MAMA XI 317 (Perta)

The four letters ΑΣΙΑ at the end of line 2 could be the beginning of a patronym, e.g. Ἀσια[τικοῦ]; the name was common in this region, cf. MAMA XI 292 (1956/151: Maydos). Alternatively, we could be dealing with the regional ethnic Ἀσια[νοῦ], ‘native of the Roman province/diocese of Asia’. This regional ethnic is not common in epigraphy; the clearest example comes in a funerary inscription of the fifth or sixth century from Odessos (Beševliev 1964: 66-7, no. 96): Ὀξυχόλιος ναύκληρος Ἀσιανὸς Πηλαείτης, i.e. a native of the island of Pele in the gulf of Smyrna, in the Asianic diocese. The fifth-century biographer of Alexander the Akoimetos describes him as γένει Ἀσιανός... τῶν νήσων οἰκήτωρ, i.e. a native of the dioecesis Asiana, provincia Insularum (de Stoop 1911: ch.5, p. 660; Laniado 2002: 147); the sixth-century biographer Cyril of Skythopolis describes two individuals in a similar manner (Schwartz 1939: 28.15 [Vita Euthymii], Ἀσιανὸς μὲν τῷ γένει, Αὐξέντιος δὲ τῇ κλήσει; 134.9 [Vita Sabae], τῷ μὲν γένει Ἀσιανὸς, τῇ δὲ προσηγορίᾳ Ἀφροδίσιος). For other epigraphical instances, cf. perhaps SEG 55, 1394: Σεκουνδίων Ἀσιανὸς τεχνείτης; French 2007: 100 compares Ἀχιλλεὺς ἰατρὸς Ἀσιανός in an unpublished inscription from Kızılcahamam near Ankara.