Cook, R.M. - Ionia and Greece in The 8th and 7th Century BC

Ionia and Greece in the Eighth and Seventh Centuries B. C.
Author(s): R. M. Cook
Source: The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 66 (1946), pp. 67-98
Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/626542 .
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IONIA AND GREECE IN THE EIGHTH AND SEVENTH CENTURIES B.C.
I. INTRODUCTION
A GENERATION or so back scholars were
disposed
to find in Asiatic Greece the
origins
of most of Hellenic culture and art: and
though
Panionismus is no
longer
as
openly professed,
belief in it is at least
implicit
in
many
more recent
works.1
The
purpose
of this
paper
is to
examine,
so far as the evidence
permits,
the
justice
of the claim that
Ionia
was in the
eighth
and seventh centuries B.C. the infants' school of Hellas.2
It is
prudent
to
begin
with a definition. The term
'Ionian'
has been used in various
senses,
and this has made for confusion. First of all it is limited to the
geographical
area of
Ionia;
then it is extended to include
many
of the
Cyclades
and even
Euboea; thirdly, though
not often
nowadays,
it
may
embrace Athens
also; yet again
it sometimes covers all the Greeks
of the East
Aegean-Aeolian,
Ionian
and Dorian. In this
paper
'
Ionian'
will be limited to
the
geographical Ionia:
and the
Aeolians, Ionians
and Dorians of the East
Aegean
will be
grouped together
as 'East
Greek,' according
to current
archaeological usage.
The evidence comes almost
wholly
from Greek sources in literature and
archaeology.
It is neither direct nor
abundant,
and can often be
interpreted
in
opposite ways.
Not till the
sixth
century
does Greek
history
become
fairly clear,
and even in the sixth
century
there is
much that is
disputed.
2. THE LITERARY EVIDENCE
As it
happens,
the remains of ancient literature contain no direct estimate of the
early
importance
of
Ionia.
Modern historians have therefore been
obliged
to collect casual
references from authors of all
periods.
I shall comment on some
general points
I have
noticed,
leaving
till later sections such
topics
as colonisation and trade.
Homer is sometimes cited as a witness of
Ionian
progress
at the time when the Iliad and
the
Odyssey
were
composed.3
But when one has
separated
visions of the
past
from reflections
of the
present,
the next task is to
distinguish
what is
peculiarly
Ionian:
and this is made
yet
more difficult
by
the
setting
of the
poems
in an
age
before the colonisation of
Ionia. Opinion
has
probably
been influenced
by
the contrast between Homer and Hesiod: Homer dwells on
a
glorious
and heroic
past,
Hesiod in a
grim
and
agricultural present.
But the contrast
may
be due to
personality,
not
place.4
If Homer had lived in
Boeotia,
there were '
gift-devouring
kings
' at whose courts he
might
have
composed epics:
and if Hesiod had farmed in Aeolian
Cyme,
the Works and
Days
would
surely
have been as
appropriate
there. The
Lyric poets
have left little but their names.
1 E.g.,
K.
J. Beloch,
Griechische Geschichte
2, I. I (1912),
141 ; 216, 359 (political evolution);
266
(industry); 278
(trade); 280-I (size
of
Miletus); 406-7 (social develop-
ments) ; 328, 421, 423 (art) ; 435 (intellectual interests).
J.
B.
Bury, History of
Greece
2
(1913), p.
ix.
F. Bilabel,
Die ionische Kolonisation
(I92o), i-5
.
G.
Murray,
The Rise
of
the Greek
Epic
3
(1924),
262.
G.
Glotz,
Histoire
grecque,
I.
(1925), 260-I, 296-7;
260
(urban growth); 158 (colonisation).
Cambridge
Ancient
History, III. (1925), 510 (D.
G.
Hogarth); 533-4, 539, 549 (H.
T.
Wade-Gery); 596
(E.
A.
Gardner);
690-I,
693 (F.
E.
Adcock).
H. R.
Hall,
The Ancient
History of
the Near East
8
(1932),
79, 521-2; cf.
on colonisation and
political development,
524-6.
Some of these statements are
supported
more
by eloquence
than evidence.
2
I offer my
thanks to those who have
helped
me in this
inquiry.
In
particular
I am
grateful
to Professor A.
Rumpf,
to whose works
my
debt is
plain;
and to Professor
T. B. L.
Webster,
Mr. A.
Purves,
Professor P. N.
Ure,
Mrs. K. M. T.
Atkinson,
Mr.
J.
M.
Cook,
Mr.
J.
A.
Davison,
Professor F. E.
Adcock,
and Mr. R. D.
Barnett,
who have read and criticised drafts of this
paper.
This
paper
was
completed
in
1945. I have added
references in footnotes to such relevant works as I have
read since then. G. M. A.
Hanfmann,
I am comforted to
observe,
has
suggested
a similar
general
conclusion
(AJA
XLIX
58o-i).
3
E.g.,
as
showing
the
development
of
Ionian
industry,
K.
J. Beloch,
Gr. Gesch.2
I. I, 266,
n.
5: 'Vgl.
A
141 (die
hier erwahnte
yvv)i
M1ovis
iE
Kd&E1C
ist nattirlich eine
Sklavin im Dienst eines ionischen
Fabrikanten).'
4
Thus it is not
logical
to conclude from Hesiod's distaste
for the sea that in his time the
leading
Greek seamen were
Ionians. Representations
of
ships
are commoner in the
eighth century
on Attic than other Greek
pots:
that does
not
prove
either that Athens then had a
maritime:
supremacy.
67
68 R. M. COOK
In the fifth
century
the art of
history developed.
No
comprehensive study
of the
early
Hellenic centuries has
survived,
but there are a number of casual references and short accounts
by
various writers. It is difficult to know what of their statements to
believe,
since
they
lived
long
after the events
they recorded,
were some of them
uncritical,
and
rarely
reveal the
ultimate sources of their information. In
general
these sources were the
corpus
of
epic
and
lyric poetry,
such
contemporary
archives and written records as
may
have survived to their
times,
and tradition and
genealogies.
The
Epic
and
Lyric poets
cannot have
helped much,
or
they
would have been
quoted
more.5 When official records were first
kept
it is hard to
say, particularly
as we do not know
when the
alphabet appeared among
the
Greeks.6 Certainly
no
contemporary
records earlier
than the sixth
century survive;
but that
may
be because
they
were written on wood or some
other as
impermanent
material.' Even
so,
the
recording
of historical events does not seem
to have been an
early
idea: and the current
systems
of
chronology,
based
generally
on
eponymous
annual
magistrates,s
made absolute
dating
difficult. The main sources of later
inquirers
were most
likely
tradition and
genealogies:
indeed a framework of
generations
is
sometimes discerned behind ancient reconstructions of
early
Greek
history.9
But tradition is
uncertain;
and a
genealogical table,
if
genuine,
is
only
a
rough
measure of
time,
while the
ancestors it remembers
may
have no
ready
connexion with historical events. On all this the
best evidence is the
disagreement
of the ancients and
Thucydides' explicit
statement of his
own doubts and difficulties.10
These
facts, though obvious,
are sometimes
ignored.
Between the two extremes of
accepting
no statement on
early
Greek
history by
a later writer unless there is evidence to
support
it 11 and of
rejecting
no such statement unless it can
definitely
be
disproved
there is no
safe middle
way; though
the nice selection of convenient items can bolster almost
any theory
of Greek
history.12
On the whole the
sceptical
extreme is
preferable, certainly
as
regards
the traditional
dating:
that this
dating
is
untrustworthy
is shown
by
the
frequent disagree-
ment of our
authorities, by
the true floruit of
Gyges
as recovered from
Assyrian records,
and
by
the
archaeological
evidence most of which was not available to the ancients. The tables
of
eighth
and seventh
century
dates that decorate
many
modern textbooks are
deceptively
positive.
A. R. Burn has
rightly objected
that it is uncritical to lower the date of
Gyges
in
order to conform to the
Assyrian records,
but at the same time to leave untouched other
traditional dates that were
probably dependent
on
Gyges.13
This is sound. But there is
yet
no
general
method of
recognising groups
of dates which are coherent and can therefore be
adjusted
en bloc.
Herodotus,
our fullest
authority,
was an uneven critic and biased
perhaps by
a
neigh-
bourly contempt
for
Ionians;
on the other
hand,
he was
widely travelled,
curious and
usually
free from national
prejudice.
The wealth of seventh
century Lydia impressed him,
and to
5
Herodotus's
note on the
contemporaneity
of
Gyges
and
Archilochus
(i. 12)
hints at the
rarity
of such historical
references in the
poets.
After
all,
their first concern was
poetry,
not
history. Compare, too,
the
emphasis
laid
by
Strabo on the correct relative dates of Callinus and Archi-
lochus as revealed
by
their
poems (xiv. 647-8).
6 See
below, pp. 89-90o.
7
So K. M. T.
Atkinson,
BSR XIV
134-6.
We
may
in
these
days
over-estimate the need in earlier times of
keeping
official records.
s
In
any
case the classical lists of such
magistrates (which
were not
necessarily authentic)
seem not to have
gone
back
beyond
the seventh
century.
9 E.g.,
even
Thucydides'
dates for the foundations of the
earlier colonies in
Sicily (vi. 3-5).
10 Besides the famous
passage
i.
20-I,
one
may
note that
Thucydides
derived his information
that-contrary
to the
popular belief-Hippias
succeeded Pisistratus
&dot,
i.e.,
from oral tradition
(vi. 55,
i).
Or
if,
as A. W. Gomme
asserts in his Historical
Commentary
on
Thucydides (i. 136),
6xoi
includes written as well as oral
records,
the choice of
the word is
significant
and this instance has a
general
rather than a more
particular
relevance.
For a detailed discussion of sources see K.
J. Beloch,
Gr.
Gesch.2
I. i, i7-47; I.
2, 30-3. Compare
for more recent
opinions
A. W.
Byvanck,
Alnem.
1936, 189-97;
and L.
Pearson, Early
Ionian Historians
(1939), 224-
How
a tradition
might
arise is shown
by
Strabo
(xvii.
8oi,
on the Menelaite
nome).
11
To find the same statement in two writers does not
necessarily improve
its worth: one
may
have borrowed
from the
other,
or both from a common source.
12 E.g.,
the remarkable theories
developed
from the
mention
by pseudo-Skymnos (943)
that
Syrians
once
occupied Sinope:
for a critical account see F.
Bilabel,
Die
ionische Kolonisation, 34-40.
On such exercises it is difficult to better Beloch:
'
Wem
es
Vergnuigen macht,
auf solchem Grunde zu
bauen,
der
mag
es
ja tun;
er kann dabei sehr viel Scharfsinn und
Gelehrsamkeit
zeigen,
aber was er baut sind Karten-
hiiuser
'
(Gr.
Gesch.2
I. 2, 88).
13
7HS
LV
132-3:
Burn assumes that the traditional
chronology (of Eratosthenes)
is correct
relatively.
IONIA AND
GREECE,
800-6oo
B.C.
69
Lydia
he attributed the invention of
coinage
and of the trade of
Krrr AoS :
14
he does not assert
that these inventions benefited the
Ionians
more than other
Greeks,
or that
they
alone had
to do with
Lydia. Indeed,
of Greek shrines it was
Delphi
that the
Lydian kings
most
consulted and
honoured.15 As for the
great temple
at
Ephesus
and the wonders of
Samos,16
these were not earlier than the middle of the sixth
century.
This is the verdict of Herodotus
on the
Ionians
at the time of the Persian
conquest:
' The whole Greek race was at that time
weak,
but the
Ionian
branch was
by
a
long way
the weakest and least
considerable;
for
apart
from Athens no
Ionian
city
was worth notice.' 17
Generally,
in the
pages
of his
history
the
seventh
century Ionians
are dimmer
figures
than their
contemporaries
in old
Greece.18
Thucydides
well knew the
difficulty
of historical
research,
and his conclusions are con-
sidered with
respect. Clearly
he is no Panionist. In his
survey
of the evolution of the Greek
powers
Corinth is the
city early distinguished
for wealth and trade
(i. 13, 5),
and modern
developments
in
shipbuilding
were first made in Corinth
(i. 13, 2).
The
Ionians
did not
possess
a fleet till the time of
Cyrus (i. 13, 6).
As for their
prosperity,
' various obstacles
prevented
the
growth
of the Greek
states;
the
Ionians
indeed had advanced
far,
but
Cyrus
then attacked them'
(i. 16):
19 the
implication
is that the
Ionians
had not
long
attained
importance
when
Cyrus
came. It must also be observed that
Thucydides
derives
Ionian
luxury
from
Athens,20
and
thought
the Athenians the first Greeks to become civilised
enough
not to need
normally
to
carry
arms
(i. 6, 3). Further,
he
regards
the colonisation of South
Italy
and
Sicily
as the
counterpart
to the
original
Ionian
migration,
not to the settlements
later made from
Ionia (i. 12, 4).21 Thucydides may
be
wrong
on all these
points;
but unless
evidence is
produced,
his
opinion
is as
good
as that of
any
later
writer,
who was even further
distant from the
eighth
and seventh centuries.
Of later writers the most
quoted
are
pseudo-Skymnos,
Strabo and Eusebius. Their
notices,
for what
they
are
worth,
deal
mainly
with the foundation of colonies and will be
mentioned later.
Here, too,
there is little
appreciation
of the
early glory
of
Ionia,
unless we
except
a
single
document handed down in two forms
by
Eusebius and
by
him ascribed to
Diodorus.22 This is the list of'
thalassocracies,'
which
professes
to set out with
precise
dates
the
powers
that ruled the sea between the
Trojan
and the Persian war. It is indeed a
document of
unique importance,
if it is
genuine.23
J.
L.
Myres
has
put
the case for the
genuineness
of the
'
thalassocracies,'
and his
vigorous
advocacy
has won adherents.24
Briefly
the
argument
is that the
list, judiciously emended,
does not conflict with what we otherwise know or
guess
of the
history
of the
period
it
covers.25
14
i. 94. What
precisely Kx&rr9hos
means here
is
not
certain. Its
range
is from retailer to
innkeeper.
D. G.
Hogarth suggested
that it
might
be a combination of the
two
(CAH III 520).
On
coinage
see
below, p. 90o,
n.
185.
15 i. 13-14 (Gyges); 19
and
25 (Alyattes); 46-52
(Croesus).
16
iii. 6Go.
17
&o0EVos BE EoVSO 6vro T0 "TnavT-r T6TE 'EAAV1IKO0 yiVEOS, TroAAha
8
v
d(v oeEviorarrov
-r
v
E?viECv -rb 'lcoviKV
Kal
A
6you
aXio-ro-u
o6n y&p
w?
'AOiMval ifv
oC?iv
&
Ao
vr6lacie
A
6yipov (i.
143).
It is
interesting
that
Thucydides regarded
this
point
as
the
Ionian zenith
(i. 16).
is
This could of course be
interpreted
in the
opposite
sense that the
Ionians
were then
enjoying
the unsensational
prosperity
that comes of settled
government.
19
ETrEyEVETO
i 6aoi
62
AA6Oi1 KCOjIpa-ra
pf a?ii vai, Kal 'IcoaI
rrpoXopao&v-rcv nirri pEya T-rov rrpayparTcov KOpos ... nrrcrp&-
TEUOE.
20
Herodotus
disagrees
here
(v. 87).
21 This view is echoed even
by Cicero,
de Div. i.
I. 3.
22 In the
Chronographia
and the Chronici Canones
(under
the
appropriate dates).
The
list,
as restored
by J.
L.
Myres,
reads: Carians
I 184, Lydians 1056, Pelasgians 964,
Thracians
879,
Rhodians
8oo, Phrygians 767, Cypriots 742,
Phoenicians
709, Egyptians 664,
Milesians
604,
Lesbians
582,
Phocaeans
578,
Samians
534, Lacedaemonians 517,
Naxians
515,
Eretrians
505, Aeginetans 490(-480).
23
'
The only chronological document,
other than
per-
sonal
genealogies,
which
attempts
a
perspective
of the
" dark
age
" of Greece
'(J.
L.
Myres, JHS
XXVI
89).
24
J.
L.
Myres, JHS
XXVI
84-130;
XXVII
123-30.
His
theory
is
generally accepted by:
G.
Murray,
The Rise
of the Greek
Epic 3, 322-6 (App. C);
W. W. How and
J. Wells,
Commentary on
Herodotus 2, i.
295;
A.
R.
Burn, JHS
XLVII
165-77;
and
perhaps by
P. N.
Ure,
The
Origin of Tyranny, 95-6;
D. G.
Hogarth,
CAH
III 517-
Attacks have been made
by:
J..
K.
Fotheringham, 7HS
XXVII
75-89;
W. Aly, RhMus, LXVI
585-6oo;
R.
Helm, Hermes,
LXI
241-62;
W.
Kubitschek, PW,
XX Halbband
2354-5 (s.v.
' Kastor
') ;
E.
Meyer, Geschichte des
Altertums 2, II.
2
(1931), 62,
n.
I.
But, generally,
the
major
histories
ignore
the
theory
altogether.
25 To account for the exclusion of Corinth
Myres
is
obliged
to restrict the list to
powers controlling
the east
Mediterranean
only,
and to
suggest
that it was
compiled
with an anti-Corinthian bias
(JHS XXVII, 125).
70
R. M. COOK
This
only
shows that it is
possible
for the list to be
genuine;
it still could be an
intelligent
forgery. Myres
therefore tries to
prove
a
respectable antiquity
for
it;
he infers that
Thucydides
knew and
accepted it,
and concludes that it is a fifth
century
document
drawing
on older and
reliable sources.2" This
reading
between the lines of
Thucydides
is
perverse:
it is hard to
believe that
Thucydides
would
deliberately
have omitted such
important
evidence on the
development
of Greek sea
power
and so have distorted his sketch. Such theories can neither
be
proved
nor
disproved,
but must be considered on
general grounds
of
probability:
the
theory
of the ' thalassocracies' is
very improbable.
The more direct
literary
evidence amounts to this.
According
to
Thucydides Ionia
was well advanced about the middle of the sixth
century,
but in the
preceding
centuries he
suggests
that cities of old Greece were to the fore.
3.
COLONISATION
There are in the
literary
sources
many
colonies for whose foundation we are offered a
date, indeed,
sometimes two or three dates: but for the
majority
of foundations we have
only
a
vague
tradition or none at all. Historians who wish to
explain
the
general
course of
Greek colonisation have therefore had to fill the
gaps
as best
they could;
and the
principle
most
commonly
avowed has been
geographical probability--that
is,
the nearer the site the
earlier it was
settled.27
Thus it is often
pointed
out that
Corcyra
must have been
occupied
before the colonial ventures across the
Ionian Sea;
and
similarly
it has been
presumed
that
the colonisation of the North
Aegean
must have
preceded
that of the
Propontis,
or at all events
of the Pontus. This is
inherently
sensible as a theoretical
approach,28
but it leaves two
difficulties.
First,
the western and eastern areas of colonisation are
geographically distinct;
there is no a
priori ground
for
deciding
which area was colonised first.
Secondly,
some of the
traditional dates do not conform to the
geographical
rule. In
solving
these difficulties
historians seem sometimes to have been
guided by
their
preconceptions
of which Greek states
ought
first to have attained colonial
activity.
The West. The dates of
Thucydides
and Eusebius for the colonisation of the West are
not often
seriously questioned:
29 the
authority
of
Thucydides
has
impressed
modern
writers,
as it did the ancients to
judge by
the
uniformity
of the western in contrast to the eastern
tradition.30 There is some debate over
Corcyra:
Eusebius
puts
the foundation at
7o6,
but
Strabo has it colonised
by
Corinth in the same
year
as
Syracuse-that is, according
to the
Eusebian
tradition,
in
736. Many
historians do not think this
early enough
and affirm that
there was a
prior colony
of Eretrians:
31
the
authority
for this is
Plutarch,32
but as no other
26
Myres asserts that 'the allusive character of
Thucy-
dides'
survey
'
and his
emphasis
on sea
power presume
that
his
public
knew a list of
'
thalassocracies ': this is not far
from
saying
that because
Thucydides
does not use the list
he must have known it.
Herodotus,
as
Myres observes,
did
not
accept any
such list since he makes
Polycrates
the first
Greek to aim at control of the sea and dismisses as unfounded
suggestions
of earlier thalassocracies
(Io?UKpwT-rTS
y p
~o~
i
-rrp&(5ros -rTv iPEY~l t8psyEV
'Eivcv
bs
eahaciOKpTrE1V
VTrEVO
1e,
rrdpE Miv T-rE roO Kvcocaaio Kia
El
6~
-riTg &aos rp-rEpO T-roroU
T
PfE
Tri
O eC?&aadjs* Tris 8
&vOpSOTrffg
EyOpLVflg yEVETT VIO;UKp6TIaS
Trp&-ros,
iii.
122). Myres
concludes that the list was
pub-
lished in Athens between the times when Herodotus wrote
his third and
Thucydides
his first book
(JHS
XXVI
87-9).
G.
Murray goes
further: he thinks the list
may
be a
current
(?) record, kept
' in some
Aegean temple
'
(Rise of
the Greek
Epic 3, 322-3).
27 The most
thorough exponent
of this
theory
is K.
J.
Beloch,
Gr. Gesch.2
I I, 229-64;
i.
2, 218-38.
On the
other side
J.
L.
Myres
holds that the first colonies
might
have been
planted
far afield as
outposts;
and that at the
beginning
the
colonising
Greek states
agreed 'spheres
of
influence,' perhaps
under
Delphic guidance (CAH
III
672-3).
28
It ignores the
comparative
attractiveness of
sites,
the
attitude and
strength
of the native
inhabitants,
and chance:
but these are factors of which we know little.
29 Apart
from
Cumae,
for which Eusebius's date-
Io51-is usually rejected.
Some historians consider
Thucydides'
dates as
slightly
inflated,
see below
p. 75.
30
For
traces of an alternative
higher chronology
for the
western colonies,
see
pseudo-Skymnos 270-3; Strabo,
vi.
267 (following Ephorus):
and further K.
J. Beloch,
Gr.
Gesch.2
I 2, 221-4;
A. R.
Burn, JHS LV
136-7;
A. W.
Byvanck, Mnem. 1936, 193-7.
31
E.g., CAHIII 535 (H.
