Una nueva inscripción funeraria latina procedente de Gharandal ( Jordania meridional) ; A New Latin Funerary Inscription from Gharandal (Southern Jordan)

Copyright: © 2020 CSIC. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License The aim of this paper is to bring to light, edit and contextualize a Latin inscription from Gharandal (the ancient Arindela or Arieldela; Roman province of Arabia Petraea [al-Tafilah Governorate; Southern Jordan]). The piece, dating probably from the 2nd century AD, is the gravestone of Spratus, a soldier of a cohors Ulp(ia) mil(iaria), hard to identify with any of the other cohortes Ulpiae known from the epigraphic evidence. This new inscription is interesting not only because it enlarges the short catalogue of Latin epigraphy in the area, but also because it broadens our knowledge of the Roman El propósito del presente trabajo es dar a conocer, editar y contextualizar una nueva inscripción latina procedente de Gharandal (la antigua Arindela de la provincia romana de Arabia Petraea, en la actual provincia jordana de al-Tafilah). La pieza, probablemente del siglo II d. C., es la lápida funeraria de un tal Sprato, un desconocido soldado de una cohors Ulp(ia) mil(iaria), que no resulta fácil de identificar con el resto de las cohortes Ulpiae que conocemos a través de los testimonios epigráficos. El interés de la inscripción no sólo se debe a que amplía el breve catálogo de la epigrafía latina de la A New Latin Funerary Inscription from Gharandal (Southern Jordan)*

The aim of this paper is to bring to light, edit and contextualize a Latin inscription from Gharandal (the ancient Arindela or Arieldela; Roman province of Arabia Petraea [al-Tafilah Governorate; Southern Jordan]). The piece, dating probably from the 2nd century AD, is the gravestone of Spratus, a soldier of a cohors Ulp(ia) mil(iaria), hard to identify with any of the other cohortes Ulpiae known from the epigraphic evidence. This new inscription is interesting not only because it enlarges the short catalogue of Latin epigraphy in the area, but also because it broadens our knowledge of the Roman El propósito del presente trabajo es dar a conocer, editar y contextualizar una nueva inscripción latina procedente de Gharandal (la antigua Arindela de la provincia romana de Arabia Petraea, en la actual provincia jordana de al-Tafilah). La pieza, probablemente del siglo II d. C., es la lápida funeraria de un tal Sprato, un desconocido soldado de una cohors Ulp(ia) mil(iaria), que no resulta fácil de identificar con el resto de las cohortes Ulpiae que conocemos a través de los testimonios epigráficos. El interés de la inscripción no sólo se debe a que amplía el breve catálogo de la epigrafía latina de la A New Latin Funerary Inscription from Gharandal (Southern Jordan)* commemorates the opening of a nova via between southern Syria and the Red Sea, which is an indication of the considerable weight that the conquerors gave to the ancient Nabataean town. In fact, the Roman army established a military settlement that gave birth to an important town. In this way, Arindela (Ἀρίνδηλα in the Byzantine sources or Arieldela in the Notitia dignitatum [Or. 34,44]) became the administrative centre of the region (al-Jibal, the Greco-Roman Gabalitis) in the late Roman and Byzantine Era 4 : [Arindela] was the third-ranking town of Palaestina Tertia 5 (…) and the seat of a bishop. Bishops of Arindela attended two church councils: the ecumenical council of Ephesus in 431, and a synod of bishops called by Peter of Jerusalem in 536 (Walmsley and Grey 2001, p. 139).
Its prominent position in the region is evidenced by the remains from the late Antiquity and Byzantine Era that have appeared in the city. Recent archaeological search has brought to light a late Roman fort, a bathhouse (Darby and Darby 2012a;2015, pp. 471-484) and remains of an early Christian church, perhaps from 4th century AD, which predates the great Byzantine church 6 . On the other hand, besides the architectural remains some relevant epigraphic discoveries have been found, in particular a monumental Latin inscription devoted to the Tetrarchs in 303 AD (AE 2015(AE , 1691. In fact, only three Latin inscriptions have been discovered to date at the Gharandal site 7 (two of them from the 2nd century AD [AE 1897, 65;AE 1897, 66]; and the third is the aforementioned late inscription [AE 2015[AE , 1691). Therefore, the discovery of this fourth inscription is an addition to the brief list of Latin inscriptions in the area; furthermore, as we shall see, it enriches our knowledge of the process of the Roman military occupation in Arabia in the first half of the 2nd century.

