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Plataea's relations with Thebes, Sparta and Athens

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

N. G. L. Hammond
Affiliation:
Clare College, Cambridge

Extract

Plataea was an ancient city of ‘Boiotoi’ (Iliad ii 494 and 504; cf. Thuc. iii 61.2). Throughout its chequered history the citizens were always described as ‘Boiotoi’ (e.g. Thuc. iii 54.3; Isoc. Panath. 93; [D.] lix 95; Arr. An. i 8.8; Paus. i 15.3). The citizens were ‘the Plataeans’, whether they were in possession of their city or not. They figured as Πλαταιες on the serpent column of 479/8 (M-L 27, 7), as Πλαταιῆς in the list of Athens' allies in 431 (Thuc. ii 9.4), and as Πλαταιῆς ψιλοί fighting alongside Athenians in 424 BC when their city was in enemy hands (Thuc. iv 67.2 and 5). Although the majority of the Plataeans lived as refugees in Attica between 428 and 382, and again from 373 to 338, they continued to be ‘Plataeans’ and were never described in our sources as Athenians. The ability of the Plataeans to survive as a refugee community was paralleled, for example, by the ability of the Aeginetan refugees between 431 and 405 and the Samian refugees between 366 and 322 (Diod. xviii 18.9) to survive and ultimately to reoccupy their homeland. It was as such a community that ‘the Plataeans’ were brought back ‘from Athens’ to their ruined city in 382 (Paus. ix 1.4.).

Type
Notes
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1992

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References

* This article owes a great deal to the comments of the Editor and his readers on an earlier draft. I am most grateful to them. The following special abbreviations are used: Badian = Badian, E., ‘Plataea between Athens and Sparta’, Boiotika, edd. Beister, H. and Buckler, J. (Munich 1989).Google Scholar Buck = Buck, R.J., A history of Boeotia (Edmonton [Alb.] 1979).Google Scholar Burn = Burn, A.R., Persia and the Greeks (London 1962).Google Scholar Gomme C = Gomme, A.W., A historical commentary on Thucydides (Oxford 19451956).Google Scholar Gomme-Andrewes-Dover C = Gomme, A.W., Andrewes, A. and Dover, K.J., A historical commentary on Thucydides (Oxford 1970).Google Scholar Koumanoudes = Koumanoudes, S.M., AAA xi (1978) 232 ff.Google Scholar Shrimpton = Shrimpton, G.S., ‘When did Plataea join Athens?’, CP lxxix (1984) 295 ff.Google ScholarStudies = Hammond, N. G. L., Studies in Greek history (Oxford 1973).Google Scholar Themeles = Themeles, P.G., AD xxix (1974)Google Scholar μελέται 244. Welwei = Welwei, K. -W., ‘Das sog. Grab der Plataier im Vranatal bei Marathon’, Historia xxviii (1979) 101 ff.Google Scholar Worthington = Worthington, I., ‘Aristophanes' ‘Frogs’ and Arginusae’, Hermes cxvii (1989) 359 ff.Google Scholar I am most grateful to Professor Badian and Dr Worthington for giving me offprints of their articles.

1 Heurtley, J.D.S. Pendlebury, T.C. Skeat and I walked from near the British School of Archaeology to Thebes via Phyle, leaving at midnight and arriving about 6 p.m.

2 Commentators have sometimes expanded the literal meaning; e.g. E. S. Shuckburgh ‘committed themselves to the protection of Athens’. The literal translation is better: ‘Offered themselves to Athens’, as in Burn 178 and Shrimpton 205 and 300.

3 The date which Thucydides provides has been disputed. My reasons for accepting it were stated in Historia iv (1955) 393 f.; so also Buck 112. Shrimpton emends the text of Thucydides to suit his own preferred date, 506; Badian 103 (n. 16) comments on recent views.

4 For the location of Hysiae and Oenoe see Studies 444–6 with fig. 18. I do not understand the geographical aspect of Badian 104.

