————— FOUR —————

KINSHIP MYTH IN THE LITERARY SOURCES

Conquests and Territorial Possession

As with cases of alliance, considerable challenges confront the historian trying to establish and explain the historicity of events behind the justification of territorial conquest on the basis of sungeneia. Each of the examples in the previous chapter happened to involve foreigners, which potentially adds further cause for incredulity, as in the case of Thucydides. Now the nature of the problem has to do with the vast stretches of time that separate our main sources from the events they describe, except for the case of Archidamus. The first two involve claims of kinship in the archaic period, Solon’s assertion of Salamis’ Athenian identity and Dorieus’ affirmation of Heraclid descent, for which almost no contemporary sources survive. The last involves Alexander the Great, a hugely complex historiographical nightmare in his own person.

As we have seen, while alliances were usually proposed and formed for pragmatic reasons having to do with immediate circumstances, the further incentive of consanguinity or a similar affiliation sometimes helped to cement the deal. The hellenic mindset Herodotus superimposes on Xerxes, one that came naturally to the Athenians and one for which the High Priest Jonathan developed an affinity, fostered the attempt to attain a political or other immediate goal on the basis of a particularly defined identity. The stories that expressed a community’s identity, for example, its shared history, its cultic distinctiveness, and so on, usually provided the context for certain revered sites, such as a hero’s burial place, as well as the particulars of many religious rituals. In this same vein, the very land itself could be imbued with meaning for the Greeks who lived on it. It connected its present inhabitants with a mythical past recounted in story. For this reason, the taking and holding of land could be as much a mythological act as a historical one. The same mythopoeic processes that enabled alliances to be perceived as actual consequences of mythical events also gave rise to the justification of territorial conquest and possession.

ATHENS AND SALAMIS

A salient example of this phenomenon is the foundation of the arguments used by Athens and Megara in their competing claims to the island of Salamis early in the sixth century. The two poleis had warred over Salamis for decades, if not centuries, but myth, it seems, played a role in the final determination of Salamis’ fate. Plutarch, writing seven centuries later in the time of the Roman Principate, attributed this resolution to Athens’ famous lawmaker Solon, who allegedly affiliated Athens and Salamis by a reference to the sons of Ajax and to a shared Ionian ethnicity. The problem for us is that we cannot be sure if this happened around 600, when an Athenian force under Solon captured Salamis, or in the 560s, when the future Athenian tyrant Peisistratus captured the Megarian port of Nisaea. There may have been a further occasion for the use of kinship myth toward the end of the sixth century, c. 510. Spartan arbitration ultimately settled the issue of Athens’ claims to Salamis, and this would have been the occasion for the two sides to argue their case, whether c. 600, the 560s, or c. 510.

This uncertainty arises from the staggering complexity of the problems of our sources. Such is the difficulty of the minutiae that I have relegated most of it to Appendix One. For now it suffices to say that attributing the use of kinship myth to Solon is very problematic on historical grounds. The problem begins with Plutarch, who gives us two versions of the capture of Salamis, but in fact the first one has details that correspond to the expedition against Nisaea (or possibly Megara itself) by Peisistratus. The solution should be sought in the Spartan arbitration that resolved the matter. This settlement can be assigned to the 560s with fewer objections than to the other periods, making Peisistratus the one who should have been credited with it, rather than Solon. The arbitration makes more sense in the context of Nisaea’s capture, a far more serious matter to Megara than the loss of Salamis. That Athens acquired Salamis in the context of a resolution involving Nisaea is somewhat conjectural but makes the most sense of the evidence, which further makes a strong case for Peisistratus’ role in the mythmaking.

Some of the evidence includes his association with Philaeus, a son of Ajax who linked Athens to Salamis, ostensibly through the name of his own deme Philaïdai, and the common knowledge that the Peisistratids engaged in the sort of manipulation of Homeric lines that comes into play.1 The shift to Solon reflects a tradition that served Plutarch’s purpose of promoting Greek achievement in a time of overwhelming Roman dominance. Solon’s role in restoring order between rich and poor in Athens around 590 BCE had made him an iconic figure for Greeks ever since and an especially potent symbol in the commemorative waxing that characterized much of the narrative of Plutarch and his contemporaries.

