Franchi, Elena (2021) Identità etniche e comunità cultuali. In: M. Giangiulio-E. Franchi, Processi di formazione. In: M. Giangiulio (a cura di), Introduzione alla Storia greca. Bologna, Società editrice il Mulino, 2021, 53-66, 58-60. ISBN: 9788815293510 (original) (raw)
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This paper discusses the role that Hera and the Heraion play in the accounts of the Battle of Sepeia, a battle fought at the beginning of the 5th century between the Spartans and the Argives. This role has been ignored to date, with scholars focusing on other cults, rituals and deities referred to in these accounts, the Hybristica, the cult of Ares Enyalios and the cult of the armed Aphrodite, for example. The main sources on the battle of Sepeia are, of course, Herodotus, Socrates of Argos, Pausanias and Plutarch. Herodotus, the locus classicus, mentions neither the festival of the Hybristika -begun by the Argives after their defeat - nor the cult of Ares Enyalios, nor the statue of armed Aphrodite. Instead he highlights the role of the sanctuary of Hera in Prosymna, the Heraion, where a statue of Hera, which had dissuaded the Spartan King Cleomenes from destroying the city of Argos, is situated. Herodotus recounts that when Cleomenes returned to Sparta after the battle and his fellow citizens accused him of having been bribed by the Argives not to destroy the city after Sparta’s victory, the king explained that “ he had supposed the god's oracle to be fulfilled by his taking of the temple of Argos; therefore he had thought it best not to make any attempt on the city before he had learned from the sacrifices whether the god would deliver it to him or withstand him; when he was taking omens in Hera's temple a flame of fire had shone forth from the breast of the image, and so he learned the truth of the matter, that he would not take Argos. If the flame had come out of the head of the image, he would have taken the city from head to foot utterly; but its coming from the breast signified that he had done as much as the god willed to happen. This plea of his seemed to the Spartans to be credible and reasonable, and he far outdistanced the pursuit of his accusers.” (Hdt. 6.82). It is not by chance that the detail of the breast is also mentioned by the oracle which is an important part of Herodotus’ tale of the Battle of Sepeia. What’s more, the Herodotean account, which relies more on the Argive version of events than on the Spartan, reflects a 5th Century Argive attemptt to consolidate their power over the sanctuary of Hera at Prosymna. This attempt finds occasional resonance both in Pindar’s poems and in some of the archaeological evidence from the sanctuary of Prosymna.
There are many versions of the battle of Sepia (beginning 5th BC), one of them reporting the heroic defence of Argos by the poetess Telesilla who successfully led women, serfs and elders. Herodotus does not know the episode of Telesilla, which is to find for the first time in the Argolika of the Hellenistic age. Jacoby is right in arguing that the 'Erfindung' of the episode is later than the beginning of the fifth century BC; he thinks that it goes back to the Hellenistic Age. If Diodorus X 24, 2, which is based on a lost passage of Ephorus and mentions the servile interregnum and the heroism of the women, refers to Telesilla, like Breglia holds, the invention of the episode of the Argive poetess defending her city dates at least to the fourth century. The typical folk tale motif of the female warrior proves that the episode was not an historiographical invention but more probably an invented oral or semi-oral tradition later collected and written down by local historians.
2019
Il funzionamento degli stati greci e lo specifico aspetto del rapporto tra componenti locali e livelli centrali del potere politico sono posti sotto osservazione, in questo volume, attraverso l’esame di una serie di casi di studio relativi all’area della Grecia occidentale. La valorizzazione del tessuto istituzionale e storico dei contesti presi in esame è qui condotta con particolare attenzione all’analisi della documentazione epigrafica, nella sua capacità di offrire preziosi sguardi di dettaglio sulla prassi politica delle comunità antiche. La scelta metodologica adottata nel procedere dell’indagine, in particolare, ha inteso riunire sotto un’unica prospettiva di ricerca comunità statuali sia poleiche sia federali. Il proposito dichiarato, infatti, non è solo quello di offrire un riesame di dettaglio dei casi via via affrontati, ma anche quello di individuare dinamiche e temi ricorrenti nel rapporto tra livelli locali e centrali del potere politico, al di là della tradizionale contrapposizione tra polis ed ethnos.
An unpublished tile with a dedication to Aphrodite is the occasion to review the documentation of this deity, one of the most important of the Locrian pantheon, in the light of new research lines and recent publications of archaeological contexts. The tile (dating to the 4th century B.C.) was reused in one of the blocks of the residential-craft district in loc. Centocamere, near the famous Aphrodite’s U-shaped stoa with its votive bothroi. Only two dedications to Aphrodite come from one of these votive deposits; all the other contexts, such as that of the tile, are secondary and the artefacts were found at Centocamere, both outside and inside the city walls. Intentionally, I have considered only archaeological and especially epigraphic findings, reporting them on a map to read their potential concentrations. The comparison between these records and those relating to Kore-Persephone and Demeter confirms the importance of Aphrodite and her presence in the coastal sanctuary outside the walls, where, however, perhaps the goddess was not alone.
One of the most debated topics regarding the Peace of Philocrates (346 BC) is the fate of the Phocians: were they excluded by a specific clause or not? This paper argues that if we take Demosthenes at face value the Athenians debated about more than one clause concerning the Phocians. A closer analysis of the historical, performative and memorial context of the peace negotiations, on the one hand, and of the legal proceedings against parapresbeia, on the other, suggests that the clause πλὴν Ἁλέων καὶ Φωκέων was debated in the assembly, and then deleted, whereas the attempt to furtively reinsert it afterwards by Aeschines and Philocrates was invented by Demosthenes in order to get Aeschines into trouble and promote his own policy. For the same reason, the relevance of other Phocian clauses was emphasized. One of the main aims of the whole ‘Phocian discourse’ by Demosthenes was to articulate and share with the Athenians a specific version of the past in order to plot, and increase fear of, the future: the ruin of the Phocians, who were deceived (by Philip and by Aeschines) in the past, is equated with the risk the Athenians are running to be deceived (again by Philip and by Aeschines) and fall into disrepair in the future. Several war scenarios are opening up, the battle of Chaeronea is at the gate: a specific memory of the past raises anxiety levels about the future in the Athenian assembly, a fact Demosthenes is well aware of.