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Late Antique Ostia and a Campaign for Pious Tourism: Epitaphs for Bishop Cyriacus and Monica, Mother of Augustine*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2010

Douglas Ryan Boin
Affiliation:
Department of Classics, The University of Texas at Austin, drboin@mail.utexas.edu

Abstract

Ever since Augustine narrated an account of his mother's death at Ostia, social historians have tried to adduce the identity of the person who erected Monica's tombstone, a copy of which is preserved in a ninth-century codex. Three members of the gens Anicii, all of whom were Augustine's contemporaries, have become usual suspects in the secondary literature. Throughout these debates the epitaph itself, a fragment of which was found in 1945, is frequently cited but rarely treated as a primary text. This article presents a new study of that epigraph and proposes that it was erected much later than previously suspected.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2010. Published by The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 For these individual Ostian narratives, drawn from the Acta Sanctorum, see A. Dufourcq Étude sur les gesta martyrum romains (19882), 1.244–9. Other purported third-century martyrs at Ostia include Censorinus (AASS ‘September’, pp. 518–24); Asterius (AASS ‘October’, pp. 6–11, with a second tradition at AASS ‘January II’, pp. 214–19); and Caius (AASS ‘February III’, p. 64).

2 For a lucid presentation of the now widely-held opinion that the Acts of the Roman martyrs were redacted during the fifth or sixth centuries, see Cooper, K.The martyr, the matrona, and the bishop: the matron Lucina and the politics of martyr cult in fifth- and sixth-century Rome’, Early Medieval Europe 3 (1999), 297317Google Scholar; see also Dufourcq, op. cit. (n. 1), 1.265–92 and 2.1–8. For a useful introduction to historical methodologies which treat these texts as fifth- and sixth-century source material, see also Cooper, K. and Hillner, J. ‘Introduction’, in Religion, Dynasty and Patronage in Early Christian Rome, 300–900 (2007), 118CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 AASS ‘August 4’. The Acts of the Martyr Aurea; see D. Boin, The Acts of the Martyr Aurea in Acta Sanctorum ‘August IV’, English translation of Latin text, www.ostia-antica.org (accessed on-line 11/12/2008).

4 ‘eadem hora iussit eos duci ad arcum ante theatrum, et ibi eos capitalem fecit subire sententiam’, The Acts of the Martyr Aurea 2.15 (edition Boin, op. cit. (n. 3)).

5 Zevi, F. and Pensabene, P.Un arco in onore di Caracalla ad Ostia’, RendLinc 26 (1971)Google Scholar, 487 and fig. 1, also 506–15. At present, the authors’ restoration of this text reads: ‘… magno et invicto ac super omnes fortissimo … | …felicissimoque … | … Imp. Caes. M. Aurelio Antonino Pio Felici Aug … | … Parth. Max. Brit. Max. Germ. Max. Pont. Max. Trib. Pot. XVIIII Imp. III. Cos. IIII Procos. PP…’.

6 Vaglieri, D.Ostia: scoperta della cinta urbana e di una chiesetta medievale’, NSc 7 (1910), 134–9Google Scholar.

7 ‘hic | Quiriacus | dormit in pace’, Vaglieri, op. cit. (n. 6), 137 and fig. 4. The variant spellings, ‘Quiriacus’ or ‘Cyriacus’, suggest an unsystematic transliteration of an original Greek name. The sarcophagus cover itself measures 0.93 by 0.60 m (CIL 14.5232 = ILCV 3217). See also Ensoli, S. and La Rocca, E. (eds.) Aurea Roma: dalla città pagana alla città cristiana (2001), 618–19Google Scholar no. 322.

8 Paroli, L. ‘Ostia nella tarda antichità e nell’alto medioevo’, in Paroli, L. and Delogu, P. (eds), La storia economica di Roma nell’alto medioevo alla luce dei recenti scavi archeologici (1993), 168–73Google Scholar.

9 Brenk, B.Die Christianisierung der spätrömischen Welt: Stadt, Land, Haus, Kirche und Kloster in frühchristlicher Zeit (2003)Google Scholar, 41; see also idem ‘La christianisation d’Ostie’, in Descoeudres, J. P. (ed.),Ostia: port et porte de la Rome antique (2001)Google Scholar, 264.

