Framing Late Antique Texts As Monuments

The Materiality of Text –
Placement, Perception, and

Presence of Inscribed Texts in
Classical Antiquity
Edited by
Andrej Petrovic
Ivana Petrovic
Edmund Thomas
LEIDEN | BOSTON
For use by the Author only | © 2019 Koninklijke Brill NV

Contents
Acknowledgements ix
List of Figures x
Note on Contributors xv
The Materiality of Text: An Introduction 1

Andrej Petrovic
Part I
Concepts
1 What is an ἐπιγραφή in Classical Greece? 29

Athena Kirk
2 The Aesthetics and Politics of Inscriptions in Imperial Greek

Literature 48
Alexei Zadorojnyi
part II
Contexts
section A
Epigraphic Spaces
3 The ‘Spatial Dynamics’ of Archaic and Classical Greek Epigram:

Conversations among Locations, Monuments, Texts, and
Viewer-Readers 73
Joseph W. Day
4 Lectional Signs in Greek Verse Inscriptions 105

Valentina Garulli
5 Erasures in Greek Public Documents 145

P. J. Rhodes

vi Contents
section B
Literary Spaces: The Materiality of Text in Greek and
Roman Literature
6 The Authority of Archaic Greek Epigram 169

Donald E. Lavigne
7 Writing, Women’s Silent Speech 187

Michael A. Tueller
8 Hard Verses and Soft Books: The Materials of Elegy 205

S. J. Heyworth
section C
Architectural Spaces
9 The Power of the Absent Text: Dedicatory Inscriptions on Greek Sacred

Architecture and Altars 231
Ioannis Mylonopoulos
10 Re-Appraising the Value of Same-Text Relationships; a Study of

‘Duplicate’ Inscriptions in the Monumental Landscape at
Aphrodisias 275
Abigail Graham
11 Layers of Urban Life: A Contextual Analysis of Inscriptions in the Public

Space of Pompeii 303
Fanny Opdenhoff
12 Damnatio Memoriae Inscribed: The Materiality of Cultural

Repression 324
Ida Östenberg
13 Inscriptions between Text and Texture: Inscribed Monuments in Public

Spaces – A Case Study at Late Antique Ostia 348
Katharina Bolle
14 Framing Late Antique Texts as Monuments: The Tabula Ansata between

Sculpture and Mosaic 380
Sean V. Leatherbury

Contents vii
Indices
Index Locorum 405
Index Nominum 409
Index Rerum 413

chapter 14
Framing Late Antique Texts as Monuments:

The Tabula Ansata between Sculpture
and Mosaic
Sean V. Leatherbury
In the Late Antique world, the appearance and materiality of Greek and Roman
building inscriptions had a significant impact on how these texts were read
and interpreted by different audiences. Inscriptions had extra-textual powers:
that is, the visual characteristics of inscribed texts – color, size, and script of
letters, as well as abbreviations and ligatures; spatial arrangement; relationship
of the text to its ground or support; and use of guidelines and/or punctua-
tion and decoration – could privilege certain readings or interpretations over
others, enhance their “iconicity”, emphasize magical or protective elements, or
turn text into image or into ornament.1 These visual characteristics were op-
erative for all viewers, whether highly literate, completely illiterate, or (as most
Romans were) somewhere in between the two extremes.2 Still more important
was (and is) the medium in or on which the text was written, which influenced
not only the reading of the text but (in conjunction with the text’s architectural
context) could signal the inscription’s type even before the passer-by began
to read the text: for example, bronze tablets placed in public spaces often dis-
played legal inscriptions,3 while the gilt-bronze-filled letters (litterae aureae)
of texts written on the attic stories of triumphal arches or other monuments
proclaimed the names and titles of dedicators and dedicatees.4
1 This paper was completed during fellowships at the Bard Graduate Center in New York and
the Kenyon Institute in Jerusalem. The author would like to thank Jaś Elsner and Michael
Squire for their helpful comments.
Recent work on the material, visual, and spatial implications of Roman inscriptions includes
Graham 2013; and Keegan, Sears, and Laurence 2013. On text as ornament, see James 2007.
2 See Harris 1989: 285ff; Beard et al. 1991; Bowman and Woolf 1996; Johnson and Parker 2009. On
Late Antique literacy, see Browning 1978; Maxwell 2006: 88–117; Bagnall 1993: 246–60; Bagnall
2011.
3 E.g. Williamson 1987; Meyer 2004.
4 See especially Thunø 2007; Thunø 2011.
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004379435_016

Framing Late Antique Texts as Monuments 381
Another visual component of inscribed text, the inscription frame, crucially

influenced the ways in inscriptions were read as texts and/or viewed as images
or objects.5 As were Roman inscriptions, the majority of Late Antique inscrip-
tions are framed by stripped-down geometric shapes, sometimes elaborated
by decorative elements such as patterned geometric borders or vines.6 Simple
frames isolate the inscription from its (sometimes quite busy) background,
drawing attention to the text as separate visual entity and increasing its leg-
ibility while incorporating it into the overall design of the artwork or monu-
ment. Geometric frames could also link inscriptions, associating texts that
were meant to be read together.7 Some inscriptions spill out of their frames,
while others are not framed at all.
While they were decorative forms, the frames of Roman inscriptions often
were more than empty text-boxes. Rather, certain forms of frames actively
situated their texts within specific visual-cultural contexts, signifying affilia-
tion or proclaiming the authority of tradition. Some inscription frames carried
their own symbolic baggage that had accrued over the longue durée of Graeco-
Roman antiquity, and seem likely to have triggered particular associations for
late Roman viewers. While the frames of images, particularly paintings, are
enjoying something of a renaissance in terms of scholarly interest, the frames
of inscriptions have largely been ignored because they fall into the very gap
between epigraphy and the study of art and material culture that this volume
aims to address.
One particular frame that has been underserved by scholars is the tabula an-
sata, the “tablet-with-handles,” which in the period typically took the form of a
rectangular tablet with attached triangular ansae.8 Unlike the other geometric
shapes sometimes used to frame inscriptions – the circle or “shield”-shape, for
example, which was used to frame both inscribed texts as well as images (espe-
cially the imagines clipeatae, portraits of famous individuals or donors) – the
5 On inscribed text as object, see Graham 2013: 385–86.

6 For one of the few (preliminary) studies of Late Antique inscription frames, see Kiilerich 2011.
7 As in the mosaics of Santa Eufemia in Grado, dated to the late sixth century: Caillet 1993:
226–27.
8 Fraser and Rönne 1957: 182. The earlier “Greek” type, which predates the “Roman” type (with
triangular ansae), had rounded corners and circular ansae. The “Roman” type was in use by
the Hellenistic period, as on the sarcophagus of Apollonios from Cyaneae, Lycia, which fea-
tures the earliest extant tabula ansata carved on stone: Benndorf and Niemann 1889: 60 fig.
42; Jacobsthal 1911: 453–65, especially 455. The inscription on the sarcophagus is TAM 1.72, ed.
Kalinka: “(Sarcophagus) of Apollonios, son of Herakleides son of Alexios,” (Ἀπολλωνίου / τοῦ
Ἡρακλείδου / τοῦ [Ἀ]λεξίου).

