1. The Evolution of Building Accounts in Classical Athens

In a recent article on the format and layout of building accounts in classical Athens, I argued that this typology of epigraphic documents underwent a gradual evolution. The first preserved specimens, dating to the third quarter of the fifth century, adopted a “list-like format”, with a strong emphasis on concise receipt and expenditure entries, each with its relevant monetary figures. In the last quarter of the same century, by contrast, building accounts began to accommodate many more details, attaining a decidedly more “narrative format”.1

The earliest example of this category of inscriptions comes from a stele containing at least eight annual accounts of an unknown work that, based on letterforms, can be dated to the mid-fifth century (IG I³ 433).2 Each year’s section, which always starts on a new line, names the secretary and the epistatai (overseers) of the work in office that year, followed by only two entries: one for total receipts, the other for total expenditures (e.g., ll. 31-40). Within each section, entries are mostly written continuously with monetary figures incorporated into the body of the text.

However, the next set of building accounts, conventionally known as the Athena Promachos’ accounts and probably dating to the early 440s, inaugurates a new format with more extensive lists of entries organized in multiple columns (IG I³ 435).3 Here, each annual section, separated from the previous one by a blank line, opens with a statement of how much money the epistatai received from the kolakretai and how much was left over from the previous accounting year. Each section then lists several expenditures entries, followed by a statement of how much money was spent as a whole and how much was left over for the next accounting year (e.g., ll. 36-61 and 63-85). Within each column, the text is divided into two sub-columns, with the prescript and list of items occupying the right-hand sub-column and the relevant monetary figures occupying the left-hand one. In addition to each entry starting on a new line, we can also posit – despite the fragmentary state of the original stele (or stelae) on which the accounts were inscribed – that paragraphoi systematically separated monetary figures from each other (Fig. 7).4 Entries consist of general categories of material (i.e., copper and tin talents, charcoal and firewood), plus workers’ wages and the salaries of public officials.

The fifteen annual accounts of the Parthenon (IG I³ 436-451), dated to the 440s and 430s, were inscribed on the four sides of a large marble stele set up on the Acropolis, of which only twenty-five fragments survive.5 Within each column of text, each annual section is separated from the previous one by a blank line and opens with a dating prescript running for the entire width of the column. Following the prescript, the receipt entries are arranged in two sub-columns, with monetary figures on the left and items on the right. The heading ἀναλόματα is then inscribed before the expenditure entries, again with monetary figures on the left and items on the right, followed by the remaining balance (e.g., ll. 344-364). While each entry starts on a new line, paragraphoi are used only to separate entries in the accounts for the year XIV (434/3), which were inscribed on the right narrow side of the stele (Fig. 1). Unlike in previous samples, lists of receipts and expenditures in the Parthenon accounts are more detailed and workers’ wages are not gathered together under the same item but are rather broken down according to the different operations and the different categories of workers paid for.6

Whereas the accounts of the Propylaea (IG I³ 462-466) closely resemble the Parthenon accounts in both format and content,7 the accounts of the chryselephantine statue of Athena Parthenos – although ideologically and physically intertwined with the same construction program – deserve a separate mention (IG I³ 453, 455-458). In fact, these accounts register only the money that the treasurers of Athena allocated each year to the purchase of gold and ivory for the statue, with no mention of other material or of payments for any workers. Therefore, they constitute a sort of inventory that show how much of the goddess’s wealth was channeled into the statue, rather than proper building accounts; nonetheless, the entries in these inscriptions are also broken down into two sub-columns, with items on the right and monetary figures on the left.8

The only exception is the summary account of the entire project, dated to 438 and inscribed on a monumental and carefully polished stele, of which only two portions survive (IG I³ 460). As far as we can tell from the extant fragments of the text, the account, arranged in a single column, first registered how much money and gold the epistatai had received (ll. 1-9), then broke down the expenses into a few general categories (ll. 10-19). Entries are separated from one another by a paragraphos, and monetary figures always begin on a new line. The beauty and large size of the script – especially the numerals, which are larger and occupy a two-letter space – add to the conspicuous grandeur of the monument (Fig. 2). There is no doubt that the monetary figures, despite not being emphatically isolated in sub-columns, are the most striking feature of this inscription.

Almost two decades later, the accounts of the bronze statues of Athena and Hephaestus (IG I³ 472), dated to the years 421-416, present an interesting development. They were inscribed on a stele, set up in the sanctuary of Hephaestus in the agora, of which only three portions survive. After the prescript and a blank line, the text lists, year after year, the sums of money allocated to the project by the treasurers of the Other Gods (ll. 1-20). While the prescript and the list of receipts run across the entire width of the stone surface, the expenditure entries are arranged in columns, each of which is divided into two sub-columns, with monetary figures (now lost) on the left and the relevant items on the right (ll. 138-160). Paragraphoi separate the entries (Fig. 3). Despite the total amount being inscribed in larger letters on the front face of the stone (l. 166), the expenditure entries continue on the left side, arranged in a single column with monetary figures incorporated into the text and following rather than preceding the relevant items (ll. 173-191). The content of some of these entries is similar to those of the Parthenon accounts, mentioning materials and categories of workers paid for. In general, however, they tend to be more descriptive, almost narrative, as is the case with one concerning the purchase of wood, whose intended use is accurately spelled out (ll. 155-160).9

This level of detail represents a sort of prelude to the Erechtheum accounts, which themselves mark a new stage in the evolution of building accounts. The construction of this temple probably began in 421 and halted in 413. When work resumed in 409/8, a decree of the assembly ordered the epistatai of the project and the architect to prepare a report on the progress of the work. This report was inscribed on the front face of an opistographic stele set up on the Acropolis (IG I³ 474).10 Inscribed after the prescript, which runs across the entire width of the stone surface (ll. 1-7), the report itself is arranged in columns, listing the unfinished parts of the temple (ll. 8-92) and the stone blocks lying on the ground at the building site (ll. 93-237). Again, each column is divided into two sub-columns, where the description of each entry on the right side takes up most of the space, while the figures on the narrow left-hand sub-column indicate the number of architectural elements of that kind. Each entry begins on a new line and, as is the case in the accounts for the bronze statues, a paragraphos separates each entry from the previous one, although not with the same consistency (Fig. 4).

The accounts proper, preserved in fragments, were inscribed on separate stelae and cover the works completed in 409/8 (IG I³ 475) and 408/7 (IG I³ 476).11 Unlike previous accounts, they are organized per prytany. Each new section opens with the mention of the tribe holding the prytany and of how much money the treasurers of Athena allocated to the epistatai. The list of expenditure entries follows, first detailing the purchases of various materials and then the payments for different operations and different categories of workers. Each entry and each prytany section ends with the total amount of money spent (e.g., IG I³ 476, ll. 183-281). However, entries do not only mention individual items; they rather describe them with a level of detail never reached up to that point. These details include the name of every single worker, his civic status, the exact content of his work, and the payment he received for it. The text is arranged in columns, but figures are not set apart in a different sub-column; on the contrary, they are incorporated into the body of the text and flagged by means of punctuation marks, although this is not done systematically. Each prytany section usually begins on a new line or after a short blank space on the same line, sometimes flagged by a paragraphos or by other graphic dividers. As for expenditure entries, however, only occasionally do they begin on a new line or after a short blank space on the same line; most often there is no break between one entry and the next (Fig. 5).

After the Erechtheum works, it becomes difficult to follow the evolution of building accounts, because this category of inscriptions seems almost to disappear from the Athenian epigraphic record.12 Nevertheless, expenses for building works are occasionally found within some examples of general accounts. The most notable of these are the accounts of the sanctuary of the Two Goddesses at Eleusis, dated to 329/8 (I.Eleusis 177).13 These accounts were inscribed on a large stele set up in the Eleusinian sanctuary, of which the upper and lower portions survive, with a substantial lacuna between them. The text is arranged in two wide columns. The accounts list receipts and expenditures on a prytany-by-prytany basis (e.g., ll. 176-198). Each prytany section begins on a new line or is separated from the previous one by a couple of blank lines. Each entry, however, follows the previous one without interruption; monetary figures are incorporated into the body of the text and mostly flagged by means of punctuation marks (Fig. 6). The level of detail is similar to that found in the Erechtheum accounts, but they are not as accurate as the latter (e.g., the identity and civic status of individual workers are often overlooked). Despite this, the layout of the text is even more crammed than in the Erechtheum accounts, especially given the breadth of the columns (78 to 81 letter spaces) and the remarkably small size of the letters (only 4 mm high, compared with the average letter height of 8 mm for most fifth-century accounts).

This brief survey shows that, in the 440s and 430s, building accounts consisted of concise lists of receipts and expenses, displayed in an extremely user-friendly layout, in which particular visual devices immediately drew attention to the main sources of money and items of expenditure with the relevant monetary figures. These visual devices include: blank lines separating one annual section from another; each entry beginning on a new line; the (unsystematic) use of paragraphoi; and, in particular, the arrangement of items and monetary figures in separate and parallel sub-columns. These accounts adopt what I call a “list-like format”. The Parthenon accounts represent the most mature form of this type of account and, with their large stele set up on the Acropolis, its most monumental outcome. By contrast, a couple of decades later, the Erechtheum accounts – partly foreshadowed by the accounts for the bronze statues of Athena and Hephaestus – reached an unsurpassed level of detail in meticulously describing the individual jobs performed. In doing so, however, they abandoned many of the visual devices adopted before, thus making it less straightforward for any passers-by to identify the various items of expenditure and the relevant monetary figures at first glance. This typology of accounts, whose main characteristics persist in the few extant samples from the fourth century, adopt what I call a “narrative format”.

2. Functionalism vs. Symbolism

The evolution in the format and layout of building accounts outlined above prompts us to question the purpose of accounts inscribed on durable media and exposed to public attention and, in doing so, leads us once again to address any supposed dichotomy between functionalism and symbolism.

It is well known that building accounts stemmed from the work of ad hoc appointed boards of public officials called epistatai, who were in charge of supervising the financial and technical aspects of public projects.14 In this role, epistatai handled substantial amounts of public money (as the inscriptions themselves attest) and likely kept accurate records of all sorts of transactions in order to ensure the proper financial management of projects. Their day-to-day operations no doubt involved the production of various types of written documents on perishable media, partly intended for temporary practical use and partly for permanent storage in public archives.15

In addition, in Athens (as well as in other cities), documents of public interest were temporarily posted in prominent locations within the civic space in order to give citizens the opportunity to examine them. Such locations included the base of the monument of the Eponymous Heroes in the agora or a wall in the bouleuterion, or other locations chosen depending on the occasion; the media used for writing were usually wax-covered wooden tablets or whitewashed boards.16 In the case of the epistatai, it is likely that the temporary display of the documents resulting from their work occurred in conjunction with the statutory and legally mandated scrutiny of their conduct.

This scrutiny was held in several stages: Michele Faraguna has convincingly argued that as early as the fifth century the examination of public officials at the end of their annual term of office first involved the audit of their financial accounts (strictly speaking the logos), followed by a general review of their conduct (the actual euthynai, although the term could be used to indicate the entire procedure). In the fourth century, the financial audit was conducted by public officials called logistai, who then transmitted it to court, while the general review pertained to members of the council, called euthynoi, who received complaints from citizens within three days of the examined official rendering his financial accounts in court. In the fifth century, both phases were probably presided over by euthynoi.17 Moreover, according to the Constitution of the Athenians (48.3), a committee of members of the council, also called logistai, reviewed public officials’ accounts each prytany (i.e., each of the ten months of the Athenian administrative calendar).18

We must assume that, in view of the logos and euthynai, the epistatai gathered and summarized all the information derived from the transactions carried out during their tenure so as to present their work to the citizens and relevant officials in the most comprehensive manner. It is possible – but not certain – that this document was the same one temporarily displayed to the public at some prominent site. We do not know, however, whether the accounts of the epistatai were displayed to the public on a monthly or annual basis.

In any case, it is clear that all these procedures led to the production of a large number of written documents, which made use of a variety of writing materials. The Erechtheum accounts offer us some indication in this regard: in the eighth prytany of 408/7, the epistatai bought sanides, “writing tablets”, for transcribing the accounts, at the price of one drachma each; then, in the ninth prytany, they bought chartai, “sheets of papyrus”, for registering the copies of the accounts, at a total price of two drachmas and four obols. It is possible that biblia, “papyrus rolls”, were bought in the last prytany of 409/8, even though the context in which this word is found is so fragmentary that the presence and function of the word itself are far from certain.19 It is usually assumed that sanides were meant for notes and preliminary drafts (i.e., temporary and practical documents), whereas the final and cumulative version of the accounts intended for archival record was written on papyrus.20

In fact, Véronique Chankowski’s study of bookkeeping practices in independent Delos (314-167) shows that this distinction was not necessarily valid and that the hierarchy of writing media could be much more complex. According to the testimony of the annual accounts of the Delian sanctuary, the administrators regularly bought sheets of papyrus on which they produced preliminary drafts before the annual accounts themselves were inscribed on stone; a deltos (a wooden panel of cypress), however, was bought each year so that the text already engraved on the stele could be copied on to it, possibly as a document intended for archival record. At the same time, leukomata, “whitewashed boards”, were used for the display of monthly accounts on the agora (i.e. those expenses for which the hieropoioi did not need to ask the authorization of the assembly) and peteura, “planks” (also bleached for writing), were used for registering documents other than the annual accounts, such as lists of contracts and securities.21 The complexity revealed by the Delian accounts confirms that public officials could elaborate their final accounts by making use of the many different categories of drafts and documents produced during their tenure. These were written on a variety of different media, some of which were meant for separate, temporary display and/or for independent archival record.

