SEG 63.155 Boundary marker of land belonging to Dionysos (Pallene)

Boundary marker of land belonging to Dionysos (Pallene)

SEG 63.155 Date: ca. 425-375 BC

ὅρος χωρίο τῶι Δι- ονύσω- (5)[ι].

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Translated text

References:

SEG 63.155 (Translated text) (AIO)

SEG 57.162

Translation by: Stephen Lambert

Monument type: Horos

Inscription type: Boundary marker

Findspot: Glyka Nera (Liontari, near road leading from Hymettos to Raphina) (Brauron Museum BE 3985)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] Textual Note. First edited by O. Kakavogianni, Arch. Delt. 56-59, 2001-2004, B1 [2010], 320 (= SEG 57.162), AIO follows the improved text of K. Takeuchi, Horos 22-25, 2010-2013, 101-2 no. 9 (= SEG 63.155).

This boundary marker (horos) of land (chorion) belonging to Dionysos, datable by letter forms and orthography to ca. 425-375 BC (Takeuchi), was found in the territory of Pallene, a medium-sized deme of Antiochis in the valley between Hymettos and Pentelikon (bouleutic quota 6-7), on the main ancient road from Athens to the Mesogaia. As Csapo and Wilson II, p. 6, observe, this points to a cult of the god in this deme by the late-5th century BC, possibly to be connected with a local celebration of the Rural Dionysia (on which cf. IG II³ 4, 498, with notes).

The deme is known primarily for its temple of Athena Pallenis, the foundations of which have been identified near the church of Agios Athanasios. The earliest temple on the site is datable to the mid-sixth century BC and may have been built to commemorate the victory of Peisistratos over his opponents, though offerings there go back to the seventh century BC. On the archaeology and prosopography of the deme see Humphreys, Kinship, 1191-94. On demes in general, RO 46. There are no extant decrees of Pallene and this horos is the only inscription that may have been produced by the deme. The cult of Athena Pallenis appears to have been organised by a local association, one of whose four archons was apparently supplied by each of the demes Gargettos, Acharnai, Pallene, and Paiania. The archons in turn recruited "parasites" "from the demes". Its operations are illuminated, albeit obliquely, by "king's laws" (i.e. laws of the archon basileus), which are preserved by Athenaios 6.234d-235d, and which appear to be 5th-century reworkings of earlier originals, and by a 4th-century BC inscription listing its functionaries, G. R. Stanton, ABSA 79, 1984, 292-98 (= SEG 34.157). For a summary, see R. Parker, Athenian Religion (1996), 330-31.

In the Augustan period the structure was one of the "itinerant temples" relocated from the hinterland to the Athenian Agora, becoming the temple of Ares (cf. Paus. 1.8.4; IG II² 1072, l. 5; C. P. Dickenson, On the Agora, 2017, 276 with further references).

Added: 20 May 2023
Updated: 20 May 2023
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ID: AIO_2673