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Chapter Six.
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204 notes to PaGes 110–111 Chapter 6 1. The nature of democratia in the hellenistic world, however, is very complicated. Among the evidence Rhodes looked at was the authorship of decrees. Was the proposer an individual making a motion within the ecclesia, or perhaps a citizen speaking as a member of the boule, or perhaps a board of prytaneis selected along more oligarchical lines? Nonetheless , his analysis of Sherwin-White’s “three basic criteria of Greek democracy” yielded the conclusion that “most Greek states were indeed formally democratic in the hellenistic period” (Rhodes and Lewis 1997: 533).These criteria, on which see Sherwin-White 1978: 176, were no property qualification to limit the franchise, a sovereign assembly, and popularly elected magistrates.Of these, Rhodes found the last two criteria to apply to most hellenistic states but only scant evidence about property qualification, which at any ratewould, in some cases, be less rigid for the assembly than for the council and other offices. See also Shipley 2000: 35–36; Grieb 2008: 13–26. 2. As we noted in Chapter One, Finkelberg (2005: 28–29) argues that the panhellenic stemma of Hellen and his sons provided a stable framework for the paths taken by local charter myths to connect the local community to the panhellenic. We can imagine how leading citizens in hellenistic cities determined those paths not only for the sake of their community’s identity but to facilitate putative links of kinship with others. For further consideration of how local conditions influenced this sort of mythopoesis, see Fowler 1998: 3–5; Kühr 2006: 16–18; and Clarke 2008: 202–203. 3. The “standardized process” in the hellenistic world, to use Shipley’s expression, involved proposals from magistrates, from within the boule, or from within the ecclesia itself that were then made legal by the ecclesia in those cities where some form of participatory democracy was in place. See Shipley 2000: 35. 4. Referring to an honorific document for an eminent citizen named Mokazis, inscribed on a stele in Tarseia in Bithynia in the second century Bce, John Ma explains, “that it reflects . . . the dialectical relation between city and elite and shows how the city retained a monopoly on the granting of honor, and hence remained an important venue for the elite’s self-imagination as a civic elite, as opposed to a nobility of birth, wealth, or leisure” (2000: 110, Ma’s italics). 5. C. P. Jones 1999: 60; Lücke 2000: 22–23.This was, in fact, the second of two series. The first dates to the last decade of the third century.These inscriptions are discussed by Elwyn 1991: 218–246; Curty 1995: 89–106; and Rigsby 1996: 280–325. 6. This decree and its companion piece IC I.viii.11 are not strictly grants of asylia to Teos but merely celebrate the poetic genius of Menecles. 7. Chaniotis 1988: 348–349; Erskine 2002: 106. 8. As in the more general discussion of the Greek world at this time, the degree of actual democratization in Crete in the hellenistic period has been a matter of some debate . Effenterre (1948: 161–172) suggested a movement toward democracy away from the classical-era aristocratic systems of the Cretan states, an assessment based partlyon Polybius 6.46.4, which speaks of Cretan magistrates elected on a “democratic system” (δημοκρατικὴν διάθεσιν). Willetts (1955: 170–191) was critical of Effenterre’s interpretation, noting for in- 205 notes to PaGes 112–114 stance that Polybius was merely comparing the quasi-democratic magistracies of Crete to the hereditary offices of Sparta (see esp. pp. 178–179). Rhodes notes a lack of emphasis on democratic language in Cretan decrees (Rhodes and Lewis 1997: 312). In any case, whether in an oligarchical or a democratic system, it was the decision-makers of Crete who were receptive to the Teans’ overtures on the basis of kinship myth. 9. Elwyn 1991: 244; Curty 1995: 106; C. P. Jones 1999: 60; Lücke 2000: 21–23. 10. Paus. 7.3.6; Strabo 14.1.3. Elwyn (1991: 242) does mention these writers in connection with a grant of asylia to Teos by the Athamanes of Thessaly, but we are looking for a Cretan context. 11. It bears recalling that not everyclaim of kinship is based on myth. Historical colonizationaccountsforsomeinstancesintheepigraphicalrecord ,asintheliterary.Giventhepreponderance of mythological explanations for kinship, one can assume that a putative linkage is based on myth if the relationship cannot be discerned from historical circumstances. 12. For general discussion...