Support: Fragmented white marble panel, thicker at left than at right, with a moulding (now lost) above; six fragments are joining, forming fragment a (w: 0.387 × h: 0.49 × d: 0.025 at left, 0.015 at right) on which this inscription is followed by IGCyr097100².

Layout: Inscribed on the face in six lines.

Letters: 0.005 to 0.009; dissymmetrical nu, slanting mu and sigma, middle-size omicron.

Date: Between 320 and 310 BC (Rosamilia) (lettering, prosopography, textual context).

Findspot: Found by G. Oliverio in 1929 at Cyrene ➚: Sanctuary of Apollo, in the so-called Agora of the Gods.

Place of origin: Findspot.

Last recorded location: Cyrene Museum, 535. Seen in 1976 and again in 2010 by C. Dobias-Lalou in Shahat: Cyrene Museum. For the history of observation, see at IGCyr097100².

Text constituted from: Transcription from stone (CDL).

Apparatus

French translation

[---] ayant couronné [---] de la patrie [---] dans sa/leur demeure un cheval [---]. Mais Timagoras par sa valeur [---] il s'afflige de ce spectacle et de cette rumeur [---] accroît le prestige de notre cité.

English translation

[---] having crowned [---] of the mother-city [---] in his/their house a horse [---]. But Timagoras with his valour [---] is distressed when seeing and hearing that [---] enhances the prestige of our city.

Italian translation

[---] avendo incoronato [---] della patria [---] nella sua/loro casa un cavallo [---]. Ma Timagoras per il suo valore [---] tristemente vede e ascolta questo [---] più grande questa città.

Arabic translation

[---] بعد أن توج [---] من المدينة الأم [---] في منزله أو منازلهم حصاناً [---]. لكن تيماجوراس بشجاعته [---] يشعر بالأحباط عند رؤية وسماع ذلك [---] يعزز مكانة مدينتنا.

Commentary

About the history of that stone, the publication of which has been long delayed, see commentary at IGCyr097100². Unfortunately the only information we have from Oliverio, who found the stone complete in that part is the following: «Dopo un'introduzione laudativa in versi, esaltanti le gesta di un cittadino illustre, Timagoras, che ha reso celebre la città…». This does not help much to understand the role of Timagoras in the affairs related below, where he is not mentioned again. Did he only give money to the city or did he act directly as an ambassador?

Peeks rightly stresses that δέ after the name of Timagoras shows a new sentence and a new focus. He thus imagined two themes: 1) Many people illustrated the city with their victories in chariot or horse races; 2) Timagoras for his part did it with virtue. If the idea is good, its restoration is akward, with a badly placed δέ and a second theme too short. For Peek developes a third theme at ll. 5-6 and so nobody would learn what Timagoras has done. Bravo adopted this organisation, only changing Peek's optative formulation into a rhetoric question.

It seems more plausible that the second theme was developed from l. 4 on to the end, explaining that Timagoras was moved when seeing his city in a difficult position and acted so as to restore her lost prestige. Whether the first theme (ll. 1-4) was his ancestors' or other citizens' action cannot be decided. On the whole, it seems cautious to drop most of Peek's restorations.

Rosamilia 2023 agrees with two themes and suggests that the first one should relate to the events having lead to the establishement of seizure rights against the Cyrenaeans. However, his translation of line 1 with a passive verbe is erroneous and at line 3 the relation between 'bodies' and 'horse' is far from clear.

Although only few of the original text is preserved, the language seems to be poetic and no dialectal feature appears in it, contrasting with the following part in prose.

Metrical analysis: in spite of the important lacunae, there is no doubt that we have here three elegiac couplets.

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Images

Fig. 1. Face of gvcyr033 Honours for Timagoras

Maps