382 Leatherbury
tabula ansata was used to frame text alone.9 Despite its popularity in many
media, the tabula ansata and its uses have been largely ignored by current
scholarship on the visuality of inscriptions and on the frames of ancient art.10
Because of the large number of surviving inscriptions of all types (dedica-
tory, funerary, labels, verse epigrams, etc.) and in all media that are framed by
tabulae ansatae, never before counted but certainly numbering in the thou-
sands, this paper considers several case studies in order to tease out the rea-
sons for the popularity of the form. After considering questions of terminology
and definition, I discuss the development of the tabula from its Greek origins
to its popularity in the Roman period and examine how the frame’s movement
across media impacted its function and reception. In three short case stud-
ies, I focus on the materiality, monumentality, and multidimensionality of the
tabula ansata in Christian contexts in the fifth and sixth centuries CE. These
case studies focus on the medium of mosaic due to the form’s overwhelming
popularity in this medium in the period, but also because it is in this flexible
medium that we are able to see the tabula’s range of contemporary resonances,
many of which draw upon the rich Classical formal tradition of the tabula.
While I concentrate on inscriptions from Christian contexts, I make reference
to material from contemporary secular and Jewish buildings for comparison,
as many of the same meanings and patterns of use extend across religions and
between sacred and secular contexts.
1 The Invention of the “Tabula Ansata”
While the form was extremely popular as an inscription frame in antiquity,

the label “tabula ansata” is in fact a modern one popularized by Theodor
Mommsen and the other creators of that most famous corpus of Latin inscrip-
tions, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL).11 In fact, most of the language
used by scholars to describe the forms of inscription frames is, to use termi-
nology borrowed from anthropological scholarship, etic rather than emic.12 In
9 Several exceptions to this rule exist, including the tabula on the mosaic floor of the sixth-
century CE Church of St. Bacchus at Horvat Tinshemet in Palestine, where the tabula
frames a cross: Dahari 1998: 67–68 (in Hebrew). On the clipeus generally, Bolton 1937:
38–55, 61–68; Grabar 1969: 73–74; Winkes 1969.
10 On the tabula, see Fraser and Rönne 1957: 179–82; Albert 1972: 1–34 and Katalog; Veyne
1983: 289–90; Pani 1986; Pani 1988; Schepp 2009. On the tabula as it appears on ivory con-
sular diptychs, see Sartori 2007.
11 See Fraser and Rönne 1975: 179–82; Pani 1986: 430 n. 2.
12 These terms were developed by the linguist Kenneth Pike in the 1950s: Pike 1967.

truth, we have no real idea what the Romans called the form, or even if they
called it anything at all. Romans did use the word tabula (or its diminutive,
tabella), literally “board,” “plank,” or even “table,” to describe a number of dif-
ferent kinds of rectangular tablets, from the wax-filled wooden tablets used for
list-, note-, and letter-writing to panel paintings on wood.13 The term simulta-
neously referred to the surface of the inscription’s ground or support as well as
the text of the inscription, as when the first-century BCE poet Tibullus refers
to the numerous votive tabellae in the Temple of Isis in Rome, whose pres-
ence testifies to the healing powers of the goddess (Tibullus, Elegiae 1.3.27).
Manufactured in more permanent materials such as bronze or marble, tabulae
displayed the official treaties, laws and edicts of the state in public spaces in
Rome and in other cities across the empire.14 So while the word had strong
embedded cultural associations, these associations took the form of a range
rather than a single fixed meaning: indeed, some Late Antique inscriptions
even refer to a panel of mosaic as a “tabla” (τάβλα, a Hellenized form of the
Latin tabula).15
To complicate things, inscriptions that we know were written onto tabulae
ansatae are often referred to by Roman authors as tituli, another term with a
broad range of meanings. In its primary sense, this term seems to have been
used to refer to the text of the inscription as opposed to the ground or back-
ground: for example, Livy refers to an inscription on its board (presumably a
metal one) hung up by the censor Marcus Aemilius above the gate to a temple
dedicated to the sea gods, located in the Campus Martius in Rome, as a “tablet
with a titulus” (tabula cum titulo) (Livy, 40.52.4). However, authors on occa-
sion conflate the text with its support, so Pliny refers to the inscribed tabulae
13 Wooden examples from the period survive from Egypt, including in the collection of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, e.g. MMA 14.2.4a–d; on these types of tablets, see Galling
1971. A Roman wooden tabula survives from a fortress at Carlisle in England: see Caruana
1987. While few survive today, wooden tablets were probably the most common in antiq-
uity: see Eck 1998. Ovid, among others, refers to paintings as tabulae, e.g. Met. 10.515–6,
where the author describes paintings of cupids (“Qualia namque | corpora nudorum ta-
bula pinguntur Amorum …”). On the origin of the term tabula and its various uses, see
Meyer 2004: 21–29.
14 Williamson 1987; Meyer 2004: 26–27. This practice apparently continued in Late Antiquity,
as the Ostrogothic ruler Theodoric is reported to have erected a bronze tablet in a public
place in Rome to record his yearly gifts of grain and money for the rebuilding of the pal-
ace and the city walls that he made on the occasion of his tricennalia: Anonymi Valesiani
pars posterior, 2.12.69, ed. Mommsen, Chronica minora, MGH, AA 9, 59: “The words of his
promise, which had been spoken to the people, he commanded at the people's request
to be written on a bronze tablet and placed in public” (Verba enim promissionis eius, quae
populo fuerat allocutus, rogante populo in tabula aenea iussit scribi et in publico poni).
15 As in the fifth-century synagogue at Sepphoris: Weiss 2005: 216–19; Di Segni 2005: 209–11.

384 Leatherbury
ansatae borne by attendants in Roman triumphal processions, which proclaim

the details of the triumph (its recipient and his praiseworthy military victories)
as well as possibly the lists of captured booty, as “tituli.”16
While the term “tabula ansata” is and will remain problematic, I will con-
tinue to use it for lack of a superior alternative, especially as it is clear that
Romans called the form any number of names (when they referred to it at
all). However, as a result of this problem of description, any assessment of the
form’s embedded meanings must be based on the patterns that emerge from
surviving material evidence. The “materiality” of the material evidence is sig-
nificant here, as from its origins the extra-textual messages conveyed by the
tabula ansata (henceforth tabula) were inextricably tied to its medium.
2 Origin and Development
2.1 Early Stages

The form of the tabula appears to have originated in Greece in the late Archaic
period to satisfy a specific functional requirement of inscribed texts meant to
be hung up and displayed in public. In the late seventh or early sixth century
BCE, wooden votive plaques in the form of tabulae were hung up in temples,
their “handles” (ansae) allowing the plaques to be fixed to a column or temple
wall without damaging the inscription inside the main rectangular body of
the frame.17 At some point also in the late Archaic or early Classical period,
artists began to produce metal votive plaques (typically silver, or bronze or
another alloy) in the same form as more durable gifts (and records) of dedi-
cations made to the gods.18 Very few of these early wood and metal tabulae
survive, and it remains impossible to reconstruct fully the first few centuries
of the life of the form. However, for our purposes it is more important to note
that from its “original” jump from wood to metal, if that is in fact the direction
in which the motif moved, the tabula was a form in motion between media
and materials. Shortly thereafter, stonecutters began to use the form on stone
16 See Östenberg 2009: 68–69; Östenberg 2009b. Plutarch refers to the inscription-bearing
plaques as “placards” (δέλτοι), e.g. Luc. 37.4: see Östenberg 2009: 69 n. 323. Confusingly,
in Late Antiquity the term “titulus” was used to refer to the private estates of wealthy
Romans who converted to Christianity, donating their properties in the process: see
Hillner 2007.
17 See Fraser and Rönne 1957: 179–82; also Albert 1972: 1–34; Veyne 1983. On tabulae and vo-
tive practice in the Roman period, see Meyer 2004: 28; Mayer i Olivé 2012. On wooden
tablets, see Eck 1998.
18 Albert 1972.

monuments, including tombstones, to frame inscriptions that were funerary

instead of votive in character.19
While it was a “Greek” invention, the tabula became truly popular only in
the Roman period. By this point, the frame had lost its particular function as a
votive frame, and was used to frame inscriptions of all types in practically all
media. In the late Roman world, any person who strolled through the monu-
mental heart of a city, went to a cemetery, or visited the villa of a wealthy citi-
zen would have seen tabulae framing monumental dedications on buildings
and triumphal arches, artists’ signatures, and funerary inscriptions.20 While
the form continued to be used as a frame for votive dedications to the gods,
especially in metal, the ansae had lost their functionality, to the point where
holes were drilled into the main rectangle of the tabula in order to attach
chains with which to hang the tablet at a sanctuary (fig. 1). As we have already
seen, attendees of Roman triumphal processions would have seen tabulae held
aloft on poles, framing inscriptions advertising the military victory being cel-
ebrated, as is depicted on the “Spoils from the Temple” relief on the inner wall
of the Arch of Titus in Rome, set up around 81 CE to celebrate the suppres-
sion of the Jewish revolt in Jerusalem and the sacking of the Temple eleven
years earlier (fig. 2).21 The tabula appears to have remained in use in military
triumphs through at least the early fourth century CE, as attested by a relief
from Caesarea (Cherchel) in Algeria, which depicts an inscribed tabula carried
on a pole during a triumph celebrating Constantine’s victory over Maxentius
in the Battle of the Milvian Bridge.22 These larger triumphal tabulae seem to
have been echoed by smaller, elongated versions of the form that decorate the
shields of the Roman soldiers on the Tropaeum Traiani at Adamklissi, built in
109 CE to celebrate the victory of Trajan over the Dacians.23
19 Fraser and Rönne 1957: 178.

