ISic001207: Epitaph for Nemeris, a goldsmith

Photo J. Prag, courtesy Museo Archeologico Regionale Antonino Salinas
ID
ISic001207
Language
Ancient Greek
Text type
funerary
Object type
stele
Status
draft
Links
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Edition

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Apparatus criticus

  • Text after earlier editions and photograph;
  • line.1: Salinas, Νεμέρις; Kaibel, Νεμέρις or Νεμέρι[ε]
  • line.3: Salinas, Νυμφόδωρι

Physical description

Support

Description
A rectangular sandstone cippus, intact and finished on all sides, but uneven below; minor damage to the upper left of the front face
Object type
stele
Material
sandstone
Object condition
No data
Dimensions
height: 40 cm, width: 31 cm, depth: 14.5 cm

Inscription

Layout
Five lines of Greek letters, centred on the stone
Text condition
No data
Technique
chiselled
Pigment
No data
Lettering

Slightly crudely incised simple broad letters without serifs. Nu i sregular; epsilon has slightly shorter middle bar; mu has slightly inward leaning first and last strokes, the mid-strokes reach down to the base-line; rho has a small eye, not always fully closed; alpha has broken bar; omega varies between open circle closed by horizontal bar and closed ovoid form with horizontal bar; phi has a small circular eye; sigma has standard form with horizontal top and bottom storkes; omicron is approximately the same size as other letters.

Letter heights
Lines 1-5: 30-45mm
Interlinear heights
Interlineation line 1 to 2: mm

Provenance

Place of origin
Abacaenum
Provenance found
From the area of the necropolis in contrada Cardusa
Map

Current location

Place
Palermo, Italy
Repository
Museo Archeologico Regionale Antonino Salinas , 8706
Autopsy
Palermo Museum, July 2017
Map

Date

2nd century BCE(?) (200 BC - 101 BC)
Evidence
No data

Text type

funerary

commentary

The reading of line 1 is problematic; traces of a letter seem to be visible after the final iota, but whether a sigma or a faint epsilon very uncertain. Manni Piraino rejected the presence of a letter and argued for a vocative in -i from forms (common in Sicily) in -is; on the other hand, the vocative Νεμέριε from the well attested Greek rendering Νεμέριος is straightforward. A Numerius Granonius, N.f. Cat(ulus?), domo Luceria, who served in Roman legions of the mid-C1 BC is known from an Athenian inscription (CIL 1 (2).791). Manni Piraino (in IGPalermo) dates this inscription to the C2 AD, apparently on the basis of the nomenclature and assumptions about the letter forms. The principal area of the necropolis, however, is archaeologically Hellenistic (and not later than the early C2 BC), and only a single inscription from the general area of Tripi (the Latin fragment, ISic 0623) is certainly from the imperial period. There is nothing about the letter forms themselves which requires an imperial date (closed omega with variable forms is common in the later Hellenistic, and the absence of any lunate forms is notable), so the argument appears to rest on historical assumptions regarding the Italic/Roman elements in the name, which do not follow proper Roman conventions regarding e.g. filiation, and employ Sicilian Greek orthography. In other words, an earlier, rather than a later date seems more plausible, of the second century BC?

Bibliography

Digital editions
Printed editions

Citation and editorial status

Editor
Jonathan Prag
Principal contributor
Jonathan Prag
Contributors
Last revision
1/19/2021