PART I
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
Inscription numbers printed in boldface type are by one of the letter-cutters dealt with in Part II.
Chaironeia to Ipsos and Beyond
The battle of Chaironeia marked a significant break in the affairs of Greece. The once-powerful city-states now found themselves under the domination of the kingdom of Macedonia.[1] Indeed, the league of Corinth had voted to wage war against the Persians with Philip, king of the Macedonians, at its head. Philip's murder in the summer of 336 created no fundamental change in this general situation; rather it solidified Alexander's position by allowing him quickly both to discern his possible enemies and to bring them firmly under his control. Indeed, by late summer he was made general by the congress of the Greek states at Corinth and in his father's place led the Greek invasion against Persia.[2] This ascendancy of Macedonia to the leadership of Greece forever changed the political situation and, though most Greeks were naturally unable to see it at the time, made powerful city-states a thing of the past.
In the aftermath of his victory at Chaironeia in 338, Philip treated Athens leniently, perhaps influenced by the intellectual achievements of the Athenians, but more probably out of the realization that Athens still had significant naval power. He refrained from marching on Attica and returned all Athenian prisoners without ransom. In return, the Athenians had to disband their confederacy and make alliance with Philip, thereby recognizing his power. He also agreed to return Oropos to Athenian control but took the Chersonese for Macedonia.[3] Under the circumstances, the
[1] IG II 236 (= Tod, GHI no. 177 = Heisserer 8-16) preserves part of the oath sworn by the cities in their treaty with Philip after Chaironeia. As party to the peace pact and to the league, the Athenians had to agree to furnish ships and cavalry to Philip (Plutarch Phokion 16.4-5).
[2] IG II 329 (= Heisserer 3-26) apparently preserves a small part of Alexander's alliance with Athens and the Greek states that was concluded soon after his accession to power.
[3] Diodoros 16.87; Plutarch Mor . 715c, Phokion 16.4-6; [Demades] 9. On Athens and Oropos, see below 92-93. D. Knoepfler argues that it was not Philip in the year 338, but Alexander in 335, who returned Oropos to Athenian control (in M. Piérart, ed., Aristote et Athènes [Paris 1993] 295-296 and n. 50).
conditions were remarkably mild. Philip did not even station a garrison in Attica, but rather was satisfied to place one in the Kadmeia at Thebes.
Although Demades, the orator, negotiated these terms, the main leaders of Athens after Chaironeia came to be Lykourgos, an expert in finance, and Phokion, general and statesman.[4] They recognized the necessity of accommodating Macedonian wishes.[5] In the first few years after the battle, however, they and the anti-Macedonian faction led by Demosthenes clearly retained some hope of regaining influence for Athens. Many Athenians, Demosthenes among them, relied on the Persians for support. In any event, they set about strengthening the defensive walls of the city.[6] They clearly also perceived that the democracy as they knew it was threatened, for they passed in the spring of 336, just months before Philip was assassinated, a law against anyone's attempting its overthrow.[7] And when
[4] Demades did play an important role and clearly had Lykourgos' confidence. Fordyce Mitchel has shown in a study of IG II 1493 that he served as treasurer of the military fund from 334/3 to 330/29 (TAPA 93 [1962] 219-223) and must, therefore, have cooperated with Lykourgos on Athenian financial matters. They also shared the legislative duties and on three occasions that we know about proposed measures at the same meeting of the assembly, viz. in 334/3 (IG II 335, 405, 414a ), in 332/1 (IG II 346, 346), and 328/7 (IG II 399, 452). On all these see Ch. Habicht, "Zwei athenische Volksbeschlösse aus der Ära Lykurgs, IG II 399 und 452," Chiron 19 (1989) 1-5 and nn. 24, 25. Demades was also a colleague of Lykourgos on a commission to supervise the festival at the Amphiaraion in 329 (IG VII 4254) and at about that same time accompanied him to Delphi as a hierope in charge of the Pythaïs (Fouilles de Delphes III.1 no. 511).
[5] One of the primary tools used by Athenian leaders to bolster their position with Philip (and later with Alexander and his successors) was the granting of public honors to himself and his friends. It is scarcely accidental that Philip, his son Alexander, and his general Antipatros were honored with Athenian citizenship not long after the peace had been concluded following Chaironeia. (For the collected evidence, see Osborne, Naturalization III T68-70.) This policy is spelled out by the orator Archedikos of Lamptrai in lines 3-7 of IG II 402.
[6] Aischines 3.27 gives the date as the twelfth month of the year when Chairondas was archon (338/7). IG II 244, a decree concerning the repair of the fortifications of Piraeus, records part of this activity.
[7] Agora I 6524, published in Hesperia 21 (1952) 355-359 = Schwenk no. 6. The speaker of this decree is not Demosthenes, but Eukrates of Piraeus, another ardent supporter of democracy. His life was demanded by Antipatros after Krannon in 322 (Lucian Demos. Encore . 31). The language of this measure specifies severe penalties for any member of the Areopagos who cooperates with someone attempting to subvert the democracy. The emphasis on the Areopagos is natural, for it was a standing body of senior ex-archons that could be a useful tool for a would-be tyrant. The measure was surely meant to safeguard the democracy and, as such, was probably intended to shield the members of the Areopagos and give them added importance; it is not, I think, an attack on them as a pro-Macedonian element. For a full discussion of this measure and the Areopagos, see R. W. Wallace, The Areopagos Council, to 307 (Baltimore 1989) 179-184. For a different point of view see W. Will, Athen und Alexander (Munich 1983) 28-30.
Philip died, the Athenians, at Demosthenes' instigation, actually passed a decree in honor of Philip's assassin[8] an act of which they quickly repented when Alexander swiftly marched south through Thessaly. They dispatched an embassy to treat with him, which he received kindly.
The Athenians, at least some of them, continued naturally to hope for an escape from their Macedonian hegemon. The next year, when word spread that Alexander had died on his campaign in Illyria, they plotted to free themselves. In particular, Demosthenes, Lykourgos, and other Athenians encouraged the Thebans to rid themselves of the Macedonian garrison on their citadel.[9] They provided arms and money and even voted to send an army. Alexander, however, appeared suddenly before Thebes, razed the city, and demanded that the Athenians turn over to him Demosthenes, Lykourgos, and other anti-Macedonian activists.[10] This was late summer or early autumn of 335 B.C. Demades once again headed an embassy and succeeded in persuading Alexander to drop his demand.[11] Clearly he was able to assure him of complete Athenian acquiescence, even cooperation, with his rule.
How he did this we are not completely sure. Assuredly Alexander was too hardheaded simply to accept promises from those who had shown themselves to be repeatedly untrustworthy; therefore, it must have been at this time that the Athenians formally committed twenty triremes for Alexander's expedition against Persia.[12] They and their crews in essence served as hostages to assure Athenian good behavior.[13] Moreover, after his decisive initial victory over the Persians at Granikos, Alexander lost no time in sending to Athens as a dedication to Athena three hundred panoplies with the following inscription: 
[14] This reminder of his power was surely meant to have special point for his would-be opponents among the Athenians.[15]
[8] Plutarch Demos . 22, Phokion 16.6.
[9] [Demades] 17, Vit. X Orat . 847c, Plutarch Demos . 23.1, Arrian Ahab . 1.7.2-3, Aelian VH 12.57.
[10] Plutarch Phokion 17.1-3, Alex . 11.4-6; Arrian Anab . 1.10.4.
[11] [Demades] 16-20, Plutarch Demos . 23.2-5.
[12] Despite his reported opposition to supplying ships to Alexander (Vit. X Chat . 847c), Demosthenes will have been one of the architects of this arrangement.
[13] This is why they were one of the few Greek naval contingents kept on after Miletos was taken in 334 (Diodoros 17.22.5).
[14] Arrian Anab . 1.16.7, Plutarch Alex . 16.8.
[15] That Alexander came to harbor a grudge against the Athenians and would have dealt with them, had he lived long enough, is suggested by an anecdote reported by Athenaios (12.538b). At an entertainment for the troops at Ekbatana in 324 Gorgos, Alexander's hoplophylax , jestingly offered to supply Alexander "whenever he besieges Athens" with myriad panoplies, catapults, and weapons for the fight. On Gorgos, see Heisserer 169-203.
Once the Athenians agreed to accept Macedonian hegemony, they were able to prosper in the peace which Alexander's control and absence over the next twelve years made possible. The prosperity of Athens under the financial leadership of Lykourgos during these years was perhaps as great as at any time in its history.[16] The source of the revenue was apparently commerce and the silver mines at Laureion, which were actively being worked.[17] Important buildings and cult centers were built or refurbished, principally the Panathenaic stadium and the theater of Dionysos.[18] The inscriptions reveal that the fleet was well maintained,[19] and a new arsenal designed by the architect Philon was completed in Piraeus.[20] Complementing this, the training of young men as soldiers, the ephebeia, gained an active new life.[21] Clearly Lykourgos, Phokion, Demades, and
[16] In 307 the orator Stratokles of Diomeia proposed a fulsome decree honoring Lykourgos for his leadership. This important political document is preserved in Vit. X Orat . 852 and in a fragmentary inscription, IG II 457. On the man and his times, see F. W. Mitchel, Lykourgan Athens : 338-322, Lectures in Memory of Louise Taft Semple, 2d series (Cincinnati 1970); J. Engels, "Zur Stellung Lykurgs und zur Aussagekraft seines Militär- und Bauprogramms for die Demokratie vor 322 v. Chr.," Ancient Society 23 (1992) 5-29; and M. Faraguna, Atene nell'età di Alessandro , Atti Acc. Naz. dei Lincei, ser. 9, vol. 2, fasc. 2 (Rome 1992).
[17] On this point see Faraguna, Atene 289-322. For texts of the mining lease inscriptions which date from 367/6 to ca . 300, see Agora XIX nos. P5-16, 18-30, 32-41, 43, 44, 50, 51. R. J. Hopper, in "The Attic Silver Mines in the Fourth Century B.C. ," ABSA 48 (1953) 200-254, and "The Laurion Mines: A Reconsideration," ABSA 63 (1968) 293-326, provides the basic discussion of these important texts.
[18] On Lykourgos' building activity, see IG II 457b lines 5-9; Vit. X Orat . 852b. M. Maass, Die Prohedrie des Dionysostheaters in Athen (Munich 1972) 22-32, has shown that the Lykourgan rebuilding of the theater also included the fine thrones for the proedroi . The fragmentary honorary decree at the University of Mississippi published in Hesperia 55 (1986) 177-182 that mentions in line 3 "the skene" may well, as its initial editors, A. J. Heisserer and R. A. Moysey, suggest, be part of the record of this renovation.
[19] IG II 1623-1632; IG II 1627 line 269 lists the number of triremes in 330/29 as 392.
[20] IG II 1668 and 457b line 6. On it see A. L'infert, J. Mausbach, et al., Die Skeuothek des Philon im Piräus (Cologne 1981). Its remains have now been identified (BCH 113 [1989] 589).
[21] Ath. Pol . 42 gives a description of its organization. The spurt of dedications made by the ephebes during the years 334/3 and 333/2 dearly marks in my view when this occurred. There are now eleven texts known from these two years. In addition to the eight collected by Reinmuth (nos. 2-9), we may now add two more of the year 333/2, namely IG II 3105 + 2401 (ABSA 84 [1989] 333-336) and Eleusis inv. no. E1103 (AE , 1988, 19-30). In addition, E W. Mitchel, "The So-Called Earliest Ephebic Inscription," ZPE 19 (1975) 233-243, esp. 240-241, has seen that the first inscription in Reinmuth's collection really belongs to the year of Ktesikles (334/3).
the others sought to keep Athens in a posture to exercise a role in world affairs if the opportunity presented itself.[22]
Alongside the building program, Lykourgos promoted the religious institutions which underlay the life of the city.[23] For example, in addition to rebuilding the theater, he had official city copies made of the plays of the three great tragedians for the dramatic festivals, primarily the Dionysia.[24] We also have a law proposed about the year 336 B.C. to set aside special moneys in a fund to support the annual, or lesser, Panathenaia.[25] Clearly this document reveals a concern to set the annual celebration on a firmer financial footing. We may suspect that it had fallen on hard times. The proposer of the measure is not Lykourgos, but Aristonikos of Marathon,[26] one of his supporters, who was later condemned and executed by the Macedonians, viz. in 322 after the battle of Krannon.[27] In the year 334 Lykourgos himself proposed a long measure for refurbishing the religious sanctuaries of Attica.[28] He probably also authored a law requiring liturgists to make a dedication.[29] His double interests in public finance and the state religion are also evident in accounts from the sanctuary at Eleusis,
[23] IG II 337, a decree proposed by Lykourgos granting the Kitians the right to a piece of land on which to have a shrine of Aphrodite, has generally been taken to be part of this program, but it deals with foreigners and more correctly is seen as evidence of Lykourgos' efforts to encourage the presence of foreign traders in Piraeus (below 114).
[24] Vit. X Orat . 841f.
[25] IG II 334 + = Schwenk no. 17. The concern for regulating festivals and putting them in order financially seems to have been a major goal of the city under Lykourgos. In addition to this text dealing with the Panathenaia, we have fragmentary regulations all dating roughly 330 B.C. for the Dipolieia (Agora I 6421) and for two other festivals that included athletic competitions (Agora 17063 the Amphiaraia? and EM 12896 the Eleusinia?).