However, not all financial documents and accounts ended up inscribed on stone. Just as was the case for all categories of public documents, publication on stone involved selection. In fact, the documents that the Athenians decided to inscribe on stone were a limited and select number in relation to the overall set of public documents that were regularly being produced. Moreover, in terms of content, most of the time the text on stone was a selected and redacted version of the document (or documents) from which it had been drawn.22

It is precisely in relation to this selection process that the dichotomy of functionalism and symbolism comes into play. Scholars have often questioned whether epigraphic documents, such as accounts and inventories, were, on the one hand, intended to provide an accurate overview of the officials’ conduct, corresponding in all respects to what had been presented for the logos and euthynai; or whether, on the other hand, they had no practical purpose, being instead mere excerpts intended to symbolically represent whatever political or religious principles the city wished to affirm.23 More specifically, the evolution from a “list-like format” to a “narrative format” could suggest, from a strictly functional perspective, that inscribed accounts reflected how the actual accounts presented for the logos and euthynai developed from a more rudimentary form of accounting to one showcasing an increased level of accountability and transparency required of public officials. Alternatively, the increased level of detail could signal a shift from inscribed accounts in which the symbolic value is most important to accounts that embrace a distinctly functional purpose.24 Conversely, one could even argue that the user-friendly layout and greater readability of earlier accounts speak in favor of their adherence to functionality, in contrast to narrative and crammed accounts, from which it would have been more difficult to extract meaningful information.25

I believe, however, that, in the terms outlined above, the question is ill defined. If emphasizing the symbolic value of financial documents inscribed on stone is tantamount to saying that they were solely monuments, so much so that their text was not relevant and thus not even consulted, I cannot agree.26 As Michael Scott has aptly observed (with regard to inventories, but the argument applies also to accounts), “the symbolic potential of these lists rests upon their grounding in functional reality”, i.e., they must have offered reliable information to whomever read them (or at least had the potential to do so) in order to remain meaningful symbols of the values they intended to convey.27

In my view, there is no doubt that accounts inscribed on stone were meant to be read and thus that they served a functional purpose; however, their function was not merely informative and did more than simply provide the general public with details of the epistatai’s conduct. In fact, this function was already being fulfilled, and in a much more effective and timely manner, by the use of perishable media to temporarily display the epistatai’s accounts in view of the logos and euthynai, when it was crucial for them to be checked out by whoever wished to do so. Conversely, as I have argued elsewhere, the decision to inscribe accounts on stone, making them potentially everlasting, went beyond the immediate circumstances; instead, it served to celebrate and perpetuate the memory of building achievements that were deemed particularly significant to the city of Athens for political or religious reasons, or both.28

In this respect, the shift from a “list-like format” to a “narrative format” must be seen not as a swing between symbolism and functionalism, but rather as a change in the ways in which the city decided to celebrate its achievements. The Parthenon accounts (IG I³ 436-451), as well as other mid-fifth-century inscribed accounts, are too concise and omit too many relevant details to allow us to assume that they correspond to the same documents the epistatai submitted for the logos and euthynai. The epistatai certainly composed their final accounts as comprehensive summaries of the data drawn from the various sets of documents they had produced during their tenure, as the Delian example suggests.29 However, in this case, unlike in fourth-century Delos, the inscribed text represents a further stage in the process of selection, emphasizing the elements deemed most functional to its celebratory and commemorative intent. There is no doubt that the layout of these types of accounts emphasizes the magnitude and prominence of the monetary figures – not only of the expenditure items, but also, as Marginesu points out, of the receipt entries.30 Evidently, it was the financial means deployed by the city to express its piety for the patron goddess and to assert its own political and military roles in the Greek world that the city authorities decided to emphasize in parading their building enterprise.

This is not to say that any other ideological meanings should be discarded. Stelae set up in sacred spaces and concerning buildings of a sacred nature also served as dedications intended to please and honor the gods.31 At the same time, even though these stelae were not primarily erected so that the public could examine the actual accounts of the epistatai, they still embodied the democratic principles on which the Athenian political and administrative system was based, i.e., transparency and accountability.32 As mentioned above, however, for these meanings to have any value it was necessary for the text to be firmly grounded in real and verifiable data.33

As regards later inscribed accounts, the increasing level of detail at the expense of some visual devices signals that the ways in which the city celebrated its building enterprises were changing. In these epigraphic documents, more space is given to the description of the various works that were performed and the workers who performed them rather than to the sums of money spent in the process. Monetary figures no longer occupy a prominent position and, despite the signs of punctuation meant to flag them, they are not particularly discernible but almost obscured and “swallowed up” by the abundance of the surrounding details. In this case, in view of the publication on stone, a different choice was made, resulting in the selection of those elements of the original documents produced by the epistatai that best served the celebratory purpose. In my view, beginning with the bronze statues of Athena and Hephaestus (IG I³ 472) and reaching their peak with the Erechtheum (IG I³ 475-476), later accounts increasingly focused on describing how a building project had been completed rather than on showing how much money had been spent to complete it. The purpose was still to celebrate those achievements and the effort the city had made to realize them, but by pointing less to the financial aspects and more to the deployment of the human and technical resources necessary to accomplish it. Perhaps it is no coincidence that this change occurred when the sums of money involved became less important than they had been previously.

This trend could also explain why inscribed accounts seem to go out of fashion in the fourth century and are gradually replaced, in the epigraphic record, by a different category of inscriptions, namely building specifications (syngraphai). These documents – mostly arranged in the continuous-line format and lacking the visual devices typical of accounts – usually contain lengthy narrative descriptions of the work to be performed and, as such, seem better suited to serve the new manner of celebrating the city’s building enterprises.34

This being the case, the change in format of inscribed accounts should be attributed neither to an evolution in accounting practices nor to an increased concern for the accountability of the epistatai – which scholars usually link to the political crisis that had led to the abolition and subsequent restoration of democracy in 411-410 and to the dire financial situation of the last phase of the Peloponnesian War.35 Proof that neither of these factors is responsible for changes in inscribed accounts lies in the fact that the format of the Erechtheum accounts (409-407) is somewhat anticipated by certain “narrative” elements already present in the accounts of the bronze statues of Athena and Hephaestus (421-416), accounts that arise from a completely different political, military, and financial situation.36

The greater presence of details makes it likely that these inscribed accounts were closer to the version the epistatai submitted for the logos and euthynai. However, we should not necessarily assume that the two perfectly overlapped, when we recall that the two types of documents were created in response to different functions.37 Here as well, we cannot rule out some kind of reorganization, selection, or greater emphasis accorded to certain elements over others, of course without drastically altering the content of the accounts presented by the epistatai and without foregoing accuracy.38 For instance, one cannot help but notice the prominence that single workers assume in the Erechtheum accounts, where they are recorded individually by name and civic status, while previously they had remained an anonymous collective, identified only by their trade or the type of work they had performed.39 I do not believe that the Erechtheum accounts were inscribed on stone as votive inscriptions of some sort, to commemorate the names of the individuals who had made the completion of the project possible.40 However, I agree with Daniela Marchiandi that, when inscribing these accounts on stone, the decision was probably taken not so much to emphasize the financial prowess of the city but more to highlight the collective dimension of the city’s enterprise as well as the cooperation among the diverse components of the civic body.41

Ultimately, when dealing with accounts as well as with all categories of inscriptions, it is crucial to retain the distinction between written document and inscribed text. While recognizing the potential of inscribed texts in helping us reconstruct the administrative procedures and written documents – now lost – that were behind them, scholars must always explore why the decision was made to publish certain texts permanently on stone and what the nature and emphasis of the selection they display can tell us about that reason.42

3. The Columnar Format

A prominent feature of the layout of our building accounts is their arrangement in the columnar format – a type of layout they share with other categories of Athenian inscriptions.

Elizabeth Meyer has recently tackled the origin of this format, which she defines as “the inscription of information (often one item of information, such as a name, per line) in relatively narrow left-aligned columns, with spaces left blank between them to set the columns off against each other and emphasize their verticality”. Meyer notes that the columnar format was not common in Athens between 500 and 410 and was used consistently only in casualty lists, the so-called Athenian tribute lists, building accounts, and the Attic stelae, namely the inscriptions listing the properties seized from those convicted in the religious scandals of 415 and auctioned off by the poletai. In the last decade of the fifth century, this format was extended to other categories of inscriptions, i.e., the re-inscription on stone of the sacrificial calendar and archons’ list, group dedications, and the “hybrid genres” of account-inventories and decree-lists.43

In Meyer’s opinion, the adoption of this format – a specifically Athenian “invention” – was mainly inspired by earlier epigraphic practices, from before the stele emerged as the standard medium for displaying public inscriptions. In particular, for Meyer, this format would be a conscious visual reference to the stone posts that had been used on the acropolis as the main medium for dedicating thesmoi and other achievements that honored the gods during the first half of the fifth century. As such, the multi-columnar format, meant to recall inscribed posts standing next to each other in architectural rows, would have implied a particular honor of an old-fashioned sort, associated primarily with divinities and heroes and the special treatment to which they (and some of their property) were entitled.

However, Meyer’s explanation as to why this format would have been reserved for only certain categories of inscriptions and not for other potentially analogous ones (e.g., the inventories of Athena’s treasurers (IG I³ 291-362), which display the continuous-line format) is rather unconvincing. In her view, this format would have been chosen for inscriptions in which the transformation or change in nature of the listed items (i.e., of human property into divine wealth or of divine wealth into buildings and statues) was the salient feature. However, it is not entirely clear why for other categories of inscriptions, such as inventories, a format that was thought to particularly please and honor the gods would be consciously avoided simply because there was no change to the nature of the items involved.44 Her explanation for why this format was later extended to other categories of inscriptions appears equally forced. For instance, after using the continuous-line format in their inventories for a decade or so, the Eleusinian epistatai would have switched to columns between 420 and 410, because by that time, despite still using inventory language, they were listing not only precious objects but also revenues and building materials ready to be transformed into cash should that be needed.45 As for the report of the Erechtheum epistatai (an inventory rather than an account), the use of the columnar format would be justified because the stone blocks listed there – already the property of the goddess – were to be transformed into the goddess’ temple.46 It is quite evident that, accepting the author’s premise, the alleged transformation or change in nature would be strictly hypothetical in the former case and completely nonexistent in the latter.

In reality, it is hard to escape the impression that the columnar format is the most natural way of organizing a long list of items so as to utilize the available space in an efficient manner, as argued by Michele Faraguna. Not only is this format found outside Athens (and where an Athenian model cannot be assumed); coeval private documents inscribed on non-stone media, though scarce, also attest to its use.47 In a judiciary defixio from the Kerameikos, dated to the beginning of the fourth century, three curses, probably written by the same professional engaged by one defigens, are arranged in three columns on the long side of a lead plate, with spaces between the columns and a paragraphos at the beginning of the third column, possibly as well as at the beginning of the first and second columns (SEG XLVIII 354-356; SEG LI 328).48 In a private letter on a lead plate from Hermonassa, dated to the late fifth or early fourth century, the author also arranged the text in two columns divided by a vertical line, cutting the plate in half (SEG LXI 614). More significant for the case in point is a graffito engraved on the floor of a black-painted plate from the Kerameikos, dated to the middle of the fourth century, which consists of a list of names followed by two sets of numerals (SEG XXXV 134). Regardless of the nature of the accounts, the list is arranged in two columns with a space between them; punctuation separates names from numerals and the two sets of numerals from each other (Fig. 8).49

As has been argued, this evidence seems to suggest that the use of both the columnar format and diacritical signs such as the paragraphos may originate from a “documentary tradition” of texts written on perishable materials.50 However, a word of caution is needed before assuming that Athenian accounts inscribed on stone – especially the earliest specimens – adopted the columnar format and the (unsystematic) use of paragraphoi because they derived these features directly from the accounting documents on perishable materials used by letter-cutters as models for the epigraphic versions.51

First, I argued above that such a direct derivation cannot be assumed in all cases, given the selective nature of many epigraphic accounts. I would say that letter-cutters certainly had a draft on perishable material in front of them when they engraved their text on stone; but in many cases this text had been expressly prepared with a view to publication on stone, and was not the same accounting document the epistatai submitted for the logos and euthynai. Second, unlike coeval accounting documents on non-stone media – such as the Kerameikos accounts (SEG XXXV 134) – and later lists and accounts on papyri, in inscribed accounts, numerals, set apart in a specific sub-column, do not follow to the right but precede their respective items on the left.52

As seen above, the two-sub-column format with numerals on the left features in the so-called Athena Promachos accounts (IG I³ 435), the Parthenon and Propylaea accounts (IG I³ 436-451, 462-466), the annual accounts of the chryselephantine statue (IG I³ 455-458), the four columns on the front side of the bronze statues’ accounts (IG I³ 472), and the Erechtheum report (IG I³ 474, where numerals do not indicate monetary figures but rather the quantities of the listed blocks). The same layout features in the so-called Athenian tribute lists (IG I³ 259-272), the Attic stelae (IG I³ 421-430, with two sets of numerals – sale taxes and sale prices – preceding the entries), and in most of the account-inventories (IG I³ 383; I.Eleusis 46-48, 50, 52).53 Clearly, this peculiar trait – not borrowed from accounting documents on perishable materials – was specifically conceived for inscribed texts in which money and monetary figures had to be quite literally at the forefront, so much so that their prominent position is visually emphasized by numerals that precede rather than follow their respective items.

