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The Oenoe Painting in the Stoa Poikile, and Herodotus' Account of Marathon
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 September 2013
Abstract
It is argued that the painting in the Stoa Poikile described by Pausanias as an engagement between Athenians and Spartans at Argive Oenoe in fact refers to Oenoe in Attica, and depicted the arrival of the Plataean contingent prior to the battle of Marathon. The dependence of Herodotus on the paintings in the Stoa Poikile for his account of Marathon is discussed.
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- Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1985
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Acknowledgements. The ideas put forward in this article were first presented as part of our paper, ‘Political Poetry and Political Painting, 480–460’, read before the Cambridge Philological Society in October 1980. In gratefully acknowledging the advice of J.J. Coulton, W. G. Forrest, L. H. Jeffery, J. H. Kroll, R. Meiggs, M. Reeve, M. Robertson, P. Stadter, and T. Leslie Shear Jr., we do not imply that any of them would necessarily agree with all aspects of our argument. We are also indebted to the President and Fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford, and the University Research Institute at the University of Texas at Austin (E. D. F.), the Wolfson Foundation, the Oxford Literae Humaniores Faculty Board, the Craven Committee, and the Ashmolean Central Travel Fund (M. V.) for their generous support of the research of which this is a part.
1 Cf. Wycherley, R. E., The Athenian Agora 3. Literary and Epigraphical Testimonia (Princeton 1957) 31–45.Google Scholar
2 Robertson, M., A Shorter History of Greek Art (Cambridge 1981) 106.Google Scholar On the idealization of Marathon in the rhetorical tradition, see Loraux, N., ‘“Marathon” ou l'histoire idéologique’, REA 75 (1973) 13–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar (also L'invention d' Athènes (Paris 1981) 156–73).
3 Andrewes, A., ‘Could there have been a battle at Oenoe?’, in Levick, B. (ed.), The Ancient Historian and his Materials: Essays in Honour of C. E. Stevens on his Seventieth Birthday (Farnborough 1975) 9.Google Scholar
4 In 1859 A. Schäfer disputed Pausanias' reading of the Oenoe (published in AA 1862, 371 4; cf. Historische Aufsätze und Festreden (Leipzig 1873) 43 ff., 57 ff.). Schäfer suggested that Pausanias had mistaken Argive Oenoe for the Oenoe in the Marathonian Tetrapolis and confused a historical battle with a mythical one. In Schäfer's view the painting represented Eurystheus' invasion of Attica undertaken to demand the return of the Heraclidae from Theseus' protection. Although such a painting is reported by the scholia on Ar. Plut. 385 to have hung ‘in the stoa of the Athenians’, the reports of these scholia are confused, and since no other evidence links such a painting with the Stoa Poikile, we see no reason for supposing that it was part of the stoa's original decoration. (For bibliography, see Francis, E. D. and Vickcrs, M., ‘Argive Oenoe’, L'Antiquité classique 54 (1985).CrossRefGoogle Scholar)
5 Wycherley, , The Stones of Athens (Princeton 1978) 38Google Scholar; cf. Robert, C., ‘Archäologische Nachlese 4: Die Schlacht bei Oinoa’, Hermes 25 (1890) 414–15Google Scholar (cited below as ‘Oinoa’); id., Die Marathonschlaht in der Poikile und weiteres über Polygnot (Halle 1895) 8–9 (cited below as Marathonschlacht); Meritt, L. S., ‘The Stoa Poikile’, Hesperia 39 (1970) 233–64, esp. 256–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Meiggs, R., The Athenian Empire (Oxford 1972) 471Google Scholar; Thompson, H. A. and Wycherley, R. E., Agora 14 (Princeton 1972) 90Google Scholar; Robertson, , A History of Greek Art (Cambridge 1975) 242–4Google Scholar, who suggests that the decoration was not completed until Cimon's return from ostracism (so also, Shorter History (n. 2) 106); Coulton, J. J., The Architectural Development of the Greek Stoa (Oxford 1976) 40.Google ScholarHölscher, T., Griechische Historienbilder des 5. und 4. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. (Würzburg 1973) 74Google Scholar (with nn. 347–9) points out that the available evidence for the date of the Stoa is inconclusive, but offers no compelling reason to reject the conventional view we have cited.
