The Athenian Βαζηιεύο to 323 BCE —Myth and Reality Kevin James O‘Toole B.Ec., Dip.Ed., B.Sc., LL.B. Presented for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Western Australia School of Humanities Discipline Group of Classics and Ancient History 2012 The Athenian Βαζηιεύο to 323 BCE —Myth and Reality Kevin James O‘Toole ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I gratefully acknowledge the always generous, good-humoured and pertinent advice to me throughout the present project of Professor John Melville-Jones. I also gratefully acknowledge the advice and encouragement of Dr Lara O‘Sullivan. I take the opportunity also to express my appreciation of the Reid Library at the University of Western Australia in particular for giving me efficient access to the world‘s libraries through its inter-library service. K. J. O‘Toole For Helen and for our children Nicholas, Dominic and Stephanie 3 ABSTRACT The recent more critical analysis of the ancient sources that has led to broad acceptance by modern scholars that there was no ancestral monarchy in geometric Athens of a type comparable to monarchies to the contemporaneous east and south-east of the Aegean, needs also to be applied to the traditional account of the office of the annual Athenian βαζηιεύο. The absence of ancestral monarchy itself calls for a review of the traditional account of the origins of the office of the annual Athenian βαζηιεύο, based as it is on a genesis from such a monarchy. The notion that the βαζηιεύο was ―the successor of the Bronze Age kings‖ is not sustained by a review of such Bronze Age evidence that there is. Similarly the notion that the βαζηιεύο was a ―pre-eminent religious authority‖ in Demosthenic Athens, or even the individual in Athens ―who had the highest responsibility in religious affairs‖, is not sustainable on a close and critical review of the ancient sources. Moreover, such a review of the ancient sources, including the Athenaion Politeia, leads to the conclusion that we do not have an adequate grasp of when the office was instituted, what the constitutional status of the annual βαζηιεύο was, or what the office actually did. This review, combined with the results of other modern investigations, suggests that it is possible that the office was not instituted before the end of the 6th century BCE. Furthermore, a review of the modern scholarship, where it relies on the traditional account of the office, reveals that the office has been, and continues to be, widely and inappropriately used as an argument of last resort, for instance: ‗as the βαζηιεύο was in charge of all torch races the event was ancient and sacral in nature‘. In such cases the office of βαζηιεύο becomes a trope in the form of a device used presumptively and uncritically to date and to characterize where no other means are to hand, and when prudence calls for restraint. There is a need to curb hyperbole and fantasy in references to the office, lest sight of reality is lost by means of repetition of myth. December 2011 4 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 5 CHAPTER ONE—The Notion of an Athenian yZn (wanax) 25 CHAPTER TWO—Athens‘ Ancestral Βαζηιεύο 61 CHAPTER THREE—὇η Πάηξηνη and the Athenian Βαζηιεύο 99 CHAPTER FOUR— From Kreōn to Onēsippos – Part One: The Nine Archons 135 CHAPTER FIVE—From Kreōn to Onēsippos – Part Two: The Socio-Economic Context 171 CHAPTER SIX—The Demosthenic Βαζηιεύο 217 CHAPTER SEVEN—Conspectus 269 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS CITED 277 INDEXES: Greek Words and Phrases 323 Epigraphy 327 Ancient Authors 329 General 337 5 INTRODUCTION CONTENTS A The Aim of the Present Work 6 B Previous Studies 6 (a) Hauvette-Besnault and Carlier 6 (b) The Mechanism for the Origin of the Office of the Βαζηιεύο 7 (c) Comparison with the Roman Office of Rex Sacrorum 9 (d) Comparing the Overthrow of Monarchy in Rome and Athens 10 (e) The Bαζηιεύο and the Rex – An Historiographical Feedback Loop 11 (f) The Perception of the Office as in Origin a ‗Religious‘ Office 12 C The Literary Sources 13 (a) Homer and Hesiod 14 (b) The Athenaion Politeia 15 (c) The Forensic Speeches 17 (d) Herodotus and Thucydides 18 D Archaeology and Anthropology 18 E Words and Definition 19 F Historiographical Reasoning 20 (a) Abductive Argument 20 (b) The Argument from Silence 22 G Plan of the Work 22 Form of Names: Throughout this work names are, in general, rendered in original or transliterated Greek, save for names of ancient authors and their works, which are rendered in their most common, usually Romanized, form. Linear B Font: The Linear B font used in this work is by courtesy, gratefully acknowledged, of Curtis Clark, California State Polytechnic University. The characters are of course stylized and cannot indicate the form variations in the original sources. 