More on the Prytaneion Decree Thompson, Wesley E Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Winter 1979; 20, 4; Periodicals Archive Online pg. 325 More on the Prytaneion Decree Weslf91 E. Thompson EDMOND J. MORRISSEY'S recent article in this journal (19 [1978] 121-25) makes a substantial contribution toward our under­ standing of the Prytaneion Decree and provides the basis for further progress. The decree (IG 12 77) grants maintenance in the Prytaneion to certain people and reaffirms this privilege for others. The honorands include two sets of victors at the Olympic, Pythian, Isthmian and Nemean games. The second is clearly the hippie victors, for the word [K ]EAETL is preserved. One would naturally assume that the first group is also defined by reference to their sport, and most scholars have accepted Scholl's restoration (lines 11-13), KaU h07TOCOL VEvLKEKaet 'OAV/L7TLaet] E ]]V(}OL E f!:,LC(}/LOL E NE/LE[aL 'TOC ') ..... 1" '] .... " 1 YVfLVLKOC ayovac, EvaL av'T OLet 'TEV CL'TECtv. This phraseology, however, differs from the description of the second group as "those who have won ... or win in the future." With Scholl's restoration, there is no room in the definition of the first group of victors for the words, "or win in the future." In an earlier study of the inscription I concluded from this difference that the first group of victors is being confirmed in their privileges while the second is being awarded maintenance for the first time. 2 Yet it is hard to believe that the Athenians waited until after the middle of the fifth century to honor the victors in the equine events. 3 Moreover, if one restores, with Scholl, only the perfect tense, there is a danger that future victors in the first category will not be included in the grant. If, on the other hand, one alters the perfect to the subjunctive, Morrissey notes that this formulation may be "inadequate in regard to the rights of past victors." 4 1 Hermes 6 (1872) 37-40. 2 AJP 92 (1971) 236. Actually, one would use the perfect to designate past victors and the subjunctive to designate future victors, whether he was making an initial grant or renewing a previous one. 3 Perhaps one could overcome this difficulty by positing that the Prytaneion Decree extends honors from some hippie victors to all of them. 4 p.122. In addition, Morrissey objects to Scholl's restoration of the accusative of 'con­ tests' when the horse race appears in the dative, but the same phenomenon occurs in the victor lists, IG IP 2311-17. 325 326 MORE ON THE PRYTANEION DECREE Morrissey solves this dilemma by restoring the first definition to match the second, "those who have won ... or win in the future." In order to add the seventeen letters of [E VLK€KOCL TO AOt7TOV], he must eliminate the seventeen of [TOC YVfLVLKOC ayovac]. One thing is certain: the space available for the description of the first group will allow either two verbs or the combination of one verb plus the event honored. It will not permit two verbs and the event. Unless we can explain why one clause of the decree uses two verbs to describe the victors while the other uses only one, we must accept Morrissey'S restoration and proceed from there. Morrissey's text does raise certain problems of grammar and sense. I have maintained that VLK€KOCL, restored in lines 12-13 and preserved in line 17, is a subjunctive, since the "future indicative in the protasis of a conditional sentence is almost unknown in Athenian decrees for the simple reason that it regularly conveys a threat or a warning."5 According to Morrissey (123), "Despite Thompson's arguments to the contrary, the verb VLK€KOCL must be a future." He gives no further explanation of his view, nor does he cite any evidence for it. The question is decided by a tribal decree of ca 400 (IG IP 1138) in honor of a choregic victor which includes instructions "to inscribe also anyone who has won (VEVLK1JKEV) from the archonship of Eukleides in the boys' or men's events at the Dionysia, Thargelia, Promethia or Hephaistia." It continues, avaypacpEv DE Kat TO AOt7TOV , , , , \, \ \ , ,/..' ..." , L' k th Eav TLC TOVTWV TL VLK1JC1JL TOC E7TLfLEI\1JTac E,/, WV av VLK1JC1JL. 1 e e Prytaneion Decree this tribal resolution concerns past and future victors, and both inscriptions require the subjunctive. In the Prytaneion Decree, however, there appears to be no room for av. 6 Rather than abandon Morrissey's restoration and the logic behind it, we should probably look to a law paraphrased by Demos­ thenes (24.93) which also applies retroactively and prospectively, Kat Et TLVL TWV 0CPELAOVTWV 7TpOCTET(fL1JTaL DECfLov 7] Kat TO AOt7TOV 7TPOCTLfL1J()fj . Even more troublesome is the strange redundancy in Morrissey's text, which can be paraphrased as, "All victors shall have their maintenance and other privileges, and all hippie victors shall have 5 op.cit. (supra n.2) 236; if. B. L. Gildersleeve, TAPA 7 (1876) 5-23. 6 In fact, one of the advantages of his restoration is to fill the gap in lines 16-17 with the names of the major festivals, but to do so requires the omission of avo WESLEY E. THOMPSON 327 their maintenance." Logically, the first group of honorands, "Those who have won at Olympia, Delphi, Isthmia or Nemea, or those who win in the future," should include the second group, "Those who have won in the chariot or horse race at Olympia, Delphi, Isthmia or Nemea, or those who win in the future." As the text now stands, there is no apparent reason to make separate mention of the hippie victors. Noting that horse racing was an aristocratic pastime, Morrissey suggests (124) that "democratic opposition towards the granting of sitesis to hippie victors could well have become serious enough to warrant an explicit restatement of their rights in our decree." Not only is there no evidence