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ARRIAN, ANABASIS 1.17.10–12 AND THE HISTORY OF FOURTH-CENTURY EPHESUS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2023

Joshua P. Nudell
Joshua P. Nudell*
Affiliation:
Truman State University
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

Arrian's account of Alexander's brief time at Ephesus (Anab. 1.17.10–12) is shot through with political and factional violence, but he nevertheless concludes that Alexander received acclaim for what he did in the city. But what did Alexander actually do at Ephesus? Arrian offers a list of events that historians have traditionally interpreted as connected to Macedonian intervention in Asia Minor before indicating that Alexander put an end to the violence. This article offers a new reading of this passage by situating these events in the context of fourth-century Ephesus to show how Alexander's actions responded to the local conditions that he encountered.

Keywords

Alexander the GreatEphesusPygelaArrianhistoriography
Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 72 , Issue 2 , December 2022 , pp. 493 - 503
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association

I. EPHESUS AND ITS HISTORIOGRAPHICAL KNOT

Alexander arrived at Ephesus soon after his victory at the Granicus in 334. At his approach, the Persian garrison seized two ships from the harbour and fled (Arr. Anab. 1.17.9). Arrian offers a succinct portrait of what happened next. The citizens of Ephesus greeted the Macedonians with open gates and overwhelming enthusiasm. Alexander thus entered Ephesus in triumph. In a matter of days, he resolved local disputes, declared his support for democracies, and led his soldiers in a procession to the temple of Artemis, prompting Arrian to conclude that ‘never did Alexander achieve such acclaim as for what he did at Ephesus’ (καὶ εἰ δή τῳ ἄλλῳ, καὶ τοῖς ἐν Ἐφέσῳ πραχθεῖσιν Ἀλέξανδρος ἐν τῷ τότε εὐδοκίμει, Anab. 1.17.12).

Despite the darker thread of political violence running through Arrian's portrait of the city, modern scholars have largely accepted this positive assessment.Footnote 1 In part, Arrian still enjoys a privileged position among the ancient sources, but, more critically in this case, the other accounts offer no alternatives.Footnote 2 The relevant book of Curtius’ history is lost and the accounts of Diodorus Siculus, Pompeius Trogus and Plutarch bypass Ephesus altogether. When modern historians expand their discussions of Alexander and Ephesus, therefore, it is usually to pad their histories with the rich anecdotal tradition that begins with the erroneous association of the conflagration at the temple of Artemis with his birth (Plut. Alex. 3.4; Cic. Nat. D. 2.69) and ends with stories about the relative appreciation of art by Alexander and Bucephalus (Ael. VH 2.3; Plin. HN 32.95).Footnote 3 However, a narrow focus on Alexander obscures the local context in which his actions need to be interpreted.

In this paper, I re-evaluate this passage of Arrian to demonstrate that he compresses the history of fourth-century Ephesus in ways that contribute to persistent misunderstandings about its relationship to Alexander. With this approach, I aim to make three correctives to the modern interpretation of Ephesus in the 330s which holds that a Macedonian-backed democratic coup seized power between 338 and 336, followed by the reassertion of a Persian-backed junta from 336 to 334, before, finally, Alexander restored the democracy to great acclaim. First, examining the history of Ephesus prior to Alexander's arrival reveals a period of political renaissance during the mid fourth century coinciding with diminished central authority from Persia that allowed Ephesus to exert power over its neighbours. In my interpretation, actions during this period, rather than during the 330s, won its leading figure, Heropythos, the exceptional honour of a tomb in the agora. Second, revising the history of Ephesus in the middle third of the fourth century calls into question the existence of the democratic uprising in the early 330s typically assumed by modern historians. Third, this reassessment reveals both that the sanctuary of Artemis was not of particular importance to Alexander and that the Ephesians had already substantially repaired it by the time he arrived. The standard interpretation follows the ancient historians in presenting the singular importance of Alexander's influence at the expense of local activity, but closer inspection reveals that Alexander's actions were constantly modulated by the conditions he encountered.

II. HEROPYTHOS AND A FOURTH-CENTURY EPHESIAN RENAISSANCE

Classical Ephesus is poorly attested, but the conspicuous silence emanating from both literary and epigraphical sources belies that Ephesus controlled or sought to control its smaller neighbours.Footnote 4 Tracking the relationship between Ephesus and its erstwhile satellite, Pygela, reveals both these imperial ambitions and that, after a century of impotence, Ephesus underwent a political renaissance in the middle of the fourth century.Footnote 5

The earliest fifth-century evidence for the relationship between Ephesus and Pygela comes from the Athenian Tribute Lists, which record the phoros payments from the members of the Delian League from 454/3, at which point Pygela, along with Isinda, was already subordinate to Ephesus.Footnote 6 The Ionian-Carian district rubrics are particularly fragmentary, but they reveal that the Ephesian syntely made one phoros payment of seven-and-a-half talents by 453/2, before undergoing a process of apotaxia at some point between 447/6 and 444/3 that led to the three communities making three separate phoros payments.Footnote 7 Scholars have traditionally interpreted apotaxia as the product of imperial regulations designed either to squeeze revenue out of the allies or to strengthen the Athenian grip over its empire.Footnote 8 However, Jensen has recently shown both how the process of apotaxia responded to local requests and that ‘sub-hegemonies’ persisted through the changes to the payment structures.Footnote 9 The case of Ephesus supports Jensen's challenge to the traditional interpretation. Ephesus’ phoros dropped to six talents, Pygela paid one and Isinda paid one thousand drachmae (one-sixth of a talent), meaning that the transition marginally reduced the overall tribute levels.Footnote 10 Ephesian hegemony over these satellites must have been a system vulnerable to abuse, and exploitation by Ephesus offered good reason for these communities to demand a change.

