Creating a Common Polity - Emily Mackil Hellenistic Culture and Society

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Aitolians are perceived as an ethnos comprised of multiple parts; here three are listed, the Apodotoi, Ophiones, and Eurytanes (map 5). Later in the narrative of the same episode, Thucydides reports two more Aitolian population groups, the Kallieis and Bomieis, who belong to the Ophiones, from which we may infer that the ethnos of the Aitolians comprised merē that were themselves composite.157 The Aitolian population groups mentioned by Thucydides may not be the only ones: Strabo likewise reports that the Bomieis belong to the Ophiones and agrees with Thucydides in placing the Eurytanes on the same organizational plane as the Ophiones, but he adds Agraioi, Kouretes, and others.158 Strabo mentions these groups in his description of Aitolian geography and makes it clear that each group has its own territory. That we do not have the entire picture from Thucydides is further suggested by the appearance of the [-]rxadieis in the inscribed fifth-century treaty between the Spartans and the Aitolians (T48, l.17). This elusive document makes explicit what is only implied by Thucydides and Strabo: the Aitolian population groups have defined territories of their own (T48, ll. 16–18). The complexity of Aitolian political geography is further hinted at by two fourth-century inscriptions that marked the boundaries between the territories of the Arysaes and Nomenaeis (T50) and the Eiteaies and Eoitanes (T51), groups that are otherwise largely unknown.159 In short, the Messenians’ description of Aitolian sociopolitical organization in Thucydides appears to be accurate if incomplete and points to a region inhabited by distinct population groups with defined territories who nevertheless associated with one another as Aitolians.

      But what of the Messenians’ claim that the Aitolians lived in unwalled villages? For the fifth century it may be largely correct. Demosthenes’ invasion of 426 ultimately targeted eastern Aitolia, home to the Ophiones. This area has been more systematically surveyed than others, and archaeological evidence points to the existence of some twenty-five settlements of various sizes in the classical and Hellenistic periods.160 Of these, and indeed in all Aitolia, only one set of fortifications has been found that can be dated with any confidence to the fifth century. They cluster around a site identified as the polis Aigition (maps 4 and 5), which played an important role in the defense of Aitolia against the Athenian-Messenian attack.161 So again Thucydides’ Messenian characterization of the region is largely accurate, if somewhat overdrawn for rhetorical purposes.

      The Messenians persuaded Demosthenes to launch the invasion from Ozolian Lokris and to proceed with haste, conquering village after village. While the Athenians and their allies captured three small settlements, the Aitolians organized themselves to repulse the attack, “so that even the most distant of the Ophiones, living in the direction of the Malian Gulf, and the Bomieis and Kallieis all assisted.”162 Clearly the communities of eastern Aitolia were in close communication with one another and rallied to the defense of their territory, probably according to some preexisting agreement to defend other members of the group in the event of an attack. The invading force advanced as far as Aigition, which they found abandoned. Its inhabitants had taken refuge in the rugged hills above the settlement, from where they attacked the slow-moving Athenian hoplite army with javelins at a surprising speed. The invading army was eventually repulsed, with the death of some 120 hoplites whom Thucydides describes as “the best men in the city of Athens to die in this war,” its survivors escaping into Lokris.163 It is a fascinating episode, revealing the efficacy of communication and cooperation among the scattered population groups of eastern Aitolia.

      That cooperation extended to the conduct of interstate diplomacy, for Thucydides tells us that after the Athenian army had been expelled, the Aitolians sent three ambassadors, representing each of the three major population groups—the Ophiones, Eurytanes, and Apodotoi—to Corinth and Sparta seeking support for a retaliatory attack on Naupaktos.164 The Corinthian response is not reported, but the Spartans agreed.165 Seeing an opportunity to dislodge the Athenians from central Greece, the Spartans sent an army into Ozolian Lokris, where along with the Aitolians they won over numerous communities that had been friendly to Athens. Lokrian forces swelled the ranks of the Spartan-Aitolian force, which then advanced on Naupaktos, cutting down crops in the territory and seizing an unfortified suburb but failing to take Naupaktos itself, which was defended by the remnants of Demosthenes’ army. The principal gain for the Aitolians was the seizure of Molykreion, which had been subject to Athens and lay west of Naupaktos.166 It was also probably at this time that they gained control of Makyneia in the same area.167 Further west, however, Kalydon and Pleuron appear to have remained independent but must have been sympathetic to the Aitolians and Peloponnesians, for it was to these and other cities in the area that their combined army retreated after the failed retaliatory attack on Naupaktos.168

