The Dating of Documents to the Mid-Fifth Century—I

Abstract

In his paper ‘The Athenian Coinage Decree’, in Historia x (1961) 148–88, Mattingly proposes to date this decree (Tod 67: ATL ii D14: the ‘Decree of Klearchos’) to 425/4. This involves two important principles, historical and epigraphic. Historically, he contends that a measure of this coercive sort is out of place in the middle of the century (it is dated in ATL to 449/8) and finds its proper context in the time of Kleon's ascendancy, in the latter part of the Archidamian War. Epigraphically, since one copy in which this decree is preserved (the only copy which uses the Attic alphabet) writes sigma always with three bars Mattingly is led to challenge the current epigraphic doctrine, namely, that in Attic inscriptions this form of sigma is not used (at least in the ‘chancery style’, for a public decree) later than 446. The epigraphic doctrine about three-bar sigma is not self-evidently true, and it is fair and right that it should be called in question. We believe it is true in fact, and that the use of three-bar sigma in the Kos copy of D14 creates a strong presumption that Mattingly's date is too low. We deal with the documents alleged by Mattingly to run counter to this doctrine, and hope to show (in each case) that they do not. We deal with these and other documents under three heads: first, the two from which Mattingly starts, the decree of Klearchos about coinage and the decree of Kleinias about the collection of tribute; next, some other decrees concerning Athens' allies; last, those which are concerned with building projects.

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