Anthony Snodgrass once commented that the period from the end of the Greek Dark Age down to the Persian Wars represents the most formative, engaging, and energetic period of Hellenic history.[1] This collection of re-worked contributions to the International Doctoral Conference at the University of Salerno (10 to 12 October 2023), under the direction of the Italian Association of Classical Culture, draws on a wide range of testimonia relating to the Archaic Age of Greece and sheds light on important historical themes such as religious cult, interstate relations, rites of passage to adulthood, aristocratic justice, homoeroticism, and national identity.
Angelo Meriani opens with an account of the volume’s origins and provenance. Carmine Nastri and Marina Polito, in an introductory preface, lay out the volume’s principal aims.
Elena Franchi reacts to the thesis of Angelo Brelich (1961), which stated that Archaic border conflicts were ritualistic, episodic, and connected with rites of passage to adulthood. Beginning with the border conflict between Thessaly and Phocis (Hdt. 8.27-28; Paus. 10.1.3-11), this essay examines terms such as horos (Hom. Il. 12.431; 21.405), its cognate methoria (Thuc. 2.27.2), and eschatia (Plat. Leg. 8.842e; Arist. Pol. 7. 10.1330a14). It draws on archaeological data, such as the watchtowers at Ozolian Locris and Elateia, whose function may have extended beyond defensive networks,[2] as well as horos-inscriptions,[3] to re-assess interstate borders in Archaic Greece. It argues that hard-and-fast linearities, in the Westphalian sense, were a later development of Hellenistic times, whereas earlier frontiers between polities were rather of a temporary nature, reflecting an impermanent balance of power between neighbours.
Giovanni Ingarao, examining the complex tradition surrounding Lycurgus of Sparta, postulates that the apostrophising utterance of the Delphic oracle (PW 29) has an epic context, especially in the use of the phrase pion neon (cf. Hom. Il. 2.546-549; Od. 12. 345-347), and intertexts with the tradition, preserved at Hom. Il. 6.138-143, about Lycurgus, king of the Edonians, who fought the gods of Olympus and was blinded by Zeus for his arrogance. The tradition (Hdt. 1.65; D.S. 7.12.1-6; Plu. Lyc. 3) conflicts on the question of whether Sparta’s laws came originally from Delphi or Crete. Wilamowitz (1884: 267-285) understood the Delphic tradition as legalisation. Parke and Wormell (1956: 85-93) postulated restoration at Sparta of a lost cultic tradition in the sixth century BCE. Crahay (1956: 150-53) pitted an older religious context against a more demotic version at Sparta that downplayed the role of Delphi. Défradas (1972: 258) understood it in the backdrop of the rise of Delphi. This oracle, which likens Lycurgus to a god, must be understood in an Iliadic context where his namesake, Lycurgus of Edonia, was chastised for his vainglorious effort to cross the gulf between the human and the divine.
David Sproviero analyses Achilles’ libation to Zeus Dodonaios (Hom. Il. 16.220-232), especially its idiosyncratic use of sulphur. The medicinal qualities of sulphur were known in the ancient Mediterranean (cf. Plin. HN 35.15.174-177; Gal. Med. Meth. 12. 903K) and are attested in other religious and magical connections (e.g. Theocr. Id. 24.96). Sulphur was frequently used to purify places in the aftermath of bloodshed (cf. Hom. Od. 22.481-23.50; Eur. Hel. 866), but what is unique about Achilles’ offering is that sulphur is used to purify an object and, unlike Odysseus’ sprinkling of the house at Ithaca after killing the suitors, does not atone for blood. The key to understanding this episode is the connection between sulphur and the thunderbolt and, also, the etymological nexus between theion (sulphur) and theios (godlike) (Plu. Mor. 4.2-3 665c; Eust. Od. 22.481). The temple at Dodona contained bronze statues of Zeus Keraunios, and the thunderbolt became the symbol of Dodona and Epirus (Marchetti 1992: 59; Carroccio 2007; Dierterle 2007: 184-186). Zeus’s epithet terpikeraunos (Hom. Il. 16.232) and the description of Dodona as dyscheimeros (line 234) indicate a reference to the cult of Zeus Dodonaios. Achilles’ libation is therefore not a purification ritual but is to be understood in terms of do ut des.
