SOURCE: Tigerstedt, E. N. “Lacedaemon: History, Myth, and Propaganda.” In Stockholm Studies in History of Literature 9: The Legend of Sparta in Classical Antiquity, Volume I, pp. 19-28. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1965.

[In the following essay, Tigerstedt considers why so much of Spartan history and culture is cloaked in myth and legend.]

The growth of a historical legend such as that of Sparta presupposes a nucleus around which it more or less gradually crystalized. Scholars, it is true, are often forced to resign themselves to the annoying fact that while they must assume the existence of such a nucleus they are unable to define it more precisely. Here we are more fortunate. We are concerned with a city and a state whose life was enacted in the clear light of history, not to say world history, whose fate was described by Greece's most important historians and whose institutions were analyzed and criticized by the greatest thinkers of antiquity. The amount of testimony is overwhelming; the only thing to be apprehended is an embarras de richesse. And when contemporary witnesses unexpectedly fail us, modern research must surely come to our aid; archaeology and philology should be able to solve the riddles which the ancient historians have left unanswered.¹

But these hopes have as yet not been fulfilled and much points to their never being fulfilled at all. There is no lack of testimony, but the witnesses are more or less under suspicion as being partisan or tendentious. They themselves form a good part of the legend which with their help we are attempting to demolish. Modern research, too, has often increased rather than diminished the obscurities it set out to illuminate. The most certain conclusion which has emerged from all these labours is that we know much less about the reality behind the Spartan legend than we would wish to know, and less than we thought we knew.² Yet this Socratic ignorance is a gain. And the most resigned scepticism will not prevent scholars from renewed attempts to elucidate the historical phenomenon which was Lacedaemon of history before it became the Sparta of legend.

HISTORY, MYTH, AND PROPAGANDA³

What makes an attempt at reconstruction especially difficult is that the historical facts were from the beginning cloaked in Sparta itself by involuntary, unconscious or conscious, deliberate fabrication of legends, by myth and propaganda.⁴ In this respect Sparta is certainly not exceptional among the Greek states or among human societies in general. Everywhere history is embroidered by myth and everywhere distorted by propaganda.

But in classical Sparta we do not find any historiography, no ἱστορία in the sense in which the Greeks have taught us to understand the word. The mists of legend which shrouded the origins not only of Sparta but of other Greek states were not dispelled by the fresh winds of curiosity and rational inquiry. Sparta never had its Herodotus or Thucydides.

Sparta's role in Greek history was however already commented on by the earliest Greek historians.⁵ Thus Hecataeus of Miletus (ca 500 b.c.) appears to have based the chronology of his mythological work “Genealogies” on the histories of the Spartan kings.⁶ A generation later Herodotus of Halicarnassus, in his great historical work, gave a fragmentary sketch of Sparta's history down to the Persian war, so that he is one of the oldest and most important sources for the Spartan legend.⁷ At the same time or rather a little later than these universal historians there appear in Ionia local historians who apply the methods of their predecessors to the history of their own cities and they were quickly followed by others in the mother country.⁸ One Greek city after another now has its myths, its annals and its customs described, usually by one of its own citizens.⁹

There was no strict division between universal and local history since the man who if not the earliest, was the most distinguished of local historians, Hellanicus of Mytilene in Lesbos,¹⁰ an older contemporary of Thucydides (Fifth century), wrote the first “world history” the chronology of which was based on the list of high priestesses of Hera in Argos. In this work he naturally discusses the history of Sparta.¹¹ Hellanicus was also the author of a special treatise on the victors in the music competitions at the festival of Apollo Carneus in Sparta.¹² A little later, Charon of Lampsacus (ca 400 b.c.)¹³ wrote a book entitled “The Leaders of the Lacedaemonians” which may have been a general history founded on the lists of Spartan kings and ephors, or possibly a history of Sparta¹⁴—in which case it was the first of its kind and for a long time the only one.¹⁵

It is significant that the first and fundamental historical writings about Sparta were composed by foreigners.¹⁶ This is also true of their successors. They are non-Spartans; from the 4th century on it was mainly Athenians or Greeks educated or domiciled in Athens who wrote Sparta's history: Thucydides, Xenophon, Ephoros, Theopompos, Aristotle, to name only the most important. Of these authors the greatest significance attaches to Ephorus and Aristotle. The first because of his great Greek history which gave the account of Sparta's customs that has persisted down to our own times;¹⁷ the latter because of his monograph on the Spartan state which exercised a formative influence on all later scholars.¹⁸ Both these works are lost but they can be largely reconstructed because they have been made use of by ancient authors.

Side by side with these historical writings which were fairly objective in spite of their political tendentiousness and rhetorical form, there appeared from the middle of the Fifth century b.c. a political literature which was to a great extent preoccupied with the conditions in the Spartan state and with the laws of Lycurgus, often for panegyric purposes. The only work which has been preserved among the many lost ones is Xenophon's The State of the Lacedaemonians;¹⁹ he had an Attic forerunner in Critias.²⁰ Similar “polities” (πολιτεῖαι) were written also by Spartans. King Pausanias and the general Thibron are known to have been the authors of such works at the beginning of the Third century.²¹ But their works are lost and can only be reconstructed with great difficulty, if at all.

This late and unexpected Spartan productivity is in any case confined entirely to political pamphlets. In classical times Sparta contributed as little to historical science as she did to philosophical debate, although she was often the subject of keen discussion, at least from the time of the Sophists, if not earlier. Plato's Republic and Laws as well as Aristotle's Politics are the most important extant witnesses for this, but we possess the titles, and in some cases short fragments, of a number of philosophical writings about Sparta, its laws and customs.²²

Sparta lost its central position in political and philosophical discussion after its political collapse in the middle ot the Fourth century and recovered it only for a short time through the Spartan revolution in the latter half of the Third century. The revolution inspired Phylarchus' panegyric—which is reflected in Plutarch—and stimulated the interest of Hellenistic scholarship in Sparta.²³

It was at this time that Sparta did at last get its own local history thanks to the work of Sosibius and his followers, although the ground had already been well prepared by Aristotle and his disciples, especially Dicaearchus.²⁴ To this period belongs one of the most important sources for the Spartan legend—if not for Sparta's history—the collection of Laconic apophthegms, which have been preserved in an abbreviated form in Plutarch.²⁵

Polybius shows a distinctly less pro-Spartan attitude in his great historical work (which has survived in an incomplete form)—at least as far as the Sparta of his own day was concerned. For he compares Lycurgus' Sparta with Rome—a parallel which recurs in many later Greek and Roman authors. Cicero's dialogue the Republic, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus' Roman Antiquities are the most important extant examples of this comparison which is of more concern for the Spartan legend than for Spartan history.²⁶

Much the same is true of later authors except in so far as they reflect older works now lost and thus themselves become sources for Spartan history, as for example Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Plutarch, Pausanias and Iustinus. The most important is Plutarch whose Lives constitute one of our main sources.²⁷ Next we must mention Pausanias, whose great Description of Greece presents a detailed picture of Antonine Sparta's monuments and artistic treasures, as well as giving valuable information about its past.²⁸

To all this must be added the brief incidental references to Sparta which are met with in poetry and rhetoric, first and foremost the fairly extensive fragments of the two old Spartan poets, Alcman²⁹ and Tyrtaeus.³⁰ In comparison with these the meagre poetical and rhetorical sources—lyric poets like Simonides³¹ and Pindar,³² tragedians like Euripides,³³ writers of comedies like Aristophanes,³⁴ orators like Isocrates³⁵ and Lycurgus³⁶—are all of secondary importance. The information which all these older authors provide—and this is even more true of their counterparts in Hellenistic and Roman times—has bearing mainly on the Spartan legend; only in the second place on the historical Sparta.

