6

O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?
TALES OF KINSHIP AND DIPLOMACY *

Andrew Erskine

The late third century was a low point in the history of Aigina. Caught up in the First Macedonian War, the island was captured by the Romans. Some of the inhabitants escaped, others were left waiting for the slave markets. The Aiginetan prisoners approached the Roman commander and asked that they might be allowed to send ambassadors to kindred cities (συγγενεῖς πόλεις) to raise ransom money. This provoked something of a culture clash, or at least that is how Polybios represents it. The Roman commander, P. Sulpicius Galba, seems to have been quite unable to understand either the concept of a ransom or the idea that there were kindred cities that might be prepared to come up with the money. As far as he was concerned, the Aiginetans should have approached someone stronger when they had the chance, and not go sending embassies to relatives now that they were effectively slaves. Such behaviour was, he felt, simple-minded.¹

But in making this proposal, the Aiginetans were following a common Greek practice. In the many diplomatic exchanges that took place throughout the hellenistic world an appeal for assistance would often be reinforced by citing the kinship that existed between the two states. At the very broadest level Greeks could point to shared Greekness, or to their membership of one of the main Greek sub-groups, the Dorians, the Ionians or the Aiolians. There were, however, more kinship-ties on offer than these. As a consequence of the colonial past there were extensive links between cities. A city may have been related to another city as colony to founding-city, that is to say mother-city or mētropolis, for instance Syracuse to Corinth, or Pharos to Paros; or two cities may have shared the same mother-city, as Lampsakos and Massalia were both foundations of Phokaia.² But these links between cities included not only those which we would consider to be historical; they also included the mythical, based for example on common heroic ancestors.

This mythical kinship has led to scepticism among some scholars: its use in diplomacy is often considered to be artificial, at best a diplomatic courtesy. Others, however, take it more seriously, and they give it a role in the process of persuasion. Certainly myth merged with history in ways that may make the more pragmatic of modern scholars rather uncomfortable. To distinguish mythical from historical kinship may reflect modern rather than ancient categories. Both forms of kinship could be invoked in diplomatic initiatives and the language for each appears to have been identical. Even something apparently straightforward and historical like a city foundation may not be so simple four or five hundred years later.

Kinship had long played a role in diplomacy; it was not a purely hellenistic phenomenon. Classical authors such as Herodotos and Thucydides make mention of it,³ but it is the epigraphic boom of the hellenistic period that gives us much of our evidence. It is hard, therefore, to tell whether this reflects a change in the phenomenon or merely a change in the evidence.

In this chapter I look first at how kinship was used in the diplomatic process, then consider why it was used, what difference kinship may have made to the negotiations, and finally I explore the relationship between such kinship claims and the traditions of the states involved.⁴

Kinship diplomacy in action

The city of Magnesia on the Maiandros in western Asia Minor offers a useful starting-point for an examination of kinship diplomacy in action. Here in the early 1890s excavators discovered an extraordinary collection of documents. Along the south and west walls of the agora were over sixty inscribed decrees and letters. These inscriptions are what remain of a major Magnesian diplomatic campaign. In 208 BC the Magnesians established a panhellenic festival in honour of Artemis Leukophryene and sent ambassadors throughout the Greek world to obtain recognition for this festival and also for the inviolability (asylia) of their city and territory. About twenty groups of ambassadors travelled thousands of miles, covering an area from Sicily to Iran, putting the Magnesian case and collecting the responses of cities, leagues, and kings. Not all the replies were inscribed; about a hundred appear only as names. The collection is both illuminating and tantalizing. It throws valuable light on the concerns of the hellenistic Greeks, yet at the same time it allows only glimpses of the diplomatic campaign. The core is missing; it is the responses that survive. How the Magnesians planned and went about this sizeable operation has to be deduced largely from these inscribed responses.⁵

A striking feature of the collection is the recurrence of kinship terms. Something like half of the decrees make use of words such as syngeneia, homogeneia, oikeiotēs, and their cognates. To what extent oikeiotēs should be considered a kinship term is arguable and I will return to this question shortly, but, even if oikeiotēs and oikeios are excluded, twelve of the respondents make clear reference to kinship between themselves and the Magnesians.⁶ This emphasis on kinship in the replies is not a coincidence. The respondents are taking up a theme that was first raised by the teams of roving ambassadors. The Magnesian initiative is clear enough in the decree, probably from Mytilene, which reports that the Magnesian ambassadors ‘invited our people, as friends and kin (syngeneis), to participate in the sacrifices, the festival, and the sacred truce’.⁷

Rarely, however, is the basis of the kinship claim made explicit. A city on Kephallenia, Same, provides an exception. Its decree reports that the Magnesian ambassadors ‘explained about the oikeiotēs which existed between the Magnesians and the Kephallenians on the basis of the kinship (syngeneia) of Magnes and Kephalos, son of Deïon’.⁸ To understand this obscure genealogy we have to turn to Apollodoros (or the person who goes under the name of Apollodoros) who records in his Bibliotheca that Magnes and Deïon were both children of Aiolos.⁹ Thus, looking back into the mythical past, the Magnesians and Kephallenians could claim descent from brothers. Less explicit but more prosaic is the decree from Antioch in Persis. Shortly after a reference to the Magnesians as friends and kin (syngeneis) we learn that earlier in the third century the Magnesians had responded positively to Antiochos Soter’s request for cities to send fresh colonists to Antioch.¹⁰ Consequently people of Magnesian descent made up part of the citizen body of Antioch.

