Details

LOT 0197

Roman Mauritanian Diploma of a Cavalryman with Hitherto Unknown Name of the Governor Lucius Plotius Grypus

DATED 20TH SEPTEMBER 104 AD

6 1/2" (165 grams total, 16.5cm high).

The majority of an important and seemingly textually unique bronze diploma tablet of a Mauritanian cavalryman under the rule of Trajan (98 - 117 AD), which dates precisely to 20 September AD 104; issued to troops stationed in the province Mauretania Tingitana; the text gives us two new names of consuls to plug a gap in the consular list for that particular year: one is Sextus Subrius Dexter Cornelius Priscus, already known to have been consul around the year 104; his consular colleague’s name was Cn(aeus) [….]ius Paullus Caesonianus and is as yet unidentified and hitherto unknown; the diploma also gives us another first, the name of the governor of the province, Mauretania Tingitana, where the relevant troops were stationed: Lucius Plotius Grypus; he is known (only as Plotius Grypus, his first name was hitherto unknown) from a poem by the Roman poet Statius (Silvae IV.9), dedicated to Grypus when a young man some years earlier, in the early 90s AD, and his career has been the subject of some scholarly debate.

Provenance

Property of a Middlesex gentleman; acquired in the 1980s; accompanied by scholarly notes on the inscription by Dr Ittai Gradel, report number 158028.

Footnotes

Described by Dr. Ittai Gradel as 'Unique and important and worthy of publication'.

CONDITION