IGII2 1203 Decree of Athmonon honouring the <i>merarchai</i> of 325/4 BC

Decree of Athmonon honouring the merarchai of 325/4 BC

IG II² 1203 Date: 325/4 BC

Gods.^[1] Theodorides proposed: since the section leaders (merarchai) in the archonship of Antikles (325/4) managed the sacrifices and common (funds) (koinōn)^[2] (5) well and with love of honour (philotimōs), the demesmen shall decide to crown the section leaders in the archonship of Antikles (325/4), Chairephanes son of Chariades, Dionysophanes (10) son of Dionysodoros, Lykophron son of Lykiskos, Antiphon son of Aristomachos, Lysippos son of Lysias, Smikythion son of Phalanthos, each of them with a gold crown of five hundred (15) drachmas for their excellence and their justice towards the demesmen, and to announce (this) at the Amarysia in the competition (agōni); and the demarch Pol- shall inscribe this decree on a stone (20) stele and stand it in [the sanctuary or the theatre?]. In crown Smikythion son of Phalanthos In crown Lykophron son of Lykiskos In crown (25)Chairephanes son of Chariades Three further crowns not preserved

Previous - Takeuchi, Two Attic Demarchs, no. 1

References:

IG II² 1203 (Translated text) (PHI)

Schwenk, Athens 70 (PHI)

Humphreys, Kinship, 1056-67

Takeuchi, Two Attic Demarchs, no. 2 (Grammateion)

Russo, Ripartizioni, D20

Translation by: Stephen Lambert

Images: Grammateion - (1)
Krateros - (1)

Monument type: Stele

Inscription type: Decree (Deme Athmonon)

Original location: Athmonon

Fr. a - Findspot: Marousi (= ancient Athmonon) (EM 7746)
Fr. b - Findspot: Unknown (EM 7747)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] Textual Note. Schwenk documents from autopsy more accurately than IG the irregularities in the lettering and stoichedon. This impacts on the sense only at the end of l. 19, the place of erection of the stele, where IG prints ἐν τῶι ἱερ]|ῶι, Schwenk ἐν τῶι ἱερ^vv?]|ῶι. This opens the way to the restoration, ἐν τῶι θεάτρ]|ῶι, which is well paralleled in deme decrees, e.g. Ackermann no. 1, whereas in a deme, which would normally have more than one sanctuary, one would have expected "the sanctuary" to be further defined, as in IG II² 1206 (sanctuary of Athena Hippia in Acharnai), IG II² 1214 (Hestia in Piraeus). There is no direct evidence for a theatre in Athmonon, but the choregic dedication, IG II³ 4, 511, perhaps implies one, as also perhaps the announcement of the honours "at the Amarysia in the agon" (17). If ἐν τῶι ἱερ]|ῶι is correct, one would have to take the identity of the sanctuary in 19 to be implied by the reference to the Amarysia two lines previously. Takeuchi notes that the demarch's name in l. 20 is Pol- (Po- previous eds.) and that both IG and Schwenk misprinted the patronymic of the honorand in l. 26, Χαριάδου (cf. l. 9), as Χαιριάδου.

On the Attic demes see RO 46, with notes. This is one of two exant decrees of Athmonon, a medium-sized deme (bouleutic quota 6? The quota is not directly attested, cf. AIO 2687, Traill, Demos and Trittys, 135) of the inland trittys of Kekropis, north-east of the city of Athens, best known as location of a sanctuary and festival of (Artemis) Amarysia (from which the modern toponym, Marousi, derives. "Amarysia" is used both as a feminine singular to refer to the goddess, and e.g. at l. 17 of our inscription as neuter plural to refer to the festival). For a recent discussion of the deme and its prosopography see Humphreys; for an illustrated monograph, G. Palles, Το Μαρούσι της Αττικής (2004) (SEG 55.40). A decree of Athmonon is also one of a number of decrees inscribed on the dedication from the Acropolis of the ephebes of Kekropis of 334/3 BC, RO 89. The decree honours the ephebes and their tribal controller (sophronistes), who was a demesman of Athmonon.

