Description: Three damaged sandstone architrave blocks
(w:
1.03 x h:
0.46 x d:
0.70;
w:
1.16 x h:
0.52 x d:
0.70;
w:
1.10 x h:
0.44 x d:
0.70).
Text: Inscribed on one face, which is badly weathered.
Letters: Fourth-fifth century; line 1, 0.15; line 2, 0.12-0.13.
Date: Fourth century CE
Findspot:
Apollonia: East Church:
found, probably in 1920, cut down and reused in the apse.
Original location: Unknown.
Last recorded location:
Outside the Cyrene Sculpture Museum.
Apparatus
2: The second line is particularly badly worn; as a result the initial letters of the title appear, superficially, to be ΑΛ.; At the end of the line, perhaps βαϲιλικῶνEnglish translation
Translation by: Joyce M. Reynolds
. . . ] during the wholly happy reign of [ . . ? 30-35 . . . ] perpetual Augusti [ . . .] Flavius Patricius Vitalianus, the most eminent [?governor . . . ] ?the imperial [ . . .
Commentary
Oliverio (loc. cit.) wrote as if the stones were part of the structure of the apse, but this is certainly not the case.
For the formula cf. e.g. OGIS 722 (at PHI 219135), of the joint reign of Valentinian, Valens and Gratian (367-378), to which, perhaps, this text also belongs since considerable building activity in Cyrenaica is attested in their time (see, at Ptolemais P.122, P.136, P.148, and at Teucheira T.17, with T.115 and T.249). If their names are restored here 30 letters, or 36 (with the insertion of καἱ twice), are missing before ΟΥ.
Line 2: PLRE II, Fl. Patricius Vitalianus. A Vitalianus was dux Libyae in October 417 (Cod. Theod. VIII.I.16, PLRE II, Vitalianus 1) but if he is the same man the title used here shows that at the time of this inscription he had not yet reached that position.
Bibliography: Described, Oliverio, 1940 418 ; published Reynolds, 1976, 12 and pl. LXI, whence SEG 27.1137, AE 1977.842. Discussed by Roques, 1987 , whence SEG 38.1867.
Text constituted from: Transcription (Reynolds).
Images
Fig. 1. Reconstituted (Joyce Reynolds, II.6.5)
Fig. 2. Fragment b (Joyce Reynolds, II.6.1)
Fig. 3. Left end block (Joyce Reynolds, II.6.2)