Honorary Athenian Decree for Some Akarnanian Exiles

Abstract

The decree, dating to the summer of 337 B.C., establishes on the one hand the granting of gold crowns and citizenship to two Akarnanians brothers, Phormion and Karphinas, commanders of an Akarnanian military contingent that apparently supported Athens in the battle of Chaironeia, on the other the recognition of a series of honours to the Akarnanians who followed them and constituted evidently the nerve of this contingent. The honorary decree is extremely interesting for the reconstruction of the Athenian situation immediately after the battle of Chaironeia, when Athens – apparently pro-Macedonian – seemed to carry on its resistance against Philip II by granting asylum to those who had supported the city in the military clash against Macedonia and were persecuted for this reason. The decree, then, explicitly remembers that the grandfather of the two honorands, Phormion, had in turn been beneficiary in 400 BC ca. of the granting of Athenian citizenship: the mention of this previous action creates a strong link, with evident propagandistic implications, between the moments following the battle of Chaironeia and those following the end of the Peloponnesian war. Finally, the decree may also be considered as a valid source for the study of the concession of the isoteleia, in this specific case granted in its widest form (exemption from the metoikion, right of enktesis, guarantee of legal protections, right to pay eisphorai with citizens) and not to individuals, but to a group of political exiles.