IGII34 1398 Dedication of the Panathenaic ship, 255/6 AD

Dedication of the Panathenaic ship, 255/6 AD

IG II³ 4 1398 Date: 255/56 AD

The most solemn competition-director (agōnothetēs) of the Great Panathenaia and priest panages (5)Herennius Dexippos son of Ptolemaios of Hermos set up the prow-ornament (akrostolion) for the city from the Panathenaic (10)ship and the statue (hedos) of the goddess

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References:

IG II³ 4 1398 (Translated text)

IG II² 3198

Syll.³ 582

Puech, Orateurs 94

Translation by: Chris de Lisle

Monument type: Pillar

Inscription type: Dedication (competition-director (agonothetes))

Findspot: Acropolis (built into Propylaia) (In situ)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] This pillar is a dedication commemorating the Great Panathenaia of 255/6 AD (on the Panathenaia, see IG II³ 1, 447 and IG II³ 4, 578 with notes). The dedicator, Herennius Dexippos, had organised and funded the festival as competition director. He was a historian and leading figure of mid-third century Athens, who would go on to lead the military response to the Herulian invasion in 267 AD (see IG II³ 4, 206). The date of this Panathenaia is derived from IG II² 2245, an ephebic catalogue which commemorates the Great Panathenia and names Dexippos' son prominently. Dexippos' service as competition director is also recalled in IG II² 13262, an honorific base erected for him around 270 AD. The pillar was spoliated for the construction of fortifications on the Acropolis in Medieval times and remains in situ in the wall of the south wing of the Propylaia.

The pillar bore the prow ornament (akrostolion) of the Panathenaic ship, which carried a robe (peplos) for Athena during the procession at the festival (on the robe, see AIUK 1 (Petworth), 1). The vessel is described with nautical terminology from the fourth century BC onwards and it was a literal ship on wheels by the second century AD, when it began to overtake the robe itself as the main attraction of the procession (J. L. Shear, Serving Athena, 2019, 131-44). The second-century AD Attic Calendar frieze includes an image of the ship, unfortunately mostly obscured by a later cross (S. Wachsmann, Hesperia 81, 2012, 240-47, visible at left in this image from Wikimedia Commons). The ship built by Herodes Atticus for the festival of 143/4 AD, which had a thousand "rowers" and moved mechanically without draught animals, was installed as a dedication in the Pythion (Philostr. Vit. Soph. 2.550). It may be the same Panathenaic ship that was seen near the Areopagos hill by Pausanias in the late second century AD (1.29.1). IG II³ 4, 1397 probably supported a dedication similar to this one from the Panathenaia of 207/8. The ship is described by Himerios Or. 47.12-16 in the 370s AD and used as a metonym for the whole festival in IG II² 5, 13281 of the late fourth century AD, recording some of the last celebrations of the festival. [2] The word used here for statue (hedos, literally "seat") usually refers to a cult statue. Puech proposes that Dexippos had replaced the wooden statue of Athena Polias in the Erechtheion, but it may simply mean that the dedication supported a seated statue alongside the prow-ornament.

Added: 28 Jul 2023
Updated: 28 Jul 2023
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