EPIGRAPHY IN ANCIENT CATANIA

Over four hundred stone inscriptions are preserved from ancient Catania (c. 10% of the total from Sicily). Katane's Greek city was founded in 729 BC, but only a handful of inscriptions are preserved from the period prior to the Roman colony, and not before the IV century BC. This is in part a consequence of continued occupation and reconstruction of the site in all antiquity, as well as the few traces of the ancient city due to the succession of the eruptions of the Etna; But it is also a reflection of the most intense epigraphic culture of the Roman empire. The Roman colony of Catina was established by the Emperor Augusto in 21 BC. A small number of public and official texts of the imperial period have been preserved (Room II), but c. 75% of all surviving texts are funeral inscriptions, from tombs along the perimeter of the ancient city (Room III).