MAMA XI 13 (Apollonia) 
Funerary inscription in verse
- Type of monument:
- Funerary inscription in verse.
- Location:
- At Mahmutlar Mevkii, 2-3km from Uluborlu (Apollonia) on the road to İnhisar, in a field wall.
- Description:
- Limestone block or stele, moulded below, broken above and below.
- Dimensions:
- Ht. 0.46+; W. 0.63; Th. --; letters 0.035.
- Record:
- Squeeze; line drawing; MB notebook copy; photograph (1956/96).
- Publication:
- None.
- Date:
- Roman imperial period.
οὐ δῖνον τὸ θανεῖν̣, [ἀλλὰ]
πρὶν ἡλεικίαν κὲ γονέων
πρότερος. vv.
vac.
To die is no terrible thing; rather, (to die) before adulthood, and before one’s parents.
Illustrations:
MAMA XI 13 (Apollonia 13: 1956-96)
Squeeze of MAMA XI 13 (Apollonia 13: 1956-96)
Line drawing of MAMA XI 13 (Apollonia 13: 1956-96)
There are no traces of letters either above or below these three lines; the name of the deceased must have been inscribed further up the stone. Variants on this little verse are known from almost twenty funerary inscriptions across the Greek world in the Roman imperial period; instances are catalogued by T. Corsten in his commentary to I.Prusa 55 (to which add Cabanes 1997: no. 374, Apollonia in Illyria). See in general Drew-Bear 1979b, and for recent bibliography, Kokkinia 2008: 74, no. 38.
In most of the inscriptions catalogued by Corsten, this verse forms a more or less accurate elegiac distich: οὐ τὸ θανεῖν ἀλγεινόν, ἐπεὶ τό γε Μοῖρ᾿ ἐπέκλωσεν / ἀλλὰ πρὶν ἡλικίης καὶ γονέων πρότερος (with numerous minor variants). The new abbreviated example from Apollonia by Pisidia is unmetrical; for other abbreviated versions, compare I.Smyrna 556, οὐ τὸ θανῖν ἔχθι⟨σ⟩τον, ἀλλὰ πρὶν ἡλικίας καὶ γονήων πρότερον; Cabanes 1997: no. 374, ἐπεὶ τὸ θανεῖν οὐκ ἦν ἐλεεινόν, ἀλλὰ πρὶν ἡλικίης καὶ γονέων προτέρα· Σαλβία ἐτῶν ζ΄, χαῖρε.