5 It is impossible to decide whether Plutarch's oracle from Delphi was issued before or after the battle. That it was in circulation when Herodotus collected information in the midfifth century is indicated by his mention of the shrine of Androcrates (ix 25.3). Parke, H. W., A history of the Delphic oracle (Oxford 1939) 189 f.Google Scholar judged it to be ‘certainly historical’ and ‘clearly an original oracle’, issued before the battle.

6 In the context of Plu. Arist. 11.6–8 ‘the land’ which Plataea gave to Athens was the area round the shrine of Androcrates. B. Perrin in the Loeb edition indicated so by translating τὴν χώραν at 11.8 as ‘this territory’. In Plu. Alex. 34.2 the Plataeans were said to have provided τὴν χώραν for the battle, which could mean either the territory on which the battle was fought or all their territory.

7 So Badian 104 has argued that the Plataeans became not military allies but subjects of Athens, reduced to the condition of δουλεία.

8 Badian 104 did not discuss this instance.

9 Jowett, B., Thucydides (Oxford 1881) i 141.Google Scholar He did not comment on the passage in his second volume.

10 Croiset, A., Thucydides livres I-II (Paris 1886)Google Scholar; Arnold, T., Thucydides (Oxford, no date)Google Scholar, citing D.ii 30, where ἀποδίδωμι governs a dative and four infinitives; Shilleto, R., Thucydides II (Cambridge 1880)Google Scholar; Shrimpton 301 ‘restored’; Badian 106 ‘restored’.

11 Bétant, E.-A., Lexicon Thucydideum (Geneva 1893)Google Scholar; Steup, J.Classen, J., Thucydides II (Berlin 1914)Google Scholar; Arnold, see n. 10; Marchant, E.C., Thucydides II (London 1907) 216Google Scholar ‘conceded’ the right; Rhodes, P.J., Thucydides History II (Warminster 1988)Google Scholar, ‘gave back to the Plataeans the right to occupy’. The passage in Thucydides was written with great care, emphasis being given by the juxtaposition of rough consonants (γῆν καὶ πόλιν τήν and τοὺς παρόντας ξυμμάχους) and by hiatus (after ποτέ, δουλεία and μή), and the infinitives were so placed as to provide a chiasmus and then a parallel order. See my article in CQ ii (1952) 129.

12 The suggestion of Badian 104 and 107 that Plataeïs had been made subject to Athens and the Plataeans were in a position of δουλεία and that Plataeans was liberated from Athens by Pausanias in 479, is based in my opinion on a misconception of the meaning of ἀποδίδωμι at Thuc. ii 71.2 and of the feelings of the victors towards each other immediately after their united victory over the Persians.

13 The dates which I give for the Pentekontaetia are those for which I argued in Historia iv (1955) 371 f.

14 My interpretation of this passage was put forward in my chapter in The speeches of Thucydides, ed. Stadter, P. A. (Chapel Hill 1973) 49 f.Google Scholar It is a controversial matter.

15 Gomme C ii 348 makes the point that ὲτιμωρησάμεθα in this context connotes ‘vengeance’ rather than ‘defence’.

16 For the effect of the juxtaposition of rough consonants and hiatus see my article cited in n. 11.

17 Gomme C ii 339 was in two minds about the application of the phrase which, he said, ‘appears to go back to the original alliance’. But ὲν μέντοι τῷ πολέμῳ is decisive in my opinion.

18 Gomme-Andrewes-Dover CF iv 30 emphasised that ‘citizens of another city could be given πολιτεία en masse without losing their original identity’. They seem to make the point as if it was a novelty in 421/0. It happened in the case of Plataea in 431 on my interpretation of the relevant passages in Thucydides.

19 For example, the speech states that the Plataeans fought at Thermopylae and at Salamis, whereas Herodotus did not include them in the list of the Greeks at Thermopylae (vii 202; for they fought at Artemisium, viii 1.1), and he said that they were not at Salamis (viii 44.1). The psephisma cited at 104, which mentioned the allocation of Plataeans to the demes and the tribes, is therefore suspect, especially as the speaker did not later mention this point.

