ISic001705: Inscription recording the municipium of Halaesa

Apparatus criticus

• Text of Torremuzza

Physical description

Support

Description

Described by Torremuzza as inscribed on 'un grande intaglio di marmo'

Object type

block

Material

marble

Condition

No data

Dimensions

height: unknown cm, width: unknown cm, depth: unknown cm

Inscription

Layout

no description is preserved

Text condition

No data

Lettering

Letter heights

Line 1: unknownmm

Interlinear heights

Interlineation line 1 to 2: unknownmm

Provenance

Place of origin

Halaesa

Provenance found

First recorded by Torremuzza in 1749 and 1753 'fra le ruine' of Halaesa

Current location

Lost.

Date

Evidence

No data

Text type

unknown

commentary

The text was first recorded by Gabriele Lancillotto Castelli, principe di Torremuzza, alongside ISic000582, in 1749 and again with slightly more detail in 1753. His is the only report, and he presents it explicitly as a second text in addition to that previously recorded by Gualtherus (ISic000582), and describes it in different terms, suggesting that it is a monumental text in marble (but whether intact or not is uncertain). Mommsen noted it in his apparatus to CIL 10.7458 (ISic000582) and implied some scepticism ('venit sin dubio ex narrationibus eorum qui lapidem videssent memoriter traditis'). It was also noted by Prestianni Giallombardo (but omitted from Prag and Tigano 2017). As Ampolo and Erdas note (2019, p.112), the more recent discovery of a statue base reading simply 'municipium' at Segesta (ISic000666) should encourage some credibility in Torremuzza's report. It remains unclear if this is e.g. a statue base or part of a building. The reference to marble is notable, since marble only comes in to use for inscriptions at Halaesa in the Augustan period.

This is one of several texts from Sicily erected simply in the name of the municipium (compare CIL 10, no.7463=ISic000587 and 7464=ISic000588 from Haluntium; AE 1945 no.64=ISic000622 and ISic000666 from Segesta). The formulation is unusual, with occasional south Italian examples (Prag 2008: 78 nn.80-82), most likely reflecting Greek traditions of erecting honours, e.g., in the name of the polis (this possibility is made more likely by the example in Greek from Haluntium (IG 14, no.367 = ISic001190, honours set up by τὸ μουνικίπιον τῶν Ἁλοντίνων). The text provides important evidence, alongside the Augustan coinage from Halaesa, that the town had the status of a Latin municipium by the later Augustan period.

Bibliography

Digital editions

• TM: -
• EDR: -
• EDH: -
• EDCS: -
• PHI: -

Printed editions

• Gabriele Lancillotto Castelli, Dissertazione sopra una statua di marmo: scoverta nelle rovine dell’antica città d’Alesa in Sicilia (Italy: Nella Nuova stamperia de’ SS. Appostoli ..., 1749), http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/item/buch/1949, at xxi
• Gabriele Lancillotto Castelli principe di Torremuzza, Storia di Alesa, antica città di Sicilia (Palermo: Stamperia de SS. Appostoli in Piazza Vigliena, presso Pietro Bentivenga, 1753), http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/books/Castelli1763, at 72 and 149 no.7
• T. Mommsen, Inscriptiones Bruttiorum Lucaniae Campaniae Siciliae Sardiniae Latinae. Pars posterior. Inscriptiones Siciliae et Sardiniae, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, consilio et auctoritate Academiae Litterarum Regiae Borussicae editum, 10.2 (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1883), at 10 p.768 comm. ad no. 7458
• 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 173 with n.31
• Carmine Ampolo e Donatella Erdas, Inscriptiones Segestanae. Le iscrizioni greche e latine di Segesta (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2019), at 111-112

Citation and editorial status

Editor

Jonathan Prag

Principal contributor

Jonathan Prag

Contributors

• Jonathan Prag
• James Chartrand
• Valeria Vitale
• Michael Metcalfe
• Simona Stoyanova

Last revision

1/12/2023