Let us now look at the mythological arguments used by “Solon,” as we shall refer to Peisistratus in deference to the tradition preserved by Plutarch, keeping in mind the further possibility that not every argument mentioned by Plutarch was made on this occasion in the 560s. First, Solon inserted into the Catalogue of Ships from Homer’s Iliad the following lines: “Ajax led twelve ships from Salamis, / and placed them where the ranks of the Athenians were positioned.”2 Reading these lines to the arbiters, he was thus invoking the authority of Homer. Plutarch says that the Athenians (i.e., his sources) regarded this as “rubbish” (), the meaning of which is unclear here. Either Plutarch’s sources rejected the idea that Solon made use of Homer on this occasion or rejected the idea that he had interpolated lines.³ Instead, Solon used the classic ploy of genealogy, asserting that the sons of Ajax, Philaeus and Eurysaces, had become Athenian citizens and ceded the island to Athens (so, in fact, this was an argument based on a combination of genealogy and naturalization of foreigners). Moreover, as we have already noted, Plutarch points out that the Attic deme known as Philaïdai was the home of Peisistratus.⁴

These were the mythological arguments, but Solon also made an ethnographical argument with the help of Delphic oracles, which declared Salamis to be Ionian rather than Dorian (Sol. 10). Clearly, the Spartans favored Athens in their decision, but we have to wonder if in fact these arguments were what convinced them. Whatever logistical and political considerations were also at play, there is no reason to reject Spartan acceptance of the mythical as a political motivator. The decision is consistent with the one by which they favored the Athenians on the eve of the Battle of Plataea in 479. The Athenians had won their place of honor as much by virtue of their more distant “mythical” achievements as by their more recent ones.

The last of the Solonian arguments, to which we will return in a moment, reminds us of the importance of Delphi in giving weight to the Athenian case. The oracle at Delphi, some thirty to forty years before, bid the real Solon to make a sacrifice to Periphemus and Cychreus, two Salaminian heroes (Sol. 9.1). Plutarch does not actually say that in this oracle Apollo sanctioned Solon’s attack on Salamis. The position of the oracle in Plutarch’s narrative, just preceding the expedition (Plutarch’s second version: Sol. 9), is suggestive, but such a conclusion can be only an inference. Attacking the island was apparently not a necessary prerequisite for the sacrifices, though it immediately follows them in the narrative. What makes the connection appealing is the benefit Solon may have gotten out of the particular heroes to whom he sacrificed, especially Cychreus. The objective was to win over a Megarian hero to the Athenian side, much as the Spartans sought to strengthen their position against Tegea through the removal of Orestes’ bones. The Athenians later built a temple to Cychreus on Salamis. Their goal seemed to have been accomplished when Cychreus allegedly manifested as a snake in the Athenian ships that overcame their Persian opponents in the Battle of Salamis (Paus. 1.36.1).

Thus, the position of the oracle right before Plutarch’s account of Solon’s expedition suggests the development of a tradition linking the oracle to Athens’ claims to Salamis, though it could well have developed after Solon’s time. A further connection is suggested by the detail that Periphemus and Cychreus were buried facing to the west.5 We now come to the anthropological argument made before the Spartan arbiters in the 560s. Here, Peisistratus-Solon explained that Athenian burials, like those of Salaminians, faced to the west, which suggested a kinship between Athenians and Salaminians denied to the Megarians, who buried their dead with an eastward orientation.⁶

The oracle of c. 600 also reminds us of the Delphic oracles brought to bear in the arguments before the arbiters. “They say that Solon’s case was strengthened by certain Pythian oracles in which the god called Salamis Ionian.”⁷ These oblique pronouncements about Salamis’ ethnic affiliation parallel to some extent Solon’s anthropological argument on burial practices: taken together, the earlier and later oracles might suggest an Ionian/Dorian dichotomy of which burial practices are an indication or, to use J. M. Hall’s terminology, an indicium of ethnicity.⁸ What lies behind the recording of these oracles then was perhaps an argument based ultimately on ancient perceptions of ethnic identity. Solon’s argument on this basis would be twofold: the ethnic affiliation of Athens and Salamis and the ethnic distinction of Megara and Salamis.

