A South Italian votive inscription on an Apulian oinochoe in Budapest

The interaction between Greek and Italic linguistic traditions in South Italy during the Classical period generated a rich body of hybrid epigraphic material, especially in regions situated at the intersection of Greek colonial infl uence and indigenous populations. Among these documents, painted inscriptions on ceramic vessels occupy a particularly important position, since they frequently preserve evidence of local cult practices, associational identities, and forms of bilingual or bicultural expression. The οἰνοχόη discussed here belongs to this material. Preserved today in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest (inv. 75.40A), the vessel reportedly comes from Rionero in Vulture (Potenza) and was acquired in 1975 from György Markos1. Although the inscription has already been mentioned in the major corpora of South Italian vase-painting and epigraphy2, its linguistic and cultic implications deserve renewed examina- tion. The present study therefore aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the inscription and to situate it within the wider framework of Greek-Italic cultural interaction in fourth-century BCE Southern Italy. The vase is an Apulian red-fi gure oinochoe (Shape 5), attributed to the Schlaepfer Painter and dated between 370 and 350 BCE, a period characterized by intense cultural interaction across Southern Italy. During the fourth century BCE, Apulian workshops produced large quantities of fi gured pottery not only for Greek colonial centres but also for indigenous elites in Lucania, Daunia, and Peucetia. This circulation of material culture facilitated parallel processes of linguistic and religious exchange. Greek became increasingly dominant as a prestige language for inscriptions and ritual communication, while local populations continued to preserve indigenous naming traditions and social structures. The inscription on the Budapest oinochoe exemplifi es this dual process particularly well: Greek script and mor- phology coexist with probable Italic lexical and social elements.