ISic003483: Fragment of a list of names

Apparatus criticus

Text from autopsy;
1: Manganaro 1999: -]κ̣α̣ὶ; Orsi: -]ΕΥΒΟΥΛΟ[-
4: Orsi: -]ΣΠΕΙΚΙΑ[-
5: Manganaro 1999: [σαλπι(?)]κτὴς (vac.); nothing is visible on the stone
6: Orsi: -]ΑΦΙΙΙ[-
7: Manganaro 1999: [κιθαρι(?)]σ[τὴς(?)]

Physical description

Support

Description: Fragment of white marble, somewhat worn, and broken on all sides.
Object type: plaque
Object condition: fragment
Dimensions: height: 13.5 cm, width: 10 cm, depth: 2.7 cm

Material

Description: marble

Inscription

Layout: Traces of six lines of Greek, with evidence of intralinear spacing (line 3) and interlinear spacing (blank 'line' after line 4). Guidelines are visible to lines 3 and 7.
Text condition: incomplete
Technique: chiselled
Pigment: No data
Lettering: Small, deeply cut letters; the degree of surface wear makes it difficult to assess the use of serifs. Alpha probably broken bar; epsilon with bars of equal length; rhomboid omicron and phi; four-bar sigma with horizontal outer strokes.
Letter heights: Line 1-7: 8-12mm
Interlinear heights: Interlineation line 1 to 7: 6-9 (vacat at line 5 is 26 mm)mm

Provenance

Place of origin: Syracusae high certainty
Provenance found: Siracusa, Neapolis, found during the deep (5m) excavation for the foundations of a house on the circular piazza between the Agora and Siracusa railway station (piazzale Marconi); mixed material including proto-geometric pottery was recovered from two ancient wells.
Map

Current location

Place: Siracusa, Sicilia
Repository: Museo Archeologico Regionale Paolo Orsi , 8462
Autopsy: Flavio Santini undertook autopsy 2018-09-21; Jonathan Prag photography 2019-10-01.
Map

Date

1st century BCE — 1st century CE (100 BC - AD 100)

Evidence: textual-context

Text type

list

commentary

Manganaro proposes to restore this list of names as a victor list, but while reasonable in general terms, and the conjecture of [διδά]σκαλος in line 3 is reasonable, his other suggestions are pure conjecture: [σαλπι(?)]κτὴς in line 5 cannot stand: nothing is visible on the stone, although Manganaro claims, with the help of 'carboncino' to have read the letters he reports, and the depth of the surviving letters above and below makes this seem distinctly implausible; and recovering κιθαρι(?)]σ[τὴς(?)] from a single sigma would already be optimistic, but the complete absence of any letter in the vacat following the sigma makes it impossible. The text is clearly a list of names, perhaps as Manganaro suggests, a victor list. Notable are the presence of both Greek (Euboul(idas?)) and Roman names (Severus), and in particular what appears to be the abbreviation of υ(ἱὸς) on the model of f(ilius). The possible name Sperkianos presumably derives from the rare (Thessalian) Greek name Σπερχις, which is occasionally attested in Latin as Sperchius. The text most likely belongs to the very late Hellenistic or early Imperial period.

Bibliography

Digital editions

TM: 645104
EDR: -
EDH: -
EDCS: -
PHI: 336187

Printed editions

Citation and editorial status

Editor

Jonathan Prag

Principal contributor