Materiales para la fabricación de moldes.

Firm archaeological evidence of Geometric period (900-700BC) cult in Boiotia is limited to just three sites – Mavrovouni Kastro, the Ismenion at Thebes, and the sanctuary of Apollo at Mt. Ptoion, although literary accounts suggest the addition of Onchestos to this list.146 Mavrovouni Kastro was a small mountain sanctuary in the SW corner of Boiotia, associated in the Hellenistic period with Artemis Agroteira, although no earlier evidence exists as to the patron of the shrine which was later incorporated into a Spartan fort.147 _{The Ptoion, Onchestos,} and the Ismenion at Thebes, all reveal evidence of worship during this period, the liminal status of the former two sites suggesting the necessity of external groups co-operating in their operation. Epigraphic proof of interaction at these sites, however, does not appear until the Archaic period (700-480BC) when evidence for cult practice increases across the whole of Boiotia.148 To the initial three attested active Geometric period sites can now be added the Sanctuary of Athena Itonia at Koroneia, the Agia Triada cave sacred to the Libethrion nymphs on Helikon, the shrine of the hero Ptoios at Kastraki near Akraiphia, the Sanctuary of the Muses on Mt Helikon near Thespiai, the Sanctuary of Apollo at Eutresis, the Kabeirion near Thebes, and the cult site at Kleidi, some of these no doubt having developed earlier.149 It is to those shrines which show evidence of interaction of multiple communities to which I shall now turn.

1.2.1 The Sanctuary of Poseidon at Onchestos

The site of the Sanctuary of Poseidon at Onchestos has been identified without contention a little north of the village of Steni.150 The shrine occupied a low saddle of land separating the basins of east and west Boiotia, thus occupying a geographically central though equally liminal position – being associated with no single polis, lying on the boundary between the khōrai of

146 _{See Figure 4 in apendix. Onchestos is named in the Catalogue of Ships in Iliad 2.506. Since 2014 Onchestos} has been the site of excavations by a team from the University of Columbia

(http://onchestos.mcah.columbia.edu/). Geometric evidence may yet turn up.

147 _{Fossey, 1988, 173-174. Quite aside from its non-central location, the sanctuary’s lack of regional importance} counts it out as playing any major role in the development of Boiotian self-consciousness.

148 _{See Figure 4 in appendix.} 149 _{Farinetti, 2011.}

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Thebes and Haliartos- circumstances which played an important part in the role played by the sanctuary in the history of Boiotia and the Boiotian koinon.151

There is no physical evidence for ritual at Onchestos during the Geometric period, although its inclusion in the Homeric Catalogue of Ships suggests an early importance, as does its presence in the Homeric Hymns to Apollo and Hermes during the Archaic period.152 The pivotal position of Onchestos – controlling as it did the main east-west route through Boiotia (see Figure 10) - played a role in its adoption as the later seat of the Hellenistic Boiotian Confederation, but what role the sanctuary may have played during the Geometric and Archaic periods is unclear.153 _{Strabo (9.2.33) remarks that Onchestos was the place ‘where the} amphiktyonic council (to amphiktyonikon) usually assembled’.154 It is, however, difficult to ascertain to which amphiktyony Strabo is referring, given that he provides no indication of which period he is referring to.155 Buck has interpreted this as a religious amphiktyony in charge of the sanctuary, not the later Boiotian federal council.156 Equally, Beck and Ganter identify Strabo’s amphiktyony as evidence for the early role of the sanctuary as a nexus of communication between the settlements of the northwestern part of the region and those of the southeast.157 How early this association may have been formed is unclear, but Buck has suggested that its original members included ‘older, non-Boiotian, stocks in Boiotia, such as the Oropians, and the inhabitants of trans-Asopic territories’.158 If such a picture is correct, it emphasises the role of the sanctuary in connecting the various groups inhabiting geographical Boiotia who had not yet decided that they were a single ethnos. Mackil has suggested a central

151 _{The ‘ownership’ of the shrine of Onchestos is unclear. It has been suggested that is belonged at various times} to either Thebes or Koroneia – Schachter, 1986, 215: Ps.-Hes. Aspis 103-105. During the fifth century BC, it appears to have belonged to Haliartos - SEG 25.554; Schachter, 1986, 215. After 338BC it was probably independent – for summary see Hansen, 1996, 94.

