IGII34 558 Choregic dedication of all the sponsors for the City Dionysia

Choregic dedication of all the sponsors for the City Dionysia

IG II³ 4 558 Date: 80-90 AD

The People was victorious,^[1] Lucius Flavius Flammas of Kydathenaion was archon.^[2] uninscribed space All the sponsors (choragoi) and every tribal chorus (5) erected me, an ornament (agalma) for the People of Kekrops, voluntarily abandoning the contest, so that no one would bear the shame (aischos) of being deprived of the ivy wreath, and I distribute as much renown (eukleias) to each, as I owe him, being a shared (ornament).^[3]

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References:

IG II³ 4 558 (Translated text) (IG Online)

IG II² 3114 (PHI)

SEG 51.205

Follet and Peppas Delmousou, Dedicaces chorégiques 4

Agora XVIII 191

Translation by: Chris de Lisle

Images: Agora Excavations - (1, 2)
Wikimedia Commons - (1, 2)

Monument type: Base

Inscription type: Dedication (choregic)

Original location: Agora (near Stoa of Attalos)

Findspot: Agora (near Stoa of Attalos) (In situ)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] This inscription is the best-preserved example of a Roman-period choregic dedication. In total, the monument is nearly three metres high. It consists of a three-sided base, supporting a tall three-sided pedestal with concave sides, one of which bears the inscription. On top of the pedestal is a capping stone with palmette designs carved in relief, which would normally have supported a tripod, but the pattern of cuttings indicate that something else stood atop this monument (Ph. Amandry BCH 100, 1976, 42-43, with a more detailed description of the structure). Choregic dedications had been erected in the fifth and fourth centuries BC by sponsors (choregoi) who funded their tribes’ choruses, in order to commemorate their victories in the dithyramb at the Dionysia (cf. IG II³ 4, 460) and Thargelia (cf. IG II³ 4, 475), and in dramatic competitions at the Rural Dionysia (cf. IG II³ 4, 498). This system of sponsorship was abolished after 320 BC, and from 307/6 BC at the latest was superseded by a system in which the People replaced the individual sponsors and a single competition-director (agonothetes) took over the erection of the commemorative dedications (see IG II³ 4, 518, with notes). In this system, the People as a whole were named as victor, which seems to have been a politically programmatic phrasing in the context of the restoration of democracy in 307/6 BC. It is interesting to find the same emphasis on the People as victor in l. 1 of this inscription. The last choral dedications by competition-directors date to 175/4 BC (IG II³ 4, 537-538). After this there is a 250-year gap, before choregic dedications erected by sponsors reappear around 80 AD. This inscription is one of the first of these revived choregic dedications, which continued to be erected through the second century AD and possibly into the third (IG II³ 4, 556-569).

The Roman-period choregic dedications are consciously modelled on the Classical dedications in many respects, but also differ significantly (cf. J. L. Shear in B. Kowalzig and P. Wilson, Dithyramb in Context, 2013, 389-408). The triangular shape of most of the Roman-period dedications imitates the Classical dedications. The officials named on the dedications are mostly the same as in the Classical period: the archon, who presided over the Dionysia; the sponsor; the director (didaskalos), who trained the chorus, the pipe-player (auletes); and occasionally other individuals, like the singing master (melpopoios). Some dedications also have archaising texts, which imitate the lettering (e.g. IG II³ 4, 564 and 568) and formulae of Classical dedications (e.g. IG II³ 4, 562). However, most are written in typical Roman-period lettering. Nearly all include poetic epigrams, unlike most Classical dedications (see n. 3). Several of the Roman-period choregic dedications were found around the Theatre of Dionysos and the Asklepieion, alongside Classical choregic dedications (e.g. IG II³ 4, 556 and 559). Others, like this one, stood in the Agora, where no Classical dedications are known.

It is likely that all Roman-period choregic dedications commemorate victories in dithyrambic competitions at the Dionysia, although only a few explicitly state this (IG II³ 4, 557 and 559). There are no references to the Thargelia and none of the Roman-period dedications were found at the Pythion, where most Classical dedications for the Thargelia were erected. Two Roman-period dedications mention victories at other festivals or in dramatic contests, but only in passing (IG II³ 4, 556 and 561). The dithyrambic contests in the Roman period appear to have been smaller than their Classical predecessors, since IG II³ 4, 559, which lists all the members of a victorious chorus, gives only twenty-five names, half the size of a Classical chorus. Moreover, in the second century, multiple tribes, sometimes five or six, combine to form a single chorus, meaning that the competition would have featured only two or three choruses (cf. IG II³ 4, 563). It is not certain that separate dithyrambic contests for men and for boys continued to be held in the Roman period. There is only one explicit reference to a chorus of men (IG II³ 4, 561) and no explicit reference to a boys’ chorus. Instead, many inscriptions refer to the chorus-members with terms like “youths,” which could refer to older boys or young men (IG II³ 4, 556, 563, 566, and perhaps 557). If the age-distinction was maintained, it might have been indicated by the dedications’ size, with monuments for boys being smaller than those for men, as in the Classical period (Shear in Dithyramb in Context, 395). [2] The first line of the heading celebrating the victory of the People closely follows the wording of the first dedications by the competition directors after 307/6 BC, which indicated the restoration of "democracy" through the replacement of the individual sponsor as victor with the collective People (see IG II³ 4, 518 with notes). Flammas was archon in the 80s AD (Byrne, RCA 254, 507, 537). He also served as hoplite general, gymnasiarch, and priest of Zeus Boulaios and Athena Boulaia (IG II² 3544). His Latin cognomen suggests that he was a Roman who had been granted Athenian citizenship. The area of this monument, on the east side of the Agora, near the speaking platform (bema), was associated with honorific monuments for prominent Romans in the late first century BC and first century AD (C. Dickenson, On the Agora, 2017, 166-169). [3] Ll. 1-3 are in prose, ll. 4-8 in iambic trimeters. Almost all Roman-period choregic monuments include epigrams, as do other Roman-period monuments, especially those relating to athletic victory. Like victory in athletic and choral competitions, epigrams demonstrated the dedicator’s culture and education (paideia, cf. AIUK 4.5 (BM, Dedications) no. 24 and AIUK 11 (Ashmolean) no. 16 with notes). The poem is in the voice of the monument itself, which explains that all of the competitors chose to withdraw from the contest to avoid the shame of failing to win (winners received an ivy wreath). Since they erected the monument together, it is a shared ornament which gives renown to all the competitors. The “People of Kekrops” (l. 5) is a poetic name for the Athenians. The withdrawal of all competitors from the contest differs strikingly from the Classical Athenian emphasis on fierce competition between tribes for the People’s acknowledgement (Shear in Dithyramb in Context, 402-403). This is part of a new ethos in the Roman period, which emphasised internal harmony and respect for competitors’ status over competition (O. Van Nijf in S. Goldhill, Being Greek Under Rome, 2001, 326-30). However, this inscription is the only choregic inscription that displays this ethos; most Roman-period choregic inscriptions celebrate the victory of a single chorus. The nature of the agalma (“ornament”) in l. 5 is unclear; the word usually refers to statues of deities. In athletic competitions, the prize was awarded to the god when there was no human victor, so perhaps the tripod and/or prize money were used to make a statue of Dionysos, which might have stood atop the monument instead of the usual tripod (Follet and Peppas-Delmousou, p. 100).

Added: 30 Sep 2022
Updated: 30 Sep 2022
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