Description: Part of a brown limestone
stele
(w:
0.25 x h:
1.165 x d:
0.645).
Text: Inscribed on the left face, broken above and sliced away on the right side, the
surface badly damaged towards the bottom. A.51
is inscribed on the face to the right.
Letters: First century CE; 0.038.
Date: CE 54-55
Findspot:
Apollonia:
reused in a modern house near the Extra-Mural Church; found in 1956.
Original location: Unknown.
Last recorded location:
Apollonia Museum, 2008 (since 1968).
English translation
Translation by: Joyce M. Reynolds
. . . Nero Claudius] Augustus Germanicus, Emperor, [son of deified Claudius, grandson of Germanicus Caesar], great grandson of Tiberius Caesar Augustus and of deified Augustus, by the action of Lucius Acilius Strabo [his personal envoy . . .
Commentary
A boundary stone marking the limits of ager publicus populi Romani inherited by Rome from the last king of Cyrene and set up in the first year of Nero's reign by Lucius Acilius Strabo, who had been sent out by Claudius to reclaim such land from possessores (Tac. Ann. XIV, 18: see on M.141). It is unlikely that the stone came from very far away and like A.25, therefore, it implies the existence of ager publicus very near the city. A.51 and A.54.
The upper missing part of the text will have read Νέρων Κλαύδιος θεοῦ Κλαυδίου υἱὸς Γερμανικοῦ Καίσαρος υἱωνός; for the end see A.25, lines 6 f. A Latin version of the text was no doubt cut on a lost front face.
Line 5:. The cutter has avoided a hole in the stone.
For Acilius Strabo see PIR2 A 0082, and addenda; he was active in Cyrenaica under Claudius and Nero: A.25, A.50, A.68, C.434, C.748, M.125, M.141, M.143, M.153, M.172, M.238, M.251, M.275, and perhaps M.68; for his appointment see on M.141.
Bibliography: Reynolds, 1971c, 3.a, whence AE 1974.684a, SEG 26.1816, whence PHI 324711; Reynolds, 1976, 59.a, whence SEG 27.1132; mentioned Kenrick, 2013, 285..
Text constituted from: Transcription (Reynolds).
Images
Fig. 1. Face (2008, H.Walda)
Fig. 2. Face (2008, H.Walda)