Remembering War in Fifth-Century Greece: Ideologies, Societies, and Commemorationbeyond Democratic AthensAuthor(s): Polly LowReviewed work(s):Source: World Archaeology, Vol. 35, No. 1, The Social Commemoration of Warfare (Jun.,2003), pp. 98-111Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3560214 .Accessed: 23/08/2012 07:56

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Taylor & Francis, Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to WorldArchaeology.

http://www.jstor.org

Remembering wvar in fifth-century Greece: ideologies, societies, and

commemoration beyond democratic

Athens

Polly Low

Abstract

The centrality of war, and its commemoration, to the political, social, and cultural history of classical Greece is widely acknowledged, but the subject has often been approached in a rather limited way. Attention has focused on democratic Athens, and interpretations of the available evidence have, in turn, concentrated on its function in creating and reinforcing a specifically Athenian and specifically democratic ideology. This article attempts to broaden that focus. Concentrating on late fifth-century monuments from three anti-democratic, and anti-Athenian, city-states (Megara, Tanagra, and Thes- piae), it explores the complex pattern of similarity and difference which is visible in these monu- ments, and suggests that this pattern must be explained with reference to an equally complex network of social, cultural, and ideological factors. War memorials, by their nature, encourage monologic interpretations, but a closer engagement with a broader range of Greek commemorative material reveals the fluidity that underlies those dominant narratives.

Keywords

War; commemoration; Greece: ancient; Boeotia; Megara; Athens.

Remember me when I am dead And simplify me when I'm dead.

(Keith Douglas)

Plato opens his Laws with the assertion that 'every polis is, by nature, perpetually engaged in an undeclared war with every other polis' (Laws 626a4). This claim that the classical Greek city-states lived in an unbroken 'state of war' may well owe much to Plato's particular theoretical preoccupations, but those preoccupations were an understandable product of the age in which he lived: warfare formed a central part of the political, social, and ideological structures of classical Greece. And this centrality applied not only to the

Routledge World Archaeology Vol. 35(1): 98-111 The Social Commemoration of Warfare Taylor&Francs Group ?D 2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd ISSN 0043-8243 print/1470-1375 online

DOI: 10.1080/0043824032000078108

Remembering war in fifth-century Greece 99

fighting itself, but also - perhaps unsurprisingly - to its aftermath. Some of the most coherent 'international laws' of the Greek world are those which regulate the treatment of the bodies of the war-dead: control of those bodies during a battle becomes a marker of victory; their return to a defeated enemy after the battle demonstrates the morality of the victor (Pritchett 1985: 94-100).

The customs associated with the treatment of the war-dead extended beyond the battlefield: commemoration of the war-dead in their home polis was also a widespread feature in the Greek world. However, study of those customs has generally had a very narrow focus: the city of Athens, and, more specifically still, the democratic city of Athens. In part, this focus is an understandable reflection of the quantitative predominance of Athenian evidence (in particular, of literary evidence for the rituals associated with the commemorations), and of a widespread belief among modern scholars that Athenian practice was unique among the Greek states (Robertson 1983: 80). And it also has a lot to do with the neatness of the Athenian model: that is, the way in which practices of commemoration seem to fit so well into the bigger picture of politics and ideology in the democratic city.

There are various ways in which this connection can be framed. A chronological version of the argument attempts to demonstrate a direct connection between the institution of the custom of public burial of war-dead, and one of the various 'inventors' of Athenian democracy - Cleisthenes - is frequently cited here (Stupperich 1994). The evidence for the early development of the Athenian customs is, however, so murky that any such claim must be considered extremely tentative. But a synchronic version of the argument, which points to a connection between the well-developed, and widely attested, practices of democracy and commemoration in the later part of the classical period, seems more immediately persuasive.

There is, first of all, the evidence of the public memorials: the names of the dead, for each year, and sometimes for each campaign, are listed in a simple form, arranged under the headings of the ten 'tribes' into which the citizen body was divided, and which formed a key organizational unit of the Athenian democratic (as well as military) system. The dead man's secondary identification comes, that is, not from his patronymic but from his tribal affiliation. This rather austere method of identification is unusual even in Athenian terms: on other official lists found in Athens (lists of magistrates, of victors, and so on), citizens' names are typically accompanied by their patronymic or demotic (that is, name of their home village), as well as the name of their tribe. What is highlighted by the method of identification used on the casualty lists, therefore, is not the connection of the individual to his ancestral lineage, but his tie to the democratic structures of the polis. The individual citizen is not particularly important in himself, or even as part of a family, but as a member of the democratic city. To quote Nicole Loraux, 'on these lists, fallen citizens had no status other than that of Athenians' (1986: 23).

