The viú Púmpaiianú and the Kaílú of Jupiter Meilichios

Abstract

Abstract In 1851 excavators working at the Porta Stabia in Pompeii recovered the so-called Road Maker’s Tablet, an inscription mentioning how two aediles had supervised road work in the Oscan city. The find proved remarkable because it provided the Oscan names of three streets, the viú Púmpaiianú, the via Jovis, and the Dekkviarim, and mentioned a sanctuary to Jupiter Meilichios as an associated landmark. Successive generations of scholars have since proposed varying interpretations as to which of the Pompeian streets featured these appellatives and have attempted to locate the sanctuary either inside the city, at the site of the (now identified) Temple of Asclepius, or immediately south of Pompeii at the Fondo Iozzino. Using a combination of epigraphic and art historical approaches, as well as an analysis of the latest archaeological evidence, this paper proposes a new interpretation, locating the sanctuary north of the city outside of the Porta Vesuvio.