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The laws of Athens, 410–399 BC: the evidence for review and publication

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Noel Robertson
Noel Robertson
Affiliation:
Brock University St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada L2S 3A1
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Extract

From Draco onwards, if not before, the laws of Athens were preserved in writing, and some of them were also displayed to public view: notably the laws of Solon, written up on objects called axones and kyrbeis. No other publication of Athenian laws had such renown as this, or these, of Solon's. In fact it is hard to find any publication at all on the same scale, or any publication but of single documents in scattered places. In the later fifth and the fourth centuries, the period best known to us, each new document is published, if at all, on a separate stele. Moreover, there is no thought of aligning this stele with any existing publication, either of similar laws or of laws in general; instead the stele is set up at whatever spot seems indicated by the business at hand; if the business is urgent, more than one stele is set up at more than one spot. Such episodic publication is the rule for laws as well as other public documents. Or to put it differently, for a long while the Athenians did not distinguish laws from other binding decisions, mainly decrees of the Assembly; if they did not so distinguish when publishing on stone, they did not either in their filing system of papyrus and whitened boards. By the early fourth century a distinction was made, and afterwards insisted on, between ‘laws’ and ‘decrees’; but even then professed laws were published as before, on separate stelae in various places. From these facts we might be tempted to conclude that any general or comprehensive publication of laws, as of Solon's, was so to speak an accident, occurring only when many so-called laws needed to be published all at once, as will happen at an early stage of society.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 110 , November 1990 , pp. 43 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1990

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References

1 This ‘revision’ of the ‘law-code’ figures in every book and article on the history of the period, and the annotation here must be very selective: neither omissions nor inclusions have any disagreeable intent. The following abbreviations are used:

Clinton, K. 1982 = ‘The nature of the late fifth century revision of the Athenian law code’, in Studies in Attic epigraphy…presented to E. Vanderpool (Hesperia Suppl. xix) 27–37.Google Scholar

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2 The question about the orators has been raised by Hansen, M. H., GRBS xx (1979) 29 n. 8Google Scholar, cf. 50, and again CP lxxx (1985) 60, and by Kuhn 1985, 207. Hansen also gives an answer, viz. that ‘the new code’ was superseded almost at once by further developments, such as the institution of the prohedroi —which he thinks of as a step requiring ‘innumerable revisions in the code’—so that the publication on ‘the wall’ was ‘abandoned’. The answer does not seem very plausible in itself, and it would not be accepted by most exponents of the revision of 410–399.

3 ‘It seems to me improper thus to construe the decree in the light of the speech … It is in the words of the orator, if anywhere, that we must look for perversion’: Ferguson 1936, 146, apropos of another provision of the decree. This principle has never been applied to ‘the wall’, and the prevailing outlook is expressed as follows by Ostwald 1986, 519, cf. 513 n. 60: ‘The τοῖχος is located by Andocides [my emphasis] in “the stoa”, which is to be identified as the Royal Stoa’.

4 Before the decree is read, Andocides speaks of τούτους τῶν νόμων οἳ ἂν δοκιμασθῶσι, and thus anticipates the term which the decree uses first, δοκιμασάτω πρότερον ἡ βουλὴ κτλ. These verbal echoes help Andocides to misrepresent the substance of the decree (§ VI).

5 Wilhelm, A., Beiträge zur griechischen Inschriftenkunde (ÖstArchl Sonderschr. vii, 1909) 285.Google Scholar

6 Wilhelm (n. 5) 264–6, 325–6; Klaffenbach, G., Bemerkungen zum griechischen Urkundwesen (SBBerlin 1960, 6) 22–3.Google Scholar Wilhelm 265 cites our clause as an instance of such temporary writing. Oliver 1935, 8 n. 1, and Ferguson 1936, 145 n. 7, and Kuhn 1985, 216–18 all refer to Wilhelm, but fail to draw the consequences (Kuhn thinks of the back wall of the Stoa Basileios).

7 That the joining stelae are ‘the wall’ of Teisamenus' decree was first stated by Oliver 1935, 8–9, and since then it has seemed self-evident to everyone but those who prefer the back wall of the Stoa Basileios (n. 11 below).

8 The earlier text inscribed by the Thirty: Ruschenbush 1956. The earlier text erased by the Thirty: Fingarette 1971. The earlier text inscribed, then crased, by the democracy: Clinton 1982.

9 Wilhelm (n. 5) 240, 265, cited here and there both clauses of our decree as illustrating temporary notices; but he did not explain the relationship between them.

