Novios Plautios
Roman Republic
The story
Novios Plautios is known from a single line of Latin. It is engraved on the lid of a bronze toilet box, the Ficoroni Cista, found at Palestrina east of Rome, and it reads "Novios Plautios med Romai fecid", Novios Plautios made me in Rome. No other record of him survives, and his life can be dated only through the cista, usually placed in the 4th century BC.
Even that one line holds some information. Novios is a first name used by the Oscan-speaking peoples of southern Italy, so many scholars think he or his family came from Campania, the region around Naples. The words "in Rome" place his workshop in the city itself.
