Oenoanda

Oenoanda: town in Lycia, modern Incealiler. The first page of this article can be found here.

This photo shows the esplanade, a large open area.

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One of the unidentified structures near Oenoanda's agora. Photo Marco Prins.

One of the unidentified structures of Oenoanda.

And another one.

The next photos show Oenoanda's theater.

The theater of Oenoanda. Photo Marco Prins.

A tomb in Lycian style. Photo Marco Prins

A tomb in Lycian style, outside the walls.

An inscription, found on the esplanade.

Another inscription, found on the esplanade.
In the second century CE, one of the citizens of Oenoanda, Diogenes, presented his town with a very large inscription on a long wall, in which he showed the Oenoandans the road to happiness. It is one of the most important sources for the philosophical school of Epicurus.

Fragment 30 of the inscription of Diogenes of Oenoanda. Photo M.F. Smith.

The inscription was discovered at the end of the nineteenth century, but research gained momentum only after 1968, when professor M.F. Smith investigated the site and the inscription. At the moment, 224 fragments are know, which probably contain about a quarter of the full text on the wall. This photo by professor M.F. Smith shows fragment 30; the next picture is his transcript.

(©!!!)

Transcript of Fragment 30 of the inscription of Diogenes of Oenoanda. By M.F. Smith.

We contrived this [inscription] in order that, even while sitting at home, we might be able to exhibit the goods of philosophy, not to all people here indeed, but to those of them who are civil-spoken; and not least we did this for those who are called "foreigners," though they are not really so. For, while the various segments of the earth give different people a different country, the whole compass of this world gives all people a single country, the entire earth, and a single home, the world.
I am not pressurising any of you into testifying thoughtlessly and unreflectively in favour of those who say "this is true" for I have not laid down the law on anything, not even on matters concerning the gods, unless together with reasoning.

One thing only I ask of you, as I did also just now: do not, even if you should be somewhat indifferent and listless, be like passers-by in your approach to the writings, consulting each of them in a patchy fashion and omitting to read everything.

[tr. M.F. Smith]