Epitaph of Aphrodisia
created: Transcription from previous editors and J.M. Reynolds' notebooks (CDL).
source date: First to third centuries 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/)

[...], pl. LXXVIII (printed as LXXIX) and p. 403 (Letronne), whence [...] 5200.b; [...] I.1026; [...], pp. 196-197, whence [...] 5939; [...] 043. Cf. [...], n. 32.d, whence [...], 33.1468.

Ἀφροδεισία ἡ καὶ Πτολεμαΐς ἐτῶν δύο ἐνθάδε κε ῖται. ταύτης ὁ πατὴρ ἀπαγορεύει ταῦτα λέγων· ὃς ἂν ἀνύξῃ τὸ λαρνάκιον τοῦτό ποτε καὶ θάψῃ τινά εἴσοισει τῷ ἱερωτάτῳ ταμείῳ δηνάρια πεντακόσια. ❧

θάρσει ❧ ἡρωΐς, οὐδεὶς ἀθάνατος ❧

Ἀφροδεισία[^a1] Ἀφροδεισία ἡ καὶ Πτολεμαΐς[^1][^a2] ἀπαγορεύει[^a3] τοῦτό ποτε[^a4]

[^a1: Ἀφροδεισία | Ἀφροδείσα]

[^a2: Ἀφροδεισία ἡ καὶ Πτολεμαΐς | α' ἔτους. Εἰράνα Καπίτωνος]

[^a3: ἀπαγορεύει | ἀπαγορεύει | ἀπαγόρευσα | ἀπαγόρευε]

[^a4: τοῦτό ποτε | τοῦτό ποτε | τοῦ τόπου]

[^1: De Cou's reading]

Aphrodisia dite Ptolemais, âgée de deux ans, repose ici. Son père profère un interdit en ces termes : quiconque ouvrira ce petit cercueil et y ensevelira quelqu'un sera redevable de 500 deniers au très saint Trésor.

Courage, héroïne, personne n'est immortel.

Aphrodisia also called Ptolemais, aged 2, lies here. Her father gives the following prohibition, saying that whoever shall ever open this small coffin and bury someone in it must contribute 500 denarii to the Sacred Treasury.

Take courage, Heroine, no one is immortal.

[Unpublished translation by Ch. Roueché]

Aphrodisia, detta anche Ptolemais, di due anni, qui giace. Suo padre pronuncia questo divieto, dicendo: chi mai aprirà questa piccola bara e vi seppellirà qualcuno dovrà versare al Tesoro sacro 500 denari.

Coraggio, eroina, nessuno è immortale.

Although very young when she died, the girl had already got a surname, which seems a little queer if used at Ptolemais proper. We may guess that some event in her family such as a recent settling made her birth there noteworthy and resulted in that second name.

The metric formula is assumed as a clue for a Jewish family by Lüderitz, citing [...]. For the latter, the internal contradiction of the formula is solved by the belief in resurrection, a topic which from Egypt passed on in Jewish and then in Christian religion. However, many pagan testimonies were mentioned by Robinson and the case is not so clear.

Metrical commentary: in this inscription only the end forms a whole verse line, a pentameter which is a common funerary formula with only the addressee needing to be changed. However also ἐνθάδε κεῖται in the pedestrian text is a very common formula, the rhythm of which can take place in a dactylic verse, especially at the end of a hexameter.