Writing
REFERENCES
1 Forsdyke, Sara. 2005. Exile, Ostracism, and Democracy: The Politics of Expulsion in Ancient Greece. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
2 Graham, A.J. 1983. Colony and Mother City in Ancient Greece. 2nd edition. Chicago: Ares.
3 Hall, Jonathan M. 2014. A History of the Archaic Greek World, ca. 1200–479 BCE. 2nd edition. Malden, MA: Wiley‐Blackwell.
4 Morgan, Catherine. 2003. Early Greek States beyond the Polis. London and New York: Routledge.
5 Morris, Ian. 1987. Burial and Ancient Society: The Rise of the Greek City‐State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
6 Osborne, Robin. 1996. Greece in the Making, 1200–479 BC. London and New York: Routledge.
7 Polignac, François de. 1984. Cults, Territory, and the Origins of the Greek City‐State. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
8 Powell, Barry. 2002. Writing and the Origins of Greek Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
9 Snodgrass, Anthony. 1980. Archaic Greece: The Age of Experiment. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
10 Tsetskhladze, Gocha R., ed. 2006–2008. Greek Colonisation: An Account of Greek Colonies and Other Settlements Overseas. 2 vols. Leiden: Brill.
FURTHER READING
1 Hurwit, Jeffrey M. 1985. The Art and Culture of Early Greece, 1100–480 B.C. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
2 Jeffery, L. H. 1976. Archaic Greece: The City‐States c. 700–500 B.C. London: Ernest Benn.
3 Murray, Oswyn. 1993. Early Greece. 2nd edition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
ARCHANDER ( Ἄρχανδρος, ὁ)
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
Mythical, Greek hero from Achaea PHTHIOTIS in THESSALY, the son or grandson of ACHAEUS. Archander went to ARGOS with his brother Architeles, where they each married one of the daughters of DANAUS, who had fled EGYPT (Paus. 7.1.6). Herodotus mentions Archander as the possible derivation of the name of a city, ARCHANDROPOLIS in the northwestern Nile DELTA of Egypt (2.98.2).
SEE ALSO: Achaeans of Phthiotis; Myth; Phthius
FURTHER READING
1 Hall, Jonathan M. 1997. Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity, 72–73. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2 Lloyd, Alan B. 1976. Herodotus: Book, II, Commentary 1–98, 393–94. Leiden: Brill.
ARCHANDROPOLIS (ἡ Ἀρχάνδρου πόλις)
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
A city in the northwestern Nile DELTA of EGYPT near the mouth of the Canobic branch (BA 74 C2). Archandropolis lay on the route taken by ships sailing to NAUCRATIS. Herodotus remarks on the non‐Egyptian nature of the city’s name and suggests that it may derive from the legendary Greek hero ARCHANDER, who had a connection with Egypt via DANAUS (2.97.2–98.1).
SEE ALSO: Anthylla; Canobus; Nile
FURTHER READING
1 Lloyd, Alan B. 1976. Herodotus: Book, II, Commentary 1–98, 393–94. Leiden: Brill.
ARCHĒ (ἀρχή, ἡ)
ROGER BROCK
University of Leeds
Archē, power or rule over others, is a recurrent feature of and key theme in Herodotus’ narrative, operating both at the individual level and, more typically, as empire or hegemony. To some extent it appears a natural human drive, revealed by recurrent examples of individuals seeking power over their communities, a process most fully explored through the career of DEIOCES (1.96–101), where there is a characteristic tension between Herodotus’ aversion to DESPOTISM and his recognition that for some societies MONARCHY is an effective form of government (cf. e.g., 2.147; 3.82). Likewise his observation that if the Thracians united under a monarch they would be invincible (5.3) implies that peoples able to take control of their neighbors may be expected to do so (as Deioces’ successors do: 1.102–3), but he does not regard it as inevitable or admirable, as shown by the rebuke of the Ethiopian king to Persian imperialism, in a context which has established his moral superiority (3.21; compare Cadmus’ laying down of the tyranny of COS, motivated by “justice”: 7.164).
Nevertheless, it is a key structural feature of Herodotus’ work, which is organized around the ascendencies of three archai, those of LYDIA, the MEDES, and PERSIA, especially the last (Immerwahr 1966); many scholars have also detected a fourth, the contemporary ATHENIAN EMPIRE, lurking in the background (e.g., Fornara 1971). Others noted as ruling over others are the ASSYRIANS (1.95), SCYTHIANS (1.106), and Egyptians, notably under SESOSTRIS (2.102–10); typically, this is marked by the imposition of TRIBUTE (1.6, 27, 106; 2.182; 3.67, 89–96), a notorious feature of Athenian imperialism. Given his belief in the mutability of human fortune, programmatically stated at 1.5 (see TYCHĒ), Herodotus regards archē as inherently unstable, and liable to a recurrent pattern of uncontrolled ambition which in due course will lead to overreach and DISASTER, one of the repeated patterns which he perceives in historical events and through which he seeks to make sense of them. Thus the desire for power and territory grows into uncontrolled greed (pleonexia), even megalomania (7.8.γ; for the moral aspect see Fisher 2002, 217–24), and this leads to a failure to respect BOUNDARIES, symbolically represented by the repeated crossing of river borders of which CROESUS crossing the HALYS is the classic instance (indeed proverbial: Aesch. Pers. 865–66; Arist. Rh. 1407a37–39), echoed in the crossing by CYRUS (II) of the ARAXES, by DARIUS I of the ISTER (Danube), and by XERXES of the HELLESPONT; CAMBYSES (II)’s abortive desert campaigns against ETHIOPIA and the Ammonians (3.25–26) likewise exceed natural limits, though inverting the motif. The transgression is even more marked when continents are linked together by BRIDGES as Darius and Xerxes do (4.83, 87–88; 7.34–36), or land is turned into SEA by the digging of a CANAL (Red Sea: 2.158; ATHOS: 7.22–24; contrast 1.174, and for Persian kings manipulating natural water features cf. Cyrus and the GYNDES river (1.189) and Darius in CHORASMIA (3.117)): such interference with the natural order hints at a HUBRIS which Xerxes’ WHIPPING of the Hellespont makes explicit (7.35, with 8.109). Since in eastern monarchies such policies are determined by the will of individual kings, these ideas are enmeshed with Herodotus’ thinking on despotism. That imperialistic expansion becomes an end in itself is underlined both by the discarding of considerations of justice (1.26, 76; 7.8.γ, 9) and by episodes in which it is pointed out that the aggressors stand to make no material gain from their conquests, as Croesus is warned by SANDANIS (1.71): the poverty of Greece in comparison to Persia is highlighted in Xerxes’ conversation with DEMARATUS (7.102) and even more in the object lesson mounted by PAUSANIAS (9.82). These ideas themselves
