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Dates in Early Greek History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

A. R. Burn
A. R. Burn
Affiliation:
Uppingham
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Extract

The purpose of this article is somewhat ambitious. It is proposed to adduce evidence in support of the thesis, which the writer has already briefly maintained elsewhere, that the majority of the dates, earlier than the period of the Persian Wars, which pass current in our Greek history text-books, are wrong, and should be ‘scaled down’ by a certain proportion of their distance from 500 B.C. The virtue of 500 B.C. as a base-line lies simply in the fact that it falls in the middle of the generation that saw the beginnings of Greek historical prose writing in the hands of Hekataios of Miletos and others.

The genius of Herodotos, the considerable amount of contemporary information gleaned by later Greek scholars from the early elegiac, lyric and iambic poets, the vivid personalities of these poets themselves, and the systematising labours of generations of logographers and historians, ultimately reduced to order by Eratosthenes and transmitted to us by Eusebios—all these conspire to obscure from us the fact that the whole Archaic period in Greece is not an historic but a proto-historic age; an age known to us, not from contemporary historical writings, but through a synthesis of archaeology, references to historic events in a literature still exclusively poetic, references to our area in historical documents from a more mature adjacent region (such as Assyria), and genealogies and oral traditions that survived long enough to be written down later.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 55 , Issue 2 , 1935 , pp. 130 - 146
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1935

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References

1 Minoans, Philistines and Greeks, pp. 54–5.

2 Hdt. VII. 204, VIII. 131: pedigrees of Leonidas and Lâtychidas, who belong to the same generations as Kleomenes and Damaratos respectively. 500 B.C. is probably a better date to take for the conventional ‘floruit’ of this generation than 480; for both Leonidas and Lâtychidas came to the throne under abnormal circumstances, and their two kinsmen and collaterals had already been on the throne for a good many years in 500. To take 480 B.C. as our base-line is therefore to make the preceding generation appear misleadingly long.

3 Cf. Beloch, G.G. I. ii. pp. 171–91: Die Könige von Sparta.

4 E.g., CAH II, Synchronistic Table, p. 695. The dates were accepted by Apollodoros (frag. 73, Müller, in Diodoros, I, 5), who took over Eratosthenes' system complete (cf. the dates in Clement, , Strôm. I. 21Google Scholar). A ‘vulgate’ of Greek chronology, which we still use, was thus established. Eusebios made much use of Diodoros, who used Apollodoros, who used Eratosthenes.

5 Clement, , Strômateis, I. 21Google Scholar (cf. Müller, Xanthos, fr. 27, in FHG).

6 See Clement loc. cit.; Steph. Byz. s.v. Θάσος, quoting the oracle alleged to have been given to Telesikles (see Edmonds', Elegy and Iambus (Loeb), II p. 84Google Scholar) quoted also in Euseb., Preparation for the Gospel, VII, p. 256Google Scholar, from a certain Oinomaos.

7 Eustathios on Dion. Perieg., 517; Bilabel, , Ionische Kolonisation, p. 184Google Scholar. For Thasians trying colonise in these waters, cf. Dionysios of Byzantion, fr. 30, in GGM II. Men of Erythrai are also present at Parion, Paus. IX. 27. 1, Str. XIII. 588; for a magistracy, the ἐξέτασται, common to Parion and Erythrai, cf. Inscr. of Priene, Nos. 50, 63, cited by Bilabel, p. 49. For friendly relations between Paros and Erythrai, cf. Plutarch, Greek Questions, No. 30. The Milesians mentioned at Parion by Strabo (l.c.) probably annexed the place by force; cf. Hdt. I. 18 for their early war with Erythrai, and Dion. Byz., loc. cit. for the expulsion of Thasians from Archion on the Bosphorus by Miletos' ally, Megara. For the current dating, cf. CAH III, p. 768: Abydos brought down to 675, while Parion remains in 710.

