ISic001206: Epitaph for Diokles
- ID
- ISic001206
- Language
- Ancient Greek
- Text type
- funerary
- Object type
- stele
- Status
- edited
- Links
- View in current site
Edition
Apparatus criticus
- Text as per IG and IGMusPal
Physical description
Support
- Description
- A small cippus, broken below, some damage to the right edge.
- Object type
- stele
- Object condition
- No data
- Dimensions
- height: 24 cm, width: 26.5 cm, depth: 14 cm
Material
- Description
- sandstone
Inscription
- Layout
- No data
- Text condition
- No data
- Technique
- chiselled
- Pigment
- No data
- Lettering
Crude and irregular letters of unequal size, deeply incised. Omicron is small and mid-line; kappa has short equal length arms attached to the vertical; epsilon has shorter middle bar (i the first instance detached from the vertical); alpha has straight bar; rho has rounded closed eye.
- Letter heights
- Line 1-2: 30-75mm
- Interlinear heights
- Interlineation line 1 to 2: mm
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Abacaenum
- Provenance found
- Original discovery not recorded.
Current location
- Place
- Palermo, Sicilia
- Repository
- Museo Archeologico Regionale Antonino Salinas , 8703
- Autopsy
- None
- Map
Date
3rd century BCE? (AD 301 - AD 200)- Evidence
- lettering
Text type
commentary
The name is in the vocative form of Διοκλῆς, a common name, widely attested in Sicily. The suggestion of Manni Piraino that it derives from a form Δίοκλος (suggested to be attested by Cic. Verr. 2.5.16: de Apollonio, Diocli1 filio, Panhormitano, cui gemino cognomen est) seems implausible. The form Δίοκλος (LGPN V3B: 37428) is only attested once, and the form in the Verrines is surely a latinisation of convenience. There is no obvious reason to date this to the early imperial period (as Manni Piraino does); the letter forms - as well as the contextual evidence of the Hellenistic necropolis at Abakainon - suggest a Hellenistic date.
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- Printed editions
- Accademia nazionale dei Lincei, Istituto nazionale di archeologia e storia dell’arte (Italy), e Reale Accademia d’Italia, «Notizie degli scavi di antichità», Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità, 1876, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1646037, at (1886), 464 no.d
- 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 382a
- Otto Hoffmann, ‘Die Inschriften von Sicilien und Abu-Simbel’, in Sammlung der Griechischen Dialekt-Inschriften, ed. F. Bechtel and H. Collitz, vol. 3.2.4 (Göttingen: Verlag von Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1904), at 5208a
- M.T. Manni Piraino, Iscrizioni greche lapidarie del Museo di Palermo, Sikelika 6 (Palermo: S. F. Flaccovio, 1973), at 125
- Girolamo Sofia, Abakainon. Nella dimora di Ade. La necropoli in contrada Cardusa a Tripi (Terme Vigliatore (ME): Giambra editore, 2015), at 108 and fig.112
Citation and editorial status
- Editor
- Jonathan Prag
- Principal contributor
- Jonathan Prag
- Contributors
- Last revision
- 12/16/2025