ISic003337: Funerary inscription for Eirena
- ID
- ISic003337
- Language
- Ancient Greek
- Text type
- funerary
- Object type
- plaque
- Status
- No data
- Links
- View in current site
Edition
Apparatus criticus
- Text from autopsy;
- line.10: ΦΙΛΤΛΤΗ on stone
Physical description
Support
- Description
- A small slab of white marble with blue veining still set in plaster. The slab is intact on all sides, although cracked across the lower right corner.
- Object type
- plaque
- Material
- marble
- Condition
- No data
- Dimensions
- height: 20.7 cm, width: 18.8 cm, depth: greater than 1 cm
Inscription
- Layout
- Ten lines of Greek filling the available space, decreasing notably in size in the second five lines
- Text condition
- No data
- Lettering
-
- Letter heights
- Line 1: 12-18mm
- Line 2: 14-19mm
- Line 3: 12-22mm
- Line 4: 8-22mm
- Line 5: 12-18mm
- Line 6: 9-16mm
- Line 7: 7-14mm
- Line 8: 6-12mm
- Line 9: 6-10mm
- Line 10: 5-13mm
- Interlinear heights
- Interlineation line 1 to 2: 10-15mm
- Interlineation line 2 to 3: 3-7mm
- Interlineation line 3 to 4: 5-15mm
- Interlineation line 4 to 5: 4-10mm
- Interlineation line 5 to 6: 2-7mm
- Interlineation line 6 to 7: 2-7mm
- Interlineation line 7 to 8: 1-6mm
- Interlineation line 8 to 9: 1-5mm
- Interlineation line 9 to 10: 1-5mm
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Halaesa
- Provenance found
- Excavated in 1990; part of the cover of tomb 20, necropolis of Rocche Marina, Castel di Tusa
- Map
Current location
- Place
- Halaesa, Italy
- Repository
- Antiquarium e sito archeologico di Halaesa , ME 20272
- Autopsy
- display room B2
- Map
Date
Later 4th — 5th century CE (The tombs of the necropolis are dated to the late 4th and 5th century CE (Tigano 2008b: 49) and the inscription easily fits within this date range. (AD 350 – AD 500)- Evidence
- context
Text type
commentary
The text offers a good example of a type of funerary inscription that is moderately well-attested in Sicily, mixing verse and prose in the construction of a funerary epigram – much of this text is quasi-verse rather than truly metrical (see Manganaro 1994 for further examples). Linguistically it shows several features which are non-standard, such as the occasional use of epsilon for eta (e.g. Μοίρες for Μοίρης) and multiple cases of iotacism. Manganaro notes that the form Eirena as opposed to Eirene often occurs in a Jewish context and may therefore signify that Eirena was of Jewish origin. At the same time, the christograms in the final line make it clear that her husband was Christian. The interpretation of Βωτιβοῖο in the final line is debated. Manganaro suggests that this is two words in the dative: the relatively rare name Βῶτις followed by the rarer ethnic Βοῖος, signifying either Pannonian, or more likely from a region of western Gaul near Bordeaux (and he notes evidence for various links between Gaul and Sicily in the Imperial period, suggesting therefore that Botis was a Gallic trader). Perrin (in AE 2006 no.514) suggests that this is instead a single word, ending in a Homeric genitive form (-οιο), and is a transliteration of the Latin name Votivus (and so ‘beloved of Votivus’, rather than ‘most dear to Botis the Boian’). The tombs of the necropolis are dated to the late fourth and fifth century AD and the inscription easily fits within this date range (Tigano, G. 2008. Le necropoli. In G. Scibona and G. Tigano (eds), Alesa Archonidea. Guida all'antiquarium (Palermo), p.49).
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: 645584
- EDR: -
- EDH: -
- EDCS: -
- PHI: -
- Printed editions
- AE at 2006.0514 Zotero FAIR
- ‘Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum’, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 1923, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1607583, at 56.1085 Zotero FAIR
- Giacomo Manganaro Perrone, «Epigrafe in greco di IV sec. d.C. di Alesa (Sicilia) in versi e prosa, per la morte di Eirena Philandros, “carissima a Botis boio-celtico”», Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 158 (2006): 89–92. Zotero FAIR
- G. Scibona and G. Tigano, Alesa Archonidea. Guide to the Antiquarium (Palermo: Regione Siciliana, 2008), at 46-49, 52 ph Zotero FAIR
- Tigano (2009) at 163, 184
- J.R.W. Prag e G. Tigano, Alesa Archonidea: il lapidarium, Introduzione all’archeologia di Halaesa 8 (Palermo: Regione Siciliana, Assessorato beni culturali e identità siciliana, Dipartimento beni culturali e identità siciliana, 2017), at no.39 Zotero FAIR
Citation and editorial status
- Editor
- Jonathan Prag
- Principal contributor
- Jonathan Prag
- Contributors
- Jonathan Prag
- James Cummings
- James Chartrand
- Valeria Vitale
- Michael Metcalfe
- system
- Simona Stoyanova
- Last revision
- 1/19/2021