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Inscriptions from Beroea1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Extract

The fine marble dedicatory plaque, first published by Delacoulonche in his ‘Mémoire sur le berceau de la puissance macédonienne,’ was still serving in the autumn of 1936 as the ὰγὶα τρὰπεαзα of the church of Αγιος Γεὼργιος in Beroea. Though this important document has been often quoted in discussions on the cult of the Egyptian gods in Macedonia, no description or measurements have so far been given; no apology will, therefore, be required for giving fuller details here, along with a revised text. The accompanying photograph of a squeeze (fig. 1) will supplement Delacoulonche's line-blocks. The inscribed surface is surrounded by a well-cut moulding; there is a sistrum in relief below the inscription; the letters are very carefully engraved, with apices.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1945

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References

page 105 note 2 Archives des missions scientifiques et littéraires, viii, 1859, no, 249–50, no. 39; reproduced by Demitsas in ὴ Μακεδονὶα Athens, 1896, 71, no. 61.

page 105 note 3 See, among others, Drexler, W., Mythol. Beiträge, I, 126–7Google Scholar; id. in Roscher's Lexikon, 373–548, s.v. ‘Isis,’ especially 501–12 for Isis as ‘Schützerin der Gebärenden u. der Kinder’; Roeder, P-W, 2084–2132, s.v. ‘Isis,’ especially 2120; Lafaye, G., Daremberg-Saglio, III, 577–86Google Scholar, s.v. ‘Isis’; W. Baege, De Macedonum sacris, 160–1, where our inscription is quoted; Picard, C., Rev. Hist. Relig., lxxxvi, 1922, 117201Google Scholar, especially 172–183; Perdrizet, P., BCH, xviii, 1894, 416–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially 419, where the inscription is mentioned; Avezou, C. and Picard, C., BCH, xxxvii, 1913, 95–6Google Scholar; Collart, P., BCH, liii, 1929, 70100CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially 87; Tod, M. N., BSA, xxiii, 19181919, 87 ff.Google ScholarBrady, T. A., The Reception of the Egyptian Cults by the Greeks 330–30 B.C. (Univ. Missouri Stud. X), Columbia, 1935Google Scholar, hopes, in his introduction (p. 8), ‘in the near future to be able to treat this later (Roman) period.’

page 106 note 1 As Delacoulonche says, op. cit., 250: ‘C'est donc le culte d'Isis identifié avec celui de Diane que nous retrouvons chez les habitants de Berrhoea.’ I know of no other epigraphical evidence for the worship of Isis in Beroea, but the presence of the names Ισὶδωρος and Ισιδὼραwould point, as Tod, M. N. showed in BSA, xxiii, 19181919, 88Google Scholar, to the spread of her cult.

page 106 note 2 The Isis hymns are conveniently collected in Peek, W.'s Der Isishymnus und verwandte Texte, Berlin, 1930; 1. 24Google Scholar of the Andros hymn: θηλυτὲραις λοιμῶν γẸ [νὸμαν] θε [ὸς] Ẹ [ὺὰντητος] and 11. 36–9: ὰδε γενὲθλας ὰρχὰν ὰνδρὶ γυναῖκα συνὰγαγον εν`τε σελὰνας ὲς δεκὰταν ὰψεῖδα, τεθαλὸτος ὰρτιον ὲργου φὲλλος ὲπ'ὰρτὶγονον βρὲφος ὰγαγον Cf. 11. 10–11 of the Cyme prose aretalogy (ed. Salač, , BCH, li, 1927, 378 ff.Google Scholar; Roussel, P., REG, xlii, 1929, 137 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar): ὲγὼ εὶμι ὴ παρὰ γυναιξ Ιθεὸς καλουὲνη11. 18–20: ὲγὼ γυναῖκα καὶ ὰνδρα συνὴγαγον ὲγὼ γυναικὶ δεκαμηνιαῖον βρὲφος φῶς ὲξενεγκεῖν ὲταξα. Cf. the los inscription, SIG 1 1267, 15, 21–22. For a list of Isis' titles see P. Ox. xi, 1380 and the introduction, 191–4.