The appeal to Homer is not surprising, but it is fraught with problems. In brief, there was a debate even in ancient times (notably at Alexandria) on the authenticity of lines 552–558 in the Catalogue of Ships, to a great extent on the basis of inconsistencies with the presentation of the other participants (i.e., besides the Athenians under Menestheus) in the Trojan War.⁹ Athenian interpolation was widely suspected.¹⁰ In terms of mythopoesis, however, the problem is not so formidable. It would be best to remember that the variant’s essential purpose was to articulate a link (though not of consanguinity as such) between Salaminian Ajax and the Athenians under Menestheus, resulting in a historical link between Salamis and Athens. The Megarians had a response to this tactic. Their own interpolation ran as follows: “Ajax led ships from Salamis, from Polichne, Aegeiroussa, Nisaea, and Tripodes,” with the latter four places located in Megarian territory.¹¹ But, despite charges of interpolation, it is the Athenian version that found its way into the “canonical” Homer by the hellenistic period, no doubt an inevitable consequence of the Spartans’ award of Salamis to Athens. Thus, we have here an instance in which local myth became panhellenic myth, which is perhaps how all panhellenic myth originates.12

By the same token, the Megarian variant did not gain ascendency. But they had other means to express a link with Salamis using mythological sleight of hand. The key lay in the figure Sciron. In his biography of Theseus, at the point at which he relates Theseus’ famous “six labors,” Plutarch gives the common picture of the hero’s opponent Sciron, a robber and murderer from Megara. This mainstream version, however, was challenged by Megarian writers.¹³ They maintained not only that Sciron combated robbery but that he was related to and an ally of good men. In particular, Aeacus was married to his daughter Endeïs, through whom Sciron was thus grandfather of Peleus and Telamon.¹⁴ Would such noble men affiliate themselves with such a base creature? Furthermore, the Megarians continue, Sciron’s death at Theseus’ hands came not during the latter’s initial circuit by foot around the Saronic Gulf en route to Athens but later, in the context of Theseus’ capture of Eleusis (Plut. Thes. 10).

Wickersham has argued that the Megarians developed this version in direct response to their loss of Salamis. If their physical possession of the island was now lost forever, they could at least reclaim it in the realm of myth.¹⁵ The Megarian claim went back to the time of Telamon, the first Aeacid on Salamis. As grandson of Sciron, Telamon allowed Megarian rights to precede Athenian. In other words, Salamis had been Megarian two generations before it became Athenian, for Telamon, we might recall, was the father of Ajax and thus grandfather of the first Salaminians with Athenian citizen rights, Eurysaces and Philaeus. This sort of argument through primacy is precisely the sort on which many European territorial claims are made today, as we considered in Chapter One. What is more, Megara’s solution was not to challenge the basis of Athens’ claim, once the Spartan decision, irrefutable and unable to be appealed, was made. Rather, at the hands of Megarian “historians,” Megara’s own local traditions were adjusted.

These counterclaims remind us of the point made at the beginning of this chapter, that the land itself is usually a vital part of the community’s sense of its identity. The loss of Salamis ultimately diminishes Megara strategically but also mythologically, despite its efforts to reclaim it in new myths. The consequences for identity are also bound up in the verses that Solon used to goad his countrymen into action around 600 and are related to the most convincing argument presented in the 560s to the Spartans. At the outset of the war Solon rebuked the Athenians, poetically wishing to be anything other than an Athenian if they “betrayed” Salamis by letting it go (FF. 2–3 Bergk). As with Megara, the loss of Salamis would also mean Athens’ diminution, at least as Solon painted it. The need to fight for Salamis amounted to a need to avoid disgrace.

Not surprising, then, the strongest argument to the Spartans is a genealogical expression of this identity, that Philaeus and Eurysaces became citizens of Athens, bequeathing the island to the Athenians and taking up residence in Brauron and Melite respectively (Plut. Sol. 10.2). We noted before Lavelle’s suggestion that Peisistratus had the prime motive for establishing this Aeacid connection because Philaeus’ new home in Brauron was in the deme Philaïdai. But while Plato and Plutarch both describe Philaïdai as the home deme of the Peisistratids, Strabo and Pausanias refer to the deme of Brauron.16 What in fact happened was that the name “Philaïdai” was invented by Cleisthenes during the reorganization of 508, with “Brauron” of old absorbed into the new Cleisthenic deme. It was the name Brauron that had the Peisistratid association that Cleisthenes therefore wanted to suppress.¹⁷ Once again, we have a case of misapplied sources that anachronistically associated “Philaïdai” with Peisistratus. Nonetheless, the evidence in Plutarch is still usable on the assumption that Philaeus’ settlement at Brauron provided the needed mythological connection to further associate Peisistratus with the recovery of Salamis.