      It is clear from Thucydides’ narrative of the Athenian invasion that the Aitolians had in place some mechanism for coordination and cooperation in the face of external attacks, though it gives us precious little indication of the structure of their internal relations. While it would be quite unjustified to call this a koinon, the Aitolians’ system of cooperation must directly or indirectly have affected their willingness to create a koinon in the fourth century. It is to this period that we now turn.

      1. Hom. Il. 2.494–511, discussed in detail by Larson 2007: 32–40, with references to earlier literature.

      2. Bintliff 1994 (cf. Bintliff 2002: 212) speculates that this hierarchy of settlements emerged out of a desire to create territories capable of supplying the needs of the largest settlement (or central place). There is much to recommend this view, but it is predicated on the assumption that such “central places” were virtually autarkic and had little interaction with the world beyond their territories, which does not fit with the fuller evidence from later periods in Boiotian history. See below, pp. 267–73.

      3. Thespiai is not mentioned in Hes. Op., but Σ Hes. Op. 631, citing both Aristotle and Plutarch, claims that the inhabitants of Askra were driven out by Thespiai after the death of Hesiod, so the inference is not unsound. Askra as kōmē: see Op. 639–40. Judges in the polis: Op. 37–41, 219–24. On the legal dispute see Gagarin 1974. On the relationship of Askra and Thespiai see Bintliff 1996: 197; Tandy 1997: 203–27; A. T. Edwards 2004: 166–73.

      4. Σ Hes. Op. 631 with A. T. Edwards 2004: 171–72.

      5. Hesiodic authorship, already questioned by Aristophanes of Byzantion (Hypothesis A line 2 of Aspis), has been rejected on linguistic grounds: McGregor 1976: 196–97; cf. Shapiro 1984a: 38. Cf. Hammond 1986: 155–56. Date: M. L. West 1985: 136; Shapiro 1984a: 40–47 contra Guillon 1963: 18–19; cf. Ducat 1964: 286, Jeffery 1976: 74–75. The poem as we have it is a complete whole; the final lines are not a late addition: Janko 1986: 38–40; R. P. Martin 2005 contra Russo 1965: 191–92, comm. ad locum.

      6. Davies 1994 contra Robertson 1978. For earlier treatments see Jannoray 1937; Forrest 1956. On the escalation from local to regional conflict see Kase and Szemler 1984; McInerney 1999: 165–72.

      7. Cloché 1918; McInerney 1999: 174–78. Guillon 1963: 61–62 argued that the Boiotians were also directly attacked by the Thessalians during the war, prompted by signs of Theban aggression manifested in their “hostile takeover” of the Ptoion in the territory of Akraiphia ca. 600. But there is no evidence for this hostile takeover: Ducat 1964: 286–88, 1971: 439–42, and 1973: 64.

      8. Persistence of epichoric forms: Peek 1933: 51–52; G. P. Edwards 1971: 196–97. Cf. Janko 1982: 14, 48; Shapiro 1984a: 43. It is thus striking that the Shield is so oft en read for the light it sheds on Athenian politics in the sixth century, frequently in relationship to the popularity of the subject on Athenian vases ca. 570–480; see Shapiro 1984a, b.

      9. Aspis 104–5, trans. Athanassakis.

      10. Poseidon at Thebes: IG VII.2465, found at Thebes, gives Poseidon the epithet Empylēos. The stone may in fact have come from Onchestos (Schachter 1981–94: II.224). Σ Aspis 105 suggests that the reference is to Onchestos, on which cult see below, pp. 163–67.

      11. Ducat 1964: 284–86.

      12. Russo 1965: 33 n. 35; Janko 1986: 45. Paus. 10.37.7–8 gives the only detailed account of Krisa’s destruction. Other ancient sources are less specific about the fate of the city in the war, and all the sources are vague about the actual crimes committed

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