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Stele of alumnus Mercurius from Solin

Krešimir Grbavac orcid.org/0009-0002-3574-2277

Sažetak

This article interprets an unpublished ancient Roman funerary inscription found during a rescue archaeological excavation at a construction site of a hotel next to Gospin otok in the town of Solin. The inscription was found in an archaeological layer and based on the archaeological context, epigraphic and stylistic motifs, it can be dated to the end of the 2nd or to the 3rd century. The text of the inscription has been preserved almost in its entirety and contains the names of three persons: the boy Mercurius who died at the age of five and two presumably adult persons: Valerius Cordius and Iulia Charite who erected the
monument in memory of the boy. The specificity of the inscription is that the boy with the cognomen Mercurius is mentioned in the inscription as an alumnus of the aforementioned commemorators. Alumni were children informally adopted for various reasons and are most often interpreted as foster children in specialised literature. Inscriptions of alumni are not a very common find in the epigraphic sense, but the evident higher concentration of
inscriptions that mention them around the urban centers of the Roman Empire and within them can further contribute to the importance of Salona as the largest urban center of the Roman province of Dalmatia.

Ključne riječi

inscription; alumnus; Salona; Solin; Dalmatia

Hrčak ID:

292835

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/292835

Datum izdavanja:

9.12.2022.

Podaci na drugim jezicima: hrvatski

Posjeta: 881 *