The Carolingian Afterlife of the Damasan Inscriptions Maya Maskarinec

Home , Ado of Vienne, Flodoard, Gorgonius, Liber Pontificalis, Marcellinus and Peter, Pope Gregory IV

The Carolingian afterlife of the Damasan inscriptions Maya Maskarinec

This paper investigates the multiple impulses that contributed to the early medieval interest in Pope Damasus’s inscriptions. In part, Damasus’s verses were read as guides to Rome’s martyrial topography; in part, they served as models of a classicizing Christian style. Above all, the appeal of these verses derived from their association with Damasus himself, who came to be seen as a secure mediator of the early Christian past. Concurrently, the ﬁgure of Damasus grew in stature, as a saint marked by his solicitude for the Christian community, whether living or dead.

Damasus has pronounced his merit: you, venerate his grave1

Beginning in the late fourth century a new Christian topography of Rome began to develop, turning the classical city inside out. Rome’s peripheral cemeteries, located, according to Greco-Roman burial customs, outside the city’s walls along the roads leading into the city, became increasingly central as the Christian cult of saints transformed Rome’s martyrial shrines into sacred sites. Instrumental in this process were the efforts of Pope Damasus (r. 366–88). By adorning martyrial tombs with large monumental marble plaques with verses that co-opted Vergilian diction to honour the Christian martyrs, Damasus helped map out an extramural topography of ‘Christian heroes’.2 Today, only scattered physical fragments of Damasus’s grand strategy survive. Many more of his verses, however, are transmitted by Carolingian manuscripts, a phenomenon that is representative of a wider early medieval interest in Damasus as an inscriber and poet.

1 ‘expressit Damasus meritum venerare sepulchrum’: lines from Damasus’s epitaph for Eutychius, see n. 35. 2 C. Pietri, ‘Concordia apostolorum et renovatio urbis (Culte des martyrs et propagande pontiﬁcale)’, Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome, Antiquité 73 (1961), pp. 275–322.

Damasus’s inscriptions resonated with early medieval audiences in multiple respects. For visitors to Rome (or those who imagined visiting the city), the monumental verses functioned as signposts, a guide through the landscape of Rome’s early Christian martyrs. Even when detached from their physical settings, they continued to be appreciated and mined for their literary style of classicizing Christianity and read for their vignettes of Christian martyrs. From a medieval perspective, Damasus had successfully synthesized Rome’s classical and early Christian pasts. Damasus’s verses also frequently stress his role in preserving the memory of saints threatened by oblivion; in turn Damasus came to serve as a trusted mediator, whose commemoration of saints could provide medieval audiences with a secure bridge to the distant past of the Christian persecutions. Although Damasus can never be said to have achieved widespread popularity, his inscriptions left their imprint on the early Middle Ages. As with other late antique popes, most famously Pope Sylvester, the figure of Pope Damasus increased in stature over time: his tomb was venerated, and his life accumulated legendary anecdotes.3 What distinguishes Damasus, however, is the way his use of the epigraphic habit to promote saints’ cults gave a particular inflection to his own cult.4 Before turning to the early medieval interest in Damasus it is helpful first to summarize the scope and aims of Damasus’s epigraphical programme and the degree to which modern knowledge of his inscriptions derives from the transcriptions transmitted in Carolingian manuscripts. During his pontificate, Pope Damasus commissioned more than thirty monumental marble inscription-plaques to adorn the tombs of saints buried along the roads leading into Rome.5 As has been demonstrated,

3 In contrast to Damasus, Pope Sylvester was better known (as attested already in the Acts of Sylvester) for his conversion of Constantine and slaying of a dragon than for his construction of, and donation to, martyrial basilicas: A. Amore, ‘Silvestro, I, papa’, Bibliotheca Sanctorum. Enciclopedia dei Santi, 12 vols (Rome, 1961–70), IX, pp. 1077–9. Likewise other late antique/ early medieval popes around whom extensive cults developed (such as Leo and Gregory) were not primarily remembered for their attentiveness to saints’ cults. 4 Although Damasus was not unique among late antique popes in commissioning inscriptions, there is no evidence for a comparable late antique papal programme, nor, to my knowledge, of a pope whose later legacy emphasizes his epigraphy in the same way. Popes who commissioned inscriptions and were noted by the Liber Pontiﬁcalis for their extensive promotion of saints’ cults include Sixtus III (r. 432–440) and Honorius (r. 625–38). Yet while a cult for Sixtus III would develop, it does not appear ever to have focused on his inscriptions. 5 The most recent edition of Damasus’s epigrams is A. Ferrua, Epigrammata Damasiana (Vatican City, 1942), which provides extensive commentary on the inscriptions and Damasus’s programme; still useful is the older commentary by M. Ihm, Damasi epigrammata: accedunt pseudo Damasiana aliaque ad Damasiana inlustranda idonea (Leipzig, 1895). Regarding Damasus himself, see U. Reutter, Damasus, Bischof von Rom (366–384): Leben und Werk (Tübingen, 2009). Damasus may have erected one epitaph outside Rome, that for Felix in Nola; see Ferrua, no. 59,pp.213–15; P. Sims-Williams, ‘Milred of Worcester’s Collection of Latin Epigrams and its Continental Counterparts’, ASE 10 (1982), pp. 21–38,atp.34; T. Lehmann, ‘Eine spätantike

Early Medieval Europe 2015 23 (2) © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd The afterlife of the Damasan inscriptions 131 most speciﬁcally by Marianne Sághy, Damasus’s programme was heavily inﬂuenced by his contested election and struggles against heretical groups.6 The inscriptions served to mark which saints were approved of by the Catholic church; for the most part, Damasus’s efforts in this respect were so successful that the saints he marked out are by and large those whose cults have continued to the present day.7 Damasus’s inscriptions were standardized and distinctive, both in their form and their literary style. Located on the major roads encircling Rome, the inscriptions articulated the martyrs as a corps surrounding the city;8 a new population of Rome ‘offering Rome’s Christians and Chris- tianizing Romans a new vision of themselves’.9 The monumental marble inscriptions were conspicuous by their sheer size (many are one by two, or even three, metres).10 Furthermore, they were easily recognizable, carved in a unique style of elegant rounded lettering carried out by Furius Dionysius Philocalus (or his workshop).11 The verses themselves are hexameters, modelled on the language of Vergil but stressing ‘the superiority of the martyrs’.12 Many similar formulas are repeated throughout the oeuvre, emphasizing the martyrs’ heroism, their triumph achieved through devotion to God, their immortality, their Romanness (regardless of their origins) through martyrdom and the consensus and concord of the entire Christian community, living and dead. In the inscriptions, Damasus himself takes centre stage; his name is mentioned, and he often positions himself as a mediator between the saint and the Christian community. Almost all of the known Damasan inscriptions were erected at the tombs of saints (either martyrs or popes). A few inscriptions were dedi- cated to family members (his mother Laurentia, his sister Irene, and

Inschriftensammlung und der Besuch des Papstes Damasus an der Pilgerstätte des Hl. Felix in Cimitile/Nola’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 91 (1992), pp. 243–81. 6 M. Sághy, ‘Scinditur in partes populus: Pope Damasus and the Martyrs of Rome’, EME 9 (2000), pp. 273–87. 7 See below, nn. 84–5. 8 J. Guyon, ‘Damase et l’illustration des martyrs: les accents de la dévotion et l’enjeu d’une pastorale’, in M. Lamberigts and P. van Deun (eds), Martyrium in Multidisciplinary Perspective: Memorial Louis Reekmans (Leuven, 1995), pp. 157–78,atp.161 and Fig. 1. 9 D.E. Trout, ‘Damasus and the Invention of Early Christian Rome’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 33 (2003), pp. 517–36,atp.519. Cf. S. Diefenbach, ‘Urbs und ecclesia – Bezugspunkte kollektiver Heiligenerinnerung im Rom des Bischofs Damasus (366–384)’, in R. Behrwald and C. Witschel (eds), Rom in der Spätantike. Historische Erinnerung im städtischen Raum, Heidelberger Althistorische Beiträge und Epigraphische Studien 51 (Stuttgart, 2012), pp. 193–249, regarding Damasus’s efforts to ‘Romanize’ the Christian extramural martyrial landscape, widening the bishop’s ﬂock both geographically and symbolically. 10 See Guyon, ‘Damase’, pp. 163–8. 11 This is explicitly speciﬁed on the margins of some of the inscriptions, such as Ferrua, no. 27,pp. 157–9. 12 Trout, ‘Damasus’, p. 521.

Early Medieval Europe 2015 23 (2) © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 132 Maya Maskarinec himself) or other recently deceased individuals.13 In their form and language these inscriptions are indistinguishable from the rest; for example, the epitaph for his sister stresses her pious virginity. In addition to his interventions at martyrs’ tombs, Damasus undertook construction inside and outside the city, in particular building or rebuilding a church for St Lawrence (eventually known as S. Lorenzo in Damaso), with inscriptions celebrating his own work.14 Damasus also composed poetical works that were not inscribed in stone, as well as a wider range of prose texts.15 Apart from a poem in honour of St Paul and verses of unsure attribution exhorting a friend to Christian study, however, these other verses do not survive.16 Neither Damasus nor any of his contemporaries are known to have compiled his epitaphs as a published oeuvre – at least no record of such an endeavour survives. However, the inscriptions certainly had an imme- diate impact. Damasus’s literary style of enlisting classical language in the service of the Christian martyrs was quickly imitated by poets, such as his contemporaries Prudentius and Paulinus of Nola, and later, in Gaul, the ﬁfth-century Arnobius the Younger and the sixth-century Venantius Fortunatus.17 Indeed, one of Damasus’s epitaphs, that for Agnes (which, later reused as a paving stone in the basilica of St Agnes on the Via Nomentana, survives nearly intact), was consistently copied in manuscripts together with Prudentius’s Crowns of Martyrdom, fourteen poems on Spanish and Roman martyrs (including Agnes). This suggests how closely associated the verses of Damasus and his contemporaries were, at

13 Epitaphs for his family: Ferrua, nos. 10–12,pp.105–14. There are also funeral inscriptions for a certain Proiecta and Marcus, who are not specified as saints: Ferrua, nos. 50–1,pp.200–5. Regarding Damasus’s inscription for himself, see pp. 154–5 below. 14 Regarding S. Lorenzo, see R. Krautheimer, Corpus basilicarum christianarum Romae: The Early Christian Basilicas of Rome (IV–IX Cent.), 5 vols (Vatican City, 1937–77), II, pp. 145–51;K. Blair-Dixon, ‘Damasus and the Fiction of Unity’, in F. Guidobaldi and A.G. Guidobaldi (eds), Ecclesiae Urbis. Atti del congresso internazionale di studi sulle chiese di Roma (IV–X secolo). Roma, 4–10 settembre 2000 (Vatican City, 2002), pp. 331–52. Two of his inscriptions record work done at the Vatican: Ferrua, nos. 3–4,pp.88–96. Damasus’s involvement at Sant’Anastasia (inside the walls) is also securely attested, as well as his construction of a church for Marcellinus and Peter on the Via Labicana and a mausoleum for himself on the Via Ardeatina. See J.R. Curran, Pagan City and Christian Capital: Rome in the Fourth Century (Oxford and New York, 2000), pp. 142–7; Krautheimer, Corpus,I,pp.42–61; regarding Marcellinus and Peter, see n. 99 below; for his mausoleum, see n. 121. 15 There is little evidence for Damasus’s other verses; apart from the testimony of Jerome’s De viris illustribus (see n. 52), the only contemporaneous evidence is Jerome’s, Ep. 22 to Eustochium, §22, cited in Ferrua, p. 62,no.6: ‘Si tibi placet scire, quot molestiis virgo libera, quot uxor adstricta sit, lege . . . et papae Damasi super hac re versu prosaque conposita . . .’ For Damasus’s other literary works see Reutter, Damasus. 16 See pp. 141–2 below. 17 G. Bernt, Das lateinische Epigramm im Übergang von der Spätantike zum frühen Mittelalter (Munich, 1968), p. 57. Ferrua, p. 15 comments too that fifth/sixth-century inscriptions are so full of Damasan language that it is difficult to decide whether they derive from Damasus himself or should be regarded as part of the common repertory of epigraphical language.

