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Inscribed Funerary Altar (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College)
Inscribed Funerary Altar: Funerary Inscription for Aurelius Theodotos, built by his father for the family
- Date
- First half of the 3rd century AD, after 212., Roman
- Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
- IN69.013
- Material
- Marble, Stone
- Object Type
- Altar, Inscription
- Inscription Type
- Funerary Inscription
- Inscription language
- Greek
- Inscription Text
Αὐρ. Θεόδοτος Σειγήρου κατεσκεύασεν τὸ ἐνσόριον σὺν τῇ 4 περιοχῇ τοῦ τόπου [Α]ὐρ. Θεοδότῳ β´ τῷ [υἱ]ῷ καὶ ἑαυτῷ καὶ γυ- [ναι]κὶ καὶ τοῖς ἐκ- 8 [γόν]οις καὶ τοῖς ἰ- [δίοις] πᾶσιν vac. [Ἐὰν δέ τις] θ̣ε̣λήσῃ - - - - - -
- Inscription Translation
- “Aur(elius) Theodotos, son of Sigeros, has built the funerary niche with the circumference of the place for his son Aur(elius) Theodotos, (son of Aurelius Theodotos) and for himself and for his wife and for his descendants and for all his people. If anybody intends [- - -].”
- Inscription Comment
- Site
- Sardis
- B-Grid Coordinates
- E180 - E200 / S380 - S400
- Findspot
- Found together with five architectural fragments east of CW32.
- Description
Funerary altar of fine white marble; broken below, with a cornice and pyramidal top.
- Dimensions
- H. 0.80, W. 0.54, Th. 0.50, H. of letters 0.032–0.044.
- Comments
Mostly Herrmann’s supplements and notes.
1 Σειγήρου: the name (with itacistic spelling) corresponds to the adjective σιγηρός (“silent”); see Dio Cass. 67, 15 (A. Stein, RE II A 2, col. 2277: Domitian’s freedman); IGSK 17, 1 (Ephesos), no. 3328; and Solin, Personennam. Rom II, p. 837).
3 ἐνσόριον (see also no. 672, 3 and 7): funerary niche, or loculus, a term particularly well attested in Smyrna; see Kubińska, Monuments funéraires, pp. 101–4 and G. Petzl on IGSK 23 (Smyrna), no. 190, 1–2 (Buckler and Robinson, Sardis VII 1, no. 163 and no. 166 translate “coffin”).
4 περιοχή: see Petzl on IGSK 23 (Smyrna), no. 262, 6 (“territoriale Ausdehnung der Grabanlage”); cf. nos. 652, 2 and 697, 4–5 comm.
10 [Ἐὰν δέ τις] θ̣ε̣λήσῃ: my reading (or [εἰ, etc.], cf. no. 692, 10); Herrmann considered a misspelling of π‹ω›λήσῃ.
- See Also
- Bibliography
- Unpublished. Herrmann, ms.
- Author
- GP