Two Cippi near Rieti

Extract

Shortly before reaching Rieti, coming from Rome, on the left (west) side of the Via Salaria, between km. 83.9 and 84, can be seen two round-topped cippi of ordinary tufo bearing nothing but an inscription, identical in both cases and datable by the form of the lettering to c. 50 B.C. (pl. III). The text runs:

C. GAVIVS. C. F. Q.

CARPVS

The left-hand cippus, more or less battered, has lost the initial C; the right-hand one, on which the inscribed zone is covered with white paint (not plaster) has a scar before CARPVS, which might suggest that something has been lost (e.g. [eu] CARPVS); but this is excluded by its companion, which is well preserved at this particular point.

I think that the two cippi were erected in order to delimitate a funerary area, which might be buried behind them; the slope of the mountain is here rather steep and consists of friable stone.

The inscription is, to the best of my knowledge, unpublished. It is not to be found in CIL IX, nor is the person mentioned in P.-W., s.v. Gavius. Ashby's paper in PBSR, iii, p. 7 ff. stops shortly before the bivio di Poggio San Lorenzo (km. 61.9), and it is not recorded either by Persichetti (Röm. Mitt., xxiv, 1909, pp. 215–216) or by Martinori (Via Salaria, 1931, p. 83). It is probable that the pieces, although they do not appear in the indexes of the Fasti Archaeologici, were uncovered during some recent work for enlarging the road.