As a part of that group, however, the dead soldier becomes entitled to a distinctive, and at times exclusive, set of honours. The rituals associated with the funeral itself, together with the scale, and iconography, of the monuments, are expensive privileges previously associated primarily with the city's rich elite; moreover, for at least past of the fifth century, those privileges seem to have been specifically denied to any but the war-dead (Morris 1992: 144). The broad pattern of commemorative behaviour seems to fit perfectly

100 Polly Low

with what is widely perceived to be a key tenet of Athenian democratic ideology: partici- pation in the service of the city is open to all citizens; and all citizens who serve the city properly will receive equal honour. And it appears far from coincidental that the clearest expressions of that democratic ideology are found in the orations (epitaphioi logoi) which were delivered at the public funeral. In the rhetoric of these speeches, the eulogies of the dead and of the democratic city are, as Loraux (1978, and especially 1986) has demon- strated, so intimately connected that the separation of the treatment of the dead from the politics of the city can begin to seem impossible: the dead are glorious precisely because they died for their city; the city is ennobled by the sacrifice of those men.

That, then, is the interpretation of Athenian practice that is now more or less the orthodox line on the subject. The basic question underlying this article, then, is: what happens to this interpretative model when we look outside Athens and, perhaps more importantly, outside a democratic context? How far does this model work in different political and ideological environments? And, conversely, to what extent might contempo- rary material from elsewhere in Greece complicate our understanding of Athenian memorialization and its social and ideological function?

The geographical move which I want to make is not a large one: the material which will be discussed here comes from Athens' neighbours in central Greece, the Megarians and Boeotians (see Fig 1). However, the political and ideological gulf between the two sides is much wider. Athens and her neighbours did not get on, but were divided ideologically and

Figure 1 Attica, Megara, and Boeotia.

Remembering war in fifth-century Greece 101

politically. Fifth-century Athens was democratic, the federation of Boeotian cities was run on a broadly oligarchic model (Larsen 1955; Salmon 1976; Buck 1985), as too (except for a brief interlude in the 420s) was the city of Megara (Legon 1981: 235-47). Punitive Athenian sanctions against Megara were (in some accounts at least) a catalyst for the Peloponnesian war (de Ste. Croix 1972: ch. 7; Legon 1981: ch. 9). When Athens was finally defeated in that war, the Thebans (leaders of the Boeotian federation) took the side of those who wanted to destroy the city entirely (Xenophon Hellenica 2.2.19). And, at least in the case of the Boeotians, that practical hostility also finds expression in more abstract areas of Athenian discourse, including - it seems particularly worth mentioning here - in discussions of burial and commemoration. It was noted above that modern scholars have often liked to see Athenian commemorative practices as being unique in Greece, and this is a belief which could easily be encouraged by Athenian sources, which repeatedly contrast Athens' notable respect for the war-dead with the shameful disregard for these conventions displayed by other states - and particularly by the Boeotians. In Lysias' Funeral Oration for example, the Athenians of the mythological past are represented as going to war with Thebes in order to force them to show proper respect for the war dead (?7-10). Such allegations recur in the more recent past: Thucydides' account of the Battle of Delion of 424, in which the Athenians were defeated by the Boeotians, concludes by describing how the Boeotians, 'contrary to the norms of the Greeks', refused to return the bodies of their defeated enemies (Thucydides 4.97.2-99).

The first point which needs to be made, therefore, in relation to these Megarian and Boeotian monuments is, simply, that they exist and that claims for the uniqueness of Athenian practice must immediately be treated with rather more caution. The precise ways in which that picture of Athenian uniqueness might require amendment will, I hope, emerge when some specific examples are considered in more detail.

The first example was found in Megara in the 1950s, and published in Kritsas 1989. It is a fragment of a white marble stele, 76cm high and 53-6cm wide, listing (in the preserved portion) twenty-six names, under tribal headings. The inscription is written in the charac- teristically Athenian stoichedon style (in which the letters are arranged in a regular grid-like form); the script, however, is a more typically Megarian mixture of alphabetic styles, with archaic letter forms appearing alongside the Ionic characters which were, at the end of the fifth century, becoming the standard forms of the Greek alphabet (Kritsas 1989: 171f.; Jeffery 1990: 132-7). If the list as a whole had any heading it has not been preserved, but the identification of the stele as a casualty list seems secure: the uneven distribution between tribes, and the apparent inclusion of non-citizens (discussed below), suggests that the list cannot be of magistrates or other officials; moreover, the list seems not to have been composed at a single moment - extra names have been added to the side of the stele, pointing to a situation in which full details of casualties emerged over a relatively extended period (a parallel can be seen on a well-preserved Athenian casualty list: IG i3 1162). The absence of any heading also makes it hard to find a definite date for the list, but it has been suggested - primarily on the basis of letter forms - that it should be placed in the last quarter of the fifth-century (Kritsas 1989: 174-6; Megara is involved in many incidents in the Peloponnesian War in which these men might have died).

