Chapter Five5. EPIGRAMS ON WORKS OF ART
In the church of the Panagia Phorbiotissa at Asinou, on the island of
Cyprus, a fresco that depicts the trial of the Forty Martyrs of Sebasteia
freezing to death in an icy lake, bears the following verse inscription:
Ceimân tñ lypo ̄n, s2rx tñ p1scon ™nq1deº
prosscân äko7seiß kaò stenagmñn mart7rznº
eœ d\ oJk äko7seiß, kartero ̄si tën b5an
prñß t2 st6óh bl6ponteß, oJ prñß toáß pönoyß^1.“Winter it is that causes pain, flesh it is that suffers here. If you pay
attention, you may even hear the groans of the martyrs; but if you do not
listen, they will still endure the violent cold, looking to their crowns and not to
their toils”.
The fresco (along with other murals) was donated to the church at Asinou
by a local official, Nikephoros Magistros, in the year 1105–06. The text he had
inscribed on it, however, is considerably older than the fresco itself, for it is an
epigram by the late tenth-century poet John Geometres, which can be found in
many manuscripts^2. Although the epigram was not written especially for this
particular image of the Forty Martyrs, it “is certainly very appropriate to the
image at Asinou, for the fresco graphically shows the suffering flesh of the
martyrs, who hug themselves for warmth. One of the martyrs, depicted third
from the left in the second row from the top, even covers his mouth with his
hand, as if to stifle the groans that are mentioned in the poem. At the same
time, two of the martyrs at the top point upwards, as if, in the words of the last
verse, they were looking to their crowns and not to their toils”^3. The fact that
Geometres’ epigram is found on a much later fresco at Asinou may perhaps
(^1) Ed. W.H. BUCKLER, Archaeologia 83 (1933) 340, M. SACOPOULOU, Asinou en 1106 et sa
contribution à l’ iconographie. Brussels 1966, 56, and H. MAGUIRE, DOP 31 (1977) 152,
n. 156. The text printed here is that of Sajdak’s edition (see following footnote); the
inscription is illegible at certain spots and presents a rather garbled version of the
epigram: t! b5ô (v. 3) and bl6poysin (v. 4).
(^2) Ed. STERNBACH 1897: 157, and SAJDAK 1929: 197 (no. S. 8). See below, Appendix II,
pp. 298–299.
(^3) MAGUIRE 1996: 12.