Defense and Strategy Among the Upland Peoples of the Classical Greek World 490-362 Bc

Defense and Strategy Among the Upland Peoples of the Classical Greek World 490-362 Bc

DEFENSE AND STRATEGY AMONG THE UPLAND PEOPLES OF THE CLASSICAL GREEK WORLD 490-362 BC A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University in Partial Fulfillment for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by David Andrew Blome May 2015 © 2015 David Andrew Blome DEFENSE AND STRATEGY AMONG THE UPLAND PEOPLES OF THE CLASSICAL GREEK WORLD 490-362 BC David Blome, PhD Cornell University 2015 This dissertation analyzes four defenses of a Greek upland ethnos (“people,” “nation,” “tribe”) against a large-scale invasion from the lowlands ca.490-362 BC. Its central argument is that the upland peoples of Phocis, Aetolia, Acarnania, and Arcadia maintained defensive strategies that enabled wide-scale, sophisticated actions in response to external aggression; however, their collective success did not depend on the existence of a central, federal government. To make this argument, individual chapters draw on the insights of archaeological, topographical, and ethnographic research to reevaluate the one-sided ancient narratives that document the encounters under consideration. The defensive capabilities brought to light in the present study challenge two prevailing paradigms in ancient Greek scholarship beyond the polis (“city-state”). Beyond-the-polis scholarship has convincingly overturned the conventional view of ethnē as atavistic tribal states, emphasizing instead the diversity of social and political organization that developed outside of the Greek polis. But at the same time, this research has emphasized the act of federation as a key turning point in the socio- political development of ethnē, and downplayed the role of collective violence in the shaping of upland polities. In contrast, this dissertation shows that upland Greeks constituted well- organized, efficient, and effective polities that were thoroughly adapted to their respective geopolitical contexts, but without formal institutions. Furthermore, the defensive strategies of these polities reveal that upland Greeks formed part of a connected sphere on the classical mainland, but in a surprising sense. While the more powerful states of the lowlands were arrogant, ignorant, and dismissive toward the collective capabilities of upland peoples, the reverse was not the case. The Phocians, Aetolians, Acarnanians, and Arcadians were well aware of the dismissive attitudes of their aggressive neighbors, and exploited them to great effect. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Born in Wilmington, Delaware, David Blome left high school at the age of 17 and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. He spent four of the next seven years deployed overseas, during which he was promoted to the rank of Sergeant and decorated for valor for his actions in Iraq. In 2005, he was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps, and immediately began his undergraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania. At the University of Pennsylvania, David divided his time between coursework and coaching cross-country and track and field. He also raced competitively as an Ironman-distance triathlete, earning All-American honors from USA Triathlon in 2006. In 2008, David earned his BA summa cum laude with distinction in Classical Studies and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He spent the following year in the Post-Baccalaureate Program in Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2009, David was accepted into the PhD program in the Department of History at Cornell University. For the next three years he studied ancient Greek and Roman history, classical archaeology, and modern European empires, earning a Master’s Degree in 2012. David has participated in various archaeological research projects on the Greek mainland, and he is currently a supervisor of excavations at Gournia in East Crete. iii Dedicated to the memory of my father Όταν χαράζει.... iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My committee chair, Barry Strauss, has been an ideal advisor and mentor, and I am indebted to him for six years of guidance, encouragement, and careful, critical engagement with my work. Despite a demanding schedule, he always found time to discuss ideas and refine works in progress. I appreciate the many difficult questions that he posed, and I consider myself a better scholar for having attempted to answer them. In addition, I am grateful to Éric Rebillard for teaching me so much about the craft of the ancient historian, and I thank him for his patience as I tried to meet his high standards of scholarship. I also thank Robert Travers for introducing me to a range of historical subfields and for challenging me to engage with broader historical debates. Above all, I appreciate his thoughtful feedback and discussion of my