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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
‘It is a tempting suggestion that it was the engravers of such texts—that is, either the sculptors themselves or the engravers employed by them—who were the pioneers of the new style’ (see below, Notes I, II and IV). This passage in Austin's book encourages me to say that every study of the early stoichedon documents of Attica must begin with the dedication of Nearchos signed by Antenor (see Note III). When considered in connexion with all known examples of the period, this inscription assumes a significance which is not apparent when it is studied in connexion with the list which Austin has recorded (p. 7), intentionally incomplete as that list is (see Note IV). The ‘lamentably fragmentary state’ of the greater part of these private dedicatory inscriptions (Austin, p. 64) cannot deter us from a careful examination which leads, as a rule, to the reconstruction of the monuments as well as to reasonable restorations of the inscriptions.
The clear distinction between dedicatory inscription and artist's signature is no peculiarity of the monument signed by Antenor, though the fact that both inscriptions are stoichedon, with the stoichoi independent of one another, shows the fully developed stoichedon style, as does the disregard of the syllabic division (see Note V).
1 Austin, R. P., The Stoichedon Style, p. 16Google Scholar (see also p. 119); Löwy, E., Sb. Akad. Wien, 216Google Scholar, Abh. 4, 1937, pp. 10 f., draws some conclusions from the differences between dedicatory inscription and artist's signature on the same monument; see also Heberdey, R., Epitymbion Swoboda, p. 76Google Scholar; Buck, C. D., Cl. Ph., viii, 1913, pp. 138 ff.Google Scholar; Lauffer, S., Ath. Mitt. lxii, 1937, p. 109 (the reference to this article will be henceforth abbreviated to: Lauffer)Google Scholar.
2 Austin, p. 9.
3 There are some more stoichedon inscriptions prior to 480 B.C., though of minor importance: IG i2, 676, 681 (cf. Lauffer, p. 88), 692 + Loll. 299 (cf. ZAW cols. 56 f.), 777 (cf. the similar, though non-stoichedon, inscription published by Broneer, O., Hesperia, iv, 1935, p. 148, no. 1, fig. 37Google Scholar), 990, Loll, 293 + EM 12946 (cf. Lauffer, pp. 101 f.).
4 cf. J. Kirchner, Imagines, pl. 5, no. 10.
5 AJA, xli, 1937, pp. 162 f.Google Scholar; cf. Löwy, E., Scritti in onore di B. Nogara, p. 249Google Scholar; Meritt, B. D., Hesperia, viii, 1939, p. 62, no. 21Google Scholar; Löwy, E., Sb. Akad. Wien, 217, Abh. 2, 1938, p. 58Google Scholar; Langlotz, E., Die Koren, pp. 80 ff., no. 38Google Scholar.
6 This reference to a single example of a stoichedon and boustrophedon inscription does not clash with Austin's observations on pp. 21 f.; cf. the illustration of the Hekate altar from Miletus (Rehm, A., Handbuch der Archäologie, i, p. 216, pl. 27, 1)Google Scholar.
7 Cf. Anz. Akad. Wien, 1936, p. 30, no. 19; Lauffer, pp. 95 fGoogle Scholar.
8 AJA xxvii, 1923, pp. 23 f.Google Scholar, fig. 1; cf. ZAW cols. 52 and 61.
9 There are two other comparable boustrophedon inscriptions: IG i2, 976 and SEG iii, no. 55. The former belongs to the second, rather than the first, quarter of the sixth century. This date may be right also for Phaidimos; cf. Rumpf, A., Critica d' Arte, xiv, 1938, p. 47Google Scholar. These two pieces seem much earlier than our boustrophedon inscription. A late boustrophedon example from Miletus was illustrated by Rehm, A. in Handbuch der Archäologie, i, pl. 28, 1Google Scholar.
10 The monument is a pillar as IG i2, 504 and 515 + 709 (ZAW, cols. 35 f., fig. 7). To a similar monument belongs the fragment IG i2, 678, which also has an epigram engraved on the right lateral face; cf. Lauffer, pp. 99 f., fig. 6. Löwy, E. (Sb. Akad. Wien, 217Google Scholar, Abh. 2, 1938, p. 94) proposes for IG i2, 516 a date as late as the sixties. We have, indeed, no reason to suppose that the fragments of this monument were found in the Persian débris; cf. Klein, W., Lieblingsinschriften,2 pp. 26 fGoogle Scholar.
11 This information was given me by Miss Gisela M. A. Richter, who is preparing a publication about the employment of the drove in archaic Attic sculpture.
