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Conspectus Traditionum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Wesley E. Thompson
Wesley E. Thompson
Affiliation:
University of California, Davis
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Extract

In this paper I shall offer an hypothesis to explain the process by which the inventories of the contents of the three chambers of the Parthenon were inscribed in the fifth century and to account for all the surviving fragments of those inscriptions. At the end of their annual term the treasurers of Athena prepared separate inventories of the Pronaos, the Hekatompedon, and the cella which they called the Parthenon. But the four boards of treasurers whose terms filled a Panathenaic penteteris co-operated with each other in stewarding the sacred possessions and began in 434/3 to have their inventories inscribed on the same stelai. The four inventories of the Pronaos filled one face of one stele, the four of the Hekatompedon one face of a second stele, and the four of the Parthenon one face of a third stele. In the course of time the treasurers began to post their records on the backs of stelai erected by their predecessors. This process was apparently changed in 410/09 to allow the four inventories to fill both the obverse and reverse faces of a smaller stele. In 406/5, with the creation of the unified board of the treasurers of Athena and the Other Gods, the inventories began to be inscribed year by year on individual stelai, and the Four Archai disappear.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , December 1966 , pp. 286 - 290
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1966

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References

page 286 note 1 I wish to express thanks to A. M. Woodward for valuable criticisms of an earlier draft of this paper and to D. M. Lewis for supplying information about Agora I 5390.

page 286 note 2 The inscriptions were probably ordered by the (fragmentary) final provision of the Second Kallias Decree (A.T.L. 2. D2.).

page 286 note 3 The date of the unification of the treasurers of Athena with the treasurers of the Other Gods is not yet settled (cf. Ferguson, W. S., The Treasurers of Athena, pp. 104–9,Google Scholar and Dinsmoor, W. B., A.J.A. xxxvi [1932], 149–51),Google Scholar but it does not affect the date of the cessation of penteteric stelai; on the Four Archai cf. Ferguson, , op. cit., pp. 96–103;Google Scholar in this paper I shall not treat the inventories of 406/5 or later years, I.G. i2. 292b,Google ScholarS.E.G. x. 188,Google Scholar and those cited by West, and Woodward, , J.H.S. lviii (1938), 73.Google Scholar

page 286 note 4 Cf. Thompson, W. E., Phoenix xviii (1964), 262–71; it is not clear which inventories belong to which years.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 287 note 1 Hesperia xxxii (1963), 163–5.Google Scholar

page 287 note 2 This measurement was obtained by cal culations from Woodward's photograph, which is slightly larger than life size. D. M. Lewis obtained the same figure from a squeeze.

page 287 note 3 Op. cit., p. 263.Google Scholar

page 287 note 4 The fragment which contains part of the final lines of the fourth inventory of the obverse, I.G. i2. 235,Google Scholar is blank at the bottom but does not preserve the original bottom; cf. Woodward, , J.H.S. xxxi (1911), 31–32. The same thing is true of the Agora frag ment.Google Scholar

page 287 note 5 The assertion by Ferguson, , op. cit., p. 69,Google Scholar and Tod, M. N., G.H.I. 69,Google Scholar that the inventories were inscribed at the end of the penteteris is disproved by the different stoichedon patterns among the inventories of any given penteteris inscribed on the same stone (cf. Austin, R. P., The Stoichedon Style in Greek Inscriptions, p. 34,Google Scholar and Thompson, , op. cit., pp. 263–4.)Google Scholar Usually the patterns of the first two inventories agree with each other but differ sharply from the pattern of the third. Thus the stelai were usually inscribed for the first time at the end of the second year or, conceivably, at the end of the first year with the of the second year inscribed later. The stoichedon patterns of the inventories of 434/3 and the following year, I.G. i2. 232–3Google Scholar, are identical (53 letters per line; vertical chequer, 0.020 m.; horizontal chequer, 0.014 m.), but the letters of the first inscription are not aligned in the same chequer with those of the second and are not of the same height (cf. Hesperia xxxiv [1965], 29–31).Google Scholar It is likely, therefore, that this stele was first inscribed on the instructions of the treasurers of 434/3. The inventories of 430/29 and the following year, I.G. i2. 236–7,Google Scholar seem to have been inscribed at the same time, but the alignment of their letters differs slightly from that of the next inventory, I.G. i2. 238 of 428/7.Google Scholar

page 287 note 6 Thompson, , op. cit., pp. 263–4.Google Scholar

page 288 note 1 Cf. I.G. i. 137–8.Google Scholar This large fragment (= I.G. i2. 252–3Google Scholar) belongs to the same stele as I.G. i2. 248–51,Google Scholar as Woodward notes, J.H.S. xlviii (1928), 166.Google ScholarFerguson, , op. cit., p. 69, is in error in distinguishing between Tablet 3 and Tablet 3b.Google Scholar

page 288 note 2 Woodward, in a letter.

page 288 note 3 Op. cit., pp. 262–5 and 270–1.Google Scholar

page 288 note 4 Cf. Arist. Ath. Pol. 33. 1. I label the term of Asopodoros as 411, that of Ameiniades as 411/0.

page 288 note 5 I.G. i2248–53;Google ScholarS.E.G. x. 197.Google Scholar

page 288 note 6 Thompson, , op. cit., pp. 265–6.Google Scholar

page 288 note 7 For the dimensions of these two stelai cf. Thompson, , op. cit., pp. 262–4.Google Scholar

page 288 note 8 I.G. i2. 24/25 and 88/89;Google Scholar cf. Dinsmoor, , A.J.A. xxvii (1923), 318–21,Google Scholar and Meritt, B. D. and Wade-Gery, H. T., J.H.S. lxxxiii (1963), 110, n. 61.Google Scholar

page 289 note 1 Cf. Thompson, , op. cit., pp. 263–4.Google Scholar

page 289 note 2 Op. cit., pp. 262–71;Google ScholarA.J.P. lxxxvi (1965), 159–74.Google Scholar

page 289 note 3 Cf. I.G. i2. pp. 110 and 118;Google ScholarWoodward, , J.H.S. xlviii (1928), 159;Google ScholarFerguson, , op. cit., pp. 54 and 68–69.Google Scholar

page 289 note 4 Op. cit., p. 54.Google Scholar

page 289 note 5 The number of spaces per line in the inscriptions of Pronaos IV and Parthenon IV is as follows:

I.G. i2. 25453Google Scholar

255 53 (45 or 46 in lines 323–31)

284 43

289 41?

290 42

page 289 note 6 Woodward, , J.H.S. xxxi (1911), 37–40, showed that the final inventory of the first penteteris and the first inventory of the second penteteris are both partially preserved on the same fragment.Google Scholar

page 290 note 1 I.G. i2. 258–61 all have 67 spaces per line.Google Scholar

page 290 note 2 Cf. Thompson, , op. cit., p. 263.Google Scholar