Tanais Market Restored under Rhescuporis -- A Greek Building Inscription

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A Greek Building Inscription from the Bosporan Frontier

This Greek inscription comes from Tanais near the mouth of the Don and belongs to 220 CE in the Bosporan era. It records civic building work under King Rhescuporis, son of the great King Sauromates, and preserves a dense list of Tanais archons, an Hellenarch, overseers, architects, and local Iranian-looking names.

For the Scythian shelf, the inscription is valuable as frontier civic evidence rather than a campaign narrative. It shows the Bosporan royal house, Tanais civic offices, merchants, and the restored agora in the same documentary frame as Sauromates and Rhescuporis.

The translation below was made from the inspected Ancient Greek text of PHI Greek Inscriptions record PH183985 / CIRB 1245.

Translation

With good fortune. In the reign of King Rhescuporis, son of the great King Sauromates, and when Zenon son of Phannes was ambassador of King Rhescuporis, and when Khopharnos son of Sandarzios, Babos son of Baioraspes, Nibloboros son of Dosymoxarthes, and Choroathos son of Sandarzios were archons of the Tanaitai, Chophrazmos son of Phorgabakos and Basileides son of Theonikos, Hellenarch, after completing the marketplace at their own expense, restored it to the city and to the merchants through the overseers Zenon son of Phannes, Pharnoxarthes son of Taures, and Phaldaranos son of Apollonios, and through the architects Diophantos son of Neopolos, Aurelius Antoninus, and Nauakos son of Meuakos.

In the year 517.

Colophon

This Good Works Translation was prepared for the Scythian shelf by the New Tianmu Anglican Church from the Ancient Greek inscription text printed below. The English is a new rendering from the Greek.

The inscription is included as Tanais, Bosporan, and north Black Sea civic evidence. It should not be used as a broad ethnic claim. The value of the text lies in the documentary frame: royal dating under Rhescuporis and Sauromates, Tanais magistrates, merchant space, and public restoration in a frontier city.

Prepared for the Good Works Library of the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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Source Text: CIRB 1245 / PH183985

Ancient Greek source text from PHI Greek Inscriptions, CIRB 1245 / PH183985. Presented here for reference, study, and verification alongside the English translation above.

1 ἀγαθῆι τύχηι.
ἐπὶ βασιλεῖ Ῥησκουπόριδι, υἱῷ
μεγάλου βασιλέως Σαυρομάτου, κα̣ [ὶ]
Ζήνων Φάννεως πρεσβευτῇ βα-
5 σιλέως Ῥησκουπόριδος καὶ Χο-
φάρνου Σα̣νδαρζίου Βάβος Βαιο-
ράσπου Νιβλόβωρος Δοσυμοξάρ-
θου Χορόαθος Σανδαρζίου ἄρχον-
τες Ταναειτῶν Χόφραζμος Φοργα-
10 βά̣κου, Βασιλείδης Θεονείκου ἑλ-
ληνάρχης ἐξαρτίσας τὴν ἀγορὰν̣
ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων ἀναλωμάτων ἀπεκα-
τέστησ̣α̣ τῇ πόλει καὶ τοῖς ἐμπό-
ρ̣ο̣ι̣ς̣ δ̣ιὰ ἐπιμελητῶν Ζήνωνα Φά [ν]-
15 [ν] ε̣ως Φαρνόξαρθος Ταυρέου,
Φαλδάρανος Ἀπολλωνίου καὶ
[ἀρ] χιτεκτόνων Διοφάντου Νε-
οπόλου κα [ὶ] Αὐρηλίου Ἀντωνε [ί]-
νου, Ναύακος Μευάκου.
20 ἐν τῷ ζ̣ιφʹ.

Source Colophon

The source text was inspected from PHI Greek Inscriptions, CIRB 1245 / PH183985, identified by PHI as N. Black Sea — Tanais — 220 AD — IosPE II 430. The local HTML capture and extracted Greek source are preserved in the Scythian source archive as phi_183985_cirb_1245_ins15.html and phi_183985_cirb_1245_ins15_source.txt.

PHI prints this as a twenty-line Tanais inscription dated 220 CE, with royal formula, civic offices, marketplace restoration, overseers, architects, and the Bosporan era date. The translation treats the personal names conservatively by transliteration and leaves the civic terms as city, merchants, marketplace, archons, Hellenarch, overseers, and architects.

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