Cavalry identity and democratic ideology in early fourth-century Athens

In 395 BC, after just under a decade of (nominal) peace between Athens and Sparta, the Corinthian War broke out, and, for the first time since the end of the Peloponnesian War, forces of Athenian cavalry were despatched to fight on behalf of their own city. The surviving historical narratives of the events at Haliartus in that year, and at Corinth and Coronea the next, are often incomplete, inconsistent, or both; the detail of what contribution – if any – was made by the cavalry to the campaign is no exception to that pattern. My aim in what follows, however, is not to attempt to reach the truth of what really happened in those engagements, but rather to look at a small group of material produced by and about members of the cavalry forces involved in the campaign, and to explore some of the ways in which the military exploits of this stereotypically rich and élite section of Athenian society are represented in the city – especially in contexts with particularly democratic associations. In doing so, I want to investigate the idea that Athenian attitudes to the cavalry undergo a significant, and hostile, shift at the end of the Peloponnesian War: the claim, that is, that the cavalry had always been a distinct group in Athens, but, in the 390s, that distinction comes in the form of infamy rather than fame. But I also hope to demonstrate the necessity of adopting a more nuanced approach to the study of the formation of these (positive or negative) attitudes: the image of the cavalry is shaped by the views of those outside that class, but also by the cavalry themselves; moreover, the cavalry are not necessarily simply reactive in their self-presentation, but can be allowed a more proactive role in the shaping of their own self-image.