IEleus 28a On the first-fruits at Eleusis

On the first-fruits at Eleusis

I Eleusis 28a Date: ca. 435 BC?

Timoteles of Acharnai was secretary. The Council and the People decided. Kekropis^VII was the prytany; Timoteles was secretary; Kykneas was chairman.^[1] The draftsmen (syngraphes) drafted the following: the Athenians shall give first-fruits of the harvest to the two Goddesses according to ancestral custom (kata ta patria) and the (5) oracle from Delphi, at a rate of not less than a sixth of a medimnos (hektea) per hundred medimnoi of barley and not less than half a sixth per hundred medimnoi of wheat; and if someone produces a greater harvest than this, or a smaller, he shall give first-fruits at the same ratio (logon); and the demarchs shall collect the first-fruits by demes and hand them over to the sacred officials (hieropoiois) (10) from Eleusis at Eleusis; and they shall build three granaries (siros)^[2] at Eleusis, according to ancestral custom (kata ta patria), wherever seems to the sacred officials (hieropoiois) and the architect to be suitable, from the money of the two Goddesses; and they shall deposit there the crops that they receive from the demarchs; and the allies too shall contribute first-fruits in the same way;^[3] and the cities shall choose (15) collectors of the crops in whatever way it seems to them that the crops will be best collected; and when they have been collected they shall send them to Athens; and those who bring them shall hand them over to the sacred officials from Eleusis at Eleusis; and if they do not accept them within five days from when they have been announced, although the men from the city from which the crops (20) come are handing them over, the sacred officials shall be fined (euthunosthon) 1,000 drachmas each; and they shall accept them from the demarchs according to the same conditions (kata tauta); and the Council shall choose heralds and send them to the cities announcing what has been voted by the People, as soon as possible for now, and in future whenever the Council decides; and the hierophant and the dadouch^[4] (25) shall encourage (keleueto) the Greeks at the Mysteries to give first-fruits of the harvest according to ancestral custom and the oracle from Delphi; and when they have written up on a board (pinakioi) the amount of the crops received from the demarchs, deme by deme, and from the cities, city by city, they shall place (katathenton) it in the Eleusinion at Eleusis and in the Council chamber;^[5] (30) and the Council shall announce to all the other Greek cities, wherever it decides this to be possible, telling them the arrangements under which the Athenians and the allies give first-fruits, and not commanding (epitattontas) them but encouraging (keleuontas) them, if they wish, to give first-fruits according to ancestral custom and the oracle from Delphi; and the sacred officials (35) shall accept crops from these cities in the same way if any city brings them; and they shall sacrifice from the cake (pelano)^[6] as the Eumolpidai expound,^[3] and a triple sacrifice led by a bovine with gilded horns to each of the two goddesses from the barley and the wheat, and to Triptolemos and to the god and the goddess and to Euboulos,^[7] a full-grown victim to each, and (40) to Athena a bovine with gilded horns; and the sacred officials with the Council shall sell the rest of the barley and wheat and dedicate dedications to the two Goddesses,^[8] doing whatever the Athenian People decides, and shall write on the dedications that these dedications were made from the first-fruits of the harvest, and that the Greeks were offering first-fruits; and to those who do this (45) may much good come, and good and plentiful harvests, as long as they do no wrong to the Athenians or to the city of the Athenians or to the two Goddesses. Lampon^[9] proposed: in other respects in accordance with the draft about the first-fruits of the harvest for the two Goddesses; but the secretary of the Council shall inscribe the draft and this decree on two stone stelai, (50) and shall place (katatheto) one at Eleusis in the sanctuary, and the other on the Acropolis; and the official sellers (poletai) shall put the two stelai out to tender; and the kolakretai shall give the money; and they shall inscribe these things about the first-fruits of the harvest for the two Goddesses on the two stelai; and the new archon shall insert a month Hekatombaion;^[10] and the king (basilea)^[11] shall define the boundaries of the sanctuaries in (55) the Pelargikon,^[12] and for the future no altar shall be set up in the Pelargikon without permission of the Council and People, nor shall anyone cut stones from the Pelargikon, nor take away earth or stones; and if anyone contravenes any of these things, he shall pay 500 drachmas; and the king shall report it to the Council; and on the matter of the first-fruits of oil, (60) Lampon shall make a draft and show it to the Council in the ninth prytany; and the Council shall be obliged to bring it before the People.^[13]

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References:

I Eleusis 28a (Translated text) (PHI)

IG I³ 78a (IG Online) (PHI)

