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Two Notes on Athenian Financial Document

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 October 2013

Harold B. Mattingly
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Extract

These tantalizing fragments of an Assessment List present two unusual features. First the figures stand to the right of the names and are divided from them by two-point punctuation. This recalls the practice of the first Quota List. All later Quota Lists and the Assessments of 425 and 422 B.C. have the figures before the names and punctuation of any sort is extremely rare. Secondly there are several ionicisms in the script: two etas in col. iii. 3 and 5 and an Ionic lambda in the latter line. Meritt argued from the physical evidence of the stone that the Island column stood first. The order of districts was presumably Islands, Ionia, Hellespont and Thrace—which seems to have been invariable from 425 B.C.—and the ATL editors accordingly disposed the Hellespontine names in col. iii and placed some probable Ionic names in col. ii. Otherwise they attempted no restoration. Perhaps they were deterred by finding one new name among the very few preserved. Some speculation, however, about the Ionic panel seems legitimate.

The letters -ΕΝΙ- (line 7) could be part of Κλαӡομένιοι, Θερμαῑοι ἐν ʾΙκάρῳ, or Οἰναῑοι ἐν ʾΙκάρῳ as Meritt rightly observed. But what can be made of the remnants—ΚΟ!!!—in line 4? At first sight they baffle conjecture. The last stroke is preserved only at the base and Meritt noted that it might form a letter with the preceding upright.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 62 , November 1967 , pp. 13 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1967

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References

1 I would like to thank Professor K. J. Dover for his helpful criticisms of an earlier version of this paper. They have, I hope, led to an improved presentation. The ideas that follow are entirely my own and I must emphasize that Professor Dover in no way shares them.

2 For ‘A 13’ see Meritt, , Hesperia v (1936) 386–9Google Scholar with a good photograph; ATL i. 120, fig. 174 and 208 (commentary).

3 in col. iii. 5. Later the city was known as Miletopolis (ATL ii. 81 and 86). For its site south-east of Kyzikos (well inland) see ATL i. 520 and the folding map at the end of that volume.

4 In ATL ii. A 9; ii. 139 (425 B.C.) the ethnic is spelt so also perhaps in Lists 7. iii. 17 and 8. ii. 47, where Brykous seems to make two isolated early appearances. Otherwise the town is first found in ‘List 26’, iv. 9 f. See my discussion in CQ N.S. xvi (1966) 182, which requires slight modification. Brykous was perhaps separated definitively by apotaxis from in 428 B.C.—after Lysikles' expedition—not in 434 B.C., as the ATL editors argue (iii. 21 f.). Plural ethnics in -εις seem so far unknown in fifth-century Attic epigraphic documents which keep to -ες (Meritt, 388): for ου for ο see n. 7.

5 Telos was assessed at two talents in 425 B.C. (ATL ii. A 9; ii. 145). In line 6 Κιλλαρεῖς and Τερμερεῖς are obvious alternatives and in line 8 Βρικινδάριοι.

6 See Ferguson, W. S., Treasurers of Athena 175–8 for the evidence.Google Scholar

7 For the date of IG i2. 71, bi (with in its fourth line) see my article in Ancient Society and Institutions: Studies presented to Victor Ehrenberg (1966) 218, n. 35. It is part of a treaty with Perdikkas later than the main text of IG i2. 71.

8 See my arguments in Ehrenberg Studies 198 ff. against Meritt's, case in Hesp. xiv (1945) 129–32.Google Scholar

9 See n. 3. Meritt, (Hesp. v (1936) 389)Google Scholar had connected its accession closely with the victory at Kyzikos.

10 Proc. Afr. Class. Ass. vii (1964) 47 with n. 72. I am glad to have had D. M. Lewis's support in this (by letter).

11 ‘Andokides’ iv. 11 should perhaps be applied to 418 rather than 425 B.C. In 418 B.C. Alkibiades was fully mature enough to be a τάκτης and could chiefly have been responsible for a severe assessment. His Peloponnesian adventures demanded money. This was essentially the view of West in 1926 (TAPA lvii (1926) 60–70), who perhaps gave too much credence to ‘Andokides’. There is clear confusion in this source with the great reassessment of 425 B.C. The ATL editors deny any increase in 418 B.C. (iii. 348–52), but their view is vitiated by their misplacing of ‘List 33’. They are surely right, however, in asserting that an appreciable reduction of the tribute-level followed the Peace of Nikias.

