Hephaistion’s ancestry offers us an interesting insight into fluidity of Macedonian identity.
By Dr. Jeanne Reames
Associate Professor
Director, Ancient Mediterranean Studies
University of Nebraska Omaha
Introduction
An epigraphical survey (with digital mapping component) of Greece and Magna Graecia reveals a pattern as to where Hephais-based names appear, up through the second century BCE. Spelled with an /eta/,these names are almost exclusively Attic-Ionian, while Haphēs-based names, spelled with an alpha, are Doric-Aeolian, and much fewer in number. There is virtually no overlap, except at the Panhellenic site of Delphi, and in a few colonies around the Black Sea.
Furthermore, cult for the god Hephaistos–long recognized as a non-Greek borrowing–was popular primarily in Attic-Ionian and “Pelasgian” regions, precisely the same areas where we find Hephais-root names. The only area where Haphēs-based names appear in any quantity, Boeotia, also had an important cult related to the god. Otherwise, Hephaistos was not a terribly important deity in Doric-Aeolian populations.
This epigraphic (and religious) record calls into question the assumed Macedonian ethnicity of the king’s best friend and alter-ego, Hephaistion. According to Tataki, Macedonian naming patterns followed distinctively non-Attic patterns, and cult for the god Hephaistos is absent in Macedonia (outside Samothrace). A recently published 4thcentury curse tablet from Pydna could, however, provide a clue as to why a Macedonian Companion had such a uniquely Attic-Ionian name.
If Hephaistion’s ancestry was not, in fact, ethnically Macedonian, this may offer us an interesting insight into fluidity of Macedonian identity under the monarchy, and thereby, to ancient conceptualizations of ethnicity more broadly.
Hephaistion Amyntoros, best friend and chief marshal of Alexander the Great, bore an unusual name for Macedonia. Several diverse pieces of evidence suggest that his family was not ethnically Macedonian by origin, but of Attic or Ionian extraction. How far in the past that connection occurred is far from clear, but it might tell us something interesting about cultural identification in these borderland areas of northern Greece.
Two passages from Arrian (An. 6.28.4, Ind. 18.3) identify Hephaistion as from Pella. The first lists Alexander’s current seven Somatophylakes at the time of Peukestas’s special appointment as an eighth, and the second is a list of trierarchs in India. This list also gives his father’s name, although nowhere else are we told anything of his family. No siblings or cousins are mentioned, directly or by marriage, and his mother is never named. At the court, he appears to have been somewhat isolated, but this could be a function of our sources’ laser focus on Alexander himself. He was co-assigned with Perdikkas of Orestis several times, and Perdikkas stepped into his shoes after his death (if not formally as Chiliarch), so an alliance and perhaps friendship between the two could have existed in the campaign’s latter years.1 That said, they do not appear to be related.2
We would have no reason to doubt the Arrian passages identifying Hephaistion as from Pella, except that both passages also name Leonnatos as from Pella, although we know he hailed from Lynkestis (Suda s.v.Λεόvvατoς= Arr. Succ. 12; also Curt. 17.7.8). Why list Lynkestian Leonnatos as “Pellais”? Heckel suggests it owed to having been raised at court due to his relation to Eurydike, Philip’s mother.3 Yet these lists’ assignment of Leonnatos to Pella mean we cannot be certain Hephaistion was born there, either, although, like Leonnatos, he may well have grown up there. The peculiarity of his name suggests he was another “transplant”.
The spelling is dialect-specific. Hephaistion, with an eta, is Attic-Ionic, and far more common, lasting well into the Roman Imperial era. Haphaistion, with an alpha, is Doric-Aeolic, and disappears after the middle Hellenistic era. Nor does Haphaistion appear at all in Attica, and only occasionally in Ionic areas where they overlap with Doric-Aeolic colonization. By contrast, Attic-Ionic Hephaistion is not found in Doric-Aeolic areas.
