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Thirteen fragments, ten found on Akropolis and South Slope. Twelve fragments now EM 6595 and set in relative positions in plaster reconstruction (photo, AJP 88 [1967] pl. 2): I (a + b, c), II (d, e + f + m), III (g + i + j + l, h). Position of fragment K (EM 2494) uncertain. Both edges preserved. Fragment I b preserves part of left edge of relief and inscription, otherwise broken all around. Relief separated from inscription by taenia and cyma reversa. Moulding and inscription extend 0.115 beyond edge of relief. Surface battered, corroded. White, medium-grained marble. Restored minimum dimensions of stele without relief: h. 1.40, w. 0.592, th. 0.163. Relief: p.h. 0.13, p.w. 0.195, th. 0.115, relief h. very low, h. of letters 0.009. The stele records two decrees containing a number of provisions for the collection and enforcement of the tribute, with emphasis upon the personal responsibility of the local tribute collectors. It is assumed that these decrees are the result of provisions made in the second Methone decree (no. 2, lines 51-56), which is dated to the first prytany of 426/25. The stele was to have been set up on the Akropolis while Kekropis was in prytany (lines 24-25); Kekropis held the second prytany in 426/25 (IG I3 369, line 6). All that remains of the relief is a small fragment of the lower left corner depicting containers, which must represent the collected tribute. Standing at the left is a hydria and above and behind it perhaps another. Pots were convenient storage containers for coins; the accounts of the treasury at Delos list stamnoi containing money (F. Durrbach, Inscriptions de Délos, comptes des Hiéropes [1929] no. 399 and 63), and Raubitschek (TAPA 72 [1941] 356-62) has argued that the tribute collected at the time of the City Dionysia was displayed, one talent per hydria, in the theatre (see also Isok. 8.82). Next to the pots are a number of bulging sacks tied at the top, which resemble those on the nearly contemporary frieze of the Ilissos Temple (NM 1780: C. Picon, AJA 82 [1978] 51, fig. 1) and must also represent tribute. There may originally have been at least one figure, perhaps Athena, in the missing part of the relief. K. S. Pittakys, L'ancienne Athènes (1835) 315-16; ArchEph (1838) 134 no. 85, fig. 85 (drwg.); ArchEph (1939) 180 no. 163; Rangabé I, 347 nos. 263, 264; 351-52 no. 269; 361 no. 283; Pittakys, ArchEph (1855) 1319 no. 2652; ArchEph (1856) 1432 no. 2911; ArchEph (1860) 1961 no. 3809, 1964 no. 3817; IG I 38; IG I Suppl. I, 25 no. 116m; H. Lolling, ArchDelt (1889) 52 no. 4; IG I Suppl. III, 141 no. 39a; W. Bannier, AM 27 (1902) 301-2; A. Wilhelm, AnzWien (1909) 53-56, pl. opp. 54; O. Walter, ÖJhBeibl 14 (1911) 59; IG I2 65; Binneboeßel, 3 no. 4, 27-28; A. Hess, Klio 28 (1935) 27, pl. I; B. D. Meritt, Documents on Athenian Tribute (1937) 3-42, figs. 1-7; ATL I, 123-26, 166-67 D8, 213, figs. 178-84; A. E. Raubitschek, AJP 61 (1940) 475-77; TAPA 72 (1941) 356-62; P. Jacobsthal, AJA 47 (1943) 308; ATL II, 52-58; SEG 10.72; ATL III, 133; SEG 13.10; N. Platon, ArchDelt 19 B.I (1964) 22, pl. II; B. Meritt, AJP 88 (1967) 29-32, pls. I, 2 SEG 23.18; Meiggs and Lewis, 184-88 no. 68; SEG 25.29; Meyer, 265 A 3.2.
