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The Cursus Honorum of M. Hirrius Fronto Neratius Pansa*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Mario Torelli
Mario Torelli
Affiliation:
Museo di Villa Giulia, Rome
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Extract

Eleven fragments of the monumental inscription here discussed were found at Saepinum during excavations carried out over many years by the Soprintendente alle Antichità degli Abruzzi, Professor Valerio Cianfarani. My best thanks are due to Professor Cianfarani for his exceptional generosity in making the epigraphic material in his care available to Dr. A. La Regina and myself for our work on the Supplementum of CIL IX. The inscription, carved on slabs of Luni marble, in all probability belonged to a building in the forum, perhaps the Basilica. The fragments were obviously re-used at a later stage as paving slabs: they may be arranged to form four unconnected portions (Fragments A–D) of a senatorial cursus of Imperial date relating to one M. Hirrius Fronto Neratius Pansa, known to us hitherto only from fragmentary and uncertain references. Previously, in fact, we only knew of him as consular legate of Cappadocia and Galatia between 77/78 and 79/80; what appear to be indirect references to his consulship are also found in an inscription from Lugdunensis and in a graffito from Pompeii.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 58 , Issue 1-2 , November 1968 , pp. 170 - 175
Copyright
Copyright © Mario Torelli 1968. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 The reconstructed inscription is more than 3 m. long; this is unlikely for a funerary monument, but the stone could well have been placed at the main entrance of the Basilica, which was rebuilt in its present form in the fourth century (A. Maiuri, N. Sc. 1929, 213 ff. and Cianfarani, V., Guida alle antichità di Sepino (Milan, 1958), 37 f.Google Scholar). During an inspection in 1967, I noticed the loss of one of the eleven fragments shown in photographs taken at the time of the discovery; it bore the end of the word murali (l.4). The piece, however, is shown in the drawing, Pl. XIV, 5.

2 Cf. PIR II1, p. 144 (N 129); B. Stech, Senatores Romani quifuerint inde a Vespasiano usque ad Traiani exitum (Klio Beih., 1912), 11, n. 69; Groag, E., RE XVI. 2 (1935)Google Scholar, col. 2545 f., S.V. ‘Neratius’; Sherk, R. K., The Legates of Galatia (Baltimore, 1951), 42Google Scholar f. The sources are two inscriptions, one from Comana, (IGR III, 125Google Scholar) and the other from Pessinunte, (IGR III, 223Google Scholar); and coins from the κοινόν of Galatia (Babelon, Invent. Waddington no. 6594), from Caesarea (Babelon, op. cit., nos. 6749–51) and from Galatia (Br. Mus. Coins, Galatia no. 57). Mommsen's observations on the coins and their chronology are still useful: Ges. Schr. IV, 457, n. 1.

3 The inscription (CIL XIII, 1675 = ILS 4537) concerns one Q. Adginnius Martinus, priest of Rome and Augustus and municipal magistrate in the civitas Sequanorum (cf. CIL XIII, 1674 = ILS 7013); as Groag suggested, he was [accensus a M. Ner]atio Pansa, cos. Graffito from Pompeii: CIL IV, Suppl. 3, 8324.

4 Hermes LXXXV (1957), 486 f.Google Scholar; the Tlos inscription: IGR III, 1511 = TAM II. 2, 568 = SEG XIX (1963), no. 868Google Scholar.

5 Bull. Ep. 1958, no. 294 (cf. also ibid. 1959, no. 112).

6 List in Gordon, A. E., Q. Veranius cos. A.D. 49 (University of California Publications in Classical Archaeology II. 5, 52), 279Google Scholar ff. For the rank of the curatores, see ibid. 280 ff.

7 But these titles would be very unusual—cf. CIL X, 8067 = ILS 8629—so it is highly likely that Titus' name did not occur here. L. Neratius Marcellus was also adlectus inter patricios by Vespasian, alone (CIL IX 2456Google Scholar = ILS 1032): there is no doubt that he is the son of Pansa (R. Syme, loc. cit. 491 f.). The identical position of the adlectio in the cursus of Marcellus suggests that the elevation of the family to patrician status, as also in the cases of Ti. Iulius Celsus Polemaeanus and Cn. Iulius Agricola, took place in 73–74. Marcellus became a patrician after holding office in the vigintivirate (c. 72), and was subsequently curator actorum senatus (c. 74), quaestor Augusti (c. 75) and was perhaps salius Palatinus while his father was XV vir s.f. (c. 76); as Syme has acutely observed, the unusual position of his military tribuneship (after his quaestorship) is to be explained by the fact that he followed his father to the province of Cappadocia, where his legion, the XII Fulminata, was stationed. The obscurity of Marcellus' career under Domitian is an excellent pointer to the progress of the family's fortunes.

8 The absence of divus is not, of course, a decisive chronological factor in itself (cf. Petersen, L., Neue Beitr. z. Gesch. d. Alt. Welt II (Berlin, 1965), 97 ff.Google Scholar); in this particular case, however, in view of the type of inscription, I doubt if it would have been omitted. If it was, we should have to come down to the age of Domitian, with which it is not easy to reconcile any of the offices held by Pansa.

9 Cf. Dessau, H., JRS III (1913), 304Google Scholar, n. 3 (ILS 8495).

10 CIL V 531 = ILS 989.

11 Cf. De Ruggiero, , Diz. Ep. IIGoogle Scholar, s.v. censitor. It is not unlikely that Vespasian's ambitious plans for a census would have required the co-operation of influential and capable senators for Italy as well: if Pansa had a post of this kind, it seems much more probable that his rank was praetorian rather than consular at the time.

