The Battle of Oinoe in the Stoa Poikile: A Problem in Greek Art and History

Abstract

SummaryAccepting the prevailing view which holds that the battle of Oinoe took place during the Pentekontaetea, this paper attempts answers to the triple problem raised thereby: A. The Artistic: is it likely that (as Pausanias alleges) the Stoa Poikile contained among its other paintings, all (so far as we know) scenes from the glorious epic or near-epic past, a picture showing a recent battle against the Lacedaemonians? It is argued that the other pictures usually cited in comparison are not analogous, and the contemporary evidence of Aeschylus and Herodotus is invoked to suggest that more probably the painting showed a mythical subject harmonizing with the rest, although admittedly commemorating a recent campaign (as perhaps the rest did also). B. The Historical: when did this battle take place? It would seem to fit best into Thucydides' narrative of the Pentekontaetea if it is set shortly after the battle of Oinophyta; it could even, perhaps, be included in the exploits of the general Tolmides. C. The Historiographic: why does this battle survive only in the record of Pausanias? Thucydides' silence cannot be satisfactorily explained. But a confusion, perhaps made by Ephoros, in the account of Oinophyta could explain why there is no reference—at least, no direct reference—to Oinoe by any later historian. Pausanias evidently knew it from a bare tradition preserved by successive antiquarian writers, or guides, in their descriptions of the two monuments which commemorated the victory, the painting in Athens and the bronze group at Delphi.