Found in Theatre of Dionysos. Upper part of relief and bottom of inscription broken, edges badly chipped. Surface very worn, corroded, with several vertical cracks. Grey-white, medium-grained marble. p.h. of stele 1.00, p.w. of stele 0.53 (top), 0.55 (bottom), th. 0.11, p.h. of relief 0.21, relief h. 0.015, h. of letters 0.015 (lines 1-2), 0.01 (lines 3 ff.). The stele recorded at least four decrees concerning Methone, an Eretrian colony on the Thermaic gulf, probably a tributary ally of the Athenian empire by this time, and favoured by Athens for its strategic position in an area of Macedonian influence. Only the first two decrees, setting forth financial and trading privileges and warning Perdikkas of Macedon of Athenian support for Methone, are well-preserved. The decrees were not passed in the same year, and the date of the first (between 430 and 426) in particular is problematic, but the stele itself was carved in the eighth prytany of 424/23, when Phainippos was secretary of Akamantis (Thuc. 4.118.11). He is named at the top of the inscription (line 2), in addition to the secretaries of the first three decrees, and so must have been the secretary of the last decree, which is lost (ATL III, 133). The relief depicts Athena seated on a rock at the far right, facing another figure in the centre of the relief. She extends her right hand toward the somewhat smaller figure and rests her left elbow on part of the rock (or once-painted shield?) behind her. She wears a sleeved chiton, a mantle wrapped around her lower body, and an aegis, its small gorgoneion barely visible. Her head is almost entirely broken away. The seated Athena is a popular type in late fifth- and early fourth-century document reliefs (see nos. 11, 71, 72, 87, 90, 91). The other figure, whose upper half is almost completely destroyed, wears a short, belted chiton and extends her right hand toward Athena; she is accompanied on the left by a dog, and there are further unidentifiable traces of relief on the far left. The dress of the figure, the dog, and the probability of the figure's dexiosis with Athena make Artemis, a major Eretrian deity, a likely symbol of her colony; cf. NM 1783 B, a late fifth-century votive relief dedicated to Hermes and the Nymphs with a similar figure of Artemis wearing a short chiton (Svoronos, pl. 28; Mitropoulou, Corpus I, fig. 186). The disparity in the scale of the two figures, which has sometimes been cited as an objection to this identification, is no more than the conventional difference in size between standing and seated figures grouped together. The relief is very worn, but Athena's position and the prominent modelling lines across her legs bring to mind the drapery of the seated Athena of the east frieze of the Hephaisteion (Hesperia 31 [1962], pl. 77b, fig. 6; Ridgway, fig. 50). Pittakys, ArchEph (1838) 96-98 no. 45, fig. 45 (drwg.) opp. p. 114; Rangabé I, 313-28 no. 250, pl. 7 (drwg.); Müller and Schöll, 53-58 no. 31, 76, 82; Schöne, 24-25 no. 50, pl. 8 (drwg.); A. Dumont, Monuments Grecs 1 (1873) 37-38; IG I 40; Dumont, BCH 2 (1878) 563, 566; P. Gardner, JHS 9 (1888) 54-55; Le Bas, pl. 34 (drwg.); Farnell I, 351; Kern, xi no. 15, pl. 15; Matz, 55; SIG3 75; Walter, Beschreibung, 20; IG 12 57, Add. p. 302; Kjellberg, 139; W. R. Halliday, The Greek Questions of Plutarch (1928) 64-65; Diepolder, 18; Binneboeßel, 3 no. 3, 20, 25-29, 36, 52; H. Speier, RM 47 (1932) 90; Svoronos, 664 no. 428, pl. 205.1; Walter, ÖJh 30 (1937) 53-54; ATL I, 120, 162-63, 209, 212 D3-6; Picard II.2, 838; Tod I, 129-32 no. 61; ATL II, 48-49, pl. 1; ATL III, 133-37; SEG 10.66; Lippold, 198 n. 6; SEG 21.40; Meiggs and Lewis, 176-80 no. 65; SEG 25.27; Mitropoulou, Corpus I, 172 no. 5, fig. 77; SEG 26.17; SEG 31.2; SEG 32.8; Meyer, 265 A , pl. 4.1; SEG 38.3.3.
