Death to Tyrants!

by Teegarden, David

  10 For the evidence of the placement of the Kritios and Nesiotes statue of Harmodios and Aristogeiton, see Brunnsåker (1971: 33–41). It is interesting to note here that Xenophon, Hier. 4.5, wrote that citizens of various poleis placed statues of tyrant killers in holy places. He gives no examples. And no examples are known.

  11 Compare Lykourgos’s account (Leok. 117) of how the Athenian dēmos treated the statue of Hipparchos: they melted it down and turned it into a stele upon which they inscribed the names of traitors. Wilhelm (1915: 33) notes an interesting law from Rhodes, apparently quoted by Dio Chrysostom (31.82), against violating a statue—including the taking of a spear out of the statue’s hand. Even today, tearing down a statue is an important postrevolution event: consider the Americans (and Iraqis) tearing down the statue of Saddam Hussein after the fall of Bagdad in April 2003.

  12 Brunnsåker (1971: 150, 102–6). The earliest, a black-figure lekythos, dates to 470–460 and possibly depicts the Antenor statue group: Österreichisches Museum, Vienna, Inv. 5247 = Brunnsåker (1971: 102, plate 23 no. 5). The others all date to around 400: Pelizäus-Museum, Hildesheim, Inv. 1253 and 1254 = Brunnsåker (1971: 104–5, plate 23 nos. 6a and 6b); Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Inv. 98.936 = Brunnsåker (1971: 105–6, plate 24 no. 7). One might also note that according to the Ath. Pol. (58.1) the Athenian polemarchos made offerings to Harmodios and Aristogeiton. There is no telling if the people of Erythrai had a similar practice, but it is not unlikely: (1) they seem to have treated Philites as quasi-divine figure; (2) there is evidence that the Erythraians worshiped Dēmos starting (most likely) post-280; see below in this chapter’s section titled “Repairing the Statue circa 281.”

  13 Berve (1967), Heisserer (1979), and Wilhelm (1915) do not offer an explanation for the manipulation of the statue. However, in defense of the latter two scholars, their works focused on the fundamental questions of the inscription’s date and provenance. Friedel (1937: 81–82), noting the oligarchs’ (supposed) solidarity with tyranny, simply asserts that the oligarchs mutilated a symbol of a powerful dēmos.

  14 Smyth ([1920] 1956: §1690).

  15 The first definition for στάσις in LSJ is “placing, setting; erection of a statue.” For epigraphic examples of the use of στάσις in this sense, see Gauthier (1982: 218n15). Examples of Erythraian decrees containing the phrase εἰκόνα στῆσαι: RO 8 (lines 14–15), RO 56 (lines 11–12), I. Erythrai 28 (lines 52–53); also, the phrase τὸν δεῖνα ὁ δῆμος ἔστησεν occurs on the inscription for two statue bases: I. Erythrai 25 and 26.

  16 Ober (2005c: 228–30). The widespread equation between oligarchy and tyranny by non-Athenians is clear. See, for example, Rhodes in 395 (Hell. Oxy. 10, 2 = column xi, 12–28), Eretria in 341 (their tyrant-killing law, lines 20–21), Ilion circa 280 (their tyrant-killing law, lines 53–54).

  17 See RO 17 for a clear depiction of a zero-sum-game stasis situation in Erythrai (387/6 BCE). On stasis, see Gehrke (1985) and Hansen and Nielsen (2004: 124–29).

  18 The Erythraians did make an attempt at reconciliation and amnesty in circa 330 (I. Erythrai 10), but, per the historical argument offered below, that amnesty was over thirty years before the oligarchs manipulated the statue of Philites.

  19 Gauthier (1982: 219–21).

  20 Inscribed statue bases for athletes in Erythrai: I. Erythrai 87 (3rd or 2nd BCE), 88 (190/180). I. Erythrai 89 (early imperial) records an honorary decree for an athlete.

