Private honors (?) and tithe (?)
IGCyr107200
Trismegistos ID: 738599
Source Description
Repository
Cyrene Museum, Storeroom of the Italian missions, inv. number unknown.
Support
Two adjacent fragments of a white marble block, broken off at left (0.510; 0.210;0.585); there are two holes for attachment (long 0.14) on the upper side, near the right edge.
Layout
Inscribed on front face in three lines of different dimensions and width; axial layout at least for ll. 2 and 3.
Letters
0.025 at l. 1 and probably also at l. 3, taller at l. 2 (estimated from photograph); careful script, serifs slightly engraved at l. 3, small omicron and theta, slanting sigma, calice-shaped upsilon.
Place of Origin
Cyrene pleiades; HGL : presumably from the Sanctuary of Apollo .
Date
Late fourth or early third century B.C. (lettering)
Findspot
Found by S. Stucchi between 1958 and 1961 at Cyrene pleiades; HGL : Agora North-West corner , reused in the fence of the Audience Hall that superseded the Augusteum .
Later recorded Location
Observed by L. Gasperini in 1961 at Shahat : Storeroom of the Italian missions .
Last recorded Location
Fragment b only seen by C. Dobias-Lalou in 1979 in front of the Casa Parisi ; fragment a was missing.
Text constituted from
Transcription from part of stone (CDL) and from previous editor.
Bibliography
Gasperini, 1965 Gasperini, L., 1965, in S. Stucchi, L'agorà di Cirene. I. I lati Nord ed Est della platea inferiore, Monografie di archeologia libica7, Roma, passim [= , Iscrizioni greche e latine dell'agorà di Cirene, 1-53] - see in bibliography , pp. 315-316, and pl. LVII, 3 (= Gasperini, 2008 Gasperini, L., and Arnaldi, A., Marengo, S.M. (eds.), 2008, Scritti di epigrafia greca, Ichnia10, Tivoli - see in bibliography , pp. 42-44); Gasperini, 1967 Gasperini, L., 1967, Le epigrafi, in S. Stucchi, Cirene 1957-1966: Un decennio di attività della missione archeologica italiana a Cirene, Quaderni dell'Istituto italiano di cultura di Tripoli3, Tripoli, 165-189 [= , 75-104] - see in bibliography , p. 168, n. 15, and fig. 199 (= Gasperini, 2008 Gasperini, L., and Arnaldi, A., Marengo, S.M. (eds.), 2008, Scritti di epigrafia greca, Ichnia10, Tivoli - see in bibliography , p. 81).
Apparatus
2 [δεκάτ]αν : Gasperini, 1965 Gasperini, L., 1965, in S. Stucchi, L'agorà di Cirene. I. I lati Nord ed Est della platea inferiore, Monografie di archeologia libica7, Roma, passim [= , Iscrizioni greche e latine dell'agorà di Cirene, 1-53] - see in bibliography [δεκάτ?]αν
French translation
[---] a été consacré par Polytimos fils d'Aristarkhos au titre de [la dîme?].
English translation
[---] was dedicated by Polytimos son of Aristarchos as a [tithe?].
Italian translation
[---] è stata dedicata da Polytimos figlio di Aristarchos come [decima?].
Commentary
Monuments offered as tithes usually stood in the sanctuary of Apollo and not on the Agora. It is however not impossible that it has been brought up from there on the occasion of its re-use during the fourth century A.D.
The dedication of a man's statue as a tithe is not so common, but IGCyr067000 provides another instance. However the layout remains puzzling: if a statue stood at the right end, it would be in correspondence with the dedicant's name and not with the name of the honoured person, which would be inscribed at left. The object fixed upon the base might be no statue, but a portrait within a frame. Moreover the holes might also be related to the re-use.
Any way, the verb being at the singular, it is not possible to suppose another dedicant mentioned at the nominative in the gap. In spite of all this obscurities, we stick to the idea that the word at line 2 was 'tithe', while prefering to leave the question of the missing part of line 1 open.
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