ATTIC INSCRIPTIONS ONLINE - (S.) Lambert, (C.) de Lisle, (P.) Low, (P.) Liddel (edd.) Attic Inscriptions Online (AIO). URL https://www.atticinscriptions.com/, 2012–2025 (last accessed 07/03/2025).

Abstract

AIO (epigraphers love abbreviations) has a simple premise: translations are essential to make the inscriptions of ancient Athens and Attica more accessible; and translations are rarely available.CIL and IG continue to use Latin as their lingua franca for all supporting information, although IG has begun to include online translations for new editions, primarily in German, but also reproducing those of AIO for Attica.As someone reared on sourcebooks without translations such as R. Meiggs and D. Lewis, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions (revised 1989), I only wish AIO had existed when I was a student.AIO was founded by the Greek historian and epigrapher Lambert and launched in 2012.It currently hosts 2,727 inscriptions, with new batches of material uploaded several times a year.Lambert has now stepped back from the immediate direction of the project, but the baton has been ably picked up by de Lisle, Low and Liddel, supported by an Advisory Board; and the of contributors is almost a who's who of Attic epigraphy.AIO does what it sets out to do remarkably well and to a very high level.The site is clean and simple in its presentation, and set up simply to get you to the inscription(s) you are looking for with the minimum of fuss, allowing you to search by a variety of basic metadata categories (date, findspot, original or current location, inscription type, monument type, date of publication in AIO) or by bibliographical references.Having found your inscription, you are presented with the translation, which clearly follows the arrangement of the original text.In some cases the translation can be toggled with the specific edition of the Greek text that was used, in others you are provided with a link to the source text, available online in another resource, such as PHI or IG.Translations are annotated with transliterations of key terms and placenames; both features can be turned on or off, the latter linking to the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places.Translations are accompanied by a detailed commentary, rich in hyperlinks to cross-referenced texts and places.Given that most inscriptions have been repeatedly edited, the different editions are all recorded, and the translations can be reached via any of those references (which are in turn detailed on the page); the source edition (usually the most recent) is made explicit, and the translator(s) noted.There is much more to AIO than translations alone: the site hosts three additional resources: 'AIO Papers', 'AIUK Papers' and 'Attic Inscriptions: Education', a set of supporting resources for schools.The first of these offers a forum for discussion of Attic epigraphy, especially work arising out of the translation project.Papers are published as online PDFs.Among the twelve available, one might single out no. 4, by Lambert, which is a fine demonstration of what can be done by one person systematically working through a fascicle of IG for the purposes of translation, illuminating brilliantly the extent to which close translation requires detailed scholarly engagement with the material.AIO Paper 12 should also be highlighted, a thorough overview of the Athenian ephebate and its epigraphy in the Roman period by de Lisle, a small monograph in its own right.The second resource, AIUK, edits the Attic inscriptions held in UK collections, work undertaken by Lambert, Liddel, Low, de Lisle and R. Pitt.Fifteen papers range across country houses and museums, producing first-rate, fully illustrated editions with commentary, including a previously unpublished ephebe list of the Roman period in the National Museums of Scotland in Edinburgh.