ISic000827: Oath and letter of a king
- ID
- ISic000827
- Language
- Ancient Greek
- Text type
- letter
- Object type
- stele
- Status
- No data
- Links
- View in current site
Edition
Apparatus criticus
- Text of Dimartino 2015: 62
Physical description
Support
- Description
- A thick fragment of a dense grey stone (identified so far as a calcitic stone), broken on all sides. The rear is rough and uneven. The thickness of the stone suggests a substantial free-standing stele, but the unfinished state of the reverse may suggest either that it stood against an existing structure, or that it was not free-standing but built into a monument of some description. The unusual stone has similarities to the material used for the large honorific base for Hieron II,
- Object type
- stele
- Material
- limestone
- Condition
- No data
- Dimensions
- height: 13 cm, width: 36-42 cm, depth: 8 cm
Inscription
- Layout
- The text is set out in two columns on the front face. The left margin of the second column is justified, the right margin of the first column is uneven. Part of the text of the right column, from line 6 (the oath) onwards, is indented
- Text condition
- No data
- Lettering
-
- Letter heights
- Line 1: mm
- Interlinear heights
- Interlineation line 1 to 2: mm
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Syracusae
- Provenance found
- Found, according to Capodieci 1813: 178, in 1749 outside the walls of Siracusa in the lowest part of the ancient quarter of Akradina (presumably not far from the ancient agora
- Map
Current location
- Place
- Siracusa, Italy
- Repository
- Museo Archeologico Regionale Paolo Orsi , 4
- Autopsy
- observed but not transcribed, Prag 2013-09-30, Display Sector D, case 321 no. 10
- Map
Date
Reign of Hieron II (c. 265—215 BCE) (265 BC – 215 BC)- Evidence
- No data
Text type
commentary
As Dimartino observes (2015: 58-59) it is quite possible that this is a small fragment from a larger dossier of multiple documents; it is also far from certain or necessary that the text in the second column is a direct continuation of the text in the first column (the first has 1st person plural pronouns; the second has a 2nd person plural pronoun; and the text of the oath at column II, line 6 is in turn clearly marked out as a distinct text by indentation, and may not therefore be a direct continuation from the lines preceding - in other words, parts of up to three separate (but related) texts may be preserved here. It seems most likely that the text in column I is part of a royal letter; the text in the first part of column II could be part of the same, or part of a separate letter or decree; the third text is an oath of the boule, which may or may not have been originally included in the preceding document(s).
The form of the letters together with the references in the text to kings (basileis), the Syracusans, and the existence of the city council (boule) all suggest that this text, or dossier of texts, belongs to the reign of Hieron II of Syracuse, most likely in the period between 241 and 215 BC. Although most editors have attempted more or less extensive restoration of the text, as Dimartino argues cogently, there is little sound basis on which to do so: the extent of the missing text before and after is unknown, as is the actual original width of each of the two columns of text. It seems likely that the first column contains a royal letter, perhaps of Hieron II, addressing the Syracusans, and that the overall context is that of conslidating the relationship between the king and the city, with the latter part of column two containing an oath to be sworn by the boule and others, which may form part of that overall process. The stele itself, which might have recorded multiple documents pertaining to this moment, could in turn have formed part of a royal or other public monument in the area of the agora, but this can only be speculation.
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- Printed editions
- Gabriele Lancillotto Castelli principe di Torremuzza, Siciliae et objacentium insularum veterum inscriptionum nova collectio (Panormus: Excudebat Cajetanus Maria Bentivenga, 1769), http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/books/Castelli1769, at 262 cl.18 no.3
- Giuseppe Maria Capodieci, Antichi monumenti di Siracusa (Siracusa, 1813), https://it.wikisource.org/wiki/Antichi_monumenti_di_Siracusa, at vol. 1, §47, pp. 178-180
- A. Boeckh et al., Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum, 4 vols (Berlin: Ex Officina Academica, 1828), at 3.5367
- F. Bechtel et al., Sammlung der griechischen Dialekt-Inschriften, 4 vols (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1884), at 3230
- G. Kaibel, Inscriptiones Graecae Siciliae et Italiae, additis graecis Galliae Hispaniae, Britanniae, Germaniae inscriptionibus, Inscriptiones Graecae consilio et auctoritate Academiae Litterarum Regiae Borussicae Editae. Volumen XIV., XIV (Berlin: Georgius Reimerus, 1890), at 14.0007
- Adolf Wilhelm, „Inschrift aus Syrakus“, Jahreshefte des Österreichischen Archäolgischen Institutes 3 (1900): 162–71, https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22623.20.
- ‘Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum’, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 1923, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1607583, at 59.1127
- ‘Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum’, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 1923, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1607583, at 56.1103.2.1
- ‘Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum’, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 1923, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1607583, at 55.1029
- Giacomo Manganaro, «Una epistola di Gerone II ai Siracusani (IG XIV.7)», Athenaeum 43 (1965): 312–20.
- Giacomo Manganaro, «Per la storia dei culti nella Sicilia greca», Cronache di archeologia e di storia dell’arte 16 (1977): 148–64, at 157 n. 44
- Laurent Dubois, Inscriptions grecques dialectales de Sicile : contribution à l’étude du vocabulaire grec colonial, CEFR 119 (Rome: Ecole française de Rome, 1989), at 103
- Giacomo Manganaro, «La stele in pietra scura (IG XIV 7) con l’epistola di Gerone II ai Siracusani», Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 152 (2005): 141–51.
- Alessia Dimartino, «Per una revisione dei documenti epigrafici siracusani pertinenti al regno di Ierone II», in Guerra e pace in Sicilia e nel Mediterraneo antico (VIII-III sec. a.C.). Arte, prassi e teoria della pace e della guerra, a c. di C. Michelini, vol. 2, 2 voll., Atti Elimi V (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2006), 703–17, at no. 2.1
- Giacomo Manganaro, «Un frammento inscritto erratico dall’area di Caronia (Kaleakté)», Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 170 (2009): 87–98, at 88
- Alessia Dimartino, «L’epistola di Ierone II e l’orkion boulas (IG XIV, 7): un nuovo dossier epigrafico?», Epigraphica 77 (2015): 39–65.
- Alessia Dimartino, «Letter from Hieron II and Oath of the Syracusans», Axon 1, fasc. 2 (2017): 163–74, https://doi.org/10.14277/2532-6848/Axon-1-2-17-12, at 163-174
Citation and editorial status
- Editor
- Jonathan Prag
- Principal contributor
- Jonathan Prag
- Contributors
- Jonathan Prag
- James Cummings
- James Chartrand
- Valeria Vitale
- Michael Metcalfe
- Simona Stoyanova
- system
- Last revision
- 1/19/2021