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Philip of Macedon's Early Interventions in Thessaly (358–352 B.C.)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

G. T. Griffith
G. T. Griffith
Affiliation:
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
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Extract

In his stimulating article on this topic Mr. Christopher Ehrhardt sought to show that there is no good reason to believe in any intervention by Philip of Macedon in Thessaly earlier than his campaign of 353. The second half of his paper is devoted to the date of Philip's capture of Pagasae, which Diodorus appears to put in the Athenian archon year 354/3 after the fall of Methone, a date adopted by most modern interpreters accepting the emendation for the unidentifiable in the text of Diodorus. Ehrhardt shows well the difficulties of believing in any capture of Pagasae, the port of Pherae, earlier than the capture of Pherae itself (in 352), and concludes that the emendation is to be rejected. In this I think he is right, and I am joining him in dating the capture of Pagasae in 352 after Pherae itself had fallen. The first half of his paper, however, rejecting all the evidence suggesting other interventions by Philip in Thessaly earlier than 353, is much harder to accept, for two reasons:

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , May 1970 , pp. 67 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1970

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References

page 67 note 1 ‘Two Notes on Philip of Macedon's first interventions in Thessaly’, CQ xvii (1967), 296.Google Scholar

page 67 note 2 Diod. 16. 31. 6.

page 67 note 3 I would add to Ehrhardt's arguments that any capture of Pagasae must really have belonged to campaigns which Diodorus described (16. 34–38), and his omission of it there would be surprising, especially since Pagasae could fall, one would think, only in some interesting way, either by siege or by a coup whether of arms or artifice. It ought to come, therefore, as Ehrhardt proposes, after the capture of Pherae in 352 at the end of the campaign.

page 67 note 4 On all this see especially Sordi, M., La lega Tessalafino ad Alessandro Magno (1958), 230 ff., 348 ff.—an admirable study, with full bibliography.Google Scholar

page 68 note 1 This point was made by Sordi, , LT 349.Google Scholar

page 68 note 2 In LSJ9 s.v. only two meanings are given which are apposite to this context: (1) to call away, or to another place, (a) in Med. to call back, recall. The passive can serve the Middle no less than the Active, I suppose, on the analogy of serving the (normally) Middle (LSJ9 s.v.).

In the previous sentence (and chapter) here, Philip's loss of an eye in the now completed siege of Methone is recorded. Philip was not called away from Methone to Thessaly by the Thessalians: the two campaigns were in succeeding years. Therefore he was called back, the lexicographical alternative. If Dio-dorus was really thinking while he wrote, it is certain that he is recording that P. is now recalled to Thessaly. Regretfully however I must allow for the possibility that D. was not really thinking here. If he was writing like a hack, half asleep, he could have written that P. was called away from Scene A (Methone) to Scene B (Thessaly), merely because the one followed the other in his scheme of things, and he did not care if he was writing nonsense because he was not sufficiently awake to notice it. (continued)

It is for this reason that I suggest the translation ‘recall’ as most probable, merely, and not as certain.

page 69 note 1 Westlake, H. D., Thessaly in the fourth century, 167, n. 2. Sordi defends ‘Larissam’, and repunctuates: ‘... milia hostium caedit. Urbem nobilissimam Larissam capit. Hinc Thessaliam...’. But capit remains a difficulty.Google Scholar

page 69 note 2 The Macedonian Arnissa comes to mind, about 15 miles W. of Edessa. Was it urhs nobilissima? I doubt it. But if it was held by the Illyrians, its recapture by Philip could have been important enough to be recorded.

page 70 note 1 Beloch, , Gr. Gesch. iii2. 2. 68 ff.Google Scholar The list seems to be drawn up on two principles, which occasionally conflict. The chronological basis is shown by which anchors the last three names firmly in order, relative to each other. But Satyrus was concerned, too, to illustrate his introductory remark. It was necessary for his first name to be that of a woman married whether or not she was the first wife. Audata's marriage will have been in 358, but for all we know Phila's may have been earlier: Phila, the Elimiot Macedonian princess, was not married Olympias was not married But of the two Thessalians Nicesipolis certainly was, as her daughter's name Thessalonike commemorates, and this is probably why Nicesipolis precedes Olympias in the list, though the probable date of her marriage is 352 (Olympias 357). The other Thessalian, Philinna, was certainly married before Nicesipolis too (see text), but Satyrus put Nicesipolis first because of her association with the famous victory, which was better value for illustrating

page 70 note 2 Plut. Alex. 10. 1.

