Did the Delphic Amphiktiony Play a Political Role in the Classical Period?

Abstract

This paper seeks, against recent work, to re-assert the occasional political importance of the Delphic amphiktiony in the fifth and fourth centuries BC, without denying the primarily religious function of that organization. The paper deals with the centuries in reverse chronological order, because the fourth is better documented. In particular, it is argued that there is solid epigraphic evidence, from Athens as well as Delphi, for Theban use of the amphiktiony for transparently political purposes in the 360s and 350s. In the fifth century, the Spartans founded Herakleia Trachinia for motives which included desire for Delphic prestige, not necessarily of a crude political sort.

Keywords:

• Religion
• Delphi
• Amphiktiony
• Politics
• Prestige

Acknowledgements

I thank the organizers of the Networks conference for their hospitality, the audience at Rethymno for their reactions, Peter Rhodes for comments on a subsequent written draft, and Angelos Matthaiou for re-examining a crucial Athenian inscription for me (see below, note 38), and giving me the benefit of his comments on the text. These should however be regarded as provisional, pending his republication of it in the new edition of IG ii.

Notes

 [1] In the notes below I frequently cite the important recent works by Lefèvre, L'amphictionie pyléo-delphique: histoire et institutions, and Sánchez, L'amphictionie des Pyles et de Delphes, but I would mention here a much shorter and very lively treatment: Forrest, ‘The Pre-polis Polis’.

 [2] Davies, ‘A Discipline in Transformation’, 234f.

 [3] Money: M. H. Hansen, Inventory, 130; Hdt. 5.63, and Thuc. 5.71.

 [4] On this aspect of Clarendon, see the references in my forthcoming paper in the Festschrift for O. Murray.

 [5] Lefèvre, L'amphictionie pyléo-delphique: histoire et institutions, 236.

 [6] Hornblower, Thucydides and Pindar, ch. 1.

 [7] Pind. Pyth. 4. 66–67. Race is surely right against B. Snell and H. Maehler Pindari carmina (Leipzig: Teubner, 1987) and W.J. Slater's Lexicon to Pindar (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1969) 43 to spell Aμφικτινων with a capital: not just ‘neighbours’. Cf. Posidippos AB 74 line 4, μφικτοσιν,Φοβ’, ν γωνοθταις. (In a paper delivered at the Victory Ode conference at UCL/ICS, July 2006, I suggested that in Pind. F94b line 43 (daphnephorikon for the family of Pagondas), the reference to μφικτινϵσσιν might also be an allusion to a Pythian victory. The poem goes on, after all, to mention an Olympic success (‘at Pisa’) as well as local victories in between. But G. B. d'Alessio afterwards convinced me this is wrong. For one thing, the order Delphi–local–Olympia is odd. For another, the language at Isthm. 4. 8 is similar, and there Delphi is not in question.)

 [8] Tarn, Antigonos Gonatas, 429–32, with references.

 [9] Beloch, Griechische Geschichte, 246; Rhodes, CAH, 6² (1994), 587, and History of the Classical Greek World, 201, cf. 254–55 and 302; Arnush, ‘Argead and Aetolian Relations’, 296.

[10] Ehrhardt, The Third Sacred War.

[11] Buckler, ‘Thebes, Delphoi, and the Outbreak of the Third Sacred War’, and Philip II and the Sacred War.

[12] Bowden, ‘The Functions of the Delphic Amphictyony before 346 BCE’.

[13] Buckler, Philip II and the Sacred War, 7.

[14] Bowden, ‘The Functions of the Delphic Amphictyony before 346 BCE’, 82.

[15] Syll.³ vol. 1, 239; Pomtow, ‘Eine delphische στσις im Jahre 363 v. Chr’.

[16] Polyb. 4.28.5; I overlooked this important passage by mistake in 1991, as Lefèvre, CID IV 2002, 438 n. 13 rightly points out.

[17] Lefèvre, L'amphictionie pyléo-delphique: histoire et institution and CID IV 2002; Sánchez, L'amphictionie des Pyles et de Delphes.

[18] Note the long section ‘points de vue divergents’ (sc. from Sánchez, L'amphictionie des Pyles et de Delphes) in Lefèvre CID IV 2002, 462–67. His section ‘points de vue convergents’ is at pp. 459–62, and is thus shorter.

[19] See Thuc. 4.133.2 for the στϵ´μματα which caught fire and caused the Heraion at Argos to burn down in 423 BC.

[20] Higbie, Lindian Chronicle, 8f.

[21] SEG 44. 425 (whence the quotation) = CID IV 2002, no. 2.

[22] Davies, ‘Finance, Administration and Realpolitik’, 9.

[23] Rhodes and Osborne, Greek Historical Inscriptions, no. 33 lines 9–10.

[24] Ehrhardt, The Third Sacred War, 7 and 10.

[25] The most recent investigation is Markle, ‘Diodorus’ Sources for the Sacred War': a very complex multi-source theory.

[26] Hammond, ‘Diodorus’ Narrative of the Sacred War'.

