Our written sources refer to the various peoples inhabiting the Balkans with collective nouns - Chaonians, Dardanians, Macedonians, Paionians and the like - that sound much like the categories these same sources use for more familiar communities (Athenians, Korinthians). But whereas we have a fair idea of what it meant to be an Athenian, or a Spartan, or a Boiotian, in the fifth and fourth centuries, it is still difficult to picture what it felt like to be a Lynkestian, or an Odrysian, or a Royal Scythian. Not only are these groups difficult to locate on a map with any precision, but it is not always clear when, or whether, we are dealing with local communities, or with larger entities. Our principal sources talk about Macedonians, Thracians or Illyrians as though these were clear, well-defined categories. In fact, these large collectives are rather elusive groupings. Detailed study of place - and personal names has revealed interesting patterns of concentration or preference, but has not furnished the evidence of well-defined cultural distinctions that our authors have led us to anticipate (see, e. g., the contributions to Cabanes 1993b; Wilkes 1992: 67-87; SEG 45 696). Thus, for example, there is no scholarly agreement about the specific relationship between the language spoken by Macedonians and Aeolic or West Greek, or Illyrian, although they were indubitably closely related (Hall 2001 for a summary of the evidence; Hatzopoulos 2000). Similarly, there is uncertainty about the relative admixture of Greek and Illyrian elements in Epeiros and the north-west Balkans, although there were more Greek-speakers in Epeiros and southern Illyria, and more Illyrian-speakers further north. These uncertainties are not just a reflection of lacunose evidence, although it would undoubtedly be easier to make sense of such linguistic inter-relationships if a reasonable range of vocabulary and grammatical examples were available to us. They demonstrate, on the one hand, the relative imprecision of ‘ethnic’ groupings as such, and, on the other, the comparative fluidity and dynamism between members of different ‘ethnic’ categories.
I use the term ‘ethnic’ advisedly, because the Greek word ethnos lacked many of the connotations that our word ‘ethnicity’ holds (Morgan 2003: 10-18). Collective identities depend on a set of collective ideas that can be communicated and renewed at regular intervals and are maintained and invigorated by various mutual institutions. The ethne reported in our sources were sometimes small, nucleated groups, such as those in the Chalkidike peninsula (e. g., Bottiaioi), but elsewhere the term is applied to much larger and more diffuse entities, apparently disseminated over several hundred kilometres or more - the Illyrians, Thracians, Macedonians or Scythians. The Scythians were less like the others, insofar as many Scythian communities continued to be nomadic or semi-nomadic throughout the fifth and fourth centuries, even though durable settlements had existed for many centuries in the grass and forest steppe regions, as well as closer to the coastlines. The settled character of Scythian culture (Kovpanenko et al. 1989) and the importance of extractive and production activities (Rolle 1989 and fig. 7 in Rolle) have been seriously under-appreciated, because of the preoccupation with nomadic rather than sedentary themes, as well as the merging of distinctive communities under an all-embracing pan-Scythian label (Yablonsky 2000; Bashilov & Yablonsky 2000).
The larger, more diffuse kinds of ethne referred to by ancient writers were unlike modern nations (leave alone nation states). States - complex socio-political entities composed of many different nucleated or extended communities - were beginning to emerge in the fifth century. The larger ones were often organized as kingdoms, notably those of the Argead dynasty in Macedonia, the Molossian house in Epeiros, and the Odrysian dynasty in Thrace. The ‘Royal’ Scythians held a similar kind of power over settled and nomadic communities in the grass steppe regions of Ukraine and south Russia. The power holders of the steppe regions, together with the native princes of Thrace, provided a model for the dynastic rulers of the Bosporan kingdom based in the Crimean peninsula, who were styled archontes (chief magistrates) in a civic Greek milieu, and basileis (kings) among the purely native communities of the Taman peninsula and around the Sea of Azov (Hind 1994: 496-7).
