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Family Dating Criteria, Proximi and ‘Provincia’ in the Familia Caesaris

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

P. R. C. Weaver
P. R. C. Weaver
Affiliation:
University of Tasmania
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Extract

Sound chronology is fundamental in any attempt to trace the development of the Roman imperial administration. This is especially true for those officials whose careers lay in the sub-equestrian ranks of the administration, as the funerary inscriptions, on which most of our detailed knowledge of them depends, are extremely difficult to date. For the Augusti liberti the main dating criterion is the imperial nomen gentilicium in their full nomenclature, which fixes their date of manumission, normally at the age of thirty or soon after, to the period in which the manumitting emperor or emperors reigned; the terminus ad quem for holding a post in the administration is, therefore, not more than forty years after the death of the last emperor bearing a given nomen, and normally a post is not likely to have been held later than about twenty-five years after the emperor's death. In the numerous cases, however, where the nomen of an Imperial freedman is not recorded, but only his cognomen and status-indication are given, the problem is much more difficult. External dating criteria are usually lacking; we are forced to make the best use possible of internal evidence.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 58 , Issue 1-2 , November 1968 , pp. 110 - 123
Copyright
Copyright © P. R. C. Weaver 1968. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 References throughout are to CIL unless stated otherwise. The following special abbreviations have been used:

‘Cursus’. P. Weaver, ‘The Slave and Freedman “Cursus” in the Imperial Administration’ Proc. Camb. Philol. Soc. N.S. 10 (1964), 74–92.

Freed. Proc. P. Weaver, ‘Freedmen Procurators in the Imperial Administration’, Historia XIV (1965), 460–469

Friedländer. L. Friedländer—G. Wissowa, Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms (9–10 ed.) 4vols. Leipzig, 1920–22.

Hirschfeld. O. Hirschfeld, Die kaiserlichen Verwaltungsbeamten von Augustus bis auf Diocletian (2 ed.). Berlin, 1905.

Meyers. W. Meyers, L'Administration de la Province romaine de Belgique. Bruges, 1964.

Mommsen. Th. Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht (3 ed.). Leipzig, 1887–8.

Pflaum, Carr. Proc. H. G. Pflaum, Les Carrières procuratoriennes équestres sous le Haut-Empire. 3 vols. Paris, 1960–61.

Pflaum, Proc. Equest. H. G. Pflaum, Les Procurateurs équestres sous le Haut-Empire romain. Paris, 1950.

Stein. E. Stein, Die kaiserlichen Beamten und Truppenkörper im römischen Deutschland unter dem Prinzipat. Vienna, 1932.

Vicarius. P. Weaver, ‘Vicarius and Vicarianus in the Familia Caesaris’, JRS LIV (1964), 117–128.

2 See further Class. Quart. n.s. XIII (1963), 272 f.

3 o.c., p. 71.

4 o.c., pp. 98 f.

5 From the viewpoint of the family relationships involved, the interpretation of this inscription is by no means clear. Caninia Helpis, who dedicates the inscription, can be assumed to be a wife or friend of Coenus, but not the mother of Homullia Coenilla or of C. Iulius Proculus, as the nomina and the expression ‘fili(i)s eius’ indicate. The different nomina of the children can be explained as due to either: (i) two different mothers, a Homullia and a Iulia; or (ii) the sale of one or other of the children as slaves into another family and subsequent manumission by the new master; or (iii) adoption of one or both children into another family. Sale of children (ii), especially back into the Familia Caesaris as would have to be the case if Proculus’ mother was a slave of another master, can be ruled out for the family of Imperial officials of Coenus' status. Adoption (iii) would prove nothing about the status of Proculus. See, on family nomenclature, H. Thylander, Étude sur l'epigraphie latine, 1952, esp. 81 ff.; and Rawson, Beryl, ‘Family Life among the Lower Classes at Rome in the First Two Centuries of the Empire’, Class. Phil. LXI, (1966), 71 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 The reading and explanation of this inscription given by Cumont, F. (in Académie royale de Belgique, Bulletin de la Classe des Lettres etc. 5th Ser., Vol. 32 (1946), 151Google Scholar and n. 2) is erroneous in more than one respect: in line 2 the reading is Palatin(a), the tribal designation, not Palatin(o); in lines 4–5 the reading is not: Tertioli Aug(usti) lib(erto) proxim(o) rational(is) as given by Cumont and by Ruggiero, Diz. Epig. 11 540, but should be: Tertioli Aug(usti) lib(erti) proxim(i) rational(ium) (cf. Mommsen, CIL ad loc.; Hirschfeld 34, n. 2; Ensslin, P-W XXIII, 1034; Stein 71, n. 7). Meyers' reading (p. 98) produces an even more extraordinary personage: T. Flavius Palatin(a) Fuscianus Tertius, L(uci) f(ilius), Aug(usti) lib(ertus), who, as Pflaum rightly observes (Gnomon 37 (1965), 393Google Scholar), breaks every rule of freedman nomenclature, and especially that of the Augusti liberti.

