Herodotus 4.153 and "SEG" IX 3 Oliver, James H Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Spring 1966; 7, 1; ProQuest pg. 25

Herodotus 4.153 and SEG IX 3 
James H. Oliver 

THE TEXT SEG IX 3 at Cyrene is an inscription of the early fourth 
century B.C. recording a decree to grant Cyrenaean citizenship 
to Theraean immigrants on the basis of an ancient agreement 

concerning those who might emigrate later. What purports to be and, 
despite some modernizing, may well be the seventh century B.C. Pact 
of the First Settlers is engraved below the decree from the early fourth 
century. Soon after its discovery the entire inscription was made 
known by S. Ferri,l but the standard text of today comes from the 
improved reading by G. Oliverio.2 

The Pact of the First Settlers records arrangements which Herodotus 
4.153 reports in somewhat ambiguous and slightly different terms. 
Therein lies a fascinating textual problem. 

I 
Line 29 in the Pact of the First Settlers will here be reconstructed on 

the assumption that L. H.Jeffery3 was right in her reasons for challeng­
ing Adolf Wilhelm's4 restoration still retained by A. J. Graham,5 
though she was mistaken in her own reconstruction, which, so far as I 
can tell, has been accepted by no one. 

Miss Jeffery begins with Legrand's emended text of Herodotus 
4.153: B7Jpalots D~ EaD€ aD€AcP€OV T€ a1T' aD€AcP€<WV> (a <VT' > aDdcP€O'U 
W 'lh I )' '\ \ I \' \ A , <, < \, I 1 e m 1T€fL1T€tV 7TatU.p l\aXoVTa Kat a1To TWV XwpWV a7TaVTWV €1TTa €OVTWV 
aVDpas, € ivat DE acP€wv Ka~ ~Y€fLova Ka~ {3aa£A€a BaTTov. Then she argues 
that a number which accompanied aVDpas must have fallen out. She 
is not the first to have so felt. Long before the discovery of SEG IX 3, 
Stein in his Herodotus commentary declared that the numeral had 

1 S. Ferri, "Alcune iscrizioni di Cirene," Ahh.Ak. Wiss.Berlin, 1925, Phil.-hist. Kl., Nr. 5, 
especially pp. 19-24. 

2 G. Oliverio, "Iscrizioni di Cirene," RivFil, N.S. 6 (1928) 222-232. 
8 L. H. Jeffery, "The Pact of the First Settlers at Cyrene," Historia 10 (1961) 139-147. 
4 A. Wilhelm, "Griechische Inschriften rechtlichen Inhalts," IIpczY/Lcz"TI(irxt rry. 'AKCZ37]/L{cz. 

'A8'rJvwv 17 (1951) 1-112, especially pp. 5-7, "Zu einern Beschluss der Theraier." 
6 A. J. Graham, Colony and Mother City in Ancient Greece (New York 1964) Appendix. The 

chief feature of this text is the presentation of letters as if now certainly read, letters which 
Oliverio reported as uncertain twenty-eight years ago. 

25 



26 HERODOTUS 4.153 AND SEG IX 3 

fallen out after avSpas, while Mahaffy and Cobet emended to read 
avSpas (SL7JKoafuvs) on the assumption that the text had once read 
AN~PA~' and that the sign I' was lost by haplography. Two dots 
in Macan's text indicate a lacuna. 

How and Wells comment as follows: "There were four points in the 
Theraean decree: (a) The number of colonists must have been fixed. 
This is omitted by H( erodotus), unless it has fallen out of the text" ... 

The number could hardly have been more than two-hundred, since 
Herodotus goes on to say that the whole party was dispatched in two 
penteconters. Few beside the hundred who rowed could be accommo­
dated in two penteconters, so that two hundred may seem high, but 
since a number is indeed needed, Miss Jeffery found Mahaffy's 
emendation "easy and attractive." 

Mahaffy's emendation, however, assumes a background of alpha­
betic numerals,6 of which the manuscript tradition of Herodotus 
shows no trace. In 1.6.4, for example, where twenty-two generations 
are interpreted as 505 years, the error TTlVTE for TTEVT~KoVTa would never 
have arisen with alphabetic numerals, and since the numerals are 
always written out in the manuscripts of Herodotus, that kind of 
error is best excluded. 

