The Astynomoi Law of Pergamon: A New Commentary

This monograph is a new commentary on the famous epigraphic document known as the Astynomoi Law from Pergamon. In 1953/4 G. Klaffenbach published his excellent philological commentary on this prostagma and now, after six decades of archaeological and epigraphic discoveries a fresh, thorough study of it is needed. The monograph is divided into two parts: the first analyses the text line by line, the second focuses instead on the officials called astynomoi in a study of evidence from the entire Greek World which allows us to reassess their role and standing in city administration. Over decades scholars have tended to assume that the duties testified for the Athenian astynomoi were a template for those of the homonymous officials in all the other Greek communities. Only a complete reviewing of all now available evidence can reveal whether their tasks were universally identical or not.