UN DONO DEGNO DI UN RE: COPPE D’ARGENTO TOLEMAICHE IN UN’ISCRIZIONE DI CIRENE

Abstract

Most scholars agreed that IG Cyrenaica 016800 was either a decree or a law by the people of Cyrene that
regulated the handling of Apollo’s sacred vessels, that is until Dobias-Lalou proved that this document is
rather a Ptolemaic ordinance about the same topic. A list of silver vessels is inscribed on the same stone
just after the ordinance, but so far it mostly eluded the scholars’ attention. After providing a new edition of
the whole document, in the present paper I argue that the list is an attachment of the Ptolemaic ordinance
and attests to a gift of silver vessels from the king in Alexandria to the Cyrenaeans. On the other hand, this
gift was likely the king’s answer to a request by the people of Cyrene, which might explain the ordinance’s
clauses against mishandling, theft, and misappropriation. Lastly, thanks to a new reading of line 6, I argue
that the document was penned by none else than Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II in his capacity as king of Egypt.