The diôbelia: on the political economy of an Athenian state fund, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 193 (2015) 87-102 (original) (raw)
Related papers
“Deme accounts and the meaning of hosios money in fifth-century Athens” Mnemosyne 63 (2010) 61-93
Comparing the accounts of the deme Ikarion (IG I 3 253) with those of Rhamnous (IG I 3 247 bis and 253; IRhamnous 181 and 182) and Plotheia (IG I 3 258), this article argues that the adjective hosios applied to a fund in Ikarion indicates that this money was dêmosios and to be used in a way pleasing to the gods. Th e longstanding view that hosios when applied to money means 'free for secular use' or 'secular' (e.g. LSJ s.v. ὅσιος) is shown to be unfounded, inviting a reassessment of the meanings of hosios. Th e use of public money for funding cults as attested in these deme accounts sheds new light on public fi nance in classical Athens.
A credible synthesis of the biographical and intellectual profile of the Uniate Cretan scribe John Plousiadenos is traced back to the middle of the twentieth century, worded by Manoussos Manoussakas. 1 Modern scholars tend to base their studies solely on Manoussakas' work and focus mostly on Plousiadenos' religious, apologetic and hymnographic essays. 2 Indeed, compared to his contemporary Cretan coreligionists, Plousiadenos left many remarkable treatises in favor of the Union of the Churches. 3 Among them, the Διάλεξις is considered one of the most interesting and lively works of his career. Its full title is Διάλεξις γενομένη μεταξὺ Εὐλαβοῦς τινος, καὶ Τελώνου, Ῥακενδύτου τε, καὶ ἑνὸς τῶν δώδεκα ἑνωτικῶν ἱερέων, παρόντων καὶ ἑτέρων τριῶν ἐκεῖσε, Ἀκροατοῦ δηλονότι, Μάρτυρος, καὶ Δικαιοκρίτου, περὶ τῆς διαφορᾶς τῆς οὔσης μέσον Γραικῶν καὶ Λατίνων, ἔτι τε καὶ περὶ τῆς ἱερᾶς καὶ ἁγίας συνόδου τῆς ἐν Φλωρεντίᾳ γενομένης. 4 The information in this interlocutory treatise has been used by Manoussakas and others 5 as reliable historical and autobiographical source material for the delineation of the religious state of affairs, and particularly the anti-unionist context, in Venetian Crete in the second half of the fifteenth century. However, as this * I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Prof. Dr. Antonio Rigo for his comments and suggestions. A book on John Plousiadenos' life and career, based on the author's PhD thesis, will be published shortly.
The Classical Review, 2012
For students of Athenian legal and social history the title of this book must have been a blow to the stomach. Ever since the nineteenth century, a certainty has reigned that the so-called phialai-inscriptions, the subject of M.'s monograph, refer to manumitted slaves. The seminal work of D.M. Lewis, one of the fi nest servants of Attic epigraphy, appeared to have elevated this certainty to axiomatic levels. This set of formulaic texts, we were trained to believe, gave us indisputable evidence of the strength of epigraphy as a corrective to the distorting picture that inevitably derives from our elite-biased literary sources. It refl ects a world of vine-dressers and donkey-drivers, of sesame-sellers and ex-prostitute woolworkers, slaves who had against all odds, or, on a different interpretation, with the collusion of their ex-masters (whose names are also recorded), acquired their longed-for freedom. Grateful and pious, each one of them, male or female, old or young, had to dedicate a silver bowl (phialê) weighing 100 drachmas, celebrating his/ her freedom and thanking the gods, while, conveniently, fi lling the coffers of the Athenian state. All of a sudden, an excellent scholar, albeit one whom most have hitherto tended to identify as a Roman historian, has audaciously suggested that the 'Attic Manumissions', another telling moniker of the inscriptions in question, have (almost) nothing to do with slaves.