SEG 66.125 Decree about weights and measures

Decree about weights and measures

SEG 66.125 Date: ca. 120 BC

. . . (1) [in the?]^[1] (1) “Sunshade” or in Piraeus or at Eleusis;^[2] . . . the owner of the measure (metron) shall be arrested . . . of the one who disputed the measure (metrou) . . . the officials shall [pay] - into the public bank (dēmosian trapezan)^[3] . . . (5) list of goods to be auctioned (?); and if he is a slave (oiketēs), let him receive fifty strokes of the whip, and they shall destroy [the measure]; and if the officials do not support the individuals (i.e. complainants) . . . , the Council of Six Hundred shall [take care of it]. (2) The officials that the laws specify shall make copies (sēkōmata) equivalent to the master measures (sumbola) that have been created for both wet and dry measures and weights,^[4] and shall compel those selling anything in the Agora or in the workshops (ergastēriois) or shops (kapēleiois) or wine shops (oinōsin) or warehouses (apothēkais) (10) to use these measures and weights, measuring all liquids by the same measure, and it shall no longer be permitted for any official to make measures or weights bigger or smaller than these; and if any official does this or does not compel the sellers to sell with these, he shall owe a thousand drachmas to be consecrated to Demeter and the Girl (Korēi) and, regarding this, an indictment (apographē) for property equivalent to this money shall be permitted to any Athenian who wishes (boulomenōi), of those for whom it is permitted, (15) to calibrate and examine the measures and weights, and in future, . . . and the Council of Six Hundred in session in the month of Hekatombaion shall take care of it,^[5] so that no one selling or buying something uses a measure or weight that is not true to the master measure (asumblētōi), but only the correct ones (dikaiois). (3)^[6] And those selling dried Persian nuts (walnuts) and almonds and Herakleian hazelnuts (filberts) and pine-nuts and chestnuts and Egyptian beans (nelumbo seeds) (20) and dates and any other dried fruits sold with these, and lupines and olives and edible seeds, shall sell them with a measure of capacity of three half-choinikes of grain levelled off, selling them with the choinix heaped up, with a depth of five fingers (daktulōn) and a width at the rim of one finger; and similarly those selling fresh almonds and newly picked olives and dried figs shall sell them with a choinix heaped up, twice the size of the one previously mentioned, (25) with a rim three half-fingers wide, and they must use wooden choinikes; and if anyone sells fresh almonds or newly picked olives or dried figs [in a larger?] or different type of vessel, he shall not sell less than (the equivalent of) a grain medimnos; and if he sells in a smaller vessel, the official responsible shall immediately sell the contents by auction and pay the price into the public bank and destroy the vessel. (4)^[7] The commercial mina (hē mna hē emporikē) shall weigh (30) one hundred and thirty-eight drachmas of crown-bearing (stephanēphorou) silver^[8] according to the weights in the mint (argurokopiōi) plus a make-weight (ropēn) of twelve drachmas of crown-bearing silver, and everyone shall sell all goods by this mina, except for those expressly specified to be sold according to the silver standard (pros argurion),^[9] setting the beam of the scales level at a weight of one hundred and fifty drachmas of crown-bearing silver; the [commercial] five minas shall have a make-weight of one commercial mina, so that when the beam of the scales is level it shall weigh (35) six commercial minas; the commercial talent shall have a make-weight of five commercial minas, so that when the beam of the scales is level it shall weigh one commercial talent and five commercial minas; and they shall all be in harmony with the scales and weights in the commercial market (emporiōi). (5) So that the measures and weights may persist into the future, the man who has been appointed to provide the measures and weights, Diodoros son of Theophilos of Halai,^[10] shall hand [the master-measures] over to the public slave (dēmosiōi) posted in the “Sunshade” (40) and the one in the Piraeus with his [manager?] and the one in Eleusis; they shall keep them safe, giving copies (sēkōmata) of the measures and weights to officials and all others who need them, and not having authority to change [the master-measures] or to take them out of the designated buildings except for the lead [marked] copies that have been created . . . (6) If they (public slaves) charge anyone money . . . (45) . . . to those having need . . . the one in the “Sunshade” . . . shall be punished by the prytaneis at the time and the [elected] hoplite general, who shall whip and punish (the slave) according to the seriousness of the offence; and the man appointed manager of [the harbour] (shall punish) the one in the Piraeus; and the hierophant and the . . . men appointed each year to supervise the festival assembly (panēgurin) (shall punish) the one in Eleusis.^[11] (7) The public slaves shall hand over to the public slaves appointed to (50) succeed them all [the master-measures] along with a list of them; and if they fail to hand something over, they shall be made to do so by the men in charge of them according to the decree, and if [they destroy any master-measures, they shall provide] [other master-measures] instead of the ones that are destroyed; and they shall also deposit a handwritten account (cheirographon) in the Metroon of what they received and what they handed over; and if they do not deposit this, they shall not be permitted [to hold] another public service (leitourgian).^[12] (8) . . . shall deposit on the Acropolis copies (sēkōmata) of the commercial talent (55) and the ten-mina and the two-mina and the mina and the half-mina and the quarter (tartēmorou) and the chous [and the choinix].^[13] (9) If anyone is caught committing an offence concerning the measures and weights located in the “Sunshade” or in Eleusis or in the Piraeus or on the Acropolis, whether he is an official or a private individual or a public slave, he shall be subject to the law in force about the [punishment] of offenders; and the Council of the Areopagos shall take care of this and punish anyone who has committed an offence in these matters (60) according to the laws in force about offenders;^[14] and the man who has been appointed in charge of the provision of measures and weights shall inscribe this decree on stone stelai and stand them in the buildings in which the measures and weights are located. From the same (decree):^[15] The officials shall use the same measure marked with the lead symbol (charaktēri) corresponding to that in the “Sunshade”, charging no more than three obols; and the (65) officials shall also use the measures which have been stamped previously, if someone selling something does not use a stamped measure.

