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IG II2.2344 and the size of phratries in classical Athens1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Michael A. Flower
Michael A. Flower
Affiliation:
Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island
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Extract

Little is known about phratries in ancient Athens. The few surviving pieces of evidence, both literary and epigraphical, do not provide an adequate basis for a convincing reconstruction of most details. It may be possible, however, to say something more about the number and size, even if not about the organization and function, of phratries in the fifth and fourth centuries b.c.

The purpose of this note is to show how IG II2.2344 is relevant to the question of phratries. It is a list of twenty names with patronymics, comprising three families and two isolated individuals, under the heading,

Δι⋯ς ⋮ Φρατρίο ⋮ Ἀθην⋯ας ⋮ Φρα[τρίας] | οἵδε ɸρ⋯τερες

The inscription is in the form of a dedication, and after Δι⋯ς ⋮ Φρατρίο ⋮ Ἀθην⋯ας ⋮ Φρα[τρίας] one should understand στήλη or ἱερ⋯ στήλη. There are several other examples of this form of dedication, though none is exactly parallel. The stele was most likely set up in the sanctuary of the phratry, and that would explain why a list of phratry members should be in the form of a dedication. In the absence of other criteria, the inscription is dated by letter forms to the early fourth century.

Surprisingly enough this inscription has been either ignored or curtly dismissed in the literature concerning the number and nature of Athenian phratries. In 1902 Alfred Körte concluded that this list of twenty names constituted the total membership of a phratry. But in 1910 Anton von Premerstein maintained that the list was only of a single thiasos within a phratry. We know that by the beginning of the fourth century phratries were subdivided into units called thiasoi, which are to be distinguished from the private religious associations of the same name. Von Premerstein argued that the constant appeals of the orators to the testimony of phratry members render it very unlikely that one phratry could be so small as to have only twenty members, even if there were more than twelve phratries altogether.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , May 1985 , pp. 232 - 235
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1985

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References

2 See SIG 921 (= IG II2.1237), note 1, where Dittenberger correctly cites as parallels SIG 1021 and SIG 1100 (= IG II2.1325).

3 Hermes 37 (1902), 582–9Google Scholar.

4 Ath. Mitt. 35 (1910), 113Google Scholar.

5 Hignett, C., A History of the Athenian Constitution to the End of the Fifth Century B.C. (Oxford, 1952), 60Google Scholar; Andrewes, Antony, ‘Philochorus on Phratries’, JHS 81 (1961), 11CrossRefGoogle Scholar. It was also accepted by Krichner (cf. his comments on IG II2.2344).

6 To quote Andrewes, art. cit. 11, ‘The list is impossibly short for a full phratry, and von Premerstein was very probably right to suggest that this was a single thiasos within a phratry.’

7 This was actually noted by Andrewes, art. cit. 11. Zeus Phratrios and Athena Phratria were the special deities of all Athenian phratries; for Zeus Phratrios see IG II2.1237, line 1, and Plato, , Timaeus 21 bGoogle Scholar. For both deities mentioned together see Plato, , Euthydemos 28Google Scholar, and especially Schol. Aristophanes, Ach. 146Google Scholar.

8 Körte, art. cit. 583. One might add that the designation of the phratry is so unclear in IG II2. 1237 that it has never been conclusively settled whether the phrateres in question are called the Demotionidae or the Dekeleieis.

9 An alternative possibility is that the list represents an ad hoc group of phrateres who are making a dedication on their own initiative; i.e. ‘These phrateres (contributed to the dedication)’. This possibility was rejected by Körte: ‘Die Ueberschrift mit dem charakteristischen οἵδε und die seitlich beigefügte Angabe Σώσιππος Σωσιπόλιδος ⋯νέγραψεν machen es zweifellos, dass wir ein n officielles Verzeichniss der Phrateren vor uns haben’ (art. cit., 583). Sosippus was most probably the ἱερεύς of the phratry (cf. IG II2.1237, lines 2–3, 64–8, and 123–6). οἵδε always introduces what is, in fact, the complete category of what it refers to. If a subgroup is intended, then some further qualification is necessary in the title containing οἵδε. The analogous τοίδε Δελɸ⋯ν πρόξενοι of SIG 585 introduces a complete list of all the proxenoi of the Delphians for each year. But subgroups are always identified as such.

If a dedication only included the names of those who had contributed to the cost of the monument, I presume that it took the form of Agora 15. 49, which inscription also demonstrates how subgroups are differentiated (lines 1–3, and 18):

οἴδε ⋯πέδοσαν εἰς τ⋯ ⋯νάθημα ὃ ⋯νέθηκεν

⋯ βουλ⋯ ⋯ ⋯π' Εὐθυκρίτου ἄρχοντος | βουλευταί…

οἵδε ⋯κ τ⋯ν ἄλλων ⋯πέδοσαν

Agora 15. 40. may be analogous (cf. οἵδε κατέθε [σαν]), but the inscription is too fragmentary to be certain. An apparent exception is IG I1.398 (= Agora 15.1), where, unless the inscription contained a fourth column, there is room for the names of only about thirty-seven of the fifty prytaneis.

11 Hignett, op. cit. 59, and especially Rhodes, P. J., A Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia (Oxford, 1981), 68–71Google Scholar.

12 Ferguson, W. S., ‘The Athenian Phratries’, C.P. 5 (1910), 264Google Scholar.

13 Such as the frequent mention of phratries made by the orators, and the privilege of choosing one's phratry in decrees conferring Athenian citizenship (IG I2. 110 + , a decree of 409 b.c.; and IG II2.237, a decree of 337 b.c.). The only explicit statement that every Athenian citizen did indeed belong to a phratry is Dem. 57.24.

14 Art. cit. 1–15.

15 Tribu et Cité (Paris, 1976), 142–3Google Scholar.

16 Op. cit. 149 n. 33.

17 Gomme, A. W., The Population of Athens in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries B.C. (Oxford, 1933); cf. the table on p. 26Google Scholar.