Nothing about Ephesus’ relationship with Athens in this period indicates resistance to the change in the phoros regime, but indirect evidence suggests that Ephesus never relinquished its claim to ownership of Pygela. When Athenian forces attacked Pygela in the last decade of the fifth century, relief came not from Ephesus but from the more distant Miletus (Xen. Hell. 1.2.1–3). Ephesus and Pygela nominally shared an enemy, so the choice probably meant that the Pygelans saw Miletus as a viable counterweight to the ambitions of its larger neighbour. This calculation probably also lay behind a treaty of isopoliteia concluded between Pygela and Miletus in the late fourth century (I.Ephesos 3110).Footnote 11 By the 290s, the tides had again shifted. An inscription from the boulê and the dêmos of Ephesus granting honours for Melanthos of Theangela attests to the presence of neopoiai overseeing sacrifices in Pygela as well as to the close relationship between the imperial garrison and Ephesian citizens living there, which may indicate that Lysimachus had incorporated it into the new imperial city of Arsinoeia (I.Ephesos 1408.2, lines 4–5).Footnote 12

From the remainder of the fourth century only a single reference, from Book 7 of Polyaenus’ Strategems, testifies to the relationship between Ephesus and Pygela. According to Polyaenus, Mausolus (reigned 377/6–353/2) devised a pretext for a campaign to capture the fortified city of Latmus first by enlisting three hundred Latmians and then by leading them past the city (Strat. 7.23.3). Captivated by the spectacle, the citizens came out to watch the procession, only to find that a second force entered through the now-open gate. The specificity of the ancillary details suggests a kernel of historical accuracy that connects it to Ephesus.Footnote 13 According to Polyaenus:

καὶ δὴ χειρωσάμενος αὐτοὺς ἐς ἀκρότατον εὐνοίας ᾔτησε παρ᾽ αὐτῶν ἄνδρας τριακοσίους φύλακας, ἐς Πύγελα παριὼν ὡς δεδιὼς Ἡρόφυτον Ἐφέσιον.

Having won their greatest goodwill, he [Mausolus] asked for three hundred men as guards to accompany him to Pygela since he feared Herophytus the Ephesian.

The name ‘Herophytus’ (Ἡρόφυτος) is not attested anywhere else, leading the modern consensus to identify it as a corruption of Heropythos (Ἡρόπυθος), which appears seven times in this small pocket of Asia Minor, including three at Ephesus from the middle third of the fourth century: two in Arrian and Polyaenus, one in an unpublished coin that Philip Kinns dates to 340–325.Footnote 14 Given Greek naming practices, the occurrences of the name in Ephesus could refer to two, perhaps related, men, but the absence of the name before and after this period makes it more likely that all three occurrences at Ephesus refer to the same person.

The sources that mention Heropythos withhold most of the pertinent information about him. Polyaenus simply presents him menacing Pygela before 353. Arrian offers marginally more, revealing that he was dead by 334 and that he received the uncommon honour of having been buried in the Ephesian agora for having liberated the city (Anab. 1.17.11):

ὁ δὲ δῆμος ὁ τῶν Ἐφεσίων, ὡς ἀφῃρέθη αὐτοῖς ὁ ἀπὸ τῶν ὀλίγων φόβος, τούς τε Μέμνονα ἐπαγομένους καὶ τοὺς τὸ ἱερὸν συλήσαντας τῆς Ἀρτέμιδος καὶ τοὺς τὴν εἰκόνα τὴν Φιλίππου τὴν ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ καταβαλόντας καὶ τὸν τάφον ἐκ τῆς ἀγορᾶς ἀνορύξαντας τὸν Ἡροπύθου τοῦ ἐλευθερώσαντος τὴν πόλιν ὥρμησαν ἀποκτεῖναι.

The Ephesian dêmos, relieved of fear from the oligarchs, rushed to kill those who had brought in Memnon, looted the sanctuary of Artemis, cast down the statue of Philip in the sanctuary, and dug up the tomb in the agora of Heropythos, the liberator of the city.

Arrian provides a list of grievances during the period immediately before Alexander's arrival that led to the bloody retribution, but no information about either the circumstances or the date of Heropythos’ death. The scant detail usually leads scholars to conclude that he died during the ousting of a Persian-backed regime thought to have happened between 338 and 336.Footnote 15 After all, the public memorial that was his tomb was desecrated during the brief period of a Persian-backed junta that governed Ephesus from c.336 until Alexander arrived in 334, in which case the deliberate destruction could be construed as a form of damnatio memoriae.Footnote 16 Alexander restored the exiles forced from the city on his account (τούς τε φυγάδας, ὅσοι δι᾽ αὐτὸν ἐξέπεσον τῆς πόλεως, κατήγαγε, Anab. 1.17.10), so the freedom brought by Heropythos serves as a precedent for the one brought by Alexander.

Indeed, this is a tidy picture and plausibly the one Arrian meant to suggest, but its very tidiness masks the more complicated reality of fourth-century Ephesus and leads to the erroneous association of Heropythos and the Macedonian actions. The missing connection is Heropythos himself, who probably rose to prominence when political upheaval in Anatolia afforded Ephesus an opportunity to assert a measure of autonomy.Footnote 17 The period immediately following the ‘Satraps’ Revolt’ in the 360s saw Ionia experience a renaissance that manifested in a wave of building projects up and down the coast. Where poleis such as Miletus experienced this rebirth under Hecatomnid hegemony, the evidence suggests that Ephesus asserted local autonomy.Footnote 18

Between the earlier appearance of Heropythos menacing Pygela and the factional strife described by Arrian there is a gap of nearly two decades and a frustrating lack of evidence. The break is short enough that it is possible a younger Heropythos led Ephesus against Mausolus and an older man died liberating Ephesus from oligarchic rule, but I propose a simpler solution: that Heropythos had died and received a tomb in the agora already before Philip's interventions in the eastern Aegean. If Heropythos was instrumental to Ephesus’ restoration in the 350s, then this would have been reason enough to honour him—and reason enough for his tomb to be obliterated during a Persian-backed coup in c.336.

