ISic000802: Latin fragment mentioning a basilica
- ID
- ISic000802
- Language
- Latin
- Text type
- honorific
- Object type
- plaque
- Status
- No data
- Links
- View in current site
Edition
Apparatus criticus
- Text from autopsy
Physical description
Support
- Description
- Two joining fragments of a slab of white marble, broken on all sides, finished smooth on the reverse
- Object type
- plaque
- Material
- marble
- Condition
- No data
- Dimensions
- height: 21.8 cm, width: 22.5 cm, depth: 1.5 cm
Inscription
- Layout
- Parts of three lines of Latin letters are preserved
- Text condition
- No data
- Lettering
-
- Letter heights
- Line 2: 70mm
- Interlinear heights
- Interlineation: not measured
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Halaesa
- Provenance found
- Excavated 9 September 1970, on the pavement of the west portico of the agora, in front of room 2
Current location
- Place
- Halaesa, Italy
- Repository
- Antiquarium e sito archeologico di Halaesa , ME 20225
- Autopsy
- 2011-06-15
- Map
Date
1st century CE (AD 1 – AD 100)- Evidence
- lettering
Text type
commentary
Editors from Scibona onwards have suggested reading equo publico in line 1, a mark of rank and distinction. The honorand’s name would presumably have stood first in the upper, now lost, part of the text, and other indications of rank and office-holding, potentially both imperial and municipal, would have followed, together with equo publico. Line 2 must be a reference to a basilica, which suggests that the text recorded building work / euergetism undertaken by the honorand. Scibona suggested that the letters in line 3 formed part of a name, but Manganaro’s reading of operi[bus] is better, and accords well with the visible traces (cf. Prestianni Giallombardo 2012 n.100) and so line 3 is likely to make further reference to the works undertaken by the honorand.
The reference to a basilica is significant. ISic003580 also from the agora, also records a basilica, and the bronzes honouring Nemenios (SEG 59.1100) include the option that the statue of Nemenios be erected ‘in the basilica’. The Nemenios bronzes take reference to this building back to the first century BC. ISic003580 is of monumental scale and may belong to the act of (re)building to which this inscription appears to make reference. There continues to be debate over whether the term 'basilica' is intended to designate, or originally evolved to designate, primarily building form or simply function. Buildings termed ‘basilica’, especially in the Republican period, have considerable variety of form; but they also have considerable variety of use (Gros, P. 1996. L’architecture romaine au début du IIIe siècle av. J.-C. à la fin du Haut-Empire, vol. 1, Les monuments publics (Paris), at 238-55). As David has noted, basilicae served a judicial role alongside others, hosting the tribunals of Roman officials (David, J.-M. 1983. Le tribunal dans le basilique: évolution fonctionelle et symbolique de la République à l’Empire. In AA.VV. Architecture et société de l'archaïsme grec à la fin de la république romaine (Rome 2-4 décembre 1980) (CEFR 66). Rome: EFR. 219-241, at 219-28). Cicero’s Verrines attest to the use of porticoes in the agorai of the cities of Sicily by Verres and his subordinates for the administration of provincial government (Cic. Verr. 3.77, 4.85-6), and it is therefore very likely that the building called the basilica at Halaesa is part or the whole of the porticoed building standing on the agora (cf. Scibona, G. 2009. L'Agorà (scavi 1970-2004). In G. Scibona and G. Tigano (eds), Alaisa-Halaesa. Scavi e ricerche (1970-2007) (Messina: Regione Siciliana) 9-43, at 27 n.64, 42-43), and that this text refers to an act of repair or rebuilding in the imperial period.
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: 175720
- EDR: 075542
- EDH: -
- EDCS: 9401426
- PHI: -
- Printed editions
- AE at 1973.0269 Zotero FAIR
- G. Scibona, «Epigraphica Halaesina I», Kokalos 17 (1971): 3–20, at 15 no.5 fig.3 Zotero FAIR
- Manganaro (1988) at 46 Zotero FAIR
- G. Scibona, ‘The Epigraphs’, in Alesa Archonidea. Guide to the Antiquarium, ed. G. Scibona and G. Tigano (Palermo: Regione Siciliana, 2008), 25–27, at 27 ph Zotero FAIR
- Anna Maria Prestianni Giallombardo, «Spazio pubblico e memoria civica. Le epigrafi dall’agora di Alesa», in Agora greca e agorai di Sicilia, a c. di C. Ampolo (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2012), 171–200, at 181 fig.167 Zotero FAIR
Citation and editorial status
- Editor
- Jonathan Prag
- Principal contributor
- Jonathan Prag
- Contributors
- Jonathan Prag
- James Cummings
- James Chartrand
- Valeria Vitale
- Michael Metcalfe
- system
- Simona Stoyanova
- Last revision
- 1/19/2021