block
- Museum number
- 1877,0511.1
- Description
-
Marble building block from a Roman gateway at Thessalonika, with an inscription that lists civic officials: six Politarchs ('Rulers of the Citizens'), the Tamias (Treasurer) of the City, and the Gymnasiarch (Director of Higher Education), a graffito may also be present.
- Production date
- 2ndC
- Dimensions
-
Length: 207.01 centimetres (w)
-
Thickness: 33.02 centimetres
-
Width: 82.55 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- This large stone was built into a wall at the Vardar Gate of Thessalonica and was removed in 1877. The stone has been assumed to name city officials of the era. The inscription is important to New Testament scholars because it is one of the few stones that attests the existence of the office of politarch, mentioned in the Bible (Acts 17:6 and 8) and in only a few other literary sources. It is also curious because it mentions the mothers as well as the fathers of two of the politarchs. How the number of politarchs in this inscription should be counted varies among the modern editions; the translation here presents the usual interpretation of the inscription (see vom Brocke).
Bibliography:
Editions:
- J. Pococke, Inscriptiones Antiquae Graecae et Latinae, p. 48 (1752).
- A. Boeckh, CIG II 1967 and addenda pag. 990 (1843).
- C. T. Newton, The Collection of Inscriptions in the British Museum, II: 32, no. CLXXI (1883).
- C. Edson, IG X 126 (1972).
Secondary literature:
- W. S. W. Vaux, “On a Greek Inscription from Saloniki [Thessalonica]”, Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature of the United Kingdom, 2d ser. 8 (1866), 524-48.
- Ernest De Witt Burton, “The Politarchs,” Amer.J.Theol. 2: 598-632 (1898).
- Louis Robert, “Les Inscriptions de Thessalonique,” RevPhil 48: 180 (1974), 208-09.
- Christoph vom Brocke, Thessaloniki – Stadt des Kassander und Gemeinde des Paulus (2001), 68, 94, and 263-64.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1877
- Department
- Greek and Roman
- Registration number
- 1877,0511.1
