The Archaic Period and the Fifth Century

Signs of cooperation among communities within particular regions appear at different moments in the archaic and early classical periods. Across regions, however, evidence for an emergent group identity, articulated around descent from a common ancestor and the occupation of a shared territory, tends to precede evidence for active cooperation among communities. While this similarity is highly significant for our understanding of how the koinon developed, divergences in other respects command our attention. The process of urbanization that is a central part of polis development occurred differently in each of the three regions that form the core of this study, and this development appears to be correlated to the emergence of cooperation among communities, accounting at least in part for the distinct developmental trajectories we can trace in each region. We have glimmers of evidence for an active sense of group identity and for conflict as well as cooperation among the early-developing poleis of Boiotia in the archaic period. But in Achaia and Aitolia these are largely developments of the fifth century, during which time the Boiotians develop a sophisticated set of formal state institutions at the regional scale, incorporating established poleis as members of a koinon. Similar institutions appear in Achaia and Aitolia only in the fourth century, although there is much less evidence for these areas, and we can trace the process with considerably less detail than is possible for Boiotia. As a result, each region will be treated separately in the first chapter. It is only in the fourth century, the subject of chapter 2, that the histories of the mainland Greek koina can be integrated into a more coherent narrative.

BOIOTIA

Despite some evidence for an emerging Boiotian identity that comprised the region's many poleis as early as the eighth century (map 2), relations between those poleis were characterized as much by competition as by cooperation. We shall see that both forms of engagement contributed to the development in the classical period of political institutions at the scale not of the single polis but of the region.

In the late eighth century a hierarchy of communities seems to have emerged, partially at least through the absorption and subordination of smaller communities. This process is evident in Hesiod's Works and Days, which represents the village (kome) of Askra as being in some way subordinate to a larger polis, typically assumed to be Thespiai. All we can learn of the nature of this subordinate relationship from the poem is that judges in the polis had, or claimed, the authority to resolve disputes arising in the village. If the polis alluded to by Hesiod was in fact Thespiai, it is likely that the subordination of Askra was accomplished by coercion rather than cooperation, for both Plutarch and Aristotle report the slaughter of its inhabitants by the Thespians sometime after the death of Hesiod.

Whether it was by the absorption of smaller communities or other means, by the early sixth century the Thebans had enough strength to begin making claims to regional leadership. The Shield of Herakles, preserved among the manuscripts of Hesiod, provides good evidence for these claims. The last eight lines of the poem contain an allusion to the so-called First Sacred War, meaning that it must have reached the form in which we know it only after about 590. Although details of the conflict are irretrievably lost and the literary sources for it reflect later traditions, we can still detect its basic contours. The First Sacred War began as a local Phokian conflict over Delphi but escalated to involve several other poleis and ethne of central Greece. The Thessalian victory in this conflict led to the subjugation of the entire region of Phokis and a significant increase in Thessalian influence in central Greece, which elicited a hostile response from the neighboring Boiotians. This response was highly significant for the emergence of regional political cooperation in Boiotia, and the pseudo-Hesiodic Shield seems to represent a strategy for justifying Theban leadership of that cooperation. In the poem Herakles' slaughter of Kyknos (ll. 370–423), son of Ares and son-in-law of Keyx, the ruler of Trachis (ll. 353–56), is presented as an act of vengeance on behalf of Apollo, for Kyknos had been waylaying Apollo's pilgrims and stealing their hekatombs (479–80).

There is a heavy local accent about this poem, in the occasional use of epichoric forms and in the emphasis on place and the origins of both hero and antihero. The sons of mighty gods, Herakles is nevertheless depicted as a Theban hero, and Kyknos as a Thessalian one. The conflict thus boils down to one between a Theban and a Thessalian over the right worship of Apollo, or at least over the manner in which his pilgrims and his sanctuary were treated. The poem also has a defensive tone: the Thessalians have corrupted the cult of Apollo, and the Thebans are its true defenders. In other respects, too, the poet is at pains to show that the gods favor Herakles, Thebes, and Boiotia: Apollo disregards Kyknos's prayer for victory over Herakles (68); and Iolaos reminds Herakles that both Zeus and "bullish Poseidon, who holds the turreted crown of Thebes and defends the city," honor him greatly, a likely allusion to the cult of Poseidon at Onchestos, in central Boiotia. If that is correct, it would suggest that in the early sixth century the Thebans had a proprietary interest in a rural sanctuary that in later periods at least was panregional and that was never, so far as we can tell, in the possession of a particular polis.

The poem as a whole reads like a claim, expressed in mythical terms, about the propriety of Boiotian relations with Delphi and the unwelcome aggressiveness of Thessalian interests in the shrine. Indeed the description of the obliteration of Kyknos's tomb by Apollo, a detail in the myth apparently invented by the poet of the Shield, seems to echo the destruction of Krisa in the war. The poem thus makes a powerful and menacing claim: those who mishandle Apollo's sanctuary and his pilgrims will be destroyed by his Theban protectors.

Other evidence confirms that hostility between the Thessalians and Boiotians escalated in the early sixth century. Plutarch mentions, in two conflicting accounts, a battle at Keressos in which the Boiotians drove out the Thessalians and thereby "liberated the Greeks." It is impossible to date the battle precisely, but it probably belongs in the early sixth century. Fortifications west of Orchomenos...