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Two punctually adjacent fragments of a white
Probably found already in 1925 at
Seen by C. Dobias-Lalou in 1977 and again in 2001 in
Marked-up according to the EpiDoc Guidelines version 8
The two fragments were published by G. Pugliese Carratelli as prepared by †Oliverio. Of fragment b, the former found a photograph and transcription and was able to check the stone at Cyrene. Of fragment a he only found in Oliverio's papers a drawing (not given) and suggested that it might belong to the same stone. Thanks to a reexamination of both fragments, C. Dobias-Lalou is able to confirm their respective placement, joining them at lines 4-5 and thus to calculate the extent of the lost parts.
Both in its less regular cutting and in its letter forms, this text is clearly distinguished from the list inscribed below fragment b (IRCyr C.415), but they could nevertheless be approximately contemporary, although by different hands (from J.M. Reynolds' commentary in notebook). For the list, which begins with Hadrian deified, J.M. Reynolds (IRCyr C.415) hesitates between a list of priests cut once at a time after the latest was out of office and a list of contributors to a fund. The second option might fit better the poem, if ever related to it. Whatever the discrepancies between both parts, it is also difficult to explain why so much space was left on the stone above the list if it was not intended for the poem to be added.
At l. 1, what is preserved of the first letter might also belong to a lambda. However no Greek words ends with that letter, so alpha is compulsory.
As to the last letter, of which only a small upper part of a hasta is preserved, J.M. Reynolds (notebook) suggested gamma, but eta or pi are also possible. Αs usual,
At l. 3, the last letter of which only the upper part of a hasta is preserved, might be as well iota or kappa, the former being less plausible because of
the hiatus, the more so if we read with elision
At l. 4 the vestiges, now lost, of an illegible letter seen by Oliverio on top of fragment b should belong to the letter of which only a hasta is left on fragment a, forming together a nu.
At line 5, as two short syllables are preserved, the preceding one should be long. The dialectal verb
At line 6 some form of
On one side, the special place allowed to Hadrian on the stone, if the poem is related to the rest, would explain a poem alluding to his action as 'restorer' of the
city after the Jewish revolt. On the other hand, the three last verse-lines mention grain presented to someone who despaired of it and tells that the Greeks were
rescued. This might recall the delivery of grain to many cities about 320 B.C. (IGCyr010900; for a similar use of
Metrical analysis: lines 1-2 have larger and more carefully cut letters. Although the remnant parts are consistent with the dactylic rhythm, various reasons forbid to restore a verse: 1) the dimensions of the lost parts on both sides are too small for an elegiac couplet; 2) the ending of line 2 cannot belong to a hexameter nor to a pentameter. It seems thus better to consider those lines a heading. The eight following lines are four elegiac couplets, as shown through the inset of pentameters in the last lines.