ISic001190: The municipium of the Haluntini honours Gnaeus Pollienus

Apparatus criticus

Text from autopsy;
1: Gualtherus: μουνικίπιο[ν]; Kaibel, Manni-Piraino: μουνικίπιον; Korhonen-Soraci: μουνικίπιον τῶν̲
2: Gualtherus: ΙΙΙΝΑΙΟΝ...
3: Gualtherus: ΠΟΛΛΕΙΝΟΙΠΥ..Ε...ΑΕΩΧΟΕ; Kaibel: ΠΟΛΛΙΗΝΟΝ ΕΥΜΑΡΕΑ; Manni Piraino: Πολλιηνὸν Πολλιηνο[ῦ]; Korhonen-Soraci: Πολλιηνὸν Γ̣να̣ίο̣υ̣
4: Gualtherus: ΝΟΜΟΥΕΡΠΡΛ ...Τ..ΤΑΛΟ...; Kaibel: ΕΥΕΡΓ/Τ///ΑΓ/Ο; Manni Piraino: εὐεργέτη̣ν̣ ἀπο; Korhonen-Soraci: εὐεργετῶν̲ ἀπο
5: Gualtherus: .ΟΝΟΝ ΕΥΝΟΙ[ας] ΕΝΕΚΕΝ; Kaibel: ΓΟΝΟΝ ΓΝΟΙΑ//ΝΕΚ/Ν; Manni Piraino: ε̣ὐν̣οία[ς] ἕνεκ[εν]; Korhonen-Soraci: εὐνοία[ς] ἕνεκε̲ν̲

Physical description

Support

Description: A large square base of the "breccia di San Marco". Mouldings around the top and bottom. Damage to the lower right front corner, the upper right front corner, the upper left corner moulding and ther rear upper left corner. The front face is somewhat eroded, with what appears to be a small patch of grey mortar in the centre. The upper surface has two large footholes, left foot forward, right foot to the rear, each c.8 cm from the front/back edge of the stone and c.25 cm long and 4-9 cm wide. The inscribed front face is 39 cm high x 64 cm wide.
Object type: statue base
Material: breccia (local)
Condition: damaged
Dimensions: height: 70 cm, width: 77.5 cm, depth: 69 cm

Inscription

Layout

The text occupies five lines over the upper part of the front face.

Text condition

deteriorated

Lettering

Letter heights

Line 1-5: 30mm

Interlinear heights

Interlineation line 1 to 2 : mm

Provenance

Place of origin: Haluntium
Provenance found: First recorded observation is in Gualtherus 1624, where it was seen in the arch of an acqueduct near the Church of S. Antonio. It was observed there still by Salinas in 1880, prior to being removed to the Palermo Museum.

Current location

Place: Palermo, Italy
Repository: Museo Archeologico Regionale Antonino Salinas , 8814
Autopsy: Prag 2024-12-03, on the north side of the second courtyard of the Museo archeologico regionale A. Salinas, Palermo.
Map

Date

The use of the term 'municipium' in Greek places this text almost certainly after the grant of Latin rights to Sicily by Julius Caesar (probably 46 BCE), but equally the use of Greek implies a date not later than the early Augustan period. The lettering is compatible with a late Hellenistic date. (46 BC – 1 BC)

