ISic000616: A Roman honours his mother
- ID
- ISic000616
- Language
- Latin
- Text type
- honorific
- Object type
- block
- Status
- No data
- Links
- View in current site
Edition
Apparatus criticus
- Text from autopsy;
- line.2: [devo]TE, De Miro 2000; the first letter preserves part of an upper horizontal, the second is either an E or an F
Physical description
Support
- Description
- A large rectangular block of shell-bearing limestone, intact on top, left, right and behind, but damaged below. Appears intact lower right underside, so the only significant loss/damage is the lower left corner. The left edge of the stone is clearly preserved, which implies at least one additional block originally stood to the left.
- Object type
- block
- Material
- No data
- Condition
- No data
- Dimensions
- height: 36.5 cm, width: 139.5 cm, depth: 20.5 cm
Inscription
- Layout
- No data
- Text condition
- No data
- Letter heights
- Line 1: 90-105mm
- Line 2: 85-95mm
- Interlinear heights
- Interlineation line 1 to 2: 30-45mm
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Agrigentum
- Provenance found
- Found in 1925 in material to the east of the 'Oratory of Phalaris' (Marconi writes "ritrovata tra le macerie a oriente del tempietto")
- Map
Current location
- Place
- Agrigento, Italy
- Repository
- Museo Regionale Archeologico Pietro Griffo , S.2319
- Autopsy
- On display.
- Map
Date
Republican (letter forms), perhaps 125—75 BCE (125 BC – 75 BC)- Evidence
- No data
Text type
commentary
The surviving traces at the start of line two are most readily compatible in the context with TF, which would be T(iberi) f(iliam) as the filiation of the honoured mother's name. The suggestion of De Miro to read devote is less plausible. De Miro's suggestion to read ter pius as 'thrice pius' rather than tribal and cognomen/epithet cannot be followed. The first part of the text continued on another block to the left. The interpunct after 'suam' in line 2 and the edge of the stone suggest this is the right hand end of the text. The layout could imply another line below on another block, perhaps containing the explanation for the honours. It has been generally assumed that the stone belongs to the so-called 'Oratory of Phalaris', which in turn was suggested by the excavator Marconi (1926) to be a heroon. The idea that it was a tomb or heroon, rather than a temple was firmly rejected by Wilson (1990: 31 and 356 n.102). Campagna (2007) has however rightly questioned whether there is in fact any evidence for the association. The block is the same stone as the temple; it does however show no traces of the stucco which covers much of the exterior of the temple. The formulation of nominative individual and then accusative for the mother makes it more likely that this is an honorific (perhaps a statue base?) rather than a funerary inscription, albeit using the Greek accusative for the honorand (Latin would ordinarily use a dative) - this latter feature could either imply a Roman / Italian immigrant to the island or else a 'romanised' Sicilian. Honours of this sort for a woman in Latin epigraphy at this date are rare.
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: 491463
- EDR: 129884
- EDH: -
- EDCS: 26201044
- PHI: -
- Printed editions
- Accademia nazionale dei Lincei, Istituto nazionale di archeologia e storia dell’arte (Italy), e Reale Accademia d’Italia, «Notizie degli scavi di antichità », Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità , 1876, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1646037, at 110-111 fig.14
- 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 01.2649
- E. De Miro, «Architettura civile in Agrigento ellenistico-romana e rapporti con l’Anatolia», Quaderni dell’Istituto di Archeologia della Facolta di Lettere e Filosofia dell’Universita di Messina 3 (1988): 63–72, at 67-69
- 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 356 n.97, 31 n.102
- E. De Miro, Agrigento. I.I santuari urbani : l’area sacra tra il Tempio di Zeus e Porta V (Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2000), at 95-6, esp. n.160
- Lorenzo Campagna, «Architettura pubblica ed evergetismo nella Sicilia di età repubblicana», in La Sicilia romana tra Repubblica e Alto Impero, a c. di C. Miccichè, S. Modeo, e L. Santagati (Caltanissetta: Siciliantica, 2007), 110–34, at 119
Citation and editorial status
- Editor
- Jonathan Prag
- Principal contributor
- Jonathan Prag
- Contributors
- Jonathan Prag
- James Cummings
- James Chartrand
- Valeria Vitale
- Michael Metcalfe
- Simona Stoyanova
- system
- Last revision
- 1/19/2021