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+--- Thread: Tombstones (/showthread.php?tid=20034)
Re: Tombstones - D B Campbell - 02-11-2012
Quote:Hope you've read this.Ah, the ideal book cover.
[attachment=2963]Achtung.jpg[/attachment]
Re: Tombstones - Robert Vermaat - 02-11-2012
Quote:GentlemenShared!
I really am beginning to worry about you two...
Re: Tombstones - Vindex - 02-11-2012
So if it isn't tablets in his belt what other hypothesis is there?
And are you absolutely sure it is a throwing strap? There seems to be an awful lot of depictions of pila and other hand thrown, long pointy missiles which DON'T have throwing straps? Perhaps it was an award he was very proud of? (Although not sure why that would have a throwing strap...if it is one).
Re: Tombstones - mcbishop - 02-11-2012
Quote:So if it isn't tablets in his belt what other hypothesis is there?Baatz thought these little rectangles were for tablets but the problem is that every soldier who had tablets showed them off (since they were a sign of achievement) and usually had a rank that required clerical duties. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry on the Rhineland has these little boxy things so I think it is something else. I know re-enactors like pouchy things for money etc but there is actually no evidence for these on early tombstones so I wonder if these are purses or something similar. Certainly a safe place to keep it (remembering that they were tucked into the top of the cummberbund). I seem to remember finding something similar to these amongst the published leather finds from Valkenburg but I could be wrong. Anyway, I find the tablet idea unconvincing.
Quote:And are you absolutely sure it is a throwing strap? There seems to be an awful lot of depictions of pila and other hand thrown, long pointy missiles which DON'T have throwing straps? Perhaps it was an award he was very proud of? (Although not sure why that would have a throwing strap...if it is one).No, I'm not absolutely sure, but it loops around the shaft and appears to be held in his fingers so it seems the best explanation (having eliminated the impossible etc etc). Incidentally there aren't many depictions of pila on tombstones of comparable quality to Flavoleius Cordus (which is nearly as good as Annaius Daverzus) so, as ever, there is little by way of comparanda.
Mike Bishop
Re: Tombstones - mcbishop - 02-13-2012
By now Duncan is presumably twitching through want of a good tombstone (don't we all?!), so here is the auxiliary standard bearer Pancuius and his sloping inscription.
![[Image: 6869204199_58e35b1f05_m.jpg]](http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7049/6869204199_58e35b1f05_m.jpg)
Mike Bishop
Re: Tombstones - martijn.wijnhoven - 02-14-2012
Thank you for posting these photographs Mike.
Quote:By now Duncan is presumably twitching through want of a good tombstone (don't we all?!), so here is the auxiliary standard bearer Pancuius and his sloping inscription.
Duncan is indeed not the only one. A new photo a day, keeps the... (finish accordingly)...
What is the approximate date of this tombstone, besides being first century AD?
Cheers,
Martijn
Re: Tombstones - D B Campbell - 02-14-2012
Quote:A new photo a day, keeps the... (finish accordingly)...Well, it ain't "keeps the Doctor away"! :wink: Got another one lined up, Mike?
mile:Quote:What is the approximate date of this tombstone?The absence of the Dis manibus formula, along with hic s(i)t(us) est (especially in this peculiarly abbreviated form -- it's normally found as H S E), and the fact that Pancuius served for longer than the (Flavian+) standard 26 years, all suggest a Julio-Claudian date to me.
Re: Tombstones - Nathan Ross - 02-14-2012
Quote:The absence of the Dis manibus formula... all suggest a Julio-Claudian date to me.Just out of interest, how definite is the use, or not, of Dis Manibus in dating tombstones? I had believed it was almost universally 2nd century and later, but was surprised to see it on the Neronian tombstone of Classicianus in London (CIL 07, 00030).
Re: Tombstones - mcbishop - 02-14-2012
Quote:What is the approximate date of this tombstone, besides being first century AD?Pre-Flavian, on the basis of the absence of a DM and the name being in the nominative case, but these are very loose guidelines and I am very wary of them. The Tib. Iulius part of his name suggests (but scarcely proves) he or his father was granted citizenship by Tiberius, so I guess you are looking at a date between Tiberius and Nero, but this sort of stuff is a house of cards and theories can end up being based on arguments that are both specious and tendentious. Try looking at all the gibberish written about Tib. Iulius Abdes Pantera (supposedly Jesus' dad).
