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Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum: 32.1318


BILINGUAL DEDICATIONS BY ANDROKLES, KING OF AMATHOUS


Greek text:   SEG_32.1318
Provenance:   Amathous, Cyprus
Date:   320-311 B.C.
Format:   see key to translations

Amathous seems to have been an indigenous Cypriot city - neither Greek nor Phoenician in origin - and these inscriptions show that Androkles, its last independent king, retained the local language at the same time as he tried to embrace Greek culture. The inscriptions are written both in Greek and in the native script, called Eteocypriot by modern scholars; in inscription B the Greek text is composed as an elegiac couplet. The dedications also show that the local goddess was by this time identified as Aphrodite in Greek.

Inscription A, along with an improved reading of B, was published by A. Hermary & O. Masson, "Inscriptions d'Amathonte IV" ( Persée ). There is a discussion of the inscriptions, along with a summary of what is known about Androkles, by A. Hermary in "Lemesos: A History of Limassol in Cyprus from Antiquity to the Ottoman Conquest", pp.14-16 ( Google Books ).



[A]   King [ Androkles dedicated these images of his sons ] Orestheus and Andragoras to Cyprian Aphrodite.

[B]   King Androkles dedicated an offering box and this image of the likeness of his son Orestheus to the Cyprian goddess.


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