
albeit possibly a rarer one (or a simply less well attested one?). For further
considerations on Posidippus’ use of Theodoros, see also Gutzwiller 2002b, 55–60,
to which we can add another, namely its learned imitation of contemporary historical
handbooks, and hence its mimicking the larger imperial project of Ptolemaic
encyclopedism and all-encompassing knowledge (here, in miniature). On Theodoros
and his contemporary Kallikrates (Pliny HN 36.43), and the genre of sculptural
miniatures generally, see Bartman 1992, 170 and passim; also, below.
61 My use of ‘contrastive scales’ is differently conceived from the usual idea of a
‘large-small dynamics’ in Hellenistic poetry, which is typically put in the service of

‘the power of the small’ (Onians 1979, 128) or ‘the aesthetics of [the] miniature’
(Stephens 2004a, 75–6) or ‘the conceit of the small’ (Bartman 1992, ch. 6).
62 One is reminded of Democritus’ epistemological injunction to search ἐπὶ
λεπτότερον for true causes (DK B11). Was Democritus (or his reception) somehow a
precursor to the Hellenistic aesthetic? If so, he will not have been this on the current
understanding of the Hellenistic λεπτός, but only on a materialist and sensualist
understanding of this aesthetic, one that would incorporate contrastive scales
(differently, Reitzenstein 1931, 27–9).
63 See Callim. frr. 407–11 Pf.; Bing 2005, 134–35; Krevans 2005, 89–92.
See further Susemihl 1891, 1. 463–91. Prioux 2007, 110 and 123 notes the
compatibility of two opposing styles in Posidippus, semnote-s and leptote-s, but stages a
(rather speculatively assumed) polemic between Callimachus and Posidippus around
300
this licensing of opposite styles, whereby Callimachus appears as an upholder of
leptote-s pure and simple.
64 Fantuzzi and Hunter 2004, 43, 50; Acosta-Hughes and Stephens 2002, 249
(‘sublime moment’); Kuttner 2005, 149 (‘colossal’, ‘monstrous’); cf. 162 (‘colossal’);
Hutchinson 1988, 61 (‘completely wild’, ‘extravagant’), 83 (‘grandeur’, ‘grandiose’).
65 Posidippus was known in antiquity as epigrammatopoios, a maker of epigrams,
presumably also of monuments. Cf. IG IX, 12 1:17.24, from Thermon in central

Greece, dating from 263/2 BC (Πο[σ]ειδίππωι τῶι ἐπιγραµµατοποιῶι Πελλαίωι), and the
gloss by Weinreich 1918, 439, who first published it, in terms of ‘dedicatory’ or
monumental epigrams ‘on stone.’ Cf. P. Petr. II 49a = SH 961, an epithalamium of
Arsinoe attributed to Posidippus; Posidipp. 11 G-P (= PFirmin-Didot ), a literary
epigram commemorating the lighthouse of Pharos and its statue of Zeus So-te-r; and
the Milan papyrus, epigrams 19, 20, and 24, which are either cultic, dedicatory, or
celebratory. See further Bing 2009.
66 See Bergquist 1990, 53; Bing 2005, 138.
67 See Kuttner 2005 on luxury collections and displays generally, and especially on
gem encyclopedias, all of which the Lithika mimics. Ben Acosta-Hughes suggests
( privatim) a parallel with Fabergé eggs, which ‘work’ aesthetically as delicate miniatures
(the majority standing at around 4 high) and as literal thaumata (each contains a
surprise within), and also as emblems of imperial taste: gaudy and over-elaborate, they
not only imply but also advertise the enormous scale of wealth, outlay, consumption,
and display that sustains them.
68 Flemming 2003; Stephens 2004b, 170–3. Nicely summarized in Fantuzzi and
Hunter 2004, 50, where this tendency is contextualized as ‘part of the great
systematization of knowledge which so characterizes the Hellenistic and Roman
periods’. See now also Fuqua 2007, which I discovered only at copy-editing stage, but
which I welcome as confirming my point about the ideological and political thrust of
the Lithika.
69 Droysen 1998 [1836–43], passim, but, e.g., 3: 20: ‘[Alexandrian] scholarship, too,
did its part to help Greece develop well beyond its local boundaries into a universal
power that encompassed the world as a whole’. Droysen’s work is a study in gigantism
on all levels. See further id. 1833, 236 (‘the great division of the world [by Alexander]
into East and West’; 546 (Deinokrates [even if Alexander rejected the plan in the
end]), 567–8 (Alexander’s portentous entry into the colossal city [Riesenstadt ] of
Babylon); id. 1998 [1836–43], 3:11: postclassical political entities tend towards ‘larger,
increasingly more comprehensive universalities (Allgemeinheiten)’; 3: 169–70: the
‘elegance [and] sheer abundance of life’ that underlay Hellenistic art and culture, which
Droysen characterizes as being ‘secure in its foundations, casting its gaze far and wide’,
‘majestic, capacious, rich, multifarious’, and so on (ibid. and 3:413–14); Ptolemy
Philadelphos assembled at his court ‘every art, every science – the former to lend
dignity to the luxury that he loved, the latter...to lend it substance and value’; ‘never
before was life more delicately adorned, more brilliantly savored or more finely
blandished than in this court’ (3:169). On the other hand, poetry for Droysen was
apparently exempt from gigantism (id. 1833, 546–7). Bravo may be right that Droysen
had little understanding or knowledge of Hellenistic poetry, but neither did Droysen
seek to cover poetry in his study of political formations (3:413). However see
Bernhardy 1836, 371: ‘A vigorous impulse for massive reading and writing, polymathy
301
James L. Porter
and polygraphy, were the levers of the world founded by Alexander’ (also quoted in
Droysen’s review of Bernhardy in Droysen 1893–94, 2:70, and then again in the 1843
preface to Geschichte des Hellenismus, where the statement is claimed to have been one
of the mainsprings of Droysen’s own historical researches on the period [id. 1998
[1836–43], 3: x]). Heyne 1785 [1763], esp. 79–80 and 98–134, is a predecessor of
Droysen. On Droysen, see further Porter 2009, 9–11; and on Hellenistic gigantism,
see further Préaux 1978, 329; Bugh 2006; Stewart 2006 (on truphe-, the colossal, and the
baroque).
70 Lesky 1971, 784–6, followed up nicely, if narrowly (with reference to Callimachus
only), by Lohse 1973. This is not to deny predecessors, or even certain continuities
(Aristophanes’ Frogs is a case in point (Reitzenstein 1931), as is the aesthetics of the
stoicheion (Porter 2010b). Nevertheless, one can still affirm that the Hellenistic poets
and critics latch onto the motif of contrastive scales with a new and distinctive energy.
71 See Hutchinson 2008, ch. 3, id. 2006, esp. 10667: ‘Different scales of form quickly
begin to interact. The Hellenistic period...both pondered the large issues of structure
which the Homeric poems exemplified and investigated the Homeric text in extremely
close detail’.
72 See G. O. Hutchinson’s well-taken but little-heeded point (Hutchinson 1988,
83–4: ‘This simple opposition [of the grand and the small] obscures the importance
in his work of grandeur and the grandiose, and the complexity and variety with which
they are exploited’; also 76–7; and all of the first chapter on Callimachus).
73 E.g., Shklovsky 1962 [1923], id. 1965 [1917]; Greenberg 1986–93 [1940]; Ransom
1941.
74 Cf. Lohse 1973, esp. 41, rightly noting how the leptos-motif is ‘consciously vague’
and self-‘obscuring’.
75 See Visscher 1962.
76 Pollitt 1999, 194. Cf. Stewart 1990, 1: 292–3. Cf. Feuerbach 1855, 259–60: ‘small
to behold, the picture was felt to be large’; ‘so powerful a deception of art was
contained in the smallest amount of space’; ‘the narrow vessel of a little image filled
with infinite content’, etc. These comments are all echoing Statius (ibid.), who is in
turn echoing, it seems, the language (or rhetoric) of Posidippus, or else that of
Hellenistic paradoxography: ‘So great is the deception of that tiny form. What precision
of touch, what enterprise in the skilled artist, at the same time to fashion by his pains a
table ornament and to revolve in his mind a great colossus!’ (tam magna breui mendacia
formae. / quis modus, quanta experientia docti / artificis, curis pariter gestamina mensae / fingere
et ingentis animo versare colossos!; 44–6; trans. Coleman; emphasis added).
77 Cf. Bartman 1992, 150.
78 The allusion is also noticed by Newlands 2002, 78.
79 For the readings, see Schneider 2001, 700–1. Cf. Sen. Ep. 53.11: ‘At mehercules
magni artificis est clusisse totum in exiguo’ (thanks to Gregory Hutchinson for this parallel).
80 These are conveniently reproduced in Bartman 1992.
81 Viz., in Callimachus’ treatment of the conduct of the Cretan Theodaisia at
Haliartos in Boeotia in fr. 43.84–7 Pf.; Fantuzzi and Hunter 2004, 60. Further
examples would include the Lock of Berenices (fr. 110.1; 110.93–4 Pf.); the ektheo-sis
of Arsinoe (fr. 228 Pf.; cf. esp. 12: µέγας γαµέτας and 15: λεπτὸν ὕδωρ, etc.); small
epigrams on big tragedies (P. Petrie II, 49b = SSH 985; see Hutchinson 2008, 5–6) and
colossal statues (such as the archaic cult image of Apollo on Delos, fr. 114 Pf.; see
302
Pfeiffer 1952, 22–3); ‘the unwoundable Nemean Lion...parodied by Molorcus’
problem in dealing with the mice’ (Hutchinson 2008, 50, on SH 259 = fr. 177 Pf.). And
the list goes on.
82 AB 62, 65, 70; Kosmetatou 2004; Stewart 2005; Prioux 2007, 123.
83 Pausimachus(?) ap. Phld. De poem. 1 col. 43.9–12 Janko: ‘When Homer’s verses
are read out (ἀναγινώϲ|[κητ]α. .ι). they all appear greater and more beautiful (πάντα µ[ε]ίζω |
[καὶ κα]λ. λίω φ[αίνε]ται).’ Cf. Subl. 17.2: ‘[And so,] emotional and sublime features seem
closer to the mind’s eye, both because of a certain natural kinship and because of their
brilliance (περιλαµπθεῖσα).’
84 Two modern works that excel in the aesthetics and poetics of the detail and plays
of scale are Stewart 1993 and Schor 1987. Cf. also Clark 1999 (a reference I owe to
Alex Purves).
85 [Heracl.] Quaest. Hom. 36.4; cf. 46.7, 47.1–6.
86 Subl. 9.4.
87 Jacques 1960. Because Aratus seems to have been the first to make the term
programmatic, while Callimachus later adopted it, we should perhaps speak of

