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The Chalcidians and ‘Apollonia of the Thraceward Ionians’
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 September 2013
Abstract
The excavations at Torone, Mende, and some other sites have produced evidence of continuous contact between Chalcidice and southern Greece from early in the Iron Age. We can now understand more clearly the relationship between the earliest Greek settlers and those of the colonizing period, and we can tackle some problems of topography in the Chalcidian peninsula from a new angle.
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References
1 The following special abbreviations are used:
AEMTh = Αρχαιολογιϰό έργο στη Μαϰεδονία ϰαι Θράϰη, 1–4 (Thessaloniki, 1987–93)
Anc. Mac. = Αρχαία Μαϰεδονία, i–v (Thessaloniki, 1970–93)
Bradeen = Bradeen, D. W., ‘The Chalcidians in Thrace’, AJP 73 (1952), 356 ff.Google Scholar
Harrison = Harrison, E., ‘Chalkidike’, CQ 6 (1912), 93 ff. and 165 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
HG = Hammond, N. G. L., A History of Greece to 332 BC (Oxford, 1959; 3rd edn, Oxford, 1987)Google Scholar
HM= id., A History of Macedonia, i (Oxford, 1970)
Macedonia = Vokotopoulou, J. (ed.), Greek Civilization: Macedonia (Athens, 1993, for an exhibition in Montreal)Google Scholar
Migrations = Hammond, N. G. L., Migrations and Invasions in Greece and Adjacent Areas (New Jersey, 1976)Google Scholar
Papazoglou = Papazoglou, F., Les Villes de Macédoine à l'époque romaine (Athens, 1988)Google Scholar
Zahrnt = Zahrnt, M., Olynth und die Chalkidier (Munich, 1971)Google Scholar
The most thorough studies of the Chalcidians are those of Harrison and Zahrnt, for which any student of the question is grateful. I owe much to the kindness of colleagues in sending me copies of their works: H. Koukouli-Chrysanthaki, M. B. Hatzopoulos, F. Papazoglou, and especially J. Vokotopoulou. I have had the great benefit of discussing with Dr Hatzopoulos many aspects of the question.
2 Not mentioned by Harrison or Zahrnt, and not in Z.'s ‘Register’ on p. 264. Cited by Papazoglou 423 but without commenting on ‘the Ionians’.
3 See Schmid, P., Studien zu griechischen Ktisissagen (Freiburg, 1947), 154–67.Google Scholar
4 FHG iv. 420 (Hegesander) F 40, from Athen. 334 e–f (fishermen); IG iv2 94, col. II (theoroi); HM 195 f. (mansio).
5 Ptolemy, iii. 12. 33, and Pliny, , HN iv. 38Google Scholar; cf. Strab. vii, fr. 36, ‘the people round Lake Bolbe are mostly called Mygdones’.
6 The people of Crousis were described as a tribe (ethnos) by Hellanicus (FGrHist 4 F 31 fin.). They and their towns were not described as being ‘Thraceward’. See HM 187 ff., citing Hecataeus.
7 Thuc. i. 57. 5; cf. 56. 2; 59. 1; 60. 3; 68. 4. An inscription, SIG 3–135, to be dated to the first half of the 4th cent., has been restored to read Χαλ] ϰιδέων τῶ[ν ἐπὶ Θρά̨ϰης, but the restoration is uncertain. Aristotle writes of an Androdamas making a legal code for Χαλϰιδεῦσι τοῖς ἐπὶ Θρά̨ϰης. In earlier centuries the term ‘Thraceward’ may have been used to include, for instance, the Pierian coast where Methone was founded (see Plut. Mor. 293 b).
8 So also in Ps. -Scylax, 67, referring probably to the situation in the 360s.
9 I am using here the dates which were based on genealogies in HG 82.
10 This passage has not hitherto been taken literally. Walbank, F. W., A Historical Commentary on Polybius, ii (Oxford, 1967), 164Google Scholar, remarking that ‘the reference to Athens is hard to explain’, connects Athens with Chalcis in Euboea, and also mentions Oberhummer's idea that Polyb. had Peisistratus's foundation of Rhaecalus in mind as ‘a less probable explanation’. Add now Zahrnt, 27, who suggests that Polyb. was reporting a fictitious ‘Lokaltradition’, which the Chalcidians invented in order to keep up with the people of Athens. Harrison, 165, writes that ‘the addition of Athens puts his evidence out of court’. Papazoglou does not include the passage in her register on p. 621.
11 The evidence is in the inscriptions found at Olynthus, and in coin legends. See the analysis by Zahrnt, 18 ff., and his conclusion that the dialect was ‘zwar durchweg ionisch’ and the lettering on early coins of Olynthus, Sermylia, and the Chalcidic league of an ‘eastern alphabet’. So also LSAG 363: ‘such fifth-century material as we have is in the east Ionic script’.
