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

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still left with the question of what sort of touta was presided over by the meddix
tuticus in Samnium.
2.4.2. Meddix tuticus
We have a dozen stone inscriptions and a substantial number of tile stamps recording
the names of officials, mostly meddices tutici, which yield direct evidence for the
study of the administrative institutions of the Samnite heartland in the period roughly
between the Second Punic War and the Social War. In this period, the Pentri
probably enjoyed the support of Rome for their loyalty during the Second Punic War.
The limited epigraphic evidence comes from rural sanctuaries or is of unknown
provenance.
235 Inscriptions with the names of magistrates are found on fragments of
stone and bronze inscriptions and on tiles in Samnium. Most of the stone and bronze
inscriptions come from two sanctuaries, Pietrabbondante and Schiavi d'Abruzzo.
They document the building of parts of temples, the dedication of temples or the
donation of equipment to the temples. Some of the roof-tiles found in excavations in
the central Apennines form a special group because they bear the abbreviation M T,
which stands for meddix tuticus. The presence of public inscriptions in sanctuaries
suggests that they were under public control. A stamp on a fragment of a jar seems to
support this. 236
235
The so-called schede Chiovitti are notes of a professor of mathematics, B. Chiovitti, who
passionately collected and drew Oscan and Roman inscriptions, which he saw in the area of Boiano.
The material has been lost, but the schede were published by De Benedittis (1978) 410-4.
236 ST tPo 42. The fragment, found behind temple A, shows the letters &v, meaning `public'. The
object, perhaps a storage jar, belonged to the sanctuary. It was classified by Rix in error among the
Pompeian tile stamps. I am particularly grateful to Prof. Michael Crawford for this piece of
information.
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