The
Military Organization of Attica: Some Observations
JOHN S. TRAILL
Introduction
David Lewis always expressed an intense interest
in the reforms of Kleisthenes. In the 1960s it was very flattering for me, a
graduate student then, to correspond with the brilliant new star of Attic
epigraphy, ὁ
ἐπιγραφικὸς Ἀττικώτατος. My first contact
with him was through an introduction by a mutual friend, Willie Eliot, at the
American School of Classical Studies at Athens in 1966. Later that year DML
wrote me to ask if I would check a reading on a stone which Marcus Tod had
published in 1903. When I wrote back I told him that Tod's reading was correct
and that he should tell him so next time he saw him, as Tod was then still
alive and visiting the university regularly. In the next ten years when I was
working on The Political Organization of
Attica and other publications DML helped me on a number of occasions just
as he, always perceptive and always generous in sharing his immense knowledge,
helped so many other junior scholars. During my residence at the Institute for
Advanced Study in Princeton from 1970 to 1972 it was a wonderful privilege to
share a year with him in the company of Ben Meritt, who was a mentor to us
both. The Institute was a very informal place and I have vivid memories of
participating in numerous conversations with DML and BDM but also of an evening
when David came to dinner and with our daughter Ariana, aged two-and-a-half at
that time, built Greek temples from a set of wooden blocks.[1]
When I published The Political Organization of
Attica I was well aware that the reforms of Kleisthenes in 508/7 were
military as well as political, but scholarship at that time was much more
focused on the latter than the former subject. The invention and prefection of
democracy had captured scholarly as well as popular attention over a long
period of time. The simultaneous military reorganization of Attica based on the
same components of demes, trittyes,
and phylai, had, in contrast,
received far less attention.[2]
The new political regimen brought the flowering of ancient Athenian civilization
in the many arts and sciences of that era, drama, literature, history, law,
philosophy, architecture, music, fine arts, and so on, little of which would
probably have happened were it not for the stunning military victories of the
Greek forces, led by the Athenians, over the Persian invaders, first at
Marathon, an Athenian land victory won barely 18 years after the Kleisthenic
reforms, and then, a decade later, a second, and more impressive, naval victory
at Salamis, in which Athens played the major role. Subsequently, Athenian
forces carried the fight into Persian territory with sea and land-and-sea
battles across the Aegean at Mykale and Eurymedon respectively. I cite only the
major victories; there were also numerous less famous minor triumphs in an
almost unbroken string of military successes following the reforms of 508/7.
In
1975 in The Political Organization of
Attica I accepted the traditional view that although the phylai needed to be approximately equal
in size, their components, the trittyes,
from the evidence of the prytany and bouleutic lists might vary considerably in
magnitude from a minimum of 9 councillors, Phaleron, to a maximum of 27, the trittys of Anaphlystos, three times
larger than Phaleron. In the decade between 1975 and the publication of Demos and Trittys I restudied both old
and new documents and concluded that the trittyes
must be equal in size. In fact, the variant 16 and 17 totals reflected the
fractional division of 50 by 3. Arguments which then made sense for the
political organization now make even more sense for the military system.
Components of fighting forces, at least in theory, are normally equal in size,
and the new Athenian military reorganization of Kleisthenes was no exception.
Common sense dictated that a century is a 100, and a trittys is a ⅓. Arguments that a trittys meant something other than a third seemed strained and
special pleading.
Anomalies
in the political map of Attica have long been known. For example, Probalinthos,
a member of the Marathonian tetrapolis, belonged to the phyle of Pandionis, but it was a topographical challenge to connect
it with the other members of its otherwise cohesive coastal trittys where all the other demes were
located close to Myrrhinous. Plotheia and Ikarion were obviously separated by
Pentelikon from either city or inland Aigeis. Inland Leontis was a strange
looking lineal creature which stretched by stages a long way from Hekale in the
east past four other trittyes to join
Kropidai and other small demes in the west. And so on. The map in Demos and Trittys published in 1986
revealed many such anomalies for which I had no special political explanation,
and only a general argument that in order to form equally sized trittyes these measures were employed to
address natural imbalances, especially a deficiency of population in the City
region compared to the Coastal (Paralia)
and Inland (Mesogeia) sections. These
same anomalies may now be better explained as useful to, even designed for, a military
purpose. This seems an apropriate place to comment on Kleisthenes' assignment
of the trittyes to the phylai by lot, as outlined in Ath. Pol. 21.4. After the trittyes had
been balanced in order to be equal in size it would be perfectly reasonable to
assign them to the phylai by lot. I
see no evidence of any deliberate manipulation of the assignment of the trittyes to the phylai in order to favor a particular group of people or an individual.
With the possible exception of inland and coastal Oineis involving the Acharnai
complex (below p. 91) the other collocations of inland and coastal trittyes of the same phyle are no more than would occur by
the accident of chance. The only manipulation, if I may call it such, was the
formation of trittyes for greater
strategic effectiveness.
