Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna 9781479885886

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Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna Roger S. Bagnall, Roberta Casagrande-Kim, Akın Ersoy, and Cumhur Tanrıver with a contribution by Burak Yolaçan

Institute for the study of the ancient world NEW YORK university press 2016

© 2016 Institute for the Study of the Ancient World and New York University Press ISBN 978-1-479864-64-5

Names: Bagnall, Roger S., editor. | Casagrande-Kim, Roberta, editor. | Ersoy, Akın, editor. | Tanrıver, Cumhur, editor. Title: Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna / edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Roberta Casagrande-Kim, Akın Ersoy, and Cumhur Tanrıver, with a contribution by Burak Yolaçan. Description: New York : Institute for the Study of the Ancient World and New York University Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016019141 | ISBN 9781479864645 (cloth) | ISBN 9781479885886 | ISBN 9781479870738 Subjects: LCSH: İzmir (Turkey)--Antiquities. | Graffiti--Turkey--İzmir. | Excavations (Archaeology)--Turkey--İzmir. Classification: LCC DS51.I9 G73 2016 | DDC 939/.23--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016019141

Design by Andrew Reinhard

Printed in the United States

Contents List of Illustrations vii List of Contributors viii Preface ix Introduction History of Excavations in Smyrna (Akın Ersoy) 1 Description of Building and Phases (Burak Yolaçan) 3 General Characteristics of the Graffiti (Roger Bagnall) 20 The Pictorial Graffiti (Roberta Casagrande-Kim) 22 Dating of the Graffiti (Roger Bagnall) 36 Palaeography (Roger Bagnall) 40 Language (Roger Bagnall) 42 Healing of Eyes (Roger Bagnall) 42 Baite (Roger Bagnall) 44 Christianity (Roger Bagnall) 45 Civic Pride (Roger Bagnall) 47 Isopsephisms of Desire (Roger Bagnall) 48 Word-Play: Word Squares and Riddles (Roger Bagnall) 52 The Graffiti: Descriptions, Texts, Translations, and Notes

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Bibliography 463 Index of Greek Words 469 Index of Subjects and Motifs of Drawings 473 General Index 475 Concordance of Publication Numbers with Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum 61 477 Concordance of Numbers of Bays and Piers 479

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List of illustrations IN INTRODUCTION Figure 1. Map of Western Anatolia. Figure 2. Map of Smyrna. Figure 3. Plan of the Agora and surrounding buildings. Figure 4. Plan of the basement of the Basilica. Figure 5. Plan of the ground level of the Basilica. Figure 6. Section of the Basilica and elevation of central façade. Figure 7. Supporting masses for the main piers. Figure 8. Limestone slabs. Figure 9. Cross vaults. Figure 10. Western gallery. Figure 11. Third gallery rooms. Figure 12. Fourth gallery, west gateway. Figure 13. Northwest gateway. Figure 14. South façade. Figure 15. South façade, detail of propylon. Figure 16. Substructure for tribunal. Figure 17. Brick vaults. Figure 18. Plan of the Basilica’s underground corridor with location and density of pictorial graffiti. Figure 19. Statistics on the techniques and iconographic subjects of the pictorial graffiti. Figure 20. Plan of the Basilica’s underground corridor with location of painted and incised pictorial graffiti. Figure 21. Plan of the Basilica’s underground corridor with location of pictorial graffiti depicting ships. Figure 22. Plan of the Basilica’s underground corridor with location of pictorial graffiti depicting gladiators. Figure 23. Plan of the Basilica’s underground corridor with location of pictorial graffiti with decorative motifs. Figure 24. Plan of the Basilica’s underground corridor with location of pictorial graffiti depicting portraits. Figure 25. Plan of the Basilica’s underground corridor with location of pictorial graffiti depicting phalli. Figure 26. Plan of the Basilica’s underground corridor with location of pictorial graffiti depicting animals. Figure 27. Plan of the Basilica’s underground corridor with location of pictorial graffiti depicting architectural buildings. Figure 28. Plan of the Basilica’s underground corridor with location of pictorial graffiti of uncertain subject. Figure 29. Spring at west end of basement of the Basilica. vii

Contributors Roger S. Bagnall is Professor of Ancient History and Leon Levy Director, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University. Roberta Casagrande-Kim is Assistant Manager for Exhibitions and Publications at the Onassis Foundation (USA). Akın Ersoy is Assistant Professor at İzmir Dokuz Eylül University and Director of the Ancient City of Smyrna Excavations. Cumhur Tanrıver is Professor at İzmir Ege University and epigraphist of the Ancient City of Smyrna Excavations. Burak Yolaçan received his doctorate in archaeology in 2013 and is Research Assistant at İzmir Dokuz Eylül University.

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Preface The graffiti published in this volume were discovered during the excavation of the basement level of the Basilica in the Agora of ancient Smyrna under the direction of Mehmet Taşlıalan, then responsible for the Museum of İzmir. In early March of 2003, Thomas Drew-Bear reported the discovery to Roger Bagnall on the basis of an account given him by a French archaeologist who was on the site. In view of the many threats to the plaster, Bagnall arranged at Drew-Bear’s request to have a conservator from the U.S., Constance Silver, go to İzmir, assess the situation, and plan a program of conservation. Her first visit in April was followed up by a longer one two months later, in the course of which she applied various emergency measures. Ms. Silver’s two visits were supported by funds from the Stanwood Cockey Lodge Foundation of Columbia University. Bagnall was able to visit İzmir from 14–23 July 2003 and copy all of the graffiti then visible. Although Drew-Bear was largely occupied with preparing the conference on Smyrna that took place at the end of that period, he was able to take some part in checking Bagnall’s copies. Didier Laroche advised on architectural matters during this period. The complex events of the following years led to various disruptions in conservation and scholarly work on the graffiti, but a preliminary account appeared in the first chapter of Bagnall 2011. We should record here that Drew-Bear arranged for Sharon Hopkins to photograph and draw the graffiti in 2005, and these photographs remain a significant part of our photographic documentation of the site. Since the restarting of conservation work under the current site director, Akın Ersoy, it has been possible to rephotograph most of the graffiti, many of them significantly cleaner than they were in 2003 or 2005, and to photograph some in infrared. This conservation and photographic work has made it possible to improve some of the texts from the state reported in Bagnall 2011. The discovery of additional graffiti during this cleaning process has also made it possible to increase substantially the corpus known in 2003. Cumhur Tanrıver, the epigraphist of the Smyrna excavations, joined Bagnall as co-author in 2012; he has been responsible for copying and photographing the newer discoveries. Roberta CasagrandeKim has taken on the task of describing the drawings. In some cases these are clearly connected to neighboring texts, but in many more they are not; and in still others it is unclear if there is a connection. We are mindful of the difficulties inherent in any method of publishing walls full of texts and drawings, where connections and divisions are often unclear. The early publications of Pompeian graffiti, for example, have been criticized for their excessive separation of verbal and pictorial elements on the same wall (Milnor 2014: 14). There is no perfect solution to ix

the challenge these walls pose. We have given for each bay or pillar an overall drawing showing the relationship of the texts and drawings we have presented to one another, in the hope that these and the photographic documentation will allow readers to detect connections or distinctions that have eluded us. The photographs in this volume were taken at different times and under variable lighting and circumstances. They have throughout been processed for maximum clarity of the graffiti; they do not, therefore, necessarily represent the actual color of the plaster. We take this opportunity to thank Dr. Taşlıalan and Professor Drew-Bear for the initial opportunity to work on this discovery, to Ms. Silver for her heroic work in the early months after the excavation, and to Ms. Hopkins for her photographic work. We are very grateful to Professor Ersoy not only for his steadfast support of our work to bring this publication to completion, but for devoting extensive resources to conservation during 2012–2014, thus making much more text and more drawings available for reading and documentation than had been visible previously. The penultimate version of the manuscript was read by our friends Angelos Chaniotis and Thomas Corsten, who offered a number of very helpful suggestions for difficult passages. We are grateful to them for bringing their learning to bear on these thorny texts. Two anonymous readers for the press also contributed many valuable corrections and improvements, and we take this opportunity to thank them for their help. —Roger S. Bagnall, January 2016

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Figure 1. Map of Western Anatolia.

Introduction History of Excavations in Smyrna (Akın Ersoy) The city of Smyrna (İzmir), situated at the east end of the gulf of İzmir (map, Fig. 1), has an uninterrupted history of settlement since the Neolithic–Chalcolithic ages because of its advantages as a seaport. After the fırst settlement on the mound of Bornova Yeşilova and later on the mound of Bayraklı-Tepekule, the city was resettled on the present site (Kadifekale-Kemeraltı) after Alexander the Great. The new city has been continuously inhabited in this new location for over two thousand years, during the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, and Republican Periods, and remains a major city today. Smyrna succeeded in existing till today as the most important seaport of western Anatolia because it is both surrounded by very fertile land, providing numerous products, including mineral resources, and at the same time situated on seaways and trade routes. Ancient resources and archaeological finds from the excavations of the city wall in the Acropolis indicate that the new city was resettled from its location in Bayraklı (Palaia Smyrna) to the new location on the north and west slopes of the Acropolis between Kadifekale (Acropolis of Smyrna) and the sea by the end of the fourth or the beginning of the third century BCE and was founded by the successors of Alexander the Great, namely Antigonos Monophthalmos and Lysimachos. The fact that Smyrna, just like Rome and Athens, has been continuously inhabited for many centuries in the same location complicates our ability to study the city in the Hellenistic Period and later. Until recently, the sole visible part of the ancient city of Smyrna was the Agora, but ongoing studies and excavations have revealed many other parts and findings that provide insight into the history of the city. During the ongoing excavations at the Hellenistic city wall in Kadifekale, we also unearthed the Kale Mescidi, the first Turkish-Islamic house of prayer in İzmir, dated 1308. The simple structures above the Theater of Smyrna are going to be pulled down and opened for archaeological studies soon. Another building that has been located is the stadium. During excavation works in Altınpark Archaeological Area and the Şifa Parcels of Land the first ancient residential buildings were encountered in the year 2008. 1

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Besides Kadifekale and the Agora, a further archaeological area in the inner city is one of the most important transportation routes of ancient Smyrna: the Roman road that went from north to south. The traces of another road have been found in the archaeological area of Altınpark. The latter lies beyond the city walls and once connected Smyrna with Phokaia, Kyme, and Pergamon on the one hand, and with other western Anatolian cities like Magnesia ad Sipylum and Sardis on the other. The first studies of Smyrna were conducted in the first years of the Turkish Republic. At that time, in the wake of the conflicts and population transfers following the First World War, İzmir underwent a new urban planning project that included projects for construction on the land of Muslim cemeteries from the Ottoman Period. After the discovery of a lot of remains and finds during the construction works of a park on the land of the cemetery where the Agora is situated, it was decided to conduct archaeological excavations at this site. The archaeological work that started in 1932 in the name of the General Directorate of Museums continued till 1941/2. The team that worked under the presidency of the then Director of the İzmir Museum Selahattin Kantar, which included among its members F. Miltner and R. Naumann, has been supported by the Turkish Historical Society, then-mayor Behçet Salih Bey, and Governor Kazım Pasha. These works were revived in 1943 under the presidency of the Museum Director Rüstem Duyuran but again interrupted in 1945. Meanwhile, a part of the courtyard of the Agora was unearthed, and the excavations in the northwestern corner of the Agora were conducted where the Basilica and the West Portico surrounding the courtyard meet. Beyond the Agora, the Roman road at the site of Cicipark was excavated. The work in the Agora was interrupted in the first half of the 1950s by the Directorate of the İzmir Museum for cleaning, restoration, and organization purposes. It was only revived in the 1990s. During this long break, Kadifekale and the part of the city walls that face the city were restored. In the year 2000, Ahmet Priştina became İzmir’s metropolitan mayor, and work accelerated within the framework of the Project “Saving, Improving and Reviving the Agora and Its Surroundings” designed in 2001. During these works the excavations in the West Portico and the Basilica have been completed. They were directed by the successive directors of the İzmir Museum, (in order of service) Turan Özkan, Dr. Mehmet Taşlıalan, and Mehmet Tuna. As part of the project, compulsory purchases and the demolition of buildings in and around the Agora were started. The basement of the Basilica, from which come the graffiti published in this volume, was excavated under Dr. Taşlıalan’s direction in the winter of 2003. During the excavation works we have been conducting since 2007 in the name of Dokuz Eylül University and the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the demolition of buildings in and around the Agora has been accelerated. Thus, we gained larger areas for archaeological excavation and investigation. These excavations have unearthed the Mosaic Building, the City Council building, and the Roman Bath. Parallel to the respective excavations and academic research, conservation and restoration works on architectural and small finds are still being conducted. One of these works is the pres-

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ervation and restoration of wall plaster of the first and second galleries in the basement of the Basilica. The conservation works on the graffiti in the galleries made them significantly more readable and also revealed new graffiti not visible in 2003. In the present publication, Roger Bagnall, Roberta Casagrande-Kim, and Cumhur Tanrıver bring to a wider public important knowledge about Smyrna and thus about antiquity to the present.

Figure 2. Map of Smyrna.

Description of the Building and its Phases (Burak Yolaçan) The Agora of Smyrna is built on the outskirts of Mount Pagos (map of Smyrna, Fig. 2) with a slight southeast to northwest slope. The excavated area of the central open space so far measures 129 m x 83 m. The northern side of the Agora is occupied by the Basilica, which is almost completely excavated. To the west, the Western Stoa, 20 m wide, is partially excavated. Currently measured at 83 m in length, the stoa is expected to be just over 100 m long when fully revealed. To the east, a small part of the Eastern Stoa is excavated, with the rest of it under the modern road and buildings. The southern side of the courtyard lies under modern buildings and is not excavated yet. Another stoa similar to those on the eastern and western sides is expected to be here.

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Figure 3. Plan of the Agora and surrounding buildings.

The Agora Basilica of Smyrna follows the tradition of Asiatic basilicas in Asia Minor.1 The basilica occupies the northern side of the Agora (plan, Fig. 3) and is built on a cryptoporticus used to level the ground, that is, to offset the slight slope of the land. The building is not separated from the eastern and western stoas but integrated with them to create a continuous covered space around the open area. Measuring 161.4 m by 29.3 m, it is one of the largest basilicas in Asia Minor. The building (plans, Figs. 4 and 5) has a cryptoporticus featuring 4 galleries, and 3 naves on the ground level, the main hall being larger than the side naves. The main hall of the building is surrounded with piers, with arches in between on three sides. A tribunal occupied the western end of the building, dominating the main hall. While there was a second story over both side aisles, the main hall was higher and supported a clerestory to let light into the building. The Basilica is accessed from the Agora courtyard by three krepides and has a colonnade with composite capitals. While the building can be accessed from any point in the courtyard, a propylon with four protruding columns is built in the center of the façade. The second story 1. For earlier work on the architecture of the Basilica, see Yolaçan 2011, 2013, and 2015. For Asiatic basilicas see at Ephesos, Fossel-Peschl 1982; Aphrodisias: Stinson 2007; Cremna: Mitchell 1989: 229–45; Magnesia ad Maeandrum: Öztaner 2006; Hierapolis: Pia Rossignani and Sacchi 2007: 359–411; Aspendos: Lanckoronski 2005: 96–98; Nysa: Öztaner et al. 2014: 226–7; Xanthos: Cavalier 2012: 189–99; Kaunos: Öztaner and Öğün 2012: 357–66.

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Figure 4. Plan of the basement of the Basilica.

Figure 5. Plan of the ground level of the Basilica.

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Figure 6. Section of the Basilica and elevation of central façade.

of the façade had another colonnade with Corinthian capitals. The inner colonnades of the building carried Corinthian capitals facing the main hall and Ionic capitals facing the side aisles on a slightly lower level. The second story over the main hall also carried Corinthian capitals (section of building and façade, Fig. 6). In the façade to the courtyard, white marble is used for the columns, while reddish conglomerate is used inside the building for the columns on both stories. The Basilica and the previous stoa building that it replaced were in use from at least the second century BCE until its abandonment in the seventh century CE, undergoing several major and minor changes over time. Unfortunately, assigning a firm date to the various construction phases of the building is highly problematic, for two main reasons: (1) Excavation of the building began in 1932 and is still ongoing today, but the large intervals between phases of work have meant a loss of continuity and knowledge from one team of excavators to another; (2) a large

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part of the building (and in particular the cryptoporticus) was excavated in an extremely short space of time during the 2001–2003 seasons, and the lack of adequate documentation covering this work (with particular regard to the material excavated) has severely hampered the study and dating of the various construction phases here. As a result of these issues, the dating of the various construction phases of this building relies more on construction techniques and the phased construction of the building, as the various parts relate to one another, than on archaeologically recovered contexts. The dating of these phases will therefore be discussed in a final section of this chapter, entitled “Dating of the Building,” once the various parts of it have been described in detail. The Agora Basilica of Smyrna is a multi-story building with many spaces on different levels. In order to be able to understand the building, it is necessary to examine the various spaces independently of one another. With this in mind, the basilica can be separated into 2 main parts: 1. The cryptoporticus 2. The building above courtyard level A further separation can be made to distinguish parts of the building with different uses: 1. Cryptoporticus (1a) First and second galleries of the cryptoporticus (1b) Cross vaults (1c) Western gallery (1d) Third gallery (1e) Fourth gallery (i) Northern gateways (1f) Northern rooms 2. Building above courtyard level (2a) Tribunal (2b) Main hall (2c) Side aisles (2d) Eastern entrance (2e) Clerestory 1. Cryptoporticus The cryptoporticus of the Basilica (plan, Fig. 4) consists of four galleries measuring 4.40 m in height and 5 m in width. While the first two galleries on the southern side of the cryptoporticus are separated only by piers supporting the upper stories, the third and fourth galleries are separated by walls with doors in them. There are no traces of any rooms in the first and second gal-

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan leries, while the third gallery has 63 smaller rooms and the fourth gallery ten rooms facing to the north of the building. The fourth gallery itself is separated from the rest of the building, with two doors on each end. The cryptoporticus and the ground floor of the Basilica (together with the main level of the center of the Agora) have an extremely limited connection. So far, possible traces of two stairways connecting the two floors have been found. Another stairway connecting the first gallery of the cryptoporticus to the courtyard of the Agora has been found, but this stairway was built with spolia and inserted into the wall by breaking part of it, suggesting a later construction date. This limited connection shows that the two different floors of the building have been planned as separate spaces, with the cryptoporticus mainly serving the North Street and the first floor serving the central open space of the Agora. Figure 7. Supporting masses for the main piers.

(1a) First and Second Galleries Piers supporting the first floor of the building, with 2.60 m intercolumniation, separate the first and second galleries, and these piers are further supported with east to west smaller arches. Main piers also have supporting masses (Fig. 7) built with spolia added to them at a later date, probably during the sixth century. The ceiling for the first two galleries is made of limestone slabs (Fig. 8) laid between parallel south–north arches; these slabs in part of the second gallery have been replaced with shallow brick vaults at a later date. While the northern wall of the second gallery separates this gallery from the third gallery, the southern wall of the first gallery acts as a terrace wall and intake for light and air, with the windows built in the otherwise closed basement. Piers to the south and north of the first two galleries are placed in front of the walls, suggesting that they were built at a later date. Their date should be, in my view, after the earthquake in 177. These piers were also built with less than maximum care, using spolia that suggest a hasty construction process. The first and second galleries are not separated from each other with any walls and seem to share the same purpose: creating a covered area for the citizens. The walls and piers in these two galleries, and especially the bays between the piers on the northern wall of the second gal-

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Figure 8. Limestone slabs.

Figure 9. Cross vaults.

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lery, form the zone where most of the graffiti are found today. The layout of the space, its limited connection with the first floor, and the graffiti suggest that these two galleries were open to the public at all times and quite separated from the courtyard of the Agora; they were thus devoid of any official or administrative function, at least for some quite extended time after their first rebuilding. (1b) Cross vaults At the eastern and western ends of the first and second galleries, cross vaults (Fig. 9) can be seen, where one pier each in the middle row has been omitted to make space and a fifth halfarch has been added for support. While the purpose of this arrangement is unclear, it is not to support some great weight on the ground level; the space above these cross vaults is right in front of the tribunal on the west side and the entry hall on the east side. This arrangement may have been intended to create a larger space in the cryptoporticus for some reason, possibly to be used as a meeting space. These cross vaults are unique features of the Basilica; no similar examples can be found around this time. They were added to the building along with the piers in the first and second galleries of the basement, right after the earthquake in 177. (1c) Western Gallery An arched gallery has been added to the west of the building (Fig. 10) at a later date. This gallery acts as a passageway connecting the Basilica and the neighboring Western Stoa to the North Street, while at the same time acting as a substructure supporting the raised tribunal on the first floor. Covered with arches made with limestone, this gallery covers the whole width of the building and is itself 5 m wide. Arches in this gallery are not placed on piers as in the rest of the building, but built into the walls with greater care, suggesting an earlier date, possibly during the first or second quarter of the second century. (1d) Third Gallery Piers built in front of the walls in the first two galleries have a 2.60 m intercolumniation, while in the third gallery the arches are built inside the walls and have an intercolumniation of 5.20 m. The ceiling is a continuous rubble vault, unlike those of the first and second galleries. This vault and the third gallery along with the fourth gallery were built during the last quarter of the first century or the first quarter of the second century CE, as evidenced by an inscription dated to 124 (see p. 18, Phase 2). At a later, uncertain date a number of smaller rooms (Fig. 11) have been built inside the third gallery. Each one of these 63 rooms, measuring on average 1.60 m by 2.15 m, has a narrow door, measuring 0.70 m wide on average. Limited excavations in two of these rooms yielded, among other finds, many oil lamps, some of them used, and a large number of bone objects. These rooms might have been used as shops, workshops, or offices (Ersoy et al. 2012: 105–14). The third gallery has a sharp turn to the north at the end of its eastern part, which in turn opens to the North Street with a smaller gate built here.

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Figure 10. Western gallery.

Figure 11. Third gallery rooms.

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Figure 12. Fourth gallery, west gateway.

Figure 13. Northwest gateway.

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(1e) Fourth Gallery The northernmost, fourth gallery of the cryptoporticus is separated from the rest of the building, with 2 doors (Fig. 12) set at each end of the gallery. These doors, with a column creating two passageways, lead to the northeast and northwest gateways of the building. These gateways connect the fourth and third galleries of the cryptoporticus to the North Street. The fourth gallery is further distinguished from the cryptoporticus by its decoration. While the walls and piers in the rest of the building are covered with white plaster, the fourth gallery has marble columns used for the doors; furthermore, the walls and the floor of the gallery are also covered with marble plates. This great care in decoration suggests that the fourth gallery might have had an official function, perhaps being used as a reception hall of some sort. First construction of this gallery, along with the third gallery, should have been completed during the last quarter of the first century or the first quarter of the second century, with major and minor alterations done after the earthquake in 177.

(i) Northern gateways (Fig. 13) The northeast and northwest gateways connect the third gallery of the cryptoporticus to the North Street and, through a doorway, to the fourth gallery. While the northeast gateway has four doors leading to the third gallery, the northwest gateway has only one large doorway. Both gateways are covered with arches and also sport a central arch for the opening to the North Street. While they are far from well defined, both gateways have traces of a stairway; both of these lead up to the ground floor of the Basilica, with only traces of a stairway connecting the cryptoporticus to the ground floor of the Basilica. Both stairways are part of the construction phase dated to right after the earthquake of 177. (1f) Northern rooms The fourth gallery has five rooms on both eastern and western ends of the building, with the fourth gallery between them. Only two of these rooms have a door each leading to the third gallery, while the other eight only open to the northern side of the building, to a North Street passing through here. Because these rooms have been used continuously, some until as late as the twentieth century, as basements for modern houses, finds inside are very limited and give few clues to the nature of these rooms, but this arrangement suggests that these rooms were used as shops serving the northern area of the agora. These rooms are also part of the construction phase dated to right after the earthquake of 177. 2. Ground Floor The ground floor of the Basilica consists of three naves: a wider main hall and two side aisles, with a tribunal on the western end of the main hall. The building opens to the courtyard with a façade of 50 columns with 2.6 m intercolumnia (Fig. 14). In the middle of the façade a propylon (Fig. 15) with four projecting columns adds emphasis to the building. This southern façade has

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Figure 14. South façade.

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Figure 15. South façade, detail of propylon.

two stories: a first story with composite capitals and the second story with Corinthian capitals. The façade sports a dedication inscription (Petzl 1982–1990: no. 628; wrongly attributed to the West Stoa previously; this architrave is 2.6 m. long, while the West Stoa has an intercolumniation of 2.5 m.), dated to right after 178, naming the Nemeses and other deities. The main hall is surrounded on three sides by piers and arches between these columns, and at the western end of the hall a tribunal dominates the main hall. The southern aisle opens to the courtyard, and the northern aisle is decorated with niches on the walls. The eastern end of the main hall is obstructed with two piers, and beyond those there should be another entrance hall opening to a street to the east of the building; but no excavations have yet been made here under the modern road. Most of the remains seen today date to right after the earthquake in 177, with some alterations carried out at later dates. (2a) Tribunal The tribunal covers the width of the main hall and dominates the whole first floor of the building. Sitting on top of elevated arches in the western gallery (Fig. 16), the tribunal is elevated above the rest of the main hall, and two piers in front of the tribunal are omitted so that it has an unobstructed view of the interior of the building, and vice versa.

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Figure 16. Substructure for tribunal.

The tribunal is defined by two piers on its corners, and there are traces of stairs on both sides of the tribunal to access the raised area. There might have been a room on each side of the tribunal in the side aisles, but no tangible evidence of these rooms has been found so far, for these areas were used extensively in late antiquity. Raised arches of the substructure and the tribunal itself were added to the building right after the earthquake of 177. (2b) Main hall The main hall of the first floor measures 150 m by 12.40 m and is surrounded by piers supporting the second story façade. These piers have an intercolumniation of 5.20 m, double that of the

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south façade, following the tradition of Hellenistic stoas, and are connected by arches resting on smaller piers on both sides of these main piers. These main piers are adorned by two different capitals on different levels: Corinthian capitals face the main hall, and smaller Ionic capitals face the side aisles on a lower level, where an L-shaped profile can be seen on the piers. A unique feature of the building is present here; a frieze has been placed alongside the Corinthian capitals in the first story (Fig. 6). On the second story of the central façade, rectangular piers with smaller square piers in between are used. These are adorned by Corinthian capitals. Intercolumniation for these piers is half of that of the first story, or 2.60 m. Arches between the piers in the first story are placed to support this second story with smaller intercolumnia. Between these piers 1.25 m high parapets, and in some places higher ones, must have been placed. Reddish conglomerate for the columns and white marble for the entablature were used in both stories. (2c) Side aisles The southern aisle, with a width of 5.60 m, opens to the courtyard of the agora with three krepides and the southern façade. Corner columns connect this façade to the East and West Stoas, but how exactly this was implemented is yet unknown, because there has not yet been enough research on the eastern and western stoas. A propylon with four projecting columns is placed in the middle of the façade to further emphasize the Basilica. In the northern aisle, no traces of windows have been found, but there are semicircular niches, which must have been used to hold various sculptures. Along with the floor of the Basilica, the northern wall was also covered with marble slabs; there are many traces of these marble plates on the floor and on the walls of the building. There is adequate evidence for the existence of galleries over the side aisles. These galleries probably allowed unrestricted views into the courtyard but not into the main hall. The second story to the south serves as a balcony for the courtyard while at the same time making the building have a two-story façade to the courtyard. Another side aisle to the north probably allowed a view to the northern part of the Agora. (2d) Eastern entrance Beyond the piers surrounding the main hall to the east there must have been another entrance opening to a street running east of the building. A smaller hall measuring 29 m by 5 m should be found here, but no excavations have been made in this area yet, because of its location under the modern road. (2e) Clerestory Over the main hall in the center of the building we would expect there to have been a clerestory. The only finds related to this part of the building so far have been a few corner piers, smaller than the ones on the first or second story of the building due to their sizes. This clerestory probably had a wall just about 4 m high, with windows to allow light into the building. This part of the building was added right after the earthquake of 177.

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Dating of the building With the relocation of the city of Smyrna, the Agora was probably one of the first architectural projects to be undertaken, for it would need a large area in the center of the city. Small finds dating to the fourth century BCE have been found during the excavations (Ersoy 2008: 35–6) in the Agora, but the in-situ architectural finds date to the second century BCE at the earliest; these are the southern terrace wall and the western wall of the first two galleries of the Basilica, along with the western wall of the basement of the Western Stoa, with two doors built in. Construction Phases of the Basilica Traces of the first construction phase in the Agora Two architectural blocks (part of a column and entablature) have been found during excavations in the agora (Taşlıalan et al. 2005: 399–402). These blocks can be dated to the third and second centuries BCE, but it has not yet been possible to attribute them to a building. Phase 1 The southern terrace wall of the Basilica, the western wall of the first two galleries, along with the western wall of the basement of the Western Stoa with two doors built in, are the earliest in-situ architectural finds in the agora. These finds suggest that both buildings were smaller and there was a street running through the western gallery of the Basilica and the third gallery of the Western Stoa in the Hellenistic Period. Traces of a foundation of a wall have been found all along the second gallery of the Basilica basement, right in front of the wall separating it from the third gallery. On the northwest corner of this wall, where it meets the wall of the Western Gallery, alternating stone blocks have been taken off the wall in accordance with the foundation of the wall here. This suggests that the Basilica had two galleries at the basement level at this stage. As the Western Stoa also has two galleries, it is thought that these two buildings were first used as stoas surrounding the courtyard. This construction phase cannot be firmly dated, but the construction technique suggests a date in the second century BCE. Phase 2 The second construction phase of the Basilica was a major construction phase, where the building was widened to four galleries by adding the third and fourth galleries to the north of the existing two-gallery stoa. The building was widened, but it was probably a one-story building at this point. While there is no firm evidence for the dating of this phase, in an inscription (Petzl 1982–1990: 697) dating to right after 124 CE the word “basilica” is used for the building, suggesting a major change from the previous stoa. We can therefore suggest that this construction phase had been mostly completed before the date of this inscription, possibly during the last quarter of first century or the first quarter of the second century CE. Phase 2A During this phase, 63 rooms were built in the third gallery of the basement. These small rooms were placed on both sides of the gallery, leaving a narrow passageway of about 1.15 m in the

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Figure 17. Brick vaults.

middle. Because this gallery was used extensively until late antiquity, no firm date for the construction of these rooms can be determined; but because they must have been built after the construction of two additional galleries in the cryptoporticus, these rooms could be dated as early as the beginning of the second century, if we consider the finds in these rooms as in-situ (Ersoy et al. 2012: 114). On the other hand, the construction technique of the walls, mainly rubble and some spolia, might suggest a construction date after the earthquake in 177. Further study and possible finds should reveal more about the dating of these rooms. Phase 2B During this phase the western gallery of the building was built. Since the wall with the arches built in it rests on the whole width of the western wall of the Basilica, the western gallery must have been added after the two additional galleries in the cryptoporticus. There is no firm evidence for the dating of this construction phase either, but it must have been between Phase 2 and Phase 3 and possibly during the second quarter of the second century. Phase 3 In the year 177 a major earthquake hit Smyrna, destroying most of the city. We know from the letters of Aelius Aristides that reconstruction work in the city had already been started in the year 178 and was almost completed in March, 179 (Behr 1981: 14, n. 1). Traces of this hasty construction can be seen everywhere in the Basilica and the Agora; crooked arches, usage of

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spolia, especially seats from another building reused in the walls, and the general lack of neatness in the construction. Archaeological finds also verify this date; a dedication inscription on the architrave (Petzl 1982–1990: no. 628) and the capitals of the building (Cavalier 2012b) are the main evidence for this construction phase. The Basilica took its final form during this construction phase: three naves in the first floor, with a tribunal at the west end, and a building with two stories and a clerestory. Piers and arches in the cryptoporticus of the building were also added during this phase to support the bigger and higher building. Phase 3A During this phase, limestone slabs in part of the second gallery ceiling were replaced with shallow brick vaults (Fig. 17). There must have been some destruction in this part of the building, but we have no concrete evidence for this destruction or why brick vaults were placed here instead of limestone slabs. Similar brick vault examples in Asia Minor (Lancaster 2009: 371–91) are dated to the last quarter of the second century or beginning of the third century, so we can assume these brick vaults also date to the same period, i.e., some time in the third century. Phase 3B The latest recognizable construction phase in the Basilica can be dated to Late Antiquity. An inscription in honor of a judge named Damokharis has been found during the excavations in the Agora; this acknowledges his help for “rebuilding the city” after an earthquake. This inscription could be related to this construction phase (Yolaçan and Şakar 2008: 74) but subsequent work makes this appear unlikely (for discussion on the dating of the inscription see Cameron and Cameron 1966: 11, McCail 1969: 89). Supporting masses for the piers in the cryptoporticus (Fig. 5) presumably were built during this phase, as they contain spolia and are in accordance with the architectural style of this period. At the beginning of the seventh century, the Agora Basilica was abandoned along with the Agora itself and surrounding buildings. The courtyard of the Agora was used as a cemetery starting with the Byzantine Period and throughout the Ottoman Period.

General characteristics of the graffiti (Roger Bagnall) An enormous growth in the study of graffiti in the past fifteen years has brought to life this once-neglected corner of ancient (and not only ancient) writing.2 A general definition of graffiti has proven elusive, and it is not essential to provide one here. Our priority, rather, is to 2. Langner 2001 was a foundational text. See Baird and Taylor 2011 for a collection of illustrative articles, and the introduction to Milnor 2014 for discussion of important theoretical issues; her book has an extensive bibliography mainly concerning the western Roman sphere. A conference called “Scribbling through History” (Oxford, 23–25 September 2013), organized by Chloé Ragazzoli, was helpful in giving me a broader sense of the state of these studies across a wide swath of time and space.

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bring the Smyrna graffiti fully into this larger discussion by making them available with as full a documentation as possible. But it is worthwhile to treat briefly a few of the key characteristics that generally figure in discussions of the category as a whole, particularly the character of the places in which they were written, the nature of the texts themselves, and the people who inscribed them. It should be said that we have used the term “graffiti” here to denote both inscriptions incised in plaster (or stone), the traditional narrower definition, and those written with pen or brush, often referred to as dipinti. We do, however, indicate the method of inscription for each text and drawing. Graffiti were written in both public and private spaces. Because of its unique state of preservation, Pompeii is by far the best environment in which to examine the mix of locations. These have sometimes been misconstrued by scholars discussing the texts, and one of the most interesting aspects of Milnor (2014) is her detailed examination of individual graffiti in their actual placement, which is not always so neatly divided between these two broad categories.3 The Basilica basement in Smyrna was clearly public space, in that it was readily accessible from the north by a corridor through the row of apparent shops opening in that direction. The public could pass through on their way to the spring that we shall argue was a source of healing as well as of water for daily use. How much light was present in the naves that house the graffiti is less evident, and much of the illumination may have been artificial.4 “Public” thus may not mean “highly visible” in this case, and distinguishing between communication and self-expression as purposes is perhaps impossible or illusory in such a case. Some of the graffiti clearly presuppose an intended reader, at any rate. As to the contents, some of the graffiti are simply not intelligible to us. This is not an unusual situation.5 Some may, even at the time of writing, have been inscrutable to all but the writer, or perhaps a particular intended reader. Still more have been sufficiently damaged by fading, the falling off of plaster, or the ill-advised cleaning of 2003 that we cannot now make out their meaning, even if it may have been clear originally. The remainder fall into a number of categories familiar from Pompeii and other sites with similar texts. Some is crudely sexual, both visual and verbal, with drawings of phalli common and a number of sexual threats or insults expressed in words. There are also several inscriptions expressing love for a woman whose name is not given but instead expressed in an isopsephism (see below). Gladiators, venatores, and games also figure extensively, but far less in this category is verbal than pictorial.6 Still more are the ubiquitous ships represented in drawing; hardly anything of the writing is identifiably connected to the vessels. Word games of two types are also well represented, and almost by definition these have no counterparts in the drawings. One is the word square, in this case an otherwise unattested five-letter Greek square; the other is the riddle, ζήτημα. The latter are abundant but never preserved fully enough that we can understand them completely. 3. On public space see in particular her remarks on pp. 39–40, 53, and 274. 4. See Bagnall 2011: 24–25 on this question. 5. See the remarks of Milnor 2014: 33 and 277. 6. Verbal graffiti relevant to the games are (including uncertain cases) T12.5, T12.6, T22.3, T25.4, and T25.5.

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Several graffiti refer to eyes; the longer of these make it clear that it is the healing of eyes that is the concern. These express in some cases thanks to “the Baite” (see below, pp. 44–45), and in one case say that the individual healed dedicated lamps in thanksgiving. A number of graffiti are civic, in the sense that they express pride in civic status; these are not all the work of locals, however, and the plaster seems to have served as a competition ground for not only Smyrnaeans but Ephesians, Sardians, and Trallians. The identity of the writers of graffiti has been a perennial object of debate.7 Should we imagine that a small group of the well-off literate is responsible for most of our texts, or that broader social strata are responsible for the range of quality of writing that we find? The one garbled apparent quotation from Euripides (T29.1) does not come close to even the literary culture visible in the Pompeian corpus. It is, however, probably the work of a woman (or, less probably in our view, someone adopting the persona of a woman) and as such remarkable (see notes to the text for more detailed discussion). And some of the orthographic errors in the texts are reminiscent of the middling standard of many of the letters found in the papyri of Roman Egypt. Some of the hands, however, are fluent and well-formed, which is no mean achievement writing on a vertical surface not well suited to the use of pen or brush. By definition, the writers are from families capable of affording some level of education, and probably from a fairly wide range within that population.

The Pictorial Graffiti8 (Roberta Casagrande-Kim) The study of pictorial graffiti has been traditionally treated as ancillary to the investigation of the verbal inscriptions: in most instances incised or painted scenes have been studied separately from written texts, when not neglected altogether.9 This phenomenon is in part explained by the interests of the scholars publishing them—mostly philologists, whose primary focus was not the iconographic aspects of ancient graffiti—as well as by the generally poor state of preservation of the graffiti. Until recently, art historians and archaeologists have also been reluctant to embark on the study of these depictions. The former have been deterred by the images’ poor artistry and execution, while the latter have often been confronted with scattered and inadequate documentation. Indeed, the incomplete corpora of pictorial graffiti generated from older excavations, for example at Pompeii, often remain the only available data, as undocumented graffiti have in the interim disappeared or are still awaiting exhaustive and systematic cataloguing. 7. See briefly Bagnall 2011: 23–26; this is a major theme of Milnor 2014. 8. I would like to thank Roger Bagnall for his invitation to be part of the publishing team and, most importantly, all the scholars, photographers, and draftsmen that have been involved in the project for their invaluable work in the field. 9. Collective studies, such as the one originating from a specialized workshop at the University of Leicester in 2008, are promoting new approaches to the study of ancient graffiti, written and pictorial alike. See Baird and Taylor 2010.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

Figure 18. Plan of the Basilica’s underground corridor with location and density of pictorial graffiti.

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In the Basilica of Smyrna, the 155 extant pictorial graffiti were painted or incised on the walls and piers of the underground northern cryptoporticus. The highly uneven state of preservation of the plaster and the complex history of its restoration make it impossible to determine the relationship of this number to the original corpus of images that covered these walls.10 Additionally, the difficulty in assessing the amount of data lost brings into question the representativeness of the remaining graffiti. Is the current large predominance of gladiatorial scenes, for example, due to their fortuitous survival, or did this iconographic motif stand out conspicuously even when the walls of the corridor were still in use? Finally, when assessing the current distribution of the images in space one needs to be cognizant of where the potentially lost images could have been located, both in the cryptoporticus and elsewhere in the Basilica complex. The surviving graffiti are visible today primarily along the northern wall of the second gallery and on the piers dividing the first gallery from the second one (plan, Fig. 18). Only one example was found at the western end of the cryptoporticus (DP60.1) and two graffiti were observed along the southern perimeter wall (DS14.1 and DP155.1). There were no graffiti in the northernmost gallery, a circumstance that can be explained by the fact that this gallery’s walls were entirely covered in marble slabs, while it is uncertain if texts or images were drawn in the third gallery and did not survive. Archaeologists have identified the 63 small rooms partitioning this gallery as small shops, though at present this attribution remains uncertain, since only two of the rooms have been fully investigated. If this hypothesis is confirmed, it is plausible that the back walls of these shops were not accessible to the occasional passerby, and thus they were rarely or never inscribed or incised with either messages or figures. It is difficult to speculate on the presence of additional graffiti within other parts of the Basilica. For instance, one could argue for the existence of other graffiti on the Basilica’s upper floors, especially along the perimeter walls of the second-floor side naves. Their presence would suggest that the upper floors were accessible to the public and that these walls, rather than being treated as “official” and inviolable spaces, could be used as potential canvasses for the passerby to scribble away. The lack of evidence makes it impossible to reach any conclusion on this issue. As for the cryptoporticus itself, this was certainly not a politically charged space. However, the authors of Smyrna’s graffiti did not choose its walls in an attempt to hide potentially illicit or even criminal activity, as a modern observer might expect when dealing with drawings tucked away in an underground space.11 On the contrary, the very nature of this bustling corridor made it into a public space ideal for congregating, its walls thus constituting a primary venue where one could openly display extemporaneous messages as well as more complex scenes depicting widely popular motifs, such as the group of gladiatorial dipinti in Bay 28. In fact, the images and texts on the bays and piers of the cryptoporticus were accessible on a daily basis to a very diverse audience of citizens, which used the corridor to move within the Basilica or the Agora. 10. A preliminary study of the condition of the plaster and a report on the conservation appear in Yeşil 2006. 11. A discussion of the concepts of criminality in ancient graffiti production can be found in Milnor 2014: 40–41.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

a

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b

Figure 19. Statistics on the techniques (a) and iconographic subjects (b) of the pictorial graffiti.

Roughly two-thirds (117 out of 155) of the surviving pictorial graffiti in the cryptoporticus were painted in black—a few show some red detailing or highlights—and are referred to in this catalogue as “dipinti” (plan, Fig. 18). The dipinti were drawn directly on a cream-colored layer of plaster with the help of a brush or stylus that allowed for a wide variety of strokes: some are deliberately broad and thick, while others are very fine and precise. The black color was obtained from charcoal or from soot of burned fat, oil, or resin, while the red accents were possibly made out of pounded brick dust mixed in with a binder. The remaining one-third of the graffiti were incised onto dry plaster. This percentage is interestingly very low when compared with the corpora of graffiti found at other ancient sites, where incised graffiti usually constitute the vast majority, and dipinti are generally rare. But this difference may be a product only of the conditions of preservation at the different sites. In the cryptoporticus at Smyrna, the painted dipinti are predominantly located along the back wall of the second gallery. None of the incised graffiti are visible on this wall: they are situated mainly on the piers dividing gallery one from gallery two.12 Even the ten graffiti visible along the northern wall of gallery two were incised on either the east or the south face of the piers, while none is on the back wall of a bay. One explanation for this rather consistent spatial separation between graffiti and dipinti can possibly be found in the plaster sequence observable at the south face of Pier 43, dividing Bay 31 from Bay 32. On this pillar, the graffito of two ships (DP43.1) is incised on a layer of plaster that was later covered by a second layer, onto which was painted a palm branch (DP43.2). Though it is impossible to establish an absolute chronology for either of the two layers— apart from the 177 CE date suggested as a terminus post quem by Yolaçan for major repairs in the cryptoporticus—it is clear that, at least in this instance, the incised graffiti definitely predate the 12. These are: DP6.1, D10.1, D18.1, DP32.1, DP34.1, DP34.2, DP43.1, D34.1, DP54.1, and DP54.2.

