AIO 1191 Honours for foreigners who had supported democracy against the Thirty, 401/0 BC

Honours for foreigners who had supported democracy against the Thirty, 401/0 BC

AIO 1191 Date: 401/0 BC

Face A (front)

^[1] Lysiades was secretary. [Xenainet]os was archon (401/0). [The Council and People decided. Hippothontis^VIII] was the prytany; Lysiades was secretary; Demophilos was chairman. - proposed: in order that the foreigners (xenoi) who joined in coming down from Phyle or . . . with those that had come down . . . (5) . . . it shall be resolved by the Athenians that they and their descendants shall have . . . . . . and the officials shall use the same laws in relation to them [as for other Athenians ?] . . . joined in the battle (sunemachesanto) at Mounichia, and - the . . . . . . when the reconciliation occurred, and did what they were instructed . . . pledge or betrothal (egguēsin),^[3] as for Athenians; and the . . . (10) . . .

col. 3

^[2] . . . . . . -, tanner -, shopkeeper (15) -, nut seller -, barley-groat seller -orios, sailmaker -on, leather worker -rmo-n, sackclothier (20) Sokrates, table maker Sosibios, shoe seller Hermon, shopkeeper Gerys, green grocer Blepon, table [maker] (25) Apollonides, - . . .

col. 4

-, farmer [Leontis?^IV] -, onion seller (30) -os, cartwright . . . . . . . . . [Apollodoros, fuller?] (35) . . . . . . . . . . . . -on, shopkeeper (40) . . . -, farmer -les, metalworker -ion, fisherman -chos, wool seller (45) -ippos, gold[smith?] -istratos, grain [merchant?] -rias, fuller -ias, incense [seller?] -as, spear [maker?] (50) -ippos, . . . . . . . . . -os, barley-groat [seller] -, assherd (55) -nos, saw[yer? or seller or maker] - barley-groat [seller] . . .

Face B (back)

col. 5

-s, farmer -agoras, - (60) -otas, - . . . . . . K[ekropis?^VII] . . . (65) . . . -, merchant . . . -, shopkeeper -, tiler (?) (70) -des, herald -s, leather worker -ar, -, hired labourer

col. 6

Chairedemos, farmer (75) Leptines, butcher/cook Demetrios, carpenter Euphorion, muleteer Kephisodoros, builder Hegesias, gardener (80) Epameinon, ass-herd -opos, olive seller Glaukias, farmer -n, nut [seller?] Dionysios, farmer

(85) Lines missing

Aristo-, - Dexios, - Charon, - Herakleides, - (90) Epigenes, - Glaukias, - Antidotos, - Dikaios, - Andreas, porter (95) Sosibios, - Phanos, porter Glaukias, - Astyages, hired labourer Dexandrides, - (100) Sotairides, - Sota-, - Pamphilos, - Krithon, - Korinthiades, - (105) Knips, farmer The following remained with the People in Piraeus Erechtheis^I Abdes, baker (110) Aristoteles, - Idyes, shopkeeper

Lines missing

Chairis, fig-seller

col. 7

Bendiphanes, - Emporion, farmer (115) Paidikos, baker Sosias, fuller Psammis, farmer Egersis . . . (120) Eukolion, hired labourer Kallias, sculptor Aigeis^II Athenogiton, -^[4]

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Greek text

References:

AIO 1191 (Translated text) (AIO)

IG II² 10 (PHI)

IG II² 2403 (PHI)

SEG 44.34 (PHI)

Syll.³ 120

Osborne, Naturalization, D6

RO 4

Matthaiou, Grammateion 2012, 13-14 (l. 7) (Grammateion)

Axon 174 (Axon)

Translation by: Stephen Lambert, P. J. Rhodes

Images: Agora Excavations - (1)
Aleshire - (1, 2)
Krateros - (1, 2, 3)
Ohio - (1)

Monument type: Stele

Inscription type: Decree (Council and People)