Early Medieval Europe 2015 23 (2) © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd The afterlife of the Damasan inscriptions 133 least in the minds of later commentators.18 Meanwhile, monumental verse inscriptions mimicking Damasus’s in their literary form and epigraphical style multiplied throughout the catacombs, although no subsequent pope seems to have carried out an articulated programme comparable in scale to that of Damasus.19 For centuries thereafter a considerable number of the Damasan and pseudo-Damasan inscriptions remained visible in the catacombs. Since Damasus’s inscriptions are characterized both by a distinctive style and by the presence of his name in their text, their identification is, despite the frequency of later imitations, nonetheless fairly straightforward. Some inscriptions were certainly destroyed during the sixth-century Gothic Wars, as evidenced by an inscription by Pope Vigilius (537–55) that commemorates his own restoration of Damasus’s inscription for Vitalis, Martial and Alexander.20 For centuries, however, the martyrial tombs remained popular sites of devotion, even as from the mid-eighth century onward the relics of Rome’s martyrs were translated with increasing frequency into intramural churches (or away from the city altogether).21 Gradually many of the marble plaques broke and disappeared or were reused as building materials, especially for pavements; a small number remained visible, either in the catacombs or affixed to the walls of basilicas; the inscription for Peter and Paul was even carved anew during the Middle Ages.22 By far the most extensive documentary evidence for the Damasan inscriptions are early medieval manuscripts. Of the thirty-eight inscriptions of which enough survives to identify the dedicatee, thirty-three are transcribed in medieval manuscripts; that is, only five inscriptions are

18 Ferrua, no. 37,pp.175–6;pp.246–8. See also M.J. Roberts, Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs: The Liber Peristephanon of Prudentius (Ann Arbor, 1993). The earliest surviving manuscripts date from the eighth to ninth centuries: Vat. lat. 5821; Paris, BN, lat. 13348; Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, D 36. It is unclear when the inscription came to be transmitted with Prudentius’s verses; it may have been added as a later gloss to the poem. This inscription is not transmitted among the Carolingian collections of Roman inscriptions. 19 For late antique/early medieval epigraphy in general, see F. De Rubeis, ‘Dalla scrittura pubblica alla scrittura privata: paesaggi urbani in transformazione’, Hortus Artium Mediaevalium 12 (2006). 20 Ferrua, no. 41,pp.182–3. 21 J.M. McCullough, ‘From Antiquity to the Middle Ages: Continuity and Change in Papal Relic Policy from the 6th to the 8th Century’, Pietas. Festschrift Bernhard Kötting, Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum. Ergbd. 8 (Münster and Westfalen, 1980), pp. 313–24; J. Osborne, ‘The Roman Catacombs in the Middle Ages’, Papers of the British School at Rome 53 (1985), pp. 286–98. 22 The epitaph for Peter and Paul appears to have been recopied circa thirteenth century: Ferrua, no. 20,pp.138–9; de Rossi found fragments of the epitaph for Cornelius still affixed above his tomb in the catacombs: Ferrua, no. 19,pp.136–7; fragments of the epitaph for Nero and Achilles were affixed to the wall of the narthex of their basilica on the Via Ardeatina: Ferrua, no. 8,p.101. By far the majority of the fragments were retrieved from the floors of churches or among excavations (in the catacombs or elsewhere in the city).

Early Medieval Europe 2015 23 (2) © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 134 Maya Maskarinec known exclusively from their physical remains.23 In these ninth- to eleventh-century manuscripts, the verses are transmitted in a variety of contexts: with other inscriptions, as part of larger poetry anthologies, or with biblical or other theological texts. Physical fragments survive for many of the inscriptions transcribed in manuscripts (although usually not more than a very partial fragment), thus conﬁrming their actual physical presence and the text of their verses.

Apart from the invaluable evidence that the manuscript copies provide about Damasus’s epigraphical programme, they also attest to a Carolin- gian fascination with Rome’s monumentality and her ‘subterranean arsenal’ of saints.24 Of the thirty-three transcribed inscriptions, twenty- nine appear (often not exclusively) in ﬁve ninth- to eleventh-century manuscripts that contain collections of inscriptions from Rome. Each of these manuscripts is a particular case, and I will discuss them each individually below; however, since they are frequently discussed together, an overview is in order.25 Vatican, Palatine Latin 833 is a manuscript devoted entirely to inscriptions, the fourth section of which, containing over twenty Damasan inscriptions, is written in a ninth-century Lorsch hand. Related and perhaps derived in part from the same exemplar as the Lorsch manuscript is St Petersburg, National Library, F.XIV.1, a poetry anthology written in early ninth-century Corbie. Einsiedeln 326, written in ninth-century Fulda, is a manuscript which in addition to inscriptions contains other materials related to the city of Rome. The tenth-century Verdun 45 includes Roman inscriptions (from basilicas, extramural martyrial shines and papal tombs) following the Ecclesiastical History by Eusebius/Ruﬁnus, the Decretalis de libris recipiendis et non recipiendis, and Paulinus’s Life of St Ambrose. Finally the eleventh-century Klosterneuburg,

23 This ﬁgure includes all the inscriptions (with enough surviving to identify the dedicatee) included by Ferrua’s edition as Damasan (except nos. 1–2, which were never intended for inscription), that is, also the verses by Pope Vigilius commemorating his repair of Damasus’s inscription (no. 41) and the non-Damasan inscription for Chrysanthus and Daria (no. 45), but for whom Damasus is known to have erected an inscription: see n. 90 below. 24 F. Gregorovius, Rome and Medieval Culture: Selections from History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages (Chicago, 1971), 1.1. 25 The Lorsch collection contains twenty-one Damasan inscriptions. The Corbie includes eleven, of which only two (for Hippolytus, no. 35, and Tiburtius, no. 31) are not included in the Lorsch collection. The Einsiedeln manuscript includes four Damasus inscriptions, all of which are also in other manuscripts. The Verdun manuscript includes ten Damasan inscriptions, of which only two (for Felix and Philip, no. 39, and from S. Lorenzo in Damaso, no. 58) are not in the Lorsch collection. The ‘Sylloge Turonensis’ contains ten Damasan inscriptions, including one unique to the collection (Felicissimus and Agapitus, no. 24), as well as some shared only with the Verdun, Lorsch and Corbie collections respectively. In addition the remaining poetry of the Klosterneuburg collection (which de Rossi did not think originated in Tours) includes the epitaph of Damasus, not transmitted in the other principal inscription collections.

Augustiner-Chorherrenstift, Stiftsbibliothek 723 consists of Isidore’s Ety- mologies, followed by poems and a compilation of inscriptions, the so-called ‘Sylloge Turonensis’, whose prototype Giovanni Battista de Rossi hypothesized was composed in Tours in the seventh century. Additionally, Damasan inscriptions are found individually scattered in a range of manuscript contexts.26 The most thorough studies of these manuscripts and their inscriptions remain those by de Rossi and Angelo Silvagni, who argued that all of the inscription collections derived from seventh-century transcriptions.27 However, although all the surviving compilations of inscriptions were copied from earlier exemplars (and never represent direct transcription from Roman monuments), the surviving manuscripts can by no means be ﬁtted into a simple stemma, tracing them back to one or more archetypes.28 Moreover, the surviving manuscripts indicate that subsequent to the original transcriptions of Roman inscriptions, interest in them persisted, even when (as was often the case) they were recopied without any indication of their original location in Rome. Damasus’s inscriptions must have impressed visitors as part of the widespread presence of the monumental written word in Rome. This facet of their appeal is most clearly recognizable in the Einsiedeln manuscript, where Damasan inscriptions are copied alongside a much wider selection of Roman inscriptions – as well as a range of other documents that attempt to communicate the immensity and complexity of Rome to their readers.29 Among surviving inscription collections, that of the Einsiedeln manuscript stands out as exceptional for its large number of prose examples derived from non-Christian monuments of classical

26 Some later (twelfth- to fifteenth-century) manuscripts also contain a significant number of Damasus inscriptions: see Ferrua, p. 16, and G.B. de Rossi, Inscriptiones christianae urbis Romae septimo saeculo antiquiores (Rome, 1888), II, pt 1. 27 A. Silvagni, Inscriptiones christianae urbis Romae. Nova series. I, Roma (Rome, 1922), pp. xviii–xxviii. 28 Many scholars have been sceptical of Silvagni’s theory: see for example C.V. Franklin, ‘The Epigraphic Syllogae of BAV, Palatine Latin 833’, in J. Hamasse (ed.), Roma, Magistra Mundi: Itineraria Culturae Medievalis. Mélanges offerts à Père L.E. Boyle à l’occasion de son 75e anniversaire, Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Études Médiévales 10/1–3 (Louvain-la- Neuve, 1998), pp. 975–90,atp.975,n.3. 29 Einsiedeln 326, fols 67–97. The ninth-century contents comprise a collection of inscriptions from various Roman monuments, a set of so-called ‘itineraries’, routes through Rome listing significant sites in and around the city, a description of Rome’s walls, a liturgical description of the Mass conducted by the pope at the Lateran during Holy Week, and a poem anthology including classical and neoclassical verse. In the thirteenth century these were rebound with a diverse range of later texts: de Rossi, Inscriptiones, II.1,pp.9–35 (Section II); P.G. Meier, Catalogus codicum manu scriptorum qui in Bibliotheca Monasterii Einsidlensis O.S.B. servantur (Leipzig, 1899), no. 326,pp.297–300. For the first three sections of the manuscript (inscriptions, itineraries and wall description), see S. Del Lungo, Roma in età carolingia e gli scritti dell’anonimo Augiense (Rome, 2004), and G. Walser, Die Einsiedler Inschriftensammlung durch Rom (Codex Einsidlensis 326) (Stuttgart, 1987).

Early Medieval Europe 2015 23 (2) © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 136 Maya Maskarinec antiquity.30 Roughly eighty inscriptions are transcribed from a range of intramural and extramural, Christian and non-Christian sites; the under- lying principle of their selection seems to have been that these inscriptions were visible monumental representations of the written word.31 Each inscription is introduced by a brief rubric, in red, specifying the location of the inscription, and the text of the inscriptions often replicates the epigraphy by maintaining its abbreviations.32 As a whole, then, the compilation communicates a sense of the physical tangibility of Rome’s monumentality. The inclusion of four Damasan epigrams among a pre- ponderance of lengthy ofﬁcial, often imperial, titulature indicates how effectively, in the eyes of early medieval observers, Damasus had assimi- lated Rome’s Christian martyrs to the long-standing Roman tradition of monumental epigraphy. Both the monumental nature of Damasus’s inscriptions and their language made them readily prone to function as markers of sanctity, demarcating a guided itinerary through Rome. The verses frequently draw attention to the direct physical presence of martyrs’ bodies. As Dennis Trout has noted, they often emphasize a polarity between martyrs’ bodily remains ‘in this place (hic)’ and their celestial immortality.33 The epitaphs also routinely address the readers directly, drawing them into closer contact with the saints. The inscription for Peter and Paul reads: ‘This place, you should know, was once the dwelling of saints; / Their names, you may learn, were Peter and likewise Paul’.34 Even more authoritative is the imperative in the ﬁnal lines of the inscription for Eutychius: ‘Damasus has pronounced his merit: you, venerate his grave’.35 To a limited extent, then, the surviving collections with their large numbers of Damasan inscriptions attest to how the pope’s work functioned to guide visitors around the Christian topography of extramural Rome. This Rome of the pilgrims is documented most thoroughly in the surviving Carolingian itineraries of Christian Rome: the De locis sanctis martyrum quae sunt foris civitatis Romae and the Notitia ecclesiarum urbis Romae.36 These itineraries focus on the extramural cemeteries of Rome

30 The majority of the inscriptions, copied from monumental classical buildings, such as arches, baths or temples, are in prose and usually quite brief. 31 Prominent are the themes of imperial victory and of the maintenance of urban infrastructure. 32 For example, Walser, no. 7: ‘Imppp clemtissimus felicissimis toto orbe victorib DDD NNIS arcadio honorio theodosio AUGGG . . .’ 33 Trout, ‘Damasus’, p. 523. 34 Trans. L.R. Loomis, Book of the Popes, Records of Civilization: Sources and Studies (New York, 1916), p. 82,n.3; Ferrua, no. 20,p.142: ‘Hic habitasse prius sanctos cognoscere debes / nomina quisq. Petri pariter Pauliq. requires’. 35 Ferrua, no. 21,p.146: ‘expressit Damasus meritum venerare sepulchrum’. 36 Itineraria et alia geographica, CCSL 175 (Turnhout, 1965): Notitia ecclesiarum,pp.304–21; De locis sanctis,pp.314–21. For an introduction to the shifting topography of the Rome visited by pilgrims, see A. Thacker, ‘Rome of the Martyrs: Saints, Cults and Relics, Fourth to Seventh

