Endnotes, Part 4

EN4.1 (Endnote to n4.22)

{620|621} I agree with the viewpoint expressed by Cook 1975:784–785 that Athens cannot be removed from the Ionian migration, but I think that he claims too much for Athens’ role, as in the case of Colophon: “Many modern scholars have contended that this claim [that Athens was the main focus of emigration] was invented by the Athenians in the sixth century, or even when Athens assumed the leadership of the Ionians after the Persian Wars; and Mimnermus is cited as declaring (as he appears to do, but in a historical narrative of unique compression) that his Colophonians sailed to their beloved Asia direct from Pylus. But this view presents great difficulties. The belief in Athens as the metropolis of the Ionians was generally conceded by fifth-century writers, and the leadership of the Codrid Neleus was accepted by Panyassis, the epic poet of Halicarnassus, in the early part of that century. It seems unlikely that an Athenian political fiction could have won such immediate and universal acceptance. Literary and epigraphical evidences combine to indicate that in historical times Athens and the cities of Ionia had in common the essentials of their calendar, a number of old festivals and cults (such as the Apaturia and the worship of Eleusinian Demeter), and, basically, the four ‘Ionic’ tribes (Aegicoreis Argadeis, Geleontes and Hopletes). It is true that few of these Ionic institutions were exclusively Athenian; and they cannot therefore constitute direct proof that Athens wielded the dominant influence in the migrations. But their widespread diffusion in Ionia is consistent with the tradition of Athenian leadership; and certainly, if we do not believe in a ‘hard core’ of Ionians among the emigrants as distinct from Pylians and others, and if at the same time we believe, for instance, that Mimnermus’ Pylians sailed from their old home to Ionia without first concentrating in Athens, the strength of the common Attic-Ionic institutions in Ionia cannot easily be explained.” I have a different view of this matter. What the cities of the Panionic league had in common was not necessarily due to {621|622} Athens; Miletus, the daughter city of Athens, must, I think, also have been in large part responsible by spreading its own heritage; in my view this is what the Homeric poems suggest. In judging Mimnermus’s statement about his ancestors the key factor is not the Ionians’ common institutions, but the diversity of their origins, which Cook acknowledges in general, but wishes to deny in this particular case. The evidence, I think, is against this.

EN4.2 (Endnote to n4.47)

Nothing is known for sure about the Panionia after the Ionian revolt. The Persians very likely put an end to the festival after the Battle of Lade in 494 BC: the revolt was instigated at Panionion, and Herodotus 1.148.1, describing Panionion, refers to the festival as a thing of the past in his own day: ἡ δὲ Μυκάλη ἐστὶ τῆς ἠπείρου ἄκρη πρὸς ζέφυρον ἄνεμον κατήκουσα Σάμῳ <καταντίον>, ἐς τὴν συλλεγόμενοι ἀπὸ τῶν πολίων Ἴωνες ἄγεσκον ὁρτήν, τῇ ἔθεντο οὔνομα Πανιώνια, “Mykale is a promontory of the mainland facing west opposite Samos, onto which the Ionians used to gather from their cities and celebrate a festival, to which they gave the name Panionia”; cf. Wilamowitz 1906:49/141, Caspari 1915:181–182; Kleiner in Kleiner et al. 1967:13–14). Celebration of the Panionia was later restored on Mykale, but we do not know when. Strabo twice refers to the celebration of the festival at Panionion in his own time (8.7.2 and 14.1.20), and his testimony is corroborated by Hellenistic inscriptions (Stylianou 1983:247n12). It is usually assumed that the festival on Mykale was resumed in the mid-fourth century BC when Priene, the city closest to Panionion which provided the priest of Poseidon Helikonios to the league’s common cult (Strabo 8.7.2 and 14.1.20), seems to have been refounded in a new location (under Mount Mykale opposite Miletus); cf. Kleiner et al. 1967:14–15, 35–37, Stylianou 1983:248; cf. also Wilamowitz 1906:50/142. But it is also possible that the refoundation of Priene did not take place until under Alexander in the 330s BC; the issue is discussed by Hornblower 1982a:323–330, who prefers the later date. The possibility that the festival was transferred to Ephesus for a certain period of time between the end of the Ionian revolt and the resumption of the festival on Mykale is based on Diodorus 15.49.1, who says that the festival was transferred to Ephesus because of wars on Mykale: κατὰ τὴν Ἰωνίαν ἐννέα πόλεις εἰώθεισαν κοινὴν ποιεῖσθαι σύνοδον τὴν τῶν Πανιωνίων, καὶ θυσίας συνθύειν ἀρχαίας καὶ μεγάλας Ποσειδῶνι περὶ τὴν ὀνομαζομένην Μυκάλην ἐν ἐρήμῳ τόπῳ. ὕστερον δὲ πολέμων γενομένων περὶ τούτους τοὺς τόπους οὐ δυνάμενοι ποιεῖν τὰ Πανιώνια, μετέθεσαν τὴν πανήγυριν εἰς ἀσφαλῆ τόπον, ὃς ἦν πλησίον τῆς Ἐφέσου, “In Ionia nine [sic] cities were accustomed to {622|623} hold a common assembly, that of the Panionia, and to offer together ancient large sacrifices to Poseidon in the region called Mykale in a deserted place. Later when wars arose around these places they could not hold the Panionia and transferred the panegyris to a safe place, which was near Ephesus” (for Diodorus’s nine as opposed to twelve cities in the refounded league of the fourth century there is archaeological support; cf. Herda 2006:50 and n34). Diodorus does not date the transfer of the Panionia to Ephesus, but the context is an earthquake that destroyed Helike in Achaea in 373/2 BC; before the earthquake Ionian ambassadors came to Helike seeking sacred symbols for the refoundation of the cult of Poseidon Helikonios in Ephesus but were refused, and in return for the refusal Poseidon destroyed Helike (Diodorus 15.48–49); Strabo, who omits the reason for the Ionians’ request, says that refusal of the request was followed by an earthquake the next winter (Strabo 8.7.2). If we conclude from Diodorus and Strabo that the festival was moved from Mykale to Ephesus about 373/2 BC, this must be reconciled with Herodotus, who implies that the festival was no longer celebrated on Mykale when he wrote: either the festival was resumed on Mykale after Herodotus wrote and was then moved to Ephesus about 373/2 BC (an unlikely course of events) or the festival was moved to Ephesus before Herodotus’s time (this does not fit with Strabo’s statement that the Ionians’ made their request to Helike in the same year as the earthquake). It has been plausibly suggested that Diodorus misunderstood his source Ephorus, and that shortly before 373 BC the festival was moved, not to Ephesus, but from Ephesus back to Mykale after having been celebrated for an unknown period of time at Ephesus (Stylianou 1983:248; cf. Hornblower 1991:528); the Ionian embassy would thus have sought Helike’s sanction to refound the cult of Poseidon Helikonios on Mykale after an interruption that began before Herodotus wrote. In this case the Panionia must have been resumed on Mykale after the Persian Wars and been moved to Ephesus in the course of the fifth century (Hornblower 1982:245 suggests 440/39 BC; Hornblower 1991:528 reports Andrewes’ suggestion of an earlier date). The question then becomes whether the festival transferred from Mykale to Ephesus in the mid-fifth century was the Ephesia mentioned by Thucydides; Hornblower 1982 argues for this identification (cf. also Hornblower 1991:527–529), Stylianou 1983 rejects it. An argument against equating the Ephesia with the Panionia is that according to Pollux 1.37 the Ephesia were dedicated to Artemis, not to Poseidon: ἑορταὶ ἔντιμοι…Ἀρτέμιδος Ἀρτεμίσια καὶ Ἐφέσια (cf. Stylianou 1983:249n27). Stylianou 1983:249 proposes a scenario for the Panionia in which the festival lapsed for the entire period between the Ionian revolt and the end of the fifth century, {623|624} was then resumed near Ephesus under Spartan influence, and was then moved to Mykale in the 370s BC; this interpretation perhaps accords best with the fact that nothing is heard of the Panionia after the Ionian revolt during the fifth century. It is perhaps also possible, Diodorus notwithstanding, that there was no celebration of the Panionia between the Persian Wars and the festival’s refoundation in the fourth century (Herda 2006:55). Behind the Ionians’ request in 373 BC for an image of Poseidon or a model altar (or whatever the object was: for the object see Strabo 8.7.2 and Diodorus 15.49.1–2, and for the word aphídruma, literally “transference to another place,” see Nick 2002:24 and cf. Herda 2006:56n71) lies the tradition that the Ionians of the dodecapolis came from the twelve cities of Achaea in the Peloponnesus, and brought with them the cult of Poseidon Helikonios from the city of Helike. This version of the Ionians’ origins is found already in Herodotus 1.145, and while some accept it as historical (Solmsen 1909:84 derives Poseidon’s cult title Helikonios from Helike; Prinz 1979:314–376 argues that the Ionians came directly from Pylos and Achaea, and not from Athens; cf. also Knibbe 1998:78n120), there are good reasons to disbelieve it, including the obvious derivation of the title Helikonios from Mount Helikon in Boeotia; see Prandi 1989:48–49 and Herda 2006:67–72 and cf. EN4.4 and EN4.9. For the particular circumstances that may have induced the Delphic oracle in 373 BC to send the Ionians to the Peloponnesus as their place of origin, see Anderson 1954:87–89 and Prandi 1989:49–59.