page 70 note 3 Cf. Lacey, W. K., The Family in Classical Greece (1968), 106 f., 212, 313 nn. 10 and 11. Mr. Lacey kindly tells me that he knows of no instances of boys marrying at (e.g.) 15.Google Scholar

page 70 note 4 Justin 9. 8. 2; 13. 2. 11.

page 70 note 5 On Vice, Theopompus frs. (e.g.) 62, 81, 121, 143, 204, 213, 224–5, 227, 236; on Thessalians (of Pharsalus), fr. 49 (Jacoby, no. 115). Justin 9.8. 4–5, following close on the saltalrix allusion, may owe something to Theopompus fr. 224 ( etc.). Justin 13. 2. 11 contains the scortum allusion in a speech attributed to Ptolemy at Babylon in 323. Ptolemy knew the facts about Philinna, no doubt; but this reported speech may well be a literary invention, and if so this bit could easily be based on Theopompus likewise.

page 71 note 1 Beloch, ibid. 69, ‘ohne Zweife’ (and probably Aleuad, he adds). Myself, I do find room for doubt, but not very much.

This association with Philinna does seem tc make Philip's actual presence in Larissa very probable.

page 71 note 2 Beloch, , iii2. 1. 228;Google ScholarSordi, , loc. cit.;Google ScholarWestlake, , op. cit., 166 ff.Google Scholar

page 72 note 1 Op. cit. 298.Google Scholar

page 72 note 2 Ibid. n. 5.

page 72 note 3 [Herodes] 26 f.; Thrasyraachus fr. 2 (Diels-Kranz, ii6. 324Google Scholar); cf. Sordi, , LT 148 ff.Google Scholar

page 72 note 4 Isoc. 5. 20 can write of in rhetorical antithesis to their present state of subordination (in 346). See below, pp. 74–5.

page 72 note 5 Xen. Hell. 6. 1. 11, reports Polydamas of Pharsalus at Sparta (374) as reporting that Jason contemplated the conquest of Macedonia: Polydamas was concerned of course to magnify the grandeur of Jason's designs. Nevertheless Sordi, (LT 165, 168, 174, 179f.Google Scholar) interprets the ‘alliance’ of Jason and Amyntas recorded by Diodorus (15. 60. 2) as a subjection of Macedonia to Jason—rightly perhaps.

For the earlier restoration of Amyntas with Thessalian aid, Diod. 14. 92. 3; cf. Sordi, , LT 155,Google Scholar with bibliography. There is some reason to suspect that Diodorus duplicates restorations of Amyntas (cf. 15. 19. 2 f., with Spartan aid, in 383/2); but in any case it is very unlikely that D. invented Thessalian participation, which presumably he found in Ephorus, though he may have misplaced it in his own record.

page 73 note 1 Diod. 15. 61. 2 ff.; 67. 3 f.; Plut. Pelop. 26.

page 73 note 2 Xen. Hell. 7. 5. 4.

page 73 note 3 Plut. Pelop. 26–7; Diod. 15. 67. 3 f. And see next note.

page 73 note 4 Plut. Pelop. ibid.; Aeschines 2. 29; cf. Beloch, iii2. 1. 182 n. 3.Google Scholar

page 73 note 5 Diod. 16. 37. 3; 38. 1–2.

page 73 note 6 Sordi, , LT 249 ff.;Google Scholar so now Larsen, J. A. O., Greek Federal States (1968), 24 and n. 4, 26.Google Scholar

page 74 note 1 The date or occasion when an alliance was made between Philip and the Boeotians is nowhere recorded. But the march of Pammenes via the Hellespont to Asia Minor (probably spring 353) must have taken him through the kingdom of Macedonia, with Philip's permission and with his active co-operation along the Thracian coast to Maroneia (Demosth. 23. 183). Though Pammenes and Philip personally were one of the other (Plut. Pelop. 26. 5; Suda, s.v. Karanos), it seems likely that their co-operation was not on a purely private level, but that the alliance already existed.

