Prudentius, in his poem (Crowns of the Martyrs XIII) on *Cyprian (bishop and martyr of Carthage, S00411), tells how a tomb was raised for the martyr and his ashes were consecrated. Written in Latin in Calahorra (northern Hispania), c. 400.
Evidence ID
E04417
Type of Evidence
Literary - Poems
Literary - Hagiographical - Accounts of martyrdom
Major author/Major anonymous work
Prudentius
Liber Peristephanon, Poem XIII.96-98
Fleuit abire uirum maesta Africa quo docente facta est
cultior, eloquio cuius sibi docta gloriatur.
Mox tumulum lacrimans struxit cineresque consecrauit.
'Africa wept in sorrow at the departure of the man whose teaching advanced her in cultivation, and of whose eloquence she boasts of having been the pupil. Afterwards with tears she raised a tomb and consecrated his ashes.'
Text: Cunningham 1966, 385
Translation: Thomson 1953, 337
Cult Places
Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave
Non Liturgical ActivitySaint as patron - of a community
RelicsBodily relic - corporeal ashes/dust
Source
Aurelius Prudentius Clemens (348–after 405) was a Christian aristocrat from Calahorra in the Spanish province of Tarraconensis. He was a high official in the imperial bureaucracy in Rome, but withdrew from public life, returned to Calahorra, and dedicated himself to the service and celebration of God. Most of what we know about his biography comes from the preface to the ensemble of his works, which can be reliably dated to 404 (Cunningham 1966, 1-2), and other autobiographical remarks scattered throughout his works (for a detailed discussion, see Palmer 1989, 6-31). He composed several poetical works, amongst them the Peristephanon (literally, On the Crowns [of the Martyrs]), a collection of fourteen poems of different length describing martyrdoms of saints. We do not know exactly at which point in his literary career Prudentius wrote the preface (possibly at the very end, just before publication); for attempts at a precise dating of the Peristephanon, see Fux 2013, 9, n. 1.The poems in the Peristephanon, written in elegant classical metres, deal mainly with martyrs from Spain, but some of them are dedicated to saints of Rome, Africa and the East. The poems were widely read in the late antique and medieval West, and had a considerable influence on the diffusion of cult of the saints included. In later periods they were sometimes used as hymns in liturgical celebrations and had an impact on the development of the Spanish hymnody. Some indications in the poems suggest that they were written to commemorate the saints on their feast days, but Prudentius probably did not compose them for the liturgy of his time. Rather, they probably provided 'devotional reading matter for a cultured audience outside a church context' (Palmer 1989, 3; see also Chapter 3 in her book).
Bibliography
Editions of the Peristephanon:Cunningham, M.P., Prudentii Carmina (Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 126; Turnhout: Brepols, 1966), 251-389.
Bergman, J., Prudentius, Carmina (Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 61; Vienna, 1926), 291-431.
Translations of the Peristephanon:
Eagan, C., Prudentius, Poems (Fathers of the Church 43; Washington D.C.: Catholic University Press, 1962), 95-280. English translation.
Thomson, H.J., Prudentius, vol. 2 (Loeb Classical Library; London Cambridge, Mass: W. Heinemann; Harvard University Press, 1953), 98-345. Edition and English translation.
Further reading:
Delehaye, H., "Cyprien d'Antioche et Cyprien de Carthage," Analecta Bollandiana 39 (1921), 314-322.
Fux, P.-Y., Prudence et les martyrs: hymnes et tragédie. Peristephanon 1. 3-4. 6-8. 10. Commentaire, (Fribourg: Academic Press, 2013).
Malamud, M.A., A Poetics of Transformation: Prudentius and Classical Mythology (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989).
Palmer, A.-M., Prudentius on the Martyrs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989).
Roberts, M., Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs: The "Liber Peristephanon" of Prudentius (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993).
Sabattini, T., "S. Cipriano nella tradizione agiografica," Rivista di studi classici 21 (1973), 181-204.
Record Created By
Marta Szada
Date of Entry
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00411 | Cyprian, bishop and martyr of Carthage | Certain |
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