Aratean, rather than Callimachean, leptote-s. See Cameron 1995, 321–8.
88 Strab. 10.5.3.
89 Gutzwiller 2007, 98. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff 1924, 1: 200: ‘[The Phaenomena]
remains a παχὺ γράµµα καὶ οὐ τορόν [“a fat and inelegant writing” (Callim. 398 Pf.,
originally with reference to Antimachus’ Lyde)] just the same, and Callimachus will
not have failed to recognize this’. And nonetheless, Aratus’ poem met with
unparalleled success upon its arrival in Alexandria (ibid.). See below.
90 καλός τε µέγας τε (Arat. 1.43; 1.244; 1.397 = Il. 21.108 = Od. 6.276, all final); καλοὶ
καὶ µεγάλοι (Arat.1.210); pace van Groningen 1953, 253–6. See Hutchinson 1988, 217
for the general point. If word-counts mean anything at all, µεγ- words appear forty-
four times in the Phainomena (not negated), while the formula καλός τε µέγας τε appears
three times and καλοὶ καὶ µεγάλοι appears once. λεπτ- words appear only four times.
There are words for ‘small’, but see id. 1988, ch. 5 on the ‘general grandeur’ of the
poem. Leonidas may have been fond of such contrasts. Cf. Leon. Anth. Pal. 9.51 = 21
G-P, which begins: εἰ καὶ µικρὸς ἰδεῖν καὶ ἐπ’ οὔδενος... and ends, τοῦτ’ δ’ ἐφ’ ἡµῖν /
τὠλίγον ὤρθωσεν σᾶµα πολυστροφίης.
91 Leon. Anth. Pal. 9.25; Callim. Ep. 29; Strab. 10.5.3; Ptolemaeus [Philadelphus]
(= Page, FGE p. 84.4 = Vit. Arat. p. 79.314 Maass).

92 Cf. Call. H. 4.168–70, likewise in praise of Philadelphos, and likewise on a grand,
hyperbolic scale.
93 The one intruder is Stesichoros’ Sack of Troy.
94 See now Valenzuela Montenegro 2004, and the fine, close analysis in Squire
forthcoming (2010).
95 Horsfall 1979, 33, though Michael Squire assures me that this is an overstatement,
as the texts are barely legible even with the aid of a magnifying glass – but what ancient
would have possessed such a device? (The evidence is controversial. The possibility
is affirmed in Forbes 1955, 190–91, but emphatically denied by Plantzos 1997). See
further Bienkowski 1891, 202: ‘scritti con lettere piccolissime quasi invisibili all’ occhio
nudo.’
96 Cf. 3C: Ἰλιὰς ῾Ο[µήρου] Θεοδώρηος ἡ{ι} τέχνη; 4N: ἀσπὶς ᾿Αχιλλῆος Θεοδώρηος καθ’
Ὅµηρον.
303
James L. Porter
97 Achillean, presumably because the object is itself shaped in the form of a shield
and is reminiscent, in its ecphrastic character, of the ecphrasis in Homer from which
it is derived. Cf. the bolder programmatic statement from another tablet (1A), in the
light of which this and the remaining tablets can be seen at the very least to complete
Homer and to give him his full measure: ‘learn the Theodorean art so that, by grasping
the order of Homer [whether this is Homer’s own narrative or the same as
reassembled on the tablets], you may have the [full] measure of all wisdom’ ([τέχνην
τὴν Θεοδ]ώρηον µάθε τάξιν ῾Οµήρου / ὄφρα δαεὶς πάσης µέτρον ἔχῃς σοφίας). There are
difficulties, to be sure. The layout is a problem on any reading. And the meaning of
τέχνη is disputed: is it art (viz., artistry) or individual artwork? See Sadurska 1964, 39
and Kazansky 1997, 57 who opt for the first choice; contrast Horsfall 1979 and
Valenzuela Montenegro 2004, 355, who opt for the second. The scholastic
connotation of “handbook”, vel sim. is unlikely; see Horsfall 1979, 27; 31; “epitome”
seems equally unlikely (pace Horsfall, ibid.). An intriguing parallel which could be
brought into play here is Callim. fr. 196.1 Pf.: [Ἀλ]εῖος ὁ Ζε[ύς], ἁ τέχνα δὲ Φειδία.) But
even if one were to follow the view that the expressions on the tablets stand for titles
and signatures, and if one were to take τέχνη in the sense of ‘artwork’, the same
meaning as I am proposing here could result: ‘Homer’s Iliad: an artwork à la
Theodoros’. Thanks to Gregory Hutchinson for helpful skeptical challenges on this
point.
98 Cf. Sadurska 1964, 9: ‘Cette façon de signer, étrange et exceptionelle...’; and ibid.,
p. 10 (cf. p. 39 and passim), noting how in the tablet inscriptions the noun τέχνη is
always qualified by the adjective Θεοδώρηος. Further, the puzzlement of Kazansky
1997, 57. What follows is an attempt at an explanation.
99 See n. 60 above. Theodoros was, to be sure, much more than a miniaturist, but
he was fondly remembered for this quality in later times. The archaizing character of
the Capitoline inscription (n. 96 above) has been observed by Valenzuela Montenegro
2004, 352 and by Squire forthcoming (2010), 000, n. 36. The single best parallel,
however, is Stesichoros S 89.7–8, from The Sack of Troy: δαεὶς σεµν[ᾶς ᾿Αθάνας] | µ.έ.τ[ρα]
τε καὶ σοφίαν του[ ; see Lehnus 1972, 54–5, who discovered the parallel, though an
echo with a papyrus fragment from Eudoxos of Knidos is undeniable (Pack2: 369; see
Bua 1971, 19–20; Horsfall 1979, 31) , as is a hitherto unnoticed parallel, an inscription
dating from ca. 450–425 BC (CEG 82.3 = IG I3 1506): [ἄκ]ρως µὲν σοφίας µέτρο[ν
ἐπι]στάµενος. (Cf. also AEMÖ 4 [1880] 59, I; 4th c.) However, see also Thgn. 876:
µέτρον ἔχων σοφίης. For a use of µέτρον similar to that translated in n. 97 above, viz.,
as taken in an agonistic and metapoetical sense, whereby Homeric poetics is again the
rival, see Hes. Op. 648–9: ‘I shall show you the measures (µέτρα) of the much-roaring
sea (πολυφλοίσβοιο θαλάσσης), I who have no expertise (σεσοφισµένος) at all in sea-
faring or boats’ (trans. Most), with Rosen 1990. The phraseology appears to be wholly
formulaic and archaic or classical, indeed.
100 See Valenzuela Montenegro 2004, 298–304, arguing for multiple hands and
signatories, against the assumption of a singular artist (held by Sadurska 1964, 10–15,
among others). If this is right, then my thesis that ‘Theodorean’ picks out a style
(modeled on the archaic artist) and not a single contemporary artist or his works ought
to have even greater plausibility. The dating is likewise thought to be various (but
harder to pin down). Two further considerations should be borne in mind. First,
Theodoros of Samos was remembered the way he remembered himself, as the
304
quintessential artist and technician of contrasting scales. In the account of his
miniature chariot by Pliny, we learn that Theodoros cast himself in a (probably life-
size) bronze statue (ipse se ex aere fudit) holding the marvelous miniature object in his
hand: ‘Besides its remarkable celebrity as a likeness, [the statue] is famous for its very
minute workmanship ( praeter similitudinis mirabilem famam magne suptilitate celebratur)’.
Already, in other words, we are confronted with a contrast of scales, one that Pliny’s
language mirrors (magne suptilitate). ‘The right hand holds a file, and three fingers of the
left hand originally held a little model of a chariot and four, but this has been taken
away to Palestrina as a marvel of smallness’ (HN, 34.83; trans. Rackham). So the
allusion to the technite-s Theodoros, or rather to the Theodorean techne-, seems absolutely
warranted. Secondly, a further precedent is found once again in Posidippus, who in
his own account of the same chariot resorts to the adjectival form of the artist’s proper
name: ‘...of the chariot, observe from up close / how great is the labor of the
Theodorean hand (τῆς Θεοδωρείης χειρὸς ὅσος κάµατος)’ (AB 67). Was Theodoros’
work already identified with a style in the time of Posidippus? Or did Posidippus’ use
of the adjective simply form an ingredient in the chain of coincidences that led to the
identification of the style of the tablets with Theodoros’ miniaturizing labors some six
centuries earlier? (But note again the contrast, ‘great labor / diminutive scale.’) Finally,
was the act of producing the tablets a typically Hellenistic act, aesthetically speaking,
or did it signal a harking back to an earlier aesthetic style? Surely, the attempt at a
‘reduced Homer’ is a gesture typical of a later, postclassical age, though there are some
earlier anticipations: the Cup of Nestor, Pigres EGF 65 (480 BCE), Metrodoros of
Lampsakos, etc. Most likely, what is needed is an expansion of our view of the
Hellenistic aesthetic to make provision for such continuities, rather than ruptures,
with the past. My suggestion about the allusions to Theodoros of Samos in ‘the
Theodorean art’ named in the Roman tablets has already been adopted and developed
in Squire, forthcoming,an excellent introduction to these ancient curiosities.
101 One of the tablets (8E) is exercised by this very question, still aflame from the
Alexandrian era. It begins, ‘...by Zenodotos,’ possibly referring to a study he may have
composed on the number of days in the Iliad. See Valenzuela Montenegro 2004, 204–
206 for the text and a translation.
102 See n. 46 above (where, however, the emphasis has usually been on emotional
rather than formal contorsion).

