British School at Rome: Papers of the British School at Rome (4.1907)

Classical Topography of the Roman Campagna.—III. 127
The three personages mentioned are no doubt the magistri vici: and
this title very possibly stood in place of cultoribus Larum, which has been
inscribed over an erasure—unless indeed the name of a fourth magister has
for some reason been cancelled. M. Publilius Strato is mentioned in the
duplicate inscriptions C.I.L. xiv. 2556, 2557 : the latter, which is only a
fragment, had, one might suppose, been transported in later times to this
place, where jit was found in December, 1873 (‘ in una vigna tra Borghetto e
Ciampino, ove sono i ruderi di un antico monumento sepolcrale ’)/ while the
former, found in 1857 between Frascati and Grottaferrata below the Vigna
Cavalletti, was entire. I may add that it was the same inscription now
given by Grossi-Gondi which I saw and copied in December 1899. The
incorrect statement made by Lanciani in Bull. Com. 1905, 133 on my
authority is due to my failure to find my notes at that time. In them I
find no record of any inscription of the Decimienses, so that my memory
misled me.
Grossi-Gondi, in my opinion, is right in connecting these three
inscriptions, and referring them to the same building, the last being
anterior in date to the other two. In regard to the first, Grossi-Gondi is
wrong in supposing that the plural Larum Augustorum obliges us to place
it in a period when there was more than one Augustus : for Augustorum is
an adjective, not an independent genitive; while the second is fixed by the
mention of Marciana to the early part of the second century A.D.
On the other hand, his amplification of the inscription which he gives
on p. 21 n. 1. C. Volumni C. L. | Salv. L. | Poenica L. de s. [fecit ovis, I
think, erroneous. He reads C(ai) Volumni C(ai) L (?) Salvlfus) Lfbertus)
Poenica, L(imen) de s(uo~) fecit, interpreting Poenica of the pavement, and
comparing Festus (p. 242 Mull.) pavimenta Poenica marmore Numidico
constrata significat Cato cum ait in ea (sc. oratione') quam habuit, ne qziis Cos.
bis fieret: ‘ dicere possum, quibus villae atque aedes aedificatae, atque
expolitae maxima opere citro atque ebore atque pavimentis Poenicis stent.’
It is more probable that it should be interpreted thus :
Claius) Volumniius) C(at) l{ibertus) Salvlid) Kfbertd) Poenica Kfberta')
de s(uo~) fecit ov.
The meaning of the last two letters is not perfectly clear, and fecit
is of course a mistake for fecerunt.

1 For this tomb see infra, 130.