This summary of the ancient literary sources for the history of Sparta shows that we do not suffer from a dearth of material but that the nature of the ancient sources is such that they tend to be more of a hindrance than a help to the investigator in his efforts to separate history from legend. A further difficulty—and this is common to the whole of ancient history—is that the richest and best sources have with few exceptions been lost, and are known only at second- or thirdhand, often in a garbled form. What would we not give to have Hellanicus, Charon, Ephorus and Aristotle in their original form!

But even if we possessed them, this would not mean that our knowledge of Sparta's history would rest on surer foundations. Every author, every historian—even an Aristotle or a Thucydides—is a primary source only for what he himself has learned or experienced.³⁷ And unfortunately, as far as Sparta is concerned, we cannot expect any great amount of such primary material. Sparta itself had no antiquarian before Sosibius, and still less any writer of memoirs or orator. It is true that some authors who wrote about Sparta visited it for shorter or longer periods—for instance Herodotus, Hellanicus, Charon, and presumably Thucydides, Aristotle and Dicaearchus. But the impressions of tourists and such informations as they could procure—however valuable they are for want of something better—cannot replace the intimate knowledge and sympathy such as Thucydides possessed for Athens and Polybius for Rome. As far as we know there is only one among the non-Spartan authors in classical time who had an opportunity of acquiring an intimate knowledge of Sparta; this was Xenophon. Unfortunately he was, as we shall see, not the man to profit to the full from this circumstance. Much the same is true, as far as we can judge, of Phylarchus, the panegyrist of the Spartan revolution.

In the circumstances the decisive question is what sources were at the disposal of the ancient writers, especially the historians, with regard to Sparta. The answer is not encouraging.³⁸

Where the earliest Spartan history down to the Persian War is concerned, this is not to be wondered at. History was a late arrival in Hellas. Here we do not find any imperial histories of priestly annals, there are no palace and temple archives as in the old civilizations of the Near East Lists of kings, pedigrees, records of victors in the great Hellenic games and other competitions, as well as of officials in the various states who gave their name to the year, the so-called eponymic lists, that is all there was—the earliest of them from the Eighth century.³⁹ The first certain date in Greek history is 776/5 b.c., when the first Olympic Games were held and when Coroebus of Elis was victorious in the foot-race.⁴⁰

Such genealogies and lists of names are also found in Sparta, where they are in fact credited with an unusually great antiquity. Thus the parallel list of Spartan kings of the Agiads and Eurypontids⁴¹ is taken back to about 1000 b.c.⁴² In actual fact it goes back at the most to about 900 b.c.⁴³ A critical analysis of the list shows that the first kings must be regarded as mythical, that certain of the later names are likewise not historical⁴⁴ and finally that no reliable dates for the reigns exist before the Persian War.⁴⁵ The names were preserved merely for genealogical reasons by the Spartans⁴⁶ but they had no chronological interest in a dateable list of kings, since the dual kingship made the dating by reigns practically impossible⁴⁷. Spartan dates, as is known, were indicated instead by the first of the five annual ephors. A list of ephors also existed from about 754/3 b.c., although it is now lost.⁴⁸ There is no reason to doubt the genuineness of this list.⁴⁹

Finally, there existed in Sparta a list of victors in the quadrennial games in honour of Apollo Carneus (Καρνειονῖaαι) which was published by Hellanicus.⁵⁰ The inception of this festival was dated to 676/5, which is intrinsically not impossible,⁵¹ but the list of victors cannot have been of any great value to the historian of Sparta.⁵²

On the other hand the lists of kings and ephors were of the greatest importance for the ancient historians who tried to establish a chronological schema for Greek history. Hecataeus seems already to have based his genealogies on the list of Spartan kings⁵³ and his example was followed by Herodotus,⁵⁴ Ephorus,⁵⁵ Timaeus⁵⁶ and the Alexandrian philologists, who used this list for the whole of the earlier Greek chronology.⁵⁷ The list of ephors was probably first published by Charon in his Leaders of Lacedaemonians⁵⁸ which possibly also included the list of kings.⁵⁹ He was followed later by others, like Timaeus of Tauromenium.⁶⁰

The publication, at least of the list of ephors and the Karneonikai, presupposed investigations on the spot which could only be undertaken with the approval of the Spartan authorities. We have therefore reason to suppose that both Hellanicus⁶¹ and Charon⁶² visited Sparta.

The list provided a chronological skeleton for Spartan history at least as far back as 754 b.c., but nothing more. The common view that such lists of names also contained brief historical notes which by degrees were expanded into annals proper on the analogy of the Roman pontifical annals⁶³ is certainly very tempting, but it is refuted by the almost total lack of certain dates in the older Greek history with the exception of the few which directly connect with names on the lists.⁶⁴ There is just as little support for the view that anything apart from names was included in the royal genealogies.⁶⁵

But apart from this the Spartan authorities at an early date had documents of general interest in their safe-keeping. In this sense it is possible to speak of a Spartan “state archive”.⁶⁶ We know the kings were obliged to keep the oracles which they received from the Delphian Apollo through his envoys, the four Pythians.⁶⁷ We also have preserved several such oracles, but their antiquity and genuineness are disputed, first of all the so-called Great Rhetra.⁶⁸ Moreover, agreements with foreign states can hardly have been entrusted simply to memory.

It is possible that the Spartan “state archive” also contained other documents. We know, on the other hand, that those documents were lacking which in Athens and other Greek cities took first place in the archives: laws and decrees. In Sparta, as is well known, there were no written laws; its customary law was never codified or published; it was solely preserved in the memory of the authorities.⁶⁹

Sparta is also almost completely lacking in inscriptions which are of such great importance for the modern scholar—and also for his ancient counterparts.⁷⁰ Not even the extensive English excavations succeeded in unearthing any real Spartan examples from classical times of decrees, dedications and tomb inscriptions which represent one of our most important sources for Greek history. The epigraphical finds, meagre as they are, date with few exceptions from Hellenistic, and predominantly Roman times.⁷¹

Classical Sparta, the Sparta which was victorious over the Persians and contended with Athens for the hegemony of Greece, thus preserved an almost unbroken silence. This fact corresponds with the absence of written laws and indigenous historians, and both are a phenomenon without any counterpart in Greek history.

This cannot be explained simply by a primitive lack of historical sense and interest, in which Spartans in their conservatism persisted alone among the Greeks. It must be regarded rather as a manifestation of a fully conscious wish to withdraw from the painful and revealing light of history. Every attempt to describe the true Sparta has even to this day to wrestle with what Thucydides already called “the secretiveness of their state”, τῆs πολιτείαs τὸ χρυπτόν.⁷²

A historian of classical times who visited Sparta thus had very little hope of penetrating these “state secrets”⁷³ although some of them were later on unveiled when the Spartan state became decadent.⁷⁴ What he learned was for the most part only what his hosts wished him to know. This was the case with Herodotus and Xenophon in so far as their accounts go back to Spartan sources. The strict control of foreigners was a guarantee that no unauthorized prying could take place into the affairs of State. There was no public discussion of politics in Sparta, either spoken or written, no open opposition, no demagogues. The struggle for power, which certainly took place, had to be conducted for the most part behind the scenes.

