the attic stelai - The American School of Classical Studies at Athens

282 W. KENDRICK PRITCHETT
tegula).' There are today various terms for this tile: ' flat tile,' 'lower tile,' 'rain tile,'
and ' pan tile.' There were variations, however, and one type has been recovered in
which flat tile and cover tile were made in one piece. For a detailed description of
various types of Greek tiles, see A. Andren, " Architectural Terracottas from
Etrusco-Italic Temples," Skrift. Sven. Inst., VI, 1940, pp. lxxxviii if.
For convenient descriptions of how roof tiles were laid, see J. Durm, Die Baukunst
der Griechen3, Leipzig, 1910, pp. 197-206 (useful for its clear sketches); E. D.
Van Buren, Archaic Fictile Revetments in Sicily and Magna Gratecica, London, 1923,
pp. xviii-xix; H. A. Thompson, Tholos of Athens (Hesperia, Suppl. IV), 1940, pp.
66-73 (for the roof of the tholos); and G. P. Stevens, Hesperia, XIX, 1950, pp.
181-184.
One modification must probably be made to Bliimner's terminology. The keramis,
just as the keramos, could be used for the lower tile. In Insc. De'los, 440 A, lines 79-
89, keramis and kalypter are listed side by side as the tiles for various buildings in
accounts dated between 190-180 B.C. The distinction is maintained throughout, and it
seems necessary to interpret the keramis here as different from the kalypter, and hence
as the lower tile.
PRICES. Relatively full information is available for the price of roof tiles from
Delos in the third century B.C. It is much less complete for other places. The table
below gives in graphic form such prices as are known to me from epigraphical sources.
The figures from Delos are based in part on those of Glotz and Larsen.4 It is to be
noted that prices were considerably higher in the fourth century than in the fifth and
by 246 B.C. had fallen to about one-half of what they had been.5
For prices in Economic Survey, other than those from Delos, I have noted only
one quotation from Ephesos in Asia Minor (Vol. IV, p. 838) where 300 roof tiles
cost 50 drachmas. Finally, it may be of interest to note that we know that one man
3 I. Thallon-Hill and L. S. King (Corinth, Vol. IV, part 1, Decorated Architectural Terracottas,
Cambridge, 1929, p. 39) call the flat tiles by the term qyEoOves, a word which is applied to tiles only
in inscriptions. In I.G., II2, 1627, lines 303 and 305, hegernones is modified by leontokephaloi, 'lionheaded';
they seem to have been the lowest row of pan tiles turned up to form a sima and accordingly
provided with lion heads. Cf. I.G., IV2, 102, line 100, where the word is coupled with paraietis.
See, also, Robinson, Olynthus, XII, p. 466; and H. Lattermann, Griechische Bauinschriften, Strassburg,
1908, p. 34. In the Eleusis inscriptions the front tile of each row of convex tiles was called
the 'hegemon with flower patterns.' See K. A. Rhomaios, Kepa'ou ris KaXv8&vos, Athens, 1951, pp.
24 ff. This hegemon, or eaves cover tile with antefix, is described with illustrations by F. Noack,
Eleusis, Berlin and Leipzig, 1927, pp. 66-68. In either case, the hegemon tile belongs at the edge of
the roof.
4 G. Glotz, Journal des Savants, XI, 1913, p. 19; and J. A. 0. Larsen, "Roman Greece,"
Economic Survey, IV, pp. 397-398. See also Larsen, " The Price of Tiles at Delos from 210 to
180 B.C.," Class. Phil., XXXVI, 1941, pp. 156-166.
r See Larsen, Economic Survey, IV, pp. 397-398.