The Damasan inscriptions comprise c. 60 poems in honour of saints and martyrs, composed by pope Damasus I (366-384), and executed on large marble plaques with very fine, usually red, lettering by the talented 4th c. calligrapher Furius Dionysius Filocalus. The inscriptions were displayed in Rome, at saints' and martyrs' tombs, and were an important part of the programme of monumentalisation of the sites of saintly cult, initiated by the pope. The remains of many of these inscriptions have been found, but others are known only through manuscript transmission. Those which are fragmentary can be completed from the manuscript copies – especially syllogae that are medieval collections of copies of metrical inscriptions from the city’s late antique suburban martyria and basilicae as well as its urban churches. For Damasus’ epigrams the most important syllogae are: the sylloge Laureshamensis (Vat. Pal. 833) from the ninth-tenth centuries; the sylloge Centulensis (of cod. Petropolitano F XIV 1) from the eighth-ninth centuries; and the sylloge Turonensis derived from a seventh-century exemplar and surviving in several later manuscripts (e.g. Closterburgensis 723 and Gottweihensis 64). For more about the manuscripts containing Damasus’ poems see Trout 2015, p. 63-65.

 

This poem is composed in hexameters. The full text is preserved by a number of syllogae: Laureshamensis, Einsidlensis,Turonensis and Centulensis. In the early eighteenth century a fragment of the titulus was discovered in the catacomb of Commodilla, most likely in gallery B, which contained among others the tombs of Felix and Adauctus. The stone preserves parts of lines 3-6 and is inscribed in elegant Philocalian script.

 

The catacomb of Commodilla was initially a pozzolano quarry and funerary use began only with the deposition of Felix and Adauctus in gallery A/B, then the basilichetta. The oldest dateable tombs belong to the first half of the fourth century. Roughly contemporary with Damasus’ elogium is a painting in the basilichetta of two saints, presumably Felix and Adauctus, acclaiming a Christogram (see Nestori 1993, p. 142). For the catacomb of Commodilla see Barbini 1998, p. 218-221.

 

(by Katarzyna Wojtalik, Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity E07152)