6 Wycherley (n. 5) 38; Boersma, J. S., Athenian Building Policy from 561/0 to 405/4 B.C. (Scripta Archaeologica Groningana 4, Groningen 1970) 55–6Google Scholar; Meritt (n. 5) 255–6; cf. Robert, ‘Oinoa’, 421–2, Marathonschlacht 8–9; Robertson (n. 5) 234; and especially Jeffery, L. H., ‘The Battle of Oinoe in the Stoa Poikile’, BSA 60 (1968) 41–2.Google Scholar Wycherley's translation of the entry in the Suda s.v. ‘Zeus’ (Agora 3 (n. 1) 43 no. 92) gives the impression that the paintings were not part of the Stoa's original conception: ‘at an earlier period the Stoa was called Peisianakteios, but afterwards when painted with pictures received the name Poikile (ὕστερον δὲ ζωγραφηθεῖσα Ποικίλη ἐκλήθη)’. We prefer to interpret ζωγραφηθεῖσα as causal, not temporal: the name was changed (cf. Suda s.v. ‘βασίλεως’ = Agora 3, 25 no. 22) because (not when) it was painted, and presumably at a time when Pisianax and his building commission had lost all claim to celebrity: cf. Loraux (n. 2) 377 n. 279: ‘le souvenir aristocratique des libéralités privées s' évanouit dès le milieu du Vème siècle’.
7 Cf. Barron, J. P., ‘Bakchylides, Theseus and a Woolly Cloak’, BICS 27 (1980) 1–8.Google Scholar
8 Plut. Cim. 8. 3–7, Thes. 36. 1–4; Paus. 1. 17. 2–3.
9 Plut. Cim. 16. 1; cf. Per. 29. 2.
10 Jeffery (n. 6) 42; Meiggs (n. 5) 471; Andrewes (n. 3) 16; Robert therefore dated the painting to the period of Cimon's ostracism (‘Oinoa’ (n. 5) 421).
11 Jeffery (n. 6) 50; Hölscher (n. 5) 68–9. We therefore question Hölscher's interpretation of the relationship between the paintings 201; ‘das Marathongemälde als Darstellung einer Schlacht der Vatergeneration, an der auch Götter und Heroen teilnehmen; das Oinoe-Bild als Schilderung eines eben errungenen Erfolges’. Contrast the evidence of Greek vase-painting (e.g. ARV 2 364. 46, 417. 4, etc., the Eurymedon jug published by Schauenburg, K., ‘ΕΥΡΥΜΕΔΩΝ ΕΙΜΙ’ AM 90 (1975) 97–122Google Scholar; Hornbostel, W., ‘Erwerbungen für die Antikenabteilung in den Jahren 1980–81’, Jahrbuch des Museums für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg (1982) 109–12.Google Scholar Cf. Francis, E. D., ‘Greeks and Persians: the Art of Hazard and Triumph’, in Schmandt-Besserat, D. (ed.), Ancient Persia: the Art of an Empire (Malibu 1980) 70–1)Google Scholar and the data assembled by Schoppa, H., Die Darstellung in der griechischen Kunst bis zum Beginn des Hellenismus [Coburg 1933]Google Scholar and Bovon, A., ‘La représentation des guerriers perses et la notion de barbare dans la Ière moitié du Ve siècle’, BCH 87 (1963) 579–602)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and the medium of Greek drama (e.g. Phrynichus' ‘historical’ plays and Aeschylus' Persae of 472).
12 Francis and Vickers (n. 4).
13 Cf. Macleod, C. W., ‘Politics and the Oresteia’, JHS 102 (1982) 126–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Podlecki, A. J., The Political Background of Aeschylean Tragedy (Ann Arbor 1966) 58–62.Google Scholar
14 Jeffery (n. 6) 50; cf. Andrewes (n. 3) 13–14.
15 Cf. the offence caused by Pausanias' inscription on the Serpent Column at Delphi (Thuc. 1. 132).
16 Paus. 10. 10. 3–5, and cf. Francis and Vickers (n. 4).
17 e.g. Herzog, R., ‘Auf den Spuren der Telesilla’, Philologus 71 (1912) 6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. Francis and Vickers (n. 4) n. 22. On Plistarchus, see Lewis, D. M., Sparta and Persia (Leiden 1977) 44.Google Scholar
18 Cf. Pritchett, W. K., Studies in Ancient Greek Topography 3 (Roads) (University of California Publications in Classical Studies 22, 1980) 49Google Scholar; ‘The invader would be descending from an arduous march over the mountain barrier.’