That these decrees should have so little to say about the grounds of any particular kinship claim is of no special significance. It is consistent with the brief, rather shorthand way in which other arguments of the ambassadors are alluded to. It is clear from a number of decrees, for instance, that the ambassadors drew attention to services that the Magnesians had performed on behalf of Delphi and on behalf of the Greeks in general, but only in one decree are those services specified: their contribution to the defence of Delphi against the Gauls in 279 and their arbitration in a Cretan civil war.¹¹ The allusiveness of kinship references is no different.

At this point it may be useful to digress for a moment on questions of terminology. The precise meanings of the terms, syngeneia, oikeiotēs, and their cognates, have been the subject of much scholarly discussion. Both occur in the documents from Magnesia; homogeneia, which is perhaps a stronger term, appears only once, in a reply from Thessaly. Syngeneia suggests blood kinship, whereas oikeiotēs with its derivation from oikos may be something looser, including connections through marriage and perhaps even guest-friendship.¹² The two terms appear to be overlapping rather than mutually exclusive,¹³ but it is perhaps unwise to look for precision; elaborate arguments have been built up on the subject, and a counter-example will always appear.

Some examples may help to clarify the way the terms are used. In the decree of Same in Kephallenia which was discussed above it is possible to see that oikeiotēs is something that can be based on syngeneia: ‘the oikeiotēs which exists between the Magnesians and the Kephallenians on the basis of the syngeneia of Magnes and Kephalos, son of Deïon’. A phrase like this could easily have been abbreviated to ‘the Magnesians, being friends and oikeioi’. If that had occurred, scholars would then be wondering if this was a kinship claim at all.¹⁴ This is exactly what may have happened when the same ambassadors visited nearby Ithaka; there is no mention of syngeneia in the decree, only of ‘oikeioi and friends’. Yet an extension of their Kephallenian argument would have been possible for the ambassadors. They could have pointed out that Odysseus was great-great-great-grandson of Deïon, brother of Magnes, a particularly suitable argument to put forward while standing in the Odysseion addressing the Ithakan assembly. It would be rash to assume that such an argument is not hidden behind the rather bland phrase, ‘oikeioi and friends’.¹⁵ A final example, the decree in reply from the people of Gonnos, begins by referring to the Magnesians as ‘friends and syngeneis’, but ten or so lines later we read of the renewal ‘of the friendship and oikeiotēs which have existed between the Magnesians and the people of Gonnos since the beginning’.¹⁶ So the overlapping nature of the terms meant that oikeiotēs could be used to express syngeneia.¹⁷ One cannot, therefore, say in any instance that, because the word oikeiotēs is used, this is not the reflection of a kinship claim.

Almost forty years ago Domenico Musti wrote a fundamental article on kinship in hellenistic international relations. Musti based his study on epigraphic evidence and made especial use of a collection of asylia documents from Kos, a collection rather like the Magnesian one I have been discussing.¹⁸ Following up leads given by Louis Robert, he sought to counter the dismissive attitude to interstate kinship prevalent among many scholars.¹⁹ Yet he only went part of the way, and he too saw it sliding into artificiality and broadening to a point where it was in danger of losing its meaning.

The dismissive attitude was further called into question by an inscription first published in 1988, although known about since 1965. It is a substantial and especially revealing document, one of the reasons for the recent upsurge of publications on the role of kinship in international relations. Olivier Curty’s 1995 collection and study of syngeneia documents provoked considerable discussion, and it has been followed by books from C.P. Jones and Stephan Lücke.²⁰ This inscription was one of the reasons for these recent publications, but another factor was no doubt the realization that Robert’s long-awaited study of the subject would never appear (it had been promised since 1935).²¹

The stone that stimulated all this interest comes from Xanthos in Lycia and offers a revealing, almost unique, insight into the type of kinship arguments an ambassador might put forward. It was set up as a result of an embassy to Xanthos by the small city of Kytinion in Doris, an area reputed to have been the mētropolis of all the Dorians, and it is inscribed with several documents relating to the embassy.²² Owing to an unfortunate combination of earthquake and invasion Kytinion had suffered serious damage and was now eager to commence a programme of urban renewal. In 206/5 BC, with Aitolian backing, the people of Kytinion sent embassies to a number of cities, including Xanthos. The criterion for selection was simple: the cities to receive the embassies would be kin, though as home to the Dorians there was a lot of potential here. The decree of the Aitolians sponsoring the mission makes this clear: ‘The Aitolians decided to allow the people of Doris to send ambassadors to kindred cities (τὰς πόλεις τὰς συγγενεῖς) and to the kings descended from Herakles, Ptolemy, and Antiochos.’²³ So, armed with elaborate genealogical arguments, the ambassadors set off for Asia Minor. No doubt they visited several other cities during their travels, but the Xanthian inscription is now the sole evidence for the embassy. Among the documents inscribed, there is the decree of Xanthos passed in response to the Kytinian appeal. The Xanthians were not content with a quick reference to ‘friends and family’, instead they chose to recount in detail the arguments presented by the visiting ambassadors. It is quite a contrast to the Magnesian material studied above. The prominence of kinship, in particular mythical kinship, is evident in the following passage:

