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The Battle of Oinoe in the Stoa Poikile: A Problem in Greek Art and History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 October 2013

L. H. Jeffery
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Summary

Accepting the prevailing view which holds that the battle of Oinoe took place during the Pentekontaetea, this paper attempts answers to the triple problem raised thereby: A. The Artistic: is it likely that (as Pausanias alleges) the Stoa Poikile contained among its other paintings, all (so far as we know) scenes from the glorious epic or near-epic past, a picture showing a recent battle against the Lacedaemonians? It is argued that the other pictures usually cited in comparison are not analogous, and the contemporary evidence of Aeschylus and Herodotus is invoked to suggest that more probably the painting showed a mythical subject harmonizing with the rest, although admittedly commemorating a recent campaign (as perhaps the rest did also). B. The Historical: when did this battle take place? It would seem to fit best into Thucydides' narrative of the Pentekontaetea if it is set shortly after the battle of Oinophyta; it could even, perhaps, be included in the exploits of the general Tolmides. C. The Historiographic: why does this battle survive only in the record of Pausanias? Thucydides' silence cannot be satisfactorily explained. But a confusion, perhaps made by Ephoros, in the account of Oinophyta could explain why there is no reference—at least, no direct reference—to Oinoe by any later historian. Pausanias evidently knew it from a bare tradition preserved by successive antiquarian writers, or guides, in their descriptions of the two monuments which commemorated the victory, the painting in Athens and the bronze group at Delphi.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 60 , November 1965 , pp. 41 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1965

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References

1 This is an expanded version of a lecture delivered in May 1963 at the British School of Archaeology at Athens. I am very much indebted to Mr. Russell Meiggs and Professor Martin Robertson, both of whom have read it in draft and greatly improved it in many ways.

2 Fragments of a pier-capital and wall-blocks have been identified virtually with certainty by the American excavators of the Agora; see Thompson, H. A., Hesperia xix (1950) 328Google Scholar and, most recently, the report in AJA lxxxiv (1964) 200 of Miss L. T. Shoe's paper to the Archaeological Institute of America in December 1963. She dates the capital ‘c. 460 B.C.’. See further n. 10 below.

3 In Parthenos and Parthenon (Greece and Rome, suppl. to vol. x (1963)) 44.

4 For all literary references to the Stoa see Wycherley, R. E., The Athenian Agora iii (1957) 30 ff.Google Scholar, nos. 47–98 and notes 1–3 (hereafter abbreviated to ‘W, AA iii’). For ‘Peisianakteion’ see Plut., Cim. 4. 5; Schol. Dem. xx. 112; Harpok. s.v. Βασιλεύς; Isid. Or. viii. 6. 8; and especially D. Laert. vii. 1. 5: and the Suda s.v. (W, AA iii nos. 86, (10), (13), 71 63, 92).

5 IG ii2 1641, 28–30: Cf. also Dem. xlv. 17 (W, AA iii, nos. 97, 61).

6 Cf. Robert, C., Die Marathonschlacht in der Poikile (1895) 45Google Scholar (hereafter abbreviated to ‘Robert (1895)’).

7 Xen. Hell. i. 4, 19; 7, 12 and 16.

8 Cf. the basic article of Gomme, A. W. in AJP (1944) 321 ff.Google Scholar, and Forrest, W. G., CQ (1960) 233 ff.Google Scholar

9 See Jacoby, , Atthis (1949) 219 and 394 f., n. 23Google Scholar; FGH iiiB 328 (Philochoros) F 14–19 and Commentary; Shefton, B. B., Hesperia xxxi (1962) 347 f. and n. 74Google Scholar; Boersma, J.S., BABesch 39 (1964) 103 f.Google Scholar

10 The American authorities (n. 2 above) commented on the pieces of wall-blocks which still contained pinholes and remains of iron pins. It is also thought likely that Polygnotos' paintings in the Knidian Lesche at Delphi were on wooden boards similarly fixed to the walls: see Pouilloux, J., FD ii (1960) 136 f.Google Scholar, who cites for further comparison Roux, G., BCH lxxxvi (1952) 183 f. and fig. 25Google Scholar, on the paintings in the Stoa of Attalos I at Delphi (reference from Professor Robertson). The direct literary evidence for wooden boards is the late writer Synesios, Ep. 135 (W, AA iii, no. 94).

