ISic000537: Fragment of a dedication to Venus Erycina

Apparatus criticus

Text after CIL 10.7257 (Mommsen 1883) and autopsy of fragment ;
a.1: Mommsen 1875: [Caesianu]s
a.2: Cordici P and C: -S ;
Mommsen 1875: [de sua pecunia Vene]ri
b.1: Bücheler (CLE 2.7257) (apparatus): [patris ubi missu dux te, dea, prae]sule
b.2: Bücheler (CLE 2.7257): [dum miscet Numidis, prosternitur imp]ius ;
Bücheler (CLE 2.7257) (apparatus): [prospera pugnavit, cecidit Maurus]ius hostis
c.1: Bücheler (CLE 2.7257): [tibi qui sacramque dicavit]
c.2: Bücheler (CLE 2.7257): [miles bonus, o dea,] ;
Gualtherus 1624(1): VDDVXQVE
c.3: Gualtherus 1624(1) and 1624(2): LVCTOR ;
Cordici P and C: IVCTOR ;
Tardia: LICTOR ;
Mommsen 1875: hic [claro certamine vi]ctor
c.4: Gualtherus 1624(1): QVMPTAE ;
Cordici C: SUMPTE ;
Tardia: ORIA PTAE ;
Mommsen (1874 letter to Hernandez in Muscolino 2013, 464): praetextae positae [tempore o qualche cosa simile] (sic!)
c.5: Gualtherus 1624(2): OCARAT ;
Cordici P and C: ECHI (inverting line 5 with line 6) ;
Tardia: OGAD[--]AT ;
Mommsen (1875): [r]ogarat ;
Dessau 1893 (ILS 937): r]o[g]arat
c.6: Cordici P and C: ICPIT (inverting line 6 with line 5) ;
Gualtherus 1624(1): ICPIT ;
Gualtherus 1624(2): ICVI ;
Bücheler (CLE 2.7257): rel[iquit] ;
Olivieri: DEDER
d1.1: Tardia: DIVOM
d1.2: Tardia: MUTA
d1.3: Gualtherus 1624(1) and 1624(2): MAIC ;
Cordici P and C: MALO ;
Muratori; Burmann; Meyer: MAI ;
Castelli 1769 and 1784: MAIO
d1.4: Gualtherus 1624(1): GENTES CL ;
Gualtherus 1624(1) and 1624(2): CAETVLAS ;
Tardia: GENTISQ ;
Muratori; Burmann; Meyer: CAETULAS GENTES CL ;
Mommsen (1874 letter to Hernandez in Muscolino 2013, 464): Gaetulas gentes q[ui vicit o che so io] (sic!)
d1.5: Cordici P and C: GENITO ;
Tardia: GENITOR
d1.6: Gualtherus 1624(1) and 1624(2); Cordici P and C; Muratori; Burmann; Meyer: AENEA DVM ;
Cordici P and C: PARENS ;
Tardia: AENIADVM
d1.7: Castelli 1769 and 1784: ARMA QVE ;
Tardia: QUAIE and CESSIT SCVTO C
d1.8: Cordici P and C; Castelli 1769 and 1784: IN ;
Tardia: EN ;
Mommsen (1874 letter to Hernandez in Muscolino 2013, 464): ens[em …]
d1.9: Gualtherus 1624(1): ATTRITUS CONSUMATQ ;
Cordici P and C; Castelli 1769 and 1784: ATTRIT[-] CONSUMMATO ;
Tardia; Muratori: ATTRITUS CONSUMMAT
d1.10: Cordici P and C: [---] NI [---] BARBA ;
Gualtherus 1624(1): POSUI BARBAR ;
Gualtherus 1624(2): POSUIT BARBAR ;
Tardia: TNIT ;
Bücheler (CLE 2.7257): barbar[us ora ferox] ;
Manganaro: [f]usus barbar[us] eques humi]
d2.1: Tardia: VTRIQVE and VENE ;
Dessau 1893 (ILS 937): venera[bile]
d2.2: Cordici P and C: ATQVE ;
Gualtherus 1624(1) and 1624(2): PILIVS ;
Tardia: IBI and ATQV ;
Mommsen 1875: [f]ilius atqu[e pater]
d2.3: Gualtherus 1624(1) and 1624(2); Muratori; Burmann; Meyer: PE
d2.4: Gualtherus 1624(1) and 1624(2): SV
e.1: Mommsen (1874 letter to Hernandez in Muscolino 2013, 464): L. Apronio [L. l. Philotimo curante]

