Death to Tyrants! (43 page)

Provision 17 addresses those guilty of breaking provisions 15. That is, it targets (1) anybody who is compensated although he did not contribute or spend money according to the law; (2) anybody who recovered what was not owed; (3) anybody who recovered more than what was owed. Those individuals shall not be crowned or inscribed as benefactors.

The third extant section seeks to accomplish three objectives. The first objective is to arrange for an orderly dispensation of rewards and honors after the refoundation of the democracy. The issue is potentially problematic. Without clear guidelines, for example, there can be confusion with regard to both which individuals deserve rewards and what those rewards should be. Also, people might try to become famous by falsely claiming to have participated in the liberation movement. The Athenians famously experienced both of those problems in the last decade of the fifth century: after the fall of the Four Hundred and after the fall of the Thirty.
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The second objective is to ensure that the articulated rewards are perceived as credible—to ensure, that is, that everybody believes that, should he “contribute or spend money” to help overthrow a nondemocratic regime, he will be rewarded as promised. To accomplish that, the Ilians vowed to punish harshly both magistrates who do not provide the rewards and individuals who try to acquire rewards that they do not deserve. The third objective—and closely related to the second—
is to assure potential contributors that any money that they might contribute would actually be spent to reestablish the democracy: if it were not, the person to whom they gave the money would have to pay back twice the money he received—likely to the initial contributor himself.

Historical Context

CIRCUMSTANCES WHEN PROMULGATED

It is difficult to construct the historical context within which the people of Ilion promulgated their tyrant-killing law. To begin with, the law does not refer to known people or historical events: it does not, for example, contain an archon date (vel sim.) like the law of Eukrates or refer to Alexander like the dossier from Eresos. Much more fundamentally problematic, however, is the fact that we know very little about Ilion's internal history during the Classical and early Hellenistic periods. Archaeologists have certainly shed important light on Ilion's domestic history through their analysis of the city's material culture. Work published in the journal
Studia Troica
, in particular, has laid the foundation for all subsequent historical analyses of Classical and Hellenistic Ilion. And the epigraphic and literary sources occasionally provide important information. But the gaps in our knowledge are still frustrating and, at times, paradoxical: there is no direct evidence for a tyranny at Ilion during the Hellenistic period, yet it is from Hellenistic Ilion that we have the most detailed tyrant-killing law.

Despite these difficulties, the comments presented in this section argue that the people of Ilion promulgated their tyrant-killing law circa 280, after having overthrown a nondemocratic regime that was in power sometime during the reign of Lysimachos. This is, admittedly, not an original thesis (although not every scholar agrees with it). But I defend it more thoroughly than it is defended elsewhere. I demonstrate, first, that internal evidence—evidence provided, that is, by the inscribed law itself—supports the thesis. I then demonstrate that external evidence also supports the thesis. Certainty is impossible. But the combined weight of both the internal and external evidence does make a reasonably solid case.

The law's language in lines 144–49 provides compelling internal evidence that, at the time of the law's promulgation, the people of Ilion had recently overthrown a nondemocratic regime. The law states, “and there shall be access always to the magistrates and the standing council—and this shall be [permissible] during the present year (
ἔστω τοῦτο πρῶτον ἔτος
)—and the penalty shall be the same for the members of the standing special boards.” That stipulation, it will be recalled, addressed the possibility that the archons might not reward individuals who financially contributed to the successful overthrow of a nondemocratic regime. The relevant clause, of course, is “and
this shall be [permissible] during the present year.”
⁵⁵
Funck (1994: 335) suggests that the Ilians inserted that clause in order to articulate the well-known legal principle that a law takes effect immediately after it is promulgated. But that just begs a question: why state a well-known principle? It is much more likely that the Ilians inserted the clause in order to ensure that people who contributed to the
recent
overthrow of a nondemocratic regime would be compensated.
⁵⁶

Additional internal evidence is provided by the inscription's letterforms. Brueckner noted in his editio princeps (1894: 468–69) that the inscription's lettering is similar to that found in
OGIS
221, an inscription from Ilion that likely dates to the early 270s (or 280–260). This observation has found widespread acceptance.
⁵⁷
But letterforms are not always a reliable indicator of an inscription's date. One might cite
OGIS
219—a decree from Ilion honoring “King Antiochos, son of Seleukos”—as an example: it has been dated as early as circa 280 and as late as 197/6.
⁵⁸
Thus the letterforms merely indicate that the Ilians
possibly
inscribed their tyrant-killing law circa 280.