[The ambassadors] asked us to remember the syngeneia which we have with them through gods and heroes and not to be indifferent to the destruction of the walls of their native city. For Leto, the founder (archēgetis) of our city, gave birth to Artemis and Apollo here among us. Asklepios, son of Apollo and of Koronis, who was daughter of Phlegyas, descendant of Doros, was born in Doris. In addition to the kinship which they have with us through these gods they recounted their intricate descent from the heroes, tracing their ancestry to Aiolos and Doros. They further pointed out that Aletes, one of the Heraklids, took care of the colonists from our city who were sent by Chrysaor, son of Glaukos, son of Hippolochos. For Aletes, setting out from Doris, helped them when they were under attack, and when he had freed them from the danger which surrounded them, he married the daughter of Aor, son of Chrysaor. After demonstrating with additional examples the goodwill based on kinship which has joined them to us from ancient times, they asked us not to remain indifferent to the obliteration of the greatest city in the Metropolis but give as much help as we can to the building of the walls, and make clear to the Greeks the goodwill which we have towards the koinon of the Dorians and the city of the Kytinians, giving assistance worthy of our ancestors and ourselves; in agreeing to this we will be doing a favour not only to them but also to the Aitolians and all the rest of the Dorians, and especially to King Ptolemy who is a kinsman of the Dorians by way of the Argead kings descended from Herakles.²⁴

This exposition cannot be dismissed as nothing more than a diplomatic formality; it was a substantial part of the appeal. With an impressive amount of detail the Kytinian ambassadors laid out their reasons for claiming that kinship existed between Kytinion and Xanthos. Great care had been taken to develop this complex network of links and associations, all of them mythical. The enormous significance of the Dorian homeland gave them considerable mythological resources, but this was combined with meticulous research into the traditions of the cities they were visiting. They referred, for instance, to the birth of Apollo and Artemis in Lycia rather than on the more usual Delos, a variant that may reflect local tradition,²⁵ and they showed themselves familiar with the heroic dynasty of Lycian Glaukos. Not satisfied with one proof of kinship, they introduced example after example, finally forcing the Xanthians to retreat into summary themselves: ‘after demonstrating with additional examples … they asked us not to remain indifferent … ’ Perhaps the Kytinians tried too hard. The Xanthians recognized their claims and expressed sympathy but pleading poverty they offered little substantial assistance. They made the rather small donation of five hundred drachmas to the Kytinian restoration fund and invited the ambassadors to dinner.²⁶

The evidence from Xanthos is exceptional, but there is no reason to think that many ambassadors did not present equally detailed cases. Behind the dull, formulaic phrases, ‘friends (philoi) and syngeneis’, ‘friends and oikeioi,’ may be concealed complex genealogical arguments, such as those heard in Xanthos, lengthy stories, often peculiar to these particular cities. The longest, most elaborate kinship argument, however, is to be found not on stone, but in a literary text. It is the first book of Dionysios of Halikarnassos’ Roman Antiquities, where he recounts wave after wave of Greek immigration to Italy, and gives the Trojans a Peloponnesian origin for good measure. All this is to demonstrate that the Romans are Greeks and banish any suggestion that they are barbarians.²⁷ Dionysios is himself a reflection of a world where such arguments were commonplace.

Often the claims of the ambassadors, whether concerned with genealogy, kinship, or the achievements of their city, would not simply be stated, but would be supported by evidence. Decrees, oracles, and the works of poets or historians could be produced, and it is clear that the Magnesians travelled with a fair collection.²⁸ When the people of Apollonia in Mysia wanted to substantiate their claim that they were a colony of Miletos, they provided documents for Milesian inspection, histories and other writings, according to the inscription that preserves the transaction.²⁹ Questions of kinship were taken seriously by all sides: a case was made, evidence was brought forward. If we return to Dionysios of Halikarnassos, we can see the way he cites considerable evidence during the course of the argument of his first book, the one most devoted to proving the Romans to be Greek. This is something he does not do in the rest of his 20-volume history; the vast majority of his citations of earlier writers appear in the first book.

So far I have been trying to give an impression of kinship diplomacy in action. The city in need will decide to send an embassy, research the background of the donor cities, and consider what arguments should be used. The embassy will then arrive with decrees authorizing their mission, the ambassadors will make appropriate speeches, spelling out the ties of kinship between the two peoples and the nature of the appeal. They will probably also produce evidence in support. Then after being entertained by the host city they will move on. What survives for us usually is a decree, perhaps the response of the visited city, perhaps a decree honouring an ambassador, with kinship referred to only briefly, for instance the passing reference to ‘family and friends’.

Purpose

So why did embassies do this? Why did they place such stress on kinship, especially if it depended on a relationship that had to be traced all the way back to the heroic past? Whether or not the age of heroes was accepted as historical, it had been a long time ago.