19 Hdt. 6. 109; cf. Plut. Arist. 5.
20 Wycherley, , ‘Marathon in the Poikile’, PCPS NS 18 (1972) 78.Google Scholar
21 Paus. 1. 15. 1; for the north-west corner of the Agora as ‘the focus of the colorful activities of the Athenian cavalry’, see Kroll, J. H., ‘An Archive of the Athenian Cavalry’, Hesperia 46 (1977) 83–140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
22 Cf. Meiggs (n. 5) 470.
23 Amandry, P., ‘Athènes au lendemain des guerres médiques’, Revue de l'Université de Bruxelles 13 (1960–1961) 198–223.Google Scholar
24 The presence of Artemis was equally appropriate to both settings; Artemis Agrotera was believed to have played an important role at Marathon (e.g. Bowra, C. M., Greek Lyric Poetry 2 (Oxford 1961) 387–8)Google Scholar, and Artemis Orthia was the guardian of the pass at Argive Oenoe (cf. Francis and Vickers (n. 4)). C. Robert suggested (Marathonschlacht, 7) that the nymph Oenoe, according to some traditions (cf. Frazer ad Paus. 8. 30. 3) the mother of Pan, might have been shown next to Artemis in the Oenoe (but he was thinking of it in an Argive context). For the post-Marathonian cult of Artemis Eukleia, see Paus. 1. 14. 5 and Braund, D. C., ‘Artemis Eukleia and Euripides Hippolytus’, JHS 100 (1980) 184.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
25 Meiggs (n. 5) 469.
26 Francis and Vickers (n. 4).
27 A. W. Gorame argues that some of the strategic planning which Herodotus places at Marathon is likely to have occurred before the army had marched from Athens, (‘Herodotus and Marathon’, Phoenix 6 (1952) 77–83Google Scholar reprinted in More Essays in Greek History and Literature (Oxford 1962) 29–37).
28 Gomme (n. 27) 30–4.
29 Shrimpton, G., ‘The Persian Cavalry at Marathon’, Phoenix 34 (1980) 25–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
30 Cf. Paus. 1. 32. 7. On the location of this mountain and Cave of Pan, see Paus. 1. 32. 5 (with Frazer's note, 2. 439 ad 1. 32. 7), and the excavation report in Macan, , Herodotus iv–vi 2 (London 1895) 153–4, 181.Google Scholar The importance of Pan at Marathon is reflected by the Arcadian tradition that Miltiades made a dedication to Pan (Simon. 143D. = 5 Page; cf. Berve, H., Miltiades (Berlin 1937) 912Google Scholar; Bowra, , Greek Lyric Poetry 2 (Oxford 1961) 385–6)Google Scholar and by Aristides' characterization of the Persian rout as a χορεία Πανός (cf. Harrison, E. B., ‘The South Frieze of the Nike Temple and the Marathon Painting in the Painted Stoa’, AJA; 76 (1972) 367 with n. 84; cf. 369).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Pan was important not only in the Marathon campaign (cf. his apparition to Phidippides on Mt. Parthenion above Tegea, Hdt. 6. 105), but also at Salamis (Aesch. Pers. 448–9 with Broadhead's note ad loc). After the Persian Wars, the Athenians no longer ‘neglected’ the goat-footed god, but established a cult on the Acropolis in his name (Hdt. 6. 105). Pan was also celebrated in poetry and painting (e.g. Bovon, , ‘Les guerres médiques dans la tradition et les cultes populaires d'Athènes’, EL 6 (1963) 221–9Google Scholar; Brommer, F., ‘Pan, der arkadische Gott’, RE Suppl. 8 (1956) 949–1008Google Scholar; Travlos, J., Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Athens (London 1971) 417–21Google Scholar; Webster, T. B. L., ‘Homeric Hymns and Society’, Hommages à C. Préaux (Brussels 1975) 86–93Google Scholar; Wycherley, , The Stones of Athens (Princeton 1978) 177Google Scholar; cf. Phoenix 24 (1970) 283–95). The conjunction of Apollo, Pan, and Zeus at Aesch. Agam. 56 deserves further consideration in Marathonian terms; see Fraenkel ad loc.