Early Medieval Europe 2015 23 (2) © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd The afterlife of the Damasan inscriptions 137 and the saints buried there, including nearly all the saints for whom Damasus is known to have erected inscriptions.37 As such, they reﬂect the success of Damasus’s programme of marking out a Christian topography, expanded and popularized in the centuries after him. We may hypothesize that, when originally transcribed, the ordering of inscriptions was likewise attentive to the sacred landscape of the catacombs as Damasus (and his successors) had constructed it. The transcribed copies of inscriptions from Rome may even have served as virtual guides to Rome’s catacombs for readers north of the Alps. While none of the surviving compilations provides such a guide to Rome, certain features of the Verdun and Tours collections suggest the plausibility of this hypothesis. Included in the tenth-century Verdun 45 is a fairly comprehensive handbook of inscriptions from the martyrial shrines along one of Rome’s major roads. Altogether, the Verdun manuscript contains thirty-two inscriptions from intra- and extramural Christian monuments in Rome.38 All of these are labelled with precise topographical indications, allowing readers to situate them in Rome’s landscape. The speciﬁc location of inscriptions is often included, as in the heading: ‘These verses were written above the tomb of Chrysanthus and Daria.’39 In general, the headings (and content) of these inscriptions exhibit a particular interest in relics and the papal presence in Rome.40 The choice of inscriptions from extramural basilicas (intramural basilical inscriptions and papal epitaphs are also included) is from a very precise, although rather idio- syncratic, area of Rome: the Via Salaria nova.41 As attested by pilgrim itineraries, the Via Salaria nova was the burial site of many notable martyrs, and was a primary destination for pilgrims to Rome.42 Seventeen

Centuries’, in É.Ó. Carragáin and C.L. Neuman de Vegvar (eds), Roma felix: Formation and Reflections of Medieval Rome (Aldershot and Burlington, 2007), pp. 13–49. 37 Of the saints to whom Damasus is known to have erected inscriptions, only Eutychius is not included in the De locis sanctis. Neither Eutychius nor Tarsicius is in the Notitia ecclesiarum. 38 Catalogue général des manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques des départements. 5. Metz, Verdun, Charleville (Paris, 1879), p. 454; de Rossi, Inscriptiones, II.1,pp.131–41 (Section XII). The manuscript is 214 folios long; the inscriptions are on fols 212–214v. 39 ‘Isti versiculi scripti sunt super sepulchrum Crisanti et Dariae’; regarding this inscription, not by Damasus, see below, n. 91; de Rossi, Inscriptiones, II.1,p.135,no.8. The collection does not have a general title, but the first of the inscriptions with its specific heading – ‘These verses were written about the chains of St Peter’ (‘Isti versiculi scripti sunt ad si Petri vincula’) – clearly situates the reader in Rome: de Rossi, Inscriptiones, II.1,p.134,no.1. Most of these headings follow the formula, ‘These verses were written . . .’ (‘Isti versiculi scripti sunt . . .’), which is much more verbose than the other collections. 40 For example the heading ‘Isti versiculi scripti sunt in ecclesia sanctae Agnetis in illo throno ubi pausat corpore’: de Rossi, Inscriptiones, II.1,p.137,no.17; or ‘Isti versiculi scripti sunt ubi pontifex consignat infantes’: de Rossi, Inscriptiones, II.1,p.139,no.26. 41 These are nos. 8–24 in the collection. Inscriptions from the church of St Agnes (on the Via Nomentana), located on a parallel street not far from the Via Salaria nova, are also included: de Rossi, Inscriptiones, II.1,p.137, nos. 17–18. 42 See n. 36 above.

Early Medieval Europe 2015 23 (2) © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 138 Maya Maskarinec inscriptions from the area are included in the Verdun manscript (ten of which are Damasan), together providing a detailed guide to one corner of Rome’s Christian landscape. An even more comprehensive guide to Rome’s martyrial shrines is contained in the so-called ‘Sylloge Turonensis’, a selection of verses contained in the eleventh-century Klosterneuburg, Augustiner- Chorherrenstift, Stiftsbibliothek 723, but whose prototype de Rossi argued – on the basis of two inscriptions – was composed in seventh- century Gaul.43 Despite the paucity of topographical information provided within the manuscript (only a few of the inscriptions have lemmata that specify their locations), de Rossi demonstrated that the inscriptions are arranged systematically according to the roads leading into Rome (see Appendix).44 When it is set beside the De locis sanctis martyrum, what emerges is that the order of the inscriptions proceeds road by road in a clockwise fashion, beginning with the Via Salaria nova and continuing to the Via Ostiensis – inscriptions from the Via Portuense and Via Aurelia are not included. Furthermore, on the Via Appia (the location of many of the martyrial shrines), the inscriptions closely parallel the inverted order of the martyrial tombs mentioned in the De locis sanctis martyrum; that is, in the inscription collection, as in the itinerary, the martyrial shrines are listed in topographical order along the street. Thus the martyrial inscriptions – about a fourth of which are Damasan – mimic a pilgrim’s journey to Rome and perhaps, in earlier transcriptions, could even have provided its readers with a textual journey to the burial places of Rome’s martyrs. It should be emphasized, however, that in the form in which they are transcribed in the Klosterneuburg manuscript, it is extremely unlikely that any reader would have been able to recognize that the inscriptions are arranged topographically. Even where stripped of their topographical specificity, however, martyrial inscriptions could still have been read and copied as reflections of the sanctity of Rome. This is exemplified by the fourth section of

43 Tours inscriptions: de Rossi, Inscriptiones, II.1,pp.69–70, nos. 38–39; see also pp. 59–60,§4.In the inscription collection, the two inscriptions from the church of St Martin in Tours are not subdivided, and they are also not labelled as being from Tours. The ﬁrst is the epitaph of a certain Ebracharius who is said to have built four monasteries (‘coenobia quator construxit’); de Rossi had no proof of such an Ebracharius at Tours. The latter inscription, however, makes reference to Chrodobertus as bishop of Tours (670–6). Based on its language (in particular its reference to Chrodbertus as now (nunc) ruling over the monastery), de Rossi believed that the epitaph was unlikely to have been inscribed in stone and was instead something of a more ephemeral nature, perhaps a votive tablet. From this, de Rossi argues that its inclusion can be used to date the formation of the inscription collection to the late seventh century. The latest of the inscriptions from Rome dates to the time of Honorius I (626–38): de Rossi, Inscriptiones, II.1,pp.60–61,§7. 44 De Rossi, Inscriptiones, II.1,p.59,§3.

Vatican, Palatine Latin 883.45 As a whole, this manuscript suggests a conscious attempt to form a more comprehensive corpus. Written in an early ninth-century North Frankish/Lotharingian hand are three sections of inscriptions: 1) Christian inscriptions from Roman basilicas; 2) papal epitaphs; 3) North Italian inscriptions. In the ninth century, this pre- existing compilation was supplemented in Lorsch by a fourth section containing a larger, more eclectic, selection of Roman inscriptions.46 To accommodate this fourth section, comprising more than a hundred inscriptions,47 three additional quires were added to the manuscript; these were made to match the previous quires, but are of a different parch- ment.48 The cohesiveness of the expanded manuscript was reinforced by the way the new text was begun on the last page of the older manuscript (fol. 55v). The inscriptions of Section IV only rarely overlap with the earlier three sections.49 In part they complement the earlier compilation, including inscriptions from prominent Roman intra- and extramural basilicas not found in Section I.50 The overwhelming majority of the inscriptions in Section IV, however, derive from the tombs along the streets leading into Rome, adding a genre otherwise scarcely represented in Sections I–III.51 These martyrial poems – about a ﬁfth of which are Damasan – celebrate the saints’ Christian virtues and their triumph over death. Rome emerges as a grand depository of relics, while individual saints are held up as paradigmatic Christian heroes.

45 B. Bischoff, Lorsch im Spiegel seiner Handschriften (Munich, 1974). The manuscript contains 82 folios and is 180 × 147 mm. All sections were edited by de Rossi, although not together: Sylloge I (fols 27–35r): de Rossi, Inscriptiones, II.1,pp.142–53 (Section XIII); inscriptions appended to Sylloge I (fol. 35r–35v): pp. 38–9 (Section III); Sylloge II (fols 26r–41r): pp. 124–30 (Section XI); Sylloge III (fols 41r–53r): pp. 161–73 (Section XIII) + p. 39 (Section III); three inscriptions in a Lorsch hand (fols 54v–55r): p. 158 (Section XV); Sylloge IV (fols 55v–82r): pp. 95–118 (Section VIII). 46 De Rossi and Silvagni disagreed as to whether parts I–III were added to supplement IV or vice versa. In a deﬁnitive article, Franklin has demonstrated, based on the content of the different sections, a codicological analysis, and Bischoff’s paleographical analysis, that the latter (IV was added to supplement I–III) must be true: Franklin, ‘The Epigraphic Syllogae’. 47 De Rossi, Inscriptiones, II.1,pp.95–118 (Section VIII). Five inscriptions are from Spoleto: nos. 78–82; one from Ravenna: no. 89. With four exceptions the inscriptions do not have headings, but are subdivided by spaces and/or capital initials. 48 Quires V–VIII: fols 56–84: Franklin, ‘The Epigraphic Syllogae’, pp. 987–8. 49 Section IV does provide the complete inscriptions of three earlier partial epitaphs that had been transcribed onto fol. 54: de Rossi, Inscriptiones, II.1,pp.98–9, nos. 1, 8, 11. Also, part (one distich) of one inscription (from St Peter) is repeated in Section IV: de Rossi, Inscriptiones, II.1, p. 98,no.2 (these two lines are appended without separation to two other inscriptions from St Peter) = last two lines of p. 144,no.2. 50 These include inscriptions from S. Paolo, S. Lorenzo, S. Maria Maggiore, S. Petro in Vincoli, and S. Sabina. 51 The impression of Section IV as dominated by Rome’s saints is especially strengthened in that the few headings included all refer to saints: the inscriptions with headings are those for Sts Vitalis, Martialis, Alexander: no. 18; St Saturninus: no. 34; St Marcellus: no. 35; St Agnes: no. 36.

While Damasus’s inscriptions could be read as reﬂections of Rome’s Christian topography, as the fourth section of Vatican Pal. Lat. 883 indicates, their appeal extended beyond their function as markers of martyrial tombs. The verses provided testimonies about Rome’s earlier martyrs, and were also read as literary works in their own right. Indeed the inscription collections were only one facet of a more widespread medieval familiarity with Damasus, the contours of which can be pieced together from surviving narrative, hagiographical and poetical sources.

Damasus’s reputation as a Christian poet was diffused through the accounts of the Liber Pontificalis and Jerome’s De viris illustribus, both of which were also subsequently incorporated into later chronicles. Accord- ing to his contemporary Jerome, Damasus ‘had a fine aptitude for com- posing verses and published many brief works in the heroic metre’.52 A more detailed description of Damasus’s poetic activities, specifically describing his interventions at martyrs’ tombs, is provided by the Liber Pontificalis: ‘at the Catacombs, the place where lay the bodies of the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, he [Damasus] adorned with verses the actual tablet at the place where the holy bodies lay. He searched for and discovered many bodies of holy martyrs, and also proclaimed their [acts] in verses.’53 Throughout the early Middle Ages both of these texts were frequently copied and widely disseminated.54 In addition, their accounts are echoed by later chroniclers. In the early eighth century Bede, in his Chronica maiora, which draws extensively on a version of the Liber Pontificalis, summarizes its account that Damasus ‘[built] another [basilica] in the catacombs, where the holy bodies of the Apostles Peter and Paul had lain. There he adorned with verses the very marble slab

52 Jerome, De viris illustribus,c.103, ed. C. Barthold, Hieronymus, De viris illustribus = Berühmte Männer (Mülheim and Mosel, 2010), p. 246: ‘Romanae urbis episcopus, elegans in versibus conponendis ingenium habuit multaque et brevia opuscula heroico metro edidit . . .’ 53 The Book of Pontiffs (Liber Pontificalis), trans. R. Davis, Translated Texts for Historians 6, 3rd edn (Liverpool, 2010), pp. 28–9: Liber Pontificalis, Damasus, 4–5, ed. L. Duchesne, Le Liber Pontificalis: Introduction, texte et commentaire, 3 vols (Paris, 1886–92; repr. Paris, 1955; vol. 3 with additions and further commentary, ed. C. Vogel, 1957), I, p. 212: ‘. . . et in Catacumbas, ubi iacuerunt corpora sanctorum apostolorum Petri et Pauli, in quo loco platomam ipsam, ubi iacuerunt corpora sancta, versibus exornavit. Hic multa corpora sanctorum requisivit et invenit, quorum etiam versibus declaravit.’ 54 Regarding the extensive reception and imitation of the De viris illustribus see Barthold, esp. pp. 141–2; regarding the Liber Pontificalis see R. McKitterick, ‘La place du Liber Pontificalis dans les genres historiographiques du haut Moyen Âge’, in F. Bougard and M. Sot (eds), Liber, Gesta, histoire: écrire l’histoire des évêques et des papes de l’Antiquité au XXIe siècle (Turnhout, 2009), pp. 23–35,esp.atpp.31–5.

