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In April of 1628 the English polymath John Seiden (1584-1654) finished an edition of the Greek inscriptions found in the collection of marble tablets belonging to one of his political patrons and supporters, Thomas Howard, fourteenth Earl of Arundel. The impetus for the project had come in January of 1627, when their mutual friend Sir Robert Cotton informed Seiden that the earl had just received a shipment of ancient inscribed stones from the Mediterranean. They had been brought to the earl's house in London by William Petty, one of the earl's agents in the East.1 As Seiden soon realized, the inscriptions on the stones were of immense historical importance. They revealed an Athenian chronicle (later known as the Parian chronicle) and a treaty between Smyrna and Magnesia-by-Sipylos, two Hellenistic -era cities in Seleucid-controlled Asia Minor, as well as decrees by the Smyrnans. The treaty and decrees provide historical details of the ancient city of Smyrna, which was a part of the Seleucid Empire and which won a series of battles against the Magnesians during the Third Syrian War (246-41 bc). The Magnesian prisoners had to be integrated into Smyrnan society, a process that involved the use of allotment lists, the precedence of Smyrnan laws in contract lawsuits, and an oath of allegiance to the king and people of Smyrna.2 Along with Patrick Young, the royal librarian, and the linguist Richard James, Seiden oversaw the printed edition of all the inscriptions in the earl's collection.3 He also provided scholarly notes and observations on the inscriptions, mainly on those found in the earl's most recent acquisitions, for the edition published in 1628.
Even though Seiden completed the work on the marbles in between two Parliamentary sessions in which he was an active participant, there is no evidence suggesting that he saw his edition in political terms.4 Seiden was not seeking to explain modern English institutions by means of his investigation of Hellenistic society. Yet Seiden, influenced by his association with Sir Robert Cotton, was increasingly apt at this stage of his career to see in antiquities a viable means of expanding and contextualizing historical knowledge.5 Thus, while his classical epigraphy did not form a traditional historical narrative, Seiden did devote significant...