20 See Leatherbury 2012: 190–92. On the “graffiti” tabulae preserved in Pompeii, which were
also valued for their monumental character, see Kruschwitz and Campbell 2009: 59–70.
21 Ryberg 1955: 146, pl. 52, fig. 79b; Pfanner 1983: 50–65, 71–6, pls. 54–67. For the tradition of
the Roman triumph in reality and art, see Beard 2007: 43–45, 151ff; Östenberg 2009: 111–19,
who argues that the plaques held tituli proclaiming the identities of the booty and cap-
tives in the procession, or perhaps the actions accomplished, as with the famous titulus of
Julius Caesar (“I came, I saw, I conquered,” Veni, vidi, vici), described by Suet. Iul. 37, also
Östenberg 2009b. On the triumph itself, described by Joseph. BJ 7.123ff, see Beard 2003:
548–52. On the general military valence of the tabula, see Thomas 2007: 44–45.
22 The inscription is CIL 8.9356; on the relief, see Torelli 1982: pl. 5, 6; Mastino and Teatini 2001.
23 The metopes are now split between the Adamklissi Museum and the Istanbul
Archaeological Museum: see Florescu 1965: 493, metope no. XXXII, inv. no. 28, fig. 210;
Rossi 1972.

386 Leatherbury
figure 1 Bronze votive tabula to Serapis, second century CE

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, MMA 21.88.17, Rogers Fund, 1921,
www.metmuseum.org
figure 2 “Spoils from the Temple” relief, Arch of Titus, Rome, c. 81 CE

Photo: author

In addition to its use as a military frame, the tabula was also a particularly
popular frame for Roman dedicatory and funerary inscriptions.24 While the
form was common in Italy, it was also appealing to patrons in the provinces,
who applied the tabula to sarcophagi as well as to architectural decoration.25
However, despite its clear appeal outside imperial centers, the frame never
became “provincialized”: that is, even when used by provincials, the tabula
appears to have maintained its “Roman-ness,” though it did sometimes frame
texts in languages other than Latin or Greek, including Hebrew and Aramaic
texts.26
As the tabula framed many different kinds of inscriptions in Greek and
Latin, the form lost its specific links to votive practice and became a gener-
al commemorative frame for all sorts of texts in different media.27 From the
fourth century onwards, the form remained popular throughout the empire
as a frame for all types of Christian inscriptions, including the imagined “first”
Christian titulus (called a τίτλον by John 19:19) in scenes of the Crucifixion,
the sign on the top of the cross on which Christ’s name and Roman title were
written in Latin: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews” (Iesus Nazarenus Rex
Iudaeorum).28
2.2 The Birth of Mosaic Tabulae

Mosaicists began using the form in the late first or early second century CE
to frame their own signatures as well as donation inscriptions. An early ex-
ample of a mosaic tabula from the second-century villa mosaic of Apollo and
the Muses from Mérida frames the names of two artists (or perhaps donors)
in the border of the pavement,29 while a series of contemporaneous mosaics
24 See Thomas 2007: 192–94.

25 For example, tabula-framed dedicatory inscriptions erected by Romans of Lycian descent
who brought the form to Asia Minor in the second century: Thomas 2007: 82–83.
26 For example the tabula-framed funerary inscription on the Tomb Tower of Elhabel at
Palmyra, which is bilingual in Greek and Palmyrene: CIS 4134; also As’ad and Yon 2001: 104
no. 32. The tomb was destroyed by the Islamic State in 2015.
27 Though the tabula was no longer strictly a votive form, it continued to be used to frame
pagan votive dedications through the third century, as is attested by a number of exam-
ples from the sanctuary of Jupiter Poeninus in the Poenine Alps: Walser 1984: nos. 1–4,
7–9, 17, etc.
28 For example, on the obverse of a lead pilgrim ampulla from Jerusalem, now at Dumbarton
Oaks, BZ.1948.14: most recently published in Evans with Ratliff 2012: 91–92 no. 59. On this
sign, reported in all four Gospels, see Millar 1995.
29 “Seleucus and Anthus made (the mosaic) in the colony of Emerita Augusta,” (C(olonia)
A(ugusta) E(merita) f(ecerunt) Seleucus et Anthus): Donderer 1989: 105–7 no. 83; Gómez
Pallares 1997: 57–58 no. BA2, pls. 11a–b; Lancha 1997: 213–18 no. 105, pl. 99.

388 Leatherbury
figure 3 Mosaic from the Square of the Corporations advertising the services of caulkers
and ropemakers (CIL 14.4.549.1), Ostia, second century CE
Photo: author
from the Square of the Corporations in Ostia features graphic tabula-framed

inscriptions which labelled areas as “booths” for commercial groups from dif-
ferent cities in North Africa, Sardinia and Gaul.30 These early examples were
typically integrated into surrounding programs, as at Ostia, where the tabulae
are outlined in black and are filled with white tesserae of the same color as the
background of the panel, creating a flat and graphic two-dimensional effect
(fig. 3).
The form grew in popularity quickly after the second century, and was used to
frame mosaic inscriptions on the floors and walls of Christian spaces in almost
all regions of the early Byzantine world, although the frame was much more
common in the eastern Mediterranean (in the provinces of Arabia, Palestine,
Syria, and Lebanon, as well as in Greece) than in the west.31 Tabulae began to
appear as frames for dedicatory and funerary inscriptions in the mosaic pave-
ments of Christian and Jewish structures in the fourth century on both sides of
the empire, from Hispania in the west to Arabia in the east.32 In the later fifth
and sixth century, the form grew in popularity in Christian mosaics, though by
30 Becatti 1961: 64–85 nos. 83–138, 345–8, pls. 172–86; Pohl 1978: 332–34.
31 Leatherbury 2012: 195–97.
32 The earliest Christian examples in mosaic include tabulae from both west and east, in-
cluding in a Christian building at Elche (La Alcúdia), Spain, dated to the first third of the
fourth century: Gómez Pallares 2002: 26–29 no. A2, pl. 2; and a tabula from the church at
Lod in Palestine, dated to the fourth century: Zelinger and Di Segni 2006.

