Aconia Fabula Paulina, and her husband Agorius Vettius Praetextatus were among the most illustrious of Rome's pagans at a time when the old religion was on the wane in the face of an ascendant and incrementally more intolerant Christianity. Praetextatus in particular was famous among his contemporaries for his material support for, and participation in, numerous cults. (Much to the disgust of Jerome who, when Praetextatus died, was so put out by the fondness many had for him that he took the liberty of informing one of his correspondents that the dead pagan, however nice a guy he may have been, was definitely in Hell.)
This poem is inscribed on Praetextatus' funerary monument. Whether it is actually by his wife or simply placed into her mouth post mortem is probably undecidable. There are, however, metrical as well as stylistic reasons to think that the portion of the inscription containing this poem was composed by a different hand than the rest of it. For it is notably different in tone from the sort of dry formulaic prose-in-meter one usually finds in Roman epitaph inscriptions. In fact, the verse dedication that immediately precedes the poem translated here, which describes Paulina in the third person, is just such a cookie-cutter composition. If this poem is not her work, then it presumably at least summarizes or paraphrases statements of hers (such as perhaps the funeral speech.)
For Her Dead Husband
By Aconia Fabula Paulina (4th cent. AD)
Translated by A.Z. Foreman
My ancestry bequeathed no brighter glory
Than to be a fit wife for you that day
In whose light we were joined, but now I find
All light and grace lie in my husband's name:
Agorius! Born of illustrious seed,
A beacon to your land, your wife, your senate,
Aglow with your integrity of mind,
Your actions and your scholarship together,
By which you stand at virtue's pinnacle.
All that has been set down in Greek or Latin
By sages to whom heaven's gate stands open,
Be it in rhythmed song of well-versed men
Or prose in looser speech, you have transmitted,
Leaving it better than you found in reading.
But these are trifling things. Loyal to holy
Mysteries, you sealed their insights in your thought;
The manifold divine you knew to worship,
And generously made your faithful wife
Into a comrade of the mind, a colleague
Sharing with you the rites of gods and men.
Why speak of earthly power, of public honor,
Such joys as men pray for with every breath?
Such things you always reckoned short-lived, small
Beside the holy splendor of the priesthood.
Dear Husband, by the great gift of your learning,
You have redeemed me from the bonds of death,
Led me into temples, dedicated me
In service to the Sacred Ones, stood by me
In love as I partook of mystery.
Devoted consort, with the blood of bulls
You honored me, anointed me a priestess
To fertile Cybele and fruitful Attis,
Prepared me for Demeter's liturgy
And taught me moon-dark Hekat�'s three secrets,
And you have made of me a woman famed
Across the lands as blessed and devoted.
What wife of yours could fail to win acclaim?
Rome's matrons find their paragon in me,
And count their sons handsome who look like you.
Now men and women yearn to earn the honors
That you my teacher have bequeathed to me.
Robbed of all that, I'm now a wife in mourning
Wasting away. Had the gods but given me
A husband who'd outlive me, I'd have died
Happy. But I am happy. For yours I am
As I have been, as I in death shall be.
The Original:
Splendor parentum ni�l mihi maius dedit,
quam quod mari�to� digna iam tum vi�sa sum.
Sed lu�men omne vel decus no�men viri�,
Agori�, superbo� qui� crea�tus germine
patriam, sena�tum coniugemque illu�mina�s
probita�te mentis, mo�ribus, studiis simul,
virtutis apicem quis supre�mum nanctus es.
Tu� namque quidquid lingua utra�que est pro�ditum
cu�ra� sophorum, porta quis caeli� patet,
vel quae periti condidere carmina
vel quae solu�tis vocibus sunt e�dita,
melio�ra reddis quam legendo� sumpsera�s.
Sed ista parva. Tu pius mystes sacris
teletis reperta mentis arcano premis
divumque numen multiplex doctus colis,
sociam benigne coniugem nectens sacris
hominum deumque consciam ac fidam tibi.
Quid nunc honores aut potestates loquar
hominumque votis adpetita gaudia?
Quae tu caduca ac parva semper autumas
divum sacerdos infulis celsus clues.
Tu me, marite, disciplinarum bono
puram ac pudicam sorte mortis eximens
in templa du�cis ac famulam divi�s dicas.
Te� teste cuncti�s imbuor myste�rii�s,
tu� Dindyme�ne�s Atteo�sque antistitem
teleti�s hono�ra�s taurei�s co�nsors pius.
Hecates ministram tri�na secre�ta e�doce�s
Cererisque Graiae tu� sacri�s dignam para�s.
Te� propter omne�s me� beatam, me� piam
celebrant, quod ipse me� bonam disse�mina�s,
to�tum per orbem igno�ta noscor omnibus,
nam te� mari�to� cur place�re no�n queam?
Exempla de� me� Ro�mulae ma�tre�s petunt
subolemque pulchram, si� tuae similis, putant.
Optant probantque nunc viri� nunc fe�minae
quae tu� magister indidisti� i�nsignia.
