ISic000770: Dedication by Marcus Aimilius Rho[--]
- ID
- ISic000770
- Language
- Ancient Greek
- Text type
- dedication
- Object type
- plaque
- Status
- No data
- Links
- View in current site
Edition
Apparatus criticus
- Text from autopsy
Physical description
Support
- Description
- Part of a small rectangular slab, of a compact white limestone. The lower right of the slab is lost, including all of the right side and most of the lower edge. The rear of the slab is smoothly finished.
- Object type
- plaque
- Material
- limestone
- Condition
- damaged
- Dimensions
- height: 21 cm, width: 27 cm, depth: 10 cm
Inscription
- Layout
- The first part of all six lines of the Greek text are preserved, but none are complete.
- Text condition
- incomplete #text_condition, legible
- Lettering
-
- Letter heights
- Lines 1-6: 15mm
- Interlinear heights
- Interlineation: not measured
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Halaesa
- Provenance found
- Found lying on the floor of the first room of the north side of the west portico (agora); the stone fits perfectly into a niche in the original wall of the room above where it was found, that is 1.8m above the floor and measures 0.25 x 0.37 x 0.07-0.10 m (a plaster-cast of the stone is currently displayed in its place).
- Map
Current location
- Place
- Halaesa, Italy
- Repository
- Antiquarium e sito archeologico di Halaesa , ME 20223
- Autopsy
- On display.
- Map
Date
1st century BCE (pre-Augustan?) (100 BC – 21 BC)- Evidence
- No data
Text type
commentary
Scibona (1971) and Manganaro (1988) speculated on how best to restore the ends of lines 2 and 3, but Moretti (1986-1987) offered a convincing solution (adopted here). Moretti noted that the placing of the patronymic in full after the complete Roman tria nomina is relatively common among new Roman citizens in the first century BC (Marcus’ father was clearly not a Roman citizen, having the Oscan name Kipos, which is attested, e.g., in the Entella tablets). The gens Aemilia is well attested in Sicily, including several Roman magistrates (see Facella 2006: 277-278), but one cannot simply assume that Rhodon was given citizenship by a Roman magistrate bearing the name Marcus Aemilius, as patterns of practice in this regard have been shown to be very irregular (see e.g. Pina Polo, F. 2015. Foreign clientelae revisited: a methodological critique, in F. Pina Polo and M. Jehne (eds), Foreign Clientelae in the Roman Empire: A Reconsideration, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner: 19-42). The text makes it explicit that Rhodon made the dedication to mark his holding of the office of agoranomos, (aedile) a magistrate responsible for management of the city’s buildings and markets and so the agora in particular (see Fantasia, U. 2012. I magistrati dell’agora nelle città greche di età classica ed ellenistica. In C. Ampolo (ed.), Agora greca e agorai di Sicilia (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale), 31-56.). The text does not make explicit what it was that he dedicated, but since the stone appears to have been mounted as a plaque on the wall, rather than serving as a statue base, it is most likely that he restored or improved part or all of the building in which it was found (Campagna 2007).
The text cannot be securely dated. The style of the letters suggests a date at the end of the Hellenistic period, although the Greek text suggests we are still in the first century BC and probably before the Augustan period. It is worth noting that the one other example of triangular interpuncts of this particular form at Halaesa is in a dedication to Augustus ISic000582, although this is recorded only in the antiquarian tradition.
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: 644896
- EDR: -
- EDH: -
- EDCS: -
- PHI: 331493
- Printed editions
- AE at 1973.0267 Zotero FAIR
- Association pour l’encouragement des études greques, « Bulletin épigraphique », Revue des études grecques, 1888, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/797735566, at 1976.0827.3 Zotero FAIR
- ‘Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum’, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 1923, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1607583, at 38.0930 Zotero FAIR
- ‘Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum’, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 1923, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1607583, at 37.0761 Zotero FAIR
- G. Scibona, «Epigraphica Halaesina I», Kokalos 17 (1971): 3–20, at 13 no.3 fig.2 Zotero FAIR
- Luigi Moretti, «Per la storia di Halaesa in Sicilia», Rendiconti della pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia 59 (1987 1986): 195–97. Zotero FAIR
- Manganaro (1988) at 46 n.255 Zotero FAIR
- Manganaro (1989) at 190 n.120 Zotero FAIR
- Giacomo Manganaro, «Tra epigrafia e numismatica», Chiron 22 (1992): 385–410, at 390 n.38 Zotero FAIR
- A. Facella, Alesa Arconidea: ricerche su un’antica città della Sicilia tirrenica (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2006), at 276-278 Zotero FAIR
- Lorenzo Campagna, «Architettura pubblica ed evergetismo nella Sicilia di età repubblicana», in La Sicilia romana tra Repubblica e Alto Impero, a c. di C. Miccichè, S. Modeo, e L. Santagati (Caltanissetta: Siciliantica, 2007), 110–34, at 118 Zotero FAIR
- G. Scibona, ‘The Epigraphs’, in Alesa Archonidea. Guide to the Antiquarium, ed. G. Scibona and G. Tigano (Palermo: Regione Siciliana, 2008), 25–27, at 26 ph Zotero FAIR
- Anna Maria Prestianni Giallombardo, «Spazio pubblico e memoria civica. Le epigrafi dall’agora di Alesa», in Agora greca e agorai di Sicilia, a c. di C. Ampolo (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2012), 171–200, at 180 fig.162-164 Zotero FAIR
- J.R.W. Prag e G. Tigano, Alesa Archonidea: il lapidarium, Introduzione all’archeologia di Halaesa 8 (Palermo: Regione Siciliana, Assessorato beni culturali e identità siciliana, Dipartimento beni culturali e identità siciliana, 2017), at no.6 Zotero FAIR
Citation and editorial status
- Editor
- Jonathan Prag
- Principal contributor
- Jonathan Prag
- Contributors
- Last revision
- 11/24/2021