Traditionally, a Roman slave wore a collar around his neck identifying him as a slave and who owned him.
I believe this collar was found in the excavations at Pompeii but I haven't been able to verify if this is accurate.
Today, we continue this tradition by placing collars and ownership tags around the necks of our domestic animals.
Photo and text supplied by me.
This famous slave collar, a heavy iron collar with a bronze tag with an inscription, is known as the “ZONINUS COLLAR ” from the name of the master of slaves inscribed on the tag.
ReplyDeleteFrom ancient Rome remain about 50 iron slave collars, rather similar one to the other and with similar inscription, that were found in various locations.
Keeping in mind that these metallic slave-collars are the only ones that had the possibility to survive to millenia, compared to other slave-collars made with more perishable materials like leather, 50 remaining collars is a rather high number that indicates how common and wide-spread was in Rome the habit of tightening the neck of slaves with collars, like for dogs.
The Zoninus Collar is today displayed in Rome, in the Roman Museum of the Terme of Diocleziano.
The tag, similarly to the tags of all the other slave-collars, has the following inscription:
FVGITENEME
CVMREVOCV
VERISMEˇDMˇ ZONINOACCIPIS
SOLIDVM ⸙
Once Expanded and punctuated, this inscription reads
“FUGI, TENE ME. CUM REVOC(A)VERIS ME D(OMINO) M(EO) ZONINO, ACCIPIS SOLIDUM”
that means:
“I HAVE RUN AWAY; HOLD ME.
WHEN YOU HAVE BROUGHT ME BACK TO MY MASTER ZONINUS,
YOUWILL RECEIVE A GOLD COIN”.
Actually it is unknown where it was found and even its precise date.
The fact that a gold coin is called “SOLIDUM” instead of the classical word “AUREUM” made archeologists to date it at the 4th century because the SOLIDUS as the main Roman gold coin, in the place of the ancient AUREUS, was introduced by Emperor Diocletian in 301 AD.
However the colloquial use of the word “SOLIDUS” for meaning a gold coin is known from much ancient times, at least from the 1st century AD.
Therefore the date of this collar remains uncertain.
Also the place of finding is uncertain.
Many think of the city of Rome itself; others of Pompeii, others of other Roman cities in Italy.
As well illustrated in an excellent article dedicated to the Zoninus Collar (see American Journal of Archaeology, Volume 120, 3 – June 2016), the first information about this collar is its presence in 1749 in the antiquarian collection of the nobleman Francesco Scipione Maffei living in the city of Verona.
The fact that this collar was in Verona however doesn’t mean that necessarily the collar was found in that city or in other cities of Northern Italy.
In fact Maffei had lived for many years in Rome and in Central and Sothern Italy; and so the collar might really come or from excavations in the city of Rome or from the excavations in Pompeii that by the way had officially started just in the year before, 1748.
K.