Monday, December 30, 2024
Epitaph of Fabia Merope
A friend, on his travels in Spain, saw the following Latin inscription at Peñaflor (ancient Celti):
This is Année Épigraphique, vol. 1975, number 503:
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D(is) M(anibus) s(acrum). Atimeti lib(erta) Fabia Merope annorum LXXV pia in suis h(ic) s(ita) e(st). s(it) t(ibi) t(erra) l(evis).There is an English translation in R. Carande Herreron and Fernández Martínez, "Epitaph of Fabia Merope," Carmina Epigraphica Online (CLEO), number 22/01/0020:
si quantum pietas potuit tantum fortuna dedisset
litteris auratis scribere hunc titulum.
Consecrated to the Manes. Fabia Merope, freedwoman of Atimetus, of 75 years, devoted to her own. She lies buried here; may the earth rest lightly on you. If fortune had let me do as much as affection allowed, I would have inscribed this with letters of gold.To the excellent CLEO commentary I have little to add, except to note that the phrase pia in suis seems to be a formula common in inscriptions from this part of Spain — Géza Alföldy, "Epigraphica Hispanica IX: Inschriften aus Ciudad Real," Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 67 (1987) 225-248 (at 229):
Pius/pia in suis ist eine in den Grabinschriften der Baetica allgemein verbreitete Formel (vgl. die Belege in CIL II p. 1177).See also Silvia Tantimonaco, "La fórmula epigráfica pius in suis," Anuari de Filologia. Antiqua et Mediaevalia 8 (2018) 839‐858.