152_{Homeric Hymn to Apollo (229-230) - dated to ca.585BC by Janko, 1982, 116-132. In the Homeric Hymn to}

Hermes (ll.87-88, 186-187, 190) a strange rite is described involving the dismounting of a chariot within the grove and its subsequent adventures, unfortunately beyond the scope of this thesis. Recent excavations by Dr Alexandra Charami have uncovered a large circular structure to the west of the sanctuary which might be linked to the chariot – awaiting publication (see http://onchestos.mcah.columbia.edu/).

153 _{See for example Hellenistic federal inscriptions – e.g. IG VII 27; 28; 209-212; 214-218; 220; 222; 1747;} 1748; 1750; 1755 all mention the archon at Onchestos – see Schachter, 1986, 208.

154 _{9.2.33. See Mackil, 2013, 164.}

155 _{See Guillon, 1963, 93; Tausend, 1992, 27; Snodgrass, 1982, 670, 689–690.} 156 _{Buck, 1979, 102 n.22.}

157 _{Beck and Ganter, 2015, 135.}

158 _{Buck, 1979, 90. Funke has suggested a development of the amphiktyony in the post-Mycenaean period –} Funke, 2013, 461.

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role for the site as a cohesive force on the poleis of Boiotia in the late Archaic and early Classical periods.159

A temple was constructed at Onchestos at the end of the sixth century BC. The logistics involved in such a construction clearly reveal the presence of an integrated worshipping community – perhaps Strabo’s amphiktyony. Prior to the construction of the temple, Onchestos must have been an open-air sanctuary, which accords with Homer’s description (Il.2.506):

Ὀγχηστόν θ᾽ ἱερὸν Ποσιδήϊον ἀγλαὸν ἄλσος And holy Onchestos, splendid grove of Poseidon

By the time Strabo visited the trees had disappeared – allowing the traveller a digression on the exaggeration of poetry – but were once again present for Pausanias the following century.160 Excavated in the early 1970s, inscriptions confirm the identification of the site of the sanctuary, the earliest being that found on a limestone base and dated to the 6th/5th centuries BC (SEG 27:61):

Ποτειδάονι Μ[..]ον ἀνέθεκε

M[…]on dedicated this to Poseidon.

How far back worship at the grove extends we do not know. Schachter has suggested cult at the site may have reached as far back as the Bronze Age, but Homer is our terminus ante quem for its existence.161 The conflict between Herakles of Thebes and Erginos of Orchomenos - said to have started following the accidental killing of Erginos’ father Klymenos at games at Onchestos – has been taken to reflect Archaic reality.162 At the very least they reveal a belief

159 _{Mackil, 2013, 167.}

160 _{Strabo 9.2.33; Paus. 9.26.5.}

161 _{Schachter, 1986, 213. For excavation see Touloupa, ADelt 1964, 200–201; ADelt 22 (1967) Philippaki,} Symeonoglou and Pharaklas, ADelt 1967, 242; Spyropoulos, 1973, 379–81; Teiresias 3 (1973):4; AR 20 (1973– 74): 20; Michaud, 1974, 644–45. Roesch, 1982, 272.

162 _{Myths: Apoll. Bibl. 2.67; Diod. Sic. 4.18; Eur. HF 47–50, 220; Paus. 9.37-38; Pherekydes FGrH 3 F 95;} Polyainos 1.3.5. Nilsson, 1932, 152ff saw this as evidence of Mycenaean conflict; Buck, as Archaic – Buck, 1979, 97; for Kowalzig they represent the process by which the Thebans took control of the shrine from Orchomenos - Kowalzig, 2007, 366-367; Mackil questions such ‘ownership’ in this liminal site and sees in the myths Theban claims to political hegemony in the region - made first in the sixth century BC and more forcefully in the fifth century BC - to those who participated in the cult - Mackil, 2013, 167.

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in the antiquity of the interaction at the site, of the site as a central meeting place for the aristocratic elites of the scattered poleis of later Boiotia, and in the antiquity of agōnes here.