  21 The population of Erythrai almost certainly fluctuated and can be only crudely estimated. But, in the late fourth century, Erythrai’s city walls enclosed 135 hectares (see note 37 on the walls). Also, Rubinstein (2004: 1073) designates Erythrai as size “5” (= 500 km2 or greater). With that information, one might apply Hansen’s “shotgun method” (2006a) to determine the approximate population of Erythrai in the later fourth century. Doing so produces a total population—in the late fourth century—of 30,375 persons: (1) 67.5 hectares of inhabited intramural space [i.e., one-half of the 135 total hectares enclosed by the city walls]; (2) 150 people lived in each hectare of inhabited intramural space; (3) two-thirds of the total population of size “5” poleis lived outside the city walls. Thus 67.5 × 150 × 3 = 30,375. This very well might be underestimating the population: the territory of Erythrai contained five dependent poleis (Rubinstein [2003: 1074]).

  22 It would help my argument if Welles’s suggestion (RC p. 83) that Lysimachos had a garrison in the city were true. (It will be argued below that the oligarchs removed the sword from the statue of Philites after the battle of Ipsos.) Welles based his conclusion on Meyer’s assertion (1925: 35–36) that Lysimachos had a royal mint in Erythrai. But more recent works on Lysimachos’s mints (Thompson [1968]; Mørkholm [1991]) do not include Erythrai as a location for a royal mint. Erythrai did issue coins after the battle of Ipsos: Mørkholm (1991: 92). But they were not royal coins. It might be worth noting, however, that Lysimachos did have royal mints at Teos (40 miles from Erythrai by land) and Smyrna (60 miles away, but easily accessible by sea). If those cities were garrisoned, soldiers stationed there easily could have provided backup for the Erythraian oligarchs.

  23 Recall Plato’s observation (Leges 738 D–E) noted in chapter 1, note 63: polis-sponsored festivals are an excellent occasion for people to get to know each other.

  24 According to Plutarch (Arat. 45.3), statues of tyrants and their opponents played an important role in the politics of late-third-century Argos. Statues of its former tyrants had been cast down and statues of the anti-tyranny liberators of the Akrokorinth subsequently (i.e., post-243) erected. But later, Antigonos Doson re-erected the statues of Argos’s former tyrants and cast down the statues (except that of Aratos) of the liberators of the Akrokorinth.

  25 Gauthier (1982: 215n4), however, suggests that all attempts to date the events (beyond placing them in the third century) are futile.

  26 This position is followed by (inter alios) Badian (1966: 62–63n19) and Ellis (1976: 222).

  27 Lund (1992: 127) agrees with this general context. For the tyrant (named Hiero) at Priene from 300 to 297, see I. Priene 37, lines 66ff., 109ff.; Paus. 7.2.10; Syll.3 363; I. Priene 11 and 12 (this last inscription records honors for a certain Evander of Larissa and is almost certainly associated with Hiero’s fall).

  28 Engelmann and Merkelbach thus accepted Wilhelm’s dating (1915: 32) of the first decades of the third century.

  29 Virtually every aspect of this important decree is problematic due, in large part, to the fact that the stone is lost and scholars are completely beholden to Boeckh’s publication (CIG 73b [p. 891]) that presented a copy of a drawing of the stone’s text made by Fauvel (which is also lost). For a detailed study of the decree and its historical context, see Highby (1936). Rhodes (2008: 501)—who now rejects the old three-barred sigma orthodoxy—dates the Erythrai Decree to the late 450s. Lewis, in IG I3 14, dates it to circa 453–452. Mattingly (1996: 367n23) also dates it to circa 453–452.

  30 This is the conclusion of ML 40. It is followed by IG I3 (15 a, d), Mattingly (1996: 397), Rhodes (2008: 501). It is tempting to connect the promulgation of I. Erythrai 1 and 2 to these mid-fifth-century difficulties. The former sets strict term limits for secretaries. The latter outlaws certain (political, presumably) acts committed by magistrates (it appears), establishes procedures for trying transgressors, and articulates penalties for individuals who do not appear when summoned by the prytaneis.

