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1 Homer and the Athenian Empire THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE I offer here an overview of what we know about the Athenian empire in the era of the democracy in the fifth century b.c.e. The basic facts can be found in the history of Thucydides, who highlights what gradually happened to Athens as a world power in the period extending from the end of the Persian War, with the establishment of the Delian League in 478 b.c.e., to the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War in the year 431: what had started as a xummakhia ‘alliance’ of the city of Athens with various other cities evolved into an arkhē ‘rule’ by Athens over these cities (Thucydides 1.67.4, 1.75.1, etc.).1 This ‘rule’ is the essence of the Athenian empire. Of special interest is the arkhē ‘rule’ by Athens over the Ionian cities of Asia Minor and its outlying islands, as distinct from the non-Ionian cities drawn into the political sphere of the evolving empire.2 The Ionian connections with Athens—as distinct from Dorian or Aeolian connections—were particularly compelling, since the Delian League was conceived as an alliance of Ionians who shared in a common Ionian kinship (Thucydides 1.95.1; Aristotle Constitution of the Athenians 23.4).3 I add this apt formulation: “The reference to Ionian kinship [in Thucydides 1.95.1] is a brief allusion to a major element in fifth-century Athenian propaganda, the projection of Athens as mother-city of the whole empire, irrespective of the colo9 1. Meiggs 1972:376. 2. Meiggs 1972:294. 3. See also the discussion by Meiggs 1972:295, with specific reference to the horoi ‘boundary stones’ of Samos. nial realities.”4 To put it another way: “the concept of xungeneia [‘kinship’] was stretched until it had become almost a metaphor for a relationship of obedience and control.”5 ATHENS AS HOMER’S IMPERIAL METROPOLIS The imperial sense of the noun arkhē ‘rule’ and of the corresponding verb arkhein is actually attested in a context that is relevant to Homer. We find it in the dialogue of Plato called the Ion, named after the rhapsōidos ‘rhapsode’ called Ion who hails from the Ionian city of Ephesus and whose name actually means, appropriately enough, ‘the Ionian’ (Iōn).6 In the dramatic time of the dialogue, this rhapsode is about to perform the poetry of Homer in competition with other rhapsodes, and the occasion is the festival of the Panathenaia in Athens (Ion 530b). We are about to see the rhapsode’s use of the verb arkhein in a most revealing context. When Plato’s Socrates questions Ion’s expertise in the craft of a stratēgos ‘general’—a craft supposedly derived from Homer’s own expertise in matters of war—Ion pointedly retorts that his home city of Ephesus has no generals of its own, since it is ‘ruled’ (arkhetai, from arkhein) by Athens (Ion 541b–c). As we are about to see, the ties that bind the cities of Athens and Ephesus together correspond to the ties between a mother city—a metropolis—and a daughter city. In responding to the point made by Ion, Socrates says that Athenians do in fact occasionally choose generals who are non-Athenians (Plato Ion 541d).7 In the same breath Socrates adds that the people of Ephesus are not even really non-Athenians, since Ephesus, as an Ionian city, is after all a daughter city of Athens, which claims to bethemetropolis(mētropolis)or‘mothercity’ofallIonians(Ion541c–d).AsSocrates puts it: ‘After all, you Ephesians were Athenians in ancient times, weren’t you?’ (Ion 541d τί δέ; οὐκ Ἀθηναῖοι μέν ἐστε οἱ ᾿Εφέσιοι τὸ ἀρχαῖον;). This idea, that Ephesus is a daughter city of Athens, is not an ad hoc invention by Socrates or by Plato. In the late fifth century, the historical period that corresponds to the dramatic date of Plato’s Ion, the idea that Athens was the metropolis or ‘mother city’ of all Ionian cities was generally accepted by the Greek-speaking world, whether they were allies or enemies of Athens. This idea, as mythologized in the Ion of Euripides (1575–88) and as historicized in both Herodotus (1.147.2) 10 Homer and the Athenian Empire 4. Hornblower 1996:73. 5. Hornblower 1996:73. 6. For more on Ion of Ephesus as a generic ‘Ionian’, see Porter 2001:281n93, with reference to Callimachus Iambi 13.30–32; see also the remarks of Hunter 1997:46–47. 7. See Moore...

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