Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity 2004

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9. Dedication for Emperors and Caesars

Description

• Monument: A white marble statue base shaft (0.42 × 1.77 × 0.46) which is broken below and at the top left-hand corner. The inscribed face was turned inwards when the stone was re-used, and has been revealed only by the collapse of the adjoining wall; only the upper part is visible, to about 0.70 from the upper edge.
• Text: Inscribed on the face.
• Letters: Based on the standard square script of the second and third centuries, but with some new features; Ν and Η each have a decorative crossbar (Ν throughout, Η in l. 5 but not in l. 1); omega is in an unusual form; and there is a square sigma in line 5. The lettering of the last two lines is less correct. The interlinear space, c. 0.015 between lines 1-3, increases to 0.04-0.05 between lines 3-5, giving an inelegant overall appearance; a possible explanation is that the mason initially omitted l. 2, and then inserted it.
• Date: AD 293-311 (reigns).

Text

Translation

For the eternal endurance of the lords Imperators and Caesars.

Apparatus

The letters underlined were recorded by Paris and Holleaux and Reichel, but had been lost when the stone was read in the 1970s.

Photographs

Front face (1975)	Front face (1975)	View in situ (1975)

Representations

Squeeze	Drawing by Reichel (1893)

Commentary

There is no trace of any further inscription, and while there would have been ample space for a further text on the area of the face which is at present concealed, examples of inscriptions where a short text is inscribed at the top of a tall base, with the bulk of the space left empty, are provided by 2 and 3, and suggest that that was also the case here. If so, any description of the dedicator (very probably the city) would have stood on an upper feature.

The block appears to be cracked half-way down, which perhaps occasioned its re-use in the construction of the city wall; its presence there provides a terminus post quem for the building of at least this stretch of the fortifications (see further III.18).

See further discussion at II.17.

Locations

• Found: City Walls: re-used in the wall at the north-east corner of the Stadium. See plan 7.
• Original: Unknown.
• Last Recorded: Findspot.

History

• Recording: Copied by Paris and Holleaux; by Reichel, 5 June 1893 (R.I.12b); recorded by the NYU expedition.
• Bibliography: Published by •Paris & Holleaux, no. 9; by •Roueché, Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity no. 9, whence PHI 152.
• Text constituted from: Publication; Reichel notebook; Transcription (Roueché).

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