10 Brenk, op. cit. (n. 9), 39–48; see also idem ‘Ostia tardo antica’, RACrist 74 (1998), 523–37Google Scholar; and Fevrier, P.Ostie et Porto à la fin de l’antiquité’, MÉFR 70 (1958), 295330Google Scholar.

11 ‘… ut ego et ipsa soli staremus, incumbentes ad quandam fenestram unde hortus intra domum quae nos habebat prospectabatur, illic apud Ostia Tiberina, ubi remoti a turbis post longi itineris laborem instaurabamus nos navigationi’, Aug., Conf. 9.10.23.

12 ‘Augustine was a less important person in his world than in the intellectual history we have constructed since’, O’Donnell, J.Augustine: A New Biography (2005)Google Scholar, 112. For this period at Ostia, see also P. Brown Augustine of Hippo (20002), 121–4. Meiggs’ treatment is still an excellent overview of the evidence; see R. Meiggs Roman Ostia (19732), 399–400.

13 ‘… et cum apud Ostia Tiberina essemus, mater defuncta est’, Aug., Conf. 9.8.17.

14 Anthologia Latina, sive poesis latinae supplementum, 1.140 Carm. 670. For the reading of subole in the manuscript tradition of Monica's memorial (l. 6), see the discussion at Wischmeyer, W.Zum Epitaph der Monica’, RömQSchr 70 (1975)Google Scholar, 34 n. 12. The earliest of these extant codices, from which the full text of Monica's epitaph is derived, dates to the ninth century; see ICUR (ed. De Rossi), 2.58–61 and 2.252–4.

15 The epitaph itself is part of an ‘Anthology’ of seven other verse memorials, the latest of which is a memorial for the Visigothic king Chintila (r. a.d. 636–40). This fact led De Rossi to assign an early seventh-century terminus post quem to the life of the anonymous agent who collected the epitaphs. It is this anonymous ‘Anthology’ which was subsequently inserted into the manuscript tradition of Isidore of Seville's Etymologies, the earliest surviving codex of which, as stated above, dates to the ninth century; see also ‘Anthologia Saeculi VII: Praemissa syllogae Turonesi et seorsim ab ea codicibus isidorianis inserta’, in ICUR (ed. De Rossi), 2.250–1.

16 ‘versus inlistrissime memorie Bassi exconsule scripti sce memorie Munice matris sci Agustini’, codex parisinus lat. 8093; see Wischmeyer, op. cit. (n. 14), 33–4; see also van den Hoek, A.Peter, Paul and a consul: recent discoveries in African Red Slip Ware’, Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum 9 (2006), 197246CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 For a family as extensive as the Anicii, modern literature abounds; see Novak, D.Anicianae Domus Culmen, Nobilitatis Culmen’, Klio 62 (1980), 473–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and idem, A Late Roman Aristocratic Family: The Anicii in the Third and Fourth Centuries, unpub. PhD diss., University of Chicago (1976); also Orlandi, S. ‘Dedica votiva posta dal senatore Anicius Auchinius Bassus e dalla moglie Turrenia Honorata assieme con i figli’, in Le iscrizioni dei cristiani in Vaticano, Inscriptiones Sanctae Sedis 2 (1997), 271–2Google Scholar; Sivan, H.Anician women, the cento of Proba, and aristocratic conversion’, Vigiliae Christianae 47 (1993), 140–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Spier, J.A lost consular dyptich of Anicius Auchenius Bassus (a.d. 408) on the mould for an ARS plaque’, JRA 16 (2003), 351–4Google Scholar; and van den Hoek, op. cit. (n. 16) for further bibliographies.

18 Anicius Auchenius Bassus 1 = PLRE 1 ‘Bassus 11’; see also Chastagnol, A.Les Fastes de la préfecture de Rome au bas-empire (1962)Google Scholar, 211–16 and 291 (Stemma Aniciorum); idem La Préfecture urbaine à Rome sous le bas-empire (1960)Google Scholar, 316–21; and RE ‘Anicius 30’.

