'The Eyesore of Aigina': Anti-Athenian Attitudes across the Greek, Hellenistic and Roman Worlds

273 Pages·2016·1.792 MB·English

by  Katerina Meidani, Anton Powell

‘THE EYESORE OF AIGINA’

‘T E
HE YESORE
A ’
OF IGINA
A -A
NTI THENIAN
A G ,
TTITUDES IN REEK
H
ELLENISTIC AND
R H
OMAN ISTORY
Editors
Anton Powell
and
Katerina Meidani
Contributors
Kostas Buraselis, Christy Constantakopoulou, John K. Davies,
Martin Dreher, Dorothy Figueira, Thomas Figueira,
Nikos Giannakopoulos, Ioanna Kralli, Dominique Lenfant,
Lynette Mitchell, Maria Plastira-Valkanou, Anton Powell
The Classical Press of Wales
First published in 2016 by
The Classical Press of Wales
15 Rosehill Terrace, Swansea SA1 6JN
Tel: [phone]
www.classicalpressofwales.co.uk
Distributor
I. B. Tauris & Co Ltd,
6 Salem Rd,
London W2 4BU, UK
Tel.: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
www.ibtauris.com
Distributor in North America
ISD,
70 Enterprise Drive, Suite 2,
Bristol, CT 06010, USA
Tel: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
www.isdistribution.com
© 2016 The authors
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN 978-1-905125-59-3
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Typeset by Louise Jones, and printed and bound in the UK by Gomer Press, Llandysul,
Ceredigion, Wales
–––––––––––––––––
The Classical Press of Wales, an independent venture, was founded in 1993, initially to support the work
of classicists and ancient historians in Wales and their collaborators from further afield. More recently it has
published work initiated by scholars internationally. While retaining a special loyalty to Wales and the Celtic
countries, the Press welcomes scholarly contributions from all parts of the world.
The symbol of the Press is the Red Kite. This bird, once widespread in Britain, was reduced by
1905 to some five individuals confined to a small area known as ‘The Desert of Wales’ – the
upper Tywi valley. Geneticists report that the stock was saved from terminal inbreeding by the
arrival of one stray female bird from Germany. After much careful protection, the Red Kite now
thrives – in Wales and beyond.
CONTENTS
Page
Introduction vii
Acknowledgements xiii
1 The allies’ viewpoint on the Athenian empire:
the evidence of Plutarch’s Lives 1
Dominique Lenfant
2 Aigina: island as paradigm and counter-paradigm 19
Thomas Figueira
3 Aiginetan attitudes (c.500–424 BC): Athens as eyesore? 51
Anton Powell
4 Anti-Athenian attitudes in fifth-century Sicily? 81
LynetteMitchell
5 Theopompos on Athenian policies and politicians 95
John Davies
6 Anti-Athenian attitudes and the Second Athenian
Confederacy 113
Martin Dreher
7 The shaping of the past: local history and fourth-century
Delian reactions to Athenian imperialism 125
Christy Constantakopolou
8 In the shadow of Pydna: incorrigible Athens as an
opportunity for the Achaeans 147
Kostas Buraselis
9 Attitudes to Hellenistic Athens: to sneer or to revere? 163
Ioanna Kralli
10 The image of Athenians in the Greek epigram 187
MariaPlastira-Valkanou
v
Contents
11 Condemning the Athenian past, rejecting the Athenian
present: aspects of anti-Athenian discourses in the early
imperial period 199
Nikos Giannakopoulos
12 Reading Greece: travel narratives, aesthetic sensibilities,
and the Aiginetan marbles 223
Dorothy Figueira
Index 251
vi
INTRODUCTION
GeorgeGroteinvertedPerikles’dictum,accordingtowhichindependent
Aigina was the ‘eyesore of the Peiraieus’: for Aiginetans, according to
Grote,thevastandfortifiedAthenianportwas‘inamuchstrongerdegree’
aneyesoreforthemselves(below,p.51).ThiswascharacteristicofGrote’s
comprehensivevisionofGreekmentalities.Inthe(almost)twocenturies
since Grote composed what is still, perhaps, the most impressive history
of Greece in the English language, such breadth of vision has become
harder to attain. Historians’ areas of specialism deepen and grow further
apart; their works have understandably tended to concentrate on the
classicalperiodandonthetwogreatestcommunitiesonwhichourancient
evidence chiefly focuses. Athens, and in most recent scholarship Sparta,
have predominated. Studies of other communities, sometimes tellingly
classed as ‘regional’, have indeed been performed with distinction,
especially in recent years. But perhaps even they on occasion have, in
resistingtheAthenianandLaconianvortex,over-compensatedbytending
to play down those aspects of ‘regional’ mentalities which were directed
towardsAthensandSparta.
