VOLUME XIV SLICE VI Inscriptions to Ireland, William Henry (continued 2)

3. There remain a large number of inscriptions of a more strictly private character. The famous Parian marble (I.G. xii. 444) falls under this head; it was a system of chronology drawn up, perhaps by a schoolmaster, in the 3rd century B.C. Private Inscriptions. The excessive devotion of the later Greeks to athletic and other competitions at festivals is revealed by the numerous dedications made by victorious competitors who record their successes (see Michel 915-960; Dittenberger, Syll.2 683 f.). The dedications and honorary inscriptions relating to the Ephebi of later Athens (which occupy half of I.G. iii. pt. 1), dreary as they seem, have yet thrown a curious light upon the academic life of Roman Athens (see A. Dumont, Essai sur l’éphébie attique; Reinach, Traité, pp. 408-418; Roberts and Gardner ii. 145); and from these and similar late inscriptions the attempt has been made to construct Fasti of the later archons (von Schöffer in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyklopädie, s.v. “Archontes”; W. S. Ferguson in Cornell Studies, x. The sepulchral monuments have been beautifully illustrated in Stackelberg’s Gräber der Hellenen; for the Attic stelae see Conze, Die attischen Grabreliefs (1893 ff.). Some of the most interesting epitaphs in the C.I.G. are from Aphrodisias and Smyrna. Kumanudes’s collection of Attic epitaphs has been mentioned above; see also Gutscher, Die attischen Grabschr. (1889); they yield a good deal of information about the Attic demes, and some of them are of high importance, e.g. the epitaph on the slain in the year 458 B.C. (Dittenberger, Syll.2 9), and on those who fell in the Hellespont, c. 440 B.C. (Hicks2 46). For the metrical inscriptions see Kaibel, Epigrammata Graeca (1878). Closely connected with sepulchral inscriptions is the famous “Will of Epicteta” (I.G. xii. 330). It was also customary at Athens for lands mortgaged to be indicated by boundary-stones inscribed with the names of mortgagor and mortgagee, and the amount (I.G. ii. 1103-1153; Dareste, &c., Inscr. jur. i. pp. 107-142); other ὄροι are common enough.

The names of sculptors inscribed on the bases of statues have been collected by E. Löwy (Inschriften gr. Bildhauer, 1885). In most cases the artists are unknown to fame. Among the exceptions are the names of Pythagoras of Rhegium, whom we now know to have been a native of Samos (Löwy 23, 24); Pyrrhus, who made the statue of Athena Hygieia dedicated by Pericles (Plut. Per. 13; Löwy 53); Polyclitus the younger (Löwy 90 f.), Paeonius of Mende, who sculptured the marble Nike at Olympia (Löwy 49); Praxiteles (Löwy 76), &c.

The bearing of inscriptions upon the study of dialects is very obvious. A handy selection has been made by Cauer (Delectus inscr. Gr. 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1883) of the principal inscriptions illustrating this subject, and a complete collection is in Study of Dialects. course of publication (Collitz and others, Sammlung der griechischen Dialekt-Inschriften, Göttingen, 1884 ff.). See also R. Meister, Die griech. Dialekte (1882-1889), and O. Hoffman, Die griech. Dialekte (1891-1898). The grammar of Attic inscriptions is treated by Meisterhans, Grammatik der att. Inschr. (3rd ed. by Schwyzer, 1900).

The date of inscriptions is determined partly by the internal evidence of the subject, persons, and events treated of, and the character of the dialect and language. But the most important evidence is the form of the letters and style of Date of Inscriptions. execution. For the Attic inscriptions the development from the earliest times to about A.D. 500 is elaborately treated by Larfeld, Handbuch der att. Inschr. (1902). bk. ii. Much of the evidence is of a kind difficult to appreciate from a mere description. Yet—besides the βουστροφηδόν writing of many early documents—we may mention the contrast between the stiff, angular characters which prevailed before 500 or 450 B.C. and the graceful yet simple forms of the Periclean age. This development was part of the general movement of the time. Inscriptions of this period are usually written στοιχηδόν, i.e. the letters are in line vertically as well as horizontally. From the archonship of Eucleides (403 B.C.) onwards the Athenians officially adopted the fuller alphabet which had obtained in Ionia since the 6th century. Before 403 B.C. ζ and ψ were expressed in Attic inscriptions by ΧΣ and φΣ, while Ε did duty for η, ε, and sometimes ει, Ο for ο, ου, and ω—Η being used only for the aspirate. There is, however, occasional use of the Ionic alphabet in Attica, even in official inscriptions, as early as the middle of the 5th century. The Macedonian period betrays a falling off in neatness and firmness of execution—the letters being usually small and scratchy, excepting in inscriptions relating to great personages, when the characters are often very large and handsome. In the 2nd century came in the regular use of apices as an ornament of letters. These tendencies increased during the period of Roman dominion in Greece, and gradually, especially in Asia Minor, the iota adscriptum was dropped. The Greek characters of the Augustan age indicate a period of restoration; they are uniformly clear, handsome, and adorned with apices. The lunate epsilon and sigma (ε, C) establish themselves in this period; so does the square form , and the cursive ω is also occasionally found. The inscriptions of Hadrian’s time show a tendency to eclectic imitation of the classical lettering. But from the period of the Antonines (when we find a good many pretty inscriptions) the writing grows more coarse and clumsy until Byzantine times, when the forms appear barbarous indeed beside an inscription of the Augustan or even Antonine age.

The finest collections of inscribed Greek marbles are of course at Athens. There are also good collections, public and private, at Smyrna and Constantinople. The British Museum contains the best collection out of Athens (see the publication Collections of Marbles. mentioned above); the Louvre contains a good many (edited by Fröhner, Les Inscriptions grecques du musée du Louvre, 1865); the Oxford collection is very valuable, and fairly large; and there are some valuable inscriptions also at Cambridge.

Bibliography.—The following essays give good outlines of the whole subject:—Boeckh, C.I.G., preface to vol i.; C. T. Newton, Essays on Art and Archaeology (1880), pp. 95, 209; S. Reinach, Traité d’épigraphie grecque (Paris, 1885). Besides the works already quoted the following should be mentioned:—Boeckh’s Kleine Schriften; Michaelis, Der Parthenon; Waddington, Fastes des provinces asiatiques, part i. (1872), and Mémoire sur la chronologie de la vie du rhéteur Aristide; Kirchhoff, Studien zur Geschichte des griechischen Alphabets (4th ed., 1887); Schubert, De proxenia (Leipzig, 1881); Monceaux, Les Proxénies gr. (Paris, 1886); Latyshev, Inscr. ant. orae septentr. Ponti Euxini Gr. et Lat. (2 vols., St Petersburg, 1885-1890); Bechtel, Inschriften des ionischen Dialekts (Göttingen, 1887); Paton and Hicks, Inscriptions of Cos (Oxford, 1891); Fränkel and others, Inschriften von Pergamon (2 vols., Berlin 1890-1895); Comparetti, Le Leggi di Gortyna, &c. (Monum. antichi, iii., 1893); E. Hoffmann, Sylloge epigrammatum Graec. (Halle a. S., 1893); O. Kern, Inschriften von Magnesia am Maeander (Berlin, 1900); S. Chabert, Histoire sommaire des études d’épigraphie grecque (Paris, 1906); Hackl, Merkantile Inschr. auf attischen Vasen (Münch, arch Stud., 1909); Wilhelm, Beiträge zur griech. Inschriftenkunde (Vienna, 1909).

(E. L. H.; G. F. H.*)

IV. Latin Inscriptions

I. Latin or Roman Inscriptions (by which general name are designated, in classical archaeology, all non-literary remains of the Latin language, with the exception of coins, letters and journals) fall into two distinct classes, viz. (1) those which were written upon other objects of various kinds, to denote their peculiar purpose, and in this way have been preserved along with them; and (2) those which themselves are the objects, written, to be durable, as a rule, on metal or stone. The first class is that of inscriptions in the stricter sense of the word (styled by the Romans tituli, by the Germans Aufschriften); the second is that of instruments or charters, public and private (styled by the Romans first leges, afterwards instrumenta or tabulae, and by the Germans Urkunden).

No ancient Latin authors have professedly collected and explained or handed down to us Roman inscriptions. Some of the orators and historians, such as Cicero, Livy, Pliny the elder, and Suetonius among the Latins, and Polybius, Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Josephus among the Greeks, occasionally mention inscriptions of high historical interest. A few grammarians, as, for example, Varro, Verrius Flaccus and Valerius Probus of Berytus, quote ancient words or formulae from them, or explain the abbreviations used in them. Juridical instruments, laws, constitutions of emperors, senatus consulta and the like appear in the various collections of Roman jurisprudence.

Inscriptions (in the wider sense, as we shall henceforth call them without regard to the distinction which has been drawn) have been found in nearly every centre of ancient Roman life, but, like many other remains of antiquity, only seldom in their original sites. The great mass of them has to be sought for in the large European museums of ancient art, and in the smaller local collections of ancient remains which occur nearly everywhere in the European provinces of the former Roman empire as well as in the north of Africa, and also here and there in Asia Minor.

Only those copies of inscriptions are to be received with full confidence which are furnished by experienced and well-equipped scholars, or which have been made with the help of mechanical methods (casts, photographs, moist and dry rubbings), not always applicable with equal success, but depending on the position and the state of preservation of the monuments.36 From the first revival of classical learning in the Carolingian age attention was paid anew, by pilgrims to Rome and other places worth visiting, to epigraphic monuments also. In the time of the Renaissance, from the end of the 14th century downwards, some of the leading Italian scholars, like Poggio and Signorili, and the antiquarian traveller Cyriacus of Ancona, collected inscriptions, Greek and Latin.37 In the 15th century large collections of the inscriptions of all countries, or of limited districts, were made by Giovanni Marcanova, Fra Felice Feliciano, Fra Michele Ferrarino, Fra Giocondo the architect of Verona, Marino Sanudo the Venetian polyhistor, and others. At the end of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th, the first printed collections can be recorded (Spreti’s for Ravenna, 1489; Peutinger’s for Augsburg, 1508; Huttich’s for Mainz, 1520; Francesco degli Albertini’s for Rome, printed in 1521 by Jacopo Mazochi), while during the same century a long list of epigraphic travellers, like Pighius, Rambertus and Accursius, or antiquarian collectors, like Sigonius, Panvinius, Antonius Augustinus with his collaborators Ursinus and Metellus, and many others, were busy in augmenting the stock of epigraphic monuments. The series of printed epigraphic Corpora begins with that of Apianus (Ingolstadt, 1534), the only one arranged in geographical order, and is continued in those of Smetius (1558, but edited only after the author’s death by Justus Lipsius, 1588), Gruter (with Joseph Scaliger’s Indices, 1603, and re-edited by Graevius, 1707), Gudius (about 1660, edited by Hessel, 1731), Reinesius (1682), Fabretti (1699), Gori (1726), Doni (1731), Muratori (1739), Maffei (1749), Donati (1765-1775). These collections, manuscript and printed, will never altogether lose their value, as great numbers of inscriptions known to the ancient collectors have since been lost or destroyed. But, inasmuch as even towards the beginning of the 15th century, as well as afterwards, especially from the 16th down to a very recent period, all sorts of inaccuracies, interpolations and even downright falsifications, found their way into the Corpora, these can be employed only with the greatest caution. Modern critical research in the field of epigraphy began with the detection of those forgeries (especially of the very extensive and skilful ones of Pirro Ligorio, the architect to the house of Este) by Maffei, Olivieri and Marini. The last-named scholar opens a new era of truly critical and scientific handling of Roman inscriptions (especially in his standard work on the Atti dei fratelli arvali, Rome, 1795); his disciple and successor, Count Bartolomeo Borghesi (who died at San Marino in 1860), may be rightly called the founder of the modern science of Roman epigraphy.38 Orelli’s handy collection of Roman inscriptions (2 vols., Zurich, 1828) is a first attempt to make accessible to a larger scientific public the results of the researches of Marini and his successors; but it was not completed, (and thoroughly corrected) until nearly thirty years later, by Henzen (Orelli, iii., with the indispensable Indices, Zurich, 1856), who, with Mommsen and De Rossi, carried out the plan of a universal Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum, previously projected by Maffei (1732), by Kellermann and Sarti (1832), with Borghesi’s help, and by Letronne and Egger (1843). After the appearance of Mommsen’s Inscriptiones regni Neapolitani Latinae (Leipzig, 1852) and his Inscriptiones confoederationis Helveticae Latinae (vol. x. of the publications of the Zurich Antiquarian Society, 1854), the publication of the C.I.L., following the similar work of the Greek inscriptions, was undertaken by the Royal Academy of Sciences of Berlin.