Both are rare-to-nonexistent in the northern border regions of Macedonia, Epiros, or Thessaly, as is worship of the god Hephaistos. The absence matches Hephaistion’s apparent isolation at Alexander’s court. Only one Classical-era or earlier epigraphical attestation of the name comes from Macedonia, a dedication by Diogenes to the hero Hephaistion, found at Pella.4 And of course, that is “our” Hephaistion.
Amyntor was also unusual for the area, with only two examples confirmed as Macedonian: Amyntor, Hephaistion’s father, and an Amyntor living in Kolophon in the latter 4th century (ΑΜΥΝΤΩΡ ΓΕΡΟΝΤΟΣ ΜΑΚΕΔΩΝ).5 Other occurrences of the name are found only in Greek areas outside Macedonia, or in Greek foundations under Macedonian control. We may suppose Amyntor a member of the Hetairoi, and thus, Hephaistion probably a syntrophos of the prince,6 but as a person, Hephaistion remains largely a cypher.7
In itself, the absence of evidence proves nothing, especially in an area under active excavation and where the “epigraphic habit” began late.8 Yet other peculiarities suggest there might be more to it all–a freight of evidence, or consilience.9
Heckel (1991) proposed a tentative stemma for him based on IG II2 405, making him a cousin to Demetrios, son of Althaimenes, a Companion hipparch under Hephaistion’s general command in India. The inscription references Amyntor Demetriou. Demetrios is a panhellenic name, and the hipparch Demetrios had his command before Hephaistion did,10 although as Heckel notes, he is the only hipparch to attain prominence in the second half of Alexander’s expedition, perhaps giving some weight to Heckel’s theory.
n any case, IGII2405, inscribed on a piece of Pentelic marble from the Acropolis, only the right side preserved, records Demades’s proposal to grant proxeny and citizenship to one Amyntor Demetriou and his descendants in return for Amyntor’s display of eunoia to the Athenian people. Neither the nature of the eunoia nor Amyntor‘s place of origin is preserved. Schwenk (1985,134) argued, “Demades as proposer does not require that Amyntor be Macedonian or have Macedonian connections”. Yet Heckel argues (1991, 66-70) the proposal’s date of 334/5, shortly after Alexander’s 335 razing of Thebes and march on Athens, does imply Macedonian connections, not least because we happen to know a Macedonian Amyntor whose son was close to the king.11 A similar example can be found in an inscription recovered in 1981, recording a grant of proxeny from the Theban League to Athaneos son of Damonikos, a Macedonian. As Roesch (1984,58-59) points out, a Demonikos son of Athenaios is appointed trirarch in Alexander’s fleet in 326, and is probably the son.12 This grant then provides similar evidence for an important family at the Macedonian court being honored by a southern polis. While nothing can be said for certain about IG II2 405, I follow Heckel in counting the Amyntor in question as Hephaistion’s father, whether or not the hipparch Demetrios was a cousin.
Heckel suggests that Amyntor was granted his proxeny and citizenship as a result of helping to convince Alexander to treat Athens leniently in 335, using his own son’s friendship with the king as leverage. The interesting question is why Amyntor would care what became of Athens in the first place.
A fragment from Marsyas (FGrH 135.F2) tells of Demosthenes’s attempt to reconcile with Alexander by sending Aristion, a personal friend, to ask Hephaistion to mediate between himself and the king. Aeschines (3.160-62) alludes to the event, but leaves out Demosthenes’s contact.13 Hephaistion had no cause to love Demosthenes, so on the face of it, these two make strange bed-partners, yet Demosthenes also appealed to Olympias for assistance. Heckel notes that, aside from the affection in which Alexander held them both, Olympias and Hephaistion shared something else: families honored by Athens, if, of course, we accept the Amyntor of IG II2 405 as Hephaistion’s father.14
Perhaps Amyntor’s grant of proxeny and citizenship lay behind Demosthenes’s petition, or perhaps he appealed to Amyntor’s son for the same reasons Amyntor had cared what happened to Athens in 335. Did the family have Greek, and specifically Attic-Ionian ties?