20 The lines have been interpreted otherwise, and most recently by Worthington. He saw ‘two levels of manumission: those who became Plataeans (or like Plataeans) and those who became masters’. But the force of the double καὶ is that they became both things and not one or the other, i.e. both Plataeans and, as we should say, masters instead of servants. Worthington agrees with the communis opinio that the ex-slaves ‘received the same form of civic (i.e. Athenian civic) rights as the Plataeans’. He cites as proponents of this view the editions of Frogs by F. V. Fritsche, T. Kock, J. van Leeuwen, L. B. Stanford, to whom W. W. Merry may be added. But that is not what Aristophanes says. To be a ‘Plataean’ is to be a citizen of Plataea. To be an Athenian with similar rights to those of a Plataean resident at Athens needs to be spelt out in Greek. Aristophanes' argument would have been stronger if he had said ‘Athenians’ at line 687.

21 The scholiast was commenting not on Athenians but on ‘Plataeans’. In the words of the passage cited from Hellanicus αὺτοῖς refers to the Plataeans; there is nothing in the context to suggest that it refers to Athenians.

22 See Gomme C ii 6 n.3.

23 As was supposed, for instance, by Burn 242.

24 So too Welwei 103 ‘Kombattanten’.

25 They were probably stationed in the line between the Plataeans of the left wing and the Athenians of the centre and right wing.

26 The fullest report is in Ath. Mitt, xviii (1893) 46 ff., and there is a summary in Studies 173 f. with fig. 9.

27 For the genuineness of the figure see my article in JHS cix (1989) 56.

28 IG ii2 1006, 26.

29 Pritchett 128 with n. 104 seems to be puzzled by Pausanias walking a couple of kilometres from the Mound of the Athenians to look at the Mound of Plataeans and slaves. I see no alternative, since Pausanias went first—as most of us do—to the Mound of the Athenians. Pausanias must have been a far from feeble walker. For the locations of the Mounds see CAH iv2 (1988) fig. 43 (superseding fig. 10 of Studies). The Mound of the Plataeans was placed near to the prehistoric tumuli of legendary heroes on the route from Plataea to Marathon, and not on anyone's arable land.

30 AAA iii (1970) 164 ff; Ergon 1970 5 ff;

Πρακτικά 1970. 5–28 (the fullest report); see also Mastrokostas in AAA iii (1970) 14 ff.

31 AAA iii 358 fig. 15 and Πρακτικά 1970. Pl. 35.

32 Πρακτικά 1970. 22 μεγάλη πυρὰ ὲκάη εὶς τὴν διαμορφωθεῖσαν ὲπιφάνειαν ύπὲρ τοὺς νεκρούς.

33 Ibid. 20; 22 ή χωματινὴ ὲπιφάνεια τοῦ τύμβου σχεδὸν παντοῦ ἰσχυρῶς κεκαυμένη (the fill of the pits being ἄκαυτα.

34 Ibid. 22 θυσίαι (ἄνθρακες, ὸστᾶ ζώων. Welwei 101 ‘über den Gruben eine deutliche Brandschacht mit den Resten von Opfergaben’. Such sacrifices were common in earlier tumuli (see Studies 3 and 15 for animal bones) and were a feature in the Mound of the Athenians (Ath. Mitt. 1893. 53).

35 The pyre was the central point from which a circle was drawn, and stones were laid to form the periphery or ‘stone circle’ (see Iliad xxiii 256 τορνώσαντο δὲ σῆμα θεμείλιά τε προβάλοντο ἀμφὶ πυρήν). This was done at our Mound; for Marinatos noted the circular low wall (Πρακτικά 1970. 20 with PI. 26b). Here too the pyre was the central point. When a burial was the central point as in many tumuli (see Studies 2 f. and 7 fig. 2 for examples), the other burials were on all sides of it. But in our Mound they were grouped from the centre to the north (see the plan in AAA iii 353 in which A and B are the cremats). Marinatos reported that the southern part had no burials (ibid. 27 πολὺ μέρος τοῦ ὰνασκα–φέντος τμήματος (τὸ πρὸς Νότον) εἶναι κενὸν τάφων).

