Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum

Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum
Caligatus · Public domain · source
Name	Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum
Author	The Prussian Academy of Sciences and Rudolf von Salis
Country	German Empire
Language	Latin, German
Subject	Latin inscriptions
Genre	Epigraphy
Publisher	Akademie der Wissenschaften
Pub date	1853–present

Contents

Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum is a comprehensive collection of ancient Latin inscriptions assembled in a systematic corpus initiated in the 19th century. Conceived amid the intellectual networks of Prussia, Berlin, and the Prussian Academy of Sciences, it sought to gather inscriptions from sites such as Rome, Pompeii, Ostia Antica, Capua and Gaul, providing a foundation for studies by scholars working on texts from Augustus, Julius Caesar, Cicero, Tacitus and other figures. The project influenced research across institutions including the British Museum, Vatican Museums, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, École française de Rome and Accademia dei Lincei.

History and Origins

The project was launched under the patronage of the Prussian government and directed by figures linked to Rudolf von Salis, with intellectual debts to collectors like Giovanni Battista de Rossi, Theodor Mommsen, Heinrich Dressel and Eduard Meyrick. Early fieldwork drew on antiquarians active at Pompeii, Herculaneum, Paestum, Tarentum and Syracuse, and integrated finds reported by curators at the Museo Nazionale Romano, Capitoline Museums, Louvre, Musée du Louvre and provincial archives in Lyon, Arles and Narbonne. The enterprise paralleled contemporary projects such as the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Corpus Inscriptionum Graecum and the catalogues produced by the British School at Rome.

The corpus covers epitaphs, dedicatory texts, legal inscriptions, milestones, military diplomas, honorary decrees and graffiti from provinces including Hispania Tarraconensis, Gallia Narbonensis, Britannia, Germania Inferior, Moesia, Asia (Roman province), Achaia and Africa Proconsularis. It records texts associated with families like the Julii, Claudi, Cornelii and guilds such as the collegia. Entries document offices like consul, praetor, aedile, tribune of the plebs and military units including Legio I Italica, Legio X Equestris and cohortes. Artefacts range from inscriptions on sarcophagi and altars found in Ostia, to milestones on roads such as the Via Appia, Via Aurelia and Via Flaminia, as well as texts connected to events like the Social War, Sack of Rome (410), Dacian Wars and Cantabrian Wars.

Edited originally in Berlin by scholars associated with the Prussian Academy of Sciences, later volumes involved collaborators at the Universität Bonn, Humboldt University of Berlin, Universität Leipzig and the German Archaeological Institute (DAI). The series is arranged geographically and thematically in volumes covering regions such as Italia, Sicilia, Sardinia, Corsica, Illyricum and Asia Minor. Notable editors and contributors have included Theodor Mommsen, August Pauly, Wolfgang Helbig, Eduard Gerhard, Friedrich Münzer and Giovanni Battista de Rossi. Publication practices interacted with institutions such as the Vatican Secret Archives, École Pratique des Hautes Études, University of Oxford and collections in Florence and Naples.

The methodology combines palaeography, prosopography, philology and archaeological context, employing techniques pioneered by Theodor Mommsen and refined by scholars like Hermann Dessau, Ulrich Wilcken, Franz Cumont and Jean Bolland. Transcription conventions take into account letter forms seen on monuments from Latium, Campania, Etruria and Samnium, while dating often relies on cross-references to numismatic evidence from mints such as Rome Mint and stylistic parallels identified in collections at the British Museum, Museo Nazionale Romano and Galleria Borghese. Studies of formulae draw on corpora including the Digest of Justinian, Lex Romana Visigothorum and inscriptions cited by Cassius Dio, Suetonius and Livy.

Major volumes treat urban centers and provinces: specimens include inscriptions from Rome (honorific inscriptions for Trajan and Marcus Aurelius), funerary monuments from Carthage and Tunis, military diplomas from Vindolanda and Germania, temple dedications in Athens and legal texts from Sicily. Notable inscriptions documented influenced scholarship on figures like Cicero and Seneca the Younger as well as monuments connected to Hadrian's Wall, the Ara Pacis, the Column of Marcus Aurelius and the Arch of Titus. The series also preserves texts relevant to institutions such as the Roman Senate and social groups like the collegia centonariorum, and has been indispensable for studies of provincial administration in Bithynia et Pontus, Cilicia and Hispania Baetica.