EN4.3 (Endnote to n4.72)

There was a tradition, preserved in the scholia to Plato, that Smyrna, before becoming a member of the Panionic league, was represented on occasion in the league by Colophon: according to this tradition, when the twelve cities were deadlocked in a vote, Colophon would cast an extra vote on behalf of Smyrnaeans who had settled in their territory. The scholia took this account from paroemiographers (Lukillos of Tarrha, first century AD, who excerpted Didymus, first century BC; see Gudeman RE ‘Scholien [Platon]’ 690) to explain the proverb τὸν κολοφῶνα ἐπιτιθέναι/προσβιβάζειν, “put the finishing stroke to a thing.” The proverb occurs in Plato Theaetetus 153c and Epistle III 318b; I quote the scholia to Theaetetus 153c: τὸν κολοφῶνα κτλ.· παροιμία. δώδεκα πόλεις τῆς Ἰωνίας συνῄεσαν εἰς τὸ Πανιώνιον λεγόμενον, περὶ τῶν κοινῶν βουλευσόμεναι, καὶ εἴ ποτε ἴσοι αἱ ψῆφοι ἐγένοντο, οἱ Κολοφώνιοι περιττὴν ἐτίθεντο τὴν νικῶσαν· Σμυρναίους γὰρ ἐλθόντας εἶχον συνοίκους, ὑπὲρ ὧν καὶ τήνδε τὴν ψῆφον ἐτίθεντο. ὅθεν ἐπὶ τῆς κρατούσης καὶ †βεβαιοτάτης ψήφου ἡ παροιμία ἐτίθετο, οἷον τὸν Κολοφῶνα ἐπιτίθημι ἢ τὸν Κολοφῶνα ἀναγκάζω {624|625} προσβιβάζων, “ ‘The Colophon,’ etc.: Proverb. The twelve cities of Ionia met in what is called the Panionion in order to deliberate about common affairs, and if the votes were ever tied the Colophonians cast an odd vote to break the tie. For they had as fellow inhabitants Smyrnaeans who had come there, and it was on their behalf that they cast this vote. From this was coined the proverb for the winning and…(?) vote, namely ‘I add the Colophon’ or ‘I compel by adding the Colophon’.” Colophon’s supposed double vote is attested only in this context (the Suda s.v. τὸν Κολοφῶνα ἐπέθηκεν has a similar explanation of the proverb, except that here Colophon is said to play its decisive role not at Panionion but within the city of Smyrna). This evidence, which is late, has caused confusion about the early Panionic league. The evidence is no longer used as it once was to conclude, in the face of Herodotus’s clear statement to the contrary, that early Smyrna was a member of the Panionic league (Wilamowitz 1906:52 held this unsupportable view), but it continues to confuse another issue, the old relationship between Colophon and Smyrna, and I question whether the evidence has any validity. Strabo gives a different explanation of the proverb, namely that Colophon’s military power on land and sea gave it a decisive advantage in battles, and that Colophon’s cavalry in particular “put a secure end” to any conflict (Strabo 14.1.28): ἐκτήσαντο δέ ποτε καὶ ναυτικὴν ἀξιόλογον δύναμιν Κολοφώνιοι καὶ ἱππικήν, ἐν ᾗ τοσοῦτον διέφερον τῶν ἄλλων ὥσθ’, ὅπου ποτὲ ἐν τοῖς δυσκαταλύτοις πολέμοις τὸ ἱππικὸν τῶν Κολοφωνίων ἐπικουρήσειε, λύεσθαι τὸν πόλεμον· ἀφ’ οὗ καὶ τὴν παροιμίαν ἐκδοθῆναι τὴν λέγουσαν “τὸν Κολοφῶνα ἐπέθηκεν” ὅταν τέλος ἐπιτεθῇ βέβαιον τῷ πράγματι, “The Colophonians once possessed noteworthy naval and cavalry power, in which they so far exceeded the others that, whenever the Colophonians’ cavalry came to help in difficult battles, the battle was ended; from this the proverb arose that says ‘he added the Colophon’ whenever a secure end is added to a thing.” Colophon had this level of military power early in its history, but lost it steadily from the early seventh century on (cf. Fogazza 1974:29–38), and Strabo’s explanation is therefore unlikely to be a late invention. Colophon’s double vote, on the other hand, does not look genuine. The voting procedure in question only makes sense in the case of a member city which ceased to exist and whose population was transferred to another member city. This happened to Myus in the late third century BC, when the Maeander River silted up and Myus was abandoned; Miletus, which resettled its neighbor’s population in its own territory, also acquired its neighbor’s vote. In the same passage of Vitruvius that tells parenthetically how third-century BC Smyrna replaced long vanished Melia as the league’s thirteenth member (Vitruvius 4.1.4, see n4.72), there is also a parenthetical {625|626} comment about Myus, quae olim ab aqua est devorata, cuius sacra et suffragium Milesiis Iones adtribuerunt, “which was once swallowed up by water, and whose sacred rites and vote the Ionians assigned to the Milesians.” Smyrna is parallel to Myus in that Smyrna too was once destroyed and abandoned, and it is even possible that some of Smyrna’s population was resettled in Colophon, although tradition says only that the Smyrnaeans were scattered in villages after their city was destroyed by Alyattes. But whether some of the population was moved to Colophon or not, Smyrna had not previously been a member of the Panionic league, and this is the decisive difference from Myus; it is not plausible that Colophon was given a double vote to represent a non-member city upon its destruction. In my view the city of Smyrna refounded by Lysimachus in the third century BC, proud of having finally achieved Panionic status, invented precedents to mitigate its newcomer status: taking the place of Melia as the league’s thirteenth city (so Vitruvius and his source) is one clear example (see Ragone 1986:196; cf. also n4.220 and n4.233); half membership in the early league, on the model of Myus, is, I think, another example. The point in both cases is the same: Smyrna’s status as the thirteenth member of the league was not something new under the sun; there had been a thirteenth member of the league at the start, and Smyrna itself had become a virtual thirteenth member when it was destroyed by Alyattes. Vitruvius’s account of the dodecapolis goes back to a source sympathetic to Smyrna’s historical pretensions (see Ragone 1986, who dates this source to the late third century BC, when Myus was abandoned; Vitruvius’s “mistake” in naming Attalus in place of Lysimachus as Smyrna’s benefactor fits the same late-third century date; see Ragone 1986:205). The Plato scholia do not provide a date for Colophon’s alleged representation of Smyrna, but the notion that the Smyrnaeans had returned to Colophon and settled there (ἐλθόντας εἶχον συνοίκους, “they had as fellow inhabitants [Smyrnaeans] who had come there”) clearly suggests the period after Alyattes’ destruction of Smyrna, and some have taken this date as the historical date of a real event (Cadoux 1938:84–85; Talamo 1973:364 n110; see Moggi 1976:42 for arguments against such a historical date). Càssola 1958:164–168 argued instead that the implied political relationship between Colophon and Smyrna belongs to the period after Colophonians first seized Smyrna, and this line of argument has been followed by others (Moggi 1976:40–43; Ragone 1986:190–194). What this argument fails to address satisfactorily is the fact that Smyrna was occupied by exiles from Colophon, and that the relationship between the two cities was thus one of enmity. This situation must have reversed itself dramatically if the Smyrnaeans, after being rejected for league membership, instead accepted represention by those who {626|627} had exiled them; a mere passage of time (as suggested by Moggi 1976:42 and 43n17) seems inadequate to explain such a polar shift in attitudes. In this scheme, furthermore, there is no reason why Smyrna was turned down for full league membership; the reason suggested in Herodotus, that the league already had twelve cities and membership was thus closed, in my view reverses the likely historical process: it was rather Smyrna’s rejection that sealed the league’s membership at twelve (for the twelve-member league as the final result of a historical process see e.g. Ragone 1986:195–196 and Moggi 1996:99n89; I do not think that the number twelve by itself arrested the league’s growth, although in hindsight that would appear to be the case). I continue to believe that what kept Smyrna out of the league, from the time of its capture by Colophonian exiles until the time of its destruction by Alyattes, was the opposition of Colophon. If this was the case, there is certainly no reason to suppose that Colophon began to represent Smyrna after Smyrna was destroyed; as Moggi 1976:42 argues, representation, if it had not started earlier, would not have started then. This brings us back to the point that the tradition for Colophon’s double vote is highly dubious; it does not work well no matter when it is dated.