7 For the tribal-indication in the names of freedmen, see Mommsen III, 441 and nn. 1,2; Taylor, L. R., AJP 82 (1961), 117Google Scholar and n. 14; Voting Districts of the Roman Republic (1960), 147–9. The Palatina tribe-indication does not indicate freedman status; see Mommsen and Taylor, loc. cit., against Maier, F. G., Historia II (1954), 243Google Scholar, n. 3.

8 Hirschfeld 34, n. 2; Ensslin, P-W XXIII, 1034 f.; von Premerstein, P-W IV, 765; Stein 71; Meyers 99; Cumont, loc. cit.

9 See further Section II below.

10 For examples from the early second century see ‘Cursus’ 86 f.; to which may be added, from the first century: VI, 16663: Curtia C.l. Prapis… sibi et P. Curtio Sp. f. Col. Maximo filio et Ti. Iulio Aug. 1. Glyconi; VI, 14945: Ti. Claudio Aug. l. Ater … coniugi karissimo et L. Trebonio Fundando filio pientissimo Trebonia Oeanthe emit sibi…; VI, 12776–7: Attiae Secundae Ti. Claudius Aug. lib. Leander coniugi suae et M. Attius Leander matri…; VI, 10089: Claudiae Faustinae filiae pientissimae quae vix. ann. XVI, Ti. Cl. Aug. lib. Philetus… et Flavia Procula parentes, item Flavius Daphnus et Cl. Martialis fratres fecerunt… (in this instance, Flavius Daphnus is the eldest child, born before the father's manumission, and hence takes his nomen from his mother; the two youngest children, Cl(audius) Martialis and Claudia Faustina (16) born after their father's manumission, take his nomen). See also ‘The Father of Claudius Etruscus: Statius, Silvae 3, 3’, Class. Quart. N.S. xv (1965), 146Google Scholar, n. 2; 151 f. The father of Claudius Etruscus is known to have been manumitted by Tiberius (Statius, , Silvae 3, 3, 68–9Google Scholar), from whom he would have derived the name Ti. Iulius Aug. lib. …; hence the son's nomen could not be relied upon as a dating criterion.

11 For the relevance of the Senatus consultum Claudianum to this changed marriage pattern, see Class. Quart. N.S. xv (1965), 324 f.Google Scholar

12 See Mommsen, I, 324; L. Halkin, Les Esclaves publics chez les romains (1897); Vicarius, p. 124.

13 On the other hand, the nomen of an Augusti libertus can be safely inferred from the nomen of his own libertus; examples are VI, 5264: Iulia Restituta (Iulii) Acuti Aug(usti) lib(erti) liber(ta); 24191b: Iulia Fausta (Iulii) Alexionis August(i) lib(erti) lib(erta).

14 I have discussed these in an article on the slave and freedman cursus in the Imperial administration ‘Cursus’ 85 ff. On proximi in the early empire, see especially Ensslin, P-W XXIII, 1034 f., and Hirschfeld 335, 441, 460.