III. AN EPHESIAN REVOLUTION?

Revising Heropythos’ period of prominence at Ephesus to the 350s invites a re-examination of the remaining evidence for a democratic revolution. Scholarly consensus holds that there was a pro-Macedonian democratic revolution at Ephesus effected either with the support of Macedonian soldiers or in the expectation that the expeditionary force would soon arrive.Footnote 19 The evidence for this political revolution is found entirely in Arrian's Anabasis. Arrian describes a statue for Philip erected in the Artemisium and toppled sometime before Alexander arrived in 334, and presents a close connection between Alexander's restoration of the Ephesian exiles and his support for democracies in Asia Minor. Much like the revision to Heropythos offered above, closer examination reveals the remaining evidence for this revolution to be flimsy.

Arrian lists the destruction of the statue of Philip among the four crimes committed by the Ephesian oligarchs, which, by implication, links it to the actions of Heropythos.Footnote 20 The fact that the inscription that would have accompanied Philip's statue does not survive poses a problem for understanding the dedication. Scholars have offered several suggestions for it while still accepting the context implied by Arrian. Bieber proposed that Alexander commissioned this statue as a posthumous memorial, but this requires an untenable chronology if the crowd actually destroyed the statue.Footnote 21 Since the statue was supposed to have been erected in the sanctuary of Artemis (ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ, Anab. 1.17.11), a more common interpretation is that it served a cult function.Footnote 22 There are two principal objections to the thesis. First, ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ, which this thesis interprets as locating the statue in the temple alongside the statue of Artemis, more probably refers to its location in the sanctuary, perhaps beside the temple. Second, Arrian refers to the statue as an εἰκών (a likeness) rather than as an ἄγαλμα (a cult statue), which leads Bosworth and Worthington to reject the cultic thesis, correctly.Footnote 23 However, doing so primarily on semantic grounds takes for granted a rigid distinction between statue types that is not always born out in practice. Pindar's Third Nemean, for instance, terms itself a χώρας ἄγαλμα for the victor Aristocleides (line 13),Footnote 24 while a fragmentary line from Hyperides’ prosecution of Demosthenes in 323 reads ‘to erect a statue (εἰκό[να) of King Alexander, the unconquerable god’ (στῆσαι εἰκό[να Ἀλεχάν]δρου βασιλ[έως τοῦ ἀνι]κήτου θε[οῦ, 5.32). Worthington interprets this line as sarcastic hyperbole directed at the Athenian response to Alexander's divine pretensions and without merit since no such statue existed, but it nevertheless uses εἰκών with reference to the hypothetical statue of a divine king.Footnote 25

Both the cultic thesis and Bieber's proposal of a posthumous honour also fail to account for the growing phenomenon of civic honorific dedications.Footnote 26 Excavations at Ephesus have revealed a veritable topography of urban dedications in the Hellenistic and Roman city, but archaic and classical dedications, including grants for citizenship, appeared at the Artemisium rather than in the agora.Footnote 27 Erecting Philip's statue in the sanctuary of Artemis neither imbued it with cultic symbolism nor needs to be interpreted as thanks for liberation. Rather, the presence of the statue is a sign of Philip's diplomatic efforts in the eastern Aegean, which, in turn, explains why the Persian-backed regime targeted this statue in particular once in power.Footnote 28

A second complication is the absence of evidence for a democracy in Ephesus before 334. Nawotka argues that an increased number of published decrees accompanied the transition from oligarchy to democracy and this appears in the epigraphic record at Ephesus only after Alexander captured the city.Footnote 29 Similarly, since Arrian says that Alexander restored exiles to Ephesus, one might assume Memnon had done likewise when he returned Persian power to the city in c.336. But this is nowhere attested, which suggests that there was no precipitating event like a democratic revolution that created a group of recent exiles in the early 330s. Rather, comparatively lax Persian oversight in Asia Minor during the third quarter of the fourth century, at the same time that the Persian centre was embroiled in dynastic turmoil, presented the Ephesians with an opportunity to receive Philip's entreaties. His death left them in a precarious position when they opted to double-down on their bet on the Macedonians, dispatching the orator Delius to Alexander to advocate on their behalf (Plut. Mor. 1126D).Footnote 30 This left an opening for an opposition party to appeal to Memnon, who was then reasserting Persian authority in the region. Syrphax and his associates orchestrated a power grab that, if the retributive purges in 334 are any indication, was bloody and brutal. They desecrated the tomb of Heropythos, toppled the statue of Philip, and drove the remaining members of the regime into exile until 334, when Alexander restored them to Ephesus.

IV. THE ARTEMISIUM

Ephesus had been under Persian control for roughly two years when Alexander's army arrived in 334, and the city immediately succumbed to an orgy of retributive violence. The Ephesians dragged Syrphax along with his son and nephews from the sanctuary and lynched them before Alexander put a stop to both enquiry and punishment in case the crowd should target innocent people (Anab. 1.17.12). This amnesty, combined with the restoration of exiles, lay behind the positive reputation that Arrian attributes to Alexander at Ephesus. Even though Arrian barely mentions the Artemisium, the sanctuary casts a long shadow over modern interpretations of the relationship between king and city.

