Latin and Greek visitor graffiti with invocations of *Hippolytus (martyr of Rome, S00509). Found in the Cemetery of Hippolytus, via Tiburtina, Rome. Probably late 6th - early 7th c.
E05348
Inscriptions - Graffiti
Archaeological and architectural - Internal cult fixtures (crypts, ciboria, etc.)
Below we present only the graffiti which invoke the martyr Hippolytus by name. In other texts (some of them also composed in Greek) we find the names of visitors to the cemetery and the tomb of Hippolytus, but without invocations of the martyrs or of God. Among the visitors there are men and women, a presbyter, a praepositus, and people described as servants of God ('serbus Dei'). The total number of the published graffiti is not high. Antonio Ferrua presents about a dozen texts in five entries.
1) Graffito on a plastered wall of a crypt giving access to the subterranean basilica. Letter height c. 3 cm. First mentioned by Giovanni Battista de Rossi in 1882, and published by him in 1883. Dated (in EDB) to the late 6th - early 7th c.
Ippoly[t]e in mente [abeas]
Pet[rum p]ecc[at]orem
'O Hippolytus, [may you keep] in mind Petrus, the sinner!'
Text: ICVR, n.s., VII, no. 19940 = EDB21707.
2) Graffito on a plastered wall of a crypt giving access to the subterranean basilica. Letter height c. 3-7 cm. First mentioned by Giovanni Battista de Rossi in 1883. Transcriptions are preserved in the archives of de Rossi and Enrico Stevenson. Revisited and published in 1980 by Antonio Ferrua. Dated (in EDB) to the late 6th - early 7th c.
[- - -]ora
[- - -] Petrus
[- - -] Renata
[in m]ente habe Ippolite
[- - -] Ḥelene Septi-
[mia Ven]eriosa et
[fr]atre ipsas (?)
5. possibly Irene = Irenem: Ferrua || 6. ipsius or ipes: Ferrua, ipsas: Schiraldi in EDB
'[- - -] Petrus [- - -] Renata [- - -] O Hippolytus, keep in mind [- - -] Helena (or: Irena), Septimia, Veneriosa and their brother (?).'
Text: ICVR, n.s., VII, no. 19941 = EDB21117.
3) Graffito on a wall, on a damaged fragment of plaster (c. 12 x 10.5 cm) in the vestibule of the subterranean basilica. Letter height c. 3 cm. First published in 1980 by Antonio Ferrua. Dated (in EDB) to the late 6th - early 7th c.
[- - - in] ṃen[te]
[habe? Pr]imiṭ[ib - - -]
'[- - -] keep in (your) mind Primitiv[- - -]!'
Text: ICVR, n.s., VII, no. 19942a = EDB21118.
Burial site of a saint - crypt/ crypt with relics
Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave
Burial site of a saint - cemetery/catacomb
Non Liturgical ActivityPrayer/supplication/invocation
Pilgrimage
Visiting graves and shrines
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesWomen
Ecclesiastics - lesser clergy
Other lay individuals/ people
Officials
Bibliography
Edition:Epigraphic Database Bari, nos. EDB861, EDB7196, EDB20608-20609, EDB21707, EDB21117-21120
http://www.edb.uniba.it/epigraph/861
http://www.edb.uniba.it/epigraph/7196
http://www.edb.uniba.it/epigraph/20608
http://www.edb.uniba.it/epigraph/20609
http://www.edb.uniba.it/epigraph/21707
http://www.edb.uniba.it/epigraph/21117
http://www.edb.uniba.it/epigraph/21118
http://www.edb.uniba.it/epigraph/21119
http://www.edb.uniba.it/epigraph/21120
De Rossi, G.B., Ferrua, A. (eds.), Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romae Septimo Saeculo Antiquiores, n.s., vol. 7: Coemeteria via Tiburtinae (Vatican: Pont. Institutum Archaeologiae Christianae, 1980), nos. 19940-19944.
For earlier editions and archive records, see the lemmata by Antonio Ferrua in the Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romae, especially:
Bovini, G., Sant'Ippolito (Città del Vaticano: Pontificio istituto di archeologia cristiana, 1943), 146, 155.
Diehl, E., Inscriptiones Latinae Christianae Veteres, vol. 1 (Berlin: Apud Weidmannos, 1925), comments to no. 2327.
Marucchi, O., Epigrafia cristiana. Trattato elementare con una silloge di antiche iscrizioni cristiane principalmente di Roma (Milan: U. Hoepli, 1910), 435, no. 467.
Marucchi, O., Le catacombe romane (Rome: Desclée, Lefebvre E.C., 1905, 2nd ed.), 331.
Armellini, M., Gli antichi cimeteri cristiani di Roma e d'Italia (Rome: Tipografia poliglotta, 1893), 321.
Armellini, M., Le chiese di Roma dal secolo IV al XIX (Rome: Tipografia Vaticana, 1891), 878.
de Rossi, G.B. (ed.), in: O. Marucchi, "Conferenze della società di cultori della cristiana archeologia in Roma", Bullettino di archeologia cristiana 4 Ser. 2 (1883), 104.
de Rossi, G.B., "Notizie", Bullettino di archeologia cristiana 4 Ser. 1 (1882), 176.
For the cemetery cemetery of Hippolytus, the subterranean basilica with his tomb, and a lost basilica on the surface, see the works listed in:
Bertonière, G., The Cult Center of the Martyr Hippolitus on the via Tiburtina (Oxford: B.A.R., 1985).
Löx, M., Monumenta Sanctorum: Rom und Mailand als Zentren des frühen Christentums. Märtyrerkult und Kirchenbau unter den Bischöfen Damasus und Ambrosius (Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag, 2013), 64, 211.
Nuzzo, D., "Hyppoliti coemeterium", in LexiconTopographicum Urbis Romae. Suburbium, vol. 3, 68-75.
Trout, D., Damasus of Rome: The Epigraphic Poetry. Introduction, Texts, Translations, and Commentary (Oxford: OUP, 2015), 146-147.
Images
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Graffito 1. From: ICVR, n.s., VII, 416.
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Graffito 2. From: ICVR, n.s., VII, 417.
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Graffito 3. From: ICVR, n.s., VII, 417.
Paweł Nowakowski
19/04/2018
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00509 | Hippolytus, martyr of Rome | Ippolytus, Ippolitus | Certain |
|---|
Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Paweł Nowakowski, Cult of Saints, E05348 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E05348