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Inscribed Stele (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College)
Inscribed Stele (reused as water basin): Letter from Areopagus of Athens to Sardis Decreeing Honors for Polybios of Sardis
- Date
- Ca. 150 AD., Roman
- Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
- IN59.004
- Material
- Marble, Stone
- Object Type
- Stele, Inscription
- Inscription Type
- Letter or Dossier Containing Letters, Decisions, Petitions, Subscriptiones, Honors
- Inscription language
- Greek
- Inscription Text
0 [ ? ἱδρυ]- μένῳ Ἁδριανείῳ Ι̣Ε̣[ ] τα καὶ συνησθέντες [ὑμῖν τῆς διὰ τὸν] ἄνδρα εὐφορίας αὐτὰ ΤΕ . . . . Ε[ . ]Α̣Μ̣ΕΝ 4 εὐχόμενοι ἀεὶ τῶν αὐτόθεν ἐπιδημούν- των ἐνταῦθα τοιούτων πειρᾶσθαι. Ἐρρῶσθαι ὑμᾶς τοῖς πατρίοις θεοῖς εὐχόμεθα.
- Inscription Translation
- “…Hadrianeion [which is built? - - -] and congratulating [you on your] well-being [brought about by the] man(?), we have [- - -] praying always to find a similar nature in those who visit us here from there. We pray to our ancestral gods for your good health” (partly after C. P. Jones, “Polybius of Sardis” [CP 91 (1996), pp. 247–53], p. 249).
- Inscription Comment
- Site
- Sardis
- Sector
- BS
- Trench
- BS 59
- Locus
- BS Locus BS-W 8 (Area of)
- B-Grid Coordinates
- W24.25 - W25.25 / S1 *97.75 - 97.00
- Findspot
- Byzantine Shop W8, reused as a water basin.
- Description
Stele of bluish marble; upper part broken off. It is inscribed on both sides by the same hand. A Latin cross on orb had later been carved over the surface (another such cross was carved on the surface of the stele no. 697, which stands to the left of the present one).
- Dimensions
- H. 0.82, W. 0.55–59, Th. 0.16; H. of letters no. 319: 0.015–0.02; no.
320 : 0.02. - Comments
1 For relations of Lydian Thyatira with the Panhellenion and another Ἁδριανεῖον in Thyatira, Herrmann refers to TAM V 2, 1180 and 982, 19. See the altar no. 374.
2–3 [τῆς διὰ τὸν]/ἄνδρα εὐφορίας: Herrmann, p. 216 n. 15 (= Ausgew. Schriften, p.141), referring εὐφορία (another attestation of the word in SEG 41, 1376, 7) to Sardis; [τῆς κατὰ τὸν] / ἄνδρα εὐφορίας: Jones, op. cit., p. 249: “on the man’s well-being(?)”. - [τὸν] ἄνδρα = αὐτόν: Herrmann, p. 216 n. 14 (= Ausgew. Schriften, p. 140).
3 After TE is the lower part of a vertical stroke (Π, Ν, Κ, Γ, hardly T), followed by two horizontal strokes (E or Σ, perhaps Ω) and the lower part of a vertical stroke.
According to Herrmann (p. 217 [= Ausgew. Schriften, p. 141]) and S. Follet, BE 1997, 232 and AE 2003, 1668, the letter was “sent by the Panhellenes; apparently Polybios…represented his native city in the Panhellenion; during his stay in Athens, he was honored by the Areopagos” (see no. 320) (SEG 43, app. cr.; cf. SEG 46, 1525 and SEG 53, 1353); Jones recognizes the Areopagus as sender. Herrmann compares the letter with OGI 507 (belonging to the dossier OGI 504–507, cf. SEG 42, 1191 app. cr. ad ll. 9–10), an approximately contemporaneous letter directed by the Panhellenes to Aizanoi concerning their fellow-citizen M. Ulpius Appuleius Eurykles.
- See Also
- See also: M14, No. 320.
- Bibliography
- P. Herrmann in Die epigraphische und altertumskundliche Erforschung Kleinasiens…, ed. G. Dobesch and G. Rehrenböck (1993 = ETAM 14), pp. 211–19; (a) = no. 319, (b) = no. 320; pl. XVI 1–3 (= Herrmann, Ausgew. Schriften, pp. 135–45; [1] = no. 319, [2] = no. 320; figs. 1–3; SEG 43, 863 [no. 319] and 864 [no. 320]). The stone and its setting are described by J. S. Crawford in M9, pp. 26, 29, fig. 68.
- Author
- GP