Addenda
and corrigenda to deme map and conspectus of locations
Before I begin an examination of the Military
Significance of the Enclaves and Irregularly Shaped Trittyes I would like to introduce three important changes which
must be made to the Deme Map of Attica and to the Conspectus of Deme Quotas and
Locations in D&T 125-140.[3]
The
most important change involves the deme of Oe (demotic Ὀῆθεν and Οἰῆθεν) which was once
assigned on weak literary evidence to a site in northwest Attica NE of Aspropyrgos
at the foot of Kallistiri. Excavations conducted between 1994 and 2004 by the
Greek Archaeological Service under the direction of Olga Kakavogianni near a
new health centre about a kilometer and a half north of Koropi in the Mesogeia,
have brought to light an ancient cemetery containing demotai of Oe. I discussed this find and its importance for changes
to the deme map of Attica in my article E-Epigraphy, Reflections on Three Decades
of Computing Attic Epigraphy, in D. Jordan and J. Traill (eds), Lettered Attica, Toronto 2003, 118-9.
Subsequent to that publication, in 2010 and 2011, I corresponded with a very
able young Dutch topographer named Joop Stam, who made a number of visits to
the site and studied both the topography of the area and the epigraphical finds
stored in the cellar of the Brauron Museum. Concerning the precise location of
the excavations of the deme cemetery, I quote from his email beginning August
8, 2010: with the aid of Olga Kakavoyianni and a student of hers, Panagiota
Galiatsatou, I found the exact spot of the so-called Toula property, where the
items referring to Oe were found. [I have not included the map of Mr. Stam,
nor the texts of inscriptions which he transcribed in the Brauron Museum.] His
description continued: my goal was to find the exact location of the Toula
property. To get there one goes from Koropi to the north along Leoforos
Basileos Konstantinou. After 1200 m you see on the right side the new Health
Centre where also excavations have been done. From there it is another 300 m along
the same road until the Ercheias, the old road to Spata. Just about 80 m before
the Ercheias on the left side of the Leoforos Basileos Konstantinou is the
Toula property. About 30 m from the road they did the excavations of which nothing
is left or can be seen. Everything is covered with soil, grass and vegetation.
To
this documentation I add the topographical evidence of an inscription found at
Brauron directly to the east of this excavation and published in Ἀναστήλωσις
τῆς Στόας τῆς
Βραύρωνος 147 fig 104 with
text which appears in PAA 731750: Xenokleia daughter of Polyoros Oethen, and
the text for the father in PAA 731750, Polyoros Oethen father of Xenokleia,
both with brief topographical commentary. The inscription has been dated a m
IVa. Compare the grave stele IG II2 6958, dated c 340a,
with exquisite crowning anthemion,
now in the Glyptothek Museum in Munich[4]
commemorating Xenokrateia daughter of Eukleides Oethen. This stele was reported to have been found in
Velanidesa, a location much closer and more likely for someone from the new
location of Oe than from the old provisional site near Kallistiri.[5]
Note also the similarity of the names Xenokleia and Xenokrateia on the two
gravestones, although the date of the former is probably a generation earlier
than the date of the latter. They are likely to be relatives.
The
relocation of Oe from NW Attica to the heart of the Mesogeia leaves the site NE of Aspropyrgos without a deme. Work
involving the construction of the new Attiki Odos and the Athens-Thessalonike
interurban rail system in the area of Spelies uncovered additional remains
appropriate to a small deme (ΑΤΤΙΚΗΣ
ΟΔΟΥ
ΠΕΡΙΗΓΗΣΙΣ, Athens 2005, 22-3),
some admittedly dating from the
Roman and Late Roman periods (III-IVp). In
D&T
130 I suggested that the site south of the Tatoi airport be assigned to either
Aithalidai or Hybadai, two tiny (2 bouleutai
each) demes of Leontis both probably of the inland trittys. The alternate I would now assign to Spelies. This Leontid
deme should now be joined to Pelex, Kropidai, Eupyridai, the deme at the site
south of the Tatoi airport, and also Kolonai and Hekale to the east, and
appropriate changes should be made in the Conspectus in D&T 130-1.
One,
and probably both, of the Pergase demes can now be located more precisely. In
an email of September 6, 2012, the able young Japanese epigrapher and topographer
Kazuhiro Takeuchi identified the findspot of SEG 54 316 (with slightly improved information in SEG 57 200) on Thebaidos Street, Kato Kephisia,
and connected it with the sanctuary of Dionysos in Pergase. The question marks
can now be removed from the circles of the Pergase demes on the map.
The military
significance of the enclaves and irregularly shaped trittyes
The most striking features of the 1986 map in Demos and Trittys are the anomalies, the
enclaves, and the transferred demes clearly apparent in the configuration of many
trittyes, especially in northern
Attica (see discussion in D&T 113-5).
