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Inscribed Roof-Shaped Cinerarium Lid Fragments, Detail (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College) -
Inscribed Roof-Shaped Cinerarium Lid Fragments (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College)
Inscribed Roof-Shaped Cinerarium Lid Fragments: Funerary Inscription for Athenaios, son of Athenion
- Date
- 9 BC or a little later (ed. pr.)., Hellenistic or Roman
- Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
- NoEx69.046
- Material
- Marble, Stone
- Object Type
- Cinerarium Lid, Inscription
- Inscription Type
- Funerary Inscription
- Inscription language
- Greek
- Inscription Text
Ἐπὶ στεφανηφόρου καὶ ἱερέως τῆς Ῥώμης v Διονυσίου τοῦ Δι- ονυσίου, φύσει δὲ Μηνογένου Ἡρακ- 4 λείδου, v μη(νὸς) v Ξανδικοῦ v η´ v καλ(άνδαις) v Μαρτί(αις)· Ἀθήναιος Ἀθηνίωνος ἐτελεύ- τησεν ἐτῶν v ν´. vac.
- Inscription Translation
- “In the year when the stephanephoros and priest of Roma Dionysios, adopted son of Dionysios, biological son of Menogenes, son of(?) Herakleides, held office, on the eighth day of the month Xandikos, which corresponds to the first of March, died Athenaios, son of Athenion, aged fifty years.”
- Inscription Comment
- Findspot
- Brought “from the mountain.”
- Description
Roof-shaped cinerarium lid of white marble broken into four joining fragments. The inscribed surface shows corrosion, particularly toward the right.
- Dimensions
- H. 0.41, W. 0.51, Th. 0.10, H. of letters ca. 0.02.
- Comments
1–2 In the commentary of his edition, Herrmann deals with the different dating systems preserved on cinerary chests: first by the stephanephoros, later by the priest of Roma, and after that again by the stephanephoros (this modifies F. Ferrandini Troisi’s view as summarized in SEG 49, 1678); the latter transition was dated by Sardis VII 1, no. 112 (cf. nos. 114 and 130) “about the end of the first century BC”; cf. R. Sherk, ZPE 93 (1992), p. 244. The present inscription shows one and the same person filling both functions (Herrmann compares Alexarchos, Sardis VII 1, no. 93). For dating in Sardis see also no. 441, 1–3 comm.
3–4 “…des Menogenes, Sohnes des Herakleides,” Herrmann (ms.). In analogy to Διονυσίου τοῦ Διονυσίου, one would expect Μηνογένου ‹τοῦ› Ἡρακλείδου. Maybe Herakleides was the second name either of Menogenes or of Dionysios junior.
4 The equation of the Macedonian and the Roman month names shows that the text is later than the calendar reform in the province of Asia of 9 BC. Herrmann takes ΚΑΛΜΑΡΤΙ as a later addition; it seems to me that the shallower appearance of the letters (like in the preceding lines) is due to the corrosion of the surface. March 1st corresponds to “Day 8” of the thirty-one-day month Xandikos. For testimonies for such double dating, see U. Laffi, Studi classici e orientali 16 (1967), pp. 5–98 (especially pp. 75–81); and P. Thonemann, “The Calendar of the Roman Province of Asia,” ZPE 196 (2015), pp. 126–29, T2–24 (T3: the present inscription).
- See Also
- Bibliography
- P. Herrmann, “Sardeis zur Zeit der iulisch-claudischen Kaiser” (in Forschungen in Lydien, ed. E. Schwertheim [1995 = AMS 17], pp. 21–36 = Herrmann, Ausgew. Schriften, pp. 147–68), pp. 22–23 (Ausgew. Schriften, pp. 148–49), with photograph pl. 1, 1 (Ausgew. Schriften, p. 165, fig. 1) (SEG 45, 1652; AE 1995, 1455). Herrmann, ms.
- Author
- GP