Early Medieval Europe 2015 23 (2) © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd The afterlife of the Damasan inscriptions 141 where the bodies had lain’,55 but omits the Liber’s additional comment about Damasus’s quest for martyrs’ bodies.56 A century later Freculph, bishop of Lisieux (c.823–53), repeats Jerome verbatim,57 while Ado of Vienne (d. 875) in his chronicle provides both the passages of the Liber Pontificalis quoted by Bede (under the entry for year 364) and Jerome’s comments (year 385).58 The account in the Liber Pontificalis, repeated by Bede and Ado, suggests that Carolingian audiences would have been most familiar with Damasus as a poet, and most specifically for his verses commemorating the apostles Peter and Paul. A copy of the inscription in question, which emphasizes the Romanness, through martyrdom, of Peter and Paul, was carved around the thirteenth century and accordingly seems to have remained continuously visible in Rome; it is also transmitted in four of the principal surviving Roman inscription collections.59 Much more widely known, however, were verses by Damasus in honour of St Paul. These verses, written in hexameters, explicitly name Damasus in the final line.60 In other respects, however, they differ markedly from the rest of the pope’s oeuvre. The twenty-six-line poem comparing Paul to the Old Testament Saul draws more on biblical than Vergilian language, and it is very unlikely that these verses were ever physically inscribed. Editors of Damasus have suggested that the poem was composed as a preface for the Pauline epistles, to which it is frequently prepended in Carolingian manuscripts.61 The popularity of these verses is undeniable; they are transmitted in over ten eighth- to ninth-century manuscripts, and many more from the subsequent centuries. As in the oldest manuscript, a sixth-century copy of the New Testament (the so-called Codex Fuldensis), the verses are usually preceded by a heading, again specifying them as the work of Damasus:

55 Bede, the Reckoning of Time, trans. F.Wallis, TranslatedTexts for Historians 29 (Liverpool, 1999), p. 215: Bede, De temporum ratione, a. 442, ed. T. Mommsen, MGH AA 13 (Berlin, 1898; repr. 1981), p. 298: ‘Damasus Romae episcopus fecit basilicam . . . et aliam in catacumbas, ubi iacuerunt corpora sancta apostolorum Petri et Pauli. In quo loco platomam ipsam, ubi iacuerunt corpora sancta, versibus adornavit.’ 56 In his Historia ecclesiastica Bede cites some inscriptions from Rome, but does not seem to have used any of Damasus’s: R. Sharpe, ‘King Ceadwalla’s Roman Epitaph’, in K.O’B. O’Keeffe and O. Andy (eds), Latin Learning and English Lore, 2 vols (Toronto, 2005), I, pp. 171–93. 57 Freculph, Chronica, 4.29, PL 106, col. 1228C. 58 Ado of Vienne, Chronicon, 364, 385; PL 123, col. 95A, col. 97B. Later authors continue to echo the earlier accounts; for example the twelfth-century Sicard of Cremona records of Damasus in his Cronica, ed. O. Holder-Egger MGH Scriptores 31 (Hanover, 1903; repr. 1980), p. 125, 13:‘Hic metrice multa conscripsit.’ 59 Ferrua, no. 20,pp.139–44: Lorsch, Tours, Einsiedeln, Corbie: de Rossi, Inscriptiones, II.1,p.32, no. 77;p.65,no.20;p.89,no.45;p.105,no.44. 60 Ferrua, no. 1,pp.81–7, lines 25–6. 61 Ferrua, p. 83.

‘Here begin Damasus’s verses on the blessed apostle Paul’.62 The poem is frequently found adjoined to biblical texts (including the bibles produced by the circle of Theodulf of Orléans for the court of Charlemagne), but is also located in collections of poetry, all indications of its wide dissemi- nation.63 Echoes of the verses are found in early medieval poems: for example, numerous expressions are repeated in the seventh-century De Virginitate of Aldhelm of Malmesbury,64 and three lines from the poem are only very slightly reworked in verses sometimes ascribed to the ninth-century Irishman Johannes Scottus Erigena.65 Meanwhile certain wordings, such as ‘having obeyed the teachings of Christ (‘Christi praecepta secutus’), seem to have become standard turns of phrase.66 Undoubtedly, not only Damasus’s poem on St Paul, but also his more classicizing inscriptions were appreciated for their literary qualities. Damasus offered a model for the integration of classical forms with Christian content that resonated with Carolingian (and later) audiences. Indeed two of the so-called ‘inscription collections’ are more properly characterized as poetry collections. In both St Petersburg, National Library, F.XIV.1 (Corbie, early ninth century), and Klosterneuburg, Augustiner-Chorherrenstift, Stiftsbibliothek 723 (eleventh century), the originally inscribed nature of the verses is of at best secondary impor- tance. In the Corbie manuscript the verses from Rome form part of a much larger poetry anthology, most of which (fols 6v–105) consists of verses by the late sixth-century poet Venantius Fortunatus.67 Also

62 E. Ranke, Codex Fuldensis: Novum Testamentum Latine interprete Hieronymo ex manuscripto Victoris Capuani (Marburg and Leipzig, 1868), p. 463, ‘Incipiunt versus Damasi / in beatum Paulum apostolum’. 63 Ferrua, no. 1,pp.81–2. It is included in poetry anthologies such as Paris, BN, lat. 8093 (s viii) and Paris, BN, lat. 2832 (s ix), and the Theodulf bibles: Paris, BN, lat. fol. 287, and London, British Museum, add. 24142, fol. 228: see L. Delisle, Les Bibles de Théodulfe (Paris, 1879). 64 C. Weyman, Beiträge zur Geschichte der christlich-lateinischen Poesie (Munich, 1926), pp. 55–6, notes seven examples. He also adduces some examples where Aldhelm may have drawn on other Damasan epigrams, although these similarities are less precise. See also Ferrua’s commentary, pp. 83–7. Aldhelm’s composition itself may have been inspired by Damasus’s now lost work on virginity mentioned by Jerome: see Weyman, pp. 52–4, and above n. 15. 65 Johannes Scottus, Carmina, ed. L. Traube, MGH Poetae Latini aevi Carolini 3 (Berlin, 1886–96; repr. 2000), p. 553, 10–12, cited in Ferrua, no. 20,p.96: ‘Verbera vincla famem lapides rabiemque ferarum, / carceris inluviem virgas tormenta catenas / naufragium lacrimas serpentis dira venena’ have morphed into ‘verbera vincla famem virgas tormenta catenas, / carceris inluviem poenas rabiemque ferarum, / non mala serpentis non sentiet ipsa venena’. The poem is found in Paris, BN, lat. 1764 (s ix) after Johannes Scottus Erigena’s De divisione naturae. 66 The phrase is found repeatedly in Alcuin’s poetry: Bernt, Das lateinische Epigramm. Ferrua, no. 9,p.84, notes its appearance in the Vita Eligii, ed. K. Strecker, MGH Poetae Latini aevi Carolini 4.2 (Berlin, 1914; repr. 2000), p. 796, 253, as well as other examples. 67 O.A. Dobiaš-Roždestvenskaja, W.W. Bakhtine, X. Grichine and G. Lanoë, Les anciens manuscrits latins de la bibliothèque publique Saltykov-Šcˇedrin de Leningrad: VIII–début IXe siècle (Paris, 1991), no. 40,pp.102–6; D. Ganz, Corbie in the Carolingian Renaissance (Sigmaringen, 1990), pp. 50, 142. See also G.B. de Rossi, ‘La silloge epigraphica d’un codice già corbeiense ora nella Bibliotheca imperiale de Pietroburgo’, Bullettino di Archeologia cristiana, 3rd ser. 6 (1881).

Early Medieval Europe 2015 23 (2) © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd The afterlife of the Damasan inscriptions 143 included are other Christian epigrams, acrostics and verses ranging from the sixth to eighth centuries.68 Although the section containing inscriptions from Rome is entitled, ‘Here begin verses on the basilica of St Peter’, the verses from Rome rarely have headings, or even subdivisions.69 Like the poems of Venantius Fortunatus, himself inﬂuenced by Damasus, Damasus’s poems seem to have been included as poetical works characterized by their Christian classicism. In a comparable fashion, the Klosterneuburg manuscript assembles a veritable pastiche of verse in the folios following Isidore’s Etymologies. Much of the verse is derived from Christian Rome and celebrates the city’s martyrs and popes.70 However, there are few topographical indications in the manuscript and the collection is not restricted to material from Rome.71 Interspersed among the verses in the collection are inscriptions from Tours and Lérins, as well as unlabelled verses from a poem by Eucheria, a late antique poet from Gaul.72 Although the verses are divorced from their topographical contexts and there is no demonstrable interest in their original epigraphic form, the Klosterneuburg manuscript does nevertheless exhibit an interest in specifying verses as Damasan; even where Damasus’s name is not included as part of the verses (in cases where it was written above or beneath on the original inscription) they are labelled with his name.73 Damasan expressions from his classicizing epigrams are found scattered throughout Carolingian verses. Since Damasus drew on Vergil and was in turn imitated by late antique and Carolingian poets who themselves drew on Vergil, it can be difﬁcult to determine the degree to which later authors drew on Damasus, yet it is undeniable that his verses were

68 These are fol. 1–1v: ‘Iohannis Celse rimans mysteria caeli’ (an acrostic); fols 2–6v: ‘Non est in terris me uirgo stulcior ulla . . .’ (Boniface, Aenigmata de virtutibus et vitis); fols 6v–105:‘In laudem sanctae Mariae’ (Venantius Fortunatus); fols 105–11v: ‘Rex fuit Antiochus Syriae ditissimus olim’ (Marius Victorinus, In laudem Macchabeorum); fols 111v–22: ‘Incipit exposicio metrica de uirginitate laudanda’ (Aldhelm, De laudibus virginitatis); fols 123–34: inscriptions; fols 134–9v: ‘Incipiunt uersus qui eisdem litteris terminantur a quibus incipiunt’ (Aldhelm, Enigmata); fols 139v–44: ‘Incipiunt in enigmate Simphosi’ (Symphosius, Enigmata); fol. 144– 144v: three short epigrams. 69 ‘Incipiunt uersiculi in basilica beati Petri’. 70 De Rossi, Inscriptiones, II.1,pp.58–71 (Section VI); H. Pfeiffer and B.O. Cˇ erník, Catalogus codicum manu scriptorum qui in bibliotheca canonicorum regularium s. Augustini Claustroneoburgi asservantur (Vienna, 1922), no. 723,pp.75–9. 71 Most of the inscriptions are divided from each other by lemmata: either brief comments/ headings (most commonly simply ‘another [Item]’) or small crosses decorated with dots. 72 Tours inscriptions: de Rossi, Inscriptiones, II.1,pp.69–70, nos. 38–9; also see pp. 59–60,§4; see n. 43 above. Lérins inscription: de Rossi, Inscriptiones, II.1,p.70,no.40a. Eucheria: de Rossi, Inscriptiones, II.1,p.58,§2: incipit: ‘Aurea concordi quae fulgent ﬁla metallo’, explicit: ‘Rusticus et servus sic petat Eucheriam’. 73 De Rossi, Inscriptiones, II.1,p.64,no.13, and p. 66,no.22, specify Damasus in the last line; p. 66,no.23a (probably referring to 23) and no. 24 mention Damasus in their lemmata. Naturally many more of the other verses mention Damasus within the text of the verses.

