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The Dedication of Callimachus (IG I2 609)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Extract

Two inscriptions commemorating the battle of Marathon and set up soon after 490 have come down to us. Both are epigrams and both have profited by recent discovery and research. The one, IG I2 763, has had its left-hand portion added by a fortunate find in the Agora, giving the beginnings of four hexameters: the other, IG I2 609, an inscribed column formerly carrying a statue, has now, as a result of recent study, been reunited with the dedication it once bore, a winged woman, a Nike, it is thought. The group is one of the more spectacular fruits of the long-sustained and still continuing attempt to reunite the scattered pieces of the ‘Perserschutt’. The reasons for dealing again with this latter dedication are new readings offered as a result of an examination of the inscription in the Epigraphical Museum in Athens.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1950

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References

1 Apart from the abbreviations approved for general use in BSA, I quote J. Geffcken, Griechische Epigramme, Hiller von Gaertringen, Historische Griechische Epigramme, and M. N. Tod, Greek Historical Inscriptions, by their author's name only. References to Diehl are to the epigrams collected under the name of Simonides in volume II of Anthologia Lyrica. DAA stands for Dedications from the Athenian Akropolis, by Raubitschek and Jeffery. The figures following these titles indicate the number of the inscription or epigram.

2 First published by Oliver, , Hesp II (1933), 480 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For bibliography see Diehl II2 p. 114/5, Hesp XIV (1945), 161, and SEG X no. 404.

3 Convenient editions are Hiller 10, Tod 13, Kirchner, Imagines no. 17 (photograph), DAA 13.

4 I am much indebted to Mr. M. Mitsos, the Director of the Epigraphical Museum, for his friendly help and cooperation. At various times I enjoyed the benefit of valuable advice and criticism from K. Dover, T. J. Dunbabin, J. M. Cook, Professor A. Raubitschek, Miss L. H. Jeffery, and Miss Daphne Hereward. Mr. M. N. Tod, Professors Sir John Beazley and H. T. Wade-Gery kindly read through drafts at an early stage. Miss Jeffery and A. Raubitschek very generously allowed me access to the proofs of their Dedications from the Athenian Akropolis.

5 Listed as fragments c to h in DAA 13. Only six letters are allotted to the eight fragments, because d and e consist of two pieces each. I adopt the notation of DAA (see PLATE 10(a)).

6 Fragment e: IG I suppl. 91 no. 373/108, and IG I suppl. 131 no. 373/108 (found in north wall of the Acropolis. DAA is misleading on this point).

Fragment ƒ: IG I suppl. 100 no. 373/199.

Fragments g: IG I suppl. 101 no. 373/213.

Fragment h: IG I suppl. 99 no. 373/195.

Fragment c: Kirchhoff, (Lolling) SB Berlin 1888, 313 no. 1.Google Scholar

Fragment d: Pittakys, AE 1839, no. 335 and often, e.g. IG I 350 b. Fragment d was found together with fragment a of the Iphidike dedication (IG I2 487 = DAA 3 = Kirchner, Imagines no. 13) and was taken to be part of the same column, despite the great differences in appearance of the two stones. However, the odd chance that both fragments used a form of phi all but unique seemed to support the combination. For the form of phi with a horizontal bar see Wilhelm, , AnzAkWien 1934, 115Google Scholar, id.,AM XXIII (1898), 482, n. 2, and Raubitschek, , ÖJh XXXI (1939)Google Scholar, Beiblatt 28. Only three Attic stone inscriptions with this form of phi are known, viz. IG I2 487; 609; and Hesp II (1933) 372 no. 1 = DAA 258 (cf. Raubitschek loc. cit. against Jeffery, , BSA XXXIX (1938/1939) 91).Google Scholar There are, however, a good number of graffiti with this form; cf. the following: Agora P 12,212, a graffito in a context suggesting a date in the first half of the sixth century : Agora P17,682, P18,063, P18,066, three ostraka cast against Themistocles of the deme of Phrearrhioi, probably in 482. Agora P 10,275, ostrakon cast against Xanthippos, the son of Ariphron. Acropolis 1498 (Graef-Langlotz, , Die Antiken Vasen von der Akropolu zu Athen II, pl. 93).Google Scholar (I owe my knowledge of the Agora pieces to the kindness of Eugene Vanderpool, who will publish them with other ostraka and graffiti in Hesperia.)