103 Eagleton 1998, 195.
104 E.g., Radke 2007, 213.
105 See the extended discussion in Radke 2007, 212–18. Radke, in keeping with her
literary-historical thesis, tends to emphasize the historical evolutions that are built into
these retellings of myth. I am drawing attention to the simultaneity of factors and their
shock value. To be sure, the divine childhood motif is borrowed from the Homeric
hymns, and is found elsewhere as well (see Grant 1929). But as both Grant and
Radke (and also Onians 1979, 126–8) observe, its use in the Hellenistic period
is both widespread and insistent, and hence arguably a literary and art-historical
signature.
106 Callim. Aet. fr. 1fr. 1.29–30 Pf.; cf. Aet. fr. 43.16–17 Pf. See Acosta-Hughes and
Stephens 2002 for an analysis of the sound dynamics of the poem, which is anticipated
by Reitzenstein 1931 (a neglected aspect of his argument); Krevans 1993; Ambühl
1995, on Callimachus’ adoption of the slender and sweet sounding style (the λιγὺς
305
James L. Porter
ἦχος) of the cicada over against the swollen noisy style (the ὄγκος) of the braying ass
(Callim. Aet. fr. 1.29–32; ; 31: ὀγκήσαιτο; see Hopkinson 1988, 96, ad loc., on the pun).
Further, Pendergraft 1995 on Aratus, who argues (in the wake of van Groningen 1953,
255) that leptos stands, in fact, for ‘pleasing aural qualities’. Clearly, there is more work
to be done on Callimachus’ poetics of sound.
107 See Porter 2010a.
108 Dion. Hal. Comp. 22 (110.8–9 U. R.): ἐῶντα τὴν ἀκρόασιν ἑνὸς κώλου συνεχοῦς
λαβεῖν φαντασίαν; cf. Aristox., Harm. 8: κατὰ τὴν τῆς αἰσθήσεως φαντασίαν.
109 See Porter 2010b.
110 Arist. Poet. 7.1450b34–51a6; trans. Hubbard, adapted.
111 The Hellenistic epigrammatic tradition ranges over everything from volcanic
eruptions to destructive floods to magnets to stranded monsters (Wick 2000 (ms.),

citing Anth. Pal. 6.222–3, 7.76, 7.299, 9.424, 9.568, 12.152).
112 Thanks to the participants at the original conference in Edinburgh as well as to
Ben Acosta-Hughes, Gregory Hutchinson, Luigi Lehnus, Maria Pantelia, Thomas

Rosenmeyer†, Michael Squire, and Andrew Stewart for invaluable comments on earlier
versions of this chapter. Thanks especially to the organizers of the conference for
their kind invitation to take part, which gave me the stimulus to think hard about a new
topic, and to Andrew Erskine and Anton Powell for helpful editorial queries. A more
developed version was later presented at UCLA and then at the Free University of
Berlin, where I received further helpful feedback. Finally, without a grant from the
National Endowment for the Humanities in 2005–06, I would not have had the
opportunity or leisure to undertake this project at all.
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(2010) ‘Visualising epic on the Tabulae Iliacae’, in H. Lovatt and C. Vout
(eds) Visualising Epic, Cambridge.
forthcoming
‘Texts on the table: the Tabulae Iliacae in their Hellenistic literary context’, JHS.
Steiner, D.
1993 ‘Pindar’s “Oggetti Parlanti”’, HSCP 95, 159–80.
Stephens, S.
2004a ‘Posidippus’s Poetry Book: where Macedon meets Egypt’, in W. V. Harris
311
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and G. Ruffini (eds) Ancient Alexandria between Egypt and Greece, Leiden and
Boston, 64–86.
2004b ‘For you, Arsinoe...’, in B. Acosta-Hughes et al. (eds) Labored in Papyrus
Leaves: Perspectives on an epigram collection attributed to Posidippus (P. Mil. Vogl.
VIII 309), Washington, D.C. and Cambridge, MA, 161–76.
Stewart, A.
1990 Greek Sculpture: An exploration, 2 vols. New Haven.
1993 ‘Narration and allusion in the Hellenistic baroque’, in P. J. Holliday (ed.),
Narrative and Event in Ancient Art, Cambridge, 130–74.
2005 ‘Posidippos and the truth in sculpture’, in Gutzwiller (ed.) 2005, 183–205.
2006 ‘Hellenistic art: two dozen innovations’, in G. R. Bugh (ed.), The Cambridge
Companion to the Hellenistic World, Cambridge, 158–85.
Stewart, S.
1993 On Longing: Narratives of the miniature, the gigantic, the souvenir, the collection,
Durham, (1st ed. 1984, Baltimore).
Susemihl, F.
1891 Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur in der Alexandrinerzeit, 2 vols., Leipzig.
Tilley, C.
2004 The Materiality of Stone: Explorations in landscape phenomenology, Oxford and
New York.
Valenzuela Montenegro, N.
2004 Die Tabulae Iliacae: Mythos und Geschichte im Spiegel einer Gruppe frühkaiserzeitlicher
Miniaturreliefs, Berlin.
van Groningen, B. A.
1953 La poèsie verbale grecque: Essai de mise au point, Mededelingen der Koninklijke
Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afd. Letterkunde n.s. 26,
no. 4 Amsterdam.
Visscher, F. de.
1962 Héraclès Epitrapezios, Paris.
Weinreich, O.
1918 ‘Die Heimat des Epigrammatikers Poseidippos’, Hermes 53, 434–9.
Wick, C.
2000 (ms.). ‘ “The Best of Nature”: Naturphänomene und Naturkatastrophen in
hellenistischen Epigrammen’, Paper read at Fifth Groningen Workshop,
‘Hellenistic Epigrams,’ 30 August–1 September, 2000.
Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. von
1924 Hellenistische Dichtung in der Zeit des Kallimachos, 2 vols., Berlin.
1943 [1882] (ed.) Callimachus, Hymni editio in usum academicum iuxta quartam
Wilamowitzianam iterata, Florence. (1st ed. 1882)
Wimmel, W.
1960 Kallimachos in Rom: Die Nachfolge seines apologetischen Dichtens in der Augusteerzeit,
Wiesbaden.
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14
STYLE, CONTINUITY AND THE

HELLENISTIC BAROQUE
Peter Schultz
The sculpture of the Hellenistic period, specifically ‘Hellenistic baroque’

sculpture, is often characterized as a revolutionary break with previous
sculptural traditions.1 I would like to reexamine this idea over the course
of this chapter. My argument will not be that the conventional character-
ization of the Hellenistic baroque as ‘revolutionary’ is incorrect. This would
be silly. It is obvious that something quite exciting and different is
happening in the third- and second-century manifestations of the style.
Rather, my argument will be that the familiar characterizations of the
Hellenistic baroque as ‘new’ or ‘innovative’ or ‘revolutionary’ have
obscured another important and well-known art historical reality. Namely,
that several underlying aspects of the Hellenistic baroque are rooted in a
stylistic tradition that extends directly back to the sculpture of the fifth
century BC, specifically to the sculpture of fifth- and fourth-century Athens.
In general terms, there is little doubt that this kind of stylistic continuity
exists.2 The discourse that surrounds it, however, is varied. Take, for
example, Martin Robertson’s important discussion of the so-called Terme
Ruler:
The Hellenistic Ruler, exemplary Hellenistic figure though he be, can be
traced back in a smooth sequence to Classical sources. Portraiture we have
already considered in this sense; the exaggerated musculature is exaggerated
on the basic pattern laid down by Polykleitos [in the fifth century]; and the
spiral composition, whatever the actual date of the statue, derives directly
from the innovations of the pupils of Lysippos at the beginning of the third
century – innovations already hinted at in the work of Lysippos himself,
whose own style developed out of the Polykleitan tradition [in the fourth
century]. I see nothing in this statue which needed a change in the world to
bring it about... Are we really making a mistake in trying to draw a sharp
line in art at the beginning of the Hellenistic Age? 3
Now, compare Robertson’s query with an important remark recently made
by Andrew Stewart:
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Peter Schultz
Greek art did change profoundly under Alexander, and the invigorating
combination of an audacious, opinionated and uniquely successful young
king and a set of supremely talented artists certainly had much to do with
it. So the fact that some of the period’s innovations had important classical
antecedents is essentially irrelevant. Antecedents can help us to measure
and contextualize innovations, but they can neither explain them nor
exhaust their meaning.4
Of course, neither scholar ever adopts a rigid or polemic stance about the
significance of stylistic continuity or evolution in the Hellenistic period.5
Even so, their remarks do exemplify two well-established interpretive
positions. The first acknowledges the existence of stylistic precedents for
certain characteristics of Hellenistic art and then suggests there might be
something amiss with our chronological or interpretive categories. The
second acknowledges the existence of stylistic precedents for certain
characteristics of Hellenistic art and then suggests that we focus on the
period’s innovations.
Both positions have much to offer. For the purposes of this brief
chapter, however, I will avoid any kind of ‘debate’ between the two.
I choose this line for two reasons. First, since it can be shown that both
perspectives provide useful bases for reading Hellenistic visual culture,
arguments about which position is ‘more correct’ inevitably become
contests of subjective emphases and thus unhelpful for our present
project.6 Second, I am unsure whether either position frames the problem
of stylistic precedents for Hellenistic sculpture in a way that is useful for
starting a discussion regarding possible connections between stylistic
continuity and meaning. In other words, identifying theoretical and stylistic
precedents is important, but pointing at them, questioning them or using
them to challenge traditional style periodizations – as important as these
projects are – may not allow us to begin asking what this stylistic continuity
may have meant for the creators, audiences and communities of the
Hellenistic age.7
And it is this last issue that seems to deserve some further attention.
Indeed, since the Hellenistic baroque is often seen as a key aesthetic
achievement of the Hellenistic period, discussing some possible
connections between ‘origins’ of the style and the style’s significance seems
like an appropriate subject for a book that explores the creation of the
Hellenistic world.
With this goal in mind, I will try to accomplish two objectives in this
chapter. First, I will try to show that some underlying stylistic and
conceptual components of the Hellenistic baroque were ‘invented’ in
Athens during the late fifth and early fourth centuries BC. Second, I will
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Style, continuity and the Hellenistic baroque
try (briefly) to suggest one possible option as to what this continuity might
mean for us and for Hellenistic viewers with the hopes that these
suggestions might fuel further discussion. To develop this schema, I have
divided this chapter into two sections. In Part One – ‘Style and continuity’
– I will document some structural and conceptual continuities that exist
between ‘classical’ sculpture created ca. 450–350 BC and ‘baroque’ sculpture
created ca. 250–150 BC. In Part Two – ‘Style and meaning’ – I will very
briefly propose a hypothesis (a possibility, really) as to how and why these
continuities may have been significant to the sculptors, patrons and
communities who produced, commissioned and appreciated ‘baroque’
sculpture during the Hellenistic period.
1. Style and continuity