This work, in which the previous literature is fully described and utilized, consists of the following parts:—vol. i., Inscriptiones antiquissimae ad C. Caesaris mortem (1863; 2nd ed., part i., 1893); Ritschl’s Priscae Latinitatis monumenta epigraphica (Berlin, 1862, fol.) form the graphic illustration to vol. i., giving all extant monuments of the republican epoch (with five Supplementa, Bonn, 1862-1865; R. Garrucci’s Sylloge inscriptionum Latinarum aevi Romanae reipublicae usque ad C. Iulium Caesarem plenissima, 2 vols., Turin, 1875-1877, must be used with caution); vol. ii., Inscr. Hispaniae (1869; with Supplement, 1892); vol. iii., Inscr. Asiae, provinciarum Europae Graecarum, Illyrici (1873; with Supplements and Index, 1889-1902); vol. iv., Inscr. parietariae Pompeianae Herculanenses Stabianae (the scratched and painted inscriptions chiefly of Pompeii) (1871; with Supplement, part i., 1898; part ii., 1909); vol. v., Inscr. Galliae cisalpinae (1872-1877; with Suppl., Et. Pais, C.I.L. suppl. Italica); vol. vi., Inscr. urbis Romae (1876-1902; with Supplement, 1902); vol. vii., Inscr. Britanniae (1873); vol. viii., Inscr. Africae (1881; with Supplement, 1891-1894, 1904); vol. ix., Inscr. Calabriae, Apuliae, Samnii, Sabinorum, Piceni (1883); vol. x., Inscr. Bruttiorum, Lucaniae, Campaniae, Siciliae, Sardiniae (1883); vol. xi., Inscr. Aemiliae, Umbriae, Etruriae (1888; part ii., 1901 sqq.); vol. xii., Inscr. Galliae Narbonensis (1888); vol. xiii., Inscr. trium Galliarum et duarum Germaniarum (1899 sqq.; part ii., 1905 sqq.); vol. xiv., Inscr. Latii antiqui; vol. xv., Inscr. laterum (1891; part ii., i. [vasa, lucernae, fistulae], 1899). The arrangement observed in the Corpus is the geographical (as in Apianus); within the single towns the order of subjects (tituli sacri, magistratuum, privatorum, &c., as in Smetius) is followed, with some few exceptions, where the monuments are so numerous (as in the forum of Rome and at Pompeii and Lambaesis) that they can be assigned to their original places. Running supplements to the C.I.L. are given in the Ephemeris epigraphica, Corporis inscr. Latinarum supplementum (Berlin, 1872 sqq.); and the new discoveries of each year are recorded in Cagnat’s L’Année épigraphique.

The inscriptions in the other Italian dialects have been published by Conway, Italic Dialects (Cambridge, 1897); cf. vol. ii. of von Planta, Grammatik der oskisch-umbrischen Dialekte (Strassburg, 1897). A Corpus of the Etruscan inscriptions was begun in 1893 by Pauli and is now nearly complete. The inscriptions of the Veneti, a N. Italian people of the Illyrian stock, will be found in vol. iii. of Pauli, Altitalische Forschungen (Leipzig, 1891). For the Christian inscriptions see De Rossi’s Inscr. Christianae urbis Romae septimo saeculo antiquiores, vol. i. (Rome, 1857), vol. ii. (1888); the Inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule of Le Blant (2 vols., Paris, 1857-1865; new edition, 1892); the Altchristliche Inschriften der Rheinlande of Kraus (1890); the Christliche Inschriften der Schweiz vom IV.-IX. Jahrhundert of Egli (1895); and the Inscr. Hispaniae Christianae and Inscr. Britanniae Christianae of Hübner (Berlin, 1871, 1876). As splendidly illustrated works on the Latin inscriptions of some districts Alphonse de Boissieu’s Inscriptions antiques de Lyon (Lyons, 1846-1854), Ch. Robert’s Épigraphie romaine de la Moselle (Paris, 1875), and J. C. Bruce’s Lapidarium septentrionale (London and Newcastle, 1875) can be recommended. Besides the above-mentioned Orelli-Henzen collection, G. Wilmanns’s Exempla inscriptionum Latinarum (2 vols, Berlin, 1873, with copious indexes), and Dessau’s Inscriptiones Latinae selectae (vol. i., 1892; vol. ii., 1903; ii., 1906) give a general synopsis of the materials. Inscriptions of interest to students of history are collected in Rushforth’s Latin Historical Inscriptions (Oxford, 1893); Leroux, Revue des publications épigraphiques relatives à l’antiquité romaine, records those which bear on antiquities. Of other works may be mentioned Ruggiero, Dizionario epigrafico di antichità romane (1886); Olcott, Thesaurus linguae Latinae epigraphicae (1904 sqq.).

II. Information regarding the forms of letters used on Roman inscriptions will be found under the articles Latin Language, Palaeography and Writing (cf. Hübner, Exempla scripturae epigraphicae Latinae, 1895). The forms of the single letters vary not inconsiderably according to the material of the monuments, their age and their origin. Carefully cut letters, especially when on a large scale, naturally differ from those scratched or painted on walls by non-professional hands, or hewn on rocks by soldiers; and small incised (or dotted) letters on metal or ivory and bone, and those painted on earthenware, or impressed on it or on glass before burning, are also necessarily of a different character. The letters, ordinarily drawn with minium on the monument before being cut (and also often painted, after having been cut, with the same colour), sometimes have been painted with a brush, and thence receive a peculiar form. To save space, on coins first and afterwards in inscriptions also, two or three or even more letters were joined, especially at the end of the lines, to a nexus or a ligatura. This system of compendious writing, very rare in the republican epoch, and slowly extending itself during the 1st century, became rather frequent in the 2nd and 3rd, especially in Spain and Africa. There is no constant system in these nexus litterarum, but generally the rule is observed that no substantial element of a single letter is to be counted for twice (thus e.g. is it or ti, not Titi). Numerals are usually distinguished from letters in the ancient period, down to the end of the republic, by a stroke drawn through them, as in ++VIR, duo(m) vir(om) ++S duo semis (sestertius), 500; it was afterwards put above them, as in ĪĪVIR, XVIR, VIR, duovir, decemvir, sevir.39

The direction of the writing is in the very oldest inscriptions from right to left and from left to right in alternate lines, an arrangement technically called βουστροφηδόν (D. Comparetti, Iscrizione arcaica del Foro Romano, Florence, 1900; H. Jordan, Hermes, vol. xv. p. 5, 1880), and in the Sabellic inscriptions similar arrangements are not infrequent. In all others it is from left to right. Each word is separated from the other by a sign of interpunction, which is not wanted, therefore, at the end of lines or of the whole text. Exceptions to this rule occur only in the later period (from the 2nd century downwards), and sometimes under special conditions, as when abridged words form the end of the line. Here and there even the different syllables of each word are separated by interpunction. The interpunction is formed by a single dot (except in some very ancient inscriptions, such as the recently found Forum inscription of the regal period and those of Pisaurum, where, as in Greek and other Italian monuments, three dots ∹ are used). According to the technical skill of the different periods in stone-cutting this dot is in some very ancient inscriptions quadrangular, or similar to an oblique cross (×), or oblong (as a bold stroke), but, as a rule, triangular, and never circular. This triangular dot changes, by ornamentation, into a hook () or a leaf (); the ivy-leaf-shaped dot is especially frequent in inscriptions from about the 2nd century downwards. The dot is always placed at the middle height of the letters, not, as now, at the foot of the line. In large texts of instruments the interpunction is often omitted; in the later period it is often entirely wanting; and in short texts, in the disposition of the lines, in the varying sizes of the letters employed, in the division of words at the end of the lines, &c., certain rules are observed, which cannot be detailed here. In some instances older inscriptions have been cancelled and more recent ones substituted (e.g. on milestones), especially in the case of the damnatio memoriae (in cases of high treason), in consequence of which the names of consuls and emperors are often cancelled; but in modern times also inscriptions have been deliberately destroyed or lost ones restored.

For understanding the texts of the inscriptions an accurate knowledge of the system of abbreviations used in them is necessary (see Cagnat, Cours d’épigraphie latine, 3rd ed., 1898). These are almost invariably litterae singulares; that is to say, the initial letter is employed for the entire word (in all its grammatical forms), or if one initial, as belonging to more than one word, is not sufficiently clear, the first two or even the first three letters are employed; rarely more than three. Abbreviations in the true sense of the word (by dropping some letters at the end) are to be found, in the older period, only at the end of lines, and not frequently. In the later period some instances of them have been observed. The litterae singulares, as Valerius Probus taught, are either generally employed (usus generalis) in all classes of written documents (and so in literature also), as, for instance, those of the individual names (the praenomina), the names of days and feasts (kal. for kalendae), and those of the chief magistrates (cos. for consul) and the like; or they belong chiefly (but not exclusively) to certain classes of documents, such as those used in juridical acts (l. for lex, h. for heres, s. d. m. for sine dolo malo, and so on), in sepulchral inscriptions (h. s. e., hic situs est) or in dedicatory inscriptions (v. s. l. m., votum solvit libens merito), &c.40

It may be observed here that the praenomina are, as a rule, always written in the universally known abbreviations (in the few instances where they are written in full it is a consequence of Greek influence or of peculiar circumstances). The gentilicia in -ius are abridged, in the republican period, in -i (in the nominative, perhaps for -is). In the always abbreviated indications of ancestors or patrons (in the case of slaves and freedmen), as C.f., Gai filius, M.l., Marci libertus (s. for servus is not frequent), the feminine gender is sometimes indicated by inversion of the letters. Thus . l. (or lib.) or W (an inverted M) l. designates a mulieris libertus; and are used for filia, pupilla. On the tribus and their abbreviations, and on the so-called military tribus (which are names of colonies collocated, for the sake of symmetry, at the place usually occupied, in the nomenclature, by the tribus), and on the other indications of origin used in the designation of individuals, the indexes to the above-named works give sufficient information; on the geographical distribution of the tribus see Grotefend’s Imperium Romanum tributim descriptum (Hanover, 1863). For the abbreviations of official charges, urban and municipal, and, in the imperial period, civil and military (to which, beginning with the 4th century, some Christian designations are to be added), see also the explanations given in the indexes. Among these abbreviations the first instances are to be found of the indication of the plural number by doubling the last letter; thus Augg., Caess., coss., dd. nn. (domini nostri), are used from the 3rd century downwards (see De Rossi’s preface to the Inscriptiones Christ. urbis Romae) to distinguish them from Aug., Caes., as designating the singular. In the later period, a dot or a stroke over the abridged word, like that upon numerals, here and there indicates the abbreviation.

