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Inscribed Altar, Detail (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College)
Inscribed Altar: Honorific Inscriptions for Tiberius Claudius Theogenes Lachanas, agoranomos; and Claudia, his mother (or daughter?), Priestess of Demeter Karpophoros
- Date
- Ca. 50 AD., Roman
- Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
- NoEx84.002
- Material
- Marble, Stone
- Object Type
- Altar, Inscription
- Inscription Type
- Honorific Inscription
- Inscription language
- Greek
- Inscription Text
(a) Ὁ δῆμος ἐτείμησεν Τι. Κλαύδιον Θεογέ- νην Λαχανᾶν ἄνδρα 4 καλὸν καὶ ἀγαθόν, ἀ- γορανομήσαντα λαν- πρῶς καὶ γραμματεύ- σαντα τοῦ δήμου συν- 8 φερόντως καὶ ἐργε- πιστατήσαντα ἐπι- μελῶς καὶ ἁγνῶς καὶ ἐν πᾶσιν δημωφελῶς, 12 ἀναστραφέντα οὐ μόνον ἀναλογούντως ταῖς προ- γονικαῖς ἀρεταῖς, ἀλ(λ)ὰ καὶ τὰς τοῦ γένους εὐπραξίας τῇ 16 περὶ τὴν πατρίδα περισπου- δάστῳ διαθέσει κεκοσμηκότα. (b) Ὁ δῆμος ἐτείμησεν Κλαυδίαν Θεογένους θυγατέρα καυειν, 4 γυναῖκα δὲ Κλαυδίου Διοδώρου Λαχανᾶ, μήτηρ δὲ Κλαυδίων Θεογένους καὶ Μη- 8 νογένους καὶ Διοδώ- ρου, ἱέρειαν Δήμητρος Καρποφόρου, ἥτις ἐνθάδε καθιέρωται.
- Inscription Translation
- (a) “The People have honored Tiberius Claudius Theogenes Lachanas, an outstanding man, who officiated excellently as agoranomos and to their benefit as secretary of the People. He supervised building activities carefully and correctly and in a way that proved to be of great use to the People. His behavior was not only in accordance with the merits of his ancestors, but he even embelished the good deeds of his family by his zealous attitude toward his native city.”
(b) “The People have honored Claudia, the daughter of Theogenes, priestess (kaueis), wife of Claudius Diodoros Lachanas, mother of Claudius Theogenes, Claudius Menogenes, and Claudius Diodoros, priestess of Demeter Karpophoros, who is dedicated here.”
- Inscription Comment
- Site
- Sart Mustafa
- B-Grid Coordinates
- ca. W1000 / S55
- Findspot
- Found northwest of Sart Mustafa village in the bed of a wadi.
- Description
“Rectangular white marble altar with small acroteria…; inscriptions on two opposite sides; on the other two sides, relief representation of two crossed torches(?) bound together with a ribbon, and a kalathos from which a serpent emerges flanked by two torches,” SEG. The lines were alternatingly painted light and dark.
- Dimensions
- H. 0.97, W. 0.55, Th. 0.54, H. of letters [a] ll. 1–11, 0.02; ll. 12–17, 0.013; [b] 0.02.
- Comments
Many ligatures. (a) l. 8 ΦΕ corrected from ΦΟ.
(a) 1–3 Ti. Claudius Theogenes Lachanas: probably Claudius Theogenes in (b), ll. 6–7; the honorand of (a) would then be Claudia’s son. The other possibility: Ti. Claudius Theogenes Lachanas was Claudia’s father, (b) l. 2. Λαχανᾶς: nickname derived from λαχανᾶς (“producer of and trader in vegetables,” O. Masson, ZPE 11 [1973], pp. 8–9 = OGS I, pp. 170–71). In the present family were, according to L. Robert, “wealthy land-owners specializing in the cultivation of vegetables” (SEG).
(b) 3 καυειν (cf. no. 348, 6): see no. 393, 18–19 comm., with reference to Sardis VII 1, no. 51: Ὁ δῆμος ἐτείμησεν Μελιτίνην Θεογένους (a member of the present family?, Herrmann) καυειν, ἱερατεύσασαν ἀξίως τῆς θεοῦ.
7–8 Claudius Menogenes is probably identical with the homonymous person mentioned in Sardis VII 1, no. 44, 1–2; Herrmann, p. 504 (= Ausgew. Schriften, p. 206) gives the stemma of the family.
9–10 Demeter Karpophoros: her cult is attested in Pergamon (H. Hepding, AM 35 [1910], p. 442, no. 25), Ephesos (IGSK 11, 1, nos. 10 and 28; 14, nos. 1210 and 1228) and Dareiou Kome (TAM V 2, 1335 and 1336[?]). “The ‘cista mystica’ and the serpent are also represented on Sardian coins of the period of Iulia Mamaea” (SEG). C. P. Jones, “Some Letters of Apollonius of Tyana” (in Theios Sophistes, ed. K. Demoen and D. Praet [2009 = Mnemosyne Suppl. 305], pp. 249–61), pp. 254–55 discusses the letter 75a ascribed to Apollonios of Tyana, which mentions the Sardians as οἱ Δήμητρος ἴδιοι and says that the goddess is called by everyone Μήτηρ καρπῶν (an earlier version of the paper by the same author is in Studi Ellenistici 19 [2006], pp. 599–613, esp. pp. 606–8).
Annual μυστήρια καὶ θυσίαι for Demeter Karpophoros and Thesmophoros and for the Augusti in Ephesos: W. Dittenberger, Syll.3 820 = IGSK 12, no. 213 (a letter sent by Apollonios of Tyana?, see Jones, art. cit., pp. 610–13).
11 ἐνθάδε καθιέρωται: either referring to the deity or to the priestess (Herrmann). J. Mylonopoulos (see the commentary in SEG) thinks that the inscriptions “commemorate the establishment of a new small branch of the central sanctuary of Demeter Karpophoros initiated by Lachanas and Claudia at the find-spot of the altar” (SEG). This seems to be in better accordance with the use of the perfect than the alternative preferred by Herrmann: Claudia, “die hier geweiht worden ist” (cf. pp. 505–6 = Herrmann, Ausgew. Schriften, pp. 207–9); one would expect καθιερώθη.
- See Also
- Bibliography
- P. Herrmann, REA 1998, pp. 495–508, figs. 1–4 (pp. 499, 501) = Herrmann, Ausgew. Schriften, pp. 199–212, figs. 1–4, with an exhaustive commentary (some points of which are summarized below) and references to preliminary mentions of the monument (p. 498 [= Ausgew. Schriften, p. 201], n. 14). (SEG 48, 1472, I, II; AE 1998, 1326a-b).
- Author
- GP