The Annual of the British School at Athens http://journals.cambridge.org/ATH Additional services for The Annual of the British School at Athens: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here A Latin Inscription from Perrhaebia A. J. B. Wace and M. S. Thompson The Annual of the British School at Athens / Volume 17 / November 1911, pp 193 - 204 DOI: 10.1017/S0068245400008571, Published online: 18 October 2013 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0068245400008571 How to cite this article: A. J. B. Wace and M. S. Thompson (1911). A Latin Inscription from Perrhaebia. The Annual of the British School at Athens, 17, pp 193-204 doi:10.1017/ S0068245400008571 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/ATH, IP address: 128.122.253.228 on 28 Apr 2015 A LATIN INSCRIPTION FROM PERRHAEBIA. IN April, 1911, during an exploring journey undertaken on behalf of the Macedonian Exploration Fund, while travelling from Serfije to Elassona we were fortunate enough to discover the important Latin inscription here published.1 It lies in the ruined church of the Holy Trinity (Ayta Tpids) on the right bank of the Sarantaporos, about five minutes to the north of the gendarmerie post by the Khan of Hajji Zhogu, on the high road some three hours to the north of Elassona. The inscription is on a tall, narrow stele of coarse blue marble '48 m. wide by '96 m. high and topped by a gable, -i6 m. high, below which is a moulded architrave '04 m. high. The total height of the inscribed part is 74 m., and the stone is -io m. thick. Unfortunately the stele, which is Greek in shape, has been broken in two obliquely not far below the top, and owing to the bad quality of the marble employed the break is not clean, and the surface is badly splintered. Thus lines 2-8 are badly damaged, but fortunately, with one exception, they can easily be restored. Below the last line that is visible on the marble the stele is broken away, but the inscription does not seem to have been much longer, for below the last line at the breakage in one place is a blank space on which the next line below should appear if the inscription had been longer. Consequently we may assume on this slight evidence that the inscription is complete for all practical purposes. The text is as follows:— 1 In preparing this inscription for publication we are deeply indebted to the kind help of Dr. von Premerstein. 194 WACE AND THOMPSON 'WCAIISARI1-NII IIAVGIiRJIlI A.RJICVLIIIC VFllVlKF S ISCR1PTVM11TR.11 1X-C0MMI/WL4R1O n ' V C DAli I IK OR1 IDIIA-QVAIIPOSI AIISTlNfOR 6 DO LI CH A N0 RVISA-1W SCW PTOS IISSIIPIINI1SCOVVI1W1IINTI SO/I F//VI I/OIVMlllGIAll-rACTAII A6AMYIvrAfHJL]PPl-P/!iTRAil-lN TIIR.-DOLJCHA/VOS-IITHLIIMI OrASPIACIlTTI NIINA-I1SSII-AT1IR. AAl NO-aVII 1ST-I W VIASV PHA GIIR/XN/ASINTIIR-AZZOR1SI OfVOAR IIAS IITPI ITK.AWAS DOLlCHIS-Pl I fcSVMMMVG TC AIV PV I\A CLV J-P R.0 IVO M OC/\TVHITAVTCANPVJ1N IVriJilBlLMWMOTAR.VI\A-i| SVMIV\A/\/6A *T AN INSCRIPTION FROM PERRHAEBIA. 195 Imp(eratore) Caesare Ne(rva) [Trae(iano)] Au(gusto) Ger(manico) III I [et Q(uinto)] Articuleio [co(n)s(ulibu)s a(nte) d(iem)] VI K(alendas) Apriles. 5 [Dejscriptum et re- [cognitum e]x conmentario • [Ve]rg[i]n[i P]u[bliani] iudicis dati a[b im](p)er[at]or[e] Traeiano, quod protu[li]t 10 Caelius Niger, in quo sc- riptum erat id q(uod) i(nfra) s(criptum) (e(st)). Cum [pjrobatum sit mihi in stela lap- idea, quae posita est in for- o Dolichanorum, inscriptos 15 esse f(i)nes conveniente- s defini(t)ioni regiae factae ab Amynta Philippi patr<a>e in- ter Dolichanos et Elemi- otas, p(l)acet finem esse a ter- 20 mino, qui est in via supra Geranas inter Azzoris [et] Ono(a)reas et Petraeas [in] Dolichis, per summa iug[a] [a]t canpum, qui Pronom[ae] 25 [v]ocatur, ita ut canpus in [pa-] rte sit Elemiotarum, e[t per] summa iuga at ----- - O 2 196 WACE AND THOMPSON The letters are carefully cut, and those in the first four lines, which give the date, are bigger than the rest being '03 m. against -O2 m. high. Faint lines are ruled on the marble for the guidance of the engraver, and the only remarkable point in the shape of the letters is that II is used throughout for E. From various peculiarities it seems that the engraver did not know Latin. In line 9 there is Traeiano, and also, if our restoration is correct in line 2 TRAIL