I have provided a facsimile of the two fragments, made by xeroxing and reversing squeezes previously marked with a pencil. This form is frequently used in inscriptions of the Hellenistic period, but is not at all common in the 4th century. Reduced facsimile, from squeezes. This may be accounted for by the unusually wide left margin, in which, on a tapering stele, there would be ample room for an extra column of letters. The same mason worked on both decree and amendment.
Restorations are slightly out of the ordinary.
I return to Wilhelm's suggestion, mentioned above, that the honorand was a citizen of Sybrita. It is difficult, at first sight, to find any reason why Athens should have entered into relations with Sybrita, a small inland city in the central part of Crete, still less why one of its citizens might have been granted the honour of a stele recording this man's proxenia. 8 Sybrita controlled the main trade-route in central Crete, that ran west of Mt. Ida from the north coast to the plain of Mesara in the south. He may have had a greater sense of his own worth than did the Athenians, since they apparently decreed that he, rather than the State, should bear the cost of inscription. Return to text 7 A. Wilhelm, ap.