On the other hand the classical historians had ready access to another kind of material: Spartan poetry with its rich and important information about historical and mythical persons, places and events, habits and customs, rites and worship.⁷⁵ We have reason to believe that in this respect Sparta was in no way inferior to any other Greek city.

It is true, the legend which connects Homer with Lycurgus and ascribes to the latter the introduction of the Homeric poems into Sparta and Hellas—either after their personal meeting or after he had received them from Homer's heir—is merely a learned construction hardly older than the Fourth century.⁷⁶ In general it appears that the epic made a late appearance and as a genre enjoyed little vogue in Sparta.⁷⁷ But we do know the names of two Laconian epic poets, Demodocus and Cinaethon. Their works, now completely lost, were concerned with historical and genealogical subjects—Heracles, Oedipus—or they offered a continuation of the Iliad—the so-called little Iliad—or of the Odyssey—Thesprotis, Telegony.⁷⁸ Their age is uncertain but they obviously belong to the last ramifications of the epic period, the Homeric as well as the Hesiodic.⁷⁹ That they seem not to have included any purely Laconic themes may be due to gaps in the sparse ancient notices about them.⁸⁰

Very much richer was the flowering of lyric poetry in Sparta. Several of the greatest names in Greek lyric poetry are connected with Sparta: from the half mythical Terpander and Thaletas⁸¹ to Simonides⁸² and Pindar,⁸³ but above all Alcman⁸⁴ and Tyrtaeus.⁸⁵ In their poetry and that of others the scholar will be able to discover rich historical information.

Side by side with the great artistic poetry there flourished a more popular poetry: eulogy, satire, war poems and marching songs, of which short fragments have been preserved.⁸⁶ This poetry, too, must have been rich in historical material, and more could be gleaned from the ritual at some of the festivals which were instituted in memory of some great historical events or famous men, such as the “Gymnopaediae”⁸⁷ and the “Leonidea”.⁸⁸

The last-mentioned sources were hardly understandable—least of all to the foreigner—without an oral or written explanation, that is to say without a “myth”. For it is the essence of a myth to provide a “pre-scientific” explanation of phenomena. Such myths were to be found in Sparta as they were in the rest of Greece and they were by no means confined to the cults but embraced the whole of existence. Everything—from Mount Taygetus and the river Eurotas to the latest victor in the games or a recent natural catastrophe—could be a subject for a “myth”, that is an explanation which assimilated it to tales of gods and heroes.⁸⁹

The myth in the pre-classical period, the “archaic period”, corresponds to what history and philosophy were for subsequent periods. It was both history and an explanation of the world; it perpetuated the past by elevating it to the superhuman sphere. The gods and heroes who had lived and acted in the past lived and worked still among men. It was only in later times of “enlightenment” that the myths were relegated to the remote past, as was done for instance by Ephorus when he made the Return of the Heraclidæ the prelude to the historical age.⁹⁰

This separation of myth and history was facilitated by the fact that the pan-Hellenic heroic saga ended with the Fall of Troy and the return of the heroes.⁹¹ What followed was only partially described in scattered local legends and traditions which could not lay claim to the same authority and popularity. Thus there was in general consciousness a gap between the heroic age and the “men as they are now”—as Homer already says.

It took however a long time before myth and history became finally separated. On the contrary, the myth which spread from man to man or was sung by poets and bards was the oldest history of Greece.⁹² And Greek history in its beginning was nothing more than an attempt to write down and put in order the various and contradictory myths and to use them to bridge the gap between the present and the heroic age. In the beginning history did not deny the value of myth as an historical source. But each attempt to bring order into these myths inevitably involved rationalisation. And the day came when the first Greek historian—the first occidental historian—could write: “Thus says Hecataeus of Miletus: in the following I have written what appears to me to be the truth. For the stories current among the Greeks are, so it seems to me, many and absurd.”⁹³

To make sense out of these “many and absurd” tales was the aim of the Greek historians which they tried to reach by pruning away everything that seemed incredible, fabulous or contradictory. From Hecataeus to Ephorus they strove more or less naively to transform myth into history.⁹⁴

They have not lacked modern successors down to recent times,⁹⁵ but since Niebuhr and Otfried Müller the attitude of scholarship towards myths has become both more critical and more understanding. One no longer tries to force them into preconceived ideas but to understand and explain them.⁹⁶ Modern scholarship likewise concedes that the myth has a kernel of truth, that somehow or other it mirrors historical facts. But it is not possible to recover these facts by means of the simple methods of the older rationalising “mythographers” of earlier and later times. It is seldom, if ever, possible directly to transform myth into history.⁹⁷

In the first place we hardly ever have the myths in their original “pre-rational” shape, but in the rationalised forms which were given to them by poets, theologians and historians and were determined or influenced by aesthetic, logical, ethical and political considerations.

Add to this the fact that all the events which may be mirrored in the myth lay in the more or less distant past, a period often comprising many generations, if they were not lost altogether in the mists of antiquity. Even those who in principle concede that there is a historical kernel in these myths have to admit that the chances of finding this kernel diminishes with increasing remoteness in time. In most cases the time which has elapsed between the fixation of the myths in its written—or pictorial—representation and the time of its inception is so long that there was plenty of scope for change and distortion during the time of oral transmission, the “popular tradition”.⁹⁸

Finally, myth from its beginning was never purely an expression of a disinterested thirst for knowledge and of the human instinct to tell a story. It does not only explain but explains away. It becomes a weapon in argument. Sparta's history is particularly rich in myths invented with an obviously practical purpose, especially of a political nature. If the myths were Greece's first history, they were also its first propaganda.⁹⁹

Thus we are faced again with the fact which is the greatest hindrance to any real insight into the history of Sparta and of the Spartan legend: the deliberate attempt to envelop itself and its past in an obscurity of its own making. In Sparta from the beginning legend and truth are closely, indeed inextricably, interwoven.¹⁰⁰

Notes

1. The whole of the older literature on the subject, as well as the surviving ancient sources have been conscientiously collected by Georg Busolt in his Griechiesche Geschichte bie zur Schlacht von Chaeronea, I-II (2nd ed., 1893–95)—III:1-2 (1899–1904), which however only brings us to 404 b.c., see also his Die Lakedämonier und ihre Bundesgenossen, I (1878). Rich material is found, too, in Busolt's (ed. Heinrich Swoboda) Griechische Staatskunde, I-II (HA, 1920–26), see also Karl Friedrich Hermann, Lehrbuch der griechischen Antiquitäten, I, Staatsaltertümer, 1 (6th ed., ed. Viktor Thumser, 1889).—Modern work is summarized in the large and valuable article on Sparta in RE, VI A (1929), in which Victor Ehrenberg writes on history, Friedrich Bölte on topography, Ludwig Ziehen on culture and Julius Lippold on art. …

2. “Wir wissen ja alle, dass mit unserem Material wirkliche Beweise nicht möglich sind; man kann nur eine wahrscheinliche und plausible Entwicklung seichnen, dis das Material nicht vergewaltigt”. (Felix Jaboby, in a letter to the author.)

