The

Hellenistic
World

New Perspectives

edited by

Daniel Ogden
THE HELLENISTIC WORLD: NEW PERSPECTIVES
 THE
HELLENISTIC
WORLD
New Perspectives

Editor
Daniel Ogden

Contributors
Sylvie le Bohec-Bouhet, David Braund,
Elizabeth Carney, John Davies, Andrew Erskine,
Shelley Hales, Waldemar Heckel,Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones,
Alan B. Lloyd, Christian Mileta, Graham Shipley,
Dorothy Thompson, Ruth Westgate,
Klaus Zimmermann

The Classical Press of Wales

and
Duckworth
First published in 2002 by
Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd.
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(sole distributor outside N. America)
and
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Printed and bound in the UK by Gomer Press, Llandysul, Ceredigion, Wales
 Contents
Page
Preface vii
Introduction. From Chaos to Cleopatra ix
Daniel Ogden (University of Wales, Swansea)

Structure and System

1. The interpenetration of hellenistic sovereignties 1
John Davies (University of Liverpool)
2. Eratosthenes’ chlamys-shaped world: a misunderstood metaphor 23
Klaus Zimmermann (Friedrich-Schiller-Universität, Jena)

King and court

3. The kings of Macedon and the cult of Zeus in the
hellenistic period 41
Sylvie le Bohec-Bouhet (Université de Rouen)
Translated by the editor

4. Hunting and the Macedonian elite: sharing the rivalry

of the chase 59
Elizabeth Carney (Clemson University)
5. The politics of distrust: Alexander and his Successors 81
Waldemar Heckel (University of Calgary)

Family and kinship

6. O brother where art thou? Tales of kinship and diplomacy 97
Andrew Erskine (National University of Ireland, Galway)
7. The Egyptian elite in the early Ptolemaic period. Some 117
hieroglyphic evidence
Alan B. Lloyd (University of Wales, Swansea)
8. Families in early Ptolemaic Egypt 137
Dorothy Thompson (Girton College, Cambridge)

v
Contents

Landscape and people

9. The king and his land. Some remarks on the royal area
(basilike chora) of hellenistic Asia Minor 157
Christian Mileta (Freie Universität, Berlin)
10. Hidden landscapes: Greek field survey data and
hellenistic history 177
Graham Shipley (University of Leicester)
11. Steppe and sea: the hellenistic north in the Black Sea region
before the first century bc 199
David Braund (University of Exeter)

Art and image

12. Hellenistic mosaics 221
Ruth Westgate (Cardiff University, University of Wales)
13. How the Venus de Milo lost her arms 253
Shelley Hales (University of Bristol)
14. Celluloid Cleopatras or Did the Greeks ever get to Egypt? 275
Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones (Open University)
Maps 305

Index 311

vi
 Preface

The papers collected here proceed from a colloquium organized by the

University of Wales Institute of Classics and Ancient History (UWICAH)
at Hay-on-Wye, July 17–19, 2000. The volume is dedicated to our former
colleague, Stephen Mitchell, the co-founder of UWICAH, in celebration
of his appointment to the Leverhulme Chair of Hellenistic History at the
University of Exeter, and in thanks for his guidance with the project.

vii
 Introduction

FROM CHAOS TO CLEOPATRA

Daniel Ogden

The hellenistic world, the Greek-dominated world between 323 and 30 bc,
is less often regarded as a field of ancient history than as an absence within
it. Publishers fear the very word ‘hellenistic’ for its supposed obscurity and
go to extraordinary lengths to banish it from the main titles of their books.
The conventional expedient is the ‘framing’ or ‘book-ends’ approach, that
is, to define the period by its edges, or even in terms of individuals or
events that are actually exterior to it in time or culture. The ancient-history
publisher’s best boy, the ever-bankable Alexander, is repeatedly pressed
into service to constitute the first book-end, for all that he falls outside the
period by definition, since it is his death that marks its commencement.
A host of conveniently A-alliterative terms contend to join him as the
second book-end: Alexander to Actium; Athens from Alexander to Antony;
From Alexander to Augustus.1 Sometimes the best girl too can come to the
rescue: From Alexander to Cleopatra.2
But the term ‘hellenistic’, which retains full popularity between covers,
is itself problematic as a description of the period and civilization under
discussion. It is a modern derivative of the ancient verb hellenizo, ‘Greek-ize’,
which is used in Maccabees to denote the acquisition of Greek language and
lifestyle by Jews.3 Building, appropriately, on this, Jacques Bénigne Bossuet
coined the term ‘hellénistique’, in his 1681 Discours sur l’histoire universelle,
to describe the language of the Septuagint, the ‘Greek-ized’ version of the
Old Testament.4 The term was first expanded, to describe Greek civilization
as a whole between 323 and 30 bc, by Johann-Gustav Droysen in his 1836
Geschichte der Diadochen (‘History of the Successors’), on the basis that
the adoption of Greek language and cultural forms by non-Greeks was the
crucial and defining characteristic of the age. More particularly, Greek and
Jewish culture and religion had come together in a Hegelian synthesis that
had flowered in the birth of Christianity. It was in 1877, when Droysen’s
book was republished in omnibus format with his works on Alexander and
the so-called Epigoni as Geschichte des Hellenismus (‘History of hellenism’)
that the term finally became the conventional one for the age.5 The term

ix
Daniel Ogden

is unsatisfactory because, strictly speaking, it defines not the Greek world

itself but its barbarian penumbra or periphery, its fringe and candidate
members. The acquisition of Greek language and culture by non-Greeks
may or may not have been the most notable phenomenon in and around the
Greek world in the 323–30 bc period, but, by definition, the ‘hellenizing’
are not yet the ‘hellenized’. The ‘hellenistic’ world, in short, is the Greek
world with the Greeks taken out. Here, then, we have a second gaping
absence. It might further be objected that the 323–30 bc period was in any
case not the only one in which a barbarian periphery found itself attracted
towards or assimilated into Greek culture. Cartledge has other objections
to the term ‘hellenistic’, an ‘unhappy title’ as he calls it. He notes that ‘in
English at any rate the suffix “-istic” conjures up a notion of pale or failed
imitation, Greek-ish, Greek-like, not the real pukka thing’.6
Introductions to general works and article-collections on the hellenistic
period typically tell us that it has long languished in neglect, and here is
our third absence. More specifically, they tell us that this period of neglect
has recently come to an end, with work on the subject only now at last
burgeoning. This is fortunate: heaven forfend that scholars should find
themselves publishing in an unfashionable area. One could be forgiven
for, in innocence, taking such claims in the recent literature at face value.7
But in fact Tarn and Griffith were already opening the preface to the third
edition of their Hellenistic Civilization with precisely the same sentiments as
long ago as 1952. Looking back at their second edition, published in 1930,
they noted that the intervening years had witnessed ‘a vast outpouring, in
many languages, of special studies and monographs concerned with this
period’.8 It at once becomes apparent that such a claim does not describe
any objective reality in the practice of ancient studies. Rather, it is revealed
as a rhetorical decency, as a commonplace without which no preface to
hellenistic material can be complete, and as, first and foremost, a myth.
The study of the hellenistic world is forever, it seems, newly arriving,
adventitious, like the god Dionysus.
In recent years a new variety of absence has been devised for the hellen-
istic world, as scholars have attempted to dismantle its boundaries in time
and space. It is now customary to promote the elements of continuity the
hellenistic world shared with the classical one that preceded it and the
imperial one that succeeded it.9
The time has come, surely, to reassert an honest definition of the hellen-
istic world in plain language. The hellenistic world is very easy indeed to
define in terms of its single most important constituent,10 namely the highly
distinctive group of inter-marrying and warring dynasts that presided over
it, both directly and indirectly. The first group of rulers, Perdiccas and his

x
 Introduction

fellows, was created by the death of Alexander in 323 bc and the last ruler,
Cleopatra the Great, was driven to her death in 30 bc. For all their dynastic
and individual differences, the kings (and proto-kings) and queens bestow
upon the period a coherence and a distinctiveness of superstructure that can
be claimed for no other period in Greek history. What similar coherence
can be claimed for any of the fragmented and chaotic Greek worlds of the
archaic, classical, or imperial periods, from which the hellenistic world
stands proud in this respect? It will, now, be objected that such an appeal
to the dynasties depends upon an old-fashioned and elitist approach to
ancient history. On the illusory nature of fashion in classical scholarship
enough has been said. As to the question of elitism, we need only observe
that scholars remain happy enough with the canonical periodization of
Roman history in terms of the activities of its ‘elites’ and the shapes into
which they formed themselves (Monarchy, Republic and Empire). I note,
incidentally, that works on the hellenistic world that focus strongly on its
dynasties feel much less need to be apologetic about the period with which
they work.11
Did the later ancients themselves perceive the hellenistic period as a co-
herent entity?12 We can answer the question with a qualified affirmative.
There was, on the one hand, even within the hellenistic period itself, a clear
sense that the career of Alexander had transformed the Greek world and
created a new epoch. Demetrius of Phaleron (whose words were recalled
by Polybius) spoke of Fortune lending the blessings of the wealth of Persia
to the Macedonians upon their overthrow of the empire. These blessings
would one day pass on to others, and Polybius recognized that the process
was already happening in his own day, as the blessings of the Macedonians
passed to the Romans.13 At the end of the first century ad Plutarch was
to see the world as having been transformed from a different point of
view, namely by Alexander’s mission to bring Greek culture, agriculture,
marriage, law and general civilization to the barbarians.14 Significantly,
a series of histories – anticipating more recent works – was compiled on the
Diadochic period under such titles as ‘the things after Alexander’. Works on
this theme were written by Hieronymus of Cardia, Nymphis of Heraclea,
Arrian of Nicomedia and Dexippus of Athens.15
30 bc was probably perceived as an even stronger and more decisive
watershed. We can not be reminded too often of the last words Plutarch
gave to Cleopatra’s handmaiden Charmion, after she had helped the queen
kill herself, words which were so memorably reworked in the closing lines
of Antony and Cleopatra:
Someone said in anger, ‘This is no fine thing, is it, Charmion?’ She
replied, ‘Nay rather, it is the finest, and befits the scion of so many kings.’
Plutarch, Antony 85
xi
Daniel Ogden

First Guard: What work is here! Charmian, is this well done?

Charmian: It is well done, and fitting for a princess descended of so many
royal kings.
Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act 5, Scene 2
So many kings: how many? All the Ptolemies, of course, but the earlier
Seleucids were also Cleopatra’s ascendants, and these are hardly excluded.
Nor are the Argeads. Even if nothing was made of the possibly real, albeit
indirect, connection to the Argead family through Ptolemy of Alorus,
Ptolemy Soter, the dynasty’s founder, had put it about that he was the
secret son of Philip II.16 Nor are the pharaohs excluded. Even if Cleopatra
did not draw down the blood of Egyptian royalty through her (to us)
mysterious mother and grandmother, the notion that Alexander himself
had been secretly sired by the last pharaoh Nectanebo II had at any rate
conferred upon Soter a pharaonic brother, of sorts. This concise and
powerful epitaph, then, encapsulates in the noble death of a single woman
not only the end of her immediate dynasty but also that of the history of
the world, which the Greeks knew to have begun, long before their own,
with the pharaohs. Such a view of the significance of Cleopatra’s death is
expressed in more explicit and extreme terms by Lucian, who speaks of the
duties of the pantomime-dancer,
His entire stock-in-trade is ancient history, the capacity to call episodes to
mind readily and to represent them with appropriate dignity. For, beginning
right from Chaos and the moment when the universe was created, he must
know everything down to the tale of the Egyptian Cleopatra.
Lucian, On Dancing 37
Here the death of Cleopatra brings a close to everything that had ever
happened before it. The death of Alexander was not the only lower time-
limit canonized in the Second Sophistic.17
In the search for ancient periodizations we may be tempted to turn to
the chronological frames constructed by ancient historiography. Admit-
tedly, there do not seem to have been a great many ancient prototypes for
the histories scholars now produce of the hellenistic period, that is to say,
histories with a focus roughly commensurate with the 323–30 bc span and
with the geographical spread of Greek culture during it. But then, according
to comparable criteria, there were no ancient prototypes for our histories
of the archaic or classical periods either. Antiquity’s histories tended to be
either wider (‘universal’) in scope, or much narrower in their temporal and
geographical purview. But one lost history, about which we are frustratingly
under-informed, is indeed thought to have focused tightly on the hellen-
istic world, and in particular upon its four great dynasties. Timagenes of

xii
 Introduction

Alexandria’s On kings may well have been a Will’s Histoire politique for its
time.18 The testimonia and fragments tell that Timagenes was taken captive
and brought to Rome by Gabinius in 55 bc, where, after being freed, he
taught rhetoric and associated, for as long as it was safe to do so, with the
Antonian camp. His work almost certainly went down to the death of
Cleopatra; one fragment mentions her father Auletes, and a testimony tells
us that he eventually found it prudent to burn the latest part of his work,
which dealt with Augustus.19 Of course any Ptolemaic history compiled
after the dynasty’s end would have come close to fulfilling our temporal
remit, and may also have come close to fulfilling the geographical one in
indirect fashion, given that the Ptolemies were always closely involved with
the other dynasties and major Greek states, in war or peace. Unfortunately
the dynastic histories of the Ptolemies have almost completely disappeared
from the record, as have those of the other hellenistic dynasties.20 Pausanias
tells that the personal historians of the hellenistic rulers had already come
to be disregarded by his own (second-century ad) day, and he therefore
feels the need to remind his readers of what they did. But in doing this, he
does at any rate appear to have a notion of an age defined by the dynastic.21
Jacoby and Préaux attribute the loss of such histories to the fact that they
were sycophantic and eulogistic, and lacked popular appeal.22
One history does survive from antiquity that is close to being a ‘history
of the (Macedonian and) hellenistic period’, namely Justin’s epitome of the
Latin history of the Gallo-Roman Pompeius Trogus, which may actually
have used Timagenes’ history as its principal source.23 The original was
composed under Augustus; the epitome was made at some point before
Augustine, some centuries later. Books 1 to 6 cover the histories of Greece
and Persia down to the eve of the rise of Philip II. Book 7 takes a retro-
spective look at Macedonian history from the supposed founder Caranus,
with Books 8 and 9 returning to the career of Philip II. After a resumé of
intervening Persian history in Book 10, Books 11–13 cover the campaign
of Alexander. Thence Books 14–40 are devoted to the Greek world in the
hellenistic period with a heavy emphasis on its dynastic aspects. Books
41–2 continue the story of the Near East after the Seleucid decline with the
history of the Parthians. Finally, Books 43 and 44 offer summary coverage
of the states at the western end of the Mediterranean. The so-called
‘prologues’ of Trogus in particular show that the original text incorporated
a great many digressions to explain the background of the individuals, states
and peoples brought onto the stage. The focus of this supposedly universal
history is very clearly what we would call the Macedonian and hellenistic
worlds. The books prior to 7 can be seen to cover the background to them
in the clashes between the Greeks and the Persians, whilst the first two

xiii
Daniel Ogden

books subsequent to 40 can be seen as a sort of epilogue to the hellenistic

world. Only the curious final two books seem to fall decisively outside
a ‘hellenistic’ scheme, but their subject matter at least allowed Trogus to
speak of his own origins. In giving his work the title ‘Philippic’ Trogus was
following in the footsteps of Theopompus of Chios and Anaximenes of
Lampsacus, both of whom had used the title for their histories of Philip II
himself.24 Trogus’ reasons for expanding the scope of the term to allow it
to connote, at some level, all the Macedonian dynasties of the hellenistic
age have long been the subject of debate. Numerous suggestions have been
made, not all of them convincing.25 The most probable explanation is that
Trogus was primarily using the term as a generic one for a variety of history
with a dynastic focus, but which incorporated, like Theopompus’ work,
a great many genealogical and ethnographic digressions.26 But it will also
have helped that Philip II remained the node of Trogus’ work.27 He it was
that transformed the Macedonian state and planned the invasion of the
Persian empire; he it was that sired Alexander, who continued his remark-
able trajectory, and who in turn created, through his death, the successor
dynasties. Modern scholars of the hellenistic period could do worse than
to take a hint from Trogus: the term Philippic, with its focus properly on
the dynastic superstructure of the period, might be considered a preferable
alternative to ‘hellenistic’, for all that Philip himself was even more exterior
to the period than Alexander.

The first pair of papers address what might be called the structure of the
hellenistic world from two very different perspectives, the social and the
geographical. First John Davies assesses the extent to which the areas
controlled by the hellenistic dynasties may be understood to have behaved
as a system, that is, ‘as a set of interacting networks which shared structures,
mechanisms, boundaries and vectors’. The hellenistic world, he contends,
can be seen in terms of a series of ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’ relationships.
At the top end ‘horizontal’ relationships obtained between the kings across
the different dynasties, and, within the dynasties, between the king and
his family, friends and army. At the bottom end also a network of hori-
zontal links extended between the various Greek communities. These links
were enhanced in the course of the period by the developing processes
of synoecism, citizenship-fluidity in its various forms, the recognition
of religious privileges and of claims to kinship between cities, and, not
least, the formation of leagues. Ways were also found to incorporate some
non-Greek states, such as Rome, within this network. Between these hori-
zontal strata extended vertical relationships both of a ‘top-down’ and of
a ‘bottom-up’ variety. Several of the former can be identified. The king

xiv
 Introduction

could preside autocratically over his territory as a personal possession, as

‘spear-won’ land, and exploit the revenues from it for his own ends. He
could exert indirect control over polities within his territory through the
installation of garrisons and tyrants or the appointment of arbitrators, or
even by appointing himself to a city’s magistracy. A still less direct form
of control could be exercised through the promotion of ruler cult. As to
the ‘bottom-up’ vertical relationships, the emergent leagues afforded their
constituent micropolities a measure of bargaining power with the kings.
Leading citizens could champion their states’ interests with the kings,
whether as royal officers, polis-ambassadors or as cultural ‘gurus’, and
it was these adaptable men above all that made the wider system work.
The receptivity and elasticity of this system allowed it to embrace also the
western Mediterranean during the third century bc, and so create what we
know as the ‘classical world’.
The second paper turns to physical structure of the world in hellenistic
thought. Klaus Zimmermann offers a persuasive new solution to an old
problem in hellenistic science. What did the great geographer Eratosthenes
mean when he described the ‘inhabited world’ as shaped like a chlamys-
cloak (chlamydoeides)? Previous attempts to explain the imagery have tried
to map the inhabited world’s land mass onto the shape of the outspread
garment, but none of these is satisfactory, in whatever way the chlamys-
pattern is oriented in relation to the land mass. It was not, though, simply
to the two-dimensional shape of the outspread garment that Eratosthenes
was referring, but also to its three-dimensional shape when worn, draped
around the shoulders. The function of the image was, accordingly, to
explain how one was to visualize the seemingly flat land mass of the
inhabited world represented on a two-dimensional map as in reality arcing
around its quadrant of the globe.
The following three papers look at that most focal and distinctive feature
of the hellenistic world, the king and the court around him, and each
paper makes much of the Argead background in this. Sylvie le Bohec-
Bouhet collates and reviews the evidence for the association of the kings
of Macedon with the cult of Zeus, king of the gods. She demonstrates
how one can combine passing allusions in literary sources with excava-
tions, fragmentary inscriptions and coin issues to reconstruct what was
evidently a major institution of the Macedonian monarchy. The Argeads,
and through them the Antigonids, drew their descent from Zeus. Royal
coinage was illustrated with Zeus or his son Heracles. The kings were asso-
ciated with Zeus in sculpture, painting and poetry. They presided over at
least three festivals of Zeus in the year and regularly sacrificed to him in the
course of their campaigns. They embellished his great sanctuary at Dion,

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Daniel Ogden

amongst others, with magnificent dedications, and displayed their official

texts there. At once we learn much both about the ideology and projection
of kingship in Macedon and about the fabric of the king’s life, a subject of
great interest but one that is often strangely elusive.
Elizabeth Carney examines the role of hunting in the lives and
ideology of the king and the Macedonian elite. The Argead kings used their
touted successes in it to establish a legitimating valour, and from Alexan-
der I onwards they celebrated the hunt with a range of motifs on their coins,
including Heracles’ Nemean lionskin. For the king and his Companions
alike, hunting offered a locus for competitive display, including that of the
erotic variety, and a forum in which they could negotiate the complexi-
ties and contradictions of their ill-defined relationship. Successes – in
love or the kill – inevitably created failures, and the rivalries and tensions
generated in the hunt often erupted into violence between its participants.
A Companion’s decision to strike an animal that threatened the king himself
needed fine judgement: would one be forever in his debt for delivering him,
or incur his wrath by denying him the kill and compromising his valour?
In their search for legitimacy the Successors were particularly anxious to
promote anecdotes of their erstwhile demonstrations of hunting prowess
in association with Alexander the Great. Later, the Antigonids, whose rule
was more defined and absolute than that of the Argeads had been, projected
a concomitant image of the king as a more solitary hunter.
The sources for the Diadochic period strikingly reflect in their language
the distrust that obtained between Alexander’s Successors. Waldemar
Heckel investigates the origins and manifestations of this distrust, and
its role in the ultimate failure of the Successors. Alexander himself first
created an atmosphere of distrust among his marshals through his attempts
to limit individual power. One method was ‘collegiality’, the splitting and
balancing of commands between two or more rivals. A variant technique
was to appoint ‘watch-dog’ lieutenants to keep the higher officials in
check. Another method again was to integrate outsiders, native potentates
or Greek civilians, into the Macedonian hierarchy. This fragmentation of
power across the hierarchy meant that, once Alexander himself was gone,
it collapsed for the want of a clear chain of command. The Babylon and
Triparadeisos settlements effectively replicated and institutionalized Alex-
ander’s culture of debilitating checks and balances among the new order,
and prevented any individual from taking control of the empire as a whole,
and this led, disastrously, to its ultimate destabilization.
The next trio of papers turn to matters of family and kinship, real or
imagined. Andrew Erskine discusses claims to kinship between the peoples
of different states in hellenistic diplomacy. Such claims, which exploited

xvi
 Introduction

a range of special terms, drew in various ways upon the full resources of
myth, local tradition and history to construct ties. A remarkable 208 bc
inscription from Xanthus lays out the minute and detailed arguments for
kinship made to that city by the ambassadors of Cytinium, who sought
aid in rebuilding their own city. Two years later an epigraphic archive from
Magnesia on Meander documents that city’s simultaneous claims to kinship
with wide swathes of peoples across the Near East, to establish recognition
for their new festival. Ambassadors, it seems, may often have travelled
with bundles of histories, poems and oracles – and sometimes even with
performing bards – to support their arguments. Artificial though they were,
claims to kinship could serve to establish a framework for a continuing rela-
tionship between states where none had previously obtained, and a context
against which pleas for help might properly be made.
Alan Lloyd examines Egyptian-language sources for the engagement
of the old Egyptian aristocratic families with the Ptolemaic monarchy, to
argue that they curried favour with it and drew prestige from it. In this new
context the Egyptian elite continued to cherish its old hierarchical relation-
ships, relationships of dependence upon the king combined with those of
paternalistic benevolence towards their underlings. Egyptians took up high
office at the court, as is exemplified from an important reinterpretation of
the Arsinoe inscription from Coptos. This brings Senenshepsu into the
heart of the Ptolemaic government. Contrary to the common supposition,
Egyptian soldiers participated in significant numbers in the Ptolemaic army
from the first, while the Egyptian army continued to exist in its own right,
even if initially under-utilized. In short, the Egyptian elite saw themselves
as operating in the same universe in which they always had done, and
the established view that it confined itself to priestly activities under the
Ptolemies until Ptolemy IV must be abandoned. It is to be concluded that
Egyptians are seriously under-represented in our Greek sources for the
Ptolemaic court.
Dorothy Thompson continues the Egyptian focus. She investigates
the statistics of family structure in the Egypt of the early Ptolemies. Her
study draws upon a database of 427 households compiled in conjunc-
tion with her major new edition and analysis (with W. Clarysse) of extant
Greek and demotic census and salt-tax documents from the Ptolemaic
age. A distinction is drawn between ‘families’ and ‘households’, the former
denoting the core kindred group within a house, the latter including the
resident servants. It emerges that the average sizes of both ‘families’ and
‘households’ in the earlier Ptolemaic period were somewhat larger among
the ethnically Greek than the ethnically Egyptian. This is indicative of the
predominant position of the colonial group. Indeed, the larger among the

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Daniel Ogden

Greek households are presided over by military men, and slaveholding is

shown to be a primarily Greek phenomenon. Women appear to be signifi-
cantly under-represented among the Greek families, and it is suggested
that the Greeks’ tendency to select girl babies for exposure is the cause of
this. Pomeroy’s view that child-exposure only took off in Egypt during the
Roman period should perhaps now be revised. The shortfall in Greek girls
meant that many Greek men could only find wives among the Egyptian
population, and we do indeed see Greek men marrying Egyptian women,
while there is no trace of traffic in the other direction.
The next group of papers, three again, address a field of growing interest
in hellenistic studies, that of the organization of the land and its inhabit-
ants. Christian Mileta discusses the nature of the ‘royal area’ (basilike
chora) in the hellenistic kingdoms, with special reference to Anatolia. As
Alexander had taken control of Asia Minor, he had instituted in its interior
a special variety of tax-paying area directly subject to himself, primarily so
as to fund the prosecution of his campaign from its revenues. This area was
originally constructed from sections of the Anatolian hinterland, typically
the vast private estates of the Achaemenid kings and their officers, and from
non-urbanised but highly productive parts of the choras of the Greek cities,
expropriated from them upon their liberation from the Persians. Under the
Attalids the ‘royal area’ can be seen to have been a thing now quite distinct
from the territories of the established cities (Greek, Macedonian or indig-
enous ones), the non-urbanised indigenous tribes and the great sanctuaries.
The lack of a uniform terminology for the royal area means that references
to it in epigraphic sources can be difficult to identify, but it does emerge
that it typically consisted of discontinuous tracts of land. The direct control
of the royal area by the kings originally encouraged them to develop it and
exploit it more than any other parts of their empires, and also to establish
a very personal relationship with it, as they supervised its colonization and
the improvement of its agriculture. But the process of ‘state-formation’
within the kingdoms meant that in due course this relationship tended to
become a more distanced and constitutional one.
Graham Shipley explores social and economic change in rural Greece
in the later hellenistic period using the data produced by the ‘archaeological
field survey’ of a number of regions. The results of this systematic surface-
investigation of land-use across time are used to test Polybius’ famous
assertions that the Greece of his day was depopulated. The data, so far as it
goes, vindicates him. The overall number of rural farmstead sites collapses
in the course of the period. Population decline is indeed one of the obvious
explanations for this, although others are available. While the farmsteads
are fewer, they tend to be bigger; the increase in size, however, does not

xviii
 Introduction

seem to compensate fully for the fall in numbers. There may also have been
a general migration from the country into the towns. Rural depopulation,
combined with rising farmstead size, may well have been a function of
land-accumulation by the elite, at the expense of the independent, free,
citizen small-holder. Laconia, subject of a special case study, bucks the
general trend, and actually witnesses a sharp rise in farmsteads during the
period. But this region can be seen as a special case, for it had already
suffered a most dramatic collapse in occupation during the classical period
(a collapse again easy to correlate with the literary sources).
David Braund sheds light upon life in an extensive part of the hellen-
istic world, the Black Sea region, which in the period itself was rather
neglected by all but the great trading power of Rhodes, and today too is
rather neglected as an object of study outside Russian-language scholar-
ship. He distinguishes between the Greeks’ experiences on land, notably
on the southern Ukrainian steppe, and their experiences by sea. On land
the Greeks had a complex range of relationships with their non-Greek and
their semi-hellenized neighbours (the common characterization of these
many different peoples as ‘Scythians’ all alike is unhelpful). Often the
individual Greek cities were compelled to preserve themselves and their
crops by paying tribute to local kings, and would have to call upon the
euergetism of their richer citizens to help them in this, as Olbia’s remarkable
Protogenes inscription illustrates. The Bosporan kingdom, however, under
its Greek or at any rate hellenized Spartocid dynasty, found it somewhat
easier to deal with such neighbours by virtue of its organization, manpower
and wealth. By sea, the Greeks could generally be more confident. They
were able to exploit well the opportunities it offered for communication,
trade and taxation, even despite the ever-present dangers of piracy and the
Black Sea’s notorious storms. Polybius illuminatingly explains Byzantium’s
dependence upon the taxes it imposed on shipping to alleviate the demands
made of it by its Thracian neighbours.
In the fourth and final section we turn to the art that the hellenistic world
produced and the responses of more modern ages to it. Ruth Westgate
investigates the hellenistic world’s most important and distinctive contri-
bution to the arts, the invention of the tessellated mosaic technique that
was to grace so many of the better private houses of the age. The earliest
hellenistic mosaics, those of the great houses of Pella, exploit a refined
version of the natural-pebble technique that had been developed in the
classical period, but already admit some artificial materials. By the mid-
second century bc the tessellated technique had come to predominate. It
must have been invented by at least the early second century, but we can
not be more precise. The courts of Alexandria or Pergamum may have been

xix
Daniel Ogden

its place of origin; fine early examples of it, imitative of paintings, have
been found there. The tessellated technique afforded a wider and subtler
palette than the pebble mosaics, but, in simplified form, it could also be
cheaper, and this may have been the determining factor in its popular
take-up. The insertion of prefabricated panels offered further economies.
Initially confined to dining rooms, by the end of the period mosaics had
spread more widely through their houses. Accordingly, they permit us to
chart the opening up of private houses to public display through the course
of the hellenistic age.
Shelley Hales compares the reception of female-nude sculptures in
the hellenistic world and in nineteenth-century Europe. When Aphrodite
first went nude on the eve of the hellenistic age, in the form of Praxiteles’
Aphrodite of Cnidus, she began her journey from controlling cult-statue
and goddess to controlled domestic collectable object and fleshly woman.
It was with the perspective of the ancient Greek and Roman collectors that
the Victorians most strongly identified. Their Academic painters portray
nude Venus-statues gracing not temples but private houses and even art
markets, and they further assimilated these statues to flesh in mimicking
their poses with their decorative female figures. The Victorians accepted the
verdict of antiquity itself that true art ended with the classical period, yet,
paradoxically, the art of antiquity to which they paid the greatest homage in
their own work was hellenistic. The nudity of the Cnidian Aphrodite could
be excused by appeal to her date: this was classical – just about – even if
her style was not. But the mid-hellenistic Venus de Milo had to be forcibly
reclassified as late classical to justify the similar exploitation of her image.
In the final essay Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones takes up the theme of the
reception of hellenism in the modern west. He investigates Hollywood’s
developing responses to Cleopatra’s Graeco-Macedonian ethnicity in the
face of the presumed audience expectation that she was purely and simply
Egyptian. In general, film-makers have been more ready to concede
Greekness to the queen in the script than in design. The 1917 Edwards
script seems to have recognized the non-Egyptian origin of the Ptolemaic
dynasty by introducing a fictitious Pharaonic rival claimant to the throne.
The 1963 Mankiewicz script aligns itself closely with ancient sources,
doggedly lays out the queen’s Ptolemaic background and Greekness, and
even makes play with them. But Hollywood has been reluctant to challenge
its audience’s visual expectations. Cleopatra’s dress is always symbolic of
Egypt alone. There is nothing Greek to be seen in the palace-set of the 1934
DeMille film. The Mankiewicz palace blends the Greek with the Egyptian
on the outside but is almost purely Egyptian on the inside. And while
the marketing for the films touted the supposed historical fidelity of their

xx
 Introduction

design, the sets and costumes have in fact been rather more faithful to the
fantasies of the Victorian Academic painters and the tastes of contemporary
architects and fashion houses.
In this last respect, we may perhaps consider Hollywood to be paradoxi-
cally truer to the hellenistic spirit even than it aspires to be. As the waters
of Alexandria’s harbour have recently revealed to us, Cleopatra’s historical
palace was a Greek-style edifice into which elements of indigenous Egyptian
design were incorporated and recontextualized. The modern west, cultural
heir to the Greeks, likewise builds its Cleopatra film-sets to suit its own
architectural taste whilst similarly incorporating and recontextualizing into
them elements of indigenous Egyptian design. And if, as Lloyd Llewellyn-
Jones contends, indigenous Egyptian costume was ‘fancy dress’ for the
original Cleopatra, we may be tempted to think that the first actress to play
the ‘Egyptian’ Cleopatra the modern audiences love was none other than
the queen herself, in her very own prototype of a Hollywood set.

Notes
1
Green 1990; University of Illinois 1983; Habicht 1997. One might plead,
in mitigation, that this technique is an ancient one: cf. the titles listed in n. 15.
Havelock 1971 brings ‘hellenistic’ to the fore, but mitigates its impact not only
by saluting ‘Alexander’ and ‘Actium’ in the subtitle but also by assimilating it to
the term ‘classical’: Hellenistic art: the art of the classical world from the death of
Alexander to the battle of Actium. London.
2
Grant 1982 and cf. Pomeroy 1984.
3
2 Maccabees 4.13. At Acts of the Apostles 6.1 the term hellenistes is applied to
a Jew who has adopted the language and education of the Greeks.
4
Bossuet 1691, i.8.
5
Cf. Préaux 1978, i.5–8; Walbank 1981, 14; Davies 1984, 263; Will 1985,
274–5 (developing the idea that the hellenistic world was a ‘colonial’ one); Green
1993, 6; Schmitt and Vogt 1993, 1–9; Cartledge 1997, 2; and Shipley 2000, 1.
Tarn and Griffith 1952, 1, grumble that ‘hellenism’ is improperly used as the
substantive of ‘hellenistic’; ‘hellenisticism’ (‘impossible in any language’) would
have been the proper term.
6
Cartledge at Cartledge et al. 1997, 2.
7
Thus Green 1993, 5 (‘Why, during the past decade or two, has the hellenistic
world come to enjoy such extraordinary vogue as an area of study?’); Cartledge
at Cartledge et al. 1997, 1 (‘Hellenistic studies are burgeoning today as never
before’); Shipley 2000, xiii (‘Since … the early 1990s … there has been an upsurge
in accessible writings … ’). Austin 1981, vii, gives three reasons for the perceived
neglect: (1) the hellenistic world was diverse and unstable and lacks a single point
of reference; (2) it is regarded as a ‘failure’ for not having been able to withstand
Rome; (3) it has no extant literary source of transcendent brilliance to champion it,
no Thucydides or Tacitus. Cf. also Shelley Hales’ paper in this volume, ad init.

xxi
Daniel Ogden
8
Tarn and Griffith1952, v.
9
e.g. Davies 1984, 263 (on the difficulty of defining the physical edges of the
hellenistic world, external and internal); Smith 1988, 2; Green 1993, 8; Cartledge
at Cartledge et al. 1997, 3 (‘It can, indeed, be questioned whether it is correct
to speak of a self-contained hellenistic age, epoch or period.’); Shipley 2000, xiii
(‘the element of continuity from classical times may be at least as significant as the
element of change’) and 2 (‘There is particular difficulty in assigning a terminal
date, and no attempt to do so can be completely convincing’); cf. also Shipley’s
contribution in this volume.
10
This fact is occasionally recognized, e.g. by Bilde et al. 1996, 9 (‘Kingship was
perhaps the single most important institution in the hellenistic period’).
11
Most notably Will 1979–82; so too, e.g., Allen 1983, Grainger 1997 and
Hölbl 2001. Other forms of coherence could also be argued for, as by Cook et al.
1928, vi: ‘the final achievement of the hellenistic movement was the conception of
the world, that is the world of ancient civilization, as in a sense a single community
– the oecumene, with the Greek koine as almost a universal language’.
12
Green 1990, xv, doubts that any ancient writer did.
13
Demetrius of Phaleron F81 Wehrli at Polybius 29.21; cf. Walbank 1957–79
ad loc.
14
Plutarch De Alexandri Magni Fortuna aut virtute 328–9; cf. Préaux 1978, i.6;
Shipley 2000, 1.
15
Hieronymus of Cardia FGH 154, ta; ejpi; ∆Alexavndrw/ pracqevnta; Nymphis
of Heraclea FGH 432, peri; ∆Alexavndrou kai; tw'n diadovcwn kai; ejpigovnwn; Arrian
of Nicomedia FGH 156, ta; meta; ∆Alexandron; Dexippus of Athens FGH 100,
ta; meta; ∆Alexandron.
16
Pausanias 1.6.2.
17
For which see Bowie 1970. It is commonly held that the group of second-
century ad Greek writers preserved for us in copious quantities and now classed
as participating in the ‘Second Sophistic’, Plutarch and Lucian among them,
idealized the Greek world before Alexander and took little interest in events after
his death.
18
Timagenes of Alexandria FGH 88, peri; basilevwn; Will 1979–82.
19
T3 (Seneca De Ira 3.23.4–8) – the burning of the Augustan part of the work;
F1 – the prehistory of the Milyae, the erstwhile Solymi; F2 – the background of
the Greeks; F3 – Ptolemy under Alexander; F4 – Antiochus IV Epiphanes; F5
– Aristoboulos son of Hyrcanos; F6 – Alexander son of Hyrcanos; F9 – Ptolemy
XII Auletes.
20
The only Ptolemaic histories known are the ‘Bulletin from the Third Syrian
War’, FGH 160, and Ptolemy of Megalopolis FGH 161, peri; to;n Filopavtora
iJstorivai (late third century bc). Seleucid histories: Demetrius of Phaleron FGH
162 (early third century bc); Simonides of Magnesia FGH 163; Phylarchus of
Athens FGH 81, ta; kata; ∆Antivocon kai; to;n Pergamhno;n Eujmevnh; Mnesiptolemus
of Cyme FGH 164 (an associate of Antiochus III); Timochares FGH 165, peri;
∆Antiovcou (mid-second century bc); Athenaeus of Naucratis FGH 166, peri; tw'n ejn
Suriva/ basileusavntwn; Hegesianax of Alexandria FGH 45, iJstorivai. Macedonian

xxii
 Introduction

histories: Heraclitus of Lesbos FGH 167, iJstoriva Makedonikhv (later third century
bc); Straton FGH 168, Filivppou kai; Persevw" pravxei" (mid-third century bc);
Posidonius FGH 169, peri; Persevw" (early second century bc), Attalid histories:
Lysimachus FGH 171, peri; th'" ∆Attavlou paideiva" (third century bc?); Neanthes
of Cyzicus FGH 171, peri; ∆Attavlou iJstorivai (late third century bc); Musaeus
of Ephesus FGH 455, eij" Eujmevnh kai; “Attalon; Arrian FGH 156, eij" “Attalon
to;n Pergamhnovn (second century ad); Leschides FGH 172 (second century bc,
associate of Eumenes).
21
Pausanias 1.6.1.
22
Jacoby 1923–58, IIb Kommentar pp. 543–4; Préaux 1978, i.83, 85–6, 88.
23
Cf. Gutschmid 1882; Préaux 1978, i.78 and Yardley and Heckel 1997,
30–4.
24
On Theopompus FGH 115 see Shrimpton 1991. Anaximenes’ history is to
be found at FGH 72 F4–14 (AiJ peri; Fivlippon iJstorivai). Cf. Bramble 1982, 491;
Shrimpton 1991, 121.
25
It seems unlikely that the work was so named because of a similar ‘caustic
moralizing’ attitude towards the Macedonian dynasts as that shown by
Theopompus towards Philip (thus Develin 1985 and especially at Yardley and
Develin 1994, 6; Yardley and Heckel 1997, 24–5; cf. Walbank at Walbank et al.
1984, 7). The curious suggestion has been made that the name derives from the
fact that mention was made of a great many Philips in the course of the history
(thus Urban 1982a and 1982b; eleven individuals named Philip survived into
Justin’s epitome, according to the index entries at Yardley and Develin 1994,
323–4). The suggestions have also been made that it owes its title to the Philippic
speeches of Cicero (Seel 1972, 268–9), and that the title salutes the battle of
Philippi as the effective starting point of the Roman empire (Yardley and Heckel
1997, 25).
26
I thank Byron Harries for this point. The amount of extraneous material
Theopompus had managed to integrate into his history of Philip II may be judged
from Photius’ discussion of his work (Photius no. 176). Philip V had ordered the
preparation of an edited version of the history which included only those bits
focusing specifically on Philip II. The result was a reduction from 53 books to 16!
Cf. also Alonso-Núñez 1987, 58.
27
Cf. Will 1966–7, ii.493: ‘Comme le titre de l’ouvrage l’indique, c’était l’essor
de la Macédoine sous Philippe II et tout ce qui s’en était suivi qui apparaissait
essential à ce Gaulois.’ (The review of sources from which this statement is drawn
was printed only in Will’s first edition.) Cf. also Alonso-Núñez 1987, 58–9.

Bibliography
Allen, R.E.
1983 The Attalid Kingdom, Oxford.
Alonso-Núñez, J.M.
1987 ‘An Augustan world history: the Historiae Philippicae of Pompeius
Trogus’, G&R 34, 56–72.

xxiii
Daniel Ogden

Austin, M.M.
1981 The Hellenistic World from Alexander to the Roman Conquest,
Cambridge.
Bilde, P., Engberg-Pedersen, Hannestad, L. and Zahle, J. (eds.)
1996 Aspects of Hellenistic Kingship, Aarhus.
Bossuet, J.B.
1681 Discours sur l’histoire universelle à monseigneur le dauphin: Pour expliquer
la suite de la religion, et les changements des empires. Première partie. Depuis
le commençement du monde jusqu’à l’empire de Charlemagne, Paris.
Bowie, E.L.
1970 ‘The Greeks and their past in the Second Sophistic’, Past and Present 46,
1–41.
Bramble, J.C.
1982 ‘Minor figures’, in Easterling, P.E. and Kenney, E.J. (eds.) Cambridge
History of Classical Literature, ii Latin Literature, Cambridge, 467–94.
Cartledge, P., Garnsey, P. and Gruen, E. (eds.)
1997 Hellenistic Constructs. Essays in culture, history and historiography,
Berkeley.
Cary, M.
1932 A History of the Greek World from 323 to 146 BC, London.
Cook, S.A., Adcock, F.E. and Charlesworth, M.P. (eds.)
1928 The Cambridge Ancient History vii1, Cambridge.
Davies, J.K.
1984 ‘Cultural, social and economic features of the hellenistic world’, in
Walbank et al. CAH vii2 .1, 257–320.
Develin, R.
1985 ‘Pompeius Trogus and Philippic history’, Storia della storiografia 8,
110–15.
Droysen, J.G.
1836 Geschichte der Diadochen, Gotha.
1877 Geschichte des Hellenismus, Gotha.
Grainger, J.D.
1997 A Seleukid Prosopography and Gazetteer, Leiden.
Grant, M.
1982 From Alexander to Cleopatra. The hellenistic world, London.
Green, P.
1990 Alexander to Actium. The hellenistic age, London.
Green, P. (ed.)
1993 Hellenistic History and Culture, Berkeley.
Grote, G.
1846–56 History of Greece, 12 vols., London.
Gutschmid, A. von
1882 ‘Trogus und Timagenes’, RhM 37, 548–55.
Habicht, C.
1997 Athens from Alexander to Antony, Cambridge, Mass.

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 Introduction

Havelock, C.M.
1971 Hellenistic Art: The art of the classical world from the death of Alexander to
the battle of Actium, London.
Hölbl, G.
2001 A History of the Ptolemaic Empire, London.
Jacoby, F.
1923– Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, Leiden.
Pomeroy, S.B.
1984 Women in Hellenistic Egypt. From Alexander to Cleopatra, New York.
Préaux, C.
1978 Le monde hellénistique, 2 vols., Paris.
Schmitt, H.H., and Vogt, E. (eds.)
1993 Kleines Lexikon des Hellenismus, 2nd edn, Wiesbaden.
Seel, O.
1972 Eine römische Weltgeschichte, Nürnberg.
Shipley, G.
2000 The Greek World after Alexander, 323–30 BC, London.
Shrimpton, G.S.
1991 Theopompus the Historian, Montreal.
Smith, R.R.R.
1988 Hellenistic Royal Portraits, Oxford.
Tarn, W.W. and Griffith, G.T.
1952 Hellenistic Civilisation, 3rd edn, London.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
1983 From Alexander to Augustus. A guide to the Hellenistic and Roman galleries,
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Urban, R.
1982a ‘ “Gallisches Bewusstsein” und “Romkritik” bei Pompeius Trogus’, in
ANRW ii.30.2, 1424–43.
1982b ‘ “Historiae Philippicae” bei Pompeius Trogus: Versuch einer Deutung’,
Historia 31, 82–96.
Walbank, F.W.
1957–79 A Commentary on Polybius, 3 vols., Oxford.
1981 The Hellenistic World, Glasgow.
1984 ‘Sources for the period’, in Walbank et al. CAH vii2 .1, 1–22.
Walbank, F.W., Astin, A.E., Frederiksen, M.W. and Ogilvie, R.M. (eds.)
1984 The Cambridge Ancient History vii2.1, The Hellenistic World, Cambridge.
Will, E.
1966–7 Histoire politique du monde hellénistique, 1st edn, 2 vols., Nancy.
1979–82 Histoire politique du monde hellénistique, 2nd edn, 2 vols., Nancy.
1985 ‘Pour une “anthropologie coloniale” du monde hellénistique’, in C.G.
Starr, hon., J.W. Eadie and J. Ober (eds.) The Craft of the Ancient
Historian, Lanham, 273–301.
Yardley, J.C. and Develin, R.
1994 Justin. Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus, Atlanta.
Yardley, J.C. and Heckel, W.
1997 Justin. Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus I, Oxford.
xxv
 1

THE INTERPENETRATION OF
HELLENISTIC SOVEREIGNTIES

J.K. Davies

Only in a severely Pickwickian sense can this paper be deemed to provide

a new perspective on the hellenistic world. On the contrary, it addresses
one of the longest-standing problems in the modern historiography of
that world, namely that of satisfactorily charting the nexus of relationships
which came to link the hellenistic kings with ‘the kings and the dynasts
and the cities and the ethne’ (OGIS 229, line 11) which comprised their
world and their subject communities. Indeed, so long-standing is it, it has
become a meta-problem, that of deciding why it has become and remains
so intractable. This paper will start from the proposition that the intrac-
tability has arisen because there is not one task involved but three, while
the evidence we have is so unevenly distributed that it unduly privileges
the study of one of them at the expense of the other two. The first task is
that of understanding how the hellenistic kings kept control of the terri-
tories which they held – their pragmata, to use their own terminology. It
has long been addressed, has to pay as much attention to Mesopotamia,
Baktria, Galatia, the Balkans, or the Arabian Gulf as to the Aegean or
Judah, and is first and foremost a matter of the study of institutions such
as courts, armies, and administrative and financial officers and procedures.1
The second, essentially a culturally and geographically restricted special
case of the first, is that of studying the techniques which were deployed
in dealing with those non-monarchic entities – Greek, culture-Greek, or
other – which cherished notions of freedom and autonomy, largely those of
mainland Greece, the Aegean, and the seaboard and immediate hinterland
of south-western Asia Minor. The debate which it has aroused goes right
back to Droysen, is continually being fuelled by new epigraphic documen-
tation, above all from Asia Minor, and is dominated (one might even say
obsessed) by questions of power, legality, and degrees of ‘freedom’.2
Such questions do indeed reflect the formal vocabulary used by contem-
porary practitioners, diplomats, and theorists – ‘freedom’, ‘autonomy’,

1
J.K. Davies

‘alliance’, ‘without kings’, ‘agreement’ 3 – but run the risk of presenting the
discourse and preoccupations of one particular, militarily marginal but
exceptionally articulate and well-documented region, as representative of
the broader issues which were being posed for the whole post-Alexander
world by the new systems of monarchic suzerainty.
It is easy to deem these two tasks as being enough of a scholarly agenda
in themselves. Yet they overshadow a third, no less important for being
couched not in documentary-humanistic but in systems-analytic terms,
viz. that of attempting to assess how, and how far, the areas controlled
directly or indirectly by the post-Alexander monarchies came to behave
(or: continued to behave) as a system, viz. as a set of interacting networks
which shared structures, mechanisms, boundaries, and vectors. This is
a task barely begun (Shipley 1993 being an honourable exception), but
essential if the first two tasks (especially the second, which I sense has
reached stalemate) are to move forward in other than purely documentary
and antiquarian terms. As an experiment, therefore, and at the risk of
horrendous over-simplification, this paper will attempt to provide such
an overview. Its one claim to scholarly attention is that it is intended to
liberate the debate by deploying a different vocabulary.

I start at what is very far from being the beginning, namely the incalculably
far-reaching decision which Alexander’s marshals took in June 323, that the
whole portfolio of Alexander’s conquests was going to be retained, by force if
need be, whatever the infantry army said about the matter. (Let us leave on
one side the questions of whether that decision was the product of explicit
debate or of an unspoken common understanding, and of how rapidly it
emerged.) That decision was taken within a diplomatic context which had
three main components. The first was the urgent need, both for immediate
purposes and for the indefinite future, for systems which regulated relation-
ships between monarch and community on a mutually acceptable basis. The
second was the total absence of any known guidance on this matter from
the political philosophers, who were more than willing to pontificate about
the distribution of power within a polity or about how a monarch should
control his realm and himself, but said nothing whatever about how the
interfaces between polities should be managed. The third was the existence
of precedents and models of varying value and acceptability.
It is especially in respect of this third component that it may be helpful
to broaden the picture. As noted above, much of the discourse has focused
on the position of the seaboard Greek cities of Western Asia Minor, partly
for the good reason that the constitutional New Deal of 334 4 provides
a baseline from which change can be assessed, partly for the happenstance

2
 The interpenetration of hellenistic sovereignties

reason that the documentation from that region is vastly better than that
from other regions. However, that region could well be regarded as a special
case, for various reasons, while we need to keep in mind the range of models
which politicians of the post-Alexander generation will have had available
to them. We therefore need to scan the diplomatic landscape, especially that
of the recent past (the 330s and the 320s), in order to consider current or
recent interfaces such as those between the Persian king and the Phoeni-
cian and Greek city-states, between the Egyptian Pharaoh and Naukratis,
between the Persian satraps of Asia Minor and the communities within
their bailiwicks (Greek and non-Greek), between the Makedonian king
and the Greek cities of the Makedonian and Thracian coasts, between
the Makedonian king and Thessaly, or between the ruler of Syracuse and
the Greek and non-Greek polities of Sicily, south Italy, and the Adriatic,
not to mention the complex and shifting patterns of relationships which
the various Greek alliances, leagues, hegemonies, and amphiktyonies had
developed over the centuries. Yet even this list is inadequate, for if we are
to engage in the dangerous but essential business of attempting to recon-
struct the Successors’ levels and directions of diplomatic awareness, then
the further down into the post-Alexander decades we go, the wider the
gamut of models can and must be stretched.
Specifically, it has to be enlarged sufficiently to include less accessible
models, developed in areas hitherto wholly non-Greek. Three such models
need brief citation. One was the interface between a king and a priesthood
which controlled a temple state. Judah vis-à-vis Achaimenid Persia is the
obvious example, with or without the intermediary role of a local non-
priestly governor such as Nehemiah.5 A second was the notion of a nested
hierarchy of kingships, explicit for the Achaimenids in formulations such
as that of Xerxes, claiming inter alia ‘to rule the multitudes (as) only
king, <to> give alone orders to the other (kings)’.6 A third, of inescapable
relevance in the light of Alexander’s own behaviour and claims,7 was that of
linking king with state by charting his role as either that of a god, or as the
son of a god, or as the anointed of a god, or as under the special protection
of a god, or as the champion of a god. This is a deliberately elastic formula-
tion, designed to accommodate alike the traditional theological location of
the Egyptian Pharaoh as the son of Amun-Ra,8 the formulation of Cyrus
the Great as nominated for kingship by Marduk, ‘whose rule Bel and Nebo
love, whom they want as king to please their hearts’,9 the formulation of
Antiochos II Soter as inter alia ‘the caretaker of the temples Esagila and
Ezida’,10 or Xerxes’ own claim to be king by the gift of Ahuramazda, to rule
under the shadow of Ahuramazda, and to owe his success to the fact that
‘Ahuramazda gave me his support until I had accomplished everything’.11

3
J.K. Davies

To list the above formulations is not for one moment to claim that
any of the Successors ever assembled such a list or consciously consid-
ered in the abstract which model he might most profitably follow. It
is merely to demonstrate the complex composition of the diplomatic
and theological backdrop against which they each separately faced
an immediate and practical challenge of politics and statecraft. The
need was for a system which could provide the necessary minimum
linkages. A detailed specification is not hard to construct. The system
(a) would need to be different enough from the Achaimenid system to
accommodate the political sensitivities of the Greeks of the mainland;
(b) would need to be more systematic and bureaucratized than Alexan-
der’s charismatic and deranged improvisations;
(c) would need to accommodate the possible (or actual) fragmentation
of the monarchic role;
(d) could not be a rigid system imposed top-down, but would have to be
a fluid and organic construct, using as many of the inherited components
as could profitably be used in a competitive, ruthless, and fast-changing
environment; but
(e) could exploit the fact that the occupants of the monarchic role(s)
were now, or could be seen as, Greek.
What follows will attempt to depict that system as a whole, treating it
as a set of competing vectors interacting on a single surface. I adopt this
approach, partly because in other contexts I have found the expedient
of plotting interactions in a topological space to be a useful analytical
device,12 but mainly because the spatial analogy is especially appropriate.
We are after all looking at a post-Alexander world where a huge gulf had
opened up between, on the one hand, the dominant political realities
of a gigantic military monarchy and its successors, and on the other
a kaleidoscopic set of entities which ranged from quasi-independent (or
would-be independent) principalities such as Armenia or Atropatene or
Baktria, through temple-states such as Judah or Elymais (or even, in effect,
Memphis: Thompson 1988, 106–54), to the small, mostly non-monarchic
Greek-language entities whose entrenched community values and aspira-
tions are far more prominent in the surviving documentation than they
can possibly have been in royal perceptions and agendas. What needs to
be traced is the continuous, though fragmented, blind process wherein the
two ‘sides’ groped to find a modus vivendi. I grant that to attempt to do
so runs a real risk of offering a pretentious General Theory of Everything:
but it was A.D. Nock who comfortingly noted that ‘without exaggeration
and oversimplification little progress is made in most fields of humanistic
investigation’.13

4
 The interpenetration of hellenistic sovereignties

I begin inevitably with the king(s), placing them (as they would no
doubt expect) at the top of the tabula rasa. Three sets of horizontal rela-
tionships need to be inserted. Two of them are ‘fuzzy’, in the sense of being
unsystematic and spasmodic. The first consists of the interrelationships
of what can proleptically be called the ‘royal’ families, in that monarchs
came to recognize each other as ‘king’ (basileus), i.e. as an independent
sovereign, to address each other as ‘brother’, and to marry into each other’s
families.14 The second comprises the ways in which the roles and activities
of the kings came to be legitimized via the development and elaboration
of theories of kingship. This too is a very well-explored field,15 and though
we need not assume that political theory affected political practice any
more than it did in other epochs, it will have helped to create a climate of
acceptance, at least in limited but important circles. Indeed, those circles
can probably be equated with the men who built the third set of horizontal
relationships, where we are dealing with something extremely system-
atic and of fundamental importance. I refer to the tripartite nature of
a hellenistic royal regime, comprising the king and his immediate family,
his friends (‘philoi’ ), and his army. This too is a very well-explored field,
both in terms of the individuals concerned16 and via the assessments
made by Habicht and others of the importance of the friends,17 but those
assessments bear repetition. Every royal regime rested upon this tripod
of power, whose components had a very strong interest in staying in line
with each other, since they were the principal beneficiaries of the economic
and political privileges which such neocolonialist regimes exacted and
protected. Habicht has noted that when the men of Priene despatched to
Lysimachos a decree ‘to congratulate the king because he himself and his
army are sound … ’, Lysimachos’ reply pointedly lists ‘ourselves and the
friends and the armed forces and the regime’:18 the friends could absolutely
not be left out.
However, there was much more to the picture than these horizontal
relationships at the highest levels of the post-Alexander polities: vertical
relationships have to be mapped too, and this is where the arguments
start. At one end of the spectrum stands Orth’s portrait of uncompro-
mising royal power and municipal subservience, at the other Heuss’s bland
and legalistic minimalism.19 The difficulty is not so much that the truth
lies somewhere in between, as that a true portrait has to incorporate the
whole spectrum. It arises not so much because individual kings ranged
temperamentally from the near-tyranny of Lysimachos to the widespread
(though not universal) acceptability of Eumenes II,20 as because situations
required a wide variety of techniques. Indeed, at least four sets of top-
down techniques can be identified.

5
J.K. Davies

The first is what may be called ‘hard top-down’, i.e. that mode of royals’
behaviour which claimed possession of their territories as ‘spear-won land’
hereditable in perpetuity once won, assimilated that possession to the status
of a proprietor owning his land or oikos under private beneficial ownership,21
commanded huge revenues from that beneficial ownership, assigned part of
those revenues to others in a controlled way within a framework of calcu-
lated benefaction (the so-called ‘philanthropa’) in the interest of the regime,22
used the remainder for prestige, aggrandisement, and aggression, and in
general managed regimes which (let us not mince words) were predatory,
exploitative, monopolist, racist, and colonialist.23 A second group of tech-
niques was equally hard-edged but much more specific in its targetting, viz.
those which were devised so as to provide an indirect control of individual
polities. Since they are well documented and well catalogued,24 no more
than headline citation is needed here. They range from the installation of
garrisons, the appointment of commissars with various titles such as epistates
or epimeletes or even of tyrants, as Antigonos Gonatas notoriously did in
Peloponnese,25 the appointment of external judges in order to arbitrate
inter-city disputes or to cut through a seized-up civic legal system, the
imposition of royal legislation or injunctions, or selective self-infiltration
into civic magistracies, as Ptolemaios I did by appointing himself as one of
the six strategoi of Kyrene, with lifetime tenure.26
In contrast, two further top-down techniques had much softer edges.
Some but not all of the hellenistic regimes came to encourage forms of
dynastic ruler-cult, based on myths of divine origins which they clearly
found it useful to formulate or to acknowledge.27 If the Antigonids looked
to Zeus, the Seleukids to Apollo, and the Ptolemies to Serapis, the Attalids
as late-comers made the game even more transparent by turning to Athene
after an initial use of Apollo.28 By their nature such claims were cloudy, and
were best left to appear to be made by others; how effective they were, and
with which groups of people, are as yet unresolved questions.29 Fourth and
last, nebulous but fundamental, is that aspect of the relationship between
the regimes and the communities subordinated to them which contrasts
sharply with the picture of disguised peremptoriness which other royal
documentation can all too easily convey. Far more than they needed the
support of the ethne, of the temple-states, of the dynasts, or of the non-
urbanised communities of the mountains and the deserts, the kings were
dependent on the cities and cantons, whether full Greek or hellenised or
not, and found it necessary to keep their goodwill by appealing to them
collectively as partners and allies. For this there were five good pragmatic
reasons. It was the cities which could provide recruits as front-rank soldiers
for the army or as settlers, whether formally as klerouchoi or katoikoi or

6
 The interpenetration of hellenistic sovereignties

informally as principal landowners in the new territories. It was the cities

whose upper classes could provide the skilled manpower to run the new
states, as administrators, diplomats, or friends. It was the cities whose
artists and craftsmen could legitimate the regimes via commissions and
patronage. It was the cities whose temples and sanctuaries and public spaces
provided a milieu for royal investment and ostentatious piety as a prime
route towards legitimation and acceptance. And it was the cities whose
resources and activities could most easily be tapped for fiscal purposes via
ready-made taxation systems.
Such considerations generated a specific language. It occasionally used
the vocabulary of ‘alliance’ and ‘ally’, as when for example Antiochos I
ends a letter to Meleagros with the injunction ‘(Give orders) also to permit
Aristodikides to join the land to whichever he wishes of the cities in our
alliance, just as we wrote also in our earlier letter.’30 It avoided the termi-
nology of ‘empire’ (arche),31 used the language of invitation rather than of
command, and could offer ‘peace and freedom’ even to the wholly non-
Greek but fiscally enticing community of Gerrha.32 In general, it used the
image of equality between sovereign partner powers in order to create or
to preserve a semblance of its reality. Not surprisingly, attention was most
concentrated, alike in antiquity and in modern scholarship, on those cities
or regions which were best placed to try to play one ruler off against another
in the hope of negotiating the most favourable status. It was a dangerous
game for an individual city to play, as Miletos or Herakleia or Athens could
confirm, but one which they could not afford not to play. Yet the game
unfolded within a wider context where a monarch could indeed venture to
come down heavily on an individual city but could not afford to alienate an
entire region: Lysimachos had provided the stark example of how not to do
it. Moreover, the game was not confined to the ‘cities’, for ‘the dynasts and
the kings and the ethne’ could play it too. The cleverest player was perhaps
Euthydemos of Baktria, successfully preserving his kingdom and his royal
status in 206 while acknowledging Antiochos III as his suzerain, but when
both earlier and later we find Antiochos forging the same formal relation-
ship with other wholly non-Greek dynasts such as Xerxes of Armenia, Arta-
bazanes of Atropatene, Ariarathes IV of Kappadokia, Arsakes II of Parthia,
and Sophagasenos of ‘India’, we can hardly fail to recognise a consistent
and deliberate policy, acceptable and convenient to all partners.33 A proper
evaluation throughout the whole period of the relationships of ‘client
kingdoms’ to the post-Alexander monarchic system would be of immense
benefit. Sadly, lack of evidence makes it next to impossible.
So far this has attempted to sketch some of the top-down ways in
which the royal regimes tried to bridge the gap which had opened up in

7
J.K. Davies

the political and diplomatic landscape. Though the focus has been on
royal initiatives and forms of royal behaviour, it has been impossible to
avoid notice of some aspects of responsive behaviour on the part of those
situated on the other side of the gap. I turn now to sketch their activity in
more detail, and, as with the monarchic regimes, do so by first considering
‘horizontal’ links and relationships before moving on to consider ‘bottom-
up’ behaviour.
The world of the late fourth century which was defined, and in some
sense united, by those horizontal links is in part familiar. This comprised
a network, more or less stable by the 320s, of Greek or hellenised commu-
nities, whether monarchies or republican poleis or ethne, which was reason-
ably clearly defined by access to the Panhellenic Festivals.34 Yet, though
stable, this world was not closed, for it was to be continuously enlarged in
the post-Alexander period by accepting as members the new civic founda-
tions, royal or other, which by 200 bc had already changed the map of the
Eastern Mediterranean and the Near East.35 Nor was its relative stability (in
settlement and population terms, at least until the later hellenistic period)
to be seen as stagnation. Certain significant processes, at work throughout
this world and throughout this period, were slowly transforming it and
were going at least some way towards replacing the classic, ‘Aristotelian’
(but already over-simplified) picture of innumerable separate polities,36
each with its own prickly if impracticable independence, by one which
shows overlap and convergence and interpenetration.
Detailed description is of course impossible here: I confine myself to
stating some headlines, with a few words of description and exemplification
for each. First, at the community level, come amalgamations (synoikismoi)
of various kinds. Some were enforced from above, such as the well-known
case of Teos and Lebedos, or achieved by violence, such as the dismem-
berment of Lyttos on Krete in the 220s.37 Others were the product of
complex negotiation, such as the rapprochement between the temple-state
of Labraunda under its priest Korris and the neighbouring town of Bargylia,
as mediated by the local dynast Olympichos,38 while others again achieved
only the weaker forms of amalgamation (isopoliteia or sympoliteia) or simply
the formulation of symbola agreements.39
Secondly, at the personal level, there developed a far greater fluidity
of status, together with an increased permeability of civic boundaries.
Again, this took many forms, ranging from dual citizenship, the purchase
of citizenship, and the extended conferment of status as honorary citizen
(proxenos), to the breakdown of exclusivist systems of inheriting citizenship.
The increased prominence which was given from the turn of the second
century bc onwards to recording grants of manumission in permanent

8
 The interpenetration of hellenistic sovereignties

and publicly visible form, as at Delphi or in Thessaly and Epeiros, must be

related in some way, though the precise stimulus still eludes us.40
Third come forms of networking among polities which are not simply,
or not primarily, forms of empire-building. Several varieties can be iden-
tified, all of which played a prominent role in documented diplomacy.
One comprised requests on the part of one polity that this or that temple
or sanctuary within its bailiwick should be generally recognised as asylos
(‘free from risk of seizure or pillage’).41 Another comprised requests that
a transformed and upgraded local festival should be recognized as isolympic
or isopythic, i.e. equivalent in prestige to the Olympic or Pythian Games.42
Yet another, justly the subject of much recent study, consisted of the use
or creation of links, real or fake, between a ‘colony’ and its mother city or
between polities which allegedly enjoyed common origins.43 The recently-
published example of Nagidos and Arsinoe in western Kilikia, pressured
by the local Ptolemaic governor into accepting a shotgun relationship of
colony and mother-city as a way of defusing quarrels over land and bounda-
ries,44 is merely one among many instances of how such relationships could
continue to be manufactured.
Fourth come forms of networking which were clearly in the political
domain, notably of course the so-called Leagues: not just the two most
prominent, the Achaian and the Aitolian, but also the Lykian, Chrysao-
rian and Ionian ‘Leagues’, Epeiros after the dissolution of the Molossian
monarchy c. 232, and even Krete once the shock of the War of Lyttos and
the collapse of Spartan influence after Sellasia finally prompted its anarchic
micro-polities to recreate their ‘common thing’ (koinon). That such koina,
or alliances, were also paradigm cases of interwoven or nested sovereignties
is unmistakable, but structurally their effect on the ‘hellenistic system’ was
not all that dissimilar from that of the emergence of the Parthian kingdom
from the 240s onwards.45
No-one will suppose that these various processes of rapprochement
between the (almost wholly) republican Greek polities of the post-
Alexander period were planned, or systematic, or directed by any hidden
hand towards a single purpose. Rather, they were an untidy set of individual
responses to specific situations (whether threats, needs, or opportunities)
which were by their nature public and visible to neighbours, were imitated
if they were seen to be effective, and therefore came to show certain family
resemblances. That was one salient aspect, which we may for convenience
call peer-polity interaction if we will, though the label runs the risk of being
used as a substitute for thought. Another, crucial for the vitality of the
network and of its component parts, was that the Greek ‘system’ seems to
have found no difficulty whatever in enlarging that network by accepting

9
J.K. Davies

new, or newly hellenised, or diplomatically useful polities within it. Just

as centuries previously King Alexandros Philhellen of Macedon could be
allowed to compete at Olympia in 496 on the basis of imputed Argive
ancestry (Hdt. 5. 22), so likewise, some three centuries later imputed links
with Argos allowed a sufet of Sidon to compete as a Greek at the Nemean
Games,46 while Trojan ancestry and long-standing links with Massilia
allowed Romans to compete at the Isthmia in 228.47 Two generations
later, as the recently published victor lists of the Athenian Panathenaia of
170, 166, and 162 bc reveal, though Athenians themselves dominated the
lists, victors also came from Antiocheia (‘of those by Daphne’), Seleukeia
on Tigris, Kition on Cyprus, Zephyrion (west of Alexandreia), Alexandreia,
Antiocheia of Mygdonia, and Antiocheia of Kydnos,48 and also included
a number of Attalid and Ptolemaic royals, each duly given their Athenian
tribal affiliations.49 The elasticity of the system allowed it to respond, to
adapt, and to embrace.
Complementary to these processes of networking in a ‘horizontal’
dimension were movements which can be seen as ‘bottom-up’ in the sense
that they began at the level of the individual polity but reached out into
the wider political domain and attempted in various ways to bridge the gap
which had opened up between themselves and the overpowering Successor
monarchies. I am not here referring to the various aspects of formalized
alienation documented by Eddy 1961, nor to resistance movements such
as the alliance which instigated the Chremonidean War, the Arsakid-led
revolt in Parthia, the post-Raphia revolts in Egypt, or the Maccabaean
insurrection. These movements were indeed in one sense integral parts of
the system, but their aim was to emancipate the areas and communities
concerned from the monarchic system and its political and fiscal domi-
nation, not to construct a better tactical position within it. Within the
latter framework of action, two movements in particular need notice. The
first comprised the emergence of the koina, or ‘leagues’, for their impact
was far from being perceptible only in the ‘horizontal’ dimension of inter-
community networking. On the contrary, they provided a means whereby
the micropolities could increase their nuisance value and thereby their
bargaining power. As the history of mainland Greece in the third century
makes all too clear, that was not a recipe for harmonious relations: though
Aitolia and the Macedonian monarchy might try to keep out of each other’s
way as much as possible (notably during the Chremonidean War of the
260s), their respective directions of expansion and of indirect control could
not avoid intersecting and generating tensions. All the same, there was
an element of mutual convenience, for the koina also provided a means
by which monarchs could codify and formalize their power relationships

10
 The interpenetration of hellenistic sovereignties

with particular regions, in ways which might offer both stability and useful
indirect influence. Thus, for example, the League of the Islanders not only
provided a way for the Cycladic microstates to keep Athens out of their
hair by bringing in alternative protectors (preferably the Ptolemies, who
were safely remote in spite of their scattered garrisons and their naval base
at Samos), but also helped the Ptolemies to minimize Antigonid power
in the Aegean and influence at Delos. Thus too the Cretan koinon had
been worth resuscitating from its hibernation, for the islanders themselves
both as a way of damping down quarrels within the island and as a way
of keeping Rhodian power at arm’s length, and for Philip V in 215 as
a heaven-sent opportunity to become its prostates (‘patron’ or ‘protector’)
and thereby to put a knight in among the Ptolemaic pawns at Itanos and
in the southern Aegean.
Secondly, individuals might bridge the gap. I think here not of the kings
themselves, but of the men who negotiated on their behalf, as Aratos is
implied by Polybios (7.14.4) to have done with the Cretans, and especially
of the men who oscillated between being royal officers – whether as friends,
as military commanders, as satraps, as ambassadors, or as cultural gurus
– and being citizens of their own states, acting as such on their city’s behalf.
Now that much devoted recent study of these groups of men has made
their origins and careers far more accessible,50 examples can be multiplied.
Athens shows a notable sequence of them, from Demetrios of Phaleron,
Philippides of Kephale, and the brothers Kallias and Phaidros of Sphettos,
to Herakleitos and Apollodoros, the garrison-commanders at Rhamnous
and Eleusis after the Chremonidean war, who are simultaneously Makedo-
nian officers, Athenian commanders, and Athenian citizens. On the other
side of the Aegean, Milesians such as Demodamas or Hippostratos had
comparable careers; the list lengthens yearly.
These men are absolutely fundamental: they were the human hinges
of hellenism, not just channels of communication but basic load-bearing
components of the system. That their status was ambiguous was the whole
point. It allowed the sources of power to have very fuzzy and indeterminate
edges; it allowed powers to overlap and to merge on the ground while
remaining formally distinct; it gentled the dominance and ruthlessness
of the monarchic regimes while not subverting their authority. Granted,
such men were playing a very dangerous game. To go too far to further the
interests of one’s polis could make one a traitor to one’s king; to go too far
towards being a puppet, like Aristomachos of Argos and his ilk,51 could
get one knifed as a tyrant. Yet it was these men above all who made the
new system work, with its flexible structures, its interpenetrating sover-
eignties, and its creative exploitation of the new possibilities of direct and

11
J.K. Davies

indirect control which had been opened up for the whole zone from the
Adriatic to Baktria by the fact that the occupiers of the main monarchic
roles were now Greek.
Two final points remain to add. The first concerns the repeated use in this
paper of the terms ‘sovereign’ and ‘sovereignty’. Such terminology comes
readily to mind, but is dangerous insofar as it may be thought to reflect
a theory of the total independence of the individual single polity which
was not developed or formalized until the sixteenth century. Indeed I am
strangled with my own rope, for a few years ago I argued in print that for
that and other reasons the use of the word to characterize the polities of the
classical period was ambiguous and anachronistic.52 However, in analysing
the political structures of the hellenistic period one may perhaps be less
pernickety, for any individual recognized as basileus in that period was
a sovereign by definition. That polities subordinated to them continued to
enjoy and to develop complex nested systems of their own in various kinds
of dynamic equilibrium was unquestionably a major component of the
‘horizontal’ relationships described above, but formed only one component
of what became a much more complex network of vertical relationships,
both ‘top-down’ and bottom-up’. It is not chance that analysis of similar
relationships with and within the Roman Empire has recently yielded a very
similar picture of ‘two-level sovereignty’ (Millar 1996).
Secondly, the emergence of this system in the post-Alexander decades
had one further gigantic consequence. It has two aspects, one eastabout,
the other westabout. Eastabout, it was no accident that the system could
be made to work in urbanized or urbanizing areas, or in areas where Greek-
style colonial foundations were thick on the ground, but fared less well
in areas such as the Iranian plateau or the Arabian peninsula which were
not well adapted culturally to producing friends or diplomats. Westabout,
however, it proved astonishingly receptive and elastic, able to embrace not
merely the Greek colonial foundations such as Syracuse or Massilia but also
Carthage and Rome. Not just at the high diplomatic level of embassies, but
also more broadly via a widespread willingness to master and adapt Greek
language, culture, and institutions, the Western Mediterranean increasingly
joined in the network, recognizably so even before the political step-change
of 200–188. It is not too much to claim that it was this elasticity on the part
of the system, and the two-way receptivity of its practitioners, which during
the third century bc created what we take for granted, namely the Medi-
terranean-based ‘classical world’, supplementing (perhaps even replacing)
the interconnected Iranian-Mesopotamian-eastern Mediterranean-Aegean
world which had dominated for millennia. Systemically, as culturally, the
post-Alexander world is the central period of antiquity.

12
 The interpenetration of hellenistic sovereignties

Acknowledgements
For useful comments I offer warm thanks to the participants in the Hay confer-
ence, especially to Stephen Mitchell. For the opportunity of a second prelimi-
nary airing at the British School in Athens I thank Lesley Beaumont (Assistant
Director) and Katerina Panagopoulou, with thanks also to Miltiadis Hatzopoulos,
Alexandros Karafotias, and especially Stephen Lambert for helpful comments. As
repeatedly in the years 1995–2000, so here too I record my grateful thanks to the
Leverhulme Trust for this final use of time generously granted.

Some abbreviations
ANET 2 Pritchard 1955
FD iii Bourguet et al. 1929–39
OGIS Dittenberger 1903–5
RC Welles 1934
SEG Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum

Notes
1
Cf. studies such as those of Bengtson 1937–52; Bikerman 1938; Bar-Kochva
1976; Bagnall 1976; Mooren 1977; and Préaux 1978.
2
Droysen 1877–8, III.559 f. Sachregister s.v. Freiheit. Among the main contri-
butions to the debate are Kolbe 1928; Zancan 1934; Heuss 1937; A.H.M. Jones
1940; Habicht 1970; Will 1975; Orth 1977; and Ma 1999.
3
These words (eleutheria, autonomia, summachia, abasileutos, sumbasis) are
cited from a typical document, the treaty between Seleukos II and Arados (Strabo
16.2.14 = Bengtson and Schmitt 1962–9, iii.491).
4
Arrian, Anabasis 1.18.2, with Bosworth ad loc. and Bosworth 1994, 868–71.
It is notable that Arrian’s language does not in the least echo that of the fifth- and
fourth-century slogan of the ‘freedom of the Greeks of Asia’ whose previous history
is traced by Seager and Tuplin 1980.
5
Tadmor, 1994, 261 ff., esp. 270, citing Babylonia as a similar example.
6
Persepolis foundation tablet, XPh = ANET 2 316 no. 4, § 1, with Briant
1996, 990–2.
7
Basic references in Bosworth, 1994, 871 ff.
8
Kemp 1989, 197–200; but there are hints by the fourth century bc (cf. Lloyd,
1994, 350) of a theology which interposed a greater distance between king and
god.
9
Cyrus cylinder ap. ANET 2 315 and 316 no. 3, with more recent references
in Briant 1996, 911–13.
10
ANET 2 317 no. 5 = Austin 1981, no. 189, with Kuhrt and Sherwin-White
1991.
11
Persepolis foundation tablet, XPh = ANET 2 316 no. 4, §5.
12
Davies 1998, 242–51.

13
J.K. Davies
13
Quoted by Winkler 1980, 155, from Nock 1952, 213; reprinted in Nock
1972, 820.
14
Cf. Welles 1934, 291 and index s.v. adelphos.
15
Cf. work on the Letter of Aristeas (e.g. Fraser 1972, 696–704 and Eissfeldt
1974, 603–6), and more generally Goodenough 1928, Kloft 1937, Delatte 1942,
Heuss 1954, Andreotti 1956, Braunert 1968, Schmitthenner 1968, Aalders 1975,
and Lévy 1978/9.
16
Cf. Herman 1980/1; Herrmann 1987; Heckel 1992; Savalli-Lestrade 1996
and 1998.
17
Habicht 1958; Mooren 1979; Shipley 2000, 76–7, with further references
at 431 n. 35.
18
RC 6, lines 6 ff., with RC p. 42 and Habicht 1958, 4 n. 11.
19
Orth 1977 and Heuss 1937 (though he did somewhat modify his picture in
the re-issue of 1963). The middle position set out by Zancan in her 1934 book
deserves more attention than it has had. Recent discussion is valuably reviewed
by Ma 1999, 1–19.
20
However, the language of the envoys of the Ionian koinon, saluting him
(rather than the Romans, the prime beneficiaries of the phrase) in winter 167/6
as the ‘common benefactor of the Greeks’ (RC 52, 7–8), is to be seen primarily as
a reflexion of post-Pydna realignments.
21
Cf. the language of [Aristotle] Oikonomika II, with Aperghis 2000, 112–31.
22
Cf. the act of Antiochos III in making available wood from the Taranza forests
for Sardis in March 213 (SEG 39.1283, with further references in Ma 1999, 61–3
and 284 no. 1).
23
I am not persuaded by the view that such terms import an inappropriately
judgemental tone. Though certainly pejorative, they are not abusive, for each also
has a substantial descriptive content the applicability of which can be documented
without difficulty. Nor are they incompatible with attitudes of all due respect for
persons and sympathetic understanding of situations. Since in any case no student
of antiquity can approach any aspect of it in a ‘value-free’ manner, all that can be
done is to acknowledge as explicitly as possible the criteria being used, and thereby
to flag to the reader the extent to which modern expectations of behaviour separate
the present from the past.
24
Heuss 1937, 17–68; Préaux 1978, II.414–28. For external judges cf. Heuss
1937, 69–90; C.P. Jones 1999, 55 f. with 163 n. 17.
25
Gabbert 1997, 23 and 42.
26
SEG 9.1 = Austin 1981, no. 264, lines 25 f.
27
Préaux 1978, I.238–71, with abundant illustration of the various modes.
28
Hansen 1971, 448 ff. and 453 ff.
29
Brief but judicious assessment by Shipley 2000, 156–63.
30
RC 12, lines 21–4. Other examples in Ma 1999, 165.
31
Orth 1977, 60 n. 54, citing P. Herrmann.
32
Welles 1934, xxxvii–l. Will 1988, 329–30, emphasizes the need to differentiate
between the various categories of ‘city’, but non-Greek cities such as Arad and
Marathus were not necessarily slighted (Schmitt 1964, 35 n. 6; Ma 1999, 145–6).

14
 The interpenetration of hellenistic sovereignties

For Gerrha, clearly a case needing exceptionally careful handling, cf. Polybius
13.9.4–5, with Schmitt 1964, 34 n. 3, and Potts 1990, 85–97.
33
Sources and discussion of the relationships alluded to in this paragraph in
Schmitt 1964, 32–107.
34
The thearodokoi lists of the fourth and third centuries, now at last after nearly
a century the subject of renewed serious study in Perlman 2000, show how such
access was controlled and activated.
35
A.H.M. Jones 1940; Grainger 1990; Cohen 1995; Fraser 1996. For the wider
and more nebulous category of fortifications, cf. Winter 1971; Lawrence 1979;
McNicoll 1997.
36
That the boundary continued to be known and marked is reflected in the
careful description of the Alabandans as ‘kin of the Greeks’ (C.P. Jones 1999, 60–1
and 165 n. 33, citing FD III.4, 163 = OGIS 234 = Rigsby 1996, 332 no. 163,
lines 12–13).
37
RC 3–4 (Austin 1981, no. 40). It is most regrettable that the post-338 sequel
to Moggi 1976 has yet to appear. For the War of Lyttos, Polybius 4.53–5, with
Karafotias 1997, 122–31.
38
Crampa 1969, passim.
39
Basics for isopoliteia in Gawantka 1975, for symbola in Gauthier 1972.
40
Davies 1984, 262–3.
41
Préaux 1978, II.433–5: Rigsby 1996, 1–29.
42
Préaux 1978, II.425. The classic dossier comes from Magnesia on Maiandrios
(Rigsby 1996, 179–279; C.P. Jones 1999, 59–60, with 164 nn. 27–30).
43
Musti 1963; Prinz 1979; Curty 1995, with Will 1995; C.P. Jones 1999. See
also Erskine in this volume.
44
Jones and Habicht 1989.
45
Brief conspectus of the ‘Leagues’ in Préaux 1978, II.461–73. For Parthia cf.
Schmitt 1964, 62–84 and the discussion in Sherwin-White and Kuhrt 1993,
84–90.
46
Austin 1981, no. 121.
47
Zonaras 8.19.7, with Walbank, 1957–79, I.167 and C.P. Jones 1999, 88
and 170 n. 24.
48
SEG 41.115, col. I lines 4, 6, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33; col. II lines 23, 25, 27,29,
31, 33; col. III line 20, with the commentary on the ed. pr. by Tracy and Habicht
1991. The victor from Liguria, Kleainete (daughter?) of Karon, is notable not so
much for being female, for there are several other women victors, as for hailing
from a part of the Mediterranean which stood well outside any area of even
mythical Greek colonization.
49
Respectively col. I lines 37–8 (‘Eumenes son of King Attalos’) and 48 (‘Attalos
son of King Attalos’) in 170, Queen Kleopatra, King Eumenes, and King Ptole-
maios in 162 (col. III lines 22, 24, and 32).
50
Cf. Bengtson 1937–52, Habicht 1958, Olshausen 1974, Mooren 1979, and
Olshausen 1979, besides the works cited in n. 16 above.
51
Préaux 1978, II.449–50.
52
Davies 1994.

15
J.K. Davies

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21
 2

ERATOSTHENES’ CHLAMYS-SHAPED WORLD:

A MISUNDERSTOOD METAPHOR

Klaus Zimmermann

Just about every treatment of Greek geography mentions the two attempts
of hellenistic science to give the reader an idea of the landmass surrounding
the Mediterranean by comparing it with an article of daily use: Erato-
sthenes’ oijkoumevnh clamudoeidhv" taken up by Strabo1 and Posidonius’
oijkoumevnh sfendonoeidhv". While for an understanding of the latter
comparison we only have to look at the one sling known from antiquity,2
there is no definite archaeological evidence to help us interpret the meaning
of the adjective ‘chlamys-shaped’. Given the way in which the garment was
draped, figural representations allow only partial conclusions on its shape
when spread out. Further, the cut of the chlamys may have varied across
time as well as across different regions. Thus, modern scholars focusing
on ancient geography usually content themselves with citing the known
metaphor and its references.
In order to reconstruct the idea Eratosthenes had in mind, there are
two questions we have to consider separately: 1. What shape did the
chlamys have? 2. How (if at all) can Eratosthenes’ geographical knowledge
be harmonized with this picture? On that basis, the third and last part of
my paper will be devoted to the question: What did Eratosthenes actually
want to express with this comparison?

