Inscriptions from Abdera and Maroneia

Abstract

The present article is concerned with three inscriptions from the Greek citiesof Abdera and Maroneia in coastal Thrace. Nos. 1 (Abdera) and 2 (Maroneia) were first published in the 2004 corpus of the inscriptions of Aegean Thrace (I.Thrac.Aeg. E1 and E181α), and improved texts of both are offered here; no.3 (Maroneia) is new. The first text is a fragmentary early-fifth century law from Abdera, concerned with upper and lower ages of eligibility for military service, and with what will happen in the event of a revolution or naval incursion at Abdera. The inscription is tentatively dated to the immediate aftermath of the Persian Wars, perhaps around 475 BC. The second text is an ad hominem decree of the city of Maroneia, probably of the first century BC or the first century AD, granting permission to a civic magistrate named Proklesto adopt his own infant orphaned grandson; the content of the decree has no close parallels elsewhere in the Greek world. The third text is a poorly preserved twelve-line epigram in the form of a hymn or prayer to several deities, asking them to protect the city of Maroneia; its letter-forms suggest a date in the later Hellenistic period.