Several ancient sources mention Archelaos’s invitation to famous Athenians–artists, intellectuals, others–to settle in Macedonia during his reign.15 Among these was Sokrates who, according to Aristotle, refused in no uncertain terms (Rh. 1398a.24). Others accepted: the playwrights Euripides and Agathon, the poet Choirilos, and the painter Zeuxis. There were certainly more, artisans and merchants who would not have enjoyed so high a social profile. Might Amyntor and his son have numbered among those descendants, living in Pella and integrated into Macedonian society just two generations later?16 Conversely, and to my mind more likely, they could have hailed from a Greek foundation in the north, eaten by Philip II’s ever-expanding borders.
Other foreign-born figures accepted into the Hetairoi class during Alexander’s reign include Nearchos, Erigyios, and Laomedon. If further along the chain of acceptance than the still-Greek Eumenes,17 their Greek origins were remembered even if they were now connected to towns in the north. Arrian (18.10) lists Nearkhos as Amphipolitan, although his Cretan ethnicity is well attested.18 Likewise, Erigyios and Laomedon, two sons of Larikhos, are also listed as from Amphipolis (Arr. An. 3.6.5; 3.11.10; Ind. 18.4), but originated in Mytilene.19
Lysimakhos, son of Agothokles, and his brothers, may present a closer parallel to Hephaistion. Also called “Pellais” in the same list from the Indica which so-names Leonnatos and Hephaistion, Lysimakhos appears to have been Thessalian. Heckel (1992, 267-68) discusses the evidence from later sources, suggesting that Philip brought Agothokles to court and granted the family citizenship, perhaps even made him a Companion, whatever Theopompos’s claim (FGrHist 115.F81) that he was a flatterer and born a slave. If this reconstruction is true, Lysimakhos and Hephaistion could both represent a stage of incorporation beyond that of Nearkhos, Erigyios, and Laomedon. That, in turn, could tell us something about the process of immigrant naturalization in Macedonia, at least under Philip. Ergo, Hephaistion’s later isolation at the court owed to a lack of family ties, even if his “postal code” read Pella.
Hephaistos Cult and Its Significance
Not only is Hephaistion’s name rare-to-nonexistent in Macedonia, but the region lacks religious cult for Hephaistos, as well. Finding no names that reference an absent god should not, then, surprise us. Yet Hephaistos did have significant cult on two northern islands: Lemnos and Samothrace.20 At least by the mid-4th century, Macedonian and Epirote courts had evinced interest in Samothrace, and both Philip and Olympias were initiated into the Mysteries there (Plu. Alex. 2.1), albeit perhaps for political reasons.
Burkert calls the Samothracian Kabeiroi the sons or grandsons of Lemnian Hephaistos (1985,167, 281-85), and Herodotus named them Pelasgian (2.51). Certainly Hephaistos himself is not a native Greek deity. Like Lemnos, the indigenous population of Samothrace was considered Pelasgian (D.S.5.47.3), and Attika, associated with the Pelasgians in both our literary and archaeological record, also had prominent cults to Hephaistos.21 Thebes had a cult for the Kabeiroi, with, again, indigenous connections.22 Hephaistos also had cults in Sicily at Mt. Etna, Erys, and the Lipari Islands, probably related to the indigenous Sicilian fire god Hadranus (Ael. NA 11.3). Burkert notes that association with volcanos was secondary to association with fire.23
As early as 1909, both Farnell and Fick independently called his name Pelasgian (1909, 388ff.; 1909, 46), and Cook agreed (1940, 226-9). Burkert (1985, 167, 281) says the independent Lemnian population were Tyrsenoi, identified with the Etruscans, or sometimes the Pelasgians, but in any case, Hephaistos was “obviously non-Greek”.24 Linguist Beekes considers Hephaistos’s name pre-Greek (2009, 47), a term I prefer to Pelasgian.25 Despite being hailed as one of the Twelve, Hephaistos cult was rather patchy in Greece and Magna Graecia.