Physical description

Support

Description: A statue base, according to Mommsen 1883 (CIL 10.7257) and Bücheler (CIL 2.7257). A stone slab with fractures on all sides. The surviving piece has an irregular rectangular shape. The fracture on the left side cuts the stone from top to bottom at an angle of about 20 degrees, which then decreases gradually. The fracture on the right side is almost parallel to the one on the left. The base therefore widens from bottom to top on the left side, while on the right side it narrows. The two fractures cut the text of the inscription irregularly to the left and right, while the inscription does not seem to continue at either the bottom or the top. The back of the stone appears roughly worked.
Object type: Statue base
Material: stone
Condition: fragment
Dimensions: height: 26 cm, width: 33 cm, depth: 12 cm

Inscription

Layout

The text is arranged over nine lines. The first two lines (praescriptio), larger than the others, are placed across the top. Two columns follow (b and c), the first one consisting of two lines (and a vacat) and the second one of seven. Lines 1-2 of the left column form a separate text from lines 1-2 in the right column. The space between the columns is 2.4 cm.

Text condition

legible

Lettering

Letter heights

Line a 1: 33mm

Line a2: 28mm

columns b, c, codicil: 11mm

Interlinear heights

Interlineation line a1 to a2: 13mm

Interlineation line a2 to bc1: 10mm

Interlineation columns b, c, codicil: 6mm

Provenance

Place of origin: Eryx
Provenance found: Eryx, discovered under the ruins of the temple of Venus Erycina at the end of the 18th century according to Hager (1799, 10). The now lost fragment would have been found in the temple too. It was discovered in 1616 according to Cordici.
Map

Current location

Place: Trapani, Italy
Repository: Museo Regionale Agostino Pepoli , 5227
Autopsy: Vacanti 2021-08-20
Map

Date

21—25 CE (AD 21 – AD 25)

Evidence: prosopography

Text type

dedication

commentary

The inscription was stored in the Hernandez collection (Muscolino 2013) and later acquired by the Museo Pepoli (Famà 2009), and was discovered at the end of the 18th century under the ruins of the temple of Venus Erycina according to Hager (1799). The hypothesis, put forward by Mommsen in a letter of 1874 to Francesco Hernandez Junior, who had provided him with a facsimile (Muscolino 2013), and then reaffirmed in the two editions of the text edited together with Bücheler (Mommsen 1875 and CIL 10 7257), is that the text should be supplemented with an inscription, now lost, seen and transcribed by Gualtherus (1624(1) and 1624(2)) who states that it was “in domo Ant. Cordici”.

We also possess two manuscripts by Cordici (P and C) – one, the Palermo manuscript (Cordici P), seen by Tardici and Castelli (1769 and 1784) – which report the text with some modifications compared to Gualtherus's. According to Cordici, this inscription was also found in the ruins of the temple of Venus at Erice: “dei quali men’è venuto un frammento in una pietra trovata l’anno 1616 in un muro, che cascò dov’era edificato il tempio” (Cordici P, 45r and C, 48r).

The inscription is conjectured to consist of a praescriptio, four different epigrams arranged over three columns and the indication of the dedicatee. Lines 1-2 of the preserved fragment would be part of the praescriptio (section a), lines 1-2 of the left column would contain the last words of the first preserved epigram (section b), lines 1-6 of the right column would contain the beginnings of the second epigram (section c), and line 7 would indicate the dedicator (section e). The lost but previously recorded fragment would contain the final part of the second epigram (section c) and the first words of the third (section d1) and fourth epigrams (section d2) in a single column (d). The preserved and the lost fragments would thus be two pieces out of a hypothetical four, namely the second and the fourth from the left, as reconstructed by Mommsen and Bücheler (Mommsen 1875 and CIL 10. 7257), according to whom the inscription, as a whole, would have been inscribed on the basis for three statues: on the left that of L. Apronius C. f., cos. suff. in 8 CE; on the right that of his son L. Apronius Caesianus L. f. VIIvir epulonum and cos. in 39 CE; in the centre that of the emperor Tiberius.

If the integration proposed on the basis of the other fragment now lost but recorded (Gualtherus 1624(1) and 1624(2), Cordici P and C, Tardia, Castelli 1769) is accepted, the whole slab, assuming that the module of the letters was consistent, would have extended at least 40 cm further on the left and 50 cm further on the right, with a total width that could have been at least ca. 120 cm.

