Description: Marble panel (w:
0.28 x h:
0.315 x d:
0.085).
Text: Inscribed on one face, within carefully cut guidelines.
Letters: Second-third century: lines 1,2, 0.035; lines 3-6, 0.03; lunate epsilon, lunate sigma.
Date: Second to third centuries CE
Findspot:
Cyrene: Temple of Zeus: in the pronaos. Found in 1926.
Original location: Probably Temple of Zeus.
Last recorded location:
Cyrene Museum.
Italian translation
Translation source: Vitali, 1932
A Zeus Olympia, dio che ascolta le preghiere, Aurelio Rufo architetto, sciolse voto
English translation
Translation by: Charlotte Roueché
For Olympian Zeus, the God who listens, Aurelios Rouphos (i.e. Aurelius Rufus) , architect, gave (scil. the fulfilment of) his vow
Commentary
Guidi associated the inscription with a copy of the head of Olympian Zeus, not belonging to the main cult statue, which he found near it. Herrington suggests a reference to the main cult statue which seems to have been a copy of the Zeus of Olympia.
Giudi, probably rightly, supposed Aurelius Rufus to have been the architect who carried out the restoration of the Temple under M. Aurelius. Pesce, (BCH 1947-48, p.353 note 2, available at Persée) following Oliverio, dated the inscription in the third century on the grounds of the letter forms, but these do not seem in fact to be inconsistent with an Antonine date.
Bibliography: Guidi, 1927, 38-40 and fig. 11, whence SEG 9.126, Vitali, 1932, 274, PHI 323980; republished Goodchild-Reynolds-Herington, 1958, 60, whence mentioned SEG 17.805; see also Oliverio, 1931, 13.
Text constituted from: Transcription (Reynolds).
Images
Fig. 1. Face (Departmentof Antiquities, D.18)