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The Descent of the Greek EpicAuthor(s): John ChadwickSource: The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 110 (1990), pp. 174-177Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies

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NOTES

The Descent of the Greek Epic

READERSf M. L. West's article 'The rise of theGreek

epic'" mayhave been left with the

impressionthat we now know a great deal aboutthe pre-Homericstagesof the epic tradition.Muchof what he has to say is of course commonlyaccepted, but it appearsto me that much is alsobasedon questionableassumptions,which are themore dangerousfor not being explicitly stated. Ishould ike therefore o selecta few issueson whichI believe it is possibleto take a differentview.

I

A fundamental assumption throughout this

article s that the text of Homer isno different romthat of other classicalauthors, since it has been

preservedby the same kind of manuscript radi-tion. The difference s that while all our texts goback to the editionsof the Hellenisticscholars, he

gapbetween theseandthe author s relativelyshortfor fourth and fifth centurywriters,but very much

longer for Homer, if we assign to him a veryapproximatedate of the late eighth, or even earlyseventh,century.

On present evidence Homer seems to be

roughly contemporarywith the development ofthe Greek alphabet.2We know that this was in

generaluse asearlyas the lastquarterof the eighthcentury, and we lack of course firm evidence forthe experimentalstageswhich musthave precededsurvivinginscriptions.None the less it is theoreti-

cally possiblefor Homer to have used writing in

composing the Iliadand Odyssey, hough thereareseriousgroundsfor doubtingwhetherhe reallydidso. It is now generallyacceptedthat down to thetime of and including Homer himself the Greek

epic tradition was oral, composed and recitedwithout the need for a written text.

There is, however, another theory, that

althoughHomer himself may have been illiterate,

hiscompositionswere taken down by dictation,orat least reduced somehow to writing, during hislifetime.3 It may be objectedthat such an innova-tion would have been resistedby the inheritorsofthe oral tradition, especially once the spread of

literacyhadbegun to affecttheprocessof composi-tion, and the function of the rhapsodehadbecome

merely that of learningand recitinga pre-existingtext. There can have been nothing to prevent alistenerto an epic recitation rom going home and

writing down as much as he could remember ofwhat he heard;andthe useof HomericpassagesbyypoapprcrKoi implies that some at least were

known in written form at an early date. But this isa far cry from the production of a large set of

(twenty-four?) rolls containing a poem of more

1JHS cviii (1988) I5I-72.2 K. McCarter, Theantiquity f theGreekalphabetMissoula

1975).3

e.g. G. P. Goold, TAPA xci (1960) 272-91.

than 15,000 lines. There is still no evidence for theexistence of substantial ooks before the end of thesixth century.

Despitethis it has often been assumed hat our

text of Homer representsaccuratelywhat Homerwrote or would have written had he chosento doso. It canquiteeasilybe shown thatthe spellingand

orthographicconventions of our text cannot goback to the seventh,let alone eighth, century.Theso-calledspuriousdiphthongswere not representedby El or OY before the sixth century, and their

generaladoption is hardlyearlierthan the fourth.Thusforms such asEi,Uor OcJTOUSustin any earlyversionhave been spelledEMIand AYTO. On theother hand the use of H as a vowel and of Q isfound in East Ionic inscriptionsas early as theseventh century.4But it should be observed thatWest Ionicdid not adopt H and Q until the fourthcentury (403 BC in Athenian officialpractice),sothat a Euboean text would have lacked theseletters.5 ndeed the Ischiacup, usuallydated before700 BC,canbe regardedasa specimenof Euboean,and since it containstwo hexameters, t is worth

quoting in this context.6

Nirropos E[yolU] E'UTOTOVTTOTEPIOV.

h6S8' cv TOrETriECTrOTEpio,cUriKa EVOVhihEpos halpECeEail7T6E[9dE]VO 'Appoi-rTs.

This might well serve as a model for the originalHomerictext, and it is

plainlyareflexionof A 632-

637. This is the more certain f Risch's restorationas E[yoP]ls accepted,since it is then quite plainlyintended as a joke. It follows that the text ofHomer is in the spellingof neitherEastnor WestIonic, but has been modified to suit the conven-tions of the HellenisticKOlvT.

