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Atene e l’Attica

The Attic decree IG I3 30 revisited

Angelos P. Matthaiou
p. 13-22

Résumés

Si presenta una nuova edizione del decreto onorario attico IG I3 30. Si suggerisce che un possibile contesto storico idoneo per il decreto possa essere la perdita dell’Eubea (411 a.C.) che ha avuto come conseguenza una carenza di grano ad Atene.

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Notes de l’auteur

I warmly thank Professor Enrica Culasso Gastaldi for her kind invitation to present this paper in Historika VII; Prof. Nik. Papazarkadas for his kindness to read my paper, to correct the English text and for his useful comments; also the Curators of the Epigraphical Museum Dr Ath. Al. Themos, Mrs Elena Zavvou and Dr. Eirini Choremi for facilitating my work there.

Texte intégral

  • 1 See Petrakos 1987, 47.

1Τhe fragmentary fifth-century Attic decree IG I3 30 was found in the excavations conducted by the Archaeological Society of Athens during the years 1875-1879 on the south slope of the Akropolis, mainly in the Asklepieion area1. The excavations were directed by the Society’s secretary Stephanos A. Koumanoudis.

2I present below a new edition of the honorary decree followed by new insights into its content and date.

3Fragment of a white marble stele broken on all sides (EM 6804). Height (pres.) 0,165 m., width (pres.) 0,135 m., thickness (pres.) 0,055 m. (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1: The Attic decree IG I3 30

Fig. 1: The Attic decree IG I3 30

Courtesy of the Epigraphical Museum of Athens.

4Lett. height 0,007-0,008 m.

5Edd. S. A. Koumanoudis, Ἀθήναιον 5 (1876) 81-82; IG I s. p. 8, 22c; IG I2 31; M. B. Walbank, Athenian Proxenies of the Fifth Century B.C., Toronto 1978, 16; IG I3 30.

non stoich.
[- - - - - - - - - - ]κ[- - - - - - - - -]
[ἔδοχσεν] τε̃ι βολε̃ι κ[αὶ τõι δέμοι· - - - - - - - -]
[- -c. 7- -]λες ἐγραμμ̣[άτευε, - - - - ἐπεστάτε, - -]
[- -c. 7- -] εἶπε· ἐπειδὲ [- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -]
5 [- -c. 6- -]σ̣τράτο Θερα .[- - - - - - - - - - - - - -]
[-c. 5- -ὄ]σες σίτο ἐνδεί̣[ας - - - - - - - - - - - - -]
[- -c. 7- -]ο Λ̣ακεδαιμ̣[ονιο- - - - - - - - - - - - - -]
[- - -c. 10- - -]π̣[- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -]
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

  • 2 The full restorations (in ll. 4-6) suggested by Walbank is: ἐπειδὲ [ἀνὲρ ἀγαθός ἐστι περὶ τõ δέ|μο (...)

6Suppl. Koum. 3 fin. Kirchhoff (IG I s.) || 1 [- - -]κ[λε̃ς ἐγραμμάτευε] Kirchh. (IG I s.); [E]ὐ̣κλ[ε̃ς ἐγραμμάτευε] Walbank || 2 fin. [ἐπρυτάνευε] Kirchh. || 3 [- - -κ]λε̃ς Kirchh.; [Eὐκ]λε̃ς Walb. || 4 fin. [ἀνὲρ ἀγαθός ἐστι] Lewis (IG I3) || 5 [- -] σ̣τρατο̃ Walb. in comm. (p. 113)2; med. Θερα[μένες] Koum. in comm; Θερα[ῖος] sive θερα[πευ- -] Kirchh.; Θεραι̣̃[ος] Lewis (IG I3); Θεραμ̣[ένες] Walb. || 6 εςσίτο ἐνδε[- -], et σίτο ἐνδε[ια - -] Koum. in comm.; [- -]σες σίτο ἐνδε[ίας] vel [- -]ς ἐσσίτο ἐνδε[ίαι] Kirchh.; [ὄ]σες σίτο ἐνδε[ίας?] vir doctus anonymus in exemplare IG I2 quod Museum Epigraphicum possidet; [ὅτι ὄ]σες ἐνδεί̣[ας] Walb. in comm. (p. 113); [καὶ ὄ]σες σίτο ἐνδεί̣[ας] Lewis (IG I3) || 7 [το̃ δέμο? τ]ο̃ Λ̣ακεδαι[μονίον] Hiller (IG I2).

