VC·1.1

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Inscription
Reading in transliteration:	finis / campo·quem / dedit·acisius / argantocomateṛ / ecus·comunem / deis·et·hominib / us·ita·uti·lapidẹṣ / IIII·statuti·sunt
Reading in original script:	??      ???   ?   ?
Object:	VC·1 Vercelli (boundary stone) (Inscriptions: VC·1.1, VC·1.2)
Position:	top, front
Orientation:	0°
Direction of writing:	dextroverse
Script:	Latin script
Number of letters:	90
Number of words:	15
Number of lines:	8
Workmanship:	carved
Condition:	complete, damaged
Archaeological culture:	Late Republican [from object]
Date of inscription:	shortly before the middle of 1st century BC [from object]
Type:	dedicatory
Language:	Latin
Meaning:	'border of the field which Acisius Argantocomaterecus gave to the community of gods and men where the four stones are put up'
Alternative sigla:	Tibiletti Bruno 1981: 34 Solinas 1995: 141 a Morandi 2004: 100 1–8
Sources:	Morandi 2004: 589 f. no. 100

Images

Inscriptions VC·1.1 and VC·1.2 from Morandi

Stela VC·1 Vercelli with inscriptions VC·1.1 and VC·1.2 from Morandi

Stela VC·1 Vercelli with inscriptions VC·1.1 and VC·1.2

Commentary

First published in Baldacci 1978.

Images in Lejeune 1988: 28, fig. 14 (photo) and 29, fig. 15 (drawing).

The alphabetically and linguistically Latin part of the Vercelli bilingua is inscribed in eight lines of large letters (though their height decreases after the third line) on the upper part of the stone; taking up three times as much space as the vernacular part, it was evidently primary. It was carved by a different hand and with a different instrument (wider and more rounded) than the vernacular VC·1.2 (Baldacci 1978: 336 f.).

Baldacci 1978: 337 f., based on the letter forms (of which only open is somewhat archaic) and the Classical Latin phonetics, dates the inscription to the second half of the 1^st c. BC, i.e. after the Lex Roscia, which granted citizenship to the inhabitants of Gallia Transpadana in 49 BC. Lejeune 1988: 26 f. vaguely tends toward a somewhat higher dating, noting the early onset of Romanisation in the area and the absence of a Latin binomen.

• Tibiletti Bruno 1976: pp. 106-107
• Tibiletti Bruno 1981: pp. 192-196, n.34
• RIG: pp. 26-37, E-2
• Pisani 1979: pp. 49-53
• Prosdocimi 1991: pp. 293-300
• Lejeune & Briquel 1991: n.296
• Solinas 1995: pp. 381-382, n.141
• Lambert 1994: pp. 76-80
• Motta 1995: pp. 128, 129

Bibliography

Baldacci 1978	Paolo Baldacci, "Una bilingue latino-gallica di Vercelli", Atti dell'Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 32 (1977 [1978]), 335–347.
CIL	Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. (17 volumes, various supplements)
De Bernardo Stempel 2011b	Patrizia de Bernardo Stempel, "Il testo pregallico della stele di Vercelli nel contesto delle lingue celtiche. Con un'appendice sull'indicativo passato nel verbo celtico continentale", in: Gisella Cantino Wataghin (ed.), Finem dare. Il confine, tra sacro, profano e immaginario. A margine della stele bilingue del Museo Leone di Vercelli. Atti del Convegno Internazionale, Vercelli, cripta di S. Andrea, 22–24 maggio 2008, Vercelli: Edizioni Mercurio 2011, 67–80.
Gambari 2011b	Filippo Maria Gambari, "Per una lettura "protostorica" della bilingue di Vercelli", in: Gisella Cantino Wataghin (ed.), Finem dare. Il confine, tra sacro, profano e immaginario. A margine della stele bilingue del Museo Leone di Vercelli. Atti del Convegno Internazionale, Vercelli, cripta di S. Andrea, 22–24 maggio 2008, Vercelli: Edizioni Mercurio 2011, 47–65.