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The ΣΥΝ Coins Again

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

G. L. Cawkwell
G. L. Cawkwell
Affiliation:
University College, Oxford
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Extract

In JHS lxxxi (1961) 67 f. Professor J. M. Cook put forward the engaging theory that the ΕΥΝ coins represent a pro-Spartan alliance formed in 391 and 390 during the resurgence of Spartan power in the Aegean. Without seeking to retrace the argument of my article in the Numismatic Chronicle xvi (1956), I wish to comment on certain points of this new theory.

First, the Theban coins—a difficulty which Cook formulates as follows. ‘The device on the obverse of the ΕΥΝ coins is of course a well-known Theban one; and though the Spartans, having no coinage of their own, could not contribute a Spartan coin-type, it may be objected that they would hardly have used a well-known Boeotian emblem if they were at war with Thebes at the time.’ Cook's solution is to propose that ‘it is quite possible that in 391 (assuming that to be the year of Thibron's departure for Asia) the Spartans may have considered that a treaty of alliance existed between themselves and the Thebans’.

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Notes
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The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 83 , November 1963, pp. 152 - 154
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1963

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References

1 There is an error on p. 75 of that article, which I would like to take this opportunity of correcting. In line 17 the words ‘the battle of’ should be deleted and in line 18 there should be a comma after ‘the Spartans’, not a full-stop.

2 Cook (note 78) remarks that the citation from Philochorus by the Scholiast to Ar. Eccl. 193 ‘raises major problems’—major indeed, unless one makes the correction of Λακεδαιμονίων to Ἀθηναίων which has been, I think, universally accepted. Major problems would also arise if Plato, , Menex. 245 Google Scholar C–E were taken literally.

3 24 f. and 28.

4 Xen., Hell. iv 5.6 and 9.

5 I follow the chronology of Beloch, GG iii2.2 221.

6 Cf. 13.

7 Xen., Hell. v 1.29.

8 Cf. Cawkwell, loc. cit., 74.

9 Xen., Hell. 4 8.3–5.

10 Xen., Hell. iv 6 f.

11 Xen., Hell. iv 8.32 is generally taken to imply that Dercylidas remained at Abydus. (iv. 8.26 does not contradict this—Thrasybulus had a fleet of forty ships.)

12 Hell. iv 8.27.

13 Xen., Hell. i 1.22.

14 xx 59 and 60.

15 Lys. xxviii 5 and 7.

16 Diod. xiv 12.3 f.; Polyaenus ii 2.7.

17 Xen., Anab. vii 1.39; cf. Diod., loc. cit.

18 Xen., Hell. iv 8.22 f. Diod. xiv 97.3 explicitly says that Samos revolted from Athens at that date.

19 Ibid., iv 8.1.

20 Diod. xiv 84.4.

21 P. 67 f.

22 What happened to the ships that got back safe to Cnidus after the battle (Diod. xiv 83.7)? If Cook were right in his view that the Spartans held on to Cnidus from 394 to 391, these ships should emerge from dock to play their part in the Spartan revival. To help the Rhodian exiles the Spartans sent eight ships (Xen., Hell. iv 8.20; according to Diod. xiv 97.3 seven) and they collected ships πανταχόθεν to form a fleet of twenty-seven (Diod., loc. cit., 4), and in this total, which Xenophon also gave, he included twelve ships under Teleutias from the Gulf of Corinth (Hell. iv 8.23 f.). There cannot have been many ships at Cnidus in 391 even if the Spartans had stayed there. Nor would one guess from Xen., i.e. Hell. iv 8.10 f. that ships from the East Aegean had slipped back to the Peloponnese in the meantime.

23 Diod. xiv 84.4.

24 Cf. Cawkwell, loc. cit., 74.