IGII2 11659 Grave stele of Theophile

Grave stele of Theophile

IG II² 11659 Date: ca. 400-350 BC

Relief^[1] Records of your excellence (aretēn), Theophile, will never pass unnoticed, self-controlled (sōphrōn) and useful (chrēstē) and hard-working, possessing every excellence (aretēn).^[2]

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Greek text

References:

IG II² 11659 (Translated text) (PHI)

Conze I 129

CEG 2, 491

Clairmont, CAT 2.423a

AIUK 15 (Miscellaneous) 17 (PHI)

Translation by: Peter Liddel, Polly Low

AIO Images: 1

Monument type: Stele

Inscription type: Funerary

Findspot: Piraeus (Queensland University UQ 14.001)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] The relief on this marble stele depicts a scene which is very common on Athenian funerary monuments: a female figure, seated on a chair (klismos), is shown shaking hands with a standing figure, imperfectly preserved but identified by both Conze and Clairmont as female. The gesture of the handshake (dexiosis), widely attested on Attic gravestones, is a symbol of intimacy, often implying a familial relationship; for further discussion and bibliography, see the notes to AIUK 2 (BSA), no. 10. Clairmont identifies the seated figure as the deceased, Theophile, although the absence of any extant labels identifying the two figures makes certainty impossible.

[2] The inscription is (broadly) metrical, although the metre has some peculiarities which might be explained either as attempts at innovation or as evidence for lack of expertise on the part of the composer. C. Gallivotti (Metri e ritmi nelle iscrizioni greche, 27; reported in SEG 29.253) suggests that the epigram might be interpreted as a three-line verse (made up of hemistichs and iambs). The more widely-accepted view (summarised by Hansen in CEG) is that this is an attempt at a more conventional form of funerary epigram, an elegaic couplet consisting of one hexameter line (lines 1-2 of the inscribed text) and one pentameter (lines 3-5 of the inscribed text). In that case, however, the scansion of the pentameter would be faulty; this, in turn, has been explained as the result of replacing the virtues which would conventionally be used in this place in the epigram with ones which were thought more appropriate for Theophile.

This explanation is attractive, because it is indeed the case that the combination of virtues ascribed to Theophile is an unusual mixture of traditional, even "aristocratic", qualities and terms more often associated with the non-elite. "Excellence" (aretē) and "self control" (sōphrosunē) are traditional virtues. In the Homeric epics, the former is especially (though not exclusively) associated with male, "heroic" qualities; although its semantic scope has broadened by the Classical period, some of its aristocratic connotations might still persist. "Self control" (sōphrosunē) also has aristocratic (in some contexts even oligarchic) connotations; when applied to individuals it seems to be particularly associated with people of whom obedience was expected (i.e. women, the young, and foreigners: D. Whitehead, "Cardinal Virtues", Classica et Mediaevalia 44 (1993), 70-72). In Classical Athens both terms are used of men, in both funerary and (from the fourth century onwards) honorific contexts. But they are also virtues that can be ascribed to women. In honorific contexts, this is not attested in Athens until the first century B.C. (IG II² 3513, honours for Lysiades and Chrysothemis), but earlier examples are found in funerary epigrams (for example, SEG 46.304, the funerary monument of Pausimache, dated to the early fourth century).

"Hard-working" (ergatis), however, appears very rarely in funerary contexts: there is only one other attestation in Attica, in a fourth-century epitaph for a certain Nikarete (IG II² 12254: she is also praised for being "thrifty", pheidōlos). We might compare, too, the language used to describe Phrastor in Apollodorus' Against Neaera: "a hard-working man (ergatēn) and one who had acquired his means through frugal living" ([Dem.] 59.50). The adjective "useful" (chrēstē) is also relatively rare in Classical Athenian funerary texts, and is often associated with the commemoration of enslaved (or freed) people.

Theophile's status is therefore hard to pin down on the basis of the content of the epigram. We might, in fact, be tempted to speculate that whoever composed or commissioned it was deliberately blurring the traditional categories of citizen and non-citizen female "virtues". Other aspects of the monument offer no help in clarifying her status. The name "Theophile" is fairly common in Attica, but is borne by both citizens and non-citizens. The absence of a demotic in the epitaph need not necessarily reveal anything about Theophile's citizen status (or lack of it), since this information might have been provided by other monuments in the funerary enclosure in which (we can assume) this monument originally stood.

This inscription was discovered by the traveller Edward Dodwell, who conducted "excavations" in Piraeus in 1805. It was then acquired by Howe Peter Browne, 2nd Marquess of Sligo (1788-1845), and formed part of his collection at Westport House, Co. Mayo; a photograph of the early twentieth century (reproduced as Fig. 17.1 in AIUK 15 (Miscellaneous)) shows the stele among a collection of other ancient marbles, propped against a sarcophagus in the grounds of the house. The collection was dispersed in the twentieth century, and the stele of Theophile passed through various hands before being acquired, in 2013, for the R. D. Milns Antiquities Museum of the University of Queensland. For more discussion of the collection of inscriptions at Westport House, see AIUK 15 (Miscellaneous) no. 17.

Added: 27 Apr 2023
Updated: 28 Apr 2023
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