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dipinti. Stylistic considerations on other graffiti seem to corroborate this hypothesis, suggesting that the entirety of incised graffiti are pertinent to a layer of plaster that was concealed during a later phase of replastering of the corridor, or at least of parts of it. Indeed, I have been unable to recognize the second layer of plaster on the freestanding piers of the corridor. Although it is not completely impossible that this later layer of plaster simply did not survive on the piers, the fact that pictorial graffiti and dipinti appear concomitantly exclusively on Piers 71, 73, 74, 84, and 100 and not in any of the bays makes it highly improbable. Thus, one has to conclude that the piers were never replastered, and that the dipinti on those piers were painted at a later date onto the same plaster previously incised with the graffiti.13 Looking at the corpus as a whole, graffiti such as the temple façade on Pier 109 (DP109.1) suggest that the earliest images can be dated to the last decades of the second century or very beginning of the third century. Consequently, the earliest phase in graffiti making must have started immediately after the basilica was restored following the 177 earthquake (phase 3A in Yolaçan’s dating). The latest dipinto portraying a male official (D19.2) can be dated as late as the fourth or even the first half of the fifth century, possibly belonging to Yolaçan’s phase 3B. As the dating of the images relies primarily on iconographic and stylistic considerations, it is impossible to reconstruct a definite sequence in the formation of the corpus. At present, keeping in mind the distinction between graffiti and dipinti discussed above, I would argue that the incised graffiti were produced in the last two decades of the second and the very beginning of the third century. The bulk of the dipinti can instead be dated within the third century, most of them completed within the first half of the century. Only two graffiti can be surely dated to the later period (i.e., late fourth, early fifth century), namely D19.2 and D1.3—though it is not to be excluded altogether that some other images were painted at this later stage, imitating stylistic elements from earlier dipinti still visible on the walls. In terms of the positioning of the images on the bays and the piers, apart from the notable exception of three heads painted high up on the north vault that sprang from Pier 104 (DP104.1), all were drawn or incised in areas that were easily accessible. On the back walls of the bays, the dipinti are either clustered along the middle of the wall or at its higher register. The top of this wall was reachable in antiquity: in fact, the back wall of each bay was transformed into a sort of large niche by building a raised step, 50 to 60 cm tall and resting on floor level, that abutted both the wall and the piers flanking the bays. A few of these steps are still extant, one of the best-preserved examples being in Bay 16. In the other bays the evidence for the steps’ existence rests on the abrupt interruption of the plaster at the height where the steps abutted the wall, proving that the plaster was smeared on after these structures had already been built in place. On the piers, the graffiti and the few dipinti are consistently located between 50 and 160 cm from the floor level, thus at a height that neither required the use of props nor demanded that the authors crouch too low.14 13. Dipinti DP71.1, DP73.2, DP74.2, DP74.3, DP84.1, DP84.5, and DP100.4. 14. Cf. the situation in the South Stoa at Corinth, described by Broneer 1954: 101: “It would be virtually impossible for even a very tall person standing on the floor to write on the wall at that level [ca. 2.5 m above floor level],

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Despite the fact that most of the pictorial graffiti are, especially on the back walls of the bays, painted next to written texts, it is generally very difficult to identify a possible relation between texts and images. Very few are the instances where there is a certain correlation between the two—the dipinto of Koe (D29.4, see below) being the most notable example. Consequently, at present it remains difficult, if not downright impossible, either to establish common authorship or to recognize an image and a text as the result of a deliberate group effort. However, the possibility that writing and drawing went on concomitantly but without any attempt to create a coherent ensemble is not far fetched. In her study of the written and pictorial graffiti of the house of Maius Castricius in Pompeii, Rebecca Benefiel has noticed a similar occurrence. There, the relation between written and figural graffiti is primarily spatial—they all tend to concentrate in clusters—rather than based on content.15 What is unique at Smyrna is the unparalleled ratio between figural and written graffiti. Indeed, whereas at Pompeii Langner has calculated a ratio between images and text of 1:4 for outdoor spaces, at Smyrna the ratio is very close to 1:1 (155 images and 170 texts).16 Even when taking into consideration a margin of error due to plaster detachments or ink discoloration, it seems plausible that the visual component of the graffiti was purposely meant to be preponderant in the cryptoporticus. Whether this was caused by issues of literacy of the authors or the audience or by a general preference for decorative motifs remains to be understood. One of most fascinating and certainly the most challenging aspect in the study of this very eclectic corpus of images is the issue of authorship. Were the graffiti and dipinti of Smyrna the voice of ordinary citizens, local individuals whose pictures were meant to express immediacy and intimacy, as Kristina Milnor argues for many of the graffiti in Pompeii?17 Are any of them good indicators of the authors’ social status or of their intent at authorial identity or self-representation?18 Finally, are they to be understood as extemporaneous and spontaneous acts on the part of anonymous passersby or rather as the result of a concerted effort between a patron—or a group of patrons—and an artist? As J. A. Baird and Claire Taylor recently pointed out, the study of graffiti has been historically influenced by the perception of contemporary graffiti to a point where they have been generally interpreted as products made by and meant for less educated, even vulgar, social groups.19 More recent scholarship has tried to overcome this stereotype by emphasizing the social and political value of the vastly heterogeneous ancient visual or textual messages, and by focusing on contextualizing each graffito within the larger corpus of which it was part. At Smyrna, it is possible to discern different hands at play, distinguishable primarily by their very diverse artistic renditions. Some images are schematic, even rushed, like the “stick figure” that probably constituted the portrait—or self-portrait?—of Koe in Bay 29 (D29.4). Others are complex scenes characterized by a distinctive artistic sensibility but if a stone bench, ca. 0.45 m high, was conveniently located close to the wall, it would be quite easy to reach that height by standing on the bench.” 15. Benefiel 2010, esp. 76–81. 16. Langner 2001: 22–23. 17. Milnor 2004: 54. 18. Milnor 2004: 137–90. 19. See Baird and Taylor 2010: 2 ff.

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and advanced pictorial techniques, such as the duels among provocatores in Bay 28 (D28.3 and D28.6). Finally, the degree of detailing in many of the dipinti portraying ancient ships (D.5.1, D.6.1, and D28.1 are among the most successful) implies a certain technical knowledge on the part of the author that is expressed in the attention, not always accompanied by artistic expertise, to specific and distinctive nautical elements. Immediacy, artistry, and knowledge seem thus to constitute useful discriminants in understanding the different modalities that might have affected the realization of each graffito. However, these categories can ultimately reveal only one aspect in the complex history of the images’ production. For example, Koe or his portraitist, neither a painter nor a talented amateur, surely drew the image rapidly while on the way in or out of the basilica. However, even the “stick figure” rendition of his persona still required a certain amount of planning. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine that the author happened to walk around with stylus (or brush) and ink unless either he had already decided to leave his mark on the cryptoporticus’ walls, or he belonged to a class of individuals that was used to carrying writing implements to discharge daily affairs or jobs. Ultimately, whether Koe made his portrait or somebody else who was conducting business with or for him did it, the author did not identify himself with the “vulgar” groups that certainly were part of Smyrna’s social fabric. Therefore, poor artistic rendition did not necessarily indicate lower social status or lack of interest in authorial identity. All artistically advanced dipinti in the corpus denote a clear intent on the part of their authors. The absence of preliminary drawings in sinopia or sketched grid lines even in the more elaborate dipinti does not detract from the fact that only an artist or a trained amateur could have composed them. In the specific case of Bay 28 and its complex iconography of gladiatorial combat scenes, one can also recognize the attempt to complement each dipinto to create an overarching theme for the bay. These pictures were made by different individuals, probably over a relatively short time span. Though it is impossible to provide an absolute chronology for this bay, it is reasonable to argue that the complete decoration of the back wall was not the result of a single event and that the accumulation of all dipinti must have been quite rapid. The combination of all images dealing with different fights, primarily but not exclusively among provocatores, transformed the bay into a visual memento of the games. The back wall and the piers with their decorations recreated the very space of the fighting arena, with the spectators on the pier looking at the various fights taking place on the back wall (see dipinto D28.8). Therefore, the dipinti were not the result of an extemporaneous act of a very dedicated fan, but rather a conscious creation of different individuals who came back time and again to the same bay to add new and pertinent images to the already existing repertoire. The same level of artistic training is recognizable in some of the graffiti. The tool marks visible in the incised circles and rosettes (see DP32.1, DP81.1, DP81.2, and DP93.1) unequivocally demonstrate the use of a compass, a tool that one would not bring along if just passing by the cryptoporticus on the way for daily errands. These rosettes attest to the author’s underlying intent at decoration and to his commitment of time and resources, proving that even these less impressive graffiti cannot be dismissed as rushed or impromptu episodes. Ultimately, the elementary portraits in the Smyrna corpus, the pictorial duel scenes, the large-scale ships,

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or the small-sized rosettes, though all unofficial pictures, are not necessarily the result of an act of spontaneity. As Angelos Chaniotis has convincingly argued in his study of graffiti from ancient Aphrodisias, most of these images were planned in advance to fulfill certain needs and were made with the consent of the individuals or institutions—in the case of Bay 28 at Smyrna maybe a gladiatorial familia—that owned the surface onto which the drawings were made or that (in the Smyrnaean case) had an invested interest in promoting their images in such a public venue.20 To return to our question of authorship, it is thus reasonable to suggest that the dipinti and graffiti at Smyrna were created by professionals who utilized writing or drawing implements on a regular basis. In the instance of less sophisticated dipinti, like the stick figures, one could argue that scribes or literate passers-by might have drawn them to visually reinforce a written graffito or to leave a pictorial evidence of their passage, the meaning of which, lost to the modern reader, might have been clear to the ancient audience. The dipinti of ships, which involved a certain familiarity with marine engineering or at least an empirical knowledge of seafaring (see below), could instead have been made by individuals involved in mercantile business, merchants or accountants needing writing implements to keep track of shipping loads and in charge of bookkeeping. Considering the vicinity of the main harbor to the Agora, it is not inconceivable that these people could have used the Basilica and the underground corridor as an impromptu place of business. While dipinti by scribes or merchants did not necessarily originate from a specific commission, gladiatorial scenes, especially those on Bay 28, seem to be part of a concerted effort to publicize or record specific fights or gladiators (see below). Thus, these dipinti were executed by trained artists who did not find themselves in the corridor on their way to work, as a scribe might have, or to conduct business, like the merchants or ship owners. Rather, they were specifically called to the corridor to fulfill a commission, their drawing implements intentionally and specifically being brought along to complete a job that involved compensation. To conclude this introduction to the corpus of images at Smyrna, I will briefly present the two most common themes depicted on the walls and piers of the cryptoporticus: images of ships (plan, Fig. 21) and of gladiators (plan, Fig. 22). If we look at the surviving graffiti (general plan, Fig. 20), these two categories largely outweigh the remaining depictions that can be divided, in order of relevance, into geometric or nonfigural motifs (plan, Fig. 23), portraits of individuals (plan, Fig. 24), phalli (plan, Fig. 25), animals (plan, Fig. 26), and architecture (plan, Fig. 27).21 This predominance is not by any means unique to Smyrna; rather, it is generally consistent with the tradition of pictorial graffiti from other late imperial cities. What is unique from this site is the predominance of dipinti over graffiti, the imposing size of some of the scenes—the largest ships, for example, occupy the whole width of the bays—and the high level of artistry visible in the more complex representations. Of the 48 images of ships in the cryptoporticus, 32 are dipinti, 15 are graffiti, and one is a combination of an incised hull and painted sails (DP84.2) (plan, Fig. 21). The dipinti are pre20. Chaniotis 2010: 191–207, esp. 194. 21. At present, five pictorial graffiti remain without a conclusive interpretation.

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Figure 20. Plan of the Basilica’s underground corridor with location of painted and incised pictorial graffiti.

Figure 21. Plan of the Basilica’s underground corridor with location of pictorial graffiti depicting ships.

dominantly located on the back walls of the bays, with notable concentrations at Bays 14 and 15.22 Conversely, the graffiti are, as noted above, found almost exclusively on the piers dividing gallery one from gallery two, with a group of four incised vessels at Pier 112, at the eastern end of the cryptoporticus.23 Apart from a small number of ship graffiti depicting elongated boats 22. Two dipinti of ships are the only remaining decorations at the southern perimeter wall of the cyptoporticus (D14.p1 and DP155.1). Only three dipinti are on the piers that divide the galleries, either on their eastern or western faces (DP94.2, DP100.4, and DP101.1). 23. Notable exceptions are graffito DP34.2, between Bays 22 and 23, on the south face of the pier, and DP43.1, between Bays 31 and 32, also on the south face of the pier. None of the graffiti are on the back walls of the bays.

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Figure 22. Plan of the Basilica’s underground corridor with location of pictorial graffiti depicting gladiators.

with very thin hulls, which do not seem to imitate any actual vessels, the remaining images are clear reproductions, more or less successful, of known types.24 The best part of the dipinti and graffiti depict sea-going traders: few are recognizable as medium-sized cargo ships, while the majority are small, local trading vessels, small cargo vessels, and fishing boats for coastal seafaring. The small cargo vessels present a generally flat profile and rounded hulls, an overall shape that is very similar to the one reconstructed from excavated shipwrecks of the Byzantine period, more notably the vessels found at Yenikapi, Istanbul.25 These ships were built with the mast placed forward the amidships and with lateen sails functioning with a fore-and-aft rig that allowed setting the sail along the line of the keel. Some of the graffiti depicting cargo vessels are notable in that the hulls are exaggeratedly rounded, probably to imitate cargo vessels, the modified hulls of which allowed for greater loading capacity to accommodate large loads of goods such as amphorae or heavy construction materials. Apart from actual shipwrecks, we have evidence of the existence of similarly shaped corbitae from sarcophagi and gravestones, and from mosaics, the most detailed of which is the late second–third century mosaic found in the frigidarium of the House of the Muses at Althiburus in Tunisia.26 Only two of the graffiti in 24. Graffiti DP43.1, DP78.1, DP78.3, DP85.1, DP102.1, DP112.3. Though there is no clear identification for this vessel type, detailed comparisons in contemporary graffiti from other sites suggest that the Smyrna images do not form a unique case. See, for example, the similar graffito incised on a brick now on display at the museum of Tipasa (Algeria): Pekári 1999: Cat. # DZ-14, p. 54. 25. A study of these vessels and their loads can be found in Kocabaş 2012. A full description of the different merchant galleys during the Roman period appears in Casson 1971: 57–168. More recently, see Pomey, ed. 1997: 76–86. See also Morrison 1980: 51–58. A catalogue of the representations of oneraria on ceramic vessels, coins, mosaics and frescoes of the Imperial period appears in Ericsson 1984: 27–35. See also Avilia 2002: 137–59. 26. See, for example, the front of a sarcophagus from the necropolis at Istanbul, district of Çemberlitaş: Pfuhl and Möbius 1977: Vol. 1, no. 218, pp. 101–2, dated tentatively to the first century CE but possibly later. The primary study of the vessels represented in the mosaic of Althiburus is still Duval 1949. A comprehensive catalogue of ships in ancient mosaics can be found in Friedman 2011.

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Figure 23. Plan of the Basilica’s underground corridor with location of pictorial graffiti with decorative motifs.

Figure 24. Plan of the Basilica’s underground corridor with location of pictorial graffiti depicting portraits.

Smyrna clearly depict warships (D6.1 and DP100.1), to be interpreted either as liburnian galleys or dromons—small-sized military ships used for raiding and patrolling—both constituting the primary vessels of the provincial Roman fleets. Their presence in Smyrna is certain, as indicated by the local third-century coinage with reverse types in the shape of ships’ bows with high and inward-curved acrostolia.27 As there are no shipwrecks of Late Roman military vessels, comparanda for these two graf27. See, for example, a third century bronze coin found in the 2008 excavation of the Altınpark, north of the Agora, with on the reverse a bow: Ersoy and Önder 2011: no. 52, p. 86.

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fiti are to be found in contemporary funerary art from the Mediterranean world.28 Additionally, the main iconographic elements in the Smyrna graffiti of both merchant vessels, naves onerariae or corbitae, and military liburnae (or naves longae) find detailed comparisons in other representations from several sites in modern-day Turkey, proving that these vessels circulated widely in the eastern Mediterranean provinces.29 The similarity in the Smyrna ship repertoire with excavated shipwrecks and other contemporary images suggests that the authors of the dipinti and graffiti had direct knowledge or access to similar types of vessels. The rather rudimentary artistic rendition of most of the Smyrna images rules out the possibility that they could have been made by trained artists inspired by ships moored in the harbor that was located in the vicinity of the Agora. On the other hand, the attention to technical details such as the shape of the hulls, the positioning of masts, yards, and rudders, the indication of decks, parapets or sidescreens, and the correct orientation of sails and riggings, all suggest that the authors had close familiarity with the represented vessels. Thus, the larger vessels could have been painted by merchants, in an attempt to boost their persona or even to publicize their business, while smaller graffiti could have been incised by passing sailors or soldiers stationed in the city. The 31 images of gladiators, combat scenes, or venationes are predominantly in the form of dipinti, with only two incised graffiti. The dipinti are almost exclusively located along the back walls of the bays, with a significant concentration in Bay 28 and Bay 29 (plan, Fig. 22). On the basis of the repertoires assembled by Michael Grant, Hazel Dodge, and Marcus Junkelmann,30 I was able to identify eighteen provocatores,31 two secutores,32 two thraeces,33 two equites,34 one murmillo,35 one retiarius,36 one hoplomachus,37 one arbelas,38 and three scenes of venatio.39 The evident prevalence of provocatores, which is paralleled in funerary reliefs from the city’s necropoleis, seems to confirm a preference for this class of gladiator, certainly in Smyrna and 28. A study of the liburnians in Roman representations of the first and second century CE is found in Morrison 1996: 231–54; see pp. 255–6 for a description of the sidescreens in this type of military vessels. See also Casson 1971: 141–7. For a discussion of the dromon see Casson 1971: 148–53. A very close representation of a military vessel’s prow appears on a gravestone from Panderma dated to the late second century CE: Pfuhl and Möbius 1977: Vol. 1, no. 283, p. 113. 29. See, as an example, the catalogue of images in Pekári 1999 (the complete catalogue of graffiti from Turkey at pp. 372–81). 30. Grant 1967: 58–63; Dodge 2011: 29–33; Junkelmann 2000. A recent study of Greek gladiators and the value of gladiatorial munus as a “cultural performance” in the eastern provinces is Carter 2009. The most complete study of funerary stelae of gladiators in Smyrna is still Robert 1940, nos. 225–50, pp. 202–13. For specific comparisons with selected graffiti of gladiators from the underground galleries of the Basilica of Smyrna, see the individual entries in the catalogue. 31. One provocator in D11.3, D15.6, D25.7, D28.7, D28.8, and D29.1; two provocatores fighting each other in D22.2, D28.3, and DP105.1; three provocatores involved in one combat in D28.5 and in D28.6. 32. D15.5 and D26.1. 33. D12.4 and DP74.2. 34. D28.2 and DP54.2. 35. D9.1. 36. D11.2. 37. DP96.1. 38. D1.2. The identification is based on the description of this category of gladiator, primarily his weapon of choice, in an article by Michael Carter, see catalogue entry. 39. D8.7, D29.2, and D29.8.

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Figure 25. Plan of the Basilica’s underground corridor with location of pictorial graffiti depicting phalli.

Figure 26. Plan of the Basilica’s underground corridor with location of pictorial graffiti depicting animals.

possibly in other cities located along the western coast of Asia Minor. Contrary to what is typical in gladiatorial graffiti from other ancient sites, where the images are accompanied by inscriptions providing the names of the gladiators and various details of the combats (i.e., the winner, his rank, basic comments on the fight, etc.), no messages, either in the form of labels or as informal comments by fans or detractors, are visible next to the images.40 While it is possible that some of the texts discolored over time, the juxtaposition of multiple images without any evident trace of deletions or obliterations suggests that the images were not meant to be accompanied by a text. The location of gladiatorial dipinti within the Basilica should not come as a 40. Simply by browsing Maulucci Vivolo’s “premessa” to the first chapter (pp. 9–22) of his book on the graffiti from Pompeii one realizes the wealth of inscriptions commonly associated with gladiatorial graffiti: Maulucci Vivolo 1993. For similar evidence from other sites see Langner 2001.

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Figure 27. Plan of the Basilica’s underground corridor with location of pictorial graffiti depicting architectural buildings.

surprise, as they can be related to a temple for the cult of the two Nemeseis, whose existence at the south side of the Agora is clearly attested.41 Considering the relevance of this cult in the gladiatorial context, it is possible that individuals, possibly artists paid by the various gladiatorial familiae, marked the walls of the cryptoporticus on occasions of major victories that were being concomitantly celebrated in the nearby temple. This hypothesis is not far-fetched: in fact, though gladiatorial games were often performed to respond to civic or religious duties, the business of selling, renting, and transferring gladiatorial troupes created considerable financial revenues for the lanisti, as well as for the ἀρχιερεῖς and the procuratores ad familiam gladiatoriam.42 Thus, the maintenance of a flourishing business based on gladiatorial fights, a clearly profitable activity for both private and public speculators, very well justified the commissions to trained artists of dipinti to be on display in a public space as ways to gain visibility and maintain economic vitality. A similar setting for gladiatorial graffiti is observable at Aphrodisias, where images of gladiators and scenes of venationes are found at the northwest corner of the South Agora. These two sites attest to the use of agoras to celebrate local gladiators, their walls being used to express support and pride for the combats and becoming mementos for some of the most exceptional fights.43 What makes Smyrna an exceptional case study is the sheer size of the representations and the artistic skill involved in the composition of several of them. In fact, one could immediately realize the uniqueness of Smyrna’s repertoire when comparing it, for example, to the pictorial graffiti of gladiators from Pompeii. Renata Garraffoni and Pedro Funari have observed 41. For a discussion of the temple in relation to the graffiti see DP109.1. 42. For a study of the procuratores in the eastern Empire see Pflaum 1960, esp. the case of L. Didius Marinus (Vol. II, 765–9, no. 295), and the role of the procurator ludorum and of the procurator familiarum (801–2). The role of high priests in the trading of gladiatorial familiae is discussed in Ville 1981: 347. 43. Chaniotis 2009b: 201–15, esp. 208–9.

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Figure 28. Plan of the Basilica’s underground corridor with location of pictorial graffiti of uncertain subject.

that at Pompeii graffiti of gladiators are exclusively scratched—not painted—with a graphium by individuals or groups with no specific training, to create informal, immediate, and impulsive images of very small format.44 Even in one of the most famous scenes found in the region, a gladiatorial fight from the nearby site of Nola (CIL IV 10237), there is no trace of the evident artistic training that is characteristic of the painted scenes at Smyrna. I have previously stated that neither individual portraits nor large-sized images of vessels at Smyrna suggest the presence of artists in the cryptoporticus. On the contrary, the most complex dipinti of gladiators clearly point at the work of highly skilled and trained individuals with a keen sensibility for proportions and space composition. This apparent contradiction in fact confirms the highly heterogeneous nature of the whole corpus of images: each reflected the work and the interests of very different authors and patrons, ultimately mirroring the multifaceted society living in third-century Smyrna.

Dating the graffiti (Roger Bagnall) The sole explicit indication of a date in the textual graffiti, as far as we have read them, comes in T16.1, where a date to ἔτους σι, “in year 210,” can be read. (The sigma is secure, the iota somewhat less so.) In the first presentation of the graffiti, this date was taken to refer to the era of Sulla, beginning in 85/4 BCE, and thus to correspond to 125/6 CE. The alternative possibility, that the date referred to the era from the battle of Actium (year 1 = 31/30 BCE), was rejected on the grounds that (1) the province of Asia used the Sullan era, and (2) the date would then, if by the era of Actium, fall in 179/180, and thus follow the earthquake too closely. As the work of Burak Yolaçan has, since then, provided arguments that the plaster on which the graffiti are written postdates the earthquake and is part of the reconstruction after it, the question of the era needs a reconsideration, taking into account as well new readings in the graffiti since 2003. 44. Garraffoni and Funari. 2009: 185–94. The graffito from Nola is discussed at 188–9.

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The use of era years in the province of Asia is in fact rather more complicated than it might at first seem. In the first systematic treatment of the subject by Kaestner in 1890,45 we find an argument that there is no evidence for the use of the era of Actium in the province of Asia; in this Kaestner followed Boeckh and Letronne against Franz. Since Kaestner’s time, of course, a vast amount of new epigraphic material has been found, and the presence of the era of Actium in Asia is now undeniable.46 For example an inscription from Philadelpheia in Lydia is dated to year 200 τ[ῆς] Καίσαρος νείκης.47 W. Leschhorn, in his vast work on ancient eras, has shown the use of the era of Actium in Asia beyond all doubt.48 Moreover, a whole set of inscriptions containing dates to two eras, with a 54-year difference between them, has come to light.49 These clearly refer to the Sullan and Actian eras. But these and all of the rest of the evidence for the era of Actium, apart from the inscription of Philadelphia, come from era years 32–73, i.e., from the first three-quarters of the first century CE. Clear evidence for the era of Actium from the period between era years 73 and 200 is so far lacking. It is true that H. Malay suggested the possibility that SEG 57.1157, of year 92, might date to the era of Actium, on the basis of a possible origin in Sardis.50 But that does not extend the range very far. It is in fact difficult to identify any later Actian dates not explicitly so marked in the text itself. On the other hand, we have little evidence from many localities at later dates. This fact is not merely a matter of the general lack of evidence from some places, but of a high degree of localism in the use of era years. From most of Ionia, in fact, we have no era years at all, while in Lydia they are very common (but not equally so in all areas of that region); Caria51 and Phrygia fall between these extremes, with Caria closer to Ionia (era dates are rare) and Phrygia closer to Lydia. This particularism naturally leads one to suppose that there may also have been much local variation in the choice of which era to use, and where there is little or no evidence to guide a choice, editors have naturally been cautious. Thus at Smyrna itself, only two instances of year dates can be found in the corpus, I.Smyrna 541 (= SEG 38.1224), with a date to year 126 that could be either 41/2 or 95/6, and I.Smyrna 432, with a date to year 243 that could be either 158/9 or 212/3. In neither case is there an obvious basis for choosing, and the editor declines to do so. An emphasis on particularism, however, should not be allowed to conceal the fact that in general most areas of the province of Asia that used era dating did in fact use the era of Sulla. This fact emerges from the painstaking analysis of the evidence place by place in Leschhorn’s monograph; he finds reason in some cases to withhold judgment, but in most he can find indications internal to texts to assign them to a Sullan rather than Actian date.52 In many cases, the 45. Kaestner 1890. 46. This was already pointed out by Magie 1950: vol. II, 1289–90 n. 37. 47. Published by G. Petzl, Epigraphica Anatolica 15 (1990) 70 no. 34; = SEG 40.1057. Petzl cites J. Keil-A. v. Premerstein, 1. Reise (DenkschrWien 53.2, 1908) 29; Meriç-Nollé, Epigraphica Anatolica 5 (1985) 24 f., no. 2 (= SEG 35.1169). 48. Leschhorn 1993: 306–7. 49. J. Herrmann and H. Malay, New Documents, nos. 39–42 (= SEG 57.1146–1149). 50. See Leschhorn 1993: 303 on I.Sardis 97. Cf. SEG 43.1218, citing SEG 32.1237, where a year 6 at Sardis was attributed to the era of Actium. 51. See already L. and J. Robert, La Carie II (Paris 1954) 163–4, and 211–14. 52. The analysis rests on a large number of documents and a very large earlier bibliography, which we do not repeat here.

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presence of people with Aurelius as a nomen strongly suggests a date between the Antonine Constitution of 212 and the latter part of the third century, when this usage was commonest; adopting Actian dates for the same inscriptions would consistently push them into the late third or early fourth century, which is unlikely to be correct.53 There are no examples known to us of the reverse phenomenon, where an Aurelius would have to be dated before 212 using a Sullan date but would fall comfortably after it with an Actian date.54 That is a powerful argument in favor of the Sullan era in most places. One might be tempted by what has been said so far to suppose that the era of Actium was used either alone or side-by-side with the Sullan era in the early imperial period, down to year 92 (61/2 CE), approximately, and that it was then abandoned in favor of the Sullan era except when explicitly identified. This supposition, however, is excluded as a general hypothesis by SEG 57.1198, an honorary decree of year 69 in which Augustus is mentioned as the living emperor; the Sullan date is 17/6 BCE, whereas the Actian era would yield 36/7 CE, long after Augustus’ death.55 It remains conceivable, however, that eras were used sequentially in particular cities. There has been particular discussion of Aizanoi and its district, in which the editors of MAMA IX proposed (pp. liv–lvi, with table on lvii–lviii) that the area shifted in the middle of the third century from the era of Actium to that of Sulla.56 Leschhorn has pointed out that this hypothesis creates a considerable overlap zone;57 in fact, the inscriptions of the Aizanitis do not offer a gap in numbering to accommodate such a change, and one must either suppose that the eras were used concurrently for a time or that one was used in Aizanoi and another in a nearby area supposed to be part of its hinterland.58 The implications of all of this for Smyrna are not obvious. It seems clear that the evidence will not give us a simple answer about which era was in use in Smyrna and when. One might say that the default for the province of Asia is the era of Sulla, but that the era of Actium was used in some places during some periods. As evidence from Smyrna is extremely scarce, and from its neighbors no more plentiful, it seems safest to say that although using the era of Sulla has probability on its side, it is only a rebuttable presumption that this was the era in use, and 53. For example, the Roberts in La Carie II 326 no. 176 restore the hundreds’ digit in a text to yield a date in 244 CE on the era of Sulla; no restoration using the era of Actium would produce a plausible date. 54. The closest we have encountered is SEG 56.1276, dated to year 299, which is 214/5 on the era of Sulla. That is in fact just the point at which Aurelii start to appear in the papyri. More inscriptions with Aurelii continue to be published with appropriate dates reckoned by the Sullan era; cf., e.g., the series of articles by E. Akıncı Öztürk and C. Tanrıver publishing inscriptions from the sanctuary of Apollo Lairbenos (northeast of Hierapolis in Phrygia) in Epigraphica Anatolica 41 (2008) 91–110; 42 (2009) 87–97; and 43 (2010) 43–9. 55. Leschhorn 1993: 228–31 has indeed argued persuasively that the year 9 in an inscription of Ilion is also to be assigned to the era of Sulla, the earlier known instance of the era in the epigraphical sources. 56. The arguments for assigning the earlier texts to the era of Actium are in part stylistic, but there are a few documents where other, less subjective evidence can be brought to bear. 57. By way of illustration, Actium year 180 would have been 149/150. If at that moment a shift to the era of Sulla took place, the next year would have been 235. There would thus be a gap of 54 years in occurrences of era years. No such gap occurs in the Aizanitis as a whole at any point. 58. Leschhorn 1993: 234–44.

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as with the inscriptions from other sites, we need to look for other evidence to help establish which era was in use rather than use the era to date that evidence. Two graffiti may contribute to that investigation. First is T13.1, which reads Ἀσίας π[ρ]ώ̣τοις Σαρδιαν̣ο̣ῖ̣ς̣ οἷς πᾶν [κλ]έος ἐ̣στὶν διὰ τοὺς κυρί[ους]. It is difficult to avoid referring the plural kyrioi to the emperors (and who else?), and it seems overwhelmingly likely that the plural is to be taken as contemporary rather than historical; that is, Sardis owes its glory not to the cumulative benefactions of emperors past and present but to an action by two co-ruling emperors. We have found no examples of the use of οἱ κύριοι (sometimes followed by Αὐτοκράτορες) in this fashion dating before 161 and the joint rule of two emperors, a practice begun with the joint rule of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. The earliest examples in fact refer to these emperors; for examples, cf. IK Rhod.Per. 514; Bean, Journeys 1965–67, 28, 49; Roueché, PPAph 91.28. No cases known to us refer to sequential past emperors. Whether Marcus and Lucius or instead the emperors ruling in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, Marcus and Commodus, are meant, is not apparent. In either case, however, the inscription would point to a date some decades later than the 125/6 that the era of Actium would imply; in 179/180, by contrast, the actions of Marcus and either of his co-regents would be fresh in memory. One other clue should not be overlooked. It was also under Marcus that Smyrna and Ephesos were forced to share the claim to be “first of Asia”, a title that we can see them disputing in T9.1.59 The liveliness of the dispute in the graffiti may also point to the reign of Marcus as the likely time of the inscribing of this rivalry on the wall of the basement of the basilica. This reign is at any rate likely to be the earliest possible date, as the epigraphic documentation of claims to be “first of Asia” are all later than Marcus. Two other relevant criteria should be mentioned here. One is palaeography, to which the next section is devoted. In our view, the handwriting of the graffiti is only occasionally clearly ascribable to a particular period with enough precision to be of any use in dating the texts. Overall, we believe the ink graffiti are of a palaeographic character consistent with a date range from the last quarter of the second century to the early part of the fourth, but with few after the mid-third century. The incised graffiti, at least those on pillars, seem to be rather of the earlier 59. See Magie 1950: 636 and 1496 n. 18 on the struggle for the title “first” between Ephesos and Smyrna. He cites IGRR IV 541, 1419–1421, 1425, 1482. In these the city of Smyrna repeatedly claims to be πρώτη τῆς Ἀσίας. Sometimes the claim is made tout court, sometimes with a phrase like κάλλει καὶ μεγέθει, but it is always accompanied by statements about the neokoria (twice or three times, depending on the date). The phrase occurs only in third-century inscriptions of Smyrna.

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part of this range, and palaeographically even an earlier date cannot be excluded. These conclusions are consistent with those advanced above for the pictorial graffiti and dipinti. The second criterion is the references to money. In T10.2 there are references to 3,000 and 4,000 denarii; in TP68.3 to a total number 4562, probably denarii. In TP76.1 there appears to be a reference to 500 Attic drachmas, the Attic drachma being equivalent to the denarius. The number 1775 in TP71.1 could be an amount of money. Although in no case do we know just what the sums represent, their order of magnitude and the nature of the references are consistent with what we find in inscriptions from Asia Minor of the second and third centuries. They would be much less important sums by the time of Diocletian. In conclusion, the evidence of the textual graffiti is overall most comfortably accommodated in the last part of the second century and the first part of the third, i.e., after the reconstruction following the earthquake under Marcus. It is possible that the incised texts are earlier than the dipinti, as appears likely with the pictorial graffiti, but that may only mean that they are from the last two decades of the second century rather than the early third century. That the dipinti do not lag far behind, however, would seem to be the implication of the date, surely to be ascribed to the era of Actium, to year 210.

Palaeography (Roger Bagnall) The writing of the graffiti encompasses, as we have seen, both ink and incision. It is even more diverse in letter-forms and style of writing. Many of the graffiti self-consciously imitate inscriptions on stone in their block letter forms, which are identified in the descriptions of the individual texts as majuscules or capitals. These are by their nature almost entirely detached. Sometimes the imitation of stone inscriptions goes so far as to include writing inside a tabula ansata, the rectangular enclosed space with handles at left and right familiar from Roman epigraphy. Examples among the graffiti include TX.3, TG6.2, TG6.3, TG6.4, T9.2, T9.3, T9.9, T10.1, T11.4, T12.1, T13.1, T13.2, T13.3, T21.1 (twice), TP78.2 (twice). Nearly three-quarters of the graffiti can be described as belonging to this epigraphic sphere. Because these lack even the regularity of most inscriptions on stone, their letter forms do not readily lend themselves to dating. Like many texts on papyri and ostraca written by students, they escape any chronological precision. A little more than a quarter of the texts may be described as more informal or even cursive. Very few are in fact truly cursive in character, but many have the more flowing shapes of cursive writing, even if they lack the actual ligatures. Because of this tendency, the boundary between epigraphic and what we might think of as papyrological hands is porous. The imprecision in our description of the hands is a reflection of the fuzziness of the distinction. From the point of view of the level of education of the writers, the presence of these cursive forms is of interest, because it shows that they had in most cases passed the stage of the “evolving hand” in Raffaella Cribiore’s typology (Cribiore 1996: 112) and reached that of the “rapid hand” or even, in some cases, that of a well-developed personal hand. We must keep in mind, however, that writing on a wall is harder than on a horizontal (or gently inclined) surface. What we see on the

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walls, therefore, is unlikely to be an accurate representation of what the same individual would have written on papyrus. Moreover, we must reckon to some degree with a desire to keep the writing legible for passers-by, the same kind of concern with legibility that we find in papyrus letters (but not, for example, in leases of land). In the case of the incised texts, the conditions of writing are more similar to writing on a wax tablet than on papyrus, but again with the caution that the writers were dealing with vertical surfaces. As far as we can observe, the incised texts show no signs of having been cut into wet plaster; there are none of the raised ridges along the incisions that we would expect to find in that case, as plaster would have been dislodged from the incisions. Rather, we find simple incisions, indicating that the plaster was dry and that whatever was cut simply fell out as dust. One further point to keep in mind in the study of the handwriting of the graffiti is that our samples are mostly very small. Serious palaeographical study is not a matter of looking at isolated letter shapes—a practice that can lead to serious errors—but of examining entire styles of writing, comparing like to like.60 In particular, the more cursive sections are mainly quite short, at best a few lines of no great length. Most of them are even smaller, a few letters to a line. The larger inscriptions are virtually all in detached letters of a predominantly epigraphic character. Caution is therefore very much in order in making comparisons. In fact, it is hardly possible to point to more than two or three graffiti using cursive forms that give us clear samples of more than a handful of letters. And those are in fact composed largely of detached letters (T27.2 and T29.3 are the best-preserved examples), with many resemblances to the so-called chancery style found in some papyri, particularly of the later second and early third century.61 The recent deployment of PapPal (www.pappal.info) has made it possible to look at large numbers of dated papyri with images in gallery format, and the reader is invited to look through images drawn together there from numerous web sites. Our impression, however, is that there are few if any good parallels. The reason is that the papyrological texts likely to have exact dates are not those written in the types of hands most similar to those of the graffiti. The cause is precisely that mentioned earlier, namely that people writing graffiti aimed to communicate and therefore wrote in a style more like that of private letters than of official or private documents. And private letters after the middle of the first century almost never bear dates. Palaeography therefore cannot make a large contribution to the dating of the graffiti. On the whole, however, our impression is that the hands are more at home in the later second century or the first half of the third century than in the earlier part of the second century. To that extent they may support interpreting the date to year 210 as referring to the era of Actium rather than the Sullan era, as suggested in the previous section. A few seem later, like TP128.1, where both handwriting and the name Eustathios suggest the fourth century; and many of the incised graffiti could be (but do not need to be) dated earlier in the second century. This distinction between incised graffiti and dipinti corresponds to the observations made above about the pictorial graffiti and dipinti. 60. See Orsini and Clarysse 2012. 61. For an example from the PapPal gallery, P.Köln 8.351 (190 CE) has at least some of the characteristics of these graffiti.

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Language (Roger Bagnall) There are two major obstacles to assessing in any depth the language of the graffiti. One is the brevity of most of the texts; the other is the large body of material not yet fully understood. The latter is the more serious problem, because some of our incomprehension could result from forms of Greek words not readily recognizable. From what we can read, however, it is fair to say that the language is mainly standard koine Greek of the imperial period. There are a number of phonetic interchanges of types very familiar to us from the papyri.62 Most common is replacement of ι with ει (about a dozen occurrences); the reverse is found only in T8.1.1. In T6.1.1 we have ει for ε, and (as is very common) ιει in ὑγίεια becomes ει (T14.1.4). Both standard iotacism and replacement of υ with η are found in Ἡγεῖνος (T27.2.1); the same name appears (in the genitive, possibly with some miswriting or correction) as Ὑιείνου in TP78.2. Iota is omitted in Λούκιος (T16.1.2). Replacement of αι with ε is found in T15.2.1. Only a few consonantal phonetic spellings are attested. Possibly θ occurs for δ in T2.1.2, but the context is largely lacking, and we cannot be sure that this interpretation is correct. There is a clear case of κ replacing γ in T29.1.2. In T20.3.6 there seems to be an instance of λ for ρ, all the more surprising in that the word is written correctly with rho earlier in this graffito; the reverse appears in ὀφθαρμίων in TP103.2. A possible instance of crasis appears in T27.3.1, but the omission of alpha in οριθμος could be a simple slip. The only previously unattested word we have identified with confidence is κλείδισον (spelled κλίδισον), from a new formation *κλειδίζω in T8.1.1. (An alternative interpretation discussed in the note there would present another new formation.) The formation is unremarkable; we are only perhaps surprised that this word has not occurred previously.

Healing of eyes (Roger Bagnall) A significant number of the graffiti refer to eyes, and some of these explicitly to the healing of eyes. These are the following: T12.2, a four-line graffito, badly preserved, but with “suddenly” (ἐξαπίνης), perhaps a form of εὔχομαι (to pray), and the word for eyes readable. T14.1, also a four-line graffito, broken at both sides, but with the verb “I thank” (εὐχαριστῶ) and the word “health” (ὑγεία) preserved as well as the word for eyes. T14.3, ὀ̣φ̣θ̣αλμούς with unclear (and perhaps unrelated) following text. T15.4, the word for “eye” (in the singular) appearing in the dative, with no other text around it. 62. Gignac 1976 gives a catalogue of the phonology of the papyri of the Roman and Byzantine periods, which may be consulted for parallels to the phenomena mentioned here.

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T16.1, the best-preserved eye-related text, worth reproducing in full: Χαρίας ὁ κα[ὶ] Λ̣ ουκος εὐξάμενος περὶ τῶν ὀφθα̣λ̣μῶν τοὺς λύχνους ἀπέδωκε ἔτους σι Here the critical stages are not all explicitly listed, but they can be reconstructed with the help of the other texts: prayer for the eyes, healing, and dedication of lamps in thanksgiving. T27.1, a somewhat truncated construction but with an important additional element: ὀ̣φ̣θ̣αλμοὺς [ὑ-] πὸ θεῶ̣[ν] εὐχαριστῶ τῇ Βαίτῃ The writer apparently indicates that his (or her) eyes were healed by the gods, and he gives thanks to (the) Baite. The following section of the introduction is devoted to Baite. T27.2, which cuts to the essential Ἡγεῖνος εἶπ̣[εν] τ̣ὸν̣ ὀφθαλμ[ὸν] ἐν τάχει ἐθαραπεύ̣[θην] As with T12.2, the swiftness of the healing is stressed, and thus the power of the god who brought about the healing (see note to T27.2.3), but Hyginos does not say anything explicit about who was responsible for the healing or what (apart from writing this graffito) he did in thanksgiving. It seems to us likely that the healing of eyes, seemingly localized here, was connected with the spring emerging at the west end of the basement of the Basilica, still much visited by local residents to get water in 2003 (Fig. 29). There is abundant groundwater under the Agora, and the spring (or springs) may have had something to do with the original settlement in the area. But nothing explicit on this subject appears in any of the graffiti.

TP103.2, the beginning of which is unread, but which ends ὀφθαρμίων ἐθ̣αραπεύ̣θη.

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Baite (Roger Bagnall) Who or what was (the) Baite, thanked in T27.1 in connection with the healing of eyes? The word βαίτη is known. The entry in the Supplement to LSJ offers as a first meaning “cloak made of skins,” for which several citations in literature are given. As a second meaning, “tent of skins” is given (from Sophocles, fr. 1031 Radt); derivative from that, evidently, is a sense of “covered building in a market place.” For this, three attestations are given, from Mantinea (IG 5(2).268.48), Magnesia (I.Magn. 179.12, 15), and Wadi Abu Musa, in north Lebanon northeast of Tripoli (SEG 26.1652.5). The second of these involves thanks to an agoranomos for heating the baite (at considerable expense) along with other benefactions to the city. The third, perhaps the most interesting for our purposes, records the dedication by a couple who “had prayed for their own health and that of the emperor” (εὐξάμενοι ὑπὲρ ὑγείας τοῦ κυρίου καὶ ἑαυτῶν) of τὴν βαίτην τὴν σὺν τῇ ἐν αὐτῇ στιβάδι καὶ τῇ πρὸς ταύτῃ κειμένῃ στοᾷ καὶ τῷ λάκκῳ.63 The baite in this case was thus a facility that included dining couches, a colonnade, and a cistern.64 In the Smyrna graffiti, however, the word refers to someone or something capable of being thanked. One may thank a god or goddess (by far the most common usage of the verb), or the Tyche of a place, or even an individual, but we know of no instances of an inscription recording thanks to a building. So a simple reference to a βαίτη as a building in this case seems excluded. Two graffiti not obviously related to healing also refer to the word. In T8.1 we find Ὀνήσιμε, μὴ κλίδισ̣ο̣ν καὶ μία̣ι̣νε τὴν ὑπὸ θεῶν ἐκτημένην Βαιτην ἐὰν δ̣ὲ̣ καὶ καταπείνῃ The graffito is broken off at bottom, so we do not know what was to result if he were to drink; the verb does again bring to mind the spring in the basement of the Basilica. Here, βαίτη again has a definite article and is, if our reading is correct, referred to as “possessed by the gods.” Onesimos is ordered not to shut up (or disturb?) or pollute it. In T9.5, which is less well preserved, what precedes the mention of Baite is not readable, but there is a reference following 63. The emperor is said to be Marcus Aurelius, but the date by the Seleucid era equates to 184 CE. 64. Published by Rey-Coquais 1972. The editor’s text omitted the word Αὐτοκράτορος before Καίσαρος in line 1, although it is clearly visible on the plate and was obviously read by him, for he translates it “empereur” on p. 89. The error has passed uncorrected into SEG and the PHI Epigraphy database. In the second line, the printed text also does not show the blank space after Ἀντωνείνου that is visible on the plate and about which the editor says (p. 94), “L’espace vide à la fin de la ligne 2 correspond peut-être à un martelage soigneux du nom de Commode.” Because the date to 184 is secured by the Seleucid era year, the emperor must be Commodus rather than Marcus. The space inside the border is adequate for the eight characters required by Κομμόδου, and restoring it inside double brackets seems to us unavoidable. Following Rey-Coquais’ edition (on pp. 109–19) is a “Note sur les vestiges archéologiques mentionnés dans le texte,” by M. Tallon, who discovered the inscription, with on p. 113 a plan showing room P, the room apparently described as a βαίτη in the inscription. As Rey-Coquais says (p. 90), “Il s’agit certainement ici d’une halle, d’une salle couverte et fermée, d’un abris pour les dévots et les pèlerins, sans doute l’équivalent de ce que beaucoup d’inscriptions appellent une σκηνή.”

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Figure 29. Spring at west end of basement of the Basilica.

the name to destroying the work (= the fountain?). A reference to drinking up again follows, but unfortunately again with a poorly preserved end. In any event, the Smyrnaean Baite seems clearly to refer to the spring, and is quite likely the name given to the spring itself. At the same time, there are indications that the spring was personalized or divinized in a fashion that cannot be recovered from the surviving evidence.

Christianity (Roger Bagnall) Even on the dating of the graffiti for which we argue above, it is remarkable to find archaeological evidence for Christianity in the agora of Smyrna in the later second century or beginning of the third.65 The clearest of this evidence is found on TP100.3, where we read clearly ἰσόψηφα κύριος ω πίστις ω 65. See Destephen 2010 for a detailed list and discussion of the pre-Constantinian epigraphic evidence for Christianity in Asia Minor. As he remarks (175), “La datation des inscriptions chrétiennes antérieures au règne de Constantin constitue l’un des problèmes les plus ardus en épigraphie.” What is perhaps more telling is his remark (164 with n. 18) that of 276 early Christian inscriptions in Asia Minor, all but two are funerary.

