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 Latin at 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 of Rome, 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 (modified).
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 surviving corpus of poetry by Damasus, pope from 366 to 384, comprises about sixty poems. Almost all are in honour of saints and martyrs, and were originally displayed at the tombs of martyrs in the cemeteries and catacombs that surrounded the city of Rome. They were inscribed on large marble plaques with distinctive lettering ('Philocalian script') by the calligrapher Furius Dionysius Filocalus (see Trout 2015, 47-52). The inscriptions were an important part of the programme of monumentalisation of the sites of saintly cult initiated by Damasus (see Trout 2015, 42-47).
The poems of Damasus are the first substantial corpus of texts devoted specifically to the cult of saints. They are of great importance for the history of saints' cult at Rome because, aside from what their content tells us, they can be dated so securely. If a martyr is the subject of a poem in the Damasan collection, this shows 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 (E01052). By contrast, the surviving Roman saints' lives are of very uncertain date and almost certainly all later than Damasus' poems (which they sometimes used as a source: Lapidge 2018, 637-8).
Survival of the poems
Only a handful of Damasus' inscriptions survive intact; others partially survive in fragments, but the majority survive only through manuscript transmission, primarily via syllogae – collections of inscriptions from the martyr shrines and churches of Rome which were transcribed by pilgrims and then circulated in manuscript. The earliest of these seem to have been compiled in the 7th century, at the same time as the earliest pilgrim itineraries, and they were organised on the same basis, according to the location of inscriptions on the routes followed by pilgrims around the city. Unlike the itineraries, no sylloge survives in its original form: the extant syllogae were all compiled from earlier manuscript collections (whose traces are sometimes evident in the structure of the syllogae). The syllogae 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). On the syllogae containing Damasus’ poems, see Trout 2015, 63-65; Lapidge 2018, 638.
The most important syllogae for the transmission of Damasus' poems are the following:
The Sylloge Laureshamensis. A manuscript produced at the monastery of Lorsch in the 9th/10th century (Vatican, Pal. Lat. 833; digitised: digi.vatlib.it/view/bav_pal_lat_833). De Rossi (1888) believed that it contained material from four earlier collections, of which the one that he denoted Laureshamensis IV, dating from the 7th century, contained most of the Damasan material.
The Sylloge Centulensis. 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. Produced at Tours in the 7th century, but surviving only in two manuscripts from the 11th/12th century (Klosterneuburg Stiftsbibliothek Cod. 723; Göttweig Stiftsbibliothek Cod. 64 (78), digitised: manuscripta.at/diglit/AT2000-64).
The Sylloge Virdunensis. 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. Produced at the monastery of Einsiedeln in the 9th century (Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek 326, digitised: www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/list/one/sbe/0326).
It is certain that most poems in the corpus are by Damasus, either because they survive, wholly or partly, in their inscribed form or because Damasus refers to himself in the text (which he does frequently). In other cases his authorship has been assigned to poems on stylistic grounds. Since Damasus' style is quite distinctive (see Trout 2015, 16-26), this can usually be done reasonably securely, but there are instances where there is disagreement among editors as to whether poems are genuinely by Damasus.
Discussion
The poem is in elegiac couplets, a rare metre for Damasus. The text is preserved by the Sylloge Laureshamensis and the Sylloge Centulensis. There are no physical remains.The poem 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 had constructed at shrines around Rome, and which survived until at least the 9th century. 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 entire hillside above Laurence's tomb removed, dismantling the Constantinian shrine in the process, and built a basilica over the tomb, the present-day S. Lorenzo fuori le mura (see E01401, E05292, E05305). 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.
Bibliography
Editions and translations:Trout, D., Damasus of Rome: The Epigraphic Poetry: Introduction, Texts, Translations, and Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), no. 33, 141-143.
Epigraphic Database Bari, ED28712, see http://www.edb.uniba.it/epigraph/28712
de Rossi, G.B., and Ferrua, A. (eds.) Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romae Septimo Saeculo Antiquiores, n.s., vol. 7: Coemeteria viae Tiburtinae (Vatican: Pont. Institutum Archaeologiae Christianae, 1980), no. 18368.
Ferrua, A., Epigramata damasiana (Rome: Pontificio Istituto di archeologia cristiana, 1942), no. 33.
Ihm, M., Damasi epigrammata (Anthologiae Latinae Supplementa 1, Leipzig: Teubner, 1895), no. 32.
Lapidge, M., The Roman Martyrs: Introduction, Translation and Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 645 (English translation).
Further reading:
Lapidge, M., The Roman Martyrs: Introduction, Translation and Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 184-6, 644-5
Serra, S., "S. Laurenti basilica, balneum, praetorium, monasterium, hospitia, bibliothecae," in: A. La Regina (ed.), Lexicon topographicum urbis Romae – Suburbium, vol. 3 (Rome, Quasar: 2004), 203-11.
Record Created By
David Lambert, Katarzyna Wojtalik
Date of Entry
21/08/2020
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00037 | Laurence/Laurentius, deacon and martyr of Rome | Laurentius | Certain |
|---|
Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
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