Casgliadau Arlein

Triangular fragment of a brick. The top edge is original and a small part of the right-hand edge survives. Inscribed before firing with at least eight lines of cursive letters. Line 8 may be the last line, since it contains the total of the numerals in lines 2-7. The style of lettering resembles that of stylus tablets from the period 75-125, so the text would be contemporary with the construction of the basilica in the early second century.[...]S[1-2]AS | VASFRONTO II | TIIRTIVS II | SIIMILICINVS II | SIINTIVS I | AGILIS I | FORTVNA[...] | [...]..II.[...], [...]s[1-2]as | VAS Fronto II | Tertius II | Semilicinus II | Sentius I | Agilis I | Fortuna[tus I] | [VI]II[I]. ‘[Heading]: Fronto 2, Tertius 2, Semilicinus 2, Sentius 1, Agilis 1, Fortunatus 1, (total) 9’.The six names are presumably those of workmen at the tilery, each responsible for ‘1’ or ‘2’, totalling ‘9’. A heading (line 1) specified the units, clearly a feminine substantive in the accusative plural, but otherwise lost. To the left of AS is a leftward-curving stroke suggestive of O or possibly D, then the tail of S; but no restoration presents itself. It can hardly have been worth counting single tiles, so the unit must have been a quantity of tiles. One possibility is daily quotas (compare R. Etienne et al. 1976, 159, No 358a (brick graffito)): ex officin(a) Maelonis diarias rogatas solvi). VAS (line 2) is also problematic: S cuts the F of FRONTO, so VAS must have been written afterwards. If vas, it would mean 'vessel, dish', but it may have been a correction or addition to line 1. Sentius is a common nomen, and four of the other names are common cognomina, but Semilicinus seems to be unattested; possibly it is a derivative of the common cognomen Similis (compare RIB 505, Similina) in a variant spelling. [R.S.O. Tomlin] (Britannia XXIV (1993), p.332, no.30, fig.9, Pl.XVI).