Athenian Democracy on Paper by John Paul Aldrup-MacDonald Department of Classical Studies Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Joshua D. Sosin, Supervisor ___________________________ Jose Gonzalez ___________________________ William Johnson ___________________________ Kent Rigbsy ___________________________ Lene Rubinstein Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Classical Studies in the Graduate School of Duke University 2018 Copyright by John Paul Aldrup-MacDonald 2018 Abstract Thousands of public records survive from democratic Athens. Nearly all of them are inscribed on stone (or more rarely metal). A century and more of study has revealed that these inscriptions were the tip of the iceberg. Beyond them was an apparatus of public records, kept on perishable media, that were central to the administration of the city. Call it the paperwork of democracy. What remains to be reconstructed are the processes by which this paperwork was created and the significance of those processes for our understanding of democracy. This dissertation examines the paperwork of making decrees, the basic legislative document in Athens, using literature, court speeches, and inscribed decrees to reconstruct the process by which decrees were written and reused in city politics. It argues that paperwork was done in the central institution of democracy, the assembly; that the orators better known in their capacity as masters of speech were also masters of the rules and discourses of decree-making; that in foreign policy these orators and their audience, the masses, brought the same rigor to documentary texts that they brought to giving and hearing speeches. In sum, where earlier researchers have assumed that paperwork had nothing to do with democracy, this dissertation shows that Athenians were as clever with paperwork as they were with oratory. iv Dedication For Archer Robin, who arrived just in time. v Contents ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................. IV ABBREVIATIONS ..................................................................................................................... IX ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................................... X INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................... 1 SCOPE ........................................................................................................................................................... 7 SOURCES AND METHOD ............................................................................................................................ 9 CHAPTER DESCRIPTIONS ....................................................................................................................... 11 PROSPECTUS ............................................................................................................................................ 14 CHAPTER 1. TOWARD A PAPYROLOGY OF ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY ................... 15 1.1 BEYOND THE EPIGRAPHIC HABIT ................................................................................................. 15 1.2. TABLET AND BOOKROLL IN THE CULTURE OF ATHENS .......................................................... 23 1.2.1: Tablet and Bookroll in Athenian Recordkeeping ..................................................... 30 1.2.2 Keeping Track: Tablets and Bookrolls of Athenian Legislation ......................... 33 1.2.3: Keeping Count: Tablets and Bookrolls in the Erechtheion Inventories .......... 41 1.2.4: Tablets and Bookrolls in Athenian Archives .............................................................. 49 1.3 TABLET AND BOOKROLL IN THE COUNCIL AND ASSEMBLY: A COMIC PERSPECTIVE ......... 57 1.3.1 The Decree of Teleas .............................................................................................................. 58 1.3.2: The Rhetor as Decree-Seller .............................................................................................. 60 1.3.3: Book-Rolls in Athenian Legislation ................................................................................ 63 1.4 CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................................................... 66 vi CHAPTER 2. DRAFTING DECREES IN DEMOCRATIC ATHENS .................................. 69 2.1: PRIOR CONSIDERATION BY THE COUNCIL ................................................................................. 74 2.2: AS A RULE DECREES WERE PROPOSED IN WRITING .............................................................. 86 2.3: THE INVOLVEMENT OF THE SECRETARY WAS MINIMAL ...................................................... 107 2.4 THE DECREE FROM ASSEMBLY TO ARCHIVE ............................................................................ 116 2.4 AMENDMENTS IN ATHENIAN DECREES ..................................................................................... 123 2.5 THE RHETOR AND HIS CRAFT ..................................................................................................... 142 2.6 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................... 146 CHAPTER 3. DOCUMENTING INTERSTATE LAW AT ATHENS .............................. 149 3.1 THE SOURCES AND NATURE OF INTERSTATE LAW IN GREECE ............................................. 149 3.2 DIPLOMACY BY DOCUMENT IN CLASSICAL ATHENS ................................................................ 160 3.2.1 Diplomacy by Decree ........................................................................................................... 166 3.2.2 Documents in the Speeches of Athenian Envoys ...................................................... 179 3.2.3 The First Embassy to Philip .............................................................................................. 184 3.2.4 The Second Embassy ............................................................................................................ 197 3.2.5 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 202 3.3 DIPLOMACY BY DOCUMENTS IN THE COUNCIL AND ASSEMBLY ............................................ 206 3.3.1 On Halonessos ......................................................................................................................... 209 3.3.2: Text and Context in On the Peace ................................................................................ 215 3.3.3: From Speech to Text ........................................................................................................... 217 3.3.4. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 220 3.4 DOCUMENTING INTERSTATE LAW IN ATHENIAN DECREES .................................................. 221 vii 3.4.1 Towards a Taxonomy of Citation in Athenian Decrees ........................................ 222 3.4.2: Hewing to the Letter of the Law in IG II³ 298 and IG II³ 299 .......................... 231 3.4.3: Keeping to the Letter of the Law in IG I³ 40 ............................................................. 235 3.5 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................... 243 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................ 245 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................ 254 BIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................................................... 275 viii Abbreviations Ancient authors are abbreviated according to LSJ. ix Acknowledgements I have accrued many debts throughout this project. The biggest is to Josh Sosin, without whom this project would never have taken off (and in all honesty would never have landed). Kent Rigsby has read each chapter with a sharp eye and a generous spirit. Jose Gonzalez was as enthusiastic as he was meticulous and the work is better for that. William Johnson helped me develop a voice that was scholarly and courteous (if not quite as genteel as his own). Lene Rubinstein, whose work provided a model for mine, generously agreed to share her time and expertise on short notice, and helped me figure out some ways in which this work fits into the bigger picture of law and democracy in Classical Athens. To all five of these scholars I owe a lot. I owe just as much to those who had little to do with the dissertation itself but everything to do with the happiness I have experienced these past seven years. There are too many to name them all without leaving out someone who contributed a little joy (or a lot) to my life. But I would like to single out my parents, who are the only reason I have made anything of myself, and Megan, who gave me the best of all reasons to finish the work. x Introduction Athenian democracy was described by one of its practitioners as “a polity in logoi.”1 Modern scholars take him to mean that democracy was “a polity based