According to Arrian, Alexander ordered the Ephesians to pay the phoros due Persia to the sanctuary of Artemis (τοὺς δὲ φόρους, ὅσους τοῖς βαρβάροις ἀπέφερον, τῇ Ἀρτέμιδι ξυντελεῖν ἐκέλευσεν, Anab. 1.17.10), but this directive has led to controversy on two interconnected grounds. First, Arrian subsequently says that Alexander relieved the phoros from Ionia, replacing it with a syntaxis (‘contribution’, Anab. 1.18.2), and, second, because a tradition found in Strabo holds that the Ephesians first rebuffed an offer from Alexander to fund the sanctuary (14.1.22). The implication that Alexander allowed the Ephesians to keep their tribute local while requiring the remaining Ionians to pay for the expedition creates a contradiction. Was Ephesus simply exempt from the new syntaxis?

Badian resolved this problem by arguing that the fickle king turned hostile to the prideful Ephesians, refusing to relieve the phoros and levying the syntaxis in addition.Footnote 31 While there is no reason to dispute Arrian's basic chronology that Alexander first ordered the Ephesians to pay their phoros to the sanctuary and later replaced the phoros with a syntaxis as a general policy, neither did Alexander have a consistent plan to manage the captured cities.Footnote 32 The notion that Alexander intended the Ephesians to pay their phoros to the sanctuary in perpetuity is a conflation with later traditions where the Ephesians also rebuffed his offer of perpetual patronage. Arrian's only claim to a repeated action is to the Ephesians paying their tribute to Persia in the past.Footnote 33 Moreover, nothing in Arrian's account of Ephesus marks this sanctuary as particularly special to Alexander, despite the anecdotal traditions about his birth and its destruction in 356. The earliest-known connection between the two events is in Hegesias of Magnesia, a third-century rhetorician whose work was accounted perverse and puerile in antiquity.Footnote 34 If Alexander ordered the Ephesians to give their phoros to the sanctuary ex post facto before abolishing the phoros altogether, then Ephesus no longer stands out from the rest of the tribute regime.

On the second issue, Alexander's offer to pay the sanctuary expenses in perpetuity, the principal evidence comes from Strabo, who credited the first-century b.c.e. geographer Artemidorus with praising his predecessors for not accepting a donation from one god to another.Footnote 35 Most scholars juxtapose the proposed dedication with Arrian's comment about the phoros to suggest that this was a workaround once the Ephesians rejected his initial offer.Footnote 36 However, Artemidorus’ comment is just the final piece in a longer discussion of the repairs to the Artemisium after Herostratus’ arson (Strabo 14.1.22):Footnote 37

ὡς δὲ τοῦτον Ἡρόστρατός τις ἐνέπρησεν, ἄλλον ἐμείνω κατεσκεύασαν συνενέγκαντες τὸν τῶν γυναικῶν κόσμον καὶ τὰς ἰδίας οὐσίας, διαθέμενοι δὲ καὶ τοὺς προτέρους κίονας⋅ τούτων δὲ μαρτύριά ἐστι τὰ γενηθέντα τότε ψηφίσματα, ἅπερ ἀγνοοῦντά φησιν ὁ Ἀρτεμίδωρος τὸν Ταυρομενίτην Τίμαιον καὶ ἄλλως βάσκανον ὄντα καὶ συκοφάντην … λέγειν ὡς ἐκ τῶν Περσικῶν παρακαταθηκῶν ἐποιήσαντο τοῦ ἱεροῦ τὴν ἐπισκευήν⋅ οὔτε δὲ ὑπάρξαι παρακαταθήκας τότε, εἴ τε ὑπῆρξαν, συνεμπεπρῆσθαι τῷ ναῷ: μετὰ δὲ τὴν ἔμπρησιν τῆς ὀροφῆς ἠφανισμένης, ἐν ὑπαίθρῳ τῷ σηκῷ τίνα ἄν ἐθελῆσαι παρακαταθήκην κειμένην ἔκειν; Ἀλέξανδρον δὴ τοῖς Ἐφεσίοις ὑποσχέσθαι τὰ γεγονότα καὶ τὰ μέλλοντα ἐναλώματα, ἐφ᾽ ᾧ τε τὴν ἐπιγραφὴν αὐτὸν ἔχειν, τοὺς δὲ μὴ ἐθελῆσαι, πολὺ μᾶλλον οὐκ ἂν ἐθελήσαντας ἐξ ἱεροσυλίας καὶ ἀποστερήσεως φιλοδοξεῖν⋅ ἐπαινεῖ τε τὸν εἰπόντα τῶν Ἐφεσίων πρὸς βασιλέα, ὡς οὐ πρέποι θεῷ θεοῖς ἀναθήματα κατασκευάζειν.

When one Herostratus set [the Artemisium] aflame they furnished another, better, one, gathering the women's jewellery and private offerings, and disposing of the earlier columns. Contemporary decrees bear witness to this. Artemidorus says that Timaeus the Tauromenian, being ignorant of these and generally being a slanderous sycophant …, says that they restored the temple with the deposits the Persians had made. But in the first place there was nothing deposited there then and, if it had been, it would have been burned together with the temple. After the conflagration it was missing a roof, and who would want to deposit such things lying in an open-air enclosure? Alexander [he adds] offered to the Ephesians to undertake all costs that had occurred and all those yet to come, in return for an inscription, but they were unwilling, just as they were unwilling to acquire a reputation for temple-robbery. [Artemidorus] praises the Ephesian who said to the king that it was unseemly for a god to make dedications to gods.

