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A Letter of Gordian III from Aphrodisias in Caria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Kenan T. Erim  and
Joyce Reynolds
Kenan T. Erim
Affiliation:
New York University
Joyce Reynolds
Affiliation:
Newnham College, Cambridge
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Extract

During the 1965 and 1966 campaigns of excavation at Aphrodisias in Caria, conducted under the aegis of New York University, investigations of the large Theatre of the city were initiated. The Theatre lies mostly buried along the eastern slope of the ‘acropolis’, a conical hillock in the southeastern part of the site. Dr. Elisabeth Alföldi-Rosenbaum supervised four initial trenches and soundings (Theatre I to IV) excavated on the north side of the building, which revealed the proscenium, the adjacent lowest tiers of seats, the north parodos and the analemma. In August, 1966, two adjoining pieces of a large block of coarse-grained local marble inscribed with a letter from Gordian III were discovered. The lower piece of the inscription was found built into the analemma, facing the north parodos at a height slightly above eye-level. The upper fragment came to light on the parodos floor and was removed to the surface and photographed by Dr. E. Alföldi. Progress in the excavation of the parodos in 1967 and 1968 allowed careful inspection of the lower portion which remains in situ. The two fragments (inv. nos. 66–608 A and B) are well-preserved and constitute virtually the whole block, although some damage is evident on the upper left-hand corner of the face and along the break. The total measurements are 1·53 m. × 0·72 m. × 0·72 m. It cannot be entirely excluded that the block may have been reused in the analemma wall since there is some evidence of repairs in this area. The letters average 0·025 m. in height and are cut in a style typical of the later second and third centuries A.D. at Aphrodisias; particularly characteristic is the form of B, see Pl. I.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 59 , November 1969 , pp. 56 - 58
Copyright
Copyright © Kenan T. Erim and Joyce Reynolds 1969. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

We should like to record our gratitude for comments and suggestions to a number of colleagues to whom we have shown the inscription, especially to the Editorial Committee and to Professor D. L. Page.

1 If so, it would not seem to have been moved very far. Current excavation in the Theatre shows that it contained an inscribed ‘archive’ of documents concerning the relations of Aphrodisias and Rome; in the north parodos one wall at least was very largely covered with them. By the end of the present season (1969) a number of Republican documents had come to light there and also letters from Octavian, Hadrian, Commodus and Septimius Severus. There are almost certainly more yet to be uncovered. We believe that other similar documents, e.g. MAMA VIII, 405 and 424, found re-used in the city wall, came originally from here.

2 As in the rescript of Gordian to Scaptopara, Ditt., Syll. 3 888.

3 For Latronianus see PIR 2 F 297; Barbieri, Albo Senatorio no. 236; G. Vitucci, Ricerche sulla Praefectura Urbi (Rome, 1956) 122, no. 48. The new inscription confirms the view, questioned by Barbieri, that he held office under Gordian, but the only other specific evidence, ILS 8841, shows no more than that he had been, or was, in office by late 243 or very early 244.

4 If so, it is another indication that the criticisms of Gordian's advisors before the ascendancy of Timesitheus in SHA, V. Gordiani 24, 25 are inadequately founded. It was presumably normal to apply for and to receive confirmation of rights of the kind in general terms at the accession of a new Emperor, cf. MAMA VIII, 424, recording Trajanus Decius' confirmation in response to the representations of an Aphrodisian embassy which congratulated him on accession; it may be a symptom of the upheavals of A.D. 238 that the matter should have arisen on this occasion only when they were threatened in a particular case.

5 For recent surveys of the range of cases tath might come before the praefectus urbi at this date see Sachers, E., PW XXII, 2Google Scholar, col. 2502 f. and G. Vitucci, o.c. (n. 3), 57 f. It was very wide, cf. Ulpian, Dig. I, 12, 4 ‘quidquid igitur intra urbem admittitur ad praefectum urbis videtur pertinere et si quid intra centesimum miliarium admissum sit ad praefectum urbis pertinet’; and he might also hear cases on appeal from other urban courts, cf. Dio LII, 21, confirmed by the specific cases described in Dig. IV, 4, 38 and XL, 5, 122, 5, and from time to time, at any rate, cases delegated by the Emperor.