But even if the precise date of the stone remains uncertain, it is possible to say something about its content and context. First, it should be noted that, although the

102 Polly Low

Megarians, like the Athenians, are identified by their tribe, this identification is supple- mented by their patronymic. This list seems, then, to support neatly one of the claims made for the format of the Athenian lists - democratic Athens suppresses these poten- tially elitist markers of identity; oligarchic Megara has no such qualms - although the correlation is not necessarily quite so neat. It is, for a start, not impossible that this list was produced by the democratic regime that briefly took power in Megara in the 420s. The dating of the list would allow it to be a product of either democratic or oligarchic government, and evidence from elsewhere in Greece shows that the presence or absence of patronymics cannot be used as a diagnostic tool: a mid-fourth-century law of the democratic Thasians specifies that the war-dead should be listed with their patronymics (Pouilloux 1954: no.141, line 8); and, as will be seen, patronymics are absent from some monuments erected by oligarchic regimes.

In other respects, comparison with Athens reveals more similarity than difference. The list's physical appearance deserves some comment: although the fragmentary nature of the inscription makes it impossible to say anything about the shape of the monument as a whole, the use of the stoichedon style is an unusual characteristic (there are only two other examples from Megara (Austin 1938: 7, 15, 71)), and one which would most naturally suggest Athenian influence.

Another similarity with Athenian practice - although it is an aspect of Athenian practice which is often overlooked - can be seen in the presence in the list (at lines 22-5) of four names listed under the heading epoikoi. The precise status of these individuals is unclear - the title is attested only here in a Megarian context - but it seems most likely that these were non-citizen residents of Megara who, being exiles, allies, or perhaps even slaves (Thraix [line 22], literally 'Thracian', is a common name for slaves acquired from that region), had fought (and died) for Megara. Such inclusion of non-citizen outsiders is not unparalleled: another example will be seen below, and it occurs also in Athenian lists

('barbarian archers' appear in IG i3 1172.35, 1180.26f, 1190.137f, 1192.152f; there is even a slave in IG i3 1144.139f). The phenomenon is rarely emphasized in accounts of the Athenian memorials because it does not fit so neatly with a view, derived above all from the rhetoric of the funeral orations, which associates these lists and monuments with the creation of a specifically polis-centred, citizen-based identity (Loraux 1986: 32-7). These lists in fact seem to display what is, in the context of the Greek polis, an unusually broad

conception of community. Greek identity is frequently argued to have been constructed, at a variety of levels, as much by exclusion as inclusion: Greeks were Greeks because they were not barbarians; citizens were citizens because they were not outsiders (Cartledge 1997). This bipolar approach to inclusion and exclusion is particularly prominent in some

(ancient and modern) accounts of Greek ideologies of warfare: the citizen is a soldier, the soldier is a citizen, and the non-citizen should not perform either of these roles (Hunt 1998: esp. ch. 1). On these lists, that rigid system of opposition appears to break down: citizens and non-citizens are united by the fact of having died for the polis. The differenti- ation between them is, to some extent, maintained by the simple fact of stating their non-citizen status, but the equally incontestable fact of their listing on the same stone as their citizen fellow-soldiers is a still more powerful statement of inclusion.

This inclusiveness becomes even more striking when it is considered in conjunction with another aspect of this monument: its location. The circumstances of the stone's

