AIO 314 Decree about priestess and temple of Athena Nike

Decree about priestess and temple of Athena Nike

AIO 314 Date: c. 450 or c. 438 BC?

[The Council and People decided.?]^[1] . . . -kos proposed: [to install] a priestess for Athena Nike to be [allotted?] from all Athenian [women],^[2] (5) and that the sanctuary (hieron) be provided with gates in whatever way Kallikrates may specify; and the official sellers (poletas) are to place the contract within the prytany of Leontis; the priestess is to receive fifty drachmas and (10) to receive the backlegs and skins of the public sacrifices (demosion); and that a temple (neon) be built in whatever way Kallikrates may specify and a stone altar.^[3] Hestiaios proposed: that three men be selected (15) from the Council; and they shall make the specifications with Kallikrates and [show them to?] [the Council?] in accordance with [the contracts?] . . .

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Greek text

References:

AIO 314 (Translated text) (AIO)

IG I³ 35 (IG Online) (PHI)

SEG 67.22

ML 44

Fornara, Translated documents 93

Blok, Athena Nike, 1

OR 137

Translation by: Stephen Lambert, Josine Blok, Robin Osborne

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

Monument type: Stele

Inscription type: Decree (Council/People)

Findspot: Acropolis (North slope) (Acropolis Museum EM 8116)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] The cutting above this line suggests that another stone was fixed above it. We can only speculate what text, if any, was inscribed on it. One possibility is that it provided for the public sacrifices referred to in l. 10. [2] The cult of Athena Nike ("Victory") existed before (IG I³ 596 is an archaic altar), but now acquired a priestess for the first time. This is the earliest known polis priesthood at Athens to be appointed not from a genos but from all citizens of the relevant sex. Blok suggests a link with Pericles' Citizenship Law of 451 BC, which required all Athenians to have two citizen parents, raising the ordinary citizen in descent terms to the level of the genē that had traditionally supplied polis priesthoods. (It may be that the cult of Athena Nike had earlier been looked after by the priestess of Athena Polias, chosen from the genos Eteoboutadai, cf. IG II² 3453). The funerary monument of the first priestess is IG I³ 1330. [3] This decree is earlier than the one inscribed on the back of the same stone, IG I³ 36, datable probably to 424/3, but it is uncertain how much earlier. Perhaps (a) the decree was passed in or shortly after 450, after the end of regular warfare against Persia, and resulted in the installation of the new rectangular altar and small pi-shaped shrine (designed, it seems, to house the ancient wooden statue of Athena Nike, Harp. s.v. Nike Athena; Paus. 3.15.7; IG I³ 64 ll. 21–2) that the archaeological record attests at this period ("Stage III" of the site); or (b) the decree provides for the building of the later temple which occupies the site today ("Stage IV", cf. IG I³ 64). In that case it was probably passed shortly before the beginning of work on the Propylaia in 437 BC (with which "Stage IV" was structurally connected). Stage IV seems to have taken almost two decades to complete, with the building of the temple itself beginning only in the 420s. For the archaeology of the sanctuary see especially I. Mark, The Sanctuary of Athena Nike in Athens: Arhcitectural Stages and Chronology, Hesp. Suppl. 26 (1993); for more detail on the relationship of the archaeology to this decree see the notes in OR. For another discussion of the relative chronology of the two decrees and IG I³ 1330 see M. A. Valdés Guía, Gerión 35, 2017, 41-56 (= SEG 67.22).

For further discussion of this decree and priesthood see M. Laughy, Historia 67, 2018, 418-33 (SEG 68.29).

Added: 8 Oct 2013
Updated: 6 Aug 2024
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ID: AIO_314