STATIO 1

Excavated: 1912 (GdS 1912, 166 (June 3-8); NSc 1912, 278; Vaglieri).
Mosaic: SO IV, 65 nr. 83, tav. 189 (bottom).
Inscription: CIL XIV S, 4549, 1.
Date: 190-200 AD (SO IV).
Meas. of tesserae: 0.015-0.02 (SO IV).

Photos and drawings:
  • Front room and back room (dga)
  • Front room and back room (dga)
  • Front room and back room (gh)
  • Front room and back room (gh2)
  • Front room (from the south) (gh2)
  • Statio 2 + statio 1 (centre + right) (gh2)
  • Tabula ansata (bottom) (SO IV)
  • Tabula ansata (bt)

    • Mosaic

    General description

    The floor of the back room has not been preserved. Most of the east part of the front room is covered by a white mosaic. The floor of the west part of the room is mostly lost. The preserved part is dominated by a large tabula ansata. The tabula and the ansae have a white background surrounded by a black border, 2, 3 and 4 tesserae wide. The borders of the left ansa are a bit wider than that of the right one. The tabula is not in the centre of the room, but moved slightly to the south. The model in the Museo della Civiltà Romana has wide black borders in the front room, on the south and west side.

    In antiquity the south and north-east part of the mosaic were restored in an irregular way, both with black tesserae with a few white speckles, and by alternating black and white tesserae with a checkerboard pattern. In the north-west corner of the room is a patch of black tesserae on a white background, and a patch of alternating black and white tesserae.

    Text

    In the tabula three lines of text can today be seen:

    [4]LODIVSPRIMIGENIVS
    [4]AVDIVSCRESCENSQQ
    STVPPATORES.RES[5]

    The height of the lines is 0.125, 0.125 and 0.24. The beginning of lines 1 and 2 is lost and is filled with black tesserae with a few white speckles. However, on Calza 1931, fig. 22 only modern cement seems visible. There is space for four positions. There is a dot between the second S and second R in line 3, separating the double RES. The last part of the third line is also lost. It is filled with modern cement and has room for five positions. Vaglieri saw an S at the end of line 3 - which Wickert did not -, leading to RES[4]S.

    In the first two lines we read the names of two men who were quinquennales. The praenomina are lost. The gentilicia are supplemented by Vaglieri as Clodius and Claudius. Similarity in professions (related to flax) led Vaglieri to reading restiones in line 3. For this there may just be enough space.

    Suggested reading:

    [3 C]LODIVS PRIMIGENIVS
    [2 CL]AVDIVS CRESCENS Q(uin)Q(uennales)
    STVPPATORES RES[TIONE]S

    Depictions

    No depictions have been preserved.

    Masonry

    The back room has a rear wall of opus latericium with remains of plaster, and side walls of opus vittatum: simplex on the north side (four layers preserved) and mixtum B on the south side. The side walls were set against the plaster on the back wall. There seem to be two large depressions in the lower part of the back wall.

    Interpretation

    We are dealing with the use of the crop flax (linum). Lewis and Short translate stuppa as "the coarse part of flax", "tow", "oakum" (the fibers of flax). They translate restio (derived from restis) as "ropemaker", "rope-seller". The fibers of flax could be used for caulking and for making lamp-wicks, torches, ropes, and sails.

    This is the only statio in which the names are mentioned of the individuals who were responsible for the design of the statio. They are presidents (quinquennales) of a local guild (so it was not the city council (ordo decurionum) that was responsible for the mosaic). It is noteworthy that, with this exception, the mosaics do not mention proper names, or functions in guilds or organizations.

    When the statio was found, in 1912, stuppatores were already known in the harbours, through inscriptions published in the CIL. More inscriptions referring to them were found afterwards.

  • An inscription found in Portus (CIL XIV, 44) is a dedication to Minerva Augusta, protector of the corpus stuppatorum, by four members of the guild. Two of the dedicants are father and son Marcus Iulius Carpus, patronus and corporatus. The name Iulius Carpus also occurs in an album of the corpus fabrum navalium (CIL XIV, 256; found in Portus).
  • Part of another album (CIL XIV, 257; from Ostia or Portus) may be of the stuppatores: we read CORPVS ST[VPPATORVM], the upper part of the T not being preserved.
  • An inscription found in Rome (but originally from Ostia?) apparently mentions a man who is patronus of both the codicarii and the stuppatores (CIL VI, 1649).
  • From the Basilica Cristiana di Pianabella comes [----CORPVS ST]VPPAT[ORVM---] (AE 2001, 636).
  • A funerary inscription found to the west of the Horrea dell'Artemide (V,XI,8) has CORP(orum) LENVNC(ulariorum) T]RAIECT(us) LVCVLLI ET STV[PPATORVM Q(uin)Q(uennalis)] PERPETV(u)S (AE 1987, 196).
  • On Via del Tempio Rotondo an architrave was found with the text [---]RIVS FRVCTOSUS PATRON(us) CORP(oris) S[TVPPATORVM---TE]MPL(um) ET SPEL(aeum) MIT(hrae) A SOLO SVA PEC(unia) FECI(t) (Bloch 1953, 244-245 no. 9). The name Fructosus also occurs in album CIL XIV, 257, mentioned above. This inscription has been related to the Mitreo di Fructosus, which was constructed in a guild seat (I,X,4), apparently that of the stuppatores. According to Hermansen adjoining commercial premises were an officina stuppatoria (I,X,3).[1]
  • The restiones are not mentioned in the Ostian inscriptions. A collegium restionum is mentioned in a funerary inscription from Rome (CIL VI, 9856).

    • We should note that the guild of the stuppatores had the status of corpus, which means that it performed duties in the public interest. It does not come as a surprise that the inscriptions also mention the guilds of the fabri navales, codicarii and lenuncularii, other local guilds related to shipping.

    Dessau says, in the CIL, that the nature of the profession of the stuppatores is "obvious". He rejects Lanciani's suggestion that they were caulkers, who sealed the seams or joints of the planks of ships with the fibers of flax and pitch, as being "artificial". Still, Lanciani's solution is usually accepted. Ropes were used extensively in the harbours, for cranes, as part of the rigging of ships, for mooring, and for attaching animals or slaves to tow boats. The ships could also carry thick cables for undergirding the hull of the ship in case of an emergency.[2] The production of sails is probably to be added: flax is an ideal raw material for making sails.

    Usually the text in statio 1 is interpreted as a joint venture between two professions, with the stuppatores as producers of the fibers (tow, in Latin: stuppa) from flax (in Latin: linum), but also as caulkers, and the restiones as ropemakers. However, the absence of the word et might indicate that restiones is a mere specification of stuppatores.

    It should be noted that the missing lower right part has a rectangular shape and was not filled in by an ancient restoration. This may also be true for the upper left part, if Calza's photo is not deceiving us. Perhaps the gaps had been filled with marble slabs (cf. statio 12).

    There is another reference to the stuppatores restiones in statio 58.

    (1) Hermansen 1982.
    (2) Casson 1971, 211.