Both Artemidorus’ boast about Ephesus and Alexander's demand to receive an inscription are red herrings.Footnote 38 Artemidorus and Timaeus agree that the Ephesians had already raised funds for work on the temple, the one citing inscriptions for the selling of columns from the old temple and dedication of private jewellery, the other alleging that they stole Persian gold.Footnote 39 Following Artemidorus, Strabo dismisses the last source of revenue as slander from Timeaeus on the grounds that the Ephesians would not stoop to sacrilege, but also deduces that the dedications went up in flames along with the temple in 356 and claims there would not have been any because the temple lacked a roof. Despite widespread criticism of Timaeus in antiquity, none of these critiques stands up to scrutiny.Footnote 40 Nothing in the passage Strabo quotes suggests that the gold that the Ephesians stole was in the temple in 356, and Strabo does not explain why a roofless temple would have stopped the gold from having come through the sanctuary. Artemidorus seems offended at Timaeus’ account both because of his failure to acknowledge the other sources of temple funds and because of what he interpreted as sacrilege. Timaeus’ omission of the contemporary decrees is puzzling given his reputation for research,Footnote 41 but these other inscriptions do not necessarily discredit him. The Ephesians probably would not have left an inscription as a receipt saying that they had taken the phoros.

If Strabo's quotation is accurate, then Timaeus reveals that, at some unknown time, the Ephesians took Persian gold deposited at the temple. Strabo interprets παρακαταθήκη as a reference to dedications at the sanctuary, but the word can also refer to deposits without religious significance. Like many sanctuaries in the Greek world, the Artemisium functioned as a bank.Footnote 42 Xenophon specifically praises Megabyxos, the neokoros of Artemis, for his scrupulous guardianship of a deposit (An. 5.3.6).Footnote 43 Moreover, given the centrality of the Artemisium to Ephesian diplomacy, they may have stored the collected phoros at the sanctuary. Thus a speculative reconstruction connects these deposits with the confiscated tribute owed to Persia that Alexander retroactively dedicated to the sanctuary.

The sanctuary of Artemis at Ephesus clearly held symbolic value as a space for Ephesian diplomacy and Alexander led his soldiers on a procession at the sanctuary that echoed Agesilaus’ garlanded processions in the 390s during his campaign similarly branded for Greek freedom.Footnote 44 Alexander may have made an offer to the sanctuary—the name Agesilaus inscribed on the temple probably indicates that the Spartan king had done the same in the 390sFootnote 45—but the exchange did not have the signal importance that later sources impart to it. Alexander found the temple substantially repaired in 334 and absolved the Ephesians of having confiscated Persian gold, but neither punished them by requiring double payment nor rewarded them by allowing them to invest their tribute in this local institution. However, like the rebirth of the oracle at Didyma, the relationship between Alexander and Ephesus grew in memory.Footnote 46

V. CONCLUSION: MEMORY OF A CITY

Modern historians are usually satisfied to accept Arrian's verdict before using the episode to offer an interpretation about Alexander's rule or character.Footnote 47 Complicating these assessments, though, is that the relationship between Alexander and Ephesus outside this one passage of Arrian is largely anecdotal and centres on the stories about Alexander and the artist Apelles.Footnote 48 What is clear, though, is that Alexander's amnesty did not last. Political violence in Ephesus re-emerged by the 320s when Philoxenus arrested three brothers on charges of tyrannicide after local officials flaunted his orders to arrest them (Polyaenus, Strat. 6.49).Footnote 49

Arrian's account of Alexander at Ephesus presents a deceptive level of detail that, when combined with the absence of evidence from the other sources, has led to his version of events holding an authoritative position in modern scholarship. Closer examination reveals that Arrian collapses a longer history into a few short sentences and bends everything toward Alexander. This, in turn, is reflected in modern scholarship.Footnote 50 This Alexander-centric history also exacerbates the tendencies of what Briant calls the ‘psychologistic’ approach to Alexander, where every action is a reflection of his character.Footnote 51 Contextualizing Arrian's history and the other accounts of Alexander in light of local circumstances, by contrast, not only offers a clearer picture of the effect of the Macedonian conquest on communities but also reveals the crucial drama of local politics that shaped Alexander's actions.

Footnotes

I thank Frances Pownall who organized the conference in Edmonton where I presented the first version of this paper, as well as Matt Simonton, Dan Leon, Aaron Herschkowitz, Joel Christensen and CQ's reader for invaluable feedback. All ancient dates are b.c.e.

References

1 Badian, E., ‘Alexander the Great and the Greeks of Asia’, in Badian, E., Collected Papers on Alexander the Great (New York, 2012 [original article, 1966]), 124–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 130–1 is a notable dissenter; see below.

2 The preference for Arrian among ancient historians is as much an indictment of the other sources as a vote of confidence in him. Over the past four decades scholars have repeatedly chipped away at Arrian's reputation, such that most biographies of Alexander now offer measured caveats about Arrian's ‘artful omission’: e.g. Cartledge, P., Alexander the Great (New York, 2004), 284Google Scholar; Green, P., Alexander of Macedon, 356–323 b.c.: A Historical Biography (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1991), 569Google Scholar; Worthington, I., Alexander the Great: Man and God (New York, 2004), 323Google Scholar. On Arrian as a historian, see Liotsakis, V., Alexander the Great in Arrian's ‘Anabasis’ (Berlin, 2019)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Leon, D.W., Arrian the Historian: Writing the Greek Past in the Roman Empire (Austin, 2021)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 E.g. Green (n. 2), 185–7; Worthington, I., By the Spear: Philip II, Alexander the Great, and the Rise of the Macedonian Empire (Oxford, 2014), 151Google Scholar; Naiden, F., Soldier, Priest, and God: A Life of Alexander the Great (Oxford, 2019), 56Google Scholar. In the first volume of his Historical Commentary on Arrian's History of Alexander (Oxford, 1980), 33, A.B. Bosworth observes that ‘it may be doubted how extensive [Arrian's] historical knowledge was. He had none of the erudition of Polybius, and when he leaves the narrow confines of Alexander and his chosen sources the knowledge is at best superficial.’ And yet Bosworth is content to follow Arrian's version of events when it comes to Ephesus: see Bosworth (this note), 1.131–3 and Bosworth, A.B., Conquest and Empire: The Reign of Alexander the Great (Cambridge, 1993), 45–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 251–2.

