Divus Probus(?) in a fragmentary building(?) inscription in Latin found in Kato (Nea) Paphos, Cyprus

Abstract

The paper concerns a fragmentary Latin inscription on a broken slab of marble, found in secondary fill in the residential villa excavated by the Polish team in Nea Paphos. It is dated by the type of script to the second half of the 3rd or the first half of the 4th century AD. A review of an updated collection of Latin texts (including some bilingual inscriptions in Latin and Greek) discovered in Cyprus demonstrated that they are either directly or indirectly connected with the Roman state and Roman institutions. The juncture cum porticibus indicates that it was either a building inscription or a honorific inscription for someone, possibly Divus Probus (although the text could be supplemented with the names of other divine or divinized figures), who was involved in some kind of building activity, either by giving money for the construction or by consecrating it. The commemoration could have concerned the construction of an important administrative building (praetorium), military installation, road station etc. or a municipal structure founded by a Roman or consecrated by a Roman state official and incorporating a portico (bath, market place, theater, temple, etc.).