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Isopsephism is a well-known phenomenon of the Greek and Near Eastern world of the Roman period.66 The numbers given in isopsephisms reprsent the sum of the numeric values of the letters in the Greek alphabet, with alpha through theta representing 1 to 9, iota through qoppa representing 10 to 90, and rho to sanpi representing 100 to 900. Since three of the letters used (sti [6], qoppa [90], and sanpi [900]) do not occur in koine Greek, those values are never used in the calculations. As classical Greek did not have a concept or means of representing capital letters at the beginning of names, in practice no letter value higher than 800 (omega) was used. The most famous example of isopsephism is no doubt the equation of the value of the Greek form of the emperor Nero’s name, Νέρων, with that of the phrase ἰδίαν μητέραν ἀπέκτεινε, “he killed his own mother.” Both have the value 1005.67 But specifically Christian interest in the relationship of numbers and names is also visible in the well-known passage in Revelation 13:17–18, referring to τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ θηρίου ἢ τὸν ἀριθμὸν τοῦ ὀνόματος αὐτοῦ, and urging the computation of the number of the beast, leading to the famous number 666. The graffito of TP100.3 is incised rather than written with ink or charcoal. It is clear in its brevity: “Equal in value: lord, 800; faith, 800.” The collocation of “lord” and “faith” and the emphasis on their equal value is inescapably Christian. We know of no other ancient evidence for this particular equation, although it seems striking and obvious once noticed; and Christians were fond of such equations, as with the value 284 common to θεός and ἅγιος, “God” and “holy.”68 The habit was not limited to small circles of learned Christians; a graffito from Deir el-Medina in Western Thebes, in Coptic, gives first the typical visitor’s note (“I, Stephanos, the humble one”) and then next to it the numerals for 1326, which is the value of Στέφανος. Thus the knowledge of the practice moved with the use of the Greek alphabet into Coptic. The other possible evidence for Christianity among the graffiti from the agora is more suggestive than firm. The graffito TP100.2 reads θελητὴ ἡ κυρία. As noted there, the usage of the adjective θελητός (desired, wished-for) is overwhelmingly Christian, with antecedents in the Septuagint. It is just possible, given what we know of the usage of the adjective, that the “lady” should be taken to be the Virgin Mary. But it is perhaps more likely that, despite the limited evidence for non-Christian usage, the graffito is erotic. Perhaps stronger is T20.1, in which we read 66. The standard discussion of isopsephism is Dornseiff 1925: 95–106, 181–83, but Ast and Lougovaya 2015 is a more accessible and up-to-date introduction for most purposes. Perdrizet 1904 is also still valuable, and useful bibliography can also be found in Strus 1995 and in the article by L. Jalabert and R. Mouterde on “Inscriptions grecques chrétiennes” in F. Cabriol and H. Leclercq, eds., Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie 7.1 (Paris 1926) 623–94. Perdrizet points out the existence of isopsephism in Hebrew and connects Greek adoption of the practice to Greek contact with Jews. 67. Quoted by Dornseiff 1925: 96 from Suetonius, Nero 39.2, where the MSS νεόψηφον is to be corrected to ἰσόψηφον. Of course these games sometimes required assumptions to make the numbers work out: there is no definite article in the phrase, and nu-movable is omitted from the verb. 68. Perdrizet 1904: 357 notes the occurrence of 535 for the vocative κύριε, but no instances of the nominative. Strus 1995: 244 lists a number of isopsephisms from Christian sources, including the equation of 801 to alpha plus omega and περιστερά (dove). The list in a late antique wooden tablet reproduced in Skeat 1978: 46 with pairs of words or phrases described as (ε)ἰσόψηφον is interesting. No value of 800 occurs in that list. Skeat also (49–50) republishes an Oxyrhynchos papyrus in which he recognizes another list of isopsephisms, dating to the early second century CE. No equivalence to 800 appears here either; but, tantalizingly, the word π[ί]στις does appear in i.18 with some uncertain traces preceding (and its equivalent word, unfortunately, lost).

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ὁ δεδω̣κ̣[ὼς] τὸ πνεῦμ̣[α] .[ “The one who has given the spirit . . .” It is certainly true that πνεῦμα can occur in funerary contexts as well as in magical texts. Funerary usage here seems improbable, and in magic “giving” the spirit is not at stake. But given the possibility of additional loss at right, not to mention the loss of the end of the text, we must reserve judgment on the likelihood that the giving of the Holy Spirit is the subject. ΠΝ in TP63.1 is surely to be expanded as πν(εῦμα) and seems likely to be a related use. Similarly, the location in Smyrna makes it tempting to think that the καρπο̣[ of T28.4 could be [Πολύ]καρπο̣[ς], the martyred bishop of the city. There is space to the left for four letters, and we cannot say whether anything was originally written there. It is important to note that the graffito on P100 was written on a layer of plaster lower than the final one. If it is correct that all of the surviving plaster layers date from after the restoration following the earthquake, that will provide a date no later than ca. 180 for this layer and for the graffito. It is difficult to know how much weight to put on these four possibly Christian graffiti other than the isopsephism, given that none can be taken to be certainly Christian. Another intriguing possibility is the occurrence of ζωή (both times spelled ζοή) in T40.1 and TP63.1. If we take this as a personal name Ζώη, it could refer to Eve, as the LXX text of Genesis 3:20 translated the name Ευα: καὶ ἐκάλεσεν Αδαμ τὸ ὄνομα τῆς γυναικὸς αὐτοῦ Ζώη, ὅτι αὕτη μήτηρ πάντων τῶν ζώντων. These would then connect with the occurrence of Εὔη in TP71.1 as all referring to Eve. On the other hand, the name Zoe is not uncommon outside Christian contexts, with ten attestations before the fourth century in LGPN 5A. But a Christian use still seems likely; the appearance of ζωή in an incised graffito in the shape of a cross at Aphrodisias is interpreted by Chaniotis as “a Christian declaration of faith and hope in eternal life” (Chaniotis 2014: 20–21). Although we do not have the cruciform presentation in either of our examples, it seems generally likely that these are to be seen as Christian.

Civic pride (Roger Bagnall) In a number of the graffiti, we find references to civic identity, in a fashion that suggests competition for prestige among the cities of Asia. This phenomenon, discussed already in the section on dating, is hardly surprising, as indications of civic awareness and written forms of oral acclamations are found elsewhere.69 The most striking of these references is T9.1, in which large letters (11 cm high) say Ἀσίας πρώτοις, “to the first of Asia!” Inside these, a smaller hand has written Ἐφεσίοις, “to the Ephesians.” The inserted smaller letters are evidently in a second 69. See most recently Milnor 2014: 97–136, especially 98 and 105.

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hand and represent in effect an attempt to hijack Smyrnaean boasting in the service of Ephesian pride. The most extensive inscription of this kind is T13.1, quoted above, where we find Ἀσίας π[ρ]ώ̣τοις Σαρδιαν̣ο̣ῖ̣ς οἷς πᾶν [κλ]έος ἐ̣στὶν διὰ τοὺς κυρί[ους] Here, the Sardians claim primacy and assert that it is because of the emperors that they have this status. The significance of this claim is discussed above, p. 39. Another rather full inscription is TP104.1, but the ethnic has not been recovered there; there seems to be a claim to victory in the pentathlon. More fragmentary inscriptions, where we may have lost some part of the original graffito, or the writer was simply allusive, are T15.7 (only Ἀσείας), T32.2 (only Ἀ̣ σ̣ίας), TP68.1 (only Ἀσίας), possibly TP68.4 (end of an ethnic?), TP70.1 (only πρώτοις), perhaps the incompletely understood TP100.4, where Ἀσίας τύχη is read, and TP109.4 (Ἀσία twice). The self-identification of a writer as Ephesian in T15.9 may also belong to this genre of self-expression. One additional city is given prominence in TP105.1, where the first four lines read [χ]αῖρε̣ Τράλ[λε]ις πρώτη Ἀνατολῆς “Greetings, Tralleis, first of Anatolia.”

Isopsephisms of desire (Roger Bagnall) Graffiti in the Roman world are often concerned with love and sex, and it is hardly surprising to find such graffiti at Smyrna.70 But a striking feature of the Smyrna graffiti is the series of inscriptions with the formula (μίαν) φιλῶ ἧς ὁ ἀριθμὸς . . ., “I love a woman whose number is …” An example at T5.1 has lost its number, but a poorly preserved example at T12.7 may give a number in the range 750–759. Better examples occur at T22.1, with the number 616; at T24.2, with 731; and at T27.3, with 1308. A number 1705 in TP71.1 could be another case. These are instances of the use of isopsephism, which is described more generally above in connection with the evidence for Christianity (p. 46). In the presentation of the graffiti in Bagnall, 70. See, e.g., Milnor 2014, focused on connections to Latin love elegy in the Pompeian graffiti but dealing more generally with representations of love and desire (e.g., p. 21).

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Everyday Writing, identifications were offered for 731 as Ἄνθουσα and for 1308 as Τύχη. These could be called serendipitous identifications, not based on a systematic investigation. The subsequent reading of two more cases, for which “solutions” did not come readily to mind, made it desirable to look into the phenomenon more thoroughly. The purpose of the investigation is not only the identification of the names behind these numbers but a better understanding of the entire phenomenon and of what the writers and the readers are likely to have known or guessed. There are approximately 1,625 women’s names recorded in LGPN 5A.71 These yield isopsephistic values ranging from 6 (Ἄδα, Βάβα) to 2376 (Εὐτυχοῦσα). The bulk of the names have values between 101 and 800, but the tail is long and, up to about 1500, fairly thick. Range 1–100 101–200 201–300 301–400 401–500 501–600 601–700 701–800 801–900 901–1000 1001–1100 1101–1200 1201–1300 1301–1400 1401–1500 1501–1600 1601–1700 1701–1800 1801–1900 1901–2000 2001–2100 2101–2200 2201–2300 2301–2376

Number of Names 79 162 149 111 136 158 145 127 96 95 91 62 51 47 38 20 16 16 4 13 2 0 0 5

71. “Approximately” because there are some names of uncertain reading or gender; these have been omitted. In addition, names ending in –ιον are counted including the variant spellings in –ιν, which are not computed separately in our reckoning.

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It is not particularly surprising that the names are weighted toward the lower numbers, given that only seven letters of the alphabet have values of 100 or more. At the same time, the enormous boost in value provided by the last letters, particularly phi, chi, and omega, explains the considerable number of high-value names. It can be seen immediately from the fact that all bands in the 101–800 range have more than 100 names per 100 numbers that some numbers equated to the sum of the values of the letters of more than one name. In fact, there was a very marked degree of clustering. Not only are there scores of numbers associated with two or three names (the highest number of which is the double at 1961), but there are some 35 quadruples, a dozen quintuples, nine sextuples (102, 110, 173, 251, 559, 572, 602, 651, and 711), two septuples (612 and 1141), and even one number that equates to nine names (721). Only 6 of the quadruples come at values above 800, and only the one septuple of the higher multiples occurs after 800. We do not know how far the ancient users of these isopsephisms were aware of such potential ambiguity, but we may be sure that they did not have any systematic means of knowing how many names had the same value, in the absence of any name directories. There were undoubtedly many names in use of which no witness has survived and so far been published, of course; but against that may be set the fact that many names are found in only one region of Asia Minor, that many occur with great rarity, and that a considerable part of our surviving names were likely to have been unknown to most people. The local repertory in Ionian cities was probably significantly smaller than the total for Anatolia, so some of the doubles and multiples we have identified would not in any case have occurred at all readily to Smyrnaeans. When we look at the particular numbers that occur in our graffiti, we find the following: 616: Three female names with this value occur in LGPN: Φερία, Εὐπόλλα, and Μενυλλῖνα. These are all uncommon names, appearing once each in this volume; all are known from Mysia (the first two from Kyzikos, the third identified only by a modern locale in the territory of that city). Nor are they found abundantly elsewhere: none occurs in other LGPN volumes or elsewhere, as far as we can determine (although the masculine Φερίας and Μένυλλος are attested). We can see no way to choose from among them, and it seems most unlikely that any Smyrnaean would have been able to guess any of them. It is entirely possible that some other name is meant, but it cannot have been a common one. 731: As well as Anthousa (7 examples in various regions including Ionia; well attested in other regions of the Greek world), the following names have this value: Κυπάριον (once at Magnesia, nowhere else in LGPN); Φιλαίνιον (once without the omicron at Ephesos; once with at Miletoupolis in Mysia; nowhere else, although again the masculine counterpart is common); and Τάτιον (common in Lydia and Mysia, well-attested in Ionia). It does not seem possible to decide definitely between Anthousa and Tation, although the first may have somewhat more of the urbane Greek flair wanted in this context; Tation seems more rural. 750: The only name with this value in LGPN 5A is Σεκοῦνδα, abundantly represented in both Ionia and Lydia. There seems no reason to doubt that this is indeed the name intended, unless another digit is lost, in which case other possibilities occur.

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1308: As well as Tyche, which occupies more than a column with references in Ionia, Lydia, and Mysia, the other possibility is Χρύση, attested once in Bithynia and once in Lydia. Given these numbers, we may be confident that Tyche was the name intended. An example of this kind of name-play has been published from Ephesos as SEG 55 (2005) 1156).72 It gives the value 1475. There is no woman’s name in LGPN 5A with this value. If the number is correct, the name was obviously a rare one. One parallel from Asia Minor outside the graffiti is known to us, a gravestone from Mylasa (I.Mylasa 227), in which a wife given the number 1065 is commemorated.73 Although there is no guarantee that her name should be found in LGPN 5A, the two possibilities there are Γλαβριωνιανή and Τυνδαρίς. The first is a hapax from Sardis, the second similarly attested once, but at Ephesos or Smyrna. As it is known elsewhere and belongs to a fairly well established family of names, it is surely the likely intended name. Examples of numbers of women’s names in graffiti outside Asia Minor also exist. In Bull. épigr. 1964, 618, J. and L. Robert cite several:74 1. A graffito from Catania, with the number 170. (The Roberts correct the editor’s reading to show our ἀριθμός formula.) Ἀννιανή is the only woman’s name from Asia Minor that corresponds to this number. It appears not to be attested in Sicily, so one should keep open the possibility that some other name is at stake. 2. A graffito from Pompeii with 45 or 135 (an uncertain reading). No names with the value of 45 appear in our list, but at 135 there is Δόξα. LGPN 3A cites an example of this name at Nola. L. Robert has pointed out (in 1982: 131), however, that the text apparently includes the name of the person commemorated, Ἁρμονία, which in Robert’s view should be neither of these numbers; rather, “on attend, sauf erreur, 272 ou 1271.” He does not explain why he offers the choice. Adding 1+100+40+70+50+10+1 does indeed give us 272. Possibly Robert entertained the possibility that the initial capital was counted as 1000, but we know of no instance where this is the case, and we have no reason to inject the concept of capitalization into an ancient text. But why 45 or 135 would have appeared instead is hard to say. 3. Another graffito from Pompeii with precisely the formula we find in Smyrna, φιλῶ ἧς ὁ ἀριθμὸς φμε. Our list offers Παναρέτη, a hapax (although its masculine counterpart occurs three times in the Peloponnesos). Some locally better-known name may have been intended. 4. In Bull.épigr. 1976, 813, the Roberts cite another Pompeian graffito, with the number 51. Our list contains no name with this value. L. Robert (1982: 131) has argued from the Pompeian instance where the name is given as well as the number that secrecy was not the issue: “Le chiffre ne remplace pas nécessairement le nom.” He alludes to “une valeur affective du calcul isopséphique, de la transformation du nom, de son passage dans la sphère des chiffres, ce domaine mystérieux et savant, de haut prestige et 72. From G. Thür, ed., Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos: Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde (Vienna 2005) 134. 73. The number is given as 1205 (reading Aσε) by J. and L. Robert, Bull.épigr. 1964, 618, from the edition of Le Bas-Waddington, no. 354. 74. See also L. Robert 1982: 130–2.

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prêtant à des spéculations infines.” In tombstones one may admit some force to this view, but it is hard to see that it is equally valid for graffiti. There is not a lot of reverence on view in this environment, despite the dedications in thanksgiving for healing of eyes, and playfulness seems a more likely explanation. Nor does the female-female expression of desire in T29.1 (without a number) or the apparent male-male expression in T40.2 seem anything solemn. The number of instances in which the name behind the number is either unidentifiable or rare suggests to us that there cannot have been any expectation that readers would have been able to move from the number to the name with any ease. Only Tyche is really common, although Sekounda is reasonably so. These are probably guessable without undue difficulty. For the rest, if we do not accuse the graffiti-writers of an inability to compute, we must conclude that their brain-teasers were not easy to solve and typically did not present names common across the Greek world that would have been very familiar to viewers.

Word-play (Roger Bagnall) Besides the use of isopsephisms in both religious and romantic contexts, there are signs of another kind of play, that devoted to words. One curiosity is a new example of a five-by-five letter square. It figures in two inscriptions, neither complete and neither quite correctly done. But reconstructing it is not difficult. The slightly better-preserved example (T12.1), in a tabula ansata, has two of the lines complete and the last partially there. It appears that the writer made an error in the third and fourth lines, perhaps reversing them, and then washing out the mistake but not rewriting the lines: μῆλον ἡδονή λ̣ό̣γ̣[ος] [ὄνομα] ν̣ή̣σ̣α̣ς A second example, slightly less well preserved, appears as T9.6: [μῆ]λ[ον] ἡδ[ονή] λόγο̣ς̣ ὄνομα νήσας̣ The most famous example of a letter square is of course the Latin rotas-opera-tenet-areposator, better known in its later reversal as sator-arepo, and so forth. Unlike that square, however, ours has neither reversible words nor a central palindrome. To the best of my knowledge, the

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

53

Smyrnaean square has never before been found in recognizable form. It is possible, however, that one reminiscence was already known from a brick found on Corcyra (IG IX 1 1054). This appears as ΜΗΛΟΝΗΔΑ. Hiller von Gaertringen, following the opinion of Adolf Wilhelm, thought it was a fake. His grounds were that some of the letters lean to the right, which he thought was a modern rather than an ancient trait. If one imagines, however, that it was copied, perhaps imperfectly, from a graffito, that view is groundless. Finding a bit of a word square on a brick is not inherently improbable, for a brick with the rotas square is known from Aquincum, probably datable to the beginning of the second century.75 This Greek square is actually more similar to the ἄλφα-λέων-φωνή-ἀνήρ and σῦκον-ὕδωρκώπη-Ἄρης four-word squares without reversible or palindromic words, although these are not attested until late antiquity.76 Our square is the earliest such letter square known in Greek, as far as we can tell, by a matter of at least two centuries, and indeed the only five-letter Greek square known from antiquity. It strongly suggests that the milieu from which rotas-opera emerged witnessed wider experimentation with such squares than has been supposed.77 The more ambitious Christian interpretations of the Latin square, with rearrangement of its letters into paternoster in the form of a cross, gain no traction from this Greek square, which uses only nine letters of the Greek alphabet and will not allow the formation of any of the basic Christian vocabulary that comes to mind. Nor do the words have any obvious isopsephistic value. One might by way of counterargument, to be sure, point to the cross formed by λόγος in the center. Another type of verbal play appears in several cases of the appearance of the word ζήτημα, “question.” A graffito from Cyrene with this opening was elucidated two decades ago by Robert Kaster as a parody of standard classroom question and answer interchange: “Question: who was the father of Priam’s children?”78 As Kaster notes, this is like parodic questions along the line of, “What was the color of George Washington’s white horse?” Riddles were also present in the Pompeian graffiti, sometimes in meter.79 The best preserved example among the Smyrna graffiti is T28.1, which is mostly visible. The’ writer gives the impression, however, that he is playing a word game more complex than that of the Cyrenaean graffito: ζήτημα Εἴσιδι αδι αδι διασωθείς αδι αδ[ι’] ίδωρ̣ος̣ traces ΕΝ 75. Cited in Gunn 1969 from Szilágyi 1954; plates also in CRAI 1955: 500–7 and Archeologia Classica 17 (1965), pl. LXXXI. 76. For the first of these, see P.Yale inv. 1792, cited by Gunn 1969, passim; subsequently published by G. M. Parássoglou, Studia Papyrologica 13 (1974) 107–10. For the second, cf. H. Hoffmann, “Satorquadrat,” RE Suppl. 15, coll. 482–3, a third/fourth century graffito from Rome. 77. Notably by Gunn 1969. 78. Kaster 1984. 79. See Milnor 2014: 179.

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Taking αδι αδι as magical, and assuming that the correction of the next to last line is right, we still lack an explanation of the whole. Almost certainly more lines followed; the lines of the box drawn around the graffito seem to enclose a larger area than these six lines occupy. Isidoros has been preserved from danger, presumably in a voyage, and evidently by Isis. But we do not know what the riddle is. Other examples of riddles are still less clear. In TX.3, where we have only Miltner’s copy, the word ζήτημα certainly appears in line 3 and probably at the start of the graffito in line 1, but none of the surroundings is intelligible. The word also appears both above and below a graffito inside a tabula ansata in TG6.4, but again it is not possible to recover any of the surrounding content. In T8.2, the word appears by itself, but whatever stood below it has subsequently been covered by a new layer of plaster. Other fragmentary or isolated instances of the word appear in TP73.1, TP78.1, TP84.2, and TP94.1. It is clear that these riddles were among the major types of graffiti favored by those who wrote on the walls of the Basilica basement. But, frustratingly, none of the instances is clear enough to allow us to discern the method of these riddles.

The Graffiti The texts and descriptions below reflect in first instance the state of the plaster in the Basilica as of July, 2003, when the texts were copied by Bagnall. Thomas Drew-Bear was able to check some of these copies at that time. Photographs taken both in 2003 and 2004 and subsequently have also been used in preparation of the descriptions and texts. A complete revision against the originals was undertaken by Bagnall and Tanrıver in October, 2012, and the photographic documentation completed at that time. Subsequently, conservation by the Smyrna Agora excavations has allowed new photography of graffiti previously covered by bandages or obscured by dirt. Newly-discovered graffiti have been copied by Tanrıver. In addition, photography by an infrared digital camera has provided new images of many of the graffiti. A revision of the recently discovered texts by Bagnall and Tanrıver in September, 2014 completed the documentation of the texts, and at the same time Casagrande-Kim was able to check all of the drawings against the originals. The graffiti discovered in 2003 and subsequently are preceded here by three copied by Franz Miltner and preserved in the archives of the Kleinasiastische Kommission in Vienna. Only the first of these graffiti still partly survives, and we give texts based on the copy kindly supplied by G. Petzl from the archives. The graffiti were originally assigned numbers based on the numbering of the bays at the time of excavation. These are the numbers used in Bagnall 2011, and wherever possible these are retained here to avoid the confusion that would result from simply replacing them. “Tn.x” thus means “T(ext) x in Bay n.” “D” refers to “Drawing” in analogous manner. Those bay numbers on the north side run from 0 to 46. A second numbering of bays, prefixed with G, was later introduced. These numbers run from G1 to G50. They are used here for reference to graffiti only where there is not an “original” bay number, but their numbers are provided side-byside with the original ones. “TPn.x” or “DPn.x” indicates that the text is written or drawn on a pier in the row to the south of the bays where most of the graffiti are located, in the middle of the basement. Piers have been numbered with A numbers (for “ayak” in Turkish) from 1 to 59 on the north side, 60 to 116 in the middle, and 117 to 175 on the south side. The bays in the south 55

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gallery have been renumbered with a separate series of P1 to P54; only two of these have any graffiti, however, and these are given both the older numbers and the P numbers. The reader will find a concordance to the systems at the end of the book (p. 479); they are also shown on the plan provided here (Fig. 4).

A 121 (stairs) TX.1. Uncertain

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To the right of the staircase, at the lower end, 87 cm above the second step. Incised in plaster. The underlined letters were still visible in 2014; the plaster of line 2 has been lost. Dimensions 23.5 cm wide × 10 cm high; letters 3–3.5 cm high. Facsimile: Miltner.

ΟΔΟΦΟΡΟΣ ̣ ΝΗΡΘΗ

1. If this is not broken at left, one would naturally read *ὁδοφόρος, “road-bearing” or “roadbearer.” As this word is not otherwise attested to our knowledge, more promising would be the assumption of a lost letter and a reading ῥοδοφόρος. 2. See the drawing. The initial letter(s) could be omicron, epsilon, epsilon iota, or perhaps sigma upsilon. The first eta is also indistinct in Miltner’s copy and could represent something else. The only suggestion for an intepretation that has occurred to us is συνήρθη, aorist passive of συναίρω. We cannot propose a suitable meaning with either the putative *ὁδοφόρος or ῥοδοφόρος with any confidence.

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan TX.2. Uncertain

The third vault from the west, ca. 1 m above the floor. Dimensions 20 cm wide × 30 cm high. Charcoal letters 3 cm high. Traces of at least four lines were seen above the recorded text. Facsimile: Miltner.

̣Ω ̣ ̣ ΜΟΥΣ ΑΔΕΛΦ ΤΗΣΜ ΤΡΟΣ ̣ ̣ ΟΝΑ ΑΡΑ ̣

3–5 Presumably a form of ἀδελφός or ἀδελφή, perhaps followed by τῆς μητρός and perhaps a name.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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TX.3. Riddle?

The third vault from the west, front [= south?] side of the vault, ca. 6 cm above floor level. Dimensions 30 cm wide × 35 cm high. Letters ca. 3 cm high. To judge from the drawing, apparently in a tabula. Facsimile: Miltner.

Ζ[ ̣ ]Τ[ ̣ ̣ ] ̣ ΟΑΝΑ Π ̣ ̣ ΣΑΜΕΝΟΣ [ ̣ ] ̣ ζήτημα [ ̣ ] ̣ ΓΕΤΡ ̣ ΦΟΡ ̣ [ ̣] ̣Ω ̣ ̣ ̣Τ ̣ ̣

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1. It is hard not to suppose that originally the line began with ζήτημα, as in line 3 and in T0.4, T8.2, and T28.1. Following that, one might think of ἀναγινώσκων, but that would require more loss at right than the drawing allows us to see. If there is no loss, on the other hand, it is attractive to read, as Angelos Chaniotis suggests, ὁ ἀνα|πα̣υ̣σάμενος, although the traces of the bottoms of the needed alpha and upsilon do not look like those letters in Miltner’s drawing. We cannot say what its significance might be here. 2. Perhaps an aorist middle participle. 4. Perhaps a form of the perfect of γράφω?

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

Bay G2 (between Piers A4 and A5)

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan TG2.1. Uncertain

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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On the right bevel of the pier at left of the bay (A4). On the lower layer of plaster; the left part of the inscription (along with whatever stood above) is still covered by the upper layer. 157 cm from the ground. Area 17 cm wide × 24 cm high. Letters 2.5–4.5 cm high.

- - - - ]̣ ]Ṃ ]ΟΣΑ ]ΟΝΑ ] ̣ ̣Α ]̣

1. The surviving trace is a descender. There may have been another letter to its right. 2. There is space for another letter to have stood at the right of mu.

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Bay G3 (between Piers A6 and A7)

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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TG3.1. Uncertain

On the face of the left pier (A6). On the first layer. The right end of the inscription is under the second layer, and the sigma in line 1 is now under new grouting. Deeply incised. 118 cm from the euthynteria of the pier. Dimensions min. 22 cm wide × 23 cm high. Letters 1.5–3 cm high. The fourth line begins further to the left than the first three and may belong to a different graffito.

Φοῦσκος δ[ι-] κάζων Λ̣ ΑΡ̣ ΙΑ

1–2. The name Fuscus is attested at Smyrna and Ephesos, as well as elsewhere in Asia Minor: LGPN 5A 458, 5B 434. For another possible occurrence of δικάζω see T47.1. “Fuscus judging” might well take an object, but it is not clear that line 4 contained it, nor is it sure that this line belongs to the same graffito. It begins to the left of the other lines, and it is possible that additional letters preceded. The participle might thus be absolute, “acting as judge.” Ti. Manlius Fuscus (cos. ord. II 225) was proconsul of Asia ca. 210, as one of the referees points out, and the graffito might well refer to him (PIR2 V.2, 156–7, M 137).

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan DP6.1. Decorative—Geometric

On the south face of Pier A6, incised. Dimensions 15 cm wide × 14 cm high. Graffito scratched on the southern face of Pier A6, looking into the Basilica’s northern corridor. The geometric decoration is reminiscent of a stylized hearth, with a series of short parallel lines crossing the entire perimeter of the shape. At present no specific interpretation is suggested.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

Bay G4 (between Piers A7 and A8)

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan DG4.1. Ship

In the center of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 65 cm wide × 46 cm high. Dipinto of a ship located at the center of Bay G4’s back wall. The image has largely disappeared as the result of the loss of plaster to the right and to the fading of the ink in the lines at the top and toward the left end. From what is extant it is possible to identify a ship sailing on starboard tack, with a rockered keel and a prow terminating in a very long and raised ἀκροστόλιον. The bulwark toward the prow is decorated with a pattern of diagonal and parallel lines, suggesting the presence of a foredeck. Two parallel lines decorate the hull, possibly indicating the different tiers of planks. One πρότονος is rendered as a diagonal line departing from the prow. A perpendicular line probably indicates the lower part of the sail. No oars are visible.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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Bay G6 (between Piers A10 and A11)

No graffiti were visible in 2003. Subsequent cleaning has revealed some faintly preserved inscriptions.

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan TG6.1. Uncertain

On the east (inner) face of the left pier (A10), above the tabula ansata of TG6.2. One line, broken at left. Majuscule letters 4.5 cm high.

]Μ̣ ΟΣΕ

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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TG6.2. Uncertain (see figure facing page) On the east (inner) face of the left pier (A10). Two lines in a tabula ansata, about 8 cm high, located about 55 cm above the level of the bench, broken at left, so that the original width cannot be determined but was probably about 19 cm. Majuscule letters 3 cm high. Below this, an immediately adjoining tabula just 5 cm high and the same width, with faint letter traces for which no text is offered.

[ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ] ̣ ΕΙΝ [ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ] ̣ ΕΙΩ TG6.3. Exercise?

In the central panel, at upper left, inside a tabula ansata ca 22.5 cm high and of uncertain width; detached but informal letters 1–1.5 cm high.

ωωωωωω οοοοοο θ̣ο̣̣ο̣ρι

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan TG6.4. Riddle

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

73

On the west (left) face of the pier at right (A11). At 86 cm above the bench, a tabula ansata 10.5 cm wide × 6.5 cm high, with one line above it, four lines inside it, and four lines below it. The majuscule letters, 1 cm high, are mostly faint traces. The first line above the tabula reads ζήτημα Inside the tabula:

̣ ̣ ΝΙΕ ̣ ̣ ̣ traces ̣ ΑΡ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ΔΩ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣

Below the tabula:

ζ̣ήτημ̣α̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣Τ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣Α ̣ ̣ Ν ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ΤΙ̣Α̣ ΕΧ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ Ο̣ Ν̣ ̣

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Bay 1 [= G7, between Piers A11 and A12]

The plaster is preserved up to a height of more than 2 m, but no drawings or inscriptions were visible in 2003. Subsequent cleaning has revealed some poorly-preserved traces.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna T1.1. Uncertain

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On the left pier’s (A11) beveled edge, an inscription 21.5 cm wide × 24 cm high. Irregular, informal, detached letters 2–2.5 cm high. Below it, a drawing of a gladiator (D1.1).

--------traces ̣ ̣ ̣ ΘΩΙ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ΕΙ ̣ ̣ ΤΕΒ̣ Η ̣ ΕΚ̣ ΙΣΟΝ Ε̣ ΙΠ ̣ ΟΝΑΝ ̣ ̣ ΕΙ ̣ ΣΘΩ ̣ ̣

4. Perhaps κατ-, yielding κ̣α̣τέβ̣η. But the beta is too insecure to make this more than an attractive conjecture. 5. ἐκῖ, read ἐκεῖ? It would fit with the conjecture for the previous line. There may not be anything before epsilon. 6. Perhaps εἶπον; the first two letters seem squeezed in and are not certainly read.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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T1.2. Name

In the main bay, at upper right, above the head of a man in red (D1.2). Detached but cursive style letters 2.5–3 cm high except for rho, 5 cm. Below it is an ivy leaf and to the left of the leaf traces of 5 lines, each of a few letters, in a large, rough hand, not read.

Π̣ αρθένα Ζ̣ μυρνιαία . .

1. The name Parthena is common in central Greece (mainly Boiotia) and the Cimmerian Bosporos, as well as in Cilicia (LGPN 3B.335, 4.272, 5B.344), but otherwise attested in Asia Minor only at Miletos. The masculine form of the adjective Ζμυρναῖος appears in P100.3.2. Iota after nu is superfluous but is clear on the photo. There may be traces above this line, but we cannot make anything out distinctly. It is not obvious whether there is any connection between the text and the head drawn below it. There are also some faint traces on the bevel of the right pier, which have not been read.

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D1.1. Gladiator

East face of Pier A11, in black Ink. Dimensions 23 cm wide × 40 cm high. Dipinto of the bust of a gladiator located at the eastern face of Pier A11, looking into Bay 1. The ink is mostly faded. The bust, seen from behind, is drawn in three-quarter, turned to the left. The image can be identified as a large crested gladiatorial helmet and a breastplate that covers also part of the back. The dipinto was probably meant to be a close-up of the gladiator depicted in D1.2.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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D1.2. Gladiator

On the east face of Pier A11, in black ink. Dimensions 18 cm wide × 18 cm high. Dipinto of a gladiator located at the eastern face of Pier A11, looking into Bay 1. Highly schematic, it depicts a gladiator seen in profile, advancing to the left. While the head and legs are drawn in profile, the torso is frontal. The man wears a brimmed and crested helmet and possibly a long breastplate. His arms are extended to the sides: he holds in both a short weapon, interpretable either as a sword terminating in a semi-circular blade or as a semi-circular blade attached to a tang or metal shaft, possibly an arbelos. The detail of the weapons suggests that the gladiator can be identified as a διμάχαιρος or even an ἀρβήλαϛ, seldom depicted on funerary stelae or official reliefs. A similar but shorter version of the weapon is visible on the tombstone relief of the gladiator Myron, now at the Louvre Museum (inv. MA 154) and dated to the second–third century CE. While it is impossible to identify on the Smyrna graffito the scaled tunic worn by Myron, the helmet, with its high crest and wide brims, is clearly identical to the one on the tombstone. The Louvre relief has no certain provenance, but it has been known since 1806. Louis Robert, the first to provide a full description of its iconography, interpreted the weapon as a metal cone terminating in a crescent that was meant to be used by a retiarius to attach his net (Robert 1940: no. 299, pp. 235–6). The Smyrna graffito ultimately disproves his hypothesis. A discussion on the role and the weapons of the arbelas appears in Carter 2001: 109–15, esp. 112–3, fig. 2.

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D1.3. Portrait—Bust

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

81

In the upper right quadrant of Bay 1, in red and black ink. Dimensions 20 cm wide × 27 cm high. Dipinto of a male bust located at the upper right quadrant of the back wall of Bay 1. The drawing is mostly made in red ink. Black strokes, visible in the dipinto’s lower half, could have served as preparatory guidelines. The head and shoulders are fully frontal. The man wears a short hairstyle, with slightly wavy hair falling on the forehead. He has a long, full, and wavy beard that starts from below his pointed ears and terminates, at the center of the chin, in a pointed tip. Thin mustaches are visible above the upper lip. The mouth is small and the lips are thin. The nose is straight and the large eyes, with marked pupils, are asymmetrical and almondshaped. The eyebrows are linear and heavily marked in red. The large neck is visibly elongated, with a central long line suggesting its fullness. At its base, a simple line indicates the tunic’s rounded rim.

82

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D1.4. Decorative—Ivy Leaf

In the upper right quadrant of the back wall of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 23.5 cm wide × 26 cm high. Dipinto of an ivy leaf. The leaf, pointing downward, is heart-shaped with its left half considerably larger than the right one. A long, slightly curved petiole extends toward the right and terminates with a butterfly-shaped pulvinus.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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DP12.1. Animal—Fish

On the south face of Pier A12, between Bays 1 and 2. In black and red ink. Dimensions 35 cm wide × 13 cm high. Dipinto of a fish located on the southern face of Pier A12, between Bay 1 and Bay 2, facing the northern corridor. The use of red color, sparsely present in other dipinti in the Basilica, was probably a deliberate allusion to the fish’s species. Indeed, the fish can be identified as a red or barbed mullet (mullus), frequently mentioned in the ancient Roman sources (Seneca, Cicero, Columella, and Pliny among others). The mouth is defined by a straight red line, the body is moderately elongated, and the snout is steep. The two separated dorsal fins are easily recognizable, and the operculum is well defined. Right below it two barbels are also quite evident. The pectoral fin is small and triangular, while the triangular anal fin is markedly elongated. The forked caudal fins are drawn in several thick and overlapping lines.

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Bay 2 [= G8, between Piers A12 and A13]

The bay’s back wall presents two notable patches, one at the top and the other at the right end of the wall, where the plaster has detached revealing an earlier layer of plaster, similar in color but with no apparent traces of incised or painted graffiti. The preserved dipinti are mostly discolored, suggesting that other images could have been originally drawn on the surface. At the lower left quadrant are faint traces of a ship (D2.1) at left, and of an inscription (T2.1) at right. One inscription is on the bay’s eastern pier (T2.2).

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T2.1. Uncertain

Four lines, broken at right; it is uncertain if more may have faded at left than our text indicates, as there is no clear edge. Area ca. 48 cm wide × 28 cm high. Letters 3–4 cm high except rho, in an irregular cursive hand. Entire inscription crossed out with large X.

[. . . . . .]. ΕΙΝΤ[ . Ν . . . . ΕΙΣΕΘΩΚΑ[ ΒΩΦ.[.]. . Θ̣ ΕΕΚΑ[ . Ε . Η . . ΟΣ̣ ΩΡΕ[

1. To the left there are faint traces that we have not attempted to represent as separate letters here. Possibly –ειν is to be taken as an infinitive ending. 2. We cannot propose a word with εθωκα that could plausibly be read here; only Hesychius’ listing of a Doric third person plural perfect form ἐθώκατι of ἔθω appears in a TLG search. Possibly we should suppose the theta to be a phonetic error for delta and understand εἰσέδωκα. 4. At the start, gamma or pi; after epsilon, perhaps lambda. The letter before omicron looks like a very large mu or double lambda; the letter preceding that could also be mu. There are faint traces on the west face of the right pier (A13). On right bevel edge of the right pier, at face level:

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T2.2. Uncertain

Two lines. Majuscule letters ca. 3 cm high. Only part of line 2 has been read.

. εχαλ

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

87

D2.1. Ship

In the left half of Bay 2, in very thick black ink. Dimensions 82 cm wide × 81 cm high. Dipinto of a ship located in the left half of the back wall of Bay 2. The drawing is largely faded; however, it is still possible to identify the ship as on starboard tack. The two bestpreserved elements are the very tall mast (ἱστός) and the upper bulwark (τράφηξ) of what can be identified as a ship with a strongly rockered keel (τρόπις). At the top of the mast, a horizontal line representing the yard (κέρας) terminates to the right in a triangle, possibly a sail (ἱστίον). Above the yard two diagonal lines indicate the χηροῦχοι, ropes connecting the mast with the yard. At the right end of the yard a long diagonal line is possibly a πρότονος. The ship belongs to the ἄφρακτοι νῆες, vessels without deck. No indication of oars is preserved.

Bay 3 (with closed Gate 8) [= G9, between Piers A13 and A14] No inscriptions or drawings were observed.

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Bay 4 [= G10, between Piers A14 and A15]

The plaster in the back wall’s lower half is completely missing, and the traces of painted graffiti on the upper half are very faded. At the center of the wall, the outline of a large ship is visible (D4.1). On the bay’s eastern pier (A15) are an inscription (T4.1), and the dipinto of a fish (DP15.1).

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T4.1. Uncertain

On the right pier (A15), on the side facing the inside of the bay, are faint traces of 6 lines of writing, in an area ca. 30 cm wide × 40 cm high; written in large detached letters 6–7 cm high, as well as some stray marks, not all of which may be ancient. There are no signs that the writing continued around the edge onto the outer face of the pier, but we cannot be sure that it did not. traces traces χ...θ. κο[ τα.[ τ. .[

90

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D4.1. Ship

In the center of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 60 cm wide × 84 cm high. Dipinto of a ship sailing on starboard tack located at the center of the back wall of Bay 4. Most of the ink used to draw this ship has faded. Still visible are the mast (ἱστός), part of the yard (κέρας), and the sail (ἱστίον) that opens toward the prow. A figure, shown in profile and possibly representing the magister navis, is positioned on a higher platform or forecastle. No elements suggesting the presence of a deck or oars are visible, and the whole bulwark of the ship (ἴκρια) has faded. The shape, for what is visible, is reminiscent of a cargo ship of small dimensions. The shape of the hull finds a close comparison in a ship represented on a gravestone from the necropolis of Sinope dated to the third century CE. See Pfuhl and Möbius 1977: vol. 2, no. 1183, 290–1.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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DP15.1. Animal—Fish

On the south face of Pier A15, between Bays 4 and 5, in black ink. Dimensions 42 cm wide × 23 cm high. Dipinto of a fish located at the southern face of Pier A15, between Bays 4 and 5, looking into the north corridor. The drawing, now partially faded, is extremely schematic: the fish’s snout is round, the body tapers toward the back, and the large caudal fins are truncated. No other fins are visible; the operculum is drawn as a simple curved line.

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Bay 5 [= G11, between Piers A15 and A16]

The plaster on the bay’s back wall is well preserved except for an area in the center, but the writing is very effaced. The wall is dominated by the large image of a ship, the only pictorial dipinto visible and most probably the only image that was drawn upon this wall (D5.1). The inscriptions (T5.1 and T5.2) are clustered at the top on the left side. On the bay’s west pier (A15) is the dipinto of a phallus (D5.2), while on the eastern pier (A16) are an inscription (T5.3) and a gladiator (D5.3).

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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T5.1. Declaration of Love

Two lines, about 30 cm wide × 20 cm high. Cursive letters 6–7 cm high except rho. The text of line 1 is based almost entirely on the hand-copy. Bibliography: Bagnall, Everyday Writing, p. 15 (reference); SEG 61.957.

μίαν̣ φιλ[ῶ] ἧς ἀριθμ[ὸς - -]

“I love one woman whose number is [--].” Better-preserved exampes of similar texts are found at T24.2 and T27.3, as well as probably a poorly preserved example at T12.7. See introduction, p. 48. It is possible that the number was written in a third line, either on the preserved plaster but now entirely faded, or just to the right of the break. Immediately below T5.1, with a 10 cm space between:

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T5.2. Uncertain

One line, about 23 cm wide × 10 cm high. Cursive letters 6–9 cm high.

ΗΚΑΙΑ ̣

One might suggest a similarity to T15.3, but there is no initial eta there, and the ink is clearly preserved; there are also following letters in that case. Here there may be a letter after the second alpha, although the trace could just be the elongation of the alpha. The meaning is not obvious. LSJ cites ἠκαῖον from Hesychius, glossed as ἀσθενές. If a nu were effaced at the start, one might also imagine Νηκαία for Νικαία, the city name.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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T5.3. Uncertain

On the right pier (A16) bevel, at the top of the preserved plaster, is an inscription of ca. 22 × 22 cm, with letters 2 cm high in 7 lines. It is largely illegible now.

96

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D5.1. Ship

In the center of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 162 cm wide × 113 cm high. Published as Bay 5-T16 in Pomey 2006: 328–30, figs. 19–20. Dipinto of a ship located at the center of the back wall of Bay 5, where it occupies the whole span of the bay. It depicts a medium-sized commercial vessel sailing on port tack. Clearly visible are the ropes connecting the single mast to the yard (κηροῦχοι), the mast to the boat (πρότονοι), as well as those connecting the sail to the hull (πόδες). The round prow (πρώρα) is decorated with the drawing of an eye, interpretable as the ὀφθαλμός, and two concentric lines that mimic a fish’s operculum, so that the whole prow is shaped to evoke a fish’s head. Despite the large lacuna at the center, the ship seems to have a raised deck to the right of the mast. There, a sailor, his body fully frontal and the face in profile, is rendered with minimal attention for anatomical details. He is shown in the act of attending to a rope connected with the mast, which is covered in rigging. At the stern, a helmsman (κυβερνήτης), seated in elevated position, controls two rudders (πηδάλιοι), shown as raised from the water. There are no signs of other oars. Of the sailor, only the bust and the face turned toward the viewer are visible, both rendered in few and poorly executed details.

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D5.2. Phallus

On the east face of Pier A15, in black ink. Dimensions 26.3 cm wide × 22.5 cm high. Dipinto of a penis located at the eastern face of Pier A15, looking into Bay 5. The corpus of the penis is drawn horizontally and it is composed of a lower straight line and an upper convex one converging toward the tip. Two short lines indicate the dorsal artery; the foreskin and the meatus are also clearly outlined. The two drop-shaped testicles, which are rendered in multiple concentric lines, are placed vertically and touch at the center.

98

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D5.3. Gladiator

On the west face of Pier A16, in black and red ink. Dimensions 26 cm wide × 48 cm high. Dipinto of a gladiator located at the western face of Pier A16, looking into Bay 5. The drawing is extremely schematic, in the “stick figure” style, so that is impossible to determine which kind of gladiator is meant to be depicted. The limbs are rendered as diagonal lines terminating in triangular extremities. The helmet is drawn as a pointed triangle, and very thick lines to its right might represent a shield as seen in profile. Two red, thick, and long lines to the left of the figure possibly indicate the blood of the enemy slain by the gladiator.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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Bay 6 [= G12, between Piers A16 and A17]

The plaster of this bay’s back wall is poorly preserved: large lacunae are visible at the top and at the right end. Large cracks break the plaster throughout the whole surface. Most of the black color used for the graffiti is partially or completely faded. In the left center part of the wall are a medium-sized ship (D6.1) and the two inscriptions (T6.1 and T6.2). On the bay’s eastern pier (A17) is visible the small image of a feline (D6.2).

100

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T6.1. Scurrilous Allegation

Three lines, about 48 cm wide × 19 cm high. Detached majuscule letters 4.5 cm high, rather effaced. Bibliography: Bagnall, Everyday Writing, p.16; SEG 61.959.

Λειοντισ[ εὑ-] ρὼν μοιχο[ κατέκτανε [

1. The last preserved letter is definitely sigma rather than omicron. The participle shows that the name is not the feminine Λεοντίς, but either Λεόντι(ο)ς or Λεοντίσκος can be intended. Both names are moderately common in Ionia and elsewhere in Asia Minor (see LGPN 5A 265, 5B 256), but only the second is known so far at Smyrna. 2. As the length of the lacuna is not determinable, it is not obvious whether we should restore only a nu or imagine something more. At a minimalist restoration, Λεοντίσ[κος εὑ]|ρὼν μοιχὸ[ν]| κατέκτανε [αὐτόν?], “Leontis[kos?], finding an adulterer, killed [him].” But an adverb could easily be added in line 2.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

101

Below T6.1 but above and partly to the right of the ship is a graffito in multiple hands, in bad condition. It is not possible to tell whether there are multiple graffiti over one another or a dialogical graffiti conversation, and it is at times difficult to distinguish ship’s rigging from letter strokes. T6.2. Uncertain

Four lines, about 64 cm wide × 36 cm high. Letters 3 cm high. Lines 2–3 are in one hand (majuscules), line 4 definitely in a different hand. It is not certain if line 1 is in the same hand as lines 2–3, but it appears more ligatured.

