‘Ares’, in this voluminous and ambitious study (a reworked version of B.'s 2007 thèse) stands, metaphorically, for ‘war’: the force that destroys and devastates. (Those who were hoping for a study of the cults of the god are referred to p. 469, where Ares ‘and other warlike gods’ are briefly treated.) But this book is not ‘just’ about war: it is about the effects of war on cities: war as ‘expérience vécue’ (p. 15), and as a transforming force. B.'s approach is thus close to that of A. Chaniotis's evocative – much shorter, and none the worse for it – War in the Hellenistic World of 2005, acknowledged as an inspiration on p. 19.
B.'s aim is to understand the financial, social, political and demographic implications of exposure to war, its effects on the nature of civic communities and the cohesion of the citizen body (pp. 19 and 487, with some answers at 488–91). The book's three main sections: ‘Prévenir et préparer la guerre’; ‘La cité défaite’; and ‘Recomposer la cité’ cover subjects ranging from the military training of the young and the defence of the city to living under siege or occupation, collective suicides in the face of defeat, the relation between polemos and stasis, enslavement of citizens, hardship and famine, financial sanctions, synoecisms as a response to the ravages of war, the typology of subject cities, the use of foreign judges, litigation, the development of asylia and of saviour cults, and much more besides.
A. Chaniotis's warning (War, p. xxi) that ‘the reconstruction of this period resembles a huge jigsaw puzzle, most of the pieces of which have been lost forever’ is not an empty one. This book, in trying hard to present all the surviving pieces, ends up being at the same time exhaustive and nothing of the sort. Only B.'s focus on Asia Minor – chosen for the relative richness of its documentation, and because it was, for about three centuries, the stage on which major battles were fought – keeps it from becoming more unwieldy still. B. is well aware of the challenge but argues (p. 19) that only a comprehensive approach will allow for meaningful answers to be given.
B.'s way of dealing with the all-encompassing nature of his subject is to structure it tightly: the book's three main sections are each divided into chapters, sub-chapters and sub-sub-chapters (on the ‘II.1.3.3’; ‘II.1.3.4’ model). This backfires in two main ways. First, it results in perfunctory treatment of major subjects. Some of the smallest sub-divisions are shorter than a page. And while the one page meted out to ‘Les gardiens des portes’ (I.2.1.2) seems adequate given that it is preceded by ‘Les services de garde et de garnisons’ and followed by ‘Acropoles et garnisons civiques’, the single page given to ‘Institution de nouveaux cultes’ (III.4.1.4) becomes meaningless. ‘Les conséquences démographiques’ gets just half a page (II.6.5.1), half that given to ‘Prostituées et garnisons’ (II.4.2.3).
While the first and second sections hold together reasonably well, the third suffers, for here the study widens out to include the restoration of sanctuaries and the revival of festivals, the call to foreign judges, inclusion of new citizens into depleted citizen bodies, laws against tyranny, the restoration of exiles, dealing with publicani and the ruinous effects of Roman tribute (a sensible inclusion?), the restoring of civic concord, the rewriting of local history, the institution of new cults, celebration of new festivals, commemoration of the dead. (Almost) all of these are legitimate aspects of civic revival after the trauma and destruction of war, but none is given the space needed to be meaningful.
The second problem is fragmentation. Certain episodes in the literary sources or epigraphic documents are treated many times over. This leads to inconsistencies but also, more seriously, to a fragmentation in the treatment of historical narratives, to repetition and to a loss of historical understanding. An example is the siege of Selge by Garsyeris, strategos of Achaeus, in 218 b.c., and its immediate prehistory, narrated in four chapters of Polybius, but here pulled apart, chronologically inverted and filed under many different headings (see index, s.v.).
The siege of Cyzicus by the satrap of Phrygia, Arrhidaeus, is recorded by Diodorus (18.51–2) under the year 319/18. In B.'s pages, its date moves between 318 (pp. 121, 123, 221, 227) and 319 b.c. (index, s.v. ‘Cyzique’, 328, 352). The truth is that we do not really know whether the siege took place in winter 319 or in spring 318: Diodorus does not say, and modern scholars usually opt for one or the other without posing the problem.
There is also fragmentation in the referencing. The long inscription about the incorporation of the population of Magnesia under Sipylus into the citizen body of Smyrna in the late 240s b.c., is cited inconsistently in four editions (OGIS 229, I. Smyrna II.1, 573, I. Magnesia 1, and Staatsverträge III, 492) in at least six different locations. This is by no means the only case (cf., e.g., Syll. 3 679, cited also as I. Magnesia 93 and/or as Ager 120).
The presentation of one case after another under many separate headings also has the effect of not allowing for questions of methodology to be sufficiently explored. On p. 333, B. quotes P. Gauthier: ‘par définition, les années calmes ne laissent guère de traces. Il faut donc constamment prendre garde au caractère déséquilibré de la documentation et ne pas appliquer sans restriction l'image d'une situation de crise, connue pour une année ou pour quelques années, à une période d'un siècle ou davantage’. B. uses this as a concluding remark to his chapter on ‘la cité défaite’, where it could have been used as an analytical tool. H. Seyrig's comment, cited on p. 262, that the wholesale ‘destruction’ of cities as described in the ancient authors is too often taken at face value by modern historians, is equally noted, and the issue itself flagged as posing ‘numerous technical problems, difficult to resolve’, but then left hanging. And yet these issues are fundamental to how sources are used to build up a picture, or an argument.
J. Hornblower's Hieronymus of Cardia of 1981 (not listed by B.) has many relevant things to say on Diodorus’ dependence in Books 18–20 (extensively used by B.) on this early third-century historian, our main (lost) source for the period of the Successors. Hieronymus is mistakenly referred to as ‘Eumenes’ on p. 256, the only direct reference in the entire book. Equally, H.-U. Wiemer's Rhodische Traditionen in der hellenistischen Historiographie of 2001, shows that and how Polybius’ Rhodian sources shaped his own narrative (Polybius again is much used by B., e.g. for the siege of Rhodes by Demetrius, but the episode is taken at face value).
The thematic fragmentation referred to above must be set against the occasional longer discussions of individual cities and circumstances, and the many long quotations from ancient sources, often effectively deployed. Not only is there inherent sense in quoting documents fully, but doing so also reinforces one of the main points made by B., namely that, through all the dangers and traumas of war, cities continued to function as political mechanisms, observing their institutional procedures: assemblies met under siege; ambassadors were sent out and strategoi given orders; and this was true whether they were long-established Greek cities on the coast, or indigenous communities that had only recently adopted polis habits.
It is not possible in a brief review to pay attention to every detail, so these are just a few things I noted. P. 55 n. 53, the Larichus who acquired land in Priene and settled there, had not been ‘satrap of Syria’: that was his father. P. 323, B. cites Pergamum's five strategoi appointed by the Attalids as an example of ‘officiers et magistrats imposés par le vainqueur’. One could barely describe the Attalid dynasty as ‘vainqueurs’ of Pergamum but, more importantly, H. Müller (Chiron 2003) has shown that the document on which this assumption rests shows no such thing. The rather summary remarks about the Prienians admitting Pedieis as paroikoi, and their later (first century b.c.) admission into the city's gymnasia (p. 484, cf. 489) is not properly documented or even argued, but simply presented as a fact (which it is not).
This book is a heroic enterprise, by a promising young scholar, though one whose scope is simply too wide to result in an entirely satisfactory study.