Students of Greek sculpture have been using detailed stylistic analyses to
support a variety of interpretive arguments for centuries.8 For example,
stylistic analyses have been, and continue to be, used as standard diagnostic
tools for determining a sculpture’s date. If, it is assumed, the style of Greek
sculpture evolved consistently over time – an assumption often called into
question in the Hellenistic period – then stylistic variation can be used as
a chronological indicator.9 Stylistic analyses also have been used by students
of Greek sculpture to track patterns of contact and influence between
geographical regions. Since the sculptors of different cities often produced
sculpture of different styles, the argument goes, these variations can be
interpreted as evidence for the existence of regional schools (especially in
the Hellenistic period) and for various levels of artistic contact between
poleis.10 Stylistic analysis has also been the basis for the identification of
individual sculptors. Here, style has been used to reconstruct the oeuvres of
Greek masters, most often those Classical and Hellenistic stars mentioned
in Greek and Roman literary sources. If we believe that these sculptors
were distinct individuals with unique artistic personalities, it is understood,
then the physical remains of their work, or copies of their work, should
reflect the touch of their particular hands.11
More important for our discussion of the Hellenistic baroque, however,
is the interpretive tradition that posits sculptural style as a material correlate
of a socially situated Zeitgeist: a Zeitstil. In analyses of this type, the sculpture
of ancient Greece is considered a cultural and social product and is
interpreted insofar as it embodies, reveals or conforms to norms already
considered ‘present’ in the literatures, religions and philosophies of the
period whence it came. Since, it is suggested, the style of a piece is
inseparable from its cultural and social context, stylistic analysis can
support interpretive arguments about any number of preoccupations,
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issues or agendas that may have permeated a particular moment of Greek

society.12
There are two points to keep in mind here.
First: One key aspect of understanding a cultural or aesthetic
phenomenon like the Hellenistic baroque is a keen appreciation of the
underlying cultural tradition from which the phenomenon comes as well as
an appreciation of how that underlying tradition was viewed in the
particular historical moment under consideration. This point has been
made clear by Susan Alcock and Tanja Scheer, among others, in different
contexts; it is also a fundamental basis of ‘traditional’ art history.13 As a
species, we build our identities on versions of the past and incorporate
these versions, consciously or not, into our present reality. A particular
style will thus necessarily reflect not just its particular ‘age’ but will also
reflect how the style itself developed before and during the period in
question. A style will also reflect how its own development was understood
and appreciated by the relevant communities in which the style was used
or within which the style manifested. And style will itself be a medium
through which these various intersections can be studied and understood.
Second, and more importantly: Interpretive arguments that connect culture
and style can be problematic. Especially when we are looking at style itself
as evidence for cultural change or continuity or when we are looking to
understand what stylistic change or continuity may have meant to ancient
people of a particular historical moment. One of the most troublesome
problems here is the often subjective nature of our stylistic comparisons –
specifically, the choice of objects that are compared – that can often
lead to forgone (rhetorical) conclusions. Here, Robin Osborne’s recent
discussion of the formal differences between two famous late Archaic
images – the Attic kouros, Aristodikos, and Myron’s famous diskobolos – is
fundamental, especially Osborne’s insistence that choosing these two
emblematic pieces of sculpture and interpreting their stylistic differences
as evidence for cultural revolution in late sixth- and early fifth-century
Athens constitute political and rhetorical acts.14 This is important. Because
Osborne could have easily picked the same famous images and, with a
different rhetorical stance, argued convincingly and correctly as to
their status as evidence of cultural and conceptual continuity. Indeed, since
the potential for both change and continuity is always simultaneously
present within any given historical moment or any cultural system, and
since the potential for our recognizing both change and continuity is
equally present, discussions of particular changes or continuities should
probably be seen for what they are: the results of our own interpretive
decisions.
316
This is one of our greatest challenges when we confront the idea of the
Hellenistic baroque as a stylistic and conceptual ‘system’ and when we
tackle the idea of what a ‘baroque stylistic tradition’ might have meant in
the Hellenistic age. When we consider revolutionary personalities like
Alexander and his successors, when we see the Hellenistic world
dramatically born in what seems like mere moments, when the Greek
world itself seems (at first glance, at least) to have been changed utterly, it
becomes all to easy to assume that the visual arts automatically and
simultaneously reflected and responded to these new realities. But is this
necessarily the case? On one level, I think that it is. But on another, I would
like to resist this initial response and spend some time discussing the
importance of the stylistic and conceptual continuities that lie beneath the
changing forms of this transitional age. For this reason, I have obviously
chosen to compare objects that I think exemplify these continuities for the
purpose of this chapter. But other choices could have been made and with
them other arguments.
In choosing the specific objects that follow as my foci, I have tried to
observe a few functional conditions. The first and most obvious is that I
have tried to confine my discussions to sculpture for which we have
reasonably secure dates. The second is that I have tried to compare
sculptures that belong to the same basic type. Finally, though stylistically
different, I have tried to keep in mind that these objects are all conceptually
similar. This similarity resides in the fact that these sculptures have come
to represent (for us) some of the most significant formal developments or
possibilities of their respective periods. Now whether or not this type of
statement will ever be a ‘true’ description of the sculpture in question –
whether our opinion finds parallel in antiquity and how we can begin to
speculate on such a possibility – is one of the oldest and most complex
problems in the study of ancient culture.15 For our purposes here, it is
sufficient to acknowledge the basic contingency of our statements, to
confess that many reasons for stylistic change might be suggested (intended
audiences, different media, different patrons, etc.), to admit that just
because we find what we are looking for does not mean that we are not
looking for the truth and to hope that this satisfies.
The Hellenistic baroque is one of most recognizable styles available to

sculptors during the third and second centuries BC.16 While there may be
some concern about using a term originally invented to describe the art of
the seventeenth century AD, for us this is a non-issue. In formal and stylistic
terms, the conventional terminology is viable.17 There is little disagreement
about the style’s formal and conceptual characteristics.
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Peter Schultz
From a conceptual point of view, Hellenistic sculptors working in the

baroque mode attempted to evoke a dynamic sense of movement, to stir
potent feelings of powerful (usually hyperbolic) emotion and to place the
action of their players within powerful theatrical and dramatic narrative
frames. For the baroque sculptor, poetic and rhetorical principles such as
auxe-sis (amplification), dialogia (repetition), megaloprepia (grandeur), deino-sis
(intensity), ekple-xis (shock) and enargeia (vividness) were both aesthetic goals
and the means by which these goals were achieved.18
In order to accomplish this range of spectacular effects, Hellenistic
sculptors working in the baroque mode consistently deployed three well-
known and interrelated formal strategies. First, Hellenistic sculptors
consistently distorted and amplified baroque anatomies for extravagant impact
(Figs. 1–3). Second, Hellenistic sculptors consistently alter and embellish
baroque draperies and surface textures to create fluctuating impressions of
dramatic torsion, extravagant space, grand motion and sharp contrasts
(Figs. 4–7). And third, Hellenistic sculptors consistently exaggerate baroque
physiognomies to unlock the intense, theatrical depths of pathos (Figs. 8–11).
Always, these three formal characteristics interconnect. Always these
formal traits are unified by a pervasive sense of vivid exaggeration and
dramatic flux that is generated and reflected both by individual sculpted
figures and by the larger sculptural narratives that they constitute. It is with
good reason that our most respected scholars of Hellenistic art have
suggested that the principal agenda of the sculptors working in the Baroque
mode was psychago-gia – the swaying of the soul.19
All of this is known. And there is no doubt that the sculptors of third and
second centuries elevated the baroque mode to a new level of grandeur
and scale. But there also seems little reason to believe that the basic
aesthetic goals that I have described above were ‘invented’ in the
Hellenistic age. Let us look to form and style first and examine these three
spheres in turn, beginning with baroque anatomies.
The figure of Zeus from the east frieze of the Pergamon altar (Fig. 1)
provides the classic starting point for exploring the exaggeration and
amplification of the baroque body.20 Striding powerfully to his right, fist
upraised, the god-king cuts a swath of carnage through his gigantic
opponents. Even without his head, Zeus makes for a powerful figure.
Indeed, his physical might and mythic persona are here indistinguishable.
This idea is communicated both by his dramatic, lunging pose – his
lightning, added in bronze, would have followed the raking line of his right
arm, torso and left leg – and by the swirling drapery which frames his
hyperbolically muscled torso. Both rushing pose and falling drapery suggest
a divine epiphany, a grand vision in which Zeus’ status, appearance and
318
Fig. 1. Torso of Zeus from the Great Altar at Pergamon. A view of Zeus’s torso from
the east side of the gigantomachy frieze of the Great Altar at Pergamon,
Pergamonmuseum, Berlin. Marble, ca. 180–150 BC. Photo: Author.
being are formally merged and re-presented.21 Indeed, the god’s slashing
stance across the frieze is the formal device by which the sculptors of the
frieze sensually evoke a sort of divine metaphysic: Zeus is a personified
thunderbolt – the ïdea of divine power incarnate. This same action prompts
the falling mantle and subsequent revelation of his super-human anatomy.
And Zeus’ exaggerated body is indeed worth special attention. Each muscle
group has been identified and inflated beyond the boundaries of anatomical
reality.22 His pectorals ( pectoralis major) are huge, as are his abdominals (rectus
abdominis). His ribs are not evident, since they have been obscured by
multiple bands of inflated front-laterals (seratus interor). There is a real
concern with testing the limits of the male form. Again, this concern with
the physical seems to extend to the metaphysical. In addition to recalling
the Stoic Kleanthes’ third-century Hymn to Zeus (ll. 6–7) – ‘So will I praise
thee, ever singing of thy might, by whom the whole wide firmament is
swayed!’ – the god’s torso also reminds us of Theocritus’ baroque warrior-
king Amykos (Id. 22. 48–51) whose ‘huge chest and broad back swelled
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Peter Schultz
like the iron flesh of a hammered statue’ and whose ‘muscles jutted out like
rounded boulders, polished smooth by the whirling onrush of a winter
torrent’. Considered within this poetic context, Zeus’ torso becomes a sensual
manifestation of the god’s divine power. 23 Zeus’ baroque anatomy suggests
the colossal, the corporeal and the cosmic – all made manifest in stone.
Now, stand the Pergamene Zeus next to the image of Poseidon from the
west pediment of the Parthenon carved 437–432 BC at the height of the
Periclean building project (Figs. 2–3). The comparison is well-known.24
Like the Pergamene Zeus, the west pediment Poseidon lunges dramatically
sideways, this time to his left. From Carrey’s drawing, we know that
Poseidon, like Zeus, held his weapon, the trident, in his upraised fist.
Racing with Athena for the patronage of Athens, the sea god is a powerful
and dynamic competitor captured in midst of dramatic action, a player in
a spectacular, theatrical scene.25
While the pose and gesture of the two gods are very close, it is
Poseidon’s over-emphatic musculature (seen particularly well from the
side, Fig. 3) that makes the comparison compelling. Like the Zeus from
Pergamon, each muscle group has been identified and expanded past
the limits of the norm. Poseidon’s pectorals are very large and very
pronounced, as are his abdominals. His ribs are evident and are paired with
multiple bands of inflated front-laterals. While a hint of classical restraint
might be detected here (although I wonder how much of that has to do
with the fragmentary condition of the piece), there remains an intense
emphasis on inflating the expressive range of the male torso. Again, this
concern with the body extends to the spirit. Kleanthes and Theocritus’
verses could apply nicely to the west pediment Poseidon, but there is no
need to look into the Hellenistic period. Pseudo-Arion, writing his Hymn
to Poseidon at the beginning of the fourth century, is just as evocative of a
baroque sensibility ‘Highest of the gods, marine Poseidon of the golden
trident, earth-holder bulging with might!’ Can there be a better lyric
description of Poseidon’s mighty frame? Considered within this poetic
context, Poseidon’s torso, like that of Zeus, becomes the physical
embodiment or manifestation of the god’s own kind of swelling, tidal force.
Again, like our Hellenistic Zeus, his baroque anatomy suggests the colossal,
the corporeal and the cosmic.26
When we see these images together, it seems clear that something
connects them. While there are formal differences, to be sure – the
undercutting of Zeus’ anatomy is more emphatic than that of Poseidon, for
example – when we look at the two torsos side by side it becomes rather
hard to tell which is the ‘real’ baroque at all. In this sense, it is easy to see
why Immo Beyer once argued that the Poseidon torso was, in fact, a
320
Figs 2–3. Torso of Poseidon the Parthenon. The fragmentary torso of a central figure
of the Parthenon’s west pediment, Athens. Parthenon West Pediment British Museum
‘M.’. Preserved ht. 83 cm, Pentelic marble, ca. 438–432 BC, perhaps the work of
Pheidias and his circle, although much controversy remains. Acr. Mus. 885 + 959
(front chest and abdomen) and BM London M (arms and back). Photo: Author.
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Peter Schultz
Hadrianic replacement modeled after the Hellenistic baroque! 27 And

