Hieradoumian tombstones – very unusually for Greek-language epitaphs – typically give the precise date of death in the format year, month, and day, and age at death is also very often specified. As a result, we have a large body of data for analyzing demographic patterns in the region. This chapter analyzes Hieradoumian patterns of seasonal mortality, broken down by sex and age. The results show both similarities and differences with other comparable datasets from other parts of the Greco-Roman Mediterranean. Infants and young children are heavily under-represented in the funerary record, as are (to a lesser extent) women. Since votive inscriptions are also often precisely dated, it is likewise possible to gain some sense of dominant seasonal patterns of religious activity in Roman Hieradoumia. The large number of dated epitaphs from the second-century AD allows us to trace the impact of the Antonine Plague in western Asia Minor; the chapter concludes with a brief discussion of the pathogens which may have shaped ‘normal’ seasonal mortality patterns in the region.

This chapter explores the state of knowledge about the Antonine Plague, an empire-wide pandemic that struck from the mid-160s. It emphasizes that even against the backdrop of the unhealthy environment of the Roman empire, the Antonine Plague stood out as an extraordinary event in its geographical scope and biological impact. The stories of the Roman armies introducing the plague on their return from the Parthian campaign deserve greater scrutiny, as they are likely colored by imperial propaganda concerning Avidius Cassius and Lucius Verus, but the notion that the disease was caused by a pathogen carried into the Roman empire from without, likely along Red Sea and Indian Ocean trading routes, is plausible.

After brief discussion of the manuscript evidence for the Epistula Apostolorum, the primary focus of the Introduction is on questions of genre and provenance. While the (modern) Latin title presents this text as a letter, its focus on revelation also links it to Christian apocalyptic texts. Yet the Epistula is most fundamentally a gospel, with close thematic connections to other early gospel literature, especially the Gospels of Matthew and John, of which the author makes selective use at a number of points. While a question-and-answer session between Jesus and his disciples on Easter morning occupies the bulk of the text, it also includes a collection of miracle stories and an account of the ascension, confirming its gospel-like character. To describe it as an ‘apocryphal’ gospel is, however, anachronistic given its early date. References to the apostle John and the heretic Cerinthus suggest an Asian provenance, and a date of around 170 CE would account both for Jesus’ announcement of his return after 150 years and for the emphasis on the worldwide plague expected to precede that return, identifiable as the ‘great plague’ spoken of by Galen and later writers.