A Travelling Speculator (CIL III 1650). A Glimpse of the Everday life of the Principales through the Window of Roman Funerary Art

Abstract

The focus of the paper is on the travel scene depicted on the funerary stele of L. Blassius Nigellio (CIL III 1650), a speculator of legio VII Claudia, from Viminacium. Seeking to gain a more comprehensive understanding of this scene from the everyday professional life of a Roman speculator, it draws attention to an iconographic pattern shared by a group of monuments of Roman principales (speculatores, frumentarii, beneficiarii consularis), among which the scene from Viminacium holds a very important place. The speculator on the stele from Viminacium travelling in a carriage (rheda), possibly his own, apparently was on a military-related assignment the purpose of which was either to requisition supplies for the army or to exact the payment of the taxes intended for its upkeep. The paper also takes a look at the origin and social status of the Upper Moesian speculator who could afford such a costly tombstone.