III.—1. Among the inscriptions in the stricter sense (the tituli), perhaps the oldest, and certainly the most frequent, are the sepulchral inscriptions (tituli sepulcrales). Of the different forms of Roman tombs, partly depending upon the difference between burial and cremation, which were in use side by side, a very complete account is given in Marquardt’s Handbuch der römischen Altertümer (vol. vii. part i., Leipzig, 1879, p. 330 seq.). The most ancient examples are those of a sepulcretum at Praeneste (C.I.L. i. 74, 165, 1501 a-d; Ephem. epigr. i. 25-131; Wil. 153); the oldest of these contain nothing but the name of the deceased in the nominative; those of more recent date give it in the genitive. The oldest and simplest form remained always in use down to Christian times; it is that used on the large tectonic monuments of the Augustan age (e.g. that of Caecilia Metella, C.I.L. vi. 1274) and in the mausolea of most of the emperors, and is still frequent in the tituli of the large columbaria of the same age (C.I.L. vi. part ii.). It was early succeeded by the lists of names, given also in the nominative, when more than one individual, either dead or alive, were to be indicated as sharers of a tomb. To distinguish the members still alive, a v (vivit, vivos, vivi) was prefixed to their names (e.g. C.I.L. i. 1020, 1195, 1271); the deceased were sometimes marked by the θῆτα nigrum (C.I.L. i. 1032; Wil. 158; see also C.I.L. vi. 10251 seq.). Only the names in the nominative are shown, too, on the sarcophagi of the Turpleii and Fourii at Tusculum (C.I.L. i. 65-72; Wil. 152), and in the oldest inscriptions on those of the Scipiones, painted with minium (C.I.L. i. 29; Wil. 537), to which were added afterwards the insignia of the magistratus curules (C.I.L. i. 31; Wil. 538) and the poetical elogia. Of a somewhat different kind are the inscriptions scratched without much care on very simple earthen vessels which belonged to a sepulcretum of the lower class, situated outside the porta Capena at Rome, on the Appian road, near the old church of San Cesario (C.I.L. i. 882-1005, 1539, 1539 a-d = C.I.L. vi. 8211-8397; Wil. 176); they can be ascribed to the period of the Gracchi. On these ollae, besides the name of the deceased, also for the most part in the nominative, but on the more recent in the genitive, the date of a day, probably that of the death, is noted; here and there obit (or o.) is added. About the same epoch, at the beginning of the 6th century, along with the growing taste for tectonic ornamentation of the tombs in the Greek style, poetical epigrams were added to the simple sepulchral titulus, especially amongst the half-Greek middle class rapidly increasing in Rome and Italy; Saturnian (C.I.L. i. 1006), iambic (1007-1010) and dactylic (1011) verses become more and more frequent in epitaphs (see Buecheler, Anthologia Latina, ii.). In prose also short designations of the mental qualities of the deceased (homo bonus, misericors, amans pauperum, or uxor frugi, bona, pudica and the like), short dialogues with the passer-by (originally borrowed from Greek poetry), as vale salve, salvus ire, vale et tu, te rogo praeteriens dicas “sit tibi terra levis,” &c. (Wil. 180), then indications of his condition in his lifetime, chiefly among the Greek tradesmen and workmen, e.g. lanius de colle Viminale (C.I.L. i. 1011), margaritarius de sacra via (1027) and the like, and some formulae, such as ossa hic sita sunt, heic cubat, heic situs est (in republican times mostly written in full, not abridged) were added (J. Church “Zur Phraseologie der lat. Grabinschriften” in Arch. lat. Lexikogr. 12. 215 sqq.). The habit of recording the measurement of the sepulchre, on the sepulchral cippus, by such formulae as locus patet in fronte pedes tot, in agro (or in via, or retro) pedes tot, seems not to be older than the Augustan age (C.I.L. i. 1021, with Mommsen’s note; Wil. 188). About the same time also the epitaphs more frequently state how long the deceased lived, which was formerly added only on certain occasions (e.g. in the case of a premature death), and mostly in poetical form. The worship of the dei Manes, though undoubtedly very ancient, is not alluded to in the sepulchral inscriptions themselves until the close of the republic. Here and there, in this period, the tomb is designated as a (locus) deum Maanium (e.g. at Hispellum, C.I.L. i. 1410); or, it is said, as on a cippus from Corduba in Spain (C.I.L. ii. 2255; Wil. 218), C. Sentio Sat(urnino) co(n)s(ule)—that is, in the year 19 B.C.—dei Manes receperunt Abulliam N(umerii) l(ibertam) Nigellam. In the Augustan age the titulus sepulcralis begins to be confounded with the titulus sacer; it adopts the form of a dedication deis Manibus, offered to the dei Manes (or dei inferi Manes, the dei parentum being the Manes of the parents) of the deceased (see Orel. 4351; Wil. 217-228). This formula, afterwards so common, is still very rare at the end of the republic, and is usually written in full, while in later times it is employed, both simply and in many varied forms (as dis manibus sacrum, or d. m. et memoriae, d. m. et genio, or memoriae aeternae, paci et quieti, quieti aeternae, somno aeternali and so on; Wil. 246), in thousands of monuments. By similar degrees the titulus sepulcralis adopts many of the elements of the titulus honorarius (the indication of the cursus honorum, of the military charges, &c., as e.g. in the inscription of Cn. Calpurnius Piso, C.I.L. i. 598 = vi. 1276, Wil. 1105, on the pyramid of Cestius, C.I.L. vi. 1374, and on the monument at Ponte Lucano of Ti. Plautius Silvanus Aelianus, consul A.D. 74, Orel. 750, Wil. 1145 and many others), of the tituli operum publicorum (e.g. monumentum fecit, sibi et suis, &c.), and of the instrumenta. Testaments (like those of Dasumius of the year A.D. 109.—C.I.L. vi. 10229; Wil. 314; and T. Flavius Syntrophus—C.I.L. vi. 10239; Henz. 7321; Wil. 313), or parts of them (like that on the tomb of a Gaul of the tribe of the Lingones, belonging to Vespasian’s time, Wil. 315), funeral orations (as those on Turia—C.I.L. vi. 1527; Notizie degli scavi (1898), p. 412; Hirschfeld, Wiener Studien Bormannheft, p. 283; Fowler, Classical Review, xix. 261; on Murdia—C.I.L. vi. 10230; Orel. 4860; Rudorff, Abhandlungen der Königl. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (1868), p. 217 seq.; and that of Hadrian on the elder Matidia, found at Tivoli—Mommsen in the same Abhandlungen (1863), p. 483 seq; Dehner, Laudatio Matidiae, Neuwied (1891), numerous statements relating to the conservation and the employment of the monuments (C.I.L. vi. 10249; Wil. 287-290), to their remaining within the family of the deceased—from which came the frequent formula “h(oc) m(onumentum) h(eredem) n(on) s(equetur)” and the like (Wil. 280; cf. Hor. Sat. i. 8. 13),—and relating to the annual celebration of parentalia (Wil. 305 seq.), down to the not uncommon prohibition of violation or profanation of the monument noli violare, &c., with many other particulars (on which the index of Wil. p. 678 seq. may be consulted), form the text of the sepulchral inscriptions of the later epoch from Augustus downwards. The thoroughly pagan sentiment non fui non sum non curo, or n. f. n. s. n. c., is common, apparently a translation of the Greek οὐκ ἤμην, ἐγενόμην οὐκ ἔσομαι οὐ μἐλει μοι. Another type of epitaph, much affected by the poorer classes (like our “Affliction sore” &c.), is: noli dolere mater eventum meum, Properavit aetas, hoc voluit fatus (sic) mihi (Lier, “Topica carminum sepulcralium Latinorum” in Philologus, 62. 445 sqq.). To these are to be added many local peculiarities of provinces (as Spain and Africa), districts (as the much-disputed sub ascia dedicare of the stones of Lyons and other parts of Gaul), and towns, of which a full account cannot be given here.

2. Of the dedicatory inscriptions (or tituli sacri), the oldest known are the short indications painted (along with representations of winged genii, in the latest style of Graeco-Italian vase painting), with white colour on black earthen vessels, by which those vessels (pocula) are declared to be destined for the worship, public or private, of a certain divinity (C.I.L. i. 43-50; Ephem. epigr. i. 5-6; Wil. 2827 a-i); they give the name of the god, as that of the possessor, in the genitive (e.g. Saeturni pocolom, Lavernai pocolom). The proper form of the dedication, the simple dative of the name of a divinity and often nothing else (as Apolenei, Fide, Junone, &c., which are all datives), is shown on the very primitive altars found in a sacred wood near Pisaurum (C.I.L. i. 167-180; Wil. 1-14); but also the name of the dedicants (matrona, matrona Pisaurese, which are nomin. plur.) and the formulae of the offering (dono dedrot or dedro, donu dat, where dono and donu are accus.) are already added to them. This most simple form (the verb in the perfect or in the present) never disappeared entirely; it occurs not infrequently also in the later periods. Nor did the dative alone, without any verb or formula, go entirely out of use (see C.I.L. i. 630; Wil. 36; C.I.L. i. 814 = vi. 96; Orel. 1850; Wil. 32; C.I.L. i. 1153; Henz. 5789; Wil. 1775). But at an early date the verb donum dare and some synonyms (like donum portare, ferre, mancupio dare, parare) were felt to be insufficient to express the dedicator’s good-will and his sense of the justice of the dedication, which accordingly were indicated in the expanded formula dono dedet lub(e)s mereto (C.I.L. i. 183, cf. p. 555; Wil. 21; C.I.L. i. 190; Wil. 22), or, with omission of the verb, dono mere(to) lib(e)s (C.I.L. i. 182). The dative case and this formula, completely or partially employed (for merito alone is also used, as C.I.L. i. 562, cf. Ephem. epigr. ii. 353, Wil. 29), remained in solemn use. To lubens (or libens) was added laetus (so in Catullus 31. 4), and, if a vow preceded the dedication, votum solvit (or voto condemnatus dedit; see C.I.L. i. 1175; Henz. 5733; Wil. 142, and C.I.L. ii. 1044); so, but not before the time of Augustus (see C.I.L. i. 1462 = iii. 1772), the solemn formula of the dedicatory inscriptions of the later period, v. s. l. m. or v. s. l. l. m., arose. To the same effect, and of equally ancient origin with the solemn words dare and donum dare, the word sacrum (or other forms of it, as sacra [ara]), conjoined with the name of a divinity in the dative, indicates a gift to it (e.g. C.I.L. i. 814; Wil. 32; C.I.L. i. 1200-1201; Wil. 33 a b); the same form is to be found also in the later period (e.g. C.I.L. i. 1124; Henz. 5624-5637), and gave the model for the numerous sepulchral inscriptions with dis Manibus sacrum mentioned before. Sacrum combined with a genitive very seldom occurs (Orel. 1824; Wil. 34); ara is found more frequently (as ara Neptuni and ara Ventorum, Orel. 1340). Dedications were frequently the results of vows; so victorious soldiers (such as L. Mummius, the conqueror of Corinth—C.I.L. i. 541 seq.; Orel. 563; Wil. 27), and prosperous merchants (e.g. the brothers Vertuleii—C.I.L. i. 1175; Henz. 5733; Wil. 142) vow a tenth part of their booty (de praedad, as is said on the basis erected by one of the Fourii of Tusculum—C.I.L. i. 63, 64; Henz. 5674; Wil. 18) or gain, and out of this dedicate a gift to Hercules or other divinities (see also C.I.L. i. 1503; Wil. 24; C.I.L. 1113; Wil. 43). Again, what one man had vowed, and had begun to erect, is, by his will, executed after his death by others (as the propylum Cereris et Proserpinae on the Eleusinian temple, which Appius Claudius Pulcher, Cicero’s well-known predecessor in the Cilician proconsulate, began—C.I.L. i. 619 = iii. 347; Wil. 31); or the statue that an aedilis vowed is erected by himself as duovir (C.I.L. iii. 500; Henz. 5684); what slaves had promised they fulfil as freedmen (C.I.L. 1233, servos vovit liber solvit; C.I.L. 816, Wil. 51, “ser(vos) vov(it) leibert(us) solv(it)”), and so on. The different acts into which an offering, according to the circumstantially detailed Roman ritual, is to be divided (the consecratio being fulfilled only by the solemn dedicatio) are also specified on dedicatory inscriptions (see for instance, consacrare or consecrare, Orel. 2503, and Henz. 6124, 6128; for dedicare, C.I.L. i. 1159, Henz. 7024, Wil. 1782, and compare Catullus’s hunc lucum tibi dedico consecroque Priape; for dicare see the aara leege Albana dicata to Vediovis by the genteiles Iuliei, C.I.L. i. 807, Orel. 1287, Wil. 101). Not exactly dedicatory, but only mentioning the origin of the gift, are the inscriptions on the pedestals of offerings (ἀναθήματα, donaria) out of the booty, like those of M. Claudius Marcellus from Enna (C.I.L. i. 530; Wil. 25, “Hinnad cepit”) or of M. Fulvius Nobilior, the friend of the poet Ennius, from Aetolia (C.I.L. i. 534; Orel. 562; Wil. 26 a, and Bullettino dell’ Instituto, 1869, p. 8; C.I.L. vi. 1307; Wil. 26 b, “Aetolia cepit” and “Ambracia cepit”); they contain only the name of the dedicator, not that of the divinity. Of the similar offerings of L. Mummius, already mentioned, two only are preserved in their original poetical form, the Roman in Saturnian verses of a carmen triumphale (C.I.L. i. 541; Orel. 563; Wil. 27 a) and that found at Reate in dactylic hexameters (C.I.L. i. 542; Wil. 27 b); the rest of them contain only the name of the dedicant and the dative of the community to which they were destined (C.I.L. i. and Wil. l.c.). Of a peculiar form is the very ancient inscription on a bronze tablet, now at Munich, probably from Rome, where two aidiles, whose names are given at the beginning as in the other donaria, “vicesma(m) parti(m) or [ex] vicesma parti Apalones (that is, Apollinis) dederi (that is, dedere)” (C.I.L. i. 187; Orel. 1433). Many, but not substantial, varieties arise, when old offerings are restored (e.g. C.I.L. i. 638, 632 = Orel. 2135, and Wil. 48; C.I.L. i. 803; Henz. 5669, 6122); or the source of the offering (e.g. de stipe, C.I.L. i. 1105; Henz. 5633 a; ex reditu pecuniae, ex patrimonio suo, ex ludis, de munere gladiatorio, and so on); or the motive (ex jusso, ex imperio, ex visu, ex oraculo, monitu, viso moniti, somnio admonitus and the like), or the person or object, for which the offering was made (C.I.L. i. 188, pro poplod; Ephem. epigr. ii. 208, pro trebibos, in the British Museum; pro se, pro salute, in honorem domus divinae, &c.), are indicated; or, as in the tituli operum publicorum, the order of a magistrate (de senati sententia, C.I.L. i. 560 = vi. 1306; Orel. 5351; i. 632 = vi. 110; Orel. 2135; Wil. 48; decurionum decreto, &c.), and the magistrates or private persons executing or controlling the work, the place where and the time when it was erected, are added. On all these details the indexes, especially that of Wil. (ii. 675), give further information. The objects themselves which are offered or erected begin to be named only in the later period just as in the tituli operum publicorum (“basim donum dant,” C.I.L. i. 1167; “signum basim,” C.I.L. i. 1154; “aram,” C.I.L. i. 1468; Orel. 1466; Wil. 52; C.I.L. i. 1109; Wil. 54); in the later period this custom becomes more frequent. It is hardly necessary to observe that all kinds of offerings have very frequently also been adorned with poetry; these carmina dedicatoria are given by Buecheler, Anthologia Latina, ii.; cf. Wil. 142-151.

