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The Ephebic Oath and the Oath of Plataia in Fourth Century Athens

Danielle L. Kellogg (Brooklyn College)

The 1938 publication of the stele bearing the Ephebic Oath and the Oath of Plataia allowed scholars to examine for the first time epigraphical versions of documents which had previously been known only through literary references.[1] Since that time, however, the connection between these two documents has never been satisfactorily addressed, and there is a marked tendency in scholarship to treat them as separate inscriptions.[2]

This paper demonstrates that the juxtaposition of the Ephebic Oath and the Oath of Plataia on the same stele is based upon ideological similarities between the two documents which explain why they were associated in the Athenian imagination. In both situations, Athenian independence was being threatened by a power coming from the north; resistance to this power made the destruction of the city a real possibility; and provisions had to be made for the protection of Athenian territory and institutions. The success of the Athenian resistance during the Persian Wars was one of the most widely commemorated historical events during the fourth and third centuries; a document addressing these circumstances was the obvious choice to inspire similar sacrifices on the part of young men in late fourth-century Athens. The combination of the Oath of Plataia and the Ephebic Oath on the same stele should be viewed, therefore, as an exhortation to Athenians just entering their military training to aspire to the achievements of their fifth-century forebears in a similar situation.