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1. Inscription of Domitius. Victor Duruy, Histoire des Romains depuis les temps les plus reculs jusqu linvasion des Barbares,
vol. 2 De le Bataille de Zama au Premier Triumvirat (Paris: Hachette, 1880), 478.
33
Future Anterior
Volume IX, Number 2
Winter 2012
The convincingly exact reproduction of the Inscription of
Domitius the cracks, ssures, and abrasions of the frag-
mentary stele more legible than the letters cut into its stone
surface appears in the second of the seven volumes of
Victor Duruys lavishly illustrated Histoire des Romains (1880)
(Figure1). According to Duruys account of the creation of
Trans alpine Gaul, until the second century BCE the Romans had
hardly cast an eye upon the unknown world that stretched
beyond the Alps, as if they vaguely sensed that, in the dark-
ness of its impenetrable forests, some formidable danger lay
hidden.
1
Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus (consul 122) was
among the consular commanders sent by the Senate to subdue
the valley of the Rhne, victoriously battling the Allobroges
at Vindalium in 121 BCE. The following year, Quintus Fabius
Maximus (consul 121) decisively vanquished the Allobroges
and captured their ally Bituitus, king of the Averni, for which
he received the agnomen Allobrogicus. To commemorate his
victory, Fabius erected temples to Mars and Hercules, and
placed a trophy of Gallic arms upon a stone tower. The temple
and trophy have disappeared, Duruy wrote, but there remained
a more modest monument dedicated by Domitius to Hercules
in recognition of his victories over the Iconii, Tricorii, and other
peoples in the Dauphin. The inscriptions signicance was
signal and singular it was the rst written by the Romans in
Gaul. It has only just been found again, Duruy wrote, having
been discovered by chance.
2
Here, then, was the inaugural document in what
Alexandre Bertrand, founding director of the Muse des
Antiquits Nationales de Saint- Germain- en- Laye, referred to as
an archive of stone. This museum without walls, consisting
of epigraphic monuments that were often attached to walls,
provided scientic information about a time and place that
otherwise would have remained completely unknown.
3
As
an inaugural document, however, the Inscription of Domitius
did not bode well. As it was promised to the Muse by the
humble investigator who had discovered it, Bertrand and
his colleagues anxiously awaited the spring thaw that would
permit its recovery from its resting place on Mont Tournairet,
Edward Eigen
Not Necessarily Written in Stone
On the Alpine, Epigraphic Misadventures
of Edm. Blanc, Th. Mommsen, and the
Inscription of Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus
34
near the village of Clanz.
4
But the inscription was destined to
remain where it had always been, in a position more precari-
ous than its perch in an alpine peak: with an asterisk next to
it, the typographic sign attached to inscriptions judged falsae
et suspectae. Not knowing to look for it, Duruy failed to see the
design beneath the stones abraded surface. In an extremely
laconic footnote to his Cours lmentaire dpigraphie Latine
(1886) Ren Cagnat alluded to the Inscription of Domitius as
an unfortunate example of the scientic mania that drives
the most honest of men in ordinary life to commit epigraphic
dishonesties.
5
Epigraphic texts are scattered facts, fragments of the
historical truth, wrote the French- Jewish classical archaeolo-
gist Salomon Reinach.
6
Yet, by practical denition, epigraphy
is a science of corpora, painstakingly complied collections of
lapidary documents on which history is written (or, more
precisely, upon the evidence of which history is made). The
historical truth, like so many broken inscriptions, comprises
a totality denied by history itself, the work of erasure done by
the careless or deliberate injuries of time. Epigraphy restores
what is missing, or lost upon unskilled readers, or rendered
obscure by inaccurate copies or faultily produced estampages
(relief impressions). Stated more succinctly, epigraphy is
the set of laws that preside over the reading of inscriptions.
7

It is the science of interpreting what is imperfectly legible or
perfectly illegible. Its rules were articulated in works such as
Reinachs Manuel de Philologie Classique (1880) and Cagnats
Cours dpigraphie Latine (1889). Cagnat draws extensively
on precedent: the restoration projects of his teacher Lon
Renier, who held the inaugural chair in pigraphie et Antiquits
Romaines at the Collge de France. Cagnat cites as exemplary
Reniers analysis of the Inscription of Nettuno, rst collected
and published by Gaetano Marini.
8
When strictly observed
and applied, Cagnat believed, the laws of epigraphy would
yield not merely plausible suppositions but also readings
that possessed a degree of mathematical precision.
9
To the
unassuming eye of the prudent and self- critical epigrapher,
the lacunae that riddled these mutilated inscriptions were
self- supplementing.
The ambition of epigraphy was to preserve facts and with
them historical truths. The material bearers of meaning
lapidary documents attached to monuments that were them-
selves often ruined or lost had none of the permanence
of mathematical relations. The most fundamental fact to be
discerned, of which the inscription itself was the fragmen-
tary evidence, was the person, corporation, proclamation, or
commemoration in the name of which the message had been
35
set in stone and thus willed into permanence. Contrary to the
expectations incised into this obdurately solid medium of
transmission, inscriptions engendered the need for a reader
to meet the eventual (if not inevitable) task of preserving their
meaning. Once this unintended obligation had been met by the
jealous custodians of posterity, another type of work began.
Itbelongs to the historian, Reinach writes, to assign [epi-
graphic texts] a useful place in the edice of the past which he
is reconstructing.
10
The compiler of numerous ambitious corpora in his role
as the conservator of the cole du Louvre and the Muse des
Antiquits Nationales de Saint- Germain- en- Laye, Reinach
under stood another inevitability: every repertory, every corpus
contains supplements.
11
There was always new evidence to be
integrated, new readings to be considered, and these occa-
sionally arrived from the most unexpected sources. Such was
the case with the inscription discovered by Blanc. And while
Blanc was eager to establish his claim and make a name for
himself, the origin of the epigraphic corpora is an anonymous
one. In 1683, the Maurist scholar Jean Mabillon discovered
a tenth- century manuscript containing a collection of Roman
inscriptions in the abbey of Einsiedeln, Switzerland. It has
been attributed ever since to the copyist known as Anonymous
of Einsiedeln.
12
The work of the forger, which Blanc eventu-
ally proved to be, produces its own form of anonymity. It wills
the traces of unscrupulous authorship into instantaneous
impermanence.
