Epitaph for Kassia Benousta Jonathan Prag Jonathan Prag John Fell OUP Research Fund ERC Advanced Grant no.885040 Jonathan Prag original data collection and editing Marta Fogagnolo editing, translation and commentary James Cummings conversion to EpiDoc James Chartrand site construction and encoding Valeria Vitale editing of geo data Michael Metcalfe museum data collection Alex Antoniou EpiDoc editing and English translation Simona Stoyanova standardisation of template and tidying up encoding system automated or batch processes I.Sicily ISic001306 492911 39101676 140798 316210 http://sicily.classics.ox.ac.uk/inscription/ISic001306 10.5281/zenodo.4353405 Licensed under a Creative Commons-Attribution 4.0 licence. Italy Sicily Catania Museo Civico di Catania 242 Ancient Greek

Marble plaque set in plaster in modern times.

marble plaque 20 27.5 0.5-4 chiselled

Regular letters: rhomboid Θ, Ο, Ω (open); Α with accentuated upper serif, Μ with slanting full-length bars (but irregular), Υ with an extended right arm (line 6), ΗΝΕ at l. 4 and ΤΗ at l. 5 (x2) in ligature. In the last line, some letters are smaller than others for lack of space.

Lines 1-6 20-25 Interlineation line 1 to 2 not registered Catina Catania 37.49223, 15.07041 Second half of 1st — end 2nd century CE Original discovery not recorded, probably from Catania.. Observed by Kaibel in Museo dei Benedettini, later by Korhonen in magazzino del cortile, Collezione dei Benedettini (formerly sala VI.50) None

Encoded following the latest EpiDoc guidelines

Taxonomies for ISicily controlled values

ISicily glyphs authority list

Julian Calendar

 English Italian Ancient Greek Latin Hebrew Phoenician Punic Oscan Elymian Sikel Sikan funerary James Cummings autogenerated EpiDoc output from database Alex Antoniou Epidoc editing and English translation Simona Stoyanova normalised Unicode Simona Stoyanova updated list of languages Simona Stoyanova added EDCS numbers Simona Stoyanova restructured bibliography Updated Zenodo DOI renumbered files, uris and references Marta Fogagnolo revised the text encoding, added dimensions, apparatus, translations and commentary I.Sicily with the permission of the Assessorato Regionale dei Beni Culturali e dell’Identità Siciliana - Dipartimento dei Beni Culturali e dell’Identità Siciliana I.Sicily with the permission of the Assessorato Regionale dei Beni Culturali e dell’Identità Siciliana - Dipartimento dei Beni Culturali e dell’Identità Siciliana
· Θ εοῖς · Κ αταχθονίοις · Κασσία Βενοῦστα ἔζησεν ἔτη · ἔνδεκα μῆνες · θ ἡμέρες · η · πατὴρ καὶ μήτηρ τέ · κνῳ γλυκυτάτῳ ἐποίησαν
Text based on photographs Kaibel saw an ivy leaf at the end of the line, but it rather seems to be a triangle-shaped interpunct.

To the underworld spirits. Kassia Benousta, lived for 11 years, 9 months, and 8 days. Her father and mother made this for their sweetest child.

Agli Dei inferi. Kassia Benousta visse 11 anni, 9 mesi e 8 giorni. Suo padre e sua madre realizzarono questo per la loro dolce figlia.

The structure of the epitaph is the most frequent in pagan epitaphs, with the invocation to the underworld spirits, the name of the deceased in the nominative form, his/her age, the name of the dedicants (in this case, the parents) and the dedication verb in aorist (Korhonen 2004: 85-86). An interesting linguistic detail is the indication of months and days in the nominative and not in the accusative form (μῆνες, ἡμέρες), which seems to be due to confusion with Latin where the nominative and accusative plural of mensis and dies correspond: for a similar confusion, see also SEG 44.0762 = ISic000641. On the name Βενοῦστα, see SEG 29.931-3 (from Morgantina, 1st century CE). Note too the spelling out of the first numeral in full, rather than using the standard alphabetic notation.

14.0483 https://biblio.inscriptiones.org/epig10001072 Spuches 1864 13 no.3 https://biblio.inscriptiones.org/epig10002042 67 https://biblio.inscriptiones.org/epig10000028 85-86 https://biblio.inscriptiones.org/epig10000028