[2] Due to the lack of a large body of archaic Latin, and the method by which Romans abbreviated their inscriptions, scholars have not been able to produce a single translation that has been accepted by historians as accurate.

The inscription (CIL I 2nd 2, 4) is scratched along the side of the body of three vases made of dark brown bucchero, connected with each other by short cylindric arms.

He remarked the inconsistency of the previous interpretations both with the solemnity of the opening formula ("Iovesat deivos qoi med mitat": 'He swears for the gods who sends /delivers me') and with the site of the find.

Dumézil's interpretation was: "If it happens that the girl is not nice to you/ has no easy relationship with you ("nei ted endo cosmis virco sied" = "ne in te (=erga te) comis virgo sit"), we shall have the obligation of bringing her and you into good harmony, accord, agreement ("asted noisi ... pakari vois"="at sit nobis ... pacari vobis").

The story mirrored in the text would thus depict a custom deeply rooted in Roman society that is described by Plautus in the scene of the Menaechmi in which the tutor of the virgo or his representatives formally give a suretyship about her attitude towards a man.

Thence the only governing word could be the group TOITESIAI: this would then be an exception to the rule of the genitive of the themes in -a, which does not end in -as as expected, an archaism perhaps in Dumézil's view.

TOITEISIAI would then denote the means by which the nois(i), 'we', would have the authority of establishing peace between the 'vois' 'you' (the couple) of the main relationship justifying the delivery of the vase.

[21] Dumézil's contribution and the location of the find gave researchers grounds to pursue their work of interpretation in the same direction, i.e. of its significance as a token of legal obligation.

Proposed interpretations include: iubet orders for IOPET; futuitioni sexual intercourse for IOPETOI,[24] the cut TOI/TESIAI or OITES/IAI so that OPE would be the only recognisable Latin word.

Authoritative scholars on the grounds of the lexeme toitesiai have proposed a theonym (Coarelli), a feminine proper name Tuteria (Peruzzi, Bolelli), or even a gentilicium, the gens Titur(n)ia (Simon and Elboj) mentioned by Cicero.

Even though doubts have been cast over its correspondence with the technical Roman legal word tutela, Dumézil's intuition of recognising in the destination of the vase a juridical function, namely a matrimonial sponsio, was accepted and taken on.

G. Pennisi [26] reconstructs the text as follows: "Iovesat deivos qoi med mitat: nei ted cosmis virgo sied ast ednoisi opetoi pakari vois.

The inscription would thence exhibit an oath structure consisting in an archaic form of coemptio: "Swears for the gods he who buys me": mitat = *emitat (the future bridegroom would be speaking in the third person).

F. Marco Simon and G. Fontana Elboj (autopsy) confirmed the interpretation of the previous proposals that see in the vase the symbol of a marriage compact.

The whole text should thus be understood as: Ni erga te virgo comis sit, asted nobis; (iurat) opi et utilitati pangi vois, 'if the girl is not to your taste/agreeable to you, let her go back to us; (he swears) to give you guarantee about your disturb and your interest'.

The segment oitesiai could be also understood as utensilium referred to the vase itself as a token of suretyship or usus in the technical legal sense of Roman marriage as a way of providing a guarantee.

Servius in his commentary to the Aeneid writes that, before the introduction of the matrimonial tablets, in Latium the parties used to exchange tokens of pledge (symbola) on which they stated as a promise that they agreed to the marriage and nominated guarantors (sponsores).

He argues that a word [M]EINOM could be isolated on the grounds of the single spelling of geminates which is considered normal by linguists for the archaic period.

This form would be a -no substantive, a widely attested formation and may be presupposed by Latin mūnus, mūneris 'duty, service, office, offering', from immediate antecedent *mói̯-n-es-.

In the last case it should be admitted that in archaic times a form of marriage existed in which the sponsio was directly linked to the nuptiae, independently from the initial constitution of the manus.

Then the object in question could well have been deposited in a temple upon the occasion of a marriage ritual as a probatory document of an engagement undertaken not by the girl but by her sponsor.

Sacchi, following Palmer and Colonna,[39] proposes to interpret the couple as conveying a specifically technical religious and legal meaning as is testified in ancient sources.

Salu[...]voltene"[41] interpreted as 'good among the good', the epitaph of Lucius Cornelius Scipio, the consul of 259 BC, duonoro[m] optumo[m]... viro[m] in which clearly the adjective duonus is not the synonym of optumus, that as derived from ops, plenty, has different semantic connotations.

Colonna also reminds that "in the Carmen Saliare (similarly to the Duenos vase) bonus (duonus) and manus occur together, both referred to the same character, the god Cerus, fact that makes their synonymity implausible".

[42] In order to further clarify the use of the adjective in the text, Sacchi makes reference also to a well-known passage of Cicero's De Legibus II 9, 22: Deorum Manium iura sancta sunto.

[43] In other words, one could argue that it is not meant that the dii Manes become 'good' in the ethic sense, but rather that the dead consecrated to death according to the pontifical prescriptions (leto datos) do become gods (= divos).

[45] The vase is a speaking token that after the celebration of the ritual consecrates the content of the action, of which it is "the form in its probatory function and the matter as a constituent element".

Sacchi rejects the interpretation of cosmis as agreeable in the first section that is traditionally accepted in the scholarly literature, on the grounds of considerations of history of the language and semantics.

He proposes to interpret the term as referring to the peculiar style of hairdressing of brides, known as seni crines which would find support in Festus:[49] "Comptus id est ornatus ... qui apud nos comis: et comae dicuntur capilli cum aliqua cura compositi", 'Comptus, that is adorned, ... what we call comis; and comae is named the hair dressed with a certain care'.

[52] The Lapis Niger inscription is another example of Old Latin dated to the period of Rome's monarchy, although scholars have had difficulty in their attempts to interpret the meaning of the texts in their surviving fragments.