19 Anicius Auchenius Bassus 2 = PLRE 2 ‘Bassus 7’; see also Chastagnol, op. cit. (n. 18); and RE ‘Anicius 31’.

20 Anicius Auchenius Bassus 3 = PLRE 2 ‘Bassus 8’; see also Chastagnol, op. cit. (n. 18); and RE ‘Anicius 33’.

21 Meiggs, op. cit. (n. 12), 400. The present church of S. Aurea dates to the pontificate of Julius II. The remains of a fifth-century apsidal building, perhaps an early funerary basilica, lie underneath this fifteenth-century church; see Testini, P. ‘Saggi di scavo presso S. Aurea Ostia’, in Scavi e ricerche degli anni 1976–1979 (1985)Google Scholar, 325. However, no scholar has yet demonstrated conclusively that a fifth-century church, dedicated to S. Aurea, ever existed. The only tangible indication of fifth-century cult activity in the area is an inscribed column, reused in the later building, that records the name ‘S[ancta] Aur[ea]’; see Brenk, op. cit. (n. 9, 2001), 270 and fig. 13. More recent investigations, on the other hand, may be leading towards confirmation of the basilica in this area; see Pannuzi, S. ‘Recenti indagini archeologiche presso la chiesa di S. Aurea nel borgo di Ostia Antica’, in IV Congresso nazionale di archeologia medievale, 26–30 settembre 2006 (2006), 369–77Google Scholar. See also Mastrorili, D.Considerazioni sul cimitero paleocristiano di S. Aurea ad Ostia’, RACrist 83 (2007), 317–76Google Scholar.

22 ‘Anicius Auciienius (sic) Bassus, v(ir) c(larissimus) et Turrenia Hono | -rata, c(larissima) f(emina) eius cum filiis deo sanctisque devoti’, CIL 14.1875 [= ILS 1292 = ILCV 91]; see PLRE 1 ‘Bassus 11’ and ‘Honorata 3’. On Christian epigraphy at Ostia more generally, see also D. Mazzoleni, ‘Epigraphie chrétienne: notes et observations’, in Descoeudres, op. cit. (n. 9), 283–8; and Nicolai, V. FiocchiEuergetismo ecclesiastico e laico nelle iscrizioni paleo-cristiane del Lazio’, in Historiam pictura refert (1994), 244–6Google Scholar.

23 The use of sacerdos to describe the role of priest, for which Christian sources also use the word presbyter, is not uncommon (‘dandi quidem habet ius summus sacerdos, qui est episcopus?’ Tertullian, De baptismo adversus Quintillam 17 (= PL 1 col. 1218A)); see also the Vulgate translation of the Septuagint, which describes Melchizedek as sacerdos (‘at vero Melchisedech rex Salem proferens panem et vinum erat enim sacerdos Dei altissimi’, Gen 14:18).

24 van den Hoek, op. cit. (n. 16); see also ICUR 2.252 no. 2. On the Donatist and Caecilianist dispute, see ‘The Augustinian Putsch in Africa’, in O’Donnell, op. cit. (n. 12), 209–43.

25 Wischmeyer, op. cit. (n. 14), 38–9.

26 Most recently, see Mastrorili, op. cit. (n. 21), 367–71. I appreciated the scepticism both in name and in date (‘Bassus composed an epitaph … between 387 and 430’) expressed by Kurdock, A.Demetrias Ancilla Dei: Anicia Demetrias and the problem of the missing patron’, in Cooper, K. and Hillner, J. (eds), Religion, Dynasty, and Patronage in Early Christian Rome, 300–900 (2007)Google Scholar, 208 n. 77.

27 See Casamassa, A.Ritrovamento di parte dell’elogio di S. Monica’, RendPontAcc 27 (1952–54), 271Google Scholar. Because the plaque is currently affixed to the church wall, I have been unable to inspect its reverse. Casamassa, however (272–3), who documented its discovery, has published a photograph showing the reverse and concluded that the slab originally functioned as a sarcophagus cover.

28 Excluding its initial publication by Casamassa, op. cit. (n. 27), figs 1 and 2, the three examples I know are Descoeudres, op. cit. (n. 9), 437 and fig. 15.3; van den Hoek, op. cit. (n. 16), 246 and fig. 27; and Mastrorili, op. cit. (n. 21), 368 and fig. 22.

