The deep structure of entries may be summed up as:

In most cases this is expressed by a temporal clause:

However, in nine occasions a noun with the preposition ἀπό (from) appears instead of the temporal clause:

Both patterns are known from other chronographic texts, but temporal clauses seem characteristic of the count-down chronicle (so, e.g. in the Roman Chronicle, chap. 3, sect. 2 above), while nominal patterns seem typical of sources computing major intervals of time, as in a famous fragment of Eratosthenes’s Chronographiai (FGrH 241 F 1a):

Among religious events there are eighteen references to sacrifice, purification, epiphany, oracle consultation, as well as to the setting of festivals and contests: the Panathenaea, the ploughing festival at Eleusis, the Eleusinian mysteries, the gymnic agon at Eleusis, the contests at Isthmia, Nemea, and Delphi, and the Athenian contests of comedy, tragedy, and dithyramb. I count festival foundations also among cultural events but not among political ones, in spite of their political significance. Only one religious event, Croesus’s theoria to Delphi (A41, with restoration), do I count as political.

Religious events concentrate in two clusters: the times preceding the Trojan War, and the sixth century BCE (Table 1). Regarding the first cluster, the focus on religious events of aetiological nature is consistent with the practice of both local and universal historians when relating primeval times. The second cluster, which includes the establishment of contests at Delphi and Athens, probably benefited from the availability of documentary evidence—namely, victory lists kept at sanctuaries or reconstructed from local records (although the author most probably gathered the information from historiographical sources rather than from didaskaliai directly). Religious events from the fifth century BCE on, although implied in contexts of poetic victories, are not explicitly mentioned.

The incidence of political events is very high, but their distribution uneven (Table 2). They are particularly frequent in section B. In section A, there are two plateaus. The first, between the Panathenaea and the fall of Troy (A10 to A24), with only three political events, at A11 and A20. The second, from Gelon and Hieron to the foundation of Megalopolis (A53 and A55 to A73), with only six political events (A58, A61, A62, A72). These plateaus of political events correspond to a high occurrence of religious and cultural events up to the fall of Troy, as well as of cultural events, mostly Athenian poetic competitions of the fifth and fourth centuries BCE.

Cultural affairs are the second most frequent type of event after political ones (fifty-six events). They include the organization of contests (considered religious events too), especially poetic competitions. Also included are references to heuremata, poets (their birth, “appearance” or floruit, victories, death, etc.) and other intellectuals, including philosophers.

Cultural events are spread rather evenly in section A of the inscription (Table 4), with minor plateaus at the beginning (A1 to A8), between the fall of Troy and Hesiod (A24 to A28), at the beginning of B (B1 to B5), and towards its end. The section corresponding to the Classical period contains more cultural events, but fewer events of other types. Conversely, section B, with a very high frequency of military and political events, has much fewer cultural events (only six, that is, eleven percent of all cultural events, appear in B).

Among cultural events, the distribution of victories at poetic competitions deserves attention (Tables 5 and 6). They are concentrated in the period between 510/508 BCE and 370/369 BCE, and are restricted to victories in Athens. That is, no other mousikoi agones are mentioned in the Parian Marble. Perhaps most conspicuously absent are the Carneian contests at Sparta, whose list of victors was compiled by Hellanicus (see chap. 6, sect. 1 and 2.IV below).

How are the major themes distributed in the Parian Marble? Table 7 helps to visualize their interaction, especially that between gaps and peaks.

In the early periods of the chronicle, information is foundational, about emerging political entities, religious practices, and cultural institutions. The middle period is marked by cultural events and, to a lesser degree, by political ones. The more recurrent themes in the last part of the inscription (B) are political and military. However, in the entire text cultural events are almost as numerous as political ones, and gaps in the military and political series seem to be filled mostly by cultural events, and vice versa. The distribution of themes may derive partly from the sources used, yet authorial choice cannot be excluded, even though it was constrained by the availability of information. The emphasis on poetic events, as we shall see in Chapter 6, is idiosyncratic to the Parian Marble.

For the sake of the quantitative analysis of contents, I treated the four major themes as discrete. However, one notion seems to cross those semantic boundaries: the notion of conflict and competition, which appears in military, cultural, and political events. Winning is also a notion shared by various categories; twenty-two instances of winning occur in war, at musical contests, and in court.