The majority of these examples date to near the turn of the century, when the character of Attic writing and spelling underwent considerable changes. There was a certain amount of confusion prevalent at the time, especially among the forms of circular letters (see also n. 17). The Agora collection of ostraka provides new examples of this phenomenon.

7 ADelt 1891, 74.

8 Hermes XXXI (1896), 150.

9 VI, 114.

10 Hermes, Einzelschriften 2 (1937), 87, n. 1.

11 Hermes LIV (1919), 211.

12 In the second verse Hiller preferred to thus avoiding the hiatus. Homer always has the participial form but the indicative occurs in hymn. III, 445 and hymn. VII, 21.

For the metrical problems in the first verse see Wilhelm, , AnzAkWien 1934, 112.Google Scholar Proposed remedies have been correction into The first alternative is preferable. J. M. Cook suggests to me that the metrical difficulties might be due to the possibility that the first verse was taken over with very little change from an original dedicatory inscription in prose (see p. 142). This may have read:

(Cf. Wilhelm, Beiträge 6.)

13 K. Schmidt ap. Laudien, Griechische Inschriften etc. 52, and Meritt ap. Raubitschek, , Hesp XIV (1945), 367.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 See pp. 140 and 160.

15 See pp. 146 and 160. An oinochoe by the Trophy Painter (Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase Painters, 719 no. 8) shows a column dedication on a base in two degrees. The inscription is on the upper base block.

16 AnzAkWien 1934, 111 ff.

17 For confusions between theta and phi see Wilhelm, ibid., 115; add to his examples IG I2, 982, a precise parallel where the cross has been left out in the theta of (Kirchhoff, varia lectio in IG I, 48–9Google Scholar, 477c is mistaken). Add to his references the Apollodorus signature on the Castle Ashby cup (JHS LIII (1933) pl. 6, Beazley, op. cit., 87 no. 3); cf. also above n. 6 ad fin.

18 AJA XLIV (1940), 53. Reports and discussions of the discovery had already in preceding years appeared in a number of periodicals (cf. the bibliography in DAA and Tod2, addendum to no. 13). Most of these publications show a reconstruction of the whole dedication sketched by Raubitschek.

19 Payne and Young, pl. 120, 1–2; Schrader, Marmorbildwerke, pl. 91/2 (text, 122 no. 77).

20 See Züchner, , AA 1936, 327 ff.Google Scholar

21 This and no more is the evidence for the attribution. No actual join is preserved, but there were not so many on the Acropolis, and the case for Raubitschek is certainly stronger than Jacoby, (Hesp XIV (1945) 158 n. 8)Google Scholar implies. However, Raubitschek (AJA l.c.) takes as premise what he should set out to prove, when he says, ‘Yet it is hard to understand why a general should promise before a battle to dedicate to the goddess Athena a statue of Hermes. It would obviously be more likely for Callimachus to promise to dedicate, in case of victory, a statue of Nike.’ (Italics are mine.)

I am in any case doubtful whether a general would have dedicated as a private dedication a Nike after a battle. Callimachus was no Gelon (cf. Tod 17 and commentary). Moreover, since I believe that the dedication of the statue was unconnected with the battle, I consider Hampe's attractive suggestion (Die Antike XV (1939), 170) that the Pan-headed kerykeion from the Acropolis (de Ridder, Bronzes trouvés sur l' Acropole d' Athènes, no. 409, fig. 83; Die Antike XV (1939), 172 fig. 3, 4; cf. also Crome, F., AM LXIII/IV (1938/1939) 120, no. 11) belongs to the statue unlikely to be true.Google Scholar

