SEG 47.143a Assembly decree regarding a dispute on Lemnos

Assembly decree regarding a dispute on Lemnos

SEG 47.143a Date: ca. 30-10 BC (25/4-20/19 BC?)

Fragment a

[In the archonship of -, in the - prytany, of -], [for which . . . was the secretary . . .] [on the -th day of the prytany]. Assembly . . . [Of the presiding committee], - son of Dorotheos of - [was putting the vote and his fellow members of the presiding committee]. 5 [The People decided]. - son of -stos of [Piraeus or Pergase or Perithoidai proposed]: . . . ^[1] . . . by the People to write . . . . . . [in Myrina] the hoplite general . . . and the herald of the Areopagos Council, Pl- . . . [and the herald] of the Council and the People, Oinophilos . . . ^[2] 10 having come forward, presented a decree . . . . . . on Lemnos, unowned and public (plots of land?) . . . from Myrina, who have also come forward . . . . . . to them and release having been granted . . . both the public property for those - in Myrina . . . 15 to the previous registrations . . . the name not being included . . . (any?) affair before the agreement . . . having been in dispute or bearing liability . . . and fellow citizens about . . . 20 no pretext . . . in any way. For good fortune, the People shall decide . . . everything in the appeals . . . to Lemnos for the review . . . in the archonship of . . . 25 . . . to them . . .

Fragment b

. . . has fallen down . . . [in the year when] Herodes was general . . . ^[3] [in the year of] the archonship of - and [when - son of -] of Pallene was general . . . 30 having been given . . . in the year of the archonship of - and . . . and the decree about . . . no one having . . . of the People . . . 35 to be left in . . . . . . . . . . . . tenth . . . . . . just as also from . . . 40 imports owe . . . meetings of them . . . both in Lemnos and in Athens . . . those in the . . . being held . . . nor any private competitions . . . 45 in a month, it shall not be allowed to . . . . . . to be done, nor . . . beyond the aforementioned [law?] . . . so that also the People's . . . [may be?] . . . and clear, which [it bears?] towards the . . . 50 those in Myrina shall be inspired . . . of the agreement of the indictments . . . to inscribe this decree on a stone stele and to set it up on the Acropolis . . . ^[4] of the colony from the . . . . . . they mediated . . . and to praise the . . . 55 envoys: Kritias of Aphidna, Kleon of Alopeke, . . . of Phrearrhioi or Kytherros, Lampon of Lamptrai, Diogenes of Eitea, Theodoros of . . . -tos of Phegous, Telephanes of Oe, Herodoros of Acharnai . . . since they have completed the embassy, having made an agreement that is advantageous [for both Peoples], and to crown them with a foliage crown, and to invite 60 them to the common hearth of the city, and also to send . . . . . . [from the] city, Dionysios of Piraeus, so that, when these things have been accomplished, the People shall be seen to take care of matters of justice regarding their kin. The intact voting tokens, which were in favour of the proposed judgement coming into force (numbered) . . . . . . and 25, and the pierced tokens, which were not in favour: none.^[5]

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References:

SEG 47.143a (Translated text) (PHI)

IG II² 1058 (PHI)

IG II² 1051 (PHI)

SEG 24.141

Agora XVI 335 (PHI)

Schmalz 4

Roman Attica Project, Normative Texts no. 7 (RAP)

Translation by: Chris de Lisle

Images: Krateros - (1, 2)

Monument type: Stele

Inscription type: Decree (Council and People)

Original location: Acropolis

Fr. a - Findspot: Acropolis (west of Erechtheion) (EM 7617)
Fr. a - Findspot: Acropolis (west of Erechtheion) (EM 7618)
Fr. a - Findspot: Unknown (EM 5267)
Fr. b - Findspot: Acropolis (west slope) (EM 7614)
Fr. b - Findspot: Acropolis (west slope) (EM 7615)
Fr. b - Findspot: Acropolis (EM 7616)
Fr. b - Findspot: Agora (Church of the Holy Apostles) (EM 13448 = Ag. I 6691)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] This inscription and SEG 47.143b are fragmentary decrees of the Athenian People dealing with a dispute concerning Myrina, which with Hephaistia, was one of two Athenian cleruchies on the Aegean island of Lemnos. (There were also cleruchies on the islands, Imbros and Skyros; for an example of legislation impacting on all three islands in the 4th cent. BC see RO 26). On the Lemnian cleruchies, see AIUK 4.3A (BM), no. 7, which reaffirmed Athenian control of Lemnos ca. 145 BC, and AIUK 4.3A (BM), p. 51 n. 159 for a full listing of their decrees. The two decrees share formula, dimensions, have very similar lettering, and may have been inscribed on the same stele or on a pair of twin stelai. Prosopography suggests that they date to the decade after the Battle of Actium in 31 BC (see R. Kallet-Marx and R. S. Stroud, Chiron 27, 1997, 155-194; Athenian Onomasticon), when Augustus seems to have affirmed Athenian possession of its cleruchies. The presence of the herald Oinophilos in l. 9 probably dates this decree to the archonship of Apolexis (Schmalz; see n. 3), which fell between 24/3 and 20/19 BC (see IG II² 1025+1040 with note). This archonship is also mentioned in SEG 47.143b. The decree may belong to a set of reforms undertaken in that year (cf. Agora XVI 336 with note). On decrees of the Council and People in the period between the Sullan sack in 86 BC and the death of Augustus in AD 14, see I Rhamnous 423 with notes.

