On Athenaeus XIV, 639e–640a

Extract

L. Ziehen has already observed that we have no certain evidence handed down to us concerning the exact name of the god to whom the festival of the Thessalian Peloria was dedicated and who was most probably a personification of Zeus. Most MSS of Athenaeus have Πελωρíῳ, and Πελώριος is therefore accepted as the likely version by most scholars; but the Codex Marcianus of Athenaeus has the dative Πέλωρι, and Eustath, Il. 1101, 12 f. has Πελωρóς, the same name as that of the human messenger whose good news was said to have initiated the festival. Leake published a unique bronze coin of Phalanna in Northern Thessaly which is preserved in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and probably solves this question. The obverse of this much discussed coin, which was issued in the late fourth or the third century B.C. when the native dialects were used everywhere in Thessaly, shows the head of a bearded Zeus laureate or of a similar god, and has as his name ]λορις. There is only room ‘off flan’ for two or three missing letters at the beginning of this word in the original die. Under these circumstances the restoration [Πέ] λορις or, more exactly, [Πέ] λο(υ)ρις is, in my opinion, very probable, if not certain, ου instead of ω being a peculiarity of the Thessalian dialect.