Terry Buckley
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
I am grateful to Routledge for giving me the opportunity to write a second edition of my book. Apart from correcting typographical errors and some less-than-clear sentences, it allows me to do three things: first, to bring my book up to date in line with current research, especially with regard to the latest thinking on Sparta; second, with regard to the new AS and A2 Ancient History syllabuses in the OCR Classics Suite, to add to and reorganize the relevant chapters, especially concerning the fifth century, so that students can answer the source and essay questions in the AS ‘Greek History from original sources’, and have added a new chapter (Sparta, the Peloponnese and the Outbreak of the Decelean War, 421–413) so that there is a full continuity of events for the A2 ‘Greek History: conflict and culture’; third, the arrival of the fourth edition of LACTOR 1: The Athenian Empire, with its new organization and changed translations, necessitated a major updating of the relevant sections and quotations.
Once again I am deeply indebted to Dr Paul Cartledge, A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at Cambridge University, for reading all my new material and offering helpful criticism and advice – obviously all opinions expressed are mine alone. He is a very busy academic in great demand, yet he always found the time to help me in my endeavours – a great guy. Second, I’d like to thank my wife, Sue, who also read my drafts and offered many suggestions to iron out some of the verbal infelicities in my prose. I would also like to thank the London Association of Classical Teachers for granting me permission to use quotations from their publications. Finally, I would like to thank Matthew Gibbons, Lalle Pursglove and Andrew Watts at Routledge for their support and patience. I am now looking forward to a long rest from my labours, including pottering around the ancient Greek sites that I have not yet managed to visit, clutching Pausanias in my left hand and hopefully a cold lager in the other!
Terry Buckley
July 2009
ABBREVIATIONS
AE
The Athenian Empire, Lactor 1, ed. 4
CAH
Cambridge Ancient History
CQ
Classical Quarterly
FGrH
F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, Berlin and Leiden, 1923–
GHI
M. N. Tod, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions, vol. II, from 403 to 323 BC, Oxford, 1948
G & R
Greece and Rome New Surveys in Classics
IG
Inscriptiones Graecae, Berlin, 1873–
JHS
Journal of Hellenic Studies
ML
R. Meiggs and D. M. Lewis, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions to the End of the Fifth Century, Oxford, 1969
OO
The Old Oligarch, Lactor 2
SEG
Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum
YCS
Yale Classical Studies
1
THE MAIN LITERARY SOURCES
The works of six literary sources (Aristotle, Diodorus Siculus, Herodotus, Plutarch, Thucydides and Xenophon) have provided the main evidence for the narrative of this book. The lives and careers of these six sources have been given (as far as it is possible to gather such information) in order to make students aware of the chronological gap – sometimes very considerable – that can exist between the occurrence of events and their recording in writing, a gap which often provides time and opportunity for the continual adaptation and ‘improvement’ of the original description of events and individuals’ motives in accordance with the prejudices and interests of the writers. In addition, the source’s family background is given, because this will often reflect the social and political circles, in which he usually mixed and gathered information, and which consequently were bound to exercise some influence on his interpretation of events, especially when there were two conflicting versions arising from opposite ends of the political spectrum. Most of this chapter, by the very nature and title of this book, has been concentrated on their weaknesses as historical sources, using the stringent criteria of modern historical scholarship. This is not to deny the authors’ very fine literary qualities, but current Ancient History examination syllabuses demand not only a knowledge of the sources but also a critical awareness of their limitations and defects. With regard to the other sources used in this book, there will be brief comments on them as they make their appearance in the text.
Aristotle
Life and career
Aristotle was born in 384 at Stagirus (or Stagira), situated in Chalcidice, but moved to Athens in 367 in order to become a pupil of Plato at his Academy. When Plato died in 348/7, Aristotle was not appointed to succeed him and decided to leave Athens, spending time in Mysia in north-west Asia Minor and later at Mytilene on the island of Lesbos. In 343/2 he accepted the invitation of Philip of Macedon to become Alexander the Great’s tutor. In 335, Aristotle returned to Athens, where he founded his own philosophical school, known as the Lyceum after the sacred grove of Apollo in which it was situated; but upon the death of Alexander in 323, he was forced to leave Athens, due to the threat of prosecution, which arose from the very strong anti-Macedonian feeling that existed in Athens at that time. He retired to nearby Chalcis on the island of Euboea, and died in 322.
Athenaion Politeia
Modern scholarship is divided in its opinion about the authorship of the Athenaion Politeia (Constitution of the Athenians), which will be referred to as the Ath. Pol. in this and subsequent chapters. One group of scholars (e.g. Rhodes, the principal modern commentator) believes that the Ath. Pol. was composed by one of Aristotle’s students, and does so on a number of grounds. In the first place, there are stylistic differences between this and Aristotle’s other extant genuine works. Second, the differences in historical information, when this work is compared to Aristotle’s Politics, strongly suggest the two works were not written by the same hand: for example, Ath. Pol. 8 states that Solon changed the method of election of the top public officials by removing the Areopagus’ right of appointment and replacing it with the use of lot from an elected short list; whereas the Politics states that Solon made no change to the people’s right to elect these officials (2.1273b–1274a). Third, the Ath. Pol. contains some information that is so drastically wrong that a writer of Aristotle’s stature could not (it is argued) have been responsible for it: for example, Cimon is described as a young man, just beginning his public career, when Ephialtes passed his reforms in 462/1 (26.1), whereas in reality he was in his fifties and had been the dominant Athenian politician throughout the 470s and 460s. Finally, this work was only one of 158 such Constitutions, and it is very unlikely that Aristotle would have had the time to write all of them, in addition to his many other works. Therefore it is probably the work of one of Aristotle’s students, but was attributed to him, because it was the traditional custom to assign all the works produced in his school under his direction to Aristotle himself.