the sixth century the form was largely confined to the eastern Mediterranean.33
After the sixth century, the popularity of the mosaic tabula appears to have de-
clined in tandem with the decline in mosaic production, though examples are
extant from seventh – and eighth – century churches in the eastern provinces
of the empire, primarily in regions under Islamic control.34 The vast major-
ity of these tabulae frame donation inscriptions (some of which are votive,
for some viewers perhaps recalling the original usage of the form), but the
form also framed funerary inscriptions, invocations, biblical quotations, and
prayers, as well as both prose and verse inscriptions.
The precise reasons for the popularity of the frame in the medium of mo-
saic, as for its popularity in other media, are hard to isolate, though the simple
iconicity of its geometric shapes (a rectangle, two triangles) that combine to
draw attention to the text written inside without overly distracting the eye may
have played a role.35 In any case, the very practice of the production of inscrip-
tions must have contributed to the form’s popularity. The majority of Roman
inscriptions (at least carved ones) were produced in a regularized manner by
specialists often affiliated with workshops, and these carvers appear to have
derived their decorative additions, including ornamental interpuncts (e.g. ivy
leaves, the hederae distinguentes), ansae decorations, as well as frames, from
familiar prototypes known from their training, from other carvers, as well as
from copy-books.36 Within this culture of production, shared by artists across
media, a frame such as the tabula became very popular very quickly.
Whatever the processes through which the tabula grew in popularity, by
the fourth century CE the frame had become strongly associated with monu-
mental display. As imagined by late Roman and Late Antique artists (and pre-
sumably, by viewers), the tabula functioned as a monumental architectural
element in the visual imagination of the period, even in miniaturized forms, as
on fifth- and sixth-century ivory consular diptychs, where tabulae displaying
dedicatory inscriptions are placed atop columns above portraits of enthroned
consuls, creating a kind of imagined triumphal arch.37 Patrons took advantage
33 The only extant western examples seem to be outliers, for example the tabula-framed
dedicatory inscription from the Justinianic church at Qasr el-Lebia in Cyrenaica (modern
Libya): Reynolds 1980: 145–48.
34 E.g. in the eighth-century Church of St. Stephen at Umm al-Rasas, near Madaba in Jordan:
Piccirillo 1989: 285–86, 291–92; Piccirillo and Alliata 1994: 242–58; Michel 2001: 391–93.
35 See Thomas 2007: 192–94, who follows Pani 1986 in considering the possibility that the
triangular ansae recall the shape of the symbolic-magical asciae.
36 See Cooley 2012.
37 Examples on ivory include Sartori 2007; also a fourth-century gold-glass from Rome,
where tabulae on top of columns bear the names of the martyrs depicted, now in the
Museo Nazionale, Florence: Morey 1959: no. 240, pl. 26.

390 Leatherbury
of this visual association between form and “Roman” visual tradition, includ-
ing in the mid-sixth-century Church of Saints Lot and Procopius at Khirbet
Mukhayyat in Arabia (modern Jordan), near Mount Nebo, where a tabula
frames the main dedicatory inscription in front of the steps up to the elevated
sanctuary (fig. 4).38 This large tabula abuts the border of the main nave panel
and faces east, ensuring that it (and its inscription) would have been noted by
anyone approaching the sanctuary. However, while the frame is monumental
in size, extending to almost the whole width of the nave, and is quite colorful –
outlined by three lines of yellow, red, and black tesserae, while shell motifs in
bluish gray decorate the ansae – because of its integration with the main nave
panel (itself a masterwork of sixth-century coloristic variation) and its white
ground that matches the ground of the surrounding pavement, the frame in
this instance lacks any real sculptural quality.
While this suppression of the form’s sculptural three-dimensionality did
not happen in the sixth century – indeed, one can see it already in the Ostia
mosaics – the mosaic tabula at Khirbet Mukhayyat exemplifies one strand of
the evolution of the tabula frame, from sculpted form in metal or stone to flat
mosaic, able to be integrated seamlessly into the overall programme. However,
at least one other evolutionary branch of the form persisted into the sixth cen-
tury: tabulae that resist the flattening impulse of the medium, either through
their color, shape and orientation, or sheer formal monumentality.
3 Color and Dimensionality at Gerasa
Some Late Antique tabulae resisted the flattening impulse of mosaic through
their vivid colors. In the mid-sixth century Church of Sts. Peter and Paul at
Gerasa, a massive red tabula with stylized white ivy leaves in its ansae frames
the main dedicatory inscription of the building at the east end of the nave in
front of the sanctuary (fig. 5).39 Written in verse in white tesserae, the text pro-
claims the “beautiful wonders” brought to the people of the city by its bishops,
of which the church, built and adorned by Bishop Anastasius, is one, “decorated
38 The dedicatory inscription in the tabula dates the mosaics to 557/8: Saller and Bagatti
1949: 182–202, 34 pl. 24; Piccirillo 1989: 185, 87–88; Piccirillo and Alliata 1998: no. 42; SEG
8.336; Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie 21, Jordanie 2, 97.
39 The church is dated to c. 540, and the mosaic inscription is now in the collection of the
Yale University Art Gallery: Welles 1938: 484 no. 327; Merkelbach and Stauber 2002: 356;
Rhoby 2009: 393–94; Evans with Ratliff 2012: 12, cat. 1.

figure 4 Mosaic tabula with dedicatory inscription, Church of the Holy Martyrs Lot and
Procopius, Khirbet Mukhayyat (Nebo), Jordan, 557/8 CE
Sean Leatherbury / Manar al-Athar

392 Leatherbury
figure 5 Mosaic tabula with dedicatory epigram, Church of Sts. Peter and Paul, Gerasa,
Jordan, c. 540 CE
Photo © Yale University Art Gallery
with silver and colored stones” of mosaic.40 Indeed, the relationship between
the “colored stones” of this frame and its inscription is the reverse of the one
at Khirbet Mukhayyat: at Gerasa, the red ground of the frame both makes the
inscribed text stand out and demands attention as an artistic form unto itself.
This tabula draws attention to itself by playing with the idea of the third
dimension. While integrated into the larger program of the floor, especially
along its top edge, which aligns nicely with the border of the nave panel, the
color and placement of the tablet at the edge of the nave signals its additive
40 The inscription is Rhoby 2009: 393–4; and Evans with Ratliff 2012: 12, cat. 1:
[+ Ἦ μά]λα θαύματα καλὰ φέρ[ει πᾶ]ς ἱεροφάντης
ἀ�̣ν̣θρώποις οἳ τήνδε πόλιν καὶ γαῖαν ἔχουσιν,
οὕνεκεν οἶκον ἔδειμε μαθηταῖς πρωτοστάταις
Πέτρῳ καὶ Παύλῳ, τοῖς γὰρ σθένος ἄνθετο Σωτήρ,
ἀργυρέοις κόσμοισι καὶ εὐβαφεέσσι λίθοισιν
κλεινὸς Ἀναστάσιος, θεομήδεα πιστὰ διδάσκων.
“+ Each high priest brings beautiful wonders to the people who inhabit this city and
land, wherefore famous Anastasius, teaching faithful belief of God, built a house to the
first of the apostles, Peter and Paul, for to them the Savior gave authority, (decorated) with
ornaments of silver and vividly-dyed stones.”

quality, as if the frame has been pasted on top of the white background. The
tabula is installed above a line-up of Egyptian cities, including Alexandria
(with its lighthouse, the Pharos) and Memphis, simultaneously acting as a kind
of border and disrupting the imagined three-dimensional space in which the
cities appear. This space is not naturalistic, but the buildings in it are repre-
sented in a mixed perspective that gives them an imagined volume.41 In its
coloristic contrast with the white background, this three-dimensional tabula
recaptures some of the visual impact that bronze votive tabulae had when at-
tached to the walls or columns of temples. Instead of superimposing a frame in
metal on top of a stone architectural element, the artists at Gerasa embraced a
similar aesthetic within a single medium.
Now, I do not mean to suggest that the mosaicists at Gerasa used ancient
metal votive tabulae as a direct model, as these manifestations of the form ap-
pear to have gone out of popular use centuries earlier.42 In fact, the artists at
Gerasa did not have far to look for the effect of superimposition, as the three-
dimensional aesthetic was not unique to this particular frame in antiquity, nor
to the medium of mosaic. Both the suggestion of depth and trompe l’oeil ele-
ments were common to the Greco-Roman art of painting (especially second-
style Roman wall-painting) and the mosaic emblema and pseudo-emblema,
whose aim was to turn the floor into a “picture window” through which the
viewer could glimpse a “real” scene.43 The emblemata aesthetic influenced
the creation of illusionistic inscription frames that played with the tension
between two-dimensional medium and imagined three-dimensional form,
such as the second-century BCE signature of Hephaistion (“Hephaistion made
(this)”) from the mosaics of a palace at Pergamon, in which the frame of the
text – conceived as a piece of parchment – has come free from its wax and flips
up at the lower right-hand corner, suggesting that it is pasted on top of the rest
of the image.44
41 See Duval 2003.

