Political History of the Kyklades, 1993

The Political History of the Kyklades 260-200 B.C.Author(s): Gary RegerReviewed work(s):Source: Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Bd. 43, H. 1 (1st Qtr., 1994), pp. 32-69Published by: Franz Steiner VerlagStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4436314 .Accessed: 25/05/2012 22:52

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THE POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE KYKLADES 260-200 B.C.

For most of the third and second centuries B.C., the Kyklades islands lived under the suzereignty of an outside power. From 314 to 288 B.C. first Antigonos Monophthalmos and his son, and then Demetrios Poliorketes alone, controlled them through the Nesiotic or Island League which Antigonos had organized. In 288 B.C. the Ptolemies seized the League and maintained a visible presence in the central Aegean until the end of the Khremonidean War in 261 B.C. During the course of the Second Makedonian War the Rhodians collected the islands and soon re-organized the League, which had fallen into desuetude. The Kyklades continued under Rhodian control at least until 167 B.C.

I I use the following non-standard abbrevations:

Bagnal = Roger S. Bagnall, The Administration of Ptolemaic Possessions outside Egypt, Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 4 (Leiden 1976).

BEFAR = Biblioth6que des Ecoles Franqaises d'Ath6nes et de Rome. Berthold = Richard M. Berthold, Rhodes in the Hellenistic Age (Ithaca-London 1984). Briscoe, Comm. XXXI-XXXIII = John Briscoe, A Commentary on Livy Books XXXI-

XXXIII (Oxford 1973). Briscoe, Comm. XXXIV-XXXVII = John Briscoe, A Commentary on Livy Books XXXIV-

XXXVII (Oxford 1981). Bmld = Pierre Bruld, La piraterie cretoise hellinistique, Centre de Recherches d'Histoire

Ancienne 27 (Paris 1978). Bruneau, CDH = Philippe Bruneau, Recherches sur les cultes de Delos a 1'e'poque

hellenistique et a VI'poque imperiale, BEFAR 217 (Paris 1970). Buraselis = Kostas Buraselis, Das hellenistische Makedonien und die Agais. Forschun-

gen zur Politik des Kassandros und der drei ersten Antigoniden (Antigonos Monophthalmos, Demetrios Poliorketes und Antigonos Gonatas) im Agaischen Meer und in Westkleinasien, Munchener Beitrage zur Papyrusforschung und antiken Rechtsgeschichte 73 (MUnchen 1982).

Choix = Felix Durrbach, Choix d 'inscriptions de Delos avec traduction et commentaire (Paris 1921-22 [rep. 1977]).

Delamarre = J. Delamarre, " L' influence mac6donienne dans les Cyclades au IIIe si6cle avant J.-C.," Revue de Philologie 26 (1902) 301-325.

van Effenterre = Henri van Effenterre, La Crete et le monde grec, BEFAR 163 (Paris 1968, rep.).

Etienne, Tinos II = Roland Etienne, Tinos, II. Tinos et les Cyclades du milieu du IV' sie'cle avant J.-C. au milieu du Ille siecle apres J.-C., BEFAR 263bis (Paris 1990).

Fraser-Bean = P. M. Fraser and G. E. Bean, The Rhodian Peraea and Islands (Oxford 1954).

Historia, Band XLIIV1 (1994) ? Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden GmbH, Sitz Stuttgart

The Political History of the Kyklades 33

The years from 260 to 200 B.C., in contrast, are very obscure.2 It is clear that Ptolemaic interest declined after 261 B.C., and that by c. 245 B.C. at the latest the Ptolemies had withdrawn, except for their base at Thera. This withdrawal has been connected with, or attributed to, Ptolemaic defeats in the poorly attested battles of Ephesos, Kos, and Andros. The dates assigned to these battles - which have ranged widely - have often determined the framework of the history of the central Aegean. In turn, the Ptolemaic defeats in these three conflicts have been seen as opportuni- ties for either a Makedonian suzereignty in the islands - begun under Antigonos Gonatas, and extending, depending on one's interpretation of some inscriptions, through the reign(s) of Demetrios II, Antigonos Doson, or even Philip V - or a Rhodian predominance beginning either in the 250s or the 230s-220s B.C.

In recent years scholarship has offered dates for the battles that seem to be gaining more and more acceptance: 261 B.C. for Kos, c. 258 B.C. for Ephesos, and 246 or 245 B.C. for Andros.3 Thanks to this new general agreement, it has become possible, I think, to defend a reconstruction of the history of the Kyklades in the second half of the third century which takes into account all of the evidence,

Fraser-Roberts = P. M. Fraser and C. H. Roberts, " A New Letter of Apollonius," Chronique d'Egypte 47 (1949) 289-294.

GD3 = Philippe Bruneau and Jean Durat, Guide de Delos3 (Paris 1983). Hammond-Walbank = N. G. L. Hammond and F. W. Walbank, A History of Macedonia,

Volume Ill. 336-167 B.C. (Oxford 1988). Heinen = Heinz Heinen, Untersuchungen zurhellenistischen Geschichte des 3. Jahrhun-

derts v. Chr., Historia Einzelschrift 20 (Wiesbaden 1972). Holleaux, Etudes II, II, IV = Maurice Holleaux, Etudes d'epigraphie et d'histoire

grecques H (Paris 1938), III (Paris 1968), IV (Paris 1952). Huss = Werner Huss, Untersuchungen zur Auqfenpolitik Ptolemaios' IV., Miinchener

Beitrage zur Papyrusforschung und antiken Rechtsgeschichte 69 (Miinchen 1976). LGPN I = P. M. Fraser and E. Matthews, eds., A Lexicon of Greek Personal Names,

Volume I. The Aegean Islands, Cyprus, Cyrenaica (Oxford 1987). Reger-Risser = Gary Reger and Martha Risser, "Coinage and Federation on Hellenistic

Keos," in Landscape Archaeology as Long-Term History: Northern Keos in the Cycladic Islands, ed. J. F. Cherry, J. L. Davis, and E. Mantzourani, Monumenta Archaeologica 16 (Los Angeles 1991) 305-317.

Will 12 = tdouard Will, Histoire politique du monde hellinistique (323-30 av. J.-C), Annales de L'Est 30, vol. I, 2nd. ed. (Nancy 1979).

My research in Athens and the Kyklades in the summers of 1990 and 1991 was supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (FT-34298-90; FE-26248-9 1). I am also grateful to Trinity College for research support in the summers of 1988 and 1991, and to my research assistant Jennifer Chi.

2 Another very obscure period, after 167 B.C. to the end of the Hellenistic period, I hope to treat in another article, "When Did the Kyklades Become Part of the Province of Asia?"

3 Walbank in Hammond-Walbank 587-600; Buraselis 119-151; G. Reger, "TMe Date of the Battle of Kos," AJAH, forthcoming (disputing Buraselis' suggestion of 255 B.C. for Kos).

34 GARY REGER

exiguous as it is, without pretending that all the very grave difficulties that continue to plague the epigraphical material have been definitively solved. Indeed, in the view that I will put forward, the dating of this material becomes less crucial, and the battles, given their new dates, have their place, but not a decisive one, in determining the fate of the islands.

I. Summary of the Argument

It may be useful to summarize my reconstruction of the islands' political history before proceeding to a detailed discussion of the evidence on which it is based.

From 288 B.C. until the end of the Khremonidean War in 261, the Ptolemies had used the Kyklades as a staging-ground for incursions into mainland Greece. The collapse of that policy after 261 materially reduced the appeal of the islands to the Egyptian kings. No nesiarkhos of the Island League, which had functioned as the Ptolemaic instrument for administration of the islands, is certainly known after about 260 B.C., and the number of Ptolemaic dedications to the sanctuary of Apollo on Delos drops off sharply. Further defeats in the Second Syrian War, including especially the naval loss off Ephesos at which the Ptolemies' long-time Rhodian allies fought for the Seleukids, further reduced Egyptian interest in the central Aegean. The Rhodians took this opportunity to swoop down on the Kyklades and establish a degree of control exemplified by an alliance with los; presumably they sought similar agreements with other islands.

This phase of Rhodian "predominance" did not last long. The Ptolemies re- asserted themselves after the end of the Second Syrian War in 253 B.C. Their presence in the central Aegean, however, was neither as pervasive nor as committed as in the 280s to 260s because it did not correspond to a renewed policy of intervention in Greece. No nesiarkhos is attested, nor other officials known from the earlier hegemony; and the establishment of new Ptolemaieia on Delos in 249 and 246 B.C. can be attributed as much to piety and tradition as to advertisement of political hegemony.

The battle of Andros, fought in the opening year of the Laodikean (Third Syrian) War, marked the final retreat of the Ptolemies from the central Aegean, culminating a process that had been going on for fifteen years. The Ptolemaic commitment in the late 250s and early 240s was not comparable to that of the earlier period; it answered no great policy needs; and when Antigonos Gonatas came with his fleet, the Ptolemies were much more concerned about events in Asia Minor, a region to which they had made a genuine commitment. As a result, the defeat pushed the Ptolemies out of the central Aegean - except of course for their garrison at Thera - but cannot be regarded as a tuming-point.

Further evidence for this view comes from the results of that defeat. The Makedonians under Gonatas did not become hegemones of the Kyklades. The


evidence for their presence - a series of poorly dated, often fragmentary inscriptions mentioning a "King Antigonos" who could often be either Gonatas or Doson, and some better dated epigraphical material from Delos - shows not a general hegemony, but a clear interest in the islands that ring the mouth of the Saronic Gulf. This pattem can be explained by a desire on the part of the Antigonid kings to protect the approach to Athens, which was threatened in the Khremonidean War, and by the loss between 253 and 246 of Euboia to Alexandros the son of Krateros. Antigonid interest in Delos, on the other hand, is well attested and persistent; but the island was a pan-Hellenic sanctuary which called forth dedications from many dynasts, and the Antigonid dynasty itself had long-standing pious relations with the birth- place of Apollo which no scion of Monophthalmos would be likely to neglect.

Evidence for Rhodian control or hegemony in the Kyklades, claimed both for the period 250-200 B.C. and more modestly for the years after about 230-220 B.C., is weak and unpersuasive. Indeed, the best reconstruction of the political history of the Kyklades in the second half of the third century attributes to them political independence from the great powers and a degree of isolation. It was only toward the end of the century that the Rhodians became increasingly attracted to the islands and then took the opportunity presented by the Second Makedonian War to seize the islands and create a new Island League headquartered at Tenos and serving as the instrument of Rhodian hegemony.

Since a good deal of the evidence we have for the Hellenistic Kyklades comes from inscriptions, we need to consider the reliability of the dates given for these documents before we can try to reconstruct the history of the islands. The next section is devoted to a brief exploration of the methods, results, and problems related to dating inscriptions by style of lettering.

II. Letter-Form Dating

Whereas the accounts and inventories for Delos are precisely dated thanks to the existence of full lists of Delian arkhontes, exact absolute dates are impossible to obtain for most other Kykladic inscriptions - including Delian decrees, which are never dated by arkhon. Consequently, we depend almost entirely on letter-forrns to date these inscriptions. It is therefore worthwhile to pause briefly to set out the development of lettering in the islands for the second half of the third century, and to emphasize the uncertainties that this method adds to our study.

The stylistically most diagnostic letter-forms for the second half of the third century are the alpha, the pi, the sigma, and the mu. The presence and absence of serifs ("apices" ) can also be important.

Alpha. By mid-century the older form of the alpha with a straight cross-bar was finding competition in a new form, the so-called bowed alpha, which shows a curved cross-bar. The bowed alpha occurs by c. 250 B.C. on Delos and persists

36 GARY REGER

commonly in the accounts and inventories until the end of the century and occasion- ally even later.4 Bowed alphas make their appearance on Paros in the second half of the third century and on los probably at about the same time or a bit later (last third of the century?).5 In tum a still newer form, the broken-barred alpha, whose crossbar forms an angle pointing down, developed toward the last third of the third century. It appeared at Hierapytna on Krete by 224-222 B.C. (though mixed with predominating bowed alphas), on Delos by c. 220 B.C. (though it did not predomi- nate until about 190 B.C.), in Athens c. 210 B.C., by 205 B.C. at Magnesia on the Maiandros, on Paros no later than 201 B.C., and by c. 200 B.C. at Sardis. This new form co-existed everywhere with the older bowed-bar alpha until the first decade of the second century.6 These changes support a loose rule: the presence of only bowed alphas cannot be used to date a text more closely than "second half of the third century," since documents from those years can easily have only bowed alphas;7 on the other hand, the presence of some broken-barred alphas precludes a date before about 225 B.C. at the outside, and probably indicates even a later dating. This rule will prove very helpful.

4 IG XI 2.206, 287; IG XI 4.1052 (= Choix 45), Tabula III; cf. IDelos 313, 320, 353, and 372

(235-200 B.C.) apud IG XI 3, Tabulae I-HI; IDe'los 401 (189 B.C.). IG XI 4.1105 has bowed

alphas only, cf. the photograph at RA (1989) 294 pl. 32. J. Trdheux has associated the lettering

of this stone with IG XI 2.287 for a date of c. 250 B.C. (apud F. Queyrel, RA [ 19891 287-288),

but there are differences (for example, 1105 has widely splayed sigmas whereas in 287 they

are essentially straight).

5 Paros: IG XII 5.111, 445 (mixed with broken-bars), W. Lambrinudakis and M. Worrle, "Ein

hellenistisches Reformgesetz tiber das offentliche Urkundenwesen von Paros," Chiron 13

(1983) 283-368 (which I believe is not quite as recent as the editors think), SEG 15.517. los:

IG XII 5.2, 1002, 1011 (= L6opold Migeotte, L'emprunt public dons les cites grecques

[Quebec-Paris 1984] 210-212 no. 60; 1002 and 1011 must be fairly close in date since they

share the same rogator). The Tenian texts are not as diagnostic since most cannot be

independently dated; bowed-bar alphas at IG XII 5.798, 814, 825 (autopsy), IG XII Suppl.

313 (cf. sketch at P. Graindor, Musee Belge I [ 19101 45; Hiller's date at IG XII Suppl. p. 138),

Etienne, Tinos H 102-106 no. 4 (his Planche XI), Etienne, Tinos II 267-268 no. 25 (Planche

XIV.2). IG XII 5.714 from Andros, dated to 357/6-336 B.C. by Theophil Sauciuc ("Zum

Ehrendekret von Andros IG XII 5,714," AM 36 [1911 1-20) but which has bowed-bar alphas,

belongs in my view in the third century; cf. "The Date and Historical Significance of IG XII

5.714 of Andros," Hesperia (forthcoming).

