The last Athenian decrees honouring Ephebes

The Athenian Council and/or Assembly regularly inscribed decrees in the Agora honouring the young men, or ephebes, who had performed national service, from the Chremonidean War (266/5 BC) through to the Augustan period. The last five of these monuments post-date the sack of Athens by Sulla in 86 BC, and a full set of the texts has not been available since 1916 (IG II2), since when the progress of scholarship has made it almost impossible for specialists, let alone non-specialist researchers and students, to obtain an overview of these important documents. This paper accompanies the publication on AIO of new Greek texts, based on autopsy, and annotated English translations, of all five monuments. For ease of future reference it includes complete Greek texts of the two most substantial sets of decrees, IG II2 1039 +, honouring the ephebes of 80/79 BC and their officers, and 1043 +, honouring the ephebes of 38/7 or 37/6 BC and their officers, with textual notes. Though most of the fragments of post-Sullan ephebic decrees are still in Athens, one (IG II2 1042 fr. b) is in the British Museum, and to accompany this paper we are also publishing a short video about this inscription on the AIO Youtube channel