Protagonist: Gaius Sulpicius Faustus

Description: The great majority of the texts is situated between AD 35 and 55. Except for three texts they are all written at Puteoli and in 160 out of 175 cases one of the protagonists is a Sulpicius. Gaius Sulpicius Faustus is attested from AD 26 to 52, his freedman Gaius Sulpicius Cinnamus comes to the fore in the period AD 42-56. For about ten years they act together and then Cinnamus takes over. Gaius Sulpicius Onirus appears in 5 documents from February 61 (TPSulp 90-93). They are all freedmen and they lent huge sums of money (up to 1.280.000 HS over a period of twenty years) either as money-lenders (fenatores) or as bankers to local businessmen. Two dossiers on money loans may be recognised among these papers, that of Gnaeus Novius Eunus (TPSulp 45, 51, 52 and perhaps 67-68) and that of Lucius Marius Secundus (TPSulp 46, 53 and 79). Forty texts deal with juridical problems, e.g. promises to appear in court, attestations that a person has appeared in court, court proceedings, oaths), 87 are business documents, e.g. contracts of sale, loan and lease, IOU's (documents acknowledging debt), accounts. The texts are important for many reasons, but especially because they illustrate "international" trade between Italy and Rome on the one hand and Spain and Egypt on the other.

Studies: Camodeca, Tabulae Pompeianae Sulpiciorum [TPSulp]. Edizione critica dell' archivio puteolano dei Sulpicii, 1999 [replaces earlier partial publications]. A colloquium on the archive of the Sulpicii took place in Paris on 27 November 1999. The results were published in Cahiers du Centre G.Glotz 11 (2000), p. 102-191. For a short introduction to the archive, see Andreau, Banking and business in the Roman world, 1999, p. 71-79.

Works: In Cahiers du Centre G.Glotz 11 (2000), p. 173 Giuseppe Camodeca announces a third volume of TPSulp with addenda and corrigenda on his edition of 1999.