ISic001177: Soldiers serving at Eryx honour their commander

Photo J. Prag courtesy Soprintendenza BBCCAA di Messina
ID
ISic001177
Language
Ancient Greek
Text type
honorific
Object type
block
Status
No data
Links
View in current site

Edition

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Apparatus criticus

  • provisional text after Kaibel in IG 14 and Prestianni Giallombardo 2012, pending processing of RTI imagery

Physical description

Support

Description
A large rectangular limestone block, damaged around the edges of the face and with some material lost from both the top and bottom. The surface is badly weathered. The remains of a clamp-hole (vel sim) preserved front left of the top surface. The rear is very uneven with a large rounded protrusion.
Object type
block
Material
limestone
Condition
No data
Dimensions
height: 75 cm, width: 53 cm, depth: 45 cm

Inscription

Layout
Greek text is visible over 10 lines, although much of the initial lines in particular is now lost
Text condition
No data
Lettering

Letter heights
Line 1-10: 20-25mm
Interlinear heights
Not measured: mm

Provenance

Place of origin
Halaesa
Provenance found
First recorded on the site by Antonio Agustín in 1559-1560

Current location

Place
Halaesa, Italy
Repository
Antiquarium e sito archeologico di Halaesa , ME 20218
Autopsy
2011.06.15
Map

Date

Late Hellenistic (period of the Roman Republican province) (241 BC – 49 BC)
Evidence
No data

Text type

honorific

commentary

The text is badly damaged and was already very difficult to read when the first surviving transcription was made by Antonio Agustín in 1559-1560. The text of Agustín remains the closest to the best reconstruction which can now be made of the text, combining the conjectures and efforts of multiple scholars over the centuries (Prestianni Giallombardo 1993: tab.1 reproduces Agustín’s transcription, preserved in codex Matritensis 5781 f.22; see further Prestianni Giallombardo 2012: 175-176). The text records honours set up by a group of soldiers for their military commander, one Herakleios son of Diodoros. Both names are well attested in Sicily, including at Halaesa (see LGPN). The incomplete word which follows the name could be the beginning of a demotic-type abbreviation, which is commonly found in Halaesan inscriptions, although none beginning ΚΑ- are currently known; it could also be a second name in the Sicilian Greek tradition (cf. Cordano 1997 and 1999: 152-154). Both the men serving as soldiers (presumably citizens of Halaesa) and the commander, described as a chiliarch, are recorded as serving at Eryx (modern Erice), where there was a major sanctuary of Astarte / Aphrodite / Venus. Diodorus Siculus (4.83.7) records that the Roman senate decreed “that the 17 most loyal cities in Sicily should wear gold in Aphrodite’s honour and that 200 soldiers should watch over the sanctuary.” Diodorus does not date this decree, but it is most likely to belong to the period immediately after the First Punic War (Prag 2011: 195-197). Two other inscriptions found at Eryx (ISic001101 and ISic000538) also record soldiers and commanders at Eryx, and it is a reasonable assumption that all three inscriptions relate to this special garrison, and that this text records soldiers from Halaesa serving in the garrison. ISic001101 records a Segestan also holding the position of chiliarch; the fact that our text was set up in Halaesa, makes it very likely that Herakleios was a Halaesan holding the same position. ISic000538 describes the (unknown) commander of the same garrison as a tribunus militum and the Greek title chiliarch is the usual translation for this Roman position (it is interesting to see Greek citizens adopting a Roman military title). The presence of this text at Halaesa also implies that Halaesa was one of the 17 loyal cities mentioned by Diodorus and by Cicero (Verr.5.124), which fits with the city’s privileged status under Rome (see Pais 1888: 173-194 for the fullest discussion of this group, and Prag 2007b: 82-83 on the garrison).

The inscription finds a local parallel in ISic000612, in which citizens of Halaesa and several other communities honour a Roman commander; a further parallel from Halaesa is offered by an as yet unpublished text in which cavalrymen from several cities including Halaesa honour an unknown individual.

The text cannot be closely dated, but belongs in the period between 241 and 49 BC.

Bibliography

Digital editions
Printed editions
  • IG at 14.0355 Zotero FAIR
  • Gualtherus (NaN) at no.137, 141
  • CIG at 3.5598 Zotero FAIR
  • Gualtherus (1624) at 47 no.300 Zotero FAIR
  • Ludovico Antonio Muratori, Novus thesaurus veterum inscriptionum in praecipuis earumdem collectionibus hactenus praetermissarum, collectore Ludovico Antonio Muratorio .... Tomus secundus, vol. 2 (Mediolani: ex aedibus Palatinis, 1740), http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/books/Muratori1740Vol2, at 820 no.3 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 147-148 no.5 Zotero FAIR
  • Castelli (1769) at cl.9 no.15 Zotero FAIR
  • Castelli (1784) at cl.9 no.16 Zotero FAIR
  • F. Bechtel et al., Sammlung der griechischen Dialekt-Inschriften, 4 vols (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1884), at 5203 Zotero FAIR
  • R. Cagnat, J. Toutain, and P. Jouguet, Inscriptiones Graecae ad res Romanas pertinentes, 4 vols (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1906), at 507 Zotero FAIR
  • ‘Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum’, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 1923, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1607583, at 43.1208.2 Zotero FAIR
  • ‘Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum’, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 1923, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1607583, at 41.0776 Zotero FAIR
  • Anna Maria Prestianni Giallombardo, «Un’inedita iscrizione tardoantica da Alesa e il problema dell’episcopato alesino», in Hestiasis. Studi di tarda antichità offerti a Salvatore Calderone, vol. III (Messina, 1987), 295–316. Zotero FAIR
  • Anna Maria Prestianni Giallombardo, «Revisioni epigrafiche alesine e nuove inedite trascrizioni della grande tabula di Alesa», Kokalos 39–40 (1993): 528–33, at ph Zotero FAIR
  • Giuseppe Nenci, «Spigolature alesine. Colloquiuo alesino», a c. di A.M. Prestianni Giallombardo (Catania, 1998), 45–58. Zotero FAIR
  • A. Facella, Alesa Arconidea: ricerche su un’antica città della Sicilia tirrenica (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2006), at 329-331 Zotero FAIR
  • G. Scibona, ‘Statuary’, in Alesa Archonidea. Guide to the Antiquarium, ed. G. Scibona and G. Tigano (Palermo: Regione Siciliana, 2008), 31, at 27 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 175 fig.152 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.7 Zotero FAIR

Citation and editorial status

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