The Inscription of Gidnadius and Apra
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
- Type
- Panel of the frontal slab of the sarcophagus.
- Material(s)
- Limestone.
- Execution
- Inscribed.
- Dimensions
- 51 × 88 cm
- Epigraphic Field
- 37 × 76 cm
- Letters Height
- 4-6 cm
Palaeographic comment
INSCRIPTION
INTERPRETATIVE TRANSCRIPTION
Fl(avius) Gidnadius veteranus
bene meritus ⸢e⸣t
Emilia Apra,
de proprio labore suo arca<m>
sibi conparaverunt (!) <in> solo Con
=
cordiensi. Pos(t) ovitu(m) (!) nos(trum), si quis vo
=
luerit aperire dabi⸢t⸣ fisco sol(idos) X.
APPARATUS CRITICUS
2. ET, Bertolini 1874a, Bertolini 1874a,
CIL V 8749,
ILCV 432, Lettich 1983,
EDR097747
.
3. ARCAM, Bertolini 1874a, Bertolini 1874a
.
6. DABIT, Bertolini 1874a, Bertolini 1874a,
CIL V 8749,
ILCV 432, Lettich 1983,
EDR097747
.
TRANSLATION
Flavius Gidnadius, veteran, well deserving, and Emilia Apra, from their own labor and resources, purchased for themselves a sarcophagus in the soil of Concordia.
If anyone should wish to open it after our death, they shall pay ten solidi to the fiscus.
PEOPLE
Flavius Gidnadius
- NOMEN
- Flavius
- COGNOMEN
- Gidnadius
- GENS
- Flavia
- ORIGIN (of the name Gidnadius)
- unknown
- GENDER
- male
- OCCUPATION
- soldier
- RANK
- veteranus
- NUMERUS
- unknown
- ROLE
- dedicator/deceased
- RELATIONSHIP
- husband (→ Emilia Apra)
Emilia Apra
- NOMEN
- Emilia
- COGNOMEN
- Apra
- GENS
- Aemilia
- ORIGIN (of the name Apra)
- latin
- GENDER
- female
- OCCUPATION
- civilian
- ROLE
- dedicator/deceased
- RELATIONSHIP
- wife (→ Flavius Gidnadius)
Bibliography
| Bertolini 1874a, 25, nr. 11. |
| Bertolini 1874b, 291, nr. 14. |
| CIL V 8749 |
| ILCV 432 |
| Lettich 1983, 63-64, nr. 21. |
- EDR
-
EDR097747
- Author of the record:
- Damiana Baldassarra
- Date:
- 25-11-2007
COMMENTARY
The veteran Flavius Gidnadius and his wife Emilia Apra commissioned their own burial at their own expense, declaring that anyone who opened the sarcophagus after their death should pay ten solidi to the fiscus.
The specification solo Concordiensi seems to suggest that the couple were not originally from Concordia, but had settled in the city after Gidnadius’s military service.
De Rossi believed that Gidnadius was a scribal error for Gennadius ( CIL V 8749), while Diehl did not exclude that it might be a case of epenthesis ( ILCV 432). The cognomen Gennadius is rarely attested epigraphically: the EDR database provides only three results, all inscriptions belonging to men of senatorial rank (EDR073702 - EDR102141).
Besides Emilia Apra, there is only one other attestation of the gens Aemilia in Concordia: within the same burial ground, but north of the road, lies the tomb of Aemilius Zosimus, a sarcophagus older than that of Apra and which still preserves the diphthong -ae at the beginning of the gentilicum.