16. This late sixth- or early fifth-century inscription discovered in 1977 about 40 miles south of Rome is one of the best pieces of evidence for private militia in the early city. It is a dedication to the god Mars (here, in the Latin of the time, the last word, ‘MAMARTEI’) by the ‘SUODALES’ of Publius Valerius (here, ‘POPLIOSIO VALESIOSIO’, on the first line) perhaps the same man as one of the semi-legendary consuls in the first year of the Republic (p. 129), Publius Valerius Publicola. His SUODALES (sodales in classical Latin) may be, politely, his ‘companions’; more realistically, they may
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