3. Statues to mortals, whether living or after their death (but not on their tombs), with honorary inscriptions (tituli honorarii), were introduced into the Roman republic after the Greek model and only at a comparatively late date. One of the oldest inscriptions of this class comes from Greek soil and is itself Greek in form, with the name in the accusative governed by some (suppressed) verb like “honoured” (C.I.L. i. 533; Wil. 649), “Italicei L. Cornelium Scipionem (i.e. Asiagenum) honoris caussa,” lost and of not quite certain reading, belonging to 561 A.U.C. (193 B.C.); the same form (in the accusative) appears in other (Latin or Latin and Greek) inscriptions from Greece (C.I.L. i. 596 = iii. 532; Wil. 1103; C.I.L. iii. 365, 7240; compare also C.I.L. i. 587, 588; Orel. 3036). The noble house of the Scipios introduced the use of poetical elogia in the ancient form of the carmina triumphalia in Saturnian verses (from the 6th century in elegiac distichs). They were added to the short tituli, painted only with minium on the sarcophagi, giving the name of the deceased (in the nominative) and his curulian offices (exclusively), which were copied perhaps from the well-known imagines preserved in the atrium of the house (C.I.L. i. 29 sq; Orel. 550 sq.; Wil. 537 sq., and elsewhere). They hold, by their contents, an intermediate place between the sepulchral inscriptions, to which they belong properly, and the honorary ones, and therefore are rightly styled elogia. What the Scipios did thus privately for themselves was in other cases done publicly at a period nearly as early. The first instance preserved of such a usage, of which Pliny the elder speaks (Hist. nat. xxxiv. § 17 sq.), is the celebrated columna rostrata of C. Duilius, of which only a copy exists, made in or before the time of the emperor Claudius (C.I.L. i. 195 = vi. 1300; Orel. 549; Wil. 609). Then follow the elogia inscribed at the base of public works like the Arcus Fabianus (C.I.L. i. 606, 607 and 278, elog. i.-iii. = vi. 1303, 1304; Wil. 610), or of statues by their descendants, as those belonging to a sacrarium domus Augustae (C.I.L. i. elog. iv.-vi. = C.I.L. vi. 1310, 1311) and others belonging to men celebrated in politics or in letters, as Scipio, Hortensius, Cicero, &c., and found in Rome either on marble tablets (C.I.L. i. vii.-xii. = C.I.L. vi. 1312, 1279, 1283, 1271, 1273; Wil. 611-613) or on busts (C.I.L. i. xv.-xix. = C.I.L. vi. 1327, 1295, 1320, 1309, 1325, 1326; Wil. 618-621; see also C.I.L. i. 40 = vi. 1280; Wil. 1101; and C.I.L. i. 631 = vi. 1278; i. 640 = vi. 1323, vi. 1321, 1322, where T. Quincti seems to be the nominative), and in divers other places (C.I.L. i. xiii., xiv.; Wil. 614, 615). This custom seems to have been resumed by Augustus (Suet. Aug. 31) with a political and patriotic aim, praised by the poet Horace (Od. iv. 8. 13, “incisa notis marmora publicis, per quae spiritus et vita redit bonis post mortem ducibus”); for he adorned his forum with the statues of celebrated men from Aeneas and Romulus downwards (C.I.L. i. xxiv., xxv., xxvii., xxxii. = C.I.L. vi. 1272, 1308, 1315, 1318; Wil. 625, 626, 627, 632), and other towns followed his example (so Pompeii, C.I.L. i. xx., xxii. = Wil. 622, 623; Lavinium, C.I.L. i. xxi.; Wil. 617; Arretium, C.I.L. i. xxiii., xxviii., xxix., xxx., xxxi., xxxiii., xxxiv. = Wil. 624, 625, 629-633). All these elogia are written in the nominative. In the same way in the colonies statues seem to have been erected to their founders or other eminent men, as in Aquileia (C.I.L. i. 538 = v. 873; Wil. 650; compare also C.I.L. v. 862; Orel. 3827) and Luna (C.I.L. i. 539 = Wil. 651).

But along with this primitive and genuine form of the titulus honorarius another form of it, equivalent to the dedicatory inscription, with the name of the person honoured in the dative, begins to prevail from the age of Sulla onwards. For the oldest examples of this form seem to be the inscriptions on statues dedicated to the dictator at Rome (C.I.L. i. 584 = vi. 1297; Orel. 567; Wil. 1102a) and at other places (Caieta and Clusium, C.I.L. i. 585, 586; Wil. 1102b, c), in which the whole set of honours and offices is not enumerated as in the elogia, but only the honores praesentes; compare also the inscription belonging to about the same date, of a quaestor urbanus (C.I.L. i. 636). Within the Greek provinces also, at the same period, this form is adopted (C.I.L. i. 595 = iii. 531; Henz. 5294; Wil. 1104). Similar dedications were offered to Pompey the Great (at Auximum and Clusium, C.I.L. i. 615, 616; Orel. 574; Wil. 1107) and to his legate L. Afranius (at Bologna, but erected by the citizens of the Spanish colony Valentia, C.I.L. i. 601; Henz. 5127; Wil. 1106). They are succeeded by the statues raised to Caesar (at Bovianum, C.I.L. i. 620; Orel. 582; Wil. 1108), and, after his death, iussu populi Romani, in virtue of a special law, at Rome (C.I.L. i. 626 = vi. 872; Orel. 586; Wil. 877). With him, as is well known, divine honours begin to be paid to the princeps, even during life. In this same form other historical persons of high merit also begin to be honoured by posterity, as, for example, Scipio the elder at Saguntum (C.I.L. ii. 3836; Wil. 653), Marius at Cereatae Marianae, the place which bears his name (C.I.L. x. 5782; Wil. 654). Of statues erected by the community of a municipium to a private person, that of L. Popillius Flaccus at Ferentinum seems to be the oldest example (C.I.L. i. 1164; Wil. 655, and his note). In Rome, Augustus and his successors in this way permitted the erection of statues, especially to triumphatores, in the new fora, including that of Augustus (C.I.L. vi. 1386; Orel. 3187; Wil. 634; C.I.L. vi. 1444; Henz. 5448; Wil. 635) and that of Trajan (C.I.L. vi. 1377; Henz. 5478; Wil. 636; vi. 1549; Henz. 5477; Wil. 639; iv. 1549; Orel. 1386; Wil. 637; C.I.L. 1565, 1566; Wil. 640); and this custom lasted to a late period (C.I.L. vi. 1599; Henz. 3574; Wil. 638), as is shown by the statues of Symmachus the orator (C.I.L. vi. 1698, 1699; Orel. 1186, 1187; Wil. 641), Claudian the poet (C.I.L. vi. 1710; Orel. 1182; Wil. 642), Nicomachus Flavianus (C.I.L. vi. 1782, 1783; Orel. 1188; Henz. 5593; Wil. 645, 645a), and many other eminent men down to Stilicho (C.I.L. vi. 1730, 1731; Orel. 1133, 1134; Wil. 648, 648a), who died in the year 408. In similar forms are conceived the exceedingly numerous dedications to the emperors and their families, in which the names and titles, according to the different historical periods, are exhibited, in the main with the greatest regularity. They are specified in detailed indexes by Henzen and Wilmanns, as well as in each volume of the Corpus. In the provinces, of course, the usages of the capital were speedily imitated. Perhaps the oldest example of a titulus honorarius in the form of an elogium (but in the dative), with the full cursus honorum of the person honoured, is a bilinguis from Athens, of the Augustan age (C.I.L. iii. 551; Henz. 6456a; Wil. 1122); the honours are here enumerated in chronological order, beginning with the lowest; in other instances the highest is placed first, and the others follow in order.41 In the older examples the formula “honoris causa,” or virtutis ergo (Hermes, vi., 1871, p. 6), is added at the end, as in an inscription of Mytilene belonging to the consul of the year 723 A.U.C., i.e. 31 B.C. (C.I.L. iii. 455; Orel. 4111; Wil. 1104b); the same, abbreviated (h.c.), occurs on an inscription of about the same age from Cirta in Africa (C.I.L. viii. 7099; Wil. 2384). Shortly afterwards the honour of a statue became as common in the Roman municipia as it was in Athens and other Greek cities in the later period. Each province furnishes numerous examples, partly with peculiar formulae, on which the indexes of Wilmanns (pp. 673, 696 sq.) may be consulted. Special mention may be made of the numerous honorary inscriptions belonging to aurigae, histriones and gladiatores; for those found in Rome see C.I.L. vi. 10,044-10,210.