11 For the full literary evidence on these see Overbeck, SQ nos. 1042, 1044–5, 1054–7 1081–4, 1099–1108, and especially Wycherley, op. cit. (n. 4) and Phoenix 1953, 20 ff.

12 As well as the Suppliant Herakleidai there is one reference to a Battle of Salamis (W, AA iii, no. 66) and to Sophokles playing the lyre (W, AA iii, no. 90). On the latter Professor Robertson notes: ‘I don't know what such a picture would be doing dans cette galère, and the evidence is thin. Just to be difficult, though, I note: 1. The alleged picture is connected with the alleged fact that Sophocles played the kithara in the production of his Thamyras; presumably, that is, he took the name-part; and one must surely suppose that the picture, if it existed, showed Thamyras citharoedus as played by Sophocles, rather than Sophocles citharoedus in propria persona. 2. There is a big volute-krater from Spina (Ferrara T 127; ARV 2, 1171, Polion no. 1; Aurigemma, , Scavi di Spina pls. 1–16Google Scholar; Alfieri and Arias, pls. 108–11) which shows Thamyras playing the kithara in his competition against the Muses. The vase is hardly earlier than the last quarter of the century, but looks as though it imitated a Polygnotan painting—echoes of Themistoclean–Kimonian–Periclean work in the later fifth century are not uncommon. At Thamyras' feet in this picture is conspicuous a hare. 3. There was a famous hare by Polygnotos (Overbeck 1065), presumably a detail in or fragment from a large composition. All this adds up to precisely nothing, but amuses me.’

13 For various attempts to reconstruct the positions of the paintings see Harrison, J., Mythology and Monuments (1890) 132 f.Google Scholar; Frazer, , Pausanias ii. 136 f.Google Scholar; Robert (1895) 9 ff.; Judeich, , Top. 2337 n. 4 and 338 n. 1Google Scholar; Wycherley, , AA iiiGoogle Scholar, ad no. 80. The simplest version takes the Sack of Troy and the Battle of the Amazons to be together on the long back wall, and Marathon and Oinoe separate on the two side walls.

14 Pausanias (v. 11. 6) and Pliny, (HN xxxv. 37)Google Scholar state plainly that Panainos, brother of Pheidias, was the painter. The evidence for Mikon is less direct. Lycurgus in his lost speech (Harp. s.v. Μίκων (MSS. Μήκων)) referred to Mikon—that he was fined 50 minae for painting the Greeks (the title of the painting has not survived in the citation; possibly Lycurgus was contrasting the Athenians' treatment of Mikon with that of Polygnotos, to whom they gave citizenship (Harp. s.v. )). That the subject of Mikon's painting was the battle of Marathon seems probable from the rhetorical τόπος proposed by Sopatros (4th cent. A.D.: ) and also from Arrian, (Anab. vii. 13. 10)Google Scholar who, arguing that Amazons may once have existed in the flesh, says that, after all, a battle of Athenians and Amazons was painted by Mikon (MSS. ) no less than one of Athenians and Persians. Aelian, (NA vii. 38)Google Scholar says of the Athenian dog which fought at Marathon that some say his likeness was the work of Mikon, others, of Polygnotos: a division of opinion which has led to the suggestion that (whether or no Polygnotos has replaced Panainos in the tradition) the painting was in fact a joint work (cf. Robert (1895) 3 f.; Wycherley, , AA iii. 45, n. 3Google Scholar). Professor Robertson comments: ‘Panainos has the better authority, but it looks as if there was some doubt. Panainos is called by Pliny, (NH xxxv. 54, 57; xxvi. 177)Google Scholar and Pausanias (v. 11. 6) Pheidias’ brother, but by Strabo (viii. p. 354) his nephew (which perhaps has some weight as more likely to be corrupted to brother than vice versa?). Pliny dates him in the 83rd Olympiad, and all we actually know of his work is later still: collaboration with Pheidias on the Zeus at Olympia, now I think proved later than the Parthenos; and collaboration with Kolotes (a pupil of Pheidias who worked on the Zeus too) on a statue of Athena in a temple at Elis (Overbeck, , SQ 1096, 844, 846Google Scholar); and perhaps also wall-paintings in the same temple (op. cit. 1097)—all presumably subsequent to, or at any rate not earlier than, the work at Olympia. He may have been active in Kimonian Athens, but I can't help wondering whether the picture wasn't begun by Mikon, interrupted (? by Kimon's exile), and later finished by Panainos. (There is the odd reference in Aeschines (In Ctes. 186) about Miltiades' name not being written beside him, although he was shown in the foreground and other names evidently were inscribed.)’