Contrary to the presumed nature of the medium, the
forged inscription is paradoxically an act of self- promotion
and self- efacement. The forger erects a (lasting) monument
to his mastery of the laws governing epigraphy by attending to
the misattribution of his own work. The motive is perhaps not
difcult to detect, even if the urges and desires that underlie
it are complex and inscrutable. Blanc left a clue, for anyone
who cared to read it, in his own stated method of interpreta-
tion. I am of the opinion that when an immutable monument
such as an inscription comes into our hands, former errors
of interpretation, however accredited they might be, must be
abandoned if they are contracted by the monument. I even
believe that history must sooner be corrected according to
the account provided by the inscription, rather reading of an
inscription according to the accounts of history.
13
In the case
of the inscription of Ahenobarbus, there was no original in
need of moral defense. The work of preservation to be exam-
ined here consisted not in collecting and consolidating that
which is scattered and broken. Rather, it consisted in restor-
ing to evidence the skillfully masked discrepancy between
36
monument and document, history and its sources. A lacuna
needs to be restored within the corpus itself where a hoped- for
and dubiously delivered lapidary monument failed the ordeal
of criticism.
The discovery of the Inscription of Domitius by Edmond
Blanc, municipal librarian of the city of Nice and correspondant
of the Commission de la Topographie des Gaules, was rst
widely publicized in 1879. On April 17, 1879, Blanc delivered a
paper to the annual meeting of the provincial socits savants,
held at the Sorbonne. In his compte- rendu of the proceedings,
Anatole Chabouillet, keeper of the Cabinet des mdailles et
antiques at the Bibliothque Nationale, praised Blanc as a
conscientious and sagacious scholar, who was honorably
known for his passion for national archaeology.
14
Blancs
lecture was excerpted from the extensive ndings he had
begun to publish in the Annales de la Socit des Lettres, Sci-
ences, et Arts des Alpes- Maritimes.
15
Yet this mere fragment,
Chabouillet wrote, eloquently and pointedly demonstrated that
the anticipated volume of the Corpus inscriptionum latinarum
(CIL) covering Blancs department did not relieve Frances
researchers of the need and obligation of publishing its own
epigraphic riches.
For Renier in particular, the publication of such a corpus
under the auspices of the Berlin- Brandenburgische Akademie
der Wissenschaften, edited by the scientic triumvirate of
Theodor Mommsen, Wilhelm Henzen, and Giovanni Battista
de Rossi, represented a regrettable capitulation.
16
Blancs dis-
covery provided compelling evidence that despite the multiple
visits made by Mommsen and his eminent collaborators, and
the vigor and sagacity they brought to their colossal work,
they could not possibly give proper attention to each and
every monument. As a result, they will omit some, inexactly
describe others, and perhaps even misjudge the authentic-
ity of epigraphic texts the importance of which aroused their
suspicion.
17
The editors knew this, and periodically published
the Ephemeris epigraphica, which described newly discovered
inscriptions and corrected errors that had been pointed out
to them. The Inscription of Domitius was one such correction
in the making. As Chabouillet pointed out, it was not a newly
unearthed text; it was rst published in Jacopo Durandis
Il Piemonte Cispadano Antico (1774), and had been cited by
numerous other scholars thereafter. For Mommsen, however,
Durandis authority was the worst imaginable,
18
which is
but one of the reasons that the inscription was condemned
in the CIL (vol. 5, pt. 2, p. 90, no. 1017*), and executed sans
phrase.
19
So much for the principle of tout sexplique.
Durandi claimed he had found the text among notes left
by the Nioise historian Pietro Giofredo for a supplement to
37
his Storia delle Alpi Marittime (written around 1690).
20
No one
knew what had become of the Giofredo text, which had yet to
be recovered. Still further, no one knew what had become of
the original (the stone monument), which Giofredo alone
claimed to have seen.
21
The text of the monument contained
nothing to arouse suspicion, Chabouillet wrote, but he allowed
that there were reasons to doubt its authenticity. If nothing
else, its great importance as the rst inscription written in Gaul
was exactly the kind of rarity to excite the eforts of forgers. But
the inscriptions authenticity was nally demonstrated by the
most decisive kind of argument. Blanc had recovered it! On
one of the least- visited summits of the Alps, Blanc discovered
the stone upon which this historical monument was engraved
two thousand years ago.
22
As reported in the Journal Ofciel,
the stones resurrection was an archaeological and historical
event in its own right. It was a clear scientic victory, proving
that even the great critic Mommsen was mistaken.
23
It was a
victory for France, won by one of its provincial savants against
the standard- bearer of Prussian scholarship.
But there was reason for concern. The linguist Antoine
Landre Sardou, a member of the Socit des Lettres, Sci-
ences et Arts des Alpes- Maritimes, was the rst to read the
signs. Along with Franois Brun, Sardou called for a general
verication of the inscriptions in the region of Vence col-
lected by Auguste Carlone in Vestiges pigraphiques de la
domination grco- massaliot et de la domination romaine
dans les Alpes- Maritimes (1868) and somewhat more reliably
in Jules Ren Bourguignats Inscriptions romaines de Vence
(1869) (Figure2).
24
As it happens, it was Blanc who took up
the charge with his pigraphie antique du dpartement des
Alpes- Maritimes (1874). In its geographical introduction,
Blanc dismissed Sardous opinions regarding the location of
the Oxybian town of Aegitna.
25
Sardou admitted that his etymo-
logical reasoning was inconclusive, but it was his honorable
colleagues biting sarcasm that demanded a reply. Witticisms
rarely make for good reasoning, Sardou retorted, and some-
times lead the mind to stray in a strange fashion. How Blanc
had strayed is the question now to be addressed. For there
were in fact numerous signs: things were out of place, a den-
ing symptom of that suspicious class of inscriptions labeled
alienae.
As the narrative of Blancs discovery began to unravel,
Robert Mowat, an authority in toponymy, recognized a clear
warning of what lay ahead. Commissioned in 1876 to undertake
an archaeological tour of his department, Blanc published
Remarques sur quelques textes Gallo- Romains des Alpes-
Maritimes qui portent des noms gographiques (1878),
which included among its three hundred epigraphic texts four
38
votive inscriptions mentioning previously unknown topical
divinities.