T.
Wade-Gery) ;
618
(M.
Cary);
651, 672 (J.
L.
Myres)
: G.
Glotz,
Hist.
gr. I I78.
32 Plutarch has a curious anecdote that
Eretrians
were
expelled
from
Corcyra by
Corinthians and moved to
Methone
(Mor. 293a). Strabo,
it is
pretty evident,
knew
nothing
of an Eretrian settlement:
though
he mentions
that there was a
place
named ' Euboea ' in
Corcyra (x. 449),
he also states that when the Corinthians en route for
Syracuse
left a
colony
in
Corcyra they
found Liburnians
occupying
the island
(vi. 269).
Another evidence of these
Eretrians is claimed in coin
types
of
Corcyra
which resemble
those of
Carystus
in Euboea: but these must be dated
IONIA AND
GREECE, 800-6oo
B.C.
71
ancient writer
supports
him it would be rash to trust too much on this statement. From
tradition, however,
it
appears
that there was
vigorous
colonisation in the West before the
end of the
eighth century.
The North
Aegean.
In the North
Aegean
the
region
of Chalcidice
should,
for
geographical
reasons,
be the first choice for
colonies,
and such seems to be the current
opinion.33
Eusebius
mentions two
only
of these
settlements,
Acanthus and
Stagira,
both of which he dates to
655-
But we do not know whether these were founded
early
or late in the colonisation of this
region,
nor the rate at which colonisation took
place.34 Plutarch, indeed,
in a
passage just
mentioned
would
put
the foundation of Methone about
730,
but it is not a
testimony
on which I should
rely.35 Along
the Thracian coast the island of Thasos looks an obvious
early site,
and Thasos
is connected with
Archilochus,
who in turn is connected with
Gyges.
The death of
Gyges
is
the one sure date in seventh
century
Greek
history,
and it is therefore unfortunate that the
connexions are not more
precise.
Yet if one considers the evidence
detachedly,
without
allowing
other beliefs to
obtrude,
the natural conclusion would be that Archilochus took
part
in the
original expedition
to colonise
Thasos,
and that his
activity
coincided more or less with
the
reign
of
Gyges;
in other
words,
Thasos was founded in the second
quarter
of the seventh
century.36
That is an absolute date: but Archilochus also
compares
Thasos with
Siris,37
and since
according
to tradition
Siris
was not
among
the earliest Western colonies it should
follow
(if
one
accepts tradition)
that the colonisation of the West
began
earlier than the
colonisation of the North
Aegean,
at least
apart
from Chalcidice. As for
Chalcidice,
the
most colonies were founded
by Chalcis,38
which was
busy colonising
in the West from the
mid-eighth century
to the
early years
of the seventh: it is
possible
that the two streams of
Chalcidian
emigration
were not
contemporary,
and that settlement in Chalcidice did not
begin
till settlement in the West had
stopped.39
The
Propontis.
The
Propontis
and its
approaches
attracted
many
Greek colonies.
Abydus
in the
Hellespont, says Strabo,
was founded
by
Miletus with the
permission
of
Gyges,40
on what evidence we do not know:
41
but if Strabo is
right,
then
by absolute reckoning
the foundation of
Abydus
falls in the second
quarter
of the seventh
century,
and even
by
tradition not before the
very
end of the
eighth. Cyzicus
is dated
by
Eusebius in
756
and
679,
as well as in
1271. According again
to
Eusebius,
Chalcedon was founded in
685
and
Byzantium
in
659: Herodotus,
who is
chary
of
committing
himself to Greek
dates, only
remarks that the interval between the two foundations was seventeen
years.42
On the
whole,
the tradition seems to set the serious colonisation of the
Propontis
in the
early
seventh
century.
The Pontus. In the Pontus
Istrus,
Olbia and
Sinope
were reckoned the oldest colonies
much more than a
century
after the
supposed expulsion
of
Eretrians from
Corcyra.
R. L. Beaumont thus reconciles Strabo with Plutarch:
the Eretrians did not disturb the
natives,
the Corinthians
expelled
them with the Eretrians
(JHS
LVI
165).
This
device has
nothing
to recommend it but
ingenuity.
33 , Dbs lors
l'Hlan
est
donne,'
G.
Glotz,
Hist.
gr. I 162.
Compare
the order of the sections on colonisation in CAH
III Ch.
xxv.
(J.
L.
Myres).
M.
Cary,
I
think, implies
a
similar view
(CAH III
619g).
34
M.
Cary
considers that these two foundations should
because of their remoteness mark the end of the
process
of
settlement,
which he seems to have
begun
in the
early
eighth century (CAH III
61i).
J.
L.
Myres,
it
appears,
dates the earliest
colonisation,
or
perhaps
the
reinforcement,
of Chalcidice in the ninth or
eighth century (CAH II1650).
35
Mor.
293a:
see
above,
n.
32.
36
On the date of Archilochus the latest
papers
I know
are those of F.
Jacoby, CQ
XXXV
97-10o9,
with most of
which I
agree;
and F.
Lasserre,
Mus.
Helv.
1947, 1-7,
who
makes an excellent
point
but one that is not conclusive.
The ancient tradition was that Archilochus was one of
the
original
colonists of
Thasos,
see A. R.
Burn, JHS
LV
132,
n.
6,
where references are
given.
But see F.
Jacoby,
CQ
XXXV
102-3.
37
Fr. 18
(Diehl).
38 But see E.
Harrison, CQ
VI
93-103,
and
165-78.
He
may
be
right
in
denying
the connexion of Chalcis with
Chalcidice.
39
Chalcis seems to have been the first Greek state to
found colonies in the
West;
and since the West was much
more
promising
than
Chalcidice,
one would
expect her
to
have concentrated there as
long
as she could.
40
-mrr'pcavros
r-Fyov
(xiii. 590).
41 There was within a few
miles,
as Strabo tells us in the
same
passage,
a
Cape Gygas:
this
may
be the
origin
of
the
story
about
Gyges.
42
iv. 144.
This looks like a
rendering
of a traditional
half
generation,
since elsewhere Herodotus
expressly
reckons
33- years
to a
generation (ii. 142).
But one
trouble with this sort of inference is that there was and is
no fixed
length
for a
generation,
and
any
number from ten
to
twenty
can be
regarded
as a third or a half of some
generation.
Herodotus,
in his
story
of
Aristeas,
has
Cyzicus
and
Proconnesus in existence more than
240 years
before his
own time
(iv. 14-15):
if the
240 years depend
on
generations,
it does not look as if these were also
of
331-
72
R. M. COOK
of the
west,
north and south coasts
respectively.
Eusebius dates Istrus in
657,
Olbia
(or
Borysthenis) 43
in
647:
and
pseudo-Skymnos puts Apollonia
Pontica about
6io.44
Sinope
is
distinguished by
the number of the notices.
Herodotus,
our earliest
authority, says
that the
Cimmerians
during
their incursion into Asia Minor 'settled the
peninsula
on which the
Greek
city
of
Sinope
now stands':
45 this,
on the face of
it,
means that the Greek
colony
was founded some time after
650 (by
absolute
dating),
and that there had not been an earlier
Greek
colony. Pseudo-Skymnos
knows of an
original
settlement of
Syrians,
followed
by
an
occupation by
Thessalians
campaigning against
the
Amazons;
later there was a Milesian
colony
which the Cimmerians
destroyed,
and then a double recolonisation
by
Milesians:
with all that it is not
surprising
to learn that the
city
received its name from one of the
Amazons.46
Eusebius dates the foundation of
Sinope
at
631,
but also
implies
an earlier
foundation;
for he
puts Trapezus
in
756,
and
Trapezus by
common consent was founded
from
Sinope.
In each of these various settlements of
Sinope
there have been
believers, though
I
cannot
say
whether
any
one scholar has believed them all. But the
plain
fact is that there
was no certain tradition about
Sinope,
and it is
probably
accident that a similar confusion
has not survived in more instances. If we
accept
Herodotus's statement as it stands and the
Eusebian dates for the west and north
coasts,
tradition
begins
the colonisation of the Pontus
about the middle of the seventh
century.
This is
consistent,
since
(as
is often
remarked)
the
foundation of
Byzantium
would
naturally
come first and tradition dates that event
just
before
650.47
Further,
Herodotus is at
pains
to
prove
that the Cimmerians
preceded
the
Scythians
in the Ukraine
48-and
the
coming
of the
Scythians
is
generally put
at about
700; 49
there
cannot then have been a
strong
tradition about the Pontus in Cimmerian
days.
Archilochus's
mention of
Salmydessus
as a suitable coast for the
wrecking
of an
enemy
does not
necessarily
imply
that there were then Greek colonies
beyond,
or even that the western Pontus was well
known. 50
The South Mediterranean. For
Cyrene
Eusebius
gives
two
dates, 762
and
632:
it has been
supposed,
and with
reason,
that
they
were calculated from the number of
kings
and
vary
according
to the estimate of
years
to be allowed for a
reign.51
Naucratis is mentioned
by
Herodotus,
who seems to have
thought
that it was founded
by
Amasis.52
Strabo
says
that its
foundation was later than that of
Mthxrlacov TETXos
which took
place
in the time of Psammetichus
(presumably
the first Psammetichus who
reigned
from
663
to
609).53
Athenaeus refers to a
Greek from Naucratis in
688/684.54
Eusebius dates the foundation in
749.
Here
again
43
It is not clear whether these were different names for
the same
city
or whether there were
originally
two
cities,
see F.
Bilabel,
Die
ionische Kolonisation, 23-6.
In
any
case
there were other cities called
Olbia,
and so it was natural
that the more distinctive name
Borysthenis
should become
current
among
other
Greeks; compare
Hdt. iv. 18.
44
'
Fifty years
before the
reign
of
Cyrus' (730-33):
but
he
may
not have
thought Apollonia
more than ten or
fifteen
years
later than
Istrus,
as A. R. Burn shows
(JHS
LV
133-4). Pseudo-Skymnos expresses
his dates
generally
in such relative terms: but it is
unlikely
that he
meant them to differ much from the Eratosthenic
vulgate,
on which it is believed Eusebius
ultimately depends.
In
any
case some roundabout form of
expression
is
required
for the sake of the scansion even of
pseudo-Skymnos;
his
synchronisms
do not
necessarily repeat
the form of the
tradition as he received it.
Aelian's statement that the
philosopher
Anaximander led
the
colony
to
Apollonia (VH
iii.
17)
shows what tradition
could achieve. F. Bilabel makes a
gallant attempt
to
reconcile the
discrepancy (Die ionische Kolonisation,
i4-15).
45
iv. 12: note that the word used of the Cimmerians is
KTiav-rTE~.
"46
94-952.
Strabo
(xii. 546)
mentions the
Argonaut
occupation
and a later Milesian
colony.
For a discussion
of the
passage
of
pseudo-Skymnos,
see F.
Bilabel,
Die
ionische
Kolonisation, 30-40:
he also
gives
other ancient
references.
41 K.
J.
Beloch adds the
point
that Chalcedon would
never have been founded before
Byzantium
if there had
then been much traffic
through
the
Bosporus (Gr. Gesch.2
I
I, 257).
48 iv. I2,
the
passage
to which reference has been made
on
Sinope.
The
adjoining chapters (11-13) emphasise
Greek
ignorance
of the Cimmerians.
49 By
inference from
Assyrian records,
see E. H.
Minns,
CAH III 187-8.
M. Rostovtzeff
puts
it in the seventh
century
(Irainians
and Greeks in South
Russia, 41),
or the
eighth century (History of
the Ancient
World, I 399).
50 Fr.
79 (Diehl).
For over-reliance on this
passage
see
even A. R.
Burn, JHS
LV
135-'
a considerable amount
of trade
passing
that
way.'
One
might
as well
argue
from
the line 'Were I laid on Greenland's coast' that in the time
of
John Gay
the Arctic seas were much
frequented.
Or
again
consider
Xenophanes,
fr.
13 (Dichl) deriding
anthro-
pomorphic
deities: men make
gods
in their own
image,
and
animals would
similarly
create animal
gods.
Yet the
Egyptians worshipped
half-animal
gods.
The conclusion
that
Xenophanes
was
ignorant
of
Egypt is, however,
refuted
by
the
subsequent fragment from
apparently
the same
poem.
5t
So A. R.
Bulrn,
JHS
LV
140. K.J. Beloch,
Gr.
G(esch.2
I
2, 236-8.
52 ii. 178:
this is the
simple interpretation
of what
Herodotus says.
53
xvii. 8oi.
54
xv.
675-676:
it is not a
testimony
to Le taken
seriously
(see
A. R.
Burn, JHS
LV
I39,
n.
19).
IONIA
AND
GREECE, 800-600
B.C.
73
there is a welter of
evidence,
and for a site in a
highly
civilised
country
where accurate records
might
have been
expected.
Some
kindly
critics have hit on a
compromise by
which to
justify
the various dates tradition
affords for the foundation of the same
colony:
the earlier date is that of the establishment of
a
trading post,
the later of a
regular colony; 55
or there
may
have been more than one
attempt
at
any single
site.56
And this line of
argument
has been used more
widely,
even
where there is no
support
in the tradition. It is
particularly
to the fields of
Ionian
activity,
the
Propontis
and still more the
Pontus,
that such theories of a double colonisation have
been directed: the first
settlement,
it is
asserted,
took
place
in the
eighth
or even the ninth
century, only
to be overwhelmed
by
Cimmerians in the
early seventh,
and after these dim
but useful barbarians had vanished the old sites were
reoccupied.57
It is hard to
conjecture
how
precise
dates for this earlier colonial
phase
should have
survived; and,
as I have
already
said,
Herodotus knew
nothing
of
it.5s8
Glotz,
a
vigorous
believer in the double
colonisation,
makes this candid
admission, 'de
cette
premiere
colonisation
"t
peine
s'il resta
quelques
traces':
59
this is
hardly surprising,
if it did not take
place.
A. R.
Burn,
in a
paper already quoted,
reconciles some of the variant dates in another
way.60
He
argues
that the dates of the colonial foundations were calculated
by
a scale of
generations,
and that
varying
estimates from
thirty
to
forty years
for the
length
of a
generation
produced
'short' and
'long' chronologies.
Even in the
West,
he
points out,
where the
authority
of
Thucydides kept
rivals
away,
there are traces of an alternative '
longer' system: 61
15 Compare
K. M. T.
Atkinson, referring particularly
to
Selinus
(BSR
XIV I
15-36, especially 13o-6);
the earlier
date is that of the arrival of the first
prospectors,
the later
of the
regular
foundation of a
rr6mt.
A
preliminary period
is,
she
reasons, inherently probable;
the date of the
foundation would be
preserved
in official
records,
and the
length
of the interval
vaguely
remembered
by
local
patriots.
She therefore
expects (for
its relevance to
archaeological
chronology
I continue her
argument)
finds as
early,
at
least,
as the time of the foundation
proper-from graves
since
even if there were no deaths from hostile natives old
age
would be
taking
its toll of the
original prospectors,
and from
sanctuaries because of
religious devotion;
more
precisely,
the earliest
pottery
should be dated about
625
instead of
some ten or fifteen
years
later as H. G. G.
Payne
assumed
(Necrocorinthia, 22-3).
In addition Mrs. Atkinson
publishes
two
grave groups
from Selinus
(nos. 27
and
55),
which she
regards
as
representing
the earliest material from the site
and dates
by Payne's reckoning
about
625.
I
disagree
with her
dating
and
give my
reasons.
(References
to
Payne
are to his
Necrocorinthia,
and the numbers
quoted
are
from the
Catalogue
there:
EC, MC,
LC stand for his
Early,
Middle and Late
Corinthian,
which
begin respec-
tively
about
625,
6o0,
575.)
Tomb
55.
No.
5:
EC-MC. For the knob and
shape
of
the lid
cf.
even
Payne
I506
(fig. 175: LC): processing
warriors continue to LC
(Payne 1244-9),
and there is
no reason
why
those on this
pot
must be
EC: the
parallels
for the reversed Z
pattern
which Mrs. Atkinson
quotes
are
MC:
zigzag, cf.
LC
(Payne 1356, fig. 166):
the lower
rosettes are worse than is usual in
EC,
dot rosettes
though
commoner in EC occur in MC
(Payne, pl.
31.7).
No. 6:
best
parallels
in
LC; cf. Payne 1326 (fig. 164).
Nos.
12-14:
nothing
that need be before
MC, though animals
as on no.
14
are not so common after EC. No. 16: the
grave
at
Ialysus
cited for
comparison
is
anyhow improbable
as a
genuine
ine single
grave,
and is no reason for
making
this
piece
earlier than MC. No. 18:
I do not see
why
on
grounds
of
style
these dancers should
necessarily
be EC. No. 22:
a
typical quatrefoil aryballos,
MC or LC. The short neck
is not
extraordinary.
The
lalysus grave
is rather of MC
than EC
period:
the 'Rhodian' oinochoe from it is of
the B
style,
that is
contemporary
with MC. No.
24: I
think this must be sixth
century.
Tomb
27.
No. I
: EC or MC: this is a fair-sized
piece.
The
subject
is a lion
walking right. Nos. 2-4:
the bands
are MC or LC as much as EC. No.
5:
the Vroulia
grave
might
well be
early
sixth
century.
No.
7:
the
grave
at
Samos is of MC
period; Ialysus grave
xxxiii is EC or
perhaps
MC in
date, grave xlv MC, grave
xlvi
MC, and
Maiuri's
grave 36
unreliable.
It therefore seems to me that these two
graves
are of MC
rather than of EC
period,
and I should date them soon
after 6oo.
56
There are also
many
traditions of colonial foundations
by Argonauts
and
by
survivors of either side from the
Trojan
War. Few historians take these
seriously (but
see
J.
L.
Myres,
CAH III
ch. xxv passim). Anyhow,
for
my present
purpose
I can
ignore
them.
57 E.g.,
D. G.
Hogarth,
CAH
III 509-10 (ninth
and
eighth centuries);
H. T.
Wade-Gery,
CAH
III
534 (first
half of
eighth century);
G.
Glotz,
Hist.
gr.
I
164-5
and
277 (eighth century).
Eumelus of
Corinth,
whom Eusebius dates about the
middle of the
eighth century,
is said
by
Tzetzes to have
called three Muses
by
the names of
Cephiso,
Achelois and
Borysthenis (fr. 17 (Kinkel);
'Achelois
' is an
emendation,
and
'Borysthenis'
too for that
matter):
from this it is
concluded that about
750
the Greeks were familiar with
the river
Borysthenes
or
Dnieper,
and therefore were
busy
trading
with the Ukraine
(so
G. Glotz. Hist.
gr. I 325-6;
H. T.
Wade-Gery,
CAH
III. 534;
A. R.
Burn, JHS
LV
135).
The
objections
are these:
(i)
the date of Eumelus
is not certain
(see
E.
Bethe,
PW XI
Halbband
Io8o-I,
s.v.
'Eumelus
'); (2)
we do not know if the
fragment
is
genuinely
from
Eumelus; (3)
the combination of rivers
Cephisus,
Achelous and
Borysthenes,
two from old Greece
and one from the
Ukraine,
would need some
explanation.
Another
reputed fragment
of Eumelus
(fr. 8, Kinkel)
mentions a
nymph
called
Sinope.
58
See
above, p. 72.
-9
Hist.
gr. I 165.
60
JHS
LV
130-46:
the theme of this
paper
is that a
large part
of the traditional
early chronology
is based on a
generation
of
forty years;
that in
practice
a
generation
averages thirty years;
and that
many early
dates should
therefore be reduced
by
a
quarter
of their excess over
500
B.c. (which
Burn takes as his
datum-line).
61
Ibid.
137,
where several instances are mentioned.
74
R. M. COOK
so
pseudo-Skymnos
sets the first Sicilian colonies in the tenth
generation
after the
Trojan
War,62
and Eusebius
quotes 650
as the date of Selinus. Burn's selected list of
dates,6"
scaled
down to illustrate his
argument,
has some excellent
results;
and there
may
well be truth in
his
theory.
But as a universal nostrum it is too
simple:
the traditional dates do not deserve
the credit he allows them.
From all this it
appears
that about the colonies in
Sicily
and
Italy
the tradition was
fairly
uniform,
and that it set the
beginning
of this colonisation in the latter
part
of the
eighth
century.
Elsewhere tradition shows more
variation,
but on the whole
points
to a later date
for the
beginning
of colonial
activity.
But the
early
colonisation of the West was
traditionally
-and on this I
accept
tradition-the work
mainly
of
Chalcis,
Corinth and Achaeans: even in
the North
Aegean
it was Euboeans and other islanders who took the first
part.
Ionians
become
prominent
in the
Propontis, though Megara
had a fair share and
occupied
the straits
leading
beyond.
The
Pontus,
at
last,
was almost
wholly
Ionian.
It is
perhaps
the belief that
Ionians
should have led the colonial movement which has
fostered,
for
example,
the
theory
of an
early
colonial
phase
in the Pontus. So Hall
implied
that colonisation
probably began
from 'rich and
prosperous Ionia';
64 so less
directly Bury, though
in his
chronology admitting
the
priority
of the western
colonisation, yet
in the
arrangement
of his
history
treats of the
eastern colonisation first.65
I
have
already given my
views on the
general unreliability
of Greek
eighth
and seventh
century
dates.66 If
proper
records had been
kept
from the foundation of a
colony
and had
been
preserved,
there should have been no
difficulty
in
calculating accurately
the date of its
foundation: but the various dates of the tradition show that this was not
always
so.
Certainly
few would credit all of Eusebius's
statements,
and to
separate
the
gold
from the dross seems
to me almost as hard. It is
noteworthy
that
Herodotus,
our earliest
historian,
on the rare
occasions when he
gives
Greek dates is sometimes more moderate than Eusebius and the
Alexandrines.67 On two
points, however,
tradition deserves more
respect, first,
on the
earliest settlement in
any
area
and, secondly,
on the
mother-city
of a
colony,
at least if the
colony survived,
since institutions would continue to show the link:
68
but
precise
dates are
not to be
expected.
