Thursday, July 14, 2022
Epitaph of Menophilos
Inscriptiones Graecae XIV 1857 (Rome, Via Nomentana, Basilica of St. Agnese, 2nd century AD) = Inscriptiones Graecae Urbis Romae III 1274 = Werner Peek, Griechische Vers-Inschriften, Vol. I: Grab-Epigramme (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1955), p. 187, # 721 (my translation):
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I was unceasingly cheerful, I laughed and played and revelled,The first five verses of the Greek contain a series of aorist participles, which I translated as a series of clauses in the past tense. In line 4, Bromius is Dionysus, and the Paphian is Aphrodite.
and I merrily gladdened everyone's spirit in songs,
I caused no one pain, and I did not utter abusive words,
but I lived a friend of the Muses, of Bromius and the Paphian;
from Asia I came: I lie here on Italian soil,
being a youth among the perished. My name was Menophilos.
εὐφρανθεὶς συνεχῶς, γελάσας παίξας τε τρυφήσας,
καὶ ψυχὴν ἱλαρῶς πάντων τέρψας ἐν ἀοιδαῖς,
οὐδένα λυπήσας, οὐ λοίδορα ῥήματα πέμψας,
ἀλλὰ φίλος Μουσῶν, Βρομίου Παφίης τε βιώσας,
ἐξ Ἀσίης ἐλθὼν Ἰταλῇ χθονὶ ἐνθάδε κεῖμαι 5
ἐν φθιμένοις νέος ὤν, τοὔνομα Μηνόφιλος.
