E04682: Latin graffiti with an invocation of unnamed holy spirits, probably the souls of popes and martyrs buried in the cemetery of Callistus, and perhaps an invocation of *Xystus/Sixtus II (bishop and martyr of Rome, S00201). Found in the lower part of that cemetery. Via Appia, Rome. Proably late 4th-early 5th c.
online resource
posted on 2018-01-25, 00:00authored bypnowakowski
Acileu[s] kui peto
(image of a male face)
him mente abete Corn[---] spirita vestra sancta
'Acilius, on whose behalf I ask ... your holy spirits, have in mind Corn[elius (?) - - -]!'
Antonio Ferrua notes that Giovanni Battista de Rossi recorded one more invocation written on the same wall, which, he thinks, could be restored as follows:
Floren[t]ius [et] sanct[e Xyste in mente] habe[- - -]
Text: ICVR, n.s., IV, no. 9532.
History
Evidence ID
E04682
Saint Name
Xystus/Sixtus II, bishop and martyr of Rome : S00201
Saints, unnamed : S00518
Place of evidence - City name in other Language(s)
Suburban catacombs and cemeteries
Rome
Rome
Roma
Ῥώμη
Rhōmē
Cult activities - Places
Burial site of a saint - cemetery/catacomb
Cult activities - Non Liturgical Practices and Customs
Prayer/supplication/invocation
Cult Activities - Protagonists in Cult and Narratives
Other lay individuals/ people
Source
Graffiti in slender, cursive script. Letter height 4-5 cm. Scratched in the plaster, on the eastern wall in Area A4 in the lower part of the cemetery of Callistus.
First published by Giovanni Battista de Rossi in 1867. Revisited, and published again by Antontio Ferrua in 1964.
Discussion
The inscriptions seem to invoke the souls of the popes and martyrs buried in the cemetery of Callistus. The name Cornelius in line 3 probably refers to a supplicant rather than pope Cornelius, martyr of Rome, buried in the same cemetery.
Dating: Antonio Felle (in EDB) dates the graffiti to the late 4th-early 5th c.
Bibliography
Edition:
Epigraphic Database Bari, no. EDB17808, see http://www.edb.uniba.it/epigraph/17808
De Rossi, G.B., Ferrua, A. (eds.) Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romae Septimo Saeculo Antiquiores, n.s., vol. 4: Coemeteria inter Vias Appiam et Ardeatinam (Vatican: Pont. Institutum Archaeologiae Christianae, 1964), no. 9532.
Diehl, E., Inscriptiones Latinae Christianae Veteres, vol. 1 (Berlin: Apud Weidmannos, 1925), no. 2326d-e.
de Rossi, G.B., La Roma sotterranea cristiana, vol. 2 (Rome: Cromo-litografia pontificia, 1867), 386, and Tav. XXXIII.