EN4.4 (Endnote to n4.83)

There are various indications of Melia’s Boeotian origins, beginning with the name Melia, which belongs to an ash-tree nymph worshipped both in Apollo’s temple in Thebes and in the Ptoion, another Boeotian shrine of Apollo (for the nymph see Keil RE ‘Melia’ 505 no. 1a and Lenschau 1944:228; Lenschau derives the city name Melia from the nymph’s name; P. Hommel in Kleiner et al. 1967:80 attributes this idea to Wilamowitz, but it is not in the discussion of Melia in Wilamowitz 1906:43, 46 = 1971:133–134, 137–138). The cult of Poseidon Helikonios at Panionion, which seems to have belonged to Melia before it became the common cult of the Panionic league (see n4.73 and §4.67), also fits with a Boeotian origin of Melia (cf. EN4.2 end and EN4.9); although a historical cult of Poseidon is not known on Mount Helikon in Boeotia, Aristarchus derived Poseidon’s epithet from this mountain (and not from the town of Helike in Achaea, for which a cult of Poseidon is attested in Iliad 8.203), remarking that all of Boeotia was Poseidon’s sacred land: ἡ Βοιωτία ὅλη ἱερὰ Ποσειδῶνος (Etymologicum Magnum s.v. Κύπρις); Poseidon’s famous cult in Boeotia was at Onkhestos. Cf. also Wilamowitz 1906/1971:46n3/138n1, who notes that Homeric Hymn 22 to Poseidon associates Poseidon with both Mount Helikon in Boeotia and the city of Aigai in Achaea (the latter is associated with Poseidon in Iliad 8.203 and 13.21 as well). {627|628} Huxley 1960 argues for the foundation of Melia by Thebans from Colophon. In a fragment of Theopompus (FGrHist 115 F 103) the prophet Mopsos, the founder of Colophon and a descendant of the Theban prophet Teiresias, has three daughters: two of the daughters, Rhode and Pamphylia, have names associated with places; so too does the third, Μηλιάς, if her name is changed to Μελιάς to correspond to Μελίη (for the adjectival form from Μελίη cf. ἁ Μελιάς χώρα in IP [Hiller 1906] 37 line 55, quoted in n4.76). If Μελιάς is this daughter’s true name it associates Μελίη with an origin from Thebes by way of Colophon. Theopompus is one of the eight historians cited for the Meliac War in IP (Hiller 1906) 37 lines 120–122, and his knowledge of Melia and its traditions is thus assured.

EN4.5 (Endnote to n4.88)

To date the destruction of Melia the Geometric pottery fragments found in the necropolis provide clear evidence. The fragments are of Protogeometric and Geometric, including Late Geometric, date, and the Late Geometric pieces show that the necropolis continued to be used down to c. 700 BC or a little later. The fragments are catalogued by P. Hommel in Kleiner et al. 1967:166. Hommel assigns to dı̄̂nos fragments (nos. 6–9) and kratḗr fragments (nos. 11–14) a seventh-century date, by which is meant the end of Late Geometric; he puts particular weight on the dı̄̂nos fragments: “Above all the Late Geometric dı̄̂nos fragments (Plate 8b; IX f–i) permit the conclusion that the city existed until the end of the Geometric period” (“Vor allem die spätgeometrischen Dinosfragmente [Taf. 8b; IX f–i] lassen auf das Bestehen der Stadt bis an das Ende der geometrischen Zeit schliessen”), p. 87; cf. also p. 93: “Decisive for the dating of Melia’s destruction are the latest finds of the necropolis (Plate IX f–i), which we are justified in attributing to Melia since there are no post-Geometric sherds in it. Thus a start of the Meliac War during the Cimmerian invasions, which began under Gyges in 668 BC and lasted until Ardys’s reign, is also excluded” (“Ausschlaggebend für die Datierung der Zerstörung Melies sind die spätesten Funde der Nekropole (Taf. IX f–i), die wir Melia zuzuweisen berechtigt sind, da nachgeometrische Scherben in ihr fehlen. So ist auch ein Ansatz des Melischen Krieges während der Kimmeriereinfälle, die noch unter Gyges 668 einsetzen und bis unter Ardys andauern, ausgeschlossen”). Hommel compares the Late Geometric fragments found in the necropolis with similar pottery types from the Samian Heraion and from Larisa on the Hermos; he cites Eilmann 1933:73ff. (for kratḗres) and 106ff., 139 fig. 90 a, b (for dı̄̂noi), and Boehlau and Schefold 1942:61f., fig. 17a, f, 113 fig. 37e (dı̄̂noi) and 88f., fig. 27e, cf. also 112f., fig. 37b (kratḗres). Hommel does not give an {628|629} absolute date for Melia’s destruction, but his dates for the dı̄̂nos and kratḗr fragments indicate early seventh century BC. Coldstream 1968:330 dates the East Greek Late Geometric period 745–680 BC. The terminus ante quem for the destruction of Melia may be taken to be 680 BC.

EN4.6 (Endnote to n4.98)

Richard Janko dates the Delian section of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo to the first half of the seventh century BC in accord with the traditional view of this hymn’s early origin (Janko 1982:114–115; cf. his chronological diagram, p. 200); he thus rejects M. L. West’s proposal to redate the Delian hymn to the late sixth century BC (West 1975, discussed by Janko pp. 109–112, reasserted by West 1999). I follow Janko on this question, but I narrow the date of the Delian Hymn to Apollo to not long before the mid-seventh century BC, after the composition of the Iliad and the Odyssey on a monumental scale. West 1999 argues further that Homer, the supposed ancestor of the Homeridai, was not necessarily associated with the Iliad and the Odyssey before the time of the Panathenaic performances (initiated, he maintains, only by Hipparchus in 522 BC). It is true that there is no early evidence connecting the name Homer with the Iliad and the Odyssey: the earliest evidence for the name Homer connects the name with an epic about Thebes and is subject to reservations even as to that epic (according to Pausanias 9.9.5 the seventh-century poet Callinus attributed an epic about Thebes to Homer [Callinus fr. 6 West]; see Davison 1968:81–82, who questions this evidence on various grounds but does not discount it entirely: at a minimum, Davison thinks, Callinus must have attributed to Homer some phrase that was not in the Iliad or Odyssey of Pausanias or Pausanias’s authority but resembled a phrase in the Thebaid); in a poem attributed to the seventh-century poet Semonides (fr. 29 Diehl) the famous passage in Iliad 6 comparing the generation of men to the generation of leaves is said to be spoken by “the man of Chios” (ἓν δὲ τὸ κάλλιστον Χῖος ἔειπεν ἀνήρ, “the one most beautiful thing that the man of Chios said”), but West is probably correct in attributing this poem instead to Simonides (fr. 8 West) at the end of the sixth century (West 1974:179–180, 1993; Burkert 1987:45 tentatively accepts West’s attribution to Simonides). Thus, strictly speaking, there is no early evidence connecting the name Homer with the Iliad or the Odyssey. In my view, however, there is an indirect piece of evidence for this connection: as I argue in the text (§4.22) the Delian Hymn to Apollo, which claims to be by “the blind man who lives in rocky Chios” (i.e. by Homer himself, the ancestor of the Homeridai in Chios), alludes specifically to the Odyssey in making this claim. Since I follow Janko in dating the Delian Hymn {629|630} to Apollo to the first half of the seventh century, I regard this as evidence that the Homeridai, from the beginning, were closely associated with what were later called the Homeric poems, namely the Iliad and the Odyssey. There is no question that other poems as well came to be considered Homeric: the hymns, some parts of the epic cycle, the Margites, the Thebaid. This process may have begun by the mid-seventh century BC if Callinus did in fact attribute a poem about Thebes to Homer. There is also evidence for the early sixth century BC that “Homeric epic” at that time included a Theban epic, but the evidence is again inconclusive: according to Herodotus 5.67.1 Cleisthenes, tyrant of Sikyon c. 570 BC, ended rhapsodic performances in Sikyon “because of the Homeric epics” (τῶν Ὁμηρείων ἐπέων εἵνεκα), which praised his enemy Argos. Cleisthenes also ended the cult of Adrastos in Sikyon, transferring “tragic choruses” in honor of Adrastos to Dionysus and other rites to Melanippos, Adrastos’s enemy; as Burkert 1987:45 suggests, “Adrastos would again point to the Thebaid.” But it is possible, as West 1999:377n40 warns, that Herodotus, in referring to “Homeric” epics in this passage, uses a term from his own time that would not have been used in Cleisthenes’ time. It also seems quite possible that the “Homeric” epic that offended Cleisthenes was the Iliad, in which Argos is again glorified (at least by contrast with Sikyon). The term “Homeric” was apparently limited to the Iliad and the Odyssey after these two poems became school texts, perhaps in the early fifth century BC (see Burkert’s brief discussion, 1987:56–57). Although we are in the dark for the early period, I see no reason to deny a priori that “Homer” started where he ended, with only the Iliad and the Odyssey to his name, whatever else was attributed to him in the meantime. Surely it was the fame of these two poems that attracted other poems to his name. For poems attributed to Homer, cf. also Graziosi 2002:184–186; for the question of when the Homeric poems became widely known, cf. n4.149 and n4.209.