In line 11 F might stand for fuit, but the sense and the formula require est;1 still it is hard to see how the engraver came to write F in an inscription where E is throughout written as II. In line 15 we have fenes for fines, in line 16 definiiioni for defini- lioni, in line 17 patrae for patre, in line 19 piacet for placet, and finally in line 22 the fourth letter was originally carved as a A and then an attempt was made to correct it into an A. In addition to these errors interpuncts are omitted between several words. The gaps in the text can easily be restored with one or two exceptions. In line 2 the II before AV is clear, and seems to show that we should restore here TRAII as an abbreviation of TRAIIIANO which occurs in line 9. The restoration of lines 5 and 6 is made in accordance with the usual formula indicating a copy of a commentarius?- We have not restored any word to fill the gap before description, because it seems probable that there was a blank left at the beginning of this line to indicate the beginning of the text after the date. This is still more probable if the blank space at the beginning of line 8, which is certain, is not due to an error of the engraver. In line 7 the restoration of the name of the index is very uncertain, as it comes just where the stele is broken through. Verginius seems to be the only name that fits the fragments of letters still visible. For the cognomen the only names that suit the letters that can be distinguished are Publianus, or Rubrianus.3 In front of Verginius there is room for one letter more, the abbreviation of the praenomen. The other restorations are simple and obvious, except those in lines 21 and 22 which are discussed below.4 To turn to the text of the inscription itself, we have in the first four lines the date given by the names of the consuls for the year, 1 See inscription quoted below, p. 197. 2 Cf. Pauly-Wissowa, iv. pp. 733, 737. 3 Cf. C.I.L. viii. 9157. 4 For at instead of ad in line 24, cf. the Latin boundary inscription from Lamia, C.I.L. iii. 586, 12,306, 11. 10, 13. AN INSCRIPTION FROM PERRHAEBIA. 197 the emperor Trajan consul for the fourth time, and Quintus Articuleius, about whom little is known.1 This year was 101 A.D. The abbreviations of the emperor's names are unusual. Then follows the day of the month, A.D. VI. K. Apriles, the twenty-seventh of March. The four lines giving the date are, as remarked above, in bigger letters than the rest of the text. Then follow the formal words, at least we may so restore them, showing that this is an official copy,' copied and verified' is the phrase,2 from the report of a special arbitrator appointed (datus) by the emperor Trajan. It is not stated in the text who Caelius (or C. Aelius) Niger was, but the sentence quod protulit, which depends on commentario shows that Caelius Niger had the duty of keeping and perhaps of writing up the official note-book (commentarius) of the iudex. This contained all the evidence and documents relating to the case, and the text of the actual judgment. From this an extract was made on the petition of one of the interested parties, in this case the inhabitants of DoUche, and recorded on the marble stele which has been found. Profero is the technical word indicating the production of an official record for the purpose of making a properly certified copy. In an inscription from Sardinia, dating from the reign of Otho, and also referring to a boundary dispute we have a formula very similar to that of our inscription.3 It runs: descriptum et recognitum ex codice ansato L. Helvii Agrippae proconsulis quern protulit Cn. Egnatius Fuscus scriba quaestorius in quo scriptum fuit it quod infra scriptuni est ....... Perhaps Caelius Niger was the scriba quaestorius of Macedonia, which from 44 A,D. was like Achaia a senatorial province. At the end of line 11 we come to the sentence giving the decision of the imperial arbitrator. From what follows we see that an appeal had been made to the emperor to decide a boundary dispute between the inhabitants of Elemiotis,4 one of the districts of upper Macedonia, and the citizens of Doliche, one of the three members of the Tripolis in northern Perrhaebia. The arbitrator based his decision on a previous 1 Clinton, Fasti Romani, i. p. 88 ; Prosographia Imp. Rom., s.n. 2 Cf.