Aspects of identity-construction and cultural mimicry amond Dalmatian Sailors in the Roman Navy

Abstract

<jats:p>C. Ravonius Celer was a sailor of the Misene fleet from Dalmatia.</jats:p><jats:p>C. Ravonius Celer qui et Bato Scenobarbi (f.) from Naples (CIL 10.3618 = Dessau 2901):</jats:p><jats:p>D(IS) M(ANIBUS) / C(AIUS) RAVONIUS CELER QUI ET BATO SCE / NOBARBI NATION(E) DAL[M(ATA)] / MANIP(U)L(ARIS) EX (TRIREME) ISID[E MIL(ITAVIT) ANN(IS)] XI VIXIT [ANN(IS) …] / P(UBLIUS) AELIUS V[…] I VENER[(E)…]</jats:p><jats:p>This inscription from his tombstone provides important evidence about the process of construction of individual identities in the period of the early principate, for it reveals the parallel existence of Roman and indigenous identity in a funerary context, commemorating C. Ravonius Celer, who is also at the same time Bato, a son of Scenobarbus of the Dalmatian ‘nation’. This inscription records the two identities of C. Ravonius Celer/Bato, which were incorporated into his personality as an essential part of who he was, revealing both his private and public self.</jats:p>