ISic030019: ISic030019

Apparatus criticus

• Text after Wilson and Favi 2017 ;
• 1: Εὐχὰ Miller, Dubois, Arena; Τύχα or Εὐχά Jordan; Ἀπελλᾶς Miller, Ἀπελλιος Dubois; σπευδότερον Miller
  
• 2: Φίντοˉνα Miller, Dubois
  
• 3: Φίλεταν Miller, Dubois; ἀπογαράφοˉ Wilson, Favi (cf. l.7)
  
• 5: {ἀπὸ} Jordan
  
• 6: οἵτινες μεˉ Dubois
  
• 8: καπεˉλείοˉ Ἀλκιάδαν Miller, Dubois
  
• 10: [χοραγ]ὸν Jordan
  
• 12: τοσοῦτοˉς Miller τοσούτοˉς Dubois; βόλιμοˉς τος τε[...]ο Διοτίμαν Miller βόλιμοˉς τòς τε[νει β]ολίμο τιμάν Dubois
  
• 13: ἐμ βολύμοι εμοαυνσον Miller ΡΜΟΑΥ Dubois; ἀεί Jordan
  
• 14: γράφοˉ Jordan

Physical description

Support

Description

Lamina. The tablet is complete at its top, bottom, and right-hand edges. Same support as .

Object type

lamina

Material

lead

Condition

complete

Dimensions

height: 6.2 cm, width: 17.1 cm, depth: cm

Inscription

Layout

The text is on the reverse of an opisthographic lamina. The right-hand edge of the textblock is rather ragged. Horizontal writing, left to right.

Text condition

complete

Letter heights

Line 1-14: mm

Interlinear heights

Provenance

Place of origin

Gela

Provenance found

Note that secure provenance for this tablet is not available. It was purchased in 1969 from a dealer, who indicated a grave in south-east Sicily. It is commonly attributed to Gela.

Map

Current location

Place

Chapel Hill, United States

Repository

Rare Book Room, University of North Carolina , Curiosities 9.1-9.3 superv'd

Autopsy

No Autopsy

Date

Evidence

lettering, archaeological-context

Text type

defixio

commentary

The text is on the reverse of an opisthographic lamina with a legal text on the obverse (ISic030016, Arena I(1), no. 77). On the basis of letter forms and dialect Miller concludes that certainly Side B and possibly A were inscribed in Gela, around the middle of the fifth century BCE (note the unknown provenance, tablet from the antiquities market). As Wilson states, this lead tablet opens a window onto the festival culture of a Greek community in mid-fifth century Sicily, almost certainly that of the flourishing city-state of Gela at its height. It gives evidence for a festival there that had choral contests, perhaps of some scale, and hints at the mechanics of their operation. As Jordan argues, it is likely that these khoregoi are themselves performers, presumably the participating leaders of choruses. The fact that the curse is about their ‘ineffectuality both in word and deed’ proves that they were trainers and/or poets, and/or producers of choruses. It was then suggested that the author of this curse, Apellis, was himself a competing khoregos, and that Eunikos was in his ‘team’, a star performer of some kind, actor or singer. The prayer is, after all, a request for his success, and Apellis’ ‘love’ for Eunikos is far from being inconsistent with his having a personal interest in his agonistic victory. Kaledias, Sosias ad Melathios are all khoregoi and, as a result, rivals of Eunikos; while Pyrias, Mysskelos and Damophantos are members or supporters of another team. Apellis’ curse for Eunikos is believed not only to aim at the victory on other khoregoi but also to be an attempt to win the affection of Eunikos himself. In wishing for this sort of charismatic adulation for Eunikos, Apellis inadvertently alerts us to the likely presence of women in the Geloan festival audience. The new reading of lines 12-13, proposed by Wilson and Favi 2017, does not quite involve an ‘act of sympathetic magic’ as previously thought. In this case Apellis is likely to have uttered some sort of oral spell, ἐπῳδαί, while writing or burying the tablet. While tablets differ cases by cases, spells which accompanied the ritual were probably formulaic, such as maledictions, invocations of chthonic deities, voces magicae. As a result, if ἐπῳδαί is to be accepted, Εὐχά, at l.1, becomes the preferable reading as curse tablets can present supplicative forms to address the gods. What is striking is that both the sides of the tablet are concerned with τιµή. In the case of the financial transaction on side A, τιµή (the ‘value’ of the cattle, l.5) is the essential matter at stake in the record and, in the curse on side B, the τιµή (honour) is asked to be drawn away from Eunikos’ rivals. This lead tablet, then, seems to be, in Wilson’s word, “more than a handy piece of writing material that had outlived its initial usefulness: it had a proven power to draw τιμή.”

Bibliography

Digital editions

• TM: 697281
• EDR: 138640
• EDH: -
• EDCS: 64800142
• EDCS: 64400279
• PHI: 329421
• PHI: 336042

Printed editions

• ‘Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum’, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 1923, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1607583, at 49.1264
• ‘Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum’, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 1923, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1607583, at 53.0994
• ‘Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum’, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 1923, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1607583, at 57.0905b
• A.P. Miller, ‘Studies in Early Sicilian Epigraphy: An Opistographic Lead Tablet’ (Ann Arbor, Michigan, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1973), at 134
• Antonietta Brugnone, «Epigrafia greca», Kokalos 26–27 (1981 1980): 437–55.
• Olivier Masson, « La Sicile et le monde grec archaïque. L’apport de la linguistique », Kokalos 30‑31, n^o 1 (1985 1984): 71‑77, at 75-76
• Laurent Dubois, Inscriptions grecques dialectales de Sicile : contribution à l’étude du vocabulaire grec colonial, CEFR 119 (Rome: Ecole française de Rome, 1989), at no. 134b
• M. A. López Jimeno, Las tabellae defixionis de la Sicilia griega (Amsterdam, 1991), at 110-131 no. 17
• Renato Arena, Iscrizioni greche archaiche di Sicilia e Magna Grecia. Iscrizioni di Sicilia. II. Iscrizioni di Gela e di Agrigento, 2nd ed., vol. 2, 5 voll. (Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2002), at 45
• D.R. Jordan, ‘An Opisthographic Lead Tablet from Sicily with a Financial Document and a Curse Concerning Choregoi’, in The Greek Theatre and Festivals. Documentary Studies., ed. P. Wilson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 335–50, at 335-350
• Peter Wilson and Federico Favi, ‘Choragic Spells in Gela: A Textual and Exegetical Note on Apellis’ “Defixio”, “SEG” LVII 905b’, Zeitschrift Für Papyrologie Und Epigraphik 204 (2017): 138–40, at 138-140

Discussion

• D.R. Jordan, ‘A Survey of Greek Defixiones Not Included in the Special Corpora’, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 26 (1985): 151–97, at 174 no. 91

Citation and editorial status

Editor

Jonathan Prag

Principal contributor

Thea Sommerschield

Contributors

• Jonathan Prag
• Valentina Mignosa
• James Chartrand
• Michael Metcalfe
• system
• Simona Stoyanova
• Thea Sommerschield
• Alessandra Rocchetti

Last revision

6/24/2022