ΤΙΤ ̣ [̣ ̣ ]̣ ̣ ΗΝ ̣ ̣ Ω ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ΤΟΝΜ ̣ ̣ ̣ ΟΥ ̣ traces? ΛΕ ̣ ̣ Η traces? ̣ ΑΝ

On the bevel of the pier at right (A17) is a drawing of an animal, evidently a cat (D6.2).

102

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D6.1. Ship

In the upper left quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 66 cm wide × 26 cm high. Published as Bay 6-T17 in Pomey 2006: 330–1, fig. 21. Dipinto of a ship sailing on starboard tack located in the upper left quadrant of the back wall of Bay 6. The ink has mostly disappeared: only faint traces of the strokes that defined the mast, the yard, and one sail are still visible, too ephemeral to allow any further description. The black lines in the right half of the dipinto are the best preserved, so that the stern of the ship is still recognizable. It is convex in shape and raised from the bulwark; a rectangular quarterdeck is positioned right above the stern, while a low ἄφλαστον, geometric and very simplified, terminates its upper portion. Two rudders (πηδάλιοι) with large rectangular blades appear from both sides of the ship, but no other oars are visible. The ship’s prow, with an overly concave profile, is still somewhat visible at the left end of the dipinto. The black ink has for the most part disappeared: the lines are identifiable only from the discoloration of the portions of plaster that were originally covered by the color. The prow is surmounted by a rounded στόλος crowned by a spiral-shaped ἀκροστόλιον. A three-bladed ἔμβολος protrudes from the bottom of the prow, suggesting that the drawing was meant to represent a military vessel. Considering the rather small size of the vessel, the dipinto was most probably meant to depict a navis rostrata (or liburna), one of the most common military vessels of the imperial period.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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A close comparison for the spiral-shaped acrostolium and the three-bladed rostrum in a second century CE sarcophagus from Panderma. See Pfuhl and Möbius 1977: vol. 1: 113, no. 283. D6.2. Animal—Feline

On the west face of Pier A17, in black ink. Dimensions 7.5 cm wide × 5.7 cm high. Small graffito of a feline located at the western face of Pier A17, looking into Bay 6. The body is in profile, while the fully frontal muzzle confronts the viewer. Advancing toward the left, the animal is only partially sketched. Clearly identifiable are the triangular head, the two narrow eyes, the whiskers and nose, the furry paws, and the tail. Considering the small size and the mediocre state of preservation, it is difficult to ascertain if the graffito was meant to portray another small feline or a domestic cat.

Bay 7 [= G13, between Piers A17 and A18] This bay contains a closed doorway, Gate 9. Some plaster is preserved, with only stray traces of drawings or inscriptions visible on it.

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Bay 8 [= G14, between Piers A18 and A19]

The plaster on the back wall of Bay 8 presents a sizable lacuna at the top that cuts part of a large dipinto of a phallus (D8.1). Below it, are two inscriptions (T8.1 and T8.2). Several horizontal and vertical cracks affect the whole surface of the plaster. The dipinti are mostly in black, with the notable exception of a possible venation scene (D8.7) in red. The images are generally poor in quality, schematic, and with no evident artistic merit. Many of the dipinti overlap each other, suggesting that they were executed at different moments in time. The subjects of the drawings are common in the corpus of known graffiti from the ancient world: two ships (D8.3 and D8.5), two phalli (D8.1, D8.2), two human figures (D8.4 and D8.6), and a venatio (D8.7).

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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T8.1. Orders

Four lines, located 58 cm from the left edge and 25 cm from the bottom of the window cutting. Approximately 92 cm wide × 29 cm high. Largely detached majuscule letters 5 cm high (possibly the same hand as T9.5). Below line 4 there are signs of a new coat of plaster, covering any additional lines originally written (cf. also on T8.2).

Ὀνήσιμε, μὴ κλίδισ̣ο̣ν καὶ μία̣ι̣ν̣ε τὴν ὑπὸ θεῶν ἐκτημέν̣η̣ν Βαιτην ἐὰν δ̣ὲ̣ καὶ καταπείνῃ ------------

“Onesimos, do not lock up and pollute the Baite possessed by the gods; but if he also consumes . . .” 1. The name Onesimos was extremely popular in Ionia and neighboring parts of Asia Minor (LGPN 5A 346–7, 5B 328). It appears in TP100.5.2. Read, perhaps, κλείδισον, aorist imperative from *κλειδίζω, an equivalent to κλείω (“shut, close, lock”) derived from κλειδίον, “key” and perhaps meaning more precisely “lock (up).” Angelos Chaniotis has suggested the possibility instead of the equally unattested *κλύδιζω, with a force perhaps of “to splash,” that is, to play with, leading to the pollution prohibited in the next line. He cites κλύδαξις (splash) and κλυδωνίζω (to disturb). 2. We owe the reading μία̣ι̣ν̣ε to Raffaella Cribiore.

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

3. Perfect forms of κτάομαι with epsilon augment rather than syllabic reduplication are found in both Attic and Ionic, cf. LSJ s.v. citing Syll.3 633 (Miletos) and 888 (Skaptoparene), cf. also 1106 (Kos). Gignac 1976: 245 cites a papyrological example in BGU 2.587.12 (141 CE); cf. his detailed n. 1 on the phenomenon, with further references. 4. Cf. T9.5, line 4, for the reading of this line. If, as we suppose, Baite is connected with the spring, the verb is likely to refer to its waters. The force of καταπίνω is to drink excessively, i.e., to waste. T8.2. Riddle

One line, located to the left of line 4 of T8.1. 19 cm wide, with cursive letters 2.3 cm high. Above it is a line of 8 small circles 4 cm high, with minuscule letters in them, 28 cm wide × 6.5 cm high. Bibliography: Bagnall, Everyday Writing, p. 19 (reference).

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ζήτημα

This is the beginning of a riddle, of which whatever else was written is now lost under the new layer of plaster applied just below it (cf. T8.1). It is possible also that nothing more was written. Cf. T28.1. In the circles: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Α Π Ο Λ Ο Λ Ε Ι ἀπόλωλε is a possible interpretation, but the apparent iota in the last circle is puzzling. As it stands at the extreme left of the available space inside the circle, perhaps nu was intended or written but now mostly lost. We do not know why the letters are written inside circles. On the bevel of the right pier are some scattered letters.

108

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D8.1. Phallus

In the upper register of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 110 cm wide × 45.5 cm high. Dipinto of a male sexual organ located on the back wall of Bay 8, toward the top. The corpus of the penis, damaged by a large lacuna toward the center, is rendered by two horizontal and roughly parallel lines. The area of the epithelium is indicated by a short diagonal line. The two testicles, drawn roughly as ovals, are placed to the sides of the corpus and are very close in size.

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D8.2. Phallus

In the right half of the center of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 79 cm wide × 23.5 cm high. Dipinto of a male sexual organ located on the right half of the back wall of Bay 8, toward the middle. The corpus of the penis is rendered by a lower straight line and an upper curving one. The area of the epithelium is indicated by a short vertical line departing at two-thirds of the corpus’ length. A series of concentric lines outline the round testicles, the lower one slightly bigger in size. Positioned at the two sides of the corpus, they are clearly separated from it and from each other.

110

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D8.3. Ship

In the center of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 86 cm wide × 38 cm high. Dipinto of a ship located on the back wall of Bay 8, toward the center. The drawing is partially obliterated by other graffiti, with the result that its full outline is not completely reconstructible. The ship, sailing on port tack, has a concave keel terminating in a very high prow with a short, pointed στόλος. At the stern are visible two short πηδάλια, filled in with black color. No indication of mast, sails, or oars is visible.

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D8.4. Portrait—Bust

In the lower right quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 14 cm wide × 32 cm high. Very schematic dipinto of a human bust, possibly a veiled male, located in the lower right quadrant of the back wall of Bay 8. The figure is in profile toward the left with exaggerated facial features. A very large oval eye and a long, rectangular, and prominent nose are placed over a small opened mouth with a triangular upper lip. The chin is quite pronounced and the elongated neck sits over small and drooping shoulders. There are no clear indications of hair: a short and almost vertical line starting near the eye might suggest the presence of a veil whose flaps flow down at the two sides of the neck.

112

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D8.5. Ship

In the center of the lower register of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 14 cm wide × 13 cm high. Very small and poorly preserved dipinto of a ship sailing on starboard tack located in the center of the back wall of Bay 8, toward the bottom. Both the mast (ἱστός) and the yard (κέρας) are drawn with single lines. Above the yard is visible a structure that could be identified as the καρχήσιον, the ancient equivalent of a crow’s nest from which the sailors managed the sail, obtained a distant view, or discharged missiles. The sail (ἱστίον) stretches on both sides of the yard and is connected to the bulwark by two ropes (πόδες), which possibly indicate that the vessel’s stern is to the left. No other details of the bulwark or of the oars are visible. Clearly identifiable are the brailing ropes connecting the sail to the hull.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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D8.6. Stick Figure

In the lower left quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 5 cm wide × 6.5 cm high. Very small and schematic dipinto of a human figure located in the lower left quadrant of the back wall of Bay 8. Conventionally referred to as a “stick figure.” Most of the black color defining the figure’s body has faded, and only a roughly oval head is still visible. The head is characterized by large oval eyes, a long straight nose, and a small and oval mouth tilted upward. No other details are recognizable.

114

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D8.7. Scene—Venatio

In the center, left half, of the bay, in red and black Ink. Dimensions 30 cm wide × 30.5 cm high. Small and very damaged dipinto, possibly of a hunting scene or a venatio, located on the left half of the back wall of Bay 8, toward the center. To the left is a human figure in red color, the body turned to the left and the head to the right, as if looking backward. The figure is almost completely faded, the head and the lower legs constituting the better-preserved elements. Above the man and to his right, in black color, is what can be interpreted as an animal. Possibly wounded by the man, the animal is bleeding from two wounds. The blood is rendered as two oblique and parallel lines in red color that depart from the animal and reach down to the man’s feet. Another element in black, roughly rectangular in shape, is visible to the right of the man, but the lines are too faded to allow any certain identification.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

115

Bay 9 [= G15, between Piers A19 and A20]

The plaster on the back wall of this bay presents numerous lacunae at the wall’s top and bottom, along its right end, and toward the center. The surface of the wall is crowded with well preserved inscriptions (T9.1 to T9.9), while the two remaining dipinti (a gladiator, D9.1, and a ship, D9.2) are rather faded. All graffiti except for T9.5 stand on the last replastering of the bay.

116

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T9.1. Acclamation

In the center of the panel, starting 30 cm from the left edge; an area ca. 98 cm wide × 12 cm high. Letters 11 cm high, large rounded majuscules. Bibliography: Bagnall, Everyday Writing, p. 19 and p. 20, fig. 7; SEG 61.965.

Ἀσίας πρώτοις

“To the first of Asia!” A second hand has added, inserting small letters similar in style into and after those of the first hand (see photo), “To the Ephesians!”

Ἐφεσίοις

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

117

T9.2. Address to Reader

A tabula ansata placed immediately below T9.1. The main rectangle of the tabula is 40 cm wide × 18 cm high. Detached majuscule letters 3 cm high.

ὁ ἀναγεινώ`σ΄κων τὸν θεὸν σοι ὀρχῆσαι ΛΕ . Ν̣ ΩΔΕΣ ὀρχη

“Reader: May the god make you dance … (?)” 4. This line is now very faint, as the photographs show.

118

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T9.3. Address to Reader

A tabula ansata placed immediately above T9.1. The main rectangle of the tabula is 44 cm wide × 21 cm high. Detached majuscule letters 3 cm high. Four lines. Only scattered letters can be read after the start of line 1. “The reader . . .”

[ὁ] ἀ̣ν̣α̣γ̣εινώ̣σ̣[κων]

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

119

T9.4. Label

Below and to the right of T9.2; about 13 cm below the bottom of the rectangle of the tabula ansata, and ending ca. 30 cm from the right pier. Area 32 cm wide × 12 cm high. Block capital letters 5–6 cm high.

τόπος ΑΔ . . ΙΣ

1–2. See Langner 2001: no. 1291 (τόπος Ἔρωτος) and large numbers of instances at Aphrodisias. We expect a personal name in line 2 but have not been able to read one.

120

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T9.5. Orders and Threats

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

121

At the top of the bay, at 39 cm from the left edge; area 110 cm wide × 27 cm high. Four lines and 2 letters+ on a fifth. A new layer of plaster covers any additional lines that stood below those read. Block capital letters 4–5 cm high. [[. . . . . . . . .]] [. . . .]. ΑΠΕ . . .[ . . η̣ τὴν Βαιτη[ν] καὶ ἀφανίσ[ῃ τὸ ἔργ[ο]ν̣ τῷ̣ δήμῳ̣ [ [ἐ]ὰν δὲ καὶ καταπείνῃ μηδὲν[ ΜΗ[ If nothing more is lost at right than a letter, then we may take ἀφανίσ[ῃ] | τὸ ἔργον τῷ δήμῳ continuously, in the sense of “whoever destroys the work to the detriment of the people.” The work may be the fountain that housed the outflow from the spring. This would (on our view) explain the reference to Baite immediately before. On line 4, cf. T8.1, line 4 and note. How the phrase concludes is not evident. We are (as with T8.1) indebted to Angelos Chaniotis for valuable suggestions.

122

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T9.6. Word Square

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

123

At right edge of bay, to the right of the upper tabula ansata (T9.3). Area 22 cm wide × 15 cm high. Block letters 3–4 cm high. Bibliography: Bagnall, Everyday Writing, pp. 17–18; SEG 61.963.

[μῆ]λ[ον] ἡδ[ονή] λόγο̣ς̣ ὄνομα νή̣σας̣

For a parallel see T12.1, and see introduction, p. 52. Nothing much remains of line 1, but the surface is badly preserved there. We take νήσας to be the aorist participle of νέω.

124

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T9.7. Uncertain

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

125

On the right pier (A20), on the west side, facing the bay, at 23 cm from the left edge of the pier. Area 25 cm wide × 32 cm high. Old Roman Cursive letters 4–7 cm high. -------- ou[a]l[ euseb ̣ ̣ euseb ̣ ̣ pit ̣ ̣ ̣ er 1. One would perhaps read Ou[a]l[erius or Ou[a]l[ens; the form would represent the Greek rendering of a Latin name turned back into Latin, perhaps a sign of a Hellenophone writer with little Latin but the alphabet; cf. also the note to l. 2. 2. The traces after euseb look most like Greek ην. In line 3, the letter after b also looks as if it could be an eta. Were it not for that Eusebius would be an attractive interpretation.

126

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T9.8. Uncertain

On the right pier (A20), on left bevel surface, at top. Area 21 wide × 24 cm high. Old Roman Cursive letters 4–7 cm high. ̣ ̣ ̣ se e ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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T9.9. Uncertain

Below T9.8, a tabula ansata 17 cm wide × 21 cm high, with space for 6 lines; only the beginnings of lines 1–5 are now visible, with a few very faint letters 1.5–2 cm high.

Ε ̣ Ν ̣Α Π (or Γ) ΠΕ̣ Σ

128

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D9.1. Gladiator

In the upper right quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 17 cm wide × 39 cm high. Dipinto of a human figure, possibly a gladiator, located in the upper right quadrant of the back wall of Bay 9. The depiction of this human figure is quite difficult to interpret, both for its summary execution and for the fading black color. From the extant traces it seems possible to recognize in the man a murmillo, shown in three-quarter and in the act of advancing toward the right, with his right leg partially raised and advanced. The identification is based on the large

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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size of his upper torso, the tight loincloth (subligaculum) revealing the contours of the buttocks, and the lines at his waist indicating a balteus. A helmet with a stylized element on top (a poorly rendered crest and fish?) protects his head, while at his left, partially covered by the body, is visible the outline of a long shield, possibly a scutum. The man’s left leg is visibly larger than the right one, and it is drawn in a thicker line, suggesting the presence of a greave, a customary accessory for a murmillo. Similar pose and attributes can be found in one graffito from the theater of Aphrodisias (Langner 2001: no. 761, dated to Late Antiquity) and another one from the Paedagogium of the Domus Tiberiana (Solin and Itkonen-Kaila, eds. 1966: no. 97, p. 133). D9.2. Ship

In the lower register, center, of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 58 cm wide × 38 cm high. Very faded dipinto of a ship located at the center of the back wall of Bay 9, toward the bottom. The most evident element is the cordage (τοπεῖα) that connects the mast, the yard, and the sail (all almost completely vanished) to the bulwark. The prow and the stern are poorly preserved, while the bulwark is characterized by a criss-cross pattern of thick lines. No oars are visible.

130

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Bay 10 [= G16, between Piers A20 and 21]

Doorway (Gate 10, closed) bay. On the western pier (Pier A20), east side, facing to the bay, are an inscription (T10.1) and the graffito of a labrys (D10.1).

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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T10.1. Uncertain

In a tabula ansata ca. 26 cm wide × 26 cm high. Scattered letters 2 cm high, with a theta or epsilon at the start of the first line.

132

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T10.2. Uncertain

On the central wall of the bay, to the left of the door. Area 24 cm wide × 22 cm high. Very faint detached, informal letters 2 cm high.

. . . (δην.) Δ γρ . . . αν . . . γρα . . αγ ̣ π̣αρατ̣ ̣ ̣ (δην.) Γ

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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D10.1. Decorative—Ax

On the east face of Pier A20, incised. Dimensions 14 cm wide × 16 cm high. Graffito of a πέλεκυς (or labrys) located at the eastern face of Pier A20 looking into Bay 10. The graffito is incised over the painted tabula ansata T10.1. The ax’s haft and head are plain, their outline rendered in very deep etched lines. The haft is straight and slightly tapering toward the top. The head is roughly straight at the top and concave at the bottom. The two rounded blades are symmetrical. The iconography of this graffito is very similar to that of graffito DP78.2. The survival in Late Antiquity of the iconography of the labrys as a symbol of paganism referring to the Carian Zeus has been recently discussed by Angelos Chaniotis in relation to a graffito found at Aphrodisias; see Chaniotis 2014: 16–21, esp. fig. 16, p. 21.

134

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Bay 11 [= G17, between Piers A21 and A22]

The plaster on the back wall of Bay 11 is overall well-preserved. Apart from a small lacuna toward the bottom and another one in the upper left quadrant, the main damage is in the form of long horizontal and vertical cracks that are visible at the center of the wall and along the upper and lower edges. Both pictorial and written graffiti are concentrated on the right half of the wall. Toward the center, a quite large image of a ship, in black with red outline (D11.1), two smaller gladiators (D11.2 and D11.3), a human head partially covered by a later dipinto of a ship (D11.4 and D11.6), and a large phallus (D11.5) are arranged below or next to the inscriptions (T11.1 to T11.4), some of them clearly meant to provide a visual counterpart to the text (see, for example, T11.1).

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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T11.1. Label of Phallus

Ending 42 cm from the right side of the bay, and about 2.15 m above ground level. Above the phallus D11.5 and to the right of the testicles. Area of 32 cm wide × 12 cm high. Letters 7–11 cm high, crudely written.

ψωλή

The word, written here over D11.5, a drawing of a phallus, is defined by LSJ as membrum virile praeputio retracto. But this is too specific and genteel; Aristophanes’ usage (Aves 560, Lys. 979) does not support it. Modern Greek usage, no doubt little different, is defined in Babiniotis 1988: 2022 as το ανδρικό μόριο, το πέος and marked as vulgar: “prick” would be a good English rendering. An excellent parallel to our text is furnished by SEG 49.1385A, where the word is written over a drawing of a phallus from a latrine in Rome.

136

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T11.2. Uncertain

Under the phallus, an area of 19 cm wide × 7 cm high. 2 lines in rough capitals 3 cm high.

ΚΑ̣ ΤΑΧ̣ ΑΜ̣ ΑΛ ̣

It is unclear what may have been lost at right. The mu in line 2 could instead be double lambda. The final letter is rounded and most likely epsilon or omicron.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna T11.3. Exercise?

137

138

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Lower on the panel, below the ship drawing. Bottom of inscription ca. 90 cm from the ground, 64 cm from left edge. Area 40 cm wide × 57 cm high. Very irregular, rather cursive letters mainly 4–5 cm high. The inscription is very intermingled with drawing and it is not easy to tell what is letters and what is drawing, nor whether the letters all belong to a single inscription. Remains of 9 lines in all.

ΩΔΙ ΝΩΖ ΟΥ ̣ μιμοῦ Ν ̣ ̣ ΥΩ

4. The use of μιμοῦ, “imitate,” might suggest that the preceding lines were a teacher’s model to be copied by the student, or, more likely, a burlesque of one. Cf. Cribiore 1996: 206 no. 136 with R. Cribiore and P. Davoli, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 187 (2013) 9 and n. 17.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

139

T11.4. Uncertain

On the pier at right, at top, an area of 10 cm wide × 9 cm high, with incised majuscule letters 4 cm in height.

ΝΦ

Below this are traces of a tabula ansata, or perhaps two tabulae, with faint remains of 6 or more lines in ink in an area 51 cm wide × 53 cm high, all unreadable.

140

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

141

D11.1. Ship

In the center, right half, of the bay, in black and red ink. Dimensions 73 cm wide × 38.5 cm high. Published as Bay 11-T22 in Pomey 2006: 330–1, fig. 22. Dipinto of the hull of a ship sailing on starboard tack, located in the right half of the back wall of Bay 11, toward the center. While no traces are left of the mast, yard, or sails, the hull is clearly defined by a distinct red line used for the overall outline. The ship’s body is colored in with a pattern of large x-shaped marks that become smaller and closer toward the prow, where they create a checkerboard motif that defines a raised platform. This structure, interpretable as a forecastle formed of crossed spars, must have stretched all the way to the mast, but it is now faded. No oars or oarports are visible, and the keel is flat. Above the prow is a zigzag motif in black, not outlined in red like the rest of the dipinto, indicating a later addition or the artist’s afterthought. It can be identified as a stylized στόλος, with the ἀκροστόλιον possibly meant to represent a swan’s neck. The stern is very high and straight, as in some representations of corbitae onerariae of the period.

142

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D11.2. Gladiator

In the upper right quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 16 cm wide × 18 cm high. Dipinto of a gladiator holding the palm of victory, located in the upper right quadrant of the back wall of Bay 11. Due to the lack of any helmet or shield and the presence of a subligaculum it is possible to recognize in the figure a retiarus. The lines on the left arm suggest the presence of a manica (arm-guard), while the plate across his back is a galerus, a tall metal guard protecting the shoulder. The very faded lines that descend from the right shoulder of the gladiator reaching down toward the ground could represent what is preserved of the net. The gladiator is depicted as striding forward toward the left, with the groundline below his feet defined by several thick streaks. The man has his back to the viewer and the face in profile, the chin and nose accentuated and the hair rendered in flowing curls.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

143

D11.3. Gladiator

In the upper right quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions not recorded. Dipinto of a gladiator, located in the upper right quadrant of the back wall of Bay 11. The lines are very faded, making the drawing very difficult to read. The figure, in three-quarter, is shown as advancing to the left, with the left leg stretched forward. The head seems to be covered by a brimmed helmet, while the upper part of the body is covered by a large shield that reaches down to the knees only. These two elements suggest that the gladiator might have been a provocator.

144

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D11.4. Portrait—Head

In the lower right quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 2 cm wide × 12 cm high. Schematic dipinto of a human head, possibly male, located in the lower right quadrant of the back wall of Bay 11. The head is depicted in profile, with a prominent and round forehead, long pointed nose, small mouth with a triangular upper lip, and an oval slanted eye. The upper part of the head is faded, so it difficult to recognize any hairdo.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

145

D11.5. Phallus

In the upper right quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 59 cm wide × 26 cm high. Dipinto of a male sexual organ, located in the upper right quadrant of the back wall of Bay 11. The corpus of the penis is drawn horizontally. Of it, only the upper curved line is still preserved. The two testicles are rendered in one single streak shaped as an eight: beginning at the upper right corner of the lower testicle, the line descends to define the first oval, ascends to close the oval and to outline, without closing it, the second upper oval. Clearly associated with the drawing is the word ψωλή (T11.1), immediately above it.

146

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D11.6. Ship

In the lower right quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 28 cm wide × 15 cm high. Dipinto of a ship located in the lower right quadrant of the back wall of Bay 11. It partially overlaps dipinto D11.4. Most of the drawing is now faded: the only clearly discernible element of the ship is a series of crisscrossing lines that define the mainsail with its rigging. The sail is tied to a straight mainyard (κέρας). At the yard’s right end are visible two diagonal lines to be interpreted as the ὑπέραι, the ropes that came down toward the stern. This suggests that the ship was drawn as sailing on a starboard tack. Part of the straight mast (ἱστός) is also still visible, though very poorly preserved.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

147

Bay 12 [= G18, between Piers A22 and A23]

The plaster on the back wall of Bay 12 is overall well preserved. A few small lacunae are visible on the surface, the largest one being near the lower left corner of the wall. The graffiti on this wall are legible, the black ink still clearly discernible. The inscriptions are clustered at the upper left quarter of the wall (T12.1 to T12.3, and T12.9–T12.10), while the pictorial dipinti are concentrated toward the center of the bay (ship D12.1), and in the lower left quadrant (a human head, D12.2, and an uncertain dipinto, D12.3). The bay’s western pier is covered in inscriptions (T12.3 to T12.6, and, looking into the corridor, T12.8) and two dipinti, a gladiator (D12.4, which relates to inscription T12.4) and one uncertain motif (D12.5). At the bay’s eastern pier (A23) is an inscription (T12.7).

148

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T12.1. Word Square

Large tabula ansata with four lines. In the upper part of the bay, at the left side, about 1.58 m above the bench level. Area 61 cm wide × 49 cm high. Letters 8 cm high, in neat, spaced block capitals. Bibliography: Bagnall, Everyday Writing, pp. 17–18; SEG 61.962.

μῆλον ἡδονή λ̣ό̣γ̣[ος] [ὄνομα] ν̣ή̣σ̣α̣ς̣

Only faint traces survive in line 3, and nothing at all is visible of what should have stood in line 4; perhaps there was some ancient erasure. For the text, cf. introduction, p. 52, and T9.6. Immediately above the tabula ansata is

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

149

T12.2. Healing Inscription

Four lines. Area ca. 80 cm wide × 20 cm high. Detached, neat, rounded letters 3–4 cm high. Badly effaced at the right side. Bibliography: Bagnall, Everyday Writing, p. 22; SEG 61.970.

ἐξαπίνης ΕΥ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ Η ὀφθαλμοῖς ̣ ̣ ̣ Ε ΑΛΛΑ ΛΕΓ ̣ πολλὰ Λ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣

1. Aeolic or Doric for ἐξαίφνης, but also occurring in Attic texts (LSJ). Cf. T27.2, ἐν τάχει. As this also concerns eyes (see line 2), this is probably a healing inscription. It is conceivable that εὐξάμενος (or εὐξαμένη?) follows: “As soon as I prayed…” 3. Whether ἀλλά or ἄλλα is not clear. Then probably a form of λέγω.

150

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan Detail of T12.2

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

151

T12.3. Uncertain

At the top of the surviving portion of the left bevel edge of Pier A22; possibly broken at top. Area 23 cm wide × 12 cm high, continuing across the bevel to the right in the last two lines to occupy an area of 9 cm square on the bevel. Majuscule letters 3–4 cm high. [ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣] ̣ ̣Α [ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣] ̣ ̣ΕΝΗ [ ̣ ̣ ̣]Σ̣ ΑΠ̣ ΑΤΡΟΣ Ε̣ Π̣Ε̣ Θ̣Η̣ ̣Η traces | ΤΩ traces | ΡΑ 1. ]α̣τ̣α̣ is possible; the letter before alpha has a hasta placed well to the left of alpha. 2. The letter before epsilon does not seem to be gamma. 3. One should perhaps divide –σα πατρός.

152

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

4. The penultimate letter appears to have two hastas, as eta or nu, but we have not found a convincing reading. There is more than ordinary space between pi and epsilon, but no traces. 5–6. The vertical lines indicate where the text crosses the bevel edge.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

153

T12.4. Uncertain

On the east side of the left pier (A22), facing the bay, about 1.2 m above bench level. To the left of a sketch of a gladiatorial helmet (D12.4). Area 9 cm × 9 cm. Semicursive, detached letters 4–5 cm high. Part of T12.3, apparently; cf. preceding item.

τω ρα

This was originally read as ψωλ(ή), but the rho at the start of line 2 is clear.

154

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T12.5. Praise of an Athlete

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

155

Immediately above T12.4 and its drawing. Area 37 cm wide × 10 cm high. Irregular, detached, informal letters 3–4 cm high. Bibliography: Bagnall, Everyday Writing, p. 16; SEG 61.961.

Θεαγένης νεικητ(ής)

“Theagenes, victor!” 1. Theagenes, the deified Thasian boxer and pankratiast, is the subject of Pausanias 6.11.2–9. The name is very common throughout the Greek world, but its use here suggests that it might have been adopted by a professional boxer or pankratiast in order to associate himself with the luster of his namesake.

156

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T12.6. Label?

At the top of the inner (east) face of Pier A22, ca. 65 cm above the top of T12.5 and to the right of the head. Irregular, detached, informal letters 3–4 cm high.

ΚΩΝΤ̣ Ρ̣

There is no blank space to the left of the letters, where the head stands. It is possible that the word is abbreviated or continued in a second line, now invisible, in which case it presumably is intended as a noun beginning in κοντρο-, with reference to the nearby head, probably κοντροκυνήγιος. See T25.5 for discussion.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

157

T12.7. Love Declaration?

On the right pier (A23), on the inside face toward the bay. Area 13 cm wide × 16 cm high. Broken at right. Majuscule letters 5–6 cm high.

]ΗΣ Ο̣ [ ΨΝ[ ̣[

Scanty as the traces are, they suggest the possibility of reading [φιλῶ] ἧς ὁ [ἀρι|θμὸς] ψν. There may be a trace before psi in line 2, but this is not certain. If this interpretation is correct, it indicates a love object whose name was valued isopsephistically at 750 or at a number in the range 751–759. There are at least seven feminine names in LGPN 5A in this range. Cf. introduction, p. 48.

158

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T12.8. Uncertain

On the front of the left pier (A22), 12 cm from the top of the preserved stonework, at the right edge. Area 16 cm wide × 4 cm high. Majuscule letters 3–4 cm high.

τ̣άφος

We do not know what “burial” or “grave” can signify here, without any further indications.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

159

T12.9. Uncertain

In the main face of the bay, at upper right. Area ca. 30 cm wide × 11 cm high. Two lines in majuscules 3 cm high; beginning and end uncertain, and surface bandaged.

ΑΜΠΗΣ ̣ ΩΣ

There may be a partly-visible diagonal letter trace before alpha in line 1, in which case it is tempting to suppose that we have the name Πυριλάμπης, whether beginning in this line or above. There is ample room to the left, but we do not see any traces remaining.

160

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan Detail of T12.9

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

161

T12.10. Uncertain

In the main face of the bay, at lower left ca. 136 cm above the bench. Area 23 cm wide × 12 cm high. Three lines in a cursive but detached hand in letters 2 cm high. Uncertain if complete; text could be lost above.

AN Α ̣ ΡΑ ̣ Α ΜΕ ̣

Despite the layout and need to supppose erroneous absence of augment, ἀναγράψαμεν would be an attractive reading of the entirety; the traces of the three letters represented by dots in the text are entirely compatible with this reading.

162

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D12.1. Ship

In the center of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 90 cm wide × 51 cm high. Published as Bay 12-T23 in Pomey 2006: 332, fig. 23. Dipinto of a ship located at the center of the back wall of Bay 12. The ship, possibly a merchant vessel (στρογγύλη ναῦς or πλοῖον φορτικόν), is sailing on port tack. A single mast, without yard, sail, or rigging is visible at the center of the hull. The mast is rendered with three parallel lines, the central one possibly indicating one of the καλῴδια, the ropes by which the mast was fastened to both sides of the ship. The horizontal lines departing from the base of the mast identify an upper deck, but there are no traces of a cabin or of the platform for the oarsman. The hull, here depicted without oars or oar ports, has a very strong curvature, typical of vessels with rockered keels. The head of the prow projects into a sinuous, s-shaped στόλος, terminating at the top in an ἀκροστόλιον possibly representing a snake or sea monster’s head. To the right of the prow, and projecting outward from the ship, is visible another curved feature, interpreted by Pomey as a spur. On closer observation, this feature seems to belong to an earlier graffito depicting a second vessel, which was later partially covered by this graffito. The stern terminates in a curved ἄφλαστον, unusually oriented toward the left, above which the ὰσπιδεῖον is visible.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

163

D12.2. Portrait—Head

In the lower left quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 23 cm wide × 27.5 cm high. Very schematic dipinto of a human head located in the lower left quadrant of the back wall of Bay 12. The head, drawn in profile, is turned toward the left. Possibly male, though the identification is uncertain. The face is characterized by a short and rounded forehead, long pointed nose, small opened mouth, and recessed chin. A large, oval eye, elongated toward the back, dominates the picture. The head sits on a short neck; a few lines toward the back might indicate a short and straight hairdo. One rather long and oblique line exits from the man’s mouth. It could be interpreted as an indication that the figure is speaking or, undoubtedly less nobly, spitting.

164

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D12.3. Uncertain (See fig. on p. 149)

In the lower left quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 15 cm wide × 27 cm high. Very damaged, fragmentary, and partially faded dipinto, located in the lower left quadrant of the back wall of Bay 12. It is composed of a long oblique line terminating at the top in a petalshaped element. To the right is a second short and wavy line that seems to be part of the motif, possibly abstract and not figural. No other interpretation is suggested at present. D12.4. Gladiator

On the east face of Pier A22, in black ink. Dimensions 39 cm wide × 16 cm high. Dipinto of a gladiator located at the eastern face of Pier A22, looking into Bay 22. The drawing, quite approximate and clearly not executed by a trained hand, depicts only the man’s head and the shoulders as seen from the back, in three-quarter, with the head partially turned toward the right. The brimmed helmet is surmounted by a curved element terminating in a bulbous head. Despite the poor rendering, this element possibly alludes to the rearing head of a griffon, a detail that characterized the helmets of the Thraeces. The thick, long, and straight line to the right could similarly depict the side plume that often decorated the helmet of this category of gladiators.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

165

An example of a funerary stele with a gladiator wearing a comparable helmet with griffon in Smyrna is published in Petzl 1974: 293, no. 12. D12.5. Uncertain

On the east face of Pier A22, in black ink. Dimensions 19 cm wide × 37 cm high. Dipinto located on the eastern face of Pier A22 looking into Bay 12. The drawing has for the most part disappeared due to the detachment of the plaster. The lower portion is still extant; it is comprised of a series of roughly parallel and wavy lines. The extent of the damage to the dipinto is such that it is not possible to suggest any conclusive interpretation.

166

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Bay 13 [= G19, between Piers A23 and A24]

Three inscriptions inside tabulae are present, all badly effaced. Nothing else is visible.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

167

T13.1. Acclamation

On the right side, ca. 1.3 m from the ground. Area ca. 40 cm wide × 30 cm high. Majuscule letters 3–5 cm high. Bibliography: Bagnall, Everyday Writing, p. 19.

Ἀσίας π[ρ]ώ̣τοις Σαρδιαν̣ο̣ῖ̣ς̣ οἷς πᾶν [κλ]έος ἐ̣στὶν διὰ τοὺς κυρί[ους].

“To the Sardians, first of Asia, to whom is all glory because of our lords.” See the introduction, pp. 39 and 48, for discussion of this text, of central importance for the dating of the graffiti.

168

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T13.2. Uncertain

The bottom of the tabula is located 27 cm above T13.1. Area ca. 60 cm wide × 32 cm high as preserved, but the top is incomplete. Majuscule letters 6–8 cm high.

ΑΝΑΚΑΣ Α ΠΡΗ̣ Σ ΛΥΩ ̣

2. The first alpha is outside the tabula to the left.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

169

T13.3. Uncertain

At the top of the preserved area, 31 cm from the left edge of the bay. Area 60 cm wide × 54 cm high as preserved; broken at right and particularly upper right. Majuscule letters 5–7 cm high.

Ε[ ̣ ̣ ̣ ] ̣Σ ΔΕΙ[ ΚΑΤΑΠΟΤΑ [ Γ̣ ΡΑΦΙΤΑΥ[ ΣΙΠΙΛΑΣ[ ΜΑΝΗ̣ Σ ̣[ ταῦτα λεγόμ̣[ε]νο̣ς̣ [ ἂν σοὶ δοκεῖ ̣[

170

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

2. Cf. the note on T15.10. LSJ shows a plural of κατάποτον as “things swallowed.” The context here is too lacunose to allow an interpretation. 3. Perhaps γράφι (l. -ει) ταῦ|τα. 4. The first letter could be epsilon instead of sigma. 5. The last letter is likely alpha or lambda. 6–7. Alternatively, one could read and divide ταῦτα λέγο̣μ̣[ε]ν· Σ[ | ἂν σοὶ δοκεῖ ̣[.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

171

T13.4. Signature

On the inner face of the left pier (A23), at about 1.4 m above ground level, an inscription of 3 lines measuring 35 cm wide × 11 cm high; semi-detached, rather cursive letters 1.5–2.0 cm high. Only the first line has yielded text.

ἐγὼ ὁ γ̣ρά̣φων ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ς ε̣ἰμί.

“I the writer am . . .” One presumes that the unread letters were part of the writer’s name.

172

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Bay 14 [= G20, between Piers A24 and A25]

The bay is badly effaced throughout: the latest layer of plaster has completely disappeared in the upper left quadrant of the bay’s back wall, revealing a lower layer, similar in color, but without any extant text or images. In the lower left quadrant of the wall, damaged by horizontal and vertical cracks and partially faded, is the image of a ship (D14.1). The inscriptions are clustered around the center of the wall (T14.1 to T14.3). On the bay’s eastern pier (A25) are two dipinti of ships (D14.2 and D14.3).

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

173

T14.1. Record of Healing

In the center, ca. 2.1 m from ground level, above a drawing of a ship (D14.1). Broken at left and above. Surviving area ca. 58 cm wide × 24 cm high. Semicursive irregular letters 3–4 cm high. Bibliography: Bagnall, Everyday Writing, p. 22; SEG 61.971.

[ὀφθα]λμοὺς ̣[ [ ̣ ̣ ̣ ε]ὐχαρειστῶ τῇ [Βαίτῃ ? [ ̣ ̣] θ̣ειῶδ’ ἀγῶνα σ ̣ ̣ [ ̣ ̣] ὑγείᾳ

The lacuna at right is of uncertain size and could be larger than indicated here. 1. θ, as the beginning of a form (perhaps passive participle) of θεραπεύω, is possible at the end of the line. The word would have continued, in all likelihood, in the next line. 2. See introduction, pp. 44–45, for (the) Baite. Read ε]ὐχαριστῶ. 3. If θειῶδ’ is correctly read, it might indicate that a contest had imperial sanction or was being held in connection with the imperial cult. At the end, read σοι?

174

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T14.2. Signature

About 10 cm below T14.1 and just to the right. Area 40 × 3 cm. Detached majuscule letters 5 cm high. Bibliography: Bagnall, Everyday Writing, p. 16.

Δι̣ο̣γένης

Reported as probably an example of Θεαγένης (cf. T12.5) in Bagnall, Everyday Writing. The delta is certain, even if the two following letters are extremely uncertain.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

175

T14.3. Record of Healing

About 55 cm below T14.2, 3 lines of uneven size, with detached majuscule letters ranging from 2.5 to 6 cm in height; it is uncertain if they are all part of the same text.

ὀ̣φ̣θ̣αλμούς Α ̣ ̣Ε ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ισα

1. It is impossible to say if this is an example of just the word “eyes” being used in thanksgiving for healing, or if some more substantial syntactic framework was provided. 2. There may have been other letters to left or right, now completely faded. 3. ἐ̣π̣ύ̣γ̣ισα is not impossible. If that is the reading, the suspicion that these lines are not all connected is confirmed.

176

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D14.1. Ship

In the lower left quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 44 cm wide × 48 cm high. Published as Bay 14-T25 in Pomey 2006: 333, fig. 24. Dipinto of a cargo vessel, located in the lower left quadrant of the back wall of Bay 14. The ship, possibly a medium sized oneraria sailing on port tack, is depicted as in full sail. At the ship’s center a tall and slightly oblique mast (ἱστός) sits on a raised deck, covered in a dense net of rigging. Toward its top, the yard (κέρας) is rendered with a single thick oblique line. The large sail (ἱστίον) is shown as billowed by a tail wind that propels the vessel forward. The sail is defined by a net of crisscrossing lines that delineate the rigging and the brailing ropes. Also visible is the system of ropes (generally known as τοπεῖα) that connect the yard to the mast, the yard to the stern, and the mast to the stern. The keel of the ship is quite flat at the bottom and rockers toward the stern and the prow. The prow is higher than the stern and terminates with a short and projecting στόλος rounded at the top. The stern is quite low and straight with no signs of the helmsman’s seat. One line running along the entire hull, roughly in the middle of it, can be interpreted as the indication of the ship’s waterway. No oars, oar posts, or rudders are visible.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

177

D14.2. Ship

On the west face of Pier A25, in black ink. Dimensions 32 cm wide × 32 cm high. Dipinto of a ship, possibly a corbita, located on the western face of Pier A25, looking into Bay 14. The drawing is largely faded; however, it is still possible to discern a ship sailing on starboard tack. The keel is strongly rockered, terminating in a raised prow with a short, pointed στόλος. From the prow depart two diagonal lines, the πρότονοι, the ropes by which the mast was fastened to the prow. Also visible, in a very thick line, is one of the κάλοι, the ropes used to fasten the mast to the sides of the ship. The straight mast is clearly indicated by two thick and parallel lines at the center of the ship. Two curved lines above the gunwale seem to suggest the presence of a raised deck, while at the center of the hull runs a line indicating the ship’s waterway. No oars or sails are discernible.

178

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D14.3. Ship

On the west face of Pier A25, in black ink. Dimensions 24 cm wide × 34 cm high. Dipinto of a ship located on the western face of Pier A25, looking into Bay 14. The drawing is very schematic: it depicts a ship sailing on starboard tack. The hull is rounded and the keel is strongly rockered, terminating in a raised prow with a short, pointed στόλος. One line running at the center of the hull indicates the ship’s waterway. The stern is mostly faded. Four diagonal lines, one by the prow, two toward the center of the vessel, and one close to the stern, identify the καλῴδια, a series of ropes that fastened the mast to the ends and sides of the ship. The mast and the antenna are rendered with simple straight lines, and toward the top of the mast is visible a very approximate carchesium (καρχήσιον). No oars or sails are discernible.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

179

Bay 15 [= G21, between Piers A25 and A26]

The bay, moderately effaced, is thickly covered with drawings, three large-sized ships that occupy the center of the bay’s back wall (D15.1–D15.3) and two gladiators (D15.5 and D15.6), and short inscriptions, some of them captions (T15.1 to T15.8). On the western pier (A25) is one inscription (T15.10), while on the eastern one (A26) is one inscription (T15.9) and the dipinto of a ship (D15.4).

180

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T15.1. Signature

At the top of the cleaned area, 30 cm from the right edge of the bay. Area 47 cm wide × 5 cm high. Cursive letters 3–5 cm high.

Δημόκ̣ριτος

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

181

T15.2. Exclamation

Located 13 cm below T15.1 and 47 cm from the left edge of the bay. Area 53 cm wide × 12 cm high, rounded but detached letters variously 5–10 cm high, perhaps not all belonging to the same original inscription.

ἔψυγμε

“I’ve been chilled.” Read ἔψυγμαι; final epsilon corrected from alpha. See T21.1.2n. and T29.5.1 for this expression.

182

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T15.3. Uncertain and Name of Goddess

Immediately below T15.2. Area ca. 81 cm wide × 10 cm high. Detached cursive letters 5 (alpha)– 10 (kappa) cm high.

ΚΑΙΑΠΟ̣ ΕΑΝΟΣ

Below and to the right of this in detached letters:

Εἴσις

We can offer no interpretation of the upper part. There may have been a space or another letter after the second alpha. The lower inscription is iotacistic for Ἴσις.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

183

T15.4. Record of Healing

At 1.57 m above ground level, 28 cm from the left edge of the bay. Two lines; area 27 cm wide × 13 cm high. Detached irregular letters 5 cm high (phi 8 cm). Bibliography: Bagnall, Everyday Writing, p. 19 and p. 21, fig. 8; SEG 61.967. “For the eye.”

ὀφθαλμῶι

184

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T15.5. Uncertain

Located 11 cm to the right of T15.4 and just above it, in front of the prow of a ship drawing (D15.3) and above another ship (D15.2). Area 9 cm wide × 7 cm high. Majuscule letters 3 (omicron) and 6 (beta) cm high.

οβ

Cf. T16.2, T28.2, and TP71.1. This could be the numeral 72, but οξ nearby (T15.6), which cannot be a numeral, suggests rather the start of a word. Greek offers only a few options, however, none obviously suitable. Neither for this nor for the οξ of T15.6 have we found any term related to ships with this beginning in the index of Greek and Latin terms in Casson 1971.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna Detail of T15.5

185

186

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T15.6. Uncertain

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

187

Below the ship and above another one. Area 12 cm wide × 9 cm high. Majuscule letters 3.5 (omicron) and 6 (xi) cm high. Cf. the commentary to T15.5.

οξ

188

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T15.7. Acclamation

To the right of T15.2. Area 40 cm wide × 10 cm high. Detached, rounded letters 6–8 cm high. Bibliography: Bagnall, Everyday Writing, p. 19.

Ἀσείας

There is no sign of πρώτοις either to the right (where there is not room) or below the word.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

189

T15.8. Uncertain

Located 30 cm below T15.4, 10 cm from the left edge of the bay. Area 30 cm wide × 5 cm high. Detached letters 4 cm high.

