Building inscription for cisterns
created: Transcription (Reynolds).
source date: 165-169 CE
language: ar; en; fr; de; grc; grc-Latn; el; he
availability: Creative Commons licence Attribution UK 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/uk/) All reuse or distribution of this work must contain somewhere a link back to the URL http://inslib.kcl.ac.uk/

Bibliography

[...], 3.a, fig. 4, whence [...] 18.740, [...] 324444; see also [...] 1960.200

ex auctoritate et indulgentia optimorum maximorum que imperatorum Marci Aureli Antonini Augusti Armeniaci et Luci Aureli Veri Armeniaci Parthici Maximi receptacula pecunia publica

Ναιυιανὸς ὁ κράτιστος θεμελίων κατεσκεύασεν καὶ ἀφιέρωσεν μετὰ Σειλίου Πλαυτίου Ἀτεριανοῦ τοῦ κρατίστου ταμίου

Translations

[Latin] By the authority and generosity of the best and greatest emperors Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, victor in Armenia, and Lucius Aurelius Verus, victor in Armenia, greatest victor in Parthia, cisterns were built, from public funds.

[Greek] -ouianus the most excellent . . . of foundations constructed and consecrated, with Silius Plautius Haterianus, the most excellent quaestor.

Commentary

The use as a threshold was its third usage - no trace survives of its first as a stele; the inscriptions are the record of its second, when it perhaps stood in the place of a lintel above the door of a cistern. The cutter abandoned his work on this bilingual text uncompleted, for the wholly Greek version, C.167, on the reverse face. That differs from this original Greek version in setting out the facts in a more elaborate form and in using a quasi-Doric dialect instead of the κοινή. It is possible also that between the drafting of the first and second versions the imperial titles had altered; in the this first version only Verus is called Parthicus Maximus, in the second (C.167) the space available strongly suggests that Marcus was similarly described and that both were also Medicus. Verus held the title Parthicus Maximus from 165, Marcus from 166.

Line 3: For de/ex pecunia publica from public money, cf. also T.5).

Line 4: The name is restored from C.167: the error is unusual.

Line 5: Silius Plautius Haterianus: only here and in C.167, but he must belong to a family of Silii Plautii prominent at Lepcis Magna in the second and third centuries; see IRT 635, 632, 542.