La dedicatoria a la Victoria de la sacerdotisa Vibia Modesta: una nueva propuesta de lectura ¿Una inscripción restituida?

UNA NUEVA PROPUESTA DE LECTURA ¿UNA INSCRIPCIÓN RESTITUIDA?

Abstract

In this paper we offer a new reading and editing proposal for the inscription from Italica promoted by the flaminica Modesta. We collect the opinions concerning this epigraph and provide new arguments in relation to the semantic meanings, context and dating of the piece, to generate new knowledge to update the debate on some of the problems that have arisen in the analysis of this stone text. Likewise, we analyze the phenomenology with which the votive act is related: the public role of the priestesses; the religion of the matronae; the aristocratic women geographical mobility; the religious orientalization of the Latin West. We also present the hypothesis according to which we consider, based on the information collected, that the inscription could be a restitution made after the original piece was affected due to the unstable ground on which the colony was based, which would explain the striking peculiarities of the text.