The Comparative Chronology of Inscriptions relating to Boiotian Festivals in the First Half of the First Century B.C.

Abstract

The existence of agonistic festivals in Boiotia in the first half of the first century B.C. is well attested by inscriptions, many of them collected in the pages of IG vii, which appeared in 1892, and others published as a result of subsequent archaeological discoveries. Foremost in this field were the French scholars who conducted important excavations in the neighbourhood of Thespiai, at the Ptoïon and elsewhere. In his IG commentaries Dittenberger laid the foundations of a relative chronology for these inscriptions, and many supplementary details have been added from time to time by various French scholars. The value of this epigraphical evidence for an understanding of Boiotian affairs in the first half of the first century B.C. can be still further enhanced if the chronological relationships of the inscriptions are defined more precisely, and especially if it can be shown which of them belong to the period before, and which to the period after, the Mithridatic War.