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).