6.1. Titles for relief sculptures

Description:: Three white marble relief panels, their subjects described and discussed by Yildirim in Ratté (Basilica of Aphrodisias, forthcoming).
Text:: Beside the figures.
Letters:: Probably Flavian, ave. 0.055; square sigma.
Date:: probably Flavian (lettering, sculpture, probable text).When the panels were first found, many thought the reliεfs to be of the third century A.D., a view abandoned after their detailed study. Yildirim, however, still regards the lettering as post-Flavian; it is indeed not quite standard in form for the Flavian period, but it is often the case that the lettering of captions is not quite standard for their period, since they were cut, commonly, by the sculptors rather than by professional letterers.
Findspot:: Basilica: during excavation
Original Location:: Basilica
Last recorded location:: Findspot
History of discovery:: Excavated by the NYU expedition in 1978
Bibliography:: Published by Erim, Aphrodisias (London, 1986), 26-7, 99-101.; id, Aphrodisias, a guide to the site (Izmir, 1989), 49-51; Reynolds, in Ratté (Basilica of Aphrodisias, forthcoming)Note, among many published comments, R. R. R. Smith in Aphrodisias Papers 3, 10-72; L. Robert, À Travers l'Asie Mineure (Paris, 1980), C.P. Jones, Kinship Diplomacy in the Ancient World (Harvard, 1999), 139-43; Yildirim, and Stinson, in Ratté (Basilica of Aphrodisias, forthcoming); and the articles on Bellerophon, Gordios, Ninos, Semiramis in LIMC.
Text constituted from:: Transcription (Reynolds). This edition Reynolds (2007).

a
i: (To the right of a winged horse, to whom the label clearly applies); 1Πέγα; 2σος
ii: (To the right of a male figure in a chlamys, to whom the label clearly applies; with his right hand he reaches out to the bridle of Pegasos, with his left he holds an unidentified object. ); 1Βελλερο; 2φόντης
iii: (To the right of ii, beside a naked male figure, to whom the label clearly applies; he stands on a rock, holding what may be a laurel branch in his right hand, while resting the left on a tripod with a snake coiled around its feet ); 1Ἀπόλ; 2 λων
b: (To the left of a male figure in chiton and himation, to whom the label clearly applies. he holds a staff in one hand and reaches out with the other to an altar; there is an eagle with open wings on the altar, and a barren tree with three branches to the left of it.); 1Νίνος
c
i: (To the right of a veiled woman wearing peplos and himation, to whom the label clearly applies; she stands beside an altar holding a staff and a leafy branch); 1Σεμειρα; 2μις
ii: (To the right of a male figure in armour, to whom the label clearly applies; he seems to be pouring a libation on an altar. ); 1Γόρδις

a
i: (To the right of a winged horse, to whom the label clearly applies); 1ΠΕΓΑ; 2ΣΟΣ
ii: (To the right of a male figure in a chlamys, to whom the label clearly applies; with his right hand he reaches out to the bridle of Pegasos, with his left he holds an unidentified object. ); 1ΒΕΛΛΕΡΟ; 2ΦΟΝΤΗΣ
iii: (To the right of ii, beside a naked male figure, to whom the label clearly applies; he stands on a rock, holding what may be a laurel branch in his right hand, while resting the left on a tripod with a snake coiled around its feet ); 1ΑΠΟΛ; 2ΛΩΝ
b: (To the left of a male figure in chiton and himation, to whom the label clearly applies. he holds a staff in one hand and reaches out with the other to an altar; there is an eagle with open wings on the altar, and a barren tree with three branches to the left of it.); 1ΝΙΝΟΣ
c
i: (To the right of a veiled woman wearing peplos and himation, to whom the label clearly applies; she stands beside an altar holding a staff and a leafy branch); 1ΣΕΜΕΙΡΑ; 2ΜΙΣ
ii: (To the right of a male figure in armour, to whom the label clearly applies; he seems to be pouring a libation on an altar. ); 1ΓΟΡΔΙΣ

<note>

To the right of a winged horse, to whom the label clearly applies

</note>

<ab>

Πέγα

σος

</ab>

</div>

<note>

To the right of a male figure in a chlamys, to whom the label clearly applies; with his right hand he reaches out to the bridle of Pegasos, with his left he holds an unidentified object.

