Cleon, son of Sosicrates, and the Funeral Game for Leonidas
(FR; DE)
I would like to present today an inscription from Sparta, dating from the 2nd c. AD, probably from the time of Trajan. It was found for the first time in the 18th c. "near the theater" of Sparta by the french scholar Michel Fourmont (1690-1746), who travelled through Greece in the searching of old manuscripts in the years 1729-1731 and collected a lot of inscriptions. (Michel Fourmont is a fascinating figure and I certainly write some posts about him in the future.) British archaeologists found the inscription again during excavations "in a trench by Theater" (Annual of the British School at Athens, 12, 1906, 478). Here is the text (IG V1 660) :
I would like to present today an inscription from Sparta, dating from the 2nd c. AD, probably from the time of Trajan. It was found for the first time in the 18th c. "near the theater" of Sparta by the french scholar Michel Fourmont (1690-1746), who travelled through Greece in the searching of old manuscripts in the years 1729-1731 and collected a lot of inscriptions. (Michel Fourmont is a fascinating figure and I certainly write some posts about him in the future.) British archaeologists found the inscription again during excavations "in a trench by Theater" (Annual of the British School at Athens, 12, 1906, 478). Here is the text (IG V1 660) :
ἁ πόλις
Κλέωνα Σωσικρά-
τους ἀγωνισάμενον
4 τὸν ἐπιτάφι[ον Λεωνίδα]
καὶ Παυσαν[ία καὶ τῶν λοι]-
πῶν ἡρώω[ν, καὶ στεφα]-
νωθέντ[α — — — ἕνεκα]
8 καὶ σεμν[ότατος, τὸ ἀνά]-
λωμα
προ[σδεξαμένων —]-
ωνος το[ῦ — — — — — —]
καὶ Δαμοκ[ράτους τοῦ — —]-
12 ωνος τῶν [— — —]
"The city | (honours) Cleon, son of Sosicra|tes
who competed | in the funeral game for Leonidas | Pausanias and the o|ther
heroes and who was crown|ed on account of his - - - | and of his dignity, the
ex|pense being undertook by - - - |on the son of - - - | and Damocrates the son of - - - |on, his - - -"
The inscription, written on a large stone block, is not entirely legible: the right part of the stone after the third line was apparently damaged (I didn't saw the stone and the archaeologists gave no description). The words between [ ] are lost and could be restored only in a few cases.
At the lines 7-8 was, beside the dignity, the mention of another virtue for which Cleon was praised. The first editor, August Boeckh, in his Corpus Inscriptionum Graecum, I.4, 1828, n. 1417, restores the lines 8-9 as follows: [... καὶ στεφα|νωθέντ[α ἀνδρείας ἕνεκα]|8 καὶ σεμν[ότατος βίου...] "and who was crowned on account of his vigour and of the dignity of his way of life", after the text of another Spartan inscription (CIG 1426 = IG V1 472). But that inscription honours a young man for another kind of accomplishment (about which, see N.M. Kennell, The Gymnasium of Virtue: Education and Culture in Ancient Sparta, Chapel Hill, 1995 [review]) and I am not sure that the virtues of Cleon as a winner of the funeral games for Leonidas had to be the same. If the word σεμνότατος (dorian form of σεμνότητος, we must perhaps not preserve) is certain, I think that it is not necessary to add the genitive βίου "(dignity) of his way of life" which is also too long. Comparing with the other lines, it semms that we have with that word more letters than the space on the stone could contain.
In his edition for the great corpus of the Academy of Berlin , the Inscriptiones Graecae (V.1: Laconia et Messenia, 1913), Walther Kolbe suggested tentatively to restore at the lines 9-12 the names [Κλέ]ωνος ... and Δαμοκ[ράτους τοῦ Δαμί]ωνος (the last one after IG V1 212) and to recognize here to nephews (l. 12 τῶν [ἀδελφιδῶν]) of Cleon. There is a lot of other possibilities and, since we don't know how old Cleon was, I find such hypothesis far too risky.
At the lines 7-8 was, beside the dignity, the mention of another virtue for which Cleon was praised. The first editor, August Boeckh, in his Corpus Inscriptionum Graecum, I.4, 1828, n. 1417, restores the lines 8-9 as follows: [... καὶ στεφα|νωθέντ[α ἀνδρείας ἕνεκα]|8 καὶ σεμν[ότατος βίου...] "and who was crowned on account of his vigour and of the dignity of his way of life", after the text of another Spartan inscription (CIG 1426 = IG V1 472). But that inscription honours a young man for another kind of accomplishment (about which, see N.M. Kennell, The Gymnasium of Virtue: Education and Culture in Ancient Sparta, Chapel Hill, 1995 [review]) and I am not sure that the virtues of Cleon as a winner of the funeral games for Leonidas had to be the same. If the word σεμνότατος (dorian form of σεμνότητος, we must perhaps not preserve) is certain, I think that it is not necessary to add the genitive βίου "(dignity) of his way of life" which is also too long. Comparing with the other lines, it semms that we have with that word more letters than the space on the stone could contain.
In his edition for the great corpus of the Academy of Berlin , the Inscriptiones Graecae (V.1: Laconia et Messenia, 1913), Walther Kolbe suggested tentatively to restore at the lines 9-12 the names [Κλέ]ωνος ... and Δαμοκ[ράτους τοῦ Δαμί]ωνος (the last one after IG V1 212) and to recognize here to nephews (l. 12 τῶν [ἀδελφιδῶν]) of Cleon. There is a lot of other possibilities and, since we don't know how old Cleon was, I find such hypothesis far too risky.
The restoration of the name of Leonidas at the fourth line is however sure, because of an interesting passage of Pausanias about which we will soon learn a little bit more...
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