A New Agonistic Inscription from Attouda

Abstract

This paper introduces an unpublished Greek agonistic inscription recorded during the epigraphic survey research carried out in 2021 within the scope of Attouda and its surrounding. The inscription was discovered embedded in one of the interior walls of a residential building in the Kuru District of the present-day Hisar Village in Saraykoy. The statue base bearing the inscription in question has been recorded on the interior wall of this nearly destroyed square-planned structure. The inscription is the first theatrical inscription found in the city so far. Metrodoros, the son of Metrodoros who is also the biological son of Claudius Thallus, is honored by the homeland in the inscription. Metrodoros was both a herald (kappa eta rho upsilon xi) and a comic actor (kappa omega mu omega delta omicron zeta). This is the first inscription documenting the names of Metrodoros and his father Claudius Thallus in the city which is also important with respect to recording these names and contributing the prosopography of Attouda. Unlike the published agonistic inscriptions recorded in the city so far, the person honored in this inscription is introduced with the names of two fathers. Another striking point is that the name of the agon in the fifteenth line seems intentionally deleted, an intervention that has also been observed in two published agonistic inscriptions found in the city. Based on the praenomen Claudius and letter forms, the inscription is dated to the 1st century AD and later.