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The Epitaph of Avircius Marcellus1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

W. M. Calder
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Extract

The capitals are preserved on the fragment in the Lateran Museum, the minuscules were read from the stone in the fourth century by the Writer of the Life. In 1. 7, the MSS of the Life give βασιλείαν or βασίλειαν; the former is printed by most editors in defiance of Ramsay's report that ΒΑΣ[ι]ΛΗ was on the stone when he and Sterrett saw it at Hieropolis in 1883. No disputed reading in the whole range of ancient Christian epigraphy has aroused keener controversy; no reading affects so vitally the whole purport of a document. If we read βασιλῆαν, the Pure Shepherd sent a second-century Phrygian Bishop to Rome to look upon the Emperor and Empress. If we read βασιλείαν, Avircius was sent to Rome during the reign of Marcus Aurelius to look upon Sovereignty and a Sovereign Church. The reading βασίλειαν of some MSS, implying a visit to the Empress and Princess, need not be considered. It has the advantage of βασιλείαν in point of metre, but the Epitaph elsewhere (lines 8, 14, 15, 18, to say nothing of 21, 22) is irregular in its scansion.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , 1939 , pp. 1 - 4
Copyright
Copyright ©W. M. Calder 1939. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

2 For this, in addition to Ramsay and Lüdtke-Nissen cited in note 1, see Migne, PG 115, 1245; AA.SS. Mensis Oct. vol. ix, 513 (cf. 491 ff. and 515 ff.); and Nissen, Th., S. Abercii Vita (Leipzig, 1912), 53 f., 81 f., 121Google Scholar f. For recent discussions of the text see above all Dölger, F. J., ιχΘΥΣ ii (Münster-i.-W., 1922), 454Google Scholar ff. and Abel, F. M. in Byzantion iii, 1926, 322Google Scholar ff.

3 βασιλῆαν must be regarded as the Ionic-Epic accusative singular of βασιλεύς, with the termination often given to that case in later Greek. The view that βασιλήαν might be the phonetic equivalent of βασιλείαν never had plausibility.

4 CB 725— ‘ΒΑΣ ΛΗ was on the stone distinct and certain in 1883 and 1888. In the course of transport from the Pentapolis to Rome…the sharp edge of the stone has suffered, and the H on the extreme edge has been obliterated. The H was read by Sterrett and myself in 1883 … In 1888 I …again read H without hesitation.’ In JHS xxxviii, 1918, 190,Google Scholar Ramsay reports that he and Sterrett ‘read on the stone quite certainly in 1883 the left-hand half of the letter H. It was not E, because there were no cross strokes at top and bottom, only the beginning of a cross stroke in the middle. As the H was certain, and as the text had to be reproduced in type, I thought it best to give the letter complete in order to avoid uncertainty.’

5 Expansion of Christianity ii, 25 ff.

6 Published in JHS xix, 1899, 296, no. 212Google Scholar. I read συνομέμοις as certain in 1929. The inscription, described as ‘probably Christian’ by its editor, is certainly Christian. With the line quoted, cf. the opening line of a Christian epitaph of Cotiaeum—τὸν κλυτὸν ἐν ʒωοἴσι τὸν ἓξοχον ἐν μερόπεσσι (JRS xv, 1925, 142, no. 125)Google Scholar.

7 Compare 1. 5 of the Epitaph with I. 1 of the fourth-century verse-epitaph from Laodicea Combusta published in Anatolian Studies presented to Sir W. M. Ramsay (Manchester, 1923), 76Google Scholar.

8 Ramsay, CB 720, no. 656.

9 Ibid., p. 719, no. 654.

10 Ibid., p. 720, no. 655.