From there even rival Athenian families could reap the benefits of descent from the sons of Ajax. We saw this mentality before, when we noted that the Spartans were willing to appropriate an Argive invention for their own ends and situate the origins of the dual monarchy in the Return of the Heracleidae. Likewise, Miltiades son of Cypselus (and relative of Miltiades the hero of Marathon), jumped on the Aeacid bandwagon and traced his descent back to Aeacus through Ajax and Philaeus. Herodotus specifically makes the point that Philaeus was the first of this line to be an Athenian.¹⁸ The Delphic oracles and similarities in burial customs associated Salamis with Athens, but the sons of Ajax specifically provide proof of a link of kinship to Athens and in particular to two powerful Athenian families in the period of the war with Megara.¹⁹ Once Salaminians of the stamp of Ajax’s sons became Athenians and played an eponymic role in the formation of certain political structures, the conclusion in Athens was inescapable: Salamis belonged to Athens.

THE “HERACLID” CONQUESTS OF SPARTA

As we have seen, the myth of the Return of the Heracleidae not only served the useful purpose of legitimizing Dorian control of the Peloponnesus but, at the hands of Tyrtaeus, provided a vehicle for the expression of Spartan identity. Charter and foundation myths concerning confirmed and purported colonies of Sparta around the Mediterranean are also important in this context. Whether or not some of the more distant colonies like Thera and Melos, whose actual foundations would seem to lie in the eighth century, were established by Sparta, myths circulating in archaic and classical times point to a Spartan (as well as a native) belief in its role in these foundations.20 For example, in the case of Thera, Herodotus relates that one Theras, maternal uncle of Eurysthenes and Procles, accompanied by kindred Minyans, settled on the island of Callista, which was subsequently renamed after the colony’s founder. Herodotus makes it quite clear that he had Spartan sources for this account.²¹

Putting aside the fact that the actual colonization occurred several centuries after the period of the Return of the Heracleidae (though most Greeks would have been oblivious to such a chronological incongruity as long as the “facts” of the matter were to be found only in legend), I want to make two incidental observations. (1) The story itself contains an instance of kinship diplomacy, for these Minyans, exiles from Lemnos, originally sought land in Laconia and the Spartans granted their request because they were descendants of Argonauts, among whose number were the Tyndaridae, Castor and Polydeuces, heroes firmly associated with Sparta. (2) Herodotus says that Theras left Sparta to found a colony because he was denied royal power when Eurysthenes and Procles came of age, making him a precedent of sorts for Dorieus, whose adventures in north Africa and Sicily arose from the same motivation when his half-brother Cleomenes took the throne, as we shall see presently.

The question of who really founded many of the older colonies in the Dark and early archaic ages is difficult to answer, despite clues provided by archaeology, but our focus here is on putative foundations. The historicity of Taras as an eighth-century Spartan colony is more secure, and yet here, too, myths involving Menelaus were generated to strengthen ties between Taras (and her own colonies) and Sparta. Menelaus is not actually the founder. Post-Homeric accounts have him traveling to southern Italy and western Sicily, to areas of later Spartan activity. In Italy he was apparently an enemy of the Iapyges, hostility to whom was expressed by the foundation oracle of Taras. Menelaus then would seem to provide a precedent for Spartan activity in the West, especially in the context of colonization.²²

Whatever the implications of these charter myths for superimposing Spartan identity (rightly or wrongly) on these colonies, that sort of myth-making is not the same as justification of conquest and territorial possession. The Spartans never justified possession of Taras or Thera. Even if these former colonies had not become thoroughly independent but remained subject to Sparta, as if they were geographically close at hand,²³ Sparta would have no need of such validation as long as their “sovereignty,” to borrow a term from modern times, was not in dispute. With Messenia, we have an example in which such was not the case. Either in response to a specific crisis in the fourth century (in which the need would be to justify territorial possession) or at some earlier point, the Spartans put forward the idea of a Messenia that was “Spartan” by virtue of an inheritance from the Heraclids. If this myth had been invented during Sparta’s first campaigns against Messenia in the eighth century (in which the need would be to justify territorial conquest), then its application at this point parallels Dorieus’ use of his Heraclid ancestry during his Sicilian campaigns in the late sixth century. These are the two cases I propose to discuss in this section.

