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The Site of Brea: Thucydides I. 61.4

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

A. G. Woodhead
Affiliation:
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

Extract

The Athenian expedition led against Macedonia by Archestratos, son of Lykomedes, early in 432 was not diverted from its destination by the revolt of Poteidaia. Archestratos had received additional instructions to enforce the Poteidaia ultimatum if he could, but, this being already impossible, he continued with the real object of his mission, the attack on Perdikkas II of Macedon. The widespread revolt among the Chalkidians had deprived the Athenians of the bases for this attack on which they might have reckoned, and Archestratos had at the outset to make good this loss by recapturing Therme, at the head of the gulf to which it gave its name. Therme, or Serme, had been a tributary member of the Delian League since 450/449:2 it need not necessarily be said that it lay within Macedonia, as Poppo and Bergk inferred from Thucydides 1. 61. 2, but it is at least likely that it lay on the boundary, as it was handed over to Perdikkas under the agreement of 431 (Thuc. 2.29.6).3 However, that the Athenians could include in their Empire a city within Macedonian territory is shown from the position of Berge (tributary since 452/451), and is likely in other cases, e.g. Haison. From Therme, Archestratos moved on to Pydna, presumably by sea, and laid siege to it. Here he was joined by substantial reinforcements, while at the same time the situation in Chalkidike became increasingly embarrassing, so that a peace and a reinsurance alliance were seen by both sides to be ‘imperative’ (Thuc. 1. 61. 3). When these had been concluded, the Athenians moved against Poteidaia.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1952

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References

page 57 note 1 That war with Macedonia had already been undertaken previous to the revolt of Poteidaia is apparent from Thuc. 1. 57. 2, and I.G. i 2. 296. For the latter see now S.E.G. x. 223, where the references to the consider able literature of recent years on the chrono logy of are collected.Google Scholar

page 57 note 2 Following the identification of the two in The Athenian Tribute Lists, vol. i (1939), Meritt, Wade-Gery, and McGregor, , p. 546Google Scholar, with n. 3. This view was challenged by Edson, C. F., Class. Phil., vol. xlii, 1947, pp. 100–4Google Scholar, and by ProfGomme, A.W., Commentary on Thucydides, vol. i, p. 214Google Scholar, but the identification is defended in A.T.L., vol. iii (1950), pp. 220–1, n. 123.Google Scholar

page 57 note 3 Thucydides says which may mean ‘hand back’ or ‘restore’; but that need imply no more than that Therme had been reckoned as part of the Macedonian realm before it had joined the Delian League. However, the basic meaning of the word is ‘to give what is due’, and so here ‘to hand over what Perdikkas was entitled to (under the covenant)’. The presence of Therme in the assessment of 421 indicates that Perdikkas' tenure was not at all certain.

page 57 note 4 See Gomme, , Commentary, i. 215–18Google Scholar, and the earlier edd. Its attractiveness as an emendation does not mean that it is necessarily right, and there are other plausible possibilities, oneof the best of which is that Thucydides wrote , ‘diverting (their journey) to Strepsa’, mentioned in Shilleto's apparatus criticus. That is not used intransitively elsewhere in Thucydides constitutes no strong objection. It is in fact used transitively only twice. K. A. Laskaris, (Athens, 1922), pp.46–48, prefers , for which cf. Thuc. 6. 65. 3.

page 58 note 1 In A.T.L., vol. i, pp. 550–1Google Scholar, it was located north-west of Therme, accepting that the Athenians went first to Macedonian Beroia (see below). This view is retained, against Gomme, 's criticisms, in vol. iii, p. 220, n. 122, and pp. 314–16, with nn. 62 and 64Google Scholar. However, this does not take into account die full force either of or of (see below). Iƒ the Athenians went by land they may well have had to go via Beroia, but the probabilities are that uiey did not take die land route. It would have been a slower process, and both sides, each for reasons of dieir own, were anxious that the Athenian expedition should leave Macedonia with all speed. The ships were there to hand, and there is nothing to show diat the position was complicated by die presence of Philip's cavalry contingent, which is not attested until the next year (I.G. i 2. 296, lines 19–21; cf. A.T.L., vol. iii, pp. 322–3). On balance, the A.T.L. view has less to recommend it than have the views of Gomme and Edson.Google Scholar

page 58 note 2 Makedonien bis zur Thronbesteigung Philipps II (Historische Zeitschrift, Beiheft xix, 1930), pp. 5759Google Scholar. See also die same author in Pauly-Wissowa, Realenyclopädie der Alter-tumswissenschaft, s.v. ‘Makedonia’ (Ges-chichte), col. 707. Geyer is hard put to it to justify his retention of the MS. text here, and his strained interpretation is effectively disposed of by Gomme and in A.T.L. i. 551, n. 1.Google Scholar His is die latest of numerous attempts to find some reason for sending die Athenians up country to Beroia: cf. die notes of Arnold and Shilleto on diis passage.

