IG II(2) 3415: Statue-base for Iulia Domna

Modern Publication(s): Gardner no. 20 (editio princeps); IG II(2) 3415; Boschung et al. 133; SEG XLVII 223

Brief description: Statue base.

Attributes

Inscription Type: Dedication

Object Type: Statue base

Material: White marble

Original Location: ‘Apparently from Eleusis.’ (Gardner)

Provenance: Eleusis (see above).

Date: The inscription dates from between 195 AD, the year in which Julia Domna is first called mater castrorum, and the beginning of 198 AD, when Septimius Severus inserted the cognomen Parthicus Maximus, which is here lacking. (Graindor)

Dimensions: H. 1.265 m; W. 0.53 – 0.65 m; D. 0.62 – 0.69 m.

Layout: Seven lines of text, non-stoichedon.

Writing: Inscribed.

Condition: The surface is badly weathered. At the front on the left, a large piece is broken off. The top three mortices for a bronze statue are smeared with plaster (‘mit Gips verschmiert’). (Boschung et al.)

Decoration: None.

Collection

Location: Chatsworth: garden. (Boschung et al.)

Collector(s): Sir Augustus Clifford. (Boschung et al.)

Date collected: Not known, but before 1845. The inscription matches that transcribed at Eleusis by Cockerell between 1810 and 1814. (Boschung et al.)

The inscription was given to the Sixth Duke of Devonshire by Sir Augustus Clifford, along with some other ‘monuments’ (four blocks from the Temple of Poseidon at Sounion, and an altar from Melos). (Cavendish)

Accession or catalogue number: Not known.

Bibliography

D. Boschung, H. von Hesberg, A. Linfert, Monumenta Artis Romanae XXII: Die antiken Skulpturen in Chatsworth sowie in Dunham Massey und Withington Hall (Mainz 1997), no. 133.

W. Spencer Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire, Handbook of Chatsworth and Hardwick (London 1845) 180-181.

E. A. Gardner, ‘Inscriptions copied by Cockerell in Greece,’ JHS 6 (1885), 143-152, no. 20.

P. Graindor, Marbres et textes antiques d’époque impériale (Ghent 1922) 62.

Web Links

Greek text, from PHI

Image(s)

Boschung et al., Plate 97.5