Early Medieval Europe 2015 23 (2) © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 144 Maya Maskarinec a source for later imitation. In its own attempt to bridge the gap between Rome’s classical and early Christian pasts, the Carolingian renovatio found in Damasus an exemplary predecessor and the Damasan script was even championed as its visual manifestation.74 Meanwhile Carolingian writers liberally mined his verses. Alcuin, in an inscription for the crypt of St Michael in St Amand, reworked a phrase from a Damasan inscription on the baptismal font of St Peter’s (and also transmitted in various manuscripts).75 Theodulf incorporated an expression from Damasus’s inscription for Felix and Philip (found in some of the principal collections) in his inscriptions for St Quentin.76 Since many of Damasus’s coinages became standard turns of phrase, however, it is often impossible to say if expressions echo him directly. Are phrases like ‘the necks were severed’ (‘colla secentur’) in the tenth-century epic poem Waltharius lifted from Damasus, or did they become standard formulations?77 Either way, such similarities certainly suggest Damasus’s lasting literary impact. Damasus’s legacy of fusing Vergil and Christianity was so inﬂuential that at times it is unclear whether verses that medieval manuscripts attribute to him are actually his work or that of later imitators. The

74 This article limits itself to the subject of the imitation of Damasus’s verses. For the inﬂuence of the script of his inscriptions, see A. Petrucci, ‘Aspetti simbolici delle testimonianze scritte’, in Simboli e simbologia nell’alto Medioevo, Settimane del Centro italiano di studio sull’alto medioevo 23 (Spoleto, 1976), pp. 813–44, esp. p. 819; S. Morrison, Politics and Script: Aspects of Authority and Freedom in the Development of Graeco-Latin Script from the Sixth Century B.C.to the Twentieth Century A.D. (Oxford, 1972), pp. 138, 140 (Pl. 91), 143, 174–5 (with Pl. 105); F. De Rubeis, ‘La capitale damasiana a Tours: esperimenti ed efﬁmere primavere’, Scripta 3 (2010), pp. 57–71; F. De Rubeis, ‘Adriano I, Leone III e Carlo Magno: la capitale damasiana “for ever”’, in C. Tristano and S. Allegria (eds), Civis/Civitas. Cittadinanza politico-istituzionale e identita’ socio-culturale da Roma alla prima Eta’ moderna. Atti del Seminario internazionale Siena/ Montepulciano, 10–13 luglio 2008 (Montepulciano, 2008), pp. 105–16. For the Carolingian renovatio, see G. Brown, ‘Introduction: The Carolingian Renaissance’, in R. McKitterick (ed.), Carolingian Culture: Emulation and Innovation (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 1–51. For how early medieval writers perceived the past, cf. R. Ray, ‘Who did Bede Think He Was’, in S. DeGregorio (ed.), Innovation and Tradition in the Writings of the Venerable Bede (Ann Arbor, 2006), pp. 11–35. 75 The expression ‘Non tulit hoc Damasus’ becomes ‘Non tulit Arnonus’: Alcuin, Carmina, 88.4, 3, ed. E. Dümmler, MGH Poetae Latini aevi Carolini 1 (Berlin, 1881; repr. 1997), p. 306: Bernt, Das lateinische Epigramm,p.196,n.35. Although the expression ‘non tulit’ is found throughout Vergil, Bernt convincingly demonstrates that the similar context and position of the phrase indicates that it is a borrowing from Damasus; both Damasus and Arnonus are undertaking renovations because they cannot bear that holy places be made damp by swampy conditions. The inscription is found transmitted for example in Paris, BN, lat. 8071 (s x/xi), which contains a variety of verse including two Damasus epigrams: see esp. Sims-Williams, ‘Milred of Worces- ter’, pp. 32–4. 76 ‘sanguine qui proprio’: Ferrua, no. 39,p.9; Theodulf, Carmina, 38.3, 7, ed. E. Dümmler, MGH Poetae Latini aevi Carolini 1 (Berlin, 1881; repr. 1997), p. 531: Bernt, Das lateinische Epigramm, p. 212. The inscription is found in the Tours and Verdun collections: de Rossi, Inscriptiones, II.1, p. 62,no.2;p.138,no.23. 77 Waltharius, 1384, ed. K. Strecker, MGH Poetae Latini aevi Carolini 6.1 (Weimar, 1951; repr. 1990), Nachträge zu den Poetae Aevi Carolini, pt 1,pp.46, 80; cf. Ferrua, no. 1,p.16.Or Waltharius, 545: ‘gentibus ac populis’; cf. Ferrua, no. 28,p.4.

Early Medieval Europe 2015 23 (2) © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd The afterlife of the Damasan inscriptions 145 above-mentioned Einsiedeln manuscript with its many inscriptions, also encompasses a poetry collection, among which are verses that begin, ‘You Tityrus, reclining under the trusted/faithful covering of Christ’. These play on the opening line of Vergil’s Eclogues, ‘You Tityrus, reclining under the covering of the wide-spreading beech tree’, and go on to further rework Vergil to stress the superiority of the study of the divine Scrip- tures.78 Although the verses themselves do not indicate that they were composed by Damasus, a later tenth-century manuscript, Rome, Bibliotheca Angelica, 1515, labels them as ‘verses of Pope Damasus to chastise a certain brother’;79 whether this attribution stems from anything more than a proclivity to attribute the Christianization of Vergil to the ﬁgure of Damasus is unclear.80 Even more convoluted is the case of verses in praise of David that explicitly characterize themselves as Damasan – in some versions of the poem even twice – yet have been rejected as spurious by Antonio Ferrua, Damasus’s most recent editor.81 The verses are presented as an exchange between Damasus and Jerome; in some manuscripts, they are transmitted together with a letter correspondence between them, considered equally spurious; both the verses and the letters provide a preface to the Psalter.82 Countless medieval readers (and even early editors of Damasus’s poems) seem to have accepted the verses as genuine. They were widely disseminated, rivalling only Damasus’s poems on St Paul in their popularity; most commonly they are found together with Jerome’s commentary on the psalms, but are also included in poetry collections.83

78 Codex Einsidlensis fol. 91r: Ferrua, no. 2,pp.87–8: ‘Tityre, tu fido recubans sub tegmine Christi’. Vergil’s Eclogues, 1.1, ed. J.B. Greenough, The Greater Poems of Virgil, Vol. 2, Containing the Eclogues (New Rochelle, 1976): ‘Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi’. See T. Mommsen, ‘Handschriftliches zur Lateinischen Anthologie’, Rheinisches Museum für Philologie (N.F.) 9 (1854), pp. 296–301,atp.299. 79 ‘Versus Damasi Papae ad quendam fratrem corripiendum’; fol. 31r. The manuscript also includes Fulgentius’s fifth-century Mitologiae, symbolical/allegorical readings of Greco-Roman myths; the Expositio sermonum antiquorum, an explanation of rare words through citations from earlier authors; and a variety of verse: E. Narducci, Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum, praeter graecos et orientales, in Bibliotheca Angelica olim coenobii Sancti Augustini de Urbe (Rome, 1892), no. 1513,pp.653–4. 80 Although Ferrua includes them among the genuine Damasan verses on the basis of the Angelica manuscript, he comments that ‘genus dicendi medium aevum magis quam Damasum mihi sapit’ (p. 88). 81 Ferrua, no. 60,pp.219–28. As Ferrua discusses, the verses are transmitted in many different variants, often not subdivided from the verses characterized as those by Jerome (no. 601,pp. 228–9). Especially the poems attributed to Jerome seem stylistically implausible to Ferrua; he also points to the frequency with which fictitious letter exchanges were composed as prefaces for texts, as for example in the letter exchange between Damasus and Jerome that prefaces the Liber Pontificalis. 82 Ferrua, pp. 223–4. 83 For example, it is included in Paris, BN, lat. 4841 (s ix), a poetry anthology including many epitaphs, and in St Gallen 110 (s ix), which contains excerpts of theological works by Jerome, Augustine and Eucherius, as well as the Rule of Benedict.

Damasus’s literary repute was of such stature that not only did his verses circulate widely, but his style was also imitated – to the extent that additional verses were composed in his name, in turn further bolstering his reputation.

The appeal of Damasus’s inscriptions, however, was by no means limited to their literary style; they also provided testimonies, albeit often brief, about Rome’s earliest Christian martyrs. The ‘success’ of his programme may be judged by the degree to which the ﬁgures whose tombs he marked out were, by the Carolingian period, honoured as saints. The late ninth- century martyrology of Usuard, one of the most popular martyrologies throughout the Middle Ages, includes all but about three (depending on how one counts) of the approximately thirty names attested in Damasan inscriptions.84 Some of these cults were admittedly more obscure. But many of these saints also had a liturgical presence, as attested by Caro- lingian sacramentaries. The feast days of three-fourths of Damasus’s saints are included in the Gregorian Sacramentary.85 Meanwhile, more speciﬁc references to Damasus’s inscriptions or interventions at martyrial shrines crop up in a variety of contexts, usually hagiographical. In them, the name of Damasus serves as a bridge to the distant past of the Christian persecutions.

Chrysanthus and Daria Already in the sixth-century we ﬁnd a Damasan inscription invoked as authoritative testimony for a saint’s cult. This earliest reference to a

84 Based on Ferrua’s edition there are, by my count, thirty-one Damasan inscriptions that name saints or groups of saints. This figure does not include the inscriptions for Damasus and his family, nor the inscriptions that Ferrua considered falsely attributed to Damasus. Usuard’s martyrology, ed. J. Dubois, Le martyrologe d’Usuard (Brussels, 1965), includes all these saints except Eutychius (a saint not attested in any source other than Damasus’s inscription) and Proiecta. Felix and Philip are not named specifically, but according to legend they were sons of Felicitas, who are mentioned collectively; the identity of the St Marcus named in a fragmentary Damasan inscription is unclear, but various saints by that name related to Rome are mentioned in Usuard’s martyrology. 85 Based on the edition by J. Deshusses, Le sacramentaire grégorien: ses principales formes d’après les plus anciens manuscrits, Spicilegium Friburgense 16 (Fribourg, 1992), pp. 85–348, the following saints are not included in any version of the Gregorianum Paduense: Tarsicius; the companions of Sixtus; Eutychius; Ianuarius; Quirinus; the sixty-two unnamed martyrs; Maurus; Chrysanthus and Daria; and Proiecta. These same saints (and also Gorgonius) are not included in the Hadrianum, but Gorgonius is mentioned in Benedict of Aniane’s supplement to the Hadrianum. One should note that Nereus and Achilleus are only included in some versions of the Hadrianum and Gregorianum Paduense; Felix and Philip are not mentioned specifically, but, as in Usuard’s martyrology, their mother Felicitas is; Vitalis, Martial and Alexander are not mentioned specifically, but the feast of the Septem Fratres (who were considered to include these saints) is included. As with Usuard’s martyrology, it is unclear to which St Marcus Damasus’s fragmentary inscription refers.

Early Medieval Europe 2015 23 (2) © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd The afterlife of the Damasan inscriptions 147 speciﬁc tomb adorned with Damasan verses is in Gregory of Tours’ Glory of the Martyrs.86 In his chapter on Chrysanthus and Daria (relics of whom are among those which Gregory also reports were brought back to him by a deacon visiting Rome87), Gregory relates how their crypt, rediscovered after the end of the Christian persecutions, had been provided with a window in the wall ‘so that a panorama was available for viewing the bodies of the saints’.88 When a subdeacon attempted to steal silver that had been deposited by their tomb, he was miraculously thwarted:

much later Damasus, bishop of this holy apostolic see, learned of the deed and ordered that the window be carefully closed over. He commemorated the spot with some verses. And still today our Lord Jesus Christ is blessed by the praise of his name at this spot.89

While Damasus’s interventions are presented speciﬁcally as a means of protecting the saints, the larger narrative of the forgotten and then rediscovered site of the martyrs’ burial underscores the difﬁculties involved in preserving their memory and their tomb. Graced with Damasus’s commemorative verses, the saints have continued, to Grego- ry’s day, to be venerated at their place of burial. The example of Chrysanthus and Daria is, however, an unusual one in that, although their cult would continue to expand, Damasus’s inscription had no explicit medieval afterlife.90 While an epitaph commemorating Chrysanthus and Daria was later copied in a number of the inscription collections, it was not designed by Damasus.91 Since the verses copied make reference to savage destruction, it has been suggested that Damasus’s inscription was obliterated during the Gothic wars.92

86 Gregory of Tours, Liber in Gloria martyrum,c.37, ed. F. Kurze, MGH SRM 1.2 (Hanover, 1885; repr. 1969), pp. 61–2; trans. R. Van Dam, Translated Texts for Historians 3 (Liverpool, 2004). 87 Gregory of Tours, Liber in Gloria martyrum,c.82; ed. Kurze, p. 94. 88 ‘sanctorum corpora aditus aspiciendi patesceret’: Gregory of Tours, Liber in Gloria martyrum, c. 37,p.62, 10–11; trans. Van Dam, p. 59. 89 ‘Post multum vero temporis, cognoscens hoc factum Damasus antestis sanctae sedis apostolicae, iussit diligentius operere fenestram, ubi et versibus decoravit locum. Et ibi benedicitur dominus noster Iesus Christus ad laudem nominis sui usque in hodiernum diem’: Gregory of Tours, Liber in Gloria martyrum,c.37, ed. Kurze, p. 62, 27–30; trans. Van Dam, p. 59. 90 Damasus’s inscription is not mentioned in the saints’ passio (mentioned by Gregory of Tours): BHL 1787–1788: Acta sanctorum [AASS] Oct. 11, nor in the corpus of materials that accompanied the saints’ translation north of the Alps by Marcward of Prüm in Rome (c.844). Regarding this translatio see J.M. Smith, ‘Old Saints, New Cults: Roman Relics in Carolingian Francia’, in J.M. Smith (ed.), Early Medieval Rome and the Christian West. Essays in Honor of D.A. Bullough (Leiden and Boston, 2000), pp. 317–39, here pp. 326–9. 91 Ferrua, no. 45,pp.187–8; Lorsch (bis), Corbie (bis), Verdun: de Rossi, Inscriptiones, II.1,p.84, no. 29;p.87,no.31d; p. 101,no.22;p.102,no.28 and no. 29;p.116,no.90;p.135,no.8.No fragments of the inscription survive. The verses do not mention Damasus speciﬁcally, nor, apart from Gregory of Tours’ comment, is there any reason to believe that these are his verses. 92 Ferrua, no. 45,p.187.

