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Two dedications from Cyrenaica

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 October 2013

P. M. Fraser
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Extract

I am grateful to Mr. R. G. Goodchild, Director of Antiquities, Cyrenaica, for permission to publish these two inscriptions, and also for much other assistance during a recent visit to Cyrene.

I: Rectangular altar of limestone, complete on all sides with moulding above and below, H. 0·71; W. 0·43; Th. 0·38; letters, of the fourth century B.C. c. 0·050–060. Plate 1 (a).

Seen by me, August 1961, at El-Beida.

Κωρής: This altar is now on the excavated site of El-Beida, the ancient Balagrai, the centre of an important cult of Asklepios, 16 kilometres west of Cyrene, having been found in the Italian fort at El-Beida a few years ago. It seems likely that it is the stone referred to by Oliverio as having been found at Messa, some 10 kilometres west of El-Beida, where archaeological exploration in 1918 brought to light some dedications to Demeter, Kore, and other deities, and also some rock-cut sanctuaries. It cannot therefore be used as evidence for the pre-Roman period at Balagrai.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 57 , November 1962 , pp. 24 - 27
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1962

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References

* Since this article went to press this inscription (if identical with that referred to by Oliverio: see notes 2 and 3) has been published without commentary by Carratelli, G. Pugliese, Quad. Arch. Lib. 4 (1961) 47, no. 27.Google Scholar

1 For the excavations at Balagrai see the account by Sichtermann, H., AA 1959, cols. 325–35.Google Scholar The correctness of Pausanias' statement (ii. 26. 9) that the cult-centre of Asklepios at Lebena in East Crete was founded from Balagrai has been much disputed, but I cannot go into the matter here. Excavations below the Roman level at Balagrai would probably solve the initial difficulty of the respective priority of the two centres: see meanwhile the summary of the problem (with some new suggestions) by Kirsten, , RE, Suppl.-bd. vii, s.v. Lebena, cols. 369 ff.Google Scholar (Edelstein, , Asclepius ii. 249, note 31Google Scholar, adds nothing). I may add that I myself picked up a small piece of Attic red-figure ware on the surface at Balagrai, which Sir John Beazley dates ‘for certainty, between 450 and 350’.

2 Doc. Afr. Ital. (= DAI) i. 166, where speaking of the dedications to Kores noted below he says ‘Ed è noto anche a Messa’.

3 No account of these explorations was published, and I owe this information to Mr. Goodchild. The inscriptions also appear to be unpublished.

4 DAI i. 166, no. 45 = SEG ix. 110. The reading of this inscription is uncertain. Oliverio gives it as which he translates (wrongly) as ‘Del Curete di Cirene’. The inscription is difficult to read on the photograph (I have not seen the original): ΚΥΡΑΝΤ is clear, and ωΡΗΤΟΣ reasonably so, but there appears to be space for only two letters before the omega.

5 Ibid. no. 46 (Ferri, , Contributi di Cirene alla storia della relig. greca (1924) 10. 8(f)Google Scholar) = SEG ix. 107. The writing on this altar closely resembles that of the piece published here.

6 Ibid. no. 47 = SEG ix. 108.

7 Inscr. Cret. i. 116 f., no. 5, lines 60, 76 (shrine of Κωρῆτες); ibid. 285, no. 3 (Κωρῆτες as guardians of flocks); ibid. 312, nos. 7–8 (ditto); ibid. iii. 39 f., no. 3 B, lines 14, 21 (Κωρῆτες among deities by whom contracting parties swear in interstate agreement); ibid. 50, no. 5, line 15 (ditto); ibid. iv. 175, lines 60, 76 (ditto).

8 IG xii. 3. 350; 354; 355; 371; cf. Hiller, , Thera i. 149Google Scholar; Braun, , De Theraeorum rebus sacris (diss. Hal. 1932), 14–15Google Scholar; Wilamowitz, , Glaube i. 128 (reprint [1956] i. 126).Google Scholar

9 Inscr. Cret. iii. 12 ff., no. 2 (Powell, , Collect. Alex. 160–1Google Scholar); cf. Guarducci, ibid. 10 ff.

10 Hdt. iv. 161. 3; for further links see Chamoux, , Cyrène sous les Battiades (1953) 184, 241–2.Google Scholar

11 The name Samothrax is not uncommon in Roman Egypt: see Preisigke, Namenbuch, s.v.; cf. also below, note 23.

12 See in general Hemberg, , Die Kabiren (1950) 73 ff., 82 ff.Google Scholar The exceptions to this are those deities (Artemis (IG xii. 8. 234–5), Aphrodite (ibid. 233), and Asklepios (ibid. 236)) who have no connexion with the Samothracian gods.

13 See IG xii. 8. 227 ff., and Samothrace ii. 1, passim; cf. Hemberg 73–74.

14 See Hemberg 212 ff.

15 Ibid. 217 ff.

16 Ibid. 93–94. Samothrace ii. 1, 53 is a Latin list of initiates dated Regibus love et Minerv(a).

17 See Hdt. ii. 51; cf. Hemberg, 74 ff., 92 ff.

18 For Cadmilus see Hemberg, 95–96, 316–17; cf. Samothrace, ii. 1, 38, note 1.

19 See Hemberg, 184 ff., 191–2.

20 Hemberg, 132 ff.

21 The meaning of Ζεὺς πατήρ in Homer is discussed by Calhoun, , TAPA lxvi (1935) 1 ff.Google Scholar; cf. Nilsson, , Opusc. Sel. ii (1952) 703–4.Google Scholar

22 Paus. i. 38. 6 records a cult of Poseidon πατήρ at Eleusis; cf. Hofer, Roscher's Lexikon iii. s.v. Pater, cols. 1681–2 (2); Wilamowitz, , Glaube i. 213, note 1 (reprint, 208, note 4)Google Scholar; Nilsson, , Gesch. Gr. Rel. i. 423, note 12.Google Scholar There is no epigraphical evidence for this cult.

23 MAMA v. 232.

24 The πατὴρ θεός may be the deceased father of the dedicant. The interpretation of the inscription, first published by Ramsay in 1882, has been much discussed: see the comments of the last editors, MAMA, loc. cit., and also their general discussion of the significance of the ‘funerary dedications’ of the region, ibid. xxxiv ff., esp. xxxviii.

25 See Perdrizet, and Lefebvre, , Graffites grecs du Memnonion d'Abydos 146, 543.Google Scholar

26 BCH xxv (1901) 25, no. 163 (from region of Samail, near Hadrianopolis).

27 BCH xxvi (1902) 287 (IGR iii. 1434; cf. RE, s.v. Vibius (33)). For αἰώνιος in a Jewish and Christian context see Peterson, , Εἴς ⊝εός (1926) 28–29Google Scholar.

28 Keil, and von Premerstein, , Zweite Reise in Lydien 109Google Scholar, no. 211 (Peterson, op. cit. 268). For δύναμις in such acclamations see Peterson, ibid. 198. The θεοὶ ἀθάνατοι of, for example, SEG vi. 402, are a characteristic feature of the anti-Christian revival of the third century A.D. (see JRS ii (1911) 239–40 and ibid. xiv (1925) 26), but the usage seems specifically Phrygian, and it would be unwise to associate it with the instance here published.

29 See the material collected by Cook, , Zeus ii. 876–90Google Scholar, where earlier discussions are summarized.