page 58 note 3 See Casson, S., Macedonia, Thrace, and Illyria, p. 14Google Scholar and Map II, and Edson, C.F., ‘The Antigonids, Heracles, and Beroea’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. xlv, 1934, p. 232 and n. 5.Google Scholar

page 58 note 4 As Grote thought: but Gomme has clearly demonstrated that such an assumption is unjustified. However, it is not beyond die bounds of possibility; and forms are widespread in die Aegean.

page 58 note 5 Gomme seems somewhat in favour of this solution, tiiough he does not adopt a firm line in his note.

page 59 note 1 e.g. Forster Smith in the Loeb series.

page 59 note 2 Jahrbuchfiir classische Philologie, 1883, pp. 600– n–8Google Scholar, where he rejects Bergk's criticism that Therme was in Macedonia. This long and important note deals with the literature on this passage up to that time. Müller- Strübing ends by preferring Skapsa to Strepsa as the second town named.

page 59 note 3 Thukydides, Erklärungen und Wiederherstellungen, Books I-IV (Leipzig, 1892), p. 26Google Scholar. It is, as Gomme says, ingenious, but it does not really carry conviction. R. Laqueur believed, though surely mistakenly, that represented an addition to the original draft by Thucydides himself, on the receipt of later information (Rheinisches Museum, vol. lxxxvi, 1937, pp. 318–19, n. 1).Google Scholar

page 59 note 4 Philologus, vol. xxii, 1865, pp. 536–9Google Scholar;Bergk, however, identified Brea with the colony founded among the Bisaltai (see below), which involve the location of the Bisaltai in the north-west of the Chalkidian peninsula. The corruption from ‘Brea’, a name which soon became unknown, to ‘Beroia’, well known in later antiquity, is an easy one. For the later importance of Beroia see Edson, , ‘The Antigonids, Heracles, and Beroea’, pp. 233–5Google Scholar. It is possible that the mention of the city in the Acts of the Apostles (xvii. 1 o; xx. 4) might help to make its name more familiar to a scribe.

page 59 note 5 Forbes, for instance, gives it very sum mary treatment (Thuydides, Book I, p. 54 of of the notesGoogle Scholar). Stahl at first took it up, but dropped it again in his revision of Poppo. Neither Shilleto nor Stuart-Jones (O.C.T.) mentions it. Herbst at least says that it shows Gelehrsamkeit.

page 59 note 6 Strabo (7, frag. 36) places the Bisaltai about the River Strymon, so that on this reckoning Brea would have to be not far from Amphipolis.

page 60 note 1 Frag. 395, Kock. The identification of it with the ‘Thrattai’ (frags. 71–84, Kock) was made by Busolt (Griech. Gesch. III. i, p. 417).Google Scholar

page 60 note 2

page 61 note 1 The treaty with Samos was probably ratified at the Panathenaia of 438 (A.T.L., vol. ii, p. 74Google Scholar). Athenian troops would, no doubt, have remained there after the surrender of the city in 439 until the final peace was concluded.

page 61 note 2 Theopompos, frag. 387 (Jacoby).

page 61 note 3 Abel, Otto, Makedonien vor König Philipp II (Leipzig, 1847), pp. 166–70Google Scholar, believed that Uketas reigned alone from 454 to 448, though Jeyer disagrees strongly with this supposition. Alketas′ name appears in I.G. i 2. 71, second only to that of Perdikkas himself. Cf. Plato, , Gorgias 471 a–b.Google Scholar

page 62 note 1 See M. N. Tod, loc. cit.

page 62 note 2 Kirchner, however, distinguishes the two (Prosopographia Attica, 3474 and 3475).

page 62 note 3 This time Kirchner agrees (P.A. 14114), as does Hiller in I.G.

page 62 note 4 My particular thanks are due to Professors F. E. Adcock, A.J. Beattie, and M. F. McGregor, and Messrs. G. T. Griffith and P. H. J. Lloyd-Jones for having read this paper in MS. and for giving me the benefit of much helpful advice and criticism. This paper was already in the proof stage when I received information of an article by S. Pelekides, entitled ‘Concerning the Potidea affair’, in the Epeteris of the Philosophic School of the University of Salonika, vol. vi (Memorial volume for N. G. Pappadakis). This article is said to deal with the disputed topography of the routes of Aristeus and Kallias in 432, but I have not been able to consult it.