Diomedes

ON ST. DIOMEDES, MARTYR, AT LEUCOPOLIS IN CARIA,

AT AN UNCERTAIN TIME.

SYLLOGE.

Diomedes, martyr, at Leucopolis in Caria. (S.)

BY H. M.

What we find happening not rarely with the more ancient martyrs whose deeds have not been written, The cult of St. Diomedes at Constantinople, namely that their memory, with new saints being added on top, altogether vanishes from the tables of the ecclesiastical calendars, we understand has happened today in the case of St. Diomedes, martyr of Leucopolis. For he who is announced in the older calendars is so banished from the more recent that after the thirteenth century we find no trace of him. The monuments of Constantinople indeed, whether they are synaxaries or menaea, which bear the name of the holy martyr, cannot be judged younger than that age, both on account of the antiquity of all the saints who are named, and on account of the order of the feasts, very much at variance with the Menology of Sirleto and the printed Menaea. And they are, in the first place, the Sirmond Synaxary, of the eleventh century, which, as the very learned J. H. Nolte informed me, passed from the Clermont College of the Society of Jesus to the Meerman library, and thence to the literary treasury of the English knight Thomas Phillipps at Middlehill Haenel, Catalogi Codd. Mss., p. 844, cod. 372 Meerm.; then come in order of time, as I conjecture from the announcements, certain Menaea of uncertain origin, others of Mazarin and finally two of Milan, the calendars of all of which our predecessors copied out.

[2] and among the Greeks of Italy. Now that the cult of the holy martyr at Constantinople was very old is demonstrated by the Neapolitan calendar, which, carved on marble in the ninth century, was certainly taken for the greatest part from books of Constantinople Mai, Scriptt. vett., vol. V, p. 64. In this monument one reads: P. S. DIOMIDII P. of St. Diomidius, an announcement which, since at the 16th day of August the name of St. Diomedes, the very celebrated martyr of Nicaea, is absent from those calendars, someone might perhaps suppose did not belong to St. Diomedes of Leucopolis, were it not for the fact that in some calendars at the 28th day of October open mention is made of Leucopolis. Moreover a second testimony from the Greeks of Italy is brought to us by the calendar of the Eclogadion of Grottaferrata, written at the beginning of the eleventh century, in which, as it seems to me, the last indication of the cult of St. Diomedes in Italy is marked. For in the Menaea which, before a whole century had elapsed, Nilus II, abbot of Grottaferrata, copied out for the use of his own Toscani, ad typica Græcorum animadversiones, pp. 12, 40 and 80, the name of this saint is absent. The memory of St. Diomedes lasted longer at Constantinople, without doubt because his relics were at some time carried off to one of the very numerous churches of this city Du Cange, Cpolis christ., Book III, p. 1 and following; for it is not likely that his feast was kept in all the churches, on account of the silence of the Calendar of Constantinople edited by Morcelli, in which the feasts common to the whole city seem chiefly to be shown.

