Attic Document Reliefs: Art and Politics in Ancient Athens (review)

Although long recognized as a distinct genre, the reliefs on documents have not been collected comprehensively and studied for their own sake. They are set above the texts of honorary decrees, alliances and documents concerning foreign affairs, decrees concerning cults, accounts and inventories, public dedications, and other inscriptions. Previous work on the subject (Binnebössel 1932; Meyer 1989) sought to relate the reliefs to other genres of art. Lawton notes that the document relief is “the only genre of Greek art that explicitly and consistently refers to contemporary events in the political sphere” (4). The style of the sculpture of the reliefs is shown to be conservative, “following rather than setting the sculptural trends of their own day” (73).

The aim of illustrating documents with reliefs seems to be the desire to highlight certain relations to the text (deities as representative of cities; heroes, personifications of Demos, Boule, and Demokratia; individuals honored set amid the appropriate divinities, etc.). Expenses for inscribing were sometimes shared, as by cities of the empire or by individuals who received honorary decrees, but the cost of inscribing probably also included the reliefs (23–24). They would have been commissioned by authority of the secretaries of the assembly (or other political group such as deme or tribe) in consultation with sculptors and masons. Thus the relief contributes to the artistic display, just as certain features of the layout of the text on the stone (stoichedon style, intentional use of vacat, chequer pattern) serve to articulate the elements of the text and create an attractive monument. Lawton asserts that most of the document reliefs had a votive function, as they were set up in sanctuaries (29).

Lawton presents a catalogue of 187 reliefs, arranged in two parts (dated and undated) and listed in chronological order within each part. Each item is accompanied by a lemma giving its most accessible publication, location, measurements, iconographical description, and bibliography. Thus 62 are classified as dated and 125 as undated. Although they range from the middle of the fifth to the second half of the second century B.C., the overwhelming preponderance fall in the fifth and fourth centuries. Statistics make the point effectively: fifth century, 28 total (12 dated, 16 undated); fourth century, 148 total (46 dated, 102 undated). Five are classified “late 5th-early 4th century,” bringing the grand total to 181. Of the dated group in the fourth century, only 9 can be put after 323 and only 4 after 318/17. One might justifiably conclude that the document relief is a phenomenon of the classical period, continued occasionally after it.

Lawton offers excellent analyses, with concise discussion of relevant interpretations, in terms of type of inscription, iconography, style, and chronology. Where problems in interpretation still persist, she is careful to note the probabilities.

Possibly the earliest surviving document with a relief is the Miletos decree (no. 63 = IG I³ 21), which is put by Meritt and others about 450 because it uses the three-bar sigma, but in the 420s by H.B. Mattingly. Lawton summarizes fairly the arguments for both datings but does not insist on either. Rather, she notes the frequency of document reliefs from the 420s onward.

IG I³ 68 (no. 1), on the collection of tribute, is presented as the earliest securely dated inscription. Perhaps here the case is stated too positively, as the date 426/25 depends on the identification of the proposer Kleonymos with the man who proposed a decree favoring Methone in the first prytany of that year (Meiggs and Lewis, no. 68, p. 188). Hence the date is probable, rather than certain. Secure dates for several decrees of the fourth century come from the name of the archon in the heading, but in cases where insufficient text is preserved for certainty (as in IG II² 133, no. 30) it should be noted that the stoichedon pattern provides...