ISic000803: Dedication by a pair of seviri

Photo J. Prag
ID
ISic000803
Language
Latin
Text type
honorific
Object type
base
Status
No data
Links
View in current site

Edition

Loading...

Apparatus criticus

Physical description

Support

Description
Two blocks of yellow, non-local sandstone (Burgio 2013: 26 n.2), surmounted by a cornice and forming the left and right ends of the upper part of a monument / statue base which originally stood against the internal rear wall of the west portico, between rooms 5 and 6.
Object type
base
Material
sandstone
Condition
No data
Dimensions
height: 35 cm, width: 182 cm, depth: 68 cm

Inscription

Layout
Two lines of Latin letters in the field below the moulding (17.5 cm high and originally 160 cm wide)
Text condition
No data
Lettering

Letter heights
Line 1: 45-55mm
Line 2: 40-45mm
Interlinear heights
Not measured: mm

Provenance

Place of origin
Halaesa
Provenance found
No data

Current location

Place
Halaesa, Italy
Repository
Antiquarium e sito archeologico di Halaesa
Autopsy
2011.06.15
Map

Date

End 1st century CE, beginning 2nd century CE (AD 50 – AD 150)
Evidence
No data

Text type

honorific

commentary

Part of the base of the original monument remains in situ in the portico, and Burgio (2013) has reconstructed the monument in its totality. This reconstruction demonstrates that one block is missing between the two surviving blocks of the crown of the base, and that the missing block was 60 cm wide (with the same height (35 cm) and depth (47 cm across the base and 68 cm across the top with the moulding) as the other two blocks). The lacuna therefore between the two surviving parts of the text was 60 cm. In line 1, this lacuna was almost certainly filled by the word et (‘and’) and the praenomen and nomen of the second individual with the cognomen Sabinus. In line 2, the presence of a gap before and after the word seviri suggests that there were fewer, widely spaced words in line 2. Two possibilities can be suggested: either the name in the accusative of the divinity to whom the monument was dedicated, and whom the statue or statue group on top depicted (e.g. AE 1990 no.225-226, a dedication to Victoria Augusta at Iuvanum in Samnium); or else just the word Augustales, i.e. seviri Augustales (e.g. AE 2007 no.698, Huesca in Spain and AE 1981 no.345, Etruria).

The gens Caecilia is attested at Halaesa in Cicero (Verr. 2.2.23, Q. Caecilius Dio) and on the Augustan coinage (RPC I, no. 628-629, Caecilius Rufus, duumvir) and elsewhere on the island (see Facella 2006: 234 n. 87; 250; 287-288). The cognomen Himeraeus is attested at Termini Imerese (anc. Thermae Himeraeae), in I.L.Termini no.90 with p.61 ([-] Domitius A.f. Quir. Himeraeus). The cognomen Sabinus is attested in Sicily at Messina (I.Messina no.7: M. Saufeius Sabinus), Catania (CIL 10 no.7062: Crassicius Sabinus Aptitianus) and at Taormina (IG 14 no.166: Auxanon son of Sabinos).

Bibliography

Digital editions
Printed editions
  • AE at 1973.0270 Zotero FAIR
  • G. Scibona, «Epigraphica Halaesina I», Kokalos 17 (1971): 3–20, at 16 no.6 tav.4.1 Zotero FAIR
  • Manganaro (1988) at 47 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 183 Zotero FAIR
  • Rocco Burgio, «Architetture onorarie dell’agorà di Alesa, 1. Il monumento dei Seviri Augustales: analisi e proposta ricostruttiva», Quaderni di Archeologia, a cura dell’Università degli Studi di Messina n.s. 3 (2013): 11–45. Zotero FAIR

Citation and editorial status

Editor
Jonathan Prag
Principal contributor
Jonathan Prag
Contributors
Last revision
1/19/2021