These modifications will also have eliminatedthe aberrantuse of consonants amiliar rom earlyinscriptions.On the evidence of the Pedoninscrip-tion7 koppawas used in the East Ionic of theseventhcenturyin complementarydistribution o

kappa;but no trace of koppa urvives in our text.

Similarlyan old Attic text might have beenexpec-ted to spell XE for ~, ()E for y. These changesmight of course be dismissedas automatic,but thesame cannotbe said for the aspirate.

West might have supported his thesis of aEuboeanorigin for the Homeric text by pointingto the aspirationwhich is guaranteedby consonant

changesresultingfrom contact with initialaspirate(type -rTip'ouTCos).Psilosis is normal in East Ionic,but the aspirate is partially preserved in CentralIonic and fully in West Ionic. Since the original

4 e.g. in the newly publisheddedication of a mercenaryofPsammetichus:nls?ca l' 6 vlrIv cbpl)iWEco... CRAI (I988)

524.5 For a specimenof sixth centuryEuboeansee the Eretrianlaw in SchwyzerDGE 800.

6 A. Heubeck Schrift Archaeologia omericax) (G6ttingen1979)Io9-I6, supplied [ev T]J, utE.Risch, ZPElxx (I987) I-9convincinglyshowedthat the restorationquotedherewasmore

likely.7See note 4.

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NOTES

value of the letterH was certainlyh, it is likely thatEastIonic was alreadypsilotic by the date of theintroduction of the alphabet. But aspirationinHomer is quite obviously the consequence ofeditorial nterferencewith the tradition,so that this

provesnothing about the origin of the text.

The same applies to West's major argument,that an EastIonic text would have shown K n placeof rr n the interrogative/indefinitewords of the

type of rrcos, OTrou. The reason for this

phenomenon is disputed,so we cannot follow its

history; but its distribution n inscriptions s veryrestricted.Until recentlysuchformscould only be

quoted from Erythraeand doubtfully Aegae inAeolis;8but recent discoveries n Spainand Francemean that the Phocaeancolonies of the west can beadded to the list and thereforePhocaea tself.9 It iscleartherefore hat it belongsin originto the northof the East Ionic area,and was probablynever a

general feature of this dialect. It is thereforequestionablewhether Homer would have adopteda formnot widely employedin Ionia,andnowhereoutside it. But even if he did, this too would havebeen eliminatedby the variousmodernisations hetext underwent before reaching the Alexandrianeditors.

The extent to which thesemodernisationshaveaffected he text isuncertain.But internalevidence

strongly suggeststhe absenceof H and Q, since anumber of forms arehard to explainexcept on the

assumptionthat they are erroneoustranscriptionsof spellingscontainingE and O representingboth

long vowels and spuriousdiphthongs.10Geminateconsonantsmay have been written singly, thoughit is evident that the Pedon inscription alreadyemploys double writing,"1and the best examplesof simplified spelling come from the West Greekarea. Even more problematic s the assumptionofscholars who have explained the phenomenon of81tKTaaCas agraphicmistake:6p6cofor opaco (oropeco)arisingfrom written OPO.12 It is far more

likely that these spellingsrepresent he actualpro-nunciation of the rhapsodes, who, saying 6pCothemselves,prolonged the secondvowel to give itthe value of I1 morae.

If thisexplanation is correct, it is furtherevidencefor a periodof oral transmission etween

the monumental composer and the beginning ofthe written tradition. The ancient evidence thatsome sortof edition wascompiledat Athensin thetime of Hipparchus13gains additionalconfirma-tion, becauseboth the use of E and O for longvowels and the notation of the aspirateas H arefeaturesof Attic orthographyaround500 BC.

II

Once we have establishedthat our Homeric

8 Dittenberger,Syll. iv p. 883;Schwyzer, DGE 644.9.9 6K6ao: E. Sanmartiand R. A. Santiago,ZPE lxviii (1987)

119-27; lxxii (I988) IOO-2. 6KO (= 6-roU): J. Pouilloux,CRAI (I988), 533.

10P. Chantraine,Grammareomerique3 (Paris1958)6-i6.11

cbPqlvVE6o, Y'appilrTiXos.12 Chantraine n. 1O)75-83.13[Plato]Hipparchus28b.

