¹ The Aphrodisias project, sponsored by New York University, has been generously supported by the National Geographic Society since 1966 and by several other private and corporate sources. The General Directorate of Antiquities and Museums of the Ministry of Culture of Turkey also expressed its interest in the excavations in a multitude of ways since their inception, more particularly through the construction of a local museum which was inaugurated in July 1979 and where the majority of finds from our recent campaigns are exhibited.

² Regular interim reports on each campaign appeared in M. J. Mellink's ‘Archaeology in Asia Minor’, in AJA; in ‘Recent Archaeological Research in Turkey’ in Anatolian Studies; and in Turk. Ark. Derg. A great number of articles on various phases of the site, historic and prehistoric, have also been published in AJA, JRS, and other periodicals. General articles have appeared in the National Geographic Magazine (August 1967, June 1972, and October 1981) as well as Bean, G. E., Turkey Beyond the Maeander (London, 1980), 188–98Google Scholar, and Akurgal's, E.Ancient Civilizations and Ruins of Turkey (Istanbul, 1969), 171–5Google Scholar. For additional recent bibliography, see ‘Afrodisiade’ in Supplemento. Enciclopedia dell Arte Antica, Classica e Orientale, 9-17, and ‘Aphrodisias’, in Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites (Princeton, 1976), 68-70.

³ cf. Maria Squarciapino, La scuola di Afrodisia, Studi e materiali del Museo dell'Impero Romano (Rome, 1943); Erim, K. T., ‘The School of Aphrodisias’, Archaeology 20 (1 January 1967), 18–27Google Scholar.

⁴ Fragments of reliefs and architectural remains came accidentally to light in 1979 under houses of the village of Geyre (Aphrodisias) which are being gradually expropriated by the General Directorate of Antiquities and Museums of Turkey to insure the protection of the site in accordance with the 1976 decision of the Turkish High Commission for Monuments (Yüksek Anitlar Kurulu).

⁵ Epigraphical reference to such a building at Aphrodisias does exist (CIG. 2839, 1.2) but obviously lacks specific topographical information as to its location.

⁶ For a fuller discussion of this and other related inscriptions, see Reynolds, J. M., ‘New Evidence for the Imperial Cult in Julio-Claudian Aphrodisias’, ZPE 43 (1981), 317–27Google Scholar.

⁷ A panel found near the one under consideration showed Nero seizing a woman symbolizing Armenia. Both figures were duly identified by inscriptions on an accompanying base similar to the Claudius-Britannia one. However, the name of Nero had been erased, probably after 69, and the face of the emperor intentionally battered. A number of additional reliefs and fragments thereof displayed wilful damage done by hammering and chiselling away at their surface. It is quite possible that the figures represented were members of Nero's immediate family, or Nero himself shown in different guises or scenes. For discussion of the inscriptions of these bases, see J. M. Reynolds, op. cit. (note 6), 323.

⁸ Apphias made the dedication along with her daughter Tata and her grandsons Eusebes and Menander. Inscribed architrave fragments connected with the monumental west propylon of the Sebasteion and recently recorded also included the name of a Eusebes, called πιγóπατρι∈ and ‘Son of Menander, son of Eunikos’. This Eusebes is probably the same man known from two other inscribed fragments from Aphrodisias (MAMA viii, 489, and a combination of the texts of MAMA viii, 433, Reinach [‘Inscriptions d'Aphrodisias’, REG 19 (1906), no. 192 and CIG 2738]. According to the latter fragment, he had made a dedication to Augustus.

⁹ The north portico rested on a crepis, however, and its intercolumniations were more regular. Decorative panels associated with this unit of the Sebasteion featured symbolic representations of peoples and regions included in the Empire under Augustus, according to the present evidence, as well as cosmic figures. Unfortunately, these and other architectural elements were partly reused in the fortification walls built by the Byzantines around the Acropolis-theatre hillock after the early seventh-century earthquake that destroyed the Sebasteion.

¹⁰ The only original construction elements left here were the lower part of the portico's back wall and the stumps of a series of regularly lined pillars that supported the superstructure and roof of the building.

Numismatic and stratigraphic evidence suggests that two earthquakes damaged the Sebasteion. The earlier one, datable to the middle or second half of the fourth century, was probably less severe and led to the repairs in question and to the transformation of the complex into a more functional, probably market, area. The subsequent disaster was of more catastrophic proportions and led to the total collapse of the Sebasteion, as well as other buildings at Aphrodisias in the reign of Heraclius (610-41). See note 9.

¹¹ Among the more readily identifiable scenes of this group, one must mention a Bellerophon with Pegasus, a Leda with the swan, the Three Graces, a birth of Eros, and many others. It is possible that these representations were connected with the myths and legends centring on the foundation of Aphrodisias and/or attempting to tie them iconographically with Rome and the Julio-Claudians.

¹² Augustus is probably shown in one instance, velificans, receiving dominion and bounties from the earth and the seas. In another panel, the emperor crowned a trophy simultaneously with a Victory figure, the imperial eagle by his side, a vanquished enemy tied under the trophy. Claudius can also be definitely identified in another relief joining hands with Livia(?).

¹³ Beside the Nero seizing Armenia panel mentioned earlier (note 7), other reliefs and their inscribed bases were recorded here. One showed Roma receiving the bounties of Gè; another, a Nike flying and bearing a trophy, was identified as ΝΕΙΚΗΣΕΒΑΣΤΩΝ. Cf. J. M. Reynolds, op. cit. (note 6), 323.

¹⁴ Appreciation must be expressed here to Professor J. J. Wilkes for his kind invitation to publish the relief in this journal. Grateful thanks are also owed to my collaborators Miss Joyce M. Reynolds and Mrs Charlotte Roueche for their suggestions in matters epigraphical.

¹⁵ J. M. Reynolds, op. cit. (note 6), 323.

¹⁶ For a recent study of this group, see E. Berger, in Gestalt mid Geschichte. Festschrift Karl Schefold, 4.Beiheft zu Antike Kunst (1967), 61-75.

¹⁷ Stuart, M., The Portraiture of Claudius. Preliminary Studies (New York, 1938)Google Scholar; Poulsen, V., Les portraits romains I. République et dynastie julienne, Publications de la Glyptothèque Ny Carlsberg vii (Copenhagen, 1962)Google Scholar.

¹⁸ V. Poulsen, op. cit. (note 17), no. 59, pl. 98-9.

¹⁹ J. Inan and E. Alföldi-Rosenbaum. Römische und frübyzantinische Porträtplastik aus der Türkei. Neue Funde (Mainz a.R., 1979), no. 30, pp. 82-3, pls. 25, 1-4.