ISic001176: A koinon of priests honours [-?-] Lapiron, son of Diogenes

Photo J.Prag
ID
ISic001176
Language
Ancient Greek
Text type
honorific
Object type
block
Status
No data
Links
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Apparatus criticus

  • Text based on autopsy

Physical description

Support

Description
An incomplete block of limestone, damaged on the left, right, below and at the rear; only the front face and upper surface are preserved. The nature of the upper surface suggests that at least one more block originally stood on top of this one; at least one deliberately cut indentation is visible on the upper surface, presumably for the joining of blocks.
Object type
block
Material
limestone
Condition
No data
Dimensions
height: 19 cm, width: 30 cm, depth: 33 cm

Inscription

Layout
Three lines of Greek text are preserved: the state of the stone means that the beginning and end of all three lines is lost, and at least one further line could have been lost below. If there were any lines above these, they would have been on a separate block of stone.
Text condition
No data
Lettering

Letter heights
Lines 1-3: 25-30mm
Interlinear heights
Interlineation line 1 to 2: mm

Provenance

Place of origin
Halaesa
Provenance found
Halaesa

Current location

already lost by the time of Castelli (1753).

Date

2nd — 1st century BCE (letter forms and formulae) (200 BC – 1 BC)
Evidence
No data

Text type

honorific

commentary

The restoration of τὸ κοινὸν in line 1 is virtually certain, on the basis of the bronze inscription in honour of Nemenios (SEG 59.1100), as Scibona recognised (2009a: 108). That text however refers to τὸ κοινὸν τῶν ἱερέων τοῦ Ἀπολλωνος, and although it is possible that this text continued in that way, it is notable that lines 2 and 3 only require a single additional letter, and the addition of τοῦ Ἀπολλωνος would unbalance the layout of the text. At the same time, most of the other honorific texts of the Hellenistic period from Halaesa are dedications ‘to all the gods’ (Θεοῖς πᾶσι) and if that phrase stood at the start of line 1, then the text would be lengthy, but symmetrical (especially as a longer amount of text is lost from the beginning of line 2, and at least 10 letters are lost from the first part of line 3); alternatively the phrase may have appeared on a second block above. It is also possible that a further line followed below the surviving text, with the phrase, as found in the Nemenios bronze, τᾶς εἰς ἀυτον.

ISic001175 records a Diogenes Lapiron, son of Diogenes. It is very likely that one should restore the patronymic here as Diogenes, but we cannot assume that this is the same individual, even though editors since Franz (CIG no.5596) have simply restored the name in full (Prestianni Giallombardo 2012: 179 is more cautious). The family is attested in several other inscriptions (ISic001175, ISic000800, ISic003571) and in Cicero (Verr. 2.2.19-28), for which see Facella 2006: 229-241.

The koinon of priests is presumably the same one as that responsible for the bronze in honour of Nemenios (SEG 59.1100) – an otherwise unattested but very large (825+ members) association of priests of Apollo, apparently centred upon Halaesa (for the sanctuary of Apollo at Halaesa, see Facella 2006: 318-22 and A.M. Prestianni Giallombardo, Divinita e culti in Halaesa Archonidea, in Quarte Giornate Internazionali di studi sull'area elima (Pisa 2003), vol. 3, pp. 1075-81). We do not know if the association was based only in Halaesa, or extended across other communities in the area or even across Sicily. If the former, then, it must have been more or less equivalent to the entire citizen body of Halaesa, and both this text and the Nemenios bronze show that it was able to erect honours in the principal public spaces of the city (for the koinon, see Scibona 2009 and G. Manganaro in Da Halaesa ad Agathyrnum (Santa'Agata di Militello 2011), 33-68.

The text cannot be dated precisely, but belongs to the second or first century BC on the basis of the form of the inscription and the style of the letters (the Nemenios bronze belongs to the first century BC).

Bibliography

Digital editions
Printed editions
  • IG at 14.0354 Zotero FAIR
  • Gualtherus (NaN) at 24 no.140
  • CIG at 3.5596 Zotero FAIR
  • Gualtherus (1624) at 47 no.302 Zotero FAIR
  • Gabriele Lancillotto Castelli principe di Torremuzza, Storia di Alesa, antica città di Sicilia (Palermo: Stamperia de SS. Appostoli in Piazza Vigliena, presso Pietro Bentivenga, 1753), http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/books/Castelli1763, at 145 no.2 Zotero FAIR
  • Castelli (1769) at 22 cl.3 no.9 Zotero FAIR
  • Castelli (1784) at 25 cl.3 no.10 Zotero FAIR
  • F. Bechtel et al., Sammlung der griechischen Dialekt-Inschriften, 4 vols (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1884), at 5202 Zotero FAIR
  • ‘Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum’, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 1923, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1607583, at 59.1099 Zotero FAIR
  • G. Scibona, La chiesa e il complesso edilizio postmedievale, Introduzione all’archeologia di Halaesa 2 (Palermo: Regione Siciliana, 2008), at 20 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
  • G. Scibona, «Decreto sacerdotale per il conferimento della euerghesia a Nemenios in Halaesa», in Alaisa-Halaesa. Scavi e ricerche (1970-2007), a c. di G. Scibona e G. Tigano (Messina, 2009), 97–112, at 108 Zotero FAIR
  • Anna Maria Prestianni Giallombardo e A. Facella, «Tusa», in Bibliografia Topografica della colonizzazione greca in Italia e nelle isole tirreniche, a c. di G. Nenci e G. Vallet, vol. 21, 21 (Pisa: Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa Ecole Francaise de Rome, 2012), 251–311. 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 178 fig.160 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.3 Zotero FAIR
  • Anna Maria Prestianni Giallombardo, «Un’epigrafe alesina recuperata (IG XIV 354)», in KTHMA ES AIEI. Studi e ricordi in memoria di Giacomo Scibona, a c. di Giovan Giuseppe Mellusi e Rosario Moscheo (Messina: Società Messinese di Storia Patria, 2017), 387–410. Zotero FAIR

Citation and editorial status

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