I should like to think of the statue as an Iris rather than a Nike (cf. however n. 25a), but one cannot be confident. Nike is not in literature called ἄγγελος ἀθανάτων nevertheless she is one (cf. Roscher III, 307, and above all the pelikai Berlin 2166 and 2167 (Argos Painter, , Beazley, , Attic Red-Figure Vase Painters, 176, 5 and 6Google Scholar; AZ 1875 pl. 10) where Nike, so called in the adscription, holds a kerykeion. They enable us to give the name Nike to some other unnamed figures holding the kerykeion; e.g. a pelike Cab. Méd. 392 by the Providence Painter, Beazley, op. cit., 433, 38). Cf. also Mayer in Roscher II, 354, s.v. ‘Iris’, who had already collected the evidence quoted here.

Against Jacoby's insistence that the must be Hermes, as Hiller had thought, weighs the fact that the dedication of a Hermes to Athena would be difficult to explain (Cf., however, IG IV 1588, 10, the inventory of the temple of Damia and Auxesia in Aegina, for the dedication of a Dionysus in another deity's shrine). Moreover, anthropomorphic statues of Hermes, showing him as are unknown at this period, although vase-painters depict him frequently in this, his epic (post-Iliad), role. He also occurs so in relief sculpture, e.g. Acrop. 702, Hermes and the Aglaurids, because there, as in vase-painting and other narrative arts, he was represented as part of a story. In the round, as a single image, he is at this time best known as the Arcadian (cf. Roscher I, 2394 ff.; Nilsson, , Geschichte d. griech. Religion I, 476).Google Scholar The earliest appearance in substantive sculpture of the known to me is the Arcadian 13219; AE 1904, pl. 9; Lamb, Bronzes 153 and pl. 57b, dated by her in the second quarter of the fifth century). Later, in the middle of the century and beyond, come the mid-Phidian Hermes Ludovisi, the sitting Hermes from the Acropolis (Acrop. 1346; AM XXXVII (1912), pl. 13), and the Polyclitan statue. All these examples are much later than the Persian wars; they represent a new conception of free sculpture. Such early dedications to Hermes from Attica as have come down to us appear to have taken the form of herms, cf. DAA 326 (and commentary) and p. 500, also Schrader, Antike Plastik, Festschrift Amelung 227 ff. From Samos we know of a greater than life-size statue of Hermes carved perhaps in the last quarter of the sixth century; but only the foot remains (Buschor, Altsamische Standbilder 51, figs. 186–188), cf., however, Rumpf's doubts in AA 1935, 394 ff. Nothing useful is known about the appearance of the Hermes Agoraios, roughly contemporary with the Callimachus dedication (Overbeck, Schriftquellen, nos. 470–474).

21a See n. 25a.

22 See p. 149.

23 There appears to have been subsequent damage to the edge of fragment c. Lolling still gives the final sigma of which is now lost. The squeeze and photograph of the Berlin Academy also had the letter. But Kirchner's photograph in his Imagines shows the present state of the stone.

24 I write since the form in verse 4 shows that gemination of consonants did not occur in this inscription; hence also

25 This is, I think, confirmed by the valuable evidence of an oracle given sometime in the nineties or eighties of the fifth century, and reported by Herodotus (IX, 33; cf. also Paus. III, 11, 6):

25a What games, if any, the polemarch conducted in the first decade of the fifth century is not a question which requires discussion here. Some event connected with games may, however, be the explanation for the original dedication of the statue, if it was a Nike.

26 See n. 66.

27 See n. 66.

28 See n. 64.

29 Nor need we be concerned about the absence of any mention of the ‘Medes’, now that they have disappeared from the text. Here we cannot do better than quote Wilamowitz' comment (Nachrkhten von der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, 1897, 306 ff. reprinted in Sappho und Simonides 192 ff.), made when the newly discovered inscription showed that the original epigram over the Corinthian grave on Salamis said only

(IG I2 927 = Geffcken 96 = Hiller 20 = Tod 16 = Diehl 90 (96)), and nothing about the couplet

of the later tradition,‘Das Gedicht ah solches ist fertig mit der ErklärungWir sind Korinther und liegen auf Salamis ”. Dass kein Wort des Selbstruhmes dabei steht, keins dass die Gelegenheit näher bezeichnete, bei der die Korinther hier gefallen waren, ist die echte Bescheidenheit der grossen Zeit; oder sollen wir sagen, ihr Stolz, so war auch ihr Stolz ein echter; auch die späte Nachwelt kann vor diesem Grabe nicht zweifeln, welcher Kampf diese Männer dahingerafft hat.’

