10 2307@4434693

The Athenian Coinage Decree
Author(s): Harold B. Mattingly

Source: Historia: Zeitschrift fr Alte Geschichte, Bd. 10, H. 2 (Apr., 1961), pp. 148-188
Published by: Franz Steiner Verlag
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THE ATHENIAN COINAGE DECREE.*

Before the discovery of the fragment in Attic script at Kos the measure
which imposed Athenian currency on the Empire was universally dated c. 420
B.C. The context seemed admirable and it was tempting to recognise Kleon
or Hyperbolos as the decree's ultimate sponsor'. Since Segre's publication,
however, historians have shown a flattering readiness to accept the epigraphists'
verdict as final. Few have quarrelled openly with their disturbing insistence
that the Kos copy must be dated on its letter-forms close to 450 B.C. Most
waverers will have been won over by the masterly reinterpretation of the coin
evidence, through which E. S. G. Robinson sought to demonstrate a general
break in allied issues about that very time2. Cavaignac, however, remained
unconvinced and argued forcibly against the new dating oin historical grounds
similar to those urged earlier by H. Schaefer. The decree, they feel, is too
drastic and ambitious for Perikles in the early 440s. It is tlle work of a power
long confirmed in habits of imperialism and further schooled by the lharsh
necessities of the Archidamian War. Their instinct may well prove sound, but
they did not support it sufficiently with epigraphic arguments. Since they
both also inclined towards a date manifestly too low, scholars have been able
to underestimate the seriousness of their challenge3.
*) I would like to thank Prof. H. Bengtson, Dr. M. N. Tod, G. K. Jenkins, A. G. Woodhead
and E. Badian for encouragement and help. None of them should be taken as agreeing with
miiyconclusions. I owe an immense debt to thle work and inspiration of I'rof. B. D. NMeritt
and Prof. H. T. Wade-Gery, but it would be a poor return to refrain from criticislmi. They
have themselves always shown that respect for the facts wlhich lea(ld to contitlual inodification of theory.
1 See M. N. Tod, Greek Historical Inscriptions, i (I933), no. 67 (with good bibliography):
D. M. Robinson, Amer. Journ. Phil., lvi (1935), 149-154 (Aphytis fragment): M. Segre,
Clara Rhodos, ix (1938), I51-178 (Kos): IG xii, SuppI. (I939), 215ff. (composite text):
B. D. Meritt, H. T. XVade-Gery and M. F. McGregor, The Athenian Tribute Lists (henceforth ATL), ii (1949), D 14 (improved text): A. WV.Gomme, A Historical Commentary omi
Thucydides, i (I945), 383f.: G. F. Hill, Sources for Greek History2 (edited by R. Meiggs and
A. Andrewes; I951), B 39 (ATL text and date).
2
Hesperia, SuppI. viii (I949), 324-340.

Rev. Num. (v ser.) xiii (I953), I-7: Htermes,lxxiv
(1939),
253-257.
TrheATL editors
assert (iii, I n. 25) that Schaefer 'misses completely the significance of the Decree of
Klearchos (D 14), which he persists in dating ca. 414 B.C.', but, despite charging him with
misuse of evidence, they do not examine his case. Cavaignac touched on epigraphy (p. 2) but
A. G. Woodhead's dissatisfaction (SEG xv (1958), 4) was clearly justified. Though lie mnade
Kileon ultimately responsible, Cavaignac linked the decree with plans for the change-over
from qopos to the 5% harbour-tax, which was not achieved until 4.4!3 B. C. (p. 6f.).
The Athenian CoinageDecree
149
The epigraphic evidence forms the gravamen of the orthodox case. The
numismatic arguments are far from being decisive and have little independent
force. Robinson himself frankly conceded that he was faced with some awkward exceptions. Certain important coinages were not interrupted C.450 B.C.
He was well aware too that Athens was not really ready for so drastic a measure
at that date4. I shall try to show later that some of these difficulties can be
better explained in terms of the old dating, but here shall content myself
with appeal to a second opinion. G. K. Jenkins, in a review of Seltman's
GreekCoins2, has suggested that numismatically the later date for the Coinage
Decree may still be considered open5. We must not then be too impressed by
the agreement of experts in these two branches of study. Essentially what
counts is the strength of the epigraphic criteria. We are imprisoned by a
dogma which requires most rigorous probing. Is it really true that three-bar
sigma disappears from Attic epigraphy after 445 B.C.8?
This dogma has been effectively criticised by no less an authority than
M. N. Tod. Since he found other reasons for putting the Coinage Decree after
438 B.C., he suggested that the Samian 6pot with S should perhaps after all
be put after the suppression of the Samian revolt7. Athenian sacred property
in Samos is hard to reconcile with full autonomy, but nothing is more natural
after surrender. When Lesbos capitulated in 427 B.C., Athens carved out
,1eAv for her gods on the island8.We might argue similarly about the archaiclooking
OpoLfrom Aigina. In the late 430s Aigina began covertly complain-
ing to Sparta about inroads on her autonomy. One form of interference might
well have been Athenian acquisition of sacred property on Aigina, perhaps in
consequence of some stirrings of revolt. Alternatively the !opoL
could even be
as late as the Athenian cleruchy which dispossessed the islanders in 43I B. C.9.
There is one isolated example of S which must be at least as late as this. It
occurs on the famous dedication of Aristokrates son of Skellios, to which Plato
refers in the Gorgias (472a). In view of his known career his victory as choregos
must surely be set in the Archidamian War'0. Religious conservatism might
4Op. cit., 324, 33I, 334, 337f. These problems were well stressed by Cavaignac (3ff.) in
favour of his late date.
5 Num. Chron, (vi ser.), xv (I955), 263.
6 See A. E. Raubitschek, Amer. Journ. Phil., lxi (1940), 477f. and Segre, op. cit., i6
for good defences of the dogma.
7 Journ. Hell. Stud., lxix (1949), I05 (review of ATL ii). For the opot see SEG i, 375
(['A]OvocEoc 'AOev&o[Le8eareq), Bull. Corr. Hell., viii (i884), i6o ("Iovo; 'Af'veOv) and
compare IGA, 8 (.rsov6wiov'AOkveO[e]v).
8 Thuc. iii, 50, 2.
9 Thuc. i, 67, 2 and 139, I (autonomy); ii, 27, I (TroLxOL).In both cleruchies and colonies -evwere normally set aside for the Athenian gods; see the decree for Brea, IG
i2, 45, iof. For the Aiginetan 8pot see IG iv, 29 and 34-38.
10 IG i2, 772: Pros. Att., I904 and A. Andrewes and D. M. Lewis, Journ. Hell. Stud.,
lxxVii (I957), I79. He was especially prominent between 4I4 and 406 B.C., often as a general.
HAROLD B. MATTINGLY
I50
account for deliberate archaising in these three cases, but they still show that
masons of the old school were working at Athens in the 430s. This is a vital
point. Surely, as Tod argued, such men would be called upoii to help more progressive craftsmen in times of intensive public record'1.So much could be urged
without questioning the general proposition that S and similar archaicformswent
out of public use c. 445 B.C. But I believe that we must be prepared to go further. There are strong reasons for assigning the CoinageDecree to its formerdate.
My first task is to state these as fairly as I can. I would ask the reader to forget
preconceptions and try to treat the decree as a document of unknown date.
For the moment let us not surrender tamely to the mass of material in IG i2
and SEG that appears to support orthodoxy, but recall only that few old Attic
decrees contain any objective evidence of date'2. We must begin by examining
rigorously the implications of the close affinity seen by most scholars between
D I4 and a document which displays throughout the four-bar sigma.
i.
The Coinage Decree and the Decree of Kleinias (I(r i2, 66+).
The letter-forms of IG i2, 66 were once found perfectly consistent with a

date in the 420S."3. After the redating of D I4, however, Raubitschek reviewed
Kleinias' measure epigraphically and put it back to the early 440s. His arguments were hardly conclusive, but they were accepted by Hill and Meritt, who
in I944 published a revised text of the decree with a new fragment found in
I938; they gave it the firm date of 448/7B.C.14.Their instinct may well have
been correct. The two decrees are surely allied in spirit and formulation. They
should therefore lie close together in date. But what is their true date? If it
can be shown that D 7 should never have been moved from the 420s, must we
not then think again most seriously about Klearchos?"5.
11 D 14 (? io) arranged that Athens should provide copies of the decree for uncooperative states. Tod thought that Kos may have been only one of many defaulters.
12 Archon dates are found only in the Segesta Treaty (IG i2, 19: [...]ov
Ppxe) and
the Miletos Decree (IG i2, 22+, =ATL ii, D ii, 63 and 86; In' 'EuOu6vo&pXov'ro;).
Raubitschek's attempt to fix the Segesta Treaty in 458/7 B.C. (Trans. Amer. Phil. Ass.,
lxxv (I944),
Io014) was countered
by W. K. Pritchett
(Amer. Journ. Arch., ihx (I955),
58f.);
the letters which Raubitschek thought that he could read on the stone ([ho]f3pov)are not
identifiable. In the ATL text of the Erythrai Decree (ii, D I0, 2; see p. 57) ACuatLIx[p&'Trc
EpZe. . .] has been restored after the epistates, following a suggestion made by R. Meiggs
(Journ. Hell. Stud., lxiii (I943), 34); this yields a firm date (453/2 B.C.), but it involves
omitting the secretary's name exceptionally from the body of the decree and is quite uncertain.
13 See B. D. Meritt, Documents on Athenian Tribute (1937), 59 f. and 40f.: ATL i (1939),
D 7 ('before 426/5 B.C.').
14 See Amer. Journ. Phil., lxi (1940), 477ff. and Hesp., xiii (1944), I ff. For bibliography
to 1949 see SEG x, 31. Tlle definitive publication is ATL ii, D 7. For convenience I shall
employ 'D 7' and similar references for decrees included in ATL ii.
15 See Hesp., xiii, g; 'Along with the monetary decree... it (D 7) was one of the measures taken by Athens to tighten economic control over the empire and it represents one of
151
Meritt once argued that Kleinias' Decree was closely linked with that of
Kleonymos which established boards of Tribute Collectors in the allied cities.
This was passed in the second prytany of 426/5 B.C. Have the plain affinities
lost their dating force? They would seem to tell inherently against separating
the two measures by over twenty years16. Since the script is indecisive what
in fact compels us to put D 7 in the early 440s? The name of Kleinias should not
be strongly urged. There is no certainty that this is Alkibiades' father, who
died at Koroneia. Though Alkibiades' brother and cousin were both too young
for the Council in the 420s, we must not therefore exclude this date, since we
should surely reckon with a man of another family. The name is not so uncommon and we have only to recall the confusing array of men called Kallias to
realise the force of this possibilityl7. It is further said that the Quota Lists of
448/7 and 447/6 B.C. show a new rigour of collection which may be directly
attributed to Kleinias' Decree. This argument, however, is no more conclusive
than the other. These very lists indeed might support a contrary view. Late
payers are not fined, nor in fact does htLpopi appear at all before 440/39 B.C.
Yet from all that we know of D 7 we should not expect any such leniency'8.
We are driven back on the text of D 7 and its relation with other Tribute
measures. At once we face a fundamental point. Was Meritt right originally
in placing it before Kleonymos' Decree? We should remember that he then
possessed a seriously defective text of D 7, which he had to reconstruct on the
basis of the other. It is now possible to compare them more adequately. There
is no longer any reason for asserting that 'IG 12, 66 must be the earlier, because
if IG I2, 65 had been already voted parts of IG i2, 66 would have been otiose'.
Nor can D 7 be contrasted as of one-year validity with D 8, the decree of perthe last links in the swift chain of events that transformed thle Delian League into the
Empire of Atlhens'. The view recurs in ATL iii, 28I. Segre (op. cit., 174) neatly eliminated
the 'earlier decree' of Klearchos which still causes controversy; Klearchos will have already
proposed a decree as Councilor, so that D 14 had to be defined in the Council's oath specifically as [. . T' 8sU?r]pov or [. . . t'o a're]pov fgtaa
8 KXfapXo4 ebrev. The ATL editors
agree that D 14 is Klearchos' Decree (see ii, 67).
16 See Doc. Ath. Trib., 3-42,
59f.:
SEG x,
72
(bibliography
on IG i2, 65): ATL ii, D 8
and iii, I33 (date). Comparing D 7, 20ff. with D 8, i8ff. the editors write (iii, 15) 'The
similarity between the two decrees requires that TO&v&ay6vrT[ov m'rOv6lox'ral'-in D
8, 20 - 'must mean ,,the names of those who paid in full"'. I doubt thlis conclusion (see
n. 21), but by it they betray their consciousness of the unusually close links in conception
between D 7 and D 8. Does not this make their date for D 7 appear rather arbitrary?
17 See Hill and Meritt, op. cit., 8f. and Wade-Gery, Hesp., xiv (I945),
2I6 n. io (more
than one other Kleinias). A Kallias proposed IG i2, 91-2 (434/3 B. C.; financial decrees);
51-2
(432/I
B. C.; Rhegion
and Leontini);
25
(424/3 B. C.; Nike's priestess).
Kallias,
son of
Kalliades (RE x, I622 f.) may be another person altogether, as also Kallias, son of Hipponikos, and his grandson (ibid. I615-I622).
But see the ingenious arguments in ATL, iii, 276f.
Is See Hill and Meritt, op. cit., gf. and i4f. For irLpopac see H. Nesselhauf, Klio, Beiheft xxx (I933), 5i f. and ATL i, 452f. For the absence of fines in Lists 7 and 8 see Meritt,
Doc. Ath. Trib., 84 ns. 33 and 34: ATL iii, 44-52 (appendix, List 8).
I52
HAROLD
B.
AIATTINGLY
manent validity which was to take its place. We are now assured instead that
D 8 'represents a more advanced stage in administrative development' than
D 719. Is this really so? Kleonymos' Decree established the official Collectorsof
Tribute and apparently made them liable for their city's contribution. Amendments provided for accurate public record of defaulting cities soon after the
Dionysia and for the collection of arrears20.D7 strengthens Athenian control
over the whole system of collection and deals specially with fraud or error en
route to Athens. It establishes effective checks on the couriers who bring in the
tribute, of which there is no trace in D8. But we should note that their names
were registered under that measure, when a city was in default. This looks
like a tentative first step towards the proper distribution of responsibility
which, I believe, was Kleinias' main purpose. He wished to ensure rigorous
prosecution of the real offenders21.Arrears are also more efficiently dealt with
than under the provisions of D 8. Four commissioners are to deliver receipts to
those cities which paid in full and to demand arrears from those which paid
in part, according to the list drawn up by the Hellenotamiai. This registered
separately the full payers and those who fell short 'if there are any such'. If this
phrase is correctly restored, it surely reflects greater rigour than D 8 shows.
Complete default is no longer even envisaged, but will presumably be
treated as tantamount to revolt22. This may, I fear, seem no less subjective
'" Meritt, Doc. Ath. Trib., 51-58 (old text), 59 (date): Hill and M\Ieritt,op. cit., 8. The
new fragment (r938) revolutionised interpretation. Clauses which MIeritthad made virtually identical in the two decrees now appear subtly different or occasionally quite unrelated.
20 Meritt, op. cit., I4-26.
As restored D 8's purpose is defined (7If.) thus; [h67roq o&v]
hezoxaocX6zO[v'AOe]v[ocotq aV.T71oc, &y? ye-1]ho[y6poq]9 hu7r[4euvoL 6at hot kx)oyi...].
The registration of the Collectors' names in the Council House (5s ff.) excellently supports this supplement.
21 For D 7 see Hill and Meritt, op. cit., Io-14 and ATL iii, I5; the editors' cryptic comment '447 as against 426' hardly disposes of the problem why D 7 seems not even to be
implied in D 8. D 7, 8ff. shows that its arrangements wveremeant to be permanent. D 8,
W
i8ff. provides for registering in the Council House r&q[7ro61e-&Gcq
aLno']jamq 'o p[pslo xdt
.ov xtcy6vT[ov -' ov6zarc]. According to ATL iii, i5 the last phrase covers the 'paid-up
cities'; but D 7 clearly shows that hoL O7rrkyov:-q are the couriers, as Hill and Meritt
recognised (op. cit., ii). D 7 possibly contained similar provisions ( ? in 43ff.), since in 58ff.
we read [. .h]6aot 8A 'noV &7r%[y6v'rov
'AOCvmae k 'r6 ntLvixtov &]oyypkeroat
6,[Xovrerg &v
xcvr& r6v n6)tv hexcaTev]. If a city could prove
T;? 0?t
'r.t[ POX6 &k3t8EiX;aL TLt 84i[oL
that it had paid its courier the full amount due, action then lay against the courier himself.
hcL no6]Xeqhxotv[weq sV ObZo86
22 Compare D 8, 14ff. [.L. &
xoL]vv &[7rorpoLv6aoov
.[ov 96)povxc' hod-%v]eqi. bro[8otv xat h]odrtv[sq a?vxa'ro ALkpe]withD 7, 20ff., [&]T:oSeZyOt
7ro?Zo-v'c& (xrog6a4[q
[6V
ZOpE;116CrML
6[ cp6poV k]VTCXEXO T&q ?u6XaaX7
7Lveq6atv]. D 7 may also have eliminated a short period of grace allowed by D 8. According to ATL i, 452f. 'wtypop&had been levied at the rate of I/60th per ten-day period.
Now in D 8, 13 we could well restore [8&xa he[Lepiat (or helLeupmt4),ue-'] Atov6ata rather
'AOevo oto tt
oto] ALoV6at. After this grace filues would have been

than the ATL [8&xoceitiep6v
levied on any further ten-day period. In D 7 the prytany must summon the Assembly
??c.r& AtovxJotoc, which
thus becomes
an absolute
deadline.
153
than the orthodox view, but there is one piece of objective evidence which
seems to prove that Kleinias' Decree followed that of Kleonymos. The editors
have, of course, not missed it, but they have curiously undervalued its relevance.
In 425/4 B.C. Thoudippos supplemented his famous Reassessment Decree
with a fresh proposal of exemplary brevity. Here is the text as given in A TL
? [Lzr1a'd}xa
ii (A 9, 55 ff.) ho7rra[rat 7t6]Xrzat y6po4 ['T'x]O[s ?d
[eohtT]
7tXpOT [eyp%]t[&trUS
q rfvxO]E6vocx
ta
?X1 ZpOTOX[?1O]
e[yoXc]houc7a'C.
pZOVt'o r6[v xot' 7vho7t]X[4v

