Epitaph for Timokritos Who Fell in Battle Against the Aetolians

Abstract

The metrical inscription celebrates the death of the soldier Timocritus, who was killed in a clash with the Aetolians. Previous editors have unanimously dated the text to the end of the third century BCE, believing the war event to be related to one of the assaults the Aetolians made against Acarnania during the social war of 220‑217 BCE. A re-examination of the text and a comparison with other metrical epigraphs found on site and with historical sources allows an alternative dating proposal to be made. According to Livy, the polis of Tyrrheus was attacked again in 192‑191 BCE by the Etholos-Syriac troops of Antiochus III. In the absence of an autopsy examination or images of the find, it therefore seems plausible to ascribe the inscription either to the end of the third century BCE, linked to the events of the social war of 220‑217 BCE, or to the beginning of the second century BCE, connected to the Aetolo-Syrian attack of 192‑191 BCE.