Ion of Chios Huxley, George Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Spring 1965; 6, 1; ProQuest pg. 29Ionof Chios GeorgeHuxley IONOFCHIOSisremarkable not only forthe extent of hispoetical and literary work but also for the valuable evidence his fragments provideof socialandpoliticallifeunder the Athenianempireat the height of its power. We shall discuss his writings in the context of Athenianimperialismandexaminesomeof theproblemsof inter-pretationtowhichthey giverise.!But firstmustbeconsideredthe evidence for the length of his life and the extent of histravels. InthePeace[832-37]Aristophanesmentionsthedeathof Ionas though ithadoccurredbut shortlybefore.Trygaeustellstheslave that men who die become stars in the sky;Ion the Chian too,he ex-plains,isastar,whomeveryonein Athenscalledthe 'Aotos the morning star. This, the Scholia explain, isan allusion to theof Ion beginning ,...... ,,./..,',, aotov aU7pa I,\I\I''''2 /-,Lva/-,vaI\LOVI\VK07TTEpvya7TpOOpO/-,ov. Aristophanes, then, shows that Ion wasdead by the spring of 421B.C., whenthePeacewasproduced.Thedateofhisbirthisnoteasily determined, but a hint is given by the poet himself in a story reported byPlutarchinhisCimon[9.1-5]:UvvSL7TvfjuaL8E7epK{/-,wv{CPTJULV IIIwv7TavTCf7TauLv/.1.f.LpaKwvi]KWVls'A8fjvas EKX{ov 7TapaAaoJLESOVTL. Plutarch intheBrutus3usesJLLpaKLOvof ayouthundertwenty-one, and from the fragment in the Cimonwe may infer that Ion came asa 1This essay was readto a meeting of Hibernian Hellenists at Ballymascanlon, Dundalk on27thNovember,1964.Iamgratefulforthehelpfuldiscussionatthatmeetingand especially thank Professor H. W. Parke forsuggestions made then. My debt to F.Jacoby's masterly paper, "Some Remarks on Ion of Chios" in CQ 41(1947)1-17, willbe obviousto those who have read it. Most of the essay is printed here as it was read, but with some notes andreferencesadded.I alsothank Mr W.G.Forrest forreading the manuscript and sug-gesting severalimprovements. Any remaining errors are my own. 2Schol.RV.Pac.835(=Ion Fr.34,in A.von Blumenthal, IonvonChios.DieResteseiner Werke[Stuttgart-Berlin 1939]p. 24).For the fiction or image of the dead amongst the stars see the epigrams in Haussoullier, "Al:THP ... TENOMHN," RevPhil33 (1909)5-8 and W. Ludwig, "Plato's Love Epigrams," GRBS 4 (1963)79-80. 327.Forfurtherexamplesof fLELP&.KLOVinPlutarch,seeWyttenbach,Lex.Pluto2.1009 (areferencedueto W.M.Calder). 29 30IONOFCI-llOS stripling to Athens. Possibly he was sent by his father Orthomenes to complete his education in the household of Cimon, whom Ion admired greatly: but owing to Plutarch's abbreviation ofIon's own words it is notcertainthatCimontookIonalongtodinneratLaomedon's: the young man may have been staying with Laomedon and have met Cimon at Laomedon's house when the great man came asa guest to dinner there.' It issignificant that Orthomenes, who had the nickname Xouthos5 because he called his son Ion, sent his son to Athens at an impression-able age.Evidently he feltrather admiration than resentment at the triumphant progress of Athenian imperialism and, in Jacoby'S words, "had whole-heartedlyespousedthecauseof Athens."6The conver-sationat Laomedon'sturnedtoacomparisonbetween the victories of Themistocles and Cimon, the latter of whom was evidently, from the flatterybestoweduponhimbytheguests,thenverypowerful. Cimontoldhowheprovedhimself clevererthantheIonianallies after the taking of Sestosand Byzantium. The dinner at Laomedon's was,however,aboutadecadelaterthanthat,whenThemistoc1es wasalready in exile:the warm praise of Cimon suggeststhat he was alreadythe victoratthe Eurymedon,butthedisasterof Drabescus during the Thasian war about 464 B.C.wasperhaps not yet:certainly the attacks of Ephialtes had not yet begun. Whatever the date of the Eurymedon battle may