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Two Monumental Inscriptions of Lepcis Magna

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

R. G. Goodchild
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Extract

The two Latin inscriptions described below were both re-composed during the years 1946–7 in the course of the work of systematisation carried out in the ruins of Lepcis Magna. In the case of the earlier inscription, of Augustus, a small number of inscribed blocks belonging to it had been uncovered during the Italian excavations of 1930–4; but the greater part of the inscription was covered by soil and only brought to light when the fallen west perimeter wall of the Market was re-erected in 1947. It has the distinction of being the earliest dated Latin inscription hitherto found at Lepcis.

The second inscription, of Vespasian and Titus, has no such structural context. Most of its blocks were built into the upper courses of the towers of the main surviving Byzantine Gate of the city; but others were found scattered at street-level in the vicinity of this gate, and had obviously fallen from it. The blocks are inscribed on both faces with parts of two identical texts, and, as explained below, the nature of the bi-frontal inscription suggests that it formerly belonged to a monumental arch, spanning one of the main streets of the city: but the position of this arch cannot be established with any certainty. Certain fragments of this inscription have been published previously; but a relatively complete text is presented here for the first time.

Type
Research Article
Information
Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 18 , November 1950 , pp. 72 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © British School at Rome 1950

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References

1 The texts are nos.319 (Market)and 342 (Flavian Arch) of The Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania, now in preparetion for publication by the British School at Rome.

2 A plan and a brief description appear in the Italian Touring Club Guide ‘Libia’ (1938 edn.) p. 326. Dr. Nevio Degrassi is preparing a more detailed account of the building.

3 The inscription, numbered Tripol. 27 by Prof. Levi Delia Vida, was first published in Africa Italiana VI (1935) pp. 3–15Google Scholar. Following discoveries of similar inscriptions in the Theatre of Lepcis, a revised text was published in the same volume, p. 109. It is discussed by Prof. Aurigemma, S. in Africa Italiana VIII (1940) pp. 12–16Google Scholar.

4 These discoveries are noted in the MS Relazioni Settimanali of the excavations (conserved in the archives of the Soprintendenza ai Monumenti e Scavi at Tripoli) under the dates 24 August 1930, and 12, 19 and 26 August 1934.

5 The construction of the new west door of the Market involved the removal of the blocks containing the first part of the titles of Augustus. Thus the inscription had already suffered mutilation, and no further purpose was served in leaving it exposed.

5a Block B17 should be displaced 12–15 cm. further to the right in the diagram (Fig. 1).

6 Dessau, ILS 97 (from Ephesus), 102 (milestone from Cordova), 6754 and 6755.

7 In the Theatre inscription (Vida, Levi Della, in Africa Italiana VI (1935) p. 104Google Scholar), ‘son of Arim’ occupies a position which would lead one to conclude that this Arim was the grandfather of Annobal Rufus. In the neo-Punic inscription of the Market, however, ‘son of Arim’ follows immediately after the offices of Annobal himself, suggesting that Arim was the father. Possibly the phrase is not genealogical in a rigid sense, but tribal—a fact which would explain its omission on the Latin inscriptions which strove to present Annobal Rufus in fully romanised guise.

8 Guidi, (Africa Romana, Milano, 1935, p. 245Google Scholar) described the Market as ‘punico-romano’, and interpreted an unusual type of column and capital as representing the remains of a pre-Roman structure. Re-examination of the problem has, however, shown that none of the surviving features of the Market ante-date the work of Annobal Rufus in 9–8 B.C. The adjective ‘punico’ may therefore be rejected.

9 Dessau, , PIR II, 276Google Scholar; Pauly-Wissowa, , RE XIII, 285 No. 59Google Scholar, and cf. 339 No. 73.

10 Smyth's activities at Lepcis are described briefly in the Beecheys' Proceedings of the Expedition to Explore the Northern Coast of Africa from Tripoli Eastward in 1821–22, London, 1828, pp. 72–8Google Scholar. The inscribed block was apparently sent to England in H.M.S. ‘Weymouth’ in 1817, together with other Lepcis fragments and many columns: one face of the block was copied by Osann while this material lay in the courtyard of the British Museum. Wilmanns, publishing the fragment as CIL VIII 9, correctly deduced its origin, and its association with the fragments published as CIL VIII 8.

11 The fragments appearing as CIL VIII 8 (less a and g, which do not belong to the present inscription) were copied by Kallenberg. Their position in the upper courses of the Byzantine Gate rendered them visible long before excavations commenced at Lepcis.

12 The formula T IMP AVG F does, however, occur in certain short inscriptions, e.g. Dessau, ILS 8629, 8704a, 8710 and the recently discovered bronze tablet from Valentia Banasa (Thouvenot, R., Valentia Banasa, Paris, 1941, p. 78, No. 48Google Scholar). On an inscription from Faleri Novi, now in the Farnese Palace at Caprarola, we find the formula T IMP CAESARE AVG F. (Dessau, ILS, 999).

12a See postscript, p. 82.

13 Tacitus, , Hist. 4, 41Google Scholar. I am indebted to M. Marec for permission to refer to the Bône inscription, now published in C.R.Acad. I., 1948, 559.

14 Had the four groups been arranged horizontally, their sequence would have been reversed on one face, and the text would not have made sense.

15 Both the four-sided Trajanic arch, and the simpler Tiberian one, on the main Cardo of Lepcis, served to mask changes of alignment in the street. The Tiberian arch measures 4.72 metres in width, which compares closely with the 4.90 metres of the Flavian inscription. See Romanelli, P., ‘Gli Archi di Tiberio e di Traiano in Leptis Magna’, Africa Italiana VII (1940) pp. 87–105Google Scholar.

16 In his article ‘L'ordinamento di Leptis Magna nel primo secolo dell'impero e la sua costituzione a municipio romano’, Epigraphica, VII–1945 (1946)Google Scholar, Dr. N. Degrassi has discussed at some length (note 4, pp. 8–9) the significance of the published fragments of this Flavian inscription. That article was written before the recent work had been carried out and its proposed attribution of the inscription to Domitian, and to a proconsul Domitius, must be rejected in the light of our fuller knowledge of the text. So, too, for the reasons stated in note 14, above, must we reject the suggestion that the inscription belonged to one of the porticoes in the Forum Vetus.