EN4.7 (Endnote to n4.104)

If the Iliad and the Odyssey came into being together, the Iliad may allude directly to the Odyssey in some instances. In other instances the Iliad may of course allude to epic tradition generally, without reference to the Odyssey. The epic hero Memnon seems to provide examples of both kinds. I have made the case that Iliad 8 alludes to Odyssey 3 in the roles played by Nestor, Odysseus, and Diomedes in a particular episode in each book. The episode in Iliad 8 also alludes to the death of Antilochus at the hands of Memnon. This tradition, which was known to the Odyssey (Odyssey 4.186–188, see §2.71 above), also figures in Odyssey 3 insofar as Nestor’s grief for Antilochus is {630|631} highlighted there (Odyssey 3.111–112). The connection between Iliad 8 and Odyssey 3, which focuses on Nestor, Diomedes, and Odysseus, is in a sense completed by Antilochus, whose fate is of equal interest. Antilochus’s death is not narrated in Homer: it lies outside the time frame of the Iliad, and in the Odyssey we learn only that “the shining son of the radiant dawn goddess slew” him (Odyssey 4.188). The episode, which occurs in transposed form in Iliad 8, is first narrated by Pindar Pythian 6.28–42 (see §2.73 above), whose source was the Aethiopis (cf. n2.96 above). But the episode was also known to the Homeric poets, as Iliad 8 shows (for further discussion of the tradition for Antilochus and Memnon, see n4.155, n4.189, and n4.203). Memnon’s own death provides the other kind of example, in which the Iliad alludes to epic tradition apart from the Odyssey. As Johannes Kakridis argues, when Achilles is forced to summon the winds Boreas and Zephyros to burn Patroclus’s funeral pyre (Iliad 23.192–198), this seems to allude to Achilles’ own funeral, and to the death of Memnon at Achilles’ hands shortly before Achilles himself meets his end: Boreas and Zephyros are Memnon’s brothers (all are sons of Eos), and they will have shunned the funeral of Achilles, their brother’s killer, with more reason than they shun the funeral of Patroclus in the Iliad (Kakridis 1949:75–83). West 2003 argues that Memnon was unknown to the poet of the Iliad: when Thetis says in the Iliad that Achilles is to die soon after Hector’s death, this, according to West’s argument, allows no time for the intervention of figures like Penthesileia and Memnon; Heitsch 2006:18–23, who follows West, nevertheless recognizes that Iliad 8 alludes to Memnon, and explains this and other apparent allusions to the Aithiopis as late additions to the Iliad. I would argue instead that there had long been shorter and longer versions of Achilles’ death, and that our Iliad evokes the basic version (death after killing Hector) but still alludes to an expanded version (death after killing Memnon); Herodotus 2.116 points to a similar case when he says that Homer, who follows the tradition that Helen was in Troy during the Trojan war, nevertheless alludes to the tradition that she was in Egypt and Phoenicia when he refers to the Phoenician péplos which the Trojan women offer to Athena in Iliad 6.289–292.

EN4.8 (Endnote to n4.140)

The Iliad twice refers to “the lake of Gyges,” which would seem to be named for the well-known Lydian king (Iliad 2.865 and 20.390–391). In later Greek the phrase Γυγάδας χρυσός (Herodotus 1.14.3) refers to the gold that Gyges dedicated in Delphi, and the name Γύγας of a promontory in the Troad indicates to Strabo that it was once in Gyges’ territory (Strabo 13.1.22). The only {631|632} reason to think that the phrase λίμνη Γυγαίη does not refer to the famous king is the supposed Homeric anachronism. The phrase recurs in Herodotus 1.93.5 (the tomb of Alyattes was next to the λίμνη Γυγαίη), and if we had only this evidence to consider we would naturally assume that the lake was named for the famous founder of the Mermnad dynasty. For the meaning of the name Gyges (traceable to Lydian xuga-, “grandfather”) cf. Hawkins 2004:304. Achilles’ first victim in the Iliad, born next to the “Gygaean lake” (Iliad 20.390–391), is of course a significant figure, as are those that follow: his second victim is a son of Antenor, and his fourth victim is a son of Priam (Hector is drawn into a premature confrontation with Achilles by the death of the latter; see above n4.132). Achilles’ third victim, Hippodamas, evokes the Panionia when he bellows like a bull sacrificed to Poseidon Helikonios (Iliad 20.401–406). Achilles’ first and third victims have in common that both seem to allude to the contemporary world of the Homeric audience: Gyges and the Lydians on the one hand and the Panionia on the other. For further discussion of the apparent allusion to Gyges, and its possible implications for the dating of the Homeric poems, see §4.70 and n4.236. For the relationship between the Homeric Maeonians and the historical Lydians, cf. Hawkins 2004:298–299: “It is worth noting that Homer never uses the word Λυδός or any derivative thereof. Gyges, who overthrew Candaules, seems to have been in power from about 680 to 650. If the theory that the Ηeraclidae were called Maeonians is accurate, and if the name Lydian only came into use again with Gyges, this might explain why Homer mentions Maeonians but not Lydians. These considerations, then, do not allow one to come to an absolute decision on the identity of the Maeonians, but the most straightforward conclusion is that Maeonian is an earlier name for Lydian. The ancient evidence seems to indicate that Maeonian and Lydian were two designations for the same people. The geographical location of the Maeonians is identical to that of the Lydians. The burden of proof rests on those who would claim that the two groups are not identical.” I would modify this account only to say that the absence of the name “Lydian” from the Homeric poems does not mean that the name was not yet known in the Homeric era.

EN4.9 (Endnote to n4.146)

Durante’s derivation of Greek Hómēros, outlined in n4.146, requires further comment. In 1976, when Durante reproduced and modified his article of 1957, he remarked that his etymological proposal had received little attention (Durante 1976:203–204); in my view his proposal still has not received the attention that it deserves. I therefore give further details of his argument {632|633} and of the evidence on which it is based. I also consider certain historical issues that his argument raises.