It remains true, however, that a number must have been mentioned 
when the decision was taken to send out a colony. Whether or not 
Herodotus forgot to mention this essential element in the story, a 
number must have been specified and should have stood in SEC IX 3, 
of which the pertinent section, lines 24-30, reads with Oliverio's 
restorations as follows: 

eXTToTTlJLTTEv ~$ T~!' [At,8]vav B&:TTOJL JL€V eXpxaylTa[v] 
[T]E Kat {JaaLMja· ETa{povs S€ T9V? f?npa{ovs TTMv- ETTt Tat Laa[L K] 

, ~ • , \ ' ",. • , '" \ .. -- \[ !l at Tal. OJLOtaL TTI\EV KaTa T9!' OtKOV, VLOV OE Eva, KaTatI. EJ 

29 YEa(Ja{ T[E eXTTO TWy xwpwv ciTTaVTwv] TOUS ~{JWVTas, Kat TWV [aA] 
[A]wv e7Jpa{wv EAEV~ip'9$, [0 Ka A~L], TTMv. 

Ferrabino 7 pointed out that Oliverio's restoration of line 29 on a 
supposed basis of Herodotus 4.153 gave the wrong sense, and he 
proposed removing the comma after vtov S€ Eva and restoring T[ W OLKW 
EKaaTw TTavTas] instead. The first three words are right, said Wilhelm, 

e The best discussion of this system is by M. N. Tad, "The Alphabetic Numeral System in 
Attica," BSA 45 (1950) 126-139. 

7 A. Ferrabino, "La stele dei patti," RivFil, N.S. 6 (1928) 250-254. 



JAMES H. OLIVER 27 

who completed the lacuna l7Aev Se] 'TOV~ -lJ{3WV'TCts, conjecturally. 
Ferrabino and he thus made the lacuna two letters shorter than 
Oliverio. Miss Jeffery retained their probably erroneous estimate of 
the length of this lacuna and restored the lacunae of lines 29 and 30 as 
fi 11 ~ [ ~ \' ~ \ \. \] ( - [ ~ \ I • \ J) \ o OWS: Tip v oE Cl(I'TWV 1TI\EV EI<CJ.'TOV or Tip v oE 1TEpLOLI<WV El<a'TOV 'TOV~ 

-lJ{3WV'TCts Kat 'TWV [a'\'\]wv (97Jpatwv JAEV~fP'9? [JKa'TOV] l7Mv. The editors 
of the Bulletin epigraphique 1962, 364 comment, "Mais Ie syntaxe ne 
s'accommode pas de cette restitution." Worse, it reflects the idea 
that the perioeci came from Thera, an idea rightly excluded by 
Larsen. S 

The real importance of Miss Jeffery's treatment lies in the reminder 
that a number had to be specified, and if a number stood in SEG IX 3, 
it must have been for spatial reasons a short numeral, in fact the 
numeral €Ka'T6v which she restores in line 29. The essential number is 
that of the -lJ{3WV'TE~, the young men of the first line, on whom the 
defense of the colony will devolve. The number of others did not 
matter much, and it is better to leave Oliverio's satisfactory restoration 
of line 30 just as it was, except perhaps for the comma after 0 Ka A~LJ. 
The clause reads: 

viav Se Eva Ka'TaA[ E1 
29 Q ~ [" • I • \ '] I • Q ~ \ ~ ["\] YEuuaL TO! OLKW EKaU'TW, EKa'TOJ) av 'Tov~, 7JfJwJ)'Ta~, Kat 'TWV al\ 

[AJWV (97Jpa{wv EAEV~ip'9~ [0 Ka A~LJ l7Mv. 

The letter which Miss Jeffery reads as a dotted omega in line 29 must 
be either omega or omicron. While rij [OLKW is possible, r{jJ [OLKW is better. 
The word -lJ{3wv'Ta~ may here be taken in the second of the two mean­
ings envisaged by the Etymologicum Magnum, s.v. -lJ{37Jo6v (417.48), 
namely young men who might be sent abroad on military campaigns, 

\, tQ.... t \ , 
Ka'Ta vEo'T'f'J'Ta 7JfJwv'Ta~ w~ 'Ta~ U'Tpa'TELa~. 

If, then, the number €Ka'T6v must have been specified, Stein's 9 

opinion that the numeral has fallen out of the text of Herodotus needs 
to be re-examined. There is no justification for his comment that it 
must have fallen out after the word avSpa~. It could just as easily have 
fallen out before the word &vopa~ and in fact there is then an explanation 
available. The text of Herodotus will read am) 'TWV xwpwv a7TaV'TWV E1T'Ta 

8 J. A. O. Larsen, CP 51 (1956) 272f. Miss Jeffery's restoration is reported noncommittally 
in SEG XX (1964) 714. 

9 Not only Stein, but Mahaffy, Cobet, van Herwerden and Macan. 



28 HERODOTUS 4.153 AND SEG IX 3 

EOV7'WV dKa7'6v> cXv8pa~. In the letters EONTQNEKATON the words 
are of equal length and look so much alike that the eye of a copyist 
could easily skip the second word. 

