Anatolian Studies

Table of Contents - Volume 41 - 1991  

Research Article

Victors in the Meleagria and the Balbouran Élite*

N. P. Milner

A sizeable part of the epigraphic record of the North Lycian city of Balboura concerns the erection of statues honouring athletics victors of the Antoninia Meleagria, a “musical” festival founded A.D. 158–161 by the local notable Meleager, the subject of J. J. Coulton, N. P. Milner, A. T. Reyes, “Balboura Survey: Onesimos and Meleager Part II”, AS XXXIX (1989) 41–60. In this paper the whole series of 12 Meleagria bases is published, five for the first time, together with other inscriptions demonstrating the victors' membership of the leading families of Balboura, with one possible exception (Inscr. 11). The Meleagria bases are presented in chronological order, and are referred to by the same numbers as the inscriptions they carry. The tops and front elevations of the better-preserved ones are shown on Fig. 2.

Footnotes

* Acknowledgements are due to J. J. Coulton, for inviting me to take part in the BIAA site survey at Balboura in 1986 and 1987, to Christ Church, Oxford, the Craven Foundation and the Meyerstein Foundation, for financial assistance towards my epigraphical work at the site, and to the Turkish authorities and their Representatives on the survey, for their help. I am also grateful to Dr. Coulton for constructive criticism of an earlier draft of this article, and assistance with the plan of the city, and other editorial matters.