ChoixDelphes 15 Athenian dedication on the Marathon Base at Delphi

Athenian dedication on the Marathon Base at Delphi

Choix de Delphes 15 Date: ca. 480-460 BC (A) / after 280s BC, possibly ca. 200 BC (B)

A ⟦The Athenians (dedicated this) to Apollo from the Medes, as best spoils (akrothinia) of the battle in Marathon⟧.

B The Athenians (dedicated this) to Apollo [from the Medes] as best spoils (akrothinia) of the [battle] in Marathon.^[1]

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Greek text

References:

Choix de Delphes 15 (Translated text) (AIO)

IG I³ 1463 (IG Online) (PHI) (PHI)

SEG 48.595

F.Delphes III 2 1 + Add. pp. 284-86 (PHI)

Syll.³ 23a, b

ML 19

Translation by: Giacomo Aresi

Images: Perseus - (1)

Monument type: Base

Inscription type: Dedication (public), Dedication (Apollo)

Findspot: Delphi (near the Athenian Treasury) (Delphi Museum 623, 693, 998 and one unnumbered)
Findspot: Delphi (outside the precinct, near south-west corner) (Delphi Museum 2552)
Findspot: Delphi (outside the precinct, near east gate) (Delphi Museum 3874, 3923)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] Textual note: AIO’s Greek text of the extant inscription (B) follows Choix de Delphes 15, derived from P. Amandry, BCH 122, 1998, 75-90 (= SEG 48.595). B was engraved in the Hellenistic period following the erasure of the original, early-Classical inscription A. The few surviving traces of A are difficult to decipher. AIO follows Amandry and Choix de Delphes in regarding A and B as identical. Syll.³, followed by IG, and J. Audiat, BCH 54, 1930, 312-14 discern slight differences in the text of A (including ...Ἀπόλλονι Πυθί]οι, "...to Apollo Pythios," [ἀνέθεσαν], "dedicated," and minor differences in word order). W. Gauer, Weihgeschenke aus den Perserkriegen, 1968, 47-48 considered the traces of A insufficient to provide any restoration. AIO excludes statue labels and artists’ signatures read by C. Vatin, Monuments votifs de Delphes, 1991, 183-234, which other scholars have not been able to confirm (M. Sève, BE 1992, no. 78).

This is the dedicatory inscription on the "Marathon Base," an Athenian thank-offering for the victory over the Persians at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC, on the triangular terrace on the south side of the Athenian Treasury at Delphi (on Attic inscriptions at Delphi, see IG II³ 4, 17; on the later history of the Treasury, see F.Delphes III 2, 3 with notes). Part of the foundation is still in situ (J.-F. Bommelaer and D. Laroche, Guide de Delphes. Le site², 2015, 162-64, no. 225). The base originally consisted of a straight row of blocks running parallel to the south wall of the treasury and ending in line with its south-east corner, but it was later extended eastward with an oblique segment (see Amandry, 1998; further references in M. Meyer, in M. Meyer and G. Adornato, eds., Innovations and Inventions in Athens, 2020, 30-31). A terminus post quem for this extension is provided by F.Delphes III 2, 71, a Delphic proxeny decree passed in the archonship of Archidamos (ca. 280s BC; cf. G. Daux, Chronologie delphique, 1943, 30) which was inscribed on the east end of the base in its first phase and was covered up by the extension. A line of cippi running parallel to the extension may have been added at the same time as it (cf. A. Jacquemin, Offrandes monumentales à Delphes, 1999, 230 and A. Jacquemin and D. Laroche, BCH 136-137, 2012-2013, 85-94). If so, the Delphic decrees F.Delphes III 2 ,159 and 163, which were passed in the archonship of Kraton (ca. 250s BC; cf. F. Lefèvre, BCH 119, 1995, 190-91) and were engraved on two of these cippi, would provide a terminus ante quem for the extension. In this case, the extension might have followed the Athenians' acknowledgment of the Aetolian reorganisation of the Soteria festival in 250/49 (see IG II³ 1, 1005).

At the time of the extension (cf. Amandry, 1998, 76), or on the occasion of a subsequent, further rearrangement of the base (cf. Jacquemin, 1999, 229-30) the original inscription (A) was erased and reinscribed in its current form (B), in bigger, more widely spaced letters to cover the newly available space. Some of the letter forms of B (e.g. L-shaped lambda and three-bar sigma) and the use of epsilon and omicron for long vowels show that the stonecutter tried to reproduce the script of A. The visible letter forms of A and their imitations in B suggest a date for the original inscription between the 480s and the 460s BC (cf. Amandry, 1998, 86; IG only gives 490 BC as terminus post quem). Some of the letters of B (most notably epsilon and sigma) have serifs, which is consistent with them having been engraved in the third century BC (cf. M. Guarducci, Epigrafia greca, vol. 1, 1967, 372-73).

