DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52591#0118
io2 THE TREASURY OF THE SIPHNIANS
but traces show that this was not so originally. The level
of the road in Classical times was a metre higher, and in
Imperial times, when the present pavement was laid down
(cp. p. 53), the level was lowered, possibly because the
original gradient seemed too steep.1 We know of some-
thing similar in the Acropolis of Athens, by the steps at
the foot of the bastion of the temple of Nike.
Like the Sicyonian, the Siphnian Treasury is also a temple
in antis, and of similar dimensions: 8’90 by 6’28 metres.
The foundations are of limestone, the building itself of
island marble, probably the oldest marble building on the
Hellenic mainland.
Homolle, who at first rightly recognized it to be the
Treasury of the Siphnians, had doubts later, and called it
that of the Cnidians, under which name it has long been
known and illustrated.2 On the antae were found six
decrees in honour of the Cnidians, and in the chief inscrip-
tion on the steps of the Treasury, which was incomplete,
Homolle recognized epigraphic forms which in his opinion
suited Cnidus or Melos better than Siphnos. Accordingly
Homolle made an indiscreet alteration in the text of Pau-
sanias, where the Cnidian Treasury is named later after
those of Athens and Thebes. A return has rightly been
made to the old appellation,3 for the decrees in question
are only of the third century B.C., and so about 300 years
later than the Treasury. At that date such decrees of hos-
pitality were placed about very indiscriminately : on the
base of the Nike of the Messenians, for instance, are found
decrees in honour of the Boeotians, Macedonians, Ceans,
and Ambraciots.4 And also a decree in honour of a man
from Elis is found on the anta of our treasury along with
those in honour of Cnidus. In the third century B.c.
Siphnos had long sunk into poverty and insignificance,
and its decrees could not require much space. We do not
know enough of the island forms of letters in the sixth
1 Compare the complaint in Euripides’ Ion, 738 f.
2 Bull, de corr. hell., xx, 1896, 581 ff. A warning is given against the foolish
restoration of the Treasury and its surroundings by the architect Tournaire in Fouilles
de Delphes, i, plates x-xi.
3 Pomtow, Berl. phil. Woch., 1909, 187 f.
4 Idem, Fleckeisens Jahrbiicher, 43, 1896, 511.
but traces show that this was not so originally. The level
of the road in Classical times was a metre higher, and in
Imperial times, when the present pavement was laid down
(cp. p. 53), the level was lowered, possibly because the
original gradient seemed too steep.1 We know of some-
thing similar in the Acropolis of Athens, by the steps at
the foot of the bastion of the temple of Nike.
Like the Sicyonian, the Siphnian Treasury is also a temple
in antis, and of similar dimensions: 8’90 by 6’28 metres.
The foundations are of limestone, the building itself of
island marble, probably the oldest marble building on the
Hellenic mainland.
Homolle, who at first rightly recognized it to be the
Treasury of the Siphnians, had doubts later, and called it
that of the Cnidians, under which name it has long been
known and illustrated.2 On the antae were found six
decrees in honour of the Cnidians, and in the chief inscrip-
tion on the steps of the Treasury, which was incomplete,
Homolle recognized epigraphic forms which in his opinion
suited Cnidus or Melos better than Siphnos. Accordingly
Homolle made an indiscreet alteration in the text of Pau-
sanias, where the Cnidian Treasury is named later after
those of Athens and Thebes. A return has rightly been
made to the old appellation,3 for the decrees in question
are only of the third century B.C., and so about 300 years
later than the Treasury. At that date such decrees of hos-
pitality were placed about very indiscriminately : on the
base of the Nike of the Messenians, for instance, are found
decrees in honour of the Boeotians, Macedonians, Ceans,
and Ambraciots.4 And also a decree in honour of a man
from Elis is found on the anta of our treasury along with
those in honour of Cnidus. In the third century B.c.
Siphnos had long sunk into poverty and insignificance,
and its decrees could not require much space. We do not
know enough of the island forms of letters in the sixth
1 Compare the complaint in Euripides’ Ion, 738 f.
2 Bull, de corr. hell., xx, 1896, 581 ff. A warning is given against the foolish
restoration of the Treasury and its surroundings by the architect Tournaire in Fouilles
de Delphes, i, plates x-xi.
3 Pomtow, Berl. phil. Woch., 1909, 187 f.
4 Idem, Fleckeisens Jahrbiicher, 43, 1896, 511.