consider Adolf Borbein’s thoughts on the two pieces:
The great influence of High Classical art was based not only on its ‘utopian’
content and its art historical duality (it is simultaneously a pinnacle and a
new starting point), but also, and critically, on its phenomenal formal
standards. The original works we possess – and here we refer to the Parthenon
sculptures – are far removed from anemic ideality and cold perfection.
Instead, they are marked by a powerful presence, a sparkling life, and a
richness of detail. Emotions appear subdued but not repressed and the ideal
manifests as a tangible, physical reality. The commonly noted balance
between aesthetic freedom and restraint (Gebundenheit) has moved slightly
towards freedom in the late classical period; in the same way, the balance
between naturalism and stylization has shifted towards naturalism. The
powerful body of Poseidon from the west pediment of the Parthenon, for
example, is easily comparable to Hellenistic works such as the gods and
giants from the great frieze of the Pergamon altar in terms of its immediate
sensual charisma. These formal concerns, which directly address the senses,
help to overcome the emotional distance between the spectator and the
classical work itself and, ultimately, to set in motion a process of under-
standing or appropriation.28
This kind of language makes perfect sense when applied to both Classical
and Hellenistic masterpieces. Both torsos are marked by a powerful,
physical presence. Both torsos rely on intense, sensual form as the means
by which their energy and power is communicated. And both torsos seek
to directly engage the viewer, to pull him into a dynamic, theatrical narrative
in which some cosmic struggle (ago-n) is represented. In this sense, then,
Poseidon’s body – and perhaps the Parthenon’s entire ‘baroque’ system –
seems to anticipate the Pergamene baroque by centuries, at least when it
comes to the dramatic exaggeration of human anatomy. Of course, this
does not mean that the anatomies of the two gods are indistinguishable.
Hardly. Rather, this comparison suggests that a similar kind of aesthetic
concern may have operated in the creation of both Classical and Hellenistic
masterpieces, a concern that might be worth dwelling upon.
When we consider baroque draperies carved during the Hellenistic period,
a similar kind of formal continuity seems to exist. As noted above, Hellenistic
sculptors are especially well known for their creation of elaborate drapery
and surface textures in cloth that, in turn, generate fluctuating impressions
of extravagant space, torsion, motion and chiaroscuro.
Of course, by far the most famous example manifesting these sculptural
ideas is the Nike of Samothrace (Fig. 4).29 While the problems of her date,
authorship and historical context are notorious, the Samothracian Victory
stands at the apex of the baroque mode in virtually every way. The Nike
322
Fig. 4. The Nike of Samothrace. A victory dedication set in the Sanctuary of the Great
Gods, Samothrace. Restored ht. 3.28 m (including wings), Parian marble, ca. 200 BC
(although much debate remains on this point). The work has been attributed to a
Rhodian workshop (with much controversy). Louvre MA 2369. Photo: Author.
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Peter Schultz
was originally fashioned from several pieces of Parian marble (a fact that
allowed some dramatic liberties to be taken with her drapery) and was
recovered in multiple fragments. Her dress is complicated and seems to
be made up of two overlapping garments – a heavy himation and a
sleeveless chiton – that are shown folded and refolded multiple times. The
arrangement and position of these garments is controversial, primarily
because of the wind-swept environment that they indicate.30 Nevertheless,
the complexity, doubling and overlapping of her dress added to the
richness and complexity of her garments and thus allowed her sculptor the
freedom to explore and expand the formal possibilities of her drapery.
Alighting on her ship, waves crashing beneath its prow, Nike embodies
everything that we have come to expect from the baroque mode. While there
always remains a sense of underlying, bodily mass in her form, the Nike’s
sculptor has worked hard to cut his drapery loose from all real restraint. On
the one hand – especially at her stomach and breasts – Nike’s drapery
cradles, clutches and clings to her powerful and highly provocative body,
both describing and obscuring the sensual flesh beneath.31 On the other
hand – at her legs and hips – Nike’s drapery seems to have been released
from its task of outlining the human figure and is allowed to become raw,
expressive form in its own right. The energetic, the momentary, the ephemeral
– all these traditional aspects of nike- are captured here. The subtle, light
incisions that run over her drapery further this effect. The small, concentric
furls of drapery that sweep over her proper left hip and then rise away from
her body proper at her pubis have almost nothing to do with the rational
fall of wind-swept cloth (indeed, should not the gusts Nike rides have
carried this fluttering filigree in the opposite direction?) but everything to
do with a baroque illusion of force and dynamism, torsion and energy.
There is no doubt that the drapery of the Nike of Samothrace stands at
the zenith of the Hellenistic baroque, especially when it comes to her
drapery. And once again, as we saw with the Pergamene Zeus, the conceptual
concerns that governed her style and form seem to have some important
precedents in the fifth and early fourth centuries BC that speak to a long
standing interest in a baroque aesthetic.
Sometime around 380 BC, the citizens of the small Peloponnesian city of
Epidauros launched a program of monumentalization at the nearby healing
sanctuary of Asklepios. Whether in response to the Athenian plague or
other political factors, Epidaurian Asklepios had acquired an international
reputation during the last quarter of the fifth century.32 This change in
status was accompanied by a demand for sumptuous material votives and
thus attracted a number of important sculptors from Athens and elsewhere
to work on the expensive Pentelic elements of Asklepios’ new cult building.33
324
Fig. 5–6. Nike from the Temple of Asklepios at Epidauros. An akroteria from the
eastern pediment of the temple of Asklepios at Epidauros, Athens. Restored height
ca. 1.7 m, Pentelic marble, ca. 380 BC. This figure may be the work of Timotheos; his
contract is recorded on IG IV2 102A lines 88 – 90. National Archaeological Museum,
Athens 162. Photo: Courtesy Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Athens; Gösta
Hellner, negs. 1974/1161 & 1170. All rights reserved.
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Several of the temple’s akroteria, made by the workshops of Theo – (IG

IV 2 102 BI ll. 95–96; the rest of the sculptors name does not survive) and
Timotheos (IG IV 2 102 BI ll. 88–90) respectively, are particularly complex
and seem to reflect a concern with a baroque aesthetic.34 A major fragment
of a Nike, probably carved by Timotheos, from the northeastern corner of
the temple’s roof provides important material evidence (Figs. 5–6) and
helps to establish a concern with baroque effects at the very beginning of
the fourth century BC.35
A rarely seen view from below reveals how the figure was conceived as
a dynamic spiral of transparent drapery holding the slender torso of a Nike
at its center (Fig. 6). Radiating from the proper right side of her torso, the
curl of her mantle is characterized by and understood as a series of
spiraling, concentric arabesques. While appropriately impressive from
below, as all akroteria were, the dramatic effect of the sculptor’s skill is
particularly impressive in front of the figure (Fig. 5). Here the arced edge
of the Nike’s mantle merges with, or emerges from, the unpinned peplos
below her left armpit. Cupping and emphasizing her left breast, this
mannerist fold curls up past the torso and then billows outwards in a
blossom of windswept drapery let loose by the figure’s upraised right arm.36
Under the Peloponnesian sun, the sense of shadow, energy and movement
created by this dynamic furl of drapery would have been potent. The subtle,
light incisions that run over her drapery expand this effect. While these
supple drapery effects are stunning (made all the more so by the fact that
the preserved fragment, was carved from a single piece of Pentelic marble)
the notion of a solid human figure as the conceptual and physical center of
the composition is never lost. A series of parallel folds that rhythmically
duplicates the opening on the right side of the Nike’s peplos twist forward
around her slender right side and serve to anchor the vortex of drapery on
a figural axis that is itself set in torsion. The sculptor’s final tour de force came
in the upper stretches of the mantle which were slung high between the
Nike’s outstretched wings. When vividly painted with an array of brilliant
colors, this mantle would have provided a stunning theatrical backdrop for
the entire figural composition.37
The aesthetic effects at which Timotheos aims with his Nike seem quite
‘baroque’ in nature. While a certain amount of classical restraint is evident
in the figure, the underlying structure, the deeper aesthetic project seems
very much the same. A similar thing can, and has, been said for the famous
Nike of Paionios erected ca. 420 BC.38 The sculptor cuts his drapery loose
from all practical concerns and treats his marble fabric as pure form that
almost seems to exist in its own right and for its own sake. (It is almost as
if Timotheos’ drapery creates its own formal reality. Indeed, how can we
326
Fig. 7. ‘Iris’ from the west pediment of the Parthenon. A fragmentary torso from the
Parthenon’s west pediment, Athens. Parthenon West Pediment British Museum “N.”
Preserved ht. 1.35 m, Pentelic marble, ca. 438–432 BC, perhaps the work of Pheidias
and his circle, although much controversy remains. Photo: Author.
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Peter Schultz
observe this sculptor’s obsession with undercutting and believe Carpenter

