Factores de base:

While the later Hellenistic Boiotian koinon met at the sanctuary of Onchestos, and the Roman-era koinon at the Itoneion at Koroneia, immediately after 446BC it met at Thebes, as it may have done during its development in the first half of the fifth century BC.323 Aside from military matters, much of their concern would have been the everyday running, organization, and funding of the common Boiotian sanctuaries and their festivals. These latter especially were an important locus of aristocratic ambition, and the evidence of Pindar suggests (as I will discuss presently) that the prominent Boiotian elites wished to be seen excelling on a specifically pan-Boiotian stage. It was these elites – the wealthy, powerful and influential figures in Greek society – who commissioned Pindar to compose his epinikia, providing the

319 _{Thucydides suggests Athenian ambition as a motive, and speaks of only one battle at Tanagra (1.107.2–} 108.2); Diodorus speaks of a Spartan-Theban alliance and speaks of two battles (11.81.1–2). See Mackil, 2013, 33 n.55.

320 _{Thuc. 1.113.1. Orchomenizers - Hellanikos FGrH 4 F 81; Theopomp. FGrH 115 F 407; Aristophanes FGrH} 379 F 3. Mackil has suggested the lack of Thebes in this line-up may reflect Theban weakness at this time, the result of numerous setbacks Mackil, 2013, 37. Plut. Ages. 19.2; Dull, 1977, 313. Exiles from Lokris and Euboia are mentioned in Thuc. 1.113.2.

321 _{Thuc. 1.113.1–2; the liberation of Boiotia, see Thuc.3.62.4.}

322 _{Beck, 2014, 37. The timing suggests that the military coalition which drove out the Athenians then became a} political federation - Kurke, 2007, 70.

323 _{Onchestos – see IG VII 27; 28; 209-212; 214-218; 220-222; 1747; 1748; 1750; 1755; XII 9.912; and SEG} 3.361; 23.281; 25.504, the majority of which date to the end of the third century BC and beginning of the second century BC, none later than 171BC - Schachter, 1986, 208. Itonion – see Paus. 9.34.1; IG VII 3426. Koinon at Thebes - Hell. Oxy. 16.2–4 (Bartoletti).

75

first clear evidence of the personal agency lacking in the earlier dedications.324 Not only did this involvement with the sanctuaries and their games increase the prestige of the elite individuals and their families, but at the same time, the invitation to foreigners to share in the

agōnes became a way of projecting ‘Boiotianness,’ and Boiotian identity, into the wider Greek world. As I argued in my Introduction, the choices of the cults or events promoted and commemorated through the agōnes became a measure of precisely those things which the Boiotians themselves deemed important and wished to be remembered for. That a number of these games celebrated Boiotian unity suggests the central role they played in both the fomenting of, and wider promotion of, an increasingly robust Boiotian identity, and the growing importance of this unity to the aristocratic elite.

The Suda places the birth of Pindar in the 65th Olympiad (520-516BC) in Kynoskephalai near Thebes, with his earliest datable ode (Pythian 10) written in 498BC, his latest (Pythian 8) in 446 BC.325 His floruit thus coincides exactly with the period summarized above, from the beginning of the fifth century BC, through the Persian War, and down to the formation of the federal Boiotian League post-Koroneia 446BC. As such, the poetry of Pindar allows us a glimpse into this world of elite competition and self-expression, of elite interaction, at precisely the time of the crystallization of the political Boiotian koinon. The works of Pindar are a source of information on innumerable aspects of the Archaic and Classical period, but my interest is here limited to the evidence Pindar provides of the network of agōnes participated in within Boiotia; and of the importance of this form of self-expression among the elites.326 Pindar’s

epinikia in many ways represent a literary equivalent to the monumental statues and inscribed dedicatory epigrams whose appearance after the mid-sixth century, with their celebration of individual achievement, paved the way for the ‘individualized’ odes of Simonides and subsequently Pindar.327 In many ways the two forms developed in tandem, both evidence of the growing importance of the Games in the sixth century and beyond as a focus for competition between the aristocratic elite of Greece, and between their cities.328 _{Pindar’s odes provide us}

