AIO 1672 Decree about the Athenian [Cleruchy] on Salamis

Decree about the Athenian [Cleruchy] on Salamis

AIO 1672 Date: 508-500 BC?

The People decided: [those who hold an allotment (klerochos)] at Salamis shall be permitted to (?) reside on Salamis^[1] . . . at [Athens] they shall pay taxes and do military service; their [(property) at Salamis] they shall not lease, if not . . . ; but if (5)anyone leases, fined [shall be the tenant and the] landlord, each of them . . . to the public treasury (demosion); the archon [shall exact the fine], but if (he) [does not, he shall be called to account (euthunesthai)] . . . shall provide weapons . . . (10)thirty [drachmas?] . . . the archon shall . . . in the Council (?) . . . ^[2]

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Greek text

References:

AIO 1672 (Translated text) (AIO)

IG I³ 1 + Add. p. 935 (IG Online) (PHI)

SEG 41.2

SEG 51.25

SEG 66.22

Syll.³ 13

ML 14

Fornara, Translated documents 44B

Immerwahr, Script, 76 no. 453

Koerner, Gesetzestexte 1

Taylor, Salamis and the Salaminioi, 11-21

Axon 271 (Axon)

Tracy, Athenian Lettering, 18-19

Meyer, Origins, 356-63

Nomima I, 6

Translation by: Stephen Lambert, Julian Schneider

Images: Aleshire - (1)
Ohio - (1)
Wikimedia Commons - (1)

Monument type: Post

Inscription type: Decree (People)

Findspot: Acropolis (EM 6798)
Findspot: Acropolis (EM 6815)
Findspot: Acropolis (EM 12936)
Findspot: Acropolis (EM 13500 [formerly Acropolis Museum 7021])

