IGI3 515 Dedication by the prytany of Erechtheis

Dedication by the prytany of Erechtheis

IG I³ 515 Date: 408/407 BC

The prytany of Erechtheis dedicated (this) [to Athena], having been victorious in the archonship of Euktemon (408/7).^[1]

col. 1

Upper Lamptrai Timok[les] son of [Ti]mok(-) (5) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (10) . . . Up to 9 lines abraded

col. 2

Upper Agryle Endios Thokleides Kedoi (15) Thymoteles [P]antel[id]es Anagyrous uninscribed space uninscribed space (20) uninscribed space Euonymon [E]lpines Chair- Up to 4 lines abraded

col. 3

Lower Agryle (25) Klearchos Kephisia Eryxis Kephises uninscribed space (30) from Upper Pergase uninscribed space Lower Pergase uninscribed space Up to 7 lines broken

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References:

IG I³ 515 (Translated text) (IG Online) (PHI)

Raubitschek, Dedications 167

Agora XV 1 (PHI)

AIO Papers 9 515 sects. 1-3 (AIO Paper)

Humphreys, Kinship, 1216b

Translation by: Stephen Lambert, Salvatore Tufano

Monument type: Base

Inscription type: Dedication (prytany), Dedication (Athena)

Findspot: Acropolis (EM 6290)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] The prytany was the tribal contingent of 50 men who formed the Council’s executive committee for a tenth of the year in rotation, the order determined afresh by lot each year. This is the earliest in the long series of inscriptions commemorating honours awarded to the prytanies by the Council and People. Like other early examples, it was set up as a result of a competition for “best prytany” (compare the competition for “best speaker” on the Council, IG II³ 1, 306). Before ca. 320 BC it seems to have been customary for the victorious prytany to make a dedication like this one, usually erected in the sanctuary of the relevant tribal hero. It is not certain when the competition between prytanies began. For the suggestion that its origin was connected with the aftermath of the oligarchic revolution of 411 BC see Lambert, in W. Riess ed., Colloquia Attica III ... (Dys-)Funktionen einer Demokratie (2021), 118-120. The earliest dated example from the fourth-century democracy is IG II³ 4, 43, of 393/2 BC. From 357/6 BC onwards the dedications tend to refer to the crowning of the prytany by the Council and People, but continue sometimes to refer to the prytany's "victory" (latest dated reference to "victory", IG II³ 4, 86, of 327/6 BC). On these dedications see further, AIO Papers 9. In the fourth century BC they also commonly list one or more secretaries or other Council officials, see Agora XV 43, with notes.

For a list of all dedications and catalogues of the prytanies and of the whole Council and related inscriptions from before 307/6 BC see Draft AIO Paper.

In the Hellenistic period, it became customary for the prytany's term of office to be commemorated by monuments inscribed with relevant decrees of the Council and People and set up in front of the Council chamber, or later the prytanikon (= the tholos). The regular series of these decrees begins in 283/2 BC, with IG II³ 1, 880, but IG II³ 1, 417, of ca. 340-325, and Agora XV 58, of 305/4 BC, are earlier cases. These decrees no longer refer to the prytany's "victory" in a competition and there are years in which more than one prytany seems to have been honoured (on this see AIO Papers 9). On the Hellenistic decrees, see AIUK 4.2 no. 15, with notes, and on the post-Sullan decrees, see SEG 28.95 with notes.

The lists of councillors associated with these prytany dedications (and later, decrees), together with surviving rosters of the whole Council (on which see AIO 2776), are the principal evidence for the number of men sent to the Council annually by each deme, known as the deme's bouleutic quota (on individual demes see RO 46). These quotas apparently remained stable between about the end of the 5th cent. BC and the tribal reform of 307/6 BC, though there is no epigraphical evidence as to whether there were any changes in quotas in the century following Cleisthenes' reforms of 508 BC. On this dedication the prytany members (prytaneis, sing. prytanis) are listed by deme (but the demes are not arranged by trittys, the subdivision of the tribe used for some military and administrative purposes). Meritt and Traill note (on Agora XV 1) that, assuming all 14 demotics of Erechtheis were present, there is only space in the 3 surviving columns for 37 councillors; the list of names contains a number of uninscribed lines (the two names inscribed under the heading, Kephisia, in 27-28, appear to have been added later in such vacant spaces); and the number of men listed corresponds to the bouleutic quotas attested in the 4th cent. BC only in the case of Kedoi and Upper Agryle. It is not impossible that there was a fourth column of names, now lost, which accounted for the missing prytany members (thus Raubitschek), or that the Council was not fully manned at this stage in the Peloponnesian War; but it is very plausible that, as Meritt and Traill suppose, only those who contributed to the cost of the inscription had their names inscribed, and that this also accounts for the vacant lines (i.e. the space was only filled in when the councillor's contribution was received). Moreover the list of the whole Council, AIO 2776, which probably dates to about the same period as this prytany dedication, seems to imply that the bouleutic quotas in the last decade of the 5th cent. BC were the same as in the 4th cent. BC until 307/6. For privately funded Council and prytany dedications and honours at this period cf. IG II³ 4, 79 ; IG II³ 1, 360; IG II³ 1, 306, decree 5. 408/7 BC was the year of Alcibiades’ return to Athens, Xen. Hell. 1.4, and Assembly decrees of this year are extant which attest to his activity, see IG I³ 118 and 119. It is unclear, however, whether there is any connection between Alcibiades’ return and this monument (Bicknell, Studies in Athenian Politics and Genealogy, 1972, 13-14, suggested that the prytaneis who had opposed his return refused to allow their names to be included. On the omission of councillors on this list see also Humphreys).

The inscription is one of our earliest references to the "split demes" (Lamptrai, Agryle, and Pergase), along with Aristophanes, Amphiaraos F27 of 414 BC. It has sometimes been suggested that these indicate that the deme system was flexible enough to be modified in response to demographic change after Cleisthenes introduced the new tribes and demes in 508 BC. The fact that all six of the split demes of Erechtheis already exist at this early date suggests that, if any such modifications occurred, they had taken place before the end of the fifth century BC.

This inscription is on a round base which perhaps carried a statue of Athena. It was presumably set up originally in the Erechtheion complex, which also functioned as the tribal sanctuary of Erechtheus, and included the temple of Athena Polias. At the end of the first century BC, the block was recycled and reinscribed with IG II² 4136 [SDL].

Added: 13 Mar 2018
Updated: 25 Mar 2024
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ID: AIO_1333