6 ICret III Hierapytna IA with R. M. Errington, "The Macedonian 'Royal Style' and its

Historical Significance," JHS 94 (1974) 35 (cf. also n. 1 14); P. Roussel apud G. Leroux, La

salle hypostyle, Exploration arch6ologique de D6los II (Paris 1909) 49-50 n. 1 on Delos, cf.

also IG XI 4.1097, Tab. VI; Wilhelm Larfeld, Handbuch der griechischen Epigraphik 11.2

(Leipzig 1902) 472-478 on Athens; . v.Mag. 18 with Tab. III.2 for Magnesia; Lambrinudakis

and Worrle (as in n. 5) 290 on IG Xn 5.125, cf. also SEG 15.517; on Tenos, IG XII 5.868B (=

ICret I Tylissos 2, cf. Etienne, Tenos 11 119 n. 72), IG XII 5.825. Louis Robert, Nouvelles

inscriptions de Sardes (Paris 1964) 10. Generally, Holleaux, Etudes II 76-77 n. 3.

7 E.g., IDelos 313, 320, 353, and 372 (235-200 B.C.) apud IG XI 3, Tabulae I-Ill (Delos); ICret

IV 167 (reign of Demetrios II, 239-229 B.C.), II Eleutherai 20 (224-222 B.C., cf. Errington

[as in n. 6] 35 with n. 98).


Pi. The forms of pi are variable, but some changes can help with dating. Through much of the third century, pi tends to be carved with a shorter right hasta. Later the horizontal crossbar often extends beyond the hasta on the right; in Athens, this form first appears in the 260s, but it does not become frequent until after about 250 B.C. Delos shows a complex development. Pis with equal hastae appear in the 280s, but examples with short right hastae can be documented from the early third century, 250 B.C., and 240-220 B.C. Strikingly, pis with horizontal bars that extend beyond the right hasta, which elsewhere appear only later, can be found in an inscription dated to the beginning of the third century, in another honoring a Delian who died between 269 and 257 B.C., and in a third from the beginning of the second century. Krete displays similar complexities: the alliance of Gortyn with Demetrios II (hence of 239-229 B.C.) has only pis with shorter right hastae, but the alliances Antigonos Doson struck with Hierapytna and Eleutherai have pis whose horizontal extends beyond the hastae on both sides; at Eleutherai these appear side by side with the more traditional pis.8 On Paros the very transitional text SEG 15.517, which has both bowed- and broken-bar alphas, also has pis whose horizontals both do and not extend to the right. Right projecting pis appear also in IG XI 5.445 in the company of both styles of alphas and in IG XII 5.186 with broken-bar alphas only. Pis whose horizontals project on both the right and left seem to associate exclusively with broken-bar alphas (IG XHI 5.129, 130, 135). For Paros this combination may mark distinctly second-century texts. The same may be true on Andros,9 whereas on los the simple pi with a short right hasta but no overhang seems to persist late into the third century. 10 On Keos and Tenos pis projecting both to the right and the left occur in texts with admixed bowed- and broken-barred alphas. 1 I It is therefore difficult to make a rule as clear for pi as for alpha, but in general, unless other considerations (including the forms of other letters) intervene, pis with horizontals extending beyond the right hasta are likely to point toward a date in the later third century.

Sigma and mu. For these two letters the distinctive characteristic is whether the outer hastae diverge ("splayed" ) or run straight. The splayed versions are generally earlier, but in fact these letters can vary widely. On Delos, for example, IDelos 338

8 Athens: Larfeld, Handbuch (as in n. 6) 470-474. Delos: IG XI 4.562, 280-270 B.C., Tab. I (equal), 543, early HI, Tab. II, 1050, 250 B.C., Tab. III, 681-682, 240-220 B.C., Tab. I (shorter right); 1072 (= Choix 14), beg. III, Tab. VI, 1049, Tab. Ill (for the honorand see Claude Vial, Delos independante [314-167avant J.-Cl1. ttude d'une communaute civique et de ses institutions, BCH Suppl. 10 [Paris 1984] 136), 752, beg. HI, Tab. IV (shorter right, overhang). Krete: ICret IV 167, III Hierapytna IA, H Eleutherai 20 (cf. Errington [as in n. 61 35).

9 Cf. IG XII 5.719, second century (IG XII Suppl., p. 120), 722, 106 B.C. (G. Reger, "The Decree of Adramytteion for an Andrian Dikast and his Secretary [IG Xll 5.722, 23-44]," EA 15 [1990] 1-5).

10 Cf. the texts at n. 5 above. 11 IG XII 5.599; IG XII 5.825, 868B (cf. n. 6 above).

38 GARY REGER

of 224 B.C. mixes splayed mus and straight sigmas, but IDelos 366 of 207 B.C. has only splayed forms. Straight sigmas seem to appear quite early (IG XI 2.206, 260s B.C.; 269, 260-250 B.C.), but the splayed form may persist into the second century (IDelos 465, c. 170 B.C.).12 At Paros the development was apparently simpler. Splayed sigma's do not appear in texts clearly of the second century;13 instead, they are associated with texts showing a mixture of bowed- and broken-bar alphas: clearly transitional.'4 The same is true on Andros.'5 The picture on los is less clear, since splayed sigmas seem to be the rule throughout the third century; this "retarda- tion" echoes the behavior of pi noted above. On Krete splayed and straight sigmas and splayed and straight mus mix in the treaties of Demetrios II and Doson.16

Serifs. These decorative additions to the ends of strokes, especially common on pis, sigmas, and other "big" letters, develop gradually from the late third century. Very fancy or noticeable serifing marks later second century texts, as for instance IG XII 5.722 of Andros or many of the Tenian texts that date roughly 190-170 B.C.17

Caution must have the last word. Dates derived entirely from letter-forms have often proven grossly mistaken or misleading. To cite but two examples from Delos, which has provided abundant evidence for the development of letter-forms: F. Durrbach had dated IDelos 373 to 200 B.C. on the basis of its lettering, but J. H. Kent showed that the inscription actually belonged in 180 B.C.'8 The Delian monument celebrating Doson's victory over Kleomenes III of Sparta at Sellasia shows exclusively broken-barred alphas, slightly splayed sigmas and mus, and fine but clear serifs (unfortunately the preserved text contains no pi), but it dates not to

12 Various dates have been offered for this text; cf. on fr. c, M.-F. Baslez and C. Vial, BCH I I 1 (1987) 290 n. 42, showing it belongs in 171 B.C. I hope to show elsewhere that this fragment belongs to the text to IDelos 460t and 460v.

13 E.g., IG XII 5.129, 130, 135, 186; Chiron 13 (1983) 283-286.

14 IG XII 5.11 1; SEG 15.517. 15 Splayed: IG XII 5.714, cf. IG XHI Suppl., p. 1 19 (on the date as second or third quarter of the

third century, see G. Reger, "The Date and Historical Significance of IG XII 5.714 of Andros," Hesperia [forthcoming]); IG XII 5.715. Straight: IG XII. 5.717, last quarter of the third century (cf. Theophil Sauciuc, Andros. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte und Topogra- phie der Insel, Sonderschriften des Osterreichischen Archaologischen Instituts in Wien, Band 8 [Vienna 1914] 146-147), 719 (cf. IG XII Suppl., p. 120), 722, 106 B.C. (cf. Reger [as in n. 91 1-5).

16 Splayed mus and sigmas: ICret III Hierapytna IA (224-222 B.C.); straight mus, splayed sigmas: ICret IV 167 (239-229 B.C.); straight sigmas: ICret II Eleutherai 20 (224-222 B.C.).

17 IG XH 5.819, 821, 830, etc. Cf. also Robert (as in n. 6) 10.

18 IDllos 373, c omm., p. 18: "le type de l'ecriture et le montant des loyers ... mettent la date hors de doute"; John Harvey Kent, "Notes on the Delian Farm Accounts," BCH 63 (1939) 241- 242.


the end of the century but in or soon after 221 B.C.19 It may be that the Delians found this style especially appropriate for large letters on monumental texts, as opposed to a more conservative feel about the lettering of accounts or decrees; we encounter very similar lettering in IG XI 4.1100 (= Choix 57), Philip V's dedication of his portico, which is dated to 220-217 B.C. Moreover, local variation in letter styles may obscure patterns of change known from other regions. The rate of adoption of changes, like the broken-barred alpha, surely depended also on the tastes and training of individual masons and customers, on the sense of the appro- priateness of certain lettering styles to certain documents, on the typical annual demand for inscribing, and on other, perhaps unrecoverable, factors. Despite these difficulties, letter-forms can give more precise dates for some inscriptions than have been offered; in particular, we will see that three Amorgan inscriptions that mention a "king Antigonos" are more likely to refer to Doson than Gonatas. This discovery clarifies the history of the central Aegean in the last third of the third century.

m. Discussion of the Evidence

A. The Character of the First Ptolemaic Hegemony (288-c. 260 B.C.)

The great heyday of Ptolemaic presence in the Kyklades fell in 288-261 B.C. These dates correspond at one end to the liberation of Athens, now much better understood from the Athenian decree for Kallias,20 and at the other to the end of the Khremonidean War. In other words, Ptolemaic control over and interest in the Kyklades correlates perfectly with the period when Egypt was most committed to a mainland policy. This is reasonable. The normal routes of travel attested from the fifth century B.C. through the theorodokoi lists of Delphoi down to the early modern period run from Attika through the Kyklades to Kos and Asia Minor.21 Kykladic Islands, and especially the western ones, thus form a natural base from which to operate against the mainland. When Ptolemaios I sent his general Polemai- os to the Peloponnesos in 308 B.C., he first secured Andros as an operational base. Andros was again the Ptolemaic stepping-off point for Kallias and his forces come

19 IG XI 4.1097 with Tab. VI = Choix 51. The single bowed alpha of 1. 1 was in fact carved late in the second century: cf. Holleaux, Etudes m 56.

20 T. Leslie Shear, Jr., Kallias of Sphettos and the Revolt of Athens in 286 B. C., Hesperia Suppl. 17 (Princeton 1978); Christian Habicht, Untersuchungen zur politischen Geschichte Athens im 3. Jahrhundert v. Chr., Vestigia 30 (Munich 1979) 47-49.

21 Plut., Per. 17; Strabo 486C. Andrd Plassart, "Inscriptions de Delphes. La liste des thdorodo- ques," BCH 45 (1921) 1-85 (for the date, see now Miltiade B. Hatzopoulos, BCH 115 [1991 ] 345-347). Georges Rougemont, "Amorgos colonie de Samos?," in Les Cyclades. Materiaux pour une etude de ge'ographie historique. Table ronde r6unie a l'Universite de Dijon les 11, 12 et 13 mars 1982, Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (Paris 1983) 131-134.

40 GARY REGER

to assist the Athenians in 287 B.C. During the Khremonidean War the Ptolemaic admiral Patroklos garrisoned Itanos, Thera, and Keos, where he changed the name of Koresia to Arsinoe.22 In the cities of the Kyklades these years saw Egyptian intervention to settle disputes, the award of honors by the Island League to high court officials in Alexandria, and the passage of the Nikouria decree recognizing the establishment of games in honor of Ptolemaios I Soter. Likewise on Delos the great majority of dedications and festivals due to the Ptolemies date to the reign of Soter and the earlier years of Philadelphos.23

After the Khremonidean War, however, Egypt abandoned its mainland policy.24 The Ptolemies became more pre-occupied with the Levant and Asia, fighting the Second (260-253 B.C.) and Third (246-241 B.C.) Syrian Wars. Ptolemaic interest in the islands ebbed after Egypt turned away from mainland Greece. That the Ptolemies continued to have strong interests in parts of the Aegean and its littoral, and were willing to spend the money and the manpower to maintain them, is proven by their control of Itanos, Thera, Ainos and Maroneia in Thrake, Samos, and other places. When the Kyklades lost their interest, the Ptolemaic commitment to holding them ended. By the 250s the political situation in the central Aegean had changed.

The battle of Kos belongs sometime in this period. In my view, the more traditional date of 261 B.C., favored by Heinz Heinen and Edouard Will, among others, must be preferred to 255 B.C., recently argued by Kostas Buraselis and F. W. Walbank.25 Since I have argued my views extensively elsewhere,26 I will only summarize my results here. Although Buraselis offers some powerful arguments in favor of the later date, they do not hold up on closer inspection. The key to his case lies in the association of a notice in Eusebius' Chronicon that Gonatas freed Athens

22 Diod. 20.37.1; Kallias decree (cf. n. 20), line 19; ICret III Itanos 2-3 with Bagnall 120-121;

IG XHI 3.320; Louis Robert, "Sur un d6cret des Kor6siens au Musee de Smyrne," Hellenica

XI-XH (1960) 132-176. 23 Intervention: IG XII 3.320 (Thera); IG XII 5.1065 (Karthaia); IG XII 5.7 with p. 301 and IG

XII Suppl. p. 96 (los); Holleaux, Etudes HI 27-37 (Naxos); IG XII 7.14 with p. 127 and 15

with IG XII Suppl. p. 142 (Amorgos); Island League decrees: IG XI 4.1037-1039, 1041-

1043; Nikouria decree: IG XII 7.506 = SIG3 390; dedications and festivals: Bruneau, CDH

516,519-523. 24 See esp. Will 12 161-168, but cp. also the activities of Glaukon, Roland Etienne and Marcel

Pidrart, "Un decret du Koinon des Hellenes a Platdes en l'honneur de Glaucon, fils d'Ettocl6s,

d'Athenes," BCH 99 (1975) 51-75. On the Glaukon decree, see William C. West, "Hellenic

Homonoia and the New Decree from Plataea," GRBS 18 (1977) 307-319; R. Etienne, "Le

Koinon des Hellenes a Platees et Glaucon, fils d'Eteocles," in La Beotie antique (Paris 1985)

259-263; Andrew Erskine, The Hellenistic Stoa. Political Thought and Action (Ithaca 1990)

91-92. 25 Heinen 193-197; Will 12 232-233, with further references. Buraselis 141-144, Walbank in

Hammond-Walbank 291-295,595-599. 26 G. Reger, "The Date of the Battle of Kos," AJAH (forthcoming).


in 256/5 or 255/4 B.C.27 with an incident in Diogenes Laertios' biography of the philosopher Arkesilaos (4.39). Arkesilaos is said to have kept silent when "after the sea-battle" many Athenians approached Antigonos with "petitions" (briu-r6Xta 1TapaKXrqTLKd). Buraselis supposes that these petitions asked Antigonos to remove his garrsons. In fact, however, there is nothing to connect these letters with the removal of Antigonos' garrisons. A date of 261 B.C. for the battle of Kos fits the evidence better. Moreover, this date helps to explain why Antigonos' victory did not lead to a Makedonian hegemony in the Aegean (a view argued below): the battle occurred at the end of a long and exhausting war, which had held the Makedonian king's attention for several years. Of course, in a period as obscure as the mid-third century, it is unwise to be dogmatic: new evidence may at any time overturn even the best-founded views.28

B. Rhodian Presence: First Period (c. 258-c. 250 B.C.)

For Delos inscriptions attest Rhodian activity before or around mid-century. The most interesting is a base for a statue of Agathostratos son of Polyaratos erected by T6 KOLV6V TC3V VrCJL&TC3V (IG XI 4.1128 = Choix 38). Most scholars identify Agathostratos with the Rhodian admiral mentioned by Polyainos (5.18) who beat a Ptolemaic fleet in a battle near Ephesos. The Lindos Chronicle confirms a conflict between Rhodos and the Ptolemies, and a general consensus seems to have formed around dating this event to the Second Syrian War, around 258 B.C.29 If this date is correct, it makes this dedication one of the latest known acts of the Island League.30

Agathostratos' title is not given in his dedication, but there survive three further inscriptions from Delos which refer explicitly to Rhodian vavapXoL. One honors

27 Eusebius, Chron. H p. 120 (Schoene); cf. Christian Habicht, Studien zur Geschichte Athens in hellenistischerZeit, Hypomnemata 73 (G6ttingen 1982) 16, cf. 54.