Remembering war in fifth-century Greece 103

discovery are somewhat obscure (Kritsas 1989: 185-7), but it seems to have been found somewhere in the ancient city, perhaps even in its agora (central meeting and

market-place). It is possible that the stone was in a secondary use there, but there is

literary evidence which suggests that the Megarians did commemorate their war-dead in the city itself: Pausanias (1.43.3) records seeing 'in the city' the graves of the Megarians who died fighting the Persians. The location of these monuments is significant not only because of its physical centrality to the life of the city, but also because of its implications for the status of these war-dead. Normal Greek practice was to bury the dead outside the walls of the city; intramural burial, and particularly burial in the agora, was usually reserved for those who had a particular importance to the city - its founder, or its semi-deified heroes. What seems to be happening here, then, is a process which can be

seen, in various forms, both in Athens (Stupperich 1977: 62-5, Loraux 1986: 37-41; Whitley 1994: 227-30) and elsewhere (see below): the status of the commemorated war-dead becomes assimilated in some way to that of the city's heroes. And, as such, the war-dead might be expected - like the other heroes - to continue to serve, even in death, as defenders of the polis; the monument is not, therefore, only a passive memorial, but

performs a more active function too. But the association with heroes should also highlight once more the peculiar nature of the monument: the heroes of a community provide 'a fundamental mechanism by which a group's sense of shared identity may be forged' (Parker 1996: 38). Again, we might expect the shared identity constructed in this way to

align neatly with the formal boundaries of the group responsible for the creation - in this

case, the polis of Megara. Instead, however, it seems to be possible to see in this monument an interesting tension between its two different roles: a civic site of

quasi-heroic cult and a memorial to a group whose identity extended beyond those strictly civic boundaries.

Similar phenomena can be observed in the second example, a memorial from the Boeotian city of Tanagra. This inscription has been known for much longer than the

Megarian: it was first published in 1875 (Koumanoudis 1875: 213; subsequent editions in Roehl 1882: no.157; IG vii 585; Venencie 1960: 611-15), although it had been discovered at some unspecified time before that. It forms part of the large corpus of inscriptions found in and around the village of Skimitari (about 5km north of the site of ancient

Tanagra); the context of its original discovery is not known. The casualty list is inscribed, in four columns, on a not particularly large (less than a

metre square) piece of local 'black' stone, in the local dialect and script (Jeffery 1990: 94). Again, there is no heading, although in this case - where the stone is fully preserved - it seems that there may never have been one. And here too it is hard to pin down a firm date for the list: the nature of the script has usually encouraged the dating of the inscription to the second half of the fifth century, and literary (that is, mostly, Thucydidean) evidence for

Tanagran conflicts in this period has narrowed the choice of possible dates down to two: either a skirmish of 426 (reported in Thucydides 3.91.5, and argued for by Koumanoudis

1875), or - probably more plausibly, given the numbers involved - the battle of Delion of 424 (Thucydides 4.76,89-96; this date was first suggested by Keramopoullos (1920), and is now generally accepted).

Sixty-three names are listed on the stone, without patronymics (the omission of which

is, in fact, a standard feature of all Tanagran epitaphs). Two of the dead (column 1, lines

104 Polly Low

16f.) are described as Eretrieus (from the city of Eretria on the nearby island of Euboea): these two names are the only ones which are qualified with any further information. The inclusion of these outsiders is not too hard to explain in terms of the geography of the region or of the interstate politics of the period (evidence for a major conflict between Athens and Eretria in the 420s is disputed (Meiggs and Lewis 1988: 143f.), but the presence of disaffected exiles in the Boeotian forces would be quite plausible). But, as in the Megarian (and Athenian) examples, if this monument is thought of as creating a community of the dead, it is significant again that that community is not restricted only to members of the polis.

In this example too there is some, admittedly very faint, suggestion that the commemo- rated dead might have been treated as heroes: in the top of the inscribed stone, there is a small hollow, which, it has been suggested, is best connected with the offering of libations at the tomb, and, therefore, with some sort of funerary or heroic cult (Roberts 1887: 224; the distinction between the two forms of tomb-offering is, however, always hard, and in this case impossible, to determine). So here too it might be possible to see another example of that tension between the role of the monument as a focus of activity within the life of the polis - although the precise label which should be given to that activity must remain obscure - and its function as a memorial to those from beyond the polis.

The material from Megara and Tanagra is, it must be said, sparse, and conclusions drawn from it alone will always be somewhat tentative. But it is possible to say rather more about my third, and final, example (Figs 2 and 3). The state war memorial at Thespiae is - or was, when it was first discovered - among the best-preserved examples from classical Greece, and it has an appropriately epic history of discovery, excavation, and publication. The earliest investigations, carried out by the Athenian Archaeological Society in 1882 (and reported by Stamatakis 1883a, 1883b), revealed the outline of the stone enclosure, as well as most of the inscribed lists of names. In 1911, the whole tomb was excavated, and preliminary reports published (Keramopoullos 1911), but it was not until 1977 that there appeared a comprehensive study (Schilardi 1977) of the excavation and its findings (or as comprehensive a study as was possible after such a long gap).