Durante points out that the common noun hómēros, “hostage,” is secondary to the neuter plural form hómēra, “pledge” or “agreement,” and that the meanings “pledge” and “agreement” of the primary noun come easily from the etymological sense of a “coming together” (cf. Latin conventum). In antiquity the name Hómēros was explained by aetiological “hostage” myths (Harpokration s.v. Ὁμηρίδαι), but the name seems instead to be a back-formation from Homērídai, which is not a patronymic, but the designation of a special group, like Hermokopídai, “herm mutilators,” etc.; the Homērídai were poets who “came together” at a festival to compete. This meaning of Homērídai is supported by the Greek forms Homários and Homárion, the former an epithet of Zeus, the latter the name of this god’s sacred grove in Achaea, which was the meeting place (“coming together”) of the Achaean league. These forms also occur as Hamários and Hamárion, confirming that the forms’ first element is from *som– (zero-grade *sm̥) “together” (for the variation in the first element cf. Homeric ὁμαρτῇ/ἁμαρτῇ and see Wackernagel 1916:230/1970:70). An inscription from Arcadian Orchomenos dated 199 BC, which records the acceptance of Orchomenos into the Achaean league, contains the names Día Amárion and Athánan Amarían, gods by whom an oath is to be sworn (Collitz-Bechtel 1884–1915 no. 1634; Schwyzer 1923 no. 428). This evidence allows the name of the meeting place of the Achaean league in a passage of Strabo to be corrected from the corrupt manuscript readings ΑΙΝΑΡΙΟΝ/ΑΡΝΑΡΙΟΝ to ΑΜΑΡΙΟΝ: τὸ τοῦ Διὸς ἄλσος τὸ Ἁμάριον, ὅπου συνῄεσαν οἱ Ἀχαιοὶ βουλευσόμενοι περὶ τῶν κοινῶν, “the grove of Zeus [called] the Hamárion, where the Achaeans met to deliberate about common affairs” (Strabo 8.7.5). Achaea, where the forms Homárion etc. are found, was settled from the Argolid in the late Bronze Age and retained elements of its Mycenaean past after the Dorians arrived (see Vermeule 1960:18–21); thus the relationship between Achaean Homárion etc. and Ionian Homērídai would seem to be a common origin in Mycenaean. In Achaea the Homárion was the meeting place of a political league which is assumed to have developed from an earlier amphictyony; the date of the political league is put as early as the eighth century BC, but more plausibly in the sixth or fifth century BC (cf. Mylonopoulos 2003:426–427, who argues for the fifth century). There is evidence that the Homárion was the center of a political league in the fifth century, but the evidence has been called into question. Polybius 2.39.6 says that a common cult of Zeùs Homários was established by Croton, Sybaris, and Caulonia in southern Italy in the mid-fifth century BC, when these cities {633|634} allied with each other and reordered their constitutions on the basis of the laws and customs of their motherland Achaea: πρῶτον μὲν ἀπέδειξαν Διὸς Ὁμαρίου κοινὸν ἱερὸν καὶ τόπον, ἐν ᾧ τάς τε συνόδους καὶ τὰ διαβούλια συνετέλουν, δεύτερον τοὺς ἐθισμοὺς καὶ νόμους ἐκλαβόντες τοὺς τῶν Ἀχαιῶν ἐπεβάλοντο χρῆσθαι καὶ διοικεῖν κατὰ τούτους τὴν πολιτείαν, “First they designated a common temple of Zeus Homarios and a place in which they carried out deliberations together, secondly they accepted the customs and laws of the Achaeans and undertook to use them and arrange their constitution according to them.” This appears to be clear evidence for the Homárion as an early political center in Achaea, but Morgan and Hall 1997:195 argue that Polybius wished to show that the principles of the Achaean league of his own day were based on ancient traditions, and they regard his story of the three Italian cities as an invention: the fact that Sybaris, one of the three cities, was destroyed in the sixth century (511/10 BC) by Croton, another of the three cities, is clearly a problem for the supposed fifth-century event and does not inspire confidence in Polybius’s account as a whole. Following Morgan and Hall, who question whether the sanctuary of Zeus Homarios was the center of the Achaean league as early as the fifth century, Mylonopoulos 2003:424–427 argues that the original meeting place of the Achaean league was the temple of Poseidon Helikonios in Helike, and that only after this temple was destroyed by an earthquake in 373/2 BC did the Homárion in the territory of neighboring Aigion become the league’s center (for Helike and Poseidon’s cult there see Mylonopoulos 2003:35–40). These arguments complicate the use of the Achaean evidence by Durante 1957:104–105 (1976:195–197), but in my view they do not invalidate it; the Achaean Homárion must have existed in some form before the relatively late date of such a transfer of the league center, and the name suggests that it was a meeting place from early times. In my view the Achaean Homárion remains a valid comparison for the Ionian Homērídai. It is unclear what bearing another tradition has on the question, namely that Ionians preceded the Achaeans in Achaea and went to Athens when the Achaeans arrived (Strabo 8.7.1; Pausanias 7.1.3–5; 7.6.1–2). At any rate the rigid scheme, first attested in Herodotus 1.145–146, that the Ionians of the dodecapolis in Asia Minor came from the twelve cities of Achaea in the Peloponnesus seems unlikely to be older than the sixth century BC, the probable date of the earliest evidence for the question, a fragment of Hesiod (cf. Herda 2006:67n142 and 70, who dates the tradition for the Ionians’ origins in the Peloponnesus earlier, to the seventh century BC). Hesiod fr. 9.2 MW attests the tradition that Hellen had three sons, Doros, Xouthos, and Aiolos; Doros and Aiolos are the ancestors of the Dorians and Aeolians, and Xouthos, {634|635} as known from later sources, is the father of Ion and Akhaios, the ancestors of the Ionians and Achaeans: Strabo 8.7.1 tells how the descendants of Ion and Akhaios occupied Achaea in the Peloponnesus in successive stages, and how the Ionians, when they were driven from Achaea by the Achaeans, returned to Athens and from there founded Ionia, creating a dodecapolis on the Achaean model. Hesiod fr. 9 suggests that this version of the origins of the Ionian dodecapolis was known in the sixth century. If we grant the historical reality of Ionians in Achaea in the Bronze Age, and even of their subsequent movement to Athens and Ionia, it is still not clear who in the sixth century (or perhaps the seventh century) would have derived the Ionian dodecapolis directly from Achaea. This does not look like an Athenian or an Ionian idea. Perhaps it was invented by Peloponnesians, who thereby countered Athenian claims to Ionia with a rival version of Ionia’s origins in the Peloponnesus; Anderson 1954:87–89 suggests that in the fourth century BC the Spartans may have made such use of this version of Ionia’s origins, and Prandi 1989:49–59 elaborates a similar argument (cf. EN4.2 end). If the tradition of Ionia’s Achaean origins did arise in the sixth century, it was nevertheless built on an older tradition, already in Homer, that associated Poseidon with the town of Helike and thereby offered an alternative interpretation of Poseidon’s cult title Helikonios (cf. EN4.4).

An association of the name Homērídai with festivals and poetic competition is strongly supported by the etymological correspondence between Greek Hómēros/Homários and Sanskrit samará-/samaryá-. To illustrate the Sanskrit terms, both meaning “festival reunion” (samaryá– is also glossed as “poetic competition”), I quote one Vedic example of samará-, “festival reunion,” in which the key phrase, samaré ‘tamānāḥ, “those who come to the samará-,” refers to poets who are clearly rivals of the poet of the verses in question, RV 6.9.2–3. The poet of these verses refers to his own activity and that of the other poets in terms of weaving; he at first despairs of his own ability to “stretch the warp” or “weave the woof” of his own song or to understand what others “who come to the samará-” weave; but in the second verse he remembers, as it were, the cosmic dimension of his poetic weaving and begins to assert his own competitiveness as a poet:

(For weaving as a metaphor for poetry in other Indo-European traditions including Iranian, Germanic, and Greek see Schmitt 1967:298–301; Nagy 2002:70–98 explains the semantics of Greek húmnos, as applied to epic performance, in terms of a weaving metaphor.)

Having expressed my support of Durante’s interpretation of the names Homērídai and Hómēros, I take note of another interpretation that starts from the same formal derivation as Durante’s (*som– + *ar-) but takes the meaning to be “fit together” with a metaphor borrowed from joinery. The Indo-European root *teks– occurs in such a metaphor from joinery (see Schmitt 1967:296–298 for the Pindaric collocation ἐπέων τέκτονες, “carpenters of words,” and cognate phrases in Indo-Iranian), and a similar metaphor is seen in Greek Hómēros by Nagy 1979:297–300 (cf. also Nagy 1996:89–91 and 2008:2§§41–45). This explanation has the advantage of assuming a meaning, “join,” close to that of Greek ἀραρίσκω, “join with, fasten,” of the root *ar-. On the other hand Durante’s explanation, which I find persuasive in both its analysis of Greek forms and its comparison with Sanskrit forms, fits closer with my notion of who the Homeridai originally were.

EN4.10 (Endnote to n4.150)

Jacoby, commentary on Hellanicus FGrHist 323a F 23, argues that Hellanicus constructed a pedigree for the Medontidai as part of a list to fill the gap between the Ionian migration in Medon’s time and the first annual archon in 683/2 BC. In Hellanicus (and in later sources such as the Parian Marble) the Medontidai were βασιλεῖς, “kings,” but another tradition arose in which they were, from the time of Medon, first ἄρχοντες διὰ βίου, “archons for life,” then archons for ten years each. In this scheme, which reflects democratic values (cf. e.g. Pausanias 4.5.10) but is hard to trace to its origin (see Jacoby, commentary on Hellanicus FGrHist 323a F 23, p. 46), the last four (or five) Medontidai, including Hippomenes, are ten-year archons, who are followed by three other ten-year archons from other families before the first annual archon takes office in 683/2 BC. Hippomenes’ rule ended {636|637} in 714 or 713 BC according to this scheme (see the lists preserved by later authors in von Schoeffer RE ‘Archontes’ 584). It is worth noting that in the surviving lists Medon’s (son and) successor is Akastos, who was clearly given this place of honor because of a democratic institution, namely the archons’ oath: according to Aristotle Constitution of the Athenians 3.3 the nine archons swore to “carry out the oaths made in the time of Akastos,” τὰ ἐπὶ Ἀκάστου ὅρκια ποιήσειν; cf. Jacoby 1949:127. There is no certain evidence in historical times for the Medontidai as a génos in Athens. On Agora Inventory I 5509, an inscription from 367/6 BC, the name belongs to a phratry (κοινὸν φρατέρων Μεδοντιδῶν, lines 17–18), and Crosby 1941:21–22, who published the inscription, argues that other occurrences of the name also refer to a phratry rather than a génos. But some names belong to both a génos and a phratry (Crosby 1941:21n3), and Medontidai may be one of these. Jacoby, commentary on Hellanicus FGrHist 323a F 23, n70, argues in favor of this possibility, or at least he leaves the possibility open. Like Toepffer, whom he quotes, Jacoby attaches particular importance to IG I³ 1062, a boundary stone from the fifth century BC marking the “limit of the —— (land? agora?) of the Medontidai”; this inscription was found near the entrance to the Acropolis, a fact which for Toepffer 1889:229 “fits excellently with the tradition for the royal blood of this family” (“stimmt trefflich zur Überlieferung von dem königlichen Geblüt dieses Geschlechts”). Jacoby, taking issue with Crosby, is surely correct that a génos rather than a phratry is meant in such literary evidence as Pausanias 4.13.7, which dates the end of the First Messenian War by reference to Medontid rule in Athens (Ἀθήνῃσι Μεδοντιδῶν τὴν ἀρχὴν ἔτι ἐχόντων τὴν δεκέτιν καὶ ἔτους Ἱππομένει τετάρτου τῆς ἀρχῆς ἠνυσμένου, “when the Medontidai still maintained the ten-year rule in Athens and the fourth year of Hippomenes’ rule had been completed”); a génos rather than a phratry may also be meant in Hesychius s.v. Μεδοντίδαι· οἱ ἀπὸ Μέδοντος Ἀθήνησι, “Medontidai: descendants of Medon in Athens.” But such evidence does not prove the existence of a génos in Jacoby’s view, for the pedigree of the Medontids, on which Pausanias and perhaps also Hesychius depend, is part of the kings list constructed by Hellanicus (Jacoby, commentary on Hellanicus FGrHist 323a F 23, nn70 and 71).