So, I'm happy(ish) with pre-Flavian and post-Augustan ;-)
Mike Bishop
Re: Tombstones - mcbishop - 02-14-2012
Quote:Got another one lined up, Mike?Dozens. I'm going to have you begging me to stop by the time I finish. Coming soon: the skimpiest military tunic in the Roman empire!
Mike Bishop
Re: Tombstones - mcbishop - 02-14-2012
Quote:Just out of interest, how definite is the use, or not, of Dis Manibus in dating tombstones? I had believed it was almost universally 2nd century and later, but was surprised to see it on the Neronian tombstone of Classicianus in London (CIL 07, 00030).I think we need to buy you an RIB for your birthday ;-) You answered yourself in your own question, I think. It's one of those hard-and-fast rules epigraphers come up with that actually is susceptible to regional/cultural variations. DM I was always told comes in big-time in the Flavian period (this can be seen amongst the tombstones of legionary bases with rapidly changing garrisons) but since our man Classicianus only arrives in Britain in the 60s, you might argue that that is sufficiently close to the Flavian period to be acceptable. Never heard DM described as 'universally 2nd century', I must say
hock: I am no epigrapher (although I have served my time making squeezes of milestone inscriptions in remote Arabian oases!) so you might like to take everything I say with a pinch of salt... but then that applies to everything I say!!Mike Bishop
Re: Tombstones - D B Campbell - 02-14-2012
Quote:I think we need to buy you an RIB for your birthday ;-)Might be better with Keppie's Understanding Roman Inscriptions -- an excellent handbook from someone who has spent a lifetime handling Roman inscriptions (and I do mean "handling").
Quote:Just out of interest, how definite is the use, or not, of Dis Manibus in dating tombstones?As Mike says, it's not an exact science. Sir John Sandys (Latin Epigraphy, 1912) was being cautious when he wrote that "many epitaphs (especially in and after the Augustan age) begin with Dis Manibus ..."
Keppie is more helpful:
Quote:It was common, during the first century BC and first century AD, for a funerary inscription to end with the words hic situs est, normally abbreviated to H S E. From the mid first century AD onwards a new frmula became popular: the inscription now began with the words DIS MANIBUS, followed by the name of the deceased. ...It's usually a combination of factors that can give you a feel for a particular inscription. And there are always exceptions that throw a spanner in the works. :roll:
Re: Tombstones - Nathan Ross - 02-14-2012
Thanks Mike and Duncan!
Quote:As Mike says, it's not an exact science...And there are always exceptions that throw a spanner in the works. :roll:I guessed so. I'm sure I must have read something rather dryly dogmatic once, along the lines of 'the post-Hadrianic date of the inscription is made clear by use of the Dis Manibus formula, almost unknown before the 2nd century' or something (a generic example!), and just assumed this to be the case. One of the hazards of my jackdawish approach to learning...
Re: Tombstones - mcbishop - 02-14-2012
Quote:(and I do mean "handling").What with 'handling' and 'squeezing' inscriptions and the good old Coulstonian 'rubbing against' sculpture, this is a decidedly tactile branch of exercitology :-D
Quote:And there are always exceptions that throw a spanner in the works.
Much easier to date the inscription by the sculpture... oops!Mike Bishop
Re: Tombstones - popularis - 02-14-2012
Quote:I guessed so. I'm sure I must have read something rather dryly dogmatic once, along the lines of 'the post-Hadrianic date of the inscription is made clear by use of the Dis Manibus formula, almost unknown before the 2nd century' or something (a generic example!), and just assumed this to be the case.
Just to chime in quickly. Dating inscriptions on stylistic grounds is a matter of personal taste. There are epigraphers and ancient historians (sometimes very good ones) who are very confident about using stylistic indications - e.g. letterforms or certain formulas - to date inscriptions. Those who are more cautious would argue that stylistic traits make the dating of an inscription more probable, but not certain. In other words, you will find statements like this in very reputable works. Caveat lector!
I think my personal favourite is an inscription from Egypt that has been variously dated to the Augustan period and the 6th century AD - purely on stylistic grounds.
blue skies
Tom