ISic001259: Statue base in honour of Olympis Mestos

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 2009-10-06
ID
ISic001259
Language
Ancient Greek
Text type
honorific
Object type
base
Status
No data
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Edition

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Apparatus criticus

  • text from autopsy

Physical description

Support

Description
A quadrangular block in a red breccia stone, worked on all sides but somewhat uneven (and damaged?) below. The front, top and right sides are finished smooth, the left is finished flat but with a rougher finish, while the rear is rougher still. Two footholes for a standing statue are preserved on the upper surface, and on the middle of the upper right edge what may be a clamp hole. Slight damage to the upper right corner.
Object type
base
Material
breccia
Condition
No data
Dimensions
height: 30 cm, width: 69.8 cm, depth: 65.8 cm

Inscription

Layout
The inscription is set out over four lines on the front face of the block on its upper half. The text is roughly centred, lines 1-3 filling the face, line 4 a single word approximately centered. Spacing between words is apparent and increases significantly in line 3.
Text condition
No data
Lettering

Letter heights
Line 1-4: 27-30 (pi in line 1 is 32)mm
Interlinear heights
Interlineation line 1 to 2: mm

Provenance

Place of origin
Tauromenium
Provenance found
Found in March 1770 during work to expand the convent of Santa Maria di Valverde on the northern side of what is now Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, on the site of the caserma dei carabinieri (see Muscolino 2009-10: 431 for detailed location). This is the same area from which come two other honorific bases found in situ in excavation in 1978, in proximity to the likely bouleuterion of the later Hellenistic town.
Map

Current location

Place
Taormina, Italy
Repository
Antiquarium del Teatro Antico , 1
Autopsy
Prag April 2006
Map

Date

Later Hellenistic, later second or first century BCE? (150 BC – 50 BC)
Evidence
lettering, prosopography

Text type

honorific

commentary

The word Μεστὸν might be an abbreviation of a demotic, but is better understood as a second personal name in the common Sicilian fashion (for full bibliography see Muscolino 2009-2010, p.414. For the context of his festival participation, see the entry for Olympis Mestis in the Connected Contests project: (Person 1196). Manganaro's hypothesis that this was a local Pythian competition seems unlikely. An Olympis son of Olympis is named as eponym in ISic001246, section B, line 5, and is likely to be the same man; but the contribution to dating is limited due to the difficulty of anchoring the date of the stratagoi inscription (the most recent discussion of Battistoni would put this part of the list in perhaps the 120s BCE). The continued presence of iota adscript perhaps encourages a later second rather than first century date, but this occurs down into the first century BCE on occasion. Muscolino prefers a date closer to the base for Marcellus (79 BCE), ISic001260, together with which this base was found.

It is worth comparing the variety in the formulation of the four bases from this part of Tauromenion. The base for Nymphodoros son of Philistion (ISic003124) is the only example at Tauromenion to employ the full formula dedicating the honorand in the accusative to the divine in the dative (in this case 'all the gods', which is encountered with some frequency in Hellenistic Sicily, especially along the north coast of the island). The base for Nymphodoros son of Eukleides (ISic003125) employs the same accusative formulation, but without the dative dedication to a divinity, or the reflexive phrase τᾶς εἰς αὑτὸν, in similar fashion to the base for Olympis son of Olympis (ISic001259) which substitutes his Pythian victory as the reason, rather than his goodwill to the city). The base for Marcellus (ISic001260) simply presents the name of the Roman governor in the nominative.

Bibliography

Digital editions
Printed editions

Citation and editorial status

Editor
Jonathan Prag
Principal contributor
Jonathan Prag
Contributors
Last revision
8/6/2024