IИVITA {TRIVNPHS}
Third Cyrenaic Legion Fortunately
Unconquered {Triumph!}
The third line has two errors: the N is inverted, while the C is missing in the word INVICTA.
The fourth line is a monogram. The letters THR form a nexus, like the letters IVN, and the letters PHS. The monogram can be decomposed and read as a mixed form of triumphus in Latin. The initial consonant t- is written as th-, by confusion
17These inscriptions have recently been re-examined by M. Sartre, 2016; the author mentions two graffito of the III Leg Cyr, with the photo of one cited by Wetzstein (n° 5) and by Waddington (n°
2281), cf. Sartre 2016: 49-50.
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with the Greek spelling of θριaμβος, “triumph” in Greek; the r has rather the form of Greek rho; the m is written n; the oblique bar means that the word is abbreviated, and indeed it lacks the letters u, eventually read as o18.
The drawing
Over the Namara inscription Wadd. 2281, is the drawing of a leopard facing left (Panthera, pardus orientalis) (Mascle 1936: 100, fig. opp. p. 111, bottom). A very close drawing of this felid can be found on a Safaitic inscription from Wadi al-Ġuṣayn in eastern Jordan (Ababneh 2005, n° 976).
In the two drawings reproduced below (fig. 7), the long tail is figured turned upward over the body. Other examples of leopards drawings can be found in the Safaitic corpus of inscriptions by M. Ababneh (Ib.: 70, fig. 44). In Arabic,
“leopard” is named namir19; the name given to the site, an-Namara, suggests the ancient presence of these felids.
The drawing could therefore be an allusion to a beast well known by soldiers of local origin, rather than some sort of Roman insigna.
Fig. 7. Graffiti of leopards: Wadd. 2281 and Ababneh 976 (fac-simile M.-J. Roche)
Interpretation
The Third Cyrenaica Legion was totally moved from Egypt to Arabia sometime after the creation of the Provincia Arabia (106 AD), and probably after the Parthian War was it installed in a fort at Busra, the capital of the province20.
18On the different forms of Latin nexus (two and three letters written together), cf. Cagnat 2002: 24-26;
cf. also Lassère 2005.
19Wehr 1979: sg. namir, pl. numur, anmār, numūr.
20 On the Third Cyrenaica Legion, cf. Kindler 983:87-92; Wolff 2000; Gatier 2000; it was most probably the legion who occupied the southern part of Nabatene in 106 (contra Speidel 1977).
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The acclamatio FELICITER INVICTA and the monogram TRIUMPHUS, which are engraved by the soldiers of the Third Legionary Cyrenaica, can be interpreted as allusions to the awards they received for their participation to the Bar Kochba War.
Our principal source on the Second Jewish War is Dio Cassius (in Xiphilin), 69, 13-14,3.
At first the Romans took no account of them (= of the rebellious Jews).
Soon, however, all Judaea had been stirred up, and the Jews everywhere...were gathering together, and giving evidence of great hostility to the Romans ...many outside nations, too, were joining them through eagerness for gain, and the whole earth, one might almost say, was being stirred up over the matter. Then, indeed, Hadrian sent against them his best generals. Foremost among these was lulius Severus, who was dispatched from Britain, where he was governor, against the Jews.
According to W. Eck, Haterius Nepos received the ornamenta triumphalia for it participation to the Bar Kochba War (Eck 1999. 223-227):
Only from the time of Augustus, when only the emperor could celebrate a triumph, generals who had undertaken a triumph-worthy campaign were given the ornamenta triumphalia as compensation. According to the available sources, this happened for the last time during the reign of Hadrian following the war against Bar Kochba.
[…] It is precisely because Hadrian accepted imperator II after the Bar Kokhba revolt, thereby making it clear that this victory was worthy of a triumph, that he could honour his generals in this war with ornamenta triumphalia. The Emperor was legally and politically the victor, and his generals could participate in his glory.
The origin of the Roman soldiers who left their names on the rocks of an-Namara was mostly local, as evidenced by the mention of Hawran villages from which they come. As M.C.A. Macdonald points out, they were locally recruited: “So ii may be that these men were chosen for their local geographical, social, and possibly linguistic, knowledge” (Macdonald 2008, p. 320); he suggests also that the building of such a small fort was, as in other places, to control maḥāḍir, or semi-permanent sources of water, on which the nomads relied during the dry
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season ((al-qayẓ) after the pastures has dried up, and to which they gather to wait until the October rains” (Ib., p. 321).
The new Latin graffito from Petra and the an-Namara more complex inscription can both be related to the same historical event, the crushing of the Second Jewish Revolt at the time of Hadrian. As brilliantly demonstrated by W. Eck in 1999, “Hadrian accepted for the first time an imperatorial acclamation for a military victory”; this made possible the ornamenta triumphalia given to three generals engaged in the operations; among them, Haterius Nepos, who remained in the Province of Arabia after his consulate, as a Gerasa inscription testifies; he mentioned the ornamenta triumphalia in an inscription from Pannomia, but this title cannot refer to his years in this province, as W. Eck explains. So, this title is only referring to the Second Jewish War, which led Hadrian to draw troops from outside the Judean province, namely from Syria and Arabia (Eck 1999).
