Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-rnpqb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-26T18:48:33.689Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Olympichus of Alinda and the Carian Expedition of Antigonus Doson

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2015

F. W. Walbank
Affiliation:
The University, Liverpool

Extract

An inscription found at Demirdjidéré in Caria, and published by A. Laumonier in 1934, deals with the granting of the citizenship of some unnamed city (probably Alinda) to Dionytas and Apollas, officials in the chancery (ἐπιοτωλαγραφῖον (sic)) of Olympichus, the στρατηγὀς of a Hellenistic king, whom Laumonier very reasonably identifies with Philip V of Macedon: Olympichus he assumes to be the Carian dynast of that name, whose machinations against the town of Iasus in about 202 B.C. are recorded in three well-known inscriptions, which Holleaux published in 1899. Unfortunately, in dating his inscription to the year 202, Laumonier paved the way for certain unjustifiable conclusions about the relations of Macedonia and Caria during the last quarter of the third century B.C.; and as these conclusions have since been drawn by Lenschau, it is important, I think, to point out their tenuous basis before there is any risk of their becoming widely accepted.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1942

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 BCH lviii. 1934, 291–8Google Scholar.

2 BMI iii. 441Google Scholar = Hicks, 182 = GDI iii. 3750Google Scholar; cf. Hoileaux, , REG xii. 1899, 20 seq.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; REA v. 1903, 223Google Scholar seq. (giving textual improvements).

3 P-W, s.v. ‘Olympichos,’ cols. 185–6; Bursian cclvi. 1938, 271Google Scholar.

4 Holleaux, , REG xii. 1899, 31–2Google Scholar.

5 Commenting on BMI iii. 441Google Scholar; cf. Holleaux, , REG xii. 1899, 32Google Scholar.

6 On the date of this see Holleaux, , REG xxxvi. 1923, 480–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar (= Études d'épigraphie et d'histoire grecques (Paris, 1938: ed. Robert, L.), I, 445–62Google Scholar).

7 Griech. Gesch. iv. 2, 550–1Google Scholar.

8 Zwei Beiträge zur Geschichte König Philipps V. von Makedonien. II. Die Beziehungen Philipps zu Karien, Diss. Berlin, 1909, p. 77Google Scholar.

9 Die Grenzen der hellenistischen Staaten in Kleinasien (Zürich-Leipzig, 1925), p. 69Google Scholar.

10 Op. cit., Nachträge, p. 161.

11 P-W, s.v. ‘Olympichos,’ cols. 185–6.

12 Lenschau sees (quite rightly) that the assumption of the title of στρατηγὀς is to be connected with the actual presence in Caria of some king of Macedon.

13 For a native prince keeping his own possessions, nominally as the officer of a Macedonian king, there is the analogy of Porus and Taxiles, who became satraps of Alexander; cf. Diod. xviii. 3, 2–3; Tarn, , Greeks in Bactrica and India (Cambridge, 1938), p. 259Google Scholar. For the similar case of Philocles, king of Sidon, see below, n. 28.

14 Two passages of Polybius deserve cursory mention here. The first of these (v. 34, 6–8)—which will be considered from another aspect below—mentions Macedon as a neighbour of Egypt only in Thrace during the period previous to Philopator's accession (221 B.C.), and therefore perhaps suggests that any conquests made by Doson in Garia were not permanent: see Nicolaus, op. cit., p. 81. The second (iii. 2, 8) is mentioned by Nicolaus, ibid., and by Meyer, op. cit., p. 70, as excluding continuous Macedonian occupation during the period under consideration; however, it merely mentions Caria as one of the places attacked by Philip in 201, and I doubt if much can be deduced either from this or from the reference to Carian mercenaries in Egyptian employment c. 220 (Polyb. v. 36, 6).

15 Why Meyer, loc. cit., claims that this passage ‘beweist allerdings nichts’ is not clear, particularly as he agrees with Beloch, , Griech. Gesch. iv. 2, 339Google Scholar, that the more important towns in Caria were at this time Ptolemaic. True, the passage reveals prejudice against Philopator; but the part with which we are concerned corresponds, as I hope to show, with what is known independently of the relative contemporary positions of Egypt and Syria.

16 παρἁκειαι is a vague word in this context: Schweighaeuser renders it (Lexicon Polybianum); adiacere, finitimum, vicinum esse; and its general sense must be ‘lie alongside, and so control.’ L. and S.8 is incorrect in giving the word the sense of ‘to press on,’ like the preceding ἐπίκειμαι (L. and S.9 omits the parallel with ἐπίκειμαι, but keeps the same translation).