15 Ab admissione: VI, 8698, 8699, 8702; proximus ab admiss.: VI, 8701; adiutor ab admiss.: III, 6107; VI, 8700; nomenclator ab admiss.: VI, 8930, 8931. For a proximus in the 4th Century, Amm. Marc. 22, 7, 2: ‘ …inductis per admissionum proximum.’ On the officium admissionis and the admissionales, see P-W 1, 381; D-S 1, 71; Diz. Epig. 1, 92.

16 ‘Cursus’ 87 f.

17 Historia X (1961), 375 ff.Google Scholar

18 See ‘Cursus’ 88; also Freed. Proc. 463 f.

19 On rationalis, see Hirschfeld 34; Friedländer, IV, 27; Liebenam in P-W IA, 263 f., who, however, is forced to take the use of the term in X, 6092 as an (unexplained) early example, as he assumes a Flavian date for the inscription.

20 In XIII, 1800, line 2, the reading ITACO … perhaps represents: ‘it(em) a co[mm(entariis) prov(inciae) …] ’ (cf. x, 6092, lines 6–7). The suggestion given in CIL ad loc., ‘it(em) a co[mmentariis]’ is distinctly unlikely as the simple post of a commentariis without further qualification is an undistinguished one of intermediate clerical status, and does not occur in the career-type inscriptions of the senior freedmen. Another possible restoration: ‘it(em) a co[gnit(ionibus)]’ is unlikely unless it represents the accumulation of two posts of the rank of proximus held at the same time. On Aurelius Augg. lib. Alexander v.e., praep(ositus) sacr(arum) cogn(itionum), see below, n. 25.

21 The administrative reforms of M. Aurelius at the sub-equestrian levels are extensive and important, and need to be presented as a whole together with the evidence of his changes in the equestrian procuratorial system. But that is matter for a separate article.

22 For the nomenclature of the freedmen officials in the Palatine secretariates in the period up to Hadrian, see ‘Cursus’ 89 ff.

23 The grave implications of this supposition for the equestrian procuratorial system have been spelled out (wrongly, in my opinion) by Millar, Fergus in a recent article, ‘Some Evidence on the Meaning of Tacitus: Annals XII, 60’, Historia XIII (1964), 180 ff.Google Scholar, at p. 187; cf. JRS LIII (1963), 196Google Scholar (review of Pflaum's Carrières Procuratoriennes); but see ‘Cursus’ 81 ff.; Freed. Proc. 462 ff.

24 There is perhaps one instance to the contrary: if the probable identification of Aurelius Alexander proximus ab epistulis Latinis (XIV, 2815 = XV, 7832) with M. Aurelius Alexander Aug. lib. ab epistulis Graecis (VI, 8606) is accepted, it would be natural to assume that he moved up from being proximus in the ab epistulis Latinis to the freedman headship in the ab epistulis Graecis.

25 The inscription of Thallus is very probably late third century (cf. CIL ad loc.; Pflaum, Carr. Proc. 1024; against Hirschfeld 330, n. 2, who thought it could not be later than Caracalla). On the other hand, Pflaum (Carr. Proc. 1024) dates that of Alexander to between 161 and 169. This is just possible, in which case Alexander would be the last freedman a cognitionibus. But for the Aurelii Augg. lib. the status-indication Augg. lib. can occur well into the third century; 161 is only a terminus post quem. Moreover, both the title v(ir) e(gregius) indicating equestrian procuratorial status (which is quite exceptional in the nomenclature of Imperial freedmen), and the rank-title of praepositus for Imperial freedmen outside the Palace domestic service, as well as the departmental designation sacrarum cognitionum, all alike seem to indicate a late Severan or at least third century date. We can only suppose that Aurelius Alexander (who is not to be identified with the ab epistulis Graecis of the same name, but of different status-indication— Aug. lib.) was a former freedman who was raised to equestrian status by Caracalla, Elagabalus or Severus Alexander and appointed to the auxiliary equestrian procuratorship in the a cognitionibus. On his dedicatory inscription, however, the decurions of Minternum for some reason mentioned both his former Imperial freedman status and his subsequent elevation to equestrian rank.

