Sparta and Arcadia in the Early Fifth Century

Bibliographic Data

ID3938912
AuthorsA Andrewes (corresponding author)
Year1952
Volume6
Issue1
Pages1
Publication date1952-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePhoenix (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-8299 • E-ISSN: 1929-4883
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/1086961
OpenAlexW2316540133
LanguageEN
Citations received26

TEISAMENOS of Elis, a hereditary seer of the family Iamidai, was promised five great victories by the Pythia. The Spartans, guessing that the oracle meant war not sport, took pains to acquire Teisamenos for their army, and the five victories were duly won, beginning with Plataea and ending with Tanagra (Her. 9. 33, 35). Wilamowitz (Isyllos yon Epidauros 162 ff.) saw that this explained an eccentricity in the construction of the sixth Olympian, in which Pindar depicts the birth of Iamos. The poem is addressed to the Iamid Agesias, a citizen both of Syracuse and of Stymphalos in Arcadia, and is to be recited first in Stymphalos (98-100): it has no overt connection with Sparta, yet the elaborate introduction to the myth (str. fp') brings Pindar first to the banks of the Eurotas and to the Spartan village Pitana, whose eponym bore to Poseidon Euadna the mother of Iamos. 'Apxopuou 6'i~pyov rpb6owirov Xp/i .utev rT7Xavys, but this imposing stanza is not closely connected with the myth,' and we ask why it is there. Wilamowitz answers, Sparta is brought in because it was the home of Teisamenos, the most distinguished living Iamid.2 So far this is admirable, but Wilamowitz then (182 f.) suggests that the compliment to Teisamenos, recited in Stymphalos, is meant to conciliate him and Sparta after his victories in Arcadia-at Tegea over the Tegeates and Argives, at Dipaieis over all the Arcadians except the Mantineians. Herodotos' order places these victories after Plataea and before a victory over the Messenians,3 and Wilamowitz would date them before 468/7, his date for the sixth Olympian.4 This interpretation is clearly not impossible, but on other grounds it seems to me more likely that the Arcadian war comes later, in the neighbourhood of the great Spartan earthquake of 465.6 When the sixth Olympian was recited, the war which included Teisamenos' victories was certainly not in progress. I am not sure if we should deduce, from the way in which Sparta is dragged in, that in 468/7 the Arcadians needed to conciliate her because

Ancient history · Arcadia · Art · Art history · Classical Antiquity Studies · History

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