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The Foundation-Date of the Alexandrian Ptolemaieia
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 August 2011
Extract
The subject of this brief note is not new, but good reasons exist for reopening the topic. The evidence for the establishment of this festival in honor of Soter at Alexandria by Ptolemy Philadelphus consisted until recently of the decree passed by the Nesiotic League (The League of Islanders) agreeing to send theoroi to it, which has been regularly dated to ca. 281–279 B.C. In 1954 I published two fragments of a decree, in identical terms, from Delphi, according recognition to the festival, and agreeing to send theoroi, emanating from the Amphictyonic Council. This decree I dated on the basis of the Nesiotic decree, which, after a detailed discussion, I placed, in the usual way, in 280–279 B.C. In 1958 the situation was altered by the publication by J. Bousquet of what he claimed to be the prescript of the decree published by myself, containing the date in the form of the eponymous Delphic archon Pleiston, whom he assigned to 266–265 B.C. (or less probably to 270–269).
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- Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1961
References
1 IG, xii, 7, 506 = Syll.a 390.
2 BCH, 78, 1954, pp. 49–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar = SEG, xiii, 351 (one fragment had been previously published by Pomtow). For further details regarding the inscription I refer to my article and to that of Bousquet, for which see below note 4.
3 Ibid., pp. 55 ff.
4 BCH, 82, 1958, pp. 77–82Google Scholar.
5 Ibid., p. 81, cf. p. 76, note 4. The date in Spring 269 or 265 is established by the fact that a decree survives from the same year (published by Bousquet, ibid., pp. 74–75), but with a different set of Amphictyonic officials, which is dated to the Pythian festival which always occurred during the autumn session of the Amphictyony (see Bousquet, ibid., p. 76, note 2); consequently the present decree must belong to the second semester and the spring session (ca. April).
6 Ibid., p. 81: “Il faudra done renoncer á fixer avec précision la date du décret des Nésiotes lui-même, et suspendre son jugement jusqu'à ce qu'on ait découvert un argument qui dépasse la vraisemblance et atteigne à la certitude; pour l'instant il n'y en a pas.”
7 Bousquet's discovery called forth a paean of joy from J. and L. Robert, Bull. Epig. 1059, no. 194, but they made no contribution to the problem of the chronology raised by the new text.
8 I may quote here Bousquet's statement regarding the similarity of the new fragment to those published by me: “Le raccord de ce haut de stèle à fronton moulure avec les fragments publicés par Fraser n'est pas matériel; il reste entre la liste et le corps du décret une lacune qui comprend la fin de la liste et le début des considérants. Mais le rapprochment est évident quand on est en présence des pierres, car tous les indices extérieurs concordent de façon impressionnante; écriture, dimensions des lettres et des interlignes, piqueté caractéristique de la surface, — bouchardée, puis imparfaitement polie après gravure, car le piqueté est resté surtout dans les lettres, les interlignes sont plus lisses —, marge à gauche de o m.006, aspect des tranches latérales. Pour contre-épreuve, après avoir pris soin d'inspecter tous les fragments du Musée épigraphique qui pouvaient entrer en ligne de compte, je les ai trouvés tous différents à un titre quelconque, et je n'hésite pas à affirmer que le rapprochement est indubitable.” (Ibid., p. 79.)
9 The decree is inscribed on the front face of a marble stele found on Amorgos and last recorded on the neighboring islet of Nikouriá.
10 See Holleaux, Etudes, i, p. 25.
11 See e.g. Tarn, JHS, 31, 1911, p. 252Google Scholar; id., Ant. Gon. p. 104, note 29; Dürrbach, Choix, p. 27; Beloch, GG, iv2, 2, p. 327, etc. My own attempt to associate the νῦν of the main clause with διαδεχάμενoς was rightly criticized by Bousquet, op. cit., p. 81, who points out (ibid., note 2) that the νῦν in line 30 similarly marks a contrast in general between Ptolemy I and Ptolemy II.
12 The contrast between the Savior Ptolemy and King Ptolemy is explicit throughout, and the king receives only the simple gift of a crown, while the Savior receives worship and sacrifices at an altar: cf. note 14.
13 PHib. 199; lines 12 ff.: (ἔτους) ιδ· Καλλικράτη[ς—] · | ἐπὶ τούτου ‘Ηρα[—] δος ῆλθεν εἰς Αὶγ[υπτίους(?)] | καὶ πρòς τὰ συνα[λλάγματα] | προσεγράϕη ίερ[εὺς'Αλεχάνδρου] | καὶ θεῶν 'Αδελ[ϕῶν—(?)].Cf. Fraser, Berytus, 13, p. 134, note 46.
14 IG, xi, 4, 1038 = Choix, 21, in honor of Sostratus. Here (lines 21 ff.) the Nesiotes are described as sacrificing to “the other Gods, Ptolemy Soter and the King.”
15 As, for example, that it is unlikely that Philadelphia would have established a new and magnificent festival in 270–269 in honor of his father, in respect of which envoys were sent out at the latest in the early spring of 269, when Arsinoe had only died in the previous July; and, alternatively, that at the later date 266–265, we are in the midst, or on the brink, of the Chremonidean War; and finally (less cogent) that Philocles' age in 270 (let alone in 265) must have been such that he can hardly still have been on active duties (cf. Holleaux's comment, quoted above, p. 143; and cf. Tarn, JHS, 53, 1933, p. 67Google Scholar).
16 Delays amounting to years were assumed by Ferguson, Ath. Trib. Cyc, pp. 128 ff., in regard to the Leukophryena (and thence, by extension, to the Delphian Soteria), but Robert, , REA, 38, 1936, pp. 11 ffGoogle Scholar., showed, in criticism of Ferguson, that such delays could probably all be explained on the two grounds indicated; see further Dinsmoor, Archon List, pp. 117–119.