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The date of the institution of proedroi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2012

F. X. Ryan
Affiliation:
University of the Witwatersrand

Extract

The epistates of the prytaneis is last attested in 403/2 and the epistates of the proedroi is first recorded in 379/8. So much for the direct epigraphic evidence. Though Rhodes believed that the proedroi might not have been in existence as late as the 390s, MacDowell and Hansen proposed that they were instituted soon after 403/2. But a little noted passage of Apollodorus suggests a low date for the introduction of proedroi.

Type
Notes
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1995

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References

1 IG ii2 1.41–42.

2 CSCA v (1972) 164–69.

3 Rhodes, P.J., A commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia (Oxford 1981) 534Google Scholar; MacDowell, D.M., ‘Law-making at Athens in the fourth century BC’. JHS xcv (1975) 68Google Scholar; Hansen, M., The Athenian Assembly in the age of Demosthenes (Oxford 1987) 37.Google Scholar

4 [Dem.] lix 89.

5 [Dem.] lix 90.

6 Ath. Pol. 44.3.

7 It might be thought that Ath. Pol. 44.3 is too vague to allow us to identify those who administer the voting with those who preside, and that the prytaneis acted as assistants to the proedroi in distributing the ballots. But the referee of the journal pointed out that such a role for the prytaneis would render the creation of proedroi nonsensical, if the proedroi were instituted to ensure that the identities of those in a position to influence the assembly were not known in advance.

8 IG ii2 103 = Tod 133.

9 IG ii2 25 + SEG 0xv 86. The date is provided by Osborne, M.J., Naturalization in Athens (Brussels 19811983) ii 5456.Google Scholar

10 Cf. Osborne (n. 9) i 42–44, ii 56.

11 Osborne (n. 9) ii 56–57; cf. iv 152 and n. 69, 161.