Votive Dedications for Attalus’ Victories

Abstract

These seven inscriptions were found in Pergamon and originally engraved on a long rectangular base built in the temple square of Athena Nikephoros. They date from 241/240 BC to 224/223 BC and commemorate the victories of Attalos I during the first fifteen years of his reign. The defeated enemies were the Galatians, Antiochos Hierax and the strategoi of Seleukos III and Lysias, a member of the Philomelid dynasty. By his first victory, around 240 B.C., near the banks of the Caico against the Galati alone, Attalos I assumed the official title of Σωτήρ and was recognised as βασιλεύς. All of his successes were such as to receive the honour of two other triumphal monuments, similarly erected in the square of the temple of Athena. In this way, this sacred place commemorated the victories of the Pergamum rulers and became a symbol of the ideology and dynastic propaganda inaugurated by Attalos I and continued by his successor, Eumenes II.