EN4.11 (Endnote to n4.155)

The claim of the Athenian Peisistratids to descent from Nestor seems to have inspired rival claims on the part of the Alcmaeonids and the Paionids, political opponents of the Peisistratids: whereas the Peisistratids claimed descent from Nestor’s son Peisistratos, who did not fight at Troy, the Alcmaeonids and {637|638} Paionids outdid them by claiming descent from Thrasymedes and Antilochus, both heroes of the Trojan war. Nestor’s descendants through all three sons (as well as the descendants of Periklymenos) are discussed in Pausanias 2.18.8–9; in this passage the rivalry between the tyrant Peisistratos on the one hand and the Alcmaeonids and Paionids on the other hand is evident: Pausanias’s source (probably an Atthidographer, possibly Philochorus; see Jacoby, commentary on Hellanicus FGrHist 323a F23, nn1 and 36) was clearly hostile to the tyrant Peisistratos, for all the descendants of Neleus are said to have gone to Athens except the son of Nestor’s son Peisistratos (also named Peisistratos), whose destination Pausanias simply does not know: ἐκβάλλουσιν οὖν [οἱ Ἡρακλεῖδαι]…ἐκ τῆς Μεσσηνίας τοὺς Νέστορος ἀπογόνους, Ἀλκμαίωνα Σίλλου τοῦ Θρασυμήδους καὶ Πεισίστρατον τὸν Πεισιστράτου καὶ τοὺς Παίονος τοῦ Ἀντιλόχου παῖδας, σὺν δὲ αὐτοῖς Μέλανθον τὸν Ἀνδροπόμπου τοῦ Βώρου τοῦ Πενθίλου τοῦ Περικλυμένου…. οἱ δὲ Νηλεῖδαι πλὴν Πεισιστράτου (τοῦτον γὰρ οὐκ οἶδα παρ’ οὕστινας ἀπεχώρησεν) ἐς Ἀθήνας ἀφίκοντο οἱ λοιποί, καὶ τὸ Παιονιδῶν γένος καὶ Ἀλκμαιωνιδῶν ἀπὸ τούτων ὠνομάσθησαν. Μέλανθος δὲ καὶ τὴν βασιλείαν ἔσχεν ἀφελόμενος Θυμοίτην τὸν Ὀξύντου· Θυμοίτης γὰρ Θησειδῶν ἔσχατος ἐβασίλευσεν Ἀθηναίων, “They [the Heraclids] expelled Nestor’s descendants from Messenia: Alcmaeon, the son of Sillos, the son of Thrasymedes; Peisistratos, the son of Peisistratos; the sons of Paion, the son of Antilochus; and with them Melanthos, the son of Andropompos, the son of Boros, the son of Penthilos, the son of Periklymenos…. The Neleids, with the exception of Peisistratos (for I do not know to what people he went), all came to Athens, and the génos of the Paionids and that of the Alcmaeonids were named after them. Melanthos also held the kingship, taking it from Thymoites, the son of Oxyntes; for Thymoites was the last of the descendants of Theseus to rule Athens.” We are well informed about the Alcmaeonids’ rivalry with Peisistratos, and Toepffer 1889:227 connects the Paionids with the Alcmaeonids in this rivalry through the place-name Paionia, which was close to the Alcmaeonid stronghold of Leipsydrion: it was from this stronghold that the exiled Alcmaeonids maintained their opposition to the Peisistratids after 514 BC (cf. Anderson 2003:29 and 226n39), and the proximity of Paionia suggests that the Paionids joined the Alcmaeonids in this opposition. The fictitious ancestries of both families must have been inspired by rivalry with Peisistratos and his family: in Pausanias, who reflects the rivalry, both the allied families descend from Neleus, but the Peisistratids are excluded from this distinction. Our source for “Leipsydrion above Paionia” (which seems to have been on Mount Parnes; Aristotle fr. 394 Rose) is Herodotus 5.62.2, which tells how the Alcmaeonids and those allied with them tried but failed to oust Hippias after {638|639} the murder of Hipparchus in 514 BC: Ἱππίεω τυραννεύοντος καὶ ἐμπικραινομένου Ἀθηναίοισι διὰ τὸν Ἱππάρχου θάνατον Ἀλκμεωνίδαι, γένος ἐόντες Ἀθηναῖοι καὶ φεύγοντες Πεισιστρατίδας, ἐπείτε σφι ἅμα τοῖσι ἄλλοισι Ἀθηναίων φυγάσι πειρωμένοισι κατὰ τὸ ἰσχυρὸν οὐ προεχώρεε <ἡ> κάτοδος, ἀλλὰ προσέπταιον μεγάλως πειρώμενοι κατιέναι τε καὶ ἐλευθεροῦν τὰς Ἀθήνας, Λειψύδριον τὸ ὑπὲρ Παιονίης τειχίσαντες, ἐνθαῦτα οἱ Ἀλκμεωνίδαι πᾶν ἐπὶ τοῖσι Πεισιστρατίδῃσι μηχανώμενοι παρ’ Ἀμφικτυόνων τὸν νηὸν μισθοῦνται τὸν ἐν Δελφοῖσι, τὸν νῦν ἐόντα, τότε δὲ οὔκω, τοῦτον ἐξοικοδομῆσαι, “When Hippias was tyrant and became embittered with the Athenians because of Hipparchus’s death, the Alcmaeonids, native Athenians whom the Peisistratids had exiled, and the other Athenian exiles did not succeed in returning despite their strong efforts, but suffered a great defeat when they tried to return and free Athens; fortifying Leipsydrion above Paionia and thereafter trying every scheme against the Peisistratids, they contracted with the Amphictyones to finish building the temple in Delphi that is there now, but was not yet there then.” The Attic Paionidai, who in the myth of their Neleid descent are named for Antilochus’s son Paion, may actually have taken their name from an Attic toponym (cf. Cromey 1978:66, 68; the deme name in question was in fact Paionidai rather than Paionia; cf. Rhodes 1981:235; for Herodotus’s use of the form Paionia instead, cf. Irwin 2007:51–52). Hampe 1950 pushes to an extreme the possibility that not only Neleus and Nestor were historical figures, but also the descendants attributed to them (Hampe 1950:51–70). I agree with Hampe that the Neleid line was real, in Athens as in Miletus, but this does not mean that false claims to Neleid descent were not also made. Hampe himself recognizes that all the Neleid pedigrees may be late constructions (see in particular the chronology that he presents in the appendix on pp. 67–70, which he admits can be viewed either as history or as a later reconstruction of history). In my view the Neleid pedigrees are a mixture of history and fiction. While I think that Hampe claims too much for history, his article repays close reading; his description of Nestor’s Homeric role on pp. 11–18, even though it is based on a completely different understanding of the Homeric figure from my own, stands out particularly to me. Seeck 1887 also took the Neleid genealogies of Athenian families at face value, and argued on this basis that the Odyssey had an Athenian origin; his argument was rejected by Toepffer 1889:237–238, who saw clearly that the genealogical claims of the Alcmaeonids and Paionids at least were late inventions (Toepffer 1889:226–228; about Peisistratos’s genealogical claim Toepffer was more hesitant; cf. 1889:4n4). Toepffer 1889:228 also viewed the tradition of Neleid descent for the Medontid kings as unfounded (a point on which I {639|640} basically differ), but he still distinguished clearly between the Medontids on the one hand and the Alcmaeonids and Paionids on the other hand in terms of depth of tradition (1889:226). In Greek genealogies the chief interest is in a mythic ancestor at the beginning of a line and a full genealogy down to the present is rare (see Thomas 1989:155–195, who contrasts Roman genealogies in this respect, pp. 100–108). For full genealogies that do occur genealogists like Pherecydes and Hellanicus seem to be responsible; Hecataeus, who famously traced himself back through sixteen generations to a god (Herodotus 2.143.1), was himself an early genealogist (cf. Thomas 1989:160). An exception with respect to mythic ancestry is the tombstone of Heropythos of Chios, probably from the mid-fifth century BC (Collitz-Bechtel 1884–1915 no. 5656; text corrected by Wade-Gery 1952:8, fig. 1), which lists ancestors through fourteen generations but does not go back to a legendary or heroic figure (cf. Thomas 1989:156, 159). The Neleid genealogy presented by Hellanicus FGrHist 323a F 23 is an example of the genealogist’s construction of a complete line of descent; here the interval to be filled was not between a mythic ancestor and the present, but between two mythic ancestors, Neleus and Neileos, who duplicate the myth of one family’s origins; this two-stage myth, which sets Pylos, Athens, and Miletus in relation to each other, and which must already have been known to Homer, is what the genealogist began with. Hellanicus’s interest was presumably in Athens rather than in Miletus; hence his attention to Kodros, who matters to both cities, and to Melanthos, who belongs to Athenian myth. Sergent 1982, following Mühlestein 1965, shows by analysis of onomastic evidence that Neleids must have constituted a noble génos (though not necessarily the royal génos) in the Pylos of the Linear-B tablets; using this evidence Sergent shows further that there is a solid historical core to traditions of Pylian ancestry among Neleids in Athens and Ionia. The evidence is clearest in the case of descendants of Periklymenos (Medontids in Athens and Neleids in Miletus), but it also pertains to the three Attic génē claiming descent from Nestor. Thus it is not the case that there is no factual basis to the claims of Pylian ancestry on the part of the three Attic génē; it is rather the case that whatever claims they had were at least reshaped by the strong influence of the Homeric poems. This is essentially the conclusion reached by Sergent 1982:19, but Sergent makes an exception in the case of Peisistratos, suggesting that the poet of the Odyssey gave Nestor a son named Peisistratos because an Athenian family of Pylian descent made use of this name. In my view it was just the opposite: it was not the Odyssey that was influenced by the Athenian family in the use of the name Peisistratos, but the Athenian family that was influenced by the Odyssey. {640|641}

