Support: Plain stele of white marble, slightly slantering, chipped off at left lower angle (w: 0.305 to 0.355 × h: 1.01 × d: 0.215 to 0.24).

Layout: Inscribed at 0.11 from the upper edge in three lines with spaces between letters varying so that they cover the whole width of the stele.

Letters: 0.015 to 0.021; very careful lettering; alpha with rather low bar, epsilon with shorter middle bar, dotted theta, slightly dissymmetrical nu, smaller omicron and omega, slantering sigma.

Date: Probably third century BC (lettering).

Findspot: Found between 2001 and 2004 in the Port of Cyrene, later Apollonia ➚: probably from the West Necropolis.

Place of origin: Findspot.

Last recorded location: Apollonia Museum, inv. number unknown. Seen by C. Dobias-Lalou and A. Laronde in 1977 and many times again up to 2004 at Sūsah: in the courtyard of the ancient Apollonia Museum. Seen by J.M. Reynolds and photographed by H. Walda in 2008 at the same place.

Text constituted from: Transcription from stone (CDL).

French translation

Zôilos, crétois d'Eleutherna.

English translation

Zoilos, a Cretan from Eleutherna.

Italian translation

Zoilos, cretese da Eleutherna.

Commentary

The absence of a father's name is puzzling. However, as the ethnic of Eleutherna is mentioned, there is no reason to suppose that the dead was no citizen. It not by chance that a Cretan man died in the Port of Cyrene, where he probably came for business.

The stele was found during building works West of the ancient city in a tomb that was destroyed on the occasion, like so many others which lie under the modern village, now a town.

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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. Face of igcyr133000 Epitaph

Maps