So far the
argument
about colonial dates has been confined to tradition: a few cases
can be tested
by archaeological evidence,
and of course have been. But the
dating
of some
of the
archaeological
evidence has been and is still
being revised,
and the conclusions historians
have drawn from it must be revised in turn. The sites in Eusebius's list for which sufficient
archaeological
evidence exists are
Cumae, Syracuse, Megara Hyblaea, Gela, Selinus,
Tarentum
perhaps, Massilia, Naucratis, Istrus,
Olbia. To avoid
any
circular
argument
the
present
basis of the
archaeological chronology
must be outlined.
The
archaeological chronology
of the
eighth
and seventh centuries
depends mainly
on
Protocorinthian and Corinthian pottery, the relative
dating
of which was
convincingly
established
by Johansen
and
Payne.69
The absolute
chronology
is obtained
by way
of the
62
270-3; cf.
Strabo vi.
267.
See also above
p. 70,
n.
30.
63
JHS LV 146. In Table Ion p. 77
below I
show
the
effect of Burn's scale.
64 Ancient
History of
the Near East
8, 525: cf.
G.
Glotz,
Hist.
gr.
I
158.
65
History of
Greece
2,
Ch.
2,
sections 2 and
3.
66
See
above, p.
68.
67
Naucratis, Sinope
and the Pontus
generally (see
above,
p. 71-2).
On the other
hand,
he
gives
a
higher
date for the
Trojan
War
(ii. 145)
and for
Gyges (i. 14, etc.).
68 See F.
Bilabel,
Die ionische
Kolonisation,
where it is
shown that
epigraphic
remains
generally support
tradition
in this
respect.
69
K. F.
Johansen, Sikyoniske
Vaser
(Danish:
I9
8);
Les Vases
sicyoniens (a
revised and
enlarged
edition of the
former work:
1923):
H. G. G.
Payne,
Necrocorinthia
(I931);
Protokorinthische
Vasenmalerei
(1933) ;
Perachora
I (1940), 53-67
:
S. S.
Weinberg, AJA
XLV
30-44;
Corinth VII
I (1943)-
Johansen
deals with Protocorinthian.
Payne
corrects
him and covers 'Corinthian.'
Weinberg
is
mainly
con-
cerned with Geometric and in turn corrects
Payne
on some
points.
The term ' Corinthian' is used above in the limited
sense of the
style
that succeeds Protocorinthian. It
would,
I
suggest,
be better
qualified
as
'Ripe
Corinthian' or
possibly
' Corinthian Archaic'.
Anyhow,
the
simple
term
' Corinthian ' is
properly
needed to describe the
pottery
of
Corinth
irrespective
of
period.
For the
possibility
that some of the
pottery
ascribed to
Corinth was in fact made in
Aegina,
see S. S.
Weinberg,
AJA
XLV
30-44
and below
p. 93, n. 205-
IONIA
AND
GREECE, 8oo-6oo
B.C.
75
finds from
Syracuse, Megara Hyblaea,
Gela and Selinus: it is assumed that the
Thucydidean
dates for the foundation of those cities are correct-it is essential to remember that this is an
assumption-and
that the earliest finds made there
belong
to the earliest
years
of
Greek
settlement.70 There is
only
one
independent check,
the so-called Bocchoris vase from
the
Bocchoris Tomb at
Tarquinii:
71 this vase bears
among
its decoration the name of
king
Bocchoris of
Egypt
who
reigned
from
718
to
712,72
and it is not
likely
that so
undistinguished
a
king
should have been commemorated on a vase made more than a few
years
after
his
death.73
The other contents of the Bocchoris Tomb have not been
fully published;
but
it
is said that
they
indicate its
dating
on the
Payne-Johansen system
to about
67o.4"
This
would leave an interval of some
forty-five years
between the
reign
of Bocchoris and
the
entombing
of the Bocchoris vase: the interval is not
beyond likelihood,
but
might
well be
much
less.75 Thus the Bocchoris vase
agrees tolerably
with the
general archaeological chronology:
it
is, however,
an isolated
piece
of
evidence,
and it would be
foolhardy
to
rely
much on it.
The absolute
chronology
of other fabrics of
eighth
and seventh
century
Greek
pottery
has to be
established
by
their connexions with Protocorinthian and 'Corinthian.' For the
Cycladic
and East Greek wares such connexions have not
yet generally
been traced back
beyond
the
last third of the seventh
century,
nor have their relative
sequences
been
closely
determined
before that
period.'6
Further
Subgeometric
and Geometric are
only
now
yielding
to
analysis,
and it is
becoming
clear that
they persisted longer
than had been
supposed."7
It is with the relative dates of the finds from Greek colonies that I am here
concerned;
but for convenience of
expression
I
accept
the current absolute
chronology
of
archaeologists,78
and
thereby
assume that the four
key
dates which
Thucydides gives
are correct. This is not
by any
means
universally
admitted.
Apart
from
general
doubts of the trustworthiness of
the tradition some
special points
have been made. For
example,
H. R. Hall decided that the
Sicilian dates were both
absolutely
and
relatively
too
high,
but on
quite
inconclusive evidence. "
A. R. Burn
suggests
that
they
should be
slightly
reduced
absolutely (but
not
relatively)
since
Thucydides'
calculations are based on an
overlong generation
of
thirty-five years.80
A. W.
Byvanck argues
that the
archaeological
finds show that
Thucydides
has
given wrongly
the
intervals between the foundations of
Syracuse
and
Megara Hyblaea,
and of
Megara
and
Gela; Megara
is in fact much closer to Gela than to
Syracuse.81
This is a serious
charge:
I have not examined the material itself and cannot
give
a definite
opinion,
but if one
considers
only
the
published
finds
Byvanck
has made out a case.
As has been
said,
the relative
chronology
of much Greek
pottery
of the
eighth
and seventh
centuries is
fairly secure;
but this
security
has been attained
only
since the First World
War,
and all earlier summaries of finds from excavations must be read with
great suspicion.
For
instance,
the
reports
of work at Berezan at the mouth of the
Dnieper speak
of an
upper
stratum
containing
Attic
black-figure pottery
and a lower
containing
'
Rhodian,' Naucratite,
Fikellura
70
Where the earliest finds are from
graves,
some allow-
ance is
conventionally
made
(or
said to be
made)
for the
probability
that at foundation the
colony
would contain
few
elderly persons
and that the incidence of death from
disease or natural causes should for the first
years
be
very
low. This allowance varies:
perhaps
it
averages
fifteen
to
twenty years.
71
See E. H.
Dohan,
Italic Tomb
Groups (1942),
Io6-8,
where sufficient references are
given.
7" Authorities
disagree
on the
precise
date of
Bocchoris,
but not now
by
more than two or three
years,
see E. H.
Dohan, loc.
cit. A. Akerstrbm is
sceptical
of the value of
this
tomb-group (Der
Geometrische Stil in
Italien, 33).
73
This holds true whether the Bocchoris vase was made
in
Egypt
or Phoenicia
(see
E. H.
Dohan, loc.
cit.),
since
Phoenicia was in close touch with
Egypt.
74
See E. H.
Dohan, loc. cit.
75
A. W.
Byvanck
calls attention to the
good
condition of
the
vase,
and will not have it buried later than
69o (Mnem.
1936, 188).
76 See
below, p. 95.
This is
particularly
unfortunate
for the
interpretation
of
Al
Mina (see
below, pp. 78-9),
but does not-so it seems-affect the Pontus.
7
See R. S.
Young, Hesperia Suppl. II (1939); P.
Kahane, AJA
XLIV
464-82;
S. S.
Weinberg, AJA
XLV
30-44,
and Corinth VII
I
(1943). Compare
also E. H.
Dohan,
Italic Tomb
Groups (1942).
78
For
clarity
the
archaeological
dates in this
paper are
printed
in italics.
'9
Ancient
History of
the Near East
8, 525:
on his evidence
see A. R.
Burn, JHS
LV
I37-9.
Hall was I think
pre-
disposed
to lower the western dates: ' the traditional dates
for the first
Ionian colonies in the
Propontis
and Euxine are
perhaps
not too
early,
but those of the Sicilian colonies
must be and should be
brought
down somewhat.'
80
A. R.
Burn, JHS
LV
136, 138
and
146.
As he
regards thirty years
as a fair
average
for a
generation,
he
would reduce
Thucydides'
dates
by
one-seventh of their
distance from
500
B.C.
81 Mnem.
1936, 198-206:
all the same he allows
Thucydides'
dates for
Syracuse
and Gela
(ibid., 189-90
and
223-5).
K. F.
Johansen
also observed this
point,
but
ignored
it
(Les
Vases
sicyoniens, 18; 181).
76
R. M. COOK
and
Clazomenian.82
In the state of
knowledge
then that was
credible,
since
through
the
misinterpretation
of the sites of Naucratis and Tell Defenneh most East Greek
pottery
was
dated much too
early:
83
now it seems rather that the
published
stratification of Berezan
was factitious.
Similarly,
before
Johansen's
work the distinction between Protocorinthian
and ' Corinthian ' was
vague,
and earlier
reports
of the occurrence of at least Protocorinthian
should not be
accepted
without the evidence of the
pots
themselves. Such
archaeological
errors have
inevitably
misled
historians.84
The dates for
Syracuse, Megara Hyblaea,
Gela and Selinus
may
then stand as
733, 728,
688 and 628:
they
are not confirmed
by
the
archaeological evidence,
but are assumed for
it.85
Cumae is
clearly
earlier than
any
of
them,
and if the Greek
colony
is
put
at
750
that is not
far
wrong.86
The Eusebian date
of
598
for Massilia is
supported by
the
pottery
found there
so far as I know
it.87
At Tarentum much has been
found,
but little
published:
88
as I have
not seen the material I must
ignore
it. The Greek finds at Naucratis
begin
about
615-61o,
and no earlier Hellenic
pottery
has turned
up
elsewhere in
Egypt.89 Istrus,
Olbia
(with
Berezan)
and
Apollonia
Pontica
appear
to be
slightly
later, say
6io-6oo:
90
these alone of the
early
Pontic sites have been
extensively excavated,
but
sporadic
finds elsewhere round the
Pontus include
only
four or five
published pieces
that are earlier and
they
not much earlier.91
Recently
the French were
excavating
in
Thasos,
and it is said that
pottery
was found of the late
eighth century;
92
but it is
prudent
to
suspend judgment
until the evidence is made
public.93
Of Chalcidice I know
nothing useful;
but W. A.
Heurtley,
who has made a
special study
82 AA 1910 224: 'little-master'
cups
are mentioned as
particularly
common in the Attic
pottery, yet
these are
contemporary
with
early
Fikellura and Clazomenian.
83
Naucratis was dated
by
the
majority
of
archaeologists
to
650o
and Tell Defenneh
(' Daphnae')
was
thought
to
have been
deserted,
at least
by
Greek
occupants,
about
565:
these dates were derived from the
literary sources, wrongly
(see
A.
Rumpf, JdI
XLVIII
6o-i;
also
JHS
LVII
227-37).
Thus two dates which were
thirty
to
forty years
too
early
became the basis of the
chronology
of East Greek
pottery:
and so Fikellura and Clazomenian were
pushed
back into
the seventh
century,
and 'Rhodian'
correspondingly
further
(e.g.,
E.
Pfuhl, MuZ I 140).
These three
wares,
it
should be
remembered,
are common at Pontic sites.
84
Thus it has been said that the Greek finds from the
Pontus
go
back well into the seventh
century:
E. H.
Minns,
Scythians
and
Greeks, 338-9, 439, 458;
M.
Rostovtzeff,
Iranians and Greeks in South
Russia, 63;
A. R.
Burn, JHS
LV
134-5 (but
the earliest East Greek
pottery
from Gela is
in fact of the last third of the seventh
century).
85
Syracuse:
P.
Orsi,
NSc
(18q3) 445-86; (1895) 109-92;
(1925) 296-321;
MonAnt XXV
(1918), 353-762.
P. E.
Arias,
BCH LX
144-51.
Megara Hyblaea:
P.
Orsi,
MonAnt
I (1892), 689-950;
MonAnt XXVII
(1921),
1og9-80.
Gela: P.
Orsi,
MonAnt XVII
(1906);
XIX
(I908),
89-
I40.
Selinus: E.
Gabrici,
MonAnt XXXII
(1927);
XXXIII
(1929), 61-1
12. K. M. T.
Atkinson,
BSR XIV I
15-36 (see
above
p. 73,
n.
55).
86 Cumae: E.
Gibrici,
MonAnt XXII
(1913).
87
Massilia:
G.
Vasseur, l'Origine
de
Marseille
(1914).
See also P.
Jacobsthal
and E.
Neuffer, Prihistoire
II (1933),
1-64.
88
Tarentum:
according
to H. G. G.
Payne
the earliest
Corinthian
pottery
from the site is of the first half of the
seventh
century (Necrocorinthia, 188).
Excavation at Punta del Tonno near Tarentum has
revealed a
pre-Greek
settlement:
among
the finds were
two
Corinthian pots (or
close imitations of
Corinthian)
of
the late
eighth century (see
G.
Sdiflund, Dragma
M. P.
Nilsson, 458-90; especially pp. 460-3
and
figs. I
and
3,
and
pp. 488-90).
89 Naucratis: see
JHS
LVII
227-37. Cf. below, p. 83
n.
146.
90 Istrus: M.
Lambrino,
Les Vases
Archaiques
d'Histria
(1938):
the
groups
of
pottery
not
published
there are not
of earlier date. On Mme. Lambrino's
chronology,
which
is,
I
believe,
too
high,
see
JHS
LIX
148-9.
Olbia and Berezan: excavation
began
at Olbia in
1896
and at Berezan in
1904,
and has continued with inter-
ruptions;
there had also been some
looting
before. No
proper publication
of either site has
appeared:
brief
reports
with a few
photographs
were
given
in AA
1897-1914
and
elsewhere. There are also outside Russia some hundreds
of sherds
(unpublished)
in
Halle, Leipzig
and
Heidelberg,
and a few
photographs
in
private
hands. The
reports
are
not reliable in their classification of
pottery:
thus
'
altrho-
disch ' is used of Late ' Rhodian '
of the
early
sixth
century
(e.g.
AA
1914, 228, fig. 43),
and the
alleged
stratification
at Berezan is unsure
(see above, pp. 75-6).
A late Geometric
pot
is said on the seller's word to have been found
at'Berezan
(AA 1910, 227
and
fig. 27): I doubt it because no
piece certainly coming
from Berezan is so
early
in
style,
and
very
few are unbroken. For Corinthian
pottery
of
625-6oo
from
Olbia,
see H. G. G.
Payne, Necrocorinthia, 187.
Apollonia
Pontica: numerous sherds in Sofia and
Burgas,
and some in the Louvre and Bonn. These come
mostly
from the island of St.
Kiriak,
which was
presumably
the
site of earliest settlement.
91 South
Russia-stray
finds: ' Rhodian ' round-mouthed
oinochoe from Temir Gora near
Kertsch-Panticapaeum
(Compte-Rendu
(1870-1)
pl. 4;
K. F.
Kinch, Vroulia, fig. 107;
M.
Ebert, Siidrussland in
Altertum, fig. 73) ; fragments
of two or
three 'Rhodian' oinochoai from near Nemirov in Podolia
(about
200 miles north-west of
Olbia,
see AA
191 I, 235, fig. 42,
and
1912, 378, fig. 70;
M.
Ebert, op.cit., fig. 74).
These
pieces
are
early
in the Middle ' Rhodian ' series and I should date
them about
63o.
It is
perhaps significant
that these earliest
imports
were found not on colonial
sites,
and
they may
therefore
represent precolonial
trade. There are mentions
of other finds of
early
Greek
pottery
outside the colonies:
e.g.
E. H.
Minns, Scythians
and
Greeks, 339;
E. von
Stern,
Klio IX, '4' ('
zahlreiche Grabfunde altmilesischer
Topferwaren';
I have not been able to look
up
his refer-
ences),
and AA
1911 230, n. 3.
Most of these references
are to the
province
of Kiev. But without
photographs
I
cannot
accept them: for von Stern's use of '
altmilesisch,'
see above n.
90.
There is also from South Russia
an-
alabastron of
650-625,
which is of Corinthian manufacture
(see
H. G. G.
Payne, Necrocorinthia, 271,
no.
3oa).
92 F.
Jacoby, CQ XXXV, 102,
n.
4.
93 Particularly if,
as is
likely,
this
pottery
is Geometric
or
Subgeometric (cf. below, p. 82,
n.
i33).
IONIA
AND
GREECE,
8oo-6oo B.C.
77
TABLE I
Dates
of
Foundation
of
Colonies
Euse-
Thucy-
Hero-
ps.
Burn's
Burn's
Archaeo-
WEST
EASy. bius." dides." dotus.r
Slymnos.a Strabo.e
Scale adjust- logical
(Eusebius)
.f ment.
Date.h
Cumae . . . .
(1051)
- before
(913)
c.
750
c. 800
Metapontum
. (773)
- 705
after
700oo
Sinope
I . . before
756
none
c.
7oo
- before
692 c.
70oo
Cyrene I .
762 - none
- -
697
none
Aradus . .
759
- - - -
694
-
Cyzicus I
. .
756
- before
69o
- -
692 675 (?)
Trapezus (756)
- - - -
692
-
Naucratis . . 749
c.
570
-
after
650 687
c.
650 615/6o0
Rhegium
. . . . .
(748)
- - c.
746 713 ()
--
Naxus .
741 734
- c.8oo c.
800 707 ()
c.
7oo00
-
Syracuse
.
736 733
- c.
800oo
c. 8oo
702 ()
c.
700oo
733*
Catana . . .
736
- - c.
8oo00 702 () c. 700
-
Megara Hyblaea
. .
(750) 728
- c.
8o00
c.
8oo0 714 ()
c.
70 728*
Chersonesus . . - - -
686 ()
Astacus
711
- -
658
Parium
709
- - -
657
after
670
Abydus
.
.
- - - -
early 7th
- c.
675/650
-
cent.
Sybaris
. . . .
709 721
c.
800 679 (D)
-
Croton . . . .
- - - c. 8oo
679 ()
Corcyra
. . . .
76 before664
- - c.
8oo
677 () 708(?)
Tarentum . . . . .
706 c. 706 677 ( ) (700/650)
Phaselis
691
- -
643
-
Gela ..
691
688 - -
664 ()
- 688*
Chalcedon .
685
- - - -
639
Cyzicus II
.
.
679
- - - -
634
Locri .
. .
.
. . 679
- - - soon
afteri
653 i)
c. 8oo
Byzantium
. .
659
- -
-
-
619
c. 612
Istrus
.
. . 657
- -
c.615
-
618
c. 6,o
610/600
Acanthus . .
655
- -
616
c.
61o
Stagira
. .
655
- - - -
66
c. 6o
Lampsacus . . 654
- - - -
615
c.
6o
-
Abdera .
. 654
- - -
615
c.
6o
-
Selinus
650
628 - - -
613 629
628*
Olbia
(Borysthenis) 647
- -
708/56
-
61o0
c.
600
610/600
Cyrene II
. .
632
-
c.63o
-
? c.630
Sinope II .
.
63I
- after
678
after
664
-
Lipara
. . . .
630
- - - -
() 588(?)
Prusias
(Cius)
.
627
- - - -
595
Epidamnus
.
627
- -
609 ()
Apollonia
Pontica .
- - -
6o - - -
6o/600
Camarina . . . .
6o0
598 587 ()
- -
Massilia . . . .
. 598 60o0
-
584 ()
6oo (?)
a
The dates ascribed to Eusebius are culled
mostly
from
Hieronymus (ed. J.
K.
Fotheringham)
: others are bracketed.
b Thucydides gives
relative dates for the Sicilian colonies
(vi. 3-5):
their conversion into absolute dates followed here
is that of Pareti. For
Corcyra
see i.
13;
for
safety
I have
taken
404
as the basic date.
c
Cyzicus: iv. 14-15.
Naucratis: ii. 178. Cyrene: iv.
159 (3rd king reigning
c.
570). Sinope:
iv. 12
(after
Cim-
merians,
and so after death of
Gyges
which Herodotus dates
in
678).
d
Sinope:
'
he
(the oecist)
seems to
have been
destroyed by
the
Cimmerians,'
and after the Cimmerians the site was
reoccupied (11. 941-52). Naxos,
etc.:
'
oth
generation
after
the
Trojan
War'
(11. 270-74);
see n. e.
Sybaris:
it existed
210o
years (1. 360).
Istrus: ' about the time of the
Scythian
invasion of Asia'
(11. 767-72),
i.e.
(accepting
Herodotus's
date)
about
615.
Olbia:
'
about the time of the Median
empire
'
(11. 806-9);
I take Eusebius's date.
Apollonia
Pontica:
'
50 years
before
Cyrus
'
(11. 730-3),
whom Eusebius dates
56o.
Massilia:
'
120o years
before Salamis'
(11. 209-14).
Pseudo-
Skymnos
also mentions that Camarina lasted
46 years (1.
295)-
e
Strabo, following Ephorus,
dates to the
I
oth
generation
after the
Trojan
War the first foundations in
Sicily,
viz.
Naxos,
Megara Hyblaea, Syracuse,
and
perhaps
others
(vi. 267):
Megara
was
just
before
Syracuse (vi. 269, 270);
Corcyra
(vi. 269)
and Croton
(vi. 262, 269)
were founded while the
Syracuse expedition
was on its
way.
Cumae was the earliest
colony
in
Italy
or
Sicily (v. 243). Sybaris
was founded before
Croton
(vi. 262). Rhegium
was founded
just
before the
Ist
Messenian War
(vi. 257);
Tarentum
a few
years
after it
(vi. 278-9).
I have assumed that
Ephorus
dated the fall of
Troy twenty-four generations
before
334
B.c. and reckoned
three
generations
to a
century (see e.g.
A. W.
Byvanck,
Mnem.
1936, 194-6):
for the
Ist
Messenian War I have used
Euse-
bius's dates.
Abydus
was founded '
by permission
of
Gyges '
(xiii. 590).
I
See A. R.
Burn,
JHIS
LV
130-46
and
especially
the table
on
p. 146.
His
theory
is that most Greek dates before
500
were calculated
by
later writers
by
means of
generations;
that
they variously equated
a
generation
with
forty, thirty-five,
and
perhaps thirty-three years;
that in fact the
average
generation
is of
thirty years.
