Papers of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (5.1886-1890)

314

APPENDIX.

But if it be granted that they do exist on the stone, must the
reading of the Corpus be accepted ? It is a generally received dictum
in epigraphy as in palaeography, that a text must be construed within
the fairest limits of common sense and of the environment of the
writer. But this reading does not accommodate itself in the least to
such a fair interpretation of our knowledge of Ikaria. Indeed, it is
totally irreconcilable with it; while I KAPIO is in complete accord with
the traditions of the place, with everything that was discovered there,
and above all with that unique and singularly pertinent expression
of the Dionysiac inscription above, No. 1 (p. 71), "the Ikarians and
the deme of the Ikarians." Here we are told as- plainly as words
can speak, that the figure which fills the Ikarian horizon, and, as I
believe, was the object of the gentile worship,, was Ikarios, and not a
Karian Zeus, of whose worship in Attica we have no literary evidence
except the passage of Herodotus in relation to the family of Isagoras.
Because Isagoras of the Plain worshipped a Karian Zeus would be
good reason for supposing that the Diakrians of the Ikarian district
did not. Indeed, their affinities are with the Ionian Tetrapolis of
Marathon, from which they obtained their Apollo Pythios. Hence
we may justly hold that even if the division-mark exists on the stone
where it is placed by Dr. Lolling's copy, it ought to be regarded as an
error of the stone-cutter, and either expelled entirely, or treated as a
case of misplacement, and read, [HH '. I KAPIO.

A. C. MERRIAM.