=rO'VTOV 8[e ev]-ML rO[7CL
&r0yCv
[X00'C7Zep
closely with lines 4Iff. of D 7:

[X0C e?]V 'rL, 7rep. 'reV mx4[yoy?]v r4 Po6 9 ['rE4 svho-?ct]q
&8cxm r'C&yp1]t
.X. The offering of cow
cp&[q?vJCl ztcT' oc'Xr x[]x -rzv eov
&7r0L]X0GL . Now this must be compared
and panoply appears in D 7 as a universal accepted obligation of the

tributary allies. Is it not altogether more natural to assume that Thoudippos had recently established it than that his measure merely reasserted
a custom some thirty years old? Why should it have required a special
measure, in a new prytany, if this was all? On our evidence we have really
no right to deny Thoudippos originality23. His idea would have been
developed from the long-recognised duty of Athenian colonies, perhaps with
the help of the fiction that all the Ionian allies at least were ultimately
daughter-cities of Athens24. In turn his measure formed the precedent for
obliging the allies to send firstfruits to Eleusis, just as Kleonymos' cpopou
iz?,oysZ4of this later decree23.
ez,oyeZq were the pattern for the xxp7rro5
Let us now test this hypothesis that D 7 was passed after Thoudippos'
second decree. The prytany in office when Kleinias proposed his motion was
Oineis and the Dionysia still lay some time ahead. Now the fourth prytany
in 425/4 B.C. had only six letters and so must be either Oineis or Aigeis26. If
we assume that it was Aigeis, when Thoudippos proposed his Panathenaic
29 See Hill and Mleritt, op. cit., I3, for the contrary view. Kleinia.s' definite articles (tEv
&a7m[yoyr3v-c, po6q 4[.Eq ..avho7rXto]4) imply, however, an earlier empowering statute;
so too does his omission (unlike Thoudippos) to specify the Great Panathenaia. Before 425
B.C. relatively few allies would have had to attend the Great Panathenaia, since most
tributes remained fixed; after that date all alike must attend. See on this ATL iii, 75-81.
I assume that previously cities liable to increase were separately notified in advance.
24 For colonists see scholia on An'stophanes, Clouds, 386 and lines i f. of the Brea
Decree (IG i2, 45+; Tod, no. 44). A 9 explicitly assimilates the allies to the colonists; see
Hill and Meritt, op. cit., I4 and ATL iii, I48 n. 4I. For the lonians as colonists see Her. i,
i46f. and ix, io6. Ionian Erythrai after revolt had to perform some kind of religious attendance at the Great Panathenaia (IG i2, io-ii; ATL ii, D io,2ff.). On my view this
would be merely one of several tentative steps towards Thoudippos' universal ordinance.
25 IG i2, 76+, I4ff. Most scholars date it c. 420 B.C. (see Tod i2, no. 74 and p. 265), but
P. Cloch6 (L'Ant. Class., xiv (I945), 102f.), Ed. Will (Rev. Et. Grec., lxi (1948), 7ff.) and
S. Accame (Riv. Fil., N. S., xxxiii (955),
153-I63) still maintain a date in the 440s. The
last two ingeniously argue that publication was delayed until after the Peace of Nikias.
26 IGi2, 324, i 8 f . (Tod, no. 64).
I54
HAROLD 13. MATTINGLY
Decree, we can reasonably make Oineis the sixth, coinciding with the month
Poseideion, in which the reassessment had to be completed. Since representatives from all allied cities would be in Athens already, it wouildbe easy for the
Council to agree with them on seals and to provide them with the copies to
be used on the record accompanying the tribute. That would explain why D 7
does not deal specifically with this point27.I would further suggest that Kleinias'
measure may be foreshadowed in the Reassessment Decree (A 9, 44ff.): [hO'7ro
V hot. Tp0Cyot sEU'O6];
av TO,U cppOv] a&ac[y]oaLv [hv.L 76Xgq [17rLurLsCo30'
ae
v 'arXaL[v'r6] y6'[p]o hLtvaZ[r6c ULot apyuptov

hOTra[vZauvX'CZa li eo?T]P
htzacv6v 'g 6p. ]7064[etov ...]. Whether or no this really covers action by
Athenian officials, it certainly anticipates tighter collection of the increased tribute in face of growing allied reluctance. This tallies well with
the provisions of D 7, especially with the clause which threatens prosecution of anyone impeding the dispatch of tribute to Athens28. But I must
frankly admit a serious objection to my view. According to its prescript A 9
was apparently passed in the prytany of Aiantis or Leontis, but the probouleuma contained instructions for a prytany with only six letters! Wade-Gery
and Meritt perhaps found the best solution for this seeming contradiction.
They argued that the prytany named in Council must be Oineis, the second
prytany of the year. Its sponsors intended the decree to be passed in the last
days of this prytany after Kleon's victorious return from Pylos. Since he
arrived later than expected, it was not in fact approved until the beginning
of the third prytany, which they identified as Leontis29. Why then was the
clause with its threatened penalties against the prytany of Oineis retained in
the published decree? It would seem a most curious and careless piece of
drafting and one would have expected the CouIIcil to have formally recast
its probouleuma in the altered circumstances3O.The whole difficulty would
vanish if we could restore Oineis as the prytany in line 3, as Nesselhauf suggested; but Meritt has forcibly demonstrated that this is epigraphically inadmissible31. The alternative is to eliminate Oineis from the probouleunmain lines
See A 9, i8 (Poseideion) and Hill and Meritt, op. cit., i i f. (D 7, r i-i8; the seals).
28 D 7, 31-41.
Y. Bequignon and Ed. Will (Rev. Arch. (Ser. vi), xxxv (1950),
5ff.) proposed LhoL&r(axowroL]in A 9, 45. If correct this would make the link with D 7 still more
striking, since Kleinias inistructs these officials to supervise the tribute-collection (3ff.).
The ATL text is rather clumsy with its [&7tL?cX0aOovhOL a'7pMXeyO'] followed immediately
xpEaOat. Might not some suitable phrase with hot xpUT&Vi5 as subject
by [T65 8~ obpa'y6]
be restored ? The clause would then envisage Assembly action in the sixth prytany, presumably the passage of just such a decree as .D 7.
29 Amer. Journ. Phil., lvii (1936),
377-394. For alternative solutions see M. F. M1cCavaignac, Rev. Et. Grec., xlviii
Gregor, Trans. Amer. Phil. Ass., lxvi (1935), 146-164:
52-60. and 5o8-51o.
G. de Sanctis, lIiv. Fil., xiii (I935),
245-249:
(I935),
30 The examples of loose drafting quoted by A. H. M. Jones in his Athenian Democracy
(1958), II4 ff. are hardly comparable.
153f.
31 Gnomon, xii (1936), 296-301:
Amer. Journ. Phil., lviii (I937),
27
I55
34 and 36. Wade-Gery and Meritt with characteristic fairness allow that it is
formally not impossible to restore [.... .w]t} instead of [he O'W4]4and that
might be read for the published i-[q epe6ve]q. Leontis
,rZ[~ . vr.to]4
would thus fit perfectly well32.It is worth noting that the aspirate is occasionally
omitted in this very inscription and it is surely quite normal practice to repeat
the name of a prytany when it is mentioned a second time33. Leontis would
then be the second prytany of the year. Kleon will have left Athens early in
it after making his rash boast that he would return victorious within twenty
days. His friends in the Council, as Meritt saw, will have arranged to hold
up Assembly action on the tribute question till his return and Thoudippos
presumably moved his probouleuma when news came through of Kleon's
success. The elaborate machinery of reassessment could hardly be set going
later than the end of this prytany. Hence it was essential to give absolute priority to this business in the few days that might be left, if Kleon's return was
delayed by bad weather or any other mischance3. We are now free to recognise
Oineis as a winter prytany, since we need not follow McGregorin arguing from
the tense of et&XOein Thoudippos' second decree that Aigeis held the prytany after the completion of the t&lt cpopou;Oineis would then have to be
recognised as the fourth prytany. Fortunately Wade-Gery and Meritt have
shown sound reasons for doubting this conclusion. The aorist might be justified
by reference to the preliminary assessment lists drawn up by the rcx:x-ctat
an early stage, unless it is used in an anticipatory sense like 7rMpBoaxv in a
clause of the Peace of Nikias35.
D 8, A 9 and D 7 form a consistent group of measures, I believe, designed to
check the drain on the sacred treasuries, to ensure that routine war costs should
be met out of revenue and to enable the ultimate building-up of a new reserve
fund36.We can now add one more decree to this group, which Meritt brilliantly
cit., 394 n. 39.
33 The aspirate is dropped in A 9,9 (ES)and I4 (AMXtC= .. .6[v &]Xtaoca'rv);
perhaps also
in 47 and 49, where the editors restore x=0' Exaatrov vtmuTr6vand xwkvcT'q EVcktaqin the
gaps. Wade-Gery now suggests Eliaia as the correct form (Essays on Greek History (1958),
173 n. 4; 195 n. 4), but, despite the Doric variants and a&nnV)oca'r
in Aristoph. Birds,
I io, the traditional Heliaia seems preferable (see Ion. &X%,a?(L).
34 See Wade-Gery and Meritt's article, to which this section owes much. Their timetable (p. 388f.) is, however, too rigid. Since the Peloponnesian invasion probably was
early (Thuc. iv, 2, 1 and 6, i; May ioth rather than May 20th), the Spartan surrender
could be put at least a week before their date (Prytany ii, 20 instead of 27). Kleon would
thus be safely back in Athens before Pryt. ii, 34. McGregor's timetable is quite consistent
with my view (op. cit., I64); he brings Kleon back about Pryt. ii, 31.
35 McGregor, op. cit., I55: Wade-Gery and Meritt, op. cit., 390. Gomme, however, will
not allow this 'future perfect' sense in Thuc. v, i8, 5 (op. cit., iii, 671).
3 For Athenian war finance see W. S. Ferguson, The Treasurers of
Athena (1932),
153-168:
Gomme, op. cit., ii, 432ff. and iii, 5ooff.: Nesselhauf, op. cit., 92ff.: ATLiii,
32 op.
341-356.
156
HAROLD
B. AIATTINGLY'
recognised in a measure that had long been associated with the Melian expedition in 416 B.C. This, he saw, arranged for special fast tribute-raising
squadrons37.Thucydides reports such detachments in 430 and 427 B.C., of six
and twelve ships respectively (ii. 69. 1-2; iii. i9, i). Their task was presumably
partly to collect arrears or special contributions, partly to raise money from
those who did not normally pay at all. Neither proved well enough equipped
for its task and the general was lost with much of his force and probably some
of his accumulated funds. In 425/4 B.C. an altogetlher more imposing and
efficient force was operating over a wide area of the Empire under three
generals; since one of them took ten ships into the Black Sea, it would be
reasonable to assume that the total fleet amounted to thirty. Now this is
precisely the number laid down in the decree about the tribute-squadron3. It
provides for a well-balanced force, with peltasts and archers supplied both by
Athens and the allies. Besides the forty hoplites on each ship we find five
volunteer i7crod, who were perhaps drawn from the thetes, as they certainly were later39.If this is so, we can note two interesting differences from
the naval force used by Demosthenes in his unfortunate Aitolian campaign of
per trireme and these men of the
426 B.C., which carried only ten brOCToCL
hoplite class40.Is it not likely then that the new force was established early in
425 B.C. as a result of sad experience of raids up country? In the summer of
that year Kleon was able to take on archers from the allies and peltasts from
Ainos for his sudden Pylos expedition, so sparing the citizens. Why else were
these men waiting at Athens so opportunely for employment4l? WVeare not
told how Kleon obtained his ships, but I would suggest that he detached part
of the new naval force. This would be an additional practical reason why action
on the tribute question had to await his return. There would also be special
37 Studies presented to D. 'M. Robinson, ii (I953),
298-303
(on IG j2, 97; Tod, no. 76);
SEG xii, 26 (Mleritt's text). WV.Eberhar(dt (Historia viii (1959), 287ff.) has trenichantly
refuted M. Treu's attempt to restore the decree to its old context (l-1ist., ii [1954/51, 58).
38 Thuc. iv, 50, I (Thrace); 75 (Hellespont, Black Sea, Asia 'Minor): SF.G xii, 26, 12.
see Eberhardt, op. cit., 296ff.
For the vicq &py'Jp6Xoyot
39 Ibid., 9-12, 15-18. 700 thetes sailed as knLpoc-a-Cto Syracuse besides the 1500 hoplites
from the roll (Thuc. vi, 43).
40 Thucydides writes of them (iii, 98, 4; compare 95, I-2 6-,l-NM) TO57o06L .LJ 0 =X4004
7r6e
4
06TOL
OU'rOL Pz
TOt 8&6 OvCpeqEV -X 7r0X4?
XOt ~XLXO m
TCP &X -rn 'A071 CXL(.V
8&cpOokp7CXV.This must imply that they were of good family, not just 'a specially gallant
body of men' (Gomme, op. cit., iii, 4o8). The passage weakens Gomme's claim that the
?%LPa-XcdLwere thetes from the very startof thewar (ii, 42, 404, 407). Ratherthe 150 '7rLPXtc
of SEG xii, 26 may nmarkthe beginning of the policy of creating hoplites at state expense,
which is known from Aristotle, 'AG. HloI., 24, 3 (acutely cited by Meritt) and the fragment of Antiphon's Kocr&4)fXtvoupreserved by Harpokration (s.v. OirrE).
41 Thuc. iv, 28, 4. Gomme thought that these allies perhaps had had their pay found
as early as June; Kleon would thus need no mnonetary grant from Athens either (op. cit.,
i ,487f.).
I57
point in Aristophanes's allusion in Knights I070ff. (Feb. 424 B.C.), where the
Offal-seller warns Demos against Kleon:
OU
70
o~T0VO
'~oY6
U,
a V,M\
xa6' TOTrr
v, ,?W" ,5VCX5;
CLu?
&TpyteLa
oc;
0pYUp0X6yOUq
a7rau3
886Ovc
oVrToaL.
a"' A6Eom.
The very language of SEG xii. 26 reflects the conditions of 426/4 B.C., with
its talk of 7cyopopitand partial or complete payments of tribute (3f., IO).
The attempt at carrying out D 8 had probably shown that a larger squadron
of specialised ships was required for efficient coercion. There may moreover
have been valid complaints about the five commissioners who toured the
Empire collecting arrears in spring 425 B.C.42.The very existence of the new
naval force would prevent complete default by any city, which, as we saw, is
no longer envisaged in the Decree of Kleinias. It would further guarantee
prompt payment of arrears on demand, except where the city had some real
excuse43. In the winter and spring of 424 B.C. the ships were active in allied
waters as a present warning; they were evidently also largely concerned in
the registration of two new tribute districts, the Aktaian and Pontic cities44.
This long discussion has, I hope, shown that there are sound reasons for
dating Kleinias' Decree in winter 425/4 B.C. If this is allowed, we must consider most seriously the implications of its close links with the Coinage Decree.
The two measures have in common a certain toughness of phrase and outlook
and both stringently legislate against any breach or interference45.How close,
however, are the two decrees in detail? In D 7 the Council, the Athenian
&pZov'eq 'v Tm 7r6Xeat and the irtaxozwoare made jointly responsible for
42 Meritt argued (p. 30I)
from 7r]6v ?vpop6v for a date c. 430 B.C., since Trtpopx
last appears explicitly in Quota List 25. But see later- pp. I 66ff -for discussion of its date.
In any event the point cannot be held decisive as Eberhardt rightly observed (op. cit. 289).
Was Laches perhaps one of the five 'collectors' in 425 B.C. ? See Aristophanes, Wasps,
92 5 ff. (the dog Labes)
OarrLq
7cEpL71uEia
TV C)
?K 'V
'r' V
OUEc
?V XUX?d&
. V '0V aX6pOV
&P&'8OXEV.
Succeeded in Sicily in the winter (Thuc. iii, II5) Laches could have been back in Athens
very soon after the Dionysia.
43 See Meritt, op. cit., 300 f. and 302 n. i i for this point. From D 7, 58-68 it is clear that
a city might throw the blame on its courier; loss might occur not only by fraud, but through
shipwreck or theft. Rhoiteion perhaps had to employ the last plea in 425/4 B.C.; see Thuc.
iv, 52, 2 and ATL iii, 88.
44 See ATL iii, 78 and 88 f. The editors hold, however, that the Aktaian cities, ceded
in 427 B.C., were promptly enrolled by a supplementary assessment that year. This is
uncertain. Nesselhauf was perhaps right (op. cit., I4I) in suggesting that they were first
assessed in 425/4 B.C. The Aktaian area was not properly under Athenian control even in
this year; see Thuc. iv, 52 and 75.
45 Compare D 7, 31-41
with D 14, ? 2-4.
158
HAROLD B.
IATTINGLY
ensuring the prompt, faithful dispatch of tribute to Athens (5ff.)46. A similar

