Table Of ContentRada Varga
Rada Varga
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Carving a Professional Identity: The occupational epigraphy of the V rg
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Roman Latin West presents the results of long-term research into the rg •
occupational epigraphy from the Latin-language provinces of the Roman a C
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Empire. It catalogues stone epigraphs of independent professionals (thus v
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excluding state workers, imperial slaves, freedmen and military personnel), g
comprising some 690 people, providing quantitative as well as qualitative a
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analyses of the raw data. A glossary translating the occupational titles is also r
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included. The book reveals a very lively work market, where specialisation e
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responded to demand and brought social and economic status to the a si
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worker. The coherence of epigraphic habits and manifestations within a vi n
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professional group, along with all the other existing clues for a rather unitary g a l id
use of symbols, endorse once more the existence of a Roman provincial, P e
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commercial, middle class. of ti
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Rada Varga is a researcher at Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca (Romania) a
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specialising in Latin epigraphy, digital classics, prosopography and provincial Id Carving a
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archaeology (co-directing the excavations at the fortress of ala I milliaria n Carving a
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Batavorum from Dacia). Her main project is Romans1by1, a prosopographical y professional
database for people attested in ancient epigraphy. Currently, Dr Varga is a Professional
member of the executive committee of EADH (The European Association for
identity
Digital Humanities). Identity
The occupational
The occupational
epigraphy of the epigraphy
Roman Latin West of the Roman Latin West
ARCHAEOPRESS ROMAN ARCHAEOLOGY 40
Archaeopress www.archaeopress.com Archaeopress Roman Archaeology 73
VVaarrggaa ccoovveerr..iinndddd 11 1133//1100//22002200 1133::3300::4433
Carving a Professional
Identity
The occupational epigraphy of the
Roman Latin West
Rada Varga
Archaeopress Roman Archaeology 73
Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
Summertown Pavilion
18-24 Middle Way
Summertown
Oxford OX2 7LG
www.archaeopress.com
ISBN 978-1-78969-464-2
ISBN 978-1-78969-465-9 (e-Pdf)
© Archaeopress and Rada Varga 2020
Cover image: The funerary stele of Sentia Amarantis, a tavern keeper from Merida —
ancient Emerita Augusta (HAE 1639), initial design by Edit Fogarasi
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, or transmitted, in any
form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without
the prior written permission of the copyright owners.
This book is available direct from Archaeopress or from our website
www.archaeopress.com
Contents
I. Introductory notes ..........................................................................................................1
I.1. Motivation for the research ....................................................................................1
I.2. Structure of the book ...............................................................................................1
I.3. Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................3
II. Historiographic coordinates for Roman-era occupational epigraphy ..........4
II.1. Professions, occupations and Roman economy .................................................4
II.2. Ancient middle classes ...........................................................................................5
II.3. Historiographic outline ..........................................................................................7
III. Quantitative analyses
on the primary data ..........................................................................................................12
III.1. Demography and representativeness ..............................................................12
III.2. Encoding the attested occupations ...................................................................13
III.3. Space and time .....................................................................................................20
III.4. People and monuments ......................................................................................21
IV. People and professional identities .........................................................................26
IV.1. Tales of trade and friendship..............................................................................26
IV.2. Doctors — the healing science ..........................................................................33
IV.3. Crafting for a living ..............................................................................................35
IV.4. Entertaining the masses ......................................................................................39
IV.5. Case study: local identities .................................................................................45
V. Concluding remarks .....................................................................................................49
Index .....................................................................................................................................51
Index of people ..............................................................................................................51
Index of toponyms ........................................................................................................52
Glossary ...............................................................................................................................54
Catalogue .............................................................................................................................61
References .........................................................................................................................111
Abbreviations used in the catalogue .......................................................................116
I. Introductory notes
The current book presents some essential results of a long-term research into the
occupational epigraphy from the Latin-language provinces of the Roman Empire,
undertaken in various scientific contexts and from multiple points of view. It is
meant to be an analytic enterprise, as well as an instrument for future research,
collecting numerous raw data and linking various resources.
