Creating a Common Polity - Emily Mackil Hellenistic Culture and Society

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Epameinondas expelled the Achaian garrisons from Naupaktos and Kalydon, in Aitolia, and from Dyme itself, in the extreme west of coastal Achaia.102 Diodoros, whose brief account is our only source for the supposed liberation of these cities, does not explain the Boiotians’ motive, but it is perhaps not so difficult to divine. In a single blow they could take vengeance on the Achaians for their fickleness and reward the Aitolians, who had been their friends since 370 and had been hoping to regain Naupaktos since at least 389.103 It is additionally possible that winning over such coastal places was part of the planning stage of building a Boiotian navy, which got under way a few years later.104 The liberation of Dyme may not have affected the Aitolians at all, but it may point to an ongoing struggle within Achaia to define the nature and boundaries of the power of the regional state.105 The independence of Pellene in these years and the struggle between oligarchs and democrats point in the same direction.106 The status of Naupaktos and Kalydon after their liberation is somewhat murky, but it is likely that Kalydon was handed over to the Aitolians while control of Naupaktos was returned to the Lokrian inhabitants of the town.107 Even if the Aitolians did not gain what the Achaians lost, the expulsion of the Achaian garrisons from these places must have been a great benefit to them.

      It is perhaps not a coincidence that we have our first incontrovertible evidence for the existence of formal koinon institutions in Aitolia in the very same year, 367/6. An Athenian decree (T52) records the decision to send a herald “to the koinon of the Aitolians” (ll. 16–17) to demand the release of sacred officials who had been seized by some Trichoneians while announcing the sacred truce for the Eleusinian Mysteries (ll. 11–14), which had been accepted by the Aitolian koinon before the seizure (ll. 8–10). There has been some debate about the meaning of “the koinon of the Aitolians” in this document, but it is clear that this entity was regarded by other states as having both authority over the behavior of the citizens of the polis Trichoneion (certainly inter alias) and responsibility for enforcing “the common laws of the Greeks” among them.108 To put it another way, it was expected that the laws and decisions of the koinon, in this case accepting the truce for the Eleusinian Mysteries, were binding on its citizens. That the Aitolian koinon should first appear on the scene in the context of an illicit seizure has perhaps obscured the importance of the historical context of the decree. The Aitolians’ Hellenistic reputation as plunderers seems to receive early confirmation here.109 But while the act of seizure that lies behind the decree may have been the private act of a few Trichoneians, it is equally possible that it should be seen in the framework of broader hostilities between the Athenians and the Boiotians, with whom the Aitolians were in allegiance.

      This inscription alone justifies the claim that the first decades of the fourth century witnessed political developments that formalized old patterns of cooperation among the different communities and poleis of Aitolia, committing them to a single authority through which interactions with foreign states would be conducted. We would like to know why this happened now. The Aitolians may have developed formal political institutions that created a single regional state at any time between the Peloponnesian War and 367/6. We have seen evidence of functional cooperation throughout that period but have lacked any evidence for formal institutions that may have supported or, indeed, required it. It has been argued that the Aitolian koinon was created by Epameinondas in 370, a hypothesis that could be supported by the Boiotians’ efforts to liberate the old Aitolian city of Kalydon in 367.110 But the Boiotian-Aitolian relationship in 370 is described only as a friendship, and there is no evidence to support the common view that the Boiotians were engaged in forging confederate polities outside their own borders.111

      During the fourth century, however, we see another striking development in Aitolia that may be related, namely a significant increase in urbanization throughout the region. Although Kalydon had been occupied since at least the archaic period, in the early fourth century its inhabitants invested heavily in its defense, building a lengthy circuit wall with towers and gates to enclose the settlement.112 With our inability to date fortification walls precisely comes uncertainty as to whether these should be associated with the period of the Achaian garrison or with Aitolian retrenchment following the city’s probable return in 367, but the developments at Kalydon are in line with what we see in other parts of the region that were not subject to foreign control, suggesting that the Aitolians were indeed responsible for them. At nearby Chalkis, the fourth century saw the construction of a fortification above the city, which was itself defended by a circuit wall in the classical period.113 The scant remains of a large fortified settlement of the classical period at modern Gavalou, south of Lake Trichonis, have long been associated with ancient Trichoneion, the home of those accused by the Athenians of seizing the sacred heralds; they are an important corrective to any sense that urbanization and fortification were phenomena restricted to coastal Aitolia.114 South again to the coast are the archaeological remains of a fortified settlement of the fourth century at Molykreion, with similar structures at nearby Makynea belonging to the late fourth or early third century.115 Finally, Kallion (later known as Kallipolis), east of Naupaktos at the confluence of four rivers in the ancient Daphnos Valley, was planned and developed in the mid-fourth century with a defensive circuit wall and an independently fortified acropolis; over the course of the Hellenistic period urban forms proliferated here, despite the brutal sack of the city by the Gauls in 279.116 When collected, this scattered evidence provides a clear picture of significant investments in urbanization and defense across southern Aitolia in the fourth century. The effort appears to have been systematic, and it should probably be associated with the internal development of the Aitolian koinon, which was itself prompted by the Aitolians’ need for more effective cooperation in the face of their increasing involvement in the major conflicts of the Greek world.117 Yet this implies that Aitolian cooperation was motivated solely by military vulnerability and aimed almost exclusively at eradicating it; we shall see later (chapters 4 and 5) that although this was certainly a factor, the story is rather more complex.

      Growth in Boiotia was happening at an altogether different pace. With help from Euboian allies, the Thebans sought to detach Oropos from Athens and bring the city and its sanctuary back within the Boiotian fold. The city and its sanctuary were seized by the Boiotians, and the Athenian army sent to wrest it back was ill equipped to face the Thebans. The issue of possession of Oropos was turned over to arbitration.118 The most significant outcome of this embarrassing encounter was that the Arkadians were emboldened to seek an Athenian alliance, and the Athenians nervous enough to accept it, going to lengths to ensure that it would not violate the terms of their alliance with Sparta.119 It may also have been at this time that the Thebans voted to develop a navy by building a hundred triremes, with the stated aim of extending their hegemony on land to hegemony at sea in order to gain naval superiority over the Athenians.120 The process took several years, but this seems the most logical juncture for its inception.121 The Corinthians were deeply discomfited by the Arkadian-Athenian alliance and, after the brief tyranny of Timophanes at Corinth and the persistent threat from Argos, they went to Thebes seeking a general peace. The agreement that was reached under Persian and Theban auspices included Thebes, Corinth, Phleious, Argos, and probably Athens, but the Spartans refused to join, preferring instead to fight for Messene, which the peace treaty would have required that they surrender.122

      Despite the strength of the Theban-led Boiotian koinon at this juncture—a navy in development, Persian support, and a general peace that excluded only Sparta—internal dissension wrought drastic and violent change in the region. A group of Theban aristocrats who had been expelled from their city sought to overthrow the democracy and enlisted the support of three hundred cavalry from Orchomenos. On the day of the planned attack, however, the instigators changed their minds and betrayed the plot to the boiotarchs, thus securing their own safety. The Orchomenian cavalry, by contrast, were arrested and brought before the popular assembly in Thebes, where the Thebans voted the most extreme measures imaginable: the cavalrymen guilty of conspiracy were to be executed; every remaining inhabitant of Orchomenos was to be sold into slavery; and the ancient city was to be razed to the ground.123 The decree was carried out quickly, and the city was only resettled two decades later. It is tempting to see this act of overwhelming violence perpetrated against a member city as part and parcel with the destructions of Plataia and Thespiai,

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