It is interesting to note that in the first tribute quota list inscribed on the large stele (lapis primus) containing the first fourteen annual accounts of the aparchai offered to Athena – incidentally, the first Athenian state document featuring numerals – monetary figures regularly follow the names of the members of the Delian league (IG I³ 259); only from the second annual list onwards (IG I³ 260) is the order reversed. Similarly, in the earliest preserved specimen of building accounts inscribed on stone dated to the mid-fifth century – which records only total receipts and expenditures – numerals, embedded in the text, always follow their respective entry (IG I³ 433).54 In light of this change, one can only conclude that, at some point, a conscious choice was made to adopt a new layout for some typologies of accounts inscribed on stone, expressly designed to enhance the kind of visual impact they were meant to have on viewers.55

Likewise, the use of paragraphoi, although not systematic, seems different from that found in coeval accounting documents written on non-stone media. Thus, in the Rhamnous accounts engraved on a lead tablet, the paragraphos does not separate different entries but rather the two main sections listing debtors and creditors (IG I³ 247bis; I.Rhamnous 181), while in the ostracon bearing the Kerameikos accounts, paragraphoi do not appear at all (SEG XXXV 134).56 Conversely, in inscribed accounts, such as the Promachos accounts (IG I³ 435), year XIV of the Parthenon accounts (IG I³ 449), the summary accounts of the chryselephantine statue (IG I³ 460), the front side of the bronze statues’ accounts (IG I³ 472), and (most of) the Erechtheum report (IG I³ 474), each paragraphos appears to separate a single numeral or item from another.57 Paragraphoi are also used to separate items in other financial documents, such as (rather sporadically) in the Attic stelae (IG I³ 421-430) and the list of properties seized from the Thirty Tyrants (Agora XIX P2), and (more consistently) in the Eleusinian account-inventories from 413 and 408/7 (I.Eleusis 50, 52).58

Apparently, in Athens this specific use of the paragraphos was often conjoined with the two-sub-column format with numerals on the left and was not necessarily borrowed from accounting documents written on perishable materials. Rather, one may wonder if paragraphoi – dividers meant to aid legibility – featured in the first place in preparatory drafts of inscribed documents that adopted the two-sub-column format, in order to help letter-cutters visualize and replicate a layout expressly designed for inscribing these typologies of accounts on stone. If this were the case, letter-cutters seem to have transcribed paragraphoi from preparatory drafts only in an irregular manner; interestingly, however, their use seems more consistent in building accounts than in other financial documents.59

In the light of these observations, one should look at the layout of earlier building accounts inscribed on stone as a format neither intended in particular to please and honor the gods nor directly derived from accounting documents on perishable materials; instead, these earlier accounts were expressly designed to visually emphasize the elements deemed most conducive to performing their celebratory and commemorative function. This being the case, it becomes easier to explain why different choices were made for other categories of inscribed documents. For instance, the inventories of Athena’s treasurers mentioned above (IG I³ 291-362), which adopted the continuous-line format with numerals embedded in the text indicating the quantity and weight of the objects, were clearly designed to emphasize aspects other than those chosen for building accounts. The descriptive and detail-oriented flavor of these inscriptions is conspicuous in its predominance: here, the intended message – the opulence and lavishness of the goddess’ treasure and the diligence with which the tamiai took care of it – was more effectively conveyed by the accumulations of details and information rather than by setting apart numerals and figures.60

These considerations reinforce the idea that in later building accounts inscribed on stone the shift from a “list-like format” to a “narrative format” was prompted, as stated above, by a change in the way in which the Athenians decided to celebrate and commemorate their construction projects. This change brought with it a different choice of elements to be emphasized in order to achieve the intended goal, with money and monetary figures giving way to an abundance of details concerning the human and technical resources that made the completion of the projects possible.61

Notably, however, the columnar format was not abandoned. The Erechtheum accounts, where entries proceed in a continuous-line format with numerals embedded in the text, are still arranged in columns, the appearance of which is even sharper owing to the quasi-justification of the left and right edges of each column in IG I³ 475 and the stoichedon pattern in IG I³ 476.62 Even the late-fourth-century Eleusinian accounts, which are mostly devoted to building expenses, are arranged in two columns (I.Eleusis 177), although the continuous-line format within each column, combined with the large width of the columns and the small size of the letters, make the use of this layout a relic of the past completely detached from its original purpose.63

The evolution of the way in which the Athenians decided to celebrate and perpetuate the memory of their building achievements on stone – moving away from financial aspects and focusing more on technical and human resources – precipitated a change in the format of building accounts from the last quarter of the fifth century onward. The layout expressly designed to emphasize the elements that best served the original celebratory intent also underwent an evolution, adapting to its changed purpose. Therefore, those visual devices that were typical of lists of items were abandoned, while numerals were embedded in the text, hand in hand with the accumulation of more and more details. Ultimately, by the fourth century, this change led to the near disappearance of this typology of inscriptions from the epigraphic record in favor of more narrative and descriptive documents, such as building specifications, the layout of which does not display any of the characteristics that distinguish building accounts. Nonetheless, the columnar arrangement remained a layout feature inextricably linked to building accounts inscribed on stone. Even when columns were no longer organized as lists of separate entries and had lost their original function, they stood as a visual hallmark that was felt to be irreplaceable for this category of epigraphic documents.

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1 See Carusi 2020. All dates in this chapter are BCE.

2 The stele (1.39 x 0.45 x 0.22 m) was found in Monastiraki. The most recent edition is Pitt 2015.

3 For the most recent edition of the eleven fragments of these accounts, see Foley and Stroud 2019. According to the two authors, there is no conclusive link between the literary and archaeological evidence for the bronze statue of Athena Promachos and the extant fragments of the accounts (Foley and Stroud 2019, 141-150). As for dating, Stephen Tracy’s analysis of fifth-century Athenian lettering shows that the letter-cutter who inscribed this text was active at least from 440 to 432, and possibly for more years before and after this time range (Tracy 2016, 93-101).

4 The stele could have included up to four columns of text and up to a total of eleven annual accounts. In addition, it is possible that a second stele, bearing the continuation of the accounts, adjoined the first stele on the right side (Foley and Stroud 2019, 134-139).

5 The Parthenon is securely dated to 447/6-433/2; however, because several letter-cutters were at work on the accounts, with one of them possibly responsible for the years I-VI (see Tracy 2016, 43 n. 5), inscribing on stone may have started a few years after the project began. According to Dinsmoor 1921, 233-245, the stele was a parallelepiped of 1.60 x 1.80 x 0.20 m; the first six annual accounts were inscribed in three columns on the obverse, the following seven in three columns on the reverse, the year XIV on the left side, and the year XV on the right side.

6 Judging by format and content, a small fragment of building accounts from Eleusis, probably concerning the construction of the “Periclean” phase of the Telesterion, must also be dated to the 440s (I.Eleusis 23; IG I³ 395). Receipt and expenditure entries were most certainly listed in columns, each of which was divided into two sub-columns, with items on the right and monetary figures, now lost, on the left. Both receipt and expenditure entries include a series of different items, recalling the Parthenon accounts (see Shear 2016, 170-174, and Clinton 2008, 44-45).

7 The five annual accounts, dated to 437/6-433/2, were inscribed on both sides of a marble stele, probably 1.23 m wide and 0.111-0.186 m thick, set up on the acropolis, of which only twenty-three fragments survive. The text was arranged in four columns (each of which was divided as usual into two sub-columns), two on the front and two on the back of the stele (see Dinsmoor 1913). For the conception of the Parthenon and Propylaea accounts as a unitary monument, see Marginesu 2010, 33.

8 The chryselephantine statue accounts were inscribed on separate stelae, probably set up inside the Parthenon. I do not include IG I³ 459 and IG I³ 454 in the series because the former is a rejected and incomplete attempt to inscribe the same text as IG I³ 458, while the latter has been recognized as a fragment of the Samian War expenses contained in IG I³ 363. On the peculiar features of these accounts, see Marginesu 2010, 34, and Shear 2016, 70. As for the so-called accounts of the Golden Nikai (IG I³ 467-471), in reality they are inventories of the golden parts of each statue with their respective weight, with numerals incorporated into the text.

9 On the “narrative flavor” of these accounts, see Marginesu 2009, 463-468.

10 On this stele (1.835? x 0.505 x 0.139 m), see Caskey 1927, 280-321. The reverse of the stele, of which only two small portions of text survive, contains building specifications for the remaining work (ll. 238-258). On this, see Carusi 2006, 13-14.

11 See Caskey 1927, 322-416. Construction continued for at least three further years, but only small fragments of these accounts survive (on which see Lambert 2016).

12 Among the few exceptions, there are some peculiar, short inscriptions concerning work to the Athenian fortification system, covering the years 395/4 to 392/1 and inscribed on separate blocks or stelae, which were probably set up in different locations (Maier, Mauerbauinschriften 1-9; SEG XIX 145; SEG XXXII 165). Despite their fragmentary state, it is possible to observe that in most of these inscriptions monetary figures are incorporated into the body of the text and contractors are often mentioned by name, in a similar manner to the Erechtheum accounts. Equally peculiar are some fragmentary accounts, stemming from the construction of an Ionic temple in the sanctuary of Apollo at Delos in the 340s, found in both Delos and Athens (on which, see Chankowski 2008, nos. 52-55).

13 Building expenses are also recorded in the Eleusinian accounts dated to 336/5 or 333/2 (I.Eleusis 159), of which only three fragments of the right portion of the stele survive. Their format is similar to I.Eleusis 177. The portion of a stele edited as IG II² 1669 and dated to the second half of the fourth century contains some building expenses related to the sanctuary of Zeus Soter at Piraeus; despite their poor state of preservation, their format appears similar to that of the Eleusinian accounts.

14 On the appointment and function of the Athenian epistatai, see Marginesu 2010, 57-65.

15 Scholarship on public archives and archival practices in the Greek world is extensive: for a recent bibliographical overview, see Boffo and Faraguna 2021, 3-20; see also 29-40 for a discussion of how the concept of archive should be understood in the Greek world (and beyond).

16 On the temporary display of public documents, see the seminal article by Wilhelm 1909, esp. 229-238 with Klaffenbach’s clarifications (1960, 21-28), Rhodes 2001, esp. 33-36, Sickinger 2009, 88-90, and Faraguna 2021a, 193-199. The disclosure formula σκοπεῖν τῷ βουλομένῳ, ordering the public display of documents so that any citizen who wished to do so could scrutinize them, was employed precisely in relation to legislative and financial texts written on perishable media (see Lasagni 2018 with references to previous bibliography).

17 See Faraguna 2021a, 237-245, and Faraguna 2021b, 229-235, with relevant sources and further bibliography. For the fourth-century procedure, see Arist. Ath. 48.4-5 and 54.2 with Rhodes 1981, 561-564, 597-599. On the euthynai see also Oranges 2021, 206-208.

18 See Rhodes 1981, 560.

19 See IG I³ 476, ll. 188-192: σανίδες δύο hες ἃς τὸν λόγον hαναγράφομεν, δραχμς hεκατέραν 𐅂𐅂; ll. 288-291: χάρται hεονέθεσαν δύο hες ἃ τὰ ἀντίγραφα hενεγράφσαμεν, 𐅂𐅂ΙΙΙΙ. The purchase of a χάρτης also appears in a fragment belonging to the third prytany of 405/4 (see IG I³ 477, l. 1 with Lambert 2016, no. 2, 5-10), apparently at a cost of three drachmae and three obols. The word βιβλία is mentioned in the verso of a fragment attributed to the sixth and last column of the 409/8 accounts (IG I³ 475, l. VI 19).

20 See Del Corso 2002, 174-180.

21 See Chankowski 2020.

22 On the selection of text and content, see, in addition to Wilhelm 1909, 249-250, 271-280 and Klaffenback 1960, 1-20, 26-36, Sickinger 1999, 62-92, Rhodes 2001, 37-41, Davies 2003, 328, and Faraguna 2021a, 218-221 (with references to previous bibliography and a rebuttal of contrary arguments).

23 Recently this dichotomy has been explored by Scott 2011, Faraguna 2021b, 236-248 (to be read with the remarks of Kantor 2021), and Marginesu 2022, where one can find references to previous bibliography.

