436 TESSERZ CONSULARES. 
which the services of the spectatores would be most required ; whilst 
in the country parts they were issued only once in the month, the 
day for such issue not being fixed, but left to the discretion of the 
issuing officers. 
Still another view may be taken, that these ¢essere indicated the 
time, not from which the persons holding them might act as spec- 
tatores, but for or during which they were empowered to discharge 
that duty —in the city for a specified day—in the country for* a 
specified month. 
In addition to the inscriptions of this class which have been 
already noticed, there is an unique, which Mommsen believed that 
he he had found on one of the oll@ ex Vinea S. Cesarvi, The in- 
scription stands thus: 
FELIX: PETIC:SP K FEB 
M:-CAES:GALIVS 
This so closely resembles those found on ¢essere, that that distin- 
guished Epigraphist, although well aware that those oll@ bore 
funereal records, attempted to discover the names of the consuls in 
the second line, and proposed M'CAESO'GAB:COS. ie. Marco 
Cesonino et Gabinio consulibus, scil. the Piso’ and Gabinius of 
A. U. C. 696. He now, however, p. 212, justly abandons this 
reading. It is difficult to decide for what SP stands there: the most 
probable expansions are Servus Publicus, and S[E]P for Sepultus, 
the latter of which is preferable. 
There is also a singular object, apparently of this class, in the 
Museum at Paris, as noticed by Chabouillet, Catalogue des camées 
et pierres gravées de la Bib. Imp., n. 3171. It bears the following 
inscription : | 
D:IVNIVS 
HERMETVS 
SPECT K’ MAR. 
M LEPID Q CAT 
There is reason to suspect that this is a forgery, for the ¢essera is 
not of ivory or bone but of metal. . 
® here is no objection to the Latinity of mense iw this sense, viz, “during.” 
