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Two Attic Masons of the late 4th century B.C.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

Abstract

Discussed here, are the public inscriptions produced by two Attic masons of the late 4th century B.C., from the point of view of identifying and describing epigraphic ‘hands.’ The identification of their work rests upon the way in which certain key letter-shapes are used, and the consistency with which they are employed. Private documents have not been examined in this study. The first of these masons, the ‘Mason of IG ii2. 1195’ (to which is added IG ii2. 620), was active between c. 330 and 318 B.C. I identify seventeen inscriptions by this man, nearly all of them decrees of the Athenian State; four are, as yet, unpublished and are not discussed here. The second mason discussed here, the ‘Mason of IG ii2. 497’, seems to have begun work in the late 320s B.C., and was still active c. 299/8 B.C. I attribute thirty-two inscriptions to this man, again most of them decrees of the Athenian State. Six are, as yet, unpublished and are not discussed. The work of these masons is distinctive, but not distinguished: there are sufficient similarities between them to suggest that they may have been master and pupil.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1989

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References

1 The bulk of this work was done at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, N.J., where there is an extensive collection of epigraphic squeezes. I express the warmest gratitude to professor C. Habicht for making it possible for me to spend parts of the summers of 1985 and 1987 as a Summer Visitor at the Institute. I am grateful also to Mrs C. Peppas-Delmousou, the Director of the Epigraphical Museum in Athens, for permission to examine stones kept in the Epigraphical Museum, and to Professor H.A. Thompson, Director Emeritus of the Agora Excavations of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, and to Professor T. Leslie Shear, Jr., the present Director of the Agora Excavations, for permission to work in the Agora inscription store-rooms. I am grateful also to the authorities of the British School at Athens, who arranged permits for my work in Athens during the winter and spring of 1985 and the spring of 1988, on both of which occasions I was re-admitted as a Student of the School. I am grateful also to the University of Calgary, which, by the award of a research-grant, made it possible for me to spend the summer of 1987 in Princeton, and which, by the award of a Killam Resident Fellowship, enabled me to have relief from teaching and administrative duties during the first four months of 1988.

2 Wade-Gery, H.T., ‘Studies in Attic Inscriptions of the Fifth Century B.C.’, BSA, 33 (19321933) 122135Google Scholar; Tracy, S.V., The Lettering of an Athenian Mason, Hesperia Supplement, 15 (Princeton 1975)Google Scholar; ‘Identifying Epigraphical Hands’, GRBS 11 (1970) 321–333; ‘Identifying Epigraphical Hands, II’, GRBS 14 (1973) 189–195; ‘Five Letter-Cutters of Hellenistic Athens’, Hesperia 47 (1978) 244–268; ‘Hands in Fifth-Century B.C. Attic Inscriptions’, in Studies presented to Sterling Dow on his Eightieth Birthday (Durham N.C. 1984) 277–282; S. Dow, ‘The Study of Lettering’, in Tracy (1975) xiii–xxiii; Osborne, M.J., ‘Attic Cutters at Work’, ZPE 19 (1975) 159177Google Scholar; Lewis, D.M., ‘Some Fifth-Century Stonecutters’ (unpublished paper delivered at the University of London, 1986, of which the author kindly gave me a copy)Google Scholar; Walbank, M.B., ‘Greek Inscriptions as Aids for the Archaeologist’, Bulletin of the Canadian Society for Archaeology Abroad 15 (1976) 1721Google Scholar; ‘The Public Masons of Attica’, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, Washington 1975.

3 For a photograph, see Hesperia 10 (1939) 46.

4 Kirchner (IG II 2) noted that this was engraved by the same hand as that of IG II 2. 401.

5 On the Anagrapheis of both periods, see Dow, S., HSCP 97 (1963) 3754.Google Scholar

6 See Osborne, M.J., Naturalization in Athens, i (Bruxelles 1981) 9495, D33Google Scholar; ii (1982) 99; and iii–iv (1983) 216, for a new edition of the text and a discussion of the date.

7 Walbank, M.B., ‘Athens Honours Euagoras’, Echoes du Monde Classique/Classical Views n.s. vi (1987) 229232.Google Scholar

8 Another example is IG II 2. 949, which includes the text of a decree of the deme of Eleusis, dated to ca 165/4 B.C.

9 Sokolowski, F., Lois sacrées des cités grecques (Paris 1969) 7273. No 38.Google Scholar

10 Derkylos is PA 3248; see the discussion of his career in Davies, J.K., Athenian Propertied Families, 600–300 B.C. (Oxford 1971) 9798Google Scholar; for the new dating of this decree, see Mitchel, F.W., Hesperia 33 (1964) 337351CrossRefGoogle Scholar (photograph, pl. 65b).

11 Meritt, B.D., Hesperia 29 (1960) 56, No. 5 (photograph, plate 1).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Meritt, B.D., Hesperia 10 (1941) 4950, No. 12 (photograph, 50).Google Scholar

13 Crosby, M., Hesperia 6 (1937) 442444CrossRefGoogle Scholar (photograph, 442) = 7 (1938) 476–479, No. 1 (photograph of both fragments, 476).

14 Tracy (n. 2, above) has identified several prolific masons: some of these had careers as long as 40 years, others as short as 15 years.