He who erects a temple or a public building, or constructs a road, a bridge, an aqueduct or the like, by inscribing his name on the work, honours himself, and, as permission to do so has to be given by the public authorities, is also honoured by the community. Therefore the tituli operum publicorum, though in form only short official statements (at least in the older period) of the origin of the work, without any further indications as to its character and purpose, partake of the style of the older honorary inscriptions. Of the ancient and almost universally employed method of erecting public buildings by means of the locatio censoria one monument has preserved some traces (Ephem. epigr. ii. 199). The oldest instance of this class is that commemorating the restoration of the temple of the Capitoline Jupiter, begun, after its destruction by fire in the year 671 (83 B.C.), by Sulla and continued five years later by the well-known orator and poet Q. Lutatius Catulus, but completed only about twenty years afterwards. Here, after the name of Catulus in the nominative and the indication of the single parts of the building (as, for example, substructionem et tabularium), follows the solemn formula de s(enati) s(ententia) faciundum coeravit eidemque probavit (C.I.L. i. 592 = vi. 1314; Orel. 31, 3267; Wil. 700). With the same formula the praetor Calpurnius Piso Frugi (of about the same period) dedicated an unknown building (C.I.L. i. 594 = vi. 1275), restored afterwards by Trajan. On a work executed by the collegium tribunorum plebis (C.I.L. i. 593 = vi. 1299; Wil. 787), perhaps the public streets within the town, the sum employed for it is also inscribed. Precisely similar is the oldest inscription of one of the bridges of Rome, the ponte dei quattro capi, still preserved, though partly restored, on its original site, which commemorates its builder, the tribune of the year 692 (62 B.C.), L. Fabricius (C.I.L. i. 600 = vi. 1305; Orel. 50; Wil. 788); it was restored by the consuls of the year 733 (21 B.C.).42 On privately erected buildings the founder after his name puts a simple fecit (as also on sepulchral inscriptions); so, possibly, did Pompey, when he dedicated his theatre as a temple of Venus Victrix and, on Cicero’s clever advice, as Varro and Tiro had it from Cicero himself, inscribed on it cos. tert (not tertium or tertio) (see Gellius, Noct. Att. x. 1). So Agrippa, when he dedicated his Pantheon in the year 727 (27 B.C.), inscribed on it only the words M. Agrippa, L. f. cos. tertium fecit (C.I.L. vi. 896; Orel. 34; Wil. 731), as all who visit the Eternal City know. Of municipal examples it will be sufficient to name those of the majestic temple of Cora (C.I.L. i. 1149-1150; Wil. 722, 723), of Ferentinum, with the measurements of the foundation (C.I.L. i. 1161-1163; Wil. 708), of the walls and towers at Aeclanum (C.I.L. i. 1230; Orel. 566; Henz. 6583; Wil. 699), of the theatre, amphitheatre, baths and other structures at Pompeii (C.I.L. i. 1246, 1247, 1251, 1252; Orel. 2416, 3294; Henz. 6153; Will. 730, 1899-1901). At Aletrium a munificent citizen gives an enumeration of a number of works executed by him in the period of the Gracchi, in his native town (“haec quae infera scripta sunt de senatu sententia facienda coiravit,” C.I.L. i. 1166; Orel. 3892; Wil. 706); and, more than a century later, the same is done at Cartima, a small Spanish town near Malaga, by a rich woman (C.I.L. ii. 1956; Wil. 746). Military works, executed by soldiers, especially frequent in the Danubian provinces, Africa, Germany and Britain, give, in this way, manifold and circumstantial information as to the military administration of the Romans. On a column found near the bridge over the Minho at Aquae Flaviae, the modern Chaves in northern Portugal, ten communities inscribed their names, probably as contributors to the work, with those of the emperors (Vespasian and his sons), the imperial legate of the province, the legate of the legion stationed in Spain, the imperial procurator, and the name of the legion itself (C.I.L. ii. 2477; Wil. 803); and similarly, with the name of Trajan, on the famous bridge over the Tagus at Alcántara, in Spanish Estremadura, the names of the municipia provinciae Lusitaniae stipe conlata quae opus pontis perfecerunt are inscribed (C.I.L. ii. 759-762; Orel. 161, 162; Wil. 804).

As in some of the already-mentioned inscriptions of public works the measurements of the work to which they refer (especially, as may be supposed, in the case of works of great extent, such as walls of towns or lines of fortification, like the walls of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius in Britain) are indicated, so it early became a custom in the Roman republic to note on milestones the name of the founder of the road and, especially at the extremities of it and near large towns, the distances. So in the val di Diana in Lucania P. Popillius Laenas, the consul of the year 622 (132 B.C.), at the end of a road built by him, set up the miliarium Popilianum (C.I.L. i. 551; Orel. 3308; Wil. 797), which is a general elogium to himself, in which he speaks in the first person (viam fecei ab Regio ad Capuam, &c.). One of the single miliaria set up by him is also preserved (C.I.L. i. 550; Henz. 7174 d; Wil. 808), which contains only his name and the number of miles. In the same brief style are conceived the other not very frequent republican miliaria found in Italy (C.I.L. i. 535-537; Henz. 5348; Wil. 567; C.I.L. i. 540; Henz. 5350, 6226; Wil. 807; C.I.L. i. 558, 559; Henz. 5353; Wil. 808; C.I.L. i. 561; Henz. 5180; Wil. 811; C.I.L. i. 633; Wil. 812) down to the time of Augustus (C.I.L. x. 6895, 6897, 6899; Wil. 813), and also the even more rare specimens from the provinces (from Asia—C.I.L. i. 557 = iii. 479, Wil. 826, C.I.L. i. 622 = iii. 462, Wil. 827; from Spain—C.I.L. i. 1484-1486 = ii. 4920-4925, 4956, Wil. 828, 829). Augustus inscribed on each milestone on his road across Spain “a Baete et Jano Augusto ad Oceanum” (e.g. C.I.L. ii. 4701; Wil. 832), Claudius on those of a road in Upper Italy founded by his father Drusus “viam Claudiam Augustam quam Drusus pater Alpibus bello patefactis derexserat munit ab Altino (or a flumine Pado) ad flumen Danuvium” (C.I.L. v. 8002, 8003; Orel. 648, 708; Henz, 5400; Wil. 818). The later milestones vary greatly in form, but all contain most precious materials for ancient geography and topography; in the volumes of the Corpus they are taken together under the special head viae publicae (and here and there privatae) at the end of each chapter.

A similar character, resulting from the combination of a mere authentic record with the peculiar form of the honorary inscription, belongs to the kindred classes of inscriptions of the aqueducts and of the different boundary-stones. The large dedicatory inscriptions of the celebrated aqueducts43 of Rome (as the Aquae Marcia, Tepula and Julia, C.I.L. vi. 1244-1246, Orel. 51-53, Wil. 765; the Virgo, C.I.L. vi. 1252, Orel. 703, Wil. 763; the Claudia, &c., C.I.L. vi. 1256-1258. Orel. 54-56, Wil. 764) have quite the character of honorary inscriptions, while the various cippi terminales, which mark the ground belonging to the aqueduct, show the greatest analogy to the milestones (e.g. C.I.L. vi. 1243 a-g; Henz. 6635, 6636; Wil. 775-779). The other Italian and provincial varieties cannot be specified here. Of boundary-stones, or cippi terminales, some very ancient specimens have been preserved. To the age preceding the Second Punic War belong two, found at Venusia and erected by municipal magistrates (C.I.L. i. 185, 186; Orel. 3527, 3528; Wil. 863); they give a short relation of a decree, by which certain localities were declared to be sacred or public (“aut sacrom aut poublicom locom ese”). Then follow the cippi Gracchani, by which Gaius Gracchus and his two colleagues, as tres viri agris iudicandis adsignandis, measured the ager Campanus, for its division among the plebs. They contain the names of the tres viri in the nominative, and in addition, on the top, the lines and angles of the cardo and decumanus, according to the rules of the agrimensores, or the boundary lines between the ager publicus and privatus (C.I.L. i. 552-556; Henz. 6464; Wil. 859-861). From the age of Sulla we still have various boundary-stones giving the line of demarcation between different communities (between Fanum and Pisaurum—C.I.L. i. 583, Orel. 570, Wil. 861; between Ateste, Vicetia and Patavium—C.I.L. i. 547-549, Orel. 3110, Henz. 5114, 5115, Wil. 865, 866). To the town of Rome belong the termini ripae Tiberis (C.I.L. i. 608-614 = vi. 1234 a-l), beginning in the Augustan age, and the termini of the pomoerium of Claudius and Vespasian as censors, and of the collegium augurum under Hadrian (C.I.L. vi. 1231-1233; Orel. 710, 811; Wil. 843, 844), while others, of the consuls of the year A.D. 4 (C.I.L. vi. 1263; Orel. 3260; Wil. 856), of Augustus (C.I.L. vi. 1265; Henz. 6455; Wil. 852), &c., show the boundary between the ager publicus and privatus. With similar objects boundary-stones were erected by the emperors, or, under their authority, by magistrates, mostly military, in the rest of Italy also (as in Capua—C.I.L. x. 3825, Orel. 3683, Wil. 858; at Pompeii—C.I.L. x. 1018, Wil. 864) and in the provinces (as in Syria—C.I.L. iii. 183; and Macedonia—C.I.L. iii. 594; in Dalmatia—C.I.L. iii. 2883; in Africa— C.I.L. viii. 7084-7090, 8211, 8268, 10,803, 10,838, Wil. 869, 870; in Spain—C.I.L. ii. 2349, 2916, Wil. 871—where the pratum of a legion is divided from the territory of a municipium; in Gaul—Wil. 867; in Germany, in the column found at Miltenberg on the Main, Bonner Jahrbücher, vol. lxiv., 1878, p. 46, &c.). Private grounds (pedaturae) were unfrequently marked off by terminal cippi. To this class of tituli must be added also the curious inscriptions incised upon the steps of Roman circuses, theatres and amphitheatres (see Hübner, Annali dell’ Instituto archeologico, vol. xxviii., 1856, p. 52 sq., and vol. xxxi., 1859, p. 122 sq.), as, for instance, upon those of the Coliseo at Rome (C.I.L. vi., 1796, 1-37; compare R. Lanciani, Bullettino archeologico municipale, 1881).