We might imagine that the purpose of claiming kinship was simply to persuade. Certainly, it is noticeable that in interstate relations kinship claims and kinship language occur especially when one state is requesting something of another.³⁰ They would appear to put moral pressure on the other state to assist by drawing attention to family ties and the obligations that go with them.³¹ Nevertheless, it is hard to understand why a complex genealogical argument should convince. The relationships that are highlighted are often rather distant and tenuous. Doubtless there would have been many occasions when the visiting embassy had even less success than the Kytinians at Xanthos. Our evidence is primarily epigraphic and may give a false impression of the efficacy of such kinship diplomacy; cities did not celebrate their failures on stone. Literary sources, on the other hand, suggest that such an appeal was as likely to fail as to succeed.³²

It may, however, be a mistake to concentrate solely on the persuasive capacity of kinship. This might be to view the question too narrowly. I want to suggest an alternative way of considering it, one which places less emphasis on the kinship claim as a means of directly gaining an objective and looks instead at the way in which kinship changes the nature of the relationship. If a state claimed kinship, it incorporated the other state as part of the family and thus legitimated the request that was being made. It may have been more acceptable to seek favours from relatives than from strangers. To approach strangers for help could be considered as too close to begging.³³ Yet how else could Kytinion in mainland Greece justify an approach to Lycian Xanthos on the other side of the Aegean? Thus kinship, real or mythical, sets up a framework in which an appeal is possible.

Here literature can offer some analogies. Chariton’s novel, Chaireas and Kallirhoë, which is probably of an early imperial date, offers an interesting use of syngeneia. The wealthy Dionysios has fallen in love with his new slave girl, Kallirhoë, and wants to know about her past, but Kallirhoë is silent and only cries when he persists. Finally he says ‘this is the first favour I ask of you. Tell me your story, Kallirhoë; you will not be talking to a stranger (allotrios). For there exists a kinship (syngeneia) of character too.’ Dionysios is here appealing to the legitimating nature of kinship to advance his cause. His point is not that she has a moral obligation as a relative, or even as a quasi-relative, to tell him, but rather that his relative status removes an obstacle to her telling him: he is not a stranger.³⁴ Comparison might also be made with the world of Homer’s epics. When a stranger comes to a house, it is not proper to ask him outright his business, one must first offer him hospitality, and in the process his status is changed from stranger to guest-friend.³⁵ This is not kinship but it is similar in that it suggests that demands on others should only be made if they are made within the context of an appropriate relationship.

Kinship is such a relationship. It is not temporary, lasting only for the duration of the appeal, but rather it is permanent and reciprocal. If we return to my much-cited Magnesian inscriptions, we can see that the acceptance of the kinship claim was as important as the claim itself. The replies do not merely promise recognition of the festival of Artemis Leukophryene, they also affirm the existence of the kinship between the two states. Acceptance of the kinship claim creates a bond between the two communities that goes beyond the simple acceptance of the appeal. It provides a basis for future trust and a way of relating to one another for both communities.

Both sides, therefore, attach importance to the claims of kinship; nor is this limited to the Magnesian texts. When the people of Lampsakos appealed to the Romans in the 190s BC, they seem to have been almost as concerned to confirm that the Romans accepted their kinship argument as they were about their appeal. As a city in the Troad they had presumably drawn attention to their Trojan past.³⁶ The negotiations between themselves and the Roman commander are recorded in the decree which honours their ambassador, Hegesias: ‘On account of these answers the people were in especially good spirits. For in them the Roman commander made it clear that he accepted the relationship and kinship (oikeiotēs and syngeneia) which exist between us and the Romans.’³⁷ The people of Lampsakos, then, are elated not merely because the Romans take note of their appeal but also because they accept the Lampsakene kinship claim. One reason why the Xanthians dwelt at such length on the syngeneia between themselves and the Kytinians may have been their desire to demonstrate that in spite of their paltry donation they do not reject the claims of the Kytinians.³⁸

Kinship is as much about the past and future as it is about the present. This comes out in the language of the inscriptions with their repeated references to remembering or renewing kinship. All this reinforces the sense of continuity implicit in kinship. The people of Gonnos talk of the renewal of longstanding friendship and oikeiotēs with the Magnesians; the Kydonians of Crete describe the Teans as having been friends and kin (syngeneis) since the time of their forefathers; the Kytinians ask the Xanthians to remember the syngeneia that they had with them through gods and heroes.³⁹ Looking forwards, the Xanthians decide that the decrees should be inscribed on a stele and placed in the sanctuary of Leto; this will act as a reminder of the relationship between the two peoples.⁴⁰ Concern with the future is evident too in a Pergamene decree of the mid-second century BC. The decree, which is on the subject of isopoliteia with Tegea, makes arrangements for the inscription of several documents, including one about the kinship which exists between the two communities. It emphasizes that this is being done so that future generations do not forget.⁴¹ Analogous conclusions can be found in recent work on hellenistic euergetism; inscriptions reveal that individual acts of euergetism are always understood as part of a continuing relationship rather than isolated in a single moment in time.⁴²

So kinship claims in diplomatic initiatives should not be understood simply in terms of persuasion. They create a bond which both legitimates the request and defines the relationship for the future. Kinship implies that both cities are willing to assist each other if the need arises. It may be that there will be no further contact between the two communities, but the diplomatic exchange is grounded in the idea that this is part of a long-term, indeed permanent, relationship.

Each relationship was individual and important, but together they formed a complex web joining numerous cities scattered throughout the Mediterranean. Such kinship ties became an expression not only of bonds between particular cities but an expression of Greek identity as well, yet one which was flexible and could allow the incorporation of hellenized communities such as Xanthos.

