La legge efebarchica di Anfipoli : una difesa della coerenza interna del testo

The Ephebarchic Law of Amphipolis. A defence of its internal coherence · The law inscribed at Amphipolis in 24/23 BC by the former ephebarch Adaios is the widest surviving evidence on ancient ephebeia. The inconsistencies within the text have been explained alternatively as the result of clumsy interpolations of royal legislation into an older civic law or as the outcome of different shreds of documents, dating from the Antigonid times to the age of Augustus, sewed up together. Even though some royal act might be detected at the origin of the civic regulation, the supposed inconsistencies could be better explained in a different way : Adaios cut and pasted from the text of the original law to draft his inscription. This is especially true when it comes to the two most controversial sections of the document : those on enrollment (ll. 6-19) and on contests (ll. 73-110). It is possible to deliver a coherent reading of these two passages, thus understanding the text as it stands, without supposing interpolations or patchworks.