Monday, May 25, 2020

 

A Greek Tombstone

Inscriptiones Graecae IX,1 868 (Corcyra, late 7th or early 6th century B.C.), tr. Paul Friedländer and Herbert B. Hoffleit, Epigrammata: Greek Inscriptions in Verse from the Beginnings to the Persian Wars (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1948), p. 29:
This is the tomb of Arniadas. Him flashing-eyed Ares destroyed
as he fought by the ships at the streams of Aratthus,
displaying the highest valour amid the groans and shouts of war.

Σᾶμα τόδ' Ἀρνιάδα· χαροπὸς τόνδ᾿ ὤλεσεν Ἄρης
βαρνάμενον παρὰ ναυσὶν ἐπ' Ἀράθθοιο ῥοϝαῖσι
πολλὸν ἀριστεύ[τ]οντα κατὰ στονόϝεσ(σ)αν ἀϝυτάν.
But cf. Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum 36-541:
B.M. Palumbo Stracca, HELIKON 22-27 (1982-1987) 485-488, argues that in L. 1 (Σᾶμα τόδε Ἀρνιάδα· χαροπὸς τόνδ' ὤλεσεν Ἄρης) Ἀρνιάδα is not the name but the patronymic (in the epic manner) of the deceased, who is Χάροψ: Σᾶμα τόδε Ἀρνιάδα Χάροπος· κτλ. (χαροπός as an epithet for Ares would be unique). The verse was possibly inspired by Od. 11, 426: τοὺς μὲν ἔασ', ὁ δ' ἄρ' Ἱππασίδην Χάροπ' οὔτασε δουρί.
Andrej Petrovic, "Casualty Lists in Performance. Name Catalogues and Greek Verse-Inscriptions," in Evina Sistakou and Antonios Rengakos, edd., Dialect, Diction, and Style in Greek Literary and Inscribed Epigram (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016), pp. 361-390 (at 367, footnote omitted):
Or take CEG 145.1 (Corfu, late 7th c. BC), 'σᾶμα τόδε Ἀρνιάδα ΧΑΡΟΠΟΣ' — the unfamiliarity of this name is such that we cannot be entirely sure whether we should identify the grave (sema) as that of Arniadas, son of Charops, or of Charops, son of Arniadas, or of Charops, who comes from a certain Abstammungsgruppe called Arniadai, or, discarding all these options, read the adjective χαροπός instead of the personal name in genitive Xάροπoς, and relate the adjective to Ares mentioned later on in the verse-inscription (until we find a personal name followed immediately by a patronym in genitive in the early sepulchral epigrams, the last option remains, in my view, the likeliest).



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