Description of Monument

Plain white marble base with a very slight offsetting down both sides, lacking a moulded top which might have carried the first line of the text. Broken above and below, but the lower left corner survives, and without any moulding (0.505 × 0.83 × 0.57).

Description of Text

Inscribed on the face.

Description of Letters

0.035–0.04; diaeretic dots around the second iota in l. 3, final epsilon in l. 8, and final alpha in l. 12; dot after the final alpha in l. 6, between the sigma and zeta in l. 9, and at beginning and end of letters in l. 13.

Date

Probably later second to early third centuries A.D. (lettering).

Edition ἡ βουλὴ καὶ ὁ δῆμος ἐτείμησαν Κλαυδίαν ΤιβερίουΚλαυδίου Ἰσεκαὶ τῆς πόλεωςθυγατέρα Παυλείναν γυναῖκα Τιβερίου ΚλαυδίουΠαυλείνου ἀρχιερέως ζήσασανκοσμίως καὶ σωφρόνως καὶ πρὸς παράδειγμα ἀ ρετῆς

Apparatus

l. 2, there is insufficient space for the unabbreviated praenomen.

Translation

The council and the People honoured Claudia Paulina, daughter of Tiberius Claudius Ise and Daughter of the City, wife of Tiberius Claudius Paulinus high priest; she lived in an orderly and self-controlled manner and with a view to demonstrating virtue.

Commentary

A number of Claudii are attested in Aphrodisias, some very eminent; Claudius Ise[—], his daughter Paulina, and her husband Tib(erius) Claudius Paulinus may be related to them, as the shared cognomen Paulina and Paulinus suggests that husband and wife were (marriage of cousins being one device for keeping family properties together). Ise[—] and Paulinus are not at present otherwise known; but an eminent woman Paulina is known—she was a stephanephorus in the reign of Hadrian [[...]] and is perhaps also the Paulina apparently concerned in the foundation of the basilica [[...]]. This identification would square with her title here—"Daughter of the City" indicates the probability that she had given money for civic purposes.

The tense of the participle ζήσασαν probably indicates that she was dead when the inscription was drafted, and that squares with the otherwise slightly surprising fact that while her husband was high priest (of the civic imperial cult) she is not called high priestess, although a wife usually played some part in a high priest's function—in relation to females of the imperial family—and shared the title). Her qualities are the standard ones for which Aphrodisian women are praised.

Locations

Found: City, Village: Stray find near Tea House. Original location: Unknown. Last recorded: Museum (1978).

History of Recording

Recorded by the NYU excavation in 1963 (63.434).

Bibliography

Unpublished.

Text Constituted From

Transcription (Reynolds).

Photographs

Face (1978)