…]S TIBERIÉVM…] NTIVS PILATVS …]ECTVS IVDA[…]E […] […] Tiberium [Po]ntius Piltus, [praef]ectus Ida[ea]e, [ddicvit].
AE (1963) 104: This inscription was discovered by Italian archeologists in 1961 at Caesarea Maritima, the provincial capital of Judaea (Idaea), in modern Israel. Though brief and fragmentary, the text on this ca. 2’ by 3’ limestone block is historically important, as it bore the name and title (praefectus, prefect—a military post subsequently replaced by a procurator, a civilian official) of the provincial governor, the Pontius Pilate who was involved in the prosecution of Jesus Christ. The stone marked a temple or some other public monument to Tiberius (emperor A.D.. 14–37) which had apparently been dedicated to him by the prefect, and is our only epigraphic evidence for Pilate, who held the post from A.D.. 26 until his recall in 36 for a series of mismanaged political and religious disturbances; a common occurrence in ancient construction projects, the stone was subsequently recycled for use in building a local theater.
Tiberium, -, n., shrine/ temple to Tiberius; a bold apex, occasionally employed in inscriptions as equivalent to a macron, here marks the long in the word’s accented syllable.—ddicvit, perf. tense (dedicated) of the verb ddic (1); “dedication,” “dedicatory” this verb, or one of similar meaning, originally concluded the inscription but was lost due to damage to the stone.
Dedicatory inscription to the emperor Tiberius, set up by Pontius Pilate, Caesarea, Israel, first century A.D.. (AE 1963, #104)
Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY
Asellina for Secundus!
CEIVM • SECVNDVM Ceium Secundum ((duum))v(irum) i(re)
II • V • I • D • ASELLINA • ROG d(cund) Asellna rog(at).
CIL 4.7873: Asellina, whose name means “little ass,” ran a local shop (taberna), which some suppose to have been a tavern and brothel. In this programma she advertises her support of Lucius Ceius Secundus’ run for duumvir in A.D.. 78 (the year before Vesuvius erupted and destroyed the city). Secundus, who had also been a candidate for aedile (commissioner of public works), seems to have been a lbertnus, i.e., risen from freedman stock, and, as we know from other programmata, Asellina was not his only supporter from the lower echelons of Pompeian society; archaeologists believe they may have identified his house in Pompeii, but the exact location is disputed.
duumvirum: for this office, see “Balbus for Mayor,” Capvt V.—ire dcund: legal idiom, for interpreting the law, a standard phrase in these campaign ads, referring to the duumvirs’ judicial authority.—rogat: see “Balbus for Mayor” in the preceding chapter.
Programma for Ceius Secundus, from the taberna of Asellina, Pompeii, Italy (CIL 4.7873)
Robert I. Curtis
PRVERBIA ET DICTA
Alina vitia in oculs habmus, terg nostra sunt. (Seneca Ir. 2.28.8: alinus, -a, -um, belonging to another, another’s; foreign; “alienate,” “alienation.”— or ab, prep. + abl., usually from, away from; by; here behind; “abstract.”)
Docte flis vestrs. (Deuteronomy 11.19: doce, docre, docu, doctum, to teach, instruct; “docile,” “docent,” “indoctrinate.”)
Dominus dat sapientiam. (Proverbs 2.6: dominus, -, m., master, lord; Lord, God; “dominion,” “dominate.”)
Aberrre fortna tu nn potes—obsidet t. (Seneca Clem. 1.8.2: aberr [1], to wander away, stray from; get away from; “aberrant,” “aberration.”—obside, obsidre, obsd, obsessum, to sit down; occupy, besiege; beset, assail, control; “obsessive.”—t, you, here acc.; cf. m.)
Qur hodi et nn crs? (Augustine Serm. 87.11.)
Quod hodi nn est, crs erit. (Petronius Sat. 45: quod, rel. pron., that which, what.)
Ibilte De. (Psalms 99.2: ibil [1], to rejoice, rejoice in; “jubilant,” “jubilation,” “jubilee.”)
Longa est vta s plna est. (Seneca Ep. 15.93: longus, -a, -um, long; “longitude.”)
S vs, potes. (Horace Sat. 2.6.39: vs, irreg. verb, you wish, want [to], are willing.)
Quis erg poterit salvus esse? (Matthew 19.25: quis, interrog. pron., who.—erg, adv., therefore.)
S tardus eris, errbis. (Tibullus 1.4.27: tardus, -a, -um, slow; late, tardy.)