12 See Babelon, J., RN 13 (1951), 3.Google Scholar
13 On the ‘Nostoi’ traditions see HG 73. Thuc. accepts as historical the traditions we call those of the Late Mycenaean period, in i. 9. 1–2. Zahrnt, 234, thinks Thuc. gives little credence to the Scionaean tradition, but fails to notice other examples in Thuc.'s history and in particular his willingness to repeat what others ‘say’ (e.g. at i. 9. 2). Bradeen, 380 n. 123, thinks Steph. Byz. (s.v. Torone) holds that the words ‘Torone founded after Troy’ refer to the city in Chalcidice because, he writes, ‘there was only one Torone’; he forgets the Torone on the coast of Epirus, in an area where connections with Troy were quite frequent (see Hammond, N. G. L., Epirus (Oxford, 1967), 384 f.; 412 f.Google Scholar)
14 The distinction was not one of language: there is indisputable evidence that the Molossians were Greekspeaking in the late 5th cent. See Hammond (n. 13), 525 ff. Nor was the distinction one of independence, as Kahrstedt, U. suggests in ‘Städte in Makedonien’, Hermes, 81 (1953), 87Google Scholar: Amantia and Oricum were no less independent than Epidamnus and Apollonia.
15 It is to be noted that Hdt., tracing the progress of Xerxes' fleet (vii. 122), mentions Assa, Pilorus, Singos, and Sarte, from which he took only troops, and next ‘Hellenic cities as follows’ (῾Ελληνίδας τάσδε πόλιας), from which he took warships and troops: Torone, Galepsus, Sermyle, Mecyberna, Olynthus. The implication is that the first four were not ‘Hellenic cities’, and that is probable enough: they were small and did not provide warships. Of the five ‘Hellenic cities’, four were so called by Scylax (he omits Galepsus, of which nothing is known after 421). In Hdt. the contrast is between ‘Hellenic’ and ‘barbarian’ cities; and in vii. 109. 2 the contrast is with Thracian tribes (ethnê). See also Diod. xii. 68. 5.
16 Zahrnt (23) sees that there was ‘eine einheitliche Ionisch sprachende Siedlungsgruppe’ in Chalcidice at an early period, but attributes its presence to an immigration of Greek-speaking tribes from the N ‘in the late 13th and the early 12th centuries’ (25). But the literary tradition for a migration at that lime brings the Greek-speaking Dorians from the NW. See my summary in CAH ii3 2 (1975), 678 ff. with map 13; Migrations, 135 ff. with map 23.
17 Kahrstedt, U., AJP (1936), 426.Google Scholar and Harrison, 172 f., followed by Zahrnt, 26, hold that the Chalcidian group split up into city-states ‘long before our first glimpse into their history’. That view is not consistent with the description by Hdt., nor with the Chalcidians demolishing their coastal towns in 432 (Thuc. i. 58. 2) and with Phormio ravaging Chalcidian and Bottiaean territories and capturing some ‘towns’ (πολίσματα) Rather, the impression is that the towns of these peoples were small and not independent city-states. So, too, the towns on Acte were μιϰρὰ πολίσματα with mixed, non-Greek populations (iv. 109. 4). On the other hand Sermylia, which coined in the 6th cent, and was not ‘Chalcidian’ (i. 65. 2), was a city-state.
18 For an account of colonization in the area see Graham, A. J. in CAH iii 2 3 (1982), 113 f.Google Scholar, and my list in HG 1 (1959), 658. Since then I have been persuaded by the arguments of Zahrnt, 234, and by the tradition of the Scionaeans that Scione was settled at the start of the EIA and not c.700. The despatch of colonies from Euboea was made when Eretria and Chalcis were ‘exceptionally enlarged’ (Strab. 447), i. e. before the Lelantine war on either side of 700, when Eretria was stripped of all its dependencies. Eretria was active on Pallene (Strab. 447) and Chalcis on Sithonia (Strab. vii, fr. 11). Eusebius dates the colonization of Acanthus and Stagira to 655/4.
19 Graham, J. W. in PECS 651.Google Scholar
20 For Torone see Cambitoglou, A., PAE 1988 [1991], 114Google Scholar, in trench 68; for Mende, Vokotopoulou, J., A. Delt. 41, Chr. 149Google Scholar; 42, Chr. 368, for pottery, similar to that at Lefkandi, in pits containing debris which spanned the 12th to 7th centuries. See, for summaries, AR 1990–1, 50; 1991–2, 54.