provision appears in the decree for Leonides of Halikarnassos (c. 430 B.C.),
where lhis safety is entrusted at Athens to the Counicil,abroad to Athenian
officials in the Empire. These, with the generals, were instructed c. 409 B.C. to
guard the interests of the people of Neapolis in Thrace and at the same time the
had to watch over a certain Oiniades47.A passage
Athenian 'pZwv F'v XxCUxOc
such officers
in 'Aristotle's' 'AONvaLwv
[Io?L'lox (Xxiv. 3) shows how nunmerous
finally became. Like all the references so far considered it probably applies to
the Peloponnesian Ware. Aristophanes' evidence is valid for the same period.
He knows these men well and guys them significantly in that section of the
which contains the only explicit literary reference to the
Birds (I02I-I055)
strikes us as a familiar and unpoCoinage Decree. The pompous 7riCxo7r0q
have to be protected by stringent legal sanctpular figure, while the &lpXovwrn
ions, which Peithetairos' two victims vainly invoke in Cloudcuckooland49.
Though isolated examples may belong to the Periclean period, the regular
maintenance of numerous officials overseas is clearly characteristic of the
Peloponnesian War. Now the Coinage Decree, like D 7, clearly implies that
such &pXov'rewere common, though by no means universal, when it was
passed. They are made primarily responsible for implementing its provisions
and only in their absence does the duty fall on the local niagistrates50.Here
is a strong pointer towards the 420 s.
More disturbing than this, however, is the fact that both Kleinias' and
Klearchos' Decrees show the Empire divided into four geographical districts.
Only in 438/7 B.C. were the four districts definitively recognised; between 443
46 The
p4Zov+?q are surely Athenian, being placed betwveen two certainly Athenian
ipysa. This natural assumption (see ATL iii, 145 with n. 22) was chlallenged by Gomme,
who tentatively suggeste(d that they were local officials (op. cit., i. 383 n. i). His case is
unproved and he was wrong in takinig D 7 to imply such1 officials in every allied city.
47 IG i2, 56, 2-9
(Leonides): 128, 43ff. (SEG xii, 37, 52ff.; Neapolis): i i8, I8 (Oiniades).
Conmparealso SEG x, Si, 12-14 (Boiotian exiles, 424/3 B.C.; 'Meritt's new text of IC i2,
68-69).
1n.XX6aLot on this assulmption (op. cit., i, 38of.).
48 Gomnlmewould retaini Aristotle's
49 For edx7Z7oNL
see ATL iii, i44f. For the protection of dpXovtI4 see Birds, 1031,
9-12.
I046 and 105o; R. Meiggs, Class. IRev., lxiii (I949),
'au Lv 'ro
st .L l ctaL[v] `pZov,re 'AO-nvcdo.v&[7rt0r,aiv.Wv
50 D I4, ? 4; [-...x*
Ol &Pz0,Cxo'
[ Ol E:xCarr;q rrq 76)Xe4. . ]. Hence I would challenge the restoration
~]-tJ(PE%at
"
... .P YJoVT[q ev' JZ 7]O6?ML
&p[xov7e4 'AONvodcov]in ? i; up to ? 4 only Athenian
officials have beenl given orders (read perhaps i" &p[yo,ptov..] instead). The title ao'XovTeq
76XLaL would theni mean in D 14 what the ATL editors recognise in D 7, 5. (iii.
sv -OoLn
145). Gomme shrewdly observed where the main evidence for 6pX?ov't lay; he effectively
challenged (op. cit., i. 38 if.) J. 1I. Oliver's contention that they vere uiniversal in the
Empire from c. 45o B.C. (Trans. Amer. Phil. Ass. lxvi (1935), 188ff.), a view which once
won Meritt's support (Doc. Ath. Trib., 15) and has clearly affected the modified state-
ment in ATL iii, 145f.
I59
and 438 B.C. there had been five, but then the Karian district was merged
with the Ionian. Tod accordingly wanted to put the Coinage Decree after
438 B.C. and it is worth noting that Segre was tempted by this solution for a
time until he found an alternative, which has since become orthodox dogma.
There are traces of tentative geographical groupings in the Quota Lists before
443 B.C. Now, while the fivefold division is found as early as 446 B.C., we
are told that between 450 and 446 B.C. there were, as later, only four districts.
The evidence of the lists, however, is by no means compelling5l. But Segre was
able to produce triumphantly one more piece of evidence. Perikles' Congress
Decree would seem to clinch the point. It arranged for ambassadors to be sent
to the Empire and certain parts of Greece itself. Those sent to the Empire were
to be dispatched in two groups, the first to Ionia/Karia and the Islands, the
second five to the Hellespont and Thrace. Scholars normally date the decree
between 449 and 447 B.C.52. We must remember, however, that we know
nothing of it beyond what Plutarch records in one passage of his life of Perikles.
He assigns no firm date. How reliable then is the normal view on which Segre
depends?
We must start quite simply from Plutarch's text. The immediate context
of the decree is a long passage (chs. I5-i6) which mainly deals with Perikles'
ascendancy from 443 to 429 B.C.53. It is followed by a more general treatment
of Perikles as a commander, which ranges over his whole career (chs. i8 to 38).
Plutarch introduces ch. I7 with a clause indicating the circumstances of the
decree. Perikles proposed it when Sparta was beginning to show uneasiness at
the growth of Athenian power. Now this may seem quite compatible with the
orthodox date, since Sparta became sufficiently worried about Athens to join
vzigorouslyin the struggle for central Greece c. 448 B.C.54.But does it not suit
51 Tod, Journ. Hell. Stud., lxix (I949), 105: Segre, op. cit., i68f. Hill andMeritt, op. cit.,
8 and io: ATL iii, I f., 30ff., 68. Nesselhauf long ago demonstrated the basic fivefold
division from 446 B.C. (op. cit., 36ff.). For 450/447 B.C. the ATI editors frankly admit
some notable exceptions to their four division-s, even as the lists stand; moreover there
is no certainty that Ionia and Karia were combined in Col. I of List 5 (p. 3I n. 6).
52 Plut. Per., 17 (from hrateros ?). Nesselhauf deduced from it a fivefold division in
assessmenits even before 446 B.C.; Plutarch's phrase "Iavocq xot AcpLI4 Tro6qiv 'AItaI
would imply a separate Karian district. But in Thoudippos' Decree (425/4 B.C.) we have in
&
all probability 8uo L[.Lev
'Iov'LavxoL Kczptixv](A 9, 5f.) and we mnight further compare
Thuc. ii, 9, 4. For the Congress Decree's date see Beloch, Gr. Gesch., ii2, i, 178f.: WadeGery, Journ. H-ell. Stud., lii (1932), 2i6f. and n. 47: Nesselhauf, op. cit., 31f.: Gomme,
op. cit., i, 366f.: ATLiii, 226f.: Keulen, Mnemos., N.S., xlviii (1920), 242-247. (after 446B.C.).
53 Thucydides' ostracism is the point of departure (14,5); ch. I5 then displays the new
unchallenged Perikles. In I6, 3 Plutarch digresses into the past, but only to make clear that
Perikles fundamentally remained the man that he had always been. In i6, 8-9 the reader
is brought back forcibly into the late 430s by an anecdote about the ageing Anaxagoras.
54 'ApXo%ivc,v8 T&vAOCxE8=LMov[WV
i&O1rOcxtojuo~acr xxv 'A07vcdov.... For Sparta
c. 448 B.C. see Beloch, op. cit., I78-183: Wade-Gery, Hesp., xiv (I945), 223 ns. 26 and
27: Nesselhauf, op. cit., 32 n. I.
i6o
HAROLD B. MATTINGLY
the 430s much better? Plutarch's phrase suggests the beginning of the process
which was to lead inexorably to total war and it significantly echoes Thucydides' language on this topic. He had argued that it was Sparta's fear of the
growing power of Athens which really caused hostilities in 43I B.C. Earlier
Sparta had been halfhearted or quite inactive about Athenian imperialism;
now there was no mistaking the menace of Athens' success. Where would it
stop? Once Athens tampered with the Peloponnesian League Sparta resolved
on war55. Plutarch shows Perikles anxious to strengthen Athenian morale in
face of Sparta's attitude and this was exactly what was most characteristic of
him in his later years56.When did the fatal fears of Sparta begin? The Corinthian envoys at Athens in 433 B.C. suggested that there was serious danger of
Peloponnesian intervention on behalf of Samos in 440/39 B.C. Whatever truth
may lie behind this partisan statement, the crushing of Samos was certainly
decisive in Spartan/Ahenian relations. Before 439 B.C. the Thirty Years'
Peace had created a form of balance and stability, which the Athenian triumph
upset57. The successful planting of Amphipolis was a further jolt to potential
enemies, especially Corinth. Soon Athens consolidated her hold on this rich
area by the alliance with Perdikkas. Apart from other obvious advantages
these two -moves secured Athens abundant supplies of timber and made
possible rapid naval development58.Yet as late as c. 433 B.C. Sparta dissuaded
Mytilene from revolt, though Megara and Aigina were possibly already complaining about Athens59. Gomme indeed went so far as to claim in his Com55 See
Thuc.
i, 23,6
(the
'true
'r@V .itIxv I
LO0?V-V
?teT4ov
8Duv-nO,Lv;
iI8,
Oc 8'
uVM0,
7r&ov
'roi
tU%%M
56 ...
oc&r@V
central
qualities
especially
section
from
ch.
of
have
pressed
xii,
28,
r6v
58
For
op.
42,
events
iii,
(433
of the
450s;
5I,
i and
2,
B.C.)
L roo
..
'A07,vocxo&...
ATL
I3,
27I
referring
see
Gomme,
65,
in
9.
the
&d
'A0qvcdouq
7d Vz.y&oc zx6av
Ppox
're -ro
6Zxxo4ov
aoacpx c
(op.
cit.,
i;
i,
67,
n.
9)
to
'AOinvocdoL
xcal 'rj
pTro
2-4
we
cit.,
I-2;
silence
in
(Megara
surely
Athenian
and
take
Thuc.
Aigina).
the
difficulties
roused
he
similar
seen
in
the
Athens
3).
suggests
that
i,
Megara
I15-II7.
may
Diodoros
PtXPL'pOU
Acxz8ont,owvoLq
r0)v
&amx)UToL
L'Ant.
see
to
best
which
who
xod
P.- Cloche,
may
64,
employed
indeed
arovoaL4LLVMV
Perdikkas
For
current
op.
62,
noting;
is
with
i, I74f.)
Thucydides'
often
9p6vaoc
harangue
despite
308f.:
iii,
62-67.
and
His
and
36-42
ocxt 'rpLMxovTT?e
55ff.,
(I95I),
as
ii,
worth
ascendancy
ii,
Gomme
Byzantion,
see
lxxii
Phil.,
See
is
his
and
(Thuc.
2.
surrender)
cit.,
of
Thuc.
Speech
Ephoros?)
Amphipolis
59 Thuc.
41,
to
(Samian
Nesselhauf,
Journ.
help
(from
xpo6vcov
and
B.C.
430
5 and
for
Funeral
in
i, 4o,
typical
15,
the
despondency
57 Thuc.
ot
'v0O
v
y gLyV.
vouy
88 (Sparta
made war)
'Tr 8& O)x&r

U
0
7rOLOUV'r0.
VocaZXOV
9cLOUv
'r6OV8TYLOV?'rL (15.?XOV 1.1yM ?pOVzZV XOCCVLeYMWCOV
OC'UT'OV
. . . Plutarch's
in ch. I 7 was to display
object
Perikles'
cpp6vf,uoc
ncpoc
yp&CPL
see
900(0
060oV
B.C.)
479-43I
y&
7roXeVeZv;
5 e?S
'rOVTO . . .
yeyaXoypoau'vB,
ends;
(of
-o
daO6teMvo ouire EX0UOV e? t

a v?oc,u
'r Fv A0rvoc'&v
rp lv
...
IrtCQpMOV
O IIrpM(X
7pypiL&Tv
and
AoxeaoLp6vo&
xpovou
?6
TrOZa
Vyoc
2
&5
'vocyx'paocL
rcL&LoVtoLv
ou T0oao0rov
'L
to6q 'AOvvodLouqnyoat oc
cause')
otocpAoov'rom 'otA
6oov
XOOCp
Class.,
i, 57,
Despite
Corinthian
with
xiv
2 and
P.
(I945),
ATL
A.
Brunt
in
allusion
Megara
iii,
rather
i, 175f.
I22f.:
313f.
(Amer.
Thuc.
i,
than
to
The AthenianCoinageDecree
i6i
mentary on Thucydides (I, 349) that 'Sparta may also have been well content
with the situation in Greece from 445 to 433 B.C.... Athens was not too
powerful on land and was reasonably quiet'. He was surely right in principle,
but Athens was becoming restless and ambitious again from c. 438 B.C. and
Plutarch's phrase, I submit, applies to just that period.
This conclusion may appear belied by the internal evidence of the decree
itself. The Congress had three ostensible objects. The delegates were to discuss
the rebuilding of the temples which the Persians had burned down, the payment of sacrifices vowed during the confederate struggle and the establishment
of the freedom of the seas. Since the Persian War was thus being formally
closed, Athens must find a new justification for maintaining her Aegaean
hegemony. On the orthodox view the decree closely followed the Peace of
Kallias. When the project foundered on Spartan opposition, Athens will have
decided to go ahead alone and launch her grandiose building-programmewith
the inception of the Parthenon6O.
The scheme is very neat. But was there really a Peace of Kallias in 449 B.C. ?
\Vere Persia and Athens no longer at war from that date, having decided on
their respective spheres of influence? David Stockton in a forceful article
lhasrecently revived all the old slumbering doubts. He rightly finds the silence
of Herodotus and Thucydides almost damning alone and concludes that in the
carly 440s there was 'not a formal peace, but an abandonment of active
operations'. The war simply petered out on both sides. Despite hlis damaging
criticism of its basis Stockton does not quarrel with the normal dating of the
Congress Decree. He might well have done so, since, if there was no formal
peace, how can we determine when Athens recognised the end of hostilities6l?
That must depend largely on Persia's policy. Now when Samos revolted in
440 B.C. the Lydian satrap seized his opportunity and vigorously supported
the movement. He could hardly have done so without some assurance of
backing from Susa, especially as he contemplated moving the Phoenician
fleet into the Aegaean from Aspendos. Perikles took the threat seriously and
temporarily lost his grip on Samos in order to counter it. In the whole of
Thucydides' narrative there is no hint of surprise or complaint at Persia's inter60
See the works cited in n. 52. According to ATL iii, 278 ff. the Congress failed by early
summer 449 B.C. and Perikles then proposed devoting some 5000 T surplus tribute to the
building-programme. For doubts on the last point see n. 75.
61-79, especially 64f. (historians) and 7I (Conigress). Why did
fi1 Historia, viii (i595),
people come to believe in a 'Peace of Kallias' ? Stockton argues for a fourth-century forgery
(72f.), but R. Sealey's solution is surely preferable (Historia, iii (I954/5), 328f.). What
Theopompos saw and condemnied was the genuine agreement with Dareios of 423 B.C. (in
Ionic script), which Athenian orators, inspired by national pride, associated with the earlier
embassy of Kallias. See also Wade-Gery, Harvard Studies Suppl. vol. i (1940), 126-132,
(Kallias' Treaty was renewed-vith little change-in 423 B.C.) and Gomme, op. cit., i, 331 ff.
11
Historia
X,2
I62
HAROLD)
B. MATTINGLY'
vention62. Surely it looks as though neither side had yet given up the struggle.
Just as hostilities had lapsed between 454 and 450 B.C., so they had lapsed
again since Kimon's sudden deatlh set back the Confederate cause. But both
sides watched their chances. Persia may well have intrigued in Ionia and tried
gold in the Peloponnese againi,wlile Perikles was under strong pressure to reopen the fight for Egypt or attack some other vulnerable point of the Great
King's domains. What prevented active warfare was simply that both parties
were too preoccupied with affairs nearer home to strike an effective blowv
abroad63.When the Persian threat came to nothing in 439 B.C., however, it
became obvious that Artaxerxes had at last grudgingly conceded the Greeks
victorv. Athens would now have been unwise to risk new adventures, especially as Samos had shown how precarious her control of the Empire remained.
It was in this new and perplexing situation, I believe, that Perikles deployed
the skilful propaganda of his Congress Decree. As Nessellhaufargued, he was
more concerned with its effect on Greek public opinion than with any concrete results. If Sparta insisted on wrecking his scheme, it would be Sparta's
reputation that would suffer64.