[26] PA 2028.
[27] Plutarch Demos . 28, Lucian Demos. Encom . 31.
[28] IG II 333 = Schwenk no. 21. D. Harris, AJA 96 (1992) 637-652, has suggested that the statues on the Acropolis inventoried in IG II 1498-1501A were to be melted down (p. 643) as part of this process. IG II 403, a decree authorizing repair of a statue of Athena Nike, may well belong to this time (I. Mark, TheSanctuary of Athena Nike in Athens , Hesperia Suppl. 26 [1993] 113-114). IG II 310, which is very probably of Lykourgan date and apparently contains regulations governing a sanctuary, should also perhaps be connected with this activity.
[29] IG II 1575A line 2 as restored by D. M. Lewis in Hesperia 37 (1968) 376 n. 22.
where he was closely involved in the details of financing building projects,[30] as well as in providing funds to the religious officials.[31]
The strong example set by Lykourgos of financially supporting and renewing the cults of the city filtered down, it is amply apparent, to the local level, to local organizations and to individuals. We find, for example, the demesmen of Cholargos establishing regulations in 334/3 for the local Thesmophoria,[32] those of Eleusis making financial arrangements in 332/1 so that the sacrifice to Herakles in Akris can be as beautiful as possible,[33] and those in Piraeus seeing in 324/3 to the theater, one of the primary focal points of the civic and religious life of the deme.[34] In general, the comparatively frequent honors granted to persons active in the theater may reflect the heightened emphasis under Lykourgos on the religious festivals.[35] In any case, at Aixone in 326/5 the demesmen honored their victorious choregoi and authorized a sacrifice of thanksgiving.[36] Likewise, the tribe Pandionis in the same year honored its producer.[37] At Acharnai, one of the largest demes, the demesmen passed, most probably during this Lykourgan boom of religious fervor, regulations for financing the construction of altars to Ares and Athena Areia.[38] On a more humble level the orgeones of the Heros Iatros leased a garden in 333/2 to a certain Thrasyboulos, presumably one part of their activities financing the worship.[39] Individuals too are often singled out for their acts of piety. Around the year 330, for example, the deme members of Melite honored Neoptolemos, son of Antikles, of Melite for his activities with regard to the temple of Artemis;[40]
[30] IG II 1672 line 11, 1673 lines 64-65. On the latter, see K. Clinton, "Inscriptions from Eleusis," AE , 1971, 83-113, esp. 104-105. Indeed, there was major building activity at Eleusis under him. The walls were extensively repaired (Kourouniotes, Eleusiniaka 1189-208; IG II 1672 lines 1-75), and the portico of Philon on the west side of the Telesterion was brought to completion (IG II 1670, 1671, 1675).
[31] IG II 1672 lines 302-303. See also on his activities reorganizing cults and finances, M. Faraguna, Atene nell'età di Alessandro , Atti Acc. Naz. dei Lincei, ser. 9, vol. 2, fasc. 2 (Rome 1992) 355-380.
[32] IG II 1184 = Schwenk no. 26.
[33] REG 91 (1978) 289-306 lines 1-17 = Schwenk no. 43.
[34] IG II 1176 = Schwenk no. 76.
[35] The city honored in 332/1 the dramatist Amphis from Andros (IG II 347) and in the same year or the next an actor (IG II 348).
[36] IG II 1198 = Schwenk no. 66.
[37] IG II 1157 = Schwenk no. 65.
[38] Robert, Études épigraphiques et philologiques 293-296.
[39] EM 13051 = Schwenk no. 32.
[40] Agora I 6969, published by J. Threpsiades and E. Vanderpool, "Themistokles' Sanctuary of Artemis Aristoboule," Arch. Delt . 19 (1964) 26-36. P. Amandry ("Thémistocle a Mélité," in Charisterion eis A. K. Orlandon IV [1967-68] 265-279) has raised what appear to be valid reservations about the identification with the temple purportedly founded by Themistokles (Plutarch Mor . 869c-d).
the genos of the Eumolpids at Eleusis also apparently honored this same [Neopto]lemos for beautifying the sanctuary of Plouton;[41] the genos of Krokonidai praised the son of Aristodemos for his careful construction of the shrine of Hestia;[42] and the Teithrasioi lauded the piety of their representatives to the council.[43] These myriad activities suggest widespread local support for the policies of Lykourgos.
Last, but hardly least, Aristotle returned to Athens from Macedonia about 335 and opened his school in the Lyceum. In this endeavor he clearly had, despite his thoroughgoing Macedonian background, Lykourgos' support, for one of the buildings which we know Lykourgos specifically had a hand in building was the gymnasium in the Lyceum.[44] The school flourished, and it was here that many works were produced, including the Athenaion Politeia , a history of the development of the Athenian constitution and description of its organization at the time of Lykourgos. At Oropos there was considerable activity in the sanctuary of the oracle of Amphiaraos which now played a significant role in Athenian religious life. The fountain and waterworks were repaired;[45] more significantly provisions were passed under the supervision of the Atthidographer Phanodemos for improvements to the sanctuary and for a quadrennial festival for Amphiaraos.[46] The first games were held in 329/8 under the supervision of a distinguished board of ten men that included both Lykourgos and Demades.[47] It was, on the whole, a fine time domestically for the city and its people.[48]
However, in the year 331 King Agis of Sparta with the support of the Persians attempted to rally the mainland Greeks for a revolt against the
[41] IG II 1231.
[42] IG II 1229.
[43] EM 13336 = Agora XV no. 45.
[44] IG II 457b lines 7-8; Vit. X Orat . 852b.
[45] IG II 338 (= IG VII 3499 = Schwenk no. 28).
[46] IG VII 4252 (= Schwenk no. 40) and 4253 (= Schwenk no. 41). See now on this festival D. Knoepfler, "Adolf Wilhelm et la pentétèris des Amphiaraia d'Oropos," in Aristote et Athè-nes , ed. M. Piérart (Paris 1993), 279-302.
[47] IG VII 4254 (= Schwenk no. 50); Knoepfler, ibid ., esp. 296-301, persuasively argues that IG VII 414 + SEG 1 no. 126, the victor list of the great Amphiaraia, should be associated with the games of 329/8. See below 92-93.
[48] There were to be sure some problems; a severe shortage of grain, for example, faced much of the Greek world from 330 to 326. See below 30-34.
Macedonians, who were led by Alexander's trusted regent, Antipatros. Agis seems to have persuaded Memnon, Alexander's governor in Thrace, to make a show of opposition coordinated with his own rising in the Peloponnesos with the hope of getting Antipatros to split his forces.[49] Although the Athenian leaders must have been sorely tempted at this juncture to abandon both their promises to Alexander and their hostages, they refrained from joining this revolt.[50] They were not ready for another military confrontation.[51] Still, however prudent their decision may have been, no longer to have the power to lead others, but rather to be forced to sit idle, was a bitter pill.[52] Indeed the necessity to heed the will of another amounted for any Greek city to a kind of slavery. Lykourgos certainly realized that it had come to this, for in the summer of the year 330 B.C. he said of the Athenians who fell at Chaironeia 
.[53] However distasteful the Athenians found it to accept Macedonian domination, accept it they did.[54] At the same time, their failure to support the Spartans in resisting the Macedonians was obvious to everyone, and it clearly created a stir. As a result the anti-Macedonian leaders felt impelled, presumably to recover some ground politically at home, to put on a show of independence, even defiance, towards the Macedonians.
The summer after Agis' defeat, the summer of 330, provided the perfect opportunity. The greater Panathenaia was to take place, and the city, in consequence, will have been crowded with visitors. In June the assembly passed a decree honoring the Thracian Rheboulas, a member of one of
[49] This is the persuasive interpretation of E. Badian, "Agis III," Hermes 95 (1967) 170-192, esp. 179-181. On Memnon's rising, see Diodoros 17.62.4-7.
[50] Aischines 3.165-167, Plutarch Demos. 24.1. On Agis III and his revolt, see Badian, Hermes 95 (1967) 170-192; and Bosworth, Conquest and Empire 198-204, who advocates a slightly different chronology.
[51] R. Sealey, Demosthenes and His Time: A Study in Defeat (Oxford 1993) 207, cogently stresses the presence of the Macedonian garrison at Thebes as a factor that must have played an important role in Athenian thinking at this juncture.
[53] Section 50 of In Leocratem .
the ruling tribes of Thrace that had undoubtedly supported Memnon in his attempt to aid the rebellion of Agis.[55] They thus openly honored—on what pretext the fragmentary nature of the text does not allow us to say—a prominent opponent of Alexander. This public measure was underlined by the permanent copy inscribed on a stone stele; it represented a small, but not completely inconsequential, gesture of independence. In July Lykourgos staged the contests in the new Panathenaic stadium, which was finished just before the games.[56] We may suppose that he intended to showcase the city as a leader among the Greeks. In any case, the forensic display in the Athenian law courts that followed close upon the festival was certainly contrived to accentuate Athens' opposition to Philip and Alexander.
First Lykourgos himself brought an action against a certain Leokrates, who had, according to Lykourgos, deserted his city, his fatherland, and his gods in their hour of direst need after news had come from Chaironeia of the Athenian defeat.[57] Leokrates was a nobody, hardly worth attacking eight years after the fact.[58] Surely, this lawsuit was largely a pretext, a means of giving Lykourgos what he really wanted, namely an opportunity to make a resounding appeal to Athenian patriotism. In doing so, he recalled the valiant stand at Chaironeia and gave a show of courageously exhorting his fellow citizens to oppose the Macedonians.[59] Moreover, can it be accidental that Ktesiphon's proposal to award Demosthenes a crown
[55] IG II 349 = Tod, GHI no. 193 = Schwenk no. 45. The proposer of the decree, Nothippos of Diomeia, is not attested elsewhere, but his son Lysias was secretary of the assembly in the year of Anaxikrates (307/6), the year of freedom from the control of Demetrios of Phaleron. We may surmise that he and his father were probably not strong supporters of the Macedonians.
[56] IG II 351 lines 15-20, II 457b line 7, II 1627 lines 382-384.
[57] This speech, In Leocratem , alone of Lykourgos' works has come down to us whole.
[58] He cannot be certainly identified with any known person; the name is attested in many demes and is quite common in the fourth century B.C. There is then no evidence to substantiate Bosworth's assumption (Conquest and Empire 208) that Leokrates was wealthy.
[59] A decree proposed by Lykourgos in the late spring of 329 honoring Eudemos of Plataia (IG II 351 = Schwenk no. 48) reveals how dear to his heart these ideas remained; to be precise, we can discern in its wording the same emphasis on Athenian efforts to oppose the Macedonians at the time of Chaironeia and just after and on the preparations for the great Panathenaia of summer 330. Lykourgos praises Eudemos specifically for his promise at a previous juncture to contribute for the war should it be needed (lines 11-15) and for his present aid in the construction of the Panathenaia stadium (lines 15-20). The war in question is surely, as Schwenk concludes on pages 237-238, the expected attack by Philip on Athens after Chaironeia.
for his services to the state, particularly his leadership in fortifying the city after Chaironeia, was renewed before the assembly at this same time?[60] This proposal and the challenge to its legality from Aischines likewise gave Demosthenes a platform to speak out. In his ringing speech On the Crown he not only defended himself against Aischines, but reviewed his leadership of Athens against Philip and called upon Athenian patriotism against the Macedonians.
No doubt these speeches broke the spirit of the agreement the Athenian leaders had made with Alexander, but since they dealt primarily with events that happened before Alexander came to power and were delivered in Athenian law courts against Athenians, they constituted no more than provocative puffery that allowed the Athenian leaders to save some face. They did not give grounds for direct Macedonian intervention. Still, the performance was not repeated in Alexander's lifetime, and we may guess that official Macedonian displeasure was made quite clear. These two speeches by Lykourgos and Demosthenes during the summer of 330 B.C. in fact revealed the true impotence of Athens.
Still, as long as Alexander was preoccupied in the East, the Athenians were left on the domestic front pretty much to their own devices. This uneasy alliance began to be openly strained in 324, when Alexander announced through a spokesman at the Olympic games that exiles should be restored to their native cities. The Athenians demurred because this promised to affect adversely their control of the island of Samos.[61] At about the same time Harpalos, Alexander's disaffected treasurer,[62] appeared off Piraeus with thirty ships and a large sum of money to incite revolt against the king. The Athenians did not receive him at first. They had learned long since that it was better not to oppose Alexander openly.[63] Ultimately, how-
[60] It was originally made in 336 and challenged by Aischines. Philip's assassination caused the proposal to be tabled. For the timing of this case and that of Lykourgos against Leokrates, see Aischines 3.252-253.
[61] The strategic position of the island and its good port made it an important trading center. IG II 416b specifically attests that the Athenian traders and cleruchs on the island played an important role in supplying grain to Athens.
[62] For evidence of a strong personal rift between Harpalos and Alexander as early as the year 326, see R. Lane Fox, "Theopompus of Chios and the Greek World," in Chios , ed. J. Boardman and C. E. Vaphopoulou-Richardson (Oxford 1986), 117-120.