when he writes: ‘Classical drapery, being strictly functional to the bodily
form it reveals, does not employ such cavernous penetrations of the solid
block – if only because there was no need to do so’? 39 Hardly! A sculptor
like Timotheos is a baroque virtuoso!) These effects would have been made
more noticeable when the pieces were painted and set in the open air where
the transparent, powerful arabesques of Timotheos’ marble would have
created deep pockets of void and shadow and the billowing mantle of his
Nike would have served as a theatrical background against which this
potent carving took place.
Of course, the sculptors of the temple of Asklepios were also looking
backward, once more to the sculpture of the Parthenon. For example,
figure N from the Parthenon’s west pediment (Fig. 7) displays very similar
visual characteristics and offers, perhaps, the first real example of a baroque
aesthetic as exemplified through drapery.40
Figure N – almost certainly Iris – wears a sleeveless chiton with a short
kolpos pinched beneath a shining belt of bronze. She was winged, as two
large cuttings in her back indicate, and rushes to her right. Her drapery is
quite complex. In a manner similar to that seen on the eastern pediment’s
Aphrodite, the sculptor of our Iris seems obsessed with the expressive
potential of cloth. While Iris’ sculptor does keep his drapery close to the
figure – although we cannot be sure how ‘restrained’ he was in this respect
considering the damaged condition of the torso – he more than makes up
for this moderation by the wild surface textures that he brings into play.
(It is also important to remember that large masses of free standing marble
– marble that was drastically separated from the core of the sculpted figure
– were quite possible for the Parthenon sculptors, witness the mantle of
Hebe on the Parthenon’s east pediment, for example.) Each fold of Iris’
garment is itself sculpted, cut and re-inscribed becoming, in a way, an
exaggerated caricature of cloth’s movement and energy. Stewart captures
Iris’ sense of drama, energy and passion when he writes about the
Parthenon’s east and west pediments as compositions:
...whereas the Olympia Master had relied upon posture and gesture to
indicate the character or e-thos of his subjects, these sculptors [of the
Parthenon] now pressed anatomy and drapery into doing so as well.
Choosing expressive effect over stylistic consistency (so much for one of
classicism’s supposedly key components!), they both engaged the spectator
more closely and laid the groundwork for later masterpieces... Once more
Protagoras would have approved, for tapping into the spectator’s feelings
– into his own subjectivity – was crucial to getting the cosmic implications
of the scenes across.41
328
This kind of interpretive language could easily apply to the Nike of

Samothrace or the Nike akroteria from Epidauros. All three pieces –
separated by centuries – display a deep interest in the expressive
possibilities of drapery, in the use of cloth to represent and explore
dynamic torsion and chiaroscuro and all three pieces seek to directly engage
the viewer, to pull him into a dynamic, theatrical narrative in which some
titanic event is represented. And it is the sculpture of the Parthenon that
seems to provides a formal and stylistic launching point for the baroque as
a mode, at least when it comes to the creation of rich, sculpted draperies
and surface textures which provide powerful impressions of extravagant
space, motion and chiaroscuro.
Finally, the continuities of form and style that we have seen in baroque
anatomies and draperies continue through baroque physiognomies, the third of
the formal strategies noted above. For example, when we line up
Alkyoneus from the Pergamon altar (Fig. 8), a warrior from the pediment
of the temple of Athena Alea at Tegea (Fig. 9–10) and a centaur from
the southern metopes of the Parthenon (Fig. 11) it becomes clear that
some kind of formal and conceptual connection exists between them.
Fig. 8. Alkyoneus from the Great Altar at Pergamon. A view of the suffering
Alkyoneus from the east frieze of the gigantomachy of the Great Altar at Pergamon,
Pergamonmuseum, Berlin. Marble, ca. 180–150 BC. Photo: Author.
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Peter Schultz
Figs 9–10. Head of a warrior from Tegea. A fragmentary head from the pedimental
sculpture of the temple of Athena Alea at Tegea. Preserved ht. 32.6 cm, marble, ca.
350–340 BC. This figure may be the work of Skopas or his workshop, although much
controversy remains. National Archaeological Museum, Athens 180. Photo: Author.
Fig. 11. Face of a centaur from the Parthenon’s south metopes. A detail of a centaur’s
face from the south metope 2 of the Parthenon, Athens. South Parthenon Metopes
British Museum 2. Preserved ht. of metope ca. 1.37, Pentelic marble, 447–442 BC,
perhaps the work of Pheidias and his circle, although much controversy remains.
Photo: Katherine Schwab © 2006.
330
Eyes are over-wide, deeply undercut with their outer corners consistently
pulled down for expressive effect. Brows are always deeply and emphatically
furrowed. Mouths are consistently open; the drill is employed for all. In
addition to these features of physiognomy, another consistent trope is the
bent neck with either the hair or beard being pulled. Of course, in each
case we are dealing with a victim, so there is a certain amount of emotional
content that is easy to confuse with emotive form. But look closely at the
upper eyelids of our centaur and compare them to those of Alkyoneus
from Pergamon. Clearly there are some differences of technique, but the
basic effect and the basic conceptual goal – the dramatic, pathetic, upward
gaze of sorrow – is quite similar and is produced on a comparable
underlying formal structure.42 And, once again, it is the sculpture of the
Parthenon that seems to provide a formal and stylistic launching point for
baroque physiognomies.
Clearly, these three interconnected formal strategies used by Hellenistic

sculptors working in the baroque mode had some important precedents in
the sculpture of the fifth and fourth centuries BC. The distortion and
expansion of baroque anatomy for extravagant impact, the alteration and
embellishment of baroque draperies and surface textures to create
fluctuating impressions of extravagant space, motion and chiaroscuro and
the exaggeration of baroque physiognomies to unlock the theatrical depths
of the emotional psyche were all stylistic options available in the Classical
period. And they were options that manifest themselves most powerfully
on the Parthenon. But what might this stylistic continuity – these examples
of a ‘baroque tradition’ – mean for us? How might it enhance or expand
our understanding of the ‘Hellenistic baroque’? And, perhaps, most
importantly, can we speculate as to what this tradition might have meant
for Hellenistic viewers? These questions bring us to our Part Two.
2. Style and meaning

When we acknowledge that the baroque mode, in sculpture, was invented
in fifth-century Greece (with an important nexus at Athens) and that the
tradition lived through the fourth century and beyond, one important possible
interpretive response comes immediately to mind. This possibility hardly
exhausts the potential for discussion as to the baroque mode’s significance.
I touch on it briefly here with the hope that it might prompt further discussion
on the possible connections that might exist between stylistic continuity
and culturally situated meaning. Much more, it seems, could be said.
One important way in which our understanding of the ‘baroque
tradition’ is useful is that it helps us to meaningfully position the Hellenistic
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Peter Schultz
baroque within several well-known discussions that connect power,

authority and various forms of ‘classicism’.43
To wit: there can be little question that the ‘Golden Age’ of Classical
Athens captured the imagination of Hellenistic poets and artists.44 Indeed,
the idea that the ‘baroque mode’ was itself a kind of ‘classical form’ seems
beyond dispute, especially when we consider the examples noted above.45If
we are willing to allow for the fact that the artists of the Hellenistic age
were aware of these early baroque examples, of this ‘baroque tradition’ –
a conceit that hardly requires much imagination when we consider how
closely Athena and Pergamon were connected in the second century, to
give only the most obvious example – then the baroque mode becomes
more than the means by which dramatic, sculptural scenes were produced:
it also becomes one possible means by which cultural authority might be
expressed.46
It also seems plausible to suggest that by laying claim to established
baroque modes, Hellenistic patrons and sculptors also lay (at least) implicit
claim to aspects of the cultural canon that formed the apex of the ‘classical’
vision of fifth-century Athens: the memory of Pericles, his circle and their
titanic building program, a building program that was both ‘classical’ and
‘baroque’ in both form and scale. In the same way that Augustus and his
sculptors made use of the fifth-century doryphoros for the Primaporta type
and in a way similar to how the designers of, say, Washington D.C. made
use of Classical architectural form, so the kings and generals of the
Hellenistic age may have used the Hellenistic baroque to suit their
particular dramatic purposes and to suggest, engage and (even) appropriate
the ‘classical’ cultural legacy from which the tradition came. Indeed, recent
work on the ‘Little Barbarians’ dedicated on the Athenian Acropolis by
Attalos I argues for something like this kind of understanding of this
important set of baroque masterpieces.47
To be sure, the baroque is still a ‘genre style’, and as such was used for
very particular types of subject matter, but it also was a style that had been
tested for centuries within the context of theatrical scenes of conflict and
strife, the Parthenon pediments most famously.48 This kind of symbolic,
stylistic retrospection and the denotative weight it carries has been
discussed in the context of neo-Classicism and ‘archaistic’ sculpture of the
Hellenistic age; perhaps we could see the baroque in a similar light?49
Stewart has recently noted: ‘Clearly, by the mid-Hellenistic period [the
baroque] was certainly the classic (i.e., exemplary, canonical, or definitive)
way to render pathos. But compared with, for example, Alkamenes’ Prokne,
it is hardly classic in the more accepted and restrictive sense of manifesting
the standard classical virtues of unity, balance and moderation – of
332
maintaining a façade of classical decorum’.50 Perhaps, when we consider the