Found in fortification wall near Greater Propylaia in Eleusis in 1887. Back and top rough-picked, sides smooth, bottom broken. Badly chipped taenia and cyma reversa above. Relief bordered below by taenia with first line of inscription and cyma reversa, together 0.09 wide. Surface uniformly weathered, with corrosion and red-brown iron stains. White, medium-grained marble. p.h. of stele 0.90, w. 0.53 (relief and inscription), 0.57 (top moulding), th. 0.10 (relief), 0.12 (inscription), relief h. 0.02, h. of letters 0.018. The decree, dated to the first prytany of 422/21 by its secretary Prepis (lines 1-4), provides for the construction of a stone footbridge over one of the Rheitoi, the pair of lakes that stood at the border between Athens and Eleusis, to be constructed from blocks taken from the demolished Archaic Telesterion at Eleusis. The bridge formed part of the Sacred Way taken by Athenians going to Eleusis for initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries. The relief depicts Demeter, Kore, a young male probably to be identified as Triptolemos, and Athena, all standing on a ground line slightly raised above the moulding. Athena stands on the right. She wears a belted peplos, shoulder mantle, aegis with gorgoneion, and an Attic helmet. Her left arm is raised high to hold her spear, which was originally shown in paint. She looks toward the smaller male figure, who wears a himation. His left hand is raised with the fingers turned inward as though holding a slender object. His right hand crosses Athena's right hand but probably does not grasp it; the angle of their arms seems too low, the gesture too inconsequential for dexiosis. In age and gesture the youth resembles the male figure in the Great Eleusinian Relief (NM 126: L. Schneider, AntP 12 (1973) 103-22, pls. 31-41) and like him is often identified as Triptolemos holding once-painted stalks of grain. Triptolemos often appears with Demeter and Kore in votive reliefs of this period and is therefore a likely representative of their cult. Although he is almost always shown in his chariot (cf. no. 161), the stalks of grain would have been sufficient to identify him. Further left stand Demeter and Kore, to whom the Rheitoi were said to be sacred (Paus. 1.38.1; Hesych. s.v. Rheitoi). Kore carries one torch cradled in her left arm and a second torch held upside down in her extended right hand. She wears a peplos and a himation. Demeter wears a belted peplos with unbelted overfall and a shoulder mantle, one end of which she holds up in her left hand. Figures very similar to these appear in contemporary votive reliefs (cf. the figures identified by inscription on a relief in the Catania Mus. Communale: Neumann, Weihreliefs pl. 32a) and may have been inspired by the figures of Demeter and Kore on the east frieze of the Nike Temple (Blümel, pl. 7, figs. 20, 21); cf. also no. 165. The style of the document relief is also closely comparable to that of the frieze; figures in both relief and frieze have the same clear distinction between the weight leg obscured by heavy folds and the free leg revealed by clinging cloth. D. Philios, AM 19 (1894) 163-73, pl. 7; M. Ruhland, Eleusinischen Göttinnen (1901) 19-27, 40, pl. 2.1 (det.); Farnell III, 237, pl. 14; Matz, 56; SIG3 86; IG I2 81 and Add. p. 302; Kjellberg, 87, 89, 93, 120, 132-33, 137, 140, 144, pl. 12 no. 39; A. Hekler, JdI 42 (1927) 70-73, Beil. 2 to p. 71; Diepolder, 21; Binneboeßel, 4 no. 5, 20, 23, 28-31, 33-34, 37-38, 50; F. Poulsen, ActaA 3 (1932) 242-46, fig. 10; H. Speier, RM 47 (1932) 24-25, 90, pls. 8.1, 8.2 (dets.), 9.1; V. Müller, AJA 39 (1935) 250; K. Kourouniotes, Eleusis, Guide to the Excavations and Museum (1936) 85-86, frontispiece; Curtius, Antike Kunst, 237, 265, 315, 324, 428, fig. 410; Süsserott, 19 n. 27, 27 n. 5, 29, 32 n. 20, 33-34, 37 n. 33, 38 n. 39, 39, 45 n. 63, 54, 94-95, 130, 197 n. 4, 216; Picard II.2, 838; SEG 10.94; Lippold, 198 n. 6, pl. 73.3; Dohrn, 17, 21, 24, 26-29, 41; Hausmann, 