Previous - SEG 67.86
Greek text

References:

SEG 66.125 (Translated text) (AIO)

IG II² 1013 (PHI)

SEG 68.60

SEG 24.147

SEG 67.68

Tracy, ALC 251b

Melville Jones, Testimonia Numaria no. 111

Agora XVI 322

I Eleusis 237 (PHI)

Austin no. 129

Roman Attica Project, Normative Texts no. 2 (RAP)

Translation by: Stephen Lambert, Chris de Lisle

Images: Agora Excavations - (1)
Ohio - (1)

Monument type: Stele

Inscription type: Decree (Council/People)

Original location: Acropolis , Agora (Skias) , [Piraeus] , [Eleusis]

Findspot: Acropolis (Lost)
Findspot: Agora (Ag. I 1250)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] Textual note. The decree was originally set up in the Agora in the “Sunshade” (Skias), on the Acropolis, in Piraeus and at Eleusis (ll. 60-62, cf. 56-57). The text is based on an 18th-century transcript of the Acropolis copy produced by Fourmont and a fragment of the Agora copy, containing lines 49-62 (Agora XVI 322 = SEG 24.147). AIO follows C. Doyen's edition of the text, which is based on close study of Fourmont's original transcript, except that we indicate all uncertain letters with underdots, rather than replicating Doyen's system for indicating different levels of uncertainty (Chiron 46, 2016, 453-87 = SEG 66.125; online English summary in CHS Research Bulletin 4, 2015). Though deliberately diverging in some details, we acknowledge debts to Austin and Doyen in our translation. For another recent edition and analysis of this decree, written without knowledge of Doyen's work, see M. Rizzi, Marktbezogene Gesetzgebung im späthellenistischen Athen: der Volksbeschluß über Maße und Gewichte (2017) = SEG 67.68.

This decree is attributed by Tracy to the “School of the Cutter of IG II² 1028” (131/0-98/7 BC) and is dated by him to ca. 120 BC. It modifies the Athenian standard measures for dry volume and weight, probably to make conversion to Roman measures easier. This would have facilitated trade in Attic markets, but also at Delos, which the Romans had placed under Athenian administration in 167 BC and had become the main entrepôt for Roman trade with the Eastern Mediterranean by the end of the second century BC (cf. Habicht, Athens, pp. 246-63, 291). For earlier Athenian decrees and laws dealing with weights, measures, and coinage, see OR 155 and RO 25. For late market regulations, see IG II³ 4 214 and IG II² 1100.