15 Cf. Mlle. Bovon's comprehensive list of Greek vases showing Persians c. 480–450 B.C. (BCH (1963) 579 ff.), especially her figs. 14–15 for the frontal muffled faces (skyphos Berlin 3156, and frr. Coll. Campana, Florence); she refers also to the RF rhyton BM E791 (c. 440 B.C.: CVA GB 5 (= BM 4), p. 8 and pls. 37 and 38, 4, 6a–b), which shows clearly a Persian face both muffled and distraught.

16 The view that Herodotus' description of the battle owed something to the painting was rejected by Macan, Herodotus App. x, sect. 8, 229 f. Stein5 (1894) 210 (on chs. 113–14) notes without comment: ‘alle diese Momente der Schlacht waren in einem Gemälde der zu Athen dargestellt’. How and Wells2 App. xviii, sect. 1, while noting that in the main the painting agreed with Herodotus' account, emphasize the chief variations: Herodotus has not the significant detail of the marsh, nor all the divine watchers. Specific references to the painting by later authors which record details in it that occur also in Herodotus' account are: (Dem.) lix. 94 (arrival of the Plataians); Aischines iii. 86, Nepos, , Milt. 6Google Scholar, Paus. i. 15, Arist. xlvi. 174 and schol. (Miltiades in the foreground); [Plut.] Par. 1, Paus. i. 15, Himer. Orat. ii. 70 (death of Kallimachos: I include Plutarch here, although the painting is not specifically mentioned, because the description must have got its detail from some other source than Herodotus: [Plut.] Par. 1, Lucian, , Jup. Trag. 32Google Scholar, Paus. loc. cit. (Kynegeiros at the ships); [Plut.] loc. cit., Plut., De glor. Ath. 3, D. Laert. i. 2. 56, Aelian, , NA vii. 38Google Scholar (Epizelos/Polyzelos blinded).

17 Cf. Robert, , Die Iliupersis des Polygnot (1893)Google Scholar, with a discussion of earlier views. Professor Rob etson comments: ‘Probably smaller than the one at Delphi, perhaps only showing the enquiry into Ajax’ assault on Cassandra, with the Greek chiefs and the captive Trojan women. (It was in the Ajax part of the Delphi picture that Akamas, son of Theseus, was shown, with Polypoites, son of Peirithoos.) Episodes from the sack were also shown at Athens in the north metopes of the Parthenon (Menelaus and Helen is certain); and there were pictures by Polygnotus with scenes from the Trojan cycle in the Propylaea (Paus. i. 22. 6)—Odysseus and Philoktetes, Diomede and the Palladion, Orestes and Aegisthus, the sacrifice of Polyxena, Achilles on Skyros, Odysseus and Nausikaa. Dinsmoor has argued convincingly that these were panels painted for some Kimonian Propylaea, and that Mnesikles' pinakotheke was designed to preserve them. Skyros has Kimonian overtones, but there's nothing Athenian about any of the subjects, and I don't think one can necessarily demand patriotic or propagandist references here, such as you suggest for the Poikile.’

18 Menestheus may have been shown among the kings present at the altar to witness Ajax' oath (none of the kings' names is given by Pausanias for this scene in either picture). Theseus' sons Akamas and Demophon were shown in the Delphic version, so surely in the Athenian too. Laodike, who had a child by Akamas (or Demophon: Plut. Thes. 34), was certainly shown in both versions; for her child's name Mounitos see Jacoby, in FGH iii. 391Google Scholar F4 and 323a F5.

19 Aisch. iii. 183–5 and Plut. Cim. 7. 4–6: (3) (1) (2) I follow here Jacoby, , Hesperia xiv (1945) 185 ffGoogle Scholar. (supported by Meritt in The Aegean and the Near East (Studies presented to Hetty Goldman (1957) 273 f.)) in holding that Aischines was right in saying that the three verses on the three herms all commemorated the Eion campaign, but that the correct order of the three, judged by the opening lines, should run no. 3, no. 1, no. 2. Cf. Friedlaender, , St. Fil. xv (1938) 102 ff.Google Scholar and Gomme, , Thucydides i. 281 and 288 n. 1.Google Scholar

20 Thucydides (i. 98, 1), Ephoros (FGH 70, F191), and Plutarch (Cim. 7–8) all set Skyros directly after Eion, and Plutarch dates the fall of Skyros to Phaidon's archonship, 476/5 (Thes. 36. 1), to which year the Scholiast on Aisch. ii. 31 dates the final destruction of Eion. For the dates here given see ATL iii. 159 ff.

