Una nuova evidenza di sigle “demotiche” e di synkletos dalla Sicilia tardoellenistica: SEG LIX.1102 e la storia di Kale Akte

Abstract

The epigraphic document SEG LIX. 1102, inscribed on a marble slab found in 2003 in an uncultivated ground on the slopes of the hill of modern Caronia (Sicily), can probably be attributed to the ancient Kale Akte (Calacte), founded in 446 B.C. by the Sikel dynast Ducetius. Upon the paleographical evidence the inscription is likely to date back between the end of the III and the middle of the II century B.C., and preserves a fragmentary honorary decree for an unknown person. the document offers new issues of historical interest for the study of the late Hellenistic siceliote institutions: it records, in fact, a new evidence of the enigmatic community acronyms (“demotics”), which are also recorded in other Hellenistic Siceliote poleis; moreover, the inscription probably testifies to a rare kind of three-chamber institutional system, which, until now, finds epigraphical comparisons, in the late Hellenistic period, only at Akragas and Rhegion: in addition to the halia (assembly) and boula (council), peculiar of the Siceliote politeiai, in the deliberative mechanism a synkletos appears, i.e. a “restricted” government body of controversial institutional nature, identified by scholars either with an assembly or with a council. in the Calactine context, the nature and the origin of the synkletos appear even more problematic, due to the almost total silence of the historical sources on the fate of the city between the years of Ducetius’ foundation and the Second punic War. An introduction of this third institutional body in the age of the romanization of Sicily being unlikely, the possible context of origin will be likely identified in Kale Akte foundation period or more probably in the time of the Timoleon’s reforms of Sicily in the 30s of the fourth century B.C.