Ein «Gemeinschaftsgrab» für tote aus der Varusschlacht im Südlichen Hispanien? - Zur frühneuzeitlichen Uberleieferung Zweier Inschrifien und Grabepigramme

Abstract

Two Roman inscriptions are supposed to have been discovered at "Hellerena", modern Llerena in southern Spain, to which were often, but not always added epigrams. The same inscriptions are also recorded to have been found at the Lower Rhine near Castra Vetera I/Xanten. The obvious spurious inscriptions, which are only mentioned in manuscripts, are about a polyandreîon in which soldiers of the legio V and XIX were buried, who had been killed in action while defending Castra Vetera. Furthermore they tell us about bones of the dead of the same legions in the Varus-battle A.D. 9, that Germanicus ordered to be buried. The paper tries to solve the problem of the unusual tradition of the inscriptions. The arrangement of the two legions probably goes back to a certain early version of Tacitus' acute Annals.