ISic000656: Honorific inscription for Sextus Pompeius Priscus
- ID
- ISic000656
- Language
- Latin
- Text type
- funerary
- Object type
- plaque
- Status
- No data
- Links
- View in current site
Edition
Apparatus criticus
- Text based on autopsy, after Eck 1996
Physical description
Support
- Description
- Marble plaque made up of nine joining fragments, with internal and lower marginal gaps. Surface and back smooth and polished.
- Object type
- plaque
- Material
- marble
- Condition
- fragments, contiguous
- Dimensions
- height: 63 cm, width: 82 cm, depth: 2-4 cm
Inscription
- Layout
- Three lines of Latin text in straight alignment. Line 1 has a larger module than Line 2, and Line 2 has a larger module than Line 3. Furthermore, the lack of space in the final line resulted in a greater compression between the letters compared to the other lines.
- Text condition
- incomplete
- Lettering
-
- Letter heights
- Line 1-3: 10-12mm
- Interlinear heights
- Interlineation line 1 to 2: 6mm
- Interlineation line 2 to 3: 7mm
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Centuripae
- Provenance found
- The various fragments were discovered at different times within the complex of spaces near the so-called former Barbagallo Mill, i.e. the area of the so-called «Edificio degli Augustales» , in a zone overlooking the Vallata Difesa, near the Church of the Crucifix. The find circumstances are known for some of them. The upper left corner fragment and the lower right marginal fragment were discovered by Guido Libertini during the excavation campaigns conducted starting in 1925. The archaeologist did not realize that the two fragments – though not directly joining – belonged to the same document, and published them separately in 1926. The contextual information is not very clear. Specifically, the author states that the fragments, and others, were found either «nelle immediate vicinanze dell'edificio rettangolare» or in small rooms «a sud dell'edificio, tra esso e il mulino». The upper right corner fragment was later found inside the rectangular building by Libertini, and published in 1953. However, the archaeologist did not connect the fragment with the pieces discovered twenty-five years earlier. Currently on display on the ground floor in the Antiquarium, Room III
- Map
Current location
- Place
- Centuripe, Italy
- Repository
- Museo Archeologico Regionale di Centuripe , KA0846 + KA0850 + KA0861
- Autopsy
- Prado 2023-05-09
- Map
Date
Uncle of cos. of 149 CE (?) (AD 140 – AD 160)- Evidence
- prosopography
Text type
commentary
The document is linked to I.Sicily000655through the same dedicant, Sosius Priscus, a member of the Pompeii Sosii Prisci Falcones, a family very likely originating from Centuripe. The inscription likely came from a context of dedications made for members of this family. Manganaro reported the inscription, relating it to another fragmentary one preserved in the Museo Civico Castello Ursino in Catania (I.Sicily000305), which very likely mentions a member of the same family. However, both the integration proposed by Manganaro and the published photograph make it clear that Manganaro did not have access to all the pieces of the Centuripe inscription, but only to the fragments from the left side. In order to identify the dedicatee (Q. Pompeius Priscus) within the complex tree of Pompeii Sosii Prisci Falcones family, the deductions of Eck are undoubtedly fundamental. He was the first to reconstruct the various fragments of the inscription and to relate it to I.Sicily000655. According to Eck, Clodia Falconilla, mentioned in I.Sicily000655, might have been the paternal grandmother of the dedicator Sosius Priscus, consul in 169 CE and son of Q. Pompeius Falco, consul suffectus in 108 CE, and of Sosia Polla, daughter of the consul of 99 CE Q. Sosius Senecio. Eck also supposed that Q. Pompeius Falco was the younger son of Clodia Falconilla and a certain Sex. Pompeius Priscus, and that he inherited the cognomen Falco from his mother. An elder brother must have existed: this would be Q. Pompeius Priscus, the dedicatee of the inscription in question and otherwise unknown. He would then be the paternal uncle of the dedicator Sosius Priscus.
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: 493946
- EDR: -
- EDH: -
- EDCS: 3700329
- 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 1996.0790
- « 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 1993.0829
- Guido Libertini, Centuripe (Catania, 1926), at 45
- Guido Libertini, «Centuripe. Nuove indagini sulle costruzioni presso il Mulino Barbagallo. Campagna di scavo 1950-51», Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità , 1953, 353–68, at 356
- Giacomo Manganaro, «Iscrizioni Latine nuove e vecchie della Sicilia», Epigraphica 51 (1989): 161–96, at 168 fig.33-34
- W. Eck, „Senatorische familien der kaiserzeit in der provinz Sizilien“, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 113 (1996): 109–28, at 115-117
Citation and editorial status
- Editor
- Jonathan Prag
- Principal contributor
- Francesca Prado
- Contributors
- Last revision
- 8/5/2025