IGII2 1184 Sacrificial regulation for the Thesmophoria at Cholargos

Sacrificial regulation for the Thesmophoria at Cholargos

IG II² 1184 Date: 334/3 BC

. . . sacred remembrancers (hieromnēmonas).^[1] Uninscribed space Both (female) officials together shall give to the priestess for (5) the festival and for managing the Thesmophoria: a half-sixth (hemiekteion) of barley, a half-sixth of wheat, a half- sixth of barley groats, a half-sixth of wheatmeal, a half-sixth of figs, a chous (10) of wine, half a chous of olive-oil, two cups (kotulas) of honey, a choinix of white sesame, a choinix of black, a choinix of poppy seeds, two fresh cheeses (weighing) no less than a stater each, (15) and two staters of garlic, and a torch worth no less than two obols and 4 drachmas of silver. The (female) officials shall give these things. And in order that this will take place on behalf of the deme of Cholargos (20) according to what is written for all time, those (male) in office in the archonship of Ktesikles (334/3) shall erect a stele and inscribe this decree on a stone stele in the Pythion, and they shall give an account of their (25) expenditure to the demesmen of Cholargos.

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References:

IG II² 1184 (Translated text) (PHI)

Sokolowski, LSS 124

Schwenk, Athens 26

CGRN 79 (CGRN)

Russo, Ripartizioni, D21

Translation by: Stephen Lambert, Feyo Schuddeboom

Images: Louvre - (1)
Ohio - (1)

Monument type: Stele

Inscription type: Decree (Deme Cholargos)

Original location: Pythion of Cholargos

Findspot: Attica (Louvre Ma 4205)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] This is the only extant inscription certainly produced by Cholargos, a small-to-medium-sized deme (bouleutic quota 4, Agora XV 42, 297-301) of uncertain location (perhaps on the side of Mt. Aigaleos facing Athens) in the city trittys of Akamantis, discussed most recently by Humphreys, Kinship, 970-72 (on demes in general see RO 46, with notes). On the possibility that the deme Chol[argos] sold properties in the public land sale programme of the Lykourgan period see Rationes F6B (might alternatively be Chol[leidai]). The fragmentary honorific decree, IG II² 1248, found in the area of the Hephaisteion above the Athenian Agora (not perhaps very close to its original place of erection), was set up "in the Herakleion in the circle in Cholargos" (en kyklōi en Cholargeōn). Its conventional attribution, with IG II² 1244-1247, to the Mesogeioi (an association of uncertain character, cf. SEG 48.128, and see now the full discussion of the Mesogeioi and their inscriptions by G. E. Malouchou, in A. P. Matthaiou and V. Bardani eds., Στεφάνῳ Στέφανος. Μελέτες εἰς μνήμην Στεφάνου Ν. Κουμανούδη, 2019, 67-97), was questioned by R. Parker, Athenian Religion (1996), 306. It is a possibility, but no more, that it was a decree of the deme Cholargos (i.e. restoring [the demarch] and the hieromnemones in place of [the archon] and the hieromnemones in 2-3); for hieromnemones in Cholargos cf. below. The best-known demesman of Cholargos was Pericles. [SDL]

This is mainly notable as one of two deme inscriptions which supply important evidence for the major women's festival, the Thesmophoria, in Attica. See also IG II² 1177 (Piraeus) with notes; the festival is or may also be mentioned at IG I³ 232, ll. 59-67 and I Eleusis 175, ll. 22-26; and see also CGRN 103 and AIO 2841. In general on the Thesmophoria see Parker, Polytheism, 270-83. Along with Isai. 8.19, the inscription shows that there were or might be two female officials in charge of the organisation of the festival in a deme. The feminine form, archousai, in place of the normal masculine archontes, is striking in a cultural context in which political office-holding was normally restricted to men, and emphasises the extent to which this festival marked a reversal of normal gender roles, an aspect of Greek religious experience explored to comic effect in Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazousai. The occasional, conscious, reversal of such norms in a religious context will have had the effect of embedding and defining those norms in everyday life.

Hieromnemones (1-2), "sacred remembrancers", are also attested in two inscriptions of the deme Eleusis: SEG 28.103, decree 2, ll. 36-38 (where they and the demarch are prohibited from putting to the vote any proposal to divert income from the lease of the quarries of Herakles in Akris to a purpose other than the sacrifice to Herakles, 332/1 BC); IG II² 1299, 78-80 (where, with the demarch, they manage the announcement of a crown and the making and setting up of the inscription, ca. 234 BC). If (what is uncertain) the arrangements in Cholargos were similar to Eleusis, one might speculate that the [demarch and] hieromnemones were charged with the performance of some joint duty at our ll. 1-2, and were also perhaps the unidentified officials tasked with erection of the stele at ll. 21-23. Hieromnemones are also attested in other types of Attic association, e.g. they represented a group of worshippers of Herakles in Alopeke in the Lykourgan public land-sale programme, Rationes Centesimarum, stele 3, F13A, 5 (most likely identifiable as one of the thiasoi [of Herakles] listed in IG II² 2345). Cf. also IG II² 1232, 18-19 (genos Salaminioi); IG II² 1248 (see above).

For further discussion of this inscription, including of the various items which the female officials are responsible for supplying to the priestess for the festival, see the notes in CGRN 79. On the measures used in this inscription see SEG 54.214, note 2.

Textual Note. 4 With CGRN we take the genitive τῆς ἱερείας as indirect object following διδόναι ("give to the priestess"), i.e. as a mistake for the dative, τῆι ἱερείαι.

Added: 3 Jan 2018
Updated: 15 Oct 2024
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