Transliterations on Places on

[1] There were traditions of early conflict between Athens and Megara over possession of the island of Salamis in which Athens was eventually successful (a Solonian poem on the island, Plut. Sol. 8-9, D. L. 1.47, cf. Paus. 1.40.5, involvement of Peisistratos alleged at Ath. Pol. 17.2, cf. Hdt. 1.59, Plut. Sol. 12, dispute settled by arbitration in Athens’ favour, with Solon pleading Athens’ case and the Spartan Kleomenes among the arbitrators, Plut. Sol. 10); there is abundant evidence from the 5th and 4th centuries BC for individual Athenians who were in some sense “Salaminians” (e.g. Timodemos of Acharnai, Pind. Nem. 2, Leon arrested by the Thirty, Plato, Apol. 32c-d, Xen. Hell. 2.3.39, Moirokles of Eleusis, 4th-cent. politician, Harp. s.v. Moirokles, cf. IG II³ 4, 232 and I Eleusis 68, with notes; see the lists at Lambert, ZPE 125, 1999, 93-130 at 109-19, Taylor, 263-316); and an Attic genos, the “Salaminioi”, also seems to have been connected in some way to the island (cf. RO 37); but this early Athenian decree is our only explicit evidence for an Athenian cleruchy on Salamis, i.e. a formal settlement of Athenian citizens who held allotments on the island (see also IG II² 3206). It may be the earliest Athenian “cleruchy”, if it preceded the one on Chalkis established following the Athenian victory of 506 BC, cf. IG I³ 501; IG I³ 40. Allusions to the cleruchy (or the genos?) have been detected in Hdt. 8.95, who mentions that a force landed on Psyttaleia at the battle of Salamis were “Athenians by descent”, genos eontes Athenaioi, Hdt. 8.95; and in a decree of 387/6 BC, which in the context of provisions relating to the Athenian cleruchy on Lemnos, refers to the situation on Salamis, IG II² 30 fr. b l. 34 (direct reference to our decree doubted by R. S. Stroud, publishing new fragments, Hesp. 40, 1971, 162-73 no. 23, at 172-73; and by D. Marchiandi, ASAA 80, 2002, 543-54 = SEG 53.85). The inscription is a “post”, inscribed vertically in archaic lettering from the top down, an early format developed from 6th-century dedications by officials (as e.g. IG I³ 507, see Meyer = SEG 66.22), and similar to that adopted for IG I³ 2. The lettering is discussed most recently by Tracy, who doubts the earlier attribution to the same cutter as IG I³ 702; photograph and drawing at Meyer, 357. C. M. Keesling, ZPE 180, 2012, 139-48, at 143-44, notes that the letters are laid out in a combination of the "stoichedon" style (letters in different lines aligned), which was to dominate in Attic inscribing practice through until the third cent. BC, and the "plinthedon" style (letters aligned in spaces between letters in line above), an early variant found in some archaic Attic inscriptions. The weight of opinion (e.g. ML, accepted by Tracy) has favoured a date ca. 510-500 BC, in the aftermath of Athens’ break with Sparta and consequent renewed threat to the security of the island following the Cleisthenic “revolution”. A preoccupation with organising Attica's local administration, and in particular with the military and fiscal obligations of citizens in a democracy facing military threats, would also suit an immediately post-Cleisthenic context (Salamis was never incorporated into the organisation of Attica into tribes and demes). These arguments are circumstantial, however. “The letter forms might be found at any time between ca. 520 and ca. 480” (ML, writing at a time when epigraphists were more confident in dating by letter forms than is the case today); and scholars have argued inconclusively for dates ranging from before 508 BC to the 480s. If the traditional date is correct, it is perhaps the earliest extant inscribed decree of the Athenian Assembly. The short preamble notably emphasises that the decree was a collective decision of the People, employing a formula that was to be followed for centuries (in later 5th-cent. decrees the formula is usually, “The Council and People decided”; decrees of the Assembly were required to be based on a proposal from the Council; it is unclear whether the probable mention of the Council in the last line of our decree is a reference to this probouleusis). The decree is also notable as much the earliest Assembly decree of a generic, “secular”, character, from the Athenian Acropolis (cf. AIO Papers 8, p. 4). Other inscribed Assembly decrees datable to before ca. 454 BC were mostly of a religious character and were either erected in locations away from the Acropolis, or in the case of IG I³ 4, related specifically to the Acropolis. The concern of our decree with the public treasury, located on the Acropolis, may help explain why it was erected there, and more broadly the inscribing of the decree on the Acropolis will have been intended to endow its provisions with solemn divine sanction. The emphasis on accountability (before gods and men), as in our l. 8 (if correctly restored), is a common feature of the early Athenian epigraphic habit; and the inscription foreshadows the preoccupation with Athenian overseas territorial interests apparent in the epigraphical record on the Acropolis after 454 BC. [2] Our text contains fewer speculative restorations than previous editions. With IG I³ Add., however, and not least because the arrangements made by the decree parallel those for other Athenian cleruchies, we accept the restoration of those on Salamis who are the subject of the decree as "cleruchs" (literally "allotment-holders"), κλερόχ]ος, l. 1, which was also made more likely by the publication of a new fragment containing the last two letters of the word by A. P. Matthaiou, Horos, 8-9, 1990-91 [1993], 9-13. The alternative Ἀθεναί]ος, “Athenians”, is contemplated by Taylor and the editors of Nomima, but seems to us to make less sense in context. The bulk of the decree (ll. 1-8) concerns the conditions applicable to members of the Salamis cleruchy. Lambert, ZPE 119, 1997, 85-106, at 101-2, interpreted the residence provision in l. 2 as permissive in character, noting that residence on Salamis could be regarded as reclusive behaviour (e.g. Dem. 44.10), though the Greek verb ἐᾶν can also be interpreted in a less permissive sense, "left to occupy" Salamis. The decree clarifies the continuing obligations on cleruchs to do military service and pay taxes at Athens, a very interesting, albeit frustratingly unspecific, early reference to the tax obligations of Athenian citizenship (cf. H. van Wees, Ships and Silver. Taxes and Tribute: a Fiscal History of Archaic Athens, 2013, who suggests, 92, that this is a reference to the occasional capital based tax, the eisphora, not explicitly attested until the Peloponnesian War; given the circumstances of this decree, however, taxes on trade, later attested at 2%, might be relevant). The decree restricts the capacity of the cleruchs to lease their allotments. L. 4 may have limited such leasing to family members (restoring, οἰκ[εῖος ἐ̃ι h]o [μισθόμενος, Wade-Gery) or have imposed a residence obligation on any lessees (though Meritt's restoration, οἰκ[ο̃σι καὶ h]ο[ι μισθόμενοι, makes little sense). In any case the concern seems to be to ensure the presence on the island of Athenian or Athenian-controlled manpower. Interestingly nothing is said about sale of allotments; it is possible that the allotments were regarded, initially at least, as inalienable in principle. The archon, ll. 8 and 11, is apparently the archon of Salamis, who in the fourth century was allotted to office (scil. from all Athenians), like the demarch of Piraeus, was responsible for organising the local Dionysia, had his name inscribed (at the head of official inscriptions?) on Salamis, and received expenses of a drachma a day (Ath. Pol. 54.8, 62.2, with ZPE 119, 1997, 98 n. 35). LL. 9-11 contain fragmentary provisions relating to the arming of cleruchs (as conventionally restored, that they are to supply their own arms up to a value of 30 drachmas, but this is uncertain), further evidence of the defensive context of the decree. It is notable, in this early decree, that fines are already required to be paid into “the public treasury” (to demosion, l. 7), rather than to a religiously designated fund, such as the treasury of Athena. Cf. L. J. Samons II, Empire of the Owl (2000), 54-70, who compares IG I³ 4, l. 8, and relates to this treasury the financial officials known by the archaic title, kolakretai, “collectors of hams”.

Added: 2 Jan 2019
Updated: 1 Aug 2022
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ID: AIO_1672