When the Congress failed Athens lhad to consider her rebuilding problems
alone. Now the great Periclean schemes were inaugurated in 448/7 B.C., when
work began on the Parthenon. Does this force us back to the orthodox date
62 Thuc. i, II5-117
o.ov8ck ?). Gonime (op. cit.,
(why is there no phrase like ,cpx i, 352f.) and the ATL editors (iii, 307 f.) play down Persia's r6le. Aspendos, P'ersia's most
westerly naval station, lay in the Lydian satrapy (Thuc. viiii, SI, 3; 87); presumably
the Phoenician ships were there in 440/39 B.C. Despite Gonime they nmayhave actually
set out, but turned back faced with the unwelcome prospect of some 70 Confederate
triremes. Perikles perhaps reinforced the lesson by salling eastwards from ILykia with
impunity (see Plut. Cim., I3, 4 anld Wrade-Gery, op. cit., 123 n. 2).
B.C. (H1ist. vii (1958)
63 D. M. Lewis thus explains Persia's similar hesitancy in 412/407
Anti-Athenian intrigue began in Greece soon after Kimon's death (see Thuc. i,
392-397).
112); even after the peace of 445 B.C. Athens had to watch Euiboia, Aigina and soon
Samos also. Persia had tried to bribe Sparta in the 450s through MNegabazos(1-huc. i, 109,
2-3),
with
whom
Arthmios
of Zeleia
is normally
connected
(see Goimme, op. cit., i, 327
n. I: ATI, iii, 17I n. 42). If Kimon, however, was wrongly connected with the Arthmios
Decree (and the silence of Demosthenes and Aischines is odd), Artlhniios' activity might
be put in the 440s. Persia faced continued rebellioin in Egypt (Thuc. i, X12, 3: H1er.ii, I5, 3)
and trouble in Syria c. 448 B.C. (Megabyzos; Ktesias 68-72). Psanlmetikos' gift of corn to
Athens in 445/4 B.C. (schol. Arist. Wasps, 7I8) shows where rebels niaturally looked. Plut.
P'er., 20, 3 reads like an oligarchic call for an anti-Persian crusade. \Vas this the issue that
precipitated Thucydides' ostracism ?
64 According to Thucydides (viii, 76, 4) Samos
0 'AOwrVMLoJV
8 6Os
orxp'?X&aov
this is less of an exaggeration than Gomme
M&cX&ac0at;
V.pOCTOT4 OaMa77%, 0T E7o)ElroEv,
Ield (i, 359), since one should1reckon with a real threat from Plersia. The embassy sent to
Susa in 437/6 B.C. (Arist. Acliarn., 65 ff.) may be historical. Was this the one led by
Diotimos (Strabo i, 3, 47) and did it establish the new inodus vivendi with Persia ? For
the Congress propaganda see Nesselhauf, op. cit., 33.
I63
for the Congress Decree? I do not think so. The Parthenon can and should be
separated from the plan envisaged in the CongressDecree. Kolbe has strongly
urged a date after 479 B.C. for the first Parthenon. Even if this was really prePersian, as Dorpfeld and Dinsmoor held, it was only a few feet high when incidentally destroyed in the Persian conflagration. The Persians could hardly
be accused of wantonly burning it65. The temples that felt their fury were
those of Athena Polias on the Acropolis, Hera and Deineter at Phaleron and
Demeter at Eleusis. What is the evidence for these? The Polias temple would
surely have the prior claim. It may have been made usable again fairly sooni
after the Persian withdrawal, but its proper restoration should surely be
linked with that of the associated structures on the Acropolis66. Mnesikles'
Propylaia perhaps provides us with our clue. It was begun precisely in 437/6
B.C. It rose on a site that had been partly encumbered by the sad ruins left by
the Persians. The Polias' restoration will have gone ahead, I believe, contemporaneously with the Propylaia. The two projects were integral parts of the
same grand scheme, which was completed only with the erection of the Erectheum67. At Eleusis the new Telesterion was inaugurated some time in the
430s. Demeter's temple, however, was not repaired in the fifth century and
the two temples at Phaleron were never repaired at all68. This all becomes entirely understandable if the programme was in fact launched only c. 437 B.C.
The Athenians found themselves financially embarrassed by 433 B.C. through
the heavy expenditure since 448 B.C. and the need to conserve resources
against the threat of war. Restoration will have been abruptly halted, just
as the ambitious plan of the Propylaia suffered radical revision and the building
was left permanently unfinished69.
Scholars assume that Perikles intended to secure authorisation through the
65 The controversy over the proto-Parthenon is well discussed by WV.Judeich (Topographie von Athen2 (I93I), 248ff.) and by Ziehen in RE, xviii (1949), 1917-I92 I.
66 For the Polias temple see J. M. Paton and G. Stevens, The E-rectheum (I929),
448-452,
D. NM.Robertson, Greek and Roman Architecture2 (I943),
459f.: Judeich, op. Cit., 261-268:
88 and II3. Judeich held that it was rebuilt in the first phase of recovery in the 470s, but
showed no good evidence; Paton thought that Athens must have made her main temple
serviceable long before 450 B.C.
67 For the Propylaia see Her, viii, 53ff. and v, 77: Plut Per. 13, I2 and IG i2, 363/7:
Judeich, op. cit., 225ff.: Robertson, op. cit., 89 and iI8. For the Erectheum see Her. viii, 55
(pre-Persian lp6v): Paton-Stevens, op. cit., 453ff.: Judeich, op. cit., 27 f.
68 For the Telesterion see F. Noack, Eleusis (1927),
93, 139 (and plan xvi and P1. ix):
RE, xvi (I935), 1219 (0. Kern): Robertson, op. cit., I69-174
(with Noack's plans). Here,
as with the Propylaia, there is evidence for a tentative 'Kimonian' restoration. For Demeter's temple see I-er. ix, 65 and IG i2, 8I (421/o B.C.) and 313f. (408/7 B.C.). The inscriptions reveal the temple still ruined; see Paton-Stevens, op. cit., 449 n. 2. For Phaleron see
Paus. i, I, 4 and x, 35, 2.
69 For the Propylaia see Judeich, op. cit., 226ff. and 231 (plan on p. 228). Isokrates
stressed (iv, I56) that the Ionians were prevented from rebuilding their temples by the
famous oath, oui8C& c7opLw'rtvOV.Was o&ropEoc
notoriously the cauise of the Athenian failure ?
] 1*
I64
HAROLDB. MATTINGLY
Congress for the use of tribute on the Athenian temples. Perhaps he meant
also to recommend drafts on Amphiktyonic funds for the cities affected in
central Greece70.The Congress' failure sparked off a great controversy in
Athens. Should the tribute still be used? Perikles' oligarchic opponents vigorously supported the grumbling of the allies. Now what are the ascertaiiiable
facts? How much tribute was actually spent on the temples and in what
period? Apparently none went on the Parthenon itself or its statue except the
Aparche, which was Athena's by right7".For the Propylaia we find something
more. Following A. M. \Woodward'ssuggestion the editors of The Athenian
Tribute Lists (iii, 329-332) have fruitfully reinterpreted sorne passages in the
accounts. They show that on several occasions money was paid over by the
Hellenotamiai, who had in turn received it from a campaigning general. They
presumably handled these sums because they represented balances from
grants out of tribute for routine imperial expenditure. Instead of reverting to
reserve they were diverted to the building fund72. The clearest evidence,
however, for such use of tribute comes in a decree of the late 430s, which
arranged for improvemenits to Athens' water-supply. Perikles, vith his sons
and wards, had apparently offered to meet the expense, but the Assembly,
declining his gesture, insisted on strict economy and earmarked the current
tribute 'after the goddess receives her due share'73.
Now the 'Springhouse Decree' is probably the basis for Plutarch's anecdote
in Perikles I4. He misplaces the incident, imagining that it preceded Thucydides'
70
See the works quoted in n. 52. The A1TI,editors h-ave emphasised tlle Amphiktyonic
nature of the appeal to cenitral Greece (iii, I05, 279 n. 21, 302 n. 6). I'liokis, Thespiai, Haliartos and Plataia lhad temples burned down (Her. viii, 32 f. and 50: Pauis. ix, 32, 5 and x, 35,
2-3). Many Anmphiktyonic states medized andl the loyalists swore to tithe them for Delphi
(Her. vii, 132). This would have provided an obvious rebuilding fund, if it was ever consistently levied. The temples were in fact never restored (see Paus.).
. I14). No nmonieycame from the
71 See IG i2, 342, 36 and Tod's commentary (no. 52,
Hellenotamiai for the Parthenos (IG i2, 354--362).
72 See IG i2, 366, iif.
and Tod, no. 53, p. I15 (Aparche): 365, 13 ff. with 366, I6 and
367, 4f. (campaigns). WNercthese routine patrols carried out by the 6o trireines wllic
Periklcs kept reguilarly at sea according to Pltut. IPer., I I, 4 ?
73 IG i2, 54; ATL ii, D i9 ('The Springhouse Decree'). See lines 13ff. (I suggest a new
L xcN XGIVOEnnot
xxt 'otq C6[awv
llccp] oX,Ot
reading in 14); [...
'70LWGOU 8' xol HI_^PLX?X xL
?rTet8XVhC OC6
t,v 'AOsvoXovTE)4'TML,
tot;
p6.LotpaLshv
L
K?Eio- xpIaL
]h6oa ?; t0v cpOpov
Meritt once made this safeguard the Aparche (Doc.
-X' v%O,6Lv6lvcX.
-r'v X%ct]p'vetL
Ath. Trib., I9), but in ATL iii, 328 that is treated as too inconsiderable financially.
The point, however, was surely religious rather than economic. Athenia's prior clainmmust
be fully met before any current tribute couild be spent. The passage in no way supports
the ATL theory about annual grants from tribute to Athena (iii, 328f.). The ATI, date
for D I9 (437/6 B.C.) is indeed far from certain. Meritt once dated it .134/3 B.C. with SEG
x, 44 (by the same hand); see Hesp., xiv (I945), 87-93. Botth could come as low as 432/I
B.C. (see n. I1 2). For Perikles and his wards c. 432 B.C. see Plato Protag., 319 E atnd 320
A: Plut. Per., 36: Diod. xii, 38, 2-4.
I65
ostracism, and fancies that Perikles was offering to pay for the temples! We
do see, however, that the Assembly was seriously concerned with the great
expenses already incurred and that Perikles' offer was a new attempt to
disarm criticism. All this can be read between the mutilated lines of D I974.
Here in the late 430 s we have all the elements of the famous clash between
Perikles and the oligarchs. I would submit that Plutarch misdated the whole
controversy, not just the one episode75.Perikles claimed that Athens was not
answerable for her use of tribute so long as she performed her imperial duties
adequately. This plea was perhaps more valid in the 430S than in the previous
decade76. The oppositions' sneers about -rupavvtcadmirably fit this late context. Was not Perikles then explicitly defending the 'unjust tyranny of Emand
pire77? Even more significant for chronology is the taunt about &y&?.a.-rxa
74 Plutarch makes the people insist on paying, urging Perikles
XoPqYeZv e8ev6q
This last touch, implausible in the context, looks like someone's imaginative
cpeao6[,uvov.
embroidery. D i9 tells a very different story (7ff.), [. . . h6noq 6'Av &bZ96]MtyEaT'ov
Xpe[,uxro[v
he Oyoy' XZoLaotxo8te0&,r6; 7rpu-a&veqhot av Xoxq]at 7JpOotL 7pjrocve6[eV 80VML 7repL Oo'TV
'6v ycapov...].
Cheap, careless repair and extension of the water-system of 5th century
date has been recently found near the Agora. See Hesp., xxv (1956), 50ff. and xxvii (1958),
147 and P1. 4i a.
7 Was he misled by the name Thucydides ? As Wade-Gery showed Thucydides returned
to Athens c. 433 B.C. and will have soon been vigorously in opposition again; see Journ.
Hell. Stud., lii (I932), 2i9ff. The conflict was over current tribute, not reserve. Note Plut.
6 e
Per., 12,2 '0
VWr aUYqi as
w
w 7po ro n6liov
Ctaqepovevot;
it 'rq 'v 7r6XV
x-ocXpusao3v-rrx and 14, I (of Perikles) tok 7rpoa68ouq&b7tXunrroq:D i9, 14f. The ATL
editors believe that 2oo T went to Athena annually from the Hellenotamiai between
449 and 434 B.C., to offset the expenditure on the buildings (iii, 278ff. and 328 f.). Basically
this all rests on their interpretation of Thuc. ii, I3, 3 and the mutilated Anonymus Argentinensis papyrus. W7ade-Gery and Meritt's recent attempt to provide a more precise text
of this (with longer lines) has been countered by R. Sealey's reasonable alternative suggestions; see Hesp., xxvi (1957), I64 and i84f. and Hermes, lxxxvi (1958), 443ff. It remains
extremely doubtful whether Perikles' decree should be dated 450/449 B.C. (with ATL)
rather than 431/430 B.C., when it could be identified with the measure recorded in Thuc.
ii, 24; for this theory see U. Wilcken, Hermes, xlii (I907), 402f.: Gomme, Hist., ii (I953),
xoff. and op. cit., ii, 30: S. Accame, Riv. Fil., lxxx (1952), 229ff.: Sealey op. cit. On the
ATL theory the monies found by Athena's LacLct for the buildings were virtually all
provided by tribute; the controversy began in 448 B.C. and was settled in five years with
Thucydides' ostracism.
76 Wadle-Gery suggested (Hesp., xiv (I945),
224 n. 3o and n. 34) that 7p6k .ov 7r6?,E[ov
in Plut. Per., 12, 2 (see last n.) might mean 'for general war-purposes', 'for a standing
Defence Fund' rather than 'for the (Persian) war'. This is a fruitful idea. Perikles' reply in
Plutarch certainly hints at something wider than defence from Persia alone; compare
7rpG7r0XC0?iOvTM aCcv
Xv x
T06q
Po3pfC3pouc &velpyovroca with Per., I9, i and 20, I (the
motives for the Chersonese and Pontic expeditions).
77 Plut. Per., 12, 2, XOCt90X)C 8&LVYV
XotL :Up0WVe6CC0L7?ptU4PptV 0 "E)X&; 'ptaoon
qpocav6:Thuc. ii, 63, 2, (0; TIp)'IM80C yap r07l Ue-r?a'v,
1V ?X4EL'V
8OXCL CIV
cY&XV
X
Compare Corinth's use of 5upxvvosfor Athens in 432/I B.C. (Thuc.
cpeZvoct8? tXLv8uv',.
i, 122,
3 and 124, 3).
i66
HAROLD
B.
MATTINGLY
Modern estimates of the Parthenon's cost range from

VcOLXL?to'a&asvoL.
C.470 to c. goo talents. The higher figure is the more probable and is sufficiently
near Plutarch's total to cause serious misgivings. Could so accurate an estinmateof 'the temple's cost have been made before c. 436 B.C. when the main
work was completed? Indeed we might reasonably regard it as a bitter comment on Perikles' final rendering of accounts78.
The evidence on tribute then reinforces our general impression. The Congress Decree should therefore probably be placed after 438 B.C., the year in
which the four tribute-districts were definitively established79.It thus provides
io evidence for the existence of four divisions between 450 and 446 B.C. Nor
is this all. A still more awkward conclusion follows. The order of districts in
the decree is precisely that fixed by the assessment of 438 B.C., namely Ionia
Islands Hellespont and Thrace. Perikles will naturally have copied the current
I believe that Kleinias did the same. The Assessment of
official practice&O.
425/4 B.C. established a new order, which apparently became henceforth
invariable. This was Islands Ionia Hellespont and Thrace. It can be restored
with great probability in D 7 (26ff.), which on my view was passed soon after
that radical assessment8l. Why after all should an Assembly orator arbitrarily
clhoose any other order than the current one? We can test this reasonable
proposition on one other case. Thoudippos, in his Reassessment Decree,
apparently enumerated the districts in the order Ionia/Karia, Thrace, Islands
Hellespont. It is found once previously in the Quota Lists (SEG v, 28)82. Meritt,
however, would not allow this to be the order current in 426/5 B.C., since he
put SEG v, 28 in 430/29 B.C. as List 25 and postulated an exceptional assessnient in 428/7, in which the Hellespont.and lonia were ranged last. Presumably
78 The
6-yaX[oc cost at least 750 T; see S. Accame, Riv. Fil., lxiii (I945), 492. Accame
there estimates goo T for the Parthenon, but R. S. Stanier scaled its cost down to the
lower figure (Journ. HIell. Stud., lxxiii (1953), 68-74). Owilng to variable factors he had
hiimself to allow a possible rise to 640 T (p. 73 n. 23). Cavaignac's view of Harpokration's
remains probable; it would cover the &yca , the Parthenon
-roc5-roc)
2012 T (s.v. Hponu),o
and the Propylaia (Etudes sur l'hist. fin. d'Athdnes, 102 f.). Since Staniier admits (p. 69)
that the Parthenon cost about three times as much as the Propylaia, Accame's guesses
of goo and 350 T respectively should be about right. For the rate of progress on the Parthenon see W. B. Dinsmoor, Amer. Journ. Arch., xxv (I921), 242ff.
79 Discussion about the freedom of the seas would fit the 430s admirably, when Athens
was building up her 'thalassocracy' in the Aegaean; see Nessellhauf (op. cit., 51, 62-66, 68)
for a clear exposition of this new trend in policy.
80 Busolt was once led by this very point to date the decree 438 B.C. (Ithein. Mus.,
xxxviii (I883), I5of.); later he changed to c. 449 B.C. (Gr. Gesch., iii, I, 445).
81 For the 425/4 B.C. order see ATL i, 200ff. and iii, go. In D 7 Ionia miglht be put
before Islands.
82 See A 9,
5-6. The only possible doubt is whether Ionia (Karia) or Thrace came first,
but West and Meritt have ruled Thrace out epigraphically; see Meritt, Amer. Journ. Phil.,
lviii (I937), 153 f. for a vigorous defence of their spacing at this point against Nesselhauf's
objections.
The Athenian
Coinage Decree
I67
the new order was the same as in SEG v, 25, which Meritt made List 2683.We
cannot argue out fully here the problems of these lists, but it is essential to
establish a few poinits. Since it is normal for details of arrangement to be retained through any one assessment period, it would be more natural to assign
A TL Lists 26 and 27 to the same period and List 25 with its variant order to
another". Meritt showed that List 26 must be restored with a second numeral
of six letters in its heading, but oy86eq and evore are just as permissible as
his hex-req; they would yield us 427/6 and 426/5 B.C. respectively. Though
SEG v, 28 and 25 are surely consecutive, there is no cogent reason for placing
them in that order. May we not reverse it, as Nesselhauf argued? SEG v, 25
would be the list of 427/6 B.C., reflecting the order fixed in 430 B.C., whereas
SEG v, 28 would represent the normal assessment of 426/5 B.C., which Meritt's
theory eliminated85.How can we check these results? We find two interesting
new rubrics in SEG v1,28, which list respectively 'cities assessed by the Assessors
whose secretary was Kr .... s' and 'cities which the Council and the I500
assessed'86.Now from A 9 (I7 f.) we learn that there had been a partial assessment by Council, Assessors and a lawcourt [brrtTE T0,eut]ocL'o X'py. This
phrase would seem best interpreted as 'in the year of the last board of
Hellenotamiai'. If this is granted, SEG v, 28 should be fixed in 426/5 B.C.87.
We need not be unduly worried by the restoration of virtually the same rubrics
in A TL List 26, which I would date 427/6 B.C. The restorations remain uncertain for all the ingenuity spent on them'8. Since the cities in the new rubrics
correspond to those listed under the 7rq6)cu -,rCtand '8FaLCxL
rubrics from
434/3 B.C. on, might we not restore something like these old privileged categories in SEG v, 25 ? They will then have lasted until the assessment of 426/5
83 Doc. Ath. Trib., 98ft.; Ath. Fin. Doc., 3-25; Hesp., viii (I939),
52f.;
Epigraphica
Attica (1940), 146 n. 36. Compare ATL I, 192ff., i96. In SEG v, 25 the order is Thrace
Islands Hellespont lonia.
84 For the principle see ATL iii, 68 and ii, I96, where the editors admit that 'tlle only
parallel to the disposition of List 27 is found in 26 ... It may here be remarked that List
26 provides the only known exception to the rule that the order of the panels remained
tuniform during a single assessment period'.
85 See Doc. Ath. Trib., 98ff.: Nesselhauf, op. cit., 69 n. 2 andl I4of. Nesselhatuf otherwise
agreed with Meritt.
86 'roTaa[e 1,r]cMXa hot 'tx'/.'m& ei
Kp[... .]o ypx(x Tow.-o0 (54f.) and TXo3ag h[z]
Po?i xal hoL revrocx6atot x(xt XEX[Lot9r]ax;amv (6of.).
87 The ATL editors (iii, 78ff.) make the phrase mean 'in the last assessment year
(428/7 B.C.)'. They must then postulate a similar court in 430 B.C. (List 25). But the
phrase in A 9 seems an appeal to a precedent recently created.
88 See ATL i, 195f. and 456f. From Ath. Fin. Doc., io and ATL i, 96 it is clear that
in line 34 ..]ON is at least as likely as ...]OI. The PouXn rubric in 43f., is too unlike
List 26, 43f. to be quite convincing. Nesselhauf indeed, rejecting earlier versions, preferred
Wilhelm's [TocZa&7no]X[aLwhoL TbrX 96p]o0[v9]-[M]x[a0vI (op. cit., 71 and I41).
i68
HAROLD
B.
MATTINGLY
B.C., when these members were regularly assessed at the existing rate. The way
was now clear for including them in the general steep rise of 425/4 B.C.89
I hope that I have at least shown that SEG v, 28 could quite well be dated
426/5 B.C. If that is correct, Thoudippos will also have used the current order
of tribute districts in his decree. The general principle holds. We now see how
significant it should be that Klearchos uses the new order of 425/4 B.C. This is
yet one more strong reason for putting his decree with Kleinias' after that
reassessment90.But few epigraphists, I fear, will yet follow me and not many
historians. The consequences are too disturbing. It is therefore time for a
direct attack on the epigraphic criteria, which I would preface with a point
about the Coinage Decree itself. In I945 Meritt published fragments of another
decree on the same subject. Judging that it was cut by the same hand as the
Perdikkas Treaty (IG i2, 7I) he dated it c. 423 B.C.91.Meritt and his colleagues
have now reedited IG i2, 7I under a new date (A TL iii, 3I3ff.; c. 436 B.C.), but
it is not clear whether they would also wish to put back SEG x, 87. Since
there are good reasons for keeping the old date for the Perdikkas Treaty, I
think that we should provisionally retain Meritt's c. 423 B.C.92. Meritt was
evidently embarrassed by this measure of the 420s, which would appear to
modify or supplement that of Klearchos. He was inclined to think that it
represented an attempt to revive D I4 after long lapse with the changes made
necessary by changed circumstances. Very tentatively he suggested that one
clause could be restored as permitting cities to apply for minting rights, but
he frankly admitted that here and throughout the decree was too mutilated
to allow any certainty93. Yet the close link between this measure and D I4
raises a real problem for the orthodox view. Why should they have to be put
more than twenty years apart rather than within a few years of each other?
Only the epigraphic criterion prevents us from making the natural assumption.
89
For the four rubrics see ATL iii, 8o-88. The editors find little real privilege in the
old categories. I prefer Nesselhauf's view of their status as one of semi-voluntary adhesion
at an agreed, guaranteed rate; see op. cit., 59ff. and 73. For ATL 26, 34f. I would return
to the reading given in SEG v, 25, [7r6)5 ocrod cp6plov ['rocxac4acL
... ]. Similarly should
we not reject ATL 26, 43 f. for the SEG reading, with the change to middle voice which
Nesselhauf's criticism demanded (op. cit., 71) ? I propose [roTa8e -r6]X[a4Lv h]ot [IM6onat
p6p]o[v i]4&]X[acv'To]. It involves a double breach in the stoichedon order (see Ath. Fin.
Doc., I0 on I.&Loct) but such irregularities occur in the lists, especially in headings.
90 D 14 ? 9. Tod noted the fact, but drew no specific conclusion (Journ. Hell. Stud.,
lxxix (1949),
I05). If we follow the ATL view throughout, no orator ever appears to use
the current order of districts! D 7, D 14 and the Congress Decree studiously avoid the
order postulated for 450/46 B.C. (ATL iii, 3I; Ionia Thrace Hellespont Islands), while
Thoudippos returns to that abandoned the year before the irregular assessment of 428/7
B.C.
91Hesp.,xvi,
92
iigff.;
SEGx,87.
See Gomme, op. cit., iii,
98 Op.
Cit.,
620.
Meritt's instinct about the mason is likely to be right.
122.
T he Atheinian Coinage Decree
I69
We shall find similar contradictions with other decrees wvhichclosely resemble

