Translating a Latin Inscription
Translating a Latin Inscription
Author: Rhys Tushingham
Date: July 10 2024
One of the most reliable ways historians and archaeologists study and understand antiquity is through translating and interpreting inscriptions. By reading the exact words of ancient writers, it becomes possible to see what they found important through what they chose to leave behind.
This engraved marble tablet is an excellent example of a Roman Latin inscription, and there is much that can be learned from only a handful of words. From what remains on the fragment, the inscription reads, “C·TRAVSI” & “PHOEBVS·S”.
Linguists can use their existing knowledge of Latin inscriptions to determine that the “C·TRAVSI” is a shortening of the name “Caius (or Gaius) Trausius”. In classical Latin, the letter “V” made a sound similar to that of the letter “U”.
This artefact’s documentation says that this is an inscription of a Greek freed slave named Phoebus, who had taken the name of his former master Caius Trausius, which was a common practice at the time. Additionally, the inscription is said to have been found in a columbarium, which is the term for a Roman style of public underground structure for the storage of cremated remains.
It is impossible to know for sure what the “S” after “PHOEBVS” once read, but by cross-referencing other Latin inscriptions, it is likely that it read “PHOEBVS·SIBI·FEC”. In Latin, “sibi” is a third-person singular reflexive pronoun in the dative case, meaning “to/for himself”, and “FEC” is a common shortening of “fecit”, which is a third-person verb in the perfect tense meaning “made”.
Putting all the evidence together, the inscription tells us that a slave named Phoebus was freed, took the name of his former master, and created this inscription for himself in a columbarium.