Emergent powers
The 470s to 450s were a period of significant political transformation in areas that had been occupied by Persian troops, or that had been restricted in one way or another by the Persian occupation. Changes in political organization and territorial administration are particularly apparent in Macedonia and Thrace south of the Balkans. The withdrawal of imperial troops created new opportunities for political leaders who could offer protection against Persian, or indeed other, opportunistic reprisals. The uncertainties of the wider political situation in the northern Aegean were undoubtedly one of the factors that enabled Alexander I of Macedon to expand beyond the modest realm in Lower Macedonia that he had inherited from his forebears, and that had constituted the Argead kingdom for a century or more. This included the slopes of Mount Bermion and the Pierian range, either side of the River Haliakmon, the low-lying regions of Bottiaia and Pieria, as far as the River Axios in the east, and the hill country of Almopia in the north. Alexander acquired a large slab of territory east of the River Loudias after the Persian withdrawal, extending into the western half of the Chalkidic peninsula (Hatzopoulos 1996: vol. 1 171-9). Similarly, the Odrysian Teres made the traditional lands of his family in the middle reaches of the River Hebros (modern Maritsa) the nucleus of a much larger territory, which was consolidated by his son, Sitalkes, probably from the 440s onwards. Under Sitalkes the Odrysian kingdom extended from the hinterland of the Aegean coast around Abdera in the south to the Balkan mountains and the Danube estuary in the north (Thuc. 2.97.1; Archibald 1998: 93-125). The power of the Molossian dynasty of Epeiros is more difficult to specify in the fifth than in the early fourth century, when we find Molossian rulers negotiating with neighbouring regional communities (Illyrians), cities and sanctuaries of the mainland (notably Athens, Epidauros, Delphi) and beyond (Syracuse) (Cabanes 1988; 1996; 1999a; Davies 2000). The degree of organizational momentum implied by such negotiations must have evolved during the second half of the fifth century at least. By c. 400 the Molossoi had extended their control over the most important sanctuary in the north-western part of the Greek peninsula, that of Zeus at Dodona, which had previously been controlled by the Thesprotoi. There were three large tribal groupings north of the Ambrakian Gulf in the Classical Period - the Thesprotoi, who lived inland from the coast opposite Kerkyra and its archipelago; the Chaones, north of the Thesprotoi, behind the ‘Keraunian’ mountains and either side of the River AiOos; and the Molossoi, east of these two major groupings, but west of the Pindos mountain range. Meanwhile, on the northern shores of the Black Sea, a man called Spartokos replaced an autocratic dynasty, perhaps of Milesian origin, called ‘Archaianaktidai’ (‘ancient rulers’), which had monopolized decision-making in the city of Pantikapaion, then the most important city of the Crimean peninsula (Diodoros 12.31.1, dated under 438/7). Spartokos is a Thracian name, and it is likely that this was a member of the Odrysian house ruling in Thrace. (Sitalkes had a brother called Sparadokos: Thuc. 2.101.5; Hind 1994: 491; Archibald 2002a: 60; Graham 2002: 90-1, 98-9.) Spartokos’ successors, who came from the same family, also had Thracian names that betray a similar connection. The circumstances of the changeover are unknown, but as this event coincided with attempts by the Athenians, during the early 430s, to exert more political power on the communities of the Black Sea coasts (Plutarch Perikles 20), it suggests a realignment between some of the northern coastal cities and at least one emerging inland power. (The Odrysians also had family connections with the Royal Scythians, who dominated the steppe regions north of Crimea.)
The nascent Bosporan kingdom did not impinge on the consciousness of contemporary metropolitan historians before the fourth century. Thucydides does not refer to the Molossian kingdom directly, and what he has to say about leadership relates to military campaigns (operations in 430-429), which may well reflect different organizational principles from those that pertained to ordinary community matters. On campaign, the Thesprotoi were subordinate to the Chaones, the Atintanes to the Molossoi, and the Orestai (a ‘tribe’ located east of the Pindos range) were subordinate to the Parauaioi (Thuc. 2.80 5-6). Most of what we know about developments in Macedon and Thrace was written down during the final third of the fifth century, and related retrospectively by Herodotos and Thucydides. These accounts telescope gradual developments and make them look, in either case, like an inevitable and progressive expansion.
In reality, political expansion functioned as a consequence of negotiations between communities and political leaders. The ruling elites of Macedon and Thrace were still in an embryonic state in the post-war years. They did not have the power to enforce their command over these territories. Before the time of Philip II of Macedon, when the creation of a full-time professional army, inflated by mercenary forces paid from newly captured crown property and revenues from the Pangaion gold mines, gave one man irresistible resources (Hammond & Griffith 1979: 405-49; Garlan 1994: 686-8; Hatzopoulos 1996: vol. 1 434-5), public authorities in these regions could afford systematic military campaigns only in limited circumstances. In the fifth century, the Macedonian army consisted of a small permanent corps of professional cavalrymen, drawn from the wealthier families of the kingdom, who could supply their own beasts and breastplates (Thuc. 2.100.5), together with levies of Macedonian irregulars, who served as infantrymen, equipped probably from their own resources. External attack of any kind would have required co-operation with neighbouring communities, notably the Lynkestians and Elimiotai (Thuc. 2.99.2).