the Kos fragment of D I4 in their letter-forms. I shall deal mainly with the
four which Segre hiimselfinvoked. They are the first decree for Athena Nike,
the measure appointing Eleusinian C7'rt.a't, the Hermione Treaty and the
arrangemenitsfor Miletos94. After dealing with each in turn I shall come back
to the Coinage Decree, which may then not look quite such an isolated phenomenon, and finally review the literary and numismatic evidence.
2. The first decree for Athena Nike (IG
i2,
24).
B3ythis decree the Assembly voted for the appointment of a priestess for
Nike's cult and the building of a temple, for which Kallikrates was chosen
architect. The priestess would be taken from all the people and hold office for
life95. The decree is normally dated c. 448 B.C. and closely linked with the
Peace of Kallias96.This view involves accepting a rather odd fact. Some twentyfive years later another orator had to stipulate when and by whom Nike's
priestess should be paid her annual salary of fifty drachmai97.The affair
becomes stranger the closer we look. We now possess the metrical epitaph of
Nike's first priestess, which, with its mixture of Attic and Ionic forms, could
well be dated c. 405 B.C. The date becomes almost certain if we accept Papademetriou's tempting identification of this Myrrhina with Lysistrata's accomplice in Aristophanes". However that may be, the epitaph creates serious
difficulty for the orthodox view. We should naturally assume from it that
Myrrhina's appointment was soon followed by the building of the temple".
But the temple was inot built in the 440s nor even begun then. Welter's compromise has been generally abandoned; the bastion and the foundations are
94 Op. cit., 167. Segre noted that all showed few clearly archaic letter-fornmsother than 5
For good photographs see ATL ii, P1t. v (Kos fragment) and iv (Miletos): 'EXEuaLvLtxx
i (1932),
17 (-taT'iMOL): Journ. Roy. Ilist. Brit. Archit., xxxiv (1929),
i29 (Nike): Hesp.,
ii (1933),
495 (Hermionie).
See Tod n1o.40; SEG x, 30 (Meritt's text). The probouleuma is lost, Glaukos' motion
is a rider; see Meritt, Hesp., x (I94), 307-315.
In 1. 2 he prefers ho G&y[YxoLvEL
hocpeOi]l
to hr &v[8C rLo htcxioL]t. This seems tautological. The evidence for reading Al' is not
95
conclusive.
Gomme, op. cit., i, 33I ns. i and 2: Wade-Gery, Journ. Hell. Stud., liii (1933), 87.
97 IG i2, 25 (Tod no. 73). See Meritt and G. R. Davidson, Amer. Journ. Phil., lvi (I935),
96
65f. and A. B. West, ibid., 72-76 for its date (424/3 B.C.).
98 See J. Papademetriou, 'Apt. 'Eqp., 1948/9,
SEG xii, 8o: D. M. Lewis, Annual
146-153:
of the British School at Athens, I (1956), 1-7 (who carries Papademetriou's theory further).
The epitaph justifies reading [xAsp6a]ma6mL
for [xAca-,]ca0oc( in IG i2, 24, 5; see 'Apy. 'Ep.
9 Myrrhina is described as
N xr&q ,6Xcuae
vWv.
pp
Her epitaph concludes proudly
7:p0-?
AMcdata NYxs? ?8q iu9z7r6XP-uaev

^yat
p^.,\
X,ot NIupfpbv)
Ex
HAROLD B. MIATTINGLY
170
no longer separated from work on the temple itself. Whereas Welter dated this
after the Peace of Nikias, there is now a firm consensus of opinion in favour
of assigning it to the period from 427 to 424 B.C.100.I think that we may therefore add to the Nike decrees IG i2, [rI, which arranges for work on an unspecified temnple.It was passed on the same day as IG i2, 6o, whiclh must be
put in or near 427 B.C., as it regulates affairs between Mytileneans and Athenian
settlers'01.IG i2, iii would mark the actual start on the temple, while IG i2, 88
and 89 preserve respectively decisions on the cult-statue and the final temple
accounts102.
We must now face the real crux. CanIG i2, 24 have been passed c. 448 B.C. ?103
If it was, there is this odd disconcerting gap of twenty years before the priestess
entered office and the first stone was laid. The Athenians had an enviable
reputation for piety and would have compromised it badly if they cheated
It is surely easier and more natural to
Athena for so long of her honoursM04.
assume that there was no such gap, but that the architect set promptly to
work on the plans commissioned by the first decree and on the report which
he was to present to the Council with his three colleagues. After the recommendations of this building committee had been passed back to the Assembly,
actual work would have begun with a minimum of delay'05. The temple would
thus have been vowed for victory over Sparta, not Persia, and completed
100See G. Welter, Ath. Mitt., xlviii (1923), 190-20I:
Meritt and Davidson, op. cit., 71:
Robertson, op. cit., I25 and 332: WV.B. Dinsmoor, rhe Arcllitecture of Greece (I 950), I 85 f.
Dinsmoor trenchanitly refuted Welter (Anmer.Journ. Arch., xxvii (1923), 318ff.), but then
dated the temple c. 435 B.C.
101 See Paton-Stevens, op. cit., 279-283
(text, edited by L. Caskey) and(i647 f. (West on1
its date). Gomine wanted to date IG i2, 6oc. 425/4 B.C. (op. cit., ii, 329ff.), but Meritt insists
on summer 427 B.C.: see Amer. Journ. Phil., lxxv (1954), 359-368.
as probable as [.e..
tp.
102 In IG i2, 88, I [. .7spCL Tr OyO'CX[ O4. .] is inherently
OUp6o.exoq...] (pace A. Porgerelski, Amer. Journ. Arch. xxvii (I923), 3I4ff.), particularly
in view of To xpycalov a`yox inl line 2i; as Paton arguied (o.) cit., .454 n. i) this should
probably be taken as an image of Athenia Nike. Was it replaced by that (dedicated shortly
after 425 B.C. as a thankoffering for the victories of this and the previous year ? See IG ii2,
403 (c. 340 B.C.).
103 To judge by I(. i2, 24, 2-6 the priestess could have been appointed, even if the tenmple
was indefinitely postponed. But the epitaph (surely not written for one with 40 years
service!) and IG i2, 25 suggest appointment c. 427 B.C. Either IG i2, 24 must then be dated
late also or we have to assunmethlat it became immediately a dlead letter. WNhythieniwas it
not only inscribed, but left publicly posted ?
104
See Soph. Oed. CoI., 258ff. and I'aus. i, 17, I.

105 See IG i2, 24, iif. and i4ff.; hCaCLCZXO CT,C.
-,qp &vapachseaOxat sy PoXE. 0o0og

.CL .
.CToL[0oO
KacXeXtxp&Lroq]J)yyplc4JvroCT TL8elXOCXL TELPOX]it XOo-,L
Compare the procedure laid down in IG i2, 76, 59ff. (Tod no. 74; c. 420 B.C.) vrEpiL86 8S ,te-[&]
?Xot
he
86
T?5 &NapX?i xtayy'4o

A6,Trov
ov raveyxeo
PoXi ? 87
bLrtLadzcr
c&nvocyx.
TEt Po?Et 67Z Tre? b&vTe

NpuTveocq4,
may well be
IG i2, III I submit,
the c.yypcpat which Kallikrates' committee laid before the Assembly; note especially
o
'AMevxciov,uwa[06axt] and ... .cr
uvto-.i[LjoL in 5f. (taken by Caskey as 'contractors').
I71
within a reasonable term of years from the decision to build. As it was being
finished certain details about the priestess' salary were formally settled'05.
Here again then we find a sharp contradiction between orthodox epigraphy
and the natural interpretation of the relevant documents. The decree to which
I now turn presents an even more striking example.
3. The Eleusinian kna-r&'raet (SEG x, 24).
Kourionites, its first editor, dated it 443/2 B.C., but Picard and Vallois
firmly put it back to c. 450 B.C. and their view has been generally adopted'06.
is explicitly
Both dates involve a bad crux. The board of five sehara'r&aL
modelled on some previous Commissionerswho had now gone out of office. We
must note the exact wordingof the key clause (lines io if.); rouro[4]ae VnLa['r]vacL
['t]joz
xpeLxOCGLrotq
Trt
=r6T}[aTro[v]
ve6t
roZv O[e]oZv xa0&Nbp
xoa.L'r& &y&oc,r.
hoL ii
'roZq 4i
7r6[X].L epy[oL]q
The tense of crera'Trov is decisive.
Even on Kourionites' dating it cannot refer to the Parthenon Commissioners. What other statue and temple then could be meant here? The
Promachos statue might fit, but can the temple be that of Athena Polias?
We have already seen that there is no evidence at all for its having been
restored before 45o B.C. The Congress Decree would seem to make it most
unlikely. The phrase which we are studying inevitably suggests the Parthenon
and the Athena Parthenos, if we can once free ourselves from epigraphic
preconceptions against a date as low as 432/I B.C.107.There are other points
in fact which favour this particular context for the decree.
At the time actual building was apparently in progress only at the Eleusinion in Athens. Now a broken inscription found near its probable site seems
to show that an architect was superintending work there in the late 430s. The
main object was probably the proper enclosure of the sanctuary, which we
know to have been achieved by the outbreak of war. Was the architect Koroibos, acting under the terms of our decree?'08 This envisaged subsequent
work at Phaleron and Eleusis, but we know that those two temples of Demeter
were not in fact repaired. The probable reason, as we have seen, was the imminence of war with the need for financial stringency. In face of this evidence
106 See 'EXeuatvLocOi ([932),
C. Picard, Comptes Rendus de l'acad. d. inscr.,

I73-I89:
R. Vallois, Rev. Et. Anc., xxxv (I933), Ig6f.; Segre, op. cit., I67: Raubitschek, Amer. Journ. Phil., lxi (1940), 478 n. i i.
107 See Picard, op. cit., 13 n. 2 and Vallois, 1. c. (Polias temple). For the key phrase com'933,
10-I4:
pare Plut.
Per.,
I2,
2 (of Athens)
7rpto.ro[LevnV
...
&y tmarox xat vioug
XLtL0vroq;
Aristoph. Clouds, 305f., O'pocvLOL 'TE OeOZ 8cjp Lmrvc/ vocol 6' u'4JpecpzZ xoxl 'y&I,.Loc.
The Polias and the Promachos were never so intimately linked as Parthenos and Parthenon. The Promachos was not even a temple-image, but stood free (Paus. i, 28, 2).
108From lines 22 ff. we see that Koroibos would be called into the audit only at Athens;
Vallois (op. cit., i99) drew the natural conclusion. For the Eleusinion see Meritt, Hesp., xiv
(1945),
87-93 and SEG x, 44 (revised text): Thuc. ii, I7, I.
I72
HAROLD B. MATTINGLY
it would be strange if Eleusinian building Commissioners were appointed in

the early 440s. The decree moreover shows concern with economy wholly in
keeping with the late context; the Commissioners are checked by the need to
consult with the priests and the Council and it is assumed that expenditure
will be kept down to a minimum'09.
Picard acutely stressed the importance of the decree for the history of
Athens' growing control over Eleusis. This assumed international significance
in 432 B.C., when Athens complained that Megarians were cultivating sacred
land belonging to the Goddesses. I would submit that this attack grew out of
the Commissioners' action in reclaiming debts, rents or firstfruits of which the
Goddesses were being deprived. When Megara refused satisfaction events
moved swiftly towards the famous decrees and warl"0.The extant accounts of
the bartat&doCLreveal them at work only in the Archidamian War, not before.
Hondius certainly wanted IG i2, 3I2 to be prewar because of the go talents

expenditure recorded in it, but the argument is hardly cogent"'. It would
seem very likely that the Telesterion was being completed between 430 and
423 B.C. and thanks to confiscations and the invasions of the Megarid the
Eleusinian funds would then have been ample"12.Athens' interest in Eleusis
at this time is well documented, not least by the Clouds of Aristophanes, where
much play is made of the contrast between Eleusis and the 'mysteries' of
Sokrates"'3.His Phrontisterion is surely meant to suggest the wonderful Hall
praised by the Chorus in their opening ode on 'Kekrops' lovely land' (300ff.)
06 ae43oc app-tcdv
2W
tCL4O8
tep&v,
LVCX
a VOC
eV 7eXr?Mz aytoaeg 0CVCXaS%VU1T0C.

