Epitaph for Bipsanios Zosimos 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 ISic001316 492921 39101686 140809 316243 http://sicily.classics.ox.ac.uk/inscription/ISic001316 10.5281/zenodo.4353433 Licensed under a Creative Commons-Attribution 4.0 licence. Italy Sicily Catania Museo Civico di Catania 298 Ancient Greek

Two joining fragments of a marble plaque, set in plaster in modern times.

marble plaque 22.5 23.5 1-6 chiselled

Α with a broken bar, lunate Ε and Σ, cursive M (at l. 2) and Ω, Ψ with a long upright. The cross bar of Η is formed decoratively. Interpuncts at ll. 1, 3 and 4, two ivy leaves at l. 4. Letters at ll. 4 and 5 are slightly larger and separated from the others by a larger space.

Lines 1-5 18-30 Interlineation line 1 to 2 not recorded Catina Catania 37.49223, 15.07041 Mid-1st century — end 2nd century CE Assumed to be from Catania. According to Korhonen, the inscription is not urban since it is not registered in the codex Marucellianus A 77. First attested in the collection of the Benedettini by Torremuzza Observed by Kaibel in Museo del Monastero di San Nicolò l’Arena, later by Korhonen in magazzino del Cortile, Collezione dei Benedettini, formerly sala VI, 106. 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 Jonathan Prag made minor revisions after Korhonen 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, 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
Μ ᾶρκος · Βιψάνιος Ζώσιμος ζήσας καλῶς ἔτη · λε ❦ χαῖ · ρε ❦ παροδεῖτα
Text based on photographs Ferrara, Bertucci: ΚΑΛΕΣΩΣΗΛΕ (sic) Torremuzza, Ferrara, Franz: καίρε lapis Ferrara, Bertucci: παροδώιτα (sic)

Markos Bipsanios Zosimos (Marcus Vipsanius), having lived well for 35 years. Farewell passerby.

Markos Bipsanios Zosimos (Marcus Vipsanius), avendo vissuto bene per 35 anni. Salve, viandante.

The epitaph has the traditional structure with the name of the deceased and the indication of the age, with the participle of the verb ζάω. The gentilicium Vipsanius recurs in three inscriptions from Catania: IG 14.495 = ISic001317 (Βειψάνιος Ζώτικος), IMusCatania 146 = ISic003263 (Μ(ᾶρκος) Βειψάνιος Φοῖβος) and CIL 10.7101 = ISic000383 (Vipsanius Atticus). The final address to the passerby has no parallel in the inscriptions of Catania, even if a reference to the passerby is found in the epigram to Rodogoune (IG 14.499 l. 1 = ISic001320 l. 1): especially in this form, παροδεῖτα, it is frequent in funerary epigrams, whereas the greeting to the passerby can be found in Sicily in SEG 38:922 = ISic003078 (Akragas) (and in the antiquarian forgery SEG 52:905 = ISic003560(Trapani)).

Torremuzza 1769 167 n. 22 https://biblio.inscriptiones.org/epig10002084 Torremuzza 1784 177 n. 24 https://biblio.inscriptiones.org/epig10002083 Ferrara 1829 349 n. 2 https://biblio.inscriptiones.org/epig10002005 Bertucci 1846 30 n. 4 https://biblio.inscriptiones.org/epig10002303 14.0494 https://biblio.inscriptiones.org/epig10001072 147 https://biblio.inscriptiones.org/epig10000028 3.5707 https://biblio.inscriptiones.org/epig10001252 Manganaro 1988 49 https://biblio.inscriptiones.org/epig10001427