175

text cannot claim any great antiquity, we mustturn to the more difficult question of the history ofthe epic tradition before Homer. No one nowdoubts that Homer stood at the end of a long lineof oral poets whose work is totally lost, in so far asit is not

incorporatedin the

poemsof Homer.

Attempts have therefore been made to reconstructits characteristics by internal analysis and external

comparisons. The assumption underlying the inter-nal analysis is that the freedom with which Homeradmits hiatus and artificial lengthening is the resultof linguistic change, so that by restoring earlierforms we shall improve the metric pattern. It is

easy to banish a few spondaic line-endings bywriting 'ApyEip6vOrVTs ApyEt-, which may wellbe what Homer intended. But the most fruitful

application of this principle has been the resurrec-tion of the lost digamma. So far as we know, Ioniclost this sound at a prehistoric date; some other

dialects preserved it wholly or partially down to atleast the fifth century, and comparative evidence

proves that it was present in the ancestor of allGreek dialects. It is now known to have been

completely preserved in the Mycenaean Greek ofthe fourteenth-thirteenth centuries.

But although so many lines are improved bythe restoration of the digamma that we can safelyconclude that some formulas at least were devised

by poets who pronounced this sound, it is also truethat Homer must have dropped it, or he could nothave inflected, e.g., Too'aEldcova avaKTa torToCE1i86covoOa&vaKToS.14 The conclusion that

hiatus was acceptable in eighth century verse isconfirmed by the early verse inscriptions. The

inscription on the Ischia cup, quoted above,15contains no less than three hiatus in three lines:-I EU7TOTOVn the iambic, TroTEpioaUTriKaand

KaXAAlcrirpvo 'Aqpo8iTEs in the hexameters. None

of these can be attributed to a lost digamma, and itis worth noticing that of the two examples of the

genitive singular of an o-stem noun, one shows

correption and one does not. 'AppoBiTrrshows itsnormal Homeric treatment with a light first

syllable, since it would be hard to use otherwise.

Lengthening of a medial short vowel is another

licence often employed, but here avoided since itwould yield a double spondee. In other early verse

inscriptions it is not uncommon, especially toadmit unmetrical proper names.

In the light of this evidence for loose metrical

practices it seems absurd to assume that Homer's

predecessors aimed at a more rigorous practice.The ingenious suggestion that irregularities such as'lAiou TrpoTTrpoleEr Ai6oou KAu-uTSbcoaaTragoback to originals with a genitive in -oo has beensomewhat damaged by the revelation that

Mycenaean knew only a genitive in -oio.16 Itremains a possibility that somewhere at some date-oo was in use, but we do not know where andwhen. For as far as Homer is concerned, he was

14 AccusativeO 8; genitive Y 67; both perhapsmodelled onthe more frequentdativeO 57, I58, etc.

15p. 19I, n. 6.

16 'IlMo0 66, etc.;AloAouK36, 60. For the traditionalviewsee Chantraine n. Io) 45.

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176 NOTES

clearly content to scan 'lATou, ust as an inscrip-tional versifier wrote TXaaFo/o for the genitive ofTXaaia. 17

I am therefore unimpressed by West's attemptto recover prehistoric forms of formulas such as

Pl'TIV a'rTdavTOS bysupposing

that the initial

aspirate of the second word, later lost and absentfrom our traditional text, was at some stage power-ful enough to 'lengthen' the preceding syllable. It isnot impossible that the extraordinary scansion of

&avpoTrrTa may have arisen in derivatives of a`vlppronounced *anr- in place of av6po-. But

Mycenaean Greek already has forms in andr-,and itis not as clear as West implies that this dialect hadlost syllabic r-. What marks avSpoTfiTraKaiflprlv as'recent' is not the correption of Kai, which could beremedied by replacing it with Arcado-Cypriot Kas,but the mere presence of this neologism for 'and'. Itis absent from Mycenaean, and to suggest replacingit with i65 is completely arbitrary.

These metrical games, which might be dis-cussed at far greater length, are ingenious and

amusing; but do they really tell us anything aboutthe pre-Homeric tradition of epic poetry? Westdoes not mention the problem of the origin of thehexameter. It appears to be a native Greek inven-

tion, if not borrowed from some unknown source.

