Stele of Quintus Aemilius Secundus

The Stele of Quintus Aemilius Secundus is a first-century Roman tombstone bearing a notable funerary inscription.

Before being involved in military service as a commander of a core of engineers, I was appointed by the two consuls as treasurer, and in the colony I was treasury secretary to the aedile twice, duumvir a second time and was as a priest.

[5]The stele was apparently brought from Beirut to Venice in the 17th century, possibly as part of a ship's ballast, and there was transcribed by the antiquary Ursatus Patavinus in 1674.

The stele was subsequently lost, and the transcript was suspected to be a forgery until the lower part of the original was rediscovered in 1880 on Giudecca, where it had served as a window sill in a private house.

The information that the population of the district around Apamea stood at 117,000 is of particular interest to historians, as data on the Syrian demographics of the period is otherwise scanty.