VOLUBILIS. - A Roman city in the interior of Mauretania Tingitana, present-day Morocco.
It was the residence of King Giulio and of the Roman governors. Christianity is attested by a group of sepulchral inscriptions whose formulary is similar to that of Altava, now Lamoricière in Algeria. They begin either with o col or directly with “memoria” (Iulii Materni, or Iulii Principii), followed by an indication of those (filii, or filii et mater, or parentes et nepotes) who fecerunt domum aeternalem; this is followed by the length of life and then by 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 A.D. 655, of which there are two further examples).
One Giulio was “vice pr(a)epositus”; one Giulia Rogativa was “de Altava cooptativa,” that is, originally from 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, Parigi 1943, pp. 231-304). These inscriptions are the latest Christian inscriptions of Roman Africa, invaded by the Arabs as early as 647. In the Roman quarter of the third century, a crude ivory statuette of the Good Shepherd was discovered 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