Demes of Erechtheis, Aigeis, Pandionis, Leontis, perhaps Akamantis, Oineis, Hippothontis,
Aiantis, and Antiochis are involved in special arrangements which I suggest
were designed for a military purpose. Only the phylai Kekropis and perhaps Akamantis (see below) appear to have
been exempt, and for the former that may only be because we do not know the
locations of two of its small demes, Pithos and Epieikidai, and for the latter
only because we may have incorrectly identified the phyle of the Eitea deme of the Grammatiko deme decree.
The
military purposes of the trittyes I
have discussed in D&T 112-3 and
also in Lettered Attica 118, in which
I treat the passage in Plato s Republic,
475a, where I judge a contrast is being drawn between the strictly military
functions of the strategoi and the
complementary financial responsibilities of the trittyarchs ( thirdmasters ,
cf. our quartermasters ). The trittyarchs as financial officials appear
prominently in the reactionary regime of Lachares when there was a conspicuous
revival of certain aspects of the ancient Athenian constitution. The locus classicus on the military function
of the trittyes is in the context of
the measures proposed for the mobilization of the Athenian navy in Demosthenes
14.21-2 (On the Symmories), a text
which conincidentally dates not far from the attestation of trittys headings on the prytany list of
348/7a (Agora XV 26). Here I will
discuss phyle by phyle the topographical anomalies of the trittyes in the revised map of D&T
presented in Map of Attica at the website cited in footnote 1.
Aiantis,
9th phyle. In Hesperia 47 (1978) 103 I suggested that Rhamnous, the large
fortified deme and obvious enclave located near the Athenian border with
Boeotia in NW Attica, belonged to the same trittys
as the city deme Phaleron, thereby creating an appropriately sized trittys of 17 bouleutai. On the map in D&T
I showed the connection with a vector aimed toward the city. This seemed fine
for the political organization of Attica by which Rhamnous would send its 8 bouleutai to the council in Athens, but
from the strategic standpoint the situation should be reversed and the military
force of Phaleron would be deployed at Rhamnous. For this purpose the direction
of the vector should be reversed. Here and elsewhere in this discussion I do not wish
to imply that the physical connection was necessary over land; where and when
practicable sea transport would be employed and may have been a factor in the
construction of this trittys and several other trittyes.
Pandionis,
3rd phyle. The location of the
Tetrapolid deme Probalinthos has long been a problem. Its site SE of Vrana (D&T 129), based on the most recent
and reliable evidence, makes its location geographically more distant from the
other coastal demes of its phyle than
from the single large city deme Kydathenaion to which I assigned it
administratively both on the evidence of multiple prytany lists (Hesperia 47 (1978) 101-2, D&T Chapter 2, 31-51, and on the
additional argument from the Epimeletai
of the Phylai, ibid. 85-7 sect 6). The military advantages of the deployment of
the soldiers of the largest city deme, Kydathenaion (11 or 12 bouleutai with variation according to
whether the trittys had total
representation of 16 or 17), added to the smaller segment of Probalinthos (5 bouleutai) are obvious. The direction of
the vector on the 1986 map should, accordingly, be reversed, and again it may
be observed that political purpose runs contrary to military advantage. The trittys composed of Kydathenaion and
Probalinthos centered strategically at the latter, would add to the
effectiveness of the defence of the Oropian border. As another earlier example,
mobilization
for the Battle of Marathon comes to mind.
Antiochis,
10th phyle, and possibly Akamantis,
5th phyle. The discovery at
Grammatiko of a deme decree of Eitea and its subsequent publication by E.
Vanderpool (Ἀρχ. Δελτ. 25 (1970) 204-16) presented
a sudden new problem in the organization of Attica. There were 2 demes named
Eitea, one in Akamantis and the other in Antiochis (POA 124, D&T 140-1).
Vanderpool opted for identification with the Eitea of Antiochis, which I
endorsed as more probable than association with the Akamantid Eitea. By either
option Eitea represents an enclave which I would link to the city trittys of the respective phyle. Antiochis has the advantage of
the associated demes Semachidai and Antiochid Kolonai (on locations see D&T 139). Whether a group of 3
Antiochid demes, my preference, or a single Akamantid deme along with 2 demes
of Antiochis, the enclave or enclaves joined to the respective city trittyes would serve a military purpose on
the northeastern border of Attica. Again from the strategic standpoint the
direction of the vector on the 1986 map should be reversed.
The
inland segment of Antiochis centered at Pallene with 6 or 7 councillors is too
small for a trittys by itself, but
the transfer of the pair of demes Aigilia and Thorai from southwest Attica as
proposed in Hesperia 47 (1978) 104,
reinforced in Hesperia Suppl XIX 170-1,
and D&T 139-40, creates a
properly sized trittys and adds
military strength to a trittys which
could readily be deployed either to northern Attica or to the southwestern
coastal region. The vector connecting the two segments might run both
directions but more often to the north.
