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Sicininum

p488 Article on pp488‑489 of

Samuel Ball Platner (as completed and revised by Thomas Ashby):
A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome,
London: Oxford University Press, 1929.

Sicininum: a local designation for the site on the Esquiline now occupied by S. Maria Maggiore. Whether it was the name of a street, square, or complex of buildings, is uncertain, as well as its derivation and meaning. It is possible that Cicinenses (q.v.) may be connected with it (CIL VI.9103 = 31895; BC 1891, 347; BCr 1864, 59; HJ 336). Sicininum occurs p489 in an inscription found in the forum in 1899, which contains a copy of an edict issued by Tarracius Bassus, praefectus urbi, shortly after 368 A.D. (NS 1899, 335; BC 1899, 230‑233; Klio II.270), twice in the LP (D. I.171, vit. Silvest. 3: in Sicinini regione, cf. p188, n11; I.233, vit. Xysti 3: domum Claudi in Sicininum), and in other ecclesiastical writers of the period in slightly variant forms (Rufin. hist. eccl. II.10; Socrates hist. eccl. IV.49; Hieron. ad a. Abr. 2382).1 There is some doubt as to the date of the present church of S. Maria Maggiore, but the latest authority assigns the nave and its mosaics to Pope Liberius, while the mosaics of the triumphal arch belong to the restoration of Sixtus III. (Wilpert, Mal. u. Mos. 412 sqq.). In this case the basilica Sicinini, where Christian worship was held in 367 (Amm. Marcell. XXVII.3.13: constatque in basilica Sicinini ubi ritus christiani est conventiculum uno die reperta CXXXVII cadavera peremptorum), which was the same as the basilica Liberiana (BCr 1871, 20; HJ 336, n34), would be the new building elected by Pope Liberius (352‑366), not an apartment in an existing Sicininum adapted by him to this purpose. Contrast, however, Arm. 226; HJ 336; HCh 342; BA 1915, 20, 136. Basilica Sicinini also occurs in Codex Vaticanus 496, where the documents relating the struggle described by Ammianus (loc. cit.) are collected (BCr 1871, 20‑21).

The Authors' Note:

1 The sepulchral inscription of a Jewish γραμματεὺς σεκῆνων may also contain the name in a corrupt form (NS 1920, 148; BC 1922, 214).

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Sicininum

p488 Article on pp488‑489 of

Samuel Ball Platner (as completed and revised by Thomas Ashby): A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, London: Oxford University Press, 1929.

The Authors' Note:

Samuel Ball Platner (as completed and revised by Thomas Ashby):
A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome,
London: Oxford University Press, 1929.