In an article about Philip II’s initial meeting with Olympias, Greenwalt notes that the sanctuary had substantial developments from Philip’s reign forward (2008, 79-82), but interest in the cult is not older the Philip or his brother Perdikkas, and probably reflect political rather than religious reasons.26 It would have been unlikely to result in a widespread burst of religious fervor for Hephaistos, a point aptly reflected in the continued dearth of Hephais-root names, or cult for Hephaistos in Macedonia.
The Dorian and Aeolian version of the god’s name was Haphaistos: beginning with an aspirated alpha not eta,27 and in Boeotia, the dipthong “ai” converts to either an “ei” or an eta. While there are a variety of Hephais-based names, many fewer Haphēs-based names28 occur–only 28 compared to 128 Hephais-based, and they show less variation. Of these, more than a third are from Boeotia, the site of a rather significant cult to the Kabeiroi, the grandsons of Hephaistos; this is akin to the very large number of Hephais-based names in Attika. In addition, all Haphēs-based names are Hellenistic or earlier, so as time progressed, the Attic spelling replaced theDoric-Aeolian.29 For our inquiry, however, the divergent alpha-spelling remains. As we shall see in the maps, there is not much overlap. In some areas, such as Athens, only the eta form is found, and in Boeotia, only the alpha form is found. The only exceptions are Delphi, which as a panhellenic site might be expected to show both variations, and Kallatis, on the Black Sea, where we find three of the alpha and one of the eta.30
Ergo, the mere fact that Hephaistion’s name appears with an eta, not alpha, is noteworthy. If by the late 4thcentury, at least the Macedonian court employed Attic Greek for official correspondence (BRIXHE–PANAYOTOU 1988, 245-60; BORZA 1990, 94), a strong argument has been made for use of Doric Greek earlier.31 For our purposes, Tataki’s onomastic studies, particularly her massive work on Beroea, conclude that distinctively Macedonian names did not take Attic forms: “Greek names that have phonetic or morphological elements different from what one would expect in accordance with the rules of contemporary Attic, are also interpreted as local [Macedonian] names”(1988, 335).32 So it stands to reason that if we did see names related to the god of the forge in Macedonia, we might expect a Doric-Aeolic form.33 Yet no Haphēs-based names appear, early or late.34 In the 4thcentury or earlier, we find only “our” Hephaistion, and into the Hellenistic era, it remains extremely rare.35 If we must recognize the role of chance in what survives, I find all this to be rather more than mere chance.
The name Hephaistion, spelt with an eta, is strongly regional, appearing in areas with heavy Ionian or Attic populations. Of her methodology, Tataki says, “Comparisons with the Prosopographia Attika have revealed that, if a name known in Macedonia is not found at all in Athens in the 5th and 4th centuries B.C., it is very often Macedonian”(TATAKI 1988, 335). I have employed this same principle in reverse.
Hephaistion probably never needed to use a qualifying patronymic at the Macedonian court. Like the rock star Sting, there was only the one.
Mapping the Epigraphic Evidence
Greek naming patterns were (and still are) strongly traditional, unlike fad-names in English-speaking countries that owe to pop-culture icons. So I do not assume Hellenistic occurrences of Hephaistion reflect a tribute to Alexander’s best friend, but owe rather to Attic-Ionic emigration. Unsurprisingly, Hephais-and Haphais-root names occur in regions with notable cult for the god, or areas colonized by these. In my onomastic search, I included all names with an Hephais-or Haphais-root, not just “Hephaistion”,as we are seeking patterns.