I will begin with Dorieus on the assumption that the invention of a Spartan Messenia only goes back to the fourth century, for reasons that will be made clear later. In the story told by Herodotus (5.39–48), Dorieus, son of the Spartan king Anaxandrides by his first wife, was greatly respected and expected to succeed him. But this was not to be. At the beginning, Anaxandrides’ first marriage was childless, giving the ephors, the elite overseers of the state, concern that the line of Eurysthenes might die out. They therefore required Anaxandrides to take a second wife, who soon gave birth to Cleomenes. His birth was quickly followed with the news that the king’s first wife was pregnant. In the end, she provided three heirs, Dorieus, Leonidas (the future leader of the Three Hundred at Thermopylae), and Cleombrotus. Cleomenes, however, succeeded Anaxandrides by virtue of his age, in accordance with Spartan custom. Finding the prospect of living under Cleomenes’ rule intolerable, Dorieus left Sparta with a group of citizens to establish a colony.

His first venture was in north Africa, at a spot along the river Cinyps. By c. 512 the venture failed: Dorieus and his fellow colonists were driven out by the local inhabitants as well as by the Carthaginians. Herodotus implies that Dorieus’ failure to consult the Delphic oracle, a routine procedure when founding a colony, may have been a contributing factor. Returning to Sparta, Dorieus planned another expedition. His choice seems to have been motivated by the advice he received from one Antichares of Eleon (in Boeotia), who spoke of oracles received by Laius. These oracles indicated that the area around Eryx in western Sicily was Heraclid territory, having been conquered by Heracles himself. Antichares suggested to Dorieus that he, as a Heraclid, should found a city called Heraclea in the country around Eryx.24 Though this time he did consult Delphi (c. 510), Dorieus’ pursuit of Heraclid glory did not end well. According to the people of Sybaris (says Herodotus), Dorieus and the other Spartans with him involved themselves in a local Italian war on the side of Croton against Sybaris, a detail the Crotoniates denied.

Afterwards Dorieus and his followers went on to Sicily and founded their new city of Heraclea near Eryx. Most of them, including Dorieus, were killed and their city destroyed by some combination of Carthaginians, Phoenicians, and Egestans.25 Euryleon, one of the nobles who accompanied Dorieus, took the surviving Spartans and had some subsequent success of his own. He captured Minoa, a colony of Selinus; eventually came to power as tyrant of Selinus; and lost his life in an uprising. The reason, the Sybarites say, that Dorieus failed to secure his inheritance from Heracles was that he allowed himself to get involved with side adventures (a notable Heraclean trait) rather than go straight to Sicily and adhere to the oracle’s instructions. As Pausanias says, “Heracles received greater favor from the gods than did Dorieus son of Anaxandrides afterwards.”²⁶

As with Athens’ wars over Salamis, historical details about Dorieus’ Sicilian campaign are sketchy. There is no word of how he might have made use of his fabulous heritage in Sicily (or in Sparta for that matter). The city of Heraclea itself (not to be confused with Heraclea Minoa) is not attested in Herodotus or Pausanias, only in Diodorus. It may be that Diodorus or his source had merely described an accomplishment that Antichares had proposed but was never realized.²⁷

