Caption
IGCyr112900
Trismegistos ID: 738670
Source Description
Repository
Cyrene Museum, Storeroom of the Italian missions, A94 L4 87.
Support
Fragment of the bottom of an Attic black-glazed ware open vase (0.042; 0.03; -).
Layout
Scratched on the inside of the bottom, to be read from the rim.
Letters
0.003-0.006.
Place of Origin
Findspot.
Date
Probably fourth quarter of the fifth century B.C. (context, lettering)
Findspot
Found in 1994 by A. Santucci at Cyrene pleiades; HGL : agora , West of the Temple of Demeter and Kore .
Last recorded Location
Observed by R. Leone between 1997 and 2005 in Shahat : Storeroom of the Italian missions .
Present Location
Not seen by IGCyr team.
Text constituted from
Editor's transcription from photograph.
Bibliography
Marengo, 2010 Marengo, S.M., 2010, Iscrizioni da nuovi scavi a Cirene, in M. Luni (ed.), Cirene nell'antichità. Un cinquantennio di attività a Cirene della Missione Archeologica Italiana dell'Università di Urbino "Carlo Bo", Monografie di archeologia libica29, Cirene Atene d'Africa: attività delle missioni archeologiche internazionali a Cirene e in Cirenaica2, Roma, 139-156 - see in bibliography , p. 153, n. 23, fig. 4, 23 and p. 144, whence SEG Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, Leiden, then Amsterdam, 1923-1971, then 1979- - see in bibliography , 60.1841.6.
Apparatus
French translation
Portion (i.e. tirée au sort) (ou )Légumes verts.
English translation
(i.e. Allotted) portion (or) Vegetables.
Italian translation
Parte (i.e. avuta dalla sorte) (o) Erbe.
Commentary
The rare word λάχος is ambiguous, because there are two homonyms. The best known word, related to the verb λαγχάνω, means 'allotted portion' and was commented by Marengo with reference to Xenophon's Anab. V, 3,9: τῶν θυομένων ἀπὸ τῆς ἱερᾶς νομῆς λάχος, the context showing that it referred to an 'allotted portion' of the sacrificial meat. There is no clear hint for bloddy sacrifices on the agora, but the meaning 'portion' does not necessarily imply 'of meat'.
As an alternative, the existence of another λάχος meaning 'vegetables' like the derived form λάχανον is now known from an inscription in Larisa (see Tziafalias-Helly, 2013 Tziafalias, A., Helly, B., 2013, Décrets inédits de Larissa organisant la vente de terres publiques attribuées aux cavaliers, Topoi Orient-Occident, 18, 135-249 - see in bibliography , p. 132, l. 51). Suc an offering would perhaps fit Demeter's function as goddess of agriculture. A. Santucci (private communication to C. Dobias-Lalou) informs that in spite of the vicinity the sherd was not related to the sanctuary of the Anax. However it is neither clear that it was related to the sanctuary of Demeter and Kore because such sherds were re-used as filling under the pavement of the agora.
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