A Herm from Histiaia with an Agonistic Epigram of the Fifth Century B. C.

Abstract

A HERM FROM HISTIAIA IN NORTHERN EUBOEA, upon which is inscribed an agonistic epigram of the fifth century B.C., consisting of two elegiac couplets in a version of the local dialect of Histiaia heavily influenced by earlier poetry, is first published here. The earliest modern record of it is V. Hankey's note in L. H. Sackett and others, Prehistoric Euboea: Contributions toward a Survey, BSA 61 (1966) 33-112, 40 n. 29. Mrs Hankey's unpublished journal of her work in Euboea (193 9-), which she has generously made available to me, contains, under March 1940, drawings of the stone and a transcription of the text (40 f.). She notes (37) that it was from Oreous (i.e., ancient Histiaia)-T(emple) of Apollo, and that she saw it in the School apotheke at (modern) Histiaia. The herm was subsequently seen and photographed at the entrance to the school by E. J. Doyle in 19 5 1 and in the apotheke of the demarcheion by D. M. Lewis in 1953, by W. P. Wallace in 1961, and by myself in 1965. It is now in