42 The latest pagan votive tabulae seem to date to the third or early fourth century, includ-
ing the tabulae from the Poenine alps: Walser 1984; Mayer i Olivé 2012. However, metal
votive tabulae with Christian inscriptions continue to be produced through the end of
the fourth century, including a bronze tabula found at Biertan, in Romania, which is in-
scribed, “I, Zenobius, have fulfilled my vow” (Ego Zenovius votum posui(t)): see Illyés 1988:
133–35.
43 The “true” emblema was a panel made in a workshop for export to a separate site, while
pseudo-emblemata were assembled on-site to imitate emblemata: see Kondoleon 1994:
102–104.
44 Kawerau and Wiegand 1930: 63–65, pls. 16–19; Dunbabin 1999: 28–30, with further
bibliography.

394 Leatherbury
However, by the sixth century CE the emblema and the pseudo-emblema

had fallen out of fashion as mosaicists began to conceive of the floor and wall
as unified flat planes or, in the case of the floor, “carpets,” one of the develop-
ments integral to the new Late Antique aesthetic.45 So why did the mosaicists
at Gerasa choose to pack such a visual punch by turning the tabula red? I sug-
gest that these artisans might have been influenced both by the trompe l’oeil
history of the medium and by the Roman aesthetic of superimposition. This
aesthetic was popular in the imperial period and can be seen in the mixed-
media brick and marble architectural decoration of the second-century
Horrea Epagathiana et Epaphroditiana in Ostia, where the white marble tabu-
la contrasts with the red brick, and continued to be popular in Late Antiquity.46
By vividly coloring the tabula so that it appears to be superimposed upon its
background, the mosaicists at Gerasa highlighted the form in order to show-
case the inscription within, but also to draw the viewer’s attention to the frame
itself as a monumental symbol that drew attention to its own (imagined)
three-dimensionality.
4 Defining Architectural Space in Rome
In addition to maximizing their color options, mosaicists exploited the flexibil-

ity of their chosen medium to experiment with the placement of the tabula.
As at Gerasa, where the red tabula floats above important cities of Egypt and
is placed directly in front of the sanctuary, the form was used on occasion to
frame space and the experience of the viewer/reader as well as text. Earlier, in
the Roman period, mosaic tabulae were often placed at significant points in
the building, including in the borders of pavements between rooms, as at the
villa at Mérida.47 Christian patrons maintained the same interest in defining,
elaborating and even protecting boundary spaces with inscriptions as well as
holy or magical symbols.48 When placed between the nave and the sanctu-
ary, the form worked in tandem with other boundary elements such as steps
and chancel screens to frame the boundary between earthly (nave) and sacred
(sanctuary) space.49
45 On these developments in floor mosaics in the eastern Mediterranean, see Kitzinger 1965;
Balty 1984.
46 The Horrea inscription is CIL 14.4709.
47 Supra n. 29; more generally, see Dunbabin 1999: 304–16; Clarke 1991: 1–30; Swift 2009:
32–74.
48 Kitzinger 1970: 244–59; Maguire 1995.
49 See Gerstel 2006.

figure 6 Triumphal arch mosaics with tabula, San Paolo fuori le mura, Rome, 440–61 CE
Photo: author
The form functioned similarly in several wall mosaics in fifth – and sixth-
century churches in Italy, as in the church of San Paolo fuori le mura in Rome
(fig. 6). On the triumphal arch of the church, two half-tabulae outlined in red
and gold with a blue ground commemorate the renovation of the basilica by
the princess Galla Placidia in the mid-fifth century.50 While the original mosa-
ics were destroyed by fire in the eighteenth century, the tabulae as they were re-
constructed appear to have been original to the fifth-century mosaic program.51
However, these tabulae are unusual: rather than conceived as rectangles with
straight lines, the two tablets curve to fit the architecture of the triumphal arch.
The mosaicists have stretched the frames to their limit, defining the attenuated
blue bodies of the tabulae with triple white, gold, and red borders in order to
delimit the space of the sanctuary, sacrificing some of the form’s materiality in
the process. However, while they have lost some of their substance, the frames
maintain their monumental character. The figures of the mosaic also help to
emphasize the frames, as an archangel perches atop each one. Indeed, though
the text is only one among four inscriptions in the mosaic, beginning with the
50 “The faithful mind of Placidia rejoices that the whole splendor of her father’s work shines
through the zeal of Pope Leo,” (Placidiae pia mens operis decus homne paterni / gaudet
pontificis studio splendere Leonis): Inscriptiones latinae christianae ueteres (= ILCV) 1.1770–
71, Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romae (=ICUR) 2.4784; also see Ihm 1960: 138–40.
51 See Matthiae 1967, Tavole.

396 Leatherbury
inscription recording the building of the basilica by the emperor Theodosius

and the completion of the basilica and its mosaics by Honorius (placed at the
top of the triumphal arch in the nineteenth-century renovation of the mosaic
program), it was meant to be the most significant text in the building, as it cel-
ebrates the renovation paid for by Placidia, the daughter of Theodosius (and
half-sister of Honorius).52
While these mosaic frames are not the only examples of the tabula adapted
to the architectural context of walls (rather than floors) – indeed, other fifth-
century examples include tabulae in Naples and Thessaloniki – the two at San
Paolo are extraordinary because they split one inscription into two halves,
structuring the reading of the text.53 Unlike the similarly curving tabula on the
triumphal arch of San Lorenzo fuori le mura, dated to the late sixth century,
which was designed to fit the entire dedicatory inscription, the inscribed text
at San Paolo was split intentionally in order to focus the attention of the reader
on particular words and phrases.54 The two frames separate the subject (the
“pious mind of Galla Placidia”, Placidiae pia mens) and verb of the sentence
(“rejoice,” gaudet), which would seem to render the text more difficult to read.
However, the separation also highlights the main components of the text: the
first half of the inscription begins with Placidia and ends with her father (pa-
terni, i.e. Theodosius), while the second half begins with the action (Galla’s
mind “rejoices”) and concludes with the supervising bishop of Rome, Pope Leo
I (“the zeal of Leo,” studio Leonis, through which the renovation was made pos-
sible). By adapting the usually rectangular tabula to the curve of the surface,
and by splitting the tabula into two to underline the main actors and actions of
the inscription, the mosaicists used the form to frame the space of the sanctu-
ary as well as to shape the experience of the reader, who would connect the
church with Placidia and her imperial forebears.
52 I CUR 2.4780. On the uncertainty of the original location of the Theodosian/Honorian in-
scription, see Liverani 2012: 109.
53 In Naples, a monumental tabula frames the funerary inscription of St. Gaudiosus, which
is set on the arcosolium above the saint’s tomb in the San Gennaro catacombs: Sear 1977:
138–40 no. 160, pl. 60.3; the inscription is CIL 10.1538. Tabulae also framed votive donation
inscriptions on the upper walls of the north aisle in the church of Hagios Demetrios in
Thessaloniki: Cormack 1969: 17–52, pls. 1–15.
54 The mosaics date to the renovation of the church by Pope Pelagius c. 578–90: the inscrip-
tion is ILCV 1.1770–71, ICUR 2.4784 also Ihm 1960: 138–40. On the mosaic program, see
Baldass 1957; Matthiae 1962: 159–64, 304–7; Matthiae 1967: 149ff; and Oakeshott 1967:
145–46.