324 _{Hornblower and Morgan, 2007, 4.} 325 _{Suda (s.v.Píndaros); Race, 1997, 5.}

326 _{Even a cursory bibliography of the full range Pindar scholarship is beyond the scope of this thesis. For my} current theme, however, the essays collected in Hornblower and Morgan (2006) have been of particular use. 327 _{Thomas, 2007, 165.}

328 _{Thomas, 2007, 165. The competition between cities will be discussed in later chapters, especially where the} inter-polis rivalries within Boiotia seem to have fuelled something of an agonistic arms race – see for example Chapters Three and Five, on the booms experienced at the end of the third century BC and following the Mithridatic Wars in the first century BC.

76

with evidence of these elite concerns, and (inside Boiotia) with evidence of the importance of the local agonistic networks.

At the beginning of the fifth century BC, common Boiotian agonistic festivals were sites of continued inter-Boiotian networking by the aristocratic elite of various cities, which thus provided the substructure that enabled the eventual crystallization of the Boiotian koinon.329 The importance of this inter-Boiotian networking is revealed most clearly in Pindar’s

Daphnephorikon for Agasikles (fr.94b), a hymn which may have been linked to the celebration of the rite of the Daphnephoria in which a boy from a prominent Theban family was made priest of Apollo Ismenios for a year.330 _{Proclus describes the Daphnephorikon as a type of}

Partheneia or maiden-song, sung by a chorus of girls usually accompanied by pipes, and which ‘praised men and gods alike’.331 _{It is precisely the praise of the family of Aioladas in Pindar’s} hymn which interests us here (fr.94b 38-49):

μάρτυς ἤλυθον ἐς χορόν ἐσλοῖς τε γονεῦσιν ἀμφὶ προξενίαισι· τί- μαθεν γὰρ τὰ πάλαι τὰ νῦν τ᾿ ἀμφικτιόνεσσιν ἵππων τ᾿ ὠκυπόδων πο̣[λυ- γνώτοις ἐπὶ νίκαις, Δ΄ αἷς ἐν ἀιόνεσσιν Ὀγχη[στοῦ κλυ]τ̣ᾶς, ταῖς δὲ ναὸν Ἰτωνίας ἀ̣[μφ᾿ εὐκλέ]α χαίταν στεφάνοις ἐκό- σμηθεν ἔν τε Πίσᾳ πε̣ριπ̣[

As a faithful witness for Agasikles I have come to the dance

and for his noble parents

because of their hospitality, for both of old

329 _{Kurke, 2007, 91.}

330 _{The hymn is itself untitled and given this name by Grenfell and Hunt in 1904. It is not certain if this is a}

Daphnephorikon, or if Agasikles is to be identified as the daphnephoros, or even if the rite at this time can be linked to the yearly priesthood, something only attested as late as Pausanias (9.10.4). I will return to this below. 331 _{Proclus Chrest. in Photius (Cod. 239, pp. 321a-b Bekker).}

77 and still today they have been honoured by their neighbours

for their celebrated victories with swift-footed horses,

for which on the shores of famous Onchestos and also by the glorious temple of Itonia they adorned their hair with garlands and at Pisa . . .332

Here we note the importance of agonistic victories at those sanctuaries – Poseidon at Onchestos and Athena Itonia at Koroneia – which had already proved important during the Archaic period and were to assume an even greater importance to the later political Boiotian

koinon. I will return to a detailed discussion of these games below, as well as the Pindaric evidence for other Boiotian agōnes. For the present I wish to emphasize another aspect of the passage quoted above, that of the ‘hospitality’ or more literally ‘role as proxenoi’ (προξενίαισι

l.41) of the family of Aioladas.333 Mackil has recently linked this role with their being honoured ‘by their neighbours’ (ἀμφικτιόνεσσιν ll.41), a connection revealed in another of Pindar’s songs, his fourth Isthmian ode, where the Kleonymidai - the family of the Theban victor Melissos – are praised for their extra-Theban interests (4.7-9):334

τοὶ μὲν ὦν Θήβαισι τιμά- εντες ἀρχᾶθεν λέγονται

πρόξενοί τ᾿ ἀμφικτιόνων κελαδεννᾶς τ᾿ ὀρφανοί ὕβριος·

But from the beginning they are said to have been honoured in Thebes

as hosts of neighbouring peoples and free of loud-voiced arrogance;335

332 _{Trans. Race, 1997, 327.}

333 _{Proxeny and ritualized friendship (xenia) were an especial elite preoccupation, and examples of the} institutions by which individuals with the disposable wealth for travel and gift-exchange maintained contact with the Greeks of distant cities – see Hornblower and Morgan, 2007, 6.