10 E.g. by Ferguson 1936, 145–6; Clinton 1982, 31–2. Others attempt to mediate between Andocides and the decree: Hignett, C., A history of the Athenian constitution (Oxford 1952) 301–2Google Scholar; Mac-Dowell 1962, 194–5.

11 H. A. Thompson apud Rhodes, P. J., A commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia (Oxford 1981), 134–5, 441–2Google Scholar and again apud Ostwald 1986, 519 n. 18; Kuhn 1985, 216–18.

12 So Thompson (n. 11); Lewis, D. M.apud Jameson, M. H., IG i 384.24–5Google Scholaradn.; Kuhn 1985, 217–18.

13 So Wychcrley, R. E., BSA lv (1960) 63.Google Scholar

14 cf. Robertson, , GRBS xxix (1988) 232.Google Scholar

15 Shear, T. L., Jr, Hesperia xxxix (1970) 145–203.Google Scholar

16 Wycherley, R. E., The Athenian Agora iii: literary and epigraphical testimonia (Princeton 1957) pp. 85–8, nos 229–32, 235–9, 241–2.Google Scholar

17 Thompson, , Hesperia xxxvii (1968) 63–4Google Scholar; Shear (n. 15) 203–22.

18 Kron, U., Die zehn attischen Phylenheroen (AthMitt Beiheft v, 1976) 229–32.Google Scholar

19 The restoration πρόσθε[ν το̃ν hερόον is now iodged in the text of Cleonymus' tribute decree, IG i3 68.21, but other restorations are equally possible: ML 68.20 adn.

20 For the later monument [Aristotle] gives a terminus ante quem of c. 325, but Aeschines does not give a terminus post quem; the two monuments may have been used concurrently for different kinds of notice.

21 In fact we do not know how notices at the later monument were spoken of. [Aristotle], Ath. 53.4, and Lucian, xxxvii Anach. 17 Macleod, only refer to a stele and a statue placed ‘beside’, παρά, the Eponymi; [Aristotle], Ath. 48.4, to officials conducting tribal business ‘at’, κατά, the statue of the respective eponym. Libanius, Decl. 29.43, is harking back to the fourth-century orators.

22 Wycherlcy (n. 16) pp. 86, 166, 179, 184; Rhodes (n. 11) 105. Elsewhere, however, the confusion is understandable, for official dining is in view, and this is common to the Tholos and the Prytaneion. An alternative suggestion offered by Wycherley, and rejected by Travlos, J., Pictorial dictionary of ancient Athens (New York 1971) 210Google Scholar, is that πρυτανεῖον was mistakenly written for πρυτανικόν the precinct of the Tholos; this term however is known only from inscriptions, and has no place in literature or learned comment.

23 Robertson, , Historia xxxv (1986) 163–5.Google Scholar

24 Miller, S. G., The Prytaneion (Berkeley 1978) 28Google Scholar, is sceptical of the Prytaneion as a house; but the notion is not belied by the archaeological remains. On Delos and Imbros the Prytaneion has a court,αὐλή, mentioned by inscriptions; four herms stand in the court on Delos, and a stele is set up in the court on Imbros: Miller 30, 185–7, 194.

25 For a maximizing view of this activity see Ostwald 1986, 405–10, 415–20, 511–12; part of it goes back to Harrison 1955, 30–1, who expressed himself more cautiously. According to Ostwald 1986, 405, the regime of the Five Thousand ‘ushered in a period of constitutional reform that had no precedent in Athenian history and was to last to the end of the fifth century’. In particular, Ostwald holds that boards both of syngrapheis and of anagrapheis were first appointed by this regime, being described by Thucydides as nomothetai, and that from 411 to 404 they were jointly engaged in the task of reform. The elements other than the anagrapheis of 410–404 need no refutation. The syngrapheis attested at intervals in this period as in earlier years are special commissioners preparing special reports of various kinds; as we shall see, some of their reports are held up by Lysias as a counterblow to the work of Nicomachus (§§ VIII, IX). As for the nomothetai of Thuc. viii 97.2, whether this is a title or a descriptive term can be disputed, but in either case they are unique to the regime of the Five Thousand. Thucydides regards this regime as the best of his time, and the feature he singles out for mention is the nomothetai.

