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Fourmontiana. IG v1. 515: Another Forgery ‘from Amyklai’
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 September 2013
Extract
The intention of this paper is to argue the rejection of IG v1. 515 as another forgery fabricated by the French antiquary Michel Fourmont (1690–1746), in collusion with his nephew, Claude-Louis Fourmont (1703–80). The text, known only from the five copies of it preserved among Fourmont's papers in the Département des Manuscrits at the Bibliothèque Nationale, was first published by Raoul-Rochette in 1819, and subsequently incorporated by Boeckh in CIG i (no. 1338) and Kolbe in IG v1. Its authenticity has never been questioned. The provenance ascribed to the text by Fourmont, the temple of Apollo Amyklaios, may be dismissed at the outset as false, in so far as there is no question of his having found this sanctuary (there was no temple as such).
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- Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1976
References
Acknowledgements. I am grateful to the Managing Committee of the British School at Athens for a grant which enabled me to examine Fourmont's papers in the Bibliothèque Nationale, and to the latter body for permission to reproduce PLATE 18. I should like to thank David Jordan, Susan Walker, and Erica Davies for researches carried out on my behalf at either the Bibliothèque Nationale or the British Library, and Hector Catling, David Hardy, Paul Halstead, and Marjeta Šašel for their helpful criticisms and suggestions.
ABBREVIATIONS
HMemAcRIBL Histoire et Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (Paris).
NBG Nouvelle Biographie Générale i–lxvi (Paris 1852–66).
Omont i and ii Omont, H., Missions archéologiques françaises en Orient aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles i–ii (Paris 1902).Google Scholar
RR Raoul-Rochette, D., Deux Lettres à Mylord Comte d'Aberdeen sur l'authenticité des Inscriptions de Fourmont (Paris 1819).Google Scholar
Sg and Mfna Supplément grec and MSS. français, nouvelles acquisitions respectively, two fonds of the Département des Manuscrits in the Biblio thèque Nationale, followed by the relevant volume number.
1 No up-to-date biographical account of Fourmont exists; for a contemporary record see his posthumous éloge in HMemAcRIBL xviii (1753) 432–46 (N. Fréret); also Christie, R. in Selected Essays and Papers of Richard Copley Christie … ed. Shaw, W. (London 1902) 62 ff.Google Scholar On his travels in Greece and elsewhere, their preliminaries and aftermath, see Omont i 383–412, 432–46, 447–523 passim, 537–662; ii 1085–95, 1126–43, 1209–13. On his forgeries see, above all, Boeckh, in CIG i pp. 61–104.Google Scholar For a corrective view of the much maligned accuracy of his transcriptions see Robert, L., Revue de Philologie xviii (1944) 19 n. 2.Google Scholar I cannot agree, however, with Robert's description of him (ibid.) as ‘un honnête homme’.
2 Cf. NBG xviii (1857) col. 370.
3 RR, 128–32 with pl. 3 no. 2.
4 See below, n. 21.
5 Cf. AM lii (1927) 18–19.
6 HMemAcRIBL xv (1743) 402, xvi (1751) 101.
7 AE (1892) 1 ff.
8 HMemAcRIBL xv (1743) 402; CIG i p. 66.
9 CIG i p. 66 (dedicatory inscription from the temple of Onga) and nos. 44–5, 47–61, 64–9.
10 Cf. CIG i p. 66.
11 ‘The nephew executed the fair copies of all the forgeries, and of all the genuine inscriptions. Cf. Omont i 643, 662, and, on his collusion with his uncle, CIG i p. 66.
12 These vary slightly in the later copies, but the differences are not worth detailing. Kolbe's majuscule text in IG v1 evidently follows the archetype also; N in line 8, however, is an unwarranted exaggeration of the natural slant of Fourmont's hand, P in line 4 should be P, and the second iota in line 1 is unnecessarily cut short.
