02-18-2006, 10:27 AM
I've been working on photos to be added to the Imagebase, and I came across this stone that I photographed in Bologna:
(See it here or below as an attachment)
The inscription at the bottom is a forgery (for the curious, it reads "G(avidio?) Damiano b(ene)f(icario) filius et (h)eredes / per procuratores eius" CIL 03, 06601 = CIL 11, *00109,7), but I'm not sure if the portrait itself is genuine. The inscription is first recorded in CIL 03 as coming from Alexandria, Egypt; CIL 11 puts it in Bologna (where it is today) and marks it as a forgery.
Can anyone say one way or another if the portrait is genuine? Otherwise, thoughts on what the fellow might be holding in his left hand? It almost might be a diploma or writing tablet, but his hand seems to wrap around it too much. A stylus box? Is the shaft to his right (your left) a pilum, the spear of a beneficarius, a modern invention...? Also, as Jasper pointed out, he seems to have a weighted paenula.
Your thoughts?
(See it here or below as an attachment)
The inscription at the bottom is a forgery (for the curious, it reads "G(avidio?) Damiano b(ene)f(icario) filius et (h)eredes / per procuratores eius" CIL 03, 06601 = CIL 11, *00109,7), but I'm not sure if the portrait itself is genuine. The inscription is first recorded in CIL 03 as coming from Alexandria, Egypt; CIL 11 puts it in Bologna (where it is today) and marks it as a forgery.
Can anyone say one way or another if the portrait is genuine? Otherwise, thoughts on what the fellow might be holding in his left hand? It almost might be a diploma or writing tablet, but his hand seems to wrap around it too much. A stylus box? Is the shaft to his right (your left) a pilum, the spear of a beneficarius, a modern invention...? Also, as Jasper pointed out, he seems to have a weighted paenula.
Your thoughts?
Dan Diffendale
Ph.D. candidate, University of Michigan
Ph.D. candidate, University of Michigan
