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(W.) Günther Inschriften von Milet. Teil 4: Eine Prosopographie. (Milet 6.4.) Pp. xviii + 676. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2017. Cased, £122.99, €149.95, US$172.99. ISBN: 978-3-11-045484-0.

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(W.) Günther Inschriften von Milet. Teil 4: Eine Prosopographie. (Milet 6.4.) Pp. xviii + 676. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2017. Cased, £122.99, €149.95, US$172.99. ISBN: 978-3-11-045484-0.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2018

Peter Thonemann*
Affiliation:
Wadham College, University of Oxford
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Abstract

Type
Notices
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2018 

This enormous volume, at 9.75 lbs considerably heavier than a new-born Milesian baby, is a prosopography of all attested Milesians from the Archaic period to the sixth century ad. There are around 10,000 entries, the majority drawn from the abundant epigraphy of Miletus and the sanctuary of Apollo at Didyma, which presumably accounts for the curious designation of the volume as Part 4 of Inschriften von Milet. The volume includes Milesians attested outside Miletus (including the c. 1,850 Milesians attested as foreign residents at Athens) and a selection of non-Milesians known to have had some connection with the city, whose names are given in italics to distinguish them from bona fide Milesians. Each entry is equipped with basic biographical information (chronology, offices held, familial relations) and very full scholarly bibliography.

There are some infuriating idiosyncrasies. When an individual is attested as the parent of two or more children, he or she is listed twice or more, as parent of each separate child. So, for example, I.Milet VI 2, 476 (third century bc) is the tombstone of three brothers: Theodotos, Basileides and Myrmidon, sons of Zenodotos. The Prosopographie includes three separate entries for Zenodotos father of Basileides, Zenodotos father of Theodotos and Zenodotos father of Myrmidon. Conversely, when an individual carries the same name as his father, the Prosopographie includes only one entry, not two: so there is a single entry for Boutas son of Boutas (Milet I 3, 138 III 44), but no entry for the elder Boutas. These bizarre editorial choices make it unnecessarily difficult to extract statistical information about the prevalence of particular personal names at Miletus.

Readers will wish to know how the coverage of the Prosopographie compares with the treatment of Milesians in the Lexicon of Greek Personal Names (essentially in LGPN V.B, plus the Milesians at Amorgos listed in LGPN I). By way of example, the LGPN has 44 entries for the name Ἀλέξανδρος at Miletus, while the Prosopographie has 56. Of the 56 entries in the Prosopographie, seven are for non-Milesians with links with Miletus, some of them intimate (Alexander III of Macedon, who held the eponymous magistracy at Miletus in 333/2 bc), some considerably less so (Alexandros son of Hikesios of Chios, one of 50 foreign judges who adjudicated a dispute between Miletus and Myous around 390 bc).

Of the remaining 49 entries for Ἀλέξανδρος in the Prosopographie, three are highly speculative restorations of fragmentary names such as Ἀλ̣[έξανδρος] or [Ἀλεξαν]δ̣ρ̣ος (rightly excluded from LGPN); two entries result from editorial misunderstandings of the relatively rare name Alexas (correctly registered as Ἀλεξᾶς (5) and (6) in LGPN V.B); two entries result from the perverse ‘double-counting’ of fathers mentioned above; and one entry is an outright error (false duplication of Alexandros son of Artemon in I.Milet VI 2, 798, lines 2 and 4). Conversely, the Prosopographie has only one entry apiece for two individuals called Alexandros son of Alexandros, where the LGPN rightly includes two entries apiece (one for the son, one for the father). The LGPN also includes one further entry that is absent from the Prosopographie, for an Alexan(dros) who appears on undated early imperial bronze coins of Miletus (RPC I p. 450).

In summary, this huge volume is a tremendous resource for historians of Miletus, but should be used with some caution; it is best treated as a bibliographic supplement to the relevant parts of the LGPN.