ISic003585: Honours for Iulia Soaemias
- ID
- ISic003585
- Language
- Latin
- Text type
- honorific
- Object type
- plaque
- Status
- edited
- Links
- View in current site
Edition
Apparatus criticus
- Text from autopsy, after initial reconstruction by Scibona
Physical description
Support
- Description
- A slab of pink-white marble, broken into numerous small fragments, of which some are missing; the fragments have subsequently been floated into place and the gaps filled with plaster, and the missing letters / parts of letters traced in the plaster.
- Object type
- plaque
- Material
- marble
- Condition
- No data
- Dimensions
- height: 78 cm, width: 76.5 cm, depth: 2.8 cm
Inscription
- Layout
- Seven lines of Latin text are mostly preserved, filling the vertical space, but with extensive margins to left and right.
- Text condition
- No data
- Lettering
- Letters are simply carved, tall V-cut capitals, with thick, short serifs.
- Letter heights
- Lines 1-4: 58-72mm
- Lines 5-7: 38-57mm
- Interlinear heights
- Interlineation: not measured
Provenance
- Place of origin
- Halaesa
- Provenance found
- Presumed to be from the agora excavations
Current location
- Place
- Halaesa, Italy
- Repository
- Antiquarium e sito archeologico di Halaesa , 30601
- Autopsy
- On display in the lapidarium on site
- Map
Date
218—222 CE (AD 218 – AD 222)- Evidence
- internal-date
Text type
commentary
A number of the letters only survive partially on the original stone fragments; the dotted letters in the transcription are those where, if the plaster restoration were to be removed, the surviving traces would be insufficient without context and parallels to restore them with certainty. The overall reading and restoration, however, appears to be certain.
The use of interpuncts is very irregular, and this is not a result simply of missing fragments, although it is possible that interpuncts are lost in several places such as between DD and PP in the final line.
The desire of the engraver to maintain the left and right margins of the text as a visual feature within the larger space of the slab is notable, and results in several awkward line divisions in the middle of names.
Iulia Soaemias (Bassiana) (Herzog, RE 10.1 (1919), s.v. Iulia no.596, col.948-951) was the mother of the Emperor Elagobalus. She regularly has the titles of Augusta and Mater Augusti, although the precise variation here of mater Imp. Caes. is not well attested (Cf. CIL 6 no.40679; CIL 8 no.2564; CIL 8 no.2715; AE 1987 no.1130; AE 1928 no.36).
The names and titles date the text to 218-222 AD.
As with the honorific inscription for C. Fulvius Plautianus (ISic003584), it is notable that this inscription has not suffered from damnatio memoriae, to which a number of the inscriptions for Iulia Soaemias were subject.
Bibliography
- Digital editions
- TM: 645664
- EDR: -
- EDH: -
- EDCS: -
- PHI: -
- Printed editions
- Discussion
- ()
Citation and editorial status
- Citation
- No data