Epigrams

Contents

Only part of the epigrams are on the site; the rest are to be added.

1. 1Damasus's verses on David, the shepherd boy made king, psalmist, and slayer of Goliath, with five introductory lines inviting the thirsty to drink.
2. 2Damasus's verses on Paul: persecutor, converted at Damascus, caught up to paradise, sufferer of many trials, and teacher of the church.
3. 8Epigram on the martyrs Nereus and Achilleus, soldiers who left the tyrant's service, converted, and died confessing Christ.
4. 9Damasus's own epitaph: the Christ who walked on the sea and raised Lazarus will raise Damasus.
5. 10Damasus's epitaph for his sister Irene, a consecrated virgin who died before twenty, asking her to remember him when God comes.
6. 11A badly mutilated epitaph praising the blameless and unworldly life of a certain Mark, probably the bishop of Rome of 336.
7. 12Damasus's inscription for the crypt of the bishops in the cemetery of Callistus, where he would have wished to be buried but feared to disturb the saints.
8. 13Epigram, in the person of the martyred bishop Sixtus II, on his arrest while teaching and his offering of himself to spare his people.
9. 14Epigram joining the protomartyr Stephen and Tarsicius, who died rather than surrender the eucharist he was carrying.
10. 17Fragments of a martyr's epigram, too damaged to give connected sense.
11. 19Fragments of an inscription from the crypt of Cornelius recording Damasus's improvement of the tomb and its approach.
12. 22Damasus's dedication on the tomb of the martyr Januarius.
13. 23Epigram on Felicissimus and Agapitus, deacons of Sixtus II, who died with their bishop.
14. 26Epigram at the place "ad catacumbas" on the Via Appia, saying that Peter and Paul once dwelt there and that Rome claims them as her own by their martyrdom.
15. 27Epigram on the martyr Eutychius, tortured, starved, and thrown into a pit, whose hidden grave was revealed to Damasus in a dream.
16. 29Epigram on Marcellinus and Peter, whose executioner told the boy Damasus how they died and were secretly buried before Lucilla moved them.
17. 30Epigram on the martyr Tiburtius, asking his favour for Damasus.
18. 31Epigram on the tomb of the martyr Gorgonius on the Via Labicana, pointing visitors to the saints buried nearby.
19. 32Epigram on the martyr Lawrence, whose faith overcame every torture.
20. 35Fragment of a marble inscription describing a decorated building or tomb.
21. 37Epigram on Hippolytus, said to have been a presbyter in schism who at his martyrdom told his followers to return to the catholic church.
22. 40Damasus's epigram on the virgin martyr Agnes, who went freely to her death and covered herself with her hair.
23. 42Damasus's epigram for a tomb of unnamed martyrs, adorned in thanks for the return of the clergy.
24. 44Damasus's epigram for the tomb of the boy martyr Maurus.
25. 46Damasus's epigram on Saturninus, a Carthaginian martyred at Rome, whose persecutor Gratianus could not make him deny Christ.
26. 48Damasus's epigram on Marcellus, bishop of Rome, who required penance of the lapsed and was exiled by the tyrant after the resulting strife.
27. 49Damasus's epigram on the brother martyrs Protus and Hyacinth, whose hidden tomb he brought to light.