Description: A rectangular statue base shaft, without moulding, of bluish marble, chipped at upper right corner, and broken in two (w: 0.50 × h: 1.53 × d: 0.37).
Text: The inscription is laid out with unusual elegance: the epigram itself is cut within a decorative margin, and each couplet is inscribed in four lines (five for the third) with each line starting slightly to the right of the one above, but returning to the margin at the start of the next couplet.
Letters: Line 1. 0.04; lines 2 - 14, 0025, line 13. 0.05; neat and rounded, very similar to 5.18, except for line 1, which is in an angular hand, more like that of 5.17 and 11.515.
Date: Sixth century. (prosopography)
Findspot: Aphrodisias: Hadrianic Baths, East court/Palaestra, West portico: 'Face E(st) du pylône N(ord) ' (Boulanger).
Original location: Hadrianic Baths
Last recorded location: Findspot, lying loose.
Translation source: ALA 2004
To Good Fortune. You have made many presents to your country, Rhodopaios, so many that they are not easy to say or to count; and the city has presented you with great honours, father, having set up your image in marble so that time may not obscure your image - you who are loved by many - overshadowing it with forgetfulness. With good fortune!
Translation source: Merkelbach and Stauber, 1998
Vieles hast du, Rhodopaios, deiner Vaterstadt geschenkt, Vieles, das auszusprechen oder zu zählen schwere wäre; aber die Stadt hat dich, Vater, mit grossen Ehren beschenkt, indem sie dein Bild in Marmor aufgestellt hat, damit selbst die Zeit deine, Vielgeliebter, Gestalt nicht beschatten und verdunkeln könne.
Transcription: Boulanger, notebooks, 16 October 1913 A, 69 no. 6, whence B, 31, no. 6; J. and L. Robert, 1946; New York University expedition
Publication: Robert, Hellenica IV 127 and plate vii, from Boulanger and his own copy, whence Robert, Bulletin Épigraphique 1949.178 , Robert, Bulletin Épigraphique 1972.473 ; Roueché, ALA 85 and plate xxi, whence McCabe, PHI, 1996 727 , Merkelbach and Stauber, 1998 02/09/23 , ALA 2004 85, whence LSA 188; Smith, 2007 B 40 (description); IAph2007 5.16.
Fig. 1. Upper part (M. Roueché, 1972)
Fig. 2. Lower part (M. Roueché, 1972)
Fig. 3. Top of base (Lenaghan, 1994)
Fig. 4. Transcription by Boulanger, Notebook A, p. 69