IGI3 1023 Herm marking mid-point between Athens and Kephale

Herm marking mid-point between Athens and Kephale

IG I³ 1023 Date: ca. 525-514 BC

(1)At the mid-point of Kephale and the city, splendid Hermes. [This (is) a monument of Hipparchos. Moral maxim.]^[1]

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Greek text

References:

IG I³ 1023 (Translated text) (IG Online) (PHI)

SEG 10.345 (PHI)

SEG 35.28

SEG 36.42

CEG 1, no. 304

Translation by: Stephen Lambert, Julia Ortseifen

Monument type: Herm

Inscription type: Statue bases and herms

Findspot: Koropi (Brauron Museum BE 2867)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] In the (Pseudo-)Platonic dialogue, Hipparchos, Socrates praises Hipparchos, son of the 6th-century tyrant, Peisistratos, and brother of Peisistratos' successor, Hippias, for his contributions to the educational and cultural life of Athens. These include the erection of herms, each located halfway between Athens and one of the Attic "demes". At 229a the dialogue reports the couplet inscribed on the herms, the first, hexameter, line of which corresponds with the line of text on our inscription, which would seem therefore to be a Hipparchan herm (the only one that survives). The first half of the second, pentameter, line can be restored on the basis of the description given in the Hipparchos, which also implies that the second half of the line contained a gnomic maxim, e.g. "Pass by, thinking just thoughts".

The monument was originally of quadrangular shape with a head (of Hermes), arms and phallos, but the shaft has been divided in half and reused in construction of a chapel and all the body parts are lost, together with the second line of the text (see J. Kirchner and S. Dow, Ath. Mitt. 62, 1937, 1-3, who rediscovered the inscription at a School in Koursala = Koropi. It had been recorded in "Koursala" by the Abbé Fourmont in 1729/30. On this place cf. IG II² 2394, with notes). Apparently this findspot, close to Sphettos (and the major route, the "Sphettian Road"), which is approximately at the mid-point of Kephale and the city of Athens, was not far from the herm's original location. On Sphettos see SEG 36.187, with notes, on Kephale, IG II³ 4, 498, with notes. The Hipparchan herms are among the evidence that named local communities later to be designated "demes" existed already before Cleisthenes gave them a formal role in the city's tribal organisation. On demes in general see RO 46; for "demes" before Cleisthenes, cf. e.g. the dedication by the Sounians, IG I³ 1024; "Myron of Phlya", IG II² 2670, with notes; figures connected with early drama said to be from Ikarion, IG I³ 1015, with notes; Whitehead, Demes (1986), 14-15, with bibliography at n. 40.

Hipparchos was famously assassinated by Harmodios and Aristogeiton in 514 BC, an act which heralded the end of the tyranny. On this and the statues and later mythical reputation of the "tyrannicides" see IG I³ 502 with notes.

The purpose of these herms has been debated. Apart from their practical utility to travellers and the educational intention of the moral maxims, they have commonly been connected with the establishment by the younger Peisistratos of the altar of the Twelve Gods at Athens, marking the central point from which distances were measured to places in Attica (Thuc. 6.54.6, Hdt. 2.7.1, IG I³ 1092bis). Altar and herms together have been interpreted as a unifying measure at a period when regional divisions in Attica were a cause of internal conflict. Most recently R. Osborne, Oxford History of Archaic Greek World II. Athens and Attica (2023), 261-2, emphasises the religious aspect of these monuments to Hermes, seeing them and the altar of the Twelve Gods as concerned with "the divine mapping out of Attica" (cf. Parker, Athenian Religion, 1996, 80-83), while B. M. Lavelle, EMC 3, 1985, 411-20 (= SEG 35.28), emphasizes that Hipparchos used the herms to promote himself, to increase his notability in rural Attica and to single himself out from the other Peisistratids. H. Wrede, Die antike Herme, 1985, 5-8 (= SEG 36.42), discusses the emergence of herms, gives a detailled description of this example and an interpretation of Hipparchos' motives for setting them up. This is the earliest surviving datable example of a genre of monument that was later regarded as distinctively Attic. For references to later herms included on AIO, see Browse s.v. herm; cf. IG I³ 421, 425, 426.

Added: 1 Nov 2024
Updated: 3 Nov 2024
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ID: AIO_3074