SPONDAI -SPENDEIN IN THE FIFTH CENTURY B.C.

In the third book of his history Diodorus described a mythological battle among the gods in which one of the grand military marshals was Dionysus. Victory tilted in favor of the vegetation god who distinguished himself in battle, taking also a number of prisoners '. The prisoners were given the choice to depart freely or join the god as allies in his future campaigns. They felt so grateful for the humane treatment they received that they decided to remain and fight. Whereupon Dionysus, formalizing his agreement with them, gave each one of the prisoners a libation of wine (spondén oinou) while, at the same time, he exacted an oath that they would join him as soldiers, fighting faithfully until death. Diodorus further added that these men were the first to be designated as "freed under truce" (hypospondoi), and that in imitation of this act men of later times spoke of "war-truses" as spondai.

In the above passage the term spondë is used to denote the pouring forth of wine which sealed the agreement between the two parties as well as a war truce. Whereas the application ?? spondë by Diodorus for so early a period might be an anachronism, spondai/ spendein was widely used in the classical times to cover a great variety of interpersonal and interstate agreements, and since this character of spondai I spendein has not been treated extensively before, it might be of some profit to spell out some of the many uses of the term in the fifth century B.C. inasmuch as it appears very frequently in the authors ofthat century. Suffice it here to say that Homer makes two references to libations of unmixed wine associated with the ratification of agreements (synthesiai te kai orkia ·. II., II, 341 ;