26
Upon further investigation, Mowat declared the
inscriptions to be false. By all accounts a tireless and intrepid
researcher, Blanc had made his way to a large forest of pine
and ancient beech trees on the north slope of Mont Cheiron,
two hours on foot from the village of Roquesteron. Despite the
complete absence of paths, he had twice before penetrated
these woods in desultory pursuit of the indecipherable
inscriptions mentioned by the local inhabitants. Finally, he met
a herder who gave him very precise indications of where they
were to be found. In a clearing located at the base of a clif,
beside a source whose waters covered the surrounding tufa,
he noticed a rough stone on which, despite the heavy growth
of lichens of moss, he recognized the trace of several letters.
Cleaning the stone with a bristle brush, Blanc uncovered the
inscription and made two good estampages.
Blanc interprets the somewhat rough but perfectly
readable text as follows: Fago Deo, Caius Secvndvs, Caii
livs Paternvs ex Pago Staroni, vico Velacio [Velostino], gravi
inrmitate liberatus, Votum Solvit Libens Merito (Figure 3). The
question was to identify the toponyms corresponding to the
sigla Star (Staro, in which he saw the root for Roque- Esteron)
and Vela (Velacie or Velostine, two settlements near Roque-
Esteron). The inscription seems to mark the site of a pagus or
burg that had a number of vici, villages or hamlets. Blanc did
not believe that the Gallo- Romans worshipped the beech (Latin
fagus) but rather that they valued the restorative properties of
its leaves. Based on the inscriptions text, one Caius Secundus
had come to this place where beech trees abounded to erect a
monument to the benecent deity who had healed him.
27
But
what was the god Fagus doing in these woods?
That was the question posed by Auguste Allmer. In the
Revue pigraphique, of which he was the founding editor,
Allmer asked whether this deity who heals the inrm was
indeed the tutelary genie of the region where this rustic altar
was found.
28
As Blanc himself acknowledged, a Celtic god of
the same name was already known from votive inscriptions
2. Inscription of Domitius.Auguste
Carlone, Vestiges pigraphiques de la
Domination Grco-Massaliot et de la
Domination Romaine dans les Alpes-
Maritimes (Caen: F. Le Blan-Hardel,
1868), 124.
39
found in the Hautes- Pyrnes (Figure 4). Louis de Fiancette,
baron dAgos, who assembled a collection of antiquities in
his chateau near Saint- Bertrand- de- Comminges, wrote that
the beech had been divinized and worshipped in this region.
It is not surprising, he writes, that the pantheistic ances-
tors of these mountain valleys, once covered in thick woods,
would have consecrated the place to a divinity who chose his
domicile among dark dismal forests.
29
Not by chance, Blanc
discovered his inscription in a clearing. Having been consulted
by Allmer, Mowat wrote that the Fagus of the Alpes- Maritimes
appeared to have been placed in an irregular situation, and to
have lost his certicate of authenticity in leaving the Hautes-
Pyrnes. To Allmers eyes, the inscription at Roquesteron
appears suspicious precisely because of its conspicuous legi-
bility: far too much local information!!
30
Blanc discovered another inscription near Roquesteron
that served to conrm the preceding one. Cut into the wall of
rock, Bibe mvltos annos bibas (Drink that you may drink for
many years to come) provided Blanc with further evidence that
the waters possessed curative properties. To Allmer, it stood
to reason that the two inscriptions were written by the same
modern hand.
31
Lon Maxe- Werly detected a tainted source.
In his study of Bacchic inscriptions, he describes a glass cup
3. Inscription referring to pagus Star
at Roque-Esteron. Auguste Allmer,
Inscriptions de Vence dans le
dpartement des Alpes-Maritimes,
Revue pigraphique du Midi de
la France 1 (NovemberDecember
1878):76.
40
found near Cologne with the legend Bibe mvltis annis, which
led him to observe that the inscription published by Allmer
(with severe reservations about its authenticity) only ever
existed in Blancs imagination.
32
It was writers like Maxe- Werly
who veried the certicate of authenticity of monuments and
documents belonging to his native country. In his collection of
inscriptions in the pagi Barrensis, Bedensis, Ornensis, which
corresponds to the modern arrondissement of Commercy, he
conscientiously discussed the erroneous interpretations of his
predecessors, indicating suspect monuments and inscrip-
tions that cannot be located which seem to have been invented
in the sixteenth and seventeenth century by archaeologists
occupied with the Lorraine.
33
Such inventions were particu-
larly attractive when they possessed local interest. Maxe-
Werly dedicated a section to Monuments Faux ou Douteux,
in which, as Charles Robert writes, he dissects numerous
spuriae accepted by the best epigraphists, and shows how
they are often composed of scraps taken from authentic
inscriptions.
34
The signs were everywhere, or rather anywhere monu-
ments had reportedly been discovered but could no longer
be found. The question for Mowat was why his warnings were
not heeded when Blanc, the false herald of Fagus, reported
the recovery of a monument as signicant as the Inscription of
Domitius. Duruy, for one, was willing to set aside Mommsens
skepticism in favor of the possibility they might have come
across the truth of the matter by chance. Then there was
the question of Blancs motivation. Allmer speculated that the
considerable praise Blanc received for his legitimate research
4. Altar with cornice dedicated to
the god Fagus, La Croix de lOraison
(Hautes-Pyrnes), from the collection
of Baron dAgos. Julien Sacaze,
Inscriptions Antiques des Pyrnes
(Toulouse: douard Privat, 1892), 188.
41
early in his career had emboldened him, perverted him even,
forcing him to proceed, whether he liked it or not, along the
path to perdition which his imprudence and lack of probity
doomed him.
35
Here is Mommsens condemnation foretold.
Having adulterated one inscription, recomposing scraps from
authentic examples, how far of a step was it to fabricate one
from scratch? But Blancs path seems to have been somewhat
more complicated than that; he was indeed perverse.
In a report, Franois Brun, the delegate of the Socit
des Lettres, Sciences, et Arts des Alpes- Maritimes to the 1880
reunion of socits savantes, spoke of the enduring renown
Blanc had won for himself and for the Socit. For Brun, what
Blanc had so compellingly conveyed to his peers (and to
the dauntingly remote academic elites who dwelled on the
anks of Mont Sainte- Genevive) was his sufering and toil,
the odyssey that led him to the summit of Tournairet and to
his presentation at the Sorbonne.
