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Phocians in Sicily: Thucydides 6.2

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Kent J. Rigsby
Kent J. Rigsby
Affiliation:
Duke University, North Carolina
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Extract

In the course of his ethnography of Sicily, Thucydides gives this account of the settlement of Eryx and Egesta in the west of the island (6.2.3): Upon the fall of Troy, some of the Trojans, fleeing the Achaeans by ship, came to Sicily and settled as neighbours to the Sicans; as a group they were called Elymi, while their cities were called Eryx and Egesta. There joined with them in the settlement also some Phocians who were carried from Troy on the same occasion first to Africa by a storm, later from there to Sicily.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , December 1987 , pp. 332 - 335
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1987

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References

1 Recent comments are F., Schober, ‘Phokis’, RE 20 (1941), 481; F. Zucker, Würzb. Jahrb. 4 (1949/50), 335–8;Google ScholarR. Van, Compernolle, Phoibos 5 (1950/1), 200–1;Google ScholarG.K., Galinsky, Aeneas, Sicily, and Rome (Princeton, 1969), 78, 90–3, 98–9, 113–14;Google ScholarDover, in Gomme, , Andrewes, , Dover, , Historical Commentary on Thucydides IV (Oxford, 1970), 212. Galinsky (p. 99) surmises that the Phocians felt that Sicans ‘could not be entirely trusted’ and preferred to live with the barbarians with whom they were familiar – Trojans.Google Scholar

2 Only William Ridgeway (infra) seems to have noted and exploited the resemblance. The resemblance is the more striking when compared with the far more diverse accounts that Dionysius of Halicarnassus was able to read (Ant. Rom. 1.49–53).

3 The burning of the ships at Eryx, however, suggests an account that had the voyage end here: see most recently F., Solmsen, HSCP 90 (1986), 106–7.Google Scholar

4 CR 2 (1888), 180. This was dismissed by Steup in Classen and Steup, Thukydides VI (Berlin, 1905), 5 (repeated in C. F. Smith [Boston, 1913]): ‘from the whole context it is clear that only Hellenes returning from Troy are in mind’. Steup was nodding: there is no other mention here of Hellenes returning from Troy, only of the defeated leaving Troy upon its capture. Ridgeway's emendation is noted without comment in the editions of Spratt (1905), Hude (BT: 1911), Marchant (1914), and Jacoby (FGrHist 511 F 9: 1950). Already at the start of the nineteenth century Dobree, surprised that Greeks would join with barbarians, thought the word might be corrupt: P.P., Dobree, Adversaria(Berlin, 1874), 63.Google Scholar

5 Thus not only their inclusion in 6.2, but Nicias' at 6.11 and the list at 7.57. One might answer that by the fifth century men may have considered that the early Phocian population at Egesta had been long subsumed under the barbarian (so both Steup and de Romilly, ad 6.2, justify the mention of Greek Phocians in this chapter). But the crucial point is that Thucydides classifies as barbarians not only Egestaeans but also his ‘Phocians’.

6 Ridgeway gives (accusative) as the toponym ; in fact the authorities vary between (EFG: Arnold, Hude, Smith, de Romilly) and (AB: Bekker, Goeller, Boehme, Herwerden, Poppo, Fowler, Graves, Jones). Gomme (Commentary, iii.634) remarked, ‘Presumably there had been some special friendships with Ionian Phokaia which caused the name to be given to this quarter’ of Leontini (similarly Fowler). This is a puzzle in its own right, whatever the reading.

7 Acestes' story is cited from Dion. Hal. 1.52, cf. 47.2 and 63.2 (he left Troy at once, whereas Aeneas first lingered in the Troad and then followed a wandering course).

8

9 Important recent discussions are T.J., Cornell, PCPhS n.s. 21 (1975), 1–32;Google ScholarA., Momigliano, Settimo contribulo (Rome, 1984), 437–62; Solmsen, pp. 93–110; and those of N. Horsfall (infra).Google Scholar

10 For arguments that the western migration cannot be shown to have been in Stesichorus (the Tabulae: PMG 205, FGrHist 840 F 6b) or Hellanicus (FGrHist 4 F 84, cf. F 31 [Dion. Hal. 1.72, 45–8]) see N., Horsfall, JHS 99 (1979), 26–48, and CQ n.s. 29 (1979), 372–90. Sophocles had written of the sons of Antenor after the fall of Troy (pp. 160f. Radt: from Strab. 608), who became the Veneti; but what follows in Strabo, versions of the flight of Aeneas, cannot, given the contradictions, also derive from Sophocles.Google Scholar

11 F 79 b 3; cf. Dover, p. 200. Contrast the version of Apollodorus that combined Troy and Italy: Trojan Acestes went first to Croton with Philoctetes but was sent on by him to Sicily and Egesta: Strab. 6.1.3. (254) (═ FGrHist 244 F 167), 6.2.5 (272); this surely is what Pausanias has in mind with his group of Trojans who passed through Italy.

12 So already Ridgeway; see Dover, pp. 198–210, for references and discussion.

13 Compare Solmsen, p. 97 n. 11, ‘Items of this kind probably reflect widely held views and need not go back to Antiochus of Syracuse.’

14 The equation of terms was much discussed: see Dion. Hal. 1.29.1; Strab. 12.4.4–5 (564), 14.3.3 (665: especially the tragedians confused the words); Eustath. ad II. 2.862 (I 574 Valk: Homer's distinction was the ancient usage, whereas later poets like Aeschylus equated them). Note incidentally the story that Aeneas survived the fall of Troy because he was at the time campaigning in Phrygia (Dion. Hal. 1.48.4).

15 Fr. 373 Radt (from Dion. Hal. 1.48.2); there is no indication where Sophocles thought the colony was to be.

16 Dion. Hal. 1.53.4; cf. Agathocles, FGrHist All F 5 (reported in Latin: Aeneas is buried at Berecynthia, Phrygians are to rule Italy). In Hellanicus, by contrast, Ascanius remained in the Troad, while Aeneas departed with his other sons (F 31, from Dion. Hal. 1.47.5–6); at 1.54.2 Dionysius has Ascanius ruling in Phrygia, consistent with Phrygian Ascanius of II. 2.862.