28 F. W. Walbank has recently argued that the Ptolemies suffered an important setback in the Kyklades in 255 B.C. as a consequence of their loss of the battle of Kos. Walbank in Hammond-Walbank 291-295, 595-599; F. M. Walbank, "Sea-power and the Antigonids," in Philip 11, Alexander the Great and the Macedonian Heritage, ed. W. L. Adams and E. N. Borza (Washington 1982) 218-220; Will 12 238-239. On the matter of the Neorion or "Monument des taureaux" (GD3 24), discussed by Walbank at p. 292, see now Jacques Treheux, "Sur le Neorion a Delos," CRAI (1987) 168-184 and "Un document nouveau sur le N66rion et le Thesmophorion A Delos," REG 99 (1986) 293-317.

29 Durrbach, Choix p. 45; Chr. Blinkenberg (ed.), Die Lindische Tempelchronik (Bonn 1915; rep. Chicago 1980) sec. XXXVII, C97-102 (= ILindos 2); Huss 215-216 with n. 288; unnecessary scepticism in Will 12 241; Etienne, Tinos 1 92; Fraser-Bean 103, 155; Buraselis 54-55, n. 63; Jacob Seibert, "Die Schlacht bei Ephesos," Historia 26 (1976) 45-61; Berthold 89-91.

30 Walbank in Hammond-Walbank 294; Will 12 233; Irwin L. Merker, "TMe Ptolemaic Officials and the League of the Islanders," Historia 19 (1970) 159-160.

42 GARY REGER

Antigenes son of Theoros, [allpEdlsg vnr6 TOO 8t5iOU TOO 'Po8twv vcax]pXos T1 ,-ls

vXaySg T[L3V [vYvaV Kai] Tr1C aunrWp(at TL3V 'EAX,vwv.31 Fraser and Bean, who put great emphasis on Antigenes' title, date this decree to 250-220 B.C. and cite it as evidence for Rhodian predominance in the Aegean in the third quarter of the third century.32 But as P. Roussel argued, the letter-forms - straight- and bowed-barred alphas, splayed sigmas, pis with short right strokes but no overhang - definitely belong to before 250 B.C. Prosopographical indications also support the earlier date.33 Roussel has further suggested that Antigenes' title may reflect a police action, not a military operation, which would imply continued operations in the Kyklades even after the conflict with the Ptolemies.34

Another nauarkhos, Peisistratos son of Aristolokhos, and his crew dedicated booty ([dtr]6 T6V XavpfvV) to Apollo; this strongly suggests military operations in or near the Kyklades. Once again, letter-forms and prosopographical considerations suggest a date near 250 B.C.35 Again, a dedication by some Rhodians to Asklepios under the nauarkhos Aristoteles belongs, according to Roussel, before 250 B.C.36 Another decree honoring the Rhodian Hieronidas son of Pythodotos is dated only by letter forms to the mid third century. The mover of the decree, Phillis son of Diaitos, arkhon for 275 B.C., could well have still been active 15 years later.37

Rhodian hostility to her longtime ally is hard to fathom, but Richard Berthold has suggested that the Rhodians saw the growth of Ptolemaic power in the 260s as a threat to the balance of power, and intervened to support Antiokhos II to prevent the recreation of the empire of Antigonos Monophthalmos under Ptolemaic sponsor- ship. Berthold credits the Rhodians with unusual farsightedness and maturity of policy;38 if Rhodos received Stratonikeia from Seleukos II and Antiokhos Hierax in

31 IG XI 4.596.3-5 = Choix 39. 32 Fraser-Bean 158. 33 Cf. IG XI 4, commentary p. 17, cf. Tabula II1. One of Antigenes' tfierarkhoi, 'Hyiaav8pos

BouXdKTcos, was daniourgos at Kamiros in 251 B.C. (M. Segre and I. Pugliese Carratelli, "Tituli Canmirenses," ASAA 27-29 [1947-1951] p. 150, no. 3 Ea29, cf. p. 185, no. 29.1); it may be that he should also be identified with the Rhodian arkhitheoros who visited Delos before 279 B.C. (IG XI 2.161 B 15-16).

34 P. Roussel, "Inscriptions anciennement decouvertes A Delos," BCH 31 (1907) 359 n. 4; cf. Durrbach, Choix p. 46.

35 IG XI 4.1135 = Choix 40, with comm. at IG XI 4, p. 105 for the letter-forms; a Peisistratos was a Rhodian theoros before 250, and possibly before 257, B.C. (IG XI 2.287 B 85; restored at 226 B 5).

36 IG XI 4.1133; cf. 1134, another, but very fragmentary, Rhodian dedication; date ad loc. p. 105.

37 IG XI 4.580, with comm. ad loc., p. 14. Another decree, IG XI 4.614 for the Rhodian Philodamos son of Thars - - -, probably belongs in the years 270-260 B.C.; Philodamos seems to have been the Rhodian theoros who appears in IG XI 2.161 B 17 and 162 B 13 (279 and 278 B.C.). Cf. LGPN I, s.v. 4tX68%aios (17) and (18), Vial (as in n. 8) 134 and n. 42 there.

38 Berthold 91-92. Fear of a "world-monarchy" is cited as a motive for Rhodos to oppose the Ptolemies also by H. van Gelder, Geschichte der alten Rhodier (Haag 1900) 110, who however puts the battle of Ephesos in the Third Syrian War.


about 241 B.C., as Berthold argues,39 this grant suggests a developping interest in the mainland, which may have led some among the Rhodians to see a conflict with Ptolemaic claims in Karia. The business remains very obscure, but it may be that immediate political motivations connected with Rhodian possessions on the mainland and relations with the Seleukids determined - or at least played a part in - the Rhodian decision to fight against the Ptolemies.

Rhodian success at Ephesos and the Ptolemaic setback after the Second Syrian War might have created an opportunity for Rhodos to expand her influence in the central Aegean; these documents from Delos, which attest to frequent visits by Rhodian naval officials and belong clearly to the mid-century, are best explained as artifacts of a brief Rhodian predominance in the islands c. 258-250 B.C. There is one more piece of evidence. A very fragmentary inscription from los has been convincingly restored by Adolf Wilhelm to yield an alliance (avpiaXta) between Rhodos and Ios.40 Since, as Hiller von Gaertringer. rightly insisted,4' the letter- forms - alphas with straight bars, splayed sigmas, pis with short right strokes but no overhang - cannot support a date as late as the second century, this inscription cannot record one of the alliances that the Rhodians made with the islanders in the Third Makedonian War (Livy 31.15).42 It would make good sense as part of a strong Rhodian presence in the mid-century, a date which the letter-forms seem to support.43

C. The Period of Ptolemaic Recovery (c. 253/250-246/5 B.C.)

The Rhodian "presence" did not last. The famous Adulis decree (OGIS 54.15) lists the Kyklades among the possessions Ptolemaios mII inherited from his father in January 246 B.C. The mid-century Rhodian presence in the islands was therefore short-lived, a result of Rhodian gains and Ptolemaic losses in the Second Syrian War. The exact circumstances of the Ptolemaic recovery of the central Aegean and the precise character of their control remain however very obscure.44 In principle,

39 Berthold 83-85. 40 IG XII 5.1009 + X1I Suppl. p. 96. 41 IG XII 5, p. 303. Cf. however RE Suppl. 5 (1931), s.v. Rhodos, col. 785, where he gives a

range of 257-220 B.C. 42 A possibility entertained by Etienne, Tinos I 114 n. 51. 43 Compare the photograph of the squeeze published in IG XII 5 p. 303 with the photograph of

IG XI 4.596 (the Agathostratos inscription) at IG XI 4, Tabula HI. The lettering is almost identical.

44 Buraselis 146-147, 168, 170-172; Eugenio Manni, Roma e l'ltalia nel Mediterraneo antico (Torino 1973) 242; Fraser-Roberts 289-294, esp. 294 n. 1; W. W. Tarn, Cambridge Ancient History VII (Cambridge 1928) 715; and similarly Gustave Glotz, "L'histoire de DMlos d'apr6s les prix d'une decr&e," REG 29 (1916) 218-325, cf. 315-316 (for the coins Glotz cited, see Adolphe Reinach, REG 26 [1913] 378 and B. V. Head, Historia Numorum. A Manual of

44 GARY REGER

two possibilities seem most likely. It may be that Ptolemaic control of the islands was recognized in the agreements that ended the Second Syrian War. A Delian inscription of 255 B.C. (IG XI 2.116.2) - one of only three to do so - mentions "peace" (ELpvrq), usually taken as a reference to a peace treaty. Since the Second Syrian War did not end until 253 B.C.45 the only possibility would seem to be a separate peace between Egypt and Rhodos, as E. Bikerman suggested many years ago.46 But given that the Ptolemies were defeated in the battle of Ephesos, and that the war with the Seleukids was still undecided in 255, it seems very unlikely that the Ptolemies could have extracted a Rhodian retreat from the Kyklades in 255. A separate peace in that year would have been much more likely to have recognized the status quo in order to detach the Rhodians from the Seleukids and free Egyptian forces to concentrate against a single enemy. I therefore do not believe that the peace of 255 could have re-established Ptolemaic interests in the central Aegean.

A better context to seek re-assertion of those interests falls in the years after 253 B.C. Three pieces of evidence support a date of 250 B.C., which was first advanced by P. M. Fraser and C. H. Roberts.47 A papyrus they published in 1949 contains instructions from Ptolemaios relayed by his minister Apollonios about the felling of wood for the breastwork of warships, [Trp6s- T]v b'ropE(av TWV LaupK(V yqcav (line 1 1). The letter dates to January 250 B.C. and requires the work to be done no later than 6 February 250 B.C. (lines 9, 18).

In 249 B.C. Ptolemaios II dedicated a new festival on Delos, the Ptolemaieia [II], for which no occasion is known. It is one of a series of royal foundations by kings from several kingdoms.48 These festivals have prompted much discussion; any argument that tries to see them all as answering the same needs is likely to be mistaken. For example, it is virtually certain that the Paneia and Soteria founded in 245 B.C. by Gonatas commemorated his victory over the Egyptian fleet at An-

Greek Numismatics2 [Oxford 1911] 231-232; for the crown, IG XI 2.287 B 63). Objections at Will 12 245, Bruneau, CDH 579-580. Cf. also Will 2 323 on the evidence that the Aegean was at peace in 250-249 B.C.

45 Cf. Willy Clarysse, "A Royal Visit to Memphis and the End of the Second Syrian War," in Studies in Ptolemaic Memphis, Studia Hellenistica 24 (1980) 83-89. For an introduction to the detailed disputes that center around the existence of a treaty to end the war, cf. Will I2 241- 242; Walbank in Hammond-Walbank 292-293.

46 E. Bikerman, "Sur les batailles navales de Cos et d'Andros," REA 4') (1938) 381-382. 47 Fraser-Roberts. The objections of Will 12 245, cited with approval by Bruneau, CDH 579 n. 4

from Will's first edition (Will I [1966] 218), hardly speak to the facts of the case. There is a a passing reference in Ps.-Aristeas to a naval victory by Ptolemaios II over

Gonatas (sec. 180): T& KC[Td Xv v(K11V tVEv TTpocTTErTTKtvaL Trfg Trp6g 'Av-rtyovov

vaulaXtacs (I cite from Aristeas to Philocrates [Letter of Aristeas], ed. and tr. Moses Hadas

[New York 1973]). This naval battle has been associated with the recovery of the islands, but the matter remains difficult: cf. Buraselis 170 n. 198 for discussion and references.

48 Cf. Bruneau, CDH 518-533, 557-568, 570-573. The Roman numerals in brackets are

adapted from Bruneau's notation.


dros,49 whereas the Ptolemaieia [HI] of 245 B.C. can be associated with the accession of Euergetes. Since however there is no apparent non-military event (a royal accession, death, marriage, etc.) with which to associate the Ptolemaieia [H] in 249 B.C., it may well be that the festival celebrated the recovery of the islands, and perhaps even a military victory. But this matter remains very obscure.50

Finally, an entry in the Delian accounts for the month of Poseidon 250 B.C. mentions expenses for cleaning up the temple after the departure of a fleet (divixOhi 6 (aT6Xog, IG XI 2.287 A 82). The only analogous expenditure in the Delian accounts occurs in 301 B.C. after a visit by Demetrios Poliorketes, who had a fleet with him.51 Residence in the temple suggests royalty, or representatives of royalty, which can only mean the Antigonids or the Ptolemies. The passage intimates that one or the other - I am inclined to opt for the Egyptians - had a fleet stop at Delos until the end of the year. These three bits of evidence together speak clearly in favor of Ptolemaic recovery of the Kykiades in the course of 250 B.C., between February and the end of the year.52

Roland Etienne has recently pointed out that the erasure of the name of Ptolemaios H from several Delian inscriptions indicates that a renewed Ptolemaic domination cannot have lasted long.53 This strongly supports the supposition that all the documents cited above belong between January and mid-summer 246 B.C.

I have said earlier that Ptolemaic involvement in the Kyklades tended to reflect interests in the Greek mainland, and in this case too there is some evidence to point in this direction. In 253/2 B.C. Alexandros, son of Gonatas' half-brother Krateros, revolted. He held Korinthos and the chief cities of Euboia, and supported the Akhaian League under Aratos. From an inscription of Eretria on Euboia we know that he was proclaimed king, and was petitioned - probably successfully - to remove the garrisons Antignonos had installed. His attack on Athens failed because of the loyalty to Gonatas of the Makedonian garrison and the assistance of the tyrant of Argos. He died in 245 B.C.54 Ptolemaios II supported Alexandros' revolt;

49 Buraselis 144-145. 50 IDelos 298 A 76. Cf. Buraselis 146-147, Fraser-Roberts 292, and Bruneau, CDH 519-520,

523, cf. 579-583. 51 IG XI 2.146 A 76-77; cf. Plut. Dem. 53 and William Scott Ferguson, "Egypt's Loss of Sea

Power," JHS 30 (1910) 193. Cf. also Fraser-Roberts 294 n. 1. 52 Delamarre 321 has argued that a termination and then a revivification of Ptolemaic control in

the Kyklades are "tout A fait inexplicable," but his argument is arbitrary. 53 Etienne, Tinos 11 92, with references at n. 28; IG XI 4.1123, 1126, 1127 = Choix 17, 19, 25,

with Durrbach's remarks at pp. 25-26. 54 Trog., Prol. 26. IG XII 9.212.4 (king), 10-12 (garrisons); IG f2 774.14-21 and 1225.12-13

(attack on Athens); Plut., Aratos 17.2, 18.1-2. B. J. Meritt, Hesperia 30 (1961) 214 no. 9,1. 3

associates this decree with the war with Alexandros: rejected by Heinen 138 n. 188; accepted as "amn wahrscheinlichsten" by Habicht, Studien (as in n. 27) 24 n. 56. On Alexandros' career:

Olivier Picard, Chalcis et la confederation eubeenne. ttude de numismatique et a'histoire (IV'-I" siecle), BEFAR 234 (Paris 1979) 272-274; Will I2 316-324; for a different view, Ralf

46 GARY REGER

indeed, once Aratos of Sikyon had abandoned his friendship with Antigonos and brought his hometown into the Akhaian League, he directly made his way to Alexandria for a meeting with Ptolemaios II to beg for money, which he received (250 B.C.).55 With new allies in Greece and Antigonos cut off from the central Aegean - retaining Andros carried no implications for control of the Kyklades - Ptolemaios had recovered motivation to renew his interest in the islands.