In any case, whatever his achievement, Dorieus may well have operated in a mythological context, as would Alexander the Great two centuries later. A tradition of Heracles in Sicily, to which the “oracles of Laius” referred, seems to have predated his expedition and to have given him a motivation (and a pretext) for conquest in the region of Eryx, in the western corner of Sicily. Herodotus is of little help here, but Diodorus (himself a Sicilian) says that Heracles, while shepherding the cattle of Geryon back to Greece in that characteristic way of his (Heracles never travels in a straight line), came across Himera and Egesta, where he was refreshed by warm baths brought forth by nymphs, and then arrived in Eryx. Its king was the region’s eponym, a son of Aphrodite. Heracles and Eryx wrestled each other. If Heracles lost, he would have to give the cattle to Eryx (thereby losing his immortality for having failed to complete all his twelve labors), while Eryx would have to give up his land to his opponent if he lost. Heracles was the winner, and he then entrusted the land to its local population. Diodorus suggests that the natives themselves agreed not only to reap the fruits of the land but also to hand it over to a rightful heir whenever he should arrive.²⁸

The lyric poet Stesichorus was likely Diodorus’ source for this story of Heracles.²⁹ Though Heracles’ Sicilian adventure is not mentioned in the extant fragments of Stesichorus’ poem Geryoneis, Diodorus’ information about Himera makes Stesichorus, a native of that town, a good candidate, providing a basis for a Heraclid “reconquest” of western Sicily as early as the beginning of the sixth century BCE. Additionally, Hecataeus’ treatment of this Labor of Heracles brings together two vital details: the cattle and place names in western Sicily. This strengthens the likelihood that Hecataeus, writing at the turn of the fifth century and familiar with Stesichorus’ famous poem, got these details from Stesichorus.30

Roughly contemporaneous with Stesichorus is a possible “Heraclid” expedition in c. 580. The adventurer this time was a Cnidian named Pentathlus, who claimed descent from Heracles through Hippotes, the founder of Cnidus (and incidentally a Spartan). Diodorus tells us that Pentathlus intended to colonize “the regions around Lilybaeum” (), at the western end of the island. There he discovered the cities of Selinus and Egesta at war and chose to support the Greeks of the former against the Elymians of the latter. Pentathlus died in this endeavor, his venture a failure. Those of his followers who survived abandoned the enterprise at Lilybaeum and eventually settled on Lipara, one of the Aeolian islands to the north of Sicily.³¹ We are, of course, in uncertain waters when it comes to chronology and sources. For instance, the story of Pentathlus in Diodorus may have been influenced by Dorieus’ claims. The parallels are certainly suggestive.³² If genuine, we are still left wondering if the claims of Pentathlus influenced Stesichorus, or if it was the poet who fired the adventurer’s imagination, much the way Euripides’ descriptions of distant eastern lands may have influenced Alexander’s aspirations of surpassing Dionysus in India.

An idea of Heracles visiting this region may have been current for as long as there were Greeks living there, since the eighth century. In this heavily Carthaginian-dominated region, for a time, the worship of Melcart prevailed. We know that the Greeks were capable of recognizing facets of a local god and identifying them with those of their own. Such a syncretism is in evidence in Sicily, whereby the Phoenician Melcart was identified as Heracles. Selinus, for instance, founded in 628, promoted Heracles as a civilizing force in wild barbarian lands. Yet the presence of the barbarian “Heracles” may also account for the promotion of the Greek hero and his claims to western Sicily.³³

Whatever the origins and chronology of the tradition of Heracles in Sicily, there is good reason to regard it as long entrenched by the time Dorieus showed up to stake his claim. Diodorus’ incidental comment from 4.23.3—that the local inhabitants essentially made a pact with Heracles by accepting his bequest of the land and agreeing to hand it over to his rightful heir—is likely a reflection of Spartan propaganda put forth by Dorieus to legitimize his rule, at least among the Greeks in this part of Sicily. This would hold even among the Carthaginians if Dorieus believed that their Melcart was the same as Heracles. The suggestion is reinforced by the Greeks’ mythopoeic response to the political and military contests in sixth-century Sicily. If Stesichorus’ Geryoneis postdates Pentathlus’ expedition (rendered a failure by the Elymians), we may have here the same phenomenon as in Megara after the loss of Salamis. The Greeks, championed by their greatest hero, laid claim to western Sicily. At present they could only do it in the realm of myth, until a new successor could take up the challenge in the field of battle. But for now the hole created by the Carthaginians and Elymians was filled mythologically, and Greek identity in Sicily, such as we can discern it in this period, was made complete again. Dorieus then was reenacting the myth of Heracles in Sicily. In doing so, he may have sought to fill, in his own person, that physical gap that the mythical one already filled; that is, the new Heracles was reclaiming his territory.

