Description: Block of white marble (w:
1.67 x h:
0.22 x d:
0.255), with moulding, badly chipped, above the inscribed face and
a relief of a female bust within a medallion to the right.
Text: Inscribed on one face, below moulding.
Letters: Tall, narrow letters with lunate sigma and epsilon; unusual mu, omega and kappa; slanting strokes for stops; apices, points
and a ligature. Letters 1.1 0.035; line 2, 0.03; lines 3-4, 0.028.
Date: Second to third centuries CE
Findspot: Gebel Akhdar: West of Cyrene: near
Balagrae, at Sidi Shaherrwha;
found in excavation in 1969 of ancient buildings by the modern main road.
Original location: Unknown.
Last recorded location:
Findspot.
English translation
Translation source: Reynolds, 1971b
[To Asklep]ios of Balagrae, Doctor, [?] Lucullus, procurator of the Emperor, [?in thanks for] health and as a memorial of friendship [towards himself?] (dedicated) a silver serpent.
English translation
Translation by: Charlotte Roueché
[To Asklep]ios of Balagrae, Iatros, [Lo]ukoullos, procurator of the Emperor, [?in thanks for] health and in memory of kindness [towards himself?] (scil. dedicated) a silver serpent.
Commentary
The epithet of the god confirms the identity of Balagrae, site of a famous shrine of Asklepios: τὸ δ᾽ ἐν Βαλάγραις ταῖς Κυρηναίων ἐστὶν Ἀσκληπιὸς καλούμενος Ἰατρὸς, Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio II, 26, 9, available at Perseus. Lucullus was presumably procurator of Crete and Cyrene, perhaps to be identified with Julius Lucullus, PIR2, I 0387
Bibliography: Reynolds, 1971b, 1, whence SEG 26.1818, PHI 324713, AE 1974.680; discussed Struffolino, 2014, 351-352
Text constituted from: Transcription (Reynolds)
Images
Fig. 1. Face