Probably private honors and artist's signature

IGCyr064200

Trismegistos ID: 6187

Source Description

Support

Right block of a composite white marble base, badly damaged at upper edge and upper right corner of the inscribed face and cut off at left side, unless another block was formerly adjacent (1.06; 0.225;0.655).

Layout

Inscribed on front face in two lines of different height.

Letters

0.025 at l. 1, 0.02 at l. 2; careful cutting, slight serifs.

Place of Origin

Port of Cyrene, later Apollonia .

Date

Late third to early second century B.C. (lettering)

Findspot

Found in 1929 in the Port of Cyrene, later Apollonia : probably in the East Church , which is presumably the place where the agora once stood.

Last recorded Location

Seen by J.M. Reynolds before 1974 in Shahat : Cyrene Museum .

Present Location

Not found by IGCyr team.

Text constituted from

Transcription from previous editors.

Bibliography

Pugliese Carratelli-Oliverio, 1961 , p. 43, n. 21, ph. 42 fig. 36 and pp. 4, 52, and Robert, Bulletin Épigraphique , 1962.368, whence SEG , 20.708; Reynolds, 1976 , n. 14, whence SEG , 27.1125bis. Cf. Rosamilia, 2014 , n. 11.

Text

[---]  [---] ρητος ἱεριτεύων Ἀπόλλων[ος] (vac.) [---]  Ἀριστομένους Ἀθηναῖος ἐποίησε (vac.)

Apparatus

1 Pugliese Carratelli-Oliverio, 1961  [---] ρητος : Reynolds, 1976  [Κ]ρητὸς : Rosamilia, 2014  [Xά?]ρητος

1 Reynolds, 1976 , Rosamilia, 2014  Ἀπόλλων[ος] : Pugliese Carratelli-Oliverio, 1961  Ἀπόλλων[ι]

French translation

[---]  (fils de)[---] rès, étant prêtre d'Apollon (a consacré ce monument).

Oeuvre de [d'Untel], fils d'Aristoménès, athénien.

English translation

[---]  (son of) [---] res, while being priest of Apollo (dedicated this monument).

Made by [So-and-so], son of Aristomenes, an Athenian.

Italian translation

[---]  (figlio di) [---] res, quando era sacerdote di Apollo (dedicò questo monumento).

Opera del [tale], figlio di Aristomenes, ateniese.

Commentary

Pugliese Carratelli edited this inscription from a photograph in the Cyrene archive with the help of a mention of the artist's signature made by Oliverio in a conference in 1938.

There are several possibilites for the father's name of the dedicant, which we prefer not to restore.

We follow Reynolds in relating the god's name to the office of priest with the genitive Ἀπόλλωνος, although this word-order is unusual. However, Pugliese Carratelli's idea of a dative is not impossible, the god's name being related to the understated verb of dedication and the priest being Apollo's one par excellence. The translation would then be 'being priest (dedicated this monument) to Apollo'. If the former is preferred, we would have private honors with only the identification of the person featured in the lost statue, without mention of the person responsible for the monument (for this type see for instance IGCyr022900).

The ending of the father's name of the dedicant belongs to a very short series of names attested in Cyrenaica. Two names with a genitive ending -ρητος (a type that is not very usual) are attested in Cyrenaica: Κρής which is one Reynold's suggestion, and Χάρης, which is Rosamilia's suggestion. As we do not know how long the preceding lost name was, we cannot decide which father's name we should choose.

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