IGI3 507 Dedication commemorating institution of Great Panathenaia?

Dedication commemorating institution of Great Panathenaia?

IG I³ 507 Date: 566/5 BC (?)

Face A (front)

[They organised (epoiesan)] the race (dromon),^[1] [the religious officials? (hieropoioi)^[2] Kr?]ates, [Thras?]ykles, Aristodikos, Br[yson], Ante[nor?], [who] first arranged the contest (agona)^[3] for the (5) bright-eyed^[4] maiden.

Face B (back)

⟦-⟧^[5] Kinesias.

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References:

IG I³ 507 (Translated text) (PHI) (IG Online)

SEG 66.51

SEG 26.35

Raubitschek, Dedications 326

CEG 1, no. 434

Immerwahr, Script, 28 no. 102

Kaczko, Attic Dedicatory Epigrams, dubia 1

Translation by: Chris de Lisle, Salvatore Tufano

Images: Ohio - (1)

Monument type: Post

Inscription type: Dedication (religious officials (hieropoioi)?), Dedication (Athena?)

Fragment a - Findspot: Acropolis (EM 6212)
Fragment b - Findspot: Acropolis (EM 6225)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] Alternatively “they made the race-track”. The same expression occurs in IG I³ 508 and IG I³ 991, l. 3, showing that the reference is not on any account to a permanent structure. The evidence that the Panathenaic Way, which (later?) ran from the Precinct of the Twelve Gods to the Eleusinion (Xenophon, Hipparchikos 3.2) was called the dromos in ancient times is very shaky (Himerios Or. 47.12; Miller, in Hansen, Sources for the Ancient Greek City-State, 1995, 216-18). [2] Hieropoioi (“religious officials”, literally “doers of rites”) is tentatively restored here on the basis of IG I³ 508 l. 7, though five seems an irregular number for an official board at this period. Later the competitions at the quadrennial Great Panathenaia were organised by a board known as “games-masters” (athlothetai), while hieropoioi were responsible for the sacrifices at the Panathenaia which took place every year (the “Little Panathenaia”). [3] An early date for this inscription is clear from the use of poros stone rather than marble, the direction of the writing (up and down and down and up in alternate lines), the use of qoppa (an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet that was not normally used in classical Athens), the letter forms (tall, narrow letters of uneven height, epsilon with tail, alpha with slanting bar), and the fact that fragment a was found (in a secondary context) with material that pre-dated the Persian destruction of the Acropolis in 480 BC. From this wording it would seem that this dedication may have commemorated the founding of the Great Panathenaia, conventionally dated to the archonship of Hippokleides (566/5 BC, Pherekydes FGrH 3 F2; ascribed to Peisistratos by schol. Aristid. Panath. 1.362). Depictions of contests on the so-called “Pro-Panathenaic” amphoras might indicate that a form of gymnastic contest existed before the institution of the Great Panathenaia (for doubts, however, see D. G. Kyle, Athletics in Ancient Athens, 1993², 22-24). [4] This Homeric epithet refers to Athena. Lines 4-5 form a hexameter verse. [5] On the front of the stele the text is inscribed vertically, on the back two names are inscribed horizontally (phot.: Raubitschek, Dedications p. 351), the first deliberately erased. One possibility is that Kinesias was the secretary of the hieropoioi, but the names on the back may rather be independent of the inscription on the front.

Added: 13 Mar 2018
Updated: 5 Jun 2024
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ID: AIO_1328