334 _{See Mackil, 2013, 161 and 166; Kowalzig, 2007, 385. On role of proxenos see Marek, 1984, 125-6; Mackil,} 2003, 178-80.

78

Mackil has suggested that the institution of proxeny may have developed as an extension of the pre-political institution of xenia, ties of friendship between elites of different communities, in response to the development of the polis; that the family of Agasikles (and no doubt Melissos) could have served as witnesses, protectors, hosts, and promoters of the interests of neighbouring communities in Thebes.336 _{Thus the combination of terms refers to} the standing of the families amongst the other Boiotians, suggesting thatwhat was important – at the very least for one’s standing in Thebes - was a reputation on a pan-Boiotian stage. 337 What is more, Kurke has argued that the amphiktiones Pindar mentions may have been those who participated in the same cults, rather than being merely ‘neighbours’.338 _{If correct, Pindar’s}

amphiktiones may reveal the existence of formal religious bodies tied to the sanctuaries of Athena Itonia at Koroneia and Poseidon at Onchestos.339 These amphiktiones would then be precisely the kind of network – formed through elite interaction at the prominent religious cult sites - which underlay the creation of the post-446BC military and political koinon.340 It is to the evidence for the separate agōnes at which the Boiotian elites of Pindar’s day competed and interacted that I now turn.

2.3.1 Poseidon at Onchestos

We know from Pindar that there were fifth-century BC games at Onchestos. The poet mentions celebrated victories by the family of Aioladas ‘on the shores of famous Onchestos’ in his Daphnephorikon for Agasikles (fr.94b 44-49), victories for which they ‘adorned their hair with garlands’ and were lauded ‘by their neighbours’. He mentions Onchestos again in regard of horse-racing in his ode for Herodotos of Thebes (Isth.1.33-34):

ἐγὼ δὲ Ποσειδάωνι Ἰσθμῷ τε ζαθέᾳ Ὀγχηστίαισίν τ᾿ ἀιόνεσσιν περιστέλλων ἀοιδάν 336 _{Mackil, 2013, 162.} 337 _{Kowalzig, 2007, 385.} 338 _{Kurke, 2007, 90; Mackil, 2013, 162.} 339 _{Kowalzig, 2007, 385.}

340 _{But c.f. Funke who highlights the non-ethnic, trans-regional scope of amphiktiones – i.e. if such associations} contained people just considered ‘Boiotian’ then this would not be classed as an amphiktyony at all – Funke, 2013, 461. That Onchestos and the Itonia were the central sanctuaries of the federal koinon during the Hellenistic period and beyond may be testament to this integrating role. See for example the Hellenistic inscription IG IX2 _{1.170 from 301BC, a treaty between Aitolia/Phokis and Boiotia to be sworn in Boiotia at the} sanctuary of Poseidon at Onchestos, in the Alalkomeneion, and at Koroneia in the sanctuary of Athena.

79 But as I array Poseidon and the sacred Isthmus and Onchestos’ shores in my song,

and a few lines later (52-54):

ἄμμι δ᾿ ἔοικε Κρόνου σεισίχθον᾿ υἱόν γείτον᾿ ἀμειβομένοις εὐεργέταν ἁρμάτων ἱπποδρόμιον κελαδῆσαι,

But it befits us to celebrate Kronos’ earth-shaking son, our neighbour and patron of horse racing, as we requite his assistance to the chariots,341

As I discussed in Chapter One, the existence of the sixth-century BC temple at the site is evidence for an already organized and relatively well-funded cult. Equally, a dedication from the fifth century BC (SEG 27.62) which refers to a priest, Pouthinas, suggests organization imposed by a higher group, either the nascent koinon or a formalized amphiktyony – perhaps that mentioned by Strabo and to which I referred in the previous chapter - the two no doubt overlapping in significant ways.342 Mackil has proposed that the amphiktiones (fr.94b 41-43) honouring the family of Aioladas are suggestive of such a higher organization, ‘if Pindar’s amphiktyonic language has not misled us’.343 _{All of which suggests a widespread community} of interaction at the site from at least the sixth century BC, and which by Pindar’s time included agonistic competition.

