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The Table of Mên

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2015

B. Levick
B. Levick
Affiliation:
St Hilda's College, Oxford
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Extract

On my first journey in Turkey, in 1955, I copied and photographed the following inscription, which to my knowledge has never been published. The letters are very roughly cut on the upper surface (102 cm. by 51 cm.) of a stone which now forms part of a stairway in a house of Kizilca Mahalle (ward), Yalvaç, not far from the site of Pisidian Antioch. The irregularity of the lettering is clearly shown in the photograph (Plate XIa).

This is not the only epigraphic document that connects a man named Protion with Mên. There is also an altar built into a house wall in Abecilar Mahalle and published by W. M. Calder (Plate Xlb):

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 91 , November 1971 , pp. 80 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1971

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References

Dr S. Weinstock kindly read a draft of this note many years ago; Professor O. Gurney and Mrs A. Morpurgo Davies have interpreted some Anatolian documents for me, showing their total irrelevance to the inscription under discussion. For all this help I am very grateful; but responsibility for the present form and content of the note is entirely mine.

1 JRS ii (1912) 93, no. 22; cf. Lane, E. N., ‘A Restudy of the God Men. Part I: The Epigraphic and Sculptural Evidence’ in Berytus xv (1964) 31Google Scholar, no. 10. The eagle on the altar recalls the of Smyrna (SIG 3 996, with Dittenberger's note).

2 Anat. St. xvii (1967) 114, no. 34.

3 See Lattimore, R. D., Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs (Urbana 1962) 235 fGoogle Scholar.

4 In CR xxiv (1910) 78, Calder admitted that it occurs sporadically in later times; he cited Sterrett, J. S., Epigr. Journ. 148Google Scholar (precisely from Pisidian Antioch).

5 Mischkowski, H., Die heiligen Tische im Götterkultus der Griechen und Römer (Diss., Konigsberg 1917) 30Google Scholar. He omits a garlanded ‘altar’ or ‘basis’ shown on coins of Attuda, which bears two flaming altars (?) between three pine cones (BMC Caria, etc., 65, no. 16 ff.; Syll. Numm. gr. (Deutschland), Samml. von Aulock 2498 f., 2508, with clear illustrations). (I am indebted to Mr E. N. Lane for this reference.)

6 SIG 3 996. Mr Lane warns (per litteras) against lending too much weight to the table in the Smyrna inscription, which is very eclectic in the gods it commemorates.

7 For the (disputed) date of the monuments see E. N. Lane, loc. cit. 6, n.3.

8 IG ii2 1366, cf. 1365 (‘s. I p. Chr.’); cf. SIG 3 1042 (‘saec. II/III p. Chr.’). cf. Lane, loc. cit. 9, no. 12 ff., who suggests (note 15) that the table mentioned on this inscription may be the one portrayed on the reliefs described below.

9 Perdrizet, P., BCH xx (1898) 80Google Scholar f., with pl. xiv; cf. Lane, loc. cit. 7, no. 2.

10 BMC Lycia, etc., 176, nos. 1 and 3.

11 Perdrizet, loc. cit. 82, with pl. xv; cf. Lane, loc. cit. 7, no. 3.

12 Perdrizet, loc. cit. 83, with fig. 6; cf. Lane, loc. cit. 6, no. 1, with pl. i.

13 Festschrift O. Benndorf (Wien 1898) 126 ff., cf. Lane, loc. cit. 7, no. 4.

14 loc. cit. 7, no. 5, with pl. ii 2. Mr Lane comments on all the representations described above that ‘the worshippers … and the offering table are a peculiarity of the iconographic type that will not appear elsewhere’.

15 SIG 3 996; cf. Polybius iv 35. 4; Pausanias vii 25. 10; viii 30.2. For modern studies, see H. Mischkowski, op. cit.; Kruse, PW xv (1932) 946; Deonna, W., ‘Mobilier délien’ in BCH lviii (1934) 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar ff.; École fr. d'Ath. 1, Exploration arch. de Délos xviii: Le Mobilier délien (Paris 1938) 15 ff.; Yavis, C. G., Greek Altars (St Louis 1949) 75Google Scholar; Dow, S. and Gill, D. H., AJA lxix (1965) 103CrossRefGoogle Scholar ff. For an interesting survival, see Newton, C., Travels and Discoveries in the Levant i (London 1865) 246Google Scholar.

16 For the offerings, see Athen, iv 137. 14. For the possibility of distinguishing between altar and table, Pfuhl, E., AM xxviii (1903) 336Google Scholar; Stengel, P., Opferbräuche de. Gr. (Leipzig, etc. 1910) 208Google Scholar, n. 1; Mischkowski op. cit. 1 ff. Cook, A. B., Zeus iii 1 (1940) 579Google Scholar ff.; Deonna, loc. cit. 69; Yavis, op. cit. 244, 41. Any original difference of form—a τράπєζα should have legs; cf. the use of βωμός for ‘stand’ or ‘base’ in Homer Il. viii 441, and Od. vii 100—might soon disappear.

17 See Stephanus, Thesaurus col. 2358, s.v. τράπєζα; Catal. gén. des Ant. Égypt. du Mus. du Caire: P. Cairo Zen. 708; OGIS 383, line 146; Ar. Pl 678. The altar could also be ἱєρός: Iliad ii 305.

18 See Cumont, F., Recherches sur le Symbolisme funéraire des romains (Paris 1942) 353Google Scholar f.; R. Lattimore, op. cit. 126 ff.; Kubińska, J., Les Monuments funéraires dans les Inscriptions grecques de l'Asie Mineure (Warszawa 1968)Google Scholars.v.

