Μάλλιος. Offprint - Festschrift Tiverios. Οι πολέμαρχοι των Παιόνων Πυραίχμης και Αστεροπαίος στις γραπτές πηγές και την κεραμική.

Georgios K. Mallios
The Paeonian Warlords
Pyraichmes and
Asteropaios in the
Literary Sources
and the Pottery
of the Archaic Era
SUMMARY. This paper deals with the appearance of the two Paionian mythic heroes Pyraichmes
and Asteropaios in the Archaic Greek literature and vase-painting. The Iliad introduces both heroes
for the first time, yet it is quite possible that they appear in other Archaic epics as well. They are
safely recognized through inscriptions, on three vases from the Corinthian and ‘Chalcidian’ workshops,
that date to the 6th c. BC. It is very likely that their depiction as fighting against the Achaean
heroes, on these vases, owes a lot to their epic image in the Iliad and to the way Homer describes
them as worthy opponents of Patroklos and Achilles respectively. It seems that the polarization between
the leaders of the Paiones and the Achaeans which is represented in the Iliad as well as on
the vases could articulate the notion of the clash between the Greeks and the natives in the Archaic
colonial world. The trading and colonial activities of the Greeks during the Archaic era are focused
on the shores of the Northern Aegean, where the powerful Paiones had been living for centuries.
One could expect that the presence of Pyraichmes and Asteropaios in the Iliad is to express the nexus
of relationships and the tensions which the Greek pioneers and the Paionian populations experienced
in the North. On the other hand it is very interesting, and quite puzzling at the same time,
that Homer closely relates (narratively and semantically) the Paionian leaders with their Lycian comrades
Sarpedon and Glaukos, both fighting on the Trojan side against the Acheans. It has been recently
argued that the poet of the Iliad was informed on the Lycian mythic traditions while travelling
in Rhodes and the Lycian coast. Would it then be reasonable to assume that the same sources
(e.g. Rhodian traders and sailors) informed Homer on the Paionian warlords as well, thus resulting
in the Paionian-Lycian connection attested in the Iliad?
208 ΚΕΡΑΜΕΩΣ ΠΑΙΔΕΣ