Description of Monument

a: Part of a white marble garland sarcophagus front 0.81 × 0.48 × 0.32, showing a central moulded panel with curving handles upheld by putti. b: part of a sarcophagus lid (0.50 × 0.16 × 0.51); for further description see Isik 194.

Description of Text

a. Inscribed on the face; ll. 1 - 12 within the panel upheld by putti, and ll. 13-15 on the moulding below. b. inscribed on one side

Letters

a. Quite well designed, cut and aligned in the second-to-fourth-century style, ll.1-12, ave. 0.015; ll.13 - 15, 0.02. Ligatured ΗΜ (l.3), ΜΗΝ (l.12), ΝΗ (ll.8, 11), ΤΗ (ll.6, 9). Superscript bars above the figures in ll.7, 11, 12. b. With poorly designed letters, and incomplete above, 0.025-0.03.

Date

Perhaps second quarter of the third century (lettering, spelling, nomenclature, monument).

Edition

Apparatus

l. 5, ΕΙΞΙΝ lapis

l. 13, Ἀπολλόδο[τος is also possible but what survives of the damaged letter suggests omega rather than omicron

ll. 13-15, perhaps around 28 letters are lost at either end; thus it is impossible to tell whether the persons named in l.13 were buried already (requiring κεκήδευνται at the beginning) or were listed as having a right to be buried there, as was certainly the case for some of those named in l.14 (requiring κηδευθήσονται)

ll. 14-15, standard funerary arrangements were made, but the precise wording, as well as the distribution of letters between the lines is uncertain. The normal concluding account of the fine to be paid and of the file-copy of the text can never have been written unless on a base below the sarcophagus.

Translation

a; [? The sarcophagus and the] plot [?on which ] the sarcophagus [?stands] and the part of the platform adjacent to it belong to Aurelia Tertulla, daughter of Dionysios, the son of Zenon, the son of Dionysios, who was third of the name from Apollonios. They were bought by her from Lucius Ant(onius) Hermas, son of Hermas, in the fifth stephanephorate of Claudia Paulina, eighth month. In the sarcophagus [there has been (or shall be) buried .. ? .. ?Tertul]la and Eutyches also called Tertullos, children of Apollodo[ros (or Apollodo[tus) .. ? .. and there shall be buried .. ? .. and those whom] the aforementioned wish; but no one else [shall have the right to bury anyone in it nor to remove anyone of those buried] in it, since whoever contravenes this is to be (considered) sacrilegious [ and accursed and a tomb-breaker].

b: Markian[os . . . ]kos

Commentary

Aurelia Tertulla's funerary property was clearly part of a funerary area shared with others, so that she is unlikely to be of high social status. The family no doubt acquired Roman citizenship under the Edict of Caracalla, and the Greek form of genealogy may indicate that the inscription was drafted not too long after A.D. 212. The two persons in l. 13 who shared her personal name were probably her children and Apollodoros (Apollodotos) was therefore her husband. L. Antonius Hermas, from whom she bought the funerary property, should be connected with an élite family of Antonii but in what degree is not known. Claudia Paulina was certainly of an élite family, and held her first stephanephorate in A.D. 119 (see 11.412, ll. 1, 3); her fifth tenure was clearly post mortem.

Locations

Necropolis, West: in a pile of stones in a field just west of the west wall, north of the old road. Unknown Findspot (1975)

Text Constituted From

Transcription (Reynolds).

History of Recording

Recorded by the NYU expedition in 1975 & 1989 (Walls 132).

Bibliography

(a) published by Isik and Reynolds, no. 194; (b) unpublished.

Photographs

Face (1973)

Face (1975)