The Peace of Callias

51 As we have noted, the fourth-century prescript must not be imagined to have been a verbatim copy of the original prescript, as it stood on whatever stele was ultimately the model for the copy. That Theopompus saw a stele giving a treaty that claimed it had been made with Darius should be believed, even though the text of the quotation is corrupt. As we have it, it reads: ai αἱ πρὸς βασιλέα Δαρεῖον 'Αθηναίων πρὸς Ἕλληνας συνθῆκαι. Some scholars have advocated the radical cure of deleting both Darius and the Hellenes, arguing that they cannot both be right and that there is no good reason to prefer one to the other. But as Connor, W. R. pointed out (Theopompus and fifth-century Athens [Washington, D.C. 1968] 78 ff.)Google Scholar, there was no good reason for anyone to make up the reference to Darius by name, hence there is no good reason for deleting it. In fact, I should not be surprised if at some much later date there existed a stele showing the King's Peace as made with King Darius: Arrian twice refers to it this way (ii 1.4; 2.2: see Bosworth ad loc.), and I think it unlikely that he made it up. It should, however, be pointed out that Pausanias (i 8.2) knew of a peace which Callias had made for the Greeks with Artaxerxes son of Xerxes. It is not impossible that the fourth-century prescript mentioned both the original peace and its renewal under Darius: as we can see from the Themistocles stele, there was no economy of words in these documents, and Theopompus (and even less the rhetor quoting his comment) had no reason to quote what he saw in full: such pedantry would not have suited his style, or his purpose. (See Wade-Gery, , HSCP Supplement i (1940) 127Google Scholar for a different suggestion.)

The phrase regarding the Hellenes undoubtedly needs emendation or deletion. Again, Connor noted that it is difficult to see how it could be a gloss (or on what), hence how it could have been erroneously added to the text. Emendation is therefore preferable. Of the various proposals known to me, the only one worth entertaining is Jacoby's περὶ Ἑλλήνων. (Alternatively, perhaps ὑπὲρ Ἑλλήνων, frequently found in such contexts.) For the idea, see Pausanias (l.c.): (Callias) πρὸς 'Αρταξέρξην…τοῖς Ἑλλησιν ἔπραξε τὴν εἰρήνην. Pausanias, incidentally, says that he heard this version from ‘most Athenians’: he does not say what the minority told him (perhaps Xerxes or Darius?).