AgoraXVI 68 Two decrees of Kyd[athenaion]

Two decrees of Kyd[athenaion]

Agora XVI 68 Date: ca. 350-315 BC (?)

Face A (front)

. . . ^[1] traces the collective (koinōi); and to inscribe this decree on a stone stele and stand it in the sanctuary of the Herakleidai;^[2] and for inscribing and making the (5) stele to give . . . of the demesmen. These things were decided by the Kyd[athenaians].^[3] In crown (left) The People In crown (left) The People in Samos In crown (right) (10)[The Council] In crown (right) . . .

Face B (back)

. . . 2 lines traces . . . and to inscribe this decree on a stone stele and stand it in the sanctuary of the (15)Herakleidai; and for inscribing and making the stele to give . . . of the demesmen. These things were decided by the [Kydathenaians]. in crown (left) The People In crown (left) . . . In crown (right) The Council In crown (right) (20)The People in Hephaistia.

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References:

Agora XVI 68 (Translated text) (PHI)

Humphreys, Kinship, 891-5

Russo, Ripartizioni, D60

Translation by: Stephen Lambert

Images: Agora Excavations - (1)

Monument type: Stele (inscribed on both sides)

Inscription type: Decree (Deme Kydathenaion), Decree (Deme Kydathenaion)

Findspot: Agora (in filling of post-Herulian wall) (Ag. I 5212)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] A. The deme Kydathenaion
This stele was inscribed on both sides in the same hand (except the crowns, see below) with what was apparently the same, or a very similar, text of an honorific deme decree. The inscription is most likely a product of Kyd[athenaion] (6). The alternative, Kyd[antidai], is unlikely, given the location of that deme in the Mesogaia (see SEG 39.148, with notes), and the findspot of this inscription within the city of Athens (albeit that other inscriptions of extraurban demes have sometimes been found in the city, see e.g. IG II² 1176 and other inscriptions of the deme Piraeus noted there; IG II³ 4, 223, Halai Aixonides). Woodhead notes that the reference to the Herakleidai in our text might nonetheless be an argument for ascribing it to Kydantidai. This, however, is apparently on the rather fragile basis that SEG 39.148 refers to festivals of Herakles and a Herakleion (sic, not Herakleidai). This was probably, therefore, the only surviving inscription produced by Kydathenaion, a large deme of the city trittys of Pandionis, located north of the Acropolis (cf. Traill, Demos and Trittys, 129). It sent 11 or 12 representatives to the Council before 307/6 BC (12 are listed at Agora XV 42, 148-160, 11 at IG II³ 4, 26, 43-54, 11 from Kydathenaion or Paiania at IG II³ 4, 48, 43-54; there are also incomplete lists of councillors from Kydathenaion at IG II³ 4, 48 and IG II³ 4, 55). The deme included both the comic poet Aristophanes (probably the Aristophanes listed at IG II³ 4, 48, l. 24) and his contemporary, and target of his satire, the politician Kleon, as well as the orator Andokides. Humphreys remarks on the connotation of "nobility" in the deme's name (kudos, "distinction" is perhaps a better translation) and finds that this is to an extent borne out by its attested members; but arguably this impression is primarily a product of its being much the largest of the demes located within the city walls; its wealth index (which expresses the number of attested liturgists in relation to bouleutic quota) is 2.0, only a little higher than the mean wealth index for all intramural demes of 1.71 and the mean for all demes of 1.39 (the wealthiest intramural deme on this basis was the smaller Kollytos, index 2.33, cf. SEG 58.108, with notes; see R. Osborne, Demos 1985, 198). A recent analysis of the distribution of wealthy Athenians in the demes, J. C. Kierstead and R. Klapaukh, in M. Canevaro et al. eds., Ancient Greek History and Contemporary Social Science, 2018, 376-404, finds that Kydathenaion appears to have been disproportionately wealthy on the criterion of number of festival liturgists it supplied, but (p. 389) that this is the result of the chance survival of a single inscription listing victorious choregoi of Pandionis, IG II² 1138 + 2318. On the [sanctuary] of "Artemis Amarysia from Athmonon" in Kydathenaion see IG I³ 426, ll. 65-69 (note that the house neighbouring it appears to have been rather grand, with a "two-columned [porch]"); IG II² 1203, with I. Bultrighini, in G. Woolf et al. eds., Sanctuaries and Experience, 2024, 193-218, at 201ff. On the deme Kydathenaion and its members see Humphreys; on demes in general, RO 46.

