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An Early Inscription at Argos1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

N. G. L. Hammond
N. G. L. Hammond
Affiliation:
Clifton College, Bristol
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Extract

The lettering of this inscription begins at the very top of the block, just below the straight edge, and stops half-way down the block, the lower part being smoothed but uninscribed. As the inscription is not set centrally on the block, it is probably the continuation of an inscription which ran on a block once superimposed upon it. Doubtful letters are those which are marked by the dot underneath; and W. Peek reported in Ath. Mitt. lxvi (19,41), 200 n. 2, that he had seen the top of the v which Vollgraff suggested in the restorationThe inscription is dated to the seventh century B.C. by epigraphists. The stone itself was seen in 1729 by Fourmont and rediscovered in 1928 by Vollgraff; it was in the wall of a Venetian tower on the Larissa or acropolis of Argos. No one knows whence the Venetians had taken it. Therefore Vollgraff's suggestion that it had originally been set up in porta arcis regiae is no more than an attractive speculation.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 10 , Issue 1-2 , May 1960 , pp. 33 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1960

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References

page 34 note 1 Cf. Tod, , G.H.I., no. 4, whereis the Nile.Google Scholar

page 34 note 2 Iliad 2. 564; 19. 116; and Pausanias 2.16.1; 2.19.3. Vollgraff says that Sthenelas is a variant of Sthenelos.Google Scholar

page 34 note 3 So Vollgraff, , though it is surprising to find no h and one pi.Google Scholar

page 35 note 1 Vollgraff elevates Orthagoras to the status of a hero or god at Sicyon. This is partly because he distrusts the tradition that Orthagoras was, as he puts it, ‘coqui Alius’; but there is little doubt that the office of which Andreas held was a religious office concerned with sacrifice, similar to that of theat Sparta, (Plu. Mor. 644 b).Google Scholar

page 35 note 2 When this paper was in draft, Mr. A. G. Woodhead kindly lent me a copy of Mitsos', M. Th.(Athens, 1952),Google Scholar and I found that he expressed doubts about Vollgraff's interpretation in his note on and suggested that the damiorgoi were members of a college. Otherwise Voll-graff's interpretation has been accepted, e.g. recently in Historia, vi (1957), 141 n. 2 and 391.Google Scholar

page 35 note 3 At the end of line 1 of the inscription Fourmont allowed three letters where Vollgraff allowed one letter; and Voll-graff's excellent photograph on p. 392 indicates that Fourmont may be correct since line 4 extends farther to the right than lines 1 and 2. An imperative form of such a verb as in S.E.G. xi. 314, line 12, should perhaps be restored.Google Scholar

page 35 note 4 Mitsos, M. Th., op. cit.,Google Scholar gives seven other instances at Argos of Aristomachus, which is a common name elsewhere (e.g. in Molossia, , S.G.D.I. 1334);Google Scholar one other instance at Argos of Archesilas, Hippomedon, and Orthagoras; and no other case at Argos of the remaining five names. If the T in Potamos is uncertain like the P, then it may be possible to read Södamos of which there are three examples at Argos and one incomplete name ‘odamos’ in Mnemosyne, xlvii (1919), 164 n. ix, line 12.Google Scholar

page 36 note 1 The phraseis followed by a list of six names placed on the left-hand side of the stone as in our inscription. If the three Dorian tribes alone were represented in this office, then the admission of a fourth tribe at Argos, the Hyrnathioi, to equal status must have been later than either inscription; a suitable time was the crisis after the battle of Sepeia (Hdt. 6. 83; Arist. Politics 1303a7 Plu. Mor. 243 ); but there may be some other explanation of the numbers nine and six.