ΟΥΔΕΝΝΟΣ

Read οὐδενός? Perhaps sc. τόπος, i.e., “No one’s (place)”?

190

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T15.9. Signature

On the right pier (A26), on the west face, at the top of the surviving pier but below a ship drawing (D15.4). Area 30 cm wide × 18 cm high. Rough majuscule letters 4–5 cm high. Bibliography: Bagnall, Everyday Writing, p. 19; SEG 61.966.

Τρύφ[ω]ν Ἐφέσιος ἐποίει

“Tryphon the Ephesian made (this).” 1. The third letter in the hand-copy is tau, and a restoration of Πυτ[ίω]ν (for Πυθίων) was suggested in Bagnall, Everyday Writing; but on the original the reading given here is clear. Tryphon is very common in Asia Minor, with many Ephesian instances (LGPN 5A 437).

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

191

T15.10. Uncertain

On the face of the pier at left (A25), at the top of the surviving plaster; overall dimensions 32 cm high × 30 cm wide; broken at top. Ungainly majuscule letters 5–6 cm high.

- - - - - ΑΙ ̣ [ ̣ ] ΠΟΤ̣ ̣ Ι̣ΔΕΙΝ ΔΕΣΟΥ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ Ν̣

There are also 2–3 lines of letters about 2.5 cm high on the beveled edge of this pier, none of which has been read. In line 1, cf. perhaps the unexplained ΚΑΤΑΠΟΤΑ in T13.3. There does not appear to be anything missing at left, where the pier would have allowed another letter or two. The end of line 1 is faint and squeezed in. It is tempting to interpret lines 2–3 as ἰδεῖν δὲ σοῦ, but further context is elusive.

192

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D15.1. Ship

In the upper register of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 50 cm wide × 24 cm high. The ships in this bay have been previously published as Bay 15-T26 A, B, C in Pomey 2006: 334–5, figs. 25–27. Dipinto of a ship sailing on starboard tack, located on the back wall of Bay 15, in the upper register. Most of the coloring has faded. Only the pointed stern and part of the keel are visible, both rendered in a very thick black line. From the few elements still extant, the elongated vessel seems to have a flat keel, and it can be probably be interpreted as a compact galley, though the interpretation is uncertain.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

193

D15.2. Ship

In the center, right half, of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 75 cm wide × 25 cm high. The ships in this bay have been previously published as Bay 15-T26 A, B, C in Pomey 2006: 334–5, figs. 25–27. Dipinto of a ship, sailing on port tack, without any indications of mast, yard, sails, or oars. A thick black streak outlines a flat keel, a rounded stern, and a sharply oblique prow. Neither the ἄφλαστον nor the στόλος is clearly defined. On the hull, a second line runs parallel to the gunwale. It can be identified as the upper part of the bulwark, suggesting the presence of a deck that extends to the end of the stern, where four short lines define a very schematic aplustre. From the side of the stern, a triangular element tied to the ship by a rope is identified by Pomey as a stone anchor. Very faded traces of an earlier dipinto are visible below and around this ship: the extant lines suggest that it could have depicted a larger ship largely obliterated by the later, and smaller, vessel. The overall shape of the vessel is comparable to a similar one on a gravestone, said to come from Ankara, dated to the second century CE. See Pfuhl and Möbius 1977: vol. 2, no. 1184, p. 291.

194

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D15.3. Ship

In the center of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 108 cm wide × 84 cm high. The ships in this bay have been previously published as Bay 15-T26 A, B, C in Pomey 2006: 334–5, figs. 25–27. Dipinto of a ship, located at the center of the back wall of Bay 15. The ship is sailing on port tack and is possibly a merchant vessel. The large and irregular mast is slightly off center toward the prow. The upper part of the graffito is largely faded: some lines near the mast could suggest the presence of a sail and the yard, but the streaks are too fragmentary for a conclusive interpretation. At the stern is visible one πηδάλιον partially submerged in the water. No other oars are drawn on the ship’s hull. The bulwark is decorated with a lattice motif, possibly indicating a parapet or sidescreen, suggesting the ship was of the cataphract or semi-cataphract type. Above it, a line indicates a deck that extends all the way to the stern, where the elevated seat for the helmsman is found. A line running along the hull, toward the middle of it, indicates the ship’s waterway. The area of the prow is mostly faded; the stern is rounded and terminates in an oblique ἄφλαστον that projects outside the ship.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna D15.4. Ship

195

196

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

On the west face of Pier A26, in black ink. Dimensions 25 cm wide × 24.5 cm high. The ships in this bay have been previously published as Bay 15-T26 A, B, C in Pomey 2006: 334–5, figs. 25–27. Dipinto of a ship, located on the west face of Pier A26, looking into Bay 15. The vessel, possibly a navis actuaria sailing on port tack, has a flat keel, a concave stern, and a rounded prow. At the stern, a short and projecting aplustre is rendered in a thick line. Below it, a row of at least six oars is visible, all drawn as parallel diagonal lines, each terminating in a small circle. The prow seems to have a long στόλος, but this area of the graffito is too damaged to distinguish any elements of it. The ship has a single mast, placed roughly in the center and drawn with two parallel and slightly diagonal lines. The mast terminates at the yard, which extends for the whole width of the ship. Both the ropes securing the yard to the ship (ὑπέραι) and the mast to the hull (καλῴδια) are clearly indicated. The sail is not immediately visible; the artist probably imagined it as rolled up by the yard. The image of a vessel with similar hull and prow is visible on a gravestone from Cyzicus, dated to the first century BCE, attesting to the longevity of the iconography as well as to the longevity of the actual ship type: Pfuhl and Möbius 1977: vol. 2, no. 1187, p. 292. D15.5. Gladiator (see figure for D15.1) In the upper left quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 19 cm wide × 22 cm high. Dipinto of a gladiator, located in the upper left quadrant of the back wall of Bay 14. The man, depicted in a three-quarter view, has his back toward the viewer. Only the upper portion of the body, down to the hips, is visible, while the lower half is completely effaced. The gladiator is portrayed in the act of stretching his right arm forward. He holds a short sword, whose contours are now almost entirely faded. At his waist a balteus is recognizable, and to his left side is a tall scutum. The crest on the helmet and the long flange protecting the neck indicate that the gladiator is probably a secutor. The iconography of this helmet is typical of gladiatorial reliefs from Smyrna, as demonstrated by a very close parallel in a funerary stele from Smyrna: Robert 1940: 203 no. 226.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna D15.6. Gladiator

197

198

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

In the lower right quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 18 cm wide × 32 cm high. Dipinto of a gladiator, located on the back wall of Bay 15, in the lower right quadrant. Only the upper half of the body is still preserved. The man is drawn in the act of striding forward toward the left, the body in three-quarter while the face is in profile. The head of the gladiator is completely covered by a visored helmet with flaring neck-guard. The helmet descends down to the front and the back to protect the neck; two feathers depart from right above the temples. The helmet, together with the medium-sized shield of the blunted oval type, here decorated with a circular motif (possibly meant to represent a boss), indicates that the gladiator can be identified as a provocator.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

199

Bay 16 [= G22, between Piers A26 and A27]

The bay’s back wall is overall well preserved. Still extant is a step, built directly above floor level and abutting the back wall, which is covered with the same layer of plaster as the back wall, and the bay’s two flanking piers. Two lacunae in the plaster are visible at the center of the back wall. The main inscription is located at the wall’s top (T16.1) and a smaller one around the middle (T16.2). Only one dipinto of a phallus is still visible at the center of the wall (D16.1).

200

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T16.1. Record of Healing

At top, centered, 27 cm from the top of the wall, 35 cm from the left edge. Area 75 cm wide × 37 cm high. Detached roughly made majuscule letters 4–6 cm high. Bibliography: Bagnall, Everyday Writing, p. 22; SEG 61.972.

Χαρίας ὁ κα[ὶ] Λ̣ ουκος εὐξάμενος περὶ τῶν ὀφθα̣λ̣μῶν τοὺς λύχνους ἀπέδωκε ἔτους σι

“Charias also called Louk(i?)os, having prayed concerning his eyes, dedicated the lamps. Year 210.” See the introduction, pp. 36–39, for discussion of this text.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

201

T16.2. Uncertain

At 13 cm from the left edge, 84 cm above the bench, at left of a badly effaced drawing. Area 8 cm wide × 12 cm high. Letters 4–6 cm high. The boundaries are unclear, and there are other ink traces that could belong to this inscription. 1. See T15.5.

οβ δ

202

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D16.1. Phallus

In the center of the lower register of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 5 cm wide × 7 cm high. Dipinto of a male sexual organ, located on the back wall of Bay 16, in the center of the lower register. The corpus of the penis, pointing upward, is drawn with two thick, straight, and parallel lines. The prepuce and the glans have completely faded. The testicles are oval, attached to the bottom of the corpus and separated from each other. The top of the dipinto is partially obliterated by a later drawing, of no clear identification, comprising a large inverted triangle.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

203

Bay 17 [= G23, between Piers A27 and A28]

The back wall of the bay is damaged at the top by very large gaps in the plaster that give a glimpse of an earlier layer of plaster, similar in color to the latest one but without any visible trace of dipinti or graffiti. The plaster has also completely detached from the lower register of the wall, showing the top of an abutting step that was added to transform the bay into a sort of niche and that possibly provided a seating surface. Two dipinti of ships (D17.1 and D17.2) are visible at the center of the back wall: the largest one is for the most part faded, while the smaller one is damaged by a lacuna in the plaster.

204

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D17.1. Ship

In the center of the bay, in black and red ink. Dimensions 167 cm wide × 120 cm high. Very long dipinto in thick black and red lines, located at the center of the back wall of Bay 17. The shape, narrow and elongated, tapers at the two ends. A packed series of parallel straight lines are drawn within the form’s outline. A long line, parallel to the lower margin, runs throughout the whole width. Other lines seem to have continued below the main outline, but they are now completely faded. The dipinto can be interpreted as a ship: two very faded lines at the center identify the tapering shape of a mast, decorated with two horizontal lines defining the ropes tied around it. This suggests that the upper portion of the drawing has to be understood as a furled sail. The bulwark and the keel are completely faded.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

205

D17.2. Ship

In the center of the upper register, in black ink. Dimensions: 72 cm wide × 25 cm high. Dipinto of a ship at the center of the back wall of Bay 17, in the upper register. The drawing is very damaged by a large lacuna in the plaster toward the center and in the upper half. What is extant is a very schematic rendering of a rounded hull, with a rockered keel, of which it is difficult to discern the stern from the prow.

206

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Bay 18 [= G24, between Piers A28 and A29] No back wall survives in this bay, which is occupied by Gate 11. D18.1. Decorative—Geometric

On the east face of Pier A28, incised. Dimensions 16 cm wide × 20 cm high. The graffito is composed of two parallel vertical lines and two diagonal and parallel lines that cross them. One horizontal line is visible near the bottom. At present no interpretation is offered.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

207

Bay 19 [= G25, between Piers A29 and A30]

The plaster of most of the bay’s back wall has detached, leaving only a large strip toward the middle, where a large figure of a man with mustache and beard (D19.2), a ship (D19.1), and a thymiaterion (D19.3), all partially damaged by lacunae in the plaster, are visible. No inscriptions survive. Below the dipinto of the man, an earlier layer of plaster is preserved, similar in color to the latest one but without any visible graffito or dipinto decorating it.

208

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D19.1. Ship

In the center of the upper register, in black ink. Dimensions 68 cm × 33.5 cm. Dipinto of a ship sailing on port tack located in the upper register of the back wall of Bay 19, toward the center of the wall. It most probably represents a medium sized merchant vessel (a corbita?). The graffito is very damaged: the whole upper half of the ship with the yard and sail is missing, and only the lower portions of the mast and the rigging are visible. The hull is rounded and the keel is strongly rockered. No deck is visible, but toward the prow a light structure might suggest the presence of a forecastle. A line running along the hull, roughly at its middle, indicates the ship’s waterway. At the stern, the two πηδάλια, raised from the water, are rendered with two very thick parallel lines. Roughly parallel to them is a series of one, possibly two, rows of oars (κῶπαι; at least 20 are still recognizable) drawn as long, slightly diagonal lines each terminating in a circle. Neither the aplustre or the στόλος is identifiable.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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D19.2. Portrait—Bust

In the center, left half, of the bay, in red and black ink. Dimensions 65 cm wide × 58 cm high. Dipinto of a male bust located in the western half of the back wall of Bay 19, toward the center. In red color with hair, mustache, and beard in black. The man is fully frontal: he looks out at the viewer while raising his right arm. The drawing is rather schematic: the short hair, diagonal mustache, and wavy goatee are quite approximate. Furthermore, the rather unrealistic rendering of the nose and eyebrows with two sets of two parallel lines shaped as elongated volutes suggests the unfamiliarity of the author with the depiction of human anatomy or his/her lack of interest in what could be considered as a “realistic” portrait. The eyes with no pupils, in red with black highlights, consist each of two almond-shaped, concentric lines, while the mouth, small and closed, is outlined with two short and wavy streaks. The man is dressed in a cloak fastened at his shoulders by two flat and round fibulae. In the right hand he holds a round object, possibly a mappa circensis. The combination of the mappa and the consular cloak suggests that the figure can be interpreted as an official, possibly in the act of starting the gladiatorial games. Examples of officials holding the mappa in the context of gladiatorial games are found primarily in the consular diptychs, the earliest ones dating to the beginning of the fifth century (see,

210

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

for example, the diptych of the Lampadii ca. 400 CE now at the Museo di Santa Giulia, Brescia, or the 417 Halberstadt diptych at the Halberstadt Domschatz). Though in the earliest appearances of the mappa in official imagery the cloth seems to identify primarily consuls involved in racing games, later images associate the use of the mappa to a wider variety of officials who are actively invoved in the performance of gladiatorial games and especially venationes, as seems to be the case for this dipinto at Smyrna. Good examples of this shift in the iconographic value of the mappa are the images of venationes in the 517 diptych of the consul Flavius Anastasius Probus, which also shows the figure of at least one gladiator, and in the 506 diptych of Flavius Areobindus Dagalaiphus Areobindus, both in the Louvre Museum. The use of the mappa in depictions of high officials is also well attested in large size statues of proconsuls, like the sixth-century marble statue of Stephanos, proconsul of Ephesos, found in the street of the Curetes and now at the Selçuk Museum in Ephesos, or the statues of Pytheas and Palmatus found, respectively, in the bouleuterion and in the west colonnade of the Tetrastoon square at Aphrodisias, both dated to the late fifth century. These comparisons, together with some stylistic traits of the Smyrna dipinto, seem to suggest a dating of the dipinto to the late fourth–early fifth century CE. Basic information on the ivory diptychs may be found in Eastmond 2010 and Olovsdotter 2011. For a use of the diptychs also by senators see Engemann 2008. On the proconsular statues see Smith 1999: 167–9.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

211

D19.3. Thymiaterion

In the central, right half, part of the bay, in red and black ink. Dimensions 7.5 cm wide × 22 cm high. Small dipinto in red color with some black highlights, located in the eastern half of the back wall of Bay 19, toward the center. The upper portion of the graffito is quite damaged, making any interpretation of the motif difficult. The drawing seems to be composed of a lower support, shaped as a tapering small column, above which sits an inverted trapezoid. Over the trapezoid are some wavy lines in black and a small spot in red. The overall shape is reminiscent of a thymiaterion, but this identification is far from conclusive. [Bay G26, between Piers A30 and A31, with Gate 12, was not numbered in the original plan; it contains no graffiti.]

212

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Bay 20 [= G27, between Piers A31 and A32]

The surface of the bay’s back wall is badly effaced and has large areas of missing plaster in its center. Four inscriptions survive in part on each side of this gap (T20.1 to T20.4). The plaster is also completely missing from the bottom of the wall, where one abutting step is visible (similar steps are also recognizable in the nearby bays). Only one badly discolored dipinto of two heads is still extant in the upper right quadrant (D20.1).

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213

T20.1. Uncertain (Christian?)

At ca. 1.56 m from the top of the bench and 30 cm from the left side. Area ca. 30 cm wide × 18 cm high. Irregular detached majuscule letters of line 1 are 3–4 cm high; those of line 2, 4–6 cm high. Not enough survives of line 3 to measure. Bibliography: Bagnall, Everyday Writing, p. 23; SEG 61.975. “The one who gave the spirit . . .” 1–2. See introduction, p. 47. 3. Perhaps pi.

ὁ δεδω̣κ̣[ὼς] τὸ πνεῦμ̣[α] ̣[

214

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T20.2. Uncertain

At 15 cm from the left side, its top 32 cm below the bottom of T20.1. Area 40 cm wide × 32 cm high. Clumsily made detached letters 4–6 cm high.

ΝΑΕ σοι ΠΑ ̣ΛΙΚΕ .[ ΝΕΙΤΗ εισιν ̣ ̣ ̣[ ΜΕ ̣ΑΤΩ ̣[ ̣ ΗΣΑΝ̣ ̣[

It is not certain where the left edge of the inscription was. In line 1, perhaps ΠΑΛΛΙΚΕ.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

215

T20.3–4. Uncertain

These inscriptions occupy a large box divided by a horizontal line. Its right edge is 16 cm from the right of the bay; its top is broken off; its bottom is 1.2 m above the bench. The width is not fully preserved but was greater than 55 cm. The height of the top box is > 34 cm. The height of the bottom box is 30 cm. Detached, irregular rounded majuscule letters 2–3 cm high in wavering lines, representing two or more hands.

216

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T20.3. Uncertain

11 lines, of which one is erased. Most of the left side is too effaced to read. Lines 1–3 are larger than those following and line 4 probably reflects a second writer.

[ [ [ας [ [ [ [ [[ [ [ [

] ]

] ̣ ]ο

]ης ] τῆς κ̣α̣λῆς κυρί] ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ καλῶν χρωτῶ`ν΄ ] - 10 - ΕΩΝ ΚΕ ̣ ̣ ] ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ς τῶν Κ ̣ΤΩΝΚΑ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ τῆς καλῆς κυλεία̣ς̣ - 17 - ΚΟΤΩΝΤΟ ̣ ]] ]οτο - 14 - ΕΝ ΜΕΣΩ ̣ ̣ ̣[ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣] ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ΟΔΕ μία ὥρα ἐστί ̣ ̣[ ̣ ̣] ̣ ΑΝΑΝ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

217

3. Although the basic meaning of χρώς is “skin,” LSJ s.v. indicates that it can be used more broadly for human bodies, which might explain the plural here. 6. Comparison with line 2 suggests that κυλείας, which is unknown, is a phonetic spelling of κυρίας, with lambda-rho interchange. The writer is presumably replying to the first writer. 8. ἐν μέσῳ is an obvious possibility, but the lack of context prevents certainty.

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T20.4. Uncertain

2 lines partly preserved of originally larger text.

̣ ̣ Τ ̣ΚΑΘΟΥΡΟΚΕΝ ΤΕ

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

219

D20.1. Portrait—Heads

In the upper right quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 9 cm wide × 9 cm high. Dipinto of two human heads, possibly males, located on the back wall of Bay 20, in the upper right quadrant. This graffito is in very poor condition: large lacunae in the plaster and widespread fading make it difficult to identify the figures. To the left is a face, possibly in profile, looking to the right. The oval of the face and the wavy shoulder-length hair are the more recognizable elements. The head to the right is fully frontal. Most of the details have disappeared; however, notable is the hairdo of curly hair on which lies a wreath.

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan DP32.1. Decorative—Radial Pattern

On the south face of Pier A32, between Bays 20 and 21, incised. Dimensions 16 cm wide, 15 cm diameter. Graffito of a radial pattern located on the south face of Pier A32, between Bay 20 and Bay 21, looking into the Basilica’s northern corridor. The distribution of the lines suggests that they are diameters that could have been used as guidelines in the incision of a rosette (see similar graffiti in the Basilica: DP81.1 and DP81.2).

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

221

Bay 21 [= G28, between Piers A32 and A33]

The surface of the bay’s back wall is badly damaged: both at the top and at the bottom of the wall all layers of plaster have detached, showing several of the rows of stone masonry that formed the core of the wall. In the wall’s upper left quadrant a large portion of an earlier layer of plaster is discernible below the uppermost layer, but no dipinti or graffiti from this earlier phase survive. On the preserved portion of plaster are an inscribed tabula ansata (T21.2) and the dipinto of a human bust (D21.1).

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T21.1. Good wishes

In a tabula ansata, 28 cm wide × 16 cm high. Large block capitals, 8 cm high.

ζῇς

“May you live!” Below this, in a partly-preserved tabula ansata ca. 21 × 12 cm, in 2 cm high letters, again:

ζῇς

Then, incised below that in a space 19 cm wide, in letters 3.5–7 cm high:

ἔψυγμαι

This comes from ψύχω. Cf. T15.2 and T29.5. “I have been chilled!” Is the reference to the cooling shade of the basement level? The case of T29.5, however, where it is written on a testicle, suggests that a sexual meaning (or double-entendre?) may be intended, whether that refers to the cooling of emotion or more specifically to the loss of an erection. There appears to be one stroke after the word, whether connected with it cannot be determined.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

223

224

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D21.1. Portrait—Bust

In the center, western half of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 11 cm wide × 18 cm high. Dipinto of a human bust, located in the western half of the back wall of Bay 21, toward the center. The dipinto is damaged by large lacunas at the top, left, right, and in the middle, so that the identification is to be considered as tentative. The figure, possibly a male, is represented as fully frontal. Of the face, only the bottom half is preserved, with a round oval and a straight nose. The shoulders are straight. On the chest, two round motifs made of concentric lines can be interpreted either as disc-shaped brooches or clasps.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

225

Bay 22 [= G29, between Piers A33 and A34]

The entire surface of the bay’s back wall is badly damaged by large lacunae in the plaster that reveal several courses of stone masonry, which formed the core of the wall, including a large area toward the center where a less regular masonry indicates the presence of a niche or door (Gate 13) that was later closed off and plastered over. No inscriptions are preserved on this wall. Two dipinti, one female bust (D22.1) and a gladiatorial combat (D22.2) are visible in the wall’s western half. Three inscriptions (T22.1 to T22.3) and two graffiti (a circle, DP34.1, and a ship DP34.2) survive on the southern face of the eastern pier (A34).

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T22.1. Declaration of Love

On the front (south) face of the pier (A34), about 1.25 m above ground level. Area 16 cm wide × 7 cm high, incised in letters 1.5–2.5 cm high.

φιλῶ ἧς ὁ ἀρι[θμὸς] χις ο̣πολλ ̣[

“I love a woman whose number is 616.” 1. See introduction, p. 48. 2. There is no name or other element following the formula in the other instances of this formula, and, given the break at right, it is not obvious what the letters visible here are intended to mean.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

227

T22.2. Uncertain

Area 22 cm wide × 11 cm high. About 6 cm above 22.1 in incised letters 6 cm high.

] ̣ χην ἐκρ traces Α̣ Π

1. Cf. T29.1, ἐκράφη σου, with apparently kappa for gamma. This fragmentary graffito may reflect the same idiom, but too much is lost to say more.

228

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T22.3. Reference to a Gladiator?

At the top of the face of Pier A34, just below the breaking off of the plaster, three lines occupying an area 30 cm wide × 10 cm high are incised in letters 2 cm high; also some large red letters not yet read. We can offer a text for only line 3.

ΟΞΕY ̣ Τ̣

Perhaps a reference to a gladiator with a sharp-pointed weapon; one is reminded of gladiators τοῖς ὀξέσιν, see Tataki 2009: 640, with citations to a number of relevant works by L. Robert. Cf. below on T25.5 and hunting with a pike.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

229

D22.1. Portrait—Bust

In the western half of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 13.5 cm wide × 15.5 cm high. Dipinto of a human bust, located in the western half of the back wall of Bay 22, toward the middle. The head, possibly of a female, is drawn in profile toward the left, and the bust is cut short right below the shoulders. The figure has an up hairdo consistent with late second century fashion: in the front the hair is wavy and descends to cover the forehead, while at the back the hairs are gathered together in a bun fastened with a fillet. The woman in the graffito is depicted with a rather long, “Roman” nose, thick and protruding lips, and round and prominent chin. The large, almond-shaped eye, positioned near the hair line, is completed with eyelashes and a pupil which is turned to look directly at the viewer. Similar hairstyles are attested on portraits of Faustina the Younger, like the one at Musei Capitolini in Rome dated to 147–148, or of Bruttia Crispina, like the head at the Altes Museum, Berlin, dated to 178–180. Basic information on portraits of these two Roman queens can be found in Kleiner 1992: 277–80.

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D22.2. Scene—Gladiatorial Combat

In the western half of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 38 cm wide × 49 cm high. Dipinto of a gladiatorial combat, located in the western half of the back wall of Bay 22, toward the middle. The drawing is damaged by a very large lacuna at the right half, so that only the gladiator to the left is still preserved. He is drawn in three-quarter, his head and body turned toward the right. The head of the gladiator is completely covered by a tight fitting, visored helmet. The chest is protected by a semicircular breastplate. The right arm is bent forward: he is probably holding his weapon, but the lines here are almost completely faded. To the right are a few traces of the other figure: a rectangular shield and the brim of the helmet protecting the neck. The lower half of the body of both men is missing (and probably was never drawn). Considering the secure identification of the left gladiator as a provocator, the scene can be identified as a combat between provocatores.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

231

DP34.1. Decorative—Circle

On the south face of Pier A34, between Bays 22 and 23, incised. Dimensions 5 cm diameter. Graffito of two circles located on the southern face of Pier A34, between Bay 22 and Bay 23, looking into the Basilica’s north corridor. The circles are plain, with no other decoration inside or around them. Considering their regular shape and identical size, they were certainly incised with the help of a compass.

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan DP34.2. Ship

On the south face of Pier A34, between Bays 22 and 23, incised. Dimensions 42 cm wide × 41 cm high. Graffito of a ship, located on the southern face of Pier A34, between Bay 22 and Bay 23, looking into the Basilica’s northern corridor. Several incised lines around and over this graffito complicate its interpretation. The vessel is sailing on starboard tack. The hull is rounded, and the keel rises sharply toward the stern. No oars are visible. The prow is plain, whereas at the stern a rectangular feature can be interpreted as the covered structure protecting the steersman (κυβερνήτης). Behind it, the pole holding the pennon (ταινία) is visible. The main mast is rendered in a single vertical line that extends beyond the short and straight yard. The sail is short but elongated toward the right, probably to suggest that a strong wind is filling it and propelling the boat forward.

Bay 23 [= G30, between Piers A34 and A35] The plaster is largely gone in this bay, and no writing or drawing is visible.

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233

Bay 24 [= G31, between Piers A35 and A36]

The surface of this bay’s back wall is highly pitted and damaged. The plaster that originally covered the abutting step has almost completely disappeared, while in the upper and lower registers of the wall an earlier layer of plaster is visible, similar in color to the last preserved one, but without any discernible graffiti or dipinti. The surviving four inscriptions (T24.1 to T24.4) are clustered in the upper left quadrant, while three painted phalli are in the upper right quadrant (D24.1 to D24.3). One inscription is on the bay’s eastern pier (A36) (T24.5).

234

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T24.1 and T24.3

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

235

T24.1. Uncertain

At 15 cm from the left edge, ca. 1.18 m above the bench. Area ca. 25 cm wide × 18 cm high. Rather awkward capital letters 3–4 cm high.

τικτομ̣ένη κατ̣ὰ ΠΑ ̣ ΣΤ ̣ ̣

1–2 We owe the reading to Angelos Chaniotis. It seems likely that τικτομένη is passive rather than middle, but our lack of success in reading line 3 frustrates the curiosity aroused. It is conceivable that the lines below, which we print as T24.3, belong to the same text, but they are even more fragmentary and unlikely to help.

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T24.2. Declaration of Love

Ca. 15 cm to the right of the right edge of T24.1 and just above one testicle of D24.1. One inscription with fragments of a second to its right; overall area ca. >54 cm wide × 18 cm high. Cursive-style but detached letters 4–7 cm high on the left. The highly effaced surface leaves doubt about how many inscriptions are at stake. Bibliography: Bagnall, Everyday Writing, pp. 14–15; SEG 61.956.

φιλῶ ἧς [ ̣ ̣ ̣] ΤΩΝ ὁ ἀριθμὸ̣[ς ̣ ̣ ̣ ] ̣ ΗΝ ̣[ ψλα [ - 7 - ] ̣ [

“I love a (woman) whose number is 731.” 3. The number 731 equates most probably to the name Ἄνθουσα (1 + 50 + 9 + 70 + 400 + 200 + 1). See introduction, p. 48, for isopsephisms referring to a woman.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

237

T24.3. Uncertain

Below T24.1, probably not continuous with it. Perhaps 6 lines, area ca. 27 cm wide × 32 cm high. Detached majuscule letters 3 cm high.

ΕΝΗΣ ΣΑ ̣ ̣ ΠΙ Μ ̣ ̣Μ traces Π traces ΝΙΚΛΑΠΑΝ

238

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan Detail of T24.3

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

239

T24.4. Uncertain

At the top center, a projecting piece of plaster with remains of three lines. Area 30 cm wide × 24 m high; original area unknown. Fairly well-made cursive-style letters 4–6 cm high.

]α ]ντλ̣ ] ̣ατο

240

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T24.5. Uncertain

On left pier (A35), at top, isolated letters in a space 14 cm wide × 9 cm high. Surface broken at right. Letters 5 cm high.

ΔΟ̣

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

241

D24.1. Phallus

On the eastern half of the back wall of the bay, in black and red ink. Dimensions 49.5 cm wide × 28 cm high. Dipinto of a male sexual organ, located in the eastern half of the back wall of Bay 24, toward the middle. The drawing is heavily damaged by very large lacunae. Additionally, the black color has faded in several areas, making it difficult to recognize the overall outline. From what is discernible, the corpus of the penis is drawn horizontally with two parallel lines converging at the right end in a rounded tip, where a series of shorter, vertical streaks might indicate the foreskin and the meatus. The two testicles are drawn perpendicularly to the corpus and are detached. Roughly circular in shape, they seem to have been drawn first in red and then retraced in black.

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D24.2. Phallus

In the center of the back wall of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 26.5 cm wide × 15 cm high. Dipinto of a male sexual organ, located in the center of the back wall of Bay 24. The graffito is in a poor state of preservation, as most of the original color has faded. The corpus of the penis is drawn irregularly, with the upper line delineating a more realistic outline while the lower one follows a zig-zag pattern. The two testicles are placed perpendicularly to the corpus, and drawn as two detached circles.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

243

D24.3. Phallus

In the eastern half of the back wall of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 29 cm wide × 8 cm high. Dipinto of a male sexual organ, located in the eastern half of the back wall of Bay 24, toward the middle. Large lacunae in the plaster have affected most of the drawing, and only parts of the shaft are still preserved. The shaft is drawn in two parallel lines, roughly horizontal. The tip, toward the right, is made of a curved line, while a thick vertical line depicts the epithelium.

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Bay 25 [= G32, between Piers A36 and A37]

At the bottom of the bay’s back wall the plaster is lost over a very large arch-shaped area, which reveals four courses of the underlying stone masonry. The surviving plaster at the wall’s top, in contrast, is crowded with drawings and inscriptions in varying states of preservation. In the upper left quadrant are three inscriptions (T25.1 to T25.3) and five dipinti, which include three phalli (D25.1 to D25.3), one male head (D25.4), and one ship (D25.5). In the upper right quadrant are three inscriptions (T25.4 to T24.6) and four dipinti: two gladiators (D25.6, D25.7), one ivy leaf (D25.8), and one phallus (D25.9).

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

245

T25.1. Signature

In the upper left part, 31 cm from the left edge and ca. 1.6 m above ground level, in a tabula (without ansae) ca. 22 cm wide × 21 cm high. Majuscule letters 4–5 cm high.

Νεικήτης ἐποίει

“Niketes made it.” 1. The name occurs in I.Smyrna 442b, the epitaph of a doctor frrom Tieion. The final sigma in line 1 is outside the tabula.

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T25.2. Exclamation

Just to the left of the lower part of the box of T25.1, 10 cm from the left edge. Just below it is the drawing of a youth’s head (D25.4), presumably the intended “speaker” of the word. Detached letters ca. 2–2.5 cm high. Bibliography: Bagnall, Everyday Writing, p. 11; SEG 61.953.

πυγίζομαι

“I am being buggered.” LSJ cites for the passive of this verb only SB 4.7452 (published by C. C. Edgar, “A love charm from the Fayoum,” BSAA 21 (1925) 42 ff.), where Poseidonios asks that Heronous be bound ὅπως μὴ βεινηθῇ, μὴ πυγισθῇ, μὴ λεικάσῃ, μηδὲν πρὸς ἡδονὴν ποιήσῃ ἄλλῳ ἀνδρί εἰ μὴ ἐμοὶ Ποσιδωνίῳ (lines 9–10): i.e., so that she may not experience vaginal intercourse, anal intercourse, or cunnilingus, nor give any pleasure to any man except him.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

247

T25.3. Uncertain

Centered above the large middle gap and largely lost in it, to the right of T25.1. The two partly preserved lines occupy an area ca. 50 cm wide × 25 cm high. Large detached cursive-style letters 10–12 cm high.

ΕΤ̣ [ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣]ΤΑΣ Ε[ ̣ ̣ ̣] ̣ Λ ̣Λ

1. Above the line at left, an omega; it is unclear if it is related to this inscription. 2. Below this line, perhaps an epsilon in a different hand. The letter between alpha and lambda is probably rho or phi.

248

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T25.3 (right side)

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

249

T25.4. Uncertain

At the right side, 1.54 m above ground level, abutting the right edge of the bay. Area ca. 67 cm wide × 14 cm high, but possibly incomplete at left. The left part of the inscription and the right part are written in different hands, but it is not certain that they are unrelated. Letters irregular, 4–10 cm high. The last four letters of line 1 and the last two letters of line 2 are written in a less cursive, larger, and heavier hand.

ΤΟΣ ̣ ΑΜΟΝΩ

ἐσφάγη

Only the right part, “he (she, it) was slaughtered” can be interpreted. It may be connected with the apparently severed head in D25.6.

250

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T25.5. Label

At the top of the wall, against the right edge of the bay. Area ca. 40 cm wide × 10 cm high. Irregular detached letters 4 cm high except rho and high nu, which are 7 cm. Bibliography: Bagnall, Everyday Writing, pp. 16–17; SEG 61.960.

κοντροκυνήγις

1–2. Presumably for *κοντροκυνήγιος, a wild-beast hunter with a pike. LSJ lists κοντροκυνηγέσιον, citing IGRR 4.1632 and SEG 6.608, where L. Robert refers to his discussion of IGRR 3.360 in Rev.Arch. 30 (1929) 29–31 = Opera Minora Selecta 1.696–698. There he comments on the use of σιδηροκόντρα. There are no literary occurrences recorded in TLG. Cf. the fragmentary T12.6 for another possible occurrence at Smyrna.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

251

T25.6. Uncertain

Just below T25.4, at ca. 21 cm from the right side of the bay. The top is ca. 1.5 m above ground level. In a box ca 30 cm wide × 32 cm high. The right side is badly faded. Detached majuscule letters 8 cm high.

]ΤΟΝ ]Ο ̣ ̣ ] traces

252

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D25.1. Phallus

In the upper left quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 30 cm wide × 44 cm high. Dipinto of a male sexual organ, located in the upper left quadrant of the back wall of Bay 25. The graffito has almost completely disappeared into a very large lacuna in the plaster at the center of the wall. Only parts of the two testicles are still preserved. Both are drawn in multiple concentric strokes (at least four are identifiable) that overlap all preexisting graffiti (see D25.2, D25.3 and D25.4), suggesting that this image was the last one drawn on the wall. The upper testicle is almost entirely preserved: oval in shape and placed diagonally, it was probably attached to the second one at its missing end. The lower testicle is almost completely missing. What is left suggests that it was probably similar in shape and size to the other one.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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D25.2. Phallus

In the upper left quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 14 cm wide × 28 cm high. Dipinto of a male sexual organ, located in the upper left quadrant of the back wall of Bay 25. The corpus of the penis, pointing downward, is drawn vertically in two lines: the left one is straight, while the right one is convex, creating the overall shape of an elongated drop. The two testicles are attached to each other, and they are placed horizontally on top of the corpus. The one to the left is larger and roughly rhomboidal in shape, while the one to the right is significantly smaller and oval.

254

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D25.3. Phallus

In the upper left quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 25 cm wide × 27 cm high. Dipinto of a male sexual organ, located in the upper left quadrant of the back wall of Bay 25. The graffito is damaged by the large gap in the plaster that affects most of the wall’s surface. Additionally, parts of the outline are illegible due to fading. Of the original graffito, the two testicles, placed right below a face in profile (D25.4) are still clearly identifiable. Both are oval in shape: the left one is smaller, while the right one is larger and points downward toward the right. The corpus of the penis, noticeably larger, follows the same orientation, also pointing downward. Its right end is damaged by the loss of plaster.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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D25.4. Portrait—Head

In the upper left quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 18 cm wide × 23 cm high. Dipinto of a male head in profile, located in the upper left quadrant of the back wall of Bay 25. The graffito is partially obliterated by a later drawing of a phallus (see D25.1) and affected by some fading. The head is turned to the left, and there is a short line starting from the chin that indicates the beginning of the neck. The man has short, wavy hair on the front, rendered with small curved lines; they become longer toward the back, where they are drawn in longer and parallel lines. The forehead is broad and straight, the nose long and pointed. A large eye, with indication of the pupil, is placed anatomically correctly, but there are no traces left of the mouth. This head is probably connected to T25.2.

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D25.5. Ship

In the upper left quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 95 cm wide × 26 cm high. Dipinto of a ship, located in the upper left quadrant of the back wall of Bay 25. The vessel is damaged by large losses of plaster, which have completely destroyed the upper half, where the sail and the mast must have been, and the center of the hull. The ink is faded in many of the other still extant areas. From what is still visible, it is possible to identify a ship sailing on a port tack. The best-preserved elements are two long rudders (πηδάλια) rendered in thick diagonal lines that also outline the central rib of each rudder. The left rudder is significantly longer than the right one. No other oars are recognizable. The keel is flat; it rises sharply toward the stern, which terminates in a raised and curved aplustre. The prow is completely faded.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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D25.6. Portrait—Head

In the upper right quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 19 cm wide × 17 cm high. Dipinto of a human head, located in the upper right quadrant of the back wall of Bay 25. Some of the lines in this graffito are almost completely faded. However, it is still possible to recognize a head portrayed as fully frontal and covered by a gladiator’s helmet. Considering that the surface of the helmet is depicted as plain and smooth, that two eye holes are the only elements outlined, and that the helmet’s flanges reach down to cover the neck, it is conceivable to interpret the graffito as the picture of a secutor. This dipinto is most probably related to the inscription T25.4.

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D25.7. Gladiator

In the upper right quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 14 cm wide × 13.5 cm high. Dipinto of a gladiator, located in the upper right quadrant of the back wall of Bay 25. The man is depicted as striding forward toward the left, his right leg advanced. His head is completely covered by a plain helmet, without crest or brim. The helmet is characterized by a broad, downward-slanting neck guard that descends to cover also part of the bust. His left leg is significantly larger than the right one, suggesting the presence of a half-length greave. The curved rectangular shield is abandoned on the ground to his left, and partially covered by the man’s body. The gladiator, a provocator, holds his sword, of medium length and with a straight blade, with both hands, as he thrusts it forward.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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D25.8. Decorative—Ivy Leaf

In the upper right quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 10 cm wide × 17 cm high. Dipinto of a heart-shaped ivy leaf, located in the upper right quadrant of the back wall of Bay 25. The leaf is elongated and pointing downward. At its top, a long, hook-shaped petiole extends upward.

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D25.9. Phallus

In the upper left quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 16.5 cm wide × 12.5 cm high. Dipinto of a male sexual organ, located in the upper left quadrant of the back wall of Bay 25. Placed below dipinto D25.1, it is now quite damaged by a large lacuna, so that only the left painted testicle is still clearly discernible, while of the right one only the base is left. The shaft was probably never drawn, suggesting that this could have been just an early attempt abandoned halfway in favor of another one of the numerous penises that are present in this bay.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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Bay 26 [= G33, between Piers A37 and A38] Bay with a doorway (Gate 14). The plaster contains remains of two drawings but none of inscriptions. D26.1. Gladiator

On the east face of Pier A37, in black and red ink. Dimensions 9 cm wide × 18 cm high. Dipinto, largely faded, located on the eastern face of Pier A37, looking into the doorway, Bay 26. It is composed of thin black lines with a few highlights in red. The image depicts a male figure, a gladiator, in profile and advancing toward the right. The upper part of the body is better preserved, whereas most of the detailing of the legs has vanished. The man wears a helmet with long neck-guard and a balteus. The way his bust is depicted seems to suggest the presence of a long coat of scale armor, an element distinctive of images of secutores in later representations from the Eastern empire.

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D26.2. Phallus

On the left jamb (A37) of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 9 cm wide × 9.5 cm high. Dipinto of a male sexual organ, located on the left jamb of the doorway opening in the back wall of Bay 26, at the height of the lintel. Only the testicles, both elongated and teardrop-shaped, are still visible. The upper one is almost completely faded.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

263

Bay 27 [= G34, between Piers A38 and A39]

The plaster on the bay’s back wall is generally well preserved, despite a large and roughly horizontal gap that runs through the whole width of the wall, where one course of stone masonry and a small section of an earlier layer of plaster, with no extant graffti or dipinti, are visible. One inscription is in the upper right quadrant of the wall (T27.3), and two inscriptions are in the upper left quadrant (T27.1 and T27.2). These two texts both refer to the eye that decorates one of the two ships dominating the wall’s center (D27.1). One largely damaged and faded dipinto, possibly of a building, is in the wall’s lower register (D27.2).

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T27.1. Record of Healing

At 14 cm from the left edge of the bay, ca. 1.85 m above ground level. Area 18 cm wide × 29 cm high. An awkward mixture of cursive and capital forms, wavery and variable in size; letters 4–6 cm high. Bibliography: Bagnall, Everyday Writing, p. 22 and p. 21, fig. 9; SEG 61.969.

ὀφθαλμοὺς [ὑ-] πὸ θεῶ̣[ν] εὐχαριστῶ τῇ Βαίτῃ

“(Being healed in) my eyes by the gods, I give thanks to the Baite.” See introduction, pp. 42 and 44, for healings of eyes and for Baite.

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T27.2. Record of Healing Immediately to the right of T27.1, at 38 cm from the left side of the bay and 1.85 m above the ground level. Stylish letters, detached but cursive in style, 4–6 cm high. At the right end of line 1 it is impossible to distinguish the letter strokes from the rigging of the ship drawing immediately below (D27.1). Bibliography: Bagnall, Everyday Writing, p. 19 and p. 21, fig. 9; SEG 61.968.

Ἡγεῖνος εἶπ̣[εν] τ̣ὸν̣ ὀφθαλμ[ὸν] ἐν τάχει ἐθαραπεύ̣[θην]

“Hyginos said, ‘My eye was quickly healed’.” 1. Read Ὑγῖνος. The name is well represented in Ionia and Caria, see LGPN 5A.440, 5B.418, with an example in the former from Smyrna. 3. The mention of the swiftness of the cure is intended to point to the power of the divinity who effected the cure. Chaniotis 2009 discusses this phenomenon, citing examples. We quote from his email of 29 January 2015: “In an epitaph, Lord the Almighty is asked to punish a murderer fast (SEG 50 (2000), 1233 (Neoklaudiopolis, AD 237): Κύριε Παντοκράτωρ· σὺ μὲ ἔκτισες, κακὸς δέ με ἄνθρωπος ἀπώλεσεν· ἐγδίκησόν με ἐν τάχι). The god is invited in a subtle way to prove his endless power not only by punishing the murderer, but also by inflicting the punishment fast (ἐν τάχι). This is a strategy known from magical texts. In order to provoke the anger of the gods and demons, the magician often urges them to act fast (ἤδη ἤδη, ταχύ ταχύ). And in a confession inscription (Petzl, Beichtinschriften no. 69), the power of the god is shown by the fact that he punishes Tatias and her son within a day (μονημέρῳ κολάσει ἀπηλλάγη).” Below T27.1 can be seen five lines of very faint writing and uncertain extent. These have not been transcribed.

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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T27.3. Declaration of Love

On the right edge of the bay, 8 cm from the right and ca. 1.85 m from ground level. Area 34 cm wide × 8 cm high. Detached letters 3–4 cm high. Bibliography: Bagnall, Everyday Writing, p. 14; SEG 61.955.

φιλῶ ἧς ὁ ριθμὸς Ατη

“I love (a woman) whose number is 1,308.” 2. The number 1308 corresponds with near certainty to the name Τύχη (300+400+600+8). See introduction, p. 48, for other isopsephisms referring to a woman.

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D27.1. Ships

In the center of the bay, in black ink. Upper dimensions 89 to 104 cm wide × 56 cm high; lower dimensions 100 cm wide × 26 cm high. Dipinto of two superimposed ships, located at the center of the back wall of Bay 27. The two vessels have similar shapes and sizes. The lower vessel seems to have been drawn after the upper one. The two ships, drawn as sailing on starboard tack, have flat keels, rounded prows, and sharply diagonal sterns. They are both medium to small vessels for transport of passengers or goods (i.e., phaseli). The upper vessel was drawn in at least two phases. In the first one the aplustre was notably longer, similar in shape to the later, and shorter, one. A faded line near this element suggests that the original sails extended to this point. A large and straight mast at the center of the bulwark, belonging to the second phase, has now almost completely disappeared, along with the lines of the cordage, mostly καλῴδια and one πρότονος, which are very faded. A large eye visible right above the bulwark of the upper ship is to be intended as decoration of the sail. In this second phase the aplustre and στόλος became identical in shape, both depicted as short inverted triangles. This first ship seems to relate to the text T27.1. The lower and later vessel’s stern is not completely preserved, while at the prow is recognizable a rounded στόλος pointing inward. No mast, yard, sails or oars are identifiable for this second ship.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

269

D27.2. Architecture

In the center, lower register, of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 65 cm wide × 40 cm high. Damaged and discolored dipinto, located in the lower register of the back wall of Bay 27, toward the middle. The poor preservation prevents a certain interpretation of the image. At present the image seems to represent the jamb and two lintels of a doorway, all three elements being decorated with a lattice motif.

