[ back ] 1. See n1.21 above for the simile in Iliad 20.403–405 comparing the cry of a mortally wounded Trojan to the bellowing of a bull sacrificed to Poseidon Helikonios, the god to whom the festival of the Panionia was dedicated. Locations in Ionia, including the cities of the dodecapolis, are shown on Map 1.

[ back ] 2. In my view the basis of this tradition was common to Miletus and Athens, and very old; in the view of Prinz and others the basis was older than Solon (fr. 4a West calls Athens the oldest land of Ionia) but still an Athenian invention (Prinz 1979:354 dates the invention to the seventh century BC; cf. also Herda 1998:9n50, who presents a range of opinions). The main source for the Neleids’ ancestry is Hellanicus FGrHist 323a F 23 (scholia to Plato Symposium 208d). Omitting the generations from Deucalion to Neleus at the start of the fragment the genealogy is as follows: Neleus, Periklymenos, Boros, Penthilos, Andropompos, Melanthos, Kodros (the origin of this overly full form of the genealogy is discussed in EN4.11 to n4.155 below); the passage goes on to tell how Melanthos, the fifth descendant of Neleus, left Pylos when the Heraclids came, and how he went to Athens and won the kingship there by killing the Boeotian king in single combat to settle a border dispute (the combat provides a very strained aetiology for the festival of the Apatouria): …Νηλέως δὲ καὶ Χλωρίδος Περικλύμενος, Περικλυμένου δὲ καὶ Πεισιδίκης Βῶρος, Βώρου δὲ καὶ Λυσιδίκης Πένθιλος, Πενθίλου δὲ καὶ Ἀγχιρόης Ἀνδρόπομπος, Ἀνδροπόμπου δὲ καὶ Ἡνιόχης τῆς Ἁρμενίου τοῦ Ζευξίππου τοῦ Εὐμήλου τοῦ Ἀδμήτου Μέλανθος. οὗτος Ἡρακλειδῶν ἐπιόντων ἐκ Μεσσήνης εἰς Ἀθήνας ὑπεχώρησεν, καὶ αὐτῷ γίνεται παῖς Κόδρος. χρόνῳ δὲ ὕστερον γενομένης τοῖς Βοιωτοῖς ἀμφισβητήσεως πρὸς Ἀθηναίους, ὡς μέν τινες, περὶ Οἰνόης καὶ Πανάκτου, ὡς δέ τινες, περὶ Μελαινῶν, καὶ τῶν Βοιωτῶν ἀξιούντων τοὺς βασιλέας προκινδυνεῦσαι περὶ τῆς χώρας εἰς μονομαχίαν καταστάντες, Ξάνθιος μὲν ὁ τῶν Βοιωτῶν βασιλεὺς ὑποδέχεται, Θυμοίτης δὲ ὁ τῶν Ἀθηναίων ἀρνεῖται, λέγων τῷ βουλομένῳ μονομαχεῖν τῆς ἀρχῆς παραχωρεῖν. Μέλανθος δὲ ὑποστὰς τὸν κίνδυνον ἐπὶ τὸ βασιλεῦσαι τῶν Ἀθηνῶν αὐτὸν καὶ τοὺς ἐξ αὐτοῦ, ὁπλισάμενος προῄει, καὶ πλησίον τοῦ Ξανθίου γενόμενος εἶπεν “ἀδικεῖς, ὦ Ξάνθιε, σὺν ἑτέρῳ ἐπ’ ἐμὲ ἥκων καὶ οὐ μόνος, ὡς ὡμολόγητο.” Ξάνθιος δὲ ταῦτα ἀκούσας μετεστράφη, θεάσασθαι βουλόμενος εἴ τις αὐτῷ ἑπόμενος εἴη· καὶ μεταστραφέντα βαλὼν αὐτὸν ἀπέκτεινεν, καὶ βασιλεὺς τῆς Ἀττικῆς ἐγένετο. ὅθεν τοῖς Ἀθηναίοις κρατήσασι τῆς χώρας ἔδοξεν ἑορτὴν ἄγειν, ἣν πάλαι μὲν Ἀπατηνόρια ὕστερον δὲ Ἀπατούρια ἐκάλουν ὡς ἀπὸ τῆς γενομένης ἀπάτης, “…from Neleus and Chloris [was born] Periklymenos, from Periklymenos and Peisidike Boros, from Boros and Lysidike Penthilos, from Penthilos and Ankhiroe Andropompos, from Andropompos and Heniokhe (the daughter of Armenios, the son of Zeuxippos, the son of Eumelos, the son of Admetos) Melanthos. The last named withdrew from Messenia to Athens when the Herakleidai came, and he had a son Kodros. When later a dispute arose between the Boeotians and the Athenians, according to some over Oinoë and Panakton, according to others over Melainai, and the Boeotians demanded that the kings put themselves at risk over the territory by engaging in single combat, Xanthios, the Boeotians’ king, accepted, but Thymoites, the Athenians’ king, refused, saying that he would cede his rule to whoever wished to engage in single combat. Melanthos undertook the danger in order to secure the kingship of Athens for himself and his descendants, and having armed himself went out, and when he came close to Xanthios he said ‘You cheat, Xanthios, coming against me with another man and not alone as was agreed.’ Xanthios turned around when he heard this, wishing to see if someone had followed him; and while he was turned Melanthos struck and killed him, and became king of Attica. From this the Athenians who had conquered the territory decided to celebrate a festival that they originally called the Apatenoria, and later the Apatouria, from the deception (apátē) that had taken place.”

[ back ] 3. Hellanicus FGrHist 323a F 23 (previous note) continues as follows (the form Neleus instead of Neileos occurs here and in other sources; cf. n1.43 above): Μελάνθου δὲ Κόδρος γενόμενος ἐκδέχεται τὴν βασιλείαν· ὃς καὶ ὑπὲρ τῆς πατρίδος ἀπέθανεν τρόπῳ τοιῷδε. πολέμου τοῖς Δωριεῦσιν ὄντος πρὸς Ἀθηναίους, ἔχρησεν ὁ θεὸς τοῖς Δωριεῦσιν αἱρήσειν τὰς Ἀθήνας, εἰ Κόδρον τὸν βασιλέα μὴ φονεύσωσιν. γνοὺς δὲ τοῦτο ὁ Κόδρος, στείλας ἑαυτὸν εὐτελεῖ σκεύει ὡς ξυλιστὴν καὶ δρέπανον λαβών, ἐπὶ τὸν χάρακα τῶν πολεμίων προῄει. δύο δὲ αὐτὸν ἀπαντησάντων πολεμίων τὸν μὲν ἕνα πατάξας κατέβαλεν, ὑπὸ δὲ τοῦ ἑτέρου ἀγνοηθεὶς ὅστις ἦν, πληγεὶς ἀπέθανεν, καταλιπὼν τὴν ἀρχὴν Μέδοντι τῷ πρεσβυτέρῳ τῶν παίδων. ὁ δὲ νεώτερος αὐτοῦ παῖς Νηλεὺς τῆς δωδεκαπόλεως Ἰωνίας κτίστης ἐγένετο, “Melanthos’s son Kodros received the kingship from him, and Kodros died for his country in the following way. While a war was being waged by the Dorians against the Athenians the god prophesied that the Dorians would take Athens if they did not kill Kodros the king. Kodros having learned of this dressed himself in simple clothes like a woodsman, took an ax, and set out to the enemy’s camp. When two of the enemy encountered him he struck and slew one of them, but he was struck by the other, who did not know who he was, and he died, leaving the rule to Medon, the elder of his sons; his younger son Neleus became the founder of the dodecapolis of Ionia.” The tradition that Neleus (i.e. Neileos) was the founder of the entire dodecapolis is secondary to the tradition that he was the founder of Miletus; the earliest source claiming his foundation of the dodecapolis is Panyassis in the fifth century, but the tradition itself, I think, goes back at least to the sixth century (see below n4.31 and §4.14). This tradition has to do with rival claims of Miletus and Ephesus to leadership of the Ionian colonization; the earliest source for the Ephesian claim is Pherekydes, also in the fifth century (see n4.32 below).

[ back ] 4. This conclusion is based on the following arguments developed in Part 1 above: the name of the founder of Pylos was Nehelawos in Mycenaean, became Neíleōs by regular sound changes in Ionic, and must have had the intermediate form *Neélaos in pre-Homeric epic; the royal family of Miletus transferred the name *Neélaos (Neíleōs) from the founder of Pylos to the founder of Miletus, and in consequence the Aeolic form Nēleús replaced *Neélaos as the founder of Pylos in epic; since the Homeric poems call the founder of Pylos Nēleús I conclude that in the Homeric era the name *Neélaos (Neíleōs) already belonged to the founder of Miletus and the Kodrid myth.

[ back ] 5. We know very little about the Medontids. In fourth-century Atthidography democratic institutions were projected back onto the Medontid rulers, who were said to be archons for ten-year periods, and before that archons for life, but not kings; for the existence of a Medontid dynasty, including its supposed last member, the cruel Hippomenes, see below n4.150, n4.151, and n4.152. For the question of the clan’s continued existence in the historical period, see EN4.10 to n4.150 below. Carlier 1984:360–361 considers that claims of Kodrid ancestry in Athens originated with the Medontid dynasty and not later (cf. nn 4.154 and 4.155 below). The Neleid dynasty of Miletus is better attested than are the Medontids; for stories of particular Neleid kings of Miletus, see §4.46–§4.51 below. The more abundant evidence for Neleids as compared with Medontids has to do with the Ionian tradition of novelistic stories, in which the Neleid rulers appear; cf. Jacoby 1949:392n20: “ ‘novelistic tales’…, in which Ionian chronicles abounded, do not seem to have existed in Athens at all (the Hippomenes story is decidedly not of that species).” The close relationship between Miletus and Athens is seen especially at the time of the Ionian revolt, which ended in the destruction of Miletus by the Persians in 494 BC. In instigating the revolt in 499 BC Aristagoras, the tyrant of Miletus, appealed to Athens for help on the grounds that Miletus had been colonized by Athens; Herodotus 5.97.2 tells how Aristagoras made this the final argument in his successful appeal to the Athenian assembly: ταῦτά τε δὴ ἔλεγε καὶ πρὸς τούτοισι τάδε, ὡς οἱ Μιλήσιοι τῶν Ἀθηναίων εἰσὶ ἄποικοι, καὶ οἰκός σφεας εἴη ῥύεσθαι δυναμένους μέγα, “He said these things, and in addition to these things the following, that the Milesians were colonists of the Athenians, and that it was right that the Athenians, with their great power, protect them.” This evidence is particularly valuable since it predates the fifth-century Athenian empire, which is sometimes claimed to account for the tradition that Athens was the metropolis of Ionian cities (a view held less now than formerly; for current views cf. Emlyn-Jones 1980:13–14 and Moggi 1996:103–104 with n105; for bibliography of Greek settlement in Ionia see Moggi 1996:103n103). Even M. B. Sakellariou, who espouses this general point of view, makes an exception of Miletus, and the above passage of Herodotus weighs heavily in his judgment: “This passage is precious to us because it shows clearly that the Milesians considered themselves as originally from Athens well before Athenian imperialism inspired the fictive thesis that all the Ionians of Asia Minor, and of the Cyclades, had come from Attica” (“Cette mention nous est précieuse parce qu’elle montre clairement que les Milésiens se considéraient eux-mêmes comme originaires d’Athènes bien avant que l’impérialisme athénien inspirât la thèse fictive selon la quelle tous les Ioniens d’Asie Mineure, ainsi que ceux des Cyclades, seraient issus de l’Attique,” Sakellariou 1958:39; the author discusses the literary evidence for the foundation of Miletus on pp. 39–44 and the institutional evidence, which is less decisive, on pp. 44–76; see especially pp. 44 top and 75 bottom). After the destruction of Miletus and the forced removal of its inhabitants in 494 BC (Herodotus 6.19–20), the Athenians demonstrated the depth of their feeling when Phrynichus produced a tragedy on the fall of Miletus and the Athenians fined him a thousand drachmas “for reminding them of their own woes” (Herodotus 6.21.2): Ἀθηναῖοι μὲν γὰρ δῆλον ἐποίησαν ὑπεραχθεσθέντες τῇ Μιλήτου ἁλώσι τῇ τε ἄλλῃ πολλαχῇ καὶ δὴ καὶ ποιήσαντι Φρυνίχῳ δρᾶμα Μιλήτου ἅλωσιν καὶ διδάξαντι ἐς δάκρυά τε ἔπεσε τὸ θέητρον καὶ ἐζημίωσάν μιν ὡς ἀναμνήσαντα οἰκήια κακὰ χιλίῃσι δραχμῇσι, καὶ ἐπέταξαν μηκέτι μηδένα χρᾶσθαι τούτῳ τῷ δράματι, “The Athenians made it clear that they were exceedingly grieved by the fall of Miletus in many other ways, but especially when Phrynichus made a play of the fall of Miletus and produced it and the theater fell into tears, and they fined him a thousand drachmas for reminding them of their own woes, and ordered that no one ever use this play again”). Cf. also Strabo 14.1.7. For Milesian survivors of the Ionian revolt, see Huxley 1966:152.