[63] N. G. Ashton, "The Lamian War—A False Start?," Antichthon 17 (1983) 47-61, has suggested that the Harpalos affair interrupted, indeed for the moment blunted, a movement by Athens to mount organized opposition to Alexander. I do not think, however, that the determination to oppose Alexander can have been as strong among the Athenians as Ashton implies. If it had been, if indeed armed opposition had already been decided upon, Harpalos, his money, and troops would have been warmly welcomed, once their real intention had been ascertained. But they were not. Rather the evidence suggests that Alexander was prepared to negotiate with individual cities about the specific problems raised by the exiles decree and to make modifications, as he did in the well-known case of Tegea (Tod, GHI no. 202 = Heisserer 205-229). Surely the Athenian leaders expected to negotiate some type of compromise concerning their cleruchs on Samos. Indeed, when the Athenians on the island failed to obey the decree and began negotiations, some Samian exiles (no doubt in frustration) attempted to press the issue by crossing over from Mykale and trying to force the Athenians out. They were defeated and taken to Athens, where they were condemned, but they were ransomed by Antileon of Chalkis (MDAIA 72 [1957] 157 no. 1A). Ch. Habicht (ibid . 158-163) dated these events to 321, just before Perdikkas' decision in favor of the Samians, but R. M. Errington, "Samos and the Lamian War," Chiron 5 (1975) 50-57, seems correct in dating them to late spring/early summer of 323. If so, the Athenians at this time had still not despaired of trying to negotiate the matter with Alexander. For further arguments against Habicht's late date, see E. Badian, "A Comma in the History of Samos," ZPE 23 (1976) 289-294.
ever, since Harpalos held Athenian citizenship as a result of his aid to the city in the famine of ca . 329 B.C. ,[64] they allowed him into the city, but then seized him and his money, some of which ended up in the pockets of various politicians. Demosthenes and Demades were convicted of receiving bribes and temporarily put out of action.[65] Harpalos himself escaped but was murdered soon afterwards.[66]
When, however, Alexander died on 10 June 323, the Athenians seized the opportunity; they revolted along with a number of other states from northern Greece and fought a war now generally referred to as the Lamian War.[67] For a while they had success against Antipatros, but when reinforcements arrived from Asia Minor in late spring or early summer of the year 322, the tide turned. The primarily Athenian fleet was destroyed near Amorgos,[68] ending Athenian naval power, and later that same summer, when the Greek forces were unable to defeat the combined armies of Krateros and Antipatros at Krannon, all resistance ended. The settlement imposed by Antipatros and Krateros on Athens was not nearly so lenient as those agreed to by Philip and Alexander. They put in place an oligarchy[69] led by Phokion and Demades with a property qualification of 2,000 drach-
[64] Below 31 and n. 6.
[65] On the trials surrounding this affair, see Deinarchos' speeches Against Demosthenes, Against Aristogeiton , and Against Philokles ; and Hypereides 5, Against Demosthenes , esp. cols. 8-9, 24-25.
[66] For studies of the entire affair, see 42 n. 35 below.
[67] On it, see 23-29 below.
[68] Mar. Parium B lines 9-10; Plutarch Demetrios 11.
[69] It is thus characterized by the short-lived "democratic" regime supported by Polyperchon in 318; see IG II448 line 61.
mas, which in essence disenfranchised more than half of the population.[70] They demanded the condemnation of Demosthenes, Hypereides, and other opponents of Macedon.[71] Lastly to see that their will was carried out they lost little time in placing a garrison on the fortress Mounychia in Piraeus. It was installed on 20 Boedromion (ca . mid-September), just six weeks, give or take a day or so, after the battle.[72]
The imposition of the Macedonian garrison and the death of Demosthenes, the most outspoken anti-Macedonian leader, have become benchmark events for many, signalling the end of Athenian democracy.[73] What more accurately they underlined was the end of Athens' pretentions of playing an independent role in international politics. But the power to do this had already been lost in Demosthenes' lifetime—the necessity to accommodate Alexander had effectively muzzled his (and Athens') opposition since late 335 B.C. , more than a dozen years before his death. Nevertheless, the internal workings of the Athenian state, the real indicator of the nature of the government, remained essentially intact and democratic. Indeed, the courts, the assembly, the council, the tribal system, and the selection of officials based on it continued with scarcely any detectable interruptions down to the time of Sulla. Generals were elected annually, and the nine traditional archons played their accustomed roles each year.[74] In short, whatever the leanings of any particular regime, Athenian democracy in its essentials was remarkably resilient. The power of tradition, the impulse to govern 
, or at least to claim to do so, remained dominant.
By reducing drastically the number of citizens, the oligarchy must have been forced to make some changes in the day-to-day running of the state. What actual constitutional changes they made are hard to determine, for there is very little evidence.[75] Lack of eligible candidates must have required them to ease the restriction forbidding someone to serve in the boule more than twice (there is as yet no actually attested example).[76] They made the anagrapheus an important official, apparently placing him
[70] Plutarch, Phokion 28.4, reports that more than 12,000 lost the right to vote.
[71] Plutarch Demos . 28.2.
[72] On the date of the installment, Plutarch Phokion 28.1; and, on the date of the battle (Metageitnion 7), Camillus 19.5.
[73] For example, Plutarch Demos . 3.3-4.
[74] S. V. Tracy, "Athens in 100 B.C. " HSCP 83 (1979) 220-225.
[75] W. S. Ferguson's lively description of the situation (HA 22-26) cannot be sustained from the evidence.
[76] An inscription from Piraeus of the year 320, IG II 380, reveals that the duties of the astynomoi had been given to the agoranomoi (lines 17-18). Whether this applies only to officials who served in Piraeus or more generally, we cannot be certain. This is precisely the type of consolidation of duties that the reduction in citizens eligible to serve may have caused.
in charge of the assembly?[77] At least in one case they rescinded honors and privileges granted to a man who had conspicuously aided Athens against Antipatros.[78] There is also some evidence to suggest that they curtailed, if they did not actually abolish, formal military training for young Athenians.[79]
In addition, the years of the oligarchy saw the loss of the island of Samos and the displacement of at least some, if not all, of the Athenians living there. The determination to retain control of Samos had been one of the chief reasons for Athenian opposition to Alexander's decree about the exiles.[80] In the year 321 Perdikkas ruled definitively in favor of the Samians, and they joyfully returned home after more than a generation of exile from their native island.[81] On Samos there survives much epigraphical evidence attesting to their return.[82] By contrast, almost nothing is heard of the displaced Athenians. Perhaps S. Jaschinski is correct to suggest that most of the cleruchs chose to remain on the island despite the confiscation of half their property and the loss of citizen rights.[83] However, given the strife alluded to in the epigraphical record[84] and the hard feelings natural on both sides resulting from such a change, it seems very improbable. Moreover, a very fragmentary decree from the Athenian Agora, inventory number I 5626, proposed by Demades early in the year 319 B.C. for a certain Nikostratos, may refer to the displaced cleruchs. It has occasioned discussion primarily about its calendar equation,[85] but the reference to women and children in line 14 suggests the possibility that Nikostratos is
[77] On this office and the epigraphical evidence for it, S. Dow, "The Athenian Anagrapheis," HSCP 67 (1963) 37-54.
[78] IG II 448 lines 60-62.
[79] Using the evidence of IG II 1187 F. W. Mitchel argued this persuasively in his article "Derkylos of Hagnous and the Date of I.G ., II , 1187" (Hesperia 33 [1964] 346-348).
[80] Diodoros 18.8.7.
[81] Diodoros 18.18.9; Ch. Habicht, "Samische Volksbeschlüshe der hellenistischen Zeit," MDAIA 72 (1957) 154-155.
[82] Ibid . nos. 1-4, 13, 20-28; for further texts referring to the exile and return, Habicht, "Hellenistische Inschriften aus dem Heraion von Samos," MDAIA 87 (1972) 191-202 nos. 2 and 4; M. Schede, "Aus dem Heraion von Samos," MDAIA 44 (1919) 4-15 nos. 5F-O; and C. Michel, Recueil d'inscriptions grecques I (Paris 1897) nos. 366-369.
[83] Alexander und Griechenland unter dem Eindruck des Flucht des Harpalos (Bonn 1981) 135-136.
[84] Habicht, MDAIA 72 (1957) no. 1A; and n. 63 above.
[85] See Hesperia 13 (1944) 234-241 for the initial publication by B. D. Meritt, and SEG 21 no. 306 for subsequent restorations of the opening lines.
being honored for his aid in the resettlement of the cleruchs and their families. Otherwise, all is silence.
Demades re-emerged right after Krannon as author of the proposal to send an embassy to Antipatros with full powers to conclude peace.[86] Not long afterwards he also moved the measure condemning Demosthenes and the other ringleaders of the opposition to the Macedonians.[87] It is not hard to divine his motive; surely he was seeking to nip in the bud any possibility of a direct attack on the city of Athens. In these actions he must have enjoyed the support of his fellow citizens. In any case, he clearly was the leading figure in the assembly once the oligarchy was established; in fact he is known as the proposer of no less than five decrees that date to the years 321-319.[88] Given his prominence, it is disappointing that they are not all well enough preserved to allow us to have a sense of what they were about. Two (IG II2 372, 383b) preserve merely the opening lines, with no indication of the contents of the decree. The others deal with matters of real significance. As has been suggested just above, Agora I 5626 probably deals with the resettlement of the cleruchs from Samos; IG II2 380 concerns the market officials in Piraeus, and IG II2 400 honors a certain Eucharistos for his help with the food supply.
The evidence suggests that Phokion and Demades, the leaders of the oligarchy, whatever their willingness to accomodate the Macedonians, sought the best interests of their city.[89] Indeed, at the time of his execution in 319 Demades was in Macedonia actually negotiating with the seriously ill Antipatros about the removal of the garrison from Mounychia.[90] About five years earlier, moreover, he had joined with the general Leosthenes,
[86] Plutarch Phokion 26.2.
[89] It has been the custom to vilify these two as selling out to the Macedonians: most recently, for example, P. Green, Alexander to Actium (Berkeley 1990) 40-41. For the opposite view, see Mitchel, Lykourgan Athens 15-20; and J. M. Williams, "Demades' Last Years," Ancient World 19 (1989) 27-30.
who was soon to become the hero of the Lamian War, in paying for the outfitting of a trireme.[91]
The oligarchy lasted for three years, from 321 to 319, and fell in the political maneuvering following Antipatros' death. Polyperchon, named Antipatros' successor, seized Athens and pronounced her free.[92] He was soon forced out by Antipatros' son Kassandros, who had kept control of the garrison in Mounychia. This was when Demetrios of Phaleron came to the fore as a negotiator with the Macedonians, not unlike Demades. He successfully negotiated between Kassandros and the Athenians and was put in charge of the city, but saddled with the garrison in Piraeus. Much like Lykourgos and those who guided Athenian affairs from 335 to 323, Demetrios of Phaleron accepted the necessity of leaving foreign affairs to the Macedonians and concentrated on doing his best for Athens in the situation. He moderated the oligarchic tendencies of his predecessors and even claimed to have strengthened the democracy. His ten-year rule, 317-307, was a time of peace and prosperity.[93]
The "liberation" of Athens by Demetrios, the son of Antigonos, in 307 soon revealed the fatal weakness of a city that was in reality powerless, but was attempting to chart its own course. The Athenians immediately voted extravagant honors to "the savior gods" Demetrios and his father, Antigonos the One-eyed.[94] As part of this adulation they increased the traditional number of the tribes of the city from ten to twelve. Not surprisingly, the two new tribes, Antigonis and Demetrias, were placed first in the official order. Though Demetrios had destroyed the fort at Mounychia, he remained in Athens with his fleet and army. The Athenians were clearly dependent on him. But the son of Antigonos had no leisure to remain long,[95] nor could he really when he was absent guarantee the freedom he
[91] IG II 1631 lines 605-606; see below 24 n.14.
[92] Plutarch Phokion 32. The rhetoric of the time can be gauged from lines 55-56, 61-64 of IG II 448. Nearly the same terms are used by Lykourgos (In Leocratem 50) to describe the loss of freedom after Chaironeia. "Oligarchy" and "slavery" have become partisan terms signifying Macedonian control of Athens; while "democracy" and "freedom" are the positive rallying words. Note also the appearance of these catchwords in Stratokles' decree for Lykourgos (Vit. X Orat . 852d). It was passed in 307 just after the overthrow of Demetrios of Phaleron and the Macedonian garrison in Mounychia. Predictably it praises Lykourgos for his vigilance on behalf of the democracy and the freedom of the Athenians.
[93] See 36-51 below for a discussion of Demetrios' rule.
[94] Plutarch Demetrios 10-13; Ch. Habicht, Gottmenschentum und griechische Städte (Munich 1970) 44-48.
[95] Plutarch Demetrios 15-19.
had proclaimed. As soon as he departed, the Athenians became embroiled in a four-year war against Kassandros, which was brought to an end when Demetrios, now called Poliorketes, relieved them.[96] In 302 Demetrios again left Greece to join his father, Antigonos the One-eyed, in Asia Minor for the campaign against Lysimachos and Seleukos. Antigonos' defeat and death at Ipsos in 301 left Kassandros king of Macedon and in control of Greece. Poliorketes was in control of the sea and of several cities.[97] The Athenians easily came to an agreement with Kassandros, who had other affairs to deal with.[98] On Kassandros' death in 297, the son of Antigonos came to Greece and laid siege to Athens, taking it in 295. His ambitions to rule all of Greece soon led him into conflict with Ptolemy, Lysimachos, and Seleukos.
