Pig stele of Edessa

The pig stele of Edessa is a Roman-era illustrated Greek funerary stele from Edessa, Macedonia. The relief depicts a man on a four-wheeled chariot with four horses and two pigs, one under the wheel and one under the horse hooves. The inscription reads:

A copy of the stele in Edessa

Text

Translation	Greek text[1]
A pig, friend to everybody a young four-footed one here I lie, having left behind the land of Dalmatia, as an offered gift, at Dyrrachion I walked Apollonia yearning and all the road I crossed on foot alone steadily. But by the force of a wheel I have now lost the light longing to see Emathia and the Phallic chariot Here now I lie, owing nothing to death anymore	χοῖρος ὁ πᾶσι φίλος, τετράπους νέος, ἐνθάδε κεῖμαι Δαλματίης δάπεδον προλιπὼν δῶρον προσενεχθείς καὶ Δυρράχιν δὲ ἐπάτησα Ἀπολλωνίαν τε ποθήσας καὶ πᾶσαν γαίην διέβην ποσὶ μοῦνος ἄλιπτος νῦν δὲ τροχοῖο βίῃ τὸ φάος προλέλοιπα Ἠμαθίην δὲ ποθῶν κατιδεῖν φαλλοῖο δὲ ἅρμα ἐνθάδε νῦν κεῖμαι τῷ θανάτῳ μηκέτ’ ὀφειλόμενος

Analysis

In antiquity, Greek and Latin epitaphs for animals, either real or in jocular fiction, constitute a traditional poetic theme. Epigrams in the seventh book of the Greek Anthology commemorate a dolphin, a cicada, a partridge, a swallow, a jay, an ant, a grasshopper, a rabbit, a horse, and, most famously, a Maltese watchdog.^[2] The funerary relief of Edessa is unique in antiquity in commemorating a pig and a traffic accident.^[3][4]

While the inscription is noteworthy for its description of the Via Egnatia and information on Phallic processions, the main controversy concerns the interpretation of the word CHOIROS, inscribed like the rest of the poem in Greek majuscule. Is the inscription about a pig (choiros) or a man named Choiros? Choirilos is attested as a name, as are other personal names such as Choiron, Choirothyon ("pig-sacrificer"), Choiridion, Choirine (-a), Choiro, Choiris (female) and around twenty males were named Choiros.^[5]

If the inscription refers to an actual pig the story might be reconstructed as follows: A pig-merchant, engaged in business on the Via Egnatia, bought pigs from Dalmatia and conveyed them on a chariot. At Edessa, a pig fell off the chariot and was crushed under the wheel. An artist and poet created the relief and epitaph, either commissioned by the merchant or on their own. The information that the pig travelled on foot alone steadily would be intended humorously; so too the comment that it longed to see the Dionysiac Phallic processions, if indeed pigs were sacrificed there.^[6] Another possible reconstruction is that pigs, bought in Dalmatia, were walking down a road in Edessa, led by a priest for the Dionysiac festival, when a chariot or the Phallic chariot crushed one. This may explain the fact that two pigs are depicted.

If the inscription refers to a man named Choiros we might interpret it thus: A slave freed (as an offered gift) at Dalmatia, traveled alone on the Via Egnatia to his friends or relatives. At Edessa, he died in a chariot accident. Artists who heard the story made the relief and poem, playing on his name. In Christian funerary steles, a certain Pontius Leo had a lion depicted on his epitaph and a little pig was added to that of a child named Porcella.^[7]

A third line of interpretation might see the poem and stele as a purely fictional creation.

References

Notes

1. SEG 25:711 - 2nd/3rd c. AD - Poetic Greek with Homericisms, six dactylic hexameter, of which one incomplete
2. by Tymnes, 7.211
3. We know only about chariot race accidents in classical antiquity. Hippolytus and Pergamon Museum, c. 300 CE
4. Cf. English-Latin poem: Hic jacet porcus fulgure ictus - On a pig killed in thunder-storm
5. Χοιρο-
6. a usual offer to Greek and Roman deities, see pig in religion
7. Epitaphs of the catacombs, or, Christian inscriptions in Rome during the first four centuries by James Spencer Northcote Page 175 (1878)

Bibliography

• G. Daux, "Epitaphe métrique d'un jeune porc, victime d'un accident," Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 94 (1970), 609-618.
• Supplementum epigraphicum graecum, Volume 26 edited by H W Pleket Page 182 (1976)
• Athens annals of archaeology, Volumes 3-4 Page 84 (1970)
• Opuscula romana, Volume 28 By Svenska institutet i Rom Page 47 2003
• Commentary by Photis Petsas mostly in Greek and following summary in English, under the Society for Macedonian Studies.