24 In order to explain the greater level of detail displayed by the Erechtheum accounts, scholars have invoked the increased need for tighter control over the conduct of public officials generated by the difficult political, military, and financial situation Athens was facing in the last decade of the fifth century. For Davis (1948, 485-486), for instance, the accounts were meant to counteract possible political opposition to the project; for Wittenburg (1978, 72-73), they were intended to demonstrate the principles of a more radical form of democracy; for Feyel (2006, 16-17), they responded to the concerns created by the dire financial situation. Epstein (2013, 134-137), however, links them to a simple evolution in the accounting practices required of public officials.

25 The point has been raised mainly with regard to lengthy inventories, but in principle it can also concern accounts (see especially Linders 1992, 31-32, and Scott 2011, 240-241 for references to further bibliography). In the introduction to GHI, R. Osborne and P.J. Rhodes observe: “though in theory the purpose of a published text is that it should be available to be read, some texts were published in a way that they were not easy to read” (p. xv). They go on to say that texts such as lengthy inventories may have had a symbolic rather than a functional value, while other texts were clearly designed in ways that aided intelligibility. In any case, they conclude that “it would be a mistake to make too much of the symbolic aspect of inscription and too little of the notion that texts were published so that they could be read”.

26 For Hedrick 1994, inscriptions were not meant to be read so much as recognized, functioning as mnemonic devices that confirmed what people already knew; this belief is based on the premise that, in a society characterized by an agrarian, conservative economy, little exposure to written texts, and no publicly subsidized education, only a minority of Athenian citizens were able to read properly. See, however, Missiou 2011 for the view that in Athens extensive functional literacy was acquired through informal learning processes owing to the peculiar social and political context: in short, it was the very functioning of the democracy that required and motivated ordinary citizens to learn to read and write in order to manage the procedures of a political system that was inherently literate. Furthermore, Pébarthe 2006 argues that there was a significant degree of literacy among the Athenian population and emphasizes the widespread use of writing and written communication by the city in order to ensure the functioning of its political and imperial system.

27 The quotation is from Scott 2011, 241.

28 See Carusi 2020, 86-89.

29 See, among others, Boffo 1995, 117-118 (who recommends that we do not confuse inscribed texts with written documents), Sickinger 1999, 67-68, Epstein 2013, 132, and Marginesu 2022, 98-99.

30 See, to cite only some of the most recent contributions, Epstein 2013, 132-133, Carusi 2020, 86-87, and Marginesu 2022, 96.

31 This religious dimension is emphasized by Meyer 2013.

32 See Davies 1994, 211 on the affirmation of the democratic principles (this aspect is also emphasized by Marginesu 2022, 106). As Rhodes (2001, 140-141) argues, the celebration of Athens’ power was manifested in parading not only the city’s endeavors and financial prowess but also the democratic principles that made such achievements possible.

33 Epstein (2013, 132) is right in stating that “it would be pointless to check the rectitude of the officials who underwent their audits several years ago”; however, the very fact that whoever wished could still do so was a powerful reminder of the democratic principles that were the foundation of the city’s power.

34 See Carusi 2020, 87-89. On building specifications, see Carusi 2006 and Carusi 2010.

35 See n. 24 above for bibliographical references.

36 This is not to say that there was no evolution of accounting practices over time, only that inscribed accounts do not necessarily bear a trace of it.

37 Although certain inscribed accounts, such as those of the epimeletai of the dockyards from the fourth century (on which see Faraguna 2021b, 243-248), were presumably closer, if not identical, to the end-of-year accounts submitted by the officials themselves, the reason for their inscription on stone, which is not always easy for us to reconstruct, should not be confined to the desire to provide the general public with details of the epistatai’s conduct. It remains true that, selective or not (and more or less recent), all inscribed accounts imply the existence of archival documentation that was far more extensive in quantity, as well as more varied and articulated in typology, than is traditionally assumed (see Faraguna 2021a, 264); in this respect, they cannot be considered merely symbolic monuments, nor were they devoid of any legal value. I agree with Kantor (2021, 259-260) that because the “rhetoric of accountability” was expressed by inscribing accounts on stone, these inscriptions are a valuable source for the euthynai process; however, “the practical use of monumental inscriptions remains a more intractable question”.

38 As Marginesu (2022, 101-108) rightly points out, inscribing accounts on stone was always the result of a decision made at the institutional level, which had to state clearly the manner and content of the publication; authorial responsibility for inscribed accounts, however, still belonged to the epistatai, so much so that they often expressed themselves with first-person plural verbs in them (see, e.g., IG I³ 476, ll. 110-111, 115-116, 120-121; I.Eleusis 159, l. 73, etc.).

39 To appreciate the difference, one need only compare expenditure items recorded in the Parthenon accounts (e.g., λιθοτόμοις, λιθαγογίας, λιθολκίας, τέκτοσι, ἀγαλματοποιοῖς, etc.) with just one entry of the Erechtheum accounts (e.g., IG I³ 475, ll. 20-28: “On the east wall close to the altar: to Simias living in Alopeke, for placing one block six feet long, two feet high, one foot thick, 7 dr. 3 ob.; to Simias living in Alopeke, for placing two backing-stones for this, from the stoa, four feet long, two feet wide, three quarters of a foot thick, 6 dr.; to Simias living in Alopeke, for dressing the top surface of these, four feet and a half, 7 dr.”).

40 On the idea that the Erechtheum accounts were meant to commemorate the workers, see Burford 1971. However, as Epstein (2013, 137) notes, if that had been the case, the purpose would have been more easily achieved by inscribing a list of names, as in the format adopted by casualty lists. Moreover, the Erechtheum accounts also register some groups of workers who remain anonymous (e.g., IG I³ 475, ll. 272-285).

41 See Marchiandi 2018, esp. 118-127. Meyer (2017, 244-248) also remarks that in the final years of the fifth century, the Athenian epigraphic record is marked by an increasing focus on individual names, thus signaling a shift in the Athenian democratic culture from a major emphasis on the role of the collectivity to a greater acknowledgment of the individual’s role within the community.

42 As Chaniotis (2014, 134) puts it, what inscribed texts represent and how they do so is always the result of a reasoned arrangement (Komposition).

43 See Meyer 2017, 205-206. Casualty lists: IG I³ 1142-1193; Athenian tribute lists: IG I³ 259-272; Attic stelae: IG I³ 421-430; sacrificial calendar: SEG LII 48, SEG LVII 64; archons’ list: IG I³ 1031; group dedications: IG I³ 515, 1032, 1038, 1040, I.Eleusis 49; account-inventory of the treasurers of the Other Gods: IG I³ 383; Eleusinian account-inventories: I.Eleusis 46-48, 50, 52 (IG I³ 390, 385, 388, 389, 386-387); decree-lists: IG I³ 71, 77, 100, Osborne - Rhodes, GHI 178, SEG XXVIII 45, Rhodes - Osborne, GHI 4. See also the list of properties seized from the Thirty Tyrants and their associates and auctioned off by the poletai in 402/1 (Agora XIX P2) and the catalogue of prizes for victors at the Panathenaic Games dating to around 380 (IG II² 2311; SEG LIII 192).

44 See Meyer 2017, esp. 221-226. In order to fit the casualty lists into her pattern, the author claims that the columnar format was adopted to signal the exceptional status of the city’s dead as akin to heroes worthy of being honored in the same format used to convey special honor to the gods (p. 229). For a critique of Meyer’s argument, tackling especially the idea that the columnar format was an Athenian invention, see Faraguna 2020, 122-124.

45 On the hybrid account-inventories of the Eleusinian epistatai, see Meyer 2017, 237-238. However, some of the stone blocks listed in the inventory of 408/7 (I.Eleusis 52A, l. II.43-50; 52B, l. II.54-61), presumably belonging to the archaic Telesterion, laid idle in the sanctuary for several decades, while analogous blocks had previously not been sold but used in other building projects, including a wall and a bridge (I.Eleusis 41, ll. 5-9).

46 See Meyer 2017, 238. However, it is worth recalling that the Erechtheum report lists not only stone blocks lying on the ground of the building site (IG I³ 474, ll. 93-237) but also unfinished parts of the temple (ll. 8-92), such as unrefined ornamental details, unsmoothed walls, and unfluted columns, already in their proper place.

47 See Faraguna 2020, 120-124, esp. 123. For examples outside Athens see e.g., SEG XI 244 and I.Cret. IV 72.

48 See also Costabile 2001 and Jordan 2004. At the end of the first line of the second column, there is also an aversa diple periestigmene, while a signum separationis is used between two words at l. III.5.

49 See Lewis 2020 for the most recent interpretation of the text, with references to previous bibliography.

50 See Faraguna 2020, esp. 124; see also Del Corso 2002, esp. 181-183.

51 See Boffo 1995, 119 and Del Corso 2002, 180, 183-184, for inscribed accounts reproducing the features of accounting texts on perishable materials.

52 For an overview of the layout of lists and accounts on papyri, see Clarysse 2020, esp. 117-118.

53 The same format can be observed in the lists of allies appended to the preserved portions of two tribute assessment decrees (425/4-422/1), where the quotas assigned to the allies are listed in a sub-column to the left of the names (IG I³ 71, 77), and in the civic sacrificial calendar (ca. 410-400/399), where prices of sacrificial animals and other necessities are listed in a sub-column to the left of their respective items (SEG LII 48, LVII 64). Similarly, in the catalogue of prizes for victors at the Panathenaic Games, dating to around 380 (IG II² 2311; SEG LIII 192), the numerals in the left sub-column indicate the value or number of the prizes. In the list of properties seized from the Thirty Tyrants and auctioned off by the poletai in 402/1 (Agora XIX P2), the two sets of numerals preceding each entry on the left (sales taxes and sale prices) do not occupy two different sub-columns as in the Attic stelae but are arranged one below the other in the same sub-column.

54 See Osborne 2022 for an overview of the appearance of numerals in Greek inscriptions. While the alphabetic system first appeared around 575, the acrophonic system made its first appearances in ceramic graffiti in the late sixth century. In Athens, acrophonic numerals appeared first in documents issued by demes, the earliest being the Rhamnous accounts engraved on a lead tablet and dated to the first half of the fifth century (IG I³ 247bis; I.Rhamnous 181). Here, too, the text consists of two sections divided by a horizontal line, where the names of debtors and creditors are each inscribed on a new line and monetary figures follow – rather than precede – their respective names, separated by two or three dots.

55 As Robin Osborne (2022, 68) puts it, “the Athenians knew how to make things clear if they wanted to”. Also in the summary accounts of the chryselephantine statue (IG I³ 460), numerals, despite not being set apart in a separate sub-column, are pretty much “shot out” (p. 64), the largest being twice as high as the other letters (3.2-4.3 cm vs. 1.6 cm) and occupying the horizontal space of two letters. On the visual prominence that monetary figures enjoy in the layout of certain fifth-century Athenian accounts, see also Marginesu 2017.

56 Also in the defixio from the Kerameikos (SEG LXI 614), the paragraphos divides one section from the other. For an extensive review of the uses of paragraphoi in Greek epigraphic documents from the Archaic Age to the late Hellenistic period, see D. Amendola’s chapter in this volume, whom I thank for generously sharing the results of his research with me. Even outside the Athenian context, coeval accounting documents written on non-stone media seem to predominantly employ paragraphoi to separate sections rather than individual items; see, in Amendola’s chapter, cases nos. [3], [4], [5], [6], [52] for sections and [29] for individual items.

57 In the extant portions of the Erechtheum accounts proper, paragraphoi or other graphic dividers appear only twice separating a prytany section from the previous one (IG I³ 476, ll. 183, 281).

58 In the tribute quota lists (IG I³ 259-272), paragraphoi, when present, appear to separate one geographic section of the list from the next rather than each individual entry from another; in the tribute assessment decrees IG I³ 71 and 77, however, they are used sporadically to separate either sections or entries. In other lists that adopt the two-sub-column format with numerals on the left, paragraphoi also separate sections or entries, as, somewhat erratically, in the civic sacrificial calendar (SEG LII 48, LVII 64) and, more regularly, in the catalogue of Panathenaic prizes (IG II² 2311; SEG LIII 192).

59 The strong association between paragraphoi and the columnar format peculiar to building accounts cannot be conveniently explained by Meyer (2017, 212 n. 17) either.

60 As Kirk (2021, 127-132) argues, the format of temple inventories is expressly designed to convey “a holistic sense of a large mass of objects”, allowing viewers to think of treasures as consisting of individually valuable objects and, at the same time, so abundant as to be potentially uncountable.

61 Once again, the accounts of the bronze statues of Athena and Hephaestus (IG I³ 472) are an interestingly transitional document in which the “narrative” elements coexist with the two-sub-column format with set-apart numerals on the front side and embedded numerals on the left side. Another example of building accounts with embedded numerals, dating from the 420s, is perhaps preserved on the back side of the stele bearing the decree that probably ordered the erection of the statue of Athena Nike (IG I³ 64).

62 For Meyer (2017, 238-239), “the effect is emphatically architectural”.

63 Note that from l. 426 on, the text of I.Eleusis 177, while dealing with expenses from the aparche, after the prytany sections are over, abandons the columnar arrangement and runs across the entire width of the stele until the end of the inscription, maintaining a somewhat irregular stoichedon pattern.

