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Home , Ion of Chios, Melas (mythology), Talos (mythology)

CHAPTER FOUR

THE POET AND THE PLACE: A MODERN CHIAN PERSPECTIVE ON OF AND HIS HOME ISLAND

Nikos K. Haviaras

The relationship between a poet and his hometown has ever been strong. Given the prominent status a poet enjoyed among his fellow- citizens in Greek antiquity—and most poets were fully aware of this and took advantage of it—there developed a convention that a poet could promote the prestige of his hometown through the power of his art. Even if the status of a Greek city was at a low ebb and did not merit any praise during a certain period, the poet could always draw upon a relatively more glorious past. Indeed there is plenty of evidence for praise of home cities by local poets: for instance, and Bac- chylides did not miss any opportunity to eulogize their home towns, Thebes and Ceos respectively; and devoted some of their nest verses to extol ’ virtues.1 Regardless of the scanty remains of Ion’s work, and given that we have relatively suf cient biographical information on him,2 it becomes obvious that he was a poet closely connected to his hometown of Chios. He may have gained fame in antiquity through his , but it seems that he served a lot of literary genres. In at least two of his works, he treats the founding of Chios and the origins of his fellow-citizens. Chios’ founding hero was the Cretan Oinopion, the son of and ,3 and Ion likely narrated the story of the founding of

1 For instance, Pind. Isthm. 7.1–9; Soph. OC 668–719; Eur. Med. 825ff. To avoid any potential confusion caused by these examples, it should be noted that the circumstances of a ‘professional’ poet—one who composed for a particular patron and developed, through years of personal and nancial relationship, a special link with an individual, a family or a broader community—are different, and irrelevant to the scope of this paper. For a good discussion of these issues, see Thummer (1968) 55–65. 2 See von Blumenthal (1939) 1–3; Jacoby (1947a); Huxley (1965). 3 Consider the account of the Chian historian Theopompus (FGrH 115 F276): “it is said that dark wine was rst created by the Chians and also they were the rst who the poet and the place 65

Chios in his Chiou Ktisis, a work of prose dealing with the history of Chios.4 The passage, preserved by Pausanias, is as follows: The tragic poet Ion, in a work of his, has written the following: came to the still uninhabited island and paired off with a ; at the time the nymph was in travail, it started snowing (( D"  !$\) and due to this, Poseidon gave to the baby boy the name Chios; then the god married another nymph and had two more sons, Agelos and ; time went by, and Oinopion arrived with ships at Chios from , together with his sons and Euanthes and Melas and Salagos and . During Oinopion’s reign, Carians and Abantes from Euboea came to Chios. And after Oinopion and his sons, Amphiklos came to power; he had come from Histiaea in Euboea, according to an oracle from Delphi. Hector, fourth descendant of Amphiklos—he became a king [of Chios] as well—made war against the Abantes and the Carians who lived on the island; he killed some of them in battles, and forced others to leave [Chios] under a truce. When the war at Chios came to an end, Hector thought that his people should offer sacri ces together with the Ionians at the Panionion. It is said that he received a tripod as a prize for his valour from the Ionians. Such were the things that I discovered that Ion had written about the Chians; however, he did not say anything as to the reason that the Chians are classed as Ionians. (98 Leurini = FGrH 392 F1 = Paus. 7.4.8–10)5 Now some remarks: rst, it is interesting that the twentieth century historian of Chios, G. Zolotas, notes that Ion links the history of Chios to Poseidon.6 Poseidon was the protector of the Ionians, and one of the two Olympian gods who struggled to take Athens under their auspices; the other—and the eventual victor—was . Secondly, as his last words demonstrate, Pausanias could not nd in Ion’s account any cast- iron proof for the Ionian origin of the Chians. In our fragment, Ion does not refer at all to Oinopion’s parentage. However, in a verse fragment (that is, from a different work), the poet speaks of Chios as having been founded by Oinopion, son of Theseus.7

learned how to plant and cultivate vines from Oinopion, the son of Dionysus, who was the rst who inhabited the island, and then they showed this to other people”. 4 Pausanias uses the word sungraphe for the Chiou Ktisis, a term used of prose docu- ments, and there is no reason to suppose that the periegete was mistaken. Cf. Dover (1986) 32. 5 All English translations are my own. 6 Zolotas (1921) 1.1: 17. 7 96* Leurini = 29 West = Plut. Thes. 20.2: % ! % _$# %$ ( !*. Cf. also the local inscription (with lists of Oinopion’s family and followers) published by Contoléon (1949) 5–9.