About 2,000 years ago, a Roman politician celebrated his victory by commissioning a sundial and putting it in public so everyone could read his name each time they checked the time. On the base of the sundial is inscribed “M(arcus) NOVIUS M(arci) F(ilius) TUBULA” — or Marcus Novius Tubula, son of Marcus. Another engraving on the rim of the bowl says that Tubula (literally, “small trumpet”) held the office of “TR(ibunus) PL(ebis)” — that is, plebeian tribune, and paid for the sundial “D(e) S(ua) PEC(unia),” or “with his own money.”
The sundial was found in the town of what was then Lirenas, about 90 miles southeast of Rome. The style of the letters suggests to researchers that the sundial was erected in the mid-first century BCE or onward.
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