This text is part of:
Stein approves the suggestion of E. Meyer (F. i. 14 f.) that the conquest of Lemnos and Imbros was not the work of the great Miltiades, but of his namesake and predecessor, the son of Cypselus (cf. vi. 34 f.), oekist of the Chersonese. If so, he acted as the agent of Pisistratus (cf. vi. 37) in seizing Lemnos and expelling the Pelasgi. This would fit in with the prediction (ch. 140. 1), which regards the conqueror of Lemnos as representing Athens. Meyer urges that there was no time for the conquest and Hellenizing (cf. viii. 11) of the island during the troubled period of the Ionic revolt, so that he would in any case date the settlement of Attic cleruchs there, even if ascribed to Miltiades II, to the period of Pisistratid rule, before the Persian conquest of the islands (v. 27). But H. distinctly says that up to that time the Pelasgi still dwelt there (v. 26 ἀμφοτέρας ἔτι τότε ὑπὸ Πελασγῶν οἰκεομένας). It seems therefore better to accept the solution of Busolt (ii. 531; iii. 415) that the Pelasgi, already weakened by the Persian conquest, were expelled by Miltiades after 500, who settled the island as tyrant of the Chersonese, and that the Attic cleruchy in Lemnos (Thuc. vii. 57; C. I. A. i. 443, 444) is to be connected with the reduction of the tribute circ. 447 B. C. Previously, as in the Chersonese, there had been settlers from Attica, not a formal Attic colony. The rest of the chapter is a long parenthesis, to explain εἴτε δικαίως εἴτε ἀδίκως: then the subject here, Πελασγοί, is resumed loosely 138. 1.
Ἑκαταῖος ... ἀδίκως. Hecataeus used the expression “unjustly” in his work. Cf. ch. 53. 2; on Hecataeus cf. Introd. § 20. On the Pelasgi cf. App. XV. 5. E. Meyer holds that there was no old Attic tradition about the Pelasgi, the story given here being a mere reply to Hecataeus (F. i. 8 f.).
τοῦ τείχεος. Probably the early tradition here followed made the ‘Pelasgic’ wall run right round the Acropolis (D'Ooge, p. 21). On the more special sense of Pelasgicon cf. v. 64 n.
Ἐννεάκρουνος. The name is here an anachronism, since only in the days of the tyrants was the spring Callirhoe walled in and renamed ‘Nine-Spouts’ (Thuc. ii. 15. 5). The position of CallirhoeEnneacrunus is much disputed. That there was a Callirhoe on the Ilissus is clear; cf. Ps.-Plat. Axiochus 362 A γενομένῳ μοι κατὰ τὸν Ἰλισσὸν . . . Κλεινίαν ὁρῶ τὸν Ἀξιόχου θέοντα ἐπὶ Καλλιρόην. This site south of the Acropolis, near the (later) Olympieium, would suit this passage, since it should be outside the old city and towards Hymettus. The ordinary interpretation of Thucydides (ii. 15. 5) favours the same position. But Pausanias (i. 14. 1) mentions an Enneacrunus, apparently in the Agora, somewhere near the Pnyx and the Areopagus. Most topographers believe in a break in the narrative of Pausanias (Leake, Curtius) or a mistaken identification of Enneacrunus on his part (Frazer, ii. 112 f., v. 485 f.; Gardner, Athens, 28 f., 535 f.). But Dörpfeld (for whose views cf. Harrison's Primitive Athens) interprets the older authors, and especially Thucydides, in conformity with the natural meaning of Pausanias, and believes he has found the true Callirhoe-Enneacrunus in a cistern, conduit, and other water-works hewn in the rock below the Pnyx (Primitive Athens, 111-36 and 153 f.). τοῦτον τὸν χρόνον. The Pelasgians are said by Strabo (401) to have been driven from Boeotia to Attica by the Boeotian immigration, i. e. some two generations after the Trojan war (Thuc. i. 12; cf. vii. 176. 4). The Pelasgian sojourn in Attica would thus be dated circ. 1100-1000 B. C. οἰκέτας. H. is not thinking of the fancied golden age when there were no slaves (Athen. 263, 267), but contrasting primitive simplicity (cf. viii. 137) with the large households of later days. There were slaves even in Homeric days, but in the more backward parts of Greece, Phocis, and Locris, there were but few even as late as the time of Aristotle (Timaeus, fr. 67, F. H. G. i. 207; Athen. 264, 272).
ἀλλά. Placia and Scylace on the Propontis (i. 57. 2), Samothrace (ii. 57. 3), Imbros (v. 26), and perhaps near Creston (i. 57. 1) and at Antandrus (vii. 42. 1). Cf. Myres, J. H. S. xxvii. 191 f.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.