[ back ] 6. Cf. Cook 1975:786: “For the most part the title of ‘son of Codrus’ is a posthumous distinction conferred, where the tradition permitted, on the founders of those cities which had achieved Panionic status.”

[ back ] 7. Phocaea, which obtained its territory from Aeolic Cyme, was perhaps required to accept Kodrid rulers simply to insure its Ionic character; cf. Pausanias 7.3.10: τὴν χώραν δὲ οὐ πολέμῳ, κατὰ δὲ ὁμολογίαν [οἱ Φωκαεῖς] λαμβάνουσι παρὰ Κυμαίων· Ἰώνων δὲ οὐ δεχομένων σφᾶς ἐς Πανιώνιον πρὶν ἢ τοῦ γένους βασιλέας τοῦ Κοδριδῶν λάβωσιν, οὕτω παρὰ Ἐρυθραίων καὶ ἐκ Τέω Δεοίτην καὶ Πέρικλον λαμβάνουσι καὶ Ἄβαρτον, “They [the Phocaeans] took their land from the Cymaeans not by war, but through an agreement; the Ionians did not admit them to the Panionion before they accepted kings from the race of the Codrids, and so they took Deoites and Periklos from the Erythraeans and Abartos from Teos.” A fragment of the fifth-century writer Charon of Lampsakos confirms the presence of Kodrid rulers in Phocaea: Charon’s tale about a pair of brothers “from Phocaea of the family of the Kodrids” is referred to by Plutarch Bravery of Women 255a: ἐκ Φωκαίας τοῦ Κοδριδῶν γένους ἦσαν ἀδελφοὶ δίδυμοι Φόξος καὶ Βλέψος· ὧν ὁ Φόξος ἀπὸ τῶν Λευκάδων πετρῶν πρῶτος ἀφῆκεν ἑαυτὸν εἰς θάλασσαν, ὡς Χάρων ὁ Λαμψακηνὸς ἱστόρηκεν, “There were twin brothers from Phocaea of the family of the Kodrids, Phoxos and Blepsos, one of whom, Phoxos, threw himself from the Leukadian rocks into the sea, as Charon of Lampsacus has told”; cf. Momigliano 1932:266–267.

[ back ] 8. Three members of the league (besides Phocaea) apparently never had traditions of Kodrid founders, namely Chios, Samos, and Klazomenai. As islands Chios and Samos were geographically secure, and perhaps they joined the league more on their own terms than did other cities. King Hektor of Chios, whose ancestor Amphiklos came to Chios from Histiaia in Euboea three generations before him, decided to join the league on his own initiative after he drove the Carians and Abantes from the island, and when he joined he was given a special prize by the league; so the event is portrayed by Pausanias 7.4.9–10, whose source for Chios was the fifth-century poet and local historian Ion: Ἕκτωρ δὲ ἀπὸ Ἀμφίκλου τετάρτῃ γενεᾷ βασιλείαν γὰρ ἔσχε καὶ οὗτος ἐπολέμησεν Ἀβάντων καὶ Καρῶν τοῖς οἰκοῦσιν ἐν τῇ νήσῳ, καὶ τοὺς μὲν ἀπέκτεινεν ἐν ταῖς μάχαις, τοὺς δὲ ἀπελθεῖν ἠνάγκασεν ὑποσπόνδους. γενομένης δὲ ἀπαλλαγῆς πολέμου Χίοις, ἀφικέσθαι τηνικαῦτα ἐς μνήμην Ἕκτορι ὡς σφᾶς καὶ Ἴωσι δέοι συνθύειν ἐς Πανιώνιον· τρίποδα δὲ ἆθλον λαβεῖν αὐτὸν ἐπὶ ἀνδραγαθίᾳ παρὰ τοῦ κοινοῦ φησι τοῦ Ἰώνων. τοσαῦτα εἰρηκότα ἐς Χίους Ἴωνα εὕρισκον, “Hector held the kingship in the fourth generation after Amphikos, and fought against the Abantes and Carians living on the island, and he killed some of them in battles and forced others to leave under a truce; once the Chians were relieved of the war, it occurred to Hector that they should also sacrifice with the Ionians at Panionion. He [Ion] says that he received a tripod as a prize for valor from the league of the Ionians. So much I found Ion to have said concerning the Chians.” Various stories are preserved about the Kodrid founder of Erythrai, Knopos or Kleopos (cf. n4.35 below for the variation of name), and the stories are instructive: Polyaenus 8.43 recounts a novelistic tale about how Knopos, one of the race of Kodrids, gained possession of Erythrai with the help of a Thessalian priestess at the time of the Ionian colonization of Asia; Pausanias 7.3.7 says that when Cretans, Lycians, Carians, and Pamphylians inhabited Erythrai, Kleopos, the son of Kodros, gathered men from all the cities of Ionia and settled them there; Athenaeus 6.258f–259f tells how Knopos king of Erythrai was murdered by usurpers and avenged by his brother. It seems clear that the central figure in these stories became a Kodrid founder only secondarily: Polyaenus straightforwardly associates this figure with the Ionian colonization of Asia, but Pausanias assumes that the Ionian cities had already been settled when they contributed to the colonization of Erythrai, and Athenaeus takes his story of murder and revenge from the second book of the Histories of Hippias of Erythrai about his native city; cf. Lenschau 1944:229, who thinks that this Knopos cannot have been the founder of his city, for as founder he would have occurred in the first book of Hippias.

[ back ] 9. Wilamowitz 1906/1971:54/146–147 and 1906a/1971:70–71/165–166, argues that the tradition for Kodrid founders did not become established until after Herodotus and Ion in the fifth century since these authors still know nothing of the conquest of Ionia by a united Athenian expedition. But rival traditions for the leadership of a united Athenian expedition are found in Panyassis and Pherekydes, and the rivalry itself, between Miletus and Ephesus, seems to go back at least to the sixth century (see above n4.3 and below n4.31 and §4.14). Others have argued that the Kodrid myth was invented in the sixth century in Athens by Peisistratos (references in Càssola 1957:88n31, including Nilsson 1951:59–64), but Peisistratos could hardly have aspired to lead the cities of Asia Minor, which were under Persian domination by c. 540 BC (cf. n4.59 below); the focus of his attention was rather Delos, and even there his influence did not last (Delos soon came under the control of Polycrates of Samos). It was not until his final return to Athens, when the cities of Asia Minor were already under Persian domination, that Peisistratos purified Delos (Herodotus 1.64.2) and may also have renewed the old Ionian festival of the Delia (so Shapiro 1989:48, but the interpretation of Thucydides 3.104.2 is ambiguous; cf n4.97 below). Thucydides 3.104.3–6 contrasts the festival of Homer’s time, to which the Ionians of the mainland and the neighboring islanders gathered, with the festival of a later time, which no longer included the mainland Ionians; Shapiro connects the later festival with Peisistratos: “To the revived Delia came choruses from Athens and the Islands, but not from the cities of mainland Ionia, who were now under Persian (earlier Lydian) rule” (Shapiro 1989:49). Cf. also Huxley 1966:124–125; Cook 1975:784.

[ back ] 10. Cf. Momigliano 1932:266–267.

[ back ] 11. See above all Welcker 1832/1845:29–37 (who cites Zell 1826:9). Singing, dancing, and banqueting, and a love of clean clothes, warm baths, and beds, define the Phaeacian way of life; Welcker cites Odyssey 8.246–249, in which Alcinous speaks of the Phaeacians’ weaknesses, strengths, and predilections (cf. §2.126 above for this passage):

Welcker also cites Odyssey 8.252–253, where Alcinous calls on dancers to accompany Demodokos so that Odysseus can tell his own people how much the Phaeacians surpass others in seafaring, speed of foot, dancing, and singing: ὅσσον περιγινόμεθ’ ἄλλων / ναυτιλίῃ καὶ ποσσὶ καὶ ὀρχηστυῖ καὶ ἀοιδῇ. Singing is especially important to the Phaeacians, as we see in the three songs of Demodokos. Clean clothes are another repeated theme (and an important one for Nausicaa’s hidden identity; see §3.32–§3.37 above). Nausicaa disguises her real intention in doing the wash by saying that her father must have clean clothes for the meetings of his council (Odyssey 6.61), and her brothers for the dance (Odyssey 6.64–65): οἱ δ’ αἰεὶ ἐθέλουσι νεόπλυτα εἵματ’ ἔχοντες / ἐς χορὸν ἔρχεσθαι, “they always wish to go to the dance with newly washed clothes.” The Ionians too were known for their dress: Iliad 13.685 and Homeric Hymn to Apollo 147 call them Ἰάονες ἑλκεχίτωνες, “tunic-trailing Ionians,” and Asios, a probably sixth-century Samian poet, describes them entering Hera’s sanctuary on Samos in snow-white tunics (πεπυκασμένοι εἵμασι καλοῖς, / χιονέοισι χιτῶσι, Athenaeaus 12.525ef).

[ back ] 12. The Phaeacian city is laid out on a peninsula with harbors on either side, as in many Ionian (and Aeolic) cities of the Asia Minor coast; Cook 1962:30–31 (cf. also pp. 25 and 33) compares Lebedos and Myonessus (between Lebedos and Teos) with the Phaeacians’ city for this geographical feature. For a longer list of such peninsular cities, see Cook 1975:796–797. Cf. also Merkelbach 1969:234: “Poet ‘A’ portrays the Phaeacians for us as a living likeness of Ionian seafarers; the activity in their city and in the harbor (Odyssey 6.262–272) is a precious picture of an Ionian city” (“Die Phäaken schildert A uns als lebendiges Abbild der ionischen Seefahrer; das Treiben in ihrer Stadt und im Hafen (Odyssey 6.262–272) ist ein köstliches Bild einer ionischen Stadt”). Miletus too was laid out on a peninsula with harbors on either side; Kenzler 1999:88–89 and 121 with n115 compares Miletus with the Phaeacian city for its agorá situated on the isthmus close to the harbors (Odyssey 6.263–266, etc.; for the Phaeacian agorá see Martin 1951:28–31, 56–62); there are indications that the agorá of Geometric and Archaic Miletus was similarly placed, as it later was in the city rebuilt after the Persian destruction (Kenzler 1999:87, 89; cf. Martin 1951:58).

[ back ] 13. When Alcinous earlier meets with his council to decide on Odysseus’s nóstos their number is not mentioned (they are called only Φαιήκων ἡγήτορες ἠδὲ μέδοντες, “leaders and counselors of the Phaeacians,” in Odyssey 8.11 and 8.26, and σκηπτοῦχοι, “scepter-bearers,” in Odyssey 8.47), but they are clearly the twelve kings referred to later. We should not be misled by the fact that Alcinous stands above the other kings as the thirteenth king: Alcinous does not represent one city of the dodecapolis as opposed to others, but, with his queen Arete, he represents all twelve at once. By contast Nestor, who stands behind Alcinous, is included among the twelve sons of Neleus, and he therefore represents, at least notionally, a particular city—any of the twelve cities except Miletus. In reality, however, a particular city cannot be specified for Nestor; as Homeric hero he is the property of all. The inherent ambiguity of Nestor’s relationship to the dodecapolis—he is too large a figure to be associated with any one city, but his status as one of twelve implies that he is associated with one city—is resolved in the Phaeacian scheme, where Alcinous stands above the other twelve kings.

[ back ] 14. The sense of ethereal unreality about the Phaeacians has much to do, I think, with the fact that they represent a people—“Panionians”—that existed as such only at a festival.

[ back ] 15. Herodotus 1.146. In this chapter Herodotus details the diverse origins of the Ionians (Abantes, Minyans, Dryopes, Phocians, Molossians, Arcadians, Dorians), and he concludes his account by saying that even those who claimed to be the noblest of the Ionians (i.e., the most Athenian) arrived in Ionia without wives and married Carian women after killing their fathers, husbands, and children; at the end of this tale, he names the city where it took place, Miletus: οἱ δὲ αὐτῶν ἀπὸ τοῦ πρυτανηίου τοῦ Ἀθηναίων ὁρμηθέντες καὶ νομίζοντες γενναιότατοι εἶναι Ἰώνων, οὗτοι δὲ οὐ γυναῖκας ἠγάγοντο ἐς τὴν ἀποικίην ἀλλὰ Καείρας ἔσχον, τῶν ἐφόνευσαν τοὺς γονέας. διὰ τοῦτον δὲ τὸν φόνον αἱ γυναῖκες αὗται νόμον θέμεναι σφίσι αὐτῇσι ὅρκους ἐπήλασαν καὶ παρέδοσαν τῇσι θυγατράσι μή κοτε ὁμοσιτῆσαι τοῖσι ἀνδράσι μηδὲ οὐνόματι βῶσαι τὸν ἑωυτῆς ἄνδρα, τοῦδε εἵνεκα ὅτι ἐφόνευσαν σφέων τοὺς πατέρας καὶ ἄνδρας καὶ παῖδας καὶ ἔπειτε ταῦτα ποιήσαντες αὐτῇσι συνοίκεον. ταῦτα δὲ ἦν γινόμενα ἐν Μιλήτῳ, “Those of them who set forth from the prytaneion of the Athenians and think that they are the noblest of the Ionians did not bring wives with them to the colony, but took Carian wives, whose parents they murdered. Because of this murder these women made a law and forced themselves to swear oaths to it and passed it on to their daughters, never to eat together with their husbands or to call their own husbands by name, for this reason, that they had murdered their fathers, husbands, and children, and lived with them after they had done it. This happened in Miletus.”

