Evidence ID
E04695Saint Name
Saints, unnamed : S00518
Martyrs, unnamed or name lost : S00060Saint Name in Source
sancti
sanctiType of Evidence
Inscriptions - Funerary inscriptions
Archaeological and architectural - Internal cult fixtures (crypts, ciboria, etc.)Evidence not before
300Evidence not after
400Activity not before
300Activity 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 - Non Liturgical Practices and Customs
Prayer/supplication/invocationCult Activities - Protagonists in Cult and Narratives
Other lay individuals/ people
WomenSource
The inscription is on a large marble plaque, broken into three conjoining parts. H. 0.28 m; W. 1.54 m; Th. 0.03 m. Letter height 0.035-0.04 m.
First recorded by Giovanni Battista de Rossi in area B10 of the lower part of the cemetery of Callistus, and published by him in 1867. Revisited by Antonio Ferrua, and republished by him in 1964. Now probably in area B8.Discussion
De Rossi suggested that the words spiritum tuum are in the accusative case, according to the rules of standardised Latin grammar, and, therefore, that the text should be completed by an understood clause, for example: spiritum tuum inter sanctos /' your spirit among the saints'. Ferrua argues, however, that we have here a corrupted form of the noun spiritus which takes the nominative case spiritum (neuter), and that the inscription needs no completions. It reads simply 'your spirit is among saints.' If so, the inscription may record a burial ad sanctos, in the cemetery famous for tombs of martyrs and popes, rather than referring to the heavenly company of saints desired by the soul of Agatemeris.
Dating: Antonio Felle (in EDB) dates the inscription to the 4th c.Bibliography
Edition:
Epigraphic Database Bari, no. EDB21028, see http://www.edb.uniba.it/epigraph/21028
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. 9613.
Diehl, E., Inscriptiones Latinae Christianae Veteres, vol. 2 (Berlin: Apud Weidmannos, 1927), no. 3356.
Marucchi, O., Epigrafia cristiana. Trattato elementare con una silloge di antiche iscrizioni cristiane principalmente di Roma (Milan: U. Hoepli, 1910), 155, no. 122.
de Rossi, G.B., La Roma sotterranea cristiana, vol. 2 (Rome: Cromo-litografia pontificia, 1867), 104*, 257, and Tav. XLV.