1.2.2 The Sanctuary of Apollo Ptoios, Perdikovrysi

The oracular sanctuary of Apollo Ptoios (Figures 11 and 12) occupies three terraces on the lower slopes of Mt Pelagia - an extension of the Ptoion massif - at modern Perdikovrysi, lying on a high mountain corridor between Anthedon and Akraiphia, near the east coast of Lake Kopaïs.163 _{A kilometre and a half west of Perdikovrysi, and two kilometres from Akraiphia,} stands the shrine of the local hero Ptoios at Kastraki.164 Evidence from Kastraki reveals a date of use from the late Archaic era, and a special relationship with nearby Akraiphia, with an avenue of at least 29 tripods dedicated by the city and erected in ceremonial alignments framing the road from the sanctuary to the polis, dating from the Late Archaic period through to the mid-5th century BC.165 The two sites have been subject to extensive excavation – the temple of Apollo alone was excavated seven times between 1885 and 1996.166 Late Neolithic and Early Helladic pottery have been found at Perdikovrysi, and the Ptoion (as I shall refer to the sanctuary at Perdikovrysi) seems to be mentioned in a Linear B tablet from Thebes; but the earliest building dates from the sixth century BC, although sherds and bronzes from the Late Geometric period suggest that the sanctuary was in use from the eighth century.167 The earliest mention of Apollo at the site is an inscription to Apollo Ptoios on a Korē from about the third quarter of the seventh century BC.168 There are unpublished inscriptions to Athena Pronaia from the sixth century BC, and Müller has proposed that the southern portico at the site be identified as the temple of Athena Pronaia, possibly modelled on the Delphic pattern.169

163 _{Perdikovrysi means ‘Partridge Spring’. A flock of partridges flew up from the site on my arrival in} September 2016, evidence for the aptness of the modern name.

164 _{Buck, 1979, 12-13; Fossey, 1988, 271-273.} 165 _{Papalexandrou, 2008, 262. Guillon, 1943, 57-62.} 166 _{Müller, 1996, 859. See also Ducat, 1971, 7–40, 171.}

167 _{Lauffer, RE (1959)23.2 s.v. Ptoion. Linear B tablet Av 104 has the allative po-to-a2-ja-de meaning ‘towards} the festival/mountain/region of Ptoion – the latter being preferable - Del Freo, 2009, 66-67; festival - Sacconi, 2009, 212.

168 _{Ducat, 1964, 287 – he dates the korē (Athens MN2) to 620BC.}

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The Ptoion was located on the border of the khōra of Akraiphia which lay a few km to the west, and that of Thebes, itself situated 23km south on the Teneric Plain (Figure 2).170 It is possible that, like Delphi - which on a smaller scale it resembles in appearance and setting – the Ptoion was treated as neutral territory, open to citizens of more than one polis, thereby explaining the role it played in the creation of a Boiotian community and its popularity in the Archaic period and especially during the sixth century BC.171 During this period Apollo Ptoios received dedications from worshippers throughout the Mediterranean, many of the numerous

kouroi – Ducat numbers them at around 120 – for which the site is best-known being dedicated

by participants from Boiotia, Attica, the southern Cyclades, Ionia, Paros, Naxos, Corinth, Argos, and Sparta.172 During the middle of the sixth century a dedication (Figure 13) was set up by the Athenian Alkmeonides son of Alkmeon (IG I3 1469):

[Φοί]βο μέν εἰμ’ ἄγαλ[μα Λ]α̣τ̣[οί]δα καλ[ό]|ν· [ℎο δ’ Ἀ]λκμέονος ℎῦις Ἀλκμεονίδες

[ℎ]ίπ(π)οισι νικ[έσας ἔ]θεκέ μ̣’ [ὀκέαις],

ℎὰς Κνοπι̣[άδα]ς ἔλαυν’ ℎο [– – –]

ℎότ’ ε ̓͂ν Ἀθάναις Παλ(λ)άδος πανέ̣[γυρις].

