A tale of two cities: studies in Greek border politics

Abstract

The mountain chain of Cithaeron and Parnes, stretching from the Corinthian Gulf to the Euboean Gulf, marked the boundary between Attica and Boeotia, at least in a geographical sense. For most of the fifth century this was a region of heightened tensions, as Thebes and Athens battled for control: Athens because dominance in Boeotia was something they desired as a route to fixing their influence in central Greece and Euboea, and Thebes because it allowed them to puncture Athenian interests and enhance their own political aspirations in what was to become, in the middle of the fifth century, the Boeotian koinon. In this conflict between the competing interests of Athens and Thebes, the region between the gulfs, and between Attica and Boeotia, became a war zone. Most of the cities in the border zone were very small and were easily controlled by these larger cities at different times (whether forcibly or not), but two stand out for their very different responses: Plataea and Tanagra. While there has been extensive discussion of both cities individually, and their relations with their more powerful neighbours, they have never been considered together as part of the same border region. The way they managed the politics of the border zones was very different from each other, but also instructive for seeing what life in borderlands in a Greek context could be about. We will begin this chapter by looking in more general terms at the border between Boeotia and Attica, and the language of border politics. We will then turn attention more specifically to consideration of the border politics of two cities (Plataea and Tanagra), and the way that they needed to play with their ‘in-betweenness’ in Boeotia and Attica, and finally look at what this tells us about border politics in the Greek world.