ISic001476: Inscription recording the neaniskoi of the gymnasium
- ID
- ISic001476
- Language
- Ancient Greek
- Text type
- List
- Object type
- stele.
- Status
- No data
- Links
- View in current site
Edition
Apparatus criticus
- Text from autopsy;
- Dubois reproduces Manganaro's text, with some omissions of underdots.;
- 1: Calderone: Ὀνασικράτεο[ς]
- 3: Calderone: Νύμ[φ]ωνος
- 4: Manganaro: .ρτέμω[ν]ος; Calderone: [τ]οῦ Ἀρ[χ]ων[ί]<δ>α
- 5: Calderone: [οἱ ν]εα[ν]ίσκ[οι] οἱ εμ[β]άσανοι; Manganaro [ο]ἱ; the visible vertical near the start of the line is in the wrong place and too deep to be the stroke of an iota.
- 6: Calderone: [-----]; Manganaro: Ἀγαθ.[ρχ -----]βου
Physical description
Support
- Description
- A quadrangular slab of local limestone, with a moulded cornice (damaged) along the front upper edge and sides. The rear has been cut back with a saw. The sides are original. It is unclear if the base has also been cut away, or if it was originally more than one block. The face is heavily damaged, especially in the lower half. The cornice is hollowed on top behind the front, possibly deliberately in order to support something on top. Calderone's suggestion that this is the upper part of a stele or pilaster seems correct, perhaps originally set in antis and not free-standing.
- Object type
- stele.
- Material
- limestone
- Condition
- damaged
- Dimensions
- height: 34.5 cm, width: 62 cm, depth: 10.5 (without cornice) 18 (with cornice) cm
Inscription
- Layout
- The text fills the face available below the cornice (and seems likely to have continued below), with probably a consistent left margin, but a less regular right margin, and some cramping in order to fit words/phrases to the line (as e.g. in line 1).
- Text condition
- deteriorated
- Lettering
-
- Letter heights
- Line 1: 22-31 (final omicron is 13)mm
- Line 2: 23-27mm
- Line 3: 26-30mm
- Line 4: 28-31mm
- Line 5: 29-30mm
- Line 6: 25-30mm
- Interlinear heights
- Interlineation line 1 to 2: mm
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Helorus
- Provenance found
- Said to have been found clandestinely in the remains of a building c.300m NE of the colonna Pizzuto (which lies c.600m NW of anicent Heloros), and subsequently recovered by Paolo Orsi for the Siracusa museum. Now in the new display area Sector E.
- Map
Current location
- Place
- Siracusa, Italy
- Repository
- Museo Archeologico Regionale Paolo Orsi , 44533
- Autopsy
- Prag 2022-04-29, Sector E of the Museum, prior to display.
- Map
Date
2nd or earlier 1st century BCE (200 BC – 50 BC)- Evidence
- lettering
Text type
commentary
The text begins with a standard local internal date, by means of the eponymous priest or magistrate of the city (presumably Heloros). The nature of the eponym at Heloros is not known, but it is possible that it was an amphipolis, as at Syracuse and in several other cities within the Syracusan orbit. There follow the names of the two gymnasiarchs for the year, and then the list of the neaniskoi, of which only part of the first name is preserved (Manganaro assumes a name in Agatharch- and while this is most likely, other names such as Agatharin are attested). It seems almost certain that the text has been cut-off below, and a list of names of the 'neaniskoi', the youths in the gymnasium would have followed. It is possible that the list concluded with a dedication to a divinity (compare the lists of magistrates dedicated at Akrai). The significance of the term 'Basanos' is opaque. Calderone suggested that it referred to the testing of the youth at the end of their training (Βάσανος is a touchstone, with the metaphorical meaning of a test, or inquiry, often under torture); Manganaro and Dubois preferred the idea that it was a toponym, referring to the location of the gymnasium. Comparable texts are attested at Centuripe (ISic002945, listing the boys who performed with the shield), and Netum (ISic001060 commemorating the youths of a gymnasium), and elsewhere on the island.
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: 644986
- EDR: -
- EDH: -
- EDCS: -
- PHI: -
- Printed editions
- Association pour l’encouragement des études greques, « Bulletin épigraphique », Revue des études grecques, 1888, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/797735566, at 1951.0256
- ‘Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum’, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 1923, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1607583, at 57.0870
- S. Calderone, «Iscrizione agonale di Heloros», Epigraphica 10 (1949): 146–49.
- Giacomo Manganaro, «Nuove ricerche di epigrafia siceliota», Siculorum Gymnasium 16 (1963): 51–64, at 56
- Laurent Dubois, Inscriptions grecques dialectales de Sicile : contribution à l’étude du vocabulaire grec colonial, CEFR 119 (Rome: Ecole française de Rome, 1989), at 100
- G. Cordiano, La ginnasiarchia nelle «poleis» dell’occidente mediterraneo antico, Studi e testi di storia antica 7 (Pisa, 1997), at 49
- Giacomo Manganaro, «Noto greca e romana:fonti storiografiche,epigrafi e pseudo-monete», in Contributi alla geografia storica dell’agro netino. Atti delle Giornate di Studio. Noto, Palazzo Trigona, 29-31 maggio 1998, a c. di F. Balsamo e V. La Rosa (Rosolini, 2001), 73–96, at 78 no. II, fig. 5
Citation and editorial status
- Editor
- Jonathan Prag
- Principal contributor
- Jonathan Prag
- Contributors
- Last revision
- 9/13/2024