ISic003125: The people of Tauromenion honour Nymphodoros son of Philistion
- ID
- ISic003125
- Language
- Ancient Greek
- Text type
- honorific
- Object type
- statue base
- Status
- No data
- Links
- View in current site
Edition
Apparatus criticus
- Text from autopsy;
- 1: SEG: ὁ δᾶμος τ.ν (unclear on what basis, since not reflecting the drawing of Bacci)
Physical description
Support
- Description
- A square base of limestone, of the typical Taormina pink stone. The stone is intact. All sides are finished smooth, with the exception of the underside which is only roughly worked. Traces of plaster remain on all four sides and the underside. There is some slight damage to the top of the front face resulting the loss of a couple of letters.The upper surface has the remains of footholes, presumably for a bronze statue of a standing figure: s single smaller round hold set near the front middle, with two somewhat damaged (from the later removal of the statue?) larger holes, with deeper circular depressions set at an oblique angle to the face, roughly parallel and some 22 cm back from the front face. A further large round hole near the rear left of the surface appears to still contain its metal filling.
- Object type
- statue base
- Material
- limestone
- Condition
- complete
- Dimensions
- height: 24-25 cm, width: 66 cm, depth: 66 cm
Inscription
- Layout
- Four lines of Greek letters of equal height, centred on the upper two thirds of the front face of the base.
- Text condition
- complete
- Lettering
-
- Letter heights
- Line 1-4: 25-26 (phi=30-35; omega=23-25)mm
- Interlinear heights
- Interlineation line 1 to 2: mm
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Tauromenium
- Provenance found
- Found in situ during excavations in 1978 of the area of the Roman period baths behind the Caserma dei Carabinieri, which revealed this and a second base () in situ in the area of a courtyard adjoining a substantial hellenistic structure (possibly the bouleuterion), subsequently covered over in the restructuring of the area in the late C1 BCE / early C1 CE. The bases were subsequently removed to the Museo archeologico regionale Paolo Orsi, Siracusa, where they will be on display in Sector E.
- Map
Current location
- Place
- Siracusa, Italy
- Repository
- Museo Archeologico Regionale Paolo Orsi , 82535
- Autopsy
- Prag 2011-06-16; 2013-10-02; 2016-06-29.
- Map
Date
Perhaps second century BCE from the palaeography, and likely to be approximately associated with the base next to which it was found, ISic003124. The individual is not directly attested in the other Tauromenion texts, but the name Philistion occurs repeatedly, with Philistion son of Philistion holding the position of stratagos in year 94 of IG XIV.421 = ISic001246; since that Philistion is also given the ?demotic ΣΠΑΡ, this could be that man's son, which would suit a date in the middle of the second century or a little later (cf. Muscolino 2009-2010 p.441 with n.117). (200 BC – 50 BC)- Evidence
- lettering
Text type
commentary
The text was found in situ alongside a second such base (ISic003124) for Nymphodoros son of Eukleides; and it is an almost certain hypothesis that the other two statue bases (IG XIV.434 and 435 = ISic001259 and ISic001260) were originally part of the same set of honorific monuments, all in the immediate vicinity of what is assumed to be the Hellenistic bouleuterion, on the northern side of the original agora (and subsequently subsumed under later Roman structures). While the bases can all confidently be dated to the period between c.200 and 50 BCE, the exact chronology, as noted above, is open to some dispute. For a very full and detailed discussion of the context, concentrated on the two bases known since the 18th century, see Muscolino 2009-2010.
It is worth comparing the variety in the formulation of these four bases. The base for Nymphodoros son of Philistion 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 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 (which substitutes his Pythian victory as the reason, rather than his goodwill to the city). The base for Marcellus simply presents the name of the Roman governor in the nominative.
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: 645466
- EDR: -
- EDH: -
- EDCS: -
- PHI: 330714
- Printed editions
- ‘Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum’, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 1923, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1607583, at 32.0936
- G. M. Bacci, «Ricerche a Taormina negli anni 1977-1980», Kokalos 26–27, fasc. 2.1 (1981 1980): 737–48, at 739-741 fig. 2a base 2
- Francesco Muscolino, «I monumenti di Olympis e di C. Claudio Marcello a Taormina», Rendiconti della pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia 82 (2010 2009): 407–60, at 436-437 fig. 23
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
- 10/11/2024