ISic000099: Funerary inscription for Gaius Popillius Priscus

Apparatus criticus

• Text from autopsy (Antoniou) ;
• 4: There are traces of a very faint horizontal bar at the bottom of the first letter after Victoria. By comparison with the T in Turrania on line 7, I prefer reading Liciniana rather than Ticiniana, contra Bivona (1978; 1994). Contra Bivona (1994), but I read 'MILTAVIT' on stone, rather than 'MIITAVIT'. The first 'I' in MILTAVIT is difficult to read: the slight curve on the letter suggests it is an 's', especially in comparison with 's' elsewhere on stone, but difficult to find an alternative reading.
  
• 5: Contra Bivona (1994), but there is evidence of a supralinear line over VI

Physical description

Support

Description

Stele with tapered sides and rounded top, although with a straight break across the top left which obscures the beginning of the first line. Sides abraded. The epigraphic field has been chiselled back from the surface on the upper half of the front face, ending roughly half-way down stone, with an almost horizontal division between the chiselled and non-chiselled portions. Rear is extremely flat.

Object type

stele

Material

limestone

Condition

No data

Dimensions

height: 109 cm, width: 48 (at bottom), 54 (at top) cm, depth: 11.5 cm

Inscription

Layout

Eight lines of Latin text, in centre (but not centred) of stone. Use of triangular interpuncts, although some are faint and indistinct. Interpuncts are not used between every word. Line 1 is notably larger, line 2 reduces, the other lines much smaller.

Text condition

No data

Lettering

Letter heights

Line 1: 52-56 (diminutive E at end of line, 35)mm

Line 2: 39-45mm

Line 3: 29-35mm

Line 4: 27-34mm

Line 5: 27-32 (supralinear line on VI, 41)mm

Line 6: 25-29mm

Line 7: 24-36mm

Line 8: 25-32mm

Interlinear heights

Interlineation line 1 to 2: mm

Provenance

Place of origin

Thermae Himeraeae

Provenance found

Found in December 1950 in Termini Imerese, 'on the right of the Barratina stream [...] in the excavations for the foundation of a mill'. Quoted from Bivona 1994, who quotes a letter dated to the 20th of December 1950 from the Honourable Inspector, Professor G. Navarra to the Soprintendenza alle Antichità for the province of Palermo and Trapani. The stele went subsequently sent to the Museum.

Current location

Place

Termini Imerese, Italy

Repository

Museo Civico Baldassare Romano , 119

Autopsy

Antoniou, 2022-07-13. On display in the courtyard portico of Museo Civico Baldassare Romano

Map

Date

Evidence

textual-context

Text type

funerary

commentary

While there is another Popillius attested in Thermae Himeraeae ISic00117, that Popillius likely belongs to the Pollia tribe, and thus there is likely no connection between the two individuals. For Turrania, there is only one other attestion of the name in Sicily, in its masculine form, from Halaesa ISic003576, but is extremely common elsewhere in the empire. Although there is some uncertainty, given the condition of the front face of the inscription, it appears that line 4 reads 'victoria Liciniana' (following the reading of Manganaro (1989)), who subsequently dated the inscription to a victoria Liciniana of Licinius, either in 310 or 313 CE, either in Raetia or at Campus Egrenus in Thrace. As Ricci (C. Ricci, "In Custodiam Urbis: Notes on the Cohortes Urbanae (1968-2010)", Historia 60.4 (2011), 484–508, at 503) emphasises, however, the complete onomastic formula with tribal affiliation attested in an inscription for a miles urbanicianus makes a fourth-century CE date for this inscription 'difficult to justify', although Bivona (1994) is less certain of this as an absolute requirement. Ricci (2011) and Bivona (1978; 1994) prefer then to read victoria Ticiniana, and date the inscription on the basis of a battle between the armies of Vitellius and Otho in March/April of 69 CE, to match the testimony of Tacitus (Histories, 1.87.1, 1.89.1, 2.21.4, 2.17.2), who attests to the involvement of urban cohorts at the time. Bivona (1994) considers the questions of this inscription to be a continuing problem, and is not entirely happy with the solution she proposed.

Bibliography

Digital editions

• TM: 175696
• EDR: 077198
• EDH: -
• EDCS: 9200305
• PHI: -

Printed editions

• « L’année épigraphique: revue des publications épigraphiques relatives a l’antiquité romaine. », L’année épigraphique : revue des publications épigraphiques relatives a l’antiquité romaine., 1888, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/630058599, at 2011.0438
• « L’année épigraphique: revue des publications épigraphiques relatives a l’antiquité romaine. », L’année épigraphique : revue des publications épigraphiques relatives a l’antiquité romaine., 1888, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/630058599, at 1989.0345e
• « L’année épigraphique: revue des publications épigraphiques relatives a l’antiquité romaine. », L’année épigraphique : revue des publications épigraphiques relatives a l’antiquité romaine., 1888, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/630058599, at 1978.0374
• Livia Bivona, «Un “urbaniciano” a Thermae», Kokalos 24 (1978): 112–27.
• Giacomo Manganaro, «La Sicilia da Sesto Pompeo a Diocleziano», Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt 2.11.1 (1988): 3–89, at 41, 71
• Giacomo Manganaro, «Iscrizioni Latine nuove e vecchie della Sicilia», Epigraphica 51 (1989): 161–96, at 189 no.79 fig.83
• R.J.A. Wilson, Sicily under the Roman Empire: The Archaeology of a Roman Province, 36 B.C. - A.D. 535 (Warminster: Aris and Philips, 1990), at 359 n.60
• Livia Bivona, Iscrizioni latine lapidarie del museo civico di Termini Imerese, vol. 9/8, Kokalos Supplementi / Sikelika serie storica (Palermo / Rome, 1994), at 17

Citation and editorial status

Editor

Jonathan Prag

Principal contributor

Jonathan Prag

Contributors

• Jonathan Prag
• James Cummings
• James Chartrand
• Valeria Vitale
• Michael Metcalfe
• Tuuli Ahlholm
• Simona Stoyanova
• system
• Alex Antoniou
• Robert Crellin

Last revision

6/10/2025