51

This latter work showed how closely philology and antiquarianism cooperated. For instance, Panvinio wanted to sort out the confusingly diverse Roman priesthoods. He dragged in evidence from as many quarters as possible: coins, texts, long inscriptions from monuments, short ones from tombstones. Then he had to make sense of it. William Stenhouse described his predicament:

How could Panvinio be sure of a particular arcane word in a text, for example, if the manuscript of the ancient author from which it came was known to have been carelessly copied? Could his correspondets offer any parallels, or any general pieces of advice? How wa a particular abbreviation in the letters around a coin's edge to be interpreted, and did the figure on the coin represent a priest= How many inscriptions were known at Rome which featured a particular sacrificial officer, and how were the variations in the way the name was spelled to be interpreted?

To recover the ancient past, the written record could not be kept apart from coins, architecture, inscriptions; nor vice versa. Panvinio himself amassed some three thousand inscriptions and nursed a plan—unfulfilled—to publish all known inscriptions. The philologist and the antiquarian were often the same person. [FN 51]

The Fasti Capitolini helped to make the ancient subject of chronology a hot modern one. The quest for correct historical dates traveled far beyond Rome.