I am the fair statue of Phoibos son of Leto; Alkmeonides son of Alkmeon, who conquered with his swift horses, which Knopiadas the son of … drove, when the festival of Pallas (Athena) was held in Athens.173

Another dates from ca.520BC and was dedicated by Hipparchos, son of Peisistratus -

ℎίππαρχος ἀνέθε[κεν ℎο Πεισισ]τράτο - ‘set up by Hipparchos son of Peisistratus’.174 Attempts have been made to understand these dedications through an analysis of Athenian factional politics of the time and Boiotian/Athenian relations, although Schachter has suggested that redirected traffic following the destruction of the second temple at Delphi ca.548/547BC

170 _{Mackil, 2013, 171. Schachter, 2016, 155. The Teneric plain was named from the seer Teneros, son of Apollo} and the nymph Melia, and as Pindar claims, prophet of both the Theban Ismenion and the Ptoion. Teneros at Ismenion: Pind. Pai. 9.38–46, at Ptoion: Strabo 9.2.34, quoting Pindar fr. 51b, d (Race).

171 _{Schachter, 2016, 155.}

172 _{Ducat, 1971, 211-369; Mackil, 2013, 172.} 173 _{Trans. Dillon and Garland, 2010, 326.}

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may lie behind the mid-sixth-century BC boom at the Ptoion, whose similar topography and easy accessibility despite its seclusion may have benefitted the site.175

While clearly of importance outside Boiotia, its significance within Boiotia was linked to its acting as a locus of interaction between the members of different communities in the same way as the Sanctuary of Poseidon at Onchestos.176 More importantly, it was also the location for what were arguably the first dedications made in the name of the collective ‘Boiōtoi’.177 _An earlier example may exist at Delphi, a dedication on the base of a votive statue which on the basis of script Larson has dated to the second half of the sixth century BC, suggesting Tritogeneia as the recipient, this being an epithet used for Athena in the Iliad and in warlike pose in the Aspis:178

[Ἀπόλλονι] καὶ Τριτο̣[γενείαι ἀνέθεαν] κἐποίεσαν [- - -] Β̣οιοτοὶ χάλκ̣ι[ον ἄγαλμα?]179 The Boiotians made and dedicated this bronze gift to Apollo and Tritogeneia

What is interesting is that Larson’s reconstruction provides us with a dedication to Athena at a sanctuary of Apollo, an arrangement found also with the first epigraphic evidence for the internal dedicatory usage of the term Boiōtoi.180 The first Ptoion inscription, written on a small stone statuette base - presumably also of a martial Athena – reads Βοιωτοὶ Προναίαι – from the Boiōtoi to [Athena] Pronaia.181 Another, on the rim of a bronze vase now lost, was described by the original excavator Maurice Holleaux as a dedication by the Boiotians to

175 _{See Buck, 1979, 118 n.12; Schachter, 2016, 158; Parke and Wormell, 1956, 143-144.; Bommelaer, 1991, 20,} 95–88. Hipparchos’ dedication might equally be interpreted as a snub to the Alkmeonidai and Delphi, and

ought to be dated pre-519BC when Boiotian/Athenian relations turned sour – Schachter, 2016, 160. 176 _{Mackil, 2013, 173.}

177 _{Ganter, 2013, 88. Ganter is dubious about Larson’s claim - Larson, 2007b, 137 - for an earlier dedication at} Delphi (see below). Larson dates the first, to Athena Pronaia, to the early fifth century BC – Larson, 2007b, 132–33. Boiōtoi Pronaia on the base of a statue, dated by Ducat 500-470BC.

178_{SEG 13.371; Larson, 2007b, 139-141; 2007b, 99-106. Iliad 4.515; 8.39; 22.183; Aspis 197 – Athena has} spear raised, typical of the warlike Athena pose. Marchand (2010) is dubious of Larson’s ‘rather hypothetical’ reconstruction of the dedication, as well as her reading of Tritogeneia, being unknown as an epithet of Athena in Central Greece. Ducat, 1971,410 dates the stone ca. 500-470 BCE, Larson, 2007a, 101-103 to the mid to late- sixth century BC. Trito was previously explained as part of the signature of the artist.