Athens in the years after 307 was clearly of no major importance and dependent now on this foreign potentate, now on that.[99] Indeed, she was caught up in what has come to be known as the struggle for succession. The real change that had occurred was in the external situation, namely the emergence of world, or at least regional, powers that left little role for individual cities.
[96] Ibid . 23; Diodoros 20.100.5-6; IG II 498 lines 15-18, 505 lines 30-40; a recently published inscription, Horos 4 (1986) 19-23, refers to Kassandros and his activities at this time. For more on Kassandros during this war, see Ch. Habicht, Pausanias' Guide to Ancient Greece (Berkeley 1985) 80-82. In addition, the honors granted by the assembly in 303 to the Rhodian physician Pheidias (IG II 483) surely reflect his services during the difficulties of this war.
[97] Plutarch Demetrios 28-31, Diodoros 20.106-121.1. For a recent account of the campaign and battle of Ipsos, Billows, Antigonos 175-185.
[98] Lines 12 to 14 of IG II 641 refer to the delegation sent to deal with Kassandros at this time.
[99] A series of four decrees passed on the same day at the end of the year 304/3, viz. IG II 486, 597 (+ add. p. 662), Hesperia 7 (1938) 297, Horos 4 (1986) 11-18, reveals Athens' subservience. Demetrios Poliorketes has sent envoys and instructions to the Athenians seeking honors, probably in each case citizenship, for his followers. The Athenians duly complied on the motion of Stratokles of Diomeia (below 163). This charade was repeated exactly a year later with at least three decrees (IG II 495, 496 + 507, 497) passed at the same meeting. The first two are citizenship decrees for friends of Demetrios and were proposed in identical language by Stratokles. The third preserves only the opening lines. Agora I 7070 (Osborne, Naturalization no. D62) appears to be yet another citizenship decree proposed by Stratokles at this session (see Osborne, Naturalization II p. 137).
The Lamian War
June 323 to Early August 322 B.C.
The Lamian War takes its name from the city in the environs of which the Greeks achieved their major success in the conflict with Antipatros after Alexander's death. It was known by this name to Diodoros[1] and Plutarch,[2] but contemporary Athenians, viewing it in larger, more optimistic terms, called it the Hellenic War.[3] Be that as it may, when Alexander died on 10 June 323, the Athenians did not wait long to begin preparations for war. Relying on money confiscated from Harpalos, the boule authorized the general Leosthenes to muster a large band of veteran mercenaries gathered at Tainaron in Lakonia.[4]
Despite his obvious importance, Leosthenes remains a somewhat mysterious figure, who rose to prominence as a result of the war.[5] Indeed, he was probably the driving force behind Athens' mobilization of opposition to Alexander's successors.[6] He also appears to have had some close relationship with Greek mercenary units serving in the East. Indeed, Pausanias reports that he was involved, against Alexander's express wish, in repatriating a very large number of Greek citizens who had served with
[2] Pyrrhos 1.4, [Plutarch] Vit. X Orat . 849f. He also uses once (Phokion 23.1) the phrase "Hellenic War."
[4] Diodoros (17.111.2-3) relates that Leosthenes began to act before Alexander's death and that the mercenaries gathered at Tainaron chose him as their commander.
[5] PA 9142.
[6] Hypereides, Epitaphios 3, 10-13, gives him the credit and apparently made common cause with him (Vit. X Orat . 849f).
the Persians.[7] His hostility to Alexander is clear,[8] and, if his father was (as seems most probable) the Leosthenes convicted of treason after the loss to Alexander of Pherai at Peparethos,[9] his leadership at this time may have been his attempt to clear the family name once and for all. In any case, once Alexander's death was confirmed in late summer, the assembly, against Phokion's urging, voted for war. Leosthenes at this time, if not earlier, took an active role in the debate in the assembly.[10] Soon afterwards an alliance was concluded with Aitolia,[11] and not much later Thessaly and most of the cities of northwest Greece joined the Athenian cause.[12]
The actions of Leosthenes, particularly his speaking in the assembly and acting as an emissary for the council,[13] suggest an individual of some prominence. He is known in our sources, however, merely as Leosthenes or Leosthenes the Athenian. Can he be identified more closely? Perhaps. We do know from Athenian inscriptions of a Leosthenes, son of Leosthenes, of the deme Kephale who was a man of considerable means[14]
[7] Pausanias 1.25.5, 8.52.5. On Leosthenes' dealings with these mercenaries, E. Badian, "Harpalus," JHS 81 (1961) 27.
[9] Diodoros 15.95.2-3.
[10] Plutarch Phokion 23.2. See also the purported speech of Leosthenes to the Athenians (B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt, TheHibeh Papyri I [London 1906] 55-61 no. 15); in it the speaker calls upon them to take advantage of the present opportunity, viz. that offered by Alexander's demise (lines 40-45, 61-66 esp.), by having the courage to go to war.
[11] IG II 370 partially preserves the heading of the decree recording this alliance. An improved text of this inscription has been provided by E W. Mitchel in Phoenix 18 (1964) 13-17 = Moretti, ISE no. 1. On the date, I. Worthington, "IG II 370 and the Date of the Athenian Alliance with Aetolia," ZPE 57 (1984) 139-144.
[12] Hypereides Epitaphios 13; he mentions by name the Thessalians, the Phokians, and the Aitolians and gives the credit, perhaps hyperbolically, to Leosthenes. IG II 367 (= Schwenk no. 81) records already in the third prytany of the year 323 honors for a certain Asklepiodoros, ambassador to the Phokians, surely for successfully bringing them into the alliance. The decision to send him must have been made at the time that Alexander's death was confirmed. Diodoros (18.9.5) too gives the credit to Leosthenes and mentions specifically the Aitolians, Lokrians, and Phokians. EM 12736, a small fragment of what may be a treaty between the Athenians and Lokrians, published by O. Broneer in Hesperia 2 (1933) 397-398 and associated by him with the events of this time, belongs in reality to the third century B.C. On the date, see S. V. Tracy, "Two Attic Letter Cutters of the Third Century: 286/5-235/4 B.C. ," Hesperia 57 (1988) 306.
[13] Diodoros 18.9.2.
and served as general over the Attic countryside.[15] Most significantly, the heirs of this Leosthenes assumed the outfitting of the trireme Hebe in Leosthenes' name during 323/2,[16] presumably because he had died. We also know that the Athenian commander Leosthenes died during the siege of Lamia in the autumn or early winter of 323/2.[17] Unless this is a cruel coincidence, it appears all but certain[18] that Leosthenes of Kephale and Leosthenes the hero of the Lamian War are one and the same man.[19] Recently, however, S. Jaschinski,[20] followed by A. B. Bosworth,[21] has argued against the identification of the two. One of the principal arguments is that Leosthenes could not have served as Athenian general over the countryside and also been active with the mercenaries at Tainaron in the year 324/3. This is dearly correct. However, the conclusion that the identification of the two men is impossible does not necessarily follow. It may merely reveal that the date of his service as general over the Attic countryside cannot have been the year 324/3. In point of fact the ephebic inscription and
[15] This information comes to us from an ephebic dedication found at Oropos (Reinmuth no. 15, left side, lines 1-5). The date assigned by Reinmuth of 324/3 is far from certain; see Reinmuth's discussion (pp. 69-72). Perhaps favoring the year 324/3 is the evidence of line 380 of IG II 1631 which reveals that a Dikaiogenes, no doubt Dikaiogenes of Kydathenaion (the general over Piraeus crowned with Leosthenes by the ephebes), was general in 324/3. Since, however, generals often were elected more than once, this is hardly a compelling argument. Lines 214-215 of the same inscription, for example, reveal that Dikaiogenes was also general in 323/2.
[16] IG II 1631 lines 601-604.
[17] Diodoros 18.13.5.
[18] Pace Bosworth, Conquest and Empire 294, who finds "nothing surprising in two men of the same name dying in an archon year so full of action." Leosthenes, however, is not a very common name; there are, at most, six different individuals of this name thus far known in Attic prosopography.
[19] J. Kirchner (PA 9142) first suggested the identification. B. Leonardos affirmed it in his editio princeps of the ephebic text (AE , 1918, 73-100). Badian, JHS 81 (1961) 27; Reinmuth no. 15 p. 65; and Davies, Athenian Propertied Families 600-300B.C . (Oxford 1971) 9142, all accept it.
[20] Alexander und Griechenland unter dem Eindruck der Flucht des Harpalos (Bonn 1981) 51-54.
[21] Conquest and Empire 293-294.
Leosthenes' generalship should in all probability be assigned to the year 329/8.[22]
The details of Leosthenes' career as we know them then make eminently good sense. After serving as general over the countryside in 329/8, Leosthenes will have been well positioned to carry out his activities with the mercenaries in preparation for opposition to Alexander and also to exercise a leading role in Athenian decision making. Indeed, he was probably the principal general, that is, the hoplite general, during 323/2.[23] His activities as activities will belong either to the year 325/4 or to 324/3.[24]
To return to the Lamian War—for a while the Greeks enjoyed success. Antipatros had only a rather limited number of men available to him in Macedonia and consequently acted slowly. This gave Leosthenes and the allies the opportunity to seize Themopylai and to defeat Boiotian supporters of the Macedonian cause near Plataia. They then defeated Antipatros north of Thermopylai and bottled him up in Lamia.[25] The situation was bad enough that Antipatros even sought terms, but he rejected the unconditional surrender demanded by Leosthenes. This initial success buoyed the hopes of the allies. It is very likely that an Athenian thank offering to Agathe Tyche voted by the deme members of Kollytos reflects the opti-
[22] This was the year of the first great Athenian festival at the sanctuary of Amphiaraos. The festivities included athletic competitions and other displays in which the ephebes must have participated. It appears, therefore, most probable that the ephebes of Leontis made their dedication which listed Leosthenes as general on this occasion (above 13). Bosworth indeed suggests this date on page 294.
The acceptance of the date 324/3 for the inscription and the identification of the kosmetes mentioned on it, Philokles, son of Phormion, of Eroiadai, with the Philokles (whose patronymic and demotic are unknown) of the Harpalos affair (Deinarchos 3 Against Philokles ) have engendered a huge literature involving the chronology of that scandal (see J. Goldstein, The Letters of Demosthenes [New York 1968] 276-281; and R. Sealey, Demosthenes and His Time [Oxford 1993] 265-267). Neither is certain; Philokles, moreover, let it be noted, is a very common name in Athens. If the date of the inscription is not 324/3—and I think the identification of Leosthenes with the general of the Lamian War makes that fact certain—it has no direct bearing on the discussion of the Harpalos affair, and Philokles, son of Phormion, of Eroiadai is probably not the Philokles of that affair.
[23] He is nowhere accorded the full title, but we know he was the principal leader in the field, and he is styled "general" by Hypereides in his funeral speech (Epitaphios 3).
[24] A good argument could be made for either year, but perhaps the year 325/4 has more to recommend it on the grounds that he could have used this office in that year to arrange the transfer of mercenaries from Asia Minor to Greece. See on this point I. Worthington, "The Earlier Career of Leosthenes and I.G. II 1631" Historia 36 (1987) 489-491. Note, however, that Worthington accepts 324/3 as the date for his generalship over the countryside.
[25] Plutarch Demos . 27.1.
mism engendered by this victory.[26] Moreover, in late November or early December the city of Sikyon, surely as another consequence of the victory, was the first of the Peloponnesian cities to join the alliance.[27]
At about this same time (i.e., the autumn of 323) Demosthenes, in exile because of his conviction in the Harpalos affair, now began acting on his own initiative to gain allies for Athens in the Peloponnesos and to thwart Antipatros' agents. Hypereides, the principal democratic leader of the Athenians at this time, also spent some time in southern Greece seeking allies. Despite their falling out over the Harpalos affair,[28] the two men were reconciled, and Demosthenes was recalled to Athens in triumph.[29] These two, among their city's most influential politicians, now joined in leading the political opposition to the Macedonians. Demades, however, who was also disgraced and briefly in exile as a result of the Harpalos affair,[30] remained prudently (as it turned out) in the shadows.
The siege of Lamia lasted through the winter. Unfortunately, Leosthenes, who appears to have been a truly gifted military leader, was killed during one of the many skirmishes that ensued.[31] In early spring reinforcements for Antipatros under Leonnatos, satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia, crossed over from Asia Minor. The Greeks under Leosthenes' successor
[27] IG II448 lines 9-12, 45-49; Diodoros (18.11.2) lists the Argives, Eleans, Messenians, and those inhabiting Akte as the other Peloponnesian allies. The Spartans as a consequence of their disastrous defeat near Megalopolis in 331 and the death of King Agis in the battle lacked the manpower and perhaps the will to join the cause. On the loss at Megalopolis and its aftermath, Bosworth, Conquest and Empire 203-204.
[28] Indeed, Hypereides was one of the principal prosecutors in the trial that brought about Demosthenes' exile. Fragments of his speech survive.
[29] Plutarch Demos . 27.4-6.
[30] On his exile see Deinarchos Against Demosthenes 29.
[31] Diodoros 18.13.5. Hypereides, Epitaphios 23, describes feelingly the difficult demands of this winter campaign with the necessity to be on constant alert.
