The Piacenza Pilgrim records his visit, first to Barbalissos (on the Euphrates) with the tomb of *Bacchus/Bakchos (soldier and martyr of Barbalissos, S00079), and then to Suras, where Bacchus and his 'brother' *Sergius (soldier and martyr of Rusafa, S00023) suffered; the pilgrim states that Sergius rests 12 miles further on, at Tetrapyrgion. Account of an anonymous pilgrim, written in Latin, probably in Placentia (northern Italy), c. 560. In the second recension of the text, Sergius is replaced by *George (soldier and martyr, S00259), whose grave is said to be at Tyre (in Phoenicia, on the coast).
Evidence ID
E00571
Type of Evidence
Literary - Pilgrim accounts and itineraries
Major author/Major anonymous work
Pilgrim of Piacenza
Pilgrim of Piacenza, Itinerarium 46
First recension
Exinde descendimus in Mesopotamiam in ciuitatem Chalcida. Deinde uenimus in Carran, ubi natus est Abraham, et descendentes nos inde uenimus in ciuitate Barbarisso, ubi requiescit sanctus Bakhos, frater sancti Sergii. Deinde uenimus in ciuitate Suras, per qua ciuitate media descendit fluuius Eufrata, qui in ipso loco per ponte transitur. In ipsa passi sunt sanctus Sergius et sanctus Bacchus, et ad duodecim milia intus in heremo inter Saracenos requiescit sanctus Sergius in ciuitate Tetrapyrgio.
'From there we went on into Mesopotamia, to the city of Chalcis, and thence to Haran, where Abraham was born. Going on from there we arrived to the city of Barbalissus, the resting-place of saint Bacchus, the brother of saint Sergius. From there we went to the city of Suras. Through the middle of it runs the River Euphrates which is crossed at this point by a bridge. In this city saint Sergius and saint Bacchus suffered martyrdom. Twelve miles further on in the desert, in Saracen country, is the resting place of saint Sergius in the city of Tetrapyrgion.''
Second recension
Exinde descendimus Mesopotamiam in ciuitate Chalcida. Inde uenimus Carran, ubi natus fuit Abraham, et inde uenimus in ciuitate Barbarisso; ibi requiescit sanctus Bachos, frater sancti Giorgii. Inde uenimus in ciuitate Suran, per qua media ciuitate descendit fluuius Eufrates, qui ibidem per ponte transitur. In ipsa ciuitate passi sunt sanctus Bacchus et sanctus Georgius. Sed sanctus Georgius in ciuitate Tyro requiescit.
'From there we went on into Mesopotamia, to the city of Chalcis, and thence to Haran, where Abraham was born. Going on from there we arrived to the city of Barbalissus, the resting-place of saint Bacchus, the brother of saint George. From there we went to the city of Suras. Through the middle of it runs the River Euphrates which is crossed there by a bridge. In this city saint Bacchus and saint George suffered martyrdom. But the resting-place of saint George is Tyre.'
Text: Geyer 1898, 191 and 218. Translation: Wilkinson 2002, 150.
Cult PlacesPlace associated with saint's life
Non Liturgical ActivityComposing and translating saint-related texts
Relics
Place associated with saint's life
Burial site of a saint - unspecified
Non Liturgical ActivityComposing and translating saint-related texts
Pilgrimage
RelicsBodily relic - entire body
Source
This Itinerary was written by an anonymous pilgrim to Palestine whose home town was Piacenza (ancient Placentia) in northern Italy: he explicitly states in the first sentence of his text that he set out from Piacenza, under the protection of the local martyr Antoninus (see E00578), and references later in the text make it clear that he successfully made it home (e.g. E00455). Otherwise we know nothing about him, except that he was male (since he occasionally refers to himself using the masculine gender: e.g. 'ego indignus' in 1.4). Unlike the earlier pilgrim Egeria, who wrote the account of her travels while still abroad (see E05245), our pilgrim wrote up, or at least edited, his account once he was home (see again E00455).His visit to the East can be dated with reasonable confidence to after 556, and before about 570, because he tells us (in chap. 1) that the terrible earthquake and tsunami that devastated coastal Phoenicia in 551 had occurred 'recently' (nuper), but also states that it happened 'in the time of the emperor Justinian' (tempore Iustiniani imperatoris), a phrasing that tells us he was writing after Justinian's death in 556.
The Itinerary opens with the pilgrim travelling (evidently by sea) to Cyprus and then on to Tripolis (modern Tripoli in northern Lebanon), and from there by land to Palestine and the holy sites of the Old and New Testaments. Within the Holy Land he travelled extensively, and his individual itineraries can be reconstructed with some precision (Wilkinson 2002 has excellent maps showing these). After this (he gives no indication of the passage of time) he travelled to Lower Egypt by way of Mount Sinai, ending up in Alexandria. The Itinerary then jumps back to Jerusalem (suggesting a leg by sea), where the pilgrim was delayed by illness. He then sets off northwards for home, but from Antioch takes a long detour eastwards into Mesopotamia. The text ends abruptly, and without comment, on the Euphrates close to Rusafa/Sergiopolis, suggesting that the final pages of the account are lost.
