DiscussionBroken plaque recording restoration of statue (subject unstated) by Gudila comes. From Faventia (Flaminia et Picenum). Late fifth to early sixth century. INSCRIPTION In eight lines: [Salvo gloriosi]issimo et clementissi[mo] / [rege Theoderico], vir subl(imis) Gudila, com(es) / [ord(inis) pr(imi) et cura]tor r(ei) p(u)b(licae), hanc sta/[tuam terrae m]oto conlapsam, / (5) [statuit n]oviter super / [marmorea] vase ad ornatum / [---] Faventinae, / [ex dono propr]iae civitati[s]. ‘Our most glorious and most merciful king Theoderic being well, Gudila of sublimis rank, count of the first order (comes ordinis primi) and curator of the city (res publica), erected anew on a marble base this statue, fallen in an earthquake, for the embellishment of the ... of Faventia, out of a gift of the city itself.’ DESCRIPTION Marble panel with inscription to be attached to base. The left side is broken and lost. PROVENANCE AND CURRENT LOCATION The inscription was found set into the floor of the cathedral at Ravenna, and is now in the city’s Museo Arcivescovile. HONORAND, AWARDER AND DATE The inscription celebrates the vir sublimis, comes and curator rei publicae Gudila for having restored a statue, apparently fallen from its base during an earthquake at Faventia (nowadays Faenza). There is no doubt that Gudila is a Germanic name. Hence, to date he is the only Goth attested as a civic benefector of the traditional type. His intervention can be compared with that by Merulus, the consularis and spectabilis of Roman origin who at Catania, between the end of the 5th and the beginning of the 6th century, restored or reinstated the statues of the Pii Fratres, the guardian heroes of the city (LSA 2057). Gudila can be identified with the maior domus regiae sent to Rome by Theoderic in 502 with Arigernus and Bedeulfus to convey instructions to the bishops gathered there in connection with the Laurentiam Schism. He is perhaps also identical with the Gudila mentioned by Cassiodorus in 523/526 as wrongly claiming as his slave a former soldier in the Gothic army (Variae V, 29). Gudila’s prosopographical data indicate a late 5th – early 6th century chronology for the inscription. Perhaps, further chronological elements are offered by the Excerpta Valesiana in which the anonymous author (chapter 84) mentions among the prodigies that occurred at the end of Theoderic’s reign the appearance of “a star with a train of fire” that “shone for fifteen days”, and the fact at that time “there were frequent earthquakes” (chap. 84: Stella cum facula apparuit, quae dicitur cometes, splendes per diem quindecim. Terrae mota frequenter fuerunt). This passage has been linked to contemporary Chinese sources in which a similar astronomical phenomenon is described for February/April 501, August 507, and October 520. Main ReferenceKayoko, T., Città dell’Italia nel VI secolo d.C. Atti dell’Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. Classe di Scienze Morali, Storiche e filologiche – Memorie, Rome 2009, 92Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum; , XI, 268 Diehl, E., Inscriptiones Latinae Christianae Veteres, Berlin 1925-1967, n. 225 Discussion ReferencesAmmianus Marcellinus, J.C. Rolfe (transl.), Ammianus Marcellinus , Cambridge MA 1939, 'The Anonymous Valesianus', pp. 508-569, esp. 560-561 E. Guidoboni, 'Faventia (Faenza, prov. Ravenna) terremoto dell’inizio del VI secolo d.C. dat.ep. epoca teodoriciana', I terremoti prima del Mille in Italia e nell’area mediterranea. Storia, archeologia, sismologia, Bologna 1989, 148-9 E. Guidoboni, A. Comastri, G. Traina (eds.), Catalogue of the Ancient Earthquakes in the Mediterranean Area up to the 10th Century, Rome 1994, Martindale, J. R., The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire. Vol. II A.D. 395-527, Cambridge 1980, 521, 'Gudila' |
Last Statues of Antiquity
LSA Database
[Sleeker_special_clear]