examples given above in Part One, we might allow both ‘baroque’ and
‘classical’ modes to exist together as two connected, retrospective traditions
that both self-consciously elevated and sought to control the ‘classical’ past
in visual terms?51 If we could, indeed, allow ourselves this possibility, then
the Baroque mode could stand not only as a powerful vehicle by which
human pathos might be dramatically represented, but as a stylistic vehicle
for all manner of political and ideological programs within the Hellenistic
world.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the Department of Classics at the University of Cincinnati
for a Tytus Summer Fellowship and to Concordia College for a generous
grant from the Hendrickson Fine Arts Endowment; both of these awards
facilitated the initial research of this chapter in the summer of 2006. This
paper was written in the Carl B. Ylvisaker Library at Concordia College in
2008 and 2009; I am happy to thank Erika Rux, Amy Soma and Leah
Anderson for their generous (and patient!) assistance during the course of
its composition. It is also a pleasure to thank the following friends and
colleagues who have discussed various aspects of this project with me:
George Connell, Kathryn Gutzwiller, Craig Hardiman, Eddie Schmoll,
Kris Seaman and Olin Storvick. I am especially grateful to Andrew Stewart
for his frank criticisms of the argument and much helpful advice. Andrew
Erskine’s endurance regarding my completion of this text is testament to
the definition of patience. All mistakes are mine.
Notes
1 For stylistic innovation in Hellenistic sculpture and the ‘Hellenistic baroque’ see,
for example: Krahmer 1924, 138–40; Bieber 1961, 3–6; Stewart 1979, 137–9; Pollitt
1986, 1–16; Smith 1993, 18; Stewart 2006, 158–9; Schultz and von den Hoff 2007,
1–9. Some (see, for example, Havelock 1981, 113 and Carpenter 1960, 208–9) would
see the ‘invention’ of the baroque as a late third- or second-century phenomenon.
2 For stylistic continuity in Hellenistic sculpture and the ‘Hellenistic baroque’ see,
for example: Schuchhardt 1959; Brown 1973; Stewart 1979, 5, 9, 11; Ridgway 1990,
3–12; Robertson 1993, 84–101; Ridgway 1999, 7–8, 40–2; von den Hoff 2003 and
Bergemann 2007.
3 Robertson 1993, 84–5.
4 Stewart 2006, 158.
5 See, for example, Robertson 1981, 194–7 or Stewart 1993.
6 See, for example, Robertson 1993, 90–1; Fullerton 1998b; Donohue 2005;
Osborne 2007 and Schultz 2007a on this particular issue of style, rhetoric and
‘innovation’.
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Peter Schultz
7 Indeed, most discussions of the Hellenistic baroque revolve around the definition
of a set of stylistico-formal characteristics and the debate about when and where these
characteristics can be observed in the archaeological record of the Hellenistic period.
See, for example, Krahmer 1923/24; Thiersch 1931, 364–7; Alscher 1957, 162–4;
Laurenzi 1965; Merker 1973, 11–14; Stewart 1979, 9–25; Pollitt 1986, 113–18; Andreae
1988, 114–34; Osada 1993; Kunze 1996; Moreno 1994, 127–46, 359–413, 605–46;
Pollitt 2000; Ridgway 2000a, 39–42. Pful 1930 is an important early step away from
this tradition. Stewart (1993; 2005 and 2006) and G. Zanker (2004) provide the
powerful and fundamental exceptions in English.
8 Style is here defined as the distinct combination of physical and formal
characteristics – scale, mass, shape, color, line and texture – evident in a given set of
objects and as the conceptual frame that these physical and formal characteristics
mediate. In general terms, the arguments that sustain the use of stylistic analysis as a
tool for investigating social and cultural meaning were first formulated by
Winckelmann and then refined by Arnold Houser (1951), Meyer Schapiro (1953) and
Ludger Alscher (1956; 1957). For the importance of style specifically in archaeological
theory and practice, see Shanks and Tilley 1992, 137–71, and Hodder and Hutson
2003, 59–65, both with bibliographies. For socio-stylistic analysis of material culture,
see Borbein 1973, Barnard 2001, 115–42; 168–93, Hölscher 2002, Elsner 2003 and
now Bol 2004, all with bibliographies. Recent case studies by Shanks and Tilley 1992,
172–240, Neer 2002 and Olson 2002, 137–62, have reestablished the significance of
this traditional type of analysis for contextual archaeologists and art historians.
9 Recent case studies in which the model is applied to Greek sculpture: Harrison
1988, Brouskari 1999, 16–52, Touloupa 2002, 68–76 and Bol 2004 among innumerable
others. General critique of the ‘normative model’: Shanks and Tilley 1992, 138–9.
Specific critique of the model: Ridgway, e.g. 1997, 364–6, and 2004, 539–56, 627–39,
Keesling 2003, 36–62 and Schultz 2003b and 2004a.
10 Recent case studies in which the model is applied to Greek sculpture: Palagia and
Coulson 1998 with comprehensive bibliographies. General critique of the ‘regional

interaction’ model: Shanks and Tilley 1992, 140–1. Specific critiques of the model applied
to Greek sculpture: Jockey 1998, Mattusch 1998, Ridgway 1997, 241–2 and Pollitt 2000.
11 Classic case studies of the model applied to Greek sculpture: Kjellberg 1926,
Carpenter 1929 and Schuchhardt 1930. Recent examples of the same: Brouskari 1999,
57–71, Symeonoglou 2004 and Harrison 2005. Personal styles in Greek sculpture:
Pollitt and Palagia 1996 with comprehensive bibliographies. General critique of the
‘motor habit variation model’: Shanks and Tilley 1992, 141. Specific critique of the
model applied to Greek sculpture: Carpenter 1960 and Ridgway, e.g. 1981, 5–8, 159–
91; 1997, 237–320.
12 Early case studies of the model applied to Greek sculpture include Krahmer
1923/24, Pfuhl 1930, Buschor 1947 and 1971 and Alscher 1956 and 1957. Recent
examples of the same with various refinements in theory and practice: Pollitt 1972 and
1986, Whitley 1991, Neer 2002, Hölscher 2002, von den Hoff 2007 among many others.
13 Alcock 2002; Scheer 1993; 2005. See also Stewart 2004, 220–6, and, now, Erll and
Nünning 2008.
14 Osborne 2007, 3.
15 Which does not mean that it should be neglected; Jean Rudhardt’s famous remark
regarding ancient Greek religion – ‘La difficulté principale de l’étude des religions me
334
paraît être celle de la compréhension d’autrui’ (Rudhardt 1981, 10) – can apply with
equal force to the study of ancient Greek art.
16 Bieber 1955, 125–35; Pollitt 1986, 111–126; Fowler 1989, 32–43; Stewart 1990,
205–18; Smith 1993, 99–126; Stewart 1993; de Grummond and Ridgway 2000; Stewart
2003; Stewart 2005; Stewart 2006, 171–2 with bibliography.
17 Pollitt 1986, 111.
18 Stewart 1993; 2005.
19 Stewart 1990, 207; Stewart 2006, 171–2. There is little disagreement on this point.
But this fact itself provokes a question: Can the kind of conceptual and formal
ekphrasis that I have just given represent the meaning of the baroque tradition for us?
Here our answer should probably be both ‘yes’ and ‘no’. On one hand, there is no
doubt that the meaning of the Hellenistic baroque is connected to the aforementioned
conceptual interests and to the formal devices through which Hellenistic sculptors
made these interests manifest. On the other hand, we should probably acknowledge
that the baroque’s significance as a culturally situated phenomenon depends upon
more than a description of its constituent narrative concerns and its underlying formal
components. There is no doubt, for example, that space, setting, religious context,
the omnipresent power-games of patrons all contributed to the meaning of any given
sculptural object. It is equally clear that when these individual works of art are brought
together and when the subsequent ‘baroque canon’ is considered, all of these factors
(and probably more) would need to be considered if some kind of complex expression
of the ‘style’s meaning’ were to be recreated. And even if all this was accomplished,
this type of culturally based reconstruction of potential meanings cannot explain why
Hellenistic sculptors chose the style that we call the ‘baroque’ as opposed to something
else without beginning to assess the origins of the style and the nature of the baroque
tradition. Much work remains to be done.
20 Amberger-Lahrmann 1996.
21 Himmelman 1998, 103–38.
22 Amberger-Lahrmann 1996.
23 Ridgway 1990, 6, considers such parallels between art and literature to be
‘intellectual fabrications and extrapolations that may find little or no counterpart in

reality’ and that there is no reason to believe that ‘the conceptions of a small elite of
poets and their patrons found visual expression in the plastic arts’. G. Zanker 2004 and
Stewart 2005 have dismantled this model. Tanner 2006, 141–204, provides a broad
perspective on the underlying structures of the dispute.
24 See, for example, Carpenter 1960, 200, Robertson 1981, 195–7, and 1993, 86,
Borbein 2002, 14–15. West pediment Poseidon ‘M’: Acropolis Museum 885 + 959
(front chest and abdomen) and BM London M (arms and back). The fundamental
discussions of the piece are given by Brommer 1963, 42–3, and Palagia 1998, 47 with
nn. 123–38. Periclean building program: Hurwit 2004 and Lapatin 2007 both with
bibliographies.
25 For the moment and possible significance of the pose: Schultz 2007c.
26 I have suggested elsewhere (Schultz 2004b) that Poseidon was shown wearing a
bronze cuirass in this scene and that his inflated anatomy might be a response to that
particular iconographic move.
27 Beyer 1988, 298 n. 13.
28 Borbein 2002, 14–15: ‘Die große Wirkung der hochklassischen Kunst beruhte
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Peter Schultz
aber nicht nur auf ihrem “utopischen” Gehalt und auf ihrem kunstgeschichtlichen
Doppelgesicht (sie ist Höhepunkt und Neuansatz zugleich), sondern entscheidend
auch auf ihrem überragenden formalen Niveau. Die Werke, die wir im Original
besitzen – und erneut sei hier auf die Parthenon-Skulpturen verwiesen –, sind von
blutleerer Idealität und kalter Perfektion weit entfernt. Sie zeichnen sich vielmehr aus
durch kraftvolle Präsenz, sprühende Lebendigkeit, Reichtum im Detail. Affekte
scheinen gebändigt, doch nicht unterdrückt, Ideales greifbare Realität zu sein. Das oft
bemerkte Gleichgewicht zwischen Freiheit und Gebundenheit hat sich im Verlauf der
Hochklassik offenbar leicht zu Freiheit hin verschoben, ebenso das Gleichgewicht
zwischen Naturalismus und Stilisierung zum Naturalismus hin. Der gerwaltige Torso
des Poseidon (abb. 7) aus dem Westgiebel des Parthenon z. B. wird an unmittelbar
sinnlicher Ausstrahlung von vergleichbaren hellenistischen Werken wie den Göttern
und Giganten am Großen Fries des Pergamonaltars (abb. 8) nicht übertroffen. Die die
Sinne ansprechende Form trägt aber entscheidend dazu bei, die Barriere der
Fremdheit zwischen dem Betrachter oder Interpreten und dem klassischen Werk zu
überwinden und schließlich einen Proveß des Verstehens oder des Sich-Aneignens
in Gang zu setzen’. See also Stewart 2008, 140–2, on the emotional effect of the
Parthenon pediments.
29 The Nike of Samothrace: Bieber 1961, 125–6 with earlier bibliography; Stewart
1993; Knell 1995; Hamiaux 1998, 27–32; Ridgway 2000a, 150–9; Stewart 2005. Michel
Ellenberger’s (2000) compilation of poetry and descriptions of the baroque
masterpiece is a delight and worth tracking down.
30 Hamiaux 1998, 27; Ridgway 2000a, 155.
31 Of course, Nike as a type has been highly eroticized since the middle of the fifth
century, another conceptual continuity worth noting. See Stewart 1997, 148–9;
Ridgway 2000a, 154, and now Munn 2009.
32 Contextual evolution of the sanctuary’s development: Wickkiser 2003 and
Riethmüller 2005. Architectural evolution of sanctuary’s development: Burford 1969;

