ISic003576: Dedication to pax Augusta
Latin, dedication, plaque
edited, View in current site
Apparatus criticus
- Text from autopsy
English translation
Sacred to Augustan Peace. Decimus Turranius Atticus, freedman of Decimus, sevir Augustalis set this up with his own money.
Physical description
Support
- Description
- A large thin slab of reddish-pink veined marble. The rear is rough and unfinished. Intact at upper left, top and upper right (except for the extreme top left corner), but broken across the bottom, with parts of the lower left and right margins also missing. The lower right portion of the slab has been recomposed of several small fragments.
- Object type
- plaque
- Material
- marble
- Condition
- No data
- Dimensions
- height: 55.1 cm, width: 52.7 cm, depth: 3 cm
Inscription
- Layout
- Six lines of Latin text are preserved, and only a single letter seems to be lost from the end of the final line (and traces of that letter survive).There are traces of red paint preserved in several of the letters. The text as a whole is neatly centred.
- Text condition
- No data
- Lettering
- The letters are elegantly incised with a V-cut, and generally very well proportioned, although there is some uneven spacing in lines 3 and 5. The serifs are often lightly extended for some distance. P is open, R has a long and elegant tail. Triangular interpuncts separate words within the lines, including the abbreviations of the final line.
- Letter heights
- Lines 1-2: 40-47mm
- Lines 3-6: 35-37mm
- Interlinear heights
- Interlineation: not measured
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Halaesa
- Provenance found
- Excavated in 1971, from taberna 7 in the west portico of the agora
- Map
Current location
- Place
- Halaesa, Italy
- Repository
- Antiquarium e sito archeologico di Halaesa, 30593
- Autopsy
- On display in the lapidarium on site
- Map
- TODO: use the geo information in the museums dataset
Date
21 BC – AD 68- Evidence
- lettering
Text type
commentary
The spacing of the letters and interpuncts in the final line makes it clear that only a single letter is missing, and the visible trace is compatible with D(edicavit), P(osuit), or F(ecit). The last of these is the most common and the visible trace is not comparable to instances of D or P in this text (the sense is however clear and similar whichever resolution is adopted).
This is one of several dedications by seviri at Halaesa. Dedications to Augustan peace by a sevir Augustalis are entirely of a part with the patterns of dedication to the Emperor and associated divine qualities across Italy and the wider empire. Direct parallels for a text of this sort, likely to be from the base of a statue or the facing of an altar, can be found in Rome (ILS 6050), Italy (altar at Praeneste, ILS 3787), Spain (Baetica, CILA 2.1 no.241), and Antioch in Pisidia (AE 1926 no.76); ISic000699 (Centuripae) might be restored as an example from Sicily. Donati (Donati, A. 2014. Il linguaggio della guerra e della pace. In M. Chiabà (ed.), Hoc quoque laboris praemium. Scritti in onore di Gino Bandelli, Trieste, 157-62) offers a recent discussion of pax Augusta with further bibliography. Dedications occur particularly under Augustus, but also under the Julio-Claudians, and again under Vespasian (Noreña, C. 2003. Medium and Message in Vespasian’s Templum Pacis. MAAR 48: 25-43, at 32-33).
The name Turranius is found once in Sicily at Termini Imerese (ISic000099), but more widely elsewhere, such as at Ostia. The cognomen Atticus is attested once in Sicily at Catania (ISic000383). Another Decimus Turranius D.l. is attested at Rome (CIL 6 no.27802).
The inscription is presumably Augustan or Julio-Claudian in date.
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: 645647
- EDR: -
- EDH: -
- EDCS: -
- PHI: -
Citation and editorial status
- Citation
- No data