31 Cf. n. 24 above.
32 Cf. the Spartans' three-day march, Hdt. 6. 120. 1; on the time taken to march from Plataea to Marathon, see Hammond, N. G. L., ‘The Campaign and Battle of Marathon’, JHS 88 (1968) 34 n. 95CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. id., Studies in Greek History (Oxford 1973) 205 n. 2.
33 Cf. the situation in Argos (‘νύκτωρ’), above, p. 101, and Francis and Vickers (n. 4).
34 For a possibly similar confusion, see Pausanias' description of the ‘Chest of Cypselus’ (5. 18. 6–8) below, p. 106.
35 Pritchett, W. K. (Marathon, University of California Publications in Classical Archaeology 4/2 (1960) 138–40)Google Scholar and Burn, A. R. (Persia and the Greeks, the Defence of the West c. 546–478 B.C. (London, 1962) 244)Google Scholar follows S. Soteriades (references in Pritchett, 138 n. 6) in placing the Heracleum on the north edge of Mt. Agrieliki; Hammond (n. 32) 25 (Studies 187–9 and fig. 10) places it on Mt. Kotroni; Vanderpool, E. (‘The Deme of Marathon and the Herakleion’, AJA 70 (1960) 319–23)CrossRefGoogle Scholar places it at the southern end of the plain of Marathon near the sea, and is followed by Themelis, P. G. (‘Μαραθών: πρόσφατα εὑρήματα καὶ ἤ μάχη’, ADelt 29/1 (1974) fig. 2)Google Scholar and Green, P. M., Ancient Greece: an Illustrated History (New York 1979) 108 fig. 138.Google Scholar
36 For the general arrangement, see Harrison (n. 30) 364, and 370–8 for further testimonia.
37 On the cult of Pythian Apollo at Oenoe, see Fraser 2. 438 (citing Σ ad Soph. OC 1047), Bicknell, P. J., Studies in Athenian Politics and Genealogy (Historia Einzelschriften Heft 19 (Wiesbaden 1972) 33).Google Scholar The presence of Apollo beside Artemis on the Darius crater (Francis (n. 11) 84–5) may therefore have been more than merely ‘complementary’, as is usually supposed.
38 Robert, Marathonschlacht, 7.
39 Harrison (n. 30) 357.
40 While Jurinus may have been correct in supplementing the definite article (ἡ) before the phrase ἐν τῇ ποικίλῃ στοᾷ γραφή, it would be unwarranted to interpret this supplemental ἡ to mean ‘the painting in the Stoa Poikile’ (namely the ‘Battle of Marathon’), rather than the painting to which the description most naturally refers, namely the ‘Oenoe’.
41 It may even have been the distinctive headgear which helped to mislead Pausanias, since κύνεαι exist in many national costumes including Boeotian (Thphr. HP 3. 9. 6; cf. ps. -Dem. loc. cit.) and Laconian (Ba. 18. 50–1 Sn.). Plistarchus' troops may have been wearing εὔτυκτοι κύνεαι Λάκαιναι as they marched to Argive Oenoe (but on Laconian κύνεαι see Σ ad Ar. Av. 1203 cited by Barron [n. 7] 5 n. 4). For a recent discussion of such headgear, see Vocotopoulou, J., ‘Πιλος Λακωνικός’ ΣΤΗΛΗ (Memorial Volume for N. Kontoleon (Athens 1978)) 236–41.Google Scholar Jeffery also seems willing to suppose that Pausanias confused the participants' nationality: ‘the Theban troops could be misinterpreted as being the Lacedaimonians’ (n. 6) 51.