36
For there are in fact two
Edmond Blancs: the respectable librarian, and the man who
resigned from his post at the library in 1883 and hastily quit
his native country, efectively becoming an Odyssean no
man. In his review of pigraphie antique du dpartement
des Alpes- Maritimes, Henry Thdenat, a student of Roman
forums, succinctly enumerates Blancs aws. Place names are
of the utmost importance in epigraphy, he writes, and for Blanc
they are the occasion for innumerable errors. His readings
and restorations are often unfortunate, his declensions and
conjugations inconsistent. Throughout, his work lacks cer-
tainty, precision, and an exacting well- informed science. None
of this, however, prevented Thdenat from appreciating why
the Acadmie des Inscriptions et Belles- Lettres honored Blanc
by mentioning this work at its 1880 annual meeting. Thdenat,
author of Une Carrire Universitaire, a portrait of Jean- Flix
Nourrisson, the scholar of Saint Augustine, who, like his
revered subject, was entirely devoted to the cult of truth, was
willing to forgive Blanc his faults.
37
He reasoned that the Acad-
mie had clearly wished to recognize Blancs trying exertions
in researching and safeguarding epigraphic monuments. If
it was this zealous man, the indefatigable researcher, whom
the Acadmie wished to reward, then never was a distinction
better merited, he wrote.
38
Blanc appears to have set a trap with entry no. 348* of his
pigraphie antique du dpartement des Alpes- Maritimes.
39

First recorded by Durandi, Blanc indicated that the text had
been fabricated by Giuseppe Francesco Meyranesio, a parish
priest in the town of Sambuco (Piedmont) and a noted forger.
In his Vita of Dalmazzo Berardenco (b. 1414), Meyranesio
recounts having discovered a four- hundred- page manuscript
of inscriptions collected by the learned Piedmontese scholar.
40

42
For Giovanni Battista de Rossi, it was impossible to overstate
the value of such a volume: it would have been among the
rst documents in the history of the study of epigraphy
in Italy, which began with the exploits of the enterprising
antiquarian Cyriacus of Ancona (13911455).
41
But Rossi was
under no illusions. The fact that no one other than Meyrane-
sio had ever seen Berardencos collection was, for scholars
like Giovanni F. Muratori, among the most conspicuous clues
that it was a counterfeit.
42
In his relentless investigation,
Muratori showed that Berardenco himself was Meyranesios
most intricate fabrication. Where Meyranesio does prove to
be a reliable source is in reporting that he shared many of his
fabricated inscriptions with Durandi. In establishing the falsity
of Meyranesios output, Mommsen had rendered an immense
service to the science, Blanc himself allowed.
43
But it was
Mommsen for whom Blancs trap was set. Charles Robert wrote
despairingly that the fabricators of false inscriptions stop at
nothing to assure the products of their industry a legitimate
place in the world of science.
44
With the minute work of criti-
cism operating on a quasi- industrial scale, errors were bound
to occur; an overlooked clue was likely to fall between the
cracks.
The next entry in Blancs collection, no. 349, was indeed
Herculi sacrum. Cn Domit.... According to Chabouillet,
although Mommsen was not the only critic to nd serious aws
in its Latin, there was nothing on the surface of things to render
the Inscription of Domitius suspect. What was suspicious was
its source. Durandi indicated that he had found it among the
papers of Giofredo, who was himself one of Meyranesios main
clients. Blanc admits that Giofredos papers had not been lo-
cated in the Biblioteca reale di Torino, but he still asks whether
Mommsen was correct in rejecting the inscription on that basis
alone. Durandi, who became Meyranesios publisher, also
became his accomplice by declaring to have seen texts which
were notoriously false and never existed. It is therefore cer-
tain, Blanc concludes, that any reasonable author, not having
located the original inscription (i.e., the stone) and having only
the copy furnished by Durandi, could only conclude that the in-
scription was false. And this is certainly what Blanc would have
done, had he had not located the original in a place where it
was impossible to believe it falsied.
45
Blancs strategy of carefully managing expectations by
keeping things in their (im)proper and inaccessible place can
be discerned in an introductory note to the second install-
ment of the pigraphie antique du dpartement des Alpes-
Maritimes. In the months since the publication of the rst
installment, Mommsens Inscriptiones Galliae Cisalpinae
Latinae (vol. V, pt. 2 of CIL) had appeared. To undertake an
43
identical work, Blanc reasoned, might seem completely
useless or singularly pretentious. His own work would either
be received as a servile copy of Mommsens, or would ap-
pear presumptuous in correcting the readings of the savant
epigraphist. Fortunately, there was room to maneuver.
Mommsens scholarship was irreproachable when and where
he was able to verify the monuments himself. In these
cases, there remained little to do. But in the majority of cases,
Mommsen could ofer only hypothetical renderings based on
poor readings; he was not able to indicate in a precise man-
ner what had become of the original monuments, so that the
reader never knows if the monument exists, or whether it was
broken, misplaced, etc.
46
With his intimate knowledge of the
region, Blanc set his sights on inscriptions that had not yet
been located. Mommsen, he writes, had not scoured the region
in search of new monuments which had until then eluded all
other epigraphists. The humble but ambitious librarian from
Nice was not setting himself up as a corrector of the Corpus,
but rather as a gleaner working in a eld after the rich har-
vest of the masters.
47
Numerous epigraphic states of being between lost and
found, original and copy, authentic and false are latent
in Mommsens broken, misplaced, etc. Examples are to
be found in the inscriptions immediately following Blancs
fortunate discovery at Clanz. While only some were marked for
critical rejection (indicated by an asterisk), all betrayed the
signs of a methodical, at times desperate, attempt to unearth
the truth. No. 350 was rst published by Jean Papon, in a
rendering provided him by the Nmois botanist and antiquar-
ian Jean- Franois Sguier (who, along with Massei, proposed
the rst universal collection of Latin and Greek inscriptions).
48

Blanc established that Papon had made a very incorrect copy
when he inspected the half- buried stone in the cemetery of
Penne, a small village near Puget- Thniers
.49
While digging and
clearing away the bramble, Blanc discovered another stone,
this one three- quarters buried, so that only the pedimented
top appeared above the surface.