Antiphilos lifted the siege of Lamia in order to intercept the approaching troops. Once again they were victorious and actually killed Leonnatos; Antipatros, however, escaped with some forces to Macedonia. Despite his escape, the Greeks decidedly had had the best of it up to this point.[32]
The fragmentarily preserved funeral speech of Hypereides for Leosthenes and the dead of the initial campaign seems to have been delivered shortly after this victory over Leonnatos.[33] This speech, the last of this genre known to us, was delivered over the fallen in the last military campaign that offered any real hope of keeping Athens and her allies free from Macedonian domination. It, therefore, deserves to be recognized as the swan song of Athenian freedom. On that spring day so long ago, with the victories over Alexander's deputies, Antipatros and Leonnatos, and their seasoned Macedonian troops still fresh in mind and with hope of freedom very much alive, Hypereides' patriotic words of praise over the fallen will have stirred the blood:
.. (Epitaphios 24)
The end of the bid for independence from Alexander's successors came quickly. The Greek fleet was defeated in the straits of Abydos within weeks of the speech,[34] and Krateros reached Macedonia with more troops for Antipatros. The combined armies of Antipatros and Krateros met the Greeks at Krannon in Thessaly on 7 Metageitnion (ca . 5 August) and ended all opposition.[35] The Hellenic league broke up when Antipatros refused to deal with it, but consented only to negotiate with the separate cities.[36] More importantly, a short time before the battle of Krannon, a fateful naval engagement had occurred near Amorgos in which the largely Athenian fleet was completely defeated.[37] That defeat marked the end of
[32] Diodoros 18.15.5-8.
[34] IG II 398a line 7, II 493 lines 19-23, II 505 lines 17-25, II 506 lines 8-12. A. Wilhelm, "Att. Urk. V," SB Wien 220.5 (1942) 175-182, has pointed out that IG II 492 and Agora 14772, a text published originally by E. Schweigert (Hesperia 8 [1939] 30-32) and then republished with improvements by A. Raubitschek (TAPA 76 [1945] 106-107), also refers to this sea engagement.
[35] Plutarch Phokion 26 and, for the date, Camillus 19.5.
[36] Diodoros 18.17.7.
[37] Mar . Parium B lines 9-10; Plutarch Demetrios 11.
Athenian sea power forever and left the city in the aftermath of Krannon with no bargaining power. In consequence, the settlement imposed by Antipatros and Krateros on Athens was not nearly so lenient as those of Philip and Alexander.
As though in compensation for their failure to support King Agis' revolt in the year 331, the Athenians bore the brunt of this war. They led the anti-Macedonian resistance. The Athenian general Leosthenes deserves the credit for a strategy which nearly succeeded; indeed, he may have been the chief architect of the opposition. The Aitolians too provided significant troops in the initial phase that caused much discomfiture to Antipatros. However, it was the Thessalians and their cavalry in the end who proved the staunchest allies to the Athenians.[38] Under the command of Menon of Pharsalos, the Thessalian cavalry was at first forced to join Antipatros when he invaded Thessaly at the beginning of the war. During the initial engagement north of Thermopylai, however, they went over to Leosthenes and were instrumental in the defeats of Antipatros and then Leonnatos.[39] At Krannon they acquitted themselves well, but could not achieve a clear victory for the Greeks. They must, however, be counted among the most effective cavalry forces in the annals of warfare. Their leader Menon had a reputation among the allies second only to that of Leosthenes.[40] Moreover, with the association of the fragmentarily preserved inscriptions IG II2 545 and 2406, we may well now have, in addition to their commander's name, the names of some of these brave men and an invaluable record of Athenian loyalty during the political turmoil following the war to their most important military ally.[41]
[38] A little more than a generation earlier, when Nikophemos was archon in Athens (361/0), the Athenians joined the Thessalians in an alliance "for all time" against Alexander of Pherai. The text of this alliance survives as IG II 116 (= Tod, GHI no. 147 = Bengtson, Staatsverträge no. 293). IG II 175, part of another alliance with Thessaly, may stem from the same time. Whether this alliance lasted beyond Alexander's assassination in 358 is highly doubtful; still it attests to good relations of long standing between the two peoples.
[39] On the Thessalian cavalry's critical role, see Diodoros 18.15.2-4, 17.4-5.
[40] Plutarch Pyrrhos 1.4.
[41] Below 87-90.
The Inscriptions and the Food Supply
The food supply naturally is an important matter for any large city, particularly one like Athens that could not produce enough food of its own and was, consequently, dependent on imports. A shortage of foodstuffs was a very serious matter; the food supply understandably, therefore, was a regular item on the agenda at every 
, i.e., every plenary session of the assembly. Indeed, it is hardly fortuitous that Aristotle mentions it and safeguarding the countryside in the same breath— 
.[1] hole matter became even more important, of course, at those times when the citizens anticipated that the city might come under siege. It is not surprising then that the Athenians granted honors from time to time to various foreigners who helped feed the populace. It has been the strong tendency of scholars to associate these texts with times of serious shortages. Not every such inscription, however, need imply a major crisis. The food supply was always a matter for real concern.
In the years after the defeat at Chaironeia and down to about the year 320, several crises in the Athenian food supply have been identified.[2] The best-documented and most discussed is the undoubtedly severe shortage of the years 330-326.[3] It is most clearly attested in the multiple decrees
[1] Ath. Pol . 43.4.
[2] See S. Isager and M. H. Hansen, Aspects of Athenian Society in the Fourth CenturyB.C . (Odense 1975) 200-208; W. Will, Athen und Alexander , Münchener Beiträge zur Papyrusforschung und Antiken Rechtsgeschichte no. 77 (1983) 107-113; P. Garnsey, Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World (Cambridge 1988) 150-164. For a general discussion of those involved in the import of food, see H. Montgomery," 'Merchants Fond of Corn': Citizens and Foreigners in the Athenian Grain Trade," Symbolae OsIoenses 61 (1986) 43-61. On the food supply and harbor measures controlling it, Isager and Hansen 19-29; and R. Garland, ThePiraeus (Ithaca 1987) 89-90, 201.
[3] The dates are usually given more broadly as 331-325/4. The narrower dates suggested here are based on the indications in the epigraphical evidence that the height of the crisis covered the years 330-327 or a bit later. See the discussions of Peçirka, Enktesis 70-72; and of J. Camp, "Greek Inscriptions," Hesperia 43 (1974) 323-324. See also A. Jardé, Les céreales dans l'antiquité grecque (Paris 1925) 43-47.
in honor of Herakleides of Salamis on Cyprus published as IG II2 360. He is praised in 325/4, when the crisis appears to have abated, for two actions. He was the first of the importers during the shortage (
, lines 8-9) in 330/29 to bring in grain and sell it at a reasonable price (lines 8-10, 29-31), and in 328/7 he contributed 3,000 drachmas towards the cost of supplying food (lines 11-12, 70). The speech Against Phormio in the Demosthenic corpus describes the rationing of grain in Athens and Piraeus at this time.[4] An important inscription from Kyrene in North Africa which dates to the early 320's mentions the same food shortage (
) and records grain distributions to a large number of Greek cities.[5] This shortage was clearly serious and widespread. It was also at this time that Alexander's newly appointed treasurer Harpalos sent a large amount of food to Athens and was granted citizenship.[6]
In the year 329/8, right in the midst of the crisis, the demos at Eleusis, clearly in reaction to the shortage and inflated prices, directed that the surplus wheat and barley from offerings to the sanctuary be sold at six and three drachmas respectively per medimnos.[7] The only Athenian honorary inscription other than IG II2 360 that can be associated quite certainly with the shortage of these particular years is IG II2 363. This text honors a certain Dionysios and, since the restoration 
in lines 11-12 seems to be correct, reveals that he, like Herakleides of Salamis, did something in the first phase of the crisis (330/29) and is now being praised for having done more. It probably belongs, as Schwenk has argued,[8] to the year 326/5. Finally, the naval accounts of 326/5 and the following year, IG II2 1628 and 1629, mention payments to the grain fund that could be deducted from fines levied on certain trierarchs of years past.[9] These payments should almost certainly be connected with the
[4] 34.37.
[5] Tod, GHI no. 196. A Laronde, Cyrèe et laLibye hellénistique (Paris 1987) 30-34, provides a new text and discussion. For a recent discussion of the implications of this text, see E Brun, "La stèle des céréales de Cyrène et le commerce du grain en Égée au IV . s. av. J.-C.," ZPE 99 (1993) 185-196.
[6] Athenaios 13.586d; see Osborne, Naturalization III T82.
[7] IG II 1672 lines 282-288. These figures were probably below the then-current market prices.
[8] Schwenk pp. 327-329.
[9] IG II1628 lines 339-452 = IG II1629 lines 859-975; see also lines 60-85 of IG II 1631.
organized fund-raising effort 
which took place at the height of the crisis in 328/7.[10] This must also have been the time that Demosthenes himself contributed a talent for the food supply.[11]
Instead of one long shortage, Garnsey in his recent study has interpreted the problems in 330/29 and in 328/7 as two separate shortages that were only loosely, if at all, connected.[12] This may be correct; but against it is the fact that the terms 
and 
seem to have been applied only to the difficulties of these years. If that is the case, these shortages were apparently viewed as one connected problem and more than temporary. Indeed this shortage of food was probably caused by widespread crop failures and shortfalls lasting several years.[13] That is, it was of a different order from shortages caused by faulty distribution, blockades, or acts of piracy.[14] Though serious, shortages of this nature could be remedied fairly quickly.
A few years later there was another shortage, which began perhaps during the Lamian War in 323/2 and lasted for several years.[15] The inscriptions that attest to this shortage are:
IG II2 369 + — Osborne, Naturalization no. D25. This inscription dates to early 322 and, although it does not directly mention food in its preserved parts, it honors a Bosporan for services rendered. These services are likely to have included shipment of grain.
[12] Famine and Food Supply 154-158.
[15] The speech Against Dionysodoros , no. 56 in the Demosthenic corpus, attests in its opening sections (especially 8-10) to the fluctuations in price and to the difficulty of getting grain from Egypt at this time.
IG II2 398a —honors someone who had saved many after the sea battle in the Hellespont during the war and had sent grain to Athens a bit later.[16]
IG II2 400—a decree proposed by Demades shortly before his death (see below 147); it honors a certain Eucharistos for supplying grain and promising more.
IG II2 401—this decree belongs to 321 or 320 and honors a citizen of Kyzikos for helping with the shipment of grain from Asia.
In addition to these two well-attested shortages, we learn from the speech Against Phormio of a crisis in the year in which Alexander demolished Thebes, i.e., 335.[17] We have no certain epigraphical testimony for it. We thus have knowledge of three shortages during the years after Chaironeia and down to 320, namely in the years 335, 330-326, and 323-320.[18]
The following inscriptions that mention the food supply have generally been associated with the period 331-ca . 320. None can be dated precisely enough to specify to which of the two shortages known in this decade they apply, and two of them, IG II2 408 and Agora I 7178, may well date prior to the year 330.
IG II2 342—re-edited with a new fragment by M. B. Walbank in ZPE 59 (1985) 107-111. This is a proxeny decree for two citizens of Tyre.
IG II2 343—Schwenk no. 84. This text honors Apollonides of Sidon.
IG II2 407—honors a Milesian for bringing grain to Athens.[19]
IG II2 408—honors two Herakleotes. If Kirchner's restorations are
[16] M. B. Walbank, "Athens Grants Citizenship to a Benefactor: IG II 398a and 438," Ancient History Bulletin 1 (1987) 10-12, associates IG II 438 with this text.
[17] 34.38.
[18] IG II 312 almost certainly forms part of the dossier of evidence regarding the grain supply in these years. It is a very fragmentary and worn text that preserves a crown and a relief (Meyer, Urkundenreliefs pl. 45.1 for a good photograph). The relief depicts the prow of a ship with sheaves of grain. Surely it derives from an honorary inscription that praised someone for importing food.
[19] If M. Walbank is correct in making his tentative association of this inscription with Agora I 7050 ("IG ii , 407 and SEG xxxii, 94: Honours for a Milesian Grain-Dealer," ZPE 67 [1987] 165-166), then it refers to the shortage of the years 323-320.
correct ad loc ., prosopographical considerations point to a date around 335 B.C.[20]
IG II2 409—honors two men for importing food from Sinope. See Wilhelm's restoration in "Att. Urktmden V," SB Wien 220.5 (1942) 150-152.
IG II2416b —honors a man from Kos for expediting the shipment of food to Athens and mentions prominently the support activities of the Athenian merchants and cleruchs on Samos.
IG II2 423—if the restoration
in lines 13-14 is correct, this text should be assigned to the crisis at the beginning of the decade.
Agora I 4956—Hesperia 9 (1940) 332-333; honors Pandios the Herakleote.
Agora I 7178 —Hesperia 43 (1974) 322-324; honors Sopatros of Akragas in Sicily. This measure was proposed by Lykourgos; it could therefore also refer to the crisis in 335 and cannot postdate the death of Lykourgos in 324.
Such then is the evidence for the food supply and the shortages during the years 335-320.
We find again in the epigraphical evidence concern for the food supply at the end of the century and continuing into the third century, when lack of food and money became a nearly constant problem. EM 12825 (Hesperia 5 [1936] 201-205) of the year of the archon Euxenippos (305/4) praises an individual for his care for the food supply. IG II2 479 and its counterpart IG II2 480 of late 304 or early 303 honor an Herakleote for, among other things, his monetary contribution towards the purchase of grain in 307/6. IG II2 499 of the year 302/1 recounts in praise of someone that he sold grain at a good price and contributed money for purchase of food.[21] These texts probably reflect the extra concern for the food supply caused by unsettled conditions that Athens faced during these years, particularly Kassandros' efforts to retake Athens in the years 307-304.
