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1. Inscription of Domitius. Victor Duruy, Histoire des Romains depuis les temps les plus reculs jusqu linvasion des Barbares,vol. 2De le Bataille de Zama au Premier Triumvirat(Paris: Hachette, 1880), 478.

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Future AnteriorVolume IX, Number 2Winter 2012

The convincingly exact reproduction of the Inscription of

Domitiusthe cracks, fissures, and abrasions of the frag-

mentary stele more legible than the letters cut into its stone

surfaceappears in the second of the seven volumes of

Victor Duruys lavishly illustrated Histoire des Romains(1880)

(Figure 1). According to Duruys account of the creation of

Transalpine 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.1Gnaeus 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 significance was

signal and singular it was the first 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 scientific information about a time and place that

otherwise would have remained completely unknown.3As

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 StoneOn the Alpine, Epigraphic Misadventures

of Edm. Blanc, Th. Mommsen, and the

Inscription of Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus

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near the village of Clanz.4But 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 judgedfalsae

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 scientific 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.6Yet, by practical definition, 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, first collected

and published by Gaetano Marini.8When 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.9To 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 losthad 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

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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.

It belongs to the historian, Reinach writes, to assign [epi-

graphic texts] a useful place in the edifice of the past which he

is reconstructing.10

The compiler of numerous ambitious corporain his role

as the conservator of the cole du Louvre and the Muse des

Antiquits Nationales de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Reinach

understood another inevitability: every repertory, every corpus

contains supplements.11There 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 corporais 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.12The 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-effacement. 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

difficult 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 immutablemonument

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.13In 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

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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 first

widely publicized in 1879. On April 17, 1879, Blanc delivered a

paper to the annual meeting of the provincialsocits savants,

held at the Sorbonne. In his compte-renduof 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.14Blancs

lecture was excerpted from the extensive findings he had

begun to publish in theAnnales de la Socit des Lettres, Sci-

ences, et Arts des Alpes-Maritimes.15Yet 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 scientific triumvirate of

Theodor Mommsen, Wilhelm Henzen, and Giovanni Battista

de Rossi, represented a regrettable capitulation.16Blancs 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.17The 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 first 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,18which 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.19So much for the principle of tout sexplique.

Durandi claimed he had found the text among notes left

by the Nioise historian Pietro Gioffredo for a supplement to

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his Storia delle Alpi Marittime(written around 1690).20No one

knew what had become of the Gioffredo text, which had yet to

be recovered. Still further, no one knew what had become of

the original (the stone monument), which Gioffredo alone

claimed to have seen.21The 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 first inscription written in Gaul

was exactly the kind of rarity to excite the efforts of forgers. But

the inscriptions authenticity was finally 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.22As reported in theJournal Officiel,

the stones resurrection was an archaeological and historical

event in its own right. It was a clear scientific victory, proving

that even the great critic Mommsen was mistaken.23It was a

victory for France, won by one of its provincial savantsagainst

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 first to read the

signs. Along with Franois Brun, Sardou called for a general

verification 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) (Figure 2).24As 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.25Sardou 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 defin-

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

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votive inscriptions mentioning previously unknown topical

divinities.26Upon 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 cliff,

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

filivs Paternvs ex Pago Staroni, vico Velacio [Velostino], gravi

infirmitate 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 pagusor

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 beneficent deity who had healed him.27But

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 infirm was

indeed the tutelary genie of the region where this rustic altar

was found.28As Blanc himself acknowledged, a Celtic god of

the same name was already known from votive inscriptions

2. Inscription of Domitius. AugusteCarlone, Vestiges pigraphiques de laDomination Grco-Massaliot et de laDomination Romaine dans les Alpes-Maritimes(Caen: F. Le Blan-Hardel,1868), 124.

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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.29Not 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 certificate 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 confirm 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.31Lon Maxe-Werly detected a tainted source.

In his study of Bacchic inscriptions, he describes a glass cup

3. Inscription referring to pagus Starat Roque-Esteron. Auguste Allmer,Inscriptions de Vence dans ledpartement des Alpes-Maritimes,Revue pigraphique du Midi dela France1 (NovemberDecember1878): 76.

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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.32It was writers like Maxe-Werly

who verified the certificate 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.33Such 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

spuriaeaccepted 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 significant 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 tothe god Fagus, La Croix de lOraison(Hautes-Pyrnes), from the collectionof Baron dAgos. Julien Sacaze,Inscriptions Antiques des Pyrnes(Toulouse: douard Privat, 1892), 188.