13 See below, n. 36.
14 Apart from the text's inclusion in Blass, F., Sammlung der griechischen Dialekt-Inschriften ed. Collitz, H. (Göttingen 1884) iii 2. 4520Google Scholar, cf. also Ehrenberg, V., RE xvii (1937) cols. 1697–8Google Scholar (I have not cited refs. in earlier works on obai); Chrimes, K., Ancient Sparta (Manchester 1949) 79Google Scholar, 163 with n. 3, 165–6; Hammond, N., JHS lxx (1950) 59 nn. 98–9Google Scholar; Kahrstedt, U., Das wirtschaftliche Gesicht Griechenlands in der Kaiserzeit (Berne 1954) 146Google Scholar, 198, 199 n. i; Toynbee, A., Some Problems of Greek History (Oxford 1969) 261 nn. 8–9.Google Scholar
15 RR, 129; CIG 1338.
16 Cf. Michaelis, A., Ancient Marbles in Great Britain (Cambridge 1882) 27–8Google Scholar with n. 60. The stone was evidently removed from Delos by Sir Kenelm Digby, who was privateering in the Mediterranean in 1627–9 EB sv. Sir Kenelm Digby).
17 Cf. CIG 2286. The full refs. of the six works are: Young, P., Clementis ad Corinthios Epistola Prior … (Oxford 1633)Google Scholar page unnumbered; Selden, J., De Synedriis et Praefecturis Juridicis Veterum Ebraeorum ii (London 1653) 706–8Google Scholar; Prideaux, H., Marmora Oxoniensia … (Oxford 1676) 301–2 n. 27Google Scholar; Bayer, T., De Nummis Romanis in Agro Prussico Repertis Commentarius (Leipzig 1722) 53 ff.Google Scholar; Maittaire, M., Marmorum Arundellianorum … (London 1732) 61 and 97 no. 181Google Scholar; Muratori, L., Novus Thesaurus Veterum Inscriptionum ii (Milan 1740) 579 no. 2.Google Scholar For the sixth work listed by Boeckh, of Charles Fountain, I have been unable to find the full reference.
18 Those of Young, Selden, Prideaux, Maittaire, and Muratori (n. 17). Of three copies of the work of Bayer now in the Bibliothèque Nationale (which incorporates the former Bibliothèque du Roi), one was probably in the latter library during the eighteenth century, but has no stamp to prove that this was definitely the case. I am indebted to Mme A. Roby, Conservateur en Chef of the Département des Imprimés, for this information.
19 Cf. NBG (n. 2) col. 370: among other things, he had been attached to the library since 1722 as interprète des langues chinoises et indiennes.
20 Raoul-Rochette, inexplicably, claimed that the Delian text was known and published only after Fourmont's death (RR 129). I am at a loss to account for this statement.
21 Their provenances on Fourmont's fair copies are: ‘intemplo Apollinis Amyclaei prope altare’ (CIG 59), ‘frag mentum in templo Apollinis Amyclaei repertum’ (CIG 53), and ‘in templo Apollinis Amyclaei’ (CIG 52).
22 The note reads: ‘le grand tour pareil mais / après ΠΑΤΡΑΙΟΟΝ il faut / ajouter ΚΟΡΙΝ . . . ΚΑΞΙΚΨΟΟΝΚ . . . Εφ . . . .’.
23 Of this there can be no doubt: not only is there every indication that he decided to forge only after his return to France, but in his forgeries he relied on at least one work (van Meurs, J. [Meursius], … Miscellanea Laconica … [Amsterdam 1661])Google Scholar, which he would scarcely have taken with him to Constantinople in 1728.
24 Fourmont's subsequent copies of the text offer no further evidence of its forgery. Two fair copies (Sg 855. 124 and Sg 571b. 207) omit the added line 4: the younger Fourmont must have drawn them from the original draft before his uncle had added line 4; or perhaps he simply overlooked the note concerning its addition.
25 CIG i p. 104.
26 CIG 61 col. 3. 2, 20; 62 col. 3. 12; 63 col. 3. 2; 65 col. I. 6; 66 col. 1. 10; 65 col. 3. 15 (Δαματρία Ἀριστάνδρου).
27 CIG nos. 61–9. Cf. ibid. 104.
28 Cf., e.g., CIG 46, 49, 54, 57, 60 (OO) and 44–6 (EE). I have found no parallel for the dipthong OO in texts later than the archaic period; Boeckh (to CIG 49) claimed that OO was found in late inscriptions. He cited no parallels, however, and perhaps had in mind none other than our own text.
29 Cf., e.g., CIG 61–5 passim.
30 Cf. CIG 59, where Boeckh commented: ‘non magnam … antiquitatem huic titulo tributam vides; sed diversissimae aetatis litterae mirifice mistae reperiuntur.’ Cf. also CIG 61–3, where Fourmont used lunate sigma and epsilon in texts purporting to date from the time of the Messenian wars.