41-42, pl. 20; G. Mylonas, Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries (1961) 84 n. 17, 193-94, fig. 69; F. Eckstein, AntP 4 (1965) 31, figs. 3-6 (casts); E. Berger, AntK 10 (1967) 85, pl. 24.2 (det.); B. D. Meritt and M. F. McGregor, Phoenix 21 (1967) 85-91; Schefold, Classical Greece, 111, 151, 158-59, 248 no. 30, app. pl. 30; Guarducci, 592-93, fig. 185; G. M. A. Richter, Sculptors and Sculpture of the Greeks4 (1970) 69, 255; Schmaltz, 22 n. 26, 23, 43; Hiller, 21-23, 27, 49, 54, 56, 62, fig. 23 (det.); Rauscher, 149-50; A. Peschlow-Bindokat, JdI 87 (1972) 112-13, 130-34, 150, fig. 34; Mitropoulou, Corpus I, 172-73 no. 9, fig. 83; K. Kanta, Eleusis: Myth, Mysteries, History, Museum (1979) 47 no. 5093, fig. 10; Neumann, Weihreliefs, 57; T. L. Shear, Jr., Studies in Athenian Architecture, Sculpture and Topography presented to Homer A. Thompson, Hesperia, Suppl. 20 (1982) 130-31, pl. 18b; LIMC II, 1013 no. 606, pl. 763, s.v. Athena (P. Demargne); J. Boardman, Greek Sculpture: the Classical Period (1985) 186-87, fig. 178; L.J. Roccos, AJA 90 (1986) 208; LIMC III, 378-79 no. 42, s.v. Demos (O. Alexandri-Tzachou); LIMC IV, 881 no. 446, s.v. Demeter (L. Beschi); Meyer, 266 A 5; SEG 36.13 and 137.4.
Complete stele found in winter of 1884-85 in house construction some distance south-east of Akropolis on left bank of railway to Phaleron. All edges, tenon at bottom preserved. Mouldings above and below relief, most of sculpted surface rough-picked. White, medium-grained marble. h. 1.49, h. of relief 0.41, w. of relief 0.59 (top), 0.605 (bottom), w. of inscription 0.59 (top), 0.64 (bottom), th. 0.195 (top), 0.16 (bottom), h. of letters 0.01. The decree, passed in the ninth prytany of the archonship of Antiphon (lines 2-3), concerns provisions for enclosing and leasing various parts of the sanctuary of Kodros, Neleus, and Basile in Athens. The stele was to have been set up at public expense in the Neleion, by the ikria (lines 27-28). (For other probable references to this shrine, see Pl. Charmides 1 53a and Agora I 4138: B.D. Meritt, Hesperia 7 (1938) 123-26 no. 25.) Although the entire stele is preserved, the relief has been systematically rough-picked, probably for reuse of the stone. Only two small areas of very low relief survive undamaged, but the general outline of the original composition is still to some extent visible. At the left a seated figure faces right, its left arm raised high as though holding a spear or sceptre. Both that hand and what appears to have been the crest of the figure's helmet overlapped the moulding above the relief. The figure is usually described as bearded, but this may be only the impression created by damage to the area around the head. At the right, facing the figure on the left, is a figure on a rearing horse whose head and forelegs are clearly visible in outline. The end of the horse's tail and part of the rider's chlamys are still preserved in very low relief at the far right. The chlamys flies out behind the rider in several folds ending in omega-shaped loops at the hem, a motif that occurs in some figures of the Nike Temple frieze (Blümel, pls. V, VI) and on the gently fluttering veil of Hera on no. 5. Because so little is known about the cult and the relationship between Kodros, Neleus, and Basile, and because both figures are so badly damaged, any reconstruction of the relief must be conjectural. It has sometimes been assumed that the sanctuary was chiefly associated with Neleus because the inscription refers variously to the ‘the Neleion’ (lines 27-28), ‘payments to Neleus’ (lines 21-22), and the ‘temenos of Neleus and Basile’ (lines 12, 29, 32), but it is clear from the text as a whole that these are references only to various parts of the sanctuary and the provisions for them; Kodros is always mentioned first in references to the sanctuary as a whole (lines 4, 14, 30-31). Neleus is a shadowy figure and difficult to characterize. Most representations of him come from