179_{SEG 13 371; c.f. SEG 57 488.}

180 _{Larson, 2007b, 131. Athena was of Pan-Boiotian importance, especially in the cult of Athena Itonia near} Koroneia. The dedications at Ptoion on behalf of the Boiōtoi promotes an association with Athena at a significant regional cult centre, and Larson predicts excavation may well reveal such dedications at other sanctuaries - Larson, 2007b, 131, 133. Ganter is dubious about Larson’s claim for this dedication at Delphi - Ganter, 2013, 88. This inscription provides the sole extant epigraphic attestation of the Boiotian use of the collective regional ethnikon outside Boiotia from the tail-end of the Archaic period - Larson, 2007a, 99. 181 _{See Beck, 2014, 24; Ducat, 1971, 409, no. 257.}

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Athena Pronaia - Βο[ιωτοὶ Ἀθαν]αι Προναίαι.182 A third was found at the nearby sanctuary of the Akraiphian hero Ptoios at Kastraki, though no text or photographs are available.183 Whatever the exact date of the Delphic dedication, by the end of the sixth century BC a group – or a number of groups – were dedicating on behalf of a Boiotian collective at a wide range of local religious cult sites both inside and outside Boiotia.

Larson has suggested that these dedicating Boiōtoi were a ‘collective concerned to promote itself through cult’, who by 500BC were dedicating as a single entity.184 _{Yet Ganter} has questioned Larson’s reading of the Ptoion evidence as one-sided, not least because the data is so limited, the material unimpressive.185 _{The one surviving Pronaia inscription is tiny – just} 4.95x5.5cm - and makes modest claims, with minimal visual impact.186 Such a statuette, Ganter states, might not have been the best way to promote collective identity, and she suggests that the dedications at the Ptoion may in fact be the work of the Thebans alone; that other Boiotians may have viewed them (if they had even noticed them presumably) as an expression of Theban hegemonic aspirations – precisely the type of thing which had driven the Plataians into the arms of the Athenians at the end of the sixth century BC.187 Whatever the exact identity of the dedicating group, these inscriptions reveal a collective who identified themselves as ‘Boiotians’ with the expectation – as the example at Delphi reveals – that outside groups would also recognise them as such.188

Presumably being ‘Boiotian’ meant different things to different groups at different times. To my mind Homer’s Boiōtoi reveal some form of group identity at the end of the eighth century BC, an identity doubtless forged through ‘communities of interaction’ of Beck’s conflict, trade, and cult.189 But during the sixth century BC, where monumental building is attested at Onchestos, the Ptoion, and the Itonion, this union seems to have been taken to the next level, ostensibly under the initiative of the Thebans, and possibly in response to the threat of external conflict with the rising powers of Athens and Thessaly. As I will discuss below, the context of Herodotus’ description of Theban actions at the end of the sixth century suggest that

182 _{See Ducat, 1971, 419 no. 269a – the vase is now lost.} 183 _{Ganter, 2013, 88.}

184 _{Larson, 2007, 131.} 185 _{Ganter, 2013, 89.} 186 _{Beck, 2014, 29.}

187 _{Ganter, 2013, 89, 101. On Thebes and Plataia, see Hdt.6.108.2-5 and below at 1.3.} 188 _{Beck, 2014, 26.}

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they were pushing for contributions in the form of resources or action from their fellow Boiotians.190 It is in the context of this Theban push that the dedications at the Ptoion might be understood.

Most scholars believe that the Ptoion fell under Theban control during the sixth century BC, although how early in the century is disputed, as is the hostility of the takeover and its exact nature.191 _{Guillon proposed that the construction of the shrine for the hero Ptoios at} Kastraki followed his hostile ejection from his original home at Perdikovrysi by the Thebans who had installed their own gods – Apollo, Melia, and Teneros – there ca.600BC.192 _Epigraphic evidence however places Apollo as the earliest recipient of cult at the Ptoion, ca. 640–620BC, while from the third quarter of the sixth century BC the ethnika of dedicants reveals that Thebans as well as Akraiphians were making dedications at the sanctuary of the hero Ptoios, the Thebans employing Akraiphian sculptors to create the votives, while the Akraiphians were dedicating lavish tripods at both sanctuaries - hardly a sign of mutual animosity; the Boiōtoi too may have dedicated at Kastraki (Figure 8), and possibly the Orchomenians or Thēbageneis. 193 _{Thus both sites are revealed as important loci of dedications by a number of separate}