270

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Bay 28 [= G35, between Piers A39 and A40]

The back wall of Bay 28 displays relatively few inscriptions—namely one word game (T28.1), one name (T28.3) possibly associated with a gladiator D28.2, and a few letters on ship D28.1 (T28.2 and T28.3). The pictorial dipinti dominate most of the space, constituting the most interesting ensemble from the cryptoporticus. A large ship occupies almost the entire right half of the wall (D28.1), while a complex series of images of gladiatorial combats fills the upper register (D28.2 to D28.7). The gladiatorial theme continues on the eastern pier with a scene portraying spectators cheering on the games (D28.8). The plaster is overall well preserved, apart from the wall’s lower register, where it is missing from floor level up to the height where an abutting step, now almost completely destroyed, must have risen. Right above this line, traces of an earlier layer of plaster, similar in color to the later one but without any surviving inscriptions or images, are visible.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

271

T28.1. Riddle

About 1.50 m above ground level and 10 cm from the left edge of the bay. Area ca 40 cm wide × 30 cm high, in box. Detached capital letters 4–5 cm high. Bibliography: Bagnall, Everyday Writing, p. 19; SEG 61.964.

ζήτημα Εἴσιδι αδι αδι διασωθείς αδι αδ[ι’] ίδωρ̣ος̣ traces ΕΝ

“Riddle: To Isis (adi adi), having been saved (adi adi), Isidoros . . .” 1. On riddles, see introduction, p. 54. 2. Read Ἴσιδι.

272

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T28.2. Label?

The large ship in the center of the panel (D28.1) has three letters placed in the middle of the central panel of the hull. Detached letters 2–2.5 cm high.

κυβ

In front of the front rigging (visible in the same photo):

οβ

One should probably take the first of these as κυβ(ερνήτης), pilot. On the second, see above, T15.5.1n.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

273

T28.3. Signature

In upper left corner of the panel, just to the right of a headless gladiator (D28.2). Detached capital letters 3–4 cm high.

Εὐπρέπης

The name Euprepes is well attested at Ephesos, cf. LGPN 5A.182; there is a scattering of other examples in LGPN 5B.166.

274

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T28.4. Name?

On the right pier (A40), inner face. Ca. 14 cm from the left (inner) side, just below the top of the preserved plaster surface. Majuscule letters 4–5 cm high. A couple of diagonal strokes beginning above and to the left continued into the now-lost plaster. Bibliography: Bagnall, Everyday Writing, p. 23; SEG 61.976.

καρπο̣[

There is space at the left of the inscription for another four letters or so, but no traces survive. The final letter could also be omega. See the introduction, p. 47, for possible interpretation of this graffito, particularly a restoration of [Πολύ]καρπο[ς].

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

275

D28.1. Ship

In the lower right quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 90 cm wide, 81 cm high. Published as Bay 28-T40 in Pomey 2006: 334–6, fig. 28. Dipinto of a ship sailing on port tack, located in the lower right quadrant of the back wall of Bay 28. The vessel is drawn in thick black streaks, with the overall outline rendered in even thicker lines. The keel is flat, the stern rounded, and the prow exaggeratedly straight, in fact at a 90-degree angle with the keel, and terminating in a short cutwater. A quite large and circular ὀφθαλμός is visible at the upper corner of the prow, and the ἀκροστόλιον above it is carefully rendered, even if the iconography is not clear. At the 90-degree angle between the stern and the keel, in the lower deck, is visible the very schematic depiction of a man, in profile, probably sitting. The rather tall hull is partitioned by three vertical strips. The one to the left is plain, the one in the middle, larger than the other two, is decorated with a woven pattern, while the one to the right has a zigzag motif. At the stern’s sides are visible the two πηδάλια with very broad blades. A thinner line running along the base of the keel, together with two wavy ones by the rudders, visualize the surface of the water. The ship is characterized by a single mast, carried well forward, holding a quadrangular gaff-rigged sail decorated with a dense swag pattern. The complex rigging of the sail and the mast is clearly identifiable. The ship is most probably a small coaster. The ship seems to be in relation with the inscription T28.2.

276

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D28.2. Gladiator

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

277

In the upper left quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 20 cm wide × 31 cm high. Dipinto of a headless gladiator, located in the upper left quadrant of the back wall of Bay 28. The drawing is made in thick black lines with a certain attention to the details. The man is walking toward the right, his left leg advanced. The arms are the least realistic elements of the representation, as they are short and barely sketched. The gladiator, clearly decapitated during the fight, is depicted with an elongated neck. Another wound is visible at his back: blood, drawn as a series of four parallel lines, is gushing out of it. The unarmed gladiator is an eques, as is evident from his attire, composed of a voluminous sleeveless tunica, short gaiters, and a manica on his right arm. The head of the gladiator, or at least his helmet, is depicted as hanging from a pole in another dipinto that is located further to the right on the same wall (see D28.4). Interestingly, this is the only dipinto that suggests that gladiatorial combats could lead to the death of one of the fighters. In fact, the great majority of other representations of gladiatorial fights in the Smyrna corpus show the gladiators as engaged in the fight but without any significant wounds. The only other notable exception is dipinto D28.6, where the gladiator is notably wounded but still capable of walking off the arena on his own legs. Another instance of a defeated gladiator walking off stage is in dipinto D28.8; however, in this dipinto the fighter is depicted as unscathed and still wearing his full combat attire, helmet included.

278

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D28.3. Scene—Gladiatorial Combat

In the upper left quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 28 cm wide × 22 cm high. The dipinto, in fine and detailed black streaks, is located in the upper left quadrant of the back wall of Bay 25, partially covered by dipinto D28.2. It depicts a scene of fighting between two gladiators. The anatomical details are rendered with care for proportions; thus, the overall composition was certainly drawn by an expert hand. The gladiator to the right is almost completely preserved, whereas of the one to the left only a stretched leg is visible and the shield to its left. The rest of the figure is almost completely effaced. The armor of the gladiator to the right suggests that the scene depicted a fight between two provocatores. The iconography is consistent with other imperial representations of the type. The visored helmet has no crest or brim and comes down over the neck, shoulders, and the back with a very long and rounded neck-guard. The man, his right leg advanced as he thrusts forward, wears the subligaculum and the balteus. The half-length greave on his left leg is also drawn in detail. The curved rectangular shield, decorated with a typical circular protruding boss, covers most of his body. Tied at his waist, to the back, is a short sword with a straight blade. The pose in the leg of the second gladiator indicates that the artist captured the duel at its climax.

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Close comparisons to the right gladiator’s outfit and pose occur in two depictions on gladiators’ gravestones, one from Kos and dated to the third century CE (see Pfuhl and Möbius 1977: vol. 2, no. 1202, p. 296), and the second one from Smyrna and generically dated to the “late empire” (i.e., third century CE), ibid. no. 1199, p. 295. Both had been previously published by Robert 1940: no. 187, pp. 189–90, and no. 254, p. 214. See also a graffito from Ephesos, dated to the Late Antique period, from a domestic context (Langner 2001: no. 788).

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D28.4. Scene—Gladiatorial

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

281

In the upper left quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 27 cm wide × 39 cm high. Dipinto located in the upper left quadrant of the back wall of Bay 25. The iconography of this graffito is uncertain. One hypothesis is that the drawing is part of a scene that involves also the headless gladiator positioned to the far left of the same wall (see D28.2). If this is the case, then it seems plausible to recognize in the object to the right a sort of scaffolding or hanging pole, depicted with two shorter diverging legs and a longer pole curving to the left at its top. Hanging from the top of the pole is the head of the gladiator, or at least his helmet, identifiable as the typical helmet worn by an eques from its visor and the lack of a crest. The three lines departing from the helmet’s neck-guard could represent gushes of blood coming from the decapitated head.

282

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D28.5. Scene—Gladiatorial Combat

In the center, upper half, of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 38 cm wide × 34 cm high. Dipinto of three fighting gladiators, located in the upper half of the back wall of Bay 28, toward the middle. They are all provocatores. At the scene’s bottom, toward the left, is a gladiator drawn from behind (height 16.5 cm, width 7 cm). His figure is the most schematic: he is striding forward with his right leg advanced. The shield covers most of his body. Notable is the helmet: plain and tight over the head, it is depicted with a long crescent-shaped flange descending over the neck and shoulders. At the top left corner of the scene is a second gladiator, the best preserved of the three (height 12 cm, width 7 cm). He is thrusting forward, the body in three quarter and oriented toward the viewer, with his right leg advanced. The helmet has a broad visor and rounded flange covering neck and shoulders. The rectangular shield covers most of his body. His right arm appears to the side of the shield. The man holds in this hand a short, straight blade. Of the third gladiator, to the bottom right, only an arm with a hand holding a short sword is visible. The rest is faded or was deleted when concentric lines where drawn over the whole scene. A close comparison may be found in a graffito from Ephesos, dated to the Late Antique period, from a domestic context (Langner 2001: no. 788).

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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D28.6. Scene—Gladiatorial Combat

In the lower left quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 50 cm wide × 30 cm high. Dipinto of a gladiatorial scene located in the lower left quadrant of the back wall of Bay 28. The graffito, certainly the most complex of the whole corpus and undoubtedly the most artistically successful, depicts a fight among three provocatores. To the right, a gladiator already defeated is walking away from the scene, his back turned to his opponents and the body almost frontal toward the viewer. The area of his head is very damaged; however, the presence of a helmet on the ground to his right suggests that the gladiator has removed it after the end of the battle. He is still holding a shield and a short blade despite a large wound at his back from which blood is gushing out, drawn in short parallel lines. The other two gladiators are in the midst of the fight. With their left legs advanced and protected by minutely defined greaves, they are confronting each other, with short unsheathed swords. They are protecting their bodies with rectangular shields centrally decorated with round bosses. While the man to the left is mostly faded, the one to the right is still well preserved, his balteus and subligaculum clearly identifiable. His helmet is depicted minutely, including the prominent visor and the long flange. The fighting arena is defined by a series of four lines that define a roughly rectangular field.

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

A close comparison may be found in a graffito from Ephesos, dated to the Late Antique period, from a domestic context (Langner 2001: no. 788). The presence of the third gladiator seems to indicate that the dipinto is meant to depict a fight involving a subpositicius, also known as tertiarius, a gladiator who takes the place of a fallen colleague during an ongoing fight (Ville 1981: 396–7).1

1. I would like to thank the anonymous reader, who pointed out this reference to the work of Ville.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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D28.7. Gladiator

In the upper right quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 16 cm wide × 26 cm high. Dipinto of a provocator, located in the upper right quadrant of the back wall of Bay 28. The man is portrayed in profile, in the act of advancing toward the left. Most of his body is covered by the shield, which is rendered with several thick black streaks. The man’s balteus is easily recognizable. The head is completely covered by a helmet that descends to protect the neck and the shoulder with a broad rounded neck-guard. This helmet type, characterized by a broad downward-slanting neck-guard and visor, is identical to the one represented on a third-century funerary stele purchased in Smyrna and possibly coming from one of the city’s ancient necropoleis (see Robert 1940: no. 210, pl. VI; Petzl 1974: 289–90, no. 5; and Frisch and Geissen 1980).

286

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D28.8. Scene—Spectators

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

287

On the west face of Pier A40, in black ink. Overall dimensions 32 cm wide × 85 cm high. Very schematic dipinto located on the western face of Pier A40, looking into Bay 28. It is composed of a group of people divided into four tiers. Some of them are shown only as heads, while others appear as stick figures. All are in profile, turned toward the left. They are most probably meant to be understood as the public attending the gladiatorial games taking place on the back wall of Bay 28 (see dipinti D28.2 to D28.7). At the top are six heads in profile divided in two tiers. The upper tier has the most detailed portraits, with round heads, long noses and, in one instance, a round eye. In the second and lower tier are three smaller and round heads with no clear detailing apart from small round eyes. The third tier from the top comprises a complete figure with linear limbs, an elongated neck, and an irregular head turned to the left, with no recognizable anatomical features. A diagonal line exiting from the stylized mouth suggests that the figure is probably speaking. The torso is depicted in the shape of an octagon, with some internal lines meant to identify clothing. The arms are raised and bent at the elbows. The hands are rendered with a fishbone pattern. The linear legs terminate in feet drawn with a similarly stylized motif. The indication of speech and the gesture suggest that this figure is cheering on the gladiatorial combatants visible on the back wall of the bay. The fourth and last tier has one smaller figure, that of a gladiator, seen from the back, in three-quarter, in the act of walking away toward the right. The figure is not very detailed, but from the shape of the helmet it is possible to identify it as a provocator who is leaving the arena, possibly at the end of his combat. A large gap to his right prevents us from understanding if he was part of a row of gladiators shown while they are leaving the games or if he was the only such figure.

288

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Bay 29 [= G36, between Piers A40 and A41]

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

289

The bay’s back wall has large areas of detached plaster in the upper right quadrant, toward the middle, and in the lower register, where one course of the underlying stone masonry and the raised step that was built abutting the bay’s wall to create a niche-like space against the back wall are now visible. At the wall’s top and bottom, where the plaster is detached, there are sizeable portions of an earlier layer of plaster, similar in color to the later one but without discernible inscriptions or figural dipinti. The dipinti on the latest layer of plaster are better preserved in the right half, whereas toward the left the ink is considerably faded. Notable is a long inscription in the upper right quadrant (T29.1), and the label toward the center (T29.2) most probably to be related to dipinto D29.4. Four other inscriptions are visible on the back wall (T29.3 to T29.5 and T29.8), one on the western pier (A40) (T29.6), and another one on the eastern pier (A41) (T29.7). The pictorial graffiti are concentrated primarily toward the middle of the wall: many were drawn partially covering existing figures, thus suggesting the presence of multiple hands at play and the progressive decoration of the bay over an extended period of time. The subjects are most diverse: venatio scenes (D29.2, D29.6, D29.8, D29.13) and gladiators (D29.1), portraits (D29.3 to D29.5), birds (D29.9 and D29.10) and a phallus (D29.7). Two additional dipinti, another gladiator (D29.11) and a phallus (D29.12), are on the bay’s western pier (A40).

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T29.1. Declaration of Love and Literary Allusion

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

291

The foot of this inscription is about 1.6 m from the ground and abuts the right edge of the bay. Area ca. 77 cm wide × 52 cm high. It is unclear if it originally began above the preserved edge of the plaster. Possibly two hands, although both are in detached capitals: the letters of the top 3 lines have some style, with flourishes and serifs, height ca. 9 cm high; those of the lower 3 lines are cruder, ca. 5–7 cm high. Bibliography: Bagnall, Everyday Writing, pp. 15–16; SEG 61.958. [φι]λ̣ῶ φιλοῦσα μὴ φι λοῦσαν. ἐκράφη σου δακτυλε̣ι̣ς̣. τί πόλεμον εἴπεις; τοῦ δὲ σοῦ διώλεσεν̣; “I love, loving one who does not love (me). It was written with your fingers (?). What war do you mean? Who killed these?” 1–2. The feminine in the participle φιλοῦσα suggests a female writer (or at least persona), the only demonstrable such case among the graffiti. There is, however, a likely case of female homoerotic desire expressed in Pompeian graffiti, now discussed at length by Milnor 2014: 191–223. The Pompeian texts raise complex issues, fully treated by Milnor, about agency and authorship; some of those face us as well in the present graffito, but its more pedestrian and (in the first part) non-literary character may make us more inclined to see in it actual selfexpression by a woman than some would wish to admit in the Pompeian case. 2. ἐκράφη, κ corrected from χ. Read ἐγράφη. The αν preceding is written in somewhat larger letters than what precedes, which might lead one to consider ἀνεκράφη. But we cannot see how to make acceptable Greek of μὴ φίλους, so both grammar and sense seem to support the reading printed. That, of course, points to a female object of the love of the female writer/ persona in line 1. It is not clear to us if the following three words are the product of the same writer or of a second writer responding in some fashion (cf. note to line 3). The letters seem much the same. 3. Between lambda and sigma the writer’s final intentions are not clear. It appears that (s)he first wrote an eta, then changed that to epsilon-iota. As there is no form δακτυλεις in Greek, it seems most likely that the writer intended δακτύλοις; one might perhaps translate “It was written with your fingers.” But the significance of this is unclear to us.

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

4–6. These lines, written as noted in a smaller and somewhat cruder hand, are indented as shown. Whether that is the case because the figure drawn to their left was already in place, we cannot say. They offer a remarkably garbled reminiscence of, or attempt to quote, Euripides, Herc. 1134, τί πόλεμον εἶπας; τούσδε τίς διώλεσεν; Herakles has just recovered from madness and found his children dead. For Euripides on the wall at Pompeii, cf. Milnor 2014: 233. The concluding nu in line 6 is uncertain and could be a sigma; that would only increase the garbling of the quotation.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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T29.2. Uncertain

In the center of the bay, just to the right of the head of a stick figure (D29.5), seemingly as a label. Area 5 cm wide × 2 cm high; detached, informal letters 2 cm high.

κοε

There is no sign of any following letters that would allow this to be seen as the beginning of a word or name, such as a Greek rendering of Quintus or Quietus. It could be intended for Κῷε, the vocative of “Coan”. We have no other explanation to offer.

294

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T29.3. Uncertain

At 13 cm from the left side of the bay, ca. 90 cm from the ground. Area ca. 60 cm wide × 30 cm high. Tall, narrow letters, 10–12 cm high, with an effort at style, almost like chancery style. Very faded, especially in line 1.

Πι̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ευδον ̣ ̣ ἐπῆλθε̣ν̣

1. The unread portion consists entirely, as far as is now visible, of vertical strokes. We have not been able to combine these satisfactorily into a sequence of letters. The letter before epsilon might be pi, suggesting a form of σπεύδω.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna T29.4. Uncertain

295

296

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Ca. 1.0 m from the left, ca. 1.05 m from the ground. Width uncertain, height ca. 3 cm. Small letters of minuscule style but largely detached, 1 cm high.

ΑΜ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ΠΕΙΠ ̣ ̣

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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T29.5. Exclamation

Located 15 cm below T29.2 at a slant upward to the right. Written on the right testicle of D29.7. Large rough capital letters 5–6 cm high. Bibliography: Bagnall, Everyday Writing, p. 11 and p. 13, fig. 4; SEG 61.952.

ἔψυγμ̣[αι] ̣ ̣Α

“I’ve been chilled.” 1. Εὔχη was suggested as a reading in Bagnall, Everyday Writing, but we believe that the present reading is inescapable. See T21.1 for another example and discussion of the meaning.

298

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T29.6. Uncertain

On the left pier (A40), on its face toward the bay. Ending up against the right edge, ca. 32 cm from the top of the surviving wall. Area 53 cm wide × 12 cm high. Ligatured cursive writing with letters 4 cm high.

- - - - - - ψας τοὺς ἐμοῦ ὅλου̣ς̣ ̣ ̣π ̣ ̣

1. Perhaps most likely this is the ending of (ἀνα)γράψας.

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T29.7. Uncertain

On the right pier (A41), on the edge between the side facing the bay and the outer pier face, about 10 cm from the top of the surviving wall above a drawing. Area 24 cm wide × 18 cm high. Large majuscule letters 8 cm high.

̣ ̣[ φιλι ̣[

300

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T29.8. Uncertain: Label?

About 40 cm above T29.3, one line occupying a space 33 cm wide × 4 cm high. Letters 3–4 cm high.

ολοπληθος

The letters are all clumsily made, and we have debated whether they are letters at all. The word πλῆθος is, however, highly plausible in this context, where spectators appear in D28.8 and perhaps a spectator in D29.3. There is no compound word ὁλοπλῆθος known, and it seems more prudent to suppose ὅλο(ν) πλῆθος (“the whole people”) than to invent a new word.

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D29.1. Gladiator

In the upper left quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 23 cm wide × 24 cm high. Dipinto of a provocator, striding toward the right, located in the upper left quadrant of the back wall of Bay 29. Recognizable are the characteristic greave above the knee on the left leg, the manica (arm-guard) on the right arm, the visored helmet with a large horizontal neck-guard, and the indication of a short, crescent-shaped breastplate. The shield has the typical curved rectangular shape with a boss at the center. The gladiator is holding in his right hand a short sword with a straight blade. He is depicted in the act of walking toward another figure to his right. Considering the extreme stylization of such a figure, it is possibly meant to represent a palus carved in the rough shape of a human head and torso with which the provocator is training. The graffito is partially obliterated by a later graffito of a bird (see D29.10). The iconographic details of this gladiator find close comparison in a gravestone from Kos dated to the third century CE (Pfuhl and Möbius 1977: vol. 2, no. 1202, p. 296).

302

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D29.2. Scene—Venatio

In the upper right quadrant of the bay, in black and red ink. Dimensions overall, 32 cm wide × 30 cm high; of the gladiator, 19 cm wide × 21 cm high; of the feline, 29 cm wide × 12 cm high. Dipinto of a venatio scene, located in the upper right quadrant of the back wall of Bay 29. At the bottom of the scene, toward the right, is a venator. Though the drawing is quite cursive, it is possible to identify the figure of the venator, fully frontal and in a victorious stance. He holds in the right hand a venabulum decorated with a fishbone motif, possibly representing a palm branch placed on the spear after his victory. With the left hand he holds a small triangular shield. The head, without helmet, is surmounted by a wreath that sits on the venator’s temples. The facial features are very approximate: two round eyes, a large nose, and an oversized mouth, rendered in one long curved line indicating a large smile. The man is dressed in a short flowing tunica with geometric decorations on the front and with tight leg wrappings on his thighs. The tip of his spear touches the hind paw of a large feline placed directly above it. Long, vertical red lines run along the whole length of the spear, indicating the blood gushing out of the wounded animal, possibly a lion. The animal is shown in profile, the head turned toward the left, but now almost completely lost due to the poor preservation of the plaster. Of the head, only the mane is still visible, rendered in long parallel lines covering the neck, continuing along the animal’s

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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back, and descending to the left foreleg. The body is extremely elongated and not very detailed. The tail is made of a single wavy line terminating in a small, upward tuft. The four legs are depicted as elongated inverted triangles terminating in small circles indicating the paws. The lion is mortally wounded: at its left flank a large spot of red ink indicates a wound from which blood, in long vertical lines, gushes out to cover the venator’s spear below. This scene is probably to be considered as the outcome of the fight between the venator and the feline taking place to the left (see D29.13).

304

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D29.3. Portrait—Head

In the center, upper register, of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 8 cm wide × 10 cm high. Dipinto of a male head, located at the top of the back wall of Bay 29, toward the middle. The head is shown in profile, turned toward the left. The proportions and the poor detailing suggest that the drawing was not made by a trained artist. The head is characterized by a large almondshaped eye with a round pupil and short eyebrow. The sharp acute line of the nose begins at the eye’s left corner. The upper lip is quite pronounced and the mouth is drawn as open. Below the undershot chin is a large, elongated neck. The hairline begins right above the eye, with no space left for the forehead. The hairdo is rendered in a few, thick parallel lines that follow the skull’s curvature, suggesting that the straight hair touched the nape of the neck. The ear is long and tear-shaped. The man might be a spectator, cf. T29.8

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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D29.4. Stick Figure

In the lower right quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 17 cm wide × 35 cm high. Dipinto of a “stick figure,” located in the lower right quadrant of the back wall of Bay 29. The figure is depicted as fully frontal. Three Greek letters (Koe, see text T29.2) to the right of the head suggests that the figure, clearly drawn by an unskilled hand, is probably a stylized portrait of an individual carrying that Greek name or designation (which is, however, not securely identifiable). The head is a large oval sitting on a disproportionately elongated neck. There is no indication of a hairdo, and the facial features are limited to two round eyes, a few short lines for the eyelashes, and a long Roman nose. The arms and the legs are in the shape of inverted triangles and there is no clear indication of hands or feet, apart from a very abraded left hand. The figure is dressed in a short tunica with a long diagonal line running on the front.

306

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D29.5. Portrait—Head

In the lower left quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions overall 18 cm wide × 13 cm high. Very damaged dipinto of two heads in profile, located in the lower left quadrant of the back wall of Bay 29. Both are facing to the left. The head to the left is poorly preserved: the top is round and with no indication of hair. The neck, terminating in an inverted triangle, is quite elongated. A large almond-shaped eye is the only feature clearly distinguishable. The head to the right is slightly better preserved. A jeweled veil covers the top of the head (the jewels are rendered as lozenges), and the eye is round with clear indication of the eyebrow. The nose is pointed and the mouth possibly opened. The lower part of the graffito is badly damaged and illegible.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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D29.6. Gladiator

In the lower right quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 25 cm wide × 31 cm high. Very rudimentary dipinto of a “stick figure,” located in the lower right quadrant of the back wall of Bay 29. The outline is made of several thick lines that define a short and squat torso, short arms, and long legs. To the left of the figure is a small shield, rendered in thick, vertical lines. Around the head of the figure, a wavy pattern might identify a wreath, suggesting that this is the representation of a victorious gladiator, a simplified version of dipinto D29.2.

308

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D29.7. Phallus

In the eastern half of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 52 cm wide × 52 cm high. Large dipinto of a male sexual organ, located in the eastern half of the back wall of Bay 29. The corpus of the penis is drawn diagonally, with its tip at the upper right. It is composed of a diagonal line that terminates at the top in a large oval indicating the prepuce. The foreskin is further accentuated by a second concentric curved line. The corpus’ lower outline is defined by a short curved line that creates an overall teardrop shape. The two testicles are also placed diagonally. The outline of the right one, teardrop shaped, partially overlaps that of the corpus. The left testicle is barely sketched, with one broken line that suggests its position and size.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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D29.8. Scene—Venatio

On the west face of Pier A41, in black ink. Dimensions overall 27 cm wide × 51 cm high; of the bird, 20 cm wide × 24 cm high. Dipinto of a venatio scene, located on the western face of Pier A41, looking into Bay 29. The drawing is very rudimentary and schematic. At the bottom is a bird in profile, turned to the right. The bird, possibly a parrot, has a large head and beak, short crown, and a short and squat neck. Its body is entirely covered by the right wing, leaf-shaped and with a long line running at the center identifying the primary and secondary feathers. The tail is short and delineated by a single, thick line. The thigh is short and thin, and the claws are made in two parallel lines drawn in foreshortening. Above it, two rectangular features to the right, one decorated with vertical lines, might represent the nets used to capture birds during the hunts. To the left is a linear feature terminating in an oval, possibly a lasso also used for bird-hunting.

310

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D29.9. Animal—Bird

In the lower right quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 30 cm wide × 35 cm high. Dipinto of a bird, located in the lower right quadrant of the back wall of Bay 25. The bird, possibly a dove, is drawn in thick black lines in profile, turned toward the right. It has a pointed beak, short crown, and a long and sinuous neck. The right, leaf-shaped wing is prominently displayed and constitutes the lower outline of the figure. A line runs at its center, schematically suggesting the feathers’ orientation. The tail feathers are barely indicated by two thicker lines. The bird has a very elongated and thin thigh, which terminates in a large triangle-shaped claw.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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D29.10. Animal—Bird

In the upper left quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 23 cm wide × 21.5 cm high. Dipinto of a bird, located in the upper left quadrant of the back wall of Bay 29. This graffito overlaps parts of graffito D29.1, suggesting that it was drawn at a later date (though it is impossible to determine any specific time lapse between the first and the second graffito). The bird is in profile and turned toward the right. Possibly a dove, it has an elongated and pointed beak, a tall and round crown, and a rather large neck. The leaf-shaped right wing is located at the center of the body, its bottom characterized by a zig-zag motif that simulates the bird’s primaries. The tail is long and the round breast is clearly visible below the wing. One of the thighs, drawn diagonally, is well marked in thick lines, whereas the second one, possibly crossing the first one, is for the most part faded. The claw is drawn in foreshortening.

312

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D29.11. Scene—Gladiator and Palm Branches

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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On the east face of Pier A40, in black ink. Dimensions 5.5 cm wide × 10 cm high. Palmette at top, 10 cm wide × 17 cm high; palmette at bottom, 3 cm wide × 8 cm high. Dipinto located on the eastern face of Pier A40, looking into Bay 29. It comprises one gladiator and two palm branches, all partially damaged by lacunae in the plaster. The branch at the top is characterized by a long vertical line, the branch’s rachis, drawn in a thick streak. From this central line depart, at both sides, two corresponding sets of thirteen diagonal lines, the leaflets, progressively shorter at the top where the tip of the branch is situated. Two short horizontal lines, one at the top and one at the bottom, complete the design. To the left of the branch is a very schematic depiction of a gladiator, of which only a visored helmet with a horizontal neck-guard and a large rectangular shield are visible. He can tentatively be identified as a provocator. At the bottom is a second palm branch composed of a central vertical line, from which departs a series of short diagonal lines (eight are still visible) alternately to the right and the left of the central axis. The palm branches are most certainly to be understood as complementing the image of the gladiator, who is thus to be considered as victorious.

314

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D29.12. Phallus

On the east face of Pier A40, in black ink. Dimensions 17 cm wide × 18 cm high. Dipinto of a male sexual organ, located on the eastern face of Pier A40, looking into Bay 29. The ink is largely faded. Of the upright corpus, only the left contour is still visible, made of a longer curved line and a few shorter ones next to it. Better preserved are the testicles: the left one is almost horizontal, flat at the top and concave at the bottom. An inner concave line gives the impression of three-dimensionality. The right testicle is larger and roughly oval. Drawn diagonally, it is characterized by a double contour line that is similarly meant to convey dimensionality.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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D29.13. Scene—Venatio

In the upper left quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 43 cm wide × 11 cm high. Dipinto of a venatio scene, located in the upper left quadrant of the back wall of Bay 29. It probably constitutes the prelude to the victory scene in D29.2. The dipinto is largely damaged by a gap in the plaster that has destroyed the whole upper half of the scene; thus the interpretation is solely based on the animal’s paws and the human leg still visible. From these elements the scene can be read as the actual fight between the venator and the lion: to the left is the animal advancing toward the right, where the venator is expecting it. The two forelegs are better preserved and rendered as elongated, thick lines terminating in small circles indicating the paws. The hind legs are not very well preserved, but from the few extant lines it seems that they might have been more anatomically detailed. The tail is possibly made of a series of radial lines. In the right half of the scene, only one of the legs of the venator is still preserved. Bent, with the foot in profile, it gives the impression that the man might have been depicted as ready to lunge forward to attack the animal.

316

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Bay 30 [= G37, between Piers A41 and A42] This bay contains a doorway (Gate 15) with one inscription on the lintel (T30.2), two dipinti, one of which is a lion (D30.1) on the western pier (A41), and a short inscription on the eastern pier (A42) (T30.2). T30.1. Uncertain

Above the top of the gateway, in an area 30 cm wide × 25 cm high, in one line, letters 4–8 cm high.

Ε̣ ΥΟ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

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T30.2. Uncertain

On the west face of the pier at right (Pier A42), toward the top, an area 25 cm wide × 6 cm high. Letters 5 cm high.

του ε.[ λουσιν [ πης

3. The horizontal stroke of sigma is prolonged to the right, all the way to the edge of the plaster, to signal the end of the text.

318

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D30.1. Animal—Feline

On the east face of Pier A41, in black ink. Dimensions 11 cm wide × 8 cm high. Dipinto of a feline, located on the eastern face of Pier A41, looking into Bay 30. Only the back half of a feline figure, drawn in profile and turned to the left, is still preserved, as most of the plaster has fallen off the wall. The drawing is quite accurate and detailed; the lack of stripes suggests that the graffito is to be interpreted as the picture of a lion. The rump is rounded, the back is arched, and the tail root is clearly marked by a darkened area. The tail is made of one thick curved line culminating in a thicker tuft, now almost completely faded. The hind leg is carefully defined, with shorter streaks suggesting the hair of the heel. The paw is large and divided into three rounded toes. When this dipinto was reexamined in September 2014, the back and the rump had disappeared due to the collapse of the plaster in that area; the description above is thus based on earlier images and drawings.

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D30.2. Uncertain

On the east face of Pier A41, in black ink. Dimensions 13.5 cm wide × 41 cm high. Dipinto located on the eastern face of Pier A41, looking into Bay 30. The graffito is faded at its right end. I have not been able to interpret the iconography, considering that it is far from certain that the two long and thick lines so prominently drawn are indeed pertinent to the rest of the representation. In fact, they might very well constitute part of a second, and incomplete, dipinto.

320

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Bay 31 [= G38, between Piers A42 and A43]

Most of the plaster has fallen off the bay’s back wall, leaving a gaping hole in the center part where five courses of the underlying stone masonry are now visible. Toward the wall’s top, on both sides of the hole is a damaged dipinto of a ship (D31.1). On the bay’s eastern pier (A43) are visible two successive layers of plaster, the later layer smeared directly on top of the earlier one. On the earlier layer is the graffito of two ships (DP43.1), while on the later one is the dipinto of a palm branch (DP43.2) and a geometric motif (DP43.3).

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D31.1. Ship

In the center of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 150 cm wide × 89 cm high. Dipinto of a ship located at the center of the back wall of Bay 31. The drawing is damaged by a very large hole in its center that has destroyed large parts of the hull, the mast, and the sail. The vessel is sailing on port tack. At the stern, a very stylized helmsman (κυβερνήτης) is placed on a structure decorated with a large cross and other crossing lines, possibly identifiable as a quarterdeck. The prow terminates in a curved and raised ἀκροστόλιον. The mast seems to be composed of a single, thick, and vertical line toward the center, partially visible above the lacuna. The sail is large and roughly trapezoidal. Its flat top corresponds with the yard, which was not drawn as a separate element. The sail is decorated with a series of horizontal lines, the τοπεῖα, used to attach the sail. Two convex lines at the right end might instead symbolize the πρότονοι, used to fasten the ship at the prow and at the stern.

322

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan DP43.1. Ship

On the south face of Pier A43, between Bays 31 and 32, incised. Dimensions 31 cm wide × 14 cm high. Graffito of two ships, located on the southern face of Pier A43, between Bay 31 and Bay 32, looking into the Basilica’s northern corridor. The earlier of the two vessels is the one incised at the bottom. With an elongated hull and a keel tapering upward at the prow and the stern, the ship is possibly sailing on port tack. The bulwark near the prow is decorated with a series of horizontal lines, not immediately identifiable. No oars, sail, or mast pertinent to this vessel are visible. The second ship, incised at a later time, is at the top and partially obliterates the earlier one. It is sailing on port tack, the two rear rudders very prominently incised in the shape of two large rhomboids with single thin lines as their poles. The prow is not preserved. The hull is rounded and the keel strongly rockered. The beginning of the central mast, rendered with one deeply incised and thick line, is visible right below a large lacuna in the plaster that has destroyed any possible traces of the sails or the roping. Both ships were incised in a layer of plaster that was covered at a later time by a second layer, onto which is painted dipinto DP43.2. This seems to corroborate the hypothesis that at least a portion of the incised drawings at the Basilica of Smyrna is to be dated to a phase that predates the one during which the dipinti were made.

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DP43.2. Decorative—Palm Branch

On the south face of Pier A43, between Bays 31 and 32, in black ink. Dimensions 22 cm wide × 29 cm high. Dipinto of a palm branch, located on the southern face of Pier A43, between Bay 31 and Bay 32, looking into the Basilica’s northern corridor. The image is immediately below DP43.1, but it was painted onto a later layer of plaster, as already discussed with DP43.1. The branch is rendered with a central vertical line (the rachis), from which are departing two sets of 6 symmetrical diagonal lines (the leaflets), progressively shortening toward the tip of the branch. Scanty traces of three additional diagonal lines seem to suggest that the branch was enclosed by a rhomboidal frame.

324

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan DP43.3. Uncertain

On the south face of Pier A43, between Bays 31 and 32, in black ink. Dimensions 18 cm wide × 24 cm high. Dipinto located on the southern face of Pier A43, between Bay 31 and Bay 32, looking into the Basilica’s northern corridor. The image, like DP43.2, was painted on the upper of two still remaining layers of plaster; it is thus later in date than DP43.1 and most probably contemporary to DP43.2. Part of the lines are either faded or damaged by lacunae, with the result that the dipinto is poorly preserved in its center and right half. The iconography of what is extant is uncertain: the drawing comprises at least two parallel vertical lines. The one to the right culminates into an inverted triangle placed over two diagonal lines forming a “v”. The one to the right has a crossing horizontal line toward the top. No identification is suggested at present.

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Bay 32 [= G39, between Piers A43 and A44]

The back wall of this bay is preserved only to a limited height, the upper register being almost completely destroyed. The plaster is in a poor state of preservation, with large gaps toward the middle of the wall, and is completely detached at the bottom, where one course of the underlying stone masonry and part of one raised step abutting both the wall and the bay’s piers are now visible. Two fragmentary inscriptions are preserved at the wall’s preserved top (T32.1 and T32.2), together with three highly damaged images of ships (D32.1 to D32.2) and a portrait (D32.3).

326

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T32.1. Uncertain

Area 120 cm wide × 15 cm high. Large capital letters 7–12 cm high.

ὑπ’ ὀψὲ ὄρη Πάρις ΠΕ ̣ ̣Ε ̣ΟΡΕΦ[

1. One may be tempted to see here a garbled reminiscence of Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica 10.207: ὀψὲ δέ οἰ ἐπόρουσε Πάρις. But Quintus is probably too late for this to be a plausible explanation; we cannot offer any better one. This is written over, or is overwritten by, an incised line:

χρυσο̣[

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna Details of T32.1

327

328

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T32.2. Acclamation?

To the right of the hole in the upper center of the plaster. Area 20 cm wide × 6 cm high. Letters 5 cm high.

] Ἀ̣ σ̣ίας

There is no sign of πρώτοις to the right. To the left is a lacuna, where the plaster is missing, and it could have stood there.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

329

D32.1. Ship

In the center of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 146 cm wide × 62 cm high. Damaged dipinto of the sails of a ship, located at the center of the back wall of Bay 32. The drawing is damaged by lacunae in the plaster both at the top and the bottom, and also by some fading in the ink. No mast or hull is preserved. The sail is decorated with a lattice motif, possibly inspired by the rigging. The hulls of two other ships (D32.2) are visible at the top right corner of the sail.

330

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan D32.2. Ships

In the upper right quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions of the top ship 59 cm wide × 35 cm high; of the bottom ship, 26 cm wide × 8 cm high. Dipinto of two ships, located in the upper right quadrant of the back wall of Bay 32, right above D32.1. The lower ship, sailing on starboard tack, is poorly preserved, as a gap in the plaster has destroyed the prow. The preserved hull is elongated but flattened, and the keel tapers slightly toward the stern. At the edge of the stern, a circular feature is visible: it is probably a ζυγόν, the thwart joining the rudders to each other and to the vessel. The two rudders (πηδάλιοι) are rendered with two thick diagonal lines with no articulation of the blades. The upper ship, also sailing on starboard tack, has a rockered keel that tapers upward toward the stern. The prow is not preserved. The main mast is moved toward the stern; two parallel, diagonal lines toward the prow are identifiable as a foremast (ἀκάτειος). No sails, oars, or rudders are visible.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

331

D32.3. Portrait—Head

In the upper left quadrant of the bay, in black ink. Dimensions 9 cm wide × 23 cm high. Dipinto of a head, located in the upper left quarter of the back wall of Bay 32. The female head, in profile, is turned toward the left. The face is characterized by a large, roughly oval, eye with marked pupil, a pointed nose, an open mouth with thin lips, and a prominent, rounded chin. The neck is thin and elongated. The forehead is covered by a wavy bang; the rest of the hairstyle is mostly faded, but it seems that the hair was loose on the shoulder.

332

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Bay 33 [= G40, between Piers A44 and A45] This bay contains a doorway with one inscription on the western pier (A44) (T33.1) and another one on the eastern pier (A45) (T33.2). No figural dipinti are visible. T33.1. Uncertain

On the left pier (Pier A44), on the east side, facing the door, ca. 1.35 m from the floor. Area ca. 30 cm wide × 35 cm high. Detached letters, rather cursive in style, 3.5 cm high. ] ἐ̣ξ̣ώ̣λη σου ] ἀ̣δε̣λ̣φὸς̣ ἐξώλη [τῷ ἀναγιν]ώ̣σ̣κοντι Τ]ροφίμη ] ̣ΝΕΘΗΣ ] ̣ΑΙ ΕΝΟΗΓΑΣ

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

333

1–2. ἐξώλης, “utterly destroyed,” is common, with numerous examples in the epigraphy of Asia Minor in phrases like ἐξώλης εἴη καὶ τὰ αὐτοῦ πάντα or ἐξώλης εἴη καὶ αὐτὸς καὶ γένος τὸ ἐκείνου (see PHI Greek Inscriptions for instances, and the comprehensive treatment in Strubbe 1997). It is not completely clear if it should be accusative in line 1 as divided here, but the form in line 2 certainly is. The overall syntax is not evident, but it seems likely that destruction is being wished on the reader in line 3. There is a long history of graffiti wishing various ills on their reader; cf., e.g., Milnor 2014: 75. 4. Trophime is common in Asia Minor, with two examples in LGPN 5A 435 from Smyrna.

Incised at lower left of the above, in letters 2 cm high.

Θάλλος

This could also be the common noun θαλλός, referring to the olive shoots of which crowns were made. But the name is common in Asia (LGPN 5A 209, 5B 190) and seems more likely.

334

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan T33.2. Uncertain

On the face of the pier at right (Pier A45), below three apparent attempts to practice incised cursive forms of the letter xi. 14 cm below the top of the surviving plaster. Incised. Letters in first line 0.4–4.0 cm high, others 0.4–1.0 cm high.

Πρυτανικός ΥΤ̣ ΙΝΙ ΞΡΑΚ̣ ΥΤ ΓΕΝΟΣ Ν

1. This seems likely to be the proper name (LGPN 5A 383, citing a patronymic in SEG 34.1124.22 from Ephesos; 5B 366) rather than the common adjective. 2. This may represent an attempt to write a form of Ὑγῖνος, but the ending does not belong to that declension, and there is no sign of anything following iota. It could be the feminine Ὑγίνη, although this is not to our knowledge attested in Asia Minor. 3. It is difficult to find any sense in this line. 4. Presumably γένος; to the right of the nu no further traces are visible.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

335

Bay 34 [= G41, between Piers A45 and A46] D34.1. Decorative—Geometric

On the east face of Pier A45, incised. Dimensions 6 cm wide × 28 cm high. Geometric graffito located at the eastern face of Pier A45, looking into Bay 34. It is composed of a central vertical line, decorated with a lozenge at its middle. No interpretation is suggested at present.

336

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Bay 38 [= G44, between Piers 49 and 50] T38.1. Name

On the face of the pier at right (Pier A50). Incised. 121 cm from floor. On the first layer of plaster. Letters 2–4 cm high. Other large incised letters are visible around it.

Tύχη

Whether this should be thought of as the woman’s name or the goddess is not evident.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

337

Bay 42 [= G47, between Piers 53 and 54] T42.1. Uncertain

On the face of the pier at left (Pier A53). Incised. 159 cm from floor. On the first layer of plaster. Large letters, 1.8–3 cm high. Small letters, 0.5 cm high.

]ος δικα[ ] ζοη [

1. Cf. the occurrence of δικάζων in TG3.1. 2. Probably we should understand ζωή or the name Zoe. See TP63.1 for another instance and cf. introduction, p. 47. In inserted small letters:

ἄγγελος π̣υγίζει μ̣έ

“A messenger (or angel) is buggering me.”

338

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

It is not clear what meaning we should attach to ἄγγελος. “Divine angels had an important place in the pagan world of the second and third centuries . . . Belief in angels as divine messengers had a long history in central Anatolia, and was certainly encouraged by Jewish practice” (S. Mitchell, Anatolia 2.46). But there is no context to tell us whether the term refers to a divine angel or not. T42.2. Declaration of Love

On the face of the pier at right (A54). Incised to the right of a drawing of two male heads. 152 cm from floor. On the first layer of plaster. Letters 1–1.5 cm high.

[φιλῶ ο]ὗ̣ ἀ̣ριθμὸς τνα

“I love a man whose number is 351.” If the reading of upsilon is correct, as we think, this is the one example of a love-message among these graffiti in which the object is male. The two male heads adjacent (DP54.1) suggest that the writer is also.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

339

DP54.1. Portrait—Heads

On the south face of Pier A54, between Bays 42 and 43, incised. Dimensions of the left-hand head 4 cm wide × 7 cm high; of the right-hand head, 4 cm wide × 6 cm high. Graffito of two male heads, located at the southern face of Pier A54, looking into the Basilica’s northern corridor. Both heads are in profile, turned toward the left. The head to the left, possibly of a younger man, is characterized by a tall and curved forehead, a long eyebrow above an oval eye with marked pupil, small pointed nose, and undershot chin. The neck is short and thin, and the image is cut right below it by a straight line. The top of the head has no indication of individual curls: the man is either bald or with extremely short hair. The man to the right, older in age, has a rounded forehead, small eye, stocky nose, and a long and pointed chin. The neck is short and squat, and a straight line at its base closes the image. Over his head is a series of radial lines that can be interpreted as hair or a wreath. The two men can be understood as spectators looking at a gladiator located to the left of this scene (see DP54.2). but a connection to T42.2 is also possible (see comment to that text).

340

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan DP54.2. Gladiator

On the south face of Pier A54, between Bays 42 and 43, incised. Dimensions 4 cm wide × 11 cm high; length of spear 13 cm. Graffito of a gladiator located at the southern face of Pier A54, looking into the Basilica’s northern corridor. The man is depicted in profile, advancing toward the right. The sleeveless tunic, the visored helmet, the manica at the right arm, and especially the long lance (hasta) suggest that the gladiator is an eques. The graffito is partially abraded at the bottom; therefore, it is not possible to determine if the gladiator was originally depicted on a horse. The graffito is possibly to be read in relation to the two spectators in graffito DP54.1.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

341

Bay 52 (= P22, in the southern gallery between Piers A142 and A143) T52.1. Insult

At 25 cm below the top of the wall and 58 cm from the left edge of the wall (i.e., the archway), above a large drawing of a phallus. Area 130 cm wide × 20 cm high. Large, detached round capital letters 8–10 cm high except phi (19 cm). Crossed out with a large X. Bibliography: Bagnall, Everyday Writing, pp. 12–13; SEG 61.954.

