ISic000612: I.Sicily inscription 000612
- ID
- ISic000612
- Language
- Ancient Greek
- Text type
- honorific
- Object type
- exedra
- Status
- No data
- Links
- View in current site
Edition
Apparatus criticus
- Text from autopsy ;
- line.9: previous edd: εὐνοία[ς ἕ]νεκε[ν]
Physical description
Support
- Description
- A block of ‘marna argillosa locale’, height 0.66m, width 0.52 m, depth 0.255m. The block is damaged on the left side and upper right, and both the lower left and lower right corners are lost. Traces of a metal staple are preserved in the upper surface, and a single letter lambda is preserved on the right side (presumably relating to the construction of the monument of which the block was a part). The block is probably from the central part of one of the exedra (exedra C) originally situated along the front of the west portico (Burgio 2012: 164).
- Object type
- exedra
- Material
- limestone marl (local)
- Condition
- No data
- Dimensions
- height: 66 cm, width: 52 cm, depth: 25.5 cm
Inscription
- Layout
- Nine lines of Greek text are preserved, almost complete, unevenly centred on the stone.
- Text condition
- No data
- Lettering
-
- Letter heights
- Line 1: 30mm
- Line 2-9: 25mm
- Interlinear heights
- Interlineation: not measured
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Halaesa
- Provenance found
- Excavated 9 September 1970, found against the late wall which links internal columns 3 and 4 in front of room 4 of the west portico of the agora.
- Map
Current location
- Place
- Halaesa, Italy
- Repository
- Antiquarium e sito archeologico di Halaesa , ME 20219
- Autopsy
- 2011-06-15
- Map
Date
2nd or 1st century BCE (200 BC – 1 BC)- Evidence
- lettering
Text type
commentary
The missing letters in lines 2 and 9 can be restored without hestitation. Previous editors have marked the middle letters of line 9 as lost, but clear and sufficient traces of both are visible on the stone. Assuming from the name that Caninius Niger was a Roman citizen, it is likely that his abbreviated praenomen is missing in the gap at the start of line 8, but no trace of a letter is visible. The lack of a patronymic in the naming formula is unusual; there does not however appear to be any space on the stone for its inclusion.
Several members of the Caninius gens are known in Roman Sicily, but none with the cognomen Niger and the individual cannot be identified (Facella 2006: 222). Since the stone records naval service on board one or more ships by members of several local poleis, apparently under the command of a Roman citizen, historians have frequently tried to connect the inscription to a specific naval action, such as the campaigns against pirates in the late 70s and early 60s BC, or the period of the civil wars in the 40s and 30s BC (e.g. Scibona 1971: 5-11). Prestianni Giallombardo (2012: 174-176) has argued that the language of the text suggests generic military service rather than a particular naval event, and the inscription finds obvious parallels in the honours set up by the soldiers who served in the garrison at Eryx (ISic001177) and in a text set up by infantry soldiers at Solunto (ISic001130). Sicilians served in Roman fleets both in major wars abroad and in naval garrison duties around Sicily throughout the Republican period (Pinzone, A. 2004. I socii navales siciliani. In M. Caccamo Caltabiano, L. Campagna and A. Pinzone (eds), Nuove prospettive della ricerca sulla Sicilia del III sec. a.C. Archeologia, Numismatica, Storia. Messina: Di.Sc.A.M.: 11-34; Prag, J. R. W. 2007. Auxilia and gymnasia: a Sicilian model of Roman Republican Imperialism. Journal of Roman Studies 97: 68-100; cf. Facella 2006: 220-221 and Pinzone 2011). The presence of the four communities named here, all from this region of Sicily, finds a parallel in a similar, still unpublished, text also from Halaesa set up by cavalrymen from Halaesa and other communities; it is also tempting to link the inscription to the evidence of bronze coinage from the region, usually dated to the Timoleontic period, which attests to a regional alliance, but no direct connection is possible (Scibona, G. 2009a. Decreto sacerdotale per il conferimento della euerghesia a Nemenios in Halaesa. In G. Scibona and G. Tigano (eds), Alaisa-Halaesa. Scavi e ricerche (1970-2007). Messina: Regione Siciliana. 97-112, at 107-110).
The inscription cannot be precisely dated, but the style of the inscription and the letters suggest a date in the second or first century BC.
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: 644872
- EDR: -
- EDH: -
- EDCS: -
- PHI: 331492
- Printed editions
- AE at 1973.0265 Zotero FAIR
- ‘Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum’, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 1923, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1607583, at 61.0744 Zotero FAIR
- ‘Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum’, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 1923, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1607583, at 37.0760 Zotero FAIR
- G. Scibona, «Epigraphica Halaesina I», Kokalos 17 (1971): 3–20, at 5 no.1 tav.2 Zotero FAIR
- Giacomo Manganaro, «Alla ricerca di poleis mikrai della Sicilia centro-orientale», Orbis Terrarum 2 (1996): 129–44, at 137 tav.9 Zotero FAIR
- Giuseppe Nenci, «Spigolature alesine. Colloquiuo alesino», a c. di A.M. Prestianni Giallombardo (Catania, 1998), 45–58, at 51 Zotero FAIR
- A. Facella, Alesa Arconidea: ricerche su un’antica città della Sicilia tirrenica (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2006), at 222 Zotero FAIR
- G. Scibona, ‘The Epigraphs’, in Alesa Archonidea. Guide to the Antiquarium, ed. G. Scibona and G. Tigano (Palermo: Regione Siciliana, 2008), 25–27, at 26 Zotero FAIR
- A. Pinzone, «L’iscrizione alesina di Caninius Niger e il problema dei socii navales Siciliani», Sicilia Antiqua 8 (2011): 55–61. Zotero FAIR
- Anna Maria Prestianni Giallombardo, «Spazio pubblico e memoria civica. Le epigrafi dall’agora di Alesa», in Agora greca e agorai di Sicilia, a c. di C. Ampolo (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2012), 171–200, at 174-176 fig.151 Zotero FAIR
- Rocco Burgio, «Appendice. Monumenti minori dell’agora di Alesa: le esedre curve. Analisi e ricostruzione», in Agora greca e agorai di Sicilia, a c. di Carmine Ampolo (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2012), 155–69, at 164 Zotero FAIR
- J.R.W. Prag e G. Tigano, Alesa Archonidea: il lapidarium, Introduzione all’archeologia di Halaesa 8 (Palermo: Regione Siciliana, Assessorato beni culturali e identità siciliana, Dipartimento beni culturali e identità siciliana, 2017), at no.8 Zotero FAIR
Citation and editorial status
- Editor
- Jonathan Prag
- Principal contributor
- Jonathan Prag
- Contributors
- Jonathan Prag
- James Cummings
- James Chartrand
- Valeria Vitale
- Michael Metcalfe
- system
- Simona Stoyanova
- Last revision
- 1/19/2021