Greek Inscription Translation?

JZrarities

The reverse has: right, ÂÁÓÉËÅÙÓ / ÖÉËÉÐÐÏÕ
left, ÅÐÉÖÁÍÏÕÓ / ÖÉËÁÄÅËÖÏÕ
Hmm-font didn't work. Link to same inscription:
Philip Inscription

Using my Greek Alphabet translater from the Barclay book
(and also on-line here) Historia Numorum

The legends are for BASILEOS.PHILIPPOU.EPIPHANOUS.PHILADELPHOU

OK... BASILEOS I think means 'King' I don't know what EPIPHANOUS is... Any help?

Babelfish at AltaVista just choked on the translation.

Is there an alphabetical listing of Greek Legends?
Barclay didn't help: Inscriptions

I love the little Nike crowning the King - it has more detail than most I have seen.

cosmicdebris

Those are awesome. I would have really like to have seen what the Romans would have come up with in later years had their empire not fallen.

Philip

Link

Maybe it would help.

It always amuses me to remember that Philadelphia is a Greek fortress I remember when my high school history teacher commented that actually the American city is named after the fortress, not vice versa

syraq

I'll write it in Greeklish, I can't seem to be able to type Greek characters here:

BASILEWS FILIPPOY = (OF) KING PHILIP
EPIFANOUS FILADELPHOY = (OF) PROMINENT PHILADELPHOS

pron. tips (B=V, S=SIGMA, L=LAMDA, P=PI, U=Y,W=Omega)


Philadelphos is a name here I guess,(?) but it literally means brother-loving. Every word or name with phil as its first part has a meaning, since it comes from filos=friend

example: Philip= friend of horses (filos twn ippwn). I don't now why the F of filos was transformed into PH over the years when translated into Latin.


I hope it helps you. All words in this inscription are in "geniki", hence the (of) in my translation. In Greek, modern and ancient, a name or a word changes according to what's preceding it. Example: o Philippos einai o vasileys. (o Philippos , onomastiki) = Philip is the King.
Ta aloga tou Philipou einai etoima (tou Philippou, geniki) = The horses of Philip (Philip's horses) are ready. Note the difference: Philip-pou
W, fileysplaxne Philippe, dwse mas xari. (w Philippe, klitiki) = Oh, merciful Philip, pardon us: Philip-pe

etc,etc, I haven't done this for years, can't you tell?

JZrarities

Thanks for the great help!

If you haven't done it in years, it doesn't show!

harasha

The title of "Epiphanos" indicates that the king has been manifested as divine.
Perhaps the most famous of such kings was Antiochus Epiphanos, the Antiochus of the Hannukah story.
It is said that behind his back, he was referred to as Antiochus Epimanos, Antiochus the Maniac.

syraq

Harasha, perhaps you're right, I don't know if it was used as a title. However, the word is epifanis (accent on the is) , not epifanos.It's an adjective and means, prominent, or eminent. Also,the "Epimanos" that you mention doesn't make sense either, the closest to this is epimonos ,another adjective that means persistent. To have a meaning of maniac, the root of the word should be "mania" ,not monia, same as in English, only the accent is on the i, instead of the first a in English. Maniac is in fact a Greek word, totally unchanged,except for the usual -os or -i at the end that declares the gender.


ex: to skouro alogo einai maniaco kai den prepei na to taizete anamesa se geymata. (= Darkhorse is a maniac and should not be fed between meals)


JZrarities, it's my native language. Still, it's been about 25 years since the last time I was able to translate an unknown ancient text.

harasha

Now I will have to confront that lousy Professor of Biblical Studies from 30 years ago who came up with the anecdote!