ISic000679: Honours for Publius Septimius Geta

Apparatus criticus

Text from autopsy;
1: Traces of the feet of three letters, one of them curved, but not readily identifiable
2: The vertical at the start of the line is readily compatible with a T; there is a vertical preserved on the break at the end of the line.

Physical description

Support

Description: Fragment of a thick grey marble plaque, intact along the lower edge, but broken on the other three sides. The lower edge is chipped, and the edge itself only roughly finished. The rear is finished smooth.
Object type: plaque
Object condition: fragment
Dimensions: height: 19.8 cm, width: 22.5 cm, depth: 2.8-3.6 (right to left) cm

Material

Description: marble

Inscription

Layout: Traces of four lines of Latin letters, guidelines are visible top and bottom of line 3; line four is much smaller.
Text condition: incomplete
Technique: chiselled
Pigment: No data
Lettering: Deeply v-cut letters with serifs. Letters generally tend to the taller, thinner and slighly curved form. Upper horizontals curve up and away, P is sometimes open, L has a downward trailing foot, G has a very curved hook; Y in line 3 is much taller (58mm). Small triangular interpuncts.
Letter heights: Line 2-3: 46-51mm; Line 4: 25mm
Interlinear heights: Interlineation line 1 to 2: mm

Provenance

Place of origin: Tyndaris
Provenance found: From the site of Tindari, but details of provenance not recorded.

Current location

Place: Tindari, Sicilia
Repository: Antiquarium di Tindari , ME 28744
Autopsy: Prag, 2022-07-12, in the antiquarium
Map

Date

Presumably to fall within the period of Geta as either Caesar (from 198) or Augustus (209) and his death in late 211. (AD 198 - AD 211)

Evidence: No data

Text type

honorific

commentary

Manganaro offers an extensive and speculative (if plausible) restoration on the model of ILS 433, along the lines of 'Pro salute imppp. Caesss. L. Septimi Severi - - - et M. Aureli Antonini et P. Septimi Getae - - - res publica colonia Augusta Tyndaritanorum P(ublica) P(ecunia) D(ecreto) D(ecurionum). It is indeed almost certain that this is a text erected jointly in honour of Septimius Severus and his two sons M. Aurelius (Caracalla) and P. Septimius Geta, but the exact form and date is unrecoverable. What is particularly notable is that the text has escaped damnatio memoriae of the name of Geta (at the orders of Caracalla, subsequent to his murder in December 211 CE) - indeed, ironically, Geta's name is the only part of this text to survive. Damnatio memoriae was also not observed in imperial honorific texts of the third-century from Halaesa, further along the north coast.

Bibliography

Digital editions

Printed editions

Citation and editorial status

Editor

Jonathan Prag

Principal contributor