Cosa: Inscriptions on Stone and Brick-Stamps (Italy).

Abstract

The American Academy in Rome excavated for fourteen seasons (1948-1954, 1965-1971) at Cosa, a Latin colony founded by Rome in the third century B.C. on the coast of Etruria about 100 miles north of the capital. Nearly 200 fragments of inscriptions on stone, and 120 brick-stamp fragments, were unearthed, mainly in the Forum and Arx, and are stored in the museum on the site. Although they have suffered extensive destruction, the inscriptions reflect sacral and secular affairs in the life of the colony, and fall into three distinct periods: (a) the late Republic, (b) the Julio-Claudian age, and (c) the third century A.D. Three initial chapters summarize the scanty literary and fuller archaeological sources for the history of Cosa and its territory, the ager Cosanus, from the foundation of the colony in hostile Etruria, through its settlement by traders bringing wealth from Rome, to its apparent destruction and ab and onment in the early 60's B.C., possibly due to pirates. The territory continued to flourish in the first century B.C., while a resettlement under Augustus briefly revived the town, thanks in part to imperial aid. Under the Flavians Cosa was again neglected, but luxury villas appeared in the territory, most likely for imperial occupants. This growth ceased by the mid-second century A.D., and Cosa underwent one last revival under the Severans. By the mid-third century A.D., town and territory finally submitted to malaria and marauders, and the l and was not to be reclaimed until the 1950's. In the catalogues which follow, dedications by civil and religious officials help to identify local people and cults in the town, and imperial decrees indicate building activity. Epitaphs reveal a large number of slaves and freedmen in the region. The brick-stamps, a number of which are new, document the building history of the town under the Empire. Appendices contain previously published epigraphical material from town and territory, and indices. The epigraphical sources thus indicate chronological discontinuities which emphasize the unusual rural development of the ager Cosanus in the context of economic studies of ancient Roman Italy.