Submitted for award of PhD September 2006. - King's College London

Although Sgobbo's reading of the word before the verb emmens as flitu. uam has
been rejected, his interpretation of the expression still seems plausible. 37 He related
the word to the Latin fluo, and suggested that it was the equivalent of the Latin
labrum, a basin or tub, perhaps referring to the basin in which the column stood.
Other scholars, however, have made other proposals.
538
The verbs dedens and emmens are plural and make it clear that at least two
magistrates act in these inscriptions, not the same person holding both offices. The
name of magistrate mv is attested in all inscriptions which implies that this office
was the more prestigious of the two, probably eponymous. The letter m plausibly
stands for the common Oscan term meddiss or meddix in Latinized form.
Several arguments have been put forward for the identification of the office
meddix v. Prosdocimi argued that it stood for the title of meddfs valaims, or in
Latinized form meddix optimus and that this is was a local alternative for the title of
meddix tuticus. 539 Prosdocimi also suggested that the letter `v' could be an
abbreviation of the Oscan name of Cumae, which we do not know. He compared a
group of coins with the legend D¬( , DEAF( , DEAEXa(, which must be an ethnic of
an unknown Campanian' community and which he suggested could relate to
Cumae. 540 Poccetti, following La Regina, has argued that the office must be
expanded to meddix vereias, because the vereia is mentioned in the inscription ST
536 Caputo-Morichi-Paone-Rispoli (1996) 208.
537 for Sgobbo see Poccetti (1979) 98.
538
Prosdocimi (1978) 1067-72 believes that it is related to the Greek word rcAivüeiov. Campanile
(1979) 29, however, thought that the expression flileam refers to the object placed on the column, but
it is uncertain what the object was. Poccetti's interpretation also seems plausible. He suggested that we
should relate the expression f iteam to the Latin plinthus, plinth or base, which often appears in
Vitruvius: Vitr. 3.5.3,4.3.4,4.7.3 etc.
539 Prosdocimi (1976) 658 and (1978) 860-1.
540 Prosdocimi (1978) 861.
150