The Choiseul Marble
Unknown · c. 410-406 BC
At the top of this inscribed slab a small relief shows Athena, in helmet and peplos, once holding a spear, facing a bearded man in a cloak leaning on a staff, with an olive tree between them. He is probably Demos, the personified people of Athens, or perhaps the hero Erichthonios. Below run columns of small Greek letters: the accounts of the treasurers of Athena, recording money paid out from the sacred treasury. The head, hand and spear of Athena are lost, the lower corners are missing, and the back, which carried two more inscriptions, is so worn as to be almost illegible.
The stone was cut in Pentelic marble around four hundred and ten to four hundred and six BC, in the last years of the Peloponnesian War, when the city was drawing on the goddess's reserves to pay for its fleet and its public business. Found on the Acropolis, it was acquired by the Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier, French ambassador to Constantinople, and bought by the Louvre in 1818. Saw marks in the thickness show that someone once began to slice it up. Few objects bring you as close to the bookkeeping of the Athenian democracy.
Did You Know? Saw cuts in the edge of the slab show that someone once started to slice this Athenian account book into thinner pieces, and gave up.
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