This interest did not last, however. Euergetes' defeat at the battle of Andros may have played a role in his retreat, but it need not be assigned a preponderant influence. Euergetes seems to have had little enough interest in the Kyklades, and the Third Syrian War soon focused his attention on Asia and the East, where he won striking victories.

D. The Kyklades after the Battle of Andros (246/5-200 B.C.)

The fate of the Kyklades during years between the battle of Andros, which occurred in 246 or 245 B.C.,56 and the Second Makedonian War has been cloaked in obscurity, thanks largely to the very poor state of the evidence. However, traces of influence of various outside powers on individual islands have led some scholars to argue for a general control of or hegemony over the archipelago by a single power. The main candidates have been the Ptolemies, the Antigonids, and the Rhodians. In the following section I review the evidence that has been adduced for these views and argue that it does not support hegemony by any single outside power over all the islands or for any extended period of time. In the second section I propose instead that we should regard the Kyklades as relatively independent for the years 246-200 B.C., during which they enjoyed a rare respite from foreign domination which permitted them to concentrate on their local economy, and introduced a spate of prosperity that, for once, did not go to feed the exchequers of the great Aegean powers.57

Urban, Wachstum und Krise des achaischen Bundes. Quellenstudien zur Entwicklung des Bundes von 280 bis 222 v. Chr., Historia Einzelschrift 35 (Wiesbaden 1979) 31-32. On

Aratos, see still F. W. Walbank, Aratos of Sicyon (Cambridge 1933) 36-40.

55 Plut., Aratos 12. Cf. Walbank in Hammond-Walbank 301-302, Will 12 321.

56 A consensus seems to be forming around Buraselis' date for this vexed battle (cf. Buraselis

144-145); see now Walbank in Hammond-Walbank 587-595 (who prefers 245 B.C. because

"Antigonos will hardly have ventured out into the Aegean with a war-fleet before his recovery

of Corinth" [595]); R. Malcolm Emington, A History of Macedonia, tr. Catherine Errington,

Hellenistic Culture and Society 5 (Berkeley 1990) 248; N. G. L. Hammond, The Macedonian

State. Origins, Institutions, and History (Oxford 1989) 313; Waldemar Heckel, Phoenix 40

(1986) 461; F. W. Walbank, JHS 107 (1986) 243, by implication; P. M. Fraser, CR 34 (1984)

260-261. Shadow of doubt in A. Mastrocinque, Gnomon 66 (1984) 515.

57 I argue this view in detail in Regionalism and Change in the Economy of Independent Delos, Hellenistic Culture and Society (Berkeley 1994). Cf. already Bikerman (as in n. 46) 380-383.


1. The Case for Foreign Hegemony

a. The Ptolemies

Several scholars have tried to identify a Ptolemaic hegemony in the Kyklades in the second half of the third century; Werner Huss has even argued that since nothing proves that the Makedonians or the Rhodians assumed control of the Island League after mid-century, it is reasonable to suppose that Ptolemaic control persi- sted even after 246 B.C.58 But the evidence cannot really even support a "Ptolemaic influence." 59 A loan taken out by the Delians to pay for a statue of "King Ptolemaios" in 246 B.C. must have commemorated either the recently deceased Philadelphos or the newly crowned Euergetes.60 The date assures that the statue was ordered before the battle of Andros, so that it has no implications for Ptolemaic control after 246 B.C.

A Delian inscription honors Sosibios son of Dioskourides of Alexandria. He is generally identified with the Sosibios known to have served Ptolemaios IV; a passage in Polybios (15,34,3-4) may show him working for Euergetes. Both Durrbach and Roussel insist that the inscription cannot go later than about 230 B.C.; the range is approximately 250-230 B.C. If Gustave Glotz's happy suggestion - that Sosibios was on Delos to found the third Ptolemaieia - is right, then the date would be exactly 246 B.C.61 A new Ptolemaic festival, the Theuergesia, was founded on Delos in 224-209 B.C.62 As I have remarked, the foundation of such festivals does not necessarily imply hegemony; this one, like so many others, attests rather to the attraction of Delos as a pan-Hellenic sanctuary. Finally, a statue base for Euergetes comes from Astypalaia (IG XII 3.204), but cannot be closely dated.

None of this skimpy material gives any ground for positing even localized Ptolemaic control after 246 B.C.63

58 Huss 218; on the views of K. J. Beloch, Griechische Geschichte (Strassburg 1904) Im 2.281- 283, cf. Holleaux, Etudes III 69-73. Huss insists as a principle on seeing all the Antigonoi of the various decrees to be discussed below as Gonatas (215 n. 288); Etienne, Tinos 1 97-98 rightly emphasizes the importance of letter-forms, which Huss arbitrarily ignores (cf. 97 n. 56).

59 Buraselis 175 with n. 214. 60 IDelos 290.129-131. Durrbach, IDelos comm. p. 15, writes "le roi ... est sans aucun doute

Evergete." IG XI 4.1073 may be the statue base. 61 IG XI 4.649 = Choix 44. Cf. Roussel, IG XI 4 comm. p. 27, Durrbach, Choix pp. 53-54,

Holleaux, Atudes m 47-54. Glotz (as in n. 44) 316-317 n. 7. 62 Bruneau, CDH 525-528. 63 Cf. already Holleaux, ttudes III 69-72.

48 GARY REGER

b. The Antigonids

Some scholars have seen a Makedonian hegemony after the expulsion of the Ptolemies - usually as a consequence of the battle of Kos or the battle of Andros or of both - whether continuous from Gonatas through Demetrios II to Antigonos Doson (with a loss of control during the early years of the regency of young Philip V), or broken and partial.64 In this section I will argue that the evidence for Antigonid activity in the Aegean after 245 B.C. can be found in four places: a) a group of islands near the Saronic gulf with fell under Antigonid influence under Gonatas; b) Syros, which probably represented an extension of Makedonian power east after the battle of Andros, intended to keep safe the normal sea route to Delos; c) Delos itself, always a recipient of Antigonid religious attention; and d) Minoa of Amorgos, which came under Antigonid control probably in the reign of Demetrios II or Doson.65

i. Islands near the Saronic Gulf (see Map)

In the first place, it is worth stressing that the Makedonian victory at Andros did not automatically deliver the Kyklades into Gonatas' possession.66 This view rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of the strategic role of the island. Though classed among the Kyklades, Andros is not "an excellent watchpost over the islands for the ruler of the Kyklades" 67 but rather a choke-point for movement in and out of the northern Saronic Gulf, that is, to and from the Peiraieus.68 Thus any claim for Makedonian suzereignty over the Kyklades after 245 B.C. cannot rest simply on Gonatas' success at Andros.

In fact, Antigonos' interests in Andros predated his defeat of a Ptolemaic fleet in its waters. In 250 B.C., when Aratos of Sikyon was trying to strike an agreement with the Ptolemies, he made a secret journey to Egypt. According to Plutarch, he put to sea from Methana above Malea, but Trp6& 8t p4-ya TuvEcita Ka'L TroXXAv OdXaacrav EK

1TEXdyOUS KaTLOUQaV V86VTOS TOV KV3EpVI1TOU, TrapaoEp6iEvog [LXLS7 114aTo t dti58L

64 Holleaux, btudes III 55-73; Delamarre 301-325; W. W. Tarn, Antigonos Gonatas (Oxford 1913) 469-472.

65 For the Koan inscriptions mentioning an Antigonos, most likely Doson, see Susan Sherwin-

White, Ancient Cos. An Historical Study from the Dorian Settlement to the Imperial Period,

Hypomnemata 51 (Gottingen 1978) 108-109, 114-118.

66 For a clear but by no means exceptional expression of this position, see Walbank, Aratos (as

in n. 54) 178, who calls the battle of Andros "the naval victory which recovered for Macedon

the thalassocracy of the Aegean." His views seem not to have changed; cf. Walbank in

Hammond-Walbank 307: "Antigonos' victory at Andros was a brilliant sequel to the recovery

of Corinth." Cf. also Delamarre 322-325. 67 Buraselis 93-94 n. 229 at 94: "fur den jeweiligen hellenistischen Herrscher der Kykladen ein

gunstiger Wachtposten in dieser Inselwelt."

68 For further discussion, see Reger, "Date" (as in n. 26); Delamarre 320.


0 25 50

EUBOIA km

Karysto

* Athens

AND RO S

W~~~~~~~~oe K D EOS

p p Koren~ulis TE <T NOS

> |>YKarthaia ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~MYKONOS

SYROS F RHENEI 5D

KYTHNO 4> DELOS

SERIPHOS Q

c p e dAXOS

SIP 'lNOS 006 #

After Defensive Mapping Agency Map ONC G-3 M

MELOS lKN

PHOLEGANDR0~

50 GARY REGER

(mss.; 'YCSpLas or' T8pElas: Bergk:: 'A<v>8p(as-: Palmerius) oto-rg cKpaTELTO 'ydp v Are 'Avy6voV Kal K uXaKv EIXEv. Aratus escaped the Makedonian commander by fleeing by ship to Euboia.69 W. H. Porter, who reviewed most of the proposals to fix the crux, preferred 'A<v>8pLas! on geographical and palaeographical grounds. Subsequent commentators seem to have followed him unanimously.70 Makedonian interest in Andros demands an entirely different explanation, which becomes clear only with a proper understanding of the island's role: Andros served as a convenient staging-ground for forces aiming at the conquest of Athens.

Examples of this role are numerous. In 308 B.C. a Ptolemaic force took Andros and expelled a Makedonian garrison; the Egyptian troops were directed at Athens and the Peloponnesos. In 287 B.C. the Ptolemaic forces that liberated Athens from Demetrios Poliorketes operated again from a base on Andros.71 More generally, the Khremonidean War must have made painfully clear to Gonatas the vulnerability of Athens to hostile forces ensconsed on the islands that straddle the mouth of the Saronic gulf (see Map). Philadelphos' general Patroklos stationed troops on Keos, where the name of the port of Koresia was changed to Arsinoe; Patroklos himself may have used loulis as his headquarters.72 A small island off Sounion used by Patroklos as a base was named for him. The nine "Pelops' islands" near Methana were probably named after a Makedonian active at the Egyptian court during the

69 Plut., Arat. 12.2-3. 70 W. H. Porter, Plutarch's Life of Aratus (Dublin-Cork 1937) xlii-xliii for the geographical

argument ("Hydria ... was of no account in antiquity ... why should Antigonos have kept a

garrison there?" and "a story to the effect that Aratus at Hydria had found a ship at a moment's notice in stormy weather to take him to Euboea ... does not wear the mask of truth" ), and 56 for the palaeographical (and philological) argument (that omission of letters is common in the mss. and that v tends to drop out after a; for 'Av8plas as "the country parts of the island as opposed to the town of Andros" Porter cites Xenoph., Hell. 1,4,22: 'AXKcLLd8rnS & T6 aTpdTEt4Ia U rE.t1TEP(PaUE nW 'Av8ptas X(LpaS' els FaipLov; already in Sauciuc [as in n. 151 2 n. 1). Cf. A. J. Koster, Plutarchi Vita Arati (Leiden 1937) Ixii n. 3, who adds nothing substantive to Porter's arguments except that if Aratos had landed at Hydria, Kenkhreai would have been a likelier refuge; Urban, Wachstum (as in n. 54) 27 n. 115; Huss 220-221 with 221 n. 312; Buraselis 173-174 n. 208; Walbank in Hammond-Walbank 301 n. 5 writes "TMe alternative 'Hydria' is impossible." Christian Habicht's recent suggestion ("Athens and the Ptolemies," Classical Antiquity 1 [1992] 88-90) that IG I2 1024.10-1 1, ELs! 'H8p4 [av], alludes to a Ptolemaic naval base there, adds an independent argument in favor of the emendation.

Holleaux, ttudes m 65 n. 1 suggests that the willingness of the Makedonian soldiers captured on Andros in 199 B.C. (Livy 31.15.8, 43.4-7) to remain implies that they had been stationed there much longer than from 201, when Philip V swept across the Aegean. Holleaux points to this passage as evidence that Andros might have been Makedonian since before 250 B.C.

71 Diod. 20.37. Shear, Kallias (as in n. 20) 2, line 20. 72 Robert, "Ddcret" (as in n. 22) 132-176; John F. Cherry and Jack L. Davis, "The Ptolemaic

Base at Koressos on Keos," BSA 86 (1991) 9-28.


war who also served as commander of the Ptolemaic forces at Samos. Methana itself, also renamed Arsinoe, was of course an important Ptolemaic base. There was probably also a Ptolemaic naval station or garrison on Hydria, also off Methana.73 A new insription from Eretria on Euboia refers to a cult of Arsinoe Philadelphos; this cult has reasonably been associated with Ptolemaic activity during the Khremoni- dean War. Ptolemaic forces were able to establish camps on the Attic mainland and interfere with the harvests in the countryside.74 If the Ptolemies retained these bases (with the exception of course of their footholds in Attike) until c. 145 B.C.,75 Gonatas and his successors would have had good reason to maintain their own garrison on Andros. But even if the Ptolemies withdrew from some of these bases (it seems likely to me that their defeat in the Khremonidean War would have forced them to abandon Patroklos' island; Euboia certainly did not remain in their hands; and we hear no more of Ptolemies on Keos, though Koresia did retain its new name down to the end of the third century), their continuing presence at Methana at the very least would have compelled Gonatas to try to establish countervailing garrisons around the month of the Saronic Gulf. This interest accounts for the Antigonid garrison on Andros. But likewise, with one exception, the other Kykiades for which we have reliable testimony of an Antigonid presence after c. 245 B.C. all also cluster around the mouth of the Saronic gulf.