 

71 The only preserved letter of this line, a kappa, belongs to the superscript of the decree, i.e. to the name of the secretary of the Council or the name of the honorand, which usually appears in genitive. If the decree is dated to the years after 422/1, it could well belong to the name of the eponymous archon.

82-4 Part of the prescript is preserved. I have avoided including Kirchhoff’s plausible restoration [ἐπρυτάνευε] in the end of l. 2, because the line length of the decree cannot be exactly determined and we cannot tell whether a part of the verb was inscribed in the beginning of l. 3. Line 4 marks the beginning of the motivation clause introduced with the conjunction ἐπειδή.

95 The ending of a masculine personal name in the genitive is preserved. It is followed by the beginning of another name, possibly but not certainly, – I return to this point below –, either the ethnic of the island of Thera (Θεραι̣̃[ος]) or a personal name (Θέραι̣[ος] or Θεραμ̣[ένες]).

106 An essential, albeit very fragmentary piece of evidence, is preserved here. It appears that there was some grain shortage, possibly affecting Athens (see below).

117 Λ̣ακεδαιμ̣[ονιο- -]: the partially preserved word is either some form of the ethnic Lakedaimonios (probably in the plural) or the personal name Lakedaimonios (see below).

 

  • 3 Koumanoudis offered one more restoration: [ὁ δεῖνα Μενε]στράτο Θερα[ῖος - -|- - κομιδ]ε̃ς σίτο ἐν δ (...)

12The first editor of the decree, S. A. Koumanoudis, restored the second name in l. 5 as Θερα[μένες]3, and identified him with the well-known Athenian politician of the last decade of the fifth century; see Kirchner, PA 7234, and Davies, APF p. 225-­226. Taking into account the obvious reference to a grain shortage (l. 7), Koumanoudis tentatively suggested that these lines refer to the difficult situation Athens found itself in after the defeat in the naval battle of Aigos Potamoi in 405 and its siege by Spartan king Agis. According to Xenophon, Hell. 2.2.10 the Athenians were in a desperate situation being besieged, having lost their ships and their allies, and lacking grain: Οἱ δ᾽ Ἀθηναῖοι πολιορκούμενοι κατὰ γῆν καὶ κατὰ θάλατταν ἠπόρουν τί χρὴ ποιεῖν, οὔτε νεῶν οὔτε συμμάχων αὐτοῖς ὄντων οὔτε σίτου.

13Fr. Hiller von Gaertringen (IG I2) restored the ethnic Θερα[ῖος] in l. 5, and he further noted in his commentary that this was a decree in honor of a Theraian who helped the Athenians when they suffered from grain shortage. The Athenians, Hiller continued, were successful with the help of the Lacedaimonians from whom the Theraians famously originated. He also suggested that the event would have taken place after the truce between the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians of ca. 450 B.C. He presumably based this inference on the letter forms, primarily the three-barred sigma.

14D. M. Lewis (IG I3) also suggested that the honorand, a Theraian, had helped the Athenians during a famine, although he admitted that he could not explain the presence of the Lacedaimonians. As for the date he followed the rule of dating the Attic fifth-century inscriptions on the basis of letter forms and dated the decree to ca. 450 B.C.

  • 4 Walbank 1978, 109 (see the title of the entry) and 115.

15Walbank argued that the decree was passed in honor of two foreigners for their good services to Athens, one of them a certain Θεραμ̣[ένες]4; in doing so, Walbank adopted the restoration of the name first put forward by Koumanoudis. As for the second honorand, Walbank hypothesized that he was called Lakedaimonios (l. 7); the partially preserved word was not an ethnic, but a personal name. However Walbank also indicated a serious obstacle to his own interpretation (p. 114); the name Lakedaimonios is only attested in Athens, the sole fifth-century bearer being the son of the famous Athenian general Kimon (Kirchner, PA 8965; Davies, APF, p. 306).

16Both individuals, Walbank suggested, were honored because they had supplied grain to Athenian troops in a period of famine during the years 460-445 B.C.: this was the date he advocated on the basis of the letter forms. It is obvious that with this interpretation the two partly preserved references to the island of Thera and to the Lacedaimonians disappeared from the text.

