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

320 ANNE PIPPIN
POLLUX X
ATTIC STELAI
KavavoTrpov 86 1,237
KXpWT 150 I, 63
KC/%YTO9 OVPL8&rc 137 V, 16
KXW7) a+L46&K7/E4baXXOS 3 36 I, 233
X6KO 87 I 116
AX-qvos 130 VI, 137
Vtvat 7TOKMXO ..X KaC 83 VII, 59 ff.
Vrwvaf ErEpog
yEypaJ.LJ.Evog
1TpooKEoaXatov OKVTLVO1 40 II, 216-17
paKta (Ka't K1qpw7) 150 I, 163
7crap,uv /LtcraKtOV 169 II, 136-7
XacJEVVq a7TpaKOXXAO 36 I, 231
An interest in epigraphy is a surprising quality to find in a second-century
lexicographer, even one who lived at Athens. We who have only fragments of the
inscription would like to discover where Pollux found his text of the Attic Stelai, and
whether it was full and accurate.
In the first nine books of the Onomnasticon there are only nine scattered passages
which could suggest that Pollux might have made use of a non-literary source. In III,
39, at the word protoposis, is the statement: " This term is written in the laws of the
king archon." The marker which indicates mortgage of land is defined as a sanis or
stele in III, 85, but the fact that the nmortgage-pillars were inscribed is not mentioned.
In VII, 61, there is an allusion to the statues of Kleobis and Biton in Argos; they are
not mentioned, however, because there was an inscribed base, but because the sculpture
illustrated a certain type of clothing. The custom of dedicating calathemata is treated
briefly in I, 11, and in V, 149, terms for writing upon stelai are listed, but Pollux
appears to be quite unaware that dedicatory inscriptions had been gathered and published
by Polemon. In V, 166, there is a discussion of the proper terms used to describe
legal and public inscriptions, and again, in speaking of Athenian political processes
in Book VIII, Pollux several times (c. 46, c. 128) indicates that inscriptions
would be made at certain points, yet with all his pedantry he makes no reference to the
collections of epigraphical texts which could have provided him with a wealth of
citations.5
3 On the stone it is xXWAt'1 MtX-rtovpyn13 a/L4uKE4aXoq.
4 Cf. Polemon ap. Athenaeus, VI, 234 f.
5 Philochoros' collection of epigraphical texts, the 'Exrtypa,aura 'Arrau, was made probably in
the early-years of the 3rd century B.c. No portions of it remain, but the title has led Bockh and
others to assume that the inscriptions included were exclusively metrical. Jacoby, however, believes
that the Epigrarnmata may have been selected from various types of inscriptions, and concludes: