Epitaph of Publius Elius

Description

Idno filename 22/01/0099
Type of inscription: Sepulcralis
Material Description: Block of local whitish limestone
Conservation status: Greatly deteriorated and eroded; very few letters are legible, and they are very worn in the carmen. Stone broken below and on the right. The blank face has not been smoothed down
Dimensions height/width/depth (cm): 46.5/29/18
Epigraphic field:
- Layout: The "ordinatio" seems to have been good. Very deeply cut. Triangular interpunctions; in l. 1 the triangle is sitting on its base. Each verse is distributed over two lines.
- Epigraphic field state of conservation: Very deteriorated and with cracks.
- Epigraphic field execution: Epigraphical field framed above (with a horizontal crack of 13) and at the left (with a vertical crack of 11).

Lyrics

Font:Capital rústica
Letter size:Letter height: 5.5/3 in the praescriptum and 2 in the verse part cm

Location

Place of discovery: Found in 1980 in Cerro del Minguillar, 3 km southeast of Baena (Iponoba)
Geolocation

Conservation location: After a few years in the possession of Virgilio Olmo, the parish priest of Baena, it was moved to the Museo Diocesano de Bellas Artes (Córdoba) and is kept in the entrance patio (inv. no. 303).
Inventory number: 303
Location with Modern Nomenclature España / Córdoba / Cerro del Minguillar, 3 km southeast of Baena
Location with Old Nomenclature Hispania / Baetica / Astigitanus / Iponoba

Chronology

Inscription's dating: Between year 10 and year 50

Type of verse

Type of verse: Dactílico (dístico elegíaco)
Verse/line correspondence: Si
Prose/verse distinction: Si

Epigraphic edition

L(ocus) ▴ p(edum) [‑ ‑ ‑]

P(ublius) ▴ Aeliu[s] [‑ ‑ ‑]

[t]e ▴ lapis ▴ optesṭ[or leviter super]

ossa ▴ ṛ[esidas]

5 [n]e ▴ nostro ▴ doḷẹ[at conditus officio]

‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑

Text divided into verses and metric signs

Te, lapis, optestor leviter super ossa residas, lkk|ll|[l/kk|l/kk]|lk[k|l~]

ne nostro doleat conditus officio. ll|lkk|[l||lkk|lkk|~]

Translation

"Site measuring *** feet. Publius Aelius ***. I beg you, stone, to lie softly on his bones; that due to our offices he may not suffer once buried."

Bibliography

Bücheler, CLE 1474 com.; Puerta – Stylow 1985, 317–319, n. 1 cum im. phot. (inde AE 1985, 560), Stylow, II2/5, 372; Fernández Martínez – Carande, CLEB, CO12, cum im. phot, quae in linguam Hispanicam verterunt; Cugusi 2012, 40. – Cf. Mariner 1952, 91; Fernández 1999a; Hernández Pérez 2001a, 81; Massaro 2014, 65–102.

Comentary

Elegiac distich containing a literary versified variant of the topos S.T.T.L. Identical or very similar examples are known in other regions of the Empire, but are found especially in Italy and Hispania and even more so in Baetica (cf. for example CLE 1474, com.; 1470; 1471; 1472, etc.), which enables us to propose reconstruction of the deteriorated text (sic suppl. Puerta – Stylow); among the many examples, an inscription from Castro del Río, near Baena (II2/5,399). As Puerta-Stylow 1985, 322 showed, these are usually epigraphs of slaves and liberti, generally from the 1st c. AD. Optestor x obtestor. The praenomen and nomen appear in l. 2, Aelius is a very common nomen in Hispania, both for men and women (cf. Abascal 1994, 64-67), although this is the only documented case in Iponoba (cf. Puerta-Stylow 1985, 319). There would also have been room for the cognomen at the right before the stone was broken. To judge by the space left below the poem, the names of the dedicants may well have been carved there, using some of the usual formulae (fecerunt, posuerunt, etc.). In l. 1, in prose, the measurements of the locus are indicated in only one dimension. For the expression of this type of measurements, frequent in Sevilla and Jaén, cf. Puerta-Stylow 1985, 319

Images

Photo author: C. Fernández Martínez

Link to DB

Author

Author:C. Fernández Martínez, R. Carande Herrero
Last Update2024-05-06 06:35:33
Autopsy date:2003

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