I
As Tarbell at the beginning of the twentieth century noted, ‘we are in the
habit of applying the name “chlamys” with a great deal of confidence to
all small brooch-fastened outer garments represented in Greek art.’ 3 This
practice is based on literary evidence: Ovid (Metamorphoses 14.393–4),
Suetonius (Tiberius 6.3) and Isidore (Origines 19.24.2) mention the brooch
as a characteristic feature of the chlamys. In addition, Ovid (Metamorphoses
2.733), Lucian (Timon 30) and Pausanias (5.27.8) describe the chlamys
as a typical garment of the god Hermes. Thus, the link to archaeological
material is established. Representations of Hermes, Oedipus, the Niobids

23
Klaus Zimmermann

and others from the classical period show that the garment in question
was put around the left shoulder and closed on the right, that it was four-
cornered and that it had a rectangular shape (figs. 1–2).4

Fig. 1. Heuzey 1922, 122 fig. 61. Fig. 2. Heuzey 1922, 123 fig. 62.

However, in contrast to the classical form an obviously Macedonian variant

with a circular lower edge seems to have prevailed in hellenistic times.
There is evidence for this both in ancient literature5 and visual arts.6 But
above all, we owe to Strabo, Pliny and Plutarch descriptions of Alexan-
dria which compare the outline of that city to a chlamys.7 Beginning with
Strabo, we learn more about the dimensions of Alexandria than about the
exact shape of the garment:
e[sti de; clamudoeide;" to; sch'ma tou' ejdavfou" th'" povlew" (sc. ∆Alexan-
dreiva"): ou| ta; me;n ejpi; mh'ko" pleurav ejsti ta; ajmfivklusta. o{son triavkonta
stadivwn e[conta diavmetron, ta; de; ejpi; plavto" oiJ ijsqmoiv, eJpta; h] ojktw; stadivwn
eJkavtero", sfiggovmeno" th'/ me;n uJpo; qalavtth", th'/ d’ uJpo; th'" livmnh".
(Strabo 17.1.8 C 793)
The shape of the area of the city is like a chlamys; its long sides are washed by
the two waters, having a diameter of about thirty stadia, and the short sides
are the isthmuses, each being seven or eight stadia wide and pinched in on
one side by the sea and on the other by the lake.
This passage provides only a very rough outline of the structure we have
to imagine: a more or less straight long side in the north (the coast of the

24
 Eratosthenes’ chlamys-shaped world: a misunderstood metaphor

Mediterranean), two narrow sides, whose angles in respect to the coastline

are left unmentioned, and finally a second long side in the south (approxi-
mately corresponding to the shore of the lake), which may have been
slightly curved towards the south, as the use of the terms diavmetron 8 and
ijsqmoiv seems to indicate.
A somewhat more precise description is furnished by Pliny:
metatus est eam (sc. Alexandriam) Dinochares architectus … ad effigiem
Macedonicae chlamydis orbe gyrato laciniosam, dextra laevaque anguloso
procursu. (Pliny, Naturalis Historia 5.62)
It (sc. Alexandria) was laid out by the architect Dinochares … in the cornered
shape (ad effigiem laciniosam) of a Macedonian chlamys with a circular contour
and a projecting corner on the right and on the left sides.
It is true that the exact meaning of the adjective laciniosus is not quite clear,
lacinia designating the corner 9 as well as the hem of a cloth.10 Anyhow,
the pattern Pliny talks about must have corners that protruded beyond
the coast sector: the somewhat clumsy addition dextra laevaque anguloso
procursu hardly makes sense if in fact the circular contour (orbis gyratus)
simply met a straight base line.11 Hence, we have to imagine the outline of
Alexandria approximately as given in Fig. 3.12 Now the question is whether
the angulosi procursus were typical of the Macedonian chlamys, thus coin-
ciding likewise with Fig. 3, or whether the corner on the right and left side
in Pliny’s description has to be understood as a divergence from the basic
form of the chlamys (orbe gyrato), corresponding grosso modo to Fig. 3
with the dashed lines from A to E and from B to F. For the moment, this
question will best remain unanswered.

Fig. 3. Cf. Tarbell 1906,

284 fig. 1.

Fig. 4. Cf. Tarbell 1906,

284 fig. 2.

25
Klaus Zimmermann

In connection with the references just mentioned, it is Plutarch’s narrative

of the foundation of the city that clarifies things:
kukloterh' kovlpon h\gon, ou| th;n ejnto;" perifevreian eujqei'ai bavsei" w{sper
ajpo; kraspevdwn eij" sch'ma clamuvdo" uJpelavmbanon ejx i[sou sunavgousai to;
mevgeqo". (Plutarch, Alexander 26.5)
They drew a rounded area the inner arc of which was continued by straight
lines as from the seams towards the shape of a chlamys, narrowing the size
evenly.
Taken on its own, this passage is not easy to understand either. Following
Tarbell, I propose to translate the expression hJ ejnto;" perifevreia as ‘the
circular contour on the landward side’.13 The eujqei'ai bavsei" can hardly be
anything other than the narrow sides of the city’s area.14 But does ejx i[sou
sunavgein to; mevgeqo" mean a narrowing in respect to the maximum breadth
C–D (as in Fig. 3)? Or do we have to imagine two parallel lines rising up
from the circular arc towards the north and meeting the Mediterranean
coast in a right angle (as do the dashed lines in Fig. 3)? 15 In a sense, this
interpretation would also be compatible with sunavgein to; mevgeqo", the
imaginary full circle being narrowed ejx i[sou.
Here we can rely on Pliny who shows us the shape the perimeter of Alex-
andria actually had: its corners projected to the right and to the left sides.
The marking out of an area eij" sch'ma clamuvdo", described by Plutarch,
must have led to the contour referred to by Pliny. In other words: the
chlamys familiar to those who created the comparison with the outline of
Alexandria had approximately the shape given in Fig. 3. In contrast to the
classical rectangular chlamys, the change is not only brought about by cutting
off, then rounding, the rear edges to get rid of the bothersome tips hanging
down.16 Apparently, the front edges were also reduced in order to avoid an
unnecessary gathering of folds at the right, open side (see Fig. 2). One may
wonder at what point and at which angle those cuts reached the long side
of the garment. In any case, a shape like the second one proposed by Tarbell
(Fig. 4)17 certainly did not apply to the chlamys with which the outline
of Alexandria was associated, for it is contradicted not only by Strabo’s
reference to isthmoi between the two waters, but also by our knowledge of
the topography and the earliest building activities of Alexandria.18 The shape
given in Fig. 3, however, might fit the archaeological data to some extent.
So much for the Macedonian chlamys as we know it from the comparison
with Alexandria. The fact that the characterization of the oikoumene as
clamudoeidhv", attested five times in Strabo’s second and eleventh books,
does go back to Eratosthenes emerges clearly from 2.5.6 C 113: after
localizing the oikoumene roughly on the northern hemisphere, then within

26
 Eratosthenes’ chlamys-shaped world: a misunderstood metaphor

a quadrilateral of equator, polar circle and a perpendicular meridian circle,

the author writes:
hJ d’ oijkoumevnh clamudoeidh;" ejn touvtw/ (sc. tw'/ tetrapleuvrw/) nh'so", e[latton
h] h{misu tou' tetrapleuvrou mevro" ou\sa.
(Eratosthenes fr. II B 27 Berger = Strabo 2.5.6 C 113)
The inhabited world is a chlamys-shaped island in this (sc. quadrilateral),
being less in size than half of the quadrilateral.
A few sentences later Strabo closes the quotation as follows:
touvtoi" de; sunw/dav pwv" ejsti kai; ta; uJpo; ÔIppavrcou legovmena: fhsi; ga;r
ejkei'no", uJpoqevmeno" to; mevgeqo" th'" gh'" o{per ei\pen ∆Eratosqevnh", ejnteu'qen
dei'n poiei'sqai th;n th'" oijkoumevnh" ajfaivresin.
(Hipparchus fr. 36 Dicks = Strabo 2.5.7 C 113)
In essential accord with all this are also the views of Hipparchus. For he says
that, having taken as hypothesis the measurement of the earth as stated by
Eratosthenes, one has to subtract the inhabited world from the earth.
Berger’s inclusion of the preceding passage among the fragments19 is,
therefore, very probably correct.20 And it seems rather unlikely that a met-
aphor applied only twice in ancient literature, once to the shape of hellen-
istic Alexandria, once to the oikoumene by an hellenistic author working
at Alexandria, is based on two different variants of chlamydes. Thus, in the
following, we shall deal with the question how, or rather whether, Erato-
sthenes’ state of geographical knowledge can be reconciled with the shape
of the chlamys identified above.

II
The reconstruction of the ‘map’ of Eratosthenes as it has appeared in the
manuals of early geography since the nineteenth century (Fig. 5)21 offers
a somewhat deceptive certainty, with its detailed course of the coast and
its latitudinal and longitudinal lines.22 There is no doubt that Eratosthenes
adopted Dicaearchus’ division of the oikoumene by a parallel through the
Straits of Gibraltar and the Taurus range,23 that he added a meridian
through the Nile and the Borysthenes, which intersected the main parallel
at Rhodes,24 and that he calculated the east–west25 and north–south26
dimensions of the oikoumene from the distance between prominent
landmarks. We also know that he drew Libya as a right-angled triangle to
the west of the Nile,27 that he localized the southern end of India nearly
on the same latitude as the extreme south of Libya,28 and that he assumed
an almost north–south direction for the Indian east coast, thus giving the
subcontinent the shape of a rhombus.29

27
 Klaus Zimmermann

28
Fig. 5. Bunbury 1879 I, pl. X facing p. 650.
 Eratosthenes’ chlamys-shaped world: a misunderstood metaphor

The northern coast of Europe might have been completed by a straight

line between the two last known (or taken for known) points, following
the same principle as for the south-western coast of Libya. The idea of an
open Caspian Sea, established by Patrocles’ expedition, may have provided
a further argument for a more or less straight course of the coast between
the extreme north of Europe and the eastern end of the Imaos range, as
the reconstruction shows.
On the basis of this – not very precise – data we now have to ask: what
does such a pattern have in common with a chlamys? A first look shows
that only the west of Eratosthenes’ oikoumene might be tolerably compat-
ible with the chlamys-shape we determined from the description of the
outline of Alexandria: a curved line from the extreme south to Brittany,
a break of the coast grosso modo to the north-east up to an imagined
point, from where the boundary of the continent had to run inevitably
in an eastern direction.30
However, this is where the correspondences end. The widest extent of
the Rhodes meridian does not even approximately coincide with the middle
of the oikoumene as could be expected from the symmetrical object of
comparison.31 As for the two thirds east of the meridian, neither does the
reconstruction of the unknown north nor the regions south of the Rhodes
parallel agree in the least with the chlamys-shaped western portions: the
indentation of the Indian Ocean, and the south-eastern stretch of India
almost to the latitude of the Cinnamon country and beyond the eastern
end of the Imaos range, stand in obvious contrast to Libya in the west.
One does not gain much by rotating the image of the chlamys slightly
clockwise against the Eratosthenic system of axes (i.e., rotating the figure
slightly anticlockwise) and taking the Indian east coast as a second narrow
side of the chlamys, with Brittany and the cape of India as extremities: the
respective realities of Libya and the Indian Ocean are even less reconcil-
able. Moreover, given the importance of the bipartition of the oikoumene
by the Rhodes parallel,32 it seems rather unlikely that Eratosthenes disre-
garded completely his system of axes when talking about the form of the
oikoumene.
Yet, nothing compels us a priori to believe that the Greeks oriented every
geographical concept to the north, as we do.33 As Berger suggested, one
could fit the oikoumene with the south ‘upwards’ into a chlamys with circular
bottom,34 assuming a circular north coast and equating the hypotenuse of
right-angled Libya with one of the front cuts of Tarbell’s second diagram
(Fig. 4). In my doctoral thesis on the Greeks’ ideas of Libya I adopted
this interpretation (Fig. 6), albeit without being completely convinced of
it: first of all, we have seen above that Tarbell’s second sketch does not fit

29
Klaus Zimmermann

with the chlamys-shape applied to the outline of Alexandria. Moreover,

there remain the same problems as with the northerly-oriented chlamys:
the gross asymmetry of the regions west and east of the widst extent and
an India which drops completely out of the picture. Finally, right before
the reference to the chlamys-shape, Eratosthenes compares the northern
hemisphere from the equator to the polar circle with a spovndulo", the
head of a kind of artichoke (kinavra),35 and it is hard to accept that with
two directly neighbouring metaphors the author oriented one to the north,
the other to the south.

Fig. 6. Zimmermann 1999, 122 fig. 20.

So, back to the northerly-oriented chlamys in accordance with Fig. 3: is

it probable that Eratosthenes adopted (if indeed it already existed) the
comparison of Alexandria with a chlamys in order to illustrate his idea of
the oikoumene, focusing only upon the west and disregarding generously
the obvious divergences in the east? Thus, we have arrived at the third
and final point: what could Eratosthenes have had in mind with such
a comparison?

III
An image that is at best valid for half of the evidence one wishes to explain
is confusing rather than illuminating. Descriptions by means of simple
geometrical figures – rectangle, triangle, rhomboid etc. – are sufficiently
general to function even despite major divergences. The reader under-
stands by abstraction what an author wants to express comparing, e.g.,
Italy to a triangle.36 However, the more specific and distinctive the shape
of the object of comparison, the more confusing and unhelpful it is in the
points at which it varies from the object described. Thus, Eratosthenes’

30
 Eratosthenes’ chlamys-shaped world: a misunderstood metaphor

attempt to explain to his readers the completely unknown northern and

the totally asymmetrical southern shape of the oikoumene with reference
to a chlamys does not really make sense. In fact, a look at the context of
the Eratosthenes-passage may suggest another interpretation of the term
clamudoeidhv" which would be of considerable importance for our under-
standing of the Cyrenean’s geography. In the fragment of Eratosthenes,
the section immediately before the comparison with the chlamys reads as
follows:
prokeivsqw dh; hJ me;n nh'so" ejn tw'/ lecqevnti tetrapleuvrw/. dei' de; labei'n to;
mevgeqo" aujth'" to; fainovmenon, ajfelovnta" ajpo; me;n tou' o{lou megevqou" th'"
gh'" to; hJmisfaivrion to; kaq’ hJma'", ajpo; de; touvtou to; h{misu, ajpo; d’ au\ touvtou
pavlin to; tetravpleuron, ejn w|/ dh; th;n oijkoumevnhn kei'sqaiv famen. ajnavlogon
de; kai; peri; tou' schvmato" uJpolabei'n dei', to; fainovmenon toi'" uJpokeimevnoi"
ejfarmovttonta. ajll’ ejpeidh; to; metaxu; tou' ijshmerinou' kai; tou' lhfqevnto"
parallhvlou touvtw/ pro;" tw'/ povlw/ tmh'ma tou' boreivou hJmisfairivou spovndulov"
ejsti to; sch'ma, oJ de; dia; tou' povlou divca tevmnwn to; hJmisfaivrion divca tevmnei
kai; to;n spovndulon kai; poiei' to; tetravpleuron, e[stai dhlonovt i sponduvlou
ejpifaneiva" h{misu to; tetravpleuron w|/ ejpivkeitai to; ∆Atlantiko;n pevlago": hJ d’
oijkoumevnh clamudoeidh;" ejn touvtw/ nh'so", ejlavttwn h] h{misu tou' tetrapleuvrou
mevro" ou\sa. (Eratosthenes fr. II B 27 Berger = Strabo 2.5.6 C 113)
So let us presuppose that the island lies in the aforesaid quadrilateral. We must
then take as its size the figure that is obvious to our senses, which is obtained
by subtracting our hemisphere from the entire size of the earth, then from
this area its half, and in turn from this half the quadrilateral in which we say
the inhabited world lies; and it is by an analogous process that we must form our
conception of the shape of the island, accommodating the manifest shape to our
hypotheses. But since the segment of the northern hemisphere that lies between
the equator and the circle drawn parallel to it next to the pole is like an artichoke
in shape, and since the circle that passes through the pole, by bisecting the
northern hemisphere, also cuts the artichoke in two and thus forms the quad-
rilateral, it will be clear that the quadrilateral in which the Atlantic Sea lies is
half of the artichoke’s surface. The inhabited world is a chlamys-shaped island
in this, being smaller in size than half of the quadrilateral.
As the whole passage and in particular the italicized sentence indicate,
Eratosthenes – whose special interest in the geography of the globe is
sufficiently proven by his measuring of its circumference37 – did not care
about the exact outline of the oikoumene in the text referred to by Strabo,
but about its general shape according to its position on the northern hemi-
sphere of the earth. With this intention in mind, we have to look at the
real chlamys-shape (Fig. 3) once again. We only have to change the straight
line AB into the curved, dotted line and the pattern, projected on the
three-dimensional surface of a cone or globe, would cover perfectly what

31
Klaus Zimmermann

Eratosthenes is calling ‘half an artichoke’.38 Or, vice versa, the quadrilateral

between equator, polar circle and meridian containing the oikoumene would
roughly assume, in a two-dimensional projection, the shape of a spread-out
chlamys as we reconstructed it. The resemblance is too evident to be merely
casual. Actually, the comparison of the oikoumene to a chlamys seems to be
based on the obvious chlamys-shape of the quadrilateral circumscribing it.
One only wonders why Eratosthenes applied this image to the oikoumene
itself, considered as an island (nh'so") with, as we have seen, a rather
irregular physical shape.39 The tertium comparationis of both – chlamys
and oikoumene – must, in fact, have been something other than a strikingly
similar outline. There remains only one aspect linking the chlamys to the
oikoumene as well as to its quadrilateral: the way in which the inhabited
world, like the garment, had to be imagined on a three-dimensional body.
If this is what Eratosthenes meant by clamudoeidhv",40 irregularities of the
coast lines would be of no relevance. The aim of his comparison was to
explain to the reader that in reality the oikoumene was not a flat surface
but a curved one, located on the northern hemisphere of the globe like
a chlamys put around the shoulder of its wearer (Fig. 7).41

Fig. 7. Eratosthenes’ chlamys-shaped world.

One of Eratosthenes’ main purposes in his Geography was to update older

maps of the earth on the basis of new scientific and empirical evidence.42
As Heidel put it, ‘we know that Eratosthenes made a map, and we are

32
 Eratosthenes’ chlamys-shaped world: a misunderstood metaphor

sure that it was the first map in which definite cognizance was taken of
the sphericity of the earth. Just how did his epoch-making work affect
the picture of the earth as it had been depicted by his predecessors?’ 43
Yet, the comparison to a chlamys seems to indicate that Eratosthenes
realized the defectiveness of a flat projection using a straight line, like
Dicaearchus’ diaphragma, intersected by straight meridians parallel to each
other. It cannot be excluded that the geographer drew the conclusions
of his doctrine designing his map ‘in the shape of a chlamys’, i.e., based
on a curved main parallel, with its vertical ‘seals’ (sfragi'de") gradually
converging to the north. The total lack of references in later sources is the
essential shortcoming of such an hypothesis. It might be more probable
that the famous map still followed the same straight parallel(s) as earlier
specimens and that it was by the comparison to a chlamys Eratosthenes
tried to call his readers’ attention to the problematic nature of flat projec-
tion not yet overcome at his time.44
Once more we regret not having additional and more precise informa-
tion from Strabo, whose own commentary on the oijkoumevnh clamudoeidhv"
may at best be regarded as an example of his helplessness in the face of the
Cyrenaean’s theories:45
levgetai de; kai; clamudoeidev" pw" to; sch'ma: pollh; ga;r sunagwgh; tou'
plavtou" pro;" toi'" a[kroi" euJrivsketai, kai; mavlista toi'" eJsperivoi".
(Strabo 2.5.9 C 116)
Its shape (sc. that of the oikoumene) is described as roughly similar to that
of a chlamys; for we discover a considerable contraction in its width at its
extremities, and particularly at its western extremities.
In other words: for the completely different east this reasoning does not
work. This fact must have been as unavoidable to Strabo as it has been to
us in the above examination. Still on another occasion Strabo explains the
comparison with reference to the tapering of the extremities.46 It is signifi-
cant, however, that the same detail is used by Agathemerus as argument
for the Posidonian oijkoumevnh sfendonoeidhv".47 Apparently, already in
antiquity there was some confusion in understanding the geographers’
metaphors. If actually the tapering of the extremities depends on an
Eratosthenic statement, it may have served either to illustrate the shape of
the spread-out chlamys (cf. dextra laevaque anguloso procursu) or to explain
the fact that the island itself was ‘smaller in size than half of the quadri-
lateral’. Strabo himself, seeking for the meaning of clamudoeidhv", seems
to have introduced the narrowing of the eastern and western portions of
the oikoumene as a reason for its chlamys-shape, though without meeting
Eratosthenes’ concern.

33
Klaus Zimmermann

Against the understanding of clamudoeidhv" proposed above there are,

prima facie, two objections to be raised, which I will discuss briefly:
1. Eratosthenes’ well-known tendency for two-dimensional objects of
comparison (triangular Libya, rhombic India)48 does not speak against the
use of three-dimensional metaphors by the same author. The artichoke
illustrating the globe segment between equator and polar circle is pretty
three-dimensional and there is no doubt that the image traces back to
Eratosthenes. There is, however, some difficulty in not supposing identical
meanings for two examples of the same, otherwise unattested chlamys-
metaphor, both born at Alexandria in early hellenistic times, i.e., hardly
independent of each other. If in fact, as Pliny seems to suggest,49 the
comparison of the city’s outline to a chlamys (thus, a purely two-dimensional
image) goes back to the foundation, one might hesitate to admit that an
Alexandrian scholar, picking up the image about a century later, would have
changed fundamentally its meaning. Yet, as Préaux has pointed out,50 in the
sources based on material from Alexander’s time, notably in Arrian’s report
on the foundation of Alexandria, there is no hint at the chlamys-shape. We
may therefore suppose that either a later hellenistic writer on the history of
Alexandria or Strabo himself created the image of the chlamys-shaped city,
having heard about Eratosthenes’ chlamys-shaped world without catching
its proper sense. A desire to parallel, by means of this metaphor, the micro-
cosmos of the metropolis to the macrocosmos of the whole oikoumene, is
not unlikely to have played a certain role therein.
2. My hypothesis substantially depends on the assumption that Erato-
sthenes, after all we can say about his knowledge of the oikoumene, may
hardly have tried to explain its physical outline on a two-dimensional map
by comparing it to a spread-out chlamys. Of course, images do not abso-
lutely correspond at 100 per cent to their author’s reality, simplification and
abstraction being essential parts of illustration. The perfect inequality of the
south-east and the south-west with elements as marked as rhombic India
and triangular Libya seems to exclude, however, that by mere simplifica-
tion Eratosthenes could get to the idea of a chlamys, hoping that his readers
also did. But how about Posidonius’ sling-shaped oikoumene which seems
clearly to be based on the rhombic shape of the weapon’s middle section,
holding the projectile until the throw? Does not this metaphor also use
a symmetrical object of comparison incompatible with the south-eastern
extension of the Indian subcontinent (Fig. 8), thus weakening the above
argument against the traditional interpretation of the chlamys-shape? It
does, in fact, if we reduce the adjective sfendonoeidhv" to a merely two-
dimensional image. Again, do we necessarily have to understand Posi-
donius like this? We may ask ourselves why – instead of saying simply

34
 Eratosthenes’ chlamys-shaped world: a misunderstood metaphor

‘rhombic’ – the Stoic, interested as was Eratosthenes in the geography

of the globe,51 likewise chose an object significant above all for its three-
dimensional use. Did he think about an oikoumene ‘wrapping’ the globe
like a sling its projectile (Fig. 9)? 52 In this case too, a three-dimensional
understanding would render somewhat more plausible the choice of the
highly original object of comparison, subordinating at the same time the
divergence in the south-east. Yet, the works of both authors being lost, the
three-dimensionality neither of Posidonius’ nor of Eratosthenes’ metaphor
can be definitively proven. It has to remain an hypothesis which derives its
attractiveness essentially from the fact that other conceivable explanations
do not satisfy at all.

Fig. 8. Zimmermann 1999, 124 fig. 22.

Fig. 9. Posidonius’ sling-shaped world.

35
Klaus Zimmermann

The relation between oikoumene and globe is identical with the one between
the chlamys and the body of its wearer: if the interpretation proposed above
is correct, the image of the chlamys should be seen as an attempt by Erato-
sthenes to establish a link between both objects of his geographical efforts
– geography of the globe and cartography of the oikoumene. Behind that
metaphor, we perceive the author’s awareness of the difficulty of reproducing
a spherical body in a two-dimensional projection, of rendering imaginable
the special quality of a curved surface to the reader of a book as well as to
the viewer of a map. Strabo himself focuses on this problem a little later on,
presenting as an ideal of cartographical reproduction the globe according to
Crates, and as a suitable expedient the flat map with parallel latitudes and
longitudes.53 As everybody knows, only Ptolemy was to resolve the problem
some 200 years later with his cone and spherical projection. It is all the
more noteworthy how close Eratosthenes, with his metaphor, had already
come to this form of representation which is still used today.

Acknowledgements
For comments and suggestions I am indebted to W. Ameling (Jena) and K. Geus
(Bamberg) as well as to W. Huß (Bamberg) who gave me the opportunity to
present a first version of this paper at the colloquium ‘Zur Geschichte und Kultur
des Hellenismus’ in memoriam H. Bengtson (Bamberg, 22–24 June 2000).
M. Hilgert (Jena) kindly assisted me in preparing the English text.

Notes
1
Fr. II B 27 Berger = Strabo 2.5.6 C 113; cf. the adoption of the comparison
at Strabo 2.5.9 C 116, 2.5.14 C 118, 2.5.18 C 122, 11.11.7 C 519; further,
Macrobius, Commentarii in somnium Scipionis 2.9.8: denique veteres omnem
habitabilem nostram extentae chlamydi similem esse dixerunt.
2
A specimen dating about 800 bc and coming from Lahun in Egypt (Flinders
Petrie 1917, 36 with pl. LI no. V 14) shows a lozenge-shaped middle section
for holding the projectile which corresponds exactly to the description of the
literary sources: Poseidwvnio" de; oJ Stwiko;" sfendonoeidh' kai; mesovplaton ajpo;
novtou eij" borra'n, stenh;n pro;" e{w kai; duvs in (Posidonius fr. 200 a Edelstein,
Kidd = Agathemerus 2, Geographi Graeci Minores [ed. C. Müller, Paris 1855–61,
hereafter GGM] II, 471) – the addition ta; pro;" eu\ron d’ o{mw" platuvtera <ta;>
pro;" th;n ∆Indikhvn notes the obvious divergence from the object of comparison, the
Indian subcontinent in the south-east reaching the latitude of East Africa; even
more distinct is Dionysius’ comparison with two opposite cones mentioned by
Eustathius immediately after the sling-shape in Posidonius (Eustathius, Commen-
tarii in Dionysium periegeten 1, GGM II, 217 = Posidonius fr. 201 Edelstein, Kidd);
see Zimmermann 1999, 123–4 with fig. 22 (= Fig. 8 below).
3
Tarbell 1906, 283.
36
 Eratosthenes’ chlamys-shaped world: a misunderstood metaphor
4
For details see Heuzey 1922, 115–38; Bieber 1928, 69–72; 1967, 29–30, 32;
Pekridou-Gorecki 1989, 88–9 with fig. 63; Losfeld 1991, 176–81.
5
Tarbell 1906, 285.
6
Heuzey 1922, 140; Bieber 1928, 69 with pl. XXXV fig. 1 (Ephebe from
Tralles); 1967, pl. 32; Préaux 1968, 182.
7
Further Diodorus 17.52.3; Eustathius, Commentarii in Dionysium periegeten
157, GGM II, 245; Scholia in Aratum vetera 236 p. 192 Martin. Besides Tarbell
1906, 285–6, cf. also Berger 1903, 405; Bernand 1966, 51–2; Préaux 1968,
176–84; Fraser 1972 II, 26–7 n. 64; Pekridou-Gorecki 1989, 135; Losfeld 1991,
182.
8
See Tarbell 1906, 286.
9
Heuzey 1922, 140: ‘ … le mot lacinia étant un terme spécial, réservé à la toge,
pour désigner les deux pointes formées par la rencontre du bord rectiligne avec
la courbe extérieure’.
10
See Glare 1982, 994 s.v.
11
In this sense, however, Préaux 1968, 177, 181–2.
12
See the first reconstruction of Tarbell 1906, 284 fig. 1; similarly Aujac, Harley,
Woodward 1987, 156 fig. 9.5 (after the commentary of Jones 1917–32 I, 435
n. 3 [ad 2.5.6]).
13
Tarbell 1906, 285 n. 1.
14
Préaux 1968, 181, supposing here, as in Pliny, a circle-segment directly
meeting the coast (see n. 11 above), considers the eujqei'ai bavsei" as sections of the
coastline converging from the extremities (the angles with the ejnto;" perifevreia)
to a point in the middle of the eastern harbour. One wonders, however, why an
almost straight coastline should be artificially divided in two. If, in fact, the outline
of Alexandria had been just some kind of semicircle, neither Pliny nor Plutarch
would have had to describe it in such an intricate way.
15
In this sense, Bernand 1966, 51 (‘une pièce d’étoffe rectangulaire ayant trois
côtés droits et le quatrième arrondi aux angles’) who rightly emphasizes that it is
a spread-out chlamys Plutarch is talking about (52 and again 1995, 59).
16
See Heuzey 1922, 139; Bieber 1928, 69–70; 1967, 35.
17
See Tarbell 1906, 284 fig. 2.
18
Cf., e.g., Hoepfner, Schwandner 1994, fig. 225 (facing p. 238).
19
See Berger 1880, 219 (referring to von Humboldt 1836–52 I, 124, 145–6);
Thomson 1948, 163; Losfeld 1991, 181; hypercritically, Thalamas 1921b, 176–8
deletes this fragment as well as the rest of Berger’s section II B.
20
The fact that Strabo himself is not the originator of the comparison already
follows from the phrase levgetai de; kai; clamudoeidev" pw" to; sch'ma a little later
on (2.5.9 C 116). Nevertheless, the comparison has been attributed either to
Strabo himself or to Strabo’s age by Bunbury 1879 II, 229; Tarbell 1906, 286;
Aujac 1966, 201 with n. 1; Préaux 1968, 182; Dilke 1985, 64; Aujac, Harley,
Woodward 1987, 156; there is no mention of the chlamys-shape in Heidel’s chapter
on Eratosthenes (1937, 122–8).
21
This is Bunbury’s (1879 I, pl. X facing p. 650) version, repeatedly copied up
to the present day (e.g., Olshausen 1991, map 4).
22
See, e.g., Thalamas 1921a, 212–14; 1921b, 163–7; Aujac, Harley, Woodward
37
Klaus Zimmermann

1987, 157.
23
Dicaearchus fr. 110 Wehrli = Agathemerus 5, GGM II, 472; Eratosthenes fr.
III A 2 Berger = Strabo 2.1.1 C 67–8.
24
Eratosthenes fr. II C 2 Berger = Strabo 1.4.2 C 62–3.
25
Eratosthenes fr. II C 18 Berger = Strabo 1.4.5 C 64.
26
Along the meridian through Rhodes (see n. 24 above).
27
Strabo 17.3.1 C 825; for Eratosthenes’ authorship see Zimmermann 1999,
120–1.
28
Eratosthenes fr. III A 2 Berger = Strabo 2.1.2 C 68.
29
Eratosthenes fr. III B 5 = Strabo 2.1.22 C 78; Eratosthenes fr. III B 7 = Strabo
2.1.31 C 84; Eratosthenes fr. III B 11 = Strabo 2.1.34 C 87.
30
For an equation of the hypothetical northern coast with the collar of the
chlamys, cf. Berger 1880, 219–20 (referring to Mannert 1829, 89, 116).
31
As a consequence of Alexander’s campaign Eratosthenes abandoned the old
idea of the symmetry of the oikoumene already put forward by Anaximander; see
Olshausen 1991, 94.
32
Eratosthenes fr. III A 2 Berger = Strabo 2.1.1 C 67: ejn de; tw'/ trivtw/ tw'n
Gewgrafikw'n kaqistavmeno" to;n th'" oijkoumevnh" pivnaka grammh'/ tini diairei' divca
ajpo; duvsew" ejp’ ajnatolh;n parallhvlw/ th'/ ijshmerinh'/ grammh'/.
33
See Podosinov 1992, 66; 1993, 34.
34
Berger 1880, 220; 1903, 406.
35
See Liddell-Scott-Jones 1996, 951–2 s.v. kinavra; Suppl. 177 s.v. kinara'"; cf.
Edictum Diocletiani 6.2 Lauffer: sfovnduloi kinarw'n.
36
Polybius 2.14.4–12.
37
See, e.g., Aujac, Harley, Woodward 1987, 154–5; more recently Geus 2000,
77–82; 2002, 225–38.
38
Yet Berger (1903, 406) noticed the resemblance of Plutarch’s description to
Ptolemy’s first, conic projection (therefore see, e.g., Dilke 1985, 77–8).
39
Clarke (1999, 212) emphasizes the difference between the quadrilateral and
the inhabited world, lying within that quadrilateral.
40
Cf. his creation of sfairoeidhv" to describe the shape of the whole earth
(Thalamas 1921a, 105–6; 1921b, 161). Adjectives in -eidhv" may indeed have
a rather figurative (‘in the way of … ’) sense, as the use of swmatoeidhv" (Polybius
1.3.3–4) for the history being a coherent whole since 218 bc (see Clarke 1999,
119) shows.
41
E.U. readers are invited to examine the obverse of the one- to five-eurocent-
pieces, which shows a rather similar pattern.
42
Strabo 2.1.2 C 68: diorqw'sai to;n ajrcai'on gewgrafiko;n pivnaka; see, e.g.,
Bunbury 1879 I, 619 n. 2; Heidel 1937, 122; Olshausen 1991, 93–4.
43
Heidel 1937, 125.
44
Cf., however, Thalamas 1921a, 4: ‘Il (sc. Eratosthène) s’en est tenu à une
géométrie générale de la sphère, sans aborder même le problème des projections.’
45
For immediate use of Eratosthenes by Strabo, see Thalamas 1921a, 189;
1921b, 126–7.
46
2.5.14 C 119.
47
Posidonius fr. 200 a Edelstein, Kidd = Agathemerus 2, GGM II, 471; see
38
 Eratosthenes’ chlamys-shaped world: a misunderstood metaphor

Berger 1880, 220.

48
Cf. already Pseudo-Scymnus 112–14, GGM I, 198 (see Clarke 1999, 63,
103).
49
Naturalis Historia 5.62: metatus est eam Dinochares…ad effigiem Macedonicae
chlamydis etc.
50
Préaux 1968, 177–8.
51
For the probable origin of the metaphor in Peri; wjkeanou', see Clarke 1999,
172–3.
52
It is perhaps worth mentioning that in one of his two measurements of the
earth, Posidonius got the smallest circumference of 180,000 stadia known to
Strabo (fr. 49 Edelstein, Kidd = Strabo 2.2.2 C 95; see the editors’ commentary
on fr. 202, p. 722–3).
53
Strabo 2.5.10 C 116–17; cf. 2.5.1 C 109.

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Clarke, K.
1999 Between Geography and History. Hellenistic Constructions of the Roman
World, Oxford.
Dilke, O.A.W.
1985 Greek and Roman Maps, London.
Flinders Petrie, W.M.
1917 Tools and Weapons, London.
Fraser, P.M.
1972 Ptolemaic Alexandria, 2 vols., Oxford.
Geus, K.
2000 ‘Eratosthenes’, in W. Hübner (ed.) Geographie und verwandte Wissen-
schaften, Stuttgart, 75–92.

39
Klaus Zimmermann

2002 Eratosthenes von Kyrene. Studien zur hellenistischen Kultur- und Wissen-
schaftsgeschichte, Munich.
Glare, P.G.W.
1982 Oxford Latin Dictionary, Oxford.
Heidel, W.A.
1937 The Frame of the Ancient Greek Maps, New York.
Heuzey, L.
1922 Histoire du costume antique, Paris.
Hoepfner, W., Schwandner, E.-L.
1994 Haus und Stadt im klassischen Griechenland 2, Munich, Berlin.
von Humboldt, A.
1836–52 Kritische Untersuchungen über die historische Entwickelung der geogra-
phischen Kenntnisse von der Neuen Welt und die Fortschritte der nautischen
Astronomie in dem 15ten und 16ten Jahrhundert, 3 vols., Berlin.
Jones, H.L.
1917–32 The Geography of Strabo, 8 vols., The Loeb Classical Library,
London.
Liddell, H.G., Scott, R., Jones, H.S.
1996 A Greek-English Lexicon, with a revised supplement, Oxford.
Losfeld, G.
1991 Essai sur le costume grec, Paris.
Mannert, K.
1829 Einleitung in die Geographie der Alten und Darstellung ihrer vorzüglichen
Systeme, Leipzig.
Olshausen, E.
1991 Einführung in die historische Geographie der Alten Welt, Darmstadt.
Pekridou-Gorecki, A.
1989 Mode im antiken Griechenland, Munich.
Podosinov, A.V.
1992 ‘Orientaciq drevnix kart (s drevnejwix vremen do rannego
srednevekov;q)’, VDI 203, 64–74.
1993 ‘Die Orientierung der alten Karten von den ältesten Zeiten bis zum
frühen Mittelalter’, Cartographica Helvetica 7, 33–43.
Préaux, C.
1968 ‘Alexandrie et la chlamyde’, CE 43, 176–87.
Tarbell, F.B.
1906 ‘The form of the chlamys’, CPh 1, 283–9.
Thalamas, A.
1921a La géographie d’Eratosthène, Versailles.
1921b Etude bibliographique de la géographie d’Eratosthène, Versailles.
Thomson, J.O.
1948 History of Ancient Geography, Cambridge.
Zimmermann, K.
1999 Libyen. Das Land südlich des Mittelmeers im Weltbild der Griechen,
Munich.

40
 3

THE KINGS OF MACEDON AND THE CULT OF

ZEUS IN THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD

Sylvie le Bohec-Bouhet

The cult of Zeus, father of gods and men, was widespread in Macedon,1 as
throughout the Greek world.2 In Macedon he was worshipped under a wide
range of epithets, including Hypsistos (Highest), Keraunos (Thunderbolt)
and Olympios (Olympian).3 Zeus was the father of Makedon, eponymous
hero of the land. Myth told that he was one of the two sons resulting
from the god’s union with Thyia, daughter of Deucalion (the other was
Magnes).4 Alongside the other gods, Zeus had his seat at the summit of
Olympus, the 2917 metre-high mountain that separated Macedon from
Thessaly. At the foot of the mountain stood a great sanctuary dedicated
to him, sanctissimum Iovis templum, veterrimae Macedonum religionis (‘the
holiest temple of Zeus, a most ancient place of worship for the Macedo-
nians’), as Justin says.5 The site was identified in the nineteenth century by
Leake and Heuzey,6 and then after 1928 dug first by Sotiriadis and then
Bakalakis.7 Since 1973 Pandermalis has subjected the site to systematic
excavation.8 A cult dedicated to Olympian Zeus on the mountain summit
is attested by a number of finds at Haghios Antonios, such as stelae and
small altars.9 On the Chalcidice’s Pallene peninsula another sanctuary of
Zeus was investigated thirty years ago by Leventopoulou-Giouri. This one
was constructed in the fourth century bc and dedicated to Zeus Ammon.10
The first month of the Macedonian year, Dios, bore the name of the father
of the gods; it corresponded to the Attic month of Pyanopsion and to our
October.11 These well-known examples, a few from among many possible
ones, serve to demonstrate the importance of the cult of Zeus in Macedon.
This study will concentrate upon one particular aspect of this cult: the
association of the kings who presided over Macedon with the ruler of the
gods. Did the kings enjoy a privileged relationship with Zeus? What did
they actually do as chief priests of the cult of the Macedonians’ ancestral
god? In the hellenistic period it was the Antigonid dynasty that reigned over
Macedon. However, as its kings claimed to be descendants of the Argeads,

41
Sylvie le Bohec-Bouhet

we will also have to take the reigns of these their predecessors into account,
not least those of Philip II and Alexander the Great. The state of our sources
will not permit definitive conclusions, but it will nonetheless be useful to
collate and analyse all the known data on the subject.
The kings of Macedon considered themselves to be descended from
Zeus.12 The origin of the royal family remains obscure, for all that many
accounts circulated in antiquity. The first kings were the Argeads and they
derived their descent from Argeas, the son of Makedon, who was in turn the
son of Zeus, as we have seen. In the mid-seventh century bc, according to
a tradition reported first by Herodotus and then by Thucydides,13 Perdiccas
was taken in by the Argeads and succeeded them. He was a scion of the
royal family of Peloponnesian Argos, the Temenids, who drew their descent
from Temenos and through him from Heracles, the son of Zeus. It seems
therefore that Perdiccas and his descendants considered themselves Argeads
too, and the sources accordingly call the dynasty variously ‘Argead’ and
‘Temenid’. Not all scholars take this view, however, and it is unlikely that
agreement can be reached.14 But these uncertainties need not concern us
because the illustrious ancestor of the dynasty remains the same, namely
Zeus. Furthermore, after his visit to the oracle of Ammon in the Siwah oasis
Alexander came to believe that he was the son of Libyan Zeus.15 Cassander,
the son of Antipater, connected himself to the Argead family by marrying
Thessalonike, the daughter of Philip, around 316 bc.16 Alexander always
remained a paradigm for hellenistic rulers and the Antigonid kings sought
to present themselves as related to Philip II and Alexander and, accordingly,
to attach themselves to their prestigious dynasty. To publicize this relation-
ship, Antigonos Gonatas erected a monument to his so-called Progonoi or
‘ancestors’ in the sanctuary of Apollo on Delos. The plinth survives, and
carries the following inscription:
ªBasileu;" ∆Antivgonoº" Basilevw" Dhmhtrivou Maªkedw;n ⁄ tou;" eJºautou'
progovnou" ∆Apovllwni.
King Antigonos, son of King Demetrius, Macedonian, (sc. has dedicated the
statues of ) his ancestors to Apollo.17
The indications are that this blue marble plinth, ranged opposite the Stoa
of Antigonos, supported some twenty bronze statues supposed to represent
members of both the Antigonid and the Argead families. The names of the
individuals were inscribed, but the lettering is no longer legible: we can
perhaps just read Peªrdºivka" (i.e. Perdiccas, with a single kappa). The first
statue seems to have been on a larger scale than the others, and Courby
has suggested that this was Heracles, the ancestor of the dynasty.18 The
presence of Heracles recalls that of Zeus. Polybius tells us that Philip V was

42
 The kings of Macedon and the cult of Zeus in the hellenistic period

the keenest of the Antigonids to assert this relationship: ‘[Philip V] went

to great pains his whole life long to show himself related to Alexander and
Philip.’19 Plutarch similarly tells that his heir Perseus considered himself
related to Philip and Alexander.20
Some Macedonian rulers were assimilated to Zeus in various ways
or were worshipped in association with him. Philip II had included his
own statue along with those of the twelve Olympian gods in the proces-
sion he organized for the wedding of his daughter Cleopatra at Aegae, so
here Philip was displayed side by side with Zeus.21 The city of Eresos on
the island of Lesbos recovered its freedom after sending an embassy to
Philip II. In thanks it dedicated two altars to Zeus Philippeios, i.e. Zeus in
the guise of Philip.22 According to Plutarch, it was Apelles who first painted
Alexander hurling a thunderbolt, an attribute assimilating him to Zeus.23
An inscription from the Strymon valley records a dedication ‘To Zeus
and King Philip’ (Dii; kai; basili' Filivppw/), perhaps Philip V, although
Philip II cannot be completely ruled out.24 There is a similar uncertainty
in the case of another dedication found at Maroneia, ‘To Zeus and King
Philip the Saviour’ (Dii; kai; basilei' Filivppw/ Swth'ri).25 Another inscrip-
tion, perhaps originally from Amphipolis, associates Zeus with a King
Antigonos ‘Saviour’. The epithet probably indicates that the Antigonos in
question was Doson.26 We may also cite an epigram of Alcaeus of Messene,
which proclaims that Philip V approaches the greatness of Olympian Zeus
by virtue of his mastery of land and sea.27
The significance of Zeus for the kings of Macedon can be seen also in
their coinage. The god’s image appears on a great many of their issues. It
goes without saying that coin symbols were not selected at random. If the
Macedonian kings chose to put Zeus on their coins, it was to advertise their
close tie with this deity. Archelaos I, Amyntas III and Perdiccas III had
placed an eagle, the creature of Zeus,28 on some of their issues, though never
the actual god. But Philip II innovated, and put Zeus himself on his coins:
his laurel-wreathed head features on the obverse of his tetradrachms.29 The
precise rationale for this Zeus-head remains obscure. Perhaps Philip particu-
larly venerated Zeus as the protector of the Olympia-festival at Dion and of
the Olympic Games at Elis.30 His festival victories demonstrate his love of
horse racing.31 His son and heir Alexander began by minting tetradrachms
with a head of Zeus on the obverse whilst on the reverse he placed an eagle,
its wings furled, on a thunderbolt, oriented towards the right but turning
its head backwards.32 The commonest coins minted by Alexander and
many of his Successors, those usually referred to as ‘Alexanders’, display
either a head of Heracles or a head of Alexander wearing the lionskin on
their obverse, and Zeus enthroned on their reverse. The god turns towards

43
Sylvie le Bohec-Bouhet

the left; his head is in profile; his body is in three-quarter pose. He holds
an eagle in his right hand and a sceptre in his left.33 Alexander also struck
decadrachms on which he was portrayed with a thunderbolt after the
fashion of Zeus and receiving a crown from the hands of Nike.34 Most of
his successors to the rule of Macedon chose to put Zeus or his eagle on
their coins. The reverses of some tetradrachms minted by Philip V display
Heracles’ club surrounded by an oak-wreath symbolizing Zeus;35 the god’s
head appeared on the bronze coins.36 Perseus’ tetradrachms feature an eagle
on a thunderbolt, turning towards the right and with wings unfurled, on
the reverse.37 It is also to be found on some of his bronze coins.38
Among the duties undertaken by the Antigonids in Macedon, as by the
Argeads before them, were the roles of chief priest and president of the
kingdom’s great religious festivals. Clearly there would have been many
festivals in honour of Zeus, but three are attested by our sources. From
the classical period the king of Macedon had celebrated the Hetairideia,39
a festival in honour of Zeus Hetaireios, in which the king’s Companions
or hetairoi participated: the king and his Companions were linked by
religious ties.40 It is a pity that we have no details for this celebration. The
king also presided over the Olympia, the festival celebrated at Dion in the
great sanctuary of Zeus, and the Basileia, the festival celebrated in honour
of Zeus Basileus at Aegae, the kingdom’s former capital.41 These two
festivals are perhaps mentioned together beside the Nemea in an agonistic
inscription of hellenistic date from Cassandreia, if the Basileia in question
is indeed the Aegae festival (for the reference could otherwise be to the
Basileia at Lebadaea).42 The Macedonian Basileia is found in two further
inscriptions, but they afford us no more information about it: one has
ªBasivºleia th'" Makedoniva", the other Basivleia ejn Makedonivai.43 Arrian
tells us that it consisted of games over which Alexander presided upon his
return from Thebes.44 Athletes who must have been involved in games are
referred to in an unpublished diagramma of Philip V. It could refer to the
games of the Olympia and the Basileia.45 These two great festivals were
perhaps celebrated during Dios, the month sacred to Zeus, but, if so, it
goes without saying that the days of the two celebrations did not coincide
with each other.46 The marriage of Cleopatra, daughter of Philip II, to
Alexander, brother of Olympias, took place at Aegae. Some historians
think it would have been celebrated at the Basileia because numerous royal
marriages seem to have taken place during the autumn festival.47 However,
Diodorus’ account gives no indication of this.48 Rather, he gives us an
impression of a certain hurriedness. Delphi had given Philip a favourable
response on the subject of his Asian expedition, or at any rate he thought
it had, and so he decided to organize a great festival and to celebrate his

44
 The kings of Macedon and the cult of Zeus in the hellenistic period

daughter’s marriage at the same time: ‘he organized magnificent sacrifices

to the gods and at the same time celebrated the marriage of his daughter
Cleopatra’.49 It is nonetheless possible that this hasty decision coincided
with the autumn Basileia festival. The Olympia celebrated at Dion was
instituted in honour of Zeus and the Muses by King Archelaos at the end
of the fifth century bc.50 It is hardly surprising to find the Muses associated
with Zeus, especially in Pieria, since, according to the tradition preserved
by Hesiod, it was here that Zeus had fathered them on Mnemosyne.51
Demosthenes undoubtedly alludes to the Dion Olympia when he reports
that Philip II celebrated an Olympian festival after the fall of Olynthos,
assembled all the artists (tecnivtai) for the ceremony, gave them a feast and
awarded them crowns.52 Diodorus provides an interesting description of
the Olympia celebrated by Alexander at the start of his reign. Once he had
decided to undertake an expedition to Asia, Alexander celebrated the 335
bc Olympia with particular splendour.53 The festival occupied nine days,
one for each of the Muses, and was the occasion of a great gathering. The
king was there in person and kept a close eye on the proceedings. He invited
his friends, his generals and ambassadors from the Greek cities. Magnificent
sacrifices were followed by sumptuous banquets, for which he put up a tent
with a hundred couches. The festival also included musical competitions.
A passage of Dio Chrysostom reports that Philip and Alexander custom-
arily performed elaborate sacrifices to Zeus and the Muses together with
Olympic games at Dion after their victories.54 Badian calls these ‘counter-
Olympics’ but Hammond insists that these games were local and could
not in any way have rivalled the (Elean) Olympic Games.55 An inscription
from Cassandreia, mentioned above, shows that in the hellenistic period
these games were counted among the crown-awarding ones.56 Another
unpublished inscription found at Dion tells us that the games comprised,
amongst other sports, the pentathlon, dolichos (long foot-race) and perhaps
taurotheria (bull hunt).57
The sanctuary of Dion, the name of which saluted Zeus, great god of
the Macedonians, was a special site for the kings of Macedon.58 Not only
did they come there to preside over the great festivals in honour of the
father of the gods, as we have seen, but it has now been well established
that it was in the hieron here that the official texts of the monarchy were
published. The great gatherings occasioned by the festivals afforded the
entire population access to these documents. The supposition that the
kings used the hieron as a display area for their official texts used to be
based only upon a fragment of a treaty between Philip V and the city
of Lysimacheia found at Dion in 1915,59 and upon an inscription from
Olynthos published in 1934, which stipulates that a treaty between Philip

45
Sylvie le Bohec-Bouhet

and the Chalcidian league should be inscribed on three stelae, one of which
was to be displayed in the sanctuary of Olympian Zeus at Dion (ejn Divoi ej"
ªtºo; ijero;n tou' Dio;" toªu'º ∆Olumpivou).60 But the rich epigraphic discoveries
of recent decades now confirm the picture. Hitherto three treaties have
been found: in addition to the one just mentioned between Philip V and
the city of Lysimacheia, we now have the treaty between Perseus and the
Boeotians and a treaty made in accordance with an oracle, both of which
are still unpublished.61 The treaty between Philip and the Chalcidian league,
just mentioned and known through an Olynthian inscription, has yet to be
found. As is well known, in the Greek world treaties contained the oaths
of the two contracting parties; the gods, and Zeus in particular, acted as
their guarantors.62 The displaying of a copy of the treaty in the sanctuary
of Zeus would have constituted a supplementary guarantee of it. Polybius
tells that it was actually at Dion that Perseus took his oath of alliance with
Genthios, the Illyrian king, in 169/8 bc ‘before his entire cavalry.’ The
historian continues, ‘He particularly wanted everyone in Macedon to know
that Genthios had made common cause with him.’ 63 A prestigious place
of performance enhances still further the solemnity of the oath. Four royal
letters have recently been found in the sanctuary: a letter or diagramma of
king Cassander;64 a letter from Antigonos Gonatas to one Agasikles, no
doubt the governor of the city of Dion;65 a letter of Philip V dated to 206 or
205 bc to the people of Pheres and probably too the people of Demetrias on
the subject of boundaries and borders;66 and another letter from this same
king to Eurylochos, the governor of Diestai, and also to its council and other
citizens.67 The letter of Philip to the people of Pheres specifies that it is to be
inscribed on a stele and displayed in the sanctuary of Olympian Zeus.68 It is
possible that other inscriptions discovered in the last excavation campaign
are similarly documents from the royal chancellery.69 Their publication is
eagerly awaited. Furthermore, continuing excavation would certainly bring
to our attention other official texts displayed in the sanctuary.
In the ancient Greek world, kings regularly displayed their piety (eusebeia)
by making offerings to the gods at sanctuaries, and the Macedonian kings
took a particular interest in that of Dion. It was here in the sanctuary of Zeus
that Alexander dedicated the bronze statues of the twenty-five of his hetairoi
(Cavalry-Companions) who fell in the battle of the Granicus in 331 bc. The
great sculptor Lysippos had been charged with their execution.70 Alexander
also had a plan to build a splendid temple for Zeus at Dion, but did not
have the opportunity to realize it.71 Successive rulers of Macedon continued
to show an interest in this sanctuary and erected numerous statues there,
human and divine alike, as occasional references in literary and epigraphic
sources attest. Polybius reports that, on the occasion of the sacking of the

46
 The kings of Macedon and the cult of Zeus in the hellenistic period

hieron by Aetolian troops in 219 bc, Scopas ‘overturned all the statues of
the kings’.72 Livy tells that in 169 Perseus, anxious about the impending
arrival of the Romans, had all the golden statues removed from Dion so
as to prevent them falling into enemy hands.73 A fragment has been found
from the plinth of a statue of King Perseus; it carries the inscription ‘(King
Perseus, son) of King Philip’.74 Of all the statues of Zeus dedicated by
the kings, only one is currently attested, that dedicated by Cassander to
Olympian Zeus, the plinth of which has been found. It carries the following
inscription: ‘Cassander, King of the Macedonians, son of Antipater, to
Olympian Zeus’.75 Royal piety could incite the king to revenge. Accord-
ingly, in laying waste to the sanctuary of Thermos, Philip V considered
himself the avenger of Zeus, two of whose sanctuaries, those at Dion and
Dodona, had been sacked by the Aetolians.76
Dion aside, the Macedonian kings also worshipped Zeus with various
dedications at various sanctuaries elsewhere in Macedon, but sources here
are desperately inadequate. At this point only Philip V’s dedication to Zeus
Meilichios at Pella has been found.77
Outside Macedon itself the kings also displayed their piety towards
Zeus in various ways at various sanctuaries. A number of them showed
an interest in the sanctuary of Olympia in the north west Pelopon-
nese. After his victory at Chaeronea in 338 Philip II erected a circular
building or tholos in the Altis. It was called the Philippeion and housed
chryselephantine statues of members of the Argead dynasty. The sculptor
Leochares was charged with their execution.78 The actual reason for the
construction of this monument remains obscure,79 but the choice of this
hieron demonstrates the significance that the king attached to the cult of
Olympian Zeus; as we shall see, other evidence points the same way. Several
decades later another statue group was dedicated in the same sanctuary. It
is known from Pausanias’ description. It consisted of three figures: Greece
crowning Antigonos Doson with one hand and Philip V with the other.80
Unfortunately we do not know who erected the group. The rulers’ piety
towards Olympian Zeus is shown also by the interest they took in the
(Elean) Olympic Games.81 Following in the footsteps of Alexander I,82
Archelaos and Philip II liked to participate in the Games’ competitions,83
and Philip II was proud of his repeated wins. Thus, in 356 bc, he learned
three pieces of good news: the victory of his general Parmenion over the
Illyrians, the birth of his son Alexander and the victory of his horse in
a race at Olympia.84 On the reverse of his silver tetradrachms a horseman
carrying a victor’s palm commemorates one of his wins, perhaps that of
356.85 Plutarch tells that Philip had the victories of his chariots at Olympia
inscribed on his coins.86 The reverses of his gold staters feature a galloping

47
Sylvie le Bohec-Bouhet

chariot-pair, no doubt in commemoration of a victory at the Olympic

Games, perhaps that of 352.87 Alexander the Great did not compete at
Olympia, but he took other forms of interest in the sanctuary. He freed
Dionysodoros of Thebes, whom he had taken prisoner at the battle of Issos
in 333 bc, because he was an Olympic victor.88 In 324 the king chose the
gathering of the Greeks at Olympia for the Games to make his solemn
proclamation, through Nicanor of Stagira, that he desired the return of
exiles to their cities.89 The enthroned Zeus that features on the reverse of
his tetradrachms90 recalls Phidias’ chryselephantine statue in the temple of
Zeus at Olympia. Two kings are known to have taken an interest in the
sanctuary of Zeus at Dodona. Diodorus mentions in passing that Alexander
planned to build a temple at Dodona;91 the temple in question was perhaps
to be that of Zeus. According to Mamroth, a bronze Macedonian coin
showing Zeus of Dodona probably commemorates Philip V’s reconstruc-
tion of his altar after its destruction by the Aetolians.92 In 245 bc Antigonos
Gonatas founded two festivals in the sanctuary of Apollo on Delos, the
Soteria and the Paneia. The Soteria was a festival in honour of Saviour
Gods, perhaps Zeus Soter and Athene Soteira, but we cannot be sure.93
The circumstances of these foundations remain obscure and have given rise
to a variety of interpretations.94 At any rate, this Soteria sheds hardly any
light on the cult Antigonos Gonatas devoted to Zeus.
Philip V also demonstrated his piety towards Zeus by taking an interest
in several sanctuaries in the Peloponnese. He sacrificed to this god in
his sanctuary on Mt Ithome, as we shall see,95 and, in 209 bc, he was
agonothetes (president) for the games in honour of Zeus in the sanctuary
at Nemea.96
In the course of their military campaigns the kings offered numerous
sacrifices to the gods, and not least to Zeus, under a range of epithets.
Alexander the Great and Philip V are the kings about whom we are best
informed. Let us consider a few examples. In the course of his campaign
against the Getae, Alexander took their city and made a sacrifice to Zeus
Saviour together with Heracles and the Danube.97 At Memphis he offered
a sacrifice to Zeus the King.98 After the return of Nearchus, Alexander
gave sacrifices in return for the army’s safety to Zeus Saviour, together with
Heracles, Apollo Protector, Poseidon and all the gods of the sea.99 These
sacrifices were acts of thanksgiving. The sacrifice Philip V made to Zeus at
the Ithome sanctuary in 216/5 or 215/4 bc was of a different type, since
the king examined the victims’ entrails to see whether he was destined to
take the acropolis.100 Another sacrifice of thanksgiving is found in the case
of Philip V’s ambassadors at Rome who congratulated the senate for its
victory at Thermopylae and sought permission to make sacrifice on the

48
 The kings of Macedon and the cult of Zeus in the hellenistic period

Capitol and to dedicate a crown to Jupiter Optimus Maximus.101 Philip V

himself made sacrifice to Zeus on the summit of Mt Haemus on two
altars dedicated to Zeus and to the Sun.102 Sometimes the king included
a procession and games. This is what Alexander did at Memphis103 and on
the return of Nearchus.104 The kings were also attentive to signs sent by
the deity. Thus, during the summer of 334 bc in the open sea off Miletus
Alexander interpreted the presence of an eagle resting on the shore as indi-
cating that he would be able to capture the Persian ships if he attacked them
from the land.105 The king could also command the construction of an altar
to Zeus. Alexander had altars raised to several gods at the very spot at which
he disembarked in Asia, amongst whom was Zeus, Protector of Disembark-
ation.106 On the acropolis of Sardis, Alexander ordered the construction
of an altar and a temple for Olympian Zeus.107 In 201 Philip V dedicated
pots, ‘phialai and a kados’ at the sanctuary of Carian Zeus, in the country
of Panamara in Caria.108
Ammon constituted a special part of the Zeus cult. In Greek eyes
Ammon was the Libyan manifestation of the Greek Zeus.109 On the
return of Nearchos Alexander was overjoyed and, as Arrian tells, called to
witness ‘Greek Zeus and Libyan Zeus Ammon’.110 Philip II, disturbed by
his vision of snakes in the bed of his wife Olympias, sent an envoy to the
Pythia, and the envoy brought him back an oracle in which Apollo bade
him make sacrifice to Ammon and venerate this god above all.111 There was
a sanctuary of Zeus Ammon at Aphytis in Chalcidice. Its surviving traces
date from the fourth century bc,112 but the relationships of the kings with
this hieron remain obscure. As is well known, Alexander was particularly
devoted to Zeus Ammon and it is in the case of this king that the oracular
character of the god comes to the fore. Alexander’s most famous demon-
stration of his piety towards Ammon was his pilgrimage to his oracle in
the Siwah oasis in Libya, in 331 bc. Alexander sought confirmation of
his divine parentage.113 The king followed the god’s instructions for the
remainder of the expedition: he made sacrifices to the deities to whom
the oracle had directed him.114 Alexander honoured Ammon also with
libations,115 and he dispatched envoys to his oracle to enquire whether
it was appropriate to offer sacrifices to his dead friend Hephaistion as
a god.116 We know nothing of the relationships of the other kings with
Zeus Ammon.
A final observation may be made on the kings of Macedon and the cult
of Zeus. If one concedes that Aratos of Soli composed the Phaenomena
under a commission from Antigonos Gonatas, which is not impossible, it
then becomes noteworthy that the poem’s prelude consists of a hymn to
Zeus, and that this deity recurs frequently in its remainder.117

49
Sylvie le Bohec-Bouhet

Although many details continue to elude us, there is no doubt that Zeus
was a significant deity for the kings of Macedon. He was the ancestral god
of the Macedonians in general and their dynasty in particular. The kings
were keen to celebrate this in a variety of ways, not the least of which was
by associating him with the official aspects of their monarchy: his image
was on their coins; royal texts were published under his protection in his
sanctuary at Dion, home to great festivals. The construction of the Philip-
peion at Olympia and the consultation of the oracle of Ammon at Siwah
show, in a more striking fashion still, the care the kings took to show the
whole Greek world their veneration for the god.

Notes
1
Baege 1913, 1–19; Düll 1977 (a study confined to the FYROM and Bulgarian
parts of Macedon); Daskalopoulos 1993, 309–64; Chrysostomou 1989–91.
2
Cook 1914–40; Lévêque and Séchan 1966, 77–98.
3
Chrysostomou 1989–91; see also Tac“eva-Hitova 1978.
4
Hesiod F7 MW.
5
Justin 24.2.8; but Hammond 1989, 297 n. 19, thinks that Justin refers to
a sanctuary of Zeus-Ammon at Aphytis (on which see n. 10 below).
6
Leake 1841, 408–13; Heuzey 1860, 113–28.
7
Sotiriadis 1928, 1929, 1930, 1931; Bakalakis 1977.
8
See, most recently, Pandermalis 2000, with prior bibliography.
9
Kyriazopoulos and Livadas 1967; Robert 1968, 323.
10
Leventopoulou-Giouri 1971. The sanctuary was identified from a dedication
on a marble vase. An inscribed boundary stone from the site is scheduled for
publication: Sismanides 1998, 79. For Aphytis, located close to the modern village
of Aphytos, see Papazoglou 1988, 248 and notes 79–81. For the cult of Ammon
in Greece before 331 bc see Classen 1959 (who wrote before the investigation
of Aphytis).
11
Trümpi 1997, 262–5.
12
We are reminded that Zeus was often the protector of kings in the Greek
world: Homer Il. 2.106; cf. Burkert 1985, 130.
13
Herodotus 5.22.1; Thucydides 2.99.3 and 5.80.2.
14
See, e.g., Hammond 1989, 16–19; Borza 1990, 80–3.
15
Goukowsky 1978, 24–5.
16
Diodorus 19.52.1.
17
IG xi.4 1096.
18
Courby 1912, 74–83. For Heracles and the Macedonian dynasty, see Edson
1934; Iliadou 1998, 15–36.
19
Polybius 5.10.10: ÔO de; i{na me;n kai; suggenh;" ∆Alexavndrou kai; Filivppou
faivnhtai, megavlhn ejpoiei'to par’ o{lon to;n bivon spoudhvn … See Walbank 1940,
258–9.

50
 The kings of Macedon and the cult of Zeus in the hellenistic period
20
Plutarch Aemilius Paullus 12.9: th'" ∆Alexavndrou kai; Filivppou kata; suggev-
neian ajreth'" metapoiouvmeno".
21
Diodorus 16.92.5.
22
Tod GHI 191, 5–6; Lott 1996, 31 thinks these altars may have been set before
statues of Zeus and Philip.
23
Plutarch Alexander 4.3. The painting was commissioned for the temple of
Artemis at Ephesus: Pliny Natural History 35.92.
24
Bonias 1992; the editor holds that the letter-forms indicate Philip V; Hatzo-
poulos 1998b, 279 thinks that the identity of the king is insecure and that it could
well have been Philip II receiving a cult at Amphipolis.
25
The inscription is published by Veligianni 1991, who dates it to the reign of
Philip V on the basis of letter forms; but Hatzopoulos 1991, 377 holds that the
lettering requires an earlier date and believes that the King Philip in question is
rather Philip II.
26
Koukouli-Chrysanthaki 1998: Dio;" kai; Basilevw" ⁄ ∆Antigovnou Swth'ro".
27
Anthologia Palatina 9.518: ‘Raise your walls higher, Olympian Zeus, for
everything is accessible to Philip: close the brazen gates of the blessed. Yes, the
earth and the sea are subject to Philip’s sceptre and only the road to Olympus
awaits him.’ I thank my friend and colleague Kostas Buraselis for kindly drawing
this text to my attention.
28
Gaebler 1935, plates xxix.16, xxx.1, 7 and 17.
29
See, most recently, le Rider 1996, 22.
30
Le Rider 1977, 364.
31
See below.
32
Le Rider 1996, 91–4 and plate 9, nos. 10, 11 and 12.
33
Mørkholm 1991, 42 and plate i nos. 9–10.
34
Mørkholm 1991, 52–5 and plate iii no. 44.
35
Mørkholm 1991 plate xxix nos. 439 and 582–3.
36
Mørkholm 1991 plate xxix no. 443.
37
Mørkholm 1991 plate xxix nos. 588–9.
38
Mørkholm 1991 plate xxix no. 591.
39
Athenaeus 572d = Hegesander of Delphi FHG iv p. 418 no. 25; see Kalleris
1954, 171–2; Savalli-Lestrade 1998, 291. The Magnesians celebrated the same
festival.
40
Hammond 1989, 54.
41
On these festivals and the problems posed by the sources see, most recently,
Mari 1998.
42
Robinson 1938, 64–5 n. 16 and plate xii; see Flacelière et al. 1939, 169;
Moretti 1953, 54.
43
IGR iv 1519 lines 14–15 and IG ii2 3779; see Hatzopoulos 1993, 146 n. 3.
44
Arrian Anabasis 1.11.1. However, this passage is problematic. Hatzopoulos
1993, 146 n. 3 holds that Arrian has confused the Dion Olympia with the Aegae
Basileia. See, most recently, Mari 1998, 139–43.
45
Hatzopoulos 1996, ii no. 16 and 1997, 409.
46
Hatzopoulos 1982, 41.

51
Sylvie le Bohec-Bouhet
47
Hatzopoulos 1993, 146 n. 3.
48
Diodorus 16.91–4.
49
Diodorus 16.91.4; Mari 1998, 141 rightly observes that we cannot assume
that this festival was in honour of Olympian Zeus.
50
Diodorus 16.16.3.
51
Hesiod Theogony 53–4.
52
Demosthenes 19.192 (On the False Embassy).
53
Diodorus 16.16.3–4; see also Arrian Anabasis 1.11.1; for the interpretation
of these sources see, most recently, Mari 1998, 137–53.
54
Dio Chrysostom Orations 2.2.
55
Badian 1982, 35; Hammond 1989, 23 n. 35; see also Mari 1998, 153–65.
56
See note 42.
57
The inscription was presented by Pandermalis at a symposium on Macedonian
epigraphy held at Thessaloniki in 1993; Hatzopoulos 1996, i 129 n. 2.
58
Kremydi-Sisilianou 1996, 89–90.
59
Hatzopoulos 1996, ii no. 3.
60
Hatzopoulos 1996, ii no. 2 lines 9–10.
61
Unedited inscriptions cited by Hatzopoulos 1998a, 1194–5.
62
See Rudhardt 1992, 208–10 for the oath and the gods.
63
Polybius 29.4.5; cf. Livy 44.23.7.
64
Hatzopoulos 1998a, 1194.
65
Hatzopoulos 1998a, 1193 and n. 19.
66
Hatzopoulos 1996, ii no. 11; Magnetto 1997, no. 57; Hatzopoulos 2000, 523
now believes that the author is not Philip but Demetrius Poliorcetes, for reasons
of letter forms, and that the document dates from September 291, shortly after
the foundation of Demetrias.
67
Hatzopoulos 1998a, 1195.
68
Hatzopoulos 1996, ii no. 11.
69
Hatzopoulos 1998a, 1194.
70
Plutarch Alexander 16.16; Arrian Anabasis 1.16.4. Q. Caecilius Metellus, the
vanquisher of Andriscus, took the group to Rome; Pliny Natural History 34.64.
71
Diodorus 18.4.5; cf. also 30.11.
72
Polybius 4.62.2: ajnevtreye de; kai; ta;" eijkovna" tw'n basilevwn aJpavsa".
73
Livy 44.6.3; cf. also 44.7.3.
74
Hatzopoulos 1996, ii no. 35.
75
Hatzopoulos 1996, ii no. 23.
76
Polybius 5.9.2–6; Walbank 1940, 55 and n. 2; Hammond 1988, 379; cf. also
n. 92 below.
77
Hatzopoulos 1996, ii no. 28.
78
Miller 1973.
79
See, most recently, Huwendiek 1996.
80
Pausanias 6.16.3; Kruse 1992.
81
Romano 1990.
82
Herodotus 5.22; Justin 7.2.14; Borza 1990, 114 rejects his participation in
the Games, which he holds to be a fabrication.

52
 The kings of Macedon and the cult of Zeus in the hellenistic period
83
Archelaus: Moretti 1957, 110–11 no. 349; Philip II (?): Moretti 1957, 124
no. 439. It is noteworthy that the king is not present in person.
84
Plutarch Alexander 3.
85
Le Rider 1996, 37.
86
Plutarch Alexander 4.
87
Le Rider 1996, 37.
88
Arrian Anabasis 2.15.4.
89
Diodorus 18.8.2–6.
90
See above.
91
Diodorus 18.4.5.
92
Mamroth 1935, 225 n. 4; Walbank 1940, 42 n. 2; Hammond 1988, 379
n. 2.
93
Bruneau 1970, 235.
94
Hammond and Walbank 1988, 307 and 592–4.
95
Plutarch Aratus 50.
96
Livy 27.30–1.
97
Arrian Anabasis 1.4.5.
98
Arrian Anabasis 3.5.2.
99
Arrian Indica 36.3.9.
100
Plutarch Aratus 50.4; cf. Polybius 7.12.1; Walbank 1967, 60.
101
Livy 36.35.8–14.
102
Livy 40.22.7.
103
Arrian Anabasis 3.5.2.
104
Arrian Indica 36.3.9.
105
Arrian Anabasis 1.18.9.
106
Arrian Anabasis 1.11.7.
107
Arrian Anabasis 1.17.5.
108
Holleaux 1904, 345–6 no. 1 line 15.
109
For the cult of Ammon in Greece see the bibliography at Goukowsky 1978,
252 n. 82.
110
Arrian Indica 35.8.
111
Plutarch Alexander 3.1.
112
See n. 10.
113
Diodorus 17.49–51; Arrian Anabasis 3.3–4; Plutarch Alexander 27; Bosworth
1977; for the oracle see Fakhry 1944, especially 21–33; Parke 1967, 202–21.
114
Arrian Anabasis 6.19.4.
115
Arrian Anabasis 6.3.2.
116
Arrian Anabasis 7.14.7 and 7.23.6; Diodorus 17.115.6; Hammond 1989,
234.
117
Martin 1998, xliv.

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Burkert, W.
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Gaebler, H.
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1993 La loi gymnasiarchique de Beroia. Meletemata 16, Athens.
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1978 Essai sur les origines du mythe d’Alexandre I, Nancy.
Hammond, N.G.L.
1989 The Macedonian State, Oxford.
Hammond, N.G.L., and Walbank, F.W.
1988 A History of Macedon, III, Oxford.
Hatzopoulos, M.B.
1982 ‘The Oleveni Inscription and the dates of Philip II’s reign’, in W.L. Adams
and E.N. Borza (eds.) Philip, Alexander the Great and the Macedonian
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1991 [report] Bulletin Épigraphique, 377.
1993 See Gauthier 1993.
1996 Macedonian Institutions under the Kings, 2 vols. Meletemata 22, Athens.
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1998a ‘Récentes découvertes épigraphiques et gloses macédoniens d’Hésychius’,
CRAI [no serial number], 1189–1207.
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Heuzey, L.
1860 Le mont Olympe et l’Acarnanie, Paris.
Holleaux, M.
1904 ‘Remarques sur les décrets trouvés dans la sanctuaire de Zeus Panamaros’,
BCH 28, 353–9 = Etudes d’épigraphie et d’histoire grecques, IV, Paris,
1952.204–10.
Huwendiek, J.
1996 ‘Zur Interpretation des Philippeion in Olympia’, Boreas 19, 155–9.
Iliadou, P.
1998 Herakles in Makedonien, Hamburg.
Kalleris, J.N.
1954 Les anciens Macédoniens, I, Athens.
Koukouli-Chrysanthaki, C.
1998 ‘ Dio;" kai; basilevw" ∆Antigovnou ’, in Mneiva" cavrin. Tovmo" sth; mnhvmh
Maivrh" Siganivdou, Thessaloniki, 401–11.
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1996 ÔH nomismatokopiva th'" Ôrwmai>kh'" ajpoikiva" tou' Divou, Athens.
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1992 ‘Zwei Denkmäler der Antigoniden in Olympia: eine Untersuchung zu
Pausanias 6.16.3’, MDAI(A) 107, 273–93.
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1977 Le monnayage d’argent et d’or de Philippe II frappé en Macédoine de 359 à
194, Paris.
1996 Monnayage et finances de Philippe II. Un état de question. Meletemata 23,
Athens.
Leake, W.M.
1841 Travels in Northern Greece, III, London.
Leventopoulou-Giouri, E.
1971 ‘The sanctuary of Zeus-Ammon at Aphytis’, AAA 4, 356–67. [In Greek
with an English summary.]
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1996 Les grandes divinités de la Grèce, Paris.
Lott, J.B.
1996 ‘Philip II, Alexander and the two Tyrannies at Eresos of IG xii.2 526’,
Phoenix 50, 26–40.
Magnetto, A.
1997 Gli arbitrati interstatali greci, II, Pisa.
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1935 ‘Die Bronzemünzen des Königs Philipps von Makedonien’, ZN 42,
219–51.
Mari, M.
1998 ‘Le Olimpie macedoni di Dion tra Archelao e l’età romana’, RFIC 126,
137–69.
Martin, J.
1998 Aratos. Phénomènes, Paris.
Miller, S.G.
1973 ‘The Philippeion and the Macedonian hellenic architecture’, AM 88,
189–218.
Moretti, L.
1953 Iscrizioni agonistiche greche, Rome.
1957 Olympionikai. I vincitori negli antichi agoni olimpici, Mem. Acc. Lincei,
ser. viii.8, Rome.
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1991 Early Hellenistic Coinage from the Accession of Alexander to the Peace of
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2000 Di'on, Athens.
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1988 Les villes de Macédoine à l’époque romaine. BCH Suppl. 16.
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1967 The oracles of Zeus. Dodona, Olympia, Ammon, Oxford.
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Robinson, D.M.
1938 ‘Inscriptions of Macedonia’, TAPA 69, 64–5.
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1990 ‘Philip of Macedon, Alexander the Great and the Ancient Olympic
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1998 Les philoi royaux dans l’Asie hellénistique, Geneva and Paris.
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1998 In Ancient Section, ÔH iJstoriva th'" Calkidikh'", Thessaloniki.
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1940 Philip V of Macedon, Cambridge.
1967 A Historical Commentary on Polybius, II, Oxford.