In this column I have tried to
apply
Burn's scale
fairly strictly
to
Eusebius, assuming forty-
year generations
for the eastern colonies and
thirty-five
generally
for the western
(as Burn,
I
think,
would
approve:
for the South Italian colonies I am doubtful whether Burn
would not see here a
thirty-year generation).
Where I have
assumed a
thirty-five-year generation
I have
put
after the
date
(1), being
the fraction
by
which the
original
date is
reduced.
Selinus:
Thucydides'
date reduced
by
. is
6Io.
9
In this column are collected the. dates Burn
gives,
as he
gives
them: it will be seen he has
adjusted
his scale.
"
The dates assumed from
Thucydides
are marked
*.
78
R. M. COOK
of the
adjoining region
of
Macedonia,
observes that the earliest Hellenic
pottery
recovered
there is Corinthian of about
6oo.94
The evidence is sufficient
only
for a
provisional judgment
on
Sicily
and the Pontus. From it one must conclude that the colonisation of the Pontus
began
a
century
or more after that of
Sicily; or,
to
express
it more
accurately,
that the first
Pontic colonies fall between the foundation of Selinus and of
Massilia,
a
period
which is
shorter than Eusebius makes it.
In Table I on
page 77
are set out the colonial dates
proffered by Eusebius,
who is our
fullest
authority.95
In
parallel
columns are the versions of
Thucydides, Herodotus, pseudo-
Skymnos
and
Strabo;
one or two other notices have
already
been mentioned. Next come
Eusebius's dates reduced in strict accordance with Burn's
scale,
and also in certain instances
as Burn himself has
adjusted
them. Last I have
given according
to
my lights
the dates of
foundation as
they appear
from the
archaeological
finds. The
comparison
of the results
does not enhance the
credibility
of the
accepted
tradition as a whole.
Originally
no doubt
it was built on a basis of
synchronisms
and
generations;
but if so these were
variously
converted
into calendar
years,
and the
composite
list of dates is unreliable. Burn's
scale,
when
rigorously applied, gives
some
probable
and some
improbable results,
and is in fact too
simple:
but if it is
adjusted-a
resort to which its author feels himself
compelled-it
becomes as
arbitrary
as
any
other
interpreting
of tradition. The
only
reliable test is further excavation
of colonial
sites, providing always
that the results are
properly
observed and
published.
It
follows,
if the
argument
is
correct,
that the first colonies founded
by Ionians
were
later,
and
considerably later,
than those of
Chalcis,
Corinth and the
Achaeans,
and therefore that
Ionia
did not
inaugurate
the colonial movement. There
are, however,
the curious discoveries
that C. L.
Woolley recently
made in North
Syria
at Al
Mina."6
This
site,
which is
thought
to be the
Posideion
of
Herodotus,97
lies at the mouth of the river Orontes on a main route
to
Mesopotamia;
and it contained a small settlement of
Greeks,
at least to
judge by
the
Greek
pottery
found
there.98
This
begins
with Geometric of
Cycladic
and East Greek
99
styles,
and thereafter till about 6oo or a little later
(when
the settlement seems to have been
interrupted)
it is East Greek that
predominates:
one
may reasonably
infer that the Greek
residents came
mainly
from the Asiatic side of the
Aegean. Unfortunately,
the date of the
earliest
pottery
cannot
generally
be determined.100 C. M. Robertson saw
nothing
that need
go
far back into the first half of the
eighth century (by archaeological reckoning);
101
and
though
he did not see the material from the lowest
level,
he was informed that it did not
differ much from that of levels
9
and
8.102 I agree
with Robertson: it seems to me
probable
that the Geometric
styles
of some at least of the
Cyclades
and of the East Greek
area,
which
are little
known, may
not have been
superseded generally by Orientalising styles
till
about
65o-that is, fifty years
or more later than the transition in Athens and in Corinth.103 In
any
case the
presence
of Geometric at Al Mina does not
prove
that the site
goes
back to the
early
eighth century.
S. Smith
argues
that the foundation of Al Mina would
historically
fit well
with the Urartian control of the northern
valley
of the
Orontes,
and this
began early
in the
eighth century:
'
but
I
do not think that Smith's
argument precludes
a later date for Greek
94 Prehistoric
Alacedonia (1939), 39; io6; 125;
see
below,
p. 82,
n.
I31.
For some earlier
pieces,
see
below, p. 82,
n.
132.
95
There
are,
of
course,
traditional dates for other colonies
not mentioned
by Eusebius;
but since
they
do not affect
my argument
I have
generally ignored
them.
96 C. L.
Woolley, JHS
LVIII
I-30
and
133-70 (general
description
of
site, etc.);
C. M.
Robertson, JHS
LX
2-21
(early
Greek
pottery);
S.
Smith, Antiquaries' Journal,
XXII
87-112 (a
full review and criticism
from
a Near
Eastern
standpoint).
97
Woolley (op. cit., 28-30) gives
reasons for
identifying
Al Mina with the
Posideion
of Herodotus
(iii. 91)
and
Smith
(op. cit., 97-8)
for
distinguishing
it from the Posidion
of Strabo
(xvi. 751
and
753).
The '
Posidon
'
names in this
district are
confusing
: there are also Posidonia
(see Woolley,
op. cit., 29)
and Posidonion
(Ar.,
De Vent.
Sit., 973a).
98 See
below, pp. 82-3-
99
'
East
Greek,'
it must be
remembered,
includes Rhodian.
100
The earliest datable
pieces
are Corinthian of the
second half of the
eighth century (JHS
LX
pl. 4a, e,f, g).
o101 JHS
LX 21.
102
JHS LX
2, n.
I.
103 See
below, pp. 93-5. I do not know if Robertson
would
go
so far as this.
10o4 Antiquaries' Journal XXII
91-4.
Smith's other
historical
suggestion
for Al
Mina,
that its
interruption
from
about 6oo to
52o
was the result of Phoenician domination of
the
Syrian
coast
(ibid., 105-1 I),
looks rather
shaky
since the
publication
of the finds from Tell Sukas
(E. Forrer,
Bericht
iiber
d. VI internat.
Kongressf.
Archdologie, 1939, 360-5).
Tell
Sukas,
a harbour site
17
miles S.S.E. of
Latakia,
shows
evidence of Greek
occupation from
about
60oo
to
55o,
and
may
in fact be
complementary
to Al Mina.
IONIA AND
GREECE, 800-6oo
B.C.
79
settlement,
since it is clear that the
Assyrians,
when
they
wrested the district from
Urartu,
tolerated Greeks at Al Mina.
The number of
Ionian colonies, particularly
of those founded
by
Miletus in the
Pontus,
impressed
both
pseudo-Skymnos
and
Strabo; 105
and their remarks have been
quoted
with
approval by
modern historians.106 But mere number is a
poor criterion,
unless the size of
the colonies is also taken into account. In the main colonial field of
Miletus,
the
Pontus,
most of the colonies were far from
large.
So Strabo
implies, describing
some of them
by
such
terms as
TroAixviov; 107
and the
plans
of
Istrus, Apollonia
and Odessus show that these ancient
towns were
very
small.
Judged only by
their historical
importance
the eastern colonies of
Ionia
were
insignificant
in
comparison
with the colonies in the
West,
in which the eastern
Greeks
hardly
shared.108 All
things considered,
it seems
pretty
clear that the colonial
activity
of the Ionians was on a smaller scale than that of the Greeks of the homeland.'09
The
primary
cause of Greek colonisation is
usually
and
sensibly
held to have been over-
population.
For this condition there were three
practical
solutions-to
expand
into
neigh-
bouring territory,
to reduce the
population by emigration,
and to
import
food and other
necessaries which would have to be
paid
for
by
industrial
exports
or
by
services. This third
solution
requires,
of
course,
a
higher
level of
organisation
than does
emigration,
but it does not
necessarily
follow that
emigration
would not have been
preferred by
a
highly organised
state.
For that reason the colonial
inactivity
of the
Ionians
in the
eighth century
is not evidence that
they
were then more
highly organised
than
colonising
states as Corinth and Chalcis:
110
indeed,
it is hard to see where
any large imports
of food could at that time have come from.
When one considers the Greek colonies of the
eighth
and seventh
centuries,
it is
plain
that
those in the West were intended as
economically independent states,
as self-sufficient as
any
Greek
city
was
likely
to be: in other
words,
the
purpose
of this colonisation was
simply
to rid
the motherland of
surplus
inhabitants. The same is
probably
true of the colonies of the
North
Aegean.
But as one
proceeds through
the
Propontis
into the Pontus the
general
character of the colonies
changes:
it looks as if
Istrus,
for
instance,
was meant
economically
to be
complementary
to its
parent city
and not
independent
of
it.lll
As for Al Mina and
Naucratis,
these were
wholly trading settlements;
and Al Mina
certainly
cannot have served
for the
export
of necessaries to the Greek
homeland.112
If what has been so far
put
forward is
true,
it follows that
Ionia
did not feel the
pinch
of
overpopulation
so
early
as some
parts
of old
Greece,
at least not to the extent of
having
to
reduce
population
or
develop
overseas
importation
of foodstuffs. The reason
presumably
is
that there was still waste land to cultivate or
perhaps
natives to be
expropriated:
and it must
be remembered that
Ionia
was
naturally
better endowed than much of Greece
proper,
as is
emphasised by
Herodotus 113 and the
Hippocratic
author of the de
Aere.114
Possibly
it was
not till the
Lydian kingdom
was consolidated and
began
to
expand
that the
Ionians
found
population pressing
on subsistence. Some historians have seen in the Cimmerian raids the
impetus
to
vigorous
Ionian
colonisation in the Pontus:115 but it would be remarkable if at
that critical time the
Ionians
had tried to
plant
colonies in the hornets' nest.
105
Pseudo-Skymnos, 734-7.
Strabo xiv.
635.
10oo E.g.,
F.
Bilabel,
Die ionische
Kolonisation,
9-Io.
107 Cf. Xenophon,
Anab. v.
6, 15-21.
108 Gela, dated
by Thucydides
about
690,
was a
joint
venture of Cretans and Rhodians. From about
6oo,
according
to both tradition and the
archaeologists,
the
Phocaeans founded Massilia and other colonies in the Far
West.
Siris, perhaps
a little later than
Gela,
is ascribed
by
general
tradition to
Colophon (but
see K.
J. Beloch,
Gr.
Gesch.2 I 2, 238-45; against
him F.
Bilabel,
Die ionische
Kolonisation, 206-8):
if
Siris
was indeed a
Colophonian
and not an Achaean
foundation,
it is
noteworthy
that these
Ionians preferred
to
go
to the West
away
from their kinsmen
instead of
settling
in the North
Aegean
or the
Propontis
where there were then
plenty
of vacant
sites; possibly
that
field was not then
ripe
for colonisation.
109
Thucydides, touching
on colonial
expansion,
saw fit
to mention
only
the
migration
to
Ionia
and the settlement
of
Sicily
and South
Italy (i. 12, 4):
he
ignores
the
colonisation from Ionia.
110 T. Lenschau takes the
opposite
view
(Klio,
XIII
176-7):
the colonial movement
began
about
750,
when
Ionia
was absorbed in overland
trade;
this was ruined
by
Gyges
about
7oo,
and therefore
Ionia began
to found
colonies for the sake of overseas markets.
xxx
Thus
J.
L.
Myres emphasises
that the climatic
regime
of much of the Pontus was unsuited to the Greek
way
of
life,
and that
many
Pontic colonies existed
by
and for the
export
trade in corn and other commodities
(CAH II111664-6).
112
See
below, p.
86.
113
i. 142:
for
Aeolis,
see
i. 149.
114
De Aere 12.
115 Soj. L.
Myres,
CAH
III 656.
80 R. M. COOK
It is
anyhow
rash to conclude that the
founding
of colonies is an index of the
prosperity
and
importance
of the
mother-city.116
Rather it indicates the relation of
population
to local
means of subsistence. For
example, Corinth, Megara
and Miletus founded
many colonies;
Sicyon, Aegina
and
Ephesus
founded
none:117
yet
these three
pairs
of cities were to all
appearances comparable
in their internal
development.
How far the latter three cities
disposed
of
surplus population
in colonial ventures
sponsored by
others we do not
know; but
it is as
likely
that
they
found other remedies.
Ephesus may
have
gained
more elbow-room
by
the elimination of
Smyrna early
in the sixth
century. Aegina,
an
early
maritime
power,
may
soon have been able to obtain
imports by
her
carrying
trade. For
Sicyon
I offer no
suggestion.
To sum
up,
the
Ionians
were late to found
colonies;
but the
only
sure inference from that
is that
they
did not have a
problem
of
overpopulation
so
early
as some others of the Greeks.
4.
TRADE
None of our ancient authorities was so interested in economics as to leave a
description
of
early
Greek
trade,
and casual allusions are few. For solid evidence there are
only
the archaeo-
logical finds, consisting mainly
of
pottery.
There are
grave
limitations to evidence of this
kind.
First,
there is no reason to
suppose
that
pottery
is a constant index of
general trade,
of which it must
anyhow
have been a small item.
Secondly,
some
important
cities had no
flourishing
ceramic
industry
of their own: their trade has therefore left few or no
traces,
unless
perhaps they
carried
pottery
made in
neighbouring states,
and to this there would
generally
be no clue.
Exported pottery,
in
fact,
while
showing
the existence of
trade,
is
only
a
rough
guide
to its volume and even to its
origin:
but it is the best
guide
we have. In the
following
pages
I summarise the
evidence
of
pottery
as far as I can.
Unfortunately
not
only
have
some areas been less
explored
than
others,
but much of the material that has come to
light
is
not
published: many
of the finds I mention I know
only
at second or even third hand.
The West
From time to time there have been
attempts
to elucidate the course of
early
Greek trade
by
this method. One of the most recent and notable was made
by
A. A.
Blakeway
in two
papers published
in
1935.118
In them
Blakeway
collected
samples
of the earliest Greek
pottery
found in
Sicily,
South
Italy,
Etruria and
Provence, gave
them
dates,
and
assigned
them to
their
places
of
origin
or
inspiration.
From this he concluded that there was
already
in the
ninth
century,
before colonisation
began,
a
flourishing
Greek trade with the
West;
that it was
at first shared
by
several Greek
states-Crete, Corinth, Argos, Cycladic
and East Greek
cities,
and
perhaps Boeotia;
and that in the
years 735-690 (that
is the
period
from the foundation
of
Syracuse
to the foundation of
Gela)
Corinth
captured
this trade and
monopolised
it for
more than a
century.
This
argument
is based on the
chronology
of the various Geometric
styles
of Greek
pottery
in relation to
Protocorinthian,
the
chronology
of which is fixed
(rightly
or
wrongly) by
the traditional dates of the Sicilian foundations: later research shows that the
chronology
of Geometric which
Blakeway
follows was in
part considerably
too
early,119"
and
116
To this
summary
statement there are two
exceptions.
First,
since the colonists did not
always
come from one
state,
some
superior importance may
sometimes be allowed
to the
city organising
the
expedition. Secondly,
and more
definitely,
the foundation of
politically dependent
colonies
shows that the
mother-city
had attained some notion of
imperialism:
but colonies of this
type
were not founded
before the latter
part
of the seventh
century
and
appear
to
have been a Corinthian
development.
117 Anyhow
F. Bilabel in his careful
conspectus
Die
ionische
Kolonisation
gives
no colonies to
Ephesus. Aegina
is
by
Strabo
(viii. 376)
credited with
two--one curiously
in
Umbria,
the other
Cydonia
in Crete
(of
the late sixth
century
to
judge by
Hdt. iii.
59,
from which indeed Strabo
may
have inferred an
Aeginetan colony).
118
BSA XXXIII
I70-208.
The
argument
on Etruria is
carried further in
JRS
XXV
129-49.
119 See E. H.
Dohan,
Italic Tomb
Groups (1942),
an
important study
of the
chronology
of Etruria in this
period.
Mrs. Dohan
specifically
corrects
Blakeway
on
p. 29, Comp.
17-18; p. 40, Comp. 4
and
I4;
P. 45, Comp. 3:
note
also
pp. 105-9
where she
gives
reasons for
dating
the
Warrior's Tomb at
Tarquinii
about
68o-Blakeway
had
put
it before
735 (BSA
XXXIII
I97).
Of
general
relevance
to the
dating
of late Geometric and
Subgeometric styles,
though treating particularly
of
Attic,
is R. S.
Young,
Hesperia Suppl. II (1939):
he
categorically
denies Blake-
way's early dating (ibid., 3,
n.
2). J.
D.
Beazley, reviewing
Dohan,
writes:
'
Mrs. Dohan's dates tend to be somewhat
later than
Payne's,
and a
good
deal later than
Blakeway's:
IONIA AND
GREECE,
800-6oo00
B.C.
81
there is a reasonable
suspicion
that most of his other
early
dates must also be revised. It is
the common fate of
interpretations
of
archaeological
material that is little known.
The earliest known Greek
colony
in the West was
Cumae,
founded about
750.
But before
the Greek
city
there
was,
it
seems,
a native settlement in whose
cemetery
have been found a
few Greek
pots
which
may
be of the first half of the
eighth century.120
In the rest of South
Italy
I know of little if
any pottery
of Hellenic manufacture or
inspiration
that is earlier than
the foundation of Cumae and the
beginning
in earnest of Greek colonisation. The same can
be said of
Sicily.
There
may
be in Etruria an odd
piece
or two which can
definitely
be dated
to the first half of the
eighth century;
121 but the mass of the
early
Greek
pottery
is later
than
the foundation of
Cumae,
and
according
to E. H. Dohan
(whose
views I
accept)
the
period
when
foreign-that is,
Greek and Oriental-influences become
overwhelming
in Etruria is
68o-65o.122
In short there is in
Sicily,
South
Italy
and Etruria
very
little demonstrable trace
of Greek trade before
colonisation.123 Further,
till the sixth
century
the dominant fabric of
Greek
pottery
found in this
region
is Corinthian.
Among
the Geometric and
Subgeometric
finds there are
pots
of Cretan and other
styles,
but these are not all as
early
as
Blakeway
thought
and some of them
may go
down well into the seventh
century,
in the second
quarter
of
which there
may
also be some Attic influence in
Etruria,124
while towards its end occasional
East Greek
pots appear,
for
instance,
at
Gela,
which was
traditionally
a
joint
foundation of
Cretans and
Rhodians.
There
was,
it
seems, throughout
the
period
a small
import
of
pottery
other than
Corinthian;
and
Blakeway's
assertion that till about
735-690
the
imported pottery
was Panhellenic and then
suddenly
became Corinthian does not hold water.
The recent excavations in Ithaca
provide
the
only
useful materials for the
Ionian
islands. The
early
Hellenic
pottery
has not
yet
been
published
in full: it is remarkable
for a
provincial
ware
imitating
Protocorinthian of the end of the
eighth century,
and there
is also much true Corinthian from at least the
eighth century
on as well as a little East
Greek of the second half of the
seventh.125
From the Adriatic there is
very
little Greek
before 600.126
For Provence the material is
conveniently
assembled
by
P.
Jacobsthal
and E.
Neuffer,127
for Massilia
by
G. Vasseur.128 There are a few
published pots definitely
earlier than
600o,
the
approximate
date of the
colonisation,
and one is
very
much
earlier.'29
In the
early
sixth
century
there seems to be a
greater proportion
of East Greek
pottery
than is usual on a western
site, though
I cannot
accept
the claim
ofJacobsthal
and Neuffer that some of this is
specifically
Phocaean.
Along
the
Spanish
coast Greek
objects
of the sixth
century
are
reported,
and a
bronze helmet attributed to the third
quarter
of the
seventh.130
this accords with the
experience,
which must be
respected,
of American excavators in the
Agora' (ClRev 1944, 31).
Apart
from the
dating, Blakeway's
attributions to local
styles
of
pottery
were often too
positive
and must be
doubted.
I have now read A.
Akerstrom,
Der Geometrische Stil in
Italien
(I943).
He
argues
(I)
that the Geometric
pottery
of
Italy
and
Sicily
is
mostly
local and
late; (2)
that it
arose under the influence of several Greek
cities; (3)
that
Greek commerce with Etruria was
flourishing
before the
foundation of Cumae which he
puts
after
700. I agree
with the first
point,
but not with the second and third
(for
a fuller discussion see
JHS
LXV
I 19-20).
For
Blakeway's
view on the date of the
entry
of the
alphabet
into
Italy,
which he uses as a further
argument
of
the,.earliness
of Greek influence in
Italy, compare below,
pp. 89-90,
where the date of the Greek
alphabet
is discussed.
See also R.
Carpenter, AJA
XLIX
452-64.
120
E.g., MonAnt XXII
pl. 18, 7
and
9.
121
E.g., Villa Giulia
4815,
Corinthian Geometric
skyphos;
from
Falerii;
A. A.
Blakeway,
BSA XXXIII
196,
no.
73
and
pl. 31,
and S. S.
Weinberg, AJA
XLV
32.
122
Italic Tomb
Groups,
io8.
123
Livy (viii. 22)
mentions a Greek settlement earlier
than Cumae on the
near-by
islands of Pithecusae: if this
weak tradition is
true,
that settlement
may
have
supplied
the
pre-colonial pottery
to the native site at Cumae.
124
E. H.
Dohan,
Italic Tomb
Groups, Io8.
125
To be published by
C. M. Robertson in BSA.
126
See R. L.
Beaumont, JHS
LVI
159-204:
this valu-
able
study
is weak on the
archaeological
side and the
observations on East Greek
objects
are not reliable.
A. A.
Blakeway
held that certain sherds from
Coppa
Nevigata
near Manfredonia were Greek
Protogeometric,
that is tenth
century (BSA
XXXIII
I74-5).
This I do not
believe:
however,
I know them
only
from the illustrations
in MonAnt XIX
(Mosso) pl. 4.
127 Prihistoire
II 1-64.
128
L'Origine
de Marseille.
129
Prdhistoire, II 36-42. I
think no.
I (fig. 37)
is much
earlier than
6oo;
no. 2
(fig. 38)
is difficult to
place
from the
illustration,
but is
certainly
before
6oo;
no.
4 (fig. 4ob)
is
somewhere about the middle of the seventh
century; no. 3
(fig. 39)
and the
cup (fig. 41)
could be sixth
century.
On
the fibulae
(fig. 42) I
cannot
attempt
an
opinion. Only
nos. I and 2 are from Marseilles itself.