Opponents of this view (e.g. Moore) believe that Aristotle did compose the Ath. Pol., rejecting the arguments above. Stylistic differences can be explained by the fact that this sole surviving Constitution is a different genre from Aristotle’s other works. There are also many marked similarities in historical information between the Ath. Pol. and the Politics, and in particular both works share similar political views – a distaste for extreme democracy and an approval of moderate oligarchy. In addition, Aristotle may have acquired more information and consequently changed his mind between the composition of the Politics (probably c.336) and the Ath. Pol. (c.332–322). It also does not follow that Aristotle the historian can maintain the same standards of quality as Aristotle the philosopher and natural scientist (which he primarily was). Finally, Aristotle would have received help from his students in the composition of the Ath. Pol. (and the other Constitutions), which would explain some of the differences and make the view that he was the author of so many works more convincing.
&
nbsp; As there is no possibility of resolving this issue, the Ath. Pol. will be attributed to Aristotle throughout this textbook for reasons of convenience. The Ath. Pol. is divided into two main sections: the first (1–41) is a historical review of the development of the Athenian constitution, from the earliest times to Aristotle’s own day, and is subdivided into eleven parts to represent the eleven major changes in the history of the constitution, which are summarized in chapter 41; the second (42–69) is a detailed account of the workings of the democratic constitution in Aristotle’s day.
There is considerable scholarly dispute with regard to the sources that Aristotle used to compose the historical part of the Ath. Pol., ranging from those who believe that Aristotle relied principally upon one source, i.e. Androtion, one of the fourth-century Atthidographers, who wrote an ‘Atthis’ (history of Athens), to those who believe in a multitude of sources or, at least, more than one source. Those who hold the latter view suggest that Aristotle made use of some or all of the following sources: Herodotus, especially his account of the tyranny of the Peisistratids (14–15, 19) and of the years 510–508, i.e. the expulsion of the tyrants to Cleisthenes’ legislation (20.1–3); Thucydides, with regard to the murder in 514 of Hipparchus, brother of Hippias the tyrant (17–18), and the oligarchic revolution in 411 (29–33); the Atthidographers, especially Androtion, whom he mentions by name in his chapter on ostracism (22); the pamphleteer Stesimbrotus, who wrote in the late fifth century about Athenian politicians, and the historian Theopompos, whose Philippica (a history centred on the exploits of Philip of Macedon) included two digressions on Athens – both were hostile to Athenian democracy, and their influence can possibly be detected in the anti-democratic tone in parts of the Ath. Pol.; the politically partisan writings of the late fifth and early fourth centuries, such as published law-court speeches (e.g. of Andocides and Lysias) and political pamphlets (e.g. the so-called ‘Old Oligarch’, a critique of Athenian democracy, written some time in the Peloponnesian War and attributed to Xenophon); official documents, preserved in the state archives, such as the 401/0 formal reconciliation between the democrats in Athens and the oligarchs in Eleusis (39); and finally poems, especially those of Solon (5, 12). However, there is general agreement about the sources for the second part of the book, which deals with the Athenian constitution in Aristotle’s day: the state archives, and Aristotle’s and/or his students’ attendance at all the relevant functions and ceremonies that took place in the fourth-century democracy.
One of the main weaknesses of the historical section of the Ath. Pol. is the apparent failure of the writer to conduct his own thorough research. He relied mainly on those writers who had already written a detailed account of the events that were relevant to his work, and used any evidence that they had quoted without feeling the need to do further research. A good illustration of this is Aristotle’s account of Solon (5–12), which has many similarities with Plutarch’s Life of Solon, including the quoting of his poems, and this strongly suggests that both writers were using an earlier common source. When Aristotle found a clash in his sources, he usually reacted in one of two ways. In some instances, he states his preference for one version, but arrives at this verdict, not by a careful and systematic study of the available evidence, but by what seemed more reasonable. For example, there is his belief that Solon could not have behaved dishonourably – making a huge profit from his own insider knowledge of his planned ‘Seisachtheia’ (‘Shaking-off of Burdens’) – because he behaved so honourably in the rest of his reforms (6.2–4).
