VOLUBILIS. - A Roman city in the interior of Mauretania Tingitana, present-day Morocco.
It was the residence of King Juba and of the Roman governors. Christianity is attested by a group of sepulchral inscriptions whose formulary is similar to that of Altava, today Lamoricière in Algeria. They begin, that is, with o or o or directly with "memoria" (Iulii Materni, or Iulii Principii), followed by the indication of those (filii, or filii et mater, or parentes et nepotes) who fecerunt domum aeternalem; there follows the length of life and then the formula "discessit in pace" and the date, which is anno provinciae (DLX, that is 599; or DLXVI, that is 605; or DCXVI, that is 655 A.D., of which two other examples are known).
A certain Julius was "vice pr(a)epositus"; a certain Julia Rogativa was "de Altava cooptativa," that is, a native of Altavia but co-opted by V. (J. Carcopino, La fin du Maroc romain, in Mél. d'arch. et d'hist., 58 [1940], pp. 349-448; id., Le Maroc antique, Paris 1943, pp. 231-304). These inscriptions represent the latest Christian inscriptions of Roman Africa, invaded by the Arabs as early as 647. In the Roman quarter of the 3rd century, a crude ivory statuette of the Good Shepherd was found in 1937 (R. Thouvenot, in Bull. de la Soc. de géogr. et d'archéol. d'Oran, 60 [1939], p. 80 and pl. 16, 2). As early as 1891 a Christian incense burner had been discovered (Comptes-rendus de l'Acad. des Inscr., 1891, pp. 273-74).
Enrico Josi