TABULAE - AN ANCIENT WRITING MATERIAL

The Romans usually set up their legal documents on wooden tablets (tabulae). This is a special Roman type of preserving evidence which might have had some sacral roots.^[374] What did tabulae look like? Generally, one side of a thin, small wooden tablet (their usual size was approximately 10 X 15 cm) was slightly indented and covered with a wax (or shellac) coating set into the rectangular indentation.^[375] The scribe wrote with a metallic pen (called a stylus) on the waxed surface.

Meanwhile, notary practice developed two types of tabulae to avoid such tricks: the diptychon and triptychon. A diptychon consists of two tablets, a trip­tychon of three. In each type, the legally relevant text was written on the two interior wax faces, then closed by a string and sealed by witnesses. The seals must not be broken or cut unless before court.

It is astonishing that such simple wooden tablets survived a powerful vol­canic eruption and can be read today. Admittedly, the originals are mostly very damaged, full of holes and cracks. In spite of this, they deliver highly valuable sources about our topic.

There are three significant finds of writing tablets excavated in the environs of Mount Vesuvius.^[376] The first finds (counting c 153 pieces) con­sisted of tablets that belonged to a banker, well known in his day: Lucius Caecilius lucundus. They were discovered in 1875 in a Pompeian house. Most of them are receipts drawn up at auctions conducted by his banking house. Two further tablets were found in 1887 - these present the docu­ments of a certain Poppaea Note, a freed woman of Priscus.^[377] Among them are some extremely interesting pieces of evidence for a legal historian: for example, a mancipatio fiduciae causa (pledge with transfer of ownership) of two slave boys and an acknowledgement of a debt (published already in FIRA III as no.

The third significant find of tablets (in some ways the most important of them) was discovered in 1959, during the construction of a highway between Naples and Salerno, in a remote building close to Pompeii.^[379] The original stage and function of the house remains uncertain. The archaeologists found part of a peristyle and a number of rooms alongside it, with adjoining tri­clinia (dining rooms). It is very likely that the location was severely damaged in the earthquake of 62 CE. A number of objects found in the rooms show that in 79 CE, it was still under repair.^[380] In one of the triclinia lay the remains of a boat, an iron anchor, and some oars, as well as a wicker basket con­taining writing tablets.^[381] It is likely that these items had been stored there provisionally during the construction work.

It is significant that all the tablets relate to business conducted in Puteoli, not in Pompeii. They were first known as the tablets of Murecine (the name of the spot where they were found), but later became known as the Sulpicii Archive. The name relates to the family (familia) of the Sulpicii, businessmen from Puteoli who are preserved as protagonists or intermediaries in most of the documents.

This chapter deals only with the above-mentioned third group of sources, the famous Archive of the Sulpicii. The story of the conservation and publi­cation is a complicated one. The archaeological report originally mentioned almost 300 tablets, but there are only 137 items listed in the inventory of the Museum in Pompeii. The first partial readings of the tablets was made known to the world in a speedy publication by Carlo Giordano and Francesco Sbordone, though regrettably of rather poor quality.^[382] It was Giuseppe Camodeca who advanced new methods and made the greatest progress in reading and re-editing the tablets.

Let us turn to the sources. The new volume of Camodeca contains 127 tablets. Of these, ninety-five are well preserved and the rest (thirty-two tablets) are rather heavily damaged. The documents cover a period of thirty- two years: the oldest is dated 29 (or possibly 26) CE and the latest 61 CE. Although they were found in a building located close to the river port of Pompeii, they do not concern business conducted in that city. Most of them describe business transactions in the small town of Puteoli, a busy port in the bay of Naples (located 12 km from Naples and 6 km from Baiae). In the first century, Puteoli was the most important and most heavily frequented port for Rome and the whole of Italy. Ships bringing grain from Egypt mostly docked here.^[386] There is no explanation as to how and why these documents were brought into the above-mentioned villa, close to Pompeii.

We are well informed about the protagonists in these tablets. The tablets belonged, as I mentioned above, to the family of the Sulpicii: Caius Sulpicius Faustus, Cinnamus, Eutychus and Onirus. It is well known from the documents that they were freedmen or the freedmen of freedmen or - possibly - the sons of freedmen.^[387] Without doubt, all of them were deeply involved in some kind of banking - the documents report several types of commercial transactions. The phenomenon of freedmen heavily involved in industrial and commercial activities was not unusual in Rome.^[388] Some of them became very wealthy and several were moderately wealthy. Freedmen were commonly employed also as intermediaries, as business agents.^[389] On the other hand, among the clients of the Sulpicii we find tradesmen, ship­pers, freedmen, slaves and peregrines, and we are especially interested in the female ones. Whether the Sulpicii were argentarii (bankers with extended operations in every kind of financial transactions)^[390] or simply faeneratores (moneylenders) remains disputed (a question to which we shall return).^[391]

Camodeca re-edited 127 tablets in his volume. Summarising their contents, thirty-nine tabulae (41%) deal with legal procedure or arbitration, and fifty- six (59%) with legal transactions (loans, receipts, pledges, rents, money transfers). I have selected ninety-seven tablets (75%) for a larger project in progress, restricted to documents with texts complete enough to obtain a good account of the legal perspective.

4.