What these enquiries revealed was a large enclosure (32m x 23m), located alongside an ancient road about a kilometre from the modern village and close to the eastern gate of the ancient city, in an area which seems to have been one of the city's main cemeteries. When excavated, the enclosure was found to contain the traces of a large funeral pyre, with remains of cremated bodies and of extensive grave offerings: ceramics, glass, and terra- cottas, as well as bronze and bone objects, and traces of foodstuffs (catalogued in Schilardi 1977). As well as this cremation, the tomb also contained seven inhumations. The reason for this anomaly is not quite clear. The possibility that the different form of burial reflects a difference in the status of the dead cannot be ruled out, although there is no good evidence to support this view (no obvious difference in the nature or quality of the grave goods, for

example). Arguments based on chronology tend to be favoured, although these too are limited by lack of evidence, and, in particular, by the absence of any detailed stratigraphic record: it is not, therefore, possible to tell whether the inhumations preceded or followed the cremation. It has been argued that, for some reason, these seven bodies were returned to Thespiae before the other casualties, and therefore reached home when they were still in a condition in which burial rather than cremation was a viable option (Keramopoullos 1911:

N 0 Lion

N I I m * / m m A 'N.j \ l\

m~ ~ ~ ~ ~~~~~~--. i* / ? t"-"--]::!!]." ^~ o

0 10 '~. . ""'

Inscribed stelae

Fragments of blocks and cornice L.J

~Fragments of blocks L!

Fragments of blocks

Poros blocks from the pedestal

Excavations revealing cremated bodies

Other burials l Paved Avenue

Other stelae Enclosure wall ': ......j

Masonry fragments Edge of Excavation i-'-)~~~~L

I

1\ - I - - IF B - r ....m onm

. N , h

, N , \ N \ , I I I I I I I I I- - , - -

I:L I I i

. 11

p

I

I

I

lns Ii

I[ --

E3

I

i S ::::

i i i:i

::::: I ! ~1i i

[ i?:i!.. 'I i:::

?

.j

...

1/

Figure 2 Thespian memorial: plan (after Stamatakis 1883a).

ct s fw < m -O ? -< >_.z> _ 0

.e~o >- (3 ?-o-o <I ? _

- . L. . . L X

> >l . ~- .

^^WW ^?^2'? W W 1-i- l i I D

fwC 1 BKn AS.3 eoW ?

. z- ,- _

< C1 LL U* II IL H LL LL " I \ .. .

