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A Greek Taurobolic Inscription from Rome

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Extract

The following interesting inscription, recently found at Rome not far from the Piazza di S. Pietro, and probably belonging to the Phrygianum which is known to have existed in that region (the XIVth), was published by Comparetti and Marucchi in Not. d. Scav. xix. (1922), p. 81 sqq. It occupied one side (broken, unfortunately) of an altar, on two other sides of which are Metroac symbols (see Marucchi, l.c.). As, after careful examination of a plaster-cast of the inscription which Dr. Ashby very kindly procured for me from the original (now in the Museo Profano Lateranese), I disagree with some of Comparetti's readings, and differ widely from him as to the meaning, I re-edit it, at Mr. M. N. Tod's suggestion.

It is in elegiac verse, of which six complete lines and a few letters of a seventh survive. The lettering is fairly regular, the characters of v. 4 being perhaps a shade larger than in the other lines. The date is about the third century A.D. I give it in ordinary type with the usual epigraphical signs. The supplements are Comparetti's, unless otherwise stated in the critical notes.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1923

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References

1 Very few names of archigalli are known at Rome; see Graillot, , Culte de Cybèle. p. 234Google Scholar, n. 1.

2 Women often received the taurobolium; cf. Graillot, op. cit., p. 167, n. 4.

3 Perhaps rather ‘symbolising.’ The idea seems to be that the real offering is not the material altar, but the goodness and piety of G., as shown by his concern for Eurybia's spiritual welfare, of which the altar is a memorial. Cf., besides the obvious Jewish and Christian parallels, the Hermetic, λογικὴ θυσία Poimandres, 31Google Scholar; xiv. 21 (pp. 338, 347, 348, Reitzenstein), and Porphyry's views on sacrifice, de abst. ii. 15 and elsewhere.

4 δείξας = ποιησάμενος, θείς For this (late) sense of δείκνυμι see v. Herwerden, Lex. Supp., s.u., ‘Having made returned,” literally.

5 This seems to be the meaning, but I know no other instance of ἠρεμεῖν in a depreciatory sense = ἐλινύειν.