White marble; height, 1 foot; width, 10 inches. Smith and Porcher, p. 104, No. 88.
798. Votive relief, with two plaits of formally twisted hair, dedicated to Poseidon by Philombrotos and Aphthonetos. The relief is bounded by two pilasters and an entablature.
Inscribed: Φιλόμβροτος, Ἀφθόνητος Δεινομάχου, Ποσειδῶνι.—From Phthiotic Thebes, in Thessaly. Presented by Col. Leake, 1839.
Marble; height, 1 foot 1½ inches; width, 1 foot 2½ inches; Millingen, Ancient Unedited Monuments, Part II., pl. 16, fig. 2; Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, IV., p. 361; Greek Inscriptions in Brit. Mus., CLXIII.; Daremberg and Saglio, Dict. des Antiqs., s.vv. Coma and Donarium. On the custom of dedicating hair by youths reaching manhood, see Daremberg and Saglio, loc. cit., and Bull. de Corr. Hellénique, 1888, p. 479. See also Mus. Worsleyanum, pl. 9.
The following votive tablets (Nos. 799-808), with representations of portions of the human body and with votive inscriptions to Highest Zeus (Ζεὺς ὕψιστος), were discovered by the fourth Earl of Aberdeen, in 1803. Excavations were made at the foot of the rock-wall near the rock-cut structure commonly known as the Bema of the Pnyx, and the tablets which were then found, are presumed to have fallen from niches cut to receive them in the rock above (Dodwell, Tour, i., p. 402). It has been argued that the spot where the reliefs were found was not the Pnyx, but the altar of Highest Zeus (Welcker, Der Fels-Altar des Höchsten Zeus, &c., 1852). The inscriptions, however, which are here described, are of Roman times, and are of little value for the decision of the question. (Cf. Hicks, Greek Inscriptions in Brit. Mus. lx.)
799. Tablet with votive relief representing a female breast dedicated by Eutychis.
Inscribed: Εὐτυχὶς ὑψίστῳ εὐχή(ν).—Pnyx, Athens. Elgin Coll.
Pentelic marble; height, 5¾ inches; width, 5½ inches. Dodwell, Tour, I., p. 403; Synopsis, No. 210 (245); Mus. Marbles, IX., pl. 41, fig. 3; C.I.G., 504; Ellis, Elgin Marbles, II., p. 105, No. 210; Greek inscriptions in Brit. Mus., LXVI.