Italy, where he often appears with his mother Tyro and his twin Pelias in the recognition scene from Sophokles' Tyro (L. Séchan, Études sur la tragédie grecque dans ses rapports avec la céramique [1926] 224 n. 9), but he is not depicted as a rider, and these scenes can have nothing to do with the relief in question. It is unclear whether in Athens he was equated with the Pylian Neleus, father of Nestor and ancestor of Kodros, or with the Neleus who was a son of Kodros and founder of Ionian cities (Hdt. 10.97). H. A. Shapiro (Ancient Greek Art and Iconography) has suggested the possible political significance of the Neleids to their descendants the Peisistratids in the Archaic period, but the only Attic representation of Neleus is a late fifth-century vase fragment of the recognition scene (Hesperia 24 [1955] 78-79 and pl. 34a). Basile, sometimes confused with Basileia, is also obscure; the only fifth-century representation of her is a labelled figure on a late fifth-century rf pyxis that has not yet been fully published (O. Alexandri, ArchDelt 31 B.1 [1976] 30, pl. 35a). She is certainly also the female figure in the relief of a deme decree of Eitea of 332/31 (no. 43), which was to have been set up in a sanctuary of Basile, and she is listed in the sacrificial calendar of Erkhia of ca. 375-50 (G. Daux, BCH 87 [1963] 621). There is nothing in these sources to associate her with either of the figures in the document relief. (The inscription of the so-called Echelos-Basile relief [NM 1783] clearly reads ‘Iasile’: O. Walter, ArchEph [1937] A 113; B. D. Meritt, Hesperia 11 [1942] 284-85. For the distinction between Basile and Basileia, see Shapiro, ZPE.) Kodros, in contrast, seems to have been a more popular figure in fifth-century Athens. He appears with the Eponymous and Marathonian heroes in Phidias' Marathon monument at Delphi, probably dating from the 450s (Paus. 10.10.1; Kron, Phylenheroen, 215-17; E. B. Harrison, ‘Eponymous Heroes’, 81-83), and as a fully armed warrior on the name vase of the Codrus Painter of ca. 430 (Bologna, Mus. Civ. PU 273: ARV2 1268.1; Kron, Phylenheroen, pls. 15.1, 16.1 and 2). In the late fifth century it is possible that the importance of Kodros, the Athenian king who sacrificed himself to the Peloponnesians in order to save Athens (Lykourg. Leokr. 84- 87), had eclipsed that of Basile and Neleus and that, as the most politically significant of the three cult personages, he would have been the most likely subject for a type of relief that had largely political associations. If the rider in the relief is Kodros, the figure opposite him is as likely to be Athena as either Basile or Neleus. She is present in most fifth-century document reliefs, and the general outline of the figure on the left resembles that of the seated Athenas that were so common in document reliefs of the late fifth and early fourth centuries (cf. nos. 2, 11, 71, 72, 87, 90, 91). S. A. Koumanoudes, ArchEph (1884) 161-66, pl. 10 (drwg.); A. Frothingham, AJA 1 (1885) 228, 469; E. Curtius, SBBerl (1885) 437 = Gesammelte Abhandlungen I (1894) 459-64; J. R. Wheeler, AJA 3 (1887) 38-49; IG I Suppl. pp. 66-67 no. 53a, 165; IG I2 94, Add. p. 302; SIG3 93; Binneboeßel, 4 no. 8, 20, 23, 32, 43; B. D. Meritt, AJP 57 (1936) 180-82; O. Walter, ArchEph (1937) A 114 n. 1; M. Giffler, Hermes 75 (1940) 215-22; Meritt, CQ 40 (1946) 45-46; SEG 10.103; Dohrn, 17; R. E. Wycherley, BSA 55 (1960) 60-66; SEG 19.18; Sokolowiki, Lois sacrées des cités grecques (1969) 28-30 no. 14; D. Behrend, Attische Pachturkunden (1970) 55-61; A. Kaloyeropoulou, ArchDelt 25 A (1970) 209 n. 14; Travlos, 332-35, figs. 435, 436; SEG 25.36; Mitropoulou, Corpus I, 173 no. 10, fig. 84; H.A. Shapiro, in W. Moon (ed.), Ancient Greek Art and Iconography (1983) 87-96; SEG 33.14; SEG 35.7 and 110; Shapiro, ZPE 63 (1986) 134-36; LIMC III, 674-75, s.v. Echelos (A. Kossatz-Deissmann); SEG 36.15 and 38; N. D. Robertson, GRBS 29 (1988) 224-30; Meyer, 267 A 7, pl. 6.1; SEG 38.5.5.