130
P.
Bosch-Gimpera, CQ XXXVIII 53-9
is
my
source.
Perhaps
from near Cadiz there comes also a Protoattic
jug
of about
675 (Copenhagen 8673;
see
J.
M.
Cook,
BSA XXXV
204)-
G
JHS.-VOL.
LXVI.
82 R. M. COOK
The East
Of the North
Aegean
and the
Propontis
there is little to
say,
since such excavations
as
might
be
helpful
have not been
published.
So far as I
know, nothing
Greek that is earlier
than 6oo has been
reported
from Chalcidice: in Macedonia there is mention of Corinthian
pottery
from the
beginning
of the sixth
century,131
and of the middle of the seventh
century are
two Protocorinthian
aryballoi
from
Salonika.132 Along
the Thracian coast of the
Aegean
archaic
pottery
is
reported
from Kavalla
(Neapolis)
and Kalamitsa
nearby,
but the
descriptions
are too
vague
to be
useful.133
From Koile in the Dardanelles there is a Corinthian
pot
of
about
640o.134
Within the Pontus the Greek finds at
Apollonia,
Istrus and Olbia
(with Berezan) begin
about
6io-6oo: 135 at the first two sites the earliest
pottery
is
largely
East
Greek,
and I
imagine
that the same is true of Olbia and Berezan. In the interior of
Bulgaria
there is a little sixth
century material,
of Rumania less.136 Much has been written on Greek influence in South
Russia: but the
published
seventh
century
finds from outside the colonies amount to
parts
of three or four East Greek
pots
which are
hardly
to be dated before
63o
and one Corinthian
pot
that
may
be a little
earlier.13" The southern shore of the Pontus has
enjoyed
a little
consular and other attention: from Amisos come sixth
century
evidences of East Greek
art.13s
Inner Anatolia has not been much
explored:
from
Gordion,
the old
capital
of the
Phrygian
kingdom,
the Greek finds
begin
at the end of the seventh
century.139
From this it is
plain
that
there is
yet
no
justification
of the claim that we must allow two or three
generations
of trade
before colonies were established round the Pontus.140
Equally
unfounded is the
fancy
that
Carians
preceded
the Greeks in Pontic waters and that Greek colonies were
planted
on older
Carian settlements.141
In
Syria
the finds from Al Mina
begin
about the middle of the
eighth century, perhaps
a
little earlier: at first there is much that is
probably Cycladic,
but till the
interruption
of the
settlement about 6oo it is East Greek
pottery
that
predominates.142
Elsewhere in the
Levant,
from Cilicia to
Palestine,
there is from the end of the
eighth century
a trickle of Greek
imports
131 W. A.
Heurtley,
Prehistoric
Macedonia
(i939),
39;
io6; 125.
The
principal
site is
Vardaroftsa,
which lies
twenty
miles or so inland in the Axius
valley.
132
Sofia
4983,
Middle to Late Protocorinthian
aryballos
of about
650o;
from Salonika
('
old
grave, 1911 ').
Sofia
5282,
Late Protocorinthian
aryballos (soon
after
650o);
from Salonika
(' 1913').
These are the
only
Greek
objects
from Macedonia earlier than 6oo that I noticed in Sofia
Museum. I do not know how much these
provenances
can be trusted.
133 Kavalla: see G.
Bakalakis,
paKTP-rtKO
1937, 59-77;
1938, 75-102.
He mentions
'Ionic, Attic, Corinthian,
Island
(Rhodian-Melian), Naucratite, Laconian,'
and
'North Ionic
(Aeolian)
': the illustrations are not
clear,
but there does not seem to be
anything probably
earlier
than about 6oo.
Kalamitsa (7
kilometres west of
Kavalla)
: see G. Baka-
lakis,
UpaKo-rtK& 1935, 29-42; 1936, 74-81.
Attic and
Corinthian
are
mentioned, apparently
not so
early
as the
earliest from Kavalla.
From both sites Bakalakis also records
Geometric,
which
he
compares
to that found at
Thasos, Olynthus (Excavations
at
Olynthus
V
pl. 22),
and
Akropotamos
near Kavalla
(rTpaKTIK& 1938, 104-I I).
It does not look like
truly
Greek
Geometric and is
probably
of local manufacture.
134 H. G. G.
Payne, Necrocorinthia, 274,
no.
67a.
135 See
above, p. 76.
136 I judge by the contents of local museums that I have
visited
in Bulgaria
and Rumania:
compare
V.
Parvan,
Acad.
Roumaine,
Bull. Sect. Hist. X
(1923), 23-48.
In the
museum at
Plovdiv
is a
fragment
of an East Greek bird-bowl
of the seventh
century.
It is exhibited with sherds of a
Corinthian black
polychrome pointed aryballos
of about
625,
of a Late
'
Rhodian 'dish
(first quarter
of sixth
century),
of an East Greek
lip-cup
and of two Clazomenian
pots
(roughly mid-sixth
century).
None of these
pieces
is
inventoried,
and their
provenance
is not recorded: I do
not
suppose
it was local.
137 See
above, p. 76,
n.
91.
138 Amisos
(Samsun):
some
desultory digging
was done
in
I9o6
at Ak Alan
(18
kilometres west-south-west of
Samsun), by
T. Makridi
(see
Mitt. Vorderas.
Gesellschaft
XII
(1907),.
I67-75).
Pottery;
Makridi
publishes one
' Rhodian' sherd of the last
quarter
of the seventh
century
(op. cit., pl.
Io--middle bottom);
in Stamboul are
'
Rhodian '
sherds,
some of which
(my
notes are
defective)
may possibly
be as
early
as the last
quarter
of the seventh
century;
in the Louvre a sherd, CA2244(?),
in a
provincial
(perhaps Aeolian) style
of the sixth
century. Terracotta
revetments:
specimens
in Stamboul
(op. cit., pls.
i1-17;
H. Koch, RM XXX
16-23, figs. 3-6;
R.
Demangel, la
Frise
ionique, fig. 23),
Dresden
(V3063),
Munich
(AA 1938,
434, figs. 17-18,
no.
14);
their
style
is sixth
century
East
Greek, perhaps
of the Northern or Aeolian
variety.
139 See G. and A.
K6rte,
Gordion
(1904)-
140 So A. R.
Burn, JHS
LV
135:
Burn was misled
by
the dubious statement that 'the earliest
plentiful
eastern
Greek
pottery
from near Olbia is
stylistically
at least as
early
as the earliest from
Gela, and much more
primitive
than the earliest from Selinus
';
in
my opinion
the earliest
East Greek from Gela
scarcely
antecedes
630,
and from
Selinus 6oo or so.
141 This view is held
by
F.
Bilabel,
Die ionische Kolonisation
60-3:
he makes
play
with the non-Greek names of several
Pontic
colonies,
a method which could be
applied
with
about as useful results to North America.
It is said that the name
ECI?EIVOS for the Pontus comes
by
way
of
"AEIvwos
from Iranian
(see
G.
Glotz,
Hist.
gr., I 164,
n. 45):
if
so,
that
might give
an
upper
limit for Greek
activity
in those waters. But for a denial of this
derivation,
see A. C.
Moorhouse, CQ
XXXIV
123-8.
142 See
above, pp. 78-9.
IONIA AND
GREECE,
8oo-6oo
B.C.
83
which
grows slowly.143
The
rarity
of these
imports
in a
region
so
busily explored
is
evidence,
as S. Smith has
observed,
not
only
that the
Syrians
and their
neighbours
had no taste for
Greek art but also that the users of the
plentiful
Greek
pottery
at Al Mina were
Greeks.144
Egypt,
it
appears,
came into contact with the Greeks later: at Naucratis Greek
pottery begins
about
6i5-6io,
at the Greek settlement of Tell Defenneh not
earlier,
and elsewhere in
Egypt
the few Greek finds reach back
only
to the last
years
of the seventh
century.145
In
Egypt
as in
the Levant the dominant wares of
imported
Greek
pottery
before the sixth
century
are East
Greek, though
there is
throughout
a
respectable percentage
of Corinthian. Archaic
Cyrene
awaits
investigation.146
Further West in
Carthage
there is much Corinthian from at least as
early
as the middle of the seventh
century,
but this
may
have been
re-exported
from
Etruria.147
These results are set out more
concisely
in Table II on
p. 84.
It can be seen that
they
are
incomplete,
and in fact
they
are
incompleter
than
they
seem.
Three conclusions
emerge. First,
there was little
trade,
at least in
pottery,
in
any
area before
colonies were
planted (for
Etruria must in this connexion be considered as an annexe to the
western field of
colonisation). Secondly,
Corinthian
pottery
dominates
the
West and
perhaps
Chalcidice,
and East Greek
pottery
dominates the East or
rather,
since Chalcidice seems to
be excluded and we are
ignorant
of the rest of the North
Aegean
and of the
Propontis,
that
part
of the eastern field which was colonised
by
East Greeks: it
should, however,
be
remembered that in the East Greek field Corinthian
148
is
throughout
found in
respectable
quantity,
and that from the last
quarter
of the seventh
century
East Greek
pottery appears
in
the
West, particularly
in the Phocaean zone of Provence.
Thirdly,
East Greek
pottery was,
143
Cilicia.
At
Mersin,
west of
Tarsus,
excavation was
begun just
before the late war. The finds included some Greek
pottery,
published by
R. D. Barnett
(LAAA
XXVI
98-130).
The
number of
pots represented
are as follows:
Mycenaean--7;
Submycenaean-i,
and
Protogeometric
(doubtful)-I
(these
two Barnett thinks
may
be
local);
Geometric--14,
of
Cycladic
or East Greek
styles;
Protocorinthian and
'
Early
Corinthian
'-6;
' Rhodian ' Wild Goat
style--
perhaps
as
many
as fifteen are of the Middle
style,
that is
of the last
quarter
of the seventh
century.
There are also
some dozens of sherds with
simpler decoration, probably
East Greek and either seventh or sixth
century,
and some
more
elaborately
decorated sixth
century
sherds. The
ensemble resembles that from Al
Mina;
but the earliest
Corinthian and 'Rhodian' are
later,
the Corinthian
beginning
about
650
or so and the ' Rhodian ' in the last
quarter
of the seventh
century (Barnett's dating
of
'Rhodian' is too
high).
For the Geometric I do not
venture a
date;
but it
might
all be seventh
century (see
above, p. 78,
and
below, pp. 93-5).
Of
imported
Greek
pottery
most is East Greek. The stratification of these
sherds has little
value,
as is evident if one tabulates Barnett's
notices. Barnett
suggests
that there
may
be a continuous
sequence
of Greek
pottery
from the thirteenth
century
to
the late fifth or early fourth
(ibid., 98): this is not borne
out by
the finds so far made. There is not the evidence to
decide whether at Mersin there was a small settlement of
new
Aegean Greeks,
or whether the
pottery
was traded to
the established inhabitants.
Of Tarsus Barnett
says that Greek pottery
has been found
in comparable quantity to that found at Mersin (ibid.,
ioo)
:
the only published pieces
I know are a Protocorinthian
aryballos of the end of the
eighth century and an East Greek
bird-bowl that
is
probably not late in the seventh
(,4JA
XLII 44, figs. 33-4).
There are also references to casual Greek sherds from
Mlisis, Kazanli
near Mersin, Tanuk Kale
(?T6miik Kale)
near Soli, Sirkeli near Adana
(Barnett, ibid., Ioo).
Syria.
From
Sakje-Geuzi
on the Cilician border one Middle
'Rhodian' sherd is published, of the last quarter
of the
seventh century (LAAA XXIV
pl. 35, 3)-
Some Greek
pottery
was also found at Hamath
(H. Ingholt, Rapport
Priliminaire sur
... Hama, 98:
dated
by
F.
Johansen
c.
95o-80o,
but I take leave to doubt this
dating:
still it is
presumably
earlier than about
720,
when
Sargon destroyed
the
city).
S. Smith mentions occasional
pieces
of
early
Greek
pottery
from other sites
(Antiquaries' Journal
XXII
94).
Palestine.
A few Greek sherds of the late seventh
century
were found
at
Askalon,
and one at
TellJemmeh (7
miles south of
Gaza);
all are 'Rhodian'
(QDAP
I
pl. 5a,
I
and
5;
and also
PEF
1923, pl. 4, 14-Askalon; QDAP
I
pl. 5a, 3-Tell
Jemmeh).
The
fragmentary
Corinthian
kotyle
from Askalon
(QDAP I 17,
no.
4
and
pl.
6c = PEF
I923,
pl. 2, 4)
falls well inside the sixth
century:
see H. G. G.
Payne,
Necrocorinthia, 187.
Mesopotamia.
One
Submycenaean,
one
Protogeometric,
and one
'Rhodian' sherd are
reported
from
Quyunjik-Nineveh
(JHS
LII
130).
Mr. R. D. Barnett
tells me that the lower
date for these finds is
probably
628.
144
Antiquaries' Journal
XXII
96.
145
This is discussed in
JHS
LVII
227-37:
a tentative
list of
pre-Persian imports
outside Naucratis and Tell
Defenneh is given there on pp. 236-7: add a 'Rhodian'
sherd
in
New York (CVA Fogg and Gallatin, pl. 381, 3),
which
might
be a little before
615.
Tell Defenneh was
only
partially excavated,
and there
may
well be more Greek
pottery there earlier than
570-560
if anyone looks
for
it.
(Incidentally the reference in that
paper
on
p. 229, n.
17
to a late ' Rhodian
'
sherd should be ' Bolton '
(Lancs.), not
' Boston ').
146 A
Geometric skyphos, seemingly eighth century,
is
said to have come from
Cyrene (AM LII 53, fig.
31).
147 See H. G. G. Payne, Necrocorinthia, 187-8. The
argument
for
re-export
is that there is also at Carthage
much Etruscan pottery (Italo-Corinthian); that this ware
is not found on Greek sites in South
Italy
and
Sicily;
that
the Italo-Corinthian
probably
came to
Carthage together
with the
Corinthian;
and that therefore Greeks are not
likely
to have been the carriers of either.
148 Some of this
may perhaps prove
to be
Aeginetan
(see p. 93,
n.
205).
84
R. M. COOK
TABLE II
Date and
Origin of
earliest Greek
pottery found
outside Greece
From Colonial sites. Outside Colonial sites.
West:
South
Italy
. . .
750
Corinthian
800/750
Corinthian
Etruria
..
-
8oo/750
Corinthian
Sicily 730
Corinthian
730? Corinthian
Ionian Islands *
..
Eighth
cent. Corinthian
- -
Adriatic
..
Provence . . . . 6oo mixed Seventh cent. ?
Spain
. . . .
.
Sixth cent. mixed
(6 o) (Corinthian)
East:
Chalcidice . . . ?
?
650
Corinthian
North
Aegean
.
? ? ?
Propontis
.
? ? ? ?
West Pontus
.6o/oo
East Greek Sixth cent. ?
North Pontus . . . .
6o/oo
East Greek
(630)
East Greek
South Pontus . . 6oo? East Greek ? ?
Syria (and Cilicia)
. . .
750/25
East Greek
?
Egypt
..
6i5/o
East Greek
6to?
East Greek
Cyrene
. .
? ?
(A
dash means that there is no evidence for our
period
nor the likelihood of
any;
a
question-mark
that there is none
yet
of which I know
enough.
Where a date is in
brackets,
the earlier
pieces
are isolated and do not
begin
a
steady
flow
of
imports.)
* This
entry
refers to
Ithaca,
which Greeks had
probably occupied continuously
from the Bronze
Age.
It is not there-
fore
strictly
a colonial site.
except
at Al
Mina,
and
probably
at
Mersin,
much later than Corinthian in
being exported
overseas: this
repeats
the observation
already
made that in colonisation the East Greeks
seem
generally
to have been later than some of the cities of old Greece.
To
argue, however,
as
Blakeway does,
that the
preponderance
of Corinthian
pottery
in
the West
during
the latter
part
of the
eighth
and
throughout
the seventh
century
reflects a
specifically
Corinthian
monopoly
of trade is to
ignore
an
important
fact.
During
the same
period
Corinthian was the dominant
pottery
on the Greek mainland: excavation shows that
on sites
there, too,
Corinthian is the most
frequent
of
imported
wares. Whatever the
reason,
it looks as if the colonies
generally
followed the fashions of their mother-cities. In fact there
is not much more evidence that Corinth
monopolised
the western trade than that she
monopolised
trade on the Greek
mainland. Pottery
is not an exact
guide
to
general
trade.
To theories that see in the distribution of
pottery
the
signs
of trade rivalries and alliances
there is the further
objection
that some states
(as,
for
instance, Chalcis)
had no characteristic
style
of
pottery
149
and to others
(such
as
Miletus)
no
specific
ware has
yet
been
convincingly
assigned.
It is often said that
knowledge
of attractive colonial sites must in the main have come
from
traders,
and this is
likely: early
Greek
explorers
can
hardly
have been so
single-minded
as to stick to
piracy
alone. But to
judge by
its material traces the volume of this
early
trade
was
small,
nor were the first colonies
generally dependent
on trade. Of the
many eighth
century
foundations in the
West,
the
earliest, Cumae, was,
as the nearest Greek
port, happily
placed
for commerce
by
sea with
Etruria,
and
Corcyra
was
important by
its
position,
but the
remainder cannot have
supported
themselves
solely
as
ports
of call and some indeed were off
the main trade route: on
the
other
hand,
all had land
enough
to maintain their inhabitants
and to
justify
settlement. The
only
known eastern
colony
as
early
was Al
Mina;
this was a
small
community
and
clearly dependent
on trade.
During
the
greater part
of the seventh
century
also the new colonies that were founded continued to be
economically self-supporting,
149 Or
anyhow none worth
exporting.
I follow on the
so-called
'
Chalcidian
'
ware H. R. W.
Smith,
The
Origin of
Chalcidian Ware
(1932).
IONIA AND
GREECE,
800oo-600
B.C.
85
and for that reason the commercial motive cannot have been
paramount.
Tradition
places
the foundation of Chalcedon and
Byzantium
about the second
quarter
of the seventh
century
and is insistent that Chalcedon was founded first: this can be used as evidence not
only
that
trade with the Pontus was
unimportant
when Chalcedon was
colonised,
but also that the
presence
of an excellent local
fishery (as
there was at
Byzantium)
150
was not at that time an
inducement to
settlers,
who one must therefore conclude were interested above all in
agri-
cultural land. In the
period
6io-6oo
Olbia
and Berezan and Istrus seem to have been founded:
these settlements are
beyond
the
range
of the Mediterranean
climate,
and to maintain a
Greek
way
of life must have
required
a considerable
import
trade
and,
to balance
it,
as
great
an
export
trade.151
Naucratis,
where Greek
occupation begins
about
615-61o,
was
wholly
a
commercial settlement.
Finally,
in the Far
West,
Massilia and her colonies were
probably
in
part dependent
on
trade,
and one indeed was called
Emporion:
but this
belongs
to the sixth
century.152
In the
eighth
and for most of the seventh
century, however, apart
from the
immediate
neighbourhood
of
agricultural
colonies the
only foreign
markets with which there
is
strong
evidence of Greek relations are
Syria (or
its
neighbourhood)
and Etruria.153 The
connexions of Greek art
point
to the same
conclusion.s'"
This
may
be due to the accidents of survival or
discovery.
But if one believes that
early
colonisation was
principally agricultural,
another
explanation
is
possible.
The
requirements
of Greek life were
simple.
The chief
were,
I
suppose, corn,
milk and
cheese,
olives and olive
oil,
wine and
fish;
wool and
leather; timber; iron, copper
and tin. All these
(to
leave
aside for the moment the
metals)
can be obtained in Greece and Greek Asia in limited
quantities,
sufficient for a limited
population.
It is
generally recognised
that at the
beginning
of the Iron
Age
the
population
was within the
capacity
of local
production,
and that in the
fifth
century
it was not: at some time between deficiencies must have
appeared,
first of all in
corn. But before colonisation
began
what overseas market was there in which Greek traders
could have
bought
much corn? The
early colonies,
it is
clear,
were
generally
sited with an
eye
to
corn-land,
whether
solely
for their own needs or for
export
also. But the scale of the
colonisation and so of the
emigration
that took
place
in the
eighth
and seventh centuries
suggests
that the balance between local
production
and the needs of the
remaining population
was
fairly
well maintained in the homelands: the foundation of
politically dependent
colonies
to
safeguard
trade routes did not occur till the sixth
century
or at most the
closing years
of the
seventh.
Sicily
and South
Italy may during
the seventh
century
have
begun
to
export corn,
but it would have been to old
Greece; Ionia,
it
seems, managed
on its local resources.
I have not found
any
authoritative account of the mineral resources of Greece and western
Anatolia,
what
they
were or how far
they
were utilised in
early
times. But it seems certain
that local
mining
was not sufficient.
Bronze,
an
alloy
of
copper
with
tin,
continued in use in
archaic Greece.
Copper
was to be found in
many parts
of the Mediterranean basin
including
Greece,
and
Cyprus may
have been the main source of
imports.
Tin is rarer: it occurs in
Spain
and
perhaps
in eastern
Anatolia,
as well as in more
northerly parts
of
Europe,
but the
quantity required by
the Greeks of the
eighth
and seventh centuries must have been small and
the trade
may
have been
indirect.155
The
consumption
of iron was much
greater,
and
perhaps
its
importation:
the most celebrated areas of
supply
were at the south-east corner
of the Pontus in the land of the
Chalybes
and also the Etruscan island of Elba. Yet even if
the Greeks
imported
all their
iron, their annual needs cannot have been
large:
for
although
this
period
was within the Iron
Age,
its
economy
was manual and not mechanical.
150
Strabo
vii. 320.
151
G. A. Short
argues
that the sites of the West Pontic
colonies were not chosen for
harbourage
nor were the
colonies intended
simply
as
export depots (LAAA
XXIV
141-55):
he is
probably right.
152
Emporion
has been excavated: the Greek
pottery
begins early
in the sixth
century
and is of mixed
origin (see
A.
Frickenhaus,
Anuari II
(i9o8), 195-240:
further
AJA
XLVII
481).
153
The best discussion of the reasons for colonisation is
that of A.
Gwynn, JHS XXXVIII 88-123.
154 From the second half of the
eighth century
Oriental
influence affects Greek
art,
and from the
early
seventh
Greek
inspires
Etruscan.
