Gate to Greece > Travel in Greece > Delos > House of Kleopatra and Dioskrides
One of the high-class residences in the theatre quarter. We know the names of the owners, Dioskourides and Kleopatra, as their statues stand near the entrance. In the photo above, the statues were behind the columns surrounding the atrium.
Dioskourides moved from Attika to Delos in 167 BC or next, when Rome gave the control of the island to the Athenians. He bought a small house here, and later bought an adjoining estate to enlarge the residence. We know he was quite affluent, as he assumed some office of local magistrate and priesthood, that required considerable financian burden. In 138/7 BC, he and his wife Kleopatra set up their statues in their house, which are still standing.
The statues standing now in their house are replicas. The original statues are in the Delos Museum (Left).
Reference
Christian Habicht, Athens from Alexander to Antony, translated by Deborah Lucas Schneider, Cambridge Massachusetts/ Harvard UP 1997, p. 261.
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