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Annius Plocamus: Two Inscriptions from the Berenice Road

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

David Meredith
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Extract

Without attempting a serious commentary at this stage, I present two short inscriptions in Greek and Latin, from the Eastern Desert of Egypt. They are from the 1936–7 field notes of the late Dr. H. A. Winkler, author of Rock Drawings of Southern Upper Egypt (1938–9), and are published by courtesy of the Egypt Exploration Society, the Latin on fig. 14, the Greek from Winkler's facsimile which is clear and complete.

These two inscriptions come from a typical Eastern Desert cave-shelter, in the west rock-face of Wādi Menīh at the point in the Berenice road where it is crossed by the line of latitude 25° 37′ N.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 1-2 , November 1953 , pp. 38 - 40
Copyright
Copyright ©David Meredith 1953. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Fig. 14 is also reproduced in Winkler's book, vol. 1, pl. VIII. The negative and print of the Greek inscription are unfortunately missing.

2 The other inscriptions seen in the photograph will be published later, together with several others from the same cave and some from the site (10 miles to SE) of the Roman station Aphrodito.

3 Doubts on this passage concern a Red Sea tax-farmer's servant sailing circa Arabiam, his being blown aquilonibus (north winds) past Carmania (cf. an equally odd wind direction, vento Volturno, in VI, 106), xv dies to cross the Arabian Sea (cf. diebus xl in VI, 105), a shipwreck in Ceylon being caused by either monsoon (especially an unrecognized monsoon, an untenable supposition in the first century A.D.; see Tarn, , Greeks in Bactria and India2 , 1951, 368–71Google Scholar), and, not least, the odd fact that, despite the Claudian embassy and the coin evidence of considerable first-century trade with Coimbatore on the S. India mainland, no regular trade with Ceylon seems to have happened till the fourth century (see Wheeler, on ‘Roman Contact with India’, in Aspects of Archaeology, essays in honour of Crawford, O. G. S., ed. by Grimes, W. F., 345–381 Google Scholar; Charlesworth, on ‘Roman Trade with India’, in Studies in Roman Econ. and Soc. History in honour of Johnson, A. C., ed. by Coleman-Norton, P. R. (1951), 134 Google Scholar). These may all be minor slips not inconsistent with the general truth of the main story.

4 P-W, s.v. ‘Plinius’, cols. 272–3 (Ziegler).

5 De Laet, Portorium (1949), 370.

6 De Laet, o.c, 391–2, with n. 1.

7 Periplus of the Erythr. Sea (GGM, i), §§ 14 and 56; Pliny VI, 104.

8 Tait, , Greek Ostraca (1930) I, 110–125, nos. 220–304Google Scholar; II (ed. Préaux, in the press), 1970–1; Viereck, P., O. Brüssel-Berlin (Berlin-Leipzig, 1922), 7 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Fuchs, , J. of Jur. Papyr. 5 (1951), 209–210.Google Scholar