Excavated: 1914 (GdS 1914, 60 (March 2-7); NSc 1914, 99-100; Pasqui).
Mosaic: SO IV, 72-73 nr. 102, tav. 178 (top).
Inscription: CIL XIV S, 4549 nr. 21.
Date: 190-200 AD (SO IV); 200-210 AD (Clarke).
Meas. of tesserae: 0.015-0.02 (SO IV).
Mosaic
General descriptionThe floor of the back room preserves many patches of white tesserae, but is mostly lost. The floor of the front room is virtually complete, with the exception of the west end, and of the north and south edges, where restorations with black and white tesserae can be seen. A black band of four tesserae creates a large panel (3.50 x 4.00).In the panel are two lines of text and a ship flanked by two grain measures. In the north-east corner are small parts of parallel bands, running north-south.
TextIn the east part of the panel is a tabula ansata (2.77 x 0.63) with two lines of text (h. of letters 0.27 and 0.22). We read:
NAVICVL.ETNEGOTIANTES
(leaf)KARALITANI.
There is a dot after NAVICVL. To the left of KARALITANI is a leaf, to the right a dot.
Suggested reading:
NAVICVL(ari) ET NEGOTIANTES
KARALITANI
Depictions
Several details of the ship are recorded well on photos from the 1920's and 1930's before later restorations. A few horizontal lines indicate the sea.
Becatti
Grain measures. Moggi cilindrici su tre pieducci senza anse, con fasciature bianche.
Ship. Una nave del tipo detto ponto, con rostro, con aplustre a voluta, alta poppa ricurva con cassero e transenna; si vedono le barre di comando dei due timoni poppieri. L'albero maestro ha l'acato, fissato in basso dalla scotta, appeso al pennone retto dai sospensorî. L'acato è reso con il reticolato delle bende, dei ferzi e degli imbrogli. Sotto l'acato teso, si vedono le sartie che fissano l'albero ai fianchi della nave. A prua è l'albero minore di bompresso, con il dolone quadrato, fissato in basso dalle scotte. A poppa della ruota sporge l'ansercolo dal batolo o reiectus.
Masonry
The back room has a rear wall of opus reticulatum. It has a south and north wall of opus vittatum: simplex on the north (four layers preserved) and mixtum B on the south. The south wall was erected inside statio 20. On a photo taken in 1931 (DAI, 1289_B05) a wall can be seen supporting the columns on the west end of the front room.
Interpretation
We are dealing with Caralis, modern Cagliari on the south coast of Sardinia. The Roman historian Florus (ca. 74-130 AD; Epitome XXII,35) calls it the urbs urbium: it was the capital of the province Sardinia et Corsica.
The two grain measures indicate that grain was exported, and we know that Sardinia was an important grain supplier of Rome.[1] Apart from stationes 15 and 16 (special cases) this is the only statio where negotiantes are mentioned. The reason for this must be that a distinction had to be made between Caralis and Turris Libisonis in statio 19: the two ports had their own navicularii, but presumably the same traders were active in both cities, possibly on the whole of Sardinia and Corsica, and based in Caralis.
The domini navium (ship owners) from Sardinia joined forces with the ship owners of Africa Proconsularis (see statio 12) at an unknown point in time.[2] This cooperation, possibly in a single corpus, is reflected by the presence of Sardinian navicularii amongst the African navicularii on the east side of the square.
(1) Rowland 1994.
(2) See also Mastino 2005, 216-230; Mastino - Zucca - Gasperetti 2014.