Nothing like it exists in Vedic, or in other earlyIndo-European verse. Yet it must have had aconsiderable period of development to havereached the stage represented by Homer.

Meillet refused to believe in a Greek origin for

the hexameter because of numerous words andinflexional forms which contain inadmissiblemetric patterns.18 While this is true of classical

Greek, and to a less extent of Homeric Greek, it isfar less true of Mycenaean, where dactylic rhythmscommonly occur in words which were in theirlater form unmetrical. It is therefore possible tobelieve in a Mycenaean Greek origin for epic verse,and any suggestion that the tradition goes furtherback needs to be carefully scrutinised.

The existence of 'praise poetry', whether

strictly metrical or not, is a well known

phenomenon among illiterate peoples, whether

Indo-European or not.19 To prove that poetryexisted among the undivided Indo-Europeanpeoples we should need to demonstrate theexistence of similar metres, or at least similarmetrical phrases in at least two traditions. The

hoary example of K^XEOSa0lTOV is the prime,and almost unique, specimen; it can be traced backto the same reconstructed form as Vedicsrvo ... . ksitam. But against it we must weigh thechances of a word meaning 'renown' acquiringindependently an epithet meaning 'imperishable'.The coincidence is striking, but we should surelydemand a string of such coincidences before

7Schwyzer, DGE 133 (I), Corcyra, sixth century. Thedigammais anotherartificiality.

18A. Meillet,Lesoriginesndo-europeennesesmetresgrecsParisI923) 57-71.

19For an interestingaccount of similarpoetry among the

present-dayBantu, see J. Opland, Publicationsof the Modern

LanguagesAssociationf America c (1975) 195-208. I owe thisreference o L. Baumbach.

accepting the conclusion that this phrase wasinherited from a remote period when the ancestorsof Greeks and Aryans spoke the same language.

III

The composite nature of the Homeric dialectwas long ago recognised as a Kunstsprache, anartificial idiom constructed out of archaic, dialectaland invented forms, used both for their metrical

utility and to give the effect of distancing the poeticlanguage from everyday speech.20 If we had a

complete picture of the evolution of the Greek

language from early Mycenaean times down to thetime of Homer, we might be able to trace the

origin of each locution. Unfortunately, apart fromthe Mycenaean of the administrative records,almost nothing is known of the dialects before

700 BC, and thereafter we have only fragmentaryinformation on certain dialects, so that anythingapproaching a complete picture does not emergebefore the fourth century. It is therefore verydangerous to look for parallels to Homeric formsin later material and infer that these point to the

origin of the Homeric usage.Moreover, it is now accepted that the four

main dialect groupings cannot be projected backinto the second millennium BC. All we can prove isthe existence in late Mycenaean times of two

groups, one which must be presumed to accountfor the later West Greek dialects, and the one

employed in the palaces for accounting purposes.

The distinction of Aeolic and Ionic as separategroups almost certainly belongs to the periodfollowing the Mycenaean collapse.21 It also needsto be appreciated that the earliest form of Aeolicwas that best represented by East Thessalian, andthis is in many respects much closer to West Greekthan to Arcado-Cypriot or Ionic.22 No one doubtsthat the Iliad with its East Thessalian hero containsmaterial of Thessalian origin. So most of the

alleged doricisms of Homer can be safely attributedto the early and unrecorded dialect of Thessaly.

In any case, inherited archaisms prove nothing.A form which happens to survive only in later

West Greek does not prove that Homer drew itfrom a West Greek source. It is the innovationswhich are the guarantees of local origin. It is truethat the generalisation of the future in -Coco (or its

derivatives) is a notable innovation of the WestGreek dialects; it is also markedly absent fromHomer. The only apparent example is EacrTrTal,which is capable of other explanations.23

I am reluctant to pursue this argument because

here, as in the other two cases I have discussed,West's conclusions rest upon presuppositionswhich I am unable to share. We know a great dealmore now about the early history of Greek than

Wackernagel or Kuhn, and even Chantraine's20 K. Meister,Die homerischeKunstspracheLeipzig192I).21 . L. Garcia-Ramon,Lesorigines ostmyceniennesugroupe

dialectal olien Suplementosa MINOS n. 6) (Salamanca1975);A. LopezEire,Simposio eColonizacionesBarcelona1974)247-78.

