AN INSCRIBED BASIS FROM CYZIGUS. IN the course of a visit to Cyzicus, made last December at the invitation of Mr. de Rustafjaell, Mr. Bosanquet and I had the opportunity of copying and taking impressions of two inscriptions from a marble pedestal (Fig. 1), FIG. 1.—MARBLE PEDESTAL AT CYZICUS. known to the peasants as ' Balik Tash' or ' Fish Stone' from the reliefs carved upon it. The stone lies in a vineyard on the low ground of the isthmus in the central harbour of Panormus. Originally discovered by Mr. Tito 1IQ1XAF ITHi i,. TQNFYPEIi pAZ AZZA FIG. 2. rmlENAA IIKOEEIINAAIII H MQN rONEKAINOTOMExf XAPAXXETOKAIMETPY?A!NA iHKENArAAMAOEQl HOEEI AON E TQ A AAOZAKAYITOIOl\ inONENrYOXAMOOTEPQN FIG. 3. 128 F. W. HASLUCK Carabella of Constantinople, it was seen in January 1880 by Lolling, who published1 such copies of the inscription as it was possible to obtain without cleaning away the lichen and carbonate of lime which covered many of the letters. These imperfect copies were recently discussed by Dr. Wilhelm2 who had enquired for the stone at Constantinople and failed to discover its whereabouts. Last summer it was re-excavated by Mr. de Rustafjaell: we succeeded in removing the incrustation and obtained more complete readings. The pedestal is of greyish marble and cylindrical in shape measuring about 9ft. 9in. in circumference. Mr. de Rustafjaell gives the total height as 5ft. 9in.: during our visit the amount of water in the low-lying ground made it impossible to re-excavate, and we were consequently unable to see the whole monument. The top is badly damaged, but in one place the mouldings which surrounded it (torus, fillet, and cavetto) are still existent. The sides are divided symmetrically by four vertical tridents and adorned with clumsy high reliefs representing four half-galleys, dolphins, tunnies,3 and smaller fish, of which latter, again, I cannot speak at first hand. On opposite sides of the pedestal, close under the mouldings, are the two dedicatory inscriptions, the one (Fig. 2) in prose, the other (Fig. 3) in elegiacs. Both are carved on oblong panels with triangular ansae at either end, and below each is a trident, the lines of the epigram being broken by the prongs, while the trident beneath the prose inscription stops short before reaching it. This difference, together with the fact that, while the panel of the prose inscription is in relief, that of the epigram is defined merely by incised lines, makes it probable that the latter was not part of the original design. The panel of the prose inscription measures 0'75 x 0"32 metres, the ansae increasing the length to 0-97. The approximate dimensions of the panel of the epigram are 0'65 (extreme length 0-75) x 015 m. The letters of the prose inscription are "03 in. high in the first line, "025 in the second, and decrease gradually to -02 in the last line. Those of the epigram are smaller, averaging -013 m.: there is a decrease in height at 1. 5. The forms are those normally used in early Imperial times (AlOK£s>). IloaeiSmvi 'Y\<rd/ii(oi •^apia-T^pto[v TO irpo 7r]oXXot) Ke%ep<T<o(Levoi> TWV evpei\_ir(ii>v K\OI TTJS Xl/jLvrj*; €K T5>V ihiwv diroKaTaaT[ij- crjaaa $<nra\ySi\v xal TO irepie\ovTa dva\d>fi\a,Ti T]S>I r[e ea]i/T?5[<?] KOX rwi TOV vlov /8a<rt\&>[<?] ®pd[ier)<; 5 'F]oifirjTa\.Ka(i) TOV KOTVO? KOI TCOV dSeX<f>a>v avr[ov /8]a<7t\e'<B? IIOI'TO[V] IIo[A.]e/£ft)i/o? ical KOTUO? O[I»]O- fiari 'Avrcovia Tpv<})aiva KOTVO? /8<xa"t\[e]<»j> [/eal OwyaTrjp Kal fit]Tt)[p avT-q ?] /8a<r[(]\[j.]a-<ra. 9 1 Ath. Mitth. v. (1880), p. 390. similar to representations on coins, Brit. AIus. 2 Arch. Epig. Mitth. vi. (1897), p. 84. Catal., Mysin., PI. VII. 16. 3 Identified as such by peasants, and exactly AN INSCRIBED BASIS FROM CYZICUS. 129 ' A thank offering to Poseidon of the Isthmus (dedicated) after the restoration of the long-choked portion of the channels and of the lagoon at her own charges, and of the surrounding (quays ?) at the expense of her- self and her son Rhoemetalces, King of Thrace, and in the name of his brothers, Polemo King of Pontus and Cotys, (by) Antonia Tryphaena, daughter and mother of kings, herself a queen.' It is not worth while to reproduce Lolling's imperfect copy. Wilhelm's conjectural restorations, Trjs Xi'/ii'?;? airoKaTaffTrjcrcKra and evpel-rrwv, are proved correct. The restoration of the dedication to'Eoseidon Isthmius appears certain. The epithet is hitherto unknown at Cyzicus, but obviously appropriate to the locality. Poseidon Asphaleius is probably to be restored in the dedicatory inscription of Bacchius cited below, and this may have been the title of the god as guardian of the outer harbour alluded to in the epigram. 