4 Ephesus appears in conjunction with the deeds of exceptional Athenians, Spartans and Persians in the surviving fifth- and fourth-century histories, while extant fragments from local historians such as Creophylus shed light on their contemporary period, but only by implication, as Simonton, M., ‘The local history of Hippias of Erythrai’, Hesperia 87 (2018), 497–543CrossRefGoogle Scholar shows for Hippias of Erythrae. Creophylus probably belongs to the early fourth century: Thomas, R., Polis Histories, Collective Memories and the Greek World (Oxford, 2019), 201–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 For Pygela, see G. Ragone, ‘Pygela/Phygela: fra paretimologia e storia’, Athenaeum 84 (1996), 341–79.

6 I use the edition of the ATL in B. Paarman, ‘Aparchai and phoroi: a new commented edition of the Athenian tribute quota lists and assessment decrees’ (Diss., University of Fribourg, 2007). Ephesus appears from the second list, col. 6 line 13. Marathesium is sometimes linked with Ephesus, but see S.R. Jensen, ‘Tribute and syntely at Erythrai’ (Diss., Rutgers, 2010), 205–7; Meiggs, R., The Athenian Empire (Oxford, 1972), 428Google Scholar.

7 The definitions come from the Roman-era lexicographer Harpocration, who defined syntely (συντέλεια) as the act of paying together, and apotaxis (ἀπόταξις) as a separate assessment for those who had previously been assessed together (τὸ χωρὶς τετάχθαι τοὺς πρότερον ἀλλήλοις συντεταγμένους). Ephesus and its satellite communities fit the criteria for a syntely, but the relationship at Ephesus was different from those at Erythrae and Miletus, the other examples in Ionia that are the focus of Jensen (n. 6), 48–111 and Jensen, S.R., ‘Tribute and syntely at Erythrai’, CW 105 (2012), 479–96Google Scholar.

8 Balcer, J., Sparda by the Bitter Sea (Providence, 1984), 418Google Scholar suggested that the change was meant to weaken potential rivals within the Delian League; cf. Engelmann, H. and Merkelbach, R., Die Inschriften von Erythrai und Klazomenai (Bonn, 1972), 34Google Scholar with regard to Erythrae. Meiggs, R. and Lewis, D.M., A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions (Oxford, 1969), 135–6Google Scholar, at 193 claim that the change was meant to increase revenue despite this frequently not happening.

9 Jensen (n. 7), 105, 479–96 and Jensen, S.R., ‘Synteleia and apotaxis on the Athenian tribute lists’, in Figueira, T.J. and Jensen, S.R. (edd.), Hegemonic Finances (London, 2019), 55–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 The fragmentary nature of the lists makes determining the date of these changes difficult. Ephesus is absent from the extant list for 446/5 (list 9) and appears on the list for 445/4 (list 8) without the notation for the accompanying aparche (col. 5 line 17). List 11 (444/3) records Ephesus with a six-talent phoros, but includes no evidence for the satellite communities (col. 1 line 25). Isinda's contribution appears on list 12, which also has a record for Pygela without its payment (col. 1 lines 29–30). No payment is recorded for Pygela until 440/39 (list 15, col. 2 line 13).

11 Rubinstein, L., ‘Ionia’, in Hansen, M.H. and Nielsen, T.H. (edd.), An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis (Oxford, 2004), 1053–107Google Scholar, at 1094 suggests that Milesians in Pygela had ‘limited citizenship’ and Pygelans in Miletus had reciprocal privileges.

12 Pygela escapes mention in ancient accounts of the refoundation, but it was probably included, as suggested by Robert, L., ‘Sur les inscriptions d’Éphèse: fêtes, athletes, empereurs, épigrammes’, RPh 41 (1967), 7–84Google Scholar, at 40, to general agreement.

13 I accept the general historicity of this campaign, but Polyaenus’ details are suspect. There is nothing to suggest a date, and the episode dimly echoes another mysterious operation where Aegyptus, one of Mausolus’ subordinates, failed to capture Miletus. On dating the campaign to c.353, see Hornblower, S., Mausolos (Oxford, 1982), 112Google Scholar. Cf. Ragone (n. 5), 364–6.

14 See LGPN Va 206, which lists the numismatic evidence separately from Arrian and Polyaenus.

15 Badian (n. 1), 127 and H.-J. Gehrke, Stasis. Untersuchungen zu den inneren Kriegen in den griechischen Staaten des 5. und 4. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. (Munich, 1985), 59 do so explicitly. Philip's activity in the eastern Aegean sets the chronological boundaries in this interpretation, while the Persian return falls roughly between Philip's death and Alexander's campaign; but see below.

16 Simonton, M., ‘The burial of Brasidas and the politics of commemoration in the Classical period’, AJPh 139 (2018), 1–30Google Scholar, at 7–9 characterizes the destruction of monuments as typical of conflict between different regime types. Cf. the Philites Stele (I.Erythrai 503), which describes how an oligarchic coup had defaced the statue of a ‘tyrannicide’ considered a hero in the dêmos, probably by removing its sword: Teegarden, D.A., Death to Tyrants! Ancient Greek Democracy and the Struggle against Tyranny (Princeton, 2013), 142–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Simonton (this note), 11–13; Simonton (n. 4), 87.

