AIUK9 no. 4 Dedication by Timaios of Herakleia

Dedication by Timaios of Herakleia

AIUK 9 (Brocklesby Park) no. 4 Date: Imperial period

Relief I, Timaios . . . from Herakleia, have set up the [stele?] for Herakles (?) . . . from illness.^[1]

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Greek text

References:

AIUK 9 (Brocklesby Park) no. 4 (Translated text) (AIO) (AIUK)

IG II² 4952 (PHI)

IG II³ 4 1168 (IG Online)

Translation by: Peter Liddel, Polly Low

AIO Images: 1 2 3 4

Monument type: Plaque

Inscription type: Dedication (private, Herakles)

Findspot: Athens (Brocklesby no. 28)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] This plaque represents the "reclining" Herakles together with his characteristic paraphernalia (lion-skin, wine-cup, wine-skin, quiver). The inscription is beneath the sculpted panel. The depiction is reminiscent of that at the end of Pindar’s First Nemean Ode where Herakles, in return for his great labours, was said to be allotted tranquility (hesuchia) in a blissful home where he would receive Hebe as his wife and would celebrate his wedding feast with Zeus (Nemean 1.69-75). The reclining Herakles was reproduced from the end of the fourth century BC and later in a wide range of visual arts. Over the course of the imperial period the image became a symbol of prosperity, health and sometimes repose after success: another reclining Herakles on a dedication from Attica celebrates an ephebic victory at Eleusis (AIUK 11 (Ashmolean), no. 7).

The dedication was evidently made by Timaios to Herakles. We follow Hallof’s proposal that he was a Herakleot; many places across the Greek world (from Sicily in the West to Pontos in the East) were named Herakleia so we cannot be certain from where in the Greek world the dedicant derived.

We take the view of Michaelis that the dedication was made in thanks for recovery from an illness. Herakles at Athens was regarded as a healer and a protector, and it is therefore quite plausible that Timaios could have sought assistance from Herakles as a healer. Alternatively, it might be the case that, having recovered from an illness, Timaios simply made a dedication at Athens to the eponymous hero of his home city.

We know nothing about the provenance of this dedication other than that it was found in Athens. Although no substantial remains of any sanctuary of Herakles survive, numerous places of cult worship of Herakles are attested around Athens and Attica, including in the city at Diomeia and Kynosarges and in Attica at Acharnai, Elaious, Eleusis, Marathon and Porthmos probably at Piraeus (see Parker, Polytheism, 472-73; C. Jourdain-Annequin, Ktema 23, 1988, 355-59). Therefore, we cannot identify precisely where the monument was originally set up.

For fuller discussion of this monument, see AIUK 9 (Brocklesby), no. 4. On the Attic inscriptions at Brocklesby see AIUK 9.

Added: 3 Nov 2020
Updated: 8 Jul 2021
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