Titulus pictus
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/93/Tituli_picti_dressel20.jpg/300px-Tituli_picti_dressel20.jpg)
A titulus pictus is an ancient Roman commercial inscription made on the surface of certain artefacts,[1][2][3] usually the neck of an amphora.[4][5][6] Typically, these inscriptions were made in red or black paint.[7][8] The inscription specifies information such as origin, destination, type of product,[9] and owner.[10][11] Tituli picti are frequent on ancient Roman pottery containers used for trade.[12][13][14] They were not exclusively used for trade.[15][16] They were also used to provide easily recognizable advertisements and may have served as insurance if a good was damaged in some way.[17][18] There are around 2,500 tituli picti recorded in CIL IV (the volume of Latin inscriptions from Pompeii and Herculaneum).[19]
The text of these inscriptions used a wide variety of abbreviations such as primum, excellens, optimum, flos, florum, praecellens, penuarium, and secundarium.[20] [21] It is possible that these epithets were used to convey the quality of the product.[22] These abbreviations were organized into a style consisting of several elements. Numerals were used to indicate the age and weight of the contents and the weight of the container when empty.[23] The measurement of the container's weight would be duplicated by another component of the titulus pictus in the genitive case. There was also a tria nomina indicating the buyer and the seller. The fifth element was the name of the owner.[24][25]
The structure of the titulus pictus differed depending on its usage. The most intricate tituli were for Spanish oil amphorae. Usually, these tituli were painted in black, and indicated the amphora's weight, contents, producer, and owner's name in the genitive case. Wine Tituli from Crete were written in Greek, Latin, or both. These inscriptions informed the reader of the qualities of the wine, the volume of the container, the date, the origin, and the owner (whose name was written in red and the dative case).[26] The colors of the tituli conveyed information about its source. For example, white tituli were used to refer to producers.[27] Red ones meant that the producer was a local producer.[28] Black tituli meant the owners were wholesale traders.[29] Different grammatical cases had different meanings when used in the titulus pictus. The dative case was used to show the recipient or buyer of the good. The genitive case was used to identify the producer and owner of the product.[30] The ablative case was used to identify the consignor of the goods. The nominative case was used to identify the consumer or wholesaler.[31]
A container found in Tunisia has a titulus pictus dated between the 4th century and 6th centuries that reads:[32]
One Cretan titulus pictus found in Capua reads:[33]
wine which is owed to Campania, amphora 472
See also
References
- ^ Okon 2017, pp. 165–172.
- ^ Marzano 2013, p. 193.
- ^ Curtis 2015, p. 179.
- ^ Kouneni 2014, p. 170.
- ^ Rodriguez 2002, p. 303.
- ^ Carannante 2019, p. 380.
- ^ Bezeczky 1996, pp. 329–336.
- ^ Peña 2021, pp. 42–43.
- ^ Djaoui 2016, pp. 120–124.
- ^ Broekaert 2016, pp. 223–253.
- ^ Broekaert 2012, pp. 109–125.
- ^ Peña 2021, pp. 79–81.
- ^ Berdowski 2008a, pp. 239–252.
- ^ Berdowski 2008, pp. 251–266.
- ^ Whittaker 1989, p. 539.
- ^ Nedelea 2021, pp. 39–70.
- ^ Curtis 2018, pp. 195–196.
- ^ Peña 2021, p. 51.
- ^ Peña 2015, p. 235.
- ^ Hosking 2006, p. 210.
- ^ Grainger 2020.
- ^ Curtis 2018, pp. 159–175.
- ^ Curtis 2005, p. 41.
- ^ Peña 2021, pp. 52–61.
- ^ Peña 2015, pp. 233–253.
- ^ Komar 2020, pp. 212–215.
- ^ Komar 2020, p. 227.
- ^ Komar 2020, p. 226.
- ^ Komar 2020, p. 236.
- ^ Bekker-Nielsen 2005, p. 41.
- ^ Curtis 2015, pp. 197–200.
- ^ Peña 2007, p. 112.
- ^ Gallimore 2018, p. 376.
Bibliography
- Bekker-Nielsen, Tonnes (1 February 2005). Ancient Fishing and Fish Processing in the Black Sea Region. Aarhus Universitetsforlag. ISBN 978-87-7934-925-4.
- Berdowski, Piotr (2008a). "Garum of Herod the Great (Latin-Greek inscription on the amphora from Masada". The Qumran Chronicle.
- Berdowski, Piotr (2008). "Roman Businesswomen. I: The case of the producers and distributors of garum in Pompeii". Analecta Archaeologica Ressoviensia.
- Bezeczky, Dr (1996). "Amphora Inscriptions - Legionary Supply?". Britannia. 27: 329–336. doi:10.2307/527048. ISSN 0068-113X. JSTOR 527048. S2CID 163769214.