The set of studies here presented aims to acknowledge and explore
negative views concerning Athens among non-Athenian communities
and individuals of the Greek, Hellenistic and Graeco-Roman worlds.
Inunderstanding,andreconstructing,thoseviewsinformationonAthens
itself has been liberally, indeed necessarily, applied. What results, the
authorshope,ismaterialwhichmaysupplybridgesbetweenmanyareasof
modern specialism. It is not only students of non-Athenian mentalities
who may find instructive the ideas of outsiders concerning Athens;
specialists in the history of Athens itself may, by focusing on how
Atheniansappearedtooutsiders,betterunderstandtherationaleandeffect
ofAthens’ownpoliciesconcerningtheexternalcommunitieswhichthat
citysooftenaddressed.
ThepresentworkbeganataconferenceofSeptember2010,symbolically
held on Aigina. That island was chosen as involving what may seem an
extreme case of an ancient community with negative attitudes towards
Athens. Those attitudes, in Aigina’s case, were intense, closely-informed
and determinant of the community’s fate. Such thinking has, of course,
been largely effaced by the Athens-centred literary tradition as well as by
Athenianmilitaryaction.But,itisherecontended,importantelementsof
theislanders’thinking–and,inconsequence,theeffectsofthatthinking
vii
Introduction
upon Athens itself – can now be reconstructed. Three chapters of the
present volume focus upon Aigina. But while this is a book concerning
Aigina,itisnotabookonAigina:thenineremainingchapters,thatisthree-
quartersofthework,areconcernedwithattitudesinotherplaces.
The chronological scope of the work also extends far beyond the
classical period of Greece. This broad canvas, we believe, can itself be
fruitful for understanding not only the Hellenistic and Roman periods
which several of our authors study but also the Greek classical period
itself. For, it may be suspected, in the classical period so potent was the
combination of Athens’ military influence (actual or anticipated) and of
literaryandoralattitudesgeneratedinthegreatcitythattheexpressionof
anti-Athenianattitudeswouldberestrainedinspeechandrarefromwriters
hopingforthemselvesortheirworkstocirculatewidely.Inshort,itmay
be feared that such attitudes are largely irrecoverable, from the classical
period of Greece. However, in the Hellenistic age, and still more clearly
in the Roman, critics of Athens might think and speak more freely on
the subject. Not only had Athens’ military power dwindled to little or
nothing, but even the city’s potency as a centre of literary opinion was
overshadowed first by Alexandria then by Rome. From Hellenistic and
Roman times, as the authors of our chapters 8–11 show convincingly,
anti-Athenianattitudessurviveincolourfulvariety.(Itmaybenoaccident
thattheauthorsoftheseimpressivefourchaptersareallscholarsfromthat
most Athenocentric of cultures, modern Hellas.) Much of this opinion
from later Antiquity concerns the history of classical Athens, and may
reflect thinking of non-Athenians in the classical era. Chronological
breadthmay,then,provideanotherbridgebetweenscholarlyspecialisms.