be, and it cannot be before ca.470,the dinner at Laomedon's may reasonably be placed in the years about 465 when Cimon wasatthe heightof successandpopularity.We canimagine him gently teasing the young Chiot with his story of how the Ionians chosethe property of the Persiansratherthanthemen themselves when he gave them the choice.Later the Athenian general wasable to ransom the Persians to their friends and kin, who came down from PhrygiaandLydiatopaylargesumsfortheirrelease.If Ionwas between fifteen and twenty at the dinner party, it follows that he was born between about 485 and 480, and there is no need to date hisbirth asearly asabout 490.7 From these calculations it islikely that Ion was ,Cf Jacoby,CQ41(1947)4. 6Harpokration s.v. ~ I w v A Xouthos, perhaps father of an Ion, appears in a Chiot epigram of thethirdorsecondcenturyB.C.:Bo';OovwaLS"XWS"TO[ ih-'avl0"1Kv Iwv.SeeSEGXVI. 497and XVII.392. 8CQ 41(1947)1. 7Cf T. B. L. Webster, "Sophocles and Ion of Chios," Hermes 71(1936)263ff,who suggests the period 492/488B.C.forthe poet's birth; and earlier, Schmid-Stahlin 1.2 (Miinchen 1934) 515-516. GEORGEHUXLEY31 notmorethanabout65whenhedied.Inaddition,theSud a[s.v. "JwvXL'os]remarkthatheproducedhisfirsttragedyinthe82nd Olympiad (452-449),and,aswe learn fromthe Argumentum tothe Hippolytus,another wasperformed inthe archonshipof Epameinon, 429/8.8 He must havebeen in Athenson both occasions,and his first playsmayhavebeenproducedthereataboutthetimeof Cimon's return fromexile. In hisEpidemiai or "Visits", the earliest example in Greek literature of memoirs,agenrewhichIonmayhaveinvented,theChiande-scribedthespeechinwhichCimonexhortedthe Athenians to help Sparta during the great helot revolt.9 Prevailing over the arguments of Ephialtes,Cimon persuadedthe peopleto sendoutahop liteforce: "AthensmustnotlookonwhileHellasismadelameandthecity becomes unevenly yoked," said the general whose love of Sparta was so great that he called one of hissonsLakedaimonios.lOThesemeta-phors have the immediacy of an eyewitness,andwecannotreason-ably doubt that Ion wasin Athensonavisitwhen heheardCimon appealon Sparta's behalf.Cimon hadthe admiration andrespect of Ion,whowroteaffectionatelyof thegeneral'sgreathandsomeface andthickcurlyhair,llanditispossiblethathehadremainedin Cimon'sentouragefromtheperiodof Laomedon'spartyuntilthe desperateappealoftheSpartanPerikleidasforAthenianhelp.12 Moreover Jacoby has argued attractively that the young man followed Cimon to the allied camp before Ithome asa member of hisstaff.13 Theevidenceforjacoby'stheoryliesinthedrinking-songforan EurypontidkingofSpartawhichAthenaeus[11.463Aand496c] ascribestoIon.SincetheelegyenumeratestoaststoHerakles,Alk-mena,Prokles,andthePerseidaibeginning withZeus,aHerakleid descendedfromkingProklesof Spartaisobviouslymeant,andhe wasnodoubtthehost.ThisholdswhetherthefirstlineXaLpTW f3aatAvs TTreferseithertoZeusortoa SpartankingasJacobythought,ortof3aatAvsOivoswhomthe Chian praisesinanother elegy alsoquoted by Athenaeus [1O.447D].14 8p.2,8Schw.(=FGrHist 392T6). 9Plut.Cimon16.10. 10Stesimbrotos, FGrHist107F6. 11Plut.Cimon5.3. 12Ar.Lysistrata1138;PlutoCimon16.8. 13CQ41(1947)7-9. 14IonFr.26line14,vonBlumenthal 32IONOFCHIOS In viewof the date of Ion's floruitthe Spartan king honoured in the poem isArchidamosthe Eurypontid.Now U.Koehlerthoughtthat theoccasionof theelegywasavisitof IonandThucydidessonof MelesiastoSpartaafterthelatter'sostracism.I5 However,wedon't haveanyevidence that Ionever mentioned Thucydides in hisEpide-miai or indeed in any other work of his,and at the time of the Samian revolt ca.441B.C.the poet wasin factin Chios,where he attended a dinnerpartyatwhichthepoetSophocleswaspresentasgeneral.I6 Koehler'sdatingof theArchidamoselegythereforehasnothingto