φίλ’ ἐλάθε{ι} ὢν [ν]όθ{η}`ο΄ς

“Friend, did it escape your notice that you’re a bastard?”

342

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Bay 60 [= P14, in the southern gallery between Piers A134 and A135] D60.1. Ship

In the lower quarter of Bay 60 = P14, located between Pier A134 and Pier A135, in black ink. Dimensions 69 cm wide × 32 cm high (as preserved). Dipinto of a ship sailing on port tack, located on a retaining wall closing Bay P14, along the Basilica’s southern perimeter wall. As of the latest survey in 2014, this seems to be the only painted or incised graffito drawing made along this end of the building. The upper part of the dipinto is completely missing due to the detachment of the plaster. The ship is characterized by a flat keel, tapering upward toward the stern and the prow, and a tall mast moved forward toward the prow. The poles of the two rudders (πηδάλια) are rendered as long lines, while the blades have been lost due to a gap in the plaster. The stern is very tall, terminating in a pointed aplustre (ἄφλαστον), also damaged by missing plaster. The ink at the prow is faded. The bulwark of the ship is characterized by a series of four parallel lines, indicating that the ship had an upper deck. No oars or sail are visible.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

343

Pier A60 DP60.1. Garden

On the east face of Pier A60, in red ink. Dimensions not recorded. Dipinto located on the eastern face of the central pier (A60) along the western perimeter wall of the underground level of the Basilica. The ink in most of the strokes has faded, and lacunae in the plaster affect the overall legibility of the scene. A series of tall and short palm branches, tall bushes, and short trees without foliage but with round fruits are set to create the perimeter of a roughly oval area, which is internally divided by a series of vertical and horizontal dotted lines. The scene seems to suggest a garden or public space, but the interpretation is far from conclusive.

344

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Pier A63 TP63.1. Good Wishes

On the east face of the pier. Incised. 151 cm from the floor. Area 34 cm wide × 11 cm high. Letters 8.5 cm high. ζήθι “Live.” In the upper part of the letter H, with small letters (1 cm high)

ΠΝ

This should presumably be resolved πν(εῦμα), “spirit”. In a circle below (ca. 21 cm wide × 9 cm high), in letters 4 cm high:

ζοή

This is presumably to be interpreted as ζωή or the name Zoe. Cf. T40.1 for another probable instance, and see introduction, p. 47.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

345

346

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan TP63.2. Signature

On the east face of the pier, above TP63.1. Amid other scattered incised letters, occupying an area 53 cm wide × 20 cm high. Letters 16 cm high.

Νεῖλος

This is more likely the personal name, which does occur at Smyrna (I.Smyrna 229: an oikonomos) and a couple of other times in LGPN 5A (more in 5B 312) than the river.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

347

TP63.3. Uncertain

On the west face of the pier. Incised. 179 cm from floor. Area 15 cm wide × 5 cm high. Letters 3.5–4 cm high. Under the inscription a monogram and bird?

]ΜΩΣ

348

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Pier A68 TP68.1. Acclamation?

On the west face. With ink. 262 cm from floor. Letters 8 cm high.

Ἀσίας

This could have been preceded by πρώτοις, but if so, no traces of it remain.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

349

TP68.2. Signature

On the west face. 177 cm from floor. Incised letters 0.7 cm high.

Τίτος

The Roman praenomen Titus is not particularly common in Asia used by itself as a personal name rather than as part of the Roman tria nomina, and LGPN 5A 434 cites no examples from Smyrna; cf. also 5B 410 for additional cases in Caria, Lycia, and Cilicia. No other names follow.

350

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan TP68.3. Uncertain

On the south face, under the vault, 160 cm from the floor. Dimensions of area 80 high, 53 cm wide. Letters in the first line 5–8.5 high; others 2–4 cm high. The plaster is broken above line 1. After line 10 there is a faint horizontal line, followed by five more lines.

Δφξβ

followed by 14 faintly preserved lines. In line 6, we read σ̣χολαζ ̣ ̣ ̣and in line 12, σχολαζ̣. We may also suggest ||ΑΘΡΑCO . . . in line 3, and in line 10 ΕVΓΥ. 1. The amount is 4562. This would seem likely to refer to the total of amounts (of denarii or drachmas) listed on plaster now lost. The thousands’ digit is marked by the diagonal slash / familiar in papyrus accounts.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

351

TP68.4. Uncertain

At the upper right of the east face of the pier, 197 cm from the ground. Letters 4.5–5.5 cm high.

]ιοι̣ς

Perhaps the end of an ethnic, as in Ζμυρναίοις or Ἐφεσίοις.

352

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Pier A69 TP69.1. Uncertain

On the west side of the pier, in an area 30 cm wide × 33 cm high, in very large majuscule letters 14–19 cm high.

ΑΜ Π̣ Ε

In smaller letters, 3–5 cm high, between these two lines: We cannot suggest an interpretation.

. . . δεστανωι

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

353

Pier A70 TP70.1. Uncertain: Acclamation?

On the east face of the pier. Area 90 cm wide × 35 cm high. Above are the remains of one line in smaller letters; in middle, a line in large letters 5–7 cm high, followed by another line in the same hand but almost totally faded. Upper line: Below:

Κ̣ ΟΕΣ̣

πρώτοις [ ̣ ̣ ̣]ο̣ι̣ς̣ ΜΝΑ ̣ ̣ΔΕ[ ̣]Ε̣

We see no sign of Ἀσίας, but it seems likely that the second line of the lower inscription began with a short ethnic. What follows that is unclear; it may be another hand. The upper inscription is entirely unclear to us; cf. T29.2.1.

354

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan TP70.2. Uncertain

Below TP70.1, in an area 40 cm wide × 15 cm high, in letters 13 cm high ending at the right margin. ΚΕΗΡ

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

355

TP70.3. Reference to Coins

On the west side under the arch, occupying an area 27 cm wide × 9 cm high, in very irregular, detached cursive letters 2 cm high. χρυσοῖ δύο traces ματακαισω “Two gold coins [aurei]” is followed by additional letters, presumably giving the start of the word ending in ματα, which is then followed by the conjunction καί and another word, of which there are probably additional traces now barely visible. Below this, in an area 36 cm wide × 12 cm high, in letters 6–9 cm high.

[[τ .]] δύο χ(ρυσοῖ?)

The second crosssed-out letter is omicron or epsilon.

356

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan Detail of TP70.3

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

357

TP70.4. Uncertain

On the south side under the arch, in an area 45 cm wide × 65 cm high, 5 lines in both large and small detached, informal letters, not read, 3–4 cm high.

358

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan TP70.5. Uncertain

On the west face of the pier. Shallowly incised. 178 cm from floor. Letters 6.5 cm high.

]ΗΚΟΥ̣ ]ΚΙΟΙΣ

It is possible that there are faint traces to left of what we have read.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

359

Pier A71 TP71.1. Number?

On the east face. Incised. 166 cm from the ground. Area 18 cm wide × 10 cm high. Letters 8.5 cm high.

ΑΨΟΕ

This could be Αψοε, the number 1775. We have not found any woman’s name with that isopsephistic value in LGPN 5A (Εὐτυχιανή sums to 1774), but this is not enough to be sure that this was not intended as one of the φιλῶ ἧς ὁ ἀριθμός series. On the other hand, it could also be an amount in denarii or drachmas. Above and to the left is a sequence we do not understand, with pi, then a horizontal stroke with some projections, then psi gamma. Below, in an area 36 cm wide × 10 cm high; letters 5 cm high.

360

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan



ΟΒ ΗΘΧΑ

On οβ see above on T15.5. Through the letter eta and theta with small letters (1.8 cm high), then apparently rewritten below, with only epsilon clear:

ΕYΗ ΕΥΗ

We are inclined to interpret this as Εὔα, Eve—hardly found in papyri or inscriptions, although P.Oxy. 16.1874.12 seems to preserve an instance. See the introduction, p. 47, for discussion.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

361

DP71.1. Decorative—Ivy Leaf

On the north face of Pier A71, in black ink. Dimensions 7 cm wide, 13 cm high. Dipinto of an ivy leaf, located on the northern face of Pier A71, looking into the Basilica’s northern corridor. The leaf points upward, is heart shaped, and overall symmetrical. The petiole is quite short and curves toward the right. The portion of it emerging from the leaf is made in a thin line, while at the bottom it is thicker and made in multiple lines terminating in a triangular pulvinus. The base of the leaf is decorated with a tripartite motif meant to recall the intricate veins usually present on the plant’s leaves.

362

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan DP71.2. Decorative—Palm Branches

On the east face of Pier A71, incised. Dimensions (1) 3 cm wide × 7 cm high; (2) 2 cm wide × 5 cm high. Graffito of two incised palm branches located at the eastern face of Pier A71. They are not completely preserved, especially the branch to the right, as the plaster has partially fallen off and has numerous cracks in the parts still extant. The two branches are characterized by a long vertical line at the center identifying the rachis from which depart corresponding sets of diagonal lines, the leaflets, (eight sets in the branch to the left and six preserved sets, possibly originally eight, in the branch to the right), progressively shorter at the top to identify the tip of the branch. In the palm to the right the leaflets reach down to the base of the periole, while in the branch to the left the last third of the rachis is bare.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

363

DP71.3. Ship

On the east face of Pier A71, incised. Dimensions not recorded. Graffito of a ship incised on the eastern face of Pier A71. The ship, damaged by a large lacuna in the plaster in the right half, is very schematic, so that it is impossible to discern the prow from the stern. The hull is an elongated ellipse, divided in half vertically by a straight line that continues upward to define the central mast. The sail is rendered as a series of concentric circles concentrated around the top of the mast. No oars or rigging are visible.

Pier A72 TP72.1. Good wishes On the west face. Incised. 120 cm from the ground. In the middle of the face, in an area 18 cm wide × 10 cm high. Letters 2.5 cm high.

εὐτύχε̣ι̣ ΠΟΛΥΠΟΥ̣ ̣ ̣

2. LGPN 2.375 records an archaic instance of a name Πολύπους on a black-figured vase, as Thomas Corsten points out to us. Whether this name, apparently not attested elsewhere (no other examples in LGPN online search), is to be read here, we do not know.

364

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

365

TP72.2. Exercise?

On the left bevel of the west face. Incised in an area 4 cm wide × 2 cm high. Roughly made majuscule letters 1.8 cm high.

ΓΒΑΒ

Perhaps an alphabet exercise. Below it are perhaps four lines with a few incised letters each; we have not been able to find any reading.

366

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan TP72.3. Name

On the south face, under the vault, on the right bevel. Incised. Area 23 cm wide × 11 cm high. Letters 2.5–3.2 cm.

Ἀλέξανδ- ρε

Exceptionally, the name is in the vocative, and thus presumably not the signature of Alexandros.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

367

DP72.1. Decorative—Symbol

On the east face of Pier A72, incised. Dimensions 2 cm wide × 4 cm high. Small graffito incised on the eastern face of Pier A72. The symbol is composed of a central vertical line, along which are superimposed three circles, each made by two corresponding curved lines that meet along the central axis. The lower and upper circles are similar in size, while the central one is significantly larger. The interpretation of the graffito is uncertain.

368

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Pier A73 TP73.1. Riddle

On the west face, at the right side. 175 cm from the ground, in an area 19 cm wide × 6 cm high. Incised. Letters 1.7–3.5 cm high.

ζήτη[μα

There are some scattered letters lower on the surface, but it does not seem that a riddle was in fact written out here.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

369

DP73.1. Animal—Bird

On the west face of Pier A73, incised. Dimensions 5 cm wide × 4 cm high. Graffito located on the western face of Pier A73. It represents a very crude depiction of a bird, possibly a duck or a goose. Notable are the very long and curved neck, the long beak, the short body, and the tail made with multiple incisions, possibly symbolizing the bird’s feathers. The bird’s tarsi are long and straight, and the triangular feet terminate in three toes.

370

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan DP73.2. Uncertain

On the north face of Pier A73, in black ink. Dimensions 34 cm wide × 63 cm high. Dipinto in black ink, located on the northern face of Pier A73, looking into the Basilica’s northern corridor. The iconography is uncertain: the dipinto is damaged at the top where the plaster has fallen off the pier, but it seems to be finished both at the bottom and at the two sides. The spiral motif at the center recalls the ἀκροστόλιον of a ship’s prow, but such an identification is uncertain.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

371

Pier A74 TP74.1. Uncertain

On the south side of the pier, at the start of the vault. Area 48 cm wide × 19 cm high. Semidetached, cursive letters 6–8 cm high.

τρηθ̣η̣ει δειχει

372

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan TP74.2. Greetings

On the west face of the pier, 112 cm from the floor. Area 8 cm wide × 3 cm high. Incised. Letters 2.5 cm high.

χαῖρε

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

373

TP74.3. Uncertain

On the west face. 162 cm from floor, in an area 13 cm wide × 18 cm high. Incised. Letters 5 cm high.

ΑΛΙ[ ΔΕ̣ Ι[

374

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan TP74.4. Address to Reader

On the south face, on the right bevel, just above ground level. Area 27 cm wide × 23 cm high. Probably 4 lines, but only 2 are clear; letters 5 cm high. 3 ὁ ἀναγ 3. Probably ὁ ἀναγινώσκων, but it is not possible to see the remaining letters with any confidence.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

375

DP74.1. Ship

On the east face of Pier A74, incised. Dimensions as preserved: 42 cm wide × 59 cm high. Graffito of a ship, located on the eastern face of Pier A74. The graffito is damaged by two large lacunae in the plaster, so that both the upper portion of the ship’s sails and the prow have completely vanished. The ship, a mid-sized commercial vessel sailing on port tack, is characterized by a flat keel and a pointed stern. From the stern project the very large and rectangular blades of the two πηδάλια. A long straight line running parallel to the hull suggests the presence of a deck. The central mast is disproportionately large and decorated with horizontal lines indicating the rigging. Crisscrossing motifs set on both sides of the mast indicate the sail. Considering the different orientations in the two sets of motifs, the drawing is meant to show two separate sails connected to the same mast. Due to a gap in the plaster, the yard and the upper portion of the sails are not preserved. No oars are visible.

376

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan DP74.2. Gladiator

On the west face of Pier A74, in black ink. Dimensions 40 cm wide × 39 cm high. Dipinto of the upper half of a human figure, seen frontally, located on the western face of Pier A74. The image was later partially obliterated by a large dipinto of a ship, of which traces of a very tall ἀκροστόλιον are the only elements still extant. The figure, very crudely made, can be identified as a gladiator, possibly a thraex. Recognizable is the tall helmet with the head of the griffon seen frontally, a crescent-shaped crest, and large brims. The rather thin arms are at the side of the body, of which only the upper part of the bust is visible. No weapon or shield is visible. For a possible comparison of a gladiator with a similar helmet surmounted by a griffon from a gravestone found in Smyrna, see Petzl 1974: 293, no. 12.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

377

DP74.3. Gladiator

On the west face of Pier A74, in black ink. Dimensions 25 cm wide × 30 cm high. Dipinto of a human figure, possibly a gladiator, located on the western face of Pier A74. The figure is badly damaged and mostly faded. Still visible are the left leg, the left arm, and part of the clothing of a male figure in profile, turned toward the right. The left arm seems to be extended forward and raised, possibly holding a short sword. These details are not sufficient to establish to which category this gladiator belonged. A discussion of representations of left-handed gladiators in funerary stelae and pictorial graffiti as well as textual graffiti appears in Coleman 1996.

378

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Pier A75 DP75.1. Ship

On the west face of Pier A75, incised. Dimensions 39 cm wide × 24 cm high. Graffito of a ship sailing on starboard tack, incised on the western face of Pier A75. A large gap in the plaster has completely obliterated the upper half of the graffito, where the ship’s mast, sail, and rigging must have been, while concretions to the left partially cover the prow. The ship is characterized by a slightly rockered keel. The prow is significantly higher than the stern and terminates with a cheniscus (ἀκροστόλιον) turning inward. The stern terminates in a pointed aplustre along with a long pole that holds a taenia and possibly also a quadrangular flag. The rudders (πηδάλια) are very long and wide, with a central line defining the blades. Over the deck is a quarterdeck rendered as a rectangular feature decorated with diagonal and parallel lines. A radial net of ropes (κάλοι) connects the mast, now indiscernible, to the ship’s sides and extremities. No oars are visible.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

379

Pier A76 TP76.1. Uncertain; Penalty Clause?

On the west face. 121 cm from floor, in an area 30 cm wide × 8 cm high. Incised. Letters 2 cm high.

ΜΗ̣ [ ̣ ̣] traces

Perhaps μή followed by a command now lost, unless it refers to the next line, separated from it by a horizontal rule. Below: ΠΟΛAΖΗ Can this be πολάζῃ, from πολάζω, cited once in LSJ Addenda with the meaning “to be common, abound”? With small incised letters (1 cm high). Dimensions 37 cm wide, 18 cm high. Above an inscription of 2–3 lines with incised letters are visible.

380

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan



//ΕΤΕΙΜΗΚΤΤΟΝΠΔΡΙ////ΞΟ/// ATΤIΚΑΙΣ ΠΕΝΤΑΚOΣ[

If there is not text lost, one can readily understand Ἀττικαῖς (δραχμαῖς) πεντακοσ[ίαις, 500 Attic drachmas (= denarii). At the beginning, probably a form of τιμάω, either (as Angelos Chaniotis suggests) τετείμηκε, or (as Thomas Corsten would prefer) ἐτείμησε, followed by τόν. What follows that escapes us.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

381

DP76.1. Animal—Fish

On the north face of Pier A76, in black ink. Dimensions 29 cm wide × 9 cm high. Dipinto of a fish in black ink, located on the northern face of Pier A76, looking into the Basilica’s northern corridor. The ink is partially faded and smudged, so that the depiction is not perfectly clear. The fish could possibly be interpreted as a red mullet. The body is moderately elongated, and the snout is steep. No dorsal fins are recognizable, and the operculum is roughly defined. Protruding from the mouth is a long diagonal line, interpretable as one of the fish’s barbels. The pectoral fin is medium sized and triangular, placed next to the anal fin, also triangular. The tail is elongated and raised with short and forked caudal fins.

382

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Pier A77 TP77.1. Uncertain

Area 30 cm wide × 23 cm high. Letters 2–3 cm high. On the second (upper) layer of plaster, above the remains of one end of a phallus.

]ν Φιλεῖνος̣ ΤΗ[ ]ην εἶπεν οφιλ[ ] Ι̣ΛΕΙΠΟ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ [

1. φιλεῖν and Φιλεῖνος both seem possible in principle; the letter after omicron looks most like a tiny rho without tail, but sigma is more likely given its scale and position; it seems too curved for iota. 2. ὀφίλ[ειν, read ὀφείλειν, is possible. But ὁ Φιλ[εῖνος seems equally plausible.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

Pier A78 TP78.1. Riddle; Multiplication; Advice

383

384

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

On the south face. Under the vault, in an area 30 cm wide × 6 cm high. Letters 5 cm high. ζήτημα In a first tabula (35 × 35 cm):

δέκα ἐ̣[πὶ] δέκα ρ

The rho is written backward, buckle to the left. “Ten by ten, 100.” In a second tabula (30 × 20 cm):

πρὼ γαμε[ῖ]ν μὴ̣ πίνετε ΗΝΗΝ

1. Read πρό. 2. The last four letters are written on the bevel to the right. “Before marrying, don’t drink . . .” We have not been able to discern the last word of this advice.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna TP78.2. Memorial and Greetings

385

386

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

On the east face. Incised. 121 cm from floor, in an area 18 cm wide × 10 cm high. Letters 0.9–1.5 cm high.

ἐμήσθη Χα̣[ τῆς καλῆς̣ κ̣υ̣λίας εὐτύχει Χαρίτων̣ μετ̣ὰ Ὑιείνου

1. Read ἐμνήσθη; we owe the reading to Angelos Chaniotis. It is most often construed with active meaning, taking a genitive object. What follows is presumably the beginning of the woman’s name; Χάρις or one of its derivatives, one supposes. This makes it attractive to take line 2 together with it. But there is then no stated subject: “He remembered (e.g.) Charis the beautiful lady.” The verb can also have passive meaning but should then have a nominative subject. Possibly the writer conflated the two constructions, but he may simply have omitted his own name. 2. Read κυρίας; cf. T20.3. 3–4. “Fare well, Chariton, with Hyginos.” The first iota in Ὑιείνου appears to have been corrected, so that it at present resembles a phi with faint central circle. It would be more attractive to take it as intended for gamma, but there is no sign of the needed horizontal stroke. Whatever the spelling, we take this as a phonetic spelling of Ὑγίνου.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna TP78.3. Uncertain

387

388

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

To the left of P78.2 and just below and to the left of the drawing of a ship. Area 16 cm wide × 9 cm high. Incised letters 1–1.5 cm high.

τ̣ί̣τθη [ ̣ ̣ ̣] Τ ̣ ̣ ̣ O [ ̣ ̣ ]πλευς πινκίρνας πρῶτος

1. There may be some faint traces before the word. 4. Latin pincerna; the standard spelling in Greek is πιγκέρνα.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

389

DP78.1. Ships

On the west face of Pier A78, incised. Dimensions at top, 23 cm wide × 15 cm high (preserved); at bottom, 26 cm wide (preserved) × 33 cm high. Graffito of two ships, located on the western face of Pier A78. Both ships are incomplete, as the plaster has fallen off most of the pier’s surface. The ship at the top is very schematic, so that it is impossible to discern the prow from the stern. The keel is rockered, and both prow and stern are missing the usual decorative finials (i.e., aplustre and cheniscus). The bulwark is slightly concave. A parallel line running above it might indicate the presence of an upper deck. The central mast is rendered in a thin vertical line. No oars, sail, or rigging are visible. The ship to the bottom is sailing on starboard tack. The keel is slightly rockered, and the stern is slightly raised but without an aplustre, while the prow is not visible due to a lacuna in the plaster. At the stern, the two rudders (πηδάλια) are reduced to two short diagonal lines. The central mast is extremely tall. No sails, rigging, or oars are visible.

390

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan DP78.2. Decorative—Ax

On the north face of Pier A78, incised and red ink. Dimensions 15.5 cm wide × 17 cm high. Graffito of a πέλεκυς (or labrys), located on the northern face of Pier A78, looking into the Basilica’s northern corridor. The graffito is made of a herringbone pattern of etched lines that defines both the ax’s haft and head. The outline is rendered with deeper and wider etched lines. The whole ax is covered in red color, probably applied after the incision. The haft is straight and slightly tapering toward the top. The head is rather straight at the top and concave at the bottom. The two rounded blades are symmetrical. The iconography of this graffito is very similar to that of graffito D10.1. The survival in Late Antiquity of the iconography of the labrys as a symbol of paganism referring to the Carian Zeus has been recently discussed by Angelos Chaniotis in relation to a graffito found at Aphrodisias; see Chaniotis 2014: 16–21, esp. fig. 16, p. 21.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

391

DP78.3. Ship

On the east face of Pier A78, incised. Dimensions 15.5 cm wide × 4 cm high. Graffito of a ship, located on the eastern face of Pier A78. It depicts a schematic ship sailing on starboard tack. There is no indication of yards, sails, or mast, and also the rigging is not defined. The hull is rounded and the keel is strongly rockered. At the prow is visible a very schematic rendering of a cheniscus. The stern seems unfinished.

392

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Pier A81 DP81.1. Decorative—Rosette

On the south face of Pier A81, incised. Diameter 6 cm. Graffito of a rosette, located on the southern face of Pier A81, looking into the Basilica’s southern corridor. The motif comprises six petals, two of which are incomplete, and the preparatory circle into which the rosette was fitted. Considering the precise outline of the circumference, the clearly marked center, and two arcs that defines some of the petals and that extend beyond the outline, it is evident that this is not a freehand graffito, but rather it was made with a tracing tool, such as a compass. See also graffiti DP81.2 and DP32.1. Similar rosettes, some incised with the aid of a compass, others not, are common in Pompeii, Delos, and in the Domus Tiberiana. For the sake of brevity, I will mention here a few examples from each site (a complete catalogue can be found in Langner 2001). Similar to the rosette in Smyrna is the graffito on one of the columns of the “Grande Palestra” (Maulucci Vivolo 1993: 64–5). Even closer in shape and technical execution are the rosette on one of the walls of the Caserma dei Gladiatori and those on the external wall of the Casa dei Cei: Maulucci Vivolo

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

393

1993: 112 and 120. The motif was widespread in antiquity, both chronologically and geographically, and can be found on both private and public walls: see, for example, the Hellenistic (second and first century BCE) rosettes in Delos found in the theater (Langner 2001: no. 73) or in several private domus (Langner: 2001, no. 35, no. 63, and no. 76). See also the rosettes incised in a frigidarium at Stabiae (Langner 2001: no. 74, first century CE), in a temple at Dura Europos (Langner 2001: no. 69, second or third century CE), or in the Paedagogium in Rome (Langner 2001: no. 86, third century CE). The motif is often left finished: the circle with radiant diameters found in the Domus Tiberiana (Taberna 7 SW; Langner 2001: no. 58, first century CE), for example, corresponds to the first stage in the incision of a rosette. It resembles closely Smyrna graffito DP32.1. DP81.2. Decorative—Circle

On the south face of Pier A81, incised. Diameter of each circle 18 cm. Graffito of four interlocking circles, located on the southern face of Pier A81, looking into the Basilica’s southern corridor. The graffito is partially covered by the buttressing structure added to the pier in the latest phase of the basilica’s occupation. Still visible are four incised circles, drawn with the help of a compass: the centers of the two fully preserved circles are clearly marked and their circumferences are identical. They were most probably incised as guidelines for the insertions of rosette motifs (see graffiti DP81.1 and DP32.1).

394

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan DP81.3. Ship

On the west face of Pier A81, incised. Dimensions 30.5 cm wide × 11 cm high (preserved). Graffito of a ship, located on the western face of Pier A81. The graffito is incomplete at the top and at the right end, and damaged at the bottom, where the plaster has detached. From what is extant, it is possible to identify a ship sailing on starboard tack. Sails, mast, and rigging were not incised, and the only recognizable element is the στόλος at the prow.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

395

Pier 83 DP83.1. Animal—Humped Bull

On the west face of Pier A83, incised. Dimensions 15 cm wide × 17 cm high. Graffito of a humped bull, located on the western face of Pier A83. The bull is in profile, turned toward the left. The upper half of the body is better articulated, while the hind legs are barely sketched, and the forelegs are missing altogether. The tail is a straight horizontal line. The body is flat at the top, apart from the circular hump in the middle of the back, and undulating at the bottom, to emphasize the rotundity of the stomach and of the breast. The head, with one large oval eye set vertically, has two short conical horns but no muzzle. A similar graffito was found in a house in Ephesos dated to the Late Antique Period (Langner 2001: no. 1479).

396

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Pier 84 TP84.1. Uncertain

On the south face of the pier, on the upper right. Incised. 140 cm from the floor. Area 7 cm wide × 12 cm high. Letters 1 cm high.

εὐφήμει τοῦ παιδίου τόπος διὰ θεόν παίδω̣ν δή̣μο̣υ̣ III ΑΥ̣ Ρ[ ̣]Λ̣ [ ̣ ̣ ]Υ̣

The individual lines of this graffito are intelligible, but connections between them are essentially speculative, making a connected translation impossible. “Silence” in line 1 can stand by itself, and lines 2–3 can be understood as “the place of the child (or slave).” For the rest, things seem disconnected. 8. Αὐρ[η]λ[ίο]υ is evidently attractive, but there is no trace of incision where eta would be required.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

397

TP84.2. Riddle (Beginning)

To the left of TP84.1. In an area 10 cm wide × 2.5 cm high. Incised. Letters 2 cm high. Below this, another inscription with larger letters (3.5 cm).

ζητη

Presumably the writer had ζήτημα in mind; but there is nothing further afterward. Below this, another inscription with larger letters (3.5 cm high): ΛΥΚΟ There are no visible traces to suggest that the word was completed.

398

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan TP84.3. Uncertain

On the left bevel of the south face, in an area 7 cm wide × 2 cm high. Incised. 122 cm from floor. Letters 1 cm high.

]ΛΧΙΘΑΙ

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

399

TP84.4. Uncertain

On the west face of the pier. 125 cm from floor, in an area 7 cm wide × 2 cm high. Incised. Letters 1.6 cm high.

κρόκης

It is hard to say if this is the common noun (“thread”) or an otherwise uncertainly attested name: cf. τό(πος) Βωμοὶ πρὸς Κρόκῃ in the Diocletianic cadaster I.Magnesia 122 (most readily consulted in PHI Epigraphy Magnesia 162.e.2.7). TP84.5. Uncertain (see above figure) On the west side, just below and to the left of TP84.4. Incised in an area 9 cm wide × 1.5 cm high. Letters 1.5 cm high.

Δ̣ Η ΛΙΚΙΟ

400

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan TP84.6. Uncertain

On the west side, 10 cm below TP84.4. Incised. Letters 6 and 1 cm high.

ΥΦΑΜΤ

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

401

TP84.7. Signature

On the east face of the pier. Incised. 120 cm from floor; to its right are some additional strokes. Letters 3–5 cm high.

Ἡρακλείδης

The name Herakleides is as common in coastal Asia Minor as it is elsewhere in the Greek world; numerous examples from Smyrna are listed in LGPN 5A.201.

402

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan DP84.1. Animal—Bird

On the west face of Pier A84, in black ink. Dimensions 49 cm wide × 82 cm high. Damaged and faded dipinto of a heron, located on the western face of Pier A84. The bird, in profile and turned to the left, is drawn with evident attention for anatomical detailing and realistic proportions. It has extremely elongated and thin legs (the right one mostly faded), which are rendered in thick curved lines terminating in tripartite claws. The bird’s neck and head have almost completely disappeared, as has the bird’s rear. Clearly visible are the breast and the back, decorated with a carefully drawn motif of leaf-shaped feathers, each finished by short internal streaks. The head is missing.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

403

DP84.2. Ship

On the east face of Pier A84, in black ink and incised. Dimensions as preserved 66 cm wide × 47 cm high. Painted and incised graffito of a ship, located on the eastern face of Pier A84, at the vault spring. Partially damaged by lacunae, it depicts a medium-sized commercial vessel with a combination of painted (mostly the ship’s sail) and incised (the ship’s hull and rows) details. The ship, sailing on port tack, has a large trapezoidal sail defined by a series crisscrossing lines, most probably meant to indicate the brailing ropes as well as the ropes that connect the sail to the mast and the ship’s sides. The mast is not recognizable, but the long yard (κέρας) is clearly visible. The keel is flat and the stern rounded, while the prow, possibly oblique, is damaged by a large lacuna. At the stern one of the two πηδάλια, characterized by a large triangular blade, is visible.

404

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan DP84.3. Decorative—Geometric

On the south face of Pier A84, incised. Dimensions at upper left 11 cm wide × 21 cm high; at lower side, 15 cm wide × 15 cm high. Two graffiti of stylized flowers, located at the southern face of Pier A84, immediately below the arch’s spring and at the beginning of the spring, looking into the Basilica’s southern corridor. The two geometric motifs have similar shapes but different dimensions. The upper half of each motif is characterized by a large rhombus divided in half by a straight vertical line running exactly in the middle. The line continues downward connecting the upper half of the drawing with the lower one. Two of the rhombi are further decorated at their center with two teardropshaped details. The lower halves are characterized by two oblique rectangles placed symmetrically along the central vertical line. They are possibly the indication of the flowers’ leaves. During the 2014 survey it has been ascertained that the lower flower has been damaged by the detachment of a portion of the plaster, so that the leaves are no longer extant.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

405

DP84.4. Ship

On the south face of Pier A84, incised. Dimensions 6.5 cm wide × 2 cm high. Very schematic graffito of a ship, located on the southern face of Pier A84, looking into the Basilica’s southern corridor. The keel is rockered, while the bulwark is flat. Though there is no clear distinction between the prow and the stern, both missing their finials (i.e., aplustre and cheniscus), the ship is probably sailing on port tack. There are four rectangular sails, suggesting that the vessel might have two masts, each decorated with a cross. Two diagonal lines reaching down from the yard to the boat’s extremities are probably indications of the πρότονοι. No oars are visible.

406

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan DP84.5. Decorative—Checkerboard

On the north face of Pier A84, in black ink. Dimensions: 36 cm wide × 7 cm high. Dipinto located on the northern face of Pier A84, looking into the Basilica’s northern corridor. The ink is partially faded, and a protecting gauze now covers part of the drawing. The dipinto comprises a rectangular feature decorated with a checkerboard motif. At present no interpretation is suggested.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

407

Pier 85 DP85.1. Ship

On the west face of Pier A85, incised. Dimensions 51 cm wide × 55 cm high. Graffito of a ship, located on the western face of Pier A85. The ship is sailing on port tack, in full sail. The keel is flat but tapers upward toward the stern and the prow. The bulwark is also straight, with no indication of an upper deck. The prow ends in a quite large and flat ἀκροστόλιον, while at the raised stern is visible a vertical line indicating the pole holding the pennon (ταινία). No oars or rudders are visible. The central mast is rendered with a roughly straight vertical line, crossed at a 90-degree angle by a long horizontal line, the yard. The plain sail is irregular in shape, possibly to indicate the presence of a strong wind. At the stern, a couple of curved lines indicate the roping fastening the mast to the ship (πρότονοι).

408

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Pier 93 TP93.1. Uncertain

On the south face of the pier. Near the upper left of the surviving plaster. Area 21 cm wide × 6 cm high. Incised. Letters 3–5 cm high.

εἰς δ ̣ ̣[

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

409

DP93.1. Decorative—Circle On the south face of Pier A93, incised. Diameter 38 cm. Graffito of a circle, located on the southern face of Pier A93, looking into the Basilica’s southern corridor. The circumference was clearly made with the help of a compass, as is also indicated by the incised center. The circle could have constituted the guideline for the incision of a large rosette (see also DP32.1, DP81.1, and DP82.2).

Pier 94 TP94.1. Riddle

On the left bevel of the south face. Incised. From 131 cm from floor. Area 12 cm wide × 6 cm high. Letters 1.2–2.5 cm high.

ζήτημα

Nothing else appears to have been written here.

410

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan TP94.2. Uncertain

On the west face of the pier, at the top of the plaster, above drawing DP94.3. In an area 31 cm wide × 34 cm high. Letters 5–6 cm high. Text not read.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

411

TP94.3. Uncertain

On the west face of the pier, in the lower right part of the preserved plaster, in an area 6 cm wide × 16 cm high. Red lettering written over (or under) incision of the same letters, 5 cm high. Of three letters, only alpha is clearly visible.

412

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan TP94.5. Uncertain

On the south face of the pier, at the top of the plaster. Area 52 cm wide × 17 cm high; very faded letters.

ΦΑΙ ΙΙ ΙΙ ΦΙΛΩ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ΑΡΑ

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

413

DP94.1. Animal—Bird

On the west face of Pier A94, in black ink. Dimensions 46 cm wide × 61 cm high. Dipinto of a bird, located on the western face of Pier A94. It is damaged at the bottom, where the plaster has detached from the pier, and the ink is largely faded. What is extant is the elongated and curved neck and long beak of a bird, possibly a swan.

414

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan DP94.2. Ship

On the west face of Pier A94, in black and red ink. Dimensions 34 cm wide × 40 cm high. Dipinto of a ship, located on the western face of Pier A94. Only the upper part of the vessel is still extant, as the plaster below has detached from the wall. Still visible are the red sail, decorated with a checkerboard motif, the red horizontal yard, and the upper portion of the black mast.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

415

DP94.3. Decorative—Ivy Leaf

On the west face of Pier A94, in black ink. Dimensions 7 cm wide × 9.5 cm high. Very faint dipinto of an ivy leaf, located on the western face of Pier A94. The leaf points downward and is heart-shaped, with the left half visibly larger than the right. The petiole is a rather long line that curves upward to the left.

416

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Pier 96 TP96.1. Uncertain

On the west face, about 125 cm above ground level. On an under layer of plaster. Area ca. 30 cm wide × 25 cm high. Letters 6 cm high. The inscription looks erased and the traces were barely visible in 2014.

ΑΝ ΚΕ Υ

Θ

There are also traces on this face from about 155 cm above ground level, in an area ca. 55 cm wide × 30 cm high and probably originally inside a tabula.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

417

TP96.2. Greetings

On the south face, on the right side of the surviving plaster. Area 7 cm wide × 13 cm high. Wellmade, even stylish, small minuscule incised letters 1 cm high, mostly detached. Along with other remains is the following.

ἐλάινος ὁ πᾶσι φίλητος ἐλάινε χαίροις πολλὰ̣ ἀγαθώτατε

The first three lines may be rendered “Olive tree, dear to all,” while the last three lines can be taken as “Fare well for a long time, good sir.” But to find ἐλάινε in the vocative in line 4 is surprising. That suggests a personal name; such a name is listed by LGPN 3A.139 from CIL 4.597 (Pompeii) and 5B.132 from Miletos and Perge. It seems likely that a word-play on the identity is intended; if so, one could render the entire graffito as “The olive tree is dear to all; Mr. Olive, fare well for a long time, good sir.”

418

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan TP96.3. Label?

On the east face, ca. 115 cm above ground level. Area ca. 25 × 7 cm. Incised letters 5 cm high.

εἰ γνώμονος τόπος

Why εἰ stands at the start, we do not know. “The place of the gnomon”: but in what sense of gnomon, is also not clear. TP96.4. Label East face, just below TP96.3, in area 11 cm wide × 5 cm high. Incised letters 1.5 cm high. unread line ] τόπος

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

419

DP96.1. Gladiator

On the east face of Pier A96, incised. Dimensions 8 cm wide × 14 cm high. Graffito of a gladiator, located on the eastern face of Pier A96. The left end of the graffito is damaged by the detachment of the plaster. The gladiator is shown from the back, in three quarter, advancing toward the left. He carries on his back a very small circular shield decorated with a circular rim. He wears quilted leg wrappings (clearly visible on the left leg) and a high greave on the right leg. The helmet has a tall crescent crest and a large brim that descends to protect the back of the neck. From these elements it is possible to recognize in the gladiator a hoplomachus.

420

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Pier 100 All graffiti are on the lower layer of plaster. TP100.1. Alphabetical exercise

On the south face, at 15 cm below the top of the plaster. Area 9 cm wide × 6 cm high. Incised detached letters 2 cm high.

ΑΒΓΥΚΦΚ ΨΕΖΗΚ EZ ̣ ̣K

Apart from the beginning of the alphabet that leads off the first line, it is not evident what the writer intended. The repetition of kappa does not encourage us to think of a scrambled alphabet in one of the known exercise types used in teaching: reversed, last paired with first, skipping fixed intervals. More promising might be the chalinoi, “alphabets in scrambled order which joined together sequences of letters that were difficult to pronounce” (Cribiore 1996: 39), although this does not resemble a known example. There are many other surface scratches, and it is not clear if some are random or part of one of the graffiti identified here.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

421

TP100.2. Uncertain (see figure on previous page) To the right of TP100.1. Area 9 cm wide × 6 cm high, with detached, incised letters 2 cm high, evidently the same writer as TP100.1. Bibliography: Bagnall, Everyday Writing, p. 23; SEG 61.974.

θελητὴ ἡ κυρία

“The lady is desired (?).” 1. Usage of θελητός is overwhelmingly Christian, but it occurs (rarely) in the Septuagint and once in Epictetus (Diss. ab Arr. 4.1.101). We have found no parallel for this occurrence with κυρία. Chaniotis (SEG) prefers a non-Christian interpretation. 2. The word κυρία appears also in T20.3.2 and 5 (if our interpretation of κυλείας there is correct), but the context is far from clear and does not seem to be the same as here.

422

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan TP100.3. Names and Isopsephisms

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

423

On the bevel to the right of the south side, at the same height as TP100.1 and TP100.2. On the lower layer of plaster. Possibly two separate inscriptions but in the same hand. Area 15 cm wide × 10 cm high, starting at 12 cm from the left edge. Detached letters 1 cm high. Bibliography: Bagnall, Everyday Writing, p. 22; SEG 61.973 (lower text). space 2 cm

Ἀρτεμιδώρου Ζμυρναίου ἰσόψηφα κύριος ω πίστις ω

1. Artemidoros is among the most popular names at Smyrna, as one can see from LGPN 5A.71, where it occupies nearly a column. 4–5. Both κύριος (20 + 400 + 100 + 10 + 70 + 200) and πίστις (80 + 10 + 200 + 300 + 10 + 200) in fact add up to 800 as isopsephisms. For the Christian character of the inscription, see introduction, p. 45.

424

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan TP100.4. Uncertain

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

425

On the bevel to the left of the south side. Area ca. 16 cm high × 14 cm wide, incised in majuscule letters 1.5 cm high.

ΚΟ ̣ΤΗ ΤΟ ̣ ̣Ο̣ ΥΔΙΝ Ἀσίας̣ τύχη [[ ̣ ̣ ̣[ ̣ ̣]Ω[ ̣ ̣]Σ]] ΦΥΛΑΞΕΥ ̣ΟΖΥ ΓΟΚΑΜΕ̣ ̣ΜΕ τώπος

3. Not much is visible of the second sigma of Ἀσίας̣, but it seems syntactically unavoidable. 4. A horizontal trench has been cut in the plaster to eliminate whatever was originally written here. 5–6. φυλάξε = φυλάξαι? Perhaps following that we should read ὑπ̣οζυ|γόκαμε̣ν̣ (l. ὑπεζυγώκαμεν), requiring two phonetic errors to get an acceptable perfect form of the unattested compound ὑποζυγόω (the simplex is known).

426

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan TP100.4. Details

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

427

TP100.5. Signature?

Above TP100.1 and about 155 cm above ground level. Area 42 cm wide × 11 cm high. Incised majuscule letters 6 cm (minimum) high in first line and 4 cm in second line. The plaster is broken above line 1, taking the tops of some letters. A cross-hatched pattern makes it difficult in line 1 to distinguish what are letters and what not.

Εὐ̣φ̣ρο̣σύ̣νη Ὀνησίμου

“Euphrosyne daughter of Onesimos.” 1. Only the lower parts of letters are preserved. The name is found in two Smyrnaean inscriptions (LGPN 5A.187). 2. The sigma is shallow and faint.

428

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan TP100.6. Uncertain

12 cm below TP100.3. Area 22 cm wide × 8 cm high. Incised in large, awkward majuscule letters 4.5 cm high. 2. Read ἑαυτόν.

̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ ΙΚΑ ̣ΑΚ Ι ̣ ̣ ̣ Μ ̣ [ ̣ ̣ ] ἑατὸν γυνὴ ἀχάριστον

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

429

TP100.7. Exercise

27 cm above TP100.4, in the right part of the bevel. Area 5 cm wide × 5.5 cm high. Informal, rounded incised letters 0.5 cm high.

Κέλσου Κέλσου Κέλσου Κέλσου Κέλσου Κέλσου

The name Celsus is found at Smyrna (e.g., I.Smyrna 302, 305), but it is not evident why someone wanted to practice it repeatedly in the genitive here.

430

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan DP100.1. Ship

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

431

On the east face of Pier A100, incised. Dimensions 22.5 cm wide × 25 cm high. Graffito of a ship sailing on port tack, possibly a liburna, located on the eastern face of Pier A100. The graffito is partially damaged by a large gap in the plaster that has destroyed the ship’s stern and the left half of the sail. The ship is characterized by a large central mast, which is covered in a motif of crisscrossing lines identifying the rigging. A set of vertical lines, also meant to represent the rigging as well as the sail’s brailing ropes, departs from the yard and reaches the ship’s deck, defining a large trapezoidal sail. Above the yard, a series of diagonal lines departing from the central mast (considerably narrower than the portion visible below the yard and terminating in a very stylized καρχήσιον) are part of the κηροῦχοι. The keel is flat, and the prow is slightly rounded. Above the gunwale is a lattice motif representing the boat’s sidescreen, suggesting that the liburna was of the cataphract type. The prow terminates with a short triangular στόλος with no ἀκροστόλιον above it. From the keel projects an exaggerated ἔμβολος, in the shape of a stylized penis, with a diagonal line on the tip identifying the epithelium, confirming that the vessel has to be interpreted as a navis rostrata.

432

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan DP100.2. Architecture

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

433

On the east face of Pier A100, incised. Dimensions 11 cm wide × 11 cm high. Graffito of a building, located on the eastern face of Pier A100. It depicts a stylized façade of a building, possibly a temple or a basilica. The façade comprises six columns rendered with simple vertical lines, without any indications of bases or capitals, as standing on a stereobate without steps. A triangle above them represents a pediment or roof that culminates in a round shape, possibly a sculptural decoration. The façade extends further at both sides of the roofing with an additional vertical line to the left, two to the right. These lines are possibly meant to represent two portici flanking the building on its long sides.

434

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan DP100.3. Animal—Stags

On the west face of Pier A100, incised. Dimensions overall 15.5 cm wide × 8 cm high. Graffito of three animals, located on the western face of Pier A100. They all have short, linear shanks, with no indication of the hooves. The bodies are elongated rectangles and the tails are short lines pointing upward. The heads are small inverted triangles upon which are long and linear horns. They can be interpreted as stags.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

435

DP100.4. Ship

On the east face of Pier A100, in black ink. Dimensions 47 cm wide × 28 cm high. Very faded dipinto of a ship, located on the eastern face of Pier A100. The ship, sailing on starboard tack, has a strongly rockered keel and a rounded bulwark that is probably topped by a second deck. The raised stern culminates in a bulbous aplustre. Right below it, a short diagonal line indicates the presence of a stylized rudder. The raised prow is very poorly preserved. The central mast is rendered in a single vertical line. Two diagonal lines depart from the mast’s top, connecting it to the ship’s extremities (πρότονοι). A third diagonal line connects the mast to the side of the ship. The area around the mast, where the sail must have been, is very faded, and the remaining ink is smudged so it is impossible to recognize the sail’s shape. No oars are visible.

