AIUK45 no. 25 Statue base of Polyllos

Statue base of Polyllos

AIUK 4.5 (BM, Dedications) no. 25 Date: 350-300 BC?

Πόλυλλος Πολυλλίδου Παιανιεύς. vac. 0.050 εἰκόνα τήνδ’ ἀνέθηκε Πολύστρατος αὑτοῦ ἀδελφόν, μνημοσύνην θνητοῦ σώματος ἀθάνατον.

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Translated text

References:

AIUK 4.5 (BM, Dedications) no. 25 (Translated text) (AIUK) (AIO)

IG II² 3838 (PHI)

GIBM I 56

CEG 2, no. 780

Löhr, Familienweihungen 89

Translation by: Peter Liddel, Polly Low

AIO Images: 1 2

Monument type: Base

Inscription type: Statue base

Findspot: Acropolis (BM 1816,0610.345)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] This statue base, bearing a dedicatory epigram (an elegiac couplet), was part of the Elgin Collection (cf. AIUK 4.1, no. 2). It was acquired by Elgin in the early nineteenth century, but it was first seen and transcribed by Cyriacus of Ancona in 1436. This early evidence is useful because it provides a more precise location for the inscription's findspot (the Acropolis, probably close to the Parthenon), and because the stone sustained damage between the fifteenth century and its arrival in London. The text given here includes some letters, at the ends of lines 2 and 3, which were seen by early travellers but are no longer preserved. The stone, which has been cut down from its original dimensions, perhaps originally formed part of a stepped statue base; the incised line on the top surface of the block (see Image 2) might have marked the position of the block above it.

[2] The epigram records the dedication of a statue of Polyllos son of Polyllides by his brother, Polystratos. The setting up of family portrait dedications emerged as a practice in the middle of the fourth century in Athens and Attica; such dedications tend to be set up by a relatively narrow range of kin: usually spouses, siblings, parents and offspring (compare, for example, I Eleusis 110, a fourth-century dedication from Eleusis, in which siblings commemorate their brother; and, at a much later period, AIUK 4.5, no. 10).

We do not know what prompted Polystratos to set up this monument. It is possible that Polyllos had been awarded a statue by the Athenian demos, and that his brother chose to set up an additional votive statue on the Acropolis, but this is unlikely given the rarity of such awards of statues. Alternatively, Polyllos may have been deemed worthy to receive a statue on the Acropolis on the basis of his service to a particular cult. It is also unclear whether the statue was set up in Polystratos' lifetime, or was intended as a posthumous commemoration: the reference to Polyllos' mortality in the final line of the epigram might point to the latter, but it is also possible that the intention here is to draw a contrast between Polyllos' mortal body and the permanence of the statue, and the verse, which commemorated him.

Polystratos, father of the Paramythos of Paiania who proposed a proxeny decree in 286/5 BC (IG II³ 1, 864, ll. 11-12), is plausibly identifiable with our dedicator. A Pollylides is probably named on another dedication from the Athenian Acropolis (SEG 48.280, ll.3-4), although we cannot be certain if this is the same man as the one who features in this inscription.

For fuller discussion of this inscription see AIUK 4.5 (BM, Dedications), no. 25.

Added: 15 Mar 2022
Updated: 27 Jun 2024
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