(Re)membering a Dismembered Past: The Hellenic League in the Persian War Tradition
In 479 B.C. the grand Persian invasion of Greece was defeated by a relatively small contingent of city-states temporarily united under the leadership of Sparta, the so-called Hellenic League. The strength, cohesion, and duration of this league have been much debated (see Kienast 2003). Recent scholarly interest inthe Persian War traditionhas raised the stakesof this debate significantly. Jung (2006) and Beck (2010) conclude that the Hellenic League was sufficiently influential to foster and maintain a panhellenic memory of the Persian War against the parochial claims of the individual city-states (particularly Sparta). But through a careful analysis of our surviving sourcesI demonstrate that the League was in fact too fractious and short-lived to provide a frame in which participants could recall the war as Greeks or allies first and citizens of their individual poleis second.
The evidence for a powerful Hellenic League isalmost exclusively a product of the fourth century and beyond (primarily Diodorus Siculus and Plutarch who ultimately look back to Ephorus). Our fifth-century sources, Herodotus and Thucydides, describe a markedly weaker and more fragile organization. Thisdisagreement between our earlier and later sources has never received sufficient attention and by itself casts serious doubt on the veracity of the later tradition. Moreover, our later sources had cause to overstate the Hellenic League’s importance. During the chaos of the fourth century appeals for Greek unity intensified and were often cast as a return to the glory days of the Persian Wars. In 337 Philip of Macedon tapped into these sentiments by resurrecting a much empowered Hellenic League which was frequently recalled and occasionally restored throughout the Hellenistic period (Dixon 2007). The tendency of present needs and perceptions to color memories of the past is well known (see Halbwachs 1925 and Connerton 1989). I suggest that beginning in the fourth century recollections of the old Hellenic League were recast to provide an historical basis for the vastly more powerful and centralized leagues emerging at that time.
If we reject the anachronisms of our later sources,the case for a shared panhellenic memory forged by an influential Hellenic League begins to crumble. Panhellenism was, of course, much commemorated in the decades after the Persian Wars, but it served as a tool of city-state propaganda and not as a viable alternative to it.
Bibliography:
Beck, H. 2010. “Ephebie – Ritual – Geschichte: Polisfest und historische Erinnerung im klassischen Griechenland”, in id. and H.-U. Wiemer (eds.) Feiern und Erinnern: Geschichtsbilder im Spiegel antiker Feste. Berlin. 55-82.
Connerton, P. 1989. How Societies Remember. Cambridge.
Dixon, M. 2007. “Corinth, Greek Freedom, and the Diadochoi, 323-301 B.C.”, in W. Heckel, L. Tritle, and P. Wheatley (eds.) Alexander’s Empire: Formulation to Decay. Claremont. 151-78.
Halbwachs, M. 1992 [=1925]. On Collective Memory. Trans. from the French by L. A. Coser. Chicago.
Jung, M. 2006. Marathon und Plataiai: Zwei Perserschlachten als “lieux de mémoire” im antiken Griechenland. Göttingen.
Kienast, D. 2003. “Der Hellenenbund von 481 v. Chr.” Chiron 33: 43-77.