The newly-discovered epigraphic monuments from Sočanica - Kosovo

Abstract

In the autumn of 2000 the Roman site of Municipium Dardanorum yielded several funerary stelae bearing epitaphs. Most had been deliberately broken along the longer or shorter axis and built into the bases of the columns forming a colonnade on the forum. In addition, the basilica holds an ara (No 10) and a fragment of an inscription (No 9) discovered by E. Čerškov (Cat. nos 26 and 38). I wish to express my gratitude to a colleague of mine, the archaeologist G. Kovaljov, for notifying me about this find and kindly conceding the publication of the inscriptions to me. The stelae were poorly carved and all alike in appearance, showing a large rosette in the pediment (upper field) and an epitaph (unusually tall letters, 5 to 7 cm) within the simple-bordered lower field. All the persons mentioned in the epitaphs come from lower social layers – slaves, vernae, liberti (with the exception of one Roman citizen, a M. Ulpius Apollinaris, No 3). Their names are often Greek, such as Eutychus (Nos 1 and 7), T(h)eofas, or Alexander (No 8), while Trite (No 2) is likely to be native. Ravius (gentile ?) here occurs for the first time in Upper Moesia (No 5). To judge by the gentile names and formulas (h.s.e., f.c) most inscriptions date from the second century AD.