We move on now to Messenia. There is no way of knowing when the idea of a Heraclid Messenia was invented. The fragments of Tyrtaeus in the mid-seventh century, in the period of the Second Messenian War, say nothing of such a basis of commonality with Sparta. Because his depiction of the Messenians is hardly flattering and not at all in line with his picture of the Heraclid/Dorian people of Lacedaemon (FF. 4–5), the invention of a common heritage of Spartans and Messenians seems more likely to be of a later period. We have evidence of a fifth-century reference to it, which will be considered further below.

This common heritage first finds substantive expression in the speech Archidamus written by the Athenian orator Isocrates, as if for presentation by the future Archidamus III at a conference before the gerousia, or Council of Elders, in Sparta in 366. The conference had been called by the Corinthians, who urged the Spartans either to join them in peace or to allow them to withdraw from the war with Thebes. In response, the Spartans welcomed the Corinthians to do as they wanted but said that they would never relent until they had recovered Messenia (Xen. Hell. 7.4.8–9). Isocrates situates the speech of Archidamus in the midst of this Spartan response. Certainly there is no reason to reject the proposition that the real Archidamus, son of king Agesilaus II, would speak up at this assembly and make a fervent patriotic plea to ensure that his fellow Spartans did not join the Corinthians in making peace. The matter of Messenia was especially urgent for the Spartans at this point: they had suffered an unprecedented defeat at the hands of Epaminondas at Leuctra in 371 and then lost Messenia to the Thebans led by the same general in 369. As Cartledge explains, “The loss of the Messenian Helots was the greatest blow the Spartans had ever suffered. It meant the definitive end of their status as a first-rate power.” Equally terrible, their former slaves were now masters of their own domain.34 Archidamus wanted to spur his countrymen to reclaim land that was rightfully theirs. He deemed their common Heraclid ancestry a powerful incentive.

Discussing the invention of the Messenian factor in the tradition of the Return of the Heracleidae requires great care. My main concern is the political context of Archidamus’ version. However, relying on Isocrates as our principle source carries some peril as it seems unlikely that the speech itself was delivered by the prince at this conference.³⁵ Moreover, there is the question of whose “persona” belongs to the speaker: Isocrates’ or Archidamus’? The question of persona, extremely complex and difficult, is central in Isocratean studies but, fortunately, has only a marginal impact on our consideration of the Archidamus. Scholars of Isocrates grapple, for instance, with the question of the inconsistent attitudes toward Sparta throughout the Isocratean corpus.³⁶

Yun Lee Too seems to have found the answer in her analysis of the Panathenaicus, Isocrates’ encomium to Athens completed near the end of his long life in 339. Toward the end of the work (234–263), a Spartan, one of Isocrates’ former students, suggests that the author’s criticisms of Sparta earlier in the treatise might bear moderation. This seeming shift in tone has confounded many scholars, especially as Isocrates does not follow with a rejection of the student’s position. A rhetorical exercise seems to be afoot, and Too suggests that Isocrates’ point is that more than one interpretation of Sparta may be possible, that Isocrates the author can “assume all voices for all people.”³⁷ So while we see Isocrates issue a tirade against Spartan treatment of the Messenians in the Panathenaicus,³⁸ his speech for Archidamus conveys an opposite view.

For us, then, the question of persona in the Archidamus is of less importance because, whether actually delivered or not, one can reasonably argue that the speech conveyed Archidamus’ own views and reflected a Spartan tradition. As with the Return of the Heracleidae story of the seventh century and the putative Spartan inheritance of Heraclid domains in Sicily in the sixth, so too did the Spartan claim of Messenia originate in Sparta, leaving us with the high probability that Archidamus’ actual arguments in 366, whether delivered on this occasion or not, were just as Isocrates rendered them. Therefore, as I reference Archidamus in my discussion of the Isocratean presentation, I will show the same reverence to him as I did to Solon in my reading of Plutarch.