[3] at Leucopolis in Caria, The name and cult of St. Diomedes, then, are placed beyond all controversy, as is also the very title of martyr, which all the calendars ascribe to him: but, these excepted, only a few things, and those very doubtful, can be asserted about him. The place of his martyrdom indeed, Leucopolis, in Greek Λευκόπολιν or Λευκούπολιν, is openly designated by all the calendars, the Italian ones excepted; but in what province this city was situated they by no means indicate. Which certainly makes us altogether uncertain, since we find such a name in one author only, Pliny the Elder Hist. Nat., Book V, no. 29. Hardouin edition. Cf. P. Mela, Book I, ch. 16, and indeed in circumstances which, far from removing the doubt, greatly increase it. For after he has said that Doris, or the colonies of the Dorians in Caria, is surrounded by Caria, which on both sides extends to the sea, and that it begins from Cnidus, he goes on thus: In the bay of Doris, Leucopolis, Hamaxitos, Elaeus, Euthene. Then the towns of Caria, Pitaium, Eutane, Halicarnassus … Then Myndos, and where Palaemyndus was, Nariandus, Neapolis, Caryanda, free Termera, Bargyla, and the town from which the Iasian bay is named, Iasus. Leucopolis, therefore, Pliny places in the bay of Doris, or in the Ceramic bay, which is now the bay of Cos *: but apart from the fact that we rightly suspect certain things are not accurately indicated by this author, no one up to now, after the journeys of the illustrious men Pococke, Chandler, Choiseul-Gouffier, Leake, Hamilton, Texier, whose works I have before my eyes, has determined with certainty the site of those cities which lay around the bay of Doris. Between Cnidus, then, and Halicarnassus, which is a coast, for those following it, of a space of about 200 kilometres, Leucopolis is to be sought. But here we stick in doubt because of certain words of Pomponius Mela, whose works Pliny used. For he says: Beyond Halicarnassus are these, the shore of Leuca, the cities Myndos, Caryanda, Neapolis, the Iasian and Bargylian bays. But since we find some kinship of appellation between the shore of Leuca and Leucopolis, it would be natural to conjecture that these places were neighbouring; which however seems hardly to stand with the words of Pliny and Mela. For according to the older of these authors, the shore of Leuca would be situated between Halicarnassus and the Iasian bay, that is in the northern part of the peninsula to the south of which, if trust is given to Pliny, Leucopolis stood. But they will be reconciled without difficulty

the sayings of the ancients, if there was called Leuca not only the tract of country which lay along the sea, but also parts further inland, whence we shall say that Leucopolis lay in the northern part of the Ceramic bay, and indeed not far from the shore, in a place, as we shall see below, not too remote from Mylasa. To designate the site more accurately, however, all the old geographers being silent, except Pliny and Pomponius Mela, and the more recent explorers of these places holding up no torch, we should not attempt without rashness.

[4] he suffered not far from Mylasa at an uncertain time. But why we should believe that Leucopolis was not far distant from Mylasa must now be explained. We read, namely, in the Acts of St. Eusebia, who in the fifth century lived piously and died at Mylasa, that the memory was celebrated of St. Ephrem, once bishop of Mylasa [Acta SS., vol. II of January, pp. 600 and 601; Migne, Patr. Gr., vol. CXIV, col. 991], at the village of Leuce, ἐν Λευκῇ κώμῃ, in which his body had been laid. Behold, then, we have three testimonies which in a certain measure refer this name Leucopolis to about the same tract of country. We must therefore conclude that St. Diomedes suffered at Leucopolis, an undistinguished place of Caria (for the word πόλις has more than one notion, as may be seen in Suicer), very near to the very celebrated city of Mylasa. And since our whole business must here be carried on by conjectures, we shall add also a certain other opinion which that passage of the Acts suggests to us. We are certainly inclined to believe that in early times the Christians stood in the village near the city, and indeed not far from the port, so that the approach to the other churches placed on the shore of Asia might be more free. Add that Mylasa, like the other cities of Caria, was altogether devoted to the worship of idols and so abounded in temples that, as Athenaeus reports Book VIII, ch. XIX, p. 348. Lyon edition, 1612, Stratonicus the citharist, when he had landed there and had looked on few men but many temples, addressed these, not those, with the verses: Ἀκούετε νάοι, hear, O temples. In the suburbs, then, remained the Christians, poor and hated by all; here St. Diomedes suffered, perhaps following the example of that Ephrem, of whom history has preserved only the name. Finally I should suppose that he was presented with the crown of martyrdom rather under Diocletian or under Licinius, since I should believe that in inner Caria before these times there were scarcely any Christians. For the name of no bishop of this province is read in the ecclesiastical records before the council of Nicaea. Very few martyrs also are shown by the martyrologies to have suffered in that region: we find only St. Thyrsus under Decius Acta SS., vol. II of January, p. 808 and following, and St. Acacius under Licinius Ibid., vol. VI of July, p. 547, both at Miletus, a city which, situated on the very borders of Caria, is more often assigned to Ionia, and then Sts. Diodorus and Rhodopianus Ibid., vol. I of May, p. 382, under Diocletian, at Aphrodisias, the metropolis of Caria, slain by their fellow citizens on account of the faith of Christ.

* Golfe de Stanco.