IGII2 6419 Funerary Monument of Herakleon and Dorothea

Funerary Monument of Herakleon and Dorothea

IG II² 6419 Date: 1st-3rd centuries AD

Herakleon son of Herakleon of Kephisia. Dorothea daughter of Isigenes of Myrrhinous.^[1]

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References:

IG II² 6419 (Translated text) (PHI)

Translation by: Tanner J. Brown

Images: Wikimedia Commons - (1)

Monument type: Architrave

Inscription type: Funerary

Findspot: Panagia Gorgoepikoos Church ("Little Metropolis") (In situ)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] This long epistyle block must have belonged to a substantial funerary monument for a married couple, Herakleon and Dorothea. It was among the earliest inscriptions to be transcribed at Athens, being among the papers of the 15th-century traveller Cyriacus of Ancona. A now lost version of the inscription forged from the manuscript tradition became part of the collection of John Kemp (1665-1717), see AIUK 11 (Ashmolean), Appendix 1, another forgery in that collection.

The stone was incorporated into the so-called Little Metropolis Church that now lies in the southern shadow of Athens’ Metropolitan Cathedral. The church, dedicated to the Panagia Gorgoepikoos (‘swift-hearing’ Virgin Mary) before its abandonment and reconsecration to Agios Eleftherios in the 19^th century, is unique in being composed almost entirely of reused material (spolia) from earlier structures dating from the Classical period to perhaps the late 12th century AD. Scholars have proposed various dates for the building’s construction, but the dateable Byzantine reliefs and absence of Gothic or Romanesque sculpture should place the building between the late 12^th century and before the start of Frankish rule in 1204 (see C. Bouras, Byzantine Athens, 10^th-12^thCenturies, 2017, 176-84). The wealth of spolia in the church’s facades includes a further five inscriptions: IG II² 7701, 7762; IG II³ 4, 52, IG II³ 4, 439; IG II³ 4, 614.

Added: 24 Sep 2026
Updated: 24 Sep 2026
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ID: AIO_3873