  • 5 Morgan 2001, 260-261 (abstract of a paper presented in the 102nd annual meeting of the Archeologica (...)

17A new interpretation of the decree appeared in print by J. D. Morgan in 20015. The author commenting on the text of IG I3 noted: «Why ca. 450 the Λακεδαιμόνιοι, the perennial rivals of the Athenians after 462 B.C., should have been mentioned on a decree honoring some Θεραῖος for providing grain to the Athenians, is not so obvious, nor indeed why ca. 450 any citizen of Thera, with its long-standing ties to Lacedaimon, would have been helpful to the Athenians».

  • 6 H. B. Mattingly, CQ 28 (1978) 83-85 argued that List 26 (IG I3 282) belongs to 427/6, while M. Pier (...)
  • 7 The generally accepted date of 426/5 for the Cleonymos’ decree is not certain, as I argued in Studi (...)
  • 8 See Meiggs - Lewis 1988, 187. However, the traces of letters in l. 22 render the restorations accep (...)

18Indeed the Theraians were not allies of the Athenians in the beginning of Peloponnesian War in 431 B.C. (Thuc. II 94, 4). They appear in the Athenian Tribute Lists for the first time in 429/8 or 427/6 (see IG I3 282 III.23)6, and a little later (?)7 in the Kleonymos’ decree, IG I3 68.21-22; they probably should pay, as the Samians had to pay instalments for their war indemnity8.

19Therefore Morgan, accepting Walbank’s restoration of the word Lakedaimonios as a personal name, suggested that he was the son of Kimon and that soon after the beginning of the Peloponnesian War he commanded a naval expedition that forced the Theraians to become allies of Athens. Shortly thereafter a certain Theraian citizen (l. 5) was honored for his good deeds, which the general Lacedaemonios reported to the Athenians.

20I shall begin with the restored word Θεραι̣̃[ος] in l. 5 of the IG I3 text. Autopsy of the stone has shown that after the fully preserved alpha the surface of the stone is very worn. The remaining doubtful traces could belong either to a vertical stroke of an iota or a kappa, or even to a slanting stroke, – which I very slightly favor –, a mu or an Attic gamma. Therefore the restoration Θεραι̣̃[ος] is uncertain. Let me remind the reader that Walbank preferred here the mu and restored the name as Θεραμ̣[ένες]. But even if the letter was indeed an iota, and the restoration Θεραι̣̃[ος] is correct, the word could equally be either the ethnic or a personal name; the personal name, a rare one, is attested in Miletus; see Ι.Milet I 3, 122.88: Θήραιος Διογνήτο, and 98: Διόγνητος Θηραίο; Ι.Milet I 3, 138.55: Θήραιος Ξενοθέμιος.

21The second obstacle to Morgan’s interpretation is that there is no explanation (at least not in the published abstract) of l. 7 that refers to a grain shortage. Such a crisis should have caused serious trouble either to Athens or to the Athenian army under Lakedaimonios that forced the island of Thera to enter the Athenian alliance. However, no source attests to a grain shortage in Athens at any point from the beginning of the Peloponnesian War to the end of the disastrous Sicilian expedition. This lack of evidence makes the hypothesis that the Athenian soldiers sailing against Thera faced a problem with their provisions rather unlikely.

22The third obstacle is an epigraphic one. In the extant Attic decrees, whenever an Athenian general or an Athenian or foreign embassy or individuals makes a report to the Council and to the Athenian Assembly on the behavior of a foreign state, a foreign individual or on any Athenian matter, the report normally comes after the name of the mover of the decree and the verb εἶπε, cf. IG II2 110.6-7, 40.4-5, 44.7-8, 96.5-6, 107.8-9, 116.8-9, 118.5-7, IG II/III3 1, 2, 299.5-6, 337.9-10, IG II2 109 fr. a.8, etc. As far as I know, it rarely occurs later in the text, cf. IG I3 103.8, IG II2 456 fr. b.1-2.

  • 9 If the traces after A belonged to a M, and the word was the personal name Θεραμ̣[ένες], this would (...)
  • 10 In IG II2 109.21-24 Astycrates’ companions are listed without the conjunction καί.