We adopt the conventional articulation of the text into 9 sections. Section 1 establishes the complaints procedure and punishments for sellers who use measures other than those laid down by this decree. Section 2 provides for official copies (sekomata) of the master measures (symbola) to be manufactured and distributed to market officials (see n. 4). Section 3 defines the new measures of volume for various nuts, dried fruits, olives, and figs (see n. 6) and Section 4 does the same for measures of weight (see n. 7). Sections 5-7 provide for the safekeeping of the master measures by public slaves (see n. 12). Section 8 orders a set of official copies to be dedicated on the Acropolis (see n. 13). Section 9 outlines punishments for damaging the master measures and orders the inscription of the decree. An addendum sets a maximum charge for using validated measures (see n. 15). [2] The Skias (literally, “Sunshade”) was the common name for the rotunda in the Agora where the Council prytanies dined, also known as the "Tholos". Cf. IG II³ 1, 1300. Ath. Pol. 51.2, written in the third quarter of the 4th century BC, mentions only the city and the Piraeus as official sites of weights and measures. If this is correct, Eleusis must have been added subsequently (Clinton). [3] On banks (literally “tables”), see RO 25 with note. This is the only attestation of the “public bank” at Athens itself, but it also appears on Athenian-administered Delos (ID 1416, l. 41; ID 1670; IG II² 2336 = SEG 32.218). Similar “public banks” are attested in other Greek cities in the Hellenistic period, notably Miletos, cf. V. Gabrielsen, in Verboven, Vandorpe, and Chankowski, Pistoi dia tèn technèn, 2008, pp. 115-30. For punishment by sale of confiscated property, cf. IG I³ 421. [4] The “master measures” (symbola) were to remain in safekeeping and serve as models for the official “copies” (sekomata; the word literally means “counterweights” or “standard measures”) made of lead (weights) or bronze (measures of volume), which would be distributed to market officials (cf. ll. 40-43). [5] This clause seems to allow Athenians to prosecute officials before the Council to collect the fine. In Classical Athens, private individuals submitted a 'catalogue' (apographe) of someone's property before the courts in order to charge them with owing a public debt or fine (Todd, The Shape of Athenian Law, 1993, p. 360). The phrase ‘any Athenian who wishes of those for whom it is permitted’ was a key slogan of the Classical democracy, expressing the right of all citizens to undertake political action in the Assembly and the courts (Demosth. 21.47; M. H. Hansen, Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes, 1991, pp. 266-68). The formula appears in other Late Hellenistic inscriptions (e.g. I Eleusis 250, ll. 30-31; IG II³ 4, 1132, ll. 9-10). The Council of 600 is the Cleisthenic Council, which had 500 members in the Classical period (50 from each tribe), but expanded to 600 in the Hellenistic period after new tribes were established. [6] This section establishes a special choinix to be used for various nuts and dried fruits. The choinix was a measure of dry capacity, notionally equivalent to a weight of 240 drachmas (1 kg). There were 8 choinikes in a hekteus and 48 choinikes in a medimnos. The most common choinix was the one used for grain (= 1.10 L), but the nut-choinix is to be larger. The measure is a cylinder with a depth of five “fingers” (daktyloi), i.e. 100 mm. The diameter of choinikes found in the Agora is usually 140 mm (7 “fingers”), so the volume of this nut-choinix would be 1.54 L (as the decree specifies, this is roughly 1.5 grain choinikes). The contents were to be piled up above the rim, which is to be 1 finger (i.e. 20 mm) wide, to prevent the contents from spilling out (Lang and Crosby, Agora X, pp. 42-45). A late second-century BC measure with these dimensions survives: Agora P 14431 (M. Crosby, Hesp. 18, 1949, 108-13). The second choinix for fresh almonds, new olives, and figs is to be double the size of the first (i.e. with the same diameter, but a depth of ten “fingers” or 200 mm, thus a capacity of 3.08 L). This is equal to three grain choinikes or one chous (the standard unit for liquid capacity mentioned in l. 55). The key Roman measure of dry and liquid volume was the congius (3.27 L); with contents piled up, these new measures might be nearly equivalent to a half and a whole congius respectively, perhaps facilitating international trade in these goods (cf. L. Breglia Pulci Doria, Mélanges de l'École française de Rome 97, 1985, 417-19). [7] This section raises the weight of the commercial mina. The Athenians used two systems for measuring weight. In the system used for coins and precious metals, 100 dr. = 1 mina (435 g) and 60 minai = 1 talent (26.1 kg). For other objects, there was a separate commercial mina, which the Athenians attributed to Solon, but which was probably introduced in 480 BC, when it weighed 105 drachmas (457 g; Ath. Pol. 10.2; L. Kallet and J. Kroll, The Athenian Empire, 2020, pp. 150-151). It