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Perta of Lycaonia

W. M. Ramsay

The Classical Review / Volume 23 / Issue 01 / February 1909, pp 7 - 9 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00002407, Published online: 27 October 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00002407

How to cite this article: W. M. Ramsay (1909). Perta of Lycaonia. The Classical Review, 23, pp 7-9 doi:10.1017/ S0009840X00002407

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Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 130.237.165.40 on 11 Nov 2015 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW

PERTA OF LYCAONIA.

INSCRIPTION found in 1907 at Kotchash, Laodiceia of Lycaonia through Pegella, pass- a small village on the north side of Boz ing beside this inscription, to Savatra, Canna, Dagh, about 10 hrs. North of Konia. Also Hyde, the Cilician Gates and Syria. Now copied in 1908 by Sir W. M. Ramsay. A on a road in the Table we find the stations round pillar. Pegella xx Congussa xv Petra xx Ubinnaca. OeiATTPONOMIAIAO M* It is, therefore, now established conclusively TTA PATIO NOeOVA/\KT* that Petra of the Table is an error for Perta, HMCdNAeCTTTTAIAKAAAl and that Perta was situated on this Roman NIKBT8eNA0i*ATT0VTTAT road between Pegella and Savatra. The lOICTHNTTePTeOONOIKHCI name Savatra is misplaced in the Table; TTOAIN but its situation on the road has been assured by inscriptions. So also has the site of Canna; and Sir W. M. Ramsay has con- delq. Trpovopiq. LXo[rijfi(ridevTa) jectured that Ubinnaca is an error for Uden irapa TZV Oeo(f>v\a.KT((av Cana. See his paper on Lycaonia in the r]jj.Zv 8tcnr(oTtov8vo) Sta KaAA.t- Oesterreich. Jahreshefte, vii. 57-132 {Beiblatt), VIKOV rod evS6^(oTa.Tov) ajrb ti where also it is assumed that, as is now r]oiS TTjV n«jOT€(UV O1K0W6 certain, Petra of the Table is meant for Perta. The numbers in the Table are not reconcil- able with the actual distances. The date of this inscription remains un- certain, unless Callinicus can be identified. T. CALLANDER. As Callinicus had been consul, the date Queen's University, Kingston, Canada. cannot be later than the middle of the sixth century. 6tovX.a.KTos SCOTTOTIJS is applied toProfessor T. Callander communicated the Emperors from about 610 A.D. onwards for above inscription to me in 1907, and in the several centuries (according to the Index of summer of 1908 I revisited the district in C.I.G.). The form of letters affords no safe order to fix the exact site of Perta. Kot- criterion of date in late Roman and Byzan- chash, where the stone was found, is not the tine times. site of an ancient city, but only of a village; The nature of the monument is also un- and I came to the conclusion that the modern certain. It has most analogy to a boundary village Geimir, about five miles south-east, stone. It might be a milestone if there is the site of Perta. The ruins there are were any distance stated on it; but in extensive, and mark an ancient city. In 1907 Byzantine time milestones were rare. It and in 1908 neither Professor Callander nor perhaps marked an important point on the I found any inscription there, only Christian road without recording the distance from carved stones uninscribed. But in 1905 I a caput viae. copied several inscriptions on the site, and The important fact about the inscription one of these proved that it was an important is that it furnishes evidence to place the city place in Roman times. This was a fragment of Perta (a bishopric in Christian time) in of the architrave of a temple or other public this neighbourhood. Sir W. M. Ramsay has building, with part of the dedication to an placed Psibela or Pegella (the.latter form Emperor of the second century in very large is used in the Peutinger Table, the former fine letters: in Byzantine documents) at Suwarek, and AAPIANOYAI pointed out that an important Roman road TTPOBOY marked by many milestones ran from The letters of the second line were mutilated, 'Confirmed by R. almost exactly, except in 1. 5, and only the upper part remained, but all where he read 10IC, while I read KOIC. are certain except B (which might be read P). 8 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW The restoration is uncertain. One might Callander's suggestion is right, and that the conjecture: stones mark the roads at important points. [prep rfjs AvroKparopos KouVapos II. AlXiovTpai- But I prefer to take the inscription as ' avou] *A.8piavov al[u>vCov Sia/j.ovrj'S comparatively late (perhaps late fifth or early .... ot] irp6/3ov[\oi or Kara TO] irpo/3ov[\evfLa. sixth century) ; and to see here the common sense in Byzantine times of <£IA.OTI/LI«>/KU, It is not probable that the correct order of 'give as a compliment' (construction, two the imperial names was violated by placing accusatives, or accusative and dative). The Ai[A.to9] after 'Afiptavos in the title either of aorist «<£IA.OTI/MJ&JV is usually active; but Hadrian or of Pius. Stephanus quotes Georg. Mon. 809: i\ori- I know of nothing analogous to the last f/srjdels irapa rov /3oxri\(Halicarnassus uses them Antecessor: prooem.1 to render the Latin words consules and senates consultum, and Plutarch uses the former in that sense. It is therefore possible ' victories granted from heaven.' that Kara Trpo^ovktvfia was used at Perta to Callinicus, as Professor Seeck and Professor translate the Latin senates consulto. But in Dessau inform me, is unknown. He was a Galatian city, in an imperial province, one evidently governor of a Province, who placed does not expect to find any reference to a these stones by orders of two emperors. The decree of the Roman Senate. only Provinces which can be thought of are On a subsequent journey I visited Obruk Pisidia if the inscription be older than 372, in order to see the famous circular lake in a and Lycaonia if it be later. Perta was cer- deep hole. As two archaeologists have been tainly in Lycaonia from the institution of at Obruk in modern times, both interested that Province about 371-2. The sense of in epigraphy, and neither found any inscrip- i\orip.i]OivTa (if I rightly take it according tions, I had no expectation of discovering to Byzantine usage) and the style of letters any. But to my astonishment the fine old (which is not dissimilar to the inscription of Seljuk Khan and the cemetery are both full Epinicus3 in the end of the fifth century, of inscriptions, including six Roman mile- though less ornate), point to a later date stones, and a second copy of Professor than 372. Now Callinicus was a consular, Callander's inscription. The latter differs and Lycaonia was governed by a simple only in one or two slight details; notably, praeses in Notitia. Dignit. Or. in the begin- it gives the word i\oTifir)OevTa in full. ning of the fifth century, but by a consular The sense in earlier Greek and Graeco- in the list of Hierocles, about A.D. 530. The Roman usage would be that the stones on period therefore, as seems fairly certain, was which the inscriptions are engraved were iko-not very far removed from A.D. 500. Tifj.rj6evra Sia KaKXiviKov,' set up in the career n One of the Roman milestones at Obruk of public service by Callinicus. He modestly is inscribed vn, probably the distance from attributes the action to the Emperors, and Perta (if we suppose that the stone has been mentions himself only as their agent. This brought to the cemetery from a point on the - makes one at first think of boundary stones; road about a mile towards that city). Another ,; but Obruk seems to be the site of an* is marked KA, which is rather difficult to • independent city, and not a mere village explain. The only important point which dependent on Perta. Now if this stone marked a boundary, it would be necessary 2 In the edition which lies before me (apud Guil. to take Obruk as a village near the frontier Laemarium: 1587) the text printed is ^iXori/ttjfleZoruj, of the land of the city Perta. It seems, on but the correction seems necessary, and is assumed in the whole, most probable that Professor the Latin translation. 3 Published by Mommsen in Hermes xxxii p. 660, 1 If we can assume that i^CKa could be used and included in part in his Gesammelte Schri/lett by in a passive sense in that period. O. Hirschfeld, Bister, i p. 560. THE CLASSICAL REVIEW is near xxiv miles from Obruk is Suwarek- it may be Congoustos, understanding that PsibSla; and the road from the one town to the name has been slightly misplaced on the the other does not form a part of any main Table, or rather that the enumerator of the route. We must suppose that at Obruk the stations, instead of going along the direct town put up milestones indicating the distance road -Pegella-Perta, went a circuit through from all the cities around. On the other Obruk; but the numbers would have to be milestones the numbers are indecipherable. corrected in that case to As to the name of the city at Obruk, that Pegella xxv Congustos ix Perta. is a matter of complete uncertainty. . It stands near, but not actually on, the direct W. M. RAMSAY. road from Iconium to Archelais. Possibly Aberdeen.

