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

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

Citation and editorial status

Editor

Jonathan Prag

Principal contributor