Kinship diplomacy could be supplemented by other strategies which would further mitigate and disguise the raw request. When the Teans approached various Cretan cities about asylia some time in the second century, they drew attention to the kinship which existed betweeen themselves and the Cretans, but they did more than this. One of the ambassadors they sent was Menekles, son of Dionysios, an accomplished cithara-player, probably one of the Artists of Dionysos based in Teos. This man allowed the two parties to share in a relationship in which the appeal was only an element. In the cities he visited, Menekles performed works by Timotheos of Miletos and Polyidos of Selymbria, both well-known in the early hellenistic period, but significantly he also gave renditions of various Cretan poets. Through his appreciation and knowledge of their literature he showed his respect for his Cretan hosts, but by performing this material alongside Timotheos and Polyidos he was going a stage further. His performance became in this way a celebration of Cretan literature as part of Greek culture. His composition of some kind of work on gods and heroes born in Crete served to reinforce this interest in Cretan tradition and may also have drawn attention to the kinship between the Cretans and the Teans. Menekles’ activities thus helped to develop a bond between host cities and the Tean representatives, one which was independent of the purpose of the embassy. The Cretans in turn acknowledged Menekles’ efforts with honorary decrees and praised him for performing in a manner that befitted an educated man (ὡς προσῆκεν ἀνδρὶ πεπαιδευμέ νωι); the stress here is on Greek paideia. The Tean visit to Crete becomes transformed. It is more than an embassy: on one level Menekles’ performance makes it a social occasion, on another level it is for both parties a celebration of Greekness, highlighting Crete’s place in the wider Greek world, a suitable context for international goodwill. Diplomacy, kinship, and Greek cultural identity merge.⁴³

Tradition

These kinship claims are a sign of the importance and vitality of local tradition in the hellenistic world. Each city was distinctive and exploited its own mythical past to form bonds with other communities. Ambassadors drew attention to the manner in which myths were shared and intersected. They may have elaborated these traditions to suit their audience, but they appear to have worked within the mythical and genealogical framework of their community rather than engaged in random invention.⁴⁴ The Magnesians did not pretend to have been founded by Kephalos when approaching the city of Same in Kephallenia. Instead they looked for a way of linking Kephalos with their own eponym Magnes.⁴⁵ The Xanthian inscription is a compelling witness to the interplay of distinctive local traditions: on the Lycian side there is the birth of Apollo and Artemis, on the Dorian side a little of the career of Heraklid Aletes.⁴⁶ Divergent traditions met in very real ways in Ithaka. When the Magnesian ambassadors turned up there, they spoke in the Odysseion, its very name an emphatic statement about the island’s past: such a setting would have given added resonance to any allusion to kinship with the famous hero.⁴⁷ Sometimes, too, cities could share the same mythical figure. The isopoliteia agreement between Tegea and Pergamon which was mentioned above would appear to trace the relationship of the two cities back to the heroic age. For Auge was the common property of both cities. She was at the same time daughter of the Tegean king, Aleos, and mother of the Pergamene hero, Telephos. When Pausanias reports a story that she was buried in Pergamon, he is surely reflecting a local Pergamene tradition.⁴⁸ All these claims had force and value because they were rooted in the accepted mythical past of the cities in question.

There were of course hundreds of Greek cities, and even more competing local traditions. In this final section I take just one example in order to suggest something of the way in which cities could use and adapt their past to suit the needs of the present. I will be considering the use of the Trojan myth by the people of Zakynthos, an island just off the north-west coast of the Peloponnese. An important point to note is that, although kinship is clearly an issue here, this example would not show up if the focus were purely on instances using obvious kinship terms such as syngeneia or even oikeiotēs. Consequently it helps to highlight how extensive, indeed pervasive, kinship ties were in interstate relations.

Sometime in the late fourth or early third century a Zakynthian citizen called Agathon made a dedication at the oracle of Zeus at Dodona in Epeiros. It was an innocent enough gesture, but not one without political overtones. Dodona was controlled by the Molossians and the proxenos of the Molossians and their allies in Zakynthos was Agathon. His family had performed this role for generations. Consequently, by making a dedication there Agathon was affirming his relationship with the Molossians. The dedication is a short text, inscribed on bronze. In it Agathon makes a remarkable claim: he and his family are descended from ‘Trojan Kassandra’. Since the Greek is not without ambiguity, Agathon may even be interpreted as saying that the descendants of Kassandra include not only his family but also all Zakynthians.⁴⁹

The dedication not only illuminates the traditions of each community but also the interaction of such traditions in the diplomacy of the Greek world. It is Kassandra who represents the common ground between the parties involved. Through her a web of kinship is created which bonds Agathon and Zakynthos with the Molossians and Dodona. This Zakynthian Kassandra connects with the long-standing Trojan traditions of Epeiros.