12 ATL i. 203 and 208.

13 Xen. Hell. i. 3. 9

14 Ehrenberg Studies, 197 f.

15 PACA vii (1964) 35–55.

16 BSA xxxiii (1932–3) 131—4, with photographs.

17 Wilhelm, , Sitzb. Akad. Wien ccxvii. 3 (1939) 41–48Google Scholar; Meritt, , Hesp. x (1941) 334 f.Google Scholar

18 See ATL i. 434 f. The spelling of the name varies.

19 As in SEG x. 19 and 20; 52 and 88; IG i.2 36.

20 RE xix, col. 1956, no. 4.

21 Compare SEC x. 19. 5–7 and 88. 3–6 (?).

22 Thuc. iii. 92. 4 and 93. 1.

23 Thuc. iv. 78. 1 and 5. 12, Athens countered by blockading the Malian Gulf from Pteleon: see the Appendix to my article in Ehrenberg Studies (213 f.).

24 For all this see Thuc. v. 12–14 and 51 (with iii. 93. 2).

25 As Wade-Gery noted (BSA xxxiii. 134) the prytany could be restored as but both Wilhelm and Meritt (see n. 17) preferred to keep The photograph in BSA gives no help and I have not been able to study the stone itself.

26 See ATL ii. D 2, 5 and 11; Thuc. ii. 15. 6; ATL ii. D 9 (IG i2. 109), 11; Lewis, , CQ N.S. xi (1961) 62.Google Scholar Dinsmoor restored in the Propylaia accounts (AJA li (1947) 134) and was followed by Meritt and Wade-Gery, (Hesp. xvi (1947) 181 f.).Google Scholar But the vital part of ἀκρόπολίς is nowhere preserved and would seem an equally valid restoration in a text which is not entirely stoichedon.

27 See lines 176, 179, 241, 263, and 482.

28 ATL ii. D 1, 4, 15, 21 and 30; IG ii2. 24 (c. 387 B.C.); Tod, GHI ii. no, 35 (c. 393 B.C.).

29 Clouds (1911) 27 (on line 69). The italics are mine.

30 The Proboulos asks Thucydides seems quite explicit He is hardly thinking about a survival only in certain grammatical formulae. Exiled in 424 B.C. he would not, however, have been aware of a gradual change in fashion from the late 420s.

31 See IG i2. 44, 2 f. Hiller restored The article is rather surprising. Graindor, (RA xix (1924) 174Google Scholar) proposed I think that he was on the right track.

32 For this identification see Beloch, , Griech. Gesch. ii.2 2. 354 ff.Google Scholar and Bannier, , Rhein. Mus. lxxv (1926) 201 f.Google Scholar

33 For Eupolis' Κόλακες see Edmonds, J. M., Frag. Att. Com. i. 369 ff.Google Scholar In fr. 170 (Pollux vii. 192 and x. 39) the word τύλη occurred in the sense of a cushion or pad. Pollux terms it an ‘ionicism’ and Edmonds guesses (379, n. d) that it may have been put in the mouth of Protagoras. Certainly Aristotle credited Protagoras with ‘inventing’ the porters' pad (τύλη): see Diog. Laert. ix. 53. Eupolis, however, might have been making Kallias ape a Protagorean usage. He was apparently known for his affectation of Gorgias' way of speech (Xen. Sympos. ii. 26 with i. 5).

34 See ATL ii. A 9, 55–48. The elaborate arguments of Meriti, and Wade-Gery, (JHS lxxxii (1962) 69–71)Google Scholar have really little cogency. The Kleinias Decree must surely be dated 425/4 B.C. and not in the early 440s: see my new arguments in CQ N.S. xvi (1966) 188 f. and Ehrenberg Studies 202 f. This removes the need to postulate a general Panathenaic ordinance c. 450 B.C. At most gradual extension of the practice from the colonies to allies of ultimate Athenian origin may have taken place in the decade immediately preceding Thoudippos' proposal.

35 Might we see an echo of this train of thought in the phrase applied to Sparta in Lysander's victory epigram (Tod, , GHI ii. 95, 4Google Scholar), when Sparta had inherited Athens' position in the area of the Empire?

36 PACA vii (1964) 46 f.

37 Meritt, and Wade-Gery, (Hesp. xvi (1947) 28 ff.)Google Scholar first made clear the true relevance of the opening clauses to the rest of the decree.

38 Ehrenberg Studies, 197 f. (datives in -αις and συν- regularly for χσυν-). Kolbe, (Sitzb. Beri. Akad. 1927, 330Google Scholar = Thukydides im Lichte der Urkunden 1930, 67) was really the first to challenge the previous consensus on this matter and in 1931 Wade-Gery dealt very convincingly with him (JHS lxi. 78–82), though he confined himself to the question of the -αις datives. Thus it was easier for him to shift his ground later, since stray occurrences of -αις seemed even in 1931, if correctly dated, to ‘provide something of a bridge to 434’.