Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/98

 xciv THUCYDIDES an amendment or additional proposal moved by Lampon, perhaps the celebrated soothsayer, part of which is as follows : Tov St ^acr[tjAea opiaai to. upa to. iv t_Q)Jl HeXapyLKio Kai TO AotTTov fir] ivlBpveaOai /Sw/aovs iv tw IleAapyi/caj avev ttjs ySovAiys Kai Tov ^-qjJLOv, fJirjSk Tovs Algous T(.p.v€Lv Ik tov IleAapyiKOv, fvrjhi yriv exo'aycii' M^^ lOov<;. The inscription was edited by M. Foucart in the Bidletin de Correspondance Hellenique, iv. p. 225. The use of X, not $, fixes the date with probability after 454, the datives in -rjo-i before or not long after 420. As the character of the early part of the inscription seems to assign it to a time of peace, it may belong to the Peace of Nicias, or much more probabl}', considering the doubtful nature of that peace, to the years preceding the Peloponnesian War. The words immediately preceding the regulation about the Pelasgicum are remarkable : ravra [ikv 7r€[p]t r^s air- O-P'XJi's TOV Kap[7rJo9 [tJoiv O^olv di'aypdij/ai €? tw crTryA[aJ' firjva 8e ifj-fSdWiiv 'EKaTovfSaiSyva tov veov ap^ovTa. It has been hitherto supposed that in the fifth century b.c, as in later times, the month intercalated was Poseideon (Dec-Jan.). The inscription would seem to show either that any month might be intercalated, or that it was sometimes necessary to intercalate an additional month. It also raises a doubt whether the Athenians about the time of the Peloponnesian War employed a fixed cycle of years, that of Meton or any other, and did not rather intercalate a month when necessary (Droysen, in 'Hermes' for 1880, x. p. 364^ The inscription affords a fresh illustration of the un- certainty of Greek chronology. [The a />r/br/ difficulties urged by Adolf Schmidt (Neue Jahrbiicher, 1885, i. p. 681 fif.) against this interpretation, though considerable, are not decisive. He would translate ' the new archon is to interpose the month Hecatombaeon ' ; i. e. grant an extension of time, consisting of that month, for the delivery of the drrapxy'i. (The inscription seems to date from a time shortly before the beginning of harvest.) But it is very doubtful whether e/x^uAActj/ /i.^va 'EKaro/A^atWa