278 Emily Mackil
that they should be freed [from tyranny] and added to thesympoliteiaof theethnosof
the Lycians, [Orthagoras] was sent by thedemosas ambassador to thepoleisin Lycia
individually, and to thekoinonof the Lycians...” (ll. 54–9). Ifethnosandkoinonwere
originally, as in fifth-century Boeotia, essentially coterminous but distinct, they had,
by the second century, become synonymous, a testament to the success of the ethnic
argument for participation in akoinon.
That argument became so prominent and widespread that it could also be used to
attempttoreininakoinonwhose membership had become expansive. In 147, in the
course of the diplomatic negotiations that ultimately failed and led to the Achaean War,
the sack of Corinth, and the dismantling of the Achaeankoinon, the Roman senate
decreed that neither Sparta nor Corinth should belong to the Achaeankoinon,andthat
Argos, Heraclea by Oeta, and Arcadian Orchomenus should immediately be separated
from it (Pausanias 7.14.1). Yet, only the membership of Sparta had been contested. Pau-
sanias reports the senate’s reasoning, as explained by its legate L. Aurelius Orestes: “these
cities were not at all a part of the Achaeangenos, and they had joined the Achaean state
later.” The Achaeans rioted—and not only because the senate’s argument was wholly
specious (see Schwertfeger 1974: 8–10), but that is my interest here. In justifying their
decision on ethnic grounds—that these cities were not ethnically Achaean—the Romans
appealed to the traditional ethnic argument for participation in akoinon, implying that it
was the principal justification for such an arrangement. However, Orestes and the Roman
senate certainly knew that the Achaeankoinonincluded many more non-Achaeanpoleis
as members than the five listed by them. If ethnicity was a major tool of integration, how
had this happened?
Beyond Ethnicity: The Limits of the Argument
Our first evidence for the integration ofpoleisinto akoinonthat did not belong to the
same ethnic group comes from fourth-century Achaea. When the Achaeans annexed
Aetolian Calydon and Locrian Naupactus sometime before 389, the cities became mem-
bers of the Achaeankoinon, and their inhabitants became Achaean citizens. This political
expansion beyond ethnic boundaries occurred nearly a century and a half before the
moment, usually described as a turning point, when Aratus of Sicyon persuaded his
Dorian city to join the Achaeankoinonin 251 (Plutarch,Aratus9.6–7; Polybius 2.43.3).
Shortly thereafter, Corinth, Argos, Epidaurus, Megara, and numerous Arcadian cities
joined. Ethnicity clearly no longer mattered. Non-Achaean citizens had the same rights
and position within thekoinonas the original Achaean cities did, as is clearly demonstrated
by the illustrious careers of leaders of thekoinonfrom non-Achaean cities, including
Aratus himself, as well as Philopoemen and Lycortas, the father of Polybius, both from
Arcadian Megalopolis. The ethnic argument had clearly never been entirely compelling
anyway (Freitag 2009): the Achaean city of Pellene remained independent of thekoinon
in the fourth century (Xenophon,Hellenica7.1.15–18; Diodorus Siculus 15.68.2). We
do not know what motives the Pelleneans had in avoiding participation in thekoinon
formed by their ethnic kin. They may or may not have been similar to the Plataeans’
motives for staying out of the Boeotiankoinon.