Dedication to Apollo of his re-built temple
GVCyr030
Trismegistos ID: 738923
Source Description
Support
Damaged white marble pillar consisting of a pair of orthostates, standing on a base inscribed with IRCyr C.223, moulded on three sides; this inscription on the main (Eastern) face of the shaft below IRCyr C.223; (together 0.82; 1.06;0.69); IRCyr C.224 is on the left face.
Layout
Inscribed in four lines on the lower part of the face; an incised palm branch and an ivy leaf precede the beginning of l. 1; the same may have been lost at the end of l. 4.; the other lines are aligned at left.
Letters
0.025; very carefully cut lettering, letters pressed together; alpha with dropped bar, alpha, delta and lambda with projecting apex; rho with very small loop, square sigma, once in l. 1 and twice in l. 4, only in ligature with eta, four strokes sigma elsewhere, upsilon with a small bar below the oblique strokes, omega very classical in shape; large omicron, but in δωμήσατο and νηόν, where they are written very small; nu at l. 3 also very small in Ἀπόλλωνι.
Place of Origin
Cyrene pleiades; : pillar of the doorway from the cella to the adyton of the Temple of Apollo .
Date
Soon after 181 A.D. (prosopography)
Findspot
Found in 1922 at Cyrene pleiades; HGL : in the Byzantine Baths , re-used as a paving stone.
Last recorded Location
Seen by C. Dobias-Lalou in 1977 and again in 1997, replaced in the pronaos of the Temple of Apollo , beside the entrance to the cella, on the left side.
Text constituted from
Transcription from stone (CDL).
Bibliography
Ferri, 1923 Ferri, S., 1923, Contributi di Cirene alla storia della religione greca, Roma - see in bibliography , n. 5 and drawing fig. 2, whence SEG Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, Leiden, then Amsterdam, 1923-1971, then 1979- - see in bibliography , 9.189; SECir Oliverio, G., Pugliese-Carratelli, G., Morelli, D., 1961-1962, Supplemento Epigrafico Cirenaico, Annuario della Scuola Archeologica di Atene e delle Missioni Italiane in Oriente (ASAA)39-40 (= n.s. 23-24), 219-375 - see in bibliography , 9b and photo fig. 11. Cf. Pernier, 1935 Pernier, L., 1935, Il tempio e l'altare di Apollo a Cirene. Scavi e studi del 1925 al 1934, Bergamo - see in bibliography , pp. 89-95 (support).
Text
| Καὶ πρότερόν σοι Φοῖβε τεὸν δωμήσατο νηὸν | Θήρης ἐκπεμφθεὶς Βάττος Ἀριστοτέλης
| καὶ νῦν ἐκ πολέμοιο χαμαιριφῆ Ἀπόλλωνι | στῆσεν ὑπ' εὐσεβίης νηὸν Ἀριστοτέλης.
Apparatus
French translation
Une première fois pour toi, Phoibos, un temple fut construit
par Battos Aristotélès, envoyé de Thèra.
De même aujourd'hui, quand il eut été abattu par la guerre, pour Apollon
un temple a été érigé sous l'effet de la piété par un Aristotélès.
English translation
A first time, for you, Phoibos, a temple was built
by Battos Aristoteles, who had been sent from Thera.
In the same way now, as it has been thrown to the ground because of the war, for Apollo
a temple has been erected as a result of piety by an Aristoteles.
Italian translation
Una prima volta per te, Febo, costruì il tuo tempio
Battos Aristoteles, inviato da Tera.
Così ora, poiché è stato abbattuto dalla guerra, per Apollo
eresse un tempio, in virtù della sua pietà, un Aristoteles.
Arabic translation
في المرة الأولى ، يا فوبس، كان قد بُني لك معبداً من قبل باتوس أريستوتيليس، الذي كان قد أرسل من ثيرا. والآن بنفس الطريقة، ، كما أسقطت على الأرض بسبب الحرب ، لأجل أبولو، أعيد بناء المعبد بسبب الإيمان القوي بأريستوتيليس (باتوس).
Commentary
This epigram takes place at the end of a list of eponymous priests, of which the last mentioned one is explicitely dated from 178/9 AD. We know from another list (IRCyr C.251) that a Dekimos Kaskellios Aristoteles was priest in 181/2 and deserved the epithet καλλιέτης because his year was a successfull one. Instead of having only his name on the present stone, we have an epigram playing on the similarity of his name with that of the Founder. The latter is better known through his surname Battos 'Stammerer', but his first name Aristoteles is also mentioned by some authors. It is commonly admitted that the 'war' mentioned here is the Jewish Revolt of 115-117. Unlike some public buildings quickly repaired under Hadrian, the temples of Zeus and Apollo had to wait for a thorough transformation (see Stucchi, 1961 Stucchi, S., 1961, Le fase costruttive dell'Apollonion di Cirene, Quaderni di Archeologia della Libya (QAL), 4, 55-81 - see in bibliography , pp. 71-75 and Laronde, 1988 Laronde, A., 1988, La Cyrénaïque romaine, des origines à la fin des Sévères (96 av. J.-C. - 235 ap. J.-C.), in H. Temporini, W. Haase (eds.), Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung, II.10.1, Berlin-New York, 1006-1064 - see in bibliography , pp. 1052-1053). The priest Aristoteles was surely not the only benefactor who made this possible, but more probably the work was finished under his priesthood.
Metrical analysis: two regular elegiac couplets. At l. 3, the name of Apollo has the usual lengthening of the initial α for metrical purpose and therefore the hexameter is spondaic.
Creative Commons Attributions-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
All citation, reuse or distribution of this work must contain a link back to DOI: http://doi.org/10.6092/UNIBO/IGCYRGVCYR and the filename (IGCyr000000 or GVCyr000), as well as the year of consultation.
