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[German version] (διωβελία; diōbelía). A payment of two   oboloí in Athens. According to the author of the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia (28,3), the diobelia was introduced by Cleophon whereupon a certain Callicrates promised to increase the sum but in fact abolished the diobelia. The diobelia is attested from 410 to 406/5 BC from inscriptions (in 406 temporarily reduced to an obolos) and in 405/4 was probably replaced by a distribution of grain. The basis for the payment is uncertain but it was probably granted during the Decelean War …

[German version] (ἐπιγαμία; epigamía). In the Greek world, epigamia refers to the right of entering into a legal marriage with a person from a different state. It also granted legitimacy and citizenship to the children of such a marriage. It was possible to be granted this right in cases when such a marriage would not have been recognized according to the prevailing laws of the respective states. Examples can be found in international treaties (for instance between Aetolia and Acarnania: SIG3 421; Messenia and Phigalia: SIG3 472). Epigamia could also be one of the special rights g…

(τοξόται/ toxótai, 'archers'). [German version] [1] Archers in general The Bow and arrow were very ancient weapons. Widespread in Greece since Mycenaean times, they were not the normal weapons of an aristocratic hero, and were held in lower esteem than the sword or the spear. Homer mentions archers and their weapons several times (for instance, Hom. Il. 4,93-126; 11,385-395; Philoctetes on Lemnos: Soph. Phil. 287-292; 707-711; 1146-1162). Near the end of the Archaic Period, Polycrates [1] of Samos relied…

[German version] (ἄξωνες; áxōnes; axes). In Athens the laws of  Dracon and  Solon were recorded on numbered axones. The term   kýrbeis , the origin of which is unknown, was another name for axones (ML 86; Aristot. Ath. Pol. 7,1; Plut. Solon 25). Probably they were three- or four-sided wooden pillars that were mounted vertically on axes in such a way that a person looking at them could turn them. In the 4th cent. BC it was probably still possible to read and study them, at the time of Plutarch small fragments were still in existence. Rhodes, Peter J. (Durham) Bibliography E. Ruschenbusch, όλωνο…

[German version] (ἰσοπολιτεία; isopoliteía). The term isopoliteia (equal citizenship), was used from the 3rd cent. BC, (instead of   politeia ) to denote the granting of citizenship by a Greek state to individual persons (e.g. IG V 2,11 = Syll.3 501) or indeed chiefly to whole communities (e.g. IG V 2, 419 = Syll.3 472). Modern research distinguishes between isopoliteia, the exchange of rights between states, which maintained their independence, and   sympoliteía , the merging of two or more states into a single state. The ancient linguistic usage …

[German version] (ῥαβδοφόροι/ rhabdophóroi, 'staff-bearers', also referred to as ῥαβδοῦχοι/ rhabdoûchoi, 'staff-holders'). A term applied to various officials who carried a staff of office, in particular to officials at contests and other festivals, whether judges (Plat. Prot. 338a 8) or assistants of the judges who enforced discipline (for Athens: Aristoph. Pax 734; for Olympia: Thuc. 5,50,4). In Roman contexts the Greek words rhabdophóroi and rhabdoûchoi are used of the lictores ( lictor ) who carried the fasces before holders of imperium (Pol. 5, 26,10). Rhodes, Peter J. (Du…

[German version] (ἡγεμονία, ‘leading position’). An important basic feature of international relations in Greece was the formation of alliances in which one of the members took up a prominent position as hēgemṓn (‘leader’). The earliest example was a group of alliance agreements through which Sparta secured its position in the 6th cent. BC in the Peloponnese and which solidified into the  Peloponnesian League: therefore, Cleomenes I was therefore able ‘to collect an army from the entire Peloponnese’ in 506 (Hdt. 5,74,1), and …

[German version] (ἀμφικτυονία; amphiktyonía). Probably arose from amphi-ktiones = ‘living in the environs’ (Androt. FGrH 324 F 58), although the Greek usually derived it from an eponymous hero Amphictyon (e.g. Hdt. 7,200; Theopomp. FGrH 115 F 63). Amphictyony designates a group of people who congregate around a sanctuary and tend its cult. As a rule, cult members lived near the sanctuary; the most significant ones, namely the amphictyony of Anthela and that of  Delphi, included members from many parts of Greece. They made good on their promise to become the amphictyony par excellence b…

(Ἀριστοτέλης; Aristotélēs). [German version] [1] Athenian oligarch Athenian oligarch who, in 404 BC, was banned from Athens and sent to Sparta by  Lysander (Xen. Hell. 2,2,118). Later, he was one of the 30 Tyrants in Athens (Xen. Hell. 2,3,2;  Triakonta), who sent him to Sparta with the request for a Spartan occupational force (Xen. Hell. 2,3,13). Traill, PAA, 174765. Meier, Mischa (Bielefeld) [German version] [2] Rhodian envoy, 166/5 BC Rhodian envoy to Rome who, in 166/5 BC, failed in his request for a renewal of the amicitia by the Senate (Pol. 30,23,2-4) [1. 167,2; 2. 208]. Günther, …

(οἱ τριακόσιοι/ hoi triakósioi, 'the Three Hundred'). Collective name in ancient Athens for a group of 300 men, with various functions: [German version] [1] Group of the wealthiest Athenian citizens, 4th cent. BC A group of the 300 wealthiest citizens in 4th cent. BC Athens, made up of the three richest members of each of the 100 tax groups (Symmoria), created in order to raise the eisphora , a property tax. They were liable for the liturgy (I) of the proeisphora , by which they had to advance the whole sum due from their tax group, and then recover fo…

