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administrative center in Synnada, based on similarities with other inscriptions found on
two pavonazzetto columns from Rome. 138 If this theory is correct, the letters RE in the
first line could stand for recensitum (Latin for “examined or reviewed”), meaning that the
column had been examined and accepted for trade. 139 Consequently, it would be possible
to complete the text as follows: ...G(?) Re(censitum) S(ub cura) / Aug(usti) Lib(erti)
Procura) / tori(s) Iuli / Gayri Off(icina) …/ et Epictet(o Consulibus). 140 In his translation
of this inscription, Pensabene assumed that Orsi had misread or misunderstood some
characters. Pensabene changed Orsi’s “GER” to “LIB” and “OPH” to “OFF” in his
translation. With these changes, this column shaft was “approved for trade under the
supervision of the procurator, an Augustan freedman, produced in the workshop of Iulius
Garyius, in the year of the consuls … and Epictetus.”
J. Clayton Fant proposed a different interpretation of this text, noting that in the
lists of consuls from the Early to the Late Empire the name Epictetus never appears.
Therefore, he proposes to read the last two lines as: Off(icina) [Episcopi et] Epictet(i), in
which case the complete text may be translated as: “approved for trade under the
supervision of the procurator Iulius Garyius, freedman of Augustus, in the workshop of
Episcopus and Epictetus.” 141
138 Pensabene 1978a, 117. For the inscriptions coming from La Marmorata, see Bruzza 1870, 191, n. 258-9.
Inscription n. 258: LAELIO / CAESARE N II ET BAL / BINO COS RATIONIS / VRBICAE SVB
CVRIRENAEI / AVG LIB PROC CAESVRA TVLLI / SATVRNINI LEG XXII PRIM (A.D. 137.)
Inscription n. 259: AELIO CAESARE N II / ET BALBINO COS RTIONIS / VRBICAE SVB CVR IREN /
AEI AVG LIB PROC CAESVR / TVLLI SATVRNINI LEG / XXII PRIM (A.D. 137.)
139 For parallels regarding the use of R or R for recensitum and REP for reprobatum (“rejected”), see Dodge
1991, 35; Pensabene 1998, 359.
140 Pensabene 1978a, 117.
141 Fant 1989b, 71.
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