The picture Archidamus paints has certain facets not found in earlier accounts. He describes two attacks on Messenia that he intended to be seen as merely the first of a succession of wars, leading up to the Messenian Wars in the archaic period. For the earliest, he goes all the way back to Heracles himself, who essentially had taken Messenia as a prize “won by the spear” (), after an enemy had robbed him of the cattle of Geryon (yet again), this time the local king Neleus. Heracles killed Neleus and all his sons except Nestor, who had not participated in the theft. Nestor’s throne was now a gift from the conqueror rather than an inheritance from Neleus (Isoc. 6.19), much as Eryx had been a gift to its local inhabitants. This “gift” is important. The tradition of Heracles’ war on Neleus and his sons goes back to Homer,39 but there is nothing there about the “gift.” Clearly, this detail is providing legitimacy for Sparta in Messenia and resonating all the more in the context of the rest of Archidamus’ exposition.

Long afterwards, the narrative continues, the Heracleidae came into the Peloponnesus under the leadership of the brothers Temenus, Aristodemus, and Cresphontes. After their victories, they divided the land into three sections (Archidamus omits the details of the choosing of lots and the results, which were known well enough already). In this way, Cresphontes had acquired Messenia. However, Archidamus goes on, “The Messenians became so immoral that they plotted against and murdered Cresphontes, even though he had founded their polis, master of their land, descendant of Heracles, and their leader. His sons escaped danger and came into this city [Sparta] as suppliants, arguing that we ought to aid their dead father and giving their land to us.”⁴⁰ Their kin in Sparta then consulted the Delphic oracle, and with its blessing they invaded Messenia and forced the inhabitants to capitulate.

We might note at this point that Archidamus disparages the Messenians much as Tyrtaeus did. I used that depiction in Tyrtaeus as evidence against his invention of this part of the Return. I hold to that because of what I argue Tyrtaeus is trying to accomplish. In his zeal for showing how the Spartans, not just the kings but all citizens, derived their greatness from their Heraclid forebears, he seems to take an “us vs. them” attitude regarding the Messenians. Giving them access to Sparta’s noble heritage would defeat Tyrtaeus’ purpose. Archidamus, on the other hand, has a completely different objective, except that his speech is also intended to remind the Spartans of their heritage, which makes their recent setbacks all the more inexcusable.

Yet, here there is a distinctly political spin in his treatment, the purpose of which is to convince his audience of the legitimacy of Sparta’s claim to Messenia. The connection lies not in kinship between the peoples of Messenia and Laconia but rather in the Spartan kings’ inheritance. To that end, he takes no chances that his point will be missed and adds: “We dwell in this land [Laconia] because the Heracleidae gave it to us and the god (of Delphi) ordained it and because we subdued in war those who had possessed it. We received that land [Messenia] from these same people, by the same method, and employing the same oracle.”⁴¹

To be sure, Archidamus did not invent the account of the lots and of Cresphontes’ taking of Messenia. Sophocles may have referred to it in the Ajax. Euripides certainly did, as Strabo indicates.42 But these references do not have the political connotations of Archidamus’ version. To my knowledge, no other extant reference predates the Isocratean speech, written in 366.⁴³ The use Archidamus makes of this account is particular to the situation. A number of details in the speech reflect a political spin that served his immediate purpose. The most salient one is in the portion of the speech I highlighted above: the land was given to the sons of Aristodemus by the sons of Cresphontes. Heracles no doubt came to mind as the audience heard this. Once again, Messenia is a “gift” of the rightful owner. Thus, Archidamus’ version of the Return, at least where Messenia was concerned, was most likely a Spartan innovation of the fourth century.⁴⁴

Though the Spartans’ reputation was for military prowess and discipline rather than creativity and eloquence, their ability to make political use of myth cannot be denied. If Tyrtaeus was exceptional for his poetic voice, by which the Spartans’ Heraclid identity may have first been articulated, members of the royal families became adept at political mythopoesis, especially Dorieus and Archidamus, despite the disappointing results of their labors. We might note, as a postscript, another opportunity that came along in 426 when people from Trachis and Doris appealed to the Spartans for help against the aggressions of the neighboring Oetaeans. The Spartans responded with a new colony, Heraclea Trachinia, near the site of the recently destroyed Trachis, which was not what the locals had requested and almost certainly not what they had in mind. Though the colony had strategic purposes, Thucydides’ remark that Doris was the original homeland of the Spartans and the name they selected was Heraclea suggests another attempt to legitimize a Spartan presence in a foreign region.⁴⁵