AIUK42 no. 4 Reaffirmed alliance with Rhegion, 433/2 BC

Reaffirmed alliance with Rhegion, 433/2 BC

AIUK 4.2 (BM, Decrees of Council and Assembly) no. 4 Date: 433/2 BC

Gods.^[5] Envoys from Rhegion who made the alliance and the oath,^[1] Kleandros son of Xen– – son of –tinos, Silenos son of Phokos,^[2] [– son of –]. In the archonship of Apseudes (433/2)^[3] (5) and under the Council for which Kritiades was first secretary (protos egrammateue). The Council and the People decided. Akamantis^V was the prytany. Charias was secretary. Timoxenos was chairman. Kallias^[4] proposed: there shall be an alliance between the Athenians and (10) the Rhegians. The Athenians shall swear the oath [in order that everything may be] in good faith and without deceit and [straightforward on the part of the Athenians] for all time towards the Rhegians, [swearing as follows]: “we shall be faithful allies, [just] and strong and unharmful (15) [for all time to the Rhegians, and] we shall oblige them if they [need anything]” . . .

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Greek text

References:

AIUK 4.2 (BM, Decrees of Council and Assembly) no. 4 (Translated text) (AIUK) (AIO)

IG I³ 53 (IG Online) (PHI)

GIBM I 5

Syll.³ 71

ML 63

SdA II 162

Fornara, Translated documents 124

Axon 179 (Axon)

OR 149A

Translation by: Stephen Lambert, P. J. Rhodes

AIO Images: 1

Monument type: Stele

Inscription type: Decree (Council and People)

Findspot: Unknown (BM 1816,0610.206)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] This was among the inscriptions acquired in Athens by Lord Elgin (cf. AIUK 4.1, no. 2). There is no evidence as to its findspot, but like other inscriptions containing treaties and other foreign policy measures at this period we may assume it was erected on the Acropolis; and it may well have been found there by Elgin's agent, Lusieri, cf. AIUK 4.2 (BM, Decrees of Council and Assembly), sect. 1.

Rhegion was a Greek city on the western side of the toe of Italy, opposite Sicily. It features for the first time in the literary evidence in connection with Athens in 427 BC, during the early stages of the Peloponnesian War. In that year Leontinoi, a Sicilian city a little north of Syracuse, together with its allies, including Rhegion, asked Athens to intervene in a conflict between them and Syracuse and its local allies, who were aligned with Sparta. According to Thucydides 3.86, among Athens’ reasons for accepting the appeal of Leontinoi and her allies were a desire to interfere with the Peloponnesian supply of grain from this region, and to assess the potential for bringing Sicily under Athenian control, thus foreshadowing Athens’ major expedition to Sicily in 415 BC, which was to end in disaster. In 427 BC Leontinoi and her allies appealed to Athens “in accordance with an old alliance”. It seems that our inscription and IG I³ 54, a similarly worded Athenian alliance with Leontinoi, were, or at least reflected, that “old” alliance, or components of it. We learn from these two inscriptions that the two alliances had been renewed in 433/2 BC. Rather than inscribe the treaties afresh on that occasion, the old prescripts were replaced with new ones, dating to the time of the renewal, the same day for both inscriptions. Though the renewals of 433/2 are not mentioned by Thucydides or any other literary source, the timing suggests that they may have been connected with Athens’ alliance that year with Corcyra, one of the contributory causes of the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides 1.44.3 (cf. 1.36.2) remarks on Corcyra’s convenient position for voyages between Athens and the west. The occasion of the original alliances inscribed on our stones is also undocumented, though other Athenian engagements with the region are attested in the 440s BC, including leading the foundation of Thurii in 444/3 BC (cf. OR’s note to 149 and OR 140 with notes).

Reinscribing the prescript of an existing alliance to express its renewal is remarkable, and is best understood in the context of a tendency to ascribe to inscriptions a stronger sense of agency than we are familiar with in the modern West. This is apparent among other things in the phenomenon of “speaking stones” (as “I am the boundary of the Agora”, IG I³ 1087, 1088, 1089) and in the conflation of the (to our minds abstract) thing inscribed, in this case an international agreement, with the physical object on which it is inscribed, so that, for example, destroying a stele on which a treaty is inscribed is not only symbolic of or consequential on, the breaking of a treaty, it actually is the breaking of the treaty (cf. RO 39, ll. 30-35; FGrH 328 Philochoros F 55; IALD II 26, 34, 37, 57-60, 79). Against the background of this kind of thinking about inscriptions, it is unsurprising that the decision to renew a treaty should have resulted in the stele on which it is inscribed being “updated” in this rather literal way: inscribing a stele with an agreement on it “makes” the agreement; destroying a stele with an agreement on it “unmakes” the agreement. In this case the substance of the old agreement is literally maintained unchanged, and the idea of “renewal” is expressed by simply rewriting the prescript to reflect the circumstances of renewal. The style of the original hand on IG I³ 54 is slightly more old-fashioned than that on our inscription, so the treaty with Leontinoi may be (but is not necessarily) older. For more detailed discussion of this decree see AIUK 4.2 (BM, Decrees of Council and Assembly), no. 4 and the commentary OR 149 (both of which reject an alternative interpretation that 433/2 BC was the occasion of the original alliance rather than the renewal) [SDL]. [2] Silenos died at Athens and was commemorated by a monument in the Kerameikos inscribed with a four-line epigram in which he is described as “coming hither from his fatherland for an alliance” (ἐλθόντ’ ἐκ πάτρας δεῦρ’ ἐπὶ συμμαχίαν), IG I³ 1178 = CEG I 12 [SDL]. [3] This is the earliest occurrence of an archon date in a developed decree prescript. It is perhaps not coincidental that it occurs in a context where an old inscription is being explicitly redated. The next datable instance is probably in IG I³ 21, of 426/5 (restored), but an archon date is also given in the early decree, IG I³ 4. Archon dates were more regularly included in decree prescripts from 421/0 BC (cf. IG I³ 82). [4] The same man proposed the renewal of the treaty with Leontinoi on the same day, IG I³ 54. A man with a name in -as, perhaps the same man, apparently also proposed the original version of the treaty with Rhegion (since the end of this name seems to have been retained from the original text at the beginning of l. 9). The name is common and we do not know whether this is the same Kallias who proposed IG I³ 52. Neither is probably the Kallias who was member of the genos Kerykes, dadouch of the Eleusinian Mysteries, to whom the negotiation of a Peace with Persia in 450 BC was attributed, and who probably died shortly after 446 (Davies, APF 262) [SDL]. [5] Whether or not the heading "gods" was included in the original prescript of this decree in the 440s (it is preserved in the renewed prescript of IG I³ 54), this is one of the earliest dated instances of this superscription. It aptly expresses the divine sanction for a measure sought through the process of inscribing it and erecting it typically in a sanctuary or on the Acropolis, the sacred heart of the city. It is particularly appropriate in the solemn renewal of a treaty, for which the gods sanctioned the oaths that bound the parties. For recent discussion of the significance of the heading, see W. Mack, ABSA 113, 2018, 365-98 (first case, 379) [SDL].

Added: 8 Oct 2013
Updated: 1 Aug 2022
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