- Broekaert, Wim (1 January 2016). Freedmen and Agency in Roman Business. Urban Craftsmen and Traders in the Roman World. Oxford University Press. pp. 222–253. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198748489.003.0011. ISBN 978-019-874-848-9. Retrieved 28 August 2022.
- Broekaert, Wim (2012). "Vertical Integration in the Roman Economy: A Response to Morris Silver". Ancient Society. 42: 109–125. ISSN 0066-1619. JSTOR 44079962.
- Carannante, Alfredo (2019). "The last garum of Pompeii: Archaeozoological analyses on fish remains from the " garum shop" and related ecological inferences". International Journal of Osteoarchaeology. 29 (3): 377–386. doi:10.1002/oa.2783. ISSN 1047-482X. S2CID 181386551.
- Curtis (17 July 2018). Garum and Salsamenta: Production and Commerce in Materia Medica. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-37726-4.
- Curtis, R. I. (2005). "Sources for production and trade of Greek and Roman processed fish". In Bekker-Nielsen, Tonnes (ed.). Ancient Fishing and Fish Processing in the Black Sea Region. Aarhus University Press. ISBN 978-87-79-34925-4. S2CID 221227131.
- Curtis, Robert I. (3 July 2015), Wilkins, John; Nadeau, Robin (eds.), "Storage and Transport", A Companion to Food in the Ancient World, Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, pp. 173–182, doi:10.1002/9781118878255.ch16, ISBN 978-1-118-87825-5, retrieved 28 August 2022
- Djaoui, David (24 October 2016), "The Myth of 'Laccatum:' a Study Starting from a New Titulus on a Lusitanian Dressel 14", in Archer, Martin; Vaz Pinto, Inês; Roberto de Almeida, Rui (eds.), Lusitanian Amphorae: Production and Distribution, Oxford: Archaeopress Publishing Limited, ISBN 978-1-78491-427-1, retrieved 28 August 2022.
- Gallimore, Scott (2018). "The relationship between agricultural production and amphora manufacture on Roman Crete". Journal of Roman Archaeology. 31: 373–386. doi:10.1017/S1047759418001381. ISSN 1047-7594. S2CID 166165864.
- Grainger, Sally (30 December 2020). The Story of Garum: Fermented Fish Sauce and Salted Fish in the Ancient World. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-351-98022-7.
- Hosking, Richard (2006). Authenticity in the Kitchen: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2005. Oxford Symposium. ISBN 978-1-903018-47-7.
- Komar, Paulina (25 September 2020). Petty Traders or Wealthy Wholesalers? Who Imported Wines to Italy?. Eastern Wines on Western Tables: Consumption, Trade and Economy in Ancient Italy. Vol. 435. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-43376-2.
- Kouneni, Lenia (26 September 2014), "British Attitudes to Greek and Roman heritage", The Legacy of Antiquity: New Perspectives in the Reception of the Classical World, United Kingdom: Cambridge Scholars Publisher (published 24 September 2016)
- Marzano, Annalisa (1 August 2013). "6 Oysters and Other Shellfish". Harvesting the Sea: The Exploitation of Marine Resources in the Roman Mediterranean. pp. 173–197. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199675623.003.0007. ISBN 978-0-19-967562-3.
- Nedelea, Luciana (2021). "GRAFFITI, TITULI PICTI AND MANUFACTURER STAMPS IDENTIFIED ON ROMAN EARTHENWARE FROM THE POTAISSA LEGIONARY FORTRESS (2nd-3rd CENTURIES AD)". Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai - Historia. 65 (1): 39–70. doi:10.24193/subbhist.2020.1.03. ISSN 1220-0492. S2CID 233904523.
- Okon, Danuta (2017). "ILat Novae 39: A New Interpretation of the Titulus Pictus from Novae". Palamedes: A Journal of Ancient History. 12. ISSN 2325-7288.
- Peña, J. Theodore (4 November 2021), Pecci, Alessandra; Leitch, Victoria; Bonifay, Michel; Bernal-Casasola, Darío (eds.), "The reuse of transport amphorae as packaging containers in the Roman world: an overview", Roman Amphora Contents: Reflecting on the Maritime Trade of Foodstuffs in Antiquity, Berkeley: University of California, ISBN 9781803270630.
- Peña, J. Theodore (30 April 2007), "The Reuse of Amphorae as packaging containers", Roman Pottery in the Archaeological Record, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9781139464277
- Peña, J. Theodore (16 February 2015). "Two groups of tituli picti from Pompeii and environs: Sicilian wine, not flour and hand-picked olives". Journal of Roman Archaeology. 20: 233–254. doi:10.1017/S1047759400005390. ISSN 1047-7594. S2CID 163081911.
- Rodriguez, José Remesal (1 January 2002). Baetica and Germania. Notes on the concept of 'provincial interdependence ' in the Roman Empire. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-49437-4.
- Whittaker, Dick (1989). "Amphorae and Trade". Publications de l'École Française de Rome. 114 (1): 537–539.