Hippothontis,
8th phyle. This inland trittys as portrayed on the map joins the
fortified demes of Hippothontid Oinoe in the far northwest and Dekeleia in
north central Attica. Oion Dekeleikon is securely located appropriately not far
from the latter and deme-sites have been provisionally assigned to Azenia and
Anakaia, no other demes having any greater claim. Arguments from the standpoint
of mobilization and defence may be adduced for this configuration of this Hippothontid
trittys. As stated above this trittys bore the appropriate name
Epakria, compatible with the name of the trittys
immediately to its south, Diakris. (On trittys names see D&T 114-5.) The vector between Azenia and Dekeleia might run
both directions.
Leontis,
4th phyle. The lineal disposition of
the Leontid inland trittys presents a
second line of demes immediately to the south and parallel to the Hippothontid
inland trittys just treated. Its
name, Diakris, discovered in the 1970s (Diakris, The Inland Trittys of Leontis,
Hesperia 47 (1978) 89-109, with
further discussion in Lettered Attica
120-2 and a new photograph of the important inscription, 121), also parallels
the name of the trittys to the north,
Epakria. Both names, well known in Athenian history, are significant and must
have been deliberately chosen to emphasize topographical and strategic
significance. The evidence for the locations and the identifications of the
demes of this trittys I have outlined
in D&T 130-1. The only addition
is the alternate deme from the Tatoi Airport deme-site which I have now
assigned to the remains at Spilies, a site once occupied tentatively by Oe
(above p. 85). Both Aithalidai and Hybadai have now been assigned to deme sites
in this trittys of Leontis, although the
names may be interchanged. This trittys
stretching from Hekale and Kolonai in the east to Aithalidai or Hybadai in the
west presents another configuration more easily assigned a military than a
political purpose.
Oineis,
6th phyle. Two adjacent trittyes, inland and coastal, are involved
with this phyle. The inland trittys of Oineis was called Pedion or
Pedieis, but Acharnai with 22 bouleutai
in its sole complete attestation, is too large for a trittys by 5 or 6 councillors. I have argued from its plural name,
from its two centers of population,[6]
from its trittys name, which is
neither Acharnai nor Acharneis but Pedion or Pedieis, and from one fragmented
prytany list, Agora XV 68 in which Acharnians
can be shown to have been inscribed in two separate sections, that the deme was
composite (Hesperia 47 (1978) 105, D&T 142-4, Hesperia Suppl XIX 169-70, and most important, after the relocation
of Oe, the restudy of Agora XV 68 in Lettered Attica 118-9).
Although
the new location of Oe in the Mesogeia
is important for the political organization of Attica, it is much more
important for its military role. The smaller section of Acharnai, which in Lettered Attica 119 I assigned to the
city, will now have a much more useful strategic assignment, to the nearly adjacent
(a group of small demes of Leontis intervenes) coastal trittys of Oineis, which also includes the fortified deme of Phyle
on Parnes. The near-contiguity of these two trittyes
would mean that the two sections of Acharnai, traditionally a renowned segment
of the Athenian fighting forces, could easily act together in military
operations. The combined size of the two components of Acharnai would have been
more important as a military, than a political, entity and offers the only
place in which an argument might be made for deliberate intervention in the
assignment of trittyes to phylai by lot. Aiantis offers a parallel
of two adjacent trittyes, inland
Aphidna, the only other single deme and complete trittys, and the coastal trittys
bearing an earlier cult name tetrapolis ' ( four-city '), even though the trittys now consisted of only the three
demes Marathon, Oinoe and Trikorynthos. Indeed, Aiantis is the only phyle with three contiguous trittyes, if one considers the
Phaleron-Rhamnous composite city trittys
with its military center located at Probalinthos. Contiguity of trittyes has been a theme of classical
scholarship for a long time, especially in the context of attempts at
discovering gerrymandering at the hands, and for the benefit, of ancient noble
families, examples being drawn from inland and coastal Aigeis and Pandionis,
Akamantis, Hippothontis, and Antiochis. As stated above (p. 85), I do not see
evidence for any such activity.
Erechtheis,
1st phyle. Upper Lamptrai has been
joined to Kephisia and the Pergase demes, the latter now more securely located
(above p. 86). The assignment of Upper Lamptrai to the inland trittys of Erechtheis was the subject of
my article in the Vanderpool Festschrift
(An Interpretation of Six Rock-Cut Inscriptions in the Attic Demes of Lamptrai,
Hesperia Suppl XIX 162-9). The
transfer of the mid-sized (5 bouleutai)
deme of Upper Lamptrai to Kephisia and the two Pergase demes would add
considerable military strength to the inland trittys of Erechtheis in northern Attica. The vector connecting the
two sections might run both directions, but more often to the north.