It was assumed, no doubt rightly, that the fate of the Athenian Commander-in-Chief would be known to everyone likely to read the inscription.

30 I owe this observation to advice kindly given me by Professor H. T. Wade-Gery.

31 here stands for For use of the personal pronoun as reflexive in archaic literature, see Wackernagel, , Vorlesungen über Syntax II 2, 89Google Scholar; cf. Buck, Dialects 91/1; also IG V. 1, 213 passim for examples in fifth-century Laconia (I owe the references to K. Dover).

Note also that there is assimilation in lines 2 and 3, but none in line 4 This shows how dangerous it is to argue from one part of an inscription to another; cf. e.g. IG I2 945, 5 (Potidaea epigram) and the comments in JHS LIII (1933) 78 n. 24 and Hesp XII (1943) 22 n. 44. It is not essential to read there.

32 Diehl 5 (4). Dr. R. Pfeiffer and Miss V. Newnham kindly inform me that Wilamowitz' rearrangement in the last two lines cannot stand (Sappho und Simonides 140, n. 3). ‘One has to make too many changes in order to restore pure dactylo-epitrites, viz. del. οὔί line 4/5; write δμα for δαμα, line 5; insert καί, line 7; transpose something in lines 8/9. But none of these changes can be justified by any other reason (grammar, style), so one had better leave the text as it is with the remark that for metrical reasons the text of lines 4/5—8/9 is doubtful’ (Pfeiffer). I therefore quote the text as given by the codd. (lines 7 to 9):

33 See Meisterhans-Schwyzer, Grammatik d. alt. Inschr., 69/70. Elision, where required by the verse, is often expressed and not expressed in the same epigram. I quote one example and give reference to others. IG I2 976 (Geffcken 47); cf. also IG I2 499 (Geffcken 7); 650 (Geffcken 12).

34 Cf. p. 148.

35 on dedications, on epitaphs.

36 For casualty-lists see examples about to be discussed; for the discus see IG I2 1019 (Pfuhl, Malerei u. Zeichnung der Griechen III, fig. 485, probably funerary; cf. Jacobsthal, Diskoi 27/8); for altar see IG I2 761, the altar of Pisistratus the Younger; for herm see Plato, Hipparch. 228 d, e (Geffcken 4 = Hiller 6). The one surviving herm, Hipparchus, IG I 2837Google Scholar, long lost but recently found again (cf. Hermes LXX (1935) 461, and AM LXII (1937) 1), does not have For as a dedicated statue see IG I2 530. Useful on this question is Eichler, , AM XXXIX (1914), 138 ff.Google Scholar

37 Jacoby, , JHS LXIV (1944)Google Scholar, especially 48 and 52.

38 The possible exception is the first of the Potidaea epigrams, which appears in IG I2 945 (= Hiller 53 = Tod 59) as:

‘They took victory as their ’ This bold transference of into something concrete is paralleled by the contemporary passage in Pericles’ Funeral Speech (Thuc. II, 43, 2 and 3):

The whole earth is their grave, because their ‘memorial’ is not only the casualty-list with its epitaph at home in the Kerameikos, but even abroad, where there is no inscribed monument, the unwritten memory imprinted in the mind of each individual lives (to form the ‘reminder’). (The last in the passage means ‘monument’; cf. Raubitschek, , REA XLI (1939) 217 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar on the meaning of in the preamble of Herodotus.) In the Potidaea epigram it is the in the Funeral Speech the which forms the of the fallen. In both cases the strict meaning of has been widened in an unusual application of the word, and, in the case of the Potidaea epigram, of a whole formula (see p. 157).