50
No. 351* was published by Durandi and again by Carlone,
who report that it was found at Saint- Etienne- s- Monts, next to
the chapel of Saint- Gilles (more likely the chapel of Saint- Erige
at Auron). Blanc writes the inscription is not there and never
was. When he went to inspect, he found only a sandstone tab-
let with some letters in very poor condition. This monument
was fabricated by Meyranesio, he concluded succinctly.
51

Durandi located no. 352* at the village of La Tour, between
Clanz and Utelle; needless to say, Blanc noted, I did not
nd it there. As for no. 353*, the falsity of the text jumps
to the eyes. Durandi located it at the chapel of Saint- Erige,
44
where certainly it is not. But the status of no. 354* was not
soevident or obvious. Like many historical truths, over time it
had become, or was destined to remain, half- buried. Carlone
noted that Durandi, who was the rst to reveal its existence,
attributed it to Joseph Meyransy (sic).
52
Durandi noted his ob-
ligation to Meyranesio, a pious student of his patria, for shar-
ing with him monuments he had transcribed in place, along
with notes of where he had discovered them.
53
And according
to Durandi the inscription was perfectly preserved.
54
True to his stated ambition, Blanc went to Prats (Prs), an
Alpine hamlet near Saint- Dalmas- le- Selvage, in search of the
inscription. Leaving no stone unturned, he spoke to local
inhabitants, parish priests, schoolmasters, poachers, and con-
trabandists. The only information he obtained was that there
had once been a written stone embedded in the west face of
Pratss church. During an avalanche, half the village, includ-
ing its church, was swept away. Blanc was shown a vast pile of
crushed stone and rubble, beneath which one must search for
the inscription cited by Carlone if it had been there in the
rst place, which Blanc was far from afrming.
55
The informa-
tion he had received was just too vague to conclude that
the stone had ever existed. The decisive evidence was buried
under (or by) a mountain. The only legitimate solution was to
accept that the inscription was false, because it came from an
adulterated source and had not been recovered.
56
Or had it?
Blanc, it will be remembered, began his career verify-
ing Carlones work, immediately leading him to nd fault with
Sardous research on Aegitna. Evidently, ancient cities were as
likely to become misplaced as the monuments that spoke of
their transient glory and mundane institutions. It seems pos-
sible, however, that Carlone provided Blanc with the pretext
for his dening act of misdirection. While Blanc unceremoni-
ously abandoned no. 351* to the falsae vel alienae policed
by Mommsen, Carlone considered it to be among the most
important in his collection (no. 214). The inscription proved
that the legions of Marcus Fulvius Flaccus (consul 125) passed
through the valley of the Tine on their way to subjugate the
Saluvii, just as the inscription found at Clanz demonstrated
that Domitiuss troops passed through the area several years
later as they repatriated to Rome.
57
Like a military stone, a
footnote in Carlones text directs the reader to inscription
no.203, Herculi sacrum. Cn Domit.... Did Blanc follow the
textual trail, or was it at this point that he was led astray? He
did make a connection between the two inscriptions, noting
that Meyranesio must have borrowed the words devictis et
superatis on the Fulvius monument from the nearby Domitius
monument. The essential diference between them is that while
45
one was missing and presumed false the other had been found
and thus declared authentic.
The diference, however, is ner and less obvious than
that by design. Blanc concluded that the information he col-
lected about the Fulvius monument was too vague for him to
afrm its existence. This state of indeterminacy was the op-
posite of the too much local information that made the Fago
Deo... inscription fatally suspect. Thus Blanc assumed the
role of Cagnats prudent epigraphist, whose judgments were
to be regarded as more than merely plausible (vraisemblable),
but as possessing a degree of mathematic certainty.
58
His
judgment had a calculated efect. The inscription could have
been found, if not perhaps for an avalanche. Uncertainty was
the ground in and from which the Inscription of Domitius
monu ment was unearthed. All doubt about its authenticity
would be erased, and Mommsen vanquished and subdued, if
it were found. The tantalizingly attractive solution was merely
to say that it had been located. Nothing was engraved in stone,
but Blancs name and reputation were to be indelibly asso-
ciated with the falsity or authenticity of this claim. His was
evidently not a failure of nerve, but of imagination. In willfully
mistaking the border between certainty and probability, the
self- taught savant could not imagine that someone would
ascend Mont Tournairet to verify his discovery.
In the Bulletin Critique the same issue in which its editor,
protomodernist church historian Louis Duchesne, reproached
Duruy for his selection of images in the Histoire des Romains
the numismatist Anatole de Barthlemy retraced Blancs
steps.
59
By the time the second edition of the Histoire was
published, Duruy was no longer willing to entertain any doubt.
The identical, convincingly exact illustration appeared in the
new edition, but the accompanying footnote was amended to
read: This inscription is false. M. Mommsen had contested its
authenticity, which today is no longer accepted.
60
Barthlemy
recalled the reunion at the Sorbonne, the Inscription of
Domitius drawn at full scale on the blackboard behind the
rostrum, as Blanc provided an engagingly detailed account of
his unlikely discovery. Specialized journals reproduced the text
and showered Blanc with accolades for his rugged persistence.
As a member of the Commission de la topographie des Gaules
(instituted in 1858 by Napolon III to prepare the geographical
materials for his Histoire de Jules Csar [1865]), Barthlemy
consulted with the learned conservator of the Muse about
the proper means of acquiring the inscription. The Muse,
another instrument of imperial memory, was instituted in 1863
to bring together all the documentary evidence... of our na-
tional history, as if in anticipation of just such a discovery.
61
46
As these responsible custodians of French history pre-
pared for Domitiuss Parisian triumph the recovery of the
inscription marking an important victory for French history
there was legitimate opposition yet to be overcome. As
Barthlemy notes, Adrien Prvost de Longprier, who was
central to Napoleon IIIs historical and archaeological enter-
prises, refused from the outset to accept the inscriptions
existence. Not even gods stood a ghting chance against the
righteously justied critic. But only one person could bring
Domitius down from the mountain while preserving his glory
intact. The Commission secured funds for Blanc to undertake
the mission. He returned empty- handed. With inscriptions
nos. 351* and 352*, his failure to locate the monuments proved
sufcient grounds for rejection. Near the summit of Tournairet
there were avalanche- like circumstances to consider. Blanc
reported that the site proved so steep, rough, and far from any
points of communication, that he had to abandon his attempt
to recover the stone. Soon after, he ofered the pretext that
the invasion of the snow had set him back, and promised
that with the return of spring, success was assured.