22 E. Risch, MH xii (1955) 70-71.23 Chantraine (n. IO) 290-91.

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NOTESOTES

approach o somequestionsneedsto be modifiedinthe light of modern research.The more we learn,the moreevident is theneed for caution n attempt-ing to reconstructanything furtherback than theMycenaeanperiod.

approach o somequestionsneedsto be modifiedinthe light of modern research.The more we learn,the moreevident is theneed for caution n attempt-ing to reconstructanything furtherback than theMycenaeanperiod.

JOHN CHADWICK

Downing College, CambridgeJOHN CHADWICK

Downing College, Cambridge

The Recognition Decrees for the DelphianSoteria and the Date of Smyrna's Inviolability

Seven inscriptions have been classified as recog-nition decrees for the Delphian Soteria.' One ofthese is so fragmentary as to defy analysis.2 In a

second, only the end of the decree survives, and

relatively little can be learned from it.3 The other

five decrees have been the subject of considerable

disagreement since Pomtow's publication in I914.4In I976, however, Nachtergael established the

periodicity of the Soteria as follows. A funeraryurn from Hadra records the death of Sotion, atheorosof the Soteria, who died in Egypt during thecourse of his mission in the ninth year of the reignof a Ptolemy. Nachtergael, by showing that Sotiondied in the ninth year of the reign of Ptolemy IV

Philopator, i.e. the year 214/13 BC,while announc-

ing the games of the Attic year 213/12, hasdemonstrated that the festival was celebrated in thesummer of the year following the Pythia.5 To

reconcile the dates of the various recognitiondecrees, he suggested that the first celebration ofthe Soteria took place in 245/4 BC, and conse-

quently assigned the Athenian archon Polyeuktosto the year 246/5 BC, based on the idea that thetheoroi announcing the festival would have been

dispatched from Delphi approximately six monthsbefore the games took place.6 Although somescholars would move Polyeuktos' archonship backa year, to 247/6 BC,7Nachtergael's chronology hasbeen generally accepted,8 ending a half-century ofdebate on the date of Polyeuktos' archonship andthe Soteria recognition decrees.

As Nachtergael himself admitted, however, hissolution to one chronological problem exacerbated

1 Most recentlypublishedby G. Nachtergael,Corpus esactes

relatifs ux Soteriade Delphes(henceforthreferred o as Actes),nos. 2I-7, in Les Galates en Grece et les Soteria de Delphes

(Brussels, 1977) henceforth referred to as Nachtergael [1977])

435-47.2 Actes 27.3 Actes 26.4 H. Pomtow, Klio xiv (I914-1915) 271-5, nos. I-4 = Actes

22-5; Actes 2I, from Athens, was first published byA. Koumanoudis, E7rrypabaEAAXrv.vei8borotAthens,188!)75. For a summary of the various debates, see Nachtergael(I977) 209-33.

5 Historia xxv (I976) 62-78 (henceforth referred to as

Nachtergael [I976]), especially71-3, and Nachtergael (1977)223-41.

6Nachtergael (1976) 7I-2.

7B. D. Meritt,Hesperia (1981)8o-2.8 See, among others, C. Habicht, Untersuchungenur politi-

schenCeschichte thens m3.Jahrhundert. Chr.= Vestigia xx

(I979).

The Recognition Decrees for the DelphianSoteria and the Date of Smyrna's Inviolability

Seven inscriptions have been classified as recog-nition decrees for the Delphian Soteria.' One ofthese is so fragmentary as to defy analysis.2 In a

second, only the end of the decree survives, and

relatively little can be learned from it.3 The other

five decrees have been the subject of considerable

disagreement since Pomtow's publication in I914.4In I976, however, Nachtergael established the

periodicity of the Soteria as follows. A funeraryurn from Hadra records the death of Sotion, atheorosof the Soteria, who died in Egypt during thecourse of his mission in the ninth year of the reignof a Ptolemy. Nachtergael, by showing that Sotiondied in the ninth year of the reign of Ptolemy IV

