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The vernae Caprenses: traces of Capri's Imperial history after Tiberius*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 June 2011

Dirk Booms
Dirk Booms
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Nonostante le visite di Tiberio a Capri siano state documentate estensivamente dagli autori antichi, e molti siti romani siano ancora visitabili sull'isola, la sua storia imperiale dopo Tiberio rimane largamente sconosciuta. Molta attenzione è stata riservata alle dodici ville che si suppone siano state costruite dall'imperatore, delle quali solo una manciata è stata identificata con sicurezza; ma nessuna fase principale di costruzione è stata attribuita ad un periodo più tardo della tradizionale fase augusteatiberiana. Allo stesso modo, nessun'altra visita da parte di altri imperatori è stata ricordata dalle fonti letterarie, nonostante l'esilio della moglie di Commodo e della sorella dall'imperatore stesso indichi almeno che l'isola rimase un possesso imperiale. Inoltre essa continuò ad essere associata esclusivamente a Tiberio dagli studiosi antichi fino al V secolo d.C. Per dare un senso ai dati frammentari pertinenti al destino di Capri dopo la morte di Tiberio, questo articolo considera le fonti epigrafiche riguardanti l'attivita imperiale sull'isola. L'esistenza di un'unica informazione su un gruppo di schiavi imperiali che una volta servivano sull'isola offrono una prospettiva su un evento eccezionale nell'organizzazione della casa imperiale, probabilmente da datarsi alla prima parte del regno di Claudio, che influenzò l'ulteriore storia imperiale dell'isola.

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Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 78 , November 2010 , pp. 133 - 143
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Copyright © British School at Rome 2010

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References

1 Maiuri, A., Capri. Storia e monumenti (Rome, 1956), 16–72Google Scholar; Belli, R., ‘Le ‘ville imperiali’’, in Federico, E. and Miranda, E. (eds), Capri antica dalla preistoria alla fine dell'età romana (Capri, 1998), 181Google Scholar.

2 Cassius Dio 73.4.6; Scriptores Historiae Augustac, Commodus 5.7.

3 For example Claudian, In Eutropium 60–2; Sidonius Apollinaris, Carmina 5.104. Complete list in Federico and Miranda (eds), Capri antica (above, n. 1).

4 E. Savino, ‘Capri dal Foedus Neapolitanum (326 a.C.) al VI secolo d.C’, in Federico and Miranda (eds), Capri antica (above, n. 1), 419–20.

5 E. Federico, ‘Capri dall'espansione cumana nel golfo (VII a.C.) al Foedus Neapolitanum (326 a.C.)’, in Federico and Miranda (eds), Capri antica (above, n. 1), 381–2, 390–4.

6 Savino, ‘Capri dal Foedus Neapolitanum’ (above, n. 4), 421, 438.

7 Strabo 5.4.9; Suetonius, Tiberius 47; Tacitus, Annales 4.67. For the permanent inhabitants of the island: Suetonius, Divus Augustus 98.

8 Belli, ‘Le ‘ville imperiali’’ (above, n. 1), 179–82.

9 Houston, G.W., ‘Tiberius on Capri’, Greece and Rome 32 (2) (1985), 180CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 The best accounts of the slave personnel at the palace and at the villas are still Boulvert, G., Esclaves et affranchis impériaux sous le Haut-Empire romain: role politique et administratif (Naples, 1970)Google Scholar, and Treggiari, S., ‘Jobs in the household of Livia’, Papers of the British School at Rome 43 (1975), 48–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar; the function of a freedman of Augustus in a Greek dedication found on the island tentatively is reconstructed as a procurator of the villas, or ἐπιτροπος: P. Lombardi, ‘Le iscrizioni greche’, in Federico and Miranda (eds), Capri antica (above, n. 1), 306–7.

11 Hirschfeld, O., ‘Der Grundbesitz der Römischen Kaiser in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten’, Klio: Beiträge zur Alten Geschichte 2 (1902), 45–72, 284–315, esp. p. 60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Weaver, P.R.C., ‘Augustorum Libertus’, Historia 13 (2) (1964), 188Google Scholar.

13 P. Mingazzini, ‘Sorrento – necropoli romana in localita Sottomonte’, Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità (1928), 205–13, esp. p. 207; D'Arms, J., Romans on the Bay of Naples: a Social and Cultural Study of the Villas and Their Owners from 150 B.C. to A.D. 400 (Cambridge (MA), 1970), 75–6Google Scholar.

14 He was not a verna of Claudius, as wrote Magalhaes, M., Storia, istituzioni e prosopografia di Surrentum romana: la collezione epigrafica del Museo Correale di Terranova (Naples, 2003), 170Google Scholar, but he died in his reign or Nero's.