21 Cf. IG i2. 928, the casualty-list which commemorates some northern campaigning; the surviving headings include (l. 74) and (ll. 32, 99). Kimon's clearance of the Chersonese (Plut. Cim. 14) has been connected with this list, also the disaster at Drabeskos. For possible examples of literary justification dating from the aftermath, cf. Aeschylus, Eumen. (458) 397 ff. (Athena, hot from the plain of the Skamandros, says that the Achaean leaders gave it for ever as an inheritance to the offspring of Theseus) and the poet of the Persis (Schol. Eurip. Troad. 31): On these see Jacoby, notes to his commentary on FGH 323a (Hellanikos) F 20–21, and Dover, K. J., JHS lxxvii (1957) 237Google Scholar (a note of warning).

22 On the legend see Jacoby, commentaries on FGH 323 (Kleidemos) F 18 and 328 (Philochoros) F 110. Jacoby holds that the story of the rape was created later than that of the siege, being invented to account for the latter; but he does not suggest any particular political motive to account for the Athenians' inclusion of this story of an Amazonian siege among the other items of their epic past.

23 See von Bothmer, D., Amazons in Greek Art (1957) 161 ff.Google Scholar

24 Professor Robertson rightly reminds me that these ascriptions are not certain: ‘There was certainly a famous Amazonomachy by Mikon in Athens with Amazons on horseback, as the reference in Aristophanes (W, AA iii, no. 56) shows; and the reference in Arrian (W, AA iii, no. 59) makes it extremely probable that the one in the Stoa was his. It is also likely that the one in the Theseion was his, since the only picture there which has an ascription (Theseus at the bottom of the sea) is given to him; but it is nowhere clearly stated of either of them.’ See further n. 14.

25 Ferrara T 411 (Beazley, , AJA xxxiii (1929) 366Google Scholar and ARV 2 1029; von Bothmer, op. cit. 198, no. 132 and p. 200).

26 Pherekydes included it in his Genealogiai (FGH 3 F 84); Aeschylus wrote a Herakleidai (year unknown); and Herodotus refers to it as one of the past great deeds of the Athenians (see below, p. 51). Thucydides referred to the story with no mention of any Athenian part in it (i. 9. 2); in this he may be following Hellanikos (FGH 4 F 155, 157).

27 Thuc. i. 102; Ar. Lys. 1137 f.; Plut. Cim. 16. 7.

28 See W, AA iii, no. 58. There are five attempts in all: (1) P. was a painter who painted the Suppliant Herakleidai. (2) P. was a painter, or, according to some, a tragic poet. (3) Kallistratos and Euphorion say that P. was a tragic poet; but the name is not found in the lists before this date. The careful records are uncertain—poet or the painter Apelles' master? (4) P. was a tragic poet; he represented ( n.b.) the Suppliant Herakleidai. (5) P. was a painter, who depicted the Suppliant Herakleidai

29 For this reason an ancient anecdote sometimes ascribed by modern scholars to the battle of Oinoe should not, strictly speaking, apply to that battle; see [Plut.] Apophth. Lac. 232e and Judeich, Topographie 2337 f.Google Scholar, n. 5; W, AA iii. 44 on no. 94.

30 Robert (1895) 12, n. 13, compared the ranks on the Chigi Vase.

31 See Meyer, Ernst, RE s.v. Oinoe (1937) 2237 fGoogle Scholar. The site has been tentatively located below the modern village of Mazi on the north bank of the Xerias (Charadros), where the bank widens and a tributary joins the Xerias, with traces of an ancient bridge across it.