23The previous editors were certainly right to identify the text as an honorary decree. I suggest that the honorands were at least two and that they were listed with their patronymics. I cannot say if they were of the same origin or even relatives; cf. IG II/III3 1, 2, 468 (IG II2 342).9-10, in which case the word Θεραι̣[- -] would be an ethnic: Θεραι̣̃[oς]9. Alternatively they could be two individuals of different origin, again followed by their patronymics; cf. SEG 21, 320 (IG II2 350).10-12. A third possibility is that the honorands were recorded with their patronymics, cf. IG II2 49.3-510, but their names were not connected via the conjunction καί; in this case the word Θεραι̣[- -] would be a personal name: Θέραι̣[oς].

  • 11 Meiggs - Lewis 1988, 81.

24Τhe second crucial point is the phrase referring to the grain shortage in l. 7: [- -]σες σίτο ἐνδεί̣[ας]. Earlier editors of the inscription rightly attributed it to the Athenians, but as concerns the time of its occurrence they felt compelled to date the inscription on the basis of letter-forms. At the time, the prevailing opinion was that there was no firmly dated inscription showing a three-barred sigma that could postdate 445 B.C11. Therefore they placed the grain shortage of the inscription in ca. 450 or a little bit later. However, no ancient source mentions such an event in Athens in that period.

25Only Koumanoudis, the first editor of the inscription, did not take into account the letter forms, and instead placed the inscription in a period in which our sources explicitly mention a severe shortage of grain in Athens. This, as has been mentioned, was the period immediately after the sea-battle at Aigos Potamoi in 405.

26Following Harold Mattingly’s seminal work, letter-forms are no longer an obstacle to downdating the decree. Koumanoudis’ suggested historical context appears to be probable, but I would like to suggest that there is yet another occasion in which the decree could fit.

  • 12 See also the notes on the passage by Gomme - Andrewes - Dover 1970, 257 and 406 (on 7, 28.1), and H (...)

27It is well known that when the Athenian general Nikias addressed the Athenian Assembly in the debate concerning the Sicilian expedition, he tried to dissuade the Athenians from the undertaking by presenting what he saw as serious difficulties. One of his main arguments was the following: ᾧ δὲ μάλιστα ἡμῶν προύχουσιν, ἵππους τε πολλοὺς κέκτηνται καὶ σίτῳ οἰκείῳ καὶ οὐκ ἐπακτῷ χρῶνται (Thuc. VI 21, 4)12. The enemies in Sicily had grain that was «homegrown and not imported».

28Ιt is also known from Thucydides that at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war in 431 the Athenians transferred their livestock to Euboea (Thuc. II 14, 1). Thereafter the security of Euboea and presumably the supplies coming from the island became of supreme importance to Athens. Moreover after the Sicilian disaster one of their primary decisions, as Thucydides notes (VIII 1, 3), was to make sure of their allies and above all Euboea: τὰ τῶν ξυμμάχων ἐς ἀσφάλειαν ποιεῖσθαι, καὶ μάλιστα τὴν Εὔβοιαν.

  • 13 Τhuc. I 114, 3; See also the reference to Euboea’s subjugation in Aristoph. Clouds 211-213: ἡ δέ γ᾽ (...)
  • 14 H. B. Mattingly has for many years strongly argued on historical, prosopographical grounds and on g (...)

29The decree (IG I3 40) on the exchange of oaths between Athens and Chalcis after the crushing of the Euboean revolt by Perikles in 446/445 B.C.13, – a context14 which I still but not full-hearted favor –, contains a special provision for the protection of Euboea and the Athenian interests on it, a task which was entrusted to the Athenian generals (ll. 76-79): περὶ δὲ φυ|λακε̃ς Εὐβοίας τὸς στρατηγὸς ἐπιμέλεσ|θαι hος ἂν δύνονται ἄριστα, hόπος ἂν ἔχε|ι hος βέλτιστα Ἀθεναίοις.

  • 15 On the grain production of Euboea and its importance for Athens in the fifth century see Moreno 200 (...)
  • 16 To the supply of grain from Euboea greatly contributed the Athenian clerouchs who were sent there a (...)