5 Monumentalizing the Tabula at Tegea
Late Antique artists also experimented with other monumental formats that
preserved the substantiality of the tabula, envisioning the form as a three-di-
mensional architectural element. We have already seen this type of multiple
architectural frame – the tabula itself framed by other architectural elements
such as columns or a triumphal arch – on artworks in miniature, including
on gold-glasses and ivory consular diptychs, which echoed earlier Roman pro-
totypes on sarcophagi as well as on actual buildings.55 Another architectural
format was available in the period, that of the tabula held aloft by two figures.
The iconography of two figures holding a panel of text was already ancient by
the fourth century BCE, as seen on archaic Greek tombstones from Boeotia
that depict winged Victories holding panels inscribed with the names of the
deceased.56
While similar examples were not uncommon as frames for building in-
scriptions in stone, this particular iconographic format was rare in Christian
mosaics.57 In fact, only two examples are extant, both from Christian struc-
tures in Greece, the earlier from the Thyrsos Basilica at Tegea, dated to the
late fourth or fifth century CE (fig. 7).58 At Tegea, a simple Roman-type tabula,
placed at the entrance to the nave, frames the main dedicatory inscription of
the church and is held by two curly-haired putti clad in short tunics and wearing
floral crowns.59 As is the tabula itself, the two putti are superimposed over the
55 For larger examples, see Thomas 2007: 193–94 figs. 163–64.
56 Fraser and Rönne 1957: pls. 27, 1–2.
57 For examples, see Pani 1986; Pani 1988.
58 Pallas 1977: 181–83, no. 89D; Spiro 1978: 186, 188–93, 655 (transl. I. Ševčenko); Feissel and
Philippidis-Braat 1985: 296–97, no. 38, 371, no. 137; Assimakopoulou-Atzaka 1987: 77–79,
no. 21; Avramea 1998: 35–40. A slightly later mosaic from the Basilica of St. Demetrios at
Nikopolis in Greece includes a tabula held up by two men: Kitzinger 1951: 83–102; Spiro
1978: 439–41, 443–45, 452–53, 458–59, 464, 657–58.
59 The inscription is CIG 5.2.169:
Τ̣ο̣ῦ σεπτοῦ τούτου τεμένους· ἐν ἱερεῦσειν
ἐννεακαιδέκατος· Θύρσος ὁ ὁσιώ(τατος) ἡγησάμενος
ἀμφοτέρων ἔκρυψεν προσηγορίας πᾶσιν ἐσθλοῖς
καὶ μαρτυρῖ τὰ κτίσματα καὶ λίθου λεπταλέης
εὐσύνθετος κό�̣[σ]μ̣ [ος…]
“Thyrsos, both the most holy leader and the nineteenth priest of this holy church,
eclipsed the names (of his predecessors) by all good things; and the buildings and well-
arranged decoration of delicate stones bear witness […].”
On the text, see Feissel and Philippidis-Braat 1985: 296–97 no. 38, 371 no. 137;
Assimakopoulou-Atzaka 1987: 77–79 no. 21; Sironen 1997: 327; SEG 34.327; SEG 35.399.

398 Leatherbury
figure 7 Mosaic tabula with dedicatory inscription, Thyrsos Basilica, Tegea, Greece, late
fourth or early fifth century CE
Photo courtesy P. Assimakopoulou-Atzaka
geometric border of the panel, conveying the illusion that they are standing in
the foreground on top of a recessed background.
For the visually literate Roman, this scheme must have recalled the associa-
tion of elevated tablets with triumph and status, conceived broadly, as seen
on the Arch of Dativius Victor in Mainz, dated to the mid-third century, where
putti on the attic story elevate an inscription framed by a tabula with ansae
in the shape of pelta shields.60 This triumphal valence could be transferred
iconographically from the military sphere to acts of donation, as on a tabula-
framed dedicatory inscription at Pavia, held aloft by putti, which celebrates the
sixth-century renovation of an amphitheatre by Atalaric, the Ostrogothic ruler
of Italy.61 Putti or other Classical figures could elevate the frames of donation
inscriptions in order to draw additional attention to the texts framed within,
celebrating dedications while memorializing them in perpetuity.
The rarity of the mosaic tabula held aloft by figures is such that the artists
and patrons at Tegea must have made concerted decisions to buck the over-
riding trend of the standard “integrated” tabula found at Khirbet Mukhayyat.
Unlike in that church, where the ansae decorations of the tablet have morphed
into decorative floral-vegetal forms, the ansae of the Tegea frame are clearly
60 The arch in Mainz is now in the Stone Hall of the Landesmuseum: Frenz 1981: 220–60;
Bauchhenss 1984: 78–83 no. 94, Pl. 125–28; the inscription is CIL 13.16705.
61 Silvagni 1943: n. 3, pl. 1; Panazza 1953: 232–33 n. 10, Pl. 84; Pani 1988: 178–80 fig. 6; the in-
scription is CIL 5.6418.

punctured by round holes that, while also decorative, recall the original func-
tion of the “handles.” The texts and placement of the inscriptions provide
further evidence of the exceptional nature of the work, as the inscription
emphasizes the pre-eminence of the patron, Bishop Thyrsos, and his “well-
arranged decoration of delicate tesserae” (λίθου λεπταλέης / εὐσύνθετος κό�̣[σ]
μ̣ [ος…]), which act as proof of his status as euergetes. Here, Thyrsos’ act of
donation is literally elevated, held aloft by two bearers as a triumphant state-
ment of euergetism in the Roman mode still current in the fifth century CE.
By compressing the monumental tabula with its bearers onto the floor while
preserving some semblance of (illusionistic) depth, the mosaicists at Tegea
preserve the sculptural effect of the form, enabling viewers to see the mosaic
as a kind of architectural sculpture, and thus to compare it to dedications in
other media.
In one sense, these three cases (Gerasa, Rome, Tegea) are in fact exceptions
to the rule, as each showcases a distinct way that mosaicists used color, shape,
and overall scheme to challenge the two-dimensionality of their medium.
However, by considering how these exceptional frames worked to highlight
their texts, as well as to draw attention to their sculptural qualities as forms
that stood out from their backgrounds, this essay has argued that Late Antique
artists and patrons had precise intentions when they chose to frame their in-
scriptions in tabulae. Reading the tabula frame between Roman tradition (i.e.
its formal and stylistic links to earlier frame types) and Late Antique experi-
ence, the impact of evolving aesthetic tastes (e.g. changes in medium) upon
the meanings of the tabula becomes clear, but so too does the deep and em-
bedded symbolism of the form, which continued to draw forth a rich web of
associative meanings for the Roman viewer.
Bibliography
Albert, W.-D. 1972. “Die tabulae ansatae aus Pergamon.” Pergamon: Gesammelte
Aufsätze. Deutsches archäologisches Institut, Pergamenische Forschungen 1, 1–34.
Berlin.
As’ad, K. and Yon, J.-B. 2001. Inscriptions de Palmyre. Promenades épigraphiques dans la
ville antique de Palmyre. Guides archéologiques de l’Institut Français d’archéologie du
proche-orient 3. Beirut, Damascus, and Amman.
Assimakopoulou-Atzaka, P. and Pelekanidou, E. 1987. Σύνταγμα των Παλαιοχριστιανικών
ψηϕιδωτών δαπέδων της Ελλάδος, II. Πελοπόννησος - Στερεά Ελλάδα. Thessaloniki.
Avramea, A. 1998. “Ἡ βασιλική τοῦ Θύρσου στὴν Τεγέα καὶ ἡ επιγραφὴ τῆς.” Αρχαιολογικόν
Δελτιόν: 35–40.

