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Greek–Phoenician Bilingual Inscriptions from Rhodes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

P. M. Fraser
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Extract

Bilingual Greek–Semitic inscriptions have been found at numerous places in the Mediterranean—not only on Cyprus, but also on Malta, on Cos, in Athens, Miletus, and elsewhere—and, though not as numerous as Greek–Latin bilingual texts, are nevertheless of considerable interest both in themselves and also as evidence for the coexistence, in individual cases, of the two cultures. Rhodes, from which the three pieces here republished come, had a large foreign population in the Hellenistic period, but bilingual texts are not common there. It is, however, noteworthy that what is probably the earliest bilingual Greek–Latin inscription, of the third century B.C., comes from Lindos (Inscr. Lind. 92).

I. Plaque of dark grey marble, complete on all sides, H. 0·130, W. 0·243, Th. 0·065, letters (Gk.), 0·018, (Phoen.), 0·010–0·015. Rough-picked on all sides for affixing into stele or similar object, but front part of all sides smooth (Plate 12a).

Found, casually, 1968, in area of eastern necropolis near the church of Panagia Phaneromene. Now in Rhodes Museum, Inv. no. ΠΒΕ 1233.

Greek:

Phoenician:

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 65 , November 1970 , pp. 31 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1970

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References

Acknowledgements.

I am very grateful to Mr. Gr. Konstantinopoulos, Ephor of Antiquities of the Dodecanese, for his kindness in allowing me to study the inscriptions published here, and in providing me with all possible facilities for work. I also owe a great debt to Professor A. M. Honeyman of St. Andrews University, who transliterated and translated the first of the texts for me, and gave me advice on numerous points where I have trespassed on Phoenician matters. Professor Olivier Masson also placed me in his debt by giving me his opinion on several points.

1 See CIS i. 46, 49, 53; and cf. Masson, , Inscr. Chypr. Syllab. 227.Google Scholar For Σέσμαος, Πραξίδημος in CIS i. 95Google Scholar (OGIS 17) see Lee, , Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 1969, 122.Google Scholar

2 Cf. Masson, ibid. 182; id. in Éléments orientaux dans la relig. grec. anc. (Trav. du Centre d'Ét. sup. etc. de Strasbourg, (Paris, 1960)) 137–8; id. in Sybaris, (Festschr. Krahe, (Wiesbaden, 1958)) 70 ff.: Caquot, A. and Masson, O., Syria xlv (1968) 317–21Google Scholar; Gjerstad, , OpArch iv (1946) 21–4.Google Scholar

3 IG ii.2 9034 (CIS i. 117; cf. also n. 5); a homonym, ibid. 9035.

4 So CIS, loc. cit.; CIA ii. 3074; IG ii.2, loc. cit.

5 Professor Masson points out to me that Röllig, W. in Donner–Röllig, , Kanaanäische u. aramäische Inschriften, ii (Wiesbaden, 1964)Google Scholar no. 55 (= IG ii.2 9034) suggests that the name may be Cypriot, and he adds, ‘le nom est inconnu en punique, et par sa rareté, semble special à Chypre; c'est tout ce qu'on peut dire’. For Anatolian elements in the population of Cyprus see Masson, , RÉG 80, 1967Google Scholar, pp. xxxii–xxxiii.

6 See e.g., the two inscriptions reproduced, OpAth vii (1967) after p. 45, pl. ii, fig. 4, and pl. iii, fig. 5.

7 See CIS i, tab. viii. 46a (Citium); ibid. 92 (Idalium).

8 See especially Masson, , Inscr. Chypr. Syll. 246–8Google Scholar, with discussion of earlier views.

9 See Masson, ibid., and Caquot and Masson, op. cit. 302 ff. See also Nicolaou, , Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, 1969, 87 ff.Google Scholar, no. 16, a dedication Μικάλι Ἀπόλλωνι, the first known instance in which the Phoenician form occurs in transliteration.