3. As was said in n. 1, the ancient source material for the histgory of Spargta has been collected with very few omissions by Busolt, Griechische Geschichte, but only up to 404 b.c. The most important sources are mentioned in the articles on Sparta in RE, as well as in the cited works by Meter, Beloch, Glotz & Cohen, Bengtson, Cohen and others. Most of the ancient literary sources are discussed in Ernst Kessler, Plutarchos des Lykargos (Quellen und Forschungen zur alten Geshchicte und Geographie, 23, 1909). Indispensible for all research into Greek historyis Felix Jacoby's masterwork Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (F Gr Hist), I-III C (1923–58); those texts which are missing from it are cited after Charles and Theodor Mullers' now atiquated Fragmenta Historicum Graecorum (FHG), I-V (1841–70) the index of which is, however, still of great value.

4. As we shall see later on, propaganda may, however, appear in the form of myth, see for instance [Tigerstedt. E. N., Stockholm Studies in History of Literature, Vol. I, Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1965.] p. 28 ff.

5. The views on the origin and development of Greek historiography, which are followed here, are those held by Jacoby in his great and fundamental work Atthis, the local Chronicles of Ancient Athens (1949), see especially p. 199 ff. Cf. also “Über die Entwicklung der griechischen Historiographie” (Abhandlungen zur griechischen Geschichtsschreibung, 1956, p. 16–64) and”Griechische Geschichtsschreibung”, (op. cit., p. 73–99).

6. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] p. 24.

7. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] p. 70 and 81–107

8. See Jacoby, Atthis, p. 68, 200 ff., 225, 289 (n. 111) and “Entwicklung”, p. 20 ff., 50 ff. who argues against the commonly held view that local history preceded universal history.

9. In the famous chapter in Aristoteles und Athen, II (1893), p. 1–33, which treats “Die Quellen der griechischen Geschichte” Wilamowitz for the first time gave a survey of Greek local history and its sources. The fragmentary works of Greek local history, which have been preserved, are now all collected in F Gr Hist, III B and b. Atthis represents an introduction to it. See also Richard Laqueur, “Localchronik” RE, XIII: 1 (1926); Martin Vogt, “Die griechischen Lokalhistoriker” (JPhS, XXVII, 1902, p. 699–785) is out-of-date and, besides, of little value.

10. Hellanicus' fragments can be read in F Gr Hist, I and III B, see also Jacoby, “Hellanikos”, RE, VII:1 (1913) and Atthis passim, as well as in F Gr Hist, III b S, I and II (1954). Further Wilhelm Schmid & Otto Stählin, Geschichte der griechischen Literatur, I:2 (1934), p. 680–692 and Lionel Pearson, Early Ionian Historians, (1939), p. 152–235.

11. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] p. 70.

12. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] p. 23 f.

13. Charon's fragments can be read in F Gr Hist, III A and a, se also Jacoby, “Charon von Lampsakos” (Abhandlungen, p. 178–206) whose dating is adopted here, and Pearson, op. cit., p. 139–151. Den Boer, Laconian Studies, p. 33 f. is sceptical about the various dates of Charon.

14. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] p. 24.

15. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] ch. V.

16. R. Crahay's curious theory, La littérature oraculaire chez Hérodote (BUL, CXXXVIII, 1956), p. 347, that Cleomenes I at the end of the sixth century compiled a Spartan chronicle which after his fall was remodeled by his enemies has no foundation in any known fact and is incompatible with all that we know about the development of Greek historiography. Crahay has, however, convinced Marie Delcourt, see her L'Oracle de Delphes (1955), p. 124 ff. (published before Crahay's book, but after her having read it in manuscript).

17. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] ch. II, p. 208 ff.

18. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] ch. III, p. 280 ff.

19. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] ch. II, p. 161 ff.

20. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] ch. II, p. 156 ff.

21. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] ch. II, p. 110 ff.

22. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] ch. III, and IV.

23. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] ch. V.

24. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] ch. V.

25. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] ch. IV.

26. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] ch. VI.

27. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] ch. VII.

28. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] ch. VII.

29. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] p. 43.

30. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] p. 44 ff.

31. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] p. 106.

32. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] ch. II, p. 150 ff.

33. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] ch. II, p. 115 ff.

34. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] ch. II, p. 123 ff.

35. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] ch. II, p. 179 ff.

36. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] ch. II, p. 204 ff.

37. See Wilamowitz, Aristoteles und Athen, II, p. 4.

38. See Jacoby's masterly survey F Gr Hist, III b I, p. 613 ff and II, p. 355 ff which replaces Gilbert's very out-of-date analysis on “Die einheimische Tradition der Spartaner” (Studien, p. 1–32). Cf. Busolt & Swoboda, op. cit., I, p. 40–52.

39. For the eponymic lists see inter alios Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums, II, p. 5 ff., Beloch, op. cit., I:1, p. 17 ff., Busolt & Swoboda, op. cit., I, p. 37 Schmid & Stählin, op. cit., I:1, p. 661, De Sanctis, op. cit., I, p. 17, Bengtson, op. cit.², p. 64 ff, Krister Hanell, Das altrömische eponyme Amt (Acta Instituti Romani Regini Sueciae Series in 8⁰, III, 1946) p. 71–78, and N. G. L. Hammond, “Studies in Greek Chronology of the Sixth and Fifth Centuries” (Historia, III, 1955), p. 391. Jacoby, Atthis, p. 354 (n. 11) considers it impossible that even “a mere list of officials” existed so early as the eighth century, but without further reasons for his view.

40. Those who deny the autheniticity of the Olympic lists—Mahaffy, Busolt, Beloch, Kahrstedt a. o.—have lately acquired a powerful ally in Felix Jacoby, Atthis, p. 58 ff. and 353 (n. 3) and especially F Gr Hist, III b I, p. 222 ff.; b II, p. 145 ff. Jacoby considers the whole of the older part of the list—up to about 50 names—a more or less free invention by the sophist Hippias of Elis, whose 'Ολυμπιονιχῶν ἀναγραφή was already criticised in antiquity, accord. to Plutarch's Numa 1.6=Hippias fr. 2 Jacoby (F Gr Hist, I, p. 157). This criticism may not have concerned the list as such, cf. F Gr Hist, III b I, p. 224 f. Without going any further into the question of the Olympic lists I only want to stress that Jacoby seems to me to have not really met A. Brinkmann's weighty defence of their authenticity, see his “Die Olympische Chronik” (RhM, 1915, p. 622–637); cf. recently Otto Regenbogen, “Pinakes”, RE, XX:2 (1950), col. 1412 f. Den Boer, Laconian Studies, p. 42 ff. and Franz Kiechle, Messenische Studien (1959), p. 10 ff. Den Boer's resuscitation of Wilamowitz' hypothesis of a true “Local history” is however unconvincing, cf. Jacoby, F Gr Hist, III b I, p. 227 f. Eugène Cavaignac, Histoire de l'antiquité I:2 (1919), p. 333 ff., Wilamowitz, Pindaros (1922), p. 481 ff. and especially Lenschau, “Forschungen zur griechischen Geschichte im VII and VI Jahrhundert v.Chr., IV, Die Siegerliste von Olympia” (Ph, 1936, p. 396–411) have maintained that at first the Olympic Games were annual events, at least until 580/79, when the first quinquennial Olympiad was held. This means that the beginning of the Olympic list must be dated to 632/1 with serious consequences for the dating of the whole of the older Greek history. Cavaignac's and Wilamowitz' views have been criticized by Wade-Gery in CAH, III, p. 762–765, and Lenschau's thesis has been rejected by Christian Callmer, Studien zur Geschichte Arkadiens (Diss. Lund, 1943), p. 57 ff. Cf. Bengtson, op. cit.; and Kiechle, op. cit., p. 12 ff.; also Jacoby, Atthis, p. 281 (n. 43), who found it “worthy of serious consideration”; but in F Gr Hist III 6 II, p. 152 ff he rejects it.

