Observations on the Xanthos Trilingual: syntactic structure of TL 44a, 41-55 and the Lycian terminology of art and war

The paper offers a new analysis of the passage of the Xanthos trilingual containing a detailed description of the military exploits of the author of the inscription (TL 44a, 41‒55). The first part (§§1–2) discusses the overall structure of the passage and the meaning of the key term of the text, hãtahe, for which an interpretation ‘victory’ (gen. sg.) is proposed. The subsequent paragraphs discuss separate words and particularities of the syntax of the passage. The new proposals include, among others: tupelija‘script, writing(s)’, tupa ‘images, reliefs’, axa‘deed, exploit’, ahata‘foundation, platform’ (§3); hẽmen‘shooting, hunting’ (§3); terñ ‘when’ (adverb with temporal function) (§4); zẽm̃tija ‘formidable’ (§5); nele ‘acropolis’ (§5); ese ... tebe-/taba‘join with’ (§6); tarbi = trbbi ‘against’ (§7); hbãt‘hoplite’ (§8); uwe ‘day’ (§8). The most important historical implications of the new analysis concern Trbbẽnimi and Xerẽi, who are argued to be allies (not enemies) of the author, as well as Herikle, who is identified as a governor (sehaxlaza-) of Kaunos, connected with the Persian king. The resulting translation of the text is proposed in §11.