Ten fragments, all but g (found in 1937 in Agora section R 19) from Akropolis: a + b (EM 6588a + d), c + d + g (EM 6588 + EM 6588e + Agora I 5026), e (EM 6588g), f (EM 6588b), relief (AM 0980 + 2431 + 2981). EM 6588a has small section of relief joining AM fragments. Left edge and top preserved, back rough-picked. Relief broken at upper left corner and right side. Upper moulding 0.07 wide, badly chipped. Relief separated from inscription by taenia bearing first line of inscription and ovolo, together 0.095 wide. Two modern dowel holes in bottom of relief: one trefoil-shaped, 0.04 diam., 0.14 from left edge; the other round, 0.035 diam., 0.04 from vertical break along second figure from left. Much of surface flaked, corroded. Relief background has conspicuous tool marks, with surface smoothed only around contours of figures. White, medium-grained marble. AM fragments: p.h. 0.62, p.w. 0.70, th. 0.155, relief h. 0.015, h. of letters 0.015 (line 1), 0.01 (lines 2 ff.). Argos, with its long history of anti-Spartan sentiment, was an important ally for Athens at this point in the Peloponnesian War. The decree is a renewal of an alliance of 420 between Athens and Argos, resumed after the brief period of oligarchic control in Argos that followed the Spartan victory in the Battle of Mantineia (Thuc. 5.40-47, 82). It is securely dated to the prytany of Aiantis in the archonship of Euphemos (lines 2-3), which Meritt has shown to have been the spring of 417/16 (Hesperia 14 [1945] 125). The relief depicts Hera, the pre-eminent deity of Argos, with her consort Zeus looking on (cf. nos. 24, 96, probably no. 41) as she clasps the right hand of another figure, undoubtedly Athena, on the right. Hera stands in the centre of the relief and faces right. Her fluttering veil is caught up daintily with the thumb and forefinger of her left hand in the gesture of unveiling characteristic of Hera as bride of Zeus. The animated drapery with the omega-shaped fold at the end occurs on the contemporary decree concerning the sanctuary of Kodros, Neleus, and Basile (no. 4) and on the Nike Temple frieze (Blümel, pls. V, VI). All that remains of Athena are the outline of her extended hand and the damaged profile of her face. Zeus is seated at the far left; the eagle at his side and the front leg of his throne are preserved on the small fragment of relief on EM 6588. He leans back in his seat, draping his right arm over the back of it, and raises his left arm high in front of him to hold his sceptre, which was shown in paint. Walbank has suggested that this inscription and the honorary decree for Proxenides of Knidos (no. 68) were carved by the same mason, but the reliefs do not appear to be by the same hand. K. S. Pittakys, ArchEph (1840) 305 no. 364, fig. 364 (drwg.); Rangabé I, 334-36 no. 256, 352 no. 270, 360 no. 280; Pittakys, ArchEph (1853) 1038 no. 1951; ArchEph (1854) 1124-25 no. 2160; IG I 50; Sybel, 442 no. 7137; A. Wilhelm,The Getty Grant program provided support for entering this text.
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