Original scientific paper
Gravestone of Marcus Aurelius Serenus from Ilok (Cuccium)
Ante Rendić Miočević
; Archaeological Museum Zagreb
Abstract
In 2000, a Roman gravestone bearing an inscription was
found by chance in Croatia’s easternmost periphery, in the
environs of the town of Ilok (Cuccium). It is rectangular in
shape, and its eight lines extending over almost the entire
front of the inscription field are framed by a simple border
moulding. The text of the epitaph refers to a military veteran,
a former centurion of cohors I Lusitanorum, Marcus
Aurelius Serenus, who died at the age of 56, and to his
wife. The inscription also specifies the name of the place
where the deceased acquired citizenship, i.e. his original
home, the city of Bassianae, today’s Petrovci near Ruma.
It is apparent from the inscription that the wife of the deceased,
Claudia Maximilla, deserves credit for placing the
gravestone to her husband and herself. The titulus probably
originated in the latter decades of the second century, or
the beginning of the third century. A detail which attracts
particular attention is certainly the name of the soldier’s
unit, which appears with relative frequency on military
diplomas, but only sporadically on stone monuments. Of
the three recorded inscriptions bearing the name of the cohors
I Lusitanorum, until now only one was known. Even
more interesting, however, is that two inscriptions are from
the Croatian part of the Danubian Basin, something that
may scarcely be ascribed to coincidence. Based on archival
correspondence held in the Archaeological Museum in
Zagreb, it was ascertained that besides the Ilok inscription,
another inscription mentioning the cohors I Lusitanorum was discovered in nearby Sotin, but it was unfortunately
lost long ago, so it cannot be analyzed nor undergo comprehensive
scholarly evaluation. In contrast to the Ilok inscription,
the monument from Sotin, based on the data recorded
on the preserved sketch, was not a gravestone, rather
it was an altar dedicated to Jupiter. It would appear that
the altar was made at the behest of a group of Thracians,
of whom, by all accounts, there were a high number in the
aforementioned cohort.
The data on the existence of two stone monuments featuring
the name of cohors I Lusitanorum in the Croatian part
of the Danubian borderlands supplement knowledge on
the activities and possible directions of military deployments
in the Croatian Danubian zone. The monuments
discussed here confirm the hypothesis that for a certain
time cohors I Lusitanorum was posted in the fort (castellum)
in Sotin (Cornacum) together with the other military
units that were assumed to have been stationed there, and
this probably occurred during the first century. In the wake
of the discovery of these monuments, the significance of the
assumed fortress at Ilok should also be viewed in a different
light, both due to the information provided by the gravestone
of Marcus Aurelius Serenus and the grave goods with
military equipment from the early first century discovered
during recent archaeological research conducted in this
area.
Keywords
Ilok/Cuccium; grave titulus; inscription; Marcus Aurelius Serenus; limes, cohors I Lusitanorum; Sotin/Cornacum
Hrčak ID:
60881
URI
Publication date:
1.9.2010.
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