The Cilicians in Singidunum: Notes on military epigraphy and topography

The lamp stamped Cilices, dating from the Severan epoch and found at Singidunum (Moesia Superior) but overlooked by modern scholars, offers interesting additional evidence on the Cilices contirones, attested by the contemporary altar IMS I, 3. Almost certainly, the two inscriptions refer to the same legionaries, the men of IIII Flavia, grouped professionally (serving as the legion's sailors?) as well as ethnically. The circumstances and the date of the recruitment of the contirones have been studied by H. Nesselhauf and, from another perspective, M.P. Speidel; the inscription of the lamp tends to sustain Professor Speidel's points of view. The archaeological context of the lamp implies its provenance from a military building where the Cilices may have had their club, and/or their sacellum. Similar ethnic clubs and their buildings are well known from military and other inscriptions. For an instructive (but neglected) Upper Moesian parallel see IMS VI, 187 ([Ch]airete, Gal│atai); cf. the Galatian Aur. Asclepiades' conveterani from leg. IIII Flavia (Speidel 1984, 50, no° 28)