A.
Akerstr6m
(Der Geometrische Stil in
Italien) argues
convincingly
that the Italian Geometric
style
derives from
Greek of the later
eighth century (as
I date
it, though
his
dates are later than mine:
cf. p. 8o,
n.
119).
155 So Herodotus
(iii.
I15).
86 R. M. COOK
If these
arguments
are
sound,
the Greeks in the
eighth
and seventh centuries needed few
imports
and therefore little
trade,
and the
only
essential
deficiency
of
any
bulk is
likely
to
have been in iron. That
might explain why
in the West their trade outside the colonies was
chiefly
with Etruria:
presumably
the basis of the trade was the
exchange
for iron of Greek
manufactured
articles,
works of art and
perhaps
wine. In the East there was the
Syrian
trade
through
Al Mina: here it was the Greeks who
bought luxury goods (since Syria
had
nothing
else to
offer)
156 and in
exchange
sold foodstuffs
perhaps,
slaves and other raw materials. It
is not
surprising
that the
archaeological
evidence
argues
that
the early
trade with
Syria
was
less than that with Etruria. In other commodities there was no doubt some casual
trade,
but it was trivial: the natural
economies
of the Mediterranean lands are
fundamentally
similar,
not
complementary.
It would be foolish to
pretend
that these conclusions are based on
any
but
flimsy
data.
Something may
be learnt from careful and
thorough excavation,
from
ecological
research in
the
Aegean lands,
from the
spectrographical analysis
of metal
objects
found in Greece which
might
determine the
origin
of the ore. But the darkness of the
early
Iron
Age
in Greece will
never be
fully dispelled,
and historical reconstruction must be cautious: Greek trade was due
to
need,
much more than to
any yearning
for romantic adventure.
Large-scale
trade could
not arise until Greek states
began
to maintain
populations
which could not be fed and
supplied
locally, until,
in
effect,
urbanisation had
advanced;
157
but the
prerequisite
was a
regular
surplus
of
production
in the colonies. Trade was a
result,
not the cause of colonisation.
There is little that is relevant in ancient
literature,
and that little does not conflict with
the conclusions
already put
forward. Strabo-and he has had his
disciples-was
at
pains
to
prove
Homer a
great geographer;
for if he mentioned a
place
he knew
it,
and if he did not
mention it that could be set down to
poetic licence.158
In fact Homer's
knowledge beyond
the
Aegean
world was
vague'and
uncertain: 159 in the
Odyssey,
for
instance,
the east end of
the Mediterranean is said to be further from Greece than a bird could
fly
in a
year (iii. 321-2)
and Ithaca is on the
edge
of the known world.
Opinions
differ on the dates of the Iliad and
the
Odyssey;
but there is a case for
believing
that
they
were
substantially complete
before the
Ionians
at least had ventured far outside their home waters. Hesiod would be more
helpful
if
there
were more
certainty
on his
chronology.
In the Works and
Days
a section is
given
to
seafaring (618-694),
the
only object
of which is trade. The
poet
has a
poor opinion
of the
sea;
how far that was due to
personal
or
parochial prejudice
one can
only guess,
but the
voyages
he has in mind are short 160 and undertaken as a side-line to
farming.
The
passage
could as well refer to local
trips
in Greek
waters,
which must
always
have been
common,
as
to
voyages
farther afield: it therefore throws no
light
on overseas
trade,
even if its date were
sure. That the Works and
Days
does not comment on colonial
emigration
as a
possible
choice
for the
struggling peasant
is of
interest, though
the omission
might
be due to local backward-
ness. The
Bffi3tvo oTvoS
of line
589
is odd
indeed,
if it
really
means wine from
Byblus
in
Phoenicia. There is a wider
geographical scope
in the
Theogony:
the list
oftwenty-five
rivers
(337-45)
includes the
Nile, Eridanus
(whether
or not this is here the
Po), Ister,
and
Phasis;
Etna is restored
(860);
later on
appear
the sons of
Circe, Agrius
and
Latinus, rulers of the
Etruscans in their
holy
islands
(IoI 1-6).
Other Hesiodic
fragments
mention the
Scythians
(fr. 55),
the Phasis
(fr. 63),
Niveveh
(falsa,
fr.
I),
Arabus and
king
Belus
(fr. 23),
Busiris
(falsa,
fr.
I1I),
the
Pygmies (fr. 60
and
62),
the
Ethiopians (fr. 55),
the Eridanus
(fr. 199),
Etna,
Ortygia
and the Etruscans
(fr. 65),
the
Ligurians (fr. 55
and
199),
and
Cape
Pelorus at the
north-east corner of
Sicily (fr. 183):
161
but since these
passages
cannot be
dated,
it is useless
15s
Dr. T. Fish
kindly pointed
this out to me.
157 See
below, p.
88.
15s i. 2-7,
and
passim.
1s9
See G.
Glotz,
Hist.
gr. I
I46: cf.
H. L.
Lorimer, JHS
XLIX
154.
160 It may of course be
poetic
habit that he describes his
father's
journey
across the
Aegean
with the
phrase
rohoIv
8t&
lr6v-rov
&voaaas (635).
161 The
numbering
of the
fragments
is that of A.
Rzach,
ed. 3
(1913).
IONIA
AND
GREECE,
8oo-6oo B.C.
87
drawing
conclusions from
them.'62
Reference has
already
been made to some other ancient
notices: as before I discount the
Alexandrines,
and
regard
as a
lucky guess
Strabo's statement
that there was no Greek trade with
Sicily
before its
colonisation.163
It is convenient to consider here the Biblical name
'Javan,'
which in various forms was
current in the Near East to describe a Greek. That
'Javan'
and '
Ionian'
are the same seems
certain. But its earliest occurrence is at the end of the
eighth century
164-that
is,
after the
Greeks settled in Al
Mina;
and the
origins
of the names ' Hellene ' and ' Greek' are
warnings
against setting
much
importance by 'Javan'
as an index of the
position
of
Ionians
in Oriental
markets.
Such evidence as there
is,
and
part
of it is
only negative, suggests
that there was
very
little trade between the Greeks and other
peoples
before colonisation
began;
that till the
closing
years
of the seventh
century
trade was
mainly
with the
colonies,
and also with Etruria and
Syria;
and
that,
as in
colonisation,
Greeks of old Greece were earlier
generally
in trade than
the Greeks of the East
Aegean.
But the evidence is not
yet
conclusive.
5.
POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT
At the
beginning
of the Greek Iron
Age hereditary kings
were the rule. Before
long
their
powers passed
in
many
of the
important
states to
aristocracies,
or viewed from another side
oligarchies
of birth. This revolution was
early enough
to leave little firm trace in tradition
and we do not know where it started: assertions that it was in
Ionia
165 are based
simply
on
the
presumption
that
Ionia
was
politically
as in other
ways
the most
progressive part
of the
Greek world. If one
regards
Homer and Heriod as
reflecting fairly
the circumstances of their
own
times,
one
might
conclude that Homer lived at the end of a monarchical
period
and the
Hesiod of the Works and
Days
when aristocracies were established: but our
ignorance
of the
interval in time between Homer and Hesiod
prevents any
useful
comparison
of the
political
evolution of
Ionia
and Boeotia. If one believes
tradition,
Athens had abolished
monarchy
even before the
Ionian
migration.
It is safer to admit that we do not know which side of
the
Aegean
had the honour of first
deposing
its
kings.
The aristocracies in their turn were
opposed by
the
growth
of a new
wealthy
class or even
of
democracy-that is, by
a demand for a wider
sharing
of
power
and
privilege.
The
struggle
if not caused was
aggravated by overpopulation, especially
where there was urban
develop-
ment;
and
among
its results were often the
publishing
of a code of laws and the establishment
of a
tyranny,
which at this
period
meant an
autocracy largely dependent
on
popular support.
Tradition relates that Locri in South
Italy
was about 66o the first Greek state to
publish
its
legal code,"66
and that at Athens
publication
took
place
about 620: we do not know when this
democratic success was won in the Ionian cities,
but
evidently
the ancients did not
give
them
priority.
The word
'
tyranny'
is
probably Lydian,
and its first recorded mention in Greek is
by
Archilochus in a
passage referring
to
Gyges,167
who was founder of the
aggressive
Mermnad
162
Falsa fr. I refers
to the
siege
of
Nineveh, presumably
about 612: it is
rejected
for that
reason,
but
may
well have
come from a Hesiodic
poem.
It is more credible that we
may
some time be able to date
'Hesiod' by
these references to Greek
expansion
than
Greek
expansion by
these Hesiodic
fragments.
Thus the
author of
Theog.
Ior
1-16 knew little of
Etruria,
and it
may
therefore be
guessed
that he
composed
the lines before
700
when the
Tyrrhenian
Sea was
probably
well
enough
known.
163
vi. 267.
Herodotus mentiones
Ionians
in the
West,
but not till the latter
part
of the seventh
century:
Colaeus
of Samos
by
accident reached Tartessus
shortly
before the
foundation of
Cyrene
which was about
630 (iv. 152);
and
the Phocaeans are credited with the
exploration
of the
Adriatic and the Far
West, presumably
about 6oo when
Massilia was colonised.
On economic
development
the ancients do not
enlighten
us. Herodotus indeed
says
that
Xstporxvat
were most
respected
at Corinth
(ii. 167),
but that was in the fifth
century.
It is also
interesting
that he records that when
in the sixth
century
the Parians arbitrated at
Miletus, they
decided in favour of those whose farms were the best
cultivated
(v. 28-9):
the arbitrators
were,
of
course,
ot
aptcrrot,
but it shows the
strength
of the landed class.
164 In an
inscription
of
Sargon
II of
Assyria:
a certain
'Yamani' rebelled at Ashdod about
712
and was dealt
with
(see
S.
Smith, Antiquaries' Journal
XXII
99-ioo).
Dr. T. Fish tells me that there is no earlier record of the
name
'Javan
'
or its
cognates.
165
So K.
J. Beloch,
Gr. Gesch.2
I
I,
216;
H. R.
Hall,
Ancient
History of
the Near
East,8 525-6.
16s
Strabo,
vi.
259; ps. Skymnos 314-15:
Eusebius
gives
the date
663.
167 Fr. 22
(Diehl).
88 R. M. COOK
dynasty
of
Lydia
and
reigned
about
675-650.
Ionia
lay
next to
Lydia,
and there can be no
doubt that the name of
tyranny
was familiar in
Ionia
earlier than in Greece: it does not
follow that the institution was also. The institution was the
consequence
of
political
and
economic causes rather than of
neighbourly
imitation.168
Why
a
Lydian
and not a Greek
name was used is not
clear;
169
but the word '
tyrant
' was well advertised in old Greece
by
Gyges
himself
through
his rich
offerings
at
Delphi.170 According
to their
interpretations
of
tradition historians date the
beginning
of
tyranny
at
Sicyon
and Corinth from the middle to
the end of the seventh
century:
the earlier
date,
which is the more
orthodox,
does not leave
the
Ionians
much time for
precedence
if
Gyges
was the first
tyrant.
But tradition is silent
on the date of the first
Ionian
tyrants,
and we can
only guess
to fit our
prejudices.171
The back influence of the colonies on the
politics
of their mother-cities has sometimes been
adduced as a reason for the
alleged political
advancement of
Ionia.
This influence
has,
I
think,
been
exaggerated;
for the colonies tended rather to
repeat
the
system
of the mother-
city
than
consciously
to
repudiate
it. But if there was
any
influence of this
sort,
it should have
been
stronger
in old
Greece,
since
Ionia
was late in the colonial field.
6. URBAN DEVELOPMENT
The
Tr6AlgS
or
city-state
was the characteristic Greek institution of the classical
period.
Of
the details of its evolution we know
little,
since it was too
gradual
and unsensational to be
remarked in tradition. It has been asserted that the
city-state grew
most
quickly
in Asiatic
Greece,
since the new settlers needed
protection against
the natives:
172
but in old Greece also
protection against neighbours
or
pirates
was
necessary.
This is a
question
that can
only
be
decided
by excavation,
which so far has
rarely
reached the
early
levels of cities of later
importance. Corinth,
the American excavators
say,
was
reoccupied
not
long
before
0ooo,173
but how
extensively
is not known. At Athens the site of the classical
Agora
was in the
early
eighth century open ground
with a
private cemetery
on
it.174 Nothing
at all is known of the
size of the
contemporary
cities of
Ionia.
Beloch
rightly emphasises
that the sixth
century
cities were small: he estimates that in the middle of that
century
Corinth and Athens had not
more than
25,000
inhabitants
each,
and Miletus
perhaps 30,000.
But his
figure
for Miletus
is based on the
simple assumption
that it must have been rather
bigger
than Athens or
Corinth.175
In fact a
comparison
of the size of Greek cities at that time and earlier is on the
evidence
impossible.
7.
POSITION OF WOMEN
Between the
age represented by
Homer and the classical
period
the social status of women
of the
upper
classes deteriorated in the more
prosperous
cities. This was due to the
adoption
of a more oriental attitude to
sex,
and it is natural to assume that the fashion was introduced
by way
of
Ionia
from
Lydia,
the
only
Oriental
country
with which
any Greeks,
at least of the
home-lands,
were in close and continuous
contact.176
But if
Ionians
took the lead
here,
168 The economic basis of
tyranny
is shown
by
P. N.
Ure,
The
Origin of Tyranny (1922): I do not
go
with him all his
way.
169 That
tyrants usurped
their
position
is
true,
but so did
many legendary
Greek
kings:
the most
spectacular similarity
between Greek and
Lydian tyrants (of
which we
know)
was
in their
expenditure.
170 Hdt. i.
14.
171 In Samos at least the landed
aristocracy
are
supposed
long
to have retained
political power (see,
for
instance,
P. N.
Ure,
The
Origin of Tyranny, 69).
H. T.
Wade-Gery
makes
Melas,
the
tyrant
of
Ephesus,
son-in-law to
Gyges
instead of
Alyattes (CAH III, 549; 559,
n.
2),
but this is
wanton.
172 F. E.
Adcock,
CAH
III690-I
:
compare K.J. Beloch,
Gr.
Gesch.2 I I, 202-3.
1a3
S. S.
Weinberg,
Corinth VII
I, 3
and
84.
174 For the
cemetery,
see R. S.
Young, Hesperia. Suppl.
II.
175
Gr. Gesch.2 I
I, 279-81
:
'
etwas bevolkerter
mag
Milet
gewesen sein,
die erste Stadt in
Ionien
und also
wahrscheinlich
tiberhaupt
in der
griechischen
Welt.'
Miletus was
destroyed by
the Persians in
494
and after-
wards rebuilt. Excavation of the later
city
has revealed
traces of an earlier
settlement,
which seems to have been
occupied continuously
from the Bronze
Age
to Persian
times. This earlier settlement was
small,
and A. von
Gerkan holds that it was
only
the
port
of archaic Miletus
(Bericht iiber
d. VI
internat. Kongress f. Archdologie, 1939, 323-5;
cf. ibid., 325-32).
It is
partly
a matter of
prejudice.
176 Herodotus saw Carian influence in certain customs of
Ionian women
(i. 146).
IONIA AND
GREECE,
800-6oo00
B.C.
89
it does not mean that
they
were more advanced: the
change, though requiring
a certain level
of
wealth,
was the result of
geographical
accident rather than a natural
stage
in evolution.
8. MERCENARIES
Early
Greek states relied on a citizen
militia;
for
mercenary
service the volunteer
usually
had to
go
outside the Greek lands. So from the accession of Psammetichus I in 66o or
shortly
after until the Persian
conquest
in
525
there is evidence for Greek mercenaries in
Egypt.177
In
Syria
the 'Yamani' who rebelled at Ashdod about
712
178
may
have been a Greek mer-
cenary;
Alcaeus's brother Antimenidas served with the
Babylonians
about the first half of
the sixth
century;
179
and there
may
be other references. There is of course also
Archilochus,
but his
fighting
seems to have been round the
Aegean.
It is notable that where the
origin
of
these mercenaries is recorded
they
come from the East
Aegean:
Herodotus
speaks
of
Ionians
and
Carians;
the Abu Simbel
inscription
mentions
Teos, Ialysus
and
Colophon;
Anti-
menidas was from Lesbos. If this has
any
social
significance,
it
suggests
that in seventh
century Ionia agriculture
and
industry
and commerce could not absorb the whole of the
active
population:
and the Carians with whom
Ionians
are often associated as mercenaries
were
certainly
backward.
9.
THE ALPHABET
In the Minoan and
Mycenaean
civilisations a
script existed,
but this
passed
out of
knowledge.
Later the Phoenician
alphabet
was
adapted
for Greek use. The date of this
event is
vigorously disputed,180
but as R.
Carpenter
has
argued
it was
probably
not
long
before
700;
that
is,
soon after Greek settlement at Al Mina in
Syria
and the first
strong
influence
of the Orient on Greek
art.lsl
The evidence is that no extant
specimens
of Greek
alphabetic writing
are
certainly
older than
700,
and that a
surprising proportion
of the earliest
inscriptions
come from
alphabets
or stress the
accomplishment
of
writing.1ls
It is hard to
believe that the
alphabet
was known earlier to the
Greeks,
but
by
some
strange
chance no
examples
have
survived,
or that it was used
only
on
perishable materials;
and
similarity
between the
alphabet
of a
colony
and its
mother-city's
can be
explained by
continued inter-
course without
having
to assume that the
original
colonists took that
alphabet
with them.183
No more valid are assertions that Hesiod and even Homer must have set down their
poems
in
writing;
this is a matter of
opinion,
even if we knew when those
poems
reached their final
state.
177 Hdt. ii.
152-4,
etc. There is also the
contemporary
evidence of an
inscription
of
Ashurbanipal
that
Gyges
sent
soldiers to Psammetichus I at the
beginning
of the latter's
reign (Records of
the
Past, first series,
i.
69),
and these
may
well
be the lonians and Carians mentioned
by Herodotus;
of
the Abu Simbel
inscription
of the
reign
of Psammetichus
II
(593-588) (M.
N.
Tod,
Greek Historical
Inscriptions,
no.
4);
and of the finds from Tell Defenneh which show Greek
military occupation
about
565-53o (and
there
may
well
be earlier materials to be found on that
site) :
see
above,
p. 83,
n.
146.
178 See
above, p. 87,
n.
164.
179 Alcaeus fr.
50 (Diehl).
180 The recent
controversy
was
opened by
R.
Carpenter,
AJA XXXVII 8-29:
he
argued
for the late
eighth century.
This was attacked as
being
much too late
by
C. W.
Blegen
(AJA XXXVIII 10-28: on the evidence of inscribed Attic
Geometric
pottery
from
Hymettus); by J.
P. Harland.
(AJA
XXXVIII 83-92:
on
general probabilities); by
B. L.
Ullman
(AJA XXXVIII 359-81:
on
comparison
with the
forms of Phoenician
letters). Carpenter replied,
to
my
mind
adequately,
in
AJA XLII 58-69:
and R. S.
Young
has,
in
confirmation,
shown the
probable
seventh
century
date of the inscribed
pottery
from
Hymettus (AJA
XLIV
1-9: cf. AJA
XLVI
124-5).
181
Perhaps the domestic fowl
accompanied
the
alphabet
and the
Orientalising style
in their
passage
to Greek lands.
It first
appears
in Greek art about the end of the
eighth
century,
in
Early
Protocorinthian
(see
K. F.
Johansen,
Les
Vases
sicyoniens, 52;
H. G. G.
Payne,
Protokorinthische
Vaser,-
malerei, pl. 6)
and in
Early
Protoattic
(J.
M.
Cook,
BSA
XXXV 181-2 and
fig. 7).
Geometric fauna is limited to
a
very
few
species:
but if the cock had then had a
strong
funerary significance,
it
might reasonably
be
expected
in
the funeral scenes which were
frequent
on Attic Geometric
pottery throughout
the
eighth century. (I
have since noticed
in the Ceramicus
Museum, Athens,
two terracotta cocks
from an
unpublished grave
of about
750
or
slightly earlier.)
182 This is clearest in the
Hymettus inscriptions published
by
R. S.
Young, AJA
XLIV
I-9:
note
particularly
his
no.
Io-avrroS Eyp(<aqaE)
which-since there is here no
question
of
painting-must
mean 'he himself wrote it.'
A. A.
Blakeway argues
that
by
the time of the
Hymettus
sherds
writing
must have been well established because it
was
already
used for a '
frivolous
'
purpose (JRS
XXV
143,
n.
54);
I think he
may
be
referring particularly
to the
obscene
message
on the sherd
AJA
XXXVIII
10-I2,
no.
I,
but
obscenity
is no
proof
of advanced
literacy.
183
As is assumed
by
K.
J. Beloch,
Gr.
Gesch.2
I
I, 228;
H. T.
Wade-Gery,
CAH
III 529.
90
R.
M.
COOK
The archaic Greek
alphabets
fall into several
groups.184
To
judge by
the differences
between them
(unless
those differences were invented
deliberately by
some earlier St.
Cyril)
it looks as if
they
were
separately adapted
from a
prototype
or
prototypes
that were not Greek:
it is not
necessary
to assume a common Greek
ancestor,
now
lost,
and
therefore
a considerable
period
for differentiation into the earliest recorded
alphabets. Comparison
between the forms
of the various
early alphabets
does not lead far for want of sufficient material: there must be
very
few
specimens
from
Ionia
as
early
as the earliest from old
Greece,
but this
may
be due to
the
little
excavation there has been of
early
strata at
Ionian
sites.
10. COINAGE
Herodotus
says
that the
Lydians
invented
coinage.l85
If
so,
the first Greeks to
adopt
the
invention were
probably Ionians,
since
they
were nearest to
Lydia:
it does not follow that
they
were also the
only
Greeks
economically
so advanced as to have a use for coined
money.
Archaeology supports
Herodotus in so far as the coins of the most
primitive type
have been
found in western Anatolia and seem to be of local
metal;
and most scholars therefore
accept
his statement of
Lydian invention,
or transfer the credit to the favoured
Ionians.186
The fact
is that these
primitive
coins bear no
recognisable impress
of their
origin: they
have been found
at
Ephesus
and
casually
in the
Lydian
and
Ionian
territory,18s7
but there are too few of them
and there has been too little
exploration
of
early Ionian
and
Lydian
sites to allow on
grounds
of
distribution
a decision between the rival claims of
Lydia
and
Ionia.
