Herakleides and the Great King

Echos du Monde Classiqueltllassical Views XXXIII, n.s.S, 1989, 347-352 HERAKLEIDES AND THE GREAT KING 347 H. B. Mattingly has recently revived his discussion of the Athenian decree IG ii2, 8+ 65 (=I G i3, 227+), honourin g Herakleides of Klazomenai for his services to Athens in connection with an embassy to the King of Persia. Matt ingly's argument is that Heraklcides' activities relate to the "King's Peace" of 387/6 B.C., rather than to the "Peace of Epilykos" of 424/3 B.C., which is thought to have been a revival of the "Peace of Kallias" of 449/8 B.C.! To do so, he is forced to make certain ass umptions: 1) that the man in question was not the Hcraklcidcs of Klazomenai whom [Aristotlcl.? credits with raising from one to two obols the fee for attendance in the Athenian Ekklesia, at some time in the 390 s B.C.; 2) that Andokides' account of the Peace of Epilykos? is "family glorification" by an author "capable of . . . astonishing howlers in fifth-century history;" 3) that the formulae for the grant of atelcia and enktesis in Hcrakleidcs' decree are "normal for the start of the fourth cent ury," and not for the fifth century; and 4) that the postscript attac hed to Hcraklcidcs' decree, in which his name, titles and ethnic are listed, is of early fourth-century type. I am not convinced by Matt ingly's pleadin g and put forwa rd alterna tive arguments in order, as follows: 1. Who ever [Aristo tle] was, his knowledge of Athenian affair s and constitutional history is usually accurate. He specifically names Hcraklcidcs as "the Klazomenian " and provides his nickname "the king," thus draw ing attention to his foreign origins. [Aristotle] docs not provide a calendar date for Hcraklcidcs' activiti es, but places it after a move by Agyrrhios to introdu ce a wage of one obol for attendanc e in the Ekklcsia; after Heraklcides' proposal, Agyrrhi os raised the wage yet again, to three obols. Agyrrhio s' political ascendancy is set in the 390s or early 380s: he was general in 390/89 B.C., perhap s as a consequence of his success in having the wage raised to three obol s; inde ed , Herakl eides' general ship, too, may have been a consequence of his earlier propo sal: our sources provide no indi cation of when it occurred. The impli cation of [Aristotle's] remark s, however, is that the three propo sals follo wed one another closely. The three-obol wage was in place by the time that Aristophanes' Ekklesiazousai was produced, that is by 392 B.C. or 390 B.C. at the latest, since H.B . Matt ingly, "Me thodology in Fifth -Century Greek Epigraphy ," EMCt CV 32, n.s. 7 (1988) 321-8, at 322-4. 2 AP,41. 3, 23. 348 M. B. WALBANK Aristophanes refers to it there." Thus, Herakleides should be placed in Athens and active in its political affairs by the late 390s B.C. It is, perhaps, not impossible that Herakleides of Klazomenai introduced this measure as a foreigner resident in Athens, but it seems highly unlikely: Plato's rernark.t that this man was one of three foreigners who had held public office in Athens should surely not be taken as meaning that he was still a foreigner when he was elected general, or even when he introduced the proposal about pay for attendance in the Ekklesia, but that he had been granted Athenian citizenship before he undertook these activities." Thus, his Athenian citizenship is generally thought to have been authorized by the document discussed here, which actually consists of two decrees, one surviving only in its conclusion, by which, probably, the re-inscription of an earlier decree was ordered as an appendage to the decree granting citizenship: the earlier decree is the one by which Herakleides, at that time still a foreigner, was named proxenosand euergetes,and was granted ateleiaand enktesis. It does also seem perverse of Mattingly to suggest that [Aristotle] was correct in his statement about the wage proposed by this man, but wrong over his ethnic and his nickname...