[In the year]99. For the prayer of [Z]oilos, the (most) excellent [...] and all his near and dear.

 

V.V. Latyshev's reading of the inscription was printed in a footnote to Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich 1904, 40–41.

The discoverer considered the shattered marble block to be the base of a half-column, but in that case the letters would appear to be upside down, and additionally, the function of a half-column in the pastophorion of a church would be incomprehensible. We must conclude that either the base of a half-column was reused as a capital and inscribed, which is unlikely, or that we are dealing with a different architectural member. The semicircular shape suggests that this is a support for a semicircular table-mensa, corroborated by the finds, nearby, of fragments of just such a mensa (see below). The surface is worked, but left rough to ensure secure attachment of the table-top.

Presently, four out of nine fragments are preserved in the National Preserve of Tauric Chersonesos (fr. 2, 3, 5, 8 and 9 are missing). When preparing his edition of the inscription Latyshev was misled by an inaccurate drawing of the fragments, where the left half of fragment 6 was shown as much longer than it actually is: in fact, the left half joins the right half exactly and the two are currently glued together. In addition, fragment 5 was drawn upside down, bearing the letters rho (or beta), eta and epsilon, or a ligature omicron-upsilon.

On the formula, see Introduction IV.3.B.b.

The letters preserved on fragment 5 either represent the ending of a title, e.g., spatharios, or more likely, the word κυρίου. Only here could we place the fragment bearing the letters ΕΝΔ, which can be restored as either ἐνδ[οξοτάτου] or ἐνδ[όξου]: the latter epithet is rarely used with common people, being seemingly reserved for saints and emperors - I could find only two examples from Constantinople (Mango 1951, 63, № 1a; Ἀντωνιάδης 1908, 352, 519).

Latyshev did not propose a reading for the sequence ΩΙΛΟΥ, but it can only stand for the name Zoilos. In inscriptions from Chersonesos, it occurs only in the IIIrd century BCE (LGPN IV, 146). Four saints of this name are known (see Delehaye 1902, 336, 505, 600, 606, 909), and it is attested twelve times in Greek Christian inscriptions, according to PHI7 Database (see also below).

After the letters ΑΥΤ, a ligature omicron-upsilon is clear. The fact that the arch of the semicircular tabletop ends at this point suggests that here the inscription ended.

Qoppa, which is clear on Fragment 1, must be part of the date, as had already been noted by Latyshev, and together with the following theta it gives us the number 99, which cannot be the year of someone's rule, but must refer to the local era. An alternative explanation was suggested to me by D. Feissel in a private conversation - to see here an isopsephy of the word ἀμήν (cf. Feissel 2006, № 232, 846, 1048), however, the only position where we could place fragment 1 would be at the start of the inscription (since the right end of the inscription is preserved, see above), which makes Feissel's attractive solution doubtful, since in all surviving examples the isopsephy of the word Amen occurs at the end of the text.

Alpha with broken crossbar, angularity of some letters (omega, ligature omicron-upsilon) and highly articulated serifs point to a date in the VI-VIIth centuries, thus the following dates are possible: 599 or 699 of the Chersonessian era (other eras are not attested here prior to 915 C.E.), corresponding to 573–576 or 673–676 C.E. (see commentary to V 6). The first possible date could be connected with the reconstruction of a cruciform martyrium: we may recall the building inscription of Justinian I dated 565–574 C.E. (V 7), from the south city wall of Chersonesos (curtain walls XVII-XVIII — opposite the Suburban Church), which shows palaeographic similarities with the dedication of Zoilos (except for the forms of epsilon and omega). The second possible date could be associated with the cult of Pope Martin I who was buried here in 655 C.E. (see Sorochan 2005, 801–809). Finally, in the late VIIth - early VIIIth centuries we know of a famous Chersonian named Zoilos — "princeps civitatis from an ancient family," who was taken prisoner after the punitive raid of Justinian II in 711–712 C.E. (Theophanes Confessor, Chronographia 378). In 674–675 C.E., he may well have been a dedicator at the suburban cruciform church, especially considering the usual (for Chersonian dedications) title "most excellent." At the same time, the rare name Zoilos could reoccur in a noble family from generation to generation.

Both dates that we consider possible for this inscription fit in well with the building history of the church. If the inscribed table was dedicated after the construction of the cruciform martyrium, then we should associate the construction with the early 570s, which is supported by the dating of a monetary pledge found in a side chapel (see Vinogradov 2009a). If the table was dedicated after the church's reconstruction, then we should date the latter event to the early 670s C.E. and associate the dedication with the change in the church's function as the burial place of Pope Martin I in 655 C.E. A delay of 15 years is not unrealistic, considering that the emperor Constans II who had exiled the pontifex to Cherson died in 668, and soon after his death, in the reign of Constantine IV who adhered to a policy of religious pacification, the reconstruction of the church could have begun. In any case, the present inscription testifies that the cruciform church, on whose floor its fragments were found, had been rebuilt no later than the end of the VIIth century.

The inscription on the table is undoubtedly the dedication of a ktitor for the Suburban Cruciform Church. It could conceivably have been dedicated while the church was in operation, but it would be more logical to envision that it was associated with the construction or reconstruction of the building when it was in need of decoration. It is possible that the inscribed stone served as a support for a sigma-shaped mensa (Diam. 110cm) from the same church. Zalesskaya (1976, 207–208) considers the fragments of the latter as belong to a serving plate of the late IVth - early Vth centuries, but if so, it could have been reused in the late VIth - early VIIth centuries, by analogy with the reuse of the antique marble Heracles' club as a lampstand in the church itself. A semicircular table could serve various functions (see Khrushkova 2002, 113–114, 376–377, 407). A dedicatory inscription with a similar inscription on the tabletop edge is in the collection of the Louvre (Duval, Metzger 1996, 311–314, fig. 3).

We can add that this Chersonian monument continued in use for a long time: fragment 7 bears a later two-line inscription in Armenian (cf. Маrr 1904), but its text is almost illegible, as well as the Greek letters next to it.