32 For this view see Judeich, , Topographie 1301AGoogle Scholar (rejected decisively in the second edition, 337 n. 5).

33 As well as the Seven Champions, there was a Wooden Horse for the Argive victory against the Lacedaemonians in 414 (Paus. x. 9. 12; Thuc. vi. 95), the hemicycle of the ancient Argive kings, dedicated after Leuktra (Paus. x. 10. 5), and the hemicycle of Epigonoi, which Pausanias thought to be part of the offering after Oinoe (evidently his source gave no information on this dedication). For the three Argive inscriptions found separately see n. 35 below.

34 See Homolle, , BCH xxi (1897) 400 f.Google Scholar, Bourguet, , FD iii. 1. 41 ff.Google Scholar and especially the recent, thorough study of the base- foundations in the area in Pouilloux and Roux, Roux, , Énigmes à Delphes (1963) 46 ff.Google Scholar

35 See Homolle, op. cit. The three fragments were found (1) ‘sous la maison de l'école’, (2) ‘dans un mur parallèle à l'Hellénion, en face de l'ex-voto d'Ægos Potamoi’, (3) ‘dans les constructions byzantins en contrebas de l'enceinte’. Cf. Bourguet, 54 ff. Blocks from two other Argive dedicatory inscriptions survive, one inscription also of the fifth century but later in style, the other uncertain as between the fifth and fourth centuries (the block itself shows re-use). For these see Jeffery, , LSAG (1961) 167 ff.Google Scholar, nos. 47–48; Pouilloux–Roux, op. cit., 60 ff. maintain that for structural reasons neither of these could belong to the Wooden Horse. They suggest (p. 64) that 48 might possibly be from the base of the Seven, and might possibly belong to 47, but doubt whether 47 is necessarily Argive (but what then of its Argive lambda?).

36 See Jeffery, op. cit. 163 f. Bulle attributed it to the Seven (Klio (1908) 201 ff. For the attribution to the Epigonoi see Karo, G., BCH xxxiv (1910) 196 ff.Google Scholar; Bourguet, op. cit., but with a caution (56, n. 1); Forrest, , CQ 1960, 227.Google Scholar

37 For these sculptors see Overbeck, , SQ nos. 389–99 (Ageladas)Google Scholar, 401–2 (Glaukos and Dionysios), 978 (Asopodoros?), 1019 (Dorotheos), also LSAG 169 f., nos. 19, 24, 34–35.

38 See further n. 42 for the play. The excavations of ProfessorMylonas, G. E. at Eleusis, (PAE 1953 (1956) 81 ff.)Google Scholar uncovered about 6–7 MH and one LH tomb, which had been carefully walled off at the west side of a later cemetery which appeared, from the sherds, to have been started in the Late Geometric period, and to have lasted into the fifth century. The supplication of Adrastos may also have been a subject for wall-paintings at about this time: see DrSimon, E. in AJA lxvii (1963) 54 ff.Google Scholar, pl. 10, 5–6; she interprets the suppliant scene on the volute-krater from Spina Ferrara T 579 (ARVi2. 612: showing on one side the Seven against Thebes) as Adrastos with the Epigonoi and the ghosts of the dead Seven. This reference was given to me by Professor H. A. Thompson and, independently, by Professor Robertson, who notes that it ‘is obviously imitated from wall-painting’.

39 Schafer, A. (Hist. Aufs. 43 f., 57 f. = AAnz 1862, 371 ff.)Google Scholar also suggested that the picture showed a mythical subject, but believed it to be a fourth-century painting showing the Athenians supporting the Herakleidai against Eurystheus; this theory was refuted by Wachsmuth, C., Die Stadt Athen ii. 518 ff.Google Scholar and Robert (1895) 7.

40 So Robert, op. cit. 43.

41 Another small point may perhaps favour the theory that the painting showed the mythical Athenian aid to Argos. In Aeschylus' Eleusinioi the two sides did not actually engage, because Theseus made a truce (Plut. Thes. 29, 4–5). In the later version (Euripides, Hiketides) they did fight. The picture, according to Pausanias, showed the armies about to engage, but not fighting—pointless for the real battle of Oinoe, but relevant for the mid-fifth-century version of the Athenian march on Thebes.

42 Hauvette, (Mél. Weil (1898) 159 ff.)Google Scholar set it c. 475–470; Wilamowitz, (Aischylos: Interpretationen (1914) 241 n. 1)Google Scholar accepted Hauvette's general line of argument, but without committing himself to a precise date. Jacoby (FGH 328 F 112, with commentary) also agreed with the inferences of Hauvette, but corrected their chronological setting to the more likely one of 465/4.