By far the largest number of Hephais-root names are found in Attika, and while this certainly reflects available evidence, it should also be remembered that, beyond Lemnos and Lemnian-influenced areas, Attika had one of the more significant cults to Hephaistos. Ergo, the frequency of Hephais-root names may owe to more than just high rates of inscriptional survival. The other place with a relatively high number of names is Boeotia, albeit the Haphēs-version, and Boeotia was also center to a cult of the Kabeiroi.
My chief focus has been the 6th through mid-3rd centuries BCE, but I included attestations up to the mid-2nd century BCE, the time of the Roman conquest of Macedonia and Greece. It provided a logical terminus ante quem. The Hellenistic era saw much greater movement not only from and to Macedonia, but all around the Greek world.36
Our earliest Hephais-name comes from Samos, mid-late 6th century, followed by Attica in the late 5th century, but the bulk of our evidence begins in the 300s. Our earliest Haphais-root names come from Sicily (600-400) and Boeotia (530-20), but they terminate altogether before the Imperial era, whereas another hundred-plus Hephais-root names extend into Imperial times. Several areas had undatable inscriptions. I have excluded these but recognize they do represent wild cards.
Yet what even the exclusions and late inscriptions would not change are the holes.
Certain regions–particularly the entirety of the Peloponnesos, Crete, and the majority of the Dorian islands–had no attestations of Hephais-names. Not just no attestations from my time frame, but no attestations in any time frame. Only four attestations occur in all of Italy, and are uniformly late or undatable. A few Haphēs-names appear, but except in Boeotia and Sicily, are rare. I find these holes to be significant.
To produce the maps for my online digital project, I utilized not only print collections such as Tataki’s on Macedonia and The Lexicon of Greek Personal Names (LGPN) 37, but also the LGPN online (http://clas-lgpn2.classics.ox.ac.uk/), and Packard Humanities Institute’s Searchable Greek Inscriptions (http://epigraphy.packhum.org/), in an effort to be as complete as possible and to cross-check dating. If there are some dating disagreements, they did not significantly impact my larger parameters. For locating cities (some obscure), I utilized both Barrington’s Atlas of the Greek and Roman World and ToposText (https://topostext.org/).
The digital project was built by Cory Starman, under the direction of my UNO colleague, digital historian Dr. Jason Heppler, using the R programming language, Leaflet map library, and hosted by RStudio’s Shiny web application environment. Not only does it demonstrate the distribution of names across time, but has searchable parameters by date, name form, and region, as well as links to online collections so visitors can see each inscription for themselves.
In order to streamline the paper narrative, all epigraphical data appears in the appendix.38
Geographic Distribution
The number of inscriptions anywhere with Hephais-/Haphēs-root names rises from the late 4th/early-3rd century, matching the general proliferation of inscriptions. We should especially consider areas where we find more than one Hephais-name (any version) prior to the 3rdcentury. Attika had the most, followed by north Anatolia and Ionia (none south of Miletos), the island of Samos, and Ionian-founded cities on the northern and southern edges of the Black Sea. For Haphēs-names, it is Boeotia.
Based on the epigraphical evidence then, we find that “Hephaistion” and other Hephais-root names belong to Attic-Ionian populations. Outside Boeotia, Doric-and Aeolic-speaking areas generally did not employ names referencing the god by a 1-to-4.5 margin.
Given all of this, we can say with some confidence that “Hephaistion” (with an eta) would be quite a peculiar name to give an ethnically Macedonian boy.
Epigraphy and Amyntor
We should also consider Hephaistion’s father’s name as Amyntor is a southern Greek form of the very popular Macedonian name Amyntas, as Mary is to Maria. Unlike Hephaistion, Amyntor is both more common and not tied to any specific Greek dialect. It appears as early as Greek epic: one of the suitors in Homer’s Odyssey. A geographical survey yields no significant results, except as related to Macedonia and Thessaly.
