FASE III: AJUSTE

In the development of group identity, the two fundamental factors identified by Hall are the sharing of territory (real or mythical) and a myth of common descent.375 By the middle of the fifth century BC, the story which the Boiōtoi were telling of their origins was of a unified migration from Thessaly some two generations after the Trojan War. The first account of this migration is arguably found in Herodotus, where several separate passages - the movement of the Thessalians from Epirus into Thessaly (7.176.4), and the displacement of the Gephyraioi

372 _{Inauguration after Keressos - Janko, 1984, 48 and n.62; Mackil, 2013, 24.}

373 _{On this inscription as issued by the Boiotian koinon see Aravantinos, 2014, 199-202. See above at 2.2.} 374 _{One scholiast almost certainly anachronistically names the Trophonia at Lebadeia as a possible candidate for} Pindar’s ‘duly-ordered Boiotian games’- see Dow, 1935, 88; Schol. Pindar, Ol. 7.153a; on anachronism see Knoepfler, 2008b, 1435. The Trophonia is not attested until the second century BC.

375 _{Hall, 1997, 25-26. On the importance of the subjective as opposed to objective truth of these factors see} Weber, 1968, 389.

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to Athens by the arriving Boiotians (5.57.2, 61.2) – already suggest knowledge of the scheme of migration which we find clearly displayed by Thucydides (1.12.3): 376

Βοιωτοί τε γὰρ οἱ νῦν ἑξηκοστῷ ἔτει μετὰ Ἰλίου ἅλωσιν ἐξ Ἄρνης ἀναστάντες ὑπὸ Θεσσαλῶν τὴν νῦν μὲν Βοιωτίαν, πρότερον δὲ Καδμηίδα γῆν καλουμένην ᾤκισαν ἦν δὲ αὐτῶν καὶ ἀποδασμὸς πρότερον ἐν τῇ γῇ ταύτῃ, ἀφ᾽ ὧν καὶ ἐς Ἴλιον ἐστράτευσαν For the modern Boiotians were expelled from Arne, compelled to migrate by the Thessalians in the sixtieth year after the Trojan War to Boiotia, formerly known as Kadmeis, and of these there was previously a division in this land, from where they fought at Troy

Thucydides’ apodasmos - ‘division’ – has been interpreted as the historian’s attempt to square the belief in a post-war migration with the Homeric tradition in which the Boiōtoi were already present in Boiotia at the time of the Trojan War.377 That different solutions were given to this same problem suggests that no unified tradition existed, and that a number of groups within Boiotia held separate beliefs in their own origins, some of post-war arrival, others of pre-war habitation. Thucydides’ account is evidence for a belief in a unified Thessalian origin for the Boiotians already by mid-fifth century BC. Such a myth of a common origin would have been integral in tightening the bonds between the scattered and often warring communities within Boiotia, and seems to have been accomplished, at least in part, through the close association of the migration tradition with a number of the important Boiotian religious cults. One example I have already given is that of Athena Itonia, as attested by Strabo (9.2.29): 378

ἡ μὲν οὖν Κορώνεια ἐγγὺς τοῦ Ἑλικῶνός ἐστιν ἐφ᾽ ὕψους ἱδρυμένη, κατελάβοντο δ᾽ αὐτὴν ἐπανιόντες ἐκ τῆς Θετταλικῆς Ἄρνης οἱ Βοιωτοὶ μετὰ τὰ Τρωικά, ὅτε περ καὶ τὸν Ὀρχομενὸν ἔσχον: κρατήσαντες δὲ τῆς Κορωνείας ἐν τῷ πρὸ αὐτῆς πεδίῳ τὸ τῆς Ἰτωνίας Ἀθηνᾶς ἱερὸν ἱδρύσαντο ὁμώνυμον τῷ Θετταλικῷ

Now Koroneia is situated on a height near Helikon. The Boiotians took possession of it on their return from the Thessalian Arne after the Trojan War, at which time they

376 _{Schachter explains the expulsion of the Gephyraioi as a result of Theban expansionism into S and E Boiotia,} as suggested by Ephoros FGrH70F21 – see Schachter, 2016, 165. Whatever the reality, Herodotus’ narrative seems to suggest an idea of arriving Boiotians.

