In antiquity, news was carried by word of mouth, but legal matters and other important information were cut in stone and placed in a conspicuous spot for everyone to see.
The majority of
inscriptions are Decrees of which I can only mention a selection.
At the Acropolis
Museum, there is a stele with decrees for the construction of the temple and
altar of Nike by Kallikrates, for the
reorganization of the cult, and for the salary of the priestess of the goddess dated
427-424 BC (side A) and 424-423 BC (side B).
Also a stele
with a series of Decrees by which the Athenians bestowed economic, commercial, and military privileges on their ally
Methone in
Pieria.
It shows the goddess Athena shaking hands with perhaps Artemis, dated 430-423 BC.
Very broken but
still readable is the Athenian Decree honoring Neapolis (modern Kavala) for its support in the war
against Thasos and its constant
commitment to her.
In the upper right corner, we recognize the goddess Athena
extending her hand towards another figure, probably the goddess Parthenos of Neapolis
dated from 410-409 BC.
A very elegant
stele with a horse and an olive wreath carries an inscription in which the
Athenians honored King Alcetas of Epirus for his help during their military
expedition to Corcyra (modern Corfu) in 373-372 BC.
And finally,
still at the Acropolis Museum, there is the long Decree of Chalkis
on the island of Euboia
in which the islanders were forced to
swear loyalty to Athens after failing in their revolt of 446-445
BC.
The people of Chalkis could punish their own citizens, except in cases that
involved death, exile, or the loss of their rights as citizens where the power
of Athens prevailed.
The National
Archaeological Museum in Athens has its own rich collection of Decrees. A good example is the honorary
inscription from Piraeus dating from 347-346 BC.
The
stele honors the three sons of Leukon (depicted), king of the Cimmerian Bosporus, thanking them for services
rendered to the people of Athens
and allowing them to import grain free of duty.
A particular
stele from 355-354BC was found near the
Monument
of
Lysicrates
in
Athens.
It honors
Philiskos, son of
Lykos of Sestos in the Thracian
Hellespont as a public guest and benefactor of
Athens. In 356 BC,
Philiskos had warned the Athenians of
the hostile presence of the fleet of
Byzantium
that threatened the city’s grain supply.
The Eleusis Museum, in turn, exhibits a decree providing
for the construction of a footbridge across Lake
Rheitoi on the Sacred Way from Athens to Eleusis dated 421 BC.
Two fragments
from an unidentified monument carry a
Royal Decree of
Alexander, which
defines the limits of ‘land’, meaning the agricultural area that
Philippi supervised.
The (partial) inscription
dates from 336-334 BC, just before
Alexander
started his campaign East. It is kept at the
Museum of Philippi.
It is kept at
the Louvre in Paris and dates to 370-350 BC.
The Foundation
Decree of
Cyrene in North Africa is a
covenant between the citizens of
Cyrene in
ca. 322 BC and those of their mother-state of
Thera.
The exact
purpose is uncertain but it is thought that the citizens of
Thera,
including the early settlers of 631 BC, were granted the same rights and
freedoms as the Cyreneans, even though
Cyrene was wealthier than
Thera at the time.
Of another level
is, for instance, the trilingual stele from Letoon
in the Xanthos Valley
found near the Temple
of Apollo. It holds a
public Decree authorizing the cult of the deities and establishing the
provisions for its officers.The Decree is written in Lycian, Greek, and Aramaic which are not verbatim translations of each other. Each version contains information that is not translated into the two other tongues. The Aramaic text with 27 lines is the shortest, followed by Greek with 35 lines, and Lycian, with 51 lines. Useless to point out that this stele helped to decipher the peculiar Lycian language. This unique document can be seen at the Fethiye Museum.
The story of
this stele reminds us of the Rosetta Stone which helped to decipher the
Egyptian hieroglyphs and Demotic script using the Greek version carved on the
same stone. The text is a Decree issued by King
Ptolemy V of Egypt
in 196 BC and was key to deciphering the hitherto unknown hieroglyphic signs.
Trilingual
inscriptions are not isolated cases. In ancient Persia it was current practice to
leave inscriptions in three languages to make sure everyone in the vast empire
would be notified: Elamite, Old Persian, and Babylonian. The best-known lines
are carved on the cliff wall of Bisutun,
where Darius I celebrates his victory
over Gaumata and eight more
pretenders to the throne in 518 BC as represented above.
The trilingual
inscriptions on the Palace walls of Pasargadae,
and Persepolis
are mainly continuous reminders of the power of the King of Kings who ruled by
the grace of Ahuramazda, repeating their title of Great King. These were defined in full by Cyrus the Great:
Great King, King of Persia, King of Anshan,
King of Media, King of Babylon, King of Sumer and Akkad, and King of the Four Corners of the World.
Perhaps the most
remarkable panels are set in the spectacular landscape close to the
fast-running mountain river and lovely waterfalls of Ganj
Nameh, some five kilometers southwest of Hamadan.
As is customary, each text starts by praising Ahuramazda and continues
describing the lineage and deeds of Darius I on the left panel and his son Xerxes on the right. It reads: "The Great
God [is] Ahuramazda, greatest of all the gods, who created the earth and the
sky and the people; who made Xerxes king, and outstanding king as outstanding
ruler among innumerable rulers; I [am] the great king Xerxes,
king of kings, king of lands with numerous inhabitants, king of this vast
kingdom with far-away territories, son of the Achaemenid monarch Darius."
(see: The
Bisutun relief of King Darius I).
I’d like to
close with the impressive Monument
of Opramoas in Rhodiapolis. He was a great benefactor who contributed lavishly
to the reconstruction of most Lycian cities after the devastating earthquake of
141 AD. He must have been terribly wealthy for it seems that every single Lycian
city mentioned his name in thanks. The construction blocks of the Monument listing
his good deeds were strewn over a wide area until in 2016 archaeologists managed
to sort them out and reconstruct the walls of his Monument (see: The
Monument in honor of Opramoas of Rhodiapolis is taking shape).
Its text, the
longest ever found in Lycia or perhaps even in all of Anatolia, contains 12
letters Opramoas exchanged with the Roman
Emperors and Antoninus Pius in
particular, 19 letters to the Roman Procurator, and 33 various documents
related to the Lycian
League.
The reasons for leaving an inscription widely vary and
the list is endless. I stopped at a few of the most telling examples that caught
my attention.
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