109 See lines 28ff. For similar economy clauses see D 19, 7f. and IG i2, 92 (D 2)
5f. and
I2f.
(Kallias).
110 With lines 20ff.
compare Thuc. i, 139, 2: Plut. Per., 30, 3-4: Aristoph. Ach., 515-539
and Peace, 605-6II
(with scholia): SIG2, 4I7 (Delphic law on 'spoauXc).
1"IIG i2, 3I8+,
312, 3I8:
SEG x, 2II (C. 424 B.C.): Hondius, Nov. Inscr. Att. (I925),
95. n. I9. Raubitschek (Amer. Journ. Phil., lxi (1940), 478 n. ii) restored 7top& Tov 7rpo'ripov
in IG i2, 336, 3 (C. 450 B.C. ?). This is very doubtful and hL[Cpo7rocoV
. . .] is
c[LamtZv..]
just as likely (c. f. i6f.).
112 Koroibos (see Plut. Per., 13,7) perhaps began work c. 435 B.C. The first ambitious
plan was soon abandoned on grounds of economy; see Picard, op. cit., 20 f. and Dinsmoor,
op. cit., I95f. He was then moved to Athens, possibly as late as 432 B.C. Might not SEG
x, 44 really be the Athenian copy of SEG x, 24 (prescribed in lines 32 f.), whose missing
probouleuma it would provide? If so we should have to reject Meritt's ['6 tr gpyo hot
&brLaT&TouL &rst0X6aOo]v in 4f. Koroibos may have been a victim of the second onset of
the Plague in 427/6 B.C. (Thuc. iii, 87), since he died whilst working on the Telesterion
(Plut. l.c.). For the Megarid invasions see Thuc. ii, 3I and iv, 66, i: Plut. Per., 30, 3: Paus.
i, 36, 3.
113 See SEG x, 6o (c. 430 B.C.; the sanctuary walled); IG i2, 8i (42i/o B.C.; bridge over
the Rheita): 76 (Firstfruits; c. 420 B.C.): Clouds, 140-143
and 250-259.
The Athenian Coinage Decree
I73
It would seem tlhenithat SEG x, 24 might quite properly be put in 432/I B.C.
on historical grounds. It has perhaps been forced from its natural context by
over-rigid application of epigraphy. I would venture the same about the decree
which follows.
4. The Hermione Treaty (SEG x,
I5).
According to Oliver this was passed c. 450 B.C. as part of the intricate
negotiations surrounding the Five Years' Truce and the Spartan/Argive
Peace. The period is too badly known for any certainty about this. There is
little help either in the name of the proposer, which is probably Leon. Oliver
would identify him with the Leon of the Phaselis Decree, but the name is not
uncommon at Athens. Moreoverit is quite uncertain when the Phaselis Decree
was passed'14.Such arguments then need be given very little weight. There is,
however, a plausible historical context which has so far been overlooked. In
430 B.C. an Athenian fleet raided the territories of Epidauros, Troizen, Halieis
and Hermione. We then hear no more of this area until the seizure of Methana
near Troizen in 425 B.C. Athens fortified the place and from this base ravaged
the lands of Epidauros, Troizen and Halieis. Why was Hermione spared,
though it was more exposed to attack than Halieis? This demands explanation.
The other two small towns were soon obliged to come to terms with Athens,
probably both in the course of 424/3 B.C. We have the text of the Halieis
Treaty and some indication from Thucydides of the scope of the agreement
with Troizen"15.Surely it is most likely that Hermione made a similar pact
even earlier and that it was this which preserved her territory from invasion.
SEG x, I5 could well be the text of this treaty of summer 425 B.C. Leon might
be identified with the man prominent in Athenian politics in the 420s; he was
one of the ten tribal commissioners for the Peace of Nikias and the Spartan
alliancel6. It is unfortunate that so little of the text suirvives,but we can still
usefully compare it with the diplomatic language of the 420s. The general
similarity of tone should be significant"7. Once again we fall slhortof objective
proof, but cumulatively the evidence mounts against the epigraphic datings.
With the Miletos Decree we face the most disturbing challenge yet.
114 See Hesp., ii (I933),
496f. Neon or Theon are alterniative names for the orator. For
Phaselis Decree see Tod no. 32, p. 59.
"15 Thuc. ii, 56, 5 and iv, 45, 2: IG i2, 87, as republished in SEG x, 8o: Thuc. iv, II8, 2
(Troizen). See Meritt and Davidson, Amer. Journ. Phil., lvi (I935), 65-7I.
116Thuc. v, i9 and 21: A. Anidrewes and D. M. Lewis, Journ. Hell. Stud., lxxvii (I957),
' 79.
117 Compare its emphatic start ZyauvOSa8ou
hx hol 'EpULO[vi4.. .], with that of SEG
x, 8o, xuvO'xc[4 xcxt Zauyxtocov xcxt h6pxo3c, lvaL &co6o4 'AOexioQ[q xald hacxLe5aLv...];
also with T huc. iv, iI8, ii, A&lr%
7e Zn
XyBof
-rt 'AO-1,vmEcavLotetatL 'r7v b(eX?lplXV
xmO' & tuyXoqo5aL
A e8OqLio6vLot xc
ot
MU7o
W'V ...
HAROLD B. MATTINGLY
174
5. The Miletos Decree (IG i2,
22+;
iI)
This is one of the fewvearly decrees which bears an archon date, but we should
at once note a difficulty. The only archon in the fifth century who was quite
certainly called Euthynos held office in 426/5 B.C. Ever since Kirchoff's
ruling, however, this man has been excluded and the decree dated 450/49 B.C.,
on the assumption that the archon whom Diodoros calls Euthydemos was
really another Eutliynos. Diodoros did indeed make this very mistake with
the archon of 426/5 B.C., but that proves nothing at all beyond the mere possibility of the error. We must therefore decide whether compelling historical
reasons require us to put D ii early and thus in the year of Diodoros' Euthydemos'18.Oliver and others have certainly made out a plausible case. There
may well have been trouble in Asia Minor between the Egyptian debacle
and Kimon's campaign of 450 B.C., which necessitated the kind of drastic action discernible in D ii and in the decrees for Erythrai and Kolophon. Supporting chronological evidence for all three measures has been found in the early
Ten
Quota Lists. Two Milesian decrees have also been associated with D 11119.
years after this occasion Miletos was championed by Athens in the struggle
against Samos and here too we may choose to see the consequences of the
Miletos Decree'20.
The strongest point in favour of ortlhodoxy is undoubtedly the silence of
Thucydides in his third book. Could he have failed to record trouble between
Athens and a major Ionian ally? Before we consider the matter closed we
should note that there are omissions in his history no less surprising than this
would be. He passes over the radical reassessment of tribute without a word. If
we can trust Philochoros he also omitted trouble in Euboia in 424/3 B.C., which
was serious enough to require Athenian armed intervention. He does not tell us
when or how Thera entered the Empire, nor record the Treaty which Athens
made with the Bottiaian towns. He seems also to have ignored an embassy to
Darius II which settled anew relations between Athens and Persia"2l.Thucydides' silence must not then be held final disproof of any event. He may have
118 See A. Kirchhoff, I G i Suppl. (I89 ), 22 a (p. 7). There is no other archon with a name
remotely like Euthynos in the 450s or 440s. For the evidence for tlle two archons (anld
the Euthydemos of 43I B.C.) see Wade-Gery and Meritt, Hesp., xxvi (1957), 183.
119J. 11. Oliver, Trans. Amer. IPhil. Ass., lxvi (1935), 177-198: R. Meiggs, Jour"i. Hell.
and 282f. In 450/49 B.C. the ca Lv.q
Stud., lxxiii (I943),
25ff.: ATL iii, 252-258
,uoX.Wv and his rcpoa-rxTpot republished parts of their religious law (SI G3, 57); a Milesian
law against oligarchic tyrants' is normally (lated c. 450 B.C. (Tod no. 35). An vxiourt'
was governing Miletos at the time of D i i (see 6f.).
120 Gomme,
op. cit., i, 349f.
See Gomme, op. cit., ii, 12 (Thera); iii, 500 ff., (reassessment), 5(92 (Euboia), 622 and
633 (Bottiaioi). For the Persian Treaty see Wade-Gery, Harvard Studies, Suppl. (I940),
121
127-132:
Gomine,
iii, 499: Sealey,
Hist., iii (1954/5),
328ff.
175
had his own good reason for considering it irrelevant to his plan. His work
moreover is clearly unfinished and he may have destined some incidents of the
first half of the war for later insertion or elaborationl22.It is worth noting how
curiously some incidents are introduced out of what might seem the natural
order, such as the recall of King Pleistoanax from exile. This suggests careful
preliminary thought on their placing. We may further observe that most of
the omitted events are recorded by implication in the narrative as it stands123.
Before applying this principle to Miletos I would hazard a guess about the
kindred decree for Kolophon. Does it really belong c. 448 B.C. ? Thucydides
tells how asrLoatcaused the loss of the city to Persia in 430 B.C. Within a few
years after intrigues from the upper city, it broke out again among the Kolophonians who had migrated to Notion. Paches recovered the town from the
oligarchs and their Persian garrison and restored it to the loyalists. Later
Athens sent out olxta'od who gathered the homeless Kolophonians from the
Asiatic Greek cities and refounded their community at Notion on the Athenian
model. Now the decree for the Kolophonians mentions Athenian oLxLatrcL
as
well as 'settlers' (oExe'-opeq).The cult of Athena Medeousa fits a virtual
Athenian colony, while the background of the measure is faction complicated
by intrigue from another city. The settlers apparently swear not to 'go over
to the enemy' and the olxtatcd are required to secure cooperation from the
allies in Asia Minor. All this squares excellently with Thucydides' narrative124.
It would be indeed strange if Athens twice dealt so similarly in one generation
with the same people. Since our decree talks only of 'Kolophonians', not of
Kolophon, and we know that a separate community with this name continued
to pay tribute beside Notion from 427 B.C., it is reasonable economy of hypotheses to make the decree and Thucydides refer to the same events'25. As the
script is slightly less advanced than that of the four decrees under discussion,
this redating would appreciably strengthen my present case. In particular it
122
Goinme has some good comments on this; op. cit., ii, 44-49 and iii, 607.
123 Gonime, op. cit., Iii, 664 (Pleistoanax; winter 422/I,

not 426 B.C.). Kolophon's
capture (430 B.C.) was likewise recorded only in 427 B.C. (Thuc. iii, 34). Hyperbolos'
ostracism is casually mentioned in 412 B.C. (viii, 73, 3; contrast Plut. Nic., i i and Alc., 13 !).
The reassessinent and the Bottiaian alliance are implied in v, i8, 5; Thera was significantly
left alone in 426 B.C. when Nikias devastated neighbouring Melos (iii, 9I, I an(d 94, I); viii,
5, 5 and 56, 4 surely reflect clauses of the Persian Treaty (pace Stockton, Historia, viii
(I959),
66f.).
124 On IG i2, I4-15
(D I5) and Thuc. iii, 34 see Gomme, op. cit. ii, 295 ft.: ATL iii, 282f.
For the verbal links see D 15, 41 and 22; 14 (with 'AO.,v&x-Lotxza. -ouq ?Xu.(15v v6touq
Y.-)(XLcTanv);
8, 47ff. ("XX?,7r6?q); igff. (wvith iu' aycxy6,v. 7avT.x; ?X .-Vr6XE&V, EL 70U
-L
i;v KooovLcwv).
The name Kolophon has been restored in IG i2, I

See D I5; I9, 35, 3gf. and 48.
The supplements are all frankly uncertain. For the later tribute-record of KAocpxwvtotsee
ATL i, 3I7 and 359 (Notion). It is curious how the epigraphic criterion again bars the
natural inteipretation of our documents.
125
I76
HAROLI)
B. AIATTINGLY
would virtually impose 426/5 B.C. as the date of the MliletosDecree. But can
Thucydides' narrative be legitimately used in this way to overrule his silence?
That silence is not quite complete. He does, I believe, give an important
indirect indication of the decree's passage. The fragmentary lines io to i6 of
D iI contain provisions for the supply of Milesian troops to Athens. Now
precisely in the summer of 425 B.C. Thucydides records Milesian hoplites
serving in Greece under Athenian command. This is the first time in the war
that he specifies anv such contingent from the Empire126.At this same period
of the war we find two curious references to Miletos in Aristophanes' Knights
(36I and 927ff.), which have never been satisfactorily explained. Kleon is
made to bluster to the Sausageseller;
As they are engaged in a reckless boasting-match this will probably be one

of Kleon's recent exploits. Now what kind of trouble had he brought on
Miletos? More light comes from the second passage, where Kleon's antagonlist
prays that his greed and ambition will together ruin
him;
Z
GE
&v-p alv-eV W?p

cI X7CjpV ip^v
xacy'.
xZrBoy&a
yr?vprov
DaOwow V
IV
T?
XQ
?s XoEp?X
a)'oy'AVTOV
C'A? v . 'CT S L_
ez,r,XsfjCXaMv
'70a 7rpLv YpXYELv
av-fp [eN,-
XOL Xot (Y)1 IOV .6XXtaVT0V X0XzV
Kleon had evidently not yet done with the Milesianisin the Assembly by
winter 424 B.C. Now the Miletos Decree leaves further Athenian intervention
open, since the Milesians are put on strict probation. If they behave they may
receive concessions later; if not Athens will know how to act127. If the decree
126 See ATL iii, 256 and Thuc. iv, 42, i. Gomme (op. cit., i, 315) assumed
too easily from
Thuc. ii, (, 5 that militarv service was a universal and recognised dluty of the allies hy 43[
B.C. Both he and the ATI, editors (iii, 249 and Ii. I 7) see tributary allies among the ii,LLaZoL at Tanagra (Thuc. i, 107, 5), since the Spartan dedication talked of 'IXveS (Paus.
v, IO, 4). They could have heen Euboians; this would theni be a special case of local selfdefence like those quoted in ATL iii, 6o and n. 6i. Milesian contingents to Greece (note
'AO6,voc in D i i, I5 f.) would seeii rather unlikely, on the evidence, as early as 450/49 B.C.
127 See D i1,8 if. I would tentatively restore ocI.
a
ZaG]LaO
1 r L L eiE
)O
.
. [ ..j.......
?C L U&rOL;
....
vT8[eeCovTxL &LopO06aOtx... 7PsE vO]?C; M[L)?]aLOL '&v 8A CSOPPpOV6C;[L
he PBo[Xe' CNUsCS:O1>
eXae'VeYxmO.. .]
7-,JZcZvhf-)-o al]* 86os7[.--,r]cp81'L-C,,JC
I77
had really been passed in 425 B.C. under Kleon's auspices, we should have an
ideal explanation of Aristophanes' jibes. As with Mytilene, whose lot was
generously improved by Athens, he loses no time in hinting that Kleon will
change his tune for Miletos at a pricel'.
So far there is nothing precise, but only some scraps of evidence that would
make better sense if D II could be dated 426/5 B.C. Oliver, however, developed
a line of argument, which looks potentially decisive against his view and in
favour of mine. He assumed that lines 3I-42 of D ii concerned lawsuits involving tribute and compared closely the procedure laid down in the Reassessment Decree of 425/4 B.C. The Shrt,Xriyrodof line 42, he thought, were the
officials known from Kleonymos' Decree (D 8) as responsible for bringing
tribute-cases into court129.Now if this is correct, D Ii can be dated no earlier
than the second prytany of 426/5 B.C., since it is surely legitimate to assume
from D 8, 38ff. that these bcs?,tX^IrouC
wverenew officials, who were to be
in
elected
future for this special purpose. We read there; [...
aLpEaOoctTO[v &X?ov &x6v rTv nepL] r5v 'AOevxLovXpsw%ov. x[xt 'rTOyevo.tevovcp]a&pr xoGino G'7 'rep%
hVryo[hTvTTEV
0C
7=pflsaroct ho6rXv7rrpc-rwo4
'r6v [o6XE?ov8[Xz x&='roc]t.We find further (43-52) that charges of treason
may be laid before them against any who obstruct the execution of D 8 or
the despatch of tribute to Athens; eov a& -rt XmXo'rcjZVL
[h67roqp XUPLOV
'70 TO popo [9 h67roq r X' XOae-i]L ho y6po4 'AO&vace
eara]lt -TO p9GaYaaxUX
0x rcT?1g T- ZO[XeO;'rOVP3Ok6CUevov
7r]po
7rpooGaLoqo]T'rV TOV ?X
3'
8r
ei'tptva
v,r'o
. .. ]
ho[t
120q e7rtCteXvrokqa[txC)c0CTplgoV
st4elXvrou 'amyo']vrov
Now the structure of this whole clause is remarkably like that of D II, 50-53,
where I would restore the crucial phrase as follows; [....xv
a ' rk TXU
ypoXpo[5]vTov xocT' Uor67[poaoCtocatp'o TOq ?Xe=';0
* hot 8'
7Zp]/[M]PocLvre,
7rt,X]/-rcL iayo6vrov L[v au]-rov9 'q hevx [. . .]. This yields a line of 62 letters
ypE[G?paOL
as is required by the stoichedon irregularity at this point of the decree'30.

The e;LItL.?-yraLXL
seem to have been virtually supplantedby the Councilin
425/4 B.C., whichihenceforth acted as a court of first instance in tribute-cases'31.
Supporters of orthodoxy may challenge the equation of the
LXJ'YToC
of
D II with those of D 8 and deny my restorations any validity. This is un128 On Kniglhts, 830 ff. see Gomme, op. cit., ii, 329ff.
Whatever the exact significance
of Mytilene's 'bribe' of 40 minai, it gives extra point to the talent of 930ff. For Miletos
Kleon was raising his charges.
'29 Op. cit., 191-194.
J. Oeliler in RE, vi (I909), I63 takes the same view of the Ctq.LZXr,oL of D i i .
130For the line-length at D I I, 5' see ATL ii, 6o. Both passages conclude with provision
for the court to assess the penalty in case of conviction. The verb zaxo'7xevv is used in
both in defining the offence (D 8, 43: D II,50).
131 By Kleinias' Decree such charges were to be laid before the prytanies, who then
conducted the matter to its end; the Council's sentence had to be confirmed by a lawcourt,
which alone could (lecide the penalty. See D 7, 3I-41.
12
Historia
X',
178
HAROLD
B.
MATTINGLY
fortunately easy with D ii in its present sadly mutilated condition. We must

therefore try a further line of attack on our problem. There is one short literary
passage which has often been linked vith the Miletos Decree. In the 'AOlvaxvLW
rlo)xret'a which was wrongly attributed to Xenophon the unknown author
at one point defends Athens' policy of supporting the people in civil disturbances
(ch. 3, ii). He shows that concessions to oligarchs have always hurt Athenian
interests. Among his instances he cites the Athenian atteinpt at friendship
with the Milesian oligarchs. It was not long before they broke faith and massacred the popular party. The reference is tantalising in its brevity and lack of
chronological precision132. Yet it surely provides part of the background for
D ii. Rather more, I believe, comes surprisingly from some later authors.
Diodoros (xiii, I04, 4-5), Plutarch (Lysander, 8) and Polyainos (i, 45, i) link
Lysander's presence at Ephesos in 405 B.C. with an oligarchic coup at Miletos,
which resulted in the murder of three hundred wealthy democrats and the
flight of many more. Their language recalls that of the pamphlet so sharply
that they might all be recording the same events. But this is obviously impossible if Diodoros is right133.Can he have made a mistake?
We must first note that Diodoros' evidence is unsupported. Xenophon has
nothing whatever about these Milesian troubles in his Hellenica. His silence
should not perhaps be pressed too far, but it is certainly disquieting'34. It
suggests the possibility that Diodoros was misled by the similarity of general
situation between 405 and 4I2 B.C. and so misplaced the episode, as was patently the case when he ascribed the sack of lasos to Lysander'35.But this
leaves us faced with the more embarrassing silence of Thucydides, in whose
eighth book Miletos inevitably plays a prominent part. I doubt whether we
can get over this difficulty by appeal to the incompleteness of this book. Even
was
[o?XLTLCz
if we could, it remains impossible to think that the 'AOinvct&ov
written as late as 4I2/II B.C. We would then have to continue distinguishing
&Oavt
6-re MLXtaEwveX?ovTo hOUg? TouiV'O *
oVOU
X'you YP6
see
35:
Miletos)
rno.
(Tod
SIG
58-t
T(ov &Fj[Lovxoi?xo4mv. For its relation to I) ii and
Oliver op. cit., I82: Gomme, op. cit., i, 350. Meiggs (see n. ii9) anid the ATL editors
(iii, 256) thlinik that D ii left oligarchs still in power in Miletos; they must therefore
assunmea retiewal of a-X'M& in the 440S.
- Lysanider simply supplies
133 In Diodoros-despite o7rpcxrv'rcov xu'-olg AoX8XIOVticoV
a date; it is Plutarch who makes him the main author of the coup's success, present at
Miletos. Polyainos follows Plutarch. With pseudo-Xenophon's 'v 8niwowxotr6xoiav compare
Ov 87,LoV...
&r6Vaqao.. &veThov(Diodoros); 7i.ocp ;s: &LOfaOaL'OZb tO?.-O'
DAoL... 'Tj4 8&n
OL X
as7rtGrU0Vt:? (Plutarch); oi
M 9raaCyV)I3aV
yap
7'V-,C
XOL4...
132 Tou-o 8?
7;pOa7S6V'C
x7dvoalm
7roXMo6 (Polyainos).
He says notling in Hell., iii-iv of the Rhodian artatq in 395 B.C., which is so
graphically described in Hell. Oxyrrh., io. But he does refer to it indirectly when noting
the Spartan reaction and counter-measuires in Hell., iv, 8, 20ff. At this stage of his work at
least he was prepared to omit whatever was not 'worthy of record' (iv, 8, i).
135 Conitrast Thuc. viii, 58 witlh Diod. xiii, I04, 6.
134
179
between two remarkably similar oligarchic coups at Miletos136. I believe,

