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Suggested Changes in the Troizen Inscription
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 October 2013
Extract
Total success in establishing a text for such a defaced document as the alleged decree of Themistokles can hardly be expected. The left half of the inscribed surface is so deeply scratched as to resemble a butcher's chopping block. There are so many scars, running in so many directions, that it is easy to imagine letters where we can be sure that none exists. For example, in line 8, but much below the inscribed surface, there are four strokes which seem to make a mu. In line 34 there are strokes in the shape of an alpha between the pi and eta of the word hyperesia. In both cases the ‘strokes’ are merely scratches. For this reason, this is one of the most treacherous inscriptions in Greek epigraphy to study by photography alone. And published texts which depend on photographs, of whatever number, should be treated with great caution.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1964
References
1 ProfessorJameson, states (Hesperia xxxi (1962), 310)CrossRefGoogle Scholar: ‘The stone itself is of Pentelic marble.’ But the stone has pronounced blue streaks and would therefore be called by many Attic epigraphists ‘Hymettian’. ProfessorDow, 's statement (AJA lxvi (1962), 354Google Scholar) is much more cautious. We realize that Professor Jameson has explored extensively in the Troizenia and may well be familiar with the quarries there. It would be a service if he would enlighten us on this important question as to how he decides that this inscription was cut on Attic and not local stone.
2 The difficulties involved in reading the stone may be illustrated by comparing the two versions made by Jameson, M. H. (Hesperia xxix (1960), 198–223CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Hesperia xxxi (1962), 310–15). He changes one originally undotted letter (line 20: an upsilon becomes an eta); he changes three originally dotted letters (lines 20, 21, and 32: a dotted sigma becomes an undotted iota, a dotted nu becomes a kappa in square brackets, a dotted tau becomes an undotted kappa); he removes dots from 31 letters; he reads 21 new letters undotted; he reads 35 new letters dotted. These alterations, totalling 91, are listed not in any spirit of contention, but merely to demonstrate the difficulty of reading the stone. At the same time that Jameson was making changes, M. Treu was publishing a text made after an examination of the stone (Historia xii (1963), 52), which reproduced most of Jameson's first readings, even to the extent that Jameson's dotted letters become undotted, and some bracketed letters become unbracketed. It is interesting that up to now only those who believe in the authenticity of the document have published texts based on autopsy, and that they have argued with equal facility, on the basis of mutually contradictory readings (for example, 20 or 10 epibatai per ship), that the decree reflects 480 B.C. practice.
3 Hesperia xxxi (1962) 312.
4 IG i2. 98, line 22; Thucydides i. 143; Demosthenes, I.30.
5 The letters in the first, second, and fourth letter-spaces of this line, as read by Jameson, are clear, and should be printed without dots.
6 This article was completed before Jameson, article in Historia xii (1963) 385–404Google Scholar, was published.