ISic004335: I.Sicily inscription 004335

Apparatus criticus

Text from Orsi

Physical description

Support

Description: two joining fragments of a marble plaque, said to be intact above and to the right, but broken to left and below. Described by Orsi as blue-grey marble (marmo assurognolo), and by Ferrua as marmor carulea.
Object type: plaque
Object condition: No data
Dimensions: height: 9 cm, width: 11 cm, depth: cm

Material

Description: marble

Inscription

Layout: No data
Text condition: No data
Technique: chiselled
Pigment: No data
Lettering: Regular letters, with an open sigma in line 1, but also an ornate interpunct. Letters estimated from dimensions of the fragments
Letter heights: Line 1: 20-25mm
Interlinear heights: Interlineation line 1 to 2: mm

Provenance

Place of origin: Syracusae
Provenance found: From 28 burials in the pavement of the Rotonda di Eusebio, in Catacomb of S. Giovanni, excavated 1894

Current location

Place: Siracusa, Sicilia
Repository: Museo Archeologico Regionale Paolo Orsi , 14611
Autopsy: None
Map

Date

later third to fifth century CE (AD 275 - AD 500)

Evidence: No data

Text type

funerary

commentary

The fragments have not so far been located. The museum inventory has a later note in the margin stating that only the small lower right fragment (with the letters ΤΟΥ) is preserved. Orsi published the piece without further comment. In an unpublished manuscript Ferrua suggested restoring [Φηλ]ιξ in line 1. In a detailed note of 2011, Korhonen (reiterated in Korhonen and Soraci 2019) argued, beginning from the assumption that the letter forms in Orsi's drawing 'can hardly be later than Augustan', that the first line contained a reference to the office of agoranomos, and the second to the verb δεκυρεύω (otherwise only attested epigraphically in IG XIV.575 (ISic001394) at such a date, although attested in Polybius already from the second century), and so restored the fragment as a dedication by an aedile of the city post-46 BCE (either Latin municipium or Roman colonia), suggesting the following expansion: [---]ις ἀγορα-|[νομ-, --- δε]κυρεύ-|[σας --- ἐκ τὠ]ν ἑαυτοῦ | [ἀνέθηκε(ν) (?) ---]. Ferrua's suggestion already highlights the potential fragility of basing much upon the apparent 'open sigma' of line 1, since Ferrua clearly believed that the form drawn by Orsi was a xsi and not a sigma at all. That said, four-bar sigma can be found in the catacombs (e.g. Orsi, NSA 1893, p.281 no.11, in the word ἀγορασια(!)), and so is not in itself decisive. The other letters can hardly be considered diagnostic on a small marble plaque. The very nature of the marble plaque is curious and problematic: Korhonen assumes this to be a recycled marble fragment in the catacombs, with this text belonging to the original use (and even speculating on a possible later text on the reverse, unmentioned by Orsi). However, marble of this sort (blue-grey) is not attested in epigraphic use on the island much before the end of the first century CE, and stands in clear contrast to the idea that the palaeography must be no later than Augustan (all Syracusan epigraphic plaques on marble of the later Hellenistic or Augustan period are white marble). Once one removes the idea that this *must* be Augustan or earlier (founded purely on unsustainable claims about the palaeography - with which the ornate and solitary 'interpunct' is also not easily compatible), then it immediately becomes far simpler to revert to the idea that this indeed a piece of marble in re-use, as was normal, for a funerary inscription in the catacombs, of which this is just another example. If not reading e.g. [Φηλ]ιξ with Ferrua, then names ending in -ις are extremely common. ΑΓΟΡΑ can then either be part of name, or the verb or noun concerned with the purchase of a tomb (ἀγορασία, etc.), common in the catacombs, in turn frequently followed by e.g. the genitive of name of vendor. -]ν ἑαυτοῦ at the end of line 3 can easily be integrated with a variety of phrases, including those such as ζήσας τὸν βίον ἑαυτοῦ, or alternatively in a more complex phrase relating to the purchase of the tomb still, or a relative. The most problematic sequence remains κυρεύ, seemingly followed by a vacat, since the string is almost only attested as the ethnic Ἀντικυρεὺς, and so would seem to omit the final sigma if so; but an ethnic would hardly be out of place. Korhonen is correct that the string otherwise is only attested in δεκυρεύσας in ISic001394. Nonetheless, by itself, this is hardly sufficient to build an argument that this piece must attest to the actions of an aedile in the later first century BCE or Augustan period, which would seem to be a much more forced interpretation.

On this basis, a restoration such as that of Wessel in IGCVO should remain the most plausible: ἐνθάδε κῖτε ... ]ις ἀγορά-|[σας ... δε]κυρεύ-[σας(?) ...ἔζησε]ν ἑαυτοῦ | [τὸν βίον ἔτη...]

Bibliography

Digital editions

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Printed editions

Citation and editorial status

Editor

Jonathan Prag

Principal contributor