</note>

<ab>

Βελλερο

φόντης

</ab>

</div>

<note>

To the right of ii, beside a naked male figure, to whom the label clearly applies; he stands on a rock, holding what may be a laurel branch in his right hand, while resting the left on a tripod with a snake coiled around its feet

</note>

<ab>

Ἀπόλ

λων

</ab>

</div>

<note>

To the left of a male figure in chiton and himation, to whom the label clearly applies. he holds a staff in one hand and reaches out with the other to an altar; there is an eagle with open wings on the altar, and a barren tree with three branches to the left of it.

</note>

<ab>

Νίνος

</ab>

</div>

<note>

To the right of a veiled woman wearing peplos and himation, to whom the label clearly applies; she stands beside an altar holding a staff and a leafy branch

</note>

<ab>

Σεμειρα

μις

</ab>

</div>

<note>

To the right of a male figure in armour, to whom the label clearly applies; he seems to be pouring a libation on an altar.

</note>

<ab>

Γόρδις

</ab>

</div>

Translation:

a.i Pegasos, ii Bellerophon. iii Apollo.

b.Ninos

c.Semiramis, ii Gordi(o)s

Commentary:

Captions appear only on these three of the forty-six relief panels found in the Basilica (it is calculated that thre were originally seventy-six) from which it is argued, plausibly, that they were of special significance. Unfortunately, no obvioulsy relevant written accounts of the episides illustrated have survived, so that we can only guess at what was being represented. Yildirim has proposed that they are episodes from Aphrodisian ancient history, probably taken from the Carian History of the Aphrodisian Apolllonios. In support, it can be said that a number of their features appear on other local monumnets and on coins (so Apollo, Bellerophon, Pegasos, the Eagle and the Barren Tree) that Bellerophon appears as a founder in (unpublished), that Ninos is said by Stephanus of Byzantium to have given it his name, in the form Ninoe, and that Gordios' name was attached to a settlement in the area, Gordiouteichos.

On Bellerophon see above (Pegasos may have been simply his natural accompaniment). A number of Aphrodisian families in the Roman period claimed ancestors involved in the foundation of the city (e.g. 12.706, 12.306, 12.5); Bellerophon must have been seen as 'founder' in a different sense.

Ninos, given the presence of Semiramis, must be her husband, the supposed founder of Nineveh, and conqueror of most of Asia (for a Greek account see Diodorus Siculus II.2). C.P. Jones, op. cit., has recently connected him with Plarasa, which was linked with Aphrodisias in the second and first centuries B.C. and in some sense absorbed into it subsequently; Plarasan coins in fact frequently show an eagle which is to be associated with the Zeus who is named as Nineudios at Aphrodisias (12.304, 11.104). That is an interesting possibility, if speculative at present.

Semiramis was thought of as the effective successor to Ninos, and founder of cities in Asia (e.g. Thyatira). Gordios is probably the son rather than the father of Midas of Phrygia, who is said to have named his foundation of Gordioupolis for him.

Of course if Gordioupolis was another name for Aphrodisias - and Professor M.H.Crawford beleives that at present the evidence for it can best be explained in this way - and given the apparent subordination of Plarasa to Aphrodisias in the Roman period, all three panels can be seen as illustrating the origins of the Aphrodisians. There is an unproven argument here, however, so tha we should also bear in mind the possibility, put forward originally by Charlotte Roueché, that the intention was to illustrate not simply Aphrodisian but Carian history. In that case the building may - but need not - have had a function following from the city's relation to its Carian neighbours, rathr than one directed essentially by its own affairs.

It is of course the case that stories of the kind may have little ground in reality. The prehistoric excavations at Aphrodisias showed settlement there of great antiquity, but serious evidence for the presence of Greek speakers is late. It should also be noted that all figures in thses reliefs are dressed as Greeks, however foreign their names, and that to our knowledge Aphrodisias did not seek to enter Hadrian's Hellenic League.