Support: A rectangular panel of white marble, slightly chipped off on its edges and at one angle on the rear (as measured from photograph, dimensions w: 0.30 × h: 0.136 × d: 0.06).

Layout: Inscribed on the face in seven lines, the right half of the fourth one having been obliterated.

Letters: Letters carefully cut (estimated height 0.013); vestiges of guidelines; straight alpha, pi with upper bar protruding and short right hasta, non-slanting sigma, phi with flattened loop, horseshoe omega; delicate serifs.

Date: Perhaps between 180 and 100 BC (similar with inscriptions of Ptolemy's VIII reign) (lettering).

Findspot: Cyrene ➚: perhaps Sanctuary of Apollo.

Place of origin: Findspot.

Last recorded location: Photographed in 2008 by Hafed Walda, who accompanied Joyce Reynolds at Cyrene ➚, as from the Sanctuary of Apollo. Not seen by IGCyr team.

Text constituted from: Editor's transcription from photograph (CDL).

Apparatus

French translation

Dèmètrios fils d'Apollonios a consacré (scil. la statue) de Kleupatra, Syracusaine, qui est sa soeur et l'épouse de ⟦[.. ? ..]⟧. Dèmètrios reconnaît que l'emplacement a été attribué par l'oracle (?) pour ériger (scil. le monument).

English translation

Demetrios son of Apollonios dedicated (scil. the statue) of Kleupatra, a Syracusan, who is his sister and the spouse of ⟦[.. ? ..]⟧. Demetrios acknowledges that the place was granted to him by the oracle (?) in order to erect (scil. the monument).

Italian translation

Demetrios figlio di Apollonios ha dedicato (scil. la statua) di Kleupatra, siracusana, che è sua sorella e la sposa di ⟦[.. ? ..]⟧. Demetrios riconosce che il luogo gli è stato attribuito dall'oracolo (?) per erigere (scil. il monumento).

Commentary

The provenance of this stone is up to now unclear. Hafed Walda's photographs, which are our only source, are registered as from Apollo's sanctuary, a normal place for honorific dedications. The erasure at line 4 does not look like other erasures, made either for a damnatio memoriae or for the partial re-use of an inscription. Irregular strokes have obliterated a section of the line corresponding to 7 characters at line 3 and 8 characters at line 5, including one iota. A restoration of even 9 characters including two iotas does not seem impossible. The end of the line seems to have been never inscribed. Two restorations occur to mind, which result in very different situations.

On one hand, it is tantalizing to identify this Demetrios son of Apollonios with a man bearing same name and father's name who was responsible for a dedication honouring the Cyrenaean Dionysios son of Hermias at Leontopolis in the Egyptian Delta about 164 BC (CPI 133). In that inscription, Demetrios is mentioned as 'cadet among the bodyguards', a rather low aulic title very similar to that mentioned in IGCyr097400², whereas Dionysios holds the office of strategos and the title of First Friend. He is honoured for his goodwill to the royal family and his beneficence towards the dedicant. The latter ground would be the more conceivable if Dionysios was his brother-in-law. Demetrios, when on duty at Cyrene, would have stressed his relationship with the high-rank officer Dionysios in his native city. If so, the reason why the latter's name was obliterated escapes us.

On the other hand, with a shorter restoration, αὐτοῦ would explain the erasure: if Demetrios had married his own sister, imitating some Lagid kings, this might well have caused disapproval and cancelling.

The alteration of -σθαι into -σται (line 6) is known in some Ptolemaic papyri. The only forms allowing a formulation with the passive are related to χράω 'to consult an oracle', whence at the perfect 'to be allotted by the oracle' (see at Hdt 2.139). We have only very scanty information about an oracle at Cyrene.

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Images

Fig. 1. Face of igcyr139500 Honours for the Syracusan Kleupatra

Maps