E00735: Greek inscription recording a request for help addressed to unnamed martyrs, found in Hisaralan (Hellespontus, north-west Asia Minor). Probably late antique (5th/8th c.).

online resource

posted on 2015-09-23, 00:00 authored by pnowakowski

ἅγιοι μ(άρ)τ(υ)ρ(ες) βοηθεῖτε τῇ δούλῃ ὑμῶν Ἀμμίᾳ κ(αὶ) τῷ δούλῳ ὑμῶν Τροφίμῳ 1. μ(άρ)τ(υ)ρ(ες) – a monogram 'Holy martyrs, help your servant Ammia and your servant Trophimos!' Text: Robert 1937, 213 note 3.

History

Evidence ID

E00735

Saint Name

Anonymous martyrs : S00060

Saint Name in Source

μάρτυρες

Related Saint Records

https://oxford.figshare.com/articles/Martyrs_unnamed_or_name_lost/13729267

Type of Evidence

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

Language

Greek

Evidence not before

400

Evidence not after

800

Activity not before

400

Activity not after

800

Place of Evidence - Region

Asia Minor

Place of Evidence - City, village, etc

Hisaralan

Place of evidence - City name in other Language(s)

Hisaralan Nicomedia Νικομήδεια Nikomēdeia Izmit Πραίνετος Prainetos Nicomedia

Cult activities - Non Liturgical Practices and Customs

Prayer/supplication/invocation

Cult Activities - Protagonists in Cult and Narratives

Women Other lay individuals/ people

Source

Inscription on a marble column: H. 0.75 m; diameter 0.29 m. The text was written inside a rectangular frame: H. 0.225 m; W. 0.2 m.

Discussion

This is a simple invocation of unnamed martyrs written by Ammia and Trophimos, otherwise unattested persons. Louis Robert supposes that the martyrs were patrons of a local sanctuary. François Halkin proposed that they could be the *Forty Martyrs of Sebaste (ob. early 4th c.) or the *Forty-Two Martyrs of Amorion but he based this on an erroneous reading of the first line. He did not recognise the monogram (which is not visible in the published photograph), and thought that it was a letter Μ which he considered as the numeral 40.

Bibliography

Edition: Robert, L., Études Anatoliennes. Recherches sur les inscriptions grecques de l'Asie-Mineure (Paris: De Boccard, 1937), 213, n. 3 Further Reading: Destephen, S., "Martyrs locaux et cultes civiques en Asie Mineure", in: J.C. Caillet, S. Destephen, B. Dumézil, H. Inglebert, Des dieux civiques aux saints patrons (IVe-VIIe siècle) (Paris: éditions A. & J. Picard, 2015), 88. Halkin, F., "Bulletin des publications hagiographiques", Analecta Bollandiana 59 (1941), 367-368. Reference works: Bulletin épigraphique (1941), 122b.