15 For a photograph, see Maier, F.G., Griechische Mauerbauinschriften i (Heidelberg 1959) pl. 18.2.Google Scholar

16 For a photograph, see Maier, , Mauerbauinschrifien i, pl. 19.3.Google Scholar

17 For a photograph, see Klaffenbach, G. and Kirchner, J., Imagines Inscriptionum Atticarum 2 (Berlin 1948) pl. 73.Google Scholar

18 See the list in Meritt, B.D., The Athenian Year (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1961) 232.Google Scholar

19 Threpsiades, J.C., Hesperia 8 (1939) 177180.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Threpsiades argued that the orator's father, Euthydemos, was PA 5533, Priest of Asklepios early. in the 4th century, and that Moirokles' son, the Demarch Euthydemos, was PA 5534, who served as Parearos to the King-Archon c. 300 B.C.

20 IG ii. 5, 574 h. The suggestion was taken up by Kirchner in his entry under PA 5534 and in IG II 2. 1194.

21 A.G. Woodhead, per ep.

22 Schweigert, E., Hesperia 19 (1940) 348351Google Scholar, No. 45 (photograph, p. 349). See Schweigert's discussion of the date, 350 and n. 17.

23 Hesperia Supplement 1 (1937) 31–36, No. 1 (photographs, 32, 35) = Agora xv. No. 58.

24 Meritt, B.D., Hesperia 30 (1961) 258259CrossRefGoogle Scholar, No. 62 (photograph, plate 47). Meritt suggested a date early in the 3rd century.

25 Published by Meritt, B.D., Hesperia 30 (1961) 257258, No. 60 (photograph, pl. 47).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 Ferguson, W.S., Hesperia 17 (1948) 114136, No. 68 (photograph, plate 33).CrossRefGoogle Scholar See Ferguson's discussion, especially 115–117 (=SEG 25. 141). Woodhead, A.G. (in Macedonian Studies in Honour of Charles F. Edson (Thessaloniki 1981) 357367)Google Scholar associates with I 5792 another fragment, I 1441, first published by Meritt, B.D., Hesperia 16 (1947) 153Google Scholar, No. 46 (photograph, plate 26), and, on calendar considerations, moves the date back from 303/2 to 304/3 B.C.

27 Published by O. Broneer; for a photograph, see Hesperia 2 (1933) 398.

28 But see my remarks, below, on IG ii2. 418.

29 Published by E. Schweigen; for a photograph, see Hesperia 7 (1938) 307.

30 Published by E. Schweigert; for photographs, see Hesperia 8 (1939) 36, 39 and 40. Schweigert (39) comments upon the script that the cruciform phi employed here is one found in several documents of the late 4th century, and notes, in particular, the close resemblance between this and IG, ii2, 497 and 504; his list includes, in addition to those listed in this article, IG, ii2, 457, 470, 478, 506, 556 and 577, none of which seems to be the work of the mason discussed here.

31 Schweigert, op. cit., 41, n. 4.

32 Published by B.D. Meritt; for a photograph, see Hesperia 10 ( 1941 ) 55.

33 See Osborne, M.J., Naturalization i (1981) 140141, D63Google Scholar; ii (1982) 137.

34 Published by B.D. Meritt; for a photograph, see Hesperia 11 (1942) 278.

35 See footnote 3, above.

36 Notably, Dinsmoor, W.B., The Archons of Athens in the Hellenistic Age (Cambridge Mass. 1931) pp. 2728.Google Scholar For the younger Demades' activities, see IG, ii2. 713, whose publication-formula places it after 295/4 B.C. A Wilhelm suggested that the date was even later, between 288/7 and 263/2 B.C.

37 Pritchett, W.K. and Meritt, B.D., The Chronology of Hellenistic Athens (Cambridge Mass. 1940) 34.Google Scholar

38 See Walbank, M.B., ZPE 59 (1985) 107111Google Scholar; esp. 110–111: I suggested there that this embassy was the same one that found itself trapped during Alexander's siege of Tyre in 332 B.C., but, if I am correct in placing this document, on the evidence of its script, in the last years of the 4th century, or even in the late 320s, this identification will have to be abandoned.

39 There were two Archons named Archippos; that the second of these is meant here is indicated by the use of a demotic, which thus distinguishes him from his predecessor of 321/0 B.C.

40 Meritt, B.D., Hesperia 30 (1961) 211212CrossRefGoogle Scholar, No. 6 (photograph, plate 35). Mcritt places this document in the same context as IG II2. 657, dated to 283/2 B.C.

41 Two more documents exhibit most of the characteris tics of this mason, but show anomalies that seem out of place in the period to which they belong: IG II2. 496 + 507 (EM 7298 + 2742), dated to 303/2 B.C. Since the smaller format is employed, one would expect phis to be cruciform and made with one horizontal, but, in fact, they are all made with an elliptical loop; omicrons, too, are larger than one might expect. SEG 18. 17 (Agora I 5251), which is undated, also has omicrons considerably larger than is normal in this format. Each of these, therefore, I reject from the body of this mason's work.

42 A.G. Woodhead raises an interesting point (per ep.): surely a mason, such as either of the two discussed here, did not make his entire living from the engravure of public documents? Even if we accept statistics that suggest that the surviving documents are only a small fraction of the whole mass that was inscribed, the number of documents attributed to either of these men is quite small, given the suggested lengths of their careers and given the usual price of 20 or 30 drachmai that was specified in publicationformulae. Did they work also on dedications, gravemonuments and other private documents? This is a much larger question that I do not wish to, indeed, cannot, discuss here, given the vast number of such private documents that survive.

43 Tracy, S.V., Hesperia 47 (1978) 244268CrossRefGoogle Scholar; the mason in question is Tracy's ‘Cutter of II2 1706’, discussed, 247–55.