The Vicarello Cups are four silver cups discovered in 1852 near the baths of ''Aquae Apollinares'', at Vicarello, Italy, near

Lake Bracciano Lake Bracciano ( it, Lago di Bracciano) is a lake of volcanic origin in the Italian region of Lazio, northwest of Rome. It is the second largest lake in the region (second only to Lake Bolsena) and one of the major lakes of Italy. It has a circu ...

. Their appearance recalls Roman milestones and they are engraved with the route from ancient Gades (modern Cadiz) to

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

History

The cups were discovered in 1852 when the existing bath complex near Vicarello was destroyed to create a more modern one. The cups were found inside a crevice in the rock from which the thermal waters issued, along with a deposit consisting of ca. 5,000

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...

coins (of

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

Etruscan __NOTOC__ Etruscan may refer to: Ancient civilization *The Etruscan language, an extinct language in ancient Italy *Something derived from or related to the Etruscan civilization **Etruscan architecture **Etruscan art **Etruscan cities ** Etrusca ...

and Roman origin, including ca. of

aes rude Aes rude Pliny the Elder: ''Naturalis Historia'', XXXIII, XIII, 43 (Latin, "rough bronze") was a nugget of bronze used as a sort of proto-currency in ancient Italy prior to the use of minted coins made from precious metals. The Italian economy of ...

), 34 vessels (3 of gold, 25 of silver, 6 of bronze) of which 12 were inscribed (including the cups themselves), and various metal objects such as plates, small statues in bronze and other materials. Most of the finds from the deposit, including the cups, are to be found in the

Museo Nazionale Romano The National Roman Museum (Italian: ''Museo Nazionale Romano'') is a museum, with several branches in separate buildings throughout the city of Rome, Italy. It shows exhibits from the pre- and early history of Rome, with a focus on archaeological ...

, while a few of the numismatic finds are in the

Vatican Museums The Vatican Museums ( it, Musei Vaticani; la, Musea Vaticana) are the public museums of the Vatican City. They display works from the immense collection amassed by the Catholic Church and the papacy throughout the centuries, including several of ...

. The collection belonged originally to the Kircher Museum, which was later incorporated into the Museo Nazionale. It is possible that many of the coins from the original discovery did not make it into the museum collection.

Description

The Votive Deposit of Vicarello (10171650146)

Dated to the 1st century AD, the cups are cylindrical in form and range in height from , and are similar in shape to Roman milestones. They are inscribed on their outside with an

itinerary Itinerary or Itineraries or Itinerarium may refer to: Travel * Itinerarium, an Ancient Roman road map in the form of a listing of cities, villages, and other stops, with the intervening distances * ''Itinerarium Burdigalense'', also known as the ...

that goes from Gades (modern Cadiz) overland to Rome, including all the 104 stopping points along the way and the distances between them, for a total of 1840

Roman miles The mile, sometimes the international mile or statute mile to distinguish it from other miles, is a British imperial unit and United States customary unit of distance; both are based on the older English unit of length equal to 5,280 English ...

().

Interpretation

The finds are believed to have been part of a votive deposit, consisting of dedications made by the sick who sought a cure at the baths, likely to the protective deity of the location,

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...

. The presence of the cups with the inscribed itinerary has raised several questions. They do not seem to have any relationship to the divinity of the location and in fact the route on the cups, which includes the

Via Flaminia The Via Flaminia or Flaminian Way was an ancient Roman road leading from Rome over the Apennine Mountains to ''Ariminum'' (Rimini) on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, and due to the ruggedness of the mountains was the major option the Romans had ...

in Italy, does not include Vicarello, instead passing dozens of kilometers to the east, through ''Narnia'' (modern

Narni Narni (in Latin, Narnia) is an ancient hilltown and ''comune'' of Umbria, in central Italy, with 19,252 inhabitants (2017). At an altitude of 240 m (787 ft), it overhangs a narrow gorge of the Nera River in the province of Terni. ...

) and ''Ocriculum'' (modern

Otricoli Otricoli is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Terni, Umbria, central Italy. It is located on the Via Flaminia, near the east bank of the Tiber, some 70 km north of Rome and 20 km south of Narni. History Anciently named Ocriculu ...

). One hypothesis is that the cups were dedicated to Apollo as a thank offering for the accomplished trip, by merchants from Gades who traveled to Rome for business. This hypothesis does not explain why these merchants would have preferred the much longer land route to the faster and likely less expensive one by sea. A second hypothesisG. Cordiano, ''Domiziano, Columella e la Stipe di Vicarello'', Annali della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, , Nº 24, 2003 is that these cups were donated by travelers from Spain to the Roman senator

Lucius Junius Caesennius Paetus Lucius Junius Caesennius Paetus (c. 45 - after 94) was a Roman senator active during the Flavian dynasty. He was suffect consul for the ''nundinium'' of March-June 79 with Publius Calvisius Ruso as his colleague. Caesennius was the son and name ...

, a relative of the emperor

Domitian Domitian (; la, Domitianus; 24 October 51 – 18 September 96) was a Roman emperor who reigned from 81 to 96. The son of Vespasian and the younger brother of Titus, his two predecessors on the throne, he was the last member of the Flavi ...

who had a villa in the town of Vicarello. These merchants would then later have dedicated the cups to Apollo.

References

Bibliography

*
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* Giuseppe Marchi, '' La stipe tributata alle divinità delle Acque Apollinari'', Roma, 1852 *

Jacques Heurgon Jacques Heurgon (25 January 1903 – 27 October 1995) was a French university, normalian, Etruscan scholar and Latinist, professor of Latin language and literature at the Sorbonne. Married to Anne Heurgon-Desjardins, founder in 1952, of the Cent ...

, ''La date des gobelets de Vicarello'', Bordeaux, Revue des Études Anciennes N.54, 1952 * Ernst Künzl, Susanna Künzl, ''Aquae Apollinares / Vicarello (Italien)'', Caesarodunum, N.26, 1992 * Lidio Gasperini, ''El tesoro de Vicarello. Un gran descubrimiento arqueológico del siglo XIX'', Madrid, Gerión Vol. 26 núm 2, 2008

Via Domitia The Via Domitia was the first Roman road built in Gaul, to link Italy and Hispania through Gallia Narbonensis, across what is now Southern France. The route that the Romans regularised and paved was ancient when they set out to survey it, and tr ...

Antonine Itinerary The Antonine Itinerary ( la, Itinerarium Antonini Augusti, "The Itinerary of the Emperor Antoninus") is a famous ''itinerarium'', a register of the stations and distances along various roads. Seemingly based on official documents, possibly ...

Peutinger Table ' (Latin for "The Peutinger Map"), also referred to as Peutinger's Tabula or Peutinger Table, is an illustrated ' (ancient Roman road map) showing the layout of the ''cursus publicus'', the road network of the Roman Empire. The map is a 13th-cen ...

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