Nomima II, 1B Regulations concerning the Herakleia at Marathon

Regulations concerning the Herakleia at Marathon

Nomima II, 1B Date: ca. 490–480 BC

The games-masters (athlothetas) shall put on the competitions (agona) in Marathon at the Herakleia.^[1] Thirty men shall oversee the competitions, (selected) from (5) those present (epidemom), three from each tribe. They shall undertake in the sanctuary jointly to arrange the contest in the best possible manner. They shall be not less than thirty years (10) old. These men shall swear in the sanctuary on the victims. Their chairman (epistates) [shall be] . . . ^[2]

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Greek text

References:

Nomima II, 1B (Translated text) (AIO)

IG I³ 3 (IG Online) (PHI)

SEG 34.1 (ll. 1-2) (PHI)

SEG 10.2

SEG 13.2

Immerwahr, Script, 106 no. 732

Koerner, Gesetzestexte 3

Tracy, Athenian Lettering, 19-21

Translation by: Stephen Lambert, Julian Schneider

Images: Aleshire - (1)

Monument type: Post

Inscription type: Decree (People)

Findspot: Marathon (near south edge of Marathon plain) (Marathon Museum BE 21 [former EM 13046])

Transliterations on Places on

[1] This inscription is on the back of IG I³ 2, q.v. for discussion. In contrast to the more archaic text format on the front, it is inscribed orthograde (horizontally left to right) and stoichedon. Our text follows IG, except that, with the editors of Nomima, we accept the amendment of ll. 1-2 by Vanderpool, in Studies . . . S. Dow, 295-96 (SEG 34.1). [2] The decree apparently establishes a competitive festival in honour of Herakles at Marathon (on the festival see Parker, Polytheism, 473). Though no source explicitly states it, it is generally assumed that the foundation commemorates the Athenian victory in the battle of Marathon in 490 BC, at which Herakles, Athena and Theseus were supposed to have appeared in support of the Athenians (cf. Plut. Thes. 35.8; Paus. 1.15.4, who reports the claim that the Marathonians were first among the Greeks to honour Herakles). If the text of the opening lines is correct, the overall administration of the festival is allocated to the “games-masters” (athlothetai), whom we encounter otherwise in later texts as a board of ten officials administering aspects of the Great Panathenaia (including the competitions), e.g. at Ath. Pol. 60, IG II³ 1, 1022. It is unclear how the athlothetai mentioned here relate to the Panathenaic ones and whether they are identifiable with the officials for whose appointment provision is made in ll. 3 ff. In any case, the festival managers provided for at 3ff. would seem to be analogous to the hieropoioi for the Hephaistia specified in IG I³ 82, or the epimeletai of the Great Amphiaraia honoured by IG II³ 1, 355. The appointment of three festival managers from each tribe (5-6) "from those present" (i.e. in the Assembly) confirms that the festival was not locally organized by the Marathonian Tetrapolis, but by the city as a whole. Consistently with this, there is no provision for the Herakleia in the sacrificial calendar of the Tetrapolis, SEG 50.168 (cf. Lambert, Individual and Collective, 152 n. 11). The implication is that this is an Assembly decree. It lacks a prescript, but, like some other early decrees, e.g. IG I³ 4, it may have included a resolution formula at the end. The Marathonian Herakleia were a major athletic festival attracting international competitors (Pind. Ol. 9.89 with schol., 13.110, Pyth. 8.79, musical component attested by a red-figure vase commemorating victory by a citharode at Marathon and other festivals, ARV² 1044.9 - see Beazley Archive, Attic Vase Inscriptions), and are probably to be restored among the quadrennial festivals listed at Ath. Pol. 54.7. For a monument inscribed with a victory dedication see IG I³ 1015bis.

Added: 2 Apr 2019
Updated: 2 Apr 2019
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