BENJAMIN D. MERITT 413

THE ALLIANCE BETWEEN ATHENS AND EGESTA

The text of a treaty between Athens and Egesta in the Fifth Century is partially preserved as I.G., I2, 19 (S.E.G., X, 7). Names of the Egestan signatories appear in part in I.G., I2, 20 (S.E.G., X, 68), which belongs to the same original stone, though its lower lines contain what is left of a treaty between Athens and the small town of Halikyai, a neighbor of Egesta (1). The historical setting and the date of I.G., I2, 20 have been ably set forth by Woodhead, who dates the original treaty with Egesta in 458/7 (following Raubitschek) and the renewal of this treaty together with the new treaty with Halikyai in 433/2 (2).

There would be no need to open the question again, except that the name of the archon Habron who dates I.G., I2, 19 has been disputed, W. K. Pritchett claiming that nothing should be read except the final two letters (with no identification) (3), and H. B. Mattingly claiming to see enough to justify the reading Άντ]ιφδν (4). I shall not go into the complications and pitfalls that beset Mattingly's attempt to bring this text, with its three-bar sigma, down to 418/7. But something should be said about the archon Habron.

The surface of the stone where the name was inscribed has been examined carefully by a number of skilled epigraphists. Even if one agrees with Pritchett that the rounding which Koehler thought he saw in the third letter-space from the end is no part of a letter, the stroke in the letter-space before it remains. Pritchett has denied that it is part of a letter, thinking that it is a mere scratch, and he cites colleagues who have agreed with him. This becomes a matter of opinion; but the stroke does exist, of proper height, direction, and position to be a normal vertical stroke of a letter. Malcolm McGregor, studying the stone in 1961, thought the stroke was. the cutting of a chisel. I was with him at the time and agreed with his judgment. Klaffenbach now reports (by letter) from his examination of the Berlin