Support: White marble tapering stele, with a moulding above on three sides (w: 0.41 × h: 0.96 × d: 0.29).

Layout: Inscribed on front face under the moulding (w: 0.365-0.39 × h: 0.86 × d: 0.25-0.275), in 10 lines grouped by pairs.

Letters: 0.025; triangular letters with projecting right stroke, lunate epsilon and sigma, slanting mu, sometimes smaller omicron, 'upside-down M'-shaped omega

Date: Perhaps third century AD

Findspot: Found in November 1910 by the Norton mission at Cyrene ➚: in the North Necropolis, in the area East of tomb N270 Cassels.

Place of origin: Findspot.

Last recorded location: Seen by C. Dobias-Lalou in 1982 and again 2004 in Shahat: in a row displayed on the Terrace of the Office of the Department of Antiquities.

Text constituted from: Transcription from stone (CDL).

Apparatus

French translation

Translation source: Dobias-Lalou 2014

Dionysis est mon nom et Cyrène, ma patrie ;

j'ai engendré des fils et connu les fils de mes fils

et le sort m'a donné une vie où deux ans manquaient pour faire cent.

Je meurs non parce que la maladie m'a dompté, mais en plein sommeil dans mon lit;

je trouve là l'ultime contrepartie de ma piété.

English translation

My name is Dionysis, my homeland Cyrene;

I fathered sons and saw the sons of my sons;

the fate granted me with a life of hundred years but two.

I do not die subdued by any illness, but while sleeping in my bed,

getting thus the last reward of my piety.

Italian translation

Il mio nome è Dionysis, la mia patria Cirene;

ho generato figli e visto i figli dei miei figli;

la sorte mi ha concesso una vita di cento anni meno due.

Muoio non vittima di una malattia, ma mentre dormo nel mio letto.

Questo è il premio ultimo per la mia pietà.

Commentary

At line 1, the personal name Διονύσιος has its ending reduced to -ις, a fact which is well attested from first century AD onwards.

At line 3, παῖδες is plausibly a mistake. However some confusions do happen elsewhere between nominative and accusative plural.

At line 3, γενόμαν is used for the transitive verb ἐγεινάμην, a choice that might be explained by the metrical requirement; as for Peek, he suggests that the intended verb was τεκόμαν.

At lines 9-10, λύσθιον has υ for οι, a well attested change for the Imperial period.

Metrical analysis: one dactylic hexameter and two elegiac couplets.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Deed Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

All citation, reuse or distribution of this work must contain a link back to DOI: https://doi.org/10.60760/unibo/igcyrgvcyr2 and the filename (IGCyr000000 or GVCyr000), as well as the year of consultation.

Images

Maps