62
Time passed. In September 1881, Barthlemy writes, the
stunned and suspicious Commission called on Blanc to
specify on a map the exact point where he had made his dis-
covery. Based on this information, ofcers of the topographic
brigade were sent to explore Tournairet; their careful search
yielded nothing. Evidently, the information Blanc provided the
Commission was less reliable than that which he had received
from poachers and contrabandists in his search for the Marcus
Fulvius Flaccus inscription. At this point, the Commission
asked for help from the prfet of the department of the Alpes-
Maritimes, who sent agents of the chemins vicinaux to bring
an end to the uncertainty.
63
The road inspectors went, axes
in hand, to the precise place where Cagnat had led his stu-
dents in his courses on epigraphy: where certitude gives way
to (mere) probability. But just then the prfet received word
that the inventor of the famous inscription, accompanied by
Adolphe Pommateau, a member of the Club Alpin Franais, had
reached the summit where Blanc claimed to have recognized
the half buried block. The question would seem to have a
solution, Barthlemy wrote. His optimism was premature, his
agitated concern too late.
Allmer was less dismayed by Blancs epigraphic escapade
than by the failure of Barthlemy and the Commission to detect
it earlier. Allmer, too, recalled the lecture at the Sorbonne. It
was not the apparently convincing inscription that stood out in
his memory, but the marvelous incidents recounted by Blanc,
which were the stuf of childrens novels. And yet, despite
the obvious clues of a designedly false story, despite the
47
formal condemnation pronounced by a savant of the highest
authority, despite the disavowal of history, the discovery was
accepted as true and good.
64
The discovery was too good to
be false, which to a prudent epigraphist was a good sign that it
should be treated with the greatest suspicion. Was it not there-
fore incumbent upon the well advised Commission to say
something immediately, Allmen asked, thereby saving Duruy
from potential embarrassment? Instead, they acted only after
the Revue pigraphique published a letter denouncing the text.
The letter in question was written by none other than
Mommsen, and appeared, appropriately enough, in the section
of the Revue devoted to Corrections et Additions. Mommsen
began by rehearsing the particular (and peculiar) circum-
stances of Blancs discovery, so that no one would accuse him
of amour propre if he expressed seemingly legitimate doubts.
A savant rejects an inscription reported by a suspect author as
false, he writes, and it is later revealed that it is in fact authen-
tic. But this same savant did not thus fail in his duty, because
the science of epigraphy rests in large part on the good faith
of witnesses; in epigraphy as in a courtroom, testimony can
be perfectly sincere but nonetheless reasonably ruled out.
Mommsen had met Blanc during a visit to Vence, and formed
a positive impression of the man and his work. And he would
have accepted his testimony without hesitation or regret, were
it not for other more serious, indeed insurmountable ob-
stacles.
65
Indeed, he would have rejected the inscription even
if he knew nothing of the shadowy business with Durandi and
Meyranesio. Mommsen handily demonstrated the several ways
in which the inscription contradicts the rules of Latin grammar
and epigraphy. But what seems to have interested this savant
is the question of faith the faith of those who trusted Blanc,
and of Blanc, who trusted that he would not be exposed.
The discovery of the inscription is a miracle, Mommsen
wrote, but to have a miracle you need believers, and here
belief does not come easily. Blanc, who presumed to glean
texts overlooked by the master, was put to the test. To
believe one must see, Mommsen wrote, and the stone itself,
not a facsimile. Where was the stone?
66
That question was
answered to Mommsens satisfaction by Ettore Pais, director
of the Museo di Cagliari. With the decision of the Accademia
dei Lincei to publish a supplement to the Corpus containing
inscriptions of Upper Italy, the time had come to settle the fate
of this most ancient monument, if was not rather the most
modern. In other words, if the stone would not come to Paris,
then it was necessary to go to the stone. As Mommsen himself
had observed, though the peak of Tournairet was not a likely
place for a monument, it was a perfect rendezvous for wolves,
and perhaps also for god and his angels.
67
It was Pais who
48
had the courage to make an ascent of the mountain in order to
confront the truth. He came back empty- handed. At the end of
his own letter, Mommsen reproduced the letter he had received
from Pais describing his Alpine misadventure.
68
But it was Blanc who nally strayed from the path.
Following the reported rediscovery of the stone by Blanc
and Pommateau, the Socit des Lettres, Sciences, et Arts
des Alpes- Maritimes urgently organized a mission, led by
Pommateau, to nally recover the inscription. Departing from
Nice on the morning of November 10, 1883, the party fol-
lowed the Vsubie valley, reaching the village of Lantosque
by mid afternoon. But soon after they had set out for Utelle
their station for the night, three hundred meters below the
summit Blanc began descending the mountain without say-
ing a word.
69
The party anxiously awaited his arrival at Utelle,
if for no other reason than because he was carrying their provi-
sions in his pack. At this point, they still clung to the nave
belief that Blanc was simply afraid of spending the night in a
wind- battered cabin 1,800 meters up the mountain, and that
he would arrive the following morning. Sounding Villons most
famous refrain to devastatingly mordant efect, Pommateau
writes that this was an illusion they set alongside to the
snows of yesteryear. Blanc was thus called to account for
his notorious promise that after the snows melted he would
recover the inscription. At this point, Pommateau knew better.
He returned to the accident of the terrain and the particular
stone that Blanc had pointed out to him during their rst as-
cent. Working at the frozen ground with a pick and shovel, they
worked loose the stone. The part that had been buried pre-
sented no inscription, and was not even a dressed stone. As for
the supposed cornice, it was just another piece of rough stone
set against the rst. They continued their search on the small
plateau, where they found rien, rien, toujours rien.
In his classic essay Faux Paloethnologiques, Gabriel
de Mortillet urged caution regarding reports of miraculous dis-
coveries made in remote and inaccessible places, such as the
darkness of impenetrable forests, or in unexplored recesses of
subterranean caves.
70
In some sense, it is in these regions, as
they would later be recongured in the psychoanalytic imagina-
tion, that Blancs motives should be sought. Yet it was Cagnat
who led his students to the ambiguous place where the truth
of history, embodied in so many scattered fragments, meets
its other. He reminded his students that the same principles
used to restore inscriptions, the laws of epigraphy, provide
the most reliable means for distinguishing false from authentic
inscriptions.
