hellenistic karia - Associazione Iasos di Caria

470 ROBERTA FABIANI
prostatai, can be drawn from this text. We find prescribed in it that, after having received on the
first day of the month 180 drachmas (or staters 23 ) probably from the tamiai 24 to be distributed
among the citizens attending the ekklesia, every neopoies, on the days on which the Assembly
meets and on the occasion of the archairesiai, at sunrise, should put out a vessel full of water,
with a capacity of one metretes and with an opening as large as a broad bean, about seven feet
above the ground. At sunrise the neopoiai must unplug the opening of the vessel so that the
water begins to trickle out, thus turning the vessel into a waterclock, indicating the time-limit
for entering the Assembly (and for receiving payment for attendance). They must then each
seat themselves beside an urn at the entrance of the Assembly; each urn, which must be sealed
by the prostatai and have an opening two fingers wide, must bear the name of one phyle. Every
participant in the Assembly is to deliver his pessos, the token of his attendance, to the neopoies
of his own phyle, after having inscribed on it his name and patronymic; the neopoies must then
insert it into the urn 25 . The inscription is damaged in the final part, but it appears that at the
end of the meeting the neopoies had the duty of distributing payment to those who had handed
over their pessos; it is likely that during this procedure the prostatai had to carry out other tasks,
but the absence of the lower part of the stone does not allow us to formulate more accurate
hypotheses.
the neopoiai
This decree emphasizes the existence of a very close link between the neopoiai and the
phylai as well as the magistrates’ active role in the procedure concerning the payment of the
ekklesiastikon.
Generally, the neopoiai were a board of magistrates quite widespread in Greece, particularly
on the islands and in Asia Minor. They were usually in charge of taking care of shrines in a
material sense (building, restoration, care of the shrine’s anathemata), financial management
and, in addition, meeting different kinds of expenses on behalf of the community 26 .
Already in the earliest attestations, the Iasian neopoiai 27 appear to be competent to deal
with both religious and economic issues 28 . In the Classical period, an inscription concerned
with the rights of the priest of Zeus Megistos entrusts them with dealing with the anathemata
23. For the two alternatives see Gauthier 1990, 430-1.
24. According to the reliable reconstruction of Gauthier 1990, 435 l. 4-6, they would be the officials entrusted
to deliver to the neopoiai the money for distribution among those present at the meeting. Every tamias probably had to
give it to a single neopoies. See also below n. 34.
25. Gauthier 1990, 435, l. 11-16.
26. See O. Schultheß, RE 16.2 (1935) s.v. Νεωποιοί, col. 2433-9; ThesCRa 5, 56-60 with bibliography.
27. In this city the board was led by a president or an eponym, as can be seen in the expression οἱ νεωποῖαι οἱ
σὺν Ἀνθέσφορωι (Maddoli 2001, p. 19, l. 3-5; SEG 51, 1506; for similar formulae compare Hansen 1991, 237). On the
other hand, it is likely that τοὺς νεωποίας τοὺς ἐπ’ ëHγύλλου (I.Iasos 62, l. 10, with psilosis) refers to the neopoiai in office
during the year when Hegyllos was stephanephoros.
28. See Busolt 1920, 502 n. 1. On Iasian neopoiai see also Oikonomos 1921-1922, 301-4, who thought that
these magistrates were six; in fact he was convinced that the six men named in I.Iasos 20, l. 2-4 were neopoiai and not,
as Gauthier 1990 rightly understood, six prytaneis.