26 Sealey, R., The Athenian republic (University Park, Pa. 1987) 157 n. 4Google Scholar, makes it a question whether Nicomachus' title for the second term was anagrapheus or nomothetes. This is misguided. Throughout the speech nomothetes is used of Nicomachus only in mockery, as when we hear that ‘he has gone from slave to citizen, from beggar to potentate, from under-secretary to nomothetes’ (Nicom. 27). cf. Harrison 1955, 29: the phrase αὑτὸν νομοθέτην κατέστησεν (Nicom. 2) ‘would be meaningless if he had in fact been a nomothetes’.

27 ‘The laws of Solon’, repeated further on (Nicom. 26), presumably means, as sometimes elsewhere, the existing laws. The phrase immediately leads to the inane comparison of Nicomachus and Solon (Nicom. 2, cf. 28).

28 Note however that Ostwald 1986, 122 speaks of ‘the assigned thirty days’, and elsewhere, 520 n. 83, equates these thirty days with the current ‘month’ of Teisamenus' decree.

29 The ‘six years’ of Nicomachus' first term are plainly the Athenian years 410/9–405/4; neither the first year nor the last need be complete. Dow 1960, 271 gives the terminal dates as 411/10 and 404/3: but Lysias would then have said ‘eight years’.

30 Stroud, R. S., Drakon's law on homicide (Berkeley 1968) 28Google Scholar, says of Nicomachus that ‘his work was outlined in the form of decrees’; this however is a false inference from Nicom. 5, ‘you think you need not render accounts or obey the decrees or heed the laws’, i.e. you disregard the elementary obligations of any office-holder. Stroud is also wrong to say that Nicomachus was supervised by the archons; it is only that the archons resort to him for texts of the laws, as do litigants in the courts (cf. n. 36).

31 It goes without saying that in the phrase ἀναγραφσάντον οἱ ἀναγραφε̃ς κπλ. the juxtaposition of verb and noun has no significance; the verb is used in every document that contains a provision for ‘inscribing’ the text or indeed for writing it up in any form.

32 Harrison 1955, 30 starts from the meaning ‘publish’, though in a wider sense than ‘inscribe’ cf. Ostwald 1986, 416, ‘to write up for display in public’.

33 Dow 1960, 271, and again HSCP lxvii (1963) 38–9.

34 In general, scholars have been strangely ready to endorse the prosecutor's implication that Nicomachus with the other anagrapheis was some how responsible for Athenian law-making and hence even for public expenditure (Nicom. 19–22). Harrison 1955, 29–35 is fullest, and describes the charge against Nicomachus in these terms: that he ‘usurped legislative functions’, that he ‘turned an administrative into a legislative function’, that ‘a superior clerk was producing texts of his own to suit his private purposes’, etc. Dow 1959, 24 and 1960, 274 seems to go even further than the prosecutor, for he thinks of Nicomachus as a wholesale innovator in the ritual domain. Here I examine the nature of his work; the substance of the charge against him is considered in § IX.

35 For a general description of a secretary's task, see Rhodes (n. II) 600–4.

36 The second sentence of § 3, The second sentence of, οὐκ ἠθέλησε παραδοῦναι τοὺς νόμους, I take to mean, ‘And when the archons were imposing fines and bringing cases into court, he was still reluctant to hand over the laws’. I.e., the judicial duties of the archons were impeded by Nicomachus, as were also (in the preceding sentence) the actions at law of private persons. Yet according to every translation and commentary that I have seen, the archons are punishing Nicomachus: ‘And though the Archons inflicted summary fines on him, and brought his case before the court, he would not hand over the laws’ (Shuckburgh). This cannot be. If Nicomachus had once been dealt with as a manifest wrong-doer, Lysias would harp on it. But the very worst he can say is that Nicomachus did not render his accounts for a long time (§§ 3–5).

37 E.g., Stroud (n. 30) 34–40; Gagarin, M., Drakon and early Athenian homicide law (New Haven 1981) 96–110.Google Scholar Harrison 1955, 30, cf. 26, wondered if the inscription was no more than a draft copy of work in progress. Rhodes, , in L'educazione giuridica v: Modelli di legislatore e scienza della legislazione ii: Modelli storici e comparativi (Perugia 1987) 10Google Scholar, thinks as I do.

38 As to how and when the law on intentional homicide may have been changed, cf. Sealey, , CP lxxviii (1983) 275–96.Google Scholar

39 Either term alone would not signify: elsewhere in the speech ἐγγράφειν is used of submitting one's accounts (Nicom. 5), ἐξαλείφειν of erasing stelae (Nicom. 21).