36 This is still visible. I visited the site in 1971 and many times since then. See Studies 197 n. 2 for my first impressions.

37 For the pottery see AAA iii 361 and iv (1971) 99 ff., where however D. Callipolitis-Feytmans did not comment on the poorquality vase in the pit of Archias. For animal bones see n.34, and for the bones of animals and birds in the Mound of the Athenians see Ath. Mitt, xviii 53 ὸστᾶ ζώων καὶ πτηνῶν (and 55 for animal bones on the offering place outside the Mound).

38 Pritchett (128) argued that the Mound of Plataeans ands slaves was where Leake, following a report by E. D. Clarke, wrote of ‘a heap of earth and stones, not indeed of any considerable height, but having much the appearance of being artificial’ ‘at a very small distance’ from the Mound of the Athenians. No trace of it, whether of sherds or burnt remains, have been seen since early last century. Pritchett then had to explain who were honoured as heroes at the time of the battle in Marinatos' Mound. He supplied ‘some persons of the region … who would have resisted the occupation of their homes’, i.e. in the days before the battle; but such persons would surely have been buried individually at the time in the cemeteries of Marathon which have been found to the south of Marinatos' Mound, i.e. behind the Greek line of battle.

39 For instance, Welwei, Koumanoudes, Themeles and Pritchett.

40 Πρακτικά 1970. 21; the markers were ἀκατέργαστοι. Ergon 1970. 13 προχείρως καὶ ἀδεξίως ὲγκολαφθέν; see AAA iii 359 fig. 16 and AAA iv (1971) 413.

41 The dead were presumably of different racial and cultural backgrounds, and their preferred mode of burial was not uniform.

42 Professor A. J. Graham kindly mentioned this to me when I was discussing with him similar poor graves at Epidamnus (Durrës) in one of which the skeleton still carried the anklechains of slavery. See Graham's, remarks in CAH iii 23 (1982) 99Google Scholar with reference to Buchner, G. in Cahiers du centre Jean Bérard 2 (Naples 1975) 69 ff.Google Scholar

43 By Professor E. Brietinger; see AAA iii 360.

44 Ergon 1970. 13 ὲν τῇ ἀκμῇ τῆς νεότητος; Koumanoudes 235, 20–25 ὲτῶν; Pritchett 127, 20–30; Marinatos in Πρακτικά 1970. 24; about 25. Marinatos ibid. 26 made a comparison with the Spartan Eirenes, men of a young age, who were buried separately from other Spartans at Plataea in 479.

45 Welwei 105 ‘nicht boiotisch (Ψ) sondern attisch (Χ)’. One imagines the name was inscribed by a member of the ex-slave unit.

46 The two cremated ex-slaves had been cremated previously, each within his own pit. The large area of the pyre and the severe burning of the soil can hardly be attributed to the preparation of a sacrificial meal.

47 Notopoulos, A. in AJPh lxii (1941) 352 ff.Google Scholar

48 AAA iii 362. His proposal there to emend ἓτερος to ἓτεροι in Paus. i 32.3 has won no approval.

49 In RE xiv (1950) 2286 ‘als Leute zweiter Klasse’; Badian 104 went further: ‘the Athenians regarded the Plataeans as in some sense δοῦλοι and showed it by burying them with the liberated slaves’.

50 See my account of the campaign in CAH iv2 (1988) 503f.

51 Sparta preferred to use these troops outside Laconia (Thuc. iv 80), and in 421 she settled Helot and Neodamodeis soldiers at Lepreum, as far as possible from Laconia (v 34.1).