In each of the areas under consideration, decisions concerning international or inter-regional policy seem to have been the primary responsibility of the regional authority, not of individual communities (Hatzopoulos 1996: vol. 1 365-9; idem 1999; Davies 2000: 251-7; Archibald 2000: 230-1). Documents often give the impression that rulers, or chief representatives, spoke on behalf of community groups with respect to external relations (Hatzopoulos 1996: vol. 1 365-9, 371; Velkov & Domaradzka 1994; Chankowski & Domaradzka 1999 on the mid fourth-century Pistiros inscription). But this need not mean that local communities lacked the power to take initiatives with other states. Rather, individual communities that belonged to a larger, confederate grouping (Brock & Hodkinson 2000: 25-30, esp. 27 n. 62 on appropriate terminology) necessarily had to defer, in some cases, to other bodies. Hatzopoulos has compared the collective organisation of Macedonian communities to the confederate mechanisms of Thessaly and Epeiros, distinguishing between the ‘monarchical’ polities of Macedonia, Thessaly, Epeiros (we may add Odrysian Thrace: Archibald 2000) and the ‘republican’ ethne of Aitolia, Achaia, Arkadia and elsewhere in the central and southern Greek mainland (Hatzopoulos 1996: vol. 1 491-6; 1999; cf. Cabanes 1996; 1999a).
Some features of collective decision-making in the Molossian kingdom are reflected in a remarkable dossier of inscriptions from the sanctuary of Zeus at Dodona (Davies 2000: 245-51). The earliest documents date from the second quarter of the fourth century. They contain a form of preamble, including the name of the reigning king, of a leading magistrate (prostatas), and a secretary (grammateus), together with their ‘ethnics’, which reflects a systematization ofadministrative duties, at once resembling north-west Greek preferences, as well as wider Greek practice. Over the course of the following century and a half, the names of the officials in whose name decisions were taken became more nuanced. These officials (hieromnameuontes, synarchontes: respectively ‘sacred remembrancers’, ‘co-rulers’) stand in for wider communities, implied by the ‘ethnic’ identifiers that each individual is given. Whom these ‘ethnic’ names refer to is difficult to pin down, historically and spatially. The lists of sacred envoys from all over the Aegean world, chosen to announce religious festivals (notably those of Asklepios at Epidauros c. 360, and of Hera at Argos c. 330), combine local and regional designations from the north in a list that suggests rapidly evolving political mechanisms and entities. By the final quarter of the fourth century, ‘Apeirotai’ had replaced ‘Molossoi’ as a collective term for the kingdom and its dependencies, and decisions are articulated as those of an assembly of the Molossians. What might be termed refined regional, or sub-regional, designations (Thesprotoi, Chaones, Prasai-boi) were nevertheless used to denote decision-making of a more explicitly local kind.
Systematic publication of pre-Hellenistic epigraphic documents is beginning to reveal the complexity and sophistication of inter-community relations in these northern regions. The period between the end of the Persian wars and the demise of Alexander the Great witnessed the rapid development of political institutions at regional and inter-community level. This is best exemplified in the monuments and inscriptions displayed at panhellenic sanctuaries (notably at Delphi, but from the middle decades of the fourth century at Olympia, Isthmia, Nemea), as well as Argos and later Delos, together with what were to become the respective communal archives at Dodona for Epeiros (Figure 7.4) and Dion for Macedonia (Mari 2002:
50-60; Le Bohec-Bouhet 2002: 45-7). At Dodona, a prytaneion, as well as a Council House, was built towards the end of the fourth century (Dakaris et al. 1999). Decrees issued by Argead kings before the second century are not numerous, but many of the decision-making procedures documented in Hellenistic times evolved in the fourth if not the fifth century. It is not yet clear whether all state officials, such as the epistates,
Figure 7.4 Dodona, Epeiros: the theatre constructed originally under king Pyrrhos of Epeiros (297-272 bce) and rebuilt by Philip V of Macedon soon after 219 bce. A building programme begun early in the fourth century, with the construction of the first temple of Zeus, culminated in the theatre. Copyright: C. B. Mee.
Were principally royal servants, or whether they also exercised a more independent intermediary role between the crown and individual cities, particularly those in the territories acquired after the mid fourth century that enjoyed more independence than those of the kingdom of Macedonia proper (cf. Hatzopoulos 1996: vol. 1 37296; Errington 2002). The dramatic increase in the number of epigraphic documents recovered from excavations and issued by civic communities in Macedonia is beginning to illuminate different levels of decision-making, those of purely local significance and those requiring the intervention of a higher body. As yet we know very little about the machinery of state power in Thrace and Scythia, but increasing evidence of local decision-making in these regions, as in Macedonia, has implications for how we envisage the relationship between cities or towns on the one hand, and the central administration on the other (esp. Hatzopoulos 1997; Archibald 2000).
World History