41. Such parallel χατάλογοι τῶν βασιλέων are mentioned in Pausanias III 1,9 (the source is perhaps Sosibius, see below ch. VII, cf. Gilbert, op cit., p. 6 ff.).

42. The diverse versions, which existed in antiquity, of the lists of Spartan kings were collected and critically examined by Jacoby, Apollodors Chronik (Ph U, XVI, 1902), p. 80 ff., cf. F Gr Hist, II D, p. 744 ff. and Atthis, p. 88 and 357 ff. (n. 26). See further Eduard Schwartz, “Die Königslisten des Eratosthenes und Kastor” (AGG, 40, 1894), p. 60 ff., Busolt, op. cit., I², p. 582 ff., Meyer, Forschungen, I, p. 170 ff., Beloch, op. cit., I: 2, p. 171—191, Poralla, op. cit., p. 137–165, Lenschau, “Agiaden und Eurypontiden,” p. 123–133, Donald Wilson Prakken, “Herodotus and the Spartan King Lists” (TAPHA, LXXI, 1940, p. 460–472) and Studies in Greek Genealogical Chronology (Diss. Columbia, 1943), Jürgen Kroymann, Pausanias und Rhianus (NDF, 14, 1943), p. 138—162, Den Boer, Laconian Studies, p. 3–150 and “Political Propaganda in Greek Chronology” (Historia, V, 1956, p. 162–177).—But a correct judgement of the historical value of the lists had already been made by Niebuhr, Vorträge, I, p. 226 ff, 310 ff.

43. So Meyer, op. cit., I, p. 286 and Geschichte des Altertums, II, p. 281, cf. also Busolt & Swoboda, op. cit., I, p. 37 n. 3, Bengtson, op. cit.², p. 70 and Jacoby, Atthis, p. 80 and F Gr Hist, III b I, p. 613. More sceptical is Beloch, op. cit., I:1, p. 17, who is attacked by Poralla, op. cit.

44. The names preceding the eponyms Agis and Eurypon serve the purpose of connecting the royal house with Heracles, but even the eponyms themselves must be unhistorical, cf. [Tigerstedt, 1965] p. 37. On the interference with the lists of Eurypontids motivated by the Lycurgus legend, see below n. 563.

45. See Gilbert, op. cit., p. 9, Meyer, Forschungen, I, p. 181 ff. and Jacoby, Apollodors Chronik, p. 89 ff, as well as Atthis, l.c. What we have said does not imply that such information could not be got in Sparta, at least before the 7th and 6th century, and was actually obtained by, for instance, Charon or Timaeus, see Jacoby, Apollodors Chronik, l.c. and Atthis, p. 282 (n. 55).

46. Here belongs the Λαχωνιχαὶ ἀναγραφαί of indefinite date which Plutarch consulted in Sparta (Agesilaus 19,10), see [Tigerstedt, 1965] ch. VII.

47. The difficulties in dating documents after two contemporary regents with varying years of reign has curiously enough been overlooked in the discussions about the lists of ephors, cf. however Meyer, Forschungen, II, p. 502 f. Jacoby, F Gr Hist, III b I, p. 640 has likewise seen this but has not drawn the natural consequences. This is due partly to his conviction that “kein datum der altspartanischen, und selbst keines der späteren geschichte auf die ephorenliste gestellt ist” (op. cit., III b I, p. 642), partly to his opinion that the list of ephors before Chilo is a forgery (see below n. 48). As regards the first, Jacoby is right in holding contrary to Meyer, op. cit. that we cannot simply assert that in Sparta the kings' reigns were not used for dating. But there is just as little justification for Jacoby's assertion of the contrary, since the examples he quotes—including Plutarch's Cimon 16,4 on the great earthquake—are non-Spartan datings. For a foreigner it seemed natural to date after the reign of a king, since the kings represented Sparta in foreign relationships. Thucydides II 2, 1 gives the official Spartan dates according to the eponymous ephors—so rightly A. W. Gomme, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, II (1956), p. 2. Den Boer, op. cit., p. 81 thinks—also Jacoby, Atthis, p. 305 (n. 24), who thus must have held a different view than later,—that in Sparta dating according to the year of ephors started with Chilo. But in that case Den Boer ought, as Jacoby, to reject the pre-Chilonic ephors, since the purpose of a list of ephors is the dating. Both Den Boer and Jacoby overlook that dating according to ephors does not necessarily imply their political power. In Assyria dates were indicated not after the reign of the king but after the annual magistrates, see Meyer, l.c. The ephors could have been eponyms long before they became leaders of the state. What political power could be ascribed to the priestesses of Hera in Argos?

48. See Jacoby, Apollodors Chronik, p. 138 ff. and Meyer, Forschungen, I, p. 247 ff. Solari, “Fasti ephororum Spartanorum” (Ricerche spartane, p. 75–150) has tried to reconstruct the list of ephors for the time 500–184 B.C.