43 Zuntz, , The Political Plays of Aeschylus (1955) 56 ff.Google Scholar

44 Jacoby, loc. cit.

45 Or should one say ‘the loyal party in Tegea’? 1,500 hoplites seems a small number to be put in the field as the full muster from the most powerful state in Arkadia; contrast 3,000 each from the maritime states Sikyon and Megara. For the undoubted Tegeate disaffection and defection from the Peloponnesian League before and after Plataia see Andrewes, A., Phoenix 1952, 1 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Forrest, , CQ 1960, 220 ff.Google Scholar

46 (1) Lysias ii (Epitaphios, ?386 B.C.) 4–53: the Amazons, the Seven, the Herakleidai, Marathon, Salamis, Plataia, and later triumphs of the fifth century. (2) Isokrates iv (Panegyrikos, 380) 54–58, 65, 68–74: the Herakleidai, the Seven, the Thracians with Eumolpos, the Amazons, the Persian War; and xii (Panathenaikos, 339) 169–74, 190–5: the Seven, the Persian War, the Delian League wars, the Thracians with Eumolpos, the Amazons, the Herakleidai, Marathon. (3) (Pseudo?-)Plato, Menexenos (?386) 2391–241e: Eumolpos, the Amazons, the Seven, the Herakleidai, Marathon. (4) [Dem.] lx (Epitaphios, of 338) 7–11: the Amazons, Eumolpos, the Herakleidai, the Seven, the Persian War. The fragmentary Epitaphios by Gorgias contains only the peroration; that by Hypereides (323) contains no list; cf. Colin, , Hyperide (ed. Budé, , 1946) 282 f.Google Scholar

47 Cf. Hauvette, op. cit. for previous theories and Jacoby, , JHS lxiv (1944) 38Google Scholar, n. 9. Meyer, E. (Forsch. ii. 220, n. 2)Google Scholar suggested that Herodotus might have got not only the famous metaphor for Gelon's speech, but also this list of past glories, from Perikles' funeral speech for the dead of the Samian War.

48 Cf. Meyer, loc. cit., who observes that the epigrams on the Herms, the three Stoa pictures (Troy, the Amazons, Marathon), the tragedians, and the funeral speeches may all have combined to popularize the Attic saga of Theseus; but he does not suggest which one of these agents first inspired or influenced the others.

49 Opening manoeuvres by Thessalian diplomats may be hinted at in Kimon's remark, if authentic, in Plut. Cim. 14. 3: that he himself was not a proxenos of wealthy peoples like the Ionians or the Thessalians—as others were, so that they could receive flattery and money The prime mover of the alliance may have been Orestes, probably the ruling Aleuad of the time; opposition from the other leading families then caused the treachery at Tanagra, and Orestes lost his position thereafter (Thuc. i. 111. 1); see Morrison, J. S., CQ 1942, 60 ff.Google Scholar, and Daux, G., BCH lxxxi (1958) 329 ff., pl. 23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

50 I do not propose to offer positive dates for these actions. The siege of Mycenae (D. Sic. xi. 65: ‘468/7’) is specifically linked by Diodoros with the time of the earth quake and the Helot Revolt, and by Strabo (377) with Tegea's anti-Spartan period; but the Argive-Tegeate alliance had ceased by the date of the battle of Dipaia (Hdt. ix. 35. 2), a battle also associated, by inference, with the time of the earthquake and Revolt (Isokr. vi 99). The case of Tiryns has a special complication; see n. 55 below. For Hysiai and Midea there are no clear date-links (Paus. viii. 27. 1); Orneai was certainly reduced in 416 (Thuc. vi. 7; see, in general, Gschnitzer, , Zetemata xvii (1958) 68 ff.Google Scholar and W. G. Forrest, op. cit. 224).

It is possible that at this time Argos may also have inflicted a defeat on Corinth's neighbour Phlius; cf. the inscription, in lettering which resembles Argive and suggests the 460's, on a paragnathis probably from Olympia (Robert, L., Coll. Froehner (1936) no. 30, pl. 32Google Scholar; LSAG 146, n. 1). Nor should we forget that Corinth on her side had been taking aggressive action during the (late?) 460's; she engaged in an active bout of the perennial antagonism with Megara (Thuc. i. 103. 4), and attacked Argos' satellite Kleonai (Plut. Cim. 17, 2).

