Duenos inscription
The Duenos inscription is one of the oldest known texts in early Latin and dates back to the first half of the 6th century BC. Dated.
The inscription is on a vase ( Kernos ) that was discovered by Heinrich Dressel in 1880 on the Quirinal Hill in the Italian capital Rome . The vessel is now in the Berlin Collection of Antiquities (Inv. No. 30894,3). The inscription is named after the first word of the third line of text.
interpretation
The text is difficult to translate because there is very little space and the letters are difficult to distinguish.
Below are the three lines of text on the vase. As far as possible, the lines according to Meiser are laid out step by step. For each line will
- a. the direct copy,
- b. the direct copy with possible accents and word breaks,
- c. a possible interpretation in classical Latin and
- d. a German translation of this interpretation
listed.
Line 1:
- a. IOVESATDEIVOSQOIMEDMITATNEITEDENDOCOSMISVIRCOSIED
- b. iouesāt deiuōs qoi mēd mitāt, nei tēd endō cosmis vircō siēd
- c. Iurat deos, qui me donat, ni in te comis virgo sit
- d. Whoever gives me conjures up to the gods: if the girl should not be inclined to you,
Line 2:
- a. ASTEDNOISIOPETOITESIAIPACARIVOIS
- b. as (t) tēd noisi o (p) petoit esiāi pācā riuois
- c. at te (...) paca rivis
- d. but (...) calm down with [these] currents.
Line 3:
- a. DVENOSMEDFECEDEN MANOMEINOMDVENOINEMEDMALOSTATOD
- b. duenos mēd fēced en mānōm einom duenōi nē mēd malos tatōd
- c. bonus me fecit in manum (...); bono ne me malus clepito.
- d. A good man made me feel good (?); a bad man should not steal me from the good!
literature
- Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum I 22 No. 4.
- H. Eichner: A hero monument of the Sabines with a Trochaic epigram of a Pikean Plautus of the fifth century BC. Chr. In: Die Sprache 34, 1988–90, pp. 198–206.
- Emil Goldmann: The Duenos inscription (= Indo-European Library. Department 3: Investigations. Vol. 8). Winter, Heidelberg 1926.
- Arthur E. Gordon: Notes on the Duenos-Vase Inscription in Berlin . In: California Studies in Classical Antiquity 8, 1975, pp. 53-72.
- Henri Jordan : Old Latin inscription from Rome . In: Hermes Vol. 16, 1881, pp. 225-260 ( digitized version ).
- Gerhard Meiser: Historical phonetics and forms of the Latin language . Knowledge Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1998, p. 4.
- Brent Vine: A Note on the Duenos inscription . ( Digitized version )
Web links
Commons : Duenos inscription - collection of images