was raised to 112 drachmas (488 g) at the beginning of the Hellenistic period, then perhaps to 125 drachmas (544 g), and it was 138 drachmas (601 g) by the time of this decree, which raised it by a further 12 drachmas (roughly a twelfth) to 150 drachmas (653 g; L. Willocx in C. Doyen and L. Willocx, Pondera antiqua et mediaevalia, 2020, 23-46). The commercial talent is also increased by a twelfth from 36 kg to 39.2 kg (the 5-mina weight is to be augmented by a fifth and the increase to the 10-mina weight is not specified; both oddities are probably due to textual corruption, but for another explanation, see Doyen, in Doyen, Étalons monétaires et mesures pondérales entre la Grèce et l'Italie, 2016, pp. 195-97). Several of these new weights survive, including BM 1842,0728.532 (1 mina), BnF Bronze 2233 (1/2 mina). The “make-weights” (ll. 31-36) allowed officials and merchants to continue employing existing weights by adding a few coins or a smaller weight to the scales. The new commercial mina was double the weight of the Roman pound (libra), which weighed 327 g and one-and-a-half times the weight of the coin mina, which would have made commercial exchange between the three systems easier (Lang and Crosby, Agora X, pp. 2-4; Melville-Jones). [8] “Crown-bearing” or “Stephanephoric” coins are the Attic “New Style” coins, which bore olive crowns on their reverses (image from the ANS collection). These were tetradrachms (4-drachma coins) on the Attic weight-standard (= drachma of 4.36 g), which were probably introduced at Athens in 164/3 BC, following Athens’ acquisition of Delos in 167 BC. They rapidly replaced the posthumous coinage of Alexander the Great as the main international trade currency in the Aegean (cf. Habicht, Athens, 242-45, 275-79; J. Kroll in The Romanization of Athens, 1997, pp. 146-47). Nearly forty city-states in Greece and Asia Minor adopted similar Stephanephoric coins in the 160s BC (A. Meadows in P. Iossif, F. de Callataÿ, and R. Veymiers, ΤΥΠΟΙ: Greek and Roman coins seen through their images, 2018, pp. 297-318). Around the same time as this decree, a decree of the Amphictyony was erected by the Athenian Treasury at Delphi, which required “all Hellenes” in all cities and festivals to make and receive their payments using these Attic coins (F. Delphes III 2 139 = CID 4 127). [9] The “silver standard” is the mina of 100 drachmas (n. 7). The surviving text does not specify which goods would be weighed on this standard; literary sources and temple inventories indicate that they included coinage and precious metal items (Melville-Jones). [10] Diodoros’ responsibility for providing the measures is probably connected to his position as manager of the harbour (cf. l. 47), referred to in IG II² 1012 of 112/11 BC, in which the Council grants an association of shipowners and merchants called the “Synod of Zeus Xenios” permission to honour him. [11] The hierophant, chosen from the genos Eumolpidai, was the leading male priest of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Cf. I Eleusis 233. Clinton infers from this clause that by this date the managers (epimeletai) of the Mysteries (on whom cf. IG II³ 1, 915) "no longer exist and that the hierophant is now the chief administrator of the sanctuary" (I Eleusis vol. 2, p. 278). [12] On public slaves, see RO 25 and Oliver, Honours for a Public Slave, 119-121 with notes. This section indicates that public slaves could be transferred from one role to another, and that denying them further roles was considered an effective deterrent to malfeasance. The reference to the role as a “public service” (leitourgia) is striking, since this term usually refers to elite monetary contributions. The Metroon was the state archive in the Agora, cf. Agora XIV, pp. 35-38. [13] This is the only full list of the measures in the surviving decree (the absence of the five-mina weight mentioned in l. 33 may be an error). Dedicating copies of the measures may have been intended to provide divine sanction to the new units. For roughly contemporary dedications of measures, see IG II³ 4, 316 from Rhamnous and ID 1829 from Athenian-administered Delos. [14] This shows the ancient Council of the Areopagos, consisting of former archons, was still performing judicial functions at this time. After the Sullan Sack of Athens in 86 BC, its political power was enhanced and it became a decree-issuing body alongside the (Cleisthenic) Council and Assembly (cf. Agora XVI 333; AIUK 4.3A, 10). [15] This clause bars officials from charging more than three obols for using validated measures and weights (when settling disputes?). Choinikes were validated by applying lead sealings (e.g., Agora IL 701 on the aforementioned Agora P 14431), while weights are validated by stamping them with a countermark, since adding a sealing would alter their weight (e.g. IL 315, same symbol). Some of the validation symbols also appear as annual mint-marks on the stephanephoric coinage (Cf. Crosby, Hesp. 18, 1949, 111-12).

Added: 14 Apr 2021
Updated: 18 Aug 2024
Feedback

ID: AIO_2143