Keos. IG XI 5.570,76 which comes from the polis of Poiessa, regulates pay- ment of taxes (x6pos) on property. Two kings are mentioned: (3aQLXE [V]S A,rf[4TpLosi at A8 and [3aGLXEiVi] 'A[VT1tyovos at B4-9, a passage which has been plausibly restored as the beginning of a royal letter. The flow of the document indicates that Demetrios is restoring or confirming something granted or settled by Antigonos. The stone has been lost and the letter forms are not known.77 In principle two

73 Paus. 1. .1 with J. Schmidt, RE 18.2 (1949) s. v. Patroklu Nesos 2289-2290. Paus. 2.34.3 with W. Peremans and E. van 't Dack, Historia 8 (1959) 170 and R. Herbst, RE 19.1 (1937) s.v. Pelopsinselchen 392-393; on Pelops, Chr. Habicht, Ath.Mitt. 72 (1957) 210 and Ath.Mitt. 75 (1960) 113, Pros. Ptol. no. 14618. On Methana, cf. Habicht, "Athen" (as in n. 70) 90 n. 133 and 88-90 on Hydria, with F. Bolke, RE Suppi. 3 (1918) s.v. Hydrea 1159-1161.

74 Karl Reber, Antike Kunst 33 (1990) 113-114; Denis Knoepfler, La vie de Menedeme d'Ertrie de Diogene Laerce. Une contribution d 1'histoire et a' la critique du texte des Vies des philosophes, Schweizerische BeitrAge zur Altertumswissenschaft 21 (Basel 1991) 203 n. 90, cf. 175 n. 15. James R. McCredie, Fortified Military Camps in Attica, Hesperia Suppl. 11 (Princeton 1966) passim; Heinen 152-167. For a new fragment of the Epikhares decree, see Praktika 1985 (1990) 9, 13-14.

75 Habicht, "Athens" (as in n. 70) 90. 76 With Add. et corr., p. 331 and XII Suppi., p. 114, from Sterling Dow and Charles Farwell

Edson, Jr., "Chryseis," Harv.Stud.Cl.Phil. 48 (1937) 134 n. 1; P. Graindor, "Inscriptions des Cyclades," Muse'e Beige 11(1907)97-113 at 104-106, and "Kykiadika," Musee Beige 25 (1921) 121-122. Cf. Walbank in Hammond-Walbank 294; Cherry and Davis (as in n. 72) 15- 16.

77 Graindor, "Inscriptions" (as in n. 76) 104; Buraselis 87 n. 201.

52 GARY REGER

identifications are possible. Antigonos and Demetrios could be Monophthalmos and Poliorketes, as F. Hiller von Gaertringen and J. Delamarre believed, or the Demetrios could be Demetrios II and the Antigonos either Gonatas or Doson. P. Graindor once thought that the appearance in the text of TEi and f3OVXEL excluded a date as early as before 286 B.C., but in fact EL for TI occurs in Kykladic inscriptions by the end of the fourth century, no doubt following a trend already well established in Athens by the last quarter of the fourth century. Graindor later came to accept the identification with Monophthalmos and Poliorketes.78 The decree makes good historical sense in either case. If it belongs under Antigonos Monophthalmos and Demetrios Poliorketes, the references to taxes may echo the evidence of the Nikouria decree (IG XII 7.506 = SIC 390), in which the islanders praise Ptolemai- os I for having restored their ancestral constitutions and either abolished or reduced the contributions Demetrios had made them pay.79 On the other hand, if the inscription belongs under Gonatas and Demetrios II (or Demetrios II and Doson), then it will amplify the pattern of Antigonid interests in the islands that guard the entrance to the Saronic Gulf.80

Another inscription, IG XII 5.571, III, also from Poiessa, honors a lauuavcasg

AV8POV1KOV MaKE86v. The lettering includes broken-bar alphas, slightly splayed mus and sigmas, and pis with short right hastae but no overhang by the horizontal cross-bar on either side. These forms certainly date the inscription to the last quarter of the third century.81 Unfortunately the honorand Pausanias son of Andronikos is not known elsewhere; but the awards of citizenship and proxenia and the fact that Pausanias "continues to be a good man for the city of the Poiessians," dev,p dryaO6s U)V 8LaTE [X]Ec TTEpt TrV rT6oXLV -rnv ToILtCWv (11. 15-16), assure that his beneficia were likely to have been political and that he was exercising them not in Poiessa but in Makedonia.

Kimolos and Geraistos on Euboia. For Kimolos we have an inscription from Geraistos on Euboia honoring a Kimolian dikast.82 The editors put the text in the third century, which, they say, "obviously rules out the possibility that 'King

78 Hiller von Gaetringen, IG XII 5, comm., p. 150; J. Delamarre, Rev.Phil. 28 (1904) 14 n. 6. Graindor, "Inscriptions" (as in n. 76) 104. Elisabeth Kniti, Die Sprache der ionischen Kykladen nach den inschriftlichen Quellen (Munich 1938) 21; for Athens, Leslie Threatte, The Grammar of Attic Inscriptions, I. Phonology (Berlin-New York 1980) 378; A. S. Henry,

"Epigraphica," CQ 14 (1964) 240-241, specifically for TEt 3vXEt and mL POVXft; Euard Schwyzer, Griechische Grammatik (Munich 1938)1.201-202. Graindor, "Kykladika" (as in n. 76) 121-122.

79 Lines 13-16; on the ambiguity of the word Kot4taasC, see Merker (as in n. 30) 151 n. 46.

80 The solution rejected by Graindor but toyed with by Cherry and Davis (as in n. 72) 16, of

correcting Demetrios to 'A(v)[T(yovos0, is not acceptable. 81 Cf. already Graindor, "Kykladika" (as in n. 76) 120. 82 Thomas W. Jacobsen and Peter M. Smith, "Two Kimolian Dikast Decrees from Geraistos in

Euboia," Hesperia 37 (1968) 184-199 with Plate 57.


Antig[onos]' in line 21 refers to Antigonos I." The choice is either Gonatas or Doson.83 In my view the letter forms cannot go as late as Doson. Decisive are the alphas, which have "either perfectly horizontal ... or sloping" crossbars.84 The rest of the lettering fits perfectly comfortably in the mid-third century, or even slightly earlier.

This text then contributes to the evidence for Gonatas' role on Euboia and shows his influence on Kimolos. Even though the inscription does not explicitly say so, Geraistos must have approached Antigonos, asking for him to resolve the long- standing lawsuits plaguing the city, TdLSg 8Kat eK 1TQaXaLLv (line 22). Antigonos will then have selected Kimolos to provide a dikast to judge these suits KclTd T-rV

t1TLUTOXV TOO (3aLXLwsI'AvrLy[6vov] (line 21). This procedure is familiar from many examples.85

Gonatas' interests on southern Euboia and Kimolos are of course easy to divine: like Andros, these islands straddle the entrance to the Saronic Gulf; Kimo- los, sitting at the bottom of the so-called "westem string" of islands, overlooks the sea-passage at the southernmost end. The loss of Euboia (among other possessions) to Alexandros son of Krateros in 253 B.C. crippled Gonatas and confined him for several years to the mainland. Gonatas' authority on Kimolos thus fits well with his long-standing interests in the islands facing the Saronic gulf.

Kythnos. Maurice Holleaux86 thought Doson might have controlled Kythnos on the basis of Livy 31.15.8. Livy's list of islands with Makedonian garrisons at the start of the Second Makedonian War includes one (Paros) certainly taken the year before (Livy 31.31.4) and one (Andros) which had probably been Makedonian since before 250 B.C.87 There is no way to know into which category Kythnos fell. However, a Makedonian garrison on Kythnos since Doson's or even Gonatas' day would have made perfect strategic sense to a dynasty anxious to guard the entrance to the Saronic gulf, since Kythnos watches from the south the strait that Keos guards from the north.

ii. Syros

Delos has preserved for us a fine decree of the Syrians for Eumedes son of Philodemos of Klazomenai, who was sent by king Antigonos as anm RKpLT - TrV

cruivaXatwv for Syros.88 J. Delamarre dated this decree to the reign of Antigonos Doson, but P. Roussel and F. Durrbach both preferred 250-240 B.C. on the basis of

83 Jacobsen and Smith (as in n. 82) 198. 84 Jacobsen and Smith (as in n. 82) 186. 85 Cf. the Naxian decree as restored by Holleaux, ptudes Im 27-37 at 32, lines 1-5. 86 ttudes III 65. 87 Cf. above, n. 70. 88 IG XI 4.1052, lines 22-23, 25 = Choix 45.

54 GARY REGER

the lettering; they are clearly right.89 This decree provides positive evidence, then, of real Makedonian influence on a central Kykladic island. It is worth emphasizing, however, that the date coincidences well with the defeat off the Ptolemaic fleet at Andros in 246 or 245 B.C., and that the Kyklades show a pattern of internal disruption correlated with changes in suzereignty.9? It would not be surprising, then, if some Syrians had taken advantage of the change to appeal to their new suzereign. In the 280s the Naxians had appealed about exactly the same kind of problems to their new Ptolemaic overlords, and had received Koan dikasts.91 This decree therefore does not necessarily prove either continuing Makedonian hegemony, or even predominance, in the decades after the battle of Andros, nor does it show Makedonian control over all the islands.

iii. Delos

Delos clearly had important relations with the Antigonids from Gonatas on. Antigonos built a portico and set up a dedication to his ancestors; a statue of his wife Philo, daughter of Seleukos I and Stratonike, was erected on the island; and the king made a number of precious offerings to the sanctuary and established several festivals.92 His successor Demetrios II sent grain purchasers to the island, and the Delians honored a court official named Autokles from KhaLkis and a Makedonian Admetos from Thessalonike, whom Durrbach associated with the court.93 Demet- rios also founded a Demetrieia at his accession in 238 B.C. in the tradition of his

89 Delamarre 310; P. Roussel at IG XI 4, p. 86, f. Tabula III; Durrbach, Choix p. 56. The text has only straight- or bowed-barred alphas. The lettering closely resembles that of IG XI 2.287, which dates exactly to 250 B.C.

90 A whole series of decrees shows sometimes quite serious internal disputes at the advent of Ptolemaic control at Karthaia on Keos, at Naxos, at los, and perhaps at Amorgos; at Thera when the Ptolemaic garrison was introduced at the beginning of the Khremonidean war; and later at Karthaia on Keos when control passed from Philip V to the Rhodians: IG XII 5.1065, cf. 541 with BCH 78 (1954) 336-338, no. 13; Holleaux, ttudes III 27-37; IG XHI 5.7 with p. 301 and IG XII Suppl., p. 96; IG XII 7.14 with p. 127 and 15 with XIl Suppl., p. 142; IG XII 3 Suppl. 1390, cf. 1391 + XII Suppl., p. 87, and XII 3 Suppl. 1296 + XII Suppl., p. 85; BCH 78 (1954), 338-344, no. 14.

91 Holleaux, ttudes m 27-37. 92 IG XI 4.1095, 1096, 1098 = Choix 35-37; for offerings see Bruneau, CDHI 550-551, 558-564

for the festivals; 552-553 on the portico. On the controversial Neorion, see Bruneau, CDH 554-557 and most recently, Trdheux (as in n. 28). The festivals have been the subject of endless discussion, usually attached to the date(s) of the battles of Kos or Andros and the reality (or illusion) of an Antigonid hegemony over the islands after c. 250 B.C.; it will suffice to refer to Buraselis 141-144, 146-147; Bruneau, CDH 518-531, 557-564, esp. 579-583; Jacob Seibert, review of W. Gunther, Das Orakel von Didyma in hellenistischer Zeit. Eine Interpretation von Stein-Urkunden, Istanbuler Mitteilungen, Beiheft 4 (Tubingen 1971), GGA 226 (1974) 186-212, for discussion and bibliographic references.

93 IG XI 4.666,679-680,664-665, 1053 (cf. 1076) = Choir 48,47,49.


predecessors.94 Antigonos Doson celebrated his famous victory over Kleomenes of Sparta with a dedication at Delos, from which Maurice Holleaux has argued for a persisting Makedonian hegemony over the island in the second half of the third century.95

Antigonid interest in Delos is clear; but the degree to which it is right to speak of "hegemony" or "control" or even "predominance" is much less so. This is particularly the case when court officials are honored. Two Delian decrees of the second century which honor a court official of Eumenes II (IG XI 4.765-766) do not prove any kind of Pergamene control over Delos.96 Likewise Demetrios II and Doson's connections with the island need prove nothing more than traditional family interest - no Antigonid since Monophthalmos had failed to make dedications or establish festivals on the island - and predictable piety toward a pan- Hellemc sanctuary. While it is reasonable to suppose, as Holleaux argues,97 that Doson would probably not have commemorated his victory at Sellasia on a Delos under Ptolemaic control, the Sellasia monument seems to me to find its parallel in the inscriptions erected by Attalos I of Pergamon and his general Epigenes to commemorate the defeat of Antiokhos Hierax and his Gauls in 228 B.C. These dedications cannot imply a Pergamene hegemony.98

iv. Minoa on Amorgos

Several inscriptions from Amorgos mention a king Antigonos without further specification. Nothing in the texts of the decrees can help determine whether he was Gonatas or Doson. Two of these documents, which are both from Minoa on Amorgos (IG XII 7.221 and 222),99 carry telling lettering: a transitional mixture of bowed- and broken-barred alphas, pis with a short right vertical and an overhanging horizontal on the right but not the left, slightly splayed sigmas, and mus with

94 IDelos 313 i 23, 320 B 42, 58; cf. Bruneau, CDH 563-564. 95 IG XI 4.1097 = Choix 51. Holleaux, btudes HI 55-73. On the date of Sellasia see P. Perlnan,

"TMe Calendrical Position of the Nemean Games," Athenaeum 67 (1989) 80 with the literature cited at n. 95 there; for the "constitutional" implications of the language of the dedication, cf. J. Treheux, "Koinon," REA 89 (1987) 41-43. The dedications recorded in IDelos 442 B 10, 11, 20, 42, 48, and 161, which J. Delamarre attributed to Doson (DelamaTre 322), all belong in fact to Monophthalmos or Gonatas; cf. Durrbach's comm. ad loc., p. 163.

96 The honorand, Demetrios the son of Apollonios, was also honored at Larissa in c. 171 B.C. and at Ephesos; cf. SEG 31.574 (IG IX 2.512), SEG 26.1238. I am grateful to Christian Habicht for these references.

97 Holleaux, ttudes m 62-64. 98 IG XI 4.1109 (= Choix 53) and 1 10, which is very fragmentary but clearly parallel to l.v.Perg.

29. Cf. R. E. Allen, The Attalid Kingdom. A Constitutional History (Oxford 1983) 195-199, who however does not cite the Delian material.

99 I was unable to find a third inscription, IG XII 7.223, during my visit to Amorgos in 1990. I want to take this opportunity to thank Manolis Despotidis for his help and kindness during my stay at Khora on Amorgos.

