ChoixDelphes 259 Statue base for Athenais at Delphi

Statue base for Athenais at Delphi

Choix de Delphes 259 Date: 143-177 AD (around 153 AD?)

By decree of the City of the Delphians,^[1] (this statue of) Marcia Annia Alcia Athenais Gavidia Latiaria,^[2] daughter of Herodes and Regilla, (5)(was dedicated by) her father.

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Greek text

References:

Choix de Delphes 259 (Translated text) (AIO)

Syll.³ 860c

F.Delphes III 3 69 (PHI)

Ameling, Herodes Atticus II 106

Translation by: Hannes Freitag

Monument type: Base

Inscription type: Statue base (private)

Original location: Delphi

Findspot: Delphi, south-west corner of the Polygonal Wall (Delphi Museum 3997)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] This is a statue base for Athenais set up by her father Herodes Atticus in the sanctuary of Apollo Pythios at Delphi. It is inscribed on a grey limestone base whose rear side is roughly hewn and was not originally visible. Three dowel holes on its upper surface served to attach the plinth on which the statue would have stood. The statue of Athenais is a separate (later?) addition to a family monument which consisted of a statue of her father Herodes Atticus dedicated by the City of the Delphians, and statues of her mother Regilla and sister Elpinike set up by Herodes; an inscription for her brother Regillus was also added separately (later?); their brother Bradua is absent. The precise nature and original location of the monument are unknown, but it was probably located near the Athenian Treasury. On this monument and other inscriptions for the family of Herodes at Delphi, see Choix de Delphes 257 with notes; on Herodes Atticus, see AIUK 11 (Ashmolean) no. 15 with notes; on Regilla, see I Eleusis 476 with notes; on Attic inscriptions at Delphi, see IG II³ 4, 17 with notes. [2] Athenais (PIR² M 259) was perhaps the third or second oldest surviving child of Herodes and Regilla. An older sibling had died in infancy; her sister Elpinike appears to have been older than her; her brother Bradua might also have been. She was probably born in the mid-140s, shortly after her family moved from Rome to Athens, and died in the late 150s. As a child, she might have been a hearth-initiate at Eleusis (I Eleusis 380). She shares a base with her brother Regillus in the family the exedra at Olympia finished in 153 AD (IvO 625; R. Bol, Statuenprogramm, 1984, 132-34 nr. 16-17 with fig. 60 and tab. 11, 48-50, 57-58). Two further statue bases of Athenais are known from Athens (IG II² 4073-4074). Ameling, Herodes Atticus II, pp. 136-37 believes both were set up posthumously (under “consolation decrees”). A statue head found in the Athenian Agora might also be Athenais (see J. Tobin, Herodes Attikos, 1997, 87-88). According to Philostratus, Herodes grieved excessively at the death of his daughter and the Athenians tried to console him by allowing her to be buried in the city and by removing the day of her death from the civic calendar (Philostr. Vit. Soph. 557-58), but she may in fact have been buried at Herodes’ villa at Kephisia (Tobin, 88, 228). See T. D. Barnes, Latomus 27, 1968, 581-86.

Athenais' full name was Marcia Annia Claudia Alcia Athenais Gavidia Latiaria. Of these, Marcia was borne by maternal relatives (see IvO 620, IRT 517), Annia came from her mother Regilla (see e.g. Choix de Delphes 257), while Claudia followed her father (see e.g. Choix de Delphes 256 = F.Delphes III 3 66), Alcia her maternal grandmother (see IvO 621), Athenais might celebrate her father’s involvement in the Panathenaia, translate his name Atticus, or refer to his aunt (see IG II² 3980), Gavidia and Latiaria seem to refer to other maternal kin (the Gavidii Latiares), cf. G. Di Vita-Évrard, MEFRA 93, 1981, 183-226.

Added: 6 Mar 2026
Updated: 6 Mar 2026
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ID: AIO_3638