Evidence ID
E05263Image Caption 1
From: ICVR, n.s., VI, p. 109.Type of Evidence
Inscriptions - Graffiti
Archaeological and architectural - Internal cult fixtures (crypts, ciboria, etc.)Evidence not before
340Evidence not after
400Activity not before
340Activity not after
400Place of Evidence - Region
Rome and regionPlace of Evidence - City, village, etc
Suburban catacombs and cemeteriesPlace of evidence - City name in other Language(s)
Suburban catacombs and cemeteries
Rome
Rome
Roma
Ῥώμη
RhōmēCult activities - Places
Burial site of a saint - crypt/ crypt with relicsCult activities - Non Liturgical Practices and Customs
Prayer/supplication/invocationCult Activities - Protagonists in Cult and Narratives
Other lay individuals/ peopleSource
Graffito executed with a stylus on the plaster of a wall in area X 14. Letter height 2.2 - 5 cm.
First published by Mariano Armellini in 1878. Later reedited by Orazio Marucchi (1898) and Ernst Diehl (after Marucchi's edition). The present reference edition was offered by Antonio Ferrua in 1975.Discussion
The graffito records an invocation to a certain Asclepias, using a formula (in mente habe) regularly used to address saints and martyrs in the Roman suburban cemeteries. The identity of this Asclepias is not clear. She is not termed 'saint' or 'martyr' by the supplicant. In spite of this, Ernst Diehl listed her as an obscure Roman female saint in his corpus of Latin Christian inscriptions. Antonio Ferrua in the sixth volume of the ICVR suggests that this Asclepias is also mentioned in two more inscriptions found in proximity of the present text, neither of which appear to address her as a saint: ICVR, n.s., VI, no. 16071: Asclepias | Desiderius | Marc... (a graffito); and ICVR, n.s., VI, no. 16072: Asclepia (sic) | in pace (ivy leaf)/'Asclepia (buried) in peace (graffito). On balance, Ascelpia seems most likely to have been an ordinary woman, asked for intercession by her relatives, rather than a 'proper saint'.
Dating: Carlo Carletti (in EDB) dates the graffito to the 4th c.Bibliography
Edition:
Epigraphic Database Bari, no. EDB4828. See http://www.edb.uniba.it/epigraph/4828
De Rossi, G.B., Ferrua, A. (eds.), Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romae Septimo Saeculo Antiquiores, n.s., vol. 6: Coemeteria viis Latina, Labicana et Praenestina (Vatican: Pont. Institutum Archaeologiae Christianae, 1975), no. 16073.
Diehl, E., Inscriptiones Latinae Christianae Veteres, vol. 1: Religionsgeschichtle und epigraphische Untersuchungen (Berlin: Apud Weidmannos, 1925), no. 2327.
Marucchi, O., "La cripta storica dei SS. Pietro e Marcellino recentemente scoperta sulla via labicana", Nuovo bullettino di archeologia cristiana 4 (1898), 168.
Armellini, M., Gli antichi cimeteri cristiani di Roma e d'Italia (Rome: Tipografia poliglotta, 1893), 338.
Armellini, M., "", Cronachetta mensuale di scienze naturali e d'archeologia (1878), 75.
