Garas Klára szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 62-63. (Budapest, 1984)

SZILÁGYI, J. GY.: VIVAS IN DEO

by the pie acclamation. This is likewise the transcription of a Greek word and it indicates that the Early Christian formula was a direct descendant of convivial exhortations, often also accompained by felicitations, which occur on Greek vases from the Archaic age, and several variants of which are known.

10 The Greek version of the Latin formula, which by the Roman Imperial period had hardened into an invariable phrase, appears on a late, one-handled clay vase from Boeotia.

11 Kisa has suggested that the Greek words written with Latin letters which were woven into the Latin formula (e. g. vivas pie zeses, etc.) were most probably often not fully understood.

12 It is thus fairly probable that pie, transliterated into Latin, was occasionally taken as the vocative of pius,

r3 and that the bibas form, reflecting a late pronounciation, was sometimes thought to correspond to the Greek pie if seen on drinking vessels.

1

'

1 The basic formula of the acclamation (bibe pie — vivas/zeses) was for a long time used by both pagans and Christians, and only with the addition of in Deo (in Christo, in Domino, etc.) which can be traced to New Testament Greek,

15 did it become Christianised, as evidenced, for example, by the Budapest ring, the flawless Latin inscription of which preserved the classical Greek formula and adapted it to the mentality of the new era in the same way as its relief adapted the traditions of antique portraits. On the evidence of non-verifiable information from an art-dealer, the second object, a free-blown ewer of dark blue, transparent glass (fig. 26), was found at Brigetio; it reached the Museum in the bequest of Dr. Lóránd Bäsch in 1977.

10 It is intact except for the chipped base. The surface is slightly pitted and iridescent. It has a flaring rim folded inward, with trail of the same colour as the body, applied beneath it. The long cylindrical neck widens to a pearshaped body; the base is folded. A dark blue handle, cylindrical in section, is drawn from the body to a point just beneath the rim. The decoration consists of three rows of opaque light blue glass blobs (now yellowish from weathering), roughly circular in shape, marvered in flush with the surface. The top row of small blobs encircles the lower part of the neck; the middle row of somewhat larger blobs extends around the body just below its greatest circumference; the third row of very small blobs is near the bottom of the body. There is also a series of lightly engraved grooves around the body which are rather hard to detect. Traces of the slightly raised outlines of gold letters can be seen cca. 2.5 cm above the middle ring of blobs. The inscription was probably applied to the vessel with some adhesive as a strip of gold leaf, the letters being formed by M Kretschmer, P.: Griechische Vaseninschriften. Gütersloh, 1894. 195—196; Guarducci: op. cit. III. Roma, 1974. 340—341, 491—492. The form occurs in Greek texts since the Odyssey, see Liddell-Scott, s.v. 11 Furtwängler, A.: Beschreibung d. Vasenslg. im Antiquarium. Berlin, 1885. 1034, no. 4087.; Guarducci: op. cit. III. 341. 1

2 Kisa, A.: Das Glas im Altertume. III. Leipzig, 1908. 862. 13 ILChrV I

2 165, ad nr. 875 D. M Cp. Bös, M.: Kölner Jb. 3 (1958) 24. 1:

' Guarducci : op. cit. IV. 308. For the often inseparable influence of Christianity and the Greek language on late Latin see Löfstedt : op. cit. 88. 16 Inv. No.: 77.213. A. H.: 25.5 cm; diam. of mouth: 6.9 cm; largest diam. of body: 10.1 cm; diam. of base: 7.05 cm. The acquisition of the Bäsch collection: Bull. Mus. Hongr. B.-A. 52 (1979) 105, 167. For the glass ewer see Szilágyi, J. Gy.: Antik művészet. Vezető. Szépművészeti Múzeum. Budapest, 1979. 41 and fig. 32.