Three
joining fragments which belong to a single leaf. It is certain that the
left-hand edge of the leaf is preserved and virtually certain that the top is
also. It is probable that not more than about three letters are missing at the
right in lines 3 and 5. At the foot we have lost the name(s) of the reporting
officer(s). There are possible traces of writing on the back of the leaf.
The
nature of the text is not in doubt but it poses problems to which we cannot
offer any satisfactory solution, whether we suppose we have the conflation of
two reports, a single text with some correction or addition by a second hand,
or a palimpsest. We are confident that what survives is written in at least two
hands, one hand responsible for lines 3, 5 and 6, and a different hand for line
4. So little remains of lines 1 and 2 that we are not sure whether they are
written in the hand responsible for lines 3, 5 and 6, or the one responsible
for line 4, or indeed whether both are in the same hand. However, the form of e in line 2 is strikingly
different from the form in lines 5 and 6.
Two
possible solutions occur to us. (a) Lines 1-2 contain a double date, the first
the date of submission followed by renuntium, then perhaps by a preposition and a second
date to which the report relates; after this the pattern would be regular
except that a second hand has inserted line 4. The problem with this is that
the inserted line does not correct what had already been written, since there
is no sign of deletion, and does not appear to add anything new, but merely to
repeat what is already stated in line 5 (but cf. the note to line 4). (b) If we
ignore lines 2 and 4 we have a normal report in lines 1, 3, 5 and 6. We should
then have to suppose that we have a poorly erased text in lines 2 and 4 (in
which case a first
hand wrote these two lines before a second hand wrote lines 1, 3, 5 and 6). We then
need to explain the traces at the left in line 2 as not belonging to this line
but to the feet of letters from the date in line 1 (e.g. the first two traces
might be the foot of pr(idie)); line 2 would then be aligned
with line 4 (where no traces are visible at the left) and the figure in the
date would be either [x]v or [xi]v. Here the problem is that, if the normal pattern was followed,
we then have to suppose that line 2 contained, after the date, renuntium coh
viiii batauorum omnes.
This would not only make this line more than twice the width of lines 1, 3 and
5, but it would also make it much broader than any other tablet in this group.
On balance we are inclined to favour the second solution, but certainty is
obviously impossible.