4. We now come to the last class of tituli, viz. those which in the Corpus are arranged, at the end of each volume, under the head of Instrumentum. By this very comprehensive term are designated objects which vary greatly among themselves, but which are of such a character as not to fall within any of the classes of tituli described before, or the class of the instrumenta in the proper sense of that word,—the laws, &c. The tituli of the instrumentum embrace movable objects, destined for public and private use, and illustrate almost every side of the life of the ancient Romans. As systematic treatment of them is hardly possible, a simple enumeration only of their different classes can be given, without citing special examples. The first species of them is metrological, comprehending the inscriptions on measures and weights. The gold and silver plate used in the best Roman houses was also always marked with a note of its weight,—as is seen, for instance, on the different objects belonging to the Hildesheim find (see Hermes, iii., 1868, p. 469 sq.; Philologus, xxviii., 1869, p. 369), the Corbridge lanx in Northumberland House (C.I.L. vii. 1268) and many others. A second species is formed by the tesserae, tokens or marks, mostly in bronze, bone and ivory, but also earthen, of which the most interesting are the so-called tesserae gladiatoriae, little staves of bone with holes at the top, and with names of slaves or freedmen and consular dates upon them, the relation of which to the munera gladiatoria is by no means certain (see C.I.L. i. 717 sq., and Hermes, xxi. p. 266; Rhein. Mus. xli. p. 517; xlii. p. 122; Berl. phil. Woch., 1888, p. 24). The other circular tesserae (the so-called tesserae theatrales) of ivory or bone, with emblems and short inscriptions, partly Greek and Latin, used to be attributed to the ludi scaenici (see Henzen, Annali dell’ Instituto archeologico, vol. xx., 1848, p. 273 sq., and vol. xxii., 1850, p. 357 sq.) and to other ludi; but this account has been questioned (Huelsen, Bullett. dell’ Instituto, 1896, p. 227). A third species is that of inscriptions carved, inscribed, painted or stamped upon various materials, raw or manufactured, for trade or household use. Such are, to begin with, the most solid and heavy, the inscriptions carved or painted on masses of stone, mostly columns, in the quarries, and preserved either on the rocks themselves in the quarries or on the roughly hewn blocks transported to the Roman emporium on the Tiber bank. Curious specimens of the first kind are preserved in Lebanon, and in the north of England, near Hadrian’s Wall and elsewhere; on the second may be consulted a learned treatise by Padre L. Bruzza (“Iscrizioni dei marmi grezzi,” in the Annali dell’ Instituto archeologico, vol. xlii., 1870, pp. 106-204). Of a kindred character are the inscriptions, mostly stamped or engraved in the mould, of pigs of silver, bronze and lead (and pewter), found in the Roman mines in Spain and England (see Hübner, “Römische Bleigruben in Britannien,” in Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, vol. xi., 1857, p. 347 sq., and C.I.L. vii. 220 sq.; A. Way, Archaeological Journal, vol. xvi., 1859, p. 23, and vol. xxiii., 1866, p. 63). A fourth species of tituli of this class is strictly related to the military institutions of the Roman empire. Many of the weapons are marked with the names of the bearer and of the military corps to which he belonged,—so, for example, the buckles of their shields (see Hübner, “Römische Schildbuckel,” in Archäologisch-epigraphische Mitteilungen aus Österreich, vol. ii., 1878, p. 105 sq.; by far the best extant specimen is the umbo of a legionary soldier of the eighth legion found in the Tyne near South Shields, C.I.L. vii. 495), and sometimes the swords, as that of Tiberius from Mainz (now in the British Museum, see Bonner Winckelmannsprogramm of 1848). The leaden glandes used by the funditores, the slingers, in the Roman army bear curious historical inscriptions (see C.I.L. i. 642 sq., Ephem. epigr. vi. and, on the question of the authenticity of many of them, Zangemeister, C.I.L. ix., 35* sqq.). Special mention must be made also of the leaden seals or marks (bullae), evidently of military origin (perhaps to be borne by the soldiers as a countersign), which have been found in many parts of England (C.I.L. vii. 1269; Ephem. epigr. iii. 144, 318, iv. 209, vii. 346). Of the highest interest are the manifold productions of the Roman tile and brick kilns (C.I.L. xv. Inscriptiones laterum; cf. Descemet in the Bibliothèque des écoles françaises, vol. xv.). Next to the tiles with consular dates made at Veleia (C.I.L. i. 777 sqq.), those signed with the name of legions or other military corps, and employed in the various military buildings of these, are especially worthy of mention; they form an important chapter in every geographical part of the Corpus. But private persons, too, especially the rich landed proprietors, and afterwards the emperors and their kinsmen, kept large figulinae, and their manufactures—tiles of every description and other earthenware—were spread over the Roman empire (Dressel, Untersuchungen über die Chronologie der Ziegelstempel der Gens Domitia, 1888; C.I.L. xv.). The different sorts of earthen vessels and lamps, the fragments of which are found in great quantities wherever Roman settlements occurred, are arranged at the end of each volume of the Corpus and are collected in vol. xv part ii. p. i. On the maker’s marks on earthenware, see Habert, La Poterie antique parlanté (1893); Dragendorf, “Terra Sigillata,” in Bonn. Jahrbüch. xcvi. 18. On Roman lamps and their inscriptions the accurate catalogue of the Vienna collection by Kenner (“Dicantiken Thonlampen des K. K. Münz- und Antiken-Cabinetes und der K. K. Ambraser Sammlung,” in the Archiv für Kunde österreichischer Geschichtsquellen, vol. xx., Vienna, 1858) may be consulted with advantage. The chief deposit of earthenware fragments, the Monte testaccio in Rome, has been explored by Dressel (“Ricerche sul Monte testaccio,” in the Annali dell’ Instituto archeologico, vol. i., 1878, p. 118-192). Inscriptions are found on various classes of vessels, painted (as the consular dates on the large dolia for wine, oil, &c., see Schöne, C.I.L. iv. 171 sq., and Ephem. epigr. i. 160 sq.), stamped on the clay when still wet or in the mould, and scratched in the clay when dry, like those on the walls of ancient buildings in Pompeii, Rome and other places of antiquity. Like the corresponding Greek ware, they contain chiefly names of the makers or the merchants or the owners, and can be treated in a satisfactory manner only when brought together in one large collection (C.I.L. xv. part ii.), inasmuch as, besides being made in many local potteries, they were exported principally from some places in Italy (e.g. Arezzo) and Spain, in nearly every direction throughout northern and western Europe, the countries outside the Roman frontiers not excluded. Vessels and utensils of glass and of metal (gold, silver and especially bronze) were also exported from Italy on a large scale, as is being more and more readily recognized even by those antiquaries who formerly were wont to assume a local origin for all bronze finds made in the north of Europe. These utensils, ornaments and other objects made of precious metals (such as cups, spoons, mirrors, fibulae, rings, gems), not unfrequently bear Latin inscriptions. On the very ancient silver and bronze caskets, for holding valuable articles of the female toilet, which have been found at Praeneste, are inscribed, in addition to the names of the artist and of the donor, occurring once, the names of the persons in the mythical representations engraved upon them (C.I.L. i. 54-60, 1500, 1501; Jordan, Kritische Beiträge zur Geschichte der lateinischen Sprache, Berlin, 1879, p. 3 sq.). In the ancient well of the Aquae Apollinares, near Vicarello in Tuscany, three silver cups have been found with circumstantial itineraries “a Gades (sic) usque Romam” engraved upon them, evidently gifts to the divinity of the bath for recovered health presented by travellers from the remote city named (Henzen 5210). Similar is the Rudge Cup, found in Wiltshire and preserved at Alnwick Castle, which contains, engraved in bronze, an itinerary along some Roman stations in the north of England (C.I.L. vii. 1291). The inscriptions of the Hildesheim silver find and others of a similar character have been already mentioned; and many examples might be enumerated besides. On the ancient glass ware and the inscriptions on it the splendid works of Deville (Histoire de l’art de la verrerie dans l’antiquité, Paris, 1873) and Froehner (La Verrerie antique, description de la collection Charvet, Paris, 1879) may be consulted; on the Christian glasses that of Garrucci (Vetri ornati di figure in oro trovati nei cimiteri dei cristiani primitivi di Roma, Rome, 1858); on the makers’ marks on bronze objects, Mowat, Marques de bronziers sur objets trouvés ou rapportés en France (1884) (extracted from Bulletin épigraphique, 1883-1884). The last species of tituli is formed by the stamps themselves with which the inscriptions on many of the objects already named are produced. They are mostly of bronze, and contain names; but it is not easy to say what sort of objects were marked with them, as scarcely any article stamped with a still existing stamp has been found. Amongst the materials stamped leather also is to be mentioned. One class only of stamps differs widely from the rest,—the oculists’ stamps, engraved mostly on steatite (or similar stones), and containing remedies against diseases of the eyes, to be stamped on the glass bowls in which such remedies were sold, or on the medicaments themselves (see Grotefend, Die Stempel der römischen Augenärzte gesammelt und erklärt (Göttingen, 1867); de Villefosse and Thédenat, Cachets d’oculistes romains (1882); Espérandieu, Recueil des cachets d’oculistes romains (1894).

IV. The other great class of inscriptions above referred to, the instrumenta or leges, the laws, deeds, &c., preserved generally on metal and stone, from the nature of the case have to be considered chiefly with regard to their contents; their form is not regulated by such constant rules as that of the tituli, so far as may be inferred from the state of completeness in which they have been preserved. The rules for each special class therefore, though, generally speaking, maintained—as was to be expected of Roman institutions—with remarkable steadiness from the earliest times down to a late period, must be based upon a comprehensive view of all the examples, including those preserved by ancient writers, and not in the monumental form. These documents are, as a rule, incised on bronze plates (only some private acts are preserved on wood and lead), and therefore have their peculiar form of writing, abbreviation, interpunction, &c., as has been already explained. The older Roman laws are now collected, in trustworthy texts, in the Corpus, vol. i.; of the documents belonging to the later period a very comprehensive sylloge is given in C. G. Bruns’s Fontes juris Romani antiqui.

1. Among the earliest occasions for committing to writing agreements, which may be supposed to have been originally verbal only, must certainly be reckoned international transactions (leges foederis or foedera). At the head of the prose records written in the Latin language we find the treaties of alliance of Tullus Hostilius with the Sabini (Dionysius Halic. iii. 33), of Servius Tullius with the Latini (Dionysius iv. 26; Festus p. 169; this was, partly, at the same time, as will afterwards appear, the oldest document of the sacred class), of the second Tarquinius with Gabii (Dionysius iv. 58; Festus, Epit. p. 56). They are followed, in the oldest republican period, by the celebrated foedera with Carthage; by the pacts of Sp. Cassius Vecellinus with the Latini of the year 261 (493 B.C.), which Cicero seems to have seen still in the forum behind the rostra, written on a bronze column (Pro Balbo, 23, 53; see also Livy ii. 33; Festus p. 166; and Mommsen’s Römische Forschungen, ii. 153 sq.); and by the foedus Ardeatinum of 310 (444 B.C.) mentioned by Livy (iv. 7). Of all these documents nothing has been preserved in an authentic form, save some few words quoted from them by the ancient grammarians. Of one foedus only is there a fragment still in existence, relating to the Oscan civitas libera Bantia (C.I.L. i. 197); it contains the clausula of the foedus, which was written in Latin and in Oscan (see Apulia). On account of this peculiar circumstance, the document gave occasion to Klenze, and afterwards to Mommsen, to resume (for the sake of Roman jurisprudence, in the first instance) inquiry into the Oscan and other Italian dialects. Some other Roman foedera are preserved only in Greek, e.g. that with the Jews of the year 594 (160 B.C.)(Josephus, Ant. xii. 6. 10). Some others, made with the same nation between 610 and 615 (144 and 139 B.C.) (Jos. Ant. xiii. 5. 6 and 7. 8), are mentioned in an abridged form only, or given in that of a senatus consultum, to which they must formally be ascribed. Amongst the foedera may be reckoned also the curious oath, sworn, perhaps, according to a general rule obtaining for all civitates foederatae, by the citizens of a Lusitanian oppidum, Aritium, to Gaius Caesar on his accession to the throne in A.D. 37 (C.I.L. ii. 172; Wil. 2839).

