Contents of JHS 122 (2002)
Articles
Edwin Carawan 'The Athenian amnesty and the scrutiny of the laws'
Bruno Currie 'Euthymos of Locri: A case study in heroization in the Classical period'
Nino Luraghi 'Becoming Messenian'
Ian S. Moyer 'Herodotus and an Egyptian mirage: The genealogies of the Theban priests (Histories 2.143)'
Martha Taylor 'Implicating the demos: A reading of Thucydides on the rise of the Four Hundred'
Martin West ' "Eumelus": A Corinthian epic cycle'
Shorter Contributions
Martin Ostwald 'Athens and Chalkis: A study in imperial control'
Duane W. Roller 'A note on the Berber head in London'
Ione Mylonas Shear 'Mycenaean centaurs at Ugarit'
Abstracts
Edwin Carawan: The Athenian amnesty and the ‘scrutiny of the laws’
The ‘scrutiny of all the laws’ that Andocides invokes in his defence On the Mysteries is usually interpreted as a recodification with the aim of barring prosecution for the crimes of civil conflict. This article advances four theses against that traditional reading: (1) In Andocides’ argument the Scrutiny was designed for a more practicable purpose, not to pardon crimes unpunished but to quash any further action against former atimoi, those penalized under the old regime but restored to rights in 403. In context, coming close upon the summary of Patrocleides’ decree, ‘all the laws’ means all laws affecting atimoi. (2) The other evidence from inscriptions and literary testimony, for the Athenian Amnesty and similar agreements, supports this reading: the oath that closed the covenants, mę mnęsikakein, functions as a rule of estoppel or ‘no reprise’; it was not in itself a pledge of ‘political forgiveness’. In regard to the Scrutiny, as in Patrocleides’ decree, the oath means that old penalties, now cancelled, can never again be enforced. (3) The Scrutiny itself was a reauthorization of the old laws for summary arrest and other standard remedies against atimoi who trespass or violate their restrictions. As a corollary to this re-enactment, the statute of limitations was introduced, ‘to apply the laws from Eucleides’: the rules punishing the disfranchised cannot be used against those whose liabilities were incurred before 403. (4) Teisamenus’ decree for new legislation was prior to this revision; it is not the decree that Andocides read to the court as a document of the Scrutiny. An ancient editor simply inserted the wrong document. Teisamenus envisioned no alteration of the ‘Solonian Code’; the decree for Scrutiny was an unforeseen but necessary correction. These measures were successive reforms sorting out the new hierarchy of rules, a process whose complexity is attested in Diocles’ law.
Bruno Currie: Euthymos of Locri: a case study in heroization in the Classical period
Euthymos was a real person, an Olympic victor from Locri Epizephyrii in the first half of the fifth century bc. Various sources attribute to him extraordinary achievements: he received cult in his own lifetime; he fought with and overcame the ‘Hero of Temesa’, a daimon who in ritual deflowered a virgin in the Italian city of Temesa every year; and he vanished into a local river instead of dying (extant iconography from Locri shows him as a river god receiving cult a century after his death). By taking an integrative approach to Euthymos’ legend and cult iconography, this article proposes a new interpretation of the complex. It is argued that Euthymos received cult already in his lifetime in consequence of his victory over the Hero and that he took over, in a modified form, the Hero’s cult. Various considerations, including the role of river gods as the recipients of brides’ virginity in prenuptial rites, point to an identification of the Hero as a river deity. In this light it is suggested that the contest between Euthymos and the Hero was conceived as a deliberate emulation of Herakles’ fight with Acheloos. The case of Euthymos at Locri, for all its peculiarities, draws our attention to some important aspects of the heroization of historical persons in the Classical period. First, the earliest attested cult of a living person in Greece is to be placed around the middle of the fifth century. Second, heroized persons in the Classical period were not always passive in the process of their heroization, but could actively promote it. And third, a common pattern in the heroization of contemporaries in the Classical period was to accommodate them into existing cults.
Nino Luraghi: Becoming Messenian
The article is an enquiry into the identity of two groups who called themselves Messenians: the Helots and perioikoi who revolted against Sparta after the earthquake in the 460s; and the citizens of the independent polity founded by Epameinondas in 370/69 bc in the Spartan territory west of the Taygetos. Based on the history of the Messenians in Pausanias Book 4, some scholars have thought that those two groups were simply the descendants of the free inhabitants of the region, subdued by the Spartans in the Archaic period and reduced to the condition of Helots. According to these scholars, the Helotized Messenians preserved a sense of their identity and a religious tradition of their own, which re-emerged when they regained freedom. One objection to this thesis is that there is no clear archaeological evidence of regional cohesiveness in the area in the late Dark Ages, while the very concept of Messenia as a unified region extending from the river Neda to the Taygetos does not seem to exist prior to the Spartan conquest. Furthermore, evidence from sanctuaries dating to the Archaic and Early Classical periods shows that Messenia was to a significant extent populated by perioikoi whose material culture, cults and language were thoroughly indistinguishable from those documented in Lakonia. Even the site where Epameinondas later founded the central settlement of the new Messenian polity was apparently occupied since the late seventh century at the latest by a perioikic settlement. Some of these perioikoi participated with the Helots in the revolt after the earthquake, and the suggestion is advanced, based on research on processes of ethnogenesis, that they played a key role in the emergence of the Messenian identity of the rebels. For them, identifying themselves as Messenians was an implicit claim to the land west of the Taygetos; therefore the Spartans consistently refused to consider the rebels Messenians, just as they refused to consider Messenians – that is, descendants of the ‘old Messenians’ – the citizens of Epameinondas’ polity. Interestingly, the Spartan and the Theban-Messenian views on the identity of these people agreed in denying that the ‘old Messenians’ had remained in Messenia as Helots. Messenian ethnicity is explained as the manifestation of the will of perioikoi and Helots living west of the Taygetos to be independent from Sparta. The fact that most Messenian cults attested from the fourth century onwards were typical Spartan cults does not encourage the assumption that there was any continuity in a Messenian tradition going back to the period before the Spartan westward expansion.
