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Home , 370s, Common Peace, Eirene (goddess), Synoikia

CHAPTER TEN

THE MOTHER OF WEALTH: REVISITED

Late Classical (4th-century) ’ preoccupa- of imperialism regarding the trial and condem- tion with a Panhellenic —and the eco- nation of Agyrrhios and Thrasyboulos of Kol- nomic wealth that it would bring—is reflected lytos, two of the principal imperialists from the in Athenian art. The actual eirene (peace), how- Korinthian War (24.134-135; for more on peace ever, eluded Athens. Ploutos (Wealth) was to be in the later Classical period see Hunt, 2010). Ath- Eirene’s gift that would save the people. Is it no ens rather set about finding a saviour or a state wonder then, that Ploutos and, by association, that might lead her and the Greek poleis through Eirene, were absorbed into the Eleusinian Mys- the crisis of disunity. In his Panegyrikos (380) teries, a cult that provided a religious salvation? Isokrates argued that this imagined saviour, per- Ploutos’ iconography becomes confused with haps even , would bring about, and serve that of Triptolemos, Dionysos , and other divine as guardian to, a lasting peace (Isokrates 4.175; children, while Eirene ’s image is confused with see also , Hellenika 5.1.36). This need that of other maternal goddesses, especially Ge for a political saviour have encouraged those (Earth) and herself. An overview of the who still hoped that Athens might lead a second Greek attempts at peace will illuminate the his- Athenian (naval) League (sworn in the summer torical circumstances that led to the popularity of of 378) (Hornblower, 1983: 208-209). This second Ploutos and his many mothers. League brought about a renewed alliance between In their negotiations in 404, at the end of the Athens and Thebes (in 377) against Sparta, for , Athens and Sparta aimed in the sake of peace, according to the ‘Charter’ of vain for “peace and reconciliation” (τὴν εἰρήνην the Second Athenian Confederacy (378/7): καὶ τὰς διαλύσεις) (Athenaion politeia 38.4; both . . . in order that the Spartans may allow the of these terms are also used in Xenophon, Helle- Greeks to be at peace in freedom and autonomy, nika 2.4.38: οἱ δὲ διήλλαξαν ἐφ’ ᾧτε εἰρήνην μὲν possessing all their lands in security, and in order ἔχειν ὡς πρὸς ἀλλήλους; see Cloché, 1915: 242- that the which the Greeks and the 244). Aristophanes ’ Ploutos , (re)produced in 388, King swore may be valid and may continue in attests the financial desperation of the Athenian accordance with the agreements. 2 populace at this time. Meanwhile Athens allied (IG II 43 [Rhodes & Osborne, 2003: no. 22; Tod 123.9-15], trans. Davies, 1978: 213) herself variously with Argos, Korinthos , and The- bes (she even received support from Persia) and In the 370s Athens and her confederacy whittled continued to fight Sparta and her allies through away at the Spartan army, through military victories the Korinthian War . This war culminated in the (such as the battles of in 376 and Alyzia in King’s peace of 387/6, which nominally gave the 375) and short-lived peace treaties, culminating in Greek states autonomy (Xenophon, Hellenika the renewal, in 371, of the Common peace (Cawk- 5.1.29 purports to record the peace treaty). Sparta well 1981, 1973, and 1963). The Athenian interest in dutifully kept out of Asian affairs under the King’s the so-called peace of Kallias was primarily finan- peace but continued aggression against states in cial: the imperial coffers had quickly dwindled in the Peloponnesos. At this point Athens ‘back the 370s. But the ‘peace’ rather instigated Theban burnered’ the Asian threat, and forgot her impe- animosity towards Sparta, and indirectly brought rialistic concerns: even disapproves on the Battle of Leuktra (371). The Battle of Leuktra 110 chapter ten decisively ended the Spartan threat, but it strained , which commemorated the political union the alliance between Athens and Thebes, and of Attika . Thoukydides (2.15.2) dates its origins ushered in the era of Theban () from