ISic001491: I.Sicily inscription 001491

Apparatus criticus

• Text after Orsi and Guarducci (and photograph NSA 1931);
• line.1: Guarducci: [Σό?]αρχος
  
• line.2: Guarducci: Δάμ(ατρι); Segre: δαμ[όσιος]; Vollgraff, Dubois: Δαμ(ατριαστᾶν); Manganaro: Δάμ.(τρι)
  
• line.3: Guarducci: [ͱπὲρ] ͱενναίων or [τᾶι] ͱενναίων; Manganaro: [---]Ἐνναίων

Physical description

Support

Description

A large irregular mass of coarse stone, which Orsi concluded was 'uno spuntone di roccia, ancora in posto', and not part of a block fallen from above as originally suggested. The left side is lost, and the whole is heavily weathered.

Object type

rock face

Material

limestone

Condition

damaged

Dimensions

height: 200 cm, width: 160 cm, depth: cm

Inscription

Layout

Orsi suggested the text was probably originally centred on the rock, but only the right part of three lines now preserved.

Text condition

incomplete #text_condition, deteriorated

Lettering

Letter heights

Line 1-3: 100mm

Interlinear heights

Interlineation line 1 to 2: mm

Provenance

Place of origin

Enna

Provenance found

Fully documented in situ by Orsi in 1931, on the slopes below the 'Rocca di Cerere', on the west side (c.250 m down the slope)

Map

Current location

Place

Enna, Italy

Repository

Autopsy

No data

Date

Evidence

lettering

Text type

dedication

commentary

Of all past editors, only Orsi, directed to the text by local knowledge, has seen and fully documented the inscription, which he concluded was on a much eroded outcrop of natural rock, perhaps part of an extra-mural sanctuary. The text is damaged on the left, but from the surviving photograph it is difficult to confirm all aspects of Orsi's reading, such as whether the vacat at the end of line 2 is certain (e.g. Manganaro believed he could see another letter in the photograph after ΔΑΜ), and this has encouraged speculation on the likely expansion or restoration of those letters. It is notable that most later editors seem to have ignored the fact that the left margin is not necessarily the original one. Guarducci and others have speculated on line 1 as a personal name, that of the dedicant, if line two is to be restored/expanded as the dative of the divinity Demeter; the alternative, assuming nothing is missing from the left, is that it stands for 'chief (magistrate)' (so Masson). This latter reading in turn tends to take line 2 as referring to an association of worshippers of Demeter (so first Vollgraff), a group of Damatriastes. The interpretation of line 3 (clearly the genitive plural ethnic of the people of Enna) depends in turn on the alternatives proposed for lines 1 and 2, so variously Demeter of the Ennaians or by/on behalf of the Ennaians (both suggested by Guarducci), or the Demeter association of the people of Enna. Notwithstanding the multiple attestations of the cult of Demeter/Ceres at Enna, such asn association is not otherwise attested and is a hypothetical restoration in this text. Any resolution of the reading must depend upon the possibility of fresh study of the stone, if it can be located (Manganaro speculated that it may have been damaged during the Second World War).

The letter forms, as Guarducci noted, seem to place this text in the early part of the Hellenistic period, rather than later. The use of the aspirate, which would certainly speak to an earlier date, is paralleled in the earlier coinage of Enna, but we remain agnostic, without autopsy, of the presence of the sign on the stone (which Orsi believed to be present, followed by Guarducci).

Bibliography

Digital editions

• TM: 644997
• EDR: -
• EDH: -
• EDCS: -
• PHI: 329723
• PHI: 336905

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 388-391 fig.15-16
• 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 390-391
• ‘Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum’, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 1923, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1607583, at 53.0991
• ‘Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum’, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 1923, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1607583, at 14.0598
• W. Vollgraff, « Inhumation en terre sacrée dans l’antiquité grecque (à propos d’une inscription d’Argos) », Extrait des mémoires présentés par divers savants à l’académie des inscriptions et belles-letters 14, n^o 2 (1951): 315‑98, at 350-353
• Giacomo Manganaro, «Ricerche di antichità e di epigrafia siceliote», Archeologia Classica 17 (1965): 183–210, at 187-188 tav.65.1
• Olivier Masson, « Vocabulaire grec et épigraphie: ἀρχός “chef, archonte” », in O-o-pe-ro-si: Festschrift für Ernst Risch zum 75. Geburtstag, éd. par A. Etter (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1986), 451‑57, at 453
• Laurent Dubois, Inscriptions grecques dialectales de Sicile : contribution à l’étude du vocabulaire grec colonial, CEFR 119 (Rome: Ecole française de Rome, 1989), at 198
• Giacomo Manganaro, «Demetra degli Ennaioi», Epigraphica 65 (2003): 9–18, at 15-17 ph

Citation and editorial status

Editor

Jonathan Prag

Principal contributor

Jonathan Prag

Contributors

• Jonathan Prag
• James Cummings
• James Chartrand
• Valeria Vitale
• Michael Metcalfe
• Simona Stoyanova
• system

Last revision

3/1/2021