49. So rightly Jacoby, op. cit., p. 142. According to Diogenes Laertius' compilation from the beginning of 3rd cent. Βίοι φιλοσόφων I 68, Pamphila was of the opinion—see for this authoress who wrote in Nero's time, Otto Regenbogen, “Pamphila”, RE, XVIII:2 (1949)—that Chilo (ephor for 556/5) was the first of the ephors: Γέγονε δέ ἔφοροs χατὰ τὴν πεντηχοστὴν έχτην ὀλυμπιάδα (563/3)—Παμφίλη δέ φησι χατὰ τὴν έχτην (756/3), χαὶ πρῶτον ἔφορον γενέsθαι—ἐπὶ Εὐθυδήμου, ὥs φησι Σωσιχράτηs. For this difficult, and in any case corrupt, passage cf. Jacoby, op. cit., p. 139 and 183 ff. who regards Pamphila's statement as a simple mistake. In Atthis, p. 305 (n. 24) Jacoby, in accordance with his general tendency to doubt the age of the list of ephors, considers it doubtful whether a list of ephors existed prior to 556/5, although ephors were to be found earlier in Sparta, and that it was only then that dating after ephors rather than reigns of kings began, a fact which he wants to connect with the reforms of Chilo. Charon of Lampsacus was perhaps “the first to supply years for the reigns of the Spartan kings and to extend the list of ephors back beyond 556/5 to the eighth century” (op. cit., p. 282, n. 55), Jacoby has reiterated and intensified his rejection of the lists of ephors in the commentary to the Laconian authors, see F Gr Hist, III b I, p. 613 and 642; II, p. 356 f. and 371. On the other hand, he now seems to doubt that Charon played a part in the compiling of the lists, see op. cit., III b I, p. 614—but in b II, p. 321 he reverts to his earlier opinion, cf. below, n. 58. Lenschau, “Entstehung des spartanischen Staates”, p. 282 ff. has also questioned the age of the list of ephors without however giving any reason as did already Max Duncker, Geschichte des Altertums, V, (3–5th ed., 1881), p. 426 n. 4. However, it seems difficult to understand why Charon, or anybody before him, had taken the trouble to invent or compile 200 Spartan names, since that amount was needed, cf. Stern, Entstehung des Ephorats, p. 9 f. Likewise incomprehensible are the reasons which are suggested for the alleged forgery of the list of ephors. It is impossible to motivate such an early forgery of the list with the desire to date the ephorate as far back in history as possible, since it is just the oldest sources which do not regard it as an institution of late date, as we shall show below. But in that case the list of ephors should have been taken back as far as Lycurgus, that is according to the oldest records several centuries before 754/3. Jacoby also asserts that the prolongation of the list of ephors was “die konsequenz der (m.e. mit der chilonischen reform von c. 556/5 untrennbar verbundenen) auffassung, dass das ephorat eine schöpfung Lykurgs war” (F Gr Hist, III b II, p. 356). But no greek chronology dates Lycurgus' reform to 754/3. On the other hand it is clear that the later statements according to which the ephorate was founded by King Theopompus rest solely on the year of the beginning of the list of ephors which fell into the reign of Theopompus, see Meyer, Forschungen, I, p. 246 ff. and Jacoby, Apollodors Chronik, p. 142.—Pamphila's πρῶτον ἔφορον γενέsθαι may be a misconstruction in that it makes Chilo to be the first, that is the eponym ephor, so Jacoby, op. cit., p. 187, or that he was ephor for the first time, so Meyer, Geschichte, II, p. 565.—It must be added that the first name on the list of ephors—according to Plutarch, Lycurgus 7, 1—Elatus, does not belong to any either historical or mythologically famous person, since the ephor cannot be identical with the Arcadian hero Elatus son of Arcas, the founder of Elateia in Phocis, nor with the centaur Elatus, nor with the lapith of the same name, cf. Waser, “Elatus” 2–4, RE V:2 (1905), col. 2240 ff. In Pherecydes, fr. 39 (F Gr Hist, I, p. 73) an otherwise unknown Messenian hero Elatus, the son of Icarus, and father of Taenarus, appears, cf. Jacoby, op. cit., I, p. 404, Waser, “Elatus” 5 (op. cit., sp. 2241) and Carl Robert, Die griechische Heldensage, I (1920), p. 9 and 331. Wilamowitz, Isyllos von Epidauros (Ph U, IX, 1886), p. 60 and Walter Immerwahr, Die Kulte und Mythen Arkadiens, I, (1891), p. 39 ff., also Wide, Lakonische Kulte, p. 44, identify the Messenian, or rather Arcadian Elatus, with the Thessalian. Elatus was originally a lapith, according to their view. However, this Elatus never had any political significance which might have prompted his elevation to the position of the first of the ephors. I add for the sake of completeness that Hermann Usener, “Göttliche Synonyme” (RhM, 1898, p. 349) on weak grounds regards Elatus as an old name of Poseidon.

50. Hellanicus fr. 85–86 (F Gr Hist, I, p. 129, 458) cf. Jacoby: “Hellanikos”, col. 143 and Atthis, p. 59. Also Den Boer, op. cit., p. 39 ff. For the festival, see [Tigerstedt, 1965] p. 41.

51. According to Sosibius fr. 3 (F Gr Hist, III B, p. 714; b I, p. 645). Meyer, Geschichte, II, p. 582, 591 casts doubts on this date without giving any reasons. Beloch, op. cit., I:1, p. 24 n. 1 considers it suspicious that Terpander, who according to his view is mythical, was the first victor, but see Schmidt & Stählin, op. cit. I:1, p. 405. For Terpander and Sparta, see [Tigerstedt, 1965] p. 41.

52. Jacoby, F Gr Hist, I p. 458, “Hellanikos,” col. 143 and Atthis, p. 59, calls Hellanicus' work a history of Greek music. But when in his investigation of Charon of Lampsacus (Abhandl., p. 188), he declares that his work contains “wenig genug spartanische Tradition wenn überhaupt solche” and that it merely touched upon the Spartan state “an der Peripherie” he overlooks the position of music in archaic Sparta. See [Tigerstedt, 1965], p. 40 ff.

53. This was emphasized first by Meyer, Forschungen, I, p. 169 ff. and more recently by Jacoby, “Hekataios”, RE VII:2 (1912), col. 2742 ff. and F Gr Hist, I, p. 319 with the reservation that Hecataeus possibly did not trace the kings any further back than the return of the Heraclids (“Hekataios”, col. 2736); later Jacoby was not sure whether Hecataeus used the list of Spartan kings, see Atthis, p. 306 (n. 25) and F Gr Hist, III b II, p. 355. Cf. also Prakken, “Herodotus and the Spartan King Lists and Greek Genealogical Chronology, p. 20, Pearson, op. cit., p. 105 ff. and Den Boer, op. cit., p. 6. Recently Wade-Gery, The Poet of the Iliad (1952), p. 76 (n. 68) and 90 ff. has followed Meyer. In F Gr Hist, III b II p. 355 Jacoby—after Poralla, Prosopographie p. 32—put forward the possibility that the ‘Εχαταῖοs ὁ Σοφιστήs which is mentioned in Lycurgus 20,3 and Apophthegmata laconica 218b was the Milesian. In that case he would have visited Sparta in 500/499 in company with Aristagoras and perhaps have got hold of the list of Spartan kings. But in op. cit., p. 419 Jacoby had doubts and prefers the Abderite, as he did in F Gr Hist, III a, p. 33 ff., cf. below ch. V.

54. See Meyer's fundamental investigation of Herodotus in “Chronologie der griechischen Sagengeschichten” (op. cit., I, p. 153–188), further Prakken, “Herodotus” etc. and Greek Genealogical Chronology, p. 47 ff. who thinks that Thucydides also used Hecataeus' list of Spartan kings (op. cit. p. 71 ff.) and lately den Boer, op. cit., p. 12 ff.

55. See Schwartz, “Königslisten”, p. 68, Jacoby, F Gr Hist, II D, p. 707 f., Prakken, Genealogical Chronology, p. 73–101 and Den Boer, op. cit., 123 ff.

56. See Gilbert, op. cit., p. 13 ff., Meyer, op. cit., I, p. 247 and Jacoby, Apollodors Chronik, p. 91. Cf. Timaeus test. 10 (F Gr Hist, III B, p. 582) Polybius XII 11,1 which, however, Jacoby does not consider altogether conclusive any longer, see F Gr Hist, III b I, p. 587; b II, p. 321 (n. 97).

57. This was done by Eratosthenes and Apollodorus, see Schwartz, “op. cit.”, p. 60 ff., Meyer, op. cit., I, p. 180 ff. and Jacoby, Apollodors Chronik, p. 35 ff., 88 ff., 179 ff. and F Gr Hist, II D, p. 707 ff. Cf. below chapter V n. 355.

58. According to Suda Charon (Suidae Lexicon ed. Ada Adler, IV, 1935, p. 791) Charon test. 1 (F Gr Hist, III A, p. 1) the title was Πρυτάνειs e ἄρχοντεs τῶν Λαχεδαιμονίων. Jacoby deletes e ἄρχοντεs as an obvious glosseme, which Miss Chrimes did not notice. Her explanation of the title (Ancient Sparta, p. 337 n. 4) is as absurd as her hypothesis that Charon compiled the list of kings on the basis of genealogical poems and her dating of Charon's work to 485 B.C. (op. cit., p. 340 ff.), see Den Boer's criticism (op. cit., p. 34).

