AIUK46 no. 78 Casualty list of the Argives from the battle of Tanagra, 458 or 457 BC

Casualty list of the Argives from the battle of Tanagra, 458 or 457 BC

AIUK 4.6 (BM, Funerary Monuments) no. 78 Date: 458 or 457 BC

Of the Argives These died at Tanagra [at the hands of] the Lakedaimonians, . . . grief . . . fighting for . . . ^[1]

col. 1

Hylleis:^[2] Pollichos (5) [Al]kisthenes -os . . . Uncertain number of lines missing -ma- -this- [Hi]ppos[thenes] (10) [M?]ikeas Aristobios Telestas Aither Philokrates (15) Stilpon Epitimos . . . Uncertain number of lines missing

col. 2

Μatrios Aristion Sphendonion (20) Lykinos Wanaxilas Derketos Echemenes -is . . . Uncertain number of lines missing (25) -os- -ios -yros -imos- Agis (30) Mosch- . . . Uncertain number of lines missing Pos- Euch- Leo- . . . E- (35) Al- Ar- Ly- Te- Ka- (40) W- Rh- . . . Uncertain number of lines missing

col. 3

-os . . . . . . (50) -os . . . Uncertain number of lines missing -s . . . Uncertain number of lines missing -ai- (55) -okas Spintheras Epimenes Damaretos . . . (60) Stilpon Lysimachos Damophanes Mikeas Thallias (65) Kassabos Eriphantos Eunostidas Lysichos -oos (70) -on -iadas -yl- Uncertain number of lines missing Ais- Damahippos (75) Pantai- Dorqyl- Myspe- Arche- Ly- . . . Uncertain number of lines missing

col. 4

(80) Ant- The- E-l-s Phoinix Phileas (85) Brachas Telesstas Damophanes Thymares Daikles (90) Sylichos Derketos Lyqodorkas Kleon Kratiadas (95) Aischylos Euarchidas . . . Uncertain number of lines missing -s -s -as (100) -s -chos -n -leidas -machos (105) -os . . . Uncertain number of lines missing Uninscribed^[3] Da- Me- D- . . .

Next - Agora XVII 16
Greek text

References:

AIUK 4.6 (BM, Funerary Monuments) no. 78 (Translated text) (AIUK) (AIO)

IG I³ 1149 (IG Online) (PHI)

Peek, GVI, no. 15

ML 35

Agora XVII 4 (PHI)

CEG 1, no. 135

Clairmont, Patrios Nomos, no. 21a

Papazarkadas and Sourlas, Funerary Monument, 585-617 (AIO)

OR 111

Translation by: Stephen Lambert, Robin Osborne, Robert Pitt

AIO Images: 1

Images: Aleshire - (1)
Ohio - (1)

Monument type: Stele

Inscription type: Funerary (Public)

Fragment a - Findspot: Acropolis (EM 10276)
Fragment b - Findspot: Acropolis? (EM 10274)
Fragment c - Findspot: Athens, library of Hadrian (BM 1923,1017.1)
Fragment d - Findspot: Unknown (EM 10275)
Fragment e - Findspot: Unknown (formerly Karapanos collection) (Lost)
Fragment f - Findspot: Agora (EM 13312)
Fragment g - Findspot: Agora (EM 13306)
Fragment h - Findspot: Agora (EM 13305)
Fragment i - Findspot: Agora (EM 13310)
Fragment j - Findspot: Agora (EM 13308)
Fragment k - Findspot: Agora (EM 13309)
Fragment l - Findspot: Agora (EM 13307)
Fragment m - Findspot: Kerameikos (EM 13313)
Fragment n - Findspot: Agora (EM 13311)
Fragment o - Findspot: Athens, between Agora and library of Hadrian (Athens Ephoria ΠΛ 2338)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] The British Museum fragment of this list of the Argive dead at the battle of Tanagra, fr. c, was found in Athens near the library of Hadrian in the 18th century by the pioneering traveller and influential student of Greek architecture, James "Athenian" Stuart, and was sent to Smyrna for transport to England, but the marble was subsequently lost, being rediscovered in a garden rockery in Essex in 1901. 14 other fragments of the inscription have subsequently been discovered, the most recent (fr. o) in 2008 at 6 Kladou Street in Plaka, close to the findspot of fr. c (see Papazarkadas and Sourlas). The end of the second line of the two-line epigram (πέ]ρι μαρναμ̣[εν-, ". . . fighting for . . .") is inscribed on fr. c vertically downwards to the right of col. 4. The fragment also contains the ends of the names in ll. 82-83 of that column (the beginnings of the names are on fr. d), and the names in ll. 84-96. For more detailed discussion of fr. c see AIUK 4.6 (BM, Funerary Monuments), no. 78. On this genre of inscription see IG I³ 1147.