17 See Niese, , Gesch. d. gr. u. mak. Staaten, ii. 160Google Scholar; Ruge, P-W, s.v. ‘Kibyra,’ col. 375; Schoch, P-W, s.v. ‘Limnaios (2)’, col. 708.

18 Wien. S.B. 166 (1911), 54Google Scholar. The identification is approved by Holleaux in his very full discussion of the Lysias dynasty in REA, xvii. 1915, 237–43Google Scholar.

19 Polybius puts them in a different category from Prusias and Mithridates, who also made benefactions.

20 OGIS 229 = Hicks, , Manual 176Google Scholar. The date was determined by De Sanctis, , ‘Contributi alla storia del impero Seleucideo,’ in Atti Ace. Torino xlvii. 19111912, 817Google Scholar, and has been generally accepted. The formula of this inscription (kings, dynasts, cities, and peoples) is that found with slight variants in Diod. xix. 57, 3 (appeal of Antiponus I. in 315); Syll. 3 590, 1. 11 (recognition of the ἀσυλία of Didyma in c. 196); OGIS 441, l. 130 (time of Sulla); Syll. 3 760 (time of Caesar: see Keil's notes ad loc. for further examples); see Rostovtzefl, , Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World (1941), pp. 502–3, 1347, 1439–40Google Scholar. The formula offers no evidence on the degree of independence enjoyed by the dynasts relative to the Seleucids.

21 OGIS 272, 277.

22 See Holleaux, , REA, xvii. 1915, 238Google Scholar.

23 Cf. Niese, op. cit., ii. 160; Wilhelm, op. cit., p. 52; Holleaux, , REA, xvii. 1915, 242Google Scholar; Tarn, , CAH vii. 720Google Scholar.

24 By 228 Attalus was master of Asia Minor north of the Taurus (cf. Tarn, , CAH vii. 721)Google Scholar; his victories over Hierax included one at Coloe in Lydia (OGIS 278; cf. Euseb, . Chron. i. 254Google Scholar (Schoene)) and another in Caria on the River Harpasus, a tributary of the Maeander (OGIS 271, 279; cf. Euseb, . Chron. i. 253Google Scholar); see Niese, op. cit., ii. 159, and Beloch, op. cit., iv. 1, 682; iv. 2, 547. That Egypt stood behind Attalus both in this struggle against Hierax and later in that against the generals of Seleucus III is clear; as Beloch points out (op. cit., iv. 1, 628, n. 2; 686, n. 3), Justinus, xxvii. 3, 9, refers to Ptolemy III as the enemy of Hierax; and—a point of greater weight—Andromachus, one of Seleucus Ill's generals, was lodged, when taken prisoner, at Alexandria (Polyb. iv. 51, 1–5). It should be noted that the dynasts of S.W. Asia Minor were from a geographical point of view particularly likely to fall under Egyptian influence.

25 Polyb. iv. 48, 9–13; cf. Tarn, , CAH vii. 723Google Scholar: ‘by 220 he had recovered the whole of Seleucid Asia Minor.’

26 See below, n. 45.

27 The Egyptian navarch Philocles appears in inscriptions (e.g. Ditt. Syll. 3 391) as βασιλεὺς Σιδωνίων, a position granted to him by one or other of the first two Ptolemies; see the next note.

28 So Tarn, , Antigonos Gonatas, p. 109Google Scholar. For a full discussion of Philocles's position and an account of the inscriptions relating to him see Holleaux, , REG viii. 1895, 32Google Scholarseq (= Études d'épigraphie, i. 24Google Scholarseq.); Segre, M., Aegyptus xiv. 1934 256seq.Google Scholar

29 Polyb. iv. 15, 8 seq. Ἀχαιοὑς.

30 Cf. Nicolaus, op. cit., pp. 77–8.

31 Polyb. xiii. 5, 1; cf. Walbank, , Philip V of Macedon (Cambridge, 1940), p. 110Google Scholar.

32 Polyb. xiii. 5, 1–3; Polyaen. v. 17 (2); cf. Walbank, op. cit., p. 111.

33 Thus in Ditt. Syll. 3 552, a letter to the people of Abae in Phocis, Philip writes: . Heracleides was probably in Phocis, a position held earlier by Alexander; cf. Polyb. v. 96, 4: . This analogy with Heracleides would still be valid, notwithstanding Olympichus's postulated dual role as dynast and royal officer.

