The Cutter of IG II2 354
Dates: 337-324
General characteristics of the lettering (fig. 5)
This lettering conveys a solid, well-made impression; the hastae are relatively thick and often double-struck. Only the crossbars of alpha and eta, the central horizontal of epsilon, the central strokes of mu and sigma, and the diagonal of nu are usually thinner and more lightly inscribed. This cutter tended to thicken the ends of strokes and in some cases to make what look like real serifs, e.g., at the bottom of upsilon. His lettering is very uniform.
Peculiarities of individual letters
Alpha | This letter is usually relatively wide and short. The crossbar is sometimes omitted; if present, it tends to be lightly inscribed, to be placed below the midpoint, and to slant. |
Epsilon | The central horizontal varies in length but is almost invariably shorter than the other two. |
Kappa | The diagonals usually meet the vertical stroke below the midpoint and are as long as or longer than it is. |
Mu | This letter is carefully made and usually nearly symmetrical. The central v does not quite extend down to the bottom of the letter. |
Nu | The diagonal not infrequently, in contrast to the practice of many other cutters at the time, begins at the top of the first vertical and ends at the bottom of the second. The second vertical sometimes slants to the right. |
Omikron | This letter is quite round and uniform in size; it is usually slightly smaller than the other letters. |
Rho | The loop is oblong and often relatively large. |
Figure 5.
IG II2 354 lines 2-13.
Sigma | This letter is taller than the others; the top and bottom strokes slant. The lower central diagonal often meets the upper in from its end. |
Upsilon | This letter begins at the baseline and extends up into the interline. It is made with three strokes—the vertical is at least half the height of the letter and usually more; the surmounting v is large. |
Phi | The central oval is often placed quite low in the letter- space. The vertical is made in two parts and does not usually pass through the oval; the lower part extends down into the interline. |
Omega | This letter is often open at the bottom, quite round, and placed up in the space. The finials are either rather short or of moderate length. |
List of inscriptions
IG II2 113 | Archon [Hegemon] (327/6). Schwenk no. 60; M. B. Walbank, ZPE 76 (1989) 257-261, has attributed, it appears correctly, EM 12918 (Hesperia 7 [1938] 296) to this text.[1] |
IG II2 241 | Archon [Phrynichos] (337/6). Schwenk no. 8. |
+IG II2 339a | Archon [Ni]kokrate[s] (333/2). Schwenk no. 29; Meyer, Urkundenreliefs no. A100. Photograph in B. D. Meritt, The Athenian Year (Berkeley 1961) fig. 1 (opposite p. 49). |
IG II2 339b | |
IG II2 354 | Archon [Euthykritos] (328/7). Schwenk no. 54. |
IG II2 359 | Archon Chreme[s] (326/5). Schwenk no. 63. |
IG II2 426 | Peçirka, Enktesis 77-78. |
IG II2 1196B | Face A of this text is very worn; it too seems to be by this cutter. D. Whitehead, ZPE 47 (1982) 38-39, argues, following Lolling, that this text belongs to the archon- ship of Chremes (326/5) and that the demarch in line 4 is Dor[otheos]. The restoration and the date are drawn from IG II2 1198, also inscribed by this cutter. It does seem probable that the deme officials of Aixone commissioned this man to inscribe these two texts on the same occasion. |
+ IG II2 1198 | Archon Chremes (326/5). Schwenk no. 66. |
IG II2 1493 | Archon [Ktesikles] (334/3). |
IG II2 1494 | |
IG II2 1495 | IG II2 1493 and 1494 have been attributed by Koehler and Kirchner in IG , it seems correctly, to this inscription. See E W. Mitchel, TAPA 93 (1962) 218-219, for a new text of IG II2 1493. Mitchel's discussion of the relative placement of the fragments based on their thick- nesses (pp. 216-217) is vitiated by the apparent fact that none of the fragments preserves the original back. |
IG II2 1496A h | Not earlier than 338/7 (line 18). This cutter's work appears only in columns I and II on face A. |
IG II2 1497 | Archon Hegemon (327/6). |
IG II2 1544 | Archon Niketes (332/1). |
IG II2 1583 | Hesperia 19 (1950) 220-221; Agora XIX no. P14. M. Langdon, the editor in Agora XIX, suggests "ca. a . 350/49 a ."; a better date is ca. a . 330 a |
IG II2 1584 | Agora XIX no. P15. The date "ca. a . 350/49 a ." is at least a decade too early. |
IG II2 1593 | The date given in IG , "med. s. IV ," is somewhat early. |
IG II2 1627 | Archon Aristophon (line 216; 330/29). |
IG II2 1629 | Archon Antikles (line 794; 325/4). Tod, GHI no. 200. |
IG II2 2500 | The date of this text is ca. a . 330 a. rather than "fin. s. IV " (IG ). |
