Description of Letters
Second century capitals with some Rustic forms,
ll. 1-5, 0.034;
l. 6, 0.018.
Translation
To Aurelius Caesar, son of Antoninus Augustus Pius, set up by Vitalis, freed home-born slave, ?in charge of claims for ships with capacity for ten thousand measures of corn.
Commentary
ll. 1-2. Marcus Aurelius, Caesar from 139 to 161.
l.5. Lib(ertus) or lib(rarius): Liberti are sometimes described also as uernae, see
e.g.
L'Ann. Ep. 1941, 161
uernae et liberto incomparibili: but in view of the order of
words here and of the context a term descriptive of the man's function might be
preferable. For slave
librarii see
CIL VIII, 12165-9.
l.6. Written A. X. M. with a small O above the M. There are identical sigla in
CIL XIV,
4319 at Ostia (a dedication to the
numen domus Augusti by
Victor et Hedistus uern(ae)
disp(ensatores) cum Traiano Aug(usti) lib(erto) A. X. M. O. (with O above the M),
except that in the Ostian text there is a bar above the
X. The lettering of the
Ostian text and the name
Traianus suggest that it was cut in the middle to late
second century, and is in fact roughly contemporary with the Lepcitanian one. (I am
indebted to Prof. G. Barbieri for a photograph of the Ostian text).
The explanation of the Ostian text given in
CIL loc. cit. -
a(nno) (decimo)
m(agistro) (sc. of a
collegium in whose
scola it is supposed to have been dedicated)
- cannot stand now that another instance of the abbreviation has been found: nor does
an earlier suggestion made by Dessau in
Eph. Ep. IX, 437 -
a(eris) (sc. stipendii)
(decimi) mo(?) seem to help. It would be reasonable to suppose that the letters refer
to a branch of the imperial financial service and perhaps specifically one concerned
with financial administration arising in ports. For this the precise findspots of the
two texts offer some confirmation - the Ostian text was found in the Piazzale delle
Corporazioni, and the Lepcitanian text on the seashore near
302, which mentions a
seruus in the office of the
IIII p.A. at Lepcis and suggests the proximity of that
office. But I am unable to offer any satisfactory expansion of the letters. M with O
above is a standard abbreviation for
modius.