51 Robert, C. (Hermes 1890, 412, n. 35, and 1900, 144; 1895, 5 ff.)Google Scholar set Oinoe before Tanagra, in 460 or 459. Beloch, (GG ii. i2. 165)Google Scholar agreed with a date c. 460. Meyer, E. (GdA iv 3 (1939) 554 f. and notes)Google Scholar down-dated the attack on Mycenae (as Kolbe, below), and connected it with Oinoe, calling this battle the first action of the new symmachia. Kolbe, (Hermes 1937, 254 ff.)Google Scholar down-dated the attack on Mycenae to the year of the symmachia (462/1), and connected Oinoe tentatively with this; he held that at least the battle must be set before 459, for after this Athens' other victories would have swamped its importance (and hence it would not have been commemorated in the Stoa?). Berve, H. (GG i 2 (1951) 287)Google Scholar likewise dated Oinoe closely after the formation of the alliance, and Gomme, (Commentary, i. 370, n. 1)Google Scholar also appears to be following this early date. Ernst Meyer (RE s.v. Oinoe (1937)) was non-committal: ‘um 460, oder einige Jahre später’.

52 It is unlikely that Argive hoplites would be concerned in Athens' naval engagements off Kekryphaleia and Aigina (Thuc. i. 105. 2).

53 I have not discussed the possibility that the Athenian troops which fought at Oinoe were part of Kimon's troops returning from Ithome. This hypothesis would avoid the problem of transport; but I doubt if the timing is possible. It would imply that the news of the Athenian discomfiture at Ithome was relayed back to Athens ahead of the troops—far enough ahead for Athenian diplomats to sign the symmachia with Argos and empower those leading the troops to deviate and enter Argive territory. More seriously, it would also mean (if Thucydides' order of events in cc. 102–103 is right) that Sparta had sent a force via Mantinea to attack Argos before she herself was clear of the Revolt. Thucydides himself believed that the troops returned before the alliance was formed

54 See Oliver, J. H., Hesperia ii (1933) 494 ff.Google Scholar, no. 12. Russell Meiggs informs me that the lettering should belong to the late 450's; the agreement cannot, therefore, be connected with any preliminaries for the Halieis landing.

55 Herodotus tells us (vi. 83) that the Argive ‘douloi’ (for whose identity see the excellent arguments of Forrest, op. cit.), when ejected from Argos after their tenure of power, does this imply that they evicted the Tirynthians proper, or settled in among them?—and that later the Argives fought and with difficulty defeated the ‘douloi’; also (vii. 137. 2) that Halieis at some date before 430 belonged to people when she was captured in a Spartan commando raid; were these the original Tirynthians, ejected by the ‘douloi’, or the ‘douloi’ (with or without the original Tirynthians—if without, where had the latter gone?) when defeated by Argos? Stephanos, quoting Ephoros (F 56) s.v. describes the people only as Tirynthioi, and a corrupt passage in Strabo (373) may imply the same unawareness of any admixture; Pausanias in several passages (ii. 17. 5; 28. 5; v. 23. 3; viii. 27. 1) says that the Argives drove out the people of Tiryns, and other perioikic cities; but do his vague statements refer in fact to the first seizure, by the ‘douloi’, or to the second, by their successors at Argos? For various interpretations see Seymour, , JHS xlii (1922) 24 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bölte, RE s.v. Halieis; Forrest, op. cit. 224, nn. 6–7. It is to be hoped that Professor Jamieson's excavations on the site of Halieis will finally solve the problem.

56 On this see ATL iii. 173.

57 The date is that suggested in ATL, loc. cit. This would explain well the praise (anticipatory?) of Argos as a fighting ally emphasized in Aeschylus' Oresteia, produced in 458 (Eum. 292, 667, 762 ff.); cf. Dover, K.J., JHS lxxvii (1957) 235 f.Google Scholar