B. Date, honouring groups and honorand(s)
Woodhead notes that the inscriptions within the crowns are less well cut than the rest of the text, and plausibly suggests that they were added subsequent to the erection of the stone. The date is determined primarily by these crowns, in particular by the honours awarded by "the People in Samos", i.e. the Samian cleruchy, which existed between 365 and 322 BC (see IG XII 6, 1 264 with notes). Our inscription might date later than 322, if the reference was to honours bestowed by the cleruchs in the past. As Woodhead notes, the closest parallel is IG II² 457+3207, an Assembly decree posthumously honouring the statesman Lykourgos in 307/6 BC, with crowns recording honours awarded in his lifetime, including by "the People in Samos" and "the People in Lemnos" (compare the more specific citation of our inscription, referring to one of the two Athenian settlements on Lemnos, at Hephaistia; cf. AIUK 4.3A no. 7 and Search s.v. "Lemnos"). For another monument of this period commemorating honours awarded by several different groups, including a deme, see Agora XV 33; one of its citations commemorates honours awarded by the Council in 344/3 BC. Woodhead favoured ca. 350-330 (?) BC for our inscription on stylistic grounds, but as a date after the end of the Samian cleruchy is possible, we prefer a more cautious ca. 350-315 BC (?). The concluding formula for inscribing the decree seems to have been the same on both sides of the stone, and the wording in the crowns may also have been the same, but there is a slight difference in the arrangement of the text (e.g. number of letters per line) and we cannot be certain whether we have to do with two copies of the same decree (cf. e.g. IG II³ 4, 7 for an honorific monument inscribed with nearly identical text on front and back), copies of two decrees honouring the same man of Kydathenaion, or, as Woodhead preferred (though this seems to me less likely), two decrees honouring different men of the deme, both of whom had also been honoured for service to the city as a whole and in relation to (the same?) cleruchies. For speculation on the identity of the honorand(s) see Humphreys.

It is notable that, although these are deme decrees, (all?) the crowns refer to honours awarded by bodies outside the deme. This tendency to connect with the institutions and physical structures of the city outside the deme is characteristic of (albeit not exclusive to) demes located in central Athens. Compare, in different ways, the ordinances of Skambonidai, IG I³ 244, which, unusually for deme inscriptions of this type, makes provisions mainly in relation to polis (and tribal?) festivals rather than festivals exclusive to the deme; the decree of Kollytos, SEG 58.108, which was inscribed together with a decree of the Assembly and which makes provisions for deme revenues "to be made available to the Athenian People"; and the decrees of Melite, AIO 2841, with its apparent references to building works on the [City Eleusinion] and related structures by a priestess of the Thesmophoroi who was the wife of a deme member, and IG II³ 4, 1057, honouring Neoptolemos, a deme-member who had funded works on the temple of Artemis Aristoboule in Melite which had apparently been founded by Themistokles, and who was also an important benefactor outside the deme (note also the emphasis in the decree text on service to the Athenian People). In the city especially the verbal identity of Demos = The People and Demos = Deme seems to have impacted significantly on the reality of the deme's collective action. [2] Cult of the Herakleidai (the children of Herakles) was quite widespread in the Attic demes (Search s.v. Herakleidai), but this is the only evidence for it in Kydathenaion. [3] The placement of the resolution formula at the end of the decree (it usually appears at the beginning) is very unusual, and may have been deliberately "old-fashioned" (cf. Woodhead, Ag. XVI p. 105, noting that the closest parallel is IG I³ 4).

Woodhead (Ag. XVI) notes that this inscription was referred to by D. Whitehead, Demes of Attica (1986), 383, prior to its publication in Ag. XVI (1997) by the provisional number, Agora XVI 54.

Added: 21 Jan 2024
Updated: 7 Feb 2024
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