• m14-307-10
    Inscribed Block (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College)
  • m14-307-20
    Inscription Blocks In Situ (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College)

Inscribed Block from Anta of the Metroon (reused in Synagogue): End of Letter from Antiochos III Regarding the Rebuilding of Sardis

Monograph 14: Sardis: Greek and Latin Inscriptions, Part II: Finds from 1958 to 2017 (2019) Cat. 307
Date
March 5, 213 BC (“à un ou deux jours près,” Gauthier, p. 15)., Hellenistic
Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
IN63.118
Material
Marble, Stone
Object Type
Architecture, Inscription
Inscription Type
Letter or Dossier Containing Letters, Decisions, Petitions, Subscriptiones, Honors
Inscription language
Greek
Inscription Text
		[ . . ]ΤΑΛ̣[ . . . ]Κ̣ΕΙΑΝΤ̣Ο̣Ι̣[ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ]Ι̣ΩΙ
		διορθώσεσθε ἐν ἔτεσιν τρισίν, ε̣[ὐ]θ̣έ̣[ω]ς̣ δὲ καὶ ξυλὴν
		εἰς τὸν συνοικισμὸν τῆς πόλεως κόψαι καὶ ἐξαγαγέσθαι
	4	ἐκ τῶν ἐν Ταρανζοις ὑλῶν καθ᾿ ἃ ‹ἂ›ν συνκρίνῃ Ζεῦξις·
		παραλύομεν δὲ καὶ τῆς προσεπιβληθείσης εἰκοστῆς
		ἐπὶ τὴν πολιτικήν καὶ τὸ γυμνάσιον, ὧι πρότερον ἐχρῆσθε,
		συντετάχαμεν ἀποκαταστῆσαι ὑμῖν, καὶ γεγράφαμεν
	8	περὶ πάντων πρὸς Ζεῦξιν καὶ Κτησικλῆν· ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν δὲ
		τούτων ἀπαγγελοῦ⟦ο⟧σιν ὑμῖν καὶ οἱ περὶ Μητρόδωρον.
		Ἔρρωσθε.        θq´ Ξανδικοῦ ε´.
Inscription Translation
“[- - -] which you will settle in three years; (we have given orders)” [or perhaps: “we have agreed,” see Gauthier, pp. 19–20, who considers for the lost upper portion of the text, e.g., συντετάχαμεν or συγκεχωρήκαμεν, on which the infinitives in l. 3 depend], “also to cut wood immediately for the rebuilding of the city and to bring it down from the forests in Taranza, in accordance with whatever Zeuxis may decide; we also exempt (you) from the tax of one-twentieth, which had been added to the civic tax,” [rather than “the tax of one-twentieth, which had been added on to the civic territory,” see Gauthier, pp. 33–36] “and we have ordered that the gymnasion which you used formerly be restored to you, and we have written about all things to Zeuxis and Ktesikles; Metrodoros and his colleagues will also report to you about these very matters. Farewell. (Year) 99, 5 Xandikos” (mostly after Ma).
Inscription Comment
Site
Sardis
Sector
Syn
Trench
Syn 63
Locus
Syn MH Spolia
B-Grid Coordinates
E44 / N7.80 *97.84
Findspot
Synagogue, Main Hall, reused in one of the piers at the western end, see Gauthier, pl. XIV; originally belonging to an anta of the late Classical or Hellenistic Metroon (see no. 308, 4–5 comm.).
Description

Block of grayish-white marble. For further details, see Gauthier, with a drawing of the stone, pl. X. Nos. 307 and 309 are “twin blocks” of the same shape. The entire inscription on this block contained eleven lines; the preceding part (of about the same length, containing the beginning of the letter?) stood on a superposed block (Gauthier).

Dimensions
H. 0.28, W. 0.70, Th. 1.22, max. H. of letters 0.014.
Comments

For details, see the commentaries in Gauthier and further literature.

1 [κα̣]ταλ[ελυ]κ̣εῖαν τὸ or τὸν̣[ ] hesitatingly Gauthier, p. 21 n. 16.

2 For ξυλή (instead of ξύλον, ξύλα) the Thesaurus quotes only three attestations, mentioning also the cutting of wood, from Byzantine times (Gauthier, p. 22 n. 19).

3 and 8 Zeuxis, son of Kynagos, ὁ ἀπολελειμμένος ὑπὸ τοῦ βασιλέως Ἀντιόχου ἐπὶ τῶν ἐπιτάδε τοῦ Ταύρου πραγμάτων; see Gauthier, pp. 39–42.

4 ἐν Ταρανζοις: K. Rigsby, Gött. Gelehrte Anzeigen 243 (1991), p. 47: “one thinks…of Homer’s Τάρνη (Il. 5.44), which the ancient scholiasts explained πόλις Λυδίας, ἣ νῦν καλουμένη Σάρδις (Erbse II 9), and which Pliny knew as a spring by Mt. Tmolus (HN 5.110, fonte Tarni; cf. Zgusta, Kleinas. Ortsnamen…, p. 601). Perhaps we see here its unhellenized form.” - καθ᾿ ἃ ‹ἂ›ν συνκρ.: P. Herrmann (SEG 39) observes from the photographs that the mason seems to have “first written καθ᾿ ἃ συνκρίνῃ and corrected it by inserting an N.”

8 Ktesikles (ὁ ἐπὶ τῶν προσόδων?): see Gauthier, pp. 42–45.

9 Metrodoros: see Gauthier, pp. 140–42.

See Also
Bibliography
From the photograph in SPRT, p. 111 (translation by L. Robert), fig. 169: R. Merkelbach, EpAnat 7 (1986), p. 74 (mentioned in SEG 33, 1025; with text: SEG 36, 1087); Gauthier, Nouv. inscr. Sard. II, pp. 13–45, no. 1, pl. I (photographs of the stone and a squeeze), pl. X (drawing of the stone), with translation and detailed commentary (SEG 39, 1283; K. Bringmann and H. von Steuben, eds., Schenkungen hellenistischer Herrscher an griechische Städte und Heiligtümer I [1995], p. 298, no. 260, i, with translation and notes; Ma, Antiochos III, pp. 284–85, no. 1, with translation and notes).
Author
GP

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