Laudator Temporis Acti

Werner Peek, Griechische Vers-Inschriften, Vol. I: Grab-Epigramme (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1955), p. 190, number 730 (from Tiberias, 3rd century AD): Peek's references are to Moshe Schwabe, "Ein griechisches Grabepigramm aus Tiberias," Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society 16 (1936) 158-165 (non vidi), and Aldo Ceresa-Gastaldo, "ΑΓΑΠΗ nei documenti anteriori al Nuovo Testamento," Aegyptus 31.2 (1951) 269-306 (at 288-290).

Transcription of the Greek:

ἐνθάδε κεῖμε Ἄμανδος, τρυφῆς πάσης ὁ μετασχών,
   ἰσοθέως ζήσας πουλὺν ἐτῶν ἀριθμόν,
ἐνδόξως στρατιᾶς ἄρξας δεκαταρχίδι τειμῇ,
   καὶ μετὰ τὸν θάνατον ζῶσαν ἔχων ἀρετήν·
τίς γὰρ τόσσ' ἐτρύφησεν ἐν ἀνθρώποις ὅσ' ἐγώ περ;
   ἢ τίς ὑπὸ πάτρης τόσσην ἔσχ' ἀγάπην;
γνώριμος ἐν πολλοῖσιν ὑπάρχων ἀνδράσιν αἰεί,
   ὃν ποθέεσκε πάτρη, ἣ τέκεν Εὐ ⏑ ⏑ –.

Translation by Seth Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society: 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), p. 151 (brackets in original; footnote omitted):

Here I lie, Amandus, who has partaken of every luxury, who has lived, godlike [isotheôs], a great number of years, honorably having the rank of decurion of the army, having virtue [aretê] which lives even after death. Who has enjoyed as many luxuries among men as I? Who is so beloved of his native city [patrê]? I, who am always well-known among many men, whom the native city longs for, [T]i[berias?], that is, which bore me.

Schwartz, p. 152:

[T]he epigram does feature some of the conventional themes of the genre—the love of the native city for the deceased, for example. A striking feature is the repeated emphasis on luxury, tryphê. In pagan literary works this word has the unambiguously negative connotations of softness, effeminacy, feebleness, and so on (see LSJ sub v.).⁸¹ Addiction to tryphê was thought servile. Yet in this text, written up, at any rate, by someone who had read a bit, participation in tryphê is presented as a praiseworthy accomplishment. It would be a mistake to attribute this sentiment to the eccentricity and ignorance of an ex-soldier in a remote provincial town, or to the ineptitude of the "epigrammatist" hired to compose the text. For notwithstanding the invariably pejorative sense tryphê possesses in classical texts, in funerary epigrams, including some of considerable elegance clearly composed by and for the highly literate, tryphê is commonly a neutral value and occasionally an admirable one. Common in epigrams is the "eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you die" theme,⁸² for example, in this Greek epigram from the city of Rome: "Life is good but short; light is sweet but it fails. Enjoy your luxuries [tryphêson] while you can, for here eternal night awaits you." In such texts, tryphê is morally neutral, even, implicitly, somewhat inferior to moderation; after all, the poems imply, if not for the insouciance produced by the inevitability of death, you might have been inclined to avoid luxury! But in other texts, tryphê is, as in our Tiberian text, a virtue, possession of which is a source of pride.<sup>83

81</sup> In Christian texts, though, the word frequently has a positive connotation, for example, it is regularly used of man's state before the Fall (see Lampe, Patristic Greek Lexicon, s.v.). The Christian usage is conceivably revelatory of the word's meaning in a nonliterary semantic register.

⁸² E.g., J. Robert and L. Robert, BullEp, 1960, no. 445; L. Robert, Hellenica 13 (1965): 184– 92; B. Lifshitz, "Notes d'épigraphie palestinienne," RB 73 (1966): 248–57.

⁸³ Peek 263 (from Dorylaeum, Phrygia, second century C.E.); Peek 1113a.