ISic001247: Gymnasium accounts

I.Sicily with the permission of the Assessorato Regionale dei Beni Culturali e dell’Identità Siciliana - Dipartimento dei Beni Culturali e dell’Identità Siciliana; photo J. Prag 2017-03-22. Fragment a, face 1
I.Sicily with the permission of the Assessorato Regionale dei Beni Culturali e dell’Identità Siciliana - Dipartimento dei Beni Culturali e dell’Identità Siciliana; photo J. Prag 2017-03-22. Fragment a, face 1
ID
ISic001247
Language
Ancient Greek
Text type
accounts
Object type
stele
Status
draft
Links
View in current site

Edition

Loading...

Apparatus criticus

  • Text of Bormann in IG, but noting the additional presence of side 2 (the rear), ignored by editors before Antonetti;
  • Face 1 = front face (a) upper, (b) lower); Face 2 = rear face; Face 3 = viewer's right face; Face 4 = viewer's left face;
  • 3.14: The words are swapped over, such that the first word ἀγῶνες is the start of the next item, the second word ἐπαγωγίμωι is carried over from the previous line.
  • 3.53-54: Again the final word of the preceding line ἐπαγωγίμωι is partially carried over onto the end of the following line, as in line 3.14.

Physical description

Support

Description
Two fragments of a large white limestone rectangular stele (of which a third part would seem to be missing from the base). The stele tapers towards the top. The upper fragment (a) is 75 cm tall, 19.5 cm across the narrow face, and reducing across the broad face from 28 cm at the base to 23.5 cm (at the highest point where the full width of the face is still preserved). The lower fragment (b) is 101 cm tall, 20.8 cm wide across the narrow face and 36.8 cm across the broad face. The two fragments essentially connect, although they are mounted separately. Manganaro suggests that the original full height of the stele was perhaps 2.5 m or more. The lower fragment appears to have been re-used as a door threshold at a later date. All four sides are engraved, although it was only Antonetti in the early 1980s who recognised that both of the wider faces were engraved. The text on the wider faces is very poorly preserved, and nothing appears to be legible on the second of these. The practice of mounting the stele fragments against a wall, maintained in the current display, means that one face is always inaccessible (and is part of the explanation for why the existence of text on all four faces was not recognised). The text begins on one of the wider faces (face 1), continues on the opposite wider face (2 - of which nothing can be read), and then on the right hand narrow face (3, understood from the perspective of a viewer facing the initial broad face 1) and finally on the opposite, left-hand, narrow face (4). In pre-1983 editions, face 2 was omitted, and so face 3 = 2 and face 4 = 3. In the current display, the upper fragment (a) is mounted against the wall with face 4 outermost; the lower fragment (b) is mounted against the wall with face 1 outermost.
Object type
stele
Object condition
fragments, contiguous
Dimensions
height: at least 176 cm, width: 36.8-23.5 cm, depth: 20.8-19.5 cm

Material

Description
limestone

Inscription

Layout
No data
Text condition
incomplete
Technique
chiselled
Pigment
No data
Lettering

Letters vary from 3-8 mm in height, with a use of lunate sigma, standard epsilon and variously open or closed omega.

Letter heights
Line 1ff: 3-8mm
Interlinear heights
Interlineation line 1 to 2: mm

Provenance

Place of origin
Tauromenium
Provenance found
First observed in the church of S. Peter the Apostle, outside Taormina.

Current location

Place
Taormina, Sicilia
Repository
Antiquarium del Teatro Antico
Autopsy
Superficial autopsy, Prag 2009-10-06
Map

Date

2nd — 1st century BCE (200 BC - 51 BC)
Evidence
No data

Text type

accounts

commentary

Bibliography

Digital editions
Printed editions

Citation and editorial status

Editor
Jonathan Prag
Principal contributor
Jonathan Prag
Contributors
Last revision
3/20/2026