AIUK45 Appendix 1 Sailors set up a thank-offering to Apollo Tarsios

Sailors set up a thank-offering to Apollo Tarsios

AIUK 4.5 (BM, Dedications) Appendix 1 Date: 2nd-1st cent. BC

[E.g. The ship-owner] Matrinios son of Titos with Asklepiodoros son of M-, - son of Sosthenes, Aphegoumenos and Asklepiades (the servants?) of Matrinios (5)sailors voyaging together, to Apollo Tarsios a thank-offering.^[1]

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Greek text

References:

AIUK 4.5 (BM, Dedications) Appendix 1 (Translated text) (AIUK) (AIO)

IG II² 3003 (PHI)

IG II³ 4 949 (IG Online)

GIBM I 59

Translation by: Peter Liddel, Polly Low

AIO Images: 1 2

Monument type: Base

Inscription type: Dedication

Findspot: Gallipoli? (BM 1816,0610.174)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] This inscription was part of the Elgin Collection. Although it has traditionally been considered an Athenian inscription, it is in fact clear from from surviving correspondence that it was acquired for Elgin at Gallipoli, in modern-day Turkey. The original location of the inscription is unknown, but it is most likely that it derives from Western Asia Minor.

The inscription is a thank-offering to Apollo Tarsios, made by Matrinios and his fellow sailors, presumably to thank the god for protecting them during a voyage. The fact that the sailors are dedicating to Apollo Tarsios might indicate that they were travelling either to or from one of the two cities named Tarsos in this region (one is located in Bithynia and the other in Cilicia).

Matrinios is the Roman nomen Matrinius. The absence of a cognomen is usual for inscriptions of this date, but (because the first line of the inscription is incomplete) we cannot tell if Matrinios included his praenomen in the dedication, or if he used his nomen as a single name.

Four of Matrinios' fellow sailors are named on this dedication. Their status is unclear, and depends on the interpretation of the names which follow each of their names. We have interpreted the first two of these as patronymics (that is: "son of..."), which would suggest that Asklepiodoros and the son of Sosthenes were free men; we interpret ".. of Matrinios" in line 4 to mean that Aphegoumenos and Asklepiades were enslaved people, in the service of Matrinios. However, we cannot rule out the possibility that Asklepiodoros and (of) Sosthenes were also enslaved, and that M- and Sosthenes were their owners; nor can we exclude the possibility that Aphegoumenos and Asklepiades were Matrinios' sons.

Apollo Tarsios is attested in a number of locations in Western Asia Minor: see, for example, TAM V.1.195, a dedication to Apollo Tarsios set up by a certain Pleuratos at Davala on the Hermos river in Lydia. The cult is well known in the first century AD and later in Phrygia and Lydia: see, for instance, SEG 38.1229, 1232 and SEG 47.1184; TAM V.1.196-97, 240, 448, 460; P. Herrmann and H. Malay, New Documents from Lydia (2007) nos. 66 and 81. Related cults known from across the Greek world include Apollo Tarsenos; Meter Tarsene; Theos Tarsios.

For fuller discussion of this inscription see AIUK 4.5 (BM, Dedications), Appendix.

Added: 15 Mar 2022
Updated: 15 Mar 2022
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