Internal evidence thus suggests that the Ilians might have promulgated their tyrant-killing law circa 280, after having overthrown a nondemocratic regime. And that implies that the nondemocratic regime was in power sometime during the reign of Lysimachos. Several external points corroborate that preliminary finding.

Some corroboration is provided by the apparent fact that the people of Ilion did not enjoy Lysimachos's reign. One might note, first, the fact that the
dēmos
exuberantly honored Seleukos I after he defeated Lysimachos at Kouroupedion and subsequently took control of the Troad. The decree (
I. Ilion
31) is fragmentary, but the apparent sentiment is fully evident: the
dēmos
decreed to build an altar inscribed with his name on it and placed in the agora; a month was named after him; and festivals and sacrifices were to be held in his honor. It is certainly possible, of course, that such honors did not reflect genuine enthusiasm for the Troad's new political order. And it is also possible that the people of Ilion were angry with Lysimachos not because he supported a tyrant but because he favored Alexandria Troas over their own polis.
⁵⁹
To counter both of those objections, note that
I. Ilion
1 (lines 24–26) refers to an embassy sent by the koinon of Athena Ilias to Antigonos “concerning the freedom and autonomy of the cities sharing in the temple and festal assembly” (
ὑ
[
πὲρ
] |
τῆς ἐλευθερίας καὶ αὐτονομίας τῶν πόλεων τῶν κοινωνουσ
[
ῶν τοῦ
] |
ἱεροῦ καὶ τῆς πανηγύρεως
). Billows has reasonably suggested (1990: 219) that this embassy was sent in 302, when Lysimachos and, later, his general Prepelaos ravaged various poleis in the Troad: Lysimachos besieged and subsequently garrisoned Sigeum; Prepelaos besieged Abydos, a polis in the Ilian koinon (Diod. Sic. 20.107). At that time (i.e., 302), the democrats of Ilion likely suspected that, were Lysimachos to gain control of the Troad, they would lose their freedom. And that is conceivably what happened.
⁶⁰

Additional corroboration is provided by the fact that a new democratic political order was established in Ilion after the battle of Kouroupedion. The evidence for that assertion is entirely epigraphic. There are only two extant, nonfragmentary inscriptions that carry public decrees from Ilion that antedate that battle (
I. Ilion
23 [circa 359] and 24 [circa 300]). Both record honorary decrees and neither refers to the
dēmos
; they both refer, instead, to the “Ilians.”
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There are several extant inscriptions that date to the years immediately
after that battle, however. And all refer to the
dēmos
, and most include the motion formula “be it resolved by the
boulē
and
dēmos
” (
δεδόχθαι τῆι βουλῆι καὶ τῶι δήμωι
).
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A final corroborating point is that there were several anti-tyranny movements in and around Asia Minor after the battle of Kouroupedion. Such was the case in Erythrai, as
chapter 5
demonstrated. Also, an interesting fragment of a plausibly contemporary inscription from Nisyros (
Syll
.
³
1220) is possibly part of an anti-tyranny law. And, after the battle of Kouroupedion, the residents of Herakleia Pontica destroyed the citadel walls of the tyrant Klearchos, who had been installed in power by Lysimachos.
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It thus appears that a wave of anti-tyranny activity swept through much of the region after Lysimachos's death. Seleukos might have promoted that.
⁶⁴

The previous comments support a brief historical reconstruction. A nondemocratic regime came to power in Ilion sometime during the reign of Lysimachos. During that time the people of Ilion watched Alexandria Troas prosper, while their own hopes for economic improvement were dashed; there are no known building projects in Ilion that date to this period. But the dynamic changed after the battle of Kouroupedion: the pro-democrats, perhaps with outside help, rallied and took control of the city, overthrowing the
supporters of the nondemocratic regime. They then promulgated their tyrant-killing law in order to defend their own, reestablished regime.
⁶⁵