Vittorio Cisnetti re-examines the concept of thalassocracy in the light of ancient Near Eastern texts, which indicate that Cyprus, mentioned by Diodorus Siculus (7.11) as the sixth of a list of naval powers, fell under Assyrians, neo-Babylonians, Egyptians, and, finally, Persians. At no point does it seem that Cyprus was a ‘thalassocracy’ comparable to Athens, despite Herodotus and Thucydides (Hdt. 3.122.2; 5.83.2; 6.9.1; 7.139.4; Thuc. 1.4-17). It is more accurate to understand the ancient naval power of Cyprus, which the fourth-century CE chronographer Eusebius of Caesarea placed in the ninth century BCE, in terms of not ‘sea domination’ but rather ‘sea use’. Contemporary evidence shows that Cyprus was absorbed in the conquests of Tiglat-Pileser III in the second half of the eighth century BCE: a letter from the archives of Nimrod attests an Ionian raid along the Phoenician coast, and between 709 and 707 the island was incorporated by Sargon II, as attested in inscriptions (Saporetti 1976: 83-85; Reyes 1994: 50-56; Radner 2010). The strategic and economic advantage of Cyprus, especially for shipbuilding, explains its longue durée as a maritime outpost in the Archaic period.
Davide Tronchin argues that the Alcmeonids were commemorated as liberators but in connection only with the circumstances of Hippias, not Cylon. Objectionable about the Cylonian murder was that it happened inside a sacred space. Their prosecutor was one Myron, who came from a rival genos ([Arist.] Ath. Pol. 1; Her. Lemb. 1.2 Dilts; Plut. Sol. 12.3-4), which might suggest that the trial for impiety originated within intra-elite rivalry. The exhumation of the family graves, recorded by Thucydides (1.126.12), bears overtones of refusal to bury the dead, and ostraca from the fifth century show overlap between the ‘institutional’ and the ‘religious’ spheres. Though atonement for the massacre came about with the Peisistratid expulsion, the Cylonian stain never left the Alcmeonids and resonated in the tales of Oedipus and Orestes.
Eleanora Grotteria contends that the periegetic treatise of the second-century CE travel writer Pausanias pitched itself against an encroaching global civilisation in which local identities were vanishing and where an all-embracing sense of Roman-ness had resulted in the loss of regional traditions that were in rapid eclipse. This essay focuses on two little-known cities in Arcadia, Phigalia in the southwest and Stymphalus in the northeast of the region. The former gave rise to the cults of Apollo Epikourios (Paus. 8.41.8-9), which arose during the Second Messenian War and presented the god as defender of the harvest, and of Demeter Melaina (Paus. 8.42.1-4), which commemorated the union of the goddess with Apollo (in this tradition, Persephone’s father) as well as the iconography of the stallion and the mare, both of whose cults experienced revival during the Roman age (Paus. 8.42.11-12). The latter gave rise to the cult of Artemis Stymphalia (Paus.8.22.7-9) and the attending mythology surrounding Heracles.
Luca Fiamingo examines passages from lyric poetry (Theogn. 337-340; 341-350) and Aeschylean tragedy (A. Ag. 463-464; 1177; 1189-1190; Ch. 577-578; Eum. 976-984) in which the theme of retributive justice from a motive of vengeance appears. In aristocratic societies of Archaic Greece, vendetta was a legitimate channel of justice. Once more democratic institutions based on the rule of law took hold, the older value system began to fade. This essay argues for a greater priority to be placed on cross-generic comparison whereby passages from epic, lyric, and tragedy could shed light on the normative values of an aristocratic society which preceded the democratic Greek polis but whose foundational moral assumptions never vanished entirely.