In
summary, the majority of the trittys
pecularities, enclaves, transferred demes, and irregular shapes, involve
northern Attica and its border with Boeotia. The Kleisthenic strategic solution
was the transfer of the military forces of the three large city demes, each the
only city member of its phyle,
Kydathenaion, Alopeke, and Phaleron, to the northern components of their
respective phylai in order to form equally-sized
trittyes. Two additional measures of
the same intent involve demes located south of the city proper, Upper Lamptrai,
and the pair Aigilia and Thorai. The other trittyes
of central and south Attica were not affected, and they are composed each of
largely contiguous demes. These areas were relatively secure because of their
defence by the unmatched strength of the Athenian navy.
Special
problems in the city trittyes
I have discussed the linking of most of the small
city demes of Aigeis with Ikarion and Plotheia located north of Pentele. One
isolated tiny Aigeid deme, Diomeia, was joined to the other demes of the
coastal trittys of Halai Araphenides for no obvious military purpose but
apparently only in order to balance the size of the trittyes. The large deme Melite of Kekropis along with tiny
isolated Daidalidai was joined to Xypete and the small demes of Hippothontis
Keiriadai and Koile were linked to Peiraieus. Both of these measures would
serve a military purpose. The Leontid city trittys
presents a disparate picture with Halimous to the south joined to Skambonidai
in the middle of the city and also to Leukonoion to the north and Kettos to the
west; the last, located in the gap of Aigaleos, would offer the most
significant strategic connection. And
finally Oe, as discussed above, was linked to a group of six small Oineid
demes, including Boutadai, Lakiadai, and Perithoidai to the northwest of the
city. This trittys might have been
deployed along with the other two trittyes
of its phyle for the defence of the
west and northwest Attica border. The vector joining newly located Oe to the
other city demes of Oineis served a military as well as civilian motive.
Conclusion
Of the multiplicity of purposes of the Attic trittyes (D&T 112-5) I have emphasized in this paper the military, specifically the infantry. The trittys markers in the Agora, for the
army, and in Peiraieus, for the navy, designated meeting places and marshaling
stations. Among other benefits the trittys
system would foster an esprit de corps et
camaraderie, along with more strategic factors relating to communications
and deployment of forces, especially for ground troups in northern and western
Attica in the areas near the Boeotian and Megarian borders but also in reverse direction for naval
forces operating from the fortified harbors of Peiraieus.
Epilogue
The editors of this volume have kindly allowed me
the following addenda occasioned by recent publications.
(1) In Από τα
Μεσόγεια στον
Αργοσαρώνικο, Athens 2014,
399-420 Olga Kakovoyianni and Panaiota Galiatsatou have provided a detailed
presentation of the results of their excavations, including a special treatment
of the pottery (Παράρτημα 417-20), in the
areas north of Koropi and at other places in this part of the Mesogeia, Από τα
αρχαία
νεκροταφεία
στα Μεσόγεια, Ο
αρχαίος δήμος
της Ὀης. The identification of the new
site for Oe, 405-6, is especially cogent, and there cannot be the slightest
doubt in what is now the most remarkable enclave in the Kleisthenic
organization of Attica. The incontrovertible relocation of this large deme of
Oeneis, which will now be connected to the other distant city demes of its phyle, between two of the most
paradeigmatic compact trittyes, Paiania of Pandionis and Sphettos of Akamantis, in the Mesogeia,
is something totally bizarre and completely alien to the traditional view of
the subject. In my opinion the special operative military exigencies which I
have outlined above offer the most plausible explanation. On the afternoon of
22/iv/19 I inspected the site on the Toula property in the company of Dr.
Larisa Traill.
(2) A tall grave stele with anthemion
found on Schistou Avenue ca. 1 km.
from the homonymous cemetery in Perama, and published in Ἀρχ.
Δελτ. 64 (2009) Χρον. Β 1 [2014] 61, was restudied and
the demotics restored by N. Papazarkadas in Γραμματεῖον 8 (2019) 11-14.
The two demotics belong to the tiny Hippothontid deme Auridai, which has not
been convincingly located in the past but was tentatively assigned to the
coastal trittys of its phyle (D&T 138). It has now been moved from the box at the bottom of
the Map and placed on the Map near the Schistou Cemetery, with a question mark
indicating its approximate location, and joined to the large coastal deme
Eleusis. This massive embellished grave stele,
found along with a columella and two
pieces of sculpture, one of a woman standing, the other of a seated woman, from
a large sepulchral monument, suggests the discovery of the deme cemetery of
Auridai. The center of the deme would be close by, and the site is perfectly
appropriate for a tiny member of coastal Hippothontis. The list of unlocated
demes on our Map now drops to 16. In the company of Dr. Larisa Traill
on the morning of 22/iv/19 I was able to explore the entire region
which would encompass the ancient deme of Auridai. This autopsy included the
restricted industrial area to which we were allowed full access through the
kindness of the guards.
