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The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity


from its origins to circa AD 700, across the entire Christian world


Latin inscription by a certain presbyter Severus commemorating his dedication to *Peter (the Apostle, S00036), and mentioning the titulus-church of *Clemens/Clement (bishop of Rome, martyr of the Crimea, S00111), the present-day San Clemente. Found in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome. Dated 533.

Evidence ID

E08080

Type of Evidence

Inscriptions - Formal inscriptions (stone, mosaic, etc.)

[+] salbo papa n(ostro) Iohanne cognome-
to Mercurio ex s(an)c(ta)e eccl(esiae) Rom(anae) presbyte-
ris ordinato ex tit(ulo) s(an)c(t)i Clementis ad glo-
riam pontificalem promoto. beato Petro
ap(ostolo) patrono suo a vinculis eius Severus p(res)b(yter) o(ff)ert.
et it(erum) p(ost) c(onsulatum) Lampadi et Orestis vv(irorum) cc(larissimorum). urbi+clus ced(sign?)ri(
leaf)nus est.

[1. [+] Fontanini, + Baronio, Duchesne, Diehl, + om. Pagi, Marucchi, Landsford || salbo = salvo || Joanne Baronio, Johanne Pagi, Ioanne Diehl, EDCS, Iohanne Duchesne, photo || 2-3. cognome[n]|to Fontanini, Duchesne, cogonomen|to Baronio, Pagi, Marucchi, cognome|to Diehl, cognome|nto Landsford, cognome(n)|to EDCS || 5. ejus Baronio, Pagi || Severus Gruter, Pagi, Fontanini, Duchesne, Landsford, Severs Marucchi, Seuer(u)s Diehl, EDCS || 5-6. presb. offert Baronio, p(res)b(yter)o fr|et Gruter, of()rt Pagi, Landsford, o()ert Fontanini, ofert Duchesne, opfert Marucchi, oert|et=offer|et pro offert? Diehl, o(ff)ert(?) | {et} EDCS, of(fe)er IPont. || 6. p(ost) c(onsulatum) om. Gruter || Lampadii Baronio || urbiculus cedrinus Baronio, Pagi || Vrbitcius Gruter, vrbi+clus cedr(palm?)in(leaf)us Fontanini, vrbi+clus cedrinus Marucchi, Landsford, Vrbi + clus Cedri(leaf)nus Duchesne = Vrbicius? Diehl, Urbiclus Cedrinus EDCS]

'[+] In the lifetime of our pope John, called Mercurius, ordained from the presbyters of the holy Roman Church, promoted to pontifical glory from the
titulus-church of Saint Clemens. To the blessed Peter the Apostle, his patron from his chains (a vinculis eius), Severus, presbyter, offers (this). In the third year after the consulship of Lampadius and Orestes, viri clarissimi. (The offering?) is of a small cedar disk.'


Text:
ILCV 1780, modified after a photograph. T
ranslation: P. Nowakowski.

Cult Places

Cult building - independent (church)

Non Liturgical Activity

Prayer/supplication/invocation
Bequests, donations, gifts and offerings

Protagonists in Cult and Narratives

Ecclesiastics - lesser clergy
Ecclesiastics - Popes

Cult Related Objects

Other

Source

High quality marble slab. Large, decorative lettering, ligatures.

Dimensions of the plaque: H. 0.275 m; W. 0.58 m. Dimensions including the present-day frame: H. 0.40 m; W. 0.70 m. Letter height: 3.5 cm, line 6: 1.8 cm. Both upper corners lost, now restored together with missing parts of the letters.

Displayed in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome. Now on a wall below the pipe organ, about 1.8 meters above the floor, but in Gruter's edition (1602), as well as in other 16th and 17th c. references, described as a pavement slab. First mentioned as fixed on a wall by Fontanini in 1727. Nonetheless, we cannot be sure if the placement in the floor was its original one: the stone bears minimal if any signs of wear from footsteps.

The inscription has had a large number of editions and commentaries, starting in the early modern period. It is first recorded in print in 1568, in an “annotatio to the Life of Pope John II” by Onuphrius Panvinius in his annotated edition of Bartholomaeus Platina’s
Lives of the Popes (Liber de vita Christi ac omnium pontificum later also known as Historia de vitis pontificum Romanorum). Here we have limited discussion to major works, starting with the editions of Cesare Baronio (1586) and Joannes Gruter (1602). In the commentary, we emphasise existing problems with the correct dating of the inscription. This is important, since based on the assumption that the plaque was made in the same year that pope John II took up office, it was used to assing the beginning of his pontificate to different dates.

We are grateful to the Rev. Michał Oleksowicz who took for us the dimensions of the stone, and kindly shared high quality photographs.


