ISic003584: Honours for Fulvius Plautianus
edited, View in current site
Apparatus criticus
- Text from autopsy, after initial reconstruction by Scibona
English translation
To Caius Fulvius Plautianus, excellent man (i.e. Roman senator), Prefect of the Praetorian guard, kinsman of Emperor Caesar Lucius Septimius Severius Pius Pertinax Augustus Arabicus Adiabenicus Pathicus Maximus, Father of the Fatherland, and of Emperor Caesar Marcus Aruelius Antoninus [ ? ], by decree of the town councillors.
Physical description
Support
- Description
- Twelve fragments of a large grey marble slab with blue-grey veins (dimensions not recorded). The bottom right corner is preserved, as is a short section of the upper right margin. The left edge of the inscription itself is also preserved in part, as is (probably) the top, although in both cases the edges of the stone are not intact. The panel is thinner at the left edge (2 cm), thicker upper right (3.2 cm). The fragments do not all join together. The joining fragments have been reconnected and the various groups of connected fragments have been floated into approximate relationship on a panel and fixed in place, for a proposed overall size of approx. W 75 cm x H 120 cm.
- Object type
- plaque
- Material
- marble
- Condition
- No data
- Dimensions
- height: c.120 cm, width: c.75 cm, depth: 2.0-3.2 cm
Inscription
- Layout
- The remains of at least eight lines of Latin text are preserved, set between double guidelines.
- Text condition
- No data
- Lettering
- The letters are fairly simply engraved in a somewhat crude and broad V-cut, with minimal serifs at the terminations of the strokes. The letter V is rounded into a continuous stroke at the base. In the upper lines the letters are generously spaced, but they become more compressed and taller and thinner from line 4 onwards. The words are separated by ornate interpuncts in the form of a small s; a hedera is preserved at the end of the text.
- Letter heights
- Line 1: 42-46mm
- Line 2: 47-50mm
- Line 3: 50-53mm
- Line 4: 48-50mm
- Line 5: 44-46mm
- Line 6: 48-56mm
- Line 7: 46mm
- Interlinear heights
- Interlineation line 1 to 2: 44-46mm
- Interlineation line 2 to 3: 53-55mm
- Interlineation line 3 to 4: 50-52mm
- Interlineation line 4 to 5: 53-56mm
- Interlineation line 5 to 6: 55-59mm
- Interlineation line 6 to 7: 53-55mm
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Halaesa
- Provenance found
- Presumed to come from the agora excavations
Current location
- Place
- Halaesa, Italy
- Repository
- Antiquarium e sito archeologico di Halaesa, 30603
- Autopsy
- On display in the lapidarium on site
- Map
- TODO: use the geo information in the museums dataset
Date
AD 202 – AD 205- Evidence
- internal-date
Text type
commentary
On fragments 9-12, including and preceding line 8, traces of four guidelines are preserved, with unengraved space extending to the right margin. Within the final pair of guidelines, at the left edge (fragments 10-11), an interpunct is visible, preceded by the trace of a curved stroke, most likely D or O or S. This appears to be the very final letter of the inscription.
The excavator, Giacomo Scibona correctly identified this text as an honorific inscription for C. Fulvius Plautianus, clarissimus vir, praefectus praetorio and necessarius of the emperors Severus and Caracalla. The text is restored on the basis of parallels from the numerous honorifics known elsewhere for Fulvius. This is the first honorific for Fulvius from Sicily, although multiple honorifics for Severus are already known from Sicily, and one for his daughter, Fulvia Plautilla, wife of Caracalla is known from Soluntum (ISic000047).
Alföldy (G. Alföldy. 1979. Un’iscrizione di Patavium e la titolatura di C. Fulvio Plauziano. Aquileia Nostra 50: 125-152) provides a full discussion of the titolature of Fulvius. The title necessarius dates the text between 202 and 205 AD (Alföldy 1979: 139). There is no exact parallel among the inscriptions to Fulvius for the phrase necessarius imperatorum Caesarum; the form necessarius dominorum nostrorum is attested, although this is combined with imperatorum on several occasions (e.g. AE 1979 no.294; AE 1988 no.1099; AE 1906 no.24) and the form does occur in other inscriptions for these emperors. However, the traces at the end of line 3 leave little alternative.
Line 8 is essentially lost, other than a short vacat at the end of the line, and could have contained the name of Publius Septimius Geta also, since as Alföldy notes (1979: 135) the use of necessarius without reference to Fulvius’ marital relations to Severus and Caracalla is commonly applied in the surviving inscriptions to all three. However, at least one example exists where the term necessarius is only used in relation to the first two (CIL 11 no. 8050 = ILS 9003) and certainty is impossible.
It is noteworthy that this inscription shows no signs of any damnatio memoriae.
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: 645663
- EDR: -
- EDH: -
- EDCS: -
- PHI: -
Citation and editorial status
- Citation
- No data