10 Rev. Hist. Rel. cxxi (1940) 7 ff.

11 See Hesych. s.v. Μύλας (gl. 1851, Latte) εῖς τῶν Τελχίνων, ὃς τὰ ἐν Καμίρωι ἱερὰ Μυλαντείων ἱδρύσατο; ibid. s.v. Μυλάντειοι θεοὶ ἐπιμύλιοι; ibid. s.v. προμυλαία θεὸς ἱδρυμένη ἐν τοῖς μυλῶσι; Steph. Byz. s.v. Μυλαντία ἅκρα ἐν Καμίρωι τῆς Ῥόδου. Μυλάντειοι θεοί ἀπὸ Μύλαντος ἀμφότερα, τοῦ καὶ πρώτου εὑρόντος ἐν τῶι βίωι τὴν τοῦ μύλου χρῆσιν.

12 Cf. the deity Εὔνοστος, discussed by me in Ptolemaic Alexandria (Oxford, 1971), ch. 1, n. 181. Note also the dedication by the Κοινὸν τῶν ὀλυροκόπων, OGIS 729.

13 See Tit. Camir. (Ann. xxvii–xxiv (1953) 141–318), 15, 28, 30, 38; cf. Morelli, , ‘I Culti in Rodi’ in Stud. Class. e Orient. viii (1959) 107.Google Scholar

14 Cf. Ed. Meyer, in Roscher's Lexikon, s.v. Astarte; Preisendanz, RE, s.v. Mylitta, col. 1073; du Buisson, Du Mesnil, Rev. Hist. Rel. clxiv (1963) 133–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Moscati, , The World of the Phoenicians (London, 1965) 32 ff.Google Scholar

15 i. 131, 3: καλέουσι δὲ ᾿Ασσύριοι τὴν ᾿Αφροδίτην Μύλιττα; ibid. 199, 3: ἐμβαλόντα δὲ δεῖ εἰπεῖν τοσόνδε Ἐπικαλέω τοι τὴν θεὸν Μύλιττα Μύλιττα δὲ καλέὅυσι τὴν Ἀφροδίτην ᾿Ασσύριοι. The entry in Hesych., s.v. Μύλιτταν (gl. 1855, Latte), τὴν Οὐρανίαν ᾿Ασσύριοι (cf. s.v. Μιλίτης, gl. 1365), no doubt derives from Herodotus.

16 Cf. Della Vida, op. cit. 262, n. 6.

17 Cf. Masson, , Inscr. Chypr. Syllab. 180–1 (no. 167a), and 397 (no. 167b).Google Scholar

18 See above, n. 3.

19 IG xii i, 867.

20 Ibid. 140.

21 Ibid. 451, 456.

22 Ibid. 63 (Onasiphon); ibid. 70 (Simos).

23 Ibid. There is a further unpublished tombstone of a Salaminian and his wife in Rhodes Museum.

24 For the early Cypro-Phoenician settlements on Rhodes, attested by the abundant Phoenician-type pottery of Rhodian clay, apparently manufactured by Phoenician artisans, see most recently Coldstream, J. N., Greek Geometric Pottery (London, 1968) 380–1Google Scholar; id., BICS xvi (1969) 1–8.

25 Coldstream, loc. cit. 1, 8, calls attention to the passage of Zenon of Rhodes, (Diod. v. 58, 2Google Scholar; FGrH 523F) in which he records the legend that Cadmus, on arriving in Rhodes, founded a temple to Poseidon at Ialysus, καὶ τῶν Θοινίκων ἀπέλιπέ τινας ἐπιμελησομένους. οὗτοι δὲ καταμιγέντες Ἰαλυσίοις, διετέλεσαν συμπολιτευόμενοι τούτοις ἐξ ὦν φασι τοὺς ἱερεῖς κατὰ γένος διαδέχεσθαι τὰς ἱερωσύνας. This is one of a number of legends about Phoenicians in Rhodes, and its historicity is clearly very uncertain (cf. Jacoby, op. cit., Komm. 440), but Coldstream's paper now provides a starting-point for a re-examination of the whole tradition.