Sokolowski, LSCG 5

ML 73

Fornara, Translated documents 140

CGRN 31 (CGRN)

OR 141

Translation by: Stephen Lambert, Robin Osborne

Images: Aleshire - (1)
Cornell - (1, 2, 3)
Ohio - (1)

Monument type: Stele

Inscription type: Decree (Council and People), Decree (People)

Findspot: Eleusis (EM 6817)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] The inscription records a decree based not, as was usual, on the proposal of a single individual, but on a draft prepared by a committee. It makes arrangements for the collection of portions of the harvest of wheat and barley (aparchai, “first-fruits”) to be dedicated to the “two goddesses” of Eleusis, Demeter and her daughter, the Girl (Korē, i.e. Persephone), whose Mysteries were intimately connected with the agricultural and human life-cycle and attracted widespread participation across the Greek world (cf. IG I³ 6). The committee’s draft is supplemented by a rider proposed by Lampon (ll. 47-61). Ll. 50-51 provide for two copies to be inscribed, one at the sanctuary in Eleusis (this one) and one on the acropolis (of which IG I³ 78b, a fragment containing ll. 15-22, survives). Both inscriptions were cut by a mason, the “Cutter of IG I³ 50”, whose only firmly datable work dates to 424/3 BC (S. V. Tracy, Athenian Lettering of the Fifth Century BC, 2016). The decree can not be dated precisely, but it seems to pre-date the introduction of the board of five Eleusinian overseers (epistatai). In 419/8 (IG I³ 391) the sacred officials (hieropoioi), who feature in our inscription, are recorded as handing over annually the money from the previous four years’ first-fruits to the epistatai, who do not feature in our inscription, suggesting they did not yet exist. The epistatai were created on the model of the overseers of works on the acropolis familiar from the 440s and 430s (cf. IG I³ 449) by IG I³ 32, perhaps to be dated to the end of the 430s, since the acropolis overseers are referred to as a thing of the past, but there is as yet no sign of any disruption of works at Eleusis by the invasions of Attica that took place in the Peloponnesian War (cf. Tracy). A date in the 440s or the 420s for our decree can not be ruled out, but ca. 435 seems most comfortable (see further M. Cavanaugh, Eleusis and Athens, 1996, 19-27, 73-95). [2] The term normally implies underground storage, which some have connected with the myth of Persephone’s visit to the underworld. [3] Athenian allies are expected to participate in bringing first-fruits to Eleusis on the same basis as the Athenian demes. This can be viewed in a sense as an imposition, but also as a mark of religious community. One might compare the provision, common in honorific decrees, that honorands pay taxes and do military service on the same basis as Athenians. It is similar to the expectation that allies and colonists contribute to Athenian festivals: grain for the Panathenaia from Erythrai, OR 121, l. 3; a bovine and panoply for the Panathenaia and a phallus for the Dionysia from Brea, OR 142, ll. 15-17; and a bovine and panoply for the Panathenaia in Kleinias’ decree, OR 154, ll. 41-42 with n. 3. Compare the contributions to the Panathenaia made by Attic demes and other communities, e.g. IG I³ 244 A, 19 (Skambonidai) with n. 9; OR 146 B, 4-5 (Thorikos). [4] The hierophant (from the genos Eumolpidai) and the dadouch (from the Kerykes) were the principal male priests of the Eleusinian Mysteries, cf. IG I³ 6, n. 8. Only the Eumolpidai had the right of exegesis (cf. Lys. 6.10, Andok. 1.110-16). [5] Each year a board (pinax), most likely of wood, is to be set up in two appropriate locations recording the first-fruits sent by each deme and city. (The same term, pinax, is used for the “picture” dedicated in the Erechtheum by Habron, son of the orator, Lykourgos, illustrating the succession of the priests of Poseidon in his genos, the Eteoboutadai, [Plut.] Lives of the Ten Orators 843e-f). This would have been, therefore, a public record, differing from an inscription in stone in that it patently had a more ephemeral quality (though it is unspecified how long the records are to be kept; apparently this is to be left to relevant priests and officials). Interestingly, also nothing is said in the decree about any enforcement action, against demes or allied cities (the only penalties imposed are to be on the Athenian officials who fail to make timely arrangements for reception of the first-fruits); but the placement of the copy in the Council chamber seems to imply that the records are to be used by the Council to oversee the process. Arrangements of this kind foreshadow the establishment, towards the end of the 5th century, of a systematic archive of papyrus copies of laws and decrees, and perhaps other official documents, in the Metroon, next to the Council chamber. Cf. J. Sickinger, Public Records and Archives in Classical Athens (1999), 