the time of (see also Ploutarkhos, (Xenophon, Hellenika 6.4.4-20; Diodoros of Sicily Theseus 12.1; Parke, 1977: 31-33; and Sourvinou- 15.52-56). Inwood, 2000: 29). The date of the festival, just The onset of the (378) after the grain harvest, however, would have was thus a turning point. Although Athens had been an apt time to worship Eirene in her fruitful been preoccupied with military affairs, vis-à-vis capacity. As Gabriel Herman notes, “This [sac- Sparta, in the first two decades of the fourth cen- rifice to Eirene at the Synoikia] has been inter- tury, after the 370s she turned her efforts towards preted as meaning that the old idea of civic unity a lasting Panhellenic peace, economic stability, that was the original source of Athens’ power was and autonomy. deliberately combined with the ideal of peace to express Athens’ attitude towards the other Greek states” (2006: 338, following Parker, 1996: 230). Kephisodotos’ statue of Eirene and Ploutos Eirene’s receipt of a cult in the late 370s seems to have sparked her reappearance in the arts of The worship of Eirene began at Athens in 375/4, Athens. Pausanias tells us that Kephisodotos of after Timotheos ’ victory over the Spartans at Aly- Athens made a statue of her holding the child zia, according to late sources (e.g., Philokhoros, Ploutos (Wealth) that was placed in the Agora 328 F 151 FGrH). Cornelius Nepos mentions (S 4; Pausanias 9.16.2). Elsewhere, Pausanias “. . . so great was the joy of the Athenians at this provides a more precise location: “After the stat- victory that they first made public altars to Eirene ues of the eponymous heroes, there are images and instituted a couch (pulvinar)1 for the goddess” of gods, namely Amphiaraos and Eirene carrying (Timotheos 2.2). In his life of Kimon, however, the child Wealth” (Pausanias 1.8.3). Noel Robert- Ploutarkhos tells us that an altar was dedicated son conjectures that this statue and a late fourth- to Eirene after the Battle of the Eurymedon (466) century altar had been transplanted from Eirene ’s (Ploutarkhos, Kimon 13.6). As Shapiro suggests, earlier cult centre in the supposed ‘Old Agora’ Ploutarkhos may have “. . . confused the events of (east of the Akropolis) in the Roman period 466 with those of 375/4, when both the altar and (1992: 56-57; on the altar see also Shear, 1981: Kephisodotos ’ statue would have been put up 365). Whereas Kephisodotos’ statue has been to commemorate a peace treaty with Sparta” traditionally connected with the onset of wor- (Shapiro, 1993: 45). Isokrates coincidentally notes ship of Eirene in 375/4, I would connect its cre- that Eirene ’s public worship at the Synoikia , on ation with the peace negotiated in 371—between Hekatombaion 16, began with the peace of 375/4 Athens, Sparta , Thebes, and others—as Athens (Isokrates 15.109-111). Her worship at this festi- instigated that peace conference. The statue need val continued well beyond this time, as attested not be connected with the inception of cult, by a scholiast (on Aristophanes, Eirene 1020) and however, because it was not a cult statue. Yet a an inscription, IG II2 1496 c. 127, which records date in the 370s is corroborated by the career of sacrifices to Eirene at this festival’s occurrence in the sculptor, whose floruit Plinius places in 372 332/1. The Synoikia—which would have been the or the 102nd Olympiad (Plinius, Naturalis his- first significant festival of the Attic year, preced- toria 36.50). Scholars have long supposed that ing even the Panathenaia—had been a festival to this (lost) statue of Eirene and Ploutos was the model for 13 Roman marble copies (S 4a-f, h-m), the best of which is in Munich (S 4h , fig. 2.1). 1 While Nepos may have mentioned the pulvinar to indi- Andreas Rumpf’s suggestion (Rumpf, 1956) that cate that Eirene received other cultic paraphernalia at this time, Simon suggests that it indicates Eirene’s presence at a the Munich statue, S 4h, rather copied ’ theoxenia or ritual banquet in her honour (1986: 701). Tykhe (‘from Athens’), S 8, was dismissed by