[Lemma] Athens, inside a praefurnium. Marble block, now lost, with an incised inscription. It is here reproduced the drawing in CIG I 216. The alphabet is ‘dark blue’. Remarkable letters: eta and omega, for the long vowels /ē/ and /ō/; omikron for the short vowel /o/ and the closed long vowel /ō/ (Ἐρυξιμάχō); grid shaped sign for xi; cross shaped sign for khi.
[Typology]
[Period] 450–400 BC (last quarter; surely before 403/2 BC, according to Amandry, see the comment).
[Text]
[Ἐ]ρ̣υ̣ξίας Ἐρυξιμάχō
Κυδαθηναιεὺς ἐχορήγε
Πανδιονίδι Ἐρεχθηίδι παίδων.
[Critical apparatus]
[Translation]
[E]ryxias son of Eryximachos
of the Kydathenaion deme was the choregus
for the Pandionis and Erechtheis tribes, in the boys’ chorus.
[Comment]
The initial lacuna, which concerns the name of the choregos, can be easily filled. Eryxias, this is the solution, is an anthroponym attested on two other occasions in Athens (see LGPN II, s.v.). Also the name of the choregos‘s father, Eryximachos, is poorly attested (see LGPN II, s.v.).
The fact that Eryxias is not in the list of the victorious choregoi drawn up by the Pandionis tribe (IG II 553), which fortunately has survived to us (see the entry in the databse) and which records victories in the religious contests starting from the archonship of Eukleides, clearly suggests, as noted by Amandry (1977, 168, 182), that the dedication dates to a period before that archon, that is to say before 403/2 BC.
According to an intriguing but currently unprovable suggestion by Davies (1971, 461-464), the Eryximachos known as a relative by marriage of Kabrias and as the husband of Polyaratos‘s (who was a member of one of the most prominent families in Athens between 420 and 320 BC) second daughter could be a son of the choregos Eryxias, sharing the same name as his grandfather.
We are dealing with the only surviving dedication that mentions the type of chorus, specifically that of boys.
[Documentation]
[Reference edition]
IG II2 3063
[Essential bibliography]
CIG I 216; IG II 1255; IG I3 966, E. REISCH, De musicis Graecorum certaminibus. Diss. Wien 1885; D.M. LEWIS, ‘Notes on Attic Inscriptions (II): XXIII. Who Was Lysistrata?’, BSA 50, 1955, 1-36; J.K. DAVIES, Athenian Propertied Families. 600-300 BC, Oxford 1971; P. AMANDRY, ‘Trépieds d’Athènes: II. Thargélies’, BCH 101.1, 1977, 165-202; G. IERANÒ, Il ditirambo di Dioniso. Le testimonianze antiche (Liricorum graecorum quae extant, 12), Pisa-Roma 1997.
[Keywords]
Athens, Thargelia, choregic dedications, Eryxias, Eryximachos, Kydathenaion, Pandionis tribe, Erechtheis tribe.
[Giovanni Boffa]