Note 192 — Chapter I · DRAMATIC CONTESTS AT ATHENS

C. I. A. iv. 971 f. See above, p. 20, note 3. [It is not at all improbable that the extant inscriptions which have been described in this section were to a great extent based on the work of Aristotle himself, this work being itself based on earlier records now lost. It would only be natural that the theatre officials would take advantage of so important a compilation as the Διδασκαλίαι and Νῖκαι Διονυσιακαί of Aristotle, and might well have extracts from it engraved on stone in the theatre. The fact that the last record in C. I. A. ii. 971 belongs to the year 328 B.C. has also led some writers to conjecture that this whole inscription represents the work of Aristotle. This view is confirmed by the fact that Aristotle, with Callisthenes, prepared a record of Pythian victors for the temple of Delphi, which was engraved on stone at the public cost, B.C. 331. (Homolle, Bull. de Corr. Hell. xxii. 261, 631; Bourguet, ibid. xxiv. 504; Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscr. Gr. 915.) Cp. Reisch in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encycl., Art. Didaskaliai; Wilhelm, Urkunden dramatischer Aufführungen in Athen, pp. 13-15. The latter work gives a very complete account of the extant inscriptions.]