Description: Rock-cut pillar, inscribed on two faces, with C.312 on the inner face,
C.313 on the east face
Text: Inscribed in a stuccoed surface on the face; a carefully laid out, in straight lines;
b cut over an earlier text, of which the first far more roughly executed, with sloping lines badly spaced.
Letters: Probably third century: a: angled theta in line 3; omega with elaborate curling strokes, standard sigma; line 1, 0.045-0.07;
lines 2-4, 0.05; line 5, 0.06; c: Very irregular; L for ἔτους or ἐτῶν; c: lunate sigma and cursive omega; line 1, 0.05-0.07;
lines 2-3, 0.06.
Date: Probably third century CE
Findspot:
Cyrene:
east pier flanking the entrance to the so-called Cave of the Priests:
Found in 1934.
Original location: Unknown
Last recorded location:
Cave of the Priests (2008)
b.1: Stucchi detected traces of this line, perhaps Οὐαλ[ερίῳ, never completed or overwritten Stucchi, 1981
b.2: The first word seems to have been deliberately erased. Perhaps ἐπ'[ἱ]αρῷ
English translation
Translation by: Charlotte Roueché
(a)For Sosibios Rouphos (i.e. Sosibius Rufus) the young(scil. er), truly (scil. priest) in a good year, with good fortune!
(b): (Not usefully translatable)
(c)For Theodoros, truly (scil. priest) in a good year, with good fortune!
Commentary
On the cave see Stucchi, 1981.
Line a.1: Perhaps the son of the Sosibios Rouphos in C.194, C.195.
Lines a.4, b.2: For this epithet applied to priests at Cyrene, see commentary on C.222; For the emphatic ἀληθῶς here, and in C.314, see Robert, Hellenica XI-XII, loc.cit.
Bibliography: Barnett, in Wright, 1957, mentioned Robert, Bulletin Épigraphique, 1959.512; more fully, with readings by Reynolds, SEG 18.750.a, b, PHI 324452, mentioned Reynolds, 1959 note 14, discussed Robert, 1960a, 553 note 4, whence Robert, Bulletin Épigraphique, 1961.840; SECir, 1961-1962, 110 and fig. 84, whence Robert, Bulletin Épigraphique, 1964.568; discussed Stucchi, 1981, 104-5, Gordon, 1976, 213-4, whence SEG 26.1829, Robert, Bulletin Épigraphique, 1977.591; mentioned Kenrick, 2013, 188, 212.
Text constituted from: Transcription (Reynolds).
Images
Fig. 1. Face (Reynolds VIII.66)
Fig. 2. Face (Reynolds VIII.67)
Fig. 3. Face (Reynolds I.16)
Fig. 4. View (2008, H.Walda)
Fig. 5. Face, lower part (2008, H.Walda)
Fig. 6. Texts a, b and c (2008, H.Walda)
Fig. 7. Text a and b (2008, H.Walda)
Fig. 8. Texts b and c (2008, H.Walda)