According to The Greek Lexicon of Personal Names, Amyntōr/our occurs sixteen times in Macedonia, and five in Thessaly prior to 3 CE, in coastal Greek colonies such as Byzantion, Amphipolis, and Odessa. By contrast, 100+ entries occur for Amyntas/ēs in Macedonia and 90 in Thessaly.39 No doubt quite a few of these reference Macedonian royalty, and thus name a single individual multiple times rather than multiple people, yet the numerical discrepancy is notable.
I think it safe to say “Amyntor” was not a particularly Macedonian name either. Together with hints of ties to the Greek world (Athens especially), we may postulate that this family was not ethnically Macedonian. In my dissertation (1998), I suggested they might be Athenian expatriates, but a recently published katadesmos from Pydna offers an alternative closer to home, and thus, one more probable.
Before we consider the curse tablet, however, we should discuss two other inscriptions. The first comes from Kolophon (MAIER 1950,69), which Maier (1950, 227) dates to 313/306, but Meritt (1935, 371) dates to 334. Found in the Sanctuary of the Mother, it concerns a building decree for walls, a list of contributors, and their respective amounts. Among these is one “Amyntor Gerontos Makedon” who donated 500,000 gold pieces. Normally, this would read “son of Gerōn”, but Gerōn is quite rare.40 After all, naming a baby “old man” is a tad odd. Therefore, in my dissertation, I proposed that gerontos might be read as “son of the elder [Amyntor]”, even without an attendant article. Was the Kolophon Amyntor a brother of Hephaistion, living high on his inheritance in Anatolia during the early years of the Successors?
Yet a 4th-century inscription from Ephesos has since changed my mind, suggesting there was a fellow named Gerōnin Macedonia whose two sons followed Alexander to Asia and wound up later in Ionia.41 At Ephesos, we find an honorary decree to Nikarkhos Gerontos Makedon (IEph 1432), dated to the second half of the 4th century. If we cannot date the Ephesos inscription as precisely as the one from Kolophon, two Macedonians in Ionian cities so close geographically, both sons of a man with a rare name, suggests a pair of brothers, likely veterans of Alexander’s campaign if Meritt’s dating is correct. Certainly Amyntor was quite well to do, and Nikarkhos probably as well, if honored by the capital of Ionia. The upshot is that we have a second appearance in the late 4thcentury of a man named “Amyntor” called a Macedonian.
A Curious Curse Tablet
In a 2002/3 article, Jaime Curbera and David Jordan discuss a katadesmos from Pydna (SEG 52.617 IV, col b.1), one of six tablets with 66 names total (109-27). Tablet IV is fairly standard for the 4thcentury: a name list, but no specific cursing verb. The main target is one Euippos, while the others, including an Amyntor, were apparently Euippos’s allies. No specifics are given as to why the individuals were targeted, but three of the six in the cache involved legal/business cases (109). The authors state that Amyntor “is a Greek name typically Macedonian”(118), so I emailed Curbera to ask if he could further narrow down the grave dates, and if he knew of other occurrences of “Amyntor” in Macedonia. Unfortunately, he had no narrower date and cited the same examples I had found: Hephaistion’s father, and the son of Geron in Kolophon. I did, however, find mention of the same excavation in another paper, which dated the graves to the first half of the 4th century (PSAROUDAKĒS 2008, 198).42
The Amyntor of the tablet has no patronymic nor other distinguishing characteristic, and Euippos is not otherwise known at the Macedonian court, either under Alexander or Philip, so connecting Amyntor in the Pydna tablet with Hephaistion’s father might seem like a stretch…except for three other names on the same tablet: Sitalkas, Polemokrates and Kleandros.