There is no evidence, however, for such an extension in the use of the word before the late thirties of the century, and, in fact, the two examples just mentioned may not be entirely unconnected with each other. (The evidence from the Potidaea epigram is not secure, as so much of the text has been restored: of the Corpus cannot stand, as an examination of the stone shows. Meritt ap. Raubitschek, , Hesp. XII (1943)Google Scholar, 22 reports seeing traces of phi and theta to be completed to following an earlier restoration by J. U. Powell. When I examined the stone in unfavourable light conditions I could not be positive about these two letters, although an examination of the squeeze tends to confirm Meritt. The adoption of need not cause any other changes in the text of the Corpus, although it removes one of the arguments for it.)

This absence of earlier examples makes it, in my opinion, impossible to restore the last two lines of our epigram to something like this:

‘who left immortal renown for the children of the Athenians, to be the monument of his arete’.

The form of the epigram, a number of hexameters followed by a pentameter, would have a contemporary parallel, if Wilamowitz is right in his view of the original form of the epigram (Plut. Aristid. 19, de malign. Herod. 42 (873 b). Hiller 26 = Diehl 107 (140)) on the altar of Zeus Eleutherios at Plataea (Sappho und Simonides 197. Cf., however, Jacoby, , Hesp XIV (1945) 185Google Scholar, n. 107. For the date, see Hiller l.c. against Wilamowitz op. cit. 188/9. Cf. also Wade-Gery, in JHS LIII (1933) 73Google Scholar, n. 7 and 91, n. 86).

The content, however, of this restoration I believe to have been impossible for the time of the Persian wars, because I do not believe that would then have been used as an attribute of or I also doubt whether Bowra is justified (Greek Lyric Poetry, 366) in quoting the Thucydides passage just cited as parallel for the Simonidean encomium on the fallen at Thermopylae (Diehl 5 (4), 6):

Thinking of as a goddess came more naturally to the Greeks than thinking of as a

39 Eranos IX (1909), 52.

40 For later (fourth-century and beyond) conflation of the two words, see Nachmanson op. cit., who also deals with the literary evidence. Cf. also AJP XLVIII (1927), 18–19. Hesychius identifies with and is therefore thinking of later usage. One strange use of in earlier literature occurs in Theognis 112, a section without the Kyrnos seal:

Here would seem to be the equivalent of Cf., however, Hudson-William's commentary ad loc.

41 Athen. XII, 536 a = Hiller 40.

42 Thuc. I, 132; the version of A.P. VI, 197 in the first person is a grotesque travesty, and is not saved by its dialect.

43 Cf. Jacoby, , Hesp XIV (1945), 202Google Scholar, n. 160.

44 Was he a victor at the games? There is no evidence either way, as we do not know what stood on the top of the base. But even if he was, the epigram would still be extraordinary.

45 Important discussions on arete and the change in its content are to be found in Wilamowitz' commentary on the Skopas skolion of Simonides (Sappho und Simonides 173/4 and 176/7 with notes; see also Aristoteles und Athen II, 406 ff.) and in Jaeger's interpretation of Tyrtaeus frag. 9 Diehl, (SB Berlin 1932, 537 ff.Google Scholar; cf. also Friedländer, P., AJP LXIII (1942) 78).Google Scholar

The Simonides poem cannot, I think, form the basis of an estimate of the new meaning of arete in the city state, since it abandons rather than reinterprets the word arete. Jaeger's attempt, however, to connect the revaluation in Sparta with a definite historical situation, and his view that Tyrtaeus first gave expression to this changed view, seems to me to be most valuable. ‘The crisis of the City is a greater leveller than all democracy; it produces, as it were, in place of the old nobility of birth a new title to an aristocracy of citizenship, which can only be earned in face of the enemy.’

1 Οὔτ᾿ ἂν μνησαίμην οὔτ᾿ ἐν λόγῳ ἄνδρα τιθείην….

