The Rhodians

In his discussion of the preliminaries of the great siege of Rhodos that earned Demetrios Poliorketes his ironic nickname, Diodoros of Sicily treats the close economic connection between the Rhodians and Ptolemaic Egypt; the Rhodians, Diodoros claims, provided the bottoms to export Egyptian grain and import other goods. The speaker of the Demosthenic speech Against Dionysiodoros imputes similar ties in the late fourth century when Kleomenes was in charge of Egypt.^[33] This tie with Egypt served as the foundation of the role Rhodos played in the economic life of the Hellenistic world.

But economic power (without being more specific about what that was) did not necessarily spell political influence, and neither can it be assumed that Rhodian political decisions were inevitably based on economic considerations. This point should be obvious, but modern commentators are fond of statements such as "It perhaps goes without saying that one mechanism of Rhodes' control [of the Kyklades in the second century] was its tremendous economic influence among the islands,"^[34] which in fact are very hard to justify. The role of the Rhodians in the Second Syrian War offers a very good example of the embarrassments that arise from equating political and economic interests. The Rhodians chose to fight against their long-standing Ptolemaic allies, whom they defeated ca. 258 in the battle of Ephesos. This defection from "their most important trading partner" has issued in theories of a Rhodian policy to avoid a "world-monarchy": Rhodian "policy makers were farsighted enough to realize that the predominance of

[32] Brulé, 35–61, Petropoulou, 35–45, Berthold, 98–99; Patrick Baker, Cos et Calymna (Québec, 1991), passim.

[33] Diod. 20.81.4, cf. also 46.6; [Demos.] 56.3. See also chapter 3, pp. 76–80, above.

[34] Berthold, 143 n. 45.

any one power, even Egypt, would almost certainly mean the end of the republic's autonomy and influence."^[35]

This sounds as if the Rhodians had anticipated the outcome of the war against Perseus by almost one hundred years. Moreover, the Rhodians had no trouble supporting the Ptolemies during their remarkably successful years from 287 to 267, when they liberated Athens, controlled the Kyklades, seized Samos and bases in Asia Minor, held Koile Syria, and fought the Seleukids in the First Syrian War. Surely, if the Ptolemies looked about to recreate a world empire in 260 B.C. , they had already started on that road by 279. Why did the Rhodians not act to stop them earlier? Or again, in the Third Syrian War, which started out looking like a sure defeat for the Seleukids, which would have delivered a huge land empire into Ptolemaic hands, the Rhodians stayed loyal. Given the assumption that economic considerations loomed large in Rhodian policy-making, choosing to oppose their premier trading partner would at any time have been exceedingly risky.

Once again, local political concerns are the better place to look for an explanation. Since 279, the Ptolemies had controlled numerous cities in Karia, Pamphylia, and elsewhere in littoral Asia Minor. The causes of the Second Syrian War remain very obscure, but it is clear at least that the revolt of Ptolemaios the Son resulted in the loss to the Ptolemies of many possessions in Asia Minor. When the war began, then, it looked, not as if the Ptolemies were about to recover Alexander's empire, but rather as if instability and unwelcome tyranny were spreading right in Rhodos's back yard, making the region ripe for exploitation. Antiokhos II had, of course, the same idea; by working together, he and the Rhodians could carve up former Ptolemaic possessions. This, it seems to me, provides a much better explanation of Rhodian opposition to the Ptolemies. It also, at least partly, decouples political and economic policy.^[36]

Our examination of Rhodian activities in the Kyklades reinforces this position. In the late fourth and early third centuries, the Rhodians stepped in to replace Athenian suppliers of olive oil to the Kyklades. Yet throughout the years of these activities, there is not the slightest indication of Rhodian attempts to obtain political jurisdiction over the archipelago. There is no sign of Rhodian political or military activity either in 311, when Polemaios revolted from Antigonos Monophthalmos, or in 308, when Ptole-

[35] Berthold, 92, 91. For "world-monarchy," see H. van Gelder, Geschichte der alten Rhodier (The Hague, 1900), 110.

[36] Will I , 168–200, on Ptolemaic foreign policy.

maios I took advantage of the confused situation, or in 307, when Demetrios came back through the islands, or in 288, when control of the archipelago was up in the air.

The same is true for the last two decades of the third century. Amphora finds on Delos, although not yet fully published, demonstrate a striking interest in Delos beginning after 220 B.C. From ca. 275 to 220 B.C. , an average of only 0.6 handles/yr has been found on Delos; for the years from ca. 220 to 175, the figure leaps to 9.9 handles/yr.^[37] Yet again, this economic interest, which may have been fueled largely by a demand for better-quality wine (see above), led to virtually no political involvement. Rhodian interventions against Demetrios and Dikaiarkhos (in the context of their First Kretan War) are their only attested activities in the Kyklades before the decisive events of the Second Makedonian War. In the one case, they were acting to expel an outsider whose presence had larger political and military implications; in the other, they were expanding military activity that had begun as a result of Kretan raids in the immediate territory of Rhodos, not in the Kyklades.^[38] These events may well have alerted the Rhodians that the central Aegean, a region close to their own shores, was essentially a political vacuum, absent any outside hegemon,^[39] and that the islands had become fairly prosperous since the last Rhodian incursion. But such a realization, if indeed it occurred, did not eventuate in action until the support of the Attalids and the Romans facilitated intervention in the archipelago after 200 B.C.

The Rhodian domination of 199–167 B.C. had real political consequences. The Rhodians exacted alliances, reactivated the Island League, compelled the islanders to serve in a Nesiotic fleet, stationed troops on Tenos, encouraged or pressured islanders to adopt Rhodian-style constitutions, entangled the islanders in the wars they fought, and probably supported local figures like Telemnestos son of Aristeides on Delos, who has been implicated in a pro-Rhodian policy during the 190s and 180s.^[40] But it would be a mistake to impute a clear economic aspect to this policy. Am-

[37] Computed with adjustments from data published by Virginia R. Grace and Maria Savvatianou-Pétropoulako in L'llot de la Maison des comédiens (Paris, 1970), ch. 14; cf. Virginia Grace, BCH 76 (1952): 522–33; John H. Kent in Studies Presented to David Moore Robinson (St. Louis, 1953), II.127–34; and J.-Y. Empereur, BCH 106 (1982): 224. The numbers may well include an error of a few percent. One must be very cautious in interpreting this material; cf. the remarks of Empereur, 219–25, and chapter 5, pp. 163–64, above.

[38] See n. 32, above.

[39] "Political vacuum" in the Aegean: Berthold, 97–98, cf. Etienne, 124.

[40] See chapter 2, pp. 19–20, 27–30, 34, 37, 40–41, above.

phora handles tell part of the tale: 92 handles dated ca. 220–210 have been found, or an average deposition rate of 9.2/yr; for ca. 210–175 the figure is 10.0/yr, a change of no significance.^[41] Despite the wealth of epigraphical evidence from Rhodos, only fifteen Kykladic islanders are attested there, and several of them date to after the end of Rhodian control of the islands.^[42] There was neither a "federal" coinage nor any attempt to impose Rhodian money on the islands. Unlike in the Peraia or at Kaunos and Stratonikeia, the Rhodians did not demand tribute or other payments. The development of the Delian and Kykladic economies antedated the Rhodian presence, and the forces that drove them continued to operate into the second century. The real break in Delian development fell not under the Rhodians—although there can be no doubt that the numbers of outsiders grew in the second century—but after 167 B.C. , when Delos was made a free port to punish Rhodos, and especially after 146 B.C. , when the destruction of Korinthos brought Delos's trade to levels it had not before experienced.^[43]