ISic000853: Funerary inscription for Klaudia Soteris

Apparatus criticus

line.2: Kaibel: Σωτήρ[ις]
line.3: Kaibel: κ[αὶ]
line.5: Webster: ἔτη · ζγ · μῆνας · ε

Physical description

Support

Description: The stone is reconstructed from six fragments. The upper right corner is lost, as is a piece left of centre of the upper edge down into the second line of text, and smaller chips from the left edge and the lower right corner. The stone is filled with plaster extending from the lower left corner of the upper right break to the fourth line of text. The fragment below is stained red. The stone has been filled with plaster in all these breaks. It was not removed from its slate frame in 2012.
Object type: plaque
Material: Limestone
Condition: damaged
Dimensions: height: 18.6 cm, width: 25.2 cm, depth: cm

Inscription

Layout

Greek text over 6 lines, becoming more compressed towards the end. The letters are very deeply cut with a bull-nosed chisel, and are painted in red.

Text condition

deteriorated

Lettering

Letter heights

Lines 1-5: 32mm

Interlinear heights

Not measured: mm

Provenance

Place of origin: Syracusae
Provenance found: Salvatore Politi (ap. IG XIV.36) reports found next to the so-called 'tomb of Archimedes', a rock-cut tomb in the Grotticelli necropolis; according to Wilshere (letter to De Rossi), 'da un fosso sulle confine di Caradicia (? illegible) ed Epipoli'; according to Ferrua 1941 reporting De Rossi, 'trovata in una fossa tra Agradina e Tyche'. Transported to Siracusa museum in 1880 after discovery, but then purchased by Wilshere in May 1885; subsequently in the Wilshere collection at Pusey House; now in the Ashmolean
Map

Current location

Place: Oxford, Great Britain
Repository: Ashmolean Museum , AN2007.61
Autopsy: Walker 2015

Date

(AD 1 – AD 200)

Evidence: No data

Text type

funerary

commentary

Webster tentatively restored the name in line 2 as Quinta(?). The form of the opening sigma of Soteris is distorted by a vertical break in the stone.

Webster, following De Rossi and Wilshere, dated the inscription to the Byzantine period on grounds of palaeography, but it is surely pagan and of pre-Christian, Roman date, the distinctive letter forms (for example, rhomboid omega) being especially prevalent locally, while the formulaic epithet and the precise indication of age at death are typical of Greek epitaphs of modest quality made for people of relatively low social standing in early imperial Sicily. Indeed, similar epitaphs were found in situ by Orsi in the Grotticelli cemetery above cremation burials packed in ceramic jars; one such epitaph of a certain Valeria was associated with a large bronze coin of Trajan (Orsi 1913: 269, with fig.11) . However, late 19th-century exploration of the same cemetery had demonstrated that burials continued into the eighth century AD; some indubitably 4th-6th century finds of bronze jewellery and lamps were associated with fragmentary epitaphs of this type, which were surely residual (Orsi 1896: 346 for a fragment from the epitaph of Claudius, with rhomboid letter forms). Possibly this text was found broken in a late antique context of this sort.

For correspondence between De Rossi and Wilshere regarding the stone, see Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana VatLat 14273, 1885.339 (letter from Wilshere to De Rossi of May 20th 1885) and Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana VatLat 14273, 1885.509 (August 13th 1885). A tracing by Wilshere, sent to De Rossi, is held in the De Rossi Ms, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana Vat.Lat., 10529 (non vidimus)

Bibliography

Digital editions

Printed editions

Citation and editorial status

Editor

Jonathan Prag

Principal contributor

Susan Walker

Contributors

Last revision

6/14/2025