Site logo

The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity


from its origins to circa AD 700, across the entire Christian world


Greek inscription recording a request for help addressed to unnamed martyrs, found in Hisaralan (Hellespontus, north-west Asia Minor). Probably late antique (5th/8th c.).

Evidence ID

E00735

Type of Evidence

Inscriptions - Formal inscriptions (stone, mosaic, etc.)

ἅγιοι μ(άρ)τ(υ)ρ(ες)
βοηθεῖτε
τῇ δούλῃ
ὑμῶν Ἀμμίᾳ
κ(αὶ) τῷ δούλῳ
ὑμῶν
Τροφίμῳ

1. μ(άρ)τ(υ)ρ(ες) – a monogram

'Holy martyrs, help your servant Ammia and your servant Trophimos!'

Text: Robert 1937, 213 note 3.

Non Liturgical Activity

Prayer/supplication/invocation

Protagonists in Cult and Narratives

Women
Other lay individuals/ people

Source

Inscription on a marble column: H. 0.75 m; diameter 0.29 m. The text was written inside a rectangular frame: H. 0.225 m; W. 0.2 m.

Discussion

This is a simple invocation of unnamed martyrs written by Ammia and Trophimos, otherwise unattested persons. Louis Robert supposes that the martyrs were patrons of a local sanctuary. François Halkin proposed that they could be the *Forty Martyrs of Sebaste (ob. early 4th c.) or the *Forty-Two Martyrs of Amorion but he based this on an erroneous reading of the first line. He did not recognise the monogram (which is not visible in the published photograph), and thought that it was a letter Μ which he considered as the numeral 40.

Bibliography

Edition:
Robert, L., Études Anatoliennes. Recherches sur les inscriptions grecques de l'Asie-Mineure (Paris: De Boccard, 1937), 213, n. 3

Further Reading:
Destephen, S., "Martyrs locaux et cultes civiques en Asie Mineure", in: J.C. Caillet, S. Destephen, B. Dumézil, H. Inglebert, Des dieux civiques aux saints patrons (IVe-VIIe siècle) (Paris: éditions A. & J. Picard, 2015), 88.

Halkin, F., "Bulletin des publications hagiographiques",
Analecta Bollandiana 59 (1941), 367-368.

Reference works:
Bulletin épigraphique (1941), 122b.


Record Created By

Pawel Nowakowski

Date of Entry

30/09/2015

Related Saint Records
IDNameName in SourceIdentity
S00060Martyrs, unnamed or name lostμάρτυρεςCertain


Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Pawel Nowakowski, Cult of Saints, E00735 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E00735