The freedom of the Greeks of Asia: on the Origins of a Concept and the Creation of a Slogan

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to discover the origins of a political catchphrase, ‘the freedom of the Greeks of Asia’. The opening section presents and analyses first the evidence of Herodotus for the period from the Lydian conquest to the Mycale campaign, then that of Diodorus, where extant, for the same events. The contrasting usage of these two authors poses the question: when did the Greeks of Asia first come to be regularly thought of as a corporate body? That question is studied in the second section through the evidence of Thucydides and later writers for the period of the Athenian empire and that of Xenophon for the Ionian War and the campaigns of the Spartans, especially Agesilaus, in Asia Minor, and an answer is suggested: that the Greeks of Asia first came to be consistently thought of as a unit, and their freedom to be regularly exploited as a slogan, in the years between 400 and 386. The third section attempts to answer the further question which at once arises: why should this have been so?

Panhellenism without Imperialism? Athens and the Greeks before and after Chaeronea

“…The first variant form of Panhellenism is distinguished, above all, by its focus on defence rather than attack: the freedom and well-being of Greece still needs to be sethon saved Greece from 'the day of slavery' (δούλιον ἐ ͂ μαρ: IG I 3 503/4, A.I, line 2 = FGE XXa, line 4); the Greeks who fought in 480 and 479 are praised for 'rescuing the cities from hateful slavery' (δουλοσύνας στυγερᾶς ῥυσάμενοι πόλιας: D. S. XI.33.2 = FGE XVIIb, line 4); see further Mitchell 2007: 10-11, and, on the wider context of the association of Greek identity with freedom (and Persian with slavery) in this period, Raaflaub 2004: 59-89. 11 On freedom propaganda (especially as applied to the Asia Minor Greeks) in the Classical Period see Seager & Tuplin 1980; in the Hellenistic period, Seager 1981; on its use in Greek politics in the Roman period, Dmitriev 2011. 12 Note in particular the complaints of the Mytileneans at Thuc.…”

‘The people want(s) to bring down the regime’: (positive) nationalism as theArabSpring's revolution

“…That much is evinced, for example, by the 23rd century BCE mass rebellion of the Sumerians against the Akkadian ‘Sargon’ (literally ‘the legitimate king’), whom they deemed a ‘foreign ruler’ (Westenholz : 39). Likewise, in the early fourth century BCE, ‘the Greeks of Asia first came to be consistently thought of as a unit, and their freedom to be regularly exploited as a slogan’ against foreign invaders (Seager and Tuplin : 141). Ancient Jews and Greeks had not only engendered a sense of collectivity, augmented by beliefs and practices, but developed historical narratives of sacrifice, homeland and chosenness/mission (Grosby ; Roshwald ).…”