'o, i \ l 3

; v <: ?, e<. ? <; J </ r~ 3 _ ? > o-r< r

f

E~~- 0<-kW~~~ =CV < _ .D _ v

~~~~-'SOa

j < O O>Xu -t \ <u . W F w X -el-e -os M i

Remembering war in fifth-century Greece 107

159; followed by Clairmont 1983: 232). More convincing, perhaps, is the suggestion that these inhumations took place after the cremation: these bodies might be those who died of their wounds some time after the battle (Kurtz and Boardman 1971: 248; followed by Schilardi 1977: 63). It seems improbable, at any rate, that there was any great chronological gap between the two kinds of burial, since the inhumations certainly precede the erection of the stone enclosure (the head of one of the skeletons lies under the line of the east enclosure wall (Keramopoullos 1911:154; Schilardi 1977:25,64)).

The pottery associated with both inhumation and cremation can be dated to the second half of the fifth century - which immediately makes Delion a likely candidate for the battle with which to associate the monument. Further evidence to support this view comes in the set of inscriptions associated with this burial (Fig. 3A; published as IG vii 1888, with amendments in Keramopoullos 1920:19, n. 2). Eight stelae were found in the road in front of the enclosure, where they had probably been reused in repairs to the road in the Byzantine period (Schilardi 1977: 24f.). A fragment of a ninth was found a short distance away. All the stelae are inscribed in the same hand, which confirms the immediate impression that they form part of a single set (Kirchhoff 1887: 140f.). They are in the Boeotian dialect and in the local script (Jeffery 1990: 94), but, like the Megarian monu- ment, are carved in the characteristically Athenian stoichedon style.

In the usual reconstruction of the monument, which seems entirely plausible, it is suggested that these stelae were placed on the front wall of the enclosure, on either side of a sculpted lion (Fig. 3B). There would have been space for about twenty-five stelae on the wall, containing around 300 names in total. There is no heading, but this seems likely to be an accident of survival: a later example (SEG 2.186) of a Thespian state epitaph, possibly from the Corinthian War of the early fourth century, has the heading 'these men died in the war .. .'. On the stelae that survive, 102 names can be read: there are between ten and twelve names on each of the complete stelae. In almost all cases, only simple names are listed, without patronymics. There are, however, two interesting exceptions. On stele b, the names in lines 9 and 10 - Tisimeneis and Polynikos - are supplemented by a reference to their status as, respectively, pythionika and olympionika (victors in Pythian and Olympic games).

Finally, this Thespian monument provides some of the clearest evidence yet for major offerings forming part of the honours provided for the war dead. The pottery associated with those offerings seems to fall into two discrete chronological groups: one set more or less contemporary with the original burial and a second group dating from three or four decades later (Schilardi 1977: 26-8, 35-7). The reasons for the interruption in the offer- ings, or for their resumption, are unclear - they should perhaps be associated with the various political upheavals suffered by Thespiae in the last quarter of the fifth century -

but the extended period over which they are made should emphasize once more the potential importance of these monuments, not just as synchronic markers of respect for the dead at the moment of their death, but also as symbols and sites with which the local community might actively engage over a more extended period.

In many respects, therefore, this Thespian monument neatly complements the Megarian and Tanagran examples which have been considered so far; but in other respects it is importantly different - and different in ways which should draw attention back to the commemorative practices of democratic Athens.

108 Polly Low

First of all, it should be noted that this Thespian monument is not just a memorial but a burial, and therefore represents an unusual deviation from the regular Greek practice of burying the war-dead on the battlefield (Pritchett (1985: 125-259) has a comprehensive survey of the evidence). The deviation is unusual, but not unique: the best-known excep- tion to the rule is, of course, the Athenian custom of bringing back all their war-dead to their own city for burial (Thucydides 2.34.5; there are exceptions here too - notably Marathon and Plataea). Here, then, Thespian practice is strikingly aligned with that of Athens and against that of the Greek world more generally.

Another notable feature of the Thespian monument - especially in comparison with that from Tanagra - is its scale. In fact, two contrasting modes of display can be seen in

juxtaposition here: on the one hand, the ostentatious scale of the monument as a whole - its size, its prominent position, the sculpted lion, the number and quality of the grave goods, and so on; on the other, the extremely understated character of the lists of casualties. There is a paradox of sorts here, but it is one which is very familiar from Athens and which, in the Athenian context, is usually explained in terms of democratic ideology: the polis takes over the modes of display which had formally been reserved for the aristocratic elite, and makes that level of display available to every citizen - but, importantly, to the citizen not as individual, but as a part of the polis. The parallel is not, of course, absolute. The absence of patronymics, for example, is, as in Tanagra, a standard feature of Thespian epitaphs. More- over, it might be argued that to specify the status of Polynikos and Tisimeneis as Olympic and Pythian victors is deliberately to emphasize their elite credentials - although against this it could be pointed out that the appropriation of individual athletic achievement in the service of the collective glory of the city is a widespread Greek phenomenon, and that, in