40 After the mid fourth century the title anagrapheus was given to a minor annual office; later still, under Antipater's oligarchy and during the ascendancy of Olympiodorus, to a more important office which appears in the heading of decrees. What the title then connoted we cannot tell. But there is no reason to assert, as scholars often do, that it meant something altogether different from our period.

41 After Boegehold, A., AJA lxxvi (1972) 23–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Reservations are expressed by Rhodes, , CJ lxxv (1980) 308 n. 26.Google Scholar Boegehold 29 suggests that the archive was recommended by the anagrapheis.

42 Stroud (n. 30) 58–60 estimates the original dimensions of the stone. [Dem.] xlvii Everg. 71 cites ‘the laws of Draco’ from a single stele.

43 Lewis, , JHS lxxxvii (1967) 132CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on the interpuncts in line 43. His interpretation is not hard to credit when we remember that the stone-cutter worked under the supervision of the Council secretary.

44 The surviving lines do not include any markedly old-fashioned word or form, although Stroud (n. 30) 44–5 finds an archaic meaning (line 12, δικάζεν), and Gagarin (n. 37) 153–61 thinks the style archaic (but also indicative of a superior mind).

45 Dow 1961.

46 ‘This fragment probably belongs to a collection of all the naval laws then in force’: Rhodes, , The Athenian Boule (Oxford 1972) 156–7.Google Scholar That is a large assumption, all the more since the appearance of the second fragment, IG i3 236 b, which comes from a much lower part of the stele and is still concerned with the impedimenta.

47 Jordan, B., The Athenian navy in the Classical period (Berkeley 1975) 30–40Google Scholar, argues that some provisions of the ‘trierarchic law’ are already attested in IG i3 153, ‘a. 440–425’.

48 Rhodes (n. 46) 156, leaves the question open: ‘published or republished in the revision of the laws begun in 410’.

49 Lewis calls these two lex sacra and lex incerta, the three others fasti sacri. I do not see why either term should be used for a bare record of ritual expenditure. According to F. Sokolowski on LSCG 16 (= IG i2 845), IG i3 238 as the obverse is not a lex sacra.

50 Stroud (n. 30) 2–3.

51 For the measurements see IG i3 104–5 (the thickness differs). Ferguson 1936, 148 n. 19 suggested that the anagrapheis ‘published the laws stele by stele’, first the two single stelae, then the joining stelae.

52 For the location that is meant, see Wycherley, , JHS lxxv (1955) 118–21.Google Scholar

55 Oliver 1935, 5; Dow 1941, 31–2; Thompson, and Wycherley, , The Agora of Athens (Princeton 1972) 89 n. 30Google Scholar; Kuhn 1985, 215. Note however that IG i3 237 bis (= Hesperia xxxvii [1968] 282–3 no. 19), a fragment added by Lewis, was found in 1936 in a Byzantine context at the north-west. Dow 1959, 35 thought that many new fragments might emerge further north, beyond the railway; but the north-west sector has now been largely dug to the fifth-century level, and the hope is belied. Thompson apud Rhodes (n. 11) 135 suggests that the joining stelae were moved at a later date from the Stoa Basileios to the area of the Tholos and the Council-house.

54 The three series were distinguished by Dow 1961, who described all the fragments then known, and assigned the letter designations A-K (a lettered fragment may itself consist of two or three joining fragments). The series 0.120 m thick: fragments A-D. The series 0.092 m thick: fragments F-K. The series 0.144 m thick: fragment E. Lewis in IG i3 adds three other fragments with Attic letters: IG i3 236b, unpublished before, ‘cr. 0, 032’, which belongs below C in the series 0.120 m thick; IG i3 237 (= IG i2 140), ‘cr. o, 07’; IG i3 237 bis ( = Hesperia xxxvii [1968] 282–3 no. 19), ‘cr. 0, 016’. The last two are inscribed by the same hand, but it is far from clear what series they belong to: 237 may or may not preserve the original thickness, and of 237 bis, now lost, this detail is not recorded.

55 Oliver 1935, 7 (‘a singularly unweathered appearance’); Dow 1961, 64 (‘so many letters still so fresh’). Of IG i3 237, a fragment found on the Acropolis and added by Lewis, Lolling said that the letters still kept their red paint.

56 Fingarette 1971. Ruschenbusch 1956 held that the stelae always stood against a wall of the Stoa Basileios, but were turned round in 403 to conceal the side inscribed by the Thirty; he wrote before the front face was clearly recognized as such.

