Fam. 1, 9, 15 e il monumentum di Cicerone

After his return from exile, Cicero refers on several occasions to ‘his monument’ (meum monumentum), ‘his’ in that he had previously carried out the locatio operis of the structure as decided by the senate; but he complains that Clodius had placed his name on this monument and that the senate had done nothing to prevent him. The identification of the building which Cicero considered his monumentum has always been problematic, but, some years ago, the reconstruction of an important epigraphic text from Ostia, in which the names both of Cicero and Clodius appear, has suggested that it may be identified with the late republican walls of Ostia. This hypothesis is now proposed again with new arguments, demonstrating at the same time that the different solution lately proposed by Ph. Moreau, based on an interpretation of a passage of fam. 1, 9, 15, is not acceptable either from an historical-archaeological or a philological- linguistic point of view.