Between Licentia Epigraphica, Linguistic “Intrusions,” and the Stonecutter’s Inexpertise: What Bilingual Inscriptions Reveal about Stonecutters’ Language and Epigraphic Practice in Late Antique Rome

The phenomenon of bilingualism is manifest in Christian inscriptions from late antique Rome. The material assembled in ICUR, IGUR, CII, and processed in the Epigraphic Database Bari, documents the co-presence of Greek and Latin from the third to the eighth century in over five hundred instances, attesting both to the durability and to the diversity of forms of this linguistic coexistence. Within the (predominantly funerary) corpus, four principal types may be distinguished: (1) Properly bilingual inscriptions, in which the same message is expressed in two distinct linguistic and alphabetic systems; (2) Fully or partially transliterated texts—most often Latin written in the Greek alphabet; (3) Co-presence of two alphabets within a single word; (4) Juxtaposition of Greek and Latin in opening and closing formulae, as well as in characteristic words, expressions, and signs (e.g., ἰχθύς, ΔΜ, XPĪ). In this paper, by analyzing representative examples from these categories, I aim to demonstrate transformations in the broadly conceived epigraphic culture between the third and the fifth centuries—above all, the diminishing role of specialized stonecutting workshops alongside the rising output of “non-professional,” occasional lapicidae. I also seek to identify which features of layout and which epigraphic signs allow us to detect a Greek or Latin linguistic “specialization” on the part of the stonecutter, and at times the preferences of the commissioner. By distinguishing conventional epigraphic mannerism from incidental intrusions or outright errors arising from limited linguistic competence, I will show to what extent bilingual inscriptions function as carriers of information about the evolving language culture of late antique Rome.