  31 For the electrum stater, see the introduction to this chapter with note 5.

  32 The statue in Erythrai: RO 8. The Athenians eventually erected statues of both Konon and his son Timotheos in both the agora and the acropolis. See Tod 128 for a short discussion and presentation of the evidence (Paus. 1.3.1; Isok. 9.57; Aischin 3.243; Dem. 20.70; Nep. Timoth. 2.3).

  33 In this interpretation, the erection of the statue of Philites would be more or less contemporary to the building of the temple of Aphrodite Pandemos. The inscription (IErythMcCabe 32.5) referring to
the building of the temple is dated V/IVb. A reasonable and compelling context would be shortly after the battle of Knidos: the temple would commemorate the re-foundation of Erythrai’s democracy. Note that the construction of that temple was for “the protection of the dēmos”: lines 4–5.

  34 Heisserer’s theory is apparently accepted by Rhodes and Lewis (1997: 368). Neither Gauthier (1982: 215n4) nor Lund (1992: 127, 239n73) accepts it.

  35 In spring 332 Chios fell (Arr. Anab. 3.2.3)—see Bosworth (1980: ad loc.); it is quite likely, as suggested in the commentary on I. Erythrai 21, that Erythrai fell shortly before that.

  36 For examples of this dynamic, see the section titled “Historical Context” in chapter 4. It would be nice if I. Erythrai 51 dated to this time: it contains fragments of a loyalty oath.

  37 Epigraphic evidence for wall building: I. Erythrai 22, 23. The walls were in place by 315 when Seleukos failed to take the city (Diod. Sic. 19.60.4). Prepelaos—Lysimachos’s general—also failed to take the city in 302 (Diod. Sic. 20.107.5). The walls were nearly three miles long (Magie [1950: 79])—protecting the city on the landward side—and enclosed 135 hectares (Rubinstein [2004: 1075]). It is quite possible that the building of this wall followed immediately the destruction of the fortification on the acropolis referred to in I. Erythrai 21.

  38 The construction of a theater in the later years of the fourth century (C4l) is noted by Rubinstein (2004: 1075), citing (the not terribly helpful) TGR iii. 451. Ömer Özyiğit (2003: 118) notes that the theater in Phokaia (discovered in 1991) is the oldest theater in Anatolia—built 340–330. He notes that that theater is very much like the theater in Erythrai, which he dates to the last quarter of the fourth century. The earliest epigraphic reference to Erythrai’s theater is I. Erythrai 24, line 32 (277/5). It might be worth pointing out that the Erythraians appear to have begun announcing honors “in the Dionysia” in the later fourth century: I. Erythrai 21, lines 13–14 (334–332); I. Erythrai 13, line 5 (fourth/third century); restored in I. Erythrai 24, line 31 (277/275); I. Erythrai 27, lines 21–22 (ca. 274) orders “the [presidents of the Dionys]ia” to make sure honors are announced; I. Erythrai 35, line 13 (mid-third century) has “announce the crown in the Dionysia and Seleukeia.” In contrast, the earliest honorary decrees from Erythrai do not mention the festival of Dionysos: RO 8 (394); RO 56 (mid-350s, if not before the Social War); HD 28 B (mid-350s, if not before the Social War). It is thus quite likely that, in the wake of Alexander’s conquest, the Erythraians built a theater of Dionysos.

  39 I. Erythrai 151 is a list of public roads. It likely should be dated post-340 since it uses εἰς, not ἐς. It easily could be post–Alexander’s conquest. Line 1 might refer to water reservoirs, as suggested by Rubinstein (2004: 1075).

  40 The dynamic here presented purposely echoes Arrian’s account (Anab. 1.17.11) of Alexander’s arrival near Ephesos in 334: “The Ephesian dēmos, relieved from fear of the oligarchs (oligoi), rushed to kill those who had been for calling in Memnon, those who had plundered the temple of Artemis, and those who threw down the statue of Philip in the temple and dug up the tomb of Heropythes, the liberator of the city, in the marketplace.”