8 e.g. Rostovtzeff, , Iranians and Greeks, pp. 63 ffGoogle Scholar.; Beloch, G.G. I. ii, p. 234.

9 Payne, , Necrocorinthia, pp. 22–6Google Scholar.

10 Orsi, , in MonAnt XVII, 1906Google Scholar; quoted by Beloch, op. cit., p. 226.

11 Tzetzes, ϵ on Hesiod, W.D. l. 1 (vv. ll., , is, actually, a modern conjecture).

12 Op. cit., pp. 30–3; note especially the word δοκεῖ in Skymnos, l. 948: . Also the names of the later oikists, Κῷος and Κρητίνης appear in other (later) versions as the name of one man, Kritias of Kôs (Eustath. and Dion Perieg. 772, Steph. Byz. s.v. Sinope, adding .)

13 Anab. IV. 8. 22Google Scholar; etc.

14 Cf. Smith, Sidney, in CAH III, p. 53Google Scholar.

15 Str. VI. 257 (Rhegion), 278–80 (Taras); the latter from Antiochos, the former, as regards the reference to Messenians, almost certainly not, sinceafter telling the story of the Messenians, Strabo begins the next sentence

16 Thus Beloch (l.c., p. 224, citing Helbig in NdS 1896, Schiaparelli in MonAnt 1898) calls it ‘eine phoenikische Vase aegyptisierenden Stils’; while della Seta, (Italia Antica, pp. 76, 79)Google Scholar labels his illustration of it ‘Vaso egiziano’ and remarks, ‘La scienza non vuole arrischiare l'insinuazione che fossero abili riproduzioni.’

17 Though the charm of its quietly efficient and lucid style is lost in translation.

18 Minoans, etc., p. 54, note 2, which I hereby retract.

19 Athenaios, XV, pp. 675–6. This date, of course, itself rests on calculation and theory, not on direct evidence; seventh-century Greeks did not write dates on votive offerings, nor did they date anything in terms of Olympiads. The statue will no more have borne the date Ol. 23 than the date 688 B.C.

20 CAH III, p. 291Google Scholar.

21 See Müller's notes on Manetho, fr. 64 ff., in FHG II.

22 Diod. Sic. I, 79, 94.

23 Hdt. IV. 159.

24 Arkesilaos won his last chariot-victory in 460, at Olympia; see ϵ on Pindar, , Pyth. IVGoogle Scholar, Ὑπόθεσις.

25 Solon, fr. 27, l. 9; emphasised by Wade-Gery, , CAH III, p. 765Google Scholar.

26 Alkibiades is son of Deinomache (m. KJeinias), d. of Megakles, s. of Hippokrates, s. of Megakles and Agariste; Perikles, son of Perikles, s. of Agariste II (m. Xanthippos), d. of Hippokrates, s. of Megakles. This Megakles' eldest son Kleisthenes is still active about 508, though he disappears from the scene soon after; on the other hand, Megakles has a daughter of marriageable age already about 555 (Hdt. I. 61); so the wedding cannot be placed many years before or after 570.

27 In Diog. Laert. I, § 95. Sosikrates belongs to the second century B.C.; a follower of Apollodoros.

28 And even this may not be exact: there is indeed a consensus for 594–3 (Sosikrates in D.L. I. 62; Tatian, , Against the Greeks, 41Google Scholar; Clement, Str. I. 14, ad fin.), but the sixth-century chronology in the Ἀθ. πολ. contradicts not only itself (chaps. 14, 15, contrast 17. 1), but also the vulgate; making the tyranny, which certainly ended in 511, last 49 or 50 years, and begin 32 years after Solon's year. With inclusive reckoning, as usually in the Ἀθ. πολ., we get 592. The ἀνάρχιαι of the early sixth century may have left gaps in the list. When Aristotle himself does not claim to be exact (cf. ᾿Αθ.Πολ, c. 15. 1) there is little point in emending to ἔτει δ καὶ τριακόα in order to square with Sosikrates.