IRhamn 182 Accounts of Nemesis of Rhamnous

Accounts of Nemesis of Rhamnous

I Rhamnous 182 Date: Ca. mid-5th cent.

Year 1 In the demarchy of Autokleides, of the money (argurio) of Nemesis,^[1] (5) total of that with (para) those owing the two hundred drachmas: 37,000 drachmas; of the (10) other money of Nemesis, total: 12,729 dr., 3 obols.

Year 2 (15) In the period of office (archontos) of Mnesiptolemos, total of all the sacred money (hiero argurio): 51,397 dr., 5 ob.

Year 3 (20) In the period of office (archontos) of Nausimenes, total of the sacred money with those who have the two hundred drachmas: 37,000 dr.; (25) of the rest: 11,723 dr., 2 ob.

Year 4 In the period of office (archontos) of Euainetos, total of the three hundred drachmas: (30) 13,500 dr.; of the whole: 55,712 dr. 1 ob.

Year 5 Under the demarch Demophanes, total with the sacred officials (hieropoiois): 5,206 dr. 4 ob.; (35) of the three hundred drachmas: 14,400 dr.; of the two hundred drachmas: 37,000 dr.; of the whole: 56,606 dr. 4 ob.^[2]

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References:

I Rhamnous 182 (Translated text) (PHI)

IG I³ 248 (IG Online) (PHI)

ML 53

Fornara, Translated documents 90B

OR 134

Translation by: Stephen Lambert, Robin Osborne

Monument type: Stele

Original location: [Rhamnous (temple of Nemesis?)]