Damasus’s precedent for securing the memory of these saints was thus preserved, even though his involvement in the cult would be forgotten.

Alexander Another account that invokes Damasus’s role in preserving the memory of saints is Ado of Vienne’s (d. 875) martyrology entry for Alexander.93 As mentioned above, Ado also made note of Damasus’s inscriptions in his chronicle. In his martyrology, an expansion of the earlier martyrology of Florus of Lyons, with special focus on Roman saints, Ado reports on Damasus’s interventions at the crypt of the martyr Alexan- der. Ado narrates how after Alexander was martyred on the Via Claudia, at the twentieth milestone from the city, his body was rediscovered by St Crescentianus and his tomb decorated with a marble inscription. Later Damasus made a crypt worthy of the saint and translated him there. There is little to support Ado’s claim for such a translation.94 In an ambitious attempt to create a more extensive martyrology, Ado drew on a range of sources, in particular invoking the authority of an older martyrology which he claimed to have found in Ravenna.95 His reference to a Damasan inscription may be seen as another technique to validate his efforts to expand his martyrology. Ado seems to have regarded the attempt as successful. In the second edition of his martyrology, Ado maintained this reference to Damasus’s translation of the body, although he omitted the rest of the story.96 For Ado, Damasus’s translation and intervention at Alexander’s crypt was key to the saint’s veneration.

Marcellinus and Peter Much more elaborate is the later use of Damasus’s epigram for Marcellinus and Peter, included in the saints’ passio as a way of rendering

93 Ado, Martyrology, 26 Nov., ed. J. Dubois and G. Renaud, Le Martyrologe d’Adon: ses deux familles, ses trois recensions: texte et commentaire, Sources d’histoire médiévale 14 (Paris, 1984), pp. 396–8. 94 To a large degree Ado’s account correlates (and abbreviates) Alexander’s acta; however, the acta, written from the perspective of Crisentianus = Crescentianus (who discovers the tomb), make no mention of Damasus or of Alexander’s later translation: BHL 273: AASS Sept. VI, cols 230C–236A. Dubois and Renaud note that the story is also found in the Parvum Romanum, and hypothesize that the story was invented to justify the feast’s arbitrary date: p. 298,n.3. See also Ferrua, no. 76,pp.257–8. 95 K. Herbers, ‘Le Liber Pontiﬁcalis comme source de réécritures hagiographiques (IXe–Xe siècles)’, in M. Goullet and M. Heinzelmann (eds), La réécriture hagiographique dans l’occident médiéval, Transformations formelles et idéologiques (Ostﬁldern, 2003), pp. 87–107,pp.100–2. 96 Ado also moved Alexander’s feast day to 21 September, the day of his passion, rather than of his translation: Ado, Martyrology, 21 Sept., ed. Dubois and Renaud, pp. 321–2.

Early Medieval Europe 2015 23 (2) © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd The afterlife of the Damasan inscriptions 149 their deaths more vivid.97 This epigram, a small fragment of which survives, is characterized by the particularly close relationship that it establishes between the saints’ martyrdom and Damasus himself,98 recounting that it was the martyrs’ executioner who personally described their death to the young Damasus:

Of your tomb, O Marcellinus and likewise that of Peter, the executioner reported to me, Damasus, when I was a boy; this command the savage murderer had given him: that he should cut your throats in the middle of briars, so that no one should be able to recognize your grave. You, quickly, with your own hands, dug your tombs openly, which afterwards lay hidden under a cave; later Lucilla was prompted, by your piety, that it pleased you more to bury your most holy limbs here.99

In addition to erecting the inscription, Damasus monumentalized the tomb of Marcellinus and Peter, turning the space nearby into an under- ground chapel.100 The saints appear to have been commonly venerated and are included in the Frankish itineraries, although their epitaph is not found within any of the principal manuscripts with Damasan inscrip-

97 It seems that Damasus’s inscriptions may have been used in the composition of saints’ acta even where they were not cited explicitly. As Sarazanius suggested, this appears to be the case for the acta of Stephanus and Tarsicius: M.M. Sarazanius, S. Damasi Papæ Opera quæ extant et vita ex codicibus MSS (Paris, 1672), p. 184 (available online on Google Books). As in Damasus’s epigram, the narrative of the martyrdom of Tarsicius follows that of Stephanus and is quite reminiscent of it; the acta survive in manuscripts from the twelfth century onward, but Ado’s account of Tarsicius’s martyrdom appears to derive from them: 15 Aug., ed. Dubois and Renaud, pp. 274–5; BHL 7845: AASS Aug. 1, cols 139A–146D. Regarding the manuscript see H. Moretus, ‘Catalogus codicum hagiographicorum latinorum bibliothecae Bollandianae’, Analecta Bollandiana 24 (1905), n. 72 (#36), p. 443. 98 Ferrua, no. 28, see p. 11 for an illustration of the fragment. The fragment was found during repairs to SS. Quattro Coronati in the early twentieth century. 99 Ferrua, no. 28,p.161: ‘Marcelline tuum, pariter Petriq. sepulcrum / percussor retulit Damaso mihi cum puer essem: / haec sibi carniﬁcem rabidum mandata dedisse, / Sentibus in mediis vestra ut tunc colla secaret, / ne tumulum vestrum / quisquam cognoscere posset. / Vos alacres vestris manibus fodisse sepulcra / candidule, occultos post quae iacuisse sub antro; / postea commonitam vestra pietate Lucillam / hic placuisse magis sanctissima condere membra.’ I am grateful to the anonymous reviewer of the article for corrections to my translation. 100 Fragments survive of a monumental arch with Philocalian letters that were part of this arrangement: Ferrua, no. 29,p.163. See J. Guyon, ‘L’oeuvre du pape Damase dans le cimetière “aux deux lauriers” sur la Via Labicana’, Saecularia Damasiana: atti del Convegno internazionale per il XVI centenario della morte di papa Damaso I (Vatican City, 1986), pp. 227–58,esp.atpp. 228–38; Krautheimer, Corpus, II, pp. 191–4. Damasus appears to have been responsible for many architectural innovations making martyrial tombs more accessible: V. Fiocchi Nicolai, ‘Itinera ad sanctos. Testimonianze monumentali del passaggio dei pellegrini nei santuari del suburbio romano’, in E. Dassmann and J. Engemann (eds), Akten des XII. Internationalen Kongresses für christliche Archäologie, Bonn, 22.–28. September 1991, Studi di antichità cristiana 52 / Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum, Ergänzungsband 20:1 (Münster, 1995), pp. 764–74.

Early Medieval Europe 2015 23 (2) © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 150 Maya Maskarinec tions.101 It is, however, contained in manuscripts dating as early as the ninth century, alongside versions of the saints’ passio. The prose passio for Marcellinus and Peter relates how two Christian women, Lucilla and Firmina, had a vision in which the saint Tiburtius instructed them to carry away the bodies of Marcellinus and Peter from the ‘black wood’ (‘silva nigra’) and bury them in the lower part of Tiburtius’s crypt; aided by two acolytes, the women carry out the mission.102 Then the acta continue, ‘Damasus while a young boy, when he was a lector, learned all this from the one who had beheaded them and later when he became bishop, made it manifest with these verses on their tomb.’ They then proceed to cite Damasus’s epigram before elaborating on the story of the executioner, Dorotheus, his repentance and his baptism at an old age.103 Analogously, the verse Passio martyrum Marcellini et Petri, sometimes attributed to Einhard, repeats the same story: ‘These matters, as the gesta relate, are asserted to have been reported by the very one who himself had killed those martyrs, and from them Pope Damasus learned of it . . . Later mindful of all this he committed it to writing.’104 Damasus’s epigram is not cited in the verse passio, but the surviving manuscript (Paris, BN, lat. 14143), written in Corbie in the mid-ninth century, includes the epigram directly following the passio.105 In these stories Damasus’s ﬁrst-hand knowledge of the executioner and the commemorative inscription that he erects both render the saints’ martyrdom more intimate and help to ensure the story’s veracity.

Felicissimus and Agapitus An explicit reference to a Damasan inscription as a means of certifying saints’ credentials is found in a fragmentary translatio from the second

101 De locis sanctis martyrum, 16, CCSL 175,p.318, 87–88; Notitia ecclesiarum urbis Romae, 16, CCSL 175,p.307, 84. 102 BHL 5231, AASS June 1, cols 171E–173D. This passio survives only in manuscripts from the tenth century onward; however, since it is referred to in the verse passio, it seems to pre-date the latter. The earliest manuscript appears to be Bruxellenses 8550–8551 (s x), fols 24r–26r, which is a collection of saints’ lives: Catalogus codicum hagiographicorum Bibliothecae regiae Bruxellensis, (Brussels, 1886), p. 216. 103 BHL 5231, AASS June 1, col. 173B: ‘Hæc omnia Damasus, cum Lector esset, puerulus didicit ab eo qui eos decollaverat, & postea factus Episcopus in eorum sepulcro his versiculis declaravit.’ 104 Passio Martyrum Marcellini et Petri, ed. E. Dümmler, MGH Poetae Latini aevi Carolini 2 (Berlin, 1884; repr. 1999), pp. 125–35; here 112,p.135; 144,p.145: ‘Haec ut gesta referentur retulisse adserunt / illum ipsum, qui eosdem interemit martyres, / et ab illo didicisse Damasum pontiﬁcem . . . Post haec cuncta memorasse ac mandasse litteris.’ 105 Ganz, Corbie; Catalogus codicum hagiographicorum latinorum antiquiorum saeculo XVI. qui asservantur in Bibliotheca Nationali Parisiensi (Brussels, 1889–93), III, pp. 221–2. The manuscript contains other religious verses, such as Sedulius’s Carmen Paschale and Paul the Deacon’s Carmen de Sancto Benedicto; the passio begins on fol. 60r; Damasus’s epigram is at the end on fol. 68.

Early Medieval Europe 2015 23 (2) © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd The afterlife of the Damasan inscriptions 151 half of the ninth century. In this translatio, which survives only in a ninth-century Würzburg manuscript, an (unnamed) petitioner receives certain relics (sanctorum reliquias) from the pope.106 The petitioner has been hypothesized to be Gozbald, abbot of Niederaltaich, later bishop of Würzburg, who is known to have received the relics of Felicissimus and Agapitus from Pope Gregory IV sometime before 841.107 In the fragment, the unnamed petitioner then requests that he be allowed to visit the ‘tomb of the martyr saints inscribed with round letters by Pope Damasus’.108 The pope agrees, sending with him an archdeacon to ensure the safety of the relics until their arrival at St Salvator in the colony of the Franks (schola Francorum). If the identiﬁcation of the translatio with Gozbald is correct, the reference is to the tomb of Felicissimus and Agapitus on the Via Appia. Their Damasan epitaph is recorded in the Sylloge Touronensis and fragments of it were rediscovered in the early twentieth century.109 A concern for validating the relics pervades the translatio. The petitioner also requests a letter of recommendation (carta commendatitia) assuring that the relics were acquired through apostolic authority and not through theft, wiles (artes) or delusions (per fantasias).110 Not only does the pope agree, but furthermore he even swears an oath afﬁrming that he had never previously given away parts (membra) nor other relics (reliquae) from those saints,111 implying that anyone else who presumed to possess them did so falsely. Damasus’s inscription and the petitioner’s visit to the

106 Würzburg, Universitätsbibliothek, Mp. th. q. 1, fol. 151v; ed. W. Wattenbach, Neues Archiv 13 (1888), p. 235. Regarding the date see: B. Bischoff and J. Hofmann, Libri Sancti Kyliani: die Würzburger Schreibschule und die Dombibliothek im VIII. und IX. Jahrhundert (Würzburg, 1952), p. 54,n.29;p.138,no.143 and n. 199. 107 Gozbald’s possession of the relics is recorded in an 841 diploma donating Ingolstadt to the church of Isarhofen: T. Mommsen, ‘Eine Niederaltaicher Privaturkunde aus dem 9. Jahrhundert’, in L. Santifaller (ed.), Festschrift Albert Brackmann: dargebracht von Freunden, Kollegen und Schülern (Weimar, 1931), pp. 60–84. The translatio’s attribution to Gozbald was ﬁrst argued by W. Hotzelt, ‘Felizissimus und Agapitus’, Zeitschrift für bayerische Kirchengeschichte 10 (1935), pp. 84–90; see also H. Löwe, ‘Gozbald von Niederaltaich und Päpst Gregor IV’, in J. Autenrieth and F. Brunhölzl (eds), Festschrift Bernhard Bischoff zu seinem 65. Geburtstag (Stuttgart, 1971), pp. 166–77. 108 Wattenbach, Neues Archiv 13,p.235: ‘rogavi, ut ad scriptam [criptam] ubi tumulus sanctorum martirum a beato Damaso rotundis litteris inscriptus erat, ire liceret . . .’ 109 De Rossi, Inscriptiones, II.1,pp.66,no.22. When S. Nicola ai Cesarini was demolished in 1927, pieces of the inscription that had been reused as paving stones were rediscovered: E. Josi, ‘Le inscrizioni Damasane in pretestato’, Rivista di archeologia cristiana 4 (1927), pp. 218–55; J.P. Kirsch, ‘Die Grabstätten der römischen Märtyrer und ihre Stellung im liturgischen Märtyrerkultus’, Römische Quartalschrift für christliche Altertumskunde und Kirchengeschichte 38 (1930), pp. 107–31,atpp.126–7. 110 Wattenbach, Neues Archiv 13,p.235. 111 Wattenbach, Neues Archiv 13,p.235.