The inscription is a dedication to Venus Erycina by L. Apronius – most likely L. Apronius Caesianus, cos. in 39 CE (Groag 1933, A 972 – son of L. Apronius cos. suff. in 8 AD and proconsul in Africa from 18 to 21 CE (Groag 1933, A 971; Thomasson 1996, 29 no. 21). If the prevailing hypothesis of Mommsen and Bücheler (Mommsen 1875; CIL 10.7257; CLE 2.1525) is correct, the inscription would consist of four epigrams – with Lucretian resonances such as Aeneadum alma parens (Velaza 2020, 7) – possibly carmina facilitata, like the verses against Tiberius attributed to Sex. Paconianus and mentioned in Tac. Ann. 6.39 (Manganaro 1987, 584). Although it is perhaps not so significant with respect to the presence in Sicily of a poetic tradition in Latin, and of an audience that could appreciate it, as Manganaro states (1988, 61). The context of the inscription can be found in the war in proconsular Africa against Tacfarinas (Le Bohec 2020; Wolff 2015; Vanacker 2015), for which the proconsul most likely was granted the insignia triumphalia for the second time (Tac. Ann 4.23.1; Eck 1999a, s.v. Apronius II.1, Stuttgart, 1999, vol. I, col. 916) – the first for the victory against Chatti as legatus of Germanicus (Tac. Ann. 1.56, 72; cfr. Vell. 2.116).

The monument itself could be considered as a particular type of trophy (Picard 1957, 247-248). We know that in one of the battles Caesianus, maybe as tribune or even without official position (CIL 10.7257; Rohden 1895; Eck 1999b, s.v. Apronius II.2, Stuttgart, 1999, vol. I, col. 916), fought valiantly at the head of cavalry and auxiliary cohorts and of some legionaries, and drove the enemies back into the desert (Tac. Ann. 3.21). The young Apronius would therefore have dedicated his arms (Line 1, section c; Lines 6-9, section d1) and toga (line 4, section c), possibly worn by his own statue (CIL 10.7257), to the goddess Venus of Eryx, and would have built a statue for his father (lines 1-2, section c; line 5, section d1) and one for Tiberius, this one consecrated with his same father (lines 2-3 section d2). Caesianus, called puer in the inscription maybe because of the early and unusual age – perhaps 22 – of his membership in the priestly college of the septemviri epulonum (Várhely 2010, 68-69), would have been honored by the priesthood by Tiberius, maybe because he was too young for a magistracy, and it is also possible that the toga praetexta dedicated to Venus was the one worn to the first meeting of the college or an additional award (CIL 10 7257; Cagnat 1892, 14-15; Rohden 1895). It has been hypothesized (Manganaro 1987, 584 followed by Bivona 2000, 154) that the dedication was made by Caesianus on his way back to Rome towards Africa, thus in 21 CE, while the idea that the septemviratus may have been granted to both father and son for this victory (Wilson 1990, 284 n. 244) is not necessary, as Apronius' father probably gained the insignia triumphalia because of the same success.

However, it is also possible that the dedication could be dated to 25 CE, when Tiberius accepted the request of the Segestans to provide, also in the name of the mythical origins of the gens Iulia, a contribution to the restoration of the temple (Tac. Ann. 4.43.4) – later completed under Claudius (Suet. Claud. 25.5) – as the reference in the inscription to the Aeneadum alma parens might suggest. Moreover, the war against Tacfarinas ended only in 24 CE, thanks to the proconsul of 23-24 CE P. Cornelius Dolabella (Thomasson 1996, 30, no. 23), who did not receive the triumphal insignia from Tiberius in order not to obscure the previous deeds of Iunius Blaesus (Tac. Ann. 4.23-26), proconsul in 21-23 CE (Thomasson 1996, 30, no. 22; Giovagnoli 2018), who was instead allowed to be acclaimed imperator (Tac. Ann. 3.74.4) also because of his kinship with the praefectus praetorio Sejanus (Tac. Ann. 3.72). However, the conclusion of the conflict is not itself a conclusive consideration for dating it post 24: honorary statues had been erected in Rome in honour of Camillus, Apronius and Blaesus for their African exploits before Dolabella's decisive intervention (Tac. Ann. 4.23.1). This suggests that the war was proclaimed as being over more than once.

The two hypotheses are not mutually exclusive: if the dedicated spoils suggest a time near to Apronius' victory, a later reconstruction or maybe an extension of the monument is also possible. The fact that the execution of this epigraph is rather clumsy, as Mommsen noted (CIL 10 7257: "litterae carminis minutae sunt et male factae"), does not suggest that the monument in its entirety was not of particular value. The apparent epigraphic inexperience may be due, in fact, to a stone mason more skilled in Greek than in Latin. In any case, the inscription is an official dedication in a famous temple and involves Tiberius himself, and it is an important example of senatorial self-representation, more frequent in the provinces than in Rome with the exception of those who obtained ornamenta triumphalia.

Bibliography

Digital editions

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Discussion

Citation and editorial status

Editor

Jonathan Prag

Principal contributor

Claudio Vacanti

Contributors

Last revision

4/7/2022