research. Since my first semester at Cornell, Sturt Manning has pushed me to think big – I thank him for his insight and encouragement as I worked with different ideas. Among my friends and colleagues in History and Classics, I am most grateful to Jake Nabel for reading, commenting on, and discussing numerous drafts of virtually every chapter. He has helped me to clarify my thinking on a number of matters, and spared me many infelicities. Carrie Atkins Fulton, Perri Gerard-Little, Katie Jarriel, and Katie Kearns provided invaluable feedback as part of a year-long dissertation reading group, and I have also benefited from discussions with Mark Deets, Max McComb, Trais Pearson, and Tim Sorg. Dave Small took time out of his writing and research in the East Crete Study Center to read and discuss a draft of the dissertation. The Department of Classics funded my sixth year at Cornell, for which I am most appreciative. And once more, I thank my undergraduate advisor, Jeremy McInerney, for inspiring this whole endeavor in the first place. However, without my wife, Kara, this dissertation would have been impossible, and I am grateful for everything she’s done. I’d say more, but she already knows what I think of her. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Biographical Sketch iii Dedication iv Acknowledgments v Table of Contents vi List of Tables vii List of Maps viii 1. Introduction 1 2. The Phocian Chalk Raid of the Thessalian Camp ca.490 29 3. The Aetolian Rout of the Athenians 426 75 4. The Defense of Acarnania 389 127 5. The Defense of Arcadia 370 179 6. Conclusions 234 Bibliography 252 vi LIST OF TABLES 1. Basic Confederation Criteria ca.490-362 23 2. Basic Federation Criteria ca.490-362 24 vii LIST OF MAPS 1. The Upland Ethnē of the Classical Greek Mainland 2 2. The Phocian Chalk Raid of the Thessalian Camp 43 3. The Aetolian Rout of the Athenians 93 4. The Defense of Acarnania 141 5. The Defense of Arcadia 192 viii CHAPTER 1 Introduction In general, I do not admire the Scythians, but they did discover the cleverest solution to the most important matter of human affairs: how to prevent anyone who attacks them from escaping, and how to avoid capture unless they want to be found. Herodotus 4.45 i. the Project The central thesis of this dissertation is that the upland peoples (ethnē) of Phocis, Aetolia, Acarnania, and Arcadia ca.490-362 maintained defensive strategies that enabled wide-scale, sophisticated actions in response to large-scale invasions from the lowlands; however, their collective success did not depend on the existence of a central, federal government.1 To make this argument, the dissertation focuses on the experiences, dynamics, and greater significance of four unconventional military encounters that took place in the upland regions of the classical Greek world. 1 See Map 1. By “upland,” I mean regions where the concentration of human settlement and mixed farming resources was above 400 to 500 meters ASL (Bintliff 1997:1-38 at 1); namely, Macedonia, Epirus, Acarnania, Aetolia, West Locris, Phocis, Achaea, and Arcadia. As Bintliff shows, this distinction holds regardless of the mountainous terrain between particular settlements and regions. All other terminology is dealt with below. 1 Map 1: The Upland Ethnē of the Classical Greek Mainland2 2 All maps created via the Ancient World Mapping Center’s Antiquity À-la-carte Application: http://awmc.unc.edu/wordpress/alacarte/ 2 By focusing on the defensive capabilities of upland ethnē, the present study will speak to a range of issues touched on by a widely influential current of ancient Greek historiography: the Ancient Greeks beyond the Polis. Beyond-the-polis scholarship has done much to expand and refine our understanding of the ancient Greek world, but overemphasizes the importance of institutions in emergent federal states, and has yet to treat warfare involving ethnē systematically or in depth. As a result, the broader significance of warfare vis-à-vis the socio-political development of upland polities remains underappreciated. The present study corrects these deficiencies and shows that the Phocians, Aetolians, Acarnanians, and Arcadians ca.490-362 constituted well-organized, efficient, and effective polities that were thoroughly adapted to their respective geopolitical contexts before they became officially federated states. The dissertation also reveals that upland Greeks formed part of a connected sphere on the classical mainland, but in a surprising sense. While the more powerful states of the lowlands were arrogant, ignorant, and dismissive toward the collective capabilities of upland peoples, the reverse was not the case. The Phocians, Aetolians, Acarnanians, and Arcadians were well aware of the dismissive attitudes of their aggressive neighbors, and exploited them to great effect. 3 To clarify the issues at hand and highlight the contributions that the dissertation

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