In these hagiographical examples, reference to Damasus provides specific details about the saints (as in the case of Marcellinus and Peter) or more generally serves to bolster a saint’s credentials. Damasus and his inscriptions provide these narratives with a means of retrieving the distant past of the early Christian persecutions; through his solicitude, Damasus helped preserve from oblivion the memory of these saints. It is unclear to what degree these references to Damasus were motivated by the actual physical inscriptions or knowledge of Rome’s topography; an invocation of the figure of Damasus, rather than a detailed knowledge of his specific interventions at particular sites, does seem to predominate. Two tenth- century references, by Flodoard of Reims (d. 966) and Benedict of St Andrea, suggest a continuation of this trend towards greater reliance on earlier texts or legends, rather than the citation of Damasus’s actual physical inscriptions. Flodoard of Reims (d. 966), in his De triumphis Christi, an epic poem on the triumphs of Christians in Jerusalem, Antioch and Rome, repeatedly makes reference to Damasus and his interventions at martyrs’ tombs. Drawing on the Liber Pontificalis, Flodoard relates that, ‘he [Damasus] embellished the holy shrines for the martyrs, he sought out the pious bodies, he gathered them, brought them forward, he honoured them with verses, he proclaimed them in metrical feet’.112 Flodoard is known to have visited Rome, and when there even seems to have transcribed papal epitaphs;113 his De triumphis Christi also exhibits an interest in Rome’s topography. All of Flodoard’s references to Damasus’s work at martyrial tombs, however, are drawn from earlier hagiographical sources. Regard- ing the martyr Alexander, Flodoard repeats Ado’s story that Damasus had had Alexander’s bones translated to a newly constructed tomb;114 about Chrysanthus and Daria he reports Gregory of Tours’ story regarding Damasus’s decoration of the tomb with verses;115 similarly, Flodoard’s account of Marcellinus and Peter, which makes reference to Damasus’s verses in their honour, is clearly derived from their passio.116 In each of

112 Flodoard, De triumphis Christi X.3, PL 135, col. 765C: ‘Martyribus sacra templa polit, pia corpora quaerit, / Colligit, attollit, numeris colit, et pede prodit’. 113 Flodoard’s visit to Rome is typically dated to 936/937, although its motivation is unclear: P.C. Jacobsen, Flodoard von Reims: sein Leben und seine Dichtung ‘De triumphis Christi’ (Leiden, 1978), pp. 26–7. Flodoard made use of papal epitaphs to cover the gap of the papal biographies from Nicholas I (d. 867) up to his time; he seems to have transcribed them himself: p. 194. 114 Flodoard, De triumphis Christi III.14, PL 135, col. 648C. 115 Flodoard, De triumphis Christi VI.5, PL 135, col. 698A. 116 Flodoard, De triumphis Christi VII.8, PL 135, col. 720D.

Early Medieval Europe 2015 23 (2) © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd The afterlife of the Damasan inscriptions 153 these examples Damasus’s intervention appears in the concluding lines to Flodoard’s verse narration of the saint’s triumph. Damasus, poised between the time of the martyrs and their contemporary commemoration, is presented as responsible for the finishing touches to their cult. In contrast to Flodoard’s literalism, the monk Benedict of Sant’ Andrea (on Monte Soratte, some forty-five kilometres north of Rome), in his Chronicon reaching from the time of Julian the Apostate in the late fourth century up to the late tenth century, provides a colourful legend regarding Damasus’s propensity for erecting inscriptions.117 Benedict quotes Bede’s comments (from the Liber Pontificalis) regarding Damasus’s construction of S. Lorenzo and his verses for Sts Peter and Paul. Then, in accordance with the chronicle’s focus on the monastery on Monte Soratte, Benedict proceeds to narrate how Damasus built a church there for St Sylvester and gave thanks to God with a prayer (thirteen lines long), which he subsequently had inscribed in stone near to the saint’s body. Damasus’s concern for St Sylvester is presented as reaping imme- diate rewards: thereupon nobles began to abandon Rome and their worldly ways for the monastery, seeking to lead a life (sanctae conversationis vitam), continuing the conversation, as it were, begun by Damasus’s prayer.118 Apart from the story’s general implausibility, the verses are not in hexameters and are biblical in nature; in style and content they are quite unlike Damasus’s other known epigraphical works. Furthermore, the last six lines constitute a prayer found in other hagiographical texts.119 In order to bolster the monastery’s history, a concern present throughout the Chronicon, Benedict (or earlier monastic legends) have inserted Damasus into the monastery’s past, harnessing his well-known proclivity toward erecting inscriptions. By crediting him with a verse (which was perhaps visible by the church’s altar or crypt), the monastery acquired a tangible link to a pope who was known to have cherished Rome’s saints. The story and the biblical language of Damasus’s inscription conveys no interest in the distinctive classical Damasan style – not surprising in a text that itself has no classicizing pretensions. Instead, it latches onto the

117 Benedictus S. Andreae, Chronicon, 2, ed. G. Pertz, MGH SS 3 (Hanover, 1839; repr. 1986), pp. 696–7. See also Ferrua, no. 77,pp.258–9. 118 Benedictus S. Andreae, Chronicon, 2, ed. Pertz, p. 697, 3–26. 119 They begin, ‘Omnipotens Dominus, qui constat machina mundi’; compare BHL 1379, Acta s. Blasii 4.20, AASS Feb. 1, cols 352C–D; M. Manitius, Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters, vol. 2: Von d. Mitte d. 10 Jh. bis zum Ausbruch d. Kampfes zwischen Kirche und Staat (Munich, 1923), p. 181.

ﬁgure of Damasus as an inﬂuential persona in the early days of a church still recovering from persecution.

As the legend of his inscription at the monastery of St Sylvester illustrates, the medieval ﬁgure of Damasus had a prominent stature. Likewise, throughout the accounts of Gregory of Tours,the Passio Marcellini et Petri, the anonymous translatio, Ado, and Flodoard of Reims, Damasus was presented as a trusted source of early Christian history. Parallel and intertwined both with the interest in this pope as an inscriber and with the appreciation of his literary style, we may also trace an attentiveness to Damasus as a saint. Although his later reputation was comprised of various facets – including his promotion of Jerome’s Vulgate, his struggles against heresy, his reputed defence of Rome’s primacy and his changes to the Roman liturgy120 – here I will consider only two aspects: the interest in his body and auto-epitaph, and the later miraculous tales associated with him. According to the Liber Pontiﬁcalis, Damasus himself constructed a church on the Via Ardeatina where he was buried next to his mother and sister.121 Both the De locis sanctis and the Notitia make note of his burial site. The De locis sanctis reports that ‘nearby on that same road [Via Ardeatina] saint Damasus is buried and also his sister Martha’; a misreading of Damasus’s epitaph seems to have given rise to this otherwise unrecorded sister Martha.122 Similarly, the Notitia states that ‘afterwards [going from the Via Appia] you will come to the holy pope Damasus and martyr on the Via Ardeatina’;123 why Damasus is characterized as a martyr is unclear. As well as constructing his own funerary basilica, Damasus also wrote his own epitaph.124 These verses are transmitted in manuscripts from the ninth century onward and specify that Damasus himself composed them: ‘The epitaph of Pope Damsus which he himself published.’125 The verses were repeatedly imitated. For example, in a now lost

120 See esp. Reutter, Damasus. 121 Liber Pontiﬁcalis, Damasus, 4–5; ed. Duchesne, I, p. 212–13. 122 De locis sanctis martyrum, 9, CCSL 175,p.316, 43–4; ‘Et prope eandem viam sanctus Damasus papa depositus est soror eius Martha.’ Damasus’s sister Irene is known from his epitaph to her; Damasus’s epitaph reads ‘ad superos iterum Martae donare sorori’; Ferrua, no. 12,p.5. Ferrua, p. 113 suggests that the composers of the De Locis misinterpreted the reference to the Virgin Mary as relating to Damasus’s sister. 123 Notitia ecclesiarum urbis Romae, 25, CCSL 175,p.308, 124–5: ‘postea ad sanctum Damasum papam et mart. via Ardeatina’. 124 Ferrua, no. 12,pp.111–13. 125 ‘Epitaphium papae Damasi quod sibi edidit ipse’, Munich, 18375 (s ix), fol. 140, cited in Ferrua, p. 111; the inscription is also included in the eleventh-century Klosterneuburg collection (among those inscriptions not forming part of the Tours collection): de Rossi, Inscriptiones, II.1,p.252, no. 1. It seems that Damasus’s epitaph was later also transmitted as a poem by Theodulf, as it was edited as such by Sirmondus from an unknown codex; ed. Dümmler, p. 557,n.66; see Bernt, Das lateinische Epigramm,pp.213, 238.

Early Medieval Europe 2015 23 (2) © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd The afterlife of the Damasan inscriptions 155 eighth/ninth-century epitaph from Trier only the name of Damasus is modified into ‘Ericum’, while the rest of the text is identical to that of Damasus’s commemoration; and Eigilo, abbot of Fulda (812–22), lifted a few of the verses for his own epitaph.126 Additional echoes are found throughout Carolingian poetry.127 Meanwhile, the sanctity of Damasus spread beyond his tomb on the Via Ardeatina. The church of S. Lorenzo, built or restored by Damasus, became closely associated with him and even claimed to possess his relics. As attested by the heading of an inscription in the Verdun collection, the church was called either the ecclesia sancti Laurentii in Damaso or in prasino.128 As well as taking on his name, at some point the church claimed to have the tomb of Damasus himself. According to the Liber Pontificalis, Pope Hadrian I (r. 772–95) donated precious clothes for the altar and for the tomb of Damasus behind the altar.129 Moreover, the heading of an inscription in the first section of the Lorsch collection explicitly specifies the presence of Damasus in the church: ‘In the church of the blessed martyr Lawrence in which rests the pope, St Damasus.’130 Slight as these indications are, they suggest a persistent interest in Damasus per se. This fascination may be seen as culminating in the fashioning of a more extensive vita for him. Surviving in manuscripts from the eleventh century onward, versions of Damasus’s vita flesh out his sanctity, crediting him with miracles to supplement his other accom- plishments.131 Two variants of the vita begin by transporting their readers back to the quintessential period of Christianity in Rome: the time of the Emperor

126 Trier epitaph: N. Gauthier, Recueil des inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule antérieures à la Renaissance carolingienne, vol. 1: Première Belgique (Paris, 1975), Appendix I, no. 2,pp.293–4; Egilio’s epitaph: ed. E. Dümmler, MGH Poetae Latini aevi Carolini 2,p.117; these examples are given by F. De Rubeis, ‘Sillogi epigraﬁche: le vie della pietra in età carolingia’, in P.Chiesa (ed.), Paolino d’Aquileia e il contributo italiano all’Europa carolingia: atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi Cividale del Friuli, Premariacco, 10–13 ottobre 2002 (Udine, 2003), pp. 93–114,atp.99. 127 For example, a line in Carm. Centul. 88,3, ed. L. Traube, MGH Poetae Latini aevi Carolini 3; for this and other examples see the commentary of C. Weyman, Vier Epigramme des hl. Papstes Damasus I (Munich, 1905), pp. 4–11. 128 De Rossi, Inscriptiones, II.1,p.134,no.5. 129 Liber Pontiﬁcalis, Hadrian I, 49, ed. Duchesne, I, p. 500. 130 ‘In eccl(esia) beati Laurentii martir(is) / in qua / req(uiescit) s(an)c(tu)s Damasus p(a)p(a)’: de Rossi, Inscriptiones, II.1,p.151,no.23. 131 The lives are BHL 2085–8. The oldest manuscripts are Rome, Bibliotheca Vallicelliana, 5 (s xi), fols 10v–17v (BHL 2088); Rome, Lateran, A. 80 (s xi), fols 321v–324 (BHL 2085; Epistula Hieronymi ad Damasum (PL 30, 293); Damasi ad Hieronymum (PL 13, 441–2); BHL 2088); Vat Lat. 5696 (s xii), fols 129–31 (BHL 2086; 2085); Vat. Lat. 1194 (s xii), fols 50–6 (BHL 2085; 2088); Rome, Bibliotheca Vallicelliana, 3 (s xii/xiii), fols 205v–207 (BHL 2086; 2085); Rome, Bibliotheca Vallicelliana, 10 (s xii/xiii), fols 283v–290v (BHL 2087); Rome, S. Maria Maggiore, A (s xii/xiii), fols 35–42 (BHL 2087); see A. Poncelet, Catalogus codicum hagiographicorum latinorum: bibliothecae Vaticanae (Brussels, 1910); A. Poncelet, Catalogus codicum hagiographicorum latinorum bibliothecarum romanarum: praeter quam vaticanae (Brussels, 1909). For the text, see Sarazanius, S. Damasi Papæ Opera,pp.15–57.