Ian S. Moyer: Herodotus and an Egyptian mirage: the genealogies of the Theban priests
This article re-evaluates the significance attributed to Hecataeus’ encounter with the Theban priests described by Herodotus (2.143) by setting it against the evidence of Late Period Egyptian representations of the past. In the first part a critique is offered of various approaches Classicists have taken to this episode and its impact on Greek historiography. Classicists have generally imagined this as an encounter in which the young, dynamic and creative Greeks construct an image of the static, ossified and incredibly old culture of the Egyptians, a move which reveals deeper assumptions in the scholarly discourse on Greeks and ‘other’ cultures in the Mediterranean world. But the civilization that Herodotus confronted in his long excursus on Egypt was not an abstract, eternal Egypt. Rather, it was the Egypt of his own day, at a specific historical moment – a culture with a particular understanding of its own long history. The second part presents evidence of lengthy Late Period priestly genealogies, and more general archaizing tendencies. Remarkable examples survive of the sort of visual genealogy which would have impressed upon the travelling Greek historians the long continuum of the Egyptian past. These include statues with genealogical inscriptions and relief sculptures representing generations of priests succeeding to their fathers’ office. These priestly evocations of a present firmly anchored in the Egyptian past are part of a wider pattern of cultivating links with the historical past in the Late Period of Egyptian history. Thus, it is not simply the marvel of a massive expanse of time which Herodotus encountered in Egypt, but a mediated cultural awareness of that time. The third part of the essay argues that Herodotus used this long human past presented by the Egyptian priests in order to criticize genealogical and mythical representations of the past and develop the notion of an historical past. On the basis of this example, the article concludes by urging a reconsideration of the scholarly paradigm for imagining the encounter between Greeks and ‘others’ in ethnographic discourse in order to recognize the agency of the Egyptian priests, and other non-Greek ‘informants’.
Martin West: ‘Eumelos’: a Corinthian epic cycle?
The author surveys the evidence for the three antiquarian epics commonly ascribed to Eumelos: the Titanomachy, Korinthiaka and Europia. He elucidates and restores details, and endeavours to grasp their poets’ objectives. He argues that they were products of the Corinthian-Sikyonian sphere, and to a degree mutually complementary; that they were composed between the late seventh and the late sixth century, considerably after the supposed lifetime of Eumelos; and that they were perhaps attributed to him for lack of other claimants, he being famous as the Corinthian poet of the Messenians’ treasured Prosodion.
Duane W. Roller: A note on the Berber head in London
The well-known ‘Berber Head’ in the British Museum, found at Kyrene in 1861, has long defied exact stylistic analysis. Its findspot provides no precise date, and ever since the excavators suggested that it was a piece from the fourth century bc, this dating has been sustained, generally through inertia. Yet recent scholars have become increasingly aware of the weakness of this date without offering specific alternatives other than a gradual down-dating. Its North African features indicate that it is a portrait of an indigenous ruler, and thus attribution must be based on the likelihood of such a person being honoured in Kyrene. It is herein suggested that it is a portrait of the Numidian prince Mastanabal, son of Massinissa, and that it dates to the time that Massinissa was a close associate of the king of Kyrene, the future Ptolemaios VIII of Egypt, or 163–148 bc. Mastanabal was a noted athlete and thus the piece may be a commemoration of one of his victories. Its commissioning would fit into his father’s vigorous hellenization policy. Although the style remains difficult of analysis, certain features, especially the beard under the chin, support a second-century bc date.
Ione Mylonas Shear: Mycenaean centaurs at Ugarit
The identification of two Mycenaean terracotta centaurs from the excavations at Ras Shamra-Ugarit suggests a Bronze Age origin for the centaurs known from the historic periods of Greece. The Mycenaean centaurs from Ras Shamra-Ugarit are compared to the later examples from the Greek mainland. No continuous artistic tradition can be identified among the preserved examples. Since writing ceased to be used in Greece in the Iron Age and no artistic trend connecting the different representations of centaurs can be seen, it is suggested here that the concept of centaurs was transmitted by way of the oral tradition.