Cristina Carusi, University of Parma, Italy, cristina.carusi@unipr.it, 0000-0002-8694-3469

Referee List (DOI 10.36253/fup_referee_list)

FUP Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (DOI 10.36253/fup_best_practice)

Cristina Carusi, On the Format and Layout of Athenian Building Accounts (Again), © Author(s), CC BY 4.0, DOI 10.36253/979-12-215-0456-9.04, in Davide Amendola, Cristina Carusi, Francesca Maltomini, Emilio Rosamilia (edited by), Text, Layout, and Medium. Documents from the Greco-Roman World between Epigraphy and Papyrology, pp. -25, 2024, published by Firenze University Press, ISBN 979-12-215-0456-9, DOI 10.36253/979-12-215-0456-9

1. Genealogical Thinking and the aristoi: Miltiades and the Others

Genealogein is a tool to measure time using human generations as unit of measurement, possibly three generations per century, if Herodotus is to be trusted.1

Of course, this conception of time on a human scale is not peculiar to the Greek world. Before the priests of Amun at Karnak, Hecataeus of Miletus boasted an ancestry traceable back to an unspecified divine forebear through sixteen generations. In response, his interlocutors showed him a series of three hundred and forty-five statues representing the high priests who had been in office up until then: in practice, an unbroken chain of fathers and sons going back to a much more remote era.2

Certainly, the Greeks habitually used genealogein to measure the time of heroes: Homeric poems preserve many examples of pedigrees, mostly consisting of one line of descent expressed in a list-like style, that is, a father/son sequence without lateral branches, from the origins to the hero’s present.3 Consequently, Greek historians used heroic genealogies to attempt to order the more distant past.4 For instance, in order to date some ancient bronze tripods in the temple of Apollo Ismenios at Thebes, Herodotus resorts to the genealogies of the heroes who dedicated them.5

Genealogein, however, was also a tool to measure the time of men, first of all kings, who claimed their right to rule through their lineage.6 At the beginning of the 5th century, the genealogies of the Spartan kings Leonidas and Leotychidas were entirely comparable to the pedigrees of heroes, with the crucial difference that they bridged the divide between the mythical and historical periods: through twenty generations, both traced their descent back to Heracles without lateral branches.7 In the same period, the Macedonian dynasty boasted Heracles as its forefather: if Herodotus is a reliable storyteller, Alexander I was able to recite impromptu, before the Hellenodikai at Olympia, the names of the six ancestors who separated him from the Heraclid Temenos, thus silencing the malicious tongues who questioned his Greek origins.8

Lastly, genealogein, was a tool to measure the time of men who were not kings, again bridging the divide between mythical and historical periods, as Hecataeus did for his own lineage.

But how widespread was this kind of time-counting in the practice of historical Greek society? I am referring in particular to that part of Greek society that considered genea as an identity value, namely the aristoi.9 It is well known, however, that Greek aristocracies have recently fallen victim to a new sort of revolution,10 which downplays the importance of genealogical lists as a deep-rooted practice among Greek aristocrats, taking advantage – it must be admitted – of the fact that the evidence is objectively scanty.11

The most famous and discussed genealogy from ancient Greece is that of Miltiades the Oikist: indeed, it is the sole example of a complete genealogy of a historical individual surviving in literary sources.12 The passage is by a renowned genealogist, Pherecydes, from the first book of his Histories, but has come down to us through two intermediaries, the late Hellenistic version by Didymus (1st c.) and the late antique one by Marcellinus (6th? c. CE).13 This lineage was only one branch among many others in a larger genealogy, but it is impossible to determine who the original forefather was.14 What matters here is its structure: a linear genealogy referring to the male members of the house and expressed in a list-like style without lateral branches. In effect, what is commonly known as the Philaids’ genealogy focuses only on one line of descent. Notwithstanding numerous textual problems, this sort of catalogue lists (probably) twelve generations between Philaeus son of Ajax, the eponym of the Philaids, and Miltiades: from a hero to a fully historical individual, whose main exploit is briefly remembered (the colonization of the Chersonese). Aside from the quotation from Pherecydes, Marcellinus also notes that, through Aeacus, and so through three further generations, Philaeus descended from Zeus.

It is very difficult to assess the origin of this genealogy. Rosalind Thomas thought that it was a historiographical product, that is, the work of Pherecydes, who would have drawn the names of some individuals from the memory of the Philaids’ family and organized them in an arbitrary chronological sequence to cover the time span between the most distant past and the present.15 In doing so, the historian would have worked in the service of Cimon, as numerous Cimonian connections in the list show.16 Alternatively, we should assume that Pherecydes took the entire generational sequence from family memory, already “packaged” in the order we know it. This does not affect the possibly fictitious nature of the list. Simply, the responsibility for the manipulations could be attributed to the family, which would have reshaped its past over time to fit the changing needs of the present.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to say how often Pherecydes, Hellanicus or other historians sensitive to this kind of approach also elaborated genealogies that pertained to the world of men. Many scholars consider Miltiades’ genealogy to be an exception. Personally, I suspect that only its intact preservation is exceptional. Indeed, other literary sources occasionally preserve genealogical material ascribed to historical individuals. I already mentioned the case of Hecataeus. No name from the sixteen previous generations is given,17 but it is likely that, if questioned by the Egyptian priests, Hecataeus would have been able to present a list, as Alexander was at the Olympic Games. Usually, instead, what we have are relicts of genealogies, preserved not in the works of genealogists, but in narrative sources that would seem to draw their information directly from family memory.

Like the Philaids, for instance, the paternal branch of the family of Alcibiades traced its descent back to a son of Ajax, the brother of Philaeus, Eurysaces, and from him, through three generation, to Zeus: Alcibiades himself remarks on this in a Platonic dialogue where he is represented as talking to Socrates.18 A passage from the court speech Isocrates wrote for the son of Alcibiades, Alcibiades IV, shows that the family kept a memory also of the most recent generations, in particular of the alleged exploits of Alcibiades I, who is said to have collaborated with Clisthenes in the expulsion of the tyrants and the establishment of democracy.19 It is noteworthy that a substantial data gap corresponds to the period between Eurysaces and Alcibiades I. This is more or less the same gap covered, in the case of the Philaids, by the twelve generations which, according to Pherecydes, separate Philaeus from Miltiades the Oikist, who lived at the time of Pisistratus, namely in the generation before that of Alcibiades I. This case is a good illustration of the practice that Thomas calls “telescoping”, i.e., the tendency to directly connect the present and the near past with the more distant time of family origins, leaving out the middle links in the chain.20 A number of other examples, again from narrative sources, shows that this peculiar way of looking at the past was widespread.

A well-known example is the genealogy of Critias (and therefore of Plato’s family) evoked in the Platonic dialogue Timaeus.21 Also Lysis from Aixone, the eponym of another Platonic dialogue and member of a family of hippotrophoi, boasted a genealogy going back to Zeus, which Plato presents as common knowledge.22 To conclude with Athens, in a famous passage from the Theaetetus, Plato (who had a true pedigree, as just noted) testifies in a mocking tone that the Athenians loved to boast about their long genealogies, up to twenty-five generations, in order to reach a hero, preferably Heracles (certainly because of his many peregrinations in the human world).23 There is no doubt that a part, at least, of the Athenian society was pedigree-addicted!

Leaving Athens aside, the praise poetry of Pindar shows a number of historical individuals who connected themselves to mythical ancestors through a variable number of generations.24 Again, these genealogies are not complete. Seemingly, Pindar selected them according to a strictly context-dependent criterion: only those ancestors who achieved a victory in the past are remembered, including, if necessary, ancestors on the maternal side. Significantly, these literary lists are reflected in victory monuments erected in panhellenic sanctuaries, whose inscribed dedications sometimes mention a selected ancestry of the victor.25 In one case in particular, an exceptional victory monument at Delphi, that of the Thessalian Daochos, shows a sort of 3D, all-human genealogy.26

To sum up, I wonder whether the incomplete nature of most of the surviving pedigrees can only be explained by assuming that all the missing generations were actually forgotten. In particular, how much does the source from which we draw the information matter? We mentioned only one genealogist (Pherecydes) against many narrative sources. Certainly, Pindar made a context-oriented selection. Is it possible that the patchy, incomplete genealogies we have were perceived as sufficient and absolutely suitable to the narrative contexts in which they were evoked? It is unlikely that someone – let us take Alcibiades, who notoriously loved to publicly mention his lineage27 – would remember the whole list of his ancestors in sequence, included more obscure figures.28 Could we rule out, however, that he would be able to produce such a list if asked?

The same question applies to a certain Agathon, son of Echephylos from Zacynthus, otherwise unknown. In the late 4th/early 3rd century, on a bronze plaque dedicated to Zeus at Dodona, he claimed that his ancestors had been proxenoi of the Molossians for thirty generations, precisely since the Trojan Cassandra, who was the first priestess at Dodona according to the Molossian tradition.29 Is this a totally fictitious number, possibly arrived at by calculating, in generations, the time that separated Agathon from the Trojan War? Or would Agathon, if asked, have been able to provide a list?30 I believe that both Alcibiades and Agathon, just as Hecateus, would have been able to do it. My conviction stems in particular from a tiny, but not irrelevant dossier of genealogical funerary stelae, which may point the right way in this difficult matter.

2. Genealogical Writing: Ancestry and Layout on Funerary Monuments (Heropythos and the Others)

The gravestone of a Chian named Heropythos is often compared to the case of Miltiades the Oikist as the sole epigraphical example of the complete genealogy of a historical individual.31 However, scholars forget – too easily in my view – that, unlike Miltiades and like the Agathon we just mentioned, Heropythos is otherwise unknown.

The stele dates to the early or middle 5th century, according to the different scholarly opinions, and consists of a list of ancestors similar to the one ascribed to Pherecydes (Fig. 9; Appendix, no. 1). Since this is a funerary monument, however, the pedigree is preceded by the name of its owner, the deceased, which is expressed in the genitive of possession, according to a very common usage: “(sema or mnema) of Heropythos”. A list of fourteen ancestors follows: the format is the genitive patronymic introduced by the article, just like in Miltiades’ genealogy. In this case too, there are no lateral branches.

Visual analysis clearly indicates the mise en page as the most characteristic aspect. The layout is carefully conceived to communicate the genealogical message in the most effective way, with particular emphasis on the length of the list. After each name the stonecutter changes line, although sometimes he would have space available on the right-hand side of the slab, so that the names result perfectly one below the other, in a column. The regular and very controlled stoichedon arrangement strengthens the desired result: the inscription is built on a grid system that deploys its letters directly below each other, in strict vertical alignment, according to the style Patricia Butz defined as “rectified” stoichedon.32 Heropythos’ stele, therefore, is a clear example of how modes of display, layout in particular, may affect the way in which an inscription conveys its message even visually: the arrangement emphasizes the direct filial relationship between one individual and the next.

Using Herodotus’ unit of measurement, fourteen generations make it possible to go back approximately to the 9th century, when the beginnings of Greek colonization on Chios have been established on an archaeological basis. Since our knowledge of remote Chian history is far from complete, we are unable to assess whether Heropythos’ forefather, a certain Kyprios, was a historical individual or a hero related to the island’s foundation history or mythography.33 Without going into details, scholars notoriously recognize ethnic mixture as characteristic of Chian origins.34 Although no Cypriots are mentioned by the sources, a Cyprian oikistes for a subdivision of the polis or a small local community cannot be excluded, considering the widespread presence of Phoenicians in the early archaic Aegean. Moreover, it has already been noted that, unlike all other names in the list, Eldios, the name of Kyprios’ son, is not Greek, but probably Semitic.35 Unfortunately, the context in which the stele was set up is unknown,36 as well as the reasons that induced Heropythos’ family to erect such a memorial. It might be worth investigating a possible connection with the political struggles that raged on the island during the 5th century, between the pro-Athenian democrats and the oligarchs: it is clear that for the latter, in particular, displaying such a genealogy could have had a strong legitimizing value.37

Regarding the author of Heropythos’ genealogy, the list could be the historiographical product of a local Pherecydes or, more probably in my view, an extract from the family’s memories, preserved through generations and delivered to the stonecutter to be inscribed on the stone, so that the complete ancestry of the deceased was displayed in front of his fellow citizens.

How widespread were funerary stelae like that of Heropythos? Unfortunately, the family tomb of the Philaids, which Herodotus placed in Koile, is unknown.38 There Miltiades the Younger, the future victor of Marathon, buried his father Cimon Koalemos. Cimon, his half-sister Elpinice and the historian Thucydides occupied the same tomb.39 Recently, Lin Foxhall suggested that this tomb and its funerary monuments contributed to the coagulation of the Philaid genealogical memory, which flowed into Pherecydes’ list.40 However, as seen above, Pherecydes preserves the genealogy of Miltiades the Oikist, not that of the Philaids’ family. Miltiades died and was buried in Chersonese.41 It is there that a stele similar to that of Heropythos should possibly be sought, if one ever existed.