Philopator, i.e. the year 214/13 BC,while announc-

ing the games of the Attic year 213/12, hasdemonstrated that the festival was celebrated in thesummer of the year following the Pythia.5 To

reconcile the dates of the various recognitiondecrees, he suggested that the first celebration ofthe Soteria took place in 245/4 BC, and conse-

quently assigned the Athenian archon Polyeuktosto the year 246/5 BC, based on the idea that thetheoroi announcing the festival would have been

dispatched from Delphi approximately six monthsbefore the games took place.6 Although somescholars would move Polyeuktos' archonship backa year, to 247/6 BC,7Nachtergael's chronology hasbeen generally accepted,8 ending a half-century ofdebate on the date of Polyeuktos' archonship andthe Soteria recognition decrees.

As Nachtergael himself admitted, however, hissolution to one chronological problem exacerbated

1 Most recentlypublishedby G. Nachtergael,Corpus esactes

relatifs ux Soteriade Delphes(henceforthreferred o as Actes),nos. 2I-7, in Les Galates en Grece et les Soteria de Delphes

(Brussels, 1977) henceforth referred to as Nachtergael [1977])

435-47.2 Actes 27.3 Actes 26.4 H. Pomtow, Klio xiv (I914-1915) 271-5, nos. I-4 = Actes

22-5; Actes 2I, from Athens, was first published byA. Koumanoudis, E7rrypabaEAAXrv.vei8borotAthens,188!)75. For a summary of the various debates, see Nachtergael(I977) 209-33.

5 Historia xxv (I976) 62-78 (henceforth referred to as

Nachtergael [I976]), especially71-3, and Nachtergael (1977)223-41.

6Nachtergael (1976) 7I-2.

7B. D. Meritt,Hesperia (1981)8o-2.8 See, among others, C. Habicht, Untersuchungenur politi-

schenCeschichte thens m3.Jahrhundert. Chr.= Vestigia xx

(I979).

I7777

another.9 Actes 25 was independently attributed to

Smyrna by L. Robert10 and M. Segre"1 on thebasis of lines 21-4, which clearly refer to the

aouAia of Smyrna and the sanctuary of AphroditeStratonikis. OGIS 229 records that Seleukos IIKallinikos

EypayEv68 Kai

TrpOsT-roS

paClmXaKal

7TOUS6uvaTraS Kal T-raST6;IS KaOl ra?evl T LcbaaS

&TTrooSacOail TO TE iEpOV TTiS ETparTOVKi8OS

'AqpoSiT'rls aavuov ETvalKai T-rlI rr6Xiv ilpcov

(Smyrna) ikp&v Kai &cvAov (lines I I-12). This

clause seems to depend on b16 (line 5), which refersback to Smyrna's loyalty to Seleukos while underattack by his enemies. The response of one of the

T-r6AsS,Delphi, is preserved in Fouilles de DelphesIII. 4.2, 153, which was issued before the theoroiwere dispatched to announce a celebration of the

Pythian games (lines I4-I5).Seleukos II came to the throne upon the death of

his father, Antiochos II, in the summer of 246.12

This allows only a month or two, at best, for

Smyrna to be attacked, for Seleukos to reward her

loyalty with a grant of &aovia, and for Delphi tofollow his lead, all prior to the Pythian games of

246 BC.So long as the seven documents held to be

recognition decrees are thought of as a homo-

geneous series, the difficulty of dating Smyrna'saouvia remains.

For all the controversy about the decrees, sincePomtow's publication most scholars have assumedthat they formed a single series. E. Bourguet wentso far as to say of Fouilles deDelphes III.3, 481 (Actes24) 'ce texte ne peut etre separe des deux suivants

(nos. 482 = Actes 23 and 483 = Actes 25).' In hisdiscussion of nos. 481 and 483 in 1930, L. Robert

noted that no. 483 'est plus verbeux que les quatreautres' but attributed the differences to variationsin the oral presentation made by the Aitolian

envoys.13 Two years later, Ferguson said of the

Smyrnan decree 'notwithstanding that it is uniquein failing to repeat mechanically the language ofthe invitation, it is natural to date it at the sametime' as the other four responses.14 He then cited

Robert,15 thus tacitly agreeing with Robert's

explanation for the differences between the decrees.Since then, to the best of my knowledge, no-one

has given serious consideration to the uniqueness ofthe Smyrnan decree.

