ISic000800: Honorific for [---] Lapiron Sal., son of Apollodoros

Photo J.Prag courtesy Soprintendenza BBCCAA di Messina
ID
ISic000800
Language
Ancient Greek
Text type
honorific
Object type
exedra
Status
No data
Links
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Edition

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Apparatus criticus

  • Line.1: Earlier editions record the alpha, but it is completely lost in a crack on the upper part of the face

Physical description

Support

Description
A slab of limestone, intact on all sides, with a lightly concave front face, and becomes thinner towards the left side. The front face and edges are more finely worked than the rest, which is merely prepared for insertion within the original monument of which it was a part. The holes for three metal staples are visible on the upper surface, and it is possible that a fourth has been lost from the top left rear.
Object type
exedra
Material
limestone
Condition
No data
Dimensions
height: 68 cm, width: 60 cm, depth: 13-20 cm

Inscription

Layout
No data
Text condition
No data
Lettering

Letter heights
Lines 1-6: 30mm
Interlinear heights
interlineation: not measured

Provenance

Place of origin
Halaesa
Provenance found
First uncovered in excavation by Carettoni in 1956 (Carettoni 1961: 287 fig.22, 292 fig.27) on the steps of the west portico of the agora, between the colonnade and the rear wall of the large base in opus reticulatum. The inscription was recognised by Scibona, and the stone recovered in excavation on 15 September 1970
Map

Current location

Place
Halaesa, Italy
Repository
Antiquarium e sito archeologico di Halaesa , ME 20220
Autopsy
2011-06-15
Map

Date

late 2nd century or earlier 1st century BCE (150 BC – 75 BC)
Evidence
context

Text type

honorific

commentary

The stone is intact on both left and right sides, making it certain that the first part of lines 2, 3, and 5 was engraved on a second stone (and so the text would have appeared symmetrical to the viewer). Burgio (2012) has demonstrated convincingly that this stone comes from the right side of an exedra monument on the steps of the west portico (exedra A), and that two additional stones stood to the left (meaning that there was space to the left not only for the beginning of this text but also for a second similar inscription in honour of another individual). The name at the start of line 3 is lost, but must have been relatively short (symmetry suggests not more than c.6 letters). Scibona suggested Dion, known from Cicero (In Verrem 2.2.19-24) and from brick stamps found at Halaesa. Cicero records one Apollodorus Lapiron, but the Dio of Halaesa to whom he refers in the same passage is only a relative (propinquus), not his son (see Facella 2006: 229-241). The abbreviation Sal at the end of line three is probably a demotic (i.e. an indicator of the part of Halaesa to which this individual belonged): the abbreviation is also attested in the bronze for Nemenios (SEG 59.1100 line 9) and elsewhere in Sicily (e.g. at Akrai, ISic001032; see in general Cordano, F. 1999. Le istituzioni delle citta greche di Sicilia nelle fonti epigrafiche. In M. I. Gulletta (ed.), Sicilia epigraphica. Atti del convegno internazionale Erice 15-18 Ottobre 1998 (2 vols.). Pisa: I, 149-158, at 152-4). Either εὐνοίας (‘good will’) or ἀρετᾶς (‘virtue’, ‘excellence’) is possible at the start of line 5, but the former is more common at Halaesa, and the pairing εὐνοίας καὶ εὐεργεσίας is already attested in ISic003351

The text cannot be dated precisely (second or first century BC on the basis of the letter forms), but the exedra monument itself is considered to post-date the second-century BC construction of the portico, and to belong in either the late second or early first century BC (Burgio 2012: 155), and the inscription is presumably contemporary with the construction of the exedra.

Bibliography

Digital editions
Printed editions
  • AE at 1973.0266 Zotero FAIR
  • Association pour l’encouragement des études greques, « Bulletin épigraphique », Revue des études grecques, 1888, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/797735566, at 1976.0827.2 Zotero FAIR
  • ‘Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum’, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 1923, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1607583, at 37.0759 Zotero FAIR
  • G. Scibona, «Epigraphica Halaesina I», Kokalos 17 (1971): 3–20, at 11 no.2 fig.1 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 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 177 fig.154-156 Zotero FAIR
  • Rocco Burgio, «Appendice. Monumenti minori dell’agora di Alesa: le esedre curve. Analisi e ricostruzione», in Agora greca e agorai di Sicilia, a c. di Carmine Ampolo (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2012), 155–69, at 161-163 fig.136-138 Zotero FAIR

Citation and editorial status

Editor
Jonathan Prag
Principal contributor
Jonathan Prag
Contributors
Last revision
1/19/2021