30Moreover Euboea was an important source15 in supplying Athens with grain in the fifth century16; an allusion to it is made by Aristophanes in Wasps 715-718: ἀλλ᾽ ὁπόταν μὲν δείσωσ᾽ αὐτοί, τὴν Εὔβοιαν διδόασιν ὑμῖν, | καὶ σῖτον ὑφίστανται κατὰ πεντήκοντα μεδίμνους | ποριεῖν.

  • 17 See the notes on this passage by Gomme - Andrewes – Dover 1970, 406, and Hornblower 2008, 592.

31When the Lacedaimonians built a wall at Deceleia (Thuc. VII 27, 3) and transferred the war into Attica, the Athenians were suddenly presented with great difficulties in getting supplies from Euboea (Thuc. VII 28, 1)17: Ἥ τε τῶν ἐπιτηδείων παρακομιδὴ ἐκ τῆς Εὐβοίας, πρότερον ἐκ τοῦ Ὠρωποῦ κατὰ γῆν διὰ τῆς Δεκελείας θάσσων οὖσα, περὶ Σούνιον κατὰ θάλασσαν πολυτελὴς ἐγίγνετο· τῶν τε πάντων ὁμοίως ἐπακτῶν ἐδεῖτο ἡ πόλις, καὶ ἀντὶ τοῦ πόλις εἶναι φρούριον κατέστη.

  • 18 See Garnsey 1988, 133.
  • 19 A thorough study of Thucydides’ narrative of the naval battle and its aftermath is offered by Knoep (...)

32Things became even worse when in 411 the Athenians lost Euboea. In the summer of 411 Peloponnesian ships arrived at Oropos and according to Thucydides (VIII 95, 2): «The Athenians, because their city was in a state of revolution and the matter was vital and urgent, were compelled to put to sea in haste and with untrained crews, and sent Thymochares with some vessels to Eretria». Now that the Athenians were effectively shut out of Attica, Euboea became Athens’ most valuable possession18, as the historian famously notes (95, 2): Εὔβοια γὰρ αὐτοῖς ἀποκεκλῃμένης τῆς Ἀττικῆς πάντα ἦν. In the ensuing naval battle, the Peloponnesians defeated the Athenians19. After a while they effected the revolt of the entire Euboea from Athens, with the exception of the city of Oreos, and settled the affairs of the island (Thuc. VIII 95, 7). According to the historian, upon receiving the news of the loss of Euboea, the Athenians felt that the disaster was greater than their defeat in Sicily (VIII 96, 1). They lost their courage because everything seemed to go wrong for them. Above all they lost Euboea, «which was of more value to them than Attica», as he notes (ibidem): ὅπου γὰρ στρατοπέδου τε τοῦ ἐν Σάμῳ ἀφεστηκότος ἄλλων τε νεῶν οὐκ οὐσῶν οὐδὲ τῶν ἐσβησομένων αὐτῶν τε στασιαζόντων καὶ ἄδηλον ὂν ὁπότε σφίσιν αὐτοῖς ξυρράξουσι, τοσαύτη ἡ ξυμφορὰ ἐπεγεγένητο, ἐν ᾗ ναῦς τε καὶ τὸ μέγιστον Εὔβοιαν ἀπωλωλέκεσαν, ἐξ ἧς πλείω ἢ τῆς Ἀττικῆς ὠφελοῦντο, πῶς οὐκ εἰκότως ἠθύμουν;

  • 20 In l. 7 I would tentatively suggest the restoration [- -(h)ὑπ] Λ̣ακεδαιμ̣[ονίον] or [- - τ]ο̃ Λ̣ακ (...)

33Ι believe that this is a most suitable context for the decree; in this context and given the fact that the Lakedaimonians and the other Peloponnesians were still holding Deceleia (Thuc. VIII 98, 1-2) and also that the Athenians had the fear that after their defeat in the naval battle of Eretria the enemy would attack Piraeus (VIII 96, 3-4) one could interpret the presence of the ethnic Λ̣ακεδαιμ̣[ονιο -]20 in l. 7 of the decree. The loss of Euboea must have resulted to grain shortage. To the relief of the Athenians two foreigners, a Theramenes (or Theraios) and a second individual of whom only the end of his patronymic survives, offered some help; they probably donated grain or sold it at a low price, and were subsequently honored by the Athenians.

