WILLIAM G. FORREST

513

THE PRIESTHOODS OF ERYTHRAI

Some years ago Mr Louis Robert identified in Chios Museum (1) what he thought might be the upper part of the third-century stele recording the sale of priesthoods in Erythrai. Although the stele itself, once in the Museum at Smyrna, had been lost, the size, style and subject-matter of the Chian fragment seemed to confirm the identification, and it has been accepted in subsequent discussions of the document with more confidence than Robert himself was prepared to show (2). Robert published two faces of the Chian fragment (β and γ, see fig. 1) without making it clear whether the other two were missing or uninscribed. But in either case,

since on the Smyrna fragment one main face, Β in fig. 1, was blank, there could be enly one reconstruction; α and Β should form the back of the stele which would then be uninscribed, β would belong above Α, γ above D and the missing δ above C. It is this reconstruction which is presented by Mr Sokolowski in publishing for

the first time inscription (3).

a full text of the

Fig. 1, — Tentative reconstruction of the stele.