Vatican Museums

This anonymous text (the dedicants are the local ruling class and the people of Falerii Novi) recall with the formula votis (tricennalibus) feliciter (possibly implying: solutis) the fulfilment of the “vows made” (vota suscepta) ten years earlier “for the health” (pro valetudine) of an unknown emperor. It is a practice of thanksgiving to the gods performed for the first time in Rome in the time of Augustus (he himself recalls with satisfaction: “The senate decreed that every five years vows were made for my health by the consuls and priests”). This practice was spread widely in order to demonstrate “the consent of all the inhabitants of the Empire” (consensus universorum). In this case, the stone celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of imperial government (if it refers to Constantine, the event falls on July 25 336). Similar formulas are also present on coins and mass-produced objects.