(3) An article entitled Deme Theaters in Attica
and the Trittys System (Hesperia 79
(2010) 351-84) by Jessica Paga concluded that each trittys possessed only one theater. While this theory might a priori seem reasonable from the
economic standpoint, especially for a compact trittys with a large central deme surrounded by smaller demes like
satellites, it was contravened even within her limited archaeological and
epigraphical data which supplied a total of 19 demes-with-theaters, among them
Kollytos and Ikarion from the phyle
Aigeis. To maintain her theory she was compelled to use my outdated assignments
of 1975 which allocated these two demes to different trittyes. By 1978 (Hesperia
47 (1978) 103) I had revised my opinion and assigned Ikarion and Plotheia to
the same trittys as Kollytos, viz. City Aigeis, thereby disrupting her
1-trittys-1-deme-theater theory. More
trouble was to follow with the subsequent publication of H. R. Goette s The
Archaeology of the Rural Dionysia in Attica (Greek Theatre in the Fourth Century b.c.,
Berlin 2014, 77-105), by which time the total number of deme theaters had grown
to 25, including one belonging to Ikarion s neighbour Plotheia (#22 in his
catalogue), which he assigns to the city trittys
along with Kollytos (#14), even though he keeps Ikarion (#13) inland. I assign all these three demes to the city trittys of Aigeis. Goette s expanded
catalogue causes further trouble to Paga s theory. Halai Aixonides (#10), a new
addition to the list of demes-with-theaters, belongs to the same Kekropid
coastal trittys as Aixone (#3), and
Sphettos (#24) now joins Hagnous (#9), both belonging to inland Akamantis.
With
respect to the last-mentioned deme, Hagnous, I wish to correct a serious
misrepresentation of my work and the methods of my teacher in the Goette
artucle just cited, 87-8 and n. 16. I neither thought nor stated that I reassigned
it [the deme decree IG II2
1183] to Hagnous on the basis of grave markers with names of Hagnousioi said to
have been found close to the decree at a location called Dardiste southwest of
the village and in n. 16 below where he thought that several grave markers of
Hagnousioi were found. The village of Markopoulo had long been designated as
the approximate location of Hagnous on the basis of a significant number of
grave markers found in and around Markopoulo as summarized in the Milchhoefer RE article s.v. Agnous.[7]
In
my D&T treatment I did NOT use
any gravestones with respect to Dardiste, but I cite now that there are in fact
five grave markers which have been reported as having been found at that
location, accessed from the following entries in PAA: 161475 & 986150, 516250, 879479 & 879480, 445500,
445565. That number may be reduced to four, if the names on the inscriptions of
the last two entries represent garbled versions of the same text. Only one of
the five texts attests a demotic or ethnic, PAA
879479 & 879480 = IG II2
5278, which records a homonymous father-son of Hagnous sharing the name
Telesinos. I had no intention of misrepresenting as Dardiste the findspots of
other gravestones which were reported in the various publications. The argument
is not circular , nor elliptical, nor hyperbolical. What I did propose is that
Dardiste, the area where this deme decree was found, offered a more precise
location for the center of Hagnous. As taught by my teacher of topography, E.
Vanderpool, with whom I visited Dardiste on several occasions, the findspots of
deme decrees are the most important kind of evidence, the gold standard as it were, in topographical arguments of this sort.
As
to no reports about ancient architectural or other settlement remains which
can be characterized as those of a deme-site (p. 88 n. 16), supporting
archaeological evidence is, of course, always welcome, especially dressed
blocks of stone, fifth-century black-glazed pottery, and pieces of roof-tile,
the discovery of which has been the goal of many walks in Attica with EV and
groups of students and friends of ASCSA over the 1960s into the 1980s on the
renowned Attic Rambles, but we cannot
always have this luxury. In this instance the deme of the decree has been lost
and it could theoretically be any one of the other 138 demes and not Hagnous.
The stone could also have been moved from its original location, as has
happened in a number of well-known instances the Epigraphical Museum is
filled with stones moved from their findspots in Attica, and when the
inscription was embellished with sculpture it has often been moved a
considerable distance, including to many museums of northern Europe and
America, e.g. the gravestone of Xenokleia now in the Glyptothek in Munich
(above p. 85) but a simple, unpretentious inscribed piece of marble is most
often found close to its original location. The cumulative evidence makes it
highly probable that the deme of Dardiste is Hagnous. The area of Markopoulo,
with its plethora of attachments to this deme, is the closest large settlement
to Dardiste and has never been assigned with good reason to any Attic deme
other than Hagnous. This was the opinion of Eugene Vanderpool, my mentor and friend,
of whom I attach this short appreciation.[8]
A more humble human being I have never met than
Eugene Vanderpool, in the words of Lucy Shoe Meritt (History of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Princeton
1984, 105) the modest self-effacing man of the fewest possible words who with
those words shares one of the widest knowledges and most sensitive
understandings of Greece and Greeks, countryside, monuments, birds, flowers,
people of all ages , nor one more knowledgeable of all things Attic and a
teacher sans pareil. Ἀττικώτατος, which I used in
the second sentence of this chapter with reference to DML s epigraphy, here I
would employ generically, to EV, renowned for his topographical knowledge but a
master also of a large number of other subjects. He and the epigrapher B. D.