“Animusque aeger,” ut it Ennius, “semper errat.” (The early poet Ennius, quoted in Cicero Tusc. 3.5: aeger, -gra, -grum, sick, unhealthy.)
GRAMMATICA
Verba: Possum, posse, to be able, can, regularly requires a “complementary” infinitive to “complete” its meaning; dbre, to owe, ought, and audre, to dare, also often take this construction. Can you find some complementary infinitives in this chapter’s readings?
List all the forms of sum, esse, and of its compound possum in the readings and identify the person, number, and tense of each; then transform each singular to plural and vice versa. Consult the Summrium Frmrum appendix, to check your work.
CAPVT VII
All Hail to Sulla, Soothsayers, and the Sound of Mind and Body
The chapter’s inscriptions include an epitaph to a young boy who seems to have fancied horses, and two monuments from the first century B.C., one dedicated to a soothsayer who foretold the future from entrails and lightning bolts, and another erected to the Roman commander and dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla by some group of his 10,000 (!) freedmen. Among the chapter’s proverbs and dicta are Juvenal’s often quoted reply to the question, “What should men pray for?” And the closing literary selection is one of Martial’s gift epigrams in which the donor, completely out of cash, offers a creative present.
Grammatica nova: 3rd-declension nouns.
NSCRPTINS
Epitaph of a Young Boy
DIS MANIB • M • COCCEI NONNI • ANNOR • VI HIC SITVS EST Ds mnib(us) M(rc) Cocce Nonn, annr(um) VI: hc situs est.
RIB 932: Epitaph of a young boy, Marcus Cocceius Nonnus, from a tombstone near the Roman fort at Cumbria in northwest Britain, late first-/ early second-cent. A.D..; now in the British Museum, London. In the obscured background image, the lad holds what appears to be a palm branch in his right hand, a whip in his left, possibly signifying his victory in a boys’ chariot race.
mns, mnium, m. pl., shade, ghost, spirit; d mns, spirits of the dead, supernatural powers that protected the soul of the deceased, commonly abbreviated D.M. in epitaphs and in the dat. case as recipients of the dedicatory inscription.—annus, -, m., year; frequently abbreviated in inscriptions; the gen. case was typically employed, as here, in identifying a person’s age; “annual,” “perennial.”—hc, adv., in this place, here.—situs, -a, -um, stored, deposited; laid in the grave, buried; hc situs (sita) est was a standard formula in epitaphs.
Epitaph from Roman fort at Cumbria, first–second century A.D.. (xRIB 932). British Museum, London, Great Britain
© British Museum / Art Resource, NY
For Cafatius, An Interpreter of Lightning
…]ATIVS • L • F • STE • HARVSPE[…FVLGVRIATOR [Lcius Caf]tius, L(ci) f(lius), St(lltn), haruspe[x], fulguritor.
CIL 12.2127: Bilingual inscription on a marble slab, engraved in Latin and, in the third line (see photo), Picene or possibly Etruscan; found at Pisaurum (modern Pesaro), in Umbria. 1st cent. B.C.
Dedicatory inscription to a haruspex, Pesaro, Italy, first century B.C. (CIL 12.2127). Museo Olivieriano, Pesaro, Italy
Scala / Art Resource, NY
Lcius, -, m., Lucius, a common Roman praenomen.—Stlltn: from Stlltnus, -a, -um, and sc. trib (tribus, -s, f.), of the Stellatine tribe, one of the 35 tribes comprising Rome’s geographical and voting units; tribal names were often included among a citizen’s cognomina and commonly abbreviated in inscriptions.—haruspex, haruspicis, m., haruspex, a type of Roman priest taken over from the Etruscans and responsible for interpreting omens from entrails, lightning, and other prodigies; “haruspicy.”—fulguritor, fulguritris, m., interpreter of omens from lightning (from fulgur, fulguris, n., lightning).
Hail to the Dictator
L • CORNELIO • L • F SVLLAE • FELEICI DICTATORI LEIBERTEINI L(ci) Cornli L(ci) f(li) Sullae Fleic dicttr le
ibertein.
CIL 12.722: Honorary inscription on a large square pedestal, dedicated to the Roman general Lucius Cornelius Sulla (ca. 138–78 B.C.) by his freedmen, doubtless a group of the “Cornelii,” 10,000 slaves of his political adversaries whom he freed during his dictatorship and who all, according to the regular Roman practice, took his family name and pledged him their support; found at Rome and dated to 82–79 B.C.
