Rhodes during the Corinthian War: from strategic naval base to endemic 'stasis'

Historikv Studi di storia greca e romana V GREAT IS THE POWER OF THE SEA: THE POWER OF THE SEA AND SEA POWER IN THE GREEK WORLD OF THE ARCHAIC AND CLASSICAL PERIOD ESTRATTO Historika Studi di storia greca e romana International Open Access Journal of Greek and Roman History UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI TORINO Dipartimento di Studi Storici - Storia antica in collaborazione con CELID LEXIS Compagnia Editoriale in Torino srl, via Carlo Alberto 55, 10123 Torino [email protected] Comitato editoriale e scientifico Editors: Silvio Cataldi, Enrica Culasso, Sergio Roda, Silvia Giorcelli Bersani Executive Editor and Journal Manager: Gianluca Cuniberti Redactional Board: Elisabetta Bianco, Gianluca Cuniberti, Daniela Marchiandi, Andrea Pellizzari, Maria G. Castello, Chiara Lasagni, Mattia Balbo. International Advisory Board: Jean-Michel Carrié (École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris), Paolo Desideri (Univ. Firenze), Martin Dreher (Univ. Magdeburg), Luigi Gallo (Univ. Napoli “L’Orientale”), Stephen Hodkinson (Univ. Nottingham), Denis Knoepfler (Collège de France, Paris), Patrick Le Roux (Univ. Paris XIII), Elio Lo Cascio (Univ. Roma “La Sapienza”), Mario Lombardo (Univ. del Salento, Lecce), Arnaldo Marcone (Univ. Roma Tre), Isabel Rodà de Llanza (Univ. Autonoma di Barcelona, Institut Català d'Arqueologia Clasica) Historika Studi di storia greca e romana Dipartimento di Studi Storici - Università degli Studi di Torino Via S. Ottavio 20 - 10124 Torino ITALIA www.historika.unito.it [email protected] Volume V Annata 2015 Great is the power of the sea: the power of the sea and sea power in the Greek world of the archaic and classical period, a cura di G. Cuniberti, G. Daverio Rocchi e J. Roy con la collaborazione di A. Bartzoka Questo volume è stato pubblicato con il contributo dell’Università di Torino, Dipartimento di Studi Storici Tutti i contributi sono sottoposti a peer review © Diritti riservati agli Autori e agli Editori (informazioni sul sito) Torino, novembre 2016 ISSN 2240-774X e-ISSN 2039-4985 ISBN 978-88-6789-071-2 Great is the power of the sea: the power of the sea and sea power in the Greek world of the archaic and classical periods In memory of Nikos Birgalias Εἶπέ τις, Ἡράκλειτε, τεὸν μόρον, ἐς δέ με δάκρυ ἤγαγεν· ἐμνήσθην δ’ ὁσσάκις ἀμφότεροι ἥλιον ἐν λέσχῃ κατεδύσαμεν. Callimachus Epigr. 2 Pf. Historika V - ISSN 2240-774X e -ISSN 2039-4985 433 C ÉSAR F ORNIS Rhodes during the Corinthian War: from strategic naval base to endemic stasis The incomparable geographic location of Rhodes in the south-east of the Aegean Sea, where it formed part of the Dodecanese, meant that in its long and fertile history the island played a fundamental role as a melting pot of different cultures and a geostrategic enclave of the first order. As far as the classical period is concerned, in the framework of the struggle for hegemony among the Greek powers – principally Athens and Sparta – Rhodes not only became one of the prime naval bases, from which support could also be lent to land operations in Carian territory, but it also fulfilled an important function in controlling access to the South Aegean and as a stopping-off point on the Egyptian grain route to Attica 1 . As regards internal affairs, ever since the year 408/7, when the island had attained synoikismos , or political unification, around the recently founded polis of Rhodes – a process accompanied since 411 by the establishment of an oligarchy and the breakaway from the Athenian arche under the leadership of the renowned athlete Dorieus, a member of the Ialysian family of the Diagoreans 2 –the situation had been one of constant confrontation between democrats and oligarchs, leading, well into the fourth century, to outbreaks of stasis or c iv i l conflict. In the sailing season of 396, shortly before the start of the Corinthian War, in which from 395 to 386 Sparta and the Peloponnesian League would be confronted by the synedrion of Corinth (led by Boeotia, Athens, Argos and Corinth, and financed by Persia) 3 , the citizens of Rhodes switched alliances once more when, apparently by non-violent means, they expelled the Peloponnesian fleet 1 Thuc. VIII 35, 2; Ps. Dem. LVI passim . 2 Thuc. VIII 44, 1-3; Diod. XIII 38, 5; 75, 1; Strab. XIV 2, 9-10. See especially David 1986; cfr. Bruce 1961, 167; Berthold 1980, 33; Coppola 2005, 291-293. According to Gabrielsen 2000, however, this gradual process of synoikism never finished and Rhodes would have been in fact a federal state. 