Discussion

The Dedicatee: The chains of Peter mentioned in this inscription are the chains from which he was freed by an angel in Acts 12:6-7. These are the principal relic of San Pietro in Vincoli and give the church its name. The precise sense of the sentence beato Petro apostolo patrono suo a vinculis eius Severus presbyter offert, literally 'To the blessed Peter the Apostle, his patron from his chains, Severus, presbyter, offers', is less clear. If a vinculis eius goes with patrono suo, as the word order suggests, it could mean that Peter was Severus' patron 'from', in the sense of 'by means of', the chains kept at San Pietro in Vincoli. Another possibility, suggested by Lansford 2009, links a vinculis eius with Severus, the presbyter, describing him as 'Severus, presbyter at his [Peter's] chains'; this reading, however, puts severe strain on the word order and a is not normally used to mean 'at'.

The object of the offering: The final clause of the inscription is somewhat enigmatic. It reads urbiclus cedrinus which, if taken as a variant spelling of orbiculus, literarily translates as a "small cedar disk". Daniel Paperbroch understood it as a mensa: a table or an altar offered to the church of Saint Peter. Fontanini suggested that it was actually a depiction of Saint Peter executed on a round medallion, or clypeus vel thorax. Duchesne prefers to describe it as an unspecified votive object, and Lansford adheres to a cautious interpretation ("some type of votive offering made of cedar wood"). Diehl, however, again inspired by Gruter's reading, also considered the possibility that the clause conceals corrupted names, perhaps Urbicius and Cedrinus (Kedrenos). He gives no explanation for their role in the inscription.

It is in fact difficult to judge on the character of this
urbiclus (if this is indeed the word to be read there). The only major Latin dictionary which features the headword urbiclus is Du Cange's Glossarium. The entry is, however, based entirely on our inscription's contents, and its interpretation by Fontanini. Thus, it is of little help for solving the meaning of this mysterious term. In any case, the offering made by Severus was certainly worthy of the funds and effort needed to execute such a high quality marble plaque (whose overall size is, however, not very imposing, just about 30 x 60 cm). One can perhaps think of a medallion containing an image of Peter, as such works of art were commemorated by similar inscriptions both in the East (see, for example, EE02477, E02633), and in the West (E05765: inscription in mosaic in the apse of the church of S. Agnese fuori le mura, Rome, with a poem praising the beauty of the scene depicted above).

Dating:
The inscription is dated 533. This is clear from the last line of the text which contains the formula "et it(erum) p(ost) c(onsulatum) Lampadi et Orestis vv(irorum) cc(larissimorum)". The consulship of this couple was in 530, and the formula denotes the third year after their consulship (with "et iterum post consulatum" meaning in fact "iterum et/atque iterum post consulatum"). Such a formula is also know from a number of other inscriptions, all independently dated to 533, and in their Consuls of the Later Roman Empire, p. 600, Roger Bagnall and Klaas Worp without hesitation included our text as a certain testimony to the Roman dating formulae of the year 533.

The date of 533 was also rightly pointed out by Louis Duchesne in his edition of our text in the
Liber Pontificalis in 1886. Duchesne did not openly give the date, but he wrote that we witness here "un monument épigraphique relatif au pape Jean II, ... et à son élévation au pontificat" which he firmly placed in 533. The dating to 533 was repeated by Orazio Marucchi in 1910 without explanation.

However, in the long history of editions and commentaries published on this text, other dates have also been suggested, all of them based on wrong assumptions. The reasons were manifold, but all of them resulted from the lack of understanding of the dating formula.

531: Cesare Baronio in the seventh volume of
Annales ecclesiastici (published in 1538) dated the inscription to 531. He was surprisingly inept at solving the abbreviation "et it." and was convinced that only "p(ost) c(onsulatum) Lampadi et Orestis vv(irorum) cc(larissimorum)" denoted the year, that is the first year after the consulship of Lampadius and Orestes. This supposition was refuted already by Antoine Pagi (Antonius Pagius) in his monumental commentary to the Annales and by Giusto Fontanini back in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

532: This date is often met in studies referring to this inscription. It was suggested by Pagi since he read the dating formula as "it(erum) p(ost) c(onsulatum)", more skilfully than Baronio, but still he was unable to connect and properly understand the "et" which opens the phrase. Hence, he opted for the second year after the consulship of Lampadius and Orestes. The same reasoning was also presented by Fontanini, and Fontanini's arguments were in turn found convincing by Du Cange in his
Glossarium, s.v. urbiclus.