Attitudes directed towards a very large population, such as that of
ancientAthens,mayinvolve–modernexperiencesuggests–stereotyping.
Howdothestudiesinthisvolumefind,onthisquestionandconcerning
Athens? What may emerge is a significant lack of fixed and widespread
ethniccaricature–orprofiling.ThecontrastwithclassicalSpartaisstriking,
thecitizenpopulationofwhichwaswidelyagreedbyotherGreekstoshare
suchqualitiesasphysicalcourage,formulaicbehaviour,aptitudeforgiving
andobeyingorders,andmendacity.HerethestereotypeswhichSpartans
andAtheniansissuedaboutthemselvesmayseemtohavebeeninfluential,or
eventoadegreerealistic,withtheformerinsistingonthehomogeneityof
their homoioi while the latter – in deliberate contrast – were described
by their most trusted politician, Perikles, as individualistic and
versatile. In the classical period of Greece the studies here do not detect
widespreadandpotentnegativestereotypesofAthens.IntheHellenistic
and Roman periods some widely-shared criticisms of Athens, and
viii
Introduction
some stereotypes, are detected, but they prove to be – to a degree –
self-contradictory.
DOMINIQUELENFANT,inexaminingpossibleevidencefromPlutarch’s
Lives for anti-Athenian attitudes under Athens’ empire, insists on the
limitations and complexity of the biographer’s non-Athenian sources.
Thesetendedtobepro-oligarchic,yetfriendly,evenadmiring,towardsthe
leadersoftheemerginghegemonicpower.Lenfantwarnsagainstprejudice
inherent in the modern term ‘imperialism’. She concludes that, while the
history of the early Delian League is largely obscure, there is – with the
significantexceptionofSamos–anoteworthylackofhostilitytoAthenian
ruleinsource-materialsurvivingfromthewiderAegeanworld.However,
Plutarch’sownattitudetowardsthemeritsofbygoneHellasmaywellhave
caused him to select material which yielded a misleading picture of
AthenianvirtueandHellenicconcord.
THOMASFIGUEIRAwritesanauthoritativesurveyoftheinfrastructureof
independent Aigina in the period of its rivalry with Athens. He gives a
critical review of modern scholarship thereon, engaging with works of
GeoffreydeSte.CroixandMogensHansen.FigueiraarguesforanAigina
densely populated, with a ruling elite intimately committed to maritime
trade, and thus to the possession of a military navy. He thereby
demonstratesthattheinfrastructureandthepoliticalcultureoftheisland
lentthemselvestochallenging,nottosayintimidating,Athensinthelate
ArchaicandearlyClassicalperiods.
ANTON POWELL seeks to reconstruct the outlines of complex anti-
AtheniancalculationsandsentimentsofAiginetansfromthelateArchaic
period,throughtheabolitionofindependentAiginabyAthensin431,and
farintotheperiodofthePeloponnesianWar.Heinsistsonthefruitfulness
ofseekingtolimithindsight.Aiginetans,unlikemodernhistorians,hadno
reason to see enduring subordination to Athens as inevitable. He argues
thatHerodotosmakesavigorouslypartisancasetotheeffectthatAiginetan
impiety led to divine punishment through the medium of Athens in 431;
Powell suggests that this effectively pro-Athenian bias of Herodotos can
beusedpositivelytoreconstructelementsofAigina’santi-Athenianrecord.
LYNETTEMITCHELLexaminesthehistoryoffifth-centurySicilyforsigns
of anti-Athenian thinking, and finds that such was neither common nor
widespread. Instead, the communities on the island tended to ‘keep
themselves to themselves’ and to concentrate rather on their internal
rivalries or enmities. Even after Athens had come close to capturing
Syracuse in 415–4, Syracusan pursuit of anti-Athenian strategies in the
Aegeanworldwasnot,Mitchellsuggests,whole-hearted.Herstudyraises
the possibility that the democratic qualities of the greatest power on the
ix