12 Cf. for example Pliny, , NH VII, 49, 162Google Scholar f.

13 Cassiod., Chron. 670: Asiam in XLIV regiones Sulla distribuit (cf. Magie, D., Roman Rule in Asia Minor (Princeton, 1950), 1116Google Scholar). As a pure hypothesis, I suggest that there might be a reference to the huge Flavian province of Cappadocia—Galatia, which did consist of precisely ten regions: Cappadocia, Galatia, Pisidia, Phrygia Paroreius, Lycaonia, Isauria, Paphlagonia, Pontus Galaticus, Pontus Polemoniacus and Armenia Minor (see however Magie, op. cit. 1437, who excludes the two Ponti from the province in Flavian times; but see Oest. Jahresh. VII (1904)Google Scholar, Beibl., 56 = ILS 8971, Ti. Iulius Celsus Polemaeanus, the legate of this very Neratius Pansa, with a list of the components of the province that includes Pontus). If Neratius Pansa was consular censitor of this province, there need not have been a conflict between his authority and that of the governor, whoever he was (Collega was in the province perhaps between 75 and 77), assuming that there was a governor in the year of the census: cf. the position of C. Rutilius Gallicus in Africa (Syme, R., Rev. Et. Anc. LVIII (1956), 238Google Scholar, n. 10). We could think, after all, that we are concerned here with a great new province at a formative stage in its administrative history, in short at the very moment of its birth.

14 [c]ensendo is the dative or ablative of the gerund (or masculine singular of the gerundive), and it is difficult to reconcile this with the following word reg (iones). This is not one of the formulae usually employed in describing such offices (gerundive in the genitive or ablative plural or with the accusative preceded by ad). It is difficult to believe in a formula consisting of the ablative of the gerund used in a final sense and not yet attested in any inscription. Possibly the sentence contained a detailed reference, with some final purport, to the special (and exclusively provincial) role of censui censendo (cf. Mommsen, , Röm. Staatsr. II, 389Google Scholar).

15 As in the case of the exercitus of Africa and Germania: see for example ILS 997 (Germania Superior), 991 (Africa).

16 Dio LXVI, 15, 3; cf. Täubler, E., Klio IX (1909), 18 ffGoogle Scholar.

17 IGR III 133 = ILS 8795 (second half of 75). Cf. G. V. Tseresheh in Vestn. Drevn. Ist. 1960, p. 123 ff. = SEG XX (1964), 112Google Scholar. Either the fifteenth or sixteenth imperial salutation of Vespasian, between the second half of 75 and the first half of 76, is probably to be connected with events in the East.

18 Cf. A. E. Gordon, loc. cit., for the rank of this office and its place in the cursus.

19 On the state of the province of Lycia and Pamphylia, see Syme, R., Klio XXX (1937), 227Google Scholar ff. St. Jerome's date of A.D. 74 for the constitution of the province is certainly wrong, as may be deduced from the number of governors it had under Vespasian.

20 As in the case of two unpublished inscriptions from Lucus Feroniae, which show only the post-consular cursus of L. Volusius Saturninus, cos. A.D. 3, and Q. Volusius Saturninus, cos. 56; they were most probably cut in Flavian times.

21 The position of Cn. Pompeius Collega as governor of Cappadocia—Galatia would be most unusual in 75, if one supposes that an exercitus commanded by Pansa was then present in his province: his authority would be merely judicial and administrative, while the leader of the exercitus would enjoy full military imperium—a position not unlike that of the legates of Belgica compared with that of the legate of the German exercitus. It could be that Collega was of praetorian rank (Degrassi, A., I Fasti Consolari dell' Impero Romano (Roma, 1952), 22Google Scholar considers him to be so, and no-one has objected). But note Suetonius, Div. Vesp. 8, ‘Cappadociae propter adsiduos barbarorum incursus legiones addidit, consularemque rectorem imposuit pro equite Romano’ (but Suetonius might have simplified the matter); and Tac., , Hist. II, 81Google Scholar, referring to 69: ‘Sed inermes legati regebant, nondum additis Cappadociae legionibus’ (both authors thus insist on the addition of legions). Secondly, note the position of Collega in 69: as legate of a Flavian legion, he might well have been rewarded with the consulship before a difficult post as legate in the new province (but in CIL III, 6817 = ILS 998 he is mentioned only as patronus coloniae of Antiochia in Pisidia). For the history of the province and its foundation, generally accepted as 72–73, see Gwatkin, W. E., Cappadocia as a Roman Procuratorial Province (Princeton, 1930), 55 ffGoogle Scholar; Magie, op. cit. 1439 f.; Sherk, op. cit. passim.

22 Apart from the internal evidence of the cursus itself, 74 can be discarded because it is now largely known from a new fragment of the Fasti Ostienses (Equini, E., Epigraphica XXIX (1967), 11 ff.Google Scholar); the fragmentary [- - -]ON[- - -], preserved in the Fasti feriarum Latinarum (known for these years from 18th-century copies, cf. Inscr. Ital. XIII, 1, tab. LX, fragm. VIII) should be completed with the name of Sex. Iulius Frontinus, since there is no space for the second gentilicium and cognomen of M. Hirrius Fronto Neratius Pansa.

23 A close link between the office of censor and the concession of dona militaria is attested by the important inscription CIL XI, 3098 = ILS 999; cf. Mommsen, , Röm. Staatsr. II, 399Google Scholar, n. 3. In the same year, dona militaria were awarded to Valerius Festus and the two Domitii Curvii, who (in contrast to Sex. Vettulenus Cerialis) had nothing at all to do with the Jewish war.

24 I am indebted to Dr. W. Eck for the suggestion, based on Tac., , Agr. 9, 6Google Scholar, that the grant of a priesthood could accompany that of the consulship.