SEG 21.519 Decree of Acharnai on constructing altars for Ares and Athena Areia

Decree of Acharnai on constructing altars for Ares and Athena Areia

SEG 21.519 Date: ca. 335-325 BC

(1a)Gods. (1)In the priesthood of Leon. The Acharnians decided. Relief Kalliteles son of Stesias proposed: so that the altar may be constructed of Ares and Athena Areia as best as possible; since the god (5)responded that it was preferable and better for the deme of the Acharnians and the People of the Athenians to construct the altars of Ares and Athena Areia so that the Acharnians and the Athenians may conduct (10)their relations with the gods piously, the Acharnians shall decide, since the chosen men and the architects indicate the cost of construction, to declare for how much the demesmen decide to construct the (15)altars, so that nothing shall prevent them from being constructed before the sacrifice of the Areia; and so that the one who advanced the money may recover it . . . . . . ^[1]

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References:

SEG 21.519 (Translated text) (PHI)

SEG 34.104 (PHI)

Lawton 143

Tracy, ADT 125-6

Humphreys, Kinship, 1012-13

Translation by: Stephen Lambert

Images: Agora Excavations - (1, 2)

Monument type: Stele

Inscription type: Decree (Deme Acharnai)

Findspot: Menidi (= ancient Acharnai), with RO 88 (EFA I 6)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] Textual Note AIO's text follows SEG 21.519 (L. Robert, Études épigraphiques et philologiques, 1938, 293-6, with Rev. Phil. 13, 1939, 128 n. 4, and see also G. Daux, Charisterion ... K. Orlandon I, 1964, 87-90), with the addition of l. 1a, first noted by B. Holtzmann, BCH 96, 1972, 73-9 no. 1 (SEG 34.104).

Acharnai was much the largest Attic deme (Thuc. 2.19.2), whose 3,000 hoplites (which should perhaps be amended to "citizens", politai, Hornblower) at the start of the Peloponnesian War accounted for "a great part of the [Athenian] polis" (Thuc. 2.20.4). On demes in general see RO 46, with notes. For a recent overview of Acharnai, its archaeology and its members see Humphreys, Kinship, 1010-29; and for recent monograph treatments see M. Platonos-Yiota, Αχαρναί: Ιστορική και τοπογραφική επισκόπηση των αρχαίων Αχαρνών, των γειτονικών δήμων και των οχυρώσεων της Πάρνηθας (2004); D. L. Kellogg, Marathon Fighters and Men of Maple: Ancient Acharnai (2013) (SEG 63.2. App. 2 collects deme inscriptions, including the following not yet on AIO: IG II² 2491 + SEG 21.642; IG II² 2502 + SEG 21.643; SEG 19.181 and 182). It sent 22 councillors each year to the Council of 500 in the fourth century BC (though this number is attested only by IG II³ 4, 56), and accounted for 24 of the 56 ephebes enrolled by the tribe Oineis in 330/29 BC (Reinmuth, Ephebic Inscriptions 12). Like Aphidna, it was the only deme in its trittys (inland trittys of Oineis) and appears indeed to have accounted for more than a third of the councillors from its tribe (J. S. Traill, Demos and Trittys, 1986, 142-44, suggested that it contributed 6-7 of its councillors to the city trittys, but this is uncertain). It had a reputation in the 5th century BC for belligerence, apparent above all in its characterisation in Aristophanes' Acharnians (see especially 204-36). This is reflected in the cult in the deme of the god of war, Ares, his only known Attic place of worship before the Roman period, and for which this inscription and another (see below) are the principal evidence. In the Augustan period (if not before) Ares was also worshipped in the Athenian Agora (cf. Paus. 1.8.4), and at that time the "community" (koinon) of Acharnai (probably a group loosely based on the old deme) made a joint dedication there to Ares and Augustus, IG II³ 4, 242. Four other 4th-cent. BC decrees of Acharnai attest two other major deme cults, those of Athena Hippia and Dionysos. See IG II² 1206, 1207 and the two decrees, SEG 43.26. The fragmentary IG II² 1173 might also be a product of Acharnai. For a very fragmentary inscription (no word completely preserved), possibly a 4th cent. decree of Acharnai relating to leases, see Agora XIX L5 with Humphreys, Kinship, 1011. For a relief from Menidi depicting the Demos of Acharnai (?) crowning a man, perhaps from an honorific decree of Acharnai of ca. 320s BC (no lettering preserved), see Lawton, no. 147, cf. Humphreys, 1012. For choregic dedications relating to the Rural Dionysia at Acharnai see IG II³ 4, 500, 510, and 515. On the Rural Dionysia in general see IG II³ 4, 498, with notes. See also the dedications from Acharnai by a komarch, IG II³ 4, 234, and by someone who had been honoured by the People and his tribe and deme, IG II³ 4, 239.