'POI/AT?- rd\Ka(t) is an engraver's error, natural after the recurrence of ical. Lolling's copy of the epigram, though in some points incorrect, pre- serves a good deal of the left side, which has since been almost entirely broken away. It runs as follows: ElAi AA/\W ENKYIlKQZEINAAIII riOAAAK/ HZARATAZSOMENOSnOAII ELZOTEA HNHZZONEKAINOTOME KAIBYOOZEYPEI NEXAPAZZETOKAIMETPAiAiM A EYPOMENHnON YOHKENATAAMAOES2N ZOITOZONEIM-'A noZEIAONET^AAAOZAKA YZTOIO ZTHZOMAIEYPEI nS2NENrYOZAM(J>OTEPOII From a combination of the two we arrive at the following : ? ear]acr6v a Aaav ? Kuft«o? elvaXii] HoXXa/c .... rjaa Traraaao/juevo'; irool Et<roT6 S 7] vfjcraov eicaivoT6fie[i K.al /3v8b<; evpeivcov i^apdaaero icai fie. Tp\y\<j>aiva mpofievr) 7T6V[TO]V dfjKev ayaXfia 6e&i Sol TO o~bv epfia, THoaeihov, i<yw 8' dXo<; axXvcrroio Sj evpeoircov eyyvos d The lacunae are still too great to admit of a convincing restoration. If, however, the readings Xaav and evpofievr) can be relied on, the meaning may be that a stone, employed for instance as the threshold of a gate {iraraao-6- fievo<; iroffX), was discovered in the course of Tryphaena's reconstruction and by her orders carved into a statue and dedicated to Poseidon. H.S.—VOL. XXII. K 130 . F. W. HASLtTCIt ' Till Tryphaena re-formed the island, defined the bed of the channels and finding me, set me here, a statue dedicated to the god of the sea. " Do thou, Poseidon, (look to) thine own bulwark and I will vouch for the two channels of the surgeless sea.' MJ<row (1. 4) is a mis-spelling for wjo-op, possibly intentional, as Herodian commented on Jhis spelling of the word,1 and it occurs again in an inscription from Smyrna,2 as well as in several manuscripts.3 There may be some play on the word luaivoTopei which generally, except in the technical use (=\arofie'tv), loses the sense of cutting entirely. There can hardly, I think, he a change of subject at fiv86s (1. 5) : the Thesaurus gives an Aeolic form /3v6os for fiaBos, but there may be nothing more than a slip in our inscription, Zpp.a (1. 7) is possibly used as a poetical equivalent of x*V*a ' mole' (cf. the Baochius inscription cited below)' though there seems no exact parallel, the nearest being Suidas' unsatisfactory quotation from an unknown author (s.v. epp.a—fppara peyaKa ?8a\ev els TO arvpa rov £)Kcavov o>s &v ipnohia flrj rois enupoiTaxri drjplois) : the word is regularly used of a reef of rocks : Suidas also gives d<r<pa\icrpa (cf. the Homeric eppa wokrjos). The meaning given by Hesychius,' 7r(pi<ppaypa,y which might suit the epigram with the sense of 'enclosed harbour' seems to arise from a confusion with epypa. We may suppose that there was a statue of Poseidon erected on the mole,4 and that this is addressed in the epigram. 'AXos aicAv'aToto, as I hope to show below, alludes to the land-locked waters of the \ip.vt]. As to the statue to which the base belonged, the antithesis in line 8 shows that it cannot have represented Poseidon. Mr. Bosanquet suggests that a statue of the eponymous founder of the city would be appropriate; he is frequently represented on coins and we have a record of a statue in C.I.G. 3667; but the dedication and the ornaments on the pedestal seem to me more suitable for a marine personage. It may have been one of the minor sea deities, possibly a Triton, which occurs on Cyzicene coins of this date5; the upper surface of the monument is too much damaged to afford any clue, and the insignificance of a Triton gives a semi-humorous turn to his ambitious proposal to share the empire of Poseidon. The queen Tryphaena who is mentioned in both the foregoing inscrip- tions as the restorer of the port of Cyzicus was till comparatively lately known only from coins.6 Her identity has since been •established beyond doubt by several important inscriptions from Cyzicus which enable us to connect her with certain passages in the historians where she is not mentioned by name. She is now perhaps best known to English readers from Professor Ramsay's brilliant chapter in The Church in the Roman Umpire (p. 375 ff.) Her vaunted kinship with more than one royal house is explained by genealogical trees published by Mommsen7 and M. Theodore Reinach.8 The former adds the stemma of her husband Cotys, whose ancestors have since been discussed briefly by T. Reinach8 and at some length by Mr.