[ back ] 16. There was no royal palace on the fifth-century Athenian Acropolis; the prytaneion was its contemporary equivalent. How and Wells 1928 on Herodotus 1.146 take mention of the prytaneion to be an anachronistic reference by the Milesians to the place from which colonies were sent out in historical times; this seems plausible, but I find no actual parallels for a prytaneion in such a context. See n4.172 below for the likelihood that the Neleid family still had considerable power in Miletus in the fifth century BC; I think that it is very possible that Herodotus had this family particularly in mind in speaking of the Milesians’ excessive pride in their Athenian origins.

[ back ] 17. For the genuine historical connection between Athens and Miletus see Sakellariou 1958 as discussed above n4.5; Sakellariou gives particular weight to two passages of Herodotus: 5.97 (discussed above n4.5) and the present passage, 1.146; in both cases it is the Milesians themselves who claim an Athenian origin.

[ back ] 18. The name of the royal family in Erythrai (as in Ephesus) was Basilidai; this name presumably became linked secondarily to Kodros in both Ephesus and Erythrai. In Athens a female figure named Basile, who was paired with Neleus in a cult to which Kodros was later added, may also reflect the link between the name Basilidai and Kodros, especially in Ephesus (for the Basilidai see below §4.11 and n4.43 and n4.44; for Basile see §4.13 below).

[ back ] 19. Herodotus mentions Smyrna’s failure to gain admission to the league when he discusses the undue pride of the twelve member cities in the Ionian name and the exclusive nature of the Panionion itself, which the twelve cities did not wish to share with other Ionians: in fact, Herodotus says, other Ionians did not ask to join, apart from the Smyrnaeans (Herodotus 1.143.3): 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), “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).” Strabo 14.1.4 reports that Smyrna was in fact later admitted to the league through the good offices of Ephesus: αὗται μὲν δώδεκα Ἰωνικαὶ πόλεις, προσελήφθη δὲ χρόνοις ὕστερον καὶ Σμύρνα εἰς τὸ Ἰωνικὸν ἐναγαγόντων Ἐφεσίων· ἦσαν γὰρ αὐτοῖς σύνοικοι τὸ παλαιόν, ἡνίκα καὶ Σμύρνα ἐκαλεῖτο ἡ Ἔφεσος, “These are the twelve Ionian cities, and in later times Smyrna was also admitted to the Ionian confederacy, when the Ephesians brought them in. For in ancient times they were fellow inhabitants of the Ephesians, when Ephesus was also called Smyrna.” Pausanias 7.5.1 has a similar account, and a similar unspecific phrase for the time of Smyrna’s admission to the league: Σμύρναν δὲ ἐν ταῖς δώδεκα πόλεσιν οὖσαν Αἰολέων καὶ οἰκουμένην τῆς χώρας, καθ’ ἃ καὶ ἐς ἐμὲ ἔτι πόλιν [ἣν] καλοῦσιν ἀρχαίαν, ῎Ιωνες ἐκ Κολοφῶνος ὁρμηθέντες ἀφελόμενοι τοὺς Αἰολεῖς ἔσχον· χρόνῳ δὲ ὕστερον καὶ Ἴωνες μετέδοσαν Σμυρναίοις τοῦ ἐν Πανιωνίῳ συλλόγου, “Smyrna was one of the Aeolians’ twelve cites, and it was located in that part of the country that down to my time they still call the old city; Ionians who came from Colophon took it from the Aeolians and held it; at a later time the Ionians gave the Smyrnaeans a share in the Ionian assembly at Panionion.” The “later time” of Smyrna’s admission to the league cannot refer to the period before Alyattes and the Lydians destroyed Smyrna c. 600 BC (as Wilamowitz 1906/1971:52/144–145 and others contend; cf. EN4.3 to n4.72 below), for Herodotus’s statement plainly rules this out; the reference must be instead to the revived city of Smyrna which was admitted to the revived Panionion at the end of the fourth century or beginning of the third century BC; Smyrna remained a member of this later league through Hellenistic and Roman times (cf. Roebuck 1955:38n38). The role of Ephesus in gaining Smyrna’s admission (Strabo 14.1.4) goes well with such a late date, far better than with an early date (see §4.11 and n4.45 below on Ephesus’s leadership of the revived Panionia, which Strabo attests for his own day); the role of Ephesus in fact makes most sense in the early-third century BC under Lysimachus (see Ragone 1986:191–194). It is interesting that a decree of the league honoring a Milesian citizen in 289 BC, which was to be inscribed and set up in each city of the league as well as at Panionion, survives in two copies, one from Miletus and the other from Smyrna: both begin with the words ἔδοξε Ἰώνων τῶι κοινῶι, “it was decreed by the league of Ionians,” but the Smyrnaean copy adds the phrase τῶν τρε[ισκαί]δεκα πόλεων, “of the thirteen cities” (Dittenberger 1915–1924 no. 368 line 1 note 1). If this reflects Smyrna’s pride in having become the thirteenth city of the league, Smyrna had presumably achieved this distinction recently and not centuries earlier. Strabo 14.1.37 gives a brief history of Smyrna from the destruction of the old city by Alyattes, after which the Smyrnaeans lived in villages “for about four hundred years” until Antigonus revived the city in a new location twenty stades from the old city, and Lysimachus continued to foster the new city: ἑξῆς δὲ ἄλλος κόλπος, ἐν ᾧ ἡ παλαιὰ Σμύρνα ἀπὸ εἴκοσι σταδίων τῆς νῦν. Λυδῶν δὲ κατασπασάντων τὴν Σμύρναν περὶ τετρακόσια ἔτη διετέλεσεν οἰκουμένη κωμηδόν· εἶτα ἀνήγειρεν αὐτὴν Ἀντίγονος, καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα Λυσίμαχος, καὶ νῦν ἐστι καλλίστη τῶν πασῶν, “Next is another gulf, in which was old Smyrna, twenty stades from the present city. For about four hundred years after the Lydians destroyed Smyrna it continued to be inhabited in villages; then Antigonus brought it back to life, and after that Lysimachus, and now it is the most beautiful of all the cities” (Strabo here overstates by more than a century the time between the destruction of old Smyrna c. 600 BC and the foundation of the new city by Antigonus, who died in 301 BC). Strabo and Pausanias seem to follow a common source in saying that Smyrna was admitted to the Panionion “at a later time” (χρόνοις ὕστερον, Strabo 14.1.4; χρόνῳ δὲ ὕστερον, Pausanias 7.5.1); this source perhaps wished to qualify Herodotus’s statement that Smyrna was refused admission to the Panionion by providing information pertaining to the later city of Antigonus and Lysimachus.

[ back ] 20. Herodotus 1.150: Σμύρνην δὲ ὧδε ἀπέβαλον Αἰολέες· Κολοφωνίους ἄνδρας στάσι ἑσσωθέντας καὶ ἐκπεσόντας ἐκ τῆς πατρίδος ὑπεδέξαντο. μετὰ δὲ οἱ φυγάδες τῶν Κολοφωνίων φυλάξαντες τοὺς Σμυρναίους ὁρτὴν ἔξω τείχεος ποιευμένους Διονύσῳ, τὰς πύλας ἀποκληίσαντες ἔσχον τὴν πόλιν. βοηθησάντων δὲ πάντων Αἰολέων ὁμολογίῃ ἐχρήσαντο τὰ ἔπιπλα ἀποδόντων τῶν Ἰώνων ἐκλιπεῖν Σμύρνην Αἰολέας. ποιησάντων δὲ ταῦτα, Σμυρναίους ἐπιδιείλοντο σφίσι αἱ ἕνδεκα πόλιες καὶ ἐποιήσαντο σφέων αὐτέων πολιήτας, “The Aeolians lost Smyrna in the following way: They received men from Colophon who had been defeated in civil strife and exiled from their country. Afterwards the Colophonian exiles waited for the Smyrnaeans to celebrate a festival of Dionysus outside the city walls, and they locked the gates and took possession of the city. When all the Aeolians sent help, an agreement was reached that the Aeolians would leave Smyrna if the Ionians gave them back their moveable property. They did this, and the eleven other [Aeolian] cities divided up the Smyrnaeans and made them their own citizens.”

[ back ] 21. Smyrna was Ionian by 688 BC according to Pausanias 5.8.7 (he says that when Onomastos of Smyrna won the boxing at the twenty-third Olympic festival Smyrna was already an Ionian city: Ὀνόμαστος…ἐκ Σμύρνης συντελούσης ἤδη τηνικαῦτα ἐς Ἴωνας). How much earlier Smyrna had became Ionian is not known. Cook 1952:104, on the basis of pottery, thinks that the change from an Aeolic to an Ionian city had already occurred by 800 BC.

[ back ] 22. Cf. Cook 1975:784; I agree with Cook that Athens played a leading role in the Ionian migration, but as the mother city of Miletus and not of all Ionia; Colophon may well have had a non-Athenian origin. The issue is discussed further in EN4.1.

[ back ] 23. If Andraimon came to Colophon directly from Pylos, when did he come? It is not necessary that he left Pylos when the Bronze Age city was destroyed, for Pylians seem to have survived for centuries in other locations in Messenia until the Messenian Wars. But the Messenian Wars themselves are too late a date, for the Pylians’ final emigration from the Peloponnesus was not to Ionia, but to Italy. See below n5.64 and EN5.9. Mimnermus fr. 9 West, by calling Pylos “the city of Neleus,” probably means to say that his ancestors founded Colophon as early as the Neleids founded Miletus; whether they actually did so seems doubtful, but the date cannot be fixed; cf. Kiechle 1960:12–13, 12n5, and Huxley 1962:147n680.

[ back ] 24. Jeffery 1976:225: “We can only guess at reasons [for Smyrna’s rejection]: perhaps some assenting Aiolians had remained there, or perhaps Kolophon blocked the proposal because she herself had exiled these Ionians in the first place.” See further EN4.3 to n4.72 below.

[ back ] 25. Pausanias 7.3.3: when the Ionians under their two Kodrid leaders arrived they made terms and lived together with Greeks from Crete and Thebes who already inhabited Colophon: Ἴωνες δὲ ὅρκους ποιησάμενοι πρὸς τοὺς ἐν Κολοφῶνι Ἕλληνας συνεπολιτεύοντο, οὐδὲν ἔχοντες πλέον· βασιλείαν δὲ Ἰώνων ἡγεμόνες Δαμασίχθων λαμβάνει καὶ Πρόμηθος Κόδρου παῖδες, “The Ionians made oaths with the Greeks in Colophon and lived with them as members of one state without taking advantage of them; but the leaders of the Ionians, Damasichthon and Promethos, sons of Kodros, took the kingship.” The amity between the new and old settlers of Colophon in this Kodrid tradition contrasts with what Mimnermus says of his ancestors when they arrived in Colophon and began hostilities with the inhabitants (he calls them ἀργαλέης ὕβριος ἡγεμόνες, “leaders of harsh violence [húbris]”); as Lenschau 1944:229 remarks, húbris implies an assault, not on natives (that would be expected), but on other Greeks. Again there seems to be an antithesis between the Kodrid tradition for the foundation of Colophon and Mimnermus’s tradition.

[ back ] 26. Pausanias 7.3.5: τὸ δὲ ἐξ ἀρχῆς καὶ τὴν Λέβεδον ἐνέμοντο οἱ Κᾶρες, ἐς ὃ Ἀνδραίμων σφᾶς ὁ Κόδρου καὶ Ἴωνες ἐλαύνουσι. τῷ δὲ Ἀνδραίμονι ὁ τάφος ἐκ Κολοφῶνος ἰόντι ἐστὶν ἐν ἀριστερᾷ τῆς ὁδοῦ, διαβάντι τὸν Καλάοντα ποταμόν, “Originally Carians inhabited Lebedos, until Andraimon, Kodros’s son, and the Ionians drove them out. The tomb of Andraimon is on the left side of the road as one leaves Colophon and crosses the Kalaon River.” Pausanias is a reliable source for this information, based as it is on his own observation of Andraimon’s tomb. See Habicht 1984:43–46 and Moggi 1996:94–95 for Pausanias’s independent research on local traditions for the founding of individual Ionian cities (as opposed to traditions for a single founding of all Ionia); Pausanias’s information is supported epigraphically in the case of Promethos, one of the two Kodrid founders of Colophon, by a génos of Προμήθειοι in Colophon on a fourth-century BC inscription (Habicht 1984:45–46).