3 For a recent analysis of th is Panhellenic conflict, Fornis 2008. César Fornis 434 www.historika.unito.it and welcomed in its place the Persian fleet of Pharnabazus and Conon; scarcely a year later, Conon was involved in an internal insurrection ( ἐπανάστασις ) that toppled the Diagorean régime to install a democratic order 4 . With Rhodes as his base of operations, Conon would obtain a decisive victory near Cnidus in August 394, putting an end to Lacedemonian naval hegemony and, with it, the presence of Spartan harmosts and garrisons in the Aegean islands and in most of the Greek cities on the coast of Asia Minor 5 . In the sailing season of 391 the outbreak of a new stasis in Rhodes – in fact a re-eruption or second phase of the civil conflict which had taken place four years previously – offered the Spartans the opportunity to recover this important enclave a n d conve r t it in t o the sp ea r-p o i n t of its coun t e r -o f f e n s iv e in the Aegean 6 . For our information on this factional st ruggle we are dependent on the accounts by Xenophon and Diodorus Siculus, the latter of whom, as we know, was inspired by the work of Ephorus, who in turn used as his main source for these years the anonymous author of the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia , of which only a few fragments are extant. The fact is, however, that these accounts not only contain discrepancies with respect to each other – each being internally consistent – but can also virtually be regarded as openly irreconcilable. When forced to choose, most modern scholars have opted for the Athenian historian, not only because he was writing at the time of the events but because he offers a great wealth of detail and explanation, unusually so in view of the slight attention he generally pays to developments in the war at sea. However, some scholars have attempted to weave both traditions together in a forced and scarcely convincing manner, without even pointing out the discrepancies between the sources, selectively picking elements of each account while leaving loose ends untied 7 . As for Diodorus, few authors appear to give him complete credit 8 . Let us consider, then, the testimony of the two ancient historians. From 4 For all these events and their influence on the outbreak of the Corinthian War, see Fornis 2007, together with the previous bibliography. 5 Conon, who is honoured everywhere , is g ran te d pri vil eges and has statues erected, is celebrated in contemporary and later Greek literature as the liberator of Greece from the Spartan yoke, even though he had continued to serve the Great King, a mercenary under the orders of the satrap Pharnabazus (see, in general, Fornis 2009a, where the sources for the naval battle of Cnidus are specified and its consequences analysed). On land, however, the Spartan war machine had displayed its traditional effic ie n cy in the pitched battles of Nemea and Coroneia, also in the summer of 394, on which the continuation of its continental hegemo ny wa s built (cfr. Fornis 2003). 6 Hamilton 1979, 293; Funke 1980a, 95; David 1984, 276, 281. Berthold 1980, 39 puts back the outbreak of stasis to the winter of 391/0. 7 Momigliano 1936, esp. 51-54; Accame 1951, 132, 136-137; Funke 1980b, esp. 65-66; David 1984, 280-284; Falkner 1992, 253-254; Tuplin 1993, 172-173; Debord 1999, 258-261. 8 Lanzillotta 1981, 278-279; Hornblower 1982, 124; Gehrke 1985, 137-138; Gabrielsen 2000, 190 with n. 67, and, especially, We s tl ake 1983 ( infra ). Rhodes during the Corinthian War Historika V - ISSN 2240-774X e -ISSN 2039-4985 435 both it can be concluded that the subversive movement against the democratic system that was then in place – with no apparent instigation from Sparta but possibly encouraged by the renewal of the Lacedemonian offensive on the Asia Minor coast following the failure of the peace negotiations in autumn-winter 392/1 9 – stemmed from oligarchs exiled by the régime , who maintained control over part of the island. Beyond this point of coincidence, their accounts share little in common. According to Xenophon, the group formed by the richest citizens ( οἱ πλουσιώτεροι ), banished by the demos , requested help from Sparta, whose authorities, aware of the strategic importance of the island, dispatched eight vessels, at the end of summer or in the autumn, under Ecdicus, the recently elected nauarchos for 390/89 10 . By the time he reached Cnidus, the Rhodian democrats had taken over the whole island, and Ecdicus therefore decided to wait there and request reinforcements from Sparta. At the beginning of the following year 11 the ephors decided to send Teleutias, the stepbrother of Agesilaus, from the Corinthian