6 ἀναπέμπειν may mean ‘to refer to a higher court’, which would give no reasonable sense here, where it must be taken simply as ‘to refer’, cf. P. Gen. 31, 5 (II cent.) where it is used in a case referred from a higher to a lower court, and other similar examples cited by Preisigke, Wörterbuch s.v.; οἰκεῑος may mean ‘his own’, and if so gives no reasonable sense unless referred to Polydorus, the last person to be mentioned, and not to Latronianus, the subject of the sentence, but it is probably better to translate it as ‘appropriate’, as when it occurs in the same phrase (τὸ οἰκεῑον δικαστήριον) in P.Ox. 1101, 23, 27 (IV cent.), cited by Preisigke, Wörterbuch s.v.

7 Mos antiquus or pristinus, cf. ex pristino more in the letter of Severus and Caracalla to Tyras, , FIRA I, p. 443Google Scholar, ll. 17/18.

8 FIRA I, 38 = Ditt., OGIS 455.

9 Cf. Num. Zeitschr. LII (1919), 117Google Scholar, no. 4 … ὁ φιλοκαῖσαρ Ἀφροδισιέων δῆμος ἐλεύθερος ὤν καὶ αὐτόνομος ἀπ' ἀρχῆς τῇ τῶν Σεβαστῶν χάριτι (Flavian); JHS XX (1900), 77 f., no. 6 … τὸν δῆμον] σύμμαχον ‘Ρωμαίων τῆς λαμπροτάτης φιλοσεβάστου καὶ ἐλευθέρας καὶ αὐτονόμου κατὰ τὰ δὸγματα τῆς ἱερωτάτης συνκλήτου καὶ τὰ ὅρκια καὶ τὰς θείας ἀντιγραφὰς Ἀφροδισιέων πόλεως ἀσύλου (? II cent.) REG XIX (1906), 84 fGoogle Scholar. … πόλεις …] τάς τειμηθείσας τῇ ἐλευθερίᾳ ὑπὸ τῶν προγόνων τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν αὐτοκράτορος βεβαιοῦντος αὐτοῦ τὰ δίκαια οἶς [?εὐθυ]μεῖσθε (Alexander Severus ); MAMA VIII, 424, ll. 11 f. … καὶ ἡμεῖς δὲ τήν τε ἐλευθερίαν ὑμεῖν φυλάττομεν τὴν ὺπάρχουσαν καὶ τὰ ἄλλα δὲ σύνπαντα δίκαια ὁπόσων παρὰ τῶν πρὸ ἡνῶν τετυχήκατε (Trajanus Decius).

10 For recent accounts of Gordian's reign and its policies see Ensslin, W., CAH XII, 81 f.Google Scholar; Townsend, P. W., Yale Classical Studies IV (1934), 59 fGoogle Scholar. and XIV (1955). 49 f.

11 Cf. Magie, D., De Romanorum iuris publici sacrique vocabulis in Graecum conversis (Leipzig, 1905), 43 fGoogle Scholar.; it is a formula favoured by Herodian, cf. 1, 2, 2; 1, 7, 3 etc., and its appearance here, in an official document of Gordian, is relevant to Townsend's theory of a connection between Herodian and senatorial propaganda, cf. Townsend, , YCS XIV, 52 fGoogle Scholar.

12 Contrast the letter of Decius, Trajanus, MAMA VIII, 424Google Scholar, in which the Senate is not mentioned at all.

13 The immediate purpose was no doubt to dissociate Gordian from Maximinus. For the formula see Magie, o.c. in n. II, 60, s.v. divus; it occurs, together with a mild variant on the one used here for the Senate, in the undated IG XII, 1, 786 from Lindos.

14 Townsend, , YCS XIV, 53Google Scholar.

15 Epit. de Caes. 27.

16 Contrast the Rescript to Scaptopara (cited n. 2 above).

17 CIG 2801; Syll. Numm. Gr. Deutschland, Sammlung Von Aulock, vol. 7, no. 2463.