In the same way that there is no proper narrative in the Parian Marble, there are no main characters, even though a few names appear more than once, especially in section B (Alexander and Ptolemy are good examples). However, even if there are no real protagonists, we may explore the types of individual who are found worthy of record.

Hence, males are the main protagonists of history, most of them rulers and military commanders. Their range crosses ethnic boundaries. It is their historical relevance from the Greek point of view and their position of power that makes them count, not their ethnic affiliation. A second group of protagonists includes cultural figures, mostly poets and musicians, and a few philosophers (we shall return to them in chap. 6, sect. 1).

There is nothing idiosyncratic in the Parian Marble’s approach to the protagonists of history. The focus on political and military affairs, typical of much ancient Greek historiography, calls for a certain type of character: leading and powerful male individuals and ethnic groups. There are no barbarians, no lexical marking of “the other,” in the extant inscription. This interest in rulers is shared by ancient Near Eastern chronicles. In contrast, religious figures such as prophets are prominent in the Biblical, and later the Christian chronicles. Yet the focus on poets, as we shall see in Chapter 6, although present in some works of Hellenistic historiography, is peculiar to the Parian Marble.

The Parian Marble charts human action in a chronological grid, and it does so by locating it in space. In this section, I explore geography in the Parian Marble and how the spatial focus changes as the inscription advances.

The world depicted in the Parian Marble is one of movement. To be sure, it is not only travel that is implied in most military campaigns and city foundations, though in some cases it is mentioned explicitly. At the very beginning, movement towards Athens is charted, with Deucalion (A4) and Demeter (A12). Hellas is a destination for Danaus, coming from Egypt (A9), and later for Stesichorus (A50). Two events dated to the seventh century BCE involve travelling across the Mediterranean, from Corinth to Syracuse (A31) and from Mytilene to Sicily (A36). The notion of crossing, implied in Croesus’s theoria to Delphi (A41), dominates from the fifth century BCE onwards. Indeed, there is Xerxes’s crossing the Hellespont (A51), Cyrus’s anabasis (A64), and the return of the Greeks (A66), as well as the crossing of Alexander (B3) and Antigonus (B11) into Asia. The notion of crossing acquires a new direction with Agathocles’s crossing from Sicily to Carthage (B18). Apart from Xerxes’s crossing (A51), all travels are referred to in very general terms. This dynamic world, in which people and armies constantly move from place to place, is in sharp contrast with the rigid style of the Parian Marble.

The analysis of the Parian Marble in terms of style, themes, narrative technique, characters, and space shows that rather than remaining uniform, they vary as the inscription advances.

The opening, up to the Trojan War, sticks to the formulaic arrangement of entries, beginning with temporal clauses and ending with dating notices. Parataxis is the rule, achieved through καί, though occasionally consecutive and epexegetic meanings can be discerned, disclosing the aetiological orientation of the sources used. In this period, information concerns the emergence of political entities, religious practices, and cultural institutions. In terms of geography, the section focuses on central Greece, particularly on Attica and Athens. From the sixth century BCE on, the structure of entries loosens, postscripts emerge, and δέ appears, a conjunction almost unattested before A36. Both features perhaps testify to the difficulties of compiling information from diverse sources. From the point of view of content, cultural events dominate. In the Classical period, the festival culture of Athens is emphasized, whereas the political and military centrality of other areas emerges. Consequently, the geographical focus expands, covering the Mediterranean basin, from Syracuse to Persia. In section B entries have a much looser structure; nominalization frequently opens sections, and postscripts, usually coordinated by δέ, are more numerous. At the same time, information is more detailed, often more than needed for chronographic purposes. At times, entries resemble hypomnemata. The author’s giving way to narrative may derive from his describing contemporary events, as well as from the wealth of available information. This period focuses particularly on the military and political realms, with events and people recorded from further east and west. It is reasonable to assume that much stylistic variation is due to the use of different sources.

The world of the Parian Marble is one of on-going confrontation. No didactic lesson is intended, yet a Herodotean moral is imparted, nonetheless: whatever rises is doomed to fall, whoever attains power eventually passes away. The comfort imparted by the rhythmical counting of years contrasts sharply with the instability of human endeavors. The objective style inspires authority, but knowledge of historical sources may yet raise a sense of dissonance.