In fact, if you admit the necessity of a numeral before cXv8pas and so 
admit the reality of a lacuna in our text, it is just as easy to assume the 
loss of a whole line or clause as of a single word. In that case SEG IX 3 
suggests that the text of Herodotus 4.153 should read: e7JpatoL~ 8~ 
,,~ '~\..I..' ., 'Ii:' \..1.. A' '\ \' \ • \ A , EauE aOEI\'f'EOV a:" aOEI\'f'EOV 17EJL17ELV 17al\4J l\aXoV7'a KCt.t a170 7'WV XwpWV 

f' f \" fI ""'" r I r," ~ ., a17aV7'WV E177'Ct. EOV7'WV (Eva 7'OV OtKOV EKaU7'OV, EKa7'OV > avopCt.~, ELVCt.& 

~, ..I.. ,t, 'f3 \' B' DE U'f'EWV Kat 7JYEJLOVCt. KCt.t aUtl\ECt. Ct.7'7'OV. 

One advantage of this text is that we no longer need to emend the 
phrase &17' &8EAtPEOfi in order to obtain an acceptable meaning. They 
separated "brother from brother." 

There may be a lacuna as in 1.167. 

II 
To return to the Herodotus commentary of How and Wells, the 

latter say: «There were four points in the Theraean decree: ... (b) (The 
colonists) were to be selected by lot, but only sons (a8EAc/>E6V &17' 

&8EAtPEOfi) were exempted .... " Macan, too, had expressed some such 
opinion. 

The exemption of only sons is not reflected in SEG IX 3, the Pact of 
the First Settlers. On the contrary, one son from every household is to 
leave home. Every household was to be represented, presumably for 
both a military and a religious reason. The text of Herodotus may 
have been misinterpreted. Some supplement is necessary, and with 
our longer supplement Herodotus says, «It pleased the Theraeans to 
separate brother from brother and to send < of each household one) 
chosen by lot, from all seven districts < a hundred) men, with Battus 
being oecist and king among them." Of course that would presuppose 
for Thera a fixed number of family estates, one for the king's house 
(for the royal temenos would not pass to his descendants as such) and 
ninety-nine distributed among the (three Dorian) tribes. It is possible 
that in some families the command fell upon an only son, but the 
usual fractionalization 10 of estates was relieved and the few house­
holds which might suffer could be continued by adoption of a kinsman 
or son-in-law. 

10 E. Will, "Aux origines du regime foncier grec," REA 59 (1957) 5-50. 



JAMES H. OLIVER 29 

It is entirely possible that Herodotus had in mind a very different 
version, but it is not necessary to assume this. No contradiction con­
cerning quality and number of colonists appears. The Pact of the First 
Settlers commanded the departure of a number chosen on the basis of 
households, young men ('1[3WVTcxs) defined individually as «one son" of 
the household concerned. Herodotus speaks of the choice of a small 
number of colonists by an allotment system which separated brother 
from brother. The more economical hypothesis seems to be that they 
describe the same process from two points of view. 

In speaking of brothers, however, Herodotus makes or repeats an 
inference based on the specification of one son from each house: the 
sons would all be brothers in some sense. In the seventh century the 
sons of an oikos were not necessarily inheritors 11 and might have been 
cousins as well as brothers. Furthermore these kinsmen were called 
either KCXU{YV7JTOt or, as in Attica, aYXLUT(:LS'.12 The line between brothers 
and KCXUtYV7JTOt was often so obscure that in some dialects the word 
Kcxulyv'Y}TOS' had come to mean 'brother'. But Herodotus certainly 
knew the difference between these two words (e.g. l.17l.6), and his 
informant must have confused him, if he really was confused. 

In conclusion, the text of Herodotus may be said to focus atten­
tion on the usual case, a house with more than one 'son', and the 
inscription may be said to disprove the unnecessary inference by 
modern interpreters of Herodotus that houses with only one 'son' 
were exempt from the general levy which the City imposed upon 
itself in obedience to the oracle. 

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 

November, 1965 

11 David Asheri, "Laws ofInheritance. Distribution of Land and Political Constitutions in 
Ancient Greece," Historia 12 (1963) 1-2I. 

12 G. Glotz, La solidarite de la famille dans Ie droit criminei en Grece (Paris 1904) 85-93. See 
also C. Hignett, A History of the Athenian Constitution (Oxford 1952) 58. For KcxatYVTJ'roL as 
aYXLG7"€tS' see Iliad 15.545-551 and Odyssey 16.113-124.