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A Lex Sacra from Lavinium

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Stefan Weinstock
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Extract

An important find, quickly and competently published by Professor Margherita Guarducci, deserves immediate comment, however provisional it may be. It is the inscription on a bronze-tablet, found at Pratica, the site of ancient Lavinium, together with some clay objects (female heads, parts of the human body, oxen and pigs, the hoof of an ox), the remains of a stips votiva, all of the third century B.C.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 42 , Issue 1-2 , November 1952 , pp. 34 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © Stefan Weinstock 1952. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 ‘Legge sacra da un antico santuario di Lavinio’, Archeologia Classica, III, 1951, 99–103Google Scholar. I am indebted to Brasenose College and Oxford University for generous financial aid.

2 ‘Cererem ollicoquibus’ (i.e. intestines ‘en casserole’)/‘ Vespernam porro’ (i.e. a leek).

3 cf. Murr, Die Pflanzenwelt in der griech. Mythol. 178; Stadler, P–W XII, 988.

4 I do not think that the corresponding words of Romance dialects quoted by Meyer-Lübke (9274 vesperna ‘Nachmittag’, lothr. vepora, lyon. vesperna, vionn. viperno, sav. vepoerna, ‘Jause’, ‘Vesper’) are relevant for our question. They must be secondary and late products, since the old vesperna was already obsolete in the first century B.C.

5 The possibility that Plautus used the name of the goddess metonymically for a meal must be excluded because, besides Stich. 699, there is no evidence in Plautus for metonymy (cf. O. Gross, De metonymiis sermonis latini a deorum nominibus petitis, Diss. Hal. 19, 1911, 313 ff.; 336 ff.).

6 cf. Ernout, Les éléments dialectaux du vocabulaire latin 68; 211 ff.; Leumann, Lat. Gramm. 123 ff.

7 cf. Ianus Cenulus and Cibullius (Lyd. mens. 4, 1), Iuppiter Dapalis (Cato agr. 132), Iuppiter Epulo (CIL 12, 988 = ILS 4964), di patellarii (Plaut. Cist. 522); Wissowa, Religion 2 120; P–W 6, 265; Kretschmer, Glotta 8, 1917, 81 f. Perhaps even the puzzling words of Serv. Dan. Georg. 1, 7 (‘ … quamvis Sabini Cererem Panem appellent…’; cf. Whatmough, The Prae-Italic Dialects 11, 426 f.) ought to be quoted in this context.

8 We could also refer to Vespa which must have been an Etruscan gentilician name before it became a Latin cognomen (Schulze 253 f.; 418 f.) : but this reference would not be helpful because we do not know where and when this name was used. It does not occur in the inscriptions of Latium.