56 GARY REGER

practically vertical verticals. Good parallels for the lettering can be found in the Kretan treaties of alliance with Antigonos Doson, ICret III Hierapytna lA and II Eleutherai 20. They mix bowed- and broken-bar alphas, splayed sigmas and mus (straight sigmas at Eleutherai), and pis with short right hastae and projecting horizontals. Both date to 224-222 B.C.100 These texts and the dates of the earliest introduction of broken-barred alphas argued above make it very unlikely in my view that these two Minoan inscriptions could go as early as 240 B.C. Such a date would presuppose the introduction of this new letter form at Minoa on Amorgos - certainly an out-of-the-way spot, however pleasant to visit - twenty years earlier than at Delos or Athens. This seems unlikely. It is therefore best to assign these texts to Doson, not Gonatas. Io1

What do these texts say about Doson's relations with Minoa? The first, IG XII 7.221, honors one ALOKXE[&La! arTTETaXl#Evos 1bT6 TOO P3aKLXEw' 'AVTrO6VOU who brought letters from the king and resolved T,-4 KaTEUTW"S! TapaA4 (lines 6-7, 10). Such royal interventions in the affairs of Kykladic cities are well known, and indeed imply some genuine interest in and control over the cities in question; the letans had appealed in similiar language to Ptolemaios 1.102 It is tempting to associate the second inscription with the same incident. This reports the presence of representatives of king Antigonos at Minoa. These men have been thought to have been Naxians on the basis of Delamarre's reading ot TrapayLv6IiEvoL NO[LoL 1rapa' TOO

r3a]utXwSW 'AVTLrYO6VOu (IG XII 7.222.2-3); Antigonid control of Naxos has been inferred. But these "Naxians" are a phantom. A pi, not a nu, follows TrapayLvO6LEVoL

(the left vertical and the horizontal are visible), the xi is only a vertical line, and a faint but definite alpha follows. The text should be read as ol TcapayLvO6LEvoL lTapct

[TOO 3a]aLVW!9 'Av-rLy6vov. The Naxians disappear. A third decree, which records proxenia for one Sosistratos who may have been

an Antigonid court official (IG XII 7.223.1-2), seems again to fit best under Doson. The eponymous official at Minoa under whom the decree was passed was one Kharinos whose son appears in a Tenian inscription of the second century;103 the father should then probably be active in the last third of the third century.

These documents clearly illustrate Doson's interests in and influence over Minoa on Amorgos. There are two aspects to this matter. We may ask about the nature of Doson's interest; if it is simply that he exercised a hegemony over the whole Aegean, the answer is equally simple: he was just acting as hegemon. But if, as I am arguing, the evidence does not support a general Makedonian suzereignty over the Kyklades in these years, then it is necessary to seek a specific context for Doson's activities. This we will do presently.

100 Cf. below, n. 112. 101 Cf. already J. Delamarre in IG XII 7, p. 52. 102 IG XII 5.7.2: [1TEPI TrSf Kand T,v] lr6XLv 'yEVOTv1Sg TapaxffIs]. For other examples, cf. nn.

23 and 90 above. 103 IG XII 5.821; cf. LGPN I, Xaptvos, no. I and 2.


But first it is worthwhile to ask another question. If Doson was not the general hegemon of the Aegean, exercising his influence on Minoa "by right," then what Minoan interests did Doson's activities answer? Minoa was suffering from TapaXh.

This word expresses serious confusion or chaos, as among the Rhodian leadership at the arrival of bad news from Rome about Lykia in 178 B.C. Diodoros uses it to denote the confusion of an army about to be routed, and of the Syracusans at the approach of Carthaginian troops in 310 B.C. On Syros a pirate attack of c. 100 B.C. resulted in TapaX)M I,ELCoVosg -YWOtvi McTa -r?v TrT6XLV.104 The Minoans clearly

suffered serious internal problems, which Diokleidas and Doson's other representatives, perhaps acting as dikasts, solved. But why did Minoa turn to Doson? Why not assemble a board of dikasts from nearby Greek cities, a very common procedure?'05 Indeed, Minoa had two convenient, independent neighbors on Amorgos, Arkesine and Aigiale. An explanation might be sought in the predatory relations that sometimes subsisted between separate poleis on the same island. The three cities of Rhodos had a long history of hostility and conflict until the synoecism at the end of the fifth century B.C. The rivalry between Mytilene and Methyma on Lesbos resulted in a series of synoecisms and absorptions of the lesser Lesbian towns, which themselves used such occasions as they found to seek outside protection from the larger cities. Two of the poleis of Keos absorbed the other two in the second century B.C.106 On Amorgos itself, Minoa was the target of predation, first by the Samians in the last third of the third century, then by their fellow Amorgians in the second.107 This situation offers a possible explanation for Minoan relations with Doson from a Minoan point of view: the patronage of such a powerful sovereign might help keep at bay neighbors happy to take advantage of internal disturbances. (The same situation may have subsisted on Keos, where, as we have seen, Poiessa was under Antigonid influence. By the end of the third century Poiessa ceased to exist, absorbed by its neighbor Karthaia.) It may well be that the absence of such a protector after Doson's death and the accession of Philip V, young, inexperienced, and swamped with problems at home, encouraged the Sami- ans to exploit Minoa's troubles.

104 Polyb. 25.5.1, 06puoi Ev nT 'P68 )Kal TrorXXT apax ?repl TOU TrOXLTEUoltVOw Diod. I 1.10.2, cf. 20.69. 1; Diod. 20.9.4, 06pu0os9 Kat TroXf TapaA KaTEEXE Trv 1T6Xtv, cf. also

Polyb. 5.25.4, nW 1T6XEwsi 8XrI hV Oopv Kat TapaA KaeaTTrS'. IG XII 5.653.11-12.

105 See for example IG XII 5.722.4-5 (Adramytteion; cf. Reger [as in n. 9]), IG XII 5.869 = I. K. Erythrai-Klazomenai 113 (Erythrai), Georges Daux, Klio 52 (1970) 68 no. 1 (Siphnos), SEG 12.390 and 18.334 (Khios).

106 Berthold 19-23. Thouk. 3.18, IG XI 4.1064 (= IG XII Suppl. 136), Liv. 45.31. Strabo 10.5.6 (C 486).

107 For b 8fiiog 6 ZatIIWv 6 KaToLKU)V bV MLVW'LaL, see IG XII 7.237.37-38, cf. 226, 231, 239, 240; for the date see l.v.Mag. 50.80. Fundamental remain L. Robert, REG 42 (1929) 20-32 (= Op.Min.Sel. 1.530-542) and REG 46 (1933) 437-442 (= Op.Min.Sel. 1.563-568); cf. also "Bull. 6p.," REG 92 (1979) 426. On 6 f.twos 6 'A,IoupyhCw T6V KaTOLKOUVTWV MLvwtav

(IG XII 7.228, lines 9-10) see Rougemont, "Amorgos" (as in n. 21) 131. Arkesine later fell victim itself to the Naxians, cf. IG XII 7.50.2, 54.1-3.

58 GARY REGER

This interpretation presupposes that Doson did not have relations with the other cities of Amorgos. For Aigiale there is no evidence, but Arkesine provides a decree, IG XII 7.16. On the basis of palaeography and the ethnics of the persons honored - one from Akanthos, another from Hermione - Delamarre thought that the hono- rands had been sent by order of Doson.'08 These arguments are not convincing. As Delamarre recognized in his edition of the text in IG XII 7, there are two separate decrees here, not one. The first (lines 1-14) honors probably two persons, one from Akanthos (line 6) and the other almost certainly a Makedonian.109 In view of their accomplishments, which include making the Arkesineis live in harrnony (line 9), they are probably to be regarded as dikasts. The second decree is an award of proxenia to Nikias son of Philagros of Hermione, who has evidently represented the interests of Arkesine in his home twon (cf. lines 18-20). Hermione had long- standing connections with the islands, including the distinction of being the only mainland state known to have borrowed money from Apollo on Delos in the third century. Moreover, the nearby island of Siphnos went to Hermione, along with Eretria and Tenos, to assemble a board of dikasts in the mid-third century. " 10 These connections suffice to explain Arkesine's appeal to Hermione without implicating the Makedonian court.

We can now turn to the question of Doson's motivation. His activities at Minoa might have been associated with his expedition to Karia, which could have paused on Amorgos. Minoa controlled a good harbor, facing south, where modern passen- ger ships put in; it would have been attractive to fleets in antiquity, too. (By contrast Arkesine and Aigiale face north, exposed to the fierce meltimi winds.) But Amor- gos lies off the normal path between Makedon and Karia, and another consideration might have attractedd Doson to Amorgos. " I I

Beginning with Demetrios II the Antigonid house made a series of agreements with Kretan cities. In 237 or 236 B.C. Demetrios H struck a treaty with the city of Gortyn and its allies establishing OLX(aV Kai aujiaX[av (line 13) between the parties (ICret IV 167). Gortyn and its allies had sent ambassadors to Demetrios about the treaty (lines 4-7), which may mean that the impetus came from them and not from Demetrios. Doson extended this policy. A treaty with Eleuthemai (ICret II Eleuthemai 20) requires the city to provide soldiers. A similar treaty is preserved from Hierapyt- na (ICret Im Hierapytna lA). 112

108 Delamarre307-310. 109 Lines 4-5. The feminine genitive ending that begins line 5, vlas, almost certainly represents

a city; Delamarre rightly restores {K in the lacuna, to yield the common formula EOVKpdSTrV

Ka [--- MaKIE86va K --- ]v(asg; see Reger-Risser 316-317.

110 IG XI 2.144 A 18, 162 A 27. Georges Daux, Klio 52 (1970) 68-70, no. 1.

111 Trog., Prol. 28; Polyb. 20.5.7 (Doson in Boiotia). Most recently on Doson's Karian expedi-

tion see Walbank in Hammond-Walbank 343-345; Will 12 366-371; Roland Etienne and

Denis Knoepfler, Hyettos de Beotie et la chronologie des archontesf&deraux entre 250 et 171

avant J.-C., BCH Suppl. III (Paris 1976) 331-337 for the correct interpretation of the passage

from Polybios. 112 Dated to Doson by Guarducci (p. 160) on basis of letter-forms and the formula at lines 3-4


These three treaties brought the Kretans they covered into Doson's Hellenic League as allies, cai5pjCXoi, one of whose responsibilities was to provide soldiers.' 13 Kretan troops played an important role in Makedonian armies. They served under Doson at Sellasia, and Polybios mentions them often in connection with Philip's operations."4 Travellers between Makedonia and Krete might well pause at Amor- gos, which lies directly north of Heraklion. Doson's interest in Minoa, then, would stem from the desire to keep open lines of communication between Makedon and his Kretan suppliers of soldiers." 5 It is certainly also worth mentioning that another power exercised interests both on Krete and in the seas to its north: the Ptolemies. Despite their retreat from the central Kyklades after about 245 B.C., they maintained their garrisons at Itanos on eastern Krete and on the island of Thera. An Antigonid station at Minoa on Amorgos would have counterbalanced the Egyptian forces at Thera. It will be interesting to see whether the ongoing excavations at Minoa turn up any further evidence of an Antigonid presence. " 16

[rrp]6g 'Av-Tryovov Kal MaKe86[vas], which she says applies to Doson but not to Gonatas, citing Tam, Antigonos Gonatas (as in n. 64) 471 and JHS 29 (1909) 270 with n. 39; contra Dow and Edson (as in n. 76) 140. Brule 56 puts both treaties in 227-224 (?); Emngton (as in n. 6) 35 for 226-224 B.C.; Kostas Buraselis, "llapal-'pT1aEL!S UTts Gvv"KEs TOO PaQLXLd

'AvTLwy6vou VP Tr?v 'EXE6OEpva Kal V 'vlepdTrvrrva," AE(1981) 114-125 also opts for Doson. Contra: Huss 139-142, but see Susan Sherwin-White, CR 28 (1978) 309.

1 13 Buraselis, "TaparaTApnaeEs" (as in n. 11 2) 114-125. Unfortunately the sections of the Gortyn treaty which contained the details of the agreement are lost, but a few letters at line 18, [dlToa]TEXX, surely come from a clause analogous to that of the Eleuthernai treaty, lines 28- 31: [Kai] edv 11v paaLX6s 'AvT[tyovos XpElav ?XnL av[iudxwJv,I etTrOaTEXOULV [abT&L

'EXeu6pva1wv ol K6cTIOL I 4v8paq &XeuO(t)pov[sg 8TXa IxovTas], etc. The preserved lines of the Hierapytna treaty deal exclusively with the provision of soldiers.

114 Polyb. 2.66.6, 4.71.11, 5.23.2. Cf. Marcel Launey, Recherches sur les armr6es helle'nistiques, BEFAR 169 (Paris 1949-1950, rep. with additions and corrections 1987) 1.253-254.

115 Philip V continued his predecessor's relations with the Kretans. He received several hundred soldiers from Polyrrhenia after the Polyrrhenians and their allies sought an alliance with him because their enemies, the Knossians, had allied with the Aitolians, who were hostile to Philip. Disputes internal to Krete drove the Polyrrhenians to seek an outside alliance, which Philip was only too happy to accept because it guaranteed a supply of troops. Cf. Polyb. 4.61.2, cf. 67.6, alliance at 4.55.1. On the text, whose figures may be corrupt, see the edition of Jules de Foucault, Polybe. Histoires, Livre IV (Budd, Paris 1972) ad loc. and p. 103 n. 3.

116 For the Ptolemaic bases at Thera and Itanos see Bagnall 123-134, 120-123. Briefly on the Minoan excavations, BCH 16 (1992) 930; 115 (1991) 929; 114 (1990) 816; 113 (1989) 671; 1 12 (1988) 675-677, with further references.

Three further pieces of evidence sometimes adduced can be dealt with briefly: 1. The miserable fragment IG XII 5.1008 (face A of which treats sacred regulations; the

PaaXe's there is in my opinion an office) B 12, [' Av]TLy6VWL [4v, is so poorly preserved that it cannot support any firm conclusions, pace Delamarre 301-325; for a different restora- tion of line A 4, see F. Sokolowski, Lois sacrees des cites grecques (Paris 1969) 106 with P. Carlier, La royaute en Gr&ce avant Alexandre (Strasbourg 1984) 431.

2. The passage from Hegesandros of Delphoi (FHG IV p. 421 fr. 42 = Athen. LX 400D) which has been invoked to prove that Gonatas controlled Astypalaia (cf. Huss 221) does no

60 GARY REGER

Such evidence as there is instead suggests that any minor flowering of Make- donian power in the central Aegean after 246 B.C. - and that would be confined to Delos and Syros - soon withered. Depending on the date of certain inscriptions, some islands - or some cities on some islands - may have appealed to Makedon for protection, or to settle internal disputes, and Delos continued to attract attention, though for reasons connected with tradition and piety rather than hegemony. There is certainly nothing to prove a Makedonian overlordship in the Kyklades after 245 B.C., and much to tell against it.1 17

As a final argument, I add two considerations already offered long ago by Maurice Holleaux." 8

In 220 B.C. the Illyrian dynast Demetrios of Pharos raided the Kyklades in an expedition Polybios described as "profitable, but not honorable." When the Rhodi- ans chased him from the islands, he took refuge at Kenkhreai, where he was welcomed. 1 19 Kenkhreai was of course the eastern port of Korinthos, which was in

Makedonian hands. Demetrios had participated in the battle of Sellasia, a year or two earlier, on the Makedonian side. Polybios lists his troops among the allies,

au(i[iaxot (Polyb. 2.65.4). As such, he would hardly have been welcome on Makedonian territory if he had just been raiding cities under Makedonian control. This event therefore argues strongly against any general Makedonian suzereignty in the Kyklades under Doson.120

such thing. Hegesandros merely dates a plague of hares to Antigonos' reign - KaTa TtV

'AvrLy6voV TOO rovaTd 4ncrL IaaCLXEaV - without further elaboration. Even if Hegesandros

had meant to say that Antigonos controlled the island - and he says nothing so specific -

nothing would justify inferring either a date within Antigonos' long reign, nor the length of

time during which he held the island. In fact, however, Hegesandros, who was from Delphi

and avoided writing about the Ptolemies (cf. F. Jacoby, RE 7 [1912] s. v. Hegesandros [4] col.