Hi�s nunc adempti�s maesta coniunx ma�ceror,
feli�x, maritum si superstitem mihi
divi dedissent, sed tamen fe�li�x, tua
quia sum fuique postque mortem mox ero.
This poem is inscribed on Praetextatus' funerary monument. Whether it is actually by his wife or simply placed into her mouth post mortem is probably undecidable. There are, however, metrical as well as stylistic reasons to think that the portion of the inscription containing this poem was composed by a different hand than the rest of it. For it is notably different in tone from the sort of dry formulaic prose-in-meter one usually finds in Roman epitaph inscriptions. In fact, the verse dedication that immediately precedes the poem translated here, which describes Paulina in the third person, is just such a cookie-cutter composition. If this poem is not her work, then it presumably at least summarizes or paraphrases statements of hers (such as perhaps the funeral speech.)
For Her Dead Husband
By Aconia Fabula Paulina (4th cent. AD)
Translated by A.Z. Foreman
My ancestry bequeathed no brighter glory
Than to be a fit wife for you that day
In whose light we were joined, but now I find
All light and grace lie in my husband's name:
Agorius! Born of illustrious seed,
A beacon to your land, your wife, your senate,
Aglow with your integrity of mind,
Your actions and your scholarship together,
By which you stand at virtue's pinnacle.
All that has been set down in Greek or Latin
By sages to whom heaven's gate stands open,
Be it in rhythmed song of well-versed men
Or prose in looser speech, you have transmitted,
Leaving it better than you found in reading.
But these are trifling things. Loyal to holy
Mysteries, you sealed their insights in your thought;
The manifold divine you knew to worship,
And generously made your faithful wife
Into a comrade of the mind, a colleague
Sharing with you the rites of gods and men.
Why speak of earthly power, of public honor,
Such joys as men pray for with every breath?
Such things you always reckoned short-lived, small
Beside the holy splendor of the priesthood.
Dear Husband, by the great gift of your learning,
You have redeemed me from the bonds of death,
Led me into temples, dedicated me
In service to the Sacred Ones, stood by me
In love as I partook of mystery.
Devoted consort, with the blood of bulls
You honored me, anointed me a priestess
To fertile Cybele and fruitful Attis,
Prepared me for Demeter's liturgy
And taught me moon-dark Hekat�'s three secrets,
And you have made of me a woman famed
Across the lands as blessed and devoted.
What wife of yours could fail to win acclaim?
Rome's matrons find their paragon in me,
And count their sons handsome who look like you.
Now men and women yearn to earn the honors
That you my teacher have bequeathed to me.
Robbed of all that, I'm now a wife in mourning
Wasting away. Had the gods but given me
A husband who'd outlive me, I'd have died
Happy. But I am happy. For yours I am
As I have been, as I in death shall be.
The Original:
Splendor parentum ni�l mihi maius dedit,
quam quod mari�to� digna iam tum vi�sa sum.
Sed lu�men omne vel decus no�men viri�,
Agori�, superbo� qui� crea�tus germine
patriam, sena�tum coniugemque illu�mina�s
probita�te mentis, mo�ribus, studiis simul,
virtutis apicem quis supre�mum nanctus es.
Tu� namque quidquid lingua utra�que est pro�ditum
cu�ra� sophorum, porta quis caeli� patet,
vel quae periti condidere carmina
vel quae solu�tis vocibus sunt e�dita,
melio�ra reddis quam legendo� sumpsera�s.
Sed ista parva. Tu pius mystes sacris
teletis reperta mentis arcano premis
divumque numen multiplex doctus colis,
sociam benigne coniugem nectens sacris
hominum deumque consciam ac fidam tibi.
Quid nunc honores aut potestates loquar
hominumque votis adpetita gaudia?
Quae tu caduca ac parva semper autumas
divum sacerdos infulis celsus clues.
Tu me, marite, disciplinarum bono
puram ac pudicam sorte mortis eximens
in templa du�cis ac famulam divi�s dicas.
Te� teste cuncti�s imbuor myste�rii�s,
tu� Dindyme�ne�s Atteo�sque antistitem
teleti�s hono�ra�s taurei�s co�nsors pius.
Hecates ministram tri�na secre�ta e�doce�s
Cererisque Graiae tu� sacri�s dignam para�s.
Te� propter omne�s me� beatam, me� piam
celebrant, quod ipse me� bonam disse�mina�s,
to�tum per orbem igno�ta noscor omnibus,
nam te� mari�to� cur place�re no�n queam?
Exempla de� me� Ro�mulae ma�tre�s petunt
subolemque pulchram, si� tuae similis, putant.
Optant probantque nunc viri� nunc fe�minae
quae tu� magister indidisti� i�nsignia.
Hi�s nunc adempti�s maesta coniunx ma�ceror,
feli�x, maritum si superstitem mihi
divi dedissent, sed tamen fe�li�x, tua
quia sum fuique postque mortem mox ero.
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