ON VIRGIL, ECLOGUES, ix. 17.

Heu, cadit in quemquam tantvim scelus?

EupapiDES in his plays seems to have com- do and facio. Thus me dubiam dant means pensated for his many modernisms by a ' make me doubtful,' and huic ego die nomen plentiful use of Homeric forms. In a like Trinummo feci means ' I have given to-day spirit Virgil seems to have sprinkled the the name of Half-a-Crown.' In i. 6, nobis artificial language which he puts into his haec otia fecit seems to mean ' has given us shepherds' mouths with uses which may be this ease,' and in i. 18 the use of da nobis as called either colloquial or archaic, since the 'tell us' is probably a colloquialism which one is in most languages often the other. descends from Plautine days. In ii. 14 the We know that the town wits laughed at one use of satius as ' better,' though not unknown instance of this habit. to classical prose, belongs in the main to the spoken tongue. With this we may class qui 'Dicmihi, Damoeta: "cuium pecus" anne Latinum?' in a sense akin to qualis, ii. 19; fero in In iii. 102, Donatus seems to have taken his the sense of carry away, v. 34 and ix. 51; as a nominative, a use extinct in polite Latin, and perhaps poteras in i. 79, and hodie in but doubtless still common on rustic lips. iii. 49. In the last even Conington finds ' a Conington, even with cuium in the same sort of comic pleonasm' despite its use in Eclogue, accounted this interpretation ' a very Aen. ii. 670. More decisive is the interroga- hazardous hypothesis,' and Mr. Page regards tive nam in ix. 39, with which we may place the archaism as too startling to be true; but reponas, a subjunctive in a direct command, neither authority seems to have taken cog- iii. 54. The use of mitto in the sense of nizance of the indirect support which Donatus 'make a present,' iii. 71 and ix. 6, misled gets from other passages in the Eclogues. Conington, who says on the latter passage Nor is it easy to make good sense of the ' mittimus is used seemingly because Moeris, line on any other supposition, except indeed though carrying the kids himself, speaks for the desperate remedy of reading hi for his. his master, who is the sender of the present.' It may be observed that no interpretation No doubt Moeris speaks as servants usually gives a good sense to certe, and for his certe do, and says ' we are making him a present,' we should perhaps read hisce autem. The meaning that the present is made by his change is in any case very small, and perhaps master, as in the former passage Menalcas •the less that, as Pompeii shows, there were carried the apples himself to his Amyntas. scripts in which it was not easy to distinguish This sense of mitto is found in Terence, e.g. a and r. Of course hisce is nominative. To Phor. 50, puer causa erit mittundi, and re- return to our colloquialisms. We know the appears in silver Latin, e.g. Juv. iii. 45, quae free way in which the comedians interchange mittit. In Terence the slave would probably