Closely related to the foedera are the pacts between communities and private individuals, respecting patronatus or hospitium (tabulae patronatus et hospitii), also, when in small portable form, tesserae hospitales; cf. Plautus, Poen. 1047, of which many specimens from the end of the republic down to a late period of the empire have been preserved (see Gazzera, Memorie dell’ Academia di Torino, vol. xxxv., 1831, p. 1 sq., and Mommsen, Römische Forschungen, i. 341 sq.). Of the numerous examples scattered through the different volumes of the Corpus may be quoted the tessera Fundana, containing the pact of hospitality between the community of Fundi and a certain Ti. Claudius (who cannot, with certainty, be identified), the oldest hitherto known, in the form of a bronze fish (C.I.L. i. 532; Henz. 7000; Wil. 2849); the tabula of the pagus Gurzensium in Africa, delivering the patronate to L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, Nero’s grandfather, in 742 (12 B.C.), in the afterwards solemn form of a tabella fastigata, to be fixed in the atrium of the person honoured (Orel. 3693; Wil. 2850); that of the civitas Pallantina with a peregrinus named Acces Licirni of the year 752 (2 B.C.) (Ephem. epigr. i. 141; Hermes, v., 1871, p. 371 seq.); that of Lacilbula, in Spain, with one Q. Marius Balbus, of A.D. 5 (C.I.L. ii. 1393); that of the Bocchoritani on the island of Majorca, of A.D. 6 (C.I.L. ii. 3695; Wil. 2851); the four relating to C. Silius Aviola, dating from A.D. 27 to 28, all found at Brescia (C.I.L. v. 4919-4922); that of the colonia Julia Aug. legionis vii. Tupusuctu, in Africa, with the imperial legate Q. Julius Secundus, of A.D. 55 (C.I.L. viii. 8837; Wil. 2851); that of two gentilitates, the Desonci and Tridiavi, of the gens of the Zoelae, in Spain, now in the museum of Berlin, which contains an older act of the year 27, and another more recent of the year A.D. 127 (C.I.L. ii. 2633; Orel. 156); that of the respublica Pompelonensis (Pampeluna in Spain) of A.D. 185 (C.I.L. ii. 2960; Wil. 2854); that of the Segisamonenses, in Spain, of A.D. 239, now in the museum at Burgos (Ephem. epigr. ii. 322); that of the fabri subidiani (i.e. subaediani, qui sub aede consistunt) of Cordova, of A.D. 348 (C.I.L. ii. 2211; Wil. 2861); and, in addition to many others, those found together at Rome, on the site of the palace of Q. Aradius Valerius Proculus, and belonging to him and other members of his family, from divers African cities and executed in A.D. 321 and 322 (C.I.L. vi. 1684-1688; Orel. 1079, 3058).

2. Hardly inferior in antiquity, and of superior value, are the remains of laws in the stricter sense of the word (leges and plebiscita), preserved to us in the originals, although unfortunately only in fragments more or less extensive. Of those laws the oldest and most important are the lex Acilia (for so it is in all probability to be styled) repetundarum of the year 631 (C.I.L. i. 198), which is incised on a bronze table about 2 metres broad, in 90 lines of about 200 to 240 letters each, and therefore extremely inconvenient to read, and the lex agraria of 643 (111 B.C.), written on the reverse of the table of the Acilia, abrogated shortly afterwards (C.I.L. i. 200); this is the third of the celebrated laws of C. Gracchus bearing upon the division of public lands. Then follow the lex Cornelia de viginti quaestoribus, a fragment of Sulla’s legislation, the eighth table only, of the whole set, being preserved (C.I.L. i. 202); the plebiscitum de Thermensibus, on the autonomy of Termessus in Pisidia, proposed by the tribuni plebis, in 682 (72 B.C.), one of four or five large bronze plates (C.I.L. i. 204); the lex Rubria de civitate Galliae cisalpinae of 705 (49 B.C.), written in a new and more convenient form (belonging as it does to Caesar’s legislation), in two columns, with numbered divisions, being the fourth out of an unknown number of plates (C.I.L. i. 205); the lex Julia municipalis, or, from the place where it was found, the tabulae Heracleenses of 709 (45 B.C.), written on the reverse of the much older Greek law of that community, preserved partly at Naples, partly in the British Museum (C.I.L. i. 206), also a fragment of Caesar’s general municipal institutions; it contains a curious passage relating to the public promulgation of laws (v. 15). These are the laws of the Roman republic preserved in important fragments; some minor ones (brought together in C.I.L. i. 207-211) may be left out of account here. In the imperial age, laws in general were replaced by senatus consulta or by imperial decrees. It was also in the form of a senatus consultum that the leges de imperio, on the accession of the emperors, seem to have been promulgated. An example of such a law, preserved in part on a bronze tablet found at Rome, is the lex de imperio Vespasiani (C.I.L. vi. 930; Orel. i. 567). There is, besides, one special category of imperial constitutions which continued to be named leges, viz. the constitutions given by the emperors to the divers classes of civitates, based upon the ancient traditional rules of government applied to Rome itself as well as to the coloniae and municipia. Of this sort of leges some very valuable specimens have come from Spanish soil, viz. the lex coloniae Juliae Genetivae Urbanorum sive Ursonis (now Osuna), given to that colony by Caesar in 710 (44 B.C.), but incised, with some alterations, in the time of Vespasian, of which three bronze tables out of a much larger number remain (Hübner and Mommsen, Ephem. epigr. ii. 150 sq. and 221 sq.); the lex Salpensana and the lex Malacitana, given to these two municipia by Domitian, between A.D. 81 and 84, each on a large bronze plate, written respectively in two and in five columns, with the single chapters numbered and rubricated (C.I.L. ii. 1963, 1964; compare Mommsen, “Die Stadtrechte der lateinischen Gemeinden Salpensa und Malacca in der Provinz Baetica,” in the Abhandlungen der sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, philol.-histor. Classe, vol. iii., 1857, p. 363 sq.); the lex metalli Vipascensis, given, with all probability, by one of the three Flavii, as a constitution to a mining district of southern Portugal, one bronze plate numbered iii.—three or more, therefore, being lost (see Hübner, Ephem. epigr. iii. 165 sq. and, for a popular account, the Deutsche Rundschau, August 1877, p. 196 sq.). The so-called military diplomas, although in certain respects nearly related to the leges of the later period, are better placed along with the imperial decrees.

3. A third species of official documents is formed by decrees of the senate of Rome, of the analogous corporations in the coloniae and municipia, and of the divers collegia and sodalicia, constituted, as a rule, after a similar fashion and debating in nearly the same way as the Roman and the municipal senates. The oldest Roman senatus consulta are those translated into the Greek language and containing treaties of alliance, as already mentioned. They are preserved either on monuments or by ancient authors, as Josephus: e.g. the fragment found at Delphi, from the year 568 (186 B.C.), and the senatus consultum Thisbaeum, from Thisbe in Boeotia, 584 (170 B.C.) (Ephem. epigr. i. 278 sq., ii. 102, and Joh. Schmidt, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung, vol. iii., 1881), those of 616, 619, 621, 649 (138-105 B.C.) (C. I. Graec. 2905, 2908, ii. 2485, 2737; Le Bas and Waddington iii. 195-198; Annali dell’ Instituto, vol. xix. 1847, p. 113; Ephem. epigr. iv. 213 sq.), and those relating to the Jews, dating from 615, 621 and 710 (139, 133 and 44 B.C.) (Josephus, Ant. xiii. 9. 2, xiv. 8. 5 and 10. 9). The two oldest senatus consulta written in Latin are also preserved in a more or less complete form only by ancient authors; they are the sc. de philosophis et rhetoribus of 593 (161 B.C.) (Gellius, Noct. Att. xv. 11. 1) and that de hastis Martiis of 655 (99 B.C.) (Gellius iv. 6. 2). The only one belonging to the oldest period preserved in the original Latin form, of which only a part exists, together with the Greek translation, is the sc. Lutatianum, relating to Asclepiades of Clazomenae and his companions, dating from 676 (77 B.C.) (C.I.L. i. 203). The rest, belonging to the later epoch from Cicero downwards, about twenty in number, are mostly preserved only in an abridged form by ancient writers,—such as Cicero, Frontinus, Macrobius,—or in Justinian’s Digesta (see Hübner, De senatus populique Romani actis, Leipzig, 1859, p. 66 sq.); a few exist, however, in a monumental form, complete or in fragments—as the two sc. on the ludi saeculares, dating from 17 B.C. and A.D. 47, preserved on a marble slab found at Rome (C.I.L. vi. 877); the fragments of two sc. in honour of Germanicus and the younger Drusus, from Rome, on bronze tablets (C.I.L. vi. 911-912; Henz. 5381-5282); the two sc. Hosidianum and Volusianum, containing regulations for the demolition and rebuilding of houses in Rome, incised on the same bronze plate, found at Herculaneum, dating from Nero’s time, between A.D. 41 and 46 and from 56 (Orel. 3115; Mommsen, Berichte der sächs. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, philol.-histor. Classe, 1852, p. 272 sq.); and, of a later period, the sc. Cassianum or Nonianum of A.D. 138, containing a market regulation for the saltus Beguensis in Africa, where it has been found preserved in two examples on stone slabs (Ephem. epigr. ii. 271 sq., not complete in Wil. 2838), and the fragment of that for Cyzicus, belonging to the reign of Antoninus Pius (Ephem. epigr. iii. 156 sq.). There exists, besides, a chapter of a sc., relating to the collegia, inserted in the decree of a collegium at Lanuvium, to be mentioned below. Of the municipal decrees, of which a greater number is preserved (see Hübner, De sen. populique Rom. actis, p. 71 sq.), only a few of the more important may be mentioned here: the lex Puteolana de parieti faciundo of 649 (105 B.C.) (C.I.L. i. 577; Orel. 3697; Wil. 697); the two decreta (or so-called cenotaphia) Pisana in honour of Lucius and Gaius Caesar, the grandsons of Augustus, of A.D. 3 (C.I.L. xi. 1420, 1421; Orel. 642, 643; Wil. 883); the decretum Lanuvinum of A.D. 133, containing the regulations of a collegium funeraticium, styled collegium salutare Dianae et Antinoi (Orel. 6086; Wil. 319); and the decretum Tergestinum, belonging to the time of Antoninus Pius (C.I.L. v. 532; Henz. 7167; Wil. 693). There are, however, more than thirty others preserved, some of them, such as those from Naples, written in the Greek language. Of the third speciality, the decreta collegiorum, only the lex collegii aquae of the 1st century (Marini, Atti de’ fratelli arvali, p. 70; Rudorff and Mommsen, Zeitschrift für Rechtsgeschichte, vol. xv., 1850, pp. 203, 345 sq.), and the lex collegii Aesculapii et Hygiae, of 153 (C.I.L. vi. 10,234; Orel. 2417; Wil. 320) need be mentioned here; many more exist. One of them, the lex collegii Jovis Cerneni, dating from A.D. 167, found at Alburnus major in Dacia, is preserved on the original tabella cerata on which it was written (C.I.L. iii. 924; Henz. 6087; Wil. 321).