71
Edmond Blanc (the forger) and Ettore Pais (the
critic) were on the same page. In presenting each possible case
of erasure and loss, he indicated in his corresponding resto-
49
rations the precise line where certitude gives way to mere
probability.
72
Beyond the threshold of probability stretched
the formidable danger of unknown unknowns. Like a votive in-
scription, the dedication of Cagnats book to Renier expressed
his profound veneration for his mentor. And many of Cagnats
lessons restate in long form the dictum that Renier himself dis-
tilled from the writings of Bartolomeo Borghesi, the patriarch
of Latin epigraphy: Rien ne se devine, tout sexplique.
73
The
burden for the student of inscriptions was to determine where
history lies.
Biography
Edward Eigen is an associate professor of architectural and landscape history at
Harvard Universitys Graduate School of Design. His recent publications include
articles in the journals Rethinking History, Thresholds, Instruire/Druire, and
Perspecta. His (mock) epic, Newtons Apple Tree: A Non- Standard Version, will
appear in A Second Modernism: MIT and Architecture in the Postwar. He is currently
preparing An Anomalous Plan, a monograph on the development of laboratory
spaces in nineteenth- century France, for publication.
Notes
1
Victor Duruy, Histoire des Romains depuis les temps les plus reculs jusqu
linvasion des Barbares, vol. 2: De le Bataille de Zama au Premier Triumvirat (Paris:
Hachette, 1880), 472. All translations are by the author.
2
Ibid., 48.
3
Alexandre Bertrand, De la valeur historique des documents archologiques.
Confrence faite la sance gnrale du 15 Mai 1879 (Chartres: douard Garnier,
1879), 5.
4
Extrait des Procs- Verbaux du 1er Trimestre de 1879 [Sance du 5 Fvrier],
Mmoires de la Socit Nationale des Antiquaires de France 4th ser., 10 (1879): 105.
5
Ren Cagnat, Cours lmentaire dpigraphie Latine (Paris: E. Thorin, 1886), 202.
6
Salomon Reinach, Trait dpigraphie Greque (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1885), xxxiii.
7
Salomon Reinach, Manuel de Philologie Classique (Paris: Hachette et Cie, 1880),
31. Reinachs method is based on Wilhelm Freunds Triennium Philologicum, oder
Grundzge der philologischen Wissenschaften (Leipzig: Wilhelm Violet, 187476).
8
Lon Renier, Explication et restitution dune inscription dcouverte Nettuno.
Premier Article, Journal des Savants (February 1867): 95113. Gaetano Marini,
Iscrizioni Antiche delle Ville e de Palazzi Albani, raccolte e pubblicate (Rome: Paolo
Giunchi, 1785), 53.
9
Ren Cagnat, Cours dpigraphie Latine (Paris: Ernest Thorin, 1889), 341.
10
Reinach, Trait dpigraphie Grecque, xxxiii. Such a well- founded speculative edi-
ce had its physical correlate in the Galleria Lapidaria, the long corridor leading to
the Vatican Library, along the facing walls of which Marini afxed hundreds of scat-
tered fragments of inscriptions, classical on one side and Christian on the other.
Marino Marini, Degli Aneddoti di Gaetano Marini (Rome: Lino Contedini, 1822), 134.
11
Salomon Reinach, Rpertoire de lArt Quarternaire (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1913), ix.
12
Ren de la Blanchre, Histoire de lpigraphie romaine rdige sur les notes
de Lon Renier, Revue Archologique 3rd ser., 8 (1886): 4663 at 50. Mabillon
published this collection in the fourth volume of the Vetera Analecta (Paris: Billaine,
167585).
13
Edmond Blanc, Notice sur lpigraphie romaine de Vence et des environs,
Mmoires de la Socit des Sciences Naturelles et Historiques des Lettres, et des
Beaux- Arts de Cannes et lArrondissement de Grasse 4 (1874): 126200 at 174.
14
A[natole] Chabouillet, Compte rendu des lectures faites la Section
dArchologie, Revue des Socits Savantes des Dpartements, 7th ser., 1 (1880):
44090 at 45960.
15
pigraphie antique du Dpartement des Alpes- Maritimes. Premire partie:
Arrondissement de Grasse, Annales de la Socit des lettres, sciences et arts des
Alpes- Maritimes 5 (1878): 187224; pigraphie Antique du Dpartement des
Alpes- Maritimes. Deuxime partie: Arrondissements de Nice et de Puget- Thniers,
Annales de la Socit des lettres, sciences et arts des Alpes- Maritimes 6 (1879):
49356. These shall be referred to in the notes as Pt. 1 and Pt. 2.
16
Ernest Desjardins, Notice Historique et Bibliographique sur M. Le Comte
Bartolommeo Borghesi, Revue Archologique 2nd ser., 1 (1860): 31924 at
50
321. The project for an ofcial publication of Gallo- Roman inscriptions dates to
1835, when Philippe Le Bas proposed that it be included in Guizots Collection de
documents indits sur lhistoire de France. For documentary history of this long
and sterile fty- three year efort, see Robert Mowat, Rapport sur les papiers et
documents runis par feu Lon Renier en vue dun recueil des inscriptions romaines
de la Gaule, Bulletin Archologique du Comit des Travaux Historiques (1887):
280336 at 280.
17
Chabouillet, Compte rendu des lectures faites la Section dArchologie, 460.
18
Theodor Mommsen, Le Monument dAhenobarbus, Revue pigraphique du Midi
de la France 1 (June- July 1883): 37983 at 381.
19
Chabouillet, Compte rendu des lectures faites la Section dArchologie, 461.
20
Jacopo Durandi, Il Piemonte Cispadano Antico (Turin: Giambatista Fontana,
1774),11.
21
Chabouillet, Compte rendu des lectures faites la Section dArchologie, 461.
22
Ibid.
23
Runion des Dlgus des Socits Savantes des Dpartements la Sorbonne,
deuxime sance, Jeudi 17 avril, Journal Ofciel de la Rpublique Franaise, April
18, 1879: 336468 at 3365.
24
[Franois] Brun and [Antoine Landre] Sardou, Vrication des inscriptions
Romaines de Vence, Annales de la Socit des lettres, sciences et arts des Alpes-
Maritimes 4 (1877): 17380.