There are many stories of Trojan survivors turning up in Epeiros. Andromache, Helenos, and Aeneas all make appearances: Andromache stays to procreate, Helenos contributes at least one child, founds Bouthroton, and dies in Epeiros, Aeneas makes some dedications at Dodona and hurries on. The Molossian kings, professing descent from Andromache and Neoptolemos, decorate their family-tree with names that highlight their Trojan past. It would not be odd to find Andromache, Helenos, or Troas among the Molossian royalty.⁵⁰

Agathon and the Zakynthians could have found other ways to justify and affirm their close relationship with the Molossians, but kinship with Kassandra offered something special which must have been hard to resist. Her prophetic powers made her peculiarly appropriate for a dedication at the oracle of Zeus. More than this, the importance of Helenos among the Molossians made his sister Kassandra an ideal ancestor to publicize there. The Zakynthian–Molossian friendship could be understood as a reunion of twins. This is not to suggest that the Zakynthians or Agathon and his family invented their relationship with Kassandra for the occasion. It is more probable that they highlighted and developed one aspect of a multitude of now lost local traditions.

Nothing is known of the origins of the story of Kassandra and Zakynthos; this dedication is, as far as I am aware, the only evidence for it. Mythologically it is not implausible. Kassandra did survive the fall of Troy and she was brought back to the Peloponnese by Agamemnon. It is true that she was supposed to have been murdered there, but the array of cults and tombs associated with her in the Peloponnese suggests that there may have been a number of less well-known stories about her circulating in the area. The most celebrated cult and tomb was at Amyklai in Lakonia, not far from an important sanctuary of Apollo.⁵¹ Zakynthos too prided itself on its temple of Apollo and in the fifth and fourth centuries BC regularly used the head of the god as an emblem on its coinage.⁵² As it was Apollo who had given Kassandra her prophetic powers, the two may have played some, no longer recoverable, part in the mythology of early Zakynthos.

This may be all we know about Kassandra and Zakynthos, but there was more to Zakynthos’ Trojan past than Kassandra. Another story about quite a different Trojan was recorded some three centuries later by Dionysios of Halikarnassos. Aeneas, that famous wanderer, stopped at Zakynthos on his westward journey, where, Dionysios tell us, he was well treated because of his kinship with the Zakynthians. Dardanos was the key to this relationship. The eponymous founder of Zakynthos was the son of Dardanos from whom Aeneas and the Trojan royal family were also descended.⁵³ Partly because of this kinship Aeneas and the Trojans built a temple of Aphrodite on Zakynthos, where they offered sacrifices which were still being performed in Dionysios’ day.⁵⁴

Zakynthos is on the coastal route to Italy, so a story about Aeneas might be considered fairly predictable, but the existence of the earlier Kassandra story suggests that there is more to it than a convenient stopping-point for those plotting Aeneas’ route to Italy. Together the stories suggest that the Zakynthians had a sense of a Trojan past which they could draw on in different ways at different times. It was a past, moreover, that was already well-established before the Romans became important in the area.⁵⁵ The constant factor may have been a belief that Zakynthos was a son of Dardanos. In their relations with the Molossians and Dodona, Kassandra could embody that past; in relations with the Romans it was perhaps Aeneas who fulfilled this role.

The Zakynthians certainly had every reason to send an embassy to the Romans, and if they did so they may well have said a little about their Trojan past. Strategically situated between Italy and Greece, the island’s history in the late third and early second centuries reads like that of Greece in miniature. After years of independence its capture by Philip V of Macedon in 217 signalled the growing importance of the West in Greek affairs; it was seized by the Romans in 211, then recaptured by Philip and handed over to Amynandros of the Athamanians sometime around 207; then follows a lull in our evidence until it is plundered by the Romans during the war with Antiochos, bought by the Achaians, reclaimed by the Romans and in 191 relinquished by the Achaians.⁵⁶ There must be room for an embassy to the Romans somewhere here; everyone else was doing it.

This Zakynthian evidence allows us an opportunity to explore the interaction between kinship, international relations, and local tradition. And it is only because the traditions are there and are treated as important that a claim of kinship can have any significance at all.

In several of the examples that have been discussed above, the targets of kinship claims are peoples whose Greekness might be open to question, such as Lycians, Molossians, or Romans.⁵⁷ What are we to make of this? Should we see here cunning Greeks getting their way by fuelling the pretensions of other peoples? Scholars have certainly said this about Greek relations with the Romans.⁵⁸ The unusual fullness of the decree of the Lycian Xanthians, inscribed for posterity, does suggest that they at least did see the Kytinian claims as an affirmation of their own Greekness. But the perception of the recipient and the outlook of the appellant need not be the same. If I am right that kinship arguments are as much about setting up a suitable framework as they are about persuasion, then the presence of these borderline Greeks can be understood in other ways. Where there is regular and frequent contact between two states, there is not so much need to ground an appeal in kinship terms, because a framework already exists. But paradoxically the less familiarity there is, the more likely we are to find kinship arguments.

* For Michelle who saw beyond the text.

Epigraphical abbreviations

Inscr. Magn.	Kern, O. Die Inschriften von Magnesia am Maeander, Berlin,
	1900.
IC	Guarducci, M. Inscriptiones Creticae, 4 vols., Rome, 1935–50.
I.Lamp.	Frisch, P. Die Inschriften von Lampsakos, Bonn, 1978.
I.Perg.	Fraenkel, M. and Habicht, C., Die Inschriften von Pergamon, 3 vols.,
	Berlin, 1890–1969.
Milet	Fredrich, C. and Rehm, A., Milet, Berlin, 5 parts published,
	1908–28.
SEG	Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, Leiden and Amsterdam,
	1923–

Notes

¹ Polyb. 9.42.5–8, though the appeals do not seem to have met with much success, 11.5.8, 22.8.9–10. For Polybios’ interest in such Greek/Roman culture clashes, cf. also 20.9–10.