His alternative methodology was to combine the conflicting sources, which often results in confusion. His attempt to combine Herodotus’ account of Peisistratus’ three periods of tyranny with a chronology, probably supplied by an Atthidographer, results in Peisistratus’ third period of rule – his longest and most successful (547/6–528/7) – lasting less than a year (15.2–3). In a similar fashion, much of his account of the assassination of Hipparchus in 514 is based on Thucydides. However, having begun chapter 18 with a description of Hipparchus’ character and thus apparently preparing the reader for Thucydides’ narrative about his rejection by and insult to Harmodius, Aristotle switches to another source, resulting in the immediate disappearance of Hipparchus from the story and his replacement by Thessalos, another of Peisistratus’ sons (18.2). Such problems could have been avoided if Aristotle had bothered to research his material more thoroughly, and then made an informed choice between the contradictory sources.
The other aspect of the Ath. Pol. that needs careful attention is the political bias that runs through the historical section, namely the writer’s support and preference for moderate oligarchy, and his dislike of radical democracy. In this context, he can praise Solon because he does not believe that Solon passed his reforms in order to produce the later radical democracy (9.2); and also the regime of the Five Thousand which, replacing the narrowly oligarchic rule of The Four Hundred in 411, vested political power in those of ‘hoplite’ status and above (33.2). In fact, this second example provides another feature of Aristotle’s approach to his sources: his readiness to repeat an opinion, which he found in his sources, that coincides with his own political views – in this instance, the opinion of Thucydides (8.97). By contrast, like most fourth-century philosophers and intellectuals, he is scathingly and unfairly critical of the so-called ‘demagogues’ and their achievements throughout the rest of the Peloponnesian War after Pericles’ death in 429 (28.1–4).
Even with these reservations, the Ath. Pol. is an excellent source, both in its own right and for preserving other sources that otherwise would be lost to the modern historian. Its publication in 1890 has supplied new factual information on Cleisthenes’ reforms in 508/7 (21) and on Athenian internal politics from Cleisthenes to the eve of the Persian War (22). In addition, it has provided an alternative account and viewpoint of important fifth-century constitutional changes: a favourable and sympathetic treatment of Ephialtes’ reforms (25.1–2); and the oligarchic version of the events of 411 revolution (29–33). Moreover, he gives the modern historian an insight into how a fourth-century historian set about resolving historical problems and disagreements in the sources. But most important of all is his detailed record of the day-to-day working of Europe’s first and most famous democracy – a unique literary work.
Diodorus Siculus
Life and career
Very little is known about Diodorus, but he is believed to have been born c.90 BC in Agyrium in Sicily (hence ‘Diodorus Siculus’, Diodorus the Sicilian). He was writing in the turbulent, last years of the Roman Republic (c.60–30 BC), and died at some time in the Principate of Augustus (27 BC – AD14).
Bibliotheke
Diodorus’ work was oddly titled Bibliotheke or ‘Library of World History’, which consisted of 40 books from earliest times to Caesar’s Gallic War (54 BC). Although a number of his books exist only in fragmentary form, Books 11–17 have survived in their entirety, and cover the years 480–323. Book 11 gives an account of the Persian War (480–479), Themistocles’ career in the 470s until his death, the early years of the Delian League and the First Peloponnesian War (462/1–446/5) to 451. Book 12 narrates the end of the First Peloponnesian War, the causes of the Peloponnesian War of 431 to the Athenian preparations for the Sicilian Expedition (416). Book 13 covers the Sicilian campaign (415–403), the oligarchic revolution in Athens (411), the Ionian War, culminating in the defeat of Athens (413–404). Book 14 is mainly concerned with events in Sicily, but does include the rule and overthrow of the 30 Tyrants in Athens (404–403), the military campaigns of the Spartan king, Agesilaos, in Asia Minor (396–394), the Corinthian War (395–387), and ends with the Peace of Antalcidas (also known as the King’sPeace– 387/6). Book 15 deals with the Spartan ‘hegemony’ (386–379), the recovery of Thebes and its defeat of the Spartans at the battle of Leuctra (379–371), and the Theban ‘hegemony’ of the 360s. Books 16 and 17 are devoted to the careers of Philip of Macedon and Alexander fro
m their accessions to their deaths (359–336 and 336–323, respectively).
The unusual title of Diodorus’ work and his inclusion among the list of compilers by Pliny the Elder (Natural History, the Preface 24ff.) give us an insight into the nature of his literary work. Using the histories of earlier writers, he wrote ‘epitomes’ or ‘summaries’ of their works, although he was different from the usual writers of epitomes in that he did not merely condense the original work. Instead he often selected specific events or episodes, and then either paraphrased them or included verbatim sections from the original. This method of composition has been deduced by comparing Diodorus’ text with other surviving fragments of earlier historians (Hornblower, Hieronymus of Cardia, ch. 2). For example, Diodorus’ account (12.60–62) of the campaigns of Cimon, from the capture of Eion to his crushing victory over the Persians at Eurymedon (470s–c.469), is very close to the description and order of events in a series of fragments (FGrH 70 F191), which are most probably the history of Ephorus, a Greek writer of the fourth century, much admired and used by Diodorus. Such comparisons or checks with other surviving fragments, especially as they occur in widely differing parts of the Bibliotheke, confirm that Diodorus’ method of composition and treatment of his sources consisted in following very closely one main source at a time, but to supplement it with additional material.
Aspects of Greek History (750–323BC) Page 2
