The Hellenistic World. F. Walbank W.

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      Dyme stood in an exposed position near the border with Elis and the war was evidently that against Aetolia (220–217). It is probable that the names are those of mercenaries, though they could be part of a Macedonian garrison, for one of the names, Drakas, is Macedonian. In either case the enrolment of citizens – which can be paralleled two years later from Larissa in Thessaly (Syll., 543) and may likewise have been instigated by Philip V of Macedonia, who was in close alliance with Achaea at the time – illustrates the greater possibilities now available, not only in new areas, for resettlement. As we shall see, citizenship was more flexible.

      Mercenaries were the most noteworthy but by no means the only travellers. In the spring of 169 Antiochus IV of Syria invaded Egypt and the authorities in Alexandria decided

      to send the Greek envoys then present at Alexandria to Antiochus to negotiate for peace. There were then present two missions from the Achaeans, one consisting of Alcithus of Aegium, son of Xenophon, and Pasiadas, which had come to renew friendly relations and another on the subject of the games held in honour of Antigonus Doson. There was also an embassy from Athens headed by Demaratus about a present (i.e. to give one or to thank Ptolemy for one) and there were two sacred missions, one headed by Callias the pancratiast (i.e. a competitor in a sort of all-in wrestling) on the subject of the Panathenaean games, and another, the manager and spokesman of which was Cleostratus, about the mysteries. Eudemus and Hicesius had come from Miletus and Apollonides and Apollonius from Clazomenae (Polybius, xxviii, 19, 2–5).

      Thus we learn, quite by chance, that at this particular moment seven separate embassies or sacred delegations were present in Alexandria. If we multiply this figure to take account of all the Greek states and the important centres of Greece and the hellenistic world generally, we can form some impression of what was involved in the constant diplomatic interchanges which went on without abatement both before and after the Romans arrived on the scene. From the early-second century onwards, however, it was increasingly to Rome or to Roman generals in the field that the major embassies were directed.

      Two of the embassies mentioned by Polybius as present in Alexandria in 169 were concerned with festivals. And where these included the holding of theatrical performances, they involved the participation of professional actors, the so-called ‘artistes (technitai) of Dionysus’, who regularly moved on circuit. These technitai were organized in guilds centred in Athens, at the Isthmus of Corinth, and in Teos, a city for some time under the control of the Attalid dynasty of Pergamum, and their function was to provide the specialists needed for the holding of festivals. Officially the guild at Teos was a religious body. As an inscription puts it,

      Craton (sc. the recipient of an honorary decree passed by the guild) did everything pertaining to the honour and repute of Dionysus and the Muses and Pythian Apollo and the other gods and the kings and the queens and the brothers of King Eumenes (Durrbach, Choix, 75, II.11–13 = Austin, 123).

      The power and influence of the guild were such that it operated almost like an independent state within the small city of Teos and after a stormy history of quarrels and despite an attempt at mediation by Eumenes II recorded on a long, but now fragmentary, inscription set up at Pergamum (Welles, R.C., no. 53), the technitai were forced to flee to Ephesus and later were removed by Attalus III to Myonnesus. They had an evil reputation and a school exercise is recorded on the theme: ‘Why are the technitai of Dionysus mostly scoundrels?’ (Aristotle, Problems, 956b, 11). Stage people leading irregular lives were naturally viewed with suspicion by the steady citizens who only set eyes on them at festival times, for indeed they moved from one festival to another, to the Delphic Pythia and Soteria, to the Museia at Thespiae, the Heracleia at Thebes, the Dionysia at Teos, the festival of Artemis Leucophryene at Magnesia. Like a city they sent sacred delegates (theoroi) to the mysteries at Samothrace as well as holding their own festival. Whatever their morals, they were clearly a channel of cultural interchange between city and city.

      So far we have been considering mainly organized groups, but many individuals also travelled in pursuit of their trade or profession. Traders and their importance will be looked at in more detail in Chapters 9 and 11 but travellers also included philosophers, like Clearchus of Soli, whose name we have seen recorded on the banks of the Oxus (p. 60), and doctors, many of whom were trained at Cos, with its associations with the great medical teacher Hippocrates and its famous temple of Asclepius, but might respond to requests for help from other friendly states. Thus an inscription dating to the late-third century found in the Asclepieum at Cos records the thanks conveyed by the people of Cnossus in Crete for the loan of a doctor to Gortyn. It provides an interesting picture of conditions in that turbulent island, where at that time, as a result of civil strife (Polybius, iv, 54, 7–9), Gortyn had come under the control of her old rival Cnossus.

      The kosmoi and the city of the Cnossians greet the council and people of the Coans. Whereas the people of Gortyn sent an embassy to you about a doctor and you, with a generous show of haste, dispatched the doctor Hermias to them, and civil strife having then broken out in Gortyn and we, in accordance with our alliance having come to share in the battle which took place among the Gortynians in the city, it came about that some of our citizens and others who accompanied our side to the battle were wounded and many became exceedingly ill as a result of their wounds, whereupon Hermias, being a man of worth, on that occasion made every effort on our behalf and saved many of them from great peril and subsequently continued unhesitatingly to fulfil the needs of those who called upon him, and when a further battle took place near Phaestus and many suffered wounds and likewise many were critically ill, he made every effort in tending them and saved them from great peril, and subsequently showed himself zealous to those who called upon him (Syll., 528 = Austin, 124).

      Here the somewhat repetitive account breaks off but the context of the battles described can be filled out from the record of this war in Polybius, iv, 54–5. Another example of a city honouring a doctor is the grant by Ilium to Metrodorus of Amphipolis mentioned below ( p. 149). The provision of doctors was a public responsibility in many cities. At Samos, for example, the assembly makes the appointment, and in several towns a special ‘medical tax’ (iatrikon) was levied to pay the doctor’s salary (cf. Syll., 437)

      V

      The central role of the gymnasium in Greek communities went with a long-standing passion for athletics and athletes of all ages also travelled around the Greek world bringing fame to their cities and themselves if they carried off prizes at international festivals. An example is provided by a late-second-century inscription found on the site of Cedreae, a small city lying under what is now Şehir Ada in the Ceramic Gulf in south-western Turkey, which at that time belonged to Rhodes.

      The Confederation (or Guild) of the peoples of the Chersonese salutes Onasiteles the son of Onesistratus, victor in the furlong-race three times in the boys’ category at the Isthmia, in the beardless category at the Nemea and at the Asclepieia in Cos, in the men’s category at the Dorieia at Cnidus, at the Dioscureia and at the Heracleia, in the boys’ and ephebes’ category at the Tlapolemeia, victory in the furlong-race and the two-furlong-race in the boys’ category at the Dorieia in Cnidus, in the ephebes’ category at the Poseidania, in the furlong-race and the race in armour at the Heracleia and in the long race in the men’s category twice, in the torch-race ‘from the first point’ (?) in the men’s category at the great Halieia and twice in the small Halieia, twice at the Dioscureia, twice at the Poseidania, in the furlong-race and race in armour in the men’s category (Syll., 1067).

      This record could be reproduced again and again, for victors in athletics contests, especially in the festivals adjudged ‘equal to the Olympic games’ (isolympia), were highly honoured for the prestige which they brought to their native cities.

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