A Polemokrates fathered Koinos, among the more significant marshals at Alexander’s court (Arr. An. 1.14.2; DITTENBERGER Syll. 3332, 7-8), and Kleandros, an infantry commander, was also son of a Polemokrates (Arr. An. 1,24.2) and is usually identified as Koinos’s brother.43 Philip awarded land in the Khalkidike to both Koinos and Polemokrates (DITTENBERGER, Syll. 3, 332).44
If the Polemokrates and Kleandros on this tablet are the same as those at court, and “Sitalkas” is a regional variant or just misspelling of the royal Thracian name Σιτάλκης, this tablet may date to Philip’s reign any time after the spring of 342, following Kersebleptes’s capitulation to Philip (D.S.16.71. 1-2; Aesch. 2.89-93).45 While that is early in the second half of the 4th century, and the tombs in which the tablets were found belong to the first half, the dating is not exact. Sitalkes is not mentioned by name until Alexander’s Asian campaign, in command of the Thracian javelin men (Arr. 1.28.4), but from 333 forward, he often appeared under Parmenion. He was also part of the group who, under Kleandros, would kill Parmenion, and later suffered the same fate as Kleandros (Arr. 6.27.4; Curt. 10.1.1). His ties to Kleandros could, and probably did, date further back.
To be fair, Koinos’s name does not appear on the tablet, and Polemokrates and Kleandros occupy separate columns. While the tablet is in four pieces, the writing seems complete with only two letters lost to damage, so we probably are not missing names. In a footnote, Curbera and Jordan warn against assuming names on the defixiones associated with royal or aristocratic families necessarily mean the named individuals are royal or aristocratic, as onomastic studies show names have wide distribution (CURBERA –JORDAN 2003,126 n. 41). This is quite true. Yet the confluence of three names we know, from other sources, held positions at Alexander’s court and had ties to each other does suggest we may be looking at exactly who we think we are.46 Add Amyntor and, if we have no direct connection between him or his son with the other three,47 the likelihood rises that these are Philip’s officers.
What ties might a Thracian prince and Elimeian nobility have to each other, and Pydna? From Kotys to Kersobleptes, Odrysian fortunes aligned not infrequently with Athenian, and such prominent Athenians as Iphikrates were influential at the Odrysian court.48 Much of that concerned Amphipolis, and the Athenian need for timber. And of course, Amphipolis is where Polemokrates and his son would later own land once it fell under Philip’s control.49 So linking Sitalkes to Polemokrates and son(s) has support from later evidence in the Alexander histories, as well as pre-Philip Odrysian history. But what does Pydna have to do with it all?
Ship-Building
We must recall Pydna’s long (sometimes hostile) history with Athens (Thuc. 1.61.2-3; 1.137.1; Plu. Them. 25), including Athens’s use of it to acquire timber with Arkhelaos’s blessing (Andocides 2.11). In 364/3, under Timotheus, Athens claimed Pydna again, along with Methone and Potidaia (Din. 1.14; D. 4.4; D.S. 15.47.2), and it remained in Athenian hands till Philip took it back in 357, the year before Alexander’s birth (D.S. 16.8.3, D. 1.5, 1.12).50
This may be where Amyntor enters the picture. As the other curse tablets involve business matters, and as Polemokrates and Sitalkes owned land in timber-rich areas, perhaps this concerned timber contracts.51 If this Amyntor is “our” Amyntor, he probably belonged to Polemokrates’s generation. Did they meet at Philip’s court and form a business alliance for timber that included Euippos and others from Pydna?
It is, of course, highly speculative, resting on a coincidence of four names known to be prominent at the Macedonian court, three of which had later ties. But perhaps archaeology has thrown us a bone, affording a small peek into non-royal business under the Argeads.
It might also help to explain why a boy with an Attic-Ionian name should rise so high at the Macedonian court. Like Amphipolis, Pydna was linked to Athens, subject of a tug-of-war between Athens and Macedon dating from Alexander I (Thuc. 1.137.1) down to Archelaos and then Philip II, after which it remained securely Macedonian.52 According to Demosthenes (1.5), a pro-Macedonian faction had opened the city gates to Philip in 357.
Conclusions
This leaves two tantalizing possibilities.
