Support: Veneer panel of light grey marble with white veins, re-cut and re-used for the right side of a large pedestal bearing on its front side IRCyr2020 C.91 and formerly inscribed with IGCyr064910² (w: 0.23 × h: 0.89 × d: 0.073).

Layout: Inscribed in two lines above IGCyr064910²; line 2 slightly displaced to the right.

Letters: 0.015; serifs, zeta with vertical axial stroke, low bar of eta, non-slanting sigma, open omega.

Date: End of second or beginning of first century BC (lettering, context).

Findspot: Found by E. Ghislanzoni in 1915 at Cyrene ➚: Temple of Zeus on the agora.

Place of origin: Cyrene ➚.

Last recorded location: Last seen by C. Dobias-Lalou in 2010 at find place in the Temple of Zeus on the agora.

Text constituted from: Transcription from stone (CDL).

French translation

Zéniôn fils de Zèniôn.

English translation

Zenion son of Zenion.

Italian translation

Zenion figlio di Zenion.

Arabic translation

زينون بن زينون

Commentary

There has been a general agreement about the function of this personal name, which would be the name of the sculptor of one or more statues standing on a basis; lacking an ethnicon, it might imply that the artist was a Cyrenaean and did not use the verb ἐποίησεν for signing. However, the main problem has been the relation of this inscription with the dedication to Hadrianus and Antoninus now standing on front of the same pedestal (IRCyr2020 C.91), from which some scholars tended to dissociate it. Ensoli 2003 decisively ascribed the dedication for the emperors to an arch closing the street nearby to the West; if so, the present panel, although of the same marble, should have been re-used from another former monument.

Reynolds assigned the lettering to the first century AD; we think that this might be earlier. On the other hand, Paci in Stucchi – Bacchielli 1983, pp. 48-52 has shown that the white marble basis of the pedestal belonged to a honorific monument of late Hellenistic date placed on the opposite side of the street between 150 and 100 BC. As for the grey marble panels of the pedestal, they seem to have been added when the statue of Zeus Aigiochos was erected upon the basis in the temple at a date estimated by Ensoli 2007 between the late Hellenistic and the Julio-Claudian era, with a preference for the higher chronology that would also be suitable for our inscription.

Reynolds' note about the presence of inscription IGCyr064910² on the same panel, which was only printed in a footnote to SEG, 20.726, remained unknown to those interested into the question of the statue(s) associated with this name. Rosamilia, who was able to control Reynolds' reading on a cast kept in Rome, definetly rejected the classification as an artist's signature.

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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.

Images

Fig. 1. View of igcyr064920 Name

Fig. 2. Face of igcyr064920 Name

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