377 _{See Sakellariou, 1990, 182; Buck, 1979, 76.}

378 _{Plut. Cimon 1.1. Plutarch placed the taking of Chaironeia one generation after the Trojan War, and Thebes} one generation after that, the former led by Opheltas son of one of the Boiotian leaders at Troy, Peneleos.

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also occupied Orchomenos. And when they got the mastery of Koroneia, they built in the plain before the city the temple of the Itonian Athena, bearing the same name as the Thessalian temple.379

It is probable that the later Pamboiotia celebrated this Boiotian migration, and it is tempting to imagine the agonistic victories of the family of Aioladas ‘by the glorious temple of Itonia’ of Pindar’s Daphnephorikon for Agasikles (fr.94b) as being part of a festival whose meaning was linked to the myth of arrival. Another ritual, attested from the accounts of Proclus and Ephorus, to which a Pindaric fragment (fr.59) may allude, spoke of a ritual carriage of a tripod stolen by night from a Boiotian sanctuary and dedicated at Dodona in payment for an ancient sacrilege.380 The aition as revealed in the later sources link the ritual to Boiotian arrival, while the link with Dodona itself speaks of a nod to the Boiotians geographical origins.381 Equally, the rite of the Daphnephoria, for which Pindar’s hymn was composed, was itself - at least in later times - connected to the migration tradition. This ritual – at its most simple the carrying in procession of sacred laurel to the temple of Apollo Ismenios at Thebes - is known from a number of widespread sources, and at least three of Pindar’s Partheneia (fr. 94a-c) - known from a papyrus published in 1904 - are believed to have accompanied it.382 Fr.94b is the most detailed, although Pindar’s account is arguably complemented by two later sources, that of Pausanias (second century AD), who links the ritual with the yearly investiture of a boy of noble family as the priest of Apollo Ismenios, and that of Proclus, who in his Chrestomathia

(fifth century AD) gives a detailed description of the accompanying procession.383 Given such a wide time difference (with a millennium between Pindar and Proclus) the inevitable variations between the texts may reflect inconsistencies in the accounts, differences of authorial focus, the changing of the rite over time, or the description of completely different rites altogether.384 Yet much of the scholarship concerning fr.94b has sought to elucidate the family relations within Pindar’s text and to link these with the roles later mentioned by Proclus and

379 _{See also Paus 9.34.1.}

380 _{Proclus Chrest. in Photius (Cod. 239, pp. 321b32–322a Bekker).; Ephorus 70 FGrH 119 = Strabo 9.2.4.} 381 _{Kowalzig, 2007, 334.}

382_{POxy 4.659 see Grenfell and Hunt, 1904, 50-60. Fr.94a on the same papyrus speaks of the same family of} Aioladas as fr.94b but is not a maiden chorus as it is spoken by a man – is this the daphnephoros himself? 383 _{Paus.9.10.4; Proclus Chrest. in Photius (Cod. 239, pp. 321a-b Bekker).}

384 _{Schachter has argued that the classification of 94b as a Daphnephorikon should not go unquestioned} Schachter, 1981, 85. We know however that Proclus believed Pindar to have written hymns for the Daphnephoria, and Suda s.v. Πίνδαρος also tells us that Pindar composed Daphnephorika.

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Pausanias.385 More importantly for our current migratory theme, Proclus’ aition for the rite associates it with the defeat of the Pelasgians at Thebes by the arriving Boiotians under their General Polematas (Photius Bibl. Codex 239 Bekker 321b):386