31 Thus Meyer, E., RE xviii (1949) col. 2192.Google Scholar
32 RR 131.
33 See below, 145.
34 Kolbe's Με̣σο[άταν] is misleading: the vertical stroke after mu in Fourmont's original draft cannot be regarded as an incomplete epsilon, since the latter is lunate throughout the text.
35 RR 131.
36 Cf. Chrimes, op. cit. (n. 14) 163 n. 3, followed by Toynbee, op. cit. (ibid.) 261 with n. 9.
37 Cf. RE xv (1931) col. 1100.
38 Cf. HMemAcRIBL (n. 8) 412: ‘Messoa ou Missoa sont le même, c'est le Misitra d'aujourd'hui… Sparte détruite par les Turcs, Missoa, Messoa ou Misitra est devenue la capitale de la Laconie.’
39 IG v1. 364; for Fourmont's full provenance see CIG 1464.
40 Streck, A., Mistra. Eine mittelalterliche Ruinenstadt (Leipzig 1910) 37.Google Scholar
41 RR 131.
42 RR, ibid.; CIG 1338. Raoul-Rochette favoured the Eleian Ephyra, Boeckh, who also doubted Fourmont's reading, the Arkadian.
43 IG v1. 515; Kahrstedt, op. cit. (n. 14) 198. In the former Hiller von Gaertringen also suggested Ὀ̣ρ̣[χομενίων]?
44 But cf. also Deroy, L., AC xv (1946) 231–9Google Scholar, xviii (1949) 401–2.
45 One of these was Corinth, already listed; for full ancient refs. see Sakellariou, M., Atti e Memorie del io Congresso Internazionale di Micenologia [Rome 1968] ii 901 n. 2)Google Scholar; the other two were Kichyros in Thesprotia (ibid. n. 7) and Krannon or Kranon in Thessaly (ibid. n. 8).
46 These were the villages of Ephyra in the territories of Sikyon (Strabo viii. 3. 5 [338], Steph. Byz., s.v. Εφύρα; cf. also Blegen, C., AJA xvii (1923) 157 f.Google Scholar no. 1, of which Sakellariou, op. cit. [n. 45] 904–5, was evidently unaware), and the Aitolian Agriai (Strabo, ibid.; Steph. Byz., ibid.) respectively, and the two islands of Ephyra in the Argolic gulf (Pliny, , NH iv. 56Google Scholar) and near Melos (Steph. Byz., ibid.), which may both, in fact, refer to the same island (RE vi (1907) col. 20).
47 On the Arkadian Ephyra cf. Meineke, A., Stephan von Byzanz- Ethnika (Berlin 1849, reprinted Graz 1958) 291 n. 2Google Scholar: ‘Haec (Ephyra) eadem cum Eliaca, ut … haud raro Eliaca loca Arcadiae contermina Arcadicis accensentur.’ On the Eleian Ephyra, an invention of Eleian local historians, cf. Meyer, E., RE xvii (1937) col. 2240 ff.Google Scholar
48 Omont i 579, 591, 606–7.
49 Iliad vi. 152; the reference, in fact, is to Pelasgic Argos in Thessaly; cf. Deroy, , AC xv (1946) 238.Google Scholar Possibly Delisle was guided to place it in this part of the Argolid by Pliny's mention of an island of Ephrya in the Argolic gulf (n. 45).
50 Cf. Omont i 604 (Messene), 577 (Argos, Patrai and Sikyon); ii 1134 (Corinth).
51 Above, nn. 17–18.
52 For full refs. cf. above, n. 17.
53 He had learnt sufficient Hebrew to teach it, and wrote at least two papers on subjects relating to Hebrew: cf. MBG (n. 2) cols. 365, 369.
54 Cf. Ehrenberg, loc. cit. (n. 14) col. 1698 (Chrimes, op. cit. (n. 14) 166 contra); the restoration [ἐπιμελη]τοῦ δὲ τῆς φ[υλῆς…] in IG v1. 682 is also no longer valid; cf. Woodward, A., BSA xliii (1948) 248.Google Scholar
55 Chrimes, op. cit. (n. 14) 163; Toynbee, op. cit. (n. 14) 261.