The Herodotus Encyclopedia. Группа авторов

The Herodotus Encyclopedia

(6.85–86). When the Aeginetans retaliated by capturing some Athenian prisoners of their own, the Athenians mounted an unsuccessful naval assault on Aegina (6.87–93); Herodotus notes that the Athenian navy at this time was no match for that of the Aeginetans (6.89). The Athenians’ purported (Scott 2005, 323) naval inferiority was remedied decisively by THEMISTOCLES, who urged (around 483) that the recent windfall from the SILVER mines at LAURIUM be used to build two hundred TRIREMES for the war against Aegina (7.144.1); this war, says Herodotus, “saved Greece” (7.144.2) since these ships would actually be used to defend Greece from the Persian invasion.

At a Panhellenic conference held at the ISTHMUS of CORINTH (7.145.1, cf. 172.1) in 481, Aegina, Athens, and several other Greek states—the so‐called Hellenic League—agreed to temporarily set aside their differences in order to meet the Persian threat. In 480 Aegina provided eighteen triremes for ARTEMISIUM (8.1.2) and thirty for SALAMIS (8.46.1). On a scout ship captured by the Persians prior to the battle at Artemisium, the Aeginetan marine Pytheas fought so bravely, despite his extensive wounds, that the Persians kept him alive as an honored trophy (7.181). Before the battle at Salamis, the Greeks prayed to the gods and sent a ship to Aegina to fetch statues of Aeacus and of the Aeacidae (8.64), and the Aeginetans would later say that this ship was the first to attack the Persians at Salamis (8.84.2; see Irwin 2011a, 405–10). During the course of the battle, the Aeginetan POLYCRITUS—son of the Crius captured by Cleomenes—taunted Themistocles about the Aeginetans’ (supposed) medizing, as Polycritus’ ship rammed an enemy Sidonian ship; held upon the latter was Pytheas, who now managed to return to Aegina (8.92). Greeks recognized that the most distinguished in the victory at Salamis were not only Aeginetans in general, but also Polycritus (and two Athenians) in particular (8.93.1). Nevertheless, the Delphic ORACLE demanded that the Aeginetans’ prize for valor from Salamis be offered to complement their insufficient tithe to APOLLO (8.122). In 479 five hundred Aeginetan soldiers were sent to fight at PLATAEA (9.28.6), but Herodotus implies (apparently wrongly: Irwin 2011a, 418–21) that the Aeginetans were absent from the actual fighting since their tomb at Plataea was merely an empty cenotaph (9.85.3). More of Herodotus’ bias against Aegina (Flower and Marincola 2002, 244, 249, 256) is shown in his claim that the Aeginetans’ WEALTH was founded on GOLD they cheated out of the HELOTS after Plataea (9.80.3). Contradicting Herodotus’ claim are his several notices about Aegina’s earlier, sixth‐century prosperity: the Aeginetan merchant SOSTRATUS was the richest of men (4.152.3), while the Aeginetans built a temple to ZEUS at NAUCRATIS (2.178.3) and paid the doctor DEMOCEDES one TALENT (3.131.2; see Irwin 2011b, 432–44).

SEE ALSO: Aegina daughter of Asopus; Medize; Naval Warfare; Panhellenism; Pytheas son of Ischenous; Sources for Herodotus

REFERENCES

1 Baragwanath, Emily. 2008. Motivation and Narrative in Herodotus. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

2 Flower, Michael A., and John Marincola, eds. 2002. Herodotus: Histories Book IX. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

3 Haubold, Johannes. 2007. “Athens and Aegina (5.82–9).” In Reading Herodotus: A Study of the logoi in Book 5 of Herodotus’ Histories, edited by Elizabeth Irwin and Emily Greenwood, 226–44. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

4 Hornblower, Simon, ed. 2013. Herodotus: Histories Book V. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

5 Irwin, Elizabeth. 2011a. “Herodotus on Aeginetan Identity.” In Aegina: Contexts for Choral Lyric Poetry: Myth, History, and Identity in the Fifth Century BC, edited by David Fearn, 373–425. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

6 Irwin, Elizabeth. 2011b. “‘Lest the things done by men become exitēla’: Writing up Aegina in a Late Fifth‐Century Context.” In Aegina: Contexts for Choral Lyric Poetry: Myth, History, and Identity in the Fifth Century BC, edited by David Fearn, 426–57. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

7 Scott, Lionel. 2005. Historical Commentary on Herodotus Book 6. Leiden and Boston: Brill.

AEGINA (Αἴγινα, ἡ) daughter of Asopus

CHRISTOPHER BARON

University of Notre Dame

Mythical water nymph, daughter of the river‐god Asopus and eponymous of the island polis AEGINA. In the Histories, her lineage provides a clue to help the Thebans interpret an ORACLE from DELPHI telling them to “ask those who are closest” for help in gaining VENGEANCE on ATHENS: Aegina and THEBE (1) are both daughters of Asopus (5.79–80; cf. Pind. Isthm. 8.16–23). Aegina’s son by ZEUS, Aeacus, was an important figure in numerous mythical GENEALOGIES. The Athenian Philaidae clan, which included MILTIADES THE ELDER, traced their ancestry back to AEACUS and Aegina (6.35.1).

SEE ALSO: Ajax; Asopus River (Boeotia); Thebes (Boeotian)

AEGIROESSA (Αἰγιρόεσσα, ἡ)

CHRISTOPHER BARON

University of Notre Dame

An Aeolian city in Asia Minor, location unknown. Herodotus lists Aegiroessa (1.149.1) among the twelve Aeolian CITIES of the mainland conquered by the Persians in the time of CYRUS (II).

AEGIUM (Αἴγιον, τὸ)

CHRISTOPHER BARON

University of Notre Dame

A city on the northern coast of the PELOPONNESE (BA 58 C1; Müller I, 743–44), one of the twelve CITIES/regions (merē) of the Achaeans. Herodotus names Aegium as one of the original twelve cities of the IONIANS, before they were forced to migrate to Asia Minor by the Achaeans (1.145). In the Hellenistic and Roman period the council of the Achaean League met at the sanctuary of ZEUS Homarios in the territory of Aegium (Strabo 8.7.5/C387; Paus. 7.24.4). The name survives in the modern town of Aigio (Egio).

SEE ALSO: Achaeans (Peloponnesian); Ethnicity; Migration

AEGLEIA (Αἰγλείη, ἡ)

CHRISTOPHER BARON

University of Notre Dame

An ISLAND belonging to the Styreans, a community on the west coast of EUBOEA across the channel from MARATHON in Attica (BA 55 G4, Aigilia?; Müller I, 397). After sacking ERETRIA in 490 BCE, the Persian expedition, guided by the exiled Athenian tyrant HIPPIAS, deposited their captives on Aegleia (Aigil(e)ia in some MANUSCRIPTS) as they sailed toward Marathon (6.107.2).

SEE ALSO: Aegilea; Datis; Prisoners of War; Styra

The Herodotus Encyclopedia. Группа авторов