Revisiting the Stephanephoroi of Early Hellenistic Miletos

Altay Coşkun (C.) recently wrote another detailed and rewarding investigation of early Hellenistic history in the pages of this journal (Philia 8, 2022, 23–40). The purpose of this note is only to clarify some key dates provided by the Milesian evidence. Ever since the work of Eugène Cavaignac, it should have been well recognised that the dates of the Milesian stephane¬phoroi, as originally developed by Rehm and maintained since in publications of the Milesian evidence, are not as assured as one might think. They should be adjusted to take into account two pairs of co-occurring names in the earlier list of eponyms, as well as the course of Alexander’s campaign. Cavaignac suggested that Alexander’s stephanephoria at Miletos took place only in 333/2 BC, not in 334/3 BC (Rehm et al.). This is convincing: one may add that at the start of the Milesian year 334/3, that is to say in spring 334 BC, Alexander had certainly not yet besieged or «liberated» Miletos. The eponym at Miletos had already been appointed when Alexander arrived and thus he was named the honorary stephanephoros for the year following his takeover of the city. To argue otherwise would imply that the Milesians somehow retrojected Alexander’s stephanephoria. The starting point for any investigation of the Hellenistic period and its chronology at Miletos should therefore be Alexander’s stephanephoria in 333/2 BC. Accordingly, all of Rehm’s chronology in the third century is to be «downdated» by one year. This involves numerous small adjustments to our understanding of Milesian history, which are only indicatively sketched here for the first quarter of the third century BC, further illuminating some of the events discussed by C.