The Stele of Asteris: A Brief Encounter in Dalmatia
Fresh from my Living Latin in Rome trip in July of 2018, I left two weeks later for the Dalmatian Coast in Croatia to see my extended family. With the images of ancient ruins still brewing in my mind, I visited the Archaeological Museum in Split fifty miles north of our home in little Podgora, where I found myself surrounded once again by curious remnants of antiquity. The Archaeological Museum, which was founded in 1820 by a decree of the Dalmatian government, houses many funerary stelae that were originally located in Salona, which was once the capital of the Roman Province of Dalmatia. Salona was founded in the 3rd century B.C. by the Greeks. During the reign of Emperor Diocletian (284–305 A.D.) Salona’s prosperity reached its greatest height, with a population peaking at 60,000. People of different backgrounds settled in Salona because of its importance as a center of trade and commerce.
For those of you unfamiliar with stelae, they are wooden or stone slabs erected as grave monuments. Because the Twelve Tables forbade Romans to bury their dead within the confines of the city walls, stelae lined the roads outside of the city. Most stelae were simple and patronymic, stating the given name and the name of the father. Some had depictions of the deceased people carved in stone, while others were simpler, following a Greek tradition.
As I walked the corridors of the museum one of the many stelae lining the halls of the outdoor garden caught my eye — a stele of the boy Asteris, dated to the beginning of the 4th century A.D, mounted on a stone wall and catching a little afternoon sunlight from the open courtyard. Little about this stele is known with any certainty. We do not know who found it or its precise location, for example, but likely it had been discovered at the beginning of the 19th century among the ruins of Salona. It stands 1.8 feet high and 1.3 feet wide. The top section is damaged (cause unknown), so only part of the sculpture of Asteris is shown. The bottom part, an engraving of a metrical epitaph in Greek, is fully intact and readable.
What first caught my eye was that this Roman funerary stele was written in Greek. The majority of other stelae in the corridors of the museum that I had observed were written in Latin with no Greek present. But after some further thought this turned out not to be too surprising considering that Salona in the 4th century A.D. had inhabitants from all over the Mediterranean, including ethnic Greeks.
ΡΟΥΡΟΝ ΠΡΩΘΗΒΗΝ ΣΦΕΤΕΡΩΝ ΜΕΓ ΑΓΑΛΜΑ ΤΟΚΗΩΝ ΑΣΤΕΡΙΝ ΕΚ ΒΙΟΤΗΣ ΒΑΣΚΑΝΟΣ ΗΡ ΑΙΔΗΣ ΚΕΙΤΑΙ Δ ΕΝ ΛΗΝΩ ΤΗΔ ΗΛΕΥΣΕΙΣ ΠΑΡΟΔΕΙΤΑΔΑΚΡΥΑ ΚΑΙ ΣΤΟΝΑΧΑΣ ΟΙΣΙ ΛΙΠΩΝ ΓΕΝΕΤΑΙΣ ΕΥΘΥΜΕΙ ΑΣΤΕΡΕΙ ΠΟΛΛΟΙ ΠΡΟ ΣΟΥ ΠΟΛΛΟΙ ΜΕΤΑ ΣΕ ΟΥΔΕΙΣ ΑΘΑΝΑΤΟΣ
The flower of youth, the great pride of his parents, / Asteris was taken by wicked Hades. The urn you behold, passer-by, contains his ashes. / For his father and mother remain tears and grief. / Rejoice, Asteris, many have gone before you, / still many will follow you — remember, no one is immortal.
While reading this epitaph I was also struck by the depth of emotion that parents had for the passing of their child. The verse is so very personal that we, millennia later, can identify with the grief of the mother and father who remind themselves and their readers that all are mortal. The stele also commemorates Asteris as a stenographer because he is depicted holding a slate with markings associated with this profession. It was possible — likely, even — that he was the sole supporter of his family, but unfortunately, we will never know the truth. Could it be that their grief was partially a fear for their own future welfare? In the Roman tradition, children had a duty to take care of their parents. Perhaps the idea is not so far-fetched after all.
The slate containing the stenographic markings is perhaps the most intriguing element in the monument. The slate is held by a hand connected to an arm, but the whole piece containing what might have been a body and head have disappeared. In fact, it was this part of the stele that first caught my eye. Even today these ancient markings have not been deciphered in a conclusive way. Stenography was a form of shorthand which began in Ancient Greece and was adopted later on by the Roman Empire to capture speeches or legal proceedings in a timely manner. This job was sometimes given to citizens of a lower class, and even freed slaves. But since there was no single stenographic system in use we cannot be sure exactly what the markings correspond to. The museum gives a possible translation as: “All those who respected Asteris helped his parents to purchase this monument.” According to our conversations with Boris Car, the curator of the Hellenic collection of the museum who happened to be on the premises that day (he was just on his way to the island of Vis, once the Greek town of Issa where the museum houses another collection), the translation has not been fully substantiated. However, it is consistent with the idea that Asteris was the bread-winner of his family and that his demise was a source of economic stress to his family, who had to raise money to help pay for his stele. But as to the cause of his death, and even the age at which it happened and the subsequent effects on his mother and father, we know nothing.
I have visited Croatia many times. This time, following my trip to Rome with Paideia, I saw the country and its history with fresh eyes. The ancient sites in today’s Croatia still hold mysteries to be deciphered by future scholars. The Palace of Diocletian in Split, the Archeological Museum, the far-flung ruins that are to be found standing in open air and inside many small museums on the many Dalmatian islands along the Adriatic Coast, and even the island of Melita (today, Mljet) that is said to house the cove where Ulysses was bewitched by the sirens, are all vibrant reminders of a classical world. The stele of poor forgotten Asteris and his mother and father is but one tiny fragment in a world of forgotten mystery — but it is there.
Noah Apter was a student in the Living Latin in Rome High School program in summer 2018. He attends the Wardlaw-Hartridge School in Edison, New Jersey, taking a particular interest in Ancient Greek.