Cornlius, -, m., Cornelius, nomen of an important Roman patrician family or gns.—Sulla, -ae, m., Sulla, a Roman cognomen.—flx, gen. flcis, 3rd-decl. adj. and cognomen, lucky, fortunate, happy; “felicitous,” “infelicity” the ei in fleic was a spelling variant for long seen three times here and very common in early inscriptions.—dicttor, dicttris, m., dictator, an extraordinary political office in Rome granted in times of emergency; Sulla was appointed to the post by a law passed during the civil war in the late 80s.—lbertnus, -, m., member of the freedman class, freedman; “libertine” with this subject, sc. something like ddicant, a verb encountered in the last chapter and whose meaning is easily guessed.
PRVERBIA ET DICTA
Vitia erunt, dnec homins. (Tacitus Hist. 4.74: dnec, conj., until; while, as long as.)
Saepe est etiam sub palliol sordid sapientia. (Caecilius Statius, quoted in Cicero Tusc. 3.23.56: etiam, adv., even, also.—palliolum, -, n., DIMINUTIVE of pallium, pallium, an outer garment typically worn by Greek men and here suggesting a slave or freedman.—sordidus, -a, -um, dirty, squalid; poor in quality, shabby; “sordid.” How is the DIMINUTIVE palliolum appropriate in the context of this maxim?)
Ibi pote valre populus, ubi lgs valent. (Publilius Sent.: pote = potest.—lx, lgis, f., law; “legal,” “legislation.”)
Nmen atque men. (Plautus Pers. 625: atque = et.—men, minis, n., omen, augury; “ominous.” Names can be meaningful!)
Inirirum remedium est oblvi. (Publilius Sent. 281: iniria, -ae, f., injustice, injury, wrong.—oblvi, oblvinis, f., forgetting; “oblivion,” “oblivious.”)
Mns sna in corpore sn. (Juvenal Sat. 10.356: mns, mentis, f., mind; “mental,” “demented.”)
Paucrum improbits niverss calamits. (Publilius Sent.: improbits, improbittis, f., dishonesty; shamelessness; “improbity.”—niversus, -a, -um, whole, entire; pl., all without exception; “universal.”—calamits, calamittis, f., disaster; misfortune; note that 3rd-decl. nouns ending in -ts are f. gender, abstract nouns that commonly have Eng. derivatives in “-ty,” like improbits > “improbity,” above.)
Pulvis et umbra sumus. (Horace Carm. 4.7.16: pulvis, pulveris, m., dust, often applied to the remains of a dead body; “pulverize.”—umbra, -ae, f., shade, shadow; ghost; an “umbrella,” a DIMINUTIVE form, provides a “little shade.”)
And some further counsel offered by Dionysius Cato to his son (see Capvt II):
9. Parents am. (parns, parentis, m./ f., parent, mother, father; ancestor; “parentage.”)
10. Coniugem am. (coninx, coniugis, m./ f., spouse, husband or wife; “conjugal,” and think about the derivation of the grammatical term “conjunction” from the same root.)
11. Existimtinem retin. (existimti, existimtinis, f., opinion; opinion about a person, reputation; good reputation, good name; “estimation,” “esteem.”—retine, retinre, retinu, retentum, to hold back, hold onto; “retain,” “retention.”)
LITTERTRA
Apophorta: Locul Ligne
S quid adhc superest in nostr faece locell,
mnus erit. Nihil est?—ipse locellus erit.
Martial Epig. 14.13: One of Martial’s first books, though appearing in manuscripts as Liber XIV, was separately titled Apophorta, a Greek word literally meaning things (for guests) to take away and more or less equivalent to “party favors.” Each of the 223 epigrams in this volume, nearly all of them single elegiac couplets, has its own individual title in the manuscripts, usually, as here, the name of the gift that the little poem, like the verse on a gift card, was intended to accompany. Like many of Martial’s other epigrams, these are generally light-hearted and humorous.
loculus, -, m., box (for storing valuables), cashbox; “locus,” “location.”—ligneus, -a, -um, wooden; “lignify,” “lignification.”—quid: after s, indef. = anything.—adhc, adv., yet, still.—supersum, superesse, superfu, superfutrum (= super, over, above, + sum), to be left over, remain.—nostr…locell: it is exceedingly common in Lat. verse for noun plus modifying adj. to be separated like this, sometimes with several other words intervening; it is even more crucial in poetry than in prose, therefore, to pay close attention to word endings, and not just word order, in order to see which nouns and adjectives are linked.—locellus, -, m., little box, tiny cashbox (DIMINUTIVE of loculus, which is itself DIMINUTIVE of locus, place or spot where something is “located”).—faex, faecis, f., residue, dregs.—mnus, mneris, n., gift, present; “munificent.”—ipse, -a, -um, himself, herself, itself; “solipsism,” “ipso facto.”—ipse locellus erit: sc. mnus as pred. nom.