81, 105-13. [6] A portion, specified perhaps by custom and/or the Eumolpidai, of the wheat and barley collected are to be made into a special kind of sacrificial cake, pelanos, some part of which seems to be set aside as an offering, and the remainder presumably consumed by worshippers. The accounts of 328 BC (IG II² 1672, ll. 409–14) show that the pelanos might be very large, using almost 16 medimnoi of barley and 10 of wheat, which would have provided a significant amount of food. Another portion is to be used (presumably sold) to fund a series of substantial sacrifices (the “triple sacrifice” consists of a bovine and two smaller animals, sheep or goats), which would also have provided meat for a large number of worshippers. [7] ‘The god and the goddess’ appear in a number of Eleusinian dedications (e.g. IG II² 4683), and should probably be identified as Hades and Persephone in their underworld guises. [8] Immediately after the Archidamian War the accounts from 422–418 BC, IG I³ 391, record only small sums from the sale of the first-fruits, 6 dr. in 420, 31 dr. in 419, though this was perhaps after provision of the pelanos and the sacrificial victims. In contrast very large quantities of first-fruits are recorded in 329/8 BC (IG II² 1672), by when the precise arrangements have changed and they are delivered by Athenian tribes rather than by demes individually (see K. Clinton, in W. Coulson et al. eds., The Archaeology of Athens and Attica under the Democracy, 1994, 161–72). The arrangements made by this decree are similar in some respects to those in the grain tax law of 374/3, RO 26, which also provided for collection of a portion of the harvest (in this case from the islands of Lemnos, Imbros and Skyros), storage in Athens/Attica, and sale of it, or part of it, onto the Athenian grain market. We may suspect that the law of 374/3 was modelled to an extent on these Eleusinian arrangements and that our decree, like that law, was partly motivated by a desire to improve the Athenian grain supply, which depended heavily on imports. [9] Lampon was a prominent seer (mantis) who had been involved in the settlement at Thurii (Diod. 12.10.3-4; schol. Ar. Clouds 332 etc.), was satirised by comic poets (Ar. Birds 332, 987–8, Kratinos F 66 KA, Eupolis F 297 KA; see also IG I³ 131 with n. 6), and a signatory to the Peace of Nikias (Thuc. 5.19.2, 24.1). See J. Dillery, in S. Johnston and P. Struck eds., Mantike, 2005, 195–7; H. Bowden, in Herodotus and his World . . . G. Forrest, 2003, 269–70. [10] Intercalary months had to be inserted into the calendar from time to time to ensure the year of 12 lunar months did not get out of step with the solar year. Posideon was commonly the duplicated month, but there was no fixed rule, and Hekatombaion (first month of the year, ca. July) was also sometimes duplicated, e.g. in 227/6 BC (IG II³ 1, 1139). The insertion of Hekatombaion on this occasion may have been intended in some way to extend the time available to apply the arrangements in the first-fruits decree which was perhaps passed in the spring (before the ninth prytany, l. 60), to the current season (the Mysteries, for example, took place in Boedromion, the third month of the year). It may not be coincidental, however, that it was in 433/2 BC, not perhaps far from the date of this decree, that the Athenian astronomer Meton presented his scheme for a regular system of intercalations on a 19-year cycle, the so-called “Metonic cycle” (Diod. 12.36, cf. IG II³ 1, 316 n. 1). Meton's cycle seems to have been applied at Athens from at least the later 4th century, though we lack evidence to confirm its operation earlier than that. It is possible that Lampon’s proposed intercalation, which overrode the traditional prerogative of the eponymous archon to control Athens’ calendar, was the last ad hoc intercalation before Meton presented his cycle, and/or that it was made in a context in which rival authorities were seeking to control intercalations. Like his Pelargikon proposal, it may have had nothing to do with the first fruits. [11] The Athenian archon of this description. [12] The Pelargikon, which has no obvious connection with the Eleusinian first-fruits, was an area around the western end of the acropolis which some of the Athenians coming into the city from the countryside at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War were to inhabit in contravention of an oracle from Delphi forbidding building and insisting the land be left idle (Thuc. 2.17.1). If this decree is correctly dated to the mid-430s Lampon’s proposal, which mentions nothing about inhabitation of the Pelargikon, will have preceded the situation described by Thucydides by several years. [13] Nothing more is heard of in our sources of any system for offering first-fruits of oil.

Added: 15 Sep 2016
Updated: 7 Nov 2023
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