Just before Christmas 2022 the world of Roman epigraphy lost one of its finest exponents. Buonocore did, however, live to see this volume, the last of the four principal fascicules of his Supplement to CIL IX, into print (a final fascicule, with addenda, corrigenda and indexes, is forthcoming). These volumes will complete a fitting monument to a career given largely (but by no means solely) to the epigraphy of central Italy. B.’s introduction evokes well all the necessary legwork and the support from local collaborators across the territory that made this publication possible (pp. clxxxiii–cclxxxvi). There is a hugely useful bibliography (pp. clxxxix–ccxxxi), bringing the study of the epigraphy of the area up to date with developments since T. Mommsen’s original edition of 1883.
The volume is divided into seven territorial sections, each identically organised. Firstly ‘Addenda et Corrigenda’: a detailed, thoughtful review of manuscripts, new readings and scholarship on the texts published by Mommsen; describing (often with measurements and sometimes with photographs) the stones and their current locations, and often adding B.’s thoughts on dating, interpretation, onomastic distribution, institutions and other notabilia (e.g. p. 2378 on 4642); sometimes revised texts are offered, and always an extensive bibliography.
Then come Tituli Novi, texts published since 1883. A few are made available for the first time, but the great majority has been published elsewhere. Wherever possible, photographs, drawings or manuscript reproductions are supplied (over 800 photographs, mostly of very good quality; over 150 drawings and other reproductions of texts). In many cases the typology, decoration and materiality of the inscriptions can now be better studied. Examples include: 8299 (tombstone of an occulist); 8351 (meant to look like a strongbox); 8366 (a cobbler’s tombstone); 8633 (fine relief carving of deity and priest on altar); 8675 (objects from mundus muliebris); 8566a (stele with its lower part carved as doors of Hades); 8978 (relief and inscription from late republican libertine tomb of the Occii). Texts are arranged typologically and, at the end of entries, dated to within plausible margins.
This fascicule covers: Amiternum and its territory (55 pages of commentary on texts published by Mommsen – B. notes that a significant number of these were never seen again after the L’Aquila earthquake of 2009; 246 post-Mommsen texts); Nursia and its territory (20; 197); Reate and its territory (29; 87); Forum Novum (18; 129); territory between Forum Novum and Cures (6; 22); Trebula Mutuesca (21; 184); and Cures (14; 49). The volume concludes with indices of nomina and cognomina, a concordance and a map of the Augustan Regio IV with the main settlements marked. Longer or more complex texts are translated into Italian, and translations in other modern European languages are noted.
While the volume has something for all, no selection of particularly ‘interesting’ texts will please everyone; I offer my own list here.
Amiternum
8197–8 (first evidence of the cult of Quirinus at Amiternum); 8211 (games celebrating the return of Augustus at Foruli in 2 ce); 8213 (dedication to Tiberius as patron of Amiternum or Foruli, between 8 bce and 6 ce); 8214, 8217, cf. 4276, 4290 (consular family of the Norbani possibly owning property near Amiternum); 8218 (honour for Attia Pia, who excused the uicani forenses from the cost of a statue in her honour; she was honoured by the uici with this decree, ‘huic prima[e]’, as the first such recipient); 8222–3 (tabulae patronatus of 325 ce [text of the proposal to co-opt and the decision] and of 335, for the son of preceding honorand, C. Sallius Pompeianus Sofronius); 8224–5, 8227–32 (octouiri); 8226 (duouiri honoured for relieving cost of grain, cf. 8241); 8242 (length and course of arcuated aqueduct channel = ILLRP 487); 8273–4 (rare occurrence of name Apicata); 8308–9 (rare gens Iegia, cf. 8352: gentilicium Salienus otherwise unknown in Regio IV; 8383: Egnatidia, otherwise unknown gentilicium); 8346 (slave of Sex. Vitulasius Nepos, cos. suff. 78 ce, cf. for other members of familia 3587, 3617, 7530); 8355 (freedman of Q. Salvidienus Rufus, cos. 39, also only attestation of Semitic cognomen Sabbis); 8737 (tombstone of a uniuira); 8433 (Christian tombstone put up by otherwise unknown uir perfectissimus Flavius Herculius to his wife).