II. Brief description of the inscription
Before presenting the edition of the inscription, it is worth clarifying that it has been produced and completed as a result of the inspection of photographs and not of its direct examination. The piece in question displays an inscription incised in a stone block that originally had a rectangular shape whose measurements in its largest dimensions were 77.1 cm in width x 56.1 cm in height. The epigraphic space (58.5 cm x 34.2 cm) is delimited by an edge consisting of a simple line of small dots (less defined on the left side of the piece). On both sides of the inscription, under line 4, there are two symmetrical almond-shaped decorative marks («⪧»/«⪦») (7.1 cm in the major axis and 5.1 cm in the minor axis) whose acute angle is facing inwards 8 . The gravestone is severely damaged in the two corners of its left side. The destruction of the upper left corner has caused the loss of the initial six or seven letters of the deceased's name (presumably praenomen and nomen). The bottom of the piece (both on the left and of a church with a poem describing an image of the Virgin appeared in el-Rashidiyah, near Gharandal: ἐνταῦθα εἰ|σελθὼν κατανοή|σις μητέρα παρθένον, | Χ(ριστο)ῦ ἄφραστον λόγον, θ(εο)ῦ | οἰκονομίαν καὶ, εἰ πιστεύ|σῃς, σωθήσει. σὺν θ(ε)ῷ ἐτελιώ|θη ἡ ψήφωσις μη(νὶ) Περιτίῳ | τοῦ ἔτ(ους) υξη΄ ἰνδ(ικτιῶνι) ζ΄… (SEG LIII 1884; el-Rashidiyah; 574 AD). Reference works: Feissel and Gatier 2005, no. 555;Gatier 2008, no. 571. The best edition of the inscription, in L. di Segni 2006, pp. 587-588. Translation by di Segni: «Entering hither you will see the Virgin Mother of Christ, the ineffable Logos, dispensation of God, and if you believe, you will be saved. With God's help this mosaic was finished in the month of Peritios of the year 468, indiction 7...». A religious analysis of the text, in Villareal Leatherbury 2012, pp. 42-43). The excavations in the Byzantine basilica of Arindela (see Walmsley and Ricklefs 1997, pp. 498-503) have not brought to light any epigraphic discovery (MacDonald 2015, p. 73). Information on other Greek epigraphic findings in southern Jordan, in Tanner 1990 andCorbett et al. 2016, p. 670. 8 One of the reviewers suggests that these marks could be a decorative solution to imitate the ansae of a tabula ansata. Inside the left «almond» there are traces of an oval drawn with small dots. On the other hand, to the right, outside the edge, at the height of line 5, there is a mark that appears to be an unfinished outline of another «almond» (6.2 cm in the major axis). right side) has also been badly damaged. However, fortunately, that damage does not hamper the reading of the text.
From the palaeographic point of view, the inscription is drawn in thin capitals with serifs at the bottom and top of several letters (I, P   Line 2: Ṣ, only the lower stroke of a lost letter is preserved, but, in any case, S is the most likely reading. The bow of P ̣ is less defined than that of the other letters of the inscription, but there is no alternative reading, since it is very similar to the P of Stip(endiorum) (l. 4). In any case, as can be noted in fig. 2, this P is somewhat smaller than the remaining letters of its line. G̣ or less probably C̣ , since its lower stroke is larger than that of COH(ORT)I(S) or that of HIC.
«To the Manes of (...) Ṣpratus 12 , son of Goria (or Coria), soldier in the Ulpian miliaria cohort, in the centuria of Aufidius. He lived 43 years. He had 23 years paid service. He lies here. May the ground be light to you».