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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.35Here 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

flanks of Mont Sainte-Genevive) was his suffering and toil,

the odyssey that led him to the summit of Tournairet and to

his presentation at the Sorbonne.36For 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, effectively 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 flaws. 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.37He 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 Vitaof Dalmazzo Berardenco (b. 1414), Meyranesio

recounts having discovered a four-hundred-page manuscript

of inscriptions collected by the learned Piedmontese scholar.40

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For Giovanni Battista de Rossi, it was impossible to overstate

the value of such a volume: it would have been among the

first documents in the history of the study of epigraphy

in Italy, which began with the exploits of the enterprising

antiquarian Cyriacus of Ancona (13911455).41But 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.42In 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.43But 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.44With 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 find serious flaws

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 Gioffredo, who was himself one of Meyranesios main

clients. Blanc admits that Gioffredos 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 falsified.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 first

installment, Mommsens Inscriptiones Galliae Cisalpinae

Latinae(vol. V, pt. 2 of CIL) had appeared. To undertake an

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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 offer 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.46With 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 field after the rich har-

vest of the masters.47

Numerous epigraphic states of beingbetween lost and

found, original and copy, authentic and falseare 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 first 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 first 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.49While 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

find it there. As for no. 353*, the falsity of the text jumps

to the eyes. Durandi located it at the chapel of Saint-Erige,

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where certainly it is not. But the status of no. 354* was not

so evident 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 first to reveal its existence,

attributed it to Joseph Meyransy (sic).52Durandi 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.53And 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 Carloneif it had been there in the

first place, which Blanc was far from affirming.55The 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.56Or had it?

Blanc, it will be remembered, began his career verify-

ing Carlones work, immediately leading him to find 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 defining act of misdirection. While Blanc unceremoni-

ously abandoned no. 351* to thefalsae vel alienaepoliced

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.57Like 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

superatison the Fulvius monument from the nearby Domitius

monument. The essential difference between them is that while

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one was missing and presumed false the other had been found

and thus declared authentic.

The difference, however, is finer and less obvious than

thatby design. Blanc concluded that the information he col-

lected about the Fulvius monument was too vague for him to

affirm 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.58His

judgment had a calculated effect. The inscription could have

been found, if not perhaps for an avalanche. Uncertainty was

the ground in and from which the Inscription of Domitius

monument 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 saythat 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 savantcould not imagine that someone would

ascend Mont Tournairet to verify his discovery.

In the Bulletin Critiquethe 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.59By the time the second edition of the Histoirewas

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.60Barthlemy

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

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As these responsible custodians of French history pre-

pared for Domitiuss Parisian triumphthe 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 fighting chance against the

righteously justified 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

sufficient 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 offered 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, officers 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 prfetof the department of the Alpes-

Maritimes, who sent agents of the chemins vicinauxto bring

an end to the uncertainty.63The 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 prfetreceived 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 stuff of childrens novels. And yet, despite

the obvious clues of a designedly false story, despite the

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formal condemnation pronounced by a savantof the highest

authority, despite the disavowal of history, the discovery was

accepted as true and good.64The 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 pigraphiquepublished 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 Revuedevoted toCorrections et Additions.Mommsen

began by rehearsing the particular (and peculiar) circum-

stances of Blancs discovery, so that no one would accuse him

of amour propreif he expressed seemingly legitimate doubts.

A savantrejects 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 savantdid 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.65Indeed, 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 thissavant

is the question of faiththe 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?66That 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 Corpuscontaining

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.67It was Pais who

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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 finally 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 finally 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 midafternoon. But soon after they had set out for Utelle

their station for the night, three hundred meters below the

summitBlanc began descending the mountain without say-

ing a word.69The 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 effect, 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 first 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 first. 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.70In some sense, it is in these regions, as

they would later be reconfigured 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.71Edmond 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-

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rations the precise line where certitude gives way to mere

probability.72Beyond 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.73The

burden for the student of inscriptions was to determine where

history lies.

BiographyEdward Eigen is an associate professor of architectural and landscape history atHarvard Universitys Graduate School of Design. His recent publications includearticles in the journals Rethinking History,Thresholds,Instruire/Druire,andPerspecta.His (mock) epic, Newtons Apple Tree: A Non-Standard Version, willappear inA Second Modernism: MIT and Architecture in the Postwar.He is currentlypreparingAn Anomalous Plan,a monograph on the development of laboratory

spaces in nineteenth-century France, for publication.