A Samian monument, however, contemporary to the alleged gravestone of Miltiades, could help to remove Heropythos’ stele from its apparent isolation.42 In the North Necropolis of Samos a tumulus was erected in the third quarter of the 6th century for an otherwise unknown Megas. The monumentality of the ensemble is stressed by the (unusual) presence of a kouros and a column, probably surmounted by a bronze vessel, the prize for an athletic victory.43 Also belonging to the monument is a massive base inscribed with a genealogical list (Appendix, no. 2).44 The name of the deceased, in the nominative, is followed by the name of four ancestors in the genitive. The layout appears less effective if compared to Heropythos’ stele, perhaps depending on the shape of the medium. Four generations form a relatively brief pedigree; it is nevertheless sufficient to trace the descent of Megas to the first half/middle of the 7th century, when, according to the tradition, Samos was governed by the so-called Geomoroi, an elite of landowners. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that the third quarter of the 6th century, when the tumulus was erected, is the period when Polycrates succeeded in taking control of the island: contrasts between the tyrant and the old Samian aristocracies are well known and re-exploded after his death.45

One last funerary stele, much more recent, is similar in form as well as in purpose to Heropythos’ stele. I am referring to an impressive gravestone belonging to a monumental family tomb erected in the Southern Necropolis of Cyrene and dating from the 2nd century (Fig. 10; Appendix, no. 3).46 The shape of the letters, however, indicates for the stele a later date, variously placed between the 1st and early 2nd century CE, when the tomb was probably reoccupied by a descendant of the family that originally owned it.47 The deceased is a certain Klearchos son of Klearchos, an individual otherwise unknown who traced his descent, through seven generations, to a certain Aladdeir son of Battos. Forefather onomastics show a blatant attempt to combine local Lybian ethnicity with the Greek colonists, in particular attaching the family ancestry to the founder of the city, the Therean Battus, and to his dynasty.48 Using Herodotus’ unit of measurement (three generations per century), Aladdeir, the eighth ancestor, should have lived more or less in the 2nd century, that is, probably not by coincidence, the time when the tomb was built. If the later chronology of the stele were to be accepted, it would be tempting to link such a genealogical display to the re-foundation of Cyrene by the Emperor Hadrian after the Jewish revolt at the end of Trajan’s reign (115/16-117 CE).49 As recently pointed out, this was a moment of systematic reappraisal of the city’s history in an antiquarian key.50 In this context, it is likely that an individual who boasted Klearchos’ lineage claimed a role.

Once more, this genealogical inscription emphasizes a sole, patrilinear line of descent. The format, however, is original and perhaps conceived specifically to give the visual impression of a longer lineage. Instead of the usual formula constituted by a personal name followed by a sequence of patronymics (A son of B, of C, of D and so on), the list repeats the nexus personal name/patronymic (A son of B, B son of C, C son of D and so on) at each generation. As in Heropythos’ gravestone, layout contributes significantly to the final result: letters are less regular, but the search for vertical alignments between stoichoi is evident.

To conclude, genealogical gravestones are not a widespread phenomenon, but, significantly, the few known specimens date from crucial moments in respective local histories, delicate turning points where one’s ancestry could become a decisive argument in the political arena. The fact that individuals who were otherwise unknown – Heropythos, Megas, Klearchos – were able to display more or less long lineages when needed clearly shows that the case of Miltiades is not exceptional and cannot be dismissed tout court as a historiographical product invented by historiographical professionals. Perhaps we should look with different eyes at the shreds of genealogies of otherwise well-known individuals occasionally evoked in narrative contexts (Alcibiades, Critias, Lysis of Aixone and so on). What if they were extracts, selected on context-demand, of complete genealogies preserved in family memorial heritages? In short, I argue that the leading role in the production of this genre of intentional history should be given back to families, although many aspects are destined to remain elusive, starting with the way in which memory was preserved through the many generations and branches of a family.51 “Domestic” production in no way implies that the final products were more truthful than the works of professional historians: I believe it was quite the opposite.52

Certainly, on the rare occasions when genealogical lists were inscribed on gravestones and displayed in public, their format and layout were carefully planned in order to convey the significance of the ancestry line: long sequences of names arranged in columns emphasize the antiquity of the lineage and the direct filial relationships linking the deceased to a (presumably) illustrious forefather, without lateral branches. However, it was in classical Attica that the phenomenon of genealogical gravestones assumed unprecedented proportions as well as quite peculiar forms.

3. Genealogical Writing: Dynasty and Layout on the Athenian Family-Tree Stelae (Meidon and the Many Others)

Notoriously, from the late 5th century onwards, radical changes occurred in Athenian funerary practices in general.53 After a gap in the documentation lasting approximately fifty years, between the disappearance of grave markers from Attic cemeteries at the end of the Archaic Age and their reappearance during the Peloponnesian War (or a little earlier), the focus seems to dramatically shift from the individual to the family, in all its possible age and gender alternatives. Children, young people, adults and old people, both males and females, all appear on funerary monuments in variable numbers and the deceased is rarely depicted alone (hence the difficulty in recognizing him/her). Family tombs, mainly in the form of monumental precincts, the so-called periboloi, gradually take over the funerary landscape, both in the asty and in the chora: 4th-century periboloi numbers are impressive and continue to grow thanks to new discoveries.54 It is in this context, probably in the early 4th century, that a new genre of genealogical stele was invented.

The genealogical gravestones described above show a mono-linear and ascending (or ancestral) approach to the lineage, from the present to the more distant past, going back from son to father without lateral branches. In contrast, Athenian classical stelae reverse the perspective: the approach is pluri-linear, including collateral branches, and descending (prospective), from a forefather to a variable number of descendants (with this number obviously depending on luck and fate). Therefore, we can rightly define them as “family-tree stelae”, although the graphic representation adopted is not a tree but a list, a format particularly congenial to the Greek catalogue mentality, as is well known.55

It is a radical change: the focus shifts from engonoi to progonoi, from ancestry to dynasty.56 Whereas the aim of genealogical stelae was to display an existing genealogy (or one presented as such), that of Athenian family-tree stelae is to create a new genealogy, mostly showing it in the making by progressively adding the names of the most recently deceased. Nonetheless, genealogical thinking remains as an element of strong continuity between the two typologies.

The main difference, however, lies in the numbers. Although not so many, family-tree gravestones are much more numerous than genealogical stelae.57 They attest to an unprecedented pervasiveness of the genealogical attitude in 4th-century Athens. The impressive spread of family tombs is a blatant expression of the same mood. Since I investigated elsewhere the historical reasons for this phenomenon, which emerges clearly in several areas of the life and culture of classical Athens, I will not dwell further on this aspect of the topic.58

Compared to linear catalogues on genealogical stelae, where the strict father/son sequence left no room for ambiguity, the representation of collateral branches posed a new problem for stonecutters, since the general scheme did not evolve into a new form of graphic representation, but remained as a list, as noted above. Thus, layout strategies needed to be rethought.

A gravestone at the National Museum of Athens, dating from the late 5th century, shows the essence of the problem (Fig. 11; Appendix, no. 4).59 The medium is not a plain slab, but the moldings of the entablature of a figured naiskos, where, apparently, there was the compelling need to inscribe the names of two successive generations of a family over time (a father, Aristeas, two sons, Aristonymos and Aristomachos, plus a woman, Timariste).60 The hands of (two, possibly three) different stonecutters and a rasura at l. 2 testify to the progressive remodeling of the inscription, but the final outcome is infelicitous: the names do not have the desired centrality in the overall economy of the monument, and the family genealogy is not entirely clear. We note the attempt to communicate to the observer the succession of generations according to the usual layout strategy, that is, by inscribing the sons’ names under that of the father, one line for each in a column, reserving the leading place on the lintel for the father. The insertion of the woman’s name in a resulting space, between the father’s name and the sons’ names, however, makes it difficult to identify her familiar role: onomastics shows that she was acquired by marriage, but whose wife was she?

After experiences like this, it must have quickly become evident that the most suitable medium for this kind of inscription was a smooth, unadorned slab, possibly a high slab, in the hope, certainly shared by every forefather, that the lineage would be long and numerous.

The stele of the family of the mantis Meidon of Myrrhinus shows that such a hope could sometimes come true (Fig. 12; Appendix, no. 5).61 It is one of the most famous and “crowded” example in the series: on a slab more than 2.5 m high, eleven names are recorded, males and females, belonging to five generations and inscribed by at least six different hands. The first hand engraved three names at the top of the slab above the rosae, in a prestigious position usually reserved for the family forefather: the names of Meidon and his son Meidoteles (I) with his wife; below the rosae, the names of the grandson Kalliteles (I) and his wife are inscribed by a second hand. At the bottom of the slab, a third hand inscribed an epigram celebrating the mantic powers of Kalliteles, the one who probably had the stele erected. Later, on the smooth surface between the second group and the epigram, three different hands added another six names divided into three clusters, according to a criterion that is not easy to interpret. The final outcome is a sort of column: a sequence of names carefully lined up one below the other, in which stonecutters strove to make use of the full width of the slab (c. 0.5 m), adjusting the letter spacing accordingly. The layout strategy emphasizes the sequence of generations, as in the genealogical stelae, but in the reverse, descending direction. The precise order in which the names were inscribed is unknown, but it certainly does not reflect the order in which Meidon’s descendants died.

In this kind of stele, in fact, the ordering criterion was generational, as we said above, starting from the forefather and moving down following the order father/sons/grandsons and so on. Even within each generation, the names of any siblings were usually written in a sequence that reflected that of their births (firstborn, secondborn, thirdborn and so on). Occasionally, the age criterion may intertwine with the gender criterion. Women, when mentioned as in the stele of Meidon, were recorded after their husbands, whether they were women acquired by marriage or women of the family who married family members, according to the well-known rules of Greek marriage practice.62 In the rare cases where unmarried women of the family appeared, as we shall see in the Euphranor’s stele, their names were recorded in generational order, on a par with the names of their male siblings.

A less crowded stele, belonging to the category of the “aborted” family-tree stelae, may contribute to better illustrate the point. By “aborted”, I mean those gravestones that were originally conceived as family-tree stelae to be filled in over time, but remained empty due to the premature extinction of the family that owned the tomb, a possibility obviously unforeseen and unforeseeable, but not so remote in classical Attica.63

The case in question comes from a famous peribolos of the Athenian Kerameikos, that belonging to Agathon and Sosikrates, two brothers from Heraclea Pontica probably living in Attica as metics.64 Their family-tree stele is almost 3.5 m high and was erected at the center of the facade (Appendix, no. 6).65 At the top of the slab, the names of the brothers were engraved one below the other at the same time by a single hand, probably as co-founders of the peribolos. The statement of their full onomastics is clearly intended to avoid any ambiguity regarding the family relationship between the deceased. At any rate, below the brothers’ names, the slab is tragically smooth. It is no coincidence that excavations inside the peribolos clearly show that neither of them had any surviving offspring.66

The stele of Agathon and Sosikrates shows another possible layout strategy adopted to communicate the internal order of the family: in spite of the apparent equality between the two brothers, the greater spacing of the letters of Agathon’s name, in the first line, shows unequivocally that he was the firstborn. So, in addition to the order of the entries, other strategies pertaining to the materiality of the writing may contribute to differentiating the firstborn.

It is worth noting that the age criterion was already the strategy adopted in the so-called stele on the tyrants’ adikia, a bronze stele known only thanks to a mention by Thucydides, set up by the Athenian demos on the Acropolis, probably in the 480s, to prevent the crimes committed by the tyrants from being forgotten.67 Thucydides, in fact, in order to prove that Hippias was the firstborn, cites as evidence the fact that his name was inscribed immediately under the name of his father Pisistratus and before that of his brother Hipparchus. He adds that seniority was confirmed by mention of the names of the five sons of Hippias with no name of sons by Hipparchus or Thessalus, who were younger and not yet married. Therefore, this sort of “memory stele” seems to be the prototype of classical family-tree stelae, although it may be ascribed to the different category of defamatory writing.

The stele on the tyrants’ adikia was simultaneously inscribed, but, in the case of family-tree stelae, as I have already pointed out, it is very difficult, if not unrealistic and over-ambitious, to establish the order in which the names were inscribed. In fact, the shape of letters is not a safe criterion if the deaths are separated by only a few years.

This is evident for a stele coming from the peribolos of the Rhamnusian Euphranor. It is a canonical family-tree stele: a slab about 1.75 m high that was filled in over time with the names of seven deceased individuals belonging to three generations (Fig. 13; Appendix, no. 7).68 Below the forefather, there are two sons, Euphron and Euthyphron, and a grandson, Archedemos. There would have been room for other names which, however, were never inscribed, probably because of the lack of offspring.69 In addition to the male members, the family of Euphranor also chose to record the names of women acquired by marriage, perhaps because they belonged to illustrious Rhamnusian families: Habrylla and Phainarete are included in the sequence. Their onomastics does not need to be complete because the position of their names, after those of their respective husbands, left no room for ambiguity. Separately, a daughter of Euphranor is recorded, who probably died unmarried. Her onomastics, instead, is complete (personal name, patronymic and the demotic of her father), to avoid any ambiguity.

Individual entries show seven hands for seven deceased: therefore, names were added on the stele after the burials. It is impossible to establish the order, but visual analysis gives the impression that there was some planning in the distribution of the epigraphic surface to the various family clusters. This planning seems to have been respected, even at the cost of squeezing in some letters: Habrylla’s name, for instance, looks like it was inserted into a space that is too small, between her husband’s name and that of her brother-in-law. It is difficult to go any further, since the spaces have all been filled in.