The name
The damage suffered by the piece has destroyed the area of the inscription where the soldier's praenomen and nomen presumably were. Only the final part of the cognomen -if it is true that there was a cognomen-remains. If our reading is correct, it should be Spratus, a cognomen only attested to the present day in a defixio of the end of the 1st century or the beginning of the 2nd century: Met(i)lius Spratus (AE 2016(AE , 2012 13 . Unfortunately, according to Clauss-Slaby's online epigraphic repertoire, the origin of this defixio is unknown. Additional information about its origin might have shed some light on our elusive Spratus. On the other hand, the formula Sprato, Goriae (or Coriae) f(ilius) allows to retrace the most essential elements of the biography of our unknown soldier. Obviously, his father's name is not part of the repertoire of male Roman praenomina, which corroborates that Spratus was not born a Roman citizen. In any case, if Goria, his father, had been a free-born subject in 212, he would have automatically acquired Roman citizenship. The most likely date of the inscription is therefore the 2nd century. However, all our inquiries about the anthroponym Goria have been, unfortunately, unsuccessful. Hence, it has not been possible to assign him to a specific ethnic origin, which could have related him to some specific auxiliary military unit, in particular to some cohors formed by Celtic-speaking individuals (e.g. the Cohors Ulpia Galatarum) 14 . Instead, it seems less likely that the name is related to a Semitic background. Our consultation of the works of al-Qudrah (2001) and Mac-Donald (1999) has been unproductive for this purpose. Hence we consider more likely that Spratus was a soldier of Western origin.

Date of the inscription
Regardless of the possible palaeographic dating, the clearest indication to establish the date of the inscription is the presence in its text of a cohors Ulpia, whose existence is linked to Trajan's military campaigns in the East. Apart from the issue of determining the specific military unit to which Spratus could have belonged, it should be noted that the epithet Ulpia was only applied to those cohortes until the reign of Commodus (192 AD 14 However, if the possibility of relating this name to the Celtic root *gor («force, strength, elevation, abundance» [e. g. Breton gor («elevation»); Welsh gor («over»); Gaelic gorm («nobleman»)]) -or perhaps to the old Irish gor («pious, dutiful» [a thorough analysis of the etymology of this word, in Schrijver 1996])-could be confirmed, that could be a clue to consider that we would be facing the cohors Ulpia Galatarum, a unit of celtic origin. However, the current knowledge about the Galatian language is still very scarce. Hence this suggestion is merely conjectural and unfounded from a linguistic point of view. that the emperor's memory ceased to be honoured after the change of dynasty. After this date, the former Ulpiae cohortes became designated simply by mentioning the origin of their soldiers 15 . A good example is given by the cohort stationed in Gharandal, which is referred to as cohors Ulpia Galatarum in an inscription dated 160 (AE 2011(AE , 1810 and simply called secunda Galatarum in the aforementioned monumental inscription of the Gharandal (AE 2015(AE , 1691. In view of the reasons above, the inscription should be dated in all likelihood between the conquest of Arabia and the end of the reign of Commodus 16 . In fact, the date could be specified a bit more, since the Ulpiae cohortes were recruited after the First Dacic War (101-102) in order to be employed in the Second Dacic War (104-106), in the annexation of Arabia (106) and in the Partic War (113-117). Therefore, if our Spratus was enlisted -hypothetically-in 104 and he served 23 years of service, the terminus post-quem of the inscription should be 127 or 128, under Hadrian, during whose reign the miliaria units became common. On the other hand, the formulas used in the inscription (in particular, the mention of the centuria and the stipendia) seem to refer to the first half of the 2nd century. Hence, the most plausible alter-native is to date the inscription not after the reign of Antoninus Pius, and the dating could be circumscribed to the period 125 to 160.

Centuria Aufidi
Cf. centuria Veris [si] Obviously, it is impossible to establish any relationship between this miles beneficiarius and the centurion of our inscription 17 .