[ back ] 27. Cf. Wilamowitz 1906a/1971:64n3/158n2. It is possible that the party that ultimately prevailed at Colophon had already accepted Kodrid founders before exiling its adversaries, and that joining the Panionic league was one of the points of conflict between the parties, but this seems unlikely to me: whereas Smyrna probably became Ionian c. 800 BC (see n4.21 above), I doubt that the Panionic league came into existence before the mid-eighth century BC (see below §4.67 and §4.70). There is also the fact that Smyrna sought admission to the league, and an earlier opposition to league membership, if this was a cause of exile from Colophon, would not be consistent with this.

[ back ] 28. For hostility between Colophon and Smyrna I simply note a late piece of evidence: the Life of Homer preserved in the Suda s.v. Ὅμηρος (Allen 1912:256–268) refers to a war between Colophon and Smyrna in which Homer was given as a hostage to the Colophonians and thus got his name (lines 25–26 Allen): ἐκλήθη δὲ Ὅμηρος διὰ τὸ πολέμου ἐνισταμένου Σμυρναίοις πρὸς Κολοφωνίους ὅμηρον δοθῆναι, “Homer was so called from his having been given as a hostage (hómēros) when a war arose for the Smyrnaeans against the Colophonians.” This war does not seem to refer to the capture of Smyrna as described by Herodotus, although it may be based on that.

[ back ] 29. Cf. Calder OCD ^2/3 s.v. ‘Ephesus’: “City at the mouth of the river Caÿster…, which rivalled and finally displaced Miletus, and owing to the silting up of both harbours since antiquity has itself been displaced by Ismir (Smyrna) as the seaport of the Maeander valley”; for the rivalry between Ephesus and Miletus cf. also Herda 1998:19.

[ back ] 30. Cf. Bürchner RE ‘Ephesos’ 2789: “The fall of the city of Miletus (493 BC) was a cause of the flourishing of Ephesus” (“Der Fall der Stadt Miletos [493] war eine Ursache des Aufblühens von Ephesos”). Ephesus took no part in the Battle of Lade (Ephesus is absent from Herodotus’s catalogue of ships before the battle, Herodotus 6.8; Colophon, Klazomenai, and Lebedos are also absent); cf. also Herodotus 6.16 and Gerhard Kleiner in Kleiner et al. 1967:11. Before the Ionian revolt a famous oracle was delivered to Carians who asked whether or not to take the Milesians as allies against the Persians; the oracle’s answer: πάλαι ποτ’ ἦσαν ἄλκιμοι Μιλήσιοι, “the Milesians were powerful once long ago” (Diodorus 10.25.2; the oldest source is the early-fifth century lyric poet Timocreon of Rhodes fr. 7 Page [PMG 733]; the oracle is quoted and parodied by Aristophanes Wealth 1002, Wasps 1060; cf. Hiller von Gaertringen RE ‘Miletos’ 1597).

[ back ] 31. Suda s.v. Πανύασις· …ἔγραψε…Ἰωνικὰ ἐν πενταμέτρῳ, ἔστι δὲ τὰ περὶ Κόδρον καὶ Νηλέα καὶ τὰς Ἰωνικὰς ἀποικίας, εἰς ἔπη ,ζ’, “Panyassis…wrote…an Ionian history in pentameters, which tells the events pertaining to Kodros and Neleus and the Ionian colonies in seven thousand verses [i.e. 3500 distichs]” (for the form Neleús rather than Neíleōs cf. n4.3 above and see n1.43). Although this brief summary does not explicitly state that Panyassis made Neleus the leader of the Ionian migration, no other conclusion can naturally be drawn from it. The tradition is next found in Hellanicus FGrHist 323a F 11, which calls Erythrai “one of the cities founded by Neleus, the son of Kodros”; for Hellanicus FGrHist F 23, see n4.3 above. The Parian Marble FGrHist 239 F A27 follows Hellanicus in saying that Neleus founded Miletus and the rest of Ionia, listing the other eleven cities by name (see Jacoby, commentary on Hellanicus FGrHist F 23, n22, citing Jacoby 1949:227n5). Panyassis belongs to the first half of the fifth century BC. He was killed by Lygdamis, the tyrant of Halicarnassus, who seems to have ruled for a decade down to c. 450 BC; see Matthews 1974:12–19. Before Panyassis Cadmus of Miletus (probably sixth century BC) seems to have followed the same tradition; only the subject of his work is known, but it is significant: κτίσις Μιλήτου καὶ τῆς ὅλης Ἰωνίας, “foundation of Miletus and all Ionia” (Suda s.v. Κάδμος Πανδίονος, FGrHist 489 T 1; cf. Moggi 1996:79).

[ back ] 32. Strabo 14.1.3 cites Pherekydes as a source for his general description of Ionia, and for the particular role that he assigns to Androklos as leader of the Ionian colonization: ἄρξαι δέ φησιν [sc. Φερεκύδης] Ἄνδροκλον τῆς τῶν Ἰώνων ἀποικίας, ὕστερον τῆς Αἰολικῆς, υἱὸν γνήσιον Κόδρου τοῦ Ἀθηνῶν βασιλέως, γενέσθαι δὲ τοῦτον Ἐφέσου κτίστην, “[Pherekydes] says that Androklos, legitimate son of Kodros, the king of Athens, led the colony of the Ionians, which was later than the colony of the Aeolians, and that he was the founder of Ephesus.” Eusebius’s date for Pherekydes is 456 BC, but a reliable dating is not possible (different suggestions in Jacoby1947:33 and Huxley 1973). For Panyassis and Pherekydes as representatives of the two different traditions of Ionian leadership cf. n1.61 above.

[ back ] 33. In my view the Kodrid myth, as already known to Homer, always implied that Miletus was the leader of the Ionian colonization, but I have in mind here the explicit claim to leadership by Ephesus and the equally explicit claim by Miletus; these claims, I think, resulted from the rivalry itself.

[ back ] 34. Pausanias 7.2.1–7.4.10; Strabo 14.1.3.

[ back ] 35. Cook 1975:783: “Apart from the rival claims of the houses of Miletus and Ephesus to the leadership and from some minor discrepancies—of which the most serious concerns the Kodrid founders of Colophon—the two accounts are tolerably consistent.” For Colophon see §4.8 above. There are discrepancies in the forms of the names of three of the Kodrid founders: the founder of Erythrai is Knō̂pos in Strabo, Kléopos in Pausanias (cf. n4.8 above); the founder of Myus is Kudrē̂los in Strabo, Kuárētos in Pausanias; the founder of Teos is Naûklos in Strabo, Náoklos in Pausanias. Pausanias also gives a second Kodrid founder of Teos, Damasos, where Strabo gives only Nauklos. For the different forms of the names, which may be the error of one or the other author or manuscript corruption, see Moggi 1996:87–88 (Strabo’s form Knō̂pos for the founder of Erythrai is confirmed by three other sources: Hippias of Erythrai, FrGHist 421 F 1 [accent Knōpós]; Polyaenus 8.43; Stephanus of Byzantium s.v. Ἐρυθραί, who also gives Knōpoúpolis as another name of Erythrai).

[ back ] 36. Strabo 14.1.3: ῎Ανδροκλον…υἱὸν γνήσιον Κόδρου…γενέσθαι…Ἐφέσου κτίστην, “Androklos, legitimate son of Kodros…was the founder of Ephesus.”

[ back ] 37. Strabo 14.1.3: Κυδρῆλος δὲ νόθος υἱὸς Κόδρου Μυοῦντα κτίζει…. Τέω…Ναῦκλος υἱὸς Κόδρου νόθος…. Ἐρυθρὰς δὲ Κνῶπος, καὶ οὗτος υἱὸς Κόδρου νόθος, “Kydrelos, a bastard son of Kodros, founded Myus…. Nauklos, a bastard son of Kodros, [founded] Teos…. Knopos, who was also a bastard son of Kodros, [founded] Erythrai.”

[ back ] 38. Strabo, no longer following Pherekydes but on his own authority, explains that Athenian Kodrids were also Pylians by ancestry: οἵ τε Μεσσήνιοι καὶ οἱ Πύλιοι συγγένειάν τινα προσποιοῦνται, καθ’ ἣν καὶ Μεσσήνιον τὸν Νέστορα οἱ νεώτεροί φασι ποιηταί, καὶ τοῖς περὶ Μέλανθον τὸν Κόδρου πατέρα πολλοὺς καὶ τῶν Πυλίων συνεξᾶραί φασιν εἰς τὰς Ἀθήνας· τοῦτον δὴ πάντα τὸν λαὸν μετὰ τῶν Ἰώνων κοινῇ στεῖλαι τὴν ἀποικίαν, “The Messenians and the Pylians claim a certain relationship, according to which the newer poets say that Nestor was Messenian, and that many of the Pylians also emigrated to Athens with the party of Melanthos, the father of Kodros; and that this entire people together with the Ionians sent out the colony” (Strabo 14.1.3). Modern scholars have taken the same way out as Strabo, saying that the phrase “from Pylos by race” can also mean Athenian in this case. They have argued further that the statement that Neleus was a Pylian by race does not come from Pherekydes but is Strabo’s own. It seems to me, however, that Strabo has followed Pherekydes for all the founders, even where, as here, he had to explain what did not make sense to him. The contrast between the one genuine son of Kodros and his three bastard sons shows, I think, that as far as the founders are concerned Strabo’s account is all of one piece; his statement about the one genuine son, furthermore, is attributed directly to Pherekydes.

[ back ] 39. Pausanias gives Kodrid founders to the same four cities as Strabo, including Androklos to Ephesus, but he makes no distinction between legitimate and illegitimate Kodrids; he gives Kodrid founders to three other cities as well: Miletus (Neleus), Colophon (Promethos and Damasichthon), and Lebedos (Andraimon); these Kodrid founders seem to me to reflect what the cities themselves claimed as members of the Panionic league, which is what might also be called the Milesian version (see §4.8 above for Colophon and Lebedos). The Ephesian version denied legitimate Kodrid founders to all but Ephesus, and it denied Kodrid founders of any kind where a rival tradition existed, as for Colophon (§4.8 above). Four cities do not have Kodrid founders in either source: the islands of Chios and Samos and the northernmost cities of Phocaea and Klazomenai. The founder of Priene in both sources is Aipytos, the son of Neleus, the founder of Miletus; this makes him a Kodrid (or the son of a Kodrid) in one source but not the other. The final tally of Kodrid founders is thus four of twelve in Strabo and eight of twelve in Pausanias. This count in itself is a strong argument that the Kodrid traditions had a Milesian, not an Ephesian, origin.

[ back ] 40. Momigliano 1932.

[ back ] 41. Wilamowitz 1906a/1971:65–66/159–160, arguing that originally Colophon was the leading city of Ionia, drew attention to traditions in which the origins of Ephesus were much humbler than later claimed by the Ephesians; according to one such tradition Ephesus was founded by Samian slaves (Athenaeus 6.267ab; see n4.67 below). Wilamowitz comments on Ephesus’s modest beginnings: “In general one should not be misled by the city of Lysimachus and the brilliance of the Roman provincial capital to attribute a great importance to the old Ephesus. It first acquired this importance from the trade routes into the interior, when it was a base for the Lydians and Persians…. A special connection with Athens is altogether not credible” (“Man darf sich überhaupt durch die Stadt des Lysimachos und den Glanz der römischen Provinzialhauptstadt nicht verleiten lassen, dem alten Ephesus eine grosse Bedeutung beizulegen. Die hat es durch die Handelstrasse ins Innere erst erhalten, als es Stützpunkt der Lyder und Perser war…. Eine besondere Verbindung mit Athen ist durchaus nicht glaublich”). Cf. also Högemann 2001:61: “How haltingly the Greeks settled in the region of old Abasa/Ephesus is shown by the report of the local historian Kreophylos of Ephesus (fourth century BC?) that the Ionians settled first on an island in the Cayster, and only twenty years later moved to the harbor of Koressos on the mainland (FGrHist 417 F 1; Knibbe 1998:72–82)” (“Wie zaghaft die Griechen sich im Gebiet des alten Abasa/Ephesus einnisteten, zeigt die Nachricht des Lokalhistorikers Kreophylos von Ephesos (4. Jh. v. Chr.?): Die Ionier hätten sich zuerst auf einer Insel im Kaystros niedergelassen und seien erst 20 Jahre später zum Koressos-Hafen aufs Festland übergesiedelt [FGrHist 417 F 1; Knibbe 1998:72–82]”). The island in Kreophylos’s account is not in fact named or located; Wilamowitz takes the island to be Samos (see n4.67 below).

