Graffiti of a pyrrhic dancer
created: Preliminary transcription (Reynolds, Roueché).
source date: First to sixth centuries CE
language: en; grc
availability: Creative Commons licence Attribution 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). You may redistribute and reuse this content, including creation of derivative works and commercial content, but you must acknowledge the original authors. All reuse or distribution of this and derived works must link back to the URL http://insaph.kcl.ac.uk/

πυρριχιϲτήϲ ὁ α Αὐρήλιος Ϲυμ[...]

?The first pyrrhich(istes), Aur(elius) Sym[ . ..

The reading and interpretation of this text is extremely uncertain; but it does seem likely to be a reference to the Pyrrhiche, a kind of war-dance which was very popular in the Roman imperial period, and is attested in contests at Aphrodisias (.IV.i.5, .iii.9; see also Robert, Helines I, 151-2, J. and L. Robert, Claros I, 58-9, W. Slater, ‘Orchestopala’, ZPE 81 (1990), 215-20). ὁ α´ can probably be taken as ὁ πρῶτος ‘the first’. If the phrasing has been interpreted correctly, the performer’s name was never completed. See Performers and Partisans, ad loc..

[...]

[...] 7.e , whence [...] PPAphr 7.e, [...] 8.11.