History/Classics 310

Syllabus: 
 Structure
 Schedule 

Readings: 
 Book List 
 Reserve Readings
 Themistocles Decree
 Megarian Decree
 Athenian Treaties

Chronologies: 
 Early Sparta and Athens
 514-482 B.C. 
 Pentekontaeteia, 479-431 B.C.
  Peloponnesian War 

Handouts: 
 Finances in Athens
 Greek Coinage and Measures
 Military

Links

Meiggs & Lewis, GHI, no. 23; translation adapted from M. Crawford & D. Whitehead, Archaic & Classical Greece (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 224-25, no. 112.  See C. Hignett, Xerxes' Invasion, pp. 193-239 & A. R. Burn, Persia & the Greeks, chapter 21.  Compare account in Herodotus VIII. 41.  The inscription was found at Troezen, and it is probably a copy of the original from the late fourth or third century B.C. 

It was resolved by the boule and demos:  Themistocles, son of Neocles, of the deme of Phrearrioi proposed:  To place the polis in the hands of Athena who [who watches] over Athens and of all the other gods, to guard and to keep the barbarians (i.e. Persians) from the countryside; and that [all] Athenians and foreigners living in Athens should place their children and wives in Troezen, in the care of Theseus the founder of our country; and that they should place the old men and the moveable property on Salamis; and that the treasurers and priests should remain on the Acropolis guarding the belonginngs of the gods; and that all other Athenians and the resident foreigners of military age should board the two hundred triremes which have been made ready and resist the barbarians in defense of their own freedom and that of the other Greeks, along with the Spartans and Corinthians and the Aeginetans and the others who are willing to face the danger together; and that the generals (strategoi) in command should tomorrow appoint 200 trierarchs (i.e. commanders of triremes), one for each ship, from among those who hold land and house in Athens and who have legitimate children and who are not older than fifty years, and allot the ships to them; and that they should choose ten marines for each trireme from those who are between twenty and thirty years, and four archers; and that they should choose the officers for the ships by lot when they allot the trierarchs; and that the generals should list the oarsmen by ship on whiteboards, the Athenians according to the deme registers, and the resident foreigners according to the registers with the polemarch; and that they should list them, having divided them into 200 units of a hundred men each, and write up for each unit the name of the trireme and of the trierarch and the names of the crew so that they may know which trireme each unit should board; and when all the units have been divided up and allotted to the triremes, the boule and the generals are to man all the 200 triremes after sacrificing in appeasement to Zeus Pancrates ("All Powerful") and Athena Nike ("Victory") and Poseidon Asphaleius ("the Securer"); and when the ships are manned, they are to send 100 to Artemisium in Euboea and keep 100 around Salamis and the rest of Attica and guard the country; and so that all Athenians may be united in resisting the barbarians, those who have removed themselves for ten years (i.e. ostracized Athenians) are to go to Salamis and to wait there until the demos decides about them; and those [who have been deprived of civic rights. . .] (Text breaks off)