[ back ] 42. Strabo 14.1.3: ἄρξαι δέ φησιν [sc. Pherekydes] Ἄνδροκλον τῆς τῶν Ἰώνων ἀποικίας…· διόπερ τὸ βασίλειον τῶν Ἰώνων ἐκεῖ συστῆναί φασι, καὶ ἔτι νῦν οἱ ἐκ τοῦ γένους ὀνομάζονται βασιλεῖς ἔχοντές τινας τιμάς, προεδρίαν τε ἐν ἀγῶσι καὶ πορφύραν ἐπίσημον τοῦ βασιλικοῦ γένους, σκίπωνα ἀντὶ σκήπτρου, καὶ τὰ ἱερὰ τῆς Ἐλευσινίας Δήμητρος, “[Pherekydes] says that Androklos, a legitimate son of Kodros, the king of Athens, led the colony of the Ionians, which was later than the colony of the Aeolians, and that he was the founder of Ephesus…; for that reason, they say, the royal capital of the Ionians arose there, and even now members of the family are called kings and have certain honors, the front seat and purple as the insignia of the royal family at assemblies, a staff representing a scepter, and the sacred rites of the Eleusinian Demeter.” Strabo supports Pherekydes’ statement that Androklos led the Ionian migration with what he then adds, but, as the change of verb from φησίν, “he says,” to φασί, “they say,” shows, the source is no longer Pherekydes, but later authorities. It would seem from this that Pherekydes did not refer to “the kingship of the Ionians” (we cannot say whether or not he knew of it). Cf. Jacoby, commentary on Pherekydes FGrHist 3 F 155: “One may not conclude from it [Strabo’s account] that Pherekydes perhaps already regarded Androklos as the ‘king of all the Ionians’ ” (“Man wird daraus nicht schliessen dürfen, dass etwa schon Pherekydes Androklos als ‘Allkönig der Ionier’ ansah”). Jacoby of course does not deny that Pherekydes considered Androklos the leader of the Ionian colonization, for that is a different matter from the “kingship of the Ionians” at Ephesus. According to Jacoby Strabo’s immediate source, in which the references to Pherekydes were included, was the Ephesian geographer Artemidorus (floruit 104–101 BC); the reference to the “kingship of the Ionians,” and to the prerogatives of the “kings” at Ephesus, were then due to Artemidorus.

[ back ] 43. The name is attested by the Suda s.v. Πυθαγόρας Ἐφέσιος, where Baton of Sinope (third century BC, FGrHist 268 F 3) is cited for the story of Pythagoras, the cruel tyrant of Ephesus who ended the rule of the Basilidai: Πυθαγόρας Ἐφέσιος· καταλύσας δι’ ἐπιβουλῆς τὴν τῶν Βασιλιδῶν καλουμένην ἀρχὴν ἀνεφάνη τε τύραννος πικρότατος, κτλ., “Pythagoras the Ephesian: having ended what is called the rule of the Basilidai through a conspiracy, he showed himself to be the bitterest tyrant,” etc. If Pythagoras was immediately followed by the tyrant Melas, who is dated to the time of Alyattes, his date would be c. 600 BC; otherwise he was earlier (Huxley 1966:78).

[ back ] 44. Aristotle Politics 1305b18–19: καὶ ἐν Ἐρυθραῖς δὲ ἐπὶ τῆς τῶν Βασιλιδῶν ὀλιγαρχίας ἐν τοῖς ἀρχαίοις χρόνοις, “and in Erythrai during the oligarchy of the Basilidai in the early times.”

[ back ] 45. A fourth-century inscription found at Panionion calls the representatives to the newly refounded Panionic league of that era “scepter-bearing kings”; the inscription refers in particular to the “king of the Ephesians,” and this may suggest a privileged place for the Ephesian representative among the representatives of the other cities. The inscription, edited with commentary by P. Hommel (Kleiner et al. 1967:45–63), regulates dues and fines to be administered by the “kings”; see commentary to lines 2–4, pp. 54–55, and to lines 17–25, pp. 59–63, for the term “(scepter-bearing) kings” used of the various cities’ representatives. This Homeric phrase may be as old as the Homeric era as an official term of the league, but it is not attested before this inscription (Herodotus uses the term próbouloi of the representatives sent by the cities of the sixth- and early fifth-century league); the phrase is perhaps just a high-sounding innovation of the fourth century. For the βασιλέα τὸν Ἐφε[σίων, “king of he Ephesians” in line 22 of the inscription there is unfortunately no context; see commentary p. 62. Cf. also Jeffery 1976:222–223 and for further bibliography 235n7. The phrases “scepter-bearing kings” and “king of the Ephesians” on the fourth-century inscription do not correspond to the office of “king of the Ionians” attested later at Ephesus by Strabo; it is possible that “king and prytanis,” another phrase that occurs without context in the inscription (line 21), refers to a “king of the Ionians” (so Carlier 1984:453), and in this case the office is as old as the refounded Panionic league of the fourth century. Other possible evidence for the kingship of the Ionians is cited by Momigliano 1932a and Carlier 1984:450–455: Strabo 8.7.2 refers to the priest of Poseidon Helikonios at Panionion, whom Priene provided, as a βασιλεύς, “king”: καὶ δὴ πρὸς τὴν θυσίαν ταύτην βασιλέα καθιστᾶσιν ἄνδρα νέον Πριηνέα τὸν τῶν ἱερῶν ἐπιμελησόμενον, “and for this sacrifice they appoint as king a young man from Priene in order to take care of the sacred rites” (the word βασιλέα in this passage is actually omitted in most manuscripts); βασιλεύς refers to a league official on an inscription from Priene of the first or second century BC (IP [Hiller 1906] no. 536); a βασιλεὺς Ἰώνων, “king of the Ionians” (βασιλεία τῶν Ἰώνων, “kingship of the Ionians”) is attested several times between the first and third centuries AD on inscriptions from Chios, Didyma, Phocaea, Samos, and Ephesus. Both Momigliano and Carlier regard the “king of the Ionians” as an early institution, going back to the Ionian migration; I agree instead with Dittenberger 1903–1905 no. 489, who is cautious about the title βασιλεὺς Ἰώνων, “king of the Ionians” in the second-century AD inscription from Phocaea, warning (n9) “that it [the term king] may have been established, like many other things in that age, through a certain pretension of antiquity,” (“ne id [regium nomen] affectatione quadam antiquitatis, ut multa alia illa aetate, institutum sit”); cf. also Herda 2006:61 and n100, who identifies the title “king of the Ionians” with the Prienean priest of Poseidon Helikonios.

[ back ] 46. Thucydides 3.104.3: ἦν δέ ποτε καὶ τὸ πάλαι μεγάλη ξύνοδος ἐς τὴν Δῆλον τῶν Ἰώνων τε καὶ περικτιόνων νησιωτῶν· ξύν τε γὰρ γυναιξὶ καὶ παισὶν ἐθεώρουν, ὥσπερ νῦν ἐς τὰ Ἐφέσια Ἴωνες, “There used to be in ancient times a great assembly on Delos of the Ionians and the neighboring islanders; they attended the festival with their wives and children, as the Ionians now do the Ephesia.” Some have seen the final phrase as an editor’s marginal comment that was included in the text, but this is not the usual view.

[ back ] 47. At some time after the Ionian revolt the festival of the Panionia seems to have been transferred from Mykale to Ephesus, and it is possible that this was the festival of the Ephesia mentioned by Thucydides; such a transfer of the Panionia to Ephesus, although it may have taken place later than Thucydides and be unrelated to the Ephesia, would in either case have strengthened Ephesus’s claim to “the kingship of the Ionians.” What is known about the Panionia after the Ionian revolt is discussed in EN4.2.

[ back ] 48. Domination by the Lydians was a continual threat from the time of Gyges, whose rule began c. 680 BC, until domination became a reality under Croesus, whose rule lasted from 561 to 547 BC. Herodotus reports the successive campaigns of the Lydians against the Ionians as follows: Gyges sent an expedition against Miletus and Smyrna and captured Colophon (1.14.4); Ardys took Priene and sent an expedition against Miletus (1.15); Sadyattes made war against Miletus for six years (1.17.1, 1.18.2); Alyattes sacked Smyrna (c. 600 BC) but suffered a severe defeat when he advanced against Klazomenai (1.16.2); Alyattes continued his father’s war against Miletus for five years, invading yearly to destroy crops, but failed to take the city because of its access to the sea, and finally made a treaty of friendship and alliance with Miletus (1.17–22). Croesus subdued all the Greeks of Asia, beginning with Ephesus (1.26–27.1); he forced them to pay tribute (1.27.1, cf. 1.6.2); he probably also made them participate in his military levy (see Gorman 2001:123–124 and 124n64). Herodotus does not comment specifically on Miletus’s status under Croesus, and it is uncertain whether it suffered the same fate as the other mainland cities; cf. Gorman 2001:124: “Nothing in Herodotus states directly that Croesus changed the terms of the existing treaty [of Alyattes] with Miletos; the historian simply says that Croesus conquered each Ionian city in turn and forced Ionia to pay tribute. There are no exceptions mentioned, and it is unlikely that the man who conquered all of western Asia would allow a prosperous commercial center in the midst of his holdings to avoid taxation. Miletos must be considered a tribute-paying ally by that time.” Cook 1962:98 thinks, to the contrary, that Croesus did not reduce Miletus with the other cities, and Herodotus seems to bear this out (see n4.50 below); so also G. Kleiner in Kleiner et al. 1967:10. If this was the case Miletus’s special treatment by the Persians (see n4.50 below) simply continued its previous treatment by the Lydians. Before and perhaps still under Croesus, as is apparent from the summary above, Miletus was the prize that eluded the Lydians because it could not successfully be besieged. But, as the Lydians’ main target, Miletus also became isolated from the other Ionian cities and had to fend for itself. Herodotus reports that during the eleven years of invasions carried out by Alyattes under his father’s rule and in his own rule (end of the seventh century BC), none of the other Ionian cities apart from Chios came to Miletus’s aid (Herodotus 1.18.3).

[ back ] 49. This was the league’s first meeting of which we know if the tradition for the league’s involvement in the Meliac War more than a century earlier is left out of account (see below §4.15–§4.18).

[ back ] 50. Herodotus 1.141.1: Ἴωνες δὲ καὶ Αἰολέες, ὡς οἱ Λυδοὶ τάχιστα κατεστράφατο ὑπὸ Περσέων, ἔπεμπον ἀγγέλους ἐς Σάρδις παρὰ Κῦρον, ἐθέλοντες ἐπὶ τοῖσι αὐτοῖσι εἶναι τοῖσι καὶ Κροίσῳ ἦσαν κατήκοοι, “The Ionians and Aeolians, as soon as the Lydians were overthrown by the Persians, sent messengers to Cyrus in Sardis, wishing to be subject on the same terms as they were to Croesus.” Cyrus, who had offered such terms before he defeated the Lydians, now withdrew the offer; he made an exception only of Miletus, which therefore did not join the others at Panionion: Ἴωνες δὲ ὡς ἤκουσαν τούτων ἀνενειχθέντων ἐς τὰς πόλις, τείχεά τε περιεβάλοντο ἕκαστοι καὶ συνελέγοντο ἐς Πανιώνιον οἱ ἄλλοι πλὴν Μιλησίων· πρὸς μούνους γὰρ τούτους ὅρκιον Κῦρος ἐποιήσατο ἐπ’ οἷσί περ ὁ Λυδός, “The Ionians, when they heard these things reported in the cities, each constructed walls and assembled at Panionion, all except for the Milesians; only for them did Cyrus make an oath on the same terms as the Lydian king.”

[ back ] 51. Herodotus, after his geographical account of the Ionian cities, describes the divisions among them in dealing with the Persians; not only Miletus, but also Chios and Samos, which as islands had less to fear from the Persians, split from the others at this time of Greek and especially Ionian weakness (Herodotus 1.143.1–2): τούτων δὴ ὦν τῶν Ἰώνων οἱ Μιλήσιοι μὲν ἦσαν ἐν σκέπῃ τοῦ φόβου, ὅρκιον ποιησάμενοι, τοῖσι δὲ αὐτῶν νησιώτῃσι ἦν δεινὸν οὐδέν· οὔτε γὰρ Φοίνικες ἦσάν κω Περσέων κατήκοοι οὔτε αὐτοὶ οἱ Πέρσαι ναυβάται. ἀπεσχίσθησαν δὲ ἀπὸ τῶν ἄλλων Ἰώνων οὗτοι κατ’ ἄλλο μὲν οὐδέν, ἀσθενέος δὲ ἐόντος τοῦ παντὸς τότε ῾Ελληνικοῦ γένεος, πολλῷ δὴ ἦν ἀσθενέστατον τῶν ἐθνέων τὸ Ἰωνικὸν καὶ λόγου ἐλαχίστου· ὅτι γὰρ μὴ Ἀθῆναι, ἦν οὐδὲν ἄλλο πόλισμα λόγιμον, “Of these Ionians the Milesians were sheltered from the panic, having made an oath, and the islanders also had nothing to fear; for the Phoenicians were not yet subject to the Persians and the Persians themselves were not sailors. These [sc. the Milesians] were detached from the other Ionians for no other reason than that the whole Hellenic race was weak then, and the Ionian people was by far the weakest of all and of the least account; for apart from Athens there was no other important city.” Cf. Cook 1982a:199: “On the mainland Miletus alone preserved the treaty rights that its inaccessible situation had conferred on it. But the offshore islands were not threatened at this time.”

[ back ] 52. The same formulation occurs twice in the decree; for the inscription, IG I³ 84, see Wycherley 1960:60–66, who translates or summarizes the relevant provisions of the decree on p. 61. See also Shapiro 1983:94 and 1986 and Robertson 1988:225–239. The shrine was probably located near the Ilissos River, south of the Acropolis: see Robertson 1988:232n85, who is hesitant about the usual identification (for which see Travlos 1971:333 fig. 435).

[ back ] 53. Wycherley 1960:61n3; Càssola 1957:84; Toepffer 1889:240n2, citing Wilamowitz 1885:5: “It is evident that Codrus was inserted later into the pair Neleus and Basile” (“Codrum intrusum demum esse in communionem Nelei et Basilae apparet”).

[ back ] 54. Cf. n4.63 below; the inscription was found in 1884.

[ back ] 55. This line of interpretation starts from Iliad 5.397, Heracles’ wounding of Hades ἐν Πύλῳ ἐν νεκύεσσι, “in Pylos among the corpses,” where Pylos suggests the “gates” of the underworld; the name Neleus, interpreted as “pitiless,” then suggests Hades, who is described by Hesiod Theogony 456 as νηλεὲς ἦτορ ἔχων, “having a pitiless (nēleés) heart” (cf. n1.64above). Shapiro 1983:94 argues that Heracles’ wounding of Hades was originally connected with his carrying off of Cerberus: “Somewhere along the line, probably very early on, there has been a confusion of Nestor’s Pylos and the πύλαι, the gates of Hades where Kerberos stands guard.”

[ back ] 56. The form of the name, however, is Nēleús, not Neíleōs, as in τέμενος τοῦ Νηλέως καὶ τῆς Βασίλης, “precinct of Neleus and Basile,” in line 3 (I use post-Euclidian spelling for the inscription’s pre-Euclidian spelling). The distinction between the two names, which mattered in Miletus, was perhaps ignored in Athens, where the Homeric name would have been more familiar. For a different view of the Athenian cult see Erika Simon LIMC ‘Neleus’ 728, who argues that the cult was founded to honor the Pylian ancestor of the Peisistratids and other Athenian families.

[ back ] 57. Toepffer 1889:240. Toepffer, who notes that there were Basilidai in Erythrai as well as in Ephesus (240n2), associates the Athenian figure Basile with both occurrences of the name in Ionia. Like Toepffer, Robertson 1988 understands that Neleus and Basile relate to Ionia rather than Athens: “Despite the shrine the younger Neleus has nothing to do in Athens except to leave” (p. 203); “At the shrine of Neleus and Basile Athens pays tribute to Neleus as founder of Miletus, and the consort Basile is meant to evoke the Neleid dynasty abroad” (p. 238). In associating Basile specifically with the ruling family of Ephesus I am in closer agreement with Toepffer than with Robertson, but I think that both are essentially right about this goddess. There are a few other occurrences of Basile in Athens and Attica (see Shapiro 1986 for an offering to Basile on a sacrificial calendar of the deme Erchia in the mid-fourth century BC, and for a shrine of Basile in the deme Eitea, attested in a deme decree of the year 332/1 BC). The shrine of Basile mentioned in Plato Charmides 153a is probably part of the sanctuary at issue in IG I³ 84, the decree of 418/7 BC (Wycherley 1960:60; cf. Travlos 1971:332). An Attic red-figure pyxis dated to the 410s BC has Basile on the lid together with Athena, the baby Erichthonios, Kekrops, and Soteria; there is also a figure named Basileia on the body of the vase, showing that Basile is distinct from this figure (Shapiro 1986:135). To pursue the question of who the Basilidai of Erythrai were, it may be worth noting that Erythrai was founded by settlers from all the other Ionian cities (Pausanias 7.3.7). Were the Basilidai then from Ephesus? If Basilidai ruled Erythrai, the Kodrids who were sent from Erythrai to Phocaea must also have been Basilidai. Note that these events would have occurred before the period of rivalry between Ephesus and Miletus. Harpokration s.v. Eruthraîoi says that according to Hellanicus Erythrai was one of the cities founded by Neleus (cf. Toepffer 1889:234n2); but according to Hellanicus FGrHist 323a F 23 Neleus founded all twelve cities, so there is nothing distinctive about Erythrai in this.

[ back ] 58. The form Neleus instead of Neileos in the cult with Basile (cf. n4.56 above) would be consistent with the supposed personal interest of Peisistratos, who claimed to be a descendant of Neleus, but not of Neileos. Proximity of the shrine to the Peisistratean Olympieion has been taken to indicate that both were Peisistratean (see van der Kolf RE ‘Neleus’ 2278; for the shrine’s location see Travlos 1971:332, and for its proximity to the Olympieion, Travlos 1971:291, nos. 158 and 182 on fig. 379).

[ back ] 59. See n4.9 above. Cyrus overthrew Croesus in 547 BC and subjugated the mainland Greeks in the next few years; cf. Cook 1982a:199: “The Greeks of Asia had fallen under Persian rule by about 540 BC (Herodotus 1.164–9).” Peisistratos returned to Athens in 546 BC and purified Delos (Herodotus 1.64.2) and renewed the Delia festival after that.

[ back ] 60. Solon fr. 4a West:

Those who believe that the tradition for the Athenian foundation of Ionia did not arise until the Athenian empire of the fifth century take Solon’s word πρεσβυτάτην to mean “most revered” rather than “oldest,” but in the end these two meanings come to the same thing (cf. Iliad 4.59, 6.24, 18.365); see Robertson 1988:256, who cites Prinz 1979:354–355 for a review of previous opinion; Shapiro 1989:49 and Moggi 1996:104 also take Solon’s word in its usual sense “oldest.” Robertson 1988:256–257 comes to the same conclusion as I do, that the sanctuary of Neleus and Basile should be dated to Solon’s time; his arguments include the location of the sanctuary to the southeast of the Acropolis, the large size of the témenos, and the predominance of Miletus in Solon’s time, to which I would add Ephesus’s rivalry with Miletus for predominance.

[ back ] 61. Dunst 1972:135–137 published the inscription and established that a priest made the dedication to Hera; Lazzarini 1978 narrowed the date of the inscription from the first half of the sixth century to the second quarter of the sixth century and established that the priest was of Neileos. In the inscription secondary long-e and secondary long-o are represented respectively by epsilon (the first syllable in Νέλεω) and omicron (the genitive article το͂), as opposed to -ει- and -ου- in later Ionic alphabets (Νείλεω and τοῦ). The genitive in omega is regular; cf. Attic-Ionic λεώς, gen. λεώ, “people.”

[ back ] 62. Pausanias 7.2.6: τοῦ δὲ Νειλέως ὁ τάφος ἰόντων ἐς Διδύμους ἐστὶν οὐ πόρρω τῶν πυλῶν ἐν ἀριστερᾷ τῆς ὁδοῦ, “The tomb of Neileus is not far from the gates on the right side of the road as one goes to Didyma.” It is safe to assume that an old hero cult was connected with this tomb; cf. Lazzarini 1978:191n2, who compares a sacrifice to the dead (ἐναγισμός) made to the Neleids at Metapontion (Strabo 6.1.15). Herda 1998:18 argues that a public hero cult of the city’s founder most likely developed out of a private cult of the Neleid family’s ancestor (the location of the cult outside the city gates rather than in the city center is an indication of this; Herda 1998:19). For Pausanias’s hybrid form Neileus see n1.43 above.

[ back ] 63. Lazzarini 1978:191–192 invokes the “chthonian deity” that Neleus supposedly represents to explain the spread of his cult (see n4.55 above); but even more clearly in the Samian cult of Neíleōs than in the Athenian cult of Neleus, Basile, and Kodros we are dealing with the Athenian son of Kodros and not the founder of Pylos; another explanation is needed. Herda 1998:20 proposes that the priest of Neileos belonged to the hero cult in Miletus, and that there was no cult of Neileos in Samos; Herda’s main argument, that a hero cult should not be separated from the hero’s tomb, would not apply if the hero’s sphere had expanded beyond a single city (cf. Malkin 1998:107n75). The dedication’s failure to identify the priest as a Milesian (as is usual in dedications by foreigners) is, according to Herda 1998:21n153, explained by the absence of the priest’s name.

[ back ] 64. As an example of earlier relations, Samos and Miletus took opposite sides in the Lelantine war in the later eighth century BC (Miletus was an ally of Eretria and Samos was an ally of Chalcis according to Herodotus 5.99; cf. below n4.145 and n4.174). For the new situation arising from the hostilities between Samos and Priene in the early sixth century BC, cf. Huxley 1966:84: “Each side [Samos and Priene] had been causing the other moderate damage until in one battle a thousand Samians were killed. Then followed a six-year truce, after which Samos and Miletus in alliance defeated the Prienians at a place called the Oak. After this misfortune, in which the leading Prienian citizens were killed, bereaved women in Priene used to swear by ‘the Darkness at the Oak’ (Plutarch Greek Questions 20).” Bias, the Prienian sage, went as ambassador to Samos after the war and obtained the best terms he could for his city; a boundary between Samian and Prienian territory was fixed at a watershed on Mykale (IP [Hiller 1906] no. 37 lines 105–107). Cf. Lazzarini 1978:186, who cites the war between Samos and Priene, and the decisive intervention of Miletus, as the probable circumstances of the acceptance of the cult of Neileos in Samos; she also refers to the establishment in the mid-seventh century BC of Naucratis, a Milesian initiative in which Samos participated (Herodotus 2.178.3 speaks of a sanctuary of Hera, founded by the Samians, next to a sanctuary of Apollo, founded by the Milesians). The cult of Neileos could have been established in Samos at any time between 650 and 550 BC. It should be noted that in siding with Samos against Priene in the battle “at the oak,” Miletus changed its traditional stance with respect to Priene as well as to Samos (cf. §4.19 below). Ivantchik 2005:121–126, reinterpreting the evidence for the early sixth-century conflict between Priene and Samos, alters certain elements of the above narrative; in particular he allows (p. 124) the possibility that Plutarch, following Aristotle, mistakenly put Milesians for Samians in his reference to the battle at the Oak. It seems more likely, as Ivantchik also allows, that Miletus and Samos acted together against Priene.

[ back ] 65. Pausanias 7.2.8–9: ἀφείλετο δὲ καὶ Σάμον Ἄνδροκλος Σαμίους, καὶ ἔσχον Ἐφέσιοι χρόνον τινὰ Σάμον καὶ τὰς προσεχεῖς νήσους· Σαμίων δὲ ἤδη κατεληλυθότων ἐπὶ τὰ οἰκεῖα Πριηνεῦσιν ἤμυνεν ἐπὶ τοὺς Κᾶρας ὁ Ἄνδροκλος, καὶ νικῶντος τοῦ Ἑλληνικοῦ ἔπεσεν ἐν τῇ μάχῃ, “Androklos also took Samos from the Samians, and for a time the Ephesians held Samos and the neighboring islands. After the Samians had already returned to their land Androklos defended the Prieneans against the Carians, and he fell in the battle as the Greek army was winning.”

[ back ] 66. Knibbe 1998:79 also thinks that the occupation of Samos and the defense of Priene, both of which are attributed to Androklos, belong to a later time than the foundation of Ephesus. A new hērō̂ion built for Androklos in the first century BC (Pausanias 7.2.9; cf. Knibbe 1998:78–79) of course celebrated the supposed city founder. For a possible connection between Androkleidai in Ephesus and Messenia see Toepffer 1889:244–245 and Kiechle 1959:68.

[ back ] 67. Athenaeus twice refers to alternatives to the Androklos legend for the foundation of Ephesus (cf. n4.41 above). Athenaeus 6.267ab, citing the Siphnian local historian Malakos, says that Samian slaves banded together, left Samos, and founded Ephesus. Athenaeus 8.361c–e, citing the Ephesian local historian Kreophylos, tells how the settlers of Ephesus, after difficulties, discovered the right location for the city through a prophecy involving a fish and a wild boar; these settlers, who “crossed over from the island after living there for twenty years,” came from Samos if Wilamowitz is correct that the two legends are variants of each other (Wilamowitz 1906a/1971:65 and n2/159 and n2). The Ephesian local historian Kreophylos naturally has nothing to say about the slave origins of the settlers; did that version perhaps originate in Samos? Knibbe 1998:72–82 in his discussion of sources takes the foundation legend of Kreophylos strictly on its own terms, proposing (pp. 76 and 78) that the island from which the settlers came was Syrie in what was once the bay of Ephesus.

[ back ] 68. In 1086/5 BC (or 1076/5 BC) according to the Parian Marble (FGrHist 239 F A27; cf. G. Kleiner in Kleiner et al. 1967:6).

