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Balboura Survey: Onesimos and Meleager, Part I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

J. J. Coulton ,
N. P. Milner  and
A. T. Reyes
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Extract

In the course of the survey of the surface remains of the North Lycian city of Balboura, our attention was drawn to three small buildings near the southwest corner of the agora (Fig. 1), because their association with a series of inscriptions casts an interesting light on the society of the city. Most of these inscriptions have long been known, although three are unpublished, but their significance cannot be fully appreciated without some knowledge of the buildings and statue bases with which they are associated. Our aim, therefore, is to consider the architectural and epigraphic evidence together.

The buildings concerned (Figs. 2–4) are, from west to east, an exedra set up by Onesimos the city slave (demosios), with statues of the Demos and Boule of Balboura; a temple of Nemesis, also built by Onesimos; and a second exedra, set up by the wealthy Meleager, son of Castor. All three buildings face southward onto a paved street, and turn their backs to the agora, which was set at a lower level to the north.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Anatolian Studies , Volume 38 , December 1988 , pp. 121 - 145
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute at Ankara 1988

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References

1 The study of the exedra of Meleager is by J. J. Coulton, that of the other architecture by A. T. Reyes, while all the inscriptions are the responsibility of N. P. Milner. As is inevitable in such a joint investigation, however, each of us owes much to discussion with the others. The site plan (Fig. 1) is adapted from the survey plan by Dr. L. Bier of Brooklyn College, New York, and the state plan of the temple of Nemesis and the exedra of Onesimos was executed with his assistance. Valuable advice on Nemesis, Boule, and Demos was provided by Dr. O. Palagia.

2 Because the temple probably had Ionic, Corinthian, or Composite capitals (below, p. 128), its columns would normally have had twenty-four flutes (Vitr. 3.5.12; 4.1.1.). For an Ionic building whose principal columns had sixteen flutes, see Dinsmoor, 142 (fifth-century B.C. stoa of the Athenians at Delphi); cf. Coulton, J. J., Greek Architects at Work (1977) 39Google Scholar.

3 Cf. Shoe, 145, 149–50; pl. 69.

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5 For examples, see RE 13 (1927) 2000 no. γGoogle Scholar (Eleusis); 2004 no. 17 (Basilica Julia in Rome); 2006 no. 2 (Timgad and Germany), s. v. lusoria tabula. For a photograph of an example from Eleusis, see Liddell, D. M., Chessmen (1938) pl. opposite 115Google Scholar.

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14 Vitruvius recommends that the height of a door should be 2–2·5 times its width (4.6.1, 3), but surviving ancient doorways vary considerably in proportions. The proportions of height to width for doorways in Lanckoronski vary roughly from 1·5 (1, 78) to 2·4 (2, 82–3, fig. 34). The proportions from Greece and Italy tabulated in Donaldson, op. cit. (n. 13) 30 vary from 2–2.6; those in Büsing-Kolbe, op. cit. (n. 13) 138, Tab. 1 from c. 1.5–3.75.

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55 Loc. cit. (n. 34).

56 Loc. cit. (n. 50); but Wörrle, loc. cit. (n. 73), refutes Balland's interpretation.

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76 Vitr. 4.3.4 with reference to 3.3.12. Note also Coulton, J. J., BSA LXXIV (1979) 125, fig. 10Google Scholar; the Doric façade is chronologically closest to the buildings of Group 9/12 (Hellenistic), whose capitals suggest that the proportions of upper to lower column diameters varied between 0·8 and 0·9.

77 Shoe, 165, pl. 55.

78 On the use of handling bosses and for other examples, see Martin, R., Manuel d'architecture grecque I (1965) 209–10Google Scholar; J. J. Coulton, op. cit. (n. 2) 47–8, fig. 12e.

79 A distance of c. 0·20 m. might have been expected; note, for example, Lanckoronski 2, 81, fig. 32 (an Ionic temple) and 82, fig. 33 for the evidence.

80 For a similar step-cutting, cf. Courby, F., Picard, C., Recherches archéologiques à Stratos d'Acarnanie (1924) 38Google Scholar, fig. 20 and 43, fig. 23 (the inner frieze), with comments ad loc.

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82 Vitr. 4.3.4.

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87 Ibid., 68.

88 Coulton, J. J., AS XXXII (1982) 50–1, fig. 5Google Scholar.

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91 Coulton, J. J., AS XXXVI (1986) 8Google Scholar; for the inscription dating the aqueduct, see IGR 3, 466Google Scholar; Naour, C., Anc Soc 9 (1978) 166–70Google Scholar with bibliography.