ὅσοι κατῴκουν Ἄρνην καὶ τὰ ταύτῃ χωρία κατὰ χρησμὸν ἀναστάντες ἐκεῖθεν καὶ προκαθεζόμενοι Θήβας ἐπόρθουν προκατεχομένας ὑπὸ Πελασγῶν. Κοινῆς ἀμφοῖν ἑορτῆς Ἀπόλλωνος ἐνστάσης ἀνοχὰς ἔθεντο καὶ δάφνας τέμνοντες οἱ μὲν ἐξ Ἑλικῶνος, οἱ δὲ ἐγγὺς τοῦ Μέλανος ποταμοῦ ἐκόμιζον τῷ Ἀπόλλωνι. Πολεμάτας δέ, ὁ τῶν Βοιωτῶν ἀφηγούμενος, ἔδοξεν ὄναρ νεανίαν τινὰ πανοπλίαν αὐτῷ διδόναι καὶ εὐχὰς ποιεῖσθαι τῷ Ἀπόλλωνι δαφνηφοροῦντας διὰ ἐννεαετηρίδος προστάττειν. Those of the Aiolians living in Arne, having set off and left the land there because of an oracle, encamped and ravaged Thebes which was already occupied by the Pelasgians. But when on both sides a common festival of Apollo was begun, they arranged a truce, and cut laurel – one group from on Helikon, the other from near the river Melas – and brought it to Apollo. And Polematas, the leader of the Boiotians, dreamed that a young man gave him a suit of armour and commanded him to pray to Apollo and set up an enneartic Daphnephoria.

No mention, however, of the migration tradition exists in fr.94b (or in any extant work of Pindar’s), although Kurke has argued for its inclusion in the fragment’s missing first lacuna, whose surrounds suggest a missing military narrative.387 Yet the overall feel of the song is Boiotian, with the family of Aioladas praised for their victories at Itonia and Onchestos, and their good relations with their (presumably Boiotian) neighbours lauded, and it is tempting to assume that the Daphnephoria did possess a pan-Boiotian meaning in Pindar’s time. It has been argued that the ritual – specifically the details of the procession found in Proclus, such as the carriage of an ornamented log called the kopō – provides evidence for a Theban appropriation of rites from wider-Boiotia in an attempt to create something of a pan-Boiotian unifying ritual. Kurke has suggested the Daphnephoria as a festival crafted to suture the city of Thebes to the Boiotian countryside, with the log-bearing elements taken from the Parasopia and particularly

385 _{Kurke, 2007, 65 n.3 gives a full summary of previous scholarship. See especially Wilamowitz, 1922, 435,} 553; Lehnus, 1984, 83-5; Calame, 1997, 60-2. Although of great interest, this scholarship lies outside the focus of this present study.

386 _{The presence of Pelasgians suggests Ephorus’ Thebocentric version as a basis.}

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Plataia. Equally, Kowalzig sees the Thebans acquiring the Apolline Daphnephoria itself – along with its migration-themed aition - from west Boiotia, most specifically from the Apollo cults around Lake Kopaïs.388 Neither is wholly convincing, in part because no evidence for their imagined appropriated rites exist in the regions they describe before the Pindaric hymn; in part because tying these rites to their specific geographical locations is itself problematic.389 In addition, an eighth century BC pithos found in the Pyri suburb of Thebes in 1966, dating from 720-700BC has been tentatively linked to the Daphnephoria.390 _{If such identification is} valid, this would speak against a sixth or fifth-century BC Theban acquisition of the laurel- carrying rite for hegemonic ends.

A more interesting line of enquiry is to my mind to be found in a detail of Proclus’ aition

which relates how the Boiotians and Pelasgians were already about to collect laurel for an unnamed rite when Polematas had his dream. Late as this detail is, it hints at the existence of an original laurel-collecting ritual onto which the aition of migration was then added. What no one has suggested is that Proclus’ mention of the River Melas, where the laurel was to be collected by the Boiotians in the original rite, reflected actual cult practice, namely the gathering of laurel at the river and carriage in procession to Thebes as a central part of the Daphnephoria. A similar long-distance procession took place at the Delphic Septerion where laurel was carried from Tempe in Thessaly to Delphi, and to which the Daphnephoria has been compared - one scholiast, for example, describes the Daphnephorikon as a type of song which accompanied the bringing of laurel from Tempe to Delphi:391

Δαφνηφορικόν ἐστι τὸ ᾀδόμενον εἰς τὸν Ἀπόλλωνα ὑπὸ τῶν κομιζόντων τὴν δάφνην ἐκ τῶν Τεμπῶν

The Daphnephorikon is sung by those bringing the laurel from Tempe to Apollo

388 _{Kurke, 2007, 81; Kowalzig, 2007, 378-381. Kowalzig’s arguments are too involved to allow an adequate} critique here.