57
 4

HUNTING AND THE MACEDONIAN ELITE:

SHARING THE RIVALRY OF THE CHASE
(Arrian 4.13.1)

Elizabeth Carney

Fascination with the pursuit of game was an enduring feature of the life of
the Macedonian elite. Though the practice and the ideology of hunting in
Macedonia did change, success in hunting constituted the most persistent
mark of excellence for the elite Macedonian male. Athletics did not become
an important Macedonian pastime until the hellenistic period1 and, by
the time of Aristotle, killing a man in battle no longer defined masculine
adulthood.2 In contrast, at least as late as the second century bc (Ath.18a),
it remained Macedonian custom that a man could not recline at dinner
until he had killed a boar without using a net. This rite of passage was
particularly significant because it purchased entry to the symposium, an
institution of vital importance in the life of the court.3
This paper will address the entire history of Macedonian hunting but it
will focus on the late classical and early hellenistic periods. Since attention
has already been paid to the representation of Macedonian hunts and to
the role of the king as royal hunter 4 (and to the possible influence of other
monarchic traditions on that role),5 this paper will concentrate upon
hunting practice and the interaction between the king and the rest of the
elite in the context of hunting.
Highlighting this aspect of hunting helps us to understand an important
subject, the nature of Macedonian monarchy. Some continue to assert that
Macedonian monarchy was constitutionally limited, but the majority of
scholars view Macedonian monarchy as absolute, limited only situationally.
Though neither an assembly nor a royal council restricted the power of
the king, chronic problems with invasion and regicide did. Although this
dispute has been attributed to lack of evidence,6 the main reason that we
find the institution difficult to comprehend is its fundamentally paradoxical
nature.
The style of Macedonian monarchy was hardly absolute: a king dressed,
drank, fought, hunted and was buried in a manner only slightly different

59
Elizabeth Carney

from the rest of the elite. This style, however, was not the substance of
kingship in Macedonia. Style or custom could not save a man if the king
opposed him, but situation might. These three conflicting aspects of Mace-
donian monarchy, style, substance and situation, are the source of much of
our puzzlement. The elite had much to do with the first and third of these
aspects of royal power. The character of the Macedonian elite shaped royal
style because the king’s regular interaction with the elite at court provided
the context for the display of royal style; hunting was one aspect of that
interaction and display.
The cultural context for Macedonian hunting practice and ideology is
complex. One hallmark of Macedonian elite culture was its ability to adopt
the style of another culture to purposes peculiarly Macedonian.7 Greek
elites since the days of Homer 8 valued hunting as a heroic activity (Xen.
Cyn. 1.1–17).9 Alexander I advanced the claims of his dynasty to heroic
descent via Heracles, the great warrior and hunter (Herod. 5.22; 8.137–9)
and Macedonians, still Homeric in many of their values even in the classical
period, are likely to have taken that tradition quite seriously.10
Alexander I initiated the royal Macedonian coinage,11 producing a type
that would recur 12 throughout Macedonian history.13 A number of his
larger coins have the figures of a man and a horse on them.14 This Rider
or Horseman type associated the monarchy with hunting.15 The mounted
rider on Alexander I’s coins, although Greek in style,16 clearly imitated
earlier Balkan coins17 and is obviously connected to the so-called Thracian
Rider. The Thracian Rider appears in many contexts in Balkan cultures and
may well refer to a heroic figure who triumphs over death.18 Macedonians
had many kinds of cultural contacts with Thracian culture. The meaning of
the rider figure on the coins of Alexander I and many subsequent rulers is
controversial because so many variations existed. Few would now connect
the Rider figure to specific deities or heroes19 or insist that the figure
represented the current king.20
Disagreement persists, however, about whether the Rider represents
a hunter, a warrior or is a purposely ambiguous figure who could be either
or both.21 On Macedonian royal coins the figure is armed only with spears
and sometimes a pike, but no sword. He wears no armor and is dressed
(when he is dressed) in a manner more appropriate to the hunter than the
warrior.22 Moreover, the presence of a dog between the legs of the Rider’s
horse on an octadrachm of Alexander I23 virtually guarantees that we
cannot understand the Rider as a warrior.24 It is not, however, undeniable
proof that the Rider is a hunter25 since the dog appears to be a Melitean,26
a breed Greek evidence associates only with the role of a pet, never with
hunting.27 This evidence, however, tells us nothing about the dog’s role in

60
 Hunting and the Macedonian elite

Macedonia.28 Many modern breeds now considered lap dogs were once
used as hunting dogs: dachshunds hunted not only small prey, but deer
and wild boar.29 Melitaeans may have had a similar history. In any event,
since the Macedonian Rider is not a warrior and yet carries spears, he
cannot plausibly be identified as anything other than a hunter, whether
one understands the occasional appearance of a dog as assistance for the
hunt or simply as company.30
Users would always have connected the images on Macedonian coins
with the government that issued them. Granted its long use, people could
have associated the Horseman with monarchy, with general social and
religious order, even with specific rulers. The power of this image may have
been cumulative.31
Two other coin images make likely an understanding of the Rider as
a hunter somehow associated with monarchy. The head of Heracles with
a lion headdress appeared on many Macedonian coins.32 These coins have
not been understood to associate monarchy and hunting, even though the
Argeads and Antigonids claimed descent from Heracles. Heracles appears
on these coins wearing a hunting trophy, the head of the Nemean lion, and
a royal cult to Heracles the hunter existed by hellenistic times. Whether
these images of Heracles purposefully resemble the current ruler, they
certainly associate the monarchy with Heracles and lion hunting.
That association is more explicit in a coin type first issued by Amyntas
III.33 On the obverse of the Amyntas coin a Rider appears and on the
reverse is a lion crunching a spear in its jaws. Since this lion is demonstrably
being hunted, the coin unambiguously associates the monarchy and lion
hunting and may identify the Rider as a hunter.34 Herodotus (7.126) and
Pausanias (6.5.4) report that lions existed in areas of Macedonia in the
classical period.35 Some have seen the coin of Amyntas III as proof that
Macedonian kings hunted them.36
Other early evidence puts hunting into the context of court life but,
unlike the coins, is not exclusively connected to the king. In Greek culture,
the pursuit of game had an erotic aspect (game was a typical courting gift
and young men tried to impress their lovers by success in this area).37 In
the Macedonian court, always a locus for competition, often of a sexual
nature,38 the erotic aspect of the world of the hunt led to violence or
attempted violence. Diodorus (14.37.6) reports that Archelaus was acci-
dentally killed while hunting by his eromenos Craterus. Aristotle (Pol.
1311b), however, claimed that the death was quite intentional. He specifies
no context, hunting or otherwise, for Archelaus’ death but says that three
young men killed him, two of them former lovers. Later conspiracies,
particularly that of the ‘pages’ (hereafter termed royal youths), which was

61
Elizabeth Carney

also related to royal hunting, make it likely that Archelaus was indeed
assassinated while hunting, perhaps under the guise of a hunting accident.39
Tradition about the death of Euripides, however dubious,40 offers further
proof that hunting was an important court activity.
Arrian (4.13.1) claimed that the sons of the Macedonian elite, going
back to the time of Philip, served the king as personal attendants, guards,
presenters of horses and assistants in mounting, and that they shared the
rivalry of the chase with him.41 By the time of Philip, the king hunted with
a group of courtiers. Arrian’s language, his use of philotimia, is significant:
the royal hunt was a venue for competition between the king and those
who hunted with him.
Conquest of beasts can relate to conquest of men.42 Plutarch (Alex.
40.3–41.1) describes Alexander as courting risk and difficulty in fighting
and hunting, for exercise and in order to stimulate the arete of those around
him. Certainly hunting had additionally a practical use for the king and
his court since it was considered (Xen. Cyn. 1.18; Eq. 8.10) a good way to
train for battle and to keep in fighting trim during periods of peace.43
As we have seen, a Macedonian could not recline at banquets until he
had killed a wild boar (possibly the most dangerous of game)44 without the
aid of nets (Ath. 18a).45 Macedonians did employ nets: three of Alexander’s
courtiers used unusually long ones (Ath. 539d; Plut. Alex. 40.1) and the
hunting fresco on Vergina Tomb II depicts a man with a net.46 The most
prized success in hunting, however, came when a man defeated his prey
without the help of nets, traps, or even other men, using only a few javelins,
or even his bare hands.47 This Macedonian preference is striking since, more
than southern Greeks, Macedonians were big-game hunters.48
Macedonians hunted both on foot and on horseback and used hounds.
Mounted hunting, apparently unheard of in southern Greece in the
classical period, was probably more common in Macedonia where horses
were more available and the elite fought on horseback.49 Literary and
archaeological evidence demonstrates that Macedonians used Molossian,
Laconian and even Indian hounds.50 Alexander was so fond of his famous
horse Bucephalus and his Indian hound Peritas that he named a city after
each of them (Plut. Alex. 61.2–3; Mor. 328f; Strab. 15.1.29; Diod.
17.95.5; Curt. 8.14.34; Gell. N.A. 5.2.4.). Theopompus (FGrH 115 F
340) claims that Peritas, for whom Alexander paid a hundred minas, killed
a lion himself! Pollux (Onom. 5.46) mentions another dog of Alexander,
Triakas, given to him by a satrap.51 Alexander’s affection for the animals
which presumably aided him in hunting may have been typical of the
Macedonian elite. In fourth-century Greece and Macedonia, as the
commemorated dead were increasingly seen as heroic, a dead warrior’s

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tomb might contain images of his horse or hound or both.52 The close
connection to horse and dogs, as exemplified by Alexander, may also
have had broader religious connotations, harking back to the enigmatic
Thracian Rider.53
Anecdotes about hunting at the court of Alexander are far more common
than battle anecdotes. Alexander and his Companions repeatedly, perhaps
compulsively, risked their lives in hopes of success in the hunt: Peucestas
was seriously bitten while in pursuit of a bear (Plut. Alex. 41.2); Craterus
took a wound to the thigh while hunting an ichneumon (Plut. Alex. 41.3)
and saved Alexander from the charge of a hostile lion (Plut. Alex. 40.4);
Lysimachus’ encounter with a large lion during Alexander’s campaign
left him with scars to shoulder and thigh he still proudly displayed years
later when he was a king himself (Plut. Demetr. 27.3). Alexander himself
sponsored hunting competitions (Plut. Alex. 4.6) and spent his own leisure
time pursuing a variety of game (Plut. Alex. 23.2–3). On one occasion,
the entire army joined him in a massive hunting party through one of the
Persian game parks (Curt. 8.1.14).54
So vital was success at the hunt to the Macedonian elite that competition
with fellow hunters could result in injury or accidental or even intentional
death. The wound Craterus sustained while hunting came not from the
animal he pursued but from the lance of Perdiccas (Plut. Alex. 41.3). The
intense rivalry for success in this arena not only pitted various members of
the elite against each other but also led to confrontations between kings
and members of court, as they shared that philotimia of the hunt. Alexander
was so intent on his quarry that those who threatened to get there before
him (Curt. 8.6. 7) or even those who thought the king needed help (Curt.
8.1.14–16) could incur the king’s wrath and punishment.
Hermolaus and his fellow royal youths plotted to kill Alexander after he
had him flogged because the young man had set his sights on a boar the
king wanted for himself (Curt. 8.6.7–8).55 Alexander was punishing the
youth for trying to accomplish the very thing that, by Macedonian custom,
would make him an adult.56 Since he threatened to deprive them of their
manhood, Hermolaus and his friends tried to deal with him as the tyrant
they deemed him.
Why did Alexander administer so severe a punishment to Hermolaus?
Persian court practice supposedly required that no one attack a quarry
before the king,57 but there is no reason to think that this was Macedonian
practice. Neither Curtius nor Arrian, our main sources for the event, says
that it was, and Arrian’s (4.13.2) diction strongly suggests that the king
acted as he did out of personal anger. Moreover, the reaction of Hermolaus
and his friends implies that they had no expectation of the imposition of

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such a custom. The pre-conquest Macedonian court was not generally

a setting with rigid rules of precedence and ceremony.58
Alexander’s anger and that of Hermolaus and his friends may have
been generated by the king’s attempted imposition of yet another Persian
custom on his hostile Macedonian courtiers.59 Alexander, however, was
always selective in his adoption of Persian custom. If he did appropriate
this particular Persian habit, he did so because it appealed to him, primarily
because of his extreme competitiveness; his anger arose from his growing
lack of toleration of those who thwarted his will.
The latter explanation would better fit the varying fate of those who
came between the king and his quarry. Although the royal bodyguards
like Lysimachus, the royal youths, and to some degree all the hetairoi were
supposed to come to the king’s aid if his life were in danger, the line was
not easily drawn between aiding and thwarting the king: Craterus saved
Alexander from a lion attack while they were hunting without gaining
the king’s wrath but Lysimachus, in similar circumstances, was not so
lucky. When Lysimachus came to his aid, Alexander shoved him aside and
mocked him, referring to Lysimachus’ earlier and nearly fatal encounter
with a lion and announcing that he too could bring down a lion alone
(Curt. 8.1.14–16).60
Alexander’s reluctance to be assisted or protected derived from two
separate but mutually reinforcing factors. Those who saved a king’s life
never forgot it because the action gave them renown. Craterus (or perhaps
his son) commissioned a monument at Delphi to commemorate his deed
(Plut. Alex. 40.4; see below) and Cleitus (who had saved Alexander’s life
at the battle of Granicus (Arr. 1.15.8; Plut. Alex. 16.11; Diod. 17.20.7)
certainly boasted that he had done so (Arr. 4.8.7; Curt. 8.1.20) and may,
like Craterus, have commissioned a work of art (Plin. HN 35.93) to memo-
rialize his deed.61 While Craterus and Peucestas (who saved Alexander’s life
in the battle at the Malli city) seem not to have angered the king by their
acts (Peucestas was clearly rewarded), Lysimachus was penalized and Cleitus
was killed, partly because he could not resist boasting about his action.
In the agonistic hellenic world, where excellence was not simply a matter
of being good but of being better than any one else, one man’s success
always meant that someone else had failed. For a king it was an awkward
business to be saved because it suggested that the king was not as good
a warrior or hunter as the one who saved him. Alexander’s touchiness in
this area is not surprising. Curtius (8.1.23–5) includes in his account the
tale, supposedly told by Alexander, that he had saved his father’s life during
a dispute between two elements in the army and that Philip would never
admit it because he did not want to be in his son’s debt for his physical

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safety. Whether hunting or fighting, a Macedonian king was supposed to

be pre-eminent. The army may have wanted Alexander to hunt in company
and not on foot (Curt. 8.1.18), but the king could not afford to be saved.
Whether a Spartan ambassador actually said that in his fight with the lion
Alexander had struggled to see which would be king (Plut. Alex. 40.3), the
king’s arete could only be demonstrated by putting himself at risk. Those
who attempted to limit his risk stood in danger of being understood to
have compromised his arete.
Thus, by the reign of Alexander the role of the king as chief hunter had
become a central aspect of Macedonian monarchy. It is no accident that
the elaborate funeral pyre Alexander had built for his friend Hephaestion
included a hunting scene (Diod. 17.114.3); Alexander had intended his
friend to be a kind of substitute king.62
But Alexander’s reluctance to share the glory of hunting success was not
solely the consequence of Macedonian values. Royal imagery in the Near
East going back to the Bronze Age associated kings with lion hunting.63
Alexander’s determination to become the successor of the Persian rulers
meant that he imitated aspects of Persian royal hunting practice, most
obviously in his use of their game parks.64 The theme of the royal lion
hunt was important for a man who ruled the ancient Near East. Whether
he imitated specific protocols of royal Persian hunts is less certain, as we
have seen.
The intense enthusiasm of the Macedonian elite for hunting and the
central role of the king in the royal hunt survived the chaotic period of the
Successors and the establishment of the hellenistic dynasties.65 Cassander
diverted suspicion from his political activities by staging a hunt (Diod.
18.49.3). Demetrius Poliorcetes at first used hunting to keep him in
trim when he was under (very spacious) house arrest (Plut. Demetr. 50.6,
52.1–2).
Indeed, as Alexander’s generals scrambled for ways to justify their
assertion of royal status, success at the hunt could demonstrate worthiness
to rule. Various Successors associated themselves with famous hunts of
Alexander’s reign, with particular stress on lion hunts.66 Lysimachus’ daring
against the lion was commemorated on his coins once he was king.67 Simply
to compete, Perdiccas had to invent a story about his stealing a lion cub
(Ael. V.H. 12.39).68 The famous ‘Alexander Sarcophagus’, completed in the
last years of the fourth century, shows the dead man participating in a lion
hunt with Alexander.69 Craterus’ Delphic dedication pictured the lion hunt
in which Craterus saved Alexander (Plut. Alex. 40.5; Pliny N.H. 34.64).70
Seleucus won renown by breaking a runaway wild bull with his own hands
(App. Syr. 57). Two famous mosaics, one of a stag hunt and another of

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a lion hunt, pictured heroic pairs of young men and were displayed on
the floors of the andrones in two elite houses at Pella and may relate to the
struggles of the Successors.71 A boar hunting group from Vergina seems
to belong to this period; there may have been another at Pella.72 A bronze
hunting group was dedicated at Thespiae (Plin. NH. 34.66), probably by
Cassander but possibly by Polyperchon.73 Perhaps the last of this series
of works meant to connect hunting skill to worthiness for rule is a late
fourth- or early third-century relief from Messene depicting a lion hunt.
It was probably dedicated by one of the Successors.74
At Vergina, Tomb II had not only a fresco of a hunting scene involving
seven men on foot and three mounted figures pursuing a variety of animals75
but also a chryselephantine couch (in the main chamber), decorated with
an elaborate royal hunt scene.76 The controversy about whether Tomb II at
Vergina was the burial place of Philip II or his son Philip III Arrhidaeus, has
led to a debate about whether the hunting fresco on the façade of the tomb
constitutes proof of a post-Alexander date for the tomb because it depicts
(among other things77 ) a lion hunt.78 Images of lion hunting were absent
from Greek art after the seventh century until the hellenistic period.79 No
explicit Macedonian representation of a lion hunt has been found that
clearly predates Alexander’s conquests.80 At issue is not just the date of the
tomb but also to what degree the importance of hunting, particularly lion
hunting, in Macedonian monarchy is a Persian borrowing.
The question of outside influence on the role of the Macedonian king
as hunter is not an easy one to resolve. The royal lion hunt theme could
have reached Macedonia indirectly, prior to the conquests of Alexander.81
However, although some association between hunting and funerary
monuments does appear in Greek and Macedonian art prior to Alex-
ander’s conquests,82 no Macedonian collective funerary hunting scene is
known that predates the Vergina fresco,83 whereas hunting scenes, often
collective ones, are common in funerary art in Asia Minor in the fifth
and fourth centuries.84 It is unclear whether the Vergina fresco reflects
an understanding of the hunt’s relevance to the commemorated dead
that is more Greek than Asian.85 Nonetheless, it is likely that the lion
hunt theme and the image of the collective hunt in the Vergina fresco
are recent, post-Alexander Asian borrowings. Whether the hunt fresco
should be understood to be Asian or Macedonian in setting,86 historical
or ideal, the style, the theme and representation of the hunt fresco are
demonstrably affected by Asian art, particularly satrapal art. The work
of art historians, Bartsiokas’ work on the male bones from Tomb II, the
conclusions of Touratsoglou and Themelis about the date of the Derveni
burials, Rotroff ’s findings, as well as the work of Borza and others87 argue

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that Tomb II was constructed after the conquests of Alexander, in the late
fourth century.
If we are primarily interested in Macedonian hunting rather than
art, this conclusion leaves a number of issues unresolved. Although the
representation of lion hunting reappeared because of Asian influence,
real Macedonian lion hunts probably happened in this same period and
certainly Heraclid Argead rulers long favored an image for their coins
that commemorated their supposed ancestor in his role as lion killer.
Should we, then, conclude that the spate of monuments and other objects
connecting the Successors to lion hunting and to the hunts of Alexander
signifies that the Successors were trying to connect to Macedonian
or Persian monarchic tradition or both? Moreover, although hunting
continued to be a part of the royal image and court of hellenistic rulers
and certainly of the Antigonid rulers of Macedonia, what are we to make
of the fact that the lion-hunt theme seems to die away with the generation
of the Successors?88
The primary term of reference for the hunting monuments and allusions
of the Successors is neither Persian nor Macedonian monarchical tradition,
but the career of Alexander and the competitive hunts of his reign. The
Successors based their initial assumption of royal title on individual arete,89
largely leaving to their descendants claims to rule based on descent. The
hunts of the Successors connected them to their glory days as young men
under Alexander’s command and commemorated and in a sense continued
the rivalry with Alexander and the others that had characterized the real
hunts. Lion hunting was a focus not so much because of its associations
with Asian monarchy but because of its association with Alexander’s
success, of which his conquest of Asian monarchy was part.90 Craterus,
a Macedonian traditionalist hostile to Alexander’s Persianizing (Plut. Eum.
6.2), would hardly have commissioned a monument that placed him in
the context of Asian monarchy, but he was interested in commemorating
an event in which he personally had saved the great Alexander from his
most formidable wild enemy. The incident showed his worthiness to play
the role that Alexander had played.91
Once the new dynasties had been placed on a firm footing, hunting
took on a more traditionally Macedonian role in the hellenistic monar-
chies, although it continued also to support claims to personal excellence
and right to rule. Pyrrhus, for instance, gained royal favor at Ptolemy I’s
court by his excellence at both hunting and gymnastics (Plut. Pyrrh. 4.4).
In Egypt, the Ptolemies combined Macedonian tradition with images of
the king as hunter going back to New Kingdom times. Ptolemy II’s great
procession commemorated royal hunting skill by including gilded hunting

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spears and twenty-four hundred hunting dogs (Ath. 201b). Ptolemaic rulers
continued to be admired for their skill in hunting (Polyb. 23.3.9).
In Macedonia itself, paralleling general changes in Macedonian
monarchy, continuity with Argead hunting tradition was maintained, but
hunting practice and ideology seems to have become more institutional-
ized.92 The royal cult of Heracles Cynagidas (Heracles the hunter) was
practised throughout the country during the hellenistic period; Philip V
made a dedication to Heracles the Hunter at Pella.93 Tomb IV at Vergina,
possibly an early Antigonid tomb, contained figures probably related to
a group hunt.94 In the Antigonid period the kings maintained royal game
preserves with royal hunters (Polyb. 31.29.3–5), probably on a Persian
model.95 Poets (Anth. Pal. 6.114–16) praised Philip V’s success at hunting
a wild bull, part of which the king dedicated to Heracles, whose hunting
prowess he was said to emulate.96 Antigonid evidence for hunting is focused
on the ruler himself; we hear nothing about his competition or interaction
with the rest of the elite. The Antigonids, compared to the Argeads or
Ptolemies, preferred a narrower public presentation of the monarchy once
they were well established in rule of Macedonia,97 a presentation more
focused on the person of the reigning king.98 Similarly, the Antigonids
demonstrated less interest than earlier rulers in putting the king’s excellence
at the hunt in the context of the elite.
Success in hunting was critical to the Macedonian elite, particularly to
the king. Kings had to demonstrate their hunting arete and, when dynasties
failed, new rulers used hunting skill to assert claims to legitimate rule. The
Argeads and the Successors presented an image of the royal hunter in the
context of sometimes deadly competition with the rest of the elite, just
as the king’s interaction with the elite generally defined the expression of
monarchy and established its limits. The Antigonids, whose power was
more absolute than that of their predecessors yet more defined, generated
an image of the king as hunter that was equally heroic and Heraclid but
more solitary, an image defined not by competition with the Companions
but by emulation of Heracles (e.g. Anth. Pal. 6.114–16) and by the king’s
control of Heracles’ cult as a hunter god.

Postscript
Judith Barringer’s The Hunt in Ancient Greece (Barringer 2002) appeared too late
for citation in this piece. This book does contain some references to the represen-
tation of Macedonian hunts and argues for a close association between hunting
and warfare.

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Abbreviations
ANS American Numismatics Society
FD Fouilles de Delphes
SNG Sylloge nummorum graecorum

Notes
1
Although Alexander I and Archelaus (Herod. 5.22; Solinus 9.16: see Borza
1990, 111–12, 174, n. 32) may have participated in the Olympics and Philip II
certainly did (Plut. Alex. 3.8), Macedonians in general probably did not do so.
Their exclusion from international competition would have muted their interest.
Alexander was contemptuous of such competition, though some of his courtiers
did demonstrate some interest in athletics (Brown 1977, 76–88).
2
Aristotle’s (Pol. 1324b) description of the custom that tied killing an enemy
to adulthood implies that the custom was no longer practised in his day.
3
Borza 1983, 45–55; Booth 1991, 105–20; Hatzopoulos 1994.
4
Briant 1991, 227–36; Lane Fox 1996; Tripodi 1998.
5
Robertson 1982; Stamatiou 1988; Prestianni-Giallombardo 1991; Tripodi
1991; Reilly 1993; Palagia 1998; 2000; Paspalas 2000.
6
See discussion, references and conclusions in Borza 1990, 231–48.
7
Borza 1990, 172.
8
Il. 9.537–46; Od. 19.225–35, 428–58. Anderson 1985, 3–15.
9
Vidal-Naquet 1986, 117.
10
See Cohen 1995, 491–98.
11
The date is uncertain: Price 1974, 18; Tac“eva 1992, 59.
12
For variations in the Rider figure, see Price 1974, 22.
13
Price 1974, 35; Picard 1986, 67–76; Greenwalt 1993, 509–15; Tripodi 1998,
17–18.
14
On the coins of later kings the male figure is always mounted: Tripodi 1998,
18.
15
Tripodi 1998; Borza 1990, 127, especially n. 68, contra Martin 1985, 5–6,
whose argument that these coins functioned primarily as a medium of exchange
is reductive. Tripodi 1998, 1–4 more plausibly sees the king catering to various
agendas and audiences.
16
Price 1974, 10 contrasts workmanship of tribal coins with ‘elegant’ Greek
work of Alexander I; see also Kraay 1976, 143; Tripodi 1998, 16.
17
Raymond 1953, 42; Tac“eva 1992, 58; Greenwalt 1993, 509–10; Tripodi
1998, 17.
18
Goc“eva 1986, 237–43; Picard 1986, 67–76; Schneider 1989; Tac“eva 1992;
Greenwalt 1993, 516–17 and 1997, 121–33.
19
So Raymond 1953, 44–6; Price 1974, 9; Le Rider 1977, 365.
20
So Raymond 1953, 36; Kraay 1976, 148; Hammond 1979, 110, contra
Picard 1986, 74–6.
21
Raymond 1953, 46, followed by Tripodi 1998, 20, 31, 34, argues that the

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image is purposely polysemic, a figure of an aristocratic warrior-hunter of no

specific Greek ethnicity.
22
Tripodi 1998, 22 does not explain why a cavalryman would have no other
weapons or armor.
23
SNG 8,2 1994 also shows a heavy tetraobol of Perdiccas II with a dog (ANS
#53).
24
Polyaenus 4.2.16 says Philip II used dogs to hunt enemies who were hiding
from him, but there is no other evidence for Macedonian use of dogs in battle and
comparatively little evidence of their use in battle anywhere in the Mediterranean
ancient world (Cook 1952).
25
Contra Hammond 1979, 156. See Price 1974, 12, plate v.24, for an issue by
a Balkan city showing a hunter hurling a spear; in some examples a hunting dog
appears below the horse.
26
Tripodi 1998, 23, who rightly rejects Hammond’s implausible belief that the
dog on the coin is a Molossian hound (Hammond 1979, 106). On Melitaeans,
see Busuttil 1969, 205–8. Imhoof-Blumer and Keller 1889, II.29: a tetradrachm
issued by Mende in Chalcidice that shows Dionysus reclining on a donkey and
under the feet of the donkey a Melitaean; I.46: a denarius that shows the Dioscuri
galloping with a Melitaean underneath the feet of their horses.
27
Hull 1964, 35. Tripodi 1998, 23 argued that this absence of evidence means
that the breed did not hunt, whereas the truth is that, if they did hunt, we do
not know it.
28
The references associate the breed with a kind of effeteness difficult to imagine
in the context of early fifth-century Macedonia. For instance, Theophrastus
(Char. 21.9) has the pettily ambitious, small-minded man put up a tomb for his
Melitaean, emphasizing its high breeding.
29
Wilcox and Wakowicz 1989, 316; Fogle 1995, 184; Verhoerf 1997, 127.
Fogle 1995, 7 notes that virtually all small terriers had their origin as small game
or vermin hunters.
30
So, in effect, Borza 1990, 130 n. 13. Price 1974, 5 rightly notes that the
‘official’ nature of the coins makes something amusing or playful in the type
unlikely. Cook 1952, 38–42 (followed by Tripodi 1998, 23) suggests that from
an art-historical point of view dogs are merely appendages to horses and may
have no independent meaning. Tripodi 1998, 23 fails to persuade that the dog
was extraneous or connected to an ephebic image. Royal coinage would not be
the appropriate context for such an image.
31
Contra Martin 1985, 186. Price 1974, 10 suggests that the Rider figure is
somehow a representative of the royal house. Tac“eva 1992, 64 believes that it
personifies links between royal and religious power; Greenwalt 1993, 517–18
suggests that the role of kings as hunters was an important part of Macedonian
monarchy, confirming a king’s legitimacy and worthiness to rule.
32
The type appeared from Archelaus on to the end: Westermark 1989, 302;
Kraay 1976, 145. For examples, see Ginouvès 1994, 41 fig. 37 and 62 fig. 53;
Hatzopoulos and Loukopoulos 1980, 28; Hammond 1979, 663–9; Edson 1934,
214–16.

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 Hunting and the Macedonian elite
33
Examples by Perdiccas III and Cassander: Westermark 1989, 308, 314;
Tripodi 1998, 59.
34
If we read the obverse and reverse together: Kraay 1976, 144–5; Greenwalt
1993, 515–16; 1994, 120–2 contra Hafner 1980; Paspalas 2000, 215, 217 n. 41;
Briant 1991, 238–9 is not certain. Even if the two sides are not read together, the
lion by itself is a reference to lion hunting.
35
See also Xen. Cyn. 11.1.Though no bones have been discovered (Hull 1964,
102), lions were occasionally encountered and probably hunted; so Anderson1985,
80; Lane Fox 1996, 137, contra Stamatiou 1988, 210 n. 2, who does not review
all available evidence.
36
Anderson 1985, 80.
37
Dover 1978, 87–8; Schnapp 1989, 71–88; Ogden 1996, 117 n. 84.
38
See Carney 1983, 260–72.
39
Hammond 1979, 167–8; Carney 1983, 262–3; Tripodi 1998, 44. Greenwalt
1993, 518 connects this assassination attempt (and that of Hermolaus) and the
royal hunt. Hatzopoulos 1994, 96 argues that the motivation resembles that of
Hermolaus and his friends: the king had refused to permit them to accede to
adult life, retaining them in a lower status when they believed they had reached
adulthood.
40
See Tripodi 1998, 40–2; Lefkowitz 1981, 96; Fairweather 1974, 231–75.
41
Arrian’s language (as well as Aelian VH 14.48) may mean that Philip merely
regularized an older custom, contra Hammond 1990, 261–90.
42
Durand and Schnapp 1989, 60–1 connect conquest to battle against
animals.
43
A similar view was taken by other ancient elites: see Stadter 1980, 51.
44
Hull 1964, 103.
45
Athenaeus’ source claimed that Cassander was required to sit long into
adulthood because he had not taken down his boar. Briant 1991, 225 rightly
attributes this anecdote to the propaganda battles of the Successors and observes
that the story also demonstrates the importance of hunting exploits in royal
ideology. Tripodi 1998, 103–4 suggests that the mounted figure in the Vergina
fresco, who seems to be turning from the conclusion of a successful boar hunt to
the aid of another figure hunting a lion, is a prince who has just made this transi-
tion. Throughout the Greek world, hunting was a common, often an initiatory,
activity of young men (Vidal-Naquet 1986, 106–7).
46
Andronicos 1984, 101–16. See Drogou et al. 1996, 4 for a recent reconstruc-
tion in color.
47
e.g. Plato (Leg. 7.823e-4a) prohibits use of nets and night hunting. Vidal-
Naquet 1986, 118 suggests that the distinction really lies between the ‘black hunt’
of youth (with nets, at night) and adult daylight hunting with a spear, whereas
Durand and Schnapp 1989, 61–2 call the running hunt, the ‘hunt of ephebes’.
Both recognize that the standard of no nets and running is more ideal than reality.
Briant 1991, 228–30 concludes that Plato may have been thinking of Greek
hunting custom versus that of both Persians and Macedonians, and of ordinary
hunting compared to that shaped by royal ideology.

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Elizabeth Carney
48
So Anderson 1985, 80.
49
Evidence (apart from the disputed Rider coins) for mounted Macedonian
hunts does not pre-date Alexander III, but the importance of horses to the elite
has led to the conclusion that the Macedonian court began to hunt on horseback
in early times (so Hammond 1990, 262; Lane Fox 1996, 141), particularly since
Macedonians pursued big game, and horses were necessary for such a pursuit
(Tripodi 1998, 48). Curt. 8.1.18 demonstrates that royal hunts had not always
been mounted.
50
Tripodi 1998, 48–9. The Vergina fresco shows both slender Laconian hounds
(Reilly 1993, 161) and the more mastiff-like Molossian hound (Reilly 1993,
161–2 recognizes a different type, used as a holding rather than tracking dog, but
is apparently unfamiliar with Molossians); on both types see Hull 1964, 29–30;
Toynbee 1973, 103–7.
51
Hull 1964, 105. Whereas dogs were used only for hunting, horses would have
been valued for their use both in hunting and in battle. Bucephalus was never
specifically associated with hunting. On the eponymous animals, see Hamilton
1969, 169–70; Anderson 1930; Fraser 1953.
52
Anderson 1985, 71. Rhomiopoulou 1980, 127 notes that the subject of the
seated young hunter with dog is known from a large group of Ionic reliefs from
Thespiae, Thessaly, and many places in Macedonia, but not Attica. See also Felten
1993, 414–15 pls. 9, 11,12.
53
Greenwalt 1997, 131 warns against trivializing Alexander’s relationship
to Bucephalus and his dogs, connecting the relationship to the role of king as
Rider.
54
Holt 1994, 57 suggests that this massive hunt was not merely recreational,
but for food.
55
See Greenwalt 1993, 518; Carney 1980–1, 223–31.
56
Briant 1994, 306 makes this astute point, citing Ath. 18a.
57
The king could suspend it: e.g. Plut. Mor. 173d; see Briant 1991, 218 and
1994, 302–7. Briant points out that just as Alexander was angered by Hermolaus
and Lysimachus for getting between him and his prey but honored Craterus for
saving him by attacking a threatening lion, so, despite the ‘law’, Megabazes was
beheaded for getting prey the king had marked out (Ctesias FGrH 688 F 40) but
Tiribazus was honored for saving the king when he was attacked by two lions
(Diod. 15.10.3). See further below.
58
Contra Hammond 1979, 156 who simply assumes that the Hermolaus
incident relates to long-established practice.
59
Briant 1991, 218 and 1994, 302–7.
60
Contra Lund 1992, 6–8, I am less certain that the Lysimachus lion tale is
entirely a constructed fiction. See Heckel 1992, 268–71 on the variants of the tale;
he prefers that of Curtius. Although Lysimachus did not fare as well as Craterus,
he did better than Hermolaus; Palagia 2000, 184 suggests that Lysimachus’ greater
status may explain the distinction.
61
Berve 1926, 206 suggested that his portrait may have commemorated this
incident.

72
 Hunting and the Macedonian elite
62
Palagia 2000, 168–9. The pyre also had scenes of war. Tripodi 1998, 67 notes
that the royal Tomb II at Vergina had allusions to both military and hunting glory,
but that aristocratic tombs focused exclusively on warfare. Hephaestion’s pyre thus
resembled royal funerary art.
63
Briant 1991, 219–20; Anderson 1985, 63–70. Palagia 2000, 181 sees Asian
royal lion-hunting as a kind of ritual act, one of the duties of the king.
64
Aymard 1951, 43–6.
65
Aymard 1951, 47–9; Briant 1991, 221–7.
66
So Briant 1991, 241–2; see Palagia 2000, 167–206 for extensive discussion.
67
Lund 1992, 160–1, especially nn. 26–7. Lund thinks he made the lion
a ‘personal seal device’ as well as a ‘dynastic symbol’. He named his flag-ship
‘Leontophoros’.
68
Palagia 2000, 184.
69
Stewart 1993, 294; Cohen 1997, 130.
70
Plutarch’s description of the lost monument mentions images of the lion, dogs,
the king fighting the lion and Craterus coming to assist the king. The epigram that
accompanied the monument survives (FD III4 137; Homolle 1897, 598–600;
Paspalas 2000, 211–19). It states, in a passage many have seen as an addition to
the original composition, that Craterus’ same-named son erected the monument,
but that it was originally dedicated by the elder Craterus himself. When the elder
Craterus died, his son was an infant. Paspalas argues (2000, 184–5) that Phila,
Craterus’ widow, supervised the completion of the monument soon after her
husband’s death, making this monument the one that set the trend.
71
Anderson 1985, 79 and Cohen 1995, 491–7 doubt that either mosaic
commemorates a real hunt. Tripodi 1998, 69 and Palagia 2000, 185–6 argue
that the mosaics represent the mores of the elite rather than the monarchy. Palagia
suggests that the house containing the lion-hunting mosaic may have belonged
to the family of Craterus.
72
See Palagia 2000, 200.
73
Palagia 2000, 202.
74
Stewart 1993, 276–7, 427; Palagia 2000, 202–6.
75
Identification of the figures varies: see Andronicos 1984, 114–18; Tripodi
1998, 57–8; Palagia 2000, 192–9.
76
Drogou et al. 1996, 101.
77
It also has scenes showing hunters pursuing a wild boar, a bear, and deer.
Tripodi 1998, 65–8 notes that the fresco contains both comparatively realistic
elements and less realistic ones (e.g. the simultaneous capture of animals of diverse
species).
78
Andronicos 1984, 101–19 understood the hunt fresco as happening in
Macedonia, before Alexander’s conquest whereas Robertson 1982, 246 and Borza
1987, 109–10 see the presence of a lion hunt as a sign that the tomb post-dates
Alexander’s conquest. Tripodi 1998, 92 suggests the fresco was influenced by
Achaemenid models.
79
Robertson 1982, 246 n. 47; Perdrizet 1899, 276.
80
Palagia 2000, 167.

73
Elizabeth Carney
81
Briant 1991, 231–4 thinks that Macedonians could have known of game
parks through Thracian contact and so concludes that the fresco is not decisive
for dating Tomb II.
82
Anderson 1985, 70–1.
83
Tripodi 1991, 159, 178; 1998, 65–8.
84
Tripodi 1991, 163–72; Stamatiou 1988, 209–17; Palagia 2000 177–8.
85
Anderson 1985, 71, 80 observes that the funerary hunting scenes from
western Asia Minor refer to the dead man’s magnificence and continuing triumph
in the world to come, not to the transient nature of human success and thus to
the glory of the heroized dead, as do the Greek examples, and concludes that
the Vergina fresco signifies a heroic, presumably Greek, understanding of the
commemorated dead.
86
See Palagia 2000, 199–200 for arguments on the setting of the fresco.
87
Rotroff 1984; Borza 1987; Themelis and Touratsoglou 1997; Palagia 1998;
2000; Bartisokas 2000.
88
As Palagia 2000, 167 notes.
89
See Gruen 1985.
90
Palagia 2000, 184. Paspalas 2000, 213–16 argues that Alexander’s lion hunts
functioned as a way of expressing Alexander’s domination over Asia and that
Craterus’ monument could have been intended to emphasize his role in Alexan-
der’s conquest as he himself returned to Asia.
91
Palagia 2000, 185.
92
See Carney 2000, 199–201.
93
Edson 1934, 226–9; 1940, 125–36; Hammond 1979, 155–6, especially n. 4;
Tataki 1988, 116, 119, 430; Allamani-Souri 1993, 77–107.
94
Drogou et al. 1996, 45–6; Palagia 2000, 174 n. 9.
95
Roussel 1930, 361–71. Palagia 2000, 177 notes that there is no evidence for
their existence in Macedonia prior to the death of Alexander.
96
Tripodi 1998, 130–40 points out that Samos (author of 6.116) was the king’s
syntrophos.
97
Antigonus Gonatas dedicated a dynastic monument on Delos (see Edson
1934, 217–20), but there is no comparable subsequent example.
98
Carney 2000, 197–202.

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 5

THE POLITICS OF DISTRUST:

ALEXANDER AND HIS SUCCESSORS

Waldemar Heckel

There was no love lost amongst the Successors of Alexander the Great. Our
sources depict them as hungry for power, distrustful and undeserving of
trust. Arrian, in his Events after Alexander (1.5), says of Perdikkas that he
was ‘held in suspicion by all and at the same time he himself was suspicious’
(Perdivkka" u{popto" ej" pavnta" h\n kai; aujto;" uJpwvpteuen). And Plutarch
(Eumenes 3.5) comments that Antigonos, when he was called to account,
‘paid no attention to the written instructions of Perdikkas, since he already
had lofty ambitions and was scornful of everyone’ (∆Antivgono" me;n ou\n ouj
prosevsce toi'" grafei's in uJpo; Perdivkkou, metevwro" w]n h[dh kai; perifronw'n
aJpavntwn). These are just two examples from biographical and historical
accounts, which are rife with what we might call ‘the language of distrust’.
Some of this is clearly bias, written after the chaos of the late fourth century
had coalesced into the hellenistic Kingdoms; some of it comes from the
propaganda wars that were fought as vigorously with the pen as those of
Kretopolis and Gabiene were fought with the sarissa and sword. But it
seems clear that distrust, with its concomitant conspiracies and checks
and balances, was an important – if not the most important – feature of the
politics of the Diadochoi. This essay provides an introduction – it does
not claim to be exhaustive – to the origins and the manifestations of this
distrust and its role in the Successors’ failure.
Justin in Book 13 of his epitome of Trogus’ Philippic History gives two
seemingly contradictory pictures of the marshals in Babylon in June 323
and their struggle for power. First, he writes:
But Alexander’s friends were justified in having their eyes set on the throne
since their qualities and the respect they enjoyed were such that one might
have taken each one of them for a king, all of them possessing handsome
features, a fine physique and great powers of body and mind alike – so much
so that a stranger would have supposed that they had been selected not
from one people only but from all the world. For never before that time did

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Waldemar Heckel

Macedonia, or indeed any other nation, produce so rich a crop of brilliant

men, men who had been picked out with such care, first by Philip and then by
Alexander, that they seemed chosen less as comrades-in-arms than as succes-
sors to the throne. Little wonder then that the world was conquered by officers
of this mettle, when the army of Macedon was under the direction of so many
men who were kings rather than generals. Such men would never have met
their match had they not clashed amongst themselves, and the province of
Macedonia would have produced many Alexanders if Fortune had not armed
them to destroy each other by making them equals in merit.1
Sed nec amici Alexandri frustra regnum spectabant. Nam eius virtutis ac
venerationis erant, ut singulos reges putares; quippe ea formae pulchritudo et
proceritas corporis et virium ac sapientiae magnitudo in omnibus fuit, ut qui
eos ignoraret, non ex una gente, sed ex toto terrarum orbe electos iudicaret.
Neque enim umquam ante Macedonia vel ulla gens alia tam clarorum
virorum proventu floruit, quos primo Philippus, mox Alexander tanta cura
legerat, ut non tam ad societatem belli quam in successionem regni electi
viderentur. Quis igitur miretur talibus ministris orbem terrarum victum, cum
exercitus Macedonum tot non ducibus, sed regibus regeretur? Qui numquam
sibi repperissent pares, si non inter se concurrissent, multosque Macedonia
provincia Alexandros habuisset, nisi Fortuna eos aemulatione virtutis in
perniciem mutuam armasset. (Justin 13.1.10–15)
Trogus’ sentiments are echoed by many modern writers, who see Alex-
ander’s Successors as a pride of lions, too powerful and ambitious for their
own good. And there is a certain amount of truth in this interpretation.2
But soon afterwards, Justin (or rather Trogus) puts the following argument
into Ptolemy’s mouth. Rejecting the kingship of Arrhidaios, who would
need a guardian, he says:
Better to choose from those who stood close to their late king in personal
qualities, who were the governors of provinces, who were entrusted with
military campaigns – rather that than be subjected to the domination of
unworthy men while the king had but nominal power.
melius esse ex his legi, qui prae virtute regi suo proximi fuerint, qui provincias
regant, quibus bella mandentur, quam sub persona regis indignorum imperio
subiciantur.3
Both views make a certain amount of sense, if we remember that the former
represents an evaluation based on hindsight, and the latter preserves the
jealous view of one of those who actually competed for power. In fact, it is
unclear from Justin’s second passage just whom Ptolemy had in mind.
It is a commonplace that Alexander neglected his responsibilities by not
naming an heir. But he was guilty of more than simple neglect. He had
created an environment of distrust: rather than making his generals too

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 The politics of distrust: Alexander and his Successors

powerful to accept central authority, he made them (as a whole) too weak
– despite their great ambition and talents – to allow any of them to assume
control of affairs in the absence of such central authority. So ingrained
had the politics of distrust become that the Successors themselves created
political structures that employed checks and balances, which because they
were intended to limit the aspirations of the individual served only to
weaken and destabilize the empire.

I
In the autumn of 330 Alexander the Great conducted a cabinet-shuffle,
Macedonian style, by removing from office (and from the land of the living)
his senior general Parmenion, together with that general’s son, Philotas,
and Alexander the Lynkestian, whose career had been suspended for over
three years.4 When it came to replacing Philotas with a new commander
of the Companion Cavalry, arguably the most important of his military
posts, Alexander chose to split the command in two, giving half to the man
who had saved his life at the Granicus, Kleitos the Black, and the other half
to his dearest personal friend, Hephaistion. The appointments balanced
merit and nepotism, just as they placed an outspoken critic of Alexander’s
orientalism and autocratic tendencies in opposition to the king’s most
accomplished ‘yes man’ – some would say his lover. The last point has no
part in this paper – except perhaps to show the range of qualifications for
political and military office in the Macedonian state and army – but the
episode itself is instructive, as Arrian intended it to be. Alexander divided
the command in two:
because he would not have wished one man, not even his dearest friend, to
command so many cavalrymen …
o{ t i ouj d e; fivltaton a] n hj b ouv l eto e{ n a tosouv t wn iJppev w n … ej x hgei' s qai
(3. 27. 4)
It was not the first time that the king had replaced a single powerful indi-
vidual with two lesser men: after the flight of Harpalos to the Megarid in
333, Alexander divided the treasurer’s responsibilities between Koiranos
and Philoxenos.5 The Aegean fleet, when it was reconstituted in 333/2,
balanced Hegelochos, an adherent of the Attalos–Parmenion group, with
Amphoteros, the brother of Krateros, and presumably a loyal supporter of
the king.6 But, to return to the Companion Cavalry, it is worth noting that
after Kleitos’ death in 328, the unit was further divided into several hippar-
chies, of which Hephaistion’s was but one – this one retained some honorific
status although, perhaps significantly, it was separate from the agema or ile
basilike, which was deployed in the king’s immediate vicinity.

83
Waldemar Heckel

When it came to administrative positions, Alexander was equally

cautious: in Egypt, four officials administered the satrapy, including two
native Egyptians, Petisis and Doloaspis, whereas elsewhere a single governor
was thought to suffice.7
Alexander employed other means of limiting the powers of his
commanders and administrators. Instead of a division of power, he
sometimes placed in adjacent territories men who might not share the
same political goals. Thus we may explain the curious relationship between
Antipatros in Macedonia and Memnon, the strategos of Thrace. We know
that the latter rebelled against Antipatros in 331, and that Antipatros was
forced to come to terms with him in order to deal with the war of Agis III
in the south.8 Memnon not only remained in office, but he later brought
reinforcements to the east, fearing no reprisals from Alexander.9 It appears
that Alexander was far from displeased with Memnon, whom he may very
well have installed as strategos with a view to keeping the powerful viceroy
in check.10 It is noteworthy that the Thracian strategia had been taken from
Antipatros’ son-in-law, Alexandros Lynkestes, when the king departed for
Asia. The Lynkestian had no attested command at the beginning of the
campaign, but when he was later appointed hipparch of the Thessalian
cavalry, he served under Parmenion. Although we have no clear indication
that Parmenion and Antipatros were at odds with one another, it is certain
that the Parmenion–Attalos group in 336 had different political goals from
those of Antipatros and the Lynkestians. And, despite what has been said
about Alexander’s desire to weaken the ‘stranglehold’ that Parmenion and
his adherents had on military commands,11 it is clear that in the first years
of the campaign Alexander used Parmenion as a counter-weight to the
powerful Antipatrid–Antigonid group.
Early in the campaign, satrapies were assigned to men of stature, often
powerful but ageing adherents of Macedon’s most potent factions. Hence
Kalas son of Harpalos, who was probably a kinsman of the unstable
treasurer and of Philip II’s Elimiot wife, Phila, was entrusted with Helle-
spontine Phrygia, Antigonos the One-Eyed received Greater Phrygia. To
Nearchos, one of the King’s hetairoi and a naturalized Makedon, went
Lykia; and Balakros son of Nikanor (a son-in-law of Antipatros) was
detached from the group of Somatophylakes to become satrap of Kilikia.12
In fact, the bulk of Asia Minor and Alexander’s lines of communications
were in the hands of Macedonian aristocrats who could, theoretically, affect
the success or failure of the young king’s campaigns.13 Publicly Alexander
was forced to display his trust in individuals who, precisely because of their
personal power and that of their factions, were the cause of secret distrust,
probably even acute anxiety.

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As the campaign progressed, the appointment of members of the Old

Guard became less important. Success had given Alexander his own claims
to personal authority, just as later the Successors would base their claims to
kingship on military victory. Furthermore, the very victories that ensured
the king’s reputation had witnessed casualties amongst the ranks of the
established aristocracy and created vacancies for Alexander’s New Men,
whose upward mobility had been blocked by the entrenched aristocracy.
The king must have attended numerous military funerals, but the tears he
shed were often of doubtful sincerity.
Soon it became possible to make appointments of a different kind. Since
the invader had by now moved into the heartland of the Persian Empire,
native satraps were retained: Aboulites in Sousiana (Curt. 5.2.16–17),
Mazaios in Babylonia (Curt. 5.1.43–4), Amminapes (initially) in Parthia
(Arr. 3.22.1; Curt. 6.4.25, ‘Manapis’), Satibarzanes in Areia (Arr. 3.25.1),
Proexes the Persian in the Caucasus (Arr. 3.28.4), and Artabazos in Bactria
and Sogdiana (Curt. 8.1.19; 7.5.1; cf. 7.11.29). But, again, Alexander
showed himself reluctant to trust his appointees, choosing to attach to them
garrison commanders (frouvrarcoi), generals of occupying forces (strath-
goiv) and sub-rulers (u{parcoi), clearly intended to serve as a check on the
very men to whom they were in theory subordinated. It could be argued
that Alexander did the same when he appointed a Macedonian satrap
in Sardis,14 but the point is surely that, if Alexander had trusted native
administrators, he might also have appointed native tax-collectors, garrison
commanders and generals. The retention of Tiridates, the Persian treasurer
in Persepolis (indeed, the man who betrayed the city to Alexander),15 repre-
sents an attempt to give further authority to natives, but this was apparently
only a temporary measure. Undoubtedly, the minor officials were natives,
but the men who gave the military orders and the troops who followed
them were Greco-Macedonians.
Where local potentates would not do, new administrators were found
– often Greek civilians rather than Macedonian officers. It is perhaps
going too far to call them ‘harmless nonentities’16 but the pattern was clear
before the king’s death in Babylon. Alexander resorted to the weakening
of certain positions through collegiality and the use of lieutenants (or
rather ‘watch-dogs’) to keep higher officials in check; later on there was
a noticeable reluctance to appoint men of the aristocracy and officer class
to administrative posts.17
Finally, we must add an intangible element, which is nevertheless
well documented. Many of Alexander’s commanders simply did not like
each other. The most famous example is, of course, the rivalry between
Hephaistion and Krateros. This is particularly instructive because both

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were especially favoured by the king, though one was a personal friend
(filalevxandro") and the other a steadfast supporter of the kingly office
(filobasileuv");18 loyalty to the person of the king did not, however, entail
unquestioning support for his policies, most notably Alexander’s orien-
talism. This issue would continue to divide the marshals in the final years of
the conquest and in the early Diadochic period, but the matter of personal
likes and dislikes cannot be put aside. There is no point in itemizing who
disliked whom. It is sufficient to note that there were many who had ‘long
hated Philotas’ (tou;" pavlai misou'nta" aujtovn, Plut. Alex. 49.8; cf. Curt.
6.8.22: vicit bonitatem tuam, rex, inimicorum meorum acerbitas), even more
who quarreled with the odious Hephaistion,19 and after the latter’s death
his place was taken by Perdikkas. One of the few who co-operated well
with Hephaistion, he was predictably unloved by the army in general and
many of the marshals in particular. Justin comments in connection with
the Egyptian campaign (13.8.2):
but what harmed Perdikkas more than the strength of his enemy was the
loathing he incurred by his arrogance; this won the hatred even of his allies,
who deserted in droves to Antipater.
Sed Perdiccae plus odium adrogantiae quam vires hostium nocebat, quam
exosi etiam socii ad Antipatrum gregatim profugiebant.
Leonnatos, Peithon, Seleukos and Aristonous, who supported Perdikkas
in the early stages, may have been more favourably disposed to him, but
it is more likely that they (as opposed to others, like Krateros, Meleagros,
Antigonos, Antipatros) were somewhat more sympathetic to the ‘oriental-
ising’ policy, which they would now have to decide whether to continue or
abandon. In short, for the purposes of this discussion it suffices to say that
much of the enmity amongst the Successors was deep rooted. Their actions
thus reflected how they regarded one another, and to what extent they
supported a more progressive or a conservative approach to the empire.

II
All this set the stage for the disastrous events of 323, where equality in
both competence and authority led to the disintegration of the newly-won
empire. Ironically, the very talent, the military potential and the large pool
of candidates for supreme office made the survival of the empire virtually
impossible; for the Successors deviated from Alexander’s policies in only
one important respect – the appointment of satraps from the very top of
the officer class. But because Alexander had been careful to keep his officers
on a reasonably even footing, the succession struggle was the result of the
collapse of the existing hierarchy, the lack of a clear chain of command.

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Furthermore there was a failure to respect tradition and authority. Distrust

(uJpoyiva) was the disease that killed Alexander’s empire.
I have mentioned the ‘failure to respect tradition’, and this may seem odd
when we talk about the power-struggle that followed Alexander’s death. It
is precisely the fact that Macedon had no traditional mechanism to deal
with the problem of continuity of administration within the empire that
every attempted solution was in fact an ad hoc arrangement. Hence we are
well advised to resist the old German discussions of Staatsrecht, with their
rigid definitions of offices that proved as ephemeral as the individuals who
held them. The varied, but interchangeable, terminology makes it clear
that the positions occupied by the marshals after Alexander’s death were
those required by the circumstances rather than fixed offices whose previous
occupants could be identified and whose functions delineated on the basis
of precedent. Prostates, epimeletes and epitropos all designated the officer
who exercised authority in the name of the king. Had the Successors been
content – or rather had it been possible for the Successors to be content – with
entrusting such power to a single individual, then the chances of survival
for Alexander’s empire might have been different. But ‘too many cooks spoil
the broth’, and the political arrangements of the years 323 to 320 resulted
in a most unpleasant brew. The most useful tradition, which continued to
exist but which could not be transferred to, or superimposed upon, the
new empire, was the Macedonian respect for a strong monarchy.20 The
political hierarchy, so essential to maintaining power, had been eroded by
Alexander himself, through a combination of policy and neglect. Without
the top of the pyramid the lower offices and institutions could not find
place or function. The Macedonian system had been one of expanding
lower levels. And one of the levels directly below the king was occupied by
the hetairoi, the king’s ‘friends’, who despite their title were subordinates
of the king and rarely true friends of one another.

The language of distrust

The sources – Arrian’s Events after Alexander, Diodoros (Books 18–20) and
Plutarch’s Eumenes – are rich in the ‘language of distrust’. For the sake of
example, I list some passages from these works:
1. Arr. Succ. 1.4–5: ajnairei' de; ouj pollw'/ u{steron kai; Melevagron. ejx w|n
Perdivkka" u{popto" ej" pavnta" h\n kai; aujto;" uJpwvpteuen. o{mw" ej" satrapeiva"
ajneipei'n ou}" uJpwvpteuen … (‘Not much later he killed Meleagros as well. As
a result Perdikkas was suspected by all and was himself suspicious. Neverthe-
less, he appointed to satrapies those whom he distrusted … ’)
2. Diod. 18.4.7: meta; de; tau'ta kai; Melevagron ejn th'/ stavsei kai; presbeiva/
prodovthn gegenhmevnon, ejpilabovmeno" oijkeiva" diabolh'" kai; katagoriva",

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Waldemar Heckel

wJ" ejpiboulh;n kat’ aujtou' pepoihmevnon ejkovlase [sc. Perdivkka"]. (‘Next he

[Perdikkas] also punished Meleagros, who had been a traitor during the strife
and on his embassy, using as a pretext a personal quarrel and the accusation
that Meleagros had devised a plot against him.’)
3. Diod. 18.7.5: oJ de; Perdivkka" uJforwvmeno" aujtou' th;n ejpibolhvn …
(Perdikkas suspects the designs of Peithon in the Upper Satrapies)
4. Diod. 18.29.1: Perdivkka" ga;r uJforwvmeno" aujtou' th;n au[xhsin (Perdikkas’
suspicions concerning the growth of Ptolemy’s power)
5. Arr. Succ. 1.27: uJpopteuvetai Eujmevnei Neoptovlemo" (Neoptolemos
suspected by Eumenes)
6. Plut. Eum. 5.4: Neoptovlemo" de; bouleuvwn me;n ejp’ Eujmevnei prodosivan
oujk e[laqe … (‘Neoptolemos planned to betray Eumenes but did not go
undetected … ’)
7. Arr. Succ. 1.20: Perdivkka" de; ∆Antigovnw/ ejpibouleuvwn eij" dikasthvrion
ejkavlei. oJ de; eijdw;" ejpibouleuvesqai ou[te uJphvkouse kai; eij" e[cqran ajllhvlou"
katevsthsan (‘Perdikkas, plotting against Antigonos, summoned him to stand
trial. But he, knowing that he was the object of a plot, did not obey and they
became enemies of one another.’)
8. Arr. Succ. 1.24: ∆Antivgono" de; ej" Makedonivan para; ∆Antivpatron kai;
Kratero;n e[fuge, kai; th;n eij" aujto;n ejpiboulhvn, h}n Perdivkka" ejbouvleue,
dihghvsato (‘Antigonos fled to Macedonia, joining Antipatros and Krateros,
and he detailed the plot against himself, which Perdikkas devised.’)
9. Diod. 18.25.4: [e[doxen] presbeuvein de; kai; pro;" Ptolemai'on peri; koino-
pragiva", o[nta tou' me;n Perdivkkou pantelw'" ajllovtrion, eJautoi'" de; fivlon,
koinh'/ de; ejpibouleuovmenon. (‘It was decided to send envoys to Ptolemy as
well for the sake of making a pact to cooperate; for Ptolemy was completely
estranged from Perdikkas and friendly to them, and like them the object of
Perdikkas’ plots.’)
Words that indicate suspicion and plotting are particularly common in
both Arrian and Diodoros;21 similarly, the verb prospoiei'sqai (‘to pretend’
to do something) is found frequently in Diodorus, with eleven examples
in Books 18–20 alone. Another common element in the history of the
Successors is the struggle between those individuals who work in concert
(though not necessarily for the common good – that is, for the integrity
of the empire) and those who strive for private gain. Hence we find the
words koinopragiva and koinopragei'n and their opposites ijdiopragiva and
ijdiopragei'n occurring with a certain regularity. In all of Diodorus, ijdio-
pragiva occurs only once: not surprisingly, in Book 18.22 And ijdiopragei'n
appears seven times, all in Book 18.23 Koinopragiva occurs seventeen times,
of which 10 are in 18–20, but the eight occurrences of koinopragei'n are,

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again, all in 18–20.24 What is important is that words that we might expect
to find in this connection are frequent in other authors who describe the
period. In Arrian’s Events after Alexander, we find, in addition to hypopsia
and hypopteuein, epiboule/epiboulein and hyponoia, and there are variations
on this language in Plutarch’s Lives, especially in his Eumenes.
We might add other examples, where the phrasing makes clear that
there were apprehensions concerning the ambitions of others. Again, I list
only a few:
1. Justin 13.5.15 says that Antipater was joyful at the death of Leonnatos,
because he had at one and the same time rid himself of a rival and augmented
his forces. (Antipater…morte Leonnati laetatus est; quippe et aemulum sublatum
et vires eius accessisse sibi gratulabatur.) This finds an interesting parallel in
Arr. Succ. 1.9, where Leonnatos dies fighting while ‘pretending’ to give aid to
Antipatros (ajlla; pivptei kai; Leovnnato" ejpibohqei'n dokw'n ∆Antipavtrw/).
2. Perdikkas suspects Peithon’s designs in the upper satrapies and orders the
men to execute the Greek mercenaries, in order that Peithon might not spare
them and use them against him.
3. Ptolemy forms an alliance with Antipatros because he knows that Perdikkas
will attack him and attempt to wrest Egypt from him. Nevertheless, he also
eliminates the hyparchos, Kleomenes of Naukratis, a known Perdikkas
supporter.

A system of ‘checks and balances’

In Babylon in June/July 323, the vying factions resorted eventually to what
R.M. Errington termed the ‘compromise solution’,25 which saw Arrhidaios
accepted as king (he would now be known as Philip III), with provision
made for the possibility that Rhoxane might bear a son, who would then
become joint-king, symbasileus. To satisfy those who were suspicious of
Perdikkas’ designs, Krateros was recognized as the guardian (prostates) of
Philip Arrhidaios, though his power was limited – indeed, threatened – by
Perdikkas’ control of the Royal Army. The chiliarchos was subordinate to
the prostates,26 but the latter was absent and the former became, de facto,
the strongman in Babylon, at least as soon as he had eliminated Krateros’
supporter, Meleagros. This man had been appointed Perdikkas’ hyparchos
(his lieutenant, or tertius dux as Curtius calls him). But the aim of this
sharing of power was not better government but rather the limiting of the
office-holders’ ambitions. Antipatros, who had ruled Macedon and Greece
in Alexander’s absence, was not brought under the authority of the crown:
instead the split, which had developed in Alexander’s lifetime, between
Macedonia and the Asiatic portion of the empire, was institutionalized.

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This was the very problem Alexander had attempted to address when he
summoned the regent to Babylon and sent Krateros to Macedonia as his
replacement. It is significant that in 321 (or 320: I do not wish to go into
the vexed question of chronology), when Antipatros wedded his daughter
Phila to Krateros, he ‘prepared for his [sc. Krateros’] return to Asia’ (Diod.
18.18.7). Clearly, Krateros’ place was with the king, and the king’s place
was in Asia.27 And it is almost certainly the same thinking that induced
Antipatros to leave both kings (Philip III and Alexander IV) in Asia with
Antigonos, when he himself prepared to return to Europe after the settle-
ment at Triparadeisos. That he was later apprised, by Kassandros, of the
folly of such a move is beside the point. As long as Antipatros felt that the
eastern empire could be administered through officials in Asia, there was
no room in Europe for the kings, or for their guardian, whether that man
was Krateros, Perdikkas or some other of Alexander’s former marshals.
Now all this is well known and I do not wish to restate the terms of the
settlement of 323. What is less obvious, however, is how the terms of Tripa-
radeisos heightened the distrust amongst the marshals and thus paralysed
the empire. Richard Billows, in his influential study of Antigonos,28 presents
a rather positive view of Monophthalmos’ status and of his relations with
Antipatros. Antigonos is seen as Antipatros’ putative successor – his
possession of the ‘Kings’ is regarded as a sign that he would become the
epitropos or guardian in the event of Antipatros’ death. And the strategia
– which he exercised in Asia (i.e., Asia Minor) for the purpose of waging
war on Eumenes – is regarded not as a temporary post but as a permanent
one.29 And, as a final way of confirming the shared rule of the empire by
these two grizzled veterans, the marriage of Phila (Krateros’ widow) to
Antigonos’ son Demetrios appears as a confirmation of Monophthalmos’
power and importance.
In fact, nothing is farther from the truth. Antipatros was indeed reluctant
to bring the kings back to Macedon, where he had ruled unobstructed
for almost fifteen years, but he was careful to limit Antigonos’ power by
establishing in crucial satrapies individuals whom he felt he could trust.
Arrhidaios, a former (temporary) guardian of the kings, was installed in
Hellespontine Phrygia; White Kleitos, who had defected to Antipatros and
Krateros, received Lydia, from which Antigonos’ supporter Menandros
had been ousted;30 and Philoxenos, who appears to have won Antipatros’
favour by making no effort to block his path towards Syria, was reinstated,31
thus driving the former satrap, Philotas, into Antigonos’ arms.32 Together
these three satraps boxed in Monophthalmos in Asia Minor. The kings
themselves received Somatophylakes, four for Philip Arrhidaios and three
for Alexander IV, but only one can be considered a possible adherent of

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Antigonos – that is, if Ptolemaios son of Ptolemaios can be identified with

Polemaios, the nephew of Antigonos.33
Antipatros’ distrust of Antigonos is clear from the appointment of
Kassandros as the latter’s chiliarch of the cavalry. Arrian (Succ. 1.38)
mentions the appointment, but Diodoros’ comments (18.39.7) are
unequivocal: ‘he (Antipatros) attached his son Kassandros to Antigonos as
chiliarch, so that he [Antigonos] would not be able to pursue his own goals
undetected’ (parevzeuxe de; tw'/ ∆Antigovnw/ cilivarcon to;n uiJo;n Kavsandron,
o{pw" mh; duvnhtai dialaqei'n ijdiopragw'n). And, indeed, before Antipatros
left Asia he was already rejoined by Kassandros, who advised his father
to remove the kings from Antigonos’ care and treat him with suspicion
(∆Antivgonon di’ uJponoiva" e[cein).34
We are told that Antigonos, for his part, when he learned of Antipatros’
death was ‘delighted by what had happened’ (hJsqei;" d’ ejpi; toi'" gegonovs i)35
and ‘was carried away by hope and made up his mind to maintain a firm
grip upon the government of Asia and to yield the rule of that continent
to no one’ (Diod. 18.47.5, R. Geer tr.). But a few chapters later, Diodoros
is more specific when he states: ‘Antigonos … called a council of his
philoi 36 and, after he had made them acquainted with his design for
gaining imperial power, assigned satrapies to some of the more important
philoi and military commands to others; and by holding up great expecta-
tions to all of them, he filled them with enthusiasm for his undertakings.
Indeed, he had in mind to go through Asia, remove the existing satraps
and reorganize the positions of command in favour of his own friends.’ 37
It is interesting that, in the event (at least, as far as we can determine),
many of the prominent adherents of Antigonos did not receive substantial
compensation. What we do learn from all this is that Monophthalmos saw
the existing structure as impeding his path to power. Antigonos’ methods
were often brutal, and he did not feel bound by the terms of the settlement
of Triparadeisos, especially after the death of Antipatros. The empire, if it
were to remain intact, required not only a man strong enough to exercise
the central authority but an administrative structure that allowed him to
do so. But, in fact, the divisive practices instituted by Alexander were, only
five years after his death, too firmly entrenched to permit anyone to rule
the entire empire. The politics of distrust guarded against the possibility
of a single man ruling the empire, for its purpose had been a negative one,
to weaken the individual administrators. If the parts were weak, the body
could not be strong. Fragmentation and the formation of the hellenistic
kingdoms were thus the inevitable result.
Distrust and manipulation characterized the early age of the Successors
– and even the royal women and daughters of generals became part of the

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game. But the foundations had been laid early and the marshals, as they
aspired to greater power, attracted to themselves supporters in the form
of personal hetairoi or philoi, while at the same time seeking to limit the
influence of others. There developed the beginnings of hellenistic personal
kingship, certainly in the years that followed Antipatros’ death in 319. But
in the first years it was a case of no unanimous candidate emerging and
the consequent attempt to maintain a balance through limitations on the
power of individuals. The end product of the politics of distrust was the
disintegration of the empire.

Notes
1
The translation of the Latin, here and elsewhere, is by my friend and collabo-
rator in numerous ventures, John Yardley, who read both the paper presented at
Hay-on-Wye and this revised version. (The Greek translations and paraphrases,
unless otherwise indicated, are my own.) I should like, at this point, to thank the
conference organizers, Daniel Ogden and Anton Powell, for their hospitality and
for agreeing to add my paper to the programme virtually at the last minute.
2
Cf. Plut. Alex. 39.7, where Olympias, in a letter to Alexander, is reported to
have said ‘you make them all the equals of kings (ijsobasileva") and provide them
with a multitude of friends (polufiliva")’.
3
Justin 13.2.12. In Curt. 10.6.15, Ptolemy proposes that the generals should
rule the empire ‘by committee’.
4
For these individuals and events see Heckel 1992, 27–33, 357–8, with
complete references to ancient sources and modern literature.
5
The theory (Badian 1960, 246) that Harpalos fled because Alexander planned
this division of power is a case of the historical fallacy ‘post hoc, propter hoc’.
6
Amphoteros and Hegelochos with the fleet: Curt. 3.1.19; cf. Hauben 1972,
57. Alexander relied upon Amphoteros to arrest Alexander the Lynkestian (Arr.
1.25.9–10); for Hegelochos’ relationship to Attalos see Heckel 1982, and Heckel
1992, 6–12.
7
See Arr. 3.5.2; Curt. 4.8.5; Julien 1914, 22–3; cf. Bosworth 1980, 275–7.
8
Diod. 17.62.4–6; Justin 12.2.16–17 conflates the activities of Memnon and
Zopyrion (on the latter see Curt. 10.1.44–5).
9
Curt. 9.3.21. Badian 2000, 254–5 n. 24 persists in identifying Memnon as
an adherent of the family of the Rhodian Memnon (cf. Badian 1967, 179–80)
and remarks that ‘there is, to my knowledge, no attestation of the name in earlier
or contemporary Macedonian prosopography’. But this is true only if we reject
Memnon the strategos as Macedonian, which we need not do. Hence Tataki 1998,
365, no. 29, plausibly catalogues him as ‘Makedon’.
10
Berve 1926, 254 n. 1 attributes to W. Otto the observation that Alexander may
not have been displeased by Memnon’s actions against Antipatros. Although Berve
is willing to allow the possibility (‘Die Möglichkeit ist zuzugeben’), it is probably
the most logical explanation. Cf. the apparent indifference of Artaxerxes II to the

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 The politics of distrust: Alexander and his Successors

quarrels between Tissaphernes and Kyros: w{ste oujde;n h[[cqeto aujtw'n polemouvntwn
(Xen. Anab. 1.1.8).
11
Thus Badian 1960, 329.
12
Discussion in Baumbach 1911; Julien 1914. Kalas (Hellespontine Phrygia):
Arr. 1.17.1; Curt. 3.1.24; Arr. Succ. 1.6; Nearchos (Lykia): Arr. 3.6.6, cf. 1.24.3–6;
also Justin 13.4.15; Antigonos (Phrygia): Arr. 1.29.3; cf. Curtius 4.1.35 (wrongly
‘Lydia’); Balakros (Kilikia): Arr. 2.12.2; cf. Diod. 18.22.1.
13
See my ‘King and “Companions”: Observations on the nature of power in the
reign of Alexander the Great’, in J. Roisman (ed.) Brill’s Companion to Alexander
the Great, forthcoming 2003.
14
Arr. 1.17.7: Asandros was appointed satrap, with Pausanias as phrourarchos,
and Nikias in charge of assessing and collecting taxes.
15
Surrender of citadel by Tiridates: Curt. 5.5.2; Diod. 17.69.1; retains his
command: Curt. 5.6.11.
16
Thus Badian 1961, 25.
17
When this did occur – for example, in the case of Kleitos’ appointment
as satrap of Baktria and Sogdiana – it was vigorously resisted by the appointee
himself. Peithon son of Agenor and Philippos son of Machatas were officers who
received satrapies in India, but they were relatively low on the military ladder.
18
See esp. Plut. Alex. 47.11; cf. Diod. 17.114.1–2.
19
Krateros, Eumenes (Plut. Eum. 2.1–3; Arr. Anab. 7.13.1, 14.9) and
Kallisthenes (Plut. Alex. 55.1) all seem to have had problems with Hephaistion;
and the torturers of Philotas are described as ‘Hephaistion’s party’ (Plut. Alex.
49.12: [oiJ] peri; to;n ÔHfaistivwna).
20
Curt. 3.6.17 says: ‘the Macedonians have a natural tendency to venerate their
royalty … and the extent of their admiration, or their burning affection for this
particular king [sc. Alexander], is difficult to describe.’
21
See Diod. 19.1.1, 69.1, 70.3*, 79.4; 20.68.3* and Arr. Succ. 1.5 and 1.27 for
uJpopteuvw. Passages marked with an asterisk (here and in n. 24 below) deal with
the history of Agathokles of Sicily.
22
Diod. 18.52.8.
23
Diod. 18.7.4, 9.2, 39.7, 42.2, 50.1, 62.7, 64.6. The frequent occurrence
of idiopragein was noted already by Hornblower 1981, 169, who attributes the
general use of what I am calling ‘the language of distrust’ to Hieronymos. It
remains to be determined if the occurrences of other words, like hypopteuein,
hypopsia, hyponoia, in Arrian and Plutarch’s Eumenes, are also attributable directly
to the same primary source.
24
Diod. 18.9.5, 14.2, 23.2, 25.4, 29.4, 49.2, 53.5; 19.17.2; 20.27.3, 106.2
(koinopragia); Diod. 18.41.6, 57.3; 19.4.1*, 6.5*, 58.5, 58.6; 20.28.3, 107.4
(koinopragein).
25
Errington 1970, 49–77.
26
Thus, Perdikkas quickly eliminated Meleagros and appointed Seleukos as
chiliarchos (Diod. 18.3.4; cf. Justin 13.4.17) when he usurped at least a portion of
the prostasia upon the birth of Alexander IV. The second position of the chiliarch
is clear also from Arr. Succ. 1.38; Diod. 18.39.7; 18.48.4 (Kavsandron cilivarcon

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Waldemar Heckel

kai; deutereuvonta kata; th;n ejxousivan). For a discussion of the chiliarchy see
Heckel 1992, 366–70.
27
Krateros’ prostasia pertained only to Philip Arrhidaios, a technicality that was
exploited by Perdikkas upon the birth of Alexander IV.
28
Billows 1990, 68–74.
29
His strategia in Asia was similar to Peithon’s strategia in the Upper Satrapies:
both men tried to use these temporary offices as spring-boards to greater powers.
For the limitations on Antigonos’ power see Wehrli 1968, 34; Engel 1976, 28.
Diod. 19.14.1 says that Peithon put to death Philotas (Philippos?) of Parthia ‘when
he became strategos of the Upper Satrapies’ (strathgo;" de; tw'n a[nw satrapeiw'n
aJpasw'n genovmeno"), but in fact this is a revival of the strategia that he had been
assigned by Perdikkas in 323. And, it is clear from Diodoros’ account that the other
satraps (in the period after Triparadeisos) did not regard his claims as legitimate.
See also Bengtson 1937, 96–111 (Antigonos); 176–80 (Peithon).
30
For the satrapies of Arrhidaios and White Kleitos see Arr. Succ. 1.37; Diod.
18.39.6; Kleitos was entrusted with the fleet by Perdikkas (Justin 13.6.16) but
defected to Antipatros and Krateros (Arr. Succ. 1.26); Menandros resurfaces in
the army of Antigonos (Plut. Eum. 9.8–11; Diod. 18.59.1–2).
31
Perdikkas instated Philoxenos as Philotas’ replacement (Justin 13.6.16); he
is the only one of Perdikkas’ independent appointees to receive confirmation at
Triparadeisos (Arr. Succ. 1.34; Diod. 18.39.6).
32
Justin 13.6.16; Arr. Succ. 24.2; Diod. 18.62.4–63.5. For his career see Heckel
1992, 328–30; Billows 1990, 423–4.
33
Thus Billows 1990, 427. The Somatophylakes of Philip III were the brothers
of Lysimachos and Peukestas, Autodikos and Amyntas respectively, Alexandros
son of Polyperchon, and Ptolemaios son of Ptolemaios (Arr. Succ. 1.38).
34
Arr. Succ. 1.42.
35
Diod. 18.47.5; cf. Justin 13.5.15: Antipater…morte Leonnati laetatus est.
36
Note that Antigonos’ philoi are little different from the hetairoi of the
Macedonian kings. One of the elements of the personal kingship instituted by
the Diadochoi was thus present long before the fateful proclamation that followed
the Antigonid victory at Salamis in 306.
37
Diod. 18.50.5. The translation is by R. Geer (Loeb); the emphasis is my
own.

Bibliography
Badian, E.
1960a ‘The death of Parmenio’, TAPhA 91, 324–38.
1960b ‘The first flight of Harpalus’, Historia 9, 245–6.
1961 ‘Harpalus’, JHS 91, 16–43.
1967 ‘Agis III’, Hermes 95, 170–92.
2000 ‘Darius III’, HSCPh 100, 241–68.
Baumbach, A.
1911 Kleinasien unter Alexander dem Grossen, Weida.

94
 The politics of distrust: Alexander and his Successors

Bengtson, H.
1937 Die Strategie in hellenistischer Zeit, vol. 1, Munich.
Berve, H.
1926 Das Alexanderreich auf prosopographischer Grundlage, vol. 2, Munich.
Billows, R.A.
1990 Antigonos the One-Eyed and the Creation of the Hellenistic State, Berkeley
and Los Angeles.
Bosworth, A.B.
1980 A Historical Commentary on Arrian’s History of Alexander, Books I–III.
Oxford.
Engel, R.
1976 Untersuchungen zum Machtaufstieg des Antigonos I. Monophthalmos,
Kallmünz.
Errington, R.M.
1970 ‘From Babylon to Triparadeisos: 323–320 bc’, JHS 90, 49–77.
Hauben, H.
1972 ‘The Command-Structure in Alexander’s Mediterranean Fleets’, Anc. Soc.
3, 55–65.
Heckel, W.
1982 ‘Who was Hegelochos?’ RhM 125, 78–87.
1992 The Marshals of Alexander’s Empire, London.
Hornblower, J.
1981 Hieronymus of Cardia, Oxford.
Julien, P.
1914 Zur Verwaltung der Satrapien unter Alexander dem Grossen, Weida.
Tataki, Argyro B.
1998 Macedonians Abroad. A contribution to the prosopography of Ancient
Macedonia, Athens.
Wehrli, C.
1968 Antigone et Démétrios, Geneva.

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 6

O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?

TALES OF KINSHIP AND DIPLOMACY *

Andrew Erskine

The late third century was a low point in the history of Aigina. Caught
up in the First Macedonian War, the island was captured by the Romans.
Some of the inhabitants escaped, others were left waiting for the slave
markets. The Aiginetan prisoners approached the Roman commander and
asked that they might be allowed to send ambassadors to kindred cities
(suggenei'" povlei") to raise ransom money. This provoked something of
a culture clash, or at least that is how Polybios represents it. The Roman
commander, P. Sulpicius Galba, seems to have been quite unable to under-
stand either the concept of a ransom or the idea that there were kindred
cities that might be prepared to come up with the money. As far as he was
concerned, the Aiginetans should have approached someone stronger when
they had the chance, and not go sending embassies to relatives now that
they were effectively slaves. Such behaviour was, he felt, simple-minded.1
But in making this proposal, the Aiginetans were following a common
Greek practice. In the many diplomatic exchanges that took place
throughout the hellenistic world an appeal for assistance would often
be reinforced by citing the kinship that existed between the two states.
At the very broadest level Greeks could point to shared Greekness, or to
their membership of one of the main Greek sub-groups, the Dorians, the
Ionians or the Aiolians. There were, however, more kinship-ties on offer
than these. As a consequence of the colonial past there were extensive links
between cities. A city may have been related to another city as colony
to founding-city, that is to say mother-city or metropolis, for instance
Syracuse to Corinth, or Pharos to Paros; or two cities may have shared the
same mother-city, as Lampsakos and Massalia were both foundations of
Phokaia.2 But these links between cities included not only those which we
would consider to be historical; they also included the mythical, based for
example on common heroic ancestors.

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This mythical kinship has led to scepticism among some scholars: its
use in diplomacy is often considered to be artificial, at best a diplomatic
courtesy. Others, however, take it more seriously, and they give it a role
in the process of persuasion. Certainly myth merged with history in ways
that may make the more pragmatic of modern scholars rather uncomfort-
able. To distinguish mythical from historical kinship may reflect modern
rather than ancient categories. Both forms of kinship could be invoked
in diplomatic initiatives and the language for each appears to have been
identical. Even something apparently straightforward and historical like
a city foundation may not be so simple four or five hundred years later.
Kinship had long played a role in diplomacy; it was not a purely hellen-
istic phenomenon. Classical authors such as Herodotos and Thucydides
make mention of it,3 but it is the epigraphic boom of the hellenistic period
that gives us much of our evidence. It is hard, therefore, to tell whether this
reflects a change in the phenomenon or merely a change in the evidence.
In this chapter I look first at how kinship was used in the diplomatic
process, then consider why it was used, what difference kinship may have
made to the negotiations, and finally I explore the relationship between
such kinship claims and the traditions of the states involved.4

Kinship diplomacy in action

The city of Magnesia on the Maiandros in western Asia Minor offers
a useful starting-point for an examination of kinship diplomacy in action.
Here in the early 1890s excavators discovered an extraordinary collection
of documents. Along the south and west walls of the agora were over
sixty inscribed decrees and letters. These inscriptions are what remain
of a major Magnesian diplomatic campaign. In 208 bc the Magnesians
established a panhellenic festival in honour of Artemis Leukophryene and
sent ambassadors throughout the Greek world to obtain recognition for
this festival and also for the inviolability (asylia) of their city and territory.
About twenty groups of ambassadors travelled thousands of miles, covering
an area from Sicily to Iran, putting the Magnesian case and collecting the
responses of cities, leagues, and kings. Not all the replies were inscribed;
about a hundred appear only as names. The collection is both illuminating
and tantalizing. It throws valuable light on the concerns of the hellenistic
Greeks, yet at the same time it allows only glimpses of the diplomatic
campaign. The core is missing; it is the responses that survive. How the
Magnesians planned and went about this sizeable operation has to be
deduced largely from these inscribed responses.5
A striking feature of the collection is the recurrence of kinship terms.
Something like half of the decrees make use of words such as syngeneia,

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 O Brother, where art thou? Tales of kinship and diplomacy

homogeneia, oikeiotes, and their cognates. To what extent oikeiotes should

be considered a kinship term is arguable and I will return to this question
shortly, but, even if oikeiotes and oikeios are excluded, twelve of the
respondents make clear reference to kinship between themselves and the
Magnesians.6 This emphasis on kinship in the replies is not a coincidence.
The respondents are taking up a theme that was first raised by the teams of
roving ambassadors. The Magnesian initiative is clear enough in the decree,
probably from Mytilene, which reports that the Magnesian ambassadors
‘invited our people, as friends and kin (syngeneis), to participate in the
sacrifices, the festival, and the sacred truce’.7
Rarely, however, is the basis of the kinship claim made explicit. A city
on Kephallenia, Same, provides an exception. Its decree reports that
the Magnesian ambassadors ‘explained about the oikeiotes which existed
between the Magnesians and the Kephallenians on the basis of the kinship
(syngeneia) of Magnes and Kephalos, son of Deïon’.8 To understand this
obscure genealogy we have to turn to Apollodoros (or the person who
goes under the name of Apollodoros) who records in his Bibliotheca that
Magnes and Deïon were both children of Aiolos.9 Thus, looking back into
the mythical past, the Magnesians and Kephallenians could claim descent
from brothers. Less explicit but more prosaic is the decree from Antioch
in Persis. Shortly after a reference to the Magnesians as friends and kin
(syngeneis) we learn that earlier in the third century the Magnesians had
responded positively to Antiochos Soter’s request for cities to send fresh
colonists to Antioch.10 Consequently people of Magnesian descent made
up part of the citizen body of Antioch.
That these decrees should have so little to say about the grounds of any
particular kinship claim is of no special significance. It is consistent with the
brief, rather shorthand way in which other arguments of the ambassadors
are alluded to. It is clear from a number of decrees, for instance, that the
ambassadors drew attention to services that the Magnesians had performed
on behalf of Delphi and on behalf of the Greeks in general, but only in
one decree are those services specified: their contribution to the defence
of Delphi against the Gauls in 279 and their arbitration in a Cretan civil
war.11 The allusiveness of kinship references is no different.
At this point it may be useful to digress for a moment on questions of
terminology. The precise meanings of the terms, syngeneia, oikeiotes, and
their cognates, have been the subject of much scholarly discussion. Both
occur in the documents from Magnesia; homogeneia, which is perhaps
a stronger term, appears only once, in a reply from Thessaly. Syngeneia
suggests blood kinship, whereas oikeiotes with its derivation from oikos may
be something looser, including connections through marriage and perhaps

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Andrew Erskine

even guest-friendship.12 The two terms appear to be overlapping rather

than mutually exclusive,13 but it is perhaps unwise to look for precision;
elaborate arguments have been built up on the subject, and a counter-
example will always appear.
Some examples may help to clarify the way the terms are used. In the
decree of Same in Kephallenia which was discussed above it is possible to
see that oikeiotes is something that can be based on syngeneia: ‘the oikeiotes
which exists between the Magnesians and the Kephallenians on the basis
of the syngeneia of Magnes and Kephalos, son of Deïon’. A phrase like this
could easily have been abbreviated to ‘the Magnesians, being friends and
oikeioi’. If that had occurred, scholars would then be wondering if this was
a kinship claim at all.14 This is exactly what may have happened when the
same ambassadors visited nearby Ithaka; there is no mention of syngeneia
in the decree, only of ‘oikeioi and friends’. Yet an extension of their Kephal-
lenian argument would have been possible for the ambassadors. They could
have pointed out that Odysseus was great-great-great-grandson of Deïon,
brother of Magnes, a particularly suitable argument to put forward while
standing in the Odysseion addressing the Ithakan assembly. It would be
rash to assume that such an argument is not hidden behind the rather bland
phrase, ‘oikeioi and friends’.15 A final example, the decree in reply from the
people of Gonnos, begins by referring to the Magnesians as ‘friends and
syngeneis’, but ten or so lines later we read of the renewal ‘of the friendship
and oikeiotes which have existed between the Magnesians and the people
of Gonnos since the beginning’.16 So the overlapping nature of the terms
meant that oikeiotes could be used to express syngeneia.17 One cannot,
therefore, say in any instance that, because the word oikeiotes is used, this
is not the reflection of a kinship claim.
Almost forty years ago Domenico Musti wrote a fundamental article
on kinship in hellenistic international relations. Musti based his study
on epigraphic evidence and made especial use of a collection of asylia
documents from Kos, a collection rather like the Magnesian one I have
been discussing.18 Following up leads given by Louis Robert, he sought
to counter the dismissive attitude to interstate kinship prevalent among
many scholars.19 Yet he only went part of the way, and he too saw it sliding
into artificiality and broadening to a point where it was in danger of losing
its meaning.
The dismissive attitude was further called into question by an inscrip-
tion first published in 1988, although known about since 1965. It is
a substantial and especially revealing document, one of the reasons for
the recent upsurge of publications on the role of kinship in international
relations. Olivier Curty’s 1995 collection and study of syngeneia documents

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 O Brother, where art thou? Tales of kinship and diplomacy

provoked considerable discussion, and it has been followed by books from

C.P. Jones and Stephan Lücke.20 This inscription was one of the reasons for
these recent publications, but another factor was no doubt the realization
that Robert’s long-awaited study of the subject would never appear (it had
been promised since 1935).21
The stone that stimulated all this interest comes from Xanthos in Lycia
and offers a revealing, almost unique, insight into the type of kinship
arguments an ambassador might put forward. It was set up as a result
of an embassy to Xanthos by the small city of Kytinion in Doris, an area
reputed to have been the metropolis of all the Dorians, and it is inscribed
with several documents relating to the embassy.22 Owing to an unfortunate
combination of earthquake and invasion Kytinion had suffered serious
damage and was now eager to commence a programme of urban renewal.
In 206/5 bc, with Aitolian backing, the people of Kytinion sent embassies
to a number of cities, including Xanthos. The criterion for selection was
simple: the cities to receive the embassies would be kin, though as home
to the Dorians there was a lot of potential here. The decree of the Aitolians
sponsoring the mission makes this clear: ‘The Aitolians decided to allow
the people of Doris to send ambassadors to kindred cities (ta;" povlei"
ta;" suggenei'") and to the kings descended from Herakles, Ptolemy, and
Antiochos.’23 So, armed with elaborate genealogical arguments, the ambas-
sadors set off for Asia Minor. No doubt they visited several other cities
during their travels, but the Xanthian inscription is now the sole evidence
for the embassy. Among the documents inscribed, there is the decree of
Xanthos passed in response to the Kytinian appeal. The Xanthians were
not content with a quick reference to ‘friends and family’, instead they
chose to recount in detail the arguments presented by the visiting ambas-
sadors. It is quite a contrast to the Magnesian material studied above. The
prominence of kinship, in particular mythical kinship, is evident in the
following passage:
[The ambassadors] asked us to remember the syngeneia which we have with
them through gods and heroes and not to be indifferent to the destruction
of the walls of their native city. For Leto, the founder (archegetis) of our city,
gave birth to Artemis and Apollo here among us. Asklepios, son of Apollo
and of Koronis, who was daughter of Phlegyas, descendant of Doros, was
born in Doris. In addition to the kinship which they have with us through
these gods they recounted their intricate descent from the heroes, tracing
their ancestry to Aiolos and Doros. They further pointed out that Aletes, one
of the Heraklids, took care of the colonists from our city who were sent by
Chrysaor, son of Glaukos, son of Hippolochos. For Aletes, setting out from
Doris, helped them when they were under attack, and when he had freed
them from the danger which surrounded them, he married the daughter

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of Aor, son of Chrysaor. After demonstrating with additional examples the

goodwill based on kinship which has joined them to us from ancient times,
they asked us not to remain indifferent to the obliteration of the greatest
city in the Metropolis but give as much help as we can to the building of the
walls, and make clear to the Greeks the goodwill which we have towards the
koinon of the Dorians and the city of the Kytinians, giving assistance worthy
of our ancestors and ourselves; in agreeing to this we will be doing a favour
not only to them but also to the Aitolians and all the rest of the Dorians, and
especially to King Ptolemy who is a kinsman of the Dorians by way of the
Argead kings descended from Herakles.24
This exposition cannot be dismissed as nothing more than a diplomatic
formality; it was a substantial part of the appeal. With an impressive
amount of detail the Kytinian ambassadors laid out their reasons for
claiming that kinship existed between Kytinion and Xanthos. Great care
had been taken to develop this complex network of links and associations,
all of them mythical. The enormous significance of the Dorian homeland
gave them considerable mythological resources, but this was combined with
meticulous research into the traditions of the cities they were visiting. They
referred, for instance, to the birth of Apollo and Artemis in Lycia rather
than on the more usual Delos, a variant that may reflect local tradition,25
and they showed themselves familiar with the heroic dynasty of Lycian
Glaukos. Not satisfied with one proof of kinship, they introduced example
after example, finally forcing the Xanthians to retreat into summary them-
selves: ‘after demonstrating with additional examples … they asked us not to
remain indifferent … ’ Perhaps the Kytinians tried too hard. The Xanthians
recognized their claims and expressed sympathy but pleading poverty they
offered little substantial assistance. They made the rather small donation
of five hundred drachmas to the Kytinian restoration fund and invited the
ambassadors to dinner.26
The evidence from Xanthos is exceptional, but there is no reason to
think that many ambassadors did not present equally detailed cases.
Behind the dull, formulaic phrases, ‘friends (philoi) and syngeneis’, ‘friends
and oikeioi,’ may be concealed complex genealogical arguments, such as
those heard in Xanthos, lengthy stories, often peculiar to these particular
cities. The longest, most elaborate kinship argument, however, is to be
found not on stone, but in a literary text. It is the first book of Dionysios
of Halikarnassos’ Roman Antiquities, where he recounts wave after wave of
Greek immigration to Italy, and gives the Trojans a Peloponnesian origin
for good measure. All this is to demonstrate that the Romans are Greeks
and banish any suggestion that they are barbarians.27 Dionysios is himself
a reflection of a world where such arguments were commonplace.