[German version] (ὁδοποιοί; hodopoioí). The hodopoioi (‘road masters’) in Athens in the 4th cent. BC were an authority made up of 5 persons (perhaps appointed from phyles grouped as pairs) who were in charge of public slaves to keep the roads in a good condition ([Aristot.] Ath. Pol. 54,1). The assertion of Aeschines (Ctes. 25) that in the time of  Eubulus [1] the administrators of the theorika were hodopoioí can only mean that these officials supervised the hodopoioi or supplied them with the means but not that the authority had been abolished [2. 237f.]. Rhodes, Peter J. (Durham) Bibliog…

[German version] (νεωροί/ neōroí). Public officials in Greek states who bore responsibility for shipyards ( neṓria). Athenian inscriptions from the 5th cent. BC mention neōroí (IG I3 154; IG I3 127 = ML 94) and hoi epimeloménoi tōi neōríōi (‘those who care for the shipyard’; IG I3 153); epimelētaí are found at the end of the 5th cent. (IG I3 236); in the 4th cent. the title epimelētaí tōn neōríōn was frequently used. These epimelētaí of the 4th cent. were responsible for the ships and the entire contents of the shipyards. They distributed materials to the trierarchs (…

[German version] (ἐπιγραφεῖς; epigrapheîs). In the 390s BC in Athens, the epigrapheis kept registers of people whom they obliged to pay a special wealth tax, the eisphora (Isoc. Or. 17, 41; Lys. fr. 92 Sauppe).  Eisphora Rhodes, Peter J. (Durham) Bibliography R. Thomsen, Eisphora, 1964, 187-189.

[German version] (ἐπιστάται; epistátai, ‘chairmen’, ‘superiors’). Title for various officials of the Greek world; see also epimelētaí, epískopoi. 1. Epistatai are most frequently found within the administration of both sacred treasures and public works. In Athens, committees of epistatai existed to oversee several of the public building projects of the Periclean era (e.g. ML 59 regarding the Parthenon), to supervise the treasure of the goddesses of Eleusis (IG I3 32; II2 1672), as well as other sacred funds. Epistatai of this nature were also found in other locations, suc…

[German version] (σύνταξις/ sýntaxis, pl. syntáxeis; from táttein 'to arrange' and syn- 'together'). Term devised by Callistratus [I 2] in the 4th cent. BC for financial contributions to the (Second) Athenian League (Theopomp. FGrH 115 f 98) purposely concealing the compulsion behind it, after the Athenians had promised not to collect phoros ('tribute') as they had done in the hated Delian League of the 5th. cent. BC (e.g. IG II2 43 = Tod 123,23): the syntaxeis were at any rate to some extent under the control of the synhedrion of the allies (e.g. IG II2 123 = Tod 156). The term was used by…

[German version] (κάτοικος; kátoikos). Katoikos (pl.: kátoikoi) denotes usually the ‘inhabitant(s)’ (e.g. [Aristot.] Oec. 2, 1352a 33; Welles 47). In the Hellenistic period katoikos developed into a technical term for citizens who were earlier called klerouchoi , to whom plots of land were allocated in settlements so that they then became eligible for military service. The expression is first found in the phrase kátoikoi híppeis in Egypt in the year 257 BC. (PMich. 1, 9, 6-7). Katoikíai (settlements of katoikoi) are particularly attested in Egypt (e.g. PTeb(t). 30,7; Corpu…

[German version] (ἀποστολεῖς; apostoleîs). Athenian government office responsible for sending out naval expeditions and apparently formed ad hoc when special occasions arose. In 357/6 BC they were responsible together with the   epimeletai of the docks for bringing disputes among the trierarchs to court (De. Or. 47,26). In 325/4 10 apostoleis were elected, whose activities were supposed to be under the council's supervision (IG II/III2 II 1, 1629 = Tod, 200, 251-58). Rhodes, Peter J. (Durham) Bibliography P. J. Rhodes, The Athenian Boule, 1972, 119-120.

[German version] (τριττύες/ trittýes, sing. τριττύς/ trittýs, 'a third'). At Athens, name for the subdivisions both of the four ancient phylaí (Phyle [1]) and of the ten new phylaí of Cleisthenes [2]. Little is known of the twelve old trittyes. An ancient identification with the phatríai (Phratria; [Aristot.] Ath. pol. Fr. 3 Kenyon = Fr. 2 Chambers) seems to be incorrect. The trittýes may have comprised four naukraríai (Naukraria, naukraros) each, but this is not attested. One of the trittýes was called Leukotaínioi ('white-ribboned'). In the territorial organization of Attic…

[German version] (ἀστυνόμοι, ‘municipal administration’). This office is mostly found in Ionian communities. In his survey of officials required by a town, Aristotle mentioned the astynomoi immediately with market supervisors, the agoranómoi (Pol. 6,1321b 18-27), as responsible for the proper state of public and private buildings, the repair and maintenance of buildings and roads and for boundary disputes. There could also be special officials for the walls, wells and ports. In Athens 10 astynomoi, who were annually determined by lot, officiated in the 4th cent. B…

[German version] (οἱ τριάκοντα/ hoi triákonta, 'the Thirty'). In Athens, the oligarchic body of thirty men who ruled in 404/3 BC after the Peloponnesian War (Oligarchia). They were appointed at the urging of the Spartan Lysander [1], with a double commission, to make proposals for constitutional reform, and to rule the state until the reform was accomplished. They began a process of legal revision, aiming to purge the excesses of the demokratia ([Aristot.] Ath. pol. 35,2-3), but before long they obtained the support of a garrison from Sparta and…