Latin poem by Pope Damasus, composed for the tomb of *Laurence/Laurentius (deacon and martyr of Rome, S00037) in the cemetery of the Ager Veranus (S. Lorenzo), via Tiburtina, Rome. Written in Rome, 366-384.
Evidence ID
E07186
Type of Evidence
Inscriptions - Formal inscriptions (stone, mosaic, etc.)
Literary - Poems
Major author/Major anonymous work
Damasan and pseudo-Damasan poems
Damasus, Epigrammata 33 (ICVR VII, 18368)
Verbera carnifices flammas tormenta catenas
vincere Laurenti sola fides potuit.
haec Damasus cumulat supplex altaria donis
martyris egregii suspiciens meritum.
‘Blows, executioners, flames, racks, chains—
Lawrence’s faith alone was able to lay low.
Damasus, a suppliant, heaps this altar with gifts,
honoring the merit of a distinguished martyr.’
Text and translation: Trout 2015, 141-142.
Cult PlacesEcclesiastics - Popes
Cult Related Objects
Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave
Non Liturgical ActivityRenovation and embellishment of cult buildings
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - Popes
Ecclesiastics - lesser clergy
Cult Related ObjectsInscription
Source
The poems of DamasusThe poetry of Damasus is the first substantial corpus of texts devoted specifically to the cult of saints. All but a handful of his surviving poems were written to be inscribed on stone and displayed at the tombs of the martyrs. The installation of these inscriptions formed part of a programme of monumentalisation of the sites of martyr cult, most of which originated as ordinary tombs in the cemeteries and catacombs around the city of Rome, and it was often accompanied by major remodelling and rebuilding of the tombs and their physical surroundings (see Trout 2015, 42-47). The poems were inscribed on marble plaques with distinctive lettering ('Philocalian script') by the calligrapher Furius Dionysius Filocalus (Trout 2015, 47-52). This characteristic script makes it possible to identify fragments of inscribed text as Damasan even when the surviving remains are too small and fragmentary for the content of the inscription to be reconstructed.
Damasus' poems are of great importance for the history of saints' cult at Rome because, aside from what their content tells us, they are securely datable to his papacy (366-384). If a martyr is the subject of a poem by Damasus, it means that their cult was established and formally recognised at Rome no later than the early 380s; the only comparable, but much briefer, material is that in the Chronography of 354 (E01051, E01052). By contrast, the surviving Roman saints' lives are of very uncertain date and in most cases much later than Damasus' poems (which they sometimes used as a source: Lapidge 2018, 637-8).
It is certain that most material in the Damasan corpus is by Damasus himself, either because the inscribed text (or fragments of it) survives, or because Damasus refers to himself in the poem (which he does frequently). In other cases his authorship has been assigned on stylistic grounds. Since Damasus' style is quite distinctive (see Trout 2015, 16-26), this can usually be done reasonably securely, but there are a few instances where there is disagreement among editors as to whether poems are genuinely by Damasus (see E07149; E01790; E07503).
Survival of the poems
Only two of Damasus' inscriptions on the martyrs have survived more or less intact, those to Eutychius (E07169) and Agnes (E07189); a few others exist in fragments substantial enough to piece together most or all of the text, including the inscription from the crypt of the popes in the catacomb of St Sebastian (E01866), and the poem to Felicissimus and Agapitus (E07170). But most of his poems either do not survive at all in their inscribed form, or do so only in small fragments of a few words or letters. Their survival is the result of their inclusion in syllogae – collections of inscriptions from the martyr shrines and churches of Rome, which were transcribed by pilgrims and then circulated in manuscript. The earliest syllogae seem to have been compiled in the 7th century, at the same time as the earliest pilgrim itineraries, and like the itineraries they were organised geographically, following the routes used by pilgrims around the city and its suburbs. Poems by Damasus therefore appear scattered through the collections according to their location.
No sylloge survives in its original form: those now extant were compiled from earlier manuscript collections (whose traces are sometimes evident in their structure). They were edited by de Rossi in vol. 2.1 of the first edition of ICUR (1888), which remains the only modern edition of the syllogae as such (as opposed to the individual poems they contain). For a descriptive account of the syllogae containing Damasus’ poems, see Trout 2015, 63-65; more briefly, Lapidge 2018, 638. The most important syllogae for the transmission of Damasus' poems are as follows:
The Sylloge Laureshamensis. A manuscript produced at the monastery of Lorsch in the 9th/10th c., now in the Vatican Library (Vatican, Pal. Lat. 833; digitised: digi.vatlib.it/view/bav_pal_lat_833). De Rossi believed it was a compilation of four existing collections, which he denoted as follows: Laureshamensis I (de Rossi 1888, 144-153), dating from the 9th c. (ibid. 142); Laureshamensis II (de Rossi 1888, 126-130), from the 7th c. (ibid. 124); Laureshamensis III (de Rossi 1888, 161-173), a collection of inscriptions from northern Italy, dating from the late 8th c. (ibid. 160); and Laureshamensis IV (de Rossi 1888, 98-118), dating from the 7th c. (ibid. 97), and the one that contains most of the Damasan material.