42 Harrison (n. 30) 357. Ps.-Demosthenes' use of προσβοηθῶν seems to echo Herodotus' own language at 6. 108. 1 and 6 as the orator recalls the ὑπομνήματα of valour in which Plataeans have helped Athenians. In doing so he reverses the Herodotean argument which accounts for this Boeotian response by referring to previous occasions on which Athens had succoured Plataea.
43 Pausanias' phrase ἐς χεῖρας … συνιόντες, however, rules out the possibility that he interpreted the meeting as one between allies rather than adversaries.
44 Harrison (n. 30) 364 n. 73.
45 e.g. certain pedimental figures from the Temple of Zeus at Olympia are misidentified (5. 10. 8; cf. Ashmole, B. and Yalouris, N., Olympia (London 1967) 15–18).Google Scholar Note also Pausanias' ‘surprise’ at seeing Diitrephes ‘full of arrows’ (1. 23. 3, on which see HCT 3 (ad Thuc. 7. 29. 1)). Cf. Habicht, C., ‘Pausanias and the evidence of inscriptions’, Classical Antiquity 3.1 (1984) 40–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
46 ‘Visite nâtive’, Daux, G.'s phrase, Pausanias à Delphes (Paris 1936) 181Google Scholar; cf. Heer, J., La personnalité de Pausanias (Paris 1979) 280–2.Google Scholar For the possibility that Pausanias has misinterpreted the Argive dedication of the Wooden Horse next to the bronze statue group by Hypatodorus and Aristogiton, see Daux, 86–92, 186–7.
47 Meritt (n. 5) 258 plausibly suggests that the shields hung on the columns.
48 e.g. 5. 18. 6–8 (see below, p. 106); cf. 10. 10.4; Francis and Vickers (n. 4).
49 Herodotus mentions the Oenoe near Eleusis (5. 74), but not Marathonian Oenoe.
50 The same consideration is implied in Jeffery's proposal that we might seek the subject of the painting in the myth underlying Aeschylus' Eleusinioi (n. 6) 50–2; cf. Andrewes (n. 3) 13–14; Podlecki (n. 13) 150–1; but see Wachsmuth, C., Die Stadt Athen im Altertum 2/1 (Leipzig 1890) 520.Google Scholar
51 The Athenian proverb Οἰνοαῖοι τὴν χαράδραν (FGrH 327 (Demon) F8, discussed by Hammond, Studies (n. 32) 185–6, 237–9 et passim) does not necessarily have anything to do with the Battle of Marathon.
52 Hammond, Studies (n. 32) 204, however, speculates that ‘on the same day Tricorynthus fell to the Persians, … the cavalry scoured the plain and threatened Oenoe and Marathon’ and that ‘the Athenian army came out to defend Oenoe [our italics] and Marathon’.
53 Macan, R. W., Herodotus: The Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Books 2 (London 1895) 171.Google Scholar
54 Cf. Amandry, P., ‘Sur les épígrammes de Marathon’, in Eckstein, F. (ed.), Θεωρία Festschrift W. H. Schuchhardt (Baden-Baden 1960) 1–8, esp. 7–8.Google Scholar
55 Cf. Francis and Vickers (n. 4). For a good summary of Miltiades' military skill, see Wells, J., Studies in Herodotus (Oxford 1923) 123–4.Google Scholar
56 Cf. Jacoby, F., Hesperia 14 (1945) 202 and n. 161CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Aeschin. 3 (in Ctes.) 186 (cf. Agora 3, no. 49).
57 Aeschin., In Ctes. 186.
58 The attribution of these paintings is a notorious crux, but it is usually assumed that the Oenoe and the Marathon were executed by different artists (Robertson (n. 5) 244); for testimonia see Agora 3, 31–45.
59 Paus. 5. 18, 6–8.
60 We thank an anonymous reader for suggesting the possible significance of the Chest of Cypselus for our interpretation of Pausanias' account of the Oenoe.
61 Wycherley (n. 5) 40.
62 Paus. 1. 17. 2; cf. Agora 14, fig. 52.
63 Pfuhl, E., Malerei und Zeichnung der Griechen (Munich 1923) 660Google Scholar, reported by Harrison (n. 30) 364 n. 73.