Other inscriptions relating to this deme include: SEG 24.197 (list of contributors); IG II³ 4, 1876 and 1877 (Roman period horoi of the temenos of Artemis Amarysia); and IG II³ 4, 511 (choregic dedication).

A group represented by two archons from Athmonon sold at least three estates at Athmonon in the public land sale programme of the Lykourgan period, one of them for 625 dr., to buyers at least two of whom were from Athmonon (Rationes Centesimarum, F12A, 5-13). The position of the sale record in the accounts implies that it was not the deme. Officials known simply as "archons" are characteristic of gene (cf. RO 37, genos Salaminioi), but are also found in other types of group (e.g. the archon of the Tetrapolis, IG II² 1358 col. 2, ll. 39-40) and might in this case have been appointed ad hoc for the purpose of the sales. S. Aleshire ap. Lambert, Rationes Centesimarum (1997), 197-98, suggested the group might be a genos responsible for the cult of Artemis Amarysia, but Humphreys points out that our inscription perhaps implies that the cult was under the control of the deme by this period. In 341/0 BC Athmonon was also involved in a dispute (a diadikasia) (with a genos? same group as above?) concerning "myrrh and smilax" used in the cult of the Eleusinian goddesses (Deinarchos F 34 Conomis). Humphreys suggests that this might imply that Demeter and Kore were also worshipped in the deme.

This decree honours the six "section leaders" (merarchai) of the year 325/4 BC (and may have been passed in the following year, 324/3 BC), awarding them 500 dr. crowns and this inscription. (500 dr. is the most common value of crown awarded by demes, but the total outlay for crowns here, 3000 dr., is the greatest attested in any deme decree. Cf. Whitehead, Demes of Attica, 1986, 163). It is impossible to pin down the precise character of these officials: the term is otherwise attested for commanders of military units, which is not applicable in the context of a 4th-cent. Attic deme, though a connection with the organisation of the agon at the Amarysia (at which the crowns are to be announced) seems possible, especially perhaps if the agon was athletic (see further below). Two duties are implied by the decree itself: sacrificial and (probably) financial (l. 4) and there is a possible parallel with the sacrificial subgroups attested in several other demes: e.g. the triakades to which all members of the deme Piraeus appear to have belonged, IG II² 1214; the apparent allocation of the costs of sacrifices in Erchia to five individuals or groups in SEG 21.541; and perhaps the pentekostyes now attested in the inscription uncertainly attributable to Aixone, IG II² 1356. There is also a possible semantic connection with the merismos, the term used for allocating the city's budget to specific funds (their title suggested to Wilhelm that the merarchs of Athmonon were responsible for financial distributions, see Schwenk p. 354). Humphreys, 1057, suggests that each merarch covered the costs of a group of sacrifices allocated to its "section", but one might in that case have expected them to be praised for their philotimia, whereas the awarding clause emphasises their excellence and justice (15-16), which is more suggestive of a deme office than a liturgy (albeit that the justification clause, l. 5, refers to their philotimia). D. Ackermann, in N. Badoud ed., Philologus Dionysios. Mélanges .... Knoepfler (2011), 39-78 (at 78 n. 107) wonders whether the merē in Athmonon, the triakades in Piraeus and the pentekostyes in Aixone (?) were relics of archaic military units. For sections (merē) in other demes see IG II² 2496, I Rhamnous 512.