389 _{It is, for example, unclear whether Thebes truly stood outside the area of the supposed log processions, which} Schachter has argued occupied a swathe from the Parasopia up into Euboia - Schachter, 1981, 243. Equally, only one Boiotian log procession is ever attested - the second-century AD Daidala (see Chapter Seven) – and Pindar never mentions a log or kopō.

390 _{Langdon, 2001, 592ff.}

391 _{On the Septerion see Plut. De def. or.417e-418d; Plut. Quaest. Graec. 12 (293c). Boutsikas has recently} classed the Septerion as a Daphnephoria - Boutsikas, 2015, 88. Septerion as source of Daphnephorikon -

Commentaria in Dionysii Thracis Artem Grammaticam, Scholia Londinensia (partim excerpta ex Heliodoro). 450.

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According to Plutarch the River Melas, linked to the oracle of Apollo at Tegyra, was believed by the Boiotians to be the birthplace of Apollo.392 The foundation aition of the Ismenion tells of the arrival of the god and his siring of the prophet Teneros on the Nymph Melia, and it is possible that the original Theban ritual recreated this arrival and hieros gamos.393 _{Mili has recently argued that the Septerion procession through Thessaly to Delphi} may be connected to celebrations of the Daphnephoria at local Thessalian shrines, as if the latter joined up with the former.394 _{If true, this might allow the laurel-carrying ceremony to be} imagined as a ritual tying an entire region together. It is tempting to imagine the Theban Daphnephoria as performing a similar unifying role within Boiotia; that the Theban rite was linked to those local celebrations of the Daphnephoria which Kowalzig sees evidence for at the sanctuaries of the Kopaïs Apollos.395 If an original procession from the River Melas is imagined, and we take seriously Proclus’ hint that the aition of migration was overlaid onto this original rite, then it is at least of interest that the route which the Boiotians later claimed to have taken during their own arrival was exactly the route which Apollo had followed on his journey from the Melas to Thebes.396 At the very least, the Boiotian themes of Pindar’s

Daphnephorikon for Agasikles hint that in the fifth century BC the ritual may already have possessed some form of unifying pan-Boiotian meaning, playing its own contributory role to the development of a single Boiotian identity. Equally, its later aition, together with the aitia

for the ritual of the Tripodephoria to Dodona and the foundation of the sanctuary of Athena Itonia where the agōn of the Pamboiotia was held, suggest that communal ritual played an

392_{Life of Pelopidas 16.3-4.}

393 _{Pindar Paian 9, best known for its description of an eclipse, contains an aetiology for the worship of Apollo} and Melia at the Ismenion (Paian 9.34-49). On elements of a hieros gamos noted in the Daphnephoria see for example Kurke, 2007, 97.

394 _{Mili, 2015, 243. The local inscriptions from Thessaly and Perrhaibia date from the mid-fifth century BC to} the third century BC, with groups calling themselves dauchnaphoroi – the local dialect form of daphnephoroi –

were setting up dedications in local neighbourhoods – see IG IX 2 1027; ADelt 49 (1994) Chron. 340 no.21. See Mili, 2015, 243 and n.151 and 152.

395 _{Kowalzig, 2007, 378. The evidence is slim. A Pindaric fragment (Pind. fr.dub.333) has been linked to a} Daphnephoria at Orchomenos by D’Alessio, 2000, 253; Kowalzig suggests the mention of honey-sweet immortal water at Tilphousa (Pind. fr. 198b) comes from a Daphnephoric hymn there; at Chaironeia there is a fourth-century BC dedication (IG VII 3407) to Apollo Daphnaphoros (Δαφναφόρος); and an inscription at the Ptoion about the cutting of laurel - Ducat, 1971, 402-406 no. 252 - is linked by Kowalzig to a Daphnephoria, but in truth seems simply the injunction against the cutting of laurel at the site – see SEG 31.392.

396 _{Thebes’ placement as the end-point of the Boiotian migration is evidence for Kowalzig of the propaganda} potential of such rites and their associated hymns in confirming Theban hegemony, the major argument of her study – Kowalzig, 2007, 380 and passim.

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important role in the commemoration and celebration of a unified Boiotian arrival, that attribute central to Hall’s definition of a unified ethnos.397