Identification: SEVERI ET ANTONINI AUGG NN The small fragment depicted part of a building that is mainly visible in frs. 5Abcd and 5Af. It consisted of a large triangular or trapezoidal courtyard framed at top and on the left by tabernae. An arched feature at the top right corner of the building (visible in fr. 5Ad) may have provided a monumental entrance into this courtyard. The letter G in this fragment was part of an inscription, SEVERI ET ANTONINI AUGG NN, the main section of which is visible in fr. 5Abcd. To which building on the Plan this inscription refers is disputed. Because the emperors are named in the genitive case, the inscription should refer to something they owned or built or were directly responsible for. The authors of PM 1960 suggest that the inscription refer to a building on the Plan that lies beyond the edges of the surviving fragments (PM 1960, p. 109). E. Rodríguez-Almeida has proposed that this inscription was part of the name of the horizontal street in frs. 5Aa and 5Abcd, reconstructing the full inscription as [CLI]VVS VICTORIAE SEVERI ET AN/TONINI AV[GG]/NN ("the street of victory of Severus and Antoninus, our emperors"). This was done, he argued, to distinguish this clivus Victoriae from the one on the Palatine (AG 1980, p. 68). Why the two inscribed parts were placed so far apart when there was plenty of space above the clivus Victoriae section to complete a larger inscription, is not considered.
Hitherto overlooked is the possibility that the inscription refers to the triangular courtyard itself and/or to the arched or vaulted feature in the lower right corner of fr. d (slightly better exposed in this missing fragment)(T. Najbjerg, May 2003). Since inscribed labels on the Plan generally are placed inside or immediately next to the feature they describe, this would be the more logical solution. The arched/vaulted feature in the upper right corner of the courtyard perhaps represented a large triumphal arch or a monumental entrance to the triangular area, or it introduced a structure, built by Septimius Severus and his son, that backed onto the right side of the courtyard and presented a splendid facade towards the open space in front, like the neighboring Septizodium. This grand structure was possibly one of the means by which Septimius Severus monumentalized this area of Rome.

Significance The inscription in this fragment and in fr. 5Ab is key evidence for the date of the Plan. The inscription refers to Septimius Severus and his son Aurelius Antoninus (nicknamed Caracalla) as co-emperors. This was true between 198 CE, when Caracalla was created Augustus to rule alongside his father, and Feb. 4, 211 CE, when Septimius died. The inscription does not mention Septimius' younger son Geta, who was made Augustus in 209 and assassinated by his brother in 212. This additional detail may mean that the Plan was made before 209; however, the commonly accepted upper limit is 211 CE. Other fragments (7abcd, 8a, and 8bde) depict the Septizodium, built in 203 CE, so the Plan cannot be earlier than that. This window of 203-211 CE agrees with the Severan date of the wall that supported the Marble Plan (rebuilt after a fire in 192 CE extensively damaged the Templum Pacis), and with the lack of any monuments on the Plan later than this period (PM 1960, p. 213).

Text by Tina Najbjerg and Jen Trimble.