57 Kuhn's theory may be mentioned here (1985, 209–13); on this theory the reuse is more inexplicable than ever. For Kuhn holds that the stelae were at first, when inscribed in Attic letters, set up singly; they were clamped together in a row only when one side of each had been erased and inscribed in Ionic letters. The sole argument is that on the joining faces anathyrosis is mostly seen next to the Ionic side.

58 Thompson, , Hesperia xxxvii (1968) 43–56.Google Scholar

59 When ‘the nine archons dined in the stoa’, the dining area was partitioned by a curtain, περιφραξάμενοι τι μέρος αὐτῆς αὐλαίαι (Hypereides fr. 139 Kenyon); so the stoa in question had no diningrooms at the back, and may have been the Stoa of Zeus, which other evidence associates with the archons (§ VI). On the floor of the Stoa Basileios, just behind the front columns, there is a row of limestone bases with post-holes (in which traces of wood are said to have been found), regularly spaced in the intervals of the columns: Hesperia xl (1971) 245 fig. 1 and pl. 49b; Hesperia xsxliv (1975) pl. 82a. They obviously supported a temporary barrier. cf. Shear, , Hesperia xl (1971) 248Google Scholar; Thompson, , Agora Guide 3 (Athens 1976) 83Google Scholar; Kuhn 1985, 201–2, 225 n. 371. Shear speaks of benches, quite unfeasibly; Kuhn of ropes, but roping-off, perischoinisma, was done at some distance from the meetings it protected.

60 †οἵδε† ηἱρημένοι νομοθέται ὑπὸ τῆς βουλῆς. To the conjectures listed by MacDowell 1962, 122 we might add εἴκοσι (which happens to be the lemma in Pollux). According to Aeschines' scholiast, twenty citizens were chosen by the dêmos to reinstate laws that had been subverted, and a decree was passed, in the archonship of Eucleidcs, to introduce new laws in place of those that were lost. According to Pollux, twenty persons were chosen aristindên to take charge of the politela and the laws. According to Andocides, twenty men were chosen by the dêmos to take charge of the city until laws were enacted; afterwards the Council was selected by lot and nomothetai were chosen. All these sources appear to be describing, though with some inaccuracy, the same procedures as we see in Teisamenus' decree. Stroud (n. 30) 25 n. 24, following Kahrstedt, wrongly equates the twenty (in Aeschines' scholiast and Pollux) with the anagrapheis. Ostwald 1986, 500 thinks of the twenty (in all three sources) as consisting of two boards of ten, from the Peiraeus faction and the city faction; but the sources plainly refer to an undertaking of the restored democracy. I come back to Andocides' version below.

61 Of this rule Eumelus says that ‘Nicomenes proposed a decree’, etc., whereas Carystius says that Aristophon ‘introduced a law’, etc. (Ath. xiii 38, 577B = Carystius fr. 11 Müller). If the same transaction is in view, Eumelus' terminology is to be preferred as more specific. Hansen, , GRBS xx (1979) 32Google Scholar, 35 regards Theozotides' decree in favour of Athenian orphans as another virtual ‘law’.

62 cf. Strauss, B. S., Athens after the Peloponnesian War (Ithaca 1987) 42–86.Google Scholar

63 cf. MacDowell, , RIDA 3 xviii (1971) 267–73.Google ScholarLoening, T. C., The reconciliation agreement of 403/402 BC in Athens (Stuttgart 1987) 120–1Google Scholar, denies the interval, but without good reason.

64 Stroud, Despite, Hesperia xliii (1974) 162Google Scholar, the decree does not show ‘that sanction for the revised law code had to be secured from the Ekklesia’.

65 It is sometimes held that the controversy goes back to Ephialtes' reform; against this, see Ruschenbusch, , Historia xv (1966) 369–76.Google Scholar

66 Ostwald 1986, 517–19 calls the clause ‘baffling’ and ponders various explanations without result. Hansen, , CP lxxxiv (1989) 143Google Scholar, believes in a ‘revival’ of the Areopagus beginning with Teisamenus' decree, but admits that no other sign of it appears for the next fifty years. cf. Cawkwell, G. L., JHS cviii (1988) 2, 7Google Scholar, ‘the new position of the Areopagus under the restored democracy’, etc.

67 The discrepancy between the decree and Andocides' account of it was fully recognized by scholars of an earlier day, notably Droysen and Frohberger; but their methods of resolving it are no longer acceptable. cf. Ferguson 1936, 145–6.