59. Jacoby, F Gr Hist, III a, p. 1 and 3 ff and Abhandlungen, p. 187 ff. regarded Charon's Πρυτάνειs as a history of the world “deren Gerüst aber die spartanischen Eponymen bilden”, but Atthis, p. 59, 289 (n. 113) he considers it more likely that Πρυτάνειs was a history of Sparta. Again in F Gr Hist, III b I, p. 614, he reverts to an earlier opinion that the work was “eine Universalchronik” but “wohl sicher” dated after kings perhaps—but not certainly—also after ephors which he later seems to regard as a certain fact on p. 321 (n. 99). Πρυτάνειs may mean both kings and ephors, see F Gr Hist, III a, p. 4 and Atthis, p. 59; also den Boer, l.c.

60. See above n. 56.

61. See Wilamowitz, Aristoteles und Athen, II, p. 24 and Jacoby, “Hellanikos” col. 106. Jacoby has lately doubted.—F Gr Hist, III b S I, p. 15 ff.; S II, p. 8 (n. 75) and b I, p. 613 f., b II, p. 357 ff. that the—according to him (op. cit., III b S I, p. 20 ff.; S II, p. 18 ff. n. 163)—pro-Athenian Hellanicus visited Sparta but he thought that Hellanicus received the list from a friend. Jacoby himself draws attention to the uncertainty in this assumption. The fact that Hellanicus did not write a Λαχωνιχά cannot be taken as a proof that he did not visit Sparta.

62. As Jacoby in F Gr Hist, III a, p. 8 and “Charon” (Abhandlungen, p. 187) has pointed out, Charon fr. 2 shows that he stayed in Sparta, since he mentioned that he himself there saw the drinking cup which Zeus gave to Alcmene.

63. So for instance Meyer, Geschichte, II, p. 5 ff, Curt Wachsmuth, Einleitung in das Studium der alten Geschichte (1896), p. 554, Busolt & Swoboda, op.cit., I, p. 38, 59 and Laqueur, “Lokalchronik”, col. 1086 ff. Cf. Wilamowitz on the list of ephors: “dass sie bloss aus den nackten Namen bestanden hätte wird nicht leicht jemand probabel machen” (l.c.) as also Jacoby, F Gr Hist, III b II, p. 356 f (n. 6) who has not noticed that Wilamowitz, Staat und Gesellschaft der Griechen², p. 208, had accepted Jacoby's point of view that the eponym lists were not chronicles.

64. See Jacoby, Atthis, p. 176 ff.—Such a date was Chilo's ephorate, 556/5, another was Solon's archontate in 594/3.

65. See the detailed discussion on the ἀναγραφαί quoted by Plutarch (above n. 45) in Gilbert, op. cit., p. 2 ff. and especially Jacoby, F Gr Hist, III C I, p. 613; II, p. 356 f.

66. See Jacoby, F Gr Hist, III b I, p. 613, p. 35 f. (n. 10) who thinks that both kings and ephors must have had their own archives.

67. Herodotus VI 57, cf. Xenophon Respublica Lacedaemoniorum XV, 5 and Plutarchos Adversus Coloten 17 (1116 f.), see Busolt & Swoboda, op. cit., I, p. 41 and 649.

68. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] p. 51 ff.

69. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] p. 77 ff. As Busolt & Swoboda, op. cit., II, p. 649 points out the new laws must have been publically proclaimed to be generally observed.

70. Polemon from Ilion (ca 200 B.C.) wrote Περὶ τῶν ἐν Λαχεδαίμονι ἀναθημάτων see [Tigerstedt, 1965] ch. V.

71. The Laconian inscriptions, edited in an exemplary manner by Walther Kolbe in IG, V:1 (1913)—cf. A. M. Woodward's additions and corrections (BSA, XLIII, 1948, p. 209–259)—need to be completed by later finds, see M. N. Tod, “A Survey of Laconian Epigraphy 1913—25” (BSA, XXVI, 1923–25, p. 106–115), Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum ed. J. J. E. Hondius & A. M. Woodward, I (1923) ff. and Dawkins, The Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia, p. 285–377. Bourguet, Le dialecte laconien, has commented linguistically on 44 inscriptions. Epigraphical material is discussed in detail, but unsatisfactorily, by Miss Chrimes, see Woodward's critical review (Historia, 1950, p. 632 ff.)

72. Thucydides V, 68, 2 cf. V 74, 2. The difficulty of ascertaining the number of Spartans who took part in a battle gives ground for the reflection, cf. Ziehen, “Das spartanische Bevölkerungsproblem”, p. 219 ff. who with reference to Herodotus VII 234, IX 10 and 28—thinks that the Spartans were less secretive during the Persian Wars when they were the allies of the Athenians. The deliberate obscurity in the history of Sparta has been pointed out by Glotz & Cohen, op. cit., I, p. 339 and Roussel, op. cit., p. 216.

73. Cf. Wilamowitz, Aristoteles und Athen, II, p. 24.

74. This is probably the case with the Great Rhetra, cf. Ehrenberg, “Spartiaten und Lakedaimonier”, p. 23.

75. Cf. Gilbert, op. cit., p. 29, who, however, only mentions “das historische Lied”, and Wilamowitz, l.c. and Homerische Untersuchungen, p. 268 ff. Sosibius had written an antiquarian commentary to Alcman, see below ch. V.

76. The first authorities are Ephorus and Aristotle, who were followed by, among others, Apollodorus, Sosibius, Aelianus, Dio Chrysostomus and Plutarch. See Erwin Rohde, “Studien zur Chronologie der griechischen Literaturgeschichte” (Kleine Schriften, I, 1901), p. 58 ff., Jacoby, Apollodors Chronik, p. 98 ff. 108 ff. and Kessler, op. cit., p. 21 ff. Cf. below ch. II, p. 211, 281, V and VII. Wilamowitz, Homerische Untersuchungen, p. 267 ff. sees in the story of Lycurgus' editing and spreading of the Homeric poems a direct polemical parallel to the comparable legend of Solon and Pisistratus.

77. So Wilamowitz, op. cit., p. 268 cf. Schmid & Stählin, op. cit., I:1, p. 158. In contrast to this Erich Bethe, Homer, III (1927) p. 164 ff. thought that the Homeric poems experienced a revival in Lacedaemonia in the seventh century, cf. Wilamowitz, Die Heimkehr des Odysseus (1927), p. 121 ff.

78. The ancient authorities for Cinaethon and Demodocus—no verses have been preserved—are to be found in G. Kinkel, Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, I (1877), p. 196 ff., 212 ff. See further Schmid & Stählin, op. cit., I:1, p. 199 n. 10, 202, 217, 293. Alois Rzach, “Kinaithon”, RE XI:1 (1921) and Gerhard Vitalis, Die Entwicklung der Sage von der Rückkehr der Herakliden (Diss. Greifswald, 1930).