But in
any
case the
invention of
coinage
must have been in
part
due to
chance,
since the
Lydians
and
Ionians
at that time were not at a
higher stage
of economic
development
than had ever been reached
by any
earlier
society.
The earliest
Lydian (or Ionian)
coins are
commonly
dated some time about
700.188
The
argument seems,
on the one
hand,
to be that we should
accept
the tradition that Pheidon
minted in
Aegina
in the first half of the seventh
century,
and that his
Aeginetan
coins are
clearly
later than the earliest Asiatic
coins; 189 and,
on the other
hand,
to
rely
on a
dating
that is much too
early
of certain East Greek finds.190 A
precise
date cannot be inferred from
the coins
by
themselves:
191
the
only reliable
evidence would be their occurrence in
closely
datable
deposits,
and that
unfortunately
has not
yet happened.
A similar
obscurity
attends
the
early development
of
coinage;
some use could indeed be made of
stylistic comparisons,
but current
guesses
are more often based on
supposed correspondences
with historical
184
The Ionian alphabet
seems to be confined to the
East Greek area.
185
i.
94.
So also
Xenophanes according
to Pollux
(Onom. ix. 83).
To be
precise
Herodotus
says
of the
Lydians TrpTrot
. . .
v6utaia
XpvaoO KcI &pyOpov
KO
Ix&pEVO1
?Xp
iavaro,
which might conceivably refer to the invention
only
of bimetallism.
186
Ionian
invention is
preferred by
E.
Babelon,
Traiti des
Monnaies Grecques
et
Romaines,
II
I
(9o07),
6;
P.
Gardner,
History of
Ancient
Coinage
(I918),
69; J.
G.
Milne,
Greek
Coinage (1931), 2-7.
C. T.
Seltman,
Greek Coins
(I933),
I5-i9,
gives
a share at least in the invention to Ionian
merchants.
187 Most often the
place
of
finding
has not been disclosed.
Some
provenances
are
quoted doubtfully by
P. N.
Ure,
The
Origin of Tyranny, 130-1.
188 Some
prefer
a much earlier
date;
thus
J.
G. Milne
suggests
that the invention of
coinage
was in the ninth
century
and its
adoption
in
Aegina
about
750 (op. cit., 6-7
and
I6).
D. G.
Hogarth, however, appears
to date the
invention,
or at least its
spread
to the
Ionians
as well as to other Greeks.
within the sixth
century (CAH III 519)
: he had
previously
given
cautious assent to the conventional
chronology
(Excavations
at
Ephesus (1908), 240).
189 H. T.
Wade-Gery completes
the circle
by using
the
Aeginetan
coins to date Pheidon
(CAH III 761).
19g
In
particular
of the finds from within and about the
'Basis' at the Artemision of
Ephesus:
the date of this
deposit
is rather about 6oo than
700.
See E.
L6wy,
Zur
Chronologie
der
friihgriechischen
Kunst
(1932), especially pp.
21-8
(review
in
JHS
LII
130;
Liwy's
reply JHS
LIII
112):
E.
Gjerstad,
LAAA XXIV
15-34. Compare
A.
Rumpf, Griechische
und
Rimische
Kunst
(1932),
18
(A.
Gercke
and E.
Norden, Einleitung
in die
Altertumswissenschaft
4
II
I, 3),
Lowy
and
Rumpf
consider the latest
objects
from the' Basis '
to be within the sixth
century, rightly; Gjerstad prefers
the
third
quarter
of the
seventh,
to fit
(unnecessarily)
his
architectural
sequence.
The
following pieces
illustrated
by
D. G.
Hogarth
in
Excavations at
Ephesus can,
I
think,
be dated
approximately.
(I)
Ivory
lion
(pls. 21, 3; 25, I2) :'this,
the earliest datable
piece,
resembles Protocorinthian and
may
be as
early
as
650. (2) Ivory
lion
(pls. 21, I; 23, 3): very
close to
Corinthian of the last
quarter
of the seventh
century
or a
little later.
(3) Ivory
woman
(pls. 21, 6; 22):
connected
with an East Greek series of terracotta
figurines
of the sixth
century. (4) Ivory
woman
(pl. 24, 3):
ditto.
(5) Ivory
goat (pls. 21, 5; 23, 2)
: connected with Late rather than
Middle '
Rhodian,' that is after rather than before 6oo.
(6)
Bronze woman
(pl. 14): probably Subdaedalic, i.e.,
late seventh of
early
sixth
century.
x91
This is
plainly put
for the Asiatic coins
by
D. G.
Hogarth (Excavations
at
Ephesus, 240-1; compare
B. V.
Head, ibid.,
88 and
92).
IONIA
AND
GREECE, 800-6oo
B.C.
91
events.'92
Thus C. T.
Seltman
has made the
political history
of Athens a
peg
for
dating
his
series of sixth
century
Athenian
coins;
93
and the first issues of Corinth have been attributed
to the
tyranny,
either of
Cypselus
or of
Periander.194
P. N. Ure
goes
further and maintains
coinage
was a
necessary
antecedent of
tyranny: 195
but it is doubtful if
in fact
coinage
was introduced earlier than
tyranny.
The whole
chronology
of
early
coins
needs
revising.
The earliest issue to which on historical
grounds
even a
probable
date can be
assigned
is that
supposed
to bear the name of
Alyattes
who
reigned
in the
early part
of the
sixth
century;
and there is no need to. assume that there was before it a
long
era of numismatic
development.
It seems to me
likely
coinage
will
prove
to have been made
in the latter
part
of the seventh
century
and to have
spread rapidly.196
Deductions from
metrology
are
beyond
me.
I
. THE ROUTES TO THE EAST
The
geographical position
of
Ionia which,
as the crow
flies,
is nearer to the Orient than is
European Greece,
has sometimes led students to
expect
that Oriental influences were
transmitted that
way:
and this is
reasonable,
if one assumes that the contact was
by
the land
route across Asia Minor.
If,
on the other
hand,
there was contact
by sea,
the natural route
from the Greek mainland would cross the
Aegean
to Rhodes and
proceed
from there to the
Syrian
littoral.
Traces for our
period
of Greek
passage
across Anatolia have not been
found;
but this is
not
surprising,
when one considers the
meagre exploration
of the interior. Whether
political
conditions were favourable to such traffic is not
clear, though
the
Assyrians
were in touch
with the
Phrygian kingdom
in the
eighth century
and with
Lydia
in the time of
Gyges.
Yet
in the fifth
century,
when the Persians maintained a
through road,
Herodotus was
poorly
acquainted
with central Asia
Minor.197
Also land
transport by
animals is more troublesome
and
expensive
than
transport by
sea. The
Phrygians
and
Lydians
had
certainly
some contact
with their eastern
neighbours,
but how much commerce
permeated
to
Ionia
we do not know.
The sea route
exis.ted
from
early
times. In Rhodes a considerable number of
'Phoenician' and
Cypriot objects
have been
found,
as well as of Cretan: and
Cyprus
dealt
with Phoenicia. It is difficult not to conclude that there was a sea route from the Levant to
Rhodes and Crete. In Rhodes Protocorinthian is common from the middle of the seventh
century,
so that one
may presume
a route then across the
Aegean:
and Protocorinthian from
the second half of the
eighth century
downwards turned
up
at Al Mina in
Syria, along
with
East Greek and
Cycladic.
The Phoenician
traders,
so
prominent
in Greek reconstructions of
their
early history
and so difficult to
trace,
would also have travelled
by
sea. There
is,
it
follows,
considerable evidence for the sea
route,
which alone
sattisfactorily explains
the
independence
and
apparently
earlier date of the
Orientalising
movement in the art of main-
land
Greece,
and also the connexion
during
the seventh
century
of Rhodes with the
Peloponnese
and Crete in the Daedalic
style.
12. RACIAL AND CULTURAL INHERITANCE
It has been
put
forward as an
explanation
of the
alleged
eminence of the
Ionians
in
early
times that the
mingling
of the Greek settlers with the native stocks
produced
a
happy
racial
192 C. T.
Seltman in the
explanation
to the
plates
of his
admirably explicit
Greek Coins offers
fairly
orthodox dates:
it is worth while
considering
how
many
of the coins in
plates
I-III
should be dated as
early
as
they
are dated there.
For
instance,
his
pl. I, 23 (panther's head); pl. III, I
(dolphin); pl. III,
8
(amphora)
have
analogies
about the
middle of the sixth
century
rather than about 6oo.
193 Athens,
its
History
and
Coinage (1924):
his
arguments
are more circumstantial than
cogent.
194
Cypselus:
H. T.
Wade-Gery,
CAH
III 552; J.
G.
Milne,
Greek
Coinage, 26-7;
C. T.
Seltman,
Greek
Coins, 37.
Periander: G. F. Hill
(re-editing
B. V.
Head,)
A Guide to
the
Principal
Coins
qf
the Greeks
(1932), 9,
no.
38.
195
The
Origin of Tyranny (1922), 2.
196 If
so, arguments
about Athenian backwardness will
have to be modified.
Mr. E. S. G. Robinson has since told me that he has
recently
been
working
on the
origin
of Greek
coinage
and
that
my
conclusion is similar to his. Our
agreement
is not
surprising,
since we both
began
from the
Artemision.
19' i. 72
and ii.
34.
92
R. M. COOK
amalgam.
As we know neither the racial
composition
of the
original Ionians,
nor
anything
at all about racial inheritance
(or,
if we think we
do,
we hesitate these
days
to
say so), argument
is futile. If for race we substitute
culture,
we still do not know what the native culture was
which confronted the Greek settlers in
Ionia,
nor indeed how much culture
they brought
with them.
13.
LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY
Greek
literature,
as we know
it,
first flowered in or near
Ionia.
The
epic
dialect of
Homer,
which is
strongly Ionian,
was
adopted
not
only by epic poets elsewhere,
but also
by
Hesiod
and the authors of the Homeric
hymns. Lyric poetry
owed a
big
debt to the
Ionians. Later,
in the fifth
century, literary prose
was
developed by
the same branch of the Greeks. In
philosophy, too,
it would be
foolhardy
to
deny
the
importance
of the
Ionian
pioneers, though
the
beginnings
of this
study
were
hardly
before the sixth
century
and the colonial Greeks of
the
West were
quick
to take it
up.
These
gifts Ionia certainly gave
to
Greece,
but to
argue
thence
that
Ionia
led in other fields also is not
convincing. If,
as is sometimes
said,
culture
requires
a
leisured class and such a class
wealth,
leisure and wealth can be found
among large
landowners
as well as in a mercantile
community.
After
all,
Corinth was
commercially
a
fairly
advanced
city, yet
her contributions to literature and
philosophy
were small: eminence in these fields
is no infallible
proof
of
general
eminence.
14.
ART
At the
beginning
of this
century
it was fashionable to see in
Ionia
the masters of
early
Greek art. This was the result
partly
of the too
early dating
of East Greek
finds,'19 partly
of
the
general theory
of
Ionian
pre-eminence;
and the two
arguments
reinforced each other.
Further,
much was
thought
Ionian
that it has since
proved
was not.
Archaeologists
now have
discarded Panionism in
art,'99
but
perhaps
this has not been
sufficiently
advertised. The
notes that follow are confined to the three best-known forms of the art of the
early
Greeks:
I have
digressed
on
vase-painting
to
clarify
references made in
preceding
sections.
(a) Vase-painting
During
the last
twenty-five
or
thirty years
the
study
of
early
Greek
vase-painting
has
advanced
far,
and there is no
general
handbook to which to refer with confidence:
200
even
the
general
nomenclature is in
part
uncertain. The
recognised sequence
of
styles
is Proto-
geometric, Geometric, Orientalising,
and what for want of a better term
may
be called
Archaic.201
Present
knowledge
is fuller on the later than on the earlier
periods,
and on
Attic and Corinthian than on
Cycladic
and East Greek
styles.
The
beginnings
of the Geometric
style
at Athens and
Corinth,
the two
regions
where
Geometric is even
roughly
known are set at about
goo:
202
it is assumed that it
began
at about
the same time elsewhere. Whatever the causes that created the Geometric
style,
it was in
Athens that it flourished most
vigorously:
in the East Greek area it was weaker and less
disciplined.
Soon after the middle of the
eighth century
new decorative motives were
arriving
from the art of the Near East-in
particular
it seems
likely
from
Syria, and,
if
so,
the time
suggests by way
of Al Mina.203 Under this Oriental influence the
rigid
formalism of Geo-
metric broke
up
into the freer and more adventurous
Orientalising style.
This was not an
imitation of
any particular style
current in the
Orient, though
certain Oriental motives were
198 See
above, p. 76,
n.
83
and
p. 90,
n.
90o.
199 See,
for
instance,
A.
Rumpf, JdI
XLVIII
55-83.
200
E.
Buschor, Griechische Vasen
(1940),
is a
generally
reliable account
though
without a
bibliography,
but it is
difficult to obtain.
201
This narrow use of 'archaic'
is,
I
emphasise,
not
authoritative. The term
'black-figure,'
to describe the
technical device of
painting figures
in full silhouette and
rendering
inner details
by incision,
is used also to describe
a
style.
But this
usage
is established
only
in
Attic,
and even
there its
upper
limit is
arbitrary (compare J.
D.
Beazley,
Hesperia XIII
38).
202 W. A.
Heurtley, QDAP
IV 181:
accepted by
P.
Kahane, AJA
XLIV
481;
and
by
S. S.
Weinberg,
Corinth
VII. I, 9.
The date is not sure
(see
R. W.
Hamilton,
QDAP
IV
68).
203
S. Smith, Antiquaries' Journal
XXII
1oo-4.
See also
pp. 78-9
above.
IONIA
AND
GREECE,
800-600
B.C.
93
adapted:
the new
pottery
was
essentially Greek,
and
developed
its
borrowings
and inventions
in an
original way.
The rise of the Greek
Orientalising style
was due not
only
to contact
with Oriental art
(there
had
probably
been contact
before),
but also to the exhaustion of the
Geometric tradition.
In Corinth the
Orientalising style
is
apparent
about
725:
204 it
is
possible
that this new
style,
the
Protocorinthian,
was shared between Corinth and
Aegina,
but the distinction is not
yet explored.205
At Athens
Protoattic,
the local
Orientalising style, began
rather later round
about
700.206
For
a time the
old-fashioned
Geometric continued
along
with the new
Orientalising.207
Elsewhere the transition has not
yet
been dated
surely.
Of the
Orientalising
styles
of Old Greece Protocorinthian was foremost: it
quickly
formed its
tradition,
based on
the new
black-figure technique.
The use in it of
incision,
as also the
shapes
of
many
Proto-
corinthian
pots, argue
that it was much influenced
by
metal-work. An
Orientalising style
with similarities to that of Corinth
appeared
about as
early
in Crete: but whether the
Orientalising impulse
came to Corinth
by way
of Crete or
not,208
it
certainly
did not come
through Ionia.
Protoattic owed
something
to
Corinth,
but for the rest
indulged
its often
wayward fancy.
In Corinth and Athens the course and relative
chronology
of the
Orientalising styles
are
clear: it is not so in the field of East Greek art. There the characteristic
Orientalising phase
was the Wild Goat
style,
which needs to be divided into several local schools.209 The Wild
Goat
style
inherited little of East Greek
Geometric,
from which if differs in
technique, shapes
and content.
Unfortunately,
little is known of the
period
of
change,
which
may
indeed have
been sudden and radical. In
Rhodes,
in
spite
of the mass of the
finds,
there is no
sign
of a
transitional
phase.
There are a few transitional
pieces
from
Samos,
but these are not
closely
stratified.210 On the other
hand,
we have a few sherds which show Geometric and Wild
Goat
style
side
by
side but
independent;
211 and the Wild Goat
style
of these
pieces
is close to
that of the end of the seventh
century.
The Wild Goat
painters
of the full
Orientalising-that is,
the
A-style
were not concerned
with fineness of line or
carefully
incised
detail; they
sketched their
figures
with
quick
broad
204
This is the most recent
opinion
of the
date,
and is
sound;
see S. S.
Weinberg, AJA
XLV
35-7;
Corinth VII.
I, 33
and
9o.
205
For the Later
(Linear)
Geometric
generally
attributed
to Corinth
Weinberg
has made a
good
case for a division
between Corinth and
Aegina (AJA
XLV
30-44).
G.
Welter claims a similar division of
Protocorinthian,
but does
not
explain why
and how
(AA 1937, 25-6):
if he is
right,
which I
doubt,
this would affect the
argument
in Section
4
in
regard
to the evidences of Corinthian trade.
206
SeeJ.
M.
Cook,
BSA XXXV
165-2 19 (especially 202-5
for the date when the
style began)
: R. S.
Young, Hesperia,
Suppl. II, especially App. I;
and
AJA
XLVI
23-57
(especially 55-7).
Cook has Protoattic
begin
about
71o;
Young
reduces the date to
690,
but the
arguments
he
gives
are not
beyond
doubt.
207 On this belated
Geometric,
which is
generally
called
Subgeometric
when it can be
distinguished
from Geometric
proper,
see R. S.
Young, Hesperia Suppl. II;
S. S. Wein-
berg, AJA
XLV37-40o.
208 H. G. G.
Payne
held that Corinth derived from Crete
(Necrocorinthia, 5-6;
Protokorinthische
Vasenmalerei,
i i
: com-
pare
K. F.
Johansen,
Les Vases
sicyoniens, 58-9).
S. S.
Weinberg
does not commit himself
beyond suggesting
that
Aegina
was one of Corinth's sources
(AJA
XLV
43:
com-
pare
his doubts of a Cretan
origin
of the
aryballos,
Corinth
VII.
I, 22-3
and
87). I suspect
that the
importance
of
Crete is
exaggerated.
Cretan Geometric and
Orientalising
are little
known,
the best
study being
that of H. G. G.
Payne,
BSA XXIX
224-98;
some of his dates must now be
lowered-for
instance,
the' Rhodian' oinochoe no.
176 (pp.
230
and
265,
and
pl. x, 7)
is nearer the end than the middle
of the seventh
century;
see also D.
Levi, Annuario,
X-XII
and
Hesperia,
XIV
1-32;
M.
Hartley,
BSA XXXI
56-I
14.
The Cretan bronze reliefs have influenced
opinions
on
the
early
advent of the
Orientalising style
in
Crete;
but
they may have been dated much too
early (see
S.
Benton,
BSA XXXIX
52-64).
209
Many
names have been
given
to this
style-Wild
Goat, Camiran, Rhodian, Milesian, Rhodo-Milesian,
Rhodo-Ionian:
it is best to use the
placeless
term 'Wild
Goat' for the
style generically,
and to
apply
local names
only
to local schools within it. Much of the material now
known is
probably Rhodian;
but I use 'Rhodian' in
inverted commas because I am not certain that all I so
classify
was in fact made in Rhodes.
The later
temporal
division of the
style
is not much
disputed, though
various terms are used. About 6oo Wild
Goat
pottery (or
at least its
'
Rhodian '
school) adopts
the
partial
use of the
black-figure technique
and modifies its
draughtsmanship,
ornaments and
shapes (see
BSA XXXIV
2,
n.
I):
this is ' Rhodian ' B or Late ' Rhodian.' What
goes
before is ' Rhodian '
A: I have tried to
split
this into
Early
and Middle
'Rhodian,'
the division
coming
about
64o-63o.
A.
Rumpf
makes the classification of Camiros
and
Euphorbos styles;
these
approximate
to the A and B
styles.
The best account of' Rhodian
'
so far is
by
C. M. Robert-
son
(JHS
LX
8-16).
K.
Schefold, improving
on
Rumpf,
has made an elaborate and
unconvincing arrangement
of
local schools
(JdI
LVII
124-42).
210
Apparently
transitional: R.
Eilmann,
AM
LVIII,
Beil. xxiv.
I (= p. 76, fig. 26c); xxvi. 4;
xxviii. 8-xxix.
I
(= pp. 98-9, figs.
40-I).
Some
primitive experiments
in
incision: Beil. xxxvii.
I;
Taf. iv. 2.
211
Both
styles together: ibid.,
Taf. ii-iii.
(= p. 86,
fig. 32);
C. M.
Robertson, JHS
LX
pl.
ii. d-e: K. F.
Kinch, Vroulia, fig.
Io7.
Note also the contents of
Subgeometric graves
in Rhodes
in Clara Rhodos III and IV
(Checraci).
94
R. M. COOK
brush-strokes,
and enlivened them
by leaving
areas reserved in the
lighter ground
of the
slip
and
by
careless
splashes
of colour. The effect is at best
lively,
but never
inspired.
At first
sight
the familiar wild
goats
and the other animals of the
repertory give
an
impression
of
fresh observation of
nature;
but the
style
was limited in its
subjects
and its
representation
of
them,
and a row of Wild Goat oinochoai shows how conservative and barren it was. The
Oriental elements in the Wild Goat
style
were on the whole similar to those received in the
styles
of old
Greece,
and
may
have come from the same source in the Near East; but
they
were
developed differently.
Protocorinthian in its
technique
recalls
metal-work;
the Wild
Goat
style
is
suggestive
of textiles.
Of the local schools of Wild Goat
pottery
the best
published
is that found in Rhodes and
probably
made there: at least in
Nisyros,
an island some
forty
miles north-west of Rhodes on
the route to
Ionia
and the main East Greek
cities,
a
clumsy provincial
relative occurred which
has been found nowhere else and is therefore
presumably local,212
and if
Nisyros
had a local
pottery
it is
likely
that Rhodes had
one,
too. What little is known of the
pottery
current at
Ephesus
213 and
Miletus
214
suggests
that
they
did not have local
styles
much different from
that of
Rhodes;
or if
they
differed
much, they
do not seem to have been
exported
to colonial
sites. The excavations of the Germans at the Heraeum of Samos are
published only
in
part: 215
that island
may
well have had a distinct local school. Chios
developed
a characteristic
variety,
of which little is known before the end of the seventh
century.216
?