4. The fourth species of instrumenta are the decrees, sometimes in the form of letters, of Roman and municipal magistrates, and of the emperors and their functionaries, incised, as a rule, on bronze tablets. The oldest decree in the Latin language which has been preserved is that of L. Aemilius Paulus, when praetor in Hispania Baetica, dating from 189 B.C., for the Turris Lascutana in southern Spain (C.I.L. ii. 5041; Wil. 2837); of the same date is a Greek one of Cn. Manlius, consul of the year 565, for the Heracleenses Cariae (Le Bas and Waddington n. 588). Then follow the famous epistula consulum (falsely styled senatus consultum) ad Teuranos de bacchanalibus, dated 568 (186 B.C.) (C.I.L. i. 196); the sentence of the two Minucii, the delegates of the senate, on a dispute concerning the boundaries between the Genuates and Viturii, 117 B.C. (C.I.L. i. 199; Orel. 3121; Wil. 872); and the epistula of the praetor L. Cornelius (perhaps Sisenna), the praetor of 676 (78 B.C.) ad Tiburtes (C.I.L. i. 201). These belong to the republican age. From the imperial period a great many more have come down to us of varying quality. Some of them are decrees or constitutions of the emperors themselves. Such are the decree of Augustus on the aqueduct of Venafrum (C.I.L. x. 4842; Henz. 6428; Wil. 784); that of Claudius, found in the Val di Nona, belonging to A.D. 46 (C.I.L. v. 5050; Wil. 2842); of Vespasian for Sabora in Spain (C.I.L. ii. 1423), and for the Vanacini in Corsica (Orel. 4031); of Domitian for Falerii (Orel. 3118); the epistles of Hadrian relating to Aezani in Phrygia, added to a Greek decree of Avidius Quietus (C.I.L. iii. 355; Henz. 6955), and relating to Smyrna, in Greek, with a short one of Antoninus Pius, in Latin (C.I.L. iii. 411; Orel. 3119); the decrees of Commodus relating to the saltus Burunitanus in Africa (C.I.L. viii. 10,570; cf. Eph. epigr. v. 471); of Severus and Caracalla for Tyra (Akkerman in Moesia), Latin and Greek (C.I.L. iii. 781; Henz. 6429); of Valerian and Gallienus for Smyrna, also Latin and Greek (C.I.L. iii. 412); of Diocletian de pretiis rerum venalium, containing a long list of prices for all kinds of merchandise, preserved in divers copies more or less complete, in Latin and Greek (C.I.L. iii. 801 sq.; compare Ephem. epigr. iv. 180, and, as similar monuments, the lex portus of Cirta, of A.D. 202 Wil. 2738, and the fragment of a regulation for the importation of wines into Rome, Henz. 5089, Wil. 2739); and some of the age of Constantine, as that relating to Hispellum in Umbria (Henz. 5580; Wil. 2843), that of Julian found at Amorgos (C.I.L. iii. 459; Henz. 6431), and some others, of which copies exist also in the juridical collections. Of two imperial rescripts of a still later age A.D. 413, fragments of the originals, written on papyri, have been found in Egypt (see Mommsen and Jaffé, Jahrbüch des gemeinen deutschen Rechts, vol. vi., 1861, p. 398; Hänel, Corpus legum, p. 281). Imperial decrees, granting divers privileges to soldiers, are the diplomata militaria also, mentioned above, incised on two combined bronze tablets in the form of diptycha (L. Renier, “Recueil de diplômes militaires”; C.I.L. iii. 842 sqq., 1955 sqq.; Wil. 2862-2869), belonging to nearly all emperors from Claudius down to Diocletian. Though not a decree, yet as a publication going back directly to the emperor, and as being preserved in the monumental form, the speech of the emperor Claudius, delivered in the senate, relating to the Roman citizenship of the Gauls, of which Tacitus gives an abstract (Ann. xi. 23), ought also to be mentioned here; it was engraved on large bronze slabs by the public authority of Lugudunum (Lyons), where a large fragment of it is still preserved (Boissieu, Inscriptions antiques de Lyon, p. 132 sq.). Another sort of decrees, relating to a great variety of subjects, has to be mentioned, emanating, not directly from the emperors, but from their functionaries. Such are the decree of the proconsul L. Helvius Agrippa, of the year A.D. 68, on the boundaries of some tribes on the island of Sardinia (C.I.L. x. 7852; Wil. 872 a); that of the prefect of Egypt, Tiberius Julius Alexander, written in Greek, the same year (C. I. Graec. 4957); that of C. Helvidius Priscus, on a similar question relating to Histonium, belonging perhaps to the end of the 1st century (Wil. 873); that of the legate of Trajan, C. Avidius Nigrinus, found at Delphi, in Greek and Latin (C.I.L. iii. 567; Orel. 3671; Wil. 874); a rescript of Claudius Quartinus, perhaps the imperial legate of the Tarraconensis, of the year A.D. 119, found at Pampluna (C.I.L. ii. 2959; Orel. 4032); the epistle of the praefecti praetorio to the magistrates of Saepinum, of about A.D. 166-169 (C.I.L. ix. 2438; Wil. 2841); the decree of L. Novius Rufus, another legate of the Tarraconensis, who ex tilia recitavit, of A.D. 193 (C.I.L. ii. 4125; Orel. 897; Wil. 876); the sentence of Alfenius Senecio, then subprefect of the classis praetoria Misenensis, belonging to the beginning of the 3rd century, formerly existing at Naples (C.I.L. x. 3334); and some others of the 4th and 5th centuries, not requiring specific mention here. Quite a collection of epistles of high Roman functionaries is found in the celebrated inscription of Thorigny (Mommsen, Berichte der sächs. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, 1852, p. 235 sq.). The letter of a provincial functionary, a priest of Gallia Narbonensis, to the fabri subaediani of Narbonne, of the year 149, may also be mentioned (Henz. 7215; Wil. 696 a). To these must be added the tabulae alimentariae, relating to the well-known provision made by Trajan for the relief of distress among his subjects, such as that of the Ligures Baebiani (C.I.L. ix. 1455; Wil. 2844) and that of Veleia near Parma (Wil. 2845); while evidence of similar institutions is furnished by inscriptions at Tarracina, at Sicca in Africa, and at Hispalis in Spain (Wil. 2846-2848; C.I.L. ii. 1174). At the close of this long list of official documents may be mentioned the libellus of the procurator operum publicorum a columna divi Marci of the year 193 (C.I.L. vi. 1585; Orel. 39; Wil. 2840) and the interlocutiones of the praefecti vigilum on a lawsuit of the fullones of Rome, of A.D. 244, inscribed on an altar of Hercules (C.I.L. vi. 266; Wil. 100). These documents form a most instructive class of instrumenta.

5. Many documents, as may be supposed, were connected with religious worship, public and private. The oldest lex templi, which continued in force until a comparatively late period, was the regulation given by Servius Tullius to the temple of Diana on the Aventine, after the conclusion of the federal pact with the Latini, noticed above. Mention is made of this ancient law as still in force in two later documents of a similar character, viz. the dedication of an altar to Augustus by the plebs of Narbo in southern France, of A.D. 764, but existing only, at Narbonne, in a copy, made perhaps in the 2nd century (C.I.L. xii. 4333; Orel. 2489; Wil. 104), and that of an altar of Jupiter, dedicated at Salonae in Dalmatia in A.D. 137, still existing in part at Padua (C.I.L. iii. 1933; Orel. 2490; Wil. 163). Another lex fani still existing is that of a temple of Jupiter Liber at Furfo, a vicus of southern Italy, of the year 696 (58 B.C.), but copied, in vernacular language, from an older original (C.I.L. i. 603; Orel. 2488; Wil. 105; compare Jordan in Hermes, vol. vii., 1872, pp. 201 sq.). The lists of objects belonging to some sanctuaries or to the ornaments of statues are curious, such as those of the Diana Nemorensis at Nemi (Henz. Hermes, vol. vi., 1871, pp. 8 sq.), and of a statue of Isis in Spain (Hübner, Hermes, vol. i., 1866, pp. 345 sq.; compare C.I.L. ii. 2060, 3386, Orel. 2510, Wil. 210), and two synopses from a temple at Cirta in Africa (Wil. 2736, 2737). The sortes given by divinities may also be mentioned (see C.I.L. i. 267 sq.; Wil. 2822). To a temple also, though in itself of a secular character, belonged a monument of the highest historical importance, viz. the Index rerum a se gestarum, incised on bronze slabs, copies of which Augustus ordered to be placed, in Latin and Greek, where required, in the numerous Augustea erected to himself in company with the Dea Roma. This is known as the Monumentum Ancyranum, because it is at Angora in Asia Minor that the best preserved copy of it, in Greek and Latin, exists; but fragments remain of other copies from other localities (see C.I.L. iii. 779 sq., and the special editions of Mommsen, Berlin, 1865, and Bergk, Göttingen, 1873). Among the inscriptions relating to sacred buildings must also be reckoned the numerous fragments of Roman calendars, or fasti anni Juliani, found at Rome and other places, which have been arranged and fully explained by Mommsen (C.I.L. i., 2nd ed., part ii.; compare for those found in Rome, C.I.L. vi. 2294-2306). Local, provincial or municipal calendaria have likewise been found (as the feriale Cumanum, C.I.L. i. part ii. p. 229, and the Capuanum, C.I.L. x. 3792). Many other large monumental inscriptions bear some relation, more or less strict, to sacred or public buildings. Along with the official calendar exhibited on the walls of the residence of the pontifex maximus, the list of the eponymous magistrates, inscribed by the order of Augustus on large marble slabs, was publicly shown—the fasti consulares, the reconstruction and illustration of which formed the life-work of Borghesi. These have been collected, down to the death of Augustus, by Henzen, and compared with the additional written testimonies, by Mommsen, in the Corpus (vol. i., 2nd ed., part ii.), along with the acta triumphorum and other minor fragments of fasti found in various Italian communities, while the fasti sacerdotum publicorum populi Romani, together with the tabula feriarum Latinarum, are given in the volume devoted exclusively to the monuments of Rome (vol. vi. 441 sq.; compare Hermes, vol. v., 1870, p. 379, and Ephem. epigr. ii. 93, iii. 74, 205 sq.). Documents of the same kind, as, for example, the album ordinis Thamugadensis from Africa (C.I.L. viii. 2403, 17903), and a considerable mass of military lists (latercula, of which those belonging to the garrison of the metropolis are brought together in C.I.L. vi. 651 sq.), are given on many dedicatory and honorary monuments, chiefly from Lambaesis in Africa (C.I.L. viii.). As those documents, though having only a partial claim to be ranked with the sacred ones, derive, like many other dedicatory monuments, their origin and form from that class, so also the protocols (acta), which, from Augustus downwards, seem to have been preserved in the case of all important collegia magistratuum, now survive only from one of the largest and most distinguished collegia sacerdotum, in the acta collegii fratrum Arvalium, to which Marini first drew the attention of epigraphists; they form one of the most important masses of epigraphic monuments preserved to us in the Latin language (see C.I.L. vi. 459 sq., Ephem. epigr. ii. 211 sq., and Henzen’s Acta fratrum Arvalium, Berlin, 1874).

6. Another species of instruments is formed by private documents. They have been incidentally preserved (inserted, for instance, into sepulchral and honorary inscriptions), in the later period not unfrequently in monumental form, as the testaments, given partly or in full, mentioned above (viz. that of Dasumius and the Gaul, C.I.L. vi. 10229, Wil. 314, 315, and some capita testamentorum or codicilli, as that of M. Meconius Leo found at Poetelia—C.I.L. x. 113, 114; Orel. 3677, 3678; Wil. 696), and the donations, such as those of T. Flavius Syntrophus (C.I.L. vi. 10239; Wil. 313), of T. Flavius Artemidorus (Wil. 310), of Statia Irene and Julia Monime (C.I.L. vi. 10231, 10247; Wil. 311, 318). Of a peculiar description is the pactum fiduciae, found in Spain, engraved on a bronze tablet, and belonging, in all probability, to the 1st century (C.I.L. ii. 5042), which seems to be a formulary. Other documents relating to private affairs exist in their original form, written on tabellae ceratae. Those found together in a mining district of Dacia have been arranged and explained by Mommsen and Zangemeister (C.I.L. iii. 291 sq., with facsimiles); those found at Pompeii in 1875, containing receipts of the banker L. Caecilius Jucundus, have been published in C.I.L. iv. (suppl.). These documents are written in cursive letters; and so mostly, too, are some other curious private monuments, belonging partly to the sacred inscriptions—the defixiones (cf. Tac. Ann. ii. 69), imprecations directed against persons suspected of theft or other offences, who, according to a very ancient superstition, were in this way believed to be delivered to punishment through the god to whom the defixio was directed. The numerous Greek and Latin (and even Oscan) examples of this usage have been brought together by Audollent, Defixionum tabellae quotquot innotuerunt tam in Graecis Orientis quam in totius Occidentis partibus praeter Atticas (Paris, 1904); compare C.I.L. i. 818-820, C.I.L. vii. 140). Only a few of them are incised on stone (as that to the Dea Ataecina from Spain, C.I.L. ii. 462); for the most part they are written, in cursive letters, or in very debased capitals, on small bronze or lead tablets (so C.I.L. i. 818, 819; Henz. 6114, 6115; Wil. 2747, 2748), to be laid in the tombs of the “defixi,” or deposited in the sanctuaries of some divinity.