26 On the proximi of the late empire, see Jones, A. H. M., The Later Roman Empire 284–602 (1964), esp. pp. 576 ff.Google Scholar; and, for full source references, Vol. III (Notes) 166 f. Also Ensslin, P-W XXIII, 1035 ff.

27 In X, 1729, the age-at-death figure of eighteen years belongs not to Nicephorus (1) the father (as I stated, ‘Cursus’ 85, n. 4), who is also proximus commentariorum, but to Gregorius his son. Hence I wrongly classed these proximi as junior rather than as senior clerical.

28 cf., from the late third century, VI, 1115: … [Chre]simus tabul(arius) / [su]mmarum rationum / [cum] proximis et adiu[tori]b(us) / …

29 T. Aelius Augg. lib. Saturninus (3) is not to be identified with Aelius Aug. 1. Saturninus, procur. castr(ensis) (X, 6005), nor with T. Aelius Aug. lib. Saturninus, a diplomatibus sardonychi (VI, 8622) (as by Meyers, p. 86). Apart from the difference of their careers, the difference in status-indication between Augustorum libertus and Augusti libertus indicates two individuals and is not to be explained as recording the fact that a freedman of Antoninus Pius died during the joint reign of M. Aurelius and L. Verus, as many of the freedmen of Antoninus may be assumed to have done. For the explanation that the T. Aelii Augg. liberti were jointly manumitted by Antoninus and Faustina Maior, see my article ‘Augustorum libertus’, Historia XIII (1964), 188 ff.Google Scholar, esp. 194 f. For yet another T. Aelius Aug. lib. Saturninus, who is not to be identified with either of the two above, and who himself has a son also called T. Aelius Saturninus, see VI, 10791. In the absence of further positive evidence, the identification of persons of this social level on the basis of nomenclature alone is clearly hazardous.

30 Two special posts of tabularius outside Rome, one from Egypt, the other from Africa, and both unique, which precede the holding of a procuratorial post, are mentioned in late second-century inscripions:

(1) Fortunatus Augg. lib. ἀρχιταβλάριος Αἰγύπτου καὶ ἐπίτροπος προσόδων ᾿Αλεξανδρ[είας] (IGRR III, 1103).

(2) M. Aurelius Aug. lib. Inventus, proc. dioecesis Leptitanae (AÉ 1956, 123 = Pflaum, , Libyca III (1955), 123 f.Google Scholar), tabul(arius) leg(ionis) III Aug(ustae) (AÉ 1908, 158). Neither of these posts of tabularius can be regarded as falling within the normal clerical grades of the administrative service.

31 For the restoration ‘tabularius a rationibus’, see Rostovtzeff, , Diz. Epig. III, 137Google Scholar; Hirschfeld 429, n. 6.

32 See Jones, A. H. M., Studies in Roman Government and Law (1960), 110 ff.Google Scholar

33 cf. Pflaum, Proc. Equest. 55 f.; and (on Domitius Lemnus) Weaver, , Historia XIV (1965), 511 f.Google Scholar

34 See Freed. Proc. 463 ff.

35 For the exceptional features of AÉ 1930, 86, from Ephesus, dated to 80: ‘Eutactus lib., proc. provinciarum Asiae et Lyciae’, see Freed. Proc. 463, n. 20.

36 See for references to tabularii: Sachers, P-W IV A, 1975. Dispensatores: Liebenam, P-W v. 1194 f.; Vulic, Diz. Epig. II, 1922 f.; also Vicarius 118, n. 10; 120, n. 21. Arcarii: Habel, P-W 11, 429 f.; Fuchs, Diz. Epig. 1, 632 f. A commentariis: von Premerstein, P-W IV, 765; Diz. Epig. 11, 540 f.

37 Freed. Proc. 462.

38 Favorina, named after her father Favor, suggests that her nomen is derived from her mother. The inscription is certainly not early first-century A.D.

