Epigraphy is the study of inscriptions. At least one chapter of my dissertation will be entirely about inscriptions, as they provide the most information about Greek manumission during this time period. I’ve also mentioned how one of the inscriptions that I’ll be looking at is an inscription that contains a letter from Philip V, then king of Macedon, to a small town in Thessaly. In this letter Philip V makes some flippant remarks about Roman manumission practices, which primarily demonstrate that he doesn’t really have solid information on Roman society.
Since one of the goals of my dissertation is to emphasize the diachronic nature of Greek and Roman manumission, that is, that this cultural practice occurred within history and could change over time, dates are rather important. Today I figured I would introduce you to the kind of scholarly debate over how to properly date an inscription.
You may or may not be surprised that the best way to date an inscription is by the dates that the inscription itself mentions. Since stone can’t be tested for age like any sort of carbon based material, the stone itself isn’t a reliable guide for how long it’s been around. Sometimes you can attempt to place an inscription within a particular time period passed on the style of the inscription. Although this approach can get you into trouble since both the Greeks and Romans loved their ancestors and therefore loved imitating them, including the style of their inscriptions.
So the best method is to use the dates that inscription itself presents. This may sound straightforward until one realizes how damaged some of these inscriptions are. It can sometimes take a good long while to decide simply whether or not a particular mark is intentional or a crack in the stone.
Back to Philip V. Since Philip is the king of Macedon, and Larisa is under Macedon control, the Larisa counted years the way most people do under monarchies: since the time that the current king ascended to the throne. Therefore when the scholars Lolling and Kern say that the inscription has the following line:
ἔτους Β, Ὑπερβερεταίου κα (IG 9 2, 517)
we can understand that to mean “during the second year, in the month of Hyperberetaion.” Etos, genitive form etous, means year, and that Β stands in for the number 2. The Greeks, while being very smart, never settled on standardized numerical signs like the Romans, so they frequently use letters, and their place in the Greek alphabet, to represent numbers. So the Β in this case means second, since Beta is the second letter in the Greek alphabet. When Philip V means second year, he means the second year of his reign, which corresponds to 220 BCE.
This is all well and good until another scholar comes along and takes another look at the inscription itself. The scholar in this case is one Christian Habicht and he takes a closer look at the inscription and says that this particular line looks like the following:
ἔτους Ε, Ὑπερβερεταίου κα (Habicht 1970)
Habicht sees an Epsilon rather than a Beta and since Epsilon is the fifth letter in the Greek alphabet that means that Philip is referring to the fifth year of his reign, which corresponds to 216 BCE.
Why should we believe Habicht? Well, he provides a photograph that backs up his reading and he also cites another scholar, G. Klaffenbach, as having seen this Epsilon as well. Habicht also appeals to the similarity of the style of the Epsilon in the word etos in the same line.
Since one of the goals of my dissertation is to emphasize the diachronic nature of Greek and Roman manumission, that is, that this cultural practice occurred within history and could change over time, dates are rather important. Today I figured I would introduce you to the kind of scholarly debate over how to properly date an inscription.
You may or may not be surprised that the best way to date an inscription is by the dates that the inscription itself mentions. Since stone can’t be tested for age like any sort of carbon based material, the stone itself isn’t a reliable guide for how long it’s been around. Sometimes you can attempt to place an inscription within a particular time period passed on the style of the inscription. Although this approach can get you into trouble since both the Greeks and Romans loved their ancestors and therefore loved imitating them, including the style of their inscriptions.
So the best method is to use the dates that inscription itself presents. This may sound straightforward until one realizes how damaged some of these inscriptions are. It can sometimes take a good long while to decide simply whether or not a particular mark is intentional or a crack in the stone.
Back to Philip V. Since Philip is the king of Macedon, and Larisa is under Macedon control, the Larisa counted years the way most people do under monarchies: since the time that the current king ascended to the throne. Therefore when the scholars Lolling and Kern say that the inscription has the following line:
ἔτους Β, Ὑπερβερεταίου κα (IG 9 2, 517)
we can understand that to mean “during the second year, in the month of Hyperberetaion.” Etos, genitive form etous, means year, and that Β stands in for the number 2. The Greeks, while being very smart, never settled on standardized numerical signs like the Romans, so they frequently use letters, and their place in the Greek alphabet, to represent numbers. So the Β in this case means second, since Beta is the second letter in the Greek alphabet. When Philip V means second year, he means the second year of his reign, which corresponds to 220 BCE.
This is all well and good until another scholar comes along and takes another look at the inscription itself. The scholar in this case is one Christian Habicht and he takes a closer look at the inscription and says that this particular line looks like the following:
ἔτους Ε, Ὑπερβερεταίου κα (Habicht 1970)
Habicht sees an Epsilon rather than a Beta and since Epsilon is the fifth letter in the Greek alphabet that means that Philip is referring to the fifth year of his reign, which corresponds to 216 BCE.
Why should we believe Habicht? Well, he provides a photograph that backs up his reading and he also cites another scholar, G. Klaffenbach, as having seen this Epsilon as well. Habicht also appeals to the similarity of the style of the Epsilon in the word etos in the same line.