however, that Diodoros' mistake was more radical than we have yet envisaged
and that both he and pseudo-Xenophon refer to events in 426/5 B.C. which
precipitated the Athenian intervention recorded in D iI.
The reference in the 'AOva'xLvHo?Xtrealooks more like a commonplace of
debate than a burningly topical allusion. If we accept Gomme's date for the
pamphlet, this proves no objection to my view, since by c. 416 B.C. ten crowded
years had passed. Most scholars, however, put the work c. 424 B.C.137.I think
that we may decide confidently in favour of Gomme. I would first add to his
arguments the possible allusion to the great Sicilian expedition in ch. 2, 15;
this was the most remarkabledemonstration of Athens' power to mount a naval
enterprise at a vast distance from Attica'38. More striking, however, is the
passage in ch. 3, 5 where the author deals with the emergency jurisdiction made
necessary when some terrible new offence comes to light. The exact wording is
OBrLVoV x&xrLac yLyvJrt-cU, Z&Vte DPPL4
significant: xol ?av tLt &?)o
t
-rs
Does not this choice of words really
-rtCve &10e ppLM
?&Xv aretcao.
compel us to think of the great scandal of the Peloponnesian War, which
Andokides and Thucydides characterise in these very terms, the parodying of
the Mysteries and the mutilation of the Hermai? If this is granted, we would
have a firm date for the pamphlet, the archon-year 4I5/4 B.C.139.
Can we now explain how Diodoros could have been led to ascribe an event
of 426/5 B.C. to Lysander's period of power? That he was capable of this can
be shown by another example. He alone records a revival of art&aL at Corcyra
in 41O B.C., which he connects with Konon. On examination his story appears
a doublet of the activity of Nikostratos and Eurymedon in 427 B.C. as described
in Thuc. iii, 75 and 8i. Though Konon, like Nikostratos, was based on Naupaktos in 4I4/3 B.C., there is no evidence for his intervening at Corcyraeither then
or in any later year. Diodoros' tale would seem to be the fruit of multiple confusion, encouraged perhaps by the fact that Konon played just such a role
of 395 B.C. at Rhodes and that his son Timotheos had later
in the a'r&aL4
close relations with the 8n[Loqat Corcyra'40.With Miletos Diodoros' confusion,
136 The particular tone of the book would be inconceivable when oligarchy was near
its triumph at Athens (note above all ch. 3, 12 f.); moreover ch. 2, 5-6 cannot have been
written after the Sicilian debacle and 2, i4ff. envisages invasions of the old type, not
kn7L-rELXLV6q in Attica.
137 See Gomme, Harvard Studies, Suppl. vol.
(1940),
224ff. and 244f.: ATL iii, 67:
Meritt, Doc. Ath. Trib., 41.
138"E7rsvLcLU ToIG .v
xCaX O&?c
WATTaW &PZouaLv ot6v '' ai7o3QrX?oCt ab7O 'rrq arkpoCq
(xYrov &roaov Po65?et 7Xo5v ... Compare Thuc. vi, 17, 7 and I8, 4-5.
139 Andok., De lysteriis, 29-33 and 6I-65: Thuc. vi, 27-28 (where the phrases
OkakP7utoc
and kp' Cpst cover both crimes alike).
140 Diod. xiii, 48. Earlier he recorded only the first aXxkat, not its renewal in 425 B.C.
(xii, 57). For Konon see Thuc. vii, 31, 4-5 and Hell. Oxyrrh., io. Gomme (op. cit., iii, 479)
12
180
HAROLD
13.MATTINGLY
I submit, stemmed from similar causes. His source may have misled him by
mentioning without name a Spartan navarch. Now certain Ionian exiles had
intrigued with Alkidas when he hovered off the coast of Asia Minor in 427
B.C., urging him to seize Kyme or some Ionian city as a base against Athens"'4.
MIiletoswould have been an obvious choice. The plot came to nothing, however,
owing to Athenian energy and Sparta's apathy. But it must surely have caused
mutual suspicions. The MIilesianoligarchs may have beguin to look towards
Persia for help such as Samos and Kolophon had received'42.Early in 426/5
B.C. Athens ordained that all tributary states must appoint collectors from
their richest citizens. Tribute was to be paid promptly and in full; arrears
would be rigorously exacted and soon increases in the rate couildbe anticipated.
There was doubtless silent resistance at Miletos to this new pressure. The
Dionysia of 425 B.C. perhaps drew near with the tribute either unpaid or despatched only in part. If this were so, Miletos could expect the prompt arrival
of Athenian commissioners. For whatever reason quick action became imperative. At the Dionysia itself the plotters ruthlessly struck down their main
opponents, but their planned revolt was thwarted. Persia made no move,
though Sparta had been busy for some time diplomatically at Susa. Fortunately for Athens this activity had only caused confusion in the mind of Artaxerxes'43.Athens drove out the ringleaders and imposed a garrison; after this
five special agents could be sent to help a new moderate government settle
Mliletos again. Miletos now confirmed the sentence of banishment on the
oligarchs and remained steadily loyal until the crisis of 412 B.C. The Milesian
lioplites who served in Greece in 425/4 B.C. and Sicily a decade later doubtless
proved valuable hostages for their city'44. On this reconstruction the Miletos
discusses judiciously the problem raised by Diodoros' narrative, notilig the doublets, but
concludes that the bare fact of renewed cra7t may be correct. For T'imotheos see RE, vi
A, I324-1327.
141 Thuc. iii, 31-33.
Alkidas lay briefly off Ephesos itself; but by theni he was quite
determined on retreat.
142 Sparta apparently received money from SMelosanid sympathisers in Ephesos and
Chios in 427 B.C. (IG v, I= Tod no. 62); this perhaps led to the punitive action against
.Melos in 426 B.C. (Thuc. iii, gI) and the demand that Chios destroy its new wall (Thuc.
iv, 5I). See on all this F. E. Adcock, Melaniges Glotz, i (I932), i ff. and the measured judgement of W. Eberhardt in Historia, viii (I959), 304 n. 45. The Ionian exiles tempted Alkidas
with hopes of Pissouthnes' alliance; it wats he whio had helped Samos and Kolophon
(Thuc. i, 115f. and iii, 34).
143 The detail about the Dionlysia comes from Diodoros. For Spartans at Susa see
Thuc. ii, 67 and iv, 50. Diodoros makes the Phrygian satrap give the democratic exiles
refuge. Is this likely either in his context (405 B.C.) or mine? I suspect confusion here.
When Athens expelled the Delians in 422 B.C. Pharnakes promptly gave them new homes
in Adramytion (Thuc. v, i); similarly Erythraian and Mytilenean oligarchs founid safety
with Persia (D 10, 25ff.: Antiphi. De Morte Hlerodis, 78).
144 Though D ii hardly imposed democracy (I agree here with ATL iii, 256 f.) it may
lhave beeni meant to smooth the transition to it from a 'mixed constitution'; there would
i8i
Decree should fall at the end of 426/5 B.C. Now the editors restore the prytany
in D Ii, 2 as Kekropis, the second prytany this year. But we could equally weH
restore either Antiochis or Erectheis. Erectheis is in fact known as the last
prytany of 426/5 B.C.145.
Several converging lines of evidence have led us to the archonship of tlhe
one certain Euthynos. Despite Thucydides' silence this year seems historically
suitable as the context for D II. The onus of proof must surely lie on the epigraphists, who insist on putting the decree back to the 440s and correctinig
Diodoros' Euthydemos. Their position is finally precarious. Some day we nay
find that the archon of 450/49 B.C. in fact had the name which Diodoros gives
or that some other name than Euthynos underlies his unsupported and thus
suspect version148.Meanwhile we can only weigh probabilities. If as a result
the Miletos Decree appears to have been wrongly dated, my case for the other
measures would be immeasurably strengthened. In particular the Kos version
of the Coinage Decree would fall into place in the 420s as one of an epigraphically-linked series, the work of masons of the older school. I must now return
to D I4 and attempt to show how well it fits the historical context of 425/4
B.C.
6. The Coinage Decree and the policies of Kleon.
Let us begin by reconsideringits relations with the second coinage measure,
which Meritt published. The two should lie very close together in date. D I4
on my view could well be put in the winter of 425/4 B.C. with Kleinias' Decree
or early the next year. For SEG x, 87 I have so far merely argued that we
should maintain Meritt's original dating 'c. 423 B.C.'. As we have it the decree
have been few capable democratic leaders left after the coup. The victims of SIG 58 (Tod
no. 35) were members of the old Neleid families, who were now banished for these political
murders; see G. Glotz, CRAI (I906),
5iiiff. As Glotz showed, the account of earlier
troubles in Nicolas of Damascus (Fr. Gr. Hist., ii, 354, 53) is coloured by this inscription's
language. It also has links with D iI; D ii, 82 (e&v8i coppovo[at) betrays a background
of 'tyranny' and wraiatq,which may well have led, as in Nicolas, to the appointment of a
special ot uv'`riq (see line 6). This official is hardly a regular magistrate as at Teos (Tod
no. 23: RE i, Io89ff.), but mention of his 7pOCeToLpot (line 7) has strongly suggested
identification with the ta-L vr
o?Xnv; see Oliver op. cit., i86f. Following de Sanctis
(Studi in on. Pietro Bonifante, (1930), ii, 669-679) Oliver regards him as the city's chief
magistrate in the mid-fifth century. I would rather think that Apollo's hieratic representatives (see RE, Suppl. vi, 509-520) may have been entrusted at this crisis with the urgent
and delicate task of reconciliation. For the 'hostages' see Thuc. iv, 42, I; 53, I; vii, 57, 4.
145 For Kekropis in 426/5 B.C. see ATL iii, I33; for Erectheis see IG i2, 324, 12f.
1" Diodoros (or his MSS ?) is notoriously prone to such muddles; niote (Tat8cav(xi, 63, I)
for 'A4J?twv, BEwv (xi, 79, i) for "Appov, Nocua(jAaXoq
(xii, 33, I) for AuaL?axot;, X&p,%
(Xii, 35, I) for Kpatr%, EUvx L&8- (xii, 53, I) for EVx?q, 'AptLa76c(PL?,oQ
(xii, 77, i) for
'Aa-rcp6Lkoq,IGOLWV8P4(xiii, 7, I) for TeEmav8poq.The range of error is wide. Euthynos
appears as Euthydemos in Diodoros (xii, 58, I), but as Euthymenes in most MSS of the
Acharnians (hypoth. i).
I82
HAROLD
B.
MATTINGLY
consists of two mutilated riders. The first instructs the Council to provide
promptly for the efficient running of the Laureion mines, which would be
needed more than ever to keep Klearchos' arrangements in full vigour. Athens,
striking for the whole Empire, could not produce too much silver, especially
in wartime'47.Significantly Aristophanes jokes about mine-leases in the winter
of 424 B.C. In Knights, 362 the sausage-seller boasts to Kleon
CXX&aXeS LAac,
88 ox& GW)VY
so LoLC
.rM)'r.
Might this not be a very topical allusion? The whole mining system was conceivably overhauled at this time. We know that in the latter part of the fifth
century the mines were opened, as a rare exception, to citizen and metic alike
and that a Thracian named Sosias employed at least a thousand slaves on his
concession. These were leased out to him by Nikias, whose profitable example
was followed on a comparable scale by Hipponikos and Philemonides. Nikias
was at the height of his prestige and power between 425 and 42i B.C., by which
year Hipponikos was probably dead. I would suggest therefore that these two
immensely wealthy Athenians sank this human capital in the mines in 424
B.C., thus giving a powerful lead from the top to their fellow-citizens'48.It is
clear from SEG x, 87, io that Aiantis was the prytany in office and, as this
was a winter prytany in 425/4 B.C., all the indications converge satisfactorily149.
Klearchos' measure should then be assigned either to this prytany also or to an
earlier one; perhaps it was passed in the prytany of Oineis like D 7. It is even
arguable that SEG x, 87 is part of the Athenian copy of D 14, our other copies
giving only clauses from the Council's probouleuma. But I would not press
this suggestion in view of the ruined state of both documents. We must await
hopefully the discovery of other fragments'50.
Klearchos' Decree was apparently passed at the time of Kleon's greatest
triumphs. We should thus expect to find some allusions, however indirect, in
Aristophanes' plays of the period. There is nothing so explicit as the famous
allusion in Birds I037ff., but Acharnians, 5I5ff. and Clouds, 247ff. may both
prove relevant on examination. The first passage illustrates the mentality
147
For Epainetos' rider see lines ioff. of Meritt's text; [Tr6 8 7rpu-&veq r
TrputCovea;[y,votv
ALjcvriEo;
r6v e-rciX?ov Trv &]Td Aocupe(oL h6noo &v [9cae5aerTL
&a eveyzelv ipl. TO
... ]. There is good comment
cp6TrL hkpaCL h]6-ravrep EL Tep nr vo[yttap.ov
&v7i
in pseudo-Xenophon IOPOL, 4, 6-i on the great fifth century boom in silver; but he
generalises his naive reflections into universal economic truths.
For Nikias see RE, xvii, 323ff. anid Thuc. v, i6 with Gomme's
148 Hopot, 4, 12-15.
notes (iii, 66i f.); for HIipponikos see RE, viii i9o8f. According to Athenaios (v, 218b) he
died shortly before the production of Eupolis' K6?ocxxeat the Dionysia of 42 1 B.C.
149 See SEG x, 76, 12. Meritt very plausibly linked this decree for Chios with Thuc. iv,
SI; see Hesp., xiv (I 945), II5ff.
150D 14, as we have it, begins well on in the first proposal; as with such imperial
measures as D 7, D 8 and A 9 a rider or riders may be confidently postulated. The complete
loss here is no more surprising than that of the heading and the decree's mnainclauses.
ho 8Kog
I83
which inspired the decree. Its ideas were later elaborated by Aristophanes in
a fine parabasis, which we may profitably consider in this context. In Frogs,
7i8ff. he compares Athenian neglect of the decent politicians with their
abandonment of the fine coins in precious metal for the wretched bronze
tetradrachms of 405 B.C. His words are worth quoting in full:
TTO'VOVL
70X0k&xLqy' pZV 6O0SV I' 7UQ?XtL
TOU4X00OU TS X0XyaOOv)4
rOuWrov
S; TE T)V 7nOxtV&)V
e' r
7)'XVZ1V
OUTZ
yxp
Vo' LLG~Loc
XOCL'70 XOW.VOV
XPUCLV.
OUVLV
TOUTOLaLV
0U XrX?t)[V0LC,
&XXX xocX)[aToL &7rcvT&)v,

xCOt .LOVOtq4
Oog XO7rLaL
goXEL, vopL7a[l&mV
XOXLXeX(0a(0@VCAGLaV0L4
rv -r roZq `EX?aLtxaiL'0o4 ,ocpB3apOLaL7 cOvTxJou

XP04Leo
X0C'
TZ
ou8Yv,
TOZq
&X?Oc Tr0lYrOtq
7M0V-IpOLZ ZCXX'tOtX
XOL rpWV X7OreV7L TM XaXXLCFT X6 .L(LOCTL.
'rrov 7o?0XLTV OU'
EV LG6LCV
EUYVVEL xcLa?6ppovoq
............................
z ZXXOGZ XOi ECV04 XOCL

7rUppLaGL
rq
S14
XOX
&7OVO
7COWVPOV
7T0VYpJG0
;(Pep04CL
7rpOUaEX0oLEV,
xcd
Athenians were rightly proud of their handsome pure coinage, which was
accepted everywhere on its merits and hardly needed an imperial fiat to
commend it. Even in the fourth century it continued to enjoy this enviable reputation and stood everywhere at a premium to almost any other'51. The
Athenian's pride blinded him to the merits of foreign currency, which for him
were marred by forgery, erratic weights, bad fabric and debasement. In
Acharnians, 5I5 if. the same prejudice appears again. Dikaiopolis has embarked
on his defence before the hostile Acharnian farmers;
[6V
y&p
&VapEq,
XoU%i T-V
0L~t-C0V?a1TO09 O"TCOUZL
76?oXLVXEyo,
TnV 7r0aV
tXe,c
&?CX'
aV8papLa LoXO-7po
7rMapaxExo0[LVva
ITLocdxM
ap&aso
xaO MXp&'svaM
eauxocpV'rst
Meyapecov
'& ZkaGVLGXLa.
Here is the same contrast of good Athenian and bad foreign, applied to currency
and politicians alike. Since ivLvc was a charge which demagogues levelled at
their enemies, Aristophanes never wearies of impugning their own birth and
patriotisml52. It may be the same with the implied attitude to foreign coinage.
151 See fl6pOL 3, 2 and Robinson, op. cit., 326. For the gold coinage (407 B.C.) see
Radermacher, Frogs2 (1954), 247f. and C. T. Seltman, Greek Coins2 (I955),
I37f.
152 Wasps, 715f.
(with schol.) and scholia on Ach., 304 and 377f. (~evM charge): Ach.,
704f., Birds, 762 ff., and Frogs,, 417f. and 679if. (evEcaof demagogues).
i84
HAROLD
B. MATTINGLY
Aristophanes could be turning the demagogues' own prejudices and language

against themselves. In 425 B.C., I suggest, Kleon's party were preparing the
way for radical financial measures by crying down the quality of such foreign
silver as was still circulating alongside the Athenian owls. Where the standard
was only slightly below the Attic, as in Thrace, this competition was an inconvenient source of loss. For other reasons, as Robinson noted, Athens must
have resented the survival of masses of Aiginetan 'turtles'. Even if Cavaignac
is right in claiming that tribute had long been paid in Attic silver or in electrum,
there were countless transactions in wartime that would have involved exchange operations. Where no currency matched the Attic in purity or consistency of weight, there would be ample reason for complaint and mutual recrimination, even without the occasional debasement or forgery'53.We may
conclude then that commercial advantage and imperial pride were the main
motives behind the Coinage Decree.
The second Aristophanic allusion to D I4 provides a suitable transition to
the numismatic problems. The passage in the Clouds (247ff.) throws a little
light on a coinage of which numismatists can tell us nothing, the curious iron
currency of Byzantion, whose silver hardly goes back before the last decade
of the fifth century154.Strepsiades swears by the gods to pay Sokrates any
price which he may ask for instruction, but is met with the indignant protest
7tOLOU4 OE06o
tLzV V0F~tcrF
rpF0'v
0LC a?S;
y'&p OC?0
O'UXe,,Tlt.
to which he replies in amazement

