Adolf Wilhelm, Louis Robert e una presunta eco cretese della polemica sull’Altare della Vittoria

A statue base found in Olus (Crete) at the end of the XIXth century bears two texts engraved on opposite sides, one in verses and the other in prose. Since the first editor, the two inscriptions are commonly believed to form a single dedication, honouring a late roman provincial governor, Asclepiodotus (already known and in charge in 382-3 ca.), in connection with the ‘Victory of the Romans’. In his Hellenica IV (1948) Louis Robert proposed to connect this double text to a supposed reaction of the Greek pagan elites to the removal of the altar of Victory in Rome. In the same period (1950) Adolf Wilhelm, without knowing Robert , suggested that the two texts were in fact separated and offered a new reading of the one in verses. Robert finally accepted, at least to some extent, the interpretation of Wilhelm, nonetheless more recent scholars still refer to his first interpretation (no doubt because of the extraordinary influence of his Hellenica IV). In year 2012, the author was able to inspect the stone , which had not been re-examined since its discovery. Such an examination has definitively confirmed that the two texts belong to different inscriptions and that Wilhelm was right. The small base was firstly used (may be in the third century) for carrying a statue of Victory, and was eventually re-used as pedestal for a bust or portrait of the governor Asclepiodotus. Various problems concerning both formal and textual aspects of the two inscriptions are discussed.