Description: Cipollino marble column, one of a pair.
Text: Inscribed on the drum, (i) at c.2.50 m above the ground, (iii) at c. 1.60m above the ground.
There is a graffito image of a dove, with a twig in its mouth, above i.
Letters: Irregular letters, graffiti, i. 0.03 - 0.05; lunate epsilon, lunate sigma; ligature in line 1 between ΘΗ and in line 2 between
ΣΟΝ. ii. 0.03-0.06; lunate epsilon, lunate sigma, cursive omega. In line 3, ΟΥ perhaps in ligature.
Date: Fourth to sixth century CE
Findspot:
Cyrene:
Byzantine Baths: found in 1928, reused and laid horizontally.
Original location: Perhaps Temple F
Last recorded location:
Re-erected flanking the south entrance to the Frigidarium of the Byzantine baths.
English translation
Translation source: Reynolds-Ward-Perkins-Goodchild, 2003
(i) (Cross) Lord, help Januarius. (ii) Help, Lord, the Rabbi. (iii) Lord, help Anastasius, the man who has the doves.
Commentary
ii. The word is clearly Rabbi; what is less clear is how it would be understood. P.W.van der Horst, Journal of Jewish Studies 38 (1987) 102-106, (whence SEG 37.1702) considers that this text can only be Jewish; it is only i that is unequivocally Christian.
iii: Oliverio proposed a reference to the Emperor Anastasius; but Roussel suggested that Anastasios was a pigeon-seller. Robert provided an assembly of evidence for these and other bird-sellers. Anastasios was not selling birds to eat, but more probably as pets. The texts marked the place where he practised his trade.
Bibliography: i and iii: Oliverio, 1930, 33, 34, pp. 218-220, figs. 79-80 whence Roussel, Bulletin Épigraphique, 1932, p. 211, SEG 9.187, PHI 324038, SEG 9.188, PHI 324039; Reynolds, 1960 p. 286, 4; mentioned SEG 18.755; Robert, Bulletin Épigraphique, 1961.835 and Robert, 1971, 81-91, whence Robert, Bulletin Épigraphique, 1971.725; iii: Guarducci, 1973, whence Robert, Bulletin Épigraphique, 1976.790; i, ii and iii, Stucchi, 1981, 215-8, whence i and ii SEG 31.1578, from which PHI 324546. Reynolds-Ward-Perkins-Goodchild, 2003, 168.b.
Text constituted from: Transcription (Reynolds).