MILESTONES FROM CAPIDAVA AND THE TERRITORIUM CAPIDAVENSE. AURELIAN’S WAR AGAINST THE CARPI INTER CARSIUM ET SUCIDAVAM IN A NEW LIGHT
MILESTONES FROM CAPIDAVA AND THE TERRITORIUM CAPIDAVENSE. AURELIAN’S WAR AGAINST THE CARPI INTER CARSIUM ET SUCIDAVAM IN A NEW LIGHT

Summary/Abstract: The article is focused on the 2nd to 4th century milestones recorded by archaeological excavations at Capidava and within a range not exceeding 15 miles, as the crow flies. Our inquiry pinpointed several finds from Dorobanțu, Seimenii Mari, Capidava and the nearby Topalu (10 pillars), set up on the occasion of the road construction works under emperors Hadrian (?), Antoninus Pius and Septimius Severus, Aurelian, by the Tetrachs and, finally, during Constantine. One should highlight the find cluster of Aurelian’s milliaria in the area Topalu – Capidava (3 out of 10 referred supra, comparable in Moesia Inferior only to the situation from around Sexaginta Prista). Considering that unusual clustering, as well as all archaeological pieces of evidence we have for now on the begining of the general reconstruction of the castellum at Capidava under Aurelian and Probus, at the end of the bellum Scythicum, one might rightly infer a local major event. To such an interpretation, a well-known building inscription (Bauinschrift, CIL III 12456 = ISM IV 88) from Durostorum honored Aurelian for bringing the city back to its former splendour (in pristinam splendorem restituta). The inscription was equally and prominently set into one wall to the memory of the war against the Carpi, somewhere inter Carsium et Sucidavam. But what if Capidava and the area around it had actually to do with those fierce battles?

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