[27] Sordi, ‘La fondation du collège des naopes et le renouveau politique de l'amphictionie au iv^e siècle’, 49–52.

[28] Buckler, ‘Thebes, Delphoi, and the Outbreak of the Third Sacred War’, 241; cf. Sánchez, L'amphictionie des Pyles et de Delphes, 181 n. 145 (non-committal). Buckler, Philip II and the Sacred War, 15, n. 12 says ‘Delphic inscriptions give the correct date’, and refers to his own 1985 treatment at 242–43. But this is misleading. Delphic inscriptions do not date the condemnation.

[29] Buckler, ‘Thebes, Delphoi, and the Outbreak of the Third Sacred War’, 242.

[30] Sordi, ‘La fondation du collège des naopes et le renouveau politique de l'amphictionie au iv^e siècle’, 49 (‘le délai légalement fixé’) and 51 (‘ce délai avait été fixé conformément aux lois’). The closest parallel I can find for the Greek is Dem. 24.28, νϵλν τν κ τν νμων χρνον. But admittedly Wayte in his edition of the speech (1882) glosses this as ‘the time prescribed by law’.

[31] Ehrhardt, The Third Sacred War, pp. 91–93, Appendix I, ‘The Date of the Amphictyonic Condemnation of Sparta for the Seizure of the Cadmea’.

[32] CID II (1989) no. 4, col. II, lines 48-54; no. 5, col. II lines 28–31.

[33] CID II (1989) no. 4 col. I lines 33–34 and 55–56 (Philostratis); no. 5 col. I lines 15–18.

[34] Lefèvre, CID IV 2002, 445 note 55.

[35] Xenophon: Hell. 5.4.1 and 6.4.3. Demeter Amphiktionis: Hdt. 7.200 and Strabo 420, with Sánchez, L'amphictionie des Pyles et de Delphes, 29, 32.

[36] This preponderance is admitted by Lefèvre, L'amphictionie pyléo-delphique: histoire et institutions, 73. But at the same time he says (note 346) that Buckler has ‘justement minoré’ Thebes' part in these affairs. He promises to return to these questions in his forthcoming Budé edition of Diodorus 16, to which we look eagerly forward.

[37] This is probably true of all those who, like Sordi or Ehrhardt, have opted for a 366 date, not bothering about the difference between ‘Leuktrian war’ and ‘battle of Leuktra’.

[38] IG ii² 109 [Ditt. Syll ² 100, ³ 175 (Pomtow); Hicks, Manual, 91, Hicks and Hill, 116]; Osborne, Naturalization 1, 49–51 no. D11. But Angelos Matthaiou (per epist., 25 May 2006) worries about the restoration of the penalty word [ϵιφυγαν] at line 18: we expect an accusative of person after ισγαγϵν, or at least some word like γραφν or δκην. The restoration [ϵιφυγας] (gen.) is excluded because Astykrates is in the genitive in line 19. But Matthaiou concedes that the sense [ϵιφυγαν] is required by the unavoidable [στϵ φυγ]αδϵσαι at lines 19–20 (and also, we may add, by κπϵπτωκσι at line 55, cf. 38), and he can think of nothing better than the usual text at line 18. He notes the remarkable singular of φϵλϵτο (Andronikos not the amphiktiony) at line 21. He rejects Osborne's [λοκλρους] at lines 21–22. and notes Rangabé's θ[ϵωροντων].

[39] For which see Bonner and Smith, ‘Administration of Justice in the Delphic Amphictyony’; Ehrhardt, The Third Sacred War, 13.

[40] The relevant inscriptions, mentioning the leased-out properties of the exiles, are now CID II (1989) nos. 67–72; note the helpful table at p. 133. For the property of Astykrates and Hagesarchos, see for example no. 68 lines 1 and 3. See also Rousset, Territoire de Delphes et terre sacrée d'Apollon. In these texts, Astykrates' name has sometimes been deliberately erased: see Pomtow, ‘Neues zur delphischen στσις im Jahre 363 v. Chr.’, 400. Syll ³ 178 prints parts of nos. 68 and 71. CID II no. 73 (Syll ³ 177), by contrast, seems to be a list of anti-Phokians, who perhaps returned to Delphi in 346: see Bousquet, CID II p. 143, who reports Pomtow's reconstruction, while saying it is closer to a historical novel than to history (but see his p. 131, very close to Pomtow).

[41] Sánchez, L'amphictionie des Pyles et de Delphes, 170, concedes this rareness. Lexicon of Greek Personal Names IIIB (entry under ‘Aγσαρχος) lists four Delphians, of whom no. (3) is second-century BC and no. (4) is first-century BC. Nos. (1) and (2), listed separately in LGPN, are both attested at mid-fourth-century Delphi, and it is reasonable to identify them both with each other, and with the ‘Hγσαρχος of Syll ³ 175. LGPN rightly identifies the latter with no. (1) in its entry.

[42] CID II (1989) no. 31 line 34.