Notes1Victor Duruy, Histoire des Romains depuis les temps les plus reculs jusqulinvasion des Barbares,vol. 2: De le Bataille de Zama au Premier Triumvirat(Paris:Hachette, 1880), 472. All translations are by the author.2Ibid., 48.3Alexandre Bertrand, De la valeur historique des documents archologiques.Confrence faite la sance gnrale du 15 Mai 1879(Chartres: douard Garnier,1879), 5.4Extrait des Procs-Verbaux du 1er Trimestre de 1879 [Sance du 5 Fvrier],Mmoires de la Socit Nationale des Antiquaires de France4th ser., 10 (1879): 105.5Ren Cagnat, Cours lmentaire dpigraphie Latine(Paris: E. Thorin, 1886), 202.6Salomon Reinach, Trait dpigraphie Greque(Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1885), xxxiii.7Salomon Reinach, Manuel de Philologie Classique(Paris: Hachette et Cie, 1880),31. Reinachs method is based on Wilhelm Freunds Triennium Philologicum, oderGrundzge der philologischen Wissenschaften(Leipzig: Wilhelm Violet, 187476).8Lon 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: PaoloGiunchi, 1785), 53.9Ren Cagnat, Cours dpigraphie Latine(Paris: Ernest Thorin, 1889), 341.10Reinach, Trait dpigraphie Grecque,xxxiii. Such a well-founded speculative edi-fice had its physical correlate in the Galleria Lapidaria, the long corridor leading tothe Vatican Library, along the facing walls of which Marini affixed 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), 134.11Salomon Reinach, Rpertoire de lArt Quarternaire(Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1913), ix.12Ren de la Blanchre, Histoire de lpigraphie romaine rdige sur les notesde Lon Renier, Revue Archologique3rd ser., 8 (1886): 4663 at 50. Mabillonpublished this collection in the fourth volume of the Vetera Analecta(Paris: Billaine,167585).13Edmond Blanc, Notice sur lpigraphie romaine de Vence et des environs,Mmoires de la Socit des Sciences Naturelles et Historiques des Lettres, et desBeaux-Arts de Cannes et lArrondissement de Grasse4 (1874): 126200 at 174.14A[natole] Chabouillet, Compte rendu des lectures faites la SectiondArchologie, 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 desAlpes-Maritimes5 (1878): 187224; pigraphie Antique du Dpartement desAlpes-Maritimes. Deuxime partie: Arrondissements de Nice et de Puget-Thniers,Annales de la Socit des lettres, sciences et arts des Alpes-Maritimes6 (1879):49356. These shall be referred to in the notes as Pt. 1 and Pt. 2.16Ernest Desjardins, Notice Historique et Bibliographique sur M. Le ComteBartolommeo Borghesi, Revue Archologique2nd ser., 1 (1860): 31924 at

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321. The project for an official publication of Gallo-Roman inscriptions dates to1835, when Philippe Le Bas proposed that it be included in Guizots Collection dedocuments indits sur lhistoire de France.For documentary history of this longand sterile fifty-three year effort, see Robert Mowat, Rapport sur les papiers etdocuments runis par feu Lon Renier en vue dun recueil des inscriptions romainesde la Gaule, Bulletin Archologique du Comit des Travaux Historiques(1887):280336 at 280.17Chabouillet, Compte rendu des lectures faites la Section dArchologie, 460.18Theodor Mommsen, Le Monument dAhenobarbus, Revue pigraphique du Midide la France1 (June-July 1883): 37983 at 381.19Chabouillet, Compte rendu des lectures faites la Section dArchologie, 461.20Jacopo Durandi, Il Piemonte Cispadano Antico(Turin: Giambatista Fontana,1774), 11.21Chabouillet, Compte rendu des lectures faites la Section dArchologie, 461.22Ibid.23Runion des Dlgus des Socits Savantes des Dpartements la Sorbonne,deuxime sance, Jeudi 17 avril,Journal Officiel de la Rpublique Franaise,April18, 1879: 336468 at 3365.24[Franois] Brun and [Antoine Landre] Sardou, Vrification des inscriptionsRomaines de Vence,Annales de la Socit des lettres, sciences et arts des Alpes-Maritimes4 (1877): 17380.25Antoine Landre Sardou, Mmoire sur quelques points de gographie ancienne,Bulletin de la Socit de Gographie4th ser., 16 (1858): 7390 at 7886.26Edmond Blanc, Remarques sur quelques textes Gallo-Romains des Alpes-Maritimes qui portent des noms gographiques, Revue Archologique35(1878): 15663 at 156. Baron de Watteville, Rapport M. Waddington, Ministre delInstruction Publique et des Beaux-Arts sur le service des missions et voyages scien-tifiques en 1876(Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1877), 12.27Edmond Blanc, pigraphie Antique du Dpartement des Alpes-Maritimes, vol. 1(Nice: Malvano-Mignon, 1878), 94.28Auguste Allmer, No. 102: Inscription relative au pagus Star, Revue pigraphiquedu Midi de la France 1(NovemberDecember 1878): 7677 at 76.29Louis dAgos, Dcouverte dantiquits paennes, Revue de Lart Chrtien2(1858): 17273 at 171.30Allmer, Inscriptions de Vence dans le dpartement des Alpes-Maritimes, Revuepigraphique du Midi de la France1 (November-December 1878): 6778 at 77.31Ibid.32L[on] Maxe-Werly, Vases inscriptions Bachiques, Mmoires de la SocitNationale des Antiquaires de France49 (1888): 33676 at 358.33Lon Maxe-Werly, Collection des Monuments pigraphiques du Barrois,Mmoires de la Socit des Lettres, Sciences, et Arts de Bar-le-Duc2nd ser., 2(1883): 20597 at 206.34Charles Robert, Collections des monuments pigraphiques du Barrois, par LonMaxe-Werly, Revue Archologique3rd ser., 2 (1883): 12831 at 130.35Auguste Allmer, Ahenobarbus, Revue pigraphique du Midi de la France2(April-May 1884): 2932 at 32.36Franois Brun, Rapport de M. F. Brun, dlgu par la Socit pour la reprsenterau concours de la Sorbonne, en mars 1880,Annales de la Socit des Lettres,Sciences, et Arts des Alpes-Maritimes7 (1881): 43946 at 44344.37Henry Thdenat, Une carrire universitaire: Jean-Flix Nourrisson, membre delInstitut(Paris: Albert Fontemoing, 1901), v.38H[enry] Thdenat, pigraphie antique du dpartement des Alpes-Maritimes,Bulletin Critique1, no. 1516 (January 1, 1881): 296301 at 300.39Blanc, Pt. 2, 292.40Giuseppe Franceso Meyranesio, Vita di Dalmazzo Berardenco dallAbate, NuovoGiornale de Letterati dItalia21 (1780): 11128 at 122.41G. B. de Rossi, Unimpostura epigrafica svelata. Falsit delle insigni iscrizionicristiane di Alba, che si dicevano trascritte dal Berardenco nel 1450, Bullettino diArcheologia Cristiana6 (May-June 1868): 4547 at 45.42Il codice di Dalmazzo Berardenco. Osservazioni, di Giovanni F. Muratori,Attidella R. Accademia delle Scienze di Torino3 (1867): 5778; Sopra GiuseppeMeyranesio e Dalmazzo Berardenco appunti critici di Carlo Promis,Atti dellaR. Accademia delle Scienze di Torino3 (1867): 3956.43Blanc, Pt. 2, 293.44Charles Robert, pigraphie Gallo-romaine de la Moselle,vol. 1 (Paris: Didier,1873), vii.45Blanc, Pt. 2, 250.46Blanc, Pt. 2, 6.