Militi Cohortis I Ulpiae miliaria
As seen, Spratus was enlisted in one of the many auxiliary units that were created during Trajan's reign in view of their future participation in the campaigns planned by the emperor. Hence the honorary title of Ulpia that this military unit bore 18 . However, apart from this generic information, it is extremely difficult to determine in which cohors Ulpia he was enrolled. And 17 According to Eck 2019, p. 256, the name Aufidius is not known in the epigraphic record of the city. However, a M(arcus) Lucili(u)s Aufidianus, a u(ir) e(gregius) from the Severan period, calls Berytus his homeland (AE 2007(AE , 1614 Inscription from the 1st century AD, where an unknown centurion of a cohors Augusta (σπείρα Αὐγούστα) is mentioned. Due to chronological and administrative reasons, the information of this inscription is not useful for our aim: it belongs to the 1st century AD and not to de 2nd century; the Auranitide came under direct control of Rome in 106 and was assigned to the province of Syria, and not to the newly conquered province of Arabia Petraea. In any case, the title of this cohors is Augusta and not Ulpia. Inscription dated in 118-119 AD in honour of an unknown procurator of the province of Arabia, who had been before praefectus of an unknown cohors. Its fragmentary state does not allow to get more information about this individual. It is not even possible to say that the cohort under his command was stationed in the province of Arabia.
I Ulpia sagittoriorum; Cohors III Ulpia Paphlagonum; Cohors II Ulpia Paphlagonum (cf. CIL III 600: AD 162-166 AD) (Pollard 2000, pp. 122-123). 19 This inscription was found in 2013 among the collapsed blocks of the facade of the Roman fort of Arindela. It was probably above the arch of the main door in the wall. It is very similar to that of the fort in Yotvata, to the south of the Negev (AE 1986(AE , 699 = 2002(AE , 1563. In both cases, the mandated official for the project is Aufidius Priscus, uir perfectissimus and governor of Palestine between 293 and 303 AD (cf. Ameling et al. 2011, p. 215 was a unit made up of native soldiers from Galacia recruited to reinforce the army that Trajan was gathering to invade the Parthian Empire (114 to 117 AD). At the end of the war, the unit was stationed possibly in the province of Syria. In 132 AD, it was integrated into the army destined to crush the Bar Kojba's Revolt. However, at the end of the 3rd century we find it already in Arindela, where it was located for long years. According to the Notitia dignitatum (ca. 400 AD), this cohors was still stationed in Arindela. There was a cohors prima Ulpia Galatarum stationed  This cohors prima Ulpia Petraeorum (σπείρα αʹ Οὐλπία Πετραίων) would be a suitable candidate to be identified with the unit that concerns us in this paper. However, such an identification is also not possible, since it was not frequent (although it was not impossible) that these auxiliary units were part of the military garrison of their home provinces. Most likely, these soldiers from Petra had been posted at the province of Syria.

in 238 in Aquileia: I(oui) O(ptimo) M(aximo) / (...) pro salute et uictoria / ddd(ominorum) nnn(ostrum) / Impp(eratorum) Caesarum / [[[M(arci) Clodi Pupieni]]] / [[[D(ecimi) Caeli Caluini]]] / [[[Balbini Au]]]ggg(ustorum!) et / M(arci) Antoni Gordiani / nobiliss(imi) Caes(aris) / ex uoto / Fl(auius) Seruilianus a mil(itiis) / et Fl(auius) Adiutor / praef(ectus) coh(ortis) I Ulpiae / Galatarum praeposit(i) / militum agentium / in protensione
These are the inscriptions that show cohortes that could be linked to the province of Arabia and, as seen, none of them is a suitable candidate to be identified with our cohors Ulpia. However, an alternative hypothesis may be raised. We have just seen that, at the end of the 3rd century, Arindela was defended by the cohors secunda Galatarum (AE 2015, 1691  Since it is not mentioned in the Notitia dignitatum, is highly unlikely that it still existed at the beginning of the 5th century AD; however, it is not possible to know exactly when it disappeared. On the other hand, although the specific place where this cohort was stationed is unknown, it is likely that it had been somewhere in the Roman province of Syria Palaestina, like the other cohortes Petraeorum (Spaul 2000, pp. 438-439;449;451). thought that the cohors prima Ulpia Galatarum (cf. AE 2014, 484) (or perhaps the Prima Augusta Thrac (um) or Prima Thracum ciuium Romanorum [AE 2004[AE , 1925) could have been stationed at Arindela in the first half of the 2nd century? There is not the slightest indication of this. But the non-Latin name of our soldier could be an indirect indication of the origin of this cohort. This is the reason why, at some point, we have considered the possibility that our Spratus was a soldier of Galatian or perhaps Thracian origin.
Was our Spratus enlisted in any of the aforementioned Thracian military units? It is not easily assumable, since neither of the two cohorts, except confusion, bears the title of Ulpia. Therefore, we close this section by pointing out that we have not been able to identify the cohort in which the soldier was enrolled.