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Often the claims of the ambassadors, whether concerned with genealogy,

kinship, or the achievements of their city, would not simply be stated, but
would be supported by evidence. Decrees, oracles, and the works of poets or
historians could be produced, and it is clear that the Magnesians travelled
with a fair collection.28 When the people of Apollonia in Mysia wanted to
substantiate their claim that they were a colony of Miletos, they provided
documents for Milesian inspection, histories and other writings, according
to the inscription that preserves the transaction.29 Questions of kinship
were taken seriously by all sides: a case was made, evidence was brought
forward. If we return to Dionysios of Halikarnassos, we can see the way
he cites considerable evidence during the course of the argument of his
first book, the one most devoted to proving the Romans to be Greek. This
is something he does not do in the rest of his 20-volume history; the vast
majority of his citations of earlier writers appear in the first book.
So far I have been trying to give an impression of kinship diplomacy
in action. The city in need will decide to send an embassy, research the
background of the donor cities, and consider what arguments should be
used. The embassy will then arrive with decrees authorizing their mission,
the ambassadors will make appropriate speeches, spelling out the ties of
kinship between the two peoples and the nature of the appeal. They will
probably also produce evidence in support. Then after being entertained
by the host city they will move on. What survives for us usually is a decree,
perhaps the response of the visited city, perhaps a decree honouring an
ambassador, with kinship referred to only briefly, for instance the passing
reference to ‘family and friends’.

Purpose
So why did embassies do this? Why did they place such stress on kinship,
especially if it depended on a relationship that had to be traced all the way
back to the heroic past? Whether or not the age of heroes was accepted as
historical, it had been a long time ago.
We might imagine that the purpose of claiming kinship was simply
to persuade. Certainly, it is noticeable that in interstate relations kinship
claims and kinship language occur especially when one state is requesting
something of another.30 They would appear to put moral pressure on the
other state to assist by drawing attention to family ties and the obligations
that go with them.31 Nevertheless, it is hard to understand why a complex
genealogical argument should convince. The relationships that are high-
lighted are often rather distant and tenuous. Doubtless there would have
been many occasions when the visiting embassy had even less success than
the Kytinians at Xanthos. Our evidence is primarily epigraphic and may

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give a false impression of the efficacy of such kinship diplomacy; cities did
not celebrate their failures on stone. Literary sources, on the other hand,
suggest that such an appeal was as likely to fail as to succeed.32
It may, however, be a mistake to concentrate solely on the persuasive
capacity of kinship. This might be to view the question too narrowly.
I want to suggest an alternative way of considering it, one which places less
emphasis on the kinship claim as a means of directly gaining an objective
and looks instead at the way in which kinship changes the nature of the
relationship. If a state claimed kinship, it incorporated the other state as
part of the family and thus legitimated the request that was being made.
It may have been more acceptable to seek favours from relatives than from
strangers. To approach strangers for help could be considered as too close
to begging.33 Yet how else could Kytinion in mainland Greece justify an
approach to Lycian Xanthos on the other side of the Aegean? Thus kinship,
real or mythical, sets up a framework in which an appeal is possible.
Here literature can offer some analogies. Chariton’s novel, Chaireas and
Kallirhoë, which is probably of an early imperial date, offers an interesting
use of syngeneia. The wealthy Dionysios has fallen in love with his new slave
girl, Kallirhoë, and wants to know about her past, but Kallirhoë is silent
and only cries when he persists. Finally he says ‘this is the first favour I ask
of you. Tell me your story, Kallirhoë; you will not be talking to a stranger
(allotrios). For there exists a kinship (syngeneia) of character too.’ Dionysios
is here appealing to the legitimating nature of kinship to advance his cause.
His point is not that she has a moral obligation as a relative, or even as
a quasi-relative, to tell him, but rather that his relative status removes an
obstacle to her telling him: he is not a stranger.34 Comparison might also be
made with the world of Homer’s epics. When a stranger comes to a house,
it is not proper to ask him outright his business, one must first offer him
hospitality, and in the process his status is changed from stranger to guest-
friend.35 This is not kinship but it is similar in that it suggests that demands
on others should only be made if they are made within the context of an
appropriate relationship.
Kinship is such a relationship. It is not temporary, lasting only for
the duration of the appeal, but rather it is permanent and reciprocal.
If we return to my much-cited Magnesian inscriptions, we can see that
the acceptance of the kinship claim was as important as the claim itself.
The replies do not merely promise recognition of the festival of Artemis
Leukophryene, they also affirm the existence of the kinship between the
two states. Acceptance of the kinship claim creates a bond between the
two communities that goes beyond the simple acceptance of the appeal.
It provides a basis for future trust and a way of relating to one another for
both communities.
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 O Brother, where art thou? Tales of kinship and diplomacy

Both sides, therefore, attach importance to the claims of kinship; nor

is this limited to the Magnesian texts. When the people of Lampsakos
appealed to the Romans in the 190s bc, they seem to have been almost as
concerned to confirm that the Romans accepted their kinship argument as
they were about their appeal. As a city in the Troad they had presumably
drawn attention to their Trojan past.36 The negotiations between themselves
and the Roman commander are recorded in the decree which honours their
ambassador, Hegesias: ‘On account of these answers the people were in
especially good spirits. For in them the Roman commander made it clear
that he accepted the relationship and kinship (oikeiotes and syngeneia) which
exist between us and the Romans.’ 37 The people of Lampsakos, then, are
elated not merely because the Romans take note of their appeal but also
because they accept the Lampsakene kinship claim. One reason why the
Xanthians dwelt at such length on the syngeneia between themselves and
the Kytinians may have been their desire to demonstrate that in spite of
their paltry donation they do not reject the claims of the Kytinians.38
Kinship is as much about the past and future as it is about the present.
This comes out in the language of the inscriptions with their repeated
references to remembering or renewing kinship. All this reinforces the
sense of continuity implicit in kinship. The people of Gonnos talk of the
renewal of longstanding friendship and oikeiotes with the Magnesians;
the Kydonians of Crete describe the Teans as having been friends and
kin (syngeneis) since the time of their forefathers; the Kytinians ask the
Xanthians to remember the syngeneia that they had with them through
gods and heroes.39 Looking forwards, the Xanthians decide that the decrees
should be inscribed on a stele and placed in the sanctuary of Leto; this will
act as a reminder of the relationship between the two peoples.40 Concern
with the future is evident too in a Pergamene decree of the mid-second
century bc. The decree, which is on the subject of isopoliteia with Tegea,
makes arrangements for the inscription of several documents, including
one about the kinship which exists between the two communities. It
emphasizes that this is being done so that future generations do not
forget.41 Analogous conclusions can be found in recent work on hellen-
istic euergetism; inscriptions reveal that individual acts of euergetism are
always understood as part of a continuing relationship rather than isolated
in a single moment in time.42
So kinship claims in diplomatic initiatives should not be understood
simply in terms of persuasion. They create a bond which both legitimates
the request and defines the relationship for the future. Kinship implies
that both cities are willing to assist each other if the need arises. It may be
that there will be no further contact between the two communities, but

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Andrew Erskine

the diplomatic exchange is grounded in the idea that this is part of a long-
term, indeed permanent, relationship.
Each relationship was individual and important, but together they
formed a complex web joining numerous cities scattered throughout the
Mediterranean. Such kinship ties became an expression not only of bonds
between particular cities but an expression of Greek identity as well, yet
one which was flexible and could allow the incorporation of hellenized
communities such as Xanthos.
Kinship diplomacy could be supplemented by other strategies which
would further mitigate and disguise the raw request. When the Teans
approached various Cretan cities about asylia some time in the second
century, they drew attention to the kinship which existed betweeen them-
selves and the Cretans, but they did more than this. One of the ambassadors
they sent was Menekles, son of Dionysios, an accomplished cithara-player,
probably one of the Artists of Dionysos based in Teos. This man allowed the
two parties to share in a relationship in which the appeal was only an element.
In the cities he visited, Menekles performed works by Timotheos of Miletos
and Polyidos of Selymbria, both well-known in the early hellenistic period,
but significantly he also gave renditions of various Cretan poets. Through
his appreciation and knowledge of their literature he showed his respect for
his Cretan hosts, but by performing this material alongside Timotheos and
Polyidos he was going a stage further. His performance became in this way
a celebration of Cretan literature as part of Greek culture. His composition
of some kind of work on gods and heroes born in Crete served to reinforce
this interest in Cretan tradition and may also have drawn attention to the
kinship between the Cretans and the Teans. Menekles’ activities thus helped
to develop a bond between host cities and the Tean representatives, one
which was independent of the purpose of the embassy. The Cretans in turn
acknowledged Menekles’ efforts with honorary decrees and praised him for
performing in a manner that befitted an educated man (wJ" prosh'ken ajndri;
pepaideumevnwi); the stress here is on Greek paideia. The Tean visit to Crete
becomes transformed. It is more than an embassy: on one level Menekles’
performance makes it a social occasion, on another level it is for both
parties a celebration of Greekness, highlighting Crete’s place in the wider
Greek world, a suitable context for international goodwill. Diplomacy,
kinship, and Greek cultural identity merge.43

Tradition
These kinship claims are a sign of the importance and vitality of local
tradition in the hellenistic world. Each city was distinctive and exploited
its own mythical past to form bonds with other communities. Ambassadors

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 O Brother, where art thou? Tales of kinship and diplomacy

drew attention to the manner in which myths were shared and intersected.
They may have elaborated these traditions to suit their audience, but they
appear to have worked within the mythical and genealogical framework of
their community rather than engaged in random invention.44 The Magne-
sians did not pretend to have been founded by Kephalos when approaching
the city of Same in Kephallenia. Instead they looked for a way of linking
Kephalos with their own eponym Magnes.45 The Xanthian inscription is
a compelling witness to the interplay of distinctive local traditions: on the
Lycian side there is the birth of Apollo and Artemis, on the Dorian side
a little of the career of Heraklid Aletes.46 Divergent traditions met in very
real ways in Ithaka. When the Magnesian ambassadors turned up there,
they spoke in the Odysseion, its very name an emphatic statement about
the island’s past: such a setting would have given added resonance to any
allusion to kinship with the famous hero.47 Sometimes, too, cities could
share the same mythical figure. The isopoliteia agreement between Tegea
and Pergamon which was mentioned above would appear to trace the rela-
tionship of the two cities back to the heroic age. For Auge was the common
property of both cities. She was at the same time daughter of the Tegean
king, Aleos, and mother of the Pergamene hero, Telephos. When Pausanias
reports a story that she was buried in Pergamon, he is surely reflecting
a local Pergamene tradition.48 All these claims had force and value because
they were rooted in the accepted mythical past of the cities in question.
There were of course hundreds of Greek cities, and even more competing
local traditions. In this final section I take just one example in order to
suggest something of the way in which cities could use and adapt their
past to suit the needs of the present. I will be considering the use of the
Trojan myth by the people of Zakynthos, an island just off the north-west
coast of the Peloponnese. An important point to note is that, although
kinship is clearly an issue here, this example would not show up if the focus
were purely on instances using obvious kinship terms such as syngeneia or
even oikeiotes. Consequently it helps to highlight how extensive, indeed
pervasive, kinship ties were in interstate relations.
Sometime in the late fourth or early third century a Zakynthian citizen
called Agathon made a dedication at the oracle of Zeus at Dodona in
Epeiros. It was an innocent enough gesture, but not one without political
overtones. Dodona was controlled by the Molossians and the proxenos
of the Molossians and their allies in Zakynthos was Agathon. His family
had performed this role for generations. Consequently, by making
a dedication there Agathon was affirming his relationship with the Molos-
sians. The dedication is a short text, inscribed on bronze. In it Agathon
makes a remarkable claim: he and his family are descended from ‘Trojan

107
Andrew Erskine

Kassandra’. Since the Greek is not without ambiguity, Agathon may even
be interpreted as saying that the descendants of Kassandra include not only
his family but also all Zakynthians.49
The dedication not only illuminates the traditions of each community
but also the interaction of such traditions in the diplomacy of the Greek
world. It is Kassandra who represents the common ground between the
parties involved. Through her a web of kinship is created which bonds
Agathon and Zakynthos with the Molossians and Dodona. This Zakynthian
Kassandra connects with the long-standing Trojan traditions of Epeiros.
There are many stories of Trojan survivors turning up in Epeiros.
Andromache, Helenos, and Aeneas all make appearances: Andromache stays
to procreate, Helenos contributes at least one child, founds Bouthroton,
and dies in Epeiros, Aeneas makes some dedications at Dodona and hurries
on. The Molossian kings, professing descent from Andromache and Neop-
tolemos, decorate their family-tree with names that highlight their Trojan
past. It would not be odd to find Andromache, Helenos, or Troas among
the Molossian royalty.50
Agathon and the Zakynthians could have found other ways to justify
and affirm their close relationship with the Molossians, but kinship with
Kassandra offered something special which must have been hard to resist.
Her prophetic powers made her peculiarly appropriate for a dedication at
the oracle of Zeus. More than this, the importance of Helenos among the
Molossians made his sister Kassandra an ideal ancestor to publicize there.
The Zakynthian–Molossian friendship could be understood as a reunion of
twins. This is not to suggest that the Zakynthians or Agathon and his family
invented their relationship with Kassandra for the occasion. It is more
probable that they highlighted and developed one aspect of a multitude
of now lost local traditions.
Nothing is known of the origins of the story of Kassandra and Zakynthos;
this dedication is, as far as I am aware, the only evidence for it. Mythologi-
cally it is not implausible. Kassandra did survive the fall of Troy and she was
brought back to the Peloponnese by Agamemnon. It is true that she was
supposed to have been murdered there, but the array of cults and tombs
associated with her in the Peloponnese suggests that there may have been
a number of less well-known stories about her circulating in the area. The
most celebrated cult and tomb was at Amyklai in Lakonia, not far from an
important sanctuary of Apollo.51 Zakynthos too prided itself on its temple
of Apollo and in the fifth and fourth centuries bc regularly used the head
of the god as an emblem on its coinage.52 As it was Apollo who had given
Kassandra her prophetic powers, the two may have played some, no longer
recoverable, part in the mythology of early Zakynthos.

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 O Brother, where art thou? Tales of kinship and diplomacy

This may be all we know about Kassandra and Zakynthos, but there was
more to Zakynthos’ Trojan past than Kassandra. Another story about quite
a different Trojan was recorded some three centuries later by Dionysios of
Halikarnassos. Aeneas, that famous wanderer, stopped at Zakynthos on his
westward journey, where, Dionysios tell us, he was well treated because of
his kinship with the Zakynthians. Dardanos was the key to this relation-
ship. The eponymous founder of Zakynthos was the son of Dardanos
from whom Aeneas and the Trojan royal family were also descended.53
Partly because of this kinship Aeneas and the Trojans built a temple of
Aphrodite on Zakynthos, where they offered sacrifices which were still
being performed in Dionysios’ day.54
Zakynthos is on the coastal route to Italy, so a story about Aeneas might
be considered fairly predictable, but the existence of the earlier Kassandra
story suggests that there is more to it than a convenient stopping-point
for those plotting Aeneas’ route to Italy. Together the stories suggest that
the Zakynthians had a sense of a Trojan past which they could draw on in
different ways at different times. It was a past, moreover, that was already
well-established before the Romans became important in the area.55
The constant factor may have been a belief that Zakynthos was a son of
Dardanos. In their relations with the Molossians and Dodona, Kassandra
could embody that past; in relations with the Romans it was perhaps Aeneas
who fulfilled this role.
The Zakynthians certainly had every reason to send an embassy to the
Romans, and if they did so they may well have said a little about their Trojan
past. Strategically situated between Italy and Greece, the island’s history
in the late third and early second centuries reads like that of Greece in
miniature. After years of independence its capture by Philip V of Macedon
in 217 signalled the growing importance of the West in Greek affairs; it was
seized by the Romans in 211, then recaptured by Philip and handed over
to Amynandros of the Athamanians sometime around 207; then follows
a lull in our evidence until it is plundered by the Romans during the war
with Antiochos, bought by the Achaians, reclaimed by the Romans and in
191 relinquished by the Achaians.56 There must be room for an embassy
to the Romans somewhere here; everyone else was doing it.
This Zakynthian evidence allows us an opportunity to explore the inter-
action between kinship, international relations, and local tradition. And
it is only because the traditions are there and are treated as important that
a claim of kinship can have any significance at all.

In several of the examples that have been discussed above, the targets of
kinship claims are peoples whose Greekness might be open to question,

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Andrew Erskine

such as Lycians, Molossians, or Romans.57 What are we to make of this?

Should we see here cunning Greeks getting their way by fuelling the
pretensions of other peoples? Scholars have certainly said this about Greek
relations with the Romans.58 The unusual fullness of the decree of the
Lycian Xanthians, inscribed for posterity, does suggest that they at least did
see the Kytinian claims as an affirmation of their own Greekness. But the
perception of the recipient and the outlook of the appellant need not be
the same. If I am right that kinship arguments are as much about setting
up a suitable framework as they are about persuasion, then the presence
of these borderline Greeks can be understood in other ways. Where there
is regular and frequent contact between two states, there is not so much
need to ground an appeal in kinship terms, because a framework already
exists. But paradoxically the less familiarity there is, the more likely we are
to find kinship arguments.

* For Michelle who saw beyond the text.

Epigraphical abbreviations
Inscr. Magn. Kern, O. Die Inschriften von Magnesia am Maeander, Berlin,
1900.
IC Guarducci, M. Inscriptiones Creticae, 4 vols., Rome, 1935–50.
I.Lamp. Frisch, P. Die Inschriften von Lampsakos, Bonn, 1978.
I.Perg. Fraenkel, M. and Habicht, C., Die Inschriften von Pergamon, 3 vols.,
Berlin, 1890–1969.
Milet Fredrich, C. and Rehm, A., Milet, Berlin, 5 parts published,
1908–28.
SEG Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, Leiden and Amsterdam,
1923–

Notes
1
Polyb. 9.42.5–8, though the appeals do not seem to have met with much
success, 11.5.8, 22.8.9–10. For Polybios’ interest in such Greek/Roman culture
clashes, cf. also 20.9–10.
2
Syracuse: Thuc. 6.3.2. Pharos: Diod. 15.13.4; Strabo 7.5.5; Steph. Byz.
s.v. Favro" (Ephoros FGrH 70 F 89); Ps. Scymn. 426–7 (in GGM I, p. 212);
Robert 1935, 494–5. Lampsakos: Charon FGrH 262 F 7; Ephoros FGrH 70 F
46; Pomponius Mela 1.97; Steph. Byz. s.v. Lavmyako"; Magie 1950, 903 n. 118.
Massalia: Thuc. 1.13.6; Isoc. 6.84; Paus. 10.8.6.
3
Hdt. 5.97; Thuc. 1.95.1, 3.86.2–3; Curty 1994; Hornblower 1996, 64–70;
Mitchell 1997, 23–8; Jones 1999, 27–35.

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 O Brother, where art thou? Tales of kinship and diplomacy
4
This chapter develops and at times echoes arguments put forward in Erskine
2001.
5
Inscr. Magn. 16–87; Rigsby 1996, 176–279 gives the text of all the responses,
together with commentary. The stones are now to be found in Berlin, not
Turkey.
6
Curty 1995, 108–24 collects and discusses the syngeneia examples. Homo-
geneia appears in only one response (Inscr. Magn. 26). Elwyn 1993, 263 lists 31
responses that include kinship terms.
7
Inscr. Magn. 52.16–19.
8
Inscr. Magn. 35.12–14.
9
Apollod. 1.7.3.4, 1.9.4; the story that it was Kephalos, son of Deïon, who was
the eponym of Kephallenia is also to be found in Etym. Magn. 144.24–6, where
Aristotle’s Politeia of the Ithakans is given as the authority.
10
Inscr. Magn. 61.9–20.
11
Inscr. Magn. 46.8–12 (Epidamnos); for allusion to these services, 35.8, 36.8,
44.13–14, 45.22–3, 46.27–8.
12
Curty 1995, 224–41; Will 1995; Hornblower 1996, 64–7; Giovannini
1997; Jones 1999, 13–14, 31. Lücke 2000, 12–27 plays down syngeneia as ‘blood
kinship’ and instead prefers to emphasize its metaphorical uses. For similarities
between kinship and guest-friendship (or ritualized friendship), Herman 1987,
16–29. On homogeneia, its meaning, and its rarity, Rigsby 1996, 202.
13
So Hornblower 1996, 64–7 in contrast to Will 1995.
14
Inscr. Magn. 35.12–14.
15
Inscr. Magn. 36.1–6; Rigsby 1996, 213–14 notes the relationship between
Deïon and Odysseus but seems to doubt that the ambassadors mentioned it.
16
Inscr. Magn. 33.
17
Cf. Bousquet 1988, 30 n. 25 on interchangeability of oikeiotes and syngeneia.
Contrast Jones 1999, 44, who can see oikeiotes as indicative of a reluctance to
acknowledge kinship.
18
Musti 1963; for the Kos texts, see now Rigsby 1996, 106–53.
19
Many such scholars are quoted by Musti 1963, 238.
20
Curty 1995, and the discussions that it provoked, notably Will 1995, Horn-
blower 1996, 61–80, Giovannini 1997, Jones 1999, Lücke 2000.
21
First mentioned in Robert 1935, 498 n. 1; for subsequent mentions of this
work, later given the title ‘Les origines légendaires de Synnada et les parentés de
peuples’, see Curty 1995, 261 n. 12.
22
Bousquet 1988. Substantial discussions of this text appear in Curty 1995,
183–91, Jones 1999, 61–2, 139–43, Lücke 2000, 30–52.
23
Lines 73–6.
24
Bousquet 1988, lines 14–42; translation is my own but follows Jones 1999,
139–40 on line 25.
25
Bousquet 1988, 30–2, Keen 1998, 194–201.
26
Summary: lines 30–1; donation: lines 49–65; on the meagreness of 500 dr.,
Lücke 2000, 46–7, who notes that a few years later the Xanthians gave an Ilian
orator 400 dr. in gratitude for a good lecture; J. and L. Robert 1983, no. 15B

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Andrew Erskine

(SEG 33.1184). An invitation to dinner was a standard diplomatic courtesy,

Mosley 1973, 79.
27
Peloponnesian origin of Trojans: DH AR 1.61–2; Romans are Greek: DH
AR 1.5, 1.89–90.
28
Inscr. Magn. 35.9, 36.9, 44.15, 46.13; the similarity in phrasing suggests that
the responses were here modelled on a document carried by the ambassadors, the
same group of ambassadors in each case. At Megalopolis the Magnesians appear
to have produced some document that named all the Megalopolitan ambassadors
who had approached Magnesia for money some 150 years previously, Inscr. Magn.
38.22–31. One should note, though, that documents would not have been solely
used to prove kinship claims.
29
aiJ peri; touvtwn iJstorivai kai; ta\lla e[ggrafa, Milet. 1.3: 155, Curty no. 58.
30
Curty 1995, 254–5; Elwyn 1993, 263–7.
31
For family obligations, Dover 1974, 273–8; Millett 1991, 127–39; also
109–12 on Arist. NE 1165a14–35.
32
Elwyn 1993, 265–7.
33
Attitudes towards beggars and begging, Garland 1995, 25–6, 39; Hands 1968,
63–6, 77–9; cf. Philostrat. VA 4.10 for the stoning to death of a beggar believed
to be a demon responsible for a plague in Ephesos.
34
Chariton 2.5.8, trans. Goold.
35
Most 1989, 133; Baslez 1984, 41–5.
36
Erskine 2001, 169–72.
37
I.Lamp. 4; kinship: lines 18–25, 29–32, 56–62; lines 29–32 quoted.
38
Text quoted above; acceptance of the Kytinian claims, lines 46–9, 65–8.
39
Gonnos: Inscr. Magn. 33, lines 14–16. Kydonia: IC II.x.2, lines 3–4 (Rigsby
1996, no. 139). Kytinion: Bousquet 1988, lines 14–16 (cf. lines 30–2, ‘the
goodwill based on kinship which has joined them to us from ancient times’), cf.
Inscr. Magn. 61, lines 34–5, IC II.iii.2, lines 7–8 (Rigsby no. 154), IC I.v.53, lines
25–6 (Rigsby no. 159), Rigsby no. 161, lines 16–17.
40
Bousquet 1988, lines 65–8.
41
I.Perg. I.156.17–23 (Curty 1995, no. 41).
42
Ma 1999, 186–7.
43
Syngeneia appears in the Cretan decrees acknowledging asylia, Rigsby
154 (Aptera), 155 (Eranna), 156 (Biannos), 157 (Malla), 159 (Arkades),
160 (Hyrtakina). Reference to the performances occurs in the Cretan decrees
honouring the ambassadors, IC I.viii.11 (Knossos), I.xxiv.1 (Priansos), discussed
and partially quoted in Chaniotis 1988a, 348–9; Lücke 2000, 21–3, 130–1. For
the popularity of Timotheos, Hordern 2002, ch. 7. On the reception of Polyidos,
Parian Marble Ep. 68, p.18 (ed. Jacoby); [Plut.] Mus. 21.1138AB; Diod. 14.46
(references courtesy of James Hordern). On performing embassies, Chaniotis
1988b.
44
Cf. Curty 1995, 242–53.
45
Inscr. Magn. 35, lines 13–14.
46
Bousquet 1988, lines 17–19, 24–30.
47
See n. 15 above

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 O Brother, where art thou? Tales of kinship and diplomacy
48
I.Perg. I.156; Auge is not explicitly cited as the link but her mention in l. 24
makes it very likely, Curty no. 41; on the tomb, Paus. 8.4.9; on Telephos and
Pergamon, Hansen 1971, 5–6, 338–48; Scheer 1993, 71–152.
49
Qeov". Tuvca. Zeu' Dwdwvnh" medevwn, tovde soi dw'ron pevmpw paræ ejmou' ∆Agavqwn
∆Ecefuvlou kai; genea; provxenoi Molovsswn kai; summavcwn ejn triavkonta geneai'"
ejk Trwi?a" Kassavndra" genea; Zakuvnqioi; the last two lines are interrupted by the
image of a phallus. Text as printed by Egger in Carapanos 1878, 196–9 (= BCH 1
(1877) 254–8); see also Davreux 1942, 85. For illustration, Dakaris 1964, pl. 4;
date: Franke 1955, 38; Hammond 1967, 534 (soon after 334 bc); Davreux 1942,
85 (first half of 3rd century bc). It is also possible, though less likely, that this is
merely some local dating system and not a claim of descent, cf. Coppola, 1994,
179, but even so the use of Kassandra in such a way would be odd in itself.
50
Full discussion of Epeiros’ Trojan past can be found in Erskine 2001, 122–3,
160–1.
51
Amyklai: Paus. 3.19.6, cf. 2.16.6–7; Apollo: Polyb. 5.19.2. Kassandra in
Lakonia, Erskine 2001, 113–16
52
Head 1911, 429–31.
53
For the relationship of Aeneas and Hector to Dardanos, Hom. Il. 20.215–41;
Paus. 8.24.3 too knows of Zakynthos as the son of Dardanos.
54
DH AR 1.50.3–4; they were also believed to have set up a festival that
included a foot-race to the temple known as the race of Aeneas and Aphrodite.
55
Cf. Vanotti 1995, 156.
56
Polyb. 5.102.10; Livy 26.24.15, 36.31.10–32, 36.42.4–5; Briscoe 1981,
268–9.
57
Jones, 1999, 16, goes too far when he writes ‘One of the major functions of
kinship diplomacy was to mediate between hellenes and barbarians.’ For ways in
which Greeks could use mythology to approach non-Greek peoples, Bickerman
1952.
58
For instance, Perret 1942, 283; Errington 1972, 281 n. 28; Gruen 1992, 49.

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 7

THE EGYPTIAN ELITE IN

THE EARLY PTOLEMAIC PERIOD:
SOME HIEROGLYPHIC EVIDENCE

Alan B. Lloyd

For many years the administration of early Ptolemaic Egypt has been
characterized as a highly centralized organization in which power was
resolutely and systematically confined to the Graeco-Macedonian elite
whilst the indigenous ruling classes were firmly subordinated to their
foreign masters. This concept was undoubtedly to some degree influenced
by nineteenth- and twentieth-century European models and experience of
colonialism but was powerfully reinforced by an undue concentration on
Greek papyri from a very atypical area, i.e. the Fayûm, taking little account
of the demotic evidence and even less of the hieroglyphic material. This has
meant that conditions in Upper Egypt and the Delta have generally been
regarded as replicating the situation in the Fayûm. Manning1 has recently
demonstrated very clearly how a careful reading of demotic material from
Upper Egypt leads to a very different picture. He writes:
The tension between ‘state’ and local authority is a theme which runs through
Egyptian history, and it became an increasingly thorny issue in the hellenistic
period with the political centre even further removed from the Nile Valley in
the new city of Alexandria.2
He summarizes his conclusions on Ptolemaic attempts to resolve, or, at
least, make tractable this tension in the following terms:
… the system of control under the Ptolemies was informal rather than
centralized and regionally variable rather than uniform throughout Egypt.
The Ptolemies adapted in a practical manner to the realities of Egypt.3
In the present paper I propose to look at some examples of the neglected
hieroglyphic material for the early Ptolemaic period all of which, in the
nature of things, refers to members of the Egyptian elite, and some of
which derives from the Delta on which the papyri are largely silent. First,
however, let me define what I mean by ‘the Egyptian elite’.

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In a recent publication I characterize the workings of Egyptian internal

politics during the last period of Egyptian independence in the following
terms:
Greek sources … paint a convincing picture of a period dominated by two
recurrent issues: instability at home and the ever-present spectre of aggressive
Persian power abroad. The grizzly panorama of intra- and interfamilial strife
between aspirants to the throne emerges with stark clarity in the case of the
XXIXth and XXXth Dynasties. In the murky history of these two families we
are confronted with a situation which we can only suspect for earlier Egyptian
history but which, we can be confident, was not infrequently lurking behind
the ideological mirage projected by Pharaonic inscriptional evidence. Classical
commentators, writing from quite a different perspective, reveal without
compunction the complex interaction of individual ambition untrammelled
by loyalty or ideological factors in which ambitious political figures seize any
opportunity for advancement provided by the sectional interests of the native
Egyptian warrior class, Greek mercenary captains, and, less obviously, the
Egyptian priesthood. For the XXIXth Dynasty our evidence is far from full,
but it demonstrates unequivocally that almost every ruler had a short reign
and suggests that all of them, with the exception of Hakor, may have been
deposed, sometimes probably worse. The classical sources are particularly
revealing for the succeeding dynasty. The founder, Nectanebo I, a general and
apparently a member of a military family, almost certainly came to the throne
as the result of a military coup, and we are unlikely to be guessing badly if
we suspect that this experience motivated him in establishing his successor
Teos as co-regent before his own death in order to strengthen the chances of
a smooth family succession … 4
The conquest of Egypt by Alexander saw changes in the rulers of Egypt,
but the Egyptian elite families will have continued to exist in most, if not
all, cases, and we can be absolutely confident that their aspirations will
have remained as powerful as ever, even if they had to take account of the
new political and even social environment created by foreign conquest.
What was the basis of their power and influence? The lengthy biograph-
ical inscription of Udjahorresnet dating to the Twenty-seventh Dynasty
(525–404), but also referring to the Twenty-sixth (664–525), gives a very
clear picture of the nature of the power of the Egyptian elite during the last
centuries of Pharaonic civilization.5 One of the title-sequences reads:
The one revered by Neith, the great one, mother of the god, and the gods of
Sais, the hereditary lord and count, chancellor of the King of Lower Egypt,
sole companion, the true acquaintance of the king, beloved of him, the
scribe, the inspector of scribes in the tribunal, the overseer of scribes of the
great prison (or harîm), the controller of the palace, the admiral of the kbnt-
ships under the King of Upper and Lower Egypt Khnum-ib-re, the admiral
of the kbnt-ships under the King of Upper and Lower Egypt Ankh-ka-re

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Udjahorresnet, born of the controller of the mansions, kheri-pe-priest, renp-

priest, hepet-wadjet-priest, god’s-servant of Neith Peftauawyneith. (ll. 7–10)
Elsewhere in the text he is described as ‘Chief Physician’ (ll. 2–3, 12, 17,
24, 28, 31, 37, 43, 46, 48) and ‘God’s servant’ (l. 43), and there is much
emphasis on service to the king (‘I was one honoured by all his masters …
and they gave me adornments of gold, doing for me all manner of benefi-
cial things’ l. 46); he looked after the interests of his family, who benefited
from the enthusiastic application of the old Egyptian principle of nepotism
(‘I was one honoured by my father, praised by my mother, the favourite
of my brothers, having established for them the offices of god’s servant,
and having given to them lands according to the command of His Majesty
in the course of eternity’ ll. 37–9); and he showed a keen devotion to the
service of the local but major goddess Neith.
Two other texts, which cannot be located more precisely than somewhere
in the period Thirtieth Dynasty–early Ptolemaic Period (late fourth
century), yield a similar picture. The inscriptions on the statuette of the
eldest son of Nekhthorheb (Nectanebo II),6 whose name is not preserved,
describe the prince as:
[Hereditary lord] and count, sweet of love in the heart of the ruler, the pupil
of the king who cleaves to his instruction, he who is loyal to his master … hon-
oured by his city god, beloved of his father, praised of his mother, agreeable
to his associates … who does that which god favours every day, the eldest
son of the king whom he loves, the commander-in-chief of the army of His
Majesty … (ll. 1–2)
The biographical material on the inscribed sarcophagus of Nekht-
nebef, the great nephew of Pharaoh Nekhtnebef (Nectanebo I), belongs
somewhere in the same time-span and runs in similar vein.7 He describes
himself as:
Hereditary Lord and Count in Tjel,8 ruler of foreign lands in the Khent-iab-
Nome (XIVth)9 … commander-in-chief of His Majesty, chief of chiefs, Nekht-
nebef justified 10 … Hereditary Lord and Count in the Imet-Nome (XIXth)
and in the Sebennytic Nome (XIIth) 11 … he who subdues foreign lands for the
lord of the two lands … the god’s servant of Ptah who dwells in Punt 12 …
We are subsequently informed that his father was an ‘hereditary lord
and count’ and a senior general and that his mother was the daughter of
an hereditary lord and count in the Sebennytic Nome and general. Her
mother, in turn, was the sister of Nekhtnebef.
These texts, like so many others, illustrate that, at the highest level,
power and status were generated by a number of interlocking factors:
immediate and consistent access to the king, high office, visible honours

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(including honorific titles), ancestry, and priestly office (which has an

important economic dimension). That power, in turn, is consolidated by
meritorious service to the crown, tangible instances of religious devotion,
and the strengthening of the position of one’s own family, wherever that
is possible. In a word, they operated very much like the rural notables
of nineteenth-century ad Egypt, keeping a watchful eye to maintain or
improve their prestige and economic status whilst availing themselves of
any political opportunities which presented themselves either in a pro-
vincial or metropolitan context.13 In what follows I want to demonstrate
that this mindset of the Egyptian elite and the behavioural pattern that
goes with it can be identified in hieroglyphic texts throughout the early
Ptolemaic period whilst at the same time those texts provide a revealing
and sometimes startling index of the status and aspirations of this group.14
However, I want to make it clear that, whilst on this occasion I am
confining my remarks mainly to the period down to the reign of Ptolemy
IV Philopator (c. 244–205 bc), I am not in any way suggesting that the
results of this enquiry apply exclusively to that time-span. Indeed, I am
convinced that quite the opposite is the case, but I propose to leave the
discussion of the period as a whole to a monograph which I am planning
to write on the subject.
From the Macedonian conquest down to the end of the Ptolemaic
period we have a large number of hieroglyphic texts which to some degree
or another are biographical and relevant to this discussion. Unfortunately,
dating them precisely is often a major problem. Chevereau in his Prosopo-
graphie des cadres militaires égyptiens de la Basse Epoque lists only three
securely dated to the fourth–third centuries, and two of those belong to the
reign of Ptolemy IV.15 On the other hand, he feels able to attribute seven
to the third century. In the second and first centuries he identifies 25 of
which only 3 are securely assigned to a particular reign. There are texts of
non-military figures which improve the position slightly, but these statis-
tics highlight one of the major problems in trying to establish an accurate
graph of the fortunes of Egyptian elite families during the period, i.e. the
problem of getting a firm chronological fix on the data.
We shall begin with a text securely dated to the reign of Philip Arrhi-
daeus (323–317). This document occurs on the fragment of a clepsydra
in the British Museum which bears an image of the king and also contains
the name of a certain Nakhtsopdu who rejoices in the title imy-r mS a,
‘general’.16 If we are mesmerised by Polybius on Raphia,17 we might be
inclined to regard this title as a meaningless survival from the Ptolemaic
period, but that would be unnecessarily sceptical. Diodorus Siculus
describes in some detail the army deployed by Ptolemy, son of Lagus, at

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Gaza in 312, i.e. after the murder of Arrhidaeus, and states that it included
‘a large number of Egyptians, some carrying ammunition and the other
forms of equipment and others armed and useful for battle’ (19.80.4).
Turner18 took this to mean that they were ‘for the hoplite phalanx’, but, if
a phalanx had been at issue, it would certainly not have been of the hoplite
variety but a Macedonian phalanx which was equipped and functioned in
a very different way. In any case, he makes a very large assumption in this
comment since it is not even clear whether the Egyptian combat troops
were infantry, cavalry, or both. Intriguingly, Diodorus does not mention
their involvement in his elaborate description of the battle itself, despite the
fact that these troops were not simply ‘fetching and carrying’ but equipped
for and capable of combat duties. Whatever their function, we must surely
be confronted with members of the class so often mentioned in our classical
sources, and the Nakhtsopdu fragment powerfully supports the intrinsic
probability that they were commanded, at least at brigade level, by Egyptian
generals, quite possibly ancestors in some cases of the laavrcoi who appear
in later texts.19
If the foregoing reasoning is correct, it suggests that we should refor-
mulate the standard view of Ptolemaic military history which is well
illustrated by a comment of Koenen: ‘Although in the third century the
number of Egyptians in the Ptolemaic army was apparently low, they
became a dominant factor in the second century.’20 The situation must
rather have been that the Egyptian Machimoi were part of the country’s
military establishment, retaining their old status, training regime, organiza-
tion, and command structure, but that they were not employed as part of
the main field army until Raphia in 217 because they were neither trained
nor equipped to fight in Macedonian tactical formations, above all the
phalanx. As long as the Ptolemies were able to get access to good-quality
Graeco-Macedonian infantry there was no incentive for them to train up
the locals whose soldierly qualities were far from negligible, as emerges
from Diodorus’ description of their excellent performance in skirmishing
operations during the fourth century.21 Their non-appearance in the field
action at Gaza will certainly reflect their inability to fight in phalanx, but
the isolated reference of Diodorus does let slip that, even so, they had
their uses, and we must allow for the possibility that the Gaza campaign
was not an isolated case of the recognition of the fact. This analysis, in
turn, places a large question-mark over Goudriaan’s recent attempt to
deny a connection between the Machimoi of the Late Period and those of
the Ptolemies.22 To argue that thesis would involve postulating that this
large group, which must have survived into the post-conquest period, then
ceased to exist, bereft not only of its status but also, and far more seriously,

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stripped of its economic assets, only to be subsequently resurrected in a new

form with the same name. This is hardly an attractive hypothesis. A much
more plausible scenario would be that they did survive as a discrete and
identifiable group which was customized, supplemented, and modified
to satisfy the Ptolemies’ requirements as they thought fit, and that, when
we encounter Egyptian officers and troops in the texts which follow, it is
largely current members of this ancient class who are involved. This is not,
of course, to deny Goudriaan’s central point that, when Machimoi appear
in the Ptolemaic period, we should not treat the term as though it were an
ethnic designating Egyptians to the exclusion of all others.

Fig. 1. The Coptos inscription of Senenshepsu.

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The next figure whom I should like to discuss features in two documents
of quite extraordinary interest which, apart from isolated references, have
been largely ignored. The most important of these documents was first
published by Petrie and Griffith at the end of the nineteenth century.23 It
was found in the Ptolemaic rebuild of the temple of Min and Isis at Coptos
in Upper Egypt and consists of a well-cut but damaged hieroglyphic text
inscribed on a basalt slab which formed part of a statue honouring the
person to whom the text refers (see Fig. 1). The contents date it firmly
to the reign of Ptolemy II (285–246) who was responsible for initiating
the reconstruction of this important shrine. The owner’s name has been
problematic. Since the reading is not relevant to the argument I wish to
develop, I shall not discuss the matter in detail, but I am now confident
that the correct rendering is Senenshepsu.24 The text, which, like many
Ptolemaic hieroglyphic inscriptions, is not without its linguistic and
orthographical problems, describes in considerable detail the work which
Senenshepsu conducted on and in the temple and includes much self-
laudatory material which is explicitly designed to gain the good will of the
living and the divine. The passages which are important for our purposes
run as follows:
I did that which her (i.e. Isis’) heart loved in every efficient work in the
sandstone district. I erected statues of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt,
Lord of the Two Lands, Userkaremeryamun, son of Re, Lord of Diadems,
Ptolemy, may he live for ever, together with statues of the king’s wife. The
like of this was not done save for my master in this land, the reward from my
lady Isis being many heb-sed festivals for the Lord of the Two Lands Userkare-
meryamun, son of Re, Lord of Diadems, Ptolemy, may he live for ever.
(Petrie, Koptos, pl. XX, right, col. 1)25
Elsewhere Senenshepsu describes himself as:
Overseer of the royal harîm of the Great King’s Wife of the King of Upper
and Lower Egypt, Lord of the Two Lands, Userkaremeryamun, son of Re,
Lord of Diadems, Ptolemy, may he live for ever, (whose name is) Arsinoe.
(loc. cit., col. 3)
And:
… the hereditary lord and count, chancellor of the King of Lower Egypt, sole
companion, Senenshepsu. (loc. cit., col. 4)
And:
… the official at the head of the Egyptians, the one great in his office, mighty
in his dignity, pre-eminent of place in the palace, the king having elevated him
because of his eloquence … the official who stands on the right hand … one in

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accordance with whom plans were made in the palace … overseer of the great
royal harîm, the head one of His Majesty in accompanying the hereditary
lady, great of favours, mistress of Upper and Lower Egypt, joyful in kindliness,
sweet of love, beautiful of appearances … who fills the palace with her beauty,
the Great King’s Wife, she who satisfies the heart of the King of Upper and
Lower Egypt, Lord of the Two Lands, Userkaremeryamun, son of Re, Lord
of Diadems, Ptolemy, may he live (for ever), (who is called) Arsinoe.
(Petrie, pl. XX, left, ll. 4–11, as completed by Sethe, 63, 6)
The status of this official is of crucial importance. Sethe describes him
as a nomarch,26 i.e. provincial governor, obviously on the basis of the title
sequence iry-pat HAty-a, but it is clear that, although provincial governors
frequently bear this sequence of titles, its presence does not in itself prove
that the person held such an office.27 At this period, and indeed much
earlier, it is a ranking sequence indicating that the individual in question
is of the highest status and prestige in a given area, but it does not in itself
prove that he was its governor. However, he also describes himself as ‘the
protector of the Coptite Nome, the wall around the administrative districts’
(Petrie, op. cit., pl. XX, left 7), and those comments certainly make him
look like a traditional provincial governor. Indeed, that an Egyptian should
hold such a position at this date should cause no surprise since there is
evidence of tenants of this office bearing Egyptian names from the late
260s onwards.28
A further issue is the question of the precise historical context of the
text. Petrie and Griffith argued that Senenshepsu was working within the
context of the exile of Arsinoe I to Coptos29 which is described in a scholion
to the XVIIth Idyll of Theocritus:30
Ptolemy Philadelphus was first married to Arsinoe, daughter of Lysimachus,
by whom he also sired his children Ptolemy, Lysimachus, and Berenice.
Having found this woman conspiring against him, and with her Amyntas
and Chrysippus, the Rhodian doctor, he executed the latter, and her he sent
off to Coptos in the Thebaid, and married his own sister Arsinoe, and he got
her to adopt the children who had been born to him by the earlier Arsinoe.
For Philadelphus herself died without issue.
Griffiths, therefore, regarded Senenshepsu as nothing more than the overseer
of the harîm of an exiled queen in a provincial backwater.31 I believe this
interpretation to be completely unsustainable. The text speaks unequivo-
cally of the setting up of statues of Ptolemy Philadelphus and Arsinoe which
surely could not be statues of the king and an exiled queen at a time when
Arsinoe II was very firmly in the driving seat. It should further be borne
in mind that, although we now have about sixty monuments of various
kinds unequivocally dedicated to Arsinoe II, there is not one which can be

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ascribed beyond doubt to Arsinoe I.32 It should further be remembered that

temple cults for Ptolemaic kings and queens appear to have been initiated
in the reign of Ptolemy II and Arsinoe II, our text almost certainly being
evidence of precisely that phenomenon. Finally, it should be noted that
a fragment of a statue of a Ptolemaic queen from the relevant temple at
Coptos, almost certainly one of those erected by Senenshepsu,33 bears the
titles zAt nzw znt nzw Hmt nzw wrt, ‘daughter of the king, sister of the king,
the Great King’s Wife’, titles which could not possibly have been borne by
Arsinoe I. All the signs are, therefore, that the text is referring to statues of
Philadelphus and Arsinoe II.
In addition to this text we also possess a very high-quality basalt statue
of the same man, acquired by the British Museum in 1918 (see Figs. 2–4).34
It has no known provenance, but the probability must be that it emanated
from Coptos. The copious inscriptions confirm the status and titles of this
individual as well as repeating his achievements, particularly the reconstruc-
tion of the temple. They do, however, add the details that his father was
named Neyesney and his mother Pemu,35 names which have never been
identified previously in the hieroglyphic onomastic corpus.
If our interpretation of these data is correct, it is probable that Senen-
shepsu was ‘overseer of the harîm’ at the court of Alexandria rather than
at Coptos, and that would fit extremely well with the Egyptian court
titles and epithets which occur elsewhere in the text insisting on his close
relations with the king. What, in practice, this would mean in terms of an
official function within the royal household must remain an open question.
Mooren does not identify any such court title,36 but his corpus does not
contain titles relating to the household at all, and there is no doubt, though
the evidence is not plentiful, that hellenistic palaces had a gynaikonitis,
i.e. ‘women’s quarters’.37 Indeed, the non-appearance of the title in Greek
documentation may mean no more than that the title was rarely bestowed
in the Ptolemaic period and, when it was, the function was never held by
any Greek or Macedonian.
Senenshepsu is not the only example of an ‘overseer of the harîm’ from
the Ptolemaic period. We also know of an Usermaatre, son of Djedkhon-
suiuefankh, whose black granite sarcophagus of superlative quality was
discovered at Saqqara during the Mameluk Period. This has been dated
on stylistic grounds to the early Ptolemaic.38 Like Senenshepsu he bears
the titles ‘hereditary lord and count, chancellor of the king of Lower
Egypt, sole companion’, and he also boasts a string of priestly titles which
are frequently of obscure significance as well as the administrative titles
‘overseer of the house of silver and the house of gold’ and ‘overseer of
the great house’, the first clearly relating to the treasury and the second

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Alan B. Lloyd

Fig. 2. The statue of Senenshepsu (front) Fig. 3. The statue of Senenshepsu

(EA 1668). Courtesy Trustees of the (back).
British Museum.

Fig. 4. The statue of Senenshepsu Fig. 5. The statue of Djedhor (CG700).

(left). Courtesy the Cairo Museum.

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 The Egyptian elite in the early Ptolemaic period: some hieroglyphic evidence

to a position in the palace. However, unlike Senenshepsu, he can boast

a military title as ‘overseer of infantry’. Here also, therefore, we are dealing
with an official of high status, and in this case we are confronted with
someone who has, in addition to his civil functions, an important military
office to discharge as well.
At all events, Senenshepsu’s close personal relationship to the king
which the harîm office implies could well explain why Arsinoe I was sent
to Coptos, i.e. there was, or had been, at court a known and trusted official
from that area on whom the king could rely to keep an eye on her. At the
same time he could be given the task of implementing a royal decision to
restore and embellish with statues and inscriptions the temple of Min and
Isis at Coptos, a royal action which was itself not without its significance
since Philadelphus had a great interest in expanding trade, and the Coptos
road to the Red Sea was a major trade route which was regarded from time
immemorial as being under the protection of the great god Min himself.39
If all this is correct, we should already be very much in the world of the
second-century Egyptian courtier Dionysius Petosarapis whose position is
described by Diodorus in the following terms:
Dionysius called Petosarapis, one of the ‘friends’ of Ptolemy, sought to seize
power for himself and so caused great danger to the kingdom. For, as he was
the most influential man at court and surpassed all the Egyptians on the field
of battle, he despised both of the kings because of their youth and lack of
experience. (XXXI, 15a)
So much for the detail. At a more general level it should be noted that
Senenshepsu’s self-perception differs not one jot from that of comparable
figures in the pre-Ptolemaic Period: the insistence on relations with and
dependence on the king, the catalogue of official duties, the concept of
balanced reciprocity in relation to the gods,40 and paternalistic benevolence
to underlings are all very much in evidence.41
The next piece which I should like to discuss is the statue of Djedhor
(CG700) which was discovered at Tanis in the late nineteenth century (see
Fig. 5).42 This black granite sculpture consists of a conventional theophoric
statue, over life-size (2m 40), which bears inscriptions on the dorsal pillar.
It is dated by Chevereau to the last years of Egyptian independence or the
early Ptolemaic period,43 but his bibliography indicates that he had not
taken into account the work of art historians on this sculpture. There is, in
fact, a strong case to be made for a date in the early Ptolemaic period, and
some commentators even venture to place it before the reign of Ptolemy III.
The arguments are: the highly individual portrait features which must shift
it into the Ptolemaic period; the treatment of the eyes which is a common
third-century feature; the double fold under the right eye which is not

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known to appear outside the early Ptolemaic period; the representation

of the long overgarment without the roll at the top or the flap which is,
at the very least, extremely improbable before the Ptolemaic period; the
indications that large-scale sculpture in the Ptolemaic period is primarily
of the time of Ptolemy II; and the fact that the inscriptions do not show
markedly Ptolemaic features in their orthography, a feature suggesting that
they should be located early in that period. Whilst it must be conceded that
not all of these arguments are of equal force, they constitute an adequate
basis for the view that the statue should be dated to the middle of the third
century bc.44
If we accept the dating of the statue for which I have just argued, the
inscriptions become extraordinarily interesting. Djedhor’s father is stated
to be ‘the god’s servant’ Wennefer and his mother is given as Nebe(t)tawy
without any titles. If that was his father’s only distinction of significance,
the son well outstripped him, but it may be that, within this religious
context, Djedhor was content simply to emphasize his father’s priestly rank.
That this could well be the case is indicated by the fact that, although the
text is damaged at the critical point, it would appear that his forefathers
had preceded him in high office within his city. It should also be noted that
there is an earlier statue from this site which bears the name of Djedhor, son
of Apries and Mutirdis, who lays claim to similar titles, and it has been very
plausibly suggested that this man is an ancestor of our Djedhor.45 There is,
therefore, a very distinct possibility that we are dealing with a member of
a family which had held high office in this area, both secular and priestly,
for some considerable time.
If we consider titles and narrative, we find Djedhor described in secular
contexts as ‘the great general’, ‘the hereditary lord and count’, ‘the hereditary
lord’ (or ‘mayor’), ‘the sole companion’, ‘the one great of love in the heart of
the king’, ‘the one great of favour in the palace’, ‘the controller of the affairs
of his city’, ‘the great controller of imposts in his province’, and ‘the witness
(?) of the business of his cities’. We are also informed that ‘His Majesty had
appointed him to be installed … his city … the place of his forefathers, and
endowed him with fields and all things’, that ‘the officials were watchful of
his comings and goings’, that he guaranteed ‘water <to> his city when the
two lands were dry’, that he was one ‘who gave life to the hungry in his
nome’, that he ‘caused all things to prosper’, that he was one ‘who repaired
ruins, filled breeches, and made great monuments in his temple’.
Clearly we have some of the traditional ranking titles46 here as well as
epithets which emphasize the closeness of Djedhor’s relationship to the king
and his benefactions to his city, but we equally clearly have more than that.
He uses the title HAty-a which, unlike the sequence (i)r(y) pat HAty-a, could

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easily refer to actual functions discharged, and the subsequent narrative of

what he did strongly suggests that he may well, in practical terms, have
done exactly what a Pharaonic provincial governor would be expected to
have done.
When we turn to the priestly titles, we are confronted with a very long
list:
The god’s servant of Amun, the warrior, the lord of justification, god’s servant
of Neith, god’s servant of Amon-re, lord of the thrones of the two lands, the
god’s servant of Horus Lord of Mesen, god’s servant of Khonsupakhered,
god’s servant of Khonsu in Thebes, Nefer-hetep, god’s servant of the Baboon,
god’s servant of Osiris the Baboon who stands before Mesen, god’s servant of
Osiris Hemag, Lord of the Great City (Tanis), god’s servant of Sokar-Osiris,
Lord of the Great City, god’s servant of Isis of the district of Busiris, god’s
servant of the divine ennead, great in the house of Per-Khonsu, web-priest of
Sekhmet, scribe, god’s servant of Amun-Ramesses of Per-Ramesses, Amon-re,
the helper, the god’s servant of the gods who do not have one, the overseer of
god’s servants. (ll. 1–7, upper part of back pillar)
These titles relate to cults of a large segment of the eastern Delta, though
whether Djedhor is referring to guest cults which he served in Tanis or to
priestly functions which he held in the relevant cities cannot be ascertained.
He also describes his religious commitments and devotion in rather more
general terms as:
the overseer of god’s servants … champion (?) … inspector (?) of god’s servants,
the image of the god of his city, the great one in the Mansion of Khonsu,
Maat(?) being his cleansing, Horus being his protection, Iunmutef being his
purification, the one who opened the doors of Nut, the one who saw that
which was in it, the one who concealed secrets behind his heart, the ruler of
an estate in his temple. (ll. 1–2, main text)
Overall, this description of Djedhor’s career really does look like that of
a traditional Egyptian nomarch with wide-ranging military, administrative,
and priestly functions, all of which will have conferred substantial resources
on his personal exchequer and guaranteed a high level of wealth, and many
of which will have been hereditary. We are also confronted with precisely
the same conceptualization of his function as we find in the inscription of
Senenshepsu.
Let us now turn to the statue of Amonpayom in Cleveland Museum.
This damaged but still impressive piece unearthed at Mendes represents
a figure of major importance who is described as ‘hereditary lord and
count, sole companion, brother of the king, great commander of the
army in the district of Mendes’ and also as ‘the god’s servant, overseer of
an army, overseer of cavalry … son of the overseer of an army Paimyroihu’.

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Alan B. Lloyd

The date of the sculpture has excited fierce debate. Ranke thought that it
should be placed towards the end of the second century on the grounds
that the title ‘great commander of an army’ was equivalent to the Greek
title strathgov", which is only known to have been conferred on Egyptians
in late Ptolemaic times, and the appearance in the text of the title zn nzw
which is claimed to have been identical with the Greek title suggenhv",
which again is only known to have been conferred on Egyptians from
about 120 bc.47 However, both equivalences are highly questionable,48 so
that nothing should be built on them. Bothmer and De Meulenaere, on the
other hand, were convinced on epigraphic grounds that the piece should be
dated to the reign of Ptolemy II.49 Yoyotte subsequently argued for a return
to the later date50 and has been recently supported by Berman.51 It seems to
me that the weight of the arguments is equally balanced, and that, in the
present state of our knowledge of Ptolemaic sculpture, we must concede
that we cannot be sure whether the piece dates to the reign of Philadelphus
or not. The most we can say is that, if it does, we have yet another example
of an Egyptian of very elevated rank holding very high military titles during
the early Ptolemaic period.
Let us conclude by looking at an inscribed statue from the reign of
Ptolemy IV Philopator, i.e the reign which is generally and rightly regarded
as a watershed in the history of relations between Greek and Egyptian in
the kingdom. The piece was found at Tell el-Balamun (Diospolis Inferior)
in the XVIIth Lower Egyptian nome and is now in the collection at Turin
(3062).52 The name of the owner is lost, but a hieroglyphic inscription
appears on the back pillar which contains a series of titles of a figure of some
considerable importance. These include the military titles ‘commander-in-
chief ’ (imy-r mSa wr) and ‘commandant’ (HAwty) supplemented by a string
of civil titles most of which are ranking titles identical with those already
encountered: ‘hereditary lord and count, sole companion, the great one
in the presence of the Egyptians’, though the title ‘scribe who does the
business of the temple of Amun of Balamun’ presumably refers to functions
actually discharged. In addition he held the priestly offices of ‘god’s servant
of Amun-re, Lord of the Sea, god’s servant of Mut, Khonsu (i.e. the Theban
triad), Osiris, and Harsiese, god’s servant of Amun in … ’
The format and conceptual world which these texts present has not
changed one iota from that of the late Pharaonic period. Whatever
the political realities of the situation may have been, the Egyptian elite
continue to locate themselves in the old Egyptian universe and see them-
selves as performing the same functions, working towards the same goals,
and responding to the same imperatives. We have found good reason to
question the standard view that, before Philopator, the Egyptian elite had

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 The Egyptian elite in the early Ptolemaic period: some hieroglyphic evidence

to confine its highest aspirations to priestly activities. As far as the Egyptians

were concerned, an Egyptian army continued to exist, even if it was not
employed as a major force in the field until the late third century. Even our
Balamun example may reflect this, but sadly we cannot establish whether
this monument predates the Raphia crisis or not. Be that as it may, we
have enough here to suspect that, when Philopator took his momentous
step of bringing the Egyptians into his Macedonian-style phalanx, he was
essentially converting part of his current military establishment from an
under-used but still organized militia into heavy infantry who could play
at push-of-pike with the best of the Graeco-Macedonian infantry which he
could no longer get in sufficient quantity. We have probably identified two
cases where we can see Egyptians performing all the principal administrative
functions of a Pharaonic nomarch at a time when some, at least, of our text
books tell us this sort of thing was not happening.53 They may have had
strathgoiv sitting beside them, but it does look as though the Egyptians did
everything that mattered. Most intriguing of all, we are confronted with the
case of Senenshepsu of Coptos who may well have been a close associate of
Philadelphus before 270 enjoying a titled position in the court at Alexandria
over a hundred years before Dionysius Petosarapis. His case suggests that
our Greek sources may be even more skewed than we are inclined to suspect
and that the Egyptian elite may have occupied more positions in the palace
than our Greek and Roman sources allow us to detect. It could well be that
nothing had changed since the beginning of the Ptolemaic period except
that members of the elite may not have had such ready access to the highest
civil and military functions in Alexandria itself, and many would have been
able to find ample consolation playing the local pasha in ancient provincial
cities where their families had been lording it for generations.

Acknowledgement
I am most grateful to Dr Penny Wilson for reading an earlier draft of this paper
and making a number of valuable suggestions. Any errors, however, are entirely
my responsibility.

Notes
1
Manning 1999.
2
Manning 1999, 84.
3
Manning 1999, 101.
4
Lloyd 2000, 385.
5
Posener 1936, 1 ff.
6
Clère 1951. Sadly we can date this piece no more accurately than the time of

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Alan B. Lloyd

Alexander or the early Ptolemies (cf. Huss 1994, 116 n. 25).

7
Sethe 1904, 24–6. This monument is in Berlin. Like Sethe, Eric Turner begs
a large question in dating it without compunction to the Ptolemaic period (Turner
1984, 126). Neither stylistic considerations nor content permit a precise fix. The
best we can do is to assign it to the Late Pharaonic–Early Ptolemaic time range.
8
The modern Tell Abu Sêfah on the extreme eastern frontier of the Delta.
9
Sethe 1904, 24.
10
Sethe 1904, 25.
11
Sethe 1904, 25.
12
Sethe 1904, 25–6.
13
Cuno 1999, 305, 327.
14
Sadly we can no longer invoke the existence of an Egyptian queen called
Ptolemais as a wife of Ptolemy II (Sethe 1904, 27; Huss 1994). Kuhlmann 1998
has demonstrated conclusively that this reading of the text is incorrect. The queen
in question is probably Arsinoe II.
15
Chevereau 1985, 187 ff.
16
Chevereau 1985, 187.
17
V, 65, where Polybius presents Ptolemy IV’s arming of the Egyptians to fight
in his war against Antiochus III as a completely novel departure. Their success at
the Battle of Raphia is alleged to have encouraged them to throw off the foreign
yoke.
18
Turner 1984, 124.
19
On these interesting and important figures Mooren 1977, 166.
20
Koenen 1993, 32 n. 20.
21
XV, 43.
22
Goudriaan 1988, 121 ff.
23
Petrie 1896, 19–21 with pl. XX.
24
I strongly suspect that the first group in the name ( ) should be read znn
and is a Ptolemaic writing of the word znn meaning ‘statue’ (Erman and Grapow
1926–53, III, 460, 6–17, where it is noted that the nn can be written at that
period with the three pots: cf. Clère 1951, 147, n. D). Griffith (apud Petrie 1896,
19–21) was inclined to read the seated-child hieroglyph after the znn group as Sri.
It is almost certainly nothing of the kind. It has probably crept in by association
of the nn with the word which in the Ptolemaic Period had the value
nn (Fairman 1943, 204, 16 with n. iii), and it should be noted that the word
znn does occur with the two n’s written using the seated-child sign as a phonetic
for n. The Spz-sign has been regarded by some (e.g. Quaegebeur 1978, 249) as
a determinative. However, Griffith insisted that the reading of the name on the
third column of the right-hand fragment of the inscription on his pl. XX shows an
z-sign after the Spz-sign, and that is what appears in his facsimile. (This example
is the only case on the monument where the end of the name is not destroyed.)
If that sign is really there, then the Spz-sign must be phonetic, and we must read
the name as Znn-Spz(w), which may be anglicized as Senenshepsu, and translated
something like ‘The (divine) statue is august’ (cf. Montet 1961, 80, who renders
‘Sennouchepsy’). The z does appear clearly in the version of the name used in

132
 The Egyptian elite in the early Ptolemaic period: some hieroglyphic evidence

BM1668 (see n. 34 below).

25
Where Petrie and Sethe disagree on readings I have preferred those of Sethe.
26
Sethe 1904, 55. In the Ptolemaic period we should use the term ‘nomarch’
with extreme care because it can easily create the impression that Ptolemaic
officials holding the title were equivalent to Pharaonic nome-governors. This is
quite clearly not the case (Héral 1990 and 1992). Since the Ptolemaic equivalent
of the old nomarch was the strathgov", the nomarch being subordinate to him,
I have avoided the use of the latter term when speaking of the Ptolemaic contexts
and have preferred the term ‘provincial governor’.
27
Ranke 1953, 196.
28
Mooren et al. 1953, 395, 404–5.
29
Petrie 1896, 21.
30
Wendel 1914, 324–5.
31
He supported the theory that Arsinoe I was at issue by arguing that the peculiar
spelling of Arsinoe within the inscription with an f (ArzynyfAw) was a device for
distinguishing her from Arsinoe II, but it is clear that this spelling was also used
for Arsinoe II (Quaegebeur 1971, 212, 21). The intrusive letter may have arisen
from the influence of the divine name Arensnufis or may reflect a difficulty which
some Egyptians had in pronouncing a Greek name with two final vowels.
32
Quaegebeur 1971, 249.
33
Sethe 1904, 73.
34
The name is spelt slightly differently in that the second element does not
show the form but a seated man with one arm outstretched without a seat and
followed by an z. This is not a known writing of Spz, as far as I am aware, but this
form of the seated man does occur on a throne with that value (Daumas 1988–,
A1237), and the irrelevance of the seat can be paralleled in the Roman writing of
Xrd (Derchain-Urtel 1999, 355). The arm-position of this alternative figure may
have been designed to evoke the idea of respect or reverence implicit in the word
Spz. Alternatively, the outstretched hand might, even at this early period, reflect
the later use of the hand-sign to write this triliteral through the equation Spz/zSp
(for this development see Derchain-Urtel 1999, 230 ff.).
35
The father’s name presents no problems. The spelling of the mother’s is
inconsistent. The commonest writing suggests a reading Paynesu, but the alter-
native spelling which occurs on the front inscription at the bottom of the extreme
left-hand column shows that the nz-sign should be read m (see Daumas, 1988–,
267, 275).
36
Mooren 1975, 206 ff.
37
Ogden 1999, 274 ff.
38
Maspero and Gauthier 1939, 29309; Mooren 1975, 206 ff.
39
Kees 1961, 121 ff.
40
Sethe 1904, l. 21.
41
Sethe 1904, l. 9 ff.
42
Daressy, 1893, 154 ff. For a modern discussion of part of the texts see Zecchi
1996, 34 ff.
43
Chevereau 1985, 166, Doc. 239.

133
Alan B. Lloyd
44
For discussion of the art-historical issue see Bothmer et al. 1960, 128–30,
149.
45
Daressy, 1893, 151 ff, 156.
46
Ranking titles are honorific and designed simply to indicate status. As such,
they differ from official titles which bring with them a job description.
47
Ranke 1953, 193–8.
48
The title imr-r mSa wr is an old one and need not have any reference to the
Greek office of strathgov", though I should not want to deny that the Egyptian
could have been used as an equivalent. Indeed, the Egyptians can render the Greek
phonetically into Egyptian (De Meulenaere 1959, 2). The title zn nzw already
occurs in the XXXth Dynasty (De Meulenaere 1959, 22 n. 2). It is possible that
the term was recycled in the Ptolemaic period as the equivalent of suggenhv", but
no Egyptian text provides proof of this, and Mooren (1975 33 ff.) flatly denies
any connection.
49
Von Bothmer 1960, 124.
50
Yoyotte 1989.
51
Berman 1999, 460 ff.
52
Chevereau 1985, 187, Doc. 287.
53
‘The land of Egypt was administered in the manner traditional to the
Pharaohs: the old-style royal offices of nomarch, royal scribe, village scribe or
village officer (komogrammateus or komarch) continued in being; except for the
first on the list, they were predominantly exercised by Egyptians’ (Turner 1984,
145, speaking of the administration under Ptolemy II and III).

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Bothmer, B. v., et al.,
1960 Egyptian Sculpture of the Late Period 700 BC to AD 100, New York.
Bowman, A.K., and Rogan, E. (eds.)
1999 Agriculture in Egypt from Pharaonic to Modern Times, Oxford.
Chevereau, P.-M.
1985 Prosopographie des cadres militaires égyptiens de la Basse Epoque. Carrières
militaires et carrières sacerdotales en Egypte du XI e au II e siècle avant J.C.,
Antony.
Clère, J.J.
1951 ‘Une statuette du fils aîné du roi Nectanabô’, Revue d’égyptologie 6,
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1999 ‘Rural Egypt in the 1840s’, in Bowman and Rogan 1999, 301–29.
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1988– Valeurs phonétiques des signes hiéroglyphiques d’époque gréco-romaine,
Montpellier.
De Meulenaere, H.
1959 ‘Les stratèges indigènes du nome tentyrite à la fin de l’époque ptolé-
maïque et au début de l’occupation romaine’, Rivista degli Studi Orientali
34, 1–25.
Derchain-Urtel, M.T.
1999 Epigraphische Untersuchungen zur griechisch-römischen Zeit in Ägypten.
Ägypten und altes Testament 43, Wiesbaden.
Erman, A., and Grapow, H. (eds.)
1926–53 Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache, 12 vols., Leipzig.
Fairman, H.W.
1943 ‘Notes on the alphabetical signs employed in the hieroglyphic inscriptions
of the Temple of Edfu’, Annales du Service des Antiquités 43, 193–310.
Goudriaan, K.
1988 Ethnicity in Ptolemaic Egypt, Dutch Monographs on Ancient History and
Archaeology V, Amsterdam.
Héral, S.
1990 ‘Deux equivalents démotiques du titre de nomarchv"’, Chronique d’Egypte
65, 304–20.
1992 ‘Archives bilingues de nomarques dans les papyrus de Ghôran’, in J.H.
Johnson, (ed.) Life in a Multi-cultural Society: Egypt from Cambyses to
Constantine and beyond, Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 51.
Chicago, 149–57.
Huss, W.
1994 ‘Das Haus des Nektanebis und das Haus des Ptolemaios’, Ancient Society
25, 111–17.
Kees, H.
1961 Ancient Egypt, a Cultural Topography. London.
Koenen L.
1993 ‘The Ptolemaic king as a religious figure’, in A. Bulloch et al. (eds.)
Images and Ideologies. Self-definition in the Hellenistic World, Berkeley,
Los Angeles and London, 22–115.
Kuhlmann, K.P.
1998 ‘Ptolemais – the demise of a spurious queen (Apropos JE 43610)’,
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Lloyd, A.B.
2000 ‘The late period 664–331’, in I. Shaw (ed.) The Oxford History of Ancient
Egypt, Oxford, 369–421.
Manning, J.G.
1999 ‘The land-tenure regime in Ptolemaic Upper Egypt’, in Bowman and
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Montet, P.
1961 Géographie de l’Egypte ancienne II, Paris.
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XXXVII, 1975, no. 78, Brussels.
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et des classes dirigeantes à l’époque hellénistique, Studia Hellenistica 23,
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1953 Prosopographia Ptolemaica, Studia Hellenistica 9, Louvain.
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1971 ‘Ptolémée II en adoration devant Arsinoé II divinisée’, Bulletin de l’institut
français d’archéologie orientale 69, 191–217.
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Sethe, K.
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and R.M. Ogilvie (eds.) CAH vii2.1, The Hellenistic World, Cambridge,
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1914 Scholia in Theocritum vetera, Leipzig.
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 8

FAMILIES IN EARLY PTOLEMAIC EGYPT

Dorothy J. Thompson

When Alexander of Macedon took Egypt from the Persians in 332 bc his
conquest marked the start of a strong and long-lasting Greek presence in
Egypt. But Egypt was not alone. Elsewhere in the former Persian Empire
those Macedonians and Greeks who accompanied or followed Alexander
settled and made their new homes. In considering Egypt, I am really
involved in a case study, since Egypt is one of the few areas where we can
begin to trace Greek impact on and reaction to the existing culture and
society of this new hellenistic world. The context, then, for this study
of the family is a broad one. The study itself is one in detail, involving
a demographic investigation of tax material from the third century bc.
In her study of Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece, Sarah Pomeroy
based her careful picture of the hellenistic family in Egypt primarily on the
texts of one particular tax-man’s dossier and, in doing this, she acknowl-
edged the possibility that the publication of further evidence might change
the picture.1 In what follows, some of what I argue runs counter to her
conclusions on the nature of Greek family structure among the settler
families of Ptolemaic Egypt in the third century bc. Nevertheless, the
pioneering importance of her work in this area should be acknowledged.2 In
bringing some new material into the discussion, I am also here concerned
as much with the Egyptians as with the early Greek settlers in Egypt. In
the main, however, it is documents which have already been published
– in the two main languages of Ptolemaic Egypt, in Greek and in demotic
– that I exploit to investigate family size and structure, and possible ethnic
difference between the two main groups of the population – the Egyptians
and Greeks – in the first hundred years of Ptolemaic rule that followed
Alexander’s death in 323 bc.
First, the material which lies at the base of this study. The documents
used here will shortly be published (or republished) as part of larger project,
as the first part (P.Count) of W. Clarysse and D.J. Thompson, Counting the
People. P.Count consists of a group of texts produced in connection with
the Ptolemaic census and the collection of the salt-tax, the main personal

137
Dorothy J. Thompson

tax which was levied on the basis of this census.3 These texts have all
been preserved as mummy casing, as papyri, that is, mixed with lime and
recycled as a form of papier mâché used to provide covering for a mummy,
as head-pieces, pectorals, and even shoes.
There are two main forms of register. First, there are household listings in
which individual households form the organizing principle and, secondly,
there are occupational registers in which household information has been
subordinated to occupational categories.4 In this form, our registers are
those of adult taxpayers, with names, relationships and family totals
recorded; in just one exceptional case the ages of some of the taxpayers
are also provided.5 That information was standard in the Roman period
but earlier, as the system was developing, age indications are rarely found.
What, then, Clarysse and I can do with our material is far less than Bagnall
and Frier did with the Roman census material in their important demo-
graphic study on Roman Egypt.6 It is only through use of the comparative
material from the Roman period that we can posit hypotheses on the age
structure of the population, on the age gap in married couples, and on the
fertility and life expectancy of different groups in the population. Neverthe-
less, by turning the names of our taxpayers into numbers and by classifying
those registers where household totals survive, we can begin to build up
a picture of family and household structure from what at first sight might
seem quite unpromising material.
And whereas Bagnall and Frier had somewhat under 300 census declara-
tions from a period of 250 years that formed the basis of their study, our
database of Ptolemaic tax-households numbers 427, all from a few decades
within one period – from the third century bc. Besides being limited in time,
this material is further limited in its geographical scope. Given the damper
climate of the coast, no papyri have survived from Alexandria or from the
Delta, except in carbonized form. All our texts come from mummy-casing
from Middle Egypt, from just two administrative areas – from the Fayum,
known as the Arsinoite nome, and from the Oxyrhynchite nome; we lack
comparable registers from the south. Our texts, as already mentioned, are in
both Greek and demotic, and the collocation of these two bodies of material
is an essential part of the enterprise. Within the database, when details are
known, we tag our families as Greek or Egyptian.
Here we meet our first problem – the problem of the identification of
‘Greeks’ and ‘Egyptians’. This has nothing to do with the language of the
text but is essentially the question of how far the nationality of names
can be seen as an indication of the nationality of those that carried them.
Earlier, it was generally accepted that in the first century of Ptolemaic
rule, such an identification was possible.7 Recent work, however, has

138
 Families in early Ptolemaic Egypt

demonstrated that in some cases the same individuals might be known by

either a Greek or an Egyptian name, depending on the context. Thus in
one context a man may appear as Seleukos; in another he was known by
his Egyptian name of Sokonopis.8
There is, further, the question of Hellenic status – to be Hellen in Greek
or Wynn in demotic was a favoured tax-status rather than an indication
of ethnic origin – and it becomes clear from our texts that some at least
who enjoyed this status, though they might be known by names that were
Greek, in fact derived from families where other family members had names
that were Egyptian.9 Along with a whole host of other ethnic indicators,
names form just one identifier, and sometimes they may be misleading.
So when I here use the terms ‘Greek’ and ‘Egyptian’ what I refer to is not
primarily to do with origin but is shorthand rather for those who presented
themselves and were accepted by others as belonging to one or the other
sector of what was, in effect, a developing and quite complex society.
Nevertheless, as we shall see, there is sufficient difference to be docu-
mented between these two groups to allow the conclusion that most of
those with Greek names were what we would call ethnic Greeks and, even
if some of those with Egyptian names might actually enjoy Hellenic tax-
status, most were probably of good Egyptian background.
The second necessary preliminary is to remind the reader that since this
is tax-material with which are dealing, it is adults only that are listed. We
lack the names or numbers of the children – a real disadvantage, and again
one that contrasts poorly with the Roman data.
What comes out of this material? What can we learn of early Ptolemaic
families? First, there was a notable difference in the average size of Greek
and Egyptian families of the third century bc. (‘Families’ are what we call
the units made up of related family members, without any extra non-kin
members. ‘Households’, in contrast, are what we call the larger units, where
non-kin family dependents and slaves are added to the family group.) The
size of a family unit, as indeed that of a household, will differ according to
a range of demographic, economic and cultural factors. The age at marriage
of offspring with its related effect on fertility, whether or not the newly
married couple form a separate menage or stay living at home, the accepted
treatment of elderly parents, whether a family is urban or rural and the social
and economic status of the household head are all of them factors likely to
affect the size of a family unit. So too, it seems, from what we find, was the
ethnic affiliation of the family – whether it was Egyptian or Greek.
On the figures of our database, the average number of adults to a family
unit was 2.75. That is the figure for both Greeks and Egyptians together.
To work from this relatively secure figure – insofar, that is, as any figures

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Dorothy J. Thompson

compiled for fiscal ends can ever be secure – to an average family size
including children is far less certain. Without sure knowledge of the age-
range of the tax-paying population covered in our registers, any multiplier
adopted for this calculation involves an element of guess-work. If we adopt
the multiplier of 2.909 derived from the Roman material and apply it to the
figure of tax-paying males, we get the following results: 4.2 for an average
family size, 4.0 for Egyptians and 4.4 for Greeks (see Table 1).10

Table 1. Full family size (third century bc).

No. of males No. of families Average size

All families 618 425 4.2
Egyptian families 354 255 4.0
Greek families 248 162 4.4

Although only approximate, these figures are probably within the right
range. From the Roman census material, where children are recorded,
Bagnall and Frier reckoned an average of 4.3 for ‘principal resident families’.
The most striking feature of these figures is the somewhat larger size of
Greek families. This is a feature that we shall find recurs elsewhere in our
material.
Greeks then – or those families where the name of the household
head was Greek – lived in larger than average families as can be clearly
seen in Table 2 together with Fig. 1, where family totals in the database
as a whole (black) are followed by those for Greek (white) and Egyptian
(grey) families, divided according to the ethnic affinity of the name of the
household head. Adults only are recorded here.

Table 2. Family size in the third century bc (adults only).

Family size All families Greek families Egyptian families

No. % No. % No. %
1-adult families 76 17.8 49 30.2 27 10.5
2-adult families 167 39.2 44 27.2 119 46.5
3-adult families 83 19.5 28 17.3 55 21.5
4-adult families 50 11.7 20 12.3 29 11.3
5-adult families 18 4.2 5 3.1 12 4.7
6-adult families 15 3.5 6 3.7 9 3.5
7-adult families 9 2.1 4 2.5 3 1.2
8-adult families 4 0.9 2 1.2 2 0.8
9-adult families 3 0.7 3 1.9
12-adult families 1 0.2 1 0.6
Totals 426 162 256

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 Families in early Ptolemaic Egypt

50
45 All Greeks Egyptians
40 Percentages are given on
the vertical axis for
35 families of different sizes
30 (see Table 2 above)
25
20
15
10
5
0
1-adult families

2-adult families

3-adult families

4-adult families

5-adult families

6-adult families

7-adult families

8-adult families

9-adult families

12-adult families
Fig. 1. Family size in the third century bc (adults only).

Fig. 1 clearly shows two things: first that 2 adult-households were by far the
most common form of family unit, and secondly that, whilst at the upper
end of the scale no Egyptian family home contained more than 8 adults,
Greek families listed in our tax-data might number up to 12 adults.
When non-kin family members are added to our data, then the contrast
between Greeks and Egyptians becomes even stronger. Table 3 records the
average size of a household, including children (reckoned once again on
the basis of adult males x 2.909):

Table 3. Full household size (third century bc).

No. of males No. of households Average size

All households 651 425 4.5
Egyptian households 355 255 4.0
Greek households 280 162 5.0

For families, there was an average of 2.75 adults to a unit; for households,
the average stood at 2.97, with 2.7 for Egyptian households and 3.3 for
Greek. When calculated to include children, the average size is 4.5, for
Egyptians the number remains the same as for families (4.0) but the size
for an average Greek household stands at 5.0.

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Dorothy J. Thompson

The difference between these two sets of figures – for families and
households – is accounted for by the non-kin dependents that are listed
in many of the larger Greek households: the wet-nurses, household or
workshop slaves, and a variety of other pastoral and agricultural depend-
ents, who have the effect of making the larger families into even larger
households, as illustrated in Table 4 with Fig. 2 below:

Table 4: Household size in the third century bc (adults only).

