Abstract:

The study of 189 lead slingshots from a 1st century BC cistern in the Roman city of Iluro (Mataró) allows us to present an important set of 38 epigraphs and symbols, most of which are unpublished. 29 glandes have the inscription CAL, another 8 with a symbol that might represent a schematization of an eagle with spread wings, and a single one with the fulmen symbol. Different hypotheses are presented about its origin and chronology, from its attribution to Domitius Calvinus, victorious against the Ceretans between 39 and 37 BC, to its possible relationship with an imperative, CAL[CA] (“defeat, wound…”), perhaps an acclamatio directed at the enemy.