In southern
Aeolis there was
a
provincial
version of the Wild Goat
style,
wild in its decoration and monstrous in its
shapes:
217
this
Aeolian has been found in Old
Smyrna
and
Larisa,
in the former in about
equal
measure
to ' Rhodian ' and in the latter to bucchero: to
judge
from casual finds at
Myrina
and Pitane
Aeolian was
presumably
the common
painted
ware
there.218 In northern
Aeolis bucchero
212
Clara
Rhodos,
VI-VII
475-543 passim.
213 D. G.
Hogarth,
Excavations at
Ephesus, 218-31 (C.
Smith): J. Keil, OJh
XXIII Beiblatt
253-6, figs. 44-7.
Hogarth's
finds of
pottery
are in the British Museum and
Stamboul,
Keil's in Vienna
University.
214 The
early pottery
from T.
Wiegand's
excavations has
never been
published:
it
is,
or was till
recently,
in the
Museum at
Berlin,
but not on view. There were also a few
sherds in
Smyrna
Museum
(one by
the same hand as the
Middle 'Rhodian' sherd from Naucratis
published
in
JHS
XLIV
pl. 8, 9):
a fair number in Bonn
(largely
'
Corinthian'):
a few in
Marburg;
two in Berlin Univer-
sity (D. 88);
one in the Louvre
(CA 2249, very
fine
Wild Goat
style-cf.
Berlin
University,
D.
90o,
from
Sardis).
In
1938
there was a little further
excavation, briefly
reported by
C.
Weickert,
Bericht iiber d. VI internat.
Kongress
f. Archdologie, 1939, 325-32:
the best of the
pottery
found
went to the museum at
Smyrna.
215 W.
Technau,
AM LIV
6-64:
R.
Eilmann,
AM LVIII
47-145.
216
Commonly
called '
Naucratite,'
but this was
probably
made in Chios: see W.
Lamb,
BSA XXXV
158-6 1 (cf. JHS
LVII
228,
n.
9).
The course of
development
in this ware
has not been studied: the two
'
chalices
'
Wiirzburg KI28
and
K129 (E. Langlotz,
Griechische
Vasen, pls. 13
and
14)
are
evidence of a canonical Wild Goat school in the late seventh
century,
and the
figure style
I
imagine belongs
rather to the
sixth.
217 A
good sample
of Aeolian is a
kotyle
about
40 cm.
high,
with three main zones of decoration: I have noticed
lotus flowers as much as
18
cm.
high. Typical published
pieces
are
J. Boehlau,
Aus ionischen und italischen
Nekropolen,
figs. 38-43 (Berlin Inv. 3136:
this is the rim
probably
of a
deep bowl)
and
fig. 44:
and K.
Schefold,
AA
1933, 151-2,
figs. 9-10 (these pieces
are in
Stamboul). Note,
for
example,
the continuous
strips
of
pendent triangles
and
roundels,
where' Rhodian
'
would
employ
isolated
roundels;
the
similarly angular
version of the 'Rhodian' double
loop;
the use of two shades of red. The
shapes
match the
drawing:
for
instance,
there are oinochoai with rotelles at
the base as well as the
upper
attachment of the handle-in
the metal
prototype
of the
shape
rotelles served to
clip
the
handle to the
lip,
but
they
had no function at the base of the
handle.
The chief find of Aeolian
pottery
was made at Larisa in
Aeolis,
and has now been
published by K..Schefold
in
Larisa am Hermos
III
(1942):
see also the same author in
JdI
LVII
124-42.
Since I
disagree
in much with Schefold
and these
publications
are not
easy
to find in this
country,
I have left
my
account unaltered.
218 Old
Smyrna:
F. and H.
Miltner, OJh
XXVII Beiblatt
127-88:
the finds are in Vienna
University.
The site
deserves further excavation. The Aeolian element in the
finds is not
brought
out
by
the
published
selection.
Larisa: The first
campaign
of excavation was
by J.
Boehlau and L.
Kjellberg
in
1902:
the stone architectural
members are in
Stamboul,
the
pottery
in
G6ttingen,
the
terracotta slabs in Stockholm and Stamboul. Excavation
was resumed in
1932-4:
the finds are in Stamboul. See
Larisa am Hermos I
(I
940)-architecture, ii.
(1940)-terra-
cotta
slabs, iii. (1942)-pottery: parts
i. and
iii., published
in
Germany during
the
war,
are now rare. A few
pots
and
sherds are
published
elsewhere: AA
1933, 141-58, figs.
9-10o
and
1934,
363-4IO, figs. 29-30 (in reports
on the later
excavation); Boehlau, Nekr., fig. 37, figs. 38-43 (Berlin
Inv. 3136), fig. 44;
AA
1936, 372-6
no.
22, and
figs. 25-6
(Bonn 1523).
Myrina:
E. Pottier and S. Reinach excavated a Hellenistic
cemetery
in
1880-2,
and also found a few
early
remains.
These are in the
Louvre,
numbered under the serial
B56I
(fragments
of
amphorae
and a stemmed
dish).
The best
amphora
is
published
in BCH VIII
509-14 (pl. vii, fairly
coloured,
and two
figures).
There are also sherds in the
British Museum
(84. 2-9. 6, 7
and
8).
Pitane: Stamboul
2294,
dish
(G.
Perrot and C.
Chipiez,
Hist. d'Art
IX, fig. 203) ;
Stamboul
(?), fragment
of oinochoe
(ibid., fig. 201); perhaps
Stamboul
2270,
dish:
compare
also the
painted sarcophagus
from Pitane in Stamboul.
A few Aeolian
pots
were
exported.
I have noticed
possible specimens
from
Nisyros (Clara
Rhodos
VI-VII
506-8,
figs. 33-5);
Vroulia in Rhodes
(K.J. Kinch, Vroulia, pl. 20,
2) ;
Chios
(BSA
XXXV
162,
pl.
37, 31); perhaps
also Istria
(M. Lambrino,
Les Vases
Archaiques d'Histria,
ch.
viii, nos. 30
and
33); perhaps
Massilia
(G. Vasseur, l'Origine
de
Marseilles, pl.
vii.
1, 4, 6).
G. Bakalakis
reports
Aeolian
IONIA AND
GREECE, 8oo-6oo
B.C.
95
was
probably preferred:
it was
(apart
from coarse
wares) general
at Antissa in
Lesbos,219
and
at Larisa was about as
frequent
as the
painted pottery.
In Rhodes alone is there
any
considerable evidence for the
dating
of the Wild Goat
style,
but the
grave-groups
take it back
only
to about
625.
Yet
only
a small number of
pieces
have been found that are
stylistically earlier,
and this in an island as
busily
ransacked as Rhodes
is
significant.220 Exploration
of East Greek sites
generally
has been
unlucky,
but there is
no
sign yet
of a
long
evolution from Geometric to the Wild Goat
style.221
It does not therefore
seem
likely
that the rise of the Wild Goat
style
and the end of Geometric
proper happened
much before the middle of the seventh
century:
this late
dating
has the
support
of the survival
of Geometric till about 6oo in the East Greek
bird-bowls.222
If this is
right,
it follows that
East Greek Geometric was for close on a
century
in touch
through
Al Mina with Oriental
art and
yet
was not much affected
by
it.
If,
on the other
hand,
the
Orientalising phase
of East
Greek art
began earlier,
its
development
was more
sluggish
than I have
supposed.
In
any
case there is no evidence or likelihood that a
Mycenaean
tradition survived in
Ionia
to be
reinvigorated by
the new
impulses
from the Orient.
About
6oo
the Wild Goat
style
was
strongly
infected
by
Corinthian: this is clearest in
'Rhodian,'
where the new
phase
is called ' Rhodian ' B or Late' Rhodian.' The old
reserving
technique survives, usually
in a debased
form,
but
alongside develops
a
heavy
and
clumsy
black-figure.
This last
phase
seems to have lasted about a
quarter
of a
century,
and then
the ' Rhodian' Wild Goat
pottery petered
out. The tradition was
not, however, wholly
lost:
it
re-appeared
much altered in
Fikellura,
and then outlasted the sixth
century
on the
painted
terracotta
sarcophagi
found at Clazomenae and in Rhodes.
The contrast between the Corinthian
(or
more
precisely
the
Protocorinthian)
and the
Wild Goat
styles
has been well described
by
H. G. G.
Payne.223
The
style
of Corinth was
progressive
and
capable
of
experiment.
The Wild Goat
style
was content with an
unambitious
mediocrity:
the
typical
oinochoe
pleases by
its decorative
effect,
but that is all.
It is not
surprising
that it exerted no influence
beyond
the
Aegean.
East Greek
pottery
is
rare at sites in
European Greece;
Corinthian and in the sixth
century
Attic are common at
East Greek sites. A
very
few local imitations of East Greek bird-bowls have been found at
Sparta
224
and
Corinth,225
and there are occasional
borrowings
in the sixth
century.
In East
Greek art
pointed aryballoi
after the Corinthian were found at Vroulia in Rhodes in
graves
of the latter
part
of the seventh
century;
226
a close
imitation of a Corinthian
olpe
of the third
quarter
of that
century
comes from
Camiros; 227
and about 6oo Corinthian invades and
ultimately destroys
'Rhodian.' In the sixth
century
both Fikellura and Clazomenian are
indebted to Attic
black-figure.
The art of the
Cyclades
is little
known;
it
is, however,
obvious that the so-called Melian
style
received some East Greek as well as Corinthian
influence.228 But all in all East Greek
vase-painting
was not
distinguished.
from Kavalla
(ITpaKc-rnK 1938,
80;
I have not seen these
finds nor
photos
of
them).
The sherd Louvre CA
2244(?)
from
Amisos,
if not
Aeolian,
has a similar relation to '
Rhodian'
(see
above,
p. 82,
n.
138). Compare
also the sherd from Sardis
(AJA
XXVI
395, fig. 4); perhaps
the dish Stamboul
5597,
also
from
Sardis,
and Berlin
Inv. 4673
from Gordion
(G.
and A.
Korte, Gordion, pl. 10, 37).
There is an
Aeolian quality
in some
pieces
from northern
Ionia: e.g.,
Bonn
2332 (A. Greifenhagen,
AA
1936, 378,
no. 26 and
fig. 28,
from Clazomenae: note the
many-
petalled flower). Compare
some
fragments
from
Ephesus
in Vienna
University (one published
in
JIh
XXIII
(1926),
Beiblatt
253 fig. 45 bottom);
and in the British Museum
(D.
G.
Hogarth,
Excavations at
Ephesus, pl. 49, 2, 3,
5)-
219
See W.
Lamb,
BSA XXXII
51.
So also in
Troy
VIII
(C.
G.
Boulter, AJA
XLII
I2I).
220 There
is,
it is
true,
a
shortage
of recorded
grave-groups
for the second
quarter
of the sixth
century:
but a
long gap
to account for an extended transitional and
early
Oriental-
ising period
is harder to credit.
221
See
above, p.
93.
222
Compare
the
subgeometric kotylai
from Vroulia in
Rhodes
(K. J. Kinch, Vroulia, pls. xxxvi. 2, 35
and
39;
xliii. 27, I)
in contexts
generally
of the last third of the
seventh
century. (The
finds from Vroulia
are,
I
believe,
in
Stamboul,
but were
mostly
found in too
poor
a state to be
exhibited.)
C. M. Robertson in his
study
of Al Mina makes
some
good
comments on 'Rhodian'
(JHS
LX
8-16):
though
he does not commit himself to a date for its
beginning,
I take it
he, too,
inclines to make it late.
223
Protokorinthische Vasenmalerei, 17-19-
224
E. A.
Lane, BSA XXXIV I
5 (and fig. 9).
In all there
are sherds of
perhaps
a dozen bowls which
may
be derived
from East Greek.
225
S. S. Weinberg,
Corinth VII
I, no. 308 (pl. 37):
this
piece
is indebted to the rosette
bowls,
which derived from
the bird-bowls.
226
Cf.
K. F.
Kinch, Vroulia, 75-
227 Rhodes
14709 (Clara Rhodos VI-VII
355, fig. 102).
228
Melos seems
geographically
remote for East Greek
influence: one would
expect
this class of
pottery
to have
been made somewhere round Naxos.
96
R. M. COOK
(b) Sculpture
Before the seventh
century
it is not
likely
that there was
any
monumental
sculpture among
the
Greeks; indeed,
it would have been alien to the
spirit
of Geometric art.229 The first
style
of Greek
sculpture
which we know was the
Daedalic,230 which
flourished in
Crete, Sparta,
Corinth and
Rhodes,231
the finest school
being (I fancy)
the Corinthian. It seems that
Daedalic did not affect
Attica,
which
developed
a
strongly
individual
tradition.232
The
contemporary sculpture
of the
Cyclades
and of
Ionia
cannot be
judged
for lack of certain
specimens;
it
may
be that the
range
of Daedalic was wider than is
commonly thought.
For
instance,
one of the earliest
surviving
Daedalic
statues,
that of
Nikandre,
was found in
Delos; 233
fragments
of a similar statue were found
by
the Germans in their fruitful excavation at the
Heraeum in
Samos,
but
though
much archaic
sculpture
was unearthed this was the
only piece
as
early
as the seventh
century.234 Again
the finds from the earliest
deposit
at the
Ephesian
Artemision,
which
probably belong mostly
to the end of the seventh
century,235
include a bronze
statuette reminiscent of
Daedalic.236
In
any
case
there is no evidence of an advanced and
individual school of
Ionian
sculpture
in the seventh
century:
such
ivory figurines
as that of the
'Priest' from
Ephesus,237
which
is not much earlier than
6oo,
cannot be used to illustrate a
monumental
style
of
sculpture,
since as can
readily
be seen its miniature
style
will not bear
enlargement.
This and other of the
Ephesus figurines
have attracted notice because of their
connexions with Oriental
art,
and it has sometimes been claimed that
they
form the link
between the
sculpture
of the Orient and of Greece: this
may
be true for
Ionia,
but the Daedalic
style
has a
discipline utterly
distinct. At
present
it seems
likely
that Corinth had the finest
school of seventh
century sculpture.
About 62o the Daedalic
style
dissolved and was succeeded
by
the Archaic
styles.
The
material is
rich,
and the distinction between local schools becomes clearer.
Ionia favoured
fleshiness and an elaboration of surface detail in
strong
contrast to the severer
styles
of old
Greece. In the middle of the sixth
century,
it is
true,
the
Ionian
type
of the
standing
female
affected
sculptors
of
Attica,
but as H. G. G.
Payne
remarked the
adaptations
are often
superior
to the models.238
Admittedly
Ionian
or at least
Cycladic sculptors
were
employed
in old
Greece
during
the sixth
century;
but so too were
sculptors
from old Greece in
Ionia.239
The
exaggerated opinions
once held on
Ionian
sculpture
were based
partly
on
over-early dating,
partly
on a definition of
Ionian
which included much work of other schools.240
Though
there is much to be learnt of the art of
early Ionia,
the
development
of
sculpture
in old Greece
is
generally intelligible
in itself without the influence of the Greeks of Asia.
(c)
Architecture
To
judge by
the textbooks
(from
which comes
my
small
acquaintance)
241
the
public
buildings
of the
early
Hellenes were
simple
and
unpretentious:
methods of construction were
similar on both sides of the
Aegean,
and
so, too,
were the
plans
which
might
be
rectangular
or
apsidal. Later, perhaps
in the seventh
century,
increased resources led to a more extensive
229
See R.
J.
H.
Jenkins, Dedalica, pp. xiv-xv,
and the
references there mentioned: add V.
Miiller,
Metr. Mus.
Studies V
157-69.
What
may
be an earlier stone
figure
has been found at Levidhi in Arcadia
(D.
Burr
(Thompson),
AJA,
XXXI
169-76 (figs. 1-4);
V.
Muiller, op. cit., 165,
fig. I I)
: its
very stylelessness argues against
its
belonging
to
an earlier tradition of
sculpture.
The base at Samos to
which
Jenkins
refers
may
have
supported
a cult
figure;
but
that is not the same as
saying
that there was then a
sculptural
style.
230
R.
J.
H.
Jenkins
has discussed this
style
with admirable
lucidity
in his Dedalica
(I936);
he is
perhaps
too
positive
in
some of his statements.
231
That Rhodes should have
accepted
the Daedalic
style
is
noteworthy,
since
although'
Dorian' its
vase-painting
was
East Greek.
232
See R.
J.
H.
Jenkins, op. cit., xii, 18,
and
22-4.
233
R.
J.
H.
Jenkins, op. cit., 68-7o.
234 R.
J.
H.
Jenkins, op. cit., 70-1:
E.
Buschor,
Alt-
samische Standbilder
II. 23-4
and
figs. 72, 73, 75.
235 See
above, p. 90,
n.
190.
236 D. G.
Hogarth,
Excavations at
Ephesus, pl. 14-
237 D. G.
Hogarth, op. cit., pls. 21, 2; 24, 7
and
Ii.
238 Archaic Marble
Sculpture,
62: the
photographs
of G. M.
Young
drive the
point
home.
239 See A.
Rumpf,
Critica d'Arte
1938, 46.
240 See most
recently
H. G. G.
Payne,
Archaic Marble
Sculpture, 55-63;
and A.
Rumpf,
Critica d'Arte
1938, 41-8.
Rumpf argues
that the north and east friezes of the
Siphnian
Treasury
are in fact Attic
work,
and also certain
sculptured
fragments
from columns of the
Artemision
at
Ephesus:
on
the
Siphnian Treasury
I
agree,
but I do not feel sure about
the
Ephesus fragments,
nor that the
sculptor
was Endoios.
241
Particularly
D. S.
Robertson,
Handbook
of
Greek and
Roman Architecture
2
(1943)
IONIA
AND
GREECE, 8oo-6oo
B.C.
97
use of stone and the elaboration of architectural
styles:
in Asiatic Greece the Ionic order
evolved,
in
European
the Doric.
Though
the
general plan
was similar there was a
strong
decorative distinction between the two
styles
of
architecture,
and it is therefore
likely
that
they developed
in some isolation from each other as
did
the
corresponding styles
of vase-
painting.
Of
early
Doric we know
something,
but
exploration
has been less
lucky
in East
Greek lands: it is not
yet possible
to
compare
the two architectural
styles
in their
early stages.
The Aeolic column
capitals
which have been found in
Larisa,
Neandria and Lesbos have been
claimed as
prototypes
of the orthodox Ionic
capital,242
but
they
cannot
yet
be dated. The
architectural
inquiry
does not throw
light
on our
problem.
It
appears
then that the
early
lonians were on the whole almost as backward in art as
they
were forward in literature.
If, therefore,
literature and art are
good
criteria of
general progress,
there is on these scores little to choose between
Ionia
and old Greece. One
may,
if one
wishes,
note that in the
eighth
and seventh centuries there were more artists than
poets,
and that
therefore art was the more
popular expression
of culture: but I should not care to
press
so
sophistical
a
point.
It is a common
pastime
to find in Greek
vase-painting
connexions with historical events
or traditions. Thus the rise of the Bacchiads and the accession of
Cypselus have, according
to
some,
left their marks in the
pottery
of Corinth. Such
speculations
are
premature:
243
the influence of Solon and of Pisistratus cannot even
probably
be traced in the sixth
century
vase-painting
of Athens
(for
the
development
and
popularity
of Attic
black-figure
seems to
begin earlier),
and more
notably Spartan
art has not
yet
been
unambiguously
related to the
introduction of the
Lycurgan
constitution as that event is often dated. There is also the
extreme
school,
which has the faith to see in art the reflection of
contemporary society
and
economy:
an able scholar has
lately recognised
the Geometric
style
as the
expression
of a
feudal
system.
More must be learnt of
early
Greek
art,
and of
early
Greek
history,
before
such
inquiries
can become useful.
15.
THE NEGATIVE EVIDENCE
Lastly
one
may inquire
whether the
development
of old Greece in the
eight
and seventh
centuries can be
reasonably explained
without
any
considerable influence from
Ionia.
Generally
it both can be and is
so
explained.
Little is known of Greece and less of
Ionia
in
that
period:
it
seems, however,
that
Ionian
civilisation had a more Oriental colour. But
such
borrowings
as the
European
Greeks made from the Orient need not have come
by way
of
Ionia;
and
they
seem to have been unaffected
by
the
Asiatic
elements in
Ionian
religion.
The ancient writers made no
great
claims for the lonians as the civilisers of their mother-
country;
and
the
moderns in fact
pay
them little more than formal tribute. In most historical
textbooks the
growth
in old Greece of Hellenism is treated as if it was
spontaneous,
or at least
local.244
16. CONCLUSION
Such is the evidence, so far as I know
it;
I do not
pretend
to have
probed
far. In
literature without doubt the
early Ionians
led. But in art
they
were behind the most
advanced of the Greeks of
Europe; they
were later to found
colonies; of their commercial
242 See D. S.
Robertson, op. cit., 57-61; IK. Schefold,
OJh
XXXI
(1938), 42-52.
It seems that there are two
opinions
of the Aeolic
capital, (a)
that it
represents
the
primitive
Ionic
capital, (b)
that the
origins
of the two
(so
far as it concerned the
Greeks)
were
independent.
This
latter
theory
seems to me
unlikely
in view of the character
of Aeolian
vase-painting (see above, pp. 94-5):
it is more
credible that the Aeolic
capital
is a
provincial
version of
an
early
Ionic.
The Doric elements in the
temple
at Assos in the Troad
may
also be
explained by
the
provincial
weakness of
Aeolian art.
243 But see now H. R. W.
Smith,
The Hearst
Hydria (1944),
254-66:
Smith
gives ingenious support
from
archaeological
evidence to Beloch's lower
dating
of the
Cypselids.
244
Compare J. B. Bury, History of Greece 2, p. ix.
H JHS.-VOL.
LXVI.
98
IONIA AND
GREECE,
8oo-6oo B.C.
priority
there is no trace.
Ionians
were the first Greeks to use
coins, perhaps simply
because
they
were the nearest to
Lydia.
In other fields there are not the facts on wbich to form an
opinion. My
tentative conclusion is that we do not know
enough
to
say definitely
whether
in the
eighth
and seventh centuries the
Ionians
were
generally
the
pioneers
of Greek
progress,,
but that on the
present
evidence it is at least as
probable
that
they
were not. For the future
it is careful
excavation,
and
particularly
iri
Ionia,
that has the best
hope
of
bringing light
into these dark centuries of Greek
history.
R. M. COOK.
Museum
of
Classical
Archaeology,
Cambridge.

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