IGI3 1503 Funerary monument of an Athenian on Aegina

Funerary monument of an Athenian on Aegina

IG I³ 1503 Date: Ca. 457-431 BC

Greetings passers-by! But I, Antistates son of Atarbos, lie here dead, having previously (5) left my fatherland. Antistates Athenian.

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References:

IG I³ 1503 (Translated text) (IG Online) (PHI)

IG IV² 906 (IG Online)

Peek, GVI, no. 1209

CEG 1, no. 80

OR 113

Translation by: Stephen Lambert, Robin Osborne

Images: Ohio - (1)

Monument type: Stele

Inscription type: Funerary

Findspot: Aegina (EM 10626)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] Aegina played a distinguished role in the defeat of the Persian invasion of 480, becoming a haven for Athenians evacuated from Attica and contributing significantly to the Greek success in the battle of Salamis (Hdt. 7.145.1, 8.41.1, 93.3), but she did not join the Delian League, and in the late 460s came under increasing Athenian pressure. The Erechtheid tribe records casualties on Aegina in 460-459 BC (IG I³ 1147), and Thucydides records a sea battle in which the Athenians captured 70 ships and then besieged Aegina. After the battle of Tanagra (on which see OR 111) the Aeginetans capitulated and agreed to demolish their walls, hand over their ships, and pay tribute (Thuc. 1.105.2, 108.4). In 431 the Athenians expelled the Aeginetans and installed Athenian settlers (Thuc. 2.27.1; cf. Hdt. 6.91.1). This gravestone, in Aeginetan script, can not be dated precisely, but might plausibly belong in the context of Athenian control of Aegina after 457. Following common Greek practice, Antistates (who is not otherwise known) is given a father's name; as an Athenian outside Attica, one would expect him to be designated by his city (i.e. Athens) rather than his deme, which was only used for identification within Attica; this is duly done, but it seems only as an afterthought as ‘Antistates, Athenian’ is squeezed in at the end. The epigram, a single elegiac couplet (but with an extra foot in the opening hexameter) adopts the conceit that the deceased is speaking and addressing the passer-by. This is one manifestation of the tendency for the Greeks to treat inscriptions as agents in their own right or as extensions of human agency, and the effect would be heightened if, as seems commonly to have been the case, the text was read aloud by the viewer, in effect lending his or her voice to the deceased. The specific phrase “greetings passers-by” (chairete pariontes, one could also translate “farewell passers-by”) followed by the emphatic contrast, “but I ...”, seems to have been quite commonly used in inscribed funerary epigrams. Four other cases are known: one from Eretria for an Aeginetan, Mnesimachos, erected by his mother, Timarete, which is more or less contemporary with Antistates’ memorial (the coincidence is striking and may suggest both epigrams were commissioned from the same poet), and three fourth-century gravestones, from Thorikos, Crete, and Piraeus (CEG 108, 487, 492, 677). In three of these the deceased also draws attention to the fact that they had left their home: Mnesimachos (CEG 108) is a “stranger from Aegina” (xenos ap’ Aigines) and Kallimachos at Thorikos (CEG 492) described himself as “having left my fatherland” (lipon patrida). Thus the deceased, like the passer-by, is a traveller, though one who has come to the end of his journey.

Added: 30 Sep 2016
Updated: 6 Apr 2022
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ID: AIO_1180