Few texts that have come down to us from late antiquity are more moving than this epitaph written in the voice of a widow.
In late 384, when Praetextatus, serving for the year in the high office of Praetorian Prefect, died just before being able to assume the supreme honor of the consulship, he and his wife of forty years, Paulina, were among the last great senatorial families still performing pagan rites in the Eternal City. Indeed, blood sacrifices such as the taurobolium (memorably if anachronistically portrayed in the TV series Rome) were now at least technically illegal, as were all secret and nocturnal rituals. Within a decade all places of pagan worship would be closed.
The verses are inscribed on the back of a marble base (CIL VI 1779), which probably supported a now-lost statue of the Praetorian Prefect; his rank would have merited one of gilded bronze. Also inscribed are his cursus honorum (the list of offices and priesthoods he had held) and verses in praise of Paulina. The monument is further discussed here by Maijastina Kahlos.
It is interesting to reflect that the young seeker Augustine, still groping for something to believe in, may have paused before (or rather behind) the newly raised monument of Praetextatus and read these lines. Not long earlier, the ailing consul-designate might even have been in Augustine’s audience when the aspiring rhetor auditioned before the City Prefect. The African had obtained a hearing before the pagan Symmachus “through the mediation of those intoxicated with Manichee follies,” but ultimately the Prefect sent him on to Milan and Christianity (Confessions. 5.13.23). It is to Augustine’s memoirs that we must turn to find anything like the intimacy of Paulina’s eulogy.
Another Church-Father-to-be who might have passed the monument, though with only a contemptuous glance, was Jerome. The waspish monk was in Rome, toiling on the Latin translation of the Bible that would become known as the Vulgate, while organizing the communities of widows and virgins that would soon get him in trouble. Jerome hated Praetextatus for his gibes at the church, and later confided that the senator’s soul was in hell.
The widow alludes to the scholarly activities of her husband. He is known to have translated from the Greek, and other men of his class and religious leanings were then editing Livy and other ancient writers. Paulina was surely well educated too, and might have written the epitaph without professional assistance. If so, she is the best surviving Latin poetess of the fourth century — her only rival, alas, being the Proba who patched together scraps of Vergil to make Bible stories.
Regardless of whether a ghost writer was involved, it is Paulina’s voice we hear, and her sincerity cannot be doubted. She lays bare the innermost parts of her life, speaking not of shared public festivals but rather of mystic rituals and secret knowledge. In doing so, she offers up her private self as a sacrifice but at the same time asserts the worthiness of the path she and her husband have followed.
Latin Text
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Translation
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Splendor parentum nil
mihi maius dedit, quam quod marito digna iam
tum uisa sum. sed lumen omne uel decus
nomen uiri, Agori, superbo qui
creatus germine patriam, senatum
coniugemque inluminas probitate mentis,
moribus, studiis simul, uirtutis apicem quis
supremum nanctus es. tu
namque quidquid lingua utraque est proditum cura soforum, porta quis
caeli patet, uel quae periti
condidere carmina uel quae solutis uocibus
sunt edita, meliora reddis quam
legendo sumpseras. sed
ista parua: tu pius mystes sacris teletis reperta mentis
arcano premis diuumque numen multiplex
doctus colis, sociam benigne coniugem
nectens sacris hominum deumque consciam
ac fidam tibi. quid
nunc honores aut potestates loquar hominumque uotis
adpetita gaudia? quae tu caduca ac parua
semper autumans diuum sacerdos infulis
celsus clues. tu me,
marite, disciplinarum bono puram ac pudicam sorte
mortis eximens in templa ducis ac
famulam diuis dicas. te teste cunctis imbuor
mysteriis, tu Dindymenes Atteosque
antistitem teletis honoras taureis
consors pius. Hecates ministram trina
secreta edoces Cererisque Graiae tu
sacris dignam paras. te
propter omnes me beatam, me piam celebrant, quod ipse me
bonam disseminas, totum per orbem ignota
noscor omnibus. nam te marito cur
placere non queam? exempla de me Romulae
matres petunt subolemque pulcram, si
tuae similis, putant. optant probantque nunc
uiri nunc feminae quae tu magister
indidisti insignia. his
nunc ademptis maesta coniunx maceror, felix, maritum si
superstitem mihi diui dedissent, sed
tamen felix, tua quia sum fuique postque
mortem mox ero. |
The splendor of my kinship granted me no greater gift than this: that I seemed fit to be your wife. For in my husband's name, Agorius, I find my light and grace. You, created from proud seed, have shone on fatherland, on senate, and on wife with rightness of conduct, of learning, and of mind. You won the crown of virtue in this way. Whatever has been penned in either tongue by sages free to enter heaven's door (whether poetry composed in expert lines, or prose that's uttered with a looser voice), you've read, and left it better than you found. But these are little things. You piously in mind's most secret parts had hid away the mysteries you learned of sacred rites. The many-faceted numen of the gods you knew to worship; and your faithful wife you bound to you as colleague in the rites, now sharing what you knew of gods and men. Why speak of earthly powers, public praise, and joys men seek with sighs? You called them fleeting, counted them as small, while you won glory in the priestly garb. The goodness of your teaching, husband, freed me from death's lot; you took me, pure, to temples, made me servant to the gods, stood by while I was steeped in mystery. Devoted consort, you honored me with blood of bull, baptized me priestess of Cybele and Attis; readied me for Grecian Ceres' rites; and taught me Hecate's dark secrets three. On your account, all praise me as devout; because you spread my name throughout the world, I, once unknown, am recognized by all. How could my husband's wife not win applause? Rome's matrons look to me as paradigm, and if their sons resemble yours they think them handsome. Women and men alike now long to be upon the honor roll which you, as master, introduced of old. Now all these things are gone, and I, your wife, am wasting in my grief. I had been blest if gods had granted me the sooner grave. But, husband, even so I'm blest: for yours I am, and was, and after death will be. |
kinship: In later Latin the meaning of parens has expanded.
master: The Latin magister can refer to Praetextus’s role as a magistrate (governor or other high official) or as the master of a priestly college. The more general sense of teacher or sage is retained, and this line could just as aptly be rendered “which you, O Master, introduced of old.” Nothing is known of the “honor roll.”