17 Diodorus Siculus (15.90.3–4) presents the ‘Satraps’ Revolt’ as a symptom of the Persian Empire in crisis, but revolts were endemic in Anatolia: P. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, transl. P.T. Daniels (Winona Lake, IN, 2002), 656–75, 680–1; P. Debord, L'Asie Mineure au IVe siècle (412–323 a.C.) (Bordeaux, 1999), 302–66; M. Weiskopf, The So-Called ‘Great Satraps’ Revolt’, 366–360 b.c.: Concerning Local Instability in the Achaemenid Far West (Stuttgart, 1989), 94–9.

18 On the Ionian renaissance, see Hornblower (n. 13), 78–105; P. Pedersen, ‘The 4th-century b.c. “Ionian Renaissance” and Karian identity’, in O. Henry (ed.), 4th-Century Karia: Defining a Karian Identity under the Hekatomnids (Paris, 2013), 33–46.

19 Ellis, J.R., Philip II and Macedonian Imperialism (London, 1976), 221–2Google Scholar; Badian (n. 1), 127; Hammond, N.G.L. and Griffith, G.T., A History of Macedonia. Volume II: 550–336 b.c. (Oxford, 1979), 691Google Scholar; Heckel, W., The Conquests of Alexander the Great (Cambridge, 2008), 43Google Scholar. In fact, the Macedonians never reached Ephesus in 336: Bosworth (n. 3 [1993]), 34–5, 251–2.

20 Although Arrian calls Alexander's opponents at Ephesus ‘oligarchs’, as distinguished from the newly empowered ‘democrats’, the make-up of the body politic at this period is opaque. F. Naiden, Ancient Supplication, rev. edn (Oxford, 2009), 147–53 argues that Syrphax ought to be identified as a Persian-supported tyrant, and cf. Briant (n. 17), 855; U. Muss, ‘Zur geschichte des Artemisions’, in U. Muss (ed.), Die Archäologie der ephesischen Artemis: Gestalt und Ritual eines Heiligtums (Vienna, 2008), 47–54, at 51.

21 Bieber, M., ‘The portraits of Alexander the Great’, TAPhA 93 (1949), 373–421Google Scholar, 423–7, at 378; and Alexander the Great in Greek and Roman Art (Madison, WI, 1964), 20–1.

22 Green (n. 2), 98, 186 refers to the dedication as ‘a quasi-cult’, while Badian (n. 1), 127 claims that the Ephesians made Philip synnaos (‘sharing a temple’) with Artemis; I take him as suggesting divine overtones in the action.

23 Bosworth (n. 3 [1980]), 133 and (n. 3 [1993]), 281; Worthington, I., Philip II of Macedonia (New Haven, CT, 2008), 231Google Scholar. For the standard distinction between statue types, see Queyrel, F., ‘Les statues honorifiques entre texte et image’, Pallas 93 (2013), 99–109CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 99; Stewart, A., Faces of Power: Alexander's Image and Hellenistic Politics (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1993), 208Google Scholar.

24 Steiner, D., Images in Mind: Statues in Archaic and Classical Greek Literature and Thought (Princeton, 2001), 260–1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Worthington, I., ‘Hyperides 5.32 and Alexander the Great's statue’, Hermes 129 (2001), 129–31Google Scholar.

26 See particularly Ma, J., Statues and Cities: Honorific Portraits and Civic Identity in the Hellenistic World (Oxford, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 Muss (n. 20), 49; Rubinstein (n. 11), 1073.

28 These negotiations at least by 337 with the so-called Pixodarus affair and probably earlier. I follow S. Ruzicka, ‘The “Pixodarus affair” reconsidered again’, in E. Carney and D. Ogden (edd.), Philip II and Alexander the Great: Father and Son, Lives and Afterlives (Oxford, 2010), 3–12 in seeing greater diplomatic activity by Philip than is sometimes assumed.

29 Nawotka, K., ‘Freedom of the Greek cities in Asia Minor in the Age of Alexander the Great’, Klio 85 (2003), 15–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 18–23.

30 Alexander needed no persuasion, but Delius’ presence served as political theatre to demonstrate that the Greeks of Asia would rise up against their barbarian overlords just as Isocrates had predicted (4.135).

31 Badian (n. 1), 130–1.

32 M. Faraguna, ‘Alexander and the Greeks’, in J. Roisman (ed.), Brill's Companion to Alexander the Great (Leiden, 2003), 99–130, at 109–10. On syntaxis and phoros, see M.M. Kholod, ‘On the financial relations of Alexander the Great and the Greek cities in Asia Minor’, in A. Mehr, A.V. Makhlayuk, O. Gabelko (edd.), Ruthenia Classica Aetatis Novae (Stuttgart, 2013), 83–92 and M.M. Kholod, ‘The financial administration of Asia Minor under Alexander the Great’, in T. Howe, S. Müller, R. Stoneman (edd.), Ancient Historiography on War and Empire (Oxford, 2017), 136–48.

33 τοὺς δὲ φόρους, ὅσους τοῖς βαρβάροις ἀπέφερον, τῇ Ἀρτέμιδι ξυντελεῖν ἐκέλευσεν. The infinitive here is often taken to include an implied ‘henceforth’, but Arrian's compressed style could simply indicate a one-time demand.