This brings us to a further problem that stonecutters had to face when engraving this genre of genealogical inscription. It is clear that these gravestones were intended to communicate to the readers the hierarchical order of the family, both between generations and within each generation, but it is equally clear that people did not die in that order: a son might die before his father, a secondborn brother before the firstborn, a wife before the husband, and so on. The issue is not insignificant. Evidently, there could only be one solution: an appropriate division of space had to be provided, possibly reserving vacats for individuals who were still alive. It was a sort of provisional layout.

The choice of this strategy is confirmed by at least two stelae that preserve such vacats. The first one is the imposing stele of Phormos of Kydantidai, a colossus exceeding 4 m, from an unlocated peribolos in the Kerameikos (Appendix, no. 8).70 It records seven names, males and females, belonging to only two generations and separated by two large vacats. The first sequence mentions the founding couple (Phormos and Stratonike) and their two sons. It is followed by a vacat ca. 1 m high, then by the name of a woman acquired by marriage, whose familiar identity is uncertain, then by another vacat almost 0.5 m high. Finally, we have the names of the wives of the two sons of Phormos, inscribed in the same order as the names of their respective husbands. Their redundant onomastics – constituted not only by their father’s full name but also by their husband’s full name – is justified in the light of the fact that their names were inscribed at some distance from those of their husbands. Who was the first vacat intended for? Perhaps for the male grandchildren of Phormos. But, in spite of the grandfather’s hope, apparently there was no third generation.

The second example is even more telling. The small stele of Themyllos of Oe, from an unlocated peribolos in the deme of origin, records seven names, males and females, belonging to four generations and forming one bloodline without lateral branches (Fig. 14; Appendix, no. 9).71 Each generation is made up of a married couple and all the names were inscribed at the same time by the same hand. In the last couple a one-line vacat was intended for the name of Archestrate’s husband, who evidently survived his wife and was the one who erected the stele. This slab may have been intended to replace an older one, or perhaps the peribolos had lacked one until then: we cannot know. At any rate, the anonymous husband of Archestrate (an ambitious man judging by the size of the space left blank below the inscribed list) does not seem to have had any offspring and, perhaps for this reason, his name was never inscribed on the stele.

To conclude, both genealogical stelae and Attic family-tree stelae, albeit with the significant differences I have attempted to highlight, offer excellent examples of how aspects inherent in the materiality of writing, and layout in particular, strongly affect the communicative strategy of an inscription: mise en page plays a crucial role in conveying the genealogical message.

On the rare occasions when the pedigree of full historical persons was inscribed on genealogical gravestones, the layout involves lists of father/son names carefully arranged in column without lateral branches to emphasize the antiquity of the lineage and the direct blood link between the deceased and his more or less distant ancestor.

In the far more frequent cases of the Attic dynastic stelae, the need to represent the family as a whole, including collateral branches and possibly women, and to take into account the hierarchical order between generations as well as within each generation, although deaths did not necessarily occur in the same order as births, posed to stonecutters unprecedented and difficult problems with regard to layout. Without abandoning the list-format, traditionally congenial to the Greeks’ catalogue mentality and deeply rooted in their approach to the past, they elaborated forms of organizing the epigraphic surface that tried to cope with the unpredictable nature of human vicissitudes reserving for family clusters spaces that were then gradually filled in with the names of those who died over time.

Appendix

1. SGDI 565672 - Chios, stele of Heropythos (early or middle 5th c.); Fig. 9.

1 Ἡροπύθο

τ Φιλαίο

τ Μικκύλο

τ Μανδροκ<λ>έος

5 τ Αὐτοσθένεος

τ Μανδραγόρεω

τ Ἐρασίω

τ Ἱπποτίωνος

τ Ἑκαΐδεω

10 τ Ἱπποσθένος

τ Ὀρσικλέος

τ Ἱπποτίωνος

τ Ἑκάο

τ Ἐλδίο

15 τ Κυπρίο.

3. IR Cyrenaica 2020 C.515 - Cyrene, stele of Klearchos (1st-early 2nd c. CE?); Fig. 10.

1 Κλέαρχος

Κλεάρχω,

Κλέαρχος

Κλεάρχω,

5 Κλέαρχος

Παρευβάτα̣,

Παρευβάτας

Φιλοξένω Υ̣,

Φιλόξενος

10 Καλλίππω Υ̣,

Κάλλιππος

Ἀλεξιμάχω Υ̣,

Ἀλεξίμαχο[ς]

Ἀλαδδειρο[ς],

15 Ἀλαδδει[ρ]

Β[ά]τ̣τ̣ω̣.

2. IG XII.6 626 - Samos, base of Megas (third quarter of the 6th c.).

1 Μέγας τ̣ Ε//

τὀξάκω τ Ξ-

ένο τ Πυρραίθ̣-

ο.

4. IG I3 1283bis - Athens, stele of Aristeas’ family (ca. 430-390); Fig. 11.

I.1 Ἀριστέας ⁝ Ἰφιστιάδης.

II.1 Τιμαρίστην (!) : Θεοφῶντος Λαμπτρείως.

Ἀριστώνυμος : Ἀρισταίου : Ἰφιστιάδης. (in rasura)

Ἀριστόμαχος ⁝ Ἀριστέου : Ἰφιστιάδης.

5. ΣΕΜΑ 453 - Attica (Myrrhinus), stele of Meidon’s family (late 5th-early 4th c.); Fig. 12.

1 Μείδων Ἐπιτέλος,

Μειδοτέλης Μείδωνος,

Φαναγόρα Μειδοτέλους

γυνή,

duae rosae

5 Καλλιτέλ[ης]

Μειδοτέλ[ου]ς,

Μνησιπτολέμη

Καλλιτέλους

γυνή,

10 Μείδων

Καλλιτέλους

Μυρρινούσιος,

Μνησιστράτη

Καλλίου

15 Μυρρινουσίου

Μείδωνος γυνή,

Μειδοτέλης

Καλλιτέλους

Μυρρινούσιος,

20 Καλλιτέλης

Μειδοτέλους

Μυρρινούσιος,

Καλλιμήδης

Μείδωνος

25 Μυρρινούσιος,

Μνησιπτολέμη

Μειδοτέλους

θυγάτηρ.

Μάντεος ἐντίμο μάντιν, σοφὸν ἄνδρα, δίκαιον,

30 κρύπτω Μειδοτέλος ἐνθάδε Καλλιτέλην.

6. IG II2 8551 - Athens (Kerameikos), stele of Agathon and Sosikrates’ family (second half of the 4th c.).

duae rosae

1 [Ἀ]γάθων

Ἀγαθοκλέους

Ἡρακλεώτης.

Σωσικράτης

5 Ἀγαθοκλέους

Ἡρακλεώτης.

7. ΣΕΜΑ 820 + 821 - Attica (Rhamnus), stele of Euphranor’s family (second half of the 4th c.); Fig. 13.

1 Εὐφράνωρ

Εὔφρονος

Ῥαμνούσιος

duae rosae

Εὔφρων

5 Εὐφράνορος

Ῥαμνούσιος

Ἁβρύλλα

Εὐθύφρων

Εὐφράνορος

10 Ῥαμνούσιος

Φαιναρέτη

Κλεοφῶντος

Φαιναρέτη

Εὐφράνορος

15 Ῥαμνουσίου

θυγάτηρ

Ἀρχέδημος

Εὔφρονος

Ῥαμνούσιος.

8. IG II2 6609 - Athens (Kerameikos), stele of Phormos’ family (second half of the 4th c.).

duae rosae

1 Φόρμος

Προκλείδο

Κυδαντίδης.

Στρατονίκη.

5 Προκλείδης

Φόρμου

Κυδαντίδης.

Δεινίας

Φόρμου

10 [Κ]υδαντίδης.

vacat 0.99

Μνησιπτολέμ[η]

Θεοξένου

Μαραθωνίου

θυγάτηρ.

vacat 0.438

15 Ἱερὼ Στρατωνίδου

Βατῆθεν, Προκλείδου

Κυδαντίδου γυνή.

Θεοδοσία Εὐφήμου

Κηττίου θυγάτηρ,

20 Φόρμου Κυδαντίδου

γυνή.

9. ΣΕΜΑ 469 - Attica (Oe), stele of Themyllos’ family (first half of the 4th c.); Fig. 14.

1 Θέμυλλος Θεμύ̣[λλο] Ὀ̣ῆθεν.

Ναυσιστράτη Λυκίσκο Ὑβάδο.

Ἀντιφάνης Θεμύλ[λο Ὀῆθ]εν.

Ἀθηνυλλὶς Διονυ̣[σίο] Ἀ[γ]γελῆθεν.

5 Θέμων Ἀντιφάνους Ὀῆθεν.

Κλεοπασὶς Κλεοχάρ[ους Ἀγ]γελῆθεν.

vacat

Ἀρχεστράτη Μελήτο Ἀγγελῆθ̣[εν].

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1 Hdt. 2.142.2; cf. Mitchel 1956; Ball 1979; Mosshammer 1979, 105-112; Brehm 2013, 3-39. Except where otherwise indicated, all dates in this chapter are BCE.

2 Hecat. FGrHist 1 F 300 = EGM 4 ap. Hdt. 2.143; cf. West 1991; Moyer 2002; Fowler 2013, 661-664; Condilo 2017.

3 Brulé 2007, 453-478; Varto 2015; Kyriakidis 2021.

4 I will not be able to explore here the major and controversial issues concerning the relationship between genealogies, heroic and familiar, and the origin of historiography. On this point, see, inter alia, Fowler 1996 and 1998; Bertelli 2001; Zunino 2015; Varto 2015; Condilo 2017.

5 Hdt. 5.59-61; cf. Inglese 2023.

6 The landmark study on genealogies in Greek society is Thomas 1989. I will refer to it repeatedly in the following pages.

7 Hdt. 7.204 and 8.131.2-3; cf. De Vido 2001; Cartledge 2002, 293-298; Varto 2015.

8 Hdt. 8.137-9 and 5.22; cf. Koulakiotis 2017.

9 Donlan 1973; Thomas 1989, 155-195; Gotteland 1998; De Vido 2012; Settipani 2017. For an excursus on the theme of the eugeneia in Greek literature see Henze 2015.

10 Duplouy 2006, 2015, 2018; Giangiulio 2016. In general, the idea that Greek aristocracies were not closed circles, but were continually renewed over time through the entry of new individuals, who, by virtue of acquired wealth, assumed the modus vivendi and status symbols of the aristoi, is persuasive and historically plausible. This does not exclude, however, that some families, under special (and essentially random) conditions, may have maintained the status of aristoi for a longer time, preserving some memory of their past and perhaps, under specific circumstances, using that memory to distinguish themselves from the “new” aristocrats.

11 Duplouy 2006, 56-64 and 2015: genealogein would have been rarely practiced, preferably by those who wanted to claim ancestry they did not have, thereby legitimizing their claims. At any rate, by pointing out the incomplete and inaccurate nature of the preserved genealogies, Thomas 1989, 157-161, 180-181 facilitated the subsequent radical criticism.

12 Pherecyd. FrGrHist 3 F 2 = F 13 Dolcetti = EGM 2 ap. Marcellin. Vit. Thuc. 2-4 (cf. Piccirilli 1985, 66-76); cf. Thomas 1989, 161-173; Möller 1996; Zaccarini 2017, 267-275. For further bibliography on the historical interpretation of this list see n. 16 below.

13 The original narrative context of this passage both in Pherecydean Histories and in the work of Didymus is unknown. Likely Didymus quoted Pherecydes verbatim, according to the habitus he usually adopted with earlier authors: Harding 2006. To Marcellinus, on the other hand, this passage would have served to trace the origins of Thucydides back to Ajax; therefore, it cannot be ruled out that he omitted parts of Didymus’ text.

14 Likely that of Asopus, since Marcellinus says that Hellanicus dealt with the same matter in his Asopis. Not by chance, the passage is also recorded in the corpus of the fragments of Hellanicus FGrHist 4 F 22 = F 66 Ambaglio = EGM 22; cf. Varto 2015, 138; Condilo 2017, 240.

15 Thomas 1989, 161-173; cf. 181-186. The hypothesis has been almost unanimously accepted.

16 Cimonian connections have been explored by a number of scholars in addition to Thomas 1989, 161-173. See e.g.: Davies 1971, 294-295; Möller 1996; Dolcetti 2001 and 2004, 9-16; Duplouy 2006, 58-64; Dolcetti 2011; Di Cesare 2015, 202-205; Varto 2015, 139-140; Zaccarini 2017, 272-274.

17 Elsewhere Herodotus mentions the name of his father Hegesander: Hdt. 5.125 e 6.137.1.

18 Pl. Alc. (1) 121a; cf. Plu. Alc. 1.1. Note that Plato’s Alcibiades was making a comparison between his own genealogy and those of the Spartan and Persian kings. On the tradition concerning the two sons of Ajax see Dolcetti 2011.