EN4.12 (Endnote to n4.197)

The original editors of the Nestor’s cup inscription, Buchner and Russo, took verse 1 of the inscription to refer to Nestor’s cup in Iliad 11, and verses 2 and 3 to refer to the clay cup (skúphos) on which the inscription is written. Watkins 1976 also follows this interpretation. The contrast between the two cups in the wording of the inscription (Νέστορος…ποτήριον in verse 1 and τοῦδε ποτηρίου in verse 2), is reinforced by the particle δέ marking a contrast at the beginning of verse 2 and by the change of meter at this point. The iambic trimeter of the first verse has an “Aeolic base,” which Watkins takes as a sign of archaism (later trimeters occasionally have the same feature, especially when they begin as here with a proper name). Watkins is not the first to suggest ἐ[στ]ι in verse 1 (it was considered but not adopted by Buchner and Russo 1955 and by Dihle 1969), but he is the first to argue persuasively for it (on p. 39 he credits his student, Michael Taylor, for suggesting to him the inscription’s basic sense). The restoration ἐ[στ]ι is preferable to ἔ[ρρο]ι, “away with,” suggested by the original editors; it is also preferable to ε[ἰμ]ι, “I am,” although this word is common after a name in the genitive on objects declaring themselves to be the possession of a particular owner (e.g. Θαρίο εἰμὶ ποτέριον, “I am Tharios’s cup,” from the Athenian agora, dated end of the eighth century by Shear 1936:33, middle of the seventh century by Young 1939:124–126 and Jeffery 1961:69; cf. Buchner and Russo 1955:221n2). The restoration ε[ἰμ]ι on the Nestor’s cup inscription has been assumed by Jeffery 1961:235 and others (see Watkins 1976:37), but there are strong arguments against it. The first is space: the only likely form of this verb in the Ionic dialect of Pithekoussai is ἐμι (see Watkins 1976:38, who notes that the diphthong in the eighth-century Attic form quoted above [Θαρίο εἰμί] is an unexplained Attic anomaly; there are two further examples of εἰμι in Attica, of the seventh or sixth century, in Jeffery 1961:70 [10f and 10h]), and the space to be filled is too large for a single letter (there must have been two or three letters). The second problem is meaning, and here there are several objections. The first is that with the reading ε[ἰμ]ι the inscription refers only to the cup on which it is written, and this runs counter to the metrical and phraseological contrasts analyzed by Watkins. In addition, the ordinary clay cup on which the inscription is written now claims to be the famous cup of Nestor in Iliad 11, and this is ludicrous (but cf. Powell 1991:165–166, who assumes an intentional joke); alternatively, the cup says that it is the property of a man named Nestor (Dihle 1969, accepted by West 1970:171). I would agree with Watkins 1976:37 that this is “more or less a null hypothesis,” and that “it is inherently far more likely that an accomplished ἀοιδός with {641|642} demonstrated familiarity with the Homeric repertoire, who begins his first line with Νεστορος (a frequent position of the same name in this and other grammatical cases in the hexameter), had the Homeric hero in mind, and would assume his audience would.” I mention two other suggested readings to supply the missing word in verse 1. Margherita Guarducci’s reading Νέστορος μ̣[ὲ]ν̣ εὔποτ[ον] ποτήριον makes a maximal contrast between an epic cup and a real cup by means of the particles μέν and δέ (Guarducci 1961, cf. also Guarducci 1967:226–227; the resulting verse is a trochaic trimeter catalectic). To give the same sense as the verb ε[ἰμ]ι, “I am,” Hansen 1988 suggests instead the pronoun τ[οδ]ί, “this (is).” This reading produces a regular glyconic in place of the irregular iambic trimeter of readings with an initial epsilon; it also restores two letters, as required by the space, whereas ἐ[μ]ι (instead of ε[ἰμ]ι, see above) restores only one letter. Hansen points out further that the inscriptions with εἰμί adduced as parallels for this inscription invariably continue in the first person, and that τοῦδε ποτηρίου in line 2 of this inscription would be an unexampled change from first person to third person. By this criterion only τοδί and ἐστι are possible readings, and whereas τοδί may be metrically preferable, ἐστι, in my view, provides a better reading of the poem (I find the joke in the other reading of the poem lame if not pointless). In support of ἐστι Watkins 1976:39n21 points out the repeated sound in Νέστορός ἐστι at the beginning of the line, and the same figure again in εὔποτον ποτήριον at the end of the line. For further bibliography see Watkins 1976:25n1, Buchner and Ridgway 1993:751–759, Graziosi 2002:135n30.

EN4.13 (Endnote to n4.227)

It is clear from IP (Hiller 1906) no. 37 that Miletus was given some part or parts of Melia’s land after the Meliac War, but the allotment seems to have been modest. Only one place, A(kadamis?), certainly belonged to Miletus before a subsequent exchange of land between Samos and Miletus rearranged their holdings; the fragmentary text is IP 37.57–59. In Hiller’s original restoration of the text the Samians claimed to have obtained three settlements from Miletus in the exchange: A(——-), Thebai, and Marathesion; but in Hiller’s revised text (IP p. 309, based on Wilamowitz 1906/1971:42n4/133n2; see n4.76) the Samians claimed to have given two of these settlements, Thebai and Marathesion, to Miletus in exchange for the third, A(kadamis); on this reading only the third, A(kadamis), can have been allotted to Miletus after the Meliac War. The revised text is supported by a fragment of Theopompus, which says that Miletus got Thebai from Samos (FGrHist 115 F 23 = scholia to Euripides Andromache 1): Θεόπομπος δὲ ἐν <γ> Ἑλληνικῶν καὶ περὶ τὴν Μυκάλην ἄλλας [Θήβας] εἶναί {642|643} φησι, ταύτας δὲ Μιλησίους ἀλλάξασθαι πρὸς Σαμίους (the verb and grammatical construction in the last clause have an exact parallel in Strabo 8.6.14, which establishes the interpretation here; cf. Hiller IP no. 418 following Wilamowitz). Hommel in Kleiner et al. 1967:94 follows Hiller’s original text (see below), but others, including Shipley 1987:34n50, follow Hiller’s revised text. Keil 1908:145 follows the revised text in saying that Miletus got Marathesion from Samos. There is a difficulty with Marathesion in that according to Strabo 14.1.20 Samos gave Marathesion to Ephesus; Keil interprets this as a later development, implying that Marathesion changed hands more than once, passing from Melia to Samos to Miletus, back to Samos, and finally to Ephesus. Pygela, the settlement allotted to Samos after the Meliac War according to the historians named in IP 37.120–121 (cf. n4.75 and n4.76 end), has also figured in the discussion of the subsequent land exchanges between Samos and Miletus; while Pygela is not relevant to the question of Miletus’s original allotment after the Meliac war, it is worth trying to clarify its later role. Keil 1908:137–138 takes it for granted that Miletus got Pygela from Samos (“…the fact that it [Pygela] fell to the Samians already at the time of the destruction of Melia, about 700 BC, to be ceded by them [later] to Miletus in an exchange” [“…die Tatsache, dass es [Pygela] bereits zur Zeit der Zerstörung von Melia, also um 700 v. Chr. den Samiern zufiel, um von ihnen im Wege des Austausches an Milet überlassen zu werden”). Hommel in Kleiner et al. 1967:94 follows Keil with respect to Pygela and Miletus, pointing out that Pygela would have provided two useful harbors on the route north to Miletus’s colonies: “The new possessions were rounded out by an exchange in that Samos gave Phygela to Miletus, to which this place must have been useful, lying with two harbors northernmost on the coast on the way to Miletus’s northern colonies. For this place Miletus gave up to Samos Marathesion, which lay further to the south, and Thebes on the south slope of Mykale, which had earlier fallen victim to its expansion” (“Durch Tausch sind die neuen Besitzungen abgerundet worden, indem Samos Phygela an Milet abgab, dem dieser nördlichste an der Küste gelegene Punkt mit zwei Häfen auf seinem Weg zu den nördlichen Tochterstädten nützlich sein mußte. Es hat dafür das südlicher gelegene Marathesion und das schon früher seiner Expansion zum Opfer gefallene Theben am Mykalesüdhang an Samos abgetreten”); for Marathesion and Thebai Hommel follows Hiller’s original text of IP 37, and Ἀ[κάδαμις he leaves out of account. It is plausible that Miletus gained possession of Pygela, but there is no real evidence for this as far as I can see; the only evidence cited by Keil is that Miletus came to Pygela’s aid in 409 BC when Pygela was attacked by Athens (Xenophon Hellenica 1.2.2; Miletus had revolted from Athens in 412 BC). To sum up, the only land known for sure {643|644} to have gone to Miletus after the Meliac War is Akadamis, if that name, as is likely, is correctly restored in IP 37 (cf. Hiller IP p. 309 and Shipley 1987:34n50, and see n4.76). Marathesion probably went to Samos rather than Miletus after the war, but we cannot be sure of that given the uncertainty of Hiller’s text. Thebai, on the south slope of Mykale and across the Gulf of Latmos from Miletus, is unlikely to have been part of Melia’s territory at all (cf. Wilamowitz 1906/1971:42n4/133n2); thus, if Thebai was in fact Miletus’s to give to Samos, Miletus probably did not get it through the Meliac War (cf. Hommel, quoted above, who suggests acquisition before the Meliac War). If we accept the evidence of Theopompus, that Miletus got Thebai from Samos, the likeliest series of exchanges is as Shipley 1987:34, writing about Samos, describes it: “The peraea was…too large when it was acquired to be defensible for long, and possession of several minor settlements changed hands just after the Meliac War or during the Archaic period, Marathesion, Thebai, and possibly another place being given away in return for Anaia and Akadamis.” What Miletus got from the Meliac War was thus only the obscure Akadamis, of unknown location; to this we might add Marathesion. I think that Miletus’s main interest after the war was not Mykale’s land, but the league centered on it.