29 To my knowledge, no comprehensive study of late antique epigraphic letter-forms exists, at present. The brief introduction by Bisconti and Mazzoleni, for example, does not purport to cover epigraphy beyond the late fourth or early fifth century; see Bisconti, F. and Mazzoleni, D.Alle origini del culto dei martiri: Testimonianze nell’archeologia cristiana (2005), 7282Google Scholar. Thus, the following inscriptions, although they do show letter-forms similar to the Ostian epigraphs, nevertheless, may not be entirely persuasive to those in search of more conclusive evidence; see Arslan, E.Bierbrauer, V. and von Hessen, O., I Goti (1994)Google Scholar, 344, catalogue nos 4.33–4 (Toledo, Spain). The first example, which features the letter ‘R’ with a lengthy tail similar to that of the Ostian inscriptions, is dated to the second third of the seventh century (ibid., 343). The second example features an ‘R’ with the same long tail, as well as with the same narrow counter shapes of the Ostian ‘R’. Its ‘Q’ is equally characterized by an elongated tail and has also been dated to the seventh century (ibid., 343). It is important to stress that these epigraphic trends, if, indeed, they are such, may have begun at a slightly earlier date; compare, for example, the letter-forms on two inscriptions from Rome (CIL 6.1716b, and 6.32094b), announcing the restoration of the Colosseum in the late fifth century a.d.

30 See Cooper, op. cit. (n. 2).

31 The most exhaustive study of the sarcophagus and its iconography is Murray, M. C. ‘The Christian Orpheus’, in Murray, Sister C. (ed.),Rebirth and Afterlife: A Study of the Transmutation of Some Pagan Imagery in Early Christian Funerary Art (1981)Google Scholar, 40. For brevity I myself have limited this discussion to the inscription, although a more comprehensive study will now take account of the Orpheus imagery and its significance in sixth-century society. Murray herself (ibid., 114–21) catalogued the continued relevance of the Orpehus figure throughout the fifth- and sixth-century discourse; see, for example, Aug., Civ. D. 18.14 and Boethius, de con. phil. 3.12. That project, which would discuss both the iconographic significance of the sarcophagus and its role as a pilgrimage destination in light of contemporary theological and philosophical interpretations of the Orpheus myth, will fall to another time.

32 Our understanding of the urban image of fourth- and fifth-century Ostia is rapidly changing, providing a far different picture of Christianity in these centuries since the first work on the topic by Guido Calza. A review of this subject is beyond the scope of the present project; but the following list, beginning with Calza's own work, presents a selection of significant new studies: see Calza, G.Una basilica di éta costantiniana scoperta ad Ostia’, RendPontAcc 17 (1939–40), 6388Google Scholar; idem ‘Nuovo testimonianze del cristianesimo ad Ostia’, RendPontAcc 25–26 (1949–50), 135–8Google Scholar. On the discovery of a new, urban Christian basilica, see now F. A. Bauer and M. Heinzelmann, ‘L’église épisocaple d’Ostie’, in Descoeudres, op. cit. (n. 9), 278–82. On the excavation of an extramural funerary basilica in the territory of Pianabella, see Paroli, L.Scavi di Ostia 12: La basilica pianabella (1999)Google Scholar. The role of Ostia's Jewish community in the construction of late antique society is also now receiving more attention; see Brant, O.Jews and Christians in late antique Rome and Ostia: some aspects of archaeological and documentary evidence’, OpRom 29 (2004), 727Google Scholar; M. F. Squarciapino, ‘La synagogue d’Ostie’, in Descoeudres, op. cit. (n. 9), 272–7; White, L. M.Reading the Ostia synagogue: a reply to A. Runesson’, HTR 92 (1999), 435–64Google Scholar; and idem ‘Synagogue and society in Imperial Ostia: archaeological and epigraphic evidence’, HTR 90 (1997), 2358CrossRefGoogle Scholar. More significant to a broader reconsideration of traditional fourth-century Ostian society and culture is now Boin, D.A hall for Hercules at Ostia and a farewell to the late antique “pagan revival”’, AJA 114 (2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which re-examines the evidence which formed the centrepiece of H. Bloch's work on the late fourth-century ‘pagan revival’; see Bloch, A new document in the last pagan revival in the West, 393–394 A.D’, HTR 38 (1945), 199244CrossRefGoogle Scholar. As I demonstrate there, the temple at the heart of the late antique discussion, once attributed to Hercules, may actually have been dedicated to Ostia's patron deity, Vulcan, and the late antique Hercules inscription, which Bloch used to construct an image of reactionary ‘pagans’ rallying around the usurper Eugenius (a.d. 393–94), can now be attributed to the restoration of an imperial bath complex; see also D. Boin, Temples and Traditions in Late Antique Ostia, c. 250–600 C.E., unpub. PhD diss., The University of Texas at Austin (2009). In developing a more nuanced view of late antique transformation, more recent Ostian studies have built upon the dynamic image of late fourth- and early fifth-century Roman society advanced elsewhere by scholars such as Salzman, M.On Roman Time: The Codex-Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity (1990)Google Scholar; Cameron, A. ‘The last pagans of Rome’, in Harris, W. V. (ed.),The Transformations of Urbs Roma in Late Antiquity (1999), 109–21Google Scholar; and idem, ‘From Constantius to Theodosius’, in The Last Pagans of Rome, ch. 3 (forthcoming). My thanks to both of these authors for our conversations and to the latter, in particular, for sharing a portion of his forthcoming manuscript with me.