- Was Amyntora member of the pro-Macedonian faction in the city? And did his son become one of the prince’s syntrophoiin exchange for Amyntor’s aid in retaking Pydna, just before Alexander was born?
- Or was Amyntor a high-placed member of the pro-Athenian faction, and after, his son was taken to Pella as a hostage for his father’s good behavior? Either is possible.
Seeing Polemokrates and Kleandros on the tablet too probably suggests Amyntor was pro-Macedonian. Yet as discussed above, the tablet likely dates somewhat later, by which point he could have changed his allegiance. And if this Amyntor is Amyntor Demetriou, previous pro-Athenian leanings could have led him to intervene for Athens in 334/3. Certainly, if Hephaistion had spent his youth in Pella, either as a hostage or as a reward for Amyntor’s loyalty, being identified by Arrian as “Pellais”, like Leonnatos, is to be expected.
So if Amyntor were originally a Greek from Pydna, the specifically Attic-Ionian roots of his son’s name, as well as his own Greek version of the Macedonian Amyntas, would be neatly explained without looking as far back as the influx of Athenian expatriots under Arkhelaos.
Yet this is simply one tantalizing possibility. Other northern Greek cities such as Amphipolis present too. We could argue that an Amphipolitan Amyntor was Polemokrates and son’s link to timber traders in Pydna, without Amyntor being from Pydna himself–assuming the Amyntor on the tablet is “our” Amyntor in the first place.
Yet all of this returns us to the fluidity of Macedonian identity under the monarchy. Macedon’s borders fluctuated, wildly at times, until, by Philip II, previously independent Upper Macedonian cantons had been absorbed, as well as Paionia and chunks of Thrace. We might fairly ask if Elimeians, Lynkestians, or Paionians wanted to be considered “Macedonian”?
This fluidity may be even older, however. Given exciting findings from Methone,53 Macedonian interaction with Greeks, Phoenicians, and others in the northern Aegean is earlier than we knew, dating to the same period as Greek and Phoenician interaction with western Italian tribes at Pithokousai and Cumae. Certainly, it predates Alexander I’s opportunistic expansion after the Greco-Persian Wars.
That begs the question of just how long Greeks have been making their way inland from coastal Greek foundations to Macedonian towns, and even the court? It did not begin with Archelaos, nor even Alexander the Golden. How many of those Greek traders put down roots, married Macedonians, and became Macedonian with time? Citing Hall, Graninger states, “ethnic groups had been (and therefore must continually be) narrated into existence”54–a phrasing I find particularly apt.
Over time, transplanted Greeks narrated themselves into Macedonian identity, or were narrated so by later sources. In his classic collection on ethnic boundaries, Barth explains (1969, 15) that perceived socially relevant factors are the diagnostic criteria for membership in an ethnic group, as opposed to “objective” differences. In short, ethnicity depends on what we perceive as relevant. Furthermore, when a person, family, or group changes ethnic identification, it creates automatic ambiguity, as ethnic identity owes to origin as well as self-ascription (29). This would explain why “becoming Macedonian” required time, as an individual or family’s origin was gradually forgotten in favor of subsequent identification. Figures at the Macedonian court still in transition, such as Nearchos, and Erigyios and Laomedon–even Lysimakhos–are sometimes identified by their new Macedonian identity, and sometimes by their Greek origin.
Now, finally, we can position the case of Hephaistion (and his father). Whatever one makes of the curse tablet, the distinctively Attic-Ionian form of his name remains. With Hephaistion, we have a brief window into the process of Macedonian naturalization, and a hint at degrees of inclusion. By the end of Alexander’s reign, Hephaistion was remembered–”narrated”–as Macedonian in our extant sources, any Greek ties forgotten by writers of later generations, even if vestiges of his foreignness remained in his isolation at the court, and, fatefully, in his name.
(See appendix, endnotes, and bibliography at source).
Originally published by Karanos: Bulleting of Ancient Macedonian Studies 3 (2020, 11-37) under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.