Support: Fragment of a white marble block broken away at right and left; above a plinth are traces of sculpture: a footstool with its four legs and on it a set of bare toes on a sole and the scar of a second foot; at its left side, some vestiges of draperies (w: 0.29 × h: 0.13 × d: 0.14).

Layout: Inscribed in three lines on front face of the plinth. (w: 0.20 × h: 0.085).

Letters: 0.015; no serifs, broad alpha, symmetrical nu, xi with central vertical stroke, smaller omicron, slanting sigma.

Date: Second half of fourth century BC (lettering).

Findspot: Found before 1993 in a votive depot South of Cyrene ➚: in the area of the Wadi el Aish.

Place of origin: Cyrene ➚.

Last recorded location: Cyrene Museum, 4673. Seen in 1993 by C. Dobias-Lalou in Shahat: Cyrene Museum.

Text constituted from: Transcription from stone (CDL).

French translation

[---]oxenos fils de Niki[---], [Untel fils d'Untel, Untel] fils d'Aiglanôr, Kleu[--- fils d'Untel, Untel, fils d'Untel], tandis qu'ils exerçaient la stratégie, [ont consacré?] (scil. ce monument) [à telle divinité?].

English translation

[---]oxenos son of Niki[---], [So-and-so son of So-and-so, So-and-so] son of Aiglanor, Kleu[--- son of So-and-so, So-and-so son of So-and-so], while being strategoi, [dedicated?] (scil. this monument) [to such and such deity?].

Italian translation

[---]oxenos figlio di Niki[---], [il tale figlio del tale, il tale] figlio di Aiglanor, Kleu[--- figlio del tale, il tale figlio del tale], quando erano strateghi, [hanno dedicato?] (scil. questo monumento) [alla tale divinità?].

Commentary

The layout of the expected elements of this fragmentary dedication is not quite sure. We are able to guess that lines 1-2 had only names, whereas line 3 had the dedication formula, including plausibly a god's name and/or the verb of dedication ἀνέθηκε. This leaves space for four or five dedicants mentioned with name and father's name across lines 1-2 remains, as already discussed at Mohamed – Reynolds – Dobias-Lalou 2007, p. 24. Rosamilia 2023 argues that if the dedication is later than 320 BC, date of Ptolemaios' diagramma (IGCyr010800²) the generals on office should be five and we follow him for this edition.

The problem of the findspot and original place remains open. A part of the material found in this depot is related to Ammon, whose cult place was never proven and is placed by some archaeologists at the findspot, where no excavation took place nor will ever be possible. However some items found there, amongst which this dedication, do not seem to belong to Ammon, whose ties with military affairs are not known. Other dedications by generals (IGCyr017000² and IGcyr017100²) have Apollo as recipient, probably because he was the civic main deity.

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

Fig. 1. View of igcyr108600 Dedication by generals

Maps