ISic003004: Votive dedication of Artemidoros
- ID
- ISic003004
- Language
- Ancient Greek
- Text type
- dedication
- Object type
- base
- Status
- No data
- Links
- View in current site
Edition
Apparatus criticus
- Text based on photograph;
- Manganaro 1961 interpreted δ as a numeral; Manganaro 1988 tacitly revised this view, interpreting δ as an abbreviation of δ(οῦλος)
Physical description
Support
- Description
- A small marble base with a circular depression in the middle of the upper face (10cm in diameter) that must have housed a statue.
- Object type
- base
- Material
- marble
- Condition
- damaged
- Dimensions
- height: 7 cm, width: 25.5 cm, depth: 16 cm
Inscription
- Layout
- Text set out over two lines on the front face, the name in line 1 in larger letters
- Text condition
- No data
- Lettering
-
- Letter heights
- Line 1-2: 15-20mm
- Interlinear heights
- Interlineation line 1 to 2: 13mm
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Catina
- Provenance found
- Found in 1950 near the Chiesa dei Minoritelli, during excavation of the foundations of the Collegio Maria Immacolata (so Manganaro 1961: 191 n.91).
- Map
Current location
- Place
- Catania, Italy
- Repository
- Museo Civico di Catania ,
- Autopsy
- Observed by Manganaro in Museo del Castello Ursino and later transferred to the storage of the Museo Civico.
- Map
Date
Imperial: lunate sigmas and omegas (AD 1 – AD 300)- Evidence
- lettering
Text type
commentary
This dedication is on the long side of a marble base with a circular depression that must have been of support for a statue of the deity to whom the dedicant has addressed. Although seen by Manganaro in the museum at a date no later than 1961, the stone has not been observed since. This is the only occurrence of the name Artemidoros in Catania, although the name is widely attested in other Sicilian inscriptions (see LGPN 3a: 72-73), whereas Klemes is not attested elsewhere in Sicily. Manganaro (1961) interpreted δ as a numeral assuming that Κλήμης was the fourth with this name in his family, but later he considered δ to be an abbreviation for δ(οῦλος). Δ is located between two triangle-shaped interpuncts with a strike above that isolates the preceding word from the following one. The abbreviation δ for δ(οῦλος) is attested in Asia Minor and Syria (TAM IV,1 213, IGLSyr 3,1 814), while the abbreviation δοῦλ(ος) is more frequent and also appears in western regions (at Reggio in the Christian inscription IG 14.629). Here δοῦλος, rather than indicating the social status of the dedicant, could indicate his extreme devotion to the deity, whose identity is unknown, although it probably was a health deity such as Asclepius or Apollo or an oriental deity such as Isis (as Manganaro believed) or Demeter and Persephone (see the dedication to Persephone from Catania SEG 38.942 = ISic001275).
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: 645353
- 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 1962.0388
- Giacomo Manganaro, «Ricerche di epigrafia siceliota. I. Per la storia del culto delle divinita orientali in Sicilia», Siculorum Gymnasium 14 (1961): 175–98, at 190-191 fig.12
- Giacomo Manganaro, «La Sicilia da Sesto Pompeo a Diocleziano», Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt 2.11.1 (1988): 3–89, at 49 and 68 n.346
Citation and editorial status
- Editor
- Jonathan Prag
- Principal contributor
- Jonathan Prag
- Contributors
- Jonathan Prag
- Marta Fogagnolo
- James Cummings
- James Chartrand
- Valeria Vitale
- Michael Metcalfe
- Simona Stoyanova
- Francesca Prado
- system
- Last revision
- 12/22/2022