9 οὐδ᾿ εἰ πᾶσαν ἔχοι δόξαν πλὴν θαύριδος ἀλκῆς.

An interesting illustration of this change in ethos and the content of arete is provided by surviving epitaphs and honorary decrees. Collections of post-Eukleidan inscriptions are full of praises of the ἀρετὴ καὶ ἀνδραγαθία or the ἀρετὴ καὶ δικαιοσύνη of the honorand (cf. e.g. Larfeld, , Handbuch d. griech. Epigraph. II, 771, 837, 857).Google Scholar But there is no archaic epitaph preserved coupling these words; instead we hear of ἀρετὴ ἠδὲ σαοφροσύνη (IG I2 986 = Geffcken 43; cf. also Simonides fr. 128 (115) Diehl or ἀρετὴ καὶ φιλοχσενία (IG I2 530 = Geffcken 62). Ἀρετή in all these phrases is the unknown, but the associated virtues point to its content. Thus we find that the citizen-soldier's virtue of ἀνδραγαθία in war and δικαιοσύνη in peace (cf. ὀνησίπολιν δίκαν in the Skopas skolion of Simonides, also Peek, Kerameikos III, 27)Google Scholar have replaced as claims to merit the more ‘private’ virtues of σωφροσύνη and φιλοξενία of an earlier age (for the aristocratic φιλοξενία compare χσενίαν ιποσύναν τε σοφõι in the Tanagra epigram quoted on p. 155), and also the impressive catalogue of virtues in IG I2 1026, supplemented in SEG X, no. 458. Σωφροσύνη, as one might expect, continues on epitaphs, and is still, at times, found coupled with ἀρετή in e.g. Geffcken 141 b, 145, 183, but there is a suggestion that it becomes a domestic, a woman's virtue, in e.g. Geffcken 144, 150 a, 132.

46 Aeschines, Ctes. 183, and Plutarch, Cimon 7, 2, tell with some variation the story that when the generals on their return from Eion asked the Demos for a reward, they were granted the honour of being allowed to dedicate three herms on condition that the names of the dedicante were not inscribed: (Aeschines). In other words, the generals were not allowed to dedicate a in their own honour, apparently an illustration of the point argued in our text.

The epigrams are preserved by Aeschines, Plutarch, and Tzetzes (ad Lycophr. Cass. 417; cf. Hiller 34 and the discussions by Wade-Gery, , JHS LIII (1933) 71 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jacoby, , Hesp XIV (1945) 185 ff.Google ScholarCf. also Gomme, , CR LXII (1948) 5).Google Scholar They show clearly that in fact the dedication was made not by the generals, but by the Demos. This was so clear that Aeschines, in order to be able to draw his moral (cf. Jacoby l.c.), had to add to the prohibition of mentioning the names the entirely separate and incredible condition that the dedicatory inscription had to make it appear that the Demos had set up the herms. With this nonsense the whole context of the epigrams, as given in our literary sources, collapses, however plausible this or that element in it may be, and they cease to be of any relevance to this discussion.

47 Nor could a statue dedicated on some other occasion have become a after Callimachus' death, for the formula ‘he gave glory to his city and took virtue for himself’ refers to one and the same action.

48 Cf. Bowra, Early Greek Elegists, 196, against Geffcken.

49 These observations do not apply to the use of the present participle, which is often governed by the fact that the aorist participle would imply that the action of the participle took place before that of the main verb. This is shown, for example, in the epigram (Hiller 30 = Tod 20):

where the straining after the goal and the doom occurred together.

50 As an alternative I ought to give, perhaps, the following version, which has the advantage of avoiding the hiatus and the possibly rather forced construction of

(I owe to Hugh Lloyd-Jones; for the use of see Eur., Troades 1030). ‘… who … brought honour upon the name of all the Greeks, leaving to the children of the Athenians the memory of his arek.’ However, for several reasons, including those given on pp. 146 and 152, I cannot persuade myself that this version is to be preferred.