15 Caprensis and Capriensis are mutually interchangeable, similar to atrensis and atriensis. The variety Caprine is generally thought to be a corruption of the correct Caprien(sis): see Mommsen in CIL X 681, and P.R.C. Weaver, Repertorium Familiae Caesarum – http://www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/ifa/altg/eck/weaver.htm (currently (23.08.2010) off-line), n. 24. In any case, the variety of forms is not uncommon for inscriptions of the early first century: Weaver, P.R.C., ‘Irregular nomina of imperial freedmen’, Classical Quarterly 15 (2) (1965), 326CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 E. Miranda, ‘Le iscrizioni latine’, in Federico and Miranda (eds), Capri antica (above, n. 1), 366, n. 4; Magalhaes, Storia, istituzioni e prosopografia (above, n. 14), 170.

17 This was common practice: Chantraine, H., Freigelassene und Sklaven im Dienst der Römischen Kaiser (Forschungen zur Antiken Sklaverei 1) (Wiesbaden, 1967), 293Google Scholar. This theory was followed for the inscription by Chantraine (p. 306), and Schulze, W., Zur Geschichte Lateinischer Eigennamen (Berlin, 1904), 145, n. 3Google Scholar. For example, slaves of Caenis, mistress of Vespasian, were called Caenidianus after being inherited by the emperor.

18 Kajanto, I., Latin Cognomina (Helsinki, 1962), 192Google Scholar; another Capretanus, but from the Flavian age, is thought to have been the descendant of an imperial ex-slave who, as was common, had settled in the region where he had been stationed: D'Arms, Romans on the Bay of Naples (above, n. 13), 110. The same is probably true for a Capretanus found in a graffito at Pompeii: CIL IV 7371.

19 CIL IV 4699.

20 CIL X 3446.

21 CIL X 1981.

22 The Fasti Antiates Ministrorum Domus Augustae also mention a Lysimachus aedit vern. Ant. It has been pointed out that proclaiming oneself a verna Antiatianus on a document of and at the villa at Antium has little point, especially considering that many other vernae on the same Fasti did not: Hermann-Otto, E., Ex Ancilla Natus: Untersuchungen zu den ‘Hausgeborenen’ Sklaven und Sklavinnen im Westen des Römischen Kaiserreiches (Forschungen zur Antiken Sklaverei 24) (Stuttgart, 1994), 154Google Scholar. Instead, it is more plausible that Lysimachus was aedituus vern(arum) Ant(iatiatum), priest of the collegium of vernae at the villa (originally proposed by Orelli, J.C. and Henzen, G. (eds), Inscriptionum Latinarum Selectarum Amplissima Collectio, 3 vols (Turici, 1828–1856), no. 6445)Google Scholar, or even vern(a) Ant(onianus), a slave of Antonia, mother of Claudius (Chantraine, Freigelassene und Sklaven (above, n. 17), 343).

23 Hermann-Otto, Ex Ancilla Natus (above, n. 22), 7–35, 124.

24 On the public aspects of imperial villas, see D. Booms (forthcoming), ‘Problematizing privacy at Roman imperial villas’, in C. Fenwick, K. Lafrenz Samuels and D. Totten (eds), Roman Spaces, Heritage Traces: Past and Present Roman Place-making (Journal of Roman Archaeology, Supplementary Series).

25 This is in contrast to the examples that were cited earlier (at Puteoli and Misenum), where origins were mentioned to indicate status as free-born citizens. For the problem of the dual meaning of verna as both house-born slave and free-born citizen, see Hermann-Otto, Ex Ancilla Natus (above, n. 22), 7–35, and especially p. 12 for these particular cases.

26 Possibly he is the same Bathyllus who was found to be aeditus templi Divi Augusti et Divae Augustae in Rome: CIL VI 4222 =AE 1992, 71 (Addenda), although the name is quite common.

27 For example C1L XIV 3644 = Inscriptions Italiae IV 1, 179: C. Iulius Aug. 1. Sam[ius] / proc. / accensus Divi Claudii et / Neronis Augusti / patronorum. For other examples of Augustus, Livia, Tiberius and Claudius, see Weaver, ‘Augustorum Libertus' (above, n. 12), 190, nn. 11, 12. From the Flavian age: CIL X 6406: Eutychus Aug. lib. Neronianus (Weaver, Repertorium Familiae Caesarum (above, n. 15), 858).

28 Ausonius, Caesares 3.13–16, 4.32; Claudian, In Eutropium 60–2.

29 Tibur: Suetonius, Divus Augustus 72.2, 82; Suetonius, Divus Claudius 34. However, the location of the Augustan villa is not known; it is not the same as the later villa of Hadrian, which was constructed around an earlier villa of the gens Vibia: Ricotti, E. Salza Prina, ‘Villa Adriana nei suoi limiti e nella sua funzionalità’, Rendiconti della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia 14 (1982), 28Google Scholar. Prima Porta: Augustus: Pliny, Historia Naturalis 15.136–7; Suetonius, Galba 1; Cassius Dio 48.52.3–4; Nero: Suetonius, Galba 1; Cassius Dio 63.29.3. At neither of these villas was evidence relating to the period of Tiberius found.