[ back ] 69. The only specific information about the location of Melia is Stephanus of Byzantium, Μελία, πόλις Καρίας. Ἑκαταῖος γενεαλογιῶν δ’. τὸ ἐθνικὸν Μελιεύς ὡς Ὑριεύς, “Melia, a city of Caria. Hecataeus Genealogies Book 4. The ethnic adjective is Melieús, like Hyrieús.” See below for Melia’s presumed location in the immediate vicinity of Panionion.

[ back ] 70. The site of Panionion was identified by Wiegand in 1898 and excavated by the German team of Kleiner, Hommel, and Müller-Wiener in 1957–1960; it is near the modern town of Güzelçamlı on a hill named Otomatiktepe after a World War I gun emplacement at its top. Remains of what is presumed to be Melia were found on Kaletepe, another hill two kilometers southwest of Panionion. See Kleiner et al. 1967:5, 78–170. Locations are shown on Map 2. The approximate location of Panionion has been known since the seventeenth century from an inscription found in Güzelçamlı (IP [Hiller 1906] no. 139; cf. Wiegand in Wiegand and Schrader 1904:24–25): this inscription, a decree of the council of the Ionians dating from the mid-fourth century BC, was, according to the inscription itself, to be set up in Panionion, which therefore must have been near Güzelçamlı where the inscription was found. The general location of Panionion on the north coast of Cape Mykale was already known from ancient sources, including Herodotus’s description of the site (Herodotus 1.148): τὸ δὲ Πανιώνιόν ἐστι τῆς Μυκάλης χῶρος ἱρός, πρὸς ἄρκτον τετραμμένος, κοινῇ ἐξαραιρημένος ὑπὸ Ἰώνων Ποσειδέωνι Ἑλικωνίῳ, “The Panionion is a sacred place on Mycale, facing north, jointly dedicated by Ionians to Poseidon Helikonios” (the continuation of this passage on the location of Cape Mykale is quoted in EN4.2 to n4.47 above). Of the remains found at the site the most important is the stone altar, enclosed on three sides by a stone wall, that sits on top of the hill and must have belonged to Poseidon Helikonios. Wolfgang Müller-Wiener in Kleiner et al. 1967:28 dates the altar to the sixth rather than the seventh century; G. Kleiner ibid. 11 is unwilling to date the enclosing wall much before the middle of the sixth century; P. Hommel ibid. 75–76 dates the sparse sherds found in the altar complex and elsewhere on the hill no earlier than 600 BC. The discovery of a fourth-century BC council chamber at the foot of the hill confirms that the site is Panionion, where the Panionic league continued to meet after its fourth-century refoundation. In recent years a different location has been proposed for the archaic Panionion 3.5 kilometers from Priene on Çatallar Tepe in the Mykale range; see Lohmann 2004 and 2005. This location, which has been presented as established fact in a number of other publications, has been effectively refuted by Herda 2006 (see Herda 2006:46nn7 and 8 for the references to these publications); Herda proposes that the site in question is instead Mykalessos, a city in Caria for which Ephorus is cited by Stephanus of Byzantium s.v.; see Herda 2006:79–93.

[ back ] 71. Vitruvius 4.1.4–6; IP (Hiller 1906) 37 lines 104–105, 107–109, 120–123 (cf. also lines 53–60).

[ back ] 72. Vitruvius 4.1.4 calls the town Melite (an apparent mistake, Wilamowitz 1906/1971:38/128, but cf. P. Hommel in Kleiner et al. 1967:79) and lists it after the twelve cities of the Panionic league as a thirteenth member which was removed through war at the joint instigation of the others, and whose place was later taken by Smyrna: haec Melite propter civium adrogantiam ab his civitatibus bello indicto communi consilio est sublata, cuius loco postea regis Attali et Arsinoes beneficio Smyrnaeorum civitas inter Iones est recepta, “This Melite was destroyed because of the citizens’ arrogance by these cities, a war having been declared at their joint instigation; in its place the city of the Smyrnaeans, by the good offices of king Attalus and Arsinoe, was later received among the Ionians”; Vitruvius here refers anachronistically to the refounded league of the fourth century BC, which admitted Smyrna at the behest of Lysimachus (Vitruvius says Attalus rather than Lysimachus, another mistake; see Wilamowitz 1906/1971:38/128). The relationship of early Smyrna to the Panionic league, which continues to be debated, is discussed in EN4.3. Cf. also n4.19 above.

[ back ] 73. IP (Hiller 1906) 37 (see n4.71 above), which refers to the Μελιακὸς πόλεμος in lines 56, 108, and 118–119. This inscription shows that Melia once controlled an extensive territory on Cape Mykale, which is inferred to be the location of Melia itself (for the lack of precise information as to Melia’s location see n4.69 above). Hiller von Gaertringen, who published Inschriften von Priene in 1906, and Wilamowitz, whose article “Panionion” appeared in the same year, had similar ideas about Melia’s possible location: Hiller, p. vi, thought that Melia lay next to Priene, whose original location, though not known, cannot have been very far from Panionion (see n4.85 below); Wilamowitz 1906/1971:45–46 and 46n1/136–137 and 137n1 argued that Panionion was in or next to Melia. Wilamowitz’s view has been confirmed with reasonable certainty by the discovery of what is taken to be the site of Melia two kilometers from Panionion (see n4.70 above and §4.18 and n4.86 below). This location of Melia is widely, if not universally, accepted (Ragone 1986:179 thinks that Melia may have lain elsewhere). Wilamowitz concluded that Panionion was in Melia’s vicinity primarily on the basis of his argument, p. 45/137, that the Panionic league was born out of the Meliac War, and that the league appropriated Melia’s cult of Poseidon Helikonios to be its center. This goes against Vitruvius’s account, in which the league preceded the war, and I do not agree with Wilamowitz on this point; but the idea that Panionion became the league’s center as a result of the Meliac War has much to recommend it (see further below). Herda 2006:66 considers that the sanctuary of Poseidon Helikonios became the Panionion at the latest when Melia was destroyed; for Melia’s site cf. Herda 2006:60n94 with bibliography.

[ back ] 74. Priene and Samos are known to have received land after the war from the fact that they are the two parties to the later dispute, which concerns the original allotments (they were also the parties to another somewhat earlier dispute concerned with a different part of the original allotment; see below in text). Original allotments of land to Miletus and Colophon that were given up in later exchanges are at issue in IP (Hiller 1906) 37 lines 57 and 59. For the complicated question of what these allotments were (Miletus’s in particular), see below n4.75 and n4.76, §4.68 with n4.226 and n4.227, and EN4.13 to n4.227 below.

[ back ] 75. IP (Hiller 1906) 37 lines 120–122 (see §4.16 and n4.71 above). The two disputed places are Phroúrion Kárion and Druoûssa; the inscription records the decision of Rhodian arbitrators in favor of Priene. In lines 103–105 the Samians maintain that “at the time that they divided the land of the Melians, they themselves received Karion and Dryoussa according to what is stated in the histories ascribed to Maiandrios the Milesian”; but the Rhodian arbitrators rejected this evidence because seven other historians of the Meliac War, including four from Samos itself, said that Samos was allotted Phygela (Pygela) after the war; the Rhodian arbitrators also cast doubt on the authenticity of the histories ascribed to Maiandrios (lines 118–123). The Prienians do not seem to have had a positive claim to the two disputed places on the basis of the histories, but they prevailed nonetheless. The case is discussed by Ager 1996:196–210, who cites parallels for the use of historians and other writers as legal evidence (209n16).

[ back ] 76. The division of land by lot after the war is referred to in IP (Hiller 1906) 37 lines 103–105, 117, 122 (cf. also line 56). Although the term for the league (τὸ Ἰώνων κοινόν) does not occur in what has survived of the inscription, it has been restored in Hiller’s revised text, IP p. 309 (Hiller’s revised text takes account of Wilamowitz 1906). In lines 55–56 the Samians cite the historian Maiandrios as asserting that the rest of Melia’s land was allotted to them [by the league of Ionians] after the Meliac War : [διότι καὶ ἁ] λοιπὰ χώρα ἁ Μελιὰς [ὑπὸ Ἰώνων κοινο]ῦ αὐτοῖς ἐ[πεκλαρώθη μ]ετὰ τὸμ πόλεμον τὸμ Με[λιακόν. A mention of the league was also restored in line 58 in Hiller’s original text but in his revised text the phrase τὸ Ἰώνων κοιν]ὸν has been changed to τὸ Ἰώνων δικαστήρι]ον. The context seems to be an adjustment of the original land division at a later date; the Samians say that they got one place in Melia’s former territory (A[kadamis?]) for two other places, Thebai and Marathesion, in an exchange with the Milesians, “just as [the court of the Ionians decided] about them in a meeting at the Panionia” (lines 56–60): [εἶτ’ ἀλλαξά]σθαι αὐτᾶ[ς Σα-] / [μίους] παρὰ μὲν Μιλησίων Ἀ[κάδαμιν ἐφ’ ὧι δοῦναι τοῖ]ς αὐτοῖς Θή[βας] / [καὶ Μ]αραθήσιον, καθὼ[ς καὶ τὸ Ἰώνων δικαστήρι]ον ὑπὲρ αὐ[τῶν ἔ-] / [κρινε] Πανιωνίοις [ἐν τῶι συλλόγωι, παρὰ] δὲ Κολοφωνίων / Ἄναια. The name Akadamis is restored with reasonable certainty in line 57: “Scylax” Periplus 98 in the fourth century BC lists Akadamis with such other places as Panionion and Mykale in a description of this coast and says that it belonged to Samos; Akadamis was thus part of the Samian peraía in the fourth century, and this may be because it was given to Samos by Miletus at an earlier time. For Akadamis cf. Herda 2006:79n200; for the locations of other places on the Mykale coast see Shipley 1987:266–268 and fig. 22; in order from north to south the places on this coast are Pygela, Marathesion, Anaia, Panionion, and Karion/Melia; Thebai lies further south and inland; for Anaia, which the Samians got from Colophon [IP 37 line 60], see Fantasia 1986:127. See Map 2.

[ back ] 77. Welles 1934 no. 7; see also Ager 1996:89–93; IP (Hiller 1906) no. 500; Dittenberger 1903–1905 no. 13.

[ back ] 78. The Prienians claim original possession of the land (ἡ ἐξ ἀρχῆς κτῆσις) in Welles 1934 no. 7 lines 11–12 (cf. also lines 26–27); later, they say, Lygdamis arrived and the land was evacuated until Lygdamis, having held the land for three (or seven or ten) years, returned it (lines 14–17): [ὕστε]ρον δὲ συνωμολόγουν Λυγδάμεως ἐπελθόντος ἐπὶ τὴν Ἰω[νίαν μετὰ δ]υνάμεως τούς τε λοιποὺς ἐγλιπεῖν τὴγ χώραν καὶ Σαμ[ίους εἰς τὴν ν]ῆσον ἀποχωῆρσαι· τὸν δὲ Λύγδα[μιν κ]ατασχόντα [τρί]α ([ἑπτ]ά? [δέκ]α?) [ἔτη αὐτοῖς] πάλιν ἀποδιδόναι τὰς αὐτὰς κτήσεις. The Prienians evidently argued here that the land that they held after their return to Mykale was what they had possessed originally; hence the naïve idea that Lygdamis returned “the same possessions” when he departed. For their part the Samians agreed that they evacuated Mykale with the other inhabitants, but the rest of their argument, which must have been different from the Prienians’ argument, has been lost (lines 29–30): μετὰ δὲ τὴν Λυγδάμ[εως εἰσβολὴν ἐγλιπεῖν συνωμο]λόγουν ὥσπερ καὶ οἱ λοιποὶ καὶ αὐτοὶ [τὴγ χώραν, ἀποχωῆρσαι δὲ εἰ]ς τὴν νῆσον. For the location of Batinetis, which is not precisely known, see Fantasia 1986:129n52 and Magnetto 1997:130–131: Batinetis is distinct from Phrourion Karion and Dryoussa (Priene’s possession of these two places was upheld by Lysimachus when he awarded Batinetis to Samos, as emerges from the later dispute for Phrourion Karion and Dryoussa, IP (Hiller 1906) 37 lines 125–130; see Wilamowitz 1906/1971:39n2/129n2 and Hiller von Gaertringen in Dittenberger:1915–1924 no. 688n4), but the places, though distinct, were doubtless in the same general area between the Samian peraía and the Prienian khṓra; after the Cimmerians left Mykale a thousand Samians settled Batinetis, which must therefore have been flat tillable land (Welles 1934 no. 7 line 32 with Plutarch Greek Questions 20, on which see Wilamowitz 1906/1971:43/134, Fantasia 1986:129n52, 130n57, Magnetto 1997:130–131, 138n32; for the Plutarch passage cf. n4.64 above); the tillable nature of the land indicates the modern Karaova Plain stretching north for several kilometers from Mount Mykale, and most likely the southeast corner of this plain, closest on a straight line to Priene.