[43] Pomtow, ‘Delphische στσις, 114, 126, 404; cf. Sánchez, L'amphictionie des Pyles et de Delphes, 169.

[44] Arnush, ‘Argead and Aetolian Relations’.

[45] Busolt and Swoboda, Griechische Staatskunde, 1303 n. 2 (promanteia point).

[46] Syll ³ 177; cf. no. 7, actually = Hdt. 1.54.2.

[47] Syll ³ 7, actually not an inscription in the usual sense at all, but reconstructed from Hdt. 1.54.2.

[48] Bowden, ‘The Functions of the Delphic Amphictyony before 346 BCE’, 67.

[49] Bousquet, CID II (1989), 131.

[50] Sánchez, L'amphictionie des Pyles et de Delphes, 171 and 143.

[51] Lefèvre, CID IV 2002, 466

[52] Diod. 16.23.3.

[53] Buckler, ‘Thebes, Delphoi, and the Outbreak of the Third Sacred War’, 245, and Philip II and the Sacred War, 16f.; Sánchez, L'amphictionie des Pyles et de Delphes, 177.

[54] Xen. Hell. 7.5.4. Cf. Hdt. 8.30 for long-standing Phokian–Thessalian hostility.

[55] Buckler, Philip II and the Sacred War, 10.

[56] ‘Sulky’: Ehrhardt, The Third Sacred War, 19.

[57] And he surely alludes to the Third Sacred War at Poroi (Revenues), 5. 9.

[58] De Jong, Narratological Commentary on the Odyssey, xvii–xviii.

[59] Schaefer, Demosthenes, 489 and n. 3.

[60] See also Schaefer, Demosthenes, 89 and n. 2.

[61] Buckler, Philip II and the Sacred War, 19.

[62] See Horden and Purcell, The Corrupting Sea, ch. XII.

[63] Yardley and Heckel, Justin: Epitome of Trogus, 11–12, 17f.; cf. Justin, preface para. 4.

[64] Buckler, Philip II and the Sacred War, 142. Cf., from a different angle but in the same moral vein, Ehrhardt The Third Sacred War, 90: ‘Thebes, by wanton aggression for her own selfish ends, was responsible for crippling Greece and finally destroying her freedom.’

[65] Buckler, Philip II and the Sacred War, 16 n. 13.

[66] Note the scholiast to Dem. 19. 20: τι Θηβαων κα Φωκων πολϵμοντων πρς αυτος δι τν παραποταμαν γν, with Schaefer (above, n. 59), 489 n. 2.

[67] Hornblower. ‘The Religious Dimension to the Peloponnesian War’, and Commentary on Thucydides on i. 107, 112, iii. 92. Criticized at length by Lefèvre, CID IV, 2002, 436–44, cf. 452: ‘un certain excès d’“historicisme”.'

[68] Daux, ‘Remarques sur la composition du conseil amphictionique’; Roux, L'amphictionie, Delphes et le temple d'Apollon au IV^e siècle, 5 and n. 2; Lefèvre, L'amphictionie pyléo-delphique: histoire et institutions, 53.

[69] Jones, Kinship Diplomacy in the Ancient World.

[70] Kip, Thessalische Studien, 19; Béquignon, La vallée du Spercheios, 350 n. 1; cf. Flacelière, Les Aitoliens à Delphes, 40 n. 2.

[71] Plut. Them. 20: [Θϵμιστοκλς] φοβηθϵς μ....[ο Λακϵδαιμνιοι]παντϵλς πικρατσωσι τν ψφων και` γνηται το` δοκον κϵνοις.

[72] Syll ³ 829A (cf. Jones, Plutarch and Rome, 26).

[73] Lefèvre, CID IV, 2002, 443 n. 42.

[74] Lewis, ‘The Origins of the First Peloponnesian War’; cf. Hornblower, Greek World, 27–30, cf. 21. I do not here try to bring the intriguing but fragmentary Athenian decree IG i³ 9 into the mid-century story, though I note that Lefèvre, CID IV 2002, 463, para. 3, thinks (against Sánchez, L'amphictionie des Pyles et de Delphes, 109–11) it may be ‘abusif de dénier à l'amphictionie toute dimension symmachique’.

[75] Lefèvre, CID IV 2002, 438.

[76] Lefèvre, CID IV 2002, 449.

[77] Lefèvre, L'amphictionie pyléo-delphique: histoire et institutions, 236

[78] Lefèvre, CID IV 2002, 441.

[79] See note 7 above; see Paus. 10.7, etc.

[80] Taplin, ‘Spreading the Word Through Performance’, 46ff. The passage is cited by Lefèvre, L'amphictionie pyléo-delphique: histoire et institutions, 193 n. 149, but merely as one of the literary testimonia for the location of the sessions of the amphiktiony. Similarly Sánchez, L'amphictionie des Pyles et de Delphes, 32, 62.

[81] Xen. Hell. 6 4.30, πανγυριν τ θϵ κα τος γνας ατς διατιθναι.

[82] Paus. 10.7.8. See Hornblower and Morgan, 35–39.