ISic003575: Honours for Aviana

Photo J. Prag courtesy Soprintendenza BBCCAA di Messina
ID
ISic003575
Language
Latin
Text type
honorific
Object type
plaque
Status
No data
Links
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Edition

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Apparatus criticus

  • Text from autopsy

Physical description

Support

Description
A thin slab of cream-coloured marble with blue-grey veins. The stone is broken on the right side and at the bottom. The reverse of the stone shows signs of having been prepared for fixing in a wall or monument, as well as traces of mortar; there is a hole for a metal fixing on the top edge.
Object type
plaque
Material
marble
Condition
No data
Dimensions
height: 58 cm, width: 44 cm, depth: 2.5-3 cm

Inscription

Layout
Three lines of Latin text are preserved, but the end of each line is lost. Engraved guidelines for the layout of the text are visible for all three lines. The letters of all three lines are of approximately equal height (65-70 mm), although the second I in line 2 is extended to a height of 92 mm.
Text condition
No data
Letter heights
Line 1-3: 65-70mm
Interlinear heights
Interlineation: not measured

Provenance

Place of origin
Halaesa
Provenance found
Excavated 1972, in room 7 of the west portico of the agora
Map

Current location

Place
Halaesa, Italy
Repository
Antiquarium e sito archeologico di Halaesa , 30596
Autopsy
On display in new lapidarium
Map

Date

1st century or early 2nd century CE (AD 1 – AD 125)
Evidence
No data

Text type

honorific

commentary

The traces of the last letters visible at the end of each line are enough to identify them. The second name of Aviania cannot be guessed, but the only likely word at the end of line two is uxor, ‘wife’. The abbreviation at the end of the text, DD, is standard, and also shows that this text belongs to the period when Halaesa was a Roman municipium (from the time of Augustus onwards). The original size of the inscription can be estimated from the central position of DD, and the stone was probably approximately 60cm wide originally, with only 4-5 letters missing from line 1, and 3-4 from line 2.

The gentilicium (family name) Avianius is known from Centuripe (ISic000005); it is not otherwise recorded in Sicily, although it is common in central and southern Italy. The name Aelius is a very common name, although not very frequent in Sicily; it is attested at Halaesa in the fragmentary text for Alfia (ISic003574) and in the Greek honorific for a rhetor (ISic003591).

It is likely that this text and the fragmentary text for Alfia were set up in honour of female members of the same family, since Alfia is related in some way to Lucius Aelius, as Aviania here is the wife of Publius Aelius. The same type of stone is used for both inscriptions, but the engraver of the two inscriptions is different as the letter forms are clearly different. The text belongs to the first or earlier second century AD.

Bibliography

Digital editions
Printed editions
  • J.R.W. Prag e G. Tigano, Alesa Archonidea: il lapidarium, Introduzione all’archeologia di Halaesa 8 (Palermo: Regione Siciliana, Assessorato beni culturali e identità siciliana, Dipartimento beni culturali e identità siciliana, 2017), at no.17 Zotero FAIR

Citation and editorial status

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