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Inscribed Pedestal (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College)
Inscribed Pedestal: Honorific Inscription for Emperor
- Date
- “Somewhere between the Hadrianic period and ca. 180 AD” (Pleket); see below ll. [x]–2 comm.., Roman
- Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
- NoEx96.001
- Material
- Marble, Stone
- Object Type
- Sculpture, Inscription
- Inscription Type
- Honorific Inscription
- Inscription language
- Greek
- Sculpture Type
- Inscription of lost statue
- Inscription Text
- - - - - - [ ]Ω̣Ν 2 [ ]Ι̣ΑΤΟΝ τὸ β´ 1 line vacat ἡ ἱερὰ ξυστικὴ περι- 4 πολιστικὴ εὐσεβὴς σεβαστὴ μεγάλη σύνοδος τὸν ἴδιον ἐν πᾶσιν εὐεργέτην· 1 line vacat 8 προνοησαμένου τῆς ἀναστάσεως Λ. Κεσσίου Διονυσίου, περιόδου, ξυστάρχου διὰ βίου 12 καὶ τῶν ἐν τῇ λαμπρο- τάτῃ Σαρδιανῶν μη- τροπόλει ἀγώνων.
- Inscription Translation
- “The holy, athletic, wandering, pious, venerable, great Association (honors) [the emperor…(?), consul(?)] for the second time, its own benefactor in every respect. L(ucius) Cessius Dionysios, periodonikes, xystarches-for-life also of the contests (held) in the most conspicuous metropolis of the Sardians, took care of the erection (of the statue)” (after Pleket).
- Inscription Comment
- Site
- Sardis
- B-Grid Coordinates
- ca. E745.35 / S110.65 ca. *125.5
- Findspot
- Field 55, north side of Wadi B Temple terrace.
- Description
Partly broken and damaged pedestal of marble, probably a statue support, with molding at the top; the uppermost part of the block is missing. In the missing part above l. 1 there was space for two to three more lines.
- Dimensions
- H. ca. 1.60, max. W. 0.64, max. Th. 0.59, H. of letters ll. 1–2, 0.04, ll. 3–14, 0.03.
- Comments
See Pleket’s detailed commentary in his edition of the pedestal.
[x]–2 It seems that the recipient of the honors was a Roman emperor (“one of its [i.e., the synodos] members,” Greenewalt [SEG]). “La mention d’un deuxième consulat exclut qu’il puisse s’agir de Marc Aurèle…; il devrait donc s’agir…de Lucius Vérus ou de Commode” (AE).
1 Omega, without a horizontal line underneath, as from l. 9 onward.
2 [ὕ]π̣ατον τὸ β´?
6 τὸν ἴδιον…: see no. 389, 14–15 comm.
8 In the vacat after l. 7 is a modern graffito: Π. - τῆς: small H between T and Σ.
9 vΛvΚΕΣΣΙΟΥ, with a small Y written within the O.
10 περιόδου = περιοδονίκου: see L. Robert, Et. anat., pp. 122–23.
11 ξυστάρχου διὰ βίου: on the xystarches, see D. Rousset and J.-Y. Strasser, REG (2017), pp. 1–22, in particular pp. 7–22.
- See Also
- Bibliography
- Mentioned by C. H. Greenewalt, jr., KST 19, 1 (1997), p. 708 (non vidi; SEG 47, 1653, without text), and by Greenewalt and M. Rautman, AJA 104 (2000), p. 678. H. W. Pleket, ZPE 181 (2012), pp. 102–7, with photograph (AE 2012, 1520; SEG 62, 920).
- Author
- GP