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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 August 2011
In the year 1883 Bouriant copied an inscription from a stone in the parapet of the bridge at Coptus. His transcript was sent by Maspero to Miller, who presented it before the Académie des inscriptions et belleslettres. From Miller's edition it was reprinted by Cagnat in 1908 and by Preisigke in 1913. The text is dated Pachon 23 in the eighth year of Trajan, i.e., May 18, 105 A.D., and contains the dedication Ἴσιδι τῇ χώματος. A dedication to Isis of the embankment is thoroughly Egyptian and has a parallel in the much earlier trilingual stele from Tentyra, which bears a dedication to Ἴσιςι θεᾷ μεγἰστῃ ἐπικαλουμένῃ Θερμούθι τῇ ἐπὶ τῷ χώματι καταντίον τοῦ δρόμου τῆς Ἀφροδίτης. There must have been a number of chapels up and down the Nile sacred to Isis of the embankment.
1 Miller, Rev. arch., 3ème série, 2, 1883, 177 f.
2 IGR, 1, 1170.
3 SB, 1, 999.
4 The name of the dedicator has also a certain interest. Balbillus, son of Heraclides, is otherwise unknown (Arthur Stein, Aegyptus, 13, 1933, 129, n. 3). Miller, op. cit., 178, conjectures that he may be a grandson of the prefect, Tiberius Claudius Balbillus, but the increase of information about the Balbilli since Miller's day makes any such combination precarious (cf. Boak, P. Mich. 5, 312, 7–8, note).
5 Aimé-Giron, Annales du service des antiquités de l'Égypte, 26, 1926, 152 = SEG, 8, 653 = SB, 3, 7257. The date is March 30, 12 B.C. I have omitted editorial punctuation since within the limits of the passage cited it is without critical value.
6 Maspero in Miller, op. cit., 175: “Cette inscription a été signalée, il y a trente ans, par M. Harris, et se trouve indiquée dans le Guide Murray. Je ne me rappelle pas l'avoir vue publiée….”
7 Murray's Handbook for Travellers in Egypt, 5th ed., 1875, 392.
8 Cagnat attributes it correctly to “Harris (in apographo nondum edito quod vidit de Ricci).”
9 Preisigke's note has a strong methodological interest. The two persons responsible for the readings, Harris and Bouriant, are completely lost from sight: “τριχώματος nach einer Mitteilung de Riccis an Cagnat. τῇ χώματος Miller und Cagnat.”
10 Wörterbuch, 3, 389.
11 Cf. Weill, Annales du service, 11, 1911, 106: “un pont en maçonnerie dans lequel on chercherait en vain les blocs antiques jadis notés par Harris, car le vieux pont a été compètement démoli et remplacé par une maçonnerie moderne en pierre et brique.” The inscription is not mentioned in Petrie-Hogarth, Koptos, London, 1896.
12 He does not so describe himself in the letter, but in lines 7–8 occurs the phrase ἐν] τῇ στρατεἰᾳ. Taken together with his presence at Coptus, this creates a solid base for the assumption that he was attached to the Roman garrison at that place. Coptus was one of the important military centers in Upper Egypt (Lesquier, L'armée rom. d'Égypte, Mém. Inst. fr. arch. or., 41, 1918, 408 f.).
13 For numerous examples see Exler, , Study in Greek Epistolography, Washington, 1923, 108–112Google Scholar.
14 It would be strange if Harris had made so difficult a reading as Ἴσιδι τριχώματος without real justification on the stone, since it is a name of Isis otherwise unknown to Egyptian or Greek tradition. By comparison, Bouriant's text is easy.
15 The evidence of the ancient authors is collected by Hopfner, Fontes hist. rel. aegypt, 2, 1923, 227; 3, 1923, 314; 5, 1925, 745.
16 Plut., de Iside, 14. The story of the lock of Isis, as well as the more famous story of the lock of Berenice, are best understood against the anthropological background See Eitrem, Opferritus u. Voropfer, Kristiania, 1915, 344ff.; Sommer, Haar in Religion u. Aberglauben d. Griech., Münster, 1912, 64ff.; Schwenn, RGVV, 15, iii, 1915, 88f.; Wilken, Rev. Coloniale Internat., 1886, ii, 225–279; 1887, i, 345–426, esp. 353–381.
17 Etym. Mag., ed. Gaisford, 552, 12, s.v. Κοπτός. The lock of hair is described as ἄπιστὀν τι τριχῶν πλῆθος ὅσον ἐξ ἀνθρώπου κεφαλῆς εἰκάσαι. At Memphis, where Isis is said to have been buried, tresses of Isis were also on exhibition (Luc., ad indoct., 14). Lucian's phrase, ὡς … Μεμφῖται τῆς Ἴσιδος τοὺς πλοκάμους, passed into a proverb (Paroemiogr. graeci, ed. Leutsch et Schneidwin, 2, 710). Cf. Lobeck, Aglaoph., 1, 52, n. 1.
18 For similar relics of Osiris see Hastings' Encyclopaedia, s.v. Relics, 652; cf. Plut., de Iside, 18. Pfister, RGVV, 5, 1909–12, is an extensive study of relics in the Greek world.