ISic003571: Honours for Lapiron
- ID
- ISic003571
- Language
- Latin
- Text type
- honorific
- Object type
- plaque
- Status
- No data
- Links
- View in current site
Edition
Apparatus criticus
- Text from autopsy
Physical description
Support
- Description
- Five joining fragments of a thin slab of cream marble with extensive blue veins. The right hand side of the text survives entire, with part of the top, right and bottom margins intact; the lower right corner is missing, but no text is there lost. On a conservative estimate, slightly more than half of the stone is missing on the left side.
- Object type
- plaque
- Material
- marble
- Condition
- No data
- Dimensions
- height: 69.2 cm, width: 44 cm, depth: 1.6-2 cm
Inscription
- Layout
- The right hand end of five lines of Latin text are preserved, with clear vacats above the first and below the final line. The text decreases in size from lines 1-4 (55-36 mm), and a slight gap precedes line 5, which is larger again (46 mm).
- Text condition
- No data
- Letter heights
- Line 1: 55mm
- Line 2: 45-48mm
- Line 3: 38-40mm
- Line 4: 36mm
- Line 5: 46mm
- Interlinear heights
- Interlineation: not measured
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Halaesa
- Provenance found
- Excavated in 1971, in room 7 of the west portico of the agora
- Map
Current location
- Place
- Halaesa, Italy
- Repository
- Antiquarium e sito archeologico di Halaesa , 30595
- Autopsy
- On display in new lapidarium
- Map
Date
Augustan/Julio-Claudian (21 BC – AD 50)- Evidence
- No data
Text type
commentary
The name in line 1 can be restored on the basis of epigraphic and literary attestations from the second and first century BC of individuals at Halaesa with Greek names, called Diogenes Lapiron and Apollodorus Lapiron (see ISic001176, ISic000800, ISic001175, and Cicero, In Verrem 2.2.19-28; Facella 2006: 230-232). This individual must be a Roman citizen, with the Greek name Lapiron forming the cognomen, and he is presumably a relative of those previously known. The suggested restorations of the other lines (especially line 4) allows for perhaps as many as 10 letters before Lapironi, but probably not more. This would be just sufficient for praenomen, short nomen, and filiation (or a slightly longer nomen if filiation were omitted). The fact that a member of one of the leading families of Halaesa in the Hellenistic/Republican period can be seen holding a position within the Roman state (praefectus fabrum) and (probably) being honoured in his hometown with the priesthood of Augustus for life is important evidence for continuity of the local elite in Halaesa through the troubled period of the civil wars and into the early Empire (there is no direct evidence for events in Halaesa during the civil wars).
In line 2, the restoration of praefectus fabrum is unproblematic. Iteration of the position 10 times (i.e. for ten years) is unusual, but not unparalleled (see e.g. AE 1959 no.284, Saepinum, for 15 times). Several other individuals in Sicily (mostly early Empire) are attested as holding the office of praefectus fabrum, at Messina (ISic000265, lost), at Catania (ISic000307), and at Termini (ISic000094 (lost) and ISic000098). Depending upon the available space to the left, a further office is likely to have been listed, and is more likely to have been one in imperial / military service, rather than municipal, given the sequence of posts, viz. praefectus fabrum in line 2 followed by a municipal preisthood in line 3 (the general of such military posts with municipal ones is common). One likely such post would be that of tribunus militum (with or without the legion named), but praefectus equitum or praefectus cohortis are also attested.
In lines 3-4, Augusti Caesaris in the genitive is most frequently found in the context of a flamen (priest) Augusti Caesaris, which position is already attested at Halaesa on the Augustan-era coinage (RPC I, no.630-633, e.g. ANS 2015.20.550). The word ending [--]VO in line four appears to stand alone at the centre of the line, and in context can most plausibly be restored as perpetuo, the position of flamen perpetuus (i.e. priest for life) being a relatively common honour in municipal careers. The layout implied by placing perpetuo at the centre of line 4 would mean that there was some space still before flamini on line 3 (since the text of line 3 runs right up to the margin on the right hand side), perhaps to be filled by a second municipal position, such as IIvir (duumvir, the chief civic magistracy in a municipium).
Line 5: the phrase can most likely be restored in full as decreto decurionum pecunia publica but, on the assumption that only perpetuo stood in line 4, the likely extent of the missing portion of the inscription on the left means that the first two words were probably abbreviated to the standard D(ecreto) D(ecurionum).
The text cannot be closely dated, but is likely to be Augustan or Julio-Claudian.
The text bears close similarities (letter forms and material) to ISic003574 (for Alfia), but that text is thicker, the line heights are different, the guidelines are much more pronounced, and it is not possible to see how the two texts could be combined. They must be regarded as separate, but presumably contemporary, inscriptions.
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: 645642
- EDR: -
- EDH: -
- EDCS: -
- PHI: -
- Printed editions
Citation and editorial status
- Editor
- Jonathan Prag
- Principal contributor
- Jonathan Prag
- Contributors
- Jonathan Prag
- James Cummings
- James Chartrand
- Valeria Vitale
- Michael Metcalfe
- Deborah Potter
- system
- Simona Stoyanova
- Last revision
- 1/19/2021