276 Emily Mackil
his account is probably tendentious (Morgan and Hall 1996: 195–6;contraWalbank
1957: 224–6, 2000: 23–7; Larsen 1953), and while the sanctuary may have been of
regional importance at that time, we have no evidence for an Achaeankoinonbefore
- The importance of Zeus to the early koinonis attested by his appearance on
Achaean coins of the fourth century as well as the Hellenistic period (Kraay 1976: 101
with Figure 318).
An Achaean identity, articulated through claims of consanguinity and migration into a
shared territory, was clearly forming in the sixth century and becoming more salient in
the fifth. Achaea became politically unified, however, only by the early fourth century,
and we cannot detect explicitly ethnic arguments being made in favor of participation
at that time, as we can for the Boeotiankoinonin the fifth century. However, there are
hints. The first recorded act of thekoinonwas the annexation of Aetolian Calydon and
Locrian Naupactus, across the Corinthian Gulf, by 389 (Xenophon,Hellenica4.6.1, 14
with Diodorus Siculus 15.75.2), which placed them in direct hostility with the Aeto-
lians. In precisely this period, Ephorus reports the Achaeans’ claim to ancestral control
of Olympia, before being driven out by the Elians, allies and kin of the Aetolians (Strabo
8.3.33). This claim must have been rooted in the myth of descent from Tantalus, father
of the Olympian hero Pelops, and suggests that the Achaeans may have been advanc-
ing an ethnic argument for participation in theirkoinon, however incipient, and likewise
couching their current dispute with the Aetolians in ethnic terms.
Although the specifics of each case vary considerably, in Boeotia, Phocis, and Achaea
a sense of ethnic unity preceded political unification and played some role in encourag-
ing potential member communities to perceive this new experiment in a positive light,
as merely a formalization of strong existing ties. Indeed, the ethnic argument for par-
ticipation in akoinonwas so widespread that it appears to have had an effect on the
language used to describe the state. Whilekoinonappears most frequently in epigraphic
sources, which are the most immediate reflection of the official language of the state,
many well-informed authors use the termethnosto describe what we would recognize
as a Greek federal state. At the end of his famous description of the internal structure
of the Boeotiankoinon, replete with administrative details, the Oxyrhynchus Historian
tells us that “in this way the wholeethnosgoverned itself” (Hellenica Oxyrhynchia16.4
in McKechnie and Kern 1988). Polybius himself, once a high-ranking magistrate of the
Achaeankoinonand intimately familiar with the nature of the state and others like it,
unambiguously usesethnosto refer to the Achaean state (4.17.7; cf. Paus. 7.16.9), and,
in his account of the dismantling of the Boeotiankoinonby the Romans in 171, refers to
that state as both akoin ̄e sympoliteiaand anethnos(27.2.10).
In documents, ethnos also appears in conjunction with more straightforwardly
political terms such askoinon, and it is tempting to suppose thatethnoswas used to
evoke sentiments of loyalty when praising individual benefactors. For example, a decree
of the Thessaliankoinonin the mid-to-late second century cites the goodwill of the
Roman aedile Quintus Caecilius Metellus toward theethnosof the Thessalians as one
of the grounds for the decision of thesynedrionto agree to export grain to Rome at
his request (Garnsey, Gallant, and Rathbone 1984;SEG34.558, with Bresson 2007–8:
II.192–5 on the date). We have similar indications in a famous decree from the Lycian
city of Araxa in the second century (SEG18.570 withSEG37.1218, 43.965, 49.1898
for debate about the date). The decree honors one Orthagoras of Araxa, a memberpolis
of the Lyciankoinon(on which see Behrwald 2000), for a long series of benefactions.