21 Macedonia, 131; see also Cambitoglou, A., PAE 1984, 48 f.Google Scholar; 1988, 112 f.
22 Vokotopoulou, J., A. Delt. 42, Chr. 371Google Scholar; ead., with Smith, J. Carington, AR 1989–1990, 52.Google ScholarPubMed
23 Vokotopoulou, J., in Anc. Mac. v. 1 (1993), 179–236, esp. 185 f.Google Scholar, of which I am translating parts of the Greek text.
24 Ead. and Moschonesioti, S., AEMTh 4 (1990), 411–23Google Scholar, with English summary on p. 415, where ‘Aetolia’ is a slip for ‘Aeolis’. At the Toumba of Thessaloniki there is imported Euboean, Ionian, and Corinthian pottery from the 9th cent, onwards (ibid. 301; 305).
25 Ergon, 1989, 73 f.; 1990, 92; AR 1990, 50.
26 Advocates of only one Apollonia are Beloch, K. J., Griechische Geschichte 2, iii. 1 (Berlin, 1922), 103 n. 1Google Scholar, and his followers down to Zahrnt, 155 ff.
27 Vokotopoulou, J., in Anc. Mac. iv (1986), 105.Google Scholar
28 The implication is that the territory of Olynthus extended to the E part of Chalcidice and so jeopardized Acanthus and Apollonia.
29 Papazoglou, 421 f., discusses this campaign and gives refs. to earlier literature.
30 In Ziva antika, 36 (1986), 33 ff., F. Papazoglou proposes to expunge this Apollonia altogether. She supposes that, in reading Strabo, Pliny got confused and transferred the Apollonia of the Thracian coast to the vicinity of the Athos peninsula. It is not convincing. Papazoglou seems to have supposed that Pliny read the text of our Strab. vii, fr. 35; but Pliny had the full text at his disposal, whereas the so-called fragment of Strabo is a fragment of the Vatican Epitome, an abbreviation of the real thing and incompetent at that. It is difficult to see how Pliny could have misplaced the Apollonia of the Thracian coast: for if he was reading Strabo, which is far from certain, he would have seen him place it, rightly, on the Thracian coast (vii, fr. 33, and twice in fr. 35). Finally, Pliny himself (HN iv. 42) places the Apollonia of the Thracian coast, correctly, next to Oesyme.
31 Papazoglou, 221, cites the passages and discusses them.
32 For Methone's position see Hatzopoulos, M. B.et al., BCH 114 (1990), 639–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar I visited the site, which clearly has not been inhabited since 354 BC; indeed, I saw four slingstones on the surface, which are to be connected with the siege.
33 The size of the site and the excellence of the area for horse-raising indicate that the squadron came from this Apollonia, which may have been made ‘a city of Macedonia’ by Philip, even as Calindoea was by Alexander, (see my article in CQ n. s. 38 (1988), 382 ff.).Google Scholar The matter is discussed by G. T. Griffith, with a different conclusion, in Hammond, and Griffith, , History of Macedonia, ii (Oxford, 1979), 367–70.Google Scholar
34 For my earlier arguments to that effect, see HG 1 (1959), 82 ff.; Migrations, 151 f.: ‘the peoples of north-eastern Thessaly … in the course of the Aeolian migration established contact with the ports of the Thermaic Gulf, Chalcidice, the Thracian coast and the Troad’; and CAH ii3 2 (1975), 702–12.
35 For this see Migrations, 144 ff.
36 For Mende see n. 18 above. According to Plut. Mor. 392 a–b, Methone was founded by Eretrians who had been expelled from Corcyra by Corinthian colonists, an event dated to 733 (Thuc. vi. 3. 2; Graham (n. 18), 105). Zahrnt, 29 f., dates Eretria's colonization ‘probably after the Lelantine war’, despite Strabo's clear statement that both Eretria and Chalcis were exceptionally enlarged when they sent out colonies ‘to Macedonia’ (447 init.).
37 The adjective Χαλϰιδεύς when used without a noun, has at least three connotations: (1) territorial-geographical, as in Thuc. i. 65. 2, sc. γῆ; (2) ethnic, as in iv. 109. 4, sc. ἔθνος or γένος; (3) specifically of Chalcis, as in iii. 86. 2 and vi. 4. 5, of her colonies in Sicily. An instance of (1) seems to be in Athen. 334 e, where ῾Απολλωνίαν τὴν Χαλϰιδιϰήν is the Apollonia of Mygdonia, since its rivers flow into L. Bolbe. So also Τορώνην τὴν Χαλϰιδιϰήν, in Thuc. iv. 110. 1, may have indicated simply that this Torone was the Chalcidic and not the Epirotic one. Yet at iv. 25, Νάξον τὴν Χαλϰιδιϰήν, the connotation in the context is more likely to be (3). Since there are ambiguities, I have not discussed this usage, as e.g. Zahrnt, 12 ff., has done, citing the views of Harrison and Bradeen.
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