68 ἕες †ἂν† οἱ νόμοι τεθεῖεν. Of suggested emendations, for which sec MacDowell 1962, 120, some keep οἱ one makes it ἄλλοι instead. Perhaps ἄν took the place of the ethic dative ὑμῖν: ‘until you got your laws enacted’.

69 ‘A perfectly absurd motivation’: Ferguson 1936, 145 n. 8; cf. Harrison 1955, 32.

70 MacDowell 1962, 121 suggests that the Athenians first thought of enacting a whole new law-code, then decided on ‘the more modest legal revision’ called for by Teisamenus' decree. But this reverses Andocides' sequence.

71 MacDowell 1962, 197 goes so far as to speak of two successive ‘legal revisions’ in the year 403/2.

72 The relationship between the laws quoted by Andocides and fourth-century nomothesia is discussed by Hansen (n. 61) 28–31, 42–3 and GRBS xxvi (1985) 360–2; Rhodes, , CQ 2 xxxv (1985) 59Google Scholar; Sealey (n. 26) 37–41 and CJ lxxvii (1982) 294–5.

73 There was however some reason for doubting [Aristotle], as long as the Stoa Basileios was thought to be the same as the Stoa of Zeus, built as late as the 420's.

74 Mid 6th century: Shear, , AAA iii (1971) 300Google Scholar, and Hesperia xl (1971) 249–50, and Hesperia xliv (1975) 369–70; Thompson and Wycherley (n. 53) 84; Kuhn 1985, 200. Near the end of the 6th century: Shear, , AJA lxxviii (1974) 178–9.Google Scholar Either then, or just after 479: Thompson (n. 59) 84; Camp, J. M., The Athenian Agora (London 1986) 53, 100.Google Scholar Early 5th century: Wycherley, , The stones of Athens (Princeton 1978) 30–1.Google Scholar ‘A longer talk with L. Shear has revealed that the excavation reports published up till now provide no sufficient basis for discussing these questions’: Kuhn 1985, 202.

75 The archons like other magistrates dined while at work (Hypereides fr. 139 Kenyon; Apollodorus ἐν δευτέρωι περὶ νομοθετῶν apud Diog. Laert. i 58: lege συνδειπνεῖν). Two large dumps of pottery used for official dining (and so marked with the graffito ΔΕ) have been found near the Stoa Basileios, one dating from c. 480–460, and the other from c. 460–425: Talcot, L., Hesperia v (1936) 333–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Shear, , Hesperia xlii (1973) 383–5.Google Scholar The earlier dump antedates both the Stoa Poikile and the Stoa of Zeus; the later antedates the Stoa of Zeus.

76 Two inscribed laws have been found nearby: the law of 375/4 on Coinage, Silver, ‘built into the west wall of the Great Drain in front of the Royal Stoa’ (Hesperia xliii [1974] 157)Google Scholar, and a law of 374/3 on taxing grain in the islands, ‘built into one of the side walls of the Great Drain, where it passes the northeast corner of the Stoa Basileios’ (ASCS Newsletter, spring 1987, p. 8). The former had been posted ‘at the tables’ (line 46), i.e. the banking tables, which were somewhere near the Stoa. We may assume that the latter also comes from the vicinity; the text has not been published.

77 Shear, , Hesperia xliv (1975) 367–9.Google Scholar This is the area called ‘the Herms’ in literature and documents; the Stoa Basileios can be referred to as ‘the stoa of the Herms’ (Aeschin. iii Ctes. 183, of 330 BC; IscrStorEl 16.43–4,a decree of 281/0). It is true that a scholium makes a series of ‘three stoas at Athens’ by juxtaposing the Stoa Basileios and the stoa of the Herms, ἡ μὲν Βασίλειος, ἡ δὲ τῶν Ἑρμῶν, and then adding the Stoa Poikile, also called Peisianakteios (schol. Dem. xx Lept. 112); but since the Stoa of Zeus has obviously fallen out of this enumeration (it appears in other scholia and lexica as one of two or three stoas), the first two names must be alternatives for the same item, like Poikile and Peisianakteios. Lege e.g. ἡ μεν Βασίλειος, <ἄλλως> δὲ τῶν Ἑρμῶν.