If, however, it is possible to dissociate Actes 25from the rest of the series, we may be able to solvethe chronological problem of Smyrna's inviol-

ability. The question is, do all the inscriptionsunder consideration owe their existence to a singleimpetus? Do the language, content and arrange-ment of these five decrees indicate that all are

responding to the same invitation? or are the

9Nachtergael (1976) 72-3 n. 82.

o0BCH liv (1930) 326-32.11Historia v.2 (1931) 24I-60.12 E. Will, Histoire politique du mondehellenistique2nd edition

(Nancy, I979) vol. i (henceforth referred to as Will), 247-8;

249-50.

13 Robert (n. IO) 327 n. 3.

14W. S. Ferguson,Athenian ribal ycles n theHellenistic ge(Cambridge,Mass.,1932) II3.

15Robert (n. Io) 326 n. I and 327 n. 3.

another.9 Actes 25 was independently attributed to

Smyrna by L. Robert10 and M. Segre"1 on thebasis of lines 21-4, which clearly refer to the

aouAia of Smyrna and the sanctuary of AphroditeStratonikis. OGIS 229 records that Seleukos IIKallinikos

EypayEv68 Kai

TrpOsT-roS

paClmXaKal

7TOUS6uvaTraS Kal T-raST6;IS KaOl ra?evl T LcbaaS

&TTrooSacOail TO TE iEpOV TTiS ETparTOVKi8OS

'AqpoSiT'rls aavuov ETvalKai T-rlI rr6Xiv ilpcov

(Smyrna) ikp&v Kai &cvAov (lines I I-12). This

clause seems to depend on b16 (line 5), which refersback to Smyrna's loyalty to Seleukos while underattack by his enemies. The response of one of the

T-r6AsS,Delphi, is preserved in Fouilles de DelphesIII. 4.2, 153, which was issued before the theoroiwere dispatched to announce a celebration of the

Pythian games (lines I4-I5).Seleukos II came to the throne upon the death of

his father, Antiochos II, in the summer of 246.12

This allows only a month or two, at best, for

Smyrna to be attacked, for Seleukos to reward her

loyalty with a grant of &aovia, and for Delphi tofollow his lead, all prior to the Pythian games of

246 BC.So long as the seven documents held to be

recognition decrees are thought of as a homo-

geneous series, the difficulty of dating Smyrna'saouvia remains.

For all the controversy about the decrees, sincePomtow's publication most scholars have assumedthat they formed a single series. E. Bourguet wentso far as to say of Fouilles deDelphes III.3, 481 (Actes24) 'ce texte ne peut etre separe des deux suivants

(nos. 482 = Actes 23 and 483 = Actes 25).' In hisdiscussion of nos. 481 and 483 in 1930, L. Robert

noted that no. 483 'est plus verbeux que les quatreautres' but attributed the differences to variationsin the oral presentation made by the Aitolian

envoys.13 Two years later, Ferguson said of the

Smyrnan decree 'notwithstanding that it is uniquein failing to repeat mechanically the language ofthe invitation, it is natural to date it at the sametime' as the other four responses.14 He then cited

Robert,15 thus tacitly agreeing with Robert's

explanation for the differences between the decrees.Since then, to the best of my knowledge, no-one

has given serious consideration to the uniqueness ofthe Smyrnan decree.

If, however, it is possible to dissociate Actes 25from the rest of the series, we may be able to solvethe chronological problem of Smyrna's inviol-

ability. The question is, do all the inscriptionsunder consideration owe their existence to a singleimpetus? Do the language, content and arrange-ment of these five decrees indicate that all are

responding to the same invitation? or are the

9Nachtergael (1976) 72-3 n. 82.

o0BCH liv (1930) 326-32.11Historia v.2 (1931) 24I-60.12 E. Will, Histoire politique du mondehellenistique2nd edition

(Nancy, I979) vol. i (henceforth referred to as Will), 247-8;

249-50.

13 Robert (n. IO) 327 n. 3.

14W. S. Ferguson,Athenian ribal ycles n theHellenistic ge(Cambridge,Mass.,1932) II3.

15Robert (n. Io) 326 n. I and 327 n. 3.