Sull’amphipolos in IG XIV 574 da Centuripe

Abstract

IG XIV 574 (3rd-1st cent. BC) is a dedication to Zeus Ourios, i.e. Zeus ‘of the favoring wind’, placed at his own expense by the amphipolos Artemiskos, son of Nymphon, Kabamos, when Herakleios Aristonikos was Centuripe’s eponymous official. The title of the eponymous office held by Herakleios unfortunately remains unknown, but in this paper the hypothesis is formulated that it was amphipolos and that its introduction in the polis goes back to the period in which Timoleon instituted the eponymous amphipolos of Olympian Zeus in Syracuse (second half of the 4th cent. BC). This interpretation of the information contained in IG XIV 574 seems to be confirmed by the sources – e.g. Diod. 16.82.4; Cic. Verr. 2.4.128; 2.5.88 – which show the existence of close relations between Centuripe and Syracuse in the political, religious and socio-economic sphere.