Athenian Honorary Decrees for Herakleides of Salamis

The stele contains five documents for Herakleides of Salamis of Cyprus, who in 330-329 provided the city with 3,000 medimnoi of wheat at the advantageous price of 5 drachmas and in 328-327 gave the city 3,000 drachmas for the purchase of grain. The decrees are useful for dating two of the main food crises that Attica had to face in the second half of the 4th century; moreover, they enrich our knowledge about the existing relationship between Athens and Salamis in Cyprus, and allow us to delve into the deliberative process of 4th-century Athenian democracy; finally, they contribute to the argument for the existence at Athens of a public archive for the preservation of records.

A Greek defixio from Morgantina

The inscription, dated to the I century BC, comes from a votive pit in the sanctuary of the chthonic deities of Morgantina (Sicily), where it was discovered with other nine similar documents in 1962, during the excavations conducted by Princeton University. Scratched on a thin sheet of lead once rolled up, the inscriptions is likely a curse against the slave Venusta, who is also addressed to in other similar documents. Since the text avoids the use of strong and violent expressions common to many defixiones, some scholars have suggested that it could rather be a positive invocation aimed at facilitating the entry of the deceased in the afterlife. However, the archaeological context, as well as the comparison with a recently found inscription, prompts to confirm the malevolent nature of the spell.

Votive Dedication of the Spartans for the Battle of Tanagra

Three fragments of a marble stele recomposed and integrated by K. Purgold in 1881 thanks to the Periegesis of Pausanias (5.10.4). It is an inscription of six lines. The first four lines, reported by Pausanias, form an epigram related to a gilded bronze shield placed on the eastern pediment of the temple of Olympian Zeus and dedicated by the Spartans for the victory in the battle of Tanagra (457 BC) over the Athenians and their allies. The last two lines, not recorded in the Periegesis, were to be in prose, and probably contained a list of Spartan allies. The inscription uses the archaic alphabet of Corinth that is evolving in the fifth century BC.

Triumphal Inscription of Ptolemy III at Adulis

The complex triumphal inscription of King Ptolemy III of Egypt (246-222/221 BC) ‘Great King descended from Heracles and Dionysus’ stands out among the great epigraphic documents of the Ptolemaic dynasty. It includes the official genealogy of the sovereign, a panorama of the territories inherited from Ptolemy II and, above all, the list of the conquests of the first phase of the Laodicean war (246-245 BC), which culminated in an anabasis up to Central Asia. We know this historical and meta-historical document only through the autopsy of the Alexandrian merchant Cosmas Indicopleustes, who saw it in Adulis (Kingdom of Axum), in the heart of ancient Aithiopia, in 547-549 AD. The inscription raises numerous questions, and must be examined keeping in view the concepts of memory and tradition. Added to this is the fascinating intellectual history of his reception, which played a role in the birth of the concept of ‘Hellenism’ itself.

Pronouncement for the Anaitians and the Metapians

The ϝράτρα for the Anaitians and the Metapians falls under a definite group of archaic and classical Olympian documents, which hand us some of the oracles issued by Zeus; this time, the god orders those communities (otherwise unknown and not belonging to the political community of ‘the Eleans’) to bind themselves in a reciprocal φιλία under penalty of exclusion from his altar. The decidedly imposing dictate of Olympian Zeus, absolute ruler of this φιλία, undoubtedly contradicts the image of his sanctuary as a (politically) neutral place of arbitration of conflicts between the (autonomous) communities living around it.

Decree of Delphi for the inhabitants of Chios

The document bears testimony of the concession of προμαντεία privilege by Delphi to the Chiotes, inscribed on an altar built by the Chiotes themselves inside the temple of Apollo in Delphi. This concession was probably made in the early IV century BC but it was graved on the stone at the end of the same century. Indeed, the altar is to be dated around the end of the IV century BC, after the earthquake that damaged the first altar, probably also built by the Chiotes and cited by Herodotus in 2.135. Though the concession of this privilege by the inhabitants of Delphi is very common, the monumental dimensions and the function of the altar offered by the Chiotes makes it quite extraordinary. Nevertheless, we must spoke of a relative priority, since the inhabitants of Delphi remained the first ones to consult the oracle of Apollo.

The Bronze Tablet of Idalion

The Idalion tablette (ICS 217) is a contract between the king and the city of Idalion, on the one hand, and the doctor Onasilos and his brothers, on the other hand. It concerns the reward of the latter for having treated the wounded during the siege of the city by the Medes and Kitians.

Epistola di Quinto Oppio proconsole ad Afrodisia Letter of Quintus Oppius proconsul to Aphrodisias

The inscription contains a letter sent by the Roman proconsul Oppius to the magistrates, the Council and the demos of the polis of Aphrodisias. In the letter, Oppius affirms that he has met the envoys of Aphrodisias in Kos and has received from them a decree of congratulations for his release. He also testifies to the help obtained by Aphrodisias when he was besieged at Laodicea by the troops of Mithridates and promises to help the city ​​as far as possible. Finally, he agrees to become the patron of the city; it is one of the oldest attestation of the request for patronage made by a city of the Greek world to a Roman magistrate.

Thasian Laws Concerning Wine and Vineyards

Engraved on this epigraph from Thasos are two laws promulgated within a short period of time between the end of the fifth and the beginning of the fourth century BC. Both deal with viticulture and the production of and trade in wine, a subject that is not new in Thasian legislation and which must have represented an important economic sector for the island. It seems clear that the main purpose of these laws was to prevent fraud concerning quantity, quality or terms of sale of the wine, although the loss of large sections of the inscription makes a complete understanding difficult.