In 299/8 King Lysimachos donated 10,000 medimnoi of wheat.[22] We
[22] IG II 657 lines 11-14.
hear from the literary evidence of a severe shortage during the siege of Athens by Demetrios Poliorketes probably in the spring of 295[23] and of Demetrios' gift of 100,000 medimnoi after taking the city.[24] In addition, there is a spate of inscriptions of the years 286-284 honoring foreigners for help with the food supply.[25] At about this same time, as a result of the diplomacy of Phaidros of Sphettos, King Ptolemy provided both food and money.[26] These actions clearly shored up the freedom of the Athenians that had recently been won from Demetrios Poliorketes.[27]
Finally, Agora I 7360 honors a group of Rhodians for their help with the food supply. It was associated by its initial editor with the severe crisis of the years 330-326,[28] but the hand of the cutter reveals that it must be dated later than 320.[29] Indeed, most of this man's dated work falls in the years 295 and after. This fragmentary text, therefore, most probably belongs to the years after 287, when the Athenians successfully revolted from Demetrios Poliorketes' control. The Rhodians, who themselves had withstood a harsh siege by Demetrios in the years 305-304 and maintained their independence,[30] no doubt were happy to support the Athenians against their former enemy.
[23] Ch. Habicht, Untersuchungen 1-8, supported de Sanctis' date (294); Osborne, "The Archonship of Nikias Hysteros and the Secretary Cycles in the Third Century BC ," ZPE 58 (1985) 275-295, argued for Ferguson's (295). Habicht now leans toward the earlier date; see "Athens and the Ptolemies" in Classical Antiquity 11 (1992) 68-69.
[24] Plutarch Demetrios 33-34.
[25] IG II650 (King Ptolemy's admiral), 651 (Habron and Matrias), 653 (King Spartokos of the Bosporos), 654 (King Audoleon of Paionia), 655 (King Audoleon's agent).
[26] IG II 682 lines 28-30.
[27] See also T. L. Shear, Jr., Kallias of Sphettos , Hesperia Suppl. 17 (1978) 26-27.
[28] M. B. Walbank, Hesperia 49 (1980) 251-255.
[29] It was inscribed by the Cutter of IG II 650, who was not at work in the decade 330-320.
[30] Diodoros 20.81-88, 91-100.
The Inscriptions and Demetrios of Phaleron
One of the most notable facts about the period 317-307, the decade of Demetrios' rule,[1] is that almost no decrees of the assembly can be assigned to these years. Indeed there are now only two certain ones, IG II2450 and 453.[2] It has generally been deduced from this fact that the assembly met less often and that, whatever his rhetoric may have been,[3] Deme-
[1] The bibliography on Demetrios is extensive. In addition to PW IV 2817-2841 (Martini), PA 3455 (Kirchner), PWK Suppl. XI 514-522 (Wehrli), and APF 3455 (Davies), see E. Bayer, Demetrios Phalereus der Athener , Tüb. Beiträge 36 (Stuttgart 1942); and J. M. Williams, "Athens without Democracy: The Oligarchy of Phocion and the Tyranny of Demetrius of Phalerum, 322-307" (diss., Yale University 1982). W. S. Ferguson devoted a chapter to him in Hellenistic Athens 37-94; there are also articles by Ferguson ("The Laws of Demetrius of Phalerum and Their Guardians," Klio 11 [1911] 265-276), by S. Dow and A. H. Travis ("Demetrios of Phaleron and His Lawgiving," Hesperia 12 [1943] 144-165), by H.-J. Gehrke ("Das Verhältnis yon Politik und Philosophie im Wirken des Demetrios von Phaleron," Chiron 8 [1978] 149-193), and by J. M. Williams ("The Peripatetic School and Demetrius of Phalerum's Reforms in Athens," Ancient World 15 [1987] 87-98). For the collected ancient testimonia, see E Jacoby, FGrH no. 228; and E Wehrli, DieSchule des Aristoteles IV (Basel 1949).
[2] IG II727 probably belongs to the years of Demetrios (below 139), and IG II592 could date from the period of his control (below 155-156). Ch. Habicht will suggest in his forthcoming Athen von Alexander bis Antonios (Munich 1995) that IG II 418 , the end of a decree honoring ambassadors from Carthage, may be connected with the events of 310/09, the war between Agathokles, tyrant of Syracuse, and Carthage (Diodoros 20.40.1-42.5). Furthermore, J. Morgan in a forthcoming study of the Athenian calendar win argue the likelihood that IG II 585 belongs to the year 314/3. On the other hand, the following decrees that have been dated to the decade of Demetrios' rule should be removed. IG II449 probably does not date after 320 (below 99); II 451 belongs to the year 340/39 (below 73-74); II 452 is now dated to the year 328/7 (Schwenk no. 53; for evidence that this decree and IG II 399 were passed at the same meeting, see above 8n. 4); and II 454 belongs to 324/3 (S. Dow, Hesperia 32 [1963] 350; Schwenk no. 75). Finally, Koehler in IG , followed by Robert (Rev . Num ., 1977, 23-24), has associated IG II549 with events known to have occurred in 315/4. However, this text was inscribed by the Cutter of IG II 244 and probably dates before 320 B.C. (below 99).
trios' regime was strongly antidemocratic.[4] This may well have been so, but the mere absence of inscribed measures does not necessarily lead to this conclusion. It is very possible, for example, that the assembly was quite active and that the only activity much curtailed was the inscribing of decrees.
In this regard, it may be significant that the only preserved dose of a decree datable to the years of his control, namely lines 1-12 of IG II2 450b , contains no provision for payment.[5] Perhaps as a means of reducing expenditures for show Demetrios either disbanded or sharply reduced the public funds used for this purpose. In any case, the machinery of government clearly remained intact; archons were chosen each year. The preambles of the two extant decrees of the assembly follow the usual conventions and suggest that the meetings which they record were ordinary. In particular, the proedros appears in the expected place of the prescripts as chairman of the meeting, which in turn reveals that the council and its major subcommittee continued.[6] Furthermore, Demetrios gave his laws as an elected official,[7] and in 309/8 he held the annual office of archon epony-
[4] Ferguson, HA 61-62; H. Berve, Die Tyrannis bei den Griechen I (Munich 1967) 326-327.
[5] It must, however, be admitted that fragment b may preserve an amendment added after the (now-lost) payment formula.
[6] It is worth noting that mention of the secretary is omitted in both inscriptions. This may be chance; it could, however, suggest a de-emphasis of the position or that there were monthly secretaries, as in the period 321/0 to 319/8. There is obviously insufficient evidence to draw wide-ranging conclusions. However, consideration of the tribal affiliations of the known secretaries before and after Demetrios does suggest that there were annual secretaries preserving the tribal order for six of his years. The reasoning is as follows. The secretary of 318/7 came from tribe II (Aigeis). In the troubled year 307/6 the secretary came from Diomeia, a deme assigned during that year to the newly created tribe II, Demetrias. This cannot be an accident and was surely meant to flatter Demetrios, the son of Antigonos. After this anomaly, the secretary cycle then dearly starts up again in regular fashion the next year as the following tabulation reveals:
306/5 | Aiantis XI (old IX) |
305/4 | Antiochis XII (old X) |
304/3 | Antigonis I |
303/2 | Erechtheis III |
302/1 | Aigeis IV |
etc. |
Clearly the jump from tribe I to tribe III in the years 304/3-303/2 was done because tribe II had held office in 307/6, out of order and early. Why then restart with the tribe Aiantis, the ninth tribe in the old order? It could have been arbitrary or decided by drawing lots, etc., etc. If that is not the case, the most natural assumption is that secretaries from tribes III-VIII had already served during Demetrios' regime.
[7] IG II 1201 line 11.
mous.[8] All of this not only points to the retention of the democratic machinery of government, but even suggests some scruple with regard to the appearance, if not the reality, of democracy.
However much the democratic modes remained in place, there is also no question that Demetrios exercised his power under the aegis of Kassandros.[9] The Athenians, including Demetrios, were not free to ignore his wishes, especially in the sphere of foreign policy. Moreover, certain measures were put in place in the city at the outset that either curtailed the democracy or promoted aristocratic interests. The citizenship was limited to those who possessed 1,000 drachmas.[10] The authority to determine the legality of laws seems to have been transferred from the courts to the nomophylakes .[11] Parallel to this, there was, perhaps, no scrutiny of citizenship grants before the law courts.[12] This may suggest a vesting of critically important policy-making matters in the hands of the few and, indeed,
[8] Mar. Parium B line 24, Diodoros 20.27. It has been inferred from this that Demetrios changed the procedure for choosing archons and other officials from selection by lot to election (J. Sundwall, De Institutis Reipublicae Atheniensium post Aristotelis Aetatem Commutatis , Acta Soc. Scient. Fennicae 34 [1907] 11-12. Sundwall is followed by Bayer [above n. 1, p. 90], Gehrke [above n. 1, p. 153], and Williams [above n. 1, p. 95]). Such a change would have been momentous indeed, for sortition lay at the heart of the Athenian democratic system. There exists, however, no real evidence for it, and I think it very unlikely. Sundwall based his discussion on epigraphical evidence that he thought showed that the secretaries under Deme-trios were not chosen by lot. However, not one of the inscriptions he adduced, we now know, belongs to the years 317-307. Moreover, Demetrios' service as archon does not, contrary to what has been assumed, provide any compelling evidence, for we know of at least one case in the late Hellenistic period, when sortition was demonstrably in use, of a well-known person's arranging to hold the eponymous archonship (S. Tracy, "TO MH D IS APXEIN." CP 86 [1991] 203). It could be accomplished by the expedient of having other possible candidates for the office either withdraw or not submit themselves for the allotment in the first place. Sundwall's attempt (p. 12) to identify the archons Demokleides (316/5) and Polemon (312/ 1) with well-known persons founders for lack of evidence. Neither name is so uncommon as to render his identification probable.
[9] Diodoros 18.74.2-3.
[10] Ibid . This, be it noted, actually expanded the citizen base in comparison with the oligarchic regime of 322-319 which had set a limit of 2,000 drachmas.
[11] Philoch. ft. 64 in FGrH 328; cf. Ferguson, "The Laws of Demetrius," (above n. 1) esp. 274-276; Bayer (above n. 1) 132-136; R. W. Wallace, TheAreopagos Council, to 307 (Baltimore 1989) 202-203; and M. H. Hansen, TheAthenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes (Oxford 1991) 210-211.
Aristotle specifically characterizes the nomophylakia as 
.[13] However, it is important to emphasize, these measures also reveal unmistakably that the courts of law, which along with the assembly constituted the major avenue of citizen control of the government,[14] were active and in the hands of the citizenry.[15]
Inscribing, moreover, did not come to a complete halt under Deme-trios. Several deme decrees,[16] quite a few accounts of the treasurers of Athena and the other gods,[17] and a number of horoi[18] are all attested.[19] Most significantly, three of the cutters of this study are attested at work in early 317 or before and again after 307, namely the Cutters of IG II2 1262 (ca . 320-ca . 296), of IG II2 498 (321-302), and of IG II2 650 (317-283/2).[20] In addition, a fourth man, the EM 12807 Cutter, was active from the year 334/3 until at least 314/3. There had to have been more inscribing during the ten years of Demetrios' control than appears to us at this far remove in time, for, had there been a nearly complete hiatus, these men—who were specialists —would surely have been forced to turn to another line of work or to relocate. It is thus quite probable that more decrees belonging to these
[13] Politics 1.1323a7.
[14] On this point, see Hansen, Athenian Democracy 178-180.
[15] Indeed, Demetrios increased the size of courts judging cases of eisangelia from 1,000 to 1,500 persons (Pollux 8.53).
[16] IG II 1200, 1201, and MDAIA 66 (1941) 218-219; IG II1202 probably belongs to 340/39 (below 99-100).
[17] IG II 1476, 1478, 1479, 1480, 1483, 1492. For what little is known of their activity in the late fourth century, see T. Linders, TheTreasurers of the Other Gods in Athens and Their Functions (Meisenheim 1975) 60-61, 65.
[18] IG II 2680, 2725, 2726, 2727, 2744, 2745, 2762; Hesperia Suppl. 9 (1951) 33 no. 17; Agora XIX nos. H78, H84. M. I. Finley (Studies in Land and Credit in Ancient Athens , 500-200 B.C. , 2d ed. [New Brunswick, N.J. 19851, 177-181) has rightly challenged Ferguson's theory that these horoi can be used to date Demetrios' law code and determine the nature of his legislation concerning real property.
[19] In addition, IG II 1129 (a decree of the Milesians) seems to belong to the time of Deme-trios, while IG II 1259 (a decree of orgeones ), 2394 (a deme list), 3104 (dedication of a komarch) all date to the archonship of Theophrastos, i.e., either to 340/39 or to 313/2. The base of a statue set up by the Sphettians for Demetrios, son of Phanostratos (BCH 93 [1969] 56-71 = SEG 25 no. 206), may refer to the famous Demetrios, but it could equally well honor his grandson, Demetrios the Younger (below 44). The lettering on this base, so far as it can be discerned on the published photograph, provides no decisive due to the date.
