This paper discusses a unique artifact1 of considerable archaeological, philological and historical value, as well as its implications for our understanding of the rôle that the native inhabitants of NE Spain, especially those known as the Laeetani (Plin., NH 3.3.21), played in the major economic undertaking that the export of wine from Tarraconensis in the 1st c. B.C. was to become. To do so, we first briefly describe the typological and physical characteristics of the lead stock and interpret the double Iberian inscription, baitolo, with which it was marked, probably a place-name, either that of the Ibero-Roman town of baitolo/Baetulo, which issued coins with the same legend (baitolo) in the second quarter of the 1st c. B.C., or the name of the nearby river, the modern Besòs.2 Subsequently, we contextualize the lead stock within the corpus of Greco-Roman lead stocks to show that no other specimen, either among stocks or any instrument or component of a ship‘s naval architecture, is known to have an inscription in the Iberian language. To contextualize the artifact, we will turn our attention to the native character of baitolo‘s population, always from a linguistic perspective, and discuss its importance as a key centre in the wine trade. Thereafter, we make an epigraphic and archaeological re-assessment of the prior evidence for the participation of the indigenous peoples of NE Hispania in all the phases (whether land or maritime) of the chaîne opératoire that resulted in the production and commercialization of large amounts of wine for Narbonne and elsewhere. First, we reconsider all the Iberian inscriptions that have a maritime context or that can be related to the production and commercialization of wine. Second, we examine the archaeological evidence, especially shipwrecks, suggesting that Iberian-speaking individuals during the 1st c. B.C. owned ships and participated in trade by sea, an activity that can now be confirmed thanks to the new lead stock (fig. 1), which is of small dimensions (77 cm long, 11 cm high, 8 cm in width in the central box) and of modest weight (25.9 kg).

Situated at the NE corner of the Propontis, Nicomedia (modern İzmit) was a major urban centre throughout history. Since the ancient city is buried directly beneath the modern industrial Turkish one, little was known archaeologically until recently1 when a series of painted reliefs, part of a continuous marble frieze of which c.55 m in length have been uncovered, was discovered in the Çukurbağ district. They contain a remarkable combination of imperial, agonistic and mythological scenes.2 The depictions on the frieze, precious examples of tetrarchic art, shed light not only on the socio-political history of the Later Empire but also on the creation, self-identification and reception of a new tetrarchic capital.3 The marble frieze seems to have decorated an imperial complex dating to the late 3rd and early 4th c. when Nicomedia was Diocletian‘s administrative capital for the eastern Roman empire. Among the scenes on the frieze, the group of blocks representing an adventus with Diocletian and Maximian has been published in detail, and a monograph on the Diocletianic complex is under preparation. The present article will examine the mythological depictions on the frieze.

In 1889, R. Lanciani witnessed the opening of the marble sarcophagus of Crepereia Tryphaena near the Mausoleum of Hadrian. He described the event as follows: