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The perfect guide for anyone who wishes to understand the Latin inscriptions they discover on their travels, and gain a fresh insight into the lives of everyday Romans. Latin inscriptions can appear daunting - a jumble of letters without any structure or meaning. However, once their formulaic style is explained, most are easy to read. Requiring no prior knowledge of Latin, this book will teach readers how to decipher inscriptions and will demonstrate how even the smallest detail scan help us to reconstruct the daily life of ordinary Romans. Whilst surviving literature often relates only to the lives of those wealthy enough to afford books, inscriptions were texts intended to be seen and used by all. As a result, they shed light on the lives of those less visible in the archaeological record - the poor,women and slaves. Illustrated with the best examples of inscriptions from the British Museum's Roman collection, this book will explore what it meant to put up a public inscription and how they became standardised to ensure Romans from all over the Empire could read them

The year is 1932. In Rome, the Fascist leader Benito Mussolini unveils a giant obelisk of white marble, bearing the Latin inscription MVSSOLINI DVX. Invisible to the cheering crowds, a metal box lies immured in the obelisk's base. It contains a few gold coins and, written on a piece of parchment, a Latin text: the Codex fori Mussolini. What does this text say? Why was it buried there? And why was it written in Latin? The Codex, composed by the classical scholar Aurelio Giuseppe Amatucci (1867-1960), presents a carefully constructed account of the rise of Italian Fascism and its leader, Benito Mussolini. Though written in the language of Roman antiquity, the Codex was supposed to reach audiences in the distant future. Placed under the obelisk with future excavation and rediscovery in mind, the Latin text was an attempt at directing the future reception of Italian Fascism. This book renders the Codex accessible to scholars and students of different disciplines, offering a thorough and wide-ranging introduction, a clear translation, and a commentary elucidating the text's rhetorical strategies, historical background, and specifics of phrasing and reference. As the first detailed study of a Fascist Latin text, it also throws new light on the important role of the Latin language in Italian Fascist culture.