IGI3 506 Dedication for Athena Hygieia

Dedication for Athena Hygieia

IG I³ 506 Date: c. 430 BC

The Athenians (dedicated this) to Athena Hygieia.^[1] Pyrrhos made it, an Athenian.^[2]

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References:

IG I³ 506 (Translated text) (IG Online) (PHI)

Raubitschek, Dedications 166

Translation by: Chris de Lisle

Monument type: Base

Inscription type: Dedication (Athenians), Dedication (Athena Hygieia)

Original location: Acropolis, Propylaia (see findspot)

Findspot: Acropolis (abutting the southeastern column of the east facade of the Propylaia) (In situ 13259)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] This is the base of the cult statue of Athena Hygieia, “Athena of Health”, on the Acropolis. The rear of the base was cut away to fit flush against the southeast column of the east facade of the Propylaia, slotting over the unfinished stylobate. The statue was thus installed some time after work on the Propylaia stopped in 432/1 and it has been speculated that its dedication was a response to the outbreak of the plague in Athens in 430/29 (Thucydides 2.48-55). In any case it probably predates the introduction of the cult of Asklepios on the south slope of the Acropolis in 420/19 (IG II² 4960). There was a small sacred table (hiera trapeza) for offerings in front of the base. The cuttings on the top of the base suggest that it was the prototype for a well-known statue of Athena in the Naples Archaeological Museum (Naples 6024), the Athena Hope-Farnese (I. Leventi, Hygieia in Classical Greek Art, 2003, 39-45). A sacrifice to Athena Hygieia was traditionally offered annually at the Panathenaia (IG II³ 1, 447, l. 35) and the statue is the first identifiable structure that Pausanias mentions on his route around the Acropolis (1.23.4). According to an anecdote in Plutarch, Per. 13.7-8, a workman working on the Propylaia was injured after falling and Pericles dedicated the statue in gratitude after Athena came to him in a dream and told him how to treat the injured man. However, the inscription shows that the statue was a public dedication of the Athenians, not a private dedication of Pericles; the story implies, apparently inaccurately, that work on the Propylaia was still ongoing when the dedication was made, and Pliny recounts the same story about a different, more obscure monument – the Splanchnoptes (Pliny N.H. 22.44). It is also possible that the statue represented the continuation of an earlier sanctuary which had been demolished when the west rise of the Acropolis was levelled to make way for the Propylaia. Evidence for such a sanctuary, however, is very sparse: a very fragmentary private dedication (IG I³ 824) and a single red figure lekanis (ARV² 1556). [2] Otherwise known only from Pliny N.H. 34.80 who says he was the sculptor of “a Hygia and a Minerva” (a garbled reference to this statue?). The reference to him in this Athenian context as “an Athenian” rather than by his demotic or patronymic is unusual, but not unexampled for international artists (cf. IG II³ 4, 460).

Added: 13 Mar 2018
Updated: 2 Nov 2022
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