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Inscribed Statue Base (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College)
Inscribed Statue Base (reused in late antique Spolia Wall): Honorific Inscription for Iulius Epagathos
- Date
- 2nd–3rd century AD., Roman
- Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
- IN05.014
- Material
- Marble, Stone
- Object Type
- Statue Base, Inscription
- Inscription Type
- Honorific Inscription
- Inscription language
- Greek
- Inscription Text
Τῆς πρωτόχθονος κὲ ἱερᾶς τῶν θεῶν κὲ μη- τροπόλεως τῆς Ἀσίας κὲ Λυδίας ἁπάσης κὲ Ἑλλάδος κὲ δὶς νεωκόρου τῶν Σεβαστῶν 4 κατὰ τὰ δόγματα τῆς ἱερᾶς συγκλήτου, φίλη‹ς› κὲ συμμάχου Ῥωμαίων καὶ οἰκε̣ίας τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν αὐτοκράτορος Σαρδι- vac. ανῶν πόλεως vac. 8 ἡ βουλὴ καὶ ὁ δῆμος ἐτείμησεν Ἰούλιον Ἐπάγαθον [βο]υ̣λευτήν̣ - - - - - - - - -
- Inscription Translation
- “The Council and the People of the city of the Sardians, protochthonous and sacred to the gods and metropolis of Asia and of all Lydia and of Hellas, and keeper of two Koinon temples of the Augusti by virtue of the decrees of the sacred Senate, friend and ally of the Romans and relative of our lord the Emperor honored the councilor Iulius Epagathos [ - - - ].”
- Inscription Comment
- Site
- Sardis
- Sector
- F55
- Trench
- F55 05.3
- Locus
- F55 13.1 Locus 3
- B-Grid Coordinates
- E775.2 / S183.5 *129.28
- Findspot
- Field 55, east side of Wadi B Temple terrace, built into the late antique Spolia Wall.
- Description
Base of marble for a statue. There are moldings at top and bottom and cuttings for the feet of a bronze statue in the upper surface. The last two lines of the inscription are written on the lower cornice.
- Dimensions
- H. 0.46, max. W. 0.90, Th. 0.73, H. of letters 0.02–0.03.
- Comments
Many ligatures.
3 See no. 397, 5 comm.
5–6 οἰκε̣ίας: L. Robert, Hellenica II, p. 146 considers: “Le terme οἰκεῖος ne doit pas avoir là [i.e. in Claudius’s letter to the Alexandrians, J. H. Oliver, Greek Constitutions (1989), no. 19, 104] son sens de parent ou d’allié, mais de familier, ami. Tel peut être aussi le sens dans la titulature des villes de Sardes et de Nicée”; cf. P. Herrmann, Chiron 23 (1993), p. 235 and A. Heller (see no. 382, 7–8 comm.), p. 104 n. 27. J. Nollé, Gephyra 7 (2010), pp. 130–34 assumes the following meaning of Sardis’s οἰκειότης with the imperial dynasty: the gens Atia of Augustus’s mother was traced back to the Lydian founder hero Atys. All later emperors, who regarded the earlier emperors as their πρόγονοι, were in that sense οἰκεῖοι (not συγγενεῖς) of Sardis; cf. O. Hekster, Emperors and Ancestors (2015), p. 117, with n. 12.
- See Also
- Bibliography
- Unpublished.
- Author
- GP