Towards the Interpretation of the Latin Inscription on a Fragment of a Roman Jug from the Territory of Ancient Nauportus

Abstract

A Latin possessor inscription was discovered scratched on the bottom of a Roman potsherd (datable to the period between the Late Republic and the Julio-Claudian dynasty) recovered from the Ljubljanica river near Vrhnika. The inscription reads amianti sum curtos in Old Roman cursive. Based on paleographical characteristics, the inscription can be tentatively dated to the 1st c. AD. Several good typological parallels of possessor inscriptions consisting of a genitive of a personal name and the verb sum are found on ceramic vessels across the Roman empire. However, the type in which the object explicitly names itself is rare. The Roman cognomen Amiant(h)us is well attested, especially in Italy, so the only problematic part of the inscription is curtos. Given that the pot is damaged, it is possible that the inscription was originally longer and that curtos stood in attributive position to a word like calix/uasus/ urceus et sim. If this is not the case, however, it can only be understood as a substantivization, potentially signifying something like a ʻ(pot) sherdʼ > ʻpotʼ. In support of this, however, Latin epigraphical and literary sources are silent. An additional problem is raised by the final -os, which in the Classical period would only be justifiable after u. The attested form curtos for expected curtus could potentially be explained as a reflex of Vulgar Latin development of us to -ọs, which is sporadically attested in Pompeian graffiti, or assumed to be a letter-for-letter Latin transcription of the Ancient Greek word κύρτος ʻ(fish)trapʼ. The latter solution runs into the problem of the pot from Ljubljanica not matching what we know of ceramic pots used for fishing in terms of shape and dimensions. Given its shape, the vessel was probably a single-handled Roman lagynos. Allowing for the fact that the inscription does not terminate after <curtos> and that the <t> should be read as an <i>, which indeed seems to be the lectio facilior, another possibility is to restore curios[e] ʻwith care, carefullyʼ and assume a bipartite text such as Amianti sum. Curios[e pone] vel simile.