page 74 note 2 LT 254 ff.Google Scholar

page 75 note 1 Isoc. ibid. Note especially

page 75 note 2 So, it seems, Larsen, , op. cit. 24 and n. 4.Google Scholar

page 75 note 3 Demosth. 1. 21–2.

page 75 note 4 The character of the League Assembly at this period, whether ‘direct’ or representative, is uncertain. But it will be agreed, I hope, that there was an Assembly. Cf. Sordi, , LT 329 ff.;Google ScholarLarsen, , op. cit. 19.Google Scholar

page 76 note 1 Demosthenes in 344 (6. 22) referred again to Philip and the Thessalian revenues:

page 76 note 2 So Sordi, LT 249 ff.;Google ScholarLarsen, , op. cit. 24, 26.Google Scholar

page 76 note 3 Xen. Hell. 6. 1. 12.

page 76 note 4 For the year 336 Justin 11. 3. 2 is presumably reliable evidence: ‘Cupide haec Thessalis audientibus exemplo patris dux universae gentis creatus erat et vectigalia omnia reditusque suos ei tradiderant.’ (The subject of the sentence is Alexander the Great.)

page 77 note 1 See Hell. Oxyrh. 16. 4 (ed. V. Bartoletti, 1959), for the Boeotian League: Xen. Hell. 5. 2. 16; cf. Tod, M. N., GHI III, 15 ff.Google Scholar for the Chalcidian League. Larsen, , op. cit. 24, 26, 36, 77 f.Google Scholar rightly draws attention to this financial prerogative of these federal govern ments when they were in proper control of their territories.

page 77 note 2 Polyb. 9. 28. 2–3

page 77 note 3 Walbank, , Commentary on Polybius, ii. ad loc., describes the allusion to Thessaly as ‘a simplification’, though he himself believes in 342 as the probable date of Philip's election as archon.Google Scholar

For the events of 344–2, Demosth. 6. 22; 9. 26; Diod. 16. 69. 8, etc.; cf. the long discussion of Sordi, , LT 275 ff.Google Scholar

page 78 note 1 Sordi, , LT 336;Google ScholarLarsen, , op. cit. 24.Google Scholar

page 78 note 2 Justin 8. 2. 3 ff.

page 78 note 3 Diod. 15. 61. 5; 67. 4.

page 79 note 1 Cf. Sordi, , LT 235 ff. for a different explanation of this inactivity, not to my mind convincing.Google Scholar

page 79 note 2 It must have become clear by spring 355 that the Boeotians and Locrians alone were not going to be able to coerce the Phocians quickly: cf. Diod. 16. 24. 4; 25. 1 ff., for the campaigns of 356.

page 79 note 3 So Westlake, , op. cit. 166 ff., writing of the years 358–6, thought it possible that P. ‘sent more than one expeditionary force into Thessaly’, maintaining a ‘balance of power’ between the tyrants and the League.Google Scholar

page 79 note 4 Diod. 16. 28. 4; 29. 1.

page 79 note 5 Diod. 16. 29. 1.

page 79 note 6 Id., ibid. 30. 4: 6,000 men including their Contrast this with the paper strength of Jason's army of Thessaly when united, without his mercenaries: 6,000 cavalry, more than 10,000 hoplites, and peltasts supplied by the perioikoi (Xen. Hell. 6. 1. 8f.). As Westlake, (op. cit. 170 f.) writes shrewdly, ‘However, even if the neighbouring tribes supplied only a thousand men in all, this army’ (of 354) ‘does not represent the full fighting strength of Thessaly, and large reserves must have been left to watch any movement by the tyrants’.Google Scholar

page 80 note 1 Diod., ibid. 14. 2.

page 80 note 2 Isoc. 5. 20: Justin 8. 2. 1 f. See above pp. 73–5.