Evidence ID
E01132Saint Name
Apostles (unspecified) : S00084
Paul, the Apostle : S00008
Peter the Apostle : S00036Saint Name in Source
ἀπώστολοιType of Evidence
Inscriptions - Funerary inscriptionsLanguage
GreekEvidence not before
400Evidence not after
600Activity not before
400Activity not after
600Place of Evidence - Region
Asia MinorPlace of Evidence - City, village, etc
ChalcedonPlace of evidence - City name in other Language(s)
Chalcedon
Nicomedia
Νικομήδεια
Nikomēdeia
Izmit
Πραίνετος
Prainetos
NicomediaCult activities - Places
Cult building - independent (church)Cult Activities - Protagonists in Cult and Narratives
Ecclesiastics - lesser clergySource
The inscription was seen and copied by Johann Heinrich Mordtmann before 1885 at Erenköy (near Chalkedon), but it had probably been brought there from another location. First published by X. Sideridis in 1908 after Mordtmann's copy, sent to him in a letter dated 1899. There is no detailed description of the stone.Discussion
The inscription is the epitaph for a deacon of a church dedicated to the Apostles. In a letter to Sideridis, Mordtmann noted that this was almost certainly the martyr shrine built by Rufinus, a pretorian prefect of the East (392-395) under the emperor Theodosius I, at his estate of Rufinianae, and connected to the monastery of Rufinianae. The mid-5th c. Life of Hypatios says that the shrine was located close to Chalkedon and that Rufinus, in c. 393, acquired some relics of Peter and Paul the Apostles at Rome, and deposited them in this martyrion (66, 16-25, see E01133).
Denis Feissel rightly dismisses Mordtmann's idea that, based on this inscription, we could identify the site of Rufinianae precisely as Erenköy - because the stone was said to have been brought to the town from elsewhere.
Dating: probably 5th or 6th c. (based on the contents).Bibliography
Edition:
Feissel, D., "De Chalcédoine à Nicomédie, quelques inscriptions négligées", Travaux et Mémoires 10 (1987), no. 21.
Miliopoulos, I., Ἀρχαιολογικαὶ ζητήσεις, [1921], 8.
Sideridis, X., Syll. Const., 30 (1908), 219.
Reference works:
Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum 37, 1045.