Fragments of three panels of wall revetment of white marble. The inscription is in two lines.

In l. 1: inverted 4-bar Σ; in l. 2: normal squared lunate sigma.

1 [Μα]ρκελλ̣[ε]ῖνος: Petzl; the (common) name is attested in Sardis; see Sardis VII 1, no. 191; cf. no. 534 (-]ΛΕΙΝ[-). [Αὐ]ρ. Κελαινός, edd. (Κελαιός by typing error, Kroll). The gap between ΚΕΛΑ̣ and ΙΝΟΣ would be disproportionally long; “lacune d’une lettre, Κελα̣[.]ινος,” D. Feissel, BE 2002, 614. Furthermore one would expect, as in the other cases of the Synagogue inscriptions, a mark of abbreviation after [Αὐ]ρ. - Kroll recognizes in ΑΘΑΙ̣[ - - ] the beginning either of the name Ἀθανάσιος or—less probably—of Ἀθάμας. The Sardian citizen Marcellinus will presumably have given his father’s name Atha[ - - ] in the genitive (contra Ameling, p. 265 n. 197), rather than having Atha[ - - ] following as his second name.

2 τῆς τετραφη̣[κυίας] (or -φι̣[κυίας] or τετραφώ̣[σης]): Petzl; after Φ, the remains of the upper part of a vertical stroke are preserved. ΤΕΤΡΑΦΙ̣[ - - ], Kroll (Ameling and SEG, without Ι̣; the letter cannot be a E). For the form see Polyb. 12, 25h, 5: τέτραφε τέκνα, said of a father. From this type of perfect, the genitive of the feminine participle could be, in analogy, e.g., to τεθνεώσης: τετραφώσης, the regular form τετραφυίας being palaeographically improbable. The alternatives τετραφη̣[κυίας] / -φι̣[κυίας] could be paralleled—showing a slightly different itacistic spelling—by the perfect forms ἀνατετραφεικέναι, TAM II 3, 1104, 16 (Olympos; see LSJ Suppl. s.v. τρέφω) and ἀνατετραφειμένῃ TAM II 3, 611, 7–8 (Tlos).

As Marcellinus’s biological mother would be included among “his relatives,” τῶν ἰδίων, the additionally mentioned τετραφῶσα / τετραφηκυῖα, whose name ended in -αδια (e.g., Γενναδία, Λαμπαδία, Παλλαδία [cf. a presbyteros Παλλάδιος in Ameling, Inscr. Jud. Or. II, p. 527, no. 248, 20], Πενταδία), will probably have been his foster mother/nurse, the participle being an equivalent to the noun ἡ τροφός. The close relation between nurse and nursling is epigraphically well attested; on the Ammon temple of Luxor in Egypt, a proskynema is written down by Sisines on behalf of himself and το(ῦ) πατρὸς κα(ὶ) τῶν ἀδελφῶν καὶ τῆς τροφοῦ μου, etc. (SEG 36, 1433, dated to the Ptolemaic period); for a foster father, cf. TAM V 1, 781: Διὶ Κεραυνίῳ Τειμόθεος ὑπὲρ τοῦ θρέψαντος εὐχήν…

“τῆς ΤΕΤΡΑΦ[ . . . ]ΑΔΙΑΣ bezeichnet wohl eine Gruppe, der Kelainos angehörte, und die wegen ihrer Nennung auch eine Beziehung zur Synagoge haben mußte” (Ameling); “la formule mutilée ὑπὲρ…τῆς τετραφι̣[- - -]αδιας reste énigmatique” (D. Feissel, BE 2002, 614).