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The Poet of Chester1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2013
Extract
In February 1968, a red sandstone altar bearing a Greek inscription (Figure) was discovered in Chester on the English–Welsh border. It records a dedication by a doctor to a number of deities. The inscription has now been published or discussed at least six times but it would seem that essential points in its interpretation have so far been missed.
The text as it appears on the inscription is, for the most part, well visible and its reading uncontroversial:
It is evident that the inscription is incomplete and one or more lines may be missing. The dating of the inscription is uncertain but it is commonly thought to date from the end of the second century A.D.
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- Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 2001
References
2 First edition by Wright, R. P., JRS 59 (1969) 235 no. 3Google Scholar; see also Nutton, V., ‘A Greek doctor at Chester’, Journal of the Chester Archaeological Society 55 (1968) 7–13Google ScholarPubMed; Robert, L. and Robert, J., Bulletin Épigraphique 1970, 483 no. 667Google Scholar; Rémy, B., Epigraphica 49 (1987) 262Google Scholar; SEG XXXVII (1987) 260, no. 840; J. M. Fossey, ‘Hellenes, hellenophones and educated Romans in Rome's most northerly province’, in idem (ed.), Proceedings of the First International Congress on the Hellenic Diaspora. Volume I: From antiquity to 1453 (Amsterdam 1991) 245–51, 248.
3 Cf. e.g. Ael. Arist. Hieroi logi β 300.3 etc. Note that despite the occurrence of the three deities at the beginning of the Hippocratic oath we are not aware of any other inscription where all three are honoured together as here.
4 It would appear that the two signs are not absolutely identical but this may well be due to chance and does not seem to have any significance.
5 See Guarducci, M., Epigrafia Greca I (Rome 1967) 395fGoogle Scholar. and Threatte, L., The grammar of Attic inscriptions I (Berlin/New York 1980) 89fGoogle Scholar. for the use of the sign in Greek inscriptions.
6 The process is found as early as in Homer, cf. e.g. nom. sg. ἐϱίηϱος alongside nom. pl. ἐϱίηϱες acc.pl. ἐϱίηϱας; for details see Risch, E., Wortbildung der homerischen Sprache, ed. 2 (Berlin/New York 1974) 226ffGoogle Scholar.
7 Cf. e.g. πέμπτους ἔτους (gen. sg.) O. Berl. 28.2 (A.D. 73); see Gignac, F. T., A grammar of the Greek papyri of the Roman and Byzantine periods II Morphology (Milan 1981) 115Google Scholar.
8 Similarly, Nutton judges the language to be ‘of a preciosity and artificiality rarely found even in Greek verse inscriptions’ (art. cit (n. 2) 7).
9 RIB 758 see SEG XXX (1980) 320, no. 1241 for a proposed re-reading of this inscription.
10 We adopt this term suggested to us by an anonymous reader. It may be relevant to mention here the existence of ‘hexameters with too many feet’ in verse inscriptions, see Allen, F. D., ‘On Greek versification in inscriptions’, Papers of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens IV (1888) 35–204, at 45Google Scholar.
11 Cf. Eustathius, In Iliadem 3.245.25: 
.
12 An anonymous reader points out that the second line would scan as a ‘hypercephalic’ hexameter if one assumed lengthening of the final syllable of ἠπιόχειϱα and the first syllable of Ὑγείην; but nowhere else in this inscription is there lengthening not also found in extant hexameter poetry, and the composer of the lines would surely have realised that the end of the Hippocratic oath–Ὑγείαν, ϰαὶ Πανάϰειαν–constituted a good hexameter line-ending.
13 Cf. e.g. Hansen, P. A.Carmina epigraphica graeca (CEG) 193Google Scholar where τόδ᾽ ἐστίν is omitted; note also the remarks on errors made by stonecutters by F. D. Allen art. cit. (n. 10) 39.
14 Nutton notes that ‘the arrangement of the letters on the stone is poor’ (art. cit. n. 2) 7).
15 We owe this observation to Joyce Reynolds (personal communication, 7/9/1999).
16 Nutton restores [ἐτίμησεν] (art. cit. (n. 2) 7).