?Presence inscription
created: Transcribed from photographs (Reynolds).
source date: First - third century 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

For the fort see [...], 67

ἔτους [...] [...]ιι Ἀριπαχθιϲ[...]

Apparatus

[^a1: at 2: ΡΙ | Π [might be]]

Translation

Year [- . . . ] ? Aripachthis [ . . .

Commentary

All or most of this group of texts seems to be from the Roman fort, one of a line of forts which probably marked the innermost defences of the Syrtic Limes. The line was probably established in the first century CE after the Marmaric War. Most have a more or less formal appearance.

The high proportion of Latin texts in this remote place must be due to the presence of soldiers and suggests a garrison unit recruited in the west – the cognomen Reburus (M.49.i) pointing to Spain or Gaul. But it is clear that Greeks of local origin (M.49.iv, vi) came here too and may well be civilian visitors to the shrine, though local recruiting is also possible.