I began the Introduction of this thesis with a passage from Pindar’s epinikian ode for Diagoras of Rhodes of 464BC, celebrating his victory at Olympia in the boxing. Amongst an impressive list of victories, Pindar mentioned Diagoras’ success at the ‘duly-ordered games of the Boiotians’ (Olympian 7.84-86):

ὅ τ᾿ ἐν Ἄργει χαλκὸς ἔγνω νιν, τά τ᾿ ἐν Ἀρκαδίᾳ ἔργα καὶ Θήβαις, ἀγῶνές τ’ ἔννομοι

Βοιωτίων

341 _{Adapted from Race, 1997, 139-141.}

342 _{Mackil, 2013, 165. On the priesthood see Schachter 1986, 216 n. 5, 218.} 343 _{Mackil, 2013, 165. On the amphiktiones, see below.}

80 Πέλλανά τ᾿ Αἴγινά τε νικῶνθ᾿

ἑξάκις·

The bronze in Argos came to know him, as did the works of art in Arcadia and Thebes, and the duly ordered games of the Boiotians and Pellana; and Aegina knew him victorious six times. 344

The identification of these Boiotian games is problematic, and it is not even clear if Pindar is referring to one agōn or many; all that seems clear is that Pindar’s phrasing implies that they were separate from the games at Thebes.345 _{Given the integral role in the development} of the Boiotian koinon, the identity of the unnamed agōn at Onchestos as Pindar’s Boiotian Games is tempting. What we do know about these games is that they were not an exclusively Boiotian affair: that cannot be the meaning of ‘Boiotian’ for we hear of them only from the victory roll of Diagoras who after all comes from Rhodes.346 Instead the word suggests games organized by the collective Boiotians, presumably – given the date of composition (464BC) pre-dating the formalized political koinon - at one of the key religious sanctuaries.

The Ode for Herodotos of Thebes may also provide us with the name of an agōn otherwise unattested, that taking place at the ‘glen of Minyas’ (Isthm.1.52-58):

ἄμμι δ᾿ ἔοικε Κρόνου σεισίχθον᾿ υἱόν γείτον᾿ ἀμειβομένοις εὐεργέταν ἁρμάτων ἱπποδρόμιον κελαδῆσαι, καὶ σέθεν, Ἀμφιτρύων, παῖδας προσειπεῖν τὸν Μινύα τε μυχόν καὶ τὸ Δάματρος κλυτὸν ἄλσος Ἐλευ- σῖνα καὶ Εὔβοιαν ἐν γναμπτοῖς δρόμοις·

But it befits us to celebrate Kronos’ earth-shaking son,

344 _{Trans. Race, 1997, 133. Willcock, 1995, 131 explains ἔννομοι ‘duly ordered’ as ‘fixed in the calendar’,} ‘annual’, or ‘local’ depending on the understanding of νομος. Race suggests tripods as the ‘art’ – Race, 1997, 133 n.18.

345_{Agōnes seems to refer to the Boiotian games and Pellana in Lakonia, but Schachter, 2016, 61 seems to} suggest the Boiotian agōnes themselves as plural, although surely Pindar would have given Diagoras a full and explicit roll-call of his victories? It is also not clear if victories at Pellana and the Boiotian games together with those at Aigina be counted as six, or just those at Aigina?

346 _{Such a misunderstanding may be behind Schachter’s strange designation of Diagoras as Theban – see} Schachter, 2016, 61 n.39.

