DOI Artikel:
Buck, Carl Darling: Discoveries in the Attic Deme of Ikaria, 1888
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.8678#0115
100
INSCRIPTIONS FROM 1KARIA.
moreover, this document seems to be very carefully inscribed. I am
loath, therefore, to consider it a blunder, and prefer to take oTiva as a
genuine form of the Attic vernacular. In the genitive and dative, the
short forms otov and orro alone occur in Attic inscriptions. May not
the popular speech have in like manner preferred an accusative form
with the first element indeclinable, though for the second element
there is no short form, as Homeric b\iva ? The solitary instance of
ovTiva is certainly not an insuperable obstacle to this opinion.7 In
the matter of elision, there is here the same inconsistency that charac-
terizes Athenian inscriptions generally.8
The subject of our inscription seems to be a decree relating to the
choregia, with special reference to antidosis. In the text of the trans-
literation, I have given scarcely any restorations, because, even in
places where I have found some that are plausible, they are too un-
certain to be of value. The bare fact that there are only three lines
in the inscription in which the number of letters extant is ecpial to the
number to be supplied would not in itself necessarily be discouraging,
if the subject were one upon which our information were more com-
plete. But this decree is considerably older than our earliest literary
sources on antidosis, which are found in the Attic orators of the fourth
century, Demosthenes, Isokrates and Lysias; and this is, moreover,
a rural decree. Even with all the literary evidence, including the
detailed account given in the Phaenippea, by Demosthenes, no one
has yet been able to advance an entirely satisfactory explanation of
the working of the system of antidosis ; and one has only to read the
various contributions to the subject by German scholars,9 especially
the rather warm discussion between Frankel and Thalheim in Hermes,
to appreciate what radically different views may be taken.
If this inscription were complete, it would undoubtedly shed a
flood of light upon the question, and enable us to arrive at its true
explanation. But even the fragments preserved are of no little im-
portance, and they settle conclusively at least one matter of dispute.
7 Cf. Meisterhans(2), ?59, d; Ci. Meyer, Griechische Grammatik, p. 401.
8 Cf. MeisterhansW, 123.
9Cf. Bockh, Slaatshaushaltung der AthenerW, i, p. 673 ff.; Dittenberger, Ueber
den Vermiigenstausch und die Trierarchie des Demosthenes ; Blasciike, Be antidosi apud
Athenienses; Thalheim, N.Jahrbueh f. PMlol., cxv, p. G13 fl'.; Frankel, Haines,
xvin, p. 442 ff.; Thalheim, Hermes, xix, p. 80 ff.; Lolling, De antidosi; Meier
and Schomann, Der atlische Process^, p. 737 ff. Frankel has the last word on the
subject in his edition of Bockh's Sth. d. Atliener, Note 883.
INSCRIPTIONS FROM 1KARIA.
moreover, this document seems to be very carefully inscribed. I am
loath, therefore, to consider it a blunder, and prefer to take oTiva as a
genuine form of the Attic vernacular. In the genitive and dative, the
short forms otov and orro alone occur in Attic inscriptions. May not
the popular speech have in like manner preferred an accusative form
with the first element indeclinable, though for the second element
there is no short form, as Homeric b\iva ? The solitary instance of
ovTiva is certainly not an insuperable obstacle to this opinion.7 In
the matter of elision, there is here the same inconsistency that charac-
terizes Athenian inscriptions generally.8
The subject of our inscription seems to be a decree relating to the
choregia, with special reference to antidosis. In the text of the trans-
literation, I have given scarcely any restorations, because, even in
places where I have found some that are plausible, they are too un-
certain to be of value. The bare fact that there are only three lines
in the inscription in which the number of letters extant is ecpial to the
number to be supplied would not in itself necessarily be discouraging,
if the subject were one upon which our information were more com-
plete. But this decree is considerably older than our earliest literary
sources on antidosis, which are found in the Attic orators of the fourth
century, Demosthenes, Isokrates and Lysias; and this is, moreover,
a rural decree. Even with all the literary evidence, including the
detailed account given in the Phaenippea, by Demosthenes, no one
has yet been able to advance an entirely satisfactory explanation of
the working of the system of antidosis ; and one has only to read the
various contributions to the subject by German scholars,9 especially
the rather warm discussion between Frankel and Thalheim in Hermes,
to appreciate what radically different views may be taken.
If this inscription were complete, it would undoubtedly shed a
flood of light upon the question, and enable us to arrive at its true
explanation. But even the fragments preserved are of no little im-
portance, and they settle conclusively at least one matter of dispute.
7 Cf. Meisterhans(2), ?59, d; Ci. Meyer, Griechische Grammatik, p. 401.
8 Cf. MeisterhansW, 123.
9Cf. Bockh, Slaatshaushaltung der AthenerW, i, p. 673 ff.; Dittenberger, Ueber
den Vermiigenstausch und die Trierarchie des Demosthenes ; Blasciike, Be antidosi apud
Athenienses; Thalheim, N.Jahrbueh f. PMlol., cxv, p. G13 fl'.; Frankel, Haines,
xvin, p. 442 ff.; Thalheim, Hermes, xix, p. 80 ff.; Lolling, De antidosi; Meier
and Schomann, Der atlische Process^, p. 737 ff. Frankel has the last word on the
subject in his edition of Bockh's Sth. d. Atliener, Note 883.