AIO 1707 Fragmentary regulations from Marathon

Fragmentary regulations from Marathon

AIO 1707 Date: ca. 500 BC ?

. . . Council (?)^[1] . . . . . . willingly (?) (hekon-) . . . . . . and judgement shall be issued (?) (gnosthei) . . . uncontrived (atechnos), not . . . [nowhere] (5) else at all . . . they require to prosecute (chinchanen) . . . to adjudge . . . was adjudged . . . [when] Arcturus rises . . . (10) turn, let it be sacred (?) . . . . . . the filth and . . . four obols . . . more than fifty . . . ^[2] Four lines lost

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Greek text

References:

AIO 1707 (Translated text) (AIO)

IG I³ 2 (IG Online) (PHI)

SEG 10.2a

Koerner, Gesetzestexte 2

Tracy, Athenian Lettering, 19–21

Meyer, Origins, 359

Nomima II, 1A

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 [formerly EM 13046])

Transliterations on Places on

[1] This text is inscribed on one side of the stone which has IG I³ 3 on its other side. The early form of the letters, the script running vertically downwards (not stoichedon) on a "post" (resembling IG I³ 1, cf. Meyer), and the indications that it pre-dates the more firmly datable IG I³ 3, suggest a date ca. 500 BC (good photographs in the first edition, E. Vanderpool, Hesperia 11, 1942, 329–37). Probably only around a quarter of each line is preserved, making it impossible to establish a continuous sense. Greek text: IG followed the first edition, except in l. 3 (Peek, SEG 10) and ll. 8-9. In l. 8 we suggest τὲν λογ̣[- (λο/ IG, λογ[είαν] or λόγ[χεν] ? Peek), and in l. 10 hιε̣[ρ- (hι|// IG, hιε[ρ- SEG 10); and we wonder if βολ- (l. 1) is a reference to the Council in a heading or prescript, cf. IG I³ 1, l. 12 (τὸ]ν̣ βολ[όμενον Vanderpool, "whoever wishes", is also possible). Findspot: in the south of the plain of Marathon, near modern Valaria (cf. Vanderpool, AJA 70, 1966, 322-23), close to IG I³ 1015bis, which apparently commemorates an athletic victory in the Herakleia festival established by IG I³ 3. A. P. Matthaiou, in P. Derow and R. Parker eds., Herodotus and his World (2003), 190-94 (SEG 51.48) takes this to be close to the site of the Herakleion by which the Athenians camped before the battle of Marathon in 490 BC (Hdt. 6.108 and 116). P. Fromherz, Historia 60, 2011, 383-412 (SEG 61.43) is sceptical, pointing out that both stones had been reworked for secondary use and may have been transported some distance to their findspots. On the cultic topography of this area see also A. Doronzio, Orbis Terrarum 11, 2012/13, 91-104. The Herakleion is also mentioned in the fourth-century sacrificial calendar of the Marathonian Tetrapolis, SEG 50.168, A19, perhaps as a location of written sources of authority for sacrifices. On any account it was clearly one of the major sanctuaries of the Tetrapolis region. [2] The text makes provision for legal processes, using archaic legal terminology. The phrase ἄλλοθ]|[ι] δὲ μεδὲ hαμο͂ (4-5) occurs also in IG I³ 10, l. 11. κιγχάνειν (6) is glossed by Phot. and Suid. as Solonian language for “initiate a prosecution” (ἐπεξιέναι). And at ll. 8-9 there is reference to the rising of the star Arcturus, a point in the agricultural calendar, 60 days after the winter solstice (i.e. ca. late-February), recommended by Hesiod, Works and Days, 564-67, as the time to prune vines. (That is the evening rising. There is also a morning rising in ca. mid-September). τρέπεν (10) might also have a calendrical sense, cf. μετὰ τροπὰς ἠελίοιο, “after the turn of the sun”, i.e. the solstice, Hesiod, Works and Days, 564. For further discussion of the legal terminology see Nomima. Vanderpool suggested a connection with a putative Cleisthenic or shortly post-Cleisthenic abolition of the board of 30 “circuit” judges appointed by Peisistratos to travel around Attica settling local disputes (Ath. Pol. 16.5; reinstituted in 453/2, 26.3), and the establishment of independent local systems of justice, administered by the demes; but this cannot be at all certain given the highly fragmentary nature of the text. We might alternatively have to do with a set of cultic regulations (specific to the Herakleion/Tetrapolis region?) linked to the agricultural calendar, perhaps involving monetary penalties, but unconnected with any systematic change in the local administration of justice. For τ’ἀσυρῆ, “filth” or “refuse” (11), see LSJ Suppl. s.v. ἀσυρής, and compare the restrictions on disposal of animal waste (ὄνθος) on the Acropolis at IG I³ 4, B11.

Added: 2 Apr 2019
Updated: 24 May 2022
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ID: AIO_1707