Elpide(also known as ElpisorElphe) was a Christian Latin poetess born in the V century AD. Her whole life is somehow shrouded in mystery and her whole existence is by some denied. According to tradition, she was the first wife of Roman politician and philosopher Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius and mother of his sons, Patricius and Hypatius. Nonetheless, according to other academics (if she really existed) she might have married a namesake of the famous philosopher.
Those who context Elpide’s marriage to Severinus Boethius, point out contemporary sources and the fact that same philosopher only talks about his wife Rusticiana, daughter of Roman historian and politician Q. Aurelius Memmius Symmachus, who would give him at least two sons, Flavius BoethiusandFlavius Symmachus. Yet, this doesn’t necessarily disconfirm the existence of another wife. Plus in The Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius writes about fathers-in-law(“Quis non te felicissimum cum tanto splendore socerorum[…]”), fact that would again support the theory of more marriages from his part.
From the first line of her epitaph we learn that she was born, or at least she grew up in Sicily (“Siculae Regionis alumna”). Two cities have since long competing (in heated terms, to the point of almost physically fighting over it in 1819) about the honour of being her birthplace: Messina and Palermo.
The Strait city has a long literary tradition (which goes back to XV century) concerning Elpide’s origins. According to its scholars, Elpide was the daughter of Messinese patrician Titus Annius Placidus and the sister of Faustina, mother of Saint Placidus (one of Saint Benedict of Nursia’s disciples).
Palermo’s academics, on the other hand, dispute the Messinese theory and argue that Elpide was born in Palermo, where she met her future husband who had stayed for a while in that city and, if he took a wife there and then, it would have been more plausible she was a Palermo’s native born. In 1643 a bas-relief portraying Elpide was recovered in Palermo. Since its finder was Messinese Mario Caridi, he managed to have it transferred to Messina, where it was displayed with an annexed plaque which indicated said city as Elpide’s birthplace.
Aside from these geographical controversies, Elpide was described by sources (which, it’s important to point out, are all posthumous) by many as an educated and virtuous woman. An anonymous scholar from Palermo goes as far as suggesting she was the authoress of philosophical works whose authorship was later stolen by her husband.
Two sacred hymns, dedicated to the Saints Peter and Paul and featured in ancient breviaries, are traditionally attributed to her: Felix per Omnes andAurea Lux. Following this attribution, Spanish poet Lopez de Vega considers Elpide the creator of the heptasyllabus verse. These hymns were sung on January 18th and 23rd, February 22nd, June 29th and August 1st.
Elpide died around 504 in Rome, where she had transferred after marrying. She was probably buried in the first St. Peter Basilica, given that her epitaph was said to have been originally placed on the porch of said Basilica.
Boethius would then remarry to the more famous Rusticiana and lead his life as a trusted official at the court of the Ostrogoth King Theodoric the Great, who at that time ruled over a large part of Italy. Later on, he would fall from power and accused of treason, together with his father-in-law, Symmachus. Condemned to death by Theodoric, he would be executed in 524 (or 525) in Pavia (followed by Symmachus the year later). Boethius was then interred in the same city, in the Church of San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro, where Elpide’s epitaph was said to have been transferred, facing her husband’s sepulchre. Nowadays, there’s no trace of such inscription, still many trustworthy antiquaries saw it and wrote down its text, which has arrived to us.
February 5th 251 aD - Martyrdom of Saint Agatha of Catania
The traveller Blunt, during a stay in Italy in the beginning of this century, was struck with the many points which modern saints and ancient gods have in common. He gives a description of the festival of St Agatha at Catania, of which he was an eye-witness, and which to this day, as I have been told, continues little changed. The festival, as Blunt describes it, opened with a horse-race, which he knew from Ovid was one of the spectacles of the festival of the goddess Ceres; and further he witnessed a mummery and the carrying about of huge torches, both of which he also knew formed part of the old pagan festival.But more remarkable than this was a great procession which began in the evening and lasted into the night; hundreds of citizens crowded to draw through the town a ponderous car, on which were placed the image of the saint and her relics, which the priests exhibited to the ringing of bells. Among these relics were the veil of Agatha, to which is ascribed the power of staying the eruption of Mount Aetna, and the breastsof the saint, which were torn off during her martyrdom.Catania, Blunt knew, had always been famous for the worship of Ceres, and the ringing of bells and a veil were marked features of her festivals, the greater and the lesser Eleusinia. Menzel tells us that huge breasts were carried about on the occasion. Further, Blunt heard that two festivals took place yearly in Catania in honour of Agatha; one early in the spring, the other in the autumn, exactly corresponding to the time when the greater and lesser Eleusinia were celebrated. Even the name Agatha seemed but a taking over into the new religion of a name sacred to the old. Ceres was popularly addressed as Bona Dea, and the name Agatha, which does not occur as a proper name during ancient times, seemed but a translation of the Latin epithet into Greek.
The legend of Agatha as contained in the Acta Sanctorum places her existence in the third century and gives full details concerning her parentage, her trials and her martyrdom; but I have not been able to ascertain when it was written. Agatha is the chief saint of the district all about Catania, and we are told that her fame penetrated at an early date into Italy and Greece.
It is of course impossible actually to disprove the existence of a Christian maiden Agatha in Catania in the third century.Some may incline to the view that such a maiden did exist, and that a strange likeness between her experiences and name on the one hand, and the cult of and epithet applied to Ceres on the other, led to the popular worship of her instead of the ancient goddess. The question of her existence as a Christian maiden during Christian times can only be answered by a balance of probabilities. Our opinion of the truth or falsehood of the traditions concerning her rests on inference, and the conclusion at which we arrive upon the evidence must largely depend on the attitude of mind in which we approach the subject.
The late Professor Robertson Smith has insisted that myths are latter-day inventions which profess to explain surviving peculiarities of ritual. If this be so, we hold in the Eleusinia a clue to the incidents of the Agatha legend. The story for example of her veil, which remained untouched by the flames when she was burnt, may be a popular myth which tries to account for the presence of the veil at the festival. The incident of the breasts torn off during martyrdom was invented to account for the presence of these strange symbols.
Instances of this kind could be indefinitely multiplied. Let the reader, who wishes to pursue the subject on classic soil, examine the name, the legend and the emblem of St Agnes, virgin martyr of Rome, who is reputed to have lived in the third century and whose cult is well established in the fourth; let him enquire into the name, legend and associations of St Rosalia of Palermo, invoked as a protectress from the plague, of whom no mention occurs till four centuries after her reputed existence.
“Ramsom of Hector’s body”, Roman Villa del Tellaro, Noto (Sicily) IV century aD. Odysseus, Achilles and Diomedes are identified by inscription in Greek. Priam’s figure is lost, while of Hector remain only the legs.
The Villa Romana del Casale (Sicilian: Villa Rumana dû Casali) is a large and elaborate Roman villa or palace located about 3 km from the town of Piazza Armerina, Sicily. Excavations have revealed one of the richest, largest, and varied collections of Roman mosaics in the world, for which the site has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The villa and artwork contained within date to the early 4th century AD.