Fragment a - Findspot: Acropolis (EM 8147)
Fragment d - Findspot: Unknown, formerly in Piraeus museum (Lost)
Fragment e - Findspot: Agora (Ag. I 6106)
Fragments b-c - Findspot: Aigina (EM 13103)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] In 404/3 Thrasyboulos of Steiria set out from Thebes with about 70 supporters and occupied Phyle, in the north-west corner of Attica, intent on resisting the junta known as the Thirty which had taken power in Athens with Spartan support after Athens’ defeat in the Peloponnesian War (Xen. Hell. 2.4.2). Further supporters joined him and when their numbers reached ca. 1000 he moved to the Piraeus, occupied Mounichia hill and defeated the oligarchs in a battle. Still more supporters joined him, and eventually a reconciliation agreement was reached with the Thirty and, following Spartan mediation, democracy was restored. Malouchou 2010-2013 honoured the Athenians who from the start had supported Thrasyboulos. This decree (our text of which does not reproduce the speculative restorations of previous editions), passed in the same year, honoured foreign supporters. The surviving text appears to deal separately with those who came down from Phyle (l. 4, i.e. early supporters) and those who fought at Mounichia (l. 7, which would have included later adherents) and a preserved heading in the sketchily preserved catalogue of honorands appended to the decree names “those who remained with the People in the Piraeus”, apparently a third category. It is impossible to be certain whether these all received citizenship (as argued by D. Whitehead, LCM 9, 1984, 8-10), or the earliest supporters received citizenship and later adherents lesser privileges, most likely isoteleia (equality of taxation with Athenians, as argued by M. Osborne), or even if none at all received citizenship. At Xen. Hell. 2.4.25 after the battle of Mounichia the democrats promised isoteleia to foreigners who would join them, and funerary monuments for isoteleis named Dexandrides (col. 6, 99, IG II² 7864 with SEG 18.112) and Gerys (col. 3, 23, IG II² 7863) survive. On the other hand, Ath. Pol. 40.2 has Thrasyboulos propose, and Archinos attack as illegal (graphē paranomōn) an award of citizenship to all who joined in the return from Piraeus. [Plut.] Lives of the Ten Orators 835f-836a may or may not be referring to the same proposal in claiming that Archinos successfully attacked a proposal by Thrasyboulos to grant Lysias citizenship. [2] The reconstruction of the catalogue of names is at various points uncertain, but it seems to have been divided into categories of supporters and by tribe (consistent with, but not necessarily implying, award of citizenship. Normally new citizens would be assigned to demes, but an exception may have been made for this mass grant, as apparently for the Samians enfranchised by IG II² 1, l. 34). The list is evidence for the extent of grass-roots support for democracy among the foreign population of Athens, though how far this was ideologically driven, or reflected solidarity with those (largely it seems wealthy) metics who were targeted by the Thirty (including Lysias’ brother), or was opportunistic, is impossible to say. Certainly the decision to list men in this way, by their mostly humble trades, looks self-consciously "democratic" in social class terms, emphasising the ordinariness of these supporters of democracy, not at all the elite individuals who are usually the honorands of decrees. Note the derogatory remark of Ath. Pol. 40.2 (no supporter of democracy) that some of those who returned from the Piraeus were “palpably slaves”. Whether any of those listed here were actually slaves before “striking lucky” in this way, we do not know, but we would expect some of those listed to be freedmen. Some of the names are not Greek (e.g. Abdes, col. 6, 109, Semitic; Gerys, col. 3, 23, Thracian; Idyes, col. 6, 111, Carian?; Psammis, col. 7, 117, Egyptian), and while these may suggest servile origins, it is possible that some of them were free-born foreigners. On this and in general on Athenian slave names see K. Vlassopoulos, ZPE 175, 2010, 113-44. Bendiphanes (col. 7, l. 113) was named for the goddess Bendis, a Thracian deity whose cult had been introduced to Attica by about the 430s (cf. IG I³ 136), but it is possible that this person was a foreigner (Thracian?) named before or independently of the Attic cult (cf. R. Parker, in Hornblower and Matthews eds., Greek Personal Names. Their Value as Evidence, 52-79, at 77-78). The list is also valuable evidence for the range of artisanal trades filled by foreigners at Athens at the end of the 5th century (for foreigners in building trades, cf. IG I³ 476 with notes; in naval service, IG I³ 1032. For artisanal trades in the fourth-century manumission inscriptions see Meyer, Metics, no. 1. In general on specialisation of trades, E. M. Harris, in P. Cartledge et al., Money, Labour and Land, 2002, 67-99, updated now by D. M. Lewis, in E. Stewart, E. M. Harris, D. M. Lewis eds., Skilled Labour and Professionalism in Ancient Greece and Rome, 2020, 129-74). Note that some of the translations are not precise, as e.g. “farmers” may include agricultural workers, “shopkeepers” workers in shops or taverns, and that with some trades (e.g. “baker”, “green grocer”, “shoe seller”) it is not clear (in some cases because of abbreviation) whether those described are producers or merely sellers. And it seems from Antiphanes F150 K-A (ap. Athen. Deip. 4.170 d-e) that a trapezopoios, literally "table-maker" (ll. 20 and 24), was not a maker of tables, but a kind of hired waiter. [3] Perhaps “betrothal” mentioned in the context of a grant of the right to intermarry with citizens, but possibly another kind of pledge or promise. [4] The distribution of the findspots of the fragments is a little odd, and one wonders whether they belong to separate copies of this monument erected on the acropolis (fr. a and e) and in the Piraeus (fr. b, c, d).

Added: 10 Jan 2017
Updated: 1 Aug 2022
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ID: AIO_1191