of such opposition, but once the race for chariots drawn by a pair of horses was introduced at Olympia in 408 the Athenians extended maintenance to the winner.7 For anyone who accepts Morrissey's text but is not convinced by his explanation of it, there is only one alternative. If all victors receive maintenance, it is pointless to say that hippie victors shall receive the same thing. Therefore, the hippie victors must receive something different. In addition to the maintenance which is granted to all champions, the equestrian winners have an extra privilege, presumably one connected with horses. Several possibilities come to mind, such as the erection of a statue in the Agora or on the Akropolis, the right to dedicate one's chariot or bury one's horse there, or a procession through the Agora on horseback or in the winning chariot. Lykourgos, however, remarks that in other cities it was customary to set up statues of athletes, but at Athens good generals and the Tyrannicides w~re so honored.8 A parade would be appropriate, but not peculiar to hippie victors, for Diodoros (13.82) tells how a champion runner paraded around 7 Plato, Apol. 360, shows that the Athenians so honored the winners of the race for pairs, while Pausanias (8.8.10) says that this contest was first instituted at Olympia in 408. As for the passages cited by Morrissey, Thucydides (6.15.3-4) does not say that the people were hostile to Alkibiades for spending money on horses; it was the extravagance, not the object, of his spending which frightened them. [And.] 4.24 shows the same thing. While it is true that Sokrates (Apol. 360) says that he has more right to maintenance than a hippic victor, Isokrates (4.1) complains about the honors paid the other type of victor, those who use their bodies in Toile YVILIILKoile &ywvac. 8 1.51; cf. Homer A. Thompson and R. E. Wycherley, The Agora oj Athens (Princeton 1972) 158-60. 328 MORE ON THE PRYTANEION DECREE Akragas on a chariot, accompanied by three hundred other chariots. The dedication of the vehicle or the animal would also be fitting but has nothing to do with the main subject of the decree, maintenance in the Prytaneion. On the other hand, we are told that when Alkibiades was com­ peting at Olympia the Ephesians set up a pavilion for him, the Lesbians donated the wine and other items for his lavish entertain­ ment, and the Chians provided fodder for his many teams ofhorses.9 We have been looking for an honor suitable for hippie victors but not for runners or wrestlers. In a decree which concerns mainten­ ance what could be more appropriate than fodder for the winning horses? The decree, then, should probably run as follows: "All hippic victors shall have their maintenance in accordance with what is written on the stele (in the Pry taneion) , and their horses shall have feed." 10 Mter yeypa/L[/L]EV«;l in line 18 various scholars have reported traces of pi or epsilon. ll The suggested grant of fodder may follow immediately with something like ?[vaL S€ TPOcpEV], or there may be a connecting phrase, such as v[poc S€ TEL CLT£CEL] .12 Either way, it is difficult to fit the necessary wording into the twenty-seven spaces before ~ 7Tep;' TO CTP«;lT--- in the next line.13 If we actually are dealing with the feeding of horses, it probably occurred near the Strategion in the Agora. 14 9 [And.] 4.30; Pluto Ale. 12.1; Athen. 12.534D. The first two say that the Chians also provided animals for sacrifice, while Athenaios gives this duty to the Kyzikenes. 10 As Morrissey says, his restoration requires that the provision for the hippic victors is a renewal of their privilege; it is not certain whether this applies to the fodder for the horses. Renewals are justified in the decree by reference to "what is customary," "what has been given" and "what is written." In this section, "what is written on the stele" applies only to the victors themselves, unless the author has repeated this phrase after mentioning fodder. 11 Cj. IG I 8; Morrissey (121) reports that Michael Jameson favors dotted epsilon. See the photograph published by H. T. Wade-Gery, BSA 33 (1932/33) 124. 12 This phrase occurs (without the particle) in line 14. "En is not normal in Attic decrees, but, if Perikles himself is the composer of this one, we might expect something unusual. IG J2 304A, a list of loans for military expenses, uses the phrase hl-TTTTOtC droc passim. 13 Iota might belong to Kat, Ivat, or ht7T7TOtCt; nu is equally possible and would probably be the last letter of an infinitive. 14 It would seem more reasonable to associate the feeding of horses with the Hippar­ cheion, but it may not have been built by the time of the Prytaneion Decree. WESLEY E. THOMPSON 329 In any case, the Prytaneion Decree appears to provide an additional privilege for victors in the hippie contests at the Panhellenic festivals, and that privilege was probably maintenance for their victorious steeds.15 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS October, 1979 15 The second section of the decree, beginning in line 5, renews the grant of maintenance for the descendants of the Tyrannicides. At the end ofline 7 James H. Oliver recognized the words [K]at E[r] and made this the beginning of the third section; if. The Athenian Expounders of the Sacred and Ancestral Law (Baltimore 1950) 139-41 and AJP 75 (1954) 169-74. I argued, however, that some of the honorands receive maintenance ex officio, as priest or victor, while others had obtained the privilege personally by a special vote of the demos; if. op.cit. (supra n.2) 231-33. Therefore, the second section should continue past [K]al, as follows: "the descendants of Harmodios and Aristogeiton shall have their main­ tenance ... [and anyone else who has received the honor] from the Athenians," [K]at E[' TIC a.Uoc "'{),,,,