Wednesday, July 31, 2019

 

Epitaph of Gorgos

Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989), p. 180 (note omitted):
At Claros itself, no texts of Apollo's oracles have been found. We know, however, that there was a record office, and in the burial ground of nearby Notium, we have the epitaph of one Gorgos, honouring him as "elderly and very bookish" and referring to him "culling" the "page of the singers." The text, datable c. 150-110 B.C., has been well explained as a tribute to a prophet at Claros who had gathered up the "pages" of previous oracular poets at the shrine.
Epitaph on a cenotaph for Gorgos (2nd century B.C., from Notion in Asia Minor), tr. Paola Ceccarelli, "Gorgos of Kolophon (17)," in Brill's New Jacoby, 2nd ed.:
He, the old keeper who gathered a work
Of many books from all the narratives of the poets,
He who loved wisdom, the noble-minded Gorgos,
He who served by the tripods of the Klarian son of Leto,
The earth of Kekrops holds him now in her lap; but because
Of his piety, when he died he went to the land of the pious.
Simplified Greek text:
Τὸν πάσης πολύβυβλον ἀφ᾽ ἱστορίης µελεδωνὸν
    πρέσβυν ἀοιδοπόλων δρεψάµενον σελίδα,
τὸν σοφίην στέρξαντα νόῳ µεγαλόφρονα Γοργόν,
    τὸν Κλαρίου τριπόδων Λητοίδεω θέραπα
Κεκροπὶς ἐν κόλποις κρύπτει κόνις· εὐσεβίης δὲ
    εἵνεκεν εὐσεβέων χῶρον ἔβη φθίµενος.
Ceccarelli's commentary on the inscription is superb. Here are a few elementary notes for my own use on vocabulary:

πολύβυβλον = πολύβιβλον, of many books; some regard this adjective as modifying Gorgos (Γοργόν, line 3), not page (σελίδα, line 2)

µελεδωνὸν = keeper, guardian

ἀοιδοπόλων = genitive plural of ἀοιδοπόλος, one busied with song, i.e. poet

θέραπα = accusative of θέραψ = θεράπων

I learned about the inscription from Ramsay MacMullen, Paganism in the Roman Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), p. 11, who partially translates:
...the man of many books, guardian of all research, who picks out the ancient page of the poets; lover of wisdom, Gorgos mighty in mind, the servant of the tripod in Apollonian Claros...
There is a good overview of Apollo's oracle at Claros in Matthew Dillon, Omens and Oracles: Divination in Ancient Greece (London: Routledge, 2017), pp. 340-345.



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