78 Robertson (n. 23) 170–1 and AJA lxxxviii (1974) 257.

79 E.g. Ferguson 1936, 147–8, 150–1; Clinton 1982, 34–5; Ostwald 1986, 512, 520.

80 Dow 1960.

81 Dow 1961, 71.

82 Dow 1959, 15–21.

83 So Dow apud Mikalson, J. D., The sacred and civil calendar of the Athenian year (Princeton 1975) 49.Google Scholar Note that Erechtheus is linked with the Boedromia, a festival of Artemis and Apollo falling on 6th–7th Boedromion. This ancient festival was conducted by the Polemarch ([Arist.] Ath. 58.1, speaking of a sacrifice to Enyalius, god of the warcry; Cleidemus FGrH 323 F 18, speaking of a sacrifice to Phobos, ‘battle-rout’, by a virtual Polemarch at the Lykeion). If then Erechtheus was honoured on the day before, 5th Boedromion, it is not surprising that the office of Polemarch and the festival Boedromia are traced to the war against Eleusis, when Ion came to help Erechtheus (Hdt. viii 44.2; Philochorus FGrH 328 F 13; etc.).

84 According to Triantaphyllopoulos, J., REG xcv (1982) 293Google Scholar, it was for the archons or other civic officials to fix the days in question; but he gives no reason for saying so, and it is hard to think of one.

85 Oliver 1935, 21, 28–29.

86 Dow 1959, 16, 18–20, with pl. I.

87 I am indebted to Professor Rhodes for further information on this point. Having inspected a squeeze and photographs at the Institute for Advanced Study, he reports that after σ[ the surface of the stone is lost, and that any traces which might be taken as either τ̣ or υ̣ are illusory.

88 Harrison 1955, 28 n. 24, 34 n. 55 reminds us that στηλῶν in Lysias is Taylor's emendation for εὔπλων or ὅπλων of the mss. But στηλῶν is not ‘an insecure foundation for historical deduction’, it is a certainty: what else could Lysias have written? ‘I should have expected some qualification of στηλῶν to distinguish them from the stelai of Nikomachos mentioned later on’. They are so distinguished, in the phrase στηλῶνκατὰ τὰς συγγραφάς.

89 This is the normal view. Clinton, AJP c (1979) 1–12, assigns the sacrifices to the Mysteries instead; yet he still allows that these are ‘principal deities of the Eleusinia’ (p. 7), transposed to the other festival.

90 In line 2 init. the supplemen προτό]λεια is inevitable; the synonym ἀκρό]λεια is too short for the space. For λῆιον, λεῖον ‘grain’, see Threatte, L., The grammar of Attic inscriptions i (Berlin 1980) 209, 371Google Scholar (all the instances are from the fourth century). Almost every editor and commentator down to IG i3 5 gives προτέ]λεια, but the spelling τέλειος does not appear on stone at Athens before the second century BC. ‘The Attic form was clearly τέλεος’ Threatte 317.

91 On these boards of hieropoioi, see Clinton, , Hesperia xlix (1980) 281–2.Google Scholar

92 Still less do the deities of either the calendar or the decree overlap with the deities who are served by several priests of the genos Kerykes, as listed in a decree of 20/19 BC (republishcd by Clinton, , The sacred officials of the Eleusinian Mysteries [Philadelphia 1974] 50–2).Google Scholar At this date the genos had charge of a dozen or more cults or rites at Eleusis and Athens, some familiar, others obscure. Only the Charites and ‘the two goddesses’ are common to the earlier documents (the genos cults of Hermes, Athena, and Poseidon all have quite distinctive epithets). Clinton (n. 89) 6–7 has no warrant for supposing that the earlier documents likewise concern the genos Kerykes. It is even doubtful whether the same cult of the Charites is in view throughout. In 20/19 the Kerykes possess the joint priesthood of the Charites and Artemis epipyrgidia, also known from a theatre seat (IG ii2 5050); these are cults of the Acropolis entrance. But the Charites of the earlier documents are more likely to be the premier Athenian cult near the north-west corner of the Agora, at the point where in early days the Sacred Way left the city for Eleusis.

93 ‘We actually have the very stele in question [IG i3 5] … it prescribes sacrifices to the first several deities listed’ under our rubric: Dow 1959, 20.

94 By the end of the fifth century ‘the normal spelling’ is δυγ- rather than συγ-: Tnreatte (n. 90) 354.

95 Dow 1941, 32, 35, 37, ‘fragment F’; Dow 1961, 59, 65–7, pl. 9c–d, ‘fragment E’.

96 Dow 1959, 16, 20, 24; Dow 1960, 274 n. 3.

97 The rule is not invariable, however; on one fragment a calendar date is directly followed by the observances (IG ii2 1357b = Hesperia iv [1935] 24).