² Syracuse: Thuc. 6.3.2. Pharos: Diod. 15.13.4; Strabo 7.5.5; Steph. Byz. s.v. Φάρος (Ephoros FGrH 70 F 89); Ps. Scymn. 426–7 (in GGM I, p. 212); Robert 1935, 494–5. Lampsakos: Charon FGrH 262 F 7; Ephoros FGrH 70 F 46; Pomponius Mela 1.97; Steph. Byz. s.v. Λάμψακος; Magie 1950, 903 n. 118. Massalia: Thuc. 1.13.6; Isoc. 6.84; Paus. 10.8.6.

³ Hdt. 5.97; Thuc. 1.95.1, 3.86.2–3; Curty 1994; Hornblower 1996, 64–70; Mitchell 1997, 23–8; Jones 1999, 27–35.

⁴ This chapter develops and at times echoes arguments put forward in Erskine 2001.

⁵ Inscr. Magn. 16–87; Rigsby 1996, 176–279 gives the text of all the responses, together with commentary. The stones are now to be found in Berlin, not Turkey.

⁶ Curty 1995, 108–24 collects and discusses the syngeneia examples. Homogeneia appears in only one response (Inscr. Magn. 26). Elwyn 1993, 263 lists 31 responses that include kinship terms.

⁷ Inscr. Magn. 52.16–19.

⁸ Inscr. Magn. 35.12–14.

⁹ Apollod. 1.7.3.4, 1.9.4; the story that it was Kephalos, son of Deïon, who was the eponym of Kephallenia is also to be found in Etym. Magn. 144.24–6, where Aristotle’s Politeia of the Ithakans is given as the authority.

¹⁰ Inscr. Magn. 61.9–20.

¹¹ Inscr. Magn. 46.8–12 (Epidamnos); for allusion to these services, 35.8, 36.8, 44.13–14, 45.22–3, 46.27–8.

¹² Curty 1995, 224–41; Will 1995; Hornblower 1996, 64–7; Giovannini 1997; Jones 1999, 13–14, 31. Lücke 2000, 12–27 plays down syngeneia as ‘blood kinship’ and instead prefers to emphasize its metaphorical uses. For similarities between kinship and guest-friendship (or ritualized friendship), Herman 1987, 16–29. On homogeneia, its meaning, and its rarity, Rigsby 1996, 202.

¹³ So Hornblower 1996, 64–7 in contrast to Will 1995.

¹⁴ Inscr. Magn. 35.12–14.

¹⁵ Inscr. Magn. 36.1–6; Rigsby 1996, 213–14 notes the relationship between Deïon and Odysseus but seems to doubt that the ambassadors mentioned it.

¹⁶ Inscr. Magn. 33.

¹⁷ Cf. Bousquet 1988, 30 n. 25 on interchangeability of oikeiotēs and syngeneia. Contrast Jones 1999, 44, who can see oikeiotēs as indicative of a reluctance to acknowledge kinship.

¹⁸ Musti 1963; for the Kos texts, see now Rigsby 1996, 106–53.

¹⁹ Many such scholars are quoted by Musti 1963, 238.

²⁰ Curty 1995, and the discussions that it provoked, notably Will 1995, Hornblower 1996, 61–80, Giovannini 1997, Jones 1999, Lücke 2000.

²¹ First mentioned in Robert 1935, 498 n. 1; for subsequent mentions of this work, later given the title ‘Les origines légendaires de Synnada et les parentés de peuples’, see Curty 1995, 261 n. 12.

²² Bousquet 1988. Substantial discussions of this text appear in Curty 1995, 183–91, Jones 1999, 61–2, 139–43, Lücke 2000, 30–52.

²³ Lines 73–6.

²⁴ Bousquet 1988, lines 14–42; translation is my own but follows Jones 1999, 139–40 on line 25.

²⁵ Bousquet 1988, 30–2, Keen 1998, 194–201.

²⁶ Summary: lines 30–1; donation: lines 49–65; on the meagreness of 500 dr., Lücke 2000, 46–7, who notes that a few years later the Xanthians gave an Ilian orator 400 dr. in gratitude for a good lecture; J. and L. Robert 1983, no. 15B (SEG 33.1184). An invitation to dinner was a standard diplomatic courtesy, Mosley 1973, 79.

²⁷ Peloponnesian origin of Trojans: DH AR 1.61–2; Romans are Greek: DH AR 1.5, 1.89–90.

²⁸ Inscr. Magn. 35.9, 36.9, 44.15, 46.13; the similarity in phrasing suggests that the responses were here modelled on a document carried by the ambassadors, the same group of ambassadors in each case. At Megalopolis the Magnesians appear to have produced some document that named all the Megalopolitan ambassadors who had approached Magnesia for money some 150 years previously, Inscr. Magn. 38.22–31. One should note, though, that documents would not have been solely used to prove kinship claims.

²⁹ αἱ περὶ τούτων ἱστορίαι καὶ τἆλλα ἔγγραφα, Milet. 1.3: 155, Curty no. 58.

