This paper discusses two important inscriptions for the history of the Athenian Empire, the Chalkis decree of 446/5 (or 424/3?) BC (IG I3 40) and the tribute reassessment decree (“Thoudippos’ decree”) of 425/4 BC (IG I3 71). Based on English translations of the most up-to-date and authoritative Greek texts, the paper sets out to explain the inscriptions in historical context, without assuming prior knowledge of ancient Greek or of the history of Athens and the Athenian Empire. To help the reader new to the study of Athenian inscriptions, the Paper includes an introduction to inscribed Athenian decrees of the fifth century BC. This paper will be useful for researchers, teachers and learners of Greek History at University level, but is also designed to help teachers and students in UK 6th forms studying Ancent History A-level (H407, LACTOR4 1.78 and 138). Note: minor corrections were incorporated on 28 June 2017. Hard copies are available at: http://www.andromedabooks.gr/product.asp?catid=38457.

First of a series of prolegomena to IG II3 1 fasc. 2

After exploring features of the history and methodology of Attic epigraphy, this paper surveys the corpus of 121 Athenian decrees of 229/8-198/7 BC recently published as IG II3 1, 1135-1255 (sections I-II of IG II3 1 fascicule 5). It reviews the decrees by category, discussing some historical aspects and proposing some improvements to the texts. It is designed to be read with the translations of these inscriptions published on AIO.

According to the example of fourth- century Athens, sacred ambassadors received payments for their travel on sacred journeys but only on missions beyond their polis’ borders. These payments – ephodia − were drawn from funds that endowed them with a degree of sanctity and thus by extension allowed the polis to enjoy the religious benefits of the sacred journey itself. The ephodia were neither intended to pay, nor were large enough, for anything but quotidian travel expenses. The ephodia thus constituted a kind of sacred wealth (hosia) that was distributed into the local economy en route to major sanctuaries in a manner fundamentally different from wealth that was intended to be spent or deposited at a sanctuary. Sanctuaries are therefore not the exclusive repositories of wealth intended for extra-territorial religious purposes, in which case we must re-think the nature of classical Greek religious landscapes and their relationship to sacred wealth.