[ back ] 79. IP (Hiller 1906) 37 lines 101–102: the Rhodian arbitrators state that the Samians cited historians in the present dispute as they had in the dispute over Batinetis, “trying to show from them that Karion and the land around it had been allotted to them” (line 103); cf. Wilamowitz 1906/1971:41–42/132.

[ back ] 80. In the end the issue of original possession proved to be irrelevant: Lysimachus based his decision in favor of Samos on the fact that Samos had had long continuous possession of the land (cf. lines 4–6, addressed to the Samians: “If we had known that you had had this land in possession and use for so many years we should never have undertaken to hear the case”).

[ back ] 81. The Cimmerians, who came originally from southern Russia, invaded western Asia Minor under Lygdamis (Dugdamme in an Assyrian source; for this king of the “northmen” on an inscription of Assurbanipal see Lehmann-Haupt RE ‘Kimmerier’ 417); there the Cimmerians joined forces with the Trerians, who came originally from Thrace and who may have been related to the Cimmerians; cf. Strabo 1.3.21, 14.1.40. The Cimmerians began their war on Gyges and the Lydians in c. 668 BC and were defeated by them in c. 663 BC, but they eventually took Sardis and killed Gyges in c. 640 BC. Lygdamis was forced to retreat from the coast into the interior by Gyges’ successor Ardys (Ardys, who captured Priene according to Herodotus 1.15, may have captured it from Lygdamis; see Hiller von Gaertringen 1906 vii and below here). The Cimmerians were finally driven from western Asia Minor by Alyattes (cf. Herodotus 1.16.2); Alyattes defeated the Cimmerians and killed Lygdamis in 626 or 637 BC (Sulimirski and Taylor 1991:559). Herodotus 1.6.3 characterizes the Cimmerians’ invasion of the Ionian cities as a transient raid in contrast to what later occurred under Croesus, when the Greek cities of Asia Minor were permanently overthrown: τὸ γὰρ Κιμμερίων στράτευμα τὸ ἐπὶ τὴν Ἰωνίην ἀπικόμενον, Κροίσου ἐὸν πρεσβύτερον, οὐ καταστροφὴ ἐγένετο τῶν πολίων, ἀλλ’ ἐξ ἐπιδρομῆς ἁρπαγή, “the expedition of Cimmerians that came against Ionia, which was before Croesus’s time, was not an overthrow of the cities, but a seizure from a raid.” Nevertheless the Cimmerians inflicted great harm on the Ionians: they destroyed Magnesia on the Maeander, burned the Artemision at Ephesus, occupied Cape Mykale, and probably occupied Priene (see Kleiner RE Supplement 9 ‘Priene’ 1185 Nr. 2, although the evidence cited, IP 500 [= Welles 1934 no. 7] lines 14ff., concerns Mykale, and not Priene itself). The poet Callinus of Ephesus witnessed the Cimmerian invasion (Strabo 14.1.40 = Callinus fr. 5a West): νῦν δ’ ἐπὶ Κιμμερίων στρατὸς ἔρχεται ὀβριμοεργῶν, “Now comes the army of Cimmerians with mighty deeds.” Callinus also spoke of the Trerians: Stephanus of Byzantium s.v. Τρῆρος quotes Callinus for a trisyllabic form of their name: Τρήερας ἄνδρας ἄγων, “leading the Trerian men” (Callinus fr. 4 West). For the dates of the Cimmerian invasions cf. Herda 2006:59n92 with bibliography; while exact dates are uncertain, the general period (first half and middle of the seventh century BC) is not in doubt. Ivantchik 2005:113 dates the destruction of Sardis, in which Gyges was killed, to 644 BC, and he sees this invasion as the one that most likely reached Ionia (p. 123); Ivantchik argues that the Akkadian sources used to date the destruction of Sardis to 644 BC also date the death of Lygdamis to 641 BC, and he suggests that the Cimmerians held Mykale for the three years between these two dates (for a probable three-year occupation of Mykale by the Cimmerians see n4.78 above on Lysimachus’s letter to the Samians, lines 14–17).

[ back ] 82. See n4.70 above; cf. Herda 2006:60n94.

[ back ] 83. The identification of Melia with a place later known as Phroúrion Kárion suggests that Melia too had been at least partially Carian, and this would surely have contributed to the hostility of its Ionian neighbors (cf. G. Kleiner and P. Hommel in Kleiner et al. 1967:5, 9–10, 79–82; cf. also Wilamowitz 1906/1971:43n4/134n2; Carians preceded the Ionians on Mykale according to Pherekydes, cited by Strabo 14.1.3). But Melia, which has a Greek name (“ash tree”), can have become Carian only in the course of time. The original settlement must have been Greek. Thebans who followed Cretans in the settlement of Colophon (Pausanias 7.3.1–3; cf. n4.25 above), seem to have gone on to found Melia from Colophon (see Huxley 1960). The origins of Melia and the cult of Poseidon Helikonios, which seems originally to have belonged to Melia, are discussed further in EN4.4.

[ back ] 84. Priene’s claim to another place, Dryoussa (“oak land”), was upheld in the same arbitration; it was perhaps at this place that Samos and Miletus defeated Priene in the sixth-century battle known thereafter among the women of Priene as “the darkness at the oak” (see n4.64 above). P. Hommel in Kleiner et al. 1967:82n234 infers that Dryoussa was near Phrourion Karion in the southern end of the Karaova Plain of Cape Mykale; Hiller von Gaertringen in Dittenberger 1915–1924 no. 688n4 takes Dryoussa to be the land surrounding Phrourion Karion (note the phrase τὸ Κάριον καὶ ἁ περὶ τοῦτο χώρα, “Karion and the country around it,” in the Samians’ claim, and the words τὸ φρούριον καὶ τᾶς χώρας τᾶς περὶ τὸ φρούριον, “the fort, and (shares) of the country around the fort,” in the Prienians’ claim (IP [Hiller 1906] 37 lines 103 and 127; cf. n4.79 above).

[ back ] 85. Cf. Ziehen RE ‘Panionia’ 604: “Since the Panionion lay in the territory of Priene, it is in itself likely that this city also had the sacral administration” (“Da das Panionion im Gebiet von Priene lag, ist an sich wahrscheinlich, dass diese Stadt auch die sakrale Leitung hatte”). Strabo attests that Priene provided the priest for the cult (8.7.2 and 14.1.20; cf. EN4.2 to n4.47 above), as do inscriptions recording the sale of the priesthood of Poseidon Helikonios (IP [Hiller 1906] 201–203); cf. also Wilamowitz 1906/1971:45, 50/137, 142, who assumes that Priene provided the priest in the archaic cult as well; this is also my assumption. How Priene may have been related to Melia before Melia was destroyed is an interesting but highly speculative question. Hiller 1906 vi suggests that old Priene, whose location is unknown, was at first united with Melia, and that Melia was destroyed when it began to act too independently. There is tantalizing support for this idea in IP (Hiller 1906) 37 lines 47–48, near the start of the case that the Samians made for original possession of Karion and Dryoussa. In what seems to be a section devoted to the origins of the Meliac War there appears the phrase “the Prienians with the Melians,” followed by the phrase “but civil strife broke out” (lines 47–48):

Hiller has supported his idea that stasis split one city into two by suggesting the word πόλιν before μίαν (for a different interpretation of these lines see Shipley 1987:29–30, who suggests πολεμίαν or Σαμίαν for Hiller’s πόλιν μίαν). Hiller’s suggestion would locate old Priene on the site now identified as Melia, namely Kaletepe, but in Hiller’s day Melia’s location had not been established and Hiller himself had no definite location in mind (Kaletepe was established as Melia’s location by Kleiner et al. 1967; note that Wilamowitz 1906:133n3 identifies the ruins on Kaletepe as Phrourion Karion, as do also Wiegand and Schrader 1904, Karte I, but no connection with the site of ancient Melia is made by these authorities; cf. Herda 2006:62). If Hiller is right that Priene and Melia were once one city, the Samians’ argument may have been that Melia became separated from Priene through stasis, but that Priene was not allotted the actual land of Melia after the Meliac War. It need only be added that if Melia was in fact split off from Priene, and if Samos could point to historians for this fact, it seems more likely that the land was allotted to Priene and not to Samos after the war. Whatever the Samians’ argument was, there seems to have been little real doubt that Priene rather than Samos originally possessed Karion.

[ back ] 86. W. Müller-Wiener in Kleiner et al. 1967:97–127; but cf. also Herda 2006:62 and n108, who suggests that the oval house may be Late Geometric on the basis of comparative evidence from Miletus, and that the circular wall also, in which a few Late Geometric sherds were found, may belong to Melia rather than the later Prienian fortress. A later wall, dated to the sixth century BC, was found at the base of the hill, and this would belong to the Prienian fortress.

[ back ] 87. The occupants of the seventh-century fortress must have buried their dead elsewhere, perhaps in Priene.

[ back ] 88. See the catalogue of unpainted Geometric fragments by P. Hommel in Kleiner et al. 1967:166. The evidence is discussed in EN4.5.

[ back ] 89. Gyges’ attacks on the Ionian cities, which began c. 680 BC, constitute a lower limit for the Meliac War, for the Ionian cities cannot well have begun a war against Melia after Gyges began his attacks on them; cf. Lenschau 1944:236, and P. Hommel in Kleiner et al. 1967:92, who considers an attack on Melia unthinkable (“nicht mehr denkbar”) after Gyges’ attacks began. Gyges, who captured the lower city of Colophon (Herodotus 1.14.4), presumably did so before the Cimmerians began their war on him in 668 BC. Colophon, which acquired Anaia through the division of Melia’s land, must have taken part in the Meliac War; Hommel, p. 93, speculates that Colophon, which later gave up Anaia to Samos and apparently got nothing in exchange for it, became too preoccupied with Gyges to have further interest in Mykale (for Anaia, named in IP [Hiller 1906] 37 line 60, see n4.76 above). In addition to capturing Colophon Gyges attacked Smyrna, Miletus, and Magnesia.

[ back ] 90. Cf. Jeffery 1976:209 on Panionion: “The start of the cult cannot yet be dated by archaeology; there are traces of a great altar and a council chamber on the Otomatik Tepe (now definitely identified as the site of the precinct); but they are not earlier than the sixth century, although on the Ilica Tepe nearby are traces of habitation which go back apparently to the Mycenean period.” For İliça Tepe, see G. Kleiner in Kleiner et al. 1967:12, who thinks that before Melia joined the league as a thirteenth member and was destroyed by it a site other than Panionion was the league’s cult center: “If one wants to remain in this vicinity, Iliça Tepe, as a late second millennium site, offers itself as the oldest Panionion. Its wall does not remind one so much of Çamli’s Kaletepe…as of Mycenaean fortifications” (“Will man in der Umgebung bleiben, bietet sich als Anlage des späten 2. Jts. der Iliça Tepe als ältestes Panionion an. Seine Mauer erinnert nicht so sehr an Çamlis Kaletepe…als an mykenische Befestigungen”). But an earlier center for the league at İliça Tepe, which Kleiner proposed only as a possibility to pursue through further excavations, would still not account for the lack of evidence at Panionion for more than a century after the Meliac War. For the difficulty of identifying early altars built from ephemeral materials see Herda 2005:258 (bibliography 258n76); where such altars were replaced by permanent stone altars like that at Panionion the earlier remains are more easily identified, but there may still be ambiguity (see Herda 2005:258n76). If one is guided strictly by the lack of archaeological evidence for the origin of the cult at Panionion, one is led to a date for the origin of the league that to most would seem too low. J. M. Cook, who has gone in this direction, is exceptional, revising downward his date for the Panionic league twice in light of the archaeological evidence: the date of c. 800 BC that he first proposed (Cook 1961:31) he lowered to c. 700 BC (Cook 1975:803), and he later wrote that this date too “must be lowered” (Cook 1982:750); cf. Cook’s reviews of Kleiner et al. 1967 (Cook 1969:718 and Cook 1970).

[ back ] 91. See above §4.7–§4.8 on the distinction between the Pylian past of the Neleids, who came through Athens and became Kodrids, and of Mimnermus’s ancestors, who came directly from Pylos to Colophon. Colophon chose for itself a Kodrid past, like that of Miletus, and rejected a foundation by Mimnermus’s ancestors. As noted earlier (EN4.4 to n4.83 above), Melia seems to have been founded from Colophon. How did Colophon then come to participate in the destruction of Melia? Shipley 1987:31 compares the destruction of a daughter city by the mother city to the hostility between Corinth and Corcyra. I note that Colophon had hostile relations not only with Melia, but also, it seems, with Smyrna. Was the issue at Melia, as at Smyrna, an unwillingness to follow the lead of Miletus? The party that prevailed at Colophon was willing to do precisely this, as its acceptance of the Kodrid myth shows.

[ back ] 92. Pausanias 7.2.10; Strabo 14.1.3 (cf. n4.39 above). I note that this version of the Kodrid myth, like some other versions already considered, is more likely to have arisen early, when Miletus was preeminent, than late, when Miletus had lost that status. For traditions of other founders of Priene besides Aipytos cf. Herda 2006:77n195.