Description: Limestone block, broken at the right side
(w:
1.25 x h:
0.65 x d:
0.27).
Text: Inscribed on one face on a stuccoed surface which has weathered badly since it was first photographed.
Letters: Probably Antonine; 0.025-0.03; lunate epsilon, lunate sigma, cursive omega.
Date: Second-third century CE
Findspot:
Cyrene:
Grotto of the Priests, on the front terrace: found in 1933.
Original location: Unknown.
Last recorded location:
Findspot (2008).
1: Δ[αι]λέ[ω]ν Ἀντίπατρος ἱερώμενος [ἐκαθάρισε] Stucchi, 1981
2: νηοὺς μαν[τείου] Stucchi, 1981
Italian translation
Translation source: Stucchi, 1981
Daileon Antipatros, essendo sacerdote, puli, [prelevando i soldi] dai fondi dei templi, gli ambienti interni del manteion, secondo il responso favorevole del corvetto
English translation
Translation by: Charlotte Roueché
De[- . . . ] Antipatros, serving as priest [ . . . ] from sacred income, the temples [ . . . ]. With good fortune for Korakios!
Commentary
Stucchi (art. cit.) interprets this text as a query to the oracle, and interpreted the area as a Mithraeum; but Gordon (loc. cit.) argued strongly agains this.
Line 1: We should expect name and patronymic here, but Ἀντίπατρος is in the nominative; it is perhaps relevant, in view of the possibly Mithraic character of the Cave of the Priests, that in the Mithraeum at Dura Europos ἀντίπατρος seems to be used as a title, perhaps indicating a transitory grade preceding that of πατήρ (The Excavations at Dura-Europos, seventh and eighth seasons, Yale, 1939, pp. 119 and 124).
Line 1 This would normally indicate a Priest of Apollo, but if the subject was a Mithraic initiate, may here be used for a priesthood within the Mithraic cult.
Line 2 Apollo's funds, normally used for building and maintenance within the Sanctuary, are otherwise always described as αἱ Ἀπόλλωνος προσόδοι.
Line 4 Probably a name or signum; it may be that it indicates a connexion with the Mithraic grade of κόραξ, but we have found no parallel to support such a suggestion. Dobias-Lalou suggests a reference to the epithet Korax of Apollo (see IGCyr 001000).
Bibliography: From a copy by Reynolds Gordon, 1976, 215-218, whence Robert, Bulletin Épigraphique, 1977.591, SEG 26.1830, PHI 324724; republished Stucchi, 1981, 113-4, whence SEG 31.1576, PHI 324542
Text constituted from: Transcription from the stone and from the photograph (Reynolds).
Images
Fig. 1. Face (Department of Antiquities E. 2058)
Fig. 2. View of block (2008, H.Walda)
Fig. 3. Side view of block (2008, H.Walda)
Fig. 4. Face (2008, H.Walda)
Fig. 5. Text (2008, H.Walda)
Fig. 6. Traces of stucco (2008, H.Walda)
Fig. 7. Traces of stucco (2008, H.Walda)
Fig. 8. Traces of stucco (2008, H.Walda)