Support
Rock-cut (?) altar with two compartments (dimensions unknown).
Layout
Inscribed plausibly on the front (0.89 wide), below the compartments.
Letters
Height unknown; uspilon without hasta, flattened omega.
Place of Origin
Findspot.
Date
Fourth or third century B.C. (lettering)
Findspot
Found by S. Ferri between 1919 and 1923 West of Cyrene HGL : along the road leading to the West Necropolis , at El-Baggara.
Present Location
Not yet found in 2003 by O. Menozzi, who explored the area.
Present Location
Not seen by IGCyr team.
Text constituted from
Transcription from previous editor (CDL).
Ferri, 1923 Ferri, S., 1923, Contributi di Cirene alla storia della religione greca, Roma - see in bibliography , p. 11, n. 10 and fig. 10, whence SEG Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, Leiden, then Amsterdam, 1923-1971, then 1979- - see in bibliography , 9.355. Cf. Callot, 1999 Callot, J.-J., 1999, Recherches sur les cultes en Cyrénaïque durant le Haut-Empire romain, Études d'archéologie classique10, Nancy-Paris - see in bibliography , p. 171; Menozzi, 2006 Menozzi, O., 2006, Per una lettura della chora cirenea attraverso lo studio di santuari rupestri e de aree marginali della necropoli di Cirene, in E. Fabbricotti, O. Menozzi (eds.), Cirenaica: studi, scavi e scoperte: atti del X Convegno di Archeologia Cirenaica, Chieti 24-26 Novembre 2003, BAR international series1488, Oxford, 61-84 - see in bibliography , pp. 65-66, 79; Marini, 2013 Marini, S., 2013, Grecs et Romains face aux populations libyennes, des origines à la fin du paganisme, 1-2, PhD dissertation Université de Paris IV-Sorbonne - see in bibliography , p. 313.
1 Αὐγ[έα?] : SEG Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, Leiden, then Amsterdam, 1923-1971, then 1979- - see in bibliography αὔγ[αι?] : Ferri, 1923 Ferri, S., 1923, Contributi di Cirene alla storia della religione greca, Roma - see in bibliography αὐγ[ᾶς?]
(Autel) d'Halios. (Autel) d'Aug[eas?].
(Altar) of Halios. (Altar) of Aug[eas?].
(Altare) di Halios. (Altare) di Aug[eas?].
This inscription offers some unclear points. The only information is a drawing by Ferri, who described the support as 'une doppia eschara fornita inferiormente di bothros, in rozzi caratteri non più recenti certo del IV secolo'. As to the date, C. Dobias-Lalou, from the drawing, suspects a later date.
Ferri also described the whereabouts: at Baggara, a natural hole providing light to a cave. From this, Menozzi was able to identify the spot as a rocky sanctuary, but could not find the inscription.
As to the meaning, Ferri was very clear: he took the first word as the name of the god of the sun, Helios, and the second one as the name of another celestial deity, with an accent that should relate to the feminine Auge, daughter of the Arcadian king Aleos and mother of Telephos by Heracles. She later fled to Mysia and received protection from king Teuthras, being thus worshipped as a heroine both in Arcadia and in Asia minor. There is no reason for a link between her and Helios nor with Cyrenaica.
On the other hand the idea of two divine names would fit an altar with two compartments. Helios' cult, hitherto unknown in Cyrenaica was typically Rhodian before its development in the Lagids' Egypt later than Ferri's dating of the inscription (see Helios as warrant of the will of Ptolemy VIII IGCyr011200). C. Dobias-Lalou suggests that Augeas would be a better candidate. One son of Helios is mentioned by Nonnos (14.44-45) with a name usually printed as Αὔγης. One might rather write Αὐγῆς, a contracted form usual in Ionian for names ending with -έας. Apollonius Rhodius (1.172), who has for metrical reasons the variant Αὐγείης is more explicit, as he mentions him amongst the Argonauts both as king of Elis (who obliged Heracles to clean his stables) and as a son of Helios. That both father and son were worshipped together seems to be reasonable. What is not quite clear is the exact suffix that could end this name in Cyrenaica.
On the other hand Hondius for SEG implicitely interpreted the two words as a metrical segment when he compared it with a formula mentioned twice in one of Balbilla's poems cut on the Memnonion at Abydos ( Bernand-Bernand, 1960 Bernand, A., Bernand, E., 1960, Les inscriptions grecques et latines du colosse de Memnon, Institut français d'archéologie orientale. Bibiothèque d'étude, XXXI, Paris - see in bibliography , p. 81) after Hadrian's visit in 130 A.D. Even if the lettering in Ferri's drawing might be slightly younger than he supposed, the poems of Balbilla cannot be taken as models. In fact the association of ἥλιος and αὐγή may be found at some places in Homer, but does not offer a traditional formula. There is no sound reason for inserting this text into the collection of verse-inscriptions.
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