The Early Ionian League

Abstract

A T AN early date in their history the Ionian Greeks of Asia Minor united their cities into a league, the members of which celebrated a national festival, the Panionia, to Poseidon Helikonios at their religious center, the Panionion, on the peninsula of Myeale. To Herodotus the festival and the unwarranted exclusiveness of the organization, whose members prided themselves on being The Ionians, seemed its most interesting characteristics.' The league, however, was of some political importance in the history of the lonians and of the East Greeks in general, unifying their resistance to Persia at the time of Cyrus' conquest (546-540 B.C.) and in the revolt against Darius (499 to 493 B.C.). To an older generation of scholars, notably Wilamowitz and Cary, this political function, seemingly a characteristic of the league from its origin in the period before 700 B.C., was its most striking feature.2 Certainly this would have been unusual in a period of Greek history when the characteristic form of association was the religious amphictyony or the ethnic group. Recently, however, it has been suggested that the original form of the league was that of a religious amphictyony or of an ethnic group headed by a king,3 which developed into the union of independent cities known to us from Herodotus. In these various studies of the league the focus of attention has thus been on its original character and purpose rather than on its organization in the historical period.4 The problem of its origin, of course, is a matter for speculation rather than of any sure knowledge since it is involved with the difficult questions of the Greek migration to AsiaMinor and of their early settlements there. At least the time of that migration (late eleventh or early tenth century B.C.) seems in process of being fixed at a considerably earlier date than has been suggested recently (post 800), thanks to the excavation of Old Smyrna.5 For the closing years of the league's existence in the archaic period we have the specific information of Herodotus, almost contemporary and written from a viewpoint hostile to the lonians. Thus in studying the early league, it seems useful to form a picture of its organization from Herodotus and then, using that as a guide, to discuss some of the problems of its origin.