This decree affirms an agreement that had already been reached (ll. 14-15, 17), places an embargo on further conflict about the matter (ll. 15-21, perhaps 46-50), until (or following?) a final review (l. 23), and honours envoys from Athens for mediating (ll. 56-62). The Athenians had been trying to resolve the conflict for some time - the decree refers to actions by Athenian magistrates in at least three separate years (ll. 24-37). The other decree, SEG 47.143b, may record one of these earlier acts or a further intervention. The fragmentary state of the decrees means that the nature of the dispute is not clear. It concerns some ‘unowned and public’ things (adespotoi kai demosioi, l. 11), perhaps plots of land, something that has fallen down (l. 26), perhaps boundary stones, as well as (taxes on?) imports and perhaps debts (l. 40, perhaps SEG 47.143b, ll. 36-42), and 'private competitions' (agones, l. 44). SEG 47.143b refers to 'land of the same kind', perhaps being exchanged as part of a resolution (l. 7), but also to a ‘procession’ (l. 43). The conflict includes legal disputes with ‘fellow citizens’ (l. 18-19) and was eventually resolved in a manner 'advantageous for both Peoples' (SEG 47.143b, l. 64), but each decree mentions only a single party, 'those in Myrina' (ll. 14, 50 of this decree) and people 'living on Lemnos' (SEG 47.143b, l. 4). It may have been between Myrina and Hephaistia, the other cleruchy on Lemnos (Schmalz) or between Myrina and Athens (cf. l. 45, E. Culasso Gastaldi in E. Greco & E. Papi, Hephaestia 2000-2006, 2008, 287-90). The continued importance of Lemnos and the other cleruchies to Athens in this period is shown by the pains that the Athenians took to resolve the dispute and to publicise their action (Culasso Gastaldi 2008). This importance is also indicated by a series of bronze coins minted in Athens in this period, whose legends attribute them jointly to the Athenians and each of their cleruchies (J.H. Kroll, Arch. Delt. 27, 1972, 101-4). The Athenians may have feared that Augustus would confiscate the cleruchies if they did not resolve the matter (on Athens' fraught relations with Augustus, cf. Agora XVI 336) or it may have arisen as the Athenians re-established control over the island after Actium (Culasso Gastaldi Studi su Lemnos, 2020, 259-96, esp. 287-88). IG XII 8, 26b, a dedication of Hephaistia from the beginning of the first century AD in honour of the Areopagos for its excellence and benefactions might be connected with this dispute or a subsequent one. For earlier conflicts on Lemnos, all of which revolved around land and arose when Athens resumed control of the island after a break, see Agora XVI 41 (387/6 BC), Moretti, ISE 8 (307-304 BC), IG II³ 1, 884, and Culasso Gastaldi 2020, pp. 346-47 (after 281 BC). [2] The three posts named in ll. 7-9 were the pre-eminent magistrates of Athens throughout the Imperial period (cf. IG II² 3546). On the hoplite general, see IG II² 1990 with note. The position had oversight of Athens’ overseas possessions by the second century BC (cf. AIUK 4.3A (BM, Decrees) no. 7, ll. 31-33, 39; D. Geagan, Athenian Constitution, 1967, 27). If this inscription is correctly dated, then the hoplite general in this year was Antipatros of Phlya (see and AIUK 2 (BSA), no. 5 with notes with notes). On the herald of the Areopagos, see Geagan, pp. 57-60. This magistrate's rise to prominence reflects the increased importance of the Areopagos Council in the first century BC, (cf. Agora XVI 333). On the Herald of the Council and the People, see Geagan, pp. 104-106. Oinophilos is also attested in this role in SEG 32.137, ll. 23-30 (year of Apolexis). In the Classical and Hellenistic periods, the position was held for several years, but it switched to an annual tenure sometime in the Augustan period, so this decree may date to the same year (Schmalz). [3] This might be Herodes of Marathon, archon of 60/59 BC, general of 38/7 BC, and a tutor to Cicero (cf. IG II³ 4, 12), the earliest known ancestor of the second-century AD magnate Herodes Atticus (see AIUK 11 (Ashmolean), no. 15). He is one of several Athenians who rose to prominence in the first-century BC and whose descendants dominated Athens in the Imperial period (on the caesura in the Athenian elite after the Sullan sack, see [Lambert] in S. Aleshire and S. D. Lambert, ZPE 142, 2003, p. 86). [4] Kallet-Marx and Stroud (p. 173) note that most fragments of this inscription and SEG 47.143b were found at the west end of the Acropolis, as were many other inscriptions relating to Lemnos, and suggest that there was an area reserved for them there. [5] Some Greek cities regularly recorded the number of votes for and against a decree from the 4th century BC onwards (see P. J. Rhodes and D. Lewis, Decrees of the Greek States, 1997, pp. 59-60, 510-12), but this is very rare in Athens, until the Augustan period, when it occurs here and with similar phrasing in SEG 47.143b and IG II² 1035, as well as two decrees from later in the Imperial period (IG II² 2090, ll. 8-11, SEG 30.82) and two decrees of religious associations (IG II² 1343 and 1353). The vote is carried out by secret ballot, using voting discs (psephoi) – intact ones for ayes and pierced ones for noes (image on Wikimedia Commons). In the Classical democracy, this system was mostly encountered in the courts, since it was inefficient to use it for more than one or two votes in a session, and votes in the Assembly were usually by show of hands (cf. IG II² 1644, ll. 28-33, Hansen Athenian Democracy in the Age of Democracy, 147 and 202). Recorded Assembly votes in Athens and elsewhere are almost always unanimous, as here (IG II² 1035 is the only exception from Athens). This has been interpreted as evidence for the limited agency of the People or for the importance of consensus in ancient democracies (cf. M. Canevaro in Ancient Greek history and contemporary social science, 2018, 110-22).

Added: 12 Dec 2022
Updated: 5 Jul 2023
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