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Athens' First Intervention in Sicily: Thucydides and the Sicilian Tradition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Brian Bosworth
Brian Bosworth
Affiliation:
University of Western Australia
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Extract

The first Athenian intervention in Sicily is one of the most opaque episodes in Thucydides. The historian for once dispenses with a full record and confines himself explicitly to the major events of the campaign. What then emerges is a disconnected narrative of geographically separate actions, most of them trivial. There is no attempt to give a synoptic picture or explain the problems of strategy, and the lack of coordination has (not surprisingly) impressed many critics. The episode is remarkable for another reason. For once we have that rarest of rare birds, an independent control source for Thucydides. Since 1930 there has been available a brief fragment of papyrus, usually ascribed to Philistus, which provides an extraordinarily detailed, if fragmentary, report of a portion of the campaign. The fragment has become a standard reference, and it is reported, not always accurately, in the more recent scholarship on the Peloponnesian War. But there has been little attempt to come to terms with the historiographical problem it poses. Not only does the fragment give a large amount of detail which has no counterpart in Thucydides, but its narrative, as it is usually interpreted, is formally inconsistent with Thucydides' chronology. The new fragment is most probably the work of a Sicilian historian, well acquainted with the events of 427/6, and it is – to put it mildly – disturbing to find a contradiction in what should have been an easily verifiable sequence of events.

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Articles
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , May 1992 , pp. 46 - 55
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1992

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References

1 Thuc. 3.90.1: ἅ δ λόγον μάλιστα ἂξια ἢ μετ Άθηναίων οί ξύμμαχοι ἒπραξαν ἢ πρς τοὐς Άθηναίονς οί ντιπόλεμοι, τούτων μνησθήσομαι.

2 See, for instance, Westlake, H. D., Essays on the Greek Historians and Greek History (Manchester, 1969), pp. 103–4, 116–18.Google Scholar

3 First published by Coppola, G. and Momigliano, A., ‘Una pagina del Περί Σικελίας di Filisto in un papiro fiorentino’, RFC 8 (1930), 449–70Google Scholar (partially reprinted in Momigliano, A., Quarto contributo alla storia degli studi classici e del mondo antico [Rome, 1969], 510–14Google Scholar). It was re-edited by Bartoletti, V., PSI 12.2 (1950) 1–9, no. 1283Google Scholar, which furnishes the text printed in Jacoby, FGrHist 577 F 2. The fullest (but not necessarily the best) treatment of the historiographical problems remains that of Mazzarino, S., ‘Tucidide e Filisto sulla prima spedizione ateniese in Sicilia’, Bollettino Storico Catanese 4 (1939), 5–72Google Scholar. The most recent study is that of Pearson, L., ‘Some New Thoughts about the Supposed Fragment of Philistus (PSI 1283)’, BASP 20 (1983), 151–8.Google Scholar

4 E.g. Gomme, A. W., A Historical Commentary on Thucydides (Oxford, 1956), ii.389–90Google Scholar (misleadingly reported: see below, nn. 12, 19); Kagan, D., The Archidamian War (Ithaca, 1974), pp. 189–91.Google Scholar

5 Thuc. 3.88.1–4. The bulk of the chapter (§§2–3) is a geographical excursus on the Aeolian isles, which Pausanias (10.11.3–4) conflates with Antiochus' antiquarian notes on the foundation of Lipara. Cf. Jacoby, FGrHist iii B (Kommentar zu nr. 297–607) Text 490–1, contra Dover, K. J., Maia 6 (1953), 8–9Google Scholar, who adheres to the older view (cf. Mazzarino [above, n. 3], pp. 19-20) that both Thucydides and Pausanias drew exclusively upon Antiochus (see below).

6 Thuc. 3.99; cf. Strabo 6.1.9 (260); Timaeus, FGrHist 566 F 43.

7 Thuc. 3.103.3. The Caecinus (perhaps the modern Amendolea) also lay near the frontier, perhaps to the east of the Alex; the river god was the putative father of the great fifth-century Locrian athlete, Euthymus (cf. Paus. 6.6.4, claiming that the river marked the actual boundary; but the story of the cicadas is associated by Timaeus with the Alex: cf. Jacoby, FGrHist iii B [Kommentar zu nr. 297–607] Text 460–1).