30 Suetonius, Divus Augustus 6.

31 Plutarch, Galba 5.5; Cassius Dio 65.8.4, 68.2.2; Pliny, Panegyricus 50.6.

32 Krause, C., ‘Domus Tiberiana’, in Steinby, E.M. (ed.), Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae II (D-G) (Rome, 1995), 190Google Scholar.

33 Cassius Dio 65.10.4.

34 Martial 12.15; Plutarch, Publicola 15.5–6; Pliny, Panegyricus 47.4–6, 48.3, 49.2, 50.6–7.

35 Southern, P., Domitian: Tragic Tyrant (London, 1997), 130Google Scholar.

36 Bloch, H., The Roman Brick-stamps Not Published in Vol. XV, 1 of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, Including Indices to the Roman Brick-stamps (Rome, 1967), indices, 77Google Scholar; Miranda, ‘Le iscrizioni latine’ (above, n. 16), 361.

37 Cassius Dio 58.25.2; Houston, ‘Tiberius on Capri' (above, n. 9), 183.

38 Suetonius, Gaius Caligula 15–16; it is also possible to interpret Caligula's banishment of the spinthriae from Rome as a reaction against Tiberius and their stays on Capri, with which these were clearly associated (Suetonius, Tiberius 43). I thank the anonymous referee for the Papers of the British School at Rome for this observation.

39 Krause, C., Villa Jovis. Die Residenz des Tiberius auf Capri (Mainz, 2003), 58Google Scholar.

40 Suetonius, Tiberius 74.

41 Suetonius, Divus Claudius 11.2–3; Cassius Dio 60.5.1–2.

42 Miranda, ‘Le iscrizioni latine' (above, n. 16), 353.

43 Christol, M. and Demougin, S., ‘Gens Ostoria’, Zeitschrift fur Papyrologie und Epigraphik 57 (1984), 177, n. 40Google Scholar.

44 Chantraine, Freigelassene und Sklaven (above, n. 17), 28, n. 45.

45 Miranda, ‘Le iscrizioni latine' (above, n. 16), 353, figs 12–13.

46 Belli, ‘Le ‘ville imperiali’’ (above, n. 1), 189; Krause, Villa Jovis (above, n. 39), 58. It is thought that they had been destroyed in the earthquake of AD 62, which also damaged Pompeii; but this Domitianic rebuilding does not exclude the possibility that these buildings collapsed as a result of the earthquakes that accompanied the eruption of Vesuvius.

47 Suetonius, Domitianus 20.

48 Balland, A., ‘Une transposition de la grotte de Tibère a Sperlonga: le Ninfeo Bergantino de Castelgandolfo’, Mélanges de l'École Française de Rome. Antiquité 79 (1967), 421–502Google Scholar.

49 Tamm, B., Auditorium and Palatium: a Study on Assembly-rooms in Roman Palaces during the 1st Century B.C. and the 1st Century A.D. (Stockholm, 1963), 77–9Google Scholar; Krause, ‘Domus Tiberiana’ (above, n. 32), 190. The name Domus Tiberiana is, apart from literary sources from the time of Domitian and later (Suetonius, Vitellius 15.3; Tacitus, Historiae 1.27; Plutarch, Galba 24.7), attested by only three inscriptions (CIL VI 8653–5), which show no characteristics that make precise dating possible. Royo, M., Domus Imperatoriae: topographie, formation et imaginaire des palais impériaux du Palatin (Bibliotheque des Écoles Françaises d'Athènes et de Rome 303) (Rome, 1999), 238Google Scholar, placed them in the Julio-Claudian period, as did Cecamore, C., Palatium: topografia storica del Palatino tra 3. sec. a.C. e 1. sec. d.C. (Rome, 2002), 195, n. 183Google Scholar, because of the presence of a Julia Gemell a in CIL VI 8653. However, Julii and Juliae appear in the familia Caesaris from the first until the third centuries AD: Chantraine, Freigelassene und Sklaven (above, n. 17), 61; Weaver, P.R.C., ‘Family dating criteria, proximi and ‘provincia’ in the familia Caesaris’, Journal of Roman Studies 58 (1968), 110–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Further evidence for a post-Tiberian dating of the term might be found in Plutarch's wording for the house, ‘so-called of Tiberius’.

50 Martial 6.3.1.

51 Rodriquez-Almeida, E., ‘Alcune notule topografiche sul Quirinale di epoca domizianea’, Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale in Roma 91 (1986), 49–60, esp. p. 58, based on Martial 9.3Google Scholar.

52 This altar was previously called the ara numinis Augusti, but was renamed twice and known as the ara gentis Iuliae under Domitian: Rocca, E. La, ‘Gens Iulia, ara’, in Steinby, E.M. (ed.), Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae II (D-G) (Rome, 1995), 369–70Google Scholar.

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55 Suetonius, Domitianus 22; Jones, B.W., The Emperor Domitian (London, 1992), 33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.