Page:Philological Museum v2.djvu/413

On the Birth-Year of Demosthenes, 403 elusion as to the ordinary time of registration, that we might draw a contrary inference from a fact mentioned in the same oration of Isseus (p. 65) where we find that the adopted son was introduced to the assembly of the yevvrJTai and (ppdrope^ and enrolled in their register (the kolvov ^ypaikixarelov)^ not at the Apaturia in the fourth month (see above, p. 397) but at the Thargelia in the eleventh, which appears from the orator's words to have been the stated time {eiret^ri QapyriXiu rjv^ ijywye ^e eiri tov^ (iooikov^ eU tov<$ yevvrjTa^ t€ kol (ppa- TOjOa?). Meursius (Graecia Feriata, p. 148) remarked this distinction between natural and adopted children, which how- ever may have arisen from principles not applicable to any business transacted in the purely political assemblies of the demes. As the military oath of the ephebi was taken in the sanc- tuary of Agraulus, so the occasion was, it may be presumed, no other than the festival of the Agraulia, v/hich honoured the memory of the daughter of Cecrops^. By a comparison of this festival with the Cyprian Agraulia, Corsini has shown that it was most probably celebrated in Boedromion (F. A. T. II. p. 297). If therefore the enrolment in the lexiarchic regi- ster was made in Scirophorion, it preceded the oath by more than two months. A seeming difficulty however arises from the well known passage of ^Eschines, in which he speaks of the ancient custom of arming the orphan sons of citizens who had fallen in war at the public expense, and of making a solemn proclamation of the honour conferred on them, in the theatre at the Great Dionysia ; while the language of Aristotle, above quoted from Harpocratio {TrepirroXoi)^ may seem to imply that this was also the practice in all cases. It is how- ever most probable that either, as Boeckh suggests, Aristotle himself described that as the ordinary usage, which was really confined to a particular case, or, which seems more likely, that Harpocratio gave too large a meaning to his words. The words however raise another question which embarrassed Harpocratio himself; he observes that in the expression tov ^ Boeckh adds '^ephebos sese patriae devovisse, quemadmodum ipsa sese Agraulus olim devoverat. I have not been able to find the legend here alluded to, which is certainly not the common one. Was the author thinking of the daughter of Ercch- thcus ?