33 See also the observation by E. Romoli at Ensoli and LaRocca, op. cit. (n. 7), 619.

34 There is no way to establish whether the present inscription may have replaced an earlier memorial.

35 See Hermanowicz, E.Possidius of Calama (2008), 2342CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 ‘magno desiderio poscere atque accipere episcopos et clericos pax ecclesia atque unitas et coepit primo’, Possidius, V.Aug. 11; see also, ‘… ne pacis amplius ecclesiae provectus impediretur’, V.Aug. 12; ‘de his omnibus pro pace ecclesiae gestis’, V.Aug. 13. For an edition of the text, see Weiskotten, H.Sancti Augustini Vita Scripta a Possidio Episcopo (1919)Google Scholar.

37 See van den Hoek, op. cit. (n. 16), 219; see also Mazzoleni, op. cit. (n. 22), 285, where the French translation reads, ‘la très vertueuse mere plus heureuse pour le fils’.

38 van den Hoek, op. cit. (n. 16), 220.

39 A theological development of the language at 1 Cor 13:13 (‘nunc autem manet fides spes caritas tria haec, maior autem his est caritas’, Vulgate edn).

40 ‘virtutum mater charitas …’, Pelagius, Ep. 50 (= PL 72). Note that, as early as the middle of the fifth century, Leo had used a similar formulation to describe Continence; ‘unde quia tales fructus mater virtutum continentia parit …’, Leo, Ser. 50.3 (= PL 54).

41 ‘quia virtutum mater est charitas’, Greg., Ep 4.31; ‘quia si erga nos in corde vestro virtutum mater charitas permanet …, bonorum operum ramos numquam amittitis’, Ep. 7.31; ‘“charitas non quaerit quae sua sunt.” Sollicitae ergo discretionis inspectione in secretis cordium ipsam matrem virtutum charitatem exquirunt’, Comm. in Psalm. 31.13; ‘ipsa namque quae mater est omnium custosque virtutum, per impatientiae vitium virtus amittitur charitatis …’, Regulae pastoralis Liber 9; ‘charitatem quae nimirum virtutum omnium mater est’, ibid., 23; for a slightly different formulation, see also ‘mater et custos bonorum omnium charitas’, Greg., Ep. 6.60.

42Anthologia Saeculi VII’ in ICUR (ed. De Rossi), 2.250–1.

43 For a traditional view of Gregory's family lineage, see RE ‘Anicius 22’ and PLRE 3.1545. It is equally important to stress that current scholarship has judged Gregory's Anician pedigree a piece of historical fiction; see Gajano, S. BoeschGregorio Magno: alle origini del Medioevo (2004), 22–3Google Scholar. For aspects of his pontificate, however, see Markus, R.Gregory the Great and His World (1997), 314CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and McCulloh, M.The cult of relics in the letters and “dialogues” of Pope Gregory the Great: a lexicographical study’, Traditio 32 (1976), 145–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I myself remain sceptical about Gregory's direct involvement at Ostia, although I do admit that characteristics of his episcopacy, such as his profound concern for martyrs and their relics in and around Rome, would certainly help construct a circumstantial case for his agency at the old harbour. For example, see Trout, D.Theodelinda's Rome: ampullae, pittacia, and the image of the city’, MAAR 50 (2005), 139–40Google Scholar; see also ‘The times of Gregory the Great’ in Krautheimer, R. (ed.), Rome: Profile of a City, 312–1308 (2000), 5987Google Scholar; Pietri, C. ‘La Rome de Grégoire’, in Gregorio Magno e il suo tempo: XIX Incontro di studiosi dell’antichità cristiana (1991), 932Google Scholar; McCready, W.Signs of Sanctity: Miracles in the Thought of Gregory the Great (1989)Google Scholar; and ‘The saint and the social meaning of stability’, in Straw, C., Gregory the Great: Perfection in Imperfection (1988), 6689Google Scholar.