Gulf – technically not as ναύαρχος but as harmost, or else with special powers 12 –, at the head of twelve ships that were joined by another seven at Samos, which was now under an oligarchic régime ; on reaching Cnidus, Teleutias replaced Ecdicus, who returned to Sparta, while Teleutias set sail for Rhodes in 9 Westlake 1983, 240; David 1984, 276, 283 is of the opinion, not without numerous doubts, that the oligarchs might have acted after ascertaining the hostile attitude of Tiribazus towards Athens, and towards Conon in particular, before the arr ival of news tha t the satra p had been discredited by the Great King. The unsuccessful peace negotiations held first at Sardes and then in Sparta highlighted the Machtpolitik of each of the warring sides, even within the Corinthian alliance itself (see Fornis 2005). 10 Xen. Hell . IV 8, 20. 11 After Agesilaus and Teleutias had once again taken over the Corinthian port of Lechaeus and the Long Walls that joined it to the city of Corinth, at the end of the summer of 391 (Xen Hell . IV 4, 18-19 and Ages. 2, 17). According to Cawkwell 1976, 273, Teleutias was still able to sail at the end of that year, but he could hardly have had time to reach Rhodes via Samos and Cnidus – capturing an Athenian squadron en route– before the winter’s termination of sailing. Along with a substantial number of modern critics, we believe that Cawkwell crams an excess iv e num be r of events into the year 391. 12 As is well known, the navarchy cannot be repeated. On as many as three occasions Xenophon depicts Teleutias as having responsibilities in the fleet, in only the third of which, in 387/6, does he identify him explicitly as nauarchos ( Hell . V 1, 13; cfr. IV 4, 19 and 8, 11). Even taking into account that the Athenian historian is often imprecise and vague in his application of the term, we must accept, along with Pareti 1961, 98-101, that for the rest of the time he was harmost, naval comma n de r o r some type of ex tr a ordinary command (f or S tylianou 1988, 468 Teleutias in fact was probably never admiral, since he regards as corrupt the passage of Xenophon in which the title is applied to him); contra Caroline Falkner 1992, 254, 317, who in her «tentative list of Spartan navarchs», an appendix of her doctoral thesis, includes Teleutias three times, considering him to be an individual who, in view of his relationship and close proximity to the all-powerful Agesilaus, could have represented an exception to the law. César Fornis 436 www.historika.unito.it command of a total of twenty-seven vessels 13 . During the voyage he captured ten Athenian triremes which Philocrates was leading to Cyprus to support the revolt of Evagoras of Salamis against the Great King 14 . Once the booty they had seized had been sold at Cnidus, Teleutias headed for Rhodes to “go to the aid of those with whom he shared the same ideology”. Spartan activity in the Aegean and the Hellespont, which had intensified with the threatening presence of Teleutias in Rhodes, was the cause of profound concern among the Athenian demos , which dispatched Thrasybulus of Steiria at the head of a float of forty triremes. Xenophon claims that Thrasybulus felt incapable of dislodging the Rhodian exiles from the fortress where they had taken refuge, supported by Teleutias’s ships, and that, since he was aware that the democrats were in the majority and in control of the cities, he left Rhodes and sailed for the Hellespont and North Aegean as he “thought that he could accomplish some useful service for his state” ( ἐνόµισε καταπρᾶξαι ἄν τι τῇ πόλει ἀγαθόν ) 15 . After making significant political and economic gains in these areas, which point clearly to a revival of Athenian imperialism, the Steirian sailed south, to be killed near the river Eurymedon, in Aspendus (Pamphilia), as a result of which the Athenians sent Agyrrius to replace him 16 . During this time the struggle continued in Rhodes, with the exiles and their Spartan allies entrenched in a fortress, the only fresh development being that Hierax, the navarch for 13 Wes tlake 1983, 242 stresses the contrast drawn by Xenophon between Ecdicus and Teleuti as whe n he sugg ests tha t the former might h ave been inefficient in carrying out his duties; this forms part of Westlake’s theory that the Athenian historian gave excessive and undeserved prominence to Teleutias –Diodorus does not even mention him–, with whom he was linked in a close bond of friendship through Agesilaus. We cannot share the notion that behind the dispatching of Teleutias there lay renewed plans for Asian conquest on the part of Agesilaus, as is suggested by Falkner 1992, 253. 