Roger Pearse

If you'd be willing to go over there and have a go, that would be nice.

I'm still awaiting Vermaseren's account of the place and the excavations. Once I have this, I will know better where the inscription is and what needs to be done.

It's probably best to be very well informed first. I remember going to the museum on the Palatine, looking for the Alaxamenos grafitti which I believed was there. I couldn't find it. But I learned afterwards that it WAS there, and on display; just very badly labelled.

Roger Pearse

From: Hans Dieter Betz, The Mithras inscriptions of Santa Prisca and the New Testament", Novum Testamentum, Vol. 10, Fasc. 1 (Jan., 1968) , pp. 62-80.

The editors have shown that the part of the building which housed the sanctuary belonged originally to the "Privata Traiani", while the sanctuary itself was only instituted under the emperor Severus.

Vermaseren: "All the lines of the texts are in metrical form, mostly in hexameters or pentameters, but in a few cases an iambic senarius is used. The texts were painted at comparatively regular distances from each other, if at times somewhat roughly aligned, and the letters are of equal height. On one occasion a letter was omitted and the painter subsequently added it above the word. Occasionally there are two or three lines which appear to follow each other but which nevertheless do not form a sequence, and these may be quotations from hymns or poems whose full content would be well known to the initiates. It is also possible that only the initial lines of the hymns were recorded, but proof is naturally difficult and a single line could be an odd quotation or it could be specially composed for this sanctuary." -- Vermaseren.

Line 1:
Fecunda tellus cuncta qua[e] generat Pales
"Fertile earth Pales who procreates everything"

Line 4:
Fons conclusa petris qui gemmos aluisti nectare fratres
"Rockbound spring that fed the twin-brothers with nectar"

(refering to Cautes and Cautopates)

Line 7:
Hunc quem aur(ei)s humeris portavit more iuvencum
"This young bull which he carried on his golden shoulders according to his ways" .

Line 9:
Atque periat a humeri s t(u)l i m(a)xima divum
"And after I had received (it) I have borne on my shoulders the greatest things of the gods" .

Line 10:
Dulc(i)a sunt fi(cata) avium (s)ed cura gubernat
"Sweet are the livers of the birds, but care reigns".

Line 11:
pi(e) r(e)b(u)s renatura dulcibus atque creatum
"him (or that) who (or which) is piously reborn and created by sweet things".

Line 12:
Nubila per ritum ducatis tempora cuncti
"You must conduct the rite through clouded times together".

Line 13:
Primus et hic aries astrictius ordine currit
"And here as the first the ram runs exactly on his course"

Line 14:
Et nos servasti eternali sanguine fuso
"And you saved us after having shed the eternal blood"

Line 16-17:
Accipe thuricremos pater accipe sancte Leones,
Per quos thuradamus per quos consumimur ipsi
"Accept, O holy Father, accept the incense-burning Lions, through whom
we offer the incense, through whom we ourselves are consumed"

Line 18:
"Nama leonibus novis et multis annis
"Hail to the lions for many and new years"

Roger Pearse

I presume Vermaseren gives a complete version. I'll post it once I have it.

But ... already it looks very dubious whether whatever is said there even makes a connected narrative. Who, I wonder, is "you" in line 14?

Roger Pearse

Just in case any sensible person is in doubt:

The question in this thread is a narrow one: Do the words "servasti" appear on the wall in the Santa Prisca Mithraeum in Rome? If so, do they mean what they are commonly understood to mean.

There is no photograph online; there seems some doubt as to whether any photograph published by the excavator in 1968 is adequate. If we can obtain a fresh one, it might help to resolve things.

Related info is welcome.

Roger Pearse

I got the image in Vermaseren today, but it's rubbish. I'll post it when I can.

But while blogging about it, I got an email from someone telling me that other photos exist:

These are much, much better. It's too hot here to think, but I'll get these where people can see them in the next day or three.

Roger

Roger Pearse

I'm not even going to bother with the Vermaseren, unless anyone really wants it.

First, here's the context of the inscription:



Now the three lines themselves, split into two halves because it's long and thin. Left:



and the right:



All the best,

Roger Pearse

andrewcriddle

Paleography is not my strong point, but my attempts to puzzle out the inscription on the basis of the photographs, [thanks Roger], increases my reservations about the reliability of Vermaseren's reconstructions.

Andrew Criddle

Roger Pearse

On p.218 Vermaseren adds, under his transcription:

And that's all he says, and off he goes into waffly guesses about what it all means.

I now have a copy of the report here at home, so I can look at it in more detail. It's a rubbishy book, tho.

All the best,

Roger Pearse