400 Leatherbury
Bagnall, R. 1993. Egypt in Late Antiquity. Princeton.

Bagnall, R. 2011. Everyday Writing in the Graeco-Roman East. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and
London.
Baldass, P. 1957. “The Mosaic of the Triumphal Arch of San Lorenzo fuori le mura.”
Gazette des Beaux-Arts 49: 1–18.
Balty, J. 1984. “Les mosaïques de Syrie au Ve siècle et leur repertoire.” Byzantion 54: 437–
68 (reprinted in Balty, J. 1995. Mosaïques antiques du Proche-Orient. Chronologie, ico-
nographie, interprétation, 87–109. Besançon.)
Bauchhenss, G. 1984. Denkmäler des Iuppiterkultes aus Mainz und Umgebung. CSIR
Deutschland II.3, Germania Superior. Mainz.
Beard, M. et al. 1991. Literacy in the Roman World. Journal of Roman Archaeology
Supplement 3. Ann Arbor.
Beard, M. 2003. “The Triumph of Flavius Josephus.” In A. J. Boyle and W. J. Dominik,
eds., Flavian Rome: Culture, Image, Text, 543–58. Leiden.
Beard, M. 2007. The Roman Triumph. Cambridge, MA and London.
Becatti, G. 1961. Scavi di Ostia 4. Mosaici e Pavimenti marmorei. Rome.
Benndorf, O. and Niemann, G. 1889. Das Heroon von Gjölbaschi-Trysa. Beilagen zum
Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 9. Graz.
Bolton, J. 1937. Die imago Clipeata, ein Beitrag zur Portrait-und Typengeschichte.
Paderborn.
Bowman, A. K. and Woolf, G. 1996. eds. Literacy and Power in the Ancient World. Cambridge.
Browning, R. 1978. “Literacy in the Byzantine World.” Byzantine and Modern Greek
Studies 4: 39–54.
Caillet, J.-P. 1993. L’évergétisme monumental chrétien en Italie et à ses marges d’après
l’épigraphie des pavements de mosaïque (IVe–VIIe s.). Rome.
Caruana, I. 1987. “A Wooden Ansate Panel from Carlisle.” Britannia 18: 274–77.
Clarke, J. R. 1991. The Houses of Roman Italy, 100 B.C.–A.D. 250: Ritual, Space and
Decoration. Berkeley and Los Angeles.
Cooley, A. E. 2012. The Cambridge Manual of Latin Epigraphy. Cambridge.
Cormack, R. 1969. “The Mosaic Decoration of S. Demetrios, Thessaloniki: A Re-
examination in the Light of the Drawings of W. S. George.” Papers of the British
School at Athens 64: 17–52, Pls. 1–15.
Dahari, U. 1998. “Horbat Tinshemet, Church of St. Bacchus.” Excavations and Surveys in
Israel 18: 67–68 (Hebrew).
Di Segni, L. 2005. “The Greek Inscriptions.” In Z. Weiss, ed., The Sepphoris Synagogue:
Deciphering an Ancient Message through Its Archaeological and Socio-Historical
Contexts, 209–16. Jerusalem.
Donderer, M. 1989. Die Mosaizisten der Antike und ihre wirtschaftliche und soziale
Stellung. Erlangen.
Dunbabin, K. M. D. 1999. Mosaics of the Greek and Roman World. Cambridge.

Duval, N. 2003. “Les representations architecturales sur les mosaïques chrétiennes

de Jordanie.” In N. Duval, ed., Les églises de Jordanie et leurs mosaïques, 221–85.
Beirut.
Eck, W. 1998. “Inschriften auf Holz.” In P. Kneissel and V. Losemann, eds., Imperium
Romanum: Festschrift für Karl Christ zum 75. Geburtstag, 203–17. Stuttgart.
Evans, H. C., with Ratliff, B. 2012. Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition. New York.
Feissel, D. and Philippidis-Braat, A. 1985. “Inventaires en vue d’un recueil des inscrip-
tions historiques de Byzance. III. Inscriptions du Péloponnèse (à l’exception de
Mistra).” Travaux et mémoires 9: 273–371.
Florescu, F. B. 1965. Das Siegesdenkmal von Adamklissi. Bonn.
Fraser, P. M. and Rönne, T. 1957. Boeotian and West Greek Tombstones. Skrifter / utgivna
av Svenska institutet i Athen 6. Athens.
Frenz, H. G. 1981. “Der Ehrenbogen des Dativius Victor zu Mainz und seine neue
Rekonstruktion.” Bericht der Romisch-Germanischen Kommission des Deutschen
Archäologischen Instituts 62: 220–62.
Galling, K. 1971. “Tafel, Buch und Blatt.” In H. Goedicke, ed., Near Eastern Studies in
Honour of W. F. Albright, 207–23. Baltimore.
Gerstel, S. E. J., ed. 2006. Thresholds of the Sacred: Architectural, Art Historical, Liturgical,
and Theological Perspectives on Religious Screens, East and West. Washington, DC.
Gómez Pallares, J. 1997. Edición y Comentario de las Inscripciones sobre Mosaico de
Hispania. Inscripciones no Cristianas. Rome.
Gómez Pallares, J. 2002. Epigrafia cristiana sobre mosaico de Hispania. Rome.
Grabar, A. 1969. Christian Iconography: A Study of Its Origins. London.
Graham, A. S. 2013. “The Word Is Not Enough: A New Approach to Assessing
Monumental Inscriptions. A Case Study from Roman Ephesos.” American Journal
of Archaeology 117: 383–412.
Harris, W. V. 1989. Ancient Literacy. Cambridge, MA.
Hillner, J. 2007. “Families, Patronage, and the Titular Churches of Rome, c. 300–c. 600.”
In K. Cooper and J. Hillner, eds., Religion, Dynasty, and Patronage in Early Christian
Rome, 300–900, 225–61. Cambridge.
Ihm, C. 1960. Die Programme der christlichen Apsismalerei vom vierten Jahrhundert bis
zur Mitte des achten Jahrhunderts. Wiesbaden.
Illyés, E. 1988. Ethnic Continuity in the Carpatho-Danubian Area. East European
Monographs 249. Boulder, CO.
Jacobsthal, P. 1911. “Zur Kunstgeschichte der griechischen Inschriften.” In Χάριτες.
Friedrich Leo zum sechzigsten Geburtstag dargebracht, 453–65. Berlin.
James, L. 2007. “‘And Shall These Mute Stones Speak?’ Text as Art.” In L. James, ed., Art
and Text in Byzantine Culture, 188–206. Cambridge.
Johnson, W. and Parker, H., eds. 2009. Ancient Literacies: The Culture of Reading in
Greece and Rome. Oxford.

402 Leatherbury
Kawerau, G. and Wiegand, T. 1930. Altertümer von Pergamon, Band V.1, Die Paläste der
Hochburg. Berlin.
Keegan, P., Sears, G. and Laurence, R., eds. 2013. Written Space in the Latin West, 200 BC
to AD 300. London.
Kiilerich, B. 2011. “Visual and Functional Aspects of Inscriptions in Early Church
Floors.” Acta ad archaeologiam et artium historium pertinentia, ns 24: 45–63.
Kitzinger, E. 1951. “Studies on Late Antique and Early Byzantine Floor Mosaics,
I. Mosaics at Nikopolis.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 6: 83–122.
Kitzinger, E. 1965. “Stylistic Developments in Pavement Mosaics in the Greek East
from the Age of Constantine to the Age of Justinian.” La mosaïque gréco-romaine.
Colloques internationaux du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris 1963,
341–51. Paris.
Kitzinger, E. 1970. “The Threshold of the Holy Shrine: Observations on Floor Mosaics at
Antioch and Bethlehem.” In P. Granfield and H. Jungmann, eds., Kyriakon: Festschrift
J. Quasten, vol. 2, 639–47. Münster.
Kondoleon, C. 1994. Domestic and Divine: Roman Mosaics in the House of Dionysos.
Ithaca, NY and London.
Kruschwitz, P., and Campbell, V. L. 2009. “What the Pompeians Saw: Representations
of Document Types in Pompeian Drawings and Paintings (And Their Value for
Linguistic Research).” Arctos 43: 57–84.
Lancha, J. 1997. Mosaïque et culture dans l’Occident romain (Ier-IVe s.). Rome.
Leatherbury, S. V. 2012. Inscribed within the Image: The Visual Character of Early
Christian Mosaic Inscriptions. D.Phil. Thesis, Oxford.
Liverani, P. 2012. “La cronologia della seconda basilica di S. Paolo fuori le mura.” In
H. Brandenburg and F. Guidobaldi, eds., Scavi e scoperte recenti nelle chiese di Roma.
Atti della giornata di studi, Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, 1 marzo 2008,
107–23. Vatican City.
Maguire, H. 1995. “Magic and Geometry in Early Christian Floor Mosaics and Textiles.”
Jahrbuch der österreichischen Byzantinistik 44: 265–74.
Mastino, A. and Teatini, A. 2001. “Ancora sul discusso ‘trionfo’ di Constantino dopo la
battagli a Ponte Milvio.” In A. Bertinelli and A. Donati, eds., Varia Epigraphica. Atti
del Colloquio Internazionale di Epigrafia, 273–327. Faenza.
Matthiae, G. 1962. Le chiese di Roma dal IV al X secolo. Bologna.
Matthiae, G. 1967. Mosaici medioevali delle chiese di Roma, 2 vols. Rome.
Maxwell, J. L. 2006. Christianization and Communication in Late Antiquity: John
Chrysostom and His Congregation in Antioch. Cambridge.
Mayer i Olivé, M. 2012. “Tabulae ansatae votivas en santuarios. Algunas reflexiones
a propósito de las halladas en el posible mitreo de Can Modolell en Cabrera de
Mar (Barcelona).” In G. Baratta and S. M. Marengo, eds., Instrumenta inscripta III.
Manufatti iscritti e vita dei santuari in età romana, 223–45. Macerata.