Household size All households Greeks Egyptians

No. % No. % No. %
1-adult households 70 16.4 44 27.0 26 10.2
2-adult households 163 38.2 40 24.5 119 46.5
3-adult households 82 19.2 29 17.8 53 20.7
4-adult households 50 11.7 18 11.0 31 12.1
5-adult households 22 5.2 8 4.9 13 5.1
6-adult households 13 3.0 4 2.5 9 3.5
7-adult households 15 3.5 10 6.1 3 1.2
8-adult households 4 0.9 2 1.2 2 0.8
9-adult households 2 0.5 2 1.2
11-adult households 2 0.5 2 1.2
13-adult households 1 0.2 1 0.6
14-adult households 1 0.2 1 0.6
15-adult households 1 0.2 1 0.6
22-adult households 1 0.2 1 0.6
Totals 427 163 256

From the evidence of all 427 households, it is clear that two adults still
formed the most common unit, representing also the unit of habitation for
the largest group in the population. At the upper end of the scale, however,
the size of household units is noticeably larger than found for families
only. And when these household figures are broken down according to the
ethnic affinity of the household head, a more varied picture emerges. The
larger households of the Greeks are striking. They illustrate well the settler
position within third-century society, a position of predominance that was
reinforced by the number of household slaves and other dependent staff
who are documented for these households. With one household of 22 (it
is unknown how many of these were actual family members), one each of
13, 14 and 15 adults, and two of 11 and 9, the larger Greek households
stand out in contrast to those of Egyptians, where the largest households are
those of 8 adults. Slaveholding is found to be primarily a Greek phenom-
enon, as too is the occurrence of other resident household staff: cowherds,
shepherds, goatherds and agricultural workers.

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 Families in early Ptolemaic Egypt

50
All Greeks Egyptians
45
Percentages are given on
40 the vertical axis for
households of different sizes
35 (see Table 4 above)

30

25

20

15

10

0
1-adult households

2-adult households

3-adult households

4-adult households

5-adult households

6-adult households

7-adult households

8-adult households

9-adult households

11-adult households

13-adult households

14-adult households

15-adult households

22-adult households

Fig. 2. Household size in the third century bc (adults only).

Size of household is, however, just one way of documenting difference.

Marked differences are also found in other areas – like the occupation of
the household head. The larger Greek households are, not surprisingly,
those of the military settlers. All Greek households made up of more than
10 taxpayers are headed by military men, by cavalry cleruchs settled with
land in the Arsinoite and Oxyrhynchite nomes known from texts dated
230–229 bc. It was the cavalry cleruchs who, without a doubt, formed the
elite of the rural landscape in the third century bc. These were the economic-
ally privileged of Ptolemaic society, and their larger houses and households
are just one more sign of this status. As we know from their further desig-
nation as 100-aroura cleruchs, at this date the immigrant cavalry settlers
were also endowed with large plots of land – 100 arouras is 27.5 hectares
or some 67 acres. The evidence of our salt-tax registers now allows us to
recognize this wealth and status also in terms of the size of their households.
And in these particular cases, the use of Greek names does on the whole

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Dorothy J. Thompson

appear coterminous with origin and ethnicity. These cavalry cleruchs were
probably immigrant Greeks and, in the case of the Oxyrhynchite settlers of
two of our texts, more specifically Greeks from Cyrene.11 Their domination
in terms of both land and household size is a feature of Ptolemaic Egypt in
this period, at least in this part of Egypt.
In the meantime, the Egyptian inhabitants of the country lived in far
smaller households. Simple households of two adult taxpayers formed the
most common unit, and many of these were of conjugal pairs. And in the
smaller units of those with Egyptian names the reality of everyday life for
the native population in the new society of Ptolemaic Egypt can be found
reflected. How far life had changed from under the Persian overlords
cannot be known. Nevertheless, it is clear that the smaller households of
the Egyptian villagers form a notable measure of their lesser economic status
in rural society. Their smaller plots of land belonged to the crown and, in
contrast to the cleruchic land of the settlers, there were rents to pay on them.
Their households were smaller; they lacked the family backup and the slaves
that form a more regular feature of the larger homes of the settlers.
So far we have been considering simply the size of the different units
within the population but our data allow us to go somewhat further. And
if Ptolemaic Egypt is to be added to the demographic discussion of family
history, then some analysis must be made of the types of families found.
Was it primarily the nuclear family that is documented or perhaps the
more extended and multiple families that have been seen as typical of pre-
modern Mediterranean forms of domestic organization? The categorization
of family types, the so-called ‘Cambridge typology’ developed by Peter
Laslett and his colleagues for work on the family history in Europe, is the
framework adopted by Bagnall and Frier in their study of census returns
from Roman Egypt. Since this is by far the closest material for comparison
with our data, it seems right to employ the same categorization here.
The central categories of this typology, in the simplified form used by
Bagnall and Frier, are as follows:12

Table 5. Cambridge family typology.

1. Solitary persons; those who live alone, whatever their marital status.
2. Multiple persons with no conjugal family present (mainly co-resident siblings).
3. Simple family households; conjugal families in their various phases (from a married couple
without children, through to a formerly married parent with unmarried children).
4. Conjugal families extended through the presence of co-resident kin; groups of co-resident
siblings with only one brother married.
5. Multiple families, usually linked by kinship. This includes both households in which
children remain after they marry and frérèches consisting of co-resident siblings, more than
one of whom is married.
6. Incompletely classifiable households.

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 Families in early Ptolemaic Egypt

It is important to realize that this is primarily a family typology based on

the kin group, those co-residential individuals who make up the family
group. Non-kin dependents, whether slave or free, have no effect on the
classification used to describe the family members. Their presence or
absence, of course, as we have just noted, is crucial to any assessment of
the economic and social role of the household, but in the categories used
for classification that presence is not a visible one. With this proviso and
with the reminder that our information is always for tax-households – for
adults only – we may look at the composite picture of our Ptolemaic family
forms. First (Table 6 and Fig. 3) comes a summary typology of family
types, with details for Greeks and Egyptians, both separately and combined,
followed (in Table 7 and Fig. 4) by the numbers of adults living in these
different types of family.

Table 6. Family structure by type (third century bc).

Types All Greeks Egyptians

No. % No. % No. %
1. Solitaries 76 17.8 49 30.1 27 10.5
2. No conjugal family 14 3.3 6 3.7 8 3.1
3. Conjugal families 188 44.0 61 37.4 123 48.0
4. Extended families 51 11.9 21 12.9 29 11.3
5. Multiple families 75 17.6 19 11.6 54 21.1
6. Non-classifiable 23 5.4 7 4.3 15 5.9
Totals 427 163 256
1+3 combined 264 61.8 110 67.5 150 58.6

70
All Greeks Egyptians
60 Percentages are given on the vertical axis for
different family types (see Table 6 above)
50

40

30

20

10

0
Type 1

Type 2

Type 3

Type 4

Type 5

Type 6

Types 1+3

Fig. 3. Family structure by type (third century bc).

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Dorothy J. Thompson

Table 7. Adults by family type (third century bc).

Types All Greeks Egyptians

No. % No. % No. %
1. Solitaries 85 6.7 57 10.6 28 4.0
2. No conjugal family 37 2.9 18 3.4 19 2.7
3. Conjugal families 467 36.7 187 34.8 272 38.7
4. Extended families 191 15.0 97 18.1 90 12.8
5. Multiple families 395 31.1 134 25.0 249 35.4
6. Non-classifiable 96 7.6 44 8.2 45 6.4
Totals 1271 537 703
1 + 3 combined 552 43.4 244 45.4 300 42.7

50
45 All Percentages are given on the vertical
40 Greeks axis for adults in various types of family
35 Egyptians (see Table 7 above)
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Type 1

Type 2

Type 3

Type 4

Type 5

Type 6

Types 1+3

Fig. 4. Adults by family type (third century bc).

Several features immediately stand out. First to note (Fig. 3) is the

large number of solitaries (type 1) among these families, especially among
the Greeks for whom this type accounts for over 30% of all households
containing nearly 11% of family members. In part, this imbalance derives
from one specific list, where numerous singleton women are recorded in
an army context.13 This is a particularly difficult and incomplete register
which constantly skews our results. But the problem of solitaries is also in
part the result of the composition of our data, recording adults only. Were
children listed, some of the apparently single women would doubtless turn
into mothers with children and move from type 1 to type 3; the presence of
children would certainly have modified the picture. This is why, at the foot
of Tables 6 and 7 (and to the right of Figs. 3 and 4), types 1 (solitaries) and
3 (conjugal families) have been amalgamated. This gives a far fairer picture

146
 Families in early Ptolemaic Egypt

of reality than does the straight application of this family classification to

records of adults only.
Next, among both groups, as is clear from Fig. 3, it is the conjugal
family (type 3) which accounts for by far the largest family type. For all
households, some 44% belong to this type, with (Fig. 4) almost 37% of all
adults living in this type of menage. When the material is divided into the
two main groups we find that such households were more common among
Egyptians – 48% of all Egyptian households with almost 39% of adults
– than among Greeks – 37% of households with almost 35% of adults.
The same material can be presented to show the gender divide, with
adult numbers of males and females for the different family types. (In
using ‘males’ and ‘females’, we adopt the bureaucratic jargon of the original
documents where tax-persons, somata, are divided into male, arsenika, and
female, theluka). The gender breakdown for Greeks (Table 8 with Fig. 5)
and then for Egyptians, by both family and household (Table 9 with
Fig. 6), is as follows:14

Table 8. Gender breakdown for Greek families and households.

Types Family adults Household adults

m. f. total % m. f. total %
1. Solitaries 24 25 49 11.0 27 30 57 10.6
2. No conjugal family 7 8 15 3.4 9 9 18 3.4
3. Conjugal families 89 67 157 35.3 102 84 187 34.8
4. Extended families 48 35 83 18.7 58 39 97 18.1
5. Multiple families 58 41 99 22.2 62 50 134 25.0
6. Non-classifiable 22 20 42 9.4 22 22 44 8.2
All 248 196 445 280 234 537

40
Fam. male The vertical axis
35 records percent-
Fam. females
30 ages for the gender
Hhold males
breakdown of
25 Hhold females males and females
20 in Greek families
and households
15 according to
10 the Cambridge
typology (see
5
Tables 8 and 5).
0
Type 1

Type 2

Type 3

Type 4

Type 5

Type 6

Fig. 5. Gender breakdown for Greek families and households.

147
Dorothy J. Thompson

Table 9. Gender breakdown for Egyptian families and households.

Types Family adults Household adults

m. f. total % m. f. total %
1. Solitaries 16 11 27 3.9 16 12 28 4.0
2. No conjugal family 16 3 19 2.7 16 3 19 2.7
3. Conjugal families 128 139 270 38.7 129 140 272 38.7
4. Extended families 42 48 90 12.9 42 48 90 12.8
5. Multiple families 129 117 246 35.3 129 120 249 35.4
6. Non-classifiable 23 22 45 6.5 23 22 45 6.4
All 354 340 697 355 345 703

45 The vertical
40 Fam. male
axis records
Fam. females
35 percentages
Hhold males
30 for the gender
Hhold females breakdown
25
of males and
20
females in
15 Egyptian
10 families and
5 households
0 according to
the Cambridge
Type 1

Type 2

Type 3

Type 4

Type 5

Type 6

typology (see
Tables 9 and 5).

Fig. 6. Gender breakdown for Egyptian families and households.

In considering this information, it is family rather than the household

adults which are of greater interest. Once again, the solitaries category
(type 1) causes problems and since knowledge of children in households
would change this picture, let alone the problem of the one rogue register
already mentioned, it seems best simply to ignore this group. As already
noted, it is the conjugal family which accounts for by far the most common
family type, somewhat more common among Egyptians than Greeks. In
this particular group, where adult sons and daughters are quite often
present in the nuclear (or simple family) household, it is the low number
of females among the Greeks which is immediately striking (Table 8 with
Fig. 5). Of Greeks in conjugal families (type 3), women formed only 43%
of family members (67 females compared with 89 males), whereas for
Egyptians (Table 9 with Fig. 6), the proportion of women in conjugal
menages stood at 52% (139 females to 128 males). Since women married
earlier than men one might expect a smaller number of females also among

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 Families in early Ptolemaic Egypt

Egyptian conjugal families. This is not, however, the case. In this particular
family type among the Egyptians, as just noted, females outnumbered the
males. Besides the daughters still living at home, five two-female menages
are in part responsible for this feature; at least four of these were of a mother
and adult daughter. Further, two cases of bigamy added to the number
of women in Egyptian conjugal families of type 3; both wives were listed
within the same household.
For Greeks, overall, two features stand out. First, as just noted for conjugal
families, there is the overall feature of the lower number of females (see
Table 8). Whereas in family types 1, 2, and 6 women slightly outnumber
men, in types 3, 4 and 5 the family sex ratio is noticeably elevated, with
men outnumbering the women. Sex ratios are always expressed in relation
to 100 women. A sex ratio of 105 means that there are 105 men to 100
women, a low ratio of 88 involves far fewer men, with just 88 or them to
every 100 women. In conjugal families, then, in extended and multiple
families (types 3, 4 and 5) among the Greeks, the sex ratio stood at 132.8,
137.1 and 141.5, with an average for these three groups of 136.4. Fuller
details for this phenomenon is provided in Table 10 below:

Table 10. Sex ratios in Greek families.

Types m. f. total as % sex ratio

1. Solitaries 24 25 49 11.0 96.0
2. No conjugal family 07 08 15 3.4 87.5
3. Conjugal families 89 67 157 35.3 132.8
4. Extended families 48 35 83 18.7 137.1
5. Multiple families 58 41 99 22.2 141.5
6. Non-classifiable 22 20 42 9.4 110.0
Totals 248 196 445 100.0 126.5

There is overall, it is clear, an under-representation of females in these

groups, with far fewer daughters than sons recorded.
It is this feature that I want to explore further – the apparent shortage
of females among certain Greek family groups in our database. First,
however, let us put some flesh and bones onto these facts and figures. In
one of the census declarations made for the salt-tax, we find the following
group: a military man Leptines from Pisidia, his wife Hedyle, their four
sons Glaukias, Moirikon (or Myrikon), Nikandros and Theophilos, and
their daughter Baia, together with an extensive household of slaves,
most probably – given their numbers – workshop slaves in two different
locations.15 The typicality of this Greek army family, with four sons but just

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Dorothy J. Thompson

one daughter, becomes clear only when placed in the context of the wider
set of data just presented. For it is only when we can quantify our data that
we can begin to think in terms of the typical ‘Greek’ or ‘Egyptian’ family.
How representative is the material of our database? A glance at what we
know of contemporary sex ratios can perhaps be used to support the wider
applicability of our material, at least for the mid-third century bc. Sex
ratios are one of the most important, yet elusive, demographic factors that
affect the changing structure of a population and its different household
patterns. These ratios, in turn, are themselves the product of demographic
factors – the sex ratio at birth, age at marriage, fertility levels, or differential
mortality rates. All of these, of course, are influenced both by local and
more general factors, but this is particularly the case for rates of mortality.
In more recent Egypt, for instance, bilharzia has been a major underlying
cause of disease and death with a greater risk to males, who work in the
fields, than to females, whose contact with Nile water is less frequent; this
seems likely to have been an ancient problem too.16 Males too bear the
brunt of warfare, though in Egypt of the third century bc this particular
hazard was one more likely to affect the minority Greek population than
Egyptians. For women, in contrast, the dangers of childbirth and of disease
that attacks the undernourished have always been serious problems. Above
all, however, a differential sex ratio results from different cultural and social
attitudes within a given society. If the most extreme example is that of
contemporary China, where a one-child policy combined with a preference
for sons has seriously affected the natural ratio, imbalances in the sex ratio
are to be found in a wide range of societies in all historical periods. This is
equally the case in our material.
Table 11 presents the sex ratios surviving in our material. In this table,
figures in italics are (reasonably safely) supplied and the final column to the
right gives what is a rough guide to the major component of the population
concerned: E(gyptian), G(reek) or M(ixed).

Table 11. Adult sex ratios from Ptolemaic tax-documents.

Population with reference males females ratio pop.

Arsinoite nome: P.Count 1 (254–231 bc) 28,512 30,197 94.4 M
Cleruchs?: P.Count 1 (254–231 bc) 3,472 3,147 110.3 G
Serving cavalry: P.Count 1 (254–231 bc) 1,426 1,080 132.0 G
Total army: P.Count 1 (254–231 bc) 4,898 4,227 115.8 G
Civilian adult population: P.Count 1 23,614 25,970 90.9 M
Arsinoite villagers 8,163 7,980 102.3 M
Themistos tax-area: P.Count 2.475–477 (229 bc) 5,245 5,631 93.1 M
District A for Year 19: P.Count 2.470 1,174 1,210 97.0 M
District B for Year 18: P.Count 3.1–5 (229 bc) 1,289 1,229 104.9 M

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 Families in early Ptolemaic Egypt

District B for Year 19: P.Count 2.471; 3.6–9 860 829 103.7 M
District C for Year 18: P.Count 3.139–143 740 838 88.3 M
District C for Year 19: P.Count 2.472; 3.144–147 727 852 85.3 M
District D for Year 19: P.Count 2.473 1,266 1,399 90.5 M
District E for Year 19: P.Count 2.474 1,218 1,351 90.2 M
‘Hellenes’ within this tax-area: P.Count 2.484 862 894 96.4 G
Village families: P.Count 2.1–145 37 34 108.8 E
Cavalry + veteran families: P.Count 2.278–434 53 30 176.7 G
Cavalry + veteran households: P.Count 2.278–434 69 48 143.8 G
Themistos meris: P.Count 11.28–31 (243–210 bc) 8,795 8,253 106.5 M
District A: P.Count 11.28–31 789 793 99.5 M
District B: P.Count 11.28–31 782 713 109.7 M
District C: P.Count 11.28–31 1,288 1,183 108.9 M
District D: P.Count 11.28–31 1,514 1,644 92.1 M
District E: P.Count 11.28–31 926 840 110.2 M
District F: P.Count 11.28–31 917 752 121.9 M
District G: P.Count 11.28–31 628 573 109.6 M
District H: P.Count 11.28–31 574 513 111.9 M
District I: P.Count 11.28–31 1,377 1,242 110.9 M
Herakleides meris: P.Count 12.135–138 (243–210 bc) 5,352 5,067 105.6 M
Polemon meris: P.Count 8.1–3 (243–210), tax-district 806 954 84.5 M
Herakleopolite tax-area: P.Count 45.3–5 (243–210 bc) 5,645 5,480 103.0 M
Database adults: family figures without dependents 618 551 112.2 M
Database adults: household figures with dependents 651 594 109.6 M
Egyptian families 354 340 104.1 E
Egyptian households 355 345 102.9 E
Greek families 248 196 126.5 G
Greek households 280 234 119.7 G
Greek epigonoi, Oxyrhynchite: P.Count 47 (230 bc) 151 223 67.7 G
Lykopolite villagers: P.Count 53 (second century) 181 178 101.7 E

The ratios of our database can be found towards the foot of the column.
For families overall the ratio is 112 (110 for households). These are then
broken down, where names are known, into Egyptians and Greeks. It is
the figure of 126.5 males to 100 females for Greek family adults which is
where we started this investigation.
Two features of these different ratios may be noted. First, not surprisingly,
it is clear that the smaller the sample, the more variation there is likely to be
in the sex ratio. A larger population, such as that for the Arsinoite nome, at
the very head of the list, is in practice made up of many different families
and mixed communities that individually exhibit a wide range of different
ratios. This can be seen most clearly in the make-up of the civilian tax-areas
recorded in P.Count 2–3 and P.Count 11, where apparently wild fluctuations
between the different constituent districts may be charted. How are these
differences to be explained? Either the quality of our records is responsible
or real differences in the gender distribution are to be found in different
sections of the population. Figures, however, for tax-areas and districts are

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Dorothy J. Thompson

still relatively large, and it is at a lower level that the greatest anomalies
appear. So, among the community of the Greek epigonoi in P.Count 47,
the high number of females, which has kept skewing our ‘solitaries’ figures,
results in an exceptional adult ratio of just 68 males to 100 females; the total
number here, however, is small (374) and the list is not complete. Fluctua-
tions like this are interesting, but hardly of broader relevance.
Among Greek army families, the picture is different and distinctive.
Indeed, the second feature of this material is the higher ratio found in all
our data (with the familiar exception of P.Count 47) for the Greek sector
of the community – for those households, that is, where the name of the
household head is Greek. This appears most clearly in the army figures
for the Arsinoite nome given at the head of the table (the fourth item
down), where an overall army ratio of 116 is made up of a comparatively
higher ratio of 132 for the serving cavalry, the misthophoroi hippeis, and of
a somewhat lower ratio of 110 for the larger group, most probably that of
the cleruchs. A similar ratio, as already noted, is found for the Greeks in
our database (126.5), including both Arsinoite and Oxyrhynchite army
families. The contrast with Egyptians in the database is striking; among
Egyptian family members the sex ratio is 104.
What are we to make of this? An explanation for the marked difference
in ratio between the two main groups of Egyptians and Greeks might be
made in terms of differential social practices, in terms of either conceal-
ment of females by their families in registration or neglect of females by
the recorders. The latter is less likely at this period than later under the
Romans, when women were no longer liable to tax. Under the Ptolemies,
when women were liable for the salt-tax in the same way as men, it was in
the interests of both the wider administration and the tax-collectors that
women too were recorded. The concealment of females in registration is,
further, inherently unlikely, since girls were more likely to be at home than
were their brothers when officials came round.
A further explanation for the difference between Greeks and Egyptians
may lie in their different attitudes to the birth of daughters. Despite
Pomeroy’s claims that it is first in Roman Egypt that good evidence is
found for the exposure of children, what we find in this early Ptolemaic
material points the other way.17 Classical writers were struck by the fact
that the natural wealth of Egypt supported its population. ‘And [sc. among
the Egyptians] of necessity they raise all the children born to them in order
to increase the population … ’ is how Diodorus Siculus reported on the
practices of Egypt, where a large population was considered the key to
wealth and prosperity for both cities and countryside.18 And Strabo, who
visited Egypt under the early empire, commented that ‘one of the customs

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 Families in early Ptolemaic Egypt

most zealously observed among the Egyptians is this, that they rear every
child that is born … ’.19 In Strabo’s observation, we should perhaps read an
implicit contrast with practices elsewhere.
The higher sex ratios for Greeks that are clear in our tax-material, when
compared with those for Egyptians, might seem to provide supporting
evidence for the practice of selective infanticide (for femicide, that is) or
– more probably – for exposure within this sector of the community. That
this was standard practice is suggested by a first-century bc temple ruling,
from the Greek city of Ptolemais in southern Egypt, which specifies a purifi-
cation period of fourteen days for the partner of a woman exposing a child.20
Pomeroy attempts to discount this particular piece of evidence,21 but in
my view it forms part of what is now a wider picture of the possible fate of
daughters among the settler population of Ptolemaic Egypt. Of course, not
all girls were exposed – Leptines did have one daughter Baia and this was
not an uncommon case. Indeed, first daughters, especially if also first child,
were more likely to have been reared, insofar as rearing was possible in such
a society with high perinatal mortality for both mother and child.
If the imbalance between the two sexes that we have found within the
Greek sector of the population is to be explained in terms of selective
infanticide or exposure, we are left with the problem of the excess of
males, not all of whom can have found Greek wives. Where would they
find their future wives? Here again the evidence of our database can come
into play. Here we find that, as always in such an immigrant situation,
some intermarriage with native women by settlers was practised from the
start. And, insofar as names can be used to signal ethnic background, the
evidence is very telling. Out of the 85 household heads with Greek names
in our database who are both male and married, 75 have wives whose
names survive; of these, 68 wives (91%) were also Greek while just seven
(9%) had names that were Egyptian. Some intermarriage of Greeks with
the native population is clear. On the Egyptian side, however, much was
unchanged. Not a single household head in our database whose name is
Egyptian appears with a Greek-named wife. It is clear that poaching across
the ethnic divide was a one-way matter. Within the traditional occupa-
tional groups of Egypt, to judge from the names, endogamy continued
to be practised. And the recurrence of family names suggests that among
Egyptians close-kin marriage was also quite common. And although there
is no evidence in our tax-registers for brother-sister marriage, there is, as
already mentioned, some for Egyptian polygamy.
To sum up. What I hope that I have shown in this chapter is that from
Egypt the survival of papyrus tax-registers enables us, to some degree, to
examine demographic questions which cannot be answered elsewhere in

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Dorothy J. Thompson

the ancient world. In the case of the first century of Ptolemaic rule, when
the new Greek settlers, together with their new Macedonian pharaoh, made
their home in this ‘antique land’, they brought with them family practices
and ways transposed into an older traditional society. How far the differ-
ences that we have been looking at here – different sizes of household,
different patterns of family living and different treatment of females – are
a feature just of the different social and, more particularly, the different
economic standing of the settlers and how far they are due to different
cultural practices, or whether, indeed, these different strands can ever be
divided, are questions that remain.

Notes
1
Pomeroy 1997, 229 n. 134.
2
See further, Pomeroy 1993, 1994, 1996.
3
Clarysse and Thompson 1995, on the salt-tax.
4
For examples, see Thompson 1997, 249–51.
5
P.Count 9 (after 251/0 bc).
6
Bagnall and Frier 1994; cf. Bagnall, Frier and Rutherford 1997.
7
e.g. Peremans 1980/81.
8
Clarysse 1992, 55.
9
See Thompson 1997, 247–8; 2001a, 310–11, for tax-Hellenes.
10
Given the fragmentary nature of some of the texts, the total for families is
lower than that for households, and in one case (not included) the gender divide
is unknown.
11
P.Count 46 and 47 (230 bc).
12
See Bagnall and Frier 1994, 59.
13
P.Count 47 (230 bc).
14
Discrepancies in these tables between the total figures and those for males and
females are the result of illegible or incomplete data.
15
P.Lille I.27 = W.Chrest. 199 = Scholl, Corpus 87 (254–231 bc). Arsinoite; on
this text, see further Thompson 2001b.
16
Omran 1973, 18, on contemporary Egypt; Contis and David 1996, 253–5,
on the ancient evidence.
17
Pomeroy 1997, 226, discounting SEG 42.1131 (n. 20 below); but cf. 225,
noting the lack of unmarried daughters in Greek tax-registers.
18
Diodorus Siculus 1.80.3; cf. Polybius 36.17.7–8, control of family-size as
a symptom of decline.
19
Strabo 17.2.5 (C824).
20
SEG 42.1131 with Bingen 1993, 226–7, from Ptolemais (first century bc);
Rowlandson 1998, 65, no. 40, for translation.
21
Pomeroy 1997, 226; but cf. eadem 1993, on the Delphinion inscriptions from
near-contemporary Miletos which, she argues, show a similar picture of infanticide
to that presented here among an immigrant group of new citizens.

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 Families in early Ptolemaic Egypt

Bibliography
Bagnall, R.S., and Frier, B.W.
1994 The Demography of Roman Egypt, Cambridge.
Bagnall, R.S., Frier, B.W. and Rutherford, I.C.
1997 The census register P. Oxy. 984: the reverse of Pindar’s Paeans, Papyrologica
Bruxellensia 29, Bruxelles.
Bingen, J.
1993 ‘La lex sacra SB I 3451 = LSCG. Suppl. 119 (Ptolémaïs, Haute-Égypte)’,
Chronique d’ Égypte 68, 219–28.
Clarysse, W.
1992 ‘Some Greeks in Egypt’, in J.H. Johnson (ed.) Life in a Multi-cultural
Society: Egypt from Cambyses to Constantine and beyond. Studies in
Ancient Oriental Civilization 51, 51–6, Chicago.
Clarysse, W. and Thompson, D.J.
1995 ‘The salt-tax rate once again’, Chronique d’ Égypte 70, 223–9.
Contis, G. and David, A.R.
1996 ‘The epidemiology of bilharzia in ancient Egypt: 5000 years of schisto-
somiasis’, Parasitology Today 12.7, 253–5.
Omran, A.R.
1973 ‘The population of Egypt, past and present’, in A.R. Omran (ed.) Egypt:
Population problems and prospects, 3–38, Chapel Hill, N.C.
Peremans, W.
1980/81 ‘Égyptiens et étrangers en Égypte sous le règne de Ptolémée I’, Ancient
Society 11/12, 213–26.
Pomeroy, S.B.
1993 ‘Infanticide in hellenistic Greece’, in A. Cameron and A. Kuhrt (eds.)
Images of Women in Antiquity, 2nd edn, 207–22, London.
1994 ‘Family history in Ptolemaic Egypt’, in Proceedings of the 20th Interna-
tional Congress of Papyrologists, 593–7, Copenhagen.
1996 ‘Families in Ptolemaic Egypt: continuity, change, and coercion’, in R.W.
Wallace and E.M. Harris (eds.) Transitions to Empire. Essays in Greco-
Roman history, 360–146 BC, in honor of E. Badian, Oklahoma series in
classical culture 21, 241–53, Norman, Okla.
1997 Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece: Representations and realities,
Oxford.
Rowlandson, J.
1998 Women and Society in Greek and Roman Egypt: A sourcebook,
Cambridge.
Scholl, R.
1990 Corpus der ptolemäischen Sklaventexte, Forschungen zur antiken Sklaverei
Beiheft 1, 3 vols., Stuttgart.
Thompson, D.J.
1997 ‘The infrastructure of splendour: census and taxes in Ptolemaic Egypt’, in
P. Cartledge, P. Garnsey and E. Gruen (eds.) Hellenistic Constructs. Essays
in culture, history, and historiography, Hellenistic Culture and Society 26,
254–7, Berkeley, Los Angeles and London.

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Dorothy J. Thompson

2001a ‘Hellenistic Hellenes: the case of Ptolemaic Egypt’, in I. Malkin (ed.)

Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity, 301–22, Cambridge, Mass.
2001b ‘On the importance of being a papyrologist’, in T. Gagos and R.S. Bagnall
(eds.) Essays and Texts in Honor of J. David Thomas, American Studies in
Papyrology 42, 41–4, Exeter.

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 9

THE KING AND HIS LAND:

SOME REMARKS ON THE ROYAL AREA
(BASILIKE ˜ CHO˜RA)
OF HELLENISTIC ASIA MINOR1

Christian Mileta

The title of my paper may suggest different things to different readers.

A specialist in the Middle Ages might perhaps think of the ‘king’s land’ of
the medieval rulers. An ancient historian on the other hand will probably
recall the idea that the hellenistic monarchs owned their entire kingdoms.
Both of these notions, each the product of a long scholarly tradition,
inform current thinking about the part of hellenistic Asia Minor that
belonged to the kings. This area, which comprised a considerable part of
the Anatolian hinterland, is the subject of this paper. I start with two rather
simple observations.
(1) Greeks and indigenous peoples, such as the Lydians and the
Phrygians, had been neighbours in Asia Minor since archaic times without
exerting particularly deep bilateral influences. Poleis like Miletus and
Phocaea founded apoikiai all over the coastal regions of the Mediterranean
and the Black Sea. But the Asian Greeks made no efforts to colonize the
Anatolian hinterland. Obviously they either did not wish, or were unable,
to extend their rule and their culture over territories that were large, far
from the coast and populated by non-Greek peoples.
(2) That situation fundamentally changed when Alexander the Great
conquered Asia Minor and the whole Persian empire. Alexander and all
subsequent rulers were inevitably faced with the task of organizing and
exercising a Graeco-Macedonian type of rule over huge territories with
non-Greek and mostly non-urban social and political structures. In Asia
Minor that problem had obviously been solved by the middle of the second
century bc. For when establishing their direct rule in Asia Minor, the
Romans found its western part to the edges of the Anatolian plateau so
urbanized and its population so deeply hellenized that they turned it into
the province of Asia.

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Christian Mileta

This rapid development of certain parts of Asia Minor’s interior after

Alexander can only be understood in terms of the process of ‘state-
formation’.2 The development of political, social and economic relations
in the Anatolian hinterland was a reflex of the formation of the state within
the individual principalities and kingdoms of Asia Minor, and of the
evolution of this state’s functions and institutions. Previous research into
the hellenistic empires of Asia Minor has focused mainly on the internal
circumstances of the poleis, the military colonies and the great temples,
and the relationship between these entities and the hellenistic monarchs.
The hinterland has received far less attention. Nevertheless there have been
strongly-held ideas about the legal status of this area. According to the
conventional wisdom, the hinterland of Asia Minor was a kind of personal
property of the monarch, while its social structure was feudal.3 Of partic-
ular importance for the following argument is the theory mentioned above,
namely that the hellenistic kings exercised supreme and sole ownership
over all the land within their empires. According to this the kings owned
their empires in a personal sense as ‘spear-won territory’: that is, the kings
were owners of their kingdoms in general and of all land within them in
particular. This right of ownership was based on the conquests made by
themselves or their ancestors.4
In contrast, I want to stress that the hellenistic states were neither feudal
nor based on a constitutional principle. In the beginning they simply and
exclusively rested on the Macedonian monarchy and its military power.5
Later, as the hellenistic kingdoms were formed, they encompassed Greek,
Macedonian, Persian and autochthonous political structures, and these
were all held together by the Macedonian monarchs and by Greek urban
culture. But it must be emphasized that the king was the strongest and
most important factor within the framework of the hellenistic state. And
in Asia Minor there was a second very important factor – the dichotomy
between the poleis, the Greek cities, on the one hand, and the chora, the
Anatolian hinterland, on the other.
This paper deals with a particular part of the hinterland, the area claimed
by the kings. It discusses three aspects of this area, which we will call ‘the
royal area’: first, Alexander’s institution of a special area entirely subject to
the king in the interior of Asia Minor; secondly the proper designation,
extent, and function of this area, and the nature of the internal distinctions
within it; and thirdly the developing relationship of the rulers with ‘their’
area. The aim is to work towards an answer to one of the fundamental
questions of hellenistic history: What role did the hinterland region and
its population play in the formation and the further development of the
hellenistic states in Asia Minor and the hellenistic world as a whole?

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 The king and his land

I
The organization of the area of Asia Minor in question was firmly based
upon the regulations Alexander passed immediately after conquering it. We
must not forget that the conquest of foreign lands does not just bring greater
glory, power and wealth; it also entails the absolute necessity to establish and
secure one’s own rule over those territories. So Alexander needed to replace
the Achaemenid satraps, to appoint military commanders and other officials
and to make decisions on the status of the poleis and the peoples of Asia
Minor.6 He did indeed address these matters, as did his Successors.7 A king
who proved unable to organize and carry out his rule in the right manner
lost his kingdom sooner or later. Thus one of the reasons why the Successor
Demetrios Poliorketes lost Macedonia after being King there for six years was
that the Macedonians were angry with him because he had not exercised his
rule in the right way – he was far more interested in warfare and the life of
luxury than in giving audiences, reading petitions or giving judgements.8
After securing his rule over the conquered parts of Asia Minor, Alexander
needed to find a means of financing the further war against Persia. Towards
this end he had received, it is true, some payments from the members of
the Corinthian League. But his personal means were meagre,9 as he had
given away ‘almost all of the royal property’ (basilika)10 in Macedonia, i.e.
land, villages and the revenues from communities or harbours.11 In effect
the prosecution of the war largely depended upon the resources of Asia
Minor, which made it essential to settle affairs there.
In arranging these affairs Alexander could only in part follow the
common practice of simply confirming the local power structures. This was
because the war had been ideologically projected as a campaign of panhel-
lenic revenge against the Persians. As the campaign’s leader Alexander
could present himself as conqueror only before the indigenous peoples.
In the case of the Greek cities he needed to present himself rather as their
redeemer from the Persian yoke. This entailed giving them a status that at
least outwardly resembled the independence that was the ideal of the polis.
Alexander accomplished this by recognizing the freedom and autonomy
of the poleis and freeing them from the burden of the taxes they had been
paying to the Achaemenids.12 Simultaneously, though, he deprived some
of the poleis of land.
Among the first that had to experience this was Priene. It is true that
Alexander recognized Priene as free and autonomous and released it from
the tribute (syntaxis)13, but he also seized a portion of Priene’s chora. He
decreed that this chora was ‘his’ and that those dwelling in its villages were
to pay phoroi 14, i.e. taxes paid in kind.15 The confiscated chora consisted
of the land and the villages of indigenous Carians, the Myrseloi and the

159
Christian Mileta

Pedieis.16 Obviously the non-urban and indigenous character of these terri-

tories and communities was the decisive factor in their incorporation into
the area claimed by Alexander.17
Priene surely was not the only polis from which Alexander took terri-
tories in order to add them to ‘his’ area.18 But to this area he also added
further land that had never been part of a polis. Consequently the area in
question comprised a considerable part of the Anatolian hinterland such
as, for instance, the huge forests and meadows and all the territories that
had in the past been in the possession of the Achaemenid kings and their
courtiers. A notable part of these were the Achaemenid satraps’ posses-
sions near their palaces at Daskyleion, Sardeis and Kelainai,19 as well as the
estates of favourites of the Great King.20 One could question Alexander’s
motives for expropriating land from the poleis when he had access to such
large territories. The obvious reason for this was, as mentioned above, his
urgent need for resources for the war. The enormous amounts of money
and grain he needed to support his army just could not be provided by
the often remote and less productive estates of the Anatolian hinterland
alone. Support from the rich and fertile former city territories in the coastal
plains was necessary. The merging of the latter and parts of the hinterland
into Alexander’s area marks the birth of a special tax-paying area claimed
by the ruler, the royal area.
In establishing this area Alexander would not have been guided by
constitutional precepts; rather, he would have succumbed to the political
and monetary necessities of the time and applied his experiences from
ruling Macedonia. For in Macedonia the rulers had from time immemo-
rial commanded income and taxes from estates, communities and other
sources, which came directly to them, their court and – in time of war
– to the army.21
The latter was true also of the Achaemenid empire. It seems improb-
able, though, that Alexander fell back on an Achaemenid tradition when
establishing the royal area. For the differentiation of this area is a notable
instance of the way in which Alexander clearly distanced himself from the
Achaemenid pattern of rule, in the context of the macropolitical structure
of Asia Minor. The Achaemenids had made a comprehensive claim to
power over the entirety of Asia Minor including the Greek cities. Greek
authors such as Thucydides and Xenophon described this political concept
by labelling the Achaemenid dominion the ‘land of the Great King’ (cwvra
basilevw") – referring by this phrase to the whole of Asia Minor including
the poleis.22
Alexander replaced this comprehensive claim to power (which had never
been fully realized) with a dichotomous system of hierarchical subordination

160
 The king and his land

to royal authority.23 The dichotomy’s two elements were the mostly autono-
mous Greek cities (poleis) on the coast on the one hand, and the subjugated
hinterland (chora) on the other. While the poleis were the ruler’s subordinates
in the political sense, they were mostly autonomous where administration
was concerned. The chora on the other hand was not only politically subject
to the king, but its administration too was subjugated to royal governance.
It was itself divided into three categories, as will be shown below, 24 and
among these was the royal area claimed by the king.

II
Alexander’s claim to a royal area was adopted by all subsequent rulers
of hellenistic Asia Minor. Thus, for instance, in 305/4 bc the Successor
Antigonos Monophthalmos mentioned a part of it near Teos and Lebedos.25
Furthermore, we have positive evidence for the existence of parts of the
royal area in every single region of Asia Minor.26 However, the correct term
for and the precise size of the area in question are problematic. Let us first
establish that apparently no common terminology was used to denote this
area or the parts of it. In our sources the term chora (i.e. Latin agri) is most
commonly employed. Only in a very few but enlightening instances is this
term qualified by adjectives meaning ‘royal’ (basilikh;, basivleia or, Latin,
regius respectively).27 Modern scholarship usually employs the term ‘royal
land’ (French terre royale, German Königsland, Russian zarskaya zeml’a) to
describe this area.28 In contrast to this I would like to suggest using the term
‘royal area’ that I introduced above. To start with, ‘area’ is here the most
correct translation of the Greek term chora. Its primary meaning is ‘space’
or ‘room’ and it signifies ‘area’ rather than ‘land’, which is only a derivation
and thus a secondary meaning of the term. In addition, the royal area
comprised not only land but also – as will be shown below – income from
communities, economic institutions and other sources.
The extent of the royal area has been understood in different ways in
previous research. It was a priori thought either to consist of the whole of
the interior of Asia Minor 29 or to be a special royal domain, the parts of
which were scattered across the interior.30 The conflict between these two
positions has only recently been resolved by the publication of the customs
law of Asia in 1988. This law is from the 80s bc but contains regulations
stemming from the establishment of Asia as a Roman province, i.e. from
the years shortly after 133 bc. Paragraph 10 of the law, regulating importa-
tion by land, refers directly to the royal area.
Whoever imports by land has to announce and declare (the goods) at those
places where there is a customs office in front (or: on the borders) of the
former chora basileia or free poleis or ethne or demoi.31

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Christian Mileta

This regulation demonstrates that at least in the Attalid kingdom basileia

chora was the official term for the area belonging to the king and that this
area was distinct from poleis, ethne and demoi where customs and probably
tax regulation were concerned. Ethne were peoples and tribes such as,
e.g., the Lydians and certain Mysian tribes. They were granted – either
because of their high level of civilization or, conversely, because of their
backwardness – a certain degree of internal autonomy that manifested itself
in the right to live in accordance with their own traditional laws (patrooi
nomoi). They were obliged to pay taxes without exception but they were
given the right to levy them as they themselves wished before passing them
on to the administration. The demoi, which consisted of the Macedonian
military colonies, the cities and the half-urban communities of the indig-
enous peoples and the great sanctuaries of Anatolian gods, had similar
prerogatives. The last of the interior’s areas was the royal area. Here taxes
were levied directly by the royal administration.
As mentioned above, seldom do the sources explicitly describe the area
claimed by the king as the ‘royal area’, but they label it simply as the ‘area’
(chora or agri respectively). In order to fix the extent of the royal area
precisely it is therefore necessary to exclude all mentions of chora in the
sense of a royal empire or in the sense of the territories of poleis rather than
in the sense of the Anatolian interior. We can isolate and identify the royal
area by focusing on sources that, in the first place, clearly do refer to the
Anatolian interior, and that, in the second place, use the term chora, so far
as context indicates, not merely to denote the interior in general but the
actual parts of it that enjoyed no autonomy of their own and that were
directly subject to the king and the royal administration. This status is made
especially clear by the infrequent but very instructive variants basilike or
basileia chora and agri regii.
Thus the extent of the royal area of Asia Minor in any given period of
the hellenistic epoch can only be determined by exclusion. It consisted of
those territories that were neither part of the poleis, nor belonged to the
territories of the ethne or the demoi in the hinterland. But it does become
clear that the royal area was a special and uniform zone in terms of direct
control by the royal administration, without being a territorially joined
block. It consisted of smaller and larger stretches of the flat land with its
villages,32 of estates temporarily awarded to dignitaries and favourites of
the king, of forests,33 pasture,34 wasteland,35 and of economic institutions
such as mines, salt-works, and fishing grounds36, scattered as they were all
across the Anatolian hinterland.
A special part of the royal area was the royal domain. This consisted of
estates and residencies belonging to the ruler’s oikos.37 They were situated

162
 The king and his land

at different localities throughout the empire and were administered by

special custodians. The ruler and his relatives38 commanded different parts
of this domain without gaining personal rights of ownership independent
of their functions. This is well demonstrated by the example of the former
Seleucid queen Laodike, who needed to be compensated with land after
her divorce from Antiochos II in 254 bc.39 The estates which had been at
her disposal as a queen had fallen to her successor Berenike. As part of the
divorce proceedings she received an estate not far from Daskyleion.40 This
estate and a village belonging to it had until then been part of the flat land
within the royal area of the province of Hellespontine Phrygia. Now it had
to be partitioned off from it in a series of costly administrative acts, the
surveying of the estate, the setting up of boundary stones, the sale and the
sale-registration in the royal archive (basilikai graphai ) at Sardis.
All the territories, estates, communities and other units of the royal
area, including the royal domain, had to pay the earnings-related property
taxes (phoroi). When speaking about ‘his chora’ in the hinterland of Priene,
Alexander explicitly mentions that the inhabitants of the villages there had
to pay ‘the phoroi ’. And Antigonos Monophthalmos expressly mentions
that one could get as much grain as one wished from there.41 Because of
this duty to pay taxes in kind, the royal area of Asia Minor can be compared
to the ge basilike of Ptolemaic Egypt.42 Although quite different in terms
of their structure, both areas seem to have performed similar economic
functions. This guess is based on the observation that the grain production
of both of them was about the same.43

III
As to the relationship of the hellenistic kings to the royal area and the way
they ruled, exploited and developed it, it should be stressed once more that
the rulers had to consider the traditional rights and privileges of the poleis
and, in the hinterland, those of the ethne and the demoi. So the sole part
of their kingdom they could rule and exploit without any restriction was
the royal area. Consequently, this was the area that the kings exploited but
also developed more than any other.
It is true that all rulers were aware of the economic and political signifi-
cance of the royal area, but Alexander seems to have viewed it mainly
as a strategic area and as a source of income. This attitude towards the
hinterland changed during the era of the Successors as a consequence of
the growing independence of the territories held by each individual ruler
and the initial progress towards the state-formation of each kingdom.
The Successors started to act like independent rulers. In the context
of Asia Minor those of the greatest interest are Eumenes, Antigonos

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Christian Mileta

Monophthalmos and Lysimachos. They inevitably had to secure and

organize their rule over their territories, and at the same time foster their
economic prosperity. The latter was especially true for the royal area,
standing as it did directly under the kings’ absolute sovereignty. So the
rulers started to view this area not only as a source of income but also as
an object of which they had to take special account. This is proved by the
completely different way they dealt with their ‘own’ area and those of other
rulers. When, for instance, in 311 bc Demetrios had invaded Babylonia,
which was ruled at that time by Seleukos, he gave the order to his soldiers,
as they withdrew, ‘to take and make booty of everything they could carry
or drive from the chora’, which here was almost identical with the royal
area. In this way, remarks Plutarch, ‘he left Seleukos more confirmed than
before in his possession; for by ravaging the country (chora) Demetrios was
thought to admit that it no longer belonged to his father’.44 This example
also shows the very personal relationship the king enjoyed with ‘his’ area,
a thing that is noticeable in the cases of all the hellenistic rulers. It had
become particularly strong at the end of the Diadochic era and at the
inception of the hellenistic kingdoms. Although stable political conditions
never did truly emerge in Asia Minor, even so we can trace the develop-
ment of its hinterland through urbanization and through the progressive
sophistication of the agricultural techniques employed in it. The latter can
easily be seen from its enormous grain output, which enabled the Attalids
to give even more gifts of grain to Greek poleis in Greece and in the East
alike than the Ptolemies did.45
The very personal relationship with, and care for, the royal area perhaps
had much to do with the continuous wars of the hellenistic period. They
made the chora important as a strategic area but also as the main source of
taxes, food and soldiers. So the kings and their administrators made efforts
to secure the chora by improving agriculture and by founding military
colonies and new cities. Another reason for the development of the chora
was the general tendency towards centralization in all the hellenistic states.
For most of the third and second centuries bc Asia Minor belonged to
the smaller kingdoms (i.e., besides Bithynia, Cappadocia and Pontus, the
Attalid kingdom and those of Antiochos Hierax and Achaios), in which
the rulers or administrators had a better understanding of, and stronger
control over, their state than, for instance, the Seleucids did.
The royal area was not under the control of a special administration. It
was administered by the provincial governors, the satrapai or, as they were
called later, the strategoi. Each individual province of a state was subdivided,
as was the state itself, into poleis and chora, and the latter was divided again
into areas of ethne and demoi and into the topoi (‘territories’). In their

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 The king and his land

capacity as the king’s representatives within their provinces the governors

had full administrative and juridical power over the topoi, but only restricted
authority over the ethne and demoi.46 These had to obey the orders of the
governor but were entitled to carry them out themselves in accordance
with their own laws. Furthermore, they were allowed to collect taxes in
their own way before paying them over to the royal treasury. By contrast
the taxes of the communities, estates and economic units that belonged to
the topoi were collected by officers of the royal administration.
Although the governors were formally responsible for its administra-
tion, the kings frequently intervened in the affairs of the royal area. They
interacted with it in very personal ways, through military campaigns and
travels, euergetism and festivities, the foundation of new poleis and military
colonies, and negotiations with envoys and the processing of written
petitions from the royal area. Indirect forms of interaction were contacts
through special envoys and the royal administration, the ruler cult, and
the conveying of estates to relatives and ‘friends’.
In the course of the hellenistic epoch this personal element of the king’s
dealings with the royal area declined as a result of the developing process
of the state-formation within the individual state. It is true that the rulers
kept a great interest in the royal area and its evolution, for instance through
orders and edicts supporting colonization, road construction and agricul-
ture.47 But the more of those orders – to be carried out by the governors and
their administrators – the rulers enacted, the more they lost of direct control
over ‘their’ area. As a result, the relationship between king and population
of the royal area came to display a more official, constitutional character.
This process developed more quickly and more strongly in the large
and federal empire of the Seleucids than it did in minor kingdoms such as
Bithynia, Pontus and Pergamum. In the last of these Eumenes II obviously
put his brother, later king Attalos II, in charge of the hinterland and thus
also of the royal area. The strong control the Attalid kings exercised over the
hinterland was certainly a result of the fact that Pergamum had for a long
time been a very small state that was, of course, very centralized. But it
seems even more important that the Attalid kingdom in 188 bc, through
the treaty of Apameia, had become one of the great hellenistic powers.
From that point its rulers followed an ambitious foreign and cultural
policy symbolized by the transformation of their capital into one of the
most important cultural centres of the hellenistic world. The financing of
this policy was, with the exception of the reparations paid by the Seleucids
immediately after 188 bc, based solely on the resources of Asia Minor.
In this respect the effective control and exploitation of the hinterland,
and of the royal area in particular, was one of the most important aims

165
Christian Mileta

of the Attalids’ domestic policy. The extensive gifts made by the Attalids,
mentioned above, give us an idea of the vast agricultural produce of their
royal area. We have every reason to assume that this economic capacity
resulted from the purposeful development of this area by the rulers. It is
symptomatic that it was the Attalids above all who concerned themselves
with improving the economic conditions of communities in the royal area.
Note also their special interest in stockbreeding 48 and agriculture; Attalos II
and Attalos III even wrote handbooks on this topic.49
The example of the Pergamene kingdom shows that the development
of agriculture and villages was an important aspect of the rulers’ dealings
with the royal area. The same is true of its colonization. In Seleucid and
Attalid times especially a considerable number of military colonies was
founded.50 It is clear that this colonization was planned as far as it went
because it would have been impossible without the rulers’ consent and the
active assistance of the royal administration. So one can suppose that most
if not all colonies were founded in places belonging to the royal area,51
because here, unlike in the areas of the ethne and demoi, the traditional
rights and privileges of the local population did not need to be heeded.
That the colonization must have been a planned process is also made highly
probable by the fact that most of the colonies were founded in Western
Lydia, Caria and along the main routes through Asia Minor, i.e. in regions
which already in pre-hellenistic times had reached a high level of civiliza-
tion. By contrast, we hardly ever see any colonization in underdeveloped
regions such as Phrygia and North Mysia.52
It has usually been held that the aim behind the colonization was princi-
pally the military protection of special areas. But the colonization’s impor-
tance for the hellenization and economic development of the Anatolian
hinterland should also be stressed. Each of the newly-founded colonies
which, incidentally, often later became poleis of a new type subject to the
king, was a building-block of the hellenistic kingdom as well as a beacon
of Greek urban culture in almost entirely indigenous surroundings. In
this respect the rulers seem to have regarded the colonization, for all that
it took place mainly in the royal area, as a tool for the hellenization of the
hinterland.
The colonies had often been founded on, or adjacent to, the site of
a pre-existing indigenous village or city.53 The fact that the mostly Graeco-
Macedonian colonists incorporated the Anatolian gods into their pantheon
and shared in the local sanctuaries shows that from the first they were in
close contact with the indigenous population. Such contacts were also
necessary if the colonists were to be introduced to local plant varieties and
cultivation methods and if they were to procure intermarriage with indig-

166
 The king and his land

enous women. Since we have no evidence for serious conflicts between the
new arrivals and the locals, we should conclude that the rapprochement
between the two sides proceeded without major difficulties. This was surely
a result of the fact that the colonization was under the control of the rulers
and the royal administration. The hellenistic state took care of the interests
of the local indigenous people in such a way that they were not offended
by the foundation of the colonies, or at any rate were offended only to
a minor extent. On the other hand the evidence shows that the indigenous
population was quite open-minded towards the culture and institutions of
the Graeco-Macedonians.54
In sum I would contend that the royal area of Asia Minor was estab-
lished by Alexander through the merging of territories expropriated from
the Greek poleis and a part of the Anatolian hinterland. So, despite their
central position within the hellenistic state, the rulers had full political and
economic control over only a part of the land, estates, communities and
economic institutions within their kingdoms. The relationship of the rulers
with the royal area was at first completely personal. But, from the beginning
of the era of the Successors and from the simultaneous inception of the
process of the formation of the individual hellenistic states of Asia Minor,
this relationship began to change and to display a more official, constitu-
tional character. At the same time the kings and hellenistic kingdoms made
the royal area a cornerstone of the development of the Anatolian hinterland
and of its ensuing hellenization, through the improvement of agriculture
and through colonization.

Abbreviations
BE Bulletin épigraphique
DNP Cancik and Schneider 1996–
FGH Jacoby 1923–
I.Didyma Rehm 1958
I.Ephesos Wankel et al. 1979–81
I.Iasos Blümel 1985
I.Ilion Frisch 1975
I.Laodikeia a. Lykos Corsten 1997
I.Priene Hiller von Gaertringen 1906
OGIS Dittenberger 1903–5
RC Welles 1934
Zollgesetz Engelmann and Knibbe 1989

Notes
1
I present here some results of a work in progress entitled Der König und sein
167
Christian Mileta

Land. Herrschaft und Verwaltung im kleinasiastischen Binnenland der hellenistischen

Zeit. References to sources and scholarship will only be given as necessary. For
fuller documentation the reader is referred to the projected monograph.
2
As explained in the main text, I use the term state-formation (German:
‘Verstaatlichung’) to refer to the processes of the genesis of the hellenistic state
within the individual principalities and kingdoms of Asia Minor, and to the
emergence of its functions and institutions. These processes comprise the gradual
consolidation of the relationship between, on the one side, the ruler and his
apparatus of power and, on the other side, the population over which they rule. Cf.
the similar conception of ‘state-building’ in pre-modern societies (Bendix 1978,
esp. 5 with n. 1). For the application of the term ‘state’ to the Graeco-Roman
antiquity in general and the hellenistic period in particular see Eder 2001, 873,
and Schmitt 1993, 751–6, especially 751 and 753–4.
3
For an outline and criticism of this view, which was established by W.M.
Ramsay, M. Rostovtzeff and M. Weber, see Briant 1982, 99–102.
4
For an outline and a well-balanced assessment of this notion, which was
developed by E. Bikerman, see Gehrke 1990, 175–6.
5
Gehrke 1990, 48–9 and 165 (with further references), and Austin 1986.
6
Cf. Alexander’s regulations concerning Western Asia Minor (334 bc) as
reported by Arrian 1.17.1–7 ‘(1) Alexander made Calas satrap of the province
which Arsites had governed [i.e. Hellespontine Phrygia], ordering the inhabitants
to pay the same taxes (fovroi) they had formerly paid to Darius. All the barbarians
who came down from the hills and gave themselves up he ordered to go back to
their homes … (2) Parmenion he sent to take over Dascylium … (3) Alexander
himself marched towards Sardis … (4) … to the Sardians and the other Lydians
he granted the use of their ancestral laws and allowed them their freedom …
(7) He left behind as commander of the citadel of Sardis Pausanias, one of the
hetairoi; Nicias became overseer of the taxes (fovroi), the contribution (suvntaxi")
and the tribute (ajpoforav) and Asandros, son of Philotas, governor of Lydia and
the rest of the province of Spiridates [i.e. parts of Ionia] … ’ (trans. Brunt, with
some alterations).
7
Cf., for example, the Successor Eumenes, who in 320 bc after conquering
Cappadocia, ta;" me;n povlei" toi'" eJautou' fivloi" parevdwke, kai; frouravrcou"
ejgkatevsthse kai; dikasta;" ajpevlipe kai; dioikhta;" ou}" ejbouvleto – ‘he gave the
cities to his friends and appointed commanders of garrisons and left behind him
such judges and administrators as he wished’ (Plutarch Eumenes 3.14, trans. Perrin,
with some alterations).
8
See the account of Demetrius’ government by Plutarch Demetrius 41–2.
9
Plutarch Alexander 15.1, with reference to Aristoboulos, Duris and Onesi-
critos.
10
Plutarch Alexander 15.4: ‘scedo;n aJpavntwn tw'n basilikw'n’.
11
Plutarch Alexander 15.3–6: ta; tw'n eJtaivrwn pravgmata skeyavmeno" ajponei'mai
tw/' me;n ajgrovn, tw/' de; kwvmhn, tw/' de; sunoikiva" provsodon h] limevno". h[dh de;
katanhlwmevnwn kai; diagegrammevnwn scedo;n aJpavntwn tw'n basilikw'n … toi'" de;
lambavnousi kai; deomevnoi" proquvmw" ejcarivzeto, kai; ta; plei'sta tw'n ejn Make-

168
 The king and his land

doniva/ dianevmwn ou{tw" kathnavlwse.

12
Diodorus 17.24.1: Alexander marched with all his army into Caria, winning
over the cities that lay on his route by kind treatment (filanqrwpivai). He was
particularly generous to the Greek cites (ta;" ÔEllhnivda" povlei"), granting them
independence and exemption from taxation (poiw`n aujta;" aujtonovmou" kai;
ajforologhvtou"), adding the assurance that the freedom of the Greeks was the
object for which he had taken upon himself the war against the Persians.
13
As for the suvntaxi" see Sherwin-White 1985, 84–6.
14
I.Priene no. 1, following the reading of Sherwin-White, 1985, 80–1. Cf.
Heisserer, 1980, 142–68 no. 6: Basilevw" ∆Aªl≥exavndºrou. tw'n ejn Naulovcwi
ªkatoikouvnºtwn o{soi mevn eijs≥i ªPrihnei'º", auj≥t≥o≥ªnovºmou" ei\nai kaªi; ejleuqºevrou",
|5 e[c≥ªontºa≥" thvn tªe gh'g kºai; ta;" oijkiv≥a" ta;" ejn t≥ªh'i pºov≥l≥ei pavªsaº" kai; th;g
cwv≥r≥a≥n, w{ªsper oiJº Prihne≥ªi'" aujtoiv:º ... ca. 8 ... ai|" a]n devwªntai .. 4–5 .. º to de≥ .. 5
.. k≥ai; Mursªhleivwgº |10 ªkºai; Pe≥ªdievwg – – – ca. 9–10 – –º c≥wvrag≥ ªgºi≥nwvskw ejmh;n
ei\nai, tou;" de; katoikou'nta" ejn tai'" kwvmai" tauvtai" fevrein tou;" fovrou": th'" de;
suntavxew" ajfivhmi th;m Prih|15 nevwm povlin, … (‘Of those residing in Naulochon,
as many as are [Prienians] are to be independent and free, possessing the [land]
and all the houses in the city and the countryside [like the] Prienians [themselves];
. . . . . . . . . . . . . But the . . . . [? villages] land of the Myrs[eloi] and the Pe[dieis],
and the countryside I decree to be mine, and those dwelling in these villages are
to pay the tribute; I release from the syntaxis the city of (the) Prienians, … ’ (trans.
Sherwin-White). The readings of Sherwin-White and Heisserer are both based
on autopsy of all fragments and are almost identical except at l. 10. Heisserer’s
restoration of this line (ªkºai; Pªedievwg gh'n, th;n de; peri;º c≥wvrag≥) is possible but far
from sure. I prefer the reading of Sherwin-White. As for the dating of Alexander’s
instructions to 334 bc, see Sherwin-White 1985, 82–3.
15
Cf. Rostovtzeff 1910, 246–7.
16
Cf. Botermann 1994, 183 n. 53.
17
The confiscated land was never returned to Priene: in the 270s bc we hear
that the Seleucid officer Larichos owned an estate in the neighbourhood of Priene,
which he could only have got from the king (I.Priene no. 18, ll. 24–6: Larichos
gets tax exemption on cattle and slaves ‘on his own properties as well as within
the territory of the city’ – e[n te ªtºoi'" ijdivoi" kthvmasªiº kai; ejn th'i povlei). And as
for the reign of the last Pergamene king, Attalos III (138–133 bc), this ruler is
also reported to have cultivated land here (I.Priene no. 111, Col. 16, ll.112–13,
mentions estates ‘which King Attalos earlier cultivated [III]’ (ª– – 16 – – a}
pºrovteroªnº eijrgavzeto basileu;" “Attalo").
18
Aliter Sherwin-White 1985, 83: ‘There is no reason to assume, or evidence
to prove, that Alexander is changing the status of land i.e. annexing land to royal
domain. … (he) is concerned with Achaemenid royal domains to which, as victor
over Darius’ forces, Alexander is affirming his entititlement.’
19
See, for example, the environs of Daskyleion as portrayed by Xenophon,
Hellenica 4.1.15–16: many big and rich villages, enclosed parks (paradeisoi ) and
open grounds suitable for hunting, and a river full of all kinds of fish.
20
See Sekunda 1988, 175–96 (an extremely helpful survey of Persian magnate

169
Christian Mileta

families settled in Hellespontine Phrygia). Cf. Balcer 1984, 195–226, for Persian
nobles and other landed gentry in Asia Minor and the Achaemenid Empire as
a whole.
21
See Funck 1978.
22
Thucydides 1.96.2; 8.18, 8.37, 8.58; Xenophon Memorabilia 3.5.26, Hellenica
3.1.13 f., 4.8.17, Anabasis 3.2.23, 5.5, Cyropaedia 6.1.30. Cf. Schuler 1998, 138:
‘Wenn die griechischen Historiker von achämenidischem Reichsgebiet sprechen,
gebrauchen sie in der Regel die Wendung cwvra basilevw".’
23
Cf. Schuler 1998, 138–45.
24
I here leave aside the dynasteiai that were almost independent princedoms and
only indirectly part of the kingdoms in question, cf. Bengtson 1964, 5–6.
25
RC no. 3 (Letter of Antigonos Monophthalmos to Teos regulating the synoik-
ismos with Lebedos, 306–302 bc), ll. 83–5: in referring to the request of the
Lebedians for the setting-aside of money from the public revenues for the impor-
tation of grain, Antigonos mentions that ‘the crown land is near (plhsivon ou[sh"
th'" forologoumevªnh" cwvra"º ) [and thus if a need] of grain arose, we think there
could easily be brought from [there as much as] one wished’ (trans. Welles). For
the understanding of the phorologoumene chora as royal area see Rostovtzeff 1910,
246–7. See also Préaux 1954, 313; Briant 1982, 275; and Kreissig 1978, 38–9.
26
Examples: Ionia – Bringmann et al. 1995 no. 275, ll. 122–6 with Meyer 1925,
74: land given back to Miletos by Ptolemaios II. Ionia/Smyrna – OGIS no. 228,
with Rigsby 1996, no. 7, ll. 6–9: Seleucus II promised to restore to Smyrna its
old territory. Aiolis –Herrmann 1959, 4–6 no. 2: boundary stone between city
territory and royal area. Mysia – OGIS no. 338 mentions estates (ousia) confiscated
by the kings and that Attalos III by will gave land to Pergamum. Hellespontine
Phrygia – Bringmann et al. 1995 no. 253: the kings Attalos [I] and Prusias [I] gave
land to the sanctuary and the city of Aizanoi. Lydia – Buckler et al. 1932 no. 1:
the estate of Mnesismachos is part of the royal area. Lycia – Maier 1959–81 no.
76: Eumenes II grants privileges to the village Kardakome belonging to the royal
area near Telmessos. See further the examples given in the next note.
27
I.Ilion no. 33 (RC no. 10–13), ll. 41 and 68–9 (Troad, Seleucid era,
281–260 bc): hJ basilikh; cwvra. Zollgesetz ll. 26–8 (§ 10): the basileiva cwvra
of the former Pergamene kingdom. Cicero, De lege agraria 2.19.50–1: agri regii
Bithyniae and regii agri Mithridatis in Paphlagonia, Pontus and Cappadocia. Livy
37.56.2 (of Mysia in 189/8 bc): regiae silvae Mysiae (ed. Briscoe). Not just the
royal area but the whole kingdom outside a particular polis is signified by the
(cwvra) tou' basilevw" mentioned in an inscription from Herakleia on the Latmos
– Bringmann et al. 1995 no. 296 (Ionia, Seleucid era, 196–193 bc), frag. III. l.
8: hJ (cwvra) tou' basilevw"; cf. frag. IV. l. 3: [ … .. … .. ..] tou' basilevw" h{ te cwvra
kªai; º.
28
The terminology goes back to Rostovtzeff 1910, 246–7, who used the Greek
term ‘basilikh; cwvra’ that appears in an inscription (now I.Ilion no. 33 ll. 41 and.
68–9) which explicitly applies this term to territories of the north-western Troad.
Most scholars prefer modern equivalents of this term.
29
See, for instance, Rostovtzeff 1910, 247 (he is more cautious at 1941, 503),

170
 The king and his land

and Corsaro 1980, 1163–1219, 1163–6.

30
See, for instance, Bikerman 1938, 180, Bengtson, 1977, 394, and Kuhrt et al.
1993, 47. Hahn 1978, 24, stresses the ambiguity of the term cwvra basilikhv: ‘Die
zwei äußersten Pole [sc. of the term] bilden … einerseits der gesamte besteuerte
Boden [sc. the forologoumevnh cwvra], andererseits die Masse der unmittelbar
und zentral von der königlichen Schatzkammer bewirtschafteten königlichen
Domänen.’
31
Zollgesetz (enacted in 62 ad but containing provisions mainly stemming from
the 80s bc but also from the time immediately after 133/29 bc, when the Roman
province of Asia was being established) ll. 26–8, § 10 (Importation by land): oJ
kata; gh'n eijsavgwn ejn touvtoi" toi'" tovpoi" prosfwªneivtw kai; ajpografevsqw ejn oi|"
a]n telwvnion pro; th'" cwvra" th'" (or: ejn toi'" o{roi" th'" cwvra")º pro; tw'n basileiva" h]
ejleuqevrwn povlewn h] ejqnw'n h] dhvmwn uJpavrch/; the restoration of text by Engelmann
and Knibbe is safe until ‘telwvnion’. The following sentence ‘pro; th'" cwvra" th'"’ is
surely right in gist, but too short. Judging from the photographs of the squeezes
provided with the editio princeps, the lines in question have 4 to 5 letters more
than calculated by Engelmann and Knibbe. Thus there is no obstacle to restoring
‘ejn toi'" o{roi" th'" cwvra" … basivleia"’ vel sim. as the author would prefer.
32
Cf. Kreissig 1978, 38–9: ‘Königsland war eben ‘überall’, wo die Eigentums-
und Besitzverhältnisse nicht ausdrücklich anders geregelt waren. Um solches
‘offenes’ Königsland dürfte es sich auch in der Nähe von Teos und Lebedos
gehandelt haben. ’
33
Livy 37.56.2: regiae silvae Mysiae (ed. Briscoe). These ‘royal forests’ were
among the areas attached to the Attalid kingdom in 189/8 bc. They consisted of
large wooded areas in Northern Mysia (Schwertheim, 1988, 73–6). For forests
as part of the royal area see also the ‘(royal) forests of Taranza’ near Sardeis from
which Antiochos III gave wood for the reconstruction of Sardeis in 213 bc
(Bringmann et al. 1995 no. 260, ll. 2–4). Cf. Gauthier 1989 (= editio princeps)
26, ‘le bois “des forêts de Taranza” provient d’un domaine royal’, Kuhrt et al. 1993,
181, and Ma 1999, 138. Furthermore the extensive quantities of timber and pitch
given by all the hellenistic rulers to Rhodes in 227/6 bc (see Polybius 5. 89–90)
also indicate that large forests belonged to the kings.
34
Cf. the basilika; iJppofovrbia (royal herds of horses) grazing around Mount
Ida (Plutarch Eumenes 8). It seems that all wasteland automatically belonged to the
rulers. Sometimes it was used as pasture; see also Polybius 5.44.1 and 10.27.1–2,
for the royal herds of horses in Seleucid Media, and Strabo 12.6.1, for the 300
herds of sheep the Galatian king Amyntas had in the meagre regions of Lykaonia.
The royal area in the north-west of the Troad partly consisted of gh' ejrgavs imo"
(I.Ilion no. 33). The term obviously meant potentially fertile, but actually fallow
soil (see LSJ s.v. and Preisigke 1925–71 s.v. ejrgavs imo").
35
Cf. the preceding footnote.
36
Cf. Kreissig 1978, 33.
37
Cf. Kreissig 1982, 142.
38
Not only the king but also the queens and the sons and other relatives too of
the king could own estates. Examples: the estate of Laodike I, wife of Antiochos II,

171
Christian Mileta

near Labraunda (Karia) – Bringmann et al. 1995 no. 301; her estate near Cyzicus
and Zeleia – see next note; her estates and also those of her sons near Babylon – van
der Spek 1986, 241–8 no. 11. Cf. also the estates of Laodike III, wife of Antiochos
III, from which wheat was to be delivered to Iasos – I.Iasos no. 4 (Bringmann et
al. 1995 no. 297). The estate of Achaios in Karia – I.Laodikeia a. Lykos no. 1.
39
I.Didyma 492 = RC 18–20.
40
The estate sold to Laodike consisted of a village called Petra, a fortfied manor-
house (ba'ri") and all the village’s territory bordering on the territories of Cyzicus
and Zeleia. Thus the estate was situated not far from Daskyleion, which had been
the capital of Hellespontine Phrygia already under the Achaemenids.
41
Welles, RC no. 3. The term ‘hJ forologoumevnh cwvra’ used by Antigonos is
a hapax legomenon but clearly means the royal area (cf. n. 25). It obviously was
formed ad hoc in order to stress the function of that area as a source for taxes in
kind (fovroi) that mainly consisted of wheat.
42
See Holleaux 1938–68, vol. 2, 106: ‘Le Domaine royal, appelé chez les Lagides
hJ basilikh; gh', est dit, chez les Séleucides, hJ basilikh; cwvra … , et l’on ne peut
douter que, chez les Attalides, il ne fût désigné de même façon’, with reference
to Rostovtzeff 1910, 246–7 and 288–9, and Haussoullier 1902, 97–8. See also
Préaux 1978, 370.
43
As proved by the extensive grain gifts of the Attalids, see further below.
44
Plutarch Demetrius 7 (trans. Perrin, with some alterations). Cf. Diodorus
17.27.6: some of Alexander’s forces were sent into the Carian hinterland
(mesogeios). The commanders support their soldiers from the area of the enemies
(ejk th'" polemiva" <cwvra">).
45
As shown by the evidence compiled in Bringmann et al. 1995 vol. 1.
46
Cf. Bengtson 1964, 3–4 and 11, and Mileta 1990, 428–30.
47
Cf. Corsaro 1985, 74 (on the policy of the Achaemenid and hellenistic rulers
towards Asia Minor as a whole): ‘The monarchy did not limit its activity to raising
taxes, but engaged in a ‘social’ policy, such as the development of agriculture and,
in the hellenistic period, the founding of new cities and the construction of public
utilities.’ (English summary by Corsaro.)
48
Eumenes II used to buy a particular breed of very big white pigs at Assus
(Athenaeus 9.17 [375D] = FGH 234 F 10).
49
Attalos II: Pliny Natural History 1.8, 1.14–15, 1.17–18. Attalos III: Varro,
De re rustica 1.1.8, Columella 1.1.8. Pliny Natural History 1.8, 1.11, 1.14–15,
1.17–18, 1.22. Cf. Hansen 1971, 144–5.
50
For the hellenistic colonization see Billows 1995 and Cohen 1978.
51
Cohen 1978, 66.
52
Cf. Mitchell 1995, 7 and 85–6.
53
For the example of Thyateira see Cohen 1995, 238–42, and Mileta 1999.
54
See, for instance, the honorary decree of two villages for Achaios the elder
[I.Laodikeia a. Lykos no. 1], and the dossier of inscriptions from Tyriaion
(L. Jonnes et al. 1998, with Brixhe BE 1999 no. 509). In the latter dossier the
Attalid king Eumenes II surely acts in favour of the indigenous when acting (ll.
26–8): suncwrw' kai; uJmi'n kai; toi'" meq j uJmw'n sunoik≥ou's in≥ ejn≥cwrivoi" eij" e}n poliv-

172
 The king and his land

teuma suntacªqºh'nai kai; novmoi" t≥e crh'sqai ijdivoi" – ‘I grant it to both you and
the natives living together with you to organize yourselves into one citizen body
and to use your own laws.’

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Christian Mileta

Corsten, T. (ed.)
1997– Inschriften von Laodikeia am Lykos, Teil 1, Die Inschriften, Bonn.
Dittenberger, W. (ed.)
1903–5 Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae, 2 vols., Leipzig.
Eder, W.
2001 ‘Staat’ in DNP, vol. 11, 873–7.
Engelmann, H. and Knibbe, D. (eds.)
1989 ‘Das Zollgesetz der Provinz Asia. Eine neue Inschrift aus Ephesos’,
Epigraphica Anatolica 14. [Article occupies entire volume.]
Funck, B.
1978 ‘Zu den Landschenkungen hellenistischer Könige’, Klio 60, 45–55.
Gauthier, P.
1989 Nouvelles inscriptions de Sardes II, Geneva.
Gehrke, H.–J.
1990 Geschichte des Hellenismus, Munich.
Hahn, I.
1978 ‘Königsland und königliche Besteuerung im hellenistischen Osten’, Klio
60, 11–34.
Hansen, E.V.
1971 The Attalids of Pergamum, 2nd edn, Ithaca.
Haussoullier, B.
1902 Études sur l’histoire de Milet et du Didymeion, Paris.
Heisserer, A.J.
1980 Alexander the Great and the Greeks. The epigraphic evidence, Norman.
Herrmann, P.
1959 ‘Neue Inschriften zur historischen Landeskunde von Lydien und
angrenzender Gebiete’, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Philosophisch-historische Klasse. Denkschriften 77/1.
Hiller von Gaertringen, F. (ed.)
1906 Inschriften von Priene, Berlin.
Holleaux, M.
1938–68 Études d’épigraphie et d’histoire grecques, 6 vols., Paris.
Jacoby, F.
1923– Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, multiple volumes and parts,
Leiden.
Jonnes, L. and Ricl, M.
1998 ‘A new royal inscription from Phrygia Paroreios: Eumenes II grants
Tyriaion the status of a polis’, Epigraphica Anatolica 29, 1–30.
Kreissig, H.
1978 Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft im Seleukidenreich, Berlin.
1982 Geschichte des Hellenismus, Berlin.
Kuhrt, A. and Sherwin-White, S.
1993 From Samarkhand to Sardis. A new approach to the Seleucid Empire,
London.
Ma, J.
1999 Antiochos III and the cities of Western Asia Minor, Oxford.

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 The king and his land

Maier, F.G. (ed.)

1959–81 Griechische Mauerbauinschriften, 2 vols., Heidelberg.
Meyer, E.
1925 Die Grenzen der hellenistischen Staaten in Kleinasien, Zürich.
Mileta, C.
1990 ‘Zur Vorgeschichte und Entstehung der Gerichtsbezirke der Provinz
Asia’, Klio 72, 427–44.
1999 ‘Menodoros: einer der laoiv von Thyateira? Überlegungen zu einem
Epigramm des Arkesilaos’, Epigraphica Anatolica 31, 181–5.
Mitchell, S.
1995 Anatolia. Land, men and gods in Asia Minor, Vol. 1, Oxford.
Préaux, C.
1954 ‘Sur les origines des monopoles lagides’, Chronique d’Égypte 29, 312–
27.
1978 Le monde hellénistique, 2 vols, Nouvelle Clio 6.1, Paris.
Preisigke, F.
1925–71 Wörterbuch der griechischen Papyrusurkunden, Berlin.
Rehm, A. (ed.)
1958 Didyma. II. Die Inschriften, Berlin.
Rigsby, K.J.
1996 Asylia: territorial inviolability in the Hellenistic world, Berkeley.
Rostovtzeff/Rostowzew, M.I.
1910 Studien zur Geschichte des römischen Kolonats, Leipzig.
1941 The Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World, 3 vols.,
Oxford.
Schmitt, H.H.
1993 ‘Staat, hellenistischer’, in H.H. Schmitt and E. Vogt (eds.) Kleines Lexikon
des Hellenismus, 2nd edn, Wiesbaden, 751–6.
Schuler, C.
1998 Ländliche Siedlungen und Gemeinden im hellenistischen und römischen
Kleinasien. Vestigia 50, Munich.
Schwertheim, E.
1988 ‘Studien zur historischen Geographie Mysiens’, Epigraphica Anatolica 11,
65–77.
Sekunda, N.V.
1988 ‘The Persian settlement in Hellespontine Phrygia’, in A. Kuhrt and
H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg (eds.) Achaemenid History III, Leiden, 175–
96.
Sherwin-White, S.
1985 ‘Ancient Archives: the Edict of Alexander to Priene, a reappraisal’, JHS
105, 69–89.
Van der Spek, R.J.
1986 Grondbezit in het Seleucidische rijk, Amsterdam.
Welles, C.B.
1934 Royal Correspondence in the Hellenistic Period, New Haven.

175
 10

HIDDEN LANDSCAPES: GREEK FIELD SURVEY

DATA AND HELLENISTIC HISTORY

Graham Shipley

The hellenistic period, in the Greek peninsula and homelands, is increas-

ingly seen as a continuation of the classical, and field archaeology is playing
a major part in this re-evaluation. Nevertheless, there were also changes
in the social fabric of Old Greece after the reign of Alexander, partly as
a result of new social and economic configurations and partly because of the
expanded power of Macedonia. In this respect, too, archaeology promises
to illuminate new developments. Southern mainland Greece has been the
setting for a large number of field survey projects, and the past decade
has seen the publication of many in preliminary or, less often, final form.
Among those for which we have more or less detailed published data are
the projects carried out in Boiotia, northern Keos, and at five locations
in the Peloponnese: Nemea, the southern Argolid, Berbati–Limnes near
Mycenae, Methana, and Laconia. This paper aims to explore the evidence
for social change in rural landscapes, while not forgetting the impact of
urban change. The period covered is chiefly before the early stages of
Roman rule in the second and first centuries bc.1
Systematic field survey, whether non-intensive (also called extensive)
or more recently intensive, has been carried out in Greece for about forty
years. As a result, there are enough data from published fieldwork to allow
the methodological controversies of the 1980s, for example about the uses
of statistical sampling and of written sources, to be laid to rest.2 There is
now a set of more or less standardized field methods, and for historical
periods no one would do other than take full consideration of both
written and archaeological evidence. We are now in a position to analyse
the interplay between short-term événements of the kinds attested in literary
or epigraphic texts, and the longer-term developments that surface survey is
best suited to revealing. Earlier generalizations about social and economic
change in Greek landscapes are being rewritten in the light of actual survey
data, which reveal variations between and within different regions, as well
as between and within particular periods.

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Graham Shipley

Even before archaeological surveys were carried out, written sources and
inscriptions pointed to key changes in society and in the economy that may
have had an impact upon the countryside in the hellenistic period. On
the one hand, democratic forms of government, in which decisions were
made by council and popular assembly, were now widely diffused among
Greek poleis. Despite the over-arching power of Alexander’s Successors,
such constitutions were not necessarily a sham, as Peter Rhodes and David
Lewis have shown with respect to civic decrees.3 Christian Habicht has also
commented on the reality and effectiveness of democracy in hellenistic
Athens.4 On the other hand, for many smaller poleis in southern Greece
we have little detailed information about their constitutions before this
time. Often the regime replaced by democratic institutions will have been
a constitutional oligarchy of some kind, and in such a situation the ruling
elite may not have been forced to give up its dominant influence. Even in
places with stronger democratic traditions, such as Samos, inscribed civic
decrees suggest that in the third century the propertied elite was strongly
over-represented among those who were politically active.5 In many cities
the elite increased their political and social power in the late fourth and
third centuries.
All of this may have implications for what was going on outside the city
walls. A few citizens of Greek poleis in this period became exceedingly rich,
after the manner of Boulagoras of Samos,6 others moderately prosperous.
Although long-distance trade and commercial investment were flourishing,
many such men probably drew a large part of their incomes, directly or
indirectly (an important qualification), from surpluses in primary produce,
such as olive oil and wine, extracted from their own land. In general, it
seems that high status remained closely tied to the ownership of land, and to
the ability to dispose of large surpluses and of the labour of others. Polybios
asserts that there was general depopulation, that childless Boiotians left their
legacies to be squandered on feasts, and that wealthy Eleians preferred rural
prosperity to civic participation. His claims have sometimes been dismissed
as anecdotal or applicable only to the elite circles in which he moved.7 Yet
the picture he paints is consistent, and it will be interesting to see whether
the survey data point to real changes in rural settlement resulting from
increasing disparities in land ownership. Important questions to pose of
the data are to what extent they support the survival of citizen smallholder
farmers, and whether they show the increasing separation of a landed elite
through the growth of larger estates.
Since relations of economic dependency between rich and poor land-
owners were surely common in classical times, these, too, might be expected
to be visible in survey data. The spectrum of dependency relations in classical

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 Hidden landscapes: Greek field survey data and hellenistic history

Greece included, most notoriously, Sparta’s helots, who may be described as

state serfs.8 Besides these, there were other groups of semi-free or serf-like
dependants within Greek poleis. In the Peloponnese, for example, we hear
of the Unclothed of Argos,9 the Club-bearers (or Sheepskin-tunic-wearers)
of Sikyon,10 and the Dustyfoots of Epidauros.11 A dozen or more such
groups are attested in different parts of the Greek world at different times.
In the fourth century, for example, Theopompos and Aristotle mention
the Poor Men of Thessaly, who often rose in rebellion.12 Other sources add
the Dependants of Illyria and the Goodmasters of Syracuse (the latter, no
doubt, an ironic or apotropaic name).13 Aristotle repeatedly notes that the
perioikoi (‘about-dwellers’) of Cretan towns are tributary dependants. They
may be the same as the people he calls Plot-men and those who elsewhere
appear as Captives.14 There are others in the Aegean islands, Asia Minor,
and the Black Sea, some datable to the hellenistic period. Kallistratos in the
third century names the Mariandynian Gift-bearers of Herakleia Pontike,15
while in the same century Phylarchos describes similar relations between
the people of Byzantion and the nearby Bithynians.16 The existence of other
such groups can be inferred for the hellenistic period, such as the Plainsmen
of Priene.17 Since we cannot be sure that other cities had followed Athens’
example in outlawing debt-bondage, there may well have been others, each
with its own origins in local circumstances.
De Ste Croix is probably right to say that they are singled out for
mention by our sources precisely because they were not typical, and
that we should avoid over-generalizing from these examples. The regular
form of non-free labour in the countryside was probably chattel slavery.18
However, the point I wish to make is that such intermediate, semi-free
groups are symptomatic of a wider tendency on the part of Greek elites to
foster relations of dependency between themselves and poorer folk. Even in
Athens, where debt bondage had been outlawed, poor and landless citizens
in the countryside were probably obligated to their richer neighbours in
different ways. Along with independent citizens, dependent citizens, and
the unfree, these marginal groups extend the range of possible interpreta-
tions for the small rural habitations frequently attested by survey data.
Although we will not necessarily be able to identify such semi-free groups
in archaeological surveys, we should be prepared to consider them as one
possible explanation for the existence of small rural farmsteads, as Michael
Jameson has pointed out.19 Such sites may have been home to free citizens,
dependent free citizens, serf-like groups, or even unfree inhabitants. In
short, while rural farms are sometimes evidence of flourishing citizen
smallholders, they are not necessarily so.

