ISic003089: Honorific for Lucius Domitius

Apparatus criticus

• Text of Manni Piraino, compared against poor quality photograph;
• 3: Manni Piraino reads a hedera between the first two words, but this is invisible in the photograph and implausible at this date.

Physical description

Support

Description

A large block of limestone, found in re-use in a later wall, and apparently recut on the right side, no longer preserving the right half.

Object type

block

Material

limestone

Condition

damaged

Dimensions

height: 80 cm, width: 60 cm, depth: 30 cm

Inscription

Layout

Four lines of text are preserved, with uneven left margin, suggesting that the text was centred on the stone prior to the later recutting. The letters reduce in size especially in the fourth line.

Text condition

incomplete

Lettering

Letter heights

Line 1: 45-70mm

Line 2: 35-40mm

Line 3: 30-45mm

Line 4: 30-40mm

Interlinear heights

Interlineation line 1 to 2: mm

Provenance

Place of origin

Cephaloedium

Provenance found

Found in re-use in an enclosure wall outside the Duomo (of mediaeval date?), near the south tower ('saggio 1 bis')

Map

Current location

Place

Cefalù, Italy

Repository

Autopsy

None

Date

Evidence

lettering

Text type

honorific

commentary

Further autopsy is needed to clarify readings and palaeography. Manni Piraino suggests a date in the early third century BCE, but this seems too early, and a date in the second century is more likely, primarily on palaeographic grounds, but also the general form of the honorific (SEG states third century AD, but this must be an erroneous transcription of the Italian 'a.C.'). If the suggested restoration of line 1 is correct, a significant amount of text is missing from the right, and beside the nomen, filiation, and potential cognomen of the Roman being honoured (the last highly unlikely in a text of the third century BCE), it is likely that a formal magistracy was also mentioned (most Romans honoured in Sicily in this period were office-holders). However, comparable texts from the north coast also exist which only have the words ὁ δᾶμος in the first line. If the omicron at the end of line 2 is correct (impossible to see in the photograph), then Lucius Domitius [-] f. Gn. n. becomes the most likely reading and that would most immediately suggest the praetor in Sicily of probably 97 BCE (Cic. Ver. 5.7 ; V. Max. 6.3.5 ; Quint. Inst. 4.2.17), L. Domitius Cn. f. Cn. n. Ahenobarbus. It is however difficult to read υἱωνὸ[ν] in the photograph (as opposed to υἱὸν) , and a shorter text, without cognomen and only the patronymic should also be considered.

Bibliography

Digital editions

• TM: 284882
• EDR: -
• EDH: -
• EDCS: 64900517
• PHI: 331405

Printed editions

• ‘Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum’, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 1923, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1607583, at 36.0845
• M.T. Manni Piraino, «II materiale antico reimpiegato e rilavorato in età normanna - Iscrizioni greche», in Mostra di documenti e testimonianze figurative della Basilica Ruggeriana di Cefalù. Catalogo della mostra Cefalù, luglio - settembre 1982 (Palermo, 1982), 63–64, at 63-64 no. 4-55 tav. IV/8,1
• M.T. Manni Piraino, «Iscrizioni greche del duomo», in La Basilica Cattedrale di Cefalù. Materiali per la conoscenza storica e il restauro. 3. La ricerca archeologica. Preesistenze e materiali reimpiegati, a c. di N. Bonacasa et al. (Palermo: Epos, 1985), 145–49, at 147-149 R23 fig. 199-201
• Andoni Llamazares Martin, ‘Officina Di IG XIV2 – Civic Inscriptions from Hellenistic Kephaloidion’, Axon. Iscrizioni Storiche Greche 8 (2024): 1–20, https://doi.org/10.30687/Axon/2532-6848/2024/01/009, at 1-20

Citation and editorial status

Editor

Jonathan Prag

Principal contributor

Jonathan Prag

Contributors

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

Last revision

3/6/2022