8 Diod. 12.54.4–5. The report of the attack on Mylae (which Diodorus terms a phrourion) is the fullest part of the narrative; it roughly coheres with Thucydides and supplies figures for the local losses (1,000 dead and 700 captured).

9 Bartoletti's fragments B, C and D. For a possible context for fragment C, see below. The other two baffle conjecture.

10 I leave the last eight lines of column I without supplementation. Two very different restorations have been proposed. Bartoletti (above, n. 3) assumed that Laches withdrew to Catana before embarking on his Liparaean campaign, while Pearson (above, n. 3) includes a brief digest of the Liparaean campaign. For convenience I place the two reconstructions side by side:

I fear that they prove only that with sufficient ingenuity one can read whatever one wishes from the scanty traces. Pearson at least proposes his restoration simply exempli gratia; Bartoletti too concedes, ‘la mia integrazione ς] Κατά[νην ρυ apparire audace’ – to which my copy of the article, from the library of Sir Eric Turner, has an emphatic ‘Yes’ pencilled in the margin.

11 Pearson has a somewhat different reconstruction which gives much the same sense as Bartoletti's. The reading in lines 5–7 is a distinct improvement: πρ] νυκτς κα[τασχών, ᾖ οὐκ ]δόκει ἂκα[ιρον…(‘putting in before night at a spot which appeared salient’). That avoids Bartoletti's grammatically impossible ώς δοκεί, but the meaning that emerges is somewhat vacuous. It may still be the case, as Bartoletti assumed, that the defective word ακα[ is the name of the unfortunate village sacked by Laches (see also Bartoletti, , ‘Rileggendo Filisto’, SIFC 24 (1950), 159–60).Google Scholar

12 Momigliano (above, n. 3) assumed that the operations on the Alex and Caecinus were in fact those recorded by Thucydides in the late summer and winter of 426/5 and that the papyrus account is chronologically distorted. The assumption was rapidly corrected by Perrotta, G., ‘Il papiro fiorentino di Filisto’, SIFC 3 (1930), 311–15Google Scholar, and the correction was accepted by Mazzarino (above, n. 3), pp. 22–30 and by De Sanctis, G., Ricerche sulla storiografia siceliota (ΣΙΚΕΛΙΚΑ 1: Palermo, 1958), p. 34Google Scholar. Now most accounts have the right interpretation (e.g. Kagan, above n. 4, p. 191; Pearson, p. 157). Gomme (above, n. 4), however, still maintained that ‘the skirmishes at the Kaikinos and the Alex rivers…are told in the reverse order’.

13 Timaeus (FGrHist 566 F 12 = Polyb. 12.6b.3–4) apparently lingered on the Athenian ravaging of Locrian territory and adduced it as evidence against Aristotle's view that the original colonists of Locri were slaves.

14 The papyrus originally gave his name as χειριάδης. It is corrected to χαριάδης, the form we find in the manuscripts of Diodorus (12.54.4) and Justin (4.3.6). Thucydides' spelling (3.86.1, 90.2) is consistent and epigraphically attested (IG i3.156, line 11).

15 Thuc. 3.90.2: Xαροιάδου γρ ἢδη το Άθηναίου στρατηγο τεθνκότος ὑπ Συρακοσίων πολέμῳ ΛάΧης ἂπασαν ἒχων τν νεν τἠν ρχήν κτλ.

16 There is no way of determining their nationality. Pearson, p. 154 suggests that they came from Camarina, but the arrangement of Laches with the trireme crews at Camarina (see below) suggests that the city was already in the Athenian ambit (as implied by Thuc. 3.86.2). It is possible that the ambassadors were Syracusan. The operations of Charoeades may have led to a temporary armistice during which both sides withdrew and the Syracusans sent a negotiating team to Rhegium to secure a more general truce. That would explain the Athenian withdrawal to north Sicily (see below).

