Description: Lower part of an engaged marble
column (w:
0.59 x h:
0.63 x d:
0.52).
Text:
Inscribed on the curved surface.
Letters: First century CE; lines 1-3, 5, 0.045; line 4, 0.04; stop for abbreviation, line 3.
Date: Second century CE
Findspot:
Cyrene:
Temple of Aphrodite.
First recorded in 1817 with C.42;
seen "about 10 yards to the eastwards of the Temple" by Smith and Porcher, in 1861.
Original location: Unknown, but presumably moved from the Stoa of Hermes and Herakles
or the so-called House of Jason Magnus.
Last recorded location:
Cyrene Museum
1: ΚΛΑΙΔΙΑΝ Della Cella, 1819 : the letters are truncated; Pacho, Beechey and Negri all reported the complete line.
2: Εὐφανες Pacho, 1827; ΕΥΦΑΝΣΥΣ Beechey, 1828
Italian translation
Translation source: Oliverio, DAI, 1933-1936
Claudia Arata (filia per adozione, adottiva) di Filisco, ma per natura (legittima) di Eufane, madre di Claudia Olimpiade, ginnasiarchide a vita, della sua virtù a causa, i Cirenei (onorarono - con questa statua?)
English translation
Translation by: Editors
Klaudia (i.e. Claudia) A[rata] daughter of [Philiskos], natural daughter of Euphanes, mother of Klaudia (i.e. Claudia) Olympia the perpetual gymnasiarch; the Cyrenaeans (scil. honoured her) because of her virtue
Arabic translation
Translation by: Muna Abdelhamed
كلوديا (كلوديا) أَ[راتا] ابنة [فيليسكوس]، ابنة طبيعية لإيفانيس، أُمًا لكلوديا ( كلوديا) أوليمبيا، مشرفة الجمنازيوم الدائمة؛ الكيرينيين (كرموها) لما تتصف به من فضيلة
Commentary
Probably recut, presumably because the monument was damaged in the Jewish War; for an originally first century date see below.
Line 1: Claudia Arata can hardly be other than a sister of Pausanias, Philiskos and Philoxenos, all natural sons of a Euphanes, adopted by a Philiskos, priests of Apollo in the Augustan period: Philiskos in 16/15 BCE (C.95), Pausanias in CE 2 (GVCyr 27, line 1; C.48, lines 11-12; cf. C.669, C.716). Olympias, adopted daughter of a Philiskos, natural daughter of a gymnasiarch whose name is lost (C.761), should be another sister.
Arata will have received citizenship from Claudius or Nero and the original inscription of this monument is likely to have been of mid first century date. The family certainly survived in the second century.Claudia Arata, priestess of Artemis in the late second or early third century (C.221), may well be a descendant - which explains the presumed reinscription.
Bibliography: Della Cella, 1819, 142; Pacho, 1827 LXIII.5, with Letronne, p.394; Beechey, 1828, 545, from all of which and from a copy made in 1819 by Fr. Pacifico da Monte Cassiano and passed to Pietro Negri, the Sardinian
consul in Tripoli, CIG, Vol.III, 5132, p. 517 whence SGDI, 4856; mentioned, Smith-Porcher, 1864, 77; republished Oliverio, DAI, 1933-1936, 60 (53), p. 96, pl. XI, fig. 16, whence SEG 9.58; Romanelli, 1943, 184.
Text constituted from: Transcription (Reynolds).
Images
Fig. 1. Transcription (1827, Pacho, plate LXIII)
Fig. 2. Transcription detail (1827, Pacho, plate LXIII.5)