In 458 or 457 BC, at the height of the “First Peloponnesian War” Sparta responded to a Phokian attack on cities in Doris, the Dorian homeland, by sending an army of 1,500 Spartan hoplites and 10,000 allies, which compelled the Phokians to withdraw (Thuc. 1.107.2). Athenian naval presence in the Corinthian Gulf prevented this Peloponnesian army from returning home by ship and the recent Athenian alliance with Megara meant that the attempt to return via Megara was risky also. Thucydides claims that while the Peloponnesian army was in Boeotia some Athenians secretly urged them to intervene in Attica to overthrow the democracy and prevent the building of the long walls connecting the city with the Piraeus. The Athenians went out against the Spartans "in full force" with an army of 14,000, including 1,000 Argive hoplites, other allies and Thessalian cavalry. Battle ensued at Tanagra in Boeotia, and on Thucydides’ account there was “great slaughter on both sides” (1.108.1). Diodoros 11.80.1 claims there were two successive days of fighting, and Pausanias 1.29.8-9, noting the burial of the Argive allies in the Kerameikos commemorated by this monument, says that on the first day the Argives had the better of the battle against the Spartans, but that their success was not decisive at the point when night fell, and that on the following day the “treachery” of the Thessalians secured victory for the Spartans (Thuc. also mentions their desertion from the Athenian side). The reality may have been more complex. SEG 17.243 is a dedication (of a bronze horse) by the Thessalians at Delphi; SEG 34.560 a mid-fifth-century tombstone from Larisa in Thessaly for one Theotimos of Atrax who fought “in the plain of Tanagra”; and according to Hdt. 9.35 the Spartans were helped to victory by the seer Teisamenos. Plato’s parody of a funerary oration, purportedly written by Aspasia, also mentions the battle (Menexenos 242a-b). The Spartans took advantage of their victory to return to the Peloponnese via Megara without opposition, and set up a victory monument at Olympia (ML 36 = OR 112). The Athenians, however, 62 days after the battle, marched again into Boeotia under Myronides, and at Oinophyta near Tanagra inflicted such a defeat on the Boeotians that they were able to take control of Boeotia and Phokis and take hostages from the Opuntian Lokrians (Thuc. 1.108.2).

This monument seems to have commemorated only the Argive dead. Casualties from Kleonai (which hosted the Nemean Games), who had come to help with the Argives, were commemorated separately (Paus. 1.29.7). Athens had commemorated its war dead on inscriptions in the Kerameikos since the mid-460s (see IG I³ 1147 with n. 1), and this is the earliest surviving inscription, from Athens or elsewhere, commemorating casualties of a city other than Athens (for an example two generations later from Argos itself, see SEG 29.361). The style of the monument differs in some respects from other Athenian monuments to the war-dead: for example in the crowning pediment, and the lettering is in the Argive script (the mason is not identified by Tracy, Athenian Lettering, 2016, and was perhaps an Argive). As with Athenian monuments, however, casualties are listed by name only, the effect being to emphasise collective sacrifice rather than individual performance. It may be relevant that Argos was also a democracy at this time (M. Piérart in M. H. Hansen and T. H. Nielsen, Inventory of Greek Poleis, 604). The later SEG 29.361 is less “democratic” in style, displaying conspicuously the names and titles of a probasileus, a seer and a general (cf. Papazarkadas and Sourlas p. 606). The relative position of many of the fragments of this monument can not be determined, but 106 names survive, and on the hypothetical reconstruction by Papazarkadas and Sourlas (publishing the new fr. o = col. 3 ll. 60-72, which joins below fr. k), which we follow, at least ca. 280 names were recorded (p. 602), and there may have been significantly more. This would seem to confirm the literary record of unusually high casualties: P. Krentz, GRBS 26 (1985), 13-20, calculates average casualty levels in hoplite battles at ca. 14% on the losing side, 5% on the winning, with greater than 20% being rare. It seems that, as with Athenian dead, the dead Argive soldiers were cremated at the battle site and the bones then brought back to Athens. The allusions to the Athenian alliance with Argos of 462/1 in Aeschylus Eumenides (289-91, 667-73, 772-74), performed shortly before the battle, are suggestive as to its political importance at Athens, and it seems that the Athenians wished to bestow an unusual honour on their allies from the Argolid by affording them burial at Athens (Papazarkadas and Sourlas, 607, plausibly suggest a connection with the burial Athens afforded to Argive casualties in the myth of the Seven Against Thebes). One wonders whether the intention may also have been to reduce the impact at Argos of a ceremony in which more than a quarter of her army was brought back dead. [2] Hylleis was the name of one of the four Argive tribes. The other tribe headings are not preserved. [3] Nothing is inscribed above the beginnings of the three preserved names on this fragment (= fr. l), suggesting that they might have been added subsequently.

Added: 30 Sep 2016
Updated: 6 Apr 2022
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