GRAMMATICA
Nmina: List all the 3rd-declension nouns in the readings, identify their case and usage, then transform each singular to plural, and vice versa. Consult the Summrium Frmrum appendix for a useful review of the 3rd declension.
CAPVT VIII
Gladiators Who Win, “Meditators” Who Write, and Good Sons Who Read Good Books
The inscriptions you will read in this chapter include an epitaph from a monument set up by a devoted son for his mother, a graffito tallying the winning records of two gladiators at Pompeii, an elegantly drawn but coarse comment on a gentleman’s bathroom literacy, and an electoral notice for a candidate for aedile in A.D.. 78, the year before the eruption of Vesuvius. Among the chapter’s prverbia is an ancient version of our adage about “making a virtue of necessity,” and there are a few more of Cato’s words of advice to his son, including two made to order, as you’ll see, for all students of language and literature.
Grammatica nova: The present active infinitive and imperatives, and present, future, and imperfect active indicative of 3rd-conjugation verbs.
NSCRPTINS
Two Talented Gladiators
RVSTICVS MALIVS XII C XI M • TERNTIVS III C III Rsticus Malius XII, c(ornae) XI; M(rcus) Ter
CIL 4.4302: An impressive winning record, scribbled on the wall by one of the gladiators himself or an admiring fan. There is additional text beneath these two lines, but it is illegible.
Rsticus Malius: the first gladiator’s name.—XII, C. XI: the first Roman numeral stands for the number of pugnae, fights; the second for the number of cornae, crowns or victory garlands.—M.: = Mrcus; abbreviations were routinely used for praenomina, not just in inscriptions and graffiti but in manuscripts as well.
Graffito from regio V, insula V, Pompeii, Italy (CIL 4.4302)
Kay Stanton (from CIL)
Extreme Literacy!
LESBIANE CACAS SCRIBISQVE […]LVTE[…
Lesbine, cacs scrbisque: [sa]lte[m]!
CIL 4.10070: Graffito next to a doorway in a house at Pompeii.
Lesbinus, -, m., Lesbianus, cognomen, typically of a person from, or with family connections to, the Greek island of Lesbos, here probably a slave or freedman.—cac (1), to defecate; the word had little “shock value” in imperial Rome.—sals, saltis, f., health, safety; greeting(s); “salutation” here ACC. OF EXCLAMATION.
Graffito from regio II, insula III, Pompeii, Italy (CIL 4.10070)
Mathew Olkovikas (from CIL)
Epitaph for Primigenia
D • M • S OCTAVIAE • PRI MIGENIAE • MA TRI • OPTIMAE POSVIT • GAETVLI CVS • FILIVS • T • T • L • S VIX • AN • LX D(s) m(nibus) s(acrum). Octviae Prmigeniae mtr optimae posuit Gaetulicus flius. T(erra) t(ibi) l(evis) s(it). Vx(it) an(ns) LX.
Photo Archive, American Academy in Rome (no CIL number): Epitaph set up by Gaetulicus for his mother Octavia Primigenia, currently in the courtyard of the American Academy. The use of puncta to separate words is especially helpful, when, as here and
commonly, words carry over from the end of one line to the beginning of the next.
Epitaph for Octavia Primigenia. American Academy in Rome, Rome, Italy
American Academy in Rome, Photographic Archive; photo: Frances Van Keuren
For the d mns, see notes to “Epitaph of a Young Boy,” in Capvt VII.—sacer, -cra,-crum, consecrated to a deity, sacred (to); “sacral,” “sacrifice” D.M.S. was a standard abbreviation in epitaphs.—mter, mtris, f., mother; “maternal,” “maternity.”—optimus, -a, -um, superl. of bonus, -a, -um, best, excellent; “optimal,” “optimist.”—posuit, perf. tense of pn, pnere, posu, positum = (has) set up (the monument); “position,” “deposit.”—terra tibi levis sit, regularly abbreviated as here, was another formula conventional in epitaphs, a good wish for the deceased, freely = may the earth rest lightly upon you.—vv, vvere, vx, vctum, to live; “survive,” “convivial” vxit = perf. tense, (she) lived.—annus, -, m., year; “annual,” “centennial” Lat. employed the acc. case (sometimes the abl.) to indicate DURATION OF TIME.
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