Bacchiadae

The Bacchiadae (Ancient Greek: Βακχιάδαι "Bakkhiadai"), a tightly-knit Doric clan, were the ruling family of archaic Corinth in the eighth and seventh centuries BCE, a period of Corinthian cultural power. Corinth had been a backwater in eighth-century Greece. [Émile Will, "Korinthiaka: recherches sur l'histoire et la civilisation de Corinth des origines aux guerres médiques" (Paris: Boccard) 1955.] In 747 BCE (a traditional date) an aristocratic revolution ousted the Bacchiad kings of Corinth, when the royal clan of Bacchiadae, numbering perhaps a couple of hundred adult males and claiming descent from the Dorian hero Heracles through the seven sons and three daughters of a legendary king Bacchis, took power from the last king, Telestes. [Telestes was murdered by Arieus and Perantas, who were them­selves Bacchiads. (Smith, "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology", vol. I p. 450). To what extent this early "history" is genealogical myth is debated.] Practicising strict endogamy [Herodotus 5.92.1.] which kept clan outlines within a distinct extended "oikos", they dispensed with kingship and ruled as a group, governing the city by electing annually a "prytanis" who held the kingly position [Perhaps the designation "king" was retained, for reasons of cult, as a king was normally an essential intercessor with the gods. (Stewart Irvin Oost, "Cypselus the Bacchiad" "Classical Philology" 67.1 (January 1972, pp. 10-30) p. 10f.) See: "rex sacrorum".] for his brief term, [Diodorus Siculus, 7.9.6; Pausanias 2.4.4.] no doubt a council (though none is specifically documented in the scant literary materials) and a "polemarchos" to head the army.

In 657 BCE the Bacchiadae were expelled in turn by the tyrant Cypselus, [His mother had been of the Bacchiadae, but being lame, married outside the clan.] who had been polemarch. The exiled Bacchiadae fled to Corcyra but also to Sparta and west, traditionally to found Syracuse in Sicily, and to Etruria, where Demaratus installed himself at Tarquinia, founding a dynasty of Etruscan kings. The royal line of the Lynkestis of Macedon also claimed Bacchiad descent.

List of Bacchiad Kings of Corinth [Diodorus Siculus, 7.9]

* Aletes 1073 - 1035 BCE
* Ixion 1035 - 997 BCE
* Agelas I 997 - 960 BCE
* Prymnis 960 - 925 BCE
* Bacchis 925 - 890 BCE
* Agelas II 890 - 860 BCE
* Eudemus 860 - 835 BCE
* Aristomedes 835 - 800 BCE
* Agemon 800 - 784 BCE
* Alexander 784 - 759 BCE
* Telestes 759 - 747 BCE

Notes

Further reading

*Will, E. "Korinthiaka. Recherches sur l'histoire et la civilisation de Corinthe des origines aux guerres médiques"