19 Isoc. 16.25-27; cf. Thomas 1989, 116-117; Steinbock 2013, 74.

20 Thomas 1989, 157-158 and 2001.

21 Pl. Ti. 20d-21b; cf. Davies 1971, 324-326; Thomas 1989, 170.

22 Pl. Ly. 205c-d. Marchiandi 2019 and 2022.

23 Pl. Tht. 174e-175a; cf. Thomas 1989, 174-175; Gotteland 1998, 379.

24 E.g., Pi. O. 2.35-48; O. 6.24-25 and 28-73; O. 7.20-38 and 92-94; P. 4.247-262; N. 11.33-37; I. 3.13-17b.

25 For the epigraphic class in general see now Nobili 2016. For the development of the victory monuments: Smith 2007.

26 Day 2019.

27 Harris 2016.

28 The case of Hippias of Elis, who was able to remember by heart a list of fifty names after hearing it only once, was exceptional: FGrHist 6 T 3 ap. Pl. Hp.Ma. 285d. As already mentioned, however, the Macedonian king Alexander was able to recite by heart the list of his ancestors all the way back to Perdicca I, who had probably reigned two centuries earlier: Hdt. 5.22. On recitative and performative aspects of name lists, albeit not genealogical, see Petrovic 2016.

29 Athens, NM 803 = IG IX.12 1750; cf. SEG L 543. Fraser 2003 suggested that the family of Agathon traced his ancestry back to either Helenus or Agathon, brothers of Cassandra, since Pausanias (2.16.7) excludes that there were any surviving offspring of Cassandra.

30 Note that proxenia, like xenia, founded its stability on the continuity over time of the relationship between the members of the families involved, as proxeny decrees clearly show, often mentioning hereditary transmission of the office; so proxenia was part of the political capital of a family and, consequently, one of the matters of which family memory held firm remembrance: Veligianni-Terzi 1997, 228-234; Sato 2015; Mack 2015, 33, 164; Harris 2016 (with a list of the Athenian proxeny decrees mentioning the services of the honoree’s ancestors).

31 SGDI 5656; cf. Wade-Gery 1952, 8-9; Forrest 1963, 56 with n. 10; Miller 1970, 153-155; Thomas 1989, 156, 159, 169, 190-191; Chaniotis 1987, 43; LSAG2 338, 344 no. 47; Duplouy 2006, 60; Mac Sweeney 2013, 82-83; Varto 2015, 141-145; Delattre 2021, 83. Note that the SGDI transcription is not correct because it leaves out a generation; this error, already marked by Wade-Gery, still occurs occasionally in more recent scholarship. A new edition of the gravestone is about to be published in IG XII.6.3.

32 Butz 2010, 115-116 for the definition adopted here. Butz 2012 considers the stele of Heropythos as an outstanding example of “rectified” stoichedon.

33 Unlike some scholars (e.g. West 1997, 620; Delattre 2021, 83), I tend to rule out that Kyprios is the ethnic of Eldios, the previously mentioned ancestor. In terms of layout, it would be an anomaly in the sequence of Heropythos’ lineage: in fact, it would be the only case of an ethnic being mentioned, moreover in the following line. Clearly, Kyprios is a personal name, although it derives from an ethnic.

34 The Chian historian Ion, in his Founding of Chios, referred that at first, before the arrival of the Greek king Amphiklos from north Euboea, the island was occupied by mixed settlers, Cretans, Carians and Abantes: FGrHist 392 F 1 = EGM 1 = F 1 Federico ap. Paus. 7.4.8-9. According to a concurrent tradition, Chios was founded by Pelasgians: Strabo 13.3.3. At any rate, fluidity and change are recognized by scholars as characteristic of early Chian history: Mac Sweeney 2013, 83-4; Thomas 2019, 207-13.

35 West 1997, 620.

36 The stele was found by a church near the village of Vounos, certainly not in situ: Paspatis 1888, 401-402 no. 1. We do not know whether it originally decorated a family burial plot or an isolated tomb.

37 The 5th century is a rather troubled period in the history of Chios. On the topic see Blanchard 2007, who cites Heropythos’ stele, but does not consider it in a political perspective. Mac Sweeney 2013, 82-84, on the other hand, is tempted by such an interpretation but does not elaborate on it. Duploy 2006, 60 thinks that the lineage display was functional to the political career of Heropythos’ probable son Mikkylos, whose name with the patronymic is attested in a Chian mutilated list of names (SGDI 5657).

38 Hdt. 6.103.3, cf. Zaccarini 2017, 283-284. Identification proposals remain entirely speculative: see Monaco 2011.

39 Plu. Cim. 4.3; Paus. 1.23.9; Marcellin. Vit. Thuc. 17.

40 Foxhall 2012, 190-192. In general, according to Thomas 1989, 101, 105, tombs had a marginal role in transmitting family memory; but cf., for a partial change of mind, Thomas 2007, who however does not thoroughly explore the topic. On the tombs as lieux de mémoire see now Harris 2019, 93-99.

41 Hdt. 6.38.1.

42 Mariaud 2015.

43 The comparison with the tomb of the olympionikes Megacles at the Athenian Kerameikos is illuminating: see Knigge 2006; cf. Marchiandi 2012, 231-233.

44 IG XII.6 626, where K. Hallof significantly improved the previous reading of the text.

45 See e.g. Hdt. 3.142.5-143.1 on the attack led by Telesarchos, a member of the ancient Samian aristocracy, against Maiandrios, a member of the tyrant’s close circle: eugeneia is the argument used; cf. Roisman 1985; in general, for Polycratean Samos, Carty 2015. Megas, therefore, presents himself as a sort of Samian Eupatrides.

46 SGDI 4859 = IR Cyrenaica 2020 C.515; cf. Masson 1974, 1975; Chaniotis 1987, 43-44; Chevrollier 2016, 52-53. This is tomb S4, on which see Beschi 1969-1970, 201-203; Cherstich 2006a, 103-120; Thorn and Thorn 2009, 206-207. Two bases of female statues found in situ and dating from the 2nd or 1st c. (lettering) belonged probably to the original, Hellenistic phase of the monument: IG Cyrenaica2 007900 and IG Cyrenaica2 008400. In general, for the Southern Necropolis see Cherstich 2006b and 2008.

47 Roueché (IR Cyrenaica 2020 C.515) proposes “first to second centuries CE”. Rosamilia, however, points out to me the possibility that the stele dates from the full 1st c. CE (Neronian or at most Flavian age) on the basis of close paleographic parallels with some inscriptions from the sanctuary of Apollo; cf. Rosamilia 2021, 138. Other earlier or later scenarios appear far less likely: 3rd c. (Chaniotis 1987, 43); 2nd-3rd c. CE (Masson 1974). For the reoccupation of pre-existing funerary monuments in Cyrenean cemeteries see Cherstich et al. 2018; for some similar Athenian cases, cf. Marchiandi 2011, 37.

48 It is difficult to determine the identity of the Battos who figures as the forefather of Klearchos’ family. Onomastics evidently link him to the oikist and first Cyrenaean king, the namesake Battus I. As is well known, the last king of the Battiadae dynasty to bear the founder’s name was Battus IV, who reigned in the early 5th century. Some have looked to him, but the calculation of generations does not allow us to go back that far. Perhaps it is not necessary to look for a Battos who was king. Moreover, it should be considered that in the 5th century memories connected with the Cyrenean royal house underwent significant reworking: see Giangiulio 2001.

49 On the tumultus judaicus and its strong impact on the city’s monuments see Chevrollier 2019.

50 Giudice 2015; Rosamilia 2021.

51 The existence of familiar forms of “archiving” must be further investigated. They are clearly hinted at by the preservation of copies of honorific/citizenship/proxenia decrees even long after they were issued: Mack 2015, 108-109; Boffo and Faraguna 2021, 25 with n. 65.

52 It is well known that family traditions are intrinsically prone to distorting reality: Thomas 1989, passim; Steinbock 2013, 73-75.

53 For a status quaestionis with reference to the extensive literature on the topic see Marchiandi 2011, 25-29 and De Vido and Marchiandi 2023.

54 Closterman 2007; Marchiandi 2011; Breder 2013; Closterman 2013.

55 Marchiandi 2011, 53; Karila-Cohen 2017. On the lists in general see now Kirk 2021 and Laemmle et al. 2021.

56 Duplouy 2015 appropriately highlights the difference between “genealogical behavior” and “dynastic behavior” in gentilician strategies.

57 The corpus awaits to be precisely established, but is not as scanty as Humphreys believed (1980 and 2018, 361-382). In particular, the new discoveries at Rhamnus have significantly changed the picture: Marchiandi 2011, 35-36. Moreover, one must also take into account the so-called “aborted” family-tree stelae, on which see below, 39-40.

58 This is the focus of Marchiandi 2011.

59 Athens, National Museum Γ 712 = IG I3 1283bis = Clairmont, CAT 3.075 (ca. 430-390).

60 Note that the text is full of inconsistencies: Timariste’s name is expressed, quite abnormally, in the accusative case (Τιμαρίστην pro Τιμαρίστη); the patronymic of Aristeas’ sons is spelled differently although hardly another person is meant (Ἀρισταίου vs Ἀριστέου).

61 Brauron Museum BE 1 = ΣΕΜΑ 453 (late 5th-early 4th c.); cf. Mastrokostas 1966; Hildebrandt 2006, 282 no. 125. For the peribolos see Marchiandi 2011, 526-531 Cat: Myrr.10. Humphreys (1980, 115-116; cf. 2018, 358) considers this stele exceptional as belonging to a family of manteis. Certainly, such a profession was traditionally transmitted from father to son, as some well-known lineages of seers show (see e.g. Flower 2008 on the Iamidae). Techne may have contributed to Meidon family’s particular interest in preserving a firm memory of its past, but recent data show that families not consisting of diviners (at least as far as we know) also had the same ambition; cf. Marchiandi 2011, 35-46.

62 This is probably the case with the last woman mentioned on the stele at issue, Mnesiptoleme (II) daughter of Meidoteles (II), recorded not after her brother Kalliteles (II), but after her cousin on the paternal side Kallimedes, to whom she was probably married. For the family stemma see Marchiandi 2011, 529 and 607 (Σ 37).

63 Demographic studies have shown that in classical Attica the extinction of oikoi was not a remote phenomenon. Concerns frequently expressed in courtroom speeches about the risk of eremia, and the consequent spread of the two main strategies aimed at averting it by legal means, i.e. adoption and epiclerate, seem to me indicative in this regard; on this point see Marchiandi 2011, 35-46 with further literature. Therefore, “aborted” family-tree stelae must be taken into account when establishing the corpus of attestations, contrary to current opinion. From this perspective, the corpus’ size increases considerably.

64 For the peribolos see Marchiandi 2011, 324-326 Cat: W.Ker.vt.15 and now Guicharrousse 2019.

65 Athens, Kerameikos Museum = IG II2 8551 (second half of the 4th c.); cf. Hildebrandt 2006, 305-306 no. 170.

66 Marchiandi 2011, 79-82, part. 82; 325 (with a review of the excavations carried out by A. Brückner in 1910).

67 Th. 6.55.1-2; cf. Lavelle 1983, 81-120.

68 Rhamnus Museum 222 + 205 = ΣΕΜΑ 820 + 821 (second half of the 4th c.); cf. Hildebrandt 2006, 360 no. 304. For the peribolos see Marchiandi 2011, 467-469 Cat: Rhamn.9.

69 Family stemma shows that after Archedemos the lineage becomes more complicated with an epikleros and a grandson, a second Archedemos. The fact that Archedemos (II) bore the name of his maternal grandfather and especially that he was buried, quite anomalously, in the peribolos of his maternal family would seem to indicate his adoption into the oikos of his maternal grandfather Archedemos (I), who does not appear to have had any male offspring, according to a practice well attested by courtroom speeches. That Archedemos (II) retained the patronymic of his biological father Demosthenes, however, seems to argue against adoption, as does the fact that he was commemorated on an individual kioniskos (ΣΕΜΑ 813) and his name was never inscribed on the family-tree stele; cf. Marchiandi 2011, 468-469 and 595 (Σ 25). In general, the case well exemplifies the difficulty of reconstructing family microhistory: on this point see Marchiandi 2011, 35-46.

70 Athens, Kerameikos Museum I 217 = IG II2 6609 (second half of the 4th c.); cf. Hildebrandt 2006, 369-370 no. 328. For the peribolos see Marchiandi 2011, 332-334 Cat: [W.Ker.1].

71 Athens, Goulandris Museum 553 = ΣΕΜΑ 469 (first half of the 4th c.); cf. Hildebrandt 2006, 235-236 no. 42; Karila-Cohen 2017. For the peribolos see Marchiandi 2011, 522 Cat: [Angel.3].

72 For some caveats on the text of SGDI 5656 see n. 31 above.

Daniela Marchiandi, University of Torino, Italy, danielafrancesca.marchiandi@unito.it, 0000-0001-9676-9356

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Daniela Marchiandi, Genealogical Writing and Epigraphic Layout: Some Preliminary Remarks, © Author(s), CC BY 4.0, DOI 10.36253/979-12-215-0456-9.05, in Davide Amendola, Cristina Carusi, Francesca Maltomini, Emilio Rosamilia (edited by), Text, Layout, and Medium. Documents from the Greco-Roman World between Epigraphy and Papyrology, pp. -51, 2024, published by Firenze University Press, ISBN 979-12-215-0456-9, DOI 10.36253/979-12-215-0456-9