17 Again the circumstances are obscure. Pearson 154 may be right that the ships and crews had been damaged in battle and were recovered after the Athenian withdrawal. Many other scenarios are possible. A squadron of Syracusan allies might have been trapped by Charoeades and his fleet and freed after a more general Syracusan involvement. Cf. Xen. Hell. 1.1.4: καθελκύσας τς έαυτο τριήρεις πέπλει ὂπως ναλάβοι τς μετ Δωριέως (cf. Diod. 13.45.6).

18 As assumed by Pearson (above, n. 3) 155 (‘“two up” to the Syracusans’). The papyrus gives us the Athenian set-backs (Charoeades' death and the loss of one of Laches' ships). The Syracusan losses were described elsewhere, and we cannot infer that they were insignificant.

19 So already Momigliano (above, n. 3) and Bartoletti (above, n. 3), p. 3. Gomme (above, n. 4) agrees on the division of command but inexplicably places ‘Laches off Kamarina (by arrangement, with a naval command), Charoiades off Megara’. That is sadly garbled, and it has infected Kagan (above, n.4, 189), who develops the fantasy (‘The task of Charoeades was the more dangerous, for he sailed in Syracusan waters.’).

20 Bartoletti's Fragment C. There is no doubt about the reading of any of the letters.

21 Cf. Philistus, FGrHist 556 F 5, with the remarks of Dunbabin, T. J., The Western Greeks (Oxford, 1943), pp. 105–6Google Scholar; Graham, A. J., in CAH iii2.3 (Cambridge, 1982), p. 177.Google Scholar

22 One possible reconstruction is that the Syracusans sent a small raiding party to the Hyrminus, which was cut off by a larger Camarinan force with Athenian support (see above, n. 17). The Syracusans sent reinforcements, fought an inconclusive battle in which Charoeades lost his life and made an armistice, recovering their first squadron and sending an embassy to Rhegium. I do not think that this presents any inconsistency with the extant papyrus, but it is only one of many possibilities.

23 Pearson, pp. 155–7.

24 Bartoletti (above, n. 3), p. 3 wrongly rendered the passage as ‘Lachete dette ordine alle triremi ateniesi che si trovavono a Camarina.’

25 Note also Xen. Hell. 7.4.3 (συνθέμενος τοίνυν ποβιβάσαι ὂποι αὺτς κελεύοι);, here Lycomedes arranges with his Athenian crew that they put him ashore wherever he indicated. For another example, taken at random see Diod. 4.61.4 ( Αἰγεὺς συνέθετο…καταπλεῖν αὺτοὐς λευκοῖς ίστίοις).

26 Thuc. 1.49.7, 50.5–51.2, 54.2. If that were not sufficient demonstration, the effortless superiority of Phormio's squadron in the Corinthian Gulf would have emphasised the fighting potential of even the smallest Athenian contingent.

27 So already Coppola (above, n. 3), p. 456; Bartoletti (above, n. 3), p. 3: ‘Tucidide…ha soltanto trascurato di precisare il momento della morte di Charoiades.’

28 Pearson, p. 155 is correct to insist that ξμηνος can be used as substantive, but he can give no instance of a campaign narrative arranged by semesters, as is required by his supplement. The more natural way of expressing survival would be by some participial phrase such as πιβιὼνν μνάς τινας (cf. Thuc. 2.65.6).

29 Bartoletti (above, n. 3), p. 9 came near the truth when he observed that there was no apparent room for an extended account of the Liparaean campaign and suggested, rightly, that the incursion against Locri was an intermezzo, an action to kill time until the arrival of the squadron from Camarina. But he abandoned the idea because Diodorus placed the Liparaean adventure before the Locrian raid.

30 Besides the references at n. 5 above, see Strabo 6.2.10–11 (275–7); Diod. 5.10. The water shortage, noted by Thucydides and Pausanias, is caused by the porous nature of the soil and is most evident from June onwards. On the other hand Diodorus, who had local knowledge, stresses the fertility of Lipara (5.10.3: καρποφόρος δ ἱκανς κα τ πρς νθρώπων τρυφν ἒχουσα διαφερόντως).