19 cf. schol, ad Ar. loc. cit.; Pausanias iii 16.3; viii 30. 2; ix 40. 12; 1 Ep. Cor. x 21. For the dedication of a table to a particular deity, see Theopomp. apud Athen. vi 252B;

20 Euripides, Or. 9; Diod. iv 74; Arnobius ii 67, cf. Ev. Luc. xxii 7 ff. and (conversely) 30. For a passage that might refer to a dinner table or to an altar or to both, see Antiphon Tetr. A α 10.

21 Juvenal ii 110.

22 Stephanus, Thesaurus col. 2357, s.v. τράπєζα, is rich in examples of ξєνικαὶ τράπєζαι and the like.

23 xii 577. Note Lane's acute observation, loc. cit. 29 n. 105; but the important sanctuary at Attuda remains undiscovered.

24 See Levick, B., Roman Colonies in Southern Asia Minor (Oxford 1967) 44Google Scholar f. Ramsay, W. M., BSA xviii (1911–1912) 38Google Scholar, interprets the term more widely, as the entire Phrygian region of the Galatian province, of which Antioch was the metropolis.

25 See the inscriptions published by M. Hardie JHS xxxii (1912) 121 ff., and by E. N. Lane, loc. cit. Some remain unpublished in the Classical Museum, Konya. See also W. Ruge, PW VA (1934) 164 f.

26 W. M. Ramsay, loc. cit. 67 ff.; cf. mentioned in one of the documents from Sağir (Ramsay, W. M., Studies in the History and Art of the Eastern Provinces of the Roman Empire [Aberdeen, 1906] 334Google Scholar f., no. 13 = Sterrett, J. S., Wolfe Expedition 370Google Scholar).

27 E. N. Lane, loc. cit. 56 ff. is extremely sceptical.

28 See Anderson, J. G. C., JRS iii (1913) 267 ff.Google Scholar

29 loc. cit. 39 ff.; plan in fig. 1.

30 E. N. Lane, loc. cit. 41, with photograph; cf. Ramsay's description, loc. cit. 49: the stones (3 ft. by 4¼ ft. by 1½ ft. thick) ‘stood parallel to one another, so as to form an entrance 2 ft. 8 in. broad, and 4ft. 6 in. long’.

31 Ramsay, loc. cit. 38; J. G. C. Anderson, loc. cit.

32 JHS xxxii (1912) 153, 159, 163.

33 Robert, L., Hell. ix (1950) 39Google Scholar ff.; REG lxiv (1951) 191, no. 217; lxv (1952) 176, no. 155; Bean, G., JHS lxxii (1952) 118CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Belleten xxii (1958) 69 f., no. 86; Robert, L., REG lxxii (1959) 254Google Scholar, no. 442; lxvi (1953) 178, no. 198; SEG xvii (i960) 545; E. N. Lane, loc. cit. 43, no. 3. The altar was plausibly assigned by Robert to the region of Burdur and Kestel Göl. The reliefs on the bomos include, beside a seated goddess and a Hermes, Mên on horseback, confirming the connexion of the furniture with this god; Mên appears on the side of the altar opposite the face bearing the dedication, and is ‘la principale divinité’ (Robert, Hell., loc. cit.).

34 See W. Ruge, loc. cit. 166 for the present state of play.

35 This view was expressed by Ramsay, in, e.g. CR xix (1905) 422Google Scholar; Stud. Hist. of East. Rom. Prov. 305 ff.; cf. BSA xviii (1911–2) 66 ff.; JHS xxxii (1912) 151 ff. Much was once made of the word ἁμαρτάνων, which was read in one of the votives offered to Mên at the hieron on Kara Kuyu (JHS xxxii [1912] 142, no. 65). Even if the reading was correct (see Ruge, loc. cit. 168 ff.), the word need not imply a lapse into Christianity: cf. SIG 3 1042; ; and Buckler, W. H. and Robinson, D. M., Sardis vii(1932) 98Google Scholar, no. 96: (the resemblance was noted by E. N. Lane, loc. cit. 39 n. 143). Mên was to be approached : SIG 3 1042.

36 See Broughton, T. R. S., TAPA lxv (1934) 231Google Scholar ff.; Magie, D., Roman Rule in Asia Minor (Princeton 1950) ii 1326Google Scholar f.; B. Levick, op. cit. 224 ff.

37 IG xii 1 162 = Lane, loc. cit. 11, no. 3 (‘presumably of Hellenistic date’); 917= Lane, loc. cit. 12, no. 4 (‘presumably later in date than the last one’), cf. the mysteries of Mên in Lydia: Contoléon, A. E., REG v (1892) 341CrossRefGoogle Scholar; H(omolle), T., BCH xviii (1894) 539Google Scholar; AM xx (1895) 242; Lane, loc. cit. 21, no. 30. The inscription mentions For other organisations devoted to the cult of Mên, see Lane, loc. cit. 16, no. 10 ff, where a or is responsible for the dedications.

38 Richter, G., The Furniture of the Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans (London 1966) 63Google Scholar f.; see Stephanus, Thesaurus s.v. τράπєζα init.

39 AJA lxix (1965) 103 ff; cf. MAMA vi 84 (Attuda).

40 Our table appears to be of Richter's type 5 (op. cit. 71 and 113), which was invented ‘in the hellenistic period’ and ‘evidently for outdoor use’. For tables in the open air, see Mischkowski, op. cit. 7.