Findspot: Unknown (EM 12863)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] Situated on the coast in the north-east corner of Attica, Rhamnous is one of the best preserved Attic deme sites, abundantly documented by inscriptions, 400 of which have been conveniently collected by V. Petrakos in I Rhamnous (1999). In general on the deme see recently Osborne, in Lambert ed., Sociable Man . . . N. Fisher (2011), 25–43. The sanctuary of Nemesis, located outside the deme itself to its landward side, dates back at least to the early 6th century. A second temple was constructed in the late 6th cent. and a third, which survives and is characterised by its polygonal masonry, in the second quarter of the 5th cent. In the later part of the 5th cent. the area of the temple site was much extended and the great classical hexastyle temple known today was built (V. Petrakos, Ho Demos tou Rhamnountos, I Topographia [1999], 187–246). Although the cult of Nemesis was administratively under the purview of the deme, it attracted wider participation and support (e.g. in the Lykourgan period the ephebes were apparently involved in its festival, the Nemesia, see J. L. Friend, "The Nemesia in Lycurgan Athens", in J. Bodel and N. Dimitrova eds., Ancient Documents and their Contexts, 2015, 98-110), as the size of the new 5th cent. temple tends to confirm. Built perhaps in the 430s, M. M. Miles, Hesp. 58, 1989, 137-249, at 227, estimates the cost at 30 talents (compare the cost of the Parthenon, IG I³ 449), which will probably have exceeded resources available locally. However, unlike the cult of Apollo at Cape Zoster, RO 46, which also attracted participation from outside the deme, Nemesis at Rhamnous does not seem to have been among the “other gods” whose funds were administered centrally from perhaps 434/3 BC (RO 144 A ll. 18–22, cf. e.g. IG I³ 369, IG II³ 1, 445; Lambert, Historia 59, 2010, 164–9). An earlier financial document from the sanctuary is a lead tablet dating perhaps ca. 500, IG I³ 247 bis p. 957 = I Rhamnous 181, mentioning epistatai (overseers) and hieropoioi (sacred officials), and including a list of three people whose money is kept by the sanctuary (translated and discussed by J. H. Blok, Mnemosyne 63, 2010, 61-93, at 77-9). This latter inscription is also notable as perhaps the earliest to express sums of money not in words but in numbers, using the Attic "acrophonic" system whereby most numbers are rendered by the first letter of the word expressing the number (so e.g. ten = deka is represented by a delta). [2] The accounts summarise the finances of the sanctuary in five, perhaps consecutive, years, and are written up in a number of different hands. The wording and format of each account seems wilfully different, as if each demarch is wishing to assert his independence from his predecessor, but in fact a coherent picture of the sanctuary’s finances emerges (see Blok, 69-72). The total of the sanctuary’s monetary assets fluctuates over a fairly narrow range between 8 tal. 723 dr. [= 48,723 dr.] 2 ob. (year 3) and 9 tal. 2606 dr. [= 56,606 dr.] 4 ob. (year 5). This is made up of two categories: money lent out in packets of 200 dr. amounting every year to 37,000 dr., and in packets of 300 dr. in year 4 (13,500 dr.) and 5 (14,400 dr.) only; and ‘other’ money deposited with the sacred officials (12,729 dr. 3 ob. in year 1, 14,397 dr. in year 2, 11,723 dr. 2 ob. in year 3, 5,212 dr. in year 4, and 5,206 dr. 4 ob. in year 5). Parallels (see e.g. IG I³ 258) suggest that interest paid on the loans will have funded regular sacrifices and other cult expenses. The balance it seems is held in cash by the sacred officials, but in year 4 that balance reduces quite sharply (from 11,723 dr. in year 3 to 5,212 dr. in year 4), suggesting that some of it may have been put towards the 300 dr. loans that start in that year. In general, as one might expect, this cash balance fluctuates slightly from year to year. The sacred officials will have submitted detailed regular accounts (probably on perishable material) of their custody of these balances, cf. in Halai Aixonides RO 46, IG II² 1174, and in general on the culture of accountability of deme officials, the sacrificial calendars from Skambonidai, IG I³ 244, and Thorikos, OR 146. We do not know whether any of the money recorded in these accounts was used to fund the new temple. The lending of money in packets of 200 drachmas and 300 drachmas will have made accounting (e.g. for interest payments) much simpler. The total of 37,000 implies that there were 185 200 dr. loans, to which was added 45 300 dr. loans in year 4, rising to 48 in year 5, an overall maximum total of 233 loans. Rhamnous itself was quite a large deme, returning eight members to the Council of five hundred in the fourth century, so proportionately if Athens’ citizen population was ca. 50,000 in the 440s, as it might have been, Rhamnous would have ca. 800 adult male citizens. Some may have borrowed more than one loan packet, and with a cult that attracted participation from outside the deme borrowers may have included non-demesmen, but that a quarter of the demesmen were involved in this way with, in effect, the funding of their major deme cult, would not be out of line with other evidence for levels of financial participation in local Attic cults (cf. Lambert, in F. van den Eijnde et al. eds., Feasting and Polis Institutions, forthcoming). It should be borne in mind that the borrowers would not only have benefited from the capital (most will have derived their primary living from agriculture and/or fishing/other maritime activities, which are relatively capital intensive as regards buildings, stock, equipment, vessels etc. [compare the types of property of members of the Athenian elite listed in IG I³ 421, 425, 426]), they would also have had a share in the sacrifices and other religious facilities and activities funded by their interest payments, which may in some cases have been offset by payments from the deme for the supply of sacrificial animals and other offerings. By such processes individual deme members were bound by economic ties to their local communities with quite blurred lines between individual and mutual benefit and obligation. These accounts cover only the monetary assets of Nemesis. The other major type of revenue-producing asset held by Attic cults was land (cf. in the deme Plotheia, IG I³ 258, in the city, IG I³ 84), and there is an inscription of 339/8 BC recording leases of land of Nemesis by the demesmen of Rhamnous (I Rhamnous 180). Though Nemesis was the deme’s major cult, it was not the only one, and its other cults will also have required financial administration. As for the purpose of an inscription of this kind, it is notable that all fifth-century Athenian inscribed accounts have a strong religious aspect, and we should think of them, like the dedications in sanctuaries with which they overlap conceptually, as expressions of accountability directed at both gods and men.

Added: 30 Sep 2016
Updated: 23 Jul 2017
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