Amphora Dressel 6A with stamps CA^DMI e RUBRI. Intact.

Wine amphora characterised by a long cylindrical neck, a slightly carinated shoulder and two vertical, oval-section handles. Ovoid body ending with a foot. Collared rim. Its underwater origin is not verifiable.

The amphora is to be referred to productions of the ancient Picenum area, especially to the area of Pescara. It is identical to a specimen found SE of the excavation site close to the Novi Ark in Modena (MONGARDI 2014, p. 72, n. 15). The handles of this specimen show the stamps RVBRI and CA^DMI in prominent letters within a rectangular scroll ornament. Such an amphora is attributable, in all likelihood (as proposed by J. Patterson – PATTERSON 1982, p. 153 with related references), to a series traditionally assigned to P. Rubrius Barbarus, prefect of Egypt in 13-12 B.C. and member of a gens probably originating from the Adriatic coast of Central-South Italy, as the affiliation of the prefect to the tribus Maecia may suggest.

CA^DMI probably refers to a freedman called Cadmus who ran a pottery workshop and took the gentilicium of the dominus, keeping his servant name as his cognomen, so that his signature was made in genitive case as Rubri Cadmi.