6 INTRODUCTION A The Aim of the Present Work It is the aim of the present work to review what is known of the office of Athenian βαζηιεύο by reference to its historical, religious and constitutional contexts, and to appraise critically the portrayal of the office and its incumbents in ancient and modern scholarship.1 B Previous Studies (a) Hauvette-Besnault and Carlier The first substantial modern study of the Athenian βαζηιεύο was the 1884 doctoral thesis of Amédée Hauvette-Besnault De Archonte Rege.2 That was followed a century later by Pierre Carlier‘s La Royauté Athénienne, a chapter in his monumental La Royauté en Grèce avant Alexandre.3 Pierre Carlier described the genesis of the βαζηιεύο within the broader context of the collapse of an ancient Athenian monarchy: ―Le sens général de l‘évolution politique athénienne du haut archaïsme est tout à fait clair. On retrouve à Athènes les mêmes phénomènes que dans la plupart des cités grecques. 1) La royauté a été divisée en plusieurs magistratures. 2) La durée des fonctions politiques a été considérablement réduite: on est passé d'une royauté viagère à des magistratures annuelles. 3) L'accès au pouvoir a été élargi: on est passé d‘une monarchie héréditaire à des magistratures accessibles à tous les Eupatrides.‖ 4 1 In respect of the ancient literature in regard to Athens it is not always clear if ‗βαζηιεύο‘ is referring to a monarch or to the annual official (or, in at least one instance, perhaps both). The absence of the definite article can be an indicator that ‗βαζηιεύο‘ is referring to a monarch, but that is not always the case. The problem arises in a variety of contexts: see for instance p. 85 note 374 regarding a use by Plato; p. 164 note 727 a reference by Eratosthenes; pp. 152-156 re. Drakōn‘s Law; and pp. 258-259 in regard to Agora XVI 72. 2 Hauvette-Besnault (1884). 3 Carlier (1984). 4 Carlier (1984) 371. cf. Lenz (1993) 265, referring to officials called βαζηιεύο in Athens and elsewhere in Greece: ―How can one explain the various officials called βασιλεύρ except as vestigial survivals?‖ 7 In 1993 Pedro Barceló, in the course of applying some 200 words to the Athenian βαζηιεύο, echoed what had become a common characterization of the βαζηιεύο as a sort of high priest of Athens: ―Wenn wir Aristoteles folgen, so entwickelte sich aus der einstigen Machtfülle des Königs das Archontat (drei Beamte sowie sechs Thesmotheten für die Rechtsprechung) als Exekutivbehörde, daneben fungierten der Polemarchos als Truppenbefehlshaber und der als βασιλεύρ gekennzeichnete Archon als Oberpriester der Polis.‖5 Yet in 1983 Robert Drews had argued cogently that ancestral monarchy had not existed in Geometric Greece,6 and in 1993 Kurt Raaflaub argued: ―. it seems, by the time of Homer and Hesiod the option of establishing a real monarchy, if it ever existed, was long gone. Accordingly, in archaic Greece there never was a ‗monarchy‘ properly speaking; ‗kings‘ did not disappear, they never existed, and thus the traditional terminology (‗kings‘, ‗kingship‘, ‗monarchy‘) should be eliminated from our books.‖7 Raaflaub‘s phrases ―a real monarchy‖ and ―‗monarchy‘ properly speaking‖ draw attention to an issue of semantics and, in relation to the word ‗king‘, the issue of an appropriate definition. Furthermore, denial of the existence of a prior monarchy clearly challenges the tradition of scholarship concerning the genesis of the Athenian office of βαζηιεύο. (b) The Mechanism for the Origin of the Office of the Βαζηιεύο If the monarchy from which the βαζηιεύο as an official is said to have emerged as a vestige was a monarchy ―properly speaking‖ is it likely to have come to an end by means of mere negotiation? And if it came to an end violently, is it likely that some significant vestige of it would not only be permitted to survive its downfall, but to be welcomed into a reconstituted 5 Barceló (1993) 210-211. Barceló‗s ―Oberpriester der Polis‖ is barely an improvement on Lewis Mumford‘s characterization of the βαζηιεύο as ―a shrine lord‖: Mumford (1961) 144. For Mumford, loc cit., the βαζηιεύο was also ―chief king‖ or ―religious head of the state.‖ 6 Drews (1983). See the generally adverse reviews by, inter alios, Cartledge (1983); Thomas (1983); Rhodes (1984a); Donlan (1984); Stockton (1985); and Fisher (1986). Drews challenged established ―doctrine‖, thus Rhodes (1984a) 180-181. 7 Raaflaub (1993) 79. 8 state as a significant centre of power or influence? On the other hand, if the monarchy was not a monarchy ―properly speaking‖, are we entitled to imagine that the vestige of it that was permitted to remain might still have been an office of substance? How could the vestige be one of substance if the thing from which it emerged was not? Felix Jacoby posited that the collapse of the monarchy in Athens involved revolution: ―I consider the institution of an annually changing ἄξρσλ beside the βαζηιεύο (who need by no means have simultaneously become an annual ‗official‘) to be a single and revolutionary action of the nobility.