Le 1er du mois de Dalios, (5) à Hélios un boeuf, blanc ou fauve; le démiurge le sacrifie ; le 20 : un boeuf, blanc ou fauve.

Avant le 20 Panamos, trois caprins; les hiéropes les sacrifient; et [...]

The inscription is one of a large number of extracts from a sacrificial calendar inscribed or recodified in the late Classical or early Hellenistic period and disseminated at various local sanctuaries, presumably as punctual reminders and short regulations in and of themselves (for the early beginning of such excerpts, cf. here CGRN 62 and CGRN 63, both from Lindos). The excerpts perhaps come from the general sacrificial calendar of the unified city of Rhodes or perhaps equally probably from that of Kamiros itself. See e.g. CGRN 109 for further examples from Kamiros; e.g. CGRN 115 for others from Lindos. For a general discussion of these excerpts, see Segre and Carbon forthc.

Here, the excerpt concerns rites for Helios, presumably at the principal sanctuary of this god at Kamiros.

Lines 1-5: The first of Dalios is perhaps to be identified with a major celebration at Kamiros in honour of several gods, also Athena Polias (CGRN 109) and the Muses with Mnemosyne (CGRN 113). The Dalia is a good possibility, and the role of the δαμιουργός here as the principal sacrificial agent confirms the importance of the celebration for the local community and the polity as a whole, since he was the most important civic magistrate at Kamiros (he is also frequently associated with the ἰεροποιοί, cf. Tit.Cam. 9-16). An analogous celebration is to take place later, before the 20th of the same month. In the reconstruction of the Rhodian calendar refined by Badoud and generally adopted here (for a different view, see Iversen), Dalios was the first month of the year (ca. August/September). The month of Dalios happened near the end of summer, which can seasonally be reckoned to be an appropriate time to worship the sun. On both occasions, the god receives an ox whose colour is prescribed as a choice between white and tawny. Specifications of the colour of sacrificial animals are rare in ritual norms. Blackness is sometimes emphasised in certain sacrifices (cf. here CGRN 32, line 34, from Thorikos). Here, by contrast, the underlying notion of the colour choice seems the concern to offer an animal with a light and non-black appearance, which aptly echoes the brightness which is a quality of the Sun god (cp. also CGRN 117, lines 5-6, for a similar sacrifice to Helios at Lindos, on the 14th of Hyakinthios).

Lines 6-9: Panamos also takes place in the summertime (immediately before Dalios in the standard Rhodian calendar). Instead of a specific date, a deadline of the 20th or of the first two decades of the month is prescribed; cf. LSJ s.v. εἴσω (II; though this usage occurs usually in later sources). Neither the sacrifice of three goats (probably he-goats to a male god) performed by the ἰεροποιοί (and perhaps others, line 9) nor the reason for this dating are otherwise known.

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