39 There are also two instances of ‘a tabulario castrensi’ which cannot be dated: VI, 8529; AÉ 1948, 76 (Rome). In XIV, 205 ( = Inscr. du port d'Ostie B. 188) the restoration is uncertain.

40 If the term ‘provincia’ is reserved for senior clerical officials, it cannot occur in the titles of junior clerical officials, such as the adiutores tabulariorum. Hence instead of the restoration proposed by Mommsen and Dessau for III, 6075 = ILS 1366, lines 11–12: [Ly]cus Augusto[rum / ser.] adiutor tabul. pr[ov. Asiae], it is preferable to read: …cus Augusto[rum / lib.] adiutor tabul(ariorum) pr[aeposito …]. The use of ‘praepositus’ in dedications by Imperial freedmen in the provinces to their equestrian superior is common in the early third century, from which this inscription comes (cf. II, 1085; III, 251; X, 7584; IGRR I, 623). Freed, rather than slave, status would be more appropriate for such a dedication. For freedmen adiutores tabulariorum cf. VIII, 12883, 13188.

41 Not included in the discussion above is: Aurelius Saturion (XII, 4254) ‘ex tabul(ariis) provinc(iarum) III Mauret(aniae), Narb(onensis), Syriae Palaestinae’ (quoted by Sachers, P-W IV A, 1968). He is without status-indication and need not be an mperial freedman. He can hardly be from a single tabularium for provinces as far apart as Mauretania, Gallia Narbonensis and Syria Palaestina (as Sachers appears to assume). If the explanation of the title ‘ex tabulari(i)s’ given above is correct, that it signifies not a senior tabularius (i.e. tabularius provinciae) but an ordinary undifferentiated holder of the post of tabularius, the transfer of a freedman official to three such clerical posts so far apart would call for comment. Nor would the order of posts appear to be in chronological order, if the inscription, from Baeterra in Narbonese Gaul, was put up by Saturion's wife and children after his death. It is possible (but unlikely) that he was a former tabularius provinciae of three provinces in succession—but in this case the nomenclature would be unique.

42 Meyers 99. The phrase ‘qui fuit a comm …’ presumably refers to the fact that Tyrannus has passed away, not that he no longer held his post at he time of his death.

43 Stein 71. Meyers 98 f; see above p. 111.

44 Note also: P. Ael(ius) Aug. 1. Victor (AÉ 1932, 85; Tarraco, Hisp. Cit.), a comm(entariis) XX h(ereditatium) p(rovinciae) H(ispaniae) C(iterioris).

45 The slightly lower status of the a commentariis is shown by the greater proportion of slaves found in their ranks, both in the first and second centuries (III, 1997, 12130; v, 475; VI, 8572, 8624, 8625; AÉ 1908, 194). There are only two examples of slave tabularii later than the early second century (VI, 776; AÉ 1938, 154).

46 cf. Cod. lust. XI, 37, 1; Mommsen ad CIL v, 83. For the argument that dispensatores exercised the same control over their deputies, the vicarii, who were also their slaves, see Vicarius 117 ff.

47 For the development of the status-nomenclature of the Imperial slaves, see Class. Quart. N.S. XIV, (1964), 134 ff.Google Scholar

48 Meyers 98; Stein 71; see above p. 110.

49 Herma Augg. verna (v, 2383; Ferrara); Epictetus Augustorum ver(na) (VIII, 12892; Carthage); Primus Aug. vern(a) (AÉ 1915, 20; Thuburbo Maius).

50 From a literary source comes the wealthy slave of Claudius, Rotundus Drusillianus, whom Pliny, (N.H. XXXIII, 145)Google Scholar describes as ‘dispensator Hispaniae citerioris’—in this case clearly a senior dispensator.

51 See Vicarius 118 ff. Cf. the undated Ligorian inscription VI, 8578: ‘Protoctetus Aug. dispensator ad census provinciae Lugdunensis’.

52 See ‘Cursus’ 89 f.