The mention of Haterius Nepos as a tyrant in a Safaitic inscription (Abbadi &
Zayadine 1986) may be an allusion to forced enrolment into the Roman army.
The acclamatio, FELICITER INVICTA, was much probably given to the legion for its role in the Roman victory.
The complex monogram under the an-Namara Inscription Wadd.2281 can only be in relation with it, in an allude style: THRIVNPHS, a mixed Graeco-Latin monogram referring to the ornamenta triumphalia given to Haterius Nepos.
Therefore the new Latin graffito found at the Dayr at Petra can be dated to the years following 136 AD.
Sigla and References
IGLS= Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie, IFPO, Beyrouth, Damas, Amman.
IGLJ= Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Jordanie, IFPO, Beyrouth, Damas, Amman.
BAH= Bibliothèque archéologique et historique, IFPO, Beyrouth, Damas, Amman.
Ababneh, M. (2005): Neue safaitische Inschriften und deren bildliche Darstellungen, (Semitica et Semitohamitica Berolinenssia 6), Shaker Verlag, Aachen.
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Bowersock, G.W. (1973): Roman Arabia, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA / London.
Brünnow, R.E., Domaszewski A. von (1904-09): Die Provincia Arabia, Vol. I, II, III:
Die Romerstraße von Madeba über Petra und Odruh bis el-‘Akaba, Trubner, Strasbourg.
Cagnat, R. (2002): Cours d’épigraphie latine, Nouvelle édition d’après la quatrième édition 1914, Calepinus, Paris.
Eck, W. (1999): “The bar Kokhba Revolt: The Roman Point of View”, The Journal of Roman Studies 89: 76-89.
Gatier, P.-L. (2000): “La Legio III Cyrenaica et l’Arabie”, in Y. Le Bohec et C. Wolff (ed.) 2000: 341-349.
Kennedy, D. (1980): “Legio VI Ferrata: The Annexation and Early Garrison of Arabia”, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 84: 282-309.
Kennedy, D. (2004): The Roman Army in Jordan, Council for British Research in the Levant, London.
Kennedy, D.L. (ed.) (1996): The Roman Army in the East, Journal of Roman Archaeology Suppl. 18, Ann Arbor, Mich.
Kindler, A. (1983): The Coinage of Bostra, Wilts, Warminster.
Lassère, J.-M. (2005): Manuel d'épigraphie romaine., Tome 1. L'individu - La cite, Tome 2. L'état – Index, Picard, Paris
Le Bohec, Y., Wolff, C. (éd.) (2000): Les légions de Rome sous le Haut-Empire. Actes du Congrès de Lyon, 17-19 septembre 1998, De Boccard, Paris.
Macdonald, M.C.A. (2008): “Transformations and Continuity at al-Namāra:
Camps, settlements, forts, and tombs”, in K. Bartl & A. Moaz (ed.):
Residences, Castles Settlements. Transformation Processes from late Antiquity to Early Islam in Bilad al-Sham (Orient-Archäologie 24), Rahden: 317-332.
Mascle, J. (1936): Le Djebel Druze, Beyrouth.
92 Humayma (Ancient Hawara), Jordan”,Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 140: 103-121.
Préaux, C. (1950-1951): “Une source nouvelle sur l’annexion de l’Arabie par Trajan: Le papyrus de Michigan 465 et 466”, Phoibos 5: 123-139.
Sartre, M. (1982): Trois etudes sur l’Arabie romaine et byzantine, Latomus vol.
178, Bruxelles.
Sartre, M. (1985): Bostra. Des origines à l’Islam, BAH CXVII, Paris.
Sartre, M. (1993): Inscriptions de la Jordanie, IGLS Tome XXI, IGLJ Tome IV, BAH CXV, De Boccard, Paris.
Sartre, M. (2016): “Namāra du Ṣafā”, Syria 93: 45-66.
Speidel, M.P. (1977): “Arabia’s First Garrison”, Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan, XVI: 111-113.
Speidel, M.P. (1977): “The Roman Army in Arabia”, Aufstieg und Niedergang der rômischen Welt II, 8: 687-710.
Starcky (J.), Bennett (C.M.) (1968): “Les inscriptions du téménos (Pétra)”, Syria 45: 41-65.
Waddington, W.H. (1870): Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie, Paris.
Wehr H. (1979): A Dictionary of modern written Arabic (Arab.-Engl.), ed. by J.
Milton Cowan, Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden.
Wetzstein, J.G. (1863): Ausgewählte Griechische und Lateinische Inschriften, gesammelt auf Reisen in den Trachonen und um das Haurângebirge, aus den Abhandlungen der Königl. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Berlin.
Wolff, C. (2000): “La Legio III Cyrenaica au Ier siècle”, in Le Bohec & Wolff (2000):
339-340.
Zayadine, F., Fiema Z.T. (1986): “Roman Inscriptions from the Siq of Petra:
Remarks on the Initial Garrison of Arabia”,,Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan XXX: 199-206.
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