The Sylloge Centulensis (de Rossi 1888, 78-94). Produced in the monastery of St. Riquier in the 9th/10th century, held for most of its existence in Corbie, and now in the Russian National Library at St. Petersburg (Codex Petropolitanus F XIV 1).
The Sylloge Turonensis (de Rossi 1888, 62-71). Produced at Tours in the 7th century, but surviving only in two manuscripts from 11th/12th-century Austria (Klosterneuburg Stiftsbibliothek Cod. 723; Göttweig Stiftsbibliothek Cod. 64 (78), digitised: manuscripta.at/diglit/AT2000-64).
The Sylloge Virdunensis (de Rossi 1888, 134-141). Produced at Verdun in the 10th century (Bibliothèque de Verdun, ms. 45; digitised: www1.arkhenum.fr/bm_verdun_ms/_app/index.php?type_recherche=cote&choix_secondaire=Ms. 45).
The Sylloge Einsidelnensis (de Rossi 1888, 18-33). Produced at the monastery of Einsiedeln in the 9th century (Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek 326, digitised: www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/list/one/sbe/0326).
Edition and formatting
Our entries use the edition of Damasus' epigrams by Dennis Trout (Oxford University Press, 2015). In his Latin text, Trout uses lower case to indicate material transmitted only in manuscript and upper case to indicate letters which survive on stone. We have used standard capitalisation, with material from inscribed fragments in underlined upper case. Apart from this, both text and translation follow Trout unless otherwise indicated.
Discussion
Original location: cemetery of the Ager Veranus, via Tiburtina, just outside Rome to the east.Physical remains: none.
Manuscript transmission: Sylloge Laureshamensis IV, Sylloge Centulensis.
This is one of three surviving poems by Damasus in elegiac couplets. It must originally have been inscribed at Laurence's shrine on the via Tiburtina to the east of Rome. Laurence's tomb was in a crypt in a catacomb tunnelled into a hillside at the cemetery of the Ager Veranus (also known as the cemetery of Cyriaca, and by the 6th century as the cemetery of St Laurence). Under Constantine the tomb was lavishly embellished, as is described in detail in the Liber pontificalis (see E00404): the chamber was given an apse decorated with purple marble, and the tomb was given silver fittings, while stairways were built to allow access. Constantine also built a funerary basilica at the site, one of several which he constructed at shrines around Rome. This is the architectural context which existed in Damasus' time: his inscription was presumably placed in the shrine constructed by Constantine.
In the 6th century, however, the site was transformed: Pope Pelagius II (579-590) had the hillside above Laurence's tomb removed, dismantling the Constantinian shrine in the process, and built a basilica directly over the tomb, the present-day S. Lorenzo fuori le mura (see E01401, E05292, E05305); the neighbouring basilica built by Constantine eventually went out of use, and is last mentioned in the 9th century. In the 13th century, the church was radically reconstructed again by Pope Honorius III (1216-1227), giving it its present form. For further discussion of the site's archaeology, see Trout 2015, 142-3, and the further references given there, especially Serra 2004 and 2005.
Bibliography
Editions and translations:de Rossi, G.B., Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romae Septimo Saeculo Antiquiores, vol. 2.1 (Rome, 1888), 82, no. 22; 117-118, no. 100.
Ihm, M., Damasi epigrammata (Anthologiae Latinae Supplementa 1, Leipzig: Teubner, 1895), 37-38, no. 32.
Ferrua, A., Epigrammata damasiana (Rome: Pontificio Istituto di archeologia cristiana, 1942), 166-167, no. 33.
de Rossi, G.B., and Ferrua, A. (eds.) Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romae Septimo Saeculo Antiquiores [ICVR], n.s., vol. 7: Coemeteria viae Tiburtinae (Vatican: Pont. Institutum Archaeologiae Christianae, 1980), no. 18368.
Reutter, U., Damasus, Bischof von Rom (366-384): Leben und Werk (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 82, no. 33.
Aste, A., Gli epigrammi di papa Damaso I (Tricase: Libellula Edizioni, 2014).
Trout, D., Damasus of Rome: The Epigraphic Poetry. Introduction, Texts, Translations, and Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 141-143.
Epigraphic Database Bari, ED28712
https://www.edb.uniba.it/epigraph/28712
Further reading:
Lapidge, M., The Roman Martyrs: Introduction, Translation and Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 184-6, 644-5.
Serra, S., "Cyriaces coemeterium," in: A. La Regina (ed.), Lexicon topographicum urbis Romae – Suburbium, vol. 2 (Rome, Quasar: 2004), 176-180.
Serra, S., "S. Laurenti basilica, balneum, praetorium, monasterium, hospitia, bibliothecae," in: A. La Regina (ed.), Lexicon topographicum urbis Romae – Suburbium, vol. 3 (Rome, Quasar: 2005), 203-211.
Record Created By
David Lambert
Date of Entry
New entry 16/07/2025, replacing an earlier entry.
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00037 | Laurence/Laurentius, deacon and martyr of Rome | Laurentius | Certain |
|---|
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