44 CIL 14.1875 (= ILS 1292 = ILCV 91); see above, n. 22.

45 See, for example, Zanini, E.Le italie bizantine: territorio, insediamenti ed economia nella provincia bizantina d’Italia, VI–VIII secolo (1998), 3382Google Scholar; and Humphreys, M.Italy, a.d. 425–600’, in CAH 14 (2000), 525–51Google Scholar.

46 Proc., BG 5.26.8–19.

47 Proc., BG 5.26.8–19; on the condition of the roads, see Manodori, A. and Mancioli, D. et al. Mura e vie consulari: Roma Archeologica Interario 9 (2000)Google Scholar.

48 Paroli, op. cit. (n. 8), 160–3.

49 See Ward-Perkins, B.The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization (2005), 87121Google Scholar.

50 See, for example, Gasparri, S. ‘La situazione storica al tempo di Gregorio Magno’, in Ricci, L. (ed.),Gregorio Magno e l’invenzione del Medioevo (2006), 2740Google Scholar; and Priestler, K.Geschichte der Langobarden: Gesellschaft, Kultur, Alltagsleben (2004), 3450Google Scholar.

51 Christie, N.The Lombards: The Ancient Longobards (1995), 82–3Google Scholar.

52 Brown, P.Relics and Social Status in the Age of Gregory of Tours (1977)Google Scholar, 3.

53 To cite one example of many: ‘denique et aeternus Dominus, qui iugiter glorificat sanctos suos, coepit coeleste famuli meritum terrigenis declarare’, Gregory of Tours, Vitae Patrum 14.2 (= PL 71); see also the sixth-century epitaph of Saint Viventiolus of Lyon (‘vir potens meritis nosterque sacerdos’, CIL 13.2396). Brown discusses this theme in more depth (op. cit. (n. 52), 15–17).

54 Wharton, A.Selling Jerusalem: Relics, Replicas, Theme Parks (2006)Google Scholar, 1 and ch. 5, specifically, on tourism; see also Elsner, J. ‘Piety and passion: contest and consensus in the audiences for early Christian pilgrimage’, in Elsner, J. and Rutherford, I. (eds), Pilgrimage in Graeco-Roman and Early Christian Antiquity: Seeing the Gods (2005), 411–34Google Scholar; and from a slightly later time period, Geary, P. ‘Sacred commodities: the circulation of medieval relics’, in Appaduräi, A. (ed.),The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (1988), 169–91Google Scholar.

55 See ‘Collective memory and the meanings of the past’ in Castelli, E., Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture Making (2004), 1032Google Scholar.

56 Damasus’ epigrams are easily distinguished by their regularized, squat serif letters; see also Trout, D. ‘Saints, identity and the city’, in Burrus, V. (ed.),A People's History of Christianity: Late Ancient Christianity (2005), 165–87Google Scholar; and idem ‘Damasus and the invention of early Christian Rome’, in Martin, D. B. and Miller, P. C. (eds), The Cultural Turn in Late Antique Studies: Gender, Asceticism, and Historiography (2005), 298315CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In general, the evidence for Christian epigraphic commemoration during the third through fifth century is well-presented by Bisconti and Mazzoleni, op. cit. (n. 29), 63–98.

57 Petrucci has studied the visual importance of lettering, or branding, in papal building dedications starting in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance; Petrucci, A. ‘La scrittura tra ideologia e rappresentazione’, in Storia dell’arte italiana 9: Grafica e immagine (1980), 5123Google Scholar. Perhaps we might now give more attention to the sixth- or seventh-century manifestations of this phenomenon, as well.