Epitaph of the gladiator Antiochas
created: Transcription from previous editors and photograph (CDL).
source date: Perhaps second century or first half of third century AD
language: ar; en; fr; de; grc; grc-Latn; el; he
availability: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Deed Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. All citation, reuse or distribution of this work must contain a link back to DOI: https://doi.org/10.60760/unibo/igcyrgvcyr2 and the filename (IGCyr000000 or GVCyr000), as well as the year of consultation. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/)

[...], n. 77a, pp. 185, 505, whence [...] 5940; [...]; [...], pp. 433-436; [...] 0017. Cf. [...], n.1135. [...], p. 94, fig. 13, and [...], 2000.746, whence [...], 49.2363.

Ἀτιοχᾶς ὁ πρὶν Ἐφέσις.

Οὐκ ἤμην καὶ γενάμην·

οὐκ ἰμὶ καὶ οὐ μέλι μοι·

χαίρετε παρoδῖται.

Ἀτιοχᾶς ὁ πρὶν Ἐφέσις[^a1] καὶ γενάμην[^a2] ἰμὶ[^a3] χαίρετε παρoδῖται[^a4]

[^a1: Ἀτιοχᾶς ὁ πρὶν Ἐφέσις | Ἀτιόχα [...] Ἐφεσίς | Ἀτίοχος Ἐφέσιος]

[^a2: καὶ γενάμην | καὶ ἐγενόμην | γενάμην]

[^a3: ἰμὶ | εἰμὶ]

[^a4: χαίρετε παρoδῖται | χαίρετε παρoδῖται | χαίρετε ὦ παρoδῖται]

Antiokhas précédemment appelé Ephésios.

Je n'existais pas et je suis né. Je n'existe plus et point ne m'en soucie. Salut, passants.

Antiochas formerly named Ephesios.

I was not alive and was born. I am no longer alive and do not mind. Hello, passers-by.

Antiochas, prima chiamato Ephesios.

Non esistevo e sono nato. Non sono più e non me ne curo. Salute, passanti.

أنتيوخاس، كان يُدعى سابقاً إفيسِس. لم أكن على قيد الحياة ولكن كنت قد ولدت. أنا لم أعد على قيد الحياة ولا أمانع. مرحبا، المارة (العابرون).

This inscription was first seen by R. Norton, who visited Cyrenaica in 1909 for the first time. His copy was joined to the epigraphical material collected during his mission at Cyrene in 1910-1911 by the epigraphist H. De Cou and published by D.M. Robinson, who was not able to interpret by himself the copy but provided in addendum a transliteration sent by J. Keil. The stone, that was never seen since, was probably taken abroad, as J.P. Uhlenbrock rediscovered in Norton's archive a photograph of it taken aboard the ship Utowana with which Norton travelled in 1909.

The name was first explained as the masculine Ἀντιοχᾶς by L. Robert, who also understood Ephesios as a second name, possibly introduced by ὁ καί, but more plausibly by ὁ πρίν, as in two other epitaphs of gladiators at Ptolemais (see IRCyr2020 P.215 and IRCyr2020 P.216).

Metrical analysis: lines 2 and 3 were interpreted as a somewhat irregular hexameter independently from Norton's copy by both Keil (apud Robinson) and W. Vollgraff. But the photograph now gives a more precise view of the gaps: those lines appear to be made of metrical sequences, not belonging to any complete verse. Their formulation is a commonplace of stoicism. We have no information about the findspot. The topics of both this inscription and its reuse are clearly funerary, whereas for other steles mentioning gladiators the topic might be discussed (see at GVCyr018). At l. 4, there is no space on the stone for Vollgraff's addition of ὦ, which would produce a more common dactylic rhythm, in spite of a somewhat harsh hiatus.