I am here to offer an embarrassing confession: I have been horridly misinformed about the small o in large C ligature that would allow the LAC stone to have ARMORICOS.
For the last several weeks, I have been laboring under the misconception that the CO ligature required for ARMORICOS could not, in fact, be found on the stone. Why? Well, because a) the ligature was too late in date and b) was found in the wrong part of the Empire.
Well, because I always double-check my sources, I decided to go to the CIL database and search just for those inscribed stones found in Dalmatia between 150 and 200 A.D. And what did I find? This:
publication: CIL 03, 02809 = Grbic 00011
dating: 177 to 180 EDCS-ID: EDCS-28300138
province: Dalmatia place: Skradin / Scardona
Praetoriu[m vetustate] / conlapsum [3] / Burnistae [3]/ses ex pec(unia) [publ(ica) refecer(unt)] / Scapul[a Tertullus] / leg(atus) Augg(ustorum) p[rov(inciae) Dalmatiae] / restit[uit]
inscription genus / personal status: ordo senatorius; tituli operum; tria nomina; viri
The photo of this stone is found at the top of the page with its relevant link. The best and most comprehensive discussion of Scapula Tertullus is PROCONSVLES, LEGATI ET PRAESIDES.Rimski namjesnici Ilirika, Gornjeg Ilirika i Dalmacije, pp. 209-210. Unfortunately, this study is in Bosnian. I have written to the author, Professor Salmedin Mesihović to see if he can supply me with an English translation of the relevant passages. Until then, here is the link to his book:
The style of lettering on the stone is quite good, and uniform. In many respects it resembles the lettering on the LAC stone. Its importance cannot be emphasized enough: if the CO ligature was known in Dalmatia at the time of LAC and was used for stones of the elite, we can assume that it may, indeed, have been employed on LAC's stone.
While Scapula's stone is fragmentary, there is no sign that the CO ligature was employed elsewhere on the stone, meaning that it is in isolation from the more standard lettering. We see some ligatures on this stone that are the same kind used on the LAC stone. If we thought the o inside the C was not sufficient to fit in ARMORICOS, we could also utilize a simple RI ligature, which would match the 17 other such ligatures found on the LAC stone. However, the spacing between letters on the stone is not consistent. We cannot force an arbitrary spacing principle onto the inscription. Many examples from the stone can be cited to easily refute such a claim. For this reason, I don't think the RI ligature is necessary and we may easily get by with the CO ligature alone.
The style of the entire stone must be taken into account. And we find many examples of letters even within the same line that do not conform to spacing parameters. So demanding perfect spacing would mean to operate on a false premise. For example, the tight fit of I after the first S of CLASSIS, compared with the wider space between that I and the final S, shows us that we might well have a tight fit on the I in the ARM...S word. We cannot take one line in isolation and apply what we see there as the design restriction. This is imposing an artificial convention on the stone.
Thus the inscription displays plenty of spacing irregularities. There is no uniform spacing on the stone. What needs to be put down DICTATES WHAT SPACES NEED TO BE EMPLOYED. Spaces can serve the same purposes as ligatures, i.e. allowing compression of the text.
Clearly, as the NTE ligature at the end of the 'ADVERSUS ARM[...]S' line demonstrates, LAC was doing everything in his power to compress this sectio of the inscription. The fact that he did so suggests that he was taking great pains to write the name of his enemy out in full. And to do so, he may well have been willing to resort to the CO ligature.
So what does this mean for our research into LAC's military career? Especially as we are fairly certain the dating of his memorial stone does not allow ARM[...]S to read ARMENIOS?
Well, simply put, it means we are not justified in proposing the reading of ARMATOS for ARM[...]S.
Well, simply put, it means we are not justified in proposing the reading of ARMATOS for ARM[...]S.
We must instead accept ARMORICOS, and work our theory of LAC's military activity in Britain around that established fact. Something I will be attending to in the near future...
For now I will only say that I feel confident LAC was in Gaul fighting with British vexillations against the followers of Maternus in the Deserters' War. How this figures in with the ex-legate of the Sixth, Priscus, who appears to have been doing the same thing at approximately the same time, why, that is as yet to be determined.
NOTE:
ARMATOS has been universally rejected by every established Latin epigrapher and Roman military historian I have consulted. I have written extensively on why they refused to accept this proposed reading for ARM[...]S. I myself only accepted it provisionally - and with extreme reluctance - because I could not find any other word that would fit. Now, though, with my discovery of the Scapula stone, I can apply the principle of Occam's Razor to ARMATOS. Were I to stubbornly adhere to ARMATOS despite evidence to the contracy, and because I had a preconceived belief I was unwilling to forsake, I would be engaging in intellectual dishonesty. And that is something I refuse to do.
LAC Stone
Detail of LAC Stone, Showing Remaining /S/ of ARM[...]S
ARMORICOS reconstruction courtesy Alessandro Faggiani
(with just CO ligature)
ARMORICOS reconstruction courtesy Alessandro Faggiani
(with both RI and CO ligatures)
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