Monday, June 27, 2022
Epitaph of Asiarches
Richmond Lattimore, Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs (1935; rpt. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1962), p. 260:
I can't find a complete English translation of the inscription anywhere, so here is my rough version:
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There remain to be considered a number of additional epitaphs which might be classed, very loosely, as philosophical.359 Tolman calls them "frivolous," and the fact is that the "philosophy" is mainly that which has for a long time passed as Epicurean; the conclusion that since life is short and death certain, the best one can do is enjoy the fun as long as it lasts. This grows from meditations on the nature of life itself, concerning which a late Roman epitaph may be cited:Lattimore cites as his source Georg Kaibel, Epigrammata Graeca ex Lapidibus Conlecta (Berlin: Reimer, 1878), p. 282, number 699, which I print here with my own critical apparatus:ἄστατος ὄντως359 Cf. Tolman 95-96; Lier (1904), 56-64.
θνητῶν ἐστι βίος καὶ βραχὺς οὐδ' ἄπονος.360
In truth the life of mortals is unsteady, short, and not without troubles.
360 EG 699, 5-6, (Rome, 3d cent. A.D.).
Νήπιον, ὠκύμορον κατέχω χθών, ὦ ξένε, παῖδα,Other editions include L. Moretti, Inscriptiones Graecae Urbis Romae III 1162 (unavailable to me), Inscriptiones Graecae XIV 1422, and Werner Peek, Griechische Vers-Inschriften (Berlin, 1955), p. 212, number 789.
ζώσαντ' ἐν μελάθροις ἐς λυκάβαντα τέταρτον.
οὔνομα δ' ἐν τοκέεσσι φίλοις κέκλητ' Ἀσιάρχης·
αὐτοὶ δ' οἳ θρέψαν τήνδ' ἐπέθοντο κόνιν
καὶ δακρύοισιν ἔβρεξαν ὅλον τάφον· ἄστατος ὄντως 5
θνητῶν ἐστι βίος καὶ βραχὺς οὐδ' ἄπονος.
versus 2 metro claudicat: μέχρις vel ὡς ante ἐς add. dub. Peek; λυκάβαντα lapis: λυκάβαν Wilhelm; τέταρτον lapis: τρίτον dub. Kaibel
I can't find a complete English translation of the inscription anywhere, so here is my rough version:
I, the earth, cover a prematurely dead infant child, o stranger,There is a Spanish translation in María Luisa del Barrio Vega, Epigramas funerarios griegos (Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1992), p. 174:
who lived in his house up to his fourth year.
By name he was called Asiarches by his dear parents;
they who raised him buried these ashes
and drenched the whole tomb with their tears; unsteady in truth
is the life of mortals, and short, and not without troubles.
Yo soy la tierra que guarda a un niño de corta edad, de prematura muerte, extranjero: cuatro años fueron los que vivió en su casa. Asiarques era el nombre con el que lo llamaban sus padres. Este polvo esparcieron quienes lo criaron, y con sus lágrimas han humedecido toda su tumba. Fugaz es, en verdad, la vida de los mortales, breve y llena de pesares.