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The contribution of archaeological survey

Surface survey is designed to capture evidence of the silent majority, rarely
mentioned in classical sources and then only seen through the eyes of the
literate elite. Field-walkers transect the land surface systematically, regularly
spaced in a line. (There is, of course, the constant temptation to deviate
from one’s line in order to reach the shade of the nearest tree.) The principal
aim is to observe and recover examples of all possible kinds of evidence of
landscape use. In Greece, this chiefly means potsherds and fragments of
roof-tile, with the occasional ‘small find’ such as a terracotta figurine or
a coin. In some regions, teams may even find walls or standing remains
of buildings, while roadways, olive-presses, sculptures, and other material
may be recovered. These finds may be the remnants of settlements, graves,
cemeteries, temples, small cult sites, and so on, or may indicate transient
use of the landscape such as quarrying, storage, and grazing. Partly by
design, and partly because of the near-impossibility of dating finds accu-
rately when they are picked up, most surveys set out with the express aim
of recovering material from all periods (or at least all pre-modern periods).
It is therefore only at the stage of study and publication that dating and
interpretation take place.20
Particular difficulties inherent in the analysis of survey data result from
the necessary use of arbitrary chronological divisions. Different projects
use different conventions. The hellenistic period may begin at 350, 323,
300, or even later, and may end in 200, 150, 146, 100, or even in the reign
of Augustus. It may be assumed without argument that actual changes in
rural settlement rarely occurred at these precise dates. A related problem is
that of accurately dating the finds. Until recently, hellenistic pottery was
not so intensively studied as classical red- and black-figure, and we still rely
for comparanda on published pottery from a handful of key excavated,
urban sites such as Corinth or the Athenian Agora. Worse still, many rural
surveys produce only small quantities of fine pottery; more often one finds
unpainted, local varieties that can be dated only tentatively by their simi-
larities to fine wares from the major excavated sites. At the best of times,
it is rare that a sherd can be dated to within fifty or a hundred years. Since
the number of sherds of a given period from a site does not often reach
double figures, there is only so much we can deduce about the history of
an individual site.
Though the meaning of the word ‘site’ has been controversial, most
archaeologists now accept its use in a value-free sense, to denote a cluster
of artefacts with no particular imputation of role or function. A cluster of
finds may be evidence of a habitation, but in principle it could equally be
a coincidental group of finds that is really part of the random background

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 Hidden landscapes: Greek field survey data and hellenistic history

scatter; or it could be something in between. In the end, survey archae-

ologists have to make judgements about which sites represent habitations
and which do not, and when possible they do so using rigorous criteria.
These could include a minimum number of artefacts of a particular date,
a minimum size of scatter, a minimum density of finds, or a combination
of particular kinds of artefact. In many cases, however, certainty about the
role of a particular site is impossible.
There are also problems with measuring the size of a site. This can
be done quite rigorously, for example by a combination of statistically
random sampling at specific points and total (or representative) collection
at others. Yet a surface scatter, however accurately measured, need not be
a true reflection of what lies under the ground or once stood on the surface.
Different sites may spread and come to the surface in different ways. Quan-
tities of finds may bear no direct relation with the number of people who
lived here; we should beware what Nicholas Purcell has dubbed the ‘pots
equals people’ fallacy. In the case of a multi-period site, the surface scatter
will be an amalgam of material of different dates, and the site may never
have been as extensive as the whole scatter. Even if we can link sherds of
different dates to different parts of the site, the small numbers of sherds
of each period and the imprecision of dating are a further constraint on
certainty. A vessel made in the early third century may have been used for
one, ten, twenty, or fifty years before being thrown away, and it may have
been used alongside vessels manufactured both earlier and later. Unless
finds are really plentiful, the implications of changes in the size of a scatter
may be difficult to assess.
There is also the matter of a site’s territory. When we refer to the ‘area’
of a site, we normally mean the extent of the scatter. That, however, is
only part of the story; we also need to know how much land each site
controlled, by assessing the distribution of contemporary sites; yet all too
often we cannot be sure we have found every site in a given locality. In
principle, a small farmstead may have been located in a large parcel of
land, a large one in a small parcel. Site territories may be contiguous, or
separated by gaps. Cultivation need not have extended over the whole
territory of a site.
A way of circumventing some of these problems is to recognize that small
sets of data are much more informative when combined. We can improve
the readability of the survey data by combining sherds of similar dates and
forming an overall picture of the use of a landscape at a particular stage. If
we find twenty sites from a particular period, we can assess the overall use
of a landscape, and may be able to identify trends within periods as short as
a third or a quarter of a century. The more we aggregate the data, the more

181
Graham Shipley

closely they can be assumed to approximate to something real. This even

allows us to get around the problems of multi-period sites changing their
sizes through time, since broad-brush changes across a landscape will still
be more or less accurately represented by the combined data. Although it
will still be difficult to read characteristics of a society, such as population
numbers, from survey data, the comparison of results from different surveys
can point us towards regional differences. The work of Susan Alcock has
highlighted the different trajectories followed by settlement patterns in
different parts of Alexander’s empire.21 Here I wish to emphasize the variety
and change that can be seen within Greece itself.

Hellenistic data from published surveys

In comparing different surveys, we must take into account differences in
methodology, such as different period definitions. Fig. 1 shows total site
numbers from raw data published from seven surveys, arranged by period
according to the chronological divisions employed by each project. Even
without adjusting for differences between different chronological schemes,
it is clear that there is a pronounced dip in site numbers in, broadly, the
late hellenistic period. (Perhaps Polybios had good reason to make his
pronouncements after all.) In some regions, numbers pick up again in the
Roman or late Roman period. Given that each project covers a different
amount of territory, we may get further by calculating the density of sites

80
Boiotia
Nemea
Berbati
S. Argolid
Methana
Laconia
N. Keos
40

0
LCl. LCl.–Hl. Hl. EHl. LHl. Hl.–MR. ER. R. LR.

Fig. 1. Total site numbers from seven surveys, by period.

Key to Figures. Cl. = classical, Hl. = hellenistic, R. = Roman; the prefixes E, M, and
L signify early, middle, and late respectively.

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 Hidden landscapes: Greek field survey data and hellenistic history

3
Boiotia
Nemea
Berbati
S. Argolid
Methana
2
Laconia
N. Keos

0
LCl. LCl.–Hl. Hl. EHl. LHl. Hl.–MR. ER. R. LR.

Fig. 2. Density of sites from seven surveys, by period.

200
Boiotia
Nemea
Berbati
S. Argolid
Methana
Laconia
N. Keos

100

0
LCl. LCl.–Hl. Hl. EHl. LHl. Hl.–MR. ER. R. LR.

Fig. 3. Density of sites from seven surveys, by period; indexed so that classical = 100.

in a survey area (Fig. 2). As before, there is a pronounced fall in site density
after the early hellenistic period. Now, however, differences between regions
become clear. Site density is consistently highest in Boiotia, lower in places
like Methana, Berbati, and the southern Argolid. Finally, to bring out
changes through time, we can choose a starting-point at which to index
each survey as 100 (Fig. 3). Methana, Laconia, and Berbati see an increase
in overall site density in the hellenistic period, while it falls in other regions.
The same three places maintain this increased density in the Roman period,
while others remain below their classical levels.

183
Graham Shipley

A closer look at changes through time in a range of surveys, including

some non-intensive projects, reveals more detail. In the Laconia Survey,
rural settlement numbers rise sharply in about 300 bc and remain high
during the hellenistic period, though there may be a slight decline in the
second and first centuries. A similar, long-lasting rise in site numbers is
seen at Asea22 and at Pylos,23 where an upturn took place slightly earlier,
in about the fourth century, but persisted for two to three centuries.
In other places the upturn is short-lived. In the southern Argolid, for
example, the rise in small farms occurs between about 350 and 250, but
is immediately followed by a fall in the second half of the third century.24
Berbati–Limnes sees a similar rise around 300 and a fall by 200.25 Data
from Nemea,26 and preliminary results from the territory of Megalo-
polis,27 suggest peak numbers in classical and early hellenistic times with
a fall from the third century. Boiotia sees a fourth-century peak, with
a fall during the third or second century.28 In northern Keos, where
classical sites were numerous, most were abandoned by 200.29 Finally,
in a few surveys there are different patterns. On Melos, for example,
contraction of rural settlement began earlier, during the classical period,
and continued in the hellenistic.30 In Achaea, however, contraction began
and ended later than elsewhere.31
There are, then, both common features and regional variation. Some
places had a long-lasting late classical and hellenistic peak of rural settle-
ment numbers. A rather larger number of regions saw a collapse of site
numbers in the early or middle hellenistic period. In the Laconia Survey
area there was a slow decline, or possibly none. In Achaea the contrac-
tion began and ended later. These differences will be the product of local
circumstances. The surveyors of the southern Argolid, for example, have
interpreted the changes in terms of fluctuations in the intensity of olive
cultivation and the export of oil.32 Elsewhere one might invoke distance
from a major conurbation, or from a Macedonian garrison. The north-
western Peloponnese was affected by the rise of the Achaean league and
later by economic intervention on the part of Romans and Italians. Other
regionally specific accounts can be imagined.
We can also compare the sizes of sites in different regions. Different
survey publications give more or less detail of site size, so for this purpose
I have used a narrower selection. In order to compare like with like, we
should not place too much weight on average size. The average (or ‘mean’)
will be exaggerated by the inclusion of a few large sites (as in the southern
Argolid, where four small poleis lie within the survey area), and does not
necessarily give a representative indication. Fig. 4 gives an example of
median site size combined with an indication of the interquartile range of

184
 Hidden landscapes: Greek field survey data and hellenistic history

1.5 av.
Southern Argolid
Q3
M
Q1
1.0
Site size (ha)

0.5

0.0
Cl. LCl.–Hl. Hl. ER. LR.

Fig. 4. Median site size (ha) and interquartile range of sizes: Southern Argolid.

sizes. (The median is the middle site in terms of size, the one with equal
numbers larger and smaller than itself. The quartiles of a series are the
points dividing it into four, rather than two, equal parts, the second quartile
being identical to the median. The interquartile range represents the middle
50 per cent of sites, ignoring both the largest and the smallest 25 per cent; it
is a statistical measure often used to indicate typicality.) While site numbers
(and the total area occupied by all sites) fall sharply in the hellenistic period
before rising in the late Roman, typical size increases steadily from about 0.2
ha in classical times to 0.4 ha in late Roman. When we consider the top-
ranking sites, which are not taken into account in calculating the median
and quartiles, it is evident that there is a relative increase in the numbers
of medium–large sites in the hellenistic period. Average size also rises,
partly because of an increase in the sizes of sites at the top of the scale, and
provides supporting evidence of an overall increase in site size.
The same calculations for Methana (Fig. 5) paint a different picture.
Typical site size is smaller than in the Argolid. There is almost no change
through time, only a very slight dip in the hellenistic and Roman periods.
In Laconia (Fig. 6) sites are smaller at the start of the hellenistic period
and there is even less change during the period, only a slight decline in
average size.
These results suggest that in Methana and in the Laconia Survey area the
way in which the rural landscape was being exploited (though not neces-
sarily the intensity with which it was exploited) changed little. They suggest
that there was no widespread rise of large elite estates. For the southern
Argolid, however, they are clearly consistent with such a development.

185
Graham Shipley

1.5
Methana
av.
Q3
M
1.0
Q1
Site size (ha)

0.5

0.0
Cl. Hl. R. LR.

Fig. 5. Median site size and interquartile range of sizes: Methana Survey.

1.5
Laconia

av.
1.0 Q3
Site size (ha)

M
Q1

0.5

0.0
Cl. Hl. R.

Fig. 6. Median site size and interquartile range of sizes: Laconia Survey.

Case study: the Laconia Survey data

A case study of one region will illustrate how local trends can be inter-
preted with the help of historical evidence. The Laconia Survey data share
features of other surveys, but there are contrasts too. (Fig. 7 shows the
survey area.)
In most other areas of Greece, as we have seen, a sharp fall in site numbers
occurred at some stage during the hellenistic period, most commonly in
the third century or at its end. In the Laconia Survey area, this is not

186
 Hidden landscapes: Greek field survey data and hellenistic history

seen. Instead, the mid-sixth-century influx into previously unoccupied

lands, itself typical of Greek surveys,33 is suddenly thrown into reverse by
a sharp fall in site numbers that comes much earlier than elsewhere, around
450 bc.34 Around 300 bc, however, there is a rise in all three sectors of the
survey area, most marked in the relatively less fertile uplands of the north
(Fig. 8).35 During the middle and late hellenistic period, in contrast to other
regions, there are only faint signs of decline, or none. The nearest parallel
for such trends, not a close one, is in Methana, where, after a fifth-century
rise and a slight fall in the fourth century, settlement numbers rise in the

Fig. 7. Schematic map of Laconia Survey area (A. Sackett and D. Miles-Williams).

187
Graham Shipley

Late archaic– Late classical Hellenistic Roman

Early classical

North 10 6 26 26
West 20 15 24 13
South-east 54 23 25 12
Total 84 44 75 51

Fig. 8. Laconia Survey site numbers by period and sector.

early hellenistic period before dropping back again.36 Elsewhere the classical
or late classical period is usually the high point of site numbers.
The strength of classical rural settlement is usually linked to the political
primacy of citizen smallholders. As Anthony Snodgrass has commented,
the chora was endowed with
a political significance which it could scarcely possess under any other
system … the period of maximum rural dispersal is also the period of maximum
population, power and prosperity, for the community as a whole.37
This is not true of Sparta, since the collapse in rural farmsteads in the
second half of the fifth century coincides with Sparta’s maximum power.
The losses of Messenian territory after the battle of Leuktra, and again after
Chaironeia,38 were still generations away.
Late classical and early hellenistic Sparta notoriously suffered from
a shortage of manpower, which Aristotle called oliganthropia. Stephen
Hodkinson has argued that this was due chiefly to the demotion of poor
men from citizenship as they lost the ability to pay the requisite subscrip-
tions.39 This, in turn, was a consequence of losing their land. At the same
time, better-off families were getting richer. Economic polarization was the
product of a combination of factors, including increasing social competi-
tion among the elite and Sparta’s peculiar rules about female inheritance.
No doubt the frequency of casualties in battle in the late fifth and fourth
centuries also increased the instability of land ownership, and presented
some of the elite with opportunities.
We may assume that, because of these changes, some small farms within
Sparta’s territory were being taken over, in some manner, by wealthier
landowners and combined into large (though not necessarily contiguous)
holdings. One might expect such a trend to be reflected in the survey
data – small farmsteads, for example, being replaced by fewer, larger estate
buildings – but this is not the case. Much of the survey territory is simply
abandoned in the late classical period, especially in the parts further from
Sparta. This suggests that the rise of large estates was not happening there.

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 Hidden landscapes: Greek field survey data and hellenistic history

The elite may have had little interest in the survey area, which mostly
comprises hill-land east and north-east of Sparta where the quality of the
land is generally not high. As Richard Catling’s study of the archaic and
classical data has suggested, they may have concentrated their efforts in the
better farmland of the Eurotas valley, where estate enlargement was presum-
ably taking place.40 Polybios bears witness to the success of arboriculture in
the Spartan plain at a later date.41 The abandonment of farms in the survey
area in the late classical period may have been due to their economic failure.
Situated on marginal land at a distance from the central market, many
of them may have found it impossible to compete with larger estates in
Sparta’s core territory, whose owners may already have made moves towards
extensification and cash-cropping.
Who, then, were the settlers on the new farms in the early hellenistic
period? Hardly successful citizen farmers; most of the sites are poor in finds
in comparison with other surveys. In any case, we know from Plutarch
that there was a crisis in Spartan citizen numbers by the mid-third century,
when barely seven hundred citizens remained of whom about a hundred
owned a significant amount of land. Presumably all seven hundred owned,
or had the use of, enough land to qualify them as full Spartiates.42 A second
possibility is that the new farmers were helots, sent to abandoned farms
close to Sparta as a way of making up for the loss of agricultural surpluses
from Messenia. Such a measure, however, would make better sense earlier,
in the aftermath of 369. Third, it seems unlikely that excluded members
of the citizen body or other marginal groups could unilaterally set up as
squatters so close to Sparta in order to gain citizen status. This area had been
settled, and presumably owned, by Spartan families as recently as the mid-
fifth century. Titles to the land were surely preserved, orally or in writing.
Moreover, since land was evidently still a precondition of citizenship, why
the crisis in citizen numbers in the 240s?
A fourth possibility, that a class of dependent labour was involved, may
now be considered. This need not have been an unfree or serf-like group.
Two scenarios seem possible. (1) The early third-century settlers may have
been demoted Spartans whom wealthier patrons, with the consent or
encouragement of the state, were helping to reopen the land. Even if this
help was given in return for a percentage of the crops, the settlers may still
have qualified as citizens and formed part of Plutarch’s six hundred poorer
landowners. On this scenario, Agis IV and Kleomenes III, in the 240s and
230s, may not have been the first Spartans to attempt a kind of land reform
in order to strengthen the citizen body.43 Equally, since site numbers in the
Laconia Survey area remained stable or drifted downwards after the early
hellenistic period, those kings’ reforms had no measurable effect upon this

189
Graham Shipley

part of Laconia. (2) Alternatively, title in the land passed to the patron,
and the early-third-century settlers (of whatever social origin) stood outside
the citizen body. The poverty of the new sites, and the critical shortage of
Spartan manpower by the 240s, both tend to favour the second scenario.
The key point, however, is that, whether the new farms were occupied by
poor citizens or by non-citizens, relations of dependency were involved.
Furthermore, the resettlement of part of the survey area was a special
phenomenon arising from local circumstances. In this part of Laconia at
least, a rise in small farms did not represent the continuation or revival of
a ‘classical’ agricultural society dominated by citizen smallholders. Viewed
in this light, the uniquely sharp rise in rural settlement in third-century
Laconia looks less like a success story. Both the (almost unique) late classical
collapse and the hellenistic revival can be explained as the direct or indirect
result of elite land accumulation. Particularly favourable conditions for
such a practice may have existed in Sparta. The probable rise of elite farms
in other parts of its territory may explain the abandonment of some sites in
the Laconia Survey area during the fifth century. It may also account for the
unusually successful re-establishment of rural farms in the early hellenistic
period. The longevity of the resulting settlement pattern may also reflect
the relatively late and slow urban development of Sparta.44

Conclusions
Archaeological field survey has revealed a collapse of rural settlement in
many regions of southern Greece in the early or middle hellenistic period.
The trend is clear; it is now the role of interpretation to ascertain what
social changes lie behind this development. We must not only take account
of local factors, but seek more general explanations.
Alcock has pointed to a combination of factors: population decline,
urbanization, and the formation of elite estates.45 Overall population levels
are hard to establish, since migration into towns might account for a fall in
rural population, with no overall decline. The data reviewed earlier seem
to be consistent with a rise in larger farmsteads in some regions but not
in others. Yet the fall in rural site numbers is widespread outside Laconia,
and is not always accompanied by an increase in site size. The decline is
unlikely to be due to Roman intervention, which can hardly have had
a deep influence upon the landscape before the second century. We should
look for a home-grown explanation.
In the third century, as noted earlier, the political and economic power
of the upper classes was increasing. This was the case both in independent
poleis and in organizations such as the Achaean league, which expanded to
include many of Sparta’s Peloponnesian rivals. The alarm that reportedly

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 Hidden landscapes: Greek field survey data and hellenistic history

spread through the Peloponnese in the 230s and 220s at the resurgence of
Sparta under Kleomenes III may reflect the class interests of the civic elites
of the Achaean league.46 Since a sharp fall in rural population is consistent
with migration into towns, was this the way in which intensified depend-
ency relations were working through into the settlement pattern in most
regions? Were the late third and early second centuries a time when elite
land accumulation started to bite? In some places, this may have resulted
in the rise of dependent small farmers, in others a rise in larger elite farms,
elsewhere the abandonment of cultivated areas as small farmers were driven
out of existence and into the towns. While the changes were not absolute
or complete in any region, each scenario may mark, in one way or another,
the decline of independent, free, normally citizen smallholders.
Paradoxical as it may seem, this development had its roots in classical
times, the period when the citizen farmer was supposedly the archetypal
free Greek. Yet, as we have seen, the citizen farmer was never the only kind
of farmer, at least outside Attica.47 To the extent that the ‘peasant-citizen’
culture of the polis was ever predominant, its decline was the culmination of
a longer trend that received a boost whenever curbs on elite ambition were
removed. Despite the dissemination of democratic forms of government, the
propertied classes may have seized the successive opportunities presented by
Macedonian domination and Roman rule to enhance their position at the
expense of their fellow-citizens. At Sparta, the evidence of survey implies
that dependency relations among members of the free population emerged
in an acute form even earlier than elsewhere. For this, an explanation may
be found in the peculiar history of Sparta’s social development.
Survey data must be handled sensitively. We must not expect to know
too much about individual sites, and the data are most emphatic when
grouped together. They raise questions of fundamental importance about
the identity and status of those living in the countryside, about who owns
the land, how much of it is exploited and in what ways, its economic
relation to a central place, and so on. Written texts can only begin to
suggest answers to these questions; it is for archaeology to put flesh on the
bones. Sixty years ago, Mikhail Rostovtzeff could write of conditions in
the Greek homeland that
The large majority of the working class … lived on what they earned by their
manual labour as peasant landowners mostly overburdened with debts, as
tenants of parcels of land owned by the cities, the temples, various corpora-
tions, and private persons, or as hired hands in agriculture and industry.48
Survey data play their part in revealing regional differences and local
variations that previously we could only infer in the most general terms.

191
Graham Shipley

They tend to confirm the evidence of the sources and inscriptions that
the elite were extending their power, and may even give some support to
those who would rescue Polybios from opprobrium. The data also point to
regional variation, illuminating the ways in which this common tendency
was revealed differently in different landscapes. John Davies has recently
called for new analyses of how economies worked at the levels of region and
polis in the hellenistic world.49 I suspect that as more survey data become
available we shall be able to see further into regional changes, but will also
detect more and more local variation in rural settlement patterns.

Acknowledgements
This investigation forms part of a project on change in hellenistic landscapes in
the Peloponnese, which was supported in 1999 by a grant from the Research
Leave Scheme of the UK Arts and Humanities Research Board (see also Shipley
2000a; Shipley 2002a; Shipley forthcoming). I have drawn upon the results of
the Laconia Survey, for which I am grateful to Bill Cavanagh and Joost Crouwel.
A version of the paper was read at the Triennial Meeting of the Hellenic and
Roman Societies in Wadham College, Oxford, in July 2001; I thank Robert Parker
for the invitation to take part, and members of the audience, particularly Peter
Derow and Lene Rubinstein, for helpful comments. For comments on earlier
versions of the text, I thank Anne Sackett and Sarah Scott. I am grateful to Daniel
Ogden and Anton Powell for their invitation to contribute to this volume, as well
as for acute comments on this paper.

Notes
1
On the effects of the Roman conquest, see the excellent treatment in Alcock
1993.
2
See the classic debates in Keller and Rupp 1983.
3
See Rhodes 1997.
4
Habicht 1997.
5
Shipley 1987, esp. 210–11, 214.
6
Austin 1981, no. 113 (SEG 1.366).
7
Polybios, 4.73.5–74.2 on Elis (Austin 1981, no. 85), 20.6.1–6 on Boiotia
(Austin 1981, no. 84), and 36.17.5–10 on Greece generally (Austin 1981, no.
81).
8
de Ste Croix 1981, 149, followed by Cartledge 1988, 37–9. See also de Ste
Croix 1988, 23–4.
9
Gymnesioi of Argos: Stephanos of Byzantion, entry under Chioi (Cartledge
2002, 301 B. 9). Called Gymnetes: Pollux, 3.83. See further Jameson 1992, 138.
10
Korynephoroi: Stephanos of Byzantion, entry under Chioi (Cartledge
2002, 301 B. 9). Katonakophoroi: Theopompos (FGH 115), fragment 176. Cf.
Whitehead 1981; Jameson 1992, 138–9.

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 Hidden landscapes: Greek field survey data and hellenistic history
11
Konipodes: Plutarch, Greek Questions, 291 d–e. Hesychios, entry under
konipodes, defines koniortopodes as agroikoi, ergatai (‘rustics, workmen’).
12
Penestai: Theopompos (FGH 115), fragment 122; Aristotle, Politics,
1264a32–6, 1269a37–b5; Aristotle, fragment 586; also Kallistratos (FGH 348),
fragment 4; Pollux, 3.83. All are translated at Cartledge 2002, 301 B. 5b, 302 C.
7a, 306 E. 2, 301 B. 7b, 303 C. 9, and 303 C. 13 respectively.
13
Prospelatai: Theopompos (FGH 115), fragment 40. Kallikyrioi: Aristotle,
fragment 586. See Cartledge 2002, 302 C. 6–7.
14
Perioikoi of Crete: Aristotle, Politics, 1269b3, 1271b30–1272b18; cf. Shipley
1997, 217; part translated at Cartledge 2002, 306 F. 1. Klarotai: Aristotle,
fragment 586 (Cartledge 2002, 302 C. 7b); Kallistratos (FGH 348), fragment 4.
Dmoïtai: Stephanos of Byzantion, entry under Chioi (n. 9 above).
15
Dorophoroi: Kallistratos (FGH 348), fragment 4 (Cartledge 2002, 303 C. 9).
16
Phylarchos (FGH 81), fragment 8 (Cartledge 2002, 303 C. 10).
17
Pedieis: Hiller von Gaertringen 1906, nos. 60, 63, 139.
18
De Ste Croix 1981, 139–40 (intermediate statuses the exception to the
free–slave dichotomy), 148–50, 160, 162 (Athens possibly unique in abolishing
debt bondage), 171 (unfree labour may be widespread), 173 (serfdom in local
forms, each apparently unique; but slavery the norm).
19
Jameson 1992, e.g. 135 (abstract), 145–6.
20
For a general account of archaeological survey in Greece, see Snodgrass 1987,
esp. ch. 4.
21
Alcock 1994, esp. 187–9.
22
Forsén, Forsén, and Lavento 1996, 91.
23
Davis, Alcock, Bennet, Lolos, and Shelmerdine 1997, 455–7.
24
Jameson, Runnels, and van Andel 1994, 383–4, 391, 393–4.
25
Penttinen 1996, 229, 271–2, 279–81.
26
Wright, Cherry, Davis, Mantzourani, Sutton, and Sutton 1990, 616–17.
27
Roy, Lloyd, and Owens 1989, 149; Lloyd 1991, 189–90.
28
Bintliff and Snodgrass 1985, 139, 145, 157.
29
Cherry, Davis, and Mantzourani 1991, 331, 334, 343–4 (with figs. 17.6–7),
346. In Attica, where there appears to be a late classical peak of settlement, the
rural demes may have declined in importance after 300 (Lohmann 1992).
30
Wagstaff and Cherry 1982, 252–3 (though the reliability of the data has been
questioned, see Catling 1984).
31
Lakakis and Rizakis 1992, 68–9; Petropoulos and Rizakis 1994, 190–2 (tables
1–2), 198.
32
See e.g. van Andel and Runnels 1987, ch. 6.
33
Foxhall 1997, 123–7, identifies the late sixth century and/or classical period
as the typical period of maximum settlement dispersal in southern Greece.
34
See Catling 2002.
35
Shipley 2002b.
36
Gill, Foxhall, and Bowden 1997.
37
Snodgrass 1987–9, 53 and 63; italics original.
38
For the two-stage loss of Messenia, see Shipley 2000a; Roebuck 1948.

193
Graham Shipley
39
Earlier discussions in Hodkinson 1986 and Hodkinson 1989; see now
Hodkinson 2000.
40
Catling 2002.
41
Polybios, 5.19.1: Amyklai is the finest place in Lakonike for trees and crops
(kallidendrotatos kai kallikarpotatos). See Jameson 1992, 137 and n. 13.
42
Cartledge and Spawforth (2002, 42–3) suggest that the majority of these seven
hundred may have had land that was mortgaged to the rich. Although the agoge
had apparently fallen into disuse by the mid-third century, it appears likely that
land, if not mess contributions, remained a precondition for full citizenship.
43
For these land reforms, see Plutarch, Agis 8.1–3, 13.2; Kleomenes 10(31).11–
11(32).3.
44
See Kourinou 2000.
45
Alcock 1994, 188.
46
Plutarch, Aratos 39. 8; Kleomenes 16–17. If, that is, Plutarch can be relied
on in this respect; for, as Austin observes, ‘Aratus’ fear of the “contagion of
revolution” … is not made clear in Polybius’ account’ (Austin 1981, 113). One
would not expect Polybios to have missed an opportunity to highlight the threat
to good order, as he saw it, posed by Kleomenes. On hellenistic elites, see also
Shipley 2000b, 131–3, 191, etc.; also Shipley 1987, 202–28; on the Achaean
league and Sparta, Shipley 2000b, 136–8, 145.
47
On the difficulty of generalizing about changes in archaic and early classical
Greek agriculture, see Morris 1998, esp. 74–9.
48
Rostovtzeff 1941, iii. 1149.
49
Davies 2001, esp. 34–6.

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 11

STEPPE AND SEA:

THE HELLENISTIC NORTH IN THE BLACK SEA
REGION BEFORE THE FIRST CENTURY BC

David Braund

Alexander’s coruscating campaign across Asia had taken very much

a southern route: the Black Sea region had not been touched. That is not to
say, however, that his regime had no involvements there: complete neglect
would seem most unlikely in the aftermath of Philip II’s campaign of 339
against Scythian Atheas and Zopyrion’s ravages on behalf of Alexander
himself in 331, which reached at least as far as Olbia.1 Alexander’s defeat
of the Achaemenids probably had a substantial impact upon the region,
for the Achaemenid empire had long maintained an active interest there.
Of course, the south coast of the Black Sea was simply part of that empire.
Much less well understood are the implications of that fact for the north
coast of the Black Sea: that is for Greek cities like Tyras and Olbia in the
north-west or Chersonesus in the Crimea, and for the Bosporan kingdom,
which sat astride the narrow channel (the ancient Cimmerian Bosporus,
now the Straits of Kerch) linking the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov (the
ancient Maeotis) and gave access to the resources of the interior. The
intimate links, especially economic, between the north and south coasts
of the Black Sea are a recurrent feature of the ancient literary tradition,
amply confirmed by the evidence of material culture in the form, for
example, of amphora-finds.2 Small wonder that Chersonesus was founded
from Heracleia Pontica on the south coast just across the sea.3 In other
words, the Achaemenid possession of the south coast immediately entailed
a concern with the north coast also, although we remain lamentably
short of conclusive details on the nature of that concern. Also worthy of
consideration is the extent to which the Achaemenids’ control of Miletus
encouraged them to look northwards, for example to Olbia, one of Miletus’
many colonies in the region.4 Nor should we suppose that the non-Greek
peoples of the region were any less a part of that concern than were Greeks.
A rare general insight is offered by the terms of the much-disputed Peace

199
David Braund

of Callias, according to which the Athenians agreed, c. 450, to complete

Achaemenid control of the Black Sea into which their war-ships would
not now sail.5 Meanwhile, further east in the Caucasus, archaeology has
demonstrated the kind of influence that Herodotus’ account of Achae-
menid power there in any case suggests: most important is the discovery of
what may well be an Achaemenid administrative centre in Kakheti, eastern
Georgia.6 Accordingly, the demise of Achaemenid power had a profound
impact upon the whole region, made still more profound by the years of
uncertain upheaval which followed.
Against that historical background the present discussion will seek to
sketch the broad shape of the northern Black Sea region, and a little more
besides, in the hellenistic period. The lack of sufficient literary evidence
on the region obstructs any attempt to trace the flow of events there in
balanced detail. It is particularly unfortunate that our Byzantine summary
of part of the local history of Memnon of Heracleia Pontica exhibits
very little interest in much beyond the city itself, and especially the local
behaviour of its rulers. But there is enough literary evidence – and much
archaeology, including some crucial inscriptions – to permit a general
characterization of key factors at play in this ‘hellenistic north’.
The two dominant geographical features of the area offer a convenient
interpretative framework: these are the sea (specifically the Black Sea itself,
our Sea of Azov being always a ‘marsh’)7 and the steppe of the southern
Ukrainian hinterland from the upper Crimea northwards.8 An approach
in terms of geography is all the more appropriate in that much of ancient
concern with the region was couched in terms of its peculiar geography.
Indeed, the region had a special interest for ancient geographers, of whom
Strabo and his historical forerunner Polybius will matter most in what
follows.9

The steppe
Well before the hellenistic period the idea of the steppe had already gripped
Greek writers and thinkers. The notion of a vast expanse of flat grassland,
without landmarks, roads or settlements, had an evident power for the
crowded denizens of mainland Greece and the Aegean world, with their
premium on flat space and good grazing. The relatively cold, wet climate
and especially the many great rivers of the world of the steppe further
empowered the image, an uneasy mix of imagination and reality. For
Greeks, the strange environment entailed also searching questions about
the lifestyles of those who lived in this very different world. Both the main
extant accounts of the region, for all their differences, coincide in presenting
a harmony between the environment and the lifestyle which went with it.10

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Here in the north, conventionally termed Scythia, the tension between

nature (physis) and human custom (nomos) was imagined at its weakest:
the people of Scythia had customs and a lifestyle in tune with nature. By
contrast, the Greeks of the region were seen as perching, exposed, on a coast
which was the meeting place of the traditionalist, land-orientated Scythians
and the world of Greek culture proper, orientated towards the sea. Already,
well before the hellenistic period, Greek writers had wrestled with a central
contradiction in this ‘Scythian mirage’,11 which showed Scythians both as
idealized peace-lovers and as bloodthirsty terrors, at once the exemplary
acme and the threatening nadir of civilization.
However, in the hellenistic period the issue of Scythian lifestyle achieved
a fresh and still greater significance in the context of philosophical debates
within and between the new schools of philosophy. Scythian austerity,
entailing also simple-but-wise bluntness and aversion from deceptive,
flowery rhetoric, held a particular appeal for Cynics. It may be more than
coincidence that two of the leading figures in early Cynicism emerge from
the Black Sea world, namely Diogenes of Sinope himself and Bion of Borys-
thenes (alias Olbia). Moreover, the well-established tradition on Scythian
Anacharsis is made to work hard for the cause of Cynicism, placing nature
above custom.12 Nor were the Cynics alone in their interest. Strabo, a self-
advertising Stoic,13 enumerates a series of statements and views on Scythian
lifestyle, often attributed to earlier authors, who include the voluminous
Chrysippus himself. We may be sure that Dio Chrysostom was not the
first Stoic to see philosophical opportunity in the Black Sea region, when
he dilates, c. ad 100, from a Stoic perspective upon the theme of civic
harmony in the context of Olbia’s embattled plight amid Scythian aggres-
sors.14 For Strabo himself not only collects the material but also presents his
own preferred answer to the traditional contradiction on Scythian lifestyle,
striving hard, as usual, to support Homer’s presentation of the region against
his critics. On Strabo’s view the Greeks were responsible for the change: it
was contact with the unsavoury and corrupting practices of Greek traders
and the sea that had undermined traditional Scythian ideals.15
The abiding and developing vigour of such notions is all the more
impressive in that they seem to have so little relevance to the actual
experience of Greeks and Scythians on and around the steppe. They do
however include one valuable warning, which has often gone unheeded:
they indicate that hostility was not the only available Greek response to
Scythians. The experience of the cities of the north coast of the Black Sea
was far more complex than hostility. A key reason for that was the very
inadequacy of the all-embracing term ‘Scythian’. It is quite clear that, rather
as Herodotus had urged throughout his account of the region, there was

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a complex plurality of political and ethnic groupings among the non-Greek

peoples there. This remained the messy reality, not a simple dichotomy of
Greeks and Scythians, for which the term ‘Greeks’ too obscures the differ-
ences, tensions and sometimes outright hostilities between the various
Greek communities of the Black Sea.
The most detailed snapshot of the experience of a hellenistic city on the
north coast is provided by a decree from Olbia which honours Protogenes
around 200 bc.16 The decree shows Protogenes very much at the pinnacle
of Olbian society, holding a series of public offices and, most important,
taking upon himself the practical and especially the financial burdens of
his city. Protogenes had evidently inherited his status, his wealth and his
beneficent role in the community, for the beginning of the decree alludes
to the great practical and financial services which had been carried out by
his father Hieroson too; it is less clear that his services had had as much
to do with neighbouring peoples as Protogenes’ did, though it is tempting
to think so. The decree sets out Protogenes’ actions in honorific detail,
reviewing what is presented explicitly as a lifetime of service to Olbia.
Accordingly, taking into account the time-scale envisaged by the decree and
also (however cautiously) the activities of Protogenes’ father, the inscrip-
tion offers a picture of local Olbian history which is not only detailed but
also extends over much of the middle and later third century bc. Thanks
to intensive archaeology in the civic territory of Olbia we know that it was
precisely in these years that the villages which had once spread thickly even
far afield from the city core were largely abandoned: there are often signs
of fire and violent destruction.17 Accordingly, Protogenes’ activities are to
be understood in the context of a sharply contracting civic territory. The
decree in his honour further suggests a primary reason for the destruc-
tion of villages there: relations with some of the neighbouring peoples
had broken down. Much of Protogenes’ activities involved attempts to
manage those relations. Meanwhile, we find in the decree a plurality of such
neighbours, with very different attitudes. In addition to other benefits to
his community, Protogenes is said to have supported Olbia with regard to
external problems on some seven occasions:
1. He paid King Saitaphernes 400 gold pieces18 when the public treasury
lacked funds. It is clear that the king expected a regular payment from the
city, apparently each time he passed, no doubt seasonally.
2. He paid the Saii the same sum when, in his priesthood, the treasury
was again unable.
3. Having been elected as magistrate among the Nine, he loaned the
city a large sum (1,500 gold pieces) ‘from which many chieftains were

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conciliated in good time and not a few presents were provided for the king
(Saitaphernes?) advantageously’.
4. When the city was financially unable to provide the king (Saitaphernes?)
with equipment for his palace, he, ‘seeing that the city was risking great
danger, came forward himself to the assembly’ and offered the requisite
sum (900 gold pieces).
5. ‘When King Saitaphernes came along to the other side of the river to
receive favours and the magistrates called an assembly and reported on
the presence of the king and on the fact that the revenues were exhausted,
Protogenes came forward and gave 900 gold pieces, and when the ambas-
sadors, Protogenes and Aristocrates, took the money and met the king,
and the king took the presents but flew into a rage and broke up his
quarters … ’
6. He greatly improved and augmented the city’s fortification-system at
huge financial cost to himself. The decree explains the context in graphic
terms:
Deserters were reporting that the Gauls and the Sciri had formed an alliance
and that a large force had been collected and would be coming during the
winter, and in addition that the Thisamatae, Scythians and Saudaratae were
anxious to seize the fort, as they themselves were equally terrified of the cruelty
of the Gauls. Because of this many were in despair and prepared to abandon
the city. In addition many other losses had been suffered in the countryside,
in that all the servile population and the half-Greeks who live in the plain
along the river bank had been lost to us, no less than 1,500 in number, who
had fought on our side in the city in the previous war, and also many of the
foreigners and not a few of the citizens had left. Because of this the people
met in an assembly in deep despair, as they saw before them the danger that
lay ahead and the terrors in store, and called on all who were able-bodied
to help and not allow their native-city, after it had been preserved for many
years, to be subjected by the enemy.
Protogenes stepped forward and saved the day by financing defences.
7. He managed the civic finances expertly when ‘the affairs of the city were
in a bad state because of the wars and the dearth of crops’.
The plurality of neighbours is striking. The dominant individual is King
Saitaphernes, who seems to have appeared seasonally to the east of the
city, beyond the River Bug (ancient Hypanis) or perhaps the Dnieper (the
ancient Borysthenes, with which the city shared its name). He expected
payments and, it seems, specific items for his palace from the city: evidently
Olbia had been able to maintain such an arrangement over a period before
Protogenes’ intervention, whether by use of civic revenues or through

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personal benefactions by others or a mixture of both. The king’s anger

towards Protogenes and his fellow-envoy is left unexplained: it may have
been caused by his displeasure at the quality or quantity of Olbia’s offering.
However, the king was not the only external burden upon the city. The Saii
too are mentioned as recipients: their name and perhaps the sum involved
might encourage the notion that they are the subjects of Saitaphernes,
but we cannot assume as much, for it would then be strange that the king
himself is not mentioned whereas he appears elsewhere in the inscription.
Note too the plurality of ‘chieftains’ who require conciliation. Moreover,
the Thisamatae, Scythians and Saudaratae also seem distinct from the
king, though little about them is clear. It is interesting to see the Scythians
relegated here to but one among other peoples, but there is no indication of
their usual relations with Olbia, no sign of regular hostility and no sign of
payments, though all remains possible in their case. It is the Sciri and, above
all, the Gauls who are the principal enemies of Olbia: it is their alliance
which sends the city scurrying to fortify, not least to keep out the Thisa-
matae, Scythians and Saudaratae as they themselves seek refuge from the
ferocity of the Gauls in particular. The identity of the Gauls is elusive: we
might suppose a northern branch of the force which Nicomedes (reigned
c. 279–c. 255 bc) had taken across the Hellespont into Asia Minor and thus
a relatively new and unstable force around the north-west Black Sea, but
we cannot claim to be at all sure about the meaning of the terminology in
use at Olbia.19 The restricted local use of ‘Scythians’ counsels a measure of
caution. King Saitaphernes has ceased to be a problem, it seems: perhaps
he had died or had stopped coming from the east20 to avoid the upheavals
and the fearsome Gauls. Meanwhile, however, there had been a flight not
only from the city itself but from the civic territory by what seem best
understood as helots. These had been useful in ‘the last war’, while financial
problems were traced to ‘the wars and the dearth of crops’. As the decree
shows, the population of hellenistic Olbia lived in the shadow of war. Of
course, the harvest might fail in any case, but war made that failure more
likely and more deadly.
The only rational objective for the city was accommodation with
local peoples, such as Olbia seems to have managed to a point with King
Saitaphernes and others. But diplomacy required willing and stable leaders
among neigbouring peoples. It also required the financial wherewithal that
Olbia conspicuously lacked as a state. It is worth stressing, however, that
the city survived. Protogenes had enormous private wealth, not least in
agricultural produce and therefore land. Moreover, we should not suppose
that Protogenes, for all his evident importance, was alone in his wealth at
Olbia: it is the nature of honorific decrees to place the whole focus upon the

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individual honorand. The very fact that the broadly democratic structure
persisted there tends to indicate that there were others too, who, we may
assume, provided funds on other occasions when, for example, Saitaphernes
came calling. The plausibly-named Aristocrates may well have been one
such. And the rich epigraphy of Olbia throws up other names too: the
martial Niceratus, for example, and the problematic Anthesterius.21 Even
foreigners might play a crucial role: a Rhodian, Hellanicus, is honoured
in an Olbian decree of the third century bc for providing presents for
the kings of the territory.22 In that sense the public finances of Olbia had
much the same structure as many another hellenistic city, depending upon
indirect taxes and, in place of direct taxation, a culture of private benefi-
cence which offered the wealthy an enhanced social status in return for
their contributions. Davies sums up the broad picture of hellenistic civic
finances very well: ‘empty treasuries are not far to seek, with consequential
crises whenever extraordinary demands impinged, most notably for major
public buildings, fortifications, the purchase of corn or the mounting of
a military expedition’.23
The cities of the hellenistic north depended upon the socially-enforced
beneficence of wealthy individuals to cope with the costly demands of
their neighbours in addition to the numerous burdens which could fall
on any city. Olbia was by no means alone. Such individuals are known at
much this time also at Histria on the west coast of the Black Sea.24 Also
through the later third century bc archaeology amply attests destruction
of rural settlements outside Tyras, located between Olbia and Histria, and
in the civic territory of the city of Chersonesus which extended far along
the west coast of the Crimea from its core on the south-western corner
of the peninsula.25 Evidently all the cities of the north-west Black Sea
experienced great difficulties through much of the hellenistic period, from
c. 250 onwards. The common cause seems to have been their inability to
maintain satisfactory relations with the other, non-Greek, inhabitants of
the region, though other factors, such as food-shortage through adverse
weather, cannot be ruled out.
Further east, in the Bosporan kingdom, there was a similarly complex
local matrix of relationships, with Greek cities, numerous peoples and the
superstructure of the kingdom itself. The very ethnicity of the Bosporan
kings of the hellenistic period (the Spartocids) remains a matter of some
dispute, as it was in antiquity, though there is every indication that they
regarded themselves as Greek, at least when it suited them, even if that did
not stop other Greeks from denying their Greekness from time to time.26
As to the kings’ subjects, while much scholarly effort has been devoted to
making fine ethnic distinctions within the population of the Bosporan

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kingdom, largely on the basis of insecure inferences from personal names,

the key point about the kingdom as a whole is easily overlooked: for all
its Greekness, it was so mixed as to facilitate relationships with all the
peoples of the region.27 That may help to explain why the kingdom seems
not to have suffered the tribulations which overwhelmed Greek cities to
its west: the Bosporan kingdom was better equipped to cope with non-
Greek pressures, no doubt by virtue of its complex identity but also by
virtue of a wealth and manpower which enabled the construction of long
earthworks from north to south across the Crimea, restricting any threat
from the west.28
A fresh indication of political flexibility has recently been unearthed in
the course of excavations on the acropolis of the main city of the Crimean
side of the kingdom, Panticapaeum. In the later second century bc a sac-
rificial table was dedicated there in honour of the reigning Bosporan king
(Paerisades V, the last of the Spartocids) by a woman who describes herself,
in the inscription on the table, as the wife of Heraclides and daughter of
King Scilurus.29 She gives her husband no patronymic or office, which
might (but need not) mean that he was a well-known figure of Pantica-
paeum, as would befit the husband of such a lady. By contrast her father is
well known as the king of Scythian Neapolis in the central Crimea, where
Scilurus had a fine residence, complete with Greek statuary.30 The dedica-
tion from Panticapaeum gives a further indication of the cultural osmosis at
work between these Crimean Scythians and the Bosporans. Nor was this an
isolated instance. For another dedication from Panticapaeum, datable to the
earlier second century bc, shows a Spartocid princess, Camasarye, married
to a prominent individual called Argotus: a recent find seems to confirm
the hypothesis that he was a ruler at Scythian Neapolis.31 However, that
was no guarantee of peace. On the contrary, the military success of Scilurus
and his sons caused the city of Chersonesus to turn for help to Mithridates
Eupator. It was in the context of his inability to resist these same forces
that Paerisades V, on whose behalf the dedication was made, also passed
his kingdom to Eupator. Accordingly Mithridates’ generals could enter the
region posing as the champions of Greek civilization against the forces of
Scythian barbarism. That was certainly how Strabo, who displays much
admiration for Eupator, saw the matter in the 20s ad. While there may have
been some substance to such a claim in the north-west, where the city of
Olbia, for example, had to deal with nomadic forces, the situation in the
Crimea was rather different: the enemy there was distinctly settled, to the
south of the steppe, with a taste for Greek sculpture and Greek (especially
Rhodian) wine as well as a willingness to intermarry with Greeks.32

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The sea
The great strength of the Greek cities, and the Bosporan kingdom, was
the sea. The Bosporan kingdom was built around the central waterway
between the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea itself, in an economic as well
as a political sense. Panticapaeum, for example, stood in its own bay, with
anchorage, and a high acropolis behind, dominating much of the strait
and looking across the water to Myrmecium on the Crimean side or to the
Taman peninsula visible opposite, with other Bosporan cities all around,
notably Nymphaeum with its good harbour immediately south of Panti-
capaeum on the Crimean side.33 The significance of the sea is strikingly
illustrated in a hellenistic wall-painting (c. 275–50) recently excavated in
the sanctuary of Aphrodite at Nymphaeum, depicting shipping, most
notably a vessel named Isis, which is taken actually to have been sent by
Ptolemy II Philadelphus to the court of Paerisades II.34
Similarly, the modern visitor to Olbia, for example, is immediately struck
by the whole orientation of the community towards the vast lagoon of the
lower Bug: many of its buildings, not least through the hellenistic period,
cling to a steep terraced slope, which leads down to (and now into and
under) the water, while the political and religious centre of the community
stands only a matter of yards inland on a triangular plateau defended along
most of its other two sides by natural ravines equipped with man-made
fortifications, such as Protogenes financed. However difficult its relations
with the hinterland, the water offered communications, opportunities for
trade and taxation and even an escape route in times of real trouble.35 Again
we should note an element of general truth in the idealizing notions of
much ancient writing about the area, which makes the Scythians steppe-
bound landlubbers, resistant to the corruption that came by sea. For it was
indeed the case that while non-Greeks dominated much of the land, the
Greeks had the sea, albeit not entirely to themselves.
It is in very much these terms that Polybius offers a thoughtful sketch of
the location of Byzantium and its difficulties through the middle and later
third century bc in particular; much in his account has a strong relevance
to the situation further north. Polybius makes his own viewpoint very clear.
For he is outspoken on the duty which he thinks the Greek world had to
support the Byzantines against pressures from their hinterland, especially
to ensure their own interest by allowing Byzantium to continue to protect
and manage trade to and from the Black Sea. He stresses that it was Greek
failure to help Byzantium which forced the city to impose taxes on that
trade in order to deal with (indeed, pay off ) the peoples of the hinterland.
Rhodes then compounded its injustice, on Polybius’ view, by going to war
against Byzantium over these taxes, when it should instead have helped

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earlier and assuaged the Byzantines’ need to impose them in the first place.
In setting out this view Polybius offers an enormous amount of invaluable
information, including a disquisition on the geography of some of the
Black Sea region. The prominence of Rhodes in its concern with Black
Sea trade is especially interesting in the light of archaeological evidence for
Rhodian amphorae in the region.36
Two aspects of Polybius’ analysis are most important for the present
discussion. First, he offers a telling summary of the nature of the goods
exchanged between the Black Sea world and the Mediterranean:
Whereas the Black Sea region has many of the good things used in life by
mankind in general, the Byzantines are the masters of all those things. For,
as to the necessities of life – livestock37 and the mass of persons put to slavery
– the places around the Black Sea provide the most plentiful and the most
useful, by common consent. As to non-necessities, they supply us with honey,
wax and salt-fish in abundance. And they receive goods which are in surplus
among us – olive oil and every kind of wine. As to grain, there is exchange
each way: sometimes they supply it, as opportunity arises, and sometimes
they take it. Polybius 4.38.3–5
Polybius is concerned to stress the magnitude of the service provided by
the Byzantines in overseeing this trade, so a measure of exaggeration may
be suspected. However, even if we allow for that, there is no reason at all
to doubt his broad picture of the goods involved, their relative importance,
as it seems, and their movement in and out of the Black Sea. In particular,
his remarks on grain have startled those who have been impressed by
Demosthenes’ rhetoric in support of his friends the Spartocids and their
provisioning of Athens at times in the fourth century. Claims have often
been advanced for a significant fifth-century grain-trade, even a ‘grain-
route’, from the Black Sea to Athens. Polybius’ remarks are usually ignored,
though they are all the more telling in that he is clearly maximizing the
importance of the Black Sea region as a source of goods for the Greek
world. Alternatively, and much more persuasively, Polybius’ evidence is
taken to show the impact of the troubles of the Greek cities, so that his
evidence illustrates a decline in the once-burgeoning supply of grain from
the region. While this is not the place for extensive discussion of the matter,
some observations should suffice to indicate that the hellenistic period was
not one of sharply-reduced grain-supply from the Black Sea.
First, it must be allowed that the difficulties at Olbia, indicated by the
decree for Protogenes and by concordant archaeology on its reduced civic
territory, seem to have been shared by other cities of the north-west, and
indeed by Byzantium. At the same time, however, it is far less clear why these
difficulties should have had an impact upon grain and not upon livestock

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or hides, wax, honey and the rest. Second, the Spartocid supplies to Athens
came from the Bosporan kingdom, not from Olbia. The Bosporan kingdom
dealt with its problems rather well through the hellenistic period, at least
until the late second century. Third, Polybius does not say that grain was
not exported from the region, as would suit the notion of hellenistic decline
in the trade under the pressure of ‘Scythians’. His point rather is that grain
is exported on some occasions: that hardly suits a model wherein the agri-
cultural base in the region had been undermined. In fact the whole issue
is much clearer if Polybius is given the priority he deserves. His account
of a Black Sea world sometimes supplying and sometimes importing grain
would fit all our other evidence: we should expect occasional supplies of
grain from the region, such as attested in the fourth century in particular,
even annual supplies over particular periods. However, that is far from the
notion of a ‘grain-route’, bustling over centuries. Meanwhile, though it is
reasonable enough to suppose that the pool of grain available in the Black
Sea was reduced by the attested upheavals in the north-west of the region,
it is unclear to what extent that affected trade in grain out of the region,
especially as Polybius attests recurrent export and says not a word about
a decline in grain-supply, though that would have suited his case very well.
Be that as it may, many a Third World situation shows us that the export
of vital resources is not at all incompatible with shortage at home. Indeed,
while the decree for Protogenes indicates shortages at Olbia, it also shows
that some of its citizens – including Protogenes – had a vast amount of
grain at their disposal, whether for disbursement within the city or for sale
elsewhere.
Having described Byzantium’s seaward advantages, Polybius proceeds
in rather dramatic terms to describe its landward difficulties, which again
recall Protogenes, for relations with non-Greek neighbours are key to his
analysis. He draws a sharp distinction between Byzantium’s experience
before the arrival of the Gauls and after it. Throughout, the central problem
for the city is not so much damage to its crops as difficulty in meeting the
increasing threats of its neighbours to commit such damage:
The Byzantines … are engaged in permanent and grievous warfare against
the Thracians. For they are unable to conclude hostilities once and for all
by a well-prepared victory because of the number of tribes and chieftains.
For if they get the better of one chieftain, three more awkward ones invade
their territory; and if they give way and agree payments and a treaty, they
do no better. For if they yield at all to one, that attracts five times the
number of enemies. Accordingly, they are engrossed in permanent and
grievous warfare. For what is more hazardous than war with neighbours
and barbarians ? What is more terrible ? Indeed, striving with these evils

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by land, and quite apart from the other evils attendant upon war, they also
suffer Homer’s version of the punishment of Tantalus. For, having the finest
territory, when they have worked the land and the crops are at their best and
most plentiful, the barbarians arrive, destroy some and harvest and carry
off the rest. Then, quite apart from the labour and expense, the sight of the
loss of their fine crops angers them and makes them bear the matter hard.
Nevertheless they withstood warfare with the Thracians, to which they were
accustomed, keeping faith with the Greeks as they had from the first. But
when the Gauls of Comontorius arrived, they were brought to the brink … 38
These Gauls defeated the Thracians and placed the Byzantines in extreme
danger. At first, when Comontorius, their first king, invaded, the Byzantines
continued to give presents in the order of 3,000 and 5,000 and then 10,000
gold pieces in return for the Gauls not ravaging their territory. Finally they
were forced to agree to pay 80 talents each year, until the time of Cavarus,
when the kingdom was destroyed and the whole tribe wiped out by Thracians
who had conquered them in turn. It was in this context, under the burden
of the payments, that the Byzantines first sent envoys to the Greeks, asking
for their help and for contributions towards the alleviation of their pressing
difficulties. When most gave little heed, the Byzantines were compelled to
exact dues from those sailing into the Black Sea. Polybius 4.45.1–46.6
Even Polybius, arguing for the Byzantines, accepts that they had always had
to cope with the depredations and demands of their non-Greek neighbours.
However, they were used to the Thracians, and no doubt the Thracians were
used to them: an accommodation of sorts was achieved and maintained (on
this partial view, at least), which suited both Thracians and Byzantines well
enough, even if, as Polybius dramatically observes, the Byzantines suffered
the punishment of Tantalus when the arrangement broke down. The Gauls
are blamed for upsetting this equilibrium: we may recall the panic at Olbia
at the time of Protogenes when Gauls were thought to have formed an
alliance with the Sciri against the city. Of course the equilibrium was always
fragile; it was a difficult process of negotiation conducted in the shadow of
outright war with ample room for mutual mistrust and misunderstanding
and also, as Polybius observes, with many others hovering, ready to take
advantage of perceived weakness. Such was the abiding problem, up to and
through the hellenistic period, for Byzantium, Olbia and other cities of the
region, each with their local stories.
However, the sea could be dangerous for Greeks too. The problems
of weather, especially the sudden onset of storms, are a recurrent feature
of ancient accounts of the Black Sea; they still occur.39 The most striking
example in the hellenistic period is probably the storm which sank Pleis-
tarchus in 302. Cassander had sent him with a substantial force to join
Lysimachus in Asia. Since passage of the Hellespont was denied him and

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Lysimachus’ army was penned in around Heracleia Pontica, Pleistarchus

decided to sail his forces across to Heracleia from the city of Odessus on
the west coast of the Black Sea. He divided his forces into three sections
and despatched them as separate flotillas: the first crossed safely, the second
was intercepted by hostile ships and the third, with Pleistarchus himself
on board, was caught by a storm of such ferocity that it destroyed most of
the flotilla and the troops on board it. Pleistarchus, we are told, survived
by clinging to the wreckage: he reached his destination when the sea threw
him onto the shore, half dead.40
Piracy was at least as much a problem. According to Polybius the Byzan-
tines had been concerned to prevent it by denying bases for piratical attacks
upon traders entering the Black Sea.41 According to Strabo, the Bosporan
kingdom was deeply involved in the economy of piracy in the region,
particularly because it provided markets for pirates who came from the
north-east Black Sea coast in particular.42 Although he completed his work
in the 20s ad, Strabo seems to be describing a long-standing arrangement,
ingrained in the economic pattern of the region perhaps for centuries. After
all, the slaves whom Polybius regarded as a principal export from the Black
Sea had to be found: piratical raids, whether against shipping or coastlands,
produced part of the supply.43 Epigraphy confirms the point, for it shows
action against the Crimean Satarchae, who are said to have been ‘behaving
as pirates’: the fog of Greek notions about Scythian landlubbers should not
blind us to non-Greek exploitation of the sea in this region. On Strabo’s
account, the corruption of the Scythian nomads had entailed their taking
to the sea for piracy.44 There is every reason to suppose that communities
all around the Black Sea maximized their potential income by engaging in
piracy when to do so was consistent enough with their broader ideology.
Greeks too played their part. No doubt the likes of Olbia had moral
and practical reasons for not seizing Greek traders, but we may wonder
whether its citizens were particularly reluctant to enslave the crews of any
non-Greek vessels which came their way. All the more so insofar as they
shared in commonplace Greek notions about the behaviour of their non-
Greek fellows in the region, whether the Salmydessian wreckers, the grisly
Taurians, the piratical Heniochi, Zygi and Achaei, or the Satarchae and
others besides.45 Of course the identification of the pirate is a profoundly
ideological matter in itself: one’s friends may be deemed heroic raiders,
whereas one’s enemies may be deemed wicked pirates, although both
behave in the same fashion.
Eumelus, ruler of the Bosporus at the end of the fourth century (310/
9–304/3), projected himself as the champion of Greek trade and the
terminator of pirates. It was at least convenient that his stance justified his

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imperialist expansion:
On behalf of those sailing the Black Sea he waged war upon the barbarians
who were accustomed to commit piracy – the Heniochi, the Tauri and the
Achaei besides – and made the sea clear of pirates, so that not only in his
kingdom but also in almost all the inhabited world, when traders had spread
word of his magnanimity, he received the finest fruit of beneficence, praise.
And he took over much of the barbarian land bordering his own and rendered
his kingdom far more famous. He sought completely to dominate all the
peoples around the Black Sea and would soon have achieved his ambition if
his life had not been cut short. Diodorus Siculus 20.25.2
The claim to the suppression of piracy, however hollow,46 accorded well
with Eumelus’ beneficent diplomacy towards the Greek cities of the region:
Diodorus picks out Byzantium and Sinope in particular, perhaps because
of their general prominence in the region. He further mentions Eumelus’
specific act of generosity towards the people of Callatis, when they were
hard pressed under siege by Lysimachus: he took in 1,000 of them and
gave them land within his realm on which to have a new city, perhaps in
the area of the Taman peninsula. The new city would be a useful source of
order and probable loyalty.47
Diodorus’ whole account of Eumelus, a rare narrative about the
Bosporus in this period, encapsulates much of the hellenistic experience
in the northern Black Sea region. Eumelus may have posed as the champion
of Greeks during his reign, but his difficult accession shows a much more
complex picture. On his father’s death he had to win a civil war, fought
out between himself and his two brothers, Satyrus and Prytanis, each
seeking the throne for himself. Eumelus’ strategy was to make an alliance
with non-Greek neighbours: most important was Aripharnes, king of the
Siraces, a people located on the upper eastern frontier of the Bosporan
kingdom, to the east of the Maeotis.48 Satyrus’ army consisted of Greek
and Thracian mercenaries49 and unspecified Scythians. Eventually, Satyrus
was killed and Prytanis, who seems hitherto to have been quiet, took his
place in Panticapaeum; he rejected Eumelus’ suggestion that the kingdom
be divided, presumably with Eumelus on the eastern side and Prytanis
on the western side of the Bosporus. However, Eumelus forced Prytanis’
surrender and shortly had him killed. Satyrus’ young son sought refuge with
a Scythian king named Agarus. It was at this point that Eumelus turned
to beneficence. The rich narrative offers much of cardinal importance, but
the key point for the present discussion is the interaction of the Bosporan
rulers and neighbouring ‘barbarians’. Each side in the struggle for power
relies heavily upon non-Greek neighbours, while the Scythians can even
appear as a safe haven for the ousted.

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 Steppe and sea: the hellenistic north in the Black Sea region…

The purpose of this discussion has been to seek to proceed beyond

easy generalizations about the northern Black Sea region and its Greeks
and Scythians, not least when those are encouraged by ancient idealizing
accounts. The sheer size of the region is warning enough that a range of
local experiences is to be expected. All the more so, once full weight has
been given to the complexities of its geography and its many peoples and
lifestyles. However, worthwhile generalizations can be offered. For the
Greek cities of the north-west and west of the region (as indeed Byzantium)
had to cope with new twists in always-awkward relationships with some
of their non-Greek neighbours in the hellenistic period. There is no sign
that the demise of the Achaemenid empire had any direct bearing on these
developments, but the long-term instability and extensive warfare which
followed in Asia Minor and Thrace can only have made matters worse,
while the arrival of Gauls from the west seems to have had a particular
importance through the third century at Byzantium, and apparently at
Olbia by c. 200 bc.
Throughout the hellenistic east the interaction of Greeks and non-Greeks
was a principal concern. In the Black Sea region, as on coasts elsewhere,
it already had been for centuries. In that sense in the northern Black Sea
the hellenistic period was not so very different from previous centuries. In
particular there is a striking shortage of evidence for close interest in the
region by the Diadochi, though Lysimachus in particular must have had
his ambitions, which Eumelus for one seems not to have welcomed, as we
have seen in his help to the Callatians. The only state outside the region
which shows a serious concern with it, and over an extended period, is
Rhodes, perhaps the obvious candidate in view of its more general concern
with seaborne trade.50 By and large, the sources give the impression that the
northern Black Sea was a backwater in the hellenistic period, despite trade
and a measure of diplomacy, as instanced perhaps by the good ship Isis.
Cities and rulers of the region and its environs certainly took a different
view, but Polybius confirms the broad point. He is quite explicit that he
does not expect his readers to know about the site of Byzantium because
‘it lies a little outside the visited parts of the inhabited world’ (4.38.11).
A fortiori the north coast of the Black Sea was obscure indeed. Strabo
shows as much. For he makes it clear that he himself had not crossed to
the north coast, though he knew the south coast at first hand and had
a geographical bent: the notorious weather and abiding piracy were no
doubt disincentives. More important, he also presents Mithridates’ generals
as making known the entire geography of the region, as if some of it had
been unknown until their activities at the end of the second century bc.51
In that regard at least the hellenistic period did mean something really new

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David Braund

for the region: its closing years were graced by the dynamic Mithridates,
with his principal city at Sinope and his strength substantially drawn from
the Black Sea world.52 The Black Sea backwater was now the reservoir of
resources for an ambitious Pontic empire until the north coast – specifically
Panticapaeum – became the last refuge for its defeated king and the place
of his death.

Epigraphical abbreviations
CIRB Struve, V.V. et al. (eds.) 1965, Corpus Inscriptionum regni Bosporani,
Moscow and Leningrad.
IOSPE Latyšev, B. (ed.) 1885–1901, Inscriptiones antiquae orae septentrionalis
Ponti Euxini Graecae et Latinae, 3 vols., St Petersburg. Vol. I, 2nd edn,
1916.
SEG Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum.
Syll.3 Dittenberger, W., 1915–24, Sylloge inscriptionum graecarum, 3rd edn,
4 vols., Leipzig.

Notes
1
For mention of a, perhaps the, Zopyrion in a contemporary ostrakon
from Kozyrka II in the Olbian chora, see Vinogradov and Golovacheva 1990:
‘[Ni]cophanes, son of Adrastus, has given a horse to Zopyrion. Let him send to me
in the city (sc. Olbia) and let him give the letter to him (sc. his envoy ?).’ On the
Achaemenid empire, the Black Sea and Armenia, see Briant 1996, esp. 761–4.
2
Garlan 1999a.
3
Saprykin 1997.
4
Schmitt 1969, no. 408 with thoughtful commentary.
5
Until Pericles: Braund 2001, 31.
6
Knauss 2001; on Colchis etc., Braund 1994.
7
It is appropriately shallow and surrounded, especially in the east, by wetlands.
Note also the very saline Sapra Limne at its west.
8
I have discussed elsewhere the hellenistic Caucasus to the east of the Black Sea
as far as the Caspian, with its complex of valleys and plains: Braund 1994.
9
See further Braund, forthcoming
10
That is, Herodotus’ Histories, esp. Book 4, and the Hippocratic Airs, Waters,
Places. See further, Braund 2001.
11
See Lévy 1981.
12
Martin 1996, esp. 155 on the possible significance of Diogenes’ origin.
13
Clarke 1999, 216 on Strabo as philosopher.
14
Strabo, 7.3.8, where Chrysippus’ remarks are said to have concerned the
Bosporan Spartocids in particular; Dio Chrysostom, Or. 36 with Schofield 1991,
57 (though mistakenly placing Olbia in the Crimea).
15
Marcaccini 2000 offers a sophisticated overview; Strabo’s account (7.3.7–10)

214
 Steppe and sea: the hellenistic north in the Black Sea region…

shows the potential relevance of Scythians for Platonists, Pythagoreans and others
besides.
16
IOSPE i2 32 = Syll.3 495 = Austin 1981, no. 97, whose translation has been
adapted here.
17
Belozerskoye at the eastern limits of Olbian territory on the Dnieper was
abandoned by c. 250: Bylkova 2000. See in general Vinogradov 1989, 178–229.
18
For the use of gold, see Karyshkovskiy 1988, 86.
19
Cf. Pippidi 1983, 152–3, critical of assumptions on the matter, though not
enough; also Vinogradov 1989, 181–3.
20
From the Crimea even, where a palace of sorts developed at Scythian Neapolis
beside modern Simferopol’ from c. 300 bc: Zaitsev 2001.
21
IOSPE i2 34 (Niceratus); on Anthesterius, Vinogradov 1984 with SEG
34.758; cf. Vinogradov 1989, 180 n. 12; cf. also Vinogradov 1994, 72, indicating
co-operation between Tyras and Histria in the third century bc.
22
IOSPE i2 30, partially restored.
23
Davies 1984, 311; cf. Préaux 1978, 489–524; Shipley 2000, 96–103.
24
Préaux 1978, 520–4 offers a convenient summary of the evidence: e.g. Austin
1981, no. 98; cf. Pippidi 1983 and the literature he cites.
25
Zubar’ 1993, 106–7 and the literature he cites.
26
Gaidukevich 1971, esp. 65–7, making the most of flimsy indications of
a Thracian origin, while suggesting that the Spartocids, like later Bosporan rulers,
traced their ancestry to Heracles and Eumolpus, son of Poseidon (CIRB 53, with
cautious discussion). On assaults upon the Greekness of Black Sea Greeks, see
Braund 1997.
27
The whole issue requires much work still; Maslennikov 1990 marks a major
step forward, albeit with a focus on the Roman period; see now also Maslennikov
1998, embracing earlier evidence in addition.
28
On these earthworks and Bosporan territory in the Crimea, see Maslennikov
1998.
29
Vinogradov 1987, summarized in English in Vinogradov 1994, 67–8. Her
name cannot be read with any confidence: Senamotis is suggested, but many of
the letters are suspect.
30
Zaitsev 2001.
31
CIRB 75. I am most grateful to the excavator, Yu. Zaitsev, for showing me an
unpublished and fragmented inscription which he recently discovered at Neapolis;
also, for discussion of the discovery, to Yu. Vinogradov, whose untimely death has
been an incalculable loss to the epigraphy of the area and much besides.
32
For Mithridates’ ambitions in the region, see e.g. McGing 1986; Vinogradov
1987 seeks to trace the course of events. On Strabo’s perspective, Braund,
forthcoming. Rhodian amphorae predominate among imported coarseware at
Neapolis: Vysotskaya 1999.
33
I am grateful to S. Saprykin and especially A. Maslennikov for showing me
these sites.
34
Vinogradov 1994, 68, with bibliography. See now also Nymphaeum 1999 for
important further discussion. We know at least that Paerisades sent an embassy to

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David Braund

Philadelphus: see Gaidukevich 1971, 89 with Huss 1976, 116 n. 63.

35
The scholars who have done much of the substantial work on Olbia since the
war have produced an excellent, but unfortunately scarce, compendium, which is
now the starting-point for any consideration of the city: Kryzhitskiy 1999. I am
grateful to S. Kryzhitskiy for discussion of the site; also to V. Krapivina and her
assistants for taking time to show me the extensive site in some detail.
36
Berthold 1984, 51, with excellent bibliography; Badal’janc 1999; cf. above,
n. 30. Also CIRB 20 and the accompanying commentary; cf. Berthold 1984, 93–6
on Polybius, 4.56 (Sinope’s appeal to Rhodes); cf. 172–3.
37
Or ‘hides’, perhaps better: see Walbank ad loc.
38
Polybius explains that they had arrived with Brennus but not crossed into
Asia.
39
On storms in the modern Black Sea, see HMSO 1963.
40
Diodorus 20.112, perhaps a little dramatic.
41
Polybius, 4.50.3; 8.22 shows even Cavarus the Gaul seeking to protect traders
here; cf. De Souza 1999, 54–6.
42
Strabo,11.2.12; cf.17.3.25.
43
Polybius, 4.50.3 resists interpretation but might mean that the Byzantines
envisaged piratical slave-raids.
44
Satarchae: IOSPE i2 672; Scythian nomads: Strabo, 7.3.7.
45
On the Salmydessians, Xenophon Anabasis 7.5.8; on the Taurians, e.g.
Herodotus, 4.102; on the Heniochi and their neighborus, e.g. Strabo, 11.2.12.
See further, Braund and Tsetskhladze 1989.
46
The claim was often made, but never really substantiated in fact: De Souza
1999, 184, who also observes Diodorus’ recurrent interest in this issue. Eumelus
presumably put a stop to Bosporan help for pirates: Strabo, 11.2.12.
47
Diodorus, 20.25.1, where the name of the place is hopelessly corrupt: Gaid-
ukevich 1971, 163 n. 124 collects suggested locations, none particularly attrac-
tive, though a site on the more troublesome eastern side of the kingdom seems
more likely than not. On Callatis’ trade with the Crimea, see Garlan 1999b, 137
n. 42.
48
Cf. Desyatchikov 1977, supporting Mueller’s textual emendation here.
49
On Bosporan mercenaries, see Vinogradov 1994, 68–70 and the works there
cited.
50
See above, n. 36.
51
These matters are treated at length in Braund, forthcoming. We may wonder
how much Diodorus’ account of Eumelus and his ambitions (above) was influ-
enced by thoughts of Mithridates Eupator.
52
Of course Mithridates was far from the first in his dynasty to be drawn north:
e.g. Polybius, 25.2.12 with Walbank ad loc.

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219
 12

HELLENISTIC MOSAICS
Ruth Westgate

Mosaic is a hellenistic invention: the modern form of mosaic, made with

cut cubes (tesserae) of stone or glass, which has adorned Roman baths and
houses, Christian churches, and today’s public spaces, was first created in
the hellenistic world. This paper is an outline of the evolution of mosaics
in the hellenistic period, setting it against the historical and social back-
ground that produced this invention and shaped the early development of
the medium. I hope in the process to draw attention to a form of Greek art
which has been unduly neglected. Martin Robertson, in an article which
has become the standard work on Greek mosaics (Robertson 1965), ended
his narrative with the introduction of tessellated mosaic, dismissing the
products of the late hellenistic period as ‘not negligible but really rather
horrible’ (p. 89). Since he wrote, a considerable amount of new material has
been discovered and published,1 and it is now possible to give a somewhat
clearer – and, I hope, more favourable – account of these early mosaics.
However, although we now know of several hundred mosaics from the
hellenistic world, it is still not possible to give a straightforward history of
their stylistic and technical development. Too few pavements can be dated
with any precision, and many of the dated examples are clustered in both
place and time, making it difficult to distinguish stylistic change from
regional variation. So, rather than trying to give a conventional history,
this paper considers the surviving mosaics as a product of the social and
economic conditions of the period, looking at the ways in which mosaics
were used, and what they meant to the inhabitants of different parts of
the hellenistic world.
The most important fact about mosaics in the hellenistic world is that
they were made principally for private houses: about 80 per cent of tessel-
lated mosaics from the period have been found in domestic contexts.
As everyone instinctively knows, houses reveal a great deal about their
occupants: people decorate their homes in a style that they feel to be
desirable or fashionable, creating a living environment that reflects not only

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Ruth Westgate

their status, but also their aspirations; in short, they try to present them-
selves as they would like to be seen. The stylistic and technical development
of mosaic can be understood as a response to these very personal and yet
very public needs. Mosaics were not of course the only means by which
this was achieved: wall paintings, sculptures and textiles would also have
contributed to the total effect. But textiles decay, sculptures are carried
off by looters and lime-burners, and painted plaster crumbles when walls
collapse; floors are often all that is left. By looking at mosaics, therefore – at
their designs and the ways in which they were used, and, where possible,
at the architecture and other forms of decoration that accompanied them
– we can attempt to see their owners as their contemporaries might have
seen them, and thus gain some insight into the tastes and aspirations of
people living in the hellenistic period.
At the beginning of the period, mosaics of natural pebbles were the most
common form of decorative paving. Pebble mosaics too are mainly found
in houses, most frequently in the dining room, or andron, and its adjacent
anteroom, which were the principal areas for entertaining guests. Their
standard composition, consisting of concentric bands of black and white
decoration framing a central motif, seems designed to present a satisfying
view to the diners reclining on couches around the walls of the andron
(Westgate 1997–8, 94–7, 102). The introduction of mosaics in the late
fifth century was one element in a general trend towards the elaboration
of private houses; the formal dining room itself was also part of this trend,
along with painted wall plaster, purpose-built bathrooms, and occasion-
ally peristyles (Walter-Karydi 1994). Many of these elaborations were
clearly intended to impress outsiders visiting the house, particularly for
the symposium, and this growing willingness to invest in private display
seems symptomatic of a shift in priorities, away from the community and
towards the interests of the individual, which is the beginning of one of
the most characteristic aspects of the hellenistic period (as identified by
Pollitt, 1986, 7–10).
In order to understand the invention of tessellated mosaic, it is first
necessary to consider developments in pebble mosaic in the early hellen-
istic period, which seem to set the tone for what follows. Like so many
strands in hellenistic history and art, the development of hellenistic mosaics
starts in Macedonia, with the encounter between Greek and Macedonian
cultures. Two large peristyle houses at Pella, dated to the last quarter of
the fourth century, have yielded a series of spectacular pebble mosaics
(Salzmann 1982, nos. 94–104, pls. 29–37; Makaronas and Giouri 1989).
In the House of Dionysos (insula I.1) two anterooms (A and D) with black
and white geometric mosaics led to andrones with central figured scenes,

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 Hellenistic mosaics

Fig. 1. Pella, House of the Rape of Helen: Stag Hunt mosaic in room D. Photo courtesy
of Archaeological Receipts Fund.

the eponymous Dionysos in room B, and two hunters attacking a lion in

room C. The nearby House of the Rape of Helen (I.5) had mosaics in three
large andrones: room B was decorated with elaborate floral scrolls, room G
with an enormous scene of Theseus abducting Helen, and room D with
a stag hunt (Fig. 1); a fourth mosaic, depicting an Amazonomachy, was
found in an anteroom (I), which led to two plainer andrones.
Like the earlier pebble mosaics in Greek cities, these decorate dining
rooms, but they are designed for banquets on a much larger scale: the
smallest rooms would have accommodated 11 couches, and the largest 20,
compared to the usual seven-couch size in earlier houses. Not only are the
rooms, and thus the mosaics, much larger than anything that preceded
them, but the houses themselves are many times bigger than even the largest
known Greek houses,2 and they each have multiple dining rooms – as many
as five in the House of the Rape of Helen. The date in the last quarter of
the fourth century makes it likely that these lavish houses and mosaics were
financed by the spoils of Alexander’s eastern campaigns, which must have
made many of the Macedonian aristocracy wealthy beyond imagination.

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But it was not simply the massive influx of wealth into Macedonia that
generated these mosaics: they were also a product of the very different
culture and values of the Macedonians. Their monarchic and aristocratic
society encouraged individual self-promotion, and they were much less
inhibited than the Greeks about private luxury and ostentation. Long
before this, for example, literary sources report that King Archelaos
employed the painter Zeuxis to decorate his palace (Aelian, Varia Histo-
ria XIV.17), presumably with figured paintings – a form of decoration
which, to the Greeks, belonged in public and religious buildings; likewise,
the fact that the only surviving examples of Greek figured painting from
this period are in Macedonia is a consequence of their use in a private
context, in elaborate subterranean chamber tombs, rather than in public
structures above ground.
The Macedonians adopted the forms of the Greek symposium, the char-
acteristic architectural setting of the andron, decorated with painted plaster
and mosaics, and the equipment, the couches and the drinking-vessels,
often in luxurious precious metal (and again more frequently preserved
in Macedonia as a result of their use as grave-goods); but they used the
symposium for a rather different purpose. The intention seems to be not
to foster a sense of intimacy between the participants, but to impress the
guests with the host’s wealth and power.
Both the cultural fusion that produced these mosaics and the ostenta-
tious entertainments that they adorned are typically hellenistic.3 Looking
more closely at the mosaics themselves, it can be seen that they foreshadow
later technical and stylistic developments too.
The most obvious difference from earlier mosaics is the strikingly three-
dimensional appearance of the scenes depicted, which is achieved through
perspective and shading. A few earlier pavements use small touches of
colour for details, but this colouristic modelling is a novelty. It is usually
attributed to a desire to imitate painting (e.g. by Bruneau, 1987, 51–4)
– perhaps, arguably, to copy specific works – but it is also a function of the
scale of the pavements: the floors are very large and the pebbles are relatively
small, which enabled the mosaicists to achieve a much more realistic effect
than was possible within the area of a conventional seven-couch andron.
The cost of obtaining the pebbles must have been enormous, as they are
carefully graded by both size and colour: although grading by size could
in theory have been done mechanically, perhaps by sifting, grading by
colour could only be done by eye, one pebble at a time. It is clear that these
pavements must have cost far more than any of the earlier mosaics known
to us,4 and it seems that the particular economic and social conditions in
Macedonia at this time must have created the environment in which this

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illusionistic style became

realizable.
The other major
innovation at Pella is the
introduction of artificial
materials in addition to
pebbles. In several of the
mosaics thin strips of
terracotta or lead are used
to outline the figures and
to represent details: the
strips are all terracotta in
the Lion Hunt, while in
the Dionysos and the Rape
of Helen both lead and
terracotta are used (Fig. 2),
lead mainly for profiles
and fine details, and terra-
cotta where a bolder line
was required. Lead was
presumably more practical
than terracotta, as it could
be shaped and reshaped as
the design developed, and Fig. 2. Pella, House of the Rape of Helen: detail of
it is not surprising that only the Rape of Helen mosaic, room G.
lead strips are found in later
mosaics elsewhere. The strips create sharper outlines and finer details than
could be achieved with pebbles alone; they form part of a ‘linear’ style
characterized by calligraphic lines and simple grey or brown shading, in
contrast to the more ‘painterly’ style of the Stag Hunt and Amazonomachy
pavements (Fig. 1). The three ‘linear’ pavements also contained other arti-
ficial elements: the eyes were inlaid, perhaps in some precious material,
which has disappeared leaving empty sockets (Fig. 2); and green-painted
clay beads and pieces of blue glass were used to supply colours that could
not be obtained in natural stone.5 Again, a desire to imitate painting may
lie behind these innovations. But they also point to some of the limitations
of pebbles as a medium, and this is the background to the invention of
tessellated mosaic.
The origins of the tessellated technique are still a mystery: it is not clear
exactly when it was invented, or where, or how. Pebble mosaics continued
to be made throughout the third century (and, sporadically, in the late

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hellenistic period and beyond), but by the mid-second century tessellated

mosaic was clearly established as the standard form.
The pavement that is most commonly identified as the earliest known
tessera mosaic is in a house at Morgantina in Sicily, and depicts Ganymede
being carried off by Zeus’s eagle (Fig. 3). When the mosaic was discovered,
the American excavators believed that the house was abandoned after the
city was sacked by the Romans in 211 bc (Phillips 1960, 243); a coin of
Hieron II, found under the threshold of room 16, gave a terminus post quem
of c. 260–250 bc for the construction of the house, so they concluded that
the mosaic must have been made in the mid-third century. The technique
of the mosaic is rather crude, with details such as Ganymede’s toes and
testicles represented by pieces of stone cut to shape, rather than being
built up from individual tesserae; two other mosaics in the same house
are similarly rough (Tsakirgis 1989, 396–9, nos. 1 and 2, figs. 1–9). It
was therefore seen as an early step in the development of tessellation, pre-
dating a number of mosaics with similar cut pieces, which Phillips dated to
the second century (1960, 247–53). This fitted into a plausible historical
narrative, placing the invention of tessellation in the sphere of Syracuse at

Fig. 3. Morgantina, House of Ganymede, room 14: Ganymede and the eagle. Photo
courtesy of Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University.