For quite a different reason, 532 was proposed in the influential edition by Ernst Diehl, the
Inscriptiones Christianae Latinae Veteres. Although Diehl certainly knew well Marucchi’s (and presumably Duchesne's) correct reading and dating, he surprisingly preferred to follow an old idea of Johannes Gruter, a 17th c. editor of this text, and argued that "et" from the beginning of line 6 was allegedly the ending of the verb which we see at the end of line 5. This he read as "oert|et = offeret = offert". What was then left for Diehl from the dating formula ("it(erum) p(ost) c(onsulatum)") corresponded to 532. It is, however, very implausible that "et" from the beginning of line 6 belongs to the verb from line 5. The verb is abbreviated and reads almost certainly "o(ff)ert", which is a correct and complete form, and there is no need to look for any endings in line 6. Gruter connected the "o" from offert with the preceding word: pbo=presbytero and was hence forced to look for a different verb at the breaking of lines 5 and 6. But this is by no means needed in Diehl's reading where "o" is retained as an integral part of the verb. Furthermore "et" is squeezed between two words with superimposed lines, whereas it itself has no marking, a clear sign that it is a separate word.

In the
Epigraphic Database Clauss-Slaby, Manfred Clauss places this "et" in curly brackets, which means he deemed it superfluous in the text, a mere stonemason’s error. This also implies a shorter dating formula and a date in 532, but is equally unjustified.

Tyler Lansford's edition (2009) does not specify an absolute date. The author only speaks of the "third year (inclusive) after the consulship", referring just to "it(erum) p(ost) c(onsulatum)" (corresponding to AD 532).

535: For reasons unknown to us, the inscription is dated 535 in the
Inscriptiones Pontificiae. Probably a mere typo.


Bibliography

Edition:
Baronio, C., Annales ecclesiasici, tomus septimus (Rome: ex Typographia Vaticana, 1596), p. 167.

Gruter, J.,
Inscriptiones antiquae totius orbis Romani, in corpus absolutissimum redactae (Heidelberg: Ex officina Commeliniana, 1602), p. 1059, no. 3.

Fontanini, G.,
Discus argenteus votivus veterum christianorum Perusiae repertus ex Museo Albano depromptus et commentario illustratus (Rome: ex Typographia Rochi Bernabo in vico ad Muratas et apud Pagliarinum bibliopolam in area Pasquini, 1727), p. 51, cf. p. 27.

Baronio, C., revised by Pagio, A.,
Annales ecclesiastici (= Notae ad Baronium), tomus nonus (Luca: Typis Leonardi Venturini, 1741), p. 432.

Duchesne, L.,
Le Liber pontificalis, vol. 1 (Paris: E. Thorin, 1886), p. 285, n. 1.

Marucchi, O.,
Epigrafia cristiana. Trattato elementare con una silloge di antiche iscrizioni cristiane principalmente di Roma (Milan: U. Hoepli, 1910), p. 298, no. 337.

Diehl, E.,
Inscriptiones Latinae Christianae Veteres (Berlin: Apud Weidmannos, 1925-1927), vol. 1, no. 1780 with an addendum in vol. 2 (ad no. 1780).

Lansford, T.,
The Latin Inscriptions of Rome: A Walking Guide (Baltimore, Maryland: John Hopkins University Press, 2009), p. 102, no. 3.4C.

IPont =
Inscriptiones Pontificiae I.2a (saec. VI–VII) ed. A. Bagordo [version 1 : 26 nov 2016].

EDCS- Epigraphic Database Clauss-Slaby, no. EDCS-42600216.

Further reading:
Bagnal, R., Worp, K., Consuls of the Later Roman Empire (Atlanta, Georgia: American Philological Association, 1987), p. 600, annus 533.

Cooper, K., Hillner, J., Leyser, C., "Dark Age Rome: Towards an interactive topography", in: W. Bowden, A. Gutteridge, C. Machado (eds),
Social and Political Life in Late Antiquity (Late Antique Archaeology 3.1, Leiden: Brill, 2006), 311–337 (esp. 326).

Du Cange,
Glossarium ad scriptores mediæ et infimæ latinitatis, p. 382, s.v. urbiclus (after Fontantanini: clypeus votivus, dated 532).

Images



Photograph, as seen today. By Michał Oleksowicz.


The stone in its present context. By Michał Oleksowicz.


Upper left-hand corner. By Michał Oleksowicz.


Upper right-hand corner. By Michał Oleksowicz.


Lower left-hand corner. By Michał Oleksowicz.


Lower right-hand corner. By Michał Oleksowicz.


Baronio, C., Annales ecclesiastici VII (1596).


Gruter, J., Inscriptiones antiquae totius orbis Romani (1602).


Fontanini, Discus argenteus votivus (1727).


Baronio, C., revised by Pagio, A., Annales ecclesiastici, tomus nonus (1741)


Duchesne, L., Le Liber pontificalis, vol. 1 (1886)


Marucchi, O., Epigrafia cristiana (1910)


Record Created By

Paweł Nowakowski

Date of Entry

29/11/2020

Related Saint Records
IDNameName in SourceIdentity
S00036Peter, the ApostlePetrusCertain
S00111Clemens/Clement, bishop of Rome, martyr of the CrimeaClemensUncertain


Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Paweł Nowakowski, Cult of Saints, E08080 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E08080