14 Xen. Hell . IV 8, 24. 15 Westlake 1983, 244-245 rejects Xenophon’s explanation outright to put forward the hypothesis that Thrasybulus’s decision was based on the urgent need to obtain funds for the project of imperial reconstruction in Athens, as modern historians tend to recognize, with the substantial difference that the idea did not come from the Steirian, who was simply obeying a mandate from the Assembly; Westlake adduces as a possible additional reason that Thrasybulus was also preparing himself financially t o c ope wit h wha t it was assume d would be a long and hard siege on the Rhodian oligarchs (though this reason is to be found in Xenophon himself, in Hell . IV 8, 30). We cannot subscribe this author’s thesis that Xenophon was deliberately hiding the objectives of the expedition; it is well known that the Athenian strategoi received broad orders from the Ecclesia which left them with a certain margin for manoeuvre, as long as they did not act against the interests of Athens and bore in mind that the people reserved for itself mechanisms of control over these generals ( euthynai , the possibility of re-election, etc.). Pritchett 1974, 50-52 has correctly observed that the image of condottiero wit h whic h some mo dern historians have endowed Thrasybulus is not backed up by the sources. 16 For an appraisal of this notable campaign by Thrasybulus and its internal consequences at Athens, see now Fornis 2009b. Rhodes during the Corinthian War Historika V - ISSN 2240-774X e -ISSN 2039-4985 437 389/8 17 , had replaced Teleutias at the head of the fleet, to remain there until the arrival of the following navarch (388/7), Antalcidas 18 . In Diodorus’s account, on the other hand, it is the Laconizers ( οἱ λακωνίζοντες ) who gain the upper hand in the stasis , killing and expelling many of the democrats who supported Athens; even so, fearing that some citizens might rebel ( εὐλαβούµενοι µή τῶν πολιτῶν νεωτερίσωσιν ), they requested reinforcements from Sparta, which dispatched seven triremes under Eudocimus – Xenophon’s Ecdicus –, Diphilas – in Xenophon, Diphridas – and Philodocus. With this fleet the Lacedemonians won Samos and Cnidus and secured the domination of Rhodes, these being three naval bases which were strategic for the control of the Aegean and which would contribute with twentyseven ships and crews to the Spartan naval offensive. Finally, in a passage detached from those before it and incorporated into the account of the events of 390, the Sicilian historian offers his account of the death of Thrasybulus in Aspendus – again with Xenophon as his source –, after which the Athenian trierarchs headed for Rhodes in order to support the banished philo-Athenian democrats, who, in their internal struggle against the Laconizing oligarchs who controlled the city, had made themselves strong in a φρούριον or hill-fort. Diodorus, like Xenophon, does not return to the Rhodian stasis , which appears not to have come to an end until the Kingʼs Peace guaranteed the autonomia of the cities and put an end to outside interference under the auspices of Sparta 19 . Diodorus’s version suffers a priori from the great disadvantage of being much more succinct and presenting the chronological errors that are usual in this author, which in this case are not insignificant, as he confuses the Asian expeditions of the Spartans Thibron and Diphridas and, more seriously, brings forward Thrasybulus’s departure for the Hellespont to the year 392, that is, by about two years 20 . Consequently, in the context of a disjointed narrative, there is no cause- and-effect connection between Thrasybulus’s campaign and the events in Rhodes; in other words, Thrasybulus was not sent by the Athenian demos to help the Rhodian democrats. Secondly, in Diodorus the oligarchs are successful in their undertaking and manage to dislodge the democrats from power, expelling them from the city and causing a bloodbath in an attempted counter- 17 Xen. Hell . V 1, 3. 18 Xen. Hell . IV 8, 20-30; V 1, 5-6. According to Tuplin 1993, 78, Xenophon gradually los es in te res t in th e affairs of Rhodes as Sparta gains the upper hand in the struggle for control of the island (it is the leitmotif of Tuplin, against the majority view among modern historians, that Xenophon does not highlight the achievements of Sparta but paints a more diffuse picture of them). 19 Diod. XIV 97, 1-4; 99, 4-5. 20 The years of the Corinthian War present a particular chronological disorder in the Bibliotheca Historica , the result of attempting to adapt the peculiar narrative structure of Ephorus, whose history of the Greek world followed geographic criteria.