IGI3 971 Dedication to Herakles

Dedication to Herakles

IG I³ 971 Date: ca. 500–480?

Hippotherides . . . of Herakles . . . ^[1]

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References:

IG I³ 971 (Translated text) (IG Online) (PHI)

Translation by: Liubov Eliseeva

Monument type: Base, or Altar

Inscription type: Dedication (private, Herakles)

Findspot: Acharnai (Church of St Blasios) (Lost)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] Textual note: Hiller von Gaertringen (IG I² 777) proposed to restore hιπποθερίδε[ς ἀνέθεκεν] hερακλέους [βομόν] ("Hippotherides [dedicated] / [this altar] of Herakles"). The genitive form 'of Herakles' (hερακλέους) is one of the earliest examples of using the ΟΥ grapheme for the long o-vowel in the Attic inscriptions, cf. Threatte, Grammar of Attic Inscriptions I, 238–240; The same feature occurs in the other dedication by Hippotherides (IG I³ 698), see below.

This archaic base or altar made of Pentelic marble was inscribed in stoichedon format, broken off on the right side. The inscription was dated based on the letter forms, cf. IG I³ 695-696. It appears to be lost. The archaeologist Oscar Broneer may have been the last to see it in the 1930s (Hesperia 4, 1935, 148).

There were cults of Herakles throughout Athens and Attica (M. W. Padilla, The Myths of Herakles in Ancient Greece, 1998, 16). This monument was found in Menidi, ancient Acharnai; Pausanias reports that Herakles was among the deities worshipped in the deme (Paus. 1.31.6). On the deme Acharnai, see SEG 21.519 with notes.

Hippotherides of Acharnai also made a votive offering to Athena (IG I³ 698), a white marble base found in the medieval wall of the Akropolis. For further details, see O. Broneer, 1935, 148, n. 1, and D. L. Kellogg, Marathon Fighters and Men of Maple (2013), 255. These two offerings may not be directly connected, but after 560 BC Athena and Herakles were often linked, for example, in vase painting, partly for political reasons; see Padilla 1998, 10–11.

Added: 6 Mar 2026
Updated: 6 Mar 2026
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