Writing in the 2nd cent. AD Pausanias 1.31.5 notes that, while his guides knew nothing of the origins of the cult [of Artemis Amarysia] in Athmonon, there was likely a connection with the Amarysia worshipped at Amarynthos in Euboea, "while the festival of the Amarysia which the Athenians celebrate is no less splendid than the Euboean". Our inscription reveals that the festival included an agon, i.e. a competition, entailing athletics and/or some other kind of performance (e.g. drama, cf. the note to IG II³ 4, 511) and the Euboean Amarysia festival (a major pan-Euboean event) included among other things a gymnastic competition in the Hellenistic period, IG XII 9, 234 (cf. D. Knoepfler, BCH 96, 1972, 283-301; CRAI 1988, 382-421, 391 on Athmonon. For regulations of the Artemisia festival at Amarynthos see RO 73 = Axon 98; and on the Artemision there see now also S. Fachard, D. Knoepfler et al. eds., AR 63, 2017, 167-80; Various Authors, Antike Kunst 61, 2017, 129-37; 62, 2019, 145-57; 63, 2020, 105-19; 65, 2022, 128-36; ESAG Public Report 2019, 6-9; 2020, 7-10, 17-19; 2021, 6-7). That the cult at Athmonon was already of long-standing at the time of our decree, and of more than parochial significance is suggested by IG I³ 426, ll. 66-69, which implies the existence of a sanctuary of Artemis Amarysia from Athmonon in the city of Athens (Kydathenaion) in the 5th cent. BC (cf. Parker, Polytheism, 457). See now for a full discussion and analysis of Artemis Amarysia in Attica and its connection with the cult in Amarynthos (an outlying settlement or deme of Eretria, Strabo 10.1.10, IG II³ 1, 412, l. 29), I. Bultrighini, in G. Woolf et al. eds., Sanctuaries and Experience, 2024, 193-218. She suggests the close connection that existed in the 6th century BC between the tyrant Peisistratos and Eretria (where he spent ten years in exile, Hdt. 1.61.2, Ath. Pol. 15.2) as a plausible context for the introduction of the cult into Attica (pp. 203-4), discusses the abundant evidence for the festival at the Artemision in Amarynthos (recently located 60 stades = ca. 10.5 km from the East Gate of Eretria, 205-10), notes the existence of a minor urban equivalent of the sanctuary in Eretria itself (211-2) and suggests that the arrangement of the two cult sites in Attica (also ca. 10.5 km apart) mirrored that in Eretria/Amarynthos, and that, as there was a procession between the two Artemisia in Eretria and Amarynthos, there was probably an (annual?) procession from the Artemision in Athens to the one in Athmonon (212-4).

The proposer is one of four men named Theodorides in Athmonon ca. 380-280 BC listed in the Athenian Onomasticon. The strongest candidate for identification with our proposer is the son of Theodoros at IG II² 2385, 25 (apparently a tribal dedication of Kekropis from the Acropolis contemporary with our decree, cf. SEG 33.160 with Humphreys, 1057-8). Characteristically of men prominent in their demes, neither the proposer nor any of the six merarchai is attested as a city liturgist. Chairephanes son of Chariades is on the funerary monument, SEMA 32 (= SEG 48.285), l. 7, with other family members, and may be related to (brother of?) Ap- son of Chariades of Athmonon, official of an unknown selling group in the public land sale programme at Rationes Centesimarum, F11A, 1. The rarely named Dionysophanes son of Dionysodoros is not otherwise known, nor is Lykophron son of Lykiskos, but note the - son of Lykiskos of A., ephebe in 333/2 BC at IG II³ 4, 337, l. 23; and the Lykiskos son of Smikylion of A. who manumitted three slaves in ca. 334/3 BC at IG II² 1564, ll. 4-13. Neither Antiphon son of Aristomachos nor Smikythion son of Phalanthos is otherwise known, though Smikythion might have been the son of Phalanthos son of Demetrios, the contributor at SEG 24.197, l. 10. A Lysippos son of Lysias is also on the tribal dedication mentioned above, IG II² 2385, l. 61 and might have been a member of the wealthy family which included the syntrierarch, Lysikles son of Lysippos of A. (Davies, APF, pp. 355-56). [2] As commonly, Koina, "common things", has a financial connotation in this context. cf. e.g. IG II² 1263, ll. 8, 12-13.

Added: 30 Sep 2022
Updated: 1 Nov 2025
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