Dedication to Apollo

IGCyr080500

Trismegistos ID: 738380

Source Description

Support

Low limestone wall with coping head-blocks and, below, on its Northern side, a bench for visitors (width 1.38 to 1.80 for each block).

Layout

One letter inscribed on the Northern side of each head-block; six non inscribed blocks at the right end and probably six also, now missing, at the left end, now hidden under a water channel of Byzantine date.

Letters

0.1; slight serifs, mu and sigma with four slantering strokes, open omega, epsilon with shorter middle bar.

Place of Origin

Findspot.

Date

Around the middle of the fourth century B.C. (lettering)

Findspot

Cleared in 1930 by G. Oliverio at Cyrene : Sanctuary of Apollo , Fountain Terrace , Bench of Elaiitas .

Last recorded Location

Seen by C. Dobias-Lalou in 1977 and often again in situ.

Text constituted from

Transcription from stone (CDL).

Bibliography

Stucchi, 1975 , p. 113, n. 6, and Laronde, 1987 , pp. 189-190, whence SEG , 38.1897. Cf. Ensoli Vittozzi, 1996 , p. 94; Ensoli, 1997 .

Text

Ἐ[λα]ιίτας [......] ω τῶι [Ἀπόλλω]νι ἱαρ[ι]τεύων ἀ[ν]έθηκ[ε].

Apparatus

1 Stucchi, 1975  Ἐ[λ]αιίτας [Θευδώρ]ω

French translation

Elaiitas fils de  [---] os durant sa prêtrise a consacré à Apollon.

English translation

Elaiitas son of  [---] os being priest dedicated to Apollo.

Italian translation

Elaiitas figlio di  [---] os ha dedicato ad Apollo quando era sacerdote.

Commentary

Stucchi's restoration for the father's name was based on IGCyr096700, which is clearly much later. We follow Laronde's dating and consider the two Elaiitas to be different persons of different times. Hence a date for the wall-bench that should be older that usually proposed.

Laronde mentioned also a possible restoration of the name as Ἐπαρίτας; this was due to a former stage of his work that he did not cancel in his publication, but rejected firmly in further oral discussion and in his unpublished prosopography, inasmuch as IGCyr102000 offers another example of the rare name Ἐλαιίτας.

By the time of the discovery, Oliverio thought this wall to be a dam protecting the sanctuary from rain-water (see for example Luni, 2014 , p.  133). Laronde gave arguments against this idea and Ensoli Vittozzi, 1996 , p. 94 (cf. Ensoli, 1997 ), following Stucchi, considered it as a bench for visitors.

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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.

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