  41 See Magie (1950: 90–93, 917–24nn4–18) for the complexity in Ionia after the battle of Ipsos.

  42 IErythMcCabe numbers are not in brackets, while I. Erythrai numbers are in brackets: 35 [10], 17 [21], 39/40 [22], 42 [23], 264 [151]; these perhaps should be included too: 59 [206], 24 [13], 22 [34], 27 [11].

  43 IErythMcCabe numbers are not in brackets, while I. Erythrai numbers are in brackets: 11 [30], 12 [27], 18 [28], 19 [not in I. Erythrai], 21 [24], 23 [29], 37 [31], 114 [25], [119] (not in IErythMcCabe). And, according to my arguments articulated below, 34 [503 = the Philites stele] should be dated to the period too.

  44 There are thirty-five inscriptions dated (or potentially so) to the third century in IErythMc-Cabe and I. Erythrai; the numbers in brackets refer to the inscription’s number in I. Erythrai: 11 [30], 12 [27], 13 [114], 18 [28], 19 [not in I. Erythrai], 21 [24], 22 [34], 23 [29], 24 [13], 34 [503], 37 [31], 50 [160], 60 [201], 67 [215], 73 [33], 77 [32], 83 [212], 95 [26], 114 [25], 117 [87], 119 [53], 134 [234], 124 [54], 143 [210a], 154 [302], 172 [353], 175 [355], 187 [365], 260 [55], 268 [192], 270 [191]; four inscriptions contained in I. Erythrai are not found in IErythMcCabe: [35], [36], [119], [431] (this last might not be Erythraian). None of them is securely dated to the years 301–281. Eleven of those thirty-five inscriptions do not record public documents: 134 [234], 124 [54], 143 [210a], 154 [302], 172 [353], 175 [355], 187 [365], 260 [55], 270 [191], 83 [212], 67 [215]. That leaves twenty-four (out of the original thirty-five) inscriptions that are potentially dispositive. Sixteen of those twenty-four inscriptions are dated post-281: 11 [30], 12 [27], 13 [114], 18 [28], 19 [not in I. Erythrai], 21 [24], 23 [29], 34 [503], 37 [31], 50 [160], 114 [25], 117 [87], [35], [36], [431], [119]. That leaves eight public inscriptions that possibly date to the first two decades of the third century: 22 [34], 24 [13], 60 [201], 73 [33], 77 [32], 95 [26], 119 [53], 268 [192]. Three of those inscriptions might actually date to the fourth century: 22 [34] = IVe/IIIb; 24 [13] = IV/III; 268 [192] =IV/III. Three of the remaining five are simply dated to the third century generally, with there being no reason to date them to the first two decades of that century: 73 [33], 95 [26], 119 [53]. One of the remaining two, 77 [32], is dated IIIb (IErythMcCabe) or similarly “erstes Drittel des 3. Jahrh. v. Chr.” (I. Erythrai). It almost certainly is to be dated to the 270s: it records a dedication of the city’s generals to Dēmos, and there are two extant decrees of the dēmos, dated to the 270s, that honor the city’s generals for their work defending the city against the Celts—see the section titled “Repairing the Statue circa 281.” That leaves one inscription: 60 [201], a list of priesthoods sold. But it is dated 300–260.

  45 On democratic Athens and epigraphic production, see Hedrick (1999). The late fourth century is particularly striking. Habicht (1997: 71) notes that there is only one significant extant inscribed assembly decree dating to the period of Demetrios of Phaleron’s rule (317–307), while there are over one hundred extant inscribed assembly decrees that date to the period 307–301, when Athens was democratic and protected by Demetrios Poliorketes.

