Acceso usuarios
Ilaria Maria Marra
The TLond. 20 analysis, consisting of the address of a letter from Londi-nium, allowed the author, on a paleographic basis, to reform the reading Aug(usti) emeritus into Ave emeritus, which led to a more precise understanding of the text. For this type of document, in addition to the address of the recipient of the letters, usually reported in the scriptura exterior of the tabula, further information was also provided, such as pro-fession, paternity and residence. In TLond. 20, in addition to specifying the qualification of emeritus of the recipient, the peculiar repetition of the epithet, connected to Ave, but unusually apparently expressed in the dative (emerito) rather than the vocative emerite, seems to be related to a use of the vernacular. Finally, from a careful analysis of the find, the recess on the margins of the right side of the instrumentum scriptorium can be correlated to a closing and opening system using bronze hinges. This system appears very different from that attested for the negotiation documents, in which the seals were placed in a sulcus that glued the linen string that tied tablets I and II, while tablet III acted as a cover to protect the seals. The more expensive and elaborate hinges of the tablets reserved for the epistles, however, are explained by the need to preserve their confidential content, often of a military nature.