Meritt were close friends and teachers much respected by DML. My topographical
arguments concerning Dardiste and all the other sites which I made in POA and D&T were discussed thoroughly with, and my written text
approved by, EV before publication. His knowledge of Greek topography, and
especially Attic topography, had no equal in his age, and few over all modern
scholarship. He revered the method and works of William Martin Leake and Arthur
Milchhoefer, both, quite unlike him, of military training, but not excessively,
and he often mentioned with detail how the librarial Loeper was sometimes right
and field topographer Milchhoefer wrong.
On
walks in Attica he regularly referred to ein echtes Auge , a quality he
possessed, but was always too modest to admit. Practical and sensible, ever
cautious in his judgment, aware of the vast divide between secure, succinct
known facts and specious, fatuous theories and hypotheses, clearly embarrassed
by personal praise of himself, he was never effusive in his praise of others.
Particularly attuned to irony in the nature of Things, he loved to recall
events such as the discovery at Marathon by a child of an ancient coin on an Attic Ramble children, as in the
Epicurean school, were always welcome on such outings. He was much amused when
Laura Gadbury, a student at ASCSA, discovered an inscription on the threshold
block of the Tholos, a stone on which he had stepped hundreds of times without
noticing the lettering; and when Merle Langdon rediscovered the Wordsworth horos on Mt. Lykabettos, which EV
climbed every morning as long as he was able when he lived on Kleomenous
Street, he was transported with delight but also quite baffled that he had
never noticed it.
It
is also fair to say that he was not comfortable with the theory of divided trittyes to which at the end of his life
he gave grudging approval. He was much happier with the simple, traditional
view of the compact trittys as
presented in POA (his opinion was the
main reason in 1975 for my maintaining an interpretation which I had otherwise
abandoned), even though he was quite aware of the anomalous but secure location
of Probalinthos in the Marathonian plain, far separated from the other members
of its presumed trittys in the heart
of the Mesogeia. A more significant event, the discovery at Grammatiko of the
decree of an Eitea deme, which he published in Ἀρχ.
Δελτ.
25 (1970) 204-16, was the decisive moment in this matter, when he was finally
compelled to accept the divided trittys.
On this occasion he immediately remembered that there had already existed
lexicographical evidence for the location of the deme of Semachidai, which
belonged to Antiochis, in the Epakria, information which not only supported a
divided trittys but also identified
this Eitea as being the Antiochid deme (there was a homonymous deme of unknown
location in Akamantis). He would have accepted the even more anomalous
relocation of Oe in the Mesogeia, if he had lived long enough to witness the
recent archaeological discoveries north of Koropi.
His
unsurpassed knowledge of Greek topography, his pronounced philhellenism, his
strongly held views of democracy and free government, and his utter revulsion
at the total antithesis of these values in the insane, barbaric brutality of
the Germans occupying his adopted Homeland made him a great potential danger to
those occupiers; they could not allow him to remain in Greece. His and his wife
Joan s love of Greece was a humane and practical one; during the occupation
they ran a kitchen at their home in Marousi and provided meals and healthcare
for 200 children, for whom he scrounged Attica daily on his bicycle for food.
He was arrested with only enough time to retrieve his two favorite authors,
Thucydides and Gibbon, whom he had virtually memorized by the time of his
release from internment in Germany. He returned to Greece at the earliest
possible opportunity and by the most direct route at that time, which was via
Egypt, where he encountered with much delight Beazley s recently published ARV. Mr. Vanderpool, as he was most
often called, after graduating from Princeton, first arrived in Greece in 1929,
on foot (!), having walked from Austria, a precursor of his later interest and
method in Attic topography. He made annual trips back to America to see his
mother as long as she was alive, and he went to Cincinnati in 1969 to deliver
the model Semple Lectures on ostracism, the presentation of which in written
form epitomized EV s views of scholarly publication. A proposed partnership of
him and A. E. Raubitschek to publish the Agora ostraca was not to materialize,
so divergent were their respective approaches: EV often cited AER s article,
The Gates in the Agora , published in AJA
60 (1956), a three-and-a-half-page article in which n. 4 begins at the bottom
of page 2 and completely occupies page 3, as an example of how not to write an
article . With such exceptions, and his enforced removal to Germany, he never
left Greece, and he never will.