25
Antoine Landre Sardou, Mmoire sur quelques points de gographie ancienne,
Bulletin de la Socit de Gographie 4th ser., 16 (1858): 7390 at 7886.
26
Edmond Blanc, Remarques sur quelques textes Gallo- Romains des Alpes-
Maritimes qui portent des noms gographiques, Revue Archologique 35
(1878): 15663 at 156. Baron de Watteville, Rapport M. Waddington, Ministre de
lInstruction Publique et des Beaux- Arts sur le service des missions et voyages scien-
tiques en 1876 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1877), 12.
27
Edmond Blanc, pigraphie Antique du Dpartement des Alpes- Maritimes, vol. 1
(Nice: Malvano- Mignon, 1878), 94.
28
Auguste Allmer, No. 102: Inscription relative au pagus Star, Revue pigraphique
du Midi de la France 1 (NovemberDecember 1878): 7677 at 76.
29
Louis dAgos, Dcouverte dantiquits paennes, Revue de Lart Chrtien 2
(1858): 17273 at 171.
30
Allmer, Inscriptions de Vence dans le dpartement des Alpes- Maritimes, Revue
pigraphique du Midi de la France 1 (November- December 1878): 6778 at 77.
31
Ibid.
32
L[on] Maxe- Werly, Vases inscriptions Bachiques, Mmoires de la Socit
Nationale des Antiquaires de France 49 (1888): 33676 at 358.
33
Lon Maxe- Werly, Collection des Monuments pigraphiques du Barrois,
Mmoires de la Socit des Lettres, Sciences, et Arts de Bar- le- Duc 2nd ser., 2
(1883): 20597 at 206.
34
Charles Robert, Collections des monuments pigraphiques du Barrois, par Lon
Maxe- Werly, Revue Archologique 3rd ser., 2 (1883): 12831 at 130.
35
Auguste Allmer, Ahenobarbus, Revue pigraphique du Midi de la France 2
(April- May 1884): 2932 at 32.
36
Franois Brun, Rapport de M. F. Brun, dlgu par la Socit pour la reprsenter
au concours de la Sorbonne, en mars 1880, Annales de la Socit des Lettres,
Sciences, et Arts des Alpes- Maritimes 7 (1881): 43946 at 44344.
37
Henry Thdenat, Une carrire universitaire: Jean- Flix Nourrisson, membre de
lInstitut (Paris: Albert Fontemoing, 1901), v.
38
H[enry] Thdenat, pigraphie antique du dpartement des Alpes- Maritimes,
Bulletin Critique 1, no. 1516 (January 1, 1881): 296301 at 300.
39
Blanc, Pt. 2, 292.
40
Giuseppe Franceso Meyranesio, Vita di Dalmazzo Berardenco dallAbate, Nuovo
Giornale de Letterati dItalia 21 (1780): 11128 at 122.
41
G. B. de Rossi, Unimpostura epigraca svelata. Falsit delle insigni iscrizioni
cristiane di Alba, che si dicevano trascritte dal Berardenco nel 1450, Bullettino di
Archeologia Cristiana 6 (May- June 1868): 4547 at 45.
42
Il codice di Dalmazzo Berardenco. Osservazioni, di Giovanni F. Muratori, Atti
della R. Accademia delle Scienze di Torino 3 (1867): 5778; Sopra Giuseppe
Meyranesio e Dalmazzo Berardenco appunti critici di Carlo Promis, Atti della
R. Accademia delle Scienze di Torino 3 (1867): 3956.
43
Blanc, Pt. 2, 293.
44
Charles Robert, pigraphie Gallo- romaine de la Moselle, vol. 1 (Paris: Didier,
1873), vii.
45
Blanc, Pt. 2, 250.
46
Blanc, Pt. 2, 6.
51
47
pigraphie antique du dpartement des Alpes- maritimes, vol. 2, Arrondissements
de Nice et de Puget- Thniers (Nice: Malvano- Mignon, 1879), 6.
48
Jean Papon, Histoire Gnrale de Provence ddie aux tats, vol. 1 (Paris:
Moutard, 1777), 108. Sguier and Mafei, Prospectus universalis collectionis
latinarum veterum ac graecarum (1732).
49
Blanc, Pt. 2, 254.
50
Blanc, Quelques texts Gallo- romains de Alpes Maritimes, 163.
51
Blanc, Pt. 2, 254.
52
Carlone, Vestiges pigraphiques, 423.
53
Durandi, Piemonte, 6
54
Carlone, Vestiges pigraphiques, 423.
55
Blanc, Pt. 2, 62.
56
Blanc, Pt. 2, 301.
57
Carlone, Vestiges pigraphiques, 129.
58
Cagnat, 341.
59
Louis Duchesne, Histoire de Romains par V. Duruy, Bulletin Critique 4, no. 15
(December 15, 1882): 28788 at 288.
60
Duruy, Histoire des Romains, 477, n. 2.
61
milien de Nieuwerkerke, Rapport de M. le Comte de Nieuwerkerke sur les travaux
de remaniement et daccroissement raliss depuis 1849 dans les muses imp-
riaux (Paris: Didier et Cie, 1863), 30.
62
Anatole de Barthlemy, LInscription de Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, Bulletin
Critique 4, no. 24 (December 15, 1883): 47274 at 473.
63
Barthlemy, 473.
64
Allmer, Ahenobarbus, 30.
65
Mommsen, Le Monument dAhenobarbus, 381.
66
Ibid., 382.
67
Ibid., 382.
68
Ettore Pais, Iscrizioni sospette delle Alpi marittime, Bullettino dellInstituto di
Corrispondenza Archeologica (November 1883): 218224.
69
[Adolphe] Pommateau, Le monument de Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus au mont
Tournairet, Bulletin pigraphique de la Gaule 3 (1883): 31516 at 315.
70
Gabriel de Mortillet, Faux Paloethnologiques, LHomme 2 (1885): 51326 at
315.
71
Cagnat, Cours dpigraphie Latine, 201.
72
Ibid., 190.
73
R[en] de la Blanchre, Histoire de lpigraphie Romaine: depuis les origines
jusqu la publication du Corpus, rdiges sur les notes de Lon Renier (Paris:
Ernest Leroux, 1887), 49.