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 Hellenistic mosaics

its peak; and it seemed to be supported by Moschion’s description, quoted

by Athenaeus (Deipnosophistai V.207c), of a luxury ship sent to Alexandria
by Hieron II as a gift to Ptolemy III Euergetes, which is said to have been
decorated with mosaics.
However, it is not certain that the mosaics mentioned in this passage
were made of tesserae rather than pebbles, and in any case it is a highly
elaborate ekphrasis of uncertain date and questionable reliability (Dunbabin
1979, 265 n. 5; 1994, 26 n. 2). Moreover, as the excavations at Morgantina
proceeded, it became clear that the House of Ganymede was reoccupied
along with the rest of the city in the mid-second century bc. Some houses
were rebuilt entirely, but others were simply refurbished, and several had
mosaics installed. Some of these new mosaics are securely dated to the
second or early first century by material sealed underneath them (e.g. in
the Pappalardo House: Tsakirgis 1989, 405–6, no. 13; 413); others are
dated by style alone (in the House of the Arched Cistern: Tsakirgis 1989,
401–3, nos. 5–9; 413). The House of Ganymede is still thought to have
been built in the third century, before the sack, but the foundations of the
mosaics contained no datable material, leaving open the possibility that
they were part of a refurbishment after the sack. The excavators have stuck
to the third-century date (Tsakirgis 1989, 412–13), but this now appears
to be largely dependent on the assumption that the crude technique is an
early attempt at tessellated mosaic. However, in the four decades since the
mosaic was first published, our understanding of early tessellated mosaic
has improved considerably, and the pavements cited by Phillips as the next
step in the evolution of the technique are now thought to be late rather than
mid-hellenistic. A third-century date is still possible, but it seems equally
plausible that the unusual technique and general crudity of the mosaics
in the House of Ganymede are simply the mark of a rather incompetent
local mosaicist or workshop.
Four decades of new discoveries, however, have not produced evidence
to support a clear model of the development of tessellated mosaic to replace
Phillips’ account. What follows is a summary of the current state of our
knowledge.
Two possible sources for the tessellated technique have been identified,
which are not necessarily mutually exclusive. In Greece and Asia Minor, an
alternative technique already existed alongside pebble mosaic in the fourth
century, using irregular chips of stone. Some of these chip mosaics are
plain,6 but two at Olynthos contain simple decorative elements in pebbles.7
In some cases chips of a contrasting colour are introduced to form a pattern:
few of these pavements can be reliably dated, but one at Athens, decorated
with a simple rosette in red and grey chips on a white ground, is thought

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Ruth Westgate

Fig. 4. Aphrodisias: mosaic of irregular stone chips from under the Temple of
Aphrodite.

to have been made in the late fourth or third century (Salzmann 1982, no.
151, pl. 78.1–2); a fragmentary mosaic from Aphrodisias (Fig. 4), part of
which probably depicts a dolphin, has a terminus post quem of c. 261–246
from coins of Antiochos III found underneath it (Salzmann 1982, nos
144–5); and a black and white pavement at Euesperides must pre-date the
desertion of the city in the mid-third century (Lloyd et al. 1998, 150–7,
figs. 5–9). In another pavement at Euesperides (Salzmann 1982, no. 156,
pl. 91.1–3) the pieces are more regular, and could be described as rough
tesserae rather than stone chips; a more elaborate pavement of this type at
Assos, now lost, had a terminus post quem in the fourth century from a coin
sealed beneath it (Salzmann 1982, no. 150, pl. 84.3–4); and there is even
a tantalizing reference in a footnote (Robinson 1933, 1, n. 4) to a fragment
of irregular tessellated mosaic found at Olynthos, which must date from the
period before the city was sacked in 348; but unfortunately the fragment is
lost and was never photographed, so its technique cannot be verified.
Katherine Dunbabin (1979) suggested very plausibly that these
chip mosaics may have played a part in the development of tessellated
mosaic, and Salzmann, in his study of pebble mosaics (1982), also argues
that chip mosaics represent an intermediate stage between pebbles and
tesserae. Another category of pavements, in which pebbles are combined
with various grades of irregular and regular tesserae, may also belong to
this transitional phase. However, as the dating evidence for most of these
‘intermediate’ pavements is inconclusive or non-existent, it is still not clear
how this evolution might have taken place.
On the other hand, Dunbabin (1994) has also pointed out that in Sicily
and southern Italy squared tesserae were in use long before the appearance

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 Hellenistic mosaics

Fig. 5. Megara Hyblaia, baths, room g: opus signinum pavement with tessellated
threshold.

of tessellated mosaics, to decorate pavements of opus signinum (a type of

red mortar containing crushed terracotta). This technique was borrowed
by the western Greeks from their Punic neighbours: pavements of this
type were made at Punic sites in North Africa at least as early as the fourth
century, and some small areas of continuous tessellation have been found
in contexts which pre-date the first known tessellated mosaics at Greek
sites.8 Some of the earliest Greek tessera mosaics are associated with opus
signinum: it was common to mark thresholds with a denser concentration
of inset materials, and sometimes these form a true mosaic, as in the baths
at Megara Hyblaia, which must date before the destruction of the city in
214 (Fig. 5). A threshold from Gela with a meander pattern in tesserae
(Salzmann 1982, no. 157, pl. 92.4) may be even earlier, as the city was
destroyed in c. 282; the rest of the room was paved in stone chips rather
than signinum, but the principle is the same. It is possible, therefore, that
the tessellated technique evolved independently in different parts of the
Greek world.
But it is still difficult to explain the reasons behind the development of
tessellated mosaic. Most of the ‘intermediate’ pavements of stone chips and
irregular tesserae are very simple or of very poor quality; they hardly seem
to represent the cutting edge of innovation – or to be successful attempts
at imitating painting, which is the motive most frequently suggested for
the invention of tessellation. Moreover, floors of this type continued to be

229
Ruth Westgate

made in the late hellenistic period, long after the transitional phase, appar-
ently as cheap substitutes for tessellated mosaic.9 It is possible, then, that
the new technique developed initially as a cheaper alternative to pebble
mosaic: although pebbles appear to be a free material, produced by natural
forces, in fact making a pebble mosaic may have entailed more than simply
collecting stones from the nearest beach or river-bed. In order to achieve
the sharp contrast between black and white that is characteristic of all
but the most incompetent pebble mosaics, it may have been necessary
to obtain materials from areas where the geological conditions generated
pebbles of a consistent colour, while selecting a large quantity of suitably
coloured and evenly sized pebbles must have been a laborious task. Stone
chips, on the other hand, might have been waste from a stonemason’s or
sculptor’s yard; even obtaining a block of stone and breaking it up into
tesserae might have been cheaper than using pebbles – and of course the
resulting tesserae would be of a uniform colour and size. In other words,
the invention of tessellated mosaic may have been driven by demand from
people who wanted the distinction of a mosaic but could not afford one.
Such an explanation would account for the poor quality of most of the
‘intermediate’ pavements.
Other advantages of the new technique would have quickly become
apparent. Using cut stone pieces probably made it easier to obtain a wider
range of colours, and artificial materials broadened the range still more:
terracotta was a cheap and easily available source of reds and yellows; and
bright blues and greens, which are difficult or impossible to obtain in
natural stone, could be supplied by glass and faience (Guimier-Sorbets
and Nenna 1992).
In the present state of our knowledge, this is only speculation. All we
can say with any certainty is that various embryonic tessellated techniques
existed in both east and west in the third century, and possibly earlier;
Baldassare has rightly stressed the importance of considering each of
these early manifestations in its regional context, rather than attempting
to force them into a single sequence of development (1994; see also the
discussion of Arpi below). No regular tessellated mosaics with figures or
complex designs can be securely dated earlier than the second century, and
it is not at all clear how the simple tessellated floors of the third century
developed into the accomplished products of the late hellenistic period.
However, an obvious place to look for the refinement of the technique is
one or other of the hellenistic royal courts. By a lucky chance we happen
to have two groups of mosaics which are likely to have been royal commis-
sions, and which give us an indication of the quality of the best products
of the period.

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 Hellenistic mosaics

Because of its central role in hellenistic culture, Alexandria has always

been a favourite candidate for the place where the tessellated technique
was created. It has yielded a series of mosaics representing almost the entire
spectrum of techniques from pebble mosaic to tessellation, including
mixtures in various proportions, which has been seen as reflecting the
process of invention.10 However, this is based on a hypothetical model of
gradual stylistic and technical development which is not underpinned by
dates from external evidence. As little is known about the context of most
of the mosaics, it is hard to prove that the Ptolemaic court was the driving
force behind the development, but its claim has recently been strengthened
by two spectacular new finds from the Royal Quarter of the city (Guimier-
Sorbets 1998b).
One pavement shows an endearingly life-like dog (Fig. 6), framed by
a coloured guilloche and an exquisite border of lion-head ‘spouts’ in trompe
l’oeil relief; the other, more fragmentary, depicts a black and a white youth
wrestling (Guimier-Sorbets 1998b, figs. 7 and 8). Both are made in the very
fine mosaic described by modern authors as opus vermiculatum, in which

Fig. 6. Alexandria, Royal Quarter: dog mosaic. Photo courtesy of Centre d’Études
Alexandrines/A. Pelle.

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Ruth Westgate

the tesserae measure 5 mm or less. These obviously represent a stage at

which the tessellated technique has been virtually perfected, but they share
a technical feature with pebble mosaics which suggests that they might
date fairly early in the evolution of tessellated mosaic. In a few late pebble
mosaics, lead strips are used to represent the outline of figures, as described
above; but by the late second century, strips in tessellated mosaics are only
found in geometric patterns, where they apparently function as a technical
aid rather than as an artistic element in their own right (Fig. 7).11 In the
Alexandrian mosaics, lead strips are used in both the figured and the
geometric parts of the design, which suggests that they might represent
a stage of development between the mosaics at Pella and those of the late
hellenistic period. A date in the early- or mid-second century has been
suggested (Guimier-Sorbets 1998b, 289), but there is little external dating
evidence, and it remains possible that the technique is just a peculiarity
of an individual workshop. In fact, the only other mosaic that shares this
feature was also found in Alexandria, on the edge of the Royal Quarter (it
is not clear whether inside or out). It depicts three Erotes hunting a stag,
framed by a border of wild animals (Fig. 8).
Again, there is no independent evidence for the date, and estimates
based on style and the topography of the area have ranged from the late
fourth century bc to ad 50, but because the mosaic includes some pebbles
along with the tesserae, and because of its obvious stylistic similarity to
pebble mosaic and specifically to the Pella Stag Hunt (Fig. 1), it has most
often been seen as an early, experimental tessera mosaic, whose creator had
not fully moved away from the pebble technique (Daszewski 1985, 75–6,
106–9, with references to earlier literature). However, the pebbles are used
only for a specific purpose, to represent the texture of hair. Elsewhere in
the pavement similar shades of red and brown are rendered in tesserae
(the black and white photograph masks a colour range which is rather
richer than most pebble mosaics). Other features of the technique seem
more advanced, especially the use of opus sectile (cut stone patterns) on the
threshold, which has no parallels as early as the fourth century: it becomes
common much later, in the late second or first century bc. I would prefer
to see the mosaic as a sophisticated archaistic work, imitating the style of
pebble mosaic in a playful mood which is very characteristic of the hellen-
istic period; the resemblance to the Pella Stag Hunt is probably superfi-
cial, produced by the use of stock figure-types in a formulaic composition
scheme (Westgate 1999, 22–3).
The technical similarity with the dog and the wrestlers suggests that
all three mosaics could be products of the same workshop, which perhaps
worked for the Ptolemaic court; another feature shared by this group is the

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Fig. 7. Lead strips in tessellated mosaic (Palermo, Museo Nazionale, inv. no. 2288).

Fig. 8. Alexandria, Erotes mosaic from Shatby. Photo courtesy of DAI Cairo.

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Ruth Westgate

setting of tesserae in diagonal rows, which is very rare in mosaics from the
hellenistic east, although it is common at western Greek sites (Westgate
2000a, 258–9, n. 14).
A more securely dated group of relatively early tessellated pavements has
been found at Pergamon, which also happens to have been the location of
the only mosaic that was famous enough to be recorded in ancient literary
sources. Pliny the Elder (HN 36.184) describes a mosaic made by Sosus
of Pergamon, called the ‘Unswept Room’, which showed the detritus of
a meal, apparently dropped on the floor; on the same pavement or nearby
was a scene of doves drinking from a basin. This mosaic survives only in
copies,12 but we do have some very fine pavements from Palaces IV and V.
Only fragments were found in Palace IV, but the ground floor of Palace V
yielded two fairly complete pavements.13 The larger one, in the North-West
Room (Fig. 9), had concentric bands of decoration, including crenellated
towers, guilloche, waves, meanders and a floral scroll peopled with tiny
Erotes, birds and insects, framing a large central field which was divided
into four panels, all now missing. The smaller, in the Altar Room (Fig. 10),
had borders of coloured squares and bead-and-reel enclosing two friezes
decorated with garlands and three central panels, of which the sole survivor
depicts a big green parrot; two further panels flanking the altar showed
dramatic masks.
Both mosaics are entirely covered with decoration, with no plain bands
between the patterned borders; the technique is very regular and careful,
all the patterns are outlined with lead strips, and expensive materials
– glass, faience and perhaps even crystal or mother-of-pearl – were used in
addition to stone. The figured and floral elements were made in the finest
opus vermiculatum, with tesserae as small as half a millimetre; the work is
exquisite, with delicate shading and illusionistic effects (Fig. 10). Their high
value is indicated by the fact that most of the panels and one entire border
had been prised out of the floor. The mosaic in the North-West Room was
signed by the artist, Hephaistion, on a trompe l’oeil card stuck down with
blobs of red wax – a motif in the spirit of Sosus’ ‘Unswept Room’, and
perhaps, as Robertson wryly suggested (1965, 88), carefully left behind by
the looters because they wanted to pass off the mosaic as Sosus’ work.
The mosaics were laid in the first half of the second century, probably
towards the end of the reign of Eumenes II (197–159) or during that of
Attalos II (159–138); rejected blocks from the Great Altar built into Palaces
IV and V give a terminus post quem, and recent soundings underneath
the mosaics produced no material later than the middle of the century
(Salzmann 1995, 109–10). Another mosaic in a very similar style was found
in the Temple of Hera Basileia, which was dedicated by Attalos II (Dörpfeld

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 Hellenistic mosaics

Fig. 9. Pergamon, Palace V: mosaic from the North-West Room.

Fig. 10. Pergamon, Palace V: detail of mosaic from the Altar Room.

1912, 262, 326–8, pls. 17, 18, 22a, 27); it was probably made by the same
craftsmen, who were presumably working for the court.
These are the earliest tessellated mosaics that can be dated by external
evidence rather than stylistic guesswork, and, like the Alexandrian ones,
they represent the best work from the period. It is tempting to suggest that
the rough tessellated technique of the third century was first refined into
this elegant form by the court craftsmen of Alexandria or Pergamon as

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Ruth Westgate

a suitably luxurious decoration for a royal residence, displaying not only the
skill and labour entailed in creating such meticulously detailed work, but
also the wealth of materials needed to produce the required range of colours.
In addition, the subject-matter and painterly style of the figured elements
may have had prestigious cultural and artistic resonances: the effect of the
Pergamene mosaics in Salzmann’s new reconstructions is strikingly reminis-
cent of a gallery of paintings (1995, 106–9, pl. 21, foldout plan 2).
This model cannot be proved on the evidence currently available, but
it does not seem unreasonable to imagine that the kings were leaders of
fashion, representing a standard of living to which the inhabitants of the
hellenistic world aspired. From about 150 bc onwards there appears to
be a substantial increase in mosaic production, part of an upward spiral
of private luxury and ostentation which dates back to the introduction
of pebble mosaic in the late fifth century, but which accelerated dramati-
cally in the late hellenistic period, fuelled by economic prosperity on an
unprecedented scale (Westgate 1997–8, 111–15). This increase in luxury
can be seen most vividly on the island of Delos, where there are many
well-preserved houses dating to the late second and early first century
(Chamonard 1922; Trümper 1998). Along with mosaics came wall-plaster
in the Masonry Style, moulded and painted to look like stonework; stone
statues (Kreeb 1988); comforts like built-in lavatories and heated baths
(Trümper 1998, 63–8); and features borrowed from monumental architec-
ture, notably the peristyle, which was apparently so desirable that it often
seems to be squeezed into the houses at the cost of practicality.
However, most late hellenistic mosaics are less elaborate than those
from the royal capitals, with fewer borders, and more white space between
the decorated areas (Figs. 12 and 13). Their decoration consists mostly
of geometric patterns, especially waves, three-dimensional meanders and
perspective cubes, various types of guilloche, and architectural mouldings
such as dentils or egg-and-dart. Relatively few – no more than 16 per cent
– depict humans or animals, compared to about 40 per cent of pebble
mosaics, which is very surprising in view of the common assumption that
tessellation was invented to make it easier to produce realistic figured
scenes. The plainer designs may reflect an aesthetic preference, but they
were presumably also cheaper to produce, making mosaics affordable for
a wider section of society. Moreover, the technical refinements seen at Alex-
andria and Pergamon are not widespread in later mosaics: figured scenes
are often represented in standard-sized tesserae rather than intricate opus
vermiculatum, the range of colours is rarely so rich, and delicate, expensive
materials like glass and faience are relatively unusual. Lead strips are used
in only about a third of the surviving mosaics, generally the better-quality

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ones; they disappear almost entirely by the mid-first century bc. These
observations might support the hypothesis that tessellated mosaic was
developed into a luxury art in elite circles, and then adapted and simpli-
fied to meet demand from the aspiring classes who wanted to emulate the
lifestyle of the elite – a process that continued in the Roman period, when
opus sectile seems to have been favoured as the most prestigious type of
pavement, and mosaic was relegated to second-best.14
In some cases it is possible to observe these compromises between
complexity of decoration and quality of execution. For example, in the
House of the Masks on Delos, the owner commissioned a very large area of
mosaic, covering four rooms and including a number of ambitious figural
motifs, but apparently he could only afford to have most of the decoration
done in coarse, rather irregular tessellation, which makes the scenes rather
indistinct (Fig. 11). The only exception is the fine centrepiece of one of the
floors, showing Dionysos riding a panther, which is an emblema, a panel
made separately and inserted into the pavement – but the mosaicists

Fig. 11. Delos, House of the Masks, room H: dancing Silenos (Delos 216).

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Ruth Westgate

failed to set it straight in the frame.15 In contrast, a customer on Samos

opted for a smaller area of decoration, but of much finer quality (Fig. 12;
Giannouli and Guimier-Sorbets 1988): the two mosaics have only two
decorated borders each, in one room a band of coloured scales and a scroll
with exquisite flowers, and in the other a meander and an unusual frieze
of griffin-heads linked by a serpent-like body; the remainder of the floors
is white. Others chose to economize further by having the outer parts of
the floor done in irregular tesserae or stone chips (Fig. 13), or, in the west,
opus signinum. A wide range of techniques was used, and there were clearly
options to suit every budget.
Favourite subjects include Dionysos and his companions (Fig. 11); the
theatre, most often in the form of comic masks; and other motifs which
might allude to the Dionysiac sphere, such as drinking-vessels and ivy or
vine scrolls. Marine motifs are very common, especially dolphins (Figs. 13
and 15), anchors and tridents; fish are a popular subject for fine emblemata
(Fig. 16), perhaps reflecting their desirability as food.16 The natural world in
general is a major source of images, such as birds (Fig. 10), animals (Figs. 6
and 8), and fantastic plant scrolls and rosettes (Figs. 9, 13 and 16). Another
favourite theme is success and good fortune, represented by palm-branches,
crowns and prize vases. Eros makes frequent appearances (Figs. 8, 9 and
16). Mosaic decoration seems designed to create an atmosphere of pleasure,
grace and abundance.

Fig. 12. Late hellenistic mosaic at Pythagoreio, Samos. Photo courtesy of V. Giannouli.

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 Hellenistic mosaics

The distribution of mosaics and other decoration in late hellenistic

houses suggests that there had been significant changes in the use of
domestic space since the classical period.17 In most classical houses wall and
floor decoration is confined to a very limited area – usually just the dining
suite – and the rest of the house is functional in appearance, whereas later
houses often have wall plaster throughout, and mosaics in several rooms,
both large and small, and sometimes in the courtyard or peristyle. On Delos
at least, the best decoration of all seems to have been on the upper floors,
which in many cases were used as separate dwellings.18 At more spacious
sites, like Morgantina, some houses have a second courtyard, which is less
elaborately decorated.
Most late hellenistic mosaics have a concentric design, of the type used
in the classical andron, and there is often a plain outer border of suitable
width for dining couches (Figs. 12 and 13). However, unlike classical
andrones, rooms with mosaics no longer seem to be designed exclusively
for dining: few are built to accommodate regular arrangements of couches,
and many have multiple doors and windows which would have made such
an arrangement inconvenient if not impossible (Trümper 1998, 146–7;
Westgate, forthcoming). Symmetry often seems to take priority over the
location of furniture or doorways in the design of mosaics: in Fig. 13, for
example, the subsidiary panel which should mark the threshold is not
aligned with the door, but with the main decorated ‘carpet’ of the mosaic.

Fig. 13. Delos, Quartier du Théâtre III N: mosaic in room I (Delos 261).

239
Ruth Westgate

It seems that the concentric scheme had to some extent become conven-
tional, and that rooms with mosaics were now intended for a wider variety
of activities: no doubt many were still used for symposia, but they may have
housed other social occasions, perhaps at different times of day. Lavishly
decorated peristyles and carefully planned vistas give the impression that
the house as a whole was on display to visitors.
On the other hand, it is possible that the decoration was not simply
marking out the more ‘public’ areas of the house, where guests were
received, but also served to reflect distinctions within the household,
between different categories of inhabitants, most obviously between the
free occupants and their slaves, although age or gender divisions may also
have been involved. Unfortunately the lack of reliable evidence for the
activities that took place in individual rooms makes it difficult for us to
understand exactly what the decoration meant, but it seems likely that
there had been a change both in the boundaries between inhabitants and
outsiders and in relations between members of the household. No less
significant is the shift in attitudes implied by the spread of decoration:
presumably the increased social mobility and insecurity of the hellenistic
world made it more important to advertise one’s wealth, status and aspira-
tions, which must have been a driving force behind the spiralling luxury
that can be observed in the homes of the period.
Delos has yielded the largest group of late hellenistic mosaics, consti-
tuting almost half the total number known, which gives some idea of the
phenomenal prosperity of the island in the decades after the Roman inter-
vention of 166. Other major mosaic producers included the rival trading
state of Rhodes and the royal capitals (although none have survived from
Antioch); but hellenistic mosaics have been found all over the Greek world,
from Spain in the west to Afghanistan in the east, as far north as the Crimea,
along the African coast and far up the Nile, in contrast to classical pebble
mosaics, which are concentrated on the Greek mainland and the coast of
Asia Minor. Their distribution reflects the spread of Greek culture, and
perhaps we can get an impression of what they meant to people by looking
at their uses in some areas on the margins of the hellenistic world.
The site of Ai Khanoum, in modern Afghanistan, was a fortified town
on the eastern frontier of the Indo-Greek kingdom of Bactria, and thus
on the eastern frontier of the hellenistic world itself. The Greek rulers of
the area built themselves a monumental Greek city, with all the trappings
of Greek culture – gymnasium, temenos, theatre, and even a copy on stone
of the Delphic maxims (Rapin 1990, 333–41). But there were also native
elements, including two temples of Mesopotamian type, presumably
dedicated to local deities. The huge palace, built in the second century, is

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 Hellenistic mosaics

also in a hybrid style, basically Achaemenid in plan, but with some Greek
elements, including pebble mosaics. These are still decorated in the classical
concentric style, with motifs that are familiar from the classical repertoire:
one (Salzmann 1982, no. 2, pl. 70) has a border of wave pattern and a frieze
of sea creatures, framing a central ‘star of Vergina’; another (Salzmann
1982, no. 3, pl. 71.1–4) is decorated with rosette and palmette motifs.
But they are used in a different context from classical pebble mosaics, in
bath suites rather than dining rooms.19
Nearer to the Mediterranean, the region of Kommagene in south-
western Turkey broke away from Syria in the second century, under the
leadership of a half-Greek, half-Persian dynasty. In the first century bc,
King Antiochos I (c. 69–c. 36) constructed a cult centre at Arsameia on
the Nymphaios in honour of his father Mithradates I Kallinikos, which
included a building paved with several mosaics (Fig. 14; Salzmann 1982,
nos. 146–9, pl. 86.3–5; Bingöl 1997, 106–7, figs. 71–4). The technique
is rough and the colour scheme is restricted to black, white and red, but

Fig. 14. Arsameia on the Nymphaios, Hierothesion of Mithradates I Kallinikos: mosaic

in Room II of the ‘Mosaic Building’. Photo courtesy of Seminar für Alte Geschichte,
Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster.

241
Ruth Westgate

the multiple-banded compositions and the motifs, especially the border

of crenellated towers, recall the mosaics in the palaces at Pergamon;
the resemblance may well be deliberate. The royal palace at Samosata,
recently rescued from the rising waters of the Atatürk Dam and not yet
fully published, has produced similar mosaics, whose imagery alludes to
Greek culture. One has a typically Greek design, with a border of fish and
a central pair of dolphins flanking an amphora – perhaps, judging from
its shape, a container for fine Chian wine (Bingöl 1997, 110, pl. 24.2);
another fragment, from the centre of a floor, shows the mask of a character
from Greek comedy, probably the Brothelkeeper (Bingöl 1997, 107, figs.
75 and 76, pl. 24.1). The mosaics are accompanied by wall paintings in
the Second Style (Bingöl 1997, 111–18, figs. 77–84, pl. 25.1), and date
either from the reign of Antiochos or that of his predecessor Mithradates
(c. 96–c. 70 bc). Although some of the public monuments commissioned
by the Kommagenian regime reflected the ruling dynasty’s mixed Greek-
Persian origins, their choice of interior decor seems designed to stress the
Greek side of their cultural identity.
On the other side of the hellenistic world, at Arpi, near Foggia in
south-east Italy, the native Daunian settlement has yielded two peristyle
houses and a tomb decorated with mosaics which are clearly inspired by
Greek prototypes. Some are made of black and white pebbles (Salzmann
1982, nos. 12–14, pls. 67–8, and Mazzei 1995, 192–3, nos. 1–4, figs.
112, 115); they have the characteristic concentric borders of geometric
patterns or parades of animals and sea-creatures, around a central field
decorated with further creatures (Fig. 15). Others are in rough tesserae,
but are otherwise very similar in design (Mazzei 1995, 116–17, fig. 67;
192–6, nos. 5–7, figs. 113, 114, 118, 119); one house had mosaics in
both techniques (Mazzei 1995, nos. 4–6). Greek-style pebble mosaics are
rare in Italy, and their adoption in this particular region might be related
to the existence of a local tradition of pebble mosaic, which is stylistically
and functionally distinct from Greek mosaics.20 The houses also have
Masonry Style wall plaster.
The excavators have dated the houses to the period of the settlement’s
greatest prosperity, in the late fourth and third centuries. This seems
surprisingly early to find such luxurious houses and such technically
advanced mosaics; the archaeological evidence for the date has not yet
been published in detail, but similar rough tessellated pavements elsewhere
in southern Italy have been said to date from the same period,21 and it is
possible that independent local improvisation produced an early form of
tessellation, as suggested above. What is more certain is that these houses
and their decoration are the culmination of a process of hellenisation in

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 Hellenistic mosaics

the region, led by the local elite, who had begun to build houses with
Greek-style architectural decoration as early as the fifth century, presum-
ably to set themselves apart from their less wealthy neighbours, who were
still living in huts. By the early hellenistic period, more solidly-built
houses had become the norm at all levels of society, but most were still
relatively small and simple in plan, and the large peristyle houses found at
Arpi and elsewhere in the region represent a significant improvement in
living standards on the part of the wealthiest members of the community.
Connections have been drawn with fourth-century houses on the Greek
mainland, and especially in Macedonia, in view of the parallel adoption
of Macedonian-style chamber-tombs in the region (Russo Tagliente
1992, 146–51). But the process of hellenization in Daunia goes beyond
the imitation of Greek architectural forms and decoration to include
the adoption of at least some elements of a Greek lifestyle. Several of
the mosaics at Arpi are in Greek-style andrones, with raised borders for
couches, and this, along with the presence of imported Greek drinking-
wares in both habitation sites and burials, suggests that the custom of the
symposium was adopted along with the architectural forms.

Fig. 15. Arpi: pebble mosaic.

243
Ruth Westgate

In contrast, the inhabitants of late hellenistic Pompeii seem to have

had somewhat different motives for acquiring Greek mosaics. The earliest
mosaics at Pompeii are contemporary with the First Style of wall painting
(itself a version of the Greek Masonry Style), in the late second and early
first century; they appear in only a small minority of wealthy houses, at
a time when the standard types of pavement were fairly modest concrete-
like surfaces such as opus signinum, lavapesta (mortar containing crushed
lava) and various grades of terrazzo.22 Unlike the Daunians, Pompeian
customers did not opt for the classic Greek scheme of concentric decora-
tion covering the whole floor; instead, they seem to have been interested
solely in the figured panels, which are found in only a small minority of
Greek mosaics. The earliest decorated mosaics consist of emblemata set
into otherwise plain floors (Fig. 16). The decorative framework which is
the principal element of mosaics at Greek sites is omitted almost entirely
(Westgate 2000a, 264–5).

Fig. 16. Pompeii: emblema with marine creatures, from the House of the Faun (Naples,
Museo Nazionale no. 9997).

244
 Hellenistic mosaics

It is not difficult to understand the motives behind this very selective

adoption of Greek mosaics. Almost all of the figured scenes are repeated
in other mosaics from Pompeii and elsewhere in Italy, and they are often
thought to be copies of famous Greek paintings. Although on closer exami-
nation many of them appear to be pastiches or genre scenes rather than
literal copies, they were surely all acquired with the intention of displaying
an appreciation of Greek art; they clearly form part of the Roman fashion
for copies and imitations of Greek art in the late hellenistic period.
Moreover, the subjects often seem to have been chosen to advertise the
owner’s familiarity with other aspects of Greek culture, as they often depict
mythology, drama – usually comedy – and even philosophy.23 It was already
common for the minutely detailed figural panels to be prefabricated off-
site for insertion into the pavement, but at Pompeii they seem more like
independent pictures than ever before: mosaicists working for this Italian
market started to make emblemata on trays or backing-plates of stone or
terracotta, which presumably made them safer to transport, sell and re-use
(Westgate 1999; 2000a, 266–73).
Pompeii stands at the beginning of the long and rich Roman tradition
of mosaics. The role of the Greeks in initiating this tradition has often been
underestimated: mosaic was a medium through which the inhabitants of
the hellenistic world advertised their wealth and taste, expressed their aspi-
rations, reinforced their sense of Greek identity, or presented a fashionable
image of cosmopolitan sophistication and culture.

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Manchester University, the British Schools at Athens and
Rome and the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara for funding the research
summarized here, and Roger Ling for reading a draft of the paper; any errors
that remain are entirely my own. This paper was written during the tenure of
a fellowship from the Arts and Humanities Research Board.

Notes
1
All the pebble mosaics discovered up to c. 1980 are catalogued and studied
by Salzmann (1982); hellenistic tessellated mosaics are treated in regional surveys
by Bruneau (1972), Baldassare (1976), von Boeselager (1983), Daszewski (1985)
and Bingöl (1997), while Anne-Marie Guimier-Sorbets has published numerous
articles on individual aspects of motif, iconography, design and technique.
Katherine Dunbabin’s recent synthesis of ancient mosaics provides an excellent
overview (1999, especially chapters 1–3). This article is based on my doctoral
thesis (Westgate 1995), a comprehensive study of mosaics from their classical

245
Ruth Westgate

origins to the late hellenistic period, which is currently being revised for publica-
tion in the series Oxford Monographs on Classical Archaeology.
2
The House of the Rape of Helen covers 2350 m2, and the House of Dionysos
3160 m2; by comparison, the unusually luxurious House of the Mosaics at Eretria
has an area of only 650 m2.
3
Compare Susan Rotroff ’s explanation of the decline in the number of pottery
kraters found in hellenistic contexts in the Athenian Agora: she argues that now
lavish metal vessels would have served as the centrepieces of grandiose banquets
(1996, 22–7).
4
These total about 70, nearly all from sites on the Greek mainland, notably
Athens, Corinth, Sikyon, Eretria and Olynthos.
5
The green beads are used in Dionysos’ crown and thyrsos, and blue glass in
the harness of Theseus’ chariot-horses. There are no artificial elements at all in
the Stag Hunt and Amazonomachy.
6
Olynthos, House A5, andron a (Robinson 1930, 56–9, figs 153–161, pl.
i); Vergina, palace, threshold of room E (leading to a pebble mosaic, Salzmann
1982, no. 130).
7
House of Many Colours, andron d, pavement of white chips with a border
of black pebbles (Robinson 1946, 193, pls. 159, 160.2, 165); Sector 7, House
B, pavement of polychrome chips bordered by a meander in pebbles (Robinson
1930, 102, figs. 237, 239; Salzmann 1982, no. 92, pl. 16.5).
8
A fourth-century house excavated between rues Didon and Arnobe at
Carthage had a pavement of large terracotta cubes (opus figlinum) decorated with
a chequered stripe of black, white and red tesserae: Dunbabin 1994, fig. 15. A tiny
fragment of red and white chequerboard from Kerkouane (Morel 1969, 499–500,
fig. 28) must date before the site was abandoned in the mid-third century, although
the fifth-century date claimed by the excavator seems doubtful.
9
On Delos, for instance, there are several pavements of stone chips with simple
decoration in broken terracotta pieces (Bruneau 1972, nos. 41, 135, 221, 254,
260); Salzmann excludes these from his catalogue of ‘intermediate-type’ mosaics,
although they are similar in technique to the examples from Athens and Aphro-
disias cited above.
10
e.g. by Daszewski (1985, 98), although he stops short of attributing the
invention exclusively to Alexandria. Recent excavations in the garden of the old
British Consulate have uncovered fragments of a pebble mosaic (Guimier-Sorbets
1998a, 189), and two mosaics of mixed technique (Guimier-Sorbets 1998a,
188–9; 1998c, 227, fig. 5), at least one of which probably dates to the first half
of the third century; two other mixed mosaics were already known (Daszewski
1985, nos. 1 and 2), as well as a number of tessellated mosaics (Daszewski 1985,
nos. 5–7, 13–19).
11
It is clear from a mosaic on Samos, whose surface is partly destroyed, that the
strips were slotted into guidelines incised in the layer of mortar below the surface,
to serve as outlines for the mosaicist to fill in: Giannouli and Guimier-Sorbets
1988, 558, fig. 7. Lead strips are normally only used in figural motifs where
a precise curve or straight line was required, such as the mast and yard-arm held

246
 Hellenistic mosaics

by a female figure who probably represents Alexandria (Alexandria, Greco-Roman

Museum, inv. no. 21739: Daszewski 1985, no. 38, col. pl. A), or the rings of
an armillary sphere on a mosaic in the Casa di Leda at Soluntum in Sicily (von
Boeselager 1983, 56–60, pl. xv.29–30).
12
Unless Donderer (1991) is right in arguing that the famous version from
Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli, now in the Capitoline Museum, is in fact the original.
13
Kawerau and Wiegand 1930, 53–65, figs. 39, 69–72; text pls. xxvi–xxxix; pls.
viii–xix. Parts of the two complete pavements, heavily restored, are now in the
Pergamon Museum in Berlin (Inv. mos. 68–71), along with some of the fragments;
but recent re-excavation has shown that substantial remains of the mosaics are still
in situ, and that the reconstructions are incorrect (Salzmann 1995).
14
A similar theory was proposed, for different reasons, by R. Vollkommer
(1990), who argued that opus vermiculatum was invented first, and opus tessel-
latum was developed later as an imitation.
15
Rooms E, G, H, I: Bruneau 1972, 240–60, nos. 214–17, figs. 177–210.
Blue glass is used in the figured scenes, but whereas glass tesserae are usually cut
from purpose-made rods, here pieces of a broken bowl are used, which suggests
improvisation (Guimier-Sorbets and Nenna 1992, 623).
16
Explored by Davidson (1997, 3–20). For fish mosaics, see Meyboom 1977;
for birds, Tammisto 1997.
17
These arguments are presented in more detail in Westgate 1997–8; 2000b,
424–6; forthcoming.
18
Trümper 1998, 92–106. The fragments of paintings and mosaics from upstairs
rooms tend to be finer and more colourful than those preserved on the ground
floors (Bruneau 1972, 64, 67–8, 105–6).
19
The mosaics are in the cloakroom of Unit II and the bathroom of Unit IV
respectively; a simpler pavement in the water-heating room of Unit IV, with
a design of lines forming rectangles (Salzmann 1982, no. 4, pl. 71.1), is probably
imitating paving of stone slabs.
20
e.g. Salzmann 1982, nos. 57–60, pl. 65, at Herdonia. The pavements are
decorated with monochrome texture patterns formed by laying long pebbles on
edge at different angles; the effect is rather like woven matting. It is an outdoor
type of paving, most commonly found in cemeteries. The only other Greek-style
pebble mosaics in Magna Graecia are at Taras (Salzmann 1982, no. 124, pl. 66.3),
Metapontion (Salzmann 1982, no. S.1, pl. 66.2) and Motya (Salzmann 1982,
no. 72, pl. 69).
21
For example at Volcei (destroyed 280 bc) and Elea.
22
The most comprehensive studies of the Pompeian pavements remain those of
Blake (1930) and Pernice (1938); see also the recent summary by De Vos (1991).
The figured panels in Naples Museum are catalogued in Pozzi 1989, 116–23.
23
Compare Ada Cohen’s reading of the most spectacular hellenistic mosaic of
all, the Alexander Mosaic from the House of the Faun (Cohen 1997).

247
Ruth Westgate

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 13

HOW THE VENUS DE MILO LOST HER ARMS

Shelley Hales

Introduction
The traditional neglect of the hellenistic world has particularly affected the
study of its art. Pliny’s dismissal, cessavit deinde ars (‘then the art ceased’)
hangs heavily, if misguidedly, over our aesthetic vision of ancient sculpture.1
On the other hand, the hellenistic attitude to art has always been with us as
we have searched for the classical world. Many of the works we have most
praised from the Renaissance on, from the Laocoon to the Belvedere Torso,
are hellenistic. The ancient writings we have used to justify our apprecia-
tion find their basis in the hellenistic era and the context in which we have
learnt to appreciate art is similarly late hellenistic. I want to explore further
the relationship between the art appreciation of the hellenistic era and the
Neoclassic revival in British painting of the nineteenth century, focusing on
one particular iconographic type, the naked Venus. Of course, the naked
Venus has been popular throughout the history of western art. However, the
Victorian era saw an apparent drive among artists to recapture the original
moment of her invention. In looking at the major differences between the
ancient nude Aphrodite and the figure these nineteenth-century artists
dreamed up, we will be able to appreciate, in some small way, just how
distorting is the hellenistic mirror through which we view antiquity. We will
see, through Venus, how our relationship with the antique has been fixed
by the hellenistic experience and how this relationship has gradually altered
the way we understand Venus’ iconography. And how we, in ‘reliving’ the
hellenistic experience, have created for ourselves a vision of the hellenistic
world we can deal with.
To get some idea of the gulf which might exist between our own desire
for Venus and that of the ancient audience, we should perhaps start with
the Venus de Milo, one of the most famous images in popular imagina-
tion (Fig. 1).2 This statue of Aphrodite arrived in the Louvre in 1820, just
months after the Elgin marbles reached the British Museum, and became
a pawn in rivalry between the British and French. Integral to the French
boasts of the superiority of the image was the fraudulent claim that she

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was a late classical masterpiece. Today, the Venus de Milo represents not
only the ‘glory of ancient Greece’ but also the ideal woman, at once a relic
of a lost past and an icon of the modern world. Undoubtedly, much of
her success lies in her damaged state which continually reminds us of her
status as ruin, an artefact from an irretrievable past.3 Despite, or perhaps
more accurately because of, the many proposed restorations of her lost
limbs, this Aphrodite was never restored. Along with the Elgin marbles
she was to become a symbol of a new way of relating to the ancient world,
of respecting the ruin. Her name seems to promise the same. Unlike other
Aphrodites, known by their Roman geographical location (e.g. the Esquiline
Venus) or by the names of their collectors (e.g. the Medici Venus), this one
proclaims her genuine hellenic provenance, the island of Melos.
However, in ‘respecting’ the
past, it becomes more difficult
for the viewer to access that past.
We can hardly recall a time when
the Venus de Milo did have arms.
Popular imagination dwells on the
moment when she lost her limbs
– a moment caught several times
on celluloid. Carry on Cleo (1965)
provides just one example as
Aphrodite falls prey to the clumsy
swordsmanship of the unlikely
praetorian prefect, Hengist Pod.
The joke works because it is
only after her arms fall off that
we recognize who she is. Her
iconography changes from Greek
goddess to modern icon in one
swoop of the sword. The complex
cultural mentality which produces
this joke is hinted at by the context
in which the Aphrodite meets her
fate; she never was in Rome, never
was Venus, but that is where our
collective imagination places her.
Even as we say de Milo we dismiss
that part of her name which means
Fig. 1. Venus de Milo. Musée National so little to us in favour of our own
du Louvre. Photo Alinari. fantasies of the ancient world.

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 How the Venus de Milo lost her arms

The history of the Venus de Milo, then, is very much a story of display
and appreciation rather than cultic meaning. She is immediately associated
with the modern collection of which she is part, rather than her original
context in a past which her current setting does its best to forget and
distort. She fulfils all the conditions for a collectable piece, valued out of
a desire for retrospection towards a lost past but also open to the abuse of
adaptation and objectification.4 This Venus is nothing but a prize exhibit.
The ruling elites of both the ancient Mediterranean and the empires of
modern Western Europe have all adopted Aphrodite as a collectable object
in their eagerness to appropriate the heights of achievements of Greek art,
heights which they themselves have constructed, fitting the past into their
own needs. To the modern
gaze, the Venus de Milo might
well be the ideal woman, but
for the ancient audience the
perfect Venus was Praxiteles’
Knidian Aphrodite (Fig. 2). So
how has the Louvre ‘Venus’
become the sort of Venus the
modern audience expects? This
paper, in exploring the distance
between the ancient and the
nineteenth-century world, is
about this change, how the
Knidian Aphrodite lost out
to this other Venus and how,
along the way, goddess was
reconfigured as woman.

Creation of the nude Venus

It has to be stated right from
the start, of course, that we
only ‘know’ that the Knidian
Aphrodite was considered the
first and best because stories
apparently developed in the
hellenistic era, and then retold
in the Roman period, tell us
so. We cannot make our own Fig. 2. Aphrodite of Knidos. Copy of original
aesthetic judgement (even if we by Praxiteles. Vatican Museums. Photo
could look back with innocent Deutsches Archäologisches Institut.

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Shelley Hales

eyes) because we only know her through the medium of copies from those
same eras.
The story of the creation of the naked Aphrodite, at least as it was
constructed by hellenistic and Roman writers, is well known.5 Praxiteles, the
late classical sculptor, made a naked Aphrodite for the island of Kos, using
as model his lover and high-class whore, Phryne.6 Phryne first attracted
his attention by causing a stir at the Eleusinian Mysteries, disrobing to
walk into the sea only to re-emerge from the waves as Aphrodite, born
from the spume. As a result of her living imitation of the goddess, she was
to become the model for both Praxiteles’ creation and Apelles’ painting of
Aphrodite Anadyomene.7 The people of Kos rejected the undressed goddess
and she was offloaded onto the Knidians. In Knidos, her novelty (even
Aphrodite herself was imagined to have expressed surprise)8 made her
a huge attraction, not simply as a cult image but as the focus of erotic
interest.9 The story, retold by both Pliny the Elder and Pseudo-Lucian, of
the man who, overcome by her beauty, left a stain on her buttocks, has
ever since delighted art historians looking to prove the power of art.10 The
story is crucial to our understanding of hellenistic attitudes to art and marks
a strong contrast to the treatises on art composed in the classical period by
the sculptors themselves. This story is primarily about ownership and shows
the work of art as an object, whose worth is determined by the audience
not by the sculptor. Even Aphrodite herself is a spectator viewing the object
from a distance. This is very different from the usual understanding of the
cult image as manifestation of the deity. This image will not walk, talk or
otherwise perform for her worshippers. Made of marble, she cannot even
act as useful commodity: no bronze to be melted or gold leaf to be lifted
in times of need. Her power is solely activated by being looked at. Unlike
other famous cult statues, the Athena Parthenos or the Juno from Veii,
Aphrodite doesn’t (have to) do, she just is.11
However, it is important to note that the goddess is no straightforward
rape victim. The emphasis on the erotic response to the nude goddess has
tended to overlook the crucial truth behind Aphrodite’s display; apparently
naked, she has no visible genitalia.12 The idea that the maturity of her
body is made obvious enough by her full figure is unhelpful, particularly
since the muscular development of male figures, such as the Doryphoros
(Spearbearer), is not used as compensation for missing genitalia.13 Nor is
it possible to explain away the phenomenon in terms of depilation.14 Even
if we could explain away lack of pubic hair, we certainly could not talk
away a lack of vulva.
The lack of female genitals, so regularly displayed in other media,
specifically vase painting in the early classical period, firmly removes

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Aphrodite from comparison with the mortal women who exposed them-
selves on pottery. Far from reflecting the liberation of women in the
hellenistic period, it is interesting that the Aphrodite who loses her clothes
reaches her highest popularity at a time when Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones has
suggested that real women are wearing more and more.15 It would seem that
only the goddess of sex has this power; no other goddesses appear naked
and severe punishments befell those who saw them in this state.16 It is this
ambivalence, of course, which powers the image. What if she sees you?
Is she already looking at you? Are you safe? Osborne stresses this fact of
Aphrodite’s ability to look back, to frame male sexuality in her own gaze.17
Even if she doesn’t notice you, if she is assaulted from behind, the mortal
male will still lose because she is not as mortal women.
Aphrodite is a goddess, she has to be powerful.18 The lack of female
genitalia allows her to enjoy the authoritative status of power denied to
women.19 As Stewart reminds us, Aphrodite’s power rests on her impen-
etrability; she is certainly no ‘leaky vessel’.20 The man overcome by her
beauty assails her buttocks, not only because he may be enacting a Greek,
homo-erotic fetish (as Pseudo-Lucian’s Athenian companion would have it)
but because there is nowhere else to go.21 As much as her buttocks continue
to be a focus of interest for the Greek audience, Aphrodite retains control
over their exposure. The Aphrodite Kallipygos (Beautiful Bottom), hitching
up her dress, colludes in her desirability but retains her authority, both
inspiring and controlling desire.22 Aphrodite is a female deity but she is
not a woman and must transcend mortal male domination. Unlike Greek
women, the power lies with Aphrodite to reveal herself.23 In the end, this
victim who seems so passively to endure the assault, is actually the party in
control. It is she who inspires desire in her victim and presumably she who
sends the attacker, literally mad with desire, to his untimely death.
It would seem, then, that Aphrodite draws her strength from her very
objectification. These two aspects of the image are not incompatible, rather
they indicate the complex matrix of issues surrounding her, which take
account of the apparent dichotomies between her supernatural status and
female physique, her birth from the sea and creation by the artist and the
delicate balance between control and desire. All of these experiences are
present within her and these are the elements that would become steadily
reconfigured through the process of her later reception.

The hellenistic nude Aphrodite

This is the picture of the classical Aphrodite that we might surmise from
the available evidence. That these stories were recorded in later eras would
imply that they were important means of verifying the Knidian Aphrodite’s

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lofty position. In defining this Aphrodite as the prototype, they also justified
the range of other naked and semi-naked Aphrodites which appear to have
proliferated throughout the hellenistic era.
The authors of the surviving stories acknowledge the distance between
the Knidian Aphrodite and their own audience. Pseudo-Lucian (writing in
the Roman Empire but apparently, like Pliny, using a hellenistic source)
and his companions visit Aphrodite but they do not feel uncontrolled desire
themselves.24 Instead they, like the reader, can only experience it through
the story of someone else’s passion. These accounts do not encourage the
reader to visit Aphrodite so as to be similarly overwhelmed and rejected,
but to witness the stain first-hand, primed for informed discussion. That is
not to say that the witnesses do not believe in the stories or in Aphrodite,
just that their immediate concerns might be somewhat different.
In objectifying Aphrodite, seeing her from a distance, the reaction of
hellenistic viewers would appear to be much the same as viewers looking
at the Venus de Milo in the Louvre.25 It is easy to suggest that hellenistic
viewers appreciated art in ways not so different from our own. The period
which we have invented as the hellenistic era witnessed the birth of the
private collection and of copy culture. In creating a competitive, elite
society eager to demonstrate its Greek cultural heritage, the hellenistic
socio-political climate positively encouraged new artistic endeavours, the
competitive acquisition of objets d’art and the practice of stylistic retro-
spection as a way of appealing to great precedents of the past.26 From this
angle, the story of the Knidia seems to appeal to connoisseurs who may
be contemplating the purchase of one statue – slightly soiled. Aphrodite
becomes a must-have rather than a must-see.
The houses of Delos yield important evidence of the domestic sculptural
assemblages of the period. Of the many sculptures found there, Aphrodite
clearly predominates. Statuettes of the goddess draw from a variety of
types recognisable from full-scale sculpture and, with only a couple of
exceptions, are nude or semi-draped. At least a proportion of them were
probably displayed in wall niches and, like their models, would have been
foci of worship as well as admiration, serving cultic as well as decorative
purposes.27 Of course, owners may well have purchased these items with
little regard for their type and pedigree and the images themselves may have
been executed as familiar renderings of Aphrodite rather than as copies of
a particular piece (though to us that prototype may seem evident). However,
the presence of several larger-scale pieces, clearly based on famous proto-
types, for example a copy of the Diadoumenos (Fillet Binder) of Polykleitos
or another of the Apollo Lykaios by Praxiteles, boosts the notion that, as
for us, artistic pedigree played an important role in purchase and display.28

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The House of Hermes can be used as evidence for the popularity of both
Aphrodite and Praxiteles. The sculptural assemblage of the principal room,
the oikos, included two bases, one inscribed ‘Aphrodite’, another with what
is claimed to be the original signature of Praxiteles (though, tellingly, not
the whole name survives).29 These examples might well imply the deliberate
and competitive use of certain fashionable and collectable pieces.30
The examples from Delos demonstrate other aspects of copy culture well
attested in Roman collections, which themselves were born at this time.
Whether or not always done knowingly, familiar sculptures were minia-
turised, put into different media and put to new uses in new arrangements
as the owner demanded.31 These arrangements give us some insight into
how the experience of viewing a private copy is different from looking at
the original in its public setting. As much as the kudos of the copy might
depend on emphasizing the status of the original and her artist, control
passed squarely to the owner as he specified his exact requirements. In
confining Aphrodite to his own home, the hellenistic homeowner began to
monopolize the gaze. He could control both who looked at her and whom
she looked upon, circumscribing her ability to incite desire. Those issues
of control and desire played out in the stories of Pseudo-Lucian and Pliny
are here enacted in a new way. Is the homeowner enslaved by his desire for
Aphrodite or does he enslave her, confining her to quarters?
It is easy to see how these circumstances might have generated such
stories about the Knidian Aphrodite, reinforcing the notion of her as
desirable market object. The enormous geographical and social changes of
the time severely affected the production and reception of art. By the late
hellenistic era, elites all across the Mediterranean were effectively collecting
art in a domestic context as a means of asserting cultural participation
and superiority. These new trends do not reduce the complexities of the
Aphrodite image. Issues of control and desire, power and passivity, divinity
and image are all still tackled here as they were in Knidos, but they have
been reconfigured by the new context. We would have to take account of
these subtle changes if we were ever to look back beyond the era to the
real, classical Aphrodite.
We would also have to contend with a second level of distortion. Such
interpretations of hellenistic sculpture depend very heavily on our own
conception of an art market. As much as conditions in the hellenistic era
might have generated these stories of the Knidia, it is also the case that our
own understanding of the same stories has generated our view of the art
of the hellenistic period. Our whole conception of a hellenistic period of
art is, of course, bogus, relying on political events to circumscribe it. Our
own, artificial divisions firmly separate the original Knidian Aphrodite from

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the domestic copies and other public varieties of nude and semi-draped
Aphrodites. This barrier simply would not have existed to a contemporary
audience. In all respects, apart from his inconvenient death seven years
before that of Alexander, Praxiteles would seem the perfect ‘hellenistic’
artist. Not only his Knidia but other pieces such as the Sauroktonos (Lizard
Slayer) or Resting Satyr dovetail nicely with hellenistic iconography and
attitudes. It is also becoming clearer that practices we usually associate with
hellenistic art, such as stylistic retrospection, were already in use during
the classical era.32 Despite this, we use Pseudo-Lucian and Pliny to help us
distance the Knidian Aphrodite, keeping her safely classical and superior.
The invention of the hellenistic era as a distinct art period in which to
locate all these innovations of collecting and copying, helps to distinguish
us, as collectors, copiers and tourists ourselves, from them, the great classical
masters. The ability to rediscover the real Aphrodite would depend on being
able to breach both ancient and modern hellenistic experiences.

The Victorian Venus

By the time the painters of Victorian Britain inherited the naked Aphrodite,
she came to them filtered through a long European, Christian tradition.
From the Renaissance on, Aphrodite, who had emerged from the Roman
mangle as Venus, had graced private and public collections and served as
an artistic template. As a result, the nineteenth-century audience had met
her in the disguise of mortal women from Eve to Paolina Borghese, seen her
transformed in the paintings of Botticelli and Titian and even recognized
her reassembled from spare parts in the stately homes of England.33 The
painters discussed here, Frederic Lord Leighton, Lawrence Alma-Tadema
and E.J. Poynter, were the heirs of an Academic tradition which found
itself increasingly under threat from the Pre-Raphaelites and Aesthetics
throughout the nineteenth century. Across the channel, an honorary
member of the Royal Academy, Jean-Léon Gérôme, was similarly defending
the traditions of the French Académie against the threat of modernity,
Realism and Impressionism.34 These artists appealed to classical traditions
as a means of validating their own positions on the contemporary art scene
and the naked Venus would become one of their favourite iconographies
through which to achieve this aim.
The nineteenth century saw the female nude become a major subject
of British painting for the first time, using Venus as the template. The
reappearance of the goddess as artefact from a desired past was entirely
appropriate to an era caught in intense conflict between modernity and
tradition in every aspect of life.35 The representation of the female form,
in the guise of ancient statues, was justified by the perceived distance

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between the flesh and the artist. Naked women were to be located,
whether chronologically or geographically, far from nineteenth-century
northern Europe (like other ‘Orientalists’, Gérôme did a lucrative business
in women lounging in Turkish Baths). Venus’ pedigree acted as deliberate
counterpoint to the nudes of the burgeoning realist and aesthetic schools
which depicted real women in new poses and in new relationships to the
gaze of the viewer.36
The most obvious way in which artist and audience might imagine Venus
was as a sculpture in an appropriate setting. For artists like Alma-Tadema,
the desire to place his subjects within an authentic ancient context was
a major objective but this context was one that helped viewers understand
their own appreciation of the image. Venuses do not appear in temples
or as divine manifestations but as decoration or desirable market objects
in domestic settings or sculptors’ galleries. A statuette of the semi-draped
Venus of Arles appears in the background of A Chat (1865).37 She reappears
in A Roman Lover of Art (1868), this time to be inspected by a prospective
buyer.38 In these paintings, the ancient desire for art was equated with the
modern and, indeed, we might recognize many aspects as symptomatic
of our description of hellenistic display. The urge to manipulate scale
and medium, for example, were features of both ancient and modern
collecting.39 However, these pictures mostly invent the ancient from the
modern example. The Venuses on display were those most highly prized
in contemporary collections or, often, those that had only recently been
rediscovered. As a further conflation of ancient and modern, several of
Alma-Tadema’s paintings on this theme feature members of his friends
and family and sometimes even himself amongst the would-be buyers.40 In
effect, these pictures imagined a familiar, hellenistic world in which Venus
might be properly admired.
For many painters, however, Venus’s body offered a more complex
dilemma. They wanted to look beyond the setting of the statue, to explore
the goddess herself. What exactly was she? We know so much about Venus,
are so familiar with her presence, that this query hardly seems worth consid-
eration. But it is a crucial question and one that other artists, critical of
the Neo-classical standpoint, aggressively posed. Albert Moore’s A Venus
(1869) exposes some of the dilemmas in imagining Aphrodite. His image
deliberately confuses the categories of painting and sculpture. The pose
of the figure’s torso is the Venus de Milo. But this is clearly not a painting
of Aphrodite herself in the Melian pose; the pale surface and smooth,
bulbous pubis would imply that this is not living flesh.41 Moore’s painting
defies historicism, the attempt to relocate an accurate past. Instead it is
deliberately ambiguous about the form of the image, an ambiguity reflected

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in the non-committal title. The figure is merged within a background that

allows no narrative context but which makes plenty of sense in terms of
Moore’s preoccupation with the pastel shades, flora and delicate patterning
of Japanese art. This Venus is, above all, a lesson in aesthetics, a snub to
the classical painters dominating the Academy. It asks what exactly the
classical painters expected to find beyond the casts and copies. A real, live
goddess in Christian Europe? Surely, through the loss of her pagan context,
Aphrodite’s body must become increasingly separated from her identity,
becoming an empty cipher of form and beauty. Aphrodite had become
a ruin, lost to the world. As such, it was the privilege of the present to
reconstruct her as it wished.
Those painters who remained dedicated to reviving Aphrodite were
inevitably caught up in this difficulty. And indeed, in trying to look
beyond the sculpted image they found, not a goddess, but mortal flesh.
Poynter’s Diadumene (Fillet Binder) (1884) showed a woman in the pose
of the Esquiline Venus, a version of the hair-binding Aphrodite Anadyo-
mene, preparing for a bath.42 This was neither a statue nor a deity. Here
was a woman exposing herself to the viewer, who found himself looking
directly at bare flesh, albeit safely distanced through the passage of time,
her foreignness indicated by the marble and mosaic of her surroundings.
Leighton’s Bath of Psyche (1890) also participated in the process of
separating the flesh from the ideal of the goddess. Taking the Aphrodite
Kallipygos as model, he placed her in an ancient setting but turned her
into the living Psyche taking a bath. Whilst the title follows Poynter in
distancing this beauty from the here and now, its authority is rather bogus.
When did Psyche ever take a bath?43 The extent to which Leighton’s study
might be accused of serving contemporary sexual predilections rather than
recreating ancient myth is suggested by the twisting of the figure. The
Kallipygos was specifically sculpted to show Aphrodite’s buttocks. Leighton’s
painting has turned the viewer’s attention to the view of the breasts and
stomach, redefining Venus’ sex appeal in order to define distinctly separate
homo- and hetero-erotic sex appeals.44 This Venus was very much a woman
for Leighton’s time.
These images caused further difficulty in that, in showing ordinary
women, they lost some of the distance implied in depicting goddesses.
They invited the viewer to consider that the prototype was not a divine
image but an ordinary model. Worries about the nudity of women in these
paintings show just how far the original classical conception of Aphrodite
had been twisted as she fell from goddess to human flesh. The relation
between the sculpted nudity of Venus, painter and model was a hot topic,
much covered in recent discussions of Victorian artists and highlighted

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by gossip suggesting scandalous liaisons. Even Leighton was accused of

feeling for Dorothy Dene, the model for his Bath of Psyche, what Jenkyns
delicately describes as an ‘avuncular tendresse’. When his painting was
reviewed in 1913, one reviewer further confused the issue by thanking
Dorothy for sharing her gifts with the world at large. For all the artists’
attempts at distancing their work from contemporary pornography, much
of the audience was all too aware of the sordid flesh behind the ideal.45
On the one hand, it would be easy to suppose that these accusations
and discomforts would condemn the project of reviving Aphrodite in
a manner as effective as, if very different from, Moore’s painting. On the
other hand, in depicting the artist in the direct process of creating art from
life, gossip served to reinforce the idea that these artists, like Praxiteles,
were actually inventing, not copying, their nudes. The illusion of artistic
authority was helped by the high social position and visibility enjoyed by
the Academic artists of the Victorian era. They were on show as much as
their paintings, appeared in ‘celebrity at home’-type magazine spreads, lived
and entertained in showcase houses and were admitted to the nobility.46
The heroic tone with which Leighton, in particular, was referred to, appears
most singularly in Gaunt’s 1956 reappraisal of the ‘Olympians’. Leighton
regularly appears striding into disaster and disarray, rescuing donkeys and
fighting fires wherever needed.47
At this level of public exposure and veneration it is no wonder that
the artist could present himself as Praxiteles (enjoying a social prestige
almost certainly denied the Greek himself ). Despite being predomi-
nantly painters, these artists added to the illusion (and further upped
their prestige) by depicting themselves as sculptors. Gérôme’s The Artist’s
Model (1895), for example, shows himself in the progress of sculpting
his Tanagra (1890), the sculpture alongside the life model.48 Leighton’s
famous and much discussed self-portrait, Portrait of the Painter (1881)
features the Parthenon frieze in the background, making reference to
the artist as Phidias.49 Nor were these allusions all the part of the artist;
Leighton was regularly called ‘Praxiteles’, suggesting that the audience
colluded with the artists’ self-vision.50 The Victorian artist and audience
thus conspired to reinvent a moment when the nude Aphrodite might be
reborn at the hand of the master artist.
It is this conceit which would help explain why artists were ready to run
the gauntlet of jibes such as those directed towards Leighton concerning
his relationship with Dene. Despite the fact that their paintings clearly
depended on ancient statuary and that the nude’s respectability depended
on its creation in the pure, ancient past, they took great care to emphasize
their technique of working from life. They were to be understood as great

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masters reinventing the nude from scratch, not mere slavish hacks like those
hellenistic artists who bashed out copies of classical masterworks. Alma-
Tadema’s A Sculptor’s Model (1877) borrowed the figure of the Esquiline
Venus, depicting a Greek artist in the process of creation, looking up at his
model as she poses naked (Fig. 3).51 Whilst the artist studies her buttocks,
she is viewed from the front by the modern audience, visible on all sides.
Two thousand years of viewing are condensed into one image, dispensing
with the medium of the sculpture. The model is trapped by the male gaze
on both sides simultaneously, but her averted eye is never allowed the
privilege of challenging the viewer.52 She may take Aphrodite’s form but
she has none of her power.
In re-enacting the original creation of Aphrodite, both audience and
artists could appeal for precedent to the stories about Praxiteles’ relationship
with his own model.53 Artists
posing as Praxiteles needed
inspiration in a Phryne and
she was pictured several times.
Leighton painted her in the
Phryne at Eleusis (c. 1880–2),
re-imagining her about to enact
the birth of Aphrodite.54 He
depicted her not as a Venus but
as a woman, so much so that
her bronzed skin caused some
concern in so brashly empha-
sizing the human nature of the
flesh.55 It should be noticed,
however, that Leighton, appar-
ently aware of the distinction
between mythic and human
flesh, has covered Phryne’s
modesty with the thinnest strip
of material. Gérôme’s earlier
painting of Phryne also tackled
her nudity. His Phryne before
the Areopagus (1861) showed
the moment during her trial
for upsetting the Eleusinian
Mysteries when her advocate,
Fig. 3. Alma-Tadema, ‘A sculptor’s model’. inevitably a past lover, whipped
Photo Christie’s Images Ltd. off her clothes in an attempt to

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provoke sympathy for her beauty (Fig. 4).56 The painting plots the reaction
of the male gaze to her exposed body, as the members of the Areopagus
stare open-mouthed, variously shocked and delighted.57 The real Phryne
stands in the typical contrapposto pose of the sculptures, her anatomy (or
lack of it) just the same as those images that took her body as their inspira-
tion. But of course, there is a crucial difference. The artist takes advantage
of the armlessness of ruined Venus types to reinvent her limbs as hiding her
head. Like Leighton, Gérôme understands that a woman cannot share the
same authority as a goddess in the face of exposure but his solution is very
different. The effect of Phryne’s reaction, her effort to conceal her identity
and shield herself from the gaze of the crowd, is to lay her body completely
open to their eyes. Like Alma-Tadema’s sculptor’s model, Phryne’s body is
completely defenceless and her own eyes are unable to challenge the gaze
directed on her. The contrast between sculpture made flesh and sculpture
itself is contrasted by the juxtaposition of Phryne and Athena, the fallen
woman and virgin goddess, the one cowering, exposed and beaten, the
other striding forward, armed and fully clothed. These paintings begin to
demonstrate the complete inversion which had taken place in reinventing
Aphrodite. Where once Phryne’s body had been a cypher through which
to imagine Aphrodite, Aphrodite’s form was now on the road to becoming
Phryne. In this world there was no room for the goddess herself, only model,
material and, in command of both, the artist.

Fig. 4. J.-L. Gérôme, ‘Phryne before the Areopagus’. Hamburg, Kunsthalle. Photo
Hamburger Kunsthalle.

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Shelley Hales

In these pictures of Phryne, the artists seem to have found themselves

at the original source of the nude Aphrodite. Against all odds they would
appear to have climbed through the looking glass into the classical era.
Towards the end of their careers, both Leighton and Gérôme put these
fantasies into play by becoming sculptors, Gérôme making several pieces
based on characters in his painting. His Phryne, though, was made into
a statuette by Falguière.58 Through the process of reception and assimila-
tion, the nude Aphrodite was returned to marble as the exposed Phryne.
Now all this sculpture needed was a context. To convince the audience
that their own creations were legitimate components of the ancient world,
artists transported them back into it by placing them in the background
of their classical genre paintings. In his Painting Breathes Life into Sculpture
(1893), Gérôme painted a Greek woman working on a whole cohort of
copies of his own Hoopdancer statuette and his endeavours were further
flattered by Alma-Tadema who used the Hoopdancer as a Greek accessory in
The Golden Hours (1907).59 And so we return to those Victorian paintings
we started with, Alma-Tadema’s galleries and shop floors, all perpetuating
the Victorian construction of the ancient world as filtered through the
hellenistic experience.
The Phryne statuette demonstrates the huge distance between the
efforts of Praxiteles and those of the nineteenth century. This ‘Venus’ that
these artists returned back to three dimensions was very different from the
Knidian Aphrodite, not only because she had become a mere woman at the
expense of her divinity. As much as artists had depended on the story of
Praxiteles and Phryne in order to justify and glamorize their projects, they
divorced them from the Knidia, preferring models better suited to their
own ends. In preferring the ruined Venus de Milo or Esquiline Venus types
as the basis for their reconstructions, they were able to complete the model
to their own specifications, explicitly exposing the goddess and robbing
her of the chance to shield herself. The gesture by which Gérôme’s Phryne
covers her head was seen as an admission of the base nature of nudity.60 In
an attempt to prove this in relation to the ancient nude, art historians of
the nineteenth century began to trace a development of shame in the Venus
types, from the innocent, loose genital-shielding gesture of the prototype,
classical Knidian Aphrodite to the (allegedly) later Capitoline Venus, who
appears to wrap both arms around herself.61 The tawdry hellenistic period
was again to blame for tarnishing the achievements of classical Art. In fact,
those historians were following a development which had grown over the
millennia. Only now was Venus shameful.
These debates about the morality of Venus’ nudity, however, overlooked
the most crucial aspect of her iconography. Critics and artists alike were so

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taken in by their own version of the hellenisic construction of Venus that

they failed to recognize that she is not truly naked, she is not completely
revealed. By their refusal to admit that the nude Aphrodite was not simply
a reflection of nature but an iconographical construct, designed to convey
the authority of a goddess, artists not only faithfully copied Aphrodite’s lack
of genitals but crossed this over to Phryne herself. The iconography of the
atypical goddess was recontextualized as the image of all women. Venus was
robbed of her gaze but equally not given back that part of her body which
acquiesces to the male. Appealing for justification to the classical era, the
Victorian artist and audience created a Venus for their own age, blaming
the iniquitous result on the hellenistic period.

During the nineteenth century, there was an awareness of the difficulties of

recreating the past.62 The Victorians could not trace the classical Aphrodite
because she was too far hidden under the hellenistic construction. However,
they could attempt to construct a Venus relevant to their own time.63 In
attempting to do this, these artists relied on the distance between them-
selves and Venus, both in order to justify her nudity to contemporary social
mores and to stimulate desire for her. The worth of their project depended
upon the agreement that the naked Aphrodite was in essence late classical.
However, their own Venuses were born to be plunged straight into the
hellenistic settings they painted for her.
It is this inability to disengage the image of Aphrodite from her later
reception that perhaps explains why we prefer the Venus de Milo to the
Knidia. The Venus de Milo was so enthusiastically received in France
because of the pretence that she too was late classical. This conceit allowed
the viewer to pretend that he/she was not enslaved to the hellenistic era but
to a greater, classical past. She was desired then because she was thought to
belong to a lost era which we can never regain, and even now her obvious
incompleteness stands as a symbol of that distance. She seems to invite us
to repair her, both reminding us of the lost past and giving us the power
of reparation.64 The ancient world as ruin rather than copy is appealing
because we can reserve the right to reconstruct the past as we wish. It puts
us back in control of a past, the desire for which seems about to overwhelm
us. However, in attempting to reconstruct this past for ourselves, we can
never jump this divide, forever bound by a later reception, framed by the
hellenistic period.
But it would be wrong to suggest that the post-Renaissance audience
have simply been tricked by the hellenistic aesthetic. The example of these
nineteenth-century paintings also demonstrates that hellenistic taste fits
what we want best. Although the Academicians, Leighton in particular,

267
Shelley Hales

were full of verbal admiration for Phidias, they rarely worked with his
templates. Instead, they were more than happy to view classical art through
hellenistic eyes, which they might have imagined saw a vision of an art
world familiar to them. The hellenistic era was so convenient for them
to exploit, precisely because it could be made to fit their own template of
artistic production and acquisitive response, affirming their own role in
the process of art creation.
The result of this invented familiarity, of course, has grave consequences
for our ‘objective’ conception of the era. It is the hellenistic world from
which we gain our aesthetic and on which we place the blame. It is precisely
because we have built such a level of familiarity that we have to denigrate it
so much. Hellenistic tastes and modes of display are projected forward to
us and we, in return, project back all our iniquitous feelings about ancient
art, and in this case Venus, precisely to that period. In doing so we have
completely inverted the meaning of Aphrodite’s iconography, eroticizing
and enervating her, turning her into the female nude.

Postscript
It is perhaps worth ending with an indication of how far our conception
of Venus may still change by viewing a twentieth-century rebirth. In Mary
Duffy’s performance Cutting the Ties that Bind (1987), the artist mimics the
pose of the Venus de Milo, the drapery lowered so as to expose her genitals.65
As a living body, the Venus comes alive exactly as she is.66 The photograph
is provocative, asking how an image which has been championed as ideal
beauty by a male gaze delighting in the possibilities of a ruin, might be
understood as deformed or imperfect when realized in flesh. This Venus
revisits all those issues explored during the preceding century, but with
quite different results. She is sculpture/artist/model simultaneously, who
created herself and restored to herself the power of the gaze. Whereas the
sculpted and painted Venuses were trapped in their image for 2000 years,
in this performance, the Venus appears fleetingly, revealing herself before
removing herself. She is back in control, asserting herself over the male
gaze, but in order to do so she has had to surrender once and for all the
defining aspect of her ancient identity – her divinity.

Notes
1
Pliny NH 34.52.
2
Haskell and Penny 1981, 328–30 give a history of the Venus de Milo. Clarke
1956, 83 investigates the success of the image. Havelock 1995, 93–8 discusses the
possible original meanings behind her iconography.

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 How the Venus de Milo lost her arms
3
The appeal of the ‘ruin’ of the ancient world is discussed by Lowenthal 1985,
149–82. See also Liversidge 1996.
4
For an introduction to the theory of collecting see Stewart 1993, 132–69
and Elsner and Cardinal 1994. Lowenthal 1985 discusses our perceived relation
to the past.
5
Havelock 1995, 9–37; Stewart 1997, 97–106; Spivey 1996, 173–86; and
Salomon 1997, 197–219.
6
Havelock 1995, 39–54 explores the career of Praxiteles and his relationship
with Phryne.
7
Athen. 13.590 records the gossip surrounding Phryne’s life.
8
Anth. Graec. 16.160.
9
Pliny NH 36.20.
10
Pseudo-Lucian Erotes 13–16. Beard and Henderson 2001, 123–32 provide an
excellent discussion of this passage as part of an overview of the image of Venus
and the role of desire in art appreciation.
11
Gordon 1979 best investigates the power of cult images. For the Juno of Veii
see Livy 5.22.3–8.
12
Stewart 1997, 99 following Smith 1993, 83.
13
Havelock 1995, 19.
14
Kilmer 1993, 135–41.
15
Llewellyn-Jones, forthcoming. Smith 1993, 82 suggests that the relative
liberation of women in the hellenistic age may have encouraged the popularity of
the nude Aphrodite. Salomon 1997 takes the opposite view, that the female nude
humiliated and objectified women.
16
For example, of course, the fate of Actaeon. See Ovid Met. 3.138 ff.
17
Osborne 1994, 81–7. The discussion of the gaze, inspired by Lacanian theory,
is very prevalent in recent art history. See Stewart 1997, 13–19.
18
Grigson 1978, 19–110.
19
For the associations of non-gender-specific bodies see Maskell 1998, 139–61,
esp. 142.
20
Stewart 1997, 104 notes the impregnability of the image. Warner 1985,
241–66 discusses the idea of the ordinary woman as ‘leaky vessel’ and the need
of allegories to overcome this negative image with impenetrability. However, she
does not project this idea back to the image of Aphrodite which she discusses at
261–2 and 313–14 as if it were completely naturalistic.
21
Pseudo-Lucian Erotes 17.
22
The Kallipygos type is discussed by Havelock 1995, 98–101. For her subse-
quent history see Haskell and Penny 1981, 316–18. Beard and Henderson 2001,
123 deliver a timely caveat. Aristophanes Plout. 149–59 reminds us of the allure
of the female buttock!
23
Again, Salomon 1997, 204 favours an opposite explanation, asserting that
‘Woman, thus fashioned, is reduced in a humiliated way, to her sexuality’.
24
Again, Havelock 1995, 9–37 preserves the range of textual evidence and the
sources that might have inspired later writers.
25
Baudrillard 1994, 8.

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Shelley Hales
26
Elsner and Cardinal 1994, 1–6 define the idea of the collection. Kreeb 1988,
63–86 weighs up the evidence for the motives behind acquisition and display on
late hellenistic Delos. Also see Pollitt 1986, 150–84.
27
Havelock 1995, 55–7.
28
Kreeb 1988, 155–60 and 242–3.
29
Kreeb 1988, 200–15.
30
Vermeule 1977, 1–26 discusses the trade of copy-making.
31
Vermeule 1977, 27–44 looks at how copies were arranged in their new
contexts. See also Bartmann 1991.
32
See, very briefly, Fullerton 2000, 128–40.
33
Clarke 1956, 64–161 traces the history of Venus. Irwin 1997 gives several
examples of eighteenth-century Venuses; for Paolina Borghese see 327–9, for
William Weddell’s notorious ‘ringer’ Medici Venus see 63.
34
Gérôme was the most fanatical opponent of modernity. His most extreme
outburst was recorded in an interview by Bataille 1895, 530–1. See Ackerman
1986, 142–5.
35
Lowenthal 1985, 96–105.
36
Degas provides an obvious example. See Armstrong 1986, 223–42. This
discourse is important to remember as a motive for the iconography. Bryson
1984, 1–31 reminds us of the artist’s need to be creative and warns the viewer
against simply ‘source spotting’.
37
Swanson 1990, 135–6.
38
Swanson 1990, 148–9.
39
Stewart 1984, 37–103 discusses the desires behind the miniature and the
gigantic. Vermeule 1977, 46–7 recognizes the similarity between the Roman
and modern domestic display of antiquities. Prettejohn 1996, 54–69 reiterates
that the middle-class audience had no classical education but were familiar with
archaeology.
40
Swanson 1977, 19 and 21.
41
Smith 1996, 132–3 and Asleson 2000, 104–8.
42
Liversidge and Edwards 1996, 152–4.
43
Jenkyns 1991, 231–3.
44
Haskell and Penny 1981, 39 illustrate an early eighteenth-century effort to
deal with the Kallipygos’ sexuality.
45
See Smith 1996 passim, esp. 25–33. Also Smith 1999, 19–48.
46
For example, Strand ran an Artists at Home feature in summer 1892. For
further discussion see Stephenson 1999. See also Gillett 1990, 18–68.
47
See, for example, Gaunt 1952, 37–8 and 126.
48
Ackerman 1986, cats. no. 419 and S17. For discussion see 135–6.
49
Barringer and Prettejohn 1999, xxi–iii.
50
See, for example, Smith in Barringer and Prettejohn 1999, 24.
51
Swanson 1990, 196; Smith 1996, 202–9; and Jenkyns 1991, 127.
52
Gérôme plays a similar trick with his two paintings A Roman Slave Market
(1884) and A Slave Sale at Rome (1884). One features a Phryne-type nude from
behind, the other shows her from the front as the buyers see her. Ackerman 1986,

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 How the Venus de Milo lost her arms

cat. nos. 329 and 328.

53
Jenkyns 1991, 230.
54
Smith 1996, 168.
55
Smith in Barringer and Prettejohn 1999, 40–3.
56
This is the Athenaeus version. Quintilian Inst. Or. 2.15.9 records an alterna-
tive version in which Phryne exposes herself.
57
Ackerman 1986, cat. no. 132. Smith 1996, 109–10.
58
Ackerman 1986, cat. no. S2.
59
Ackerman 1986, 139–41. Cat. no. 411.
60
For this, he is criticized by Degas whose opinion is recorded in Jeanniot
1933, 172.
61
Havelock 1995, 69–70 and Clarke 1956, 76–9.
62
Munich 1989, 4–5.
63
Stewart 1984, 152–162 suggests that the aim of collecting is not to remember
but to forget the past.
64
For the psychoanalytical explanation see Fuller 1980.
65
Duffy 1989.
66
Nead 1992, 77–9.

Bibliography
Ackermann, G.
1986 The Life and Work of J.-L. Gérôme with a Catalogue Raisonné, London.
Armstrong, C.
1986 ‘Edgar Degas and the representation of the female body’, in S. Suleiman
(ed.) The Female Body in Western Culture, Cambridge, Mass.
Asleson, R.
2000 Albert Moore, London.
Barringer, T. and Prettejohn, E. (eds.)
1999 Leighton. Antiquity, renaissance and modernity, New Haven.
Bartmann, E.
1991 ‘Sculptural collecting and display in the private realm’, in E.K. Gazda
(ed.) Roman Art in the Private Sphere, Ann Arbor.
Bataille, H.
1895 ‘Enquête à propos de la donation Caillebotte’, Journal des Artistes 3,
530–1.
Baudrillard, J.
1994 ‘The system of collecting’, in Elsner and Cardinal (eds.) The Culture of
Collecting, Cambridge, Mass., 7–24.
Beard, M. and Henderson, J.
2001 Classical Art. From Greece to Rome, Oxford.
Bryson, N.
1984 Tradition and Desire, Cambridge.
Clarke, K.
1956 The Nude, London.

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Shelley Hales

Duffy, M.
1989 ‘Cutting the ties that bind’, Feminist Art News 2:10, 6–7.
Elsner, J. and Cardinal, R. (eds.)
1994 The Culture of Collecting, Cambridge, Mass.
Fuller, P.
1980 ‘The Venus and internal objects’, in Art and Psychoanalysis, London.
Fullerton, M.
2000 Greek Art, Cambridge.
Gaunt, W.
1952 Victorian Olympus, London.
Gordon, R.L.
1979 ‘The real and the imaginary: production and religion in the Graeco-
Roman world’, Art History 2, 5–34.
Grigson, G.
1978 The Goddess of Love, London.
Haskell, F. and Penny, N.
1981 Taste and the Antique, New Haven.
Havelock, C.
1995 The Aphrodite of Knidos and her Successors, Ann Arbor.
Irwin, D.
1997 Neoclassicism, London.
Jeanniot, G.
1933 ‘Souvenirs sur Dégas’, Revue Universelle, 172.
Jenkyns, R.
1991 Dignity and Decadence, London.
Kilmer, M.F.
1993 Greek Erotica on Attic Red-Figure Vases, London.
Kreeb, M.
1988 Untersuchungen zur figürlich Ausstattung delische Privathäuse, Chicago.
Liversidge, M.
1996 ‘Rome portrayed: “to excite the sensibility, and to awaken the admira-
tion of mankind” ’, in Liversidge and Edwards (eds.) Imagining Rome,
38–53.
Liversidge, M. and Edwards, C. (eds.)
1996 Imagining Rome. British artists and Rome in the nineteenth century,
London.
Llewellyn-Jones, L.
Forthcoming 2003 Aphrodite’s Tortoise: Women and veiling in the ancient
Greek world, London and Swansea.
Lowenthal, D.
1985 The Past is a Foreign Country, Cambridge.
Maskell, L.
1998 ‘The irresistible body and the seduction of archaeology’, in D. Monserrat
(ed.) Changing Bodies, Changing Meanings, London, 139–61.
Munich, A.A.
1989 Andromeda’s Chains, New York.

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Nead, L.
1992 The Female Nude, London.
Nielsen, I.
1994 Hellenistic Palaces. Tradition and renewal, Aarhus.
Osborne, R.G.
1994 ‘Looking on – Greek style. Does the sculpted girl speak to women too?’,
in I. Morris (ed.) Classical Greece. Ancient histories and modern archaeolo-
gies, Cambridge, 81–96.
Pollitt, J.J.
1986 Art in the Hellenistic Age, Cambridge.
Prettejohn, E.
1996 ‘Recreating Rome in Victorian painting: from history to genre’, in Liver-
sidge and Edwards (eds.) Imagining Rome, 54–69.
Salomon, N.
1997 ‘Making a world of difference: gender, asymmetry, and the Greek nude’,
in A. Olga Koloski-Ostrow and C.L. Lyons (eds.) Naked Truths, London,
197–219.
Smith, A.
1996 The Victorian Nude, Manchester.
1999 ‘Nature transformed: Leighton, the nude and the model’, in Barringer
and Prettejohn (eds.) Leighton, 19–48.
Spivey, N.
1996 Understanding Greek Sculpture, London.
Stephenson, A.
1999 ‘Leighton and the shifting repertoires of masculine artistic identity in
the late Victorian period’, in Barringer and Prettejohn (eds.) Leighton,
221–46.
Stewart, A.
1997 Art, Desire and the Body in Ancient Greece, Cambridge.
Stewart, S.
1984 On Longing, Baltimore.
Swanson, V.G.
1977 Sir L. Alma-Tadema. The painter of the Victorian vision of the ancient
world, London.
1990 The Biography and Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of Sir Lawrence
Alma-Tadema, London.
Vermeule, C.C.
1977 Greek Sculpture and Roman Taste, Ann Arbor.
Warner, M.
1985 Monuments and Maidens. The allegory of the female form, London.

