IEleus 68 Honorific decree of deme Eleusis

Honorific decree of deme Eleusis

I Eleusis 68 Date: Mid-iv BC (?)

. . . [the demarch?] . . . [at the Dionysia] in Eleusis [at the] [tragedies that the deme] [Eleusis crowns] . . . (5) . . . [for his excellence and] [love of honour towards the deme] [Eleusis, and] he shall have [a seat of honour and] freedom from taxation in [the deme] Eleusis for himself (10) [and his descendants]; and [the demarch] shall inscribe this decree on a stone stele and stand it at the sanctuary of Demeter.^[1]

Crown

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References:

I Eleusis 68 (Translated text) (PHI)

Csapo and Wilson II, 92

Translation by: Stephen Lambert

Images: Cornell - (1)

Monument type: Stele

Inscription type: Decree (Deme Eleusis)

Original location: Eleusis (sanctuary of Demeter)

Findspot: Eleusis (Eleusis Museum E 892)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] On the Attic demes see RO 46, with notes. Eleusis is by some criteria epigraphically the most richly documented of all Attic demes. This is one of 12 extant inscribed decrees of the deme Eleusis alone, all of them dating to ca. 350-300 BC. The others are I Eleusis 70, 71, 72, 74, 80, 84, 85, 96, 99, 101, 189 (may be slightly later). Also from this period is RO 89, an ephebic dedication inscribed with decrees of Eleusis and other groups; an inscription recording the lease by the deme of a set of tenement-houses, I Eleusis 176; a dedication to Dionysos commemorating the crowning of four men by the deme, I Eleusis 79; and dedications from Eleusis by the ephebes of Kekropis, implying that they had served at and been honoured by the deme, IG II³ 4, 337; and from Rhamnous by the ephebes of Pandionis, implying that they had also served at, and been crowned by, the deme Eleusis, IG II³ 4, 342. Also from this period are: I Eleusis 175, a fragmentary sacrificial calendar from Eleusis, though it is uncertain whether it was issued by the deme; and a very fragmentary entry possibly for the deme Eleusis in the accounts of sales of public land by Attic demes and other groups, ca. 340-325 BC, Rationes Centesimarum stele 2, F 10B, 1-8.

Beween ca. 320 BC and ca. 230 BC the deme also inscribed decrees jointly with military units stationed at Eleusis. See I Eleusis 95. Also to this period belongs IG II³ 4, 281, a dedication commemorating the crowning of Demetrios of Phaleron the Younger by various groups, including military units, the Council and People, and the deme Eleusis; and the reference in a decree from Rhamnous to the crowning of the honorand's father by the deme Eleusis and Athenians stationed there, I Rhamnous 17, ll. 12-14.

I Eleusis 197, of 229-203 BC, is a decree not of the deme, but of Athenians resident in Eleusis and soldiers.

I Eleusis 229, of mid-ii BC, is inscribed with decrees both of the Athenian Assembly and the deme Eleusis.

Eleusis was much the largest deme in the coastal trittys of Hippothontis, sending perhaps 11 men to sit on the Council of 500 in the 4th century (on the quota, which is not directly attested, cf. Traill, Demos and Trittys (1986), 138, and Agora XV 43, 178-196, with notes). A dominant feature of the deme was that it hosted the most important sanctuary of Demeter and Kore in the Greek world and the associated festival of the Eleusinian Mysteries, the most significant Athenian contribution to the Greek religious experience (cf. AIUK 4.2 no. 1 and AIUK 4.2 no. 17). The deme Eleusis itself, however, played little or no role in their administration. Eleusis also occupied a strategic location on the western border of Attica, and its fortress, the soldiers stationed there and the generals headquartered there are a prominent feature of the local epigraphical record in the early Hellenistic period. Like its counterpart garrison-deme on the north-eastern coast of Attica, Rhamnous, Eleusis was also the site of one of the ten main Attic regional harbours at the coastal end of a wagon road: M. C. McHugh, ABSA 114, 2019, 207-40 (map), and D. M. Lewis, Pnyx 1, 2022, 81-101, at 90-94 (map); cf. e.g. IG I³ 994 with Lewis, 91 n. 40 (fishing); I Eleusis 193 (probable arrival of king Antigonos at Eleusis by boat).

For a recent discussion of the deme Eleusis, its inscriptions and prosopography, see Humphreys, Kinship, 1118-1128. On the well-attested Dionysia at Eleusis see I Eleusis 53, with notes (on the Attic Rural Dionysia in general, see IG II³ 4, 498). The most famous deme member is Aeschylus the tragedian (Humphreys, 1126). The island of Salamis was very close to Eleusis, and unsurprisingly there are attested connections between the deme and the island, see AIO 1672, with notes (Moirokles of Eleusis, "Salaminios"), Humphreys, 1123, 1128.

Clinton notes that this is a fairly typical ending of an honorific deme decree of Eleusis, except that, unusually, it is to be set up at the sanctuary of Demeter. The honorand perhaps had some special connection with the sanctuary (Clinton suggests that he might have been a military figure, like the honorand of I Eleusis 80).

Added: 15 Dec 2020
Updated: 15 Oct 2024
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