WAR IN THE HELLENISTIC WORLD

THE MEMORY OF WAR
war heroes buried at Plataia and the idea of freedom, which explains why
the service of slaves was not allowed on this occasion. A detailed description
survives in Plutarch’s life of Aristeides:
On the sixteenth of the month Maimakterion, which corresponds to the
Boiotian month Alalkomenios, they held a procession, which is led forth, at
break of day, by a trumpeter who sounds the signal for battle; wagons filled
with myrtle and wreaths follow, then a black bull, then free-born youths who
carry libations of wine and milk in jars and pitchers of oil and myrrh; for no
slave is permitted to assist in this service, since the men had died for freedom;
and at the end comes the chief magistrate of the Plataians, who may not at
other times touch iron or dress himself with any other garment than white,
but on this occasion wears a purple tunic, carries a water-jar from the city’s
archive, and marches, sword in hand, through the city to the graves. Then he
takes water from the spring, washes with his own hands the stelae and anoints
them with myrrh; then he slaughters the bull at the pyre and praying to Zeus
and Hermes Chthonios he invites the brave men who died for Greece to come
to the banquet and the offerings of blood. Then he mixes a mixer of wine and
makes a libation saying: “I drink to the men who died for the freedom of the
Greeks.” The Plataians observe these rites down to this very day.
(Plut., Aristeides 21.3–6; trans. B. Perrin, modified)
An interesting detail of this festival was a rhetorical competition (dialogos,
“debate”) between the two leading powers of the Greeks during the Persian
Wars, Athens and Sparta. The representative of Athens tried to prove that
the contribution of his native city to the victory was more significant than
that of Sparta, and the representative of Sparta tried to prove the opposite.
A pan-Hellenic jury decided who had made the most convincing argument,
and the winner was honored by his countrymen; his city had the privilege
of leading the procession (propompeia; Robertson 1986). This rhetorical
contest was introduced in the second century BC, and continued to take
place even in the Roman period. An inscription found in Athens preserves a
fragment of a speach delivered on this occasion (IG II 2 277; Chaniotis
1988: 42–8, late second century).
This was not the only competition during this festival. Races took place as
well, but on the battlefield, not in an ordinary stadium. The starting point was
the trophy of victory, and the races ended at the altar of Zeus Eleutherios.
The subtext of this festival – a common culture and a common ideal of
freedom – did not remain entirely unchanged in the course of the centuries,
and it is particularly interesting to observe that during a Hellenistic war a
new element was emphasized in the anniversary: the concord of the Greeks.
The Chremonidean War (268–261 BC) united Ptolemy II and several Greek
states, including Athens and Sparta, against the enemy of Greek freedom,
King Antigonos Gonatas of Macedon. The decree proposed by Chremonides
(Austin 1981: no. 49; Bagnall and Derow 2004: no. 19) reminded the
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