New Lead Plaques with Greek Inscriptions from East Crimea
Saprykin Sergey Yu., Fedoseev Nikolay F.
This is a publication of two inscriptions on lead plaques, discovered by chance in the Eastern Crimea and kept in private collections in Kerch and Sebastopol. The first one, rather fragmentary (10 lines, only 4 partly restored) comes from Kerch and was found on the Mithridates Hill – ancient acropolis of Panticapaeum, the capital of the Bosporan kingdom. It is dated to the first half of the 3rd century BC and gives a list of male personal names (only the names Doreos, Achaos, Thys are preserved). The document is a kind of defixio, rather popular in Ancient Greece and in the Black Sea areas – in Olbia and Bosporus. But this particular inscription is significant as the above mentioned personal names belong to people from Paphlagonia on the north coast of Asia Minor (the place name is mentioned in line 2). It is for the second time at Bosporus when the Paphlagonians are mentioned there in epigraphy. We had only one inscription before with the name of a Paphlagonian Drosanis, who in the first half of the 4th century BC fought in the country of the Maeotians, probably as a mercenary soldier of the Spartocids. The newly published inscription could refer to the mercenaries from Paphlagonia or simply to the immigrants who settled down in Panticapaeum as merchants. The second lead plaque was found in the sea off the shore in Acra, a small Bosporan town on the coast of the Strait of Kerch, and is dated to the late Hellenistic or early Imperial time. Seven partly preserved lines of the inscription prove that it was a message written by Botrys, the city prefect (οJ εjπι; τη ̃ ς ποvλεως), to a local official whose name can be plausibly restored as [Phili]ppos or [Leoni]ppos, etc. Botrys, presumably a royal official (his position has appeared at Bosporus for the first time, but is often attested in Ptolemaic Egypt, Pergamum, Cappadocia and the Seleucid kingdom), was appointed to Acra by the king of Bosporus to put under control the local administration and taxation and was deeply concerned with the coming of water or moisture into the shrines and other public buildings, including stoa. He ordered the local official who was in charge of them to stop it quickly. This inscription is very important, as Acra is now almost completely under the sea. The town was situated on the cape, while its coastal part, now swallowed up by the sea, was suffering from floodings already in ancient times. Bosporus was sporadically attacked by them, as we know it from Pliny the Elder, who told a local story about Antissae and Pyrrae – cities on the Maeotis (their real location is unknown) which were completely flooded up by sea-water (Pliny II. 94).