Tuesday, 28 February 2017

Theopompos of Myndos - Take Two


The Remaining Blocks of Lysanders' Monument at Delphi
Jona Lendering CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0
http://www.livius.org/pictures/greece/delphi/009-monument-of-lysander/monument-of-lysander/


Back in April last year I added a new page Myndians in History  which included Pausanias’ reference to a monument at Delphi in honour of Theopompos of Myndos, who sailed with Lysander at the battle of Aegospotami in 405 BC.

To paraphrase a North Staffordshire expression I was like a dog with two appendages having found mention of a Myndian trireme captain which predated Mausolus’ synoecism of the Lelegian towns in the 4th century BC.

However it now appears that I may have been a little premature, after a little more reading there are two other suggestions:

Xenophon states that Theopompos was a Milesian buccaneer who was dispatched to Sparta with the news of Lysander’s  victory,

The second and most recent hypothesis is that Theopompos was a Melian (Theopompus, son of Lapompus of Melos).  I came a across a few footnotes which cited  A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions to the End of the Fifth Century BC edited by Russell Meiggs and David M Lewis who reviewed the inscriptions on the thirteen surviving blocks of limestone which still bear the prints of the feet of the bronze statues erected by Lysander.

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