DOI Artikel:
Buck, Carl Darling: Discoveries in the Attic Deme of Ikaria, 1888
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.8678#0117
102
INSCRIPTIONS FROM IK ARIA.
The most important and interesting parallel is to be found in the
phratry-decrec, the continuation of which on the back of the stone has
only recently been discovered.16 In this inscription we have mention
of the " House of the Dekeleians," top AeKeXetwv oIkov, 6 iepevs tov
AeiceXeccbv oIkov, etc'., which is understood by Kohler to mean a gens.
But in the portion recently discovered we find the phrase onrov av
Ae/ceXetet? TrpocrcpoiTaxriv iv aarei, with which Lolling compares the
passage in Lysias (xxm. 3) where the speaker tells of going to the
barber-shop near the Herrnai, " where the Dekeleians resort" (tva ol
AeiceXeU Trpoafyoirwcnv), and asking all the Dekeleians whom he
found there " whether they knew of a certain Pankleon, a demesman
of Dekeleia." In this passage, Ae/cekeis obviously is used of the
members of the deme of Dekeleia, and must have the same force in
the corresponding phrase in the inscription: so that, in the same de-
cree, we find " Dekeleians " used in the general sense of members of
the deme of Dekeleia and in the more restricted sense of members of
a gens of the same name tracing their ancestry back to the hero
Dekelos.17 This gens of the Dekeleians, as Kohler remarks, seems to
have held some especially important position among the other gentes
of the same phratry. In the same way, our Ikarians, owing, no
doubt, to their reputed descent from the eponymous deme-hero, occu-
pied a preeminent position, so that it was a traditional custom that in
deme-decrces they should be mentioned as a distinct body. We know
very little about the precise relations of a gens to a phratry or to a
deme, but the gens was more a religious than a political body. So the
" Ikarian money " was probably a religious fund belonging to the gens.
Perhaps there existed a cult of the eponymous hero Ikarios, in which
case we have a double explanation for the use of the word.
In 1. 4 we have a form of the adjective a^o/j^^ro?, the only occur-
rences of which in literature are in Aristotle, where it has the mean-
ing of " without supplies," based on the late use of the word ^op->]j[a.
At this period, however, when ^oprjyia had its regular technical sense,
it can only mean " without a choregos " or " not having served as chore-
gos," according to the context. This line must contain some regulation
concerning the appointment of the choregos.
I6C7.^1., II. 841b; AeAt ov 'Apxaio\oyuc6y, 1S8S, p..161 ft'.; see below p. 174.
17 [Since this was written, Tofffek's Altische Genealogie lias appeared, in which
the same view of the Dekeleians is advanced (p. 2S9) and supported by the citation
of herod., ix. 73: ^wtpdyrjs . . . AetfeAeifjfley, Ae/ceAeW 5e twv tcore epyacra^vwv
tpyov xp7?<r(jitoz>, K. t. A.—A. C. M.]
INSCRIPTIONS FROM IK ARIA.
The most important and interesting parallel is to be found in the
phratry-decrec, the continuation of which on the back of the stone has
only recently been discovered.16 In this inscription we have mention
of the " House of the Dekeleians," top AeKeXetwv oIkov, 6 iepevs tov
AeiceXeccbv oIkov, etc'., which is understood by Kohler to mean a gens.
But in the portion recently discovered we find the phrase onrov av
Ae/ceXetet? TrpocrcpoiTaxriv iv aarei, with which Lolling compares the
passage in Lysias (xxm. 3) where the speaker tells of going to the
barber-shop near the Herrnai, " where the Dekeleians resort" (tva ol
AeiceXeU Trpoafyoirwcnv), and asking all the Dekeleians whom he
found there " whether they knew of a certain Pankleon, a demesman
of Dekeleia." In this passage, Ae/cekeis obviously is used of the
members of the deme of Dekeleia, and must have the same force in
the corresponding phrase in the inscription: so that, in the same de-
cree, we find " Dekeleians " used in the general sense of members of
the deme of Dekeleia and in the more restricted sense of members of
a gens of the same name tracing their ancestry back to the hero
Dekelos.17 This gens of the Dekeleians, as Kohler remarks, seems to
have held some especially important position among the other gentes
of the same phratry. In the same way, our Ikarians, owing, no
doubt, to their reputed descent from the eponymous deme-hero, occu-
pied a preeminent position, so that it was a traditional custom that in
deme-decrces they should be mentioned as a distinct body. We know
very little about the precise relations of a gens to a phratry or to a
deme, but the gens was more a religious than a political body. So the
" Ikarian money " was probably a religious fund belonging to the gens.
Perhaps there existed a cult of the eponymous hero Ikarios, in which
case we have a double explanation for the use of the word.
In 1. 4 we have a form of the adjective a^o/j^^ro?, the only occur-
rences of which in literature are in Aristotle, where it has the mean-
ing of " without supplies," based on the late use of the word ^op->]j[a.
At this period, however, when ^oprjyia had its regular technical sense,
it can only mean " without a choregos " or " not having served as chore-
gos," according to the context. This line must contain some regulation
concerning the appointment of the choregos.
I6C7.^1., II. 841b; AeAt ov 'Apxaio\oyuc6y, 1S8S, p..161 ft'.; see below p. 174.
17 [Since this was written, Tofffek's Altische Genealogie lias appeared, in which
the same view of the Dekeleians is advanced (p. 2S9) and supported by the citation
of herod., ix. 73: ^wtpdyrjs . . . AetfeAeifjfley, Ae/ceAeW 5e twv tcore epyacra^vwv
tpyov xp7?<r(jitoz>, K. t. A.—A. C. M.]