TXy&p
cLaOCp6ocrLv,
Wa`rtp 'v
0`tVvU; n
Bu<vrL'W;
The allusion is paralleled by one in Plato's Peisander;

Z0C7
as o X aoct[tv &v Buv'ovrnt,e
orrouata8cpe,otat
TroZ4
Vo[?LaG.Liat
XpivxTeL
Why did Byzantion's iron currency attract notice in just these two plays of
c. 42o B.C.? We might say that it was simply because of its clumsy antiquity,
but I fancy that the point was better than that. As Sokrates had no use for
the Athenian gods, so Byzantion did not use the Athenian 'owls' internally, but
was marked out by being able to continue striking her traditional iron. For
foreign trade the city presumably used both 'owls' and electrum. The comic
'63 See Robinson, op. cit., 339 (Thrace) and 325 (Aigina): Cavaignac, Rev. Num., 1953, 5:
S. Bolin, State and Currency in the Roman Empire to 300 A. D. (1958), 39-42.
154 Head, Hist. Num. (Ijll),
266f.: Seltman, op. cit., I8I.
I85
poets show that the idea of a uniform imperial currency was topical c.424/4I7
B.C., as was only to be expected when D I4 had not long been in force155.
Robinson had to admit that the attempt at imposing Athenian currency
was tacitlv abandoned in time as impracticable. If this attempt began only
in 425/4 B.C. we can see that it was doomed from the start to that shortlived
and partial effectiveness which the coins themselves plainly reveal.56.Brasidas
dealt Athens crippling blows in Thrace from 424 to 422 B.C. Already by
September 424 B.C. he had secured Akanthos and proceeded to exploit discontent among the privileged classes in other cities by hlis adroit promise of
autonomy. Athens had deliberately made the main burdens of her Empire
fall on 'the few' rather than on the people, who normally remained loyal. For
many of the 'better folk' the prohibition of coinage will have seemed the last
intolerable encroachment on their city's rights'57.With this propaganda allied
to military genius Brasidas deprived Athens of much of the greatly increased
tribute from Thrace and by capturing Amphipolis he took away the vital
silver mines of Pangaiosl58.
These blows were sudden, terrible and lasting in their effects. Only a few
months earlier Athens had no suspicion of danger, not even when Brasidas'
force appeared near Megara in the summer'59.Many Athenians had come to
feel that Athens could do anything that she wanted. Thucydides has admirably
characterised this mood of the months after Pylos, to which he himself fell
a victim. Nothing was beyond hope or rather confident expectation, even though
the proper resources had not been provided. At such a time Klearchos' Decree
is entirely understandable. We can appreciate why its promoters overlooked
the practical difficulties in their way'60.Even after Brasidas' arrival there was
155 From D 14 ? 12 (&iv 'TtL x67w-t- v6.LLatAaa&pyup(ou&kv
t4
%6X)_at)it has long been
recognised that only silver was banned. The two versions of the Clouds are dated
respectively 424/3 and 42i/o B.C. in the hypotheses; the Peisander probably belongs to the
period 419/15 B.C., when he was emerging as a leading radical democrat. See Andok., De
Mysteriis, 36 and J. M. Edmonds, Fragments of Attic Comedy, i (I957), 52I n. b.
156Robinison, op. cit., 324, 338f. Compare H. Schaefer, Herm., lxxiv (I939), 255 and
Cavaignac, op. cit., 3ff.
157 Thuc. iv, 85-88 (Akanthos); Iio (Torone); I20 (Skione); I23 (Mende). For Athens
and the 8iBioLsee G. de St. Croix, Hist., iv (I955), 4-9 and 37ff.; Mende (Thuc. iv, 130,
4-7) excellently illustrates his point. For coinage as the essence of autonomy see Seltman,
Op. Cit.,
I 22.
'S Thuc. iv, 87, 3 (with v, I8, 5); i68.

159 Thuc. iv, 65, 3-4; 82 (Athenian counter-measures;
only after Brasidas' arrival in

Macedon).
160Thuc. iv, 65, 3-4. See Gomme's note (op. cit., iii, 53) and the excellent treatment of
Athenian policy as it was affected by this mood which W. Eberhardt has given us in
HIistoria, viii (1959), 300ff.; he stresses the mixture of unreality and brutal lack of scruple.
Athens at this time, be suggests, cannot be judged by normal standards. Robinson (op. cit.,
324) doubts 'in view of the sequel whether the farreaching implications of the policy...
were fully grasped at the time of its promotion'.
i86
HAROLD
B.
MATTINGLY
apparently no weakening in their resolve. Thucydides' absence in the crisis

near the Thracian goldmines is doubtless significant. He had perhaps been
instructed to organise and protect the whole mining district witlh Eukles and
to secure maximum cooperation from the great mints in the Chalkidian peninsula and along the coast to eastwards. Possibly Athens intended to raise
Amphipolis to tlle rank of an imperial branch-mint'6l.
The loss of Amphipolis, however, proved final, though Athens continued
to hope after Kleon's gallant failure. But neither negotiation nor force was
any use'62.The main Thracian mints had early to be granted dispensation from
the Coinage Decree, in order to keep them loyal in face of Brasidas and the
grave menace from the Odrysian Empire, which remained after the other
danger had cleared. Akanthos maintained her coinage through rebellion into
the period of guaranteed autonomy that followed'63.Elsewhere D I4 still had
force, but yearly the difficulties mounted'". Finally came tlle finiancialstress
161 Thuc. iv, 104-105.
Thucydides was powerful on the mainland through his minin,,concessions. Doubtless Athens was directly interested in the gold-supply. J. Johnston
(Hermathena, xlvii (1932), I47ff.) has well stressed the part played by fluctuating goldvalues and the fixed Kyzikene/drachma ratio in determining Atheins' action in the Coinage
Decree. Speculation in the metallurgically variable electrum was causing financial loss.
162Thuc. v, 6-Io (Kleon); 18, 5 and 21 (Peace of Nikias); 83, 4 (4I7 B.C.); vi, 1O, 5 (415
B.C.; a veiled reminder by Nikias); vii, 9 (414 B.C.).
163 Ainos shows no break from the 430S on, according to J. M. F. May (Ainos; its history
and coinage (1950), 71); Abdera and Maroncia, he considers, are exactly parallel (by letter).
The vast Odrysian power first really impressed Greece when Sitalkes invaded Macedonia
but it was Seuthes (424 B.C. -?) who built up its fabulous
in 429/8 B.C. (Thuc. ii, 97-101);
prosperity and strength (ibid., 97, 3-5). In his reign even the Greek coastal cities paid
tribute and lavished 'gifts'. Despite the Thracian alliance of 43I B.C. (Thuc. ii, 29) Athens
must offer some relief to her allies here and intervene as little as possible. May has applied
such arguments to the 430s; he holds that c. 435 B.C. Athens generously allowed the three
mints to resume coinage after a break since c. 449 B.C. (the Coinage Decree). For Ainos
see op. cit., I9 and 7i-89; for Abdera and Maroneia I am indebted to Dr. May's kindness
in communicating his new results in letters (contrast Robinson, op. cit., 337, where no break
is recognised). I think that he has proved the breaks stylistically, but what caused them
and how long were they? They might be due to temporary dislocation of the silver-market
while Athens threatened, secured and then consolidated Amphipolis (C. 438/35 B.C.). May
doubts whether the effect would have been felt as far east as Ainos; but what other sources
of silver had the city than Pangaios ? For Akanthos see Thuc. v, i8, 5. and J. Desneux, Les
tetradraclhmes d'Akanthos (1949). May bas suggested (Num. Chron., 1950, 157) a break
here also c. 449 B.C. with resumption in the 430s, then continuous coinage; the same pattern was proposed for Thasos by Robinson (op. cit. 336). The stylistic evidence for all this
is less satisfactory.
164 Mende stopped in 423 B.C. (surrender to Athens) after prolonged and vigorous
activity; see S. P. Noe, Numismatic Notes and Monographs, 27 (1926), 52ff. New evidence
has upset the old theory of a break (c. 449-435 B.C.) between single- and double-type
series (Robinson, op. cit. 334f.). A double-type tetradrachm (? Noe nlO. 55) has been found
overstruck by a Gelan tetradrachm normally dated c. 460 B.C.; see Amer. Alus. Notes,
The Athenian
Coinage Decree
I87
of the Sicilian expedition and the Spartan seizure of Dekeleia, which was to
bring work in the Laureion mines gradually to a virtual halt. The Decree of
Klearchos was by then formally dead, but it was already despaired of when
Aristophanes mockingly dismissed it in Birds, 1037ff.165.
As we have seen D I4 evidently forms part of the new commercial imperialism which is closely linked with the name of Kleon. This developed
logically from the last phase of Periclean policy, which the imminence of war
and pressure at home gradually diverted from its true ends'66. Klearchos expressed the attitude which was first clearly seen in the language of the Megarian
Decree with its deliberately chosen consequences. This measure not only
threatened Megara's whole economy, unless she submitted to Athens, but
it also represented grave interference with the trading relations of allied
states like Chalkedon and Byzantion'l67.Ancient writers found the Megarian
Decree puzzling, perhaps because it was so uncharacteristic. They tend to
regard it as deliberate provocation of war, for which various unlikely reasons
were propounded. For Perikles himself it was probably a test-case of Spartan
intentions, a piece of what would now be termed 'brinkmanship'. Whichever
side gave way would have lost the vital first round in the struggle for power'48.
As late as 433 B.C. Perikles was still conciliatory for all his frank recognition
of the realities of Empire. Even the Mytileneans later sourly admitted the
moderate nature of his imperialism. He had always maintained the decencies
vii (1958), 38f. and P1. xiii e. Dr. Robinson now suggests (by letter) a break in the doubletype series itself between Noe no. 68 and 69 (c. 449 B.C.), with resumption in the late 430s.
Mende clearly needs very careful study before its evidence can be used. Teos and Kos remain awkward exceptions for Robinson (see op. cit., 337). If Kos was recalcitrant (Athens
set up the decree!), would she have been allowed to flout orders or alternatively granted
dispensation, as Robinson suggested? My view removes all difficulty, as neither mint
coins after c. 425 B.C. Samos breaks after the issue with olive-branch and letter; Mr. John
Barron has kindly communicated to me results soon to be published in Num. Chron. (I960).
He makes the issue end in 440/39 B.C. (contrast Robinson, op. cit., 33I and 338). In his
letter, however, he conceded that this and associated previous groups might fill the period
c. 475/425 B.C. rather than his 490/440 B.C. Liberation from Persia certainly seems a likely
occasion for new developments in coinage and the start of a new prosperity.
65 Thuc. viii, i8 and 28, 3-4; vi, 91, 6-7 (the Laureion threat).
166 Nesselhauf acutely stressed the policy of naval supremacy pursued in the 430s (op.
cit., 62-66), while Gomme saw Kleon as the self-confessed heir of Perikles (op. cit., ii, I77
and i86). Segre wrote of D 14 (Op. cit., 179)' d un atto di imperialismo commerciale quale
Atene non poteva compire che nel culmine di imperialismo politico'. This is surely true,
but was this 'culmine' reached in the 440S? For this view of D 14 compare Nesselhauf,
op. cit., 62 n. 2: Schaefer, op. cit. 255 and 257: Cavaignac, op. cit., 4.
167 See Nesselhauf, op. cit., 67: Gomme, op. cit., i, 447: P.A. Brunt, Amer. Journ.
Phil., lxxii (I95I), 275ff. (minimising the economic effects of the decree, which he dates
c. 439 B.C.).
1'" Schol. on Aristoph. Peace, 605: Diodoros xii, 38f.: Plut. Per., 29-32:
Thuc. i, i4of.
(Perikles' case against repeal).
i88
HAROLD
B. MATTINGLY, The Athenian CoinageDecree
and preferred diplomacy and propaganda to open constraint'69.Such measures

as the unilateral universal edict seem foreign to his outlook and never more so
than in the formative years after Kimon's death. This is yet one more reason
why the orthodox dating of D 7 and D I4 seems to me unacceptablel'70.His
successors had no such inhibitions. They inherited an Empire not a League and
what was exceptional with Perikles became their main creed. Since the Empire
was acknowledged tyranny, Athenian interests must rank paramount. For
the while nothing mattered save that Athens should emerge from the war
with enhanced power"71.The intoxicating sense of success soon caused grave
moral and political damage. It led the Assembly into misjudgements of what
was advisable or even practicable and to the final grim logic of the fate dealt
out to rebellious Torone and Skione. The Coinage Decree is one typical error
inspired by the delusive hope which Thucydides denounced and which doomed
it to become within a decade a comedian's joke, a piece of unreal politics fit
only for export to Cloudcuckooland, where Peithetairos and Euelpides with
eyes at last open could see it for what it really was.
University of Nottingham
HAROLD
B. MATTINGLY
"
OV
'" Thuc. iii, iof., especially 11,3; oarr6vo[Lot &
ok' 8L6&XXO'tL 6aov U'rotq
-. X6you xmd y@x
)v &pxtv erpe7ta
j&X?Xov&cp68t i EaU0o t& 7rp&yzx &qaomveto
xa),r-r&r. For some years before 443 B.C. Perikles was restrained by a vocal, active
opposition (Plut. Per., II, 2 and I4: Plato, Meno, g4d.), earlier by the prestige and memory
of Kimon.
170 Contrast Thuc. iii, 37, 2 (Kleon) with ii, 63, 2 (Perikles). Thuc. ii, 65, 6-8 marks the
gap (for him) between the two men and the two outlooks.
171 The Skionians lost their city and were killed or enslaved (Thuc. v, 32, I and iv, 122,
6; Kleon's decree); Torone suffered partial enslavement. For the effect on Greek opinion
see Xen. Hell., ii, 2, 3.

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The Athenian Coinage Decree

Author(s): Harold B. Mattingly

THE ATHENIAN COINAGE DECREE.*

Hesperia, SuppI. viii (I949), 324-340.

The Athenian CoinageDecree

OpoLfrom Aigina. In the late 430s Aigina began covertly complain-

The letter-forms of IG i2, 66 were once found perfectly consistent with a

Io014) was countered

(Amer. Journ. Arch., ihx (I955),

The Athenian CoinageDecree

on IG i2, 65): ATL ii, D 8

(424/3 B. C.; Nike's priestess).

oto] ALoV6at. After this grace filues would have been

The Athenian CoinageDecree

pZOVt'o r6[v xot' 7vho7t]X[4v

closely with lines 4Iff. of D 7:

&7r0L]X0GL . Now this must be compared

and panoply appears in D 7 as a universal accepted obligation of the

HAROLD 13. MATTINGLY

v 'arXaL[v'r6] y6'[p]o hLtvaZ[r6c ULot apyuptov

The Athenian CoinageDecree

The Athenian CoinageDecree

ensuring the prompt, faithful dispatch of tribute to Athens (5ff.)46. A similar

ment in ATL iii, 145f.

The Athenian CoinageDecree

'Tr 8& O)x&r

daO6teMvo ouire EX0UOV e? t

reputation that would suffer64.

(see Goimme, op. cit., i, 327

The Athenian CoinageDecree

The Athenian CoinageDecree

Modern estimates of the Parthenon's cost range from

See Gomme, op. cit., iii,

Meritt's instinct about the mason is likely to be right.

T he Atheinian Coinage Decree

We shall find similar contradictions with other decrees wvhichclosely resemble

AMcdata NYxs? ?8q iu9z7r6XP-uaev

See Soph. Oed. CoI., 258ff. and I'aus. i, 17, I.

-,qp &vapachseaOxat sy PoXE. 0o0og

T?5 &NapX?i xtayy'4o

TEt Po?Et 67Z Tre? b&vTe

The Athenian CoinageDecree

roZv O[e]oZv xa0&Nbp

The tense of crera'Trov is decisive.

C. Picard, Comptes Rendus de l'acad. d. inscr.,

&y tmarox xat vioug

it would be strange if Eleusinian building Commissioners were appointed in

Hondius certainly wanted IG i2, 3I2 to be prewar because of the go talents

eV 7eXr?Mz aytoaeg 0CVCXaS%VU1T0C.

The Athenian Coinage Decree

xmO' & tuyXoqo5aL

5. The Miletos Decree (IG i2,

op. cit., i, 349f.

iii, 499: Sealey,

Hist., iii (1954/5),

The Athenian CoinageDecree

123 Gonime, op. cit., Iii, 664 (Pleistoanax; winter 422/I,

124 On IG i2, I4-15

The name Kolophon has been restored in IG i2, I

As they are engaged in a reckless boasting-match this will probably be one

&v-p alv-eV W?p

XOL Xot (Y)1 IOV .6XXtaVT0V X0XzV

The Athenian CoinageDecree