A brief biography of Spratus
Obviously, the little information provided by the inscription does not allow to reconstruct the biography of Spratus. Even more, his life offers more unknowns than certainties. We know that, as he was a young man, he enlisted in a cohort of auxiliary soldiers in which he spent 23 years. He died at age 43, two years before reaching the 25 years of military service that would have provided him the coveted Roman citizenship. There is no indication that he had a wife and children. However, there are other additional questions to answer: Did he get the Roman citizenship? Did he get a military service license? Why was he in Arindela? In principle, we have considered that Sprato (dative) was a cognomen and that, therefore, the sequence of 6-7 letters that were missing in the destroyed part of the piece belonged to a praenomen and cognomen [M. Ulpio]. This is nothing more than a mere assumption, insofar as the information provided by the inscriptions are far from indisputable: These two inscriptions mention two soldiers of non-Roman origin militating in auxiliary units for a few years and possesing, however, Roman citizenship, as evidenced by their names. However, the first is from the 3rd century, when all the free inhabitants of the Roman Empire since 212 AD were already citizens; and the second is from an unknown date, which does not allow to establish any conclusion about the matter.
In contrast, other soldiers of the auxiliary troops died, apparently, without having obtained Roman citizenship, as evidenced in the following inscriptions: Talanio / Plassi f(ilius) / Docleas / mil(es) ex coh/orte V Da(l)/matarum / | (centuria) Capitonis / anno(rum) XXXV / stip ( Consequently, it is not possible to affirm that Spratus obtained the Roman citizenship. Hence our initial assumption that the damaged portion of the inscription contained a Roman nomen and a cognomen is a mere conjecture. It is not even possible to know if he got his military service license. If he died before completing the mandatory 25 years of his military service, it is presumably that he died in Arindela during his service and that he was buried by his comrades in arms.
However, another alternative can be considered. Until now it has been assumed that Spratus was at Arindela as a member of a cohort permanently stationed there. However, his presence in the distant frontier of Arabia could be explained by the fact that he had been entrusted with a mission far from the unknown military garrison where he had originally been serving 22 . If so, it would be impossible to determine the military unit from which he actually came. In any case, we consider more plausible that Spratus was, as is logical, a soldier of the garrison of the fortress.

V. By way of conclusion: a brief history of the Roman presence in Arindela
Beyond the inevitable doubts arising from the paucity of information concerning our inscription, the appearance of a new Latin inscription in Arindela is good news, not only because it enlarges the short catalogue of Latin epigraphy in the area, but also because it enriches our knowledge of the Roman military occupation of Arabia in the first half of the 2nd century AD. a) Emperor Trajan opens a new road linking southern Syria with the Red Sea in the new province of Arabia (112 AD At the same time as the noua uia was opened, the ancient Nabataean town was probably transformed into a strategic military fort defended by an unknown cohort (a Cohors Ulpia miliaria) 24 . Spratus, son of Goria, was one of those soldiers. Almost certainly, this humble and unknown soldier did not become a Roman citizen. He died before he turned the 25 mandatory years of military service. On the other hand, the linguistic opacity of its name prevents any conjecture about its native land and, therefore, also does not give any information about the origin of the troopers that made up this cohort. b) Another inscription dated in 162, at the beginning of the reign of Marcus Aurelius, attests the presence of the imperial government in Arindela: Although the inscription does not specify which is the direct object of the verb refecerunt, there fortunately is a significant series of very similar inscriptions that reveals the imperial purpose to repair the road opened by Trajan, a task 23 The Via Traiana Noua was not really new, since it was the same road previously known as the Via Regia. It was given such a name in order to distinguish it from the Via Traiana in Italy. The road was completed under Hadrian (Browning 1982, p. 33), but the inscription shows that the Roman imperial government was firmly seated in the fort of Arindela during the reign of Trajan. Its construction, started after the annexation of Arabia, was supervised by Governor Gaius Claudius Severus. In fact, a surviving letter sent by Apollinarius, a clerk at the service of Severus himself, mentions that the construction work for the road was already in progress in 107 AD (P. Mich. VIII 466). On the other hand, the epigraphic testimonies on the construction of this road are very numerous. assumed by Geminius Marcianus, legatus pro praetore in Arabia, a high-ranking official with an extensive epigraphic record in the province 25 . In any case, this is the last known inscription in Arindela linked to the Antonine dynasty. c) As aforementioned, there are no more epigraphic records in Arindela until the reign of Diocletian (AE 2015(AE , 1691, when Arindela was defended by the cohors secunda Galatarum 26 . This inscription allows us to know that already in the first half of the 2nd century Arindela was defended by the unknown Roman cohort in which Spratus was enlisted. We do not dare to be more precise since any conjecture in this matter without additional data would be mere speculation. However, it is possible that future epigraphic findings in the area will allow us to get to know its name and above all to know its history better.