Tuesday, September 27, 2022
Epitaph of a Boxer
Reinhold Merkelbach and Josef Stauber, edd., Steinepigramme aus dem griechischen Osten, Bd. 4: Die Südküste Kleinasiens, Syrien und Palaestina (München: K.G. Säur, 2002), p. 239, number 20/01/02, from Seleukeia in Pieria, 2nd/3rd century AD (text simplified by me):
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[⏑–⏑] Ἑλλήσποντος Εἴλιον νέον·My rough translation:
ἄλλαις δ' Ἐπειοὶ πυγμάχον κατέστεφον.
νέος πατρῴοις κείμενος τύμβοις λέγω
Ἤλεις Σελεύκου· χαίρετε εὐφραίνεσθέ τε·
κενῶν γὰρ ἡμεῖν τέρμα μόχθων Ἀίδης.
[...] Hellespont and New Ilium; with other (wreathes?) the Epeans crowned me, a boxer. A young man lying in the ancestral grave, I, Eleis son of Seleukos, say: Rejoice and make merry; for the goal of our empty toils is Hades.The Epeans were a tribe in Elis, and Olympia was located in Elis. As Merkelbach and Stauber note, this probably refers to an Olympic victory. The inscription is also in Werner Peek, Griechische Vers-Inschriften, Vol. I: Grab-Epigramme (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1955), p. 610, # 1957.
