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.The purpose of the fortification, at least, was precisely to define Corinth srelationship with others; that was not the purpose of the harbour or the diolkos, but it may well have been part of their effect.In Athens, Thucydides remarked on the activity of the tyrants in embellishing the city.26 The chronology of the buildings onthe acropolis on which the magnificent sculpture in the Acropolis Museum was displayed is too imprecise to enable us to fixthem securely; but most of them were probably built by Peisistratus or his sons.There is no doubt about the responsibility forthe Temple of Olympian Zeus which was begun by Peisistratus sons (and remarked upon by Aristotle), though it was notcompleted until the time of Hadrian.Utilitarian projects were also provided, as at Corinth: Thucydides remarked on thefountain of Enneakrounos (2.15.5).It is now fashionable to identify the building beneath the tholos, in which there is evidenceof cooking on a grand scale, as the tyrants palace; but it makes much better sense of the general building history of this areato identify it as the predecessor of the tholos not only in position, but also in function.It served the needs of the members ofthe council of four hundred, and then that of five hundred, in much the same way as the tholos did when it was built after 462.It therefore provides a striking example of both institutional and physical continuity between the period of the tyrants andlater Athenian practice.27Polycrates erga were already famous to Herodotus: they included a harbour mole as well as the famous tunnel for the watersupply designed by Eupalinus, and demonstrate concern for merchant vessels, defence and the water supply which we havealready seen elsewhere.At Samos, however, unusually, there were impressive buildings, especially at the Heraeum, whichcannot be attributed to Polycrates.The significance of that is difficult to determine, since the extent to which he hadpredecessors in the tyranny remains uncertain.28 Nothing of this kind is clear for Sicyon, but that probably tells us more aboutthe nature of our evidence than about reality.Cleisthenes built at Delphi after his victory in the Sacred War:29 his architectsand craftsmen had presumably learned their skills at home and still practised them there, but we have no evidence because theArchaic site of the city is still unknown.The consciousness of an identity is partly determined by looking at oneself; in the matter of physical amenities, tyrants didmore than any others in the Archaic period to create that consciousness and enable citizens to look with pride at their cities.30Consciousness of self-identity is also determined by looking at others; here too, tyrants established lasting identities for theircities.Lengthy continuity can be observed in Corinthian foreign policy: relations established by the tyrants were stillsignificant in the later fifth century and even beyond.The colonies in north-west Greece were founded by Cypselus and ruledby his bastard sons as tyrants themselves.Whatever the purpose of the foundations, the family ties between the rulers ofCorinth and the colonies meant a closer relationship than was normal.Continuity between this period and the fifth centurycannot be traced in detail, but it is extremely unlikely that the Corinthian links here which bore fruit in both the Persian andthe Peloponnesian Wars were entirely independent of what was established by the tyrants.A similar connection couldprobably be seen, if only we had sufficient detail in our evidence, between Periander s interests in Epidaurus, where the tyrantwas his father-in-law Procles, and the special Corinthian concerns observable here during the period after the Peace of Nicias.Equally the special naval interests of Corinth, still powerful, if embarrassingly ineffective, in the Peloponnesian War, wereestablished by the tyrants, especially of course in exactly these north-western waters.3136 LOPPING OFF THE HEADS?Similar patterns can be seen elsewhere.Pheidon s achievement for Argos remains uncertain, but there is little doubt that heextended the power of the city at least temporarily, and perhaps for a lengthy period [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]