military contexts especially, athletic victors appear to have had a particularly valued, almost talismanic, role (Kurke 1993: esp. 133-41). But, in spite of these objections the basic similarity remains: it is the whole - the polis - rather than the part - the individual (and individuated) citizen - which remains central to the memorial.

How, then, is this similarity to be explained? An immediately obvious solution is the possibility of Athenian influence. Thespiae is, after all, not so far away from Attica, and Athenian artistic and cultural influence is not hard to detect: it has been identified in

Thespian art (Demand 1982: ch. 7), in (private) Thespian funerary reliefs (Rodenwalt 1913: 339), and - in this example specifically - in the use of the stoichedon style of

inscription (Austin 1938: 74f.; Clairmont 1983: 233). Accepting artistic influence is one

thing, but what about ideological influence? It must be admitted that Thespian history shows evidence of this too: the alleged 'atticizing' of 423 (Thucydides 4.133) is a clear, though not isolated, example of Thespian defection from the Boeotian party line: her decision, shared only by Plataea among Boeotian cities, to side with Athens against Persia is the most striking earlier example (Herodotus 7.132.1). But in 424, Thespiae was still, publicly at least, a loyal Boeotian polis, and still - we have to assume - adhering to the Boeotian constitutional model which, even if only moderately oligarchic, was certainly not democratic in anything like the Athenian sense. Those commemorated in this monument died fighting against Athens, for an oligarchic against a democratic system. What seems to be needed, therefore, is an interpretation of this monument which allows for its importance in the construction of a shared community identity, perhaps even an egalitarian identity (and it should be remembered that some Greek definitions of equality

Remembering war in fifth-century Greece 109

allow the concept to be perfectly compatible with oligarchy (Cartledge 1996, 2000)), but does not require the application of a specifically democratic spin to those concepts.

What conclusions can be drawn from all this? The picture which emerges from this brief

survey is of a system of overlapping, but not entirely congruent, practices. Commemora- tion of war-dead was, it seems clear, important in the Greek world even beyond Athens. It may well be that some aspects of Athenian practice were unique to Athens - evidence for the practice of delivering funeral orations, for example, is restricted to Athens - but it is

equally clear that other aspects were not. It is also apparent that this overlapping system of similarity and difference cannot be

explained simply by reference to divergences in political ideology. Attention must also be

paid to various other factors which might well be in tension with such ideologies, and, of course, with each other: the practical political conditions of the moment; the influence of local traditions of commemoration (including - a factor not treated here, but one which would certainly complicate the picture still further - the interplay between 'public' and 'private' commemoration of the war-dead); as well as potential cultural and artistic influ- ence from neighbouring poleis. And this interplay of political and cultural factors must be seen to be important not only in influencing the form of the monuments at the moment of their creation, but also in shaping subsequent responses to them. Democratic Athenians saw in their traditions of commemorating their war-dead something intrinsically Athenian and

something intrinsically democratic. The fact that the oligarchic Thespians were, simulta- neously, engaged in objectively very similar practices, or that the Athenian monuments also commemorated non-Athenians, does not mean that those Athenians were deluded in their beliefs, but shows, rather, the extent to which the meanings of commemorative monuments of this sort are not fixed by the nature of the monuments themselves, but derive their shape from the changing contexts in which they are found.

This possibility of fluidity of meaning is something which is easily - and not accidentally - overlooked. In both ancient and modern societies, the urge to simplify the war-dead is a

strong one (Turnbull 1993: 416f.), and, in studies of classical Greek practice, the powerful rhetoric of the Athenian literary sources has encouraged the acceptance of just such a

simplifying, univocal narrative: the commemoration of the war-dead is about citizens, not outsiders; about groups, not individuals; about democracy, not oligarchy. These dominant narratives are, of course, important. But what is, it seems to me, equally important, and what a closer engagement with non-literary and non-Athenian sources makes unavoid- able, is a recognition of those other patterns which run parallel, and sometimes counter, to the more obvious trends.

Acknowledgements

Earlier versions of this article were delivered as papers in London and Cambridge. I am

very grateful to the audiences on those occasions, and to the many others (including the editor and referees of World Archaeology) who have offered advice on other occasions, for their helpful comments, questions, and suggestions.

Christ's College, Cambridge, CB2 3BU, UK (E-mail: pal29@cam.ac.uk)

110 Polly Low

Abbreviations

IG i3: Inscriptiones Graecae, vol. 1, Inscriptiones Atticae Euclidis Anno Anteriores, 3rd edn. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 1981-98.