51 The letter space of the restored epigram would take up about 1·97 m. The height of the whole monument, statue included, must have been about 3·50 m. That was very considerable for a dedication (cf. Raubitschek, , BSA XL (19391940), 2223Google Scholar for the height of some other dedications).

52 DAA p. 3 ff. should be consulted for numbers and examples of types; see also BSA XL (1939–40), 28 for the type of unfluted column.

53 Seen. 15. One inscribed column base has survived, DAA 58.

54 The claim is considerable. There are few documents with which our inscription can be compared, but for the Homeric meaning of as a general's function see the examples collected by Jacoby, , Hesp XIV (1945), 184 n. 105Google Scholar(cf. also the reflection of the Homeric (II. II, 554) in the Eion epigrams).

55 For examples see pp. 150–1.

56 Hesp XIV (1945), 158 n. 8. Cf. also Mnemosyne Ser. 3, XIII (1947), 31.

57 Cf. pp. 142–3. I hope that the difference between my view and that of Hiller is clear. I do not suggest that the present inscription contains any elements of the original dedicatory inscription at all. All five hexameters, as we have them now, belong to the secondary inscription (cf., however, n. 12 adfin.). ‘This dedication was put up by Callimachus, who …’

58 These pretensions may have been justified. We cannot now assess fairly the respective parts played by the two personalities, especially since we know nothing about Callimachus previously, except that he must have been wealthy enough to dedicate the quite distinguished marble statue identified by Raubitschek.

There is, indeed, another fragmentary column, IG I2 767 (FIG. 1), fluted all round and of poros, which once carried a dedication and still preserves the following inscription:

The date is near the turn of the century—after it rather than before, despite one or two old-fashioned forms.

The date of the inscription would therefore favour the view that we have here an earlier dedication by the same Callimachus, but the use of in the second line does nothing to support it.

Certainly it was Miltiades who, as head of a great noble house, was responsible for the decree under which the army marched to Marathon (Aristotle, , Rhet. III, 10, 3 (1411a)Google Scholar; Schol, ad Demosth, . de Fals. Leg. 438, 16Google Scholar), and who also, by his initiative, forced the decision to fight there (Herod. VI, 109). On the other hand, careful reading of the Herodotus passage shows that the polemarch had overriding, if not sole, powers to make the decision, and if he made it against the majority vote of the Council of Generals his action, however influenced, was all the more commendable (cf. Berve, Miltiades 80). Miltiades' position was only that of one amongst ten, and he was liable to be overruled by the majority. But if Callimachus had supreme powers of decision in council, he will have had supreme command on the field, too, and therefore the now hardly intelligible surrender of the by each general to Miltiades can scarcely have meant more than that Miltiades was permanent Second-in-Command. The battle disposition may well have followed Miltiades' plan (he had had experience with the Persians), but final authority must have come from Callimachus. Aristot. 22, 2 confirms this view of Callimachus' position at the time, as does Callimachus' position on the right wing (Herod. VI, III).

Both claims, therefore, that of Miltiades and the one in favour of Callimachus, were well-grounded, but not unnaturally the claims of one of the great leaders in the state, who also seems to have been the driving force behind the battle, were stronger from the beginning.

59 For Miltiades cf. e.g. Aeschin. in Ctes. 186 and Schol, ad Aristid. III, 566:

(Aeschines.)

(Schol, ad Aristid.)

For Callimachus no direct evidence is available, but there are allusions in various writers to the fact that his dead body was held upright by the number of spears that had pierced it, so that even in death he appeared to be fighting (cf. e.g. Himerius, X, 2 and Suidas s.v. ). It is a fair inference from the words used by Himerius that this topos was taken from a motive in the painting in the Stoa. The literary evidence for the painting in the Stoa is collected and discussed by C. Robert, ‘Marathonschlacht’ (18 Hall. Winckelmannsprogramm). Later discussions add little of importance to our enquiry.

