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Greek Sea-Power, 776–540 B.C., and The ‘Carian’ entry in the Eusebian Thalassocracy-List

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

A. R. Burn
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Extract

I. The Problem.—The purpose of this note is to suggest a possible solution of a notorious difficulty in that curious and interesting historical document, the Thalassocracy-list quoted by Eusebius from Diodorus; and, secondly, to trace the historical implications following on the adoption of that suggestion.

The list of ‘those who held the empire of the sea, from the fall of Troy to Xerxes' crossing into Europe,’ was evidently given by Diodorus in the lost ‘second volume’—Books VI to X—of his Historical Library in forty books. That work, we know, was arranged in sections of five books each, the second of which covered exactly that period—from the Τρωικά to the Μηδικά—and this no doubt gives us the reason why the list does not continue so as to cover the thalassocracy of Athens. The latter fact cannot therefore, unfortunately, be used as evidence for an early fifth-century origin for the document. This, however, obviously need not deprive the list of all interest for us, especially since it appears to be corroborated by such evidence on its subject as we have from other sources.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , 1927 , pp. 165 - 177
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1927

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References

1 Aly, W., in Rheinisches Museum, lxvi. (1911)Google Scholar, ascribes the list to Castor of Rhodes, Diodorus' contemporary (to whom Suidas attributes a History of Sea-Power), and would deprive it of any claim to independent authority, believing it to be a purely artificial construction based on sundry passages in Herodotus. This latter thesis, however, appears to be, at best, improbable; the list, as we shall see, appears to allude to various incidents which Herodotus does not mention, but which are vaguely and partially known to us through later authors. It is quite gratuitous to ignore these allusions and thence to deny that the list preserves a certain amount of non-Herodotean matter not otherwise known to us.

2 Authorities for this date: Solinus, Polyb. c. 7; Diog. Laert. i. 95, quoting Sosicrates; Dion.Hal., pp. 773, 820.

3 It was evidently an established custom in colonies of composite origin for one mother-state to be recognised as such, while the other gave the name; cf. Cyme in Italy and Naxos in Sicily—both officially Chalcidian (Str. v. 243, vi. 268) and perhaps ‘Lindii’ (= Gela)—Lindio-Cretan (Thuc. vi. 4)—a citywhose noticeably ‘Dorian’ customs (Thuc., ib.) suggest a predominantly Cretan population.

4 Cf. Bent, Cyclades, p. 153Google Scholar (quoted by Ormerod, , Greek Piracy, p. 17Google Scholar), for similar piety on the part of mediaeval and modern corsairs in Greek waters.

5 Erythrae also seems to have been attempting a revanche about this time; for a war between her and Mytilene ‘in the days of Alcaeus,’ ef. Schol, on Nicander's ‘Snake Bites,’ citing the poet.