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Iphicrates the Athenian and the Menestheid family of Miletus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

N. V. Sekunda
N. V. Sekunda
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
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Abstract

The epigraphic record of Miletus records an eminent family using the names Iphicrates, Menestheus, and Zopyros. The name Iphicrates is not common: it is suggested that it passed into the family after a member of it served under the Athenian general Iphicrates, whose second son was called Menestheus. Apollonios son of Menestheus, strategos of Koile Syria and Phoenicia under Seleucus IV, is probably a descendant of this Milesian family.

Type
Articles
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 89 , November 1994 , pp. 303 - 306
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1994

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References

1 B. D. Meritt, Hesp. 7 (1938), 112.

2 Kirchner, PA 7738 = IG ii2 7783.

3 The name comes as an entry in the Delian temple inventory for 364/3 (Inscriptions de Delphes, 104. 28–9), which records that one Iphicrates, without ethnic or patronymic, has made a dedication or two phialai and two choreia (tokens of choregic victory). It seems probable that he had made the dedication only a short time beforehand, and that the choreia were awarded for victories he had secured while performing tribal liturgies as a choregos. Elsewhere in the inventory (114–16), dedications are recorded from Nikias the Athenian, Autokles the Athenian, and Kallias the Athenian, all without patronymics. Presumably Iphicrates' dedication was so recent, and the dedicator so celebrated, it was considered unnecessary to list either ethnic or patronymic.

4 Of the other Iphiktateis listed by LGPN, (1) is a dikast of Andros sent to Adramyttium c.120–100 BC; (3) is from Eretria, the son of one Ἀμφιϰράτης in a late 4th- or early 3rd-cent. BC catalogue of citizens; (4) and (5) are from Samothrace, holders of the eponymous office of basileus in the 1st cent. BC; and (6) is from Tenos, mentioned in a 2nd-cent. BC catalogue of magistrates.

5 e.g. SEG xxx. 551, a Proconnesian mentioned in a 3rd-cent. BC inscription from Amphipolis; IG xii. 9. 1134, an Erythraean mentioned in a 3rd-cent. (?) inscription from Chalcis.

6 Thus in Pella we find the 4th-cent. tombstone of one Lysikrates of Phalanna, son of Ἰφεϰράτης. Lysikrates could have been a mercenary, possibly the grandson of a mercenary who had served under Iphicrates, but this is mere speculation unsupported by any other evidence. (A. Delt. 35 (1980), Chr. 2. 398, pl. 230 d; cf. Μαϰεδονιϰά, 26 (1987–8), 55–6 no. 3.) The name Εὐρύμα underneath can be compared to Εὐρύνα from Trikka, (A. Delt. 20 (1965), Chr. 2. 317).Google Scholar

7 S. M. Burstein, Outpost of Hellenism: The Emergence of Heraclea on the Black Sea (University of California Publications: Classical Studies, 14; 1976), 50; 127 n. 32; M. J. Osborne, Naturalization in Athens, iii–iv (Brussels, 1983), 54–5, no. T 47.

8 Davies, APF 249–51.

9 J. P. Barron, ‘Milesian politics and Athenian propaganda’, JHS 82 (1962), 1–6; cf. ML 43.

10 U. Wilcken, ‘Apollonios (54)’, RE (1895), 123: ‘Ein Makedonier’. This individual is to be distinguished from ‘Apollonios the Mysarch’, an officer during the reign of Antiochus IV: cf. H. Bengtson, Die Strategie in der hellenistischen Zeit, ii (1944), 163 n. 3.

11 F. W. Walbank, A Historical Commentary on Polybius, iii (1979), 481.

12 Ibid. 480–1.

13 Geyer, ‘Meleagros (4)’, RE (1931), 479–80.

14 IG ii2 982. 7, with addenda, p. 670 = M. J. Osborne, Naturalization in Athens, ii (Brussels, 1982), 195, no. D 113.

15 GVI 1286 = Gr. Gr. 175.