60 E.g. Plut. Moral. 305 b, c; 347 d; Himerius, , or. II, 21Google Scholar; Polemon, or. II passim.

61 VI, 110; cf. also n. 58.

62 See n. 2.

63 Hesp XIV (1945), 177/8; cf. Bowra, Greek Lyric Poetry, 356.

64 The terminus post quem for the Marathon epigrams is 490; the terminus ante quem is 480, the date of the sack of Athens, which must have seen the destruction of the monument, because neither epigram is found in any of the later collections, and the newly-found Agora fragment shows a great freshness of surface, arguing a short period of intact existence for the monument (cf. AJA XLIV (1940), 483). It is unreasonable to suppose that utter disaster could have overtaken an important public monument shortly after 480, when so plausible an occasion can be found in 480.

This line of argument is reinforced to some extent by consideration of the Hekatompedon inscription (IG I2 3/4), the attribution of which to the engraver of the first Marathon epigram by Wilhelm, (AM XXIII (1898), 489Google Scholar ff.) has been confirmed by the new Agora fragment (see n. 2), which gives more scope for the comparison (cf. AnzAkWien 1934, 108 ff). The style of the Hekatompedon inscription is too close to that of the Marathon epigram to allow a great interval between the two. If anything, it is later (for a possible earlier inscription by the same hand see IG I2 645 + 497 = DAA 58; cf. JHS LX (1940), 53 and our n. 58). Now there can be little doubt that Kirchhoff's restoration of the archon of 485/4 in both inscriptions, viz. in IG I2 3, 16 and in IG I2 4, 26, as the only name that will fit, is right, seeing that, with two exceptions, we know the eponymous archons for every year in the eighties and have a complete list for the succeeding years. of the two exceptions, 486 will not affect any chronological conclusions regarding the Marathon epigrams which we may base upon the Hekatompedon inscription; the other year, 482, would affect them, but the chances that the missing archon name also fulfilled all the conditions required by the stoichedon inscription are small. On the other hand, a pre-490 date for the Hekatompedon inscription would argue a fortiori a pre-480 date for the Marathon epigrams. Though there are some gaps in the archon-list of the early nineties, and in 493, if we accept a late archonship for Themistocles, it is highly improbable that the Hekatompedon inscription belongs there. The still earlier date recently argued again by MissGuarducci, (Ann. N.S. III–IV (19411942), 12 ff.Google Scholar) is untenable.

65 e.g. Hiller, , Hermes LXIX (1934), 205.Google Scholar

66 There is another epigram expressing much the same point of view, of which the best version occurs in Lycurgus, in Leocrat. III, where it is quoted side by side with the distich on the Spartan dead at Thermopylae (Hiller 12 = Diehl 88 (90)):

The date and nature (certainly no epitaph) of the epigram is uncertain. It is in structure like A.P. VII, 257 (Diehl 119 (101)):

which, too, seems tq refer to Marathon.

The epigram, quoted by Lycurgus has been dated after the period of the Persian wars. This may well be true, but the arguments adduced for this view are inconclusive. Suidas, s.v. is not sufficient evidence for the theory that the epigram stood under the painting in the Stoa Poikile. The text can be interpreted quite differently.

Another argument, used by Friedländer, (Stud. Ital. Fil. Class. N.S. XV (1938), 98)Google Scholar, that the phrase was not possible until the events of 480 and later had given the perspective, based itself upon the belief that there was a case for putting the Marathon epigrams after 480. Once that has gone (see n. 64), Friedländer's view becomes as untenable for the epigram quoted by Lycurgus as Hiller's view (see n. 65) is for the Marathon epigrams. We find, then, that no reason has as yet been put forward which is sufficient to prevent us from regarding both epigrams, Lycurgus, , in Leocrat. m and A.P. VII, 257Google Scholar, as contemporary with the Persian wars and possibly earlier than 480. Neither, however, is there any cogent positive evidence for an early date (cf. also Jacoby, , Hesp XIV (1945), 160Google Scholar, n. 17). T. J. Dunbabin reminds me of Pindar, , Pyth. I, 75Google Scholar, referring to the battle of Cumae (474 B.C.):