ISic001317: Funerary inscription

No image available

ID
ISic001317
Status
draft
Language
Ancient Greek
Object type
unknown
Text type
funerary

Edition

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Apparatus criticus

  • line.1: ΘΚΔ lapis; Θ(εοῖς) Κα̣(ταχθονίοις) CIG III 5709, IG XIV 495
  • line.5: ἀνδρὶ εὐσεβ[εστάτῳ IG XIV 495; ἀνδρὶ εὐσε[βεῖ Amico; ἀνδρὶ εὐσε[βεῖ μνήμης χάριν CIG III 5709

Physical description

Support

Description
No data
Object type
unknown
Object condition
No data
Dimensions
height: cm, width: cm, depth: cm

Material

Description
stone
Type > subtype
stone.unspecified > unverified

Inscription

Layout
No data
Text condition
No data
Technique
chiselled
Pigment
No data
Lettering
No data
Letter heights
Line 1: mm
Interlinear heights
Interlineation line 1 to 2: mm

Provenance

Place of origin
Catina
Provenance found
Carrera reports found outside the walls of the city on the west side

Current location

Lost

Date

imperial period (CE 1 - CE 400)
Evidence
No data

Text type

funerary

commentary

The epitaph was dedicated by his wife, Herakleia, to her husband, Vispanius Zotikos, who was probably a freedman of the gens Vipsania, whose members were well represented at Catania. This is unsurprising, as Vipsanius Agrippa owned estates in the area (see Salmeri 1984, 18–19), and is further confirmed by other Imperial-period funerary inscriptions mentioning individuals of the Vipsanii (IG XIV 494; IMusCatania 146; CIL X 2, 7101). The epitaph belongs to Formula G4 in Korhonen’s classification (2004, 86–87). It comprises an invocation to the gods — in the otherwise unparalleled abbreviated form ΘΚΔ, which represents a conflation of the formulae Θ(εοῖς) Κ(αταχθονίοις) and Θ(εοῖς) Δ(αίμοσι) (the instances in SEG 52.903 and 905 are antiquarian forgeries derived from this text) — followed by the name of the deceased and his age, the name of the dedicator, and the deceased’s name in the dative accompanied by an expression specifying the relationship between the two. The header is reported as complete and intact by Carrera and there is therefore no inherent reason to doubt it, although the abbreviation Κα(ταχθονίοις) is attested in ISic001152 from Termini Imerese and Carrera might have misread delta for alpha. The restoration proposed by Kaibel for line 5 (ap. IG XIV 495), εὐσεβ[εστάτῳ], is particularly convincing, since at Catania the superlative of εὐσεβής is attested exclusively in this type of funerary formula (cf. Korhonen 2004, 90).

Bibliography

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Discussion

Citation and editorial status

Editor
Jonathan Prag
Principal contributor
Jonathan Prag
Contributors
Last revision
8/3/2026