ПОСВЕЩЕНИЕ НА ИЗИДА И САРАПИС ПО ВРЕМЕ НА ЦАРУВАНЕТО НА РЕМЕТАЛК (IK Byzantion 324)
DEDICATION TO ISIS AND SARAPIS AT THE TIME OF THE REIGN OF RHOEMETALCES (IK BYZANTION 324)

Summary/Abstract: This text is dedicated to an inscription with unknown provenance, stored for sometime in the Istanbul Museum, today in the National Museum of Warsaw, first published in1911. It is a dedication to the gods Isis and Sarapis at the time of the reign of Rhoemetalces(Ἴσιδι καὶ Σαράπιδι· βασιλεύοντος Ῥοιμετάλκου) from Artemidoros, son of Synistor – nauarch during the Great Ploiaphesia (IK Byzantion 324): To Isis and Sarapis, at the time of the reign ofRhoemetalces, when a merarch was Artemidoros, son of Philostratus, in the year 32 Artemidoros, son of Synistor, who was nauarch during the Great Ploiaphesia, consecrated this telamon. Sincethe first publication, the dating of the inscription is linked to the king Rhoemetalces I because of the year in the inscription (l. 6), associated by some of the researchers with the era of Actium, by others – with the reign of Rhoemetalces I, which is uncertainly dated. Despitethe explicitly stated unknown provenance, the epigraphic document remains attached to Byzantium. M. Tacheva is the only one who states doubt the connection of the inscription with the first Rhoemetalces, and she displaces it dates to 37–45 AD, i.e. to Rhoemetalces III. For a place of provenance expresses a preference to Perinthus or Mesembria. The inscription is extremely interesting with the two mentioned offices – merarch andnauarch. Both carry information about a Thracian control over Byzantium (?) or over the city where the stele (telamon) was erected. A decree from Cyzicus and information in Tacitus seem to provide an opportunity to revise and put the inscription in a different temporal context. Anyway, the dedication to the two Egyptian gods Isis and Sarapis on the occasion of the great feasts to the resumption of navigation celebrated on 5 March in one of the maritime centres around Propontis from the nauarch Artemidoros, most probably happens with the support of the Thracian king Rhoemetalces, whose name the dedicator explicitly mentions.

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