Agora I 686 | Hesperia 19 (1950) 263-267; Agora XIX no. P29, frag. b , lines 32-58. This fragment most probably should be dissociated from fragment a , lines 1-31 (Agora 1631 + 939), for the hands differ. Fragment a was inscribed by the Cutter of IG II2 334. |
Agora I 2205 | Hesperia 19 (1950) 260-262; Agora XIX no. P28. |
Agora I 2260 | Not earlier than 346/5 (line 31). Hesperia 25 (1956) 101-109. |
Agora I 3134 | Unpublished. |
Agora I 3247 | Hesperia 6 (1937) 456-457. |
+Agora I 3364 | Archon [Niketes] (332/1). Hesperia 8 (1939) 26-27 = Schwenk no. 39. |
Agora I 3625 | Archon Hegemon (327/6). Hesperia 7 (1938) 94-96 = Schwenk no. 61. |
Agora I 4355 | Published below. |
Agora I 5500 | Unpublished. |
Agora I 5749 | Hesperia 19 (1950) 222-223; Agora XIX no. P16. The date assigned, "ca. a . 350/49 a.," seems a trifle early. |
Agora I 6421 | Hesperia 37 (1968) 267-268. For an improved text, see Sokolowski, LSCG no. 179. The date of this text is ca . 330. |
Agora I 7178 | Hesperia 43 (1974) 322-324. |
EM 12918 | Probably part of IG II2 113. Hesperia 7 (1938) 296-297. |
REG 91 (1978) 289-306 lines 1-17 | Archon Niketes (332/1). Schwenk no. 43. The second decree on this stele is in this general style but appears to be by a different hand. The worn surface renders it difficult to be certain. |
Preliminary publication of a fragment from the Athenian Agora (fig. 6)
Fragment of white marble, left side (finely claw-chiselled) preserved, found in modern house walls over the southwestern part of the Eleusinion (S-T 20) on 18 December 1936.
H 0.155 m; W 0.075 m; Th 0.08 m; LH 0.005 m
Checker ca . 0.01 x 0.01 m
Inv. no. I 4355
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_ _ _Line 6 . Merely the bottom of dotted iota is legible; upsilon is also possible.
Line 13 . Of dotted upsilon only the tip of the left slanting stroke is visible; chi is also possible.
This fragment puzzles. One might restore 
in lines 8-9. The only nouns known which would suit the remains in line 11 are 
(in
Figure 6.
Agora I 4355.
koine form) and 
, a word apparently meaning "taskmaster" or "overseer." But these are not otherwise attested in Attic inscriptions.
Adnotatiunculae
IG II2 339a line 1
The last letter is rho, for the curving bottom of the loop as it touches the vertical is just visible at the break. This letter occurs over upsilon in line 2, i.e., exactly in the center. This line should therefore be read as follows:
IG II2 1198 line 10
The reading of the numeral is problematic. Schwenk, the latest editor reads II[III]:, which in essence follows Kirchner's adoption of Premerstein's reading. This amount, 8 drachmas, is ridiculously small,[2] and the reading highly suspect. Moreover, I cannot confirm the reading of the pi. Indeed, this cutter normally places two dots on each side of numerals, and that is what he appears to have done in this case. On the squeeze available to me in Princeton, I can discern with certainty the two dots of punctuation on each side of the space where the numeral was originally inscribed. They are centered in stoichoi 11 and 13. The left half of the space in between them is abraded, and I can in consequence read nothing there. In the right half, as improbable as it seems, there appears an upsilon; it is located in the space between stoichoi 12 and 13. It was preceded by another letter now lost. We must read therefore: 
:. The use of an alphabetic numeral in an Attic inscription before the second century B.C. is almost unparalleled.[3] The occurrence, however, does not seem surprising, especially in a deme decree. The numeral was perhaps: 
:, i.e., 1,400 drachmas, a very generous amount.
Agora I 3364
This text and three others (IG II2 345, 346, 347) were passed at the same meeting. It seems noteworthy that three of the four were inscribed by dif-
ferent cutters. IG II2 345 is the work of the Cutter of IG II2 334; IG II2 347 was done by the Cutter of IG II2 337. It is impossible to speak with certainty about IG II2 346; it is in the general style of the Cutters of IG II2 334 and 354 but very worn. Given what we know about later inscribing patterns, it is probably the work of another cutter. Indeed, during the period 229-86 there is no case known of two decrees passed on the same day being inscribed by the same cutter.[4] Apparently there was felt a need, at least in later times, to have inscribed copies of decrees finished in a timely fashion. There is no reason why this should not also have been the case in Lykourgan Athens. There are, however, several cases known from this study in which decrees passed on the same day were inscribed by the same workman; see pages 126-127, 145, 156, 162-163 below. It is noteworthy that they all appear to have been relatively short, i.e., able to be finished within a few days. Thus they could be assigned to a single cutter.