Evidence: textual-context

Text type

honorific

commentary

The stone is extremely difficult to read, consequent firstly upon the type of stone, a very variegated breccia, and secondly upon the fact, as noted by Salinas, that it was preserved in reuse in the arch of an acqueduct and so exposed to water and the elements for an extended period of centuries. Autopsy based readings have been attempted seemingly by Gualtherus in 1624, by Dessau as reported in Kaibel 1890, by Manni Piriano 1974, and by Korhonen and Soraci 2019; additionally Salinas reports the reading of Gualtherus but with minor variation consequent upon his interpretation of what Gualtherus printed. Previous readings are not consistently presented (and Korhonen-Soraci report with underlining, as if read by previous editors, letters which in a number of cases were never read, only conjecturally restored by those authors [when Gualtherus prints italic lower case, these are conjectural restorations, not readings]). The stone has presumably deteriorated since seen by Gualtherus, but he already clearly struggled to read it. The reading presented here is based upon c.2 hours of study under raking light on a late December afternoon / evening. It is quite possible that the application of RTI or SfM could produce a better reading. The previous readings present considerable variety as can be seen in the apparatus, but it will be apparent that the essential crux is the second half of line 3. Given υἱὸν in line 4, the second half of the line must contain the individual's patronymic. Gualtherus saw something similar to the nomen Pollienos in the first half of the line, but his reading of the rest of the line is very uncertain; Kaibel/Dessau interpreted the angular strokes in the second half of the line as ΜΑ, reading Eumarea, whereas Manni Piraino took it to be ΛΛ, and read a repetition of the nomen Pollienos. The latter would be very unusual for a Roman filiation, as Korhonen-Soraci observed. Korhonen-Soraci claimed to be able to read the letters ΝΑΙΟ followed tentatively by Υ at line end, and so, on the basis of ΓΝΑΙΟΝ in line 2, read Γ̣να̣ίο̣υ̣. They argued that the four oblique lines visible in this part of the line (read as Μ by Kaibel/Dessau, and as ΛΛ by Manni Piraino) should be read so, but that the final of these on the right was part of a Ν. The problem with this reading is that it simply ignores the remaining oblique lines, and these are undeniably present and incompatible with N, in the absence of vertical strokes. I print above what I believe to be legible on the stone, although with limited confidence, and without any easy solution, while noting that it aligns partially with the readings of both Kaibel and Manni Piraino. The very end of the line is entirely illegible. It is not easy to resolve these traces as a Roman praenomen, and yet it is obviously tempting to associate this Gnaios Pollieonos with the Gnaeus Pollienus Cn.f. attested at Thermae Himeraeae in ISic000095 and ISic000096, as noted by previous scholars. If the patronymic is something else, then this potentially becomes a first generation Roman citizen, presumably with some relationship to the Pollienus family at Termini.

The formula εὐεργέτων ἀπόγονον is somewhat curious, assuming that the reading is correct: the penultimate letter of the first word is far from clear, Manni Piraino read instead εὐεργέτη̣ν, but it is difficult to make sense of two accusatives in sequence. Parallels for the formulation here can be found in inscriptions from Samos (e.g. IG XII.6.1.296) and Didyma (I.Didyma 259). The implication, in turn, is that Pollienos presumably had a longer familial relationship with the community, and perhaps aligns therefore with the possibility that he is a first generation Roman citizen, of local birth, rather than identical with the individual from Thermae Himeraeae, given that this inscription surely dates no later than the Augustan period, and therefore cannot be later than the first generation of colonial settlers at Thermae Himeraeae of whom Cn. Pollienus Cn.f. must be a part.

The inscription's principal point of interest however lies in the use of the calque μουνικίπιον. This is usually assumed to reflect the town's assumption of municipal status following upon the grant of Latin rights by Caesar, although whether to be dated therefore narrowly to the period between Caesar's grant c.46 BCE and the conquest of the island by Octavian in 36 BCE, as argued e.g. by Giacomo Manganaro, or rather to reflect the continuation or resumption of that status under Augustus is unclear (municipal status being attested in a number of other Sicilian towns in the Augustan period, and that status is normally assumed to be Latin, not full Roman status). The shift towards the use of Latin in inscriptions is rapid in the Augustan period, but as this text indicates, by no means certain or universal in the first generation or so of the transition. For general discussion, see Prag, J.R.W. 2024. The transition from Republic to Principate in Sicily: an epigraphic perspective. In L.M. Caliò, L. Campagna, G.M. Gerogiannis, E.C. Portale, L. Sole (eds), La Sicilia fra le guerre civili e l’epoca giulio-claudia, Atti del I Convegno Internazionale, Palermo, 19-21 maggio 2022, Museo Archeologico Regionale “Antonino Salinas”, 2 vols, Rome: Quasar, vol. 1, 71-94, at p.83ff.[online copy]

It is clear from the inscription that the base bore a statue above. However, the visible footprints on the upper surface of the base are for a barefoot bronze statue facing in the opposite direction to the preserved inscription, left foot advanced and right foot trailing. The rear of the base is chiselled plain and shows no trace of an associated inscription. Henzel (Honores inauditi, p.305 no. Halu2 with 306 Halu3) assumes that the visible footprints are for a later statue and use of the base (Halu3), reflecting re-use, with the surviving inscription reflecting the original use (Halu2). However, the lack of any inscription for that hypothesised second use (Halu3), and the preservation of the inscription from the hypothesised original use (Halu2), surely speak against this, and it is easier to assume that the visible footprints belonged to an earlier statue, for which the inscription on what is now the rear has been removed, and that instead perhaps a later stone statue was set up over footholes, to accompany the surviving inscription. Henzel appears to be the first to have noted and discussed the orientation of the footholes.

Bibliography

Digital editions

Printed editions

Citation and editorial status

Editor

Jonathan Prag

Principal contributor