ISic001178: Halaesa honours Gaius Vergilius Balbus, proquaestor

Muratori (1740), vol. II, p. 1022, from http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/item/buchseite/503496
ID
ISic001178
Language
Ancient Greek
Text type
honorific
Object type
base
Status
No data
Links
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Apparatus criticus

  • Text after CIG (Franz)

Physical description

Support

Description
The stone was only seen by Muratori, and he did not provide a description
Object type
base
Material
stone
Condition
No data
Dimensions
height: cm, width: cm, depth: cm

Inscription

Layout
No data
Text condition
No data
Letter heights
Line 1: unknownmm
Interlinear heights
Interlineation line 1 to 2: unknownmm

Provenance

Place of origin
Halaesa
Provenance found
Assumed to be from Halaesa (Muratori notes that this is one of two which his own notes record at Nafplió in Greece (!), but both of which should rather be attributed to Sicily, and concludes that this should come from Halaesa).

Current location

Lost.

Date

69 BCE (69 BC – 69 BC)
Evidence
prosopography

Text type

honorific

commentary

Editors from Franz in CIG onwards have assumed that the definite article must have dropped out in line 2 (whether omitted by accident in the transcription or already invisible on the stone) and restored it, as here. The text has the usual form of a compressed dedicatory honorific typical at Halaesa and ubiquitous in the Hellenistic world. It is however unusual, in comparison to the other Halaesan and Sicilian examples in two respects: firstly, the order of honorand and dedicant is reversed, with the city coming second, the Roman magistrate being named first; and secondly, it omits the reference to the deity in the dative to which the likely statue of the honorand is dedicated (typically, at Halaesa, ‘to all the gods’, although this is not always present; compare ISic000770, ISic001177, ISic000612, also ISic001176). Both these differences are well attested in wider practice (see e.g. J. Ma, Statutes and Cities (Oxford 2013), 25), although they may be indicative of the fact that the honorand is the powerful figure of a Roman magistrate and that the text is a relatively late one (at Halaesa, compare the two lost Latin honorifics: that honouring Scipio (ISic000583), which is second century BC, and uses the accusative for the honorand, in typical Greek form, but where the honorand comes second; and that for Augustus (ISic000582), where the honorand is in dative, in typical Latin practice, but comes first, as here).

Gaius Vergilius Balbus was praetor in 62 BC and praetorian governor of Sicily from 61-58 BC. His quaestorship will have been in the early 60s BC, at some point betwen 69 and 66 BC (Prag 2007: 307, Broughton MRR III (1986), 218). Honours for proquaestors, i.e. an individual whose term of office as quaestor had been extended by one or more years by the Senate, are rare, and usually seem to be for individuals who have in fact temporarily taken on the duties of a full praetorian governor (Badian 1983: 158).

Bibliography

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Citation and editorial status

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