81

our neighbour and patron of horse racing, as we requite his assistance to the chariots,

and to invoke your sons, Amphitryon, along with the glen347 of Minyas, Demeter’s famous sanctuary of Eleusis,

and Euboia, when telling of circling racecourses348

This last passage is commented upon in the scholium, providing the list of games won by Herodotos of Thebes (Schol. Pind. Scholia vetera. Is.1 11c 18.):349

ἐν μὲν Θήβαις Ἰόλεια ἢ Ἡράκλεια, ἐν δὲ Ὀρχομενῷ Μινύεια, ἐν δὲ Εὐβοίᾳ Βασίλεια, ἐν δὲ Θεσσαλίᾳ Πρωτεσίλεια, καὶ ἐν Ἰσθμῷ νῦν, καὶ ἄλλους δὲ περιχωρίους, οὓς διὰ μακρῶν παρῆλθεν ὁ Πίνδαρος.

In Thebes the Iolaeia or Herakleia, and in Orchomenos the Minyeia, in Euboia the Basileia, in Thessaly the Protesileia, and now in the Isthmia, and others in other places, which Pindar spoke of at great length

If the scholiast is to be believed, during the first half of the fifth century BC the Thebans were competing in otherwise unknown games at Orchomenos.350 The disappearance of this

agōn is as mysterious as its sole mention, but this is, of course, assuming that the information is correct, and that the scholiast has not simply invented a Minyeia based on the Pindar line. It is possible that the ‘glen of Minyas’ was a geographical feature of another site, perhaps Onchestos itself with its mythical Orchomenian links, although as no other record exists of either the glen of Minyas or the Minyeia, this must remain speculation.351

347 _{Μυχός of course has many meanings, but Pindar speaks of the μυχός of Parnassos in his Pythian 10 (l.8), so a} geographical valley or Race’s glen or something of the sort seems to be implied.

348 _{Trans. Race, 1997, 141.} 349 _{See Race, 1997, 141 n.2.}

350 _{There were later games for the Charites at Orchomenos – see below, 4.4.4.and 5.2.5 - but the evidence comes} from much later, from the second and first centuries BC eg. IG VII 3195, 3196, 3197 – see Schachter, 1981, 142.

351 _{This is supposing a connection between Minyas and Onchestos, but what this might be is unclear. Minyas’} son Klymenos was killed at Onchestos during some games (Apoll. Bibl.2.67), but I am unclear if Minyas could really have had any clear topology this far south east.

82 2.3.2 Athena Itonia at Koroneia

As I discussed in the previous chapter, the lekane at the British Museum (BM80 – Figures 14 and 15) suggests that games were in existence at Koroneia from at the least the sixth century BC. During the fifth century, Bacchylides writes of a festival at the sanctuary of Athena Itonia (fr.15), and games are mentioned by Pindar in his Daphnephorikonfor Agasikles (fr.94b 46- 47), evidence that at the time of composition the festival at Itonia drew in participants from other Boiotian poleis, including Thebes.352

Pindar names the victories of the family of Aioladas at the Itoneion (and Onchestos) before that of Olympia, suggesting that in the context of the local Theban ritual of the Daphnephoria (but one which was to assume pan-Boiotian importance – see below) these victories on a Boiotian stage were of greater importance to those assembled.353 Larson has suggested that the acclaim of the family of Aioladas by their neighbours ‘from generations past’ (τὰ πάλαι l.42) suggests that the games themselves were of some age.354 _{Pindar nowhere} mentions the Pamboiotia by name. There is in fact no mention of the Pamboiotia in literature until Polybius - who himself merely refers to it with the general term panēgyris (4.3.5) - and no mention in epigraphy until the third century BC.355 Yet given the later fame of the Pamboiotia outside Boiotia, Larson is keen to identity the panēgyris with Pindar’s ‘Boiotian games’ of Olympian 7.84-85.356 _{If this is so, then its nature must have changed; Diagoras’} victory as a Rhodian goes against the festival’s later Boiotian-only clientele. A possible solution would be to assume that after the victory of the Boiotians at Koroneia in 446BC, the festival at the Itonion was rejuvenated or remodelled to reflect the importance of the victory for the Boiotians, at which point the games became Boiotian-only, and the name Pamboiotia adopted. Such a scenario may explain the epigraphic no-show of the Pamboiotia or panēgyris