Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity 2004

154. Funerary verse, for a girl, Thea

Description

Monument: A white marble block (0.30 x 0.52 x 0.64) chipped at upper and right edges, but otherwise complete. There is a rough protrusion on the underside, which presumably fitted into masonry below.
Text: Inscribed on one face; the text must have continued on an adjacent block as part of a substantial monument. There are some gaps to avoid faults in the stone, which was not very carefully prepared to receive the inscription.
Letters: 0.01 (omicron) - 0.025; clear but irregular.
Date: Fourth-sixth century (content,metre).

Text

	ψ̣υ̣χὴ σῶμα λιποῦσα το [...]
	εὔλυτος ἐς μακάρων ἱερὸν γε [...]
	ὀκτωκαιδεκάτῳ τετρατο[...]
	παντάπαν ἧν ἀμενη(ν)ὴ Θεα[...]
5	Ῥώμης καὶ Φαρίης ξύνον γένο[ς]...]
	καλήν, μιλιχίην, ἐρατήν, πινυ[τὴν]...]
	ἕρμα σαοφροσύνης κούρην κρ[...]
	ψυχὴ ἀθαν(ά)τοισιν ὁμέστιος ου[...]
	ἐδομένη φορέειν βρότεον vac.[...]
10	vac.

Translation

(The) soul, leaving the body [...[has gone], released from care, to the holy (i.e. place (or) gathering) of the blessed ones [...[in the] eighteenth [?year and] fourth [?month] ...]. Entirely fleeting was ?Thea- (i.e. (or) the glimpse we had of her) [...] (Her) descent was from both Rome and Alexandria [...] Beautiful, gentle, loveable, discreet, [...] a bastion of prudence (was) the girl whom [...] (Her) soul is living with the immortals [...] being ashamed to bear a mortal [body].

Apparatus

l.1. For σῶμα λιπεῖν see e.g. Peek 1907, 1963, 1978.

l.3. The girl was presumably in her eighteenth year: τετρατο- might refer to the month.

l.4. The restoration ἀμενη(ν)ή is attractive; but ἀμενὴ ἡ θέα is also possible. Thea- is probably the first element of the girl's name.

l.7. ἐδομένη for αἰδομένη: Feissel (1991) 376.

Photographs

Face (1977)	Face (1977)

Commentary

See discussion at IX.19, and, for verse inscriptions, IX.15.

Locations

Found: Cemeteries: built into a field wall some way south of the south-west stretch of the city wall.
Original: Unknown.
Last Recorded: Museum.

History

Recording: Recorded by the NYU expedition in 1972 (72. 157).
Bibliography: Published by Roueché, Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity no. 154 and plate xxxv, whence PHI 738, Steinepigramme 02/09/92 (partial).
Text constituted from: Transcription (Roueché).

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