31 κα π τς Αλου νσους ἒπλευσαν. The prepositional phrase (π + accusative) always seems to denote hostile intention in Thucydides (Thuc. 1.29.1; 3.30.1; 6.47.1; 8.101.1; cf. 1.15.1). When he refers to sailing towards a friendly base he tends to use π with the genitive (e.g. 6.62.1; 8.33.1).

32 Diod. 14.103.2–3; Livy 21.49.2. The importance of the island group is well illustrated by the campaigns of 36 b.c. Evacuated by Octavian in 38 (Dio 48.48.6), Lipara was occupied by Sextus Pompeius to preempt its use as a naval base against Sicily (App. BC 5.97.405). Shortly afterwards Octavian captured Strongyle, the northernmost island, and left Agrippa in command. (App. BC 5.105.433; cf. Dio 49.1.6). Agrippa promptly expelled Sextus' garrison from Hiera and was in a position to attack Mylae the following day (App. BC 5.105.435; cf. Dio 49.2.4).

33 Thuc. 3.90.2 (στράτευσε μετ τν ξυμμάχων π Μυλάς).

34 So Dover (above, n. 5), 8–9; Jacoby, FGrHisl iiiB (Kommentar zu nr. 297–607) Text 609, accepts this as a possible but unlikely explanation. Mazzarino (above, n. 3), 34ff. argues that Thucydides later reworked his narrative in the light of his experience of the great events of 415–413. As regards the general interpretation this may be correct, but it does not explain the patchy reportage, the omission of significant events in 426 and disproportionate emphasis on minor skirmishes later.

35 Laches may have been under a cloud after his return from Sicily. He served at Delium in a private capacity (Plato, Laches 181b), and Aristophanes in the Wasps (24–4, 894–902) suggests that he was threatened with prosecution by Cleon (see Jacoby's commentary on Philochorus, FGrHist 328 F 127; Westlake, above n. 2, p. 122 n. 67). But he was prominent in the diplomacy that ended the Archidamian War (Thuc. 4.118.11; 5.19.2, 24.1, 43.2) and obviously active in public life. For his death at Mantineia see Thuc. 5.74.3 with 61.1; Androtion, FGrHist 324 F 41.

36 Cf. Westlake (above, n. 2), pp. 104–5, who argues that Thucydides' account is largely framed to show that Pythodorus, Sophocles and Eurymedon were unjustly condemned. He suggests (n. 16) that there was no personal bias in favour of the generals. The actions of Eurymedon and Sophocles at Corcyra were certainly viewed unfavourably by Thucydides, but there is no criticism, implicit or explicit, of Pythodorus, who would have been the principal informant for the events of 426/5.

37 Cf. Thuc. 1.22.3: ώς κατέρων τις εὐνοίας ἣ μνήμης ἒχοι.

38 Diod. 12.71.2 = FGrHist 555 T 3. See, most recently, van Campernolle, R., ‘Le PSI XII, 1283 (= Pack2, 1343): et pourquoi pas Antiochos de Syracuse?’, CE 60 (1985), 347–57Google Scholar, arguing that the papyrus could well be a direct transcript of Antiochus. The traditional assumption that Antiochus wrote in Ionic (cf. De Sanctis, above n. 12, 30–1) is shown to be unfounded, but by contrast van Campernolle 352–5 is able to find some Doric forms, not implausible in a Syracusan author. There is no trace of any idiom other than standard Attic in the papyrus fragments. Westlake (above n. 2), p. 118 has also suggested Antiochus as the ultimate source.

39 For the Thucydidean qualities of Philistus see most fully Dion. Hal. ad Pomp. 5.2 (FGrH 556 T 16[b]), π.μιμ.3.2 (T 16[a]).

40 ad Pomp. 5.4–5. The characteristic piece of Philistus that he quotes (FGrHist 556 F 5) with its repetitive participial construction is not unlike the style of the papyrus. Philistus' limited vocabulary was commented upon (not unfavourably) by the author of the De sublimitate (40.2).

41 FGrHist iiiB (Kommentar zu nr. 267–607) Text 609, arguing that such a short pragmatic passage gave no scope for the stylistic tricks one would normally expect from Timaeus (cf. De Sanctis, above n. 12, p. 31).