The Phocian or Third Sacred War

As for the Boeotian League, it suffered the most from the Phocians’ attacks in what the Greeks called a Sacred War. Such a war was waged in defense of a shrine, in particular that of Apollo at Delphi. The Phocian War was the third such war. The second was a minor affair during the Pentecontaetia (Thuc. I 112), but two results of the more important First Sacred War in the early sixth century (see Box 18.2) have relevance for the beginning of the third war: First, the valley beneath Delphi (see Figure 1.8) down to the Gulf of Corinth was dedicated as land sacred to Apollo after the First Sacred War - land which could not be plowed, but which might be used for grazing animals or planting trees (Aesch. III 107-112). Second, after the First Sacred War jurisdiction over Delphi fell to the Pylaean Amphic-tiony (Strab. IX 3,7, p. 420), an organization of twelve “tribes” living on both sides of Thermopylae - Thessalians, Boeotians, Dorians, Ionians, Perrhaebians, Magnesians, Locrians (both western and eastern together), Oetaeans (=Aeni-anes), Phthiotic Achaians, Malians, Phocians (Aesch. II 116), and the Dolopians (with Paus. X 8 and Diod. XVI 29 - the Epirotic Athamanians mentioned there were not members in the fourth century).

Delphi had been the most important Panhellenic sanctuary since at least the seventh century when even foreign potentates such as Gyges of Lydia began to pay honor to it (Hdt. I 14). Year in, year out pilgrims - some extremely wealthy - made dedications there, often in precious metals. In the ancient world sanctuaries moreover functioned as banks where both states and individuals deposited funds under the gods’ protection. Many of the buildings on the site of Delphi were not shrines but so-called treasuries (see Figure 18.2), and down to the year 355 the money had remained safe.

In 355, however, the Boeotians brought a charge of sacrilege - allegedly of cultivating the sacred land in the valley below Dephi - against the Phocians (Diod. XVI 23). Since the same charge of sacrilege which the Boeotians allegedly made against them recurs at the start of the Fourth Sacred War (see below),

Figure 18.2 The treasury of the Athenians at Delphi. Source: Ian W. Scott, Http:// Commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Athenian_Treasury. JPG (accessed 12th February 2013) CC BY-SA 3.0

Where it is more credibly attested, one may legitimately wonder if its occurrence at the start of the Third Sacred War too is an historiographical construct. All the same, Greece was heavily overpopulated in the fourth century, and many communities surely felt pressure to take nearby marginal land under cultivation in order to obtain food. All along the edges of the valley below Delphi communities may have been doing this, especially if no one knew exactly where profane land ended and sacred land began. In any case, to what degree the Boeotians’ accusation against the Phocians was political is now irrecoverable, but the Amphictionic Council did indeed saddle the Phocians with an astronomical fine (Diod. l. c.; cf. 29). Thereafter the entire affair rapidly became political.