An Ionian Dedication to Isis

Extract

The inscription of which a facsimile is given below is incised on the base of a bronze statuette which has lately been acquired by the Cairo Museum: The statuette itself represents Isis seated on a throne suckling the child Horus. It is an ordinary Egyptian type and there is nothing Greek about the work except the inscription. Its provenance unfortunately is unknown.

The letters run round the four sides of the plinth (as shown in the facsimile), those in front being bordered by two horizontal strokes. In the second line the surface is injured between the Τ and the O, but nothing appears to be lost. What ἐλύσατο means is not clear: one would naturally take the inscription to be a dedication, in which case the verb might be interpreted as ‘offered in fulfilment of a vow’ possibly, however, the words refer to some particular incident, such as the rescue of the sacred image from an enemy. The alphabet is Ionian: so too are the proper names and the genitive-ending Ἔσιος. The best known Pythermos of whom there is any record is the Phocaean ambassador who figures in a characteristic episode in Herodotus (i. 152). A Graeco-Egyptian inscription in the Alexandria Museum (Botti, Cat. p. 253) mentions another Neilon, the father of a certain Pythogeiton: in this case the family came from Samos.