EN4.14 (Endnote to n4.238)

The history of the name “Ionian,” whatever its ultimate origin, is centered in Asia Minor. The name, attested in Assyrian in the eighth century BC (730s, or perhaps 715, at the earliest, references in Luraghi, Phoenix 60 [2006] 31n44), came to mean “Greek” in eastern cultures, a usage that continues today: Hebrew Yawan, Persian Yauna, Sanskrit Yavana, Egyptian demotic Wynn, Turkish Yunan (cf. Malkin 2001:3; Sancisi-Weerdenburg 2001:323, 332). In one sense the process is clear: the Ionians of Asia Minor were East Greeks whose name became known to peoples still further to the east. But the very existence of a common name must have had to do with the Panionic league, for this is what gave the Ionians a common identity (I draw attention again to the Ionians’ diversity of origins, as perceived and commented on by Herodotus; see n4.15). Högemann 2001:62 aptly calls the name “Ionia” an “artificial concept” (“Kunstbegriff”): “The origin of the name ‘Ionians’ is unknown, but probably arose earliest in Asia Minor. Who was designated by it in the beginning? The designation ‘Ionia’ in any case does not go back to a people of the same name, as for example Thessaly to the Thessalians, but should be understood as an artificial concept: it stands for the cities of a region and not for a continuous territory. Herodotus may be cited as a witness for this: all Ionian cities lie either in Lydia or in Caria” (“Der Ursprung des {644|645} Namens ‘Ionier’ ist unbekannt, wohl am ehesten kleinasiatisch. Wer wurde anfänglich damit bezeichnet? Die Bezeichnung ‘Ionien’ geht jedenfalls nicht auf ein gleichnamiges Volk zurück, wie z. B. Thessalien auf die Thessaler, sondern ist als ein Kunstbegriff zu verstehen: Er meint eine Städtelandschaft und kein geschlossenes Territorium. Als Zeuge sei Herodot angeführt: Alle ionischen Städte lägen teils in Lydien, teils in Karien”). In terms of their diverse origins, the Ionians were not a single people, but became one in Asia Minor; Herodotus leaves no doubt of this; cf. Högemann 2001:61, quoted in n1.56. The name “Ionian” may be old (Linear-B ijawone[ is “possibly” a dative singular ijawonei, but “unlikely” a nominative plural ijawones, Chadwick and Baumbach 1963 s.v. Ἴων), but it was the Panionic league that gave the name currency. Herodotus says that only the cities of the dodecapolis took pride in the Ionian name, and that the other Ionians and the Athenians shunned it down to his day (Herodotus 1.143.3): οἱ μέν νυν ἄλλοι Ἴωνες καὶ οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι ἔφευγον τὸ οὔνομα, οὐ βουλόμενοι Ἴωνες κεκλῆσθαι, ἀλλὰ καὶ νῦν φαίνονταί μοι οἱ πολλοὶ αὐτῶν ἐπαισχύνεσθαι τῷ οὐνόματι· αἱ δὲ δυώδεκα πόλιες αὗται τῷ τε οὐνόματι ἠγάλλοντο καὶ ἱρὸν ἱδρύσαντο ἐπὶ σφέων αὐτέων, τῷ οὔνομα ἔθεντο Πανιώνιον, ἐβουλεύσαντο δὲ αὐτοῦ μεταδοῦναι μηδαμοῖσι ἄλλοισι Ἰώνων (οὐδ’ ἐδεήθησαν δὲ οὐδαμοὶ μετασχεῖν ὅτι μὴ Σμυρναῖοι). “Now the other Ionians and the Athenians shunned the name, not wishing to be called Ionians, but even now most of them seem to me to be ashamed of the name. But these twelve cities gloried in the name and established a sanctuary for themselves, to which they gave the name Panionion, and they resolved not to let any other Ionians participate in it (nor did any ask to participate in it except the Smyrnaeans).” If wide use of the Ionian name grew out of the Panionic league, the Neleids of Miletus must have been instrumental in promoting it. In Homer the name Ionia occurs only once, in Iliad 13.685, and here it means Athenian; this is what the Neleids would have wanted it to mean in terms of their own origin (Iliad 13.685–691):

This picture of an Ionian Athens fits with the picture of a Carian Miletus in the Trojan Catalogue of Ships (Iliad 2.867–869; cf. §4.54 above): already during the Trojan war, when Neleids still ruled Pylos, Ionians, who would one day colonize Caria, inhabited Athens. In Attica the Ionian name was especially associated with the Marathonian tetrapolis, the oldest seat of the Ionians in Attica (“der älteste Sitz des Ionertums…in Attika,” von Schoeffer RE ‘Demoi’ 26). Two passages in Strabo attest the Ionian associations of Marathon: Xouthos, the father of Ion and Achaios, founded the tetrapolis according to Strabo 8.7.1: Ξοῦθος δὲ τὴν Ἐρεχθέως θυγατέρα γήμας ᾤκισε τὴν τετράπολιν τῆς Ἀττικῆς, Οἰνόην Μαραθῶνα Προβάλινθον καὶ Τρικόρυνθον. τῶν δὲ τούτου παίδων Ἀχαιὸς μὲν φόνον ἀκούσιον πράξας ἔφυγεν εἰς Λακεδαίμονα καὶ Ἀχαιοὺς τοὺς ἐκεῖ κληθῆναι παρεσκεύασεν, Ἴων δὲ τοὺς μετ’ Εὐμόλπου νικήσας Θρᾷκας οὕτως ηὐδοκίμησεν ὥστ’ ἐπέτρεψαν αὐτῷ τὴν πολιτείαν Ἀθηναῖοι, “Xouthos married Erechtheus’s daughter and founded the tetrapolis of Attica, namely Oinoe, Marathon, Probalinthos, and Trikorynthos. Of his sons one, Akhaios, committed involuntary murder and fled to Lacedaemon and brought it about for those there to be called Achaeans, and the other, Ion, defeated the Thracians with Eumolpos and was so well regarded that the Athenians turned the state over to him.” Strabo 8.6.15 cites Aristotle that Ionians from the tetrapolis followed the Heraclids in their return to the Peloponnesus and settled in the Argolid: ἡ Ἐπίδαυρος δ’ ἐκαλεῖτο Ἐπίταυρος· φησὶ δὲ Ἀριστοτέλης κατασχεῖν αὐτὴν Κᾶρας, ὥσπερ καὶ Ἑρμιόνα, τῶν δὲ Ἡρακλειδῶν κατελθόντων Ἴωνας αὐτοῖς συνοικῆσαι τοὺς ἐκ τῆς Ἀττικῆς τετραπόλεως συνεπομένους εἰς Ἄργος, “Epidauros was called Epitauros; Aristotle says that Carians occupied it, as they also did Hermion, and that when the Heraclids returned, their fellow inhabitants were the Ionians who followed them from the Attic tetrapolis to Argos.” The Ionian associations of the Marathonian tetrapolis throw light on Odyssey 7.78–80, Athena’s second departure from Scheria:

After introducing the Phaeacian queen to Odysseus, Athena goes not just to Athens, but first to Marathon, and then to Athens; this, I suggest, is meant to reinforce the idea that Athena’s destination is (in Solon’s phrase) the oldest land of Ionia, and that her journey therefore has special relevance to Ionians who celebrated the Panionia. {647|651}