ISic000631: Inscribed base of statue group of the Pii Fratres
- ID
- ISic000631
- Language
- Latin
- Text type
- dedication
- Object type
- statue base
- Status
- No data
- Links
- View in current site
Edition
Apparatus criticus
Physical description
Support
- Description
- Two joining fragments from a statue base, extensively damaged on all sides. Parts of each original surface are preserved, such that it is possible to estimate the overall original dimensions. A substantial part of the front face is preserved, but the face is damaged on all sides except the lower edge. On the rear face four Latin letters over two lines and a part of the right marginal moulding are preserved from an earlier inscription (ISic003206).
- Object type
- statue base
- Material
- marble
- Condition
- No data
- Dimensions
- height: 31 cm, width: 60 cm, depth: 47 cm
Inscription
- Layout
- Latin text preserved over six lines. Despite the extensive damage around the edges, almost all of the text appears to be preserved, with only a few letters lost from the right margin and at the top corners.
- Text condition
- No data
- Lettering
-
- Letter heights
- Line 1-6: 25-35mm
- Interlinear heights
- : mm
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Catina
- Provenance found
- Found near the lowest seats of the central part of the Roman theatre during excavation by G. Libertini in 1951
- Map
Current location
- Place
- Catania, Italy
- Repository
- Museo Civico di Catania , no inventory number
- Autopsy
- Display, Voci di pietra no.13
- Map
Date
The inscription cannot be later than the end of the 5th century, due to the archaeological evidence for the cessation of use of the theatre by that date (AD 450 – AD 500)- Evidence
- No data
Text type
commentary
The inscription records the restoration of the famous statue group of the pii fratres by the Roman governor, Merulus, after their removal in a period of conflict. It is unknown whether this was a new statue group, or simply the restoration of the old one. Merulus is not otherwise known; his titles suggest a date after 434 AD. The conflict may have been the Vandal invasions of Sicily in 440-442, 455-468 and 491 AD. Archaeological research shows that the theatre was no longer in use by the very end of the fifth century AD, so the inscription probably dates shortly after either 442 or 468 AD.
The inscription on the reverse preserves the ends of two words, probably names, in letters of the high imperial period. It is possible that the text belongs to an earlier dedication of the same statue group, but it may have been something completely different, reused by Merulus. It is possible that this earlier base was originally in the nearby Roman forum.
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: 175825
- EDR: 074112
- EDH: -
- EDCS: 13600457
- PHI: -
- Printed editions
- « 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 1956.0259
- S. Mazzarino, «I vandali a Catania», Rivista del Comune di Catania 4 (1954).
- S. Mazzarino, «“Spectabilis Consularis provinciae Siciliae” (A proposito di una nuova epigrafe catanese)», Iura 7 (1956): 137–41, at = Mazzarino (1980) 355-61
- 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 332 n.30 fig.283
- 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 580 fig.14
- Kalle Korhonen, Le iscrizioni del Museo civico di Catania : storia delle collezioni, cultura epigrafica, edizione (Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 2004), at 12
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
- Last revision
- 1/19/2021