Athens are the mercenaries accompanying Peisistratos on his return from Thrace to Athens in the 560s (Hdt I.64; Aristl. Ath. Pol. 15.2). From the 560s onwards Thracians formed a clearly identifiable and [...] Lines 4-6 of this decree read that ‘For Athena Nike a priestess being chosen by lot from all Athenian women is to be appointed’. It was a radical democratic decision to elect a priestess by lot from all [...] advice from an oracle (ll.30-31). The question to be asked, as I read it, was: either 1) ‘whether it is necessary that a woman who is to be priestess and a man who is to be priest be chosen from the Thracians