ISic000307: Funerary altar for Quintus Atilius Severus, duumvir of Catania
- ID
- ISic000307
- Language
- Latin
- Text type
- funerary
- Object type
- altar
- Status
- No data
- Links
- View in current site
Edition
Apparatus criticus
- Text from autopsy
Physical description
Support
- Description
- No data
- Object type
- altar
- Material
- marble
- Condition
- complete
- Dimensions
- height: 135 cm, width: 89 cm, depth: 85 cm
Inscription
- Layout
- No data
- Text condition
- complete
- Letter heights
- Lines 1-7: 35-44mm
- Interlinear heights
- Not measured: mm
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Catina
- Provenance found
- Found in 1832 at a depth of c.16 palms on property belonging to the Duke of Carcaci outside the Porta Ferdinanda near the hill of D. Clarae; currently on display on the ground floor of the Museo Civico.
Current location
- Place
- Catania, Italy
- Repository
- Museo Civico di Catania , 230
- Autopsy
- Prag 2017-03-21
- Map
Date
1st century CE or beginning of 2nd century CE (Korhonen) (AD 1 – AD 125)- Evidence
- No data
Text type
commentary
The inscription attests to a member of the elite of the Roman colony of Catania. Quintus Atilius is presumably a member of the equestrian order, having held the military office in the imperial legions of praefectus fabrum (literally "prefect of the craftsmen/engineers": the precise role of the post is not entirely clear). Atilius also held the chief magistracy of the colonia, the duumvirate (a pair of annually appointed magistrates). The record of appointment by vote of the people is unusual: explicit statements to this effect are rare, with the result that, although in theory all such appointments were by popular vote, many historians (e.g. Mommsen and Liebenam) have concluded that under the empire it was more common for the appointments effectively to be made by co-option by the decuriones (town councillors), and a formal popular vote therefore constituted an honour, whence the choice to record it explicitly as here. Both the Claudia and the Quirina tribes (formal divisions of Roman citizens) are attested at Catania.
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: 491516
- EDR: 139979
- EDH: -
- EDCS: 21900342
- 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 10.7023
- H. Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae, 3 vols (Berlin: Weidmann, 1892), at 6771
- David Asheri, «Le città della Sicilia fra il III e IV secolo d.C.», Kokalos 28–29 (1983 1982): 461–76, at 464
- Giacomo Manganaro, «La Sicilia da Sesto Pompeo a Diocleziano», Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt 2.11.1 (1988): 3–89, at 53
- 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
- Kalle Korhonen, Le iscrizioni del Museo civico di Catania : storia delle collezioni, cultura epigrafica, edizione (Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 2004), at 17
Citation and editorial status
- Editor
- Jonathan Prag
- Principal contributor
- Jonathan Prag
- Contributors
- Jonathan Prag
- James Cummings
- James Chartrand
- Valeria Vitale
- Michael Metcalfe
- Serena Agodi
- Simona Stoyanova
- system
- Victoria Fendel
- Last revision
- 7/24/2025