  • 21 Rhodes 2008, 501-506, esp. 501 and 506 includes the decree among those for which he sees «no way of (...)
  • 22 Papazarkadas 2014, 215-241.

34I do not wish to exclude the possibility of placing the decree where the first editor S. A. Koumanoudes put it, that is in the year 405 after the defeat of the Athenians at Aigos Potamoi, but I offer here another possibility. The lettering of the inscription21 is certainly not an obstacle to Koumanoudis’ low date. I note that recently Nikos Papazarkadas convincingly placed, on historical grounds, the treaty of Athens with Sigeion, IG I3 17, which has both a three-barred sigma and a tailed rho, as late as 407 B.C.22; the treaty was previously dated to 451/0 B.C.

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Bibliographie

Garnsey 1988: P. Garnsey, Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World, Cambridge.

Gomme - Andrewes - Dover 1970: A. Gomme - A. Andrewes - K. Dover, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, IV, Oxford.

Holwerda 1977: D. Holwerda, Scholia in Aristophanem, 1.3.1. In Nubes, Groningen.

Hornblower 2008: S. Hornblower, A Commentary on Thucydides, III, Oxford.

Knoepfler 2013: D. Knoepfler, Un’amicizia decisamente ingannevole: Tucidide e la critica moderna di fronte al tradimento di Eretria nel 411 a.C., in Tra mare e continente: l’isola d’Eubea, a cura di C. Bearzot - F. Landucci, Contributi di storia antica 11, Milano, 137-171.

Mattingly 2014: H.B. Mattingly, Athenian Imperialism and the Chalkis Decree, in Ἀθηναίων ἐπίσκοπος. Studies in honour of Harold B. Mattingly, ed. by A.P. Matthaiou - R.K. Pitt, Athens, 11-18.

Meiggs - Lewis 1988: R. Meiggs - D. Lewis, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions, rev. ed., Oxford.

Morgan 2001: J.D. Morgan, IG I3 30: An unknown Theraios and a known Λακεδαιμόνιος, «AJA» 105, 260-261.

Papazarkadas 2009: N. Papazarkadas, Epigraphy and the Athenian Empire: Reshuffling the Chronological Cards, in Interpreting the Athenian Empire, ed. by J. Ma - N. Papazarkadas - R. Parker, London, 67-88.

Papazarkadas 2014: N. Papazarkadas, Athens, Sigeion and the politics of approbation during the Ionian War, in Ἀθηναίων ἐπίσκοπος. Studies in honour of H. B. Mattingly, ed. by A.P. Matthaiou - R. Pitt, Athens, 215-241.

Petrakos 1987: B.Ch. Petrakos, Ἡ ἐν ᾽Αθήναις Ἀρχαιολογικὴ Ἑταιρεία, Athens.

Rhodes 2008: P.J. Rhodes, After the three-bar Sigma controversy: The History of Athenian Imperialism reassessed, «CQ» 58, 501-506.

Tracy 2016: S.V. Tracy, Athenian Lettering of the Fifth Century B.C., Berlin.

Walbank 1978: M.B. Walbank, Athenian Proxenies of the Fifth Century B.C., Toronto-Sarasota.

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Notes

1 See Petrakos 1987, 47.

2 The full restorations (in ll. 4-6) suggested by Walbank is: ἐπειδὲ [ἀνὲρ ἀγαθός ἐστι περὶ τõ δέ|μο καὶ τõ] στρατõ Θεραμ̣[ένεν τὸν - (ethnic) - ἐπαινέσ|αι]; however, the normal syntax of the phrase ἀγαθός ἐστι is with the preposition περὶ + acc.

3 Koumanoudis offered one more restoration: [ὁ δεῖνα Μενε]στράτο Θερα[ῖος - -|- - κομιδ]ε̃ς σίτο ἐν δὲ [- -]. From his comment on the restoration it is obvious that he didn’t not favor it; with this, as he noted, the decree would turn to one οf the many typical honorific decrees. He suggested it, he wrote, because A. Kirchhoff had argued that the three-barred sigma in Attic fifth century inscriptions was used till 445 B.C. Along his wording it can be seen that he did not agree with the letter-forms doctrine; he presumably favored the dating of the inscriptions based on historical criteria. It was exactly this methodological principle on which H. B. Mattingly some eighty years later based his counter attack on the dating of important fifth-century Attic documents before 445 or 438 because they show three-barred sigma and tailed rho respectively. Time proved Mattingly to be right.

