Epigraphic geography: the tribute quota fragments assigned to 421/0-415/4 B.C

Hesperia, Fall, 2004 by Lisa Kallet

In the final stage of the argument the period 425-421 was ruled out for fr. 1 because of supposed conflicts between possible restorations of the amounts of quota in the fragment and the totals of tribute that appear in the 425 reassessment decree for cities in the Island district. Simply put, this argument fallaciously equates assessment with collection. It is by no means clear that the cities paid their new assessment in its entirety each year--especially, for example, at times when the allies perceived weakness on the part of Athens. Therefore, nothing prevents this piece from belonging to a quota list dating between 425 and 421. (40)

Thus, EM 12789, a fragment that by itself yields no usable information whatsoever, occupies its own, tentatively dated, year as List 35 because it was initially combined with two other fragments. Upon their removal, it remained as the lone occupant of 420/19?. It is doubtful that it would by itself have been placed in any year and not have been left floating. As mentioned above, even Meritt had reservations about the status of this fragment as List 35, after the removal of the other two fragments. (41) It is not impossible that this fragment could belong to the quota list for the year 420/19, but as it stands there is no justification for thinking that it does, nor that it necessarily should be placed in any year during the Peace of Nikias in preference to another period. If sound arguments can be adduced that demonstrate that fr. 1 contains part of an Island panel, then, for example, the fragment might belong to a list for a year between 425 and 421, or for a year following 413, if tribute collection was at some point resumed. (42)

The assignment of EM 12789 to 420/19? is perhaps the best testimony to the methodological pitfalls that can result from the movement of fragments, arguments from restoration, and historical assumptions. Accordingly, we cannot insist that we possess any part of a list for that year. Under the current ordering, two years should be seen as having no lists: 420/19 and 419/8, a year in which no fragments are currently situated. That no fragments have been assigned to that later year, while EM 12789 is placed in the earlier year, well reveals the arbitrariness of the chronological and dispositional issue in its final state.

List 37: 4 1 8/7 (IG [I.sup.3] 287)

List 37 contains five fragments, three of which--frr. 1 (Agora I 4809), 3 (EM 12798), and 5 (Agora I 7397)--are said to join from behind (Fig. 2). (43) Three fragments preserve parts of a prescript (fr. 1, a substantial middle portion; fr. 2 [EM 6784], several letters from the last two lines from the left portion of a prescript; and fr. 3, part of the bottom line from the right portion of a prescript). (44) Fr. 1 also contains the first four letters of the Hellespontine panel and parts of three rows of numerals below it; frr. 3-5 are positioned in col. II. (45) If indeed fr. 2 is part of the same prescript as fr. 1, we can have greater confidence in the line length than is the case for List 39, examined below. (46) While no archon name is preserved, it would plausibly have been seven or eight letters (so ATL); (47) yet this is not inevitable, since there are no preserved edges and even in the case of stoichedon inscriptions, line lengths can vary. To cite just one example, the right edge of the prescript preserved on fr. 1 of IG [I.sup.3] 285 reveals different line lengths.