Tomb Garden Of P. Paconius Hermeias

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Dates

ca. first - second century CE

Excavation Dates

unspecified

Garden Description

A limestone block found near Patara in front of a tomb building with an arch records the epitaph of P. Paconius Hermeias, also known as Ethicus, citizen of Rhodes and Patara, who some time probably in the second century built for himself, his wife Velia Nike, and their family and freedmen and descendants, “the tomb monument from the foundations, with its vault and ground-floor room and its garden (peribolo) and its platform inside the monument” (τὸ μνημεῖον κατεσκεύασεν ἐκ θεμελίων σὺν τῇ καμάρᾳ καὶ τῷ ἀνωγείῳ οἴκῳ καὶ τῷ περιβόλῳ καὶ τῷ ἐν τῷ μνημείῳ, 1-2); another passage mentions the base (uposorion, 14), which normally rested on the platform foundation (plato) beneath the sarcophagi. No garden is explicitly mentioned, but here, as often elsewhere in western Asia Minor, peribolo probably carries that sense.

Bibliography

J. Kubińska, Les monuments funéraires dans les inscriptions grecques de l’Asie Mineure. Warsaw, 1968, pp. 80-81. (worldcat)
E. Kalinka, Tituli Lyciae linguis Graeca et Latina conscripti (TAM II, 2). Vienna, 1930, no. 438. (worldcat)

Keywords

Places

Patara (Pleiades:639042)