RATIONES RERUM 18: Articolo Emiliano Arena

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Rationes Rerum 18

EMILIANO ARENA
Due nuove epigrafi funerarie da Messana tardo-ellenistica: donne mamertine nella tomba a camera di Largo Avignone

The chamber tomb of “Largo Avignone”, in the southern necropolis of Messana, has given back two of the three Greek funerary inscriptions of Hellenistic date found so far in the necropolis of the ancient city. Both are inscribed on lekanai used as cinerary, concern two women, Νοϋία Ὀππία and Πακύα Ποντία, and probably date, respectively, to the last decades of the 3rd and to first half of the 2nd century BC. The use of the praenomen and the gentilicium proves the Italic origin and the ancestry of both women from the Mamertini, the former Agatokles’ mercenaries of Campanian and Samnite origin, who in 288 B.C. took over Messana and transformed it into an Oscan community. If the epitaph of Πακύα is significant, due to a peculiar Greek remodeling of the Oscan praenomen (to be understood as Latin Paquia/Pacuvia), that of Νοϋία 1) represents one of the oldest known documents (other than coinage) pertaining to the Mamertine component of the city and recording the use of Greek; 2) is coeval to the last public Oscan inscriptions of Messana written in Greek alphabet; 3) testifies to the transition from the use of Oscan language to that of Greek by the Mamertini.