Marianna Rago and Nastri, in a study of a collection of inscriptions pertaining to homoerotic practices discovered near the portico of the Temple of Apollo Carneus on Thera, dating from the seventh and sixth centuries BCE (IG XII 3, 537-550), draw cultural parallels between Thera, Crete and Sparta in the institutionalisation of homosexual relationships. At first glance, it is not obvious whether these graffiti are designed to slander the persons named in them or whether, instead, they refer to legitimised relationships that may even have possessed a religious significance. Of particular interest is IG XII 3, 537a, which uses the mysterious verb οἴφω: according to the text of the inscription, a certain Crimon felt the urge to express a relationship with a young boy, an unnamed brother of Baticles, and calls upon the help of the divinity. The absence of a name in a context in which otherwise names abound might indicate an age gap. The sexual import of οἴφω is clear from other inscriptions (IG XII 3, 538b, 539, 536, 540a, 540b, 540c). A painted pottery scene (Mus. Arch. Turin, no. 4117 = R243 Dover 2016) depicts a ménage à trois, not unlike the one described at IG XII 3, 536. The shift in sexual role in Crimon’s case, from the passive receptor to the active insertor, might indicate a rite of passage from youth to maturity and signify fulfilment of his status as a fully-fledged citizen. Because of the invocation of the god, these inscriptions cannot therefore be regarded as slanderous, as is the case with many of the Pompeian graffiti, but rather as celebratory within the life of the civic community.
These essays, in line with the volume’s title, are commendable for prioritising evidence above abstract theory. Literary sources form the mainstay, though there is valuable discussion also of inscriptions and archaeology. Though archaeological material finds a voice, it often does so in footnotes, subsidiary analysis, and secondary references. For an epoch where our most important contemporary evidence is archaeology, there might have been a greater focus on material culture through which the period can speak in its own authentic language.
On substantive issues, I have two main disagreements. Vengeance is a complex issue, and it would be tempting to claim reductively that in the Archaic Greek conception, retributive justice was upheld. Tragedy does not present the matter nearly so simply. The story of Orestes speaks against vigilantism: to prevent an endless cycle of vendetta, the Athenians installed the Areopagus, and the rule of law became the institutional mechanism through which retaliatory impulses could be constrained and channelled.[4] Theognis encourages Cyrnus to slay the tyrant but, as rule-of-law systems in Archaic and Classical Greece showed, tyrants were outside the law and therefore did not fall within its protective compass (Joyce 2022). Scholars have often claimed that the Alcmeonids were guilty; whilst there are signs in the fifth century that this charge was held against them, such as two ostraca, for example, which reveal that the slander was used during the ostracism of Megacles ([Arist.] Ath. Pol. 22.5)[5], the matter of Alcmeonid guilt is far from incontrovertible, as discussed in detail by E.M. Harris in a forthcoming essay.[6]
I have one other minor reservation, namely the quality of the English abstracts provided, which in some cases look as if they have been calqued from Italian drafts. At p. 77, we read ‘Achilles, before pouring the wine, purifies the cup to libate through a fumigation of sulphur’; on p. 93, ‘The so-called “List of the Thalassocracies” preserved by the chronographer Eusebius from Caesarea contains a specific entry about the Cypriots, whose examination might be useful with a view to understand that document overall’; on p. 119, ‘the Kylonian affaire’; on p. 139, ‘I aim to show that the two minor poleis’ civic identity could be recalled Pausanias’ personal witness of the sacred monuments and his strenuous work to reconstruct those ancient cults and beliefs which substantiated citizens’ religious life in Archaic Greece’. A scrupulous check by the copyeditor might have eliminated these small but irritating inconsistencies.
Those reservations aside, this volume has its distinct merits. The contributors are well-informed and, in addition to their innovative approaches, show a thorough knowledge of pre-existing scholarship. The volume promises a sequel; contemporary evidence should have centre-stage.
Works referenced
Brelich, A. Guerre, agoni e culti nella Grecia arcaica. Bonn, 1961.
Carroccio, B. ‘Come Zeus: aquila, fulmine e cornucopia segni dei poteri nelle monete ellenistiche.’ In M. Caccamo Caltabiano, C. Raccuia, E. Santagati (eds.), Tyrannis, Basileia, Imperium. Forme, prassi e simboli del potere politico nel mondo greco e romano. Giornate seminariali in onore di S. Nerina Consolo Langher. Messina, 2007, 363-374.
Crahay, R. La littérature oraculaire chez Hérodote. Paris, 1956.
Dakoronia, F., Kounouklas, P., ‘Locrian and Phocean Watch-Towers,’ BCH 143, (2019), 267-288.
Défradas, J. Les thèmes de la propagande delphique. Paris, 1972.
Dieterle, M. Dodona: Religionsgeschichtliche und historische Untersuchungen zur Entstehung und Entwicklung des Zeus-Heiligtums. Hildesheim, 2007.
