MAMA XI 120 (Akmoneia)

This monument is a funerary bomos for a certain Alexandros, also known as Acholis (Robert, Hellenica VI, 99 n.2). The inscription lists the civic offices held by Alexandros at Akmoneia (agoranomos, seitones, panegyriarches, strategos). Comparable lists of offices are found on two other funerary inscriptions from Akmoneia: Robert, Hellenica X, 249-50 (Strubbe 1994: 115-7, no. 7: Aur. Frugianus, agoranomos, seitones, paraphylax, strategos); Ramsay, Phrygia II 653, no. 564 (Strubbe 1994: 119-20, no. 9: T. Fl. Alexandros, bouleutes, archon, eirenarches, seitones [twice], boularches, agoranomos, strategos); compare also Waelkens 1986: 170-1, no. 423 (dekaprotos, chreophylax, argyrotamias, agoranomos, strategos). For examples at other cities, compare MAMA XI 74 (1956/38: Sebaste); I.Prusias ad Hypium 87; I.Iznik 1254. On the office of seitones in the cities of Asia Minor in the Roman imperial period, see Strubbe 1987-9; Zuiderhoek 2008.

In lines A7-8, Alexandros is described as having ‘measured out again (πάλιν) for the agora 6,200 ΚΥ()’. For this use of πάλιν (i.e. subsequently to his tenure of the offices of agoranomos and seitones), compare IGR III 493.10-11 (Oinoanda), σειτομετρήσαντα πάλιν τοὺς πολείτας. Ramsay understood the abbreviation ΚΥ() in line A8 to refer to κύ(αθοι). This is, however, very unlikely. The kyathos is a small dry or liquid measure of around 45.5 ml. If Alexandros had indeed distributed 6,200 kyathoi, it is hard to see why he did not phrase this in terms of a larger dry or liquid measure (around 5 medimnoi or 7 metretai). Moreover, the total quantities involved do not seem particularly generous (6,200 kyathoi = 282.1 litres); to put Alexandros’ putative provision of around 5 medimnoi of grain in context, the grammateus T. Flavius Damianus at Ephesos furnished 201,200 medimnoi of grain to the army of L. Verus over a thirteen-month period in AD 166/7 (I.Ephesos 672, 3080; Alföldy and Halfmann 1979: 209-10; Kalinowski 2006).

Hence the abbreviation in line 8 should be resolved not as κυ(άθους) but as κύ(πρους) (thus already Robert, Hellenica X, 253 n.4). The κύπρος is frequently attested in Hellenistic and Roman Asia Minor as a dry measure and, by extension, as an areal measure (the area sown with one κύπρος of seed: see Thonemann 2009: 381-2). At Sebastopolis in Karia, in the late second century AD, a civic benefactor was honoured for having sold 2,000 kyproi of grain at a price of 2 denarii per kypros, at a time when the going rate was 4 denarii per kypros (Robert and Robert 1954: 320-3, no. 172). The κύπρος is known to have been in use in the region of Akmoneia thanks to an early imperial ponderarium from Uşak, on which the kypros dry measure was apparently equivalent to two modioi (Wagener 1856). The Lydo-Phrygian kypros thus contained c. 17.5 litres (1 modios = 8.75 litres), and Alexandros’ 6,200 kyproi would represent around 2,000 medimnoi of grain.

The inscription on face B, not seen by Ramsay, begins with three more or less accurate hexameters (πολλῶν... συνομεύνῳ); it is not clear whether the following lines are intended as verse. For the formula in the final clause of face B, compare MAMA VI 325 (Strubbe 1994: 123-5, no. 12: Akmoneia, Banaz), ὃς ἂν... ἢ τύνβον πρίατε ἢ γράμμα μιάνι; SEG 32, 1256 (Nikomedeia), εἴ τις τολμήσει... ἢ γράμμα τὸ λοιπὸν τούτων ἐκκόψαι ἢ τὴν καμάραν μου πρίασθαι; IJO II, 178 (Rome; attributed to an expatriate Akmoneian by Ameling, ad loc.), εἰ δέ τις ἢ τύνβον πρίαται ἢ γράμμα μιώσῃ.

Illustrations:

Photograph of front face of MAMA XI 120 (Akmoneia 22: 1956-67)

Photograph of right face of MAMA XI 120 (Akmoneia 22: 1956-67)

Partial squeeze of face A ll. 1-2 of MAMA XI 120 (Akmoneia 22: 1956-67)

Partial squeeze of face A ll. 6-8 of MAMA XI 120 (Akmoneia 22: 1956-67)

Drawing of front and right faces of MAMA XI 120 (Akmoneia 22: 1956-67)