98 In all the previous discussion of Nicomachus and his work, the question of the charges against him has seldom been clearly put and never convincingly answered. The slanders we have heard from Lysias are conformable with the work of a compiler, of one retrieving and assembling public documents. But do they make a crime?

99 E.g., Roberts, J. T., Accountability in Athenian government (Madison 1982) 26.Google Scholar The charge is known only from the lexica (citing also Eupolis fr. 377 Kassel and Austin), and a financial accounting is specified: λόγον οὐ δόντες τῶν τῆς ἀρχῆς διοιλημάτων.

100 On the other hand, when Lysias says that Nicomachus ‘took his money every day while he was writing down some laws and expunging others’ (Nicom. 2), these are certainly wages, not bribes, as suggested by Harrison 1955, 30.

101 MacDowell 1962, 108 gives a reasonable interpretation of [Aristotle]: ‘“Malefaction”, as opposed to embezzlement and corruption, no doubt means depriving the state of money by culpable neglect or inadvertence, as opposed to deliberate deception.’ If Nicomachus is found guilty, will he be required to repay those six talents that were overspent on sacrifice?

102 It is a commonplace among conservative pietists that ancient custom is being displaced by costly new sacrifices (Isocr. vii Areop. 29–30).

103 Dow 1960, 274–5, followed by Stroud, , The axones and kyrbeis of Drakon and Solon (Berkeley 1979) 10Google Scholar, holds that the sacrifices worth three talents which were not offered ‘had been omitted from the draft proposed by Nikomakhos and consequently also from the Code as finally adopted and transcribed’. Even if we could reconcile this notion with Nicomachus' task as a compiler and with Athens' attitude to ancestral custom, it could not be reconciled with Lysias' meaning. The reason why these sacrifices were not offered last year is that too much money was spent last year on other sacrifices. If these sacrifices had been ‘Omitted … from the Code’, the objection against Nicomachus would be very much stronger: not merely that the sacrifices ‘have been left unperformed as of just last year’, αὐτίκα πέρυσιν. . . ἄθυτα. . . γεγένηται; but that they are unrecorded and will be unperformed forever.

104 As Dow 1959, 17–18 remarked, there are monthly totals which must refer to all expenditures from all sources. Granting then that the sacrifices of the kyrbeis are included (n. 103), the front of the joining stelae could not assist Lysias' argument or his witnesses at all, unless they were prepared to undertake the most painstaking collation of sums and sources.

105 According to Stroud (n. 30) 28 n. 41, Lysias blames Nicomachus for omitting the syngraphai. But Lysias does not at all imply that Nicomachus omitted the syngraphai, no more than he implies this for the rites of the kyrbeis (n. 103); and a ritual text on the back of the joining stelae, IG i3 238.4, shows that he did not omit them.

106 Lysias says that in 404 affairs came to a crisis ‘before this fellow was quit of his office and rendered account of what was done’, πρὶν τοῦτον . . . τῶν πεπραγμένων εὐθύνας ὑποσχεῖν (Nicom. 3); i.e., he did not render any account, though the prosecutor implies that, but for the crisis, he would have been sharply examined. Immediately afterward Lysias calls on the jurors of 399 to bring Nicomachus to book for both terms of office, because he was not brought to book for the former term, ἐπειδὴ ἐκείνων δίκην οὐ δὲδωκεν (Nicom. 4). Lysias has often, I think nearly always, been misunderstood. MacDowell, , The law in Classical Athens (London 1978) 46Google Scholar, makes him say that Nicomachus ‘underwent the normal examination … in 404’; similarly Harrison, , The law of Athens ii (Oxford 1971) 211 n. 2Google Scholar; Clinton 1982, 28; Ostwald 1986, 511. According to Harrison, Nicomachus ‘managed to avoid a εὔθυνα for a period of four years’. Since Nicomachus was reappointed in 403 without being asked for a first term accounting, the Athenians allowed him to continue unexamined for a full ten years. In saying ‘managed to avoid’ and in the tenor of his note Harrison accepts the prosecutor's malign insinuation, which is implausible in the last degree.

107 Dow 1960, 271 n. 1 thinks that ‘rhetorical effectiveness demanded a single target’. It is hard to see why; often enough charges are preferred against several or all members of a board. Lysias' silence makes it virtually certain that none of the other anagrapheis had been charged at any time.

108 I am grateful to Professor D. M. Lewis for advice on some epigraphic points, and to Professor P. J. Rhodes for showing me a draft of a forthcoming paper on the same subject as mine.