Dover, J.K. Greek Homosexuality. With Forewords by Stephen Halliwell, Mark Masterson and James Robson, London, New York, Oxford, New Delhi, and Sidney, 2016.
Harris, E.M. The Rule of Law in Action in Democratic Athens. Oxford, 2013.
Harris, E.M. ‘The traditions about Cylon’s attempt at tyranny’ (forthcoming).
Joyce, C.J. ‘A positive doctrine of tyranny? The Rule of Law vs. The Rule of a Tyrant in Archaic and Classical Greece”, Antichthon 56 (2022), 1-20.
Marchetti, P. ‘Témoignages épigraphiques concernant Pyrrhus’, In T. Hackens (ed.), The Age of Pyrrhus: Papers Delivered at the International Conference, Brown University, 8-10 April, 1988. Louvain 1992, 51-72.
Parke, H.W. and Wormell, D.E.V. The Delphic Oracle, I: The History. Oxford, 1956.
Radner, K. ‘The Stele of Sargon II of Assyria at Kition: A Focus for an Emerging Cypriot Identity?’ In R. Rollinger, B. Gufler, M. Lang, I. Madreiter, Interkulturalität in der Alten Welt. Vorderasien, Hellas, Ägypten und die vielfältigen Ebenen des Kontakts. Wiesbaden, 2010, 429-449.
Reyes, A.T. Archaic Cyprus: A Study of the Textual and Archaeological Evidence. Oxford, 1994.
Rousset, D. ‘Les frontières des cités grecques: premières réflexions à partir du recueil des documents épigraphiques,’ CCG 5 (1994), 97-126.
Saporetti, C. ‘Cipro nei testi neoassiri’. In I. Vincentelli, C. Gallavotti, J.V. Karageorghis, V. Karageorghis (eds.), Studi ciprioti e rapporti di scavo, II. Rome, 1976, 83-88.
Siewert, P. Ostrakismos-Testimonien I: Die Zeugnisse antiker Autoren, der Inschriften und Ostraka über das athenische Scherbengericht aus vorhellenistischer Zeit (487-322 v. Chr.), Stuttgart, 2002.
Snodgrass, A. Archaic Greece: The Age of Experiment. Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1980.
Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. Homerische Untersuchungen. Berlin, 1884.
Zachos, G. Η. ‘«χώρα» της αρχαίας Ελάτειας (The Territory of Elateia)’, Archaiognosia 12 (2004), 197-221.
Authors and titles
Angelo Meriani. ‘Premessa’
Carmine Nastri and Marina Polito. ‘Prefazione’
Elena Franchi. ‘Il problema storico e metodologico delle guerre di confine nella Grecia antica. Considerazioni introduttive’
Giovanni Ingarao. ‘Licurgo, uomo o dio? Alcune riflessioni su PW 29 (Her. I 65, 3)’
David M. Sproviero. ‘Lo zolfo, il fulmine, la libagione: per una nota su Dodona nell’Iliade’
Vittorio Cisnetti. ‘Sulla “talassocrazia” dei Ciprioti in età arcaica. Una propensione marittima di lungo corso e le sue cristallizzazioni storiografiche’
Davide Tronchin. ‘Luci e ombre del genos degli Alcmeonidi. Dinamiche e coinvolgimenti nel sacrilegio ciloniano’
Eleanora Grotteria. ‘Identità civica e pratiche cultuali d’età arcaica a Figalia e a Stinfalo’
Luca Fiamingo. ‘Vendetta e reciprocità nel Corpus Theognideum (vv. 337-340, 341-350)’
Marianna Rago and Carmine Nastri. ‘Theran Graffiti. Per una rilettura delle epigrafi omoerotiche arcaiche di Santorini’
Notes
[1] Snodgrass (1980: 49).
[2] Zachos (2004); Dakoronia-Kounouklas (2019).
[3] Rousset (1994).
[4] Many passages of Aristotle speak against vengeance; see Rh. 2.4.12.1117a7; 5.5.5.1126a8-9; 2.4.17-18.1381b; EN 5.10.1138a1-13, with further discussion at Harris (2013: 65-8).
[5] See Brenne in Siewert (2002: 104-106).
[6] See the second reference under Harris.