ISic001148: Funerary inscription for a family, including Nemenidas and Cleopatra
- ID
- ISic001148
- Language
- Ancient Greek
- Text type
- funerary
- Object type
- plaque
- Status
- No data
- Links
- View in current site
Edition
Apparatus criticus
- Text from autopsy;
- d.3: Brugnone reads σεῖο to match text in line 2, autopsy reveals the epsilon is missing in line three (σῖο).;
- Brugnone reads Νεμηνία, autopsy reveals Νεμινίδα
Physical description
Support
- Description
- Rectangular plaque of grey-brown stone, well-squared, but cut down on left side. Rear appears relatively flat, although slightly curved.
- Object type
- plaque
- Material
- stone
- Condition
- No data
- Dimensions
- height: 31 cm, width: 44.5 cm, depth: 11.5 (on right)-12 (on left) cm
Inscription
- Layout
- Text is divided into two bands. The top band is separated into three columns, with a thin, serifed vertical line on a slight tilt between each column of text. Each column contains three lines of Greek. The bottom band contains three lines of continuous text, although with a vacat in the first line. Large empty vacat at the bottom of the stone.
- Text condition
- No data
- Lettering
-
- Letter heights
- Line 1: 16-23mm
- Line 2: 17-26mm
- Line 3: 19-25mm
- Line 4: 9-14mm
- Line 5: 10-19mm
- Line 6: 11-19mm
- Interlinear heights
- Interlineation line 1 to 2: mm
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Thermae Himeraeae
- Provenance found
- The place, date, and circumstances of the discovery are unknown, but the piece is assumed to come from Termini Imerese
Current location
- Place
- Termini Imerese, Italy
- Repository
- Museo Civico Baldassare Romano , 132
- Autopsy
- Antoniou, 2022-07-06. On display in Museo Civico Baldassare Romano
- Map
Date
2nd — 3rd century CE (AD 101 – AD 300)- Evidence
- No data
Text type
commentary
Probably belonged to a family tomb. As Brugnone notes, it is possible that the missing name at the beginning of line 1 of column 1, and the missing name at the beginning of the lower band of text, is Aristodamos, attested in the inscription as the father of Nemenidas. The missing word at the end of column 1 is an unrecoverable superlative, Brugnone suggests several possibilities: ἀπλούστατος, εὐσεβέστατος, εὐτυχέστατος, σωφρονέστατος. Given the difference in text in the bottom band, these lines were perhaps added later. These lines are written in metrical form, with the description of Cleopatra as divine in line 1 of the bottom band in iambic trimeter, and the following two lines in hexameter. Brugnone notes that these poetic lines are very similar to the phrase "sit tibi terra levis" common in Latin funerary epigraphy, but that it can also be found in Greek contexts as well. It is possible that Nemenidas and Cleopatra are the parents of the poet, Aristodamos Nemenidas Persios, honoured in ISic001135 also at Thermae Himeraeae. Brugnone even posits the hypothesis that this Aristodamos may have even written the verse inscribed on this plaque. Aristodamos is a name attested elsewhere in Sicily. The name Cleopatra, very frequently attested, is unsurprisingly linked to Hellenistic Egypt, but also has one other attestation in Thermae Himeraeae ISic000100
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: 492761
- EDR: -
- EDH: -
- EDCS: 39102305
- PHI: 140633
- Printed editions
- G. Kaibel, Inscriptiones Graecae Siciliae et Italiae, additis graecis Galliae Hispaniae, Britanniae, Germaniae inscriptionibus, Inscriptiones Graecae consilio et auctoritate Academiae Litterarum Regiae Borussicae Editae. Volumen XIV., XIV (Berlin: Georgius Reimerus, 1890), at 14.0329
- Antonietta Brugnone, «Iscrizione greche del museo civico di Termini Imerese», Kokalos 20 (1974): 218–64, at 14
Citation and editorial status
- Editor
- Jonathan Prag
- Principal contributor
- Jonathan Prag
- Contributors
- Last revision
- 8/23/2023