The holes on the upper surface of the surviving blocks indicate that the base supported offerings (see P. de La Coste-Messeliére, Rev. Arch. 1942/43, 5-17). The inscription refers to these as the “best spoils” (akrothinia, literally “the top of the pile”), a term which was employed in dedications related to military victories to designate both "raw" dedications of actual spoils and "cooked" dedications, like statues and monuments, funded from the booty (cf. M. L. Lazzarini, Memorie Lincei - Scienze Morali e Storiche 19, 1976, 93-95 and T. Jim, Sharing with the Gods, 2014, 20, 45-46; on the distinction between "raw" and "cooked" dedications, see IG I³ 517 with notes). In this case, the extant traces show that the offerings did not consist of spoils but of statues, whose number apparently increased over time Furthermore, the dedication uses akrothinia as a predicate (“The Athenians dedicated as best spoils”): had the term referred to actual booty, it would probably have been accompanied by an article (“The Athenians dedicated the best spoils”; cf. Amandry, 1998, 82-84).

It is generally assumed that the offering originally consisted of a group of ten statues representing the eponymous heroes of the tribes, introduced by Cleisthenes in 508/7 BC. This emphasis on the new configuration of the Athenian civic body is paralleled by the memorial to the fallen set up at Marathon (cf. Paus. 1.32) and was probably a general feature of the initial commemoration of the battle (cf. G. Proietti, Prima di Erodoto, 2021, 59-83, 114-22). On commemoration of the Persian wars, cf. IG I³ 503/4 in Athens and probably IG I³ 1464 at Delphi. Ath. Pol. 19.4-21.6 reports that the Delphic oracle played a role in the selection of the eponymous heroes of the new tribes, thus providing the Cleisthenic order with religious legitimation. Therefore, the statue group depicting the eponymous heroes would have not only celebrated the victory at Marathon as a triumph of the renewed Athenian polis but also highlighted the Pythia’s endorsement of Cleisthenes’ reforms. Later additions to the original group would be due to the introduction of new tribes, most likely Antigonis and Demetrias in 307 and Ptolemais in 223, as happened with a similar base near the sanctuary's entrance (cf. Paus. 10.10.1-2 with Proietti, 2021, 390-94) and with the monument of the Eponymous Heroes in the Athenian Agora (cf. T. L. Shear, Hesperia 39, 1970, 196-203). The techniques used to fasten the statues to the base fit a fifth-century date (cf. Amandry, 1998, 84), although not necessarily one immediately after Marathon (cf. C. Keesling in M. Meyer and G. Adornato eds., Innovations and Inventions in Athens, 2020, 218-21).

Pausanias (10.11.5) states that the Athenian Treasury was built from the spoils taken at Marathon. Traditionally, French scholars have considered this report reliable, and have therefore understood the Treasury as part of the Athenian thank-offering referred to in this inscription (e.g. F.Delphes; Audiat, 1930, 300; de La Coste-Messéliere, 1942/43, 16). Others maintain instead that the Treasury was built at the end of the sixth century BC, after Athens’ liberation from the Peisistratids (e.g. E. C. Partida, The Treasuries at Delphi, 2000, 48-70). The latter view is based mainly on the sculptural style of the metopes (cf. R. von den Hoff in R. von den Hoff and P. Schultz, eds., Structure, Image, Ornament, 2009, 96-98 with references; contra Gauer, 1968, 45-65) and the structural independence of the foundations of the Treasury and of the terrace supporting the Marathon Base (cf. H. Pomtow, RE Suppl. IV, 1924, coll. 1280-82). However, a ledge that projects from the stereobate of the Treasury and apparently underpinned the Marathon Base might indicate that the base was already envisaged when the Treasury was built, although this does not necessarily indicate that both monuments were part of the same thank-offering (Amandry, 1998, 87-90, followed by a majority of scholars; contra K. Fittschen, GGA 255, 2003, 12-15; see Meyer, 2020, 27-33, for a review of the debate). Pausanias makes no reference to a statue group beside the Treasury, which might mean that when he visited Delphi in the second century AD, the statues had been removed (possibly to be re-employed in the aforementioned monument at the sanctuary entrance, cf. A. E. Raubitschek in Mélanges Daux, 1974, 315-16). In that case, it is possible that Pausanias, reading the dedicatory inscription on the empty Marathon Base, was misled by its generic wording and therefore wrongly referred it to the nearby Treasury. On the other hand, the decorative program of the Treasury juxtaposes Theseus and Heracles, who had reportedly assisted the Athenians at Marathon, and focuses on their respective Amazonomachies, which could provide a mythical precedent to the historical fight against the Persians; such themes would be consistent with and perhaps better placed in a post-Marathon context (see M. B. Gensheimer, Hesperia 86, 2017, 1-42 and Proietti, 2021, 114-20). It is also possible that work on the Treasury started before the victory over the Persians and that the building was later re-conceived as part of the Athenian thank-offering by means of the generic wording of the dedication inscribed on the Marathon Base (cf. W. Gauer in F. Krinzinger, Forschungen und Funde, 1980, 127-36 and Keesling, 2020, 220-21).

Added: 5 Jun 2023
Updated: 4 Dec 2023
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