Gruben 2001, 143–53, and Riethmüller 2005 with bibliography.
33 Athenian sculptors and Epidauros: Burford 1969, 155 and 202 (Table 10); Yalouris
1992; Smith 1993; Ridgway 1997, 41 and 366; Feyel 1998; Rolley 1999, 203–8; Levendi
2003, 101–2, and Schultz 2007a, 165–72. Sculptural and stylistic context of the
decorative program: Brown 1973, 5–15; Yalouris 1992: 82–3; and Schultz 2007, 165–79.
34 IG IV2 102 AI-BI, a famous inscription excavated at the site, records the expenses
involved in these artists’ work and provides a contemporary picture of their various
sculptural assignments. Translation and commentary: Roux 1961, 84–130, and
Burford 1969. Interpretation and context: Feyel 1998 and Schultz 2007a.
35 Style: Yalouris 1992, 67–74. Social context: Schultz 2007a.
36 The sensuality of the specific pose and the connection of Nike to Aphrodite:
Gulaki 1981, 89–90; Picon 1993 and Levendi 2003, 99.

37 Painting of ancient architectural sculpture: Tiberios et al. 2002 and Brinkmann
2004 with bibliography.

38 Stewart 1990, 89–92.
39 Carpenter 1960, 202.
40 West pediment Poseidon ‘N’: BM London M (arms and back). The fundamental
discussions of the piece are given by Brommer 1954 and Palagia 1998, 48–9 with ns.
155–64. For the Periclean building program see n. 24 above.
336
41 Stewart 2008, 140.
42 As a brief aside, this discussion of baroque physiognomies and their presence in
Greek sculpture from the later fifth century BC and onwards prompts a look beyond
architectural adornment to free-standing portraits. Here again, clear formal
continuities are manifest between ‘baroque portraiture’ of the Hellenistic period and
its ‘classical’ forerunners in the fifth and fourth century (Stewart 1979, 9–12, remains
fundamental on this point). Pollitt 1986, 63–6, and Bergemann 2007 both provide
analyses of the art historical context. Take the most famous of all Hellenistic portraits,
the eiko-n (portrait) of Antisthenes attributed to the Athenian sculptor Phyromachos
(Antisthenes: Stewart 1979, 9–10; P. Zanker 1995, 175–7; Ridgway 2000, 285–6 with
n. 48; Stewart 2004, 215–6. Ridgway 2000, 285–6, rejects the connection between the
famous statue base of Antisthenes’ portrait in Ostia signed by Phyromachos and the
Roman copies of the philosopher’s portrait. See von den Hoff 1994, 135–50, for a
nuanced reading of the evidence). This image – with its tortured brow and deep set
eyes, its thick expressive hair and cascading beard – has long been seen as one of the
most powerful baroque images of the late third or early second century. But the basic
type, indeed all the specific formal devices that Phyromachos employs – the heavy,
dramatic undercutting of the eyes, the deep, exaggerated separation of hair locks, the
heavily muscled and expressive forehead – are not new. A similar structure shows up
in the fourth-century Euripides Rieti type recently studied by Hans Isler and, to lesser
extent, in Athenian grave reliefs of the middle fourth century such as the famous old
man from the Ilissos stele, Athens National Museum 4675 (Isler 1999; Bergemann
2007, 35–6). That these fourth-century images have long been conclusively connected
to fifth-century images of centaurs, specifically the centaurs on the south metopes of
the Parthenon (Fig. 11), also seems quite significant (Schweitzer 1963, 115–67. See
also Fittschen 1988; Himmelman 2001, 66; Bergeman 2007, 34; Von den Hoff 2007,
52). What Phyromachos brings to the baroque portrait is a fresh intensity of purpose
and a dramatic amplification of preexisting formal patterns. The underlying aesthetic
agenda that governed his sculptural art, however, seems to have set in late fifth and
fourth century in Athens. Stewart seems to have been quite right when he remarked
‘that “baroque” tendencies of a sort were already present in Attic sculpture long before
Phyromachos was born or turned his hand to portraiture’ ( Stewart 1979, 11).
43 Zerner 1988; Hodder and Hutson 2003, 67 and 82 with bibliographies.
44 Most 2005 with comprehensive bibliography.
45 Stewart 2005, 128–35 and 139.
46 See, for example, Stewart 2004.
47 Stewart 2004, 220–26.
48 ‘Genre styles’: Stewart 1993; 2005; Hölscher 2002; 2009, 57–8.
49 Stylistic retrospection: Fullerton 1990; 1998a; 1998b; 2003.
50 Stewart 2005, 139–40.
51 Perhaps we might usefully expand on Stewart’s notion that ‘By adopting [baroque
conventions a] sculpture offers a reprocessed image of its classical past that is filtered
though the lens of the baroque and tuned to a visually and historically sensitized
audience’ (2005, 128). Here, both ‘baroque’ and ‘classical’ modes represent stylistic
choices that are, in essence, variations on a theme, bound together, dependant upon
one another, yet distinct.
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Peter Schultz
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CREATING A HELLENISTIC WORLD

The Classical Press of Wales

Distributor in the United States of America

© 2010 The authors

List of Contributors vii

1 The first Hellenistic man 1

2 The koine: A new language for a new world 31

3 The letter of Aristeas 47

4 The Silver Shields, Eumenes, and their historian 61

5 From satrapy to Hellenistic kingdom: the case of Egypt 83

6 Frataraka rule in Seleucid Persis: a new appraisal 107

7 Early Hellenistic Rhodes: the struggle for independence 123

10 Being royal and female in the early Hellenistic period 195

11 How to marry a courtesan in the Macedonian courts 221

12 A key to Berenike’s Lock? The Hathoric model of 247

14 Style, continuity and the Hellenistic baroque 313

Elizabeth Carney is Professor of History at Clemson University. She is

Stephen Colvin is Reader in Classics and Comparative Philology at

Andrew Erskine is Professor of Ancient History at the University of

Richard Hunter is Regius Professor of Greek at the University of

Robin Lane Fox is Reader in Ancient History at the University of Oxford

Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones is Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of

Alan B. Lloyd is Professor Emeritus in the Department of History and

Daniel Ogden is Professor of Ancient History in the University of Exeter.

James I. Porter is Professor of Classics at the University of California,

Joseph Roisman is a professor of Classics at Colby College. His research

Peter Schultz is Olin J. Storvick Chair of Classical Studies at Concordia

Shane Wallace is a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh. Currently

Hans-Ulrich Wiemer holds the chair of Ancient History at the University

Handel und Piraterie. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des hellenistischen Rhodos

Josef Wiesehöfer is Professor of Ancient History at the University of

Stephanie Winder is a lecturer in Classics at the University of Edinburgh.

AB C. Austin and G. Bastianini (eds), Posidippi Pellaei quae

I.Rhamnous Petrakos, B., Ὁ ∆ήµος τὸν Ραµνοῦντος, 2 vols., Βιβλιοθήκη τῆς

Macedonian kings dominating the eastern Mediterranean, their prayers

similar modes of expression to their more powerful neighbours.4 So at the

soldiers of Alexander whose final years are recounted by Joseph Roisman.

Andrew Erskine and Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

portraits: Stanwick 2002; Greek communities in Egypt: Rowlandson 2003, Fraser

that did not exclude differences, see Carney this volume.

Cohen’s volumes on Hellenistic settlements (Cohen1995 and 2006).

THE FIRST HELLENISTIC MAN

Robin Lane Fox

Droysen’s emphasis on a Hellenistic fusion has not succeeded in

de son idéalisme dédaigneux de tout ménagement’ (‘the result of the

The one ‘constitutional’ innovation was simply the consequence of

ones within a framework of ‘freedom’ and ‘autonomy’. Already Alexander

proved it by cutting through them ‘without difficulty’. Months later, on

formalized actor-companies who become so important in Hellenistic

Macedonian-style kingship with a new multi-cultural style.86 As Droysen

Alexander’s warfare, personal style, hunting, drinking and city-founding

founded.101 The existing genre of fictitious letters was greatly increased by

of Alexander114 which set an enduring image of the idealized conqueror, as

Macedonian contacts they acquired a new role: cities began to send

Our image of ‘Hellenistic man’ tends to be based on these philosophies

of the events which he narrated,140 but unlike Thucydides heaccepted

2001, 301–22; Boiy 2005, 105–10.

de la volonté du défunt Alexandre pour une symbiose irano-grecque’. I doubt it.

ended up in Vergina Tomb II (actually Philip II’s Tomb).

129–31 and 253, in contrast to 217, 243, 337.

Aelian VH. 2.41 and Athen. 4.155 B.

by Meiggs 1982, 134–7 and 493 n. 61.

24.5; Just. Epit. 25.4.8–10.