[20] This last cutter, in contrast to the other two, did not apparently take part in the frenzy of inscribing that took place in the years 307/6 and after, following Demetrios' fall from power. The majority of his datable work belongs to the 290's and 280's. He may, therefore have left Athens or given up his trade as a letter-cutter for quite a while and only resumed it late (below 158-159).
years will eventually turn up and that some of the undatable ones now known belong to the period of Demetrios' control.
Still there is no question that there was less inscribing under Deme-trios.[21] There are, for example, no ephebic inscriptions known[22] and no inscriptions listing councillors. Yet the ephebeia either continued or, if (as seems likely) it was curtailed under the oligarchy of the years 321-319,[23] was renewed under Demetrios, for a single ephebe is attested for the year 312/1.[24] The existence of the council too is guaranteed by the appearance of the proedroi in the preambles of IG II2 450 and 453. The cutters who remained active found work where they could, namely inscribing deme decrees, inventories, boundary stones, and undoubtedly simple grave markers. They probably also did some free-lance work on buildings to make ends meet. Whatever the case, there surely was work for them to do.
Of the two fragmentary decrees which can be assigned certainly to the years of Demetrios' control one, IG II2 453, preserves only the opening lines, so that we do not know in any precise way what it dealt with. The first line merely reveals that it honored someone whose name began with the letters ANT. The date, however, is certain, January or February of 309, and the speaker
[21] One of the ways that the new "democratic" regime of 307/6 and following presented itself was by ostentatiously publishing many decrees on stone. Clearly they intended the contrast between their practice and that under Demetrios to be notable. There are fifteen decrees known to me that are either definitely or very probably datable to the year of Anaxikrates (307/6): IG II358 , 455 , 456, 457, 458, 459, 460 , 461, 462, 463, 464 , 465, Agora I 5884 (Pritchett and Meritt, Chronology 8), EM 12706 (Hesperia 2 [1933] 398), and SEG 3 no. 86 (= J.J. Hondius, Novae Inscriptiones Atticae [Lyon 1925] 39-46).
[22] The ephebic inscription IG II 2970 (= Reinmuth no. 4) has been redated by F. W. Mitchel (Hesperia 33 [1964] 349-350) to the year 334/3.
[23] Above 19 and n. 79.
[24] IG II 2323a lines 46-47. John Morgan informs me that his work on the calendar suggests the possibility that IG II 585, a decree praising a paidotribes , may well belong to the year 314/ 3. Three ephebic texts are known that apparently date to the years 306 to 300: IG II 478, 556, and 1159 = Reinmuth nos. 17-19. They provide no evidence of a revival following ten years of suppression, but rather suggest a continuity of the institution. They reveal that the ephebeia by 306 B.C. consisted of a year's training instead of two, as in the period after Chaironeia under Lykourgos. See Ath. Pol . 42.2-5 for a description of the two-year training program. It appears very likely that Demetrios reinstated the ephebeia, but limited it to a year's training in order to allay Macedonian qualms about the youth of Athens having military training.
[25] Ch. Habicht, Studien 198. The inscription of the year 318 is Agora I 3878 (=Hesperia 7 [1938] 476-479; Moretti, ISE no. 4), and the bouleutic text is Agora XV no. 62 line 309.
450 fortunately is much better preserved. Enacted in the first month or so of the year 313,[26] it honors the Macedonian Asandros, son of Agathon, for long-standing acts of friendship and particularly for making available when he was visiting Athens his own ships and soldiers to the Athenians in a time of need. Although the actual grant is not preserved, it seems beyond doubt that this is a citizenship decree and that Asandros was awarded citizenship, as well as sitesis, proedria , and a bronze equestrian statue.[27] These honors are unusually high. Furthermore the measure was proposed by a known oligarch, Thrasykles of Thria, the anagrapheus of 321/0.[28]
This inscription has generally been connected with a known event, namely the expedition that the Athenians sent against the island of Lemnos at the behest of Kassandros.[29] Errington, however, may well be correct to argue for a chronology that places the battle over Lemnos in late 313.[30] If he is, it would dissociate this inscription from that particular event. Billows, in adopting the same chronology, points out that Asandros was himself pressed at the time of the Lemnos campaign and would scarcely have had men and ships to spare.[31] Whatever the case, it can scarcely be misleading for our political assessment of Demetrios' regime that the single (partially preserved) body of a decree of the assembly from the ten years of his control was proposed by a leading oligarch and honors an important Macedonian military figure, then satrap of Karia, and ally of Kassandros against Antigonos.[32]
Born about 355 B.C. Demetrios was a student of Theophrastos and
[26] Is it merely chance that both IG II 453 and 450 were enacted in the sixth prytany of their respective years?
[27] Osborne, Naturalization has re-edited and discussed this text as D42.
[29] Diodoros 19.68.3; for a recent presentation of this position, see Osborne, Naturalization II p. 114.
[30] R. M. Errington, "Diodorus Siculus and the Chronology of the Early Diadochoi, 320-311 B.C. ," Hermes 105 (1977) 496-500.
[31] Billows, Antigonos 116 n. 43.
[32] On Asandros and Kassandros and their alliance against Antigonos, see Billows, ibid . 116-121.
quite early earned a reputation for wisdom.[33] We know little enough of his career before he came to power in 317. We are told merely that he entered the political arena during the events surrounding Harpalos' flight to Athens in 324 B.C.[34] This remains for us a confused affair.[35] We have no way of knowing what Demetrios' precise involvement was, but almost certainly he favored a policy of accommodating Alexander. We next hear of him as one of those who was sent to negotiate with Antipatros and Krateros in the aftermath of the Athenian defeat at the battle of Krannon in 322.[36] The final terms agreed upon in those negotiations resulted in an oligarchic regime and the imposition of a Macedonian garrison in Piraeus. In addition, the leaders of the anti-Macedonian faction, Demosthenes, Hypereides, and Himeraios, Demetrios' brother, were condemned; they either committed suicide or were seized and killed. Not many years later, when the short-lived democracy backed by Polyperchon came to power in 318, a number of the pro-Macedonian leaders, including Phokion, were also executed.[37] Demetrios, though himself condemned at this time, escaped by wisely taking refuge with Nikanor, Kassandros' general in Piraeus.[38] He
[34] Diog. Laert. 5.75.
[35] E. Badian, "Harpalus," JHS 81 (1961) 16-43, is basic; see also Bosworth, Conquest and Empire 215-220; and I. Worthington, A Historical Commentary on Dinarchus (Ann Arbor 1992) 41-77.
[36] Demetrios On Style 289.
[37] Demades and his son had already been caught in double dealing by Kassandros and executed while on a mission to Macedonia in 319 (above 20). On the date, below 147 n. 12; and, on this embassy, J. M. Williams, "Demades' Last Years, 323/2-319/8 B.C. " Ancient World 19 (1989) 28-29.
[38] Nikanor and Demetrios will have had a natural affinity since they had both been students in the school of Aristotle. Nikanor, a fellow townsman of Aristotle from Stagira, was born about 360 and thus was a few years Demetrios' senior. He eventually married the daughter of his mentor Aristotle and thus figures prominently in his will (Diog. Laert. 5.11-12). Nikanor served under Alexander in the East and was entrusted to bring the important decree concerning the exiles to Greece for announcement at the Olympic games in the summer of 324 (Diodoros 17.109.1, 18.8.2-5). In 319 Kassandros appointed him garrison commander at Mounychia, a post he filled with great skill. He not only managed to hold Mounychia in the face of Polyperchon, but he succeeded in gaining control of the harbor and Piraeus itself (Diodoros 18.64-65, Plutarch Phokion 31-33). When Kassandros arrived in Piraeus, Nikanor was then dispatched to the Hellespont to confront Polyperchon's admiral Kleitos, whom he defeated near Byzantion (Diodoros 18.72.3-9). He returned to Piraeus victorious and soon thereafter (sometime during 317) fell afoul of the suspicions of Kassandros, who had him executed (Diodoros 18.75.1).
was thus in a position, when Kassandros sailed into Piraeus and Polyperchon withdrew, to negotiate a peace between the warring factions in the city and Piraeus[39] and to become Kassandros' agent in Athens.[40]
Diodoros reports the agreement of the Athenians with Kassandros in accordance with which Demetrios became epimeletes of the city.[41] And epimeletes does seem to have been his official title.[42] However, line 11 of IG II2 1201, a deme decree from early in his rule, reveals that the title of his office when he gave laws and to which he was elected by the people contained nine letters. Since epimeletes has ten letters, it has generally been supposed that his elected office differed and was either 
or 
. Each office indeed has its strong proponents. Not only, moreover, did Demetrios gain a lasting reputation for his lawgiving; it was one of the first tasks that he undertook.[43] This undoubted fact led Dow and Travis to argue the case for nomothetes persuasively.[44] Most, however, have used the evidence of IG II2 2971 to support the notion that the office Demetrios occupied during his rule was that of general.[45]
IG II2 2971 is a complete and rather elaborate statue base from Eleusis for the general Demetrios, son of Phanostratos, of Phaleron. The Athenian soldiers stationed in Eleusis, Panakton, and Phyle dedicated it to Demeter and Kore. The twelve inscribed crowns preserved on it commemorate Demetrios' military offices and equestrian victories. Since its discovery in the eighteenth century, it has naturally been taken to refer to the famous De-
[39] IG II 1201 lines 5-10. Another decree from just after Kassandros' assumption of control (Agora I 559 , published in Hesperia 4 [1935] 35-37) praises a military detachment of the tribe Kekropis for killing some public enemy or enemies.
[40] The curse tablet published in MDAIA 85 (1970) 197-198 shows how close they were, for it associates Demetrios with Kassandros and his most trusted lieutenants, namely his brother Pleistarchos and his Macedonian general Eupolemos. Habicht seems correct in associating this tablet with the repulse of Kassandros' attack on Athens in the year 304 (Pausanias' Guide to Ancient Greece [Berkeley 1985] 77-82).
[41] 18.74.3.
[42] Strabo (9.1.20) calls him epistates , and Polybios (12.13.9) prostates tes patridos ; neither of these appears to be an official designation.
[44] "Demetrios of Phaleron and His Lawgiving," Hesperia 12 (1943) 144-165, esp. 150-156.
[45] Ferguson, HA 47-48; A. Heuss, Stadt und Herrscher des Hellenismus , Klio Beiheft 39 (Leipzig 1937) 53-55; H.-J. Gehrke, "Politik und Philosophie bei Demetrios von Phaleron," Chiron 8 (1978) 173-175.
metrios of Phaleron and dated ca . 314. Indeed, it has been the linchpin in the argument that Demetrios came to prominence early as a general and held that office for much of the time he was in power. However, this inscription cannot be dated to the late fourth century B.C. , on two grounds.
First, the lettering of this base is the work of the Cutter of IG II2 788.[46] This man's career extended from about 270 to about 235 B.C. Second, the general on the base, in being honored by the garrisons at Eleusis, Panakton, and Phyle, can be no other than the general over the Eleusinian territory;[47] this generalship did not exist ca . 314. At the time of the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia and down to at least 290 B.C. there was just one general over the entire Attic countryside; this official had the title strategos
.[48] Sometime after that and not later than 265, this single office was divided into two positions, a general for the coastal region (
)[49] and another for the Eleusinian district, which included Panakton and Phyle (
).[50] This inscription then can be dated at the earliest no earlier than 270 B.C. It does not refer to the famous Demetrios of Phaleron, but to his homonymous grandson, who was the agent of Antigonos Gonatas in Athens about 260 in the aftermath of the Chremonidean War.[51] With this added information, we may date IG II2 2971 ca. 250.
Once IG II2 2971 has been removed from the dossier of evidence applicable to the famous Demetrios, we possess no reliable evidence that he
[46] See Appendix One.
[47] The earliest occurrence of mention of the garrison at Eleusis as a separate entity is IG II 1272 of 267/6. It is also mentioned apparently by itself in IG II 1280, a decree of 245-243 honoring Antigonos Gonatas (Habicht, Studien 59-62, for the date). The three garrisons together occur in IG II 1299 (236/5), 1303 (218/7), 1304 (211/0), and 1305, 1306, and 1307, all of the late third century B.C. In addition, IG II 1285 of ca. 250 (see Hesperia 57 [1988] 321 for the date) probably also mentioned the three garrisons, for it was enacted by the demos of the Eleusinians, and it names Panakton in line 22.
[48] Ath. Pol . 61, Reinmuth no. 15 lines 2-3 (1. side) of probably 329/8 (above 25-26), IG II 2847 of fin. s. IV a ., and 682 line 24 of ca. 290.
[49] See SEG 24 no. 154, of the year of Peithidemos (268/7?—for the year Hesperia 57 [1988] 309), IG II 2854 of ca. 258, and IG II 2856 and J. Pouilloux, La forteresse de Rhamnonte (Paris 1954) 118-120 no. 7, both of ca . 250.
[50] IG II 3460 of the year of Antimachos, who is known from a recently discovered inscription (as yet unpublished) to have been archon soon after the Chremonidean War (below 171 n. 3); and IG II 1287 of ca . 250.