I.1. Motivation for the research
The main objective of the endeavour was to enhance knowledge of Roman provincial
society and to nuance the view of how labour, work and occupation were part of
people’s (self-)representation. Meta-communication implied by monuments,
through which a tie was established with society rather than with divine forces, is
a decisive factor in understanding Roman society; in this game of representation
and self-representation, the ways in which individuals presented their occupational
status on stone monuments are vitally important. All these into account, we have
catalogued stone monuments exclusively, as reflection of the self cannot be taken
into account on juridical, standard documents, or on minor epigraphy (instrumenta).
Equally, we did not include (for the sake of uniformity) state workers, imperial
slaves, freedmen or military personnel. Focusing only on independent professionals
offered a less biased view of the people whose professions served as an identity
marker worth noting on a stone monument.
The focus on Latin provinces is justified by the differences and even discrepancies
existing between epigraphic habits as well as the ‘labour culture’ of the Greek and
Latin parts of the Empire. Nonetheless, Moesia Inferior, the utmost eastern province
included in our research plan, serves as a case study as well as a possible gateway to
future expansion of this scientific endeavour.
I.2. Structure of the book
The book is centred around the catalogue and mainly comes as a prosopographic
approach on the people attested in primary epigraphic sources. Nonetheless,
other types of approaches and analyses were also employed. As well, a theoretical
framework was outlined and the research has been placed into historiographic
context.
2 Carving a Professional Identity
The structure of the book is, we hope, comprehensive and in tune with the nature
of the investigation. Chapter I is the present introduction, detailing not only on our
main motivations and the structure of the book, but also the acknowledgements and
the history of our personal research of the matter. Chapter II brings forth the general
outline and presents a bibliographical overview. A sub-chapter on the ancient middle
classes and their turbulent historiographic evolution delineates the theoretical
framework within which the exploration of professional epigraphy seems, at
this point, to be best accommodated. The next section of the book (Chapter III) is
focused on the main statistic results emerged from the analyses of raw information,
in terms of nature of occupations, space distribution, attested people and the
monuments themselves. The chapter also includes a summarised account of Roman
imperial demography and epigraphic representativeness, thus creating the proper
background for our results to be showcased against. Chapter IV presents qualitative
analyses and maps out the major common features of professional groups, as well as
the main identity construction elements revealed by the professionals’ inscriptions.
Selected parts of the chapters in the current work have already been published in
various forms; this fact will be indicated accordingly in the footnotes. The work also
comprises a glossary providing translations of occupational titles, which could be
useful for other researchers of the subject as some professional denominations are
not obvious. Persons’ and topographic indices on the text have also been included.
The catalogue renders everyone who was registered along with their profession
on stone monuments in the western provinces of the Roman Empire. It does not
comprise figurative representations; only the explicit linguistic rendering of an
occupational title was taken into consideration. Each person has a Romans1by1 ID
and the corresponding link to the database where comprehensive data on the people
and monuments, as well as other external links, are available. Besides the name and
profession, the province of provenience, date and bibliographical reference can also
be found in the catalogue. In the text, reference to the catalogue was made with
double identification: the book catalogue number and the R1by1 ID are taken notice
of for each case.
The cover of the book was based on a beautiful marble monument from Merida —
ancient Emerita Augusta (HAE 1639).1 It is the funerary stele of Sentia Amarantis, a
tavern keeper, who died age 45. Appearently, she and her husband, Sentius Victor,
ran a tavern, sometimes in 150-250 AD. The professional data are indicated only
figuratively and not textually expressed.
Finally, we have to stress upon the fact that we are aware this is an extremely vast
investigation and many lines of research can be further followed and developed
— from comparisons between independent and imperial professionals, to detailed
local monographs, if we are to randomly name just two examples. We hope that this
1 Hispania Antiqua Epigraphica. Suplemento anual de Archivo Español de Arqueología. Instituto de Arqueología
y Prehistoria ‘Rodrigo Caro’. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. The open access
image which we used is available at http://eda-bea.es/pub/record_card_1.php?rec=24235&newlang=en,
and a beautiful 3D model is available at http://www.epigraphia3d.es/3d-44.html.