Nursia and territory
8434 (first example of the worship of Apollo in the Sabina); 8436 (unique name Pulsinienus; the altar records donum to dis ‘for my salus and that of mine’); 8438 (Etruscan name T(h)orenas not found elsewhere in Regio IV; priestly formula against ‘absorption’ of the moon in lunar eclipses, and offering to Hercules Victor to prevent such an occurrence); 8440 (unique name Pompuedius; cf. 8456: first attestation of nomen Instadius); 8446 (career/euergetic inscription; no other Cutii known in the Nursine area); 8466 (first attestation of Varienius and the rare cognomen Cora); 8566 (nomen Valenus otherwise unknown); 8447 (cursus inscription of Vespasian’s grandfather); 8467 (Colonia Iulia Concordia Antonia Ultrix Nursia).
Reate and territory
8642 (first eques singularis Augusti known from Regio IV); 8644 (the ‘Falacrinae text’ from near Cittareale, describing Italy as unica patria); 8653 (a uilica of Attia Pia, a lady with senatorial connections often mentioned in inscriptions of Amiternum); 8667 (first occurrence of nomen Funisulanus in Regio IV, cf. 8668, Fulvinius and Gressius); 8679 (freedman of Nonia Varilla, wife of procos. Asiae 57 ce).
Forum Novum
8719a (rare name [in Regio IV] Casienus; other rare names: 8729; 8739 [the very rare name Volsienus], 8765, 8767, 8769 [Herbuleius, first attestation], 8774 [rare nomenclature], 8778, 8779, 8786, 8789); 8720–1 (posthumous dedications to Germanicus and Drusus); 8724 (may be part of 4781, a dedication to Gordian III); 8738 (first attestation of centumuiri as decurions at Forum Novum, cf. 8740); 8754 (possible mention of later emperor Nerva).
Trebula Mutuesca
8871 (first dedication to Angitia at Trebula; very rare name personal name Calestro); 8872, 8894, 8899–903, 8903a (institutions and magistracies); 8873–7 (a lucus Silvani, run by a collegium and then a familia, Neronian in date; 8877 lists the members of the familia and supplies its lex of 60 ce); 8880 (dedication by Domitian [as patronus municipii?] to Divus Titus?); 8884 (dedication to the younger Agrippina in the year of her marriage to Claudius); 8886 (Trajan’s repair to the amphitheatre); 8888a (three tutuli Mummiani, all Augustan recuts); 8889, cf. 8896 (dedication by the mulieres of Trebula to Laberia Hostilia Crispina, wife of Bruttius Prasens); 8891–5 (dedication to local son made god: T. Prifernius Paetus, and family); 8897 (a praefectus castrorum who served under L. Caesar, C. Caesar and Agrippa Postumus); 8905 (rare names: Pasidius [within Regio IV], 8916, Cervarius, 8923, Maltinius, 8940, Curionius).
Cures Sabini
8959 (the same individual’s career as listed in 4965); 8961 (Portus Curensis at Cures); 8965 (epitaph of an Antonine imperial freedman); 8984 (rare cognomen Itus); 8992 (mention of a consul of 503 ce in epitaph).
Texts not previously published: 8209, 8329, 8346, 8391, 8425, 8432 (Amiternum); 8685a, 8693, 8695a, 8696a, 8697a, 8706a, 8707a, 8708a, 8709a, 8710a (Reate); 8744, 8764a, 8789a, 8790–2, 8795–7, 8799, 8802a, 8804–5, 8807, 8814–16, 8818, 8821–2, 8824–5, 8827–8, 8830, 8834–6, 8839, 8846 (Forum Novum); 8866, 8868a, 8870a (between Forum Novum and Cures); 8919c, 8927, 8927b, 8936, 8940a, 8974b, 8948, 8950–4 (Trebula Mutuesca); 8962, 8976a, 8978a, 8985a, 8989, 8990a, 8999–9004 (Cures Sabini).
The whole is handled at such a level of expertise and care that one can only honour B. as a fitting successor to Mommsen; he has rendered, in these four supplements, one of the greatest services to Italian epigraphy of the last century. Were I to dissent from B. in one particular, it might be that his dates for some inscriptions could, in my opinion, be raised: texts such as 8224 and 8800 might well be late republican, for example.
B. writes Latin that is beautiful, limpid, and capable of conveying information, judgement and humour. Whether what classical scholarship needs in 2025 is compendious tomes written in Latin, no matter how good the Latin, tomes that one needs to use beside other even bigger tomes, also in Latin, is a moot point, to say the least. As compendious Latin tomes go, however, this is a stone-cold masterpiece.
