The Greek Inscriptions at Trinity College Dublin Part II: Other Locations

Fig. 1: A previously unpublished Greek inscription in the Department of Classics, TCD

My visit to Trinity in May 2022 also gave rise to a very interesting discovery: a previously-unpublished Greek inscription in the department (Fig. 1). It is a piece of white marble, very much darkened, cracked and broken on all sides apart from the bottom. The letters point to a date in the imperial period, perhaps the second century AD? I was able to trace over its letters onto a piece of acetate, which gave a clear reading of the extant lines.

………….… ΣΩΝΤ…

………… Ἐ̣παφροδείτ-…

….……ἱερομνάμονος …

….…ἀ̣νθέντων τοῦ Πυθα̣-…

5      … Π̣ρείμου καὶ Δαμοκράτους…

… -υ̣ καὶ Ἐπαφροδείτου καὶ Κασ-…

… ἐς τὰς θυσίας κατὰ τὸ ἔθο[ς …

…[Μ]ε̣νοίτου Διδυμέως τοῦ̣ [ - - ]

Translation: …

… Epaphrodeit[os?

… of the hieromnamon… ?

of those dedicating/let them dedicate, Pytha-

5     … of Preimos and of Damokrates…

and of Epaphrodeitos and Kas-

… towards the sacrifices according to the custom

… of [M]enoitas of Didyma of the….

Nothing is known of the discovery of this inscription, but it is likely to have been at Trinity since the nineteenth century or even earlier, brought by someone who had embarked on the Grand Tour. Its significance will be discussed in future publications: for now, we can comment that it mentions several personal names (Epaphrodeitos, a common name; Preimos and Damokrates are also well-known; Menoitas, rare but known from Miletos) and the magistracy of the hieromnamon (sacred remembrancer). The references to Didyma (home, within Milesian territory, of a famous oracle of Apollo) and to religious customs, suggest that the inscription concerns religious activity there. The phrase in line 7, ‘towards the sacrifices according to the custom’, may indicate that this inscription concerns those who contributed to a sacrifice according to a practice said to be established at Didyma. Like the portrait busts discussed in our previous blog, the inscription may derive from Miletos and its area. But the Doric form of the magistrate’s designation, hieromnamon (for hieromnemon) stands out and may point to some involvement of individuals from outside this area.

Fig. 2: The dedication to Souchos, Fayoum, Egypt, 98 BC in Trinity College Dublin

The longest of the Greek inscriptions at Trinity College Dublin is the record of a dedication by ephebes (cadets) of a piece of land to the god Souchos on behalf of Ptolemy X Alexander I, dating to 98 BC (Fig. 2). This was found at Fayoum in middle Egypt in February 1894 by the Trinity classicist John Pentland Mahaffy (1839-1919), who gave it to the library, and it is currently today in store at the Old Library. It is a white limestone stele (stone slab) with rounded finial. The top includes a representation of solar disc, and, beneath, Sobek, depicted as a crocodile, wearing the Double Crown (pschent). It is a well-known text and one that will be published again in the second volume of the Oxford Corpus of Ptolemaic Inscriptions (as no. 294: Trinity’s own postgraduate researcher Elizabeth Foley did the autopsy for the Oxford project). I did not get a chance to see the stele during my May visit, but Trinity’s Dr Shane Wallace had the chance to visit it in the storerooms. He located the stele and found most of its letters decipherable:

Ὑπὲρ

βασιλέως Πτολεμαίου τοῦ

ἐπικαλουμένου Ἀλεξάνδρου

Σούχωι θεῶι μεγάλωι

5    μεγάλωι v τόπο[ς] τῶν

τὸ v βʹ (ἔτος) v ἐφηβευκότων

τῆς Ἀμμωνίου αἱρέσεω̣ς,

οὗ μέτρα νότου ἐπὶ βορρ[ᾶ]ν

π ιγʹ, λιβὸς ἐπ’ ἀπηλιώτη̣ν̣ ․․ʹ

10  ἕως ψυγμοῦ· (ἔτους) ιϛʹ, Φαμ(ενὼθ) ιαʹ.

‘In favour of the King Ptolemy called Alexander, to Souchos the great great god, a place (was dedicated) of the second-year ephebes, of the class of Ammonios, whose dimensions from south to north are 13 pecheis (cubits), from west to east... as far as the drying place, during Year 16, the 11th Phamenoth.’

The inscription provides evidence for the existence of the ephebic institution – a sort of cadet service including civic and military education into which young citizens were enrolled  –  in Egypt during the second and first centuries BC. It pertains to a dedication of a small plots of land to the crocodile deities Souchos or Soknetoubnis by a group of ephebes 14 years after they had undertaken their service, which demonstrates that class’s attachment to the institution and suggests that their group-attachment and camaraderie had carried on long after their service had finished.

The ephebes made a dedication of a small plot of land, consisting of 13 cubits ‘south to north’ (lines 8-9) and an unknown number west to east. It is likely that the plot was the place of meeting of ex-ephebes or adjacent to their training ground. The mention of a ‘drying place’ (perhaps for leather-makers, fishermen or for drying grain) suggests that it may have been on the banks of a river; the prevalence of crocodiles in this sort of area may be relevant to the decision to make a dedication to a crocodile-deity: for the sake of safety perhaps? The making of a dedication to an Egyptian deity suggests the intermingling of Egyptian cult with Greek institutions in this period.

Finally: some weeks after my visit to Trinity, I came across reference to a bas-relief of white marble depicting Demosthenes sitting on an altar (Fig. 3). On the altar is the inscription:

Δημωσθένης

ἐπιβώμιος

‘Demosthenes at the altar’.

Fig. 3: Demosthenes Epibomios (at the altar) in the Department of Classics, TCD

The plaque was once in the possession of Dr Richard Mead (1673-1754); after his death it was sold by auction and found its way into Trinity College. It was said to have been discovered at Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli near Rome and was first attested in 1737 in the possession of the antiques dealer Francesco Palazzi. It is supposed to represent Demosthenes’ final moments, when he took refuge at the temple of Poseidon at Kalauria, and fell having taken poison beside the altar (Plutarch, Demosthenes 29.6). In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century there was a long debate about whether or not it is a genuine antiquity. The letter-cutter’s spelling Δημωσθένης for Δημοσθένης could be an ancient or modern error. Gisela Richter (Portraits of the Greeks II p. 222 with photograph) drew the conclusion, on the grounds of style and the letter-forms, that it is not ancient, and it indeed seems likely that it is an eighteenth-century Neoclassical production.

The great care invested in the creation and preservation of this monument, and in particular the efforts to recreate details which are accounted for in canonical ancient texts, gives us an excellent example of how such literary accounts have come to inspire visual art. In this case the (modern) Greek inscription serves as a label, to enhance the visual aspect of the monument, to identify the scene, and perhaps to provide a starting point for the discussion of the monument.

Acknowledgements: I have many friends and colleagues to thank for help in undertaking this research, especially Paul Cartledge, Anna Chahoud, Charles Crowther, Jo Day, Hazel Dodge, Margaret Lantry, Miranda Lewis, Brian McGing, Christine Morris, Shane Wallace, Sharon Weadick. I am indebted also to Prof. Dr Georg Petzl for his learned advice on the inscriptions.

---

Peter Liddel

Peter is Professor of Greek History and Epigraphy at the University of Manchester.
Academic Profile | Attic Inscriptions Online (Co-Editor)

Peter was the Walsh Family Lecturer in Ancient History in the Department of Classics, Trinity College Dublin from 2002 to 2004