79. Eusebius (following Sosibius?) dates Cinaethon to 5th Olymp. (760/757) but how little value this date has is shown by Wilamowitz, Homerische Untersuchungen, p. 348 ff. See further Wilamowitz, op. cit., p. 370 ff. who is of the opinion that Cinaethon was revived in the fifth century for nationalistic reasons. In Der Glaube der Hellenen, I (1931), p. 56 n. 3 Wilamowitz seems to doubt the Laconian birth of Cinaethon, cf. also Die Textgeschichte der griechischen Lyriker (AGG, N. F. IV, 1900), p. 116, n. 1. Meyer, Geschichte, II, p. 562 without giving any reasons, dates Cinaethon to the seventh century.

80. Among the works ascribed to Hesiod is the epic Aegimius on the early Dorian king, the adopted father of Hyllus, cf. [Tigerstedt, 1965], p. 151. See Kinkel, op. cit., p. 82—85 and Hesiod fr. 184–191 (Hesiodi opera ed. A. Rzach, BT, 3rd ed. 1913, p. 203–205), cf. Schmid & Stählin, op. cit., I:1, p. 282, 287, Vitalis, op. cit., p. 46 ff. and lately J. Schwartz, Pseudo-Hesiodeia (1960), pp. 261 ff. See further [Tigerstedt, 1965], n. 112.

81. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] p. 41.

82. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] p. 106 ff.

83. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] p. 28 ff. and 42 and further ch. II, p. 150 ff.

84. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] p. 43.

85. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] p. 45.

86. Several poetic fragments of this kind are to be read in Plutarch's Life of Lycurgus, see below ch. VII. Cf. Gilbert, op. cit., p. 29 and Schmid & Stählin, op. cit., I:1, p. 453. Here belong the marching songs ἐμβατήρια, which were earlier ascribed to Tyrtaeus, see Ernst Diehl, Anthologia Lyrica, II:2 (2nd ed., 1942), p. 35 (Carmina popularia fr. 18–19). Cf. Wilamowitz, Textgeschichte, p. 96 ff, who ascribes them to a very late date, after Cleomenes III, at least in their present form.

87. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] p. 41 and n. 530.

88. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] p. 106.

89. Jacob Burckhardt's characterisation of the nature of Greek myth in his Griechische Kulturgeschichte, I, p. 13–51, is famous. See further Wilamovitz, Glaube der Hellenen, I, p. 4 ff., Martin P. Nilsson, Die Geschichte der griechischen Religion, I² (HA, 1955), p. 13–35 and “Cults, Myths, Oracles and Politics in Ancient Greece” (Acta Instituti Atheniensis Regni Sueciae, Series in 8°, I, 1951), p. 9 ff., Wolf Aly, “Mythos”, RE, XVI:2 (1935) and Wilhelm Nestle, Vom Mythos zum Logos. Die Selbstentfaltung des griechischen Denkens von Homer bis auf die Sophistik und Sokrates (2nd ed., 1942), p. 1 ff.

90. See [Tigerstedt, 1965] ch. II, p. 209.—Later the historical age was regarded as beginning with the first Olympiad, see Jacoby, Apollodor's Chronik, p. 76 ff. and F Gr Hist, II D, p. 719. Cf. Aly, “op. cit.”, col. 1405 ff.

91. On the gap between the heroid saga, as it appears in the Homeric epic, and the oldest “historical” traditions, see Meyer, Forschungen, I, p. 185 ff. and Geschichte, II, p. 5 ff. Jacoby, F Gr Hist, II C, p. 25 and “Entwicklung der griechischen Historiographie” (Abhandlungen) p. 37 ff. Martin P. Nilsson has shown that this gap is due at least partially, to the fact that the great heroic myths go back to Minoan-Mycenean times, see The Mycenaean Origin of Greek Mythology (Sather Classical Lectures 8, 1932) p. 22 ff. On “archaism” and “historical consciousness” in Homer see Wolfgang Schadewaldt, “Die Anfänge der Geschichtsschreibung bei den Griechen”, (A, 1934), p. 149. See also the interesting remarks made by Kurt Latte in his paper “Die Anfänge der griechischen Geschichtsschreibung” (Entretiens sur l'antiquité classique, IV, Histoire et historiens dans l'antiquité, 1958, p. 3 ff.).

92. On the role of myth as history Nilsson, Geschichte, I², p. 24 ff. and earlier Karl Otfried Müller, Prolegomena zu einer wissenschaftlichen Mythologie (1825, p. 81, 145 ff. Cf. also B. A. Van Groningen, In the Grip of the Past (1953), p. 95 ff. and Angelo Brelich, Gli eroi greci (1958) p. 386 ff.

93. Hecataeus fr. 1 (F Gr Hist I, p. 7), the fragment is placed by Jacoby, loc. cit. at the beginning of Γενεαλογίαι, but by Schmid & Stählin, op. cit., I:1, p. 695, n. 4 at the beginning of Περιήγησιs.

94. See Nestle, op. cit.², p. 131–152 (“Die rationalistische Mythendeutung”).

95. A remarkable example of this is Sir John Myres, Who were the Greeks? (Sather Classical Lectures, 6, 1930) where he defends the folk tradition, p. 297 ff.

96. Müller's Prolegomena was of fundamental importance for the new view of myth; see further the discussion of principles in H. J. Rose, Modern Methods in Classical Mythology (1930).

97. A categorical denial of the value of myth for Greek history was given by Beloch, see for instance Geschichte, I:1, p. 17 ff; I:2, p. 1 ff. For him and his disciples the attempt of modern scholarship to find a basis of reality in the myths is rejected in toto, see Alberto Gitti, Mythos. La tradizione preistoriografica della Grecia. Prolegomeni allo studio delle origini Greche (1949).

98. For this see Nilsson, Mycenaean Origin of Greek Mythology, p. 3 ff. and “Über die Glaubwürdigkeit der Volküberlieferung mit besonderem Bezug auf die alte Geschichte” (Scientia, 1930) reprinted, Opuscula selecta, II (1952), p. 816–826.

99. This important point of view has not been overlooked by scholars, see below Müller, op. cit., p. 132 ff, but it was first worked out in principle by Nilsson, “Cults” etc. p. 14 ff.

100. This has been overlooked by Ollier who devotes two separate chapters to “Ce que paraît avoir été la vraie Sparte” and “L'idéalisation à Sparte même” (op. cit., I, p. 7–41 and 88–118). But it is unfortunately not possible to make such a “reinliche Scheidung”.

Abbreviations

AGG = Abhandlungen der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Philosophisch-historiche Klasse

BSA = Annual of the British School of Athens

BT = Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana

BUL = Bibliothèque de la Faculté de Philosophie et des Lettres de l'Université de Liège

CAH = Cambridge Ancient History

FGrHist = Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker ed. Felix Jacoby

FHG = Fragmenta Historicum Graecorum ed. Charles Müller

Gn = Gnomon

H(E) = Hermes (Einzelschriften)

Ha = Handbuch der (klassischen) Alterumswissenschaft

HV = Historiche Vierteljahresschrift

HZ = Historische Zeitschrift

IG = Inscriptiones Graecae

JHS = Journal of Hellenic Studies

K(B) = Klio (Beiheft)

NDF = Neue deutsche Forschungen. ABteilung Klassische Philologie

PhU = Philologische Untgersuchungen

RE = Pauly's Real Encyclopäedie der klassischen Alterumswissenschaft. Neue Bearbeitung ed. G. Wissowa et alii. A after number of the volume indicates the Second Series (R-Z). The First Series is cited by volume, the Second by half-volume.

REA = Revue des Études anciennes

RhM = Rhenisches Museum für Philologie

TAPhA = Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association