THE TYRANNICAL THREAT

In this section, I identify the nature of the tyrannical threat that confronted the people of Ilion. What, in particular, were the people of Ilion worried about? As noted above, we know very little about Ilion's domestic political history during the Hellenistic period. We do have, however, an elaborate tyrant-killing law that the people of Ilion promulgated in order to prevent anti-democrats from maintaining a nondemocratic regime. And a careful reading of that law provides at least a general answer to a couple of important questions. First, what is the basic profile of the expected tyrant or “leader of an oligarchy”? Second, how were such anti-democrats expected to maintain control of the polis?

WHO?

Two of the law's provisions suggest that the people of Ilion expected the would-be tyrant to be a wealthy local or regional military man. Provision 4 of the Ilion tyrant-killing law incentivized “fellow soldiers” (
sustratiōtai
) to kill the tyrant—the prefix
sun
[
sus
here] meaning “fellow.”
Stratiōtai
can refer to both soldiers in general or hired mercenaries more particularly.
⁶⁶
In the above analysis of the law, I suggested that this provision particularly addressed mercenary soldiers. Thus the Ilians possibly imagined the potential tyrant to be or to have been a mercenary and thus have “fellow mercenaries.” (And it will be recalled from the opening of this chapter that Chares and Charidemos, two of Ilion's tyrants during the fourth century, were mercenary generals.) But it is also possible that the Ilian pro-democrats used the word
stratiōtai
in the law because it is more general and would thus include both run-of-the-mill mercenaries (commonly called
μισθοφόροι
) and more elite soldiers in the tyrant's inner circle (i.e., his
hetairoi
). In both cases, however, the Ilians imagined the tyrant to be a military man, as opposed, for example, to a banker (like Euboulos of Bithynia) or a philosopher (like Hermias, Euboulos's successor), both tyrants of nearby Atarneus, or a historian (like Douris, the tyrant of Samos).

The second relevant provision is number 12, the “memory sanction” provision. It required that the inscribed names of prominent members of an
anti-democratic regime be erased from tombstones, the priest lists, and offerings in the temple of Athena. The people of Ilion thus imagined that a future tyrant might be (or have been) a priest and had likely dedicated offerings in the temple of Athena. A priest would have been a wealthy and prominent man: the tyrant-killing law itself indicates (line 123) that not all individuals were qualified to be priests and, as is well known, in Hellenistic Asia Minor priesthoods were often sold to the highest bidder.
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Individuals from both Ilion and the wider Troad, however, dedicated offerings in Ilion's temple of Athena. Andrea Berlin (2002) has demonstrated that, beginning already in the mid fourth century, regional powers dedicated offerings in the temple of Athena in order to advance their political objectives.

The political history of the Troad and its immediate environs supports the basic profile derived from the law's provisions. As noted in the beginning of this chapter, regional strongmen, dynasts, dominated Ilion throughout much of the Classical period. And as evidenced by several examples, such was the case for the region in the late Classical and early Hellenistic periods. One might note, for example, the aforementioned Hermias, tyrant of Atarneus. An inscription (
RO
68) repeatedly refers to his
hetairoi
(“companions,” lines 1–2, 10–11, 13, 15, 20–21, 24): they likely commanded garrisons in the towns under his regional control.
⁶⁸
The descendants of exiled Spartans and Eretrians who assisted the Persians at the time of the Persian Wars controlled small cities in the Kaïkos valley, even issuing coinage, into the mid fourth century.
⁶⁹
The sarcophagus from Çan discussed above (note 48) quite likely belonged to a fourth century Anatolian dynast. In circa 275, Aristodikides of Assos (a “friend” of Antiochos I) was strong enough to successfully request that the king give him 8,000 plethra (2,000 hectares) of land—and, importantly, he added it to the city of Ilion (
I. Ilion
33 =
RC
10–13). And most famously, the Attalid Kingdom was essentially founded in 283, when Philetairos started ruling as a dynast—and allied with Seleukos—rather than as Lysimachos's subordinate.
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Further examples could be cited.
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