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

256 W. KENDRICK PRITCHETT
hekatomb totalled 100, would be about 51 drachmas. Since the hekatomb was for the
Great Panathenaea it is generally thought that it amounted to the full complement of
100 animals.6 Another hekatomb, this of 109 oxen, cost 8,419 drachmas, which
would make an average of 77.14 drachmas apiece.7 In this case, it is to be noted, the
price is not dependent on the interpretation of the word ' hekatomb.' 8 These animals
were purchased for sacrifice at the festival of Apollo at Delos in 375/4 B.C. In 335/4
(I.G., II2, 334, line 16) a hekatomb for the lesser Panathenaea cost 4100 drachmas,
which would be 41 drachmas apiece if the hekatomb consisted of 100 animals. Ziehen,
however, believes the hekatomb was now of smaller number and suggests 50 animals,9
which would make each animal cost 82 drachmas. The estimate, however, has no
probative value.
In an Athenian sacrificial calendar, dated shortly after 403/2 B.C.,'0 two oxen are
priced at 50 drachmas, but the low price may be explained by the qualifying adjective
XEtu7oyvW',ucot, 'lacking the teeth which mark age.' ' In I.G., I12, 1358, a sacrificial
calendar from the Attic Epakria of the period 400-350 B.C., the price of a bous is
eight times given as 90 drachmas, once as 150 drachmas. Of the eight, one fee was
for a pregnant cow. Since the sacrifices were to both female and male deities, the
price of 90 drachmas was for a cow or ox.'2 The reading of 150 drachmas is in doubt.
Moreover, the stone was subjected to erasure in the letter spaces immediately following
(col. II, line 8). In the Agora inscription from 363/2 B.C., which contains a covenant
between the two branches of the clan of the Salaminioi, the price to be paid for a bous
is given as 70 drachmas.'3 In I.G., 12, 1672, line 290, the price of a single sacrificial
bous is given as 400 drachmas. This was apparently not normal, for the demos had in
this case expressly established the price (6o-ov 6 077o0 &amev). The well-known famine
of the period 330-326 B.C. doubtless caused a sharp rise in prices. This figure of 400
drachmas, in any case, cannot be regarded as normal. In a sacrificial calendar from
Cos, dated ca. 300 B.C., the price to be paid for a cow is given as no less than 50
drachmas.'4 In a still later sacrificial inscription, this from Olbia, the price of a cow
is given as 1200, but the coin is not specified.'5
Stengel, Die griechischen Kultusaltertumer, 3rd edition, Munich, 1920, p. 153. On the sex of
sacrificial animals, see also W. K. C. Guthrie, The Greeks and their Gods, Boston, 1951, p. 221.
6 See L. Ziehen, Rh. Mus., LI, 1896, p. 217.
7I.G., II2, 1635, lines 35-36.
8 For various numbers of animals in a hekatomb, see P. Stengel, R.E., s.v. TEKaro0'1u4q; also
Kirchner ad Syll.3, 271, note 7; and Syll.3, 1024, line 29.
9 L. Ziehen, Leges Graecorum Sacrae, II; 1, p. 95, note 22.
J. Oliver, Hesperia, IV, 1935, p. 21, lines 48-51.
"Pollux, I, 182.
12 Cf. R. B. Richardson, A.J.A., X, 1895, p. 225.
3 W. S. Ferguson, Hesperia, VII, 1938, p. 5, line 86.
14
Syll.3, 1026, lines 6-7.
15 Syll.3, 1039. Ziehen (Leges Graecorum, p. 249) regards it as an obol; E. H. Minns
(Scythians and Greeks, Cambridge, 1913, p. 463) as a chalkous.