64 Wycherley (n. 5) 40; Agora iii. 40. Cf. Meiggs (n. 5) 469–72, and for further discussions see Hölscher (n. 5) 75, 252 n. 358; Harrison (n. 30) 364 n. 73.
65 Or even of a fourth-century battle: Curtius, E., Griechische Geschichte 36 (Berlin 1899) 528Google Scholar; Macan (n. 53) 229.
66 Cf. Thompson and Wycherley (n. 5) 92; according to Jeffery (n. 6) 43 n. 13, ‘the simplest version takes the Sack of Troy and the Battle of the Amazons to be together on the long back wall, and the Marathon and Oenoe separate on the two side walls’, but surely this version is neither the ‘simplest’ nor correct. To argue that the contemporary battle was too important to be relegated to side (and hence, according to the proportions of most Greek stoas, shorter) walls is subjective, but we think that the phrase ‘in the middle of the walls’ is not the most obvious way of saying ‘across the extent of the rear wall’, or, especially in reference to a stoa, ‘between the side walls’. We have no view regarding the decoration of the side walls during the first generation of the Stoa's existence, but they may subsequently have been decorated with the spoils Pausanias describes (1. 15. 4) once be has completed his account of the paintings.
67 Harrison (n. 30) 364 n. 73.
68 See now Shear, T. L. Jr, ‘Discovery of the Painted Stoa and Other Classical Monuments in the Athenian Agora’, American School of Classical Studies Newsletter (Fall 1981) 1. 4–5Google Scholar; AR n. 28 (1981–2) 7–9; Shear, , ‘The Athenian Agora: Excavations of 1980–1982’, Hesperia 53 (1984) 5–19, esp. 18–19.Google Scholar
69 Harrison (n. 30) 364 n. 73.
70 Ibid.
71 Robert proposed a similar reading in 1890 when he wrote ‘dassgerade die vier Bilder, Oinoa, Amazonenkampf, Iliupersis, Marathon, unverkennbar ein in sich abgeschlossenes Ganze bilden; die beiden grössten Heldenthaten der mythischen Vorzeit werden eingeschlossen von zwei Siegen aus der jüngsten Vergangenheit der Niederwerfung der feindlichsten Barbaren bei Marathon und der Ueberwältigung des feindlichsten Hellenenstammes bei Oinoa’ (‘Oinoa’, 415; cf. Marathonschlacht 45 for a slightly revised version of his reading). While we do not accept Robert's specific analysis of the programme, we endorse his recognition that all four panels (pace Boersma (n. 6) 56–7) were conceived as parts of a compositional whole. For a more detailed account of the relationship between these paintings, see Francis, and Vickers, , ‘The Marathon Epigram in the Stoa Poikile’, Mnemosyne Ser. 4, 38 (1985) (forthcoming).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
72 Cf. Harrison's useful analogy between the composition of the Marathon and a dramatic trilogy: ‘The painting is a kind of trilogy in which the successive dramas are named “Miltiades”, “Kallimachos” and “Kynegeiros”, or “attack”, “victory” and “pursuit”’ (n. 30) 363. Our use of the term ‘epinician’ in this context is far from metaphorical. As a ‘commemorative monument’ (cf. Jacoby (n. 56) 176–9) the Stoa Poikile was more than merely a ‘war memorial’; it represented a ‘theatre’ in which Athenian victories from Marathon to Eurymedon were publicly displayed. Wycherley's apt characterization of the Marathon applies with equal justice to the whole series of paintings: ‘the greatness of the struggle and of the victory could best be shown in one composite scene’ (n. 20) 78. Like an epinician ode the programme of the Stoa celebrated the occasion of these Athenian triumphs, framing the whole by focusing the spectator's attention upon the laudandus and his victory, in this case upon Miltiades and Marathon. As an epinician ode typically passes from the laudandus to contemplate his character and achievement at a mythological distance and usually closes by turning to celebrate the laudandus again, so the artists of the Stoa lead us back from mythical past to revel in Miltiades' divinely aided triumph on the plain of Marathon.
73 Spender, H., Byron and Greece (London 1924) 12.Google Scholar
74 Wycherley (n. 5) 41; for lestimonia, see Agora 3, 31–45, nos. 47–98.
75 Gorame (n. 27) 77, 82 ( = More Essays 29, 34).
76 Harrison (n. 30) 370. In evaluating Herodotus' ‘imaginative recreation’ (C. W. Fornara), Gomme notes that it was necessary for Herodotus to collect different accounts from men who had taken part or from others who had heard accounts … of the great deeds performed on the campaign (n. 27) 81 ( = More Essays 34).
77 Stein, H., Herodotos 5 (Berlin 1894) 210.Google Scholar
78 Robert, Marathonschlacht 26: ‘… Herodots Schilderung von Marathon klärlich von dem Bild der Poikile ebenso stark beeinflusst ist, als seine Darstellung von Salamis durch Aischylos Perser.’ Cf. Myres, J. L., Herodotus, Father of History (Oxford 1953) 212.Google Scholar
79 Jeffery (n. 6) 44.
80 That the exactly equal weight given to the planning session and the battle is unusual can be established by comparing Herodotus' account of Marathon with the way in which he deals with other major encounters: at Thermopylae (7. 201–39) ‘The account of the battle is a group of logoi arranged in a circular composition, with Leonidas’ decision to forfeit his life as the central part' (Immerwahr (infra n. 81) 139). Artemisium (8. 6–26) is ‘framed by two tricks of Themistocles’ (Immerwahr 139). In the ‘remarkable composition’ of Herodotus' account of Salamis (8· 40–125), ‘the battle description is quite short (84–96), but before and after, Herodotus has made use of every device to build up a large picture’ (Immerwahr 140). Plataea (9· 58–65) is a ‘group of stories, of which the battle description itself is only a relatively small part’ (Immerwahr 143). Mycale (9· 100–5) is simply an account of the battle without any strategic planning.
81 Cf. Gomme (n. 27) 78–80 (= More Essays 29–32); Harrison, , ‘Motifs of the City-Siege on the Shield of Athena Parthenos’, AJA 85 (1981) 296–7 and n. 64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Immerwahr, H. R., Form and Thought in Herodotus (A. P. A. Philological Monographs 23 (1966)) 249–50Google Scholar; Francis, and Vickers, , ‘Signa priscae artis: Eretria and Siphnos’, JHS 103 (1983) 49–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Gomme (n. 27) 82–5 (= More Essays 34–6) sensibly suggests that much of the debate reported by Herodotus must already have taken place before the army left Athens. That Herodotus—in Gomme's view, contrary to historical plausibility—has probably conflated two separate discussions of strategy (one at Athens, the other at the Shrine of Heracles) reinforces our view that Herodotus mainly depended for his account on his interpretation of the painting. It is tempting to speculate that Nepos refers to the Oenoe (rather than the Marathon) when he writes: ‘huic Miltiadi … talis honos tributus est, in porticu quae ποικίλη vocatur, cum pugna depingeretur Marathona ut in decem praetorum nuraero prima eius imago poneretur’ (Milt. 6. 3), but prudent to follow Robert's suggestion (Marathonschlacht 17) that the historian may have misunderstood Aeschines' use of πρώτῳ (in Ctes. 186).
82 But see Myres (n. 78) 212.
83 Hammond (n. 32) 49.
84 Paus. 1. 15. 3, and see our discussion of the arrangement of the paintings above.
85 Cf. Harrison (n. 30) 364, illus. 1.
86 Ibid. 362.
87 Harrison (n. 81) 281–317 (with pls. 46 54), esp. 306–7 and 310; also (n. 30) 357 8, 368–9.
88 Ibid. 368.
89 Ibid. 368.
90 Wycherley, , ‘Marathon in the Poikile’, PCPS NS 18 (1972) 78.Google Scholar
91 Barron, , ‘Bakchylides, Theseus and a Woolly Cloak’, BICS 27 (1980) 4.Google Scholar
92 Harrison, , ‘The Victory of Callimachus’, GRBS 12 (1971) 5–24Google Scholar; Jacoby, , Hesperia 14 (1945) 156 n. 8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; 176 n. 80.
