Inscription Dating Tutorial

The next question is what is the date? This question can be answered with varying degrees of precision, depending upon the information offered by the text itself.

The answer to this question may be provided explicitly by a dating formula giving the era of a city, a province, the consular year, or year of an emperor's reign. Sometimes the date is even given exactly.

There will be a beast hunt, and twenty pairs of gladiators belonging to Marcus Tullius will fight at Pompeii on November 4, 5, 6, 7.

This Inscription comes from a billboard painted on a wall in Pompeii.

These dates are very specific, but the year is not known for certain in this case. However, since we know the date of the destruction of Vesuvius (August 24th, 79 A.D.), we can say that the inscription was put up before that date. Since it is referring to November, the inscription is referring either to a year or two before 79 or else to November, 79 A.D., a day that Pompeii never saw.

Dated inscriptions from Latin speaking areas tend to use the system of consular years. There were two consuls each year and the year was named for them.

Prosenes was received amongst the gods five days before the nones of [Ma]y (or [Jul]y) at Sa[me on Cephalle]nia, in the consulship of Praesens and Extricatus (who were consuls for the second time) returning to the city from the expedition. Ampelius the freedman wrote this.

This is another exact date referring to the 3rd of either May or July (the inscription is broken over part of the name of the month). The year is given by the names of the consuls.

We know that these two people were the consuls for the second time in the year 217 A.D. The exact date is given by the giving of the day above. With this information, we know when the person died. The inscription would have been put up sometime after that (allowing time to buy the stone and to carve the inscripiton).

Dated inscriptions from Greek cities tend to have an era figure from the year that the province was added to the Roman Empire.

For the good fortune of Gnaeus Claudius Severus who was consul twice, Pontifex, son-in-law of the Emperor Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, patron of the city, the metropolis Pompeiopolis of the province of Paphlagonia put this up in the 178th year of the province through the work of Publius Domitius Augureinus Clodius Kalbeinus the chief archon.

This Inscription was on a statue base in the city of Pompeiopolis in the province of Paphlagonia, a little province in Asia Minor between Pontus and Bithynia.

Since we know that the province of Paphlagonia was added to the empire in 5 B.C., we can say that this inscription was put up in 173 A.D., the same year that Gnaeus Claudius Severus was Consul for the second time.

Inscriptions dated by year of an emperor's reign (regnal year) can be found in both Greek and Latin.

This inscription was scrawled as graffiti on the base of the colossal statue of pharoh Amenhotep in Thebes, Egypt (Karnak) by an ancient tourist. The people who inscribed this were soldiers in legions serving in Egypt. The historian Herodotus reported that the statue at a certain time of the day when the wind was blowing could be heard to make eerie sounds.

We, Aulus Instuleius Tenax, first centurion of the 12th Legion Fulminata, and Gaius Valerius Priscus, centurion of the 22nd Legion, and Lucius Quintius Viator, a decurion, heard Memnon in the 11th year of our Emperor Nero on March 16th at the [..]th hour.

Nero became emperor on October 12th, 54 A.D., so the 11th year of his reign would have begun on October 12th, 64 A.D. and continued until October 12th, 65 A.D.

This inscription in addition to the regnal year of Nero, also gives an exact date. March 16th falls correctly within the 11th regnal year of the Emperor Nero.

If the answer is not provided explicitely, it may be provided implicitely either through reference to a Roman official or to an emperor.

The emperors used a system of titles that can be used to date inscriptions when we study the biographies of the emperors. We can learn when an emperor received a title or renewed some power that is reflected in his titles.

While the Emperor Vespasian Caesar Augustus Pontifex Maximus, holding the Tribunican Power for the 7th time, hailed Imperator 14 times, and consul for the 7th time, Pater Patriae, and the Emperor Titus Caesar, son of Augustus, was consul for the 5th time, and the [Domitian Cae]sar, son of Augustus, consul for the 4th time, were consuls, Gnaeus Pompeius Collega, the Legatus of Augustus with pro-praetorian powers put this up. The third mile.

Emperors renewed this power every year on the same day beginning from the year they first received the power. Vespasian began his from 69 A.D. so number 7 refers to July 1st, 75 - July 1st, 76 A.D.

Emperors receive the title of Imperator after a military victory. Vespasian received his 14th salutation in the first half of 74 A.D. and did not receive it again until early 76.

This inscription dates according to the consuls of the year. Vespasian, the main emperor, and his son Titus became consuls for the 7th and 5th each on Jan. 1st, 76 A.D. Domitian became consul later in the year with somebody else to replace his father and brother.

Another way to date inscriptions that do not have a specific date and do not include an emperor is to look at the offices a person is holding. Sometimes we know things about a person mentioned in the inscription and, by looking at the offices, we can figure out what date the inscription was put up based on those offices.

To Publius Atilius Aebutianus, Praetorian Prefect, a most famous man; the Senate of Asseria put this up to their best patron.

This Inscription was found in the town of Asseria in the province of Dalmatia.

We know from a biography of the Emperor Commodus that this man was Praetorian Prefect about 190 A.D. Therefore, this Inscription can be dated to about 190 before Commodus had Aebutianus killed although Aebutianus could have been killed while they were putting the Inscription up. In any case, the date would still be around 190 A.D.

If there is no explicit date, or reference to Roman offial or emperor, the names of the people mentioned in the inscription may offer a clue. In order to use this method you need to know how Roman names work. This is also crucial for answering our last question, "what is the social status of the people mentioned in this text?"