ISic001626: Epitaph for Sokrates
- ID
- ISic001626
- Language
- Ancient Greek
- Text type
- funerary
- Object type
- plaque
- Status
- draft
- Links
- View in current site
Edition
Apparatus criticus
- Text based on photograph ;
- line.2: Orsi, Agnello, Wessel: πάντων ὁ | φίλος; Ferrua, Korhonen: πάντων | φίλος (Ο is part of the Christogram)
Physical description
Support
- Description
- Marble plaque damaged on the left upper corner (restored with plaster).
- Object type
- plaque
- Object condition
- damaged
- Dimensions
- height: 36 cm, width: 50 cm, depth: 3.5 cm
Material
- Description
- marble
Inscription
- Layout
- No data
- Text condition
- No data
- Technique
- chiselled
- Pigment
- No data
- Lettering
Regular letters with apices, lunate Ε and Σ, cursive Ω, A, Δ and Λ with extended serifs. Two Christograms at l. 2.
- Letter heights
- Lines 1-4: 33-45mm
- Interlinear heights
- Interlineation line 1 to 2: not recordedmm
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Catina
- Provenance found
- Found in a cemetery to the East of the chamber with paintings and graffiti on Via Vittorio Emanuele (Orsi).
Current location
- Place
- Catania, Sicilia
- Repository
- Museo Civico di Catania , 315
- Autopsy
- Observed by Orsi in Museo Civico, later by Korhonen in Magazzino del cortile, Museo Civico (formerly sala VI 123).
- Map
Date
4th century CE (AD 301 - AD 400)- Evidence
- No data
Text type
commentary
This epitaph has a formula very similar to pagan epitaphs, although the presence of the two Christograms denotes it as Christian. Ferrua and Korhonen read πάντων φίλος with the interpretation of Ο as part of the Christogram, which in this case should be interpreted as ὁ Χ(ριστό)ς (the same hight of the letter O compared to the other letters of the text is probably a misinterpretation of the stonecutter). However, there is no need to eliminate the article since other parallels of similar epithets denoting friendship and affection in Christian inscriptions, such as IMusCatania 178 = ISic001359 and SEG 65. 791 = ISic001633 present the names of the deceased followed by adjectives preceded by the article (Κάλλιστος καὶ | Εὐκαρπία οἱ φιλόστορ|γοι and ὁ πανφίλ|ητος ... Εὐδέμων respectively).
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: 645078
- EDR: -
- EDH: -
- EDCS: -
- PHI: 316276
- Printed editions
- Accademia nazionale dei Lincei, Istituto nazionale di archeologia e storia dell’arte (Italy), e Reale Accademia d’Italia, «Notizie degli scavi di antichità», Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità, 1876, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1646037, at (1918), 62 no.3
- S.L. Agnello, Silloge di iscrizioni paleocristiane della Sicilia (Rome, 1953), at no.58)
- C. Wessel, Inscriptiones Graecae Christianae Veteres Occidentis, Inscriptiones Christianae Italiae (Bari: Edipuglia, 1989), at 1022
- Antonio Ferrua, Note e giunte alle iscrizioni cristiane antiche della Sicilia (Vatican, 1989), at 110 no.416
- Kalle Korhonen, Le iscrizioni del Museo civico di Catania : storia delle collezioni, cultura epigrafica, edizione (Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 2004), at 196
Citation and editorial status
- Editor
- Jonathan Prag
- Principal contributor
- Jonathan Prag
- Contributors
- Last revision
- 11/5/2025