For the most part it is evident from our pilgrim's phrasing that he saw the places he lists in person - 'then we came', 'we saw', etc. - but on occasion he introduces the impersonal third person singular - 'two miles from the city is the shrine of', etc. - and he also mentions places that were not on his direct route; so he may have derived some of his information at second hand (Wilkinson 2002, 13).
The Itinerary is extant in two recensions. The first recension is accepted to be essentially what our pilgrim wrote. The second recension, which cannot be dated, is not massively different but makes some small alterations to the text: some deletions, some explanatory additions (e.g. E00513), and some 'corrections'. It is evident that the author of the second recension had not visited the Holy Land, and some of his supposed corrections in fact introduce obvious errors (e.g. E00413, and, most egregiously, E00571). We have ignored the second recension wherever changes from the first are not substantive; but quoted its text where there are significant differences, for two reasons: because some of these differences are interesting in themselves, even though they are undatable (e.g. E00457), and because sometimes., for instance with a name, the manuscripts of the second recension may actually preserve the pilgrim's text better than do those of the first recension (see, for instance, E00456 and E00513).
The Itinerary can be readily compared with an earlier pilgrim's diary written in the 380s by another western pilgrim, Egeria. The Piacenza pilgrim's text is less detailed than her account, but shows the development of cultic practices and infrastructure which had taken place in the course of two hundred years: there are more places to visit, more objects to see, and more saints to venerate.
As with all the pilgrim texts from the Holy Land, it has been difficult to decide what to include, and what to exclude from our database, focused as it is on the 'cult of saints'. We have necessarily excluded the vast number of sites associated exclusively with the life and miracles of Jesus, and have, of course, included all obvious references to cult sites of Christian saints: their graves, churches, and references to important places in their lives, such as their place of martyrdom. A problem, however, arises when our pilgrims write about sites associated with figures from the Old Testament, since in time many of these certainly acquired Christian cult, but it is generally impossible to tell whether our pilgrims regarded these figures as saints in the Christian tradition, whose power and aid they might invoke, or whether they record the holy sites associated with them through a broader and looser biblical curiosity and veneration. The compromise position we have taken with regard to these Old Testament figures is to include all references to places associated with them where our Christian writers record miraculous occurrences or where there was a church or oratory, and also all references to their graves (though with these latter there is often no explicit reference to Christian cult).
(Bryan Ward-Perkins, Robert Wiśniewski)
Discussion
Sergius and Bacchus (brothers-in-arms rather than blood brothers) were martyrs of the Persian frontier, Sergius attracting considerable and widespread cult (in both East and West), Bacchus less so.The information given in the first recension is largely consistent with the story of the Martyrdom of Sergios and Bakchos (E02791) and with what we know of their cult from other sources: Bacchus is killed first, and buried at Barbalissos; Sergius is taken down the Euphrates to Suras, where he is tortured, and then on to Tetrapyrgion (where our pilgrim believes him to have died and been buried). The Martyrdom and all other sources, however, place Sergius' death and burial one fort further on, at Rosaphon (Rusafa, later named Sergiopolis in his honour). Our pilgrim, with his statement that Sergius rested 'twelve miles further on in the desert, in Saracen country', makes it pretty clear that he was unable to visit the burial site (presumably because this was rendered too dangerous by the local Arab tribes), which can explain his comparatively minor error as to the precise location of Sergius' grave.
The author of the second recension, however, makes a massive mistake in writing Sergius out of the story and substituting him with George. That this is a mistake, and not an interesting example of the conflation of two saints, is clear: both Sergius and George were soldier-martyrs of the East, but nowhere else is George associated with Bacchus and nowhere else with this sector of the Persian frontier. Furthermore, what the second recension says about George's body being in Tyre is supported by no other source and is directly contradicted by what the Itinerary has already recorded (in the second, as well as the first recension!): that he was at Diospolis/Lydda on the route between Jerusalem and the coast (see E00468). It is impossible to explain this confusion in the second recension, but it is interesting and useful for two reasons: it shows that, despite the fame of both Sergius and George, it was possible to confuse the two in the later sixth-century Latin West; and it helps establish beyond doubt that the author of the second recension had not visited the sites our pilgrim visited (or at least certainly not all of them), because no-one who had been in northern Syria or Mesopotamia could have made such a crashing error.
Bibliography
Edition:Geyer, P. (ed.), Antonini Placentini Itinerarium, in Itineraria et alia geographica (Corpus Chistianorum, series Latina 175; Turnholti: Typographi Brepols editores pontificii, 1965), 129-174. [Essentially a reprinting of Geyer's edition for the Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 39, Wien 1898.]
English translations:
Stewart, A., Of the Holy Places Visited by Antoninus Martyr (London: Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society, 1887).
Wilkinson, J., Jerusalem Pilgrims Before the Crusades (2nd ed.; Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 2002).
Further reading:
For the cult of Sergios and Bakchos see Fowden, E.K., The Barbarian Plain: Saint Sergius between Rome and Iran (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).
Record Created By
Robert Wiśniewski
Date of Entry
27/05/2015
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00023 | Sergios, soldier and martyr of Rusafa | Sergius | Certain | S00079 | Bakchos, soldier and martyr of Barbalissos | Bakhos | Certain | S00259 | George, soldier and martyr, and Companions | Giorgios | Uncertain | S00275 | Abraham, Old Testament patriarch | Abraham | Certain |
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Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Robert Wiśniewski, Cult of Saints, E00571 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E00571