93 On which see Fornara, C. W., ‘Callimachus at Marathon’, in The Athenian Board of Generals from 501 to 404 (Historia Einzelschrift 16 (1971) 72–3)Google Scholar; Immerwahr (n. 81) 240 n. 8, 249 (with nn. 37 and 40).
94 Harrison (n. 30) 364. This is not the place to argue the likelihood that the descriptions of Callimachus' portrait in this famous painting provided the iconographic origin of the image of St Sebastian familiar in Italian art from the later fifteenth century onwards.
95 Cf, for example, the way in which in the later Roman Empire the Senior Augustus adopted the title Jovius, and the Junior, Herculius, to reflect their different policy-making and pragmatic roles (Jones, A. H. M., The Later Roman Empire 284–602 (Oxford 1964) 38–41.Google Scholar
96 On these passages (= Wycherley (n. 1) nos. 49 and 54) see Robert, Marathonschlacht 17 and Harrison (n. 30) 356. On Aelius Aristides' perception of Marathon's ideological importance, see Day, J. W., The Glory of Athens (Chicago 1980) 42–6 et passim.Google Scholar
97 Harrison (n. 30) 356, quoting Jeffery (n. 6) 44.
98 Harrison (n. 81) 295–6, citing Ras, S., ‘L'Amazonomachie du bouclier del'Athéna Parthénos’, BCH 68–9 (1944–1945) 192–3Google Scholar; cf. Boardman, J., ‘Heracles, Theseus and Amazons’, in Kurtz, D. C. and Sparkes, B. A. (eds.), The Eye of Greece (Cambridge 1982) 18–20.Google Scholar
99 Cf. Robertson (n. 5) 243–4.
100 Cf. Boersma, , Athenian Building Policy from 561/0 to 405/4 B.C. (Scripta Archaeologica Groningana 4 (Groningen 1970)) 57Google Scholar; Barron (n. 91) 4. Apart from references to Eurymedon, some might like to see an even more specific allusion to contemporary events in a scene within the Troy Taken. The Greek leaders meet in council to determine the fate of Ajax the Less for his sacrilege against Athena occasioned by his rape of Cassandra. The leaders of the Hellenic League had likewise convened to adjudicate the Spartan Pausanias' fitness for command. Moreover, like Ajax, he came to be accused of affairs which, if less impious than their mythical precedent, were scarcely less scandalous. The East Greeks plainly objected to Pausanias' presence and conduct and he was tainted with charges of medism (Plut. Cim. 6. 4–6; Paus. 3. 17. 8–9; cf. Plut. Arist. 8. 1; Meiggs (n. 5) Appendix 4, 465–8). It may be relevant that Pausanias apparently spent his final days in a shrine of Athena (Athena Chalcioecus: Thuc. 1. 134).
101 Cf. Francis, and Vickers, , ‘The Marathon Epigram in the Stoa Poikile’, Mnemosyne Ser. 4, 38 (1985) (forthcoming).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
102 Amandry, , ‘Athènes au lendemain des guerres médiques’, Revue de l'Université de Bruxelles 13 (1960–1961) 23–5.Google Scholar
103 On this passage, see Kierdorf, W., Erlebnis und Darstellung der Perserkriege (Hypomnemata 16 (Göttingen 1966)) 97–100CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stupperich, R., Staatsbegräbnis und Privatgrabmal im klassischen Athen (Diss. Münster 1977) 48Google Scholar; Knox, B. M. W., ‘Prologue: Myth and Attic Tragedy’, Word and Action (Baltimore 1980) 11–12Google Scholar; Loraux 1981 (n. 2) 65, 377 8 n. 288. Note also Jacoby's excellent discussion of the way in which all distinction between mythical and historical time can be neutralized in paradigms of this kind (n. 92) 203, 207–8. (Rawlinson (ad loc.) cites Gladstone's tart remarks on the lack of distinction shown by the Arcadian and Athenian contingents at Troy.)
104 Harrison (n. 30) 356.
105 For a recent, if fallacious, discussion of this persistent analogy, see Stanford, W. B., Enemies of Poetry (London 1980) 99–103.Google Scholar
106 Cf. Kierdorf (n. 103) 36–7; Stupperich (n. 103) 33–54; Loraux 1981 (n. 2) 71–5.
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