IGII2 1174 Decree of Halai Aixonides prescribing an audit procedure, 368/7 BC

Decree of Halai Aixonides prescribing an audit procedure, 368/7 BC

IG II² 1174 Date: 368/7 BC

Euthemon^[1] proposed: in order that the common resources (koina) may be secured for the demesmen, and that the demarchs and treasurers may render accounts (euthunas), the demesmen shall decide, that the demarchs (5) and the treasurers shall deposit the account of the receipts (lēmmatōn) and expenses into the box (kibōton) each month, since those of the archonship of Nausigenes (368/7) are also themselves voluntarily depositing the account each (10) month; and shall render their accounts for the last year before the month of Metageitnion, from the accounts from the box (kibōtou), and not from other accounts; and to stand a stele in the agora, having inscribed this (15) decree (on it); and the demarch shall administer an oath to the auditor (euthunon) and his deputies in accordance with the decree inscribed in the agora; and if . . . and they do not perform the audit in accordance with (20) this decree . . .

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References:

IG II² 1174 (Translated text) (PHI)

SEG 62.1877

SEG 56.25

Axon 516 (Axon)

Humphreys, Kinship, 1085

Russo, Ripartizioni, D42

Translation by: Stephen Lambert, Feyo Schuddeboom

Images: Louvre - (1)
Ohio - (1)

Monument type: Stele?

Inscription type: Decree (Deme Halai Aixonides)

Original location: Halai Aixonides (Agora)

Findspot: Voula (Aliki promontory) (Louvre Ma 845)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] On demes in general and on the inscriptions of the deme Halai Aixonides see RO 46, with notes. Accountability of officials to the collective was a key feature of democratic ideology (cf. Hdt. 3.80.6) and it is a preoccupation at Athens not only at city level but also in the demes, apparent in what is perhaps the earliest deme decree, IG I³ 244 (Skambonidai), ca. 475-450 BC. A century later our decree shows the deme Halai Aixonides tightening its procedure for the submission and auditing of accounts, euthynai, by the demarchs and treasurers in the deme, i.e. those deme officials who have financial responsibility. This is one of two deme decrees which sets out procedures for euthynai in some detail. The other is IG II² 1183 = RO 63 (ascribed by Rhodes and Osborne to Hagnous, but the earlier attribution to Myrrhinous has since been confirmed by new evidence, see SEG 63.156 with Csapo and Wilson II, 196). See also IG II² 1199 (Aixone), with notes, SEG 22.117 (Ikarion) and the discussion of Whitehead, Demes of Attica, 1986, 116-19 (cf. also P. Fröhlich, Les cités grecques et le contrôle des magistrats, 2004, 347; N. Jones, Rural Athens under the Democracy, 2004, 112-3, 115 = SEG 56.25). We do not know the precise circumstances, but a key innovation here is clearly the requirement for deposit of financial accounts into a box on a monthly basis, which the officials of 368/7 BC had been doing voluntarily, but which is now to become the norm. These monthly accounts are in turn to be the basis for the submission of the annual account after the end of the officials' annual term. This has to be done "before Metageitnion" (11), which was the second month of the year. In a decree of Ikarion honouring the demarch following successful completion of his euthynai we learn that he had submitted his accounts on the 10th Hekatombaion, the first month of the year, SEG 22.117, l. 4. The office of auditor (euthynos) is attested already in Skambonidai, IG I³ 244, Face B and is known in several other demes; paredroi (deputies) to the euthynoi are also attested in Thorikos, AIO 847, l. 57. In the decree, IG II² 1175, Halai took measures to tighten procedures following what appear to have been irregularities, but though it is clearly not distant in date from 1174, it is very fragmentary and not precisely dated and the sequence of events cannot be confidently reconstructed (most recently Humphreys, Kinship, 1085-6, suggests 1175 > 1174; Wilhelm, BCH 25, 1901, 93-104, cf. JÖAI 7, 105-26, had suggested 1175 > 1174). Euthemon, the proposer of this decree, is mentioned in IG II² 1175 and was also a senior member of the deme commission responsible for making a new statue of Aphrodite, IG II³ 4, 223, l. 7.

This decree was erected in the deme's agora (14. It has recently been excavated, Humphreys, 1085; for doubts about the identification, however, and discussion of the problems of identifying deme agoras see Russo, 83-5). We may assume this will have been the location of the audit procedures stipulated in the decree (cf. J. Ma, in J. Davies and J. Wilkes eds., Epigraphy and the Historical Sciences, 139-140 = SEG 62.1877, pointing to the analogous case, RO 25, where the Assayers of coinage are to sit in front of the stelai which specified their duties and powers, in the Athenian Agora and the Piraeus). For deme agoras cf. IG II² 1180, with notes. Other decrees of Halai Aixonides were set up in the deme's sanctuaries of Apollo Zoster and Aphrodite, cf. RO 46, with notes. [SDL]

Added: 12 Sep 2015
Updated: 24 Feb 2024
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