L’iscrizione di Firmiteius. Note sulla prima comunità cristiana di Iulia Concordia (con appendice sul carteggio Bertolini-Mommsen)

This article examines the Latin inscription that was carved on the front of one of the sarcophagi coming from the excavation at Via San Pietro. This funerary object can be dated to the decades around the late 3rd - early 4th century AD and was set up by a father for his 18-year-old son who had died prematurely. The exact names of the two men cannot be identified with certainty, but it is likely that the onomastic elements Firmiteius and Redemptus should be considered respectively as the cognomina of the father and of the son. Comparison with the sarcophagus of P. Inpostor, which was found in the late 19th century in the same western necropolis of Iulia Concordia suggests that, at least on a hypothetical basis, all these individuals can be regarded as members of the earliest Christian community of this Roman town. The article ends with the full edition of the letters that Dario Bertolini sent to Theodor Mommsen in 1886, the year when the sarcophagus of P. Inpostor was discovered.