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Aspects of Identity-Construction and Cultural Mimicry among Dalmatian Sailors in the Roman Navy*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 April 2015
Extract
C. Ravonius Celer was a sailor of the Misene fleet from Dalmatia.
C. Ravonius Celer qui et Bato Scenobarbi (f.) from Naples (CIL 10.3618 = Dessau 2901):
D(IS) M(ANIBUS) / C(AIUS) RAVONIUS CELER QUI ET BATO SCE / NOBARBI NATION(E) DAL[M(ATA)] / MANIP(U)L(ARIS) EX (TRIREME) ISID[E MIL(ITAVIT) ANN(IS)] XI VIXIT [ANN(IS) …] / P(UBLIUS) AELIUS V[…] I VENER[(E)…]
This inscription from his tombstone provides important evidence about the process of construction of individual identities in the period of the early principate, for it reveals the parallel existence of Roman and indigenous identity in a funerary context, commemorating C. Ravonius Celer, who is also at the same time Bato, a son of Scenobarbus of the Dalmatian ‘nation’. This inscription records the two identities of C. Ravonius Celer/Bato, which were incorporated into his personality as an essential part of who he was, revealing both his private and public self.
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Footnotes
I would like to thank the Australasian Society for Classical Studies for their Early Career Award, which helped my research travel to Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, resulting in this article. [Ed. note: Dr Dzino is the second winner of this Award.] Earlier versions of this paper were read at the departmental seminar at the University of Adelaide and the “Roman Byways” conference at the University of Sydney (December 2007). I also want to thank Antichthon's anonymous readers for useful suggestions and productive criticism; Dr Alka Domić-Kunić from the Archaeological Division of the Croatian Academy of Humanities and Sciences (HAZU) in Zagreb for her immense help and encouragement; and Dr Barbara Sidwell for editing and support.
References
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49 Starr (n. 2) 75 counts only one Ravennate and one Misene sailor for Dalmatia as pre-Flavian, as they received their diploma from Vespasian and obviously a major part of their service was in pre-Flavian times. Both of them stated their civitas identity and indigenous name.
50 Zaninovic (n. 27) 229-46.
51 In a military context: CIL 6.3261 Google Scholar, probably 6.3663, and in a civilian context 6.28053b. Also, there was a community of Dalmatians in Rome, ci ves Dalmates mentioned in 6.32588 = 2817.
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54 A. and J. Šašel (n. 53) no. 2956.
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58 Certainly, a fourth strategy is also possible – to assume a Roman name only and state no identity. Those sailors are virtually undetectable and cannot be taken into account in research like this. Unfortunately the evidence shows heavy bias towards those who wanted to state their separateness, cf. Noy, D., Foreigners at Rome: Citizens and Strangers (London 2000) 157–60Google Scholar.
59 The names Dalmata, Dalmatius, Dalmasius are very rare in Dalmatia too and occur in and around the capital, Salonae – probably a statement of civitas or narrow regional identity in the cosmopolitan surroundings of a large city: Zaninovic (n. 27) 46-7.
60 As Noy (n. 58) 159 points out: formation of new regional imperial identities in Rome might be more readily expressed in a diasporic context (Rome), rather than in the towns or villages of their origin.
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