A Funerary Epigram with a Quotation from Odyssey I 4, Found at the Junction of the Asian–Galatian Border

Paweł NOWAKOWSKI – Hale GÜNEY 88–97

Doi: 10.36991/PHILIA.202211

How to cite 

Abstract: This paper presents a new funerary epigram recorded in Özdenk village in Alpu District, Eskişehir during the survey of 2019. The stone was brought from a place called Ayvalı in Belkese village nearby. Twenty-one lines of the inscription have survived, but are worn to a certain extent and not completely legible. Interestingly, two verses are probably quoted from the Odyssey. Other Homeric reminiscences are present throughout the text. The inscription praises the virtues and deplores the ill fate of a deceased man who orphaned a son. It ends with an imprecation in prose. The vocabulary, phrasing and contents may point to the same authorship as in the case of two other verse epitaphs from the nearby imperial estate of the Choria Considiana. The date of the inscription is probably the second half of the first or first half of the second century C.E., based on parallels with other inscriptions from this area, and on the letter shapes.

Keywords: Funerary epigram, Homer, Odyssey, imprecation, Midaion, Choria Considiana.

 

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