[1] I am pleased to record my gratitute
to institutions and persons who have supported my research, especially in the
ATHENIANS Project, both recently and earlier in a period which spans four
decades, beginning with the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of
Canada, Victoria College and the Department of Classics in the University of
Toronto and EMPRESS Software, now EMPRESS Embedded Database, in Markham Ontario,
whose staff include John and Njai Kornatowski, Ivor Ladd, Srdjan Holovac, and
most recently Alex Kornatowski, who is now directing the EMPRESS portion of the
Project. I also owe a large debt to Philippa Matheson my colleague on the
ATHENIANS Project almost from the beginning, who is responsible for the creation
of the website Attica (https://attica.artsci.utoronto.ca), and Dan Derkach of CHASS Computing
at the University of Toronto who joined a little later. Near the other end of
the time-line the Project has recently enjoyed the support of the BRAIN
Alliance, a consortium of computer scientists at the 4 major universities in
the Toronto area. I mention in particular the late Professor Nick Cercone, Dean
of the Lassonde School of Engineering at York University, and Professors
Jian-Guo Wang and Xiaohui Yu and their graduate students, Clark Yin, Aaron
Boda, and Yifan Li who have been especially active in the important fields of
geomatics and data visualization. Olga Kakavoyianni and Joop Stam have supplied
important information for the location of the Oe deme, and Kazuhiro Takeuchi
valuable data for the Pergase demes. I wish to thank the editors of this
volume, Peter Rhodes and Andronike Makres, for their considerable assistance.
Finally, I acknowledge a special debt to a friend of many years, Angelos P.
Matthaiou, who invited me to participate in the Lewis conference and subsequently
to submit this paper.
The following
abbreviations have been used: POA = Political Organization of Attica, Hesperia Suppl XIV, Princeton 1975; and D&T = Demos and Trittys, Toronto 1986.
[2] An exception was P. Siewert s Die Trittyen und die Heeresreform des
Kleisthenes, Vestigia 33, Munich
1982. The volume uses the deme map of POA
dated 1972 with the system of unequal trittyes
I subsequently abandoned. The author does a great service in pointing out the
military importance of the roads of Attica, but to my mind gives excessive
attention to connecting demes along these roads. He also relies too much on an
older body of topographical data which have been greatly modified,
supplemented, or replaced. An updated study of the roads of Attica would take
far more space than allocated here and is not essential to my topic. DML
concluded a review of POA in AJA 80 (1976) 311-2 with these words:
The only fundamental criticism . .
. is implicit in its title. No word in
it suggests that Cleisthenes reorganisation was also a military reorganisation
and that the Athenians habitually fought by tribes and were occasionally
mustered by trittyes. There are problems implicit in the debate over the
population of Acharnai . . . which have not been properly faced. I hope
that this modest contribution does something to redress these criticisms.
[3] In addition to these major
corrections there are some minor addenda.
On 126: to Anagyrous add a reference to M. K. Langdon, Chiron 18 (1988) 43-7; to Probalinthos, for the sepulchral amphoras
add the references SEG 46 287-9; to
Myrrhinous, add a reference for the phratry decree, IG II2 1241; and to Prasia add the location Natso and
reference, A. P. Matthaiou, Lettered
Attica 86. On 131: to Phrearrhioi, add reference to SEG 48 146 which suggests an alternate location of the deme NE of charadra of Kamariza in the region of
the hills of Stephani and Merkati (Ἀρχ. Δελτ. 50 B (1995) 60-1). On 132 n.
27: to Prospalta, add inscription dated 350-300a . On 133 to Acharnai, after section
of Acharnai read is now assigned to the coastal trittys, Lettered Attica
118-9). For several sites of this composite deme see Danielle L. Kellogg, Marathon Fighters and Men of Maple: Ancient
Acharnai, Oxford 2013, 8-26. See also discussion below (p. 90). On 139 to
Alopeke, add reference IG II2
5566; to Pallene, add Doric temple N of Stavros, hόρος 10-12 (1992-8) 83-104 (SEG 46 40).
[4] This stele was examined by JST Sept 4-5, 2017; for a photograph see R.
Wuensche, Glyptothek, Munich, Masterpieces
of Greek and Roman Sculpture, 93.
[5] For Velanidesa see A. Milchhoefer, Karten von Attika, Text III-VI, 6, and IG II2 7816 and 7817, both
found at Velanidesa but belonging to the different deme Oai, located at
Papangelaki, the findspot of IG II2
7820; see S. Dow, The Attic Demes Oa and Oe, AJP 84 (1963) 166-81 for a discussion of these confusing two demes.
[6] Danielle L. Kellogg (above p. 86)
noted a third possible center (26) and suggested from
the small scattered concentrations of ancient remains that Acharnai may have
ressembled Aphidna which was composed of at least seven attested komoi (POA 87-91), and accepts that the deme may have been divided for
administrative purposes: 100-1 possibility that a divide was instituted in
practice, if not in law.
[7] A second, shorter, article s.v. Agnous was written by Kolbe, clearly unaware of the earlier entry but with the same conclusion, vz. that Markopoulo was the site of Hagnous.
[8]