Geonomoi da Cassio Dione all’Atene del V secolo a.C

In three instances of the surviving portions of Cassius Dio’s historical work, the unusual word geonomoi is attested: it indicates the officials tasked with the division and distribution of land, and renders in Greek the Latin uiri agris diuidendis. The earliest occurrence of the word is attested in an Athenian decree on the foundation of a colony at Brea in northern Greece, where ten geonomoi were selected from each Athenian tribe for the purpose of distributing the land among the colonists. The same word comes up in the lexicons of Hesychius and Photius in relation to a lost work by the Athenian comic poet Cratinus. A number of scholars have claimed, with Gomme, that these fragments should not be ascribed to Cratinus, but rather to the Macedonian Craterus. This paper argues against this proposed correction of the name of Cratinus transmitted by Hesychius and Photius. Its further aim is to establish a connection between the use of geonomoi by Cassius Dio and his stylistic choices, which were influenced by Atticism. It also seeks to clarify the possible sources for the use of this word: lexicographical material that is transmitted by Hesychius and Photius as well as the Praeparatio sophistica of Phrynichus, a strict Atticist. The history of the word begins, as far as we can tell, with the foundation of an Athenian colony and a comedy by Cratinus, who possibly referred explicitly to the same foundation. The word reappears in the second century AD in Phrynichus and, one generation later, in Cassius Dio, who might have used Phrynichus or another (now lost) lexicon to render in Greek the Latin name of the land commissioners of the late Roman Republic.