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47pigraphie antique du dpartement des Alpes-maritimes,vol. 2,Arrondissementsde Nice et de Puget-Thniers(Nice: Malvano-Mignon, 1879), 6.48Jean Papon, Histoire Gnrale de Provence ddie aux tats,vol. 1 (Paris:Moutard, 1777), 108. Sguier and Maffei, Prospectus universalis collectionislatinarum veterum ac graecarum(1732).49Blanc, Pt. 2, 254.50Blanc, Quelques texts Gallo-romains de Alpes Maritimes, 163.51Blanc, Pt. 2, 254.52Carlone, Vestiges pigraphiques,423.53Durandi, Piemonte,654Carlone, Vestiges pigraphiques,423.55Blanc, Pt. 2, 62.56Blanc, Pt. 2, 301.57Carlone, Vestiges pigraphiques,129.58Cagnat, 341.59Louis Duchesne, Histoire de Romains par V. Duruy, Bulletin Critique4, no. 15(December 15, 1882): 28788 at 288.60Duruy, Histoire des Romains,477, n. 2.61milien de Nieuwerkerke, Rapport de M. le Comte de Nieuwerkerke sur les travauxde remaniement et daccroissement raliss depuis 1849 dans les muses imp-riaux(Paris: Didier et Cie, 1863), 30.62Anatole de Barthlemy, LInscription de Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, BulletinCritique4, no. 24 (December 15, 1883): 47274 at 473.63Barthlemy, 473.64Allmer, Ahenobarbus, 30.65Mommsen, Le Monument dAhenobarbus, 381.66Ibid., 382.67Ibid., 382.68Ettore Pais, Iscrizioni sospette delle Alpi marittime, Bullettino dellInstituto diCorrispondenza Archeologica(November 1883): 218224.69[Adolphe] Pommateau, Le monument de Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus au montTournairet, Bulletin pigraphique de la Gaule3 (1883): 31516 at 315.70Gabriel de Mortillet, Faux Paloethnologiques, LHomme2 (1885): 51326 at315.71Cagnat, Cours dpigraphie Latine,201.72Ibid., 190.73R[en] de la Blanchre, Histoire de lpigraphie Romaine: depuis les originesjusqu la publication du Corpus, rdiges sur les notes de Lon Renier(Paris:Ernest Leroux, 1887), 49.