ISic000298: Dedication to the Genius of the city of Catania
- ID
- ISic000298
- Language
- Latin
- Text type
- dedication
- Object type
- plaque
- Status
- No data
- Links
- View in current site
Edition
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Apparatus criticus
Physical description
Support
- Description
- A tablet of white marble, smooth on the sides and the reverse, with the remains of a raised border (a moulding?) on the right side. The front face is lightly convex.
- Object type
- plaque
- Material
- marble (white)
- Condition
- No data
- Dimensions
- height: 62 cm, width: 58 cm, depth: 4.5-6.0 cm
Inscription
- Layout
- The text is preserved intact, over seven lines, although the edge of the surviving stone clips the tops of the letters of the first line. The letters diminish in size over the first four lines, with a vacat in the second half of line four; the final three lines are larger again. The left margin of the text is maintained regularly, the right margin varies from line to line.
- Text condition
- No data
- Lettering
-
- Letter heights
- Line 1: 60-80mm
- Line 2-4: 40-60mm
- Line 5-7: 50-70mm
- Interlinear heights
- : mm
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Catina
- Provenance found
- Found 18 May 1770 in excavations in the ancient theatre of Catania, by the Principe di Biscari
- Map
Current location
- Place
- Catania, Italy
- Repository
- Museo Civico di Catania , 2
- Autopsy
- Display, Voci di pietra no.12
- Map
Date
Munatidius is not otherwise known; the mention of three Domini requires one of the periods 337—340, 367—378, 379—383, 388—395, 402—408, and 421. A precise choice is not possible, but the consensus amongst scholars is for a date in the 4th century rather than later. (AD 337 – AD 421)- Evidence
- No data
Text type
commentary
The text (on imported marble) would have been fixed to the base of a statue of the Genius of the city of Catania, probably erected on the stage-building of the theatre. The Genius was the protective spirit of a person or a thing. Dedications to the Genius of the Emperor were common, but also to cities (e.g. both a statue and temple of the Genius of the city of Lilybaeum = Marsala are mentioned in other inscriptions). Facundus Porfyrius is not otherwise known. The precise significance of 'cons eiusdem' in line 7 is extensively debated and several alternatives have been suggested: the most likely interpretation is 'consularis eiusdem', signifying consularis of the same city, i.e. Catania, and so by extension / implication the province of Sicily.
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: 175826
- EDR: 074187
- EDH: -
- EDCS: 21900333
- PHI: -
- Printed editions
- T. Mommsen, Inscriptiones Bruttiorum Lucaniae Campaniae Siciliae Sardiniae Latinae. Pars posterior. Inscriptiones Siciliae et Sardiniae, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, consilio et auctoritate Academiae Litterarum Regiae Borussicae editum, 10.2 (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1883), at 10.7014
- « 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 1959.0022
- H. Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae, 3 vols (Berlin: Weidmann, 1892), at 3778
- A. Holm, Catania antica, trad. da G Libertini (Catania: Libreria Tirelli di F. Guaitolini, 1925), at 43-44
- Giacomo Manganaro, «Iscrizioni latine e greche di Catania tardo-imperiale», Archivio Storico per la Sicilia Orientale ser.4 vol.11-12 (1959 1958): 5–30, at 5-10 fig.1
- 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 187 fig.156.b
- Giacomo Manganaro, «Greco nei pagi e latino nelle città della Sicilia romana tra I e VI sec. d.C.», in l’epigrafia del villaggio, a c. di A. Calbi, A. Donati, e G. Poma (Faenza, 1993), 543–94, at 560, 583 fig.19
- Kalle Korhonen, Le iscrizioni del Museo civico di Catania : storia delle collezioni, cultura epigrafica, edizione (Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 2004), at 7
Citation and editorial status
- Editor
- Jonathan Prag
- Principal contributor
- Jonathan Prag
- Contributors
- Jonathan Prag
- James Cummings
- James Chartrand
- Valeria Vitale
- Michael Metcalfe
- Serena Agodi
- system
- Simona Stoyanova
- Last revision
- 1/19/2021