34 Cic. Brut. 83.286–7; L. Pearson, The Lost Historians of Alexander the Great (Oxford, 1960), 246–7.

35 For Artemidorus, see BNJ 438 (T.M. Banchich).

36 Argead kings often made extravagant donations to important sanctuaries (H. Bowden, ‘The Argeads and Greek sanctuaries’, in S. Müller, T. Howe, H. Bowden and R. Rollinger [edd.], The History of the Argeads: New Perspectives [Wiesbaden, 2017], 163–82), but, while Kholod (n. 32 [2017]) has recently shown that Alexander was not strapped for resources, the dedication probably belongs after 334, if it was not a later invention altogether (B. Dreyer, ‘Heroes, cults, and divinity’, in W. Heckel and L.A. Tritle [edd.], Alexander the Great: A New History [Malden, MA, 2009], 218–34, at 225–6; cf. Bosworth [n. 3 (1980)], 132–3).

37 Translation adapted after H.L. Jones's Loeb Classical Library volume. Herostratus’ motivation for burning the temple remains a mystery. Proposals range from him being a scapegoat for a lightning strike (following Arist. Mete. 3.1) to his being a foreign saboteur to having been commissioned by the temple administration because a sharp rise in the water table threatened the existing structure (D. Knibbe, Ephesos-Ephesus: Geschichte einer bedeutenden antiken Stadt und Portrait einer modern Großgrabung [Frankfurt, 1998], 88–9; Muss [n. 20], 51; G.M. Rogers, The Mysteries of Artemis of Ephesus [New Haven, CT, 2012], 33 n. 6).

38 Alexander received a comparable inscription at Priene (I.Priene 156) on the temple of Athena Polias. Badian (n. 1), 132 compares the two, arguing that compliance won Priene the king's favour where intransigence at Ephesus won his enmity, but this is a big leap from scant evidence. The inscription at Priene refers to Βασιλεὺς Ἀλέξανδρος, a title which Alexander probably adopted in correspondence with Greeks only after the battle of Gaugamela in 331. S.G. Patronos, ‘Public architecture and civic identity in Classical and Hellenistic Ionia’ (Diss., Oxford, 2002), 116–21 nevertheless dates it to 333, but see Arena, E., ‘Alessandro Basileus nella documentazione epigrafica: la dedica del tempio di Atena a Priene (I.Priene 156)’, Historia 62 (2013), 48–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar on the implausibility of an early date.

39 Excavations at the Artemisium have revealed that the rebuilt temple employed an archaizing style that recalled the ancient prominence of the sanctuary (Muss [n. 20], 51–2). These details take on different significance whether they formed during a period of autonomy or as an assertion of independence under Alexander, but could fit in either context.

40 Baron, C., Timaeus of Tauromenium and Hellenistic Historiography (Cambridge, 2013), 58–88Google Scholar argues that Polybius’ critique has distorted Timaeus’ reputation for the worse.

41 C.B. Champion, ‘Timaios (566)’, BNJ T10 commentary; Baron (n. 40), 79.

42 Dio Chrys. Or. 31.54 mentions the sanctuary of Artemis as a particularly safe place to deposit money; Caes. BCiu. 3.33 describes how Scipio intended to seize the pecunia from the temple.

43 Megabyxos is not a name but a title given to wardens at the sanctuary: J. Bremmer, ‘Priestly personnel of the Ephesian Artemision: Anatolian, Persian, Greek, and Roman aspects’, in B. Dignas and K. Trapedach (edd.), Practitioners of the Divine: Greek Priests and Religious Figures from Homer to Heliodorus (Washington, D.C., 2008), 62–91.

44 Alexander: Arr. Anab. 1.18.2; Agesilaus: Xen. Hell. 3.4.18; Ages. 1.27. Naiden (n. 3), 55 and Appendix 1A no. 9 reads the passage as an epinician parade for Granicus at the invitation of the Ephesian assembly.

45 Börker, C., ‘König Agesilaos von Sparta und der Artemis-Tempel in Ephesos’, ZPE 37 (1980), 69–75Google Scholar, at 69–70 argues for an otherwise unattested building phase; contra, Wesenberg, A., ‘Agesilaos im Artemision’, ZPE 41 (1981), 175–80Google Scholar.

46 Nudell, J.P., ‘Oracular politics: propaganda and myth in the restoration of Didyma’, AHB 32 (2018), 44–60Google Scholar.

47 Badian (n. 1), 127–31 argued that Alexander's initial positive feelings quickly fermented when the citizens rejected his generosity, while Bosworth (n. 3 [1993]), 45 characterized Alexander's actions as ‘benevolent despotism’.

48 In one, the king rewarded the artist with the gift of his mistress Pancaste after Apelles painted her nude; in another, Alexander and Bucephalus had divergent opinions about one of Apelles’ paintings (Ael. VH 2.3). However, Alexander's casual disregard for bodily autonomy and equine art criticism reveal nothing about his relationship with Ephesus. On Apelles, see Heckel, W., Who's Who in the Age of Alexander the Great (Malden, MA, 2005), 39–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; on Pancaste, Heckel (this note), 189.

49 Probably for having killed a politician favourable to Macedonia: Dmitriev, S., The Greek Slogan of Freedom and Early Roman Politics in Greece (Oxford, 2011), 102–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rogers (n. 37), 48–9; Walser, A.V., Bauern und Zinsnehmer (Munich, 2008), 47–9Google Scholar.

50 Bosworth (n. 3 [1980]), 33 attributes this to a lack of erudition, but Photius (Bibl. 91) praised Arrian's lack of unnecessary digressions as one of his virtues as a historian. On Arrian's sophistication as stylist, see Liotsakis (n. 2).

51 Briant, P., Darius dans l'ombre d'Alexandre (Paris, 2003), 4Google Scholar ≈ Darius in the Shadow of Alexander, transl. J.M. Todd (Cambridge, MA, 2015), 4.