Merkelbach, R. and Stauber, J. 2002. Steinepigramme aus dem griechischen Osten.

4: Die Südküste Kleinasiens, Syrien und Palaestina. München and Leipzig.
Meyer, E. A. 2004. Legitimacy and Law in the Roman World: Tabulae in Roman Belief and
Practice. Cambridge.
Michel, A. 2001. Les églises d’époque byzantine et umayyade de Jordanie (provinces
d’Arabie et de Palestine) Ve–VIIIe siècle: typologie architecturale et aménagements
liturgiques (avec catalogue des monuments). Turnhout.
Millar, F. 1995. “Latin in the Epigraphy of the Roman Near East.” In H. Solin, O. Salomies,
and U.-M. Liertz, eds., Acta colloquii epigraphi latini (Helsingiae 1991), 403–19.
Helsinki.
Morey, C. R. 1959. The Gold-glass Collection of the Vatican Library, with Additional
Catalogues of Other Gold-glass Collections. Vatican City.
Oakeshott, W. 1967. The Mosaics of Rome. Greenwich, CT.
Östenberg, I. 2009. Staging the World: Spoils, Captives, and Representations in the Roman
Triumphal Procession. Oxford.
Östenberg, I. 2009b. “Titulis oppida capta leget: The role of the written placards in the
Roman triumphal procession.” Mélanges de l’École française de Rome: Antiquité 121:
463–72.
Pallas, D. 1977. Les monuments paléochrétiens de Grèce découverts de 1959 à 1973.
Vatican City.
Panazza, G. 1953. Lapidi e sculture paleocristiane e pre-romaniche di Pavia. Torino.
Pani, G. G. 1986. “Segno e immagini di scrittura: la tabula ansata e il suo significato
simbolico.” Miscellanea greca e romana 10: 429–41.
Pani, G. G. 1988. “Forma, linguaggio e contenuti delle dediche epigrafiche nei
tituli ansati (iv–ix sec. d.C.).” In A. Donati, ed., La terza età dell’epigrafia, 169–94.
Faenza.
Pfanner, M. 1983. Der Titusbogen. Mainz.
Piccirillo, M. 1989. Madaba: le chiese e i mosaici. Milan.
Piccirillo, M. and Alliata, E. 1994. Umm al-Rasas Mayfa’ah, 1. Gli scavi del complesso di
Santo Stefano. Jerusalem.
Piccirillo, M. and Alliata, E. 1998. Mount Nebo: New Archaeological Excavations, 1967–
1997. Jerusalem.
Pike, K. 1967. Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human
Behavior, second edition. The Hague.
Pohl, I. 1978. “Piazzale delle Corporazioni ad Ostia. Tentativo di ricostruzione del
Portico Claudio e la sua decorazione.” Mélanges de l’École française de Rome:
Antiquité 90: 331–55.
Reynolds, M. 1980. “Inscriptions on the Christian Mosaics of Cyrenaica.” In E. Alföldi –
Rosenbaum and J. Ward-Perkins, Justinianic Mosaic Pavements in Cyrenaican
Churches. Rome.

404 Leatherbury
Rhoby, A. 2009. Byzantinische Epigramme, Band 1. Byzantinische Epigramme auf

Fresken und Mosaiken. Vienna.
Rossi, L. 1972. “A Historiographic Reassessment of the Metopes of the Tropaeum Traiani
at Adamklissi.” Archaeological Journal 129: 56–68.
Ryberg, I. S. 1955. Rites of the State Religion in Roman Art. Rome.
Saller, S. and Bagatti, B. 1949. The Town of Nebo. Jerusalem.
Sartori, A. 2007. “Eburnea verba.” In M. David, ed., Eburnea Diptycha. I dittici d’avorio tra
Antichità e Medioevo, 221–43. Bari.
Schepp, S. 2009. “Gehenkelte Schrift: Die Tabula Ansata.” In H.-J. Schalles and S. Willer,
eds., Marcus Caelius. Tod in der Varusschalcht. Ausstellung im LVR-Römermuseum im
Archäologischen Park Zanten vom 23.4.2009 bis 30.8.2009, 114–7. Darmstadt.
Sear, F. 1977. Roman Wall and Vault Mosaics. Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen
Instituts, Roemische Abteilung: Ergänzungsheft, 23. Heidelberg.
Silvagni, A. 1943. Monumenta epigraphica Christiana saeculo XIII antiquiora quae in
Italiae finibus adhuc extstant, 2, Fasc. 3: Pappia. Vatican City.
Sironen, E. 1997. The Late Roman and Early Byzantine Inscriptions of Athens and Attica.
Helsinki.
Spiro, M. 1978. Critical Corpus of the Mosaic Pavements on the Greek Mainland, Fourth/
Sixth Centuries, with Architectural Surveys, 2 vols. New York.
Swift, E. 2009. Style and Function in Roman Decoration: Living with Objects and Interiors.
Aldershot.
Thomas, E. V. 2007. Monumentality and the Roman Empire: Architecture and the
Antonine Age. Oxford.
Thunø, E. 2007. “Looking at Letters: ‘Living Writing’ in S. Sabina in Rome.” Marburger
Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 34: 19–41.
Thunø, E. 2011. “Inscription and Divine Presence: Golden Letters in the Early Medieval
Apse Mosaic.” Word & Image 27,3: 279–91.
Torelli, M. 1982. Typology and Structure of Roman Historical Reliefs. Ann Arbor.
Veyne, P. 1983. “‘Titulus Praelatus’: offrande, solennisation et publicité dans les ex-voto
gréco-romains.” Revue Archéologique 2: 281–300.
Walser, G. 1984. Summus Poeninus. Beiträge zur Geschichte des grossen St. Bernhard-
Passes in römischer Zeit. Wiesbaden.
Weiss, Z. 2005. The Sepphoris Synagogue: Deciphering an Ancient Message through Its
Archaeological and Socio-Historical Contexts. Jerusalem.
Welles, C. 1938. “Inscriptions.” In C. H. Kraeling, ed., Gerasa, City of the Decapolis. New
Haven.
Williamson, C. 1987. “Monuments of Bronze: Roman Legal Documents on Bronze
Tablets.” Classical Antiquity 6: 160–83.
Winkes, R. 1969. Clipeata imago: Studien zu einer römischen Bildnisform. Bonn.
Zelinger, Y. and Di Segni, L. 2006. “A Fourth-Century Church near Lod (Diospolis).”
Liber Annuus 56: 459–68.

Framing Late Antique Texts As Monuments

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Framing Late Antique Texts As Monuments

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Materiality of Text –

Placement, Perception, and

For use by the Author only | © 2019 Koninklijke Brill NV

The Materiality of Text: An Introduction 1

1 What is an ἐπιγραφή in Classical Greece? 29

2 The Aesthetics and Politics of Inscriptions in Imperial Greek

3 The ‘Spatial Dynamics’ of Archaic and Classical Greek Epigram:

4 Lectional Signs in Greek Verse Inscriptions 105

5 Erasures in Greek Public Documents 145

For use by the Author only | © 2019 Koninklijke Brill NV

6 The Authority of Archaic Greek Epigram 169

7 Writing, Women’s Silent Speech 187

8 Hard Verses and Soft Books: The Materials of Elegy 205

9 The Power of the Absent Text: Dedicatory Inscriptions on Greek Sacred

10 Re-Appraising the Value of Same-Text Relationships; a Study of

11 Layers of Urban Life: A Contextual Analysis of Inscriptions in the Public

12 Damnatio Memoriae Inscribed: The Materiality of Cultural

13 Inscriptions between Text and Texture: Inscribed Monuments in Public

14 Framing Late Antique Texts as Monuments: The Tabula Ansata between

For use by the Author only | © 2019 Koninklijke Brill NV

For use by the Author only | © 2019 Koninklijke Brill NV