ABSTRACT
A total of 153 partially legible documents relating to the business affairs of the banker (coactor argentarius) Lucius Caecilius Iucundus have been deciphered from writing-tablets found in V.i.26 in 1875. Generally, the wax has perished from the tablets, but traces of their writing remain visible where the metal pen has penetrated into the wooden surface below. They had been stored in a wooden chest on the first floor, above the north side of the peristyle. This also contained some unused tablets and a large placard. The earliest tablet (H69) dates from AD 15, and relates to the business of the banker Caecilius Felix. He is generally supposed to be Iucundus’ father and precursor in the same job. His identification as a freedman depends upon his cognomen, common among freedmen, or upon the assumption that he is identical with the freedman Lucius Caecilius Felix mentioned in another inscription (CIL X 891, AD 1). A freedman called Felix also dedicated a portrait bust of ‘our Lucius’ in the house (E55). It is also possible, however, that both ex-slave and master bore the same names, and that the banker was not a freedman. The latest tablet (H82) dates from January AD 62, only a month before the town was severely damaged by an earthquake, commemorated on the lararium relief in Iucundus’ house (C3). We can only speculate whether this collection of tablets is an accident of chance or whether it represents an archive of important documents. It certainly does not preserve a complete record of Iucundus’ business transactions.
