Note on the texts and translations

Readers should begin by looking at the images of each inscription. Next, an exact transcription, called a “diplomatic text,” reproduces the text of each inscription as it now exists; abbreviations are not expanded, errors are not corrected, and no missing text is restored. Sometimes a diplomatic text is a line drawing of the inscription itself, but in the case of longer inscriptions the diplomatic text is given simply as text in all caps. From the diplomatic text, readers can get a better sense of the scope and nature of the surviving text of an inscription without as much editorial intervention, and, therefore, reference to the diplomatic text is necessary to understand and evaluate the corrections and restorations proposed by scholars.

After the diplomatic text, an edited text with a facing page English translation is given. The edited text incorporates current scholarly thinking on corrections and restorations and adds punctuation, capitalization, etc. to aid in readability. The commentary is keyed to the edited text. The English versions do not privilege the original syntax of the translation over clear English. They should be used to understand the meaning rather than the exact grammar and syntax of the Latin. Since there is no consistent scheme used for formatting display copies of Latin legal documents, the formatting of the English translation is designed to aid the reader in understanding the structure of the document rather than to mimic the minimal formatting of the inscriptions.