I. Introductory notes 3
book and the instruments provided by it will serve as a solid starting point for future
examinations of the Roman provincial professions and professionals.
I.3. Acknowledgements
In terms of history of the investigation, it began as part of a post-doctoral fellowship
financed by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation between 2015 and 2016. The main goal of
the project was to collect, catalogue and interpret occupational inscriptions from
the European Latin-language provinces of the Roman Empire during the Principate
period, so most of the catalogue published here was put together. The epigraphs
were subsequently recorded and processed, employing the Romans1by1 database,2
to which all the ID links published here are directed.
As the research spanned over a long period of time, we are indebted and grateful
to many institutions and people. Our research stays at the Römisch-Germanische
Kommission (Frankfurt), Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (Berlin), Kommission
für Alte Geschichte und Epigraphik (München), Instituto Catalán de Arqueología
Clásica (Tarragona) and Institute of Classical Studies (London) were fundamental
to the development of this book. It is difficult to thank all those who, one way or
another, contributed or helped at different stages of the work, and I am sure that
they are all aware of my respect and gratitude. Nonetheless, we would like to mention
the professors, friends and colleagues who, formally and informally, reviewed
drafts of this work: Professor Radu Ardevan, Dr Iulia Dumitrache, Professor Lucrețiu
Mihailescu-Bîrliba, Dr Cristian Găzdac. My gratitude also goes to Professor Ioan Piso,
for his long-time support. My colleague Dr Annamária-Izabella Pázsint revised the
Greek entries of the catalogue, and for this I am obliged. The beautiful cover of the
book is owed to Ms. Edit Fogarasi.
Finally, this book would not exist without the steady support of my husband, Vlad.
This work belongs as much to me as it does to him and our daughter, Adela, as I
couldn’t have brought it into being without their endless patience.
2 Open access tool developed as part of a project financed by the Romanian Ministry of Research and
Innovation, through UEFISCDI, in which we were the principal investigators, financed by the Romanian
Ministry of Research and Innovation from 2015 to 2017.
II. Historiographic coordinates for Roman-era
occupational epigraphy
II.1. Professions, occupations and Roman economy
Although studies of profession, labour and the social implications of work in the
Roman world have greatly developed in recent decades, comprehensive research
into provincial occupational epigraphy has yet to be undertaken. The relative
scarcity of individual (not collegia or other types of associations) inscriptions
offering occupational/professional details is a hard fact and a drawback, but even
so, cataloguing, centralizing and analysing these pieces would and will be a step
forward in terms of developing knowledge and understanding of Roman society.
During the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, what would now be defined as the Roman
middle class1 collapsed and subsequently re-constructed itself; these changes
(impossible to render in all their detail at a provincial level) have some of their
primary causes in the social and professional structures of the 1st and 2nd centuries
AD. There is a very high possibility that occupational epigraphy can offer additional
hints about the labour market as well as people’s attitudes towards their professions.
It is important to identify the stages at which people took particular pride in their
profession, their reasons for doing so and whether they considered professions
to be an identification mark in the face of men and gods. Equally, it is important
to analyse with due exactness the representativeness level of independent (not
state-related) servile labour and its epigraphic expressions at a provincial level.
Quantification analysis of occupational epigraphs will eventually provide important
data on general and specific patterns of the ‘epigraphic habit’.2
Of course, our intention is not to compare the obtained facts and data to those
extracted from Rome — or even from the Italian Peninsula. Although reference
to the centre is inevitable, the number of inscriptions in the various samples (as
well as all the adjacent realities) is so different that comparison becomes a deeply
scholastic stake, without a real knowledge gaining finality.
1 We will be developing on the term and its usage in the next sub-chapter.
2 MacMullen 1982.