IG vii: Inscriptiones Graecae, vol. 7, Megaridis, Oropiae, Boeotiae. Berlin: G. Reimer, 1882

SEG 2: Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, vol. 2. Leiden: Sijthoff, 1924.

References

Austin, R. P. 1938. The Stoichedon Style in Greek Inscriptions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Buck, R. J. 1985. Boeotian oligarchies and Greek oligarchic theory. In Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Boiotian Antiquities (eds J. M. Fossey and H. Giroux). Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, pp. 25-31.

Cartledge, P. A. 1996. Comparatively equal. In Demokratia: A Conversation on Democracies, Ancient and Modern (eds J. Ober and C. Hedrick). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 175-86.

Cartledge, P. A. 1997. The Greeks: A Portrait of Self and Others, revised edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Cartledge, P. A. 2000. Boiotian swine f(or)ever? The Boiotian superstate, 395 BC. In Polis and Politics: Studies in Ancient Greek History (eds P. Flensted-Jensen, T. Heine Nielsen and L. Rubin- stein). Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, University of Copenhagen, pp. 397-418.

Clairmont, C. W. 1983. Patrios Nomos: Public Burial in Athens during the Fifth and Fourth Centuries BC. BAR International Series, No. 161. Oxford: BAR.

Demand, N. H. 1982. Thebes in the Fifth Century: Heracles Resurgent. London, Boston, MA, and Melbourne: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Hunt, P. 1998. Slaves, Warfare and Ideology in the Greek Historians. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- sity Press.

Jeffery, L. H. 1990. The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece, revised edn, with a supplement by A. W. Johnston. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Keramopoullos, A. D. 1911. Anaskaphi Thespikou polyandriou tou 424 p. Ch. Praktika, 153-63.

Keramopoullos, A. D. 1920. Eikones polemiston tes en Dilioi maches (424 p. Ch.). Archaiologike Ephemeris, 1-36.

Kirchhoff, A. 1887. Studien zur Geschichte des Griechischen Alphabets, 4th edn. Gutersloh: C. Bertelsmann.

Koumanoudis, S. A. 1875. Epigraphia Tanagraion kai Chorsieion. Athenaion, 4: 209-16.

Kritsas, Ch. B. 1989. Katalogos pesonton apo ta Megara. In Philia epe eis Ge6rgon E. Myl6nan, vol. 3. Athens: Athenais Archaiologike Hetaireia, pp. 167-87.

Kurke, L. 1993. The economy of kudos. In Cultural Politics in Archaic Greece: Cult, Performance, Politics (eds C. Dougherty and L. Kurke). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 131-63.

Kurtz, D. and Boardman, J. 1971. Greek Burial Customs., London: Thames & Hudson.

Larsen, J. A. 0. 1955. The Boeotian Confederacy and fifth-century oligarchic theory. Transactions of the American Philological Association, 86:40-50.

Legon, R. P. 1981. Megara: The Political History of a Greek City-State to 336 BC. Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press.

Remembering war in fifth-century Greece 111

Loraux, N. 1978. Mourir devant Troie, tomber pour Athenes - de la gloire de l'heros a l'idee de la cit6. Information sur les sciences sociales, 17: 801-17.

Loraux, N. 1986. The Invention of Athens: The Funeral Oration in the Classical City (trans. A. Sheridan). Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press.

Meiggs, R. and Lewis, D. M. 1988. A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions, to the End of the Fifth Century B.C., revised edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Morris, I. 1992. Death-Ritual and Social Structure in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Parker, R. C.T. 1996. Athenian Religion:A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Pouilloux, J. 1954. Recherches sur l'histoire et les cultes de Thasos, vol. 1. Etudes thasiennes 3. Paris: E. de Boccard.

Pritchett, W. K. 1985. The Greek State at War, vol. 4. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press.

Roberts, E. S. 1887. An Introduction to Greek Epigraphy, Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Robertson, N. 1983. The collective burial of fallen soldiers at Athens, Sparta and elsewhere: 'ancestral custom' and modern misunderstanding. Echoes du Monde Classique/Classical Views, 28: 78-92.

Rodenwalt, G. 1913. Thespische reliefs. JDI, 28: 309-39.

Roehl, H. 1882. Inscriptiones Graecae Antiquissimae, praeter Atticas in Attica repertas. Berlin: G. Reimer.

Ste. Croix, G. E. M. de. 1972. The Origins of the Peloponnesian War. London: Duckworth.

Salmon, P. 1976. Etude stir la Confederation Beotienne (447/6-386): Son organisation et son admin- istration. Brussels: Acad6mie Royale de Belgique.

Schilardi, D. U. 1977. The Thespian Polyandrion (424 BC): the excavations and finds from a Thespian state burial. Doctoral dissertation, Princeton.

Stamatakis, P. 1883a. Ekthesis peri t6n en Boiotiai ergon en etei 1882. Praktika, 63-74.

Stamatakis, P. 1883b. Esphalmenes ekdoches epanorth6sis.Archaiologike Ephemeris, 191-3.

Stupperich, R. 1977. Staatsbegrabnis und Privatgrabmal im klassischen Athen. Doctoral disserta- tion, Munster.

Stupperich, R. 1994. The iconography of Athenian state burials in the Classical Period. In The Archaeology of Athens and Attica under the Democracy (eds W. D. E. Coulson, 0. Palagia, T. L. Shear Jr, H. A. Shapiro and F. J. Frost). Oxford: Oxbow, pp. 93-103.

Turnbull, P. 1993. Remembering Pearl Harbor: the semiotics of the Arizona memorial. In Challenging Boundaries: Global Flows, Territorial Identities (eds M. J. Shapiro and H. R. Alker). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 407-34.

Venencie, J. 1960. Inscriptions de Tanagra en alphabet dpichorique. Bulletin de Correspondance Hellenique, 84: 589-616.

Whitley, J. 1994. The monuments that stood before Marathon: tomb cult and hero cult in Archaic Attica. American Journal of Archaeology, 48: 213-30.