Constantine.132 Thus, Damasus is presented as a figure of a nascent expanding church, still faced by persecutions in the form of the imperial heretical Arianism.133 A dominant motif is that of Damasus as a loving and beloved leader, devotedly attending to his flock – but also struggling valiantly against heresy.134 One of his miracles exemplifies this concern for his congregation: during Easter baptisms, a priest accidently drops a young boy into the font; the child is presumed dead until rescued through Damasus’s faith.135 The vita does not explicitly mention any of Damasus’s inscriptions, although manuscripts not infrequently include the Liber Pontificalis’s account of Damasus before or after his vita. The vita does present Damasus as learned and eloquent; in one version, his predecessor, Pope Liberius (forced into exile by the heretical emperor), chooses Damasus as his substitute because Damasus has ‘a fine knowledge of language in each’.136 According to another version, Damasus is said to have written the Passio Marcellini et Petri, in accordance with the story he had heard as a child; the inscription is not mentioned.137 One incident, however, does indicate a familiarity with one of Damasus’s inscriptions. According to the vita, Damasus undertook to restore the flow of the spring at St Peter’s so that Pope Liberius would be able to perform baptisms. With his own hands Damasus cleaned out the filth and hewed a mound (presumably of dirt) so that an abundant stream of water could flow.138 This story is reminiscent of a Damasan inscription which, at least in the fifteenth century, was on display in the crypt of the Vatican and is also found transcribed in earlier manuscripts.139 In the inscription, Damasus recalls how he excavated the mound and ‘discovered the spring which proffers the gifts of salvation’ – although he is motivated by the damp and unworthy condition of the bodies buried there, and there is no mention of Liberius.140 Inspired by the inscription, the vita constructs a narrative that emphasizes Damasus’s devotion to his predecessor and his willingness to undertake difficult toils to

132 BHL 2087, ed. Sarazanius, p. 22: ‘Post decessum magni Constantini . . .’; BHL 2088, ed. Sarazanius, p. 43: ‘Anno igitur regni Constantini regis’. 133 The expansion of the early church is emphasized; for example, in BHL 2086, ed. Sarazanius, p. 26, Liberius is said to baptize ‘non solum Romani, sed et Romanorum ﬁnitimi’. 134 BHL 2086, ed, Sarazanius, p. 16, sums it up neatly: ‘Itaque a Deo electus, ab omnibus dilectus, pontiﬁcalem cathedram honestissime decorabat.’ 135 BHL 2086, ed. Sarazanius, p. 19; BHL 2088, ed. Sarazanius, pp. 56–7. 136 ‘elegantis in utraque linguae scientiae’, BHL 2087, ed. Sarazanius, p. 23. 137 BHL 2087, ed. Sarazanius, p. 38. 138 BHL 2087, ed. Sarazanius, p. 27; similarly BHL 2088, ed. Sarazanius, pp. 47–8. 139 Ferrua, no. 3,pp.88–93. The inscription does not survive in any of the primary inscription collections but is found in Paris, BN, lat. 8071 (s x/xi). 140 Ferrua, no. 3,pp.5–9: ‘invenit fontem praebet qui dona salutis’.

Early Medieval Europe 2015 23 (2) © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd The afterlife of the Damasan inscriptions 157 expand the church; after his task is completed, a massive baptism takes place.141 According to his vita, in his eagerness to provide for the church Damasus is even willing to confront imperial authority, as the story of his construction of S. Lorenzo relates. Damasus requests that the emperor Valentinian give him the space occupied by a garden inside the walls in order to build a church for St Lawrence. Valentinian agrees, but his daughter, Galla Placida, seeks to obstruct this because the gardens are a favourite retreat for her and her friends. Although Damasus warns her, the imperial daughter does not desist, so the pope calls on God and Galla Placida is seized with an unclean spirit. Eventually she is cured and the church built.142 The story epitomizes the vita’s preference for dramatic action, rather than the more mundane legacy of erecting carefully crafted verses.143 The inflection has shifted from Damasus’s solicitude for the saints to that for his congregation; written monuments are exchanged for dramatic events. Nonetheless, what the versions of his vita do allow us to discern is the resonance of the Damasan figure. The texts also remind their listeners/ readers of the presence of Damasus’s body in S. Lorenzo and of the miracles that have been performed there.144 One version even specifies the various locations in which small portions of his body are to be found – S. Nicola in Carcere and the papal relic collection at the Lateran palace – while emphasizing that he was buried at S. Lorenzo, where his tomb has performed miracles, and where he is commemorated in the church in text and image.145 Damasus, who himself once commemorated the saints of Rome with inscriptions, is now in turn commemorated with pictures and text.

The proliferating afterlife of Damasus by no means came to an end with his veneration as a saint at his tomb in S. Lorenzo in Damaso. He would continue to be co-opted in legends that sought to emphasize the sanctity of local saints. According to a legendary account in the passio of Gaudentius, bishop of Rimini (which has a confused chronology), Gaudentius was appointed

141 Pope Liberius is said to baptize nearly 6,810 people: BHL 2088, ed. Sarazanius, p. 49. 142 BHL 2086, ed. Sarazanius, pp. 18–19. 143 Also frequently found is his curing of a blind man: BHL 2086, ed. Sarazanius, p. 28. 144 One of the versions of the vita, written, as it describes, by Benedict, a presbyter of the church of S. Lorenzo, recalls in the opening lines that S. Lorenzo is where Damasus’s body rests: BHL 2088, ed. Sarazanius, p. 42; later it also recalls the many miracles at his tomb: p. 46. 145 ‘non solum scripta eiusdem tituli, verum etiam picturæ declarant’, BHL 2087, ed. Sarazanius, pp. 40–1.

Early Medieval Europe 2015 23 (2) © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 158 Maya Maskarinec bishop of Remini by Damasus. Even more dramatically, Damasus assists in the rediscovery of Gaudentius’s body: seventy years after the latter’s martyrdom, the angel Raphael accompanied by Damasus appears in a dream to a woman, Abortina, instructing her where to recover the saint’s body from a ditch (and thereby regain her eyesight).146 A further example comes from an account, edited in the seventeenth century from a ‘very old’ Spanish marytrology, which tells of St Irene, Damasus’s sister.147 After emphasizing the Spanish origins of Damasus’s family, it relates that Irene liked to spend the night together with her pious mother in prayer in the catacombs, that Damasus composed his booklet on virginity for her, and that when she died Damasus put up an elegy on her tomb.148 Similarly, a fourteenth-century Breviarium from Nola narrates how Damasus came to erect verses for a bishop of Nola, Maximus.149 Plagued by the factious strife in Rome, Damasus went to pray at Maximus’s tomb, which had been emitting a wondrous scent throughout the whole countryside. His prayers fulﬁlled, Damasus erected an inscription for Maximus which the text cites; it is almost identical to the inscription Damasus erected for Felix, only ‘Felix’ has been replaced by ‘Magne’.150 Ravenna, long rival to Rome, outdid these passive claims of beneﬁt accruing from Damasus’s concern for the saints. In an account that neatly turns the tables, Girolamo Rossi in his late sixteenth-century Historiarum Ravennatum libri decem reports how Damasus wrote a letter to Florentius, the archbishop of Ravenna, request- ing that Florentius send him relics of some of the many early Christian saints whom he knew had been martyred in great numbers on the Via Lauretina in Ravenna. Florentius complied and Damasus deposited the relics in a distinguished place and honoured them with verses.151 The ease with which these legends take Damasus’s solicitude for Rome’s Christian community, dead and alive, and adapt it to places outside Rome is remarkable. Damasus’s inscriptions in Rome had been part of a programme of topographical reorganization, the fashioning of a

146 BHL 3276–7: AASS Oct. 6, cols 467B–473E. The inventio follows the passio in the same manuscript, an eleventh-century passionary from Remini: F. Lanzoni, ‘San Mercuriale, Vescovo di Forlì’, Rivista storico-critica delle scienze teologiche 1 (1905), pp. 256–79,atpp.262–3. 147 AASS Feb. 3, cols 245A–245D: the account was discovered by Thomas de Herrera and edited by Ioannes Tamajo de Salazar in his Martyrologio Hispanico. 148 AASS Feb. 3, cols 245A–D. 149 AASS Feb. 2, cols 22C–22F. As cited by Ferrua, p. 214, Gianstefano Remondini, Della Nolana eccles. storia (Naples, 1747), I, p. 145, demonstrated that the manuscript in question dated to the fourteenth century. 150 AASS Feb. 2, col. 22E. The ﬁrst line of the inscription then reads: ‘Corpore, mente, animo, pariter quoque nomine Magne’. 151 Hieronymus Rubeus, Historiarum Ravennatum libri decem (Venice, 1589), p. 57. Rubeus later narrates how Gregory the Great returns relics which some report were those that had been earlier given to Damasus: pp. 187–8; the improbability of the story is discussed in the commentary to Agnellus’s Liber Pontiﬁcalis, PL 106, cols 499B, 500A.

Christian landscape. His monumental plaques provided visitors with an authorized guide to the sanctity of Rome. Traces of their function as such persist in the roughly topographical order maintained in some of the Frankish collections of Roman inscriptions. The appeal of Damasus’s epigrams, however, exceeded and outlived their physical presence as markers of place. For medieval audiences, the elegance with which Damasus’s verses synthesized the erudition of classical authors with Christian themes rendered them appealing in poetry anthologies or as pithy prefaces to theological texts. Rather than reaching back to Vergil himself, poets could model themselves on the Christian stylistic solutions proffered by Damasus – as well as drawing on the Damasan repertoire of Christian saints. Whether, as in the case of Marcellinus and Peter, Damasus had provided vignettes of the martyrs’ lives, or whether inscriptions had more bluntly exhorted their audience to cherish Rome’s saints, Damasus provided a window onto the early Christian past. Through Damasus’s mediation, the sanctity of these distant martyrs and popes became palpable, a legacy that would continue to be magniﬁed and embellished throughout the Middle Ages.

Department of History, UCLA

Appendix Topographical order of inscriptions in Klosterneuburg, Augustiner-Chorherrenstift, Stiftsbibliothek 723 The correspondences of the Tours inscription collection with the De locis sanctis may be demonstrated by comparing the ordering of inscriptions (given as n.#) with their location in the text (given as [#]):

Via Ostiensis: basilica Pauli [6] (n. 30–7) (Via Ostiensis-Ardeatina): Felix + Adauctus [7] (n. 29) Via Ardeatina: Nereus + Achileus [8] (n. 28) Via Appia: Eusebius [10] (n. 24) cimiterio Calis [11] (n. 23*) Felicissimus + Agapitus [22] (n. 22) ecclesia Sebastiani [13] (n. 20–1*) Via Latina: Gordian [14] (n. 15) Via Labicana: Tiburtius [16] (n. 12) Gorgonius [16] (n. 13) Via (Labicana-)Prenestina: Castolus [17] (n. 14) Via Tiburtina: ecclesia Laurenti (n. 9*–10) Via Nomentana: basilica Agnes [21] (n. 5–6*) Via Salaria (nova): Caelestinus [24] (n. 1) Marcellus [24] (n. 4) Felix + Philippus [24] (n. 3)

*These inscriptions do not mention the saint/place but either survive in the location or are attested there from other evidence.