Greek epitaph for a person who had built an oratory of *Mamas (probably the martyr of Kaisareia/Caesarea in Cappadocia, S00436). Found at Limnai near Sasima and Nazianzus, to the south-west of Kaisareia/Caesarea (Cappadocia, central Asia Minor). Probably late antique.
Evidence ID
E01026
Type of Evidence
Inscriptions - Funerary inscriptions
+ ἐνθάδε κατάκιτε Λονγῖνος Βα-
λιβαρδᾶς ὁ κὲ περιπυσάμενος
τὸ ὐκτήριον τοῦ ἁγίου Μαμᾶ·
τὸν θεὸν ἡμῖν· ὁ ἀναγινώσ-
κων, εὔξαστε ὑπὲρ ἐμοῦ
3. ὐκτήριον = εὐκτήριον, του κτηριον Levides || 4. τὸν θεὸν ἡμῖν or more probably = τὸν θεὸν ὑμῖν, a form of adjuration (Feissel, in a letter dated 17.09.2016) || 5. εὔξαστε = εὔξαι or εὐξάσθω
'+ Here lies Longinos Balibardas, who built the oratory of Saint Mamas. May God be with us! You who are reading it, pray for me!'
Text: Robert 1946, 156.
Cult PlacesCult building - independent (church)
Non Liturgical ActivityPrayer/supplication/invocation
Protagonists in Cult and Narratives
Cult building - independent (church)
Cult building - dependent (chapel, baptistery, etc.)
Non Liturgical ActivityPrayer/supplication/invocation
Construction of cult buildings
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesOther lay individuals/ people
Source
A slab found in the ruins of a Christian building at Gülcük (ancient Limnai near Sasima and Nazianzus, to the south-west of Kaisareia). There is no published description.Discussion
The inscription is the epitaph of a certain Longinos Balibardas. The fact that Longinos built an oratory dedicated to a saint serves here as his primary identifying characteristic – beside this, we learn nothing about his social status or wealth. For other inscriptions, where people are identified in the same way, see E00902 (Kastor who built a sanctuary of the martyr *Kyrikos), E00710 (Armenis who built an unspecified martyr shrine, probably also of the martyr Kyrikos), and E01239 (Anatolios, who built a church dedicated to *John, unspecified).Interestingly, the shrine built by Longinos, is not called a martyrion but an oratory (εὐκτήριον). Perhaps it was just a chapel and not an independent building. The shrine was dedicated to Mamas, most probably the martyr of Kaisareia in Cappadocia, praised in sermons by Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus (see E00719 and E00912).
The phrase τὸν θεὸν ἡμῖν, which we find in line 4, can be understood either as ὁ θεὸς ἡμῖν / 'may God be with us' or τῷ θεῷ ἡμῶν / 'for our God' (as the functions of the dative case were being gradually taken over by the accusative case in Late Antiquity). Louis Robert and François Halkin preferred the former option, as they compared the phrase with the formula τὸν θεόν σοι· μὴ ἀδικήσεις / 'may God be with you, so that you may not sin', quite frequent in Phrygian epitaphs. It is also possible that the pronoun ὑμῖν was here swapped for ἡμῶν, which is frequent in late antique inscriptions.
Bibliography
Edition:Robert, L., Hellenica, Recueil d'épigraphie, de numismatique et d'antiquités grecques, vol. 2 (Paris: La librairie d'Amérique et d'Orient Adrien Maisonneuve, 1946), 156.
Levides, Α.Μ., Αἱ ἐν μονολίθοις μοναὶ τῆς Καππαδοκίας καὶ Λυκαονίας / Hai en Monolithois monai tēs Kappadokias kai Lykaonias (Kōnstantinoupolei: Typois Alexandrou Nomismatidou, 1899), 173.
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), 100.
Halkin, F., "Inscriptions grecques relatives à l'hagiographie, IX, Asie Mineure", Analecta Bollandiana 71 (1953), 91.
Record Created By
Pawel Nowakowski
Date of Entry
27/12/2015
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00436 | Mamas, martyr of Kaisareia/Caesarea of Cappadocia | Μαμᾶς | Uncertain |
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Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Pawel Nowakowski, Cult of Saints, E01026 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E01026