ARYCANDA. - Ancient city of Lycia (Arykanda), today a village called Aruf, where the text of a curious petition sent to Maximinus was found, asking for measures of persecution against the Christians. The latter, a fanatical pagan, had sought, after the edict of toleration of Galerius (April 30, 311), to revive the persecution by every means; among other expedients he provoked from various cities complaints against the Christians and formal demands for persecution (v. Eusebius, Historia eccl., IX, 4 and 7). One of these was the one found in 1892 at A., engraved on a stone slab. It is from 311 or 312 and says:
ARICANDA - Cast of the Museo di Roma of the bilingual inscription of A. with the favorable reply of the emperor Maximinus (Latin text) to the petition (Greek text) made by the inhabitants of Lycia and Pamphylia to persecute the Christians. The original marble is preserved in the Museum of Constantinople.(phot. Museo di Roma)
Valerius Licinianus Licinius, petition of the people of Lycia and Pamphylia: O most divine emperors, since the gods your kinsmen have always favored those who have at heart their worship and who pray to them for the perpetual health of our invincible emperors, we judged it well to appeal to your immortal majesty to ask that the Christians, who for so long have been such and continue still to be so, be at last repressed and cease, with their wicked and new worship, to fail in the respect due to the gods. And this will be obtained, if by a divine and eternal decree of yours all of them are forbidden their impious practices and it is likewise imposed upon them to practice the worship of the gods your kinsmen and to invoke them for your eternal and incorruptible majesty: which thing would evidently be of great advantage to all your subjects.
A portion also remains of the emperor's affirmative reply.
Bibliography4 worksCIL, XIII, 12132 and 13625 §; E. Diehl, Inscriptiones latinae christianae veteres, I, Berlin 1945, p. 1, n. 12-b; A. Manaresi, L'impero roma
BIBL.: CIL, XIII, 12132 and 13625 §; E. Diehl, Inscriptiones latinae christianae veteres, I, Berlin 1945, p. 1, n. 12-b; A. Manaresi, L'impero romano e il cristianesimo, Turin 1914, p. 488 ff.; I. Barini, La politica religiosa di Messimino Dain, in Historia, 2 (1928), pp. 716-30.
Ferrua, Antonio. “Aricanda.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. I, coll. 1896–1897. Città del Vaticano: Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1948. https://azioneromana.com/article/aricanda.
MLA
Ferrua, Antonio. “Aricanda.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. I, Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1948, coll. 1896–1897. Azione Romana, https://azioneromana.com/article/aricanda.
BibTeX
@incollection{ec1_aricanda,
author = {Ferrua, Antonio},
title = {Aricanda},
booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
volume = {I},
pages = {1896--1897},
note = {Cited by column},
publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
address = {Città del Vaticano},
year = {1948},
url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/aricanda}
}
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