ISic004437: Votive dedication of the ruler of Gela, reinscribed by Polyzalos
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Edition
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Apparatus criticus
- Text: Adornato 2008, 33, fig. 3, after Keramopoullos 1909. The text erased on line 1 and the later text cut over it are encoded together; line 2 belongs to both versions.
Physical description
Support
- Description
- Grey-beige limestone base from the Parnassos quarry. The upper surface has three attachment holes, approximately 6.5, 6.1 and 5.6 cm wide, corresponding to the position of animals' hooves.
- Object type
- base
- Object condition
- damaged
- Dimensions
- height: 29.8 cm, width: 83.6 (front); 91.5 (back) cm, depth: 80.8 (left); 80.2 (right) cm
Material
- Description
- limestone
Inscription
- Layout
- The metrical inscription is chiselled on the front face in two lines. The first line was erased and reinscribed; the second line was retained.
- Text condition
- incomplete
- Technique
- chiselled
- Pigment
- No data
- Lettering
- No data
- Letter heights
- Interlinear heights
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Delphi
- Provenance found
- Found in the Sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, in the area of the Ischegaon, during the Grande Fouille.
- Map
Current location
- Place
- Delphi,
- Repository
- Archaeological Museum of Delphi
- 3517
- Autopsy
- Not autopsied by the editor
Date
ca. 485-466/5 BCE, in two phases (485 BCE - 465 BCE)- Evidence
- No data
Text type
commentary
The first line originally named a Γέλας ἀνάσσων (“ruler of Gela”) as dedicant. It was subsequently erased and overwritten with the name of Polyzalos, while the second line was left unchanged. Adornato considers the identification of the first dedicant with Polyzalos highly improbable and regards Hieron, ruler of Gela from 485 to 478 BCE, as the likelier candidate, although Gelon cannot be excluded on palaeographic grounds alone.
Adornato dates the first inscription to a period slightly later than Gelon's Delphic tripod base and the recutting by Polyzalos before 466/5 BCE, possibly soon after Hieron's death. He argues that base 3517 and the bronze Charioteer did not belong to the same votive monument.
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: 696177
- EDR: -
- EDH: -
- EDCS: -
- PHI: -
- Printed editions
- ‘Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum’, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 1923, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1607583, at (1990), 40.0427
- Laurent Dubois, Inscriptions grecques dialectales de Sicile : contribution à l’étude du vocabulaire grec colonial, CEFR 119 (Rome: Ecole française de Rome, 1989), at 133
- Adornato (2008) at 29-55, especially 32-37 and 50-53
Citation and editorial status
- Editor
- Jonathan Prag
- Principal contributor
- Valentina Mignosa
- Contributors
- Last revision
- 7/30/2026