³⁰ Curty 1995, 254–5; Elwyn 1993, 263–7.

³¹ For family obligations, Dover 1974, 273–8; Millett 1991, 127–39; also 109–12 on Arist. NE 1165a14–35.

³² Elwyn 1993, 265–7.

³³ Attitudes towards beggars and begging, Garland 1995, 25–6, 39; Hands 1968, 63–6, 77–9; cf. Philostrat. VA 4.10 for the stoning to death of a beggar believed to be a demon responsible for a plague in Ephesos.

³⁴ Chariton 2.5.8, trans. Goold.

³⁵ Most 1989, 133; Baslez 1984, 41–5.

³⁶ Erskine 2001, 169–72.

³⁷ I.Lamp. 4; kinship: lines 18–25, 29–32, 56–62; lines 29–32 quoted.

³⁸ Text quoted above; acceptance of the Kytinian claims, lines 46–9, 65–8.

³⁹ Gonnos: Inscr. Magn. 33, lines 14–16. Kydonia: IC II.x.2, lines 3–4 (Rigsby 1996, no. 139). Kytinion: Bousquet 1988, lines 14–16 (cf. lines 30–2, ‘the goodwill based on kinship which has joined them to us from ancient times’), cf. Inscr. Magn. 61, lines 34–5, IC II.iii.2, lines 7–8 (Rigsby no. 154), IC I.v.53, lines 25–6 (Rigsby no. 159), Rigsby no. 161, lines 16–17.

⁴⁰ Bousquet 1988, lines 65–8.

⁴¹ I.Perg. I.156.17–23 (Curty 1995, no. 41).

⁴² Ma 1999, 186–7.

⁴³ Syngeneia appears in the Cretan decrees acknowledging asylia, Rigsby 154 (Aptera), 155 (Eranna), 156 (Biannos), 157 (Malla), 159 (Arkades), 160 (Hyrtakina). Reference to the performances occurs in the Cretan decrees honouring the ambassadors, IC I.viii.11 (Knossos), I.xxiv.1 (Priansos), discussed and partially quoted in Chaniotis 1988a, 348–9; Lücke 2000, 21–3, 130–1. For the popularity of Timotheos, Hordern 2002, ch. 7. On the reception of Polyidos, Parian Marble Ep. 68, p.18 (ed. Jacoby); [Plut.] Mus. 21.1138AB; Diod. 14.46 (references courtesy of James Hordern). On performing embassies, Chaniotis 1988b.

⁴⁴ Cf. Curty 1995, 242–53.

⁴⁵ Inscr. Magn. 35, lines 13–14.

⁴⁶ Bousquet 1988, lines 17–19, 24–30.

⁴⁷ See n. 15 above

⁴⁸ I.Perg. I.156; Auge is not explicitly cited as the link but her mention in l. 24 makes it very likely, Curty no. 41; on the tomb, Paus. 8.4.9; on Telephos and Pergamon, Hansen 1971, 5–6, 338–48; Scheer 1993, 71–152.

⁴⁹ Θεός. Τύχα. Ζεῦ Δωδώνης μεδέων, τόδε σοι δῶρον πέμπω παρ' ἐμοῦ Ἀγάθων Ἐχεφύλου καὶ γενεὰ πρόξενοι Μολόσσων καὶ συμμάχων ἐν τριάκοντα γενεαῖς ἐκ Τρωΐας Κασσάνδρας γενεὰ Ζακύνθιοι; the last two lines are interrupted by the image of a phallus. Text as printed by Egger in Carapanos 1878, 196–9 (= BCH 1 (1877) 254–8); see also Davreux 1942, 85. For illustration, Dakaris 1964, pl. 4; date: Franke 1955, 38; Hammond 1967, 534 (soon after 334 BC); Davreux 1942, 85 (first half of 3rd century BC). It is also possible, though less likely, that this is merely some local dating system and not a claim of descent, cf. Coppola, 1994, 179, but even so the use of Kassandra in such a way would be odd in itself.

⁵⁰ Full discussion of Epeiros’ Trojan past can be found in Erskine 2001, 122–3, 160–1.

⁵¹ Amyklai: Paus. 3.19.6, cf. 2.16.6–7; Apollo: Polyb. 5.19.2. Kassandra in Lakonia, Erskine 2001, 113–16

⁵² Head 1911, 429–31.

⁵³ For the relationship of Aeneas and Hector to Dardanos, Hom. Il. 20.215–41; Paus. 8.24.3 too knows of Zakynthos as the son of Dardanos.

⁵⁴ DH AR 1.50.3–4; they were also believed to have set up a festival that included a foot-race to the temple known as the race of Aeneas and Aphrodite.

⁵⁵ Cf. Vanotti 1995, 156.

⁵⁶ Polyb. 5.102.10; Livy 26.24.15, 36.31.10–32, 36.42.4–5; Briscoe 1981, 268–9.

⁵⁷ Jones, 1999, 16, goes too far when he writes ‘One of the major functions of kinship diplomacy was to mediate between hellenes and barbarians.’ For ways in which Greeks could use mythology to approach non-Greek peoples, Bickerman 1952.

⁵⁸ For instance, Perret 1942, 283; Errington 1972, 281 n. 28; Gruen 1992, 49.

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