  46 Magie (1950: 924n18) asserts that the failure of the ambassadors to mention Lysimachos’s name does not support the conclusion that the Erythraians did not enjoy Lysimachos’s rule. Magie suggests that the Erythraians did not mention Lysimachos because he was an enemy of Seleukos, Antiochos I’s father: mentioning Lysimachos’s good deeds might thus offend Antiochos. This need not stand; one might conclude that—if Lysimachos had supported democracy at Erythrai—the Erythraians would be inclined to tell that to Antiochos (“even Lysimachos did”).

  47 See Lund (1992: 122–23) for the arguments for and against. On Hiero, see note 27. Heisserer (1979: 293) notes that Douris likely established his tyranny in Samos in the early years of the third century and that there might have been tyrants in both Chios and Teos at that time.

  48 It is also possible that the Erythraians supported Demetrios during his 287/86 campaign in Asia Minor. If they did, Lysimachos likely would have punished them like he punished the people of Miletos (the only city securely known to have supported Demetrios—but we know that other Ionian cities did too: Plut. Demetr. 46. 2–5). See Magie (1950: 92, 922–23nn14–15).

  49 For information on post-Kouroupedion Asia Minor, see Magie (1950: 93–94, 924–26 nn19–20).

  50 The Erythraians appear to have celebrated the new political order with the inauguration of the Seleukeia. The editors for I. Erythrai 35 assert that Erythrai’s first such festival began after Kouroupedion and before Seleukos’s death. Note, too, that the people of Erythrai added a stanza to a hymn to Asklepios: Seleukos is hailed as the son of Apollo. See Magie (1950: 924n19) for the evidence.

  51 I. Erythrai numbers are in brackets, IErythMcCabe numbers are not: 77 [32] (IIIb), 73 [33] (III), 82 [102] (II/I), 75 [217] (ca. I), 76 [103
] (I), 74 [104] (late Hellenistic), 76.5 [not in I. Erythrai] (Hellenistic), 68.5 [not in I. Erythrai] (no date).

  52 One should note here that, in worshiping Dēmos, the Erythraians were following, to some extent, Athenian practice. For the Athenian practice, see Raubitschek (1962: 240–41). A few inscriptions are worth noting here. First, IG II2 1496 lines 131–32, 140–41 records that the Athenian generals sacrificed to dēmokratia in 332/1 and 331/0. As noted above, it was generals who made the first known dedication to Dēmos in Erythrai. Second, both IG II2 4676 and IG II2 5029a refer to a priest of Dēmos in Athens. Both of those inscriptions date to the third century. The Erythraians could have been inspired by contemporary Athenian practice.

  53 Lund (1992: 239n73). Lund cites RC (pp. li–liii) and Sherwin-White (1985: 73). Note, too, Heisserer’s comments (1979: 291n32) about the decree’s linguistic characteristics: the consonant assimilations before palatal mutes (lines 11, 14, 27) suggest an inscribing date before Koine became too influential; the spiritus asper in an uncompounded form (lines 24–25) suggests early influence of Koine. Thus the linguistic characteristics are consistent with an early Hellenistic date.

  54 An additional, and admittedly very suppositious, point in support of a 280 date involves the statue’s verdigris (i.e., its ἰός). If the statue was shiny (λαμπρός) when the democrats lost control of the polis after the battle of Ipsos, and if the verdigris was not in its very earliest stage of development when the Philites stele was promulgated, and if the Philites stele was promulgated shortly after the democrats regained control of the city, all previous attempts at dating are undermined: they suggest that the oligarchs were in power for too short of a period (i.e., not long enough for verdigris to develop). We would thus be compelled to devise a different chronology, one fundamentally different from those offered heretofore.

  55 It is likely that the democracy established in circa 280 was configured as a return to the democracy established in the wake of Alexander’s conquest of western Asia Minor. Philites is the founder of the Erythraian democracy: he committed the foundational act of tyrannicide. One might thus note that the dēmos decreed (I. Erythrai 30 lines 22–23) that they would announce honors for king Antiochos (I or II) in the festival of Alexander; the early-third-century democracy was a return to the post-Alexander, fourth-century democracy.