EpiDoc XML:
GVCyr0152
Trismegistos ID:
738909
Source description
Support: Sandstone panel cracked in two places and broken away at the lower righthand corner (w: 1.65 × h: 0.45 × d: 0.08).
Layout: Inscribed on front face, in a shallow recess.
Letters: 0.03-0.04; lunate epsilon, sigma and omega, alpha and lambda with right stroke projecting above, cursive mu.
Date: Perhaps second or third century AD (lettering).
Findspot: Found in 1965 at Taucheira ➚: reused as a paving slab, in the East corridor of the Byzantine 'fortress', South of the decumanus.
Place of origin: Taucheira ➚: possibly from the Gymnasium.
Last recorded location: Tocra Museum, inv. number unknown. Seen by J.M. Reynolds before 1968 at Tūkrah: Tocra Museum. Seen in 1975 and again 1976 by Fr. Chamoux at the same place. Not seen by GVCyr team
Text constituted from: Transcription from previous editors.
Bibliography
Reynolds 1996, p. 40, pl. XIV, whence SEG, 46.2222; Chamoux 2000, pp. 109-114, whence SEG, 50.1651; GVCyr 015 ➚. Cf. Reynolds 1998, pp. 479-480.
Text
Μουσάων θεράποντα καὶ Ἡρακλῆος ἑταῖρον (vac. 1) |
Μυρτίλον ἥδ' εὐνὴ λαϊνέη κατέχει (vac. 1)
ᾦ κανόνες τε πόδες τε διηνεκέως ἐμέλησ[αν] |
πενταέθλων μελέτης γράμματι κη[δομένῳ]
Apparatus
4: γράμματι κη[δομένῳ] Chamoux 2000: γραμματικῆ[ς θ' ἅμ' ἔην] Reynolds 1996; γραμματικῆ[ς τε γὰρ ἦν] Reynolds 1996
French translation
Translation source: Chamoux 2000
Serviteur des Muses et compagnon d'Héraclès,
tel était Myrtilos qui repose dans cette tombe de pierre.
Il n'a pas cessé de donner tous ses soins aux règles et aux pieds
en consacrant un poème à la pratique du pentathle.
English translation
Translation source: Reynolds 1996
Servant of the Muses and companion of Heracles,
Myrtilos is constrained by this bed of stone.
The rules and feet were his constant care
and he produced a poem about the pentathlon practice (J.M. Reynolds' translation with some changes).
Italian translation
Servitore delle Muse e compagno di Eracle,
Myrtilos questo letto di pietra trattiene.
A lui ininterrottamente stettero a cuore i metri e i piedi:
dedicò un poema alla pratica del pentathlon.
Commentary
Reynolds suspected that Myrtilos' tomb stood inside the Gymnasium, which would explain that the stone was reused in the nearby Byzantine 'fortress', more easily than if it was brought from one of the necropoles outside the city walls.
In Chamoux' view, the γράμμα was a didactical poem about the pentathlon; of course Myrtilos would also have composed his own epitaph.
Metrical analysis: two elegiac couplets.
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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.
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