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Pier 101 DP101.1. Ships

On the west face of Pier A101, in black ink. Dimensions upper 7 cm wide × 12 cm high; lower 19.5 cm wide × 22 cm high. Dipinto of two ships, located on the western face of Pier A101, immediately above dipinto DP101.2. The upper ship has very minimal detailing, making its identification uncertain. It comprises a lower rectangular feature decorated with parallel vertical lines (the hull?) and two vertical lines departing from the two sides (the rigging?). The lower one is seen from the back, as if sailing away from the viewer. The motif is rendered in stylized geometric shapes. The ship’s hull is a long narrow rectangle, terminating to the right and to the left in two inverted triangles, the ship’s rudders. At the center, a very long vertical line, prolonged even below the keel, defines the mast. A short yard runs perpendicular to the mast at three quarters of its height. A short rectangular sail is attached to it. No rigging is visible.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

437

DP101.2. Architecture

On the west face of Pier A101, in black ink. Dimensions 25 cm wide × 25 cm high. Dipinto of a building, located on the western face of Pier A101, immediately below dipinto DP101.1. The building is very schematic, and it seems to be a squared space supported by four piers, one at each corner, like a canopy of sorts. At present no specific interpretation is suggested.

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Pier 102 DP102.1. Ship

On the east face of Pier A102, incised. Dimensions 13 cm wide × 14 cm high. Graffito of a ship, located on the eastern face of Pier A102. The stylized ship, sailing on starboard tack, has an exaggeratedly raised stern culminating in a flat and wide aplustre. The prow is poorly preserved, but it seems to be very thin and pointed at the top. The keel is strongly rockered, and the bulwark has a crescent shape. The central mast is rendered in a broken and curved line. At its top are two parallel yards, the upper one shorter than the lower one, both made of single diagonal lines. The sail, triangular in shape, is partially lowered, and it is connected to the yard via two ropes. No oars or rudders are visible.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

439

Pier 103 TP103.1. Uncertain

On the underside of the arch. Area 14 cm wide × 40 cm high. Two stars (DP103.1) and an inscription in cursive but detached letters 3–5 cm high. On the second layer of the plaster. ΩΔΕ stars ΕΩ 1. Perhaps corrected; written above the two stars. Perhaps ὧδε, “here”? 2. Washed out? Not readable on the photograph, but seen by Tanrıver 2013. Is it an oblique form of ἕως, “dawn”?

440

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan TP103.2. Record of healing

To the left of TP103.1, in the recessed area, 230 cm from floor. On the second layer of the plaster. Area 14 cm high × 43 cm wide. Letters 4 cm. 1–2. Read ὀφθαλμίων. “He/she was healed in the eyes.”

τ̣ῶν̣ ὀφθαρμίων ἐθ̣αραπεύ̣θη

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

441

TP103.3. Uncertain; Obscene Graffito

To the left of TP103.2. In the recessed area. 203 cm from floor. Area 23 cm wide × 21 cm high. On the second layer of the plaster. Letters 4.5 cm high.

δῆμος σ̣ὺν ε̣ ̣ Ε ̣ ̣ Ι̣

We have not been able to read with what or whom the people is said to be. Below this, on the first layer of plaster. Area 23 cm wide × 18 cm high. Letters 8 cm high. “He is being buggered.”

πυγίζεται

442

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan DP103.1. Decorative—Star

On the south face of Pier A103, in black ink. Dimensions upper 10 cm wide × 17 cm high; lower, 8.5 cm wide × 14 cm high. Dipinto of two stars, located on the southern face of Pier A103, at the start of the arch’s spring, looking into the Basilica’s southern corridor. The two five-pointed stars, similar in shape and size, have been clearly executed by the same hand. They are both drawn with one uninterrupted line defining two intersecting triangles. Five pointed star graffiti have been found in Pompeii, Boscoreale, and Stabiae (those examples are all dated to the first century CE; see Langner 2001: nos. 161 to 164).

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

Pier 104 TP104.1. Acclamation

443

444

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

On the south face of the pier, under the vault. On the second layer with ink. Area 53 cm wide × 61 cm high. Letters ca. 8 cm high, in the last line 3.5 cm high. 7. A form of πένταθλον, presumably.

Ἀσίας πρώτοις [ ̣]ο[ ̣ ̣ ̣] νο̣ι̣ς Φίλιπος λε [ υ̣σε ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣ κεικε ̣ ̣ ̣ πεταθλ[ ̣ ̣ ̣ ] ̣ ̣ ̣ ἐπι ζ̣ star

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna TP104.1. Details

445

446

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan TP104.2. Uncertain

On the south face of the pier, at the very top of preserved plaster. Not reached for measurements, and not read.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

447

DP104.1. Portrait—Head

Under the north vault of Pier A104, in black ink. Dimensions not available. Dipinto of three heads, located on the north vault springing from Pier A104, looking into the Basilica’s southern corridor. It is impossible to measure them due to their position. The three heads are shown in profile, turned toward the left. They are all very stylized. Of the first head to the left, only part of the back is still visible due to the detachment of most of the plaster. The central head, also damaged at the top, is characterized by a long pointed nose, open mouth, and undershot chin. The large eye is oval in shape and set diagonally. The nape is rounded and there is no clear indication of the hair. The head to the right, partially damaged to the top, is rhomboidal in shape, with a very elongated and tapering neck. It has a very large lozenge-shaped eye with the pupil made in a short diagonal line, a long and pointed nose, wide open mouth, and undershot chin. No indication of hair is visible.

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Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Pier 105 TP105.1. Acclamation

West face. Area ca. 30 cm wide × 90 cm high. Large detached letters with a modicum of style, 8–13 cm high. Below, a drawing (DP105.1). Bibliography: Bagnall, Everyday Writing, p. 19.

[χ]αῖρε Τράλ[λε]ις πρώτη̣ Ἀνατολῆς Π ̣ΡΕΙΣ̣ ΗΧΑ ̣Η

“Greetings Tralleis, first of Anatolia (or ‘of the East’).” 3–4. The generic usage of ἀνατολή to mean “the East” is well attested, but the numerous parallels in the graffiti to civic boasting suggest that the sense here is more specific. The only parallel before the sixth century known to us for a use of Ἀνατολή to refer to Asia Minor or perhaps more specifically to the province of Asia, however, is Diocletian’s Edict of Maximum Prices. 5–6. These lines are written in substantially smaller letters than lines 1–4.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

449

DP105.1. Scene—Gladiatorial Combat

On the west face of Pier A105, in black ink. Dimensions overall 36 cm wide × 29.5 cm high; of the man to the left, 14 cm wide × 25.5 cm high; of the man to the right, 17 cm wide × 27 cm high. Dipinto of a gladiatorial combat, located on the western face of Pier A105. The scene, partially faded toward the bottom, depicts a combat between two provocatores. Of the man to the right, only the upper half of the body is still preserved: he is drawn in the act of striding forward toward the left with the head and shoulder in profile while the torso, completely covered by the shield, is fully frontal. The head is covered by a visored helmet that descends down to the front and the back to protect the man’s neck; two feathers (one badly preserved) depart from right above his temples. The medium-sized shield is of the blunted oval type, with a horizontal line decorating the middle. The other gladiator is standing, turned toward the right. The figure, rendered in three-quarter, is more schematic: the helmet is barely sketched and the right arm is rendered as a triangle terminating in two parallel lines, probably indicating a short weapon. The body is entirely covered by a medium-sized shield with a very prominent protruding boss. Two straight, thick lines identify the legs, and the feet are rendered by two perpendicular lines.

450

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Pier 109 A chink of stone buttress missing from the support to the pier on the southeast side shows the earlier plaster, at 115 cm above floor level. The revealed area is about 30 cm wide × 40 cm high. Incised are four inscriptions along with two drawings of naiskoi (DP109.1), with a head in the pediment of one. The simpler temple is lower and to the right of the more complex one called Temple 1 in what follows. TP109.1. Address to the Reader

Below and to the left of Temple 1. Majuscule, informal letters, 0.5 cm high.

ὁ καὶ πυγίσε τὸν ἀναγινό`σ΄κοντα

Probably read πυγίσαι, thus “and bugger the reader also.”

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

451

TP109.2. Uncertain Another inscription stands to the left and above it, to the left of the base of Temple 1; probably by the same hand.

] ̣ ̣ ἐπ’ ἀφροδισίας

Interpreting the phrase is not easy, as ἀφροδίσιος would more normally be expected to be in the neuter plural, with the sense of “brothel.” TP109.3. Obscene graffito

Higher, to the left of Temple 1, again probably by the same hand. No measurements available.

ἐ̣πύ̣γ̣ι̣σα καὶ γω ἐ̣πύγ̣ι̣σα

“I buggered” is clear; are we to take what follows as “and I” with elision of the initial letter of ἐγώ?

452

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan TP109.3. Detail

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna TP109.4. Exercise

Above Temple 1 and then across it, but incised in larger letters.

Ἀσία Ἀσία

453

454

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan DP109.1. Architecture

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

455

On the south face of Pier A109, incised. Dimensions 9 cm wide × 13 cm high. Graffito of a building, located on the south face of Pier A109, currently tucked back into a crevice of the buttress that abuts the pier and that was built to reinforce the structure. It is now very difficult to see the graffito, as it is partially obscured by the ancient repair that covers the remaining surface of the pier. As far as visible, the graffito, etched in the plaster, depicts a temple façade. The façade is characterized by a crepidoma with a two-stepped stereobate below the stylobate. Above the stylobate are a series of columns (possibly six) without bases but with round capitals; these elements suggest that the building could be a Doric hexastyle temple. The facade is completed by a triangular pediment decorated with a human head in profile. Flags seem to be hanging from both sides attached on very long poles. Considering the large number of pictorial graffiti in the basilica depicting gladiators and gladiatorial games, this depiction could be interpreted as the Nemeseion, the temple of the two Nemeseis. Indeed, the temple stood on the south side of the Agora, and thus was in the vicinity of the underground corridor where the graffiti were drawn or etched, and its cult to the two Nemeseis had strong connections to the gladiatorial games (see discussion in the introduction, p. 35). The temple went through an important phase of reconstruction under Caracalla (211–212 CE) during which it was extensively expanded. This important building activity could provide a terminus post quem for the graffito. A discussion of the temple of the Nemeseis and its role in the gladiatorial games can be found in Tataki 2009, esp. p. 646. See also Hornum 1993: 43–88 and I. Smyrna 263–271, pp. 304–9). Alternatively, the graffito could be interpreted as a representation of the temple of Hadrian that was built after the emperor’s visit to the city in 124 CE using part of the imperial gift of money and construction materials (among which were imported columns) meant for the gymnasium and other building projects in the city. See Burrell 2002: 40–44.

456

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan DP109.2. Architecture

On the south face of Pier A109, incised. Dimensions 6.5 cm wide × 10.5 cm high. Graffito of a building, located on the south face of Pier A109, currently tucked back into a crevice of the buttress that abuts the pier and that was built to reinforce the structure. The building is a hexastyle temple with round capitals, one stepped stereobate and stylobate. The triangular pediment is not decorated, and it looks as if this graffito was not completed.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

457

Pier 112 DP112.1. Ships

On the south face of Pier A112, incised. Dimensions at top 47 cm wide × 8.5 cm high; at bottom, 47 cm wide × 13 cm high. Graffito of two ships, located on the southern face of Pier A112, looking into the Basilica’s southern corridor. The two vessels, one on top of the other, are both extremely stylized, so that it is impossible to discern the prow from the stern. Both have a rockered keel and almost flat bulwark. There is no indication of sails, mast, yard, oars, or rigging. In between the two boats is the hull of another ship (DP112.2); the sail of this vessel extends above the top ship of graffito DP112.1.

458

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan DP112.2. Ship

On the south face of Pier A112, incised. Dimensions 29 cm wide × 36 cm high. Graffito of a ship, located on the southern face of Pier A112, looking into the Basilica’s southern corridor. The sails of the ship are placed immediately above the upper ship in graffito DP112.1, while the hull is in between those two vessels (see graffito DP112.1). The hull of this ship is very schematic; it is thus difficult to discern the prow from the stern. A short diagonal line to the left might suggest the presence of a rudder, in which case the ship would be sailing on port tack. The keel is mostly flat, and the prow is raised, culminating in a cheniscus (ἀκροστόλιον) curving inward. No oars are visible. A large lacuna above the hull has destroyed most of the lower part of the mast. The mast’s upper half is composed of a thin vertical line that is crossed at a 90-degree angle by a long and straight yard. At the yard’s extremities begin two diagonal lines that converge at the top of the mast: they are the χηροῦχοι, ropes that allowed hoisting the yard and the sail to the required height. The sail, in the shape of an inverted triangle, is decorated with rows of checkerboard motifs that are meant to depict the folds of the sail and the rigging.

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

459

DP112.3. Ship

On the east face of Pier A112, incised. Dimensions 28 cm wide × 7 cm high. Graffito of a ship, located on the eastern face of Pier A112. It depicts a very schematic representation of a ship sailing on port tack. No mast, yard, sailing, or rigging is visible. The keel is rather flat and tapers upward at the stern and the prow. The bulwark is concave, and a series of three parallel lines indicates the presence of an upper deck. The prow culminates in a short and pointed cheniscus, while the stern does not have any finial.

460

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Pier 128 TP128.1. Good wishes

On the south wall, 140 cm from floor. Dimensions of area 41 cm high, 45 cm wide. Letters 2.5– 5 cm high.

- - - - - - - ̣ ̣ ̣[ ̣ ̣] ̣[ ̣] ̣ ̣ ̣ ̣[ ταθίου καὶ πρωτο .[ ε̣ὐχόμεθα ε̣ὐτυχεῖ̣[ν] μετὰ ἡμῶν. εὐτύχ[ει] Σ̣ αβεῖνε μετὰ Εὐστα[[ΥΤΩ]] θίου. vac. εὐθόμεθα σὲ εὐτυχεῖ[ν] μετὰ ὑμ̣ῶν πολλ`ο΄ῖς ἔτεσιν.

“. . . [Eus]tathios (?) and first . . . We pray to have good fortune with us. Good luck, Sabinus with Eustathios. We pray that you may have good fortune with us for many years.”

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

461

1. Only the bottoms of letters are visible. 2. Presumably this is another appearance of the name Eustathios, although that does not give a good syllabic division. The appearance of this name, common in the fourth century and later, may suggest a relatively late date, although LGPN 4 137 lists one example from Thessalonike dated as early as the second to third century. Perhaps simply πρῶτον̣ at the end, but there are other possibilities. 5. Only the top tip of sigma ligaturing into alpha is visible at the start, but we cannot see any other possible interpretation of these letters. A referee remarks that Sabinus is a common gladiatorial stage name (thinking perhaps of Messalina’s lover of that name in Cassius Dio 60.28) and suggests that the good wishes here might be for success in gladiatorial games. But Eustathios hardly seems to fit that hypothesis, and Sabinus is in general a very common name and not characteristic of slaves. 7. Read εὐχόμεθα. 8. Read (as in line 3) ἡμῶν.

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Pier 155 DP155.1. Ship

On the north face of Pier A155, in black ink. Dimensions 11 cm wide × 10 cm high. Dipinto of a ship sailing on starboard tack, located on the northern face of Pier A155, looking into the Basilica’s southern corridor. The dipinto is damaged by a very large lacuna in the plaster, which has destroyed the upper part of the ship and the prow. Still visible are part of a rockered keel, a flat bulwark, two very stylized rudders, and a straight vertical mast.

Bibliography Alzinger, W. 1974. Augusteische Architektur in Ephesos. Vienna. Ast, R. and J. Lougovaya. 2015. “The Art of the Isopsephism in the Greco-Roman World.” In A. Jördens, ed., Ägyptische Magie und ihre Umwelt: 82–98. Wiesbaden. Avilia, F. 2002. Atlante delle Navi Greche e Romane. Formello (Roma). Bagnall, R. S. 2011. Everyday Writing in the Graeco-Roman East. Berkeley. Baird, J. A. and C. Taylor, eds. 2010. Ancient Graffiti in Context. New York and London. Behr, C. A. 1981. P. Aelius Aristides. The Complete Works, vol. II, Orations XVII–LIII. Leiden. Benefiel, R. R. 2010. “Dialogues of Ancient Graffiti in the House of Maius Castricius in Pompeii.” American Journal of Archaeology 114: 59–101. Broneer, O. 1954. Corinth I, iv: The South Stoa. Princeton. Burrell, B. 2002. “Temples of Hadrian, not Zeus.” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 43:3: 31–50. Cameron, A. and A. D. E. Cameron. 1966. “The Cycle of Agathias.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 86: 6–25. Carter, M. 2001. “Artemidorus and the ἀρβήλαϛ.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 134: 109–15. _______. 2009. “Gladiators and Monomachoi: Greek Attitudes to a Roman ‘Cultural Performance’”. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 26:2: 298–322. Casson, L. 1971. Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World. Princeton. Cavalier, L. 2012a. “La basilique civile de Xanthos: étude architecturale et proposition de restitution.” In L. Cavalier et al., eds., Basiliques et agoras de Grèce et d’Asie Mineure: 189–99. Bordeaux. _______. 2012b. “Chapiteau x x de la basilique civile de Smyrne.” In L. Cavalier et al., eds., Basiliques et agoras de Grèce et d’Asie Mineure: 153–67. Bordeaux . Chaniotis, A. 2009a. “Ritual Performances of Divine Justice: The Epigraphy of Confession, Atonement, and Exaltation in Roman Asia Minor.” In H. M. Cotton, R. G. Hoyland, J. J. Price, and D. J. Wasserstein, eds., From Hellenism to Islam: Cultural and Linguistic Change in the Roman Near East: 115–53. Cambridge. 463

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_______. 2009b. “Graffiti and Social History at Aphrodisias.” In R. R. R. Smith and J. Lenaghan, eds., Roman Portraits from Aphrodisias: 200–15. Istanbul. _______. 2010. “Graffiti in Aphrodisias: Images-Texts-Contexts.” In J. A. Baird and C. Taylor, eds., Ancient Graffiti in Context: 191–207. New York and London. _______. 2014. “Graffiti and Social History of Aphrodisias.” AAIA Bulletin 10: 16–21. Coleman, K. M. 1996. “A Left-Handed Gladiator at Pompeii.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 114: 194–6. Destephen, S. 2010. “La christianisation de l’Asie Mineure jusqu’à Constantin: le témoignage de l’épigraphie.” In H. Inglebert, S. Destephen, and B. Dumézil, eds., Le problème de la christianisation du monde antique: 159–194. Paris. Dodge, H. 2011. Spectacle in the Roman World. London and New York. Dornseiff, F. 1925. Das Alphabet in Mystik und Magie, 2nd ed. Leipzig-Berlin. Duval, P. M. 1949. “La forme des navires romains, d’après la mosaïque d’Althiburus.” Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire 61: 119–49. Duyuran, R. 1945. “Türk Tarih Kurumu Adına İzmir’de Namazgah’ta 1944 Yılında Yapılan Kazıya Ait Kısa Rapor.” Belleten IX, 35: 405–18. Eastmond, A. 2010. “Consular Diptychs, Rhetoric and the Languages of Art in Sixth-Century Constantinople.” Art History 3: 743–65. Engemann, J. 2008. “Die Spiele spätantiker Senatoren und Consuln, ihre Diptychen und ihre Geschenke.” In G. Bühl, A. Cutler, and A. Effenberger, eds. Spätantike und byzantinische Elfenbeinbildwerke in Diskurs: 53–96. Wiesbaden. Ericsson, C. H. 1984. Navis Oneraria: the cargo carrier of late antiquity. Studies in ancient ship carpentry. Åbo. Ersoy, A. 2008. “2007 yılı Smyrna Antik Kenti Kazısı.” 31. Kazı Sonuçları Toplantısı, 2: 33–46. Ankara. Ersoy, A. and M. Önder. 2011. Selected Finds and Coins from Ancient Smyrna, 2007–2009. Izmir. Ersoy, A. et al. 2012. “Smyrna Agora Bazilikası 3. Galeri 13 ve 16 Numaralı Mekanlarda Ele Geçen Bir Grup Obje Çerçevesinde Bir Değerlendirme.” İsmail Fazlıoğlu Anı Kitabı, ed. Şahin, Işık: 105–14. Edirne. Fossel-Peschl, E. A. 1982. Die Basilika am Staatsmarkt in Ephesos. Graz. Friedman, Z. 2011. Ship Iconography in Mosaics. An aid to understanding ancient ships and their construction. Oxford. Frisch, P. and A. Geissen. 1980. “Grabstele für einen Provocator.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 39: 193–5. Garraffoni, R. S. and P. P. A. Funari. 2009. “Reading Pompeii’s Walls; Archaeological Approach to Gladiatorial Graffiti.” In T. Wilmot, ed., Roman Amphitheaters and Spectacula: a 21stCentury Perspective: 185–93. Oxford. Gignac, F. T. 1976. A Grammar of the Greek Papyri of the Roman and Byzantine Periods, vol. 1: Phonology. Milan. Grant, M. 1967. Gladiators. London.

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Szilágyi, J. 1954. “Ein Ziegelstein mit Zauberformel aus dem Palast des Statthalters in Aquincum.” Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 2: 305–10. Taşlıalan, M. and T. Drew-Bear. 2004. “Rapport sur les travaux effectués sur l’agora de Smyrne.” Anatolia Antiqua 12: 293–308. Taşlıalan, M. et al. 2005. “Fouilles de l’Agora de Smyrne : rapport sur la campagne de 2004.” Anatolia Antiqua 13: 371–434. _______. 2006. “Fouilles de l’Agora de Smyrne : rapport sur la campagne de 2005.” Anatolia Antiqua 14: 309–61. Tataki, A. 2009. “Nemesis, Nemeseis, and the Gladiatorial Games at Smyrna.” Mnemosyne 62: 639–48. Ville, G. 1981. La gladiature en Occident des origines à la mort de Domitien. Rome. Yeşil, S. 2006. “Conservation of the Plaster in the Basilica.” Anatolia Antiqua 14: 320–26. Yolaçan, B. 2011. “The Agora Basilica, Smyrna.” In P. M. Militello and H. Öniz, eds., Proceedings of the 15th Symposium on Mediterranean Archaeology, 3–5 March 2011 : Volume 1, 399–405. Oxford. _______. 2013. Smyrna Agora Bazilikası, PhD dissertation, Dokuz Eylül University. _______. 2015. “Son Çalışmalar Işığında Smyrna Agora Bazilikası.” In A. Ersoy and G. Şakar, eds., Smyrna/İzmir Kazı ve Araştırmaları I. Çalıştay Bildirileri: 287–99. İstanbul. Yolaçan, B. and G. Şakar. 2008. “İzmir ve Deprem.” İzmir Tarih ve Toplum 2: 70–76.

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Index of Greek Words Only Greek words recognized and printed in lower case are in principle included in this version. Words suggested in the notes rather than the text are indicated with “n.” after the line number. “T” is to be understood at the start of all references.

Date: Era year ἔτους σι 16.1.5

Names of persons Ἀλέξανδρος P72.3.1–2 Ἀρτεμίδωρος P100.3.1 Αὐρήλιος P84.1.8n. Δημόκριτος 15.1.1 Διογένης 14.2.1 Ἐλάινος P96.2.4n. Εὔη P71.1.3–4 Εὐπρέπης 28.3.1 Εὐστάθιος P128.1.1–2,5–6 Εὐφροσύνη P100.5.1 Ἡρακλείδης P84.7.1 Θάλλος 33.1 left Θεαγένης 12.5.1 Ἰσίδωρος 28.1.5 Κέλσος P100.7.1–6 Λεοντισ[ 6.1.1 Λουκος (Λούκιος) 16.1.1–2 Νεῖλος P63.2.1 Νικήτης 25.1.1

Ὀνήσιμος 8.1.1; P100.5.2 Παρθένα 1.2.1 Πάρις 32.1.1 Πολύκαρπος 28.4.1n. Πολύπους P72.1.2n. Πρυτανικός 33.2.1 Πυριλάμπης 12.9.1n. Σαβεῖνος P128.1.5 Τίτος P68.2.1 Τροφίμη 33.1.4 Τρύφων 15.9.1 Τύχη 44.1.1 (or name of divinity) Ὑγεῖνος 27.2.1; 33.2.2; P78.2.4 Φιλεῖνος P77.1.1,?2 Φίλιππος P104.1.4 Φοῦσκος G3.1.1–2 Χαρίας ὁ καὶ Λουκος 16.1.1 Χαρίτων P78.2.3 Χα[ (Χάρις?) P78.2.1 469

470

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Geographical names Ἀνατολή P105.1.3–4 Ἀσία 9.1.1; 13.1.1; 15.7.1; 32.2.1; P68.1.1; P100.4.3; P104.1.1; P109.4.1,2 Ἐφέσιος 9.1.1; 15.9.2 Ζμυρναῖος 1.2.1; P100.3.2 Σαρδιανός 13.1.2 Τράλλεις P105.1.1–2

Divinities Βαιτη 8.1.3; 9.5.2; 14.1.2?; 27.1.6 Ἴσις 15.3.2; 28.1.2 Τύχη 44.1.1 (or personal name)

Money Ἀττική (sc. δραχμή) P76.1.3 δηνάριον 10.2.1,5 χρυσός 32.1.3; P70.3.1,3

Greek words ἀγαθός: ἀγαθώτατος P96.2.7 ἄγγελος 40.1.2 ἀγών 14.1.3 ἀδελφή X.2.3? ἀδελφός X.2.3?; 33.1.2 ἀλλά 12.2.3n. ἄλλος 12.2.3n. ἄν (= ἐάν) 13.3.7 ἀναγιγνώσκω X.3.1n., 9.2.1–2; 9.3.1; 33.1.3; P74.4.3n.; P109.1.1 ἀναγράφω 12.10.1–2n.; 22.2.1?; 29.6.1n. ἀναπαύω X.3.1n. ἀποδίδωμι 16.1.4 ἀπόλλυμι 8.2.2? ἀριθμός 5.1.2; 12.7.1n.; 22.1.1; 24.2.2; 27.3.1; 42.2.1 Ἀττική (sc. δραχμή) P76.1.3 ἀφανίζω 9.5.2 ἀφροδισία P109.2 ἀχάριστος P100.6.3 γαμέω P78.1.5–6

γένος 33.2.4? γνώμων P96.3.1–2 γράφω X.3.4?; 13.3.3n.; 13.4.1; 22.2.1n.; 29.1.2; 29.6.1n. γυνή P100.6.3 δάκτυλος 29.1.3 δέ 8.1.4; 9.5.4; 15.10.3n.; 29.1.5 δέκα P78.1.2,3 δῆμος 9.5.3; P84.1.6; P103.3.1 δηνάριον 10.2.1,5 διά 13.1.4; P84.1.4 διασῴζω 28.1.3–4 δίδωμι 20.1.1 δικάζω G3.1.2–3; 42.1.1? διόλλυμι 29.1.6 δοκέω 13.3.7 δύο P70.3.1,3 ἐάν 8.1.4; 9.5.4 ἑαυτοῦ P100.6.2 ἐγώ 13.4.1; Π109.3.2?; ἐμοῦ 29.6.1; μέ 40.1.2 εἰ P96.3.1

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna εἰμί 13.1.4; 13.4.1; 20.2.2; 20.3.9; 52.1.1 εἰς P93.1.1 εἷς: μίαν 5.1.1; μία 20.3.9 εἰσδίδωμι 2.1.2n. ἐκεῖ 1.1.5n. ἐλάινος P96.1.4 ἐν 20.3.9n.; 27.2.3 ἐξαπίνης 12.2.1 ἐξώλης 33.1.1–2 ἐπέρχομαι 29.3.2 ἐπί P78.1.2; P109.2.1 ἔργον 9.5.3 ἔτος P128.1.9; cf. also Date: Era Year εὑρίσκω 6.1.1–2 εὐτυχέω P72.1.1; P78.2.3; P128.1.3,4,7 εὐφημέω P84.1.1 εὐχαριστέω 14.1.2; 27.1.4–5 εὔχομαι 12.2.1n.; 16.1.2; P128.1.3,7 (εὐθόμεθα) ἕως P103.1.2n. ζήτημα X.3.1n.,3; G6.4.1,6; 8.2.1; 28.1.1; P73.1.1; P78.1.1; P84.2.1; P94.1.1–2 ζῶ 21.1.1,2; 63.1.1 ζωή 40.1.2; P63.1.2 ἡδονή 9.6.2; 12.1.2 ἡμεῖς P128.1.4,8 θαλλός 33.1.left n. θειώδης 14.1.3 θελητός P100.2.1 θεός 8.1.2; 9.2.2; 27.1.3; P84.1.4 θεραπεύω 14.1.1n.; 27.2.3; P103.2.2–3 θειωδής 14.1.3 ἰσόψηφος P100.3.3 καλός 20.3.2,3,6; P78.2.2 κατά 24.1.2 καταβαίνω 1.1.4n. κατακτείνω 6.1.3 καταπίνω 8.1.4; 9.5.4 κατάποτος 13.3.2n. *κλειδίζω 8.1.1 κλέος 13.1.3

471

κοε 29.2.1; P70.1? *κλυδίζω 8.1.2n. κοντροκυνήγιος 12.6.1n.; 25.5.1–2 κρόκη P84.4.1 κτάομαι 8.1.3 κυβερνήτης 28.2.1n. κυρία 20.3.2–3,6 (κυλείας); P78.2.2 (κυλίας); P100.2.2 κύριος 13.1.5; P100.3.4 λανθάνω 52.1.1 λέγω 1.1.6n.; 12.2.3n.; 13.3.6; 27.2.1; 29.1.5; P77.1–2 λόγος 9.6.3; 12.1.3 λύχνος 16.1.4 μέσος 20.3.9n. μετά P78.2.4; P128.1.4,5,8 μή 8.1.1; 29.1.1; P76.1.1; P78.1.6 μηδείς 9.5.4 μῆλον 9.6.1; 12.1.1 μήτηρ X.2.4–5? μιαίνω 8.1.2 μιμέομαι 11.3.4 μιμνήσκω P78.2.1 μοιχός 6.1.2 νέω 9.6.5; 12.1.5 νικάω P104.1.5–6? νικητής 12.5.2 νόθος 52.1.1 οβ 15.5.1; 16.2.1; 28.2.2; P71.1.2 *ὁδοφόρος X.1.1n. ὅλος 29.6.2; 29.8.1n. ὄνομα 9.6.4; 12.1.4 οξ 15.6.1 ὀξύς 22.3.1n. ὁράω: ἰδεῖν 15.10.2n. ὅρος 32.1.1 ὀρχέομαι 9.2.3,4 ὅς 5.1.2; 12.7.1?; 13.1.3; 22.1.1; 24.2.1; 27.3.1; 42.2.1 οὐδείς 15.8.1?

472

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οὗτος 13.3..3n.,6 ὀφείλω P77.1.2n. ὀφθάλμιον P103.2.1–2 (ὀφθαρμίων) ὀφθαλμός 12.2.2; 14.1.1; 14.3.1; 15.4.1–2; 16.1.3; 27.1.1–2; 27.2.2 ὀψέ 32.1.1 παιδίον P84.1.2 παῖς P84.1.5 πᾶς 13.1.3; P96.2.2 πατήρ 12.3.3n. πένταθλον P104.1.7 πεντακόσιοι P76.1.4 περί 16.1.3 πινκίρνα (Lat. pincerna) P78.3.4 πίνω P78.1.6 πίστις P100.3.5 πλῆθος 29.8.1n. πνεῦμα 20.1.2; 63.1.1 ποιέω 15.9.3; 25.1.2 πολάζω P76.1.2? πόλεμος 29.1.4 πολύς 12.2.3; P96.2.6; P128.1.9 πρό P78.1.5 πρῶτος 9.1.1; 13.1.1; P70.1.1; P78.3.5; P104.1.1– 2; P105.1.2–3; P128.1.2 πυγίζω 14.3.3n.; 40.1.2; P109.1.1; P109.3.1,2; πυγίζομαι 25.2.1; P103.3.4–5 ῥοδοφόρος X.1.1n. σπεύδω 29.3.1n.

σύ 9.2.3; 13.3.7; 14.1.3n.; 15.10.3n.; 20.2.1; 29.1.2, 5; 33.1.1; P128.1.7 σύν P103.3.2? συναίρω Tx.1.2n. σφάζω 25.4.1–2 τάφος 12.8.1 τάχος 27.2.3 τί 29.1.4 τίκτω 24.1.1–2 τιμάω P76.1.3 τίτθη P78.3.1 τόπος 9.4.1; P84.1.3; P96.3.2; P96.4.2; P100.4.7 τύχη P100.4.3 ὑγίεια 14.1.4 ὑπό 8.1.2; 27.1.2–3; 32.1.1 ὑποζυγόω P100.4.5–6n. φιλέω 5.1.1; 12.7.1n.; 22.1.1; 24.2.1; 27.3.1; 29.1.1– 2; [42.2.1] φίλητος P96.2–3 φίλος 52.1.1 φυλάσσω P100.4.5n. χαίρω P74.2.1; P96.2.5; P105.1.1 χρυσός 32.1.3; P70.3.1,3 χρώς 20.3.3 ψύχω 15.2.1; 21.1.3; 29.5.1 ψωλή 11.1.1 ὧδε P103.1.1n. ὥρα 20.3.9

Voces magicae αδι 28.1.2,3,4–5

Index of Subjects and Motifs of Drawings Subpositicius D28.6 Thraex D12.4, DP74.2 Venator D29.2, D29.6, D29.13 Undefined D5.3, D28.4, DP74.3 Ivy leaf D1.4, D25.8, DP71.1, DP94.3 Labrys D10.1, DP78.2 Lion D29.2, D29.13, D30.1 Mappa circencis D19.2 Palm branches D11.2, D29.2, D29.11, DP43.2, DP60.1, DP71.2 Phallus D5.2, D8.1, D8.2, D11.5, D16.1, D24.1, D24.2, D24.3, D25.1, D25.2, D25.3, D25.9, D26.2, D29.7, D29.12, DP100.1 Portrait Female D22.1, D29.5, D32.3 Male D1.3, D8.4, D11.4, D12.2, D19.2, D20.1, D21.1, D25.4, D29.3, D29.4, D29.5, DP54.1, DP109.1 Spectators D28.8, DP54.1, DP104.1 Red ink D1.3, DP12.1, D5.3, D8.7, D11.1, D17.1, D19.2, D19.3, D24.1, D26.1, D29.2, DP60.1, DP78.2, DP94.2 Rosette DP32.1, DP81.1, DP81.2 Stag DP100.3 Ship Cargo and Commercial vessels D4.1, D5.1, D11.1, D12.1, D14.1, D14.2, D15.3, D15.4,

Bird Dove D29.9, D29.10 Duck DP73.1 Heron DP84.1 Parrot D29.8 Swan DP94.1 Building (undefined) DP101.2 Bull DP83.1 Circle DP34.1, DP81.2, DP93.1 Doorway D27.2 Feline D6.2 Fish Mullet, DP12.1, DP76.1 Uncertain DP15.1 Flag DP109.1 Flower DP84.3 Garden DP60.1 Gladiator Arbelas D1.1, D1.2 Eques D28.2, D28.4, DP54.2 Hoplomachus DP96.1 Murmillo D9.1 Palus D29.1 Provocator D11.3, D15.6, D22.2, D25.7, D28.3, D28.5, D28.6, D28.7, D29.1, D29.11, DP105.1 Retiarius D11.2 Secutor D15.5, D25.6, D26.1 473

474

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

D19.1, D27.1, D28.1, DP74.1 Military vessels D6.1, D15.1, DP100.1 Undefined DG4.1, D2.1, D8.3, D8.5, D9.2, D11.6, D14.3, D15.2, D17.1, D17.2, DP34.2, D25.5, D31.1, DP43.1, D32.1, D32.2, D60.1, DP71.3, DP73.2, DP75.1, DP78.1, DP78.3, DP81.3, DP84.2, DP84.4, DP85.1, DP94.2, DP100.4, DP101.1, DP102.1, DP112.1, DP112.2, DP112.3, DP155.1 Star DP103.1 Stick figure D8.6, D29.4, D29.6 Temple DP100.2, DP109.1, DP109.2 Thymiaterion D19.3 Uncertain DP6.1, D12.3, D12.5, D18.1, D30.2, DP43.3, D34.1, DP72.1, DP84.5 Venatio D8.7, D29.2, D29.8, D29.13 Wreath D20.1, D29.2, D29.6, DP54.1

General Index composite 4, 15 Corinthian order 6, 15, 17 crasis 43 cross vault 7, 9 (figure), 10 cryptoporticus 4, 7, 8, 10, 13, 19, 20 cursive writing 42 denarii 41, 134, 353 dipinti 21, 41 drachmas, Attic 41, 383 earthquake 15, 16, 17, 19, 20 earthquake under Marcus Aurelius 41 eastern stoa 3, 4, 17 education 42, 293 emperors, multiple 40 Ephesos 49–50, 118, 192 epigraphic hands 41–2 eras 38–40 erotic/sexual graffiti 48, 50–53, 95, 159, 183, 218, 224, 228, 238, 248, 269, 293, 299, 339, 341, 344, 424, 441, 449–450 Euripides 293 Eve 49, 363 exercises 73, 140, 368, 423, 431 eyes, healing of 44–7, 151, 175, 177, 185, 202, 266–7, 440 façade 4, 6 (text and figure), 13, 14 (figure), 15, 16, 17 Fuscus, Ti. Manlius, proconsul 67

acclamations 49–50, 118, 169, 190, 330, 351, 356, 443, 447, 452 Actium, era of 38–40 adultery 102 Agora, groundwater 45 Aizanoi, use of eras 39–40 Anatole 447 angels 339–40 Antonine constitution 39 Aphrodisias, graffiti at 49 arch 4, 8, 10, 13, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20 arithmetic 387 Asia Minor 4, 20 Asia, “first of ” 40–1, 49–50, 108, 169, 190, 330, 351, 356, 443, 447, 452 athletes, athletics 157, 443 Attic drachmas 41, 383 Aurelius, nomen 39 Baite 44–7, 107, 123, 175, 266 bays, numbering of 57–8 brick vault 8, 19 (figure), 20 Caria, use of eras 38 chancery style 296 Christianity 47–49, 55, 215, 347, 363, 424–5 civic pride 49–50, 108, 118, 169, 190, 330, 351, 356, 443, 447, 452 clerestory 4, 7, 17, 20 colonnade 4, 6 475

476

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

gladiators, gladiatorial games 158, 175, 230, 251–2 graffiti, distinction from dipinti 21 handwriting 41–3 healing 44–7, 151, 175, 177, 185, 202, 266–7, 440 Holy Spirit 48, 215 incised graffiti 41–2, 48 insult 344 intercolumnia 8, 10, 13, 16, 17 Ionia, use of eras 38 Ionic order 6, 17, Isis 184, 273 isopsephism 47, 50–3, 95, 159, 238, 269, 341, 362, 425 judging 67 krepides 4, 17 kyrioi for multiple emperors 40, 169 lamps, dedication of 44, 202 language 43–4 Latin 127–8 letter hands 42 light 21 literacy 22 literary allusion 293, 328 Lydia, use of eras 38 magic 55, 273 Manlius Fuscus, Ti., proconsul 67 Marcus Aurelius 40–1 marriage 387 Miltner, Franz, copies of graffiti by 57 money 41, 134, 353, 358, 362, 383 Mount Pagos 3 murder 102 names, women’s 50–53, 79 Nero 47 Nikaia 96 numbers for names, see isopsephism paleography 41–2, 296 papyrological hands 42

phallus 137 phonetic interchange 43 photography of graffiti 57 Phrygia, use of eras 38 pilot (kybernetes) 274 plaster 38 plaster, condition of 21; conservation of 57 pollution 107, 123 Polycarp, bishop 48, 276 Pompeii 21; literary culture at 22; isopsephism at 53 prayer 44, 202 propylon 4, 13, 15 (figure), 17 public space 21 pun 420 Quintus Smyrnaeus 328 reader, address to 119, 120, 334, 377, 449–50 riddles 55–6, 62, 75, 108–109, 273, 371, 387, 400, 412 rubble vault 10 Sardis 40, 49, 169 shops 21 Smyrna, use of eras 39–40 spirit 48, 215, 347; Spirit, Holy 48, 215, 347 spolia 8, 19, 20 spring in Basilica 45–7, 107, 123 squares, word 54–5, 125, 150 Sulla, era of 38–40 tabula ansata 41 Theagenes of Thasos 157 Tralleis 50 tribunal 4, 7, 10, 13, 15, 16 (text and figure), 20 Virgin Mary 48, 424 western stoa 3, 4, 10, 15, 17, 18 women as writers 22, 293 word squares 54–55, 125, 150 word-play 54–56, 62, 75, 108–109, 125, 150, 273, 371, 387, 400, 412, 420 Zoe, name 49, 339, 347

Concordance of Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum 61 with the Present Volume This Volume

SEG 61 952 953 954 955 956 957 958 959 960 961 962 963 964 965 966 967 968 969 970 971 972 973 974 975 976

T29.5 T25.2 T52.1 T27.3 T24.2 T5.1 T29.1 T6.1 T25.5 T12.5 T12.1 T9.6 T28.1 T9.1 T15.9 T15.4 T27.2 T27.1 T12.2 T14.1 T16.1 TP100.3 TP100.2 T20.1 T28.4 477

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Concordance of Piers and Bays with the Present Volume

Old New Numbers Number G for Graffito Bay North side

1 2

3

4 5

0

6

1

7

First number = Pier on the west of bay Second number = pier on the east of bay Piers (A# for pier/ayak; K# for gate/kapı)

1 2 3 4 4 5 5 6 6 7 7 8 8 9 9 10 10 11 11 12

Gate 4 Gate 5

Gate 6

Gate 7

479

480

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Old New Numbers Number G for Graffito Bay North side 2

8

3

9

4

10

5

11

6

12

7

13

8

14

9

15

10

16

11

17

12

18

13

19

14

20

15

21

16

22

17

23

18

24

First number = Pier on the west of bay Second number = pier on the east of bay Piers (A# for pier/ayak; K# for gate/kapı)

12 13 13 14 14 15 15 16 16 17 17 18 18 19 19 20 20 21 21 22 22 23 23 24 24 25 25 26 26 27 27 28 28 29

Gate 8 (Closed)

Gate 9 (Closed)

Gate 10 (Closed)

Gate 11

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

Old New Numbers Number G for Graffito Bay North side 19

25 26

20

27

21

28

22

29

23

30

24

31

25

32

26

33

27

34

28

35

29

36

30

37

31

38

32

39

33

40

481

First number = Pier on the west of bay Second number = pier on the east of bay Piers (A# for pier/ayak; K# for gate/kapı)

29 30 30 31 31 32 32 33 33 34 34 35 35 36 36 37 37 38 38 39 39 40 40 41 41 42 42 43 43 44 44 45

Gate 12 (no wall)

Gate 13

Gate 14

Gate 15

Gate 16

482

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Old New Numbers Number G for Graffito Bay North side 34

41

35

42

36

43

37 38

44

39

45

40

46

41 42

47

43

48

44 45

49

46

50

First number = Pier on the west of bay Second number = pier on the east of bay Piers (A# for pier/ayak; K# for gate/kapı)

45 46 46 47 47 48 48 49 49 50 50 51 51 52 52 53 53 54 54 55 55 56 56 57 57 58 59

Piers in the middle 60 61 62

No graffiti No graffiti No graffiti Gate 17

Gate 18

Gate 19

Gate 20

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

Old New Numbers Number G for Graffito Bay Piers in the middle

First number = Pier on the west of bay Second number = pier on the east of bay Piers (A# for pier/ayak; K# for gate/kapı)

63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93

483

484

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan

Old New Numbers Number G for Graffito Bay Piers in the middle

First number = Pier on the west of bay Second number = pier on the east of bay Piers (A# for pier/ayak; K# for gate/kapı)

94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

Old Number

68

67 66 65 64 63 62

First number = Pier on the west of bay Second number = pier on the east of bay Piers (A# for pier/ayak; K# for gate/kapı)

485

New Numbers G for Graffito Bay P(Window) Numbers for South Wall - Piers on the south side (P# number in the new excavation) P numbers are used on the South side instead of G numbers 117 118 119 120 stairs 121 (TX.1; on a pier in the southeast) 122 P1 122 P2 123 123 P3 124 124 P4 125 125 P5 126 126 P6 127 127 New P7 128 graffiti 128 P8 129 129 P9 130 130 P10 131 131 P11 132 132 P12 133

486

Old Number

61 60 59 58 57 56 55 54 53 52 51 50 49 48 47b

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan First number = Pier on the west of bay Second number = pier on the east of bay Piers (A# for pier/ayak; K# for gate/kapı)

New Numbers G for Graffito Bay P(Window) Numbers for South Wall - Piers on the south side (P# number in the new excavation) P numbers are used on the South side instead of G numbers 133 P13 134 134 P14 135 135 P15 136 136 P16 137 137 P17 138 138 P18 139 139 P19 140 140 P20 141 141 P21 142 142 P22 143 143 P23 144 144 P24 145 145 P25 146 146 P26 147 147 P27 148

Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna

Old Number

47a 47 46 45 44 43a 43 42 41 40b 40 39 38b 38a 38

First number = Pier on the west of bay Second number = pier on the east of bay Piers (A# for pier/ayak; K# for gate/kapı)

487

New Numbers G for Graffito Bay P(Window) Numbers for South Wall - Piers on the south side (P# number in the new excavation) P numbers are used on the South side instead of G numbers 148 P28 149 149 P29 150 150 P30 151 151 P31 152 152 P32 153 153 P33 154 154 P34 155 155 P35 156 156 P36 157 157 P37 158 158 P38 159 159 P39 160 160 P40 161 161 P41 162 162 P42 163

488

Old Number

37

Bagnall—Casagrande-Kim—Ersoy—Tanriver—Yolaçan First number = Pier on the west of bay Second number = pier on the east of bay Piers (A# for pier/ayak; K# for gate/kapı)

New Numbers G for Graffito Bay P(Window) Numbers for South Wall - Piers on the south side (P# number in the new excavation) P numbers are used on the South side instead of G numbers 163 P43 164 164 P44 165 165 P45 166 166 P46 167 167 P47 168 168 P48 169 169 P49 170 170 P50 171 171 P51 172 172 P52 173 173 P53 174 174 P54 175