Neues Altes von den Kalliasdekreten (IG I³ 52)

Abstract

The decrees of Kallias (IG I³ 52 A and B) reorganised the administration of Athena’s treasury on the Athenian Acropolis and established a central treasury of the Other Gods. Against the objections of the 1970s and 1980s, H. Th. Wade-Gery’s 1931 reading of the prescripts of both texts as identical is correct, as an autopsy of the stone in the Louvre has shown. Both decrees were therefore passed by the assembly on the same day. In addition, the order of the texts should be reversed: Contrary to what is generally assumed, IG I³ 52 B was passed first, followed by IG I³ 52 A. A contextualized reading of the texts in combination with the Parthenon inventories (IG I³ 292–362. 383) finally allows for a better understanding of the financial history of Athens in the 5th century BC and of Periclean politics on the eve of the Peloponnesian War.