58 Reece, D. W. (JHS lxx (1950) 75 f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar) has suggested that the Lacedaemonians in fact shifted far fewer than 11,500 from the Peloponnese (c. 6,500 all told?). His thesis is that Thucydides was right in saying that the Spartans came into central Greece simply to help Doris: that, in any case, they could not have sent a large force, since they were, he thinks, still embroiled with the Messenians (further on this cf. Reece, , JHS lxxxii (1962) 111 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar); and that the other c. 5,000 were Boeotian troops which they picked up in Boeotia when, in the course of their return via Boeotia, they restored the power of Thebes. It is true that we can only make sense of the large number 11,500 in Thucydides' text by inferring that the Spartans were not moving only against Phokis, but expecting to proceed onwards to some action in Boeotia; and nobody likes to accuse Thucydides of not seeing the strategic reason for a military movement, or of being misled about it by a Spartan informant. Yet it is hard too to believe that he knew that there were Boeotian troops aiding the Lacedaemonians at Tanagra (as Reece posits, from his use of in 108. 1 ), and yet wrongly ascribed the big total number to the original force from the Peloponnese. It is common ground for both views that there was trouble in Boeotia at the time, since Thebes had lost her grip on the Boeotian League (D. Sic. xi. 81). B. Fowler argues persuasively (Phoenix 1957, 164 ff.) that Tanagra, though still an oligarchy, headed an anti-Theban party, which the Athenians supported (Ps. Xen. AP iii. 10–11)—hence the Athenians' fast move up to Tanagra (for which Thucydides (107. 5) used the verb ). Clearly the situation was complicated by the inevitable factions. Was Athens' oligarchic element in touch with Thebes, as it was with the Spartans (107. 5)? Could the Athenians have sought out and defeated the Boeotian army at Theban Oinophyta only two months after heavy losses at Tanagra, unless they had some pro-Athenian collaborators in Thebes? For Thebes was not taken by Myronides after his victory (D. Sic. xi. 83. 1), yet became a democracy for a short time thereafter (Ar. Pol. 1302b).

It is also common to both hypotheses that Boeotian troops fought at Tanagra. The Platonic Alcib. i (112c) may not rate high as evidence; but Pausanias' account (i. 29. 6) of the stele in the Kerameikos to the two knights Makartatos and Melanopos reads like a paraphrase of the actual epitaph and though the fragment found (Meritt, , Hesperia xvi (1947) 147 f., pl. 23CrossRefGoogle Scholar) is in Ionic letters, the sloping nu and omega with struts not yet horizontal seem to me to support a mid-fifth-century date (cf. JHS lxxviii (1958) 145).

59 The view that by ‘Oinoe’ Pausanias actually meant the battle of Oinophyta is now, I think, finally scotched; see Judeich, , Topog. 2337 f.Google Scholar, n. 5. Even if my hypothesis above is right—that Argive troops were present at Oinophyta in support of the Athenians, and got a ready-made offering thence (n. 60 below)—the whole tenor of the Argive offering for Oinoe at Delphi, according to Pausanias' report of it, stressed that this was an Argive battle, supported by Athenian ἐπίκουποι. The decisive point against the view is, of course, that no Lacedaemonians fought at Oinophyta.

60 Cf. also Paus. vi. 19. 6 (= Overbeck SQ no. 1041). The Epizephyrian Lokrians dedicated at Olympia a boxwood Apollo with a gilt head; the sculptor was Patrokles son of Katillos, of Kroton. Lokroi and Kroton were perennially hostile, and it seems unlikely in any case that the Lokrians would commission an Apollo to offer to Olympian Zeus; but Kroton had a cult of Apollo Pythios (see HN 2 96 f. for the fifth-century coinage showing Apollo, the Python, and the tripod, and Richter, , Sculpture and Sculptors 3202 f.Google Scholar). Professor Robertson notes that a sculptural group of the Seven might have been set up by the Thebans, if indeed they claimed that the graves were in Thebes (n. 44 above); this would add point to an Argive theft when opportunity offered.

61 Cf. ATL iii. 171.

62 The view that Oinoe came after Tanagra was held by Busolt, (GG iii. 322 f.)Google Scholar. He suggested that after Oinophyta Aigina gave in in winter 457/6; the Long Walls were finished; in 456, Athens being now impregnable, the Lacedaemonians busied themselves in the Peloponnese against Argos, and Oinoe was fought. Probably now also, since Aigina had fallen, the Athenians took Troizen: i.e., Thucydides has at least two gaps for the year 456 (323 f., n. 3). Then in spring 455 Tolmides made his periplus.

63 For Athens, perhaps the most likely-sounding candidate is Kallikrates/Menekles (FGH 370; for the identity see Jacoby ad loc), cf. especially F2, a direct reference to the Stoa.