ISic000725: Base recording construction by a C. Roscius and a Sextia

Apparatus criticus

• Text from autopsy;
• 3: Gentili, Manganaro: Mu[cia]; Mayer: Mâ[gia] (i.e. MA in ligature); Eck: M.f.[---] (per errorem?)
  
• 4: Manganaro: fecer[unt] (per errorem?)

Physical description

Support

Description

A large block of off-white marble. The top, bottom and left margins are preserved, with a moulding preserved across the top front. The lower part of the front face is only roughly finished (the vacat below the text is 11cm, with then a further c.15cm more roughly finished; the front face as a whole, within the moulding, is 43 cm high, and preserved to a maximum width of 47.5 cm). There are indications that a border or moulding along the left side of the front face has been chiselled off in the past. On the top, behind the moulding, a channel c.12 cm wide has been roughly cut down into the upper surface. Behind that what appears to be the original upper suface is preserved, but the rear part of the upper surface is lost. The left side of the block appears to be preserved, but roughly finished to a depth of c.10cm from the front, after which the stone projects roughly / irregularly. The base where preserved has a smooth finished border on the left, but is then slightly recessed and roughly chisel finished across the rest of the preserved part of the underside. The right side of the stone is completely lost. The rear where preserved (the rear upper left is lost) is finished straight. It is difficult to see on what grounds Gentili argued that the original block must have been c.70cm wide, as there is no obvious basis on which to judge how much is lost on the right.

Object type

base

Material

marble

Condition

damaged

Dimensions

height: 71 cm, width: 60 (55 across the front) cm, depth: 39 cm

Inscription

Layout

Four lines of Latin letters, steadily decreasing in height, with lines 1 and 3 set to the left margin, and lines 2 and 4 indented by one letter.

Text condition

incomplete

Lettering

Letter heights

Line 1: 63-66mm

Line 2: 60mm

Line 3: 52 (S=65)mm

Line 4: 45mm

Interlinear heights

Interlineation line 1 to 2: 25mm

Interlineation line 2 to 3: 21mm

Interlineation line 3 to 4: 20-21mm

Provenance

Place of origin

Syracusae

Provenance found

Found during excavations in the 1950s in the eastern part of the new school building erected in the block between via Eumelo, via Archia, and via Carabelli. Also found in the area (but no explicit association) were marble columns and capitals, and various remains of the Roman imperial period, including a refined nymphaeum ('un leggiadro nifneo quandrifoliato') in situ in a polygonal space, remains of a rich domus with mosaics of the C3 CE, and older cocciopesto pavements and walls.

Map

Current location

Place

Siracusa, Italy

Repository

Museo Archeologico Regionale Paolo Orsi , 102139

Autopsy

basement corridor

Map

Date

Evidence

lettering

Text type

building

commentary

Discussion of this piece has been largely dependent upon the original publication of Gentili, which however was vague on the archaeological context and only published a drawing of the front face, reproduced subsequently by Manganaro (with a very small photograph in Manganaro 1989). It is impossible to know if the piece should be associated with any of the various elements reported by Gentili in the vicinity (including marble architectural elements, a nymphaeum (size and form unclear), a third-century domus, and traces of earlier rooms or structures also. The exact form/purpose of the surviving block is also unclear, since the surviving stone, only partially preserved, appears to be potentially part of a larger structure originally, rather than a free-standing base.

There is some dispute over the reading of line 3, with Gentili, followed by Manganaro reading a V at the end of the line. There is the possible trace of the deepest point of a stroke termination or serif right on the break, which could be the upper left of the next letter, but this could belong to multiple letters and cannot be diagnostic. The fine upward left curving line that is just visible on the surface of the stone to the right of the M may be what induced Gentili to read a V (part of it is marked in his drawing), but this is clearly no more than a superficial flaw in the surface and categorically not a letter trace. The same applies to the supposed trace of a crossbar in the right half of the M, which lead Mayer to suggest that A should be read in ligature with the M. Whether the M is the initial letter of a cognomen, or is the abbreviated praenomen of Sextia's patronymic, cannot be resolved (I take Eck's printing of M.f.[---] to be an error, rather than an assertion that the F can be read on the stone).

Manganaro (1988: 86 n.485) proposed to read C. Roscius [f. -(cognomen)] / procos. [prov. Siciliae]/ Sextia Mu[cia(?) - nymphaeum (?)] / fecerun[t --]. Eck (1996) offered strong arguments against such a reading, noting the lack of parallels for (a) a proconsul giving his full title while governor and (b) for a proconsul in office undertaking work jointly in his official capacity with either his wife of a private citizen (depending on the identification of Sextia). Eck very plausibly argues that Roscius should be assumed to be a local senator (the rest of Eck 1996 discusses the eastern Sicilian Roscii among other families in some detail), erecting something in his home city, probably alongside his wife, with the essentials of his career detailed in descending order in line 2 (at p.125 he suggests the likely restoration: C. Roscius [- f. (tribus/cognomen)] / procos., [pr., aed., q.?] / Sextia M.f. [(cognomen or building or 'a solo')] / fecerun[t et dedicaverunt?]). Such a text would fit well with the letterforms in the first half of the first century CE.

Bibliography

Digital editions

• TM: 175779
• EDR: -
• EDH: -
• EDCS: 06100281
• 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 2014.0532
• « 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 1996.0797
• « 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 1989.0342c
• G.V. Gentili, «Nuovi elementi di epigrafia siracusana», Archivio Storico Siracusano 7 (1961): 5–25, at 22-23 no.1 dr
• Giacomo Manganaro, «La Sicilia da Sesto Pompeo a Diocleziano», Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt 2.11.1 (1988): 3–89, at 51 n.256 and fig.30; 86 n.485
• Giacomo Manganaro, «Iscrizioni Latine nuove e vecchie della Sicilia», Epigraphica 51 (1989): 161–96, at 181 no.58 fig.62
• 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 383 n.113
• W. Eck, „Senatoren und senatorische Grundbesitz auf Sizilien“, in Catania antica. Atti del Convegno della societa italiana di studi sull’antichita classica, Catania 1992 (Pisa-Rome, 1996), 231–56, at 252
• W. Eck, „Senatorische familien der kaiserzeit in der provinz Sizilien“, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 113 (1996): 109–28, at 123-125

Citation and editorial status

Editor

Jonathan Prag

Principal contributor

Jonathan Prag

Contributors

• Jonathan Prag
• James Cummings
• James Chartrand
• Valeria Vitale
• Michael Metcalfe
• Tuuli Ahlholm
• Simona Stoyanova
• system

Last revision

6/29/2024