2600), is merely giving his reader a generally known chronological indication - nothing more.

Cf. also the remarks of Walbank in Hamrnond-Walbank 294 (IG XII 3.204, invoked by

Walbank to suggest that Astypalaia was Ptolemaic, proves nothing either: the inscription is a

statue base for Euergetes which could have been erected any time in his long reign, or indeed

afterwards; Huss 221 cites it with Hegesandros to show Astypalaia reverting to Ptolemaic

control under Euergetes). 3. IG XI 4.596 (= Choix 39), 1133, 1135 are evidence of Rhodian, not Makedonian

influence, and IG XI 4.692 and 1050 (= Choix 41) are Aitolian and biong in 250 B.C., as the

entry at IG XII 2.287 A 80-81 proves. They have nothing to do with the situation in 260-253

B.C., pace Huss 215-216 n. 288.

117 Etienne, Tinos II 124 concludes his survey (I122-124) with the just remark, "Maintenant il y a

loin d'une h6g6monie permanente de la Macedoine sur les iles."

118 ttudes III 67-69. 119 Polyb. 4.16.8, 19.7-9 (quotation at 19.8).

120 Cf. Sylvie Le Bohec, "Ddmdtrios de Pharos, Scerdilaidas et la Ligue Hell6nique," in L'Illyrie

meridionale et lEpire dans l 'Antiquite (Clermont-Ferrand 1987) 203-208; Holleaux, ttudes

I1I 67.


Philip V's policy in the Kyklades before 201 B.C. confirms the view that the Antigonids had enjoyed no hegemony or even special position in the islands. Like a good descendent of Antigonos Monophthalmos, he maintained his dynasty's traditional connections with Delos. By 216 B.C. he had established a festival, the Philippeia. His famous Stoa (cf. IG XI 4.1099 = Choix 57), though not well-dated, certainly belongs before 201 B.C. Philip's dedication to Apollo dLrr6 T(V KaTa' yXV

dy[wvwv] (IG XI 4.1 100 = Choix 56), which may have echoed another dedication dTr6 TCuV KaT& O(XataaV d&yCvwv, stands in the tradition of Doson's dedication after Sellasia. There survives also a base for a statue of Philip given by TZ KOLV6V

M[aKE]86v[wv] (IG XI 4.1102 = Choix 55).121 All of these documents reflect the continuing attention Delos deserved as a pan-Hellenic sanctuary, and which the Antigonids had traditionally lavished on it; none need imply any kind of political authority.

Indeed, Philip's military activities in 205-201 B.C. point rather in the opposite direction. In 205 B.C. he commissioned the Aitolian Dikaiarkhos to raid the Kyklades and the cities of the Hellespont (TTapaClrov8Ev T'Sg KUKXC8aS vCaous Kai

Tag c'0 'EXXAa1rr6VTrov TT6XELg, Polyb. 18.54.8). This commission was connected with Philip's secret support for the Kretans in their war against the Rhodians, and in some respects paved the way for the years following, when Philip made a concerted effort to win control of the islands. Dikaiarkhos was evidently very successful; according to Diodoros, ODTOg 8t KaT& TdLs bvrroXCI TO'S iV tg1r6pous taXirTEvE,

Tag 8t vAaous wXEaTZV dpypLov ELaCETprdTTETO (28.1.1). 122 This activity might or might not have been connected with a treaty, itself of uncertain historicity, which Philip and Antiokhos III are said to have struck secretly (perhaps in 205 B.C.) to divide up the territory of the Ptolemies: Antiokhos claimed Kypros and Egypt, while Philip was to receive Kyrene, Ionia, and the Kyklades islands, Ta&s KUKXd8ag viaous (App. Mak. 4). Whatever views one adopts about this business,'23 Philip

121 Bruneau, CDH 551, 564 (Philippeia). R. Vallois, Le Portique de Philippe, Exploration archeologique de Delos VII, pt. 1 (Paris 1923) for the Stoa, on the date, given by Vallois as 216-210 B.C, see 154-163 and Bruneau, CDH 553; building at GD3 3.

122 It will suffice to refer to Holleaux, Etudes IV 124-145, which makes the case and is still generally accepted (cf., e.g., Berthold 109; Etienne, Tinos II 99 with n. 68); cf. also Holleaux, Etudes III 67-69.

123 Polyb. 3.2.8 reads Tdt XXEPtpa& TLt3dXtlv CtTLoTrOS ~&v TOLs Ka-e AtyulTTov Kal Kaptav KalM l.iov, and attributes to Antiokhos only interest in Koile Syria and Phoenica; cf. 3.15.20; App. Mak. 4.1; Hatto H. Schrnitt, Die Vertrage der griechisch-romischen Welt von 338 bis 200 v. Chr., Die Staatsvertrrage des Altertums III (Munich 1969) no. 547; Will 112 114-118 for the various views (Will accepts it; so also evidently Etienne, Tinos II 100). Against the treaty: D. Magie, JRS 39 (1939) 32-44; R. M. Errington, Athenaeum 49 (1971) 336-354. For a response to Magie, see Patrick Baker, Cos et Calymna, 205-200 a. C.: Esprit civique et defense nationale (Quebec 1991) 7 n. 21. Allen, Attalid Kingdom (as in n. 98) waffles at bit: "the existence of a formal treaty ... seems extremely unlikely, but an informal working agreement cannot be ruled out" (73 n. 151, cf. 60 n. 108). On Attalid goals in the Aegean, see Allen, Attalid Kingdom (as in n. 98) 65-75.

62 GARY REGER

would not have felt the need to deal with Antiokhos about territory he controlled, and would surely not have sent pirates to raid islands over which he was suzereign. Very telling in this context is an unfortunately fragmentary (and now lost) inscription from Paros. Philip had crossed the Aegean himself in 201 B.C. and captured Paros, on which he deposited a garrison. The Parian inscription proclaims that he "captured Thermon by force," [iXc]v K[aTda Kp]dTo9 T6V [O]Ep[tov, the Aitolian capital.'24 Crafted to appeal to islanders who had suffered pirate raids throughout the last third of the century, such propaganda would have rung very hollow indeed if Philip's support for Dikaiarkhos were widely known.

c. The Rhodians

When the Byzantines, under financial pressure because of demands of the Gauls, raised tolls on goods exported from the Black Sea, 1TdvTE9 VEKdXOUV ol

1rXoXLC6IEVOL TOLS Po8&OL9 8LC T6 8OKELV TOVTOV9 1TpOEcTdVaL TWV KaTa OdXa-rrav

(Polyb. 4.47.1). Again, when the great earthquake struck Rhodos in 228 B.C., the dynasts of the Hellenistic world hastened to send help XdPLV lTp(TOV gLV 7TS-

'Po81WV TTEpI Ta KOLVa TrpoaTaU(ag (Polyb. 5.90.5). These passages have been cited many times as evidence for a Rhodian hegemony or supremacy in the Aegean in the second half of the third century B.C.'25 Several inscriptions add to the picture.'26

For Delos we have the frequently cited decree of Histiaia on Euboia for Athenodoros, the Rhodian banker on Delos (IG XI 4.1055, 1025 = Choix 50). But the presence of a banker, interesting though it is, proves nothing about about control or hegemony. Rhodian merchants and bankers appear in many cities which they do not control, and their presence in the Kyklades occasions no surprise. 127 Moreover,

124 IGXI 5.125.7. Livy 31.15; cp. Polyb. 16.26. Briscoe, Comm. XXXI-XXXIII97-100,esp. 99.

Walbank, in Philip 11 (as in n. 28) 231 says Philip's purpose in the Aegean campaign had been

"to recover control of the islands and to acquire enough booty to help pay the costs of the

operation," but this ignores the strategic importance of the Kyklades as stepping-stones to

Asia. The views of Wesley E. Thompson, TAPA 102 (1971) 615-620 do not seem proven to

me. 125 Fraser-Bean 158-159; van Gelder, Geschichte (as inn. 38) 112: Rhodos exercised over Delos

and the Kyklades "eine faktische, nur nicht dem Namen nach erkannte Hegemonie." Delamarre

325; cf. Holleaux, ttudes III 68-73. Michael Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History

of the Hellenistic World (Oxford 1941) I1 1485 n. 94; Roger H. McShane, The Foreign Policy

of the Attalids of Pergamum, Illinois Studies in the Social Sciences 53 (Urbana 1964) 47-48;

Baker (as in n. 123) 8-9, cf. 21. For Huss 215-216 n. 288, 217-21 8, Rhodos seems to act as an

agent of the greater powers, Makedon and the Ptolemies.

126 Cf. Berthold 91-92, Fraser-Bean 158-171, Huss 220-237, with a convenient summary of his

conclusions at 238.

127 Cf. IG XII 5.1010 for a Rhodian on Ios during the Ptolemaic hegemony who has been

identified as a member of a "commercial" family, Alain Bresson, "Rhodes: une famille

camir6enne de commerqants en b16," Index 9 (1980) 144-149. TMe lettering belongs clearly

in the mid-third century or earlier; cf. the photograph in IG XII 5, p. 304.


numbers of Rhodian amphorae handles found on Delos show no significant rise from the period up to c. 240 B.C. to that of 240-210 B.C. The really significant change occurred only during the years 210 to 188 B.C.'28

For the rest of the islands the evidence is even poorer. A very fragmentary decree from Karthaia on Keos which mentions the Islanders, Ni1ULW'TaLS!. seems to envision an alliance, [aUtL][Lx[oiLJ Kat [0LX]oL[sg, and includes the phrase Errp6s T6V

,3]aaiXta ITEpIT i[!], has been dated from the mid-third century to c. 200 B.C.; it may represent an alliance with a Makedonian king, as some have suggested - the possibilities range from Gonatas to Philip V - or it may in fact represent the alliance struck by the Rhodians during the Second Makedonian War (the king could be Attalos; P. Graindor has suggested restoring line 17 as 8Ka UVT[paTEuovas vaJs]). Given the impossibility of determining a precise date, the options cannot be evaluated.'29

Some decrees from Minoa on Amorgos dated by the damiourgos of the city and by the priest of Rhodos, IEp#As & fjsg 'P68oU TOO 81EZVoS,130 which seem at fist to promise evidence of Rhodian influence, have proven in fact to date to the late second or early first century B.C. Since they are connected with a series of inscriptions issued by 6 811ios 6 Zakllwv 6 KaTOLKUV bV MLviLaL, who took over Minoa sometime before 205 B.C.,'31 it follows that a proxenia decree for Nikolaos son of Aristarkhos the Rhodian issued by 6 8>lio 6 'Aj?oupytwv TdSV KaTOLKOrrT(V

128 J.-Y. Empereur, "Les anses d'amphores timbr&es et les amphores: aspects quantitatifs," BCH 106 (1982) 224. Tenos exhibits a very similar pattern; cf. Etienne, Tenos 1 217-219, 216, Fig. 4. Etienne promises a detailed treatment of Rhodian amphoras in a forthcoming MBAH (Tdnos II 217 n. 46).

129 IG XII 5.1069.9, 11-12, 15-16; for date and Graindor's suggestion, cf. comm. ad loc. The stone is lost (Buraselis 183 n. 4). Keos was the first target of the Rhodians departing from Athens, who put to sea EL9 Tnv Ktwv tirI Trsd v1GouW 1LET& TOO aT6XOu (Polyb. 16.26, cf. Liv. 31.15); further at BCH 74 (1954) 338-344, no. 14. Rhodian officials may also have visited Hierapytna on Krete and perhaps Tenos and Delos; cf. ICret HI Hierapytna 3 = SIGP 581, which Guarducci places slightly after 200 B.C. (comm., p. 36). IG XII 5.830; IG XI 4.752-753, 751 = Choix 63, 67, but the dates of these inscriptions are harder to fix.

The case for an alliance with Makedon rests in part on expanding the remains at line 6, Kauuav8 to Kaaqav8[peds], and taking the result as an ethnic referring to the ambassador who negotiated the agreement. On the other hand, a Kda[0f]avSpos 'EEKaTi61u is attested from Lindos in c. 197 B.C. as one of ol aWTpaTEUCdViEVOL -yei6vES! who fought with Nikagoras son of Pamphilidas. Nikagoras distinguished himself in military operations in the neighborhood of Rhodos during the war (ILindos 151.13, with comm. ad loc., vol. 11, pt. 1, pp. 401-402; restored in ILindos 152.10). The name is not common in the islands - six attested in

LGPNI, s.v., of whom four are Rhodians - so a Kassandros from Rhodos on Keos c. 197 B.C. might be the Rhodian representative striking the initial alliance in 199 B.C.

130 IG XII 7.245, 493b; IG XII 5.38 (proven by Louis Robert, "Trois inscriptions de l'Archipel," REG 42 [1929] 20-32 [= Op. Min.SeL 1.530-542] to be Minoan).

131 Fornula from IG XII 7.237.37-38, cf. 226, 231, 239, 240; for the date see L.v.Mag. 50.80. Cf. n. 107 above.

64 GARY REGER

MLvwLav (IG XII 7.228, lines 9-10) - an unusual formula that Georges Rougemont has rightly seen as a reaction to the temporary or permanent expulsion of the Samians'32 - belongs also to the late second or first century B.C. This leaves nothing to suggest Rhodian influence on Amorgos except a strange, brief honorary decree (also from Minoa) in favor of one Hermokreon son of Aristonymos of Rhodos (IG XII 7.221 c 32-34), who may have been identical with a man of the same name - but identified as a Karpathian - whose epitaph is preserved as IG XII 1.222 a.133

This survey of the evidence - such as it is - leaves nothing to support any hegemony, predominance, or control by a single power in the Kyklades from c. 245 to c. 220 B.C. The Makedonians certainly have the best claim to some kind of influence, at least on Delos, and perhaps on a handful of other islands. But Gonatas' authority seems to have been limited (1) to Andros, Euboia, Kimolos, perhaps Keos and Kythnos, the watchposts for movement into the Saronic Gulf, and hence to Athens and, ultimately, the Isthmus; and (2) to Syros, where he intervened to restore the constitution, probably soon after his victory at Andros. Nothing indicates that even this limited authority survived his death. Doson appears at Minoa on Amor- gos, but his interests there are likely to have flowed from his desire to keep open his contact with Krete, which supplied him with soldiers. All the Antigonids "showed the flag" on Delos; but these exercises in piety, imposed by tradition and the exigences of propaganda, imply no hegemony.