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 14

CELLULOID CLEOPATRAS
or
DID THE GREEKS EVER GET TO EGYPT?

Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones1

Poor lady, resting in her queenly tomb. All these ages and ages she had little
idea her system of vamping men of her time would pass down the centuries
and be preserved in moving pictures.
Louella Parsons, Chicago Herald, September 1917

The focus of this ‘new perspective’ on the hellenistic world is Hollywood’s

filmic recreations of the life of Cleopatra VII. I begin by drawing attention
to a scene which opens the second half of Joseph Mankiewicz’ 1963 epic
Cleopatra: the setting is the royal precinct of Alexandria, where an Isis-
crowned Cleopatra (Elizabeth Taylor), accompanied by her chief minister,
the learned Sosigenes (Hume Cronyn), offers incense to a golden, veiled
statue of the dead and deified Julius Caesar as she contemplates her future
relationship with Rome (Fig. 1). She wears a necklace composed of gold
coins stamped with Caesar’s image. The scene, as recorded in Mankiewicz’
shooting-script,2 runs as follows:
Cleopatra: (looking at the statue) Would [Caesar] have approved, do you
think?
Sosigenes: Definitely. Perhaps the veil of Isis would have bothered him
just a bit –
Cleopatra: Three years. And Rome remembers him only by the image on
a gold coin.
Sosigenes: (looking at her necklace) Are they those I brought back with
me? (Cleopatra nods) After all, when Octavian had them struck off, it was
to commemorate Caesar’s deification.
Cleopatra: So that he could inherit Caesar’s divinity together with all the
rest. Even a dead god cannot rewrite his will.
Sosigenes: Antony did present Caesarion’s claims to the senate. He kept
that much of his promise.
Cleopatra: He will keep the rest of it . . .

275
Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

Sosigenes: (doubtfully) After almost three years since Caesar’s death

– more than a year since Philippi?
Cleopatra: Antony will come. He will need Egypt.
Sosigenes: Egypt is you.
Cleopatra: That’s what I meant, of course. Antony will need me.
In this scene both Sosigenes and Cleopatra propound the idea that the
queen is intimately identified with her kingdom; indeed, the notion that
Cleopatra is Egypt lies at the very heart of the movie. In this respect, the film
follows the popular preconception that Egypt and Cleopatra are perpetually
unified. In fact, it is a vision that Cleopatra VII Philopator herself seems
to have endorsed: her use of Pharaonic religious imagery and the Egyptian
artistic legacy, as well as her ability to speak the Egyptian language, were
clearly intended to promote her as the natural heiress to an ancient and
glorious civilization in the eyes of both her native Egyptian subjects and
her foreign enemies. Most famously, on the exterior walls of the temple of
Hathor at Dendera in Upper Egypt, Cleopatra VII commissioned twenty-
foot high carved images of herself in traditional Pharaonic pose as the

Fig. 1. Still from Cleopatra 1963. From the author’s private collection.

276
 Celluloid Cleopatras or Did the Greeks ever get to Egypt?

mother goddess Isis and her offspring and heir, Caesarion, as the divine
son Horus.3
But when Elizabeth Taylor’s Cleopatra is told, ‘you are Egypt’, no
one thinks to correct the line to ‘you are Greek-Egypt’ or, better, ‘you
are a Macedonian who through historical right of conquest now reigns
in Egypt’. Cleopatra is Egypt; but Cleopatra is not necessarily hellenistic
Egypt. The hellenistic world means very little to the average cinemagoer,
simply because the hellenistic period has never captured the imagination
of film-makers. In fact the hellenistic world has been all but ignored by
Hollywood movie directors who have tended to cut off Greek history with
the death of Alexander the Great (as portrayed by Richard Burton in 1956)
and pick it up again (but this time in a decidedly Roman context) with the
accession of Cleopatra VII.
Hollywood clearly has difficulty in defining what ‘hellenistic’ means.
Since the period is characterized by a succession of inter-related Macedo-
nian dynasties battling it out for space in a decidedly un-Greek world
– Syria, Egypt, Asia Minor – Hollywood finds it difficult to classify the
period both in terms of visualization and narrative. Hollywood does not
know what to make of a hybrid culture. That is why when it does turn its
attention to the late hellenistic period and attempts to retell the Cleopatra
story, the queen is rooted, visually at least, not in the hellenistic world
at all, but in the Pharaonic past, and in the Egyptian New Kingdom
(c. 1550–1154 bc) to be more precise.
Cleopatra has been a very popular icon with moviemakers since the
birth of film-making in the late nineteenth century. In fact, one of the
earliest forays into epic film-making – the Italian Marc’ Antonio e Cleopatra
(1913) – took the Cleopatra story as its theme and created out of it an
Italian nationalistic spectacle of Roman moral probity versus Oriental
decadence.4 In this chapter, however, I want to touch on several rendi-
tions of the Cleopatra story produced by the American Hollywood studios,5
namely: the Fox Film Corporation’s 1917 Theda Bara silent feature directed
by J. Gordon Edwards, which unfortunately only survives today in movie
stills;6 the 1934 Cecil B. DeMille motion picture staring Claudette Colbert
produced by Paramount Pictures; and the 1963 Twentieth Century Fox
epic staring Elizabeth Taylor and directed by Joseph Mankiewicz.
There are two aspects of the representations of Cleopatra that need
to be addressed: first the question of the portrayal of the queen in film
narrative and second her visualization in film design. These elements are
interrelated and interdependent; both are fundamentally important aspects
of the epic genre.

277
Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

Hollywood’s ‘inauthentic authenticity’: Cleopatra in film narrative 7

How did the celluloid treatments of Cleopatra’s history reflect her race,
origin, and identity? Cleopatra VII’s Macedonian ancestry and the impor-
tance of that lineage in the wide world of hellenistic politics were crucial
to the queen’s public persona; the Greekness of Cleopatra VII, of the
Ptolemies generally, and of their capital city, Alexandria, was of primary
importance to the Ptolemaic system of government, to their culture, and to
their ethics. No doubt the Pharaonic elements of kingship were important
tools for the Ptolemies, but their Greekness was never completely subordi-
nated to native Egyptian culture. Their Greekness allowed the Ptolemies to
function in a world of Greek rulers, a series of dynasties spread throughout
the Mediterranean and the Near East, which were united by a common
Greek language, ideology, and culture.

Film narrative: Cleopatra, 1917

The loss of the 1917 Cleopatra film makes it difficult to reconstruct the
plot outline or the treatment of Cleopatra’s identity within the narrative
structure,8 but newspaper reviews of the period generally assert that the
film attempted to depict a faithful retelling of Cleopatra’s life, noting,
for example, ‘The story, true to the main facts of history, shows the
ambitious and beautiful Queen
Cleopatra using her sex to juggle
with the political history of Rome
and Egypt.’ 9 Maude Miller of
the Ohio Board of Censors
wrote enthusiastically that, ‘The
producers have followed history
in a remarkable way.’ 10
Nevertheless, it would seem that
the two love-affairs of the histor-
ical Cleopatra were not enough
to satiate the lustful appetite of
Bara’s vampish queen (Fig. 2):11
another (fictional) lover was intro-
duced into the plot, a young man
named Pharon (Alan Roscoe), the
son of the Priest of Osiris, and the
rightful (i.e. non-Ptolemaic) heir
to the Egyptian throne. In the plot
Fig. 2. Theda Bara as Cleopatra, 1917. he leaves the city of Abouthis and
From the author’s private collection. heads towards Alexandria in order

278
 Celluloid Cleopatras or Did the Greeks ever get to Egypt?

to rid Egypt of the licentious siren and to take over the reins of government.
But gradually Pharon falls in love with Cleopatra, who treats him cruelly
and spurns his love until he offers her one final service as a display of his
passionate devotion – for it is Pharon who hands Cleopatra the fatal asp.
The 1917 Cleopatra is the only film to suggest that political unrest and
a growing nationalistic movement were features of late Ptolemaic history,
although (admittedly) the plot seems to have utilized this political feature
merely to play up Pharon’s (unrequited) love story.12 The loss of the
negatives makes any further discussion difficult.

Film narrative: Cleopatra, 1934

Despite the fact that the Alexandrian court is inhabited by persons with
Greek names (Sosigenes, Pothinus, Apollodorus), the script for Cecil B.
DeMille’s 1934 portrayal of the life of the queen entirely underplays Cleo-
patra’s ethnic origins. In fact, it is difficult to place DeMille’s Cleopatra
in any kind of context, since we are told nothing of her background, and
we are not even aware that she is from a long line of kings (of any race).
Cleopatra is just Cleopatra. She does not need a history or a pedigree;
for DeMille, the name speaks for itself and provides all the information
necessary for this particular history lesson. As he wrote in his autobi-
ography, ‘[Cleopatra] was the imperious Queen. She was the vivacious,
alluring woman. She was Egypt.’13
The screenplay by Waldemar Young and Vincent Lawrence consciously
underplays Cleopatra’s history prior to her meeting with Caesar (Warren
William). The script informs the viewer that she has a brother named
Ptolemy (an amalgamation of the historical Ptolemies XIII and XIV), but
the audience does not see him and there is certainly no hint in the movie
that she follows Ptolemaic precedent and is married to him. The screenplay
makes it clear that the young Cleopatra is caught up in some kind of court
faction, but it does not provide any details, although the figure of Ptolemy’s
corrupt chief minister, the eunuch Pothinus (Leonard Mudie), looms large
in the first quarter of the movie before he is killed off – not on the orders
of Caesar though, but rather by the machinations of Cleopatra. The script
is silent about the fate of the shadowy Ptolemy.
The first half of the film, the affair with Caesar, curiously condenses
time and is plotted at breakneck speed. The proceedings suggest that
upon landing at Alexandria, Caesar is ushered into the palace where he has
a meeting with Ptolemy and Pothinus (although this is not portrayed on-
screen). Then, following Plutarch and later legend,14 Cleopatra is delivered
to him in a carpet and she begins to work her charms. That night she kills
Pothinus and continues to seduce Caesar. It is made clear that the two rulers

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consummate their relationship there and then and so the next morning
Cleopatra finds herself unopposed queen of Egypt.
The movie then cuts to Rome for the first time, approximately a fort-
night after the events in Alexandria. Caesar enters Rome, together with
Cleopatra, in triumph as the Roman plebs marvel at the queen’s beauty.
The next morning, the Ides of March, Caesar and Cleopatra meet to discuss
their plans for empire and marriage before Caesar leaves to declare his
intentions to the Senate. However, ‘history’ intervenes and within hours
Caesar lies dead in the Forum and Cleopatra, still in her wedding gown, is
heading back to the Nile. A few days later, she is sailing up the Cydnus to
meet Antony (Henry Wilcoxon) and her destiny.
The swift plotting of the screenplay means that DeMille’s treatment
of the story has no room for the appearance of the child Caesarion, who,
the historical Cleopatra claimed, was sired by Caesar; there is precious
little time in the movie for his conception, let alone his birth. Needless
to say, there is no mention of Cleopatra’s three children by Antony
either. Accordingly, in DeMille’s vision, Egyptian history begins and
ends with Cleopatra; she
has no past, since she has
no ancestry, and, because
of her lack of children, she
is denied a posterity. But
Cleopatra is Egypt, and, in
a Shakespearean-type motif,
she is addressed as such
throughout the film.
The screenplay’s silence
about Cleopatra’s lineage is
actually reflected in the lines
themselves (the script draws
heavily on the Hollywood
screwball comedies of the
1930s for its witty socialite
dialogue, wisecracks and
self-parody).15 A scene set
at Calpurnia’s elegant Fifth-
Avenue-style soirée in Rome,
for example, has a group of
nobles gossiping about the
Fig. 3. Claudette Colbert as Cleopatra, 1934. scandalous goings-on in
From the author’s private collection. Egypt (as they probably did

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 Celluloid Cleopatras or Did the Greeks ever get to Egypt?

in real life); the subject of Cleopatra soon arises and one young woman inno-
cently asks, ‘Is she black?’ Her question is answered by peals of laughter.
There is an innate confusion about the queen’s appearance: coming
as she does from Africa, the natural Roman (American) assumption is
that she is a black queen ruling over a black people (the thought is still
prevalent among feminist Afro-American scholars today).16 But in fact
Cleopatra’s arrival within the city quells all rumours – for this Cleopatra’s
white skin shines like alabaster and even surpasses the dazzling blond
curls worn by her Egyptian handmaidens. DeMille, of course, does not
think it necessary to provide his audience with an explanation of why,
historically, Cleopatra cannot be black. Instead he follows the principle
that if legend tells us that Cleopatra was the most beautiful woman in the
ancient world, then it was obvious that she should be played by the most
beautiful woman in the modern world; in 1934, that was popularly held
to be Claudette Colbert (Fig. 3).17

Film narrative: Cleopatra, 1963

By 1963, however, tastes had changed, and it was the violet-eyed
Elizabeth Taylor (Fig. 4)
who embodied Egypt’s
most famous monarch,
and (it could be argued)
the public image of
Cleopatra has never been
excelled or even equalled
since Taylor first donned
the famous eyeliner.
The film itself has
received much critical
comment, most of it
hostile (Taylor herself
reputedly referred to the
picture as ‘a disease’); it is
often regarded as a lum-
bering giant of a movie,
which lacks momentum
and drive.18 But that is
to ignore the integrity of
the piece; the producers,
the director, and the Fig. 4. Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra, 1963. From
lead players genuinely the author’s private collection.

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Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

attempted to create an authentic retelling of the Cleopatra story, at least as

far as narrative was concerned. In a letter to the head of Twentieth Century
Fox, the film’s producer, Walter Wanger, articulated the film’s ethic:
The goal to achieve is not a compromise production or a film of expedi-
ence, but an original, exciting, romantic historical film that will enthral the
audience … We are telling the amazing story of the most remarkable woman
of all times, showing her entire life from the age of nineteen to her dramatic
death at thirty-nine years of age. Covering for the first time in the theatre the
contrasting lives of Caesar and Antony and the enmity of Octavian. All this
against the greatest panorama of world conquest. The spectacular sequences,
such as Cleopatra’s entrance into Rome, … the battle of Actium, and the
orgies in Alexandria, will not be the stereotyped spectacles of the usual ‘big’
pictures, but overall dramatic concepts never before [seen] on the screen.19
The screenplay draws faithfully (if indiscriminately) on the histories
of Suetonius, Appian and Plutarch as well as on the popular Italian novel
The Life and Times of Cleopatra by C.M. Franzero. As Wanger noted, ‘it
is [Mankiewicz’] plan to stay very close to history. The lives of the chief
protagonists, as chronicled in Plutarch, Suetonius, Appian and other
ancient sources, are crammed with dramatic event and structure.’20 The
influence of ancient writers on the film’s representation of the queen and
her story is easy to find, to such an extent that the Greco-Roman sources are
almost quoted verbatim. In one early scene set in the palace at Alexandria,
Caesar (Rex Harrison) is briefed about the current state of affairs in the
Ptolemaic family. His Admiral, Agrippa (Andrew Keir), and chief aide,
Rufio (Martin Landau), read the details of Cleopatra’s early history from
an intelligence document, a scroll purportedly written by Cicero:
Agrippa: (reading) ‘ … actually of Macedonian descent, no Egyptian blood
– officially admitted – that is’. (He looks up) I wish Cicero would spare us
his personal comments on these reports …
Caesar: (his eyes almost shut with weariness) That’s all Cicero is. One
endless personal comment …
Agrippa: (continues to read) ‘ … reputed to be extremely intelligent, and
sharp of wit. Queen Cleopatra is widely read, well-versed in the natural
sciences and mathematics. She speaks seven languages proficiently. Were
she not a woman, one would consider her an intellectual.’ Nothing bores
me so much as an intellectual –
Caesar: Makes a better admiral of you, Agrippa …
Rufio: (grins) Here’s something perhaps of more interest to the navy …
(he reads now) ‘ … often arrogant in manner, and of a violent temper.
Relentless, and utterly without scruple. In attaining her objectives,
Cleopatra has been known to employ torture, poison, and even her own
sexual talents – which are said to be considerable.’ (The men laugh)

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 Celluloid Cleopatras or Did the Greeks ever get to Egypt?

Rufio: (continuing) ‘ … Her lovers, I am told, are listed more easily by

number than by name. It is said that she chooses, in the manner of a man,
rather than wait to be chosen after womanly fashion.’
In this early scene, emphasis is laid on Cleopatra’s Macedonian ancestry
as well as her considerable talents – sexual and intellectual; these, of course,
are familiar themes in the ancient portrayals of the queen.21 The script also
offers an explanation of the custom of Ptolemaic brother-sister marriage
and the audience is left in no doubt that the young Cleopatra is brother-
loving in the fullest sense of the term. In fact, during an early meeting,
Caesar confronts Cleopatra with a tirade of abuse concerning her unor-
thodox family history and the dynasty’s relationship to Egypt as a whole:
Caesar: (He strides towards Cleopatra) You, the descendant of generations
of in-bred, incestuous mental defectives – how dare you call me barbarian?
Cleopatra: Barbarian!
Caesar: Daughter of an idiotic flute-playing drunkard who bribed his way
to the throne of Egypt –
Cleopatra: Your price was too high, remember?
Caesar: You call me barbarian? … I’m fed up to the teeth with the smug
condescension of you worn-out pretenders! Parading on the ruins of your
past glories. Keep out of my affairs and do as I say!
Cleopatra: Do as you say? Literally? As if I were something you had
conquered?
Caesar: If I choose to regard you as such.
In this scene, Mankiewicz manages to put Cleopatra firmly into her
historic and dynastic locale; he alludes to the Ptolemaic practice of brother-
sister marriage and its possible long-term genetic effects, to the fact that the
dynasty rules Egypt without historical authority (Caesar calls the Ptolemies
‘pretenders’), and to the dubious financial dealings of Cleopatra’s father,
Ptolemy XII ‘Auletes’, undertaken with the Romans in order to secure his
unstable throne.22
Interestingly, without going into such lurid detail herself, Mankiewicz’
Cleopatra also confirms her non-Egyptian ancestry in a remarkably witty
and self-depreciating remark thrown to Antony during their meeting on
her lavish barge at Cydnus. The subject centres around philhellenism, as
Cleopatra compliments Antony (Richard Burton) on his elaborate leopard
skin-trimmed Greek armour (seen on the right in Fig. 9):
Cleopatra: I find what you are wearing most becoming. Greek – isn’t it?
Antony: I have a fondness for almost all Greek things …
Cleopatra: As an almost all Greek thing – I’m flattered.
Cleopatra’s statement of national identity is short and swift, and rather
derisory; blink and you might miss it, but it is there, captured on celluloid,

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Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

and a tribute to the production’s quest for historical precision, at least in

the story-line.23
In addition, unlike the 1934 treatment, Mankiewicz’ version of Cleo-
patra’s history (which is far more factual and weighty) lays considerable
emphasis on the Caesarion story, for, contrasting with DeMille, Mankie-
wicz is keenly aware of Cleopatra’s Greek pedigree and Hellenic persona
and is concerned that Cleopatra should not stand divorced from her past
or future, or from her family-line, or from the international politics of
the hellenistic world at large. In this movie Egypt is assimilated into the
bigger picture. Mankiewicz is also keen to make Cleopatra a mother figure,
fertile and bounteous; envisioning herself as Egypt, in one scene Cleopatra
declares herself to be the life-giving Nile. She tells Caesar of her rounded
thighs, that her hips are set well apart and declares, ‘such women, they say,
bear sons’. The son that the 1963 Cleopatra does indeed bear knows his
lineage and knows that he is set to continue the royal line of the Ptolemies,
a fact endorsed by his prominent entrance into Rome seated at the side
of his goddess-mother. There is, even so, still no mention of the queen’s
children by Antony; instead all of Cleopatra’s maternal feelings and aspira-
tions for empire are focused on the son of Julius Caesar.
Nevertheless, it would seem that as far as public awareness of Cleo-
patra’s ancestry goes, the Ptolemies are pretty well served by the 1963
epic treatment. The Greekness of Cleopatra is not hidden away like some
shameful family secret, despite the dynasty’s interpersonal shortcomings.

Designs on the past

Turning now to the subject of film set and costume design, it should be
noted at the outset that, in general, Hollywood presents a very conserva-
tive view of the ancient world. The epics’ art direction does not take risks.
Their sense of the past is largely based on visual conventions inherited
from Victorian historical paintings and early-twentieth-century stage
designs, so that the presentation of ancient life varies little in Hollywood
film-making. Hollywood’s coordinated conception of epic backgrounds
was clearly a function of finance, because the studio heads believed that
big budget films could not risk challenging popular notions of ancient life
with revisionist (or even accurate) visual depictions of the ancient world as
foreign, or perilous, or savage, or even dirty. Experienced moviegoers knew
what Rome, or Persia, or Greece, or Egypt was supposed to look like, and
any film that seriously challenged these traditional preconceptions was not
likely to gain popular acceptance or do well at the box office.24
Hollywood’s penchant for the grandiose was anticipated by the late-
nineteenth-century Academic Painters – Long, Alma-Tadema, Gérôme,

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 Celluloid Cleopatras or Did the Greeks ever get to Egypt?

Leighton, Poynter and others – who cleaned up history and overlaid it with
a Victorian love of fussy detail.25 The ancient world as conceived by these
nineteenth-century artists is incredibly lavish – far grander, probably, than
the original ever was. D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille were certainly
familiar with the work of these painters, and it is clear that the Academic
paintings of ancient life heralded the way for the filmic recreations of the
twentieth century. Effectively, Victorian artists created the stereotypes of
what the Greek, Roman, or Egyptian past should look like.26
Even though the Hollywood studio art departments had at their disposal
the lavish resources of the research departments, the photographs provided
by the travelling research teams, and the illustrated texts available in the vast
libraries of MGM, Warner Brothers, Paramount, and Fox, the pursuit of
archaeological accuracy was not necessarily guaranteed; Hollywood’s view
of the antique past is based on historical reality but tends, nevertheless,
to be heavily glamorized. The immaculate palaces, temples, forecourts,
arenas, barges, and marketplaces of the epic milieu, the burnished gold,
the marble, the silks and the draperies, look inescapably like opulent movie
fantasies rather than faithful depictions of ancient reality. Amazed at the
visual magnificence of The Ten Commandments (1956), the movie mogul
James Thurbur allegedly exclaimed, ‘Jeez, it makes you realize what God
could have done if He’d had the money.’27
The dazzling beauty of the epic sets, with their rigorous denial of dirt,
suggests a conspiratorial revision of historical truth: the typical mise en scène
of the Hollywood epic was too elaborate and systematic to pass off as an
artistic vision of the past, and so the directors’ claims of authenticity were
often beside the point. John Cary goes some way towards explaining the
dichotomy: ‘If authenticity is brought into our conscious too laboriously’,
he notes, ‘the drama suffers. DeMille, perhaps unconsciously, understood
this and, unlike Marie Antoinette, if bread was what people wanted, bread
– and lots of it – was what he gave them.’28

Cleopatra’s palace: problems in set design

When it comes to representing Ptolemaic Alexandria, Hollywood clearly
finds itself in something of a dilemma. The Production Designers of
the three Cleopatra films studied here found it difficult to visualize
a major hellenistic city that merges traditional and well known Egyptian
architectural motifs with elements of, equally familiar, classical Greek archi-
tecture. What can Hollywood do with a hybrid culture? Archaeological
finds at Alexandria and investigations into the literary sources suggest
that the vast palace of the Ptolemaic monarchy was principally Greek
in design and construction, although it included notably impressive and

285
Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

often monumental Pharaonic structures. These were either built by the

Ptolemies themselves in imitation of ancient building styles or else they
were genuine ancient buildings pilfered from their original locations by
the Greek-speaking rulers.29
The sets in DeMille’s 1934 Cleopatra ignore the hellenistic aspect
entirely, as much, indeed, as the script overlooks Cleopatra’s Macedonian
lineage. Much of the film’s action takes place on a studio set representing
a high and airy hall that overlooks one of the palace courtyards (Fig. 5).
The set is decorated with a lotus-pillar colonnade, with pylon gateways,
rooftop terraces, and pediments, all of which are borrowed from New
Kingdom Egyptian temple designs. The hall itself is hung with curtain
swags with tasselled borders and large marble pediments, on top of which
sit proud granite statues of Pharaonic lions, actually copied from a pair of
lions erected in Nubia by Tutankhamun and now housed in the British
Museum.30 It is interesting to note that just as DeMille’s Cleopatra is eternal
Egypt, so her palace is eternal Egyptian, Pharaonic Egyptian at that, and
New Kingdom Egyptian to be specific. There is no call for a genuine hellen-
istic Alexandria here, with its unique and fascinating mixture of Greek and
Egyptian styles. A vision of eternal Egypt will suffice.

Fig. 5. Still from Cleopatra 1934. From the author’s private collection.

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 Celluloid Cleopatras or Did the Greeks ever get to Egypt?

However, on a preliminary viewing, the opening ten minutes of Mank-

iewitz’ 1963 Cleopatra seem to contradict the notion of a timeless Egypt
and confirms Fox’s publicity announcement that,
Untold effort has gone into the over-all design of the physical production for
‘Cleopatra’ … [The] detailed, authentic craftsmanship of the film’s produc-
tion designers, costume designers, and set decorators … establish the style and
taste of the settings, and help provide the proper mood and atmosphere for
the story that is told.31
The film opens on the bloody spectacle of the aftermath of the Battle
of Pharsalus as the bodies of the dead are burned on funeral pyres, and
then cuts to the first of the movie’s many ‘spectacle’ scenes, the wharf-
market and royal palace at Alexandria. The establishing panorama-shot
along the coastline provides the audience with an unrivalled recreation
of the ancient city and includes such landmarks as the Pharos lighthouse.
The film’s Art Director, John De Cuir, had only three months to rebuild
the ancient city on the production’s Cinecitta lot, although two previously
thwarted attempts to build the set on locations in England and California
had given him plenty of time to perfect his designs and consult his research
notes. The architectural elements designed by De Cuir alert the viewer to
the fact that the story is set in a hellenistic city (Figs. 1 and 6). The palace
façade itself looks authentically hellenistic enough; there is certainly no
hiding the fact that its inspiration is Greek, for it is embellished with Doric
columns, sculpted pediments, and painted metopes. But the set design
neatly incorporates some Egyptian elements too: human-headed sphinxes,
a huge scarab beetle, a seated statue of Isis, an Egyptian-style kiosk and, of
course, a giant sphinx guarding the entrance to the harbour itself all help
the viewer to locate the Egyptian spin on the essentially Hellenic design.
Interestingly, recent (underwater) archaeological investigation at Alexandria
supports De Cuir’s vision: the later Ptolemies utilized large-scale Egyptian
architecture on a more routine basis than was once supposed. Alexandria,
and especially the royal quarter, would have been an eclectic mixture of
Greek and Egyptian building styles.32
However, upon stepping inside the palace, the cinema audience enters
another world; here the hellenistic elements of the façade give way to a riot
of Egyptianizing motifs (although the occasional piece of classical sculpture
is allowed to creep in). Cleopatra’s palace is vast; its throne rooms, reception
rooms, dining rooms and private chambers gleam with alabaster columns.
Caesar’s massive guest-chamber, for example, has a highly-polished marble
floor and a papyrus-effect wall-mural that depicts a variety of Pharaonic
religious scenes more fitting for a New Kingdom tomb or temple than

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Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

a palace. The tomb-like decoration of the palace is made even more obvious
in other sets, such as a corridor leading into the queen’s apartments which
is decorated with raised golden bas-reliefs, winged pediments, and gilded
guardian statues. It is interesting to note how frequently well-known
images of earlier Egyptian artworks are utilized within the set design to
create this image of timeless Egypt: one of Cleopatra’s private chambers,
for example, is furnished with chairs and tables modelled on those found
in the tomb of queen Hetepheres of the Egyptian Old Kingdom,33 while
her barge is hung with expensive ‘Grecian’ drapes but also includes copies
of the famous black-skinned guardian (or Ka) statues discovered in the
tomb of Tutankhamun.34 The queen’s palace bedchamber, however, is more
reminiscent of a Napoleonic boudoir than anything that a Greek, Roman,
or Egyptian noblewoman would have recognized. The double bed itself is
pure Dorchester Hotel, 1963.35
The idea that the ancient past also contains traces of the fashionable
present is a very important element of the Cleopatra films: Theda Bara’s
1917 Cleopatra lives in a world of plush oriental rugs and potted palms,
a reflection of the late Edwardian taste for busy and fussy interior design.
The wall paintings of her palace are cod-Egyptian and the hieroglyphs
are gobbledygook, but they do reflect the popular taste in Orientalism

Fig. 6. Still from Cleopatra 1963. From the author’s private collection.

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 Celluloid Cleopatras or Did the Greeks ever get to Egypt?

prevalent at the time. Claudette Colbert’s Cleopatra, on the other hand,

lives in a splendid clean-line art-deco palace, an hommage in itself to the
Egyptomania that was sweeping through Europe and America in the 1920s
and 1930s (Fig. 5).36 In actuality, as cinema audiences first wondered at
Cleopatra’s gleaming palace and its fixtures and furnishings, they would
have realized that it was not at all dissimilar to the art-deco movie theatres
in which the film was originally played.37

Cleopatra’s wardrobe: epic costume design

Without fail, Hollywood visually represents the queen as pure Egyptian; in
all three films, the design of Cleopatra’s wardrobe rejects authentic hellen-
istic or Greco-Roman fashions in favour of a fantasy Pharaonic look. As
far as the film-makers are concerned, the justification for these creations is
always the giant Egyptian-style relief of Cleopatra carved into the wall at
the rear of the temple of Dendera. It is never the sculpted portrait busts of
the queen in hellenistic mode, nor is it ever her Roman-type coin imagery
that becomes the basis of her filmic designs. The Dendera relief satisfies the
image of Cleopatra as eternal Egypt and is used to qualify the Art Directors’
claims that Cleopatra’s look is based on her authentic ancient representa-
tions. Film-makers do not acknowledge that the Egyptian costume worn
by the queen at Dendera is only part of the story.
It is doubtful that the real Cleopatra wore anything like the costume
depicted on the Dendera relief outside public ceremonial events. One
has the feeling that the Ptolemaic rulers saw the advantage of, and even
enjoyed, being portrayed in traditional Pharaonic dress, and they were no
doubt accustomed to wearing a wide array of Egyptian crowns, regalia
and costume at ceremonial events; certainly, temple reliefs show an
enormous range of headgear that seems to have been ‘invented’ by or for
the Ptolemies.38 But for the Ptolemaic kings and queens, Egyptian dress
was fancy dress, albeit a masquerade costume that could have a political
resonance. Ptolemaic sculpture, coinage, and other artefacts, together
with literary texts, strongly suggest that on a daily basis the Greek rulers
wore Greek-style clothes, or, by the late Ptolemaic age, even Roman-style
clothing.39 Hellenic dress helped the Ptolemies to function in the hellen-
istic world. Thus, on her coinage, Cleopatra VII’s Roman stola and Roman
coiffure demand that she be taken seriously by Rome.40 Egyptian clothing
was probably reserved for priestly, civic, or even national ceremonials.
In her excellent study of the use and abuse of Cleopatra’s imagery in
past centuries, Lucy Hughes-Hallett has demonstrated how Cleopatra has
been made into a contemporary model, with each successive generation
anxious to claim her as their own.41 The growing taste for the neoclassical

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Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

in art inspired a gradual increase in

the representation of the queen as
a noblewoman of the Greco-Roman
era,42 but in the early years of the
nineteenth century the popular
perception of Cleopatra as a hellen-
istic queen began to change.
Following the invasion of Egypt
by Napoleon and the subsequent
publication of Baron Denon’s
mammoth Description d’Égypte,
public perceptions of Cleopatra
quickly began to alter as the detailed
drawings of the Description allowed
for the first time an understanding
of how ancient Egyptian queens Fig. 7. Line drawing of an Egyptian
looked and dressed (Fig. 7).43 This queen, after Denon, c. 1818.
information proved too tempting
to be ignored and it was not long before new images of Cleopatra began
to appear in Pharaonic costume. Since it was popularly assumed that
Cleopatra was Egypt, it was natural to re-dress her as a native ancient
Egyptian; consequently her Greek imagery was quickly set aside and ulti-
mately forgotten.
It was also at this time that theatrical portrayals of Cleopatra picked up
on the new knowledge of her Egyptian surroundings and similarly began
to portray her as an Egyptian queen.44 By the latter half of the nineteenth
century, and with the discipline of Egyptology firmly established, stage
designers commissioned to illustrate the Cleopatra story concentrated more
of their efforts on producing authentic reproductions of Pharaonic Egypt
and a Cleopatra who was firmly located in the New Kingdom.45

Designer history: Cleopatra in high heels

By the mid-nineteenth century the familiar representation of Cleopatra
as a sexy, bejewelled, breast-exposing Egyptian queen was firmly estab-
lished. It was this type of imagery that inspired the early film-makers. But
films themselves are products of their time and, even in the earliest silent
pictures, in order to make the remote ancient world a little more palatable
and familiar to the movie audience, elements of contemporary living were
frequently incorporated into the ‘look’ of the film. In fact, one of the most
interesting dilemmas in designing ancient spectacles was how to reconcile
a modern perspective with the historical horizon of the period described,

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and how to conciliate the ‘look’ of the past with the ‘look’ of the present
day without committing serious anachronisms.
The art director of an epic film is particularly aware of the process of
creating historical authenticity which at one and the same time appeals
to contemporary taste. As C.S. Tashiro suggests, more than anything else,
make-up, hairstyles, and costumes in the typical epic are often adjusted
to the period when the film was made to become the primary focus of
Designer History.46 This is never more noticeable than in the Cleopatra
movies; it is no surprise to see Cleopatra in high heels. These particular
movies were, after all, major vehicles for important and influential female
stars, and the Hollywood star-system allowed major actresses like Bara,
Taylor, and Colbert a say in how their film wardrobes would look.47 Conse-
quently, there is an undeniable contemporary emphasis for the Egyptian-
style costumes of Hollywood’s Queen of the Nile.
There is no known designer for the 1917 Cleopatra, and it is possible
that much of the costume design, hairstyling, and make-up may have been
done by the performers themselves. Theda Bara’s Cleopatra looks rather
ample by modern standards, but in 1917 her Cleopatra-look was a wow
with the fans. Europe and America were in the grip of a wave of exotic and
erotic orientalist fantasies such as the Ballet Russe’s Scheherazade, Richard
Strauss’ opera Salome, and the erotic dance-performances of Mata Hari
and Little Egypt, and thus, with her hair set in contemporary ringlets,
and her eyelids shaded in heavy make-up, Bara’s Cleopatra was crafted in
the classic vamp-mode, and perfectly in accord with the times. Today one
might think her costumes (and there were over 55 of them) rather amusing,
but Hollywood publicity claimed that they were immaculately researched
copies of Cleopatra’s originals; in fact, it was claimed that Bara herself
‘worked for months with a curator of Egyptology at the Metropolitan
Museum in New York’48 where she studied ancient items of clothing and
jewellery and, more generally, the lifestyle of the ancient Egyptians.49 Her
months of ‘research’ were later endorsed by the actress’s poses and tableaux.
In fact, so imbued was Bara with a feeling for the period, that she was
quoted as having declared that she ‘felt the blood of the Ptolemies coursing
through [her] veins.’50
The publicity material mixed elements of historical authenticity
together with notions of eroticism, and in a Motion Picture News review
of November 1917, the reader was encouraged to reflect on the reactions
of a man leaving a cinema where he has just witnessed Bara’s Cleopatra in
full vamp:
His mind will drift back to the first half of the picture where Miss Bara wore
a different costume in every episode. Different pieces of costume rather;

291
Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

or better still different varieties of beads. His temperature will ascend with
a jump when he recalls the easy way in which the siren captivated Caesar and
Pharon and Antony … He might suddenly realize that his mother back in
Hohokus would shut her eyes once or twice for fear that the beads might break
or slip, but then – mother never did understand Egyptian history after all.51
In fact, the suggestive peek-a-boo nature of Bara’s costumes (Fig. 2) became
a major feature of film reviews. The film critic of the New York Dramatic
Mirror, for example, noted, ‘Those who like to see Theda Bara should not
fail to take advantage of the opportunity afforded in Cleopatra, for certainly
you will never see more of her.’52
So while Bara’s pearl-encrusted costumes were thrilling to see on the
screen, and while they certainly did not entirely look like everyday wear
of the period, they could not be labelled as serious attempts to recreate
Cleopatra’s wardrobe.
DeMille’s 1934 film is filled with the lush exoticism that was his
trademark: feathers, gold, glittering jewels, and scantily clad young
women fill the screen of his Cleopatra. Colbert’s Cleopatra make-up was
the pure 1930s glamour formula, with thin, plucked brows, heavy lashes,
dark shadow on the eyelids, and full, rounded lips. Couture dresses in the
1930s were often cut on the bias, and this smooth, clinging style seemed
particularly well suited for this particular re-telling of the story. The bias-cut
gowns created for Colbert by the designer Travis Banton were immaculately
tailored constructions that skilfully emphasized every curve of her slim
body; in effect, the ravishingly simple costumes were carefully designed
and made to act as a ‘second skin’ for Colbert, who insisted that Banton
bare as much of her bosom as possible, believing that drawing attention
to her breasts would divert attention from her short neck.53 The result
was a series of daring but elegant designs, perfectly in accord with art-deco
fashion, which were both up-to-the-minute and pleasing as recreations
of a fantastic Egyptian past. Colbert’s Cleopatra-look both exploited the
contemporary mode of Egyptianization in dress, and accelerated its popu-
larity overnight (Fig. 3).54 The silhouette of Colbert’s costumes is not the
straight, vertical line of ancient Egypt, but a 1930s figure-hugging cut that
skims the hips and flares out elegantly below the knees to form a ‘fish tail’
trailing onto the floor. This contemporary treatment of the skirt, together
with the halter necklines (one of Banton’s hallmarks), was at the cutting
edge of fashion in 1934.
When Mankiewicz’ Cleopatra first went into production at Pinewood
studios in England in 1959, the theatre designer Oliver Messel was hired to
design Elizabeth Taylor’s costumes. He came up with a series of designs that
reflected both ancient Egypt and late 1950s couture, and, interestingly, also

292
 Celluloid Cleopatras or Did the Greeks ever get to Egypt?

spoke of the queen’s Greek

heritage.55 In one rare
wardrobe test-photograph,
Taylor wears a Greek style
chitoniskos (short belted
tunic) and has her hair
dressed in a Greek-style
topknot. From the few stills
and costume-shots that
survive, it would appear
that Messel was keen to
assimilate Cleopatra with
the original Greek palace
that had been designed and
built for her by John De
Cuir on the wet and windy
Pinewood lot; but with the
relocation of the shoot to
the Cinecitta Studios in
Rome, Messel was dismissed
(or refused to sign a new
contract – the evidence is Fig. 8. Publicity still for Cleopatra 1963. From
sketchy)56 and the task of the author’s private collection.
creating Taylor’s costumes
was given over to leading Hollywood designer Irene Sharaff.57 The rest of
the costumes were designed by Italian designer Vittorio Nino Novarese and
Hollywood’s Renie Conley;58 Rex Harrison’s outfits, however, also became
the responsibility of Sharaff.59 Her published memoirs for this period
make an important contribution to understanding the decisions about the
production of the 1963 film. In a typical piece of confident Hollywood
rhetoric, Sharaff assures the reader that her designs were based upon months
of research in Egyptian museums, and draws attention to her use of the
ancient literary and visual sources. When, for example, she designed Taylor’s
famous gold Isis gown – worn by Cleopatra for her lavish entry into Rome
and, ultimately for her suicide (Fig. 8) – she sensibly noted that,
The bas-relief at Dendera … shows the elaborate crown and collar of an
Egyptian goddess … [but] it did not mean that during her life [Cleopatra]
dressed like that, except for sacred ceremonial occasions. The few photographs
I found of sculpture and coins … suggest only that she was plump, had a large
nose, and that her hair was dressed much like any other Roman matron of
her times. The trade relations between the two countries must have carried

293
Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

continual mutual influences. Cleopatra, as a Macedonian, as a ruler, and as

a woman, was undoubtedly astute and surely delighted in anything novel from
Rome or ports on the trade routes to add to her personal adornment. The
script called for 60 changes of costume for Cleopatra, from a girl of seventeen
to a woman of thirty-seven. One tends to think of Cleopatra looking the
same through her relatively short life, but of course the maturing had to be
indicated. I found this was easiest to handle by dividing the costumes into
three groups … All the ceremonial costumes were based on Egyptian tomb
paintings; the second group were clothes such as a Roman woman of the
upper classes might have worn; and the last group made use of one of the
oldest garments, the djellabah.60
Yet when one views the film, Sharaff ’s three categories are hard to identify:
there is nothing in the design of Cleopatra’s wardrobe that suggests the
clothing of a Greco-Roman noblewoman; the look is purely Egyptian, but
with a reflection of early 1960s aesthetic, in particular the tightly clinched
corseted waists and Christian Dior-style tailoring techniques, so perfectly
suited to Elizabeth Taylor’s voluptuous figure (Fig. 4). Walter Wanger’s remi-
niscences for July 26th 1961 record that, ‘Liz is on a diet again … She likes
her clothes to fit skin tight. One or two pounds can make all the difference,
and Liz is always concerned about looking her best, naturally.’61
Sharaff found justification for squeezing Taylor into her corseted bodices
and tight skirts from her naïve analysis of ancient Egyptian sculptures which
completely failed to take into account the ancient artistic requisites and
preoccupations concerning the ideal female body.62 Her memoirs note,
I was lucky enough to find a photograph of a small headless statue in the Cairo
Museum, whose dress gave me a clue to designing Cleopatra’s costumes. The
tight-fitting bodice showed fine lines of tarunto or, as it is more commonly
called, quilting, one of the oldest forms of decoration.63
Under the banner of historical authenticity, Sharaff was able to create
a series of breathtaking costumes which somehow managed to be 1964
chic, displaying full and uplifted breasts to set off minute clinched waist-
lines. Moreover, capitalizing on a contemporary 1960s trend towards more
conspicuous eyes, Taylor’s Cleopatra make-up incorporated the historical
Pharaonic fashion of brows and eyes thickly outlined with black kohl and
heavily shadowed lids and sockets (Fig. 9). Wanger’s journal claims that the
elaborate make-up creations were invented by Taylor herself:
Elizabeth’s make-up, conceived and designed by her, consists of one of the
most glamorous eye-dos I have ever seen. To achieve the effect she wanted
she stuck a lot of spangles on her lids, which created a wonderful appearance,
but it took two hours just for her to put on her make-up.64

294
 Celluloid Cleopatras or Did the Greeks ever get to Egypt?

So much for historical authenticity, or the boast of the film’s academic

research pedigree! What is interesting in these reports, though, is the
apparent dichotomy between the official rhetoric, which stresses historical
precision via painstaking research, and a rather slapdash attitude whereby
the female star is allowed to design her own makeup without the aid of
any ‘specialist’. 65 The attitude pervades the entire production design; at
one point in her notes even Sharaff admits that, ‘Although silk-jersey is
a modern fabric, when it is softly pleated it hangs like the material we see on
Roman statues. As silk-jersey drapes wonderfully well, many of Cleopatra’s
costumes were made from it.’66
The efforts of the designers and the Hollywood publicity machine as
a whole to stress the film’s historical authenticity were often undercut by
the stars themselves. Elizabeth Taylor, in a Photoplay article of 1962, for
example, noted that,
The day the picture is over, I’ll come over in a truck and carry my entire
wardrobe of sixty dresses off. You may call it a slight case of pilfering, but
these gowns are too gorgeous to be left behind … They’ll make the most
wonderful ball gowns and party dresses. This one I’m wearing now is pure
22-carat gold. All of them are precious. But what is more important, they’re

Fig. 9. Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra and Richard Burton as Antony, 1963. From the
author’s private collection.

295
Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

as modern as tomorrow. I think I’ll set a new trend. Not only with the dresses
but the hairdos and such – the Cleopatra look.67
No sooner said than done, the catwalks of all the major fashion houses for
1963 were crammed with black-wigged models wearing variations on the
Cleopatra theme as a new wave of Egyptomania swept over another genera-
tion of fashion lovers. In the summer of 1963, Cleopatra was chic.

Conclusion
What then is the purpose of using Pharaonic costumes and predominantly
Pharaonic sets to tell the motion picture story of a Greek ruler living in
a Greek city? It would appear that the design teams of all the Cleopatra
movies were concerned to separate the two main players in the story:
the Egyptians and the Romans, and so each of the two peoples are given
design characteristics which stereotype their ancient nationalities. In the
Cleopatra films, the Ptolemies inhabit a vast gold palace resembling the
Karnak temple and wear clothing dating back to the New Kingdom. The
Romans live in splendid white marble villas and they habitually wear togas
or full armour. The Greek Ptolemies cannot be dressed like Greeks because
in popular imagination Greek and Roman clothing are one and the same,
a variety of white drapes disported around the body in various ways or,
alternatively, anatomical military cuirasses. Egyptian dress, however, is very
different: the use of wigs, headdresses and make-up distances the Egyptians
from the Romans, sets them apart, and highlights their national identity,
however misguided that notion is in historical reality. The design elements
used for the Cleopatra films are used as visual clues that help the audience
locate a scene and recognize the nationality of a character.
Sometimes film-makers were aware of Cleopatra’s Macedonian lineage
and played on this in the film narrative, but the desire to make her into an
Egyptian monarch was too potent a force, and so she was always visual-
ized (in costume terms) as a Pharaonic ruler. But the designed image of
Cleopatra is in itself a product of history in which the nineteenth-century
rediscovery of Ancient Egypt played a key role. Moreover, the parameters
laid down by epic film design (based as it is on Victorian Academic painting
and theatre design), demands that Cleopatra inhabits a fantastic, larger-
than-life world that is at one and the same time distant and contempo-
rary, alien and desirable. As Cleopatra, Theda Bara, Claudette Colbert
and Elizabeth Taylor each in their own way evoked the ancient past while
incorporating the stylistic influences of the day. Despite the digressions
from history, movie audiences found their portrayals convincing; not many
seem to have questioned whether the Greeks ever got to Egypt. What really

296
 Celluloid Cleopatras or Did the Greeks ever get to Egypt?

mattered for the average moviegoer was the chance to experience the inter-
mingling of the glamour of Hollywood with the legend of Cleopatra.68

Notes
1
Versions of this paper have been delivered at Edinburgh University, The Open
University, Lampeter University and Leicester University, as well as at the Hay-on-
Wye conference on The Hellenistic World. I am grateful to all those individuals
who commented upon this chapter. In particular, though, special thanks go to
Steven Griffiths, Dr Lorna Hardwick, Dr Paula James, Prof. Graham Shipley,
Kim Shahabudin, Dr Karen Stears and Dr Maria Wyke. I am especially grateful
to Jeffery Spencer for obtaining original movie stills for me from Los Angeles and
for allowing me to share in his Cleomania. I am thankful for the kind support and
professional advice offered by Dr Daniel Ogden and Dr Anton Powell.
2
The final shooting script for Cleopatra is dated September 18th 1961, although
in reality a definitive shooting script did not exist even after filming had ceased
and the picture was being edited. Joseph Mankiewicz was occupied with major
re-writes daily throughout the filming of the movie. The process is chronicled in
Wanger and Hyams 1963, and Brodsky and Weiss 1963.
3
For Cleopatra VII’s building constructions at Dendera see Arnold 1999,
211–24. For a good image of the Dendera relief, showing scale, see Hughes-Hallett
1990, pl. 1. More generally for Cleopatra VII’s use of Pharaonic imagery and
her identification with Egypt see Chauveau 2000, 102–6, Hölbl 2001, 271–93.
Recently, several Egyptian-style statues of Ptolemaic royal women have been re-
identified as Cleopatra VII, although the arguments appear highly suspect. See
Ashton 2001a and 2001b.
4
See Wyke 1997. 84–6.
5
Therefore, I reluctantly eliminate the sublime British-made Caesar and
Cleopatra (1946), starring Vivien Leigh, from this study. However, for a discussion
see Hamer 1997.
6
The American Film Institute lists Bara’s Cleopatra among its top ten most
important missing films. For a discussion see Thompson 1996, 68–78.
7
‘Inauthentic Authenticity’ was coined by Solomon 2001, 31.
8
An attempt at reconstructing the plot is made by Thompson 1996, 68–70.
9
Motion Picture News. January 5th 1918, 102.
10
Motion Picture News. January 5th 1918, 102.
11
For Bara’s femme fatale Cleopatra see Hughes-Hallett 1990, 267–72 and
Genini 1996, 39–41.
12
For anti-Ptolemaic uprisings see, for example, Hölbl 2001, 307–9.
13
DeMille 1960. 309.
14
Plut. Caesar 49.
15
A clear example of self-parody of epic film dialogue occurs during a passionate
moment between Antony and Cleopatra:
Antony: Together we could take over the world!
Cleopatra: Nice of you to include me.

297
Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
16
See Foss 1997, 82. He notes, ‘[Cleopatra’s] mother is not known for certain.
Given all the uncertainties of her ancestry … her blood is estimated as 32 parts
Greek, 27 parts Macedonian and 5 parts Persian … If she was black, no one
mentioned it.’
17
On Colbert and her screen style see Tapert 1998, 166–85.
18
Time (exact date not stated) noted, for example, ‘as drama and as cinema,
Cleopatra is riddled with flaws. It lacks style both in image and action. Never for
an instant does it whirl along on wings of epic élan; generally it just jumps from
scene to ponderous scene on the square wheels of exposition’ (cited in Vermilye
and Ricci 1993, 156). For an overview of the filming process and its aftermath see
Medved and Medved 1984, 97–105. See also Brodsky and Weiss 1963.
19
Wanger 1963, 77.
20
Wanger 1963, 63.
21
Plut. Caesar 48, 49; Antony 26; Propertius Elegies 3. A collection of ancient and
modern sources on Cleopatra is provided by Flamarion 1997 and Lovric 2001.
22
On Ptolemaic inbreeding see Ogden 1999, 97. On the financial dealings
of Ptolemy XII with the Romans see Hölbl 2001, 222–4, and Sullivan 1990,
229–34.
23
One of the best accounts of the web of incest and murder spun by the
Ptolemies is provided by the American poet Barbara Chase-Riboud (b. 1949) in
her 1987 poem Portrait of a Nude Woman as Cleopatra, in Lovric 2001, 20–1.
24
The 1954 film The Silver Chalice, set in late-first-century ad Syria and Judaea,
radically altered the standard epic design formula. The film’s set and costume
designs are a blend of the semi-abstract and the impressionistic. Because of its
experimental design (coupled with a poor script) the movie was a box office flop.
See Hirsch 1978, 34–6, and Elly 1984, 117–18.
25
For the Academic Painters and their recreations of antiquity see Liversidge
and Edwards 1996; Ash 1989, 1995 and 1999; Wood 1983. The Hollywood
debt to the nineteenth-century artists is still felt today. See Landau 2000, 64–5.
For the influence of Victorian theatre design on cinema art direction see Finkel
1996 and Mayer 1994.
26
See Dunant 1994, Robinson 1955 and Christie 1991.
27
MacDonald Fraser 1988, 5.
28
Cary 1974, 91.
29
See discussions in Grimal et al. 1998, 86–104; Green et al. 1996, 127–41,
191–203.
30
See Russmann 2001, 130–1.
31
Cleopatra Souvenir Brochure 1963, 16.
32
For the architecture of the royal quarter see Foreman 1999.
33
IV Dynasty, reign of Khufu, c. 2585 bc. For details see Reisner and Smith
1955, 33–4, pls. 27–9; Lehner 1985.
34
XVIII Dynasty, reign of Tutankhamun, c. 1347–1337 bc. See Saleh and
Sourouzain 1987, no. 180.
35
A section of the 1963 souvenir brochure entitled ‘The Designer’s Contri-
bution’ includes 15 full colour illustrations of various sets used throughout the

298
 Celluloid Cleopatras or Did the Greeks ever get to Egypt?

film. A section of Life International magazine May 20th 1963 is devoted to the
filming of Cleopatra. One particular segment (pp. 72–3) is entitled ‘Heroic
Settings Designed for Larger-Than-Life Heroes’ and includes good images of the
Alexandrian set.
36
See in particular Ziegler et al. 1994, 506–51.
37
See Curl 1994, 212–20 and Montserrat 2000, 89.
38
See Forbes 1996.
39
For the famous description of the Greek-style clothing of Ptolemy VIII see
Athenaeus XII 549e. See further, Gambato 2001.
40
See illustrations in Walker and Higgs 2001, 144, fig. 4.3 and (arguably) fig.
4.2, etc.
41
Hughes-Hallett 1990. The process began early, in the reign of the Roman
emperor Augustus; see Wyke 1992.
42
See Ziegler et al. 1994, 568–72 and Walker and Higgs 2001, 346–7, fig.
368.
43
Ziegler et al. 1994, 562. For the Description see Curl 1994, 114–16.
44
Ziegler et al. 1994, 398–9.
45
The French School in particular (especially the likes of Gérôme, Rixens,
Cananel and Moreau) played up the eroticism of the ancient Egyptian Cleopatra
in oil paintings dated from 1860 to 1900. See Ziegler et al. 1994, 574–80; see
also Foreman 1999, 94, 100–1, 152.
46
Tashiro 1998, 95–118.
47
On the role of fashion and the star system see Davis 1993, 205–32 and Gaines
and Herzog 1990.
48
Genini 1996, 39.
49
The idea that Bara, like other stars of early cinema, designed her own
costumes is endorsed by her own memoirs of the filming of her 1918 movie,
Salome: ‘I wanted to be a different Salome, so I ordered the wig-maker to send
me a wig of tawny, blond hair. It was almost to be like a lion’s mane, wild, unruly
and weird. But the man had no imagination. He sent me one with Pickford curls.
So I’m a brunette Salome after all.’ Quoted in Golden 1996, 167.
50
Wagenknecht 1962, 179. Bara claimed, ‘It is not a mere theory in my
mind. I have a positive knowledge that I am a reincarnation of Cleopatra. I live
Cleopatra, I breathe Cleopatra, I am Cleopatra.’ See Golden 1996, 130. The 1917
souvenir brochure accompanying Cleopatra contained an article asking, ‘Is Theda
Bara a Reincarnation of Cleopatra?’ Several arguments in favour of the proposi-
tion were advanced: ‘(1) The character of Cleopatra and the character of Theda
Bara are similar in many respects. (2) In appearance, so far as can be definitely
ascertained, Miss Bara and the Siren of the Nile were similar. (3) Miss Bara’s last
name is similar to an Egyptian word meaning “Soul of the Sun”. (4) The prophecy
of Rhadmes fits Cleopatra as easily as Miss Bara.’
51
Motion Picture News 3rd November 1917. See further Wyke 1997, 89–90.
52
October 27th 1917.
53
One of Banton’s original costume designs, together with a surviving lamé
gown worn by Colbert, is illustrated in McConathy and Vreeland 1976, 146–7.

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Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

See further Bailey 1983, 280–1; Tapert, 1998, 166–85; Annas, La Valley and
Maeder 1987, 48–9; LaVine 1981, 141.
54
On Egyptomania in the dress of the 1920s and 1930s see Ziegler et al. 1994,
526–8, and Montserrat 2000, 85–7. For the influence of the 1934 Cleopatra on
female fashion see Montserrat and Wyke forthcoming.
55
In this respect, Messel’s designs were in keeping with those he created for
Vivien Leigh’s Cleopatra in the 1945 Caesar and Cleopatra. Interestingly, British
publicity rhetoric shared much in common with that of Hollywood. In a Picture
Post report dated December 15th 1945, it was noted that, ‘envoys [were] sent to all
the museums to check up the right way of putting a band of silk on one of Caesar’s
togas … Miss Leigh’s black wigs had to be plaited into 80 strands each night so that
they were properly crinkled the next day … 2,000 costumes were made … they used
a hundredweight of dyes … more than 500 pieces of jewellery were used’.
56
The relationship between Messel and the American producers was obviously
strained from the beginning of the project. See Wanger and Hyams 1963, 48.
Wanger writes, ‘Oliver Messel, the costume designer, is complaining about his
position and authority.’
57
Wanger and Hyams 1963, 73. Wanger recalls, ‘April 29 1961: Irene Sharaff
agreed to design Elizabeth’s costumes … I first approached Miss Sharaff, who is one
of the top Broadway designers, to do the costumes for Cleopatra in 1958. Irene,
who is tall, sharp-eyed and candid [although Tom Mankiewicz, the director’s son,
later labelled her as ‘not very pleasant’], brushed it off with, “It wouldn’t be possible
to do Cleopatra without making it look like Aida.” ’ The relationship between
star-designer and Hollywood star appears to have been good. Wanger 1963, 83
writes, ‘June 12 1961: Brought Liz together with Irene Sharaff for the first time.
An important meeting because I want them to like each other. Thank heavens, it
came off well.’ A report in Life International October 23rd 1961 has Sharaff calling
Taylor a ‘dreamboat’. Sharaff later went on to design Taylor’s wedding outfit for
her (first) marriage to Richard Burton.
58
An original design for a priestess by Renie Conley is illustrated in Annas, La
Valley, Maeder and Jenssen 1987, 18.
59
Wanger and Hyams 1963, 93; Sharaff 1976, 112–13.
60
Sharaff 1976, 106.
61
Wanger and Hyams 1963, 85.
62
On the depiction of the clothed female body in Egyptian art see Robins
1993, 180–5.
63
Sharaff 1976, 106, 108.
64
Wanger and Hyams 1963, 139–40.
65
On the use of make-up in period films see Annas 1987. She notes (p. 63),
for example, that ‘Spartacus (1960) was quite simply a film about brown
eyeshadow.’
66
Sharaff 1976, 106.
67
Photoplay April 1962, 30.
68
At the time of writing, Hollywood is allegedly going into production on
a new version of the Queen’s life. Called Kleopatra, it is a reworking of the best-

300
 Celluloid Cleopatras or Did the Greeks ever get to Egypt?

selling two-part novel by Karen Essex, who chose to explore her subject’s absolute
dedication to the political intrigues of her time, and her strong connection to
Greek culture (hence the supposedly more ‘Greek’ spelling of her name). It will
be interesting to see if Essex’s hellenistic heroine keeps her Greek identity on the
big screen too.

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Liversidge, M. and Edwards, C. (eds.)
1996 Imagining Rome. British artists and Rome in the nineteenth century,
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Llewellyn-Jones, L.
Forthcoming Designs on the Past: How Hollywood created the ancient world.
Lovric, M.
2001 Cleopatra’s Face. Fatal beauty, London.
MacDonald Fraser, G.
1988 The Hollywood History of the World, Marlborough.
Mayer, D.
1994 Playing Out the Empire. Ben-Hur and other toga plays and films. A critical
anthology, Oxford.
McConathy, D. and Vreeland, D.
1976 Hollywood Costume. Glamour, glitter, romance, New York.
Medved, H. and Medved, M.
1984 The Hollywood Hall of Shame. The most expensive flops in movie history,
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Montserrat, D.
2000 Akhenaten. History, fantasy and ancient Egypt, London
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1982 The Stories Behind the Scenes of the Great Film Epics, Watford.
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1999 Polygamy, Prostitutes and Death. The hellenistic dynasties, London.
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Pfrommer, M.
1999 Alexandria. Im Schatten der Pyramiden, Mainz am Rhein.
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2001 ‘Alexandria’ in Walker and Higgs (eds.) Cleopatra of Egypt, 32–7.

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2001 The Ancient World in the Cinema, 2nd edn, New Haven and London.
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1990 Near Eastern Royalty and Rome, Toronto, Buffalo and London.
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1996 Lost Films. Important movies that disappeared, New York.
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1993 The Films of Elizabeth Taylor, New York.
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1992 Screening History, London.
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1962 Movies in the Age of Innocence, Norman.
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2001 Cleopatra of Egypt from History to Myth, London.
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1963 My Life With Cleopatra, London.
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1995 ‘Cinema and the Fall of Rome’, APA 125. 135–54.
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1983 Olympian Dreamers. Victorian classical painters 1860–1914, London.
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1994 Egyptomania. L’Égypte dans l’art occidental 1730–1930, Paris.

304
 MAPS

The following outline maps offer quick guides to the locations of some of the
places discussed in this volume. Lesser-known place names are typically given in
the orthography adopted by the authors who refer to them.

305
 Maps

MACEDONIA
Pella

Aegae

Dion

Gonnus

Larissa
Corcyra Dodona

THESSALY

Leucas Kytinion
A
LI EU
BO
TO EA
Ithaca AE Delphi
BOEOTIA

Cephallenia
ACHAEA Athens
ELIS Sicyon
Corinth
ARCADIA Nemea
Zacynthos Mycenae Aegina
Olympia A R Epidaurus
Argos GO Methana Keos
LID

Ithome
MESSENIA Sparta
LACONIA

Cythera

Cydonia

CRETE
Greece and Macedon

307
Maps

THRACE BLACK SEA

Byzantium

Samothrace Parium
Sestus Lampsacus Cyzicus Apollonia
Imbros Abydus

Ilium

Lemnos Alexandria Troas

MYSIA

Mytilene Pergamum
Lesbos

PHRYGIA
Phocaea
LYDIA
Chios Smyrna
Clazomenae
Teus
Colophon
Lebedus Clarus
Samos Magnesia

Priene
Miletus

Labraunda
Didyma
CARIA
Naxos Halicarnassus

Cnidus

LYCIA
Xanthus
Rhodes

Carpathos

CRETE
Western Asia Minor

308
 Olbia

Tyras Panticapaeum
BOSPORAN
KINGDOM Nymphaeum

Massilia Chersonesus

BLACK SEA
ITALY Odessus
CORSICA
Rome Sinope
Apollonia
ADRIATIC THRACE Amastris
Arpi SEA
SARDINIA MACEDONIA Byzantium Heraclea
Pompeii PROPONTIS
TYRRHENIAN Thessalonica
SEA
Alexandria Troas
AEGEAN
SEA Pergamum Arsameia
IONIAN Delphi ASIA
Smyrna
SEA Athens

309
SICILY
Carthage Corinth Ephesus
Morgantina Syracuse Miletus
Antioch

Rhodes
SYRIA

CRETE CYPRUS Sidon

Tyre

Jerusalem
Cyrene
The Mediterranean
and the Black Sea Alexandria
ARABIA
EGYPT
Memphis
Maps
Maps

Taposiris minor Buto

Alexandria
Zephyrium Sebennytus
Naucratis
Pelusium

Bubastis

Memphis

ARSINOITE
NOME
Krokodilopolis

Tebtunis

Oxyrhynchus

OXYRHYNCHITE
NOME

Lykopolis

Ptolemais

Abydus
Dendera
Coptus
Diospolis
(Thebes)

Egypt

310
 INDEX

Note. The contributors to this volume have used disparate transliteration conven-
tions for Greek words and names. These conventions have been partially systema-
tized for the purposes of the index, but terms confined to the contribution of a single
author have normally been retained in the orthography employed by that author.

Aboulites 85 see also Ptolemies

Abouthis 278 alliances 2, 7
Achaei 211–12 Alma-Tadema, L. 262–6, 284
Achaemenids xviii, 3–4, 159–60, Amazons 223, 225
199–200, 213, 241; see also Persians ambassadors xvii, 97–110, 203
Achaios 164, 172 Amminapes 85
Actium 282 Ammon 41–2, 49–50; see also
Aegae: see Vergina Amun-re
Aeneas 108–9 Amonpayom 129
Aesthetics 260 Amphoteros 92
Aetolia, Aetolians 10, 47–8, 101–2 Amun-re 3, 130; see also Ammon
Agarus 212 Amyklai 108, 194
Agasikles 46 Amynandros 109
Agathermus 33 Amyntas III 43, 61
Agathon 107–8 Anatolia: see Asia Minor
Agis III 84 Anaximenes of Lampsacus xiv
Agis IV 189 Andromache 108
Agrippa 282 andrones 222–4, 239, 243
Ahuramazda 3 Anthesterius 205
Ai Khanoum 240 Antigonids xv–xvi, 6, 11, 41–3, 67–8
Aigina 97 Antigonus I 81, 84, 86, 88, 90–1, 94,
Alcaeus of Messene 43 161, 163–4, 170
Aleos 107 Antigonus II 6, 42, 46, 48
Aletes 101, 107 Antigonus III 43, 47
Alexander I 10, 47, 60, 69 Antioch 99, 240
Alexander III, the Great ix–xiv, xvi, Antiochus I 7, 99
3–4, 42–9, 62–7, 72, 81–92, 118, Antiochus II 3
137, 157, 159–61, 163, 177, 199, Antiochus III 7, 171, 228
223, 277 Antiochus I of Kommagene 241
Alexander IV 90, 94 Antiochus Hierax 164
Alexander of Epirus 44 Antipater 42, 47, 84, 86, 88–91
Alexander of Lyncestis 83–4, 92 Antony 275, 277, 280, 282–3, 292,
Alexandria xix, xxi, 24–7, 34, 117, 297
131, 138, 231–2, 235–6, 275–301; Apamea 165

311
Index

Apelles 43, 256 asylia 8, 98, 106

Aphrodisias 228 Atheas 199
Aphrodite xx, 207, 253–68; Athenaeus 227
Aphrodite Anadyomene 256, 262; Athene 48; Athene Parthenos 256,
Aphrodite Kallipygos 257, 262, 265
270; Aphrodite of Knidos 255–60, Athens 7, 10, 178–80, 200, 208, 227
266–7; Capitoline Venus 266; Attalids xviii, 6, 10, 162, 164–6
Esquiline Venus 262, 264; Venus Attalos (Philip’s general) 83, 92
of Arles 261; Venus de Milo 253– Attalos II 165–6, 234
5, 258, 261, 266–8 Attalos III 166, 170
Apollo 6, 42, 48, 101–2, 107–8; Auge 107
Lykaios 258 autonomy 1
Apollonia of Mysia 103 Azov, Sea of 199–200, 207
Appian 282
Aratus of Soli 49 Babylon xvi, 81, 85, 89–90
Archelaus 43, 45, 47, 61, 69–70, 224 Bactria 1, 7, 12, 240
Area, royal xviii, 157–67 Balakros 84
Areopagus 264–5 Ballet Russe 291
Argeads xv–xvi, 41–2, 47, 67–8, 102; Banton, Travis 292, 299
see also Macedonians Bara, Theda 277–8, 288, 291–2,
Argeas 42 296–7, 299
Argos 10, 42, 179 Bargylia 8
Argotus 206 Basileia 44–5
Ariarathes IV of Cappadocia 7 bear 63
Aripharnes 212 Berenice (wife of Antiochus II) 163
Aristocrates 203, 205 bigamy 149
Aristodikides 7 bilharzia 150
Aristomachus of Argos 11 Bion of Borysthenes 201
Aristonous 86 Black Sea xix, 199–214
Aristotle 8 boar 62
Arpi 242–3 Borghese, Paolina 260, 270
Arrian of Nicomedia xi, 87–9 Bosporan Kingdom xix, 199, 205–11
Arsaces II of Parthia 7 Botticelli 260
Arsameia 241 Boulagoras of Samos 178
Arsinoe I 123–5, 133 Bouthroton 108
Arsinoe II 123–5, 133 Britain 253–68
Arsinoe (Cilicia) 9 British Museum 253, 286
Arsinoite nome 138, 143, 152 Bucephalus 62, 72
Artabazanes of Atropatene 7 Bug, River 203, 207
Artabazos 85 Burton, Richard 277, 283, 295
art-deco 289, 292 Byzantium xix, 179, 207–13
Artemis 101–2, 107; Leuco-
phryene 98, 104 Caesar 275, 279–80, 282–4, 292, 300
artichoke 30, 32, 34 Caesarion 275, 277, 280, 284
Asclepius 101 Cairo 294
Asia Minor xviii,1, 157–67, 227 Calas 84, 168
Assos 228 Callatis 212–13

312
 Index

Callias 200 Cyrene 6, 144

Calpurnia 280 Cyrus 3
Camasarye 206 Cytinium xvii
Cananel 299
Carry on Cleo 254 Danube 48
Carthage 12, 246 Dardanos 108
Cartledge, P. x Daskyleion 163, 169
Cary, John 285 debt-bondage 179
Cassander 42, 46–7, 65–6, 71, 90–1 De Cuir, J. 287, 293
Cassandra 109 Delos 11, 42, 48, 102, 236–40, 246,
Cassandreia 45 259, 270
Cavarus 210 Delphi 9, 99, 240
census 137–54 Delta 129, 138
Chaeronea 47 Demetrias 46
Chalcidice, Chalcidian league 41, 46, Demetrius of Phaleron xi, 11
49 Demetrius Poliorcetes 65, 90, 159,
Charmion (Charmian) xi–xii 164
Chersonesus 199, 205–6, DeMille, C.B. xx, 277, 279–81,
chlamys 23–36 284–6, 292
chora 157 Demosthenes 208
Chremonides, Chremonidean Dendera 276, 289, 293, 297
war 10–11 Dene, Dorothy 263
Chrysaor 101–2 Denon, Baron 290
Chrysippus 201 Designer History 291
Cicero xxiii, 282 Dexippus of Athens xi
citizenship 8 Diadoumenos 258
Cleopatra, daughter of Philip II 43–5 Diadumene 262
Cleopatra VII xi–xiii, xx–xxi, 275– Dicaearchus 27, 33
301 Diestai 46
Clitus 64, 83, 90, 93–4 Dio Chrysostom 201
Cnidus xx Diodorus 87–8, 91, 127, 152, 212
Colbert, Claudette 277, 281, 289, Diogenes of Sinope 201
291–2, 296 Dion xv, 43–9
Comontorius 210 Dionysius of Halicarnassus 102–3,
Companions xvi, 44, 46, 83, 87, 92 109, 120–1
Conley, Renie 293 Dionysius Petosarapis 127, 131
Coptos xvii, 123–7, 131 Dionysodoros of Thebes 48
Corinth 97, 180 Dionysus 70, 223–4, 237–8, 246;
Craterus 61–7, 73, 83, 85–6, 88, 90, artists of 106
93–4 Dior 294
Crates 36 Dios 41, 44
Crete 106 Diospolis Inferior 130
Crimea 199, 205–7, 211, 240 diplomacy xvi–xvii, 3–4, 97–110
Cronyn, Hume 275 distrust 81–92
Cyclades 11 Djedhor 126–9
Cydnus 280, 283 djellabah 294
Cynics 201 Dnieper 203

313
Index

Dodona 47–8, 107, 109 Glaucus 101–2

dogs 59–68, 70, 73, 231–2 Gonnos 100, 105
Doloaspis 84 grain-route 209
dolphins 228, 238, 242 Granicus 46, 64, 83
Doryphoros 256 Griffith, D.W. 285
Droysen, J.-G. 1
Duffy, Mary 268 Habicht, C. 5
Haemus 49
Edwards, J. Gordon xx Haghios Antonios 41
Egypt, Egyptians xvii, 117–31, 137– Hakor 118
54, 275–301; see also Ptolemies Harpalos 83, 92
Epidaurus 179 Harrison, Rex 282, 293
epigonoi 152 Hathor 276
Epirus 9 Hegelochos 83, 92
Eratosthenes xv, 23–36 Hegesias 105
Eresos 43 Helen 223–4, 246
Eros 238 Helenus 108
Essex, Karen 301 Hellanicus 205
Euesperides 228 hellenism, hellenistic world, passim;
Eumelus 211–13 definitions of ix–xiv, xxi
Eumenes of Cardia 163, 166 Hellespont 211
Eumenes I 88–9, 93 Heniochi 211–12
Eumenes II 5, 165, 234 Hephaestion (Alexander’s
Euripides 62 marshal) 49, 65, 73, 83, 85–6, 93
Euthydemus of Bactria 7 Hephaestion (mosaicist) 234
Eve 260 Hera 234; Juno of Veii 256
Heraclea Pontica 7, 179, 199–200,
Falguière 266 211
families 137–54 Heracles xv–xvi, 42, 48, 61, 68,
Fayum 117, 138 101–2
femicide 153 Hermolaus 63, 72
festivals 8, 9 Hetairideia 44
field survey 177–92 Hetepheres 288
Franzero, C.M. 282 Heuss, A. 5
freedom 1 Hieron II 226–7
Friends (of Kings) 5, 87, 92, 165 Hieronymus of Cardia xi, 93
Histria 205
Galatia 1 Hollywood xx–xxi, 275–301
Ganymede 226–7 Homer 60, 201, 210
Gauls 99, 203–4, 210, 213 homogeneia 99
Gaza 121 horses 59–68; see also Bucephalus
Gela 229 households xvii, 137–54
Genthios 46 hunting xvi, 59–68, 223
Gérôme 260–1, 264–6, 270, 284, Hypanis 203
299
Gerrha 7 ichneumon 63
girls xviii Illyria 179

314
 Index

infanticide 153 Leptines 149, 153

isopoliteia 8, 107 Leto 101, 105
Isthmia 10 lions 61–7, 71, 73, 82, 223–4
Itanos 11 Louvre 253
Ithaca 100, 107 Lucian xii
Ithome 48 Lysimacheia 45–6
Lysimachus 5, 63–5, 72, 94,124, 164,
Jacoby, F. xiii 210–13
Judah 1, 3–4 Lyttos 8–9
Justin xiii, 81, 89
Macedon, Macedonians passim, esp.
Kakheti 200 xi, 3, 10, 41–50, 59–68, 81–92,
Kallirhoe 104 121, 131, 137, 158–60, 166, 191,
Karnak 296 222–4, 243, 277, 282–3, 286, 293,
Keir, Andrew 282 296; see also Argeads, Antigonids
Kephallenia 99–100, 107 Machimoi 121
Kephalos 99–100, 107, 111 Maeotis 199, 212
kings, kingship 5, 12, 41–50, 59–68, Magnes 99–100, 107
157–67 Magnesia on Meander xvii, 98, 100,
kinship 97–110; see also families 103–7, 112
Kleomenes III 189, 191 Makedon (hero) 41
Kleomenes of Naukratis 89 Mankiewicz, J. xx, 275, 277, 283–4,
Knidos: see Aphrodite 287, 292, 297, 300
Koiranos 83 Marduk 3
Kommagene 241 Mariandyni 179
Korris 8 Marie Antoinette 285
Kos 100, 256 Maroneia 43
Kydonians 105 Massilia 10, 12, 97
Kytinion 101–5, 110 Mazaios 85
Megalopolis 112
Labraunda 8 Megara Hyblaea 229
Laconia xix, 179, 184–92 Meleagros 7, 86, 89, 93
Lampsacus 97, 105 Melos: see Aphrodite
Landau, Martin 282 Memnon (strategos of Thrace) 84, 92
Laocoon 253 Memnon of Heraclea 200
Laodice (wife of Antiochus II) 163 Memphis 48–9
Laodice (wife of Antiochus III) 172 Menandros 90, 94
Laslett, P. 144 Mendes 129
lavapesta 244 Menekles 106
Lawrence Vincent 279 Mesopotamia 1, 240
leagues 10 Messel, Oliver 292–3, 300
Lebadeia 44 Messenia 188
Lebedos 8, 161 Methana 185, 187
Leigh, Vivien 297, 300 Metropolitan Museum 291
Leighton, Lord 260, 262–7, 285 Miletus 7, 49, 103, 157, 199
Leochares 47 Miller, Maude 278
Leonnatos 86, 89 Mithradates I of Kommagene 241

315
Index

Mithridates VI 206, 213–14 Paerisades II 207

Mnemosyne 45 Paerisades V 206
Moore, A. 261–3 Pallene 41
Morgantina 226–7, 239 panthers 237
mosaics xix–xx, 65, 221–45 Panticapaeum 206, 214
Moschion 227 Parmenion 83–4
Mudie, Leonard 279 Parsons, Louella 275
Muses 45 Parthia 9
Myrmecium 207 Patrocles 29
Pausanias xiii
Nagidos 9 Peithon 86, 88–9, 94
Nakhtsopdu 120–1 Pella xix, 47, 66, 68, 222, 225, 232
Neapolis, Scythian 206 Peloponnese 6
Nearchus 48–9 Perdiccas I 42
Nectanebo I (Nekhtnebef ) 118–19 Perdiccas III 43
Nectanebo II (Nekhthorheb) xii, 119 Perdiccas (Successor) 63, 65, 81, 86,
Nehemiah 3 88–90, 93–4
Nemea 48 Pergamum xix, 105, 166, 170, 234–6,
Neoptolemus 108 242
Nicanor of Stagira 48 Peritas 62
Niceratus 205 Perseus 43, 46–7
Nicomedes of Bithynia 204 Persia, Persians 118, 144, 158–9; see
Nike 44 also Achaemenids
Nile 284 Petisis 84
Nock, A.D. 3 Peucestas 63–4, 94
Novarese, Vittorio N. 293 Pharon 278–9, 292
Nymphaeum 207 Pharos 287
Nymphis of Heraclea xi Pharsalus 287
Phidias 48, 263, 268
Octavian 275, 282 Phila (wife of Philip II) 84
Odessus 211 Phila (widow of Craterus) 90
Odysseion, Odysseus 100, 107 philanthropa 6
oikeiotes 99, 100, 105 Philip II xii–xiv, 42–9, 62, 64, 66, 69
Olbia xix, 199–214 Philip III (Arrhidaeus) 66, 82, 89–90,
oliganthropia 188 94, 120–1
Olympia (Dion festival) 44–5 Philip V 11, 43–9, 68, 109
Olympia, Olympic Games 10, 43, 45, Philippeion 47, 50
47–50, 69 Philotas 83, 90, 93–4
Olympias 49 philotimia 62–3
Olympichos 8 Philoxenos 83, 90
Olympus 41 Phocaea 97, 157
Olynthus 45, 227–8 Phryne 256, 264–6
opus sectile 232, 237 Pieria 45
opus signinum 229, 238, 244 piety 46–7
opus vermiculatum 231, 234, 236, 247 piracy xix, 211–12
Oxyrhynchite nome 138, 143, 152 Pisidia 149
Pleistarchos 211

316
 Index

Pliny the Elder 25, 34, 234, 253, 256, Roscoe, Alan 278
258–60 Rufio 282–3
Plutarch ix, 88, 189, 282
Pod, Hengist 254 Saii 202, 204
Polybius xi, xix, 11, 42, 120, 178, Saitaphernes 202–4
182, 189, 192, 200, 207–11 Salmydessians 211
polygamy 153 Salome 291, 299
Polyidos of Selymbria 106 salt-tax 137–54
Polykleitos 258 Samos 238, 246
Polyperchon 66 Samosata 242
Pomeroy, S. 137, 153 Saqqara 125
Pompeii 244–5 Satarchae 211
Pompeius Trogus xiii–xiv Satibarzanes 85
Posidonius 23, 33–5 Satyrus 212
Pothinus 279 Sauroktonos 260
Poynter, E.J. 260, 262 Scilurus 206
Praxiteles 255–60, 263–6 Sciri 203
Préaux, C. xiii Scopas 47
Pre-Raphaelites 260 Scythians xix, 199–214
Priene 5, 159–60, 163, 169 Seleucids xiii, 6, 165
Proexes 85 Seleucus 86, 93, 164, 170
Protogenes xviii, 202–4, 207, 209–10 Senenshepsu xvii, 123–9, 131–2
Prytanis 212 Serapis 6
Psyche 262–3 Shakespeare, W. 280
Ptolemies xiii, xvii, 6, 10–11, 117–31, Sharaff, Irene 293, 295, 300
137–54, 163–4, 231, 275–301; see Sicyon 179
also Egyptians Sinope 212
Ptolemy I xii, 6, 67, 82, 88–9, 120 Siraces 212
Ptolemy II 67, 123–7, 130–1, 207 Siwah 42, 49–50
Ptolemy III 127, 227 Sokonopis 139
Ptolemy IV xvii, 120, 130–2 Sophagasenos 7
Ptolemy XII xiii, 283 Sophistic, Second xii
Ptolemy XIII 279 Sosigenes 275–6, 279
Ptolemy XIV 279 Sosus of Pergamum 234
Ptolemy of Alorus xii Sovereignty 1–13
Ptolemy (geographer) 36 Sparta: see Laconia
Pyrrhus 67 Spartacus 300
Spartocids xix, 206, 208
Raphia 10, 120–1, 131 spear-won territory 158
Resting Satyr 260 stags 225, 232
Rhodes xix, 11, 205–6, 208, 240 state-formation 158, 168
Rhoxane 89 steppe 199–214
riders 59–68 Strabo 23–4, 27, 31, 33, 152, 200–1,
Romans, Rome 10, 12, 48, 97, 103, 206, 211, 213
105, 109–110, 138–9, 190, 221, Strauss, Richard 291
226, 237, 240, 245, 256, 259, 270, Successors xvi, 3–4, 43, 65–8, 71,
275, 277–8, 280–4, 289, 294–6 81–92, 159, 163, 178, 213

317
Index

Suetonius 282 Timotheos of Miletos 106

Sulpicius Galba 97 Tiridates 85
Survey, archaeological xviii–xix Titian 260
sympoliteia 8 Triparadeisos xvi, 90
syngeneia 98–107 Troas 108
synoecism 8 Tutankhamun 286, 288
Syracuse 12, 97, 179, 226 tyrants 6,11
systems xiv, 1–12 Tyras 199, 205

Taman peninsula 207 Udjahorresnet 118–19

Tanis 127, 129 Ukraine xix, 200
Tantalus 210 Usermaatre 125
Tarn, W.W. x
Taurians 211–12 Venus: see Aphrodite
Taylor, Elizabeth 277, 281, 291–6, Vergina 43–4, 62, 66, 68, 72–4, 241
300
Tegea 105, 107 Wanger, Walter 282, 294, 300
Temenids 42; see also Argeads Will, E. xiii
Teos 8, 105–6, 161 William, Warren 279
tessellation: see mosaics
Theocritus 124 Xanthus xvii, 101–6, 110
Theopompus xiv, xxiii Xerxes 3
Thermopylae 48
Thespiae 66 Young, Waldemar 279
Thessalonice 42
Thessaly 179 Zakynthos 107–9
Thrace, Thracians 60, 63, 84, Zeus xv, 6, 41–50, 107–8, 226
209–10, 212–13 Zeuxis 224
Thurbur, James 285 Zopyrion 199
Timagenes of Alexandria xii–xiii Zygi 211.

318
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in association with Routledge Ltd.

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