Tuesday, June 14, 2022

 

Epitaph of Philetos

Richmond Lattimore, Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs (1935; rpt. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1962), p. 84:
    μηδὲν ἄγαν φρονέων, θνητὰ δὲ πάνθ' ὁρόω[ν
ἦλθον, ἀπῆλθον ἄμεμπτος, ἃ μὴ θέμις οὐκ ἐδόκευσα,
    εἴτ' ἤμην πρότερον, εἴτε χρόνοις ἔσομαι.
472

I believed in overdoing nothing. I came and went away blameless. I observed everything human, but did not pry into what is forbidden, or seek to know whether I existed before or whether I ever shall again.

472 EG 615, 4-6 (Sena Gallica, 2d or 3d cent. A.D.). For further variations in Greek, cf. IGR 3, 1438; Ramsay 635; Cumont, op. cit.
The order of the clauses is mixed up in Lattimore's translation. I would revise it as follows:
I believed in overdoing nothing. I observed everything human. I came and went away blameless. I did not pry into what is forbidden, whether I existed before or whether I ever shall again.
Cf. the translation of the entire inscription in G.H.R. Horsley, New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, Vol. 4: A Review of Greek Inscriptions and Papyri published in 1979 ([North Ryde:] Ancient History Documentary Research Centre, Macquarie University, 1987), p. 32:
To the underworld gods. I was like I was in my speech, spirit, and form, possessing the implanted soul of a person just born, happy in friendship and fortunate in my mind, holding the view 'nothing in excess', and viewing everything as mortal. I came (i.e., into the world), I departed blameless, I did not think about things which I ought not to: whether I had a previous existence, whether I shall have one in time (to come). I was educated, I educated (others), I shackled the vault of the universe, declaring to men the divine virtues which proceed from the gods. The dear earth conceals me; yet what was my pure name? I was Philetos, a man beloved by all, from Limyra in Lykia.
See also Andrzej Wypustek, "Laughing in the Face of Death: a Survey of Unconventional Hellenistic and Greek-Roman Funerary Verse-Inscriptions," Klio 103 (2021) 160-187 (at 170-171).



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