34 In a slightly different form, this point was made by Meyer, op. cit., p. 69, when he pointed out that if Philip had had a στρατηγός in Caria he would have instructed him to tell Olympichus to refrain from attacking Iasus.

35 The phrase is the usual formula for officials attached to kings and dynasts (an interesting proof of Olympichus's dual status—after 201—as dynast and royal official); Laumonier quotes a number of examples of the phrase. It affords no evidence on the length of time Olympichus had been στρατηγός, since it is in his capacity as ‘independent’ ruler tha the possesses an ἐπιστολγραφεῖον.

38 Cf. Meyer, op. cit., p. 70; Walbank, op. cit., p. 129, n. 4., p. 175.

37 Cousin, , BCH xiii. 1889, 23Google Scholarseq. The Olympichus, son of Troilus, on an inscription published by Buckler-Calder, , MAMA vi. 3, no. 4Google Scholar, has nothing at all to do with Olympichus of Alinda (cf. Robert, L., REG iii. 1939, 506, no. 393, 4Google Scholar: the absence of an ethnic proves he is a citizen of Laodiceia), and the somewhat fanciful reconstruction there proposed (viz. an Olympichus gave buildings to Laodiceia (Buckler's inscription); in 197 Laudiceni ex Asia were fighting against Macedon (Livy (P) xxxiii. 18, 3): therefore Olympichus probably deserted Philip and opposed him as well) may be dismissed as without foundation. Cf. Rostovtzeff, op. cit., 1645, n. 230.

38 REG xii. 1899, 32Google Scholar, ‘extremement douteuse’.

39 P-W, s.v. ‘Olympichos,’ col. 185, ‘hat … wohl nichts mit ihm zu tun.’

40 The older custom was for a man to take his grandather's name; but Cousin's inscription is at any rate a useful example of the fact that this was no longer rigidly adhered to, and the two men might well have been father and son.

41 On the date of this see Fine, , AJPh lxi. 1940, 143Google Scholarseq.; Walbank, op. cit., p. 11, n. 4.

42 See, for example, Kolbe, , Gött. Gel. Anz. 1916, pp. 459seq.Google Scholar; Ernst Meyer, op. cit., Nachträge, p. 161; Holleaux, , REA xxv. 1923, 344, n. 8Google Scholar; Rev. Phil. l. 1926, 56, n. 1Google Scholar.

43 That Olympichus may have acted as Doson's governor until the rapprochement with Egypt cannot, as we saw, completely ruled out; but it remains a hypothesis unsupported by any evidence.

44 On this see Droysen, , Gesch. des Hellen.2 (Gotha, 1877), iii. 2, 145–6Google Scholar; Bettingen, , König Antigonos Doson von Makedonien, Diss. Jena, 1912, p. 25Google Scholar; Tarn, , CAH vii. 722Google Scholar. Treve, Athen. xiii. 1935, 37seq.Google Scholar argues that the Carian expedition was directed against Syria (contra Aymard, , REA xxxvi 1936, 266)Google Scholar.

46 There is a strong probability that Doson actually surrendered any conquests he had made in exchange for the cessation of Ptolemaic subsidies to Sparta; cf. Tarn, , CAH vii. 722Google Scholar; Nicolaus, op. cit., pp. 71 seq.; Walbank, op. cit., p. 13, n. 2.

46 Walbank, op. cit., pp. 105 seq.

47 It is noteworthy that Philip's policy (and that of Olympichus) is in marked contrast to that of Doson in 227; for Doson was careful to maintain the friendly neutrality of Rhodes by gifts not only from himself, but also from his wife Chryseis (Polyb. v. 89, 7)—the Jatter being in line with, and perhaps designed to recall previous benefactions of the Epirote royal house (cf. Timachidas, , Lindian Temple Chronicle (ed. Blinkenberg, , Bonn, 1915), xlGoogle Scholar, or dedications by Pyrrhus to Athena of Lindus).

48 Walbank, op. cit., pp. 237 seq. Note too that if Nicoaus, op. cit., p. 77, n. 28, is right, and Olympichus is to be included among the dynasts over whom Antiochus reasserted his control (Polyb. xi. 34, 14; see above, p. 10), it is not impossible that his first contacts with Macedon are to be connected with the Syro-Macedonian pact of 203–2. But this hypothesis is open to the same objections as that ust mentioned above.

49 Just as Philip's support of the Cretans and Dicaearchus was secret; cf. Walbank, op. cit., p. 110.

50 I am indebted throughout the whole of this article to the friendly criticism and suggestions of Dr. Piero Treves.