Description: Two limestone architrave blocks.
Text: Inscribed across the two blocks; the surface of the first is lost on the lower half of the face;
the second was still complete in 1915, now in two fragments.
Letters: Cut as those of C.3, first century CE: c. 0.15.
Date: First century CE
Findspot:
Cyrene:
Caesareum: block 2 recorded in 1817;
blocks 1 and 2 found between 1935 and 1941 in
the Doric entablatures of the East porch.
Original location: Caesareum, the internal face of the east porch.
Last recorded location:
Caesareum, rebuilt into the wall (2008).
Apparatus
Della Cella, Pacho and Ghislanzoni saw the second block intact.; C(aius) Rubelliu[s] Blan[dus] Reynolds, 1958; C(aius) Rubellius L(ucii) [f(ilius)] Bl[andus] Luni, 1992; C. Rubellius L. [f(ilius)] Bl[andus] Gasperini, 1996English translation
Translation by: Editors
Caius, son of Lucius, Rubellius Blandus, proconsul, [restored] the porticoes of the Caesareum [ . . .
. . . -]ius Pacilaeus, son of M(arcus) [ . . . propraetorian] legate [ . . . ]
Commentary
See also the inscription from the opposite portico, C.3, .
Line 1: Della Cella, Pacho and Ghislanzoni saw the whole of the word Caesarei; Pacho and Ghislanzoni also saw the next letter, R. This suggests the work carried out by Blandus should have been a restoration and might be connected with that by Sufenas Proculus, in C.9.
Rubellius Blandus, governor of Crete and Cyrene, is also attested in Crete, InsCret IV 293 (at PHI 200736); he seems also to be attested at Marruvium (see Gasperini (1996) loc cit.); see also Thomassen, Laterculi 38.009. He should not, therefore, be identified with the proconsul of Africa (PIR2 R.109) attested in Tripolitania: see IRT 269, and also IRT 330, IRT 331 and IRT 540 where a praetorian legate let the contract for construction undertaken at Lepcis Magna by the proconsul.
Line 2: Pacilaeus, PIR2 P.23, here and in C.3, is otherwise unknown.
There continues to be uncertainty as to whether the location of the blocks and the hand indicate that Blandus and Pacilaeus operated simultaneously. For a pro praetorian legate acting in the absence of the governor, cf. e.g. IRT 342.
Bibliography: Block 2: Della Cella, 1819, 141; Pacho, 1827 LXIII.1 with Letronne, p.393, whence CIL, 10; Ghislanzoni, 1915, 205; Arch.Anz. 1938, 733, whence AE 1939.120, whence EDH 022623; again, Arch.Anz. 1941, 703. E. Sjoqvist Opuscula Romana, I (1954) 99; republished Reynolds, 1958, II.a.ii, whence AE 1960.266; Gasperini, 1971, C.2, C.4 and figs. 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, whence AE 1974.667; Block 1 discussed Luni, 1994, 194-197, and republished Luni, 1992, 132-5; reconsidered Gasperini, 1996, whence AE 1995.1630; mentioned Kenrick, 2013, 153.
Text constituted from: Transcription (Reynolds).
Images
Fig. 1. Transcription (1827, Pacho, plate LXIII)
Fig. 2. Transcription detail (1827, Pacho, plate LXIII.1)
Fig. 3. View (2008, H.Walda)
Fig. 4. View (2008, H.Walda)
Fig. 5. Left block (BSR 1642.10)
Fig. 6. Right block (BSR 1642.11)
Fig. 7. Right block (2008, H.Walda)