[51] Obscurely known, his patronymic came to light only in 1978 (Hesperia 47 [1978] 281). Ferguson (HA 183) surmised that he was the man appointed by Antigonos Gonatas as thesmothetes (Athenaios 4.167f), and Habicht (Studien 18-20, 54) argued that this was a special multi-year appointment.
ever held a generalship or had an active military career.[52] Indeed, it is significant in this connection to note that when the son of Antigonos attacked Athens in the spring of 307, Demetrios of Phaleron withdrew without apparently offering anything more than token resistance. Rather, he negotiated on behalf of the city and received a safe-conduct to Thebes.[53] Demetrios' title in line 11 of IG II2 1201 was, therefore, almost certainly not strategos. The title nomothetes does suit the space, but it too has little to recommend it, for there were ordinarily many nomothetai , who usually served as members of large boards.[54] They were probably chosen by lot in the fourth century. An individual elected to act by himself as nomothetes was, if not on constitutional grounds impossible, at least highly unusual.[55] It too, therefore, seems unlikely.
This leaves us with the title epimeletes and the account of Diodoros. In what appears to be an accurate summary of the actual conditions laid down between Kassandros and the Athenians, Diodoros records that they agreed "to install as epimeletes of the city a single Athenian agreeable to Kassandros. And Demetrios of Phaleron was elected."[56] Wilhelm long ago realized that this strongly suggested that the title epimeletes once stood in IG II2 1201. He therefore restored lines 11-12: [
. This indeed now appears all along to have been the best choice. As to the objection that the title epimeletes is one letter too long, Wilhelm noted that it could be accommodated by assuming that the inscriber did
[54] For the nomothetai in the epigraphical evidence of the fourth century, see IG II 140 line 8, 222 lines 41 and 50, 244 line 6, 330 line 20, 334 + line 7 (= Hesperia 28 [1959] 239-247), 487 line 7, Agora I 6254 line 6 (=Hesperia 21 [1952] 355-359), 1 7180 line 1 (= Hesperia 43 [1974] 158-188), and IG VII 4254 line 40. There is no indubitable attestation in the epigraphical evidence of the title nomothetes in the singular.
not give the iota a stoichos of its own, but crowded it in as he did the iota of 
in line 6.[57] It is not in the end at all improbable that the Athenians "elected" the epimeletes whom Kassandros designated.[58]
The existence of IG II2 2971 and the supposed active military career of Demetrios of Phaleron have obscured the real nature of the terms imposed on the Athenians by Kassandros in 317. It seems quite clear that he established two poles of power, one in Athens, one in Piraeus, each with different missions. He allowed the Athenians a certain measure of autonomy in their internal affairs by letting them "elect" a distinguished fellow citizen as overseer of the city. At the same time, he retained ultimate control by vesting all military power in his phrourarch stationed in Piraeus. This practice of creating a civil authority separate and distinct from the military was one that Alexander the Great had used to good effect during his campaigns in the East, particularly in Asia Minor.[59] The text of Diodoros points to this division: 
.[60] As epimeletes Demetrios had primary responsibility for governing the city and dealing with its internal affairs; Dionysios, Kassandros' commander at the fortress of Mounychia in Piraeus, and his Macedonian garrison had control over military matters.[61] Kassandros wielded his authority through this garrison. He clearly
[57] GöttGelAnz 165 (1903) 784.
[59] W.W. Tarn in CAH VI 370; and Bosworth, Conquest and Empire 229-238.
dictated foreign policy to his Athenian subjects.[62] Whatever power or influence Demetrios and the Athenians had over their own military affairs was probably in practice slight and dependent on the concurrence of the garrison commander in Piraeus.[63]
Nevertheless, within this circumscribed arena of action, Demetrios seems to have protected the interests of his fellow citizens.[64] The ten years of his control were a time of domestic peace and stability for the Athenians. He revised the law code and perhaps systematized it.[65] Most significantly to his credit he appears to have reinstated, no doubt in the face of strong Macedonian intransigence, a year-long course of military training for the youth of Athens.[66] He also curbed certain excesses in the areas of entertaining, dress, and burial customs.[67] Although these intrusions into
[62] This is not to imply that the Athenians were totally docile. There was clearly always powerful resentment against a foreign garrison stationed in Piraeus, a resentment which flourished despite the relative peace and prosperity that Demetrios brought to the city. In 313 some Athenians in collusion with Antigonos' general Polemaios forced Demetrios to seek a truce and alliance with Antigonos against Kassandros (Diodoros 19.78.4). Poliorketes' failures in Syria soon forced Antigonos to abandon his planned attack against Greece and relieved Demetrios from this awkward situation. Whether the Athenians involved did this secretly, as Diodoros says, or with Demetrios' knowledge, we cannot know. Perhaps he tacitly accepted it. Surely he was not above playing the major contenders off against one another or switching allegiance to someone who seemed about to gain the upper hand. Officially of course he maintained steadfastly his loyalty to his patron, Kassandros. To do otherwise would have invited swift punishment, for Kassandros clearly had no hesitation to execute those whom he regarded as disloyal to him, as the cases of Demades (above n. 37) and Nikanor (above n. 38) had shown.
[65] IG II 1201 lines 12-13, Mar. Parium B line 16. For recent discussions of the nature of his lawgiving, see Gehrke (above n. 1) and Williams (above n. 1).
[66] Note 24 above.
[67] Philochoros FGrH 38 F65, and, on the activities of the gynaikonomoi under Demetrios, Bayer (above n. 1) 51-69. Concerning grave monuments and burials, Cicero De Legibus 2.64-66.
the conduct of private affairs opened Demetrios to attacks on his own private life,[68] nevertheless the measures may well have been needed in a comparatively small city where everyone who was anyone knew everyone else. The consequent peer pressure had apparently resulted in an unhealthy amount of expenditure of resources for reasons of show. If one considers only domestic affairs, Demetrios appears to have been an enlightened leader, and in some quarters at least his claims of strengthening the democracy were accepted.[69] Cicero found him wholly admirable: "qui vero utraque re excelleret, ut et doctrinae studiis et regenda civitate princeps esset, quis facile praeter hunc inveniri potest?"[70]
What we know of Demetrios' political activities suggests that he was primarily a diplomat and a lawgiver. He was also a prominent student of philosophy and a prolific writer.[71] He appears in short to have taken himself seriously as a philosopher and man of letters. During his ten-year regency the Athenians may in fact have had in him a leader whose primary aspiration was to be their philosopher-king. Demetrios was, after all, among Theophrastos' most successful students. Moreover, Theophrastos remained in Athens under Demetrios' regime[72] and doubtless acted as an adviser to his protégé, particularly in his role as lawgiver.[73] The comic poet
[68] Athenaios 12.542b-c, e-f, 13.593e-f; Diog. Laert. 5.76.
[70] De Legibus 3.6.14; see also De Re Publ . 2.1.2, Pro Rab. Post . 9.23.
[71] Diog. Laert. 5.80-81 gives the tides of his works and describes him as nearly the most prolific of the Peripatetics.
[73] At what stage Theophrastos' own massive work on the laws, his Nomoi , was at this time is unfortunately unclear. It appears that he either composed it soon after taking over as head of the Peripatos or in the first years of Demetrios' rule. In any case, he was able to give ample advice on the subject. See A. Szegedy-Maszak, The "Nomoi" of Theophrastus (New York 1981), for a new edition. Szegedy-Maszak discusses the date on pages 79-81 and explicitly characterizes Theophrastos' work on page 86 as "an encyclopedia for legislators, which could be consulted to insure that a prospective law was the best one available."
Menander, who was another of Theophrastos' students and about a dozen years younger than Demetrios, was also active in Athens at this time. Indeed, it appears likely that he produced the Dyskolos during 317/6, Demetrios' first year at the helm.[74] Later, because of his friendship with Demetrios, he was threatened with a lawsuit at the time of Demetrios' expulsion in 307/6.[75]
Whatever our judgment may be of Demetrios of Phaleron's willingness to allow a foreign power to control Athens' external affairs,[76] his abilities and aspirations as lawgiver and man of letters were clearly well regarded by his contemporaries.[77] Whether he went to the court of Ptolemy I Soter at Alexandria soon after 307[78] or only after Kassandros' death in 297,[79] he played an important role in the intellectual life of that city. Indeed, it appears that Soter took him as an adviser when he could not secure the services of Theophrastos, the head of the Peripatos.[80] Our sources suggest that he continued doing in Alexandria what he had done in Athens, for, among other activities, Demetrios advised the king on the law
[74] E. W. Handley, The Dyskolos of Menander (Cambridge, Mass. 1965) 7; A. W. Gomme and F. H. Sandbach, Menander: A Commentary (Oxford 1973) 128-129.
[75] Diog. Laert. 5.79.
[76] He has been heavily criticized (nn. 67 and 68 above). Indeed this strong negative sentiment is surely responsible for the exaggerated stories of the number of his own bronze statues that he is supposed to have erected and that were pulled down when his "tyranny" was ended in 307; see [Dio Chrysost.] Oration 37.41, who numbers them at 1,500; Diog. Laert. 5.75 gives a figure of 360; Strabo 9.1.20, more than 300; Plutarch Mor . 820e, 300. Surely these numbers as well as the story deserve no credence. Demetrios was no maddened megalomaniac who had to see his statue in every shop and on every street comer. Probably there were statues of Demetrios in Athens during his rule, but not a single base of one has yet been identified with certainty. IG II 2971 does not, as shown above, apply to him, and the base of a statue set up by the Sphettians in honor of Demetrios, son of Phanostratos (EM 13379, published in BCH 93 [1969] 56-70), may refer to him or to his homonymous grandson (above n. 19).
[77] Although Demetrios was never head of the school, it does seem to be a further indication of his standing that Diogenes Laertios in his fifth book adds Demetrios' life to his account of the lives of the first four scholarchs of the Peripatos. On this point, see M. G. Sollenberger, "The Lives of the Peripatetics: An Analysis of the Contents and Structure of Diogenes Laertius' 'Vitae philosophorum' Book 5," ANRW 36.6 (Berlin 1992) 3798-3800.
[78] Cicero De Finibus 5.19.53.
[79] Diog. Laert. 5.78.
[80] Ibid . 37.
code for Alexandria[81] and on his plans for what was to become the great library.[82]
Epilog
The account in the letter of Aristeas that made Demetrios head of the library charged with collecting all the books in the world,[83] even with translating books from the Hebrew,[84] is certainly late and fundamentally wrong on some important points. To take but the most obvious—however much the first Ptolemy may have laid the groundwork for it, the library as an actual institution did not apparently come into being until the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphos. By then Demetrios was out of favor at court; he could not, therefore, have been head of the library. Surely, however, Demetrios was active in some way in the efforts of the first Ptolemy to create a collection. The letter could well, therefore, preserve in exaggerated form a real memory of Demetrios' activities. He clearly was not only a serious writer and man of letters, but was taken as such by his contemporaries. Furthermore, he no doubt put together at least part of the collection that later became the great library.[85] Is it not prima facie probable, then, that Demetrios, as part of his literary activities for the first Ptolemy, acquired ca . 295 B.C. copies of many of the works of Aristotle and Theophrastos? One need scarcely point out that, as a distinguished member of the Peripatos, he would have been unusually well positioned to do exactly this.
If this hypothesis is correct (and hypothesis it must remain), the early history of Aristotle's works must be seen in a different light than heretofore. Previous discussion has tended to focus on the activities of one Neleus of Skepsis, to whom Theophrastos left all his books at his death ca . 287 B.C.[86] It is reported, I assume correctly, that the books of Aristotle were among Theophrastos' books.[87] The ancient sources preserve two conflicting accounts about Neleus' handling of his legacy. One was that he took them to Skepsis, where after his death they lay moldering in a cellar until
[81] Aelian VH 3.17; see also P.M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria I (Oxford 1972) 114-115.
[82] Plutarch Mor . 189d; Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria 1314-315, 690.
[83] I owe the general idea behind this epilog in part to my colleague Alan Code.
[84] The letter of Aristeas to Philokrates (Jacoby, FGrH 228 T6e).
[85] Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria 314-315.
[86] Diog. Laert. 5.52. Theophrastos died either in the year 288/7 or in 287/6.
[87] The report occurs in Athenaios 1.3a-b and in Strabo 13.1.54. The will of Aristotle preserved in Diogenes Laertios (5.11-17) makes no provision for his books. There are two possible reasons: either the will is incomplete or the books had already been entrusted to Theophrastos.
Apellikon of Teos brought them back to Athens early in the first century B.C.[88] The other was that he sold them to Ptolemy H Philadelphos for the library at Alexandria.[89] Whatever Neleus' exact role was,[90] it is significantly diminished in importance if we believe that, thanks to the activities of Demetrios of Phaleron, copies of many of the major Aristotelian treatises were already in Alexandria before the death of Theophrastos. On account of this they were known in the Hellenistic period. Moreover, their presence will have acted as a catalyst to spur the agents of Ptolemy II to assemble in the library at Alexandria as complete a collection as possible of the works of Aristotle.[91] Thus it is quite possible that the very efforts of Demetrios to preserve the writings of his great master and his followers brought it about that they were concentrated at the library in Alexandria at the time of the great fire, and thus many were lost to posterity.
[88] Strabo 13.1.54, Plutarch Sulla 26.1-2.
[89] Athenaios 1.3a-b.
[90] On Neleus' activities, see H. B. Gottschalk, "Notes on the Wills of the Peripatetic Scholarchs," Hermes 100 (1972) 335-342; and C. Lord, "On the Early History of the Aristotelian Corpus," AJPh 107 (1986) 137-161, esp. 138-145.
[91] Neleus may indeed have been approached by them and sold to them much of what he had.