recommendit.Plutarch[Pericles8.5]doesrecordaconversationin whichThucydidessonof MelesiasneatlydescribedtoArchidamos his political wrestling with Pericles, but Ion isnot given asauthor and the story could well come from a pamphlet of Stesimbrotos the Tha-sian.17Amore fittingdatefortheArchidamoselegyis463or462, when the king, having defeated the Messenians, was investing Ithome -thewords TETEfitthesituation,andthe referencetofemalecampfollowers,notweddedwives,inthetwo linesat the end-., \I()1\1 OV'Tva0 JLJLVE'Y}/\EtaTWVaA.A.wvKvSp6TEPOV1TLETa-is just the kind of remark a high-spirited young man might make on hisfirst campaign away from home.ls I said that there isno evidence that Ion had been to Sparta, but he had evidently seen enough of Spar-tans,and heard enough about them from members of the Cimonian circle, to share his mentor's admiration for "the Laconian city" which, inIon'sversesfromanunidentifiedtragedy,"isnotbastionedwith words,butwhereverdrasticAresfallsuponthearmy,Council governs, and the hand executes." 19We may well have here an allusion 15"Aus dem LebendesDichters Ion," Hermes29 (1894)156ff. 16PlutoCimon 9. 17CQ 41(1947)9. 18The presence of femalecompany at Ithome isperhaps alsoimpliedby Eupolis,who wrote of Cimon [Fr.208]: KaKo.O?JK ,pUt07TOT'T/'K&p.lATJ" K&vloT'iiv&7Tf:KO'P.a.T'iivlv AaKf:8alp.ov" KaV'EA7T,vlKTJvTjj8f:KaTaA'7TwvP.OVTJv. 19Sext.Emp. 679,24ff Bekker (=Ion Fr.107 von Blumenthal). o?Jyap .\oym. A&Ka,va7TvpY0Vra,7TO.\,. ill' OT'avWApTJ'VOXp.o.P.7TarJuTpaT.t3oS'. 62QuotedbytheBerlinPhotiusS.v.avo1Tllm.CfvonBlumenthalonIonFr.45inhis edition. 63ap.Grenfell andHunt, POxy1611. 42IONOFCHIOS hadbeentakenbyHeraklesfromLaomedonafterthesackingof Troy.BecauseHerakleshadkilledhishostEurytus,Zeusordered Hermestotakeandsellhimasapunishmentforthemurder,as Pherecydesdescribed.64 SoHermesbroughtHeraklestoLydiaand soldhim to Omphale for three talents. The play opens with the god and the hero approaching the palace of thequeen.Thequeenappearsandiniambicdimetersordersthe attendant maidens to bring out the cups and the bowls with bosses in the middle [Athenaeus11.501F]: .,'.1.. (J',\ \,.I..'\ t:rK""0PEt'T,7TapVOt,KV7TlV\aKatlLuolL.,.,al\ovs. Herakles explains that he must celebrate all year long-the time of his bondage, which here is amusingly called a feast or festival; Ion uses the Ionicwordforit[Athenaeus6.258F]:Evtavulav yd.p8 ILEtiJv 0 P 'T v eXytv.The queen alsobids the Lydian womensing ancient hymns to theaccompanimentofharpsinhonouroftheguest[Athenaeus 14.634F]' Omphale or another Lydian then remarks that unguents and myrrh and the fashion of adorning their skin in Sardis are better than the way of life in Peloponnese [Athenaeus15.690B].Lydian cosmetics also must have caught the poet's fancy,for the use of kohl asblack to lineouttheeyesismentionedinanotherfragment.65 Heraklesis evidently presented,by contrast to Asiatic luxury,asthe epitome of Peloponnesian simplicity and toughness. He pours a libation, and then is told, no doubt to his astonishment, to drink Pactolus water instead of wine.66 Whenthemealiscookedtheburlesquecontinueswiththe gluttonousHeraklesdevouringthewoodandashesofthefire [AthenaeuslO.411B],aneasytaskforaherowhoinIon's view had three unbreakablerowsof teeth.67 Whether inthemidst of allthis he wasdressed asa Lydian maiden isnot certain.That the words a'\',,, ,...paxvvI\WOVKV7TaUUtVsILTJPOVILGOV EG'TaAILVOS[Pollux 7.60] belongtotheOmphalewasdeniedbyvonBlumenthal,68whore-markedthatafemaleKV7TaGGtSreachedtothefeet.However,a uFGrHist3F82B. 66Fr. 68von Blumenthal. 81Fr.70vonBlumenthal (=Etym.Mag.671.41) 71i8,'EU1TtUas'&Mil: 71ilhllaKTwAov po&s. However, as von Blumenthal points out, these words may be addressedto a satyr. 67Tzetzes,Chi!.3.959.SeealsoWebster,Hennes71(1936)269. 68Op.cit.42and 51. GEORGEHUXLEY43 maiden's KV7TaUat