Nor can claims for Rhodian control during the years c. 220-200 B.C. be substantiated. Part of the problem flows, I think, from a misunderstanding of the two passages in which Polybios speaks of a Rhodian prostasia in the Aegean (Polyb. 4.47.1, 5.90.5). Polybios tells us that merchants incensed when the Byzan- tines raised their tolls complained to the Rhodians "because they seemed to have patronage of matters of the sea," 8tda 80KEV TOVTOVS TrPOEUTdVaL TWV KaTa OaXaTTaV

(4.47.1). This prostasia is clearly not a hegemony. Merchants did not appeal to the Rhodians because they exercised political control over the Byzantines, which they did not, but because the merchants expected the Rhodians, as a state with wide- ranging commercial interests, to try to pressure the Byzantines to reverse their

decision. The inability of the Rhodians to do so by diplomatic means led to war. But this "prostasia of matters of the sea" carries no implications about hegemony, especially not over the Kyklades. The second passage is even less specific. There Polybios writes that he has spoken in detail about the gifts of kings to the Rhodians after the disastrous earthquake "first for the sake of the Rhodians' patronage concerning common matters," XdpLV lprTOV gV -r1S 'Po8twv TTEpI Ta KOLVa

TTpo0TaG[a9 (5.90.5). Once again, there is no implication of hegemony here; indeed, prominent among the kings listed by Polybios were Ptolemaios III and Antigonos

132 Cf. n. 107. 133 Delamarre at IG XII 7, p. 52, followed by LGPNI, s.v. (5).


Doson (5.89.1-9) who, I have argued, had competing interests at Thera and Minoa on Amorgos and around the Saronic Gulf. It seems unlikely that the Rhodians could be regarded as serving "common matters" if they were yet another political competitor.

The same reasoning applies to the Rhodians' well-documented efforts to keep the seas clean of pirates. In the examples most notable for our purposes, it was the Rhodians who in 220 B.C. chased Demetrios of Pharos out of the Aegean; to save face, he was glad to have as an excuse to give up his operations the appeal of Taurion for help against the Aitolians, with the offer to pay the cost of bringing his ships over the isthmus. B. Niese has plausibly suggested that the Rhodian admiral Xenophantos, who had been operating against Byzantion, may have retumed to deal with the problem.'34 When pirates rampaged in the Kyklades, the Rhodians felt compelled to intervene because they were champions of those who sailed the seas. Their activities do not point to hegemony, control, or predominance: rather, they reflect the self-imposed duty the Rhodians felt to protect sea traffic against any threats. The Rhodians did not drive Demetrios out of the Kykiades because of proprietary interests in the islands; they drove him out because he was a pirate.'35

Indeed, if the views of Pierre Brul6 on the Kretan War are well founded,'36 we can date serious Rhodian interest in fighting piracy and claiming real authority in the central Aegean to the years after 210 B.C. Brule argues that Philip V exploited the traditional Makedonian influence in Krete - attested by the treaties discussed above - to rouse the Kretans secretly against the Rhodians. After several hostile incidents war broke out in 205 B.C. The result was a series of treaties struck between Rhodos and Kretan cities that not only ended hostilities but also included strong mesures to curb piracy.'37 These operations probably brought the Rhodians into the Kyklades. At least one of the islands, Paros, had earlier dealt directly with some Kretans in an attempt to find protection; others, including Tenos and Keos, had also treated with pirate states. The local need must have been apparent, reinforced after the experience of 220 B.C. with Demetrios. When the opportunity arose a few years later to impose real control on the islands, the Rhodians did not hesitate. One more point is worth stressing. The presence of pirates in the central Aegean after 240 B.C. itself suggests the absence of any important proprietary power. It is therefore worth asking whether a case can be made that the Kyklades were relatively independent in last half of the third century B.C.

134 Polyb. 4.16.8, 19.8; B. Niese, Geschichte der griechischen und makedonischen Staaten seit der Schlacht bei Chaeronea (Gotha 1893-1903) II, 385-386 n. 6; cf. Berthold 95.

135 Huss 217 writes of Rhodos assuming "den Schutz der Kykladen vor den Piratenzugen des Demetrios von Pharos" - fair enough; but his further inferences (217-218) are unfounded.

136 Bru16 50-56. 137 iCret III Hierapytna 3.79-82. Cf. also the terms of the treaty with Olountos (SEG 23.547)

which place the Olountians in a markedly inferior position. Table of dates with full evidence (except the treaty of Demetrios II with Gortyn and its allies, ICret IV 167) at Brule 56.

66 GMY REGER

2. The Case for an Independent Kykiades

In the absence of any marked Makedonian or Rhodian "hegemony" or "predominance" in the Kyklades from c. 245 B.C. to c. 200 B.C., what evidence there is suggests that the islands sought protection where they could and as necessary. Syros appealed to Makedon soon after Gonatas' victory at Andros; others may have exploited Antigonid interests to get protection against predatory neighbors, like Minoa on Amorgos which straddled the sea route to Krete, or Poiessa on Keos which overlooked the sea passage into the Saronic Gulf. For Poiessa, indeed, the need for such protection may have been pressing; it alone of the four Keian poleis did not belong to the new Keian federation founded probably in the 240s.138 The islands thus "went their own way," 139 some appealing to Makedon, some perhaps to Rhodos - did the Rhodian alliance with los become a dead letter after the 250s, or did it continue? - some like Thera still under Ptolemaic dominion, and some, like Paros, seeking protection from potential threats through their own actions.

This last instance is particularly interesting. Paros struck an isopoliteia agreement with Allaria on Krete either early in the second century B.C. or around 220 B.C.140 The Allarian decree awarding this privilege attests to pre-existing ties of 4LXLa and cdvoliLa (B6, 11-12) which the decree of isopoliteia also renewed (B 12- 14); asylia was also involved (B4). Thus, sometime before c. 197 or c. 220 B.C. Paros had sought and won an agreement with Allaria that defined ties of friendship between the two states. Further evidence of ties with Kretan cities appears in the renewal of Tenian asylia with Tylisos around 250 B.C. and again with Lappa around 200 B.C., and the presence of Keian and Kimolian proxenoi at Gortyn. 141

For the Aitolians, also regularly accused of piracy, there are instances of ties of asylia or isopoliteia struck after about 250 B.C. by small Aegean states, including Mytilene on Lesbos, which struck to asylia agreements with them (IG IX 12 189- 190); the island of Khios, which was probably not dependent on another power at the time; 142 and Magnesia-on-the-Maiandros. 143 Even Delos had obtained a grant of

138 Reger-Risser. 139 Fraser-Bean 157. 140 ICret 11 Allaria 2B, later date favored by Guarducci, earlier by van Effenterre 255 n. 3, in light

of Polyb. 5.63.12, 65.7 and IG 2 844 (217/6 B.C.). 141 ICret I Tylisos 2 = IG XII 5.868 B, with van Effenterre 255 n. 3, in light of Polyb. 5.63.12,

65.7 and IG 112 844, cf. van Effenterre 136 n. 8, 156 n. 6 (date); ICret II Lappa 2.3, 5. Guarducci's date (comm., p. 196) seems much too early in view of van Effenterre; cf. Etienne, Tinos I1 117-122. Cf. also ICret I Phaistos 1, which Guarducci puts in 280-260 B.C. Keian proxenos at Gortyn, ICret IV 206 H; Kimolian, 209 B. The Keian proxenos almost certainly represented the Keian federation of after 240 B.C.: the lettering fits (bowed-bar alphas, cf. the

photograph at ICret IV, p. 206), and Kctos as an ethnic normally indicates a member of the federation, cf. Reger-Risser 307.


asphaleia from the Aitolians in 250 B.C.144 Another indicator of a changed, more independent local situation can be drawn

from the Keian Federation.145 This federation, which dates to the 240s or a little later, seems to have been organized specifically to deal with the Aitolians. The Keians probably began with a treaty of isopoliteia with the Naupaktians; since these latter were members of the Aitolian koinon, the Keians, now regarding themselves as connected with the koinon, awarded isopoliteia to the Aitolians as a whole, who accepted it.146 The fragmentary heading of a stone from Delos that held the [*i]4LaGV[a] NavTraKKT[WV] strongly suggests that the Delians had gone the same route a decade or more before (IG XI 4.1051).

Finally, Delos also dealt with king Nabis of Sparta. Though condemned by Polybios for "piracy," he certainly enjoyed a warm relationship with the Delians, who declared him Trp6tEVoV KaQ Ev)Epy-ITqv TOI) TE tEpOO Kat A1nlXwv. At least one modern commentator has defended Nabis against the charge of piracy, but the issue is somewhat beside the point; piracy is at least partly a matter of perspective. We know that pirates sometimes sold their wares on Delos in the later third century; such "merchants" would perhaps have been no less welcome than fully "legiti- mate" traders, especially as guarantees of safety supported by the agreements just discussed with Aitolia, Krete, and other "pirate" states would have assured the Delians and their Kykladic neighbors of their own immunity. On the other hand, the accusation of piracy had powerful political implications. That against Nabis probably did not "originat[e] with Polybius" but rather reflected the official Roman and Akhaian line on the Sparta King.'47 If his enemies branded Nabis as a pirate, he would not have been likely to have been welcome at a Delos under close Rhodian

142 Georges Daux, "Inscriptions de Delphes," BCH 83 (1959) 475-477, Khios; cf. Robert Bauslaugh, "The Posthumous Alexander Coinage of Chios," ANS Mus. Notes 24 (1979) 20- 21.

143 I.v.Mag. 16, 18-64, 66, 68-73, 78-84, Magnesia; Gauthier, Symbola (as in n. 143) 245-266, 270-274.

144 IG XI 4.1050 (= Choix 41), 1051, cf. IG XI 2.287 B 126, 128 and IG XI 4.1075; cp. IG XI 4.692 = Choix 42.

145 Reger-Risser. 146 After Philippe Gauthier, Symbola Les itrangers et la justice dans les cite6s grecques, Annales

de l'Est. Memoire 42 (Nancy 1972) 255-256. 147 IG XI 4.716 = Choix 58. Other Spartans honored in IG XI 4.717-718. 1 am inclined to put

these documents early in Nabis' reign (205-192 B.C.), certainly before Rhodian involvement in the islands during and after the Second Macedonian War. For piracy see Polyb. 13.8.2, who says Nabis worked with Kretan pirates; partly rejected by Benjamin Shimron, Late Sparta. The Spartan Revolution 243-146 B.C., Arethusa Monograph 3 (Buffalo, New York 1972) 85, full treatment of Nabis 79-100, quotation at 98-99 n. 48; cf. also Paul Cortledge and Antony Spawforth, Hellenistic and Roman Sparta. A Tale of Two Cities (London - New York 1989) 71 with 246 n. 19; pirates selling their wares on Delos, IG XI 4.1054. Nabis' association with pirates may derive from his support of the Knossian side in the First Kretan War, on which see R. M. Errington, Philopoemen (Oxford 1969) 34-48; Brule 29-56.

68 GARY REGER

control, given Rhodian attitudes toward piracy and close friendship with Rome. If he did indeed engage in "piracy" from his bases in the southern Peloponnesos and Krete, using Delos perhaps as a convenient market to unload his booty, his actions may have contributed to Rhodian eagerness to control the islands after 200 B.C. through a revitalized Island League.148

I would attribute the numerous asylia and isopoliteia decrees struck by the small island and littoral states after c. 250 especially 240 B.C. with Aitolia and the cities of Krete to the desire by these states to seek protection against piracy and illegal seizures that a hegemonic power would have nonnally provided; interesting examples are preserved from Thera, where the Therans expected the Ptolemaic garrison to provide protection from piracy, and sometimes got it.149 These pirates had in one case come from Allaria on Krete. The Kretans and of course the Aitolians were renowned for piracy throughout the Hellenistic period, and there is much additional evidence pointing toward piracy in the central Aegean in the years from 250 to 200 B.C.150 This activity corroborates the view argued above that Rhodos did not effectively police the central Aegean before the war with the Kretan cities; it was probably the treaties struck forbidding piracy, rather than Rhodian response to immediate but transient crises like Demetrios' incursion in 220 B.C., that had a lasting impact on the safety of travellers and of island states. In the meantime the small states had to do what they could in the absence of "big power" protection.

IV. Summary

This survey of the political fate of the Kyklades between 260 and 200 B.C. has revealed the absence of any real outside political authority in the islands after roughly 250 B.C. This should not be surprising. As we have seen, the Kyklades owed most of their importance to the larger world as caravanserais on the sea-lanes from Greece to Asia. Powers with interests in both regions, like the Antigonids Monophthalmos and Demetrios Poliorketes or Egypt under the first two Ptolemies,

148 Polyb. 13.8.2; Livy 33.44.8, cf. Briscoe, Comm. XXXI-XXXIII 334 for Akhaian bias in the

view of Nabis; Livy 34.32.18, cf. Briscoe, Comm. XXXIV-XXXVII 103 on the charges against

Nabis, which Briscoe pronounces "very implausible" in at least one respect, Livy 34.35.9,

36.3. 149 IG XII 3.328 + 230 + 3 Suppl. p. 283 + XI Suppl. p. 85; IG XII 3 Suppl. 1291 (cf. CR 92

[ 1978] 313). Cf. also McShane, Foreign Policy (as in n. 125) 47-55.

150 BrulE, passim. Cf. IG XII 5.36 (= SIG3 520), Naxos, prob. 280s; IG XII 7.386 (= SIG3 521),

Aigiale on Amorgos, prob. second half of the third century; IG XII 7.387; IG U2 844 (Athens);

generally Polyb. 4.3.1-5,10, 16.2-4, 25.1-4. For character of the Kretans and their piratical

activities, see Polyb. 4.8.1 1. See also Elpida Hadjidaki, "Preliminary Report of Excavations at

the Harbor of Phalasama in West Crete," AJA 92 (1988) 463-479.


had strong strategic reasons to exercise their authority in the seas around Delos. The disappearance of such interests drew attention naturally away from the islands. Gonatas' successors, with the very temporary exception of Doson in 227 B.C., were occupied in Makedon and Greece until Philip finally felt free to look west again after 205 B.C. Following the Third Syrian War Ptolemaic attention was focused firmrly on Asia and the Levant, and on these Aegean possessions - Itanos on Krete, Samos, the Thrakian littoral - that looked East. Rhodos had no hegemonic ambi- tions: its citizens defined their interests in trade, and while they certainly did not ignore the Kykiades, nothing in the evidence suggests that they lavished any special attention on the islands either.'I'

Trinity College, Hartford, Conn. Gary Reger

151 Some of the implications of this relative isolation of the second half of the third century I address elsewhere; cf. n. 57. -I would like to thank Heinz Heinen and Christian Habicht for helpful comments. Responsibility for any errors remains of course mine.

Political History of the Kyklades, 1993

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