ancient visitor to the temple was Alexander III of Macedon in 331 BCE, who (according to some accounts) was greeted as the son of Zeus (Plut. Alex. 27) and later issued coinage bearing the image of Ammon/Zeus.
SEE ALSO: Aeschrionian Tribe; Black Athena; Cyrene; Nile; Temples and Sanctuaries
FURTHER READING
1 Fakhry, Ahmed. 1973. The Oases of Egypt. Vol. I, Siwa Oasis. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press.
2 Lloyd, Alan B. 1976. Herodotus: Book II, Commentary 1–98, 195–98. Leiden: Brill.
3 Nesselrath, Heinz‐Günther. 1999. “Dodona, Siwa und Herodot: ein Testfall für den Vater der Geschichte.” MH 56.1: 1–14.
4 Parke, H. W. 1967. The Oracles of Zeus: Dodona, Olympia, Ammon. Oxford: Blackwell.
5 Wagner, Guy. 1987. Les oasis d’Égypte à l’époque grecque, romaine et byzantine, d’après les documents grecs: recherches de papyrologie et d’épigraphie grecques. Cairo: IFAO.
AMOMPHARETUS (Ἀμομϕάρετος, ὁ)
IAN OLIVER
University of Colorado Boulder
A Spartan officer whom Herodotus names as commander (lochagos) of the Pitanate division (lochos). Amompharetus initially refused to follow PAUSANIAS’ orders to retreat at PLATAEA in 479 BCE (9.53–57) and was one of four honored Spartans buried in a special tomb at the site of the battle (9.85.2; cf. 9.71.2). The exact status of these men remains a mystery: the MANUSCRIPTS read “priests” (irees, accus. ireas), but many scholars have found this unlikely, nor is there any indication in the main narrative of Amompharetus’ actions that he was a priest (Wilson 2015, 186–88). An eighteenth‐century editor’s emendation to the rare term (e)irenes—which designated an age‐group at SPARTA, perhaps men between the ages of 20 and 29—was challenged in the late twentieth century but recently defended (Makres 2009). Still, the lochos was a large unit unlikely to be trusted to an (e)iren, and the reason for the division of the Spartan dead into three tombs—these four men, the rest of the Spartiates, and the HELOTS—remains unclear (see Flower and Marincola 2002, 255–56).
Since Spartans rarely disobeyed their commanders, and those who did were punished severely and certainly not buried with HONOR like Amompharetus (Lendon 2005, 71–72), the historicity of Amompharetus’ refusal to retreat has also been questioned. Explanations include: i) Herodotus has mistaken Amompharetus’ role as rearguard (Lazenby 1993, 236–37); ii) the Spartan value of holding one’s ground outweighed obedience in this instance (Lendon 2005, 77); iii) Herodotus contrived this passage to emphasize Amompharetus’ heroic cast (Flower and Marincola 2002, 201).
SEE ALSO: Aristodemus the Spartan; Armies; Burial Customs; Pitane (Sparta)
REFERENCES
1 Flower, Michael A., and John Marincola, eds. 2002. Herodotus: Histories Book IX. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2 Lazenby, J. F. 1993. The Defence of Greece, 490–479 B.C. Warminster: Aris & Phillips.
3 Lendon, J. E. 2005. Soldiers and Ghosts: A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity. New Haven: Yale University Press.
4 Makres, Andronike. 2009. “On the Spartan eirenes. Herodotus 9.85: Ίϱέες or Ίϱένες?” British School at Athens Studies 16: 187–94.
5 Wilson, N. G. 2015. Herodotea. Studies on the Text of Herodotus. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
AMORGES (Ἀμόργης, ὁ)
GIUSTINA MONTI
University of Lincoln
Persian general, otherwise unknown. Amorges is only mentioned by Herodotus (5.121): together with DAURISES and SISIMACES, he died in an ambush by Carian rebels at PIDASA during the IONIAN REVOLT (499–493 BCE).
Two other men named Amorges are known (Schmitt, IPGL 72–73). CTESIAS mentions an Amorges, king of the SACAE (SCYTHIANS), who was taken prisoner by CYRUS (II) and then helped him in the war against CROESUS (FGrHist 688 F9.3–8; pace Balcer 1993, 137, this is not the Amorges of Herodotus). The second is the illegitimate son of the Persian satrap Pissuthnes; this Amorges rebelled against the Persian king in the late 410s, during the PELOPONNESIAN WAR (see Kuhrt 2007, 335–39).
SEE ALSO: Caria; Persia
REFERENCES
1 Balcer, Jack Martin. 1993. A Prosopographical Study of the Ancient Persians Royal and Noble c. 550–450 B.C. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press.
2 Kuhrt, Amélie. 2007. The Persian Empire. A Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period. London and New York: Routledge.
AMPE ( Ἄμπη, ἡ)
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
A city near the coast of the ERYTHRAEAN SEA (here, the Persian Gulf) past which the TIGRIS RIVER flows; exact location and identification remain unknown (Scott 2005, 121–22). Herodotus states that DARIUS I transported the inhabitants of MILETUS, captured near the end of the IONIAN REVOLT (494 BCE), to live in Ampe (6.20). Numerous examples of Persian kings deporting defeated communities (enemies or rebels) survive in our ancient evidence, including from the Histories: BARCA (to BACTRIA, 4.204), PAEONIANS (to ASIA, 5.12–15), and ERETRIA after the MARATHON campaign of 490 (to ARDERICCA, 6.119).
SEE ALSO: Migration; Prisoners of War
REFERENCE
1 Scott, Lionel. 2005. Historical Commentary on Herodotus Book 6. Leiden: Brill.
AMPELUS (ἡ Ἄμπελος ἄκρη)
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
The promontory at the tip of SITHONIA, the central peninsula of the three extending south from Chalcidice in northern Greece (BA 51 B5; Müller I, 143–44). Herodotus mentions Ampelus as he traces the route taken by XERXES’ fleet after it passed through the ATHOS canal in 480 BCE (7.122). It was probably in the territory of TORONE. The noun ampelos in Greek means “grapevine.”
SEE ALSO: Canastraeum; Wine
AMPHIARAUS (Ἀμϕιάρεως, ὁ)
MARGARET FOSTER
Indiana University
A legendary seer and ORACLE and the father of AMPHILOCHUS (3.91) and Alcmaeon (Hom. Od. 248). Amphiaraus belonged to the Melampodidae, the