This decree of the deme Acharnai is one of two roughly contemporary inscriptions of that deme, found together (precise findspot unknown), and relating to the cult of Ares and Athena Areia. This one, passed in the priesthood of Leon, provides for the construction of altars; RO 88, strictly a dedication of the priest Dion son son of Dion, rather than a decree, is inscribed with the ephebic oath and the "oath of Plataia". Both inscriptions are decorated with relief sculpture, this one depicting Athena crowning a figure in military dress in the same scale, identifiable as Ares (see Lawton). The proposer of our decree is plausibly identifiable with the Kalliteles who was a councillor for Acharnai in 360/59 BC, IG II³ 4, 56, l. 56, and this, together with early judgements based on the letter forms and the stylistic dating of the reliefs, led the first generation of scholars that worked on these inscriptions to date them both to "mid-iv BC" (followed also by Rhodes and Osborne). The date of the lettering, however, was crucially clarified in 1995 by Tracy's attribution of our decree to the "Cutter of EM 12807", whose output dates to 334/3-314/3 BC (see his ADT 125-6 for a summary of datings of this decree proposed by earlier scholars), and in the same year C. Lawton published her authoritative analysis of the relief sculpture, dating it to the third quarter of the 4th cent. BC (cf. M. Meyer, Urkundenreliefs, 1989, no. A137 had suggested ca. 320 BC). The indications are, therefore, that both inscriptions are Lykourgan in date (late 330s to early 320s), which, as Tracy pointed out, is consistent with the many other measures that were taken in this period to promote the cults of Athens and Attica. More specifically, the attention focussed on the cult of the god of War is highly appropriate in the aftermath of Athens' decisive defeat by Philip and Alexander at Chaironeia in 338 BC; cf. the similarly motivated attention directed to the cult of Athena Nike in these years, IG II³ 1, 444, with notes. Moreover, the introduction or wholesale restructuring of the ephebate ca. 335 BC (see RO 89) supplies an obvious context for the inscribing of the ephebic oath. A Lykourgan date is also supported by Humphreys, Kinship, 1012, who points out that inscribing the oath of Plataia, with its Panhellenic/anti-Persian connotations, would suit particularly well the context of Philip II's project of a Persian invasion (for allusion to the "Theban" version of the oath at a meeting of the League of Corinth in 335 BC see Justin 11.3.10). The two inscriptions do not belong in the same year as they were passed under different priests. Most likely our decree preceded by a year or two the dedication of the military oaths, which might plausibly have been envisaged as being sworn in the context of rites at the newly constructed altar (the ephebic oath by participants in the newly constituted ephebate, the oath of Plataia by Athenian contingents in Philip's invasion force?).

A notable feature of this decree is that the decision to construct the altar is presented as a matter of concern to the polis as a whole as well as to the deme Acharnai (6-7, 9). Moreover consultation of the Delphic oracle on matters relating to cult and divine property is commonly a feature of Assembly decrees (e.g. IG I³ 7, IG II³ 1, 292, IG II³ 1, 445, an Assembly decision is also implied by IG II³ 4, 1768), but is unusual in deme decrees. What involvement the central polis actually had in the matter, however, is unclear. It may well be relevant that this is the only known Attic cult of Ares at this period, and as such it might plausibly have been thought to have polis-wide significance. On the other hand there is no other indication that this was a "state cult" rather than simply a deme cult which was, or aspired to, be of interest to Athenians outside Acharnai (on the various features that might qualify a cult as a "state" cult see Lambert, Historia 59, 2010, 143-75; "state" cults in the demes, 164-9). Older polis cults (perhaps those created before Pericles' Citizenship Law in 451 BC) were served by priests appointed from genē who held office for life, but generally we are in the dark about the mechanisms of appointment to priesthoods in the demes, and although the two priests attested by this inscription and RO 88 appear to have been closely related (the family link is established by Leon son of Dion, epimeletes of the Acharnian Rural Dionysia in SEG 43.26), in a manner consistent with appointment from and by a genos, such a relationship is also consistent with appointment from and by the deme, and the dating of our closely contemporary inscriptions by (two different) priests is suggestive of annual tenure rather than the life tenure that would be expected of a genos priest.

Added: 19 Jul 2022
Updated: 7 May 2023
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