Remembering the Persian War Differently By David C. Yates B.A., University of Virginia, 2001 M.A., University of Colorado, Boulder, 2003 A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Classics at Brown Univeristy Providence, Rhode Island May 2011 © Copyright 2011 by David C. Yates This dissertation by David C. Yates is accepted in its present form by the Department of Classics as satisfying the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Date______________ ________________________________________________ Deborah Boedeker, Chair Recommended to the Graduate Council Date______________ ________________________________________________ Kurt Raaflaub, Reader Date______________ ________________________________________________ Susan Alcock, Reader Approved by the Graduate Council Date______________ ________________________________________________ Sheila Bonde, Dean of the Graduate School iii CURRICULUM VITAE David Yates was born the last of three boys on September 8, 1978 to Ron and Jeannie Yates in a small town in northeast Tennessee called Greeneville. His family did not remain there long and soon moved about sixty miles north to Bristol, Virginia. He spent the rest of his adolescent life in Bristol where his interest in ancient history was inspired by his older brothers. He matriculated to the University of Virginia in 1997. There he became an Echols Scholar and ultimately majored in History and Classics. His senior thesis on the mentality of Greek hoplites won the Richard Heath Dabney Prize for Outstanding Thesis in European History. In 2001 he went on to pursue a Master’s in Classics at the University of Colorado at Boulder where he was awarded the George Norlin Graduate Fellowship. In 2003 David entered the Ph.D. program in Classics at Brown University. He was awarded upon entry a Joukowsky Presidential Fellowship. In 2005 he became the first student to join Brown’s new program of study in Ancient History. Between the University of Colorado and Brown University David had the opportunity to teach numerous Greek and Latin courses and to assist in the teaching of Greek and Roman History. He also accepted a summer position teaching Ancient History as an Instructor at the University of Rhode Island, Providence Campus. iv David has published three articles and given numerous talks at both his home universities and peer-reviewed conferences. His first article, “The Archaic Treaties between the Spartans and their Allies”, appeared in Classical Quarterly (2005). The second, “FGrHist 328 (Philochorus) F 181”, a joint publication with Prof. Charles Fornara that considered the proper interpretation and placement of a fragment attributed to the historian and polymath Philochorus, appeared in Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies (2007). A piece on the role of Cato the Younger in Julius Caesar’s Bellum Civile is set to appear in Classical World (forthcoming). In the 2010/11 academic year David will hold a Visiting Assistant Professorship in the Classics Department at Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi. v PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My interest in the memory of the Persian War began in the spring of 2005 when I took a seminar on that topic offered by Prof. Deborah Boedeker. My seminar paper examined the memory of the Persian War in fifth-century Plataea. Its aim was very much the same as the present dissertation, to consider the commemorative tradition of the Persian War outside of Athens. This small study of Plataea demonstrated that Athens and its Boeotian neighbor – despite their proximity, extremely close political alliance, and almost identical wartime experience – had very different notions about how the Persian War should be remembered. The paper was well received. Soon after the seminar I met with Prof. Boedeker to discuss the possibility of pursuing this topic as a dissertation. My initial inquiry into the Greek memories of the Persian War outside Athens led to deeper questions: How significant were the memorial differences between states? Why did dissimilarities over the same event emerge between allies? How did these dissimilar memories interact with each other? Was there ever a unified ‘Greek’ memory of the war? The present work attempts to answer these critical questions. Particular thanks are due to Susan Alcock, Kurt Raaflaub, and most especially Deborah Boedeker for reading drafts of the dissertation and providing many helpful notes and suggestions. I also thank Charles Fornara, John Bodel, Peter Hunt, John Gibert, Elizabeth Meyer, and Jon Lendon (in addition to Kurt Raaflaub and Deborah Boedeker vi again), each of whom has contributed so much to my intellectual development throughout my academic career. A special debt of gratitude is owed the Grimshaw Gudewicz fund for supporting a research trip to Greece and the Joukowsky family, whose presidential fellowship supplied the time needed to complete this project. Finally, I wish to acknowledge the tremendous support (and patience) of my wife Jenni. I dedicate this dissertation to her. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: Collective Memories of the Persian War Past...........1 Chapter 1: Shaping the Conflict(s)................................................36 Chapter 2: Localizing the Past.......................................................67 Chapter 3: The Panhellenic Memorial Community.....................118 Chapter 4: Competition between Memorial Communities..........164 Chapter 5: Inventing a Greek Memory........................................230 Conclusion: Greek Memorial Culture..........................................274 Map: Delphi.................................................................................284 Abbreviations...............................................................................287 Bibliography................................................................................289 viii INTRODUCTION: COLLECTIVE MEMORIES OF THE PERSIAN WAR PAST In 340/39 the orator Aeschines was elected representative to the Amphictyony from Athens. Even for the fourth century the political situation was exceptionally uncertain. Athens was at war with Philip II of Macedon, but for now hostilities were limited to the north where Athens with the help of Persia and several Greek allies was doing remarkably well. Philip had penetrated into central Greece some six years earlier to support the Thebans and Locrians in the Third Sacred War against Phocis, but now Philip had no excuse and his relations with his former allies were not such that he felt confident to return uninvited. Yet Thebes was certainly no friend to Athens. In spite of their earlier cooperation against Sparta, relations had cooled considerably since the battle of Leuctra in 371 B.C. Indeed, Athens had been a supporter of Phocis in the Sacred War. When Aeschines arrived at the meeting of the Amphictyony, the situation was explosive, and the match that set it off was a dispute over how the Persian War ought to be remembered. A little over 30 years before Aeschines was sent to the Amphictyony, the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, long ago built by the Alcmeonid clan of Athens, had been destroyed by an earthquake. Efforts to rebuild the structure were proceeding slowly, but by 340/39 progress was sufficient for the Athenians to have a number of golden shields, spoils of the Persian War, placed on the metopes of the new temple. Aeschines provides the 1 2 dedicatory inscription: “The Athenians, from the Medes and Thebans when they were fighting against the Greeks” (3.116).1 Given the current hostility between Athens and Thebes the shields proclaimed a particularly divisive recollection of the war. The Thebans were infuriated and had their allies, the Amphissians, propose a fifty-talent fine on the Athenians in the Amphictyonic Council for dedicating the shields prior to the consecration of the temple and inscribing them as they did. Aeschines responded by attacking the impiety of the Amphissians with such ferocity that the ire of the council was actually turned against them to the extent that a sacred war was declared. This new sacred war gave Philip the excuse to enter central Greece that he had so longed for. Athens gathered what allies it could (Thebes included) and marched to defeat at Chaeronea. At the core of the dispute over the shields stood two different notions of the Persian War conceived by each party to suit local traditions and present needs. Thebes preferred to forget or severely reinterpret her submission to Xerxes in the wake of Thermopylae. The Athenians traditionally focused on their glorious struggle against the Eastern other, but at this point chose to go out of their way to vilify the Thebans, doubtless because of their present enmity. The dispute between these two conceptions plays out on the panhellenic stage (that is, before the Amphictyony), but is not a dispute between a panhellenic notion of the past and an Athenian or Theban one. Rather Athens and Thebes are at the center of the altercation. Above all this episode underscores the fierce competition and high stakes involved in the recollection of the Persian War. Roughly a century and a half after the 1 0Aqhnai=oi a)po_ Mh&dwn kai\ Qhbai/wn, o#te ta)nanti/a toi=v 3Ellhsin e)ma&xonto. All translations are my own unless otherwise noted. 3 Persian invasions the political map of Greece had changed radically. Sparta was a shadow of its former self. The Peloponnese was a hive of fractious states and shifting alliances. A weakened