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The Athena Nike dossier: IG I 35/36 and 64 A–B*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Harold B. Mattingly
Harold B. Mattingly
Affiliation:
Cambridge
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Extract

Stephen Tracy's neat demonstration that IG I3 35—authorizing the building of a temple and appointment of a priestess for Athena Nike—was cut by the man responsible for the Promachos accounts (IG I 435) at first seemed decisive for the traditional c. 448 B.C. against my radical down-dating. Ira Mark then argued that this decree provided for the naiskos and altar of his Stage III in the 440s: the marble temple belonged to Stage IV over twenty years later. Despite these two powerful interventions the matter is not closed. David Gill has, I fancy, convincingly refuted Mark on archaeological and architectural grounds. And there is still more to be said from the epigraphic angle.

IG I 36, cut on the back of the stele, looks like a delayed rider to 35. But just how delayed was it? It arranged for the regular payment of the priestess's salary by the kolakretai in office in the month Thargelion. On the traditional view the gap would be close to a quarter of a century, since 36 is firmly dated 424/3 B.C. This is quite extraordinary, though reasons have been found for it. More serious perhaps is some neglected epigraphic evidence. We have eighteen other examples in fifth-century Attic epigraphy where decrees are followed on the same stone by other texts; but virtually all the gaps are short, never more than a few years. The relevant texts are IG I 4, 11/12, 41, 42/43, 52 A–B, 59, 61, 66, 68, 71, 72, 73, 89, 93, 101, 127/II1, 156, 1454. It is true that 42/43 are dated c. 445–442 and c. 435–427 B.C. in IG I, but this is quite arbitrary.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , December 2000 , pp. 604 - 606
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2000

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References

1 See Tracy, S., in Studies Presented to Sterling Dow, ed. Rigsky, K. J. (Durham, NC, 1985), 277–82.Google ScholarDavid, Lewis — in Ian, Carradice (ed.), Coinage and Administration in the Athenian and Persian Empires, BAR International Series 343 (Oxford, 1987), 57—Google Scholar felt that this was decisive and I wavered temporarily (ibid., 68). But see my The Athenian Empire Restored: Epigraphic and Historical Studies (Ann Arbor, 1996), 522 for my come-back.

2 Mark, Ira, Hesp. Suppl. 26(1993), 42–68, 104–10, 120–1, and 130–5.Google ScholarTomlinson, R. A. in his review (MS 115 [1995], 238)Google Scholar was convinced by Mark.

3 David Gill, Historia (forthcoming).

4 See ZPE 83 (1990), 38–63. Alan Henry remains the most determined opponent of the Antiphon reading: see most recently ZPE 120 (1998), 45–8. I have answered him in ZPE 126 (1999), 117–20. For Egesta and Halikyai, see Thuc. 6.62 and 7.32.1.

5 Admittedly Lisa Kallet-Marx has suggested putting IG I3 52 A (Kallias decree) in 431/30 and Bin 418/17: see CQ 39 (1989), 94–113 and ead., Money, Expense and Naval Power in Thucydides’ History (Berkeley, 1993), 105ff. But most scholars prefer to date them to the same year: see GRBS 38 (1997), 113–26 for my counter to her view.

6 Dinsmoor, W. B., AJA 17 (1913), 376Google Scholar and 27 (1923), 318–21.

7 See Mark (n. 2), 69–76.

8 For this view see Furtwangler, A., Meisterwerke der griechischen Plastik (Leipzig, 1893), 211Google Scholar; Dohrn, T., Antike Plastik (Krefeld, 1957), 21Google Scholar; Travlos, J., Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Athens (London, 1971), 149Google Scholar: Jeffery, L. A., Miscellanea… E. Manni (Rome, 1980), 1237–8.Google Scholar

9 Mark (n. 2), 108–10 and 123–5.

10 See Thuc. 3.108 and 111 with 4.46 and 49.

11 The return of the expedition (lines 34–5) probably refers to Nikias’ Corinthian campaign, as E. Cavaignac (REG 48 [1935], 245–9) and M. F. McGregor (TAPA 66 [1935], 156–61) saw long ago.

12 Meritt, B. D., Hesp 14 (1945), 115–19.Google Scholar

13 See Wallbank, M. B., Athenian Proxenies of the Fifth Century B.C (Toronto, 1978), no. 19, 123–9Google Scholar: Barron, J. P. (in Boardman, J. and Vafopoulou-Richardson, C. E., Chios [Oxford, 1986], 101–2)Google Scholar and Hornblower, Simon (Commentary on Thucydides 2 [Oxford, 1996], 209–10)Google Scholar both support Meritt's view with good arguments.