4 Walbank 1978, 109 (see the title of the entry) and 115.

5 Morgan 2001, 260-261 (abstract of a paper presented in the 102nd annual meeting of the Archeological Institute of America).

6 H. B. Mattingly, CQ 28 (1978) 83-85 argued that List 26 (IG I3 282) belongs to 427/6, while M. Pierart, BCH 108 (1984) 172 -176 (SEG 34, 29) dated it to either 429/8 or 427/6.

7 The generally accepted date of 426/5 for the Cleonymos’ decree is not certain, as I argued in Studies in Attic Inscriptions and History of the Fifth Century B.C., (unp. diss.) La Trobe University, Bundoora Victoria 2009, 105-107. It is not the place to discuss the date once more.

8 See Meiggs - Lewis 1988, 187. However, the traces of letters in l. 22 render the restorations accepted in ll. 22-23 of the IG I3 text problematic, see op. cit. (footnote 7), pp. 96-98. Meiggs - Lewis wisely did not put in their text these very uncertain restorations.

9 If the traces after A belonged to a M, and the word was the personal name Θεραμ̣[ένες], this would be the second honorand’s name and the two honorands would be listed without the conjunction καί.

10 In IG II2 109.21-24 Astycrates’ companions are listed without the conjunction καί.

11 Meiggs - Lewis 1988, 81.

12 See also the notes on the passage by Gomme - Andrewes - Dover 1970, 257 and 406 (on 7, 28.1), and Hornblower 2008, 356.

13 Τhuc. I 114, 3; See also the reference to Euboea’s subjugation in Aristoph. Clouds 211-213: ἡ δέ γ᾽ Εὔβοι᾽, ὡς ὁρᾷς, | ἡδὶ παρατέταται μακρὰ πόρρω πάνυ. | οἶδ᾽· ὑπὸ γὰρ ἡμῶν παρετάθη καὶ Περικλέους.

14 H. B. Mattingly has for many years strongly argued on historical, prosopographical grounds and on grammar for a date of 424/3; see his last paper on it: Mattingly 2014, 11-18. Papazarkadas (2009, 67-88, esp. 73-74) also favors the later date.

15 On the grain production of Euboea and its importance for Athens in the fifth century see Moreno 2007, 81-143, of whose work I make extensive use here.

16 To the supply of grain from Euboea greatly contributed the Athenian clerouchs who were sent there after Pericles invasion, see schol. οn the line of Aristoph. Clouds cited above (D. Holwerda 1977, Schol. in Aristoph. Nub. 213a): ἐκληρούχησαν δὲ αὐτὴν Ἀθηναῖοι κρατήσαντες αὐτῆς.

17 See the notes on this passage by Gomme - Andrewes – Dover 1970, 406, and Hornblower 2008, 592.

18 See Garnsey 1988, 133.

19 A thorough study of Thucydides’ narrative of the naval battle and its aftermath is offered by Knoepfler 2013, 137-171.

20 In l. 7 I would tentatively suggest the restoration [- -(h)ὑπ] Λ̣ακεδαιμ̣[ονίον] or [- - τ]ο̃ Λ̣ακεδαιμ̣[ονίον- -].

21 Rhodes 2008, 501-506, esp. 501 and 506 includes the decree among those for which he sees «no way of deciding between the earlier and the later day». Tracy 2016, 226, fig. 11, in describing the letter forms of the inscription simply notes that «the lettering of this decree is quite distinctive».

22 Papazarkadas 2014, 215-241.

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Titre Fig. 1: The Attic decree IG I3 30
Crédits Courtesy of the Epigraphical Museum of Athens.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/historika/docannexe/image/378/img-1.png
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Angelos P. Matthaiou, « The Attic decree IG I3 30 revisited »Historika, 7 | 2017, 13-22.

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Angelos P. Matthaiou, « The Attic decree IG I3 30 revisited »Historika [En ligne], 7 | 2017, mis en ligne le 01 mai 2020, consulté le 29 mars 2024. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/historika/378

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Angelos P. Matthaiou

apmatthaiou@gmail.com

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