Support: Right side of a white marble slantering panel, broken off at left and at the lower right angle, reconstructed from four adjacent fragments of which the upper one (a) is now lost, as well as a small part of the first line below (the three remaining measure together w: 0.16 × h: 0.245 × d: 0.025 to 0.035). There is a hole for an attachment in the right side.

Layout: Inscribed on the face which is blackened by soot; ll. 1-3 now lost; l. 1 cut in rasura.

Letters: Ll. 1-11 0.011-0.014 with developed serifs and spaces between letters varying at each line, following the number of characters; ll. 12-13 0.005: theta with short bar, slightly smaller theta and omicron, wide nu, non-slanting sigma, upsilon with short hasta and widely open upper part.

Date: Augustan or whole first century AD (lettering).

Findspot: Photographed in 1925 at Cyrene ➚: as from the agora, probably from the Nomophylakeion.

Place of origin: Findspot.

Last recorded location: Cyrene Museum, 444. Seen by J.M. Reynolds before 1964. Seen by C. Dobias-Lalou in 1977 in Shahat, Cyrene Museum.

Text constituted from: Transcription from stone (CDL).

Apparatus

French translation

[Sous le prêtre Untel] fils de [---]ios, [Untel] fils de [---]khos, [Untel] fils de [---]ôn, [Untel] fils de [---]dôros, [Untel] fils de [---]ôn, [Untel] fils de [---]los, [Untel] fils de [---]klès, [Untel] fils de Khairadas, [Untel] fils d'Agatharkhos, [Untel] fils d'Ephaistiôn (scil. ont consacré l'image) [d'Apollon] Nomios.

[---] la magnifique statue [---] les gardiens des lois.

English translation

[Under priest So-and-so] son of [---]ios, [So-and-so] son of [---]chos, [So-and-so] son of [---]on, [So-and-so] son of [---]doros, [So-and-so] son of [---]on, [So-and-so] son of [---]los, [So-and-so] son of [---]kles, [So-and-so] son of Chairadas, [So-and-so] son of Agatharchos, [So-and-so] son of Ephaistion (scil. dedicated the image) [of Apollo] Nomios.

[---] the very beautiful statue [---] the guardians of the laws.

Italian translation

[Nel sacerdozio del tale] figlio di [---]ios, [il tale] figlio di [---]chos, [il tale] figlio di [---]on, [il tale] figlio di [---]doros, [il tale] figlio di [---]on, [il tale] figlio di [---]los, [il tale] figlio di [---]kles, [il tale] figlio di Chairadas, [il tale] figlio di Agatharchos, [il tale] figlio di Ephaistion (scil. hanno dedicato l'immagine) [di Apollo] Nomios.

[---] la magnifica statua [---] i custodi delle leggi.

Commentary

The first publication was given in 1961 from †Oliverio's ready-to-publish manuscript by Pugliese Carratelli, who a few months later added lines 1-3 after examination of Oliverio's copy. This addition was ignored by J.M. Reynolds, who provided to the editor of SEG the additional lines from her own autopsy of the stone. The date is also her suggestion.

For other dedications of divine images made by the nomophylakes in their own building, see IRCyr2020 C.93, IRCyr2020 C.94, IRCyr2020 C.95, IRCyr2020 C.96, IRCyr2020 C.97 and IRCyr2020 C.98. This is the only one in the series with a verse appendix, which makes certain that the dedication was made by the nomophylakes, whose title is in fact lost. Another one (IRCyr2020 C.93) is also the dedication of an image of Apollo Nomios, explicitely intended in relation with the office of 'guardian of the laws' of the dedicant. It should be stressed that Callimachus (Ap. 47-54) does mention the same epithet for Apollo, but in the quite different context and meaning, as a pastoral god (a νομεύς). More at IRCyr2020 C.93 and Dobias-Lalou 2000, p. 217.

One of the points is the restoration of the heading. As it seems from the photograph, the now lost fragment had the top of the panel. We should thus exclude a formulation strictly analogous with that of most other items beginning with 'The nomophylakes under priest So-and-so', which takes two lines and does not allow for the actual ending of our l. 1. The most plausible seems that the word nomophylakes was absent from a shorter heading, explicited in the verse as its climax. The stone-cutter might have begun with the traditional formulation and changed his mind, which would explain the rasura at line 1. If we allow this only line for the mention of the eponymous priest, we should have then nine nomophylakes (anyway not ten, as Peek wrote). Nine is the exact amount prescribed in Ptolemy's diagramma (IGCyr010800², l. 32), and they actually amount to nine in IRCyr2020 C.95, whereas in other dedications only six or seven are mentioned. Analogous changes occurred with the ephori during the late Hellenistic and early Roman times.

This panel, quite similar to the others of the series, was intented for insertion on a wall under an image, either painted or sculpted, or on a statue base. At l. 12 the word ἄγαλμα in the traditional formula with περικαλλές closing a verse-line should have the traditional Homeric meaning 'pleasant gift'. However it has probably also the later and more restricted meaning of 'statue of a divinity'. In the above text, the mention of a 'statue' was certainly subaudible, as in most dedications.

Although Peek's restorations surely reflect the general meaning, we do not consider them as the only possibility. In that view, we leave open the case of the last word, which